Didnt See That Coming / Anime & Manga

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• In Assassination Classroom, Nagisa must distract Kayano, an insanely angry superbeing who can counter and predict all his possible attacks. So he resorts to something that isn't even a battle tactic: kissing her. It works.
• Black Clover: The Witch Queen does not realize that Vanessa's Red Thread of Fate magic can only form whom she has a bond with. So, when Vanessa's magic stops Asta from killing Noelle and Finral and ultimately thwarts the Witch Queen's plans, the latter becomes puzzled by what has just happened until Vanessa explains it to her.
• Bleach:
  • Aizen is defeated by two things he fails to see coming due to the amount of false assumptions he had been making from the beginning. He wanted Ichigo to become more powerful but failed to understand how powerful Ichigo was capable of becoming and the Hogyoku suddenly de-powered him before he could complete his fight with Ichigo. Ichigo believes Aizen was de-powered due to possessing a deeply hidden desire to be a normal shinigami.
  • Yhwach also fails to see the Still Silver arrow coming due to its user Uryū Ishida being completely immune to Yhwach's powers. Then, when Ichigo tries to cut him down and Yhwach tries to break Tensa Zangetsu before the blade can reach him, he also doesn't expect the original Zangetsu emerging from the broken shell of Tensa Zangetsu. Both events culminate in his defeat.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • The highest-ranking Level 5 esper, Accelerator, is taking part in a horrific experiment that involves murdering twenty thousand clones to advance to level 6. Touma Kamijou, the lowest-ranking Level 0 in the entire city, decides he can get the experiment canceled if he beats Accelerator, since no one knows about his Anti-Magic right hand. He succeeds (to Accelerator's complete and utter shock), saving the lives of the ten thousand remaining clones. It's pretty clear that Aleister Crowley, the one who came up with the plan in the first place, saw this coming. He's the only one in the city who knows about Touma's ability, and is the one making an effort to keep it a secret.
  • Unknown Known, bordering on False Assumption, screws up Aleister Crowley's plans big time when Shiage Hamazura, a completely normal Level 0, defeats a Level 5. From then on, Shiage Hamazura becomes an unknown variable to be accounted for, forcing Aleister to use up resources in order to eliminate the unknown variable.
  • Much later, right after Aleister has finally gotten his plans back on track, an Unknown Unknown pops up and completely blindsides him: World Rejecter, a power completely the opposite of Touma's Imagine Breaker, appears out of nowhere.
• In A Certain Scientific Railgun, Kousaku Mitori was blindsided twice over in her fight against Shirai Kuroko.
  • First, Mitori believed that her Liquid Shadow had killed Kuroko, only to find that the camera she was using to observe the fight had been fed false footage courtesy of Uiharu Kazari.
  • Then, Mitori thought she had prepared for if Kuroko found her by hiding in the sewer. She thought the first knife she threw would be dodged by Kuroko teleporting, which only gave her a limited number of locations she could use in the sewer tunnels, thereby allowing Mitori to kill her with her second knife. What she didn't expect was for Kuroko to simply let the knife impale her hand so she could get close enough to punch Mitori, knocking her out.
• City Hunter:
  • In his first named appearance Ryo couldn't possibly have seen coming that an actress would be able to hire Umibozu to kill herself.
  • Umibozu's second appearance had him hire Ryo to impersonate him with a girl (Ryo didn't know that Umibozu was a friend of her late father and had paid her music education. Once that was known, it was clear why).
  • Who would expect Umibozu to tell Miki she had to kill City Hunter if she wanted to marry him? Also, Ryo and Kaori made a false assumption on the reason, and thought he didn't want to marry Miki because she was Terminator in a drag (Hilarity Ensued when they saw her).
  • The two assistants of a Corrupt Corporate Executive tried to hire Umibozu to kill City Hunter and his charges (one of which being a girl 11 years old), not knowing that not only Umibozu and Ryo were allies (sort of) and he doesn't kill children, but had even convinced Ryo to take that job. Ryo was left speechless when Umibozu delivered him the two guys, who were Lampshade Hanging the whole situation.
• Code Geass . All the time, courtesy of the universe's violent hatred of Lelouch. Seriously, the only plan to go off without a hitch was Zero Requiem, which ends with suicide.
