Misaimed Fandom / Anime & Manga

Examples of Misaimed Fandom in Anime & Manga.

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• This seems to happen a lot with especially shady characters in Tite Kubo's works.
  • Ranewater Calder in Zombie Powder had many female fans despite him being a complete raving sociopath who liked to cut off innocent people's fingers just so he could get a hold of eternal youth.
  • Grimmjow from his most popular series (Bleach) has a huge fan following. You know, the guy who's an Ichigo/Renji hybrid minus any sense of morality.
    • The treatment that people like Gin Ichimaru or Ulquiorra Cifer get from some fans is just as bad. According to them, Gin's decision to stage a very bloody revenge on Aizen for having stolen part of the soul of his Only Friend Rangiku justified actions as bloody and cruel as verbally taunting Rukia For the Evulz and causing her an Heroic BSoD with words alone when she was at her lower point, gleefully bifurcating Hiyori Sarugaki or causing the aforementioned Rangiku decades of emotional pain for a revenge that she would've likely been opposed to. Similarly, Ulquiorra's more insane fans like to gloss over how he killed Ichigo twice and horribly maimed Ishida, or how he contributed to Orihime's Break the Cutie process (how much of it was his doing is another matter).
• Ah! My Goddess has this in spades. Some fans take Keiichi's laid-back attitude as a sign that he's weak-willed and would be subservient to any of the other members of the main cast, despite the fact that the series wouldn't work if that were true.
• Esdeath from Akame ga Kill! is a prime and rather common female example of this. She is one, if not the most popular character of the series, despite the fact that she had commited various atrocities (just for fun, mind you) that would give her the death sentence. The anime in particular shows this by diluting her character, like making it so she over power her teigus corruption via sheer will rather than her insanity (which most of fandom belives, btw).
• Attack on Titan:
  • Those who ship Levi/Eren out of the belief that Levi is genuinely a Fetishized Abuser who kicked Eren at the court trial out of sadism, even though Levi reveals it was an act and apologizes in the very next scene. To say nothing of the really uncomfortable implications of such a relationship.
  • Fans who sided with the Yaegerists once the "War for Paradis" arc began. The intention was to portray Floch and his followers as hypocritical, fascist zealots who'll repeat the cycle that has bound Eldians and Marleyeans for generations with another group of people. Sadly, this was lost on a great number of fans leading to...very heated debates about the nature of the series and who was right after all.
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers has the Doom Card, a symbol of evil that sent losing Bakugan to hell and was an implement of the Big Bad and all around made people do nasty, terrible things. The kids LOVE the Doom Card...
• The fact that plenty of Banana Fish fans sexualize Ash, via Rule 34 or otherwise, can come across as downright disturbing given he's a victim of child sex trafficking and his massive sexual trauma is a major part of his character.
• Beastars: A surprising number of people believe that Legosi is asexual, even though his defining character trait is literally that he's a closeted herbivore fetishist. This fact is spelled out for the reader on multiple occasions, because the closet he's in has a glass door and Legosi is ironically the last person to know about his fetish.
• Berserk: A certain section of the fandom (especially in America) is attracted to the series for being Rated M for Manly and Darker and Edgier borderlining on True Art Is Angsty and bashes modern anime for not being as mature and manly, and especially has a... well, Berserk Button for Moe. The problem? One of the messages of Berserk is that this mindset is a horrible way to treat war and how it can harm one's psyche. In fact ironically, late creator Kentaro Miura was an open fan of the very Moe The Idolmaster and designed the Vocaloid Kamui Gackpo, both of which are the kind of stuff that part of the fandom hates.
• Black Butler: Word of God says Ciel and Sebastian are Villain Protagonists who have no affection for each other and should not be pitied (going as far as to call Sebastian "elitist trash" and the both of them "the lowest of the low"). However, a lot of Yaoi Fangirls or fans that do have any pity want them to be Happily Ever After.
  • There's also the fact that most Yaoi Fangirls rather conveniently forget that Grell is transgender (male to female) and not a crossdresser. The show makes her seem more like a guy in drag, but everyone calls her by female pronouns and she identifies as female. Recognizing her identified gender would make it no longer constitute yaoi, so the fangirls aren't having any of that.
• Chapter 32 of Blue Flag shows Mami's anger about people conflating Just Friends relationships between boys and girls with ones that have no undertones at all, and that her friendship with guys must be part of some romantic plot to nab a man. Some parts of the fandom think she's projecting and that she needs to be "honest" with herself that she's actually in love with Shingo, or that she can indeed have platonic friendships with boys...just as long as she either falls in love with somebody else or maintains a "best friends plus" relationship with her boyfriend. This also runs directly afoul of her other main gripe: that she'll be considered a threat anyway even if the boy (or she) is spoken for.
• Boy's Abyss is a character drama about various people who live in a Small Town, Big Hell setting, and how they attempt to either cope with it or drag others into the same misery. All of the characters have their own ideas of how to make their lives better (or just plain end), with many of them incorporating protagonist Reiji into the plan... whether he wants to be part of it or not. And since all the main characters are varying levels of morally grey and have their own sympathetic reasons for doing so, a subsect of the fandom thinks their lives genuinely will improve if Reiji picks a character and just goes along with their plan, ignoring the very prominent problems both parties had to reach that point. Since several of the characters are also attractive girls with varying levels of attraction to Reiji, other subsects see it as a harem where the "winning" girl's life will get better once she receives Reiji's love.
• Candy♡Candy has pretty revolutionary 'messages' for a Shoujo manga from The '70s: "Be honest to yourself", "Don't throw away your own beliefs", "Work hard to earn what you get in life", "Romance is important, yes, but not the end and be all to a woman's life". The fandom however, ignores almost all of them (and specially the last one) only to focus on the romantic part of the plot, and especially on loudly complaining because Candy and Terry didn't end up together. Even older fans in their 30's and 40's, who should know better, fall into this trap.
• A lot of people who read Cells at Work! CODE BLACK chapter 3 has misinterpret its message as being anti-masturbation, thanks to the Moe designs of the sperm cells (putting them in the same Adorably Precocious Child league as the Platelets), along with AA2153's subsequent breakdown upon discovering that they're always going up against Uncertain Doom and that there's a good chance the Red Blood Cell's efforts will be All for Nothing... except there's nothing in the chapter's text that suggests the case, especially since it's a natural occurrence that the body sometimes takes advantage of to clear out dead or weak cells that builds up over time. What also doesn't support this claim is that the chapter ends with U1196 announcing that Gonorrhea has invaded the body (which becomes the focus of Chapter 4), something that can only happen from the host having unprotected sex with an infected partner.
