Gonk - Television Tropes & Idioms

Pretty much the only way in anime to make someone ugly or unusual looking is to do it deliberately and often non-subtly. If a character is not attractive looking, they're usually absurdly ugly. The result can be extremely jarring if it deviates too much from the rest of the show's look, although it tends to be more tolerated in comedies and non-human characters.

This is because of Generic Cuteness. Occasionally, Artistic Age means that Gonk has to be applied to make older characters seem downright decrepit in order to seem older than the generically young cast.

Not to be confused with a certain type of power droid

, which looks more like a walking trashcan/safe.

Also not to be confused with The Gonk

, which is a silly, rather ironic and totally awesome tune from the original Dawn Of The Dead.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Most fat characters in anime suffer from some level of Gonk. Examples include:
- Though just as often regarded as physical pinnacles, Sumo wrestlers are occasionally referenced in anime as being gonk.
- Leiji Matsumoto characters come in two flavors: catalogue model & gonk. Notably examples of the latter include Captain Harlock's sidekick Tochiro (and his seemingly endless line of identical ancestors. How a family line with men that ugly manages to continue one for so many millenia is the greatest mystery of the Leijiverse) as well as most of the other men on the captain's crew of Jolly Space Pirates (Harlock makes a point of not recruiting anybody handsomer than he is, since he also has several beautiful women on the ship). Most incarnations of 999's Tetsuro are also very gonkish, though he was considerably bishified in The Movie. Also, the entire population of Earth, sans cyborgs, during the Big Fat Future of the manga's second story arc.
- Oh come now, Tochiro, Tetsuro (TV ver) and their ilk may not be lookers but they're not hideous.
  - Well, in their usual outfits, they are gonk. But that might simply be because if they dressed to show off better features they'd have to beat the ladies off with a stick. I mean, look at that nose...
- A number of anime will have impromptu cheerleading squads show up that will always include a female Gonk that will go without comment. Examples include Yu Gi Oh and Yawara.
Okada from Alive The Final Evolution, The only power-user whose overweight. He sweats constantly, may have a subtle hentai (Japanese porn) fetish, and suffers from an inferiority complex due to his physical appearance. His power involves killing victims who break their "promises" (for ex. two guys are killed when they call him fat despite being promised not to say so). Don't forget Han and ratty scientist Kairu. Oh, I can't forget Okada, crazy stalker girl. (She becomes much prettier after losing weight later)
Dan in Bamboo Blade is short and has a head shaped like an acorn. Yet he's got a girlfriend, is ranked high in the school, can draw very well, and is shaping up to be good at kendo. He's probably the luckiest male in the entire show, and most fans think him a victim of a Ping Pong Club Lawyer Friendly Cameo.
The anime Basilisk features some downright grotesque character designs. Tokugawa Ieyasu has a deformed chin that looks like a sack of huge testicles under his head◊.
Several of the less important shinigami characters in Bleach - but most of the shinigami outside the main cast are just comic relief/cannon fodder, so this is understandable.
- Also, Nnoitra. He doesn't even look remotely human.
It's a blip, but one episode of Cromartie High School took place in what was basically a gender-flipped version of the main (male) characters' high school. This Troper need only comment that the "girls" in the school were very much as if the delinquents were crossdressing... poorly. Moustaches and all!
Desert Punk has quite a few. If a character is unnamed or over 40, chances are they're gonks. The titular character is pretty normal looking but becomes gonked out if he's doing something disturbing.
The Puchuu in Excel Saga are cute mascot characters whose faces become Gonk (resembling scarred, haggard manga assassin Golgo13) when they are injured or killed.
- Sumiyoshi from Excel Saga.
In Ga-Rei, anyone who isn't a main character or relatively young is ugly. It's a bit jarring to see the really attractive Kagura next to the extremely old-looking Fujiko, for example.