• Death Note:
  • L, the master of I Know You Know I Know, didn't realize that he was dealing with an Outside-Genre Foe in the form of the supernatural Death Note and the existence of Shinigami. When he discovers this, he's so surprised he falls right out of his chair, and he continues to be taken off guard because he didn't know all of the rules surrounding Death Notes.
  • Running into one of these is how Light finally lost. Shidou was a greater Spanner in the Works than anyone else, and there was no way Light could have foreseen the damage he did.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Pilaf having his wish interrupted by Oolong, who wishes for panties.
  • The first time Goku turns into a Great Ape, breaking out of Pilaf's prison and destroying the castle. No one saw it coming, not even Goku.
  • Jackie Chun, aka Master Roshi, using a Kamehameha to rocket himself back into the ring after Krillin kicked him off.
  • Goku becoming a Great Ape after Master Roshi thought he had the match won after trapping Goku in his Lightning Flash Surprise Attack.
  • After being outmatched by General White's pet, Buyon, because of his blubbery body Goku beats him by kicking in a wall, letting in a breeze of cold air. It froze the monster solid.
  • Goku blocking Tien's Solar Flare by stealing Master Roshi's sunglasses.
  • Tien using a technique that made two extra arms grow caused everyone at the tournament to freak out. He then one ups this by destroying the arena with a Tri-Beam Cannon.
  • King Piccolo was more than a little surprised that Goku was not only alive after seemingly killing him (he had, after all, checked his heartbeat after Goku had apparently died), but stronger than ever. He's even more surprised that Goku beat him despite having all but one arm broken.
  • Kami having his own Evil Containment Wave deflected right back at him by Piccolo.
  • Piccolo finding out that Goku learned to fly and defeats him despite disabling all of his limbs.
  • Vegeta didn't foresee Goku being able to raise his power so much using the Kaioken when they first fought.
  • For Goku, Vegeta becoming a Great Ape. For King Kai, that Vegeta can create his own moon.
  • Vegeta escaping from his healing tank and stealing all of Frieza's Dragon Balls wasn't foreseen by Frieza or Zarbon. Vegeta then experienced a turnaround when Gohan steals his Dragon Ball, right from under his nose.
  • Frieza being unable to use the Namekian Dragon Balls because he doesn't know the password.
  • Frieza picking off Goku's friends and threatening his son, causing him to become a Super Saiyan.
  • To round off Frieza's Humiliation Conga, him not getting his wish from the Namekian Eternal Dragon because he didn't speak Namekian.
  • Dr. Gero had no idea what a Super Saiyan was, let alone that there are two of them. He also had no clue that Piccolo had merged with another Namekian, making him far stronger than he had calculated.
  • Cell badly underestimated Piccolo since he didn't know he merged with Kami, something no one believed would ever happen since Piccolo and Kami hated each other.
  • Vegeta, determined to see Cell's perfect form and stopping Trunks from interfering, smugly thought Trunks didn't have the balls to attack him to get to Cell. Trunks, however, was a Combat Pragmatist hardened by the Bad Future he'd grown up in, and had no problem going through his own father to prevent that future.
  • The final leg of Goku and Cell's fight gives us two. Cell was caught completely flatfooted when Goku used his Kamehameha in combination with his Instant Transmission, destroying half of his body. Then, Goku got a surprised when he learned Cell could regenerate because no one told him.
  • Cell surviving his own self-destruction. Not even he knew it would happen.
  • For the Supreme Kai, the Saiyans being so freakishly strong. He even lampshades how he would have planned differently if he knew beings like them existed.
  • Goten and Trunks are horrified when they see Buu turn Dabura into a cookie and eat him.
  • Piccolo didn't foresee Super Buu killing everyone on Earth with one attack after he told him he couldn't fight Gotenks until everyone in the lower realm was dead.
  • Super Buu coming back from vapors shocked Piccolo and Gotenks after they tried to make sure he was dead by burning his remains.
  • Piccolo gets another surprise when Super Buu escapes the Hyperbolic Time Chamber by screaming. Like the regenerating from vapors thing, he thought this was impossible.
  • After being completely outmatched by Gohan's Ultimate Form, Buu surprised everyone by absorbing Gotenks and Piccolo, becoming both smarter and more powerful. He does it again against Goku, absorbing Gohan after Gotenks' fusion broke.
