Horrible Judges of Character in Anime and Manga.
- Elmer C. Albatross and Graham Spectre from Baccano!. Elmer is thoroughly convinced that even the biggest monster secretly has a heart of gold and happens to be best friends with Mad Scientist/terrorist Huey Laforet. As for Graham? Well, he Hero Worships Ladd Russo.
- Though in Graham's case, he isn't that different from Ladd personality-wise. It's just as likely that Graham is well aware of what kind of man Ladd is, but is so violently insane himself that he likes it!
- Edgar Redmond from Black Butler is terrible at reading people, and is openly ashamed of it. Maurice Cole and Derrick Arden are the two examples we know of when it comes to him misjudging people, and they're easily bad enough to stand for any others.
- Catherine Gregory from the manhwa Burning Hell. Okay, so she led a sheltered life and can't understand Korean or Japanese, but the two guys she's stuck with are Ax-Crazy and make no bones about it and look her in the eyes with Slasher Smiles, and she even compared their fighting a common foe to a two-headed demon; and she still considers them to be kind-hearted saviors! When you think that about a guy who wants to eat you and another who considers you prime material for a Body Works-type "work of art," you're getting pretty close to Too Dumb to Live.
- Code Geass: Suzaku Kururugi hates violence and discrimination. So why does he trust the very people who occupied his country? Zigzagged with Lelouch. Suzaku is the one character particularly able to catch Lelouch lying, perhaps because of their shared history.
- Laios from Delicious in Dungeon as part of his characterization as The Ditz. He falls for Kabru's charm offensive very quickly and considers him a sweet Nice Guy even as Kabru is considering killing him for offering him food made of monsters.
- From Doubt, we have Yuu. A Nice Guy who is stuck with his friends in an abandoned place and one of them is killing the others. And despite one of their members being a delinquent with a Hair-Trigger Temper who was willing to beat him up after Yuu accidentally bumped into him and another is an aloof, mysterious guy who seems to know more than he lets on, he still thinks it's all an outside job. Though he eventually does wonder in later chapters whether one of them did kill everyone in their group.
- Dragon Ball:
- Goku frequently underestimates just how evil some people can be, and is all too willing to assume they aren't lying to him when he has them at his mercy. He is shocked that Raditz was lying after he pleas for his life, claiming that he will leave Earth peacefully if his life is spared. The moment Goku let go of his tail, Raditz kicks him, crushes his ribs, and calls him an idiot for believing him. He also spares Frieza's life on two separate occasions (in Z and Resurrection 'F') out of a misguided act of mercy, and both times Frieza took advantage of it. Finally, in Super, he completely misreads Zamasu, seeing him as a good Kai and not believing he has anything to do with Goku Black, despite Zamasu showing open hostilities towards him during their visit and even trying to attack Goku after losing a sparring match. It isn't until Goku sees Future Zamasu helping Black that he realizes what a scumbag Zamasu will become.
- Dragon Ball Z: Raditz apparently believed that Nappa and Vegeta would revive him after they got to Earth, as he says that his only regret is that he won't be back in time to see them kill the people of Earth. On the contrary, while Nappa does indeed suggest reviving Raditz, Vegeta shoots the idea down, stating that reviving a weakling like Raditz would be a waste and they should use the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality instead. Nappa does not argue against this and quickly agrees.
- When Piccolo asks King Kai to train him, Kai makes him promise that he won't fight Freeza. Piccolo immediately agrees, and King Kai says, "Well, you do have an honest face." Piccolo thinks to himself, "You have terrible eyesight."
- Dragon Ball Super has Gowasu, the Supreme Kai of Universe 10. While his apprentice Zamasu is firmly convinced that mortals are Always Chaotic Evil and the gods' inaction in their affairs is a sin, Gowasu is willing to look past this and teach him because, in his words, Zamasu is pure-hearted with a strong sense of justice. Even after Zamasu cuts down an inhabitant of Planet Babari rather than just walking away, this being right after Zamasu openly suggested that they just wipe out all of the Babarians and be done with it, Gowasu is still willing to believe the best in him and believes that after their visit and his subsequent lecture over the Babarian's death, Zamasu has finally learned his lesson. It's only when Goku, Beerus, and Whis save him from being murdered by Zamasu and expose his plans to wipe out all mortal life that Gowasu is forced to acknowledge just how evil Zamasu really is. Even then, he genuinely believes that going to the future to scold Zamasu and give him a Last-Second Chance will actually work; one would think that after everything he's heard about the atrocities Zamasu has committed in the future and even seeing the results with his own eyes, Gowasu would know that Zamasu is beyond reason. Once the crisis is resolved in Episode 67, Beerus advises Gowasu to choose his disciples more carefully in the future. For this reason, Gowasu refuses to personally choose any fighters for the Tournament of Power, fearing he may end up choosing someone as insane as Zamasu.
