Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.
This trope could have easily been called Legato In Leather Pants. In both the Anime and Manga, Legato is a Complete Monster with more than a touch of nihilism who never does anything unconditionally good for anyone in the entire series (Yes, even the girl he gave the hot dog to. First, he used her to make a point. Second, popular fan theory and several clues from the manga hint that he is a cannibal, meaning that the hot dog...). Even with the rather tragic Freudian Excuse from the manga, its clear there isn't any good in him left. Despite all this he is easily the most popular character in the show among women and there is a mountain of Self Insert Fics giving him (even more) tragic past where he hooks up with some Mary Sue and loses her turns him evil.
In Berserk, a heavily Seinen series that would seem immune to this type of trope, there exists a splinter group of fans who put the resident Magnificent Bastard Griffith, who also doubles as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, in a crotchless pair of leather pants. Might have been expected due to his unclear sexual orientation, flowing white hair and being rather effeminate looking but the extent to which his most questionable acts and his really revolting Moral Event Horizon crossing are rationalized can get...weird to say the least. Also, many Griffith fans conveniently disregard the fact that Griffith and Femto are one and the same to further justify their infatuation. It's probably because he used to be a good person (Or the closest thing to good you can get on a world like that) before his Despair Event Horizon (caused by being broken in body and mind after a year of horrific torture and the subsequent loss o everything he fought so hard to achieve), which makes him a Tragic Villain.
In Bleach, there are a disturbing number of legions of die-hard Szayel Aporro Granz fans, some of whom justify his hideous sadism with Fanon that he was the abused arrancar, and more who found his demise at the hands of fellow Mad Scientist Mayuri Kurotsuchi horribly unfair rather than fitting. And look at his pink hair! (There are fans who do like Szayel BECAUSE he's an asshole, but these are few and far in between afaik.)
Then again, Mayuri Kurotsuchi arguably has an even worse case of this- the man performs gruesome and sadistic experiments on living human subjects, and the details of said experiments suggest he really is just a sadist unless forcing them to mutilate or burn each other (even family members) to death has some scientific value this troper doesn't know about; he treats his subordinates as completely expendable, to the point of turning them into living bombs without telling them; and he is hidesously and violently abusive to his VC, who happens to be his own artificially created daughter. His Draco status owes much to his One-Scene Wonder appearance in the Hueco Mundo arc, where he was a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, but its led to many fans forgetting or dismissing the fact that, underneath it all, he is a cruel, evil psychopath who happens to be working for the good guys. Of course, most people recognize his evil which is why he's the God of Unpunished Villainy.
Kenpachi Zaraki is a huge one. His stated purpose in life is to kill and fight. He didn't fight seriously against Nnoitra, putting the mission and Ichigo and Orihime at risk. He's killed many people and from what we know, it seems that he just walked into the Seireitei one day and killed the previous Kenpachi for no reason. His fans think he's one of the nicest Captains. He was also going to kill Tosen after he betrayed the Seireitei by helping the Ryoka. While he was in the Rukongai he was a Serial Killer and he doesn't really seem to care much about anyone other than Yachiru.
Sosuke Aizen. He's supposed to be a Magnificent Bastard, but many of his actions are monstrous. And yet, many of his fans cheer for him mindlessly and bash his victims. Not even his using his former lieutenant, whom he already broke once, as a human shield with his powers and tricking the guy who swore to protect her into almost fatally injuring her dissuades them.
A large part of the Ichimaru fanbase seemed to think Gin was a double agent of sorts. This turned out not to be quite true, however, it was revealed that he did have a non-evil reason to stick by Aizen (namely, to kill him in revenge for what his men had done to Matsumoto - something that she either didn't even seem to remember, or had worked to get over). A large part of Bleach fandom promptly declared him a good guy, forgetting the fact that whatever his motivation Gin is(or rather was) the show's most overt, unrepentant sociopath, tied with the previously mentioned Szayel tentacle rape Aporro Granz and Mayuri, the one squad freakshow.
Ladies and gentlemen: Grimmjow Jaggerjack. He tries to kill Rukia, tries to kill Ichigo three times and didn't give a goddamn when his subordinates were killed in battle. Despite all this, and even though he never expressed regret for any of these actions, part of the fanbase views him as already redeemed and ready to join the good guys.
Ulquiorra Schiffer. It may be a big point of contention between certain parts of the fandom over whether every single interaction he has with Orihime is his psychologically torturing her, or if he genuinely tries to understand her POV or make her understand his POV. Nevertheless, he had a major part in kidnapping her, he cut off Ishida's arm (or, in the anime, broke and burned it), and he specifically waited for her to arrive on the dome so that he could kill Ichigo in front of her. Some of his fans give him a free pass on that, which is simply unacceptable.
Another target of the DILP fangirls is ShukuroTsukishima. Yes, the guy who recently brainwashed almost everyone in Ichigo's circle of friends and family to make sure poor Ichigo would have a breakdown. He's called "Shuu-chan" by some fans, who also question and bash Ichigo for being almost at the verge of the Despair Event Horizon and openly willing to kill him for the sake of those he loves, and whom Tsukishima is holding hostage.
Despite his start as a borderline Complete Monster, Sesshoumaru from Inuyasha has managed to be one of the series' most popular characters from his introduction on. Admittedly, the guiding hand of Character Development has since made him better than he used to be, earning him many more fans on much more reasonable merits, but it does mean that his earliest and cruelest behavior gets glossed over. Not to mention that fans of his have been known to cheer on his cold acts toward Inuyasha before and after his character shift, while at the same timebashing Kagome and Shippo for their far less meaner, and sometimes understandable acts.
