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Underestimating Badassery / Anime & Manga

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People Underestimating Badassery in anime and manga.

  • Attack on Titan:
    • The Beast Titan, despite being warned about Levi by both of his subordinates, dismisses him as a mere human unworthy of consideration. This gets his Titan form cut to pieces, his army slaughtered, and forces him to retreat after nearly getting killed himself.
    • Galliard, the Jaw Titan, repeats the same mistake by not being the least bit wary of the Survey Corps, conveniently forgetting that they have spent years training and developing weapons for the sole purpose of killing Titans and being flabbergasted that they are not afraid of him.
      "You're kidding! Can't you see that I'm a Titan?! These guys are human, yet they are coming to kill me?!"
  • In the early volumes of Battle Angel Alita, Alita was underestimated on by many of her enemies and paid the price, starting with the arrogant bounty hunter named Zapan. In the sequel Manga, Last Order, her reputation as one of the strongest warriors in the universe precedes her.
  • A lot of people in Berserk tend to underestimate Guts. Many of them just don't buy that somebody can actually swing that ridiculously large sword of his or kill as many men as he has singlehandedly, while the Apostles refuse to acknowledge that a mere human can kill or even defeat them, despite knowing very well that he fought countless other Apostles, killed them and lived to kill others.
  • When the Noah's Ark Circus launches an attack on Phantomhive Manor in Black Butler, they completely write off the household staff. Turns out Ciel didn't hire his staff for their household abilities — he has Sebastian, after all — but as security. None of the circus crew survive the attack.
  • In Black Clover, the Black Bulls get this a lot, specially Asta and Noelle, the former for his lack of magic and commoner origins and the latter for being the Chew Toy of the royal family, pushed away from the Silver Eagles because her family was ashamed of her. The Black Bulls are actually amazingly powerful, but their rowdy, quirky nature gets in the way of people noticing that.
  • Black Lagoon:
    • At the beginning of the first "Killer Meido" arc, some local yahoos make the mistake of thinking that Roberta is an easy target because she's a milk-drinking Meido. Bad mistake. At the beginning of El Baile De La Muerte, some of them make the same stupid mistake about Roberta's protege Fabiola.
    • Anytime any outsiders come to Roanapur, they're either the biggest badasses around or complete morons. A perfect example would be when a Florida mafia enforcer tries to boss around the mercenaries he hired to capture Jane. Shenhua calmly explains to him that they're not a bunch of "gangbangers who get off on graffiti-ing walls"; every one of them is a professional killer.
    • In the Japan arc, Chaka thinks that Rock is perfectly safe to abuse and mistreat, even though he's part of the Hotel Moscow delegation and his bodyguard is right there. To top it off, he thinks that wantonly messing about with the heiress of the Washimine-gumi, toward whom both Rock and a true Samurai on par with Revy herself have a protective streak, is a good idea. He is proven woefully, painfully wrong.
  • Bleach:
    • Both Kenpachi and Nnoitra manage to underestimate each other during their battle. Specifically, Nnoitra finds out that Kenpachi doesn't care at all about being hit, won't stop attacking no matter what he throws at him, and is actually strong enough to bypass his resistance; meanwhile, Kenpachi is forced to reconsider his usual tactic after taking so many wounds from Nnoitra's scythes, since dragging the fight long as he usually does will result in him dying from blood loss, forcing him to do the unthinkable and use both hands.
    • Aizen is a tremendous threat, being a very powerful captain-class villain. However, both the Gotei 13 and Ichigo are so focused on avoiding Aizen's stupidly overpowered zanpakutou ability to manipulate all the senses of everyone around it that they completely overlook the most important thing: even without his zanpakutou, he's still powerful and exceptionally skilled in all shinigami arts. As a result, Aizen single-handedly takes down multiple captain-class opponents at the same time.
    • Aizen makes the same mistake soon after, however: he is so focused on defeating Yamamoto's zanpakutou, the most powerful offensive weapon in Soul Society history, that he completely underestimates Yamamoto's undefeatable skills in all shinigami arts. He also forgets about Yamamoto's resolve to win at all costs — even if he has to blow himself up to take out Aizen. He acknowledges to himself that he completely underestimated Yamamoto after defeating him.
    • Ichibei is fully aware that Yhwach possesses unique abilities and is exceptionally powerful and dangerous. However, he's so confident in his own exceptional and unique abilities that he completely misunderstands the nature of Yhwach's power. Yhwach demonstrates this when he simply ignores Ichibei's special ability, right before kicking his ass.
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun: Kuroko Shirai has clearly never heard of Shizuri Mugino, the Meltdowner and the fourth strongest esper in Academy City. When Kuroko and Mugino meets, the latter dismisses the former as an ordinary citizen and gets into a childish argument with Frenda Seivelun where she says Mikoto would easily defeat Mugino. In reality, Mikoto and Mugino had fought earlier and Mugino would have killed her if it wasn't for dumb luck. Kuroko was really lucky that Mugino was more embarrassed about Frenda than her, or else she probably would have attacked her.
  • Chainsaw Man: Makima assumes if she fought Chainsaw Man, she’d have a 50-50 chance of defeating him. Chainsaw Man rips her to shreds before she could even react.
  • It happens regularly in Claymore when the titular warriors fight a monster they don't have enough information about or, conversely, when one of the monsters meets a top-ranked claymore. However one example in particular stands out: a human bandit, confident in his sword technique, though aware that claymores are formidable warriors, dares defying Teresa in combat. Little did he know that Teresa is actually the most powerful warrior and likely being to have ever lived.
  • In Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini, Section 3 underestimates Hei after they Depower him, and Genma thinks that he's "just a gloomy gigolo." But remember that this guy was called "Black Reaper" before he became a Contractor. Somewhat justified in that prior to Hei's He's Back! moment solidified in this episode, Genma had pummeled him fairly easily in an earlier fight, although the ability of Hei to survive a beating from a psycho with Instant Armor power is itself impressive.
