Just Eat Gilligan in Anime & Manga.
- The Doraemon Film Series based on the manga, Doraemon, tends to run into these issues (besides Forgot About His Powers), where they do have gadgets to get them out of a fix... but they'll just use it the wrong way. Most of the time, the Time Machine in Nobita's desk is involved.
- Lampshaded in Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops - in the Darkest Hour where the world is about to be destroyed in a Robot War, one of the character (Micross in the original, Riruru in the remake) complains if they could travel back in time to stop all the mess, they will. Shizuka suddenly realize that yes, actually they can - and starts looking for Doraemon's Time Machine.
- Halfway into Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan, Doraemon and friends tries time-travelling back to the Cretaceous age to warn their new friend, Kukuru, and his tribe about Gigazombie's threat, only to realize they arrived too late - Gigazombie's robots already attacked and destroyed the whole village, and enslaved Kukuru and the villagers. The gang embarks on a rescue mission, promptly forgetting their Time Machine which is literally parked behind them and still-functional, where they could still travel back by several days to prevent the attack.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights sees Shizuka trapped in the world of Arabian Nights after entering Nobita's storybook collection and failing to get out in time, and the books getting burnt a few days ago preventing the gang from re-entering those books. Doraemon discovers (somehow) that the fictional universe is seemingly connected to reality at some point in the past, formulates a plan to time-travel back to 8th-Century Arabia via the Time Machine to find a portal and locate Shizuka... when a better way is to travel back to two days ago, before the books are burnt, and retrieve the books right there and then.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- The anime features several occasions where a bad guy could achieve his goal without an obligatory Duel, but nevertheless does one for some unknown reason.
- Sometimes it follows a reasonable logic where Yugi's puzzle will only give up its true powers if someone wins it in a competition which is why we get situations like when Bandit Keith will actually steal the puzzle and THEN stop to duel Yugi anyway. The original manga's version of the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc seems to confirm that you can't just take the puzzle and then expect to be able to use it; Ryuji's father tries to reassemble the puzzle after breaking it, and the puzzle itself starts showing him illusions that cause him to Freak Out and set the building on fire. Of course, this doesn't apply to all the non-Yugi duels that go through the card game for no reason,.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga, Misawa admits that he could have just asked Judai for Asuka's phone number instead of dueling with him, but that his pride would not allow him to do so, and that he wanted to duel Judai.
- But it's in the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds series where they really went too far with it. The police have this device that forces a duel between themselves and the vehicle they're pursuing, which can disable the other vehicle, but only if they defeat the other driver in a children's card game. Bonus points because if they lose that children's card game THEIR vehicle gets disabled. You really have to wonder how someone got away with a pitch for standard-issue police gear that has a built-in function to let criminals get away.
- Even more painful is that duels of the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V series, duels have Solid Vision to make the cards real, and it becomes portable in season 2. However, it's only used once by the main characters in a non-duel situation, to break out of prison, and even that ended with them dueling again. This power could have easily united them when they were separated, or busted their friends when they become slaves later on. Likewise, Security also has access to Solid Vision, but has only been shown using it to stop duelists from simply running away from duels. Averted with Jean-Michel Roget, though: he has Security hold the city council hostage with Solid Vision monsters.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- When Ash competes in a Pokémon League tournament his team usually only consists of the Pokémon he caught in that particular region. He would have a far higher chance of winning if he had Professor Oak switch in a team made up of the strongest Pokémon that he's acquired from the various regions he's visited. In the Sinnoh league, however, he actually uses Pokemon from the previous regions he visited. He reaches semifinals, the furthest he ever got to (until the Kalos league) although he's defeated in the semifinals by a trainer with multiple Olympus Mons. He finally wins a League in Alola, and goes on to become World Champion in the following seasons.
- Team Rocket is best known for trying to steal Pikachu, but they just as often try to steal Pokémon from other people or places. If they simply waited for Ash and his friends to leave whoever they wanted to rob they could do so unhindered. Furthermore, Pokémon they want to steal are often wild or unowned, meaning that instead of using complicated traps and plans to steal them they could simply capture them in Poké Balls and Ash and his friends wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The show even enjoys poking fun of this. Most of Jessie and James' legitimate captures are hilariously effortless. It is also noted that after the events of Sea Temple in Unova, Giovanni himself wanted Pikachu specifically after witnessing its power firsthand and set him as the Jessie and James' primary target, explaining why they couldn't just snatch one from the wild.
