Genius Bruiser / Anime & Manga

Anime & Manga characters who have both muscle and mind.

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• Attack on Titan has several characters that turn out to be this.
  • Reiner Braun is implied to be this. He's primarily known for his Heroic Build and incredible strength, but Bonus Material reveals he frequently plays chess with Armin.
  • Annie Leonhart is mostly known for her exceptional skills as a fighter, but also possesses keen insight into human nature and is quite the skilled investigator while working for the Military Police Brigade.
  • Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan, combines inhuman strength with a genius intellect, with his official stats giving him an 11/10 in Intelligence.
• Yujiro Hanma from Baki the Grappler counts as this, for being the World's Strongest Man, he's mastered virtually every martial art known to man including ones only passed down through noble blood and single-handedly defeated the entire U.S. Army during the Vietnam War with nothing but his bare fists. He is extremely analytical, being able to decipher and fully utilize virtually any technique after seeing it once and knows over twenty languages. Yujiro also has an extremely in-depth knowledge of human anatomy, even more than skilled surgeons, high tech x-ray machines or talented medicine men. He's able to use this knowledge to exploit his foes' weaknesses and make fights last longer. He has extensive knowledge in many fields, such as cooking, biomechanics, biology, chemistry, arithmetic, zoology, and more.
• Amshel Goldsmith from Blood+ is a clever researcher who has achieved excellent results in the field of genetic engineering. And he is also the oldest (and probably strongest) chevalier of Diva.
• Blood Blockade Battlefront has Klaus Von Reinherz, leader of the secret organization Libra, which exists to keep some sense of peace in Hellsalem's Lot. He is both a massive, Gratuitous German spouting master of the Brain Grid Blood Battle Style, and a highly intelligent player of Prosfair, capable of keeping up with an Eldritch Abomination for a game of 99 hours.
• Broken Blade's Girge. He's a Badass in the battlefield, alright. But it's still unclear whether his badassery is adjusted with wit and strategy, or just rashness out of boredom.
• Cage of Eden: Yarai Kouichi plays this straight as he is probably the strongest survivor but his understanding of evolution rival's Maria and he also demonstrates knowledge in several fields such as geology and the Glasgow Coma Scale.
• Captain Tsubasa: Hiroshi Jito is one of the largest and most imposing Japanese players (he practiced sumo before switching to soccer). At first, he seemingly comes off as a Dumb Muscle who uses his physical advantage to overpower his opponents, but turns out that he's actually a pretty good strategist, having prepared a few tricks in advance for his eventual match against Tsubasa that put the Nankatsu team against the ropes.
• Viede from Chrono Crusade is implied to be one of these — although he's the most physically imposing member of the Sinners, he's shown in a flash back playing chess with brainy Big Bad Aion, and he serves as a voice of reason to both Aion and Genai. This is only in the manga. In the anime, most of his appearances on screen seem to consist of him punching his fist into his hand and laughing evilly.
• Claymore:
  • Not only does Clare have superhuman strength, she also shows that she can be very clever.
  • Ophelia is number four in the organization, and powerful enough to defeat an Awakened Being, who was once in a single-digit rank. At the same time, however, she is also quite intelligent.
  • The male Awakened Being in the mountains of Paburo is marked as very cunning in the rating of the organization.
• Corrector Yui:
  • Peace is a wise, cranky old man who just happens to have the ability to summon and use giant, really effective firearms.
  • If we turn towards the Corruptors, Yagi fits the trope to a T.
• Doctor Slump: Robot girl Arale is mainly known as a Cute Bruiser and Pint-Sized Powerhouse who can split the planet in half with one punch. But she is also an android with a computer brain, can easily solve advanced math problems better than a computer, and is apparently able to perform surgical operations (successfully removing a frog's appendix). However her strength is emphasized much more than her brain during the series.
• The Dragon Ball franchise:
  • From the original series, King Piccolo. Not only was he ungodly powerful when he was introduced, but he was also extremely intelligent. He had the heroes collect all the remaining Dragon Balls before he confronted them and then he killed Shenron so nobody could use Dragon Balls to stop him.
