Oblivious To Love / Anime & Manga

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• 7 Seeds has multiple characters that fit this trope.
  • Natsu never figures out that Semimaru actually likes her, until he practically admits it. Not only did he spend all this time teasing her or making fun of her, which makes it difficult for her to understand, but Natsu also lacks the ability to read people's subtleties well, due to her background.
  • Arashi doesn't realize that Natsu likes him, either. Even when she's obviously following him to be with him, using convenient excuses to have a reason to do so, or stuttering when talking to him, he doesn't get it. Though Natsu tends to stutter around a lot of people.
  • Pretty much all seven members of Team Summer A. They do understand the concept of love, but they don't feel it themselves. Understandable, as teaching them about feelings and love was not a priority in their rigorous, survival-based raising scheme.
• Double Subverted in The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You — Rentarou is fully aware of how his girlfriends feel about him, but whenever they show romantic interest in each other, he merely chalks it up to their being friends.
• Accel World:
  • Haruyuki Arita has spent so much time as the Butt-Monkey of various bullies that he fails to catch on to the feelings Kuroyukihime has for him. He even unknowingly shoots down a subtle confession because of this. After Kuroyukihime flat out confesses, the main problem becomes Haru's having a hard time reciprocating because of his own self-esteem issues.
  • Kuroyukihime herself is an example, as she expresses intense jealousy towards Haru's childhood friend Chiyu but is slow to realize it is jealousy.
• Wilhelm Schultz in Allison and Lillia manages to remain completely unaware of his childhood friend Allison's feelings for him, in spite of his Hyper-Awareness and Photographic Memory. Until she pins him down and forces him to kiss/marry her, anyway. In the second half, his daughter Lillia can also be like this, though it's exacerbated by the fact that the people around her help to keep it that way
• Arata of Amawakuni from Arata: The Legend is clueless to Kotoha's obvious affections.
• Subverted in Assassination Classroom: It initially seems like Karasuma is oblivious to Irina's pretty blatant attempts to seduce him, but when their students decide to play Shipper on Deck, he decides enough is enough and reveals that he knew exactly how she felt. He was playing dumb because the fate of the world kinda rests on them doing their jobs right, and romance would just be a distraction. However, he does imply that after the world is saved is another story. Indeed, once their a few days away from Koro-sensei's deadline, he tells her that he not only reciprocates, but invites her to live with him. She's all too happy to agree.
• Misa of Asteroid in Love has no clue that Moe, her little sister's Childhood Friend — and thus a frequent visitor to their house — has a crush on her for years, at least not until Moe gets over her Cannot Spit It Out and confessed before Misa graduates.
• Attack on Titan:
  • Eren is unaware of Mikasa's blatant romantic feelings towards him, instead being annoyed at her protectiveness. The implication is that this is a side effect of his Determinator status; all he can focus on is killing Titans. Mikasa is either an innocent to be protected or an ally to help kill them, just like everyone else.
    • In the same vein, Mikasa has no idea that Jean has had a crush on her since their cadet days, though in her defense, Jean is a lot more subtle about it than she is with her feelings for Eren, and Jean hasn't actually made any blatant gestures of affection to tip her off.
  • Also, during a sparring match, Annie blatantly flirted with him. When it goes over his head, she is taken aback and locks him in an arm-triangle choke, then comments that not only does he need to get stronger, he needs to learn how to talk to girls.
    • Of course, Annie herself has no place to talk, since she can't seem to get that Bertolt is into her. At one point, Annie mentions the possibility of her pulling a Honey Trap on a noble, which Bertolt strongly objects to. Then, when she dryly jokes that she's not "charming" enough to attract men anyway, Bertolt immediately blurts out "THAT'S NOT TRUE!". Annie's only response is to offer a confused "...thanks?" She's similarly confused as to why Armin spent so much time watching over her crystal during her four years of imprisonment, until he basically spells out "I LIKE YOU" in flashing neon letters.
  • He even fails to see romantic attraction between other people. Over dinner, his friends are telling off Marlo for being insensitive to Hitch, who was worried about his safety when he joined the Survey Corps. Even though everyone else realizes that Hitch was worried because she has feelings for Marlo, Eren still misses it and thinks Marlo did the right thing.
  • Eren has been so clueless that the fandom was shocked and amazed by his remark in Chapter 97, Falco tells Eren about his desire to protect a friend, so Eren asks, "Is this person... a girl?" The fandom considers the question proof of character development!
  • Eren's not the only one who's bad at detecting romantic intent. Marlo fails to reason out why Hitch was vehemently against him joining the Survey Corps (though his pre-death thoughts implied he might have feelings for her), despite how everyone else knew no problem (except for Eren, of course). Gabi is a character also rather similar to Eren, including the department of this trope — Falco's trying to make sure he'll be the next in line to be the Armored Titan to stop Gabi from having her lifespan be limited at twenty-seven, while she wants to receive it so Reiner's memories will live on within her. Gabi doesn't like Falco putting her goal in doubt, so she asks why he cares about becoming the Armored Titan so much anyway, and Falco admits he's doing it for her...and Gabi just cannot logically reconcile how that works. Oh, and yes, Everyone Can See It even if Gabi can't.
• Ennis from Baccano!. Firo reports that she didn't quite catch on for fifty years.
• Moritaka of Bakuman。 initially assumes his feelings for Miho are unrequited, and only realizes that this is not the case after he confesses to her and promises to marry her once they achieve their dreams. It's later revealed that she has been in love with him since the fourth grade, and this comes as a surprise to him.
• Toppa Bashin of Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin, especially in the earlier part of the series. Having a one-track mind that keeps him interested in Battle Spirits and Battle Spirits alone, he doesn't seem to get why Meganeko constantly wants to hang around him, and certainly doesn't know of her intent to one day marry him.
• Berserk:
  • Guts never really bothered to realize that Casca wanted him to stay with the Hawks — not solely because Griffith was so dependent on Guts as chief member of the Hawks — because she was falling in love with him. He also completely and utterly fails to notice how obsessed Griffith is with him, to the point of assuming that his utterly crushed stance when Guts is leaving has to do with Griffith being unable to deal with being defeated. Good job, Guts.
  • Casca's earlier infatuation with Griffith. She didn't show it (except when she saw him chatting up Charlotte), and if Griffith was aware of it he probably encouraged it but by the time Griffith is recued she's in love with Guts. Griffith sees it as his having truly lost everything (he'd already lost his men, the favor of the king, his tendons and tongue…) and doesn't take it well.
• Train from Black Cat, being the Chaste Hero he is, is very oblivious of a lot of character's feelings for him. Though he's especially this way with Creed, who is unbelievably outright about his scary obsessive love for him. In the manga, after all these years, Train is shown to still be incapable of understanding what possible reason Creed would have for killing Saya. There's even a scene where Creed tells Train that he would at least want to have Train by his side even as a dead body rather than have Saya have him. When other characters are creeped out by this, Train dismisses it by telling them to ignore him, and that Creed is simply being selfish and weird. Missing the point, no?
• Black Clover:
  • Yami's completely unaware that Charlotte is hopelessly in love with him despite her blushing and shyness. He interprets Charlotte's uncomfortableness around him as her not standing him. When her squad hears this, they thinks he's an "ultra-dense boor of a man".
  • Asta doesn't seem to catch on that Noelle, Mimosa, and Rebecca are interested in him. Hilariously, even when he recognizes that Charlotte has feelings for Yami, and that Noelle has feelings for him, he fails to grasp that the feeling in question is love, assuming that both women just have trouble admitting that they trust somebody else to have their back in combat.
• Bleach: Subverted by Orihime who has been in love with Ichigo for years but doesn't try to make him aware of it, and her only confession (to an unconscious Ichigo) was about gratitude and goodbye not about wanting him to return her feelings. The author occasionally shows us how she views him (more charming than he really is) but only for comedy as he's stated he doesn't intend writing romance. When he finally addresses it in the final arc, Orihime is tricked by Urahara into wearing a revealing dress to make Ichigo notice, it's again played for comedy, resulting in a flustered Ichigo being lynched for saying the wrong thing and Urahara smugly revelling in his pervert status.
• Dino in Blend-S has an extremely open crush on Maika from the moment she met her, to the point where his first words to her were saying "I love you" as his nose bled. Despite this being clear as crystal to everyone else, Maika is completely oblivious to the fact, with it being implied that this is mostly due to her upbringing in a very traditional family giving her a pretty sheltered mind. This also includes her being oblivious to the fact that Dino very obviously likes it whenever she ends up abusing him both verbally and physically.
