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  • The Eccentric Family's cover makes you think that the girl next to Yasaburo is the female lead but she is actually one of Yasaburo's forms and Benten—the purple-haired one, barely visible behind the pot-bellied tanuki statue—is the actual female lead.
  • The far-out extreme would be the cover of Warriors of the Wind, the original dub of the classic anime film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind done in the mid-'80s. The artist just made things up and added characters and elements that weren't in the movie at allnote , presumably in an attempt to sell the film as The Mockbuster of multiple '80s blockbuster franchises like Star Wars, Clash of the Titans, Dune, and Jaws. The dub itself wasn't an accurate representation of Hayao Miyazaki's work either, but it wasn't that different.
  • Overlaps with Never Trust a Title but the cover of Princess Mononoke proudly displays the titular wolf-raised Action Girl San along with her adoptive wolf mother suggesting she will be heroine of the story. Anyone who’s seen the movie though will tell you "Princess Mononoke" ironically isn't even the main focus of the story nor is she the protagonist, who's actually Ashitaka. Other covers are more accurate.
  • The artwork from the initial draft of My Neighbor Totoro where there was only one girl as the protagonist is still widely used in promotional material. Including on the cover for the North American Blu-ray from its post-2017 distributor, G-Kids. The Disney version also used it when they had the rights.
  • On the very last DiC English dub DVD of Sailor Moon R, "Love Conquers All", Sailor Chibi Moon is pictured alongside Neo-Queen Serenity. However, Chibiusa doesn't actually show up as a Sailor Senshi until halfway through the next season. Apart from being spoileriffic, entirely different companies did those seasons. DiC did Classic and R, while S and SuperS were done by Cloverway (Sailor Stars wasn't dubbed until Viz Media gained the rights).
    • Almost ALL of the Sailor Moon bootleg covers feature pictures from the wrong season.
    • When Buena Vista Home Video released Sailor Moon on VHS, some of the covers feature scenes from the other season. For example, "Evil Eyes" had Wiseman on the front cover, even though he never existed until the 'R' season.
  • The poster shown for Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! makes the series look like a standard action fantasy anime, with main protagonist Yuuta looking an awful lot like the Big Bad. The show itself is actually a grounded Slice of Life story, intertwined with some (imaginary) fantasy sequences. Seriously, It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Delinquent In Drag: The ADV Films release's VHS cover made Go Nagai's high school comedy look like an action film.
  • The cover of the fourth DVD Black Lagoon DVDs depicts Hansel and Gretel as a pair of cheerful smiling gothic lolis. Anyone who's actually seen the episodes concerning them will know they are probably the most horrific examples of fearsomeness that exist in any anime that doesn't involve the supernatural. And probably some that do.
  • Possibly the example with the biggest chance of emotional scarring: Shadow Star. The back cover of the first English volume describes it as "A rare mix of breathtaking fantasy and gripping action/adventure, filled with imagination, excitement, and delight." Paired with the way everything on the cover depicts the main character happily flying around against a pink background, and you've got a good cover to attract little girls looking for a magical girl series. Except for the fact that Shadow Star is actually seinen, and extremely disturbing seinen at that. Whoops. (That aforementioned blurb also proves that Dark Horse really hadn't done their research when they first got hold of the manga...) The opening of the anime is even worse; not only does it have a super-cute art style and a very upbeat theme song, but it references some shocking events from later in the series and treats them like a joke. Also, one of the DVD covers features one of the side characters, Hiroko, smiling like a typical Cheerful Child. Let's just say she's not quite like that in canon.
  • Berserk: The Golden Age Arc does this with the first two movies. Egg of the King depicts a fun Team Shot where everyone (especially Guts) looks cheery, anyone who's familiar with this series will know the this not indicative of the story at all, another cover also shows Skull Knight in large despite him actually making no appearance in the story at that point. Battle for Doldrey has the Behelit opening it's eyes and crying blood while the Eclipse is happening in the background along with Skull Knight, none of which happens until the third movie.
  • Franken Fran is a horror comedy manga that tends to have every chapter feature some level of grotesque body horror. So naturally, the author uses suggestive hentai-like imagery featuring the female cast for the covers of each volume. Played with, as these provocative tankoubon covers are usually followed immediately by alternate interior artwork that's actually accurate to the manga's contents.