  • Vegeto being able to move and fight despite being turned into a piece of candy. This has never happened before.
  • After absorbing Vegeto, Buu is surprised that not only did Vegeto avoid being assimilated, but he frees all the other people he absorbed. He did get a happy surprise, however, when he learns that Vegeta and Goku couldn't fuse any more.
  • Vegeta removes Fat Buu from Super Buu's body, forcibly returning Buu to his original form. Although not as strong as Super Buu at his peak, he is the most dangerous form of Buu. Without a bit of hesitation, he destroys the Earth.
  • Kid Buu not only caught the Spirit Bomb, but pushes it back towards Goku, surprising everyone.
• Fate/Zero:
  • Unknown Unknowns example: Rider was thinking he could defeat Gilgamesh with his Ionian Hetairoi if he was only faced with Gate of Babylon. He did NOT expect to be faced with Ea, Gilgamesh's own sword capable of destroying the world and his entire army with it in a single swing.
  • Kayneth is ruined by a series of these:
    • The first is a False Assumption: he had assumed that the other masters would have acted as mages and, in an attack on his stronghold in the higher roofs of the Hyatt Hotel, would have had to deal with his enormous preparations. Here comes Kiritsugu, who just blows up the whole hotel with explosives. Kayneth survives, but the explosion and the demolition destroy all of his defensive measures and almost all of his Mystic Codes.
    • In revenge for Kiritsugu's attack, Kayneth attacks him in the Einzbern Castle and runs head first in another False Assumption and an Unknown Unknown. The False Assumption is that his last Mystic Code could easily defend him from mundane weapons, but while Volumen Hydrargyrum can easily repel the pellets from Claymore Mines and the fire of a Calico M950 it has to concentrate to defend from the point blank fire of a Thompson Contender chambered for .30-06 rounds, and he survived with a wound only because the Contender is single shot. The Unknown Unknown happens when Kiritsugu returns with the Contender: this time Kayneth concentrates his defense and reinforces it with prana, not knowing it was exactly what Kiritsugu needed for his Origin bullet to completely and irreversibly destroy Kayneth's ability to use magic, nearly killing him through the sheer pain and leaving him paraplegic as a side effect.
    • After surviving Kiritsugu thanks to Lancer, Kayneth runs into an Unknown Known: his fiancee Sola-Ui is madly in love with Lancer, and tortures the now-defenceless Kayneth to get the Command Seals. He could have avoided the torture and having to give up the Seals by calling Lancer with a Command Seal, but his False Assumption that Lancer was willing to betray him prevented him from it. These would both fall under Unknown Known errors if he'd bothered to read up on the myths regarding his own servant, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. Sola-Ui falls prey to Lancer's Cursed beauty mark (actually implied to be More than Mind Control), as his future queen did in the myth. And she forced him to betray his lord with magic.
    • After much meddling, Kayneth is seemingly having some luck. Sure, he had to force Lancer to suicide and give up any role in the War, but he managed to have Kiritsugu force himself to not harm him first... And False Assumption and Unknown Unknown hit again in the form of Maya Hisau, Kiritsugu's assistant, who, before Kiritsugu signed the magical contract, had been ordered to kill Kayneth and Sola-Ui as soon as Lancer killed himself. To rub salt into the wound, Kayneth is just mortally and painfully wounded, and when he begs Kiritsugu to finish him he's told that he can't either finish him or tell Maya or Saber to do it due to the oath (thankfully Saber has some pity and kills him on her own).
• Fist of the North Star:
  • The battle between Kenshiro and Mr. Heart is full of these for everyone involved. For Kenshiro, because he didn't expect that there would be someone so fat to resist pretty much all normal attacks and even resist any martial art bar Nanto Seiken, especially considering that food is scarce in the post-apocalyptic world. For Mr. Heart and his boss Shin, that Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken had a technique made specifically to deal with this kind of situation by moving around the fat just long enough to hit a pressure point and kill the enemy. Again for Kenshiro because he didn't expect to have a chance to use such a ridiculously specific technique.
  • When Kenshiro first fought Souther he found out that his "Emperor's Armor" was immune to Hokuto Shinken, something he clearly did not expect.
