History PoorCommunicationKills / AnimeAndManga

* ''LightNovel/MyLadyJustWantsToRelax'': Ronia doesn't clear things up when prompted, which leads to a series of misunderstandings. For instance, Ramo profusely apologizing to Ronia because he messed up her coffee makes it look like Ronia is as harsh as her relatives are to their servants, and she is "sorry" Schneider found out.

** ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion'' much of the plot is driven by the fact that [[spoiler:Homura misunderstood what Madoka meant when she says she would never want to be apart from everyone she loves. Ultimate Madoka ''isn't'' apart from everyone she loves, they just can't see her unless they join her in her magical girl heaven, but Homura takes it to mean that Madoka ''didn't want'' to make that sacrifice in the first place(or perhaps regrets it; in one timeline, Madoka's LastRequest was for Homura to not let her become a magical girl). On the other hand, during the end of the anime when Homura asked Madoka if she was alright with being forgotten about, Madoka never really answered yes or no (though the implication was that she would willingly bear with it to save people). The result is that Homura concludes that Madoka is not happy with her ascension to godhood and, [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wanting to make Madoka happy no matter the consequences]], [[LoveMakesYouEvil she undoes Madoka's sacrifice, usurps her god powers, and essentially becomes the Devil.]]]]

* In ''LightNovel/DemonKingDaimao'', this is Junko's FatalFlaw; in her EstablishingCharacterMoment, she physically assaults Akuto because she saw him with her grandmother and just jumped to conclusions that he was trying to mug her. After Akuto is prophecised to be the next Demon King, Junko alternates between being friendly with him and just trying to kill him because she constantly misinterprets his attempts to do good as being evil and rarely, if ever, gives him a chance to explain. Her tendency to do this is even lampshaded in episode 3: after Keena [[LaserGuidedKarma causes the lynch mob Junko assembled to turn on Junko as well]], Junko insists that it's all a misunderstanding, only for Akuto to inform her that he's been trying to tell her the ''exact same thing'' all along, and the mob is unlikely to listen to her any more than she did to him.

* ''LightNovel/Gamers2015'' is built on it, but instead of drama, PoorCommunicationKills is PlayedForLaughs as everyone has completely convinced themselves there is a LoveDodecahedron forming, with each person thinking a different combination! In truth, a genuine LoveDodecahedron only begins to form shortly before they develop the proper communication skills to avert this.

* In ''LightNovel/MayoChiki'' this happens a lot, mainly something to due with Kinjiro trying to hide the fact that [[UnsettlingGenderReveal Subaru is a girl]].

* At the start of the second arc of ''LightNovel/NoGameNoLife'', Sora and Shiro, the new co-rulers of Imanity, spend a month holed up in their rooms and force Steph, the princess of the country, to do most of the job running the country. Steph gets fed up with what she perceives as their lazy attitude and challenges them to a series of what she thinks are luck-based games in order to force them to take their job seriously, with them defeating her each time and forcing her to humiliate herself. After several losses, Sora and Shiro finally reveal that they weren't just fooling around, but were perusing the books inside the castle for information on their next move, since Imanity is in a precarious position. If they'd bothered to explain this to Steph, and to a lesser extent, if she'd bothered to ask, all of this would have been avoided.

* ''LightNovel/{{Overlord|2012}}'': The new motive of the guild is started by a miscommunication — Ainz wonders out loud that world domination would be nice to do, but because his follow-up thought that he's kidding was only in his head, Demiurge takes him at his word and later commands the rest of the guild of this goal.

* Motoyasu in ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'' ends up causing a major catastrophe through poor communication, attempting to solve a village's famine by giving them a magically-enhanced seed he found in a dungeon. [[spoiler: It turns out that Motoyasu's seed was a dangerous failed experiment that would sprout a [[WhenTreesAttack giant killer tree]] where it was planted, and the chest it was kept in had a sign next to it explicitly warning travelers of its true nature. Although Motoyasu wasn't able to read the sign due to it being in a language he couldn't understand, he still immediately jumped to the conclusion that it's a beneficial item due to being stuck in the mindset that he's effectively playing an MMORPG. The villagers, even though they'd heard rumors about this seed, still assumed that since one of the Four Heroes gave it to them that he obviously knew exactly what it was, so therefore it must be safe.]] Itsuki, meanwhile, travels to a neighboring kingdom and helps a local resistance group overthrow a local despot who's been hiking up taxes to absurd degrees. [[spoiler: It turns out that the high taxes weren't just a result of greed; the kingdom actually ''needed'' them to stay afloat due to frequent monster attacks, so once LaResistance takes over they end up keeping the high taxes and becoming no different from the despot they overthrew. Naofumi eventually calls out Itsuki on not confronting the ruler first to figure out the reason ''why'' he was doing what he was doing (which, being one of the Four Heroes, he would've had the authority to do,) instead of jumping straight into a revolutionary plot.]]

* ''Literature/AscendenceOfABookworm'': At one point, Myne gathers wood, planning to turn them into writing tablets, but she doesn't tell anybody. When she leaves the wood unattended, her mother sees it and immediately throws it into the fireplace.

* ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'': In one episode, Louise challenges her boyfriend Saito to find her at the upcoming costume ball. However, she neglects to inform him that "costume" in this case means that most of the party goers will use a MagicMirror to completely alter their appearances to who they most want to be. Saito shows up at the ball, sees who he thinks is Louise, and kisses her, only for her to actually be Henrietta. Louise walks in on them and thinks Saito was cheating on her.
* ''LightNovel/FateZero'':

* In the first volume of ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDxD'', Rias tells Issei he is to call her Buchou (basically calling her club president). Later in the series, after she has developed feelings for him (but not told him in direct, concrete manner), she despairs that he won't call her by name. That despair allows an enemy to take control of her.

* ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'': A recurring theme throughout the story is that nobles are often too tightly wound inside their own shells, and this creates intense misunderstandings — especially between married couples. The two best examples are between [[spoiler: Catarina's parents, and Prince Ian and his betrothed Selena. On both occasions, the two were deeply in love with each other, but didn't realize it simply because they never dropped their social masks to talk earnestly]].

* ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte'': Lieselotte truly wanted to befriend Fiene even in ''[[FictionalVideoGame Magikoi]]'' canon. Unfortunately, a combination of needing to put up noble decorum, her own embarrassment, and Siegwald's misinterpretation of their interactions leads to her appearing as an AlphaBitch and Siegwald breaking off their engagement and Lieselotte being overcome with despair and being possessed by the Witch of Yore, resulting in her death.

* ''Literature/{{Another}}'': Seriously, you couldn't tell the NewTransferStudent that the entire class's lives depended on [[{{Unperson}} ignoring a student's existence]] so you could avoid an evil ghost curse BEFORE he started attending class and tried making friends with said ignored student and not trust you because you chose to be threateningly vague about it until [[RuleOfThree THREE PEOPLE DIED]] and it became obvious that the "Charm" was no longer an option...
** Of course Mei acting ambiguously and not letting anyone know her long lost twin sister was actually the first victim in the curse didn't help things either[[note]]Granted, Mei had been raised by her aunt, thus possibly leading to some ambiguity as to whether Misaki was her twin sister or her cousin, the latter of which would not be affected by the curse. Misaki had also died of complications resulting from a surgery, making it harder to tell whether her death was caused by the curse[[/note]]. Nor did Akazawa blaming her for everything since it seemed that at that point in the anime/manga mostly everyone was so past the DespairEventHorizon that they were willing to agree and...[[FromBadToWorse well]], [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom things just]] got worse after that...

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist''

** In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED Gundam SEED]]'':

* In ''Anime/HappinessChargePrettyCure'', a lot of Iona's grief (as well as a set of powers) would have been spared had she not spent the entire time acting like a JerkAss towards Hime and her DarkSecret and instead asking ''why'' it happened.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' takes a very... er... literal angle on this because most arcs are OneSideOfTheStory, and that the series in general contains proliferation of [[CrypticConversation Cryptic Conversations]] and characters who CannotSpitItOut. In fact, the latter point becomes a major {{Aesop}} of the series. In some cases the use of this trope is mildly justified by the fact that the 'main' character hasn't really known the rest of the cast for that long -- and the things they're not talking about are often rather more serious secrets than is usual for this trope. Like, say, the fact that you just murdered someone.

* The Stand user Tizziano from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'' can actually invoke this with his Stand Talking Heads. It attaches to it's victim's tongue and makes them say the opposite of what they intended. This also extends to writing and gesturing. Useless as an offensive stand, but it works to silence the one witness to another, more offense-based stand.

* ''Manga/SailorMoon'':

* In the case of ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'', [[spoiler:literally]]. This trope's role in the series really can't be overstated -- ''every time'' a misunderstanding can happen, it does. The worst part is that the characters know it's happening ("Wait, he's dating ''her''? But ''she'' said..."), yet they never make the effort to sort it out. Lives are destroyed because the right people are never all together in one conversation.

* In ''Anime/SuitePrettyCure'', Hibiki and Kanade's friendship is shattered prior to the series starting because they told each other that they'd wait for each other by a tree at the school entrance on the first day of school. Their school has ''four'' entrances and they didn't say ''which'' one. It takes a year, the two become Cures, and two children doing the same thing to realize where they messed up.
** Episode 6 is no excempt neither, Souta would never run away from home and then being involved on a Negatone attack, had not Kanade spend all that time scolding and being a jerk towards him for the mess he has done in the kitchen while making a present for her for White Day, instead of understanding his good intentions.

* ''LightNovel/ReincarnatedAsThePiggyDukeThisTimeImGonnaTellHerHowIFeel'': A reason why the original Slowe eventually lost Charlotte to Valjean is that, despite all he did, he never told Charlotte he loved her. The current Slowe seeks to avoid this.

* In ''Anime/CyberpunkEdgerunners'', Lucy stops going on gigs with the crew after the TimeSkip [[spoiler:after she found out about the cyberskeleton project and [[TheyWouldCutYouUp Arasaka wanting to use David as a test subject for it due to his natural tech affinity]]. She deletes the information and begins killing anyone at Arasaka who knows about David. However, she never tells David about Arasaka's plans for him, presumably so he wouldn't be tempted to upgrade. Unfortunately her not sharing the information results in David falling into a trap where he dons the cyberskeleton and succumbing to cyberpsychosis.]]

