Schmuck Bait / Anime & Manga

• In Code-E, Kannagi tells Chinami not to look at an ad with a couple kissing. Of course, she does, and due to her feelings for him and vice versa, her emotion-controlled electro-superpower gets out of hand and causes damage to the electric system of the bus.
• In Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid Saga, eating Mermaid flesh is said to give you immortality, and it can... but only about one in a thousand times. It almost always either kills you outright, or turns you into a gibbering homicidal monster.
• Rumiko Takahashi: In a Ranma ½ story, where Ranma (in girl-form) and Akane hit the tennis courts in relatively skimpy outfits (it's winter, so everyone else is bundled up) to lure out Happōsai. Akane mentions that the old man can't possibly be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trap, but suddenly he appears, groping Ranma. As he's tied up, Happōsai complains that "Spotting a trap and staying out of it are two entirely different things!" Happōsai is notorious for responding like this every single time. It's when he doesn't that people realize something is wrong.
• The Dirty Pair once had to deal with a trap that was triggered when one pulled on a little handle on the end of a rope suspended from the ceiling. The designer of the trap then proudly pointed out that it was a lot more effective than the "regular" stuff that burglars/spies/etc. promptly avoid.
• Azumanga Daioh:
  • "If I were to lose this key right now, we wouldn't be able to get inside the house!" Tomo snatches it and hurls it, later explaining that, "When you hear things like that, it just makes you wanna do it, y'know?" Once the key is found, Yomi has Sakaki physically restrain Tomo to keep it from happening again... especially as she thought doing so would be hilarious. Oh, Tomo...
  • She also does the old touch-wet-paint thing in an earlier comic.
  • Also playing with Mayaa, a wild Iriomote cat after being told not to. She gets severely scratched for it.
  • Even in a dream she falls for this: She encounters a button that Chiyo-chan says, "will kill (Chiyo)". So of course she presses it. And of course, she finds one for herself and does not press it.
• In the new years episode of Ninja Nonsense, Shinobu finds a button with warnings posted all around it, and doesn't even hesitate in pressing it.
• In Dragon Ball, as the heroes find themselves in Pilaf's castle, they notice a series of lit up arrows on the ground. Their initial assessment of it being a trap is disregarded as being far too obvious a trap. It turns out to actually be a trap. Pilaf even lampshades this, "I never believed there were people THAT stupid."
• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: It's a Running Gag that Frieren, despite her hundreds of years of experience and vast magical knowledge, always gets fooled by Mimics. In several cases, it's made clear that she knows very well that there's a chance of any given treasure chest being a monster, but she can never resist the possibility that there's some sort of odd magical item or grimoire inside the chest.
• Slayers:
  • In Slayers Next, Gourry pushes a button to disastrous effect. Later he finds another button which he doesn't push — when pushing the button would have deactivated the trap he then falls in.
  • Parodied some more in Slayers Revolution when Lina and Pokota cannot stop themselves from pushing buttons that say "do not push"; lampshaded by other annoyed members of the group.
  • Another Revolution example: Zelgadiss's trap for Pokota. It involves food, and an obvious cage on top of said food. Amelia is not amused and lampshades this trope. The trap works.
  • The "Lina Trap". The one with the unicorn horn, which is so ridiculously obvious that at a glance Lina muses that the trap must have been meant for Gourry (until Lina sees the unicorn horn inside the trap and promptly loses her brain). Although possibly Lina was the only one who would have fallen for that one. Even Gourry lampshades it.
  • Even Xelloss was not immune to Schmuck Bait. In an episode of NEXT, he comes across a shrine that says (paraphrasing) "Throw a coin into the fountain and ring the bell for good luck." Xelloss does so...only for the bell to fall on top of him in an especially ironic display of good luck (i.e. good luck is bad for Mazokus).
• One Piece:
  • When the Straw Hat Pirates raided Sir Crocodile's casino, they found a sign in the backroom corridors pointing off in one direction that said "Pirates". It led to a dead end containing a trap door which dropped them in a cage. Luffy considered it fiendishly clever.
  • In Dressrosa, Luffy and Franky learn that Donquixote Doflamingo (that arc's Big Bad) is hosting a tournament...with the Mera Mera Fruit belonging to Luffy's dead brother Ace as the prize. Franky points out that it's obviously a trap, but allows Luffy to enter because "It's better to have no regrets." Luffy enters in disguise under an alias, which helps a bit, but the Donquixote Family see through it soon enough. Then, an old friend appears and swaps places with Luffy, allowing Luffy to attack Doflamingo's castle undetected.
  • Beyond a certain point, the bounty on a pirate’s head is an incentive for bounty hunters not to go after them. If you're a bounty hunter who isn't wanted by the World Government and you kill one of the Four Emperors or one of the Eleven Supernovas, the World Government will pay you over a billion Berry, and you’ll be set for life. Except you won’t, because if you try, you’ll die. It's understood that bounty hunters who want to live a long life stick to comparatively small-time pirates and let the big fish get killed by high-ranking Marines, Warlords, or each other.
• Just a few minor examples from Hell Teacher Nube: Miki reads about astral projection... ends up turning herself into a Long-Necked Woman (permanently). She reads about "pulling" off your consciousness for an out-of-body experience... ends up trapped in the body of a female cat on the run from tomcats in heat. She hears a rumor about compelling other people to your will with their umbilical cords... Kyoko becomes her mindless slave and jumps off the school roof. She starts up a chain letter to con people into giving her money... she ends up bringing disasters upon the entire town and she's forced to experience the suffering of everyone she hurt as means of redemption. A few of her classmates also find playing with fire irresistible, but Miki is the worst one of them all.
• In Magical Circle Guru-Guru, Jaba kingdom has a rule that says that you must not stand in front of the guardian statue Pura Pura and tell it "Take care of your health" while boxing with your left hand, picking your nose with your right hand, and having a loaf of bread wedged up your rear. The prince Schmucked himself into getting turned into a pig as a result of violating this rule. Nike had to be restrained from doing so three times.
• When you're a character like Eury Evans from Immortal Rain and you run into a door with "The Wages of Sin" and "Keep Out!" emblazoned across the front, are you going to keep on walking? No. Then there wouldn't be any explosions.
• In the CLANNAD prequel episode, Okazaki and Sunohara make a party ball trap that drops a washtub on whoever opens it. The ball is opened by pulling on a tag that reads "someone please pull this, it will be interesting". Nagisa pulls the tag and gets knocked out by the washtub.
• In Kaze no Stigma, a website tempts browsers with the question "Do you want power? Yes/No". Answering "yes" will give you super-powers, but what isn't said is that this involves making a pact with a demon and all pact-makers will be used as sacrifices to summon a demon lord.
• In Episode 8 of A Certain Magical Index, Touma asks Stiyl to stick out his tongue. When he complies, Touma uppercuts him.
• Hanaukyō Maid Team: La Verite Episode 7.
  • Taro and several of the maids explore a mysterious underground corridor. They've already discovered that the place is filled with booby traps. They encounter a rope suspended from the ceiling. Both Ryuuka and Ikuyo Suzuki thinks it's a pinata and want to pull it but Konoe orders them not to. Konoe accidentally trips and pulls it herself, then falls into an opening that appears in the floor.
  • Later on, we find Taro, Ryuuka and Ikuyo Suzuki running from a giant rolling ball. A Flash Back shows a large button with a skull on it, then Ikuyo Suzuki says, "It was staring at me as if it wanted me to push it!"
• In Hidamari Sketch, Yuno mentions having gotten the room formerly occupied by Misato, who had since graduated. Sae warns Yuno about a purple "snake". Back in her room, Yuno sees a purple rope, and decides to pull it. Misato had set it up so that when someone pulls it, a metal washbasin falls from a trap door, probably on the puller's head.
• In Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, Rin gets a little too blinded by one position's absurd pay rate to notice that the job requirements are so specific that really only she could possibly fill them. Congratulations, Rin-san... you are now Luvia's personal maid.
  • In Season 2, the plot to capture Dark Illya begins with an obvious trap baited with an elegant meal and a conveniently bound Illya. When Dark Illya shows up, she remarks that she doesn't know how to react to such a pathetically obvious trap, but she's so confident that she doesn't mind playing along in any case.
• In Chapter 215 of Hayate the Combat Butler, Nagi and Ayumu find one of these in a chest inside the storeroom of the Sanzenin Villa on Mykonos. Guess what they do.
• Nichijou: Yuuko convinces Mio to push the fire alarm button at school by telling her that she tried and nothing happened. The results are what you would expect.
• In Infinite Stratos, Houki is looking at a pair of bunny ears is sticking out of the ground with a sign that says "Please pull me out". She doesn't do it, but Ichika does, and a giant carrot drops in front of him moments later. Inside said giant carrot is Houki's sister Tabane, who arrives in a less than dramatic fashion in order to give Houki her own IS suit.
• One episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan features Achakura wanting Nagato and Mr. Kimidori to stop being "carefree" and help her with the many chores. In one of the scenes, Nagato and Mr. Kimidori try to lure Achakura to a trap by setting up a piece of cake. However, it was a failure, because Achakura told Nagato to pick up her "things" and do some cleaning.
  • This happened to Mikuru in an earlier episode. At the beginning, Mikuru finds a remote, and what does she do? She turns on the TV using the remote, and the TV screen showed Haruhi up close and Haruhi says, "Mikuru, are you watching?" Mikuru then looks shocked. This became a meme, known as "No Mikuru! Don't turn on the TV!" In these memes, YouTube users who made the videos, in the title, warn Mikuru not to turn on the TV, but Mikuru does so anyways, and something appears on the TV screen.
• Gamble Fish: Shyu Omei challenges Shirasagi to a game: he drops a bundle of cash in one jar, a poisonous snake in another, puts a cloth over them, shakes them a bit, then lets Shirasagi pick one. There's no trick to it and the choice should be obvious, but Shirasagi grabs the snake anyways because Shyu Omei specifically manipulates him into overthinking the game and choosing by the sound each jar makes.
• Sword Art Online: Kirito's guild comes across a single chest in an otherwise empty secret room deep in a front-line dungeon. Played for Drama, since only Kirito and Sachi realize it's a trap before it's too late, and everyone except Kirito is killed in the ensuing fight. Even the guild leader, who wasn't present for the dungeon crawl, commits suicide out of despair when Kirito tells him.
  • Subverted in the Caliber side-story: The main characters encounter an NPC imprisoned in a high-level dungeon, who has her HP bar activated. Everyone assumes the NPC will attack them if she's freed, before Klein goes and frees the NPC anyway. Turns out she's a potential ally, and freeing her is the only way to complete the quest.
• During the "Terminator Maid" arc of Black Lagoon, Revy and Roberta prepare for a good old fashioned No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Catfight. Before so, Roberta points out that Revy's shoelaces are untied. Revy (whose shoelaces are always untied) thinks on it for a second... and looks anyway. At which point, Roberta promptly clocks her.
• The titular Artifact of Death in Death Note has the words "Death Note" written clearly across the cover, and pretty much sits on the ground like a big blinking sign that says, "Gee, I hope no one picks me up and uses me for world domination." Then along comes Villain Protagonist Light Yagami. Guess what happens. But once you pick up on Ryuk's personality, you come to suspect he literally leaves the Death Note on the ground as Schmuck Bait because he finds it fun to watch what people do with it. And since whoever picks it up becomes able to see him, he gets to play around with them... plus in the end, whatever happens, he always gets something out of the deal: at the very least, he gets to watch the book holder die.
• In a Filler episode from Fairy Tail, Natsu gets suckered into this trope hook-line-and-sinker. he hears an anonymous tip from Gray, Natsu's teammate, that someone may have found what he's looking for. Unfortunately for him, Natsu gets trapped in a time and space magic spell created by Daphne. The end result is that now he has to fight his own flesh and blood, his teammate of Fairy Tail.
• The Familiar of Zero basically starts off with a giant example of this. Please do not touch the mysterious floating green magical portal...
• Medaka Box: During the Student Council Election Battles, Kumagawa Misogi abruptly concedes the match to Hitoyoshi Zenkichi, beginning to talk about how he'd just been playing the villain up to that point and about the true reason he came to Hakoniwa Academy. Kurokami Medaka even warns Zenkichi that Kumagawa only says nice things like that right before his worst acts, but Zenkichi was bemused just long enough for Kumagawa to sucker punch him (with giant screws). Then he goes the extra unpleasant mile by claiming that the "true reason" was that his annoying father made him come here.
• Death Note
  • Light Yagami
    • In general, L gets on Light's trail early on because Light can't help but respond every time L goads him into a challenge of some form, no matter how minor the competition. Light knows that L has profiled Kira as hyper-competitive and every challenge is obvious bait to profile him, but because he's so... hyper-competitive, he can't help himself.
    • He falls for one of L's easier mental traps in episode 8; after L bugs the Yagami household with dozens of cameras and plays a fake message intending to rile up Kira, Light muses how stupidly obvious and cheap of a ploy it is to try and get a reaction out of him. However, despite recognizing this, he basically falls for it anyway because he can't resist taunting L by loudly pointing out how obvious it is, thus ultimately giving L the reaction he wanted and making himself more suspicious.

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