Hollywood Tone Deaf / Anime & Manga

• Lucia without her pearl in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. Accidentally averted in the same series with Caren, a genuine terrible singer.
• In Azumanga Daioh Yomi is supposedly a bad singer, but when you consider that her VA is Rie Tanaka, another very famous actress known for performing anime theme songs, the "bad" singing ends up sounding completely fake.
  • It's still hilarious, though.
• Averted in StarMyu - the issues with Hoshitani's technique in his audition in episode 1 are real. Also, compare most of his diegetic singing - e.g. that audition, or his attempts at Alexis' Shadow's song in season 2 - with his non-diegetic "Hoshi no Stride" in the end of episode 1. (His diegetic singing is good when the song matches the mood of Hoshi no Stride).
• In episode 16 of My-HiME Natsuki attempts to sing and does a horrible job of sounding like she can't. As a bonus for viewers, the song she's pretending she can't sing was sung by Saeko Chiba, who voiced... Natsuki.
• An obscure show called Koi Koi 7 features singing (go to about 1:50) by a character named Miya that is truly indescribably horrible and you can understand how it knocked everyone out.
• Zigzagged with Konata from Lucky Star; the end credits for the first half of the anime show that Konata can be very off-key when singing upbeat, passionate theme songs from anime and TV shows (such as when she sings "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" from Dragon Ball Z in Episode 5), but she's a much better singer when she's singing calmer and slower-paced songs.
• Show Within a Show Kujibiki♡Unbalance takes this to the n-th degree with Tokino's karaoke. Not only is her singing completely over-the-top tone-deaf, it's not even her own voice actor doing the singing.
• A recurring gag in Doraemon is that Gian/Big G is a terrible singer. One time he was on TV, his singing voice was so bad that it actually hospitalized several people.
• Several characters exhibit this trope in a karaoke-themed episode of Digimon Adventure. It's present in both the Japanese and English versions.
• Eimi Date in Pretty Sammy TV (aka Magical Project S). Her classmates have to silence her whenever the class sings.
  • In the soundtrack CDs, Eimi's voice actress sings her signature song straight, proving that she's at least a competent singer—except it sounds completely wrong and disappointing, because Eimi's song should be sung lethally off-key and with great gusto.
• Coco from Pecola. In one episode, she was practicing her singing for Pecola's band, which was assaulting on the ears of everyone in Cube Town. Towards the end of the episode, Coco's screechy voice became smooth during vocalization, and Pecola compliments her on it.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: Whenever Kirby copies a singing ability, his own allies shudder in dread of his apocalyptically bad singing. The Manual states this is how the enemy-erasing "microphone" ability in the game works. One of the opening sequences in one of the games even has him being attacked by his own music notes.
• Shinichi (and therefore Conan) in Case Closed is tone deaf and can't sing worth beans. (His Japanese voice actress, however, makes up half of the J-Pop duo Two-Mix.) This isn't consistent; in a Non-Serial Movie he has perfect pitch, but still sings terribly.
• Akira Nagisa in Chrome Breaker - so bad she scares magical sidekick birds.
• In Hidamari Sketch, Yuno's bad singing manifests as a completely different (but consistent!) melody line — which Miyako can subsequently sing back perfectly.
• Maya Natsume in Tenjho Tenge; she loses her karaoke "battle" with Friendly Enemy Mitsuomi because she's a terrible singer. Since her voice actress in the anime was Aya Hisakawa, they telegraphed this by making her this trope - in the karaoke scene, she basically just groans into the mic.
• Magic Knight Rayearth: According to Word of God, Hikaru Shidou has singing as her worst subject in school. Surprisingly, her voice actress Hekiru Shiina was actually an accomplished singer. This is played around in one moment when Hikaru seems like having No Indoor Voice.
• Some characters' renditions of the Zetsubou Sensei Drawing Song in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei delve into this, most noticeably with Kaere Kimura. Who is voiced by Yuu Kobayashi, who, like Rie Tanaka, is a fine singer.
• One episode of Maple Town has Puriprin picked for the lead role in a play. Hilarity Ensues as everyone is kept up at night by her ear-shredding attempts at "singing practice". The kicker? The VA for Puriprin is none other than Satoko Yamano, who sings the opening and ending theme songs.
• Averted with Takehito Koyasu, of all people, in Macross 7. Even though he's an accomplished singer, he manages to be very believably, incredibly off-key when singing the theme song. (His character, Gamlin, is tone deaf.)
• Both English and Japanese versions of female Ranma in Ranma ½ belt out an off-key verse during the "Tendo Family's Christmas Scramble" OAV, where she's shanghaied into joining Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane, and Shampoo in a song to entertain the guests. Similarly, the Japan-only "Hot Song Battle Contest" album and OAV have her screeching out a cloyingly cute kiddy song about balloons. While Brigitta Dau's singing credentials are unknown, Megumi Hayashibara is actually an excellent singer, including her in-character performances as part of the DoCo supergroup (which is composed of those same five characters) as well as the rest of the Ranma ½ Image Song collections.