• Code Geass: Lelouch is a prime example of Misaimed Fandom. Lelouch is a pragmatist who keeps his head and makes the best use of any situation, even if it involves killing bystanders/foolish allies or disgracing those that he loves, but he's obviously not happy when his subordinates or friends die, and his end goal is to replace the current system with one that's kinder and not as exclusive. On the one hand, many fans tend to forget this and paint him as a monster who cares for no one but himself, overlooking his more noble qualities which includes becoming the object of the world's hatred and dying in order to create world peace...all for the sake of his baby sister. On the other hand, there are fans who refuse to admit that their baby Lulu isn't above lying, manipulating^note with or without his geass, or even expending people around him to achieve his goals, and his carelessness has resulted in some pretty nasty consequences for himself and for the people he wants to help (including said baby sister).
• Some Dear Brother fans see Mariko Shinobu's hatred of men as something to glamourize or cheer for... "forgetting" that it's a sign of the immense trauma coming from her Dark and Troubled Past, so it's supposed to be a sign of how messed up she is over it. Even the single time it's Played for Laughs isn't exactly supposed to show her in the right, but as a proof of immaturity - she's lashing out at two guys, Takehiko and Takeshi, who wouldn't be half as cruel to women as she thinks they'd be.
• Death Note has a lot of this:
  • There are some fans that root for Light even through his most callous casualties, and perceive him as the god proxy he says he is, as opposed to the insane serial killer he actually is. In Death Note 13, both creators say they consider Light to be evil.^note  Ohba said that Light was "a young man who could understand the pain of others" when he first encountered the Death Note. Ohba said that if Ryuk never developed an interest in the human world, Light would have become "one of the greatest police leaders in the world" who, with L, worked against criminals. Ohba described Light's life as "ruined" once he obtained the Death Note, and that Light became a victim of the Death Note "in many ways". Ohba described Light as bearing good faith intentions and having a "very conceited" nature. Ohba also describes Light as having a "warped" "desire to be godlike," bearing love for his family, and intending to transform the world into "a better place". Ohba added that he believed that debating whether Light's actions were good or evil is not "very important." Ohba said that he personally sees Light as a "diabolical" character. The infamous "Manga Murder" case — a Belgian man murdered people whose names he wrote in a "Death Note" replica, presumably imitating Light — is an extreme view of this mindset. That said, there are SOME who cheer Light on because he's so brilliantly twisted and evil, which doesn't qualify as misaimed. But for those who actually believe he's The Hero... they definitely qualify.
    
    This even extends to the Director of the anime. He's gone on record of saying part of him was pulling for Light to be the victor of the manga, despite his evilness. This is in contrast, however, to the Director of the live action movie adaptations, who has said that one of his goals (particularly in the second film) was to convey Light's evil properly like he felt it was conveyed in the manga. It's also suspected that the reason his downfall at the end of the manga was made so devastating was specifically as a Take That! to the fans rooting for him.
  • L, the socially inept, disheveled, insomniac rival to Light, was admittedly designed to be ugly and unpleasant looking. Some fans massively disagree. Death Note 13's "How to Read" also reveals that Takeshi Obata tried to complicate the morality of the series by purposefully giving L an ugly character design that no one would be attracted to.
    • Acknowledged by the author when, during one of L's rare public appearances, at the opening ceremony for Tokyo University, one young woman is smitten with him despite/because of his disheveled appearance (she and everyone else besides L are wearing suits). The woman's friend wonders what is wrong with her.
• DEVILMAN crybaby has this running two directions with the fate of its Big Bad Ryo. He wins the Final Battle and kills the series protagonist Akira, and quickly regrets after realizing the horror of killing his best friend. Some fans sympathize with Ryo in this scene, missing that the point of it was that the audience was instead meant to sympathize with Akira since all of his actions were for nothing and he failed to save humanity. Ryo is in fact meant to be seen as Asshole Victim since even though he loved Akira, everything that happened to him was his own fault. On the flipside, Ryo is meant to be seen as a tragic character, but among many fans, especially his detractors, he is not regarded as a tragic or sympathetic character and instead viewed as a Hate Sink since he displays almost no redeeming qualities throughout the entire series.
• Fans of Digimon seem to be obsessed with Ruki from the Digimon Tamers season, even coming to claim her to be better than those "lame girly girls" like Sora and Mimi just because she's rude and unemotional at the start of the series. People often accuse the latter part of Tamers of being sexist for having Ruki turn into a soft and caring person...Despite the anime strongly suggesting that was her TRUE self all along, and that her "Ice Queen" persona she was at the start was just a mask she used to hide her insecurities with. Ruki still remains gender non-conforming even after her character development, keeping her punk fashion and even growing up to become a motorcycle stuntwoman in the 2017 drama CD.
• Dragon Ball:
  • The entire "Goku is a bad dad" and "Piccolo is the best parent and Gohan's real father" discourse is probably the biggest case of this in the series (aided of course by Team Four Star). While Goku certainly isn’t the most attentive parent, he’s consistently portrayed as loving and caring to Gohan and Goten yet his Never Live It Down moment of giving Cell a Senzu Bean before the latter fought Gohan is constantly brought up against him by fans, even though his reasoning that Cell needed to push Gohan to the limit to unleash Gohan's Next Tier Power-Up was ultimately right. Not to mention both Goku's deaths in story were him giving his life up for Gohan, but a lot of the fanbase still see him as an awful parent. Even the arguments from fans that Piccolo is the pinnacle of parenting in the series are false as while he’s more attentive, by real life standards Piccolo's caretaker skills are absolutely horrendous as he put 4 year old Gohan through Training from Hell and decades later in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero he puts Gohan's 3 year old daughter Pan in mortal danger just to get Gohan back the gear! In fact the climax has Pan almost be killed by Cell Max's dying blast and only survives due to learning to fly Just in Time, even though she didn't need to be anywhere near the battlefield in the first place. Basically the fanbase admonishes Goku for exactly what Piccolo does repeatedly yet the Namekian never gets as much heat for it.
  • Many fans like to paint Vegeta as a victim who doesn't cause any trouble, and try to blame other characters for his actions throughout the series, ignoring the fact that he is a selfish asshole who makes his decisions by choice. Even the Funi dub gets on this, by trying to scapegoat Frieza for his actions.
  • The perception among Western fans that Vegeta is a badass who fears nobody. In reality, Vegeta is repeatedly shown to be a very hotheaded and impulsive warrior, with his short temper and strong sense of pride repeatedly getting everyone around him in serious trouble. There was once a T-shirt with Vegeta on it, and a caption along the lines of "What's that, did I offend you? Are you really so weak that mere words hurt you?" This ignores that Vegeta's main role in the general bulk of DBZ boils down to him getting offended at others' words and making everything worse as a result.