  • When they were having the rematch, Souther was then surprised when Toki called bullshit on the "Emperor Armor" and explained he knew his real secret, a rare medical condition that had the side effect of switching around his pressure points (hence why Hokuto Shinken wouldn't work, as it relies on hitting those)... Or that Kenshiro had just realized it (it is in fact Kenshiro who explains it to the witnesses). This he should have expected: Toki was not just a Hokuto Shinken practitioner but also a skilled medic, who could have guessed it with a look or just checked Souther's file at a hospital, while Kenshiro had just put his fingers inside Souther's body as part of a failed Hokuto Shinken technique and felt his heartbeat.
• Kyon of Haruhi Suzumiya gets a note asking him to meet in the classroom after school. He's pretty sure it isn't any of the SOS members, but he thinks a little about how he'll respond to each of them, if it is one of them after all. He knows that he does not know who it is. However, it was not possible for him to know that Ryoko Asakura was actually an alien waiting there to murder him. He got hit with this trope, and it was not fun. At least, not for him — for the audience, it was freaking awesome.
• Alucard in Hellsing is finally finished off when the Major gets him to weaken himself by unleashing his familiars, become injured by fighting a newly vampirised Walter, then try to restore himself by reabsorbing his familiars and all of the blood in the devastated London. The snag for Alucard comes when the Major has Schrodinger commit suicide and be absorbed by Alucard; Schrodinger's nature means that he ceases to exist if he cannot identify himself. Being absorbed by Alucard and melded with the souls of his familiars makes him unable to identify himself, causing him to cease to exist, and take Alucard with him.
• In Kaiji's second season, Ootsuki has a seemingly foolproof way of cheating by using dice that only have the numbers 4, 5, and 6, playing in a dark room with the players sitting in a circle so they won't be able to get a good look at the dice, and sitting between two accomplices so he can quickly pass the loaded dice to one of them, who can switch them out for normal dice before anyone notices. Kaiji manages to bluff being completely oblivious to the trick, which doesn't happen in Ootsuki's first two rolls as dealer, and, upon deducing that he's using the trick dice for his third roll, ensures that he won't be able to hide them by grabbing the bowl before the dice have stopped. After using some Insane Troll Logic to avoid a huge punishment, Ootsuki agrees to let the players roll against his own roll (which is assumed to be a 4) with the use of modified dice being allowed, Ootsuki assuming that they'd use his own 4-5-6 dice, which, at worst would lose him 1 million perica. He didn't foresee Kaiji having made his own set of dice out of steak bones that have a 1 on every face, guaranteeing Snake Eyes and a 5x payout, or that all this happened on his first turn as a dealer, meaning he has to go through that again.
• In The Legend of Koizumi when Taizo and Sanada face off against Yukio, they were expecting a powerful opponent, especially with the whole alien theme going on. What they didn't expect was Yukio committing a Chombo, as in picking up the game pieces and punching Taizo in the face to void the game. Yukio would do this again, flipping the table, and somehow this boosts his luck for reasons currently unknown. Sanada would reply in kind, by picking up the table and bashing Yukio clear across the room before the latter could flip the table again. Again, no one saw it coming.
• Quattro, the resident Smug Snake from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS encounters a tiny flaw that completely undoes her whole plan when she overlooks a few critical facts. First, that Nanoha is a mage that specializes in blowing stuff up. Second, that Nanoha is using a special booster system that makes her capable of blowing up even more stuff. And finally, that Nanoha was using area search magic to look for the cyborg the entire time she was fighting against her adopted daughter, per Quattro's plans. On top of all that, somehow Quattro tends to overlook an even more critical fact regarding the way Nanoha treats her friends and loved ones. While being ignorant of the third was a reasonable possibility, there is absolutely no excuse for the first two, not to mention Nanoha's tendency to befriend people. The end result... Oh, Crap!! The thing is Quattro did see it coming in the end. She was just too late to do anything about it other than look in horror.
  • On a wider scale, Jail and the cyborgs got blindsided completely by Section 6' available firepower, due to careful management of their Power Limiters hiding what they were really capable of.