• Saya from Blood-C is a rare female example, and one of the most extreme; at least two guys (Itsuki and Tokizane) are blatantly interested in her, but she manages to remain completely clueless. Subverted: Tokizane was faking it. Itsuki plays it straighter, though he fell for her later… and then he died.
• Blue Flag: The main characters are stuck in a Love Square, out of them, however, Masumi is the only one aware of what's happening, everyone else is unaware or misinterpreting what's happening. Kuze and Taichi don't realize that Touma is in love with the latter while Touma doesn't realize that Kuze is into him, and actually thinks she is dating Taichi.
• Sakura of Cardcaptor Sakura, who somehow missed the very obvious affections of her lesbian best friend and constantly blushing rival until one of them explicitly said that they love her in that way at the end of the series. Also worth noting: aforementioned best friend actually does say she loves her that way quite early (in the manga), but it flies over her head completely.
• Case Closed: Sometimes it seems like half the characters have this.
  • Shinichi is no chump when it comes to figuring out things but is completely socially inept when it comes to relationships. It took Ran straight up admitting that he loved him when he was disguised as Conan to come to terms with the fact that she had feelings for him despite spending most of his childhood with her. To add on that, Shinichi often brushes off hints that Haibara might have feelings for him, like the time when his mom Yukiko told him that she thinks Haibara likes him only for him then to ask Haibara something along the lines of "why were you staring at my face?"
  • Sonoko's boyfriend Makoto also seems to have a hard time picking up on her "subtle" hints — in the Valentine's Day episode where she went to a resort with Kogoro's family to make a chocolate heart for (she told Makoto) "the person she cared for most," Makoto showed up to see who this person was and if he was a suitable companion for her. This turned out to be a good thing, as he arrived just in time to help KO two murderers who got the drop on everyone else. When he asked who it was and Sonoko pointed at him, he turned around to look behind him. Granted, Makoto is truly NOT good with people.
  • Satou has them all beat; she has never once twigged to the fact that Takagi, Shiratori, and every other single man in her department find (or used to find) her attractive, often leading to humorous misunderstandings. (Especially when a mischievous Yumi shamelessly takes advantage of that cluelessness to prank the rest of the department.) This may be a case of Selective Obliviousness, in her case with full knowledge and totally on purpose, out of her fear of inevitably losing every person she loves in the worst way possible (beginning with the death of her father and reinforced through the demise of former-bomb-squad Matsuda Jinpei).
• Cat's Eye has Mitsuko Asatani. She can recognize people being in love with other people just fine, but when it comes to people flirting or proposing to her… well, when Kamiya proposed to her, she first had no idea of what he was trying to say, then it took her one week and dreaming the moment to realize what had happened… by which time Kamiya, being The Casanova, had already moved on. Fittingly, when they do get together due to him proposing, he had not really proposed: he had ran through the whole city, acquiring a few tails in the process, barged on her meeting with a prospective fiance, and punched him out, because Hitomi had put an explosive watch on his wrist and Mitsuko had the matchbox with the deactivation code, and only after deactivating the bomb he realized what he had just done.
• A Certain Magical Index: Kamijou Touma towards his gigantic harem, which he doesn't really notice, most blatantly with his roommate Index and his Unknown Rival Misaka Mikoto. Either that, or he does know and tries to get by by pretending not to know, which is understandable considering the repercussions there may be if he were to reciprocate any feelings to any single one of them. His problem seems to be that, due to his terrible luck, he assumes that everyone is trying to trick him, take advantage of him, or just being nice for unrelated reasons. He blushes when Orianna bounces her boobs in his face, but still punches her because she's trying to use a weapon of mass destruction. When Lessar (explicitly) tries to bait him into a Honey Trap, he brushes her off. When Mikoto gives him cookies, he jokes that it would be better if they were homemade, but clearly assumes that they're thanks for saving her Sisters instead of anything romantic.
• Tsukasa Hojo, the author of Cat's Eye, apparently loves this trope, because his following manga City Hunter had this trope applied to Kaori, one of the protagonists, who is unable to see that her partner and co-protagonist Ryo is in love with her. Justified as Ryo is a very successful playboy flirting with every beautiful girl he meets, he's torn between his love for her and the wish to keep her away from the dangers of his life as a sweeper (and Genre Savvy enough to know that the adrenaline rush from the dangerous situations he gets himself in on a regular basis can make people mistake other emotions for love), and he makes a conscious and epic effort to ignore her as a woman so his enemies won't try and take her hostage (a wasted effort at that, as most enemies are too stupid to notice his signals or too smart to fall for the ruse).
• In Ceres, Celestial Legend, Aya becomes flustered when Tooya kisses her, she falls asleep in his arms, and STILL his stoicism prevails. He does realize his feelings for her a couple of episodes later, but it takes longer — and is played straighter — in the manga.
• Citrus: Yuzu has no idea that Matsuri and Harumi are in love with her, being devoted entirely to Mei.
• Lelouch vi Britannia might be the smartest person in Code Geass but this clearly does not apply to his love life. He's got an Unwanted Harem around him and outside noting his massive fangirls when they become relevant (the cat hunt where a student council member would give a kiss to whoever catches the cat or the 108 dates his Ninja Maid got him while posing as him) he utterly fails to realize that Shirley and Kallen have romantic feelings for him until it's too late for anything to happen.
• D.Gray-Man: Allen has Lenalee, For, Rohfa, Road and several guys all out to get in his pants, yet he seems completely oblivious to any of it. In a recent chapter he did half-heartedly confess to Lenalee before taking the Ark and leaving the Order.
• The Dangers in My Heart: Ichikawa frequently misreads or doesn't notice cues that Yamada likes him back. At one point he (correctly) assumes that she was waiting for someone at their school gate, and asks her if she was right after Yamada stops him to loan him some of her shoujo manga. It's not that he's The Ditz, far from it; this is just in large part thanks to low self-esteem, skewed social skills and a pessimistic outlook. He is able to pick up on the implications at times, but he's quick to downplay them so he doesn't get his hopes up.
  • Yamada's friend Chii is also this in regards to seeing Ichikawa and Yamada's interest in eachother. While everyone else starts seeing it when they pay attention, she casually spells out the hints herself; like how Yamada has been talking about Ichikawa a lot. And she still picks nothing up.
• DearS: Justified and inverted:
  • Justified - it takes Takeya quite a bit of time to realize that Neneko has feelings for him, but considering she's frequently quite violent towards him, it's no surprise that he fails to immediately pick up on it. He also has trouble recognizing Ren's and Miu's feelings, though in their case, they don't understand their feelings either, and they are aliens.
  • Inverted - Hirofumi views his constant attempts at seduction of just about every woman in his field of vision as "harmless" flirting, and has to be told that his constant attempts to wedge himself into Ren's life is "being serious." Neneko is enraged at Hirofumi because while Takeya's bumbling ineptness with the opposite sex is genuine, Hirofumi is shallow, vain, and purely superficial to the point that he doesn't see girls as people, but just as pretty things that smell nice, so he can exploit them.
• Maou from The Devil is a Part-Timer! is fully aware that Chiho is in love with him. He cares for her, just not in a romantic way, so he feigns ignorance to avoid hurting her feelings.
• Suetake from Doki Doki School Hours absolutely fails to recognize that his (male) classmate Kudo has a major crush on him. Of course, Suetake is quite dumb, but Kudo doesn't really keep it a secret, so everybody else knows.
• Occurs in a few plays in Don't Become an Otaku, Shinozaki-san!. Chigusa was confessed to by guys but, as The Ditz, never realized what they were actually after. Akina didn't realize how many guys sought her attention, either. Though that may because she prefers girls, as evidenced by her growing (and rather obvious) feelings for Kaede. In that case, Kaede is oblivious and Akina in denial.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Goku probably takes the cake. Chi-Chi develops a crush on him right after meeting him, and he fails to pick up on it, and when she asks if he'll marry her he thinks that marriage is food. As of Dragon Ball Z, however, it's clear he loves his wife, although he still has a funny way of showing it. Saiyans are not as well connected to emotions as humans are. That, and Goku was raised by his adoptive grandfather in the wilderness for his youth with his first friend being Bulma, who acted like an older sister of sorts.
  • Subverted by his son Gohan. For a while, it looks like he's oblivious to Videl's crush on him, but it soon becomes apparent that he also has feelings for her and is just scared to acknowledge them (the issue with Buu was probably a factor also). This changes once his mystic training is through.
  • When they first met, Vegeta was unable to understand why Bulma continued to show him kindness. He was even confused as to why she'd stay by his bedside while he was recovering from a training accident.
• Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair: Julia likes Stepehen, and in her true Uptown Girl nature, she takes him to a shop to buy a fancy piano for him. He still doesn't realize it, because he's already enamoured with Jeanie.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Gray is very confused by Juvia's behavior towards him. By the Grand Magic Games he has realized her feelings, but unfortunately, he tells her that he doesn't love her and is annoyed by her attentions. Yet he becomes jealous and possessive when someone flirts with her, especially his rival in Ice Magic, so he may be simply be in deep denial. After the Tartarus arc ends, he seems to be considering her feelings as he stayed with her during the second timeskip.
  • Gajeel is nearly as bad. In later chapters, Levi has moved from being an Implied Love Interest to blatantly having a crush. While Gajeel is noticeably more protective of her than anyone else, he still doesn't get it leading to normally the shy and reserved Levi to act more Tsundere-ish around him. This is finally subverted in the Alvarez arc where he finally admits it, but because he's sure it'll be a Dying Declaration of Love, which makes it all the more hilarious when it isn't and he realizes he'll have to talk to her again.
• Falling in Love With the Villainess: Rion can't tell when someone seeks to be genuinely affectionate towards him, or around him. Considering his past and present relationships involve him being raped, it's hard to blame him.
• Fate/Zero: Aoi Tohsaka was completely oblivious that her childhood friend Kariya Matou was in love with her. Near the end, when she mistakenly believes he's murdered her husband Tokiomi and declares he's never loved anybody, Kariya snaps and strangles her.
• In Fly Me to the Moon, Nasa is unaware that Aya is in love with him until he marries Tsukasa.
• Soma Yukihira, the protagonist of Food Wars! has no less than three girls who have crushes on him. At one point, two of them meet each other and while he realizes there's some tension between them, he doesn't get a clue it's because of him.
• Played for Drama in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. The titular character was a Defrosting Ice Queen elf who spent a decade in the Hero Party and never understood that The Hero Himmel was pining for her the whole time. She doesn't realize that it was mutual until she's attending his funeral. In her case it's justified by the fact that elves suffer from the Immortal Procreation Clause as a result of little-to-no sexual urges.
• Edward Elric towards Winry in Fullmetal Alchemist, at least in the manga. Though it's possible this is Selective Obliviousness on his part to protect her from the increasingly dangerous events that he constantly gets involved in. He finally gets over it at the end of the manga, complete with a Wacky Marriage Proposal to Winry.
• Ryuuichi from Gakuen Babysitters is unfamiliar with how love is supposed to feel since he's never had a crush. As such, he's unaware of the feelings of romantic attraction that Ushimaru and Inomata feel toward him, which he ignited due to inadvertently using social cues that people who are aware of love would recognize as implications.
• Gankutsuou: Albert was completely oblivious to Franz's feelings for him. It helped that Franz kept his feelings a secret from everyone.
• Kousaka spends most of the first volume of Genshiken completely oblivious to the fact that Kasukabe has a big crush on him, even though Sasahara (and really, the reader until Kousaka mentions this) assumed she was his girlfriend just because of how she acted around him. It's especially humorous in that Kousaka actually likes her himself, but the idea that she felt the same way simply did not occur to him. Madarme's sarcastic suggestion that Kousaka just kiss her and get the whole Will They or Won't They? subplot over with was genuinely the first time he had any idea she'd actually go along with such a proposal.
• In the Yuri Genre Manga, Girl Friends (2006), Akko is completely oblivious to Mari's affections despite twice being kissed by her, and hearing what should have been a love declaration. Mari is likewise oblivious to Akko's affections although Mari hasn't seen as much evidence of those feelings. In Mari's defense, Akko being Trope Codifier for I Didn't Mean to Turn You On doesn't help, nor do Akko's views of kissing as 'a way to say hello', or 'just playing around'.
• Kumiko from Gokusen is incredibly clueless about Shin's feelings for her, even as his extremely unsubtle friends try to help him out. Even the teachers were aware of Shin's crush on her before she did. In the Live-Action Adaptation, Kumiko is completely oblivious to the male gym teachers crush on her through all three series. Too distracted by the guy of the season to notice.
• Van of GUN×SWORD is blithely unaware of the romantic feelings at least two of the three women in his harem have for him. (He MIGHT have some idea about the third, but it's hard to tell.)
• Gundam:
  • In ∀ Gundam, it takes almost halfway through the series and being explicitly told for Loran to realize that Sochie has a massive crush on him (in fact, it's clear from the first episode when they're still fifteen). Granted, her Tsundere attitude and then outright hostility on learning he's one of the Moonrace doesn't help matters.
  • Gundam Build Fighters has Reiji. Having a girl follow you back to your home world and you still don't know why?
  • Sei, for his part, starts off clueless to China's interest in him. This is ultimately subverted as his coming to realize this enough to try asking her out is part of his Character Development.
  • Ditto with the sequel and Sekai when a female rival makes him a bento. Later he innocently responds that yes, he is Hoshino's boyfriend, because he thought "boyfriend" meant "friend who is a boy".
• Hilshire from Gunslinger Girl is this, starting with Maria Machiavelli's hints that they should work out their relationship and going all the way up to obliviously ruining the atmosphere Triela made with a candlelit dinner. Considering her cyborg nature, and how much of that affection may be conditioning, which she admits she has difficulty telling apart (until a more recent chapter, she gets a Love Epiphany and indeed realises that her feelings for Hilshire are genuine), it's understandable. However, Hilshire still remains oblivious even to the increased affection she shows him after said epiphany, although the fact he was asleep (due to the painkiller from hastily administered field medicine) when it came to her and when she kissed him, it's also somewhat understandable. Not to mention the fact that Triela is underage, and the survivor of a snuff movie ring, that had her raped and tortured to the brink of death. One suspects that Hilshire ignoring her overtures is deliberate, and possibly the more considerate course he may take.
• Haganai has Kodaka, who manages to ignore the very blatant crushes of least six girls. Despite several of them outright telling him that they're into him, he just doesn't get it. Except that he does, and plays dumb to save their feelings. There's no way for him to pick one girl without ruining the friendships he has with the others, so he plays off their advances as best he can.
• Bijou from Hamtaro has a crush on the title character, who thinks of her as being just another member of his family of friends, while not noticing Boss's crush on her; she attributes the attention he pays her to simple generosity.
  • Pashmina also doesn't seem to realize the two boys, Dexter and Howdy, are fighting each other for her affection. Possibly because she's too busy being a Cool Big Sis to little Penelope and because she feels she's too young to be in a relationship anyway.
• Nanako Yamamoto, a teacher at Hanamaru Kindergarten is described as having a world-record level ability for not noticing when men are interested in her. This actually seems to be a family trait, as her younger sister Mayumi exhibits the same trait when a man shows interest in her. Oddly enough, the Yamamoto sisters can each spot the other's respective suitors, which leads to a dinner scene where each of the two sisters thinks to herself how rough the other's love interest has it.
• Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya, despite being told several times by Koizumi (who openly and exasperatedly states that he can't believe Kyon still doesn't get it) about his importance to Haruhi, despite her hitting him with clues as subtle as a brick, despite him kissing her in closed space being the only thing that makes her want to return to the real world, still insists he has absolutely no idea why Haruhi gets so upset every time he acts too familiar with other girls. Partly on account that Kyon is an Unreliable Narrator, and partly because he's very good at putting walls up in his mind around things he doesn't want to think about.
  • With regards to Haruhi, Kyon transitions to Selective Obliviousness fairly quickly. He remains clueless long after Everyone Can See It so it still fits, despite being told point blank he was "chosen" by Haruhi four times. And he was pretty much the only one she talked to at all. And that he was the only one she kept when she started rewriting reality. And that is just the first book. Haruhi doesn't do subtle.
  • It's later revealed that Kyon also had this with regards to Sasaki, his "close" friend from middle school and the origin of his reputation of liking weird girls.
  • Haruhi herself also seems to have this. She is oblivious to Kozumi's feelings for her. And Kyon's later on when he starts to return her feelings. To be fair, they are both trying to hide how they feel from her, but for different reasons.
• The titular Hayate the Combat Butler is very oblivious to pretty much all the characters' love for him, with the exception of Ayumu, who he seems to be treating normally after she confesses to him and Kotetsu, because he doesn't swing that way. Isumi is completely oblivious to Wataru's crush on her, while Wataru is oblivious on Saki's crush on him, but is slightly aware of Sonia's crush on him after she kisses him as part of the deal to save Saki from the kidnappers.