- In Fate/Zero Kirei Kotomine seems to simply inspire trust. Risei trusts him unconditionally (though this is kind of justified as Kirei is Risei's son) and Tokiomi Tohsaka notes that he seems more nihilistic than faithful or religious… yet he also trusts him immensely and it never occurs to him that Kirei might not be the most loyal person on earth. Even Assassin believes that Archer (aka Gilgamesh) is no problem at all when Assassins are implied to never get into direct fights. Bazett also trusts Kotomine a bit too much.
- Tokiomi eventually takes this to ridiculous extremes by writing what is essentially his will, which says Kirei gets everything (including his daughter), giving him a knife as a parting gift, then walking away from him with his back turned. You can guess how well that ended. He also gave his youngest daughter to Zouken Matou, with predictable results.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: May thinks Yoki and Scar are good guys long before Character Development hits either of them. She also mistrusts the Elric brothers for a while, probably because she thought Ed had "lied" to her about being tall and handsome as opposed to short (in reality, she just thought this up herself and took her disappointment out on him). There's also the fact that they were Scar's enemies... It was for the best in the end; her role as their Morality Pet played a large part in them both eventually pulling a Heel–Face Turn. Things don't work out so well for her when she decides to trust Envy, though.
- Gankutsuou has Albert. He ignores the strange coincidences when the count arrives in Paris, the horrible turns of events, the letters to his father. Even when his childhood best friend pleads with him that he be careful around the count, all he gets are tantrums. The count, being a Magnificent and Manipulative Bastard counted on this, and systematically destroys Albert's remaining confidence in him by slowly spelling out how he was a piece in his schemes for revenge… and does so precisely in the most heartless manner possible to get him to challenge him to a duel and get a legal excuse to kill him as revenge against his parents.
- Gundam:
- the Earth Federation from the UC is this.
- In 0083, they give total power over the colonies to Jamitov Hymen and Bosque Ohm, who at the very least failed miserably to stop Operation Stardust and at worst ACTUALLY ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN.
- Jamitov himself is one of these in Zeta Gundam. He chooses Bosque as his Dragon, Jerid Messa as his disciple, and recruits Paptimus Scirocco from the Jupiter Energy Fleet, giving him the best ship in the fleet and allowing him to accumulate a great deal of power under him. The thing is, Bosque doesn't care about Jamitov's agenda and just wants to kill every Spacenoid he can catch, Jerid plans to eventually supplant Jamitov, and Scirocco plans to supplant Jamitov without the 'eventually'.
- By Char's Counterattack they show no signs of improvement in spite of all this. The deal they cut with Char basically amounts to: "In return for not dropping your space rocks on us, we'd like to give you a giant space rock! And as an extra bonus, it's loaded with nukes!"
- Really, after a certain point it stops being humorous and becomes worrying. One has to wonder if the Earth Federation has a terrorism insurance policy on the planet Earth and is desperately trying to cash in on it.
- To the above question, ''Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn" says YES. According to various Zeon scholars, more Terrorists = more defense funding for various Federation bureaucrats, which gives them an incentive to secretly fund various terrorist cells into making a bloody fuss and restarting the war on small scales, all so the Military Complex can justify its ridiculous budget. And in nearly every situation, the Federation conspirators underestimate just how bitter and ruthless the Zeon 'strawmen' can become with 'scraps' when they have suffered numerous nation-wide defeats and institutionalized racism.
- This eventually comes to a resolution in Crossbone Gundam, where it's revealed that the Jupiter Energy Fleet has been manipulating both the Federation and the various incarnations of Zeon, with their stated goal under Fonse Kagatie being to weaken the Feds enough to where they can eventually overthrow them and establish total hegemony over the Earth Sphere.