    • It's not the only time, either. Witness the woefully-overconfident assassin teams sent to kill him during the interquels; you'd think that nickname would be a bit of a tip-off, but this is apparently not the case.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Dragon Ball:
      • Several characters underestimated Goku when he was a child, thinking there was no way such a small child could be strong. Even as an adult, Goku still dealt with this problem from the likes of Raditz, Vegeta and Frieza.
      • When Yamcha faced Bandages the Mummy, he assumed that as a mummy, Bandages would logically be slow and thus he would easily win. Bandages shocks him by being exceedingly fast and beats the crap out of him, then asks where in the world he got the idea that he was slow.
    • Dragon Ball Z:
      • Frieza is on the giving and surprisingly the receiving end. On the one hand, Frieza treats the idea of anyone being strong enough to challenge him as ludicrous and, while he's paranoid enough to kill possible large threats before they can grow like the Saiyan race, he tends to see things differently with individuals. He at least initially didn't think much of Vegeta being a threat to him personally, more concerned that he'd snatch out the wish for the Dragon Balls underneath him, and was surprised that by the end of the Namek arc he was strong enough to match blows with his first form. He also underestimated Piccolo when he showed up to fight his second form, Gohan to an extent when he launched attacks powerful enough to pressure his second and third, and finally most damningly Goku who managed to keep up against his true form, horribly injured him with the Spirit Bomb, and then unlocked the power of Super Saiyan to become his superior. On the other hand, despite Frieza's moniker as the Emperor of the Universe almost all the heroes save for King Kai and Trunks at one point or another underestimate just how strong Frieza truly is, or rather just how much he holds back. Vegeta thought after matching his first form any transformation wouldn't make a difference, cue Frieza transforming and stomping him, Gohan, and Krillin. Piccolo thought that his training with King Kai would make him strong enough to handle Frieza when brought to Namek, cue sensing Frieza's power and realizing that was a poor decision, and even after fusing with Nail and matching Frieza's second form he didn't think Frieza can get much stronger before Frieza uses his third form and stomps him. Vegeta thought his final Zenkai boost could surpass Frieza's final form, only to get stomped horribly and die. Goku despite keeping up with Frieza's final form thought he was bluffing when he claimed he was still holding back and now would use "fifty percent" of his full power, cue Frieza powering up and stomping Goku.
      • Zig-zagged with King Cold. On the one hand, he does accurately assess that Trunks is way stronger than he is and doesn't pretend otherwise, since Trunks just effortlessly diced Frieza and vaporized the pieces. On the other, he assumes Trunks's sword is somehow responsible for his power and tries to trick him into relinquishing it, only to realize that Trunks is genuinely that powerful when King Cold turns the blade on him and Trunks catches it barehanded, and soon after father joins son.
      • When Videl first meets Gohan, she assumes he's weaker than her father, aside from the fact that he knows how to fly and shoot energy beams. Gohan even lampshades in an internal monologue that Videl is stronger than her own father and simply doesn't realize it. This ends up being shattered when the rest of the Z-Fighters show up for the World Martial Arts Tournament and casually outshine Mr. Satan.
      • Supreme Kai Shin both underestimates and overestimates badassery. He overestimates his enemies and is repeatedly surprised by how freakishly strong the Saiyans are. Had he come to Earth with a rational assessment of their power, rather than a poor assumption, things would have gone a lot better, something that he lampshades after Buu's awakening. Deconstructed as this led to Vegeta and some of the others underestimating the threat of Majin Buu, especially once the monster is revealed as an apparent goofball.
      • Majin Buu really gets this a lot, because it's easy to ignore that the cheerful silly pink bubblegum monster is an Eldritch Abomination with monstrous strength, the ability to return to perfect health shortly after being reduced to smoke, copy techniques perfectly after seeing them once, turn people into candy, and absorb others to gain their powers. It starts with the Z Fighters, as said above, but then Babidi and Dabura join in on the act and think the unsealing has gone wrong (It has not, as Dabura finds out painfully when he insults Buu), and then Van Zant and Smitty, two completely normal humans, think they can take Buu on (it ends really badly). Shin is the only one to never underestimate Buu, because Buu either killed and/or absorbed his fellow Kais in front of him eons ago.
      • Special mention should be made of Buu's true and final form Kid Buu. After barely defeating Super Buu, who Goku and Vegeta clearly feared, Buu, at the end of his transformation, shrinks to the size of a little kid, the duo start LAUGHING, clearly it will be easy as pie, right? No.
      • Underestimating Buu continues into Super's Universe Survival Saga during the prelims, where both his opponent Basil and Universe 9's Supreme Kai, Roh, think of Buu as a weakling that Basil can easily toss around. Then Basil hurts Mr. Satan, and Buu gets mad. Not only does he heal a hole in his torso in an instant (showing that Basil had actually been doing jack squat to Buu the whole time), he completely manhandles Basil until he gets a temporary power-up that allows them to fight on even terms, and even then he won once the power-up wore off. Interestingly enough, Frieza averts this, as he mentions that Majin Buu was one of two beings his father told him never to fight (the other being Beerus, below), though the two never meet and Frieza at that point was actually stronger than Buu.
      • Several bad guys end up underestimating the power of the Z-Fighters due to being over-reliant on using their scouters to read their Power Level, unaware that they can increase their strength in battle and keep it low when not fighting. Android 17 and 18 can't sense energy, so they cannot tell that Cell is much more powerful than they are, and their future counterparts likewise can't tell that Future Trunks has become powerful enough to beat them. Babidi can't sense energy, so he does not understand the significance of going Super Saiyan and mocks Goku for such a "useless transformation".