• Headhunted to Another World: Uchimura does think Ulmandra is hot, but is clueless about her crush on him or the fact that he keeps accidentally proposing to her—although her inability to actually tell him her feelings doesn't help.
• Heaven's Lost Property: Tomoki always misunderstands or fails to realize the many signs that his Unwanted Harem love him, thanks to how his mother and grandfather raised him. He only catches on once, when Hiyori confesses that she likes him. Her confession is so foreign to him that he ends up running away from her.
• In the Hen manga, popular Chizuru couldn't have been more obvious with her crush on Yamada, what with her blushing, sweating, stammering and even outright telling Yamada that she loves her. Yamada keeps treating Chizuru as a friend (albeit a weird one), even after Chizuru's very transparent attempt to steal a kiss from her — that is, until Chizuru practically explodes in a dramatic public love confession.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Italy is this in the Buon San Valentino comics. He simply thinks that Germany has been extra nice to him and doesn't realize that (from Germany's point of view) they've actually been going on dates. Nor does he realize that the reason Germany got upset when he saw him flirting with some girls is because he was jealous.
  • Spain probably counts too, seeing how he doesn't seem to realize the full extent/implications of Romano's Tsundereness toward him or that Romano didn't give a wholly negative answer to his marriage proposal.
  • Not only does Japan promptly scream "It was All Just a Dream!" after he and Greece do the horizontal tango but he seems to get puzzled at some of Greece's actions toward him as if he can't comprehend why Greece would go out of his way to be so nice to him. Why, indeed…
• Hidamari Sketch has an expanded version, in that everyone tiptoes around Sae's quite obvious crush on Hiro — even when Sae goes into a barely concealed fit of jealousy when Hiro gets a love letter from a boy.
• For someone who’s aspiring to become a harem king, Issei of High School D×D is fairly clueless to the fact that he’s already got one. Additionally, it takes several volumes for him to figure out that his mistress, Rias Gremory, is head over heels in love with him. Despite her sleeping in his bed (naked, by the way) the makeout sessions, getting jealous when other girls show interest in him and other obvious flags, he's still rather dense, but not without reason. With guidance from the aforementioned harem, he gets over his whole 'killed by his first girlfriend' hang-up and confesses to Rias, who accepts.
• How Clumsy you are, Miss Ueno: Black holes are jealous of Tanaka's denseness. The main girl Ueno (who has a serious crush on him) flipped her skirt once in front of him and he didn't even flinch.
• Tomoya is this in How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. He claims to only be interested in 2D girls such as those found in video games, despite the fact that some girls around him are interested in him.
• I Think Our Son Is Gay:
  • Housewife Tomoko is quick to notice that her teenage son Hiroki's childhood friend, Asumi, has a crush on him. Hiroki himself, however, takes absolutely no notice at all. Because Tomoko suspects that Hiroki is gay, and thus isn't attracted to girls in the first place, she thinks the idea that one could be attracted to him flies right past him.
  • Yuuri, Hiroki's younger brother, doesn't understand the concept of romantic love. As a result, he appears to have no clue as to why girls always want to approach him. An example is in a flashback in Chapter 37, when a fourth-grade Yuuri has no clue that (1) a female classmate likes him, (2) he rejected her Love Confession, and that (3) another male classmate of his had a crush on said girl, and thought they didn't get along. At the same age, Hiroki already had obvious crushes on other boys.
• I'm In Love With the Villainess: Somewhere around the early mid-point of the story, Claire clearly grows attached to Rei, most likely at least partially in a romantic sense. However, Rei herself still thinks that Claire is into Sein, when by all appearances she gave up on him quite early in the story.
• In Infinite Stratos, Ichika Orimura himself can give almost everyone here a run for their money. Just ask his Unwanted Harem... He does get to even higher levels of denseness in Season 2. Hard to blame him, though, when all of your suitors are Clingy Jealous Girls wielding Powered Armors that could cause all-out war in the blink of an eye.
• In Iris Zero, Toru is oblivious to Sasamori's growing feelings for him. Though in Chapter 27, Asahi calls Toru out on pretending to not notice Sasamori's feelings. Toru is only pretending to be oblivious because he is afraid of upsetting the uneasy balance in his newfound circle of friends.
• In I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Rekka is unable to figure out that Satsuki wants to confess her love to him. In fact, this is implied to have contributed to the indecisiveness that led to the heroines fighting over him in the future.
• Bell in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is entirely unaware that Hestia, Syr and Lili are in love with him, and they aren't exactly subtle with their feelings (Hestia even confessed to him in Episode 3). Although this has more to do with him being fixated on Aiz than being dense.
  • Or because he honestly can't believe any girl would fixate on him at all.
  • Or in the case of Hestia, he thinks that a romantic relationship between a human and a god is impossible due to their status and vast differences in lifespans.
• I Swear I Won't Bother You Again!: Violette is completely clueless about the fact that Yulan, Marin, and Claudia love her. To be fair, she has good reason to believe Claudia is more interested in Maryjune, since these two became an item in the original timeline and her own life being devoid of proper love from her family doesn't help.
• In Jin the eponymous doctor has no idea that High-Class Call Girl Nokaze is attracted to him before Ryuno point it out to him. It's possible he's in denial.
• Misaki Yata from K-project is unaware that his former best friend Saruhiko left HOMRA due to being jealous of no longer having Misaki’s undivided attention.
• All over the place in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
  • Tsubame has no idea that Ishigami likes her as more than a friend. And even after he confesses, she doesn't realize that he's more interested in her romantically than sexually, which ends up hurting both of them when Yume suggests that she try to sleep with him to figure out if she has feelings for him as well.
  • Ishigami is so focused on Tsubame that he has no idea that Iino has developed feelings for him. This continues even after Tsubame turns him down because he and Iino have been at each other's throats ever since the Ootomo incident in middle school, leading her to realize that she'll never get him to see her as a potential romantic partner if she doesn't first repair her relationship with him.
  • Karen is normally very observant in matters of romance, but when it comes to Toyosaki's crush on her she's hopeless (instead being convinced that he's in love with Shirogane).
  • Erika takes this one step further than most. She's completely clueless to anything related to love, whether it be Kazamatsuri flirting with her, Maki's crush on Tsubasa, or Kaguya and Shirogane's mutual attraction. Though Chapter 192 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya implies that she and Kazamatsuri end up married at some point in the future, so she must have figured it out eventually.
• Kaitou Saint Tail has this going in multiple directions:
  • Asuka Jr., the walking epitome of No Social Skills, is so terrible at understanding girls or romance that the manga captions mock him repeatedly for it, and he gets in hot water several times because of how badly he misinterprets things. A bit of All There in the Manual implies that his difficulty with girls might be from something to do with his Missing Mom that was so awful that it was too "pitiful" to depict. He is capable of understanding shallow flirting and can get embarrassed by it, and it does seem that a lot of it has to do with him being uninterested in anything to do with romance unless it's about Meimi, but he fails to notice Meimi's pining for him to the point he spends more than half the series wondering if she actually hates him, only learning that she'd been in love with him the whole time after they start dating and the meaning of her Love Letter Lunacy is shoved directly in his face. To his credit, Meimi is a very unusual case, and it wasn't for a lack of trying.
  • Meimi herself is guilty in just as many ways when it comes to Asuka Jr. pining over her and not Saint Tail, mainly because her self-worth has gone so far down the drain that she actually makes herself incapable of mentally processing anything that could suggest that it's her she's in love with.
  • Seira may be this with Sawatari, but since she's a nun-in-training, it's implied she's trying not to think about it too hard, and a manga bonus chapter effectively confirms it when she's forced to confront the fact that he'll be far more likely to have better chances with another girl because of her position.
• In Kämpfer, Natsuru is probably one of THE most oblivious people when it comes to love. Only loves a Satellite Love Interest and he still has three people going crazy for him. He STILL doesn't even know about it. An example: One of said three haremettes asks him on a date. He asks if its a cover so they can try and draw out their enemies. She assures him that no, it really is a date. They proceed to have said date, complete with holding hands, homemade lunch, etc. He still thinks its not a date throughout all this, and attaches reasons relating to the whole "undercover" thing to all the things she gets him to do. When another of his haremettes shows up and gets mad that he went on a date with the first girl and not her, he protests that it wasn't a date... to which said girl responds (again) with "No, it really was a date". He still thinks it wasn't a date.
• Karakuridouji Ultimo: Yamato to Rune up to Chapter 10.
• Kaze no Shōjo Emily: Perry likes Emily, but she views him as a brother. He doesn't realize that Emily's best friend Ilse likes him until the end of the anime, and they're shown married later.