• March Comes in Like a Lion: Shimada serves as an Unknown Known for Rei during the Shishi Ou Cup. Rei's so psyched about engaging Gotou in the Finals match that he doesn't take the time to seriously consider how much of a threat Shimada can be, only to realize it too late when he suffers a humiliating defeat.
• Maria no Danzai:
  • Okaya's gang manages to get away with sending Kiritaka to his death by fabricating evidence and framing his death as a suicide. Unfortunately for them, Kiritaka kept a secret diary where he wrote down in detail the numerous tortures they put him through, along with a flash drive where he kept video evidence. Upon finding both, Kiri's mother Mari decides that they must pay with their lives.
  • Maria expected Shikimi to start Skipping School after manipulating events to push her in that particular direction. She did not expect that Shikimi would be so petty that she would send a bunch of goons to beat her up for warning her that she would end up alone if she continued to distrust people.
  • As Iijima prepares to assault Maria while he has her pinned down on the ground, Maria unexpectedly takes the initiative and starts frenching him. Then she invites him to an out-of-business love hotel nearby, where they can "take their time". Before long he's turned into putty in her hands.
  • Maria is shocked to learn that her ex-husband is investigating the disappearance of her victims.
  • Things take an unexpected turn when Iijima, whom Maria briefly considered killing, is found dead by the police, since Maria is not the one who killed him.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Chairman Durandal is surprised when the real Lacus Clyne shows up on live TV, interrupting the replacement he'd been parading around as the real Lacus.
• The second season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 as a situation similarly to this trope, involving a hijack of a mobile armor by the enemy… only to be foiled by a Haro.
  • Aeolia Schoenberg, mastermind that he was, built Veda to account for things he didn't see coming: Veda ensures that his plan is fulfilled in spirit, and can make adjustments to the original plan if unknown factors crop up that Schoenberg didn't see coming.
• Naruto:
  • Kisame Hoshigaki probably shouldn't have stopped to Kick the Dog after subduing Killer Bee- but who could have expected that he'd be betrayed by his own Empathic Weapon, leading to his defeat and death when reinforcements arrive? Certainly not the readers, that's for sure... (Actually, he did see it coming, since his "death" was a Kansas City Shuffle to infiltrate the Cloud Village.)
    • What he did fail to see coming was that Naruto would be able to detect murderous intention, leading to his actual death.
  • Madara did not expect Black Zetsu to betray him, seeing as he's supposed to be the manifestation of Madara's will. He isn't; he's the manifestation of Princess Kaguya's will. Princess Kaguya was the mother of the Sage of the Six Paths, and the first ever chakra user. She's also supposed to be dead.
  • And speaking of Princess Kaguya, in the final battle against her, she proclaims that as the progenitor of Chakra, there is no Chakra-based technique they can use against her that she cannot immediately nullify. In response, and in desperation due to being completely out of other options, Naruto hatches a plan, and asks Sasuke if they can do..."THAT technique", Sasuke begrudgingly agrees. They rush in, and Kaguya prepares herself for their attack, only to be hit with...The Reverse Harem Jutsu. With Sasuke and Naruto using shadow clones to turn into a harem of naked, beautiful Bishōnen boys surrounding her. This actually works. Kaguya was so unprepared and unexpectant of this technique, that she's left in utter stunned shock, only able to barely mutter out a "...Huh...?" in response; then Naruto and Sasuke break the Jutsu, and nail the first solid and square hit against her in the whole fight.
  • In Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, the evil ruler of Snow Country is trying to activate a machine that his peace-loving brother (who he overthrew) created under the assumption that it's a superweapon. The machine turned out to be a system of mirrors designed to warm the country and trigger spring.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Kurt Godel's plan to make Negi an ally was screwed up because he was totally unaware that Negi had a source of information that Kurt couldn't have possibly have anticipated.
  • Chapter 273 is basically just Kurt's whole Gambit falling to pieces around him. First he reveals himself as a powerful Shinmeiryuu swordsman; Negi overloads his defenses. Then he claims they can't escape from his projected space; Chisame disables it. Finally he claims that no one knows they're there anyway; Asakura reveals that all of Negi's friends outside have been watching what's happened through her artifact the whole time. Then, just to top it off, he gets smacked with Ku Fei's artifact and Takamichi lamps him one from across the room.