      • Subverted in the confrontation between Goku and Ginyu. Ginyu immediately realizes that Goku is a much more formidable fighter than it seems (of course, Goku effortlessly beating Recoome and Burter was already a big clue), but estimates Goku's Power Level to be around 60-80k (it was about 90k)... but then the Kaio-ken.
      • Probably the most spectacular example in the whole series was Pui Pui. To say that he underestimated Vegeta would be an Understatement. Put this way: when he realizes he's outmatched, Babidi uses magic to transport them to Pui Pui's home planet, which has 10x Earth's normal gravity — Vegeta fails to take the opportunity to point out the coincidence that his own homeworld had that level of gravity, but does point out, to Pui Pui's horror, that he's long been training in conditions which are hundreds of times Earth's gravity. Vegeta effortlessly blows the clown away without even needing to go Super Saiyan.
      • Vegeta himself has also made this mistake. He underestimated how powerful Goku was in their first battle and had to resort to becoming an Oozaru in order to swing things in his favor. This then led to him getting his tail cut off by Yajirobe after he had dismissed humans as weaklings. Despite fearing Frieza and avoiding a direct fight for most of the time on Namek in his goal to get immortality first, he manages to underestimate the tyrant twice when he first manages to match Frieza's first form and think that his transformations wouldn't be enough to beat him (cue Frieza unleashing his second form and effectively doubling in size and strength on him), and then again when he gets a desperate Zenkai boost thinking it would be enough to defeat Frieza's even stronger true form (only to get toyed with, subjected to a painful Curb-Stomp Battle, and finally killed). Then there is his battle with Android 18 where he assumes she would be easy prey having recently unlocked his Super Saiyan form and destroyed Android 19. After luring Vegeta into a false sense of security, 18 delivers an absolutely painful and humiliating Curb-Stomp Battle to him. But perhaps the worst moment of Vegeta underestimating an opponent was him thinking he could take Cell in his perfect form, a mistake Cell made sure to let him live to regret. To add insult to injury, the only reason Cell reached his perfect form is because Vegeta helped him after Cell promised him a challenge.
      • In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and the adaptation arc in Dragon Ball Super, all the characters underestimate Beerus and Whis, two gods of such unfathomable power that pretty much everyone are ants before them. This is because, as gods, they use godly ki, which is different from the normal ki that mortals use, and can't be sensed without special training. Much like the issue with scouters, this is a case where the characters' power sensing backfires on them.
    • Dragon Ball Super:
      • In Dragon Ball Super: Broly Goku, Vegeta and Frieza all severely underestimate the titular berserker Saiyan to their cost. Fresh of the Tournament of Power and having achieved God transformations, Goku and Vegeta only see Broly as a curious novelty at best with the Vegeta initially just toying with him in battle, both their attitudes drastically change when Broly’s strength and power soon far eclipses their own limits and Goku and Vegeta have to literally flee for their lives. Frieza for his part considered Broly a mere blunt instrument to use against Goku and no threat to him, yet when up against Broly himself — for all his screaming that he is the “Mighty Lord Frieza” and turning into Golden Form to show he’s serious Frieza still gets the absolute shit kicked out of him anyway.
      • In the Dragon Ball Super manga, the Galactic Bandit Brigade from the Moro arc grossly underestimate the Earthling Z-Fighters, being Drunk with Power after Moro enhanced them with Goku and Vegeta’s ki. They especially thought Yamcha would of course be easy to crush compared to the Saiyans, yet to the three prisoners in question’s surprise, Yamcha effortlessly wrecks them before explaining he’s the one of the strongest fighters in the whole universe for a reason.
      • In Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero the new Red Ribbon particularly the Unwitting Pawn Smug Super androids Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 don’t think much Piccolo and Gohan only seeing them as minor threats or mini-bosses to be taken out before moving onto main course that is Goku and Vegeta. They get a rude awakening when Gohan decimates most of their base in pure rage at Pan being “kidnapped” and Gamma 2 going from confident he can beat to Piccolo to a Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh... against his Super Mode, this results in a Screw This, I'm Outta Here from the leaders Magenta and Carmine. Also Gohan in general gets underestimated throughout the movie even by his own allies (including his own daughter Pan), being a bumbling nerd who has a Dropped Glasses moment straight after a fight. Yet as proven by the climax he’s a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass who’s the World's Strongest Man when fully realising his limitless well of potential delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to Cell Max upon becoming Beast Gohan.
  • EDENS ZERO: The Rogue Out soldiers write Homura off as a "girl in a bootleg kimono" when she offers to stay behind and fight them while Shiki goes after Sister. Keep in mind that earlier they had seen her slice a missile in half. When we next see them, the Rogue Out soldiers are on the ground while Homura doesn't so much as have a hair out of place.
  • The bad guys in Fairy Tail tend to underestimate the titular guild quite a bit, either because they're just that overconfident or they're convinced their own admitted badassery trumps Natsu and company. More often than not, they find out how badly they screwed up the hard way.
    • Exemplified during the Grand Magic Games when Natsu and Gajeel fight fellow Dragon Slayers Sting and Rogue of Sabertooth. The entire time before this, Sabertooth has been lording their assumed superiority over Fairy Tail due to being declared the #1 guild in Fiore due to the Fairy Tail elite members being trapped on Sirius Island for the seven year Timeskip, and Sting in particular made a point of antagonizing the guild so Natsu would come at him full strength and let him prove his superiority. Turns out, Natsu and Gajeel were more than strong enough to do so without using their full power, to the point Natsu fought both of the Slayers alone at their absolute best and still won without going all-out. Rogue even lampshades it as he collapses, wondering just how badly they overestimated themselves.
    • When Fairy Tail meets the executioner squad known as the Hungry Wolf Knights, they burst into laughter due to the Knight's ridiculous outfits and assume they will be pushovers despite Arcadios trying to warn them that they are dangerous. Though the Knights lose, they put up one heck of a fight.