  • Dr. Gero aka Android 20 in the Android Saga. Thanks to his Brain in a Jar cyborg body, he's not only a genius scientist but also a Flying Brick who can go toe to toe with the Z-Fighters. He defeats both Yamcha and Krillin, tricks the Hot-Blooded Vegeta into unintentionally giving him energy and could No-Sell a punch from his hated obession Goku. He would've probably killed Piccolo too, had not Gohan saved his mentor from Gero's absorbing grasp in time.
  • Downplayed with Goku since he has never had any formal education and often lacks common sense. However, he is an excellent combatant and a tactical genius, able to pick up new skills with ease, and outmaneuver fighters who are intelligently smarter than him. Furthermore, once he gets a basic understanding of something, he learns very quickly. He figures how to drive Bulma's motorcycle and make it jump several feet into the air, despite never even seeing an automobile until an hour ago.
  • In Dragon Ball Z, Gohan is one of the most powerful members of the cast, and also one of the smartest. He is a straight A student and was able to do Pre-Calculus when he was only five.
  • Master Roshi. He has several hundreds years of wisdom, as well as being the strongest human at the start of the series.
  • Piccolo is easily the smartest of the Z-Fighters especially after merging with Kami, and after Vegeta shows up and Gohan comes into his own he's often the fourth or fifth strongest. For a short time, he was the strongest in the group. His intelligence was the reason Buu decided to absorb him, rather than merely eating him.
  • Future Trunks is a variant. His fighting style is mostly brute force, but he's quite intelligent, being raised by his mother who is a technical genius. Trunks shows true pragmatism in his “fight” with Frieza, as he fires a massive Ki-Blast on the ground to distract Frieza and make him fly out of the way and then slices him in half in mid air when he’s off-guard.
  • When his pride and ego isn't getting the best of him, Vegeta. He outsmarts Frieza on Namek, managing to steal his Dragon Balls and almost had all seven if Gohan didn't have the Dragon Radar. It was also his plan that killed Kid Buu. He is also a genius at fighting like Goku.
  • Dr. Wheelo from the second Z movie Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest, like Gero he's a genius Mad Scientist who put his brain in a powerful robot body, with the intention of possessing Goku's body to rule the world. He was able to tank three Kamehameha beams and overpower Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin and Roshi, forcing Goku to use the Spirit Bomb, making the Wheelo the only human antagonist Goku needed his ultmate attack to put down. Wheelo returns in Dragon Ball Heroes, where thanks to a more powerful robot body he even matches Super Saiyan Gohan in a fight.
  • Cell. He inherited the cunning mind of King Piccolo and his son, which he uses to run circles around the heroes. He also uses his knowledge of Vegeta's pride to trick him into allowing him to become complete. His knowledge of fighting are second only to Goku and Piccolo and he was all but a Physical God before he was finally killed.
  • Super Buu is easily the smartest villain in the series despite his rude mannerism and dumb way of speaking. He lets people underestimate how smart he is to put them off-guard. He outsmarts Piccolo, he uses his knowledge of Gotenks to make him fused so he can absorb him, and never picks up the Villain Ball unlike every other villain in the series. He becomes even smarter after absorbing Piccolo.
  • Goku Black from Dragon Ball Super. He masterminds the entire "Zero Mortals Plan" first by stealing Goku's body using the Super Dragon Balls, recruiting his future self and giving him immortality before destroying the Super Dragon Balls, and killing all the gods in the future timeline. His end goal was to eventually fuse with Future Zamasu to create the powerful, immortal god Fusion Zamasu to rule as the supreme god of the multiverse. His plan would've succeeded too, if Future Trunks didn't return to the past to get help. He also shows his battle smarts when he reprimands Future Trunks for fighting on blind emotion and figures out quickly how to used his rage towards the mortals to become stronger.
  • Frieza became one in the Universe Survival Arc. He seems to have become much more calculating and pragmatic than before.
• Tsukasa in Dr. STONE is a textbook example of this trope. The man fights a pack of lions while unarmed and wins, AND he's smart enough to always remain one step behind Mad Scientist Senku (and that's after Senku realizes Tsukasa's intellect and hastens his own actions in response). But the single moment that best simultaneously displays his brute strength and genius is when Tsukasa threatens to snap Senku's cervical plexus with his bare hands, then proceeds to do just that.