- In Patlabor, SV2 Division 2 is often derided for the massive collateral damage they cause while fighting crime...and 90% it is caused by Ohta. Now, his gung-ho, gun-loving attitude is supposed to be Played for Laughs, and he is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, really, but just the same, getting rid of him would've saved SV2 of manu troubles. Note that in the manga version, Ohta is shown to be less incompetent than his anime counterparts. Also note that one of the later TV shows, points out that Ohta is very skilled, "He's never hit a cockpit," Gotoh remarks. Besides, the only other suitable pilots were on command track/or slated to go back to the US in a year. This is reinforced in the second movie, where he cooly demonstrates that he's capable of aiming from the hip with their Humongous Mecha and nailing a moving target. The recruits he was drilling at the time couldn't fathom the purpose of the exercise but were impressed nonetheless.
- In Inuyasha, the heroine has the ability to travel back and forth in time to Ancient Japan. Presumably, she and her friends who remain in the past after the defeat of Naraku could arrange to preserve the information on how it was done in such a way that Kagome could easily discover it in the present, take the information back to the past where the as-yet-undefeated Naraku is still wreaking havoc and use it to defeat him. Of course, trying to explain the logistics of such a paradox-based plan would most likely make all of the characters heads' explode, which would itself end the series right there. But of course, that depends on the exact logistics of the time travel, and, judging from the amount of present-day school she misses, the amount of time she can go back and forth is fixed.
- Blue Seed has this as its central concept. If they had just killed Momiji (normally, that is), the monsters would all be gone and peace would be restored. However, the basis of the series is to find a way to get rid of the monsters without killing her. It's directly discussed at one point in the series that earlier Kushinadas had been sacrificed during the Rite of Matsuri throughout history and the effects of their sacrifices in order to put down the Aragami were only temporary. The characters in the series recognize this and actively try to find a long-term solution.
- Code Geass would have ended much sooner in Lelouch's favor had he abandoned his favoritism and made a much earlier attempt to kill his best friend turned rival Suzaku, or geassed Villetta into forgetting everything that happened during their first encounter. Even sooner if he'd simply made some "Follow all of my orders" commands, which he finally begins throwing around near the end of the second season. There are some (admittedly fairly flimsy) reasons for not doing these things: Lelouch's personal brand of selfishness makes him willing to do anything for the people he cares about at the expense of everyone else (he started his entire war for the sake of his little sister), so it is a recognizable character flaw for him to hold back on Suzaku. He also dislikes taking away people's freedom (it's one of the reasons he hates Brittannia), so he only geasses innocent people temporarily, and his finally being willing to go that extra mile is a sign of his general breakdown. Yes, there is a lot of ambiguity and hypocrisy in his personal code of ethics (which he's well aware of), but he does actually have a reason for not solving his problems this way. His failure to deal with Viletta properly (either by geass or by execution) is certainly a stupid oversight, but could be excused by the stress of his first battle and newly-found powers causing a stupid moment. Partially justified (at least for Viletta) in that Lelouch did not know the limits of his Geass when he used it on her. He only learned his one-use limit during a subsequent episode in which he attempted to geass Kallen twice in a row.
- Inverted in Hoshin Engi. Taikobo decides the best course of action in one of the first chapters is to take the fight directly to Dakki. Just find a way into the palace, catch her when her guard is down, and get the happy ending. The problem is that Dakki is savvy and also a Manipulative Bitch. She knows Taikobo's every move before he makes it and nearly kills him in a pit of snakes. Lampshaded early in a wonderful fourth-wall-breaking moment when Taikobo asks his master Genshi Tenson why doesn't he go and fight Dakki.Taikobo: "If you take care of things, everything will go just fine!"
Genshi Tenson: "Ugh, if I did as you say, this manga would end too soon!" - Ranma ½:
- Not one single character who has gained a curse at the Jusenkyō springs has thought to take a dip in whatever spring would cure them before they leave, despite there being a helpful guide there who happens to know what curse each spring carries. Several episode plots revolve around trying to get back to Jusenkyō, even, and no one explains why they left to begin with.
- There is also a storyline which involves a bar of soap that apparently cures the curse. However at the end of the story we discover that the fix is only temporary. However, it didn't seem to occur to the characters that they could have continued immunity to the curse if they used it every day like, say, one does with a bar of soap.
- Or for the matter when they need to go to China to find the spring to cure their curse why not just take a boat or plane to get there. Ranma could have just swum to China like they did before.
- Haruhi Suzumiya has an odd example where the possible solution is actively prevented by the cast. Haruhi is, unbeknownst to herself, a Reality Warper, and they don't want her to find out because she might bring about The End of the World as We Know It. But she's come close to discovering her powers numerous times, and she's reset the universe once or twice accidentally, so they're only delaying the inevitable. If they just told her directly, at least it wouldn't happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Maybe she could learn to control or suppress her powers consciously. Kyon tries to tell her, but she doesn't believe him, but he later invents what he thinks is a surefire way to convince her. Several novels later, he still hasn't tried it. Also, nobody ever thinks of trying to either attempt to remove her reality-warping powers or simply killing her before she discovers she has the aforementioned reality-warping powers (then again, the latter option would be very drastic). Although given the nature and extent of her powers, neither would likely work, so her friends might as well make contact with one of a magical being she thinks is real like a fairy and wish Haruhi out of existence.
