Damned by Faint Praise in Anime and Manga.
- In Assassination Classroom, Okajima reassures Kayano that "someday, somewhere" her body type will be considered desirable.
- Bloom Into You:
- Sayaka's ex-girlfriend meets up with her by chance, and apologizes for getting Sayaka interested in girls and hopes she's back to normal (i.e. heterosexual), since she believes that their relationship is merely a phase. Sayaka, while upset by the older girl's apology because she's still a lesbian, tells the other girl that she doesn't know how she ever developed feelings for her in the first place, and says that "Still... I suppose I'm grateful to you- in a way."
- A more comedic example happens in a bonus section included in Volume 7, in which the cast's grades in five different subjects are shown in a pentagon graph, along with comments on their strengths and weaknesses. Akari, who is the worst student in the cast, is said to be "decent at biology."
- A subversion occurs in chapter 17 of Delicious in Dungeon, when Marcille says Laios' sister Falin said good things about him when they were in school together. Cue a flash-back thought bubble of Falin telling Marcille that "he does a fantastic impression of a dog!" It seems to a one-off joke at the time, but later he uses his dog impressions to intimidate a shapeshifter into revealing itself, frightens off a pack of dire wolves, and when rescuing Marcille from the grip of nightmares, his dream-form is a dog (a majestic wolf from his perspective, a dopey mutt from Marcille's perspective).
- In Doujin Work, when Najimi shows Tsuyuri and Justice her first story, the first thing they compliment is the quality of the paper. Even worse is that Najimi showed it to them separately and yet they both gave her the same "compliment".
- Final Fantasy: Unlimited: In his debut, Pist tells the other Lords of Gaudium that they are not completely useless, since their constant losses to the heroes gave him the data he needed for his plan.
- Chapter 164 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War opens up with Fujiwara complaining how she hasn't been getting any respect from the other members of the student council lately, and Iino tries to cheer her up by saying "I haven't lost my respect for you yet, Fujiwara-senpai!"note Fujiwara: Yet?
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, after Einhart easily defeats Vivio in their first sparring match, Vivio asks if she thought she did poorly. Einhart replies that Vivio did well for someone who does not take Strike Arts seriously. Vivio gets Einhart's drift and asks for a rematch after she's had time to prepare herself enough to make a better showing.
- A chapter of the Osomatsu-san manga has Choromatsu start off comforting a pair of ugly girls who were insulted on Valentine's Day with an apology for it stinging more than it usually does.
- In The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Tanya, who hates German food, but has the misfortune of being reincarnated in an alternate WWI era Germany, tells a general she's dining with that the fresh and hot German cuisine she's being served causes her to remember, her time on the front-lines "fondly." As in she would rather be eating cold army rations than the high-end slop she's being served. Though luckily, the general and the other officers present take it as a sincere compliment.
- In Silver Spoon, when Yugo looks at Aki's grades, the only thing he finds to say is that she is better than Tokiwa. It doesn't do much to cheer her up.
- The Useless Senpai and The Talented Kouhai has Hiromi Tsukioka (the kouhai, who's The Ace at basketball) tell Shiori Ochiai (the senpai, who likes playing, but is terrible) the following when Tsukioka sees Ochiai trying to skip out on practice after some bullying from her kouhai. That said, Tsukioka says what she does because she doesn't want Ochiai to give up on the team.Tsukioka: When I asked the teacher what your strong point is, senpai, she went silent for five minutes. Then she said that your strong point is that you never skip practice.
Ochiai: I'm not happy to hear that at all... Don't I have any other strong points? - In the Tower of God anime,note in the first episode, Yuri asks Evan to evaluate Bam — who's technically an Irregular, and they're usually insanely powerful — for any hidden powers, and all he can say is that he seems agile.