• Eyeshield 21:
  • Juumonji (OL/DL) is one of the three Hah-Hah brothers, a gang of thugs who used to beat up others on a pretty regular basis. But this image is part of his rebellion against his father; he happens to be one of the smartest people on the team (only behind the three acknowledged geniuses), often figuring out things other players miss badly.
  • The Amino Cyborgs are, to the man, gifted students bound for prestigious universities — with the physiques of bodybuilders. That said, while powerful, like actual bodybuilders they aren't as strong as they appear.
  • Shin possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy and nutrition, and has applied that knowledge towards becoming as fast and as strong as he possibly can be. He is, however, incredibly ignorant when it comes to technology.
  • And Gaou, surprisingly. He looks like a caveman, started playing the sport to find someone capable of challenging him physically and plays incredibly brutally, but he's also very verbose, well informed and polite off the pitch.
  • Donald "Mr. Don" Oberman is even stronger than Gaou. He's also fluent in many languages and possesses a very keen intellect.
• Kasumi Kenshiro from Fist of the Blue Sky is often found dressed like a nerd, with his nose buried in a book, but he is also the successor of Hokuto Shinken.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Due to the intelligence it requires (essentially a PhD thesis) and the rigors of the job (fight like a One-Man Army), most State Alchemists are either Genius Bruisers or Badass Bookworms.
  • Major Alex Louis Armstrong is also a genius alchemist who happens to have the physique of Conan the Barbarian. Indeed, he's such a skilled alchemist that his combat alchemy is always perfectly sculpted (something no one else is seen to do without spending a lot of extra time).
  • Alphonse Elric was a genius alchemist even before he saw the gate. Oh, and he's a also soul trapped in a seven-foot tall suit of steel armor.
  • Anti-Villain Scar is a capable pseudo-alchemist and a religious leader who is nearly as buff as Armstrong. By the end of the manga, Scar also completes his late brother's research into the merger of Amestrian alchemy and Xingese alkahestry, allowing him to do full alchemy and increasing his already immense combat prowess even further.
  • Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Basque Grand is a giant of a man who towers over even Armstrong, and a feared hand-to-hand combatant who also became the master of an incredibly complex alchemical style that involves creating dozens of fully functioning firearms on the fly.
• Jim Austin from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (and his counterpart, "Lunk" from Robotech).
• Gai from the Getter Robo Go manga is not only beefy and strong, but both the Getter Robo's main mechanic and pilot of Getter 3. He's also maybe a little too obsessed with the Getter Robo. He can be seen wondering aloud if you can truly fall in love with a machine.
• The Major from Ghost in the Shell has a first class military cybernetic body and is a master of both martial arts and tactics. She is also probably one of the best hackers in the entire country, if not even the world.
• Golgo 13: Medical knowledge? check. Mathematical genius? Yup. Oh and he's the world's deadliest assassin with insane combat skills from hand-to-hand to sniping. Of course, you actually need to be a math geek to be good at sniping. Medical knowledge is also pretty useful for an assassin who can't go to a normal hospital that needs to report bullet wounds.
• Sanada Kazuki from Hajime no Ippo is a boxer and a medical student who uses his extensive knowledge of the human body as an advantage in the boxing ring.
• Germany, America, and Russia from Hetalia: Axis Powers. The first is a 6 feet tall warrior with a knack for making clocks and one of the few charas with lots of common sense in this world, the second is a cheerful Genius Ditz with Super-Strength, and the third is a rather unstable brute with a knack for computer hacking.
• Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku's Aza Chobe's fighting style is just sheer brute strength and whatever weapon he can get his hands on. His greatest asset in combat and life in general however, is his ability to assess and adapt to a situation faster than anyone. He turned a group of bandits accosting him and his brother over to his side as a young boy through this, and eventually ruled over them as "Bandit King".
• In Hunter × Hunter, two members of the Genei Ryodan fit the bill. Uvogin looks like a savage brute, but he can fight quite intelligently when he faces skilled opponents. Case in point: he defeats three skilled assassins after they have already paralyzed him from the neck down. Franklin looks like a Frankenstein's monster, but he's a Gentle Giant (to the other members of the Genei Ryodan anyway) who is able to mediate between the others (no small feat since they are all vicious criminals) by using logic whenever they are about to come to blows.
