Gonk

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Over-the-top ugliness dotchomm.

Pretty much the only way in animation to make someone ugly or unusual looking is to do it deliberately and often non-subtly. If a character is not attractive looking, they're usually absurdly ugly. The appearance of a Gonk can be extremely jarring if it deviates too much from the rest of the show's look, although it tends to be more tolerated in comedies and for non-human characters.

This is because of Generic Cuteness. Occasionally, Artistic Age means that Gonk has to be applied to make older characters seem downright decrepit in order to seem older than the generically young cast.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and some Gonks may be viewed as rather cute to certain viewers.

Gonks are also common as the "leads" in Hentai works revolving around non-consensual sex, including rape and Mind Control. The jury is out on whether this character type -- also known in this context as the "ugly bastard" -- is employed to clearly identify them as villainous, to give the presumed audience a protagonist they can more easily identify with, or both. Unlike other examples, such Gonks frequently have Eyeless Faces.

Not to be confused with a certain type of power droid, which looks more like a walking trashcan/safe.

Also not to be confused with The Gonk, which is a silly, rather ironic and totally awesome tune from the original Dawn of the Dead.

Nor is it to be confused with a type of plush toy that reached almost Pet Rock-level faddishness in the UK in the 1960s (The Other Wiki's entry).

Simply not being attractive or a Bishonen does not make a character a Gonk but rather if they're so over the top ugly they don't fit the art style of the series.

No real life examples, please; calling real-life people "ugly" is a poor idea.

Examples of Gonk include:

Anime and Manga

  • Most fat characters in anime suffer from some level of Gonk. Examples include:
    • Though just as often regarded as physical pinnacles, Sumo wrestlers are occasionally referenced in anime as being gonk.
    • Leiji Matsumoto characters come in two flavors: catalogue model and gonk. Notably examples of the latter include Captain Harlock's sidekick Tochiro (and his seemingly endless line of identical ancestors. How a family line with men that ugly manages to continue one for so many millenia is the greatest mystery of the Leijiverse) as well as most of the other men on the captain's crew of Jolly Space Pirates (Harlock makes a point of not recruiting anybody handsomer than he is, since he also has several beautiful women on the ship). Most incarnations of 999's Tetsuro are also very gonkish, though he was considerably bishified in The Movie. Also, the entire population of Earth, sans cyborgs, during the Big Fat Future of the manga's second story arc.
    • A number of anime will have impromptu cheerleading squads show up that will always include a female Gonk that will go without comment. Examples include Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yawara.
    • Blue Drop has Hiroko, the leader of the high school dorms. She may not be straight-on gonk in and of itself, but she's so ridiculously large that she skirts the line.
  • Okada from Alive the Final Evolution, The only power-user who is overweight. He sweats constantly, may have a subtle hentai (hand-drawn porn) fetish, and suffers from an inferiority complex due to his physical appearance. His power involves killing victims who break their "promises" (for ex. two guys are killed when they call him fat despite being promised not to say so). Don't forget Han and ratty scientist Kairu. Oh, I can't forget Kurumi, crazy stalker girl. (She becomes much prettier after losing weight later.)
  • Dan in Bamboo Blade is short and has a head shaped like an acorn. Yet he's got a girlfriend, is ranked high in the school, can draw very well, and is shaping up to be good at kendo. He's probably the luckiest male in the entire show, and most fans think him a victim of a Ping Pong Club Lawyer-Friendly Cameo.
  • Mrs. Q from "Ayashi no Ceres", all the way. Her face brings instant funny. And therein lies her purpose.
  • The anime Basilisk features some downright grotesque character designs. Tokugawa Ieyasu has a deformed chin that looks like a huge scrotum.
  • Beck has at least a couple. Koyuki's friend Tanabe appears to be fourteen going on forty at the start of the series, and the gentleman who sells him his Fender also has some physical oddities.
  • Several of the less important shinigami characters in Bleach - but most of the shinigami outside the main cast are just comic relief/cannon fodder, so this is understandable.
    • Ganju is known specifically in the story for being ugly, and many viewers may agree he is either a Gonk or borderline Gonk. But this is by Bishonen standards, where Hollywood Homely may be ugly. To Bara standards, Ganju's rough worn guyish looks actually make him look hot.
    • Everyone in Omeada's family except his little sister.
    • Omeada period.
    • Most of the thugs and gangs in the backgrounds of the Karakura Town scenes.
    • Charlotte Chuhlhourne is this, but believes he is the most beautiful.........guy(???????) ever.
  • It's a blip, but one episode of Cromartie High School took place in what was basically a gender-flipped version of the main (male) characters' high school. The "girls" in the school were very much as if the delinquents were crossdressing... poorly. Moustaches and all!
  • Desert Punk has quite a few. If a character is unnamed or over 40, chances are they're gonks. The titular character is pretty normal looking but becomes gonked out if he's doing something disturbing.
  • Sumiyoshi from Excel Saga. One episode has his gonkness drained out of him, turning him into a generic Bishonen. His friends are visibly shocked, and he doesn't seem to be pleased with the change either. It was eventually shown that he gets it from his mother.
    • The Puchuus in the Excel Saga anime are cute mascot characters whose faces become Gonk (resembling scarred, haggard manga assassin Golgo 13) when they are injured or killed.
  • In Ga-Rei, anyone who isn't a main character or relatively young is ugly. It's a bit jarring to see the really attractive Kagura next to the extremely old-looking Fujiko, for example.
  • Getter Robo teams always have "The fat guy", with varying levels of gonk. Musashi from the original looks a bit gonkish, especially compared to his impossibly handsome teammates (and his ridiculous, slapped together "uniform" doesn't help, either), but most of the subsequent incarnations had Musashi or his equivalent drawn with the similar rugged good looks to his compatriots. Kaede from the all girl Getter Robo Zan team is probably the gonkiest of all the Getter pilots (being a Distaff Counterpart of Musashi), but then again all the girls on that team are pretty homely by anime standards.
