Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Absolute Boyfriend: Riiko is an Unlucky Everydudette, she has a string of rejections and doesn't seem to realize that her Unlucky Childhood Friend has a crush on her (that or his teasing her simply puts her off).
- Ah! My Goddess: Keiichi Morisato had trouble with girls due to his short height, which affected his self-confidence, but he is otherwise a moderate character; he has friends, went to a decent college, and has a knack for auto mechanics. His real problem is that he has absurdly terrible luck, to the point that even when things go his way, they do so via something else going horribly wrong.
- Ai Yori Aoshi: Kaoru Hanabishi had no real obvious issues (and was considered attractive) until his "unluckiness" was revealed as being the victim of orphanhood AND repeated child abuse from his grandfather.
- A Certain Magical Index gives us protagonist Kamijou Touma, who has a tendency to get into various scraps because of his Chronic Hero Syndrome. Compounded even worse because of his ability Imagine Breaker, which is lampshaded to even negate his luck! This ability also justifies the light novel's Harem Genre, as his Imagine Breaker is even thought to be able to cancel the Red String of Fate. No fated lover means plenty of available options...
- Kouta from Elfen Lied. He is constantly found in compromising positions with female characters by... other female characters, and is given a lot of flack for this by Yuka. Not to mention his entire family ends up being killed because of one white lie.
- Faeries' Landing: Ryang Jegal is cursed to suffer 108 doomed relationships. This is played up for comedy.
- Hayate the Combat Butler features Hayate, a debt-ridden butler who has poverty and bad luck written all over his face. Note that his parents named him Hayate (wind) so he could run fast as the wind from the debt-collectors and other "very nice people".
- Here Is Greenwood: Kazuya Hasukawa of is prone to nosebleeds whenever he's stressed (like around his first crush, who ended up marrying his brother), attracts the kind of people who pick on him, is prone to illness, and has such bad luck that he was hit by a car on his way to his new school, delaying his entry by a month. He's also extremely fast, reasonably athletic, and at least decent in his studies.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Jean Havoc is relatively attractive, an army officer, and generally a nice guy. Despite this, his bad luck with women is notorious among his friends and colleagues, who often add insult to injury by making fun of him for it. Not only that, the time his new girlfriend turned out to be Lust, who proceeded to stab him in the abdomen, effectively paralyzing him from the waist down. Poor, poor Havoc... but he gets his leg mobility back in the end.
- Love Hina:
- Keitaro Urashima was a victim of low self-esteem, bad grades and terrible luck with girls, and was initially only kept afloat by a near-irrational optimism.
- Ema Maeda from the epilogue. Low self-esteem, bad grades, wears glasses, small breasts, klutzy? All check.
- Martian Successor Nadesico: Akito Tenkawa of is traumatized (and continues to be so) to the point of actual Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But, for whatever reason, he still attracts a sizable Unwanted Harem.
- Daikichi from My Lovely Ghost Kana ends up in the haunted apartment after losing his job and his previous residence. Even a chapter after he meets Kana, some of the residual bad luck shows back up, with over half his belongings being destroyed before he got them back from the moving company.
- Fujiki in Cheeky Angel is constantly commenting on just how overwhelmingly average he is.
- Rito, the protagonist of To Love-Ru, has trouble confessing his love to Haruna, then after Lala comes along, he seems unable to go through a day without being an Accidental Pervert and chastised by any girl he happens to fall on.
- Ryuuji from Toradora! has the Face of a Thug, but people seem to get over that early into the anime to instead spread the She Is Not My Girlfriend rumor.
- The Twelve Kingdoms has Ikuya Asano (Youko's best friend), and Suzu as the Rare Female Example. Asano falls into despair, loses his sanity and dies, Suzu has to earn her happy ending.
- Urusei Yatsura: Ataru was born on Friday April 13th, during an earthquake, under a full moon, after his mother walked under a ladder and a black cat crossed her path, etc. He's so unlucky that the sole attempt to exorcise his bad luck backfired on him while simultaneously accidentally helping the Miko who attempted the exorcism. He falls behind in the "Everydude" part, though, seeing as how he's a Determinator and Loveable Sex Maniac of such intense perversion he's outright stated to be the most concentrated source of lust in the known universe. He comes off as average because everyone else he hangs out with is even more bizarre...
