History Main / ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman

* In the ''VideoGame/TouhouProject'' series, [[VideoGame/TouhouKoumakyouTheEmbodimentOfScarletDevil Flandre Scarlet]] doesn't really get to use her ability to destroy anything and everything much as such an ability is [[InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality useless in Spell Card Duels]]. However, come ''VideoGame/TouhouGouyokuIbunSunkenFossilWorld'', [[spoiler:Due to Yuuma Toutetsu's ability to absorb enemies' attacks being countered by the nature of Flan's ability, and Flan's childish mind meaning Yuuma cannot talk her out of fighting, this makes Flandre the perfect counter to Yuuma, and this is likely why Okina sent Flandre to go fight Yuuma in the first place]].

*** Unfortunately for Porygon, in an ironic recursive version of this trope, this actually caused an increase in the usage of the [[LethalJokeCharacter less common but not unheard-of]] [[StatusBuff Amnesia Snorlax]], [[BriarPatching which will gladly take Porygon switching in as an opportunity to buff itself into the stratosphere.]]

** In the first generation's competitive scene, Porygon. Porygon is completely terrible at first glance: its highest stat is a middling 75 Special, it's slow as hell, and its offense is pathetic. However, it happens to be one of the only Pokémon that can counter Snorlax, one of the most powerful choices in the game. This is because while its defenses aren't great, they're good enough to take multiple hits from Snorlax's Body Slam, it's Normal-type, meaning it can't be paralyzed by Body Slam, it's just fast enough to outspeed Snorlax, and it has access to Recover, which allows it to heal itself and has pretty high PP. This allows Porygon to stall Snorlax out for long enough to run out of PP for its main attacking move, at which point it becomes easy pickings. For the most common Snorlax sets, its only way to kill Porygon is to either get very lucky with crits (and Snorlax's crit rate is terrible) or [[TakingYouWithMe use Self-Destruct]] (and since Porygon is so ineffective against nearly everything else, losing it to a Self-Destruct is hardly a loss at all).

** This was the main failing of the cartoon episode "Karate Kid" - ComicBook/KarateKid earns his place in the Legion not because he's a BadassNormal who can keep up with the rest of the Legion on a usual mission but because the villain of the week happens to obtain a way to nullify superpowers. Particularly unfortunate since Karate Kid in the LSH comics embodies the CharlesAtlasSuperpower and doesn't require such contrivances.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'': Fire attacks have no inherent advantage (even the SplashDamage from [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies the first game]] has been removed) and in fact are more of a detriment since it neutralizes the very useful slowing effect of Ice plants. Frostbite Caves makes them useful since they are the only things that can thaw frozen plants.

* While there are lots of techniques and skills that can fit in ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'', none is more blatant than Sesshomaru's [[HealingShiv Tenseiga]], the brother sword to Inuyasha's [[SwissArmyWeapon Tessaiga]]. Inverse to the Tessaiga that can slay 100 demons with one sweep, the Tenseiga can revive 100 beings with one sweep. While the base ability only rarely gets used in the series and the sword itself can't even cut, the characters are quick to realize that [[ReviveKillsZombie as a sword of healing and life, it's actually quite deadly when used against the un-dead and malevolent spirits]] which, while still a rare situation, has come up frequently enough to justify Sesshomaru holding onto it.

* In ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'', Winry Rockwell's only real skill is working on automail, so she's only ever useful when Edward needs his automail limbs repaired, upgraded, or replaced. Fortunately for her, this happens numerous times throughout the series, ensuring she at least occasionally has a productive role in the story.

** Mata Hari, generally regarded as one of the game's worst characters for her miserable stats, short-duration debuffs, and laughable damage, saw some use being pressed into service against the final boss of Part 1, Goetia. This is because one of her abilities is to seal skills, and Goetia always starts off his fight with a gigantic personal buff (which counts as a skill). On top of that, being an Assassin gives her super-effective damage against him in the meantime.

** Koda's quirk is the ability to talk to and control animals. While there are some places where that would be quite useful, its usefulness is severely limited in a heavily urbanized setting with minimal animals present, like in urban Japan where most of the series takes place.

* In ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'', despite being a goddess, Aqua is almost useless; she's lazy, impulsive, and dumb, and her divine powers cause more trouble than they're worth. So she is overjoyed when she finds a quest on the guild job board that perfectly matches her skill set: Purifying a corrupted lake.