  • Then right after that, Ala Alba's preparations promptly got shot to hell by the arrival of one of Fate's minions, causing their main retreat plan, as well as most of their backups, to fall to pieces.
• One Piece:
  • The World Government captured Ace and imprisoned him, prompting Luffy to break in to get him out. Normally, one pirate single-handedly invading their fortress jail to break someone out under maximum security would be an easy matter to deal with. Unfortunately Luffy ultimately set all their prisoners free, recruited as many as he could into fighting the World Government with the surprise aid of Buggy the Clown, Mr. 3, Mr. 2 Bon Kurei, and two ex-members of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. To top it off, a current Warlord, Blackbeard, turned on them for unknown reasons while everyone else was preparing for all-out war with Whitebeard. And wouldn't you just know it, numerous prisoners that Luffy recruited have the exact powers needed for the group to succeed. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned. Things don't go as planned at all.
  • A better example is when Luffy goes for a rematch with Crocodile, and swallows a huge barrel of water to become a living water balloon. Crocodile is more than a bit surprised by this, though he recovers quickly.
  • Enel had the same problem but worse. At least Crocodile knew about his own limits, and had a fall back plan. Luffy not only bypassed Enel's invincibility, but then completely ignored just about every attack Enel tried to use in retaliation. And then the kicker was that there is no rubber in the sky islands. Enel not only didn't see Luffy coming, but he didn't know his main weakness even existed.
  • Nico Robin (formerly known as Miss All-Sunday) joining the Straw Hats was (at the time) a huge plot twist. Prior to joining them, she was The Dragon to Crocodile, the Big Bad of the entire Alabasta/Baroque Works saga, and while she eventually proved to be a Dragon with an Agenda who saved Luffy twice after Crocodile tried to kill him, she seemed to be, at most, a Wild Card who disappeared after he was defeated. Then, shortly after Vivi turned down the crew's offer to come with them, Robin randomly showed up and joined instead. These days, however, it's not really a twist at all, due to all the merchandise and pictures of the entire crew.
    • It was also unfortunately spoiled ahead of time for those who only watch the anime, since the third opening sequence, which began airing about halfway through the Alabasta arc, showed Robin (who didn't join until the very, very end of the arc) among the crew members.
  • Luffy's "execution" (actually an attempted murder) in Loguetown is prevented when the executioner is struck by a bolt of lightning. Luffy's flabbergasted allies can only conclude it was Divine Intervention. However, they were atop a tall tower, the executioner wielding a metal sword, while thunder was rumbling in the background. Although it is well implied that it wasn't natural lightning that struck.
  • Zoro begs Dracule Mihawk to train him so that he can surpass and defeat...well...Dracule Mihawk. He's actually trying to get stronger for the sake of the Straw Hats, but, he's not forgetting his own goal in the process. Mihawk agrees to it, knowing that he's helping to create the one swordsman he believes can defeat him. Simply because Zoro is willing to throw away his pride for the Straw Hats.
    • Although, we really shouldn't be surprised that Mihawk is encouraging Zoro to become powerful enough to surpass him; he subscribes to You Kill It, You Bought It, and he's chosen Zoro as his successor.
  • When the Straw Hats enter the New World, Smoker falls victim to this in his attempt to ambush them. He knows that a New World log pose points to three possible islands, and he knows Luffy would pick the most dangerous of the three options. So he sets anchor by the most dangerous of the first three islands in the New World. What doesn't occur to him is that Luffy would instead go to Punk Hazard, an island that isn't even on the log pose.
  • Sabo. No one, not the Straw Hats, not Doflamingo, not even the audience saw him coming, making him a classic example of a Spanner in the Works. Makes you wonder what else the Revolutionary Army has in store for the rest of the series.
  • The Dressrosa arc of the story is basically a long chain of these on all sides, starting with Doflamingo changing the whole world's newspapers just to fool Law. Once the Straw Hats start their attack properly it gets to the point where somebody gets this every two chapters or so, culminating with Usopp somehow startling Sugar into fainting, and Doflamingo surviving having his head chopped off.
  • Doflamingo assigns a bounty of 500,000,000 Beri on "God" Usopp, which is even higher than the World Government's bounty on Luffy.