• Izumo/Gyu-oh from the anime Inuyasha qualifies for this. By day, he is a pure human and shows his great intelligence. He was able to make copies of the sacred jewel (even if they weren't as strong as the original), and has designed a brilliant plan to lure Inuyasha and his friends into a trap. Even Miroku, who is also very intelligent, couldn’t comprehend his plan until it was too late. At night, he turns into a demon, however, and is then very strong. In the fight against Inuyasha, who is strong even for a half-demon, he was a powerful opponent.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Jotaro Kujo has a Stand which specializes purely in exceptional strength and speed, without any of the fancy tricks that other Stands have until he randomly gains time stopping powers at the end of his arc. According to his enemies, however, what makes him most dangerous is his ability to think on his feet and out-strategize the enemy. His career path?? A PhD in marine biology, so that's Dr. Kujo to you.
  • As well as every other "JoJo" from Part 1 through 4. Despite being hulking masses of muscle, or at least having their major fighting ability being pure fists, their wits and quick thinking are what get them out of otherwise fatal conundrums, although they had a bit of Indiana Jones-flair to them.
  • Jonathan Joestar, protagonist of the very first story arc, was already a published authority on archaeology before graduating. He also defeated an immortal vampire before and after learning Hamon.
  • Dio Brando not only has immense physical strength and a large array of offensive powers as an immortal vampire, but also has a massive personal library and an actual law degree.
  • Joseph Joestar, full stop. He's as musclebound as his grandpa Jonathan, but not only is Joseph 10x more cunning, he's willing to exploit cheap tactics and be as tricky as possible instead of just using physical force. In later story arcs, not only is he still kicking ass in his late 60s and 70s, but he's also a business mogul.
  • Joylne Kujo much like her father and great grandfather is exceptionally cunning and is able use her wits to use her Stand (which isn’t too crazy powerful as Stands go) in a great variety of effective and genius ways making her very powerful in her own right. The fact she’s able to outwit even The Chessmaster Pucci on a few occasions of is further proof of this.
  • Joseph's foes in Part 2, the Pillar Men, were also extremely powerful and intelligent, especially Wammuu. Joseph only prevailed against them by out-thinking them. When that wasn't enough in the end, only pure instinct saved him.
• Jujutsu Kaisen has Aoi Todo, an enormous macho man who comes off as a weird girl-obsessed lunkhead, but is actually a weird girl-obsessed master tactician whose specialty is tricking and disorienting his enemy, rapidly switching the places of objects by clapping and misdirecting his foes as to how his ability works.
• Kogarashi the Maid Guy in Kamen no Maid Guy reveals that he attended MIT (gives lectures, point of fact) and is quite intelligent, even if his idea of service tends to be a bit rough. Not quite what one would expect from his appearance as a musclebound man in a dress.
• Kengan Ashura has Julius Reinhold, who is introduced to the reader as The Brute and the World's Strongest Man, noted that he's taken enough steroids to kill the average person. Feats of strength by him include blocking a roundhouse kick by flexing his neck muscle, crumpling a massive barbell into a sphere with his bare hands, and throwing a man into a stone wall hard enough to shatter it. However, he reveals that in fact, you don't become as powerful as him by being an idiot: in fact, he's actually exceptionally well-learned, having studied human physiology, various strength training methods, sports tactics, and even physics, all in the name of creating a body he considers "the acme of German medicine." Despite this, he's still Unskilled, but Strong; in his view, relying on martial arts technique with a body like his would only be a sign of cowardice.
• Akisame from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: master martial artist, but he's more famous for his artistic and intellectual abilities than for his ability to make men five times his size his bitch in less than a minute. His artistic ability is world famous and all of his works of art are priceless. He learned how to hack computers in less than five minutes by watching someone else do it. He regularly builds training machines by hand that would put the Saw movies to shame. He once built a Buddha statue by hand from the wreckage of a radio tower in the middle of a fight to use as a weapon (his opponent, an artist himself, was amazed), and singlehandedly designed a workout regimen that brings out 100 percent of the human body's muscular potential. He can throw stone Buddha statues around like paper weights, but he much prefers meditation, learning, and philosophy to kicking ass, probably because he's already mastered the art of whoopass.