  • Goku and Vegeta's rivalry. Some people like to cheer for Vegeta since he's becomes the underdog after the events of the Frieza Saga. Others root for Vegeta because they feel he deserves to beat Goku because Vegeta trains more while Goku is given everything. There's also a small subset who say Vegeta should win because he's royalty, and is generally more badass (despite his so-so win record). What these type of fans miss is that Goku trains just as hard as Vegeta, doesn't torture his body, and is more talented despite not being royalty. Goku's flaws are also played up more to the point he is reduced to Dumb Muscle while Vegeta is heralded as a technical genius. In battle, Goku comes up with a number of ingenious plans, and it's the one area where Goku is incredibly smart; most of the time, Vegeta loses his temper and his ability to think straight when his pride is hurt.
  • A lot of the fanbase’s respective attitude towards Bulma and Chi-Chi is horribly eschewed. Bulma being a sexy scientist mom whose inventions generally help out the plot is endlessly beloved and her extensive character flaws forgiven, whilst Chi-Chi is frequently dunked on by the fans for being a Wet Blanket Wife and Overprotective Mom who holds Gohan and Goku back as well as for being more “frumpy” compared to Bulma. While Chi-Chi like Goku isn’t an ideal parent, her wanting Gohan to have a proper education and life is completely valid as is her wanting Goku to get a job and not spend literally every day training and fighting — yet a lot fans hate her exactly for these realistic and frankly sympathetic wants. Bulma being seen as more likeable by fans is incredibly ironic since her actions actually paint her as a worse person than Chi-Chi ever was; case-in-point Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero reveals and shows in detail how Bulma has been collecting and hoarding the Dragon Balls to wish herself to be younger and more curvaceous. There’s people in the world of Dragon Ball like Chi-Chi struggling to get by but Bulma the millionaire is easily forgiven and idolised despite her clearly vain and selfish actions.
  • Some fans may see Nappa as misunderstood for teaming up with Vegeta, ignoring the fact that he is at least 20 years older than Vegeta, is old enough to resist peer pressure, and he often takes glee in hurting people for fun.
  • The Saiyan race as a whole, specifically in the West. Saiyans are seen as sympathetic, cool Blood Knights who were viciously murdered by their boss after they served him loyally for years. Although Frieza's actions in killing the Saiyans are indeed terrible, the Saiyans were still a bunch of space pirates who would probably be just as bad as Frieza if they did manage to overthrow him. In many ways, Frieza arguably did the universe a favour driving them close to extinction. Now granted later tellings would include Saiyan characters such as Gine Goku’s mother who is completely innocent and didn’t definitely didn’t deserve that fate and media like Dragon Ball Legends reveal that the Saiyans were once genuinely heroic but were overthrown by the worst of their culture at the point King Cold found them — but obviously that wasn’t the original intention when Toriyama first created them. Goku was meant to be an anomaly within in their race rather than what they were supposed to be.
  • There's a subset of Japanese hyper nationalist who praise the series as a brilliant satire of Japan's national enemies. According to them the Red Ribbon Army represents the USSR/Russia, Frieza represents China (because he's obsessed with real estate), and Majin Buu represents the United States (because he's fat and stupid, but is inexplicably powerful). This all falls apart when you look at any of the author’s statements. China is the easiest to debunk because Akira Toriyama says Frieza is based on Japanese real estate speculators, and the setting itself is inspired by ancient China (which is less evident as time has passed, but it's still there). There is nothing communist or Russian about the Red Ribbon Army; it’s likely that the name is a bad pun (which Toriyama is fond of). Majin Buu being a parody for America is downright goofy; not only does Fat Buu become a good guy, but Akira Toriyama has said time and time again that he loves American cinema, which is evident in the series. ^note The fan theory started in the United States and spread to Japan.
  • Bardock is a case of it leaking into canon. Bardock: The Father of Goku entirely focuses around the idea that Bardock is not special for a Saiyan, being as cruel, stoic, and battle-hungry as the race is known to be; he's a Villain Protagonist at most. He's also Doomed by Canon to ultimately accomplish nothing, and does exactly that, being killed by Frieza with absolutely no effort. Essentially, he's a pointed subversion of the idea that Goku's good nature and great skill were the result of Heroic Lineage rather than his upbringing on Earth. However, the whole idea of "Goku's dad, who is cooler and gruffer and wears black armor", as well as his appearances in fighting games, has caused him to go through a nigh-constant train of Adaptational Heroism and Adaptational Badass. This has resulted in stories like Dragon Ball Minus, which rewrites the special to make him suddenly be far kinder and more protective to his son, or Dragon Ball – Episode of Bardock, where he survives his death, kills Frieza's ancestor, and becomes the first Super Saiyan (making him essentially a carbon copy of his son and the most important Saiyan ever).
• An Eyeshield 21 fan has to introduce him/herself first as either a fan of the football games, or a fan of the boys, before talking at all about the series.
• Believe it or not, fans of Franken Fran, but Fran isn't evil. Nor is her sister Veronica supposed to be good. If you truly pay attention, then you'll notice that they are both intended to be neutral. It's especially apparent with the OVAs, where no violence happens and it's slapstick fun. Fans just can't let the kids live normally. Fran may be kinda sorta well-intentioned, but her intervention in people's lives makes her more amoral than neutral, assuming she's even on the same moral plane as the others.
• Fullmetal Alchemist offers an example that beats the readers/viewers in the head with its message, but it's still missed by a good portion of the fandom. Roy Mustang destroying Envy in the most painful way possible isn't supposed to be enjoyed by the audience. Envy is a psychopath who had it coming for killing Hughes, and other characters like Riza and Edward do agree that Envy deserves to die. But the audience is supposed to be worrying for Mustang's sanity, since he's coming dangerously close to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and becoming what he hates. Killing Envy to avenge Hughes would completely destroy Roy's lifelong dream to purify the country/military and atone for the sins of the Ishvalan War. As such, the intended message of Roy's assault on Envy was that Vengeance Feels Empty. However, a few fans either A) missed the point of the scene, or B) got the point but didn't care. The Brotherhood anime clears this up a bit with the way the voices sound: Roy's tone is that of a savage madman who has completely lost his mind, and Envy sounds like a terrified ten-year-old child while Mustang burns them alive. Despite all of the above, some fans still insist that this is a badass moment, cheering at the nightmare of circumstances which led to it, and getting angry at people who point out how terrible the whole situation became. Even to this day, the argument still goes on. The source for this very page now includes a request to not make any more justifying edits, since we're tired of all the arguing and we're not looking to start any more fights.
