Apathy Killed the Cat in Anime and Manga.
- Attack on Titan, (in which humanity lives behind giant walls to keep out the man-eating Titans) is an Ontological Mystery, and has this trope as the default state of the majority of the humans, with the heroes being different for averting it. Granted, there is a massive Government Conspiracy with the dominant religion to limit interest and knowledge about such things, but even so, the sheep-like indifference of most people (Eren repeatedly uses the word "livestock" to describe them) is rather striking, and unsurprisingly there is a lot of it. Some of the main examples:
- Eren and Armin's open curiosity about the outside world is regarded as anything from eccentric to heretical, and Hange (though admittedly giving people plenty of other reasons to consider her a Mad Scientist,) is marked as unusual simply because she wants to study the Titans rather than automatically kill them on sight.
- In contrast to this, even after episode 1 conclusively proves that the walls do not keep people safe and existing methods of Titan-fighting are not sustainable in the long-term, hardly anyone wants to find out more about the Titans or make long-term plans. The Survey Corps are marked as being extraordinary (to the audience) and freakish (to most other people) simply because they acknowledge these facts and are willing to go outside the walls and think outside the box to help them come up with better ideas.
- The fact that the Titans' existence does not make any sense is well-established in-series; creatures of their size and proportions should not be able to move (and as such they are far lighter than a similarly-sized human would be), they can heal from anything except a cut to the nape of the neck (with nobody knowing where they get the mass from), they have no reproductive organs or digestive system (they apparently gain their energy from the sun), they completely ignore other animals even when there are no humans around to eat, and when humans are available they eat until their stomach is full, at which point they simply regurgitate their prey and go on to eat more. We see that these facts are taught in schools as basic education, but nobody except Hange seems interested in rectifying this lack of knowledge, even in the hopes of finding better ways to fight them. Even Eren, despite burning with curiosity about the outside world, seems surprised by the idea of actually trying to learn more about the Titans, though his all-consuming hatred for them is shown to make him irrational.
- To be fair, this is all justified in that the citizens of the walls are controlled through brainwashing, and anyone who gets smart enough to realise what's going on gets killed by the government. And once the cast learn the Awful Truth about themselves, the people who live in the walls are much less apathetic.
- Bleach:
- Ichigo never seems to question aspects of his origin, powers, and the other worlds and races, which causes a few people, mostly the villains, to mock him for his constantly being Locked Out of the Loop. This also causes him to get caught off guard when facing abilities like the Flash Step and Kido spells. He learns the Flash Step, but never tries to learn Kido spells.
- After their first clash with Yhwach and his elite fail, Ichigo's group prepares to confront them again. Chad tries to gather information on the enemy powers so they can prepare in advance for a better outcome than their previous clash. However, Riruka interrupts him, telling everyone to shut up because wallowing in the past is boring. The conversation comes to a complete halt with no-one, including the reader, any the wiser about the still-mysterious powers of the Quincy Elite.
- A Certain Magical Index: Gunha Sogiita is completely uninterested in learning how his powers work and how to properly fight, as he thinks barreling his way through is the way a man should fight. It's worked out for him pretty well in most fights, but it directly leads to his defeat against Ollerus, who chooses not to kill him and notes that if he actually bothered to understand how his power works, Gunha would have been the victor. Also, whenever he rushes into a situation, he never stops to ask what is going on and even brushes off people trying to explain the situation to him.
- Death Note:
- Averted by Light. The reason he is able to get away with so much crap and drive the whole plot is because he does ask all the questions. He figures out things that even the Shinigami didn't know, despite having centuries to learn. And, unfortunately, uses this knowledge to kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people. He even asked the afterlife question we all thought he was ignoring all along, they just don't show us until he's dying. Unfortunately, he's a lot less pleased with the thought of The Nothing After Death while bleeding out than he was while plotting world domination in his bedroom.
- The Shinigami, themselves, are more apathetic as Ryuk notes multiple times that Light has found ways to use the Death Note nobody ever thought of before.
- Dragon Ball Z:
- Goku learns several techniques like the strength multiplying Kaioken and Instant Transmission. However, he never teaches anybody else these techniques and none of his friends seem interested in learning them, even though they would be pretty useful. In Dragon Ball Super, Vegeta learns Instant Transmission from the Yardrats, who taught Goku, but only uses it in emergencies and doesn't want to practice and master it because it is one of Goku's techniques.
- When Future Trunks gives Goku the medication for the heart virus that he will catch in the future and warns that it killed a lot of people before a cure was found, nobody thinks to give a sample to Bulma or Dr. Briefs so they could possibly reverse engineer it and make more.
- Gohan was able to teach his girlfriend Videl how to control her ki and fly, proving it is possible for ordinary humans to do so (then again, people like Krillin and Yamcha were ordinary humans before learning ki control). Yet the heroes never teach anybody else how to do it. Master Roshi can use his ki, but in the original Dragon Ball, he outright said he thought flying was overrated and never tries to learn it. Yajirobe is too lazy to try to learn how to do either. Goku and Vegeta never taught their wives Chi-Chi and Bulma how to do either, but given the women's personalities, they would likely refuse to learn (confirmed in Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! where Vegeta mentions Bulma lacks the motivation to train; in Dragon Ball Super, Trunks asks Bulma why she won't learn how to fly and she blows the question off). Mr. Satan briefly expressed interest in learning, but never asks the heroes to teach him.
- Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]: Unlike in the Fate route, Shirou Emiya never tries to find out about Saber's identity, powers, or motives for seeking the Holy Grail. Eventually, Archer springs this information on him and calls him a fool for not trying to find out.
