The Millstone in Anime and Manga.
- Dungeon Friends Forever: In a contest between the Quirky Miniboss Squads of the dungeons Wyrm Hell and Ogre Organs, Wyrm Hell's Harpy manages to screw up at every turn. In the first round, a fanart showdown in which both teams draw Ryuuka, most of the Wyrm Hell team's drawings are bad, but Harpy only draws Ryuuka's chest because boobs are all she can draw; Mino's is good enough to win, but also so steamy that Harpy nosebleeds all over it and the blood loss keeps her from participating in round 2. The final round is a "Lady Dragon Queen Quiz" where teams have to answer trivia questions about Ryuuka, and the Ogre Organs' team maintains an advantage for much of it because they have an official Ryuuka fanbook... authored by Harpy. The Wyrm Hell team only takes the win because the questions start concerning Ryuuka's relationship with Van. In contrast, the one round where Wyrm Hell won decisively was largely due to Succy the Succubus, who Ogre Organs insisted replace Harpy because they thought she would be The Load.Harpy (re: the Fanbook): Me?! I would never write such a- Beat Oh wait, maybe I did?
"You freakin' birdbrain!!"
"You really screwed us over this time!" - Excel from Excel♡Saga is an example. Granted, most of Il Palazzo's plans are rather silly to begin with, but she ensures that they have no chance of success.
- Near the end of the anime series, Il Palazzo realizes this and fires her by shooting her through the chest and leaving her to die; he conquers the city two episodes later (though the city's destruction might have helped with that a little).
- In the manga Excel is so much of a millstone that when Il Palazzo finally gets off his ass and does something (such as exploring outside of the lair), he only rescues Elgala and Hyatt, and leaves Excel behind, replacing her with a disguised Roppomatsu 1 he also captured, and almost immediately succeeds in taking over the city. Interestingly, manga Excel is considerably more intelligent than her anime counterpart, even though her hyperactive attitude tends to make it hard to tell. Il Palazzo's success doesn't seem to be so much due to Excel's absence than it is from memory and competence returning to him — which was also the reason he ditched Excel.
- In Hetalia: Axis Powers, comically ditzy Italy spends most of his time dragging down the Axis powers.
- Tonpa in Hunter × Hunter actively tries to be one during one part of the Hunter Exam when he's forced to team up with the main characters, voting opposite the others whenever they're forced to take a vote, immediately forfeiting his match in a best 3-out-of-5 battle, and encouraging dissent between the other members of the group. He even states that he has no desire to pass the exam, and only took it so he could crush the hopes of everyone else taking it.
- Ironically, Tonpa forfeiting his match actually helped the main characters. The convicts they were up against were encouraged to delay the group for as long as possible until the time limit ran out, getting a year off their sentence for every hour they succeeded in doing so. Kurapika points out that if Tonpa hadn't forfeited, his opponent probably would've crushed his trachea so he couldn't speak and then just tortured him for the remainder of the time limit.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- The anime has a villainous example in Team Rocket. In any episode where they are not the primary antagonists, they will do something to screw up the other villain's plan. Somewhat ironically they usually subvert this on the heroic side. Not only are they usually far more efficient doing good than bad, but a lot of their bumbling schemes ultimately end up resolving a crisis or personal conflict between the current cast.
- A number of the heroes' Pokémon apply as well: examples include Misty's Togepi, Misty's Psyduck, Iris's Axew, and Goh's Grookey. Each of them has a very bad habit of causing trouble in various ways, while being too weak or incompetent in battle to fix the problems they cause.
- Reborn! (2004) has the protagonist, Tsunayoshi Sawada, at least in terms of sports. Any team that picks him for a game loses. He does take a level, though.
- In Sailor Moon, the brainwashed Prince Endymion is this to Kunzite. He's a Noble Demon and goes out of his way to sabotage Kunzite's cunning, unethical schemes, but Kunzite can't just leave him behind because Queen Beryl wants Endymion out there doing stuff.
- The second season of Shirobako introduces one in the form of Shinsuke Chazawa, the editor for the In-Universe Third Aerial Girls' Squad manga that the main characters are trying to adapt to an anime. Given the lengths he goes to hinder MusuAni in producing the series, up to deliberately doing everything he can to prevent the director from communicating with the manga's author, it'd be understandable for a viewer to think that he was deliberately being paid to sabotage production (he's not; he's just resentful of anything that gets in the way of his leisure time). A conservative estimate would be that at least half of all the problems in the second season are his fault.
