Who's Josuke gonna pin the blame on?
Agony of the Feet in Anime & Manga.
- Bleach:
- Rukia tries to kick Tessai in the butt, but hurts her foot.
- During the final battle between Ichigo and Byakuya in the Soul Society arc, while they are clashing with their blades, Byakuya takes one of his other thousands swords and stabs Ichigo's foot, so he cannot escape immediately. Followed by the Hado #4 Byakurai piercing through Ichigo's shoulder.
- Hiyori tries to kick Urahara in the groin, but hurts her foot.
- Case Closed: Conan has had to improvise a few times on things to kick, so he's also hurt his foot as a result.
- A Certain Magical Index, one of the girls suffers from this when her feet fall asleep in the wariza pose and she begins to fidget them desperately.
- In Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, this is invoked with the character Grimm Grimoire. One of her curses backfired on her and she can no longer clothe her feet without deadly consequences. She uses a wheelchair outdoors specifically to avoid hurting her feet, but is perfectly mobile indoors.
- In the Despair Arc of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Chiaki is thrust into a Death Course and desperately tries to find the exit. Upon stepping on a trap button, spikes pop up from the floor and one of them cleaves through her shoe and her foot.
- Dragon Ball:
- Dragon Ball: Ninja Murasaki spreads Caltrops on the ground to prevent Goku from chasing him. Goku tries to follow him anyway and hurts his feet. He looks around and finds some wooden sandals that he can use to walk over them safely.
- Dragon Ball GT: In the 31st World Martial Arts Tournament, one of Goku's opponents, Charlie, tries to kick him in the face while he is distracted. Goku not only doesn't notice the hit, the poor kid injures his foot and is disqualified for crying.
- Fairy Tail:
- King Faust punishes Coco by using a blast from his magic staff to burn her feet. She manages to run away, but eventually collapses from the pain and is carried by Lucy.
- Erza Scarlet also injures her foot during the Grand Magic Games, after pushing Kagura out of the way of some falling rubble; which then falls onto her foot. This injury proves consequential to Erza, for the remainder of the games and the dragon battle that follows.
- In Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, Illya is in Synchronization with Kuro/Chloe. At one point, to stop Kuro from hitting on Shirou, Illya starts slapping herself in the face. When that doesn't deter Kuro, Illya stubs her toe, which makes them both collapse, clutching their foot and crying.
- In Future Diary, when Yuno gets ambushed by a another diary user trying to kill her, she makes the irrational mistake of taking her shoes off once she's indoors (it's Japanese custom/courtesy to remove outdoor footwear when entering a residence), not realizing he's set up traps for her to stumble upon barefoot, first in the form of thumbtacks, then in the form of a flooded stairwell with an electrical current sent coursing through her wet feet via a broken lamp light, nearly electrocuting her. (He's also filled the house with poison gas and is trying to get her to inhale it, which upgrades the first trap from "painful annoyance" to "genuine threat" and makes the second even more dangerous.) It just goes to show that sometimes, good manners can get you killed.
- Lampshaded in Episode 3 of Grimoire of Zero when she gets a chance to wear nice clothes and proper footwear (as opposed to a scroungy and torn up cloak and nothing on beneath it) but likes feeling the ground underfoot, and gets scolded by the Mercenary that she may eventually hurt herself, so Zero starts wearing them.
- In Chapter 37 of Gunsmith Cats, Bean Bandit's heavy, armored jacket falls on and breaks poor Misty's foot. Cue her reaction
◊, Symbol Swearing Angrish. - Both the titular protagonist of Syun Matsuena's one-shot Haruka, Haruka Yata, and the elfin female protagonist who does not give her name, are barefooted during the entire story, the former because he was barefoot at home when he met the girl and ran outside so hastily when a villain attacked them that he forgot to put his shoes on, the latter because she just doesn't wear shoes and has already suffered some wear and tear from walking to his house in bare feet (which makes Haruka consider calling the cops on her). This lack of footwear becomes really problematic for the two of them when they end up outside, stuck on railroad tracks and stumbling over rocks and coal. To spare her more discomfort after the conflict has passed, Haruka carries the girl in his arms back to his house, even though she can walk just fine.