• Grave of the Fireflies has been hijacked by some Japanese nationalists to fuel talk of how cruel America was to Japan in World War II. Meanwhile, detractors have accused it of feeding into this rose-tinted view of Imperial Japan as the innocent victims forced to go into war. The film's fame comes from being praised for portraying how war is absolutely terrible and horrific for anyone caught in it, whichever side they may be on. Ironically, none of these factors are what the director intended. In an interview with Animage in 1988, Isao Takahata stated that there is no anti-war message at all in the film. Other people claim it's an attempt to shame rebellious (by Japanese standards) youth into conformity by showing them what their predecessors suffered through, when Isao Takahata hates this interpretation, being a critic of Japan's conformist nature.
• Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny fans who think either Blue Cosmos/LOGOS or Well-Intentioned Extremist Durandal were right. Word of God is that Durandal thought what he was doing was right, which some fans have exaggerated into claiming that it outright states that Dullindal/Durandal/whatever translation you use was right in the first place. but he was going to use a weapon of mass destruction against the countries who were against his Destiny Plan! This is one of those cases where fan claims about Word of God must be taken with a grain of salt. In Char's Counterattack, there are quite a few fans who maintain that Char was the hero. Despite, you know, his trying to drop an asteroid on Earth. Char himself considers this act Necessarily Evil, but evil nonetheless.
  • If you want an example of Misaimed Fandom for the series, look no further than the Principality of Zeon from the Universal Century. Later series play up the space Nazi aspect so much that the only difference between Zeon battle flags and Nazi ones is the replacement of the swastika. But Zeon has a truly staggering fan following, both in Japan and in the Western world, who admire Zeon soldiers as the pinnacle of manliness and loyalty. While Gundam is all about Gray-and-Gray Morality, and it's the leaders who are the greedy scumbags while the common soldiers run the gamut, it doesn't change the fact that Zeon's default response to anything was to throw a WMD at it, whether it's a Colony Drop (original series, 0083), biological weapon (Rise from the Ashes), or nuclear missiles (0080). This isn't helped by the fact that several stories like 0083 and 0081 focus on the interactions of close-knit groups of Zeon soldiers and try to gloss over the fact that they want to (and did) kill millions of innocent civilians in the name of independence.
    • The fact Zeon is still labeled as having fought the OYW over "spacenoid independence" shows how misaimed the Gundam fandom really is on the subject. Gundam backstory has long established that Zeon, specifically Side 3, had gained independence from the Federation long before the One Year War took place (how could Zeon Zum Daikun form the Republic of Zeon without it?), while Zeon's method of "liberating" the other colonies from the Federation was either to gas or nuke them out of existence; only Side 6, which chose to remain neutral (though secretly supporting the Federation), and Side 7 (which was on the other side of the planet) remained untouched by Zeon's genocidal onslaught. Zeon fought for spacenoid independence the same way Nazi Germany fought for European freedom and liberty, yet it's still seen in the same light as the American Minutemen by a large contingent of Gundam fans.
  • An In-Universe example happens when Degwin compares Gihren to Adolf Hitler in an attempt to get him to see how tyrannical he's become. Gihren, seemingly not having any idea of who Hitler was apart from a great conqueror, takes it as a compliment and proudly proclaims himself "Hitler's follower".
  • Gundam also has viewers who didn't get the memo and missed the fact that one of the franchise's key points is War Is Hell; these people can usually be identified as the ones who say things like "The giant robots are great, but I wish they'd shut up with all that talky philosophy bullshit and just fight each other!"
  • The end result of fans wanting a ruthless hero who does the job clean and clear is the very existence of Mikazuki Augus, a Sociopathic Hero who always go for the most violent option in every situation, his status as an Invincible Hero was meant to be a deconstruction of a ruthless hero since he killed several sympathetic enemies while disregarding their reasons and he inadvertently started a Cycle of Revenge between Tekkadan and Gjallarhorn. Despite this, the audiences rarely questioned his behaviour and rooted for him when he killed Crank in cold blood and dismembered Carta in his vendetta instead of going for a quick kill like usual regardless of if it was right or not.
  • Gundam Build Divers has had viewers rooting for Big Bad Tsukasa Shiba because they felt he was trying to bring back the style of fighting made popular by its Spiritual Predecessors Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try. Never mind the fact that he was a a selfish prick who hated the Gunpla Battle Nexus Online game that everyone else loved because he considered their kind of Gunpla Battle fake because they weren't devoting time, money and energy battling their Gunpla with the old Gunpla Duel game. Never mind the fact that he was essentially a criminal by selling devices that hacked into the Main Programming to boost other players' stats and causing the game to be riddled with ravaging bugs that eventually threatened to destroy the entire game.
  • Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE had the In-Universe case of Kazami, who's a big fan of the Captain Zeon web show, hosted by a player who roleplays as a superhero and edits his battles into a full-on series. But the thing is, Kazami is a fan of watching Captain Zeon be an Invincible Hero, to the point of actively skipping any episode where he loses. As a result, he's missed every moral about determination, effort, and teamwork, and has grown into a selfish asshole with severe main character syndrome. It's really telling that his Character Development only truly starts when he finally watches one of Captain Zeon's defeats in full.
• Gunslinger Girl was taken by many to be a deconstruction of lolicon. Turns out, not so much...
• Hetalia: Axis Powers was intended to parody National Stereotypes. With this in mind, the amount of Misplaced Nationalism in the fandom (especially in regards to characters like America and Poland) looks ridiculous.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • A lot of fans seem to dislike whenever nothing "scary" or gory happens. They're completely missing the point of the series. We're supposed to be happy that there is nothing wrong and that everyone can just go on with their lives. In fact, the authors of the Higurashi visual novels were heavily influenced by Key's Visual Novels such as Kanon, which work by contrasting simple, happy scenes which build up to plot twists and extremely emotional sad scenes, and were very effective at bringing players to tears. Higurashi's authors adopted a similar pattern of happy scenes and horror scenes to give the horror more impact: hence, the happy parts are integral to the overall horror effect.
  • For how much of a scumbag Teppei is, it can be easily missed that you're not supposed to enjoy the scenes where he gets killed by one of the kids. You're supposed to be worried for the killer's sanity. Regardless of that, because he's just that despicable and irredeemable, many fans see Keiichi, then Rena killing Teppei as a straight up heroic act, even though whenever a character decides to take justice into their own hands it never ends well for any of them.