    • For an example not related to the titular guild, Brain of Oracion Seis saw the Lamia Scale wizard Jura as a simple lightweight during the Nirvana arc, mostly thanks to how his subordinate Angel managed to so easily trick and defeat him early on. Unfortunately for him, Jura is a Wizard Saint (albeit the weakest of the ten), and when they come to blows he's fully healed and ready for combat, and proceeds to hand Brain his ass without taking a scratch.
    • Sting gets this himself when he fights Larcade of Alvarez's Spriggan 12, who mocks him as nothing but a small fry since he's not a Fairy Tail member and thus beneath notice. Unfortunately for him, Sting's his Achilles' Heel since he can counter most of his magic, and with the aid of fellow Sabertooth's Rogue and Mermaid Heel's Kagura (also "small fry" in Larcade's opinion), Sting proceeds to wipe the grin off his face and make him one of two members of the 12 who were defeated without the aid of a Fairy Tail member.
  • Isabelle of Paris: Isabelle sees Jean as a crybaby (to be fair, she wasn't wrong) in spite of his protests that he isn't. When she challenges him to a duel, to her shock, Jean wins, the latter remarking that he's been practicing his sword craft every day. However, because Jean is the show's Butt-Monkey, he then embarrasses himself by falling off his horse while trying to climb it.
  • It's not uncommon in Fist of the North Star for a minor or sometimes major villain to underestimate Kenshiro, a man who can make your body explode. Usually, said villain thinks their own techniques are better than his, and then pays with their life for it.
  • In Food Wars!, one of every antagonist's mistakes through all the manga is the fact that nobody takes in consideration that a Book Dumb upbeat boy that worked on his dad's simple restaurant or a young, sweet Shrinking Violet who is constantly apologizing are able and experienced in kicking ass on a kitchen. This happened to Ikumi, the Central, Erina, Alice, Hisako, Myoko, random students... basically everybody but the smartest ones.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric is often underestimated due to his height. Bad idea.
  • A lot of vampires sent to defeat Alucard in the earlier chapters of Hellsing (mainly Luke Valentine and Allambra) have the bad habit, while perfectly aware of his reputation, of thinking of him as merely a very powerful vampire and believing they can take care of him easily. This usually leads them to a gruesome and horrible death when finding out Alucard is actually a Humanoid Abomination at his weakest, and will turn into an Eldritch Abomination if he happens to take the fight seriously.
    • Similarly, Zorin disobeys orders and attacks the Hellsing mansion, assuming it was helpless without Alucard around. She ends up killing and insulting Seras' Love Interest, leading her to evolve into an actual vampire and granting Zorin a death that would have made Alucard proud. The Major even tried to warn her about it beforehand, saying that while he himself isn't certain why, Alucard had to have chosen to turn Seras into a vampire for a reason, and if Alucard sees something in her, then she's not to be taken lightly.
  • Played for laughs in the crossover anime, Isekai Quartet. Ainz dismisses Aqua at first (for good reason), and when she casts Turn Undead against him, he brushes it off as a low-level spell. Then it hits him, and he's suddenly screaming in pain. She also one-shots Shalltear (who is Ainz's Man of Kryptonite) in that same attack.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Battle Tendency: Wired Beck thinks Lisa Lisa is just a pretty woman and pounces on her, ignoring both her completely calm and composed attitude and her threat that it will be the last thing he does. Naturally, it doesn't end well for him.
    • Stardust Crusaders:
    • Diamond is Unbreakable:
      • Yoshikage Kira, in his first encounter with Jotaro, makes the mistake of assuming that he would be a pushover because of Jotaro's severe injuries. A No-Holds-Barred Beatdown proves him wrong, and Kira quickly wises up from it and tries his best to avoid Jotaro in the future.
      • After implanting Bites the Dust into Hayato, Kira arrogantly believes that he is just a snot nosed little brat and doesn't think he's smart enough to disrupt his plans. This is most obvious after Hayato comes up with the plan to use Stray Cat against him, Kira assumed that Hayato needed to have repeated the day three or four times in order to come up with said plan, when in actuality Hayato only repeated the day twice. Then, after luck saves him from Stray Cat's bullets, he arrogantly reveals his identify out loud in front of Josuke, never imagining that Hayato had a backup plan in case the first plan failed.
    • Golden Wind: In the midst of the last battle, Diavolo believes Giorno's Gold Experience Requiem merely gained a power-up in strength, completely forgetting that the power of Requiem grants Stands entirely new abilities as it did with Polnareff's Silver Chariot. This ends up being an eternally fatal mistake.
    • Stone Ocean: Pucci masterminded Jolyne getting sent to prison merely to use her as bait in order to lure Jotaro and steal his memories. Afterwards, he paid no mind to Jolyne at first since he assumed that she was just a spoiled brat pining for her ex-boyfriend, and therefore was no real threat. As Jolyne soon obtains her Stand, Pucci realizes how he failed to consider Jolyne's determination.
    • JoJolion: Ojiro had the advantage in his fight with Jobin, but his mistake was to underestimate Tsurugi's Paper Moon King and its illusory powers.
  • Jujutsu Kaisen:
  • Kill la Kill: Ragyo tends to do this a lot since Satsuki isn't as strong as Ryuko, which ended up being used against her a couple times.
  • Kingdom: Minor antagonist Rinbukun cleaves his way through a few generals from the once-Ouki Army until he comes face-to-face with Tou. He mocks Tou for being someone who hides behind the name of Ouki, who is now dead and cannot save him. Tou acknowledges that he was just the second-in-command to Ouki for his entire career — but points out that someone who was the Number Two to a man whose name was feared across the nation must be pretty badass himself. Tou then kills Rinbukun in a single strike.