- In G Gundam, there's Chairman (later Prime Minister) Karato. Though that could be somewhat explained by how much of a Manipulative and Magnificent Bastard his Treacherous Advisor Urube is.
- the Earth Federation from the UC is this.
- Bear Walken of Gungrave trusted Harry McDowell with both the fate of Millenion and his daughter. Bear Walken was a good Mafia boss but apparently terrible with people.
- Lithuania from Hetalia: Axis Powers. His boss Russia is a male Yandere, his crush Belarus is Russia's sister and a Yandere as well, his best friend is the often selfish Poland (though in Poland's defense, he does attempt to help him with Russia more than once, and clearly stands up to Russia in Meeting of the World). However, this trope only applies to his one-sided crush on Belarus, as he expresses frustration in dealing with Russia and Poland, and deals with them because he has to, and he makes the best of a bad situation.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood has George Joestar I. After getting into a carriage accident which killed his wife, he believes he is saved by a slimy old man named Dario Brando, who in actuality thought George had perished and was attempting to loot his corpse, his wife's corpse, and his destroyed carriage. Years later, Dario is on his deathbed and has George adopt his son Dio because George still thinks he owes Dario his life. Even though the first thing Dio does after arriving at the Joestar manor is kick the family dog, George still doesn't suspect Dio in the slightest and treats him like a second son. After even more time passes, Dio attempts to usurp the family fortune by slowly poisoning George to make it look like he died of natural causes and letting his adoptive brother Jonathan go to the slums of 1880's London alone trying to prove that Dio was responsible (because unlike his father Jonathan has experienced firsthand just how downright nasty Dio is) in the hopes that he'd get himself killed. However, Jonathan makes it back alive with the vendor Dio got his poison from and exposes him, but Dio initiates his back-up plan of turning himself into a vampire, and stabs George (in Jojo, one can become a vampire by splashing blood on a special stone mask while wearing it). Even after ALL OF THAT, George still thinks of Dio as a son as he lays bleeding out in Jonathan's arms.
- In one episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Whispy Woods took the word of King Dedede that someone is out to destroy his forest, and assumed that Kirby and the gang were the ones out to destroy it because they happened to put a fire next to Whispy while they were camping out. If Kirby hadn't eaten one of the apples Whispy was dropping on the gang, then his judge of character would've caused his woods to be destroyed forever, replaced by Dedede's golf course.
- Araki of Hana to Ryuu (prequel to Kizuna) doesn't seem to notice that his most trusted employee has all the qualifications of psychopath, rapist, murderer, and torturer, despite the fact that he tried to drive his boyfriend to suicide, is constantly trying to kill him, and murdered Araki's wife who was pregnant with his unborn child. Yeah, he's just a great guy.
- Mazinger Z: One of the last chapters of the manga penned by Gosaku Ota introduces Yumiko Shiozai—The Hero Kouji's grandmother. She met Hell in college when she was a student, and she thought despite his quirkiness he was a good person. Dr. HELL. His sanity was already slipping, he was beginning to look Obviously Evil and he was troubled and paranoiac and prone to Kick the Dog. Oh, and he stalked her. Obsessively.
- In Naruto, there are a few cases of this:
- The main character himself is a rare justified example. He's rather clueless regarding normal human interactions due to his isolation by the villagers and peers until he became a ninja, so he tended to trust people who showed an outward facade of friendliness (he was very starved for positive attention). His former teacher Mizuki, appeared to be the nice teacher to Umino Iruka's Stern Teacher, tricked Naruto into stealing the Forbidden Scroll and then planned to kill him, and Kabuto, who was an agent for Orochimaru for years and only pretended to be a friendly upperclassman. Ironically, Sasuke was the only one from Team 7 who realized there was something off about Kabuto before his second encounter with his brother.
- The biggest example, however, would be the Third Hokage, who actually allowed Danzo Shimura to reform ROOT after the Fourth Hokage had disbanded the shadow group because he felt he needed someone to take care of the dirty deeds that couldn't be linked to the village. The Fourth ended up being right in not trusting ROOT; Danzo schemed for years to oust Sarutobi to become Hokage himself, going as far as seeking assistance from foreign powers to do so, enabling Orochimaru's experiments and even forced the Uchiha coup to be unable to resolve peacefully by removing the eye of Uchiha Shisui, who planned to use it to pacify his clan, only to transplant it to himself so he could use its superior hypnotic capabilities to get his way.