• Initial D has caused a huge fandom for the Toyota Corolla AE86, despite the whole point being Takumi is an amazing driver who can win despite his old outdated car, as opposed to because of it. There's a huge amount of dialogue about how the 86 is outdated and not all that fast, but Takumi's superior driving skills are what makes him win.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, there are a lot of literal Kick the Dog moments, the most known ones being Dio killing Danny (Jonathan's dog) and the death of Iggy (the Team Pet of Part 3). A lot of fans joke that Araki dislikes dogs, when it's quite the opposite: Araki likes dogs and added the Kick the Dog moments to make it clear the ones that harm the dog is a Hate Sink.
• While Sora Naegino from Kaleido Star did go through quite the Break the Cutie at times, her boss Kalos Eidos was a Stern Teacher at most and her second season May Wong got to befriend her after being subjected to quite the Break the Haughty. To the fandom, however, Kalos and May are abusive and monsters who masturbate to the possibility of Sora failing, and Sora should be spoon-fed success and stardom even when she has to re-shape her Wide-Eyed Idealist ways into a somewhat more mature stance, so she can both keep believing in the best of people and not crush under the pressure of being the star of the Kaleido Stage. Sora is a deconstruction of the Purity Sue archetype... but the Kaleido Star fandom actually seems to actively want her to be a straight example.
• KonoSuba protagonist Kazuma has a large number of fans who want to view the series as Wish-Fulfillment and thus view Kazuma as a character they wish they could be. This is ignoring the fact that Kazuma is a proud NEET, a shallow and petty jerk who is consistently shown to have little else beneath the surface, and an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist whom the audience is supposed to laugh at when bad things happen to him. A large number of these fans also take his rants about "gender equality" completely at face value and/or believe they have some merit to them, when in context, Kazuma used the line as a threat against some girls who were insulting him. In other words, the audience is supposed to laugh at him, not cheer for him.
• Kujibiki♡Unbalance was a Show Within a Show in the anime Genshiken made to parody nearly every romance anime by following all of the tropes. Kujibiki♡Unbalance was too spot on; it became a highly successful spinoff, while Genshiken itself almost didn't get a second season. (It was delayed almost a year.)
• Some parts of the Loveless fandom actively ship pairings that are canonically stated to be abusive (eg- Seimei/Soubi), either ignoring or fetishizing the fact that they aren't healthy. Also applying Draco in Leather Pants to Seimei and Nisei.
• The ending of the Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga was supposed to insinuate that love wasn't as important as personal fulfillment: Hanon and Rina know they will eventually have to choose to rule their kingdoms instead of staying on the surface. (This is analogous to the original "The Little Mermaid" story, except Lucia gets to keep Kaito.) Fans generally ignore this and give them future children with Nagisa and Hamasaki (Masahiro).
• In My Dress-Up Darling, the budding relationship between Gojo and Kitagawa has hooked plenty of fans who aren't very interested in the cosplaying portion of the story, this resulted in small circles of fans who grow annoyed when an arc takes long and detailed dives in the cosplay scene and its crafting process, clamoring for more romantic developments between Gojo and Kitagawa instead. Without sparing any words, such fans are simply misaimed in their view of what this series is about in the first place, the cosplaying aspect isn't just a backdrop for Gojo and Kitagawa's relationship, it very much is a main plot thread where the series author expresses her knowledge and liking of the cosplay hobby, it won't ever stop being on the forefront of the story.
• My Hero Academia:
  • The League of Villains has a quite large fanbase who tend to root for them to win and overlook their many crimes, viewing them as Innocent victims of society rather than the psychotic group of criminals with Tragic pasts that they are.
    • Himiko Toga's fans use her abusive childhood and her being forced to suppress her urge for blood to paint her as an innocent girl being hunted down like a Criminal. This is ignoring the fact that while she did suffer abuse, she still killed dozens of people and is actively working to up that number, with no remorse even during her sacrifice in the Final Battle.
    • Dabi is often characterized by fans as justified in his quest to kill his father Endeavor and genuinely caring for the other members of the League. This is despite the story's constant spotlight on how despite his tragic past and role of the Only Sane Man and The Dragon within the league, underneath his Mask of Sanity he is an unhinged Lunatic who is incapable of feeling emotions other than hate by his own admission. He cares nothing for anything that doesn't forward him toward murdering his whole family and any moment of emotion with the league is faked to make them more useful towards that goal. And when pushed to his limit in the Final Battle he turns himself into a human explosive, intending to wipe out his family, his own teammates, and the bunker full of Civillians nearby out of sheer spite.
    • Tomura Shigaraki's goals are painted as a lot more noble than they actually are, with fans seeing him as trying to tear down society to aid the downtrodden, looking past the fact that all he really has as a plan is wide-scale MassMurder to satisfy his rage and the psychological effects of his Quirk. This got worse after All for One possessed him, with fans framing him as an innocent victim of All For One. This is despite his immediate affirmation after getting free that yes, he still wants to kill as many people as possible.
  • Endeavor has this both ways. On one hand you have people demonizing him as a complete monster, worse than the villains, and completely undeserving of his Redemption Arc. On the other you have fans who minimize his parental and child abuse as "Not that bad" and view the backlash he's gotten in and out of story as overblown.
• Naruto:
  • Many fans wanted to see Naruto kill Pain/Nagato just for the sake of revenge. The entire point of the arc (and most of the series) is that revenge is a form of cheap satisfaction that never solves anything, which just leads to more revenge, and that some problems are best solved without violence (and if Naruto killed him he would have proved his belief that people are incapable of overcoming their hatred or showing mercy to those that have hurt them to be completely right). Oddly enough, these fans also seem surprised by his tragic backstory, even though it had already been mentioned, and even though Naruto never accepted Freudian Excuses as justifications for misdeeds, often criticizing the logic behind them.
  • Another example is that whilst many Naruto fans see Sasuke as a Smug Snake who eats babies and enjoys kicking puppies, others see him as a badass with absolutely no flaws, who is not emotionally unstable in the least and who simply does bad things because he's "cool" and "badass" and "evil". Both sets of fans are wrong, as it's pretty clear that while he's supposed to be sympathetic, or to have been sympathetic once before he crossed the Moral Event Horizon, most of his life choices are shown in quite a negative light.