  • The reveal of Law's full name: Trafalgar D. Water Law. Seems minor, but considering carriers of the Will of D. are notorious as bearers of calamity, their every move impactful on a global scale, and the natural-born enemies of the Celestial Dragons, it's shocking that in the years since his introduction, Law has been living under the radar with the D. initial to his name and we had absolutely no clue . He's certainly living up to his name, as his 13-year grudge against Doflamingo ultimately triggers a civil war that demolishes an entire black market empire and shifts the tides of multiple ongoing wars throughout the world. ALL IN FAVOR OF THE REBELS. Impactful indeed.
    • It puts Law's alliance with Luffy on a whole other level, as they are no longer just two of the Worst Generation teaming up; to date there's never been evidence or implications of two Ds working together, and the impact their actions will bring is currently unimaginable. If the Straw Hats alone declared war on the World government, exactly how much notoriety will they gain yet again with the Heart Pirates at their side?
  • In the Zou arc, the Mink tribe was almost wiped out by Jack the Drought, Kaido's subordinate who was searching for the Wano samurai (Raizo in particular) and tortured the Minks for info despite them apparently knowing nothing about Raizo. As a result, the Straw Hats tried to hide their own relationship with the samurai in order to avoid invoking the tribe's wrath. So you can imagine their (and the readers') surprise when it turns out that the Minks actually were lying to Jack, and really had been hiding Raizo from him the whole time.
  • This can happen even if someone has Combat Clairvoyance; Katakuri, one of Big Mom's Sweet Commanders, has trained his Observation Haki so well that it gives him glimpses of the future. When he sees that his sister will fail to kill Sanji, Katakuri tries to snipe the chef himself. Sanji does a Bullet Dodge so quickly that not even Katakuri foresaw it.
    • And the reason said sister failed to kill Sanji in the first place? He called her Third Eye, something which has led to Pudding becoming a psychotic monster to cope with the bullying that stemmed from it, "beautiful". Right as she was about to shoot him in the face. She's not merely stunned: she falls to her knees and breaks down in tears over the fact that anyone would see her third eye and still think of her as beautiful.
• Overlord:
  • The trope is built into the rules of the universe: YGGDRASSIL, the game the world shares a lot of mechanics with, was very beginner-unfriendly, with most information about items and monsters discovered through trial and error. Ainz is therefore repeatedly taken by surprise, but is forced to claim everything went according to plan because the Guardians think he's The Chessmaster.
  • Ainz' transformation into a lich has suppressed a lot of his emotions and empathy, notably leaving him unable to see his closest advisers are irredeemably evil and will happily slaughter the very people he's trying to protect. He's also blindsided by them taking his every sentence as a divine order, leading to the Guardians making plans to conquer the world from the second episode on that he only finds out about in the third season.
    Ainz: World domination?! When was something like that decided?!
  • Emperor Jircniv is well aware of Ainz' sky-high magical ability, and enters an uneasy alliance with him. When the Baharut Empire gets ready for their yearly battle with the Re-Estize Kingdom, Jircniv asks Ainz to participate by casting his strongest spell (intending for the other powers to see Ainz as the threat he is and gang up on him). Instead:
    • Ainz shows up with half a thousand Death Knights mounted on Soul Eaters, a single one of either is already a threat requiring an army to take out. He then obligingly casts Iä Shub-Niggurath, a spell that not only eradicates a third of the Kingdom's army, it uses those deaths to summon a quintet of Dark Young that continue stomping the rest of the army flat. By the end of the battle, Ainz has nearly wiped out the Kingdom's army, while the only Imperial casualties came from trying to flee Ainz' monsters. Jircniv is horrified at the spell's power, and while other powers are equally afraid, they think Jircniv did it knowingly (especially galling because Jircniv's strategy up to then was to slowly bleed the Kingdom of competent warriors with one battle per year), and now view him with distrust.
    • Ainz later participates in an arena tournament where he's agreed not to use any magic. Jircniv puts all his hopes on the arena champion (a war troll) killing Ainz, but Ainz still wins handily. This is the final straw for Jircniv (whose sanity was already eroding due to Ainz having him watched to see how a ruler should behave), and he makes himself and his Empire a vassal of Ainz' Sorcerer Kingdom.