- Sailor Moon:
- The fourth season, SuperS, has a new group of mysterious enemies show up to assault the people of Tokyo. All their monsters are circus-themed, and at the same time, a gigantic, sinister-looking circus tent just shows up in the middle of town without explanation. It's bigger than any building in the city and sticks out like a sore thumb. The Sailor Senshi are among the first to notice it. And then they just go about their lives, refusing to put two and two together and often wondering aloud where all these new enemies could possibly be coming from. Averted in the manga where the Senshi are on to the Dead Moon Circus from almost the beginning of the arc.
- In the second season, R, because of the recent attacks by the Makai Tree Aliens, Luna ends up having to restore the memories of Usagi and the other Inner Guardians to combat this new threat. When it comes to trying to restore the memories of Mamoru (aka Tuxedo Mask), however, Luna never thinks of doing the same thing to him. Even if it wasn't possible due to Mamoru originally being from the Earth Kingdom instead of the Moon Kingdom in Usagi's previous life as Princess Serenity, it could've been worth a try at least.
- Dragon Ball Z:
- A Double Subversion early on during the Saiyan Saga. When the group gathers the Dragon Balls to resurrect Goku, Oolong suggests that they could just wish to kill the evil Saiyans who are on their way to Earth, explaining that if it works they can bring Goku back at their leisure. However, Shenlong explains that wishes can't exceed the power of his creator Kami, and since both of the Saiyans are far stronger than him, such a wish wouldn't work. This also serves to explain why they don't try this tactic again in later story arcs.
- Bulma generally serves as something of an Audience Surrogate for this purpose - whenever an obvious solution to a problem comes up, she's usually the one to point it out. Examples include asking why they couldn't just use the Dragon Balls to kill Raditz (they couldn't gather the Dragon Balls in time) or locate Dr. Gero's lab (The main characters are fight-hungry idiots). Of course, in the latter case, Future Trunks was afraid that if they hadn't trained, Vegeta wouldn't get with Bulma and he might not exist, although he does eventually find out this wasn't necessary. Besides, if they had found Dr. Gero's lab before, they would have all been killed by Cell anyway.
- In general, a lot of these plans either have backdoor reasons why it would've went really poorly if they went through with them, or the villains past the Saiyans are just extremely resilient or have regenerative abilities. Frieza survived an exploding planet after getting cut in half and blown away by Goku. At that point it's just pragmatic to expend all focus in making sure the problem is dealt with first hand.
- Dragon Ball GT:
- In the first arc, when the Black Star Dragon Balls got scattered throughout the galaxy, the Z Fighters thought it was best to build a spaceship and search for them, planet by planet, one at a time. However, the idea of simply using the normal Dragon Balls to wish for all the Black Star ones to appear on Earth never comes up. While this could easily be explained as being outside of Shenron's power (An explanation used in Dragon Ball Super when it was faced with a similar problem) it comes off as odd that there isn't even a throwaway line explaining this. Not even Bulma suggests it, despite her normally being the one to suggest using the Dragon Balls to solve their problems.
- Again in episode 7-8 of GT. A monster named Zoonama threatens to destroy a village with earthquakes unless they give him a bride (it later turns out that Zoonama was only bluffing and doesn't actually have the power to cause earthquakes). For some reason the Z Fighters thought it was best to dress Trunks as a woman, get Zoonama to marry him, then cut off Zoonama's earthquake-causing whiskers while he was asleep during their honeymoon. At no point do the Z Fighters consider just beating up Zoonama and tearing off his whiskers, drive him out of the village, or at the very least, attempting a sneak attack.
- The Hating Girl's central plot point is that the main female character has an arrow through her head because of a childhood archery accident, which has caused her a lot of physical and emotional pain over the years. The arrow can't be removed without possibly causing brain damage, but it's not until almost the end of the manga before it occurs to anyone that she could just cut off the parts that are outside her skull.
- In Squid Girl, the titular character, Ika, is press-ganged by Chizuru into working at her family's beach restaurant after she damages a wall. The none too bright Ika never seems to realize that she could just swim away back into the ocean and reemerge on another beach far away and Chizuru would never be able to find her.