- Phantom Quest Corp.: Karino is a nice guy and he's a reasonably good detective. The problem is, he's a bit of a bumbler, who's usually buried under a mountain of paperwork, due to the department he works for (U Division) being severely understaffednote . To say nothing of his attempts to hook up with Ayaka Kisaragi, who he assigns his extra cases to, as a personal favor. Which she appreciates and knows he's a good man... it's just she prefers to play hard to get.
- Guilty Crown: Shu Ouma is this. As if getting powers from the Void Genome is bad enough, he has to go through a lot of trouble from getting involve with freedom fighters, to become a student council president later on (not to mention as a tyrant after Hare’s death). Mostly he did this to impress Inori.
Comic Books
- Spider-Man's first incarnation counts. A standard, if nerdy and weak high school student, who just happens be at the right place at the right time. Steve Ditko forgot this and turned it into an Objectivist Author Tract. Then he turned college-age Peter into a Badboy. It continues to fluctuate Depending on the Writer.
Films — Live-Action
- Pervert!: James is established as this from the beginning, though he seems to become a Chick Magnet for any of his father's lovers. It turns out voodoo powers have made him sexually irresistible to women and the voodoo curse has given his penis a life, and monstrous personality, of its own.
- Scott Summers from the X-Men films. Beaten down by Deathstrike, and his relationship with Jean ends up in the worst way possible.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider has three unlucky everydudes, and they are all from shows written by the same writer. Shinji Kido (who shares the same first name as the the well-known Anime Butt Monkey) Ryotaro Nogami (who is so unlucky it makes Donald Duck look like Lady Fortune's favorite boy) and Eiji Hino (who hides a Dark and Troubled Past).
- Cory in Boy Meets World doesn't like being the middle child and he's insecure about his looks.
Video Games
- Larry Butz in the Ace Attorney series. He can't hold a girlfriend or a job and almost falls under ditz status. His friends mock his troubles by saying "When something smells, it's usually the Butz." Not to mention his annoying, unlucky and dumb-witted personality gets some of the characters in the 3rd game to point out just how much of a menace he is to society. Still, he's pretty cute, and even though he gets in the way, he always has good intentions and does his best to help his friends out however he can.
- Makoto Naegi from Danganronpa presents himself as this, claiming his Super High School Level Good Luck is actually Bad Luck. Until he gets re-titled as Super High School Level Hope, that is.
- Almaz from Disgaea 3 is pretty normal except for low courage (gets better in chapter 4) and his extremely awful luck.
- Kouno Takaaki from To Heart 2 outright states in the third episode that he has problems in dealing with women, by virtue of growing up with an Imouto and Cool Big Sis childhood friends.
- Nishiki from When Yanderes Cry. He starts the game by dating his Childhood Friend, but the vacation they attempt share alone is changed when four girls "coincidentally" run into them. What follows is his girlfriend getting killed and him running around an abandoned mansion to hide from them.
Web Comic
- Eerie Cuties: It's a wonder Ace doesn't simply ask, "Why me?", 'cuz he's almost always given the short end of the stick no matter the situation. His chance at setting a new school track record? Taken from him, right at the finish line
, due to a meddling little girl, while the two school jerks mock him. At the end of the Tiresias Orb incident, everyone was returned to normal... except him. Leaving him stuck in a girl's body for the entirety of vol.1, until he finally got his own body back. Ace's one and only bout of good fortune, was when he got together with Brooke, which wasn't allowed to last, thanks to Tia and Melissa's interference.
Western Animation
- Futurama: Philip J. Fry
"I've run over black cats who were luckier than me."
- Kim Possible: Ron Stoppable. His parents almost never seem to be around, their approach to moving to Norway or adopting a baby is to present him with the outcome, he can never get a date, he's constantly picked on and considered a loser (despite being the valued sidekick to a world-saving heroine), and is the ne'er-do-well sidekick to the main character. This seems to act in his favor occasionally. It's dropped in the fourth season.