• Kaze no Stigma neatly subverts this. Kazuma almost certainly knows Ayano likes him and is willing to go on missions with her if paid by her father, who is trying to invoke Bodyguard Crush on him.
• Miu from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has a bad case of this. Kenichi has it worse. He's so used to that idea that he's a loser that he can't even comprehend that girls will so much as LOOK at him, let alone have feelings for him. So when anyone besides Miu acts fondly towards him, he seems to shrug it off as them just being nice to him.
• Chizu from Kimi ni Todoke to a crazy degree. She doesn't realise that Kazehaya likes Sawako even when it becomes cringe-makingly obvious, and poor Ryu has to confess to her twice, on different occasions, before she actually realises that he doesn't mean it platonically. Even without the confessions, there are times when a more observant person would have easily put two and two together.
• In Komi Can't Communicate, Sonoda is very much attracted to her and wishes to have a relationship with her. She is completely unaware of this.
  • Tadano is painfully unaware of how much Komi and Manbagi like him and want to be with him. Ultimately subverted with Komi.
• Kotoura-san has a strange case: Manabe loves Haruka, and Haruka knows it. Haruka loves Manabe as well, but he doesn't notice it. This is exactly why his Childhood Friend Hiyori became his Hopeless Suitor — despite multiple hints that she's been attracted to him for years, he never seems to realize that she fell for him. This was lampshaded in the first chapter of manga, when Haruka, at the time still on a facade and hence quite snarky, calls him a "flag crusher."
• In the World War II Yuri Genre manga Kurogane Pukapuka Tai, Commander Kuki acts wholly obliviously to the wholly obvious attraction of her XO, Mamiya; even when she's told about it, she responds, "Don't be ridiculous! It is not possible between women!" She gets really flustered when women make advances on her, though, suggesting that the obliviousness may be denial rather than cluelessness...at least sometimes.
• Last Game has Kujou, who is so utterly oblivious about Yanagi's feelings to the point where she consistently thinks that they're Just Friends.
• Keitaro in Love Hina has a really hard time figuring out that the girls have feelings for him. In his defense, they spend the entire manga beforehand beating him up for being an Accidental Pervert. It'd be a tough pill to swallow for him to think that they liked him as anything more than a friend.
• Otani from Lovely★Complex. Not only is he initially completely oblivious to Koizumi being head over heels in love with him, even writing off an outright declaration of love from her as a joke, but he also doesn't realize that his childhood friend Mimi is also madly in love with him, which makes Koizumi express sympathy for her own romantic rival for having to deal with Otani's denseness ever since childhood.
• Magic Knight Rayearth:
  • Subverted when it seems that Umi is unaware of Ascot the Summoner's feelings for her. It becomes apparent that she knows, she'd just rather stay friends and not talk about it.
  • Hikaru in the manga. Not only does Hikaru totally miss the fact that Fuu and Ferio like each other (even after seeing Ferio kiss Fuu's hand, causing Fuu to blush furiously), her reaction to Lantis asking her to marry him is to say that she wants to spend the rest of her life with the ones she loves — and defines 'the ones she loves' as just about every named character in Cephiro that is still alive.
    • Though there are only two people she mentions she specifically wants to marry.
• In Magical × Miracle, while Merleawe has at least some inkling of the crushes Vaith and Fern have on her, others are a bit more blind. For example, Yue doesn't get it. He didn't get it with the flirting. He didn't get it with the subtle attempt at a love confession, forcing Lenolora to lay it out for him, word by word, very explicitly, in front of all his peers and higher-ups. And then he turned seventeen shades of pink and was temporarily unable to form a coherent sentence. Of course, being a kuudere probably doesn't help with the ability to recognize love.
• The Megami Sound Stages of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha portray Nanoha as this in regards to Yuuno. For example, she misinterprets his worries and wishes to protect her for inferior battle tactics.
• Mazinger:
  • Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z has absolutely no idea when a girl is interested in him.
  • Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger is even worse, completely frustrating Jun Hono, who keeps sending him signals as he keeps misunderstanding them.
• Mei no Naisho: Mei could give Negi Springfield a run for his money.
• Midori Days: Seiji was completely unaware of Midori's massive crush on him until he woke up one day to find that she was now sitting where his right hand used to be. While he's no longer unaware of it, he can't bring himself to say he loves her back until the very end, at which point she's forgotten everything about their time (literally) together. And then there's Ayase, who develops a one-sided Rescue Romance for him (again, which he's completely unaware of), but her attempts at telling him are constantly foiled by Midori. Forget punching out a yakuza and the car he was riding in, Seiji's skull has a density on par with neutron stars.
• In the web manga Momokuri, this is simultaneously played straight and inverted in the character Yuzuki. While she crushes on Rihito, she remains oblivious to Rihito's feelings for her, her cousin Shouta's feelings for her, or even her own feelings for Shouta.
• Nozaki of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun can't seem to figure out that Chiyo is in love with him (to Single-Target Sexuality levels), which is ironic considering his profession — a Shōjo Demographic mangaka.
  • Kashima from the same series is an equally bad example — ironic, considering she's also the campus's biggest flirt. When Hori realizes his feelings for her and starts making an effort to be nicer to her, she interperets his kidness — and only his kindness, mind you — as surprise Improv rounds for drama club. She's also a two-way example: she doesn't consider her own feelings towards Hori as anything special, despite looking up to him, wanting to spend all her time with him, thinking he can do no wrong, having chosen to go to Roman Academy specifically to be with him, and suffering debilitating emotional pain so bad she collapses from not talking to him for a few days.
• The Mother of the Great Demon King's 10 Children in Another World: Albert is unaware An has romantic feelings for him and thinks her love for him is the sort a child feels for a father figure.
• Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation:
  • Rudeus, despite being Genre Savvy, tends to misinterpret the feelings of girls who are interested in him. It usually takes them blatantly throwing the fact in his face for him to realize how they feel.
  • A more serious example is the relationship between future Rudeus and Eris. She constantly pursued him and they fought many times, with Rudeus becoming increasingly suspicious she was working for his enemy. Only after her death did he learn she simply loved him and wanted to stand at his side.
• My Dress-Up Darling: Wakana Gojo has this mixed with Insecure Love Interest. There's a very obvious mutual attraction between him and Marin Kitagawa (who isn't exactly subtle about her own feelings for him), but he considers her so painfully out of his league that he can't even fathom the idea that a girl like her would be romantically interested in him.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Ochaco Uraraka has a very obvious crush on Izuku Midoriya, which he mostly fails to notice both because of his own obvious crush on her, and honestly he's just plain busy with all the villain attacks and how he keeps breaking his bones. It is implied that he's starting to figure it out during the final arc, but considering they're in a life or death struggle for the heart and soul of the world, it's clearly not the best time to bring it up.
  • Himiko Toga has a Villainous Crush on Izuku, and constantly talks about how she wants to spend time with him, drink his blood, and become him. However, it isn't until she explicitly asks him out on a date that he finally realizes what that means.
    Izuku Midoriya was the ninth wielder of One For All and the key to this particular battle. Since the advent of the extraordinary, One for All had been the only power in Japan—no, in the entire world that the shadowy mastermind—All For One—was obsessed over. And now, this boy was the vessel for that very power. He had encountered Himiko Toga a number of times by this point, but since she had never come right out and expressed her affection in words, he'd never realize the way she felt about him. Because for all his triumphs, he was still just a damned nerd.
• In My-HiME, Natsuki Kuga fails to notice the fact that her best friend, Shizuru Fujino, is very into her.
• My Lady Just Wants to Relax: Ronia doesn't seem to realise how many of the men she is close to are seeking her affection.
• The hero Takeo from My Love Story!! is rather dense when it comes to reading other people, so it requires his best friend, Suna, to basically tell him that there's a girl that likes him for Takeo to really get it. A large part of it is because he's spent his whole life watching the girls he liked prefer Suna to him, so he assumes at first the same is true of Yamato. He is also completely oblivious to Suna's older sister having feelings for him, which she has had since elementary.
• Youko from My Monster Secret spends a good while completely oblivious to Asahi's feelings for her. In one early chapter where Asahi is running himself ragged protecting her secret, his friend Okada asks Youko point-blank "Do you know why he's doing all this?", and she doesn't have an answer, simply believing that he's an incredibly Nice Guy who looks after his friends.