- Ayase of Okane ga Nai: his cousin sold him to the Yakuza and he thinks it was just a "misunderstanding." This is also the guy who surrounds himself with "friends" who - without exception - are trying to get in his pants. And he keeps thinking that it's also just a "misunderstanding" when one of his "best friends" tries to rape him. Twice. And then chain him to a bedpost in his room. Aaaand he lives with the loan shark who bought him from said cousin. For more details just look in the Too Dumb to Live entry. He's there too.
- Like the game it's based off, the XY arc of Pokémon Adventures has Professor Sycamore praising Lysandre despite the fact that Lysandre is obviously insane. What makes it worse here is that everyone else can see it and reacts accordingly, whether it being with fear or suspicion, while Sycamore continues to defend him with light and sparkles in the background.
- When the Pokémon: The Series gang first meets Barry, he admires Ash's rival Paul, and consider Ash (and Dawn) inferior trainers compared to Paul. Barry cast this opinion after watching the Hearthome Tag Battle Tournament Arc on TV, the very same competition where Paul blatantly quits in the middle of a battle for petty reasonsnote leaving his tag-team partner, Ash, to win the fight for their team on his own.
- In the Kalos arc, Alain is this to Lysandre. Lysandre gets Alain to help his goals to use Mega Evolution for peaceful purposes when in reality he's been the mastermind behind almost everything that happens in the Mega Evolution specials and eventually the main series once Team Flare makes their appearance.
- Also, Ash and friends become too trustworthy of the Team Rocket trio and thus allow them to fall into their traps every time they disguise themselves to trick the heroes despite how poorly-designed their disguises really are.
- Sonic X: Despite being sworn enemies with Eggman, Knuckles is always fully prepared to believe his latest lie about wanting to change his ways and help him out, and no matter how many times he realizes that Eggman lied to him, he'll always fall for it again. It's even lampshaded in the Season 2 episode "An Enemy in Need," where the others flat-out call him out on falling for Eggman's latest claim that he'll reform if they give him the Chaos Emerald; even then, Knuckles adamantly refuses to even consider the possibility that Eggman is lying until Decoe and Bocoe show up and Eggman himself lets it slip that Knuckles fell for it.
- Tokyo Babylon: Both Subaru and his twin sister Hokuto could use some help in the voice of reason department when it comes to trusting certain people.
- Ryuji Takasu of Toradora! is generally just bad at reading people, but it really comes to the fore when Taiga's dad tries to re-enter her life. Despite all of the red flags Mr. Aisaka throws up (including what little Taiga told him about their previous relationship), Ryuji thinks that his re-entry into Taiga's life would be nothing but positive. It bites Taiga hard during the Cultural Festival. In Ryuji's case, his previous problems in socializing due to his delinquent-like appearance suggests that he's just inexperienced in reading people.
- A lot of the tragedy in Code Geass's second season comes from a lot of this. Why anyone would trust Schneizel is a question that is never properly answered. This lack of good judgement bites everyone in the ass horribly as this ends up being the incident that sends Anti-Hero Lelouch off the deep end after a Trauma Conga Line and makes him think up the Zero Requiem as the only way to build a better world.
- The Compilation Movie seems to clarify that no, they didn't believe him that easily. They still wanted to hear from Lelouch first, who still tries putting on the act when they're begging him to just tell the truth. This time, Schneizel's men try firing on him anyway without the Black Knights' approval, leading to Lelouch still having to be rescued for everything else afterwards to stay the same.
- A specific, recurring example from all the way back in season 1 is Suzaku, who takes Idiot Hero to new levels by siding with the conquering empire that took over his country and reduced all its citizens to second-class citizens at best and is run by a Social Darwinist and flat out racist philosophy, and yet insists on being an Internal Reformist when an "Eleven" like him has no real chance of doing so. Of course, it's implied this is mostly a lie to conceal his real motive for becoming a soldier. At the same time, he manages to be the only one consistently able to see through Lelouch.