    • This leads to a vast improvement in Jircniv's mental health, as the only demands Ainz makes of him are to let Nazarick's inexhaustible undead forces defend the Empire's borders, to send all condemned prisoners to Nazarick for execution (and they send back those who were actually innocent), and generally promote tolerance of nonhuman races. As a bonus, Ainz takes no interest in running the Empire personally, allowing Jircniv to continue his reforms, and anytime someone complains about it he now has the option of telling them to take it up with Nazarick.
  • Ainz gives Enri a weak item to defend herself, which summons a Badass Crew of goblins to her aid. When an army shows up to raze her village, she uses it again... and has unknowingly fulfilled several conditions to increase the item's power, meaning it now summons an entire goblin army 5000 men strong, complete with cavalry, heavy infantry, medics, assassins, artillery mages, and a strategist dressed as Zhuge Liang. Ainz' (who is watching through a Magic Mirror) Big "WHAT?!" of surprise can be heard from outside his tent, and he's forced to claim he'd intended for the item to do that all along.
• In Pokémon Adventures, this is pretty much the only reason why Giovanni loses against Red in the two battles they fought against each other. First time, he completely dominated Red from beginning to end, took down all his Pokemon except Pika, and knew that he could take Red down before it could attack. How was he supposed to know Red stole Lt. Surge's gloves so that Pika could charge up its attack in its Pokeball? The second time, his Deoxys is beating him and Mewtwo. Too bad Bill and Celio, miles and miles away from the battle, manage to steal the jewels that were allowing Deoxys to form change.
• In Princess Tutu, Rue pulling a Heroic Sacrifice and saving Mytho from The Corruption through The Power of Love blindsides Drosselmeyer so utterly that he spends the next five seconds gaping dumbfoundedly before finally going, "...What." He does recover his plans rather quickly though -- just on a different rail.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: For all of Kyubey's Batman Gambits and deception to further his plans, he fails to account for the one thing he's been tempting Madoka with in the first place: Madoka practically wishes to overwrite the entire universe. Although he still gets his true goal in a different way: The Magical Girl system still helps counter entropy, and now finding out the truth doesn't lead humanity to resent him for it.
  • The movie tops this and then some: pretty much everyone is taken off guard at some point, with the most notable being Kyubey, as he realizes he's been Out-Gambitted by Madoka again, and on a more horrifying note Madoka herself, as Homura betrays her and steals her powers.
• In Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, the last words of bad guys are "This was not foreseen", this being an explosion with a blast radius of Millions of kilometers.
• In Rurouni Kenshin during the Kyoto arc, Shishio has set up an attack on Kyoto as a distraction for his real goal: to take his pre-Dreadnought era Dreadnought to Tokyo. He wasn't too surprised that Kenshin read through this ruse, however he and his Dragon didn't know about Sano and frankly didn't care when he showed up. Until they found out he brought a former terrorist friends gift with him; a handful of bombs. It was this that managed to destroy the ship.
• In the final battle of the Holy Knights saga, Hendrickson from The Seven Deadly Sins is hit with three of them in a row. First, [1] jumps in front of his sure-to-kill attack, saving Meliodas. Then, Hawk's death causes Elizabeth to unleash her hidden powers, healing everyone and damaging him. And then Meliodas, in a last ditch effort to defeat Hendrickson, attacks him while everyone else fires their most powerful attacks on both of them. Hendrickson thinks that Meliodas is just trying to give the others a chance to beat him, by sacrificing himself — and then Meliodas reveals a secret technique that allowed him to collect damage from all these attacks and then release all that on Hendrickson.
• Sword Art Online:
  • Throughout the Fairy Dance arc, Sugou/Oberon believes he has everything in the bag and is unstoppable. He would have been, were it not for the intervention of Akihiko Kayaba's Virtual Ghost; Kayaba gives Kirito access to his own admin ID, which outranks Sugou's and allows him to turn the tables in an instant.
  • After being defeated during the climax of the Alicization arc, PoH expects Kirito to give him a warrior's death, since he'll be able to pursue him and Asuna and kill them for real after being booted out of the system. What he didn't expect was Kirito to subject him to a Fate Worse than Death by imprisoning him in a tree and leaving him to rot in Underworld, vowing that this is the last time they'll meet and PoH will never log out.

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