  • The real irony is, Asahi is couldn't lie to save his life, so his crush on Youko has been blatantly obvious to everyone he knows, except Youko.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!:
  • Katarina is so intent on disabling the various "destruction flags"^note the universe is a visual novel game she was reborn into as the main villain, so she's attempting to avoid a bad end for herself that she doesn't notice she's seduced all four of the actual heroine's love interests (including her adopted brother), as well as two major female rivals, and the main heroine. All of them have confessed to her as blatantly as possible at numerous points, but she's never able to understand the declarations as anything other than impassioned statements of friendship, and in fact, often confuses any arguments wherein any of her friends fight over her as them flirting with each other. This even extends to some of the romantic novels she reads; the novels in question contain lesbian Homoerotic Subtext, yet she reads them as stories of platonic friendships between women.
  • It's suggested that Frey is deeply in love with Ginger, but that Ginger fails to notice.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto never actually picked up on Hinata having a massive crush on him until she told him in Chapter 437 despite everyone else seeing it; rather, he thought she was just being Hinata. When he actually found out after she confessed, he was very surprised. Deconstructed when one looks at the reasoning why: Naruto wasn't raised by a loving family and was something of a pariah, scorned by nearly the entire village. He does love people and does his best to show it, but not having grown up in a stable and loving environment means that he can't tell familial love or even the love for ramen from romantic love; moreover it was shown from Chapter 1 that Naruto believed that the only way he would be loved is if he became strong (by becoming Hokage and getting acknowledged by the villagers and also beating Sasuke and with that winning Sakura's affections), so the idea that someone would love him for who he is didn't fit with this mindset, which explains why he was oblivious to Hinata's love and considered her "weird" at first since she always behaved awkward, shy and embarrased everytime he was around her. Subverted in The Last: Naruto the Movie, where he finally realizes that Hinata loves him in that way and also realizes his own love for her. Ironically, it's Hinata that's oblivious to his very obvious feelings until he spits it out... but then she "rejects" him and goes with Toneri (in order to save her younger sister Hanabi), and Naruto does not take this well at all. Then, when he makes his Heroic Vow to save Hinata from Toneri and properly return her love for him, he explicitly says, "You always loved me for the way I am" (or "You've loved someone like me forever and ever," depending on the translation), which confirms that he's insecure around her because he never thought someone like her would genuinely love him for him. Because this fits well with Kiba's comment about Naruto "acting tough" in front of Hinata in Chapter 611 — which Naruto did not deny nor poke fun at — and Sakura's knowing smile as she said, "So you finally get it", when he kept calling out Hinata's name in a delirious state for three days after she "rejected" him, it's heavily implied that Naruto had been in love with Hinata for a while, but his deep-seated insecurities, lack of experience with these sort of personal relations, and even a lack of guidance from parental figures all played heavily into he was not able Things finally work out at the end of the movie, where Hinata wholeheartedly accepts Naruto's proposal, the two enter a relationship, get Happily Married, and have two children.
  • Kakashi's old teammate, Rin, didn't realize Obito was in love with her. Kakashi told her after he died (or at least they thought he was dead). Rin didn't take it well, especially considering that like Sakura's unrequited crush on Sasuke, she had unrequited feelings for Kakashi. Sakura ended up being luckier than Rin, as Sasuke finally reciprocates her feelings at the end of the manga.
  • Shikamaru doesn't notice Shiho's massive crush on him at all. He also doesn't acknowledge there is anything between him and Temari. In the light novels, even after Shikamaru asks Temari out he still manages to be completely oblivious about several things, including thinking Temari is blushing because she's got a fever. Even Naruto is able to notice the chemistry between him and Temari, despite the prior explanation (though Naruto is pretty good at observing people and getting them.)
• Negima!:
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Negi is utterly oblivious that a number of his students are in love with him, only picking up on it when they tell him to his face. Somewhat justified by the fact that he's too young to know what's going on, and several of his students (especially Chisame) point out just how blind he is to anything involving romance and note that this is going to lead to a lot of trouble in the future. (Ironically, he has no trouble noticing when other people are in love with someone other than him... like his student Setsuna Sakurazaki's crush on Konoka, for example.)
    • In Chapter 269, we see that Negi apparently got it from his mother Arika, who for all her intelligence was still unable to tell Nagi had feelings for her until he flat-out stated it to her.
    • Negi's friend/rival, Kotarou, has it just as bad as him when it comes to his surrogate sister Natsumi's blatant feelings for him.
    • Konoka seems to be clueless about Setsuna's feelings for her, but for about the entire series there seemed to be some dispute over whether Konoka is truly completely oblivious, a downright sadistic tease, or making subtle overtures 'Set-chan' is too dense to realise are intentional, although it's more likely the third suggestion.
    • Setsuna is herself oblivious to love, and constantly insists (to herself) that having romantic feelings for Konoka would be wrong — and that Konoka would never be interested in her like that anyway — it seems likely that it's the latter. Konoka canonically states that she really, really wants to have the same close, easy relationship with Setsuna they shared during childhood, and does many things to achieve this end. This is so bad that Negi can see the attraction between them, despite normally being utterly clueless in matters of love.
    • Takahata doesn't seem to catch on how hard Asuna is crushing on him until she spells it out for him. Judging by his reaction, he had no idea.
  • Negi's grandson/clone Touta Konoe in UQ Holder! inherited his grandfather's inability to recognize when girls are in love with him.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion includes a traditional take on this trope with Shinji and Asuka. Asuka is (according to Word of God) in love with Shinji and often flirts with him (showing him her cleavage before asking him if he believes that her breasts would grow if someone applied heat, looking for excuses to kiss him...). But since she is a traumatized, insecure and frightened kid that constantly pushes everyone away, and Shinji is a shy, insecure kid and she pushes him away constantly, he can't believe that she would be interested in him. In turn his obliviousness causes her to believe that HE is not interested in her, so she gets angry and continues pushing him away. (The last scene of End of Evangelion hints that maybe they may finally break the vicious cycle.)
• Kou of New Game! is unaware that Rin is crushing on her for years. A coworker and a very close friend, sure, but nothing romantically.
• Kirika of Noir somehow manages to fail to notice Chloe's attraction to her even when the other girl goes so far as to kiss her while they're both completely naked. This plays a major part in Chloe's transformation from Lesbian to Psycho Lesbian.
• Ririka's friends in Nurse Angel Ririka SOS can tell that her childhood friend Seiya likes her but she can't.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy seems oblivious to Boa Hancock's love for him. Neither of them are well-suited to understanding relationships. Hancock, considered the world's most beautiful woman, can turn anyone to stone if they feel lust towards her. Luffy is the first person she encounters who is unaffected by her powers. This, coupled with him selflessly helping her people, causes Hancock to fall in love, though doesn't understand what her feelings mean at first, and later thinks that a hug from Luffy means they're engaged. Luffy, meanwhile, is immune to her powers because he is wholly focused on piracy and adventure. After the timeskip Hancock bluntly asks Luffy if he'll marry her, and Luffy absent-mindedly responds that he's never getting married. Though it's still not clear he properly understands the connection between romance and marriage.
    • As of Whole Cake Island, it turns out he does indeed understand that connection, and wholeheartedly believes that people should marry out of love. So this trope is quite possibly subverted. Really, he's more a Chaste Hero than oblivious.
  • We also have Camie, who furiously blushed and stammered when Shakky asked if she was Hatchan's lover. Hatchan himself barely reacts to the question. Or perhaps he does know but doesn't want to embarrass/encourage her.
  • Princess Mansherry is in love with Leo and Everyone Can See It...except Leo. Mansherry frequently lashes out in frustration at Leo's oblivious nature. As a result, Leo thinks that Mansherry is a vicious and bad-tempered Spoiled Brat even though she is normally very sweet to everyone else.
• Onimote: Outarou Kiyohime is just as dense as your standard harem protagonist; It is, however, Justified due to the problem being supernatural in origin: His Forgotten Childhood Friend accidentally used her Evil Eye to curse him in to only loving her, thus forcibly preventing him from recognizing the feelings the girls have for him. Once the childhood friend in question carelessly wishes that all of the girls would become Outarou's lovers, the curse is reversed and he is able to knowledge the feelings the girls have and becomes more assertive as a result.
• Otherside Picnic: In Vol. 3, Toriko says "I love you" to Sorawo. Come the start of Vol. 4, when Toriko wants to hold hands, Sorawo doesn't get why. When Toriko says "I love you" to her several times, she thinks it's platonic. When she learns that Toriko has two moms, she's a bit confused initially, since, spending her youth running away from her family and the cult they joined, she never really explored her romantic leanings. It takes a Twice Shy moment at the hot springs for her to realize that Toriko may be attracked to her, and that she may be attracted to her in turn. Even then, she's still a bit confused as to why Toriko then makes frequent requests to bathe with her, or suggests they zip their sleeping bags together so the can be inside one big sleeping bag. It's not until Toriko saves her life and delivers a Big Damn Kiss that she finally understands completely.