  • Elfen Lied is chock full of gore, dismemberment, nudity and psychological horror, and yet the cover to the manga usually looks something like this.
    • The ADV releases had 'blood-stained' covers which were more straight-forward.
  • The cover of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World's manga has lots of fanservicey, yuri undertoned pictures... all of which never come close to happening in the book itself.
  • The covers of Amanchu! show the girls in sexy swimwear—which never happens in-series. Well, at least the scuba gear still makes sense.
  • Higurashi: When They Cry:
    • The box sets and covers feature characters wearing skimpy clothing they don't wear in the series (and an odd emphasis on implied twincest, which, while refuted by canon on both sides, is often used for fanservice in promo pictures) for the first season. The second season's box art is still full of cuteness, often with Rika and Satoko. This, too, is only an accurate representation of about 40% of the series's content. The other 60% is murder.
    • The OVAs are even worse; they're full of the girls wearing very little clothing. Even Hanyuu and Rika, two girls who appear to be about nine years old.
    • The English DVD covers are in negative, giving them a creepy look, despite the fact that the art is happy and cute. It's a thematic reflection of what happens when you don't trust your True Companions. You can, however, turn it inside out to get the normal look, and the Japanese boxset covers are posters you find inside the box.
    • The manga, at least, averts the trope - the covers are the characters in their normal attire, surrounded by blood splatters.
  • The American manga Return to Labyrinth. The cover of the first volume, a lovely illustration by Kouyu Shurei, suggests "pretty boy romance"; the story is an adventure full of Toilet Humor in a completely different "amercanime" art style by one Chris Lie.
  • The first boxset of Princess Tutu in America drew a lot of fire for choosing to put Rue on the cover in a skimpy outfit instead of the main Magical Girl herself. ADV Films likely got a lot of complaints, because later editions switched to a cover with Tutu as the focus.
  • Neo Ranga's cover depicts the trio of sisters who compose the main characters wielding huge wicked looking swords and wearing nothing but body paint. In reality the series is more of a giant robot-style deal, and while the characters do don the body paint at one point during the series (albeit with clothes), the giant swords are completely absent.
  • The covers of Fruits Basket, due to the system used to decide who's on the cover (more or less appearance order at least at the start), the character on the cover often doesn't appear much or even at all inside the book. The final two books feature Tohru's father and mother, both of whom are deceased. This is lampshaded in several cases, when filler pictures of the characters complain about how little they are in the story.
  • The front cover of the North American DVD release for Simoun featured Neveril and Aeru sort of...hugging? Dancing? Playing patty-cake? Whatever they are doing they are close together and naked, but somehow their embrace has no sexual overtones at all, so the whole thing just looks weird. Also, there is not a single Simoun visible on the front cover, back cover, or spine. The series is named Simoun and the machines are nowhere to be found. Without already knowing the background to the series there is no way to determine even what genre the show is, first guess would probably go to Magical Girl or an Ecchi series.
  • The VHS release of the Beauty and the Beast episode of Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics made Maria look like she's in her mid twenties rather than in her teens like in the animation, and the Beast looks like a black cat man instead of the black goblin like creature he is in the animation.
  • Many covers and promotional artworks of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid feature Einhard together with Fate, even though they rarely interact with each other. It's mostly symbolic, since Einhard is basically Vivio's version of Fate.
    • Many special editions feature characters that don't have much prominence in the story or random fanservice scenes or something completely different that don't happen there at all.
  • The Animate cover for Vol. 1 of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force looked like this. One wonders how many unwitting readers bought it expecting a love-comedy, only to be treated with scenes from this Darker and Edgier installment of the Nanoha franchise?
    • Each volume of the true colored edition features a character who doesn't have much prominence, except Lily and possibly Hayate.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • This trope could be applied to the Dragon Ball GT season sets. The first set, containing the first 34 episodes, features Super Saiyan 4 Goku on the cover, Super Saiyan 4 being a form Goku first achieves in episode 35. And the second set features Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta, a One-Episode Wonder from late in the series.