  • Due to his history as a loser, not to mention his overall idiotic and embarrassing behavior, antagonists and even allies are constantly underestimating Kinnikuman. However, there are some exceptions:
    • Before the final match of the 20th Choujin Olympics, Robin Mask stuck to a strict training regime, even though his opponent was the bungling Kinnikuman. When questioned why he was taking the upcoming match seriously, Robin insisted that Kin was actually Obfuscating Stupidity.
    • During the fight against Devil Choujin Black Hole, Black Hole pointed out that he wouldn't be easing up on his attacks, as he knows that Kinnikuman tended to get a Heroic Second Wind at the worse moments. It turns out that he reads the Kinnikuman manga, so he knows how all of Kinnikuman's matches turned out due to this trope.
  • Happens surprisingly often in Lupin III, with people underestimating both Lupin and his gang's ability as thieves and Zenigata as a cop.
    • Zenigata is the most notable, as many mistake him for a bumbling detective due what happens when he deals with Lupin. Then the guy chases Lupin around the world, beats up groups of criminals, single-handedly brings down criminal organizations, rides torpedoes on dry land...
    • Almost as notably as Zenigata, Fujiko is often dismissed as a vain woman who is harmless without Lupin. As of this writing, the last time this happened ended with Fujiko tricking the police into helping her free an arrested Lupin and steal an Awesome Personnel Carrier from Zenigata before driving through multiple roadblocks, the last of which was armed with a cannon (Fujiko drove over it after throwing the APC's roof on it).
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • In March Comes in Like a Lion, this is one character's fatal mistake during a shogi tournament semi-final match that results in that character's loss. He initially writes him off as just another opponent (reducing him down to just his rank) in his fervor to go up against another character in the finals, not realizing the accomplishments under his semi-final opponent's belt would indicate the true strength in his abilities.
  • Mob Psycho 100: The Ceiling Crasher is extremely incredulous that a middle-schooler like Mob would try to exorcise him. He regretted it pretty quickly.
  • Monster: Several characters made the mistake of underestimating a certain blonde haired gentleman by the name of Johan Liebert.
  • In Mother Keeper, Zelik is a man in his 50s, he's short and disabled, but underestimating him will be the biggest mistake of your life. Proven by the time Syal made this mistake and narrowly avoided him punching a hole through her.
  • Naruto:
    • Characters tend to underestimate Naruto often because they simply know him as a struggling ninja academy student. Post-time skip it becomes less common, especially since he starts winning enough fights which would more than likely make others too afraid to take him on. Surprisingly averted by the real Madara Uchiha of all people. He actually respects Naruto's abilities, and this is a guy who considers everyone but the First Hokage an unworthy challenge.
    • Despite his reputation, Kakashi is underestimated surprisingly often, such as Zabuza thinking he stands a good chance when in reality Kakashi ends up beating Zabuza in a few moves. This is not so surprising given that Kakashi seems to make himself look weak on purpose; he slouches, moves slowly, seems to be half-blind to the uneducated, and goes around reading porn everywhere. If you saw someone like that, your first impression wouldn't be that he is a powerful ninja, let alone that he'd be Hokage in a few years' time.
      • Obito underestimates the speed and efficiency with which Kakashi can use Kamui. He quickly learns not to do so again.
    • Perhaps the most commonly underestimated ninja of all is Might Guy. Eccentric, bombastic, and goofy barely does his Hot-Blooded personality justice. However, make no mistake: despite his student Lee losing quite a few of his fights, Guy is a whole other beast. His opponents often underestimate him... and they pay dearly for it.
    • Lee himself gets enormously underestimated during the Chūnin Exams, especially by the Sand Siblings, during his fight with Gaara. Since Gaara is so powerful, he literally doesn’t have to move and lets his sand do all the work, so Temari and Kankurō’s reaction to Rock Lee (someone who cannot use Ninjutsu or Genjutsu — because he cannot mold Chakra — and just punches and kicks really hard as part of Taijutsu) is "Really?". Even when Lee is removing his leg weights, Temari scoffs at the idea that taking off some measly weights will let him outmaneuver Gaara’s sand; she is cut off mid-thought when said weights explode on impact with the floor while leaving two massive craters, and she along with Kankurō have a Stunned Silence. Gaara himself isn’t all that concerned over the weights, but he does soon have an Oh, Crap! at Lee disappearing in front of his eyes and appearing behind him.
    • Kabuto is a repeating offender, even when by all rights experience should have taught him better. Then again, he does start off as a Smug Super and a colossal Jerkass.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • In the Mahora Tournament Arc, several of the adult fighters underestimate the main characters because they are children, only to get creamed. One man, upon facing Evangeline, who looks like a small child, declared he will not make the mistake of underestimating her and goes into a battle ready stance. It does him no good because as soon as the match starts, she goes up to him with a Flash Step and takes him out with one blow while barely paying attention to him.
    • Upon arriving in a Magic world bar, Negi is attacked by a random thug because he resembles a guy who beat him sorry many years ago — actually Negi's infamous father "The Thousand Master". In retrospect that should got him thinking...
    • For the record, that "random thug" is Vargas, one of the baddest guys in town, and pretty much everyone who's not Negi (or Kotaro, or Chachamaru, who were with him) would do well not to underestimate him. More importantly, Vargas, his little brother Tohsaka, and their friend Mama Bear become plot-relevant Mauve Shirts later.
    • Interestingly enough, Nodoka pulls this on the one of Fate's associates.
      "You made the mistake of thinking of me as a mere powerless girl, Mr. Mage."
    • Anyone who ever thought that fighting Jack "Thousand Blades" Rakan is a good idea. Like Fate's minions believing they could take him on a 4 on 1 fight. He's the personification of awesome for a reason, people.