- There's a strange version in Hetalia: Axis Powers. America and England have been sent some supplies, and England finds some ice cream in the box. He offers it to America, who runs over to him to get it, slips on a banana peel, lands on his face... and somehow breaks his foot. At least he got his ice cream.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Battle Tendency: Part of Joseph's Hamon training is to master his Hamon enough that he can walk across a pit of spikes without injuring himself. When the Pillar Man Esidisi arrives, he just walks through the spikes and lets them impale his feet with each step. Since Esidisi has a powerful Healing Factor and can shrug off the pain of things like a stick of dynamite exploding in his gut, he doesn't even bat an eyelash.
- Later in the story, the main villain, Kars, impales an unconscious Lisa Lisa's feet with his bone blade and suspends her from a rope through the holes.
- Stardust Crusaders: When Polnareff is fighting Vanilla Ice, his Stand, Cream, manifests under his foot, and shaves off part of it; he's left bleeding and limping for the rest of the fight.
- Diamond is Unbreakable: Shinobu approaches the newly-resurrected Stray Cat in her back garden prompts the cat-flower to blast her toenail off with its Bubble Gun.
- Stone Ocean: After a long, hard-fought battle with Viviano Westwood and his Stand, Planet Waves, Jolyne uses Stone Free to send a string underneath Viviano's toenail and rip it clean off.
- JoJolion: As the page image shows, Ojiro Sasame does this to Josuke via hiding thumbtacks in a slipper.
- Battle Tendency: Part of Joseph's Hamon training is to master his Hamon enough that he can walk across a pit of spikes without injuring himself. When the Pillar Man Esidisi arrives, he just walks through the spikes and lets them impale his feet with each step. Since Esidisi has a powerful Healing Factor and can shrug off the pain of things like a stick of dynamite exploding in his gut, he doesn't even bat an eyelash.
- Kaiju Girl Caramelise: In Chapter 34, Arata Minami climbs an incapacitated Harugon's spiky back in an attempt to wake her up to fight Akae again. He nearly slips due to the boots he was wearing for the movie earlier that day having poor grip, so he removes them and continues climbing barefoot. After just a few minutes of this, his feet are visibly bloodied.
- In Lord Marksman and Vanadis, an assassin tries and fails to kill Lady Eleonora. When he tries to run away, Tigre stops him by shooting him in the foot with an arrow.
- In Magical Girl Apocalypse, when Kii Kogami loses his shoes but must keep going on the rocky ground, he eventually passes out from blood loss and infections on his lacerated feet.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam, Sayla's first and only time piloting a mobile suit goes badly when she goes out in the Gundam and gets its feet cut off at the toes, obliterating its balance. Thankfully, Amuro arrives in the Guncannon to bail her out.
- My Hero Academia:
- During combat training, Toru Hagakure removes her costume in order to become completely invisible, leaving her barefoot. This works against her once Shoto freezes the entire building around them and then thaws out the ice with his heat power, with accompanying reaction shots of Toru's feet getting frozen and then scalded.
- This is also mentioned as a problem that Mt. Lady has in her giant form- since there's no type of material which can both grow with her and be sturdy enough to make good shoes, she's essentially barefoot in costume, since her 'boots' are actually thin leggings like the rest of her costume. She has to be careful where she steps, and she can only use her Giant Foot of Stomping while using a flatbed truck as a makeshift shoe.
- Naruto:
- Seen in the fight with Zabuza and a few others when makibishi spikes (aka Caltrops) are tossed onto the battlefields. Zabuza, however, was battle-savvy enough to avoid the ones in his fight with Kakashi.
- Sakura deliberately stomps on Kiba's foot when he almost spills the beans on a plan to capture Sasuke in front of Naruto that they were supposed to keep mum about. Worse, this is a universe where just about everybody wears open-toed sandals, and this is one of those very rare times we get to see the downside of that in action.
- At least one battle saw someone's foot pierced by a kunai.
- In Nichijou, Nano hits her toe in this manner, something the Professor (8 years old) solves by simply taking her toe off. And if you turn the big wind-up key in her back, her toe flies off like a rocket. Also, it has a USB port.