    • In an interview, Kishimoto finally weighed in on what he thinks of Sasuke's Misaimed Fandom; While he denies Sasuke being an actual villain, he also slammed anyone who tried to rationalize his actions and said they were not justifiable.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Since NGE was created by committee with no clear goal at the start, it is one series where these claims of specific deep and meaningful "authors intent" definitely needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
  • Kaworu was also supposed to be creepy and somewhat disturbing, but as a Bishōnen who seemed to have chemistry with Shinji, he didn't have a chance against the Yaoi Fangirls. Anno, the author, remarked that he had failed with Kaworu, and that he just comes off as a strange guy.
  • There is also an astonishing number of people who walk away thinking that piloting an EVA would be the coolest thing in the world. This is despite the fact that the show repeatedly beats you over the head with the idea that EVA pilots are Child Soldiers, and that no sane person would ever want to live that life.
  • Ayanami Rei was meant to be unsettling, but a combination of Generic Cuteness plus Blank Slate meant that people could project absolutely everything and anything onto her.
  • Shinji as well, he was supposed to be seen as a realistic kid who was way over his head and whose angst was justified for his age and the horrible shit he goes through, but instead he's seen by many especially in America as a dirty coward and unsympathetic creep.
• One Piece:
  • The Marines are often played as evil by the fandom; the Marines are run by corrupt Jerk Asses and Smug Supers, while the pirates are romanticized as freedom-loving people who want to live life to the fullest outside the law. For the most part, the Marines are portrayed as morally questionable, and several good pirate crews are seen (such as the Straw Hats). However, it is made clear that crews like the Straw Hats are exceptions. Several pirates are evil, cruel, and murderous, many of them infinitely worse than the Marines. For the most part, the Marines are at least trying to do the right thing, and want to protect people from pirates and other criminals. The dynamic between pirates and Marines is more a case of Grey-and-Grey Morality, while fans tend to simplify it to pure Black and White.
  • Sanji’s Wouldn't Hit a Girl chivalry is constantly brought up against him by fans. There’s many articles going on about how sexist and toxically masculine it is as well as how stupidly Sanji puts his life in jeopardy from female villains due to it. Yet putting aside the fact other characters such as Zoro are also guilty of holding back against women, the actual fault lays not with Sanji but with Zeff — his surrogate father and mentor — who hammered (figuratively and literally) this gendered mentality into Sanji’s head since he was 9 years old. While it can be possibly argued that Sanji took Zeff’s teachings too far, the old pirate cook never made that clear to his adoptee and just stated he would castrate Sanji and then kill himself if ever heard about Sanji hurting a woman. Essentially the fanbase deride Sanji for something he was forcefully conditioned into believing so strongly.
• One-Punch Man has attracted a large host of fans who like to argue about power levels and who can beat who. This is due to Saitama often being touted as the most powerful character in all of anime, or even all of fiction. However, this is missing the point of One-Punch Man - Saitama is supposed to be so powerful that no one will ever defeat him, and that is his curse. Saitama's strength is incalculable, with no one being strong enough to stand up against him to fully measure it, and due to his explanation of becoming that strong being a simple training regime, people are only limited into making hypotheses about how he became that strong, such as Dr. Genus' "breaking the limit" theory.
• Ouran High School Host Club was intended to make fun of the school romance / bishounen harem genre. It includes many common character and plot tropes; however, many fans don't seem to realize or care that the tropes are not being played straight. Other fans are capable of self-deprecation. Still others see it as the best of both worlds, with the cuteness of a romantic comedy and the funnier humor of an Affectionate Parody. ^note It's your Guilty Pleasures without the guilt!
• Please Tell Me! Galko-chan spends a lot of time debunking myths surrounding women's bodies, ultimately pointing out that you shouldn't judge people by their appearances. This is heavily underlined through Galko, whose entire class assumes she is sexually frivolous because she has a large chest and a flashy wardrobe, but the show takes pains to show that not only is that nowhere near the case, the implication of such might actually hurt Galko herself. So of course, the merchandise and fan-oriented works all focus on how hot Galko is!
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • The rival of each series induces one of these. While they're normally a jerk to Ash instead of a friendly competitor, a lot of people cheer them on for this, saying that they're much cooler than Ash and better trainers.
    • Paul, the Sinnoh rival, gets this quite a bit. People still cheered for Paul when he abused his Pokemon in order to make them stronger. This is because Paul's methods are quite similar to the methods the competitive video game players use to obtain their Pokémon, making him an instant foil to Ash's friendship-and-love approach and a deconstruction of those players. Instead, Paul became an Audience Surrogate for some of these players and an anchor point to the normally unwatchable-for-them anime.
    • Gary Oak, the Small Name, Big Ego rival in the original series, gets this almost as much as Paul does. Yes, Gary was two steps ahead of Ash for most of the season, but was also an unapologetic bully meant to be rooted against, and he suffered crucial failures as well. Adding salt to the wound, Ash succeeded in some of the scenarios where Gary failed. In the Indigo League, Gary lost in the preliminaries that Ash got through. Gary got owned by Giovanni's Mewtwo, whereas Ash encountered Mewtwo twice and actually earned its respect both times. (True, it wasn't by physical prowess that Ash accomplished this, but it's a lot further than Gary ever got.) Gary even lost to Ash himself during the Johto League. Gary has only beaten Ash twice in a Pokemon battle: an informal one-on-one between Ash's Pikachu and Gary's Eevee, and another between Pikachu and Gary's Electivire, the latter of which was long after they'd ended their rivalry. And yet, to some fans, he's still "Gary Motherfuckin' Oak" who could beat anyone at any time, and could do no wrong.
  • In a cross-media example, there's the Ash vs. Red debate. Ash is anything but a perfect Trainer, even to this day, but the self-insert status of Red has encouraged many fans to demand the same level of virtual flawlessness from Ash, ignoring the fact that Ash's world has a far different and more difficult take on the Pokémon League than the games. They completely ignore Ash's accomplishments and qualities while playing up Red's. It's the most evident when comparing the main anime series to Pokémon Origins: even though that version of Red relied on largely the same cliches and Plot Armor that Ash does, he got off far easier with fans because of his "cooler" aesthetic and the fact that he won the League on his first try.
  • On the other hand, a lot of young fans project themselves onto Ash and become furious that he never won a League until Alola, and demonize the characters who beat him fair and square (particularly Tobias and Alain) and often harshly criticize Ash’s relationship with his own Pokemon (namely, releasing them if they want it and not forcing evolution on them) in spite of this being a sign that Ash cares about his Pokémon and doesn’t treat them as mere tools. It also ignores that Ash was intentionally written by the original head writer as a highly flawed kid who gets in way over his head and lacks the maturity to become a great Trainer, with his loss in the Indigo League, in hindsight, being heavily foreshadowed from the start. Unlike what these fans think, Ash’s flaws are not faults of the writing because he was always intended to be written that way, since a character without flaws who always wins would be very boring.