  • Happens all over the place in One Piece. The villains and minor assholes often underestimate Straw Hat Luffy, Zoro or Sanji when they first meet, but sometimes the Straw Hats themselves fall prey to this. Somewhat justified since this series is filled with Cloudcuckoolanders and Crouching Moron Hidden Badasses.
    • The very beginning of the series has a mountain bandit with a bounty of eight million (which to be fair, is nearly triple the average bounty in the East Blue) pick a fight with Shanks and his crew. Luckily for him, Shanks simply ignores the man. Unluckily for him, he later tries to kill Luffy, whom Shanks is rather fond of.
    • In Enies Lobby, Spandam absolutely refuses to take the Straw Hats seriously despite growing evidence that even with 10,000 men and CP9 under his command they are virtually unstoppable. By the end of it he's screaming in frustration that his men "can't stop a bunch of mere pirates".
    • One major aversion is rather notable. When Luffy learns that his brother is on death row, he resolves to rescue him, despite knowing that said brother is in the pirate crew of Whitebeard, who is absolutely guaranteed to make a move to rescue him already, and is far better equipped to do so. Everyone tells Luffy that he'll be in completely over his head if he tries to butt in, and they're absolutely right. Luffy spends the entire battle getting repeatedly curbstomped by pretty much every antagonistic named character he encounters, needing to get bailed out by either a member of Whitebeard's crew, or one of the allies he made in Impel Down.
    • Donquixote Doflamingo is a stand-out aversion, as he has actually observed other people underestimating Luffy and his crew many times in the past and suffer humiliating losses. His approach against them is to finish them off as quickly as possible.
      • That said, once he gets the upper hand, he starts falling prey to this. Law even pointed this out by asking him if he's going to be one of the countless many that would come to regret underestimating the Straw Hat Pirates. He is.
    • The Donquixote Family is altogether guilty of this towards Law, as several had a hand in training him as a child, so much so that when speaking about him he's referred to as a 'brat' and all are confident in their knowledge of his fighting style to face him in battle. This comes to bite Trebol and Doflamingo in the ass when they continuously fail to take Law's Op-Op Fruit abilities into account, often flying straight into the bubble of his "Room" and warning one another when it's too late to retreat, leaving slim windows of opportunity for him to sneak in a critical blow. As a result, Law successfully knocks Trebol out of the fight and manages to deal Doflamingo a devastating blow that obliterates his internal organs.
    • The arc before this, Punk Hazard, had both his subordinates, Monet and Vergo, thinking they could take the Straw Hats and Law easily. Monet, likewise took care not to underestimate them. Granted, she gives Luffy, Nami, Chopper, and Robin a hard time. But when it came time to fight Zoro, she instantly fell prey to this as she figured he Wouldn't Hit a Girl. Zoro proved her dead wrong after letting Tashigi have a go at her, revealing he was holding back and could've killed her —a Logia-user, mind you— at any time. As for Vergo, he takes on both Law and Smoker back to back. He does seem to have the upper hand but only because he had Law's heart at the time and Smoker throwing his fight to get it back. Once Law does get his heart back, he ends the fight in one hit while Vergo is fully covered in Haki. What makes it even more satisfying? Doflamingo is listening in on a Den Den Mushi gloating how badly Vergo beat him up the last time and how "traumatized" Law is to face him. Yeah, Doffy really doesn't know his enemies well.
    • Sugar lampshades this to the dwarves. After all, she may look like a kid, but that's only because her Devil Fruit had the side-effect of halting her aging. More importantly, she can use her power on anyone with a mere touch, so she's still unspeakably dangerous regardless of how physically powerful she may or may not be.
    • When Sanji is taken into Big Mom's territory, a team consisting of Luffy, Nami, Chopper, Brook, and some friends goes to save him. Almost instantly they are separated in a forest, and Chopper realizes that for once, they were the ones who underestimated their opposition.
    • On the flipside, Vinsmoke Yonji has this moment when he meets his brother Sanji again after 13 years. Yonji, having easily thrashed his non-Super-Soldier brother for most of his childhood, assumes he'll still be able to push a full grown Sanji around. Boy, was he mistaken. After getting his skull reset, Yonji blusters over how a "good for nothing" like Sanji could kick his ass so hard.
    • This trope keeps happening throughout the Totto Land Arc to varying degrees. Vinsmoke Judge figures he can use Big Mom's name to intimidate his enemies easily by giving his estranged son as a bridegroom, never taking into account just how unreliable and two-faced Big Mom is, and in fact she just wants to kill his family and take his army's technology. Capone "Gang" Bege cooks up a plan to kill Big Mom by pushing her Trauma Button and firing several poisoned missiles at her —one missile could kill a man easily, but why take chances?— only to be shocked when her hysterical screams have enough force to destroy the missiles easily. The Big Mom Pirates are so used to dealing with pesky rookies entering their territory, so while they get a good start against the Straw Hats, they write them off on vague reports despite having Never Found the Body, allowing the heroes to regroup and plan a counterattack. After the Straw Hats ruin the Tea Party assassination, the Charlotte Family abandons this attitude and send all of their forces to where they expect the Straw Hats to be, as, after so many near misses, they can no longer take chances and give Luffy and co. even the slightest hope of escaping. And even then they keep underestimating the Straw Hats, thinking Luffy couldn't possibly have beaten their strongest brother and paragon fair and square, one on one.
    • This keeps happening in the Wano Arc. After Luffy gets beat and captured by Kaido, the guards of the Udon prison-mine assume he's just a small-fry they can push around with ease, even though Luffy's resilience had won Kaido's respect. In the third act, a bunch of Animal Kingdom Pirates attack Luffy, Kid, and Law's crews all at once, believing that since all three captains were captured by Kaido at one point, they must be a bunch of pushovers. The three captains get vexed by this disrespect and proceed to obliterate one of their ships in a matter of seconds.