- In season 2 of No Guns Life, Mary Steinberg catches a bullet in her right foot and it puts her out of commission for some time.
- Noragami: In episode 4 of Aragato, Hiyori tries to kick her way out of captivity but ends up hurting her foot.
- One Piece:
- At one point during Nami's fight against Ms. Doublefinger, the latter charges at her enemy with her hair turned into spikes. Nami manages to protect herself, but one of the spikes pierces right through her foot. Nami, though obviously in pain, shrugs it off, as it is nothing compared to what Vivi is going through, and pulls her foot away.
- Sanji suffered this in spades during the second movie, One Piece Clockwork Island Adventure, while squaring off against Boo Jack's spikes, because his shoes were on board the Going Merry when it got hijacked (the crew was at a beach and forced to go to a wedding shop for replacement clothes) and he was stuck fighting in a pair on unsatisfactory sandals that did nothing to protect his feet and were subsequently lost in combat. When he finally got his shoes back in their rematch, it quickly turned into a Curb-Stomp Battle in his favor, and he even broke Boo Jack's spikes with each kick.
- Luffy, in general, is the victim of this trope on and off because he won't wear proper shoes, even in a frostbite-inducing blizzard. In Heart of Gold, Luffy accidentally steps into a pool of stomach acid while inside a giant angler fish. Since he is militant about wearing nothing but sandals, he suffers the drawbacks here.
- In One Piece Film: Gold, one of Gild Tesoro's lackeys steps on a roiling casino coin that Baccarat tossed out into the battlefield, breaking his ankle. Baccarat's powers render her a literal Karma Houdini who steals luck from other people by touch, and he was one of the unlucky ones, pun intended. As a result, he stumbles and causes a chain reaction that eventually doubles back on Usopp, Chopper, and Brook. Then, just to twist the knife, the casino coin magically finds its way back to Baccarat.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- During an early episode, an annoyed Pikachu kicks a treadmill. The trope goes into full effect on the poor thing.
- During his rematch with Brawly, Ash's strategy to deal with Brawly's Hariyama is to have Treecko attack its foot. Eventually, Hariyama tries to charge, but collapses in agony.
- In Rave Master, Elie tries to carry Plue to a hospital, but injures her feet on the rocky ground and curses herself for forgetting to put her sandals on, because she took them off earlier from exhaustion. Haru catches up to them and wraps her feet with strips ripped from his shirt. In the anime, she is barefoot to begin with after changing into her clothes following a bath at the nearby hot springs, and skipped putting her boots back on. The scene is also toned down where she runs across the mountainous terrain (in the original, her feet were cut open and bleeding, but in the anime, they're just badly scraped up) The slightly unfaithful English dub lampshades this when Elie curses her hastiness:(Japanese) Elie: (tiredly) Oh, I see... I ran in bare feet...
(English) Elie: (annoyedly) It would have taken two seconds to put on shoes, but no-oooo! - Rebuild World: There's a Running Gag about this.
- While answering a Distress Call, during a series of High-Speed Missile Dodge maneuvers on his Cool Bike, Akira has to slide and scrape his leg against the ground. Akira ends the battle by, depending on the version of the story (web novel, or light novel & manga), kicking a large monster in the mouth, or kicking an artillery shell back at an enemy Spider Tank, breaking the other leg.
- When trying to imitate Shirakabe using kicks to send monsters flying across the room, Akira meets initial success despite his Powered Armor not being optimized for it, thanks to his Virtual Sidekick Alpha's modifications, but he ends up breaking his foot and needs to take Healing Potion.
- Alpha repeatedly brings up using her ability to control Akira's armor like People Puppets, to force him to run out of danger so fast it destroys his feet, and he sometimes pleads with her unprompted not to do that. Eventually that does end up happening when he has to out run an Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever, though it's also jumping In a Single Bound to counterattack that mulches Akira's legs. They get regrown in the hospital.