* Subverted in ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic''. When Mithril initially gets the mission to infiltrate a Japanese highschool to covertly monitor and protect a seemingly OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent, they quickly remember that one of their soldiers is a sixteen-year-old Japanese boy and move to exploit this convenience immediately. So immediately, in fact, that they forget [[ChildSoldiers just]] [[SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining what]] [[CrazySurvivalist sort]] [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror of]] [[ShellShockedVeteran background]] produces a sixteen-year old combat savant and don't realize how absolutely unsuitable he is for the mission until he comes back from his first day of school dragging the folding chair Kaname had handcuffed him to.

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Touma Kamijou is an odd example in that [[AntiMagic Imagine Breaker]] is useless for fighting anything that is not magic or an esper ability. True to Aquaman form, though, [[AnthropicPrinciple he lives in an environment where he's surrounded by espers and gets harassed by magic users]]. As some viewers note, [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer he only ends up looking good at street combat]] because his opponents aren't very good at it either. Whenever he goes up against someone who has martial arts training, they tend to wipe the floor with him. It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:this was deliberately invoked by Aleister Crowley. Aleister founded Academy City as a city of espers specifically to draw in the user of Imagine Breaker]].

** Rollers are capable of running into opponents to instantly splat them[[note]], except for the Carbon Roller and Big Swig Roller[[/note]], but a competent player can easily backpedal while firing at the roller-wielder, making this maneuver very hard to pull off, and often not worth the trouble. However, Salmonids don't think to do that, and thus rollers become an effective tool for mopping up Lesser Salmonids. Of particular note is the Dynamo Roller, whose rolling speed is the slowest of all, making it very hard to squish a player while rolling. However, it's the only kind of roller that can bowl over a [[GiantMook Cohock]] in one hit, and can quickly make mincemeat of [[MetalSlime Goldies]]. Additionally, any kind of roller is a huge boon for Rush waves, where the frenzied Chum ZergRush can be flattened beneath any roller's column. They also shine in Griller waves; while they're not really useful against the Griller itself, they will crush the perpetual flow of Smallfries, thus enabling your team to fire upon the Griller itself in peace.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Tandy Geoffrey Tandy]] was a marine biologist who served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He allegedly was assigned to work in the code-breaking program at Bletchley Park because someone at the Ministry of Defence confused "cryptogamist" (someone who studies spore-producing plants such as algae and ferns) with "cryptogramist" (someone who decodes ciphers). However, his talent for carefully drying out and preserving water-logged materials came in handy when he managed to fix up a code-book salvaged from a German U-boat, which contributed greatly to the cracking of the Enigma code used by Nazi Germany.
[[/folder]]

%%** Delcatty is a Pokemon that has ''very'' poor stats despite its diverse movepool. However, when it comes to Contests in ''Ruby & Sapphire'' and Super Contests in ''Diamond & Pearl'', it does very well. %%How exactly does it perform well in Contests?

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheTick'' had Arthur and the Tick follow the normally useless Sewer Urchin on a mission into [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer the sewers]] where it turns out his abilities are phenomenally useful, he has a cool hideout, he is respected and feared by the natives, and he is unflappable in the face of the sewer's [[CashLure strange]] and [[AlluringAnglerfish horrifying]] obstacles. He describes himself as "the apotheosis of cool" in his realm.

* ''Film/JamesBond'': The eponymous character always seems to find himself in a situation that requires the use of whatever gadgets Q has presciently seen fit to supply him with. The early movies tended to give him rather generic items that could be used for any number of things (like a briefcase that contains some concealed weapons and a stash of bribe money), and some films had Q specifically join him in the field to provide relevant equipment (a mini-helicopter, a car that can travel underwater) but as the series went on, the tools got more and more unusual and specific-purpose, but still somehow managed to be just what he ended up needing (an explosive pen, a jacket that can produce a giant inflated sphere, etc.). The films reverted back to a limited supply of general-purpose tools in the Creator/DanielCraig era.