    • A particular glorious case happens during Onigashima in regards to Robin who gets seriously underestimated by Black Maria. Having captured Sanji (due to his inability to hurt women) and taken aback at Sanji calling for Robin’s help, Maria is utterly convinced Robin is easy prey being in her mind nothing more than a Living Macguffin to the Poneglyphs and disregards Sanji’s warning not to underestimate his crewmate. Even after Robin literally slaps her across the room and frees Sanji, Black Maria still believes it’ll be a curb stomp for her. Maria only has herself to blame, when Robin snaps her in two.
  • In One Pound Gospel the protagonist, the boxer Hatanaka Kosaku, is often underestimated by his opponents in spite of getting a B-class license on his professional boxing exam.note  This is because, in spite of his genuine talent, he has serious overeating problems that have caused him a mixed record in boxing, thus many think it will be a cakewalk until too late, eventually resulting in Kosaku winning the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Championship due his opponent aiming for the world championship and thus having decided to defend his title in a spectacular manner one last time before vacating it, and thus choosing what he thought would be an easy opponent.
    • This also happened at Kosaku's professional exam, with his opponent in the practical session thinking it would be easy because he was an experienced professional facing an amateur. As a result he got distracted and Kosaku managed to punch him squarely in the face, making him lose consciousness and teeth.
  • One-Punch Man: No one ever gives Saitama the respect he deserves, except a number of assorted people who can be counted on two hands, likely due to his laughably bland appearance and lackluster personality. This is despite the fact that Saitama's level of power is so monumentally out of context of the setting that the most dangerous opponent that he (and the EARTH) have ever faced (an alien warlord) took three semi-serious blows from Saitama before he was dead. About the only villains who realize just how dead Saitama could make them before seeing him in action were a genetically-enhanced beastman (who then proceeded to rethink his assessment, attacked, and got the entirety of his torso ripped off for his trouble), the aforementioned alien warlord (who wanted a fight with an incredibly powerful foe, got it, and died satisfied), and the leader of some of the most powerful monsters on the planet (who like Saitama broke his natural Limiter to achieve god-like power).
    • Many characters get this treatment actually, from S-class heroes like Atomic Samurai and Flashy Flash (who often slice their opponents apart before they even finish bragging about how strong they are), to villains like the "Human Monster" Garou, who repeatedly manages to overcome heroes who start the fight convinced that he's nothing more than a punk.
    • It's actually taken to the extreme with Garou: the Hero Association consistently refuses to take him seriously since he's not a monster and thus can never hope to surpass the S-Class. Bear in mind that the S-Class is entirely made up of humans stronger than almost any monster, and also that a great many monsters used to be human. There's literally no reason to assume Garou won't surpass the strongest heroes, or that he won't turn into a monster and become even more powerful.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Damien, a Jerkass of a trainer, abandoned his Charmander for thinking it was too weak and not up to snuff. Later, witnessing Charmander demonstrate his power to save Ash's Pikachu from Team Rocket, Damien would try to get Charmander back. Fortunately, Charmander, previously a paragon of Undying Loyalty, finally saw Damien for what he truly was, and chases him off with a powerful Flamethrower, and then joins Ash's team.
    • When Brawly kept blowing off Ash's challenges to go surfing, Ash was pissed off and assumed that Brawly was an idiot who cares more about surfing than training Pokémon. When they finally have their match, Ash assumes that it will be an easy win, but gets curb-stomped. Ash later learns that surfing is how Brawly trains his Pokémon and apologizes.
    • Paul abandoned Chimchar for not meeting his expectations, but he was proven wrong about its strength overtime when Ash took it in.
    • As a call back to the Charmander example, Shamus left Tepig for being weak and tied it to a stick as he let it starve to death. However, Shamus was proven wrong about Tepig when Ash took him in and battle against him as it evolved into Pignite. Seeing this, Shamus tried to win Pignite back but he refused to go back as it saw him for who he truly is.
    • Team Rocket often ends up on the receiving end of this trope as well, particularly if they're trying to steal a Gym Leader's or any other powerful Trainer's Pokémon. They'll grossly underestimate their strength, and may even throw in some premature taunts or gloating. Expect an all-out, Ash-assisted beatdown to follow shortly after.
    • Dr. Colress believed that no Pokémon could resist his perfected mind control device. However, after taking control of Ash's Pikachu for the third time in the Adventures in Unova and Beyond series, Dr. Colress was in shock as he not only underestimated his strong willpower but also his bond towards Ash. Even Ghetsis, Team Plasma leader, was shocked by the turn of events.
    • A rough Malamar truly underestimated the bonds of friendship as Ash and James were able to save their partners from its control.
    • Lysandre overconfidently thought he could control Ash and his Greninja the same way he controlled the Legendary Pokémon Zygarde through his Mega Evolution energy machine. However, after Ash and his Greninja resist his control, Lysandre realized that he not only underestimated their Fighting Spirit but also the bond they share for their friends and each other, due to those feelings being unbreakable.
  • War Relief Section III from Pumpkin Scissors has a reputation as a "cheery little unit" which was only put together by the government as a public relations gesture. By far most of the antagonists of the series assume they're a bunch of incompetent, ineffectual idealists, only to discover that the "cheery little unit" is bringing all of their plans crashing down upon their heads. Especially applies to Gentle Giant Randel, a Super-Soldier who successfully fights tanks on foot.
  • Rurouni Kenshin has two varieties of people underestimating Kenshin. One, they know about his reputation that earned him the nickname Hitokiri Battousai (roughly translates as 'God-like drawn sword' the manslayer) and try to fight him anyways, or they take his refusal to kill as a weakness. Either way, the results for them prove very painful.
  • Sailor Moon: In one episode, Sailor Mercury is forced to fight the brainwashed Endymion all by herself. He mocks her as useless because at the time, her only power is to create bubbles and fog that don't even inflict any damage. She proves just how useful her power is when she is able to use the fog to distract him long enough to snatch his magic crystal from his hand and smash it.