• Rio in Sound of the Sky — played by the aforementioned Yuu Kobayashi — sings a god-awful snippet of the opening theme song in one of the DVD-only extra episodes. Then again, the character is a trumpeter, not a singer, and is completely drunk at the time.
• K-On!:
  • Although Yui's VA is quite a talented singer, during a childhood memory scene, she sings an ear-grinding song about turtles, not only off-key, but mostly off-beat as well.
  • In the band's first school festival performance, Yui has to sing the backing vocals to "Fuwa Fuwa Time" despite still being hoarse from Sawako's singing lessons. Yui's VA performs her vocal parts for the song in a manner that sounds like a spectacularly off-key frog hijacked Yui's throat.
  • Apparently Azusa is during the restart manga, as she's asked to front the new Light Music Club band and finds out her singing voice is quite scratchy.
• In the Karaoke Box episode of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens, some of the characters sing their songs pretty badly. The singing is made better for the Image Song release.
• In Bakuman。, Miho is nervous about Mashiro hearing her singing, because she says she's not very good. The first time she's heard on TV, her best friend Kaya laughs at her and Mashiro feels as embarrassed as he thinks she must have felt. Saori Hayami, on the other hand, is praised as one of the best singers among modern voice actresses, and sings fairly well. Eventually, however, Azuki gets better at singing, and sends Mashiro some of her songs on a disk.
• Once in Gosick Victorique singing was mistaken for her moaning in pain.
• Giroro from Sgt. Frog has no singing talent at all. Made painfully clear when he's ordered to lullaby the temporarily age reverted Kururu. His screeching singing is so horrible, it drives Kururu to hit the self destruct button on his human suit to make it stop.
  • However, his voice-actor is the lead singer on the show's first theme song.
• In the last episode of the first season of The World God Only Knows, a sleep-deprived and delirious Keima sings a beautiful song - with backup singers!
• In Sasami-san@Ganbaranai, the titular character sings the ending very half-heartedly. The fifth episode, she duets with Kagami — the former sings normally and the latter sings half-heartedly and doesn't know the words.
• In Recently, My Sister Is Unusual, Yuuya cannot sing, at all. He even butchers something as simple as the "Happy Birthday" song. Even Hiyori, who practically worships the ground he walks on, cannot stand his singing.
• Tomoko Kuroki's voice actress sings the Ending Theme of No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! with an exaggerated whiny, nasal voice and off-key and, as the song goes on, she starts to have an emotional breakdown, resulting in singing worse.
• In the seventh episode of the original Sailor Moon anime, Usagi and Naru sing the title theme, but are badly off-key. Usagi's Japanese voice actress, Kotono Mitsuishi, is an accomplished singer who recorded multiple CDs both related to the show and not. Also, Naru's voice actress in the Viz Media redub, Danielle Judovits, has sung in theatrical musicals.
• The main protagonist Urno from Damekko Doubutsu has a terrible singing voice. So bad that it can be heard throughout the entire forest.
• Mana Aida of Doki Doki! PreCure has a singing voice so hideous that Rikka and Alice covered their ears and ran for cover when she tried singing a lullaby for baby fairy Ai-chan, also sending birds flying in terror. When she tries to sing again in Pretty Cure All Stars Spring Carnival, the entire Doki Doki team covers their ears (especially for Rikka, as she went concerned as she saw Mana got hold of the microphone and has her hands halfway up to her ears before the rest of her team even lifted their hands) and it catches pretty much everyone, especially the much more musically-inclined Suite Pretty Cure ♪ team, completely off-guard.
  Mana: [completely off-key] THE WORLD IS LIKE A MERRY GO-ROUND!
  Hibiki: T-This is music?!
• Tomoyo Kurosawa has to deliberately sing badly in episode 4 of Yuki Yuna is a Hero during several scenes where Itsuki is struggling to sing in front of other people because of her shyness. The rest of Kurosawa’s vocal work for the series, especially in episode 9, shows that she’s actually a very good singer.
• Yuu Kashima of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, despite being The Ace at nearly everything else, can't sing at all. When she demonstrates her ability to Seo, who she asked for voice training from, Seo reveals that she had earplugs in the whole time.
• In the Blu-ray version of the final episode of the first season of Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki Haruka Tomatsu sings her own ending theme in character as Yatogame at karaoke. While she generally hits the correct notes, she manages to stay slightly ahead of the beat for most of the song, making it sound quite amateurish.
• Pecola: Coco. One episode has her practice singing for Pecola's band, which was assaulting on the ears of everyone in Cube Town. Towards the end of the episode, she strains her voice, causing her to lose it... but it makes her singing beautifully smooth.

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