This also goes for Kouga, a hugely popular character whose introduction is glossed over not only by fans, but also in canon. He was first introduced slaughtering human villages and allowing his wolves to eat the humans that were slain. One of the villages included Rin's and his wolves were responsible for her first death. It's quite noticeable that while Kouga and Inuyasha dealt with each other frequently and while Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru dealt with each other frequently, in the manga Kouga and Sesshoumaru (Rin's guardian) were never allowed to meet (the anime did do a filler encounter between them) and Inuyasha's group never learned that Kouga killed Rin. Nevertheless, Inuyasha's group did gloss over the fact Kouga had a history of killing humans (and letting his wolves eat them) and that this was behaviour considered typical of his entire tribe. As a result, some of his fans often feel justified in glossing over this, too.
Being a Bishoujo Series as well as a Gag Series that depends on Character Exaggeration, Galaxy Angel wouldn't be Galaxy Angel if they didn't do this intentionally. We therefore end up with a bunch of these who are marketed by their creators as lovable characters that the audience should want to be with. The most obvious example is Mint, whose scheming makes use of her odd pint-sizecuteness for fraud -- she once claimed that she and Vanilla were destitute and suicidal to get money out of a semi driver, despite her already being loaded. Even her more selfless videogame persona, which the anime parodies, is shrewd and selfish to a point.
Nina Wang still manages to retain some degree of sympathy from Mai-Otome audiences, who are willing to downplay her accidentally killing Erstin Ho, and then killing tens of thousands of innocent people to please her father by stating that she was merely a pawn of the Big Bad when it happened. Mai-Otome Zwei indicates that "this degree of sympathy" is now more or less Canon. Whether that's due to Sure Why Not, Running the Asylum, or those who have that sympathy being spot-on in their evaluation of Nina's motivations is left as an exercise to the reader.
Shizuru Fujino's original incarnation in Mai-HiME took her lesbian crush to obsessive and terrifying predatory extremes. Nonetheless, being The Ojou and an Onee-Sama meant she was the most popular character amongst the show's female fandom, which manages to portray her actions as being forged of pure love and passion. What.
The four members of Schwarz in Weiss Kreuz serve as the protagonists' Evil Counterparts and spend most of their time unrepentantly organizing mass murder and social chaos when they're not tormenting the main characters or, in the case of one member, torturing priests to death for fun; but somehow, they manage to have as large a fan following as the series' protagonists.
Hot Gimmick: A lot of fangirls are willing to overlook Ryoki's constant physical, verbal, sexual, and psychological abuse of the heroine because of his good looks. So what if he treats his Love Interest like trash? He's pretty and he has angst!
This trope has been applied to nearly all of Ranma ½ 's characters, Depending on the Writer's well-intended rationalization of a character's comedy-prone, ridiculously over-the-top personality. One of the most pervasive applications is usually on Nabiki Tendo. Since she is a relatively levelheaded and cerebral character, most Fanfic writers severely downplay her outgoing harmonic and cheerful extreme greed, selfishness, sadism, and ruthlessness, or turn her into a completely opposite "isolated tragic ice queen altruist". Naturally, Rumiko Takahashi -- her creator -- describes this nature, in combination with always getting away with what she's doing, as the reason that she is funny. In fact, some Fanon takes on characters such as this have gotten so bad that a lot of people remember them as Canon. For instance, people will remember Shampoo attacking the attempted wedding at the end of the series, but will somehow conveniently forget Ukyo's taking part in it... or even claim that she was defending everybody from Shampoo! Even a cursory glance at the manga will tell anyone this isn't so, and yet the Lionized Ukyo Who Defends Ranma and Akane's Love persists.
Ranma, too. Whether he kicks Ryoga into the Spring of Drowned Man, dumps Akane's food on him without so much as an apology, breaks into Kuno's house to steal from him, and specially when he insults Akane via calling her "ugly" or "bitch" (something easy to see as psychological abuse, specially because he knows how badly that affects a girl like her) you can bet the fans will defend him. Akane also tends to get it: while you can understand the effect that Ranma's insults have on her self-esteem, it doesn't mean she's always right when she kicks or slaps him.
Yami Yugi has also been subject to the treatment in light of his Knight Templar tendencies. He becomes kinder over time because he was paired with Yugi, and some of his more ruthless deeds are absent in the Duel Monsters anime; but he's still ruthless early on in the manga.
Valon has gotten this from fans who felt that he cared more about Mai than Joey, just because he cancelled the duel between the two when the former was on the verge of losing, and believed that Joey cared more about dueling, even though in reality, he was the one who wanted to save Mai even if it meant her soul temporarily being lost, and that he originally intended to forfeit the duel to spare her. Guys, you can't do what you don't have the means to, and Valon specifically had what he needed to cancel the duel. Worse, they viewed Mai as an Ungrateful Bastard who Valon was too good for, even though he was partly responsible for her giving in to the Orichalcos in the first place, and was in a Yandere state. Granted, this was all under the effect of the seal, but still.
