Right-Hand Hottie

Behind every powerful man (or woman, occasionally), there is a secretary, assistant, or aide to keep his schedule and organize the paperwork. This character is usually calm and meticulous, is likely to wear a crisply pressed suit, and may add a pair of dashing glasses. In other words, they're a perfect excuse to throw in a little Fanservice. Because Most Writers Are Male, this tends to take the form of the Sexy Secretary, but sometimes (especially in works that lean towards a female audience), it'll be an attractive guy: the Right-Hand Hottie.

If the boss is also a hot guy, there's opportunity for Ho Yay via Subordinate Excuse, for additional Mr. Fanservice value.

Despite the name, this doesn't need to be The Dragon.

Spear Counterpart to the Sexy Secretary. If they are more than fanservice they function as The Face.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• Johann on the Gevalia Coffee commercials
• Joe Namath was an "Olivetti Boy".

Anime and Manga

• Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight!: Yajima is a modestly handsome salaryman who's usually dressed in a suit shirt (typically with the sleeves rolled up), necktie, and glasses. He serves as the assistant manager at the Space Wolf gravure modelling agency under his boss/mentor figure, Sanada.
• Descendants of Darkness: Grouchy old man Chief Konoe has hot secretary Seiichiro Tatsumi.
  • Tatsumi actually replaced Konoe in the main cast. In his original appearance, he was a featureless megane-type labelled 'secretary.' Then he got a little development, was young and gorgeous, and started getting all the scolding-boss scenes, with increasing levels of terrifying. Once it was established he completely controlled all the money and had history with Tsuzuki, Konoe was pretty much entirely relegated to background and being that guy who's actually aware of the Ancient Conspiracy. Whatever it was.
  • With the result that the audience will probably never know what Sagdanasu was talking about way back in The Devil's Trill when he listed all the secrets he'd dug out of Tsuzuki's mind and said, "I even know about you, Konoe!"
• 100% Perfect Girl: Prince Jarte (himself no slouch in the looks department) has two: His secretary and head of intelligence Benjamin, who is very pretty, has little glasses and butt-length hair, and Kairen, the head of the secret service, who is pretty and pouts a lot.
• Sai, secretary to the Millenium Prime Minister, complete with long pretty hair and a massive case of unrequited love.
• More yaoi than you can shake a large, suggestively-shaped stick at, as it's a standard plot.
  • Especially in Boku no Sexual Harassment, where the uke Mochizuki is told by the seme Honma to sex-up his way through the company he works.
• Kyoya from Ouran High School Host Club, who practically runs the whole club behind Tamaki. And why yes there are hints of a homoerotic undercurrent.
• K: Red King's right hand, Izumo Kusanagi, The Smart Guy, sophisticated, with Cool Shades and just enough attitude to fit well with HOMRA, in contrast to the Blue King's right hand, Seri Awashima, the series's infamous lone Ms. Fanservice in the Cast Full of Pretty Boys. The two of them actually meet and share information, even while their Clans are still enemies. They also have quite a bit of Ship Tease. But for their separate Clans, they tend to be the logical ones who arrange all of the details of the big plans, and ensure that they are enacted smoothly.
• Reborn! (2004), has G, Giotto (Vongola Primo)'s glasses-wearing right-hand man. In the anime, there is even an episode where G demonstrates this. Gokudera seems to have turned into this in the future.
• Rei Hino's father had one in the Sailor Moon manga, a young man named Kaidou. He's a Big Brother Mentor to Rei, though she harbors a crush on him for a while.
• Frieza from Dragon Ball Z had his general/assistant Zarbon, a fighting narcissist whose good looks managed to make Bulma fall in love with him the second she laid eyes on him. She lost interest quickly after he transformed...
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Isolationist!Japan has the Moe Anthropomorphism of the Osaka Prefecture handling his meetings with the only nation he meets up with, Netherlands.
  • In the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010 England has a very Tall, Dark, and Handsome secretary named Maurizio, temporarily dubbed "Workbitch Bartholomew by fans" until his name was revealed.
    • And in the "Can't Escape from Italy" strips/episodes, England had another Tall, Dark, and Handsome aidé, a spy named Howard. Fans speculate that, since he and Maurizio look alike, he may be Howard's relative (possibly his grandson)
• Kanon◊ from Code Geass, with emphasis on the Ho Yay. He claims to aid his boss Schneizel "in both public and private," and this official artwork◊ (possibly NSFW) suggests that the creators were quite aware of the innuendo. He's not particularly hypercompetent, though—Schniezel can manage well enough on his own.
• Rurouni Kenshin gives us Makoto Shishio's girlfriend and caretaker Yumi Komagata.
• Variable Geo: In the OVA, Reimi Jahana has a personal aide and adjutant, named Washio, whom she's also secretly involved with. When she becomes suspicious of Damian, she has Washio keep tabs on him. Which is how she eventually learns about the "Black Goddess" project.
• In Brave10, Yukimura's page, Rokuro, has crowds sighing over him, not that he notices—he's too busy nagging to his lord about his work ethic, his lack of propriety, his tendency to take things lightly and his hair.
• Tokyo Ghoul has Tsukiyama, who is heavily implied to have feelings for him to boot, act as this towards Kaneki with the good looks and wealth to go with it.
• Seigi Nakata in The Case Files of Jeweler Richard is Richard's employee and secretary, but he is asked out by a number of women. Since the series is narrated by him, he doesn't dwell on it, but he attracts an awful lot of female attention.