  • Samurai Executioner:
    • Asaemon is the shogun's blade-tester and executioner, which involves cutting corpses and decapitating bound and kneeling prisoners respectively. As a result, most of his enemies think that he's helpless in a real battle... and are very quickly proven wrong.
    • A non-lethal variant in one story, where Asaemon is challenged to test three hundred blades in exchange for bringing a criminal to justice. The challengers only knew about testing on corpses, and it didn't occur to them that you could test them on water (and certainly didn't occur to them that the water would win).
  • Slam Dunk: This proves to be Coach Taoka's Fatal Flaw during the finals' match between Shohoku and Ryonan. He's very assured of his victory and considers Hanamichi Sakuragi as one of Shohoku's "weak factors", disregarding all the growth he's had as a player across every match so far. This bites him hard when, during the last minutes, Hanamichi interrupts several of Ryonan's offensive plays, then gives a crucial pass to an unmarked Kogure (whom Taoka also considered a weak player) to score a 3-pointer, and then during the final play, scores a dunk that secures Shohoku's victory and the ticket to the nationals. Taoka later admits that Ryonan's defeat is only his fault for underestimating his opponents.
  • The Thompson sisters in Soul Eater make this mistake regarding the skinny boy in the suit who comes looking for them. It's also noted in canon by Maka that Kid looks so 'low-key' and unimpressive that it's easy to forget he's a death god and so a very formidable opponent when he feels like it. His eccentric behavior only enhances that impression. A similar claim could be made about his father Shinigami, although all who have encountered him so far know what they're dealing with and are appropriately wary.
    • Not to mention Blair. Disregarding the fact that the series began with the protagonists overestimating her badassery, in the Clown arc she takes up about a third of the action fighting the Flying Dutchman, who thinks she's just an annoying cat. She kills him by stealing his hat and tricking him into committing suicide to get it back.
  • This tends to happen to Nanashi in Sword of the Stranger, since most of his enemies don't expect some random guy, armed only with a sword that he can't unsheathe, to be able to kill several simultaneously attacking samurai. Which he does. Multiple times.
  • The title character of SWOT, Manabizaki, is a bespectacled nerd who studies too much. He has a Hair-Trigger Temper and a tendency to mouth off to people. Naturally, every delinquent in school was practically lining up to beat the crap out of him and put him in his place. After all, he's just an overly-studious nerd, ain't he? They're always weaklings, right?
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Because Simon is a skinny young kid, no one (except Kamina) ever respects him as much as they respected his muscular older bro, even though Simon is and always has been infinitely more powerful than Kamina. This even sort of applies to the fans, who tend to play up Kamina's badassery and either forget how powerful Simon is, or use his pre-Nia timid self.
  • In a Crossover competition between the casts of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-, the first round is a kendo fight between Benimaru and Dia Kurosawa. Benimaru and Rimuru are concerned about the match, given that Dia is a normal human while Benimaru is a powerful Kijin... at least until Dia turns into her Toku alter ego and shows she can keep up with him.
  • In Trigun, it's an extremely common occurrence for the Villain of the Week, regular Mooks and even other good guys to underestimate Vash. They generally just see him as a goofy, annoying, cowardly, softhearted idiot and can’t believe at all that he’s The Dreaded “Humanoid Typhoon”, Monev the Gale in particular is actually disappointed upon meeting Vash and initially writes him off as “chicken shit” when Vash seemly runs away from him. People sing a different tune when they discover Vash is actually a Person of Mass Destruction who is just Obfuscating Stupidity, Monev in particular has a Villainous Breakdown when he realises Vash could’ve easily killed him at any time and upon pressing the latter’s Berserk Button by killing innocents is reduced to a blubbering Dirty Coward when held at gunpoint. Even Vash’s own Evil Twin brother Knives frequently underestimates him, seeing his bro a sentimental, human loving weakling and is repeatedly bitten in the ass when Vash proves Good Is Not Soft.
  • Vinland Saga has several examples of this as no-one can immediately tell how dangerous someone is just by looking at them (except Thorkell, who is also a Living Legend because of his combat skill). This leads to battles like the boat full of veteran vikings versus an Icelandic farmer (war veteran and former second-in-command of the Jomsvikings), or a battle of three hundred versus one hundred (the former being peasant levies and the latter being Jomsvikings and huscarls), both of them Curb Stomp Battles in the latter party's favour. The crowning example is probably in the second arc where Snake fights Thorfinn and both men underestimate the other, as they see each other as a shabby sellsword (former Varangian Guardsman) and an unarmed thrall (former Child Soldier, war veteran and personal bodyguard to the king of Denmark) respectively.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! has this for quite a few of the antagonists as they assume their greater practical experience will be able to defeat the heroes' natural feel for the game. A particular example of this can be seen with the Big Five, the former corporate heads of Kaiba Corporation until they were demoted from their original position and were trapped in a virtual world after an attempted coup. When they joined forces with Noah Kaiba to try and take the bodies of Yugi and his allies after their own were lost, at least half of them attempted to go after what they assumed would be weaker opponents only to be outmaneuvered and defeated. There are also many duelists who underestimate monsters with low ATK like Kuriboh, only to be defeated by their devastating effects or combos with spells and traps.
  • Zombie Land Saga: Shiori Baba, the current lead singer of Iron Frill, assumes Franchouchou is just some group of lesser performers that's holding Ai back from her true talents, but is then completely wowed by their opening act not long after.
    Shiori: "We came here to give the best performance possible! But... Franchouchou without you is just a bunch of nobodies!"
    Beat
    Ai: "You shouldn't underestimate Franchouchou. They've been growing this whole time. Even I have I need to be careful if I don't want them to leave me behind."

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