A more straightforward example would be Divine. He runs a school for Physic Duelists just so he can raise them into an army he can use to take over the world based on the supposed prejudice he suffered. While appearing to the world as a Professor X like figure, he also tortures all of the recruits to test their powers and kills them if they are not strong enough for him to use. This included Misty’s little brother Tobi which lead to her death and rebirth as a Dark Signer. All the while he was manipulating Aki into being completely loyal to him while turning her into a monster and pretending to care for her. He also has multiple events that could easily be considered crossing the Moral Event Horizon such as torturing Rua in a duel, killing Carly by throwing her out of a skyscraper window when he caught her snooping in his office and trying to drown Yusei and Mikage. He is pretty much the most purely evil character in the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise that is not an Eldritch Abomination, insane, Made of Evil, or a several thousand year old spirit of vengeance. However fangirls like to ignore all of that and focus on his Mind Game Ship with Aki instead. Because of course guys are allowed to manipulate girls in any way they like as long as they are hot enough.
Light Yagami from Death Note, sociopath, Manipulative Bastard, Knight Templar and Villain Protagonist. He is self-obsessed to the point of narcissism, and competitive to the point of sadism. He cold-bloodedly murders anyone who stands in his way, including the police and his own girlfriend, who he forces to burn herself to death. Over the course of the series arc, he kills hundreds of thousands of people, mostly on the flimsiest of evidence, or on hearsay. His stated goal from the beginning is to create a worldwide police state in which everyone will worship him as God. While he does have some complexity, and it's certainly possible to argue that he's not a Complete Monster, he has hordes of fangirls both in-universe and out who think that he's a misunderstood visionary, or a good guy underneath it all. It just ain't so. There is also Misa Amane, who has her following of devoted fanboys who seem to think that adorableness somehow excuses near-indiscriminate mass-murder.
Mello gets more than his fair share of fangirls, seeing as he's an incredibly diabolical crime lord... and he's the only one of the characters who actually wears form-fitting leather.
Mikami also gets this due to his sympathetic backstory. This treatment ignores the fact that he's one of the most blatantly insane characters in the series.
Despite not being actually villainous, L fits this trope to a minor extent. While he isn't a vicious murderer like the competition, some support L over Kira (and even believe L can do no wrong, in classic DILP fashion) simply because they find L sexier, or they find his mannerisms to be cute.
Beyond Birthday, that wonderfully psychotic serial killer from Death Note: Another Note. Most fans try and forget his very gruesome murders and unstable mentality and turn him into a fuck-toy for L. Too many fics have been written where Beyond is portrayed as very out of character.
Seiichi Yukimura and Keigo Atobe in The Prince of Tennis, and by extension, their teams (Rikkaidai and Hyoutei Gakuen).
In the specific case of Keigo Atobe, he's a Magnificent Bastard who can be ruthless on the courts and has the biggest court presence in the series, but also has genuine Pet the Dog moments (like the "Atobe kara no Okurimono" movie). Some of his fans take their love of him a bit too far: they scream "OMG ORE-SAMA YAAAAAAAY!" at the sight of him, mindlessly gush over his good looks and twist him into some sort of selfless, gorgeous White Prince who shall be adored and loved, while horribly bashing whoever looks at him wrong (specially Ryoma, and sometimes Yukimura if they're Atobe/Sanada fangirls). Basically, they strip Atobe of what makes him fun and interesting as a character, and try to pass their version of Atobe as Better Than Canon.
Akito from Fruits Basket, despite being an obsessive Control Freak that liked torturing his family members and planned to lock one of them in a cage for the rest of his life, was treated sympathetically by the fans almost entirely because he was a cute Bishonen. When it was finally revealed that Akito was not a bishonen, but a girl, those fangirls turned on Akito. Akito doesbecome a more sympathetic and less openly evil character when the backstory and motivations are fleshed out in the plot, but that was after the big reveal. The fangirls had based their opinion on the abusive psycho Akito; they thought the Moral Event Horizon was crossed by Akito's only pretending to be male. Most of us reading here would probably disagree with that idea...
In the anime, however, Akito actually is male.
"Host Samurai", a vampire who was forced to join the Gantz team, is in danger of becoming this. Never mind that he's killed numerous people including both the main character and his brother.
There are several villainous and anti-heroic characters in Dragon Ball Z who receive this kind of treatment from the fans (and Goku, whether long standing or only for five seconds) but perhaps the most Egregious example of all is Vegeta. Despite displaying largely Jerkass behavior that can either be seen as evil or self-centered, Vegeta has gone on to become perhaps the most popular character in the series, second only to Goku. Despite committing genocide against entire worlds (Planet Arlia in the anime), beating up young children who can barely defend themselves (Gohan and Dende), slaughtering innocent people (the Namekians he encountered on Namek along with those spectators during the Buu Saga when he soul his soul to Babidi to get back to being ruthless and get a power boost so he could fight Goku again), endangering the earth because of his pride and stupidity (allowing Cell to become Perfect so that he could enjoy his fight more), and generally having an unpleasant personality, Vegeta has become so well-received that Akira Toriyama even had to resurrect him after he was initially killed by Frieza. It should also be pointed out that in Dragon Ball GT, the writers literally put Vegeta in leather pants when he went SSJ 4 as a form of fan service.
In his defense, Vegeta does gradually get over himself to the point of finally accepting in the end that Goku is the better person, and he does have the backstory of being raised as essentially a crowned slave in Frieza's evil organization, whose clear philosophy is survival of the fittest and dog-eat-dog. Remember, his main gripe was with being lied to about the meteor killing his planet, which he may or may not have suspected for a long time anyway, and working on Frieza's pace and schedule at all times rather than his own, in fact he wanted to kill Frieza so he could take the throne for himself rather than bring down the organization.