Getter Robo teams always have "The fat guy", with varying levels of gonk. Musashi from the original looks a bit gonkish, especially compared to his impossibly handsome teammates (and his ridiculous, slapped together "uniform" doesn't help, either), but most of the subsequent incarnations had Musashi or his equivalent drawn with the similar rugged good looks to his compatriots. Kaede from the all girl Getter Robo Zan team is probably the gonkiest of all the Getter pilots (being a Distaff Counterpart of Musashi), but then again all the girls on that team are pretty homely by anime standards.
- When you compare the likes of Musashi, Benkei, and Gai to the worst this trope has to offer I think it's a little harsh to call them outright gonky just because they're big.
  - Far, FAR more gonkish are "Build Angels" Mido and Monko of Kotetsushin Jeeg. Mido is tall and slender to a creepy degree, while Monko might have been able to pass for a bodybuilder-style Hot Amazon if she didn't look like she had a man's face pasted onto her body.
An unusual example in a serious anime is the sinister Kazundo Gohda (or Gouda) from GitS: 2nd Gig, whose face was hideously disfigured in an accident. Gohda decided not to have his face rebuilt because his new appearance made him distinctive. This is deliberately contrasted with Hideo Kuze, the show's nominal (but less villainous) villain, whose prosthetic body wears a handsome mask-like face.
Girls Saurus: Ichigo. Sweet mother of god, Ichigo
Kare Kano featured a flashback of a guy who had considerably improved his appearance since he was a child. He's drawn in a completely different style than everyone and vaguely resembles a Fisher Price toy.
Kemeko from Kemeko Deluxe. Short, ugly and yet thrown into more outfits and situations than a character of this type should be in.
- Curiously, when seen early on in some sort of maintenance bath, Kemeko appears to be patently feminine, only to revert the instant it's cleaning cycle is finished.
Deconstructed on three separate occasions in MAR, all of them by villains from the Chess Pieces.
- The first gonk, Rapunzel, is an extremely ugly, hag-like 29-year-old whose sensitivity about her appearance has turned her into a violent, murderous, backstabbing psychopath who enjoys killing everything that's "ugly" to her, especially women.
- The second gonk, Emokiss, is equally sensitive, though unlike the previous example her ugliness is self-inflicted, as she's constantly seen eating. She actually destroys her sentient Guardian ÄRM after it comments on her ugliness.
- The third gonk, Kouga, is not NEARLY as sensitive as the previous two; his problem is that, because of his ugly face, he has become delusional that ugliness equals goodness. Because of this, naturally, he is the only one of the three gonks in MAR whose sheer disgust for beautiful people is actually genuine, and NOT from denial.
Ryu from Mobile Suit Gundam is a bit of a borderline case, as he's usually drawn in a slightly different style than most of the main characters, but he's not really ugly (in fact, in the novels Sayla has a bit of a crush on him before she ends up getting together with Amuro).
Several characters in Mononoke are like this.
Justified in Naru Taru with Sato's fiancee, whose odd appearance is due to Down's Syndrome.
Rock Lee from Naruto has strange, perfectly circular eyes with pronounced bottom lashes, as well as Big Ol Eyebrows and a super-shiny bowl cut.
- Konohamaru's early attempts to perform the Sexy no Jutsu were frequently comically grotesque. An entire early episode was devited to his mastery of it.
- One of the Tsuchikage's bodyguards is a giant name Akatsuchi who has big fat cheeks, a bowling bin-shaped body, and a bulbous nose. In fact, the Tsuchikage himself also has an even weirder looking nose.
Alvida from One Piece, when we first see her. Then she eats the Slip Slip Devil Fruit between story arcs and becomes incredibly slippery... and slender. And everyone's object of lust. Luffy can't recognize her on first glance, and she was the first villain he fought.
- And much later we have Kokoro and Lola, as well as the island of Amazon Lily, who's population is roughly equal parts Gonk and Hot Amazon.
- No discussion of One Piece Gonkiness regarding the obese is complete without Satori, Hotori and Kotori (whose bodies are, in fact, perfect spheres in addition to being ugly), and ESPECIALLY Fukurou.
- Also: Wanze and Duval. So Gonky that repeated kicks to the face rendered them better looking.
  - And Duval happens to look exactly like the poorly drawn wanted poster of Sanji, which in and of itself is Gonky in how it exaggerates Sanji's attributes, especially his spiral eyebrow.
- OMG, we forgot one: 'Admiral' Nelson◊, from one of the anime's fillers. Aside from being rather ugly, what REALLY makes him stand out is how very fat he is.
  - Also Wapol. The guy ate "himself" to become thin.