    • When the Saban-dubbed episodes of Dragon Ball Z were released on DVD by Pioneer, there were three covers for the Namek arc that shown concept art of the characters past the Saban run. The concept art in question? Vegeta in the outfit he wore during the Freeza fight, Goku preparing the Spirit Bomb to use against Freeza and Goku as a Super Saiyan with the last one being on two of the three covers. Kid Goku is on the last cover, but he's not shown in any flashbacks in the episodes on that set.
    • A common trend in the original series covers is to show Goku and his friends taking a ride on Shenron as seen on the first volume cover of the manga, the first DVD box set cover and even on the cover of Dragon Ball: The Path to Power. At no point in the manga or anime do any of the heroes ride Shenron, save for Goku at the very end of Dragon Ball GT which is no longer considered canon. Also Shenron looks a friendly dragon in a lot of those covers in contrast to the red-eyed menacing dragon that actually appears in the show.
    • Some of the early Kanzenban covers such as volume 1 and volume 8 depict Goku in detailed gi that he noticeably doesn’t wear in the story.
    • The movies are guilty of this on occasion.
  • Would you think Bleach would be about fighting ghost with samurai swords with a cover like this?
    • An even better example is the cover of Volume 34, which has Adult Nel on the cover. If you were a newcomer to Bleach you could be forgiven for thinking that adult Nel would play a significant role in this volume. In actuality, she has a total of 7 pages worth of screentime (that's counting a double-page spread as 2 Pages) and everything from her transformation into her adult form to her backstory was in Volume 33.
  • In a combination of this and What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?, the most sexually explicit yaoi manga are often mistaken for tamer series due to the heavy use of pastel-tones and flowers.
  • The manga prequel to Hellgate: London has a cover that looks like a nice Dragon Ball-esque adventure, with the main characters and their family arranged in a happy little formation. The actual content is far from what this implies-most of the family is brutally slaughtered near the end, and that's not even getting into what comes before that.
  • A Chinese Naruto DVD cover featured Kakashi in his Anbu uniform, yet he never wore that uniform in any of the episodes on the disc
  • The US cover art for Initial D Third Stage shows a car that appears for all of 5 minutes of the movie, and the race against said car, despite being on Battle Stage, isn't much of one.
  • At last one edition of the first book of Barefoot Gen suffers from it. The story is far less happy than its cover. What a happy looking series... about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
    • Might be true for a Japanese audience. However, given pretty much the only thing Hiroshima is known for to people outside Japan, anyone who can't guess what "A cartoon story of Hiroshima" is going to wind up being about fails history forever.
  • The Ace Attorney "Official Casebook" manga collections have back cover blurbs that make it sound like the stories involved in the books will all involve mystery solving and legal action in the vein of the games. Though there are a few mysteries involved most of the stories are just Slice of Life pieces about the characters outside of court.
  • Many volumes of Rave Master have highly nonsensical/comical cover art which has absolutely nothing to do with the volume's story. One of the weirdest ones involved Haru and friends snowboarding.
  • The cover of the first volume of the North American release of Sukisho have the title characters holding each other, surrounded by multitudes of bright pink flowers. Seems perfectly innocent, right? Or at least it does until you know what it's about.
  • One Piece Volume 59 has Ace looking ready to kick some ass, even though he's mortally injured at the start of the volume and dead at the end of the first chapter.
    • It could simply be as a tribute to the character, since this is the last time he appears.
    • The first volume has Nami on the cover, sitting in a boat with Luffy and Zoro. She only appears near the end, and joins the crew in the second volume.
    • Volumes 6 and 11 depict the Straw Hats in stylish clothing and Volume 12 has them surronded by gold and treasure. At that point in the story they wore normal clothing and didn't have heaps of riches. Most volumes depict events or characters that actually appear in the story and save the fun imginary stuff for the Cover Spreads.
    • The covers for the 6th movie all show the Straw Hats goofing off implying some whacky hijinks are in store given Luffy is smiling broadly. The actual movie, however, has by far some darkest Nightmare Fuel-inducing moments in the franchise and Luffy in particular goes through hell.