• Marco Owen from King of Thorn. A Tattooed Crook and extremely badass Action Survivor, he's also a brilliant computer hacker. In fact, that's what got him sent to prison in the first place — it wasn't until after he was behind bars that he started pumping iron and taking levels in badass.
• Some of the men who practice at Hiyori's dojo in the Kotoura-san anime are college graduates, coming from prestigious universities like Tokyo University and Harvard.^note In the manga her family runs a cult, so this trope doesn't apply.
• Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear stars Yuna, a 15-year Teen Genius in the stock market who is shown to be successful enough in trading to have earned millions of dollars in her bank account from this field. When she is transferred into her favorite VRMMO, she obtains the absurdly silly but powerful Bear Suit; it grants her incredible amounts of physical and magical power, and what little limitations it does have, Yuna circumvents through creative application of her magic and surrounding environment. This lets her fight at the level of legendary adventurers and defeat countless monsters easily, such as a 50-meter Black Viper that consumed countless people and cows without a second thought, a hundred-strong army of goblins plus their giant, ferocious King Goblin, and much later still, a Kraken.
• Admiral Dozle Zabi of Mobile Suit Gundam is a brilliant commander and a seven-foot badass who pilots a walking Weapon of Mass Destruction (the infamous Big Zam). His Dying Moment of Awesome remains one of the most epic moments in the franchise.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin amps up both sides: on the bruiser side, when the car he was on with his brother Sasro explodes he kicks the door out of the hinges and emerges with Sasro's body in his arms demanding to know who dared, and during the battle of Loum he bends a metal tube with a single hand by accident; on the genius side, he was at one point the headmaster of Zeon's military academy, when Garma led the cadets into attacking the Federation garrison he correctly determined that Char was the real culprit and had manipulated his brother, before Loum he sees that the other generals and admirals are intimidated by the Federation's overwhelming superiority and motivates them with a simple reminder that if they lose they'll be all hanged as war criminals, and is the one who came up with the idea of the mobile suit and its tactical doctrine to begin with. While the tactic used to decimate the Federation fleet at Loum was Gihren's plan and the trap was prepared by Kycilia, Dozle was the one who made it possible to begin with and correctly applied it.
• Balsa from Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is highly intelligent as well as a capable warrior.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Katsuki Bakugo. If you assume that violent equals dumb, he will make you regret it — he has the third-best grades in the class, ahead of Izuku and only behind Tenya Iida and Momo Yaoyorozu. He is also very capable of creating intelligent strategies if his favored method of combat (Attack! Attack! Attack!) fails to do the job.
  • The aforementioned Tenya Iida is at the head of his class. In addition to being a straight-A student, he also has impressive physical capabilities: while not as overwhelmingly powerful as Midoriya or Bakugo, the engines in his legs, combined with his runner's physique, make him formidable in battle.
  • Izuku Midoriya himself becomes this. He was already a smart kid with some of the highest grades in his class, but with the power of One for All, he's got Super-Strength and Super-Speed to back his smarts up. Midoriya also cleverly figures out the limits and dangers of the power by studying it, which is highly beneficial as he can effectively use his strength and other powers without crippling or killing himself. He also has excellent leadership and strategy skills that even the aforementioned Momo admires.
  • Shoto Todoroki is easily as smart as his previously mentioned peers and shows it frequently, such as using his fire and ice powers in nuanced ways and is able figure out, deduce, and theorize solutions when he and friends are faced with problems and tricky opponents.
  • Sorahiko Torino a.k.a. Gran Torino is strong enough to knock out several capable villains using his Super-Speed and thanks to being a wise old man, he’s got a very keen and experienced intellect. In fact, he's the one who taught All-Might himself.
• Jack Rakan in Negima! Magister Negi Magi, though he does his very best to pretend to be a moron. In his own words, he's more experienced than smart.
  • Negi himself also counts. He is very able of coming up with ellaborate strategies, he is academically gifted, and he has been trained into a powerhouse.