Piccolo is a "In-universe" example.
Parodied in Pokémon. Meowth of Team Rocket has this with Giovanni, even though Giovanni frequently mistreats him and is shown to be ruthless. Meowth imagines him as simply a nice guy with a gruff exterior who likes to go shirtless.
Team Rocket themselves could get this from certain fans back in the day, when they were actually more dangerous and people claimed they were just victims of circumstance. This is no longer applicable now that the trio has had more Pet the Dog moments and has more or less evolved into the comic Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains.
Paul is easily the biggest Jerkass among Ash's rivals, releasing any Pokémon that don't meet his standards, insulting Ash at any given opportunity and acting cold toward everyone else he meets, and most notably having his entire team gang up on his Chimchar, in an effort to force it into activating its Blaze ability, which is unusually powerful, and then rage-quitting on it and releasing it, effectively abandoning it out of disgust (everything that happened that day and the night before really soured Ash's opinion of Paul). He gets a small handful of Break the Haughty moments throughout the series, but mostly goes unpunished. Despite his jerkassery, he has a sizable fanbase who claims he "makes the story more interesting by inspiring new emotions in Ash." Never mind that other characters have been perfectly capable of keeping the story interesting and making Ash think or feel without being abusive knobs.
It has been done with Zagato from Magic Knight Rayearth -- treating him as the hero of the first story arc... despite his being willing to deceive and manipulate his underlings, even letting one of them die -- or, in the manga, killing her personally in a You Have Failed Me moment. He may have had motives we can sympathize with, but still... he was going to kill the only genuine, complete innocents in the entire affair. And his plan involved letting the world be destroyed along with countless innocent people in it simply because it was based on an unfair and corrupt system.
The Varia, specifically their leaderXanxus, from Katekyo Hitman Reborn, further enforced by the fact that they really do all wear leather pants. Even the robot. In fact, every single villain (and even one Wild Card protagonist) in Reborn is subject to this. Taken to ridiculous lengths in Japanese fandom when Hibari and Mukuro ranked #1 and #4 respectively in a poll for who people would most like to marry.
The cold hearted, abusive, manipulative and arrogant Daemon Spade, on whom most fangirls' comments can be summed as "I know he's an asshole, but he's so hot!". But between his good looks and his awesome clothing, who can blame them? (Image contains spoilers, of course).
Byakuran, who not only doesn't have a backstory other than how he got his powers, but he murdered anyone who got in the way of his goal, even tossing aside his own allies when he got bored of them. Yet the fans can still over look this because of his sweet tooth, cute smile and carefree attitude.
Fans still love Rokudo Mukurou even after learning about all the horrificthings he did in the past.
Quite a few fangirls of Creed from Black Cat excuse his actions of stalking Train, murdering Train's first (and at the time only) friend Saya, trying to murder Train's other friends, and murdering countless innocents for world domination because he was picked on when he was young.
A less frequently noted example would be Cornelia li Britannia, who is all too happy to enforce Britannia's MO of Social Darwinism, preferably with an excessive (if not outright sadistic) amount of violence. She'll slaughter entire ghettos just to recreate the conditions in which Zero first appeared (to challenge his ego, and it did work), gladly sacrifice hostages rather than negotiate with terrorists (unless her beloved little sister Euphemia is among them, in which case she'll at least try a rescue attempt), and even chews out said sister for desiring to stand up to the rule of discrimination against Numbers by selecting Eleven Suzaku Kururugi as her personal Knight. Being a BadassDark Action Girl, having nice threads, and caring for her sister seems to deflect a lot of the bad publicity this would otherwise garner. She is not a Complete Monster, yeah, but neither is she the super cool idol her fans claim that she is.
What's interesting is that while neither Lelouch nor Suzaku are villains in the traditional sense, they are far from being paragons of morality like die-hard members of their fanbase often make them out to be.
Enishi Yukishiro from Rurouni Kenshin can sometimes be seen by fan(girl)s as this misunderstood little boy who only wanted his sister's love and wished for her to smile upon him no matter what. While one is certainly justified in being traumatized and scarred for life by his sister and mother figure's death, it doesn't quite excuse a lot of other stuff he did after his sister Tomoe died. For example, brutally slaughtering the kind family who took him in just because he couldn't stand their "happiness," becoming a crime lord in Shanghai, and selling weapons to known psychotic revolutionary Shishio. He did all of this so he could psychologically torment the sympathetic and almost saint-like Kenshin, who's tried to do his best ever since Tomoe's death to atone for his crimes and help others.
Ali Al-Saachez from Mobile Suit Gundam 00 has a lot of rabid fans who bash the people whom he's murdered just For the Evulz (Hot Scoop Kinue Crossroads is still called a "dumb whore" for trusting Ali and then being murdered by him in cold blood) and cheer when he thrashes the Moral Event Horizon. His numerous evil actions make him one of the biggest Complete Monsters in the entire Gundam franchise; and yet, many of his fans love to downplay these to play up his impressive piloting skills and his rugged good looks. The infamous "Prince Ali" meme ("Prince Ali, Mighty is He!") says it all in a single song parody.