    • When you compare the likes of Musashi, Benkei, and Gai to the worst this trope has to offer I think it's a little harsh to call them outright gonky just because they're big.
    • Far, FAR more gonkish are "Build Angels" Mido and Monko of Kotetsushin Jeeg. Mido is tall and slender to a creepy degree, while Monko might have been able to pass for a bodybuilder-style Amazonian Beauty if she didn't look like she had a man's face pasted onto her body.
  • An unusual example in a serious anime is the sinister Kazundo Gohda (or Gouda) from GitS: 2nd Gig, whose face was hideously disfigured in an accident. Gohda decided not to have his face reconstructed because his new appearance made him distinctive and nobody who meets him will ever forget him. This is deliberately contrasted with Hideo Kuze, the show's nominal (but less villainous) villain, whose prosthetic body wears a handsome mask-like face.
    • The Home Affairs Minister, on the other hand, is the conventional sort.
  • The octopus form of Korosensei from Assassination Classroom, although said form also definitely qualifies as Ugly Cute.
    • Natsuhiko Koyama, however, is a far more traditional example of this trope, basically looking like a deformed Japanese caricature of Tommy Wiseau (with extremely crooked teeth and a unibrow, no less).
  • Girls Saurus: Ichigo. Sweet mother of god, Ichigo.
  • Itsuki/Iggy in Initial D has gonky features (helped by the author's drawing style, though).
  • Pretty much all of Longchamp's 'girlfriends' in Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
  • Kare Kano featured a flashback of a guy who had considerably improved his appearance since he was a child. He's drawn in a completely different style than everyone and vaguely resembles a Fisher Price toy.
  • Kemeko from Kemeko Deluxe. Short, ugly and yet thrown into more outfits and situations than a character of this type should be in.
    • Curiously, when seen early on in some sort of maintenance bath, Kemeko appears to be patently feminine, only to revert the instant it's cleaning cycle is finished.
  • Deconstructed on three separate occasions in MAR, all of them by villains from the Chess Pieces.
    • The first gonk, Rapunzel, is an extremely ugly, hag-like 29-year-old whose sensitivity about her appearance has turned her into a violent, murderous, backstabbing psychopath who enjoys killing everything that's "ugly" to her, especially women.
    • The second gonk, Emokiss, is equally sensitive, though unlike the previous example her ugliness is self-inflicted, as she's constantly seen eating. She actually destroys her sentient Guardian �RM after it comments on her ugliness.
    • The third gonk, Kouga, is not NEARLY as sensitive as the previous two; his problem is that, because of his ugly face, he has become delusional that ugliness equals goodness. Because of this, naturally, he is the only one of the three gonks in MAR whose sheer disgust for beautiful people is actually genuine, and NOT from denial.
  • Ryu from Mobile Suit Gundam is a bit of a borderline case, as he's usually drawn in a slightly different style than most of the main characters, but he's not really ugly (in fact, in the novels Sayla has a bit of a crush on him before she ends up getting together with Amuro).
  • Justified in Narutaru with Sato's fiancee, whose odd appearance is due to Down's Syndrome.
  • Konohamaru's early attempts to perform the Sexy no Jutsu were frequently comically grotesque. An entire early episode was devoted to his mastery of it.
  • One Piece has dozens of examples, both among good guys and bad guys:
    • Alvida when we first see her. Then she eats the Smooth Smooth Devil Fruit between story arcs and becomes incredibly slippery... and slender. And everyone's object of lust. Luffy can't recognize her on first glance, and she was the first villain he fought.
    • And much later we have Kokoro and Lola, as well as the island of Amazon Lily, whose population is roughly equal parts Gonk and hot women.
    • No discussion of One Piece Gonkiness regarding the obese is complete without Satori, Hotori and Kotori (whose bodies are, in fact, perfect spheres in addition to being ugly), and ESPECIALLY Fukurou.
    • Wanze and Duval. So Gonky that repeated kicks to the face rendered them better looking.
    • And Duval happens to look exactly like the poorly drawn wanted poster of Sanji, which in and of itself is Gonky in how it exaggerates Sanji's attributes, especially his spiral eyebrow.
    • We forgot one: 'Admiral' Nelson [dead link], from one of the anime's fillers. Aside from being rather ugly, what REALLY makes him stand out is how very fat he is.
    • Wapol. The guy ate himself to become thin.
    • Emporio Ivankov, a transvestite and drag queen, has quite an oversized head, odd facial expression with a face locked into an almost perpetual grin and eyes wide open. (He's one of the good guys, by the way.) Mr. 2 also has quite an odd face for being a crossdresser, enough so that when he decided to make the world's weirdest face from a collection of all the faces he's encountered, he only had to add Usopp's nose.