  • In the infamous scene in which Serena threw snowballs at Ash, many fans believed that Serena was salty because Ash was moping about his loss to Wulfric. The truth is, Serena reacted that way because Ash was being unnecessarily rude to her when she tried to console him. While Serena was wrong to compare gym battles to showcases, she still meant well and she just wanted to give Ash Sympathy. Case in point: both Serena and Ash were in the wrong in their own ways in that scene, but Serena gets most of the blame for it.
• In The Prince of Tennis, people who think that An Tachibana has a Moment of Awesome in the anime-only Senbatsu arc are missing the point of said sub-plot and the consequences it brought for the characters involved. In the Senbatsu arc, An confronted Kirihara for having injured her older brother. An's actions were not supposed to be seen as commendable, as she was consumed by rage and had tried to attack Kirihara some days before, but was restrained. Her second attack on Kirihara finished with him taking a Staircase Tumble that could have been fatal. Then, Akira Kamio was wrongfully accused for said fall and almost got kicked out of the Senbatsu for something that he didn't do, while Kirihara himself decided to not tell who attacked him as he was scared of the consequences and didn't want any more problems. However, some fans praise An and say she's badass for what she did, missing how her supposed Revenge was simply not worth it and only caused lots of pain for everyone involved, to the point that An breaks down in tears and apologizes for the consequences!
• Despite the fact that the entire latter half of the anime was supposed to showcase how awful being a Magical Girl can be, there are still quite a few people who walk away from Puella Magi Madoka Magica thinking it would be the coolest thing in the world and wanting nothing more than to make a contract with Kyubey. This has led to more than a few fanfics or quests (on forums like Sufficient Velocity or Spacebattles) where the downsides are downplayed or mitigated completely, usually by a clever wish that likely wouldn't be granted in the actual series. This often leads to most of the story being about the increasingly broken things they can do with their powers, pairing off the Original Character with someone, or both.
  • Sayaka Miki was supposed to deconstruct or at very least criticize tropes like Love Martyr, Unrequited Tragic Maiden and Patient Childhood Love Interest, as well as the unrealistic concepts of love and romance they rely on. This is evident even at the start of the series, when she implies that she wants to be a Magical Girl and use her wish to heal the boy she has a crush on, and Mami immediately points out the self-interest behind such an intention. Fandom, however, embraced Sayaka as a straight-up example of the tropes she was created to "attack", and still believe Sayaka is entitled to have the boy's affection and that he and Hitomi are the ONLY reason for her Face–Heel Turn.
  • Regarding the movie, many fans support Homura's actions in the ending, namely, usurping Madoka, becoming a devil, and enslaving the entire Incubator species, particularly among those who argued that the original series' ending wasn't all that happy upon closer inspection, despite the fact that Homura herself calls those acts evil. Perhaps some good came of her decision, but it's a stretch to call it a good decision.
    • The flipside is also true, since the loudest Homura haters insist that she is an horrifyingly cruel monster devoid of any humanity and refer to anyone who disagrees as "apologists". These Homura bashers eagerly brush aside how she was very lonely before meeting Madoka, then either broke herself or was broken beyond belief (and more often than not, both) in all the time loops and continuities, eventually reached a total breaking point, and then had the above described Love Makes You Evil-fueled Face–Heel Turn. Even when the show beats the viewers upside the head with the idea that love cannot be completely selfless unless in extremely special circumstances (like Madoka's), the fans still uphold the "love must be completely selfless and a person in love must not be allowed to wish for anything for him/herself" idea and then bash Homura for, alongside Sayaka, showing how unrealistic and harmful it is.
• There is a huge percentage of Ranma ½ fanfiction that portrays Ranma as eventually coming to enjoy his Gender Bender status, or even to outright prefer his female form to his male one. Many of these go so far as to show "her" acting more conventionally feminine by preference, sometimes even to the extent of falling in love with men and bearing children. This seems to stem from a combination of Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls and transgirls latching onto Ranma as a wish-fulfillment character, completely ignoring that, in canon, Ranma absolutely hates his Gender Bender status, wants nothing more than to be all male again, and the idea of physically and/or mentally changing permanently into a girl absolutely terrifies him. He has a particular hatred of guys trying to flirt with him, being vehemently straight. The fact Ranma has more innate domestic skills than Akane Tendo is supposed to be part of the comedy. Ditto his tendency to engage in feminine roles to achieve something he wants; that's just Hypocritical Humor, given his professed distaste for acting that way. On the other side, the male fanbase wants to see him stay female because he's cuter that way; they can get all the fun of a Ladette character, but none of the drawbacks of the boorishness of "natural" males and shallowness and emotions of "natural" females (making him the perfect girl to pair up). Again, this ignores that Ranma deliberately plays up these traits for his own ends, and that the Three Laws of Gender-Bending don't apply to him (and he doesn't want them to) as often as most would like.
• Ruka's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Mami in Rent-A-Girlfriend may be correct in context, but many fans miss the point that it's not supposed to show Ruka in a good light—rather, it's meant to show her extreme jealousy, insecurity, and hypocrisy issues. She only went off on Mami because of her jealousy of any girl being around Kazuya and worry that she had been further demoted to third-most important person in his life, and everything Ruka accused Mami of is something she's equally guilty of doing. Most importantly, Ruka does realize she went too far in her actions and apologizes to Kazuya for putting words in his mouth and causing him trouble that could have been avoided. But since Mami is hated by a large section of the fanbase, they fail to see the consequences of Ruka's actions and instead look at her callout as a well-justified Moment of Awesome, failing to see that it only made things worse for everyone.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena has this in a bunch of different flavors, which was sort of bound to happen. A big part of this is either focused on whether Anthy is a villain or The Woobie, whether Utena should be a prince or a princess, the Prince and Princess Tropes in themselves (since both concepts are deconstucted and shown as unrealistic, but fans insist it's better to be a "gallant prince" than a "stupid princess") and shipping wars. Oh, the shipping wars...The ironic part is that the show makes a large part of deconstructing these arguments and pointing out that no person would have such flat motivations. But it wouldn't be a Misaimed Fandom if they listened.
• Subaru of Re:Zero is in no way a Stock Light-Novel Hero. He is instead his own character with his own feelings, personality, and flaws. He has no useful powers to use in combat and always got his ass handed to him, often in fatal ways. Initially, he was hated by the fanbase because they couldn't project themselves onto him, but later learned that projecting themselves onto him was never the point and soon grew to love him. However, he still does have several detractors, especially when it came to his interactions with the female characters, and many of them dislike Subaru for how he treats them at his worst while putting them on pedestals and claiming they did nothing but be kind to him. Some even consider Subaru to be irredeemable and ignore that he is broken from what he's been put through. One Youtuber went on a rant-inducing slight on every horrible thing the female characters (sans Emilia) has ever done to Subaru.