  Toriko: Sorawo, I love you. You understand that, right?
• Ouran High School Host Club:
  • Haruhi, whose obliviousness to other people's feelings towards her has led to many accidental "Just Friends" speeches, usually when the person with a crush on her was about to give a love confession. Made doubly amusing by the fact that these appear to be about the ONLY feelings the normally perceptive Haruhi is oblivious to.
• Subverted in Penguindrum, since Tabuki wasn't that oblivious in the end. He was in love with Momoka, a girl who died many years ago.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Ash, Ash, Ash: numerous characters of the day, multiple traveling companions, and Arceus-knows-how-many Pokémon have had obvious feelings for him, and he's remained the Chaste Hero since you could count the number of episodes on one hand. Heck, even his newly-hatched Scraggy knew more about love than him. Keep in mind that he is 10-years-old, and also the Idiot Hero. Ash often also has the issue of being oblivious to the concept of romantic love itself, even when he is not the recipient (though this actually wasn't the case in the first season, he even engaged in She Is Not My Girlfriend moments to show that he actively denied being in love with someone as opposed to being oblivious like in later seasons); his mind always defaults to friendship when he hears the word "love", and even when Serena shows some of the most blatant signs of attraction towards him in the series, he still remains blissfully unaware until she kisses him perhaps.
  • Brock also falls into this trope at times, given most of the girls who DO fall for him are younger than him, aside from Pike Queen Lucy, who has a thing for Eyes Always Shut. Poor guy just can't win... not even in Ash Ketchum's finale.
• Pokémon Adventures: Red. Even by the end of the Emerald arc he remains blissfully unaware that Yellow and Misty see him as more than a "friend" at times (though the end of the GSC arc indicates that this is intentional obliviousness on his part, as dealing with romance makes him very uncomfortable).
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Kamijou Kyousuke's failure to notice that Sayaka even likes him is impressive, given how much she dotes on him after he gets a Career-Ending Injury and falls into severe depression. Humorously lampshaded in the Rebellion movie, where Sayaka and Kyouko refer to him as "Captain Oblivious". Not to mention how screwed up this trope gets. Unaware that his sudden recovery comes from Sayaka's Selfless Wish, he winds up dating their mutual friend Hitomi. Given the angst she had already been put through, poor Sayaka snaps like a twig. In more ways than one.
• Kasumi seems totally unaware that Dr. Tofu is totally infatuated with her in Ranma ½. Although given that Dr. Tofu basically flips out when he so much as hears Kasumi's voice, has been doing this at least since she hit puberty, and neither Ranma nor Akane want to tell her why the good doctor does so, it's quite plausible that she sincerely doesn't know what the deal is.
• Kyoko of Reborn! (2004) is painfully oblivious to Tsuna's crush on her, despite everyone else in the series knowing about it.
• In Rent-A-Girlfriend, while Kazuya is fully aware of how he feels about Chizuru, he's not the slightest bit aware that Sumi has fallen for him. For her part, Chizuru is unconvinced that Kazuya has fallen in love with her and tries to use every excuse to dismiss it as a possibility. It takes an Interrupted Declaration of Love from Kazuya for her to realize he has deep feelings for her.
• Seiya Kou of Sailor Moon constantly flirts with the protagonist from the moment they first meet. At first she's just playing, but she becomes more serious after Usagi confesses that her boyfriend in America hasn't been responding to any of her letters since he was dead, but she doesn't know it. Seiya concludes that Usagi's boyfriend has dumped her; Usagi convinces herself that he's just working hard, and thus remains oblivious to Seiya's intentions.
• In Saki, Nodoka forms quite a crush on Saki, to the point that it has a negative influence on her Mahjong-playing abilities. Most everyone in the mahjong club seems to realize this — except for Saki herself.
• One of the main foundations School Rumble is built upon. Tenma is too busy mooning over Karasuma to notice that Harima is mooning over her, and Harima is too busy mooning over Tenma to notice that Eri and Yakumo are mooning over him. (Not to mention that Karasuma is too busy mooning over curry to notice Tenma..... not that he cares anyway.) Hilarity and misunderstandings ensue, of course.
• Ken Washio of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, sometimes. His feelings towards Jun vary from episode to episode Depending on the Writer. Arguably he gets a little better about this in the sequels.
• Seraph of the End: Yuu appears oblivious to Mitsuba's and Shinoa's feelings for him.
• Fuyuki Hinata of Sgt. Frog is totally oblivious to the crush Momoka Nishizawa has on him. Much to her endless frustration. It has been hinted, though, that Fuyuki is aware of Momoka's crush on him, and actually secretly returns her feelings.
• Yuuji from Shakugan no Shana is the resident Chick Magnet. He's also incredibly good at convincing himself that no girl could possibly find him that interesting and every time he gets suspicious about Shana and/or Kazumi being in love with him, he just shrugs it off as his imagination.
• A Silent Voice: Ishida is consistently oblivious to the female attraction towards him. When he was in grade six, it was due to his immaturity that he didn't realize Ueno was crushing on him. And in the present day, both Ueno and Shouko have feelings towards him. It's understandable why Ishida is ignorant of Ueno's continued crush on him due to the fact he can't stand her. But for Shouko, it's likely from his own self-loathing that prevents him from realizing it.
• Simoun: Aer falls under this. At the start, she has no idea why anyone would want to kiss someone else if they weren't about to pilot a Simoun.
• Skip Beat!: Kyoko is a very mixed bag. After choosing to give up on love because Shou broke her heart, it's become clear that she doesn't understand the intentions of her male suitors. She doesn't realize that Reino is actually attracted to her, and thinks he only annoys her because he's a sadist, and doesn't get Kijima's intent behind dressing her up. On the other hand, she might be aware that Ren has developed feelings for her because she has several moments of interrupting him or changing the subject when he's about to compliment her.
• Snow White with the Red Hair: Mitsuhide seems unaware of Kiki's feelings for him. Of course everyone except Zen is generally in the dark about how she feels and Mitsuhide himself says that even though she's his trusted partner in protecting the prince, he can never tell what she's really thinking.
• Sound! Euphonium: Kumiko is oblivious to the fact her childhood friend Shuuichi has a crush on her.
• Special A: Hikari is utterly unable to separate "rival" and "lover" in her mind, and despite the most obvious hints from Kei (even a kiss and Kei attempting to get a date with her), she continues to be blindly ignorant of this. Yet everyone else around them seems to have caught on.
• Strawberry Shake Sweet: Ran and Julia spend a good deal of the manga like this: first by failing to notice their own feelings, then by practically refusing to acknowledge that said feelings are mutual. Hilarity Ensues.
• Sweet Blue Flowers: Akira doesn't realize that her infinite kindness toward her childhood friend Fumi causes the latter's feelings for her to resurface. That is, until Fumi finally confesses to her.
• Subverted refreshingly with Kirito in Sword Art Online. Unlike the stereotypical harem protagonist, Kirito is well aware of the girls' affections toward him. It's just that he has already given his heart to Asuna and deliberately plays Selective Obliviousness so as not to hurt their feelings.
  • Played straight for drama when he not only fails to realize Suguha's feelings for him until she spells it out for him, but he fails to realize Leafa's feelings for Kirito until he realizes that she's Suguha.
• Miku of Symphogear is very obviously and utterly in love with her best friend, Hibiki. Unfortunately for her, Hibiki is dense as a block of solid lead and Miku can't work up the nerve to actually confess to her. Leaving Hibiki utterly oblivious to her romantic intentions. Though the final episode of the finale season implies Hibiki has finally caught on, and may just reciprocate. Though the show leaves it ambiguous.
• In Tamagotchi, Himespetchi has a crush on Mametchi and has daydreams about him which cause her to fangirl and confuse others. Himespetchi is too shy to mention she has a crush on him, and Mametchi doesn't notice.
• Tamako of Tamako Market doesn't know she has already became the crush of both Mochizou and Midori, thinking they're just friends. The latter two actually got into a fight on Love Confession in Episode 5.
• Deconstructed with the protagonist of TenPuru: No One Can Live on Loneliness. Akemitsu Akagami comes from a family of womenizer which gets him labelled as a pariah by others even though Akagami refuses to follow his family's ways. This hurts his self-esteem and comes to see that no women will come to love him. As a result, he fails to realize that the girls of the temple, sans Kiki, are in love with him.
• In Tiger & Bunny, Kotetsu is completely oblivious to Karina's increasingly obvious crush on him. Not even Karina's giddy declaration that she'll cherish a towel he gave her forever seems to have clued him in. Word of God says he's always this oblivious when it comes to women's advances.