• Naruto: Shikamaru Nara is one of the most intelligent characters in the series, with him having an IQ of over 200, however he still proves his worth in battle, with one of his most notable fights being against the immortal Akatsuki member Hidan.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Asuka Langley Sohryu was the best fighter and Humongous Mecha pilot in the series. She was out of college by the age of 14. Her Rebuild of Evangelion counterpart is no slouch, being a European Air Force captain at the same age as her.
• One Piece:
  • Whitebeard is the World's Strongest Man and yet able to match wits with Fleet Admiral Sengoku during the Battle of Marineford. If he wasn't, the Whitebeard Pirates and their allies would have been finished earlier than expected. In fact, it seems that both Sengoku and Whitebeard consider the other their Worthy Opponent.
  • Montblanc Noland, a highly-skilled botanist, doctor, and explorer, who can also effortlessly behead a giant snake and equal Jaya's strongest warrior in a duel.
  • Among the Straw Hat Pirates, Franky, Sanji, and, to a lesser extent, Chopper and Robin also qualify:
    • Franky is a comically large-fisted cyborg, and also a massively talented engineer who designed and built the Straw Hats' current ship, the Thousand Sunny, as well as fully functioning robotic prostheses out of random junk from scratch.
    • Sanji is part of the "Monster Trio" (the three inhumanly strong Straw Hats) alongside Luffy and Zoro (though it's not immediately obvious just by looking at him). He is also the smartest of the three, a skilled tactician whose strategies and planning have saved the entire crew on numerous occasions (such as in the Little Garden, Alabasta, Water 7, Enies Lobby, and Zou arcs). Luffy himself actually calls Sanji a genius after one of his more brilliant plans in Enies Lobby, which involved rendering an entire battle fleet useless.
    • Chopper is a Genius Ditz version of this due to his naiveté and innocence. He can be massive and monstrous (especially in his aplty-named Monster Point) and is a doctor with extensive knowledge of human anatomy.
    • Robin is also a noteworthy example especially in the New World where she’s beefed up power-wise. Her academic nature is without question being a expert archeologist who can decipher the poneglyphs, but she’s also a powerful fighter in her own right with her Devil Fruit. This especially clear when she gets her Demonio Fleur Super Mode in Wano which gives Robin a much greater level of strength than she usually has (especially compared to the boys).
  • There’s many villainous examples (sometimes overlapping with The Chessmaster) such as Kuro, Don Krieg, Crocodile, Enel, Rob Lucci, Doflamingo, Vinsmoke Judge and Queen. However, Breakout Villain Charlotte Katakuri is the best recent example, as he will take any advantage in battle, deny the Transformation Is a Free Action rule, and also aid his family in combat using his Devil Fruit powers. Needless to say, he gave Luffy the beatdown of a lifetime.
• In Pokemon: The Legend of Thunder, Buson fits this, even though he's only shown to fight using his Pokémon. He's incredibly muscled, keeps showing off his powerful arms, and despite his crude sense of humor is the techie in his two-man army. His production sketch has a note saying he's a tanuki personality (his partner is a kitsune, and tanuki are known for being clever and sneaky while giving the impression of stupidity).
  • And in the Pokémon Adventures manga, there's Wild Child Sapphire, who can easily kick ass with her own bare hands. Despite the fact that she can't read, helping her father out in his studies means that she has a near encyclopedic knowledge of Pokémon biology and ecology. She gets a great moment in proving it, too — before challenging Gym Leader Roxanne, all trainers must take an aptitude test. Although Sapphire has a bit of trouble with the longer words, once she gets past those she gets a perfect score on the first try.
• The Prince of Tennis:
  • Choutarou Ohtori is a softspoken musician... as well as a youth around tall with an frighteningly powerful serve.
  • Gin Ishida is a huge player form Shitenhouji who has developed the Hadokyuu, a tennis shot with 108 variations, two of them also used by his younger brother Tetsu and by Takashi Kawamura.
  • Munehiro Kabaji is around tall at the age of 13 and can copy almost any tennis style with ease.
    • In the fanbooks Kabaji is also confirmed to have an exceptionally high IQ, with a mention of him possibly becoming a brilliant lawyer or doctor in the future. He'd also make a really good House Husband.
  • Both Sadaharu Inui and Renji Yanagi, the most famous Data Players, are over tall; in fact, Inui's serve is the second strongest one in the circuit, right after Ohtori's.