While Nena Trinity was The Scrappy of the series for a long time, and while many of the fans she did have at the time were fully aware she's a crazy Cute Psycho and didn't downplay/excuse her acts of villainy (even calling out those who did it), the airing of the English dub on the Sci-Fi Channel seems to have given her a new fanbase that finds her utterly cute even when she's blowing up weddings out of boredom. She did get Rescued From the Scrappy Heap somewhat by helping Setsuna out of a pinch just to spite on her "mistress" Wang Liu-Mei, an even bigger Scrappy in season two, but that doesn't really excuse the wedding massacre. Though there are some who don't excuse her, but pity her for being a rather wasted character in said second season.
There is also Hallelujah, Allelujah's Super-Powered Evil Side. While Allelujah himself is a decent, mild-mannered guy, Hallelujah is a big bastard who enjoys killing his opponents in slow and painful manners and causing Alle a lot of angst. The fangirls? Woobify him and make him into a sex god in their fics. Go figure.
Ribbons Almark. He is a character created in honor of Toru Furuya's role as Amuro Ray, the first hero in the entire franchise - just as Full Frontal is creacted in honor of Shuuichi Ikeda's role as the first antagonist of the franchise, Char Aznable - and thus has a great chance to become one such trope.
Outlaw Star has Harry Macdougal, who gets love from fangirls despite being an Ax CrazyStalker with a Crush. Yeah, it was really cute the way Harry slapped Melfina around when she turned down his advances and tried to kidnap her. It probably has a lot to do with the end of the series, when Harry, reduced to his last legs from the effort of getting to Melfina and from having his body brutally broken by Hazankou, says a very tender farewell and gives his life to wake her up for the climax, and Melfina, for her part, is more broken up about it than any real person with their history ever would be.Draco in Leather Pants because of Death Equals Redemption. They're starting to recurse...
One of the most bizarre examples from Naruto fan fiction is none other than the Kyuubi. This is a being noted as a living natural disaster with a will composed solely of its hatred for everything else, supported by its stated desires to kill the eponymous character and pretty much anything else it happens upon. The fanfics try to give it a sympathetic backstory, but it usually boils down to a repetitive "they killed my kits and mate and I got angry; I'm sowwy" excuse, in spite of the fact that it's nothing more than a construct of malignant chakra.
Ironically, being percieved as nothing more than a construct of malignant chakra that can be harnessed and weaponized, is pretty much the main reason the Ninetails hates everybody so much. As canon would have it, he actually IS a sentient being, and becomes more sympathetic than he originally seems. His attack on the Hidden Leaf was directed by Tobi who had full control over him at the time, and the only reason he wanted to kill Naruto is because he saw him as yet another human trying to exploit him.
Despite being one of the least sympathetically portrayed of all the Akatsuki, Hidan has some of the most die-hard fangirls. Yes, thatHidan. Apparently it's okay to sadistically murder people if you have white hair and walk around with your midriff exposed. As long as you're sexy enough, the Fangirls will go to any lengths to justify your sociopathic behavior, up to and including: inventing sympathetic backstory where there was none; pulling Freudian Excuses out of their asses; and coming up with lame excuses to vilify your victims. The problem is that Hidan is not only monstruous, but so damn fun whie being a monster. Specially in the anime, which makes him a Large Ham who acts almost like a Psychopathic Manchild and has very amusing interactions with Kakuzu. That alone will bring lots of fans... too bad they simply refuse to admit that his charm is how much of an amusing bastard Hidan was, and try woobiefying him. COME ON! Hidan was amusing and all, but he was an asshole, and a very unapologetic one at that - making him a Woobiemisses the point and the fun of his character.
Itachi Uchiha is widely liked even though he killed his entire family and committed numerous atrocities while a member of Akatsuki. And that was before we learned that he was ordered to kill the Uchiha clan by Danzo to prevent them from launching a coup against the village, joined Akatsuki to keep an eye on them, and planned it so that Sasuke would become a hero for killing him and get the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Sometimes Draco in Leather Pants justifications do become reality.
Most Itachi fans are Sasuke haters, meaning that the fact he did all of it for his brother will often be ignored or specifically used against Sasuke on the grounds of instantly becoming Madara's pawn. This ignores the fact that all that Itachi did for Sasuke turned Sasuke into a raging lunatic. In other words, nearly all of Sasuke's hateful attributes are Itachi's fault.
Speaking of Uchiha, there's Sasuke. Some of his fans think he's actually justified in planning to destroy Konoha and everyone in it (including his former friends) even though the most responsible person from Konoha for ruining his life is already dead.. There's all the Sasuke x Sakura shipping fics in which Sasuke returns to the village and mostly seamlessly integrates back in. It's kind of funny how as the series keeps going, and Sasuke dives deeper and deeper into his Heel status, the attempts to explain just how he ends up a good guy again so that sexy times can start now get shorter and more frequently waved away as AU.
And to make it an Uchiha trifecta, there is also Sasuke and Itachi's mother, Mikoto. Most fans like to ignore or deny that Mikoto was an active participant and had full knowledge of the coup, and instead treat her as a God-send who had obviously been forced into a abusive and loveless marriage. Never mind that she was a jounin and could take care of herself, and never once showed a sign that she didn't love her husband. Apparently in the eyes of the fandom, she's too hot to be a traitor.
Tayuya. Most fanfiction that have her as a main character have her inexplicably survive Temari's burying of her during the Sasuke Retrival Arc, only for the pursuing medics and/or Kakashi to stumble upon her, and, after she explains/spews that she was forced into working for Orochimaru, she is taken back to Konoha for treatment and possibly a Q&A with Ibiki/Inoichi. She usually then joins the "treehuggers" ranks with none of the Konoha 11 questioning it.
In Fushigi Yuugi, Nakago is pretty much permanently camped out on the wrong side of the Moral Event Horizon, while Suboshi crosses it in a shockingly horrible way about halfway through the series (and he was partially manipulated by Nakago into doing that). However, a combination of tragic childhoods and Pet the Dog moments have earned both characters enough fan sympathy that Nakago shows up in slash fics all over the place, while Suboshi is a more popular match for Yui than her Canon boyfriend, Tetsuya. The authoress Yuu Watase herself acts this way towards Nakago, allowing him to go to Heaven when he died, despite all the terrible things he did.
Apparently, someone or some people on the writing staff of the Yu Yu Hakusho anime decided to canonly Draco in Leather Pants the sociopathic, pure evil, but attractive crime boss Sakyo, and gave him a romantic plotline with Kuwabara's sister, Shizuru, that was not present at all in the original manga and just wound up turning Shizuru into a Draco in Leather Pants fangirl, who hears Sakyo boast about his lifetime of nonstop cruelty and yet still cries at his death in the end; in fact, she even tries to stop him from dying, and is held back by Koenma.
Dr. Kazutaka Muraki from Yami no Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness). He rapes Hisoka and kills him, tries to rape Tsuzuki repeatedly and wants to transplant his dead brother's consciousness into Tsuzuki so he can kill him. He kills, tortures, or destroys virtually everyone he meets, yet in fandom he's either loved because he's an asshole or made up to be a pitiable creature who just needs love, which in the latter case, would make him an example of this.
Happens regularly in Black Butler. His urbanity, manners, and good looks cause many people to overlook the fact that Sebastian Michaelis is an utterly amoral (if not outright evil) and incredibly predatory demon implied to have caused to Black Plague. Some fans also overlook the fact that Grelle is a sadistic serial killer, perhaps because of his comedic traits.
Ciel is no saint, either. As the queen's watchdog, he can be fairly ruthless when carrying out his tasks, but many fans are willing to cut him some slack because he's, what? Twelve?
Pirate Empress Boa Hancock of One Piece. Interestingly, it's a rare case of fangirls idealizing a female character who's turned out to be good Possession Sue material. Otherwise, we wouldn't have so many fans who think she's going to join the crew and easily be the strongest, marry Luffy, and free all the slaves in the world. In reality, her overall moral character is still questionable; she doesn't really seem to care for anyone other than her family and Luffy. She's very sympathetic, and does have a genuinelygoodFreudian Excuse, but she's still not nearly as good as some of her fans would like her to be.
Blackbeard. He gained a lot of fans through being Affably Evil and having his worst crimes (murdering one of his comrades and devastating Drum Island) happen off-screen. The Marineford Arc confirmed without a shadow of doubt that he's evil and shaping up to be the Big Bad, but the Fan Dumb seems to be in denial.
Russia from Axis Powers Hetalia is a Jerkass Woobie who has a canon Freudian Excuse for being a mentally unstable Psychopathic Manchild and has a soft spot for his sister Ukraine, but whose very insanity and Yandereness is precisely what draws many fans to him in the first place. As a result, he's one of those characters who bothinverts this and plays it straight: On one hand, a number of fans happily embrace his psychotic tendencies in fanworks, some of them even exaggerating them to turn him into a Memetic Molester who rapes and tortures other nations at every opportunity - some of this is admittedly due to Die for Our Ship reasons, but such portrayals of Russia in a Mind Game Ship with another nation are almost always done by supporters of that ship. However, on the other hand, an equal number of fans tone down his psychoticness and/or the "Jerkass" part of Jerkass Woobie in shipping fics, sometimes to the point of making him completely unrecognizable as a 100% sane and mentally stable guy or a suave "bad guy" with barely a hint of childishness or Yandereness. All of this is why many Russia fans tend not to like any shipping fanfiction involving him, as you will almost never find a version of him anywhere near canon.
Let's not forget Prussia, too. He's a former Blood Knight who has sought combat since he was a child, beat up other nations and got himself beaten up as well, grew as a Church Militant teenage nation who still got into many fights, as an adult nation he kept fighting everyone in his surroudings, and even after calming down a bit he can still be quite the Jerkass. While's he's not a bad guy per se and has had a number of Pet the Dog moments, some of his rabid fangirls like to paint him as some super sexy and badass Memetic Sex God who never does anything wrong and either has more "right" to Hungary's vagina than that stupid, "abusive", unmanly sissy Austria, or is a poor little angel while Hungary is an evil bitch for not bowing to him. (Thaty is, unless Prussia is given the Ron the Death Eater treatment...)
Although not evil (she does have a good side), there's Athena from Hayate the Combat Butler. Her fans have a tendency to disregard any indications that she might not be entirely good or that she might have some personality problems (which she rather does) in favour of focusing on how 'beautiful and awesome' she is. Anyone who tries to point this out will likely either get attacked, be accused of trolling, or be told 'Well, only her fans can see how truly great she is!'. (They've also been spotted claiming she's the author's favourite character, for some reason.)