* In the first chronological arc of ''Manga/{{Ooku}}: the Inner Chambers'', [[EvilMatriarch Reverend Kasuga]] takes every opportunity to convince the young abbot Arikoto that he was selected to become a catamite for the pleasure of the Shogun (with everything from imprisonment up to and including murdering people before his eyes to secure his "consent"). Had she taken him aside and told him that the actual Shogun Iemitsu [[ElCidPloy had been dead for years]] and she was trying to avoid a catastrophic SuccessionCrisis by getting his [[HiddenBackupPrince teenaged bastard daughter]] [[HeirClubForMen knocked up]] to begin with he may have been less resistant to the idea if for no other reason than avoiding civil strife being a better reason to abandon his priestly vows than the amusement of a corrupt ruler.[[note]]She had no plans to let him leave Edo alive anyway, so if he still refused she could start cutting bits off his entourage ''then''.[[/note]]

* When Mira asks Misa to opine on the article she wrote for the Earth Sciences Club's newsletter in ''Manga/AsteroidInLove'', what Misa actually mean is it is a bit boring and too fact-intensive for a general-interest piece. The way she phrases it, though, can be read as the article was bland and generic. Mira was so upset that she runs back to her room, at which point Misa slumps on the sofa, face down, because of this.

** During the Fullbring arc, half of the problems could have been avoided if [[spoiler:Ishida had shared his suspicions about Ginjo earlier]]. Ryuuken even calls them out on not sharing information. Although he's the one to talk, considering the number this trope's done on his relationship with his kid...

** One case had an injured American tourist recuperating in a Japanese household and falling in love with a young woman. Because of a mouth injury, at first he could only communicate by writing out Japanese phrases phonetically. As he was leaving, the young woman asked if he loved her, and he wrote down the word "shine", referring to his earlier words that he wanted a "shining bride", but which she quite naturally interpreted as "shi-ne," which happens to be Japanese for "die". The woman committed suicide after he left, and when he came back he ended up murdering her father and a family friend in revenge. WhatAnIdiot.

* In ''Manga/TegamiBachiLetterBee'', an early storyline involves Nelli and Nello, siblings who are friends of Jiggy Pepper, who left their poor Yodaka town to work as a Letter Bee in the middle-class district of Yuusari- Nelli's bitter about the decision while Nello is supportive of it. During Jiggy's absence, [[IllBoy Nello's illness gets worse]], and one day, Nelli overhears Nello sobbing and saying "I'm so angry, Jiggy," over and over. Nello dies a week later, and Nelli assumes that Nello hated Jiggy. In reality, Nello was angry at himself for not being able to fulfill the promise he made to Jiggy to protect his sister. If he'd told Nelli about this promise, or Nelli had asked about it, Nelli might not have become so bitter toward Jiggy.

*** In TheMovie finale to the series, the ELS attempt to understand humanity by absorbing and assimilating them, apparently not realizing that doing so is killing the humans they're trying it on. They also attempt to contact Innovators and proto-Innovators telepathically, but the sheer amount of information they transmit sounds like screaming to these telepaths, and basically {{Mind Rape}}s them.

* The entire plot of the ''Manga/GiantRobo'' OVA is one particularly disastrous example. [[spoiler:The BigBad '''badly''' misunderstood the (admittedly vague) final words and actions of his dying father, believing said father wanted to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world]] in revenge for how his reputation and career were ruined. In reality, he was just trying to launch a global system update to patch a dangerous flaw in the setting's AppliedPhlebotinum that would've caused havoc if it went untreated. His misunderstanding in-turn leads to the heroes trying to stop the Big Bad without knowing that his EvilPlan is self-defeating, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero dragging out the conflict much further than it would have gone if they did nothing and getting more people killed on both sides]].]]

* In [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/CMB C.M.B]] this ruins a friendship. Luckily the protagonist is able to resolve it.

* ''LightNovel/ReijouWaMattariWoGoshomou'': Ronia doesn't clear things up when prompted, which leads to a series of misunderstandings. For instance, Ramo profusely apologizing to Ronia because he messed up her coffee makes it look like Ronia is as harsh as her relatives are to their servants, and she is "sorry" Schneider found out.

* ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashisLiveCommentaryOnTheVillainess'': Liselotte truly wanted to befriend Finne even in Magikoi canon. Unfortunately, a combination of needing to put up noble decorum, her own embarrassment, and Siegward's misinterpretation of their interactions leads to her appearing as an AlphaBitch and Siegward breaking off their engagement and Liselotte being overcome with despair and being possessed by the Ancient Witch, resulting in her death.

* The Stand user Tizziano from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo'' can actually invoke this with his Stand Talking Heads. It attaches to it's victim's tongue and makes them say the opposite of what they intended. This also extends to writing and gesturing. Useless as an offensive stand, but it works to silence the one witness to another, more offense-based stand.