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Straight Man / Anime & Manga

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  • Yomi and Nyamo, Azumanga Daioh.
  • Firo tends to serve as the designated Straight Man in Baccano!. Typically, he has to deal with Isaac and Miria's shenanigans, but other (usually profoundly violent) lunatics are happy to fill the role when the two aren't available.
  • Beauty and Gasser from Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, though on rare occasions when they're absent or otherwise indisposed, Bobobo or Don Patch will briefly take the role.
  • In CLANNAD, Tomoya often takes the role of the "Straight Man" in regards to pranking other characters, particularly Sunohara.
  • Natsuki plays this role in Chronicles of the Going Home Club. Her clubmates often say or do extremely unusual things, such as fighting bears, being so absurdly rich to the point that spending money for them is the same as running tap water, or wanting to try eating the ice cream stuck on a lid as being the best part of it, only to then buy a popsicle instead.
  • Daily Lives of High School Boys have Tadakuni towards the more oddball Hidenori and Yoshitake, and Tadakuni's Distaff Counterpart Habara towards Yanagin and Ikushima (who are Hidenori and Yoshitake's Distaff Counterpart respectively).
  • Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z certainly seems to fall into this role, particularly when Gotenks is involved.
  • Excel♡Saga: Watanabe are Matsuya are the straight men for the somewhat hyperactive Casanova Wannabe Iwata, and, arguably, Sumiyoshi acts like this for all three of them when Watanabe and Matsuya are of the Only Sane Man. Excel and Hyatt play Straight Woman to each other, as both have their bizzare quirks that rarely overlap, and to Il Palazzo, who is the Comically Serious.
  • Shimura Shinpachi in Gintama. It's outright stated by the narrator during Shinpachi's very first appearance onscreen.
    • There's almost always a straight man on the scene. If Shinpachi is preoccupied or absent, somebody else typically ends up filling the role in his place.
    • Chapter 326 pokes fun at this. Shinpachi and Hijikata find themselves in a world where two years have passed and everyone changed. Shinpachi wonders if they are being punished because they have been neglecting their duties as a straight man.
  • Haré from Haré+Guu plays this role for pretty much everyone in the series.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya: Kyon is the straight man for Haruhi's craziness. Though it has to be noted that Kyon is damn hilarious on his own, too.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • High School Dx D: Surprisingly, Issei of all people actually becomes this. He's this to Asia and Xenovia when they end up praying and gain damage, to Rias when he recognized who the Satan Rangers were (while Rias thought it was a new enemy), to Bikou and Vali when they thought Mii-tan was a Cat Girl, tried this to Irina when she said she wanted to create a new club but is still joining the Occult Research Club, and to Rossweisse when he lampshades how her immediate reaction to the Clothing Damage she received from Dress Break was to complain about losing her clothes that cost her money losing her clothes that cost her money instead of immediately covering herself up.
  • Igano Kabamaru: Mai Ookumo. Despite being a first year student, she's the only one with any common sense and believes that violence and pettiness isn't the answer, in contrast to her zany grandmother and the idiotic protagonist.
  • Kagami from Lucky Star plays the "straight man" to Konata.
  • For some reason, Teana of Lyrical Nanoha usually gets this role in Fan Web Comics. This was pretty much acknowledged by the people behind the franchise when they gave us an official Nanoha parody Yonkoma where Teana played the straight man for everyone. Even Fate. See.
  • Sasshi Imamiya and Arumi Asahina from Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.
  • Among the main characters of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, Sakura, Mikoshiba, and Hori tend to take up this role, with their deadpan and self-awareness contrasting with Nozaki, Kashima, Seo, and Wakamatsu. They all have their eccentricities, though, so one of the other two will step up when Sakura's gushing about Nozaki, Hori's gushing about Kashima, and Mikoshiba's gushing about gal games.
  • Naruto:
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, anyone with darkness as a personality trait (Negi, Evangeline) or who has Black as their tonus, or Pactio colour (Setsuna, Yue, Chisame) will fill this role.
    • Eishun fills this role during the flashbacks, and Akira occasionally fills this role within the group of Muggle girls.
  • Most characters from Nichijou dynamically assume this role, although Mio, Nano and Sakamoto do it most often, while some other extremely eccentric characters such as Mai or Professor never do.
  • In Nerima Daikon Brothers, the very sedate Ichiro typically plays the straight man for the other two members of the group — although he has some of his own strange quirks.
  • Often, Zoro of One Piece is this to Luffy and even Sanji at times.
    • Almost everyone in the entire crew (except Luffy) has moments of being the straight man, but none of them are always was the straight man (not even Robin, who has probably the darkest sense of humor out of all of them).
  • Liquid from Papuwa, as well as Shintaro from the original series.
  • This of the role of Pearl in Pokemon Special. Like Bud Abbott he writes the jokes, Diamond delivers the punchlines.
  • Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they? has Kurousagi to the problem children, and occasionally other characters like Shiroyashi. Kurousagi is constantly trying to curb their goofball antics, and they constantly twist her words or plainly contradict her in favour of fun, usually at her expense.
  • In Sailor Moon, Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask is everyone's straight man. He's a master at it, on a good day he has to play this role for a good ten people at once.
  • Fuyuki Hinata from Sgt. Frog. He exhibits great patience and friendship towards the Keronians, and is often the voice of reason and manages to diffuse conflicts, whereas his older sister Natsumi doesn't trust them since they are basically conquering Earth.
    • Dororo could also be considered a straight man, seeing as he is always at odds with Keroro over his plans to take over Earth, since Dororo is basically a tree-hugging hippie.
  • Himeko from SKET Dance and she takes it's very seriously.
    • Bossun as well.
  • In Slayers, Zelgadis is the straight man for Amelia. Lina and Gourry, meanwhile, are a fluid pair, each one switching between straight man and comic role depending on the routine.
    • Gourry is usually straight man when Lina is plotting something or when she goes on one of her rampages of destruction. Lina is usually straight man when thickheaded Gourry tries to understand something.
      • Also, Gourry frequently tries to abandon the straight man role by straight-up telling jokes. These are always awful, and leave Lina exasperated. Gourry ends up disheartened, though ironically, doing this puts him in the comic role like he wanted.
  • Chika to everyone but especially Miu in Strawberry Marshmallow.
  • Transformers Cybertron: Jetfire is the straight man, with various other characters up to and including Optimus Prime and even Primus playing the wise guy role.
  • Ayu Tateishi from Ultra Maniac.
  • Koganei is the straight man to Amasawa's boke on-screen in The Weatherman Is My Lover.
  • Sumi from Wife and Wife plays this role for her Cloud Cuckoolander wife, Kina, making her a Gay Woman Straight Man.
  • My Monster Secret: The role bounces around a bit depending on which characters are in focus. Asahi and, to a lesser extent, Mikan tend to be the ones who play the part most often, though there are plenty of cases where they're Not So Above It All. Later on, Asahi's sister Mei proves that this might run in their family.

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