Adorable Evil Minions is a trope that sees misuse, ZCE and gushing, according to Tropes Needing TRS.
Wicks: 50/50
Correct use 13/ 50
- Arctic Dogs: Otto Van Walrus' minions are Puffins, who, while competent, are seen as simply adorable by everyone else.
- Astro City: The servants of He Who Lies Buried serve an Eldritch Abomination, but some of them are surprisingly cute, thanks to the look of their home dimension.
- Chains of Reality: Lincolnism and the Chain-Breakers (themselves implied to be a part of Lincolnism) seem to be mostly made up of these: Proto-Lola's chain breaker troops seem to be mostly Leias, Winstons, and a Lindsey, none of which look particularly threatening, Proto-Lola has Claire and Skippy as workers for her, and neither of them seem particularly dangerous at first glance either. The closest aversion is the Morticians Club members for Proto-Lucy, and even then, that's only in their transformed forms; their basic forms are weird, but not exactly frightening.
- City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes: The little spider tanks in the climax. One shot has a girl call them cute when they walk by a street.
- GenshinImpact.Tropes A To D: Because of the game's colorful art style, the various monsters in the world look surprisingly cute. Yes, even the hilichurls and vishaps.
- GG Bond: The one-eyed hand viruses serving the villain in Ultimate Battle don't look particularly harmful, and indeed, they actually help GG Bond and his crew by taking them through an elevator that's normally only for viruses.
- GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse.Tropes A To H: Tom Foolery is always accompanied on his crimes by a horde of tiny teddy-bear robots. Which are armed with machine guns, and are set to explode on command.
- Kuu Kuu Harajuku: Panda Pete's KiKis, cute robotic stuffed pandas wearing stylish pants that kidnap Baby. When it comes to "doing their worst", they merely manage to jump on HJ5, hugging and tickling them.
- Murder Princess: Ana and Yuna tiny and cute female dolls with spunky and shy, respectively, personalities. They are also Dr. Akamashi's primary weapons in his coup. The only issue here is the awful grammar
- Mystery Skulls Animated: The Dead Beats that follow Lewis around are simple, purple puppet-like ghosts with glowing yellow hearts on their chests and highly expressive little faces. Even when they're trying to be scary, with narrowed eyes and jagged teeth, they come off as cute instead.
- Sonic Boom S 1 E 37 Next Top Villain: Dave lets loose some non-anthropomorphic rabbits to attack and destroy Team Sonic... cue them showing their true colors as the gang pet them in awe, much to his chagrin. Even Sticks, who absolutely loathes anything adorable, is given a sense of serotonin by this.
- Tabaluga: Arktos's minions are ice-dwelling animals like penguins, seals, polar bears, and walruses. They are drawn in the same style as the heroic animals and look cute in their own right.
- The Twelve Months: The wicked stepsister is very cute, especially compared to her more Obviously Evil and appropriately ugly mother. The difference is retained when they are turned into dogs.
Gushing 4/ 50
- Aachi and Ssipak: The Diaper Gang are short, blue, have squeaky voices, and even have funny little motorcycle/robot-legs to ride in. One would almost feel sorry for them as they are killed violently but it's just too Bloody Hilarious. That, and they are psychotic killers. Don't know if this counts as gushing but the whole "you would feel sorry for them except it's fun" part sounds iffy
- KingdomHearts.Tropes A To D: The Heartless. Some of them are just so darn cute! And yet, they're manifestations of the darkness in peoples' hearts.
- Nights Journey Of Dreams: Nearly all of the Level 3 Nightmaren (the Mooks) resemble cute, colorful, toylike animals. Among the most adorable are Shleeps (fluffy sheep), Cuttles (small, pink-and-green squid with large eyes), Murtles (sea turtles with gemstone-like shells), and Mothpils (moths with vibrant wings and big, green eyes). This one starts OK, then it devolves into "this is cute, and this one too, oh look at those cute thingies"
- Zombie Panic In Wonderland: Well, they’re not entirely evil, but the Dwarves are still carrying out the villain’s plan, whether they realize it or not. And they’re so adorable! <3 Seriously? Italic and the heart emote?
ZCE 32/ 50
- Alwa's Awakening: Mobs look more sad and tired than outright malicious.
- Anarcute: The Brainwash Patrol are group of chibi Gas Mask Mooks. They even have a Twitter account
. Love how this somehow implies that having a Twitter account is a thing cute critters do - Aveyond: The Darklings are cute monsters who are destined to serve the Darkthop heir.
- The Beast Legion: Chou's baby spawns that go BOOM when touched.
- Bomberman Jetters: The Hige Hige Bandits themselves have a vaguely-pug like face, and are about Bomberman's size.
- Bomberman Online: Every boss has their own adorable mooks.
- Bubsy: The Woolies, especially Professor Nylon.
- CB Chara Go Nagai World: All the Go Nagai villains count for being in chibi form, but the Demon Cleanup Squad takes the cake.
- The City of Lost Children: The six cloned brothers.
- Evil Belle: Sweetie's clone army is this, being clones of herself and all.
- Freaktown: The fluffy little cloud guards that serve Princess Boo-Boo and Cuddles.
- Goosebumps (2015): The Lawn Gnomes are back... and they're throwing sharp things.
- Gravity Soul (under Deal with the Devil): And also Eruka Frog to make her, Free and Mizune his minions.
- Junk Jack: Monkeys on Alba. Certain varieties will kill the player easily.
- Krampus: The gingerbread men.
- Labyrinth: Their adorableness is debatable, but this trope fits the goblins quite well.
- The Little Prince (2010): The Gloomies.
- Mega Man (Ruby-Spears): The Battontons, and the Pipis in the opening.
- Minions: The minions are adorable, and want to look for a villain to serve. Essentially the film is The Movie of this trope.
- Mirror Monster: Bug Bot and Xenor, of course!
- The Nutcracker: Despite them supposed to be intimidating and the Mouse King's soldiers, the mice in this short are adorable.
- Original Hinatazaka: Daimaou Kosakana's minions are the Ninja Maids Thirde Generae Scions, based on the four Hinatazaka46 third generation members: Hinano, Mikuni, Marie, and Haruyo.
- Pathfinder: Quasits, goblins, cacodaemons, kobolds, a lot of such critters live on Golarion.
- PhineasAndFerb.Tropes A To C: Malifishmertz's canned meat minions ("Meatlings") in "Excaliferb", at least until they become exposed to rain and grow huge. And more rampage-y.
- Rolling Bomber Special: Zarray, the Army of Evil, a.k.a. Katori's minions. Already blanked out ZCE. In fact, the page is mostly blanked out ZCEs
- SD Gundam Force: Being a series were most of the characters are Super Deformed, this is a given, zako.
- Shocker During The Day: A side effect of taking the Shocker Combatmen, who had already begun to be Played for Comedy in most of their recent appearances, and chibifying them to be adorable.
- Space Jam: The Nerdlucks, before they become the Monstars.
- Sprite Fright: The little Sprites appear to be innocent at first, but their looks are deceiving.
- Super Mario Bros.: Every Mook in the series is cute in some way or another.
- Wander over Yonder: The Watchdogs.
- Wanted: The Doll-Master uses robot dolls to commit crimes.
Other misuse 1/ 50
- Samurai Pizza Cats: The Ninja Crows. In addition to being ineffecutual, they are also often portrayed in a sympathetic light, such as when the Big Cheese could no longer afford to pay them, forcing them to get day jobs. This sounds more like Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