Films — Live-Action

• Ryan Reynolds to Sandra Bullock in The Proposal.
• In Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Number 2 is revealed to formerly be this, even with the eyepatch. After all, he is portrayed by the poster boy of all pretty boys - Rob Lowe.
• The ladies in Ghostbusters (2016) hire Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) as their receptionist. Being hot is pretty much his only qualification.

Literature

• In Two By Two, Vivian, who is a Dude Magnet and a Head-Turning Beauty, becomes this after she starts working at the company belonging to the billionaire Walter Spannerman, and subsequently falls in love with her boss.

Live-Action TV

• Mad Men Season 3: Lane Pryce's secretary right hand, John Hooker, is one of these even within the universe: as office manager at Sterling Cooper upon its takeover by Putnam, Powell, and Lowe, he replaces Joan...and is thus in charge of the secretarial pool. The secretaries (besides Joan who hates him for personal reasons and disdains him for professional ones, and Peggy who doesn't think too much of him) all swoon over his good looks and sexy British accent.
• In Friends, Rachel hires a totally unqualified guy for her assistant solely on the basis that he was cute.
• In the How I Met Your Mother episode "Mosbius Designs", Ted hires an attractive intern to help him with his architectural firm in the apartment (mostly consisting of Ted's errands and random tasks for Ted to feel like his project is actually going somewhere.) Robin starts sleeping with him both because he's good looking and because she is turned on by the control of him keeping the bathroom key to the apartment from her.
• On Heroes, the Haitian was right-hand hottie to Noah Bennet. Played by former Hugo Boss model Jimmy Jean-Louis, no less.
• Torchwood:
  • Ianto Jones. Although his boss/boyfriend is a greater source of Fanservice than he is, recurring character Captain John Hart refers to Ianto as "Eye Candy", apparently in the belief that that's why he's kept around.
  • In the first episode, Jack introduces Ianto as the guy a) who handles clean-up, b) gets the team from place to place, and c) "looks good in a suit." So yeah, John wasn't too far off.
• On Doctor Who, Harriet Jones (Prime Minister) and Torchwood One leader Yvonne Hartman both had attractive right-hand men.
• Billy Keikeya, Gaius Baltar and (to an extant in Seasons 1-3 and fully in Season 4) Lee "Apollo" Adama fill this role for Education Secretary/President Laura Roslin on Battlestar Galactica (2003).
• Maya on Just Shoot Me! did this as an experiment for an article, pitting a handsome doof against someone who was qualified but plain-looking. Guess who won.
• Merlin's Ensemble Dark Horse Sir Leon is Arthur's second-in-command. Having appeared throughout season 2 simply as a random knight, he was upgraded in season 3 to this trope.

Video Games

• Valvatorez from Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten has Fenrich, his perpetually shirtless werewolf manservant.

• Depending on who you ask, Ignis from Final Fantasy XV may count as one. Not to mention the fact that people like to pair him with Noctis or one of the other chocobros.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Edelgard's vassal and fellow student is the Tall, Dark, and Handsome Hubert.

Western Animation

• The Simpsons: in one episode, Homer gets an attractive male Hypercompetent Assistant with homoerotic overtones.
• Season 2 of Big Hero 6: The Series introduces Chris, the cheerful assistant to the biotech CEO Liv Amara. Honey Lemon and even Wasabi and Fred all express how handsome he is. He turns out to be a creation of Liv, genetically engineered to be the perfect assistant and bodyguard.

---