  • Genichirou Sanada is a fearsome leader and player as well as a kendo practitioner, and he's just a little shorter than Renji.
• The eponymous protagonist of Riki-Oh can punch through concrete walls, shrug off blades and bullets and kill men and beasts alike bare-handed, yet he shows a lot of knowledge of history and human anatomy.
• On the bruiser part, Minako of Sailor Moon is the most experienced of the Sailor Soldiers, who in the manga can casually destroy the physically strongest of the Sailor Soldiers if she has reason to. On the genius part: while Book Dumb, she can learn pretty much everything in record time if motivated, is a master tactician, can speak perfect English, sing and perform as an idol, work as a manga artist (this is the one thing she actually called difficult), and learn how to use ofuda after seeing them in action. The only reason you don't notice often is that she's a Genius Ditz and plays up her ditziness...
• Leo Regulus from Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas may be Leo Aiolia's expy, but he has something Aiolia never had: brains. Not only is he a "fighting genius", he's a child prodigy (it was implied that he was one in general) and can outwit much older and more experienced opponents even without his considerable strength. Too bad his ultimate technique backfired on him because his body couldn't handle it.
• Benares from 3×3 Eyes is an enormous man with massive muscle and capable of great physical prowess even when his weakened body fails to completely regenerate due to his master being a Sealed Evil in a Can. He's also one of the greatest sorcerers in the demon world and the creator of the Juuma magic system.
• Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it: Professor Ikeda is a man of science and the leader of the Ikeda lab. He is also extremely fit, able to crush a pen with one hand and lift a whiteboard taller than an adult above his head with one hand and grip it hard enough to crack it. In his first appearance, he Hulks Out when Kosuke admits he didn't read any of his assigned papers.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: Escanor, bearer of the Lion's Sin of Pride and one of the titular sins, bounces between this and a Guile Hero. This is because his power levels vary from a pathetic weakling at night to one of the strongest characters in the story as noon approaches. Even in his weak form, he is a cunning and dangerous foe. When his friends found him in the story, it was night and they were chased by two powerful demons from the Ten Commandments. He hides his friends and stalls the demons by getting them pissed drunk and plays opossum until the sun began to rise, and so did his strength and pride. After enough time, he challenged Galand to combat, beating him with no effort and Melascula, who tries eating his soul, finds it too spicy and is burned alive from the inside. Later, when two other demons had manipulated another friend to attack him, he made a declaration to destroy those who prey on people's emotions that on the surface seems to be towards his friend, as his friend is telepathic and just tried mind raping Escanor. Instead, his powerful attack doesn't hit his friend but the demons, giving an opening for Meliodas to attack them.
• All the center players in Slam Dunk. Specially Takenori Akagi, who's tall and is not only the Shohoku captain, but a straight A student (There's a quite funny scene where Kogure explains this to Sakuragi and both he and Rukawa imagine a gorilla in a school uniform).
• Soul Eater. Franken Stein. PhD. Vivisected his best friend on a regular basis. Has issues differentiating between reality and his own stream of consciousness. And is the absolute hands-down strongest fighter for Shibusen when he is in his lucid phases.
  • Though he was anything but lucid when he sliced Medusa in two. In fact, his madness at that point is the reason why he was capable of striking even when the snake's arrow was at his neck.
• The title character from Space Adventure Cobra has superhuman levels of strength, agility and endurance, as well as a deadly Arm Cannon. But he's primarily a Gentleman Thief with numerous talents, from mechanics to art history, and he often beats his enemies by outwitting them rather than by brute force.
• Lionel "Pops" Racer is a designer and builder of cutting-edge racing cars and engines, with the Mach 5 being his crowning glory. He was also a wrestling champion in his high school years and has only gotten bigger and stronger since then, as many thugs have found out the hard way.
• SPY×FAMILY: Loid Forger AKA Agent Twilight is a spy working for Westalian Intelligence, being their best agent due to his immense intelligence and skills in hand-to-hand combat, which made him an adaptive and versatile fighter during intensive bouts.