- Zig-Zagged in Gantz:
- Many fighters are so self-absorbed, or so sure that they already have the answers, that they never ask critical survival questions, even internally, and never note anything potentially threatening until it's on top of them, even if they've already seen how lethal it can be.
- Others, most notably Nishi and Kurono, are very curious about the powers and limitations of the weapons and tools they're given and test them systematically. Unfortunately, when it comes to big questions like "Where does all this futuristic tech come from?", "Why are there aliens and monsters around all of a sudden?", and "Why are we being forced to fight them, and by who?", answers are not very forthcoming.
- Much later in the manga, intrepid reporter Seiichi Kikuchi tracks down the story with a dogged curiosity, but is only toyed with by those who might be able to answer his questions.
- Haibane Renmei:
- Rakka is born (from an egg) into a strange isolated town ruled by creepy, aloof clerics, sprouts wings, is given a halo that mysteriously hovers on her head, has to obey arbitrary rules, such as she can only buy used items, and doesn't question any of it. She does have Laser-Guided Amnesia about her previous existence, so it's quite possible that she has no way of knowing if any of this is weird or not. This isn't so strange considering that the entire setting of Haibane Renmei is a rip-off / homage to the dream world in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, which the protagonist doesn't question much either. She also has no one to ask. The only people who might know something are the Toga and the Communicator, but neither of them really responds to questioning.
- In addition to all of the Haibane having amnesia about their previous existences, the series spends the first five episodes largely just to introduce the setting and characters. And then it turns out that the older Haibane have their own predicament to worry about and have varying degrees of acceptance of their environment.
- Haruhi Suzumiya: Kyon. In less than a week he discovers the existence of aliens, espers, time travelers, and, according to one theory, God and it annoys him so much that he avoids any and all exploration of the ramifications unless forced otherwise by The End of the World as We Know It. Even then, he only does the minimum that he has to. The times he does ask questions, he either gets no answer from Mikuru, an answer that doesn't make sense from Koizumi and Yuki, or an answer that makes sense that has 'unreliable!' written all over it from all of the above. Oh, and the anti SOS Brigade puts all three together. His saving grace is that he is extraordinarily smart to the point that, when he passes the first couple of reveals, his reaction goes from mild surprise and annoyance to "checked, checked, checked". In fact, his ability to cope with the increasingly weird situations is, in Itsuke's opinion, what makes him special.
- Heaven's Lost Property: Tomoki does this a lot, because of his desire for peace and quiet. Some of it borders on Too Dumb to Live. When Ikaros tries to explain how her powers work (which is important to him because she grants his wishes), Tomoki cuts her off and says her exposition is boring. Later, when Nymph explains that the person who has been sending hostile Angeloids to try to kill them is someone named the Master of Synapse, Sugata says they need to find out who this guy is and what he wants, but Tomoki gets bored and says, "Who cares?"
- Justified in My Lovely Ghost Kana, where Daikichi doesn't ask all that many questions about the afterlife, but it's pretty clear that Kana herself doesn't really have the answers either.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Magic! Flying whales! Demons! See also: vampires, robot girls, immortality, Beastmen, telepathy, time dilation, the entire magical world itself and more. However, don't ask what the hell is going on. You might get turned into an ermine or something. Chisame is the only character to show the slightest interest... by running away from the answer. The other major exception is Haruna; when she finds out about magic, she threatens to torture her three best friends for not telling her sooner.
- One Piece: Luffy is completely uninterested in hearing anyone's backstory. Whenever people explain their past, he'll either fall asleep or leave. He also does not like to read newspapers and gets annoyed when people try to explain situations to him, saying he prefers to leave the thinking to his crew.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- In "The Battle of the Badge", Jessie and James steal Misty's Togepi and present it to Giovanni. Despite Team Rocket focusing on stealing rare Pokemon, Giovanni was completely uninterested in the never before seen Togepi and rejected it, saying he only cared about Pokémon that could fight, not babies. Good thing he didn't investigate it or else he would have learned about Togepi's special powers.
- In the movie, Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, Ash discovers he has Aura, and this power is crucial to saving the day. However, in later episodes, though characters occasionally reference this movie and Aura, Ash seems completely uninterested in developing his Aura abilities and hardly ever tries to use them, even though they would be pretty useful.
- Potemayo: Nobody seems to be too interested in the bigger questions about Potemayo and Guchuko- what they are, where they come from, and why they're appearing in people's refrigerators.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena is all about people not asking basic questions about what's actually going on. No matter how fanciful or surreal, after the initial shock, people just accept the nonsense as all a part of the "power to revolutionize the world." Granted, the answers really are near impossible to attract without being told directly (the audience has the benefit of flashback) and most of it was just theatrical shenanigans but even the lead asks a variety of questions in the very beginning and then just gives up trying, establishing the status quo of the episodes. To her credit, Utena realizes this near the very end of the series and tearfully regrets it because that kind of indifferent behavior (towards Anthy, especially) was exactly what she had been criticizing about the other duelists.
- In To Love Ru, approximately no one (other than Rito, on occasion) seems to care that aliens exist and show up on Earth on a regular basis, or that Lala's father apparently rules the entire galaxy, including Earth, and that he's threatened to destroy it.
- In the Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Seto Kaiba acknowledges that magic exists and that Duel Monsters originated in ancient times, but he's just completely uninterested in it, finding running his company and winning at Duel Monsters to be a higher priority. The 4Kids Entertainment dub changed this to make Kaiba a Flat-Earth Atheist.
