Right-Hand Hottie

File:Descendants of Darkness-Seiichiro Tatsumi.jpg

Behind every powerful man (or woman, occasionally), there is a secretary, assistant, or aide to keep his schedule and organize the paperwork. This character is usually calm and meticulous, is likely to wear a crisply pressed suit, and may have hot little glasses. In other words, they're a perfect excuse to throw in a little Fan Service. Because Most Writers Are Male, this tends to take the form of the Sexy Secretary, but sometimes (especially in works that lean towards a female audience), it'll be an attractive guy: the Right-Hand Hottie.

If the boss is also a hot guy, there's opportunity for Ho Yay via Subordinate Excuse, for additional Mr. Fanservice value.

Spear Counterpart to the Sexy Secretary. If they are more than fanservice they function as The Face.

Examples of Right-Hand Hottie include:

Anime and Manga

• Descendants of Darkness: Grouchy old man Chief Konoe has hot secretary Seiichiro Tatsumi (seen above).
• 100% Perfect Girl: Prince Jarte (himself no slouch in the looks department) has two: His secretary and head of intelligence Benjamin, who is very pretty, has little glasses and butt-length hair, and Kairen, the head of the secret service, who is pretty and pouts a lot.
• Sai, secretary to the Millenium Prime Minister, complete with long pretty hair and a massive case of unrequited love.
• More yaoi than you can shake a large, suggestively-shaped stick at, as it's a standard plot.
  • Specially in Boku no Sexual Harassment, where the Uke Mochizuki is told by the Seme Honma to sex-up his way through the company he works.
• Kyoya from Ouran High School Host Club, who practically runs the whole club behind Tamaki. And why yes there are hints of a homoerotic undercurrent.
• In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, we have this in G, Giotto (Vongola Primo)'s glasses-wearing right hand man. In the anime, there is even a episode where G demonstrates this. Gokudera seems to have turned into this in the future.
• Rei Hino's father had one in the Sailor Moon manga, a Megane young man named Kaidou. He's a Big Brother Mentor to Rei, though she harbors a crush on him for a while.
• Freeza from DragonBall Z had his general/assistant Zarbon, a fighting narcissist who's goods looks managed to make Bulma fall in love with him the second she laid eyes on him.
• In Axis Powers Hetalia, Isolationist!Japan has the Moe Anthropomorphism of the Osaka Prefecture handling his meetings with the only mantion he meets up with, Netherlands.
  • In the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010 England has a Tall, Dark and Handsome secretary, dubbed Workbitch Bartholomew by fans. He quickly gained status as an Ensemble Darkhorse because of his good looks.
    • And in the "Can't Escape from Italy" strips/episodes, England had another Tall, Dark and Handsome aidé, a spy named Howard. Fans speculate that, since "Mr. Workbitch" looks like him, he may be Howard's relative (possibly his grandson)
• Kanon from Code Geass, with emphasis on the Ho Yay. He claims to aid his boss Schneizel "in both public and private," and this official artwork (possibly NSFW) suggests that the creators were quite aware of the innuendo. He's not particularly Hypercompetent Sidekick, though--Schniezel can manage well enough on his own.

Film

• Ryan Reynolds to Sandra Bullock in The Proposal.

Live Action TV

• Mad Men: Lane Pryce's secretary right hand, John Hooker, is one of these even within the universe: as office manager at Sterling Cooper upon its takeover by Putnam, Powell, and Lowe, he replaces Joan...and is thus in charge of the secretarial pool. The secretaries (besides Joan, who hates him for personal reasons and disdains him for professional ones) all swoon over his good looks and sexy British accent.
• In Friends, Rachel hires a totally unqualified guy for her assistant solely on the basis that he was cute.
• On Heroes, the Haitian was right-hand hottie to Noah Bennet. Played by former Hugo Boss model Jimmy Jean-Louis, no less.
• Torchwood's Ianto Jones. Although his boss/boyfriend is a greater source of Fan Service than he is, recurring character Captain John Hart refers to Ianto as "Eye Candy", apparently in the belief that that's why he's kept around.
  • In the first episode, Jack introduces him as the guy a) who handles clean-up, b) gets the team from place to place, and c) "looks good in a suit." So yeah, John wasn't too far off.
• On Doctor Who, Harriet Jones (Prime Minister) and Torchwood One leader Yvonne Hartman both had attractive right-hand men.
• Billy Keikeya, Gaius Baltar and (to an extant in Seasons 1-3 and fully in Season 4) Lee "Apollo" Adama fill this role for Education Secretary/President Laura Roslin on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
• Maya on Just Shoot Me did this as an experiment for an article, pitting a handsome doof against someone who was qualified but plain-looking. Guess who won.
• Merlin's Ensemble Darkhorse Sir Leon is Arthur's second-in-command. Having appeared throughout season 2 simply as a random knight, he was upgraded in season 3 to this trope.

Video Games

• Valvatorez from Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten has Fenrich, his perpetually shirtless White-Haired Pretty Boy werewolf manservant.

Western Animation

• The Simpsons: in one episode, Homer gets an attractive male Hypercompetent Assistant with Ho Yay overtones.
  • Also Mr Smithers, assistant to Mr Burns, as far as some of the viewers are concerned.
• Kronk to Yzma in The Emperors New Groove.
• Metalocalypse's Charles Foster Offdensen.
• Owen Burnett is the right hand to David Xanatos (yes, that Xanatos)

Real Life

• Catherine the Great was fond of those. Platon Zubov was a particularly outstanding example of the trope.