    • Most of the members of the Blackbeard Pirates qualify like the titular Captain and Doc Q, but two of the newest members Catarina Devon and Vasco Shot definitely are.
    • We see in chapter 651 that Big Mom of the Four Emperors is one. And like Me-Mania, it's NOT Played for Laughs.
    • Let's just say the world of One Piece is not only a World of Ham, but a World Of Gonk. So many characters, ranging from protagonists, antagonists, and even neutral background characters, are incredibly out there and ugly, yet go hardly unnoticed because it just happens all the time. Worth noting that the Grand Line has more gonk than the rest of the ocean; whether this is due to Oda's art evolving to be more free or the Grand Line actually being just that weird... we're not too sure.
  • A strange example occurs in Ouran High School Host Club when the host club does this in an attempt to cheer up Haruhi. Since the show already has quite a few crossdressers, they (with the exception of Kyouya, natually) end up in hilariously overdone makeup to make the situation funny.
  • Pani Poni Dash has several, most notably Yankee, whose picture is at the top, and the hordes of identical Itou-sans. Then there's the characters who are drawn to look very similar to their real life originals, which...doesn't quite mesh with the Puni Plush cuteness of the rest...the Tommy Lee Jones Circa Men in Black for example is especially jarring, as he's mostly seen with Ichijou...who often sports an even simpler face than normal.
  • Me-Mania in Perfect Blue. NOT played for laughs.
  • Notable exception -- Princess Nine's Mao Daidouji being heavy-set is important to her characterization, but she is drawn in a realistic style.
  • One episode of Pokémon has Team Rocket stressing over their current fitness, going from delightfully plump to outright Gonk.
    • And of course the second ninja school gave us...uh...8U.
  • Konatsu's step-family in Ranma ½ is deliberately made hideous, despite them being hostesses at the "Sexy Kunoichi Tea Spot" (a brothel, the reader is made to assume, or at least an extremely exclusive parlor.) His stepsisters are either gangly and monkey-like, or gigantic and with lips so huge they are her entire face. To say nothing of the shrunken, Yakuza-faced step-mother. This makes Konatsu by far the most attractive woman, even though he's a guy.
  • Another exception, Sailor Moon has one of Usagi's schoolfriends who pops up now and then in the first few episodes of the show. She's chubby, but not ugly in any way. She gets Brother Chucked pretty fast along with the rest of Usagi's former friends after other Senshi start showing up and she hangs out with them instead. Sadly, while the other girls had names, this character never did (and this is a show that has been known to give names to the most minor of characters in the guidebooks) so fans can only identify her as "Usagi's Fat Friend".
    • Some of the episodic Youma/Daimon/Whatevers are pretty damn gonky too, with the final season, as serious as it's supposed to be, having a ludicrously high ratio in comparison to arcs where that would be more fitting, say the Dark Circus arc. (The completely ridiculous looking 'sailor parody' enemies)
    • Same thing with the fat girl in My-HiME.
  • Several side-characters from Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei are drawn completely different from the main cast. Chiri Kitsu shifts to a Gonk as needed.
  • Actually averted in the film Spirited Away. Miyazaki didn't want his female protagonist Chihiro to be overly beautiful, in order to reinforce her presentation as an average girl at the film's beginning. He managed to succeed at this task without having her look exceptionally ugly or out of place, capturing just the look he was going for.
    • Yubaba, the witch that runs the bath-house, is Gonk. And, obviously, her twin sister, Zeniba, would be as well.
  • Kimo-o in the manga Stripe Blue. He's totally unaware of how freaking creepy he looks, and the fact that he also acts like a lunatic doesn't help.
  • In Team Medical Dragon, it's possible to identify the good and bad guys by one characteristic alone: most of the time, the good guys are drawn incredibly attractively, while evil characters invariably look like the products of 18 generations of inbreeding.
    • The villains sure are ugly (as hell), but the sympathetic male characters range from heroically handsome over small and dorky to The Big Guy. The women, of course, are attractive. The patients look sickly.
  • Tenchi's classmate Kazuhiko Amagasaki in Tenchi Muyo. He appears mostly in Tenchi in Tokyo.
  • Attenborough from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who is best described as a crazed muppet. In fact, his Fan Nickname is Beam Spam McMuppet.
    • Leeron may count too, the guy may aim to be a Bishounen, but he still looks like a frog.
    • Jougan and Balinbou aren't exactly pretty either.