There are fangirls of MurataAzrael from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. He's a Complete Monster who tried to commit genocide against the genetically altered, kills or abuses several sympathetic characters, and believes that the best way to solve political disputes is to kill the people you're having the dispute with, all while thinking he's much brighter than he really is. But they'll excuse that because he's a pretty boy.
And before these two, Char Aznable from the original Mobile Suit Gundam in the Universal Century has legions of fans who will pick an argument with anyone so much as doubting his greatness. Char, a man so popular he spawned an entire character type of imitations is often considered one of the greatest examples of a Noble Demon within Anime. Despite when he emotionally manipulated others for his own gain, blamed others for the tragic consequences of stuff he did, or tried to throw a massive asteriod at Earth and cause a nuclear winter for a reason so detached from logic and reason that it might have as well been For the Evulz. Tomino has even shown that Char's views on reality are not in sync with real life. Even Char's own sister Sayla has commented on this. But just try explaining this to the fans.
Four Murasame of Zeta Gundam fame gets this both in the show and from the fans, both of which try to claim that she was a sweet and innocent girl and that her relationship with Kamille was true love at it's finest. Fact is, while Four was horribly abused by the Titans' researchers who turned her into a Super Soldier, she is repeatedly shown to be competent young woman, capable of making her own decisions, who chooses to continue fighting for the Titans, despite repeated chances to make a clean escape. When Kamille tells her that she can make new memories with him (as opposed to getting her old ones back from the Titans by working for them) she tells him flatout that any new memories she might make mean nothing to her, and then proceeds to burn down most of Hong Kong with the Psyco Gundam while ranting about "What good is this city if I can't have my memory!?" She's a victim, but she's a victimiser too, and both the fandom and Kamille would really like to forget that.
Lucia from Rave Master, who is essentially that world's Hitler, is all too often looked at as a poor troubled boy who just took the only path open to him after having a bad childhood. Yes, getting locked up in prison as a little kid because of who your dad is sucks, but it's not an excuse to go an commit mass murder.
Izaya of Durarara. Despite the fact that he's a arrogant bastard most of the time, likes to fuck with and manipulate people and supernatural beingsFor the Evulz with no apparent remorse, he's such a recipient of Jerkass Dissonance that he's easily one of the most popular characters in the series. This is thanks largely to his hilarious dialogue, oddly charming personality, and good looks. He even manages to be a DILP in series as well, where there's a number of teenage girls such as Kida's ex-girlfriend/HoneyTrap, Saki, who worship the ground he walks on and will follow even his most dangerous requests.
Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist has a rather devoted fangirl following despite being a murderous psychopath who enjoys killing and torturing humans and is personally responsible for the killing of another fan favorite character. In the manga and Brotherhood, he takes delight and pride in the fact that he ignited the Ishbalan War by shooting a small child while in the guise of a moderate Amestrian officer. This means Envy is responsible for the Ishbalan genocide, the creation of Scar as a killer and the deaths of the Rockbells. Envy also kills Hughes while impersonationing his wife and later taunts Roy about the murder while again looking like Hughes' wife. In the first anime, he abuses Wrath when the latter becomes obsessed with trying to revive Sloth after her death, takes on the form of Hughes while Ed is fighting him, and actually manages to kill Ed. And yet fangirls still love him.
Zolf J. Kimbley is also similar in terms of personality and popularity; he is the second villian fan favorite after Envy. Kimbley kills humans for fun, and nothing more. He is reponsible for mass genocide and is perfectly fine siding with a race that wants to destroy humanity. Yet, fans say his interesting personality make up for the fact that he is an insane murderer.
A lot of fans of Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro conveniently forget that Neuro is a ruthless, manipulative, sadistic demon who truly enjoys torturing people for the heck of it. They also forget the fact that he saved humanity only to wait for the day they kill each other to create his food.
Raven of Zoids: Chaotic Century has a tragic backstory and mellows out somewhat towards the end of the series, but this doesn't change the fact that he's a jingoistic, bloodthirsty killer who has murdered dozens of innocent soldiers in cold blood (even those on his own side!) and attempted a genocide of an entire sentient species, even if said species happens to be mechanical. In classic Draco In Leather Pants fashion, Raven's fans downplay his genocidal tendancies in favour of playing him up as some kind woobie.
This applies mainly to the anime adaptation, however. In the original manga, Raven was slightly more sympathetic, with motivations that made more sense, and would at least refrain from murdering humans if he didn't need to.
Hansel and Gretel were supposed to be Jerkass Woobies, having had horrific pasts that left their scars in their terrifyingly sociopathic behaviors. As in, they torture and kill people for fun in the worst ways ever, and end up paying with their own lives for such behaviors that make even hardened people feel revolted and give the biggest and baddest badasses of Roaranopur huge reasons to want them dead. Some fans, however, take out the Jerkass out of Jerkass Woobie and bash the shit out of said people, Chang and Balalaika (and specially Chang, who doesn't hide his contempt for them), conveniently "forgetting" that the kids are nicknamed "Vampire Twins" for good reasons, and both adults aren't angry just for the lulz (Like, the twins have remorselessly, needlesly and cruelly killed their subordinates., therefore pressing Balalaika's biggest Berserk Button). Yeah, it's sad that the kids went through sheer Hell and no one is saying it's not, but considering that Chang is a deconstruction of Hitman with a Heart and that Balalaika had the twins killed to punish them for the murder and torture of two of her men, there is somewhat of a limit to the sympathies.