    • Similar to the Ace example the Japanese cover of the 4th voume of the Skypeia arc depicts Sanji looking badass in the center along Enel and Nami impying he'll be fighting the Arc Villain. When actually at that point Sanji only has a Heroic Sacrifice which makes him fall unconscious and doesn't fight Enel himself.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • The poster and VHS cover for Pokémon: The First Movie has several Pokemon in the background that aren't even in the movie at all. The same thing happened with the VHS cover of Pokémon 2000 showing a Kabuto and Caterpie on the front, two Pokemon of which don't appear in the movie itself.
    • Some of the VHS covers for the series itself are misleading as well:
      • The cover of "The Mistery of Mount Moon" makes it look like Pikachu learns Metronome from a Clefairy that Ash catches. Nothing like that happens in the episode.
      • The front and back covers of "Psychic Surprise" both show stills from the episode, "The Tower of Terror", which is not included on the VHS at all.
      • Pikachu is shown wearing boxing gloves on the cover of "Fighting Tournament". While there is a scene in the episode where he wears them, he doesn't actually participate in the tournament.
      • The cover of "The Great Race" shows Pikachu running in the race when in the episode itself, he actually rides Squirtle.
      • The cover of "Jigglypuff Pop" shows Pikachu and Charmander singing together with Jigglypuff when in actuality, Jigglypuff is the only Pokemon that sings.
    • The 2006 Australian DVD cover for Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew shows both titular Pokemon running with Ash and Pikachu (the later two in their festival costumes) and its description makes no mention of the Golems.
  • Oyaji is this an insane degree, one simply will not get the true meaning of this series by just glancing at the volume covers, what it seems like a hardcore old man fighting his way through life is actually a dramatic and heartwarming tale of a man who wanted to be the loving father he never had to his children, and caring husband his mother didn't have, before he passes away.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Oh great, yet another series featuring cute magical girls fighting monster of th...WhatIsThisIDontEven... More specifically, the artwork implies that Madoka becomes a Puella Magi from the beginning when it doesn't actually happen until the end.
    • The Spin-Off manga Puella Magi Oriko Magica has a variation. Almost everyone assumed that the green haired girl on the cover of the first volume was the eponymous Oriko. Then the official preview images were released, revealing that she wasn't Oriko.
    • The cutesy cover of Volume 2 (not used for the U.S. release) does this sneakily. It is, in fact, an accurate portrayal of the literally candy-filled setting and upbeat mood of a scene in that volume... except, ten seconds later, things get ugly. Specifically, the girl on the left is gruesomely decapitated. Though it almost doesn't matter, since this scene is approaching It Was His Sled territory in the anime fandom.
    • Not helped by all by its merchandise even post-The Reveal playing up the Moe factor.
  • The DVD covers for ADV Films' release of Azumanga Daioh make the series look like a fanservice anime when it's nothing of the sort, showing the girls in a very unflattering light: exposed stomachs, embarrassed expressions, and skirts that are dangerously close to being blown upwards by the wind. Granted, they're frames from the opening animation... very strategically chosen frames. The Sentai Filmworks re-release uses artwork that's more faithful to the series' tone.
  • The cover of the anime Jyu-Oh-Sei shows the main character, Thor, in an outfit he never wears, complete with war paint, a headband and sword.
  • Wandering Son covers show the two Transgender characters 'cross-dressing', when in the series they rarely dress up like that (especially the protagonist). The coloring of the characters is often incorrect, retcons and Art Evolution aside. The back of the first volume shows Maho with blond hair while the inner artwork at the beginning of the manga shows her her normal brown.
  • In the Warrior Cats manga Escape From The Forest, Tigerstar gets the cover all to himself, implying that he will be important in it, however he only appears once to ask the protagonist a question. After she answers it, he is not seen again.
  • Miracle Girls covers almost always have the characters with incorrect haircolors. The mangaka lampshades this in her omakes, saying that it's due to the printing process and her original images had the correct colors.
  • The cover of the Burst Angel OVA makes it look like a sequel to the TV series. It's actually a PREQUEL, set between a flashback episode and the rest of the series.
  • A handful of early DVD covers for the Hungarian release of Transformers: Armada show off characters that either haven't been introduced yet in the episodes that are on the disc, or use colorations that the characters only take on way-way later.
  • The cover of Divergence Eve looks like a generic mecha series with lots of fanservice - when really the breasts of the lead characters are the last thing you end up thinking about whilst watching the show... and its incredibly complicated plot.
  • Digimon:
    • Where to begin with the Digimon: The Movie poster/DVD & VHS art? The posters show the original Season 1 characters as depicted in Season 2 (high-school age), but these characters are mostly shown at their Season 1 ages (and all but Tai, Izzy, Matt and Sora have glorified cameos). Davis, Yolei and Cody are depicted in their Digital World outfits—they never wear them during the movie and never enter the Digital World. Terriermon (who has 3 horns on his forehead rather than only one - basically, is actually a recolored Lopmon) is shown along with what is possibly supposed to be Kokomon's child form, Lopmon—only Lopmon never appears in the movie and is shown inaccurately as a demented, fanged Terriermon. Oh, and the back of the VHS and DVD case features a plot summary about the older kids being kidnapped by a rogue Digimon—a plotline completely cut out of the dubbed movie.
    • Early promotional material for Digimon Tamers portrayed Impmon in typical Big Bad fashion, as he was at the time planned as the serie's main antagonist. This route was later abandoned.
  • Purposely done with the Japanese version of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei as the bookflap blurb describes nonsensical stories that had nothing to do with the actual contents.
  • The cover art of one American Haruhi Suzumiya DVD release shows Haruhi standing alone with her shadow being that of her BunnyGirl outfit, implying that a bunny girl plays a much larger role in the plot than it actually does.
  • One of two different DVD covers used by Central Park Media for the OVA Strange Love (AKA Hen) depicted two characters kissing, in front of an abstract red/pink background. One of them is the main character (Chizuru), but the black-haired girl is a very minor character with little screentime and is not Chizuru's love interest — the picture was taken from an Imagine Spot scene that explains that Chizuru isn't attracted to her or any other women, with one exception.
  • The VHS cover art for The Enchanted Journey features Glicko and Nono as giant anthropomorphic chipmunks walking on their hind legs, carrying backpacks, and having human like hands; in the film however neither are anthropomorphic in any way.
  • Promotional materials of Kotoura-san's Animated Adaptation advertised the series as a Romantic Comedy between a telepathic girl and his boyfriend that often has perverted Imagine Spots of her. This is in fact just a small part of the premise—to put it short, it is an example of Cerebus Rollercoaster, and the said girl's childhood was ruined in the Backstory due to her powers, and it remains to be a major conflict in the plot. The couple's relationships, however, is accurate.
  • The Parkfield Playtime release of Codename: Robotech in the UK. As well as the terrible day-glo cover art which doesn't match the original art style at all and is obviously meant to scream "we are marketing this for kids", but the character on the front doesn't even appear in the feature: it's the adult Dana Sterling from The Masters segment note , when the feature covers The Macross Saga only and doesn't even get to the point where baby Dana is born! Mercilessly parodied in this online review.
    • Though it would seem she does appear briefly, in the pose depicted, in the original Robotech intro.
  • The VHS cover for the "My Favorite Fairy Tales presents The Three Little Pigs" the pigs look like a mixture between the Disney animated versions and the claymation versions featured in the Green Jelly music video. In the actual animation they look nothing like that: they're small with round heads and bodies and big eyes in a stylized anime style, and the wolf on the back of the cover only vaguely resembles how he looks in the video.
    • The VHS for "Little Red Riding Hood" depicts her looking like a blonde Pippi Longstocking with pigtails and freckles and the wolf looks very Chuck Jones inspired wearing overalls and a top hat, in the actual animation Red is small with curly blonde hair and big blue eyes while the wolf looks identical to the one from "The Three Little Pigs" and wears only a vest and pants.
  • The poster for the English language release of the 1977 Space Battleship Yamato (Called Space Cruiser at the time) film has the Wave-Motion Gun being used as a launch tube for a spaceship. The spaceship isn't even one that Yamato carries but the alien Iscandarian ship that carries the message from Queen Starsha. Also, Analyzer is now a mass produced robot as there are three of him seen in this poster.
  • From the artwork for the first Blu-ray edition of Ranma ½, you'd think Akane was a skilled martial rhythmic gymnast. However, she only does it for an episode and a half, is shown to be very horrible at it (though she does show some improvement a bit later on), and is incapacitated by a foot injury before she can even compete. Plus, her leotard isn't pink.
  • This Saint Seiya Omega DVD cover, which seems to portray Dragon Ryuhou, one of the protagonists and a Badass Adorable Nice Guy, as an Evil Overlooker, if the Slasher Smile is anything to go by. The fact that he's not wearing black and red should be a pretty clear hint that there's something wrong there.
  • The DVD/Blu-ray cover of the Maiden Japan edition of Patlabor: The New Files, sharing cover art with an original Japanese release of an episode, is a temporal anomaly, as it portrays Noa Izumi as both an adult and a child. Child!Izumi is holding Alphonse the dog, who died during her time.
    • MJ's cover to their 4th volume of the Patlabor TV series features Kanuka Clancy, who had left the series by that point and only appears on the set in a dream sequence. Richard Wong, the other character featured on the cover, isn't there either as the Griffin arc had stopped (to be continued in The New Files OVA) by that point.
  • Attack on Titan: The cover of the 9th volume shows Eren and Mikasa facing the Beast Titan. The only character directly facing said Titan in the volume is Mike, while Sasha, Connie, Ymir, Reiner and Bertolt witnesses him from a distance. Eren and Mikasa are nowhere at the scene.
  • In the Volume 6 cover of Fairy Tail, Levy is slightly more busty than she should be... Though to be fair, it's also a question of Art Evolution. The page caption is from the start of the series, where she was actually drawn having breasts, just quite smaller than the ones she got in the caption. Nowadays, she is the series' resident Pettanko, not counting Wendy who is simply too young to have grown breasts.
  • Possibly owing to the popularity of Little Bit Beastly character designs in Japan compared to anthropomorphic ones, Wolf Children 's promotional poster and DVD covers feature the titular kids being held by their mother while both are sporting wolf ears and wolf tails, but otherwise human bodies. This is never the case in the film - they're only ever classic werewolf-esque anthropomorphic wolves or quadrupedal ones.
  • The covers and other official art for School-Live! depict the girls as doing cute things and looking fashionable. The manga is about a series of girls surviving on their own in a Zombie Apocalypse, plus they rarely change clothes. Two of the chapter covers apparently influenced the anime: One features Miki taking a picture of a puppy, which probably explains the relationship between her and Ascended Extra Taroumaru, while a cover of the girls in swimsuits is likely why the random pool episode occurred.
  • The chapter covers for Yuureitou would make you think Tetsuo is Ms. Fanservice and the series has a lot of fanservice. It's actually a Film Noir mystery-murder and Tetsuo is a trans man who would never flaunt or dress as depicted.
  • The covers to the rerelease of Stop Hibari Kun feature new artwork done by Eguichi Hisashi. The problem is that his art style changed vastly over the twenty year gap and thus the character designs don't reflect the inside art.
  • The front cover of Mimi's Ghost Stories gives the impression that's she's the story's villain, or at the very least supernaturally creepy. She's actually just incredibly unlucky and seems to be followed everywhere by ghosts no matter what she does, to the point of being a borderline Cosmic Plaything.
  • Crossed with American Kirby Is Hardcore, the English cover of Sankarea makes it look like a flat-out horror story about a guy dealing with an undead Yandere. In truth, it's a romantic Horror Comedy and Rea looks that way because Chihiro only assumes she's there to kill him. Granted, the story's horror elements do become more prominent as the series progresses, but it's still far more comedy than horror at the point where the depicted scene takes place.
  • The cover of ●REC by Mizu Asato wouldn't look out of place among a collection of Hentai. It's actually the story of a man spending time with his daughter before she undergoes an incredibly risky operation.
  • Although the series has other issues, it's still worth noting that the English DVD box of Now and Then, Here and There depicts Shu and Lala-Ru piloting a Humongous Mecha. Which, of course, they don't come anywhere close to doing in the show itself.
  • A relatively mild example, but the Right Stuf re-release of the Mobile Suit Gundam Compilation Movie trilogy uses one of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin illustrations for the cover. Origin Gundam has several minor but notable differences from the original anime version that are prominently visible, such as the hatch of its retractable Shoulder Cannon, red eye lenses as opposed to yellow and even the different model number painted on its chest (RX-78-02 rather than the original's RX-78-2).