- A cynic could very well consider Akane Tendo of Ranma ½ to be one of these. She is convinced that Ryoga Hibiki is a sweet, gentle, kind-hearted person and her best friend. While he does make some good character growth, Ryoga is very flawed as well: petty, melancholic, obsessive, childish, and obsessed with wooing her, and her blindness to his romantic intentions is one of the things that upsets him the most. She blatantly ignores things like the fact he was once part of a plot to kidnap her because he does things like choke down her repulsive food and lie that it tastes delicious, immediately leaps to assault Ranma when Akane gets angry or upset, and otherwise goes out of his way to stroke her ego. In fact, it's possible that this is the keystone behind her apparent inability to realise he is really her pet pig P-chan: she thinks so highly of him that she can't conceive he would abuse her trust and stain her honor the way that pretending to be an animal so he can, among other things, sleep in her bed.
- Given her trust levels for Ranma, the same could be applied there. While Ranma is hardly a model citizen, Akane is generally willing to accuse Ranma of all sorts of immoral actions that he would never take, or has shown any sign of taking. Most notably is her insistence that Ranma is a pervert, despite the fact that Ranma never shows any kind of lust and never abuses his Gender Bender curse to go peeping. Ranma is guilty of many things, but he is all but immune to lust.
- Tsuna from Reborn! (2004) is this, somewhat. He does realize that the villains aren't the nicest people on earth, but is very naive about wishing to believe the best in people (namely, Rokudo Mukuro). It's lampshaded by several characters in the series (yes, even by the villains themselves).
- Prince Diamond of season 2 of Sailor Moon refuses to hear anyone question the motives of his adviser Wiseman. A skeleton with glowing hands and eyes. Who wears a Black Cloak. Who had previously appeared before them very suddenly offering them his wisdom and the power of the Evil Black Poison Crystal. In his defense, he's also the ruler of a planet of people exiled by the kingdom of Crystal Tokyo, so he's not stable. This all only applies to the anime, because in the manga, the Black Moon Clan were evil and Demand was pure evil, so nobody really cared much about Wiseman since they were all after the same goal.
- In the same storyline and also in the anime, Cooan is revealed to be in love with Rubius, who is completely evil and clearly using her. Learning the obvious is what leads her and the other three Ayakashi Sisters to their Heel–Face Turn.
- Sakura Gari: Masataka. Honestly, there are all these horrible rumors about Souma, Souma himself acts really weird, strange events keep occurring, and... he just thinks Souma is a nice master. Right.
- Asuna's father Shouzou in Sword Art Online thinks Sugou is a friendly, bright little protege, and arranges a marriage between the two without noticing that his daughter hates the evil bastard. Later, after it becomes clear that Sugou is the reason Asuna and a hundred others stayed in their comas a few extra months, and that Sugou was planning on brainwashing/raping her, he resigns from his position as CEO, and Asuna is only barely able to convince him not to retire outright. Of course, Sugou made sure to act like an honest, kind man to his boss, and only let the facade drop in front of Kirito, whom he believed wouldn't be able to do anything about the marriage.
- Asuna's mother Kyouko is just as bad about it as her husband, since according to Asuna herself, the Arranged Marriage between Asuna and Sugou was her idea in the first place; of course, when Asuna points this out to her, Kyouko quickly tries to deflect the blame onto her husband.
- For most of The Twelve Kingdoms' first Story Arc, Yuka Sugimoto swears complete loyalty to the King of Kou despite several indications that he is simply using her and cares for nothing but himself. Even after being abandoned on a remote, barren farm, she makes up an excuse for it herself and remains eager to do his bidding. Sure, the girl is desperate to be the heroine, but still!
- In Weiß Kreuz, Ken Hidaka is quite convinced that his childhood friend Kouichiro Kase can't possibly know what his evil boss is up to. One murder and an attempt on Ken's own life later, he wises up to Kase's conniving ways, but it takes another attempt on Ken's life before he actually does anything about it—which, for those of you playing along at home, would be the third time Kase's tried, and failed, to kill him.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
- Kaito may not have completely trusted his father, Dr. Faker, but the fact that he believed him at all or that any of what he was telling him was the truth was likely Kaito's biggest fault.
- Of course, Dr. Faker himself was an even bigger example. Believing Vector's promises to help Haruto—which were obviously lies—caused him to commit numerous atrocities that may have made him an accomplice to genocide. (And technically still might, unless the heroes are victorious.)