** Rollers are capable of running into opponents to instantly splat them[[note]], except for the Carbon Roller and Big Swig Roller[[/note]], but a competent player can easily backpedal while firing at the roller-wielder, making this maneuver very hard to pull off, and often not worth the trouble. However, Salmonids don't think to do that, and thus rollers become an effective tool for mopping up Lesser Salmonids. Of particular note is the Dynamo Roller, whose rolling speed is the slowest of all, making it very hard to squish a player while rolling. However, it's the only kind of roller that can bowl over a [[GiantMook Cohock]] in one hit, and can quickly make mincemeat of [[MetalSlime Goldies]]. Additionally, any kind of roller is a huge boon for Rush waves, where the frenzied Chum ZergRush can be flattened beneath any roller's column.

* In the ''Series/{{Heroes}}''/''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' crossover "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12045706/1/Dark-Days Dark Days]]", former Volturi guard Alec's power to shut off others' senses initially seems to be useful only as a means of torture and intimidation. However, when Mohinder and Carlisle need to [[spoiler:operate on Claire to remove the other half of the superpower-granting formula from her brain, since conventional anaesthetics don't work on Claire due to her ability and neither will agree to torture, Alec volunteers to use his ability on Claire, as he can be selective in his use of it so that he just shuts off Claire's sense of touch and pain while still leaving her able to see and hear what's happening around her]].

* While there are lots of techniques and skils that can fit in ''Anime/Inuyasha'', none is more blatant than Sesshomaru's [[HealingShiv Tenseiga]], the brother sword to Inuyasha's [[SwissArmyWeapon Tessaiga]]. Inverse to the Tessaiga that can slay 100 demons with one sweep, the Tenseiga can revive 100 beings with one sweep. While the base ability only rarely gets used in the series and the sword itself can't even cut, the characters are quick to realize that [[ReviveKillsZombie as a sword of healing and life, it's actually quite deadly when used against the undead and malevolent spirits]] which, while still a rare situation, has come up frequently enough to justify Sesshomaru holding onto it.

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''VideoGame/SpiderMan2''. When someone tells Spidey that a ship is sinking near of the coast, he says something like: "This looks like a job for...some kind of swimming superhero! ...But since none are around, I guess I'll have to do."

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' features a ClassAndLevelSystem. While many jobs are very useful from the get-go (such as Monk or Ninja) others, like Bard, don't get to do much... but the Bard does very well against the two {{Bonus Boss}}es (as Romeo's Ballad can temporarily stop Omega, and Apollo's Harp deals lots of Damage to Shinryu). He can also do a lot of damage to Undead enemies with Requiem. Many strong enemies are undead, some very surprisingly so.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has Vivi's Doomsday spell, the ultimate black magic that causes shadow damage to all enemies ''and'' all allies at once, making it very likely to cause a TotalPartyKill. There's equipment that can nullify or absorb shadow damage, but they quickly get outclassed by better gear later on and there's no random encounter or boss encounter where shadow damage even happens. On top of this, you can cause just as much damage to enemies with Flare or abusing the ElementalRockPaperScissors and spending less MP to boot. The BonusBoss, Ozma, has Doomsday in its arsenal and it will cast it while disregarding its own safety. Remember the equipment that could protect you from shadow damage? They're quite useful here.

* Most witches on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' cure the sick by means of Headology, tricking their patients into thinking they're using magic when it's really just belief and simple cures, such as giving sugar water placebos as "magic potions" and telling someone to take regular exercise by walking to a distant pool and throwing in pebbles to placate water nymphs. Magrat is an herbalist who meticulously prepares remedies, and is frustrated when senior witches like Granny Weatherwax get better results just by handing patients colored water and tell them they're getting better. For several books, Magrat's reliance on herbs and artifacts is mocked by her seniors, until ''Literature/LordsAndLadies'', when Diamanda Tockley is comatose. Granny instantly goes to Magrat because she knows that even though Granny is the better witch, Magrat is the better doctor.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', Crow's Black-Winged Dragon [[CCGImportanceDissonance (though hyped up a fair bit)]] is considered to be by far the weakest Signer Dragon by players in the actual game, because its only effect is being able to stop Burn damage - a strategy that is niche at best in real life, and it's not even especially good at it. However, nearly every time it appeared in the anime, the opponent played a deck that utilized Burn in some capacity, and the arc after he got it featured the card Speed World 2 (which had a Burn effect) in almost every Duel. Amusingly, cards with self-burn effects would have some synergy with this effect, but Crow doesn't use them!