  • Every Case Closed manga cover features the main protagonist in an outfit you will never see him wear standing in front of a real life photograph of something that is often times unrelated. Example: [1]
  • The covers of the The Irregular at Magic High School novels are a vivid example of this trope being used to tease the audience. Although the main "couple" Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba are clearly implied as the future Official Couple and they often have Incest Subtext, the author does not put any special focus on romance and Tatsuya cannot think of his sister as a woman. Nevertheless, practically every cover where they appear together portrays them as lovers with gentle hugs, hot looks and overly ambiguous poses that are not appropriate for siblings. This occurred at a time when they were not even kissing in the novel.
  • The German volume 4 cover of Danganronpa: The Animation adds Monomi, a character who wasn't on the original cover and is exclusive to the sequel game Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, which wasn't part of the anime. Monomi did make a Continuity Cameo in The Stinger to tease an anime adaptation of the second game that never came to be.
  • One DVD Croatian release of Thumbelina: A Magical Story by Bambbino takes it to the extreme; the case and DVD art both clearly depict characters from the aforementioned movie (aside from a miscolored red Noble on the back of the case), with the case also featuring the movie's synopsis and length at 85 minutes, but the actual content on the DVD is a whole different story — namely, an entirely separate adaptation by Burbank Animation Studios that lasts less than 45 minutes and has its own DVD case in the Croatian market — where the only thing it has in common with the movie that's being advertised is the title and the story they were both adapted from.
  • One cover for the DVD of Summer Wars has Natsuki as the main focus in the centre, whereas anyone who has seen the movie will know Kenji has a more active role as protagonist. Natsuki doesn't have much of a role in the movie until the very end. Kenji and Kazuma, who also plays a large role, are placed behind her with the rest of the Jinnouchi family and aren't marked out at all as being important. Some of the members of the family also have a slightly different design to their actual appearance in the movie.
  • Posters for the Boarding School Juliet anime show only the female characters, implying it's a sort of harem series. In reality, it's a romcom where the ratio of male to female characters is more or less 1:1.
  • Tamagotchi: The Movie: The English version's DVD cover depicts the characters Kikitchi and Hapihapitchi, who don't actually appear in the film and only debut in the sequel, Tamagotchi: Happiest Story in the Universe!.
  • Aggretsuko's third season poster is gonna make you think Haida is gonna be the antagonist of the season. When he’s actually gonna grab a traumatized Retsuko’s hand when she’s venting out on him in the final episode of the season.
  • Rent-A-Girlfriend: Most official artwork and opening songs will depict Mami Nanami is a pleasant person, someone who looks to be friends with the other girls, and an important character whose presence in the story is as important as Chizuru. In actuality, Mami in the story is probably the closest thing to a Big Bad, has a lot of unlikable characteristics, and only shows up sometimes, not being anywhere near as prominent a character as Chizuru is. And even beyond Mami, many of the cover art, opening credits, and ending credits of the show make all the main girls in Kazuya's life look like they're best friends who have sleepovers, confide in each other, and have each other's backs. In the actual series, while there is interaction between the girls and some of them can be friendly with each other at any given time, they're not as close as the credits or artwork portray them as and aren't exactly BFFs for life. Of the four, only Chizuru and Sumi could be considered friends and they don't even have sleepovers together.
  • The cover of the first volume of Osamu Tezuka’s The Crater has an incredibly bizarre looking humanoid being with odd features like a hand for a nose, wheels coming out of his chest, and needles poking out of his arm. While the stories in the book are strange, none of them have this surreal being in them.
  • A variant where it's the genre listing that's inaccurate rather than the art or blurb: The cover of Funimation's "Anime Classics" printing of Trigun lists "fanservice" and "Bishojo" as two of its genres. While the protagonist is a bit of a Chivalrous Pervert, the series has a predominantly male cast, and the series is known for not sexualizing its female characters. The closest thing to fanservice in the series is various shirtless scenes of the good looking male characters, which is quite the opposite of "Bishojo".

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