- Sailor Moon:
- On the very first episode of the anime, Usagi's brother Shingo comes home to find her banging on the front door after getting kicked out of the house again. He then proceeds to make fun of her on his way inside, and when she tries to "Sailor V Kick" him in retaliation, he slams the door shut, causing her to kick the door full force and make a very funny face.
- While attending at a traditional tea ceremony, Chibiusa and Usagi's feet fall asleep from assuming the wariza sitting posture for longer than they can bear. This elicits a few snickers from Usagi when she sees Chibiusa struggling to maintain her composure. Cue Chibiusa silently punching Usagi's feet from behind, sparking a war of back-and-forth foot-punching.
- In the SuperS film, Usagi stomps the foot of an evil villainess who wanted to combat her with "a dance fight".
- In Sailor Stars Nehellenia forces a barefoot, exhausted, freezing and depowered Usagi to walk through a staircase full of thorns to get to a brainwashed Mamoru. Being a Plucky Girl, she does.
- In Saint Seiya, during the battle against Virgo Shaka, Ikki is subjected to a heavy session of Mind Rape. He then sees an illusion of himself as a child carrying a baby Shun while walking barefoot on a valley of very sharp stones; Shaka's voice keeps asking him to drop the baby (which keeps getting heavier and heavier) and save himself, which he keeps refusing. A lot of attention is drawn to his feet soaked in blood.
- In The Seven Deadly Sins, Galan is defeated when his own power turns him to stone. Angered at the atrocities he had committed, Jericho kicks the statue, but only succeeds in hurting her foot.
- Sgt. Frog:
- Giroro does this after being rendered clumsy by the loss of his trademark belt, which causes him to stub his toe on the door frame.
- In a later episode, the platoon is inspired by Natsumi hitting her foot on the corner of a dresser, so they patent an army of dressers specially designed to hit peoples' feet as painfully as possible in order to distract all of Tokyo with pain, thus making them completely vulnerable to be conquered.
- Played for laughs in Snow White with the Red Hair when Obi goes to give a message to Shirayuki from Zen while she's being taught ballroom dancing. She rushes up to him and asks if he can be her new dance partner as in the background her unfortunate teacher says he is capable of completing his job while struggling just to stand since she's been stepping on his feet nonstop. Obi tries not to laugh when he says he's too busy working.
- A bit into first season of Sound! Euphonium, Reina makes the mistake of climbing Mt. Daikichi in dress heels because it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to go there while out with Kumiko on a festival night, who in turn is wearing a beaten up pair of unsuitable clogs herself. After a while, the ankle straps on Reina's shoes rub her skin raw and Kumiko gets worried. Even though Reina admits her feet hurt, she says she doesn't hate pain; Kumiko finds that kinda hot, and Reina calls her a freak. When the two reach the top of the mountain and sit down at an observatory, they both kick off their dirtied-up shoes and trade them for bare feet.
- Squid Girl: In one chapter, the titular protagonist gets one of her sandals stolen by a stray dog, and hops after it on one foot to retrieve it. When she gets tired of it, she decides to try and run normally. Bad idea when the summer heat makes the pavement hot as lava.
- In This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, a barefoot Akari steps on broken glass and gets a cut. After the initial pain, she shrugs it off and wants to keep going, but Ryou stops to wrap her foot with cloth. She had a minimal amount of clothes to begin with, and Ryou apologizes that she deserves some shoes, Afterward, he procures a whole outfit.
- In Viewtiful Joe, Joe's first encounter with Hulk Davidson proves to be tough, until he uses his abilities to scan for an enemy's weakness. He discovers that Davidson's toes are vulnerable, and then proceeds to stomp them with Mach Speed and Slow until the poor guy is in great pain. In the very next episode, Davidson trudges into a Jadow officers' meeting wearing heavy but very armored boots, so he can't be hurt again, yet never gets the chance to use them.
- The Villainous Daughter's Butler, I'll Crush the Destruction Flags: Prince Alforth and Alicia have the habit of stepping on their dance partner’s feet out of nervousness and inexperience.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: At one point, Officer Tetsu Ushio/Trudge tries to hit on the French beauty Sherry LeBlanc. His partner Mikage Sagiri/Mina Simington got annoyed and stepped on his foot.