• Lordgenome of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Genetic engineer responsible for the entire Beastman race. Master hacker. Thousands of years old, with an immense and thorough knowledge of the Anti-Spirals and the workings of Spiral Energy. Considers using his mecha in a fight to be holding back. Trashes mecha several times larger than himself. Catches on fire from sheer awesomeness when he's about to beat the crap out of things. Instead of being vaporized by a big bang, he turns it and himself into a giant drill. Yeah.
• As a wrestling manga, any particularly smart character in Tiger Mask is one by default:
  • Giant Baba was noted as the physically strongest fighter of the Japan Wrestling Association. He was also a master technician that could not be fooled.
  • Tiger Mask himself, most notably through the complex yet brutally effective techniques he came up with.
  • Mr. Question may have been the physically weakest wrestler in the series (owing to him being seventy years old), but his intelligence was evident in his ability to dissect, learn and/or counter any move he saw and make it look easy.
  • According to Mr. X, Technician Miracle 3 knew all the strengths and weaknesses of the other challengers for the NWA Maskmen Championship through his sheer smarts and having seen them fight at least once. He proves it when he counters the Fujiyama Tiger Breaker in a way Tiger Mask had not been ready for even if he had reversed all other counters until then, the method also requiring exceptional strength and agility (in fact only Strongman Miracle 3 could ever apply it).
    • His anime counterpart, Tiger the Great, is just as smart and even stronger, and is only defeated due a combination of him being unable to anticipate just how terrifying Tiger Mask would become after getting unmasked during a match and poor pain and hit tolerance from never having faced someone who could actually hurt him before Tiger Mask.
• As the sequel to Tiger Mask, Tiger Mask W has its fair share too:
  • The new Tiger Mask is physically almost as formidable as the original, and he too came up with complex yet brutally effective Finishing Moves and a variant of the second to counter the one counter, one that led to him being able to use the full power variant due the victim having suffered a Game-Breaking Injury from getting out of the variant.
  • Tiger the Dark, the one who came up with the counter for Tiger Mask's first finishing move.
  • Fukuwara Mask pulled off the Charlie Brown from Outta Town trope successfully in a series where the trope regularly fails because of it.
  • Tiger the Great the Third is Tiger the Great's Legacy Character. His plans and strategies are top notch, and in combat he's The Juggernaut.
• Tokyo Ghoul:
  • Koutarou Amon is primarily known for his Heroic Build, but graduated Valedictorian from the Academy. His investigative talents were honed by his mentor, Mad Scientist Kureo Mado.
  • Yukinori Shinohara is another man known primarily for his Heroic Build and incredible endurance, being a highly-decorated veteran in the field. But he briefly retired to work as an Instructor at the Academy, and demonstrates his considerable intelligence while explaining various complex subjects to his Book Dumb partner.
  • The legendary Hero Killer, the One-Eyed Owl. It is primarily known for its incredible strength, and normally appears as a massive armored creature that bulldozes through anything in its path. But beneath that armor, it's actually The Chessmaster and a highly-acclaimed novelist. A glimpse of one of its private hideouts reveals a sizable library, and Franz Kafka appears to be a particular favorite.
• Toriko has extensive knowledge about everything from biology to botany, which he uses to explain all of the incredible ingredients and almost supernatural environments they come across in a scientific manner. As do many of the other characters in the series, regardless of appearance.
• Vash the Stampede from Trigun beside his Improbable Aiming Skills, superior strength, speed, durability, an Arm Cannon and other Plant abilities has IQ greater than any human. Vash shows his smarts constantly in a fight using chewing gum to jam a gun, a trashcan lid to block bullets, some explosives, and a bank vault door as a battening ram and cover or just throwing his fallen foe’s gun to knock out another mook.
• Vinland Saga: Magnificent Bastard that he is, Askeladd can tear heads off with the best of them. And "the best of them" in this case can take out 30+ experienced warriors with their bare hands.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Jose, the member of the Three Nobles of Yliaster who represents Aporia's elderly self, is both the strongest and smartest member; he has the knowledge and experience of Aporia's full lifetime, and in one memorable scene, was able to lift Sherry's D-Wheel with her on it. (The purpose of the scene was to give a display of how dangerous he was.) Later, when he, Placido, and Lucciano assume their true form as Aporia, they become even smarter and stronger, for the most part.

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