• Many Robotech fans completely ignore the point that Robotech, due to its origins as a Frankenslation, is supposed to be a multigenerational epic, with characters coming along and leaving (either through death or simply time passing) when their stories are finished. Instead, a large number of them are obsessed with Rick Hunter as though he were the central main character of the Robotech universe. When he appeared briefly in the 2007 followup film Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles as a barely-recognizable, aged, white-haired version of himself (actually, he looked far older than what he was supposed to be), this naturally upset fans who wanted to see Rick, Max, and the others flying their Veritechs and kicking serious alien ass like in the original "Macross Saga" despite the fact that Shadow Chronicles takes place about 35 years later.
  • That said, the studio behind Robotech, Harmony Gold, have actually been quite willing to deliver the further adventures of Rick, Max, Lisa & co. They even tried to produce a Robotech II: The Sentinels TV series back in the 1980s which would have detailed what the Macross characters got up to during seasons 2 and 3. This just didn't work out, and later on Harmony Gold lost the licensing rights to the Macross materials due to court challenges from the Japanese creators. Currently, they only have the licensing rights to Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (aka "The New Generation"), so all further Robotech works only reference visual designs from Mospeada. It's likely that Harmony Gold would have already spewn out 10,000 episodes of "Rick Hunter Adventures" if they (legally) could.
• Rurouni Kenshin fans who complain how much it sucks that Kenshin doesn't kill anyone, despite this being a major, plot-critical character trait. Some fans have intelligent criticism of the series' simplistic take on morality and violence—but many do seem to think it'd be cooler if Kenshin would kill people, or don't care. The author included an in-universe example of this viewpoint: Saitou Hajime not only thinks it'd be better if Kenshin reverted to his old ways, but is also continually trying to force him to do so. When Kenshin finally resolves his last issue with his past, Saitou rejects his challenge because he was searching for something that Kenshin can no longer provide.
  • Rurouni Kenshin as a whole was supposed to be a deconstruction of the Jidaigeki fiction, showing the bitter consequences of being a samurai in the Meiji Era — the times when samurai lost their influence in Japanese society. Seems some people definitely missed that message.
• With Serial Experiments Lain, producer Yasuyuki Ueda hoped to stir a "cultural war" (seriously) between traditional Japanese and American values, due to the latter's perceived negative influence on post-WWII Japan. His hope with Lain was to create a story that would be interpreted differently in the East and West and spark discussions on their cultural differences and perspectives. American fans interpreted the plot the same way as Japanese fans, which suggests that either Lain wasn't enough of a Mind Screw for his purposes, or Americans and Japanese are not that different at all... Misaimed Creator?
  • Perhaps it didn't work because the current generation lives on the Internet, and are far more connected than any previous generation.
• There's quite a few edgy internet tough guys that say offensive things for the hell of it with "badass" looking pictures of Vash the Stampede from Trigun as their social media icon, presumably just because he looks cool, completely ignoring that the character's defining traits are his empathy for all life, sensitivity, and kindness. It's likely they've never even watched or read the series.
  • Some people decided to become pacifists after seeing or reading the series, when the series goes out of its way to point out Vash's beliefs are flawed and only causing more harm to himself and others. At the very end of the anime he even states "I will continue to believe in you, but from now on I will look to my own words for guidance".
• The Wandering Son fandom can be this at times. A lot of the fandom seems to be under the impression that either, or both, of the protagonists are just gay despite the fact that the manga explicitly states several times that they are Transgender, and has a post-op trans woman like Yuki who they compare to (Nitori has mostly shown attraction to girls as well). Similarly, many Otokonoko Genre fans are drawn to the series. Other fans think it's a romance shojo where Platonic Life-Partners Takatsuki and Nitori are going to end up in the end, despite it being marketed as seinen instead. They have Ship Tease (though nothing becomes of it), however, it is a Coming of Age Story instead of a romance.
• Welcome to the NHK: Believe it or not, many people want to become hikikomori after watching it. Yeah. The implication that a cute girl will show up to help you out is probably the main reason, even though the girl in the show is even more mentally messed-up than the protagonist. This continued even after the author wrote in the afterword of the original novel that the point of the story was how horrible this lifestyle was for him. Most importantly, this is ignoring the fact that two hikkikomori nearly died because their support got cut off. They even had an aesop saying one has to work if they want to live.
• Hatoko's rant in episode 7 of When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace has been interpreted as a criticism of Evil Is Cool. It's often cited out-of-context, accusing someone who likes "dark and egdy" stuff of being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, or poking fun at pseudo-intellectuals who "read things on the Internet" and use them to sound smart without knowing what they really mean. Actually, Hatoko was ranting at Andou because she genuinely didn't understand the things he was talking about, and was trying to connect with him but failing.
• Wolf's Rain fans who sympathize too much with the wolves, claiming that "They don't really want to hurt anyone," even though many killings happen on-screen. The only one who shows any remorse is Toboe. Kiba, the human-intolerant leader, gets squeed over as well—but even if he were human, he would still be a messed-up, violent, bad-tempered misanthrope. It's not that he's bad—his issues are extremely understandable and he does grow to genuinely care about the others—it's just unlikely that The Power of Love alone could cure his issues. Especially if she's human. But as their human-looking forms are all Bishounen, it's completely understandable. Wolf's Rain also happens to be a social and religious allegory. Some fans ignore this in favor of fawning over how pretty the wolves are.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Over the course of the anime/manga, there are fans who still view Seto Kaiba as The Woobie, even though he's long since become self reliant, and that Yugi and his friends are jerks who don't understand what he's been through, or fawn over Kaiba's badass traits so much that they will overlook or pardon his Jerkass moments. Even the writers for the '90s Toei anime seemed to feel this way. In the manga though, it should be clear that outside his few redemptive moments, Kaiba's behavior should not be idolized or emulated and that, while you are supposed to sympathize with Kaiba's troubles, you're not supposed to think that excuses the crap he pulls.
• Despite Yuureitou making it extremely clear that Tetsuo/ Reiko is a transgender man, many fans view him as a Sweet Polly Oliver. Even after Taichi himself makes this mistake and Tetsuo tells him otherwise, many fans thought Tetsuo would stop "crossdressing" by the end and end up with Taichi. They are the Official Couple but Tetsuo is still living as a man.

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