This one is more volatile, but in the manga sequel to Bobobobo Bobobo, Heppokomaru/Gasser, an ally of the eponymous character, betrays the group in order to save his sister, mostly for the sake of upping Bo-bobo in terms of power. He even tries to enhance himself with drugs in order to do so; sadly, fangirls (especially ones in the West who only get so much material of what happened) still see him as the somewhat Adorkable punk that he was. It's even worse when you realize that the same sister he was trying to save had been willingly working for The Empire of the series the entire time, and is an all-powerful, borderline Mary Sue magical girl; she's also the sequel's source of Lolita fanservice (Word of God states her to be ten years old). Because she's so darn cute, though, Pokomi is easily a female version of this trope.
And finally there's Namero Yononaka, who eventually becomes the Big Bad; he's bitter and narcissistic, only caring about his own power, but...This one mostly applies to Japanese fans, though, as Namero isn't very popular with his few Western fans.
Kyouko Sakura of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an interesting example of a temporaryDraco in Leather Pants. She started out as a selfish, amoral, and overly aggressive Jerkass, before revealing a major and very well-done Freudian Excuse and steadily becoming a much kinder person thanks to the influence of the rest of the cast (particularly her initial rival, Sayaka). However, a tremendous amount of pantsing occurred before the as-then-unanticipated Character Development made it irrelevant, simply because she happened to look cool.
Getter Robo suffers from this as well. All the characters are anti-heroes to some degree, and generally quite violent and dickish. But the one character who gets the vast majority of fanart? Heroic Sociopath Hayato, a terrorist and the only protagonist who outright murders people and could be called legitimately crazy.
Lucy from Elfen Lied. Now, this was completely deliberate on the writers' part, since Evil Is Sexy and Lucy is one of the most sympatheticmass murderers in anime history with a genuinely powerful Freudian Excuse, but regardless: to hear her fanboys (and more than one fangirl) talk, you'd think that she had never done anything wrong and just needed a hug to be turned into an angel of sweetness and light, never mind the fact that she started off the series freely killing any human except for Kouta who ever crossed her path. Her romantic rival, Unlucky Childhood Friend Yuka, is of course turned into Ron the Death Eater, and her Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies are Flanderized to the point that the Lucy fandom often gleefully wish for Lucy to dismember Yuka. Of course, Lucy is not only a Clingy Jealous Girl, but a Yandere who slaughtered an entire carnival full of innocent people (including Kouta's own father and sister) when Kouta snubbed her...but don't tell that to her fans, or they'll tell you that they all deserved it.
Leon Oswald from Kaleido Star. While he does have understandable reasons to be the way he is, these do NOT justify how his fangirls handwave or ommit the crap he has pulled on Sora, May and on many others, like the innocent partners that he injured just to test their worth. Not to mention we only learn of said Freudian Excusevery late in the story... and he was a DILP ever since his first appearance.
Mayu Shinjo has a habit of creating these characters (sometimes literally). Sakuya Ookochi from Sensual Phrase and Uon Hakuron from Haou Airen are two notable examples of these. They have good looks and while their Dark and Troubled Pastsdoes make them for who they are, these still do not justify their Jerkass tendencies and their treatment to their respective love interests (Aine and Kurumi) borders on Victim Falls For Rapist multiple times. On the flipside, fangirls tend to bash Aine and Kurumi for being "bitches", "weak", and they also putting the blame on them for the abuse piling on them.
Not old enough to make it everyone know what, though it is Older Than the NES: in the old Voltron cartoon, based on the anime serrie GoLion, many girls adored the self-proclaimed evil Prince Sincline/Lotor, despite his attempts not only to kidnap Princess Fala/Allura, kill the Voltron Force and raze her planet to a smoldering pile of ash, but also (and repeatedly) to force her into marriage, brainwash her, or commit various other despicable acts; he has never shown an ounce of remorse for any of this. Many fans will attempt to argue that he was forced to do this by his father and leader, and it IS pretty obvious that he was raised to be an evil bastard... but even then he hatched and enjoyed half these plans, and even though he continued making them after he usurped his father. Others will say it's all out of love for Fala/Allura, even though said "love" led him to capture and abuse her cousin and lookalike, Princess Amue/Romelle, over their looks. But he's just so pretty...
In the GoLion backstory, Sincline's mother was a kidnap victim from Altea (over a century ago, since Sincline has his 106th Birthday in-series) who bored Daibazaal/Zarkon when she begged for better treatment for the other slaves and then was killed. In series Sincline once shoved Fala/Allura's face into his crotch; while the abuse is never shown on screen, one gets the serious impression he did something to Amue/Romelle, when he had her captive -- and even when the Amue/Romelle deal was kinda Bowdlerized in Voltron, it still looked damn rapey. Even in Lotor's case, in the final Voltron season (the one made new for WEP by Toei), he uses a woman's love for him and openly mocks ideas of his redemption in the final ep. A Take That at this trope?
Regarding Kannazuki no Miko, Chikane's horrible mistakes and actions and especially her mental and ultimately sexual abuse of Himeko, tend to be forgiven and swept under the rug by her fans (especially Yuri fans) because she's a hot and Wangsty lesbian girl.
↑Oh, and tries to kill the Mews and dozens upon dozens of Innocent Bystanders, too. On multiple occasions.
Quotes • 
Headscratchers • 
Playing With • Useful Notes • 
Analysis • 
Image Links • 
Haiku • Laconic