- Emporio Ivankov, a transvestite, has quite an odd facial expression with a face locked into an almost perpetual grin and eyes wide open. Mr. 2 also has quite an odd face for being a crossdresser, enough so that when he decided to make the world's weirdest face from a collection of all the faces he's encountered, he only had to add Usopp's nose.
A strange example occurs in Ouran High School Host Club when the host club does this in an attempt to cheer up Haruhi. Since the show already has quite a few crossdressers, they (with the exception of Kyouya, natually) end up in hilariously overdone makeup to make the situation funny.
Pani Poni Dash has several, most notably Yankee, whose picture is at the top, and the hordes of identical Itou-sans. Then there's the characters who are drawn to look very similar to their real life originals, which...doesn't quite mesh with the Puni Plush cuteness of the rest...the Tommy Lee Jones Circa Men In Black for example is especially jarring, as he's mostly seen with Ichijou...who often sports an even simpler face than normal.
Me-Mania in Perfect Blue. NOT played for laughs.
Noteable exception — Princess Nine's Mao Daidouji being heavy-set is important to her characterization, but she is drawn in a realistic style.
One episode of Pokemon D/P: Battle Dimension has Team Rocket stressing over their current fitness, going from delightfully plump to outright gonk.
Konatsu's step-family in Ranma 1/2 is deliberately made hideous, despite them being hostesses at the "Sexy Kunoichi Tea Spot" (a brothel, the reader is made to assume, or at least an extremely exclusive parlor.) His stepsisters are either gangly and monkey-like, or gigantic and with lips so huge they are her entire face. To say nothing of the shrunken, yakuza-faced step-mother. This makes Konatsu by far the most attractive woman, even though he's a guy.
Another exception, Sailor Moon has one of Usagi's schoolfriends who pops up now and then in the first few episodes of the show. She's chubby, but not ugly in any way. She gets Brother Chucked pretty fast along with the rest of Usagi's former friends after other Senshi start showing up and she hangs out with them instead. Sadly, while the other girls had names, this character never did (and this is a show that has been known to give names to the most minor of characters in the guidebooks) so fans can only identify her as "Usagi's Fat Friend".
Several side-characters from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei are drawn completely different from the main cast. Chiri Kitsu shifts to a Gonk as needed.
Actually averted in the film Spirited Away. Miyazaki didn't want his female protagonist Chihiro to be overly beautiful, in order to reinforce her presentation as an average girl at the film's beginning. He managed to succeed at this task without having her look exceptionally ugly or out of place, capturing just the look he was going for.
Kimo-o in the manga Stripe Blue. He's totally unaware of how freaking creepy he looks, and the fact that he also acts like a lunatic doesn't help.
In Team Medical Dragon, it's possible to identify the good and bad guys by one characteristic alone: most of the time, the good guys are drawn incredibly attractively, while evil characters invariably look like the products of 18 generations of inbreeding.
- The villains sure are ugly (as hell), but the sympathetic male characters range from heroically handsome over small and dorky to The Big Guy. The women, of course, are attractive. The patients look sickly.
Tenchi's classmate Kazuhiko Amagasaki (The Fat Guy With The Big Lips And Pimply Nose) in Tenchi Muyo. He appears mostly in Tenchi In Tokyo.
Attenborough from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who is best described as a crazed muppet. In fact, his Fan Nickname is Beamspam McMuppet.
- Leeron may count too, the guy may aim to be a Bishounen, but "he" still looks like a frog.
- Jougan and Balinbou aren't exactly pretty either.
Another exception — In one episode of Tenjou Tenge, we learn where female villain Emi Isuzu keeps all her hidden knives: she's really quite obese, and uses ki techniques to compress her fat and use it to carry concealed weapons. However, her full-sized form is completely Gonk-free, though it doesn't stop Maya (who learns Emi's big secret) from teasing her about it.
- Whether or not it's Gonk-free is really arguable; this editor found it laughably Gonky.
A lot of the lesser villains in Yu Gi Oh!. While Ushio and Kai look rather decent, the others like Kujirada and Nezumi (whose name in case you don't know means 'rat' in Japanese), are outright gonk!
Kimura from Azumanga Daioh, with his perpetually gaunt and slack-jawed expression.
Two Words: Afro Samurai