- The last half of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is dominated by the hunt for an unknown serial killer. One of the cast, Joseph, has the ability Hermit Purple, which gives him a decent array of divination abilities (creating pictures of the person, making detailed maps of a location, getting film of a specific place). In fact, the reason he's involved in the series to begin with is that they figured they could use his powers to help track down a different criminal, who ends up not needing to be tracked because he tries to kill Joseph, and gets beaten as soon as he tries. Despite this, nobody so much as suggests to Joseph that he could use his power to at least help locate the killer, as even if there was a chance it couldn't work, at least mentioning that directly would have resolved any potentially issues. It is, however, suggested early on in the series that his "spiritual photography" wouldn't work because of the interfering presence of other Stand users in the town (since, while trying to get a picture of his illegitimate son Josuke, he instead photographs another Stand user, a serial killer nicknamed Angelo), and the way he was to be involved in the search for the other criminal didn't feature the aforementioned ability at all (he was instead tasked to search for his electricity-based Stand, Red Hot Chili Peppers, through the city's power lines it was moving inside of). The fact no-one ask him to as least give it a TRY, however, is questionable.
- Akazukin Chacha has one example: Seravy hates Dorothy's pink hair and prefers the blonde hair she had when she was younger, and some episodes focus on his obsession with her prior self. Episode 62 (one of the episodes where the trio went back in time) reveals that Younger!Dorothy used a spell to change her hair color because Younger!Seravy wouldn't participate in a magic duel she challenged him to. Wouldn't it have been easier for Younger!Seravy to man up and fight her instead of making Younger!Dorothy make her hair "ugly" in his eyes, or better yet, why couldn't Chacha convince Younger!Seravy to man up and fight her while she was still in the past?
- Magic Knight Rayearth would have been over quicker had Clef and co. tried to find the Magic Knights somewhere on Cephiro instead of kidnapping three girls from another dimension and forcing them to become the Magic Knights to save Princess Emeraude. The manga had a Hand Wave for this, saying nobody from Cephiro can harm the Pillar, so there really was no way to avoid getting complete strangers to be taken to Cephiro to fulfill the duty as Magic Knights.
- Charlotte focuses on kids who receive superhuman abilities from a comet of the same name that passes Earth every 75 years. Some of these superhuman abilities have been known to cause trouble, and a secret organization is trying to stop these kids from causing any more trouble, while many other groups want to exploit these superhuman kids' abilities. It never occurs to this organization that they could alert the world's governments to the more troublesome superhuman kids' powers and what Charlotte's comet dust is exactly doing, and possibly lead them into launching a missile into space and destroying Charlotte as soon as the 75-year period between its passings is up.
- Death Note:
- A lot of the death and destruction of the plot would have been avoided if the heroes had destroyed the titular notebook the moment they got it, even if they didn't believed it to be for real (as for keeping it as evidence... scanners and pictures would have surely done the work), or tossed it in a river, or placed it someplace very deep and dark and established that anybody who got close to it would be considered a suspect. The problem then becomes that most of the people in charge of things are hyper-competent chessmaster-types that kept little slivers here and there as backup and/or were crazy-obsessed enough to keep the damn thing around for the sake of proving themselves right, which shouldn't have stopped others like Matsuda from doing that, just in case. This is given a Hand Wave in that Light was crazy-prepared enough to put a fake rule in the Death Note that destroying it would kill everyone who touched it, specifically to avoid this scenario, but by the time the rule was exposed to be fake, Light was already in charge of the investigation.
- The only reason Kira is even able to kill criminals in the first place is because the broadcasts reveal not only their faces but also their real names, even though most news reports in real life not only don't show criminals' names but also blur their faces in order to protect their identities and keep them safe from the public, and many criminals cover their faces specifically to prevent the police from tracking them. Even after Kira's method of killing people is known, the news continues to publicly broadcast criminals' faces and real names, allowing Kira's murders to go uncontrolled. Had governments simply ordered the media not to reveal faces and real names, there would have been a lot fewer casualties and, even better, a better chance of finding the culprit by narrowing down their search if the killings continued in spite of it. L claims that Kira would have gone after the innocent in retaliation had this been the case, but we never see this play out.
- Light also manages to escape a lot of attention by being in Japan at a time when the world wide web was just going. An international Kira in the modern day would get noticed and tracked down by either 4chan or your security agency of choice, which wouldn't even need to monitor Light's house themselves, every search engine and social networking platform would be under immense amounts of pressure to voluntarily turn over their data.
- Dungeon Toilet: Yotaro's weird fixation on passing stool gets his party in trouble more often than not, sometimes to ridiculous extremes. It appears the only reason his companions haven't abandoned or killed him yet is that he very occasionally comes through for them. Of course, if they were to do that, the manga would effectively end — Yotaro and his butt are the primary sources of the manga's content.
- Sakura Minamoto in Zombie Land Saga wouldn't have been involved with Franchouchou if she hadn't been hit by a truck and died had she been careful.