  Kotetsu: ... What's up with her?
• The main character in Tokyo Ravens (like Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan but with a good omyoji family vs. evil spirits) is doubly oblivious. He doesn't know why his best female friend is so concerned about him and his future and when his seemingly cold and snobby cousin visits him with a Luminescent Blush he asks if she has a fever. When both these girls get angry that a Dark Magical Girl has been flirting with him he gets very confused. At least his friend tearfully made a love confession while his cousin, furious that he said the DMG was cute in the middle of warning her to leave for her own safety, decides to stay at the one place the DMG said she was going to attack.
• In To Love Ru, Sephie claims that Gid had no idea she was in love with him until she resorted to forcing herself onto him.
• In Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kidou Kyuukyuu Keisatsu, Sasagawa seems to have no clue that Karigari is in love with her, despite being quite fond of him herself. Probably doesn't help that he Cannot Spit It Out.
• In Tonari no Kashiwagi-san Kotone asked Yuuto what date he was on that Tina asked him about, not realising she was referring to the Double Date Yuuto and Kotone herself went on with Sayaka and Kazuki. This is fairly typical for her.
• Ami in Toradora! is very very transparent with how she feels about Ryuji, dropping incredibly obvious hints ("I would be your equal in a relationship") but since she never actually says anything outright, Ryuji is oblivious. So is the rest of the cast... To be fair, Ryuji is just oblivious in general, and he never gets that anyone is in love with him until they directly say it to his face. He's a Horrible Judge of Character in general, so he's equally bad at figuring out what people are like outside of romance, too.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: Leon won't realize that a girl likes him unless someone spells it out for him like Olivia and Angie did.
• Fai in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- doesn't seem to get how much Kurogane cares about him, even going so far as assuming that he hates him, and only wises up when Kurogane saves his life by making him a vampire and agreeing to become his food source for the rest of his life. Then he violently tries to retcon this by being a massive passive-aggressive dick. It doesn't work. He snaps out of it and accepts it when Kurogane cuts off his own arm to save him in Celes and everything gets better from there.
• Val × Love: Takuma never notices that some of the Saotome sisters really do love him as a person, and are not going on dates with him just because it helps them grow.
• The Villainous Daughter's Butler, I'll Crush the Destruction Flags: Averted. Cyril knows that Sophia and Alicia have fallen for him after the prince’s birthday party. He shows some evidence of being in denial, but not obliviousness.
• Kyohei and Sunako from The Wallflower absolutely refuse to even entertain the thought that they're in love with each other — Sunako going as far as to say 'Love is an illusion' and Kyohei using the excuse that he 'loves her food' — and this is after they've kissed twice, saved each other countless times and had the entire cast calling them out on their UST and feelings — so much that at this point of the manga everyone is convinced they are in love/together. EVERYONE. EXCEPT. THEIR STUPID SELVES.
• Nitori from Wandering Son didn't realize Saori's Puppy Love for her until Saori went and confessed. Saori's Love Confession bombed in her face because earlier that day Nitori herself confessed to their mutual friend Takatsuki (and was declined). This caused a rift in Saori's friendship with Takatsuki which wouldn't fully repair for several years.
• Waratte! Sotomura-san: Sotomura is completely unaware that both Mikumo and Gian are in love with her.
• Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun: Iruma Suzuki has a horrible first fourteen years of his life. He is mentally and physically abused by his lazy parents who conditioned him to do anything a person asked of him. When they sell him to a powerful demon for money, it improves his life as the demon adopts him as his grandson. Because of his upbringing he is able to notice and analyze various situations, because of his total lack of experience in romance, he tends to treat every demon girl as a friend and fails to understand he is wooing them. In a span of relationships from loving him to infatuation, Eiko, Clara Valac, Ameri Azazel, Kerori Crocell, Elizabetta Ix, and others have all pined for him. One younger girl tells him she wants to seize his number one spot while holding his hands, and he thinks she is talking academics. It takes Ameri hugging him close after a romantic dance and nearly confessing her own feelings for him to realize just how she is feeling about her and it makes him slowly start to reconsider how he really feels about Ameri.
• ×××HOLiC:
  • Himawari appears very oblivious to Watanuki's obvious affection for her, turning it up when he gets more direct. This turns out to most likely be a Subversion: she chooses to pretend obliviousness in the hopes of protecting him from the supernatural bad luck that hovers around her and afflicts those she becomes close to.
  • Watanuki, meanwhile, utterly fails to catch on to the fact that Doumeki keeps on hanging around because of him (maybe non-romantically, maybe not), assuming instead that Doumeki is his rival for Himawari's affection and/or just generally trying to annoy him. Watanuki also never realizes Kohane had developed feelings for him until she's already on her way to getting married, when her soon-to-be-husband Doumeki points it out.
• Katie from Yo-kai Watch , especially in the anime. Not only do all the boys in her class fawn over her, but in some episodes, all three of her guy friends (including the male protagonist) compete over her and show signs of being attracted to her. Even certain Yo-kai, such as Kyubi, have a crush on her and Kyubi openly flirts with her and tries to make her fall in love with her in his human form. She remains oblivious to everyone's affection. Doubles as a Clueless Dude Magnet.
  • Touma of Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside generally doesn't seem to openly express any attraction to anyone, and any attempts at romancing usually end up with him missing the point.
• Yona from Yona of the Dawn is very much this, as she never picks up on the romantic intent of several men, including that of her best friend, Hak. It's so bad that by the time she realizes she loves him, she still doesn't notice that he loves her back and believes that she has no chance with him.
  • Later in the series, the aforementioned character Hak grows to be just as oblivious. Though for him, it's more a case of noticing Yona's attraction to him and dismissing it as something else, as he does spend a large chunk of the manga being a Hopeless Suitor.
• Shun from You and Me is completely oblivious of Masaki's crush towards him. When his friends mention that she's "lovesick" he wonders if she's ill from over-studying.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Played with in regards to Jaden and Alexis. The dub drops such strong hints about her feelings that he has to be a complete dunce not to pick up on them, such as her reacting very strongly with jealousy when she thinks another girl might be his type. The original, however, implies a few times that he does get it, he just isn't interested in a Relationship Upgrade. They have a bit of Book Ends in the fourth season where, after a bout of Cannot Spit It Out on her part, he simply tells her that he had a fun game. Considering that he was in a Romantic Fusion with someone else at that point, it's possible this was his way of letting her down gently.
  • In the manga, Alexis is entirely unaware about Bastion's crush on her. Zane falls into this in as well, although in fairness, it's regarding love for another person. After he consoles Alexis after her loss to David, Bastion gets somewhat jealous, vowing to face him "as a duelist and as a man". Later on, after Alexis and Bastion's team battle, when Atticus declares that his sister is off limits to Bastion, Zane doesn't understand what he means, and Atticus is irritated that he is unaware of Bastion's obvious crush.
  • Yuma Tsukumo from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Tori, Cathy, and Anna all in love with him, but he somehow doesn't notice. In the final episode, Tori confesses to him. He's incredibly shocked, but doesn't seem to mind.
  Astral: Observation #11: Seems like Yuma still doesn't understand women's feelings.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V has Yuya being generally oblivious to Zuzu, Aura and Grace's interest, only noticing Aura's advances because she's so unsubtle about them.
  • A minor example in Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. Akira is completely oblivious to his subordinate Hayami's crush on him, having no idea why she would watch footage of his heroism multiple times. He also doesn't respond to Emma's flirtatious behaviour, but it's possible that this is due to familiarity with her gadfly tendencies. Ultimately, he's just far too focused on worrying about his younger sister Skye to have time for romance.
• Shunsuke from Yuria 100 Shiki has no clue that Yuria likes him despite how hard she tries to take care of him, not to mention her constant attempts to have sex with him.
• Togo from Yuki Yuna is a Hero has a crush on her best friend Yuna and they share a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. Yuna is utterly ignorant of the fact, even when Togo seems a bit too into practicing a kissing scene with her in the visual novel.
• In Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs, while there are signs that Kogarashi may know how the girls in his harem feel about him, for the most part, he's oblivious unless they confess to him. Kogarashi was on the giving end of this trope with his master Ouga — she didn't know Kogarashi used to have a crush on her until Oboro asks her how she made Kogarashi fall for her.
• In YuYu Hakusho Yukina is oblivious to Kuwabara's love for her. This mostly has to do with her coming from a race that completely freezes their hearts so they can live without men in their lives. This doesn't stop Kuwabara from openly liking her.

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