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Ape Escape: Monkey Yellow is a good example of this. And he (she?) considers himself (herself?) the best-looking character in the series.
Eunice in Bully. Subverted in Beatrice, who would be attractive if she lost the glasses and got some Abreva for her mouth.
The EarthBound (or Mother) series has a few Gonks, primarily in their fat female characters; however, Lardna Minch is their queen. Maybe it's something about how her mouth is bigger than the rest of her head, or how plastic and grotesque her smile is, but it's kind of disturbing.
- If this troper recalls correctly, Lardna is a Palette Swap of other fat women.
- And her son Pokey looks quite disturbing, even for someone of his weight; when he fights alongside Giygas in the final battle, he appears to have blue skin.
Queen Brahne in Final Fantasy IX, who outranks most of the monsters in the game in sheer ugliness for no easily explained reason. This may be a vague dig at Beauty Equals Goodness (compared to the villainous but attractive Kuja) as her subjects usually insist Brahne is a competent and respectable leader, at least pre-game. It particularly bizarre because her daughter doesn't look anything like her which theoretically isn't a problem because Garnet is revealed to not be her biological child. Except that Garnet was adopted by the royal family was because she looked close enough to the real Princess Garnet to take her place, which means that Brahne still had a biological child that looked nothing like her.
- This troper would chalk that down to her having an incredibly attractive husband who had the misfortune of getting an Arranged Marriage, which might explain the daughter that looks nothing like the mother.
  - It could just be that she hasn't aged well. Growing old and not exercising much can do some pretty horrible things to people.
  - Like turning you blue.
Every Fire Emblem game includes one playable gonk. The bandit class seems to be soley composed of these. One gonk by the name of Gheb achieved internet popularity. In fact, one can pretty reliably tell which enemy characters will eventually join the player... they're the ones who don't look like either a monkey's behind or Morticia Addams.
- Gonzales from Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword would like a word...
  - And Oliver, who takes the cake because of his delusion that he's the most beautiful thing in the world despite all evidence to the contrary.
Gannon the carpenter from Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness is considerably less attractive than the other inhabitants of the island. His daughter Eliza, on the other hand, is so cute it hurts.
- The Gourmet. Dear lord, the Gourmet. Some fans are convinced he's not actually human. Island of Happiness and related replaced him with a Cute Shotaro Boy Expy
Most of the characters in the Kunio-kun games are generically cute... except for Misuzu, who is a seven-foot schoolgirl with a head the size of a pumpkin and the face of a middle-aged woman.
In The Legend Of Zelda: The Windwaker, we have Maggie's father. Ew...
Gutsman's operator Dex in the Megaman Battle Network franchise. Naturally, his Star Force Expy Bud also falls under this. Dex looks like some strange obese shark person, while Bud is some obese guy with his hair shaped into horns.
- This might be a possible shout out to Astro Boy 's designs; Osamu Tezuka characters have a distinctive old-school flavor that often looks really strange to newer anime fans.
A non-fat gonk in Persona 4 would be the homeroom teacher, "King Moron," who seriously needs a dentist. Possibly a dentist with a hacksaw.
- And then there's Mitsuo's fish-eyed face, but in his case he's supposed to be unsettling for a different reason.
- Persona 3 has The Gourmet King, but he's nothing on Persona 4's Hanako.
  - This troper's first reaction at seeing Hanako was that she had to be some kind of shadow in human form. Her face, with its full puffy lips, full eyes, and mole, looked like a plastic mask made in mockery of human beauty. Seriously, it's borderline Nightmare Fuel.
  - This troper's reaction to seeing her on the camping trip was comparable to someone first laying eyes on an Eldritch Abomination.
King Hippo from Punch Out is obese and barely looks human. Captain N takes it one step further and gives him blue skin.
Gen-An Shiranui from Samurai Shodown is so terrifically ugly that it is impossible to even tell his species. (He's not a tengu, and he's not an oni, but he definitely isn't human...) Somehow, he not only has a Jungle Princess wife, but a few centuries down the road, his line supposedly includes Ms Fanservice Jiggle Physics queen Mai Shiranui...
- There's also obese Texan ninja Earthquake, and then there's Kusaregedou, a literal Complete Monster who's uglier than Gen-An and Earthquake combined.
Rufus from Street Fighter IV, although as a martial artist, he's definitely in-shape. (Spherical is a shape, right?)
Yohm from Breath Of Fire IV is pretty much the prototypical example of Geezer Gonk. Stick legs, round body, his nose looks like a potato, and the impression one gets is of Anpan Man gone terribly wrong and evil.