  • Another exception—In one episode of Tenjou Tenge, we learn where female villain Emi Isuzu keeps all her hidden knives: she's really quite obese, and uses ki techniques to compress her fat and use it to carry concealed weapons. However, her full-sized form is completely Gonk-free, though it doesn't stop Maya (who learns Emi's big secret) from teasing her about it.
    • Whether or not it's Gonk-free is really arguable; this editor found it laughably Gonky.
  • A lot of the lesser villains in Yu-Gi-Oh!. While Ushio and Kai look rather decent, the others like Kujirada and Nezumi (whose name means 'rat' in Japanese), are outright gonk!
    • and then there's Hobson, [1], lampshaded in Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series by Kaiba who thinks Hobson is a mutant, although Hobson does use Hulk Speak so he might have a point.
    • The Seto Kaiba imposter (posing as his ghost) in the Duelist Kingdom arc is horrendously this once he drops the charade.
  • Kimura from Azumanga Daioh, with his perpetually gaunt and slack-jawed expression.
  • Samurai Champloo utterly subverts this, being able to have attractive and unattractive characters from one end of the spectrum to the other and in between without any stylistic major shifts.
    • In one episode, Fuu is forced to work off her debt in a brothel. While "on display," she deliberately contorts her face into Gonk Mode to discourage customers from choosing her. Unfortunately, that face happens to catch the eye of another Gonk...
  • Many of the Youkai in Natsume Yuujinchou look this way. Nyanko-sensei in particular, has come to be known by Natsume's friends as "Natsume's really ugly cat" - if they don't mistake him for a pig, that is.
  • Several demons in Yu Yu Hakusho and, even more so, the crimelord Tarukane.
  • Kaoru from Nana to Kaoru. Creepy. He's also the protagonist with a BDSM fetish. See also This Loser Is You.
  • Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest High school student and gang member Kuroda looks like an unholy union between a Beatles member and an oversized rat. Don't expect his twin brother to have any striking good looks either. Despite his muscular physique and rather handsome countenance, Dou also counts in his own feral way.
  • Doronjo's sidekicks Boyacky and Tonzura from Yatterman fit this. In fact, they're so ugly they actually look cute.
  • One of the more prominent running gags in Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple involves Ragnarok member Loki having numerous body doubles a la Saddam. One of the body doubles is moderately gonky and looks extremely out of place when compared to the rest. Come to think of it, he [2] bears a passing resemblence to Henchman 21.
  • Kemonozume has a number of these, most obviously the main villain, Ooba Kyuutarou.
  • Those Two Guys from Moyashimon.
  • Tennouji from School Rumble.
  • One character from Kare Kano who was the Class Representative of another class who has the head of a real person.
  • Arguably, 8th from Mirai Nikki. She's meant to look more like a cute chibi than outwardly grotesque, but her appearance compared to the other characters can be quite jarring.
  • In Rurouni Kenshin most minor villains, especially those belonging to gangs, are Gonks.
    • A group among Shishio's followers, the Priests of Abukuma, are particularly notable. Each one of the four have the most comically hideous faces, and the first thing they even talk about is sex!
  • The Breaker (Manhwa) generally avoids this, except in the case of Mamungi. The protagonist calls him an ork, but his Badass master just calls him frog-faced.
  • The linemen Kurita and Komosubi of Eyeshield 21 are both pretty gonk, though in an Ugly Cute sort of way. In contrast to most examples, they are part of the main cast and are every bit as important and well-developed as their more attractive team members.
    • Kasamatsu of the Taiyo Sphinx. He's about as tall as the average character in the series, but he's about three times as wide, with a really exaggerated face. He really, REALLY stands out among the other two important members on his team, the bishounen Harao, and the adult-looking Banba.
    • The entire Sankaku Punks. All of them. Even their coach has a triangular shaped head.
    • And the announcer, too, has hair that spins like a windmill when he gets excited. Which is all the time.
  • A few characters from Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru, most notably Kevin and Hayama.
  • In Fairy Tail, there's Virgo's initial appearance under the ownership of Everlue. This is because Virgo is so loyal to whoever her master is that she actually changes her looks to whatever pleases them most. Under Lucy's ownership, she's one of the prettiest characters in the series.
    • And Duke Everlue the collector of Gonk Maids.
    • Ichiya, definitely.
    • Wally and Hoteye, what about them?
    • Don't forget about Kain Hikaru...oh God...
  • Many, many characters in Shiki due to the insane art style, but Masao is especially Gonk... and has the personality to match.
  • Done in a very literal way in the Bludgeoning Angel Dokurochan anime when one of Sakura's classