Anime characters do a lot of smart things especially if they're written as geniuses. Sure, they too often pick up the Idiot Ball for the sake of plot but even the average Shonen hero or Shojo starlet gets a flash of inspiration at least once a season.
Most characters written as geniuses aren't written by smart people, and so only get superficial signs of intelligence, like getting high test scores and using long words. Sometimes they invent things, usually stuff that wouldn't work in real life, and give a technobabble explanation of how it works. Or they come up with plans that are way too complicated to be good ideas in real life.
There really aren't that many examples of anime characters doing legitimately smart things.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is from Hunterx Hunter, when Gon and his teammates were taking the hunter exam. They had to choose between a door that would let only two of them through, but would get them to their destination with time to spare, or a door which would let all of them through, but they had already used up too much time to reach their destination from. They opened the latter door, and then smashed down the partition between the two corridors, thereby getting everyone to the destination in time.
...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.Technically, it's a manga, but Akiyama's solution to the 17-card poker game in Liar Game is genius.
edited 13th Aug '11 3:33:28 PM by INUH
Infinite Tree: an experimental storyPretty much everything L and Light, and even Near and Mello, did in Death Note was legitimately intelligent, except when Light started getting blinded by his megalomania at the end. But I think the way Light finally gets caught in the end is probably the smartest. (Light's Memory Gambit would almost get the award but it falls too much into Xanatos Roulette to count.)
Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.Gin's deliberate misdirection of his sword's ability was pretty tactical, considering that up until that point, everyone else had been fairly truthful about their powers.
"My sword's length doubles during Banaki."
"j/k. It's actually the fastest."
"j/k again. It dissolves your soul. :P"
edited 13th Aug '11 5:06:38 PM by Winglerfish
In this episode, Michael attempts to construct a time machine to escape debt and dinner party obligations.Yeah, not exactly "smart" things that anime characters do. The best I can come up with is Usopp's tactical genius during his fight against Luffy, especially considering that he has a natural disadvantage since Luffy can just reflect most of his projectiles.
I mean when you first see rotten eggs being shot into Luffy's face, you think, "damn it, Usopp, that's not doing anything!" And then he reveals he's been releasing gas into the air since the beginning of the battle and the eggs made it so he couldn't smell it. Such a good fight.
I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -WanderlustwarriorA lot of characters in To Aru Majutsu No Index have done some tactical thinking here and there, especially Shiage. Too bad it's usually balanced out by the ensuing boatloads of stupid.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialI should note that Jojos Bizarre Adventure has some very intelligent uses of powers. Just not from Dio.
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Yeah she just had to resort to her trademark method there...
Half of them are usually so stupid that its a Wall Banger.
Negima Generally many of Negi's plans fall under the damn smart department. From using a beginner spell to be on par with Chao's obsurdly high tech computer in controlling time travel. Then the whole Negi vs Rakan fight in which Rakan just plain got played by Negi always being 5 steps ahead.
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!Naruto has demonstrated some interesting tactics with his shadow clones from time time, particularly when he takes advantage his opponents' assumptions about where the original is.
Wako figuring out that Takuto's uncharacteristically forward behavior was due to Grand Theft Me instead of going "Iiya~n Takuto no ecchi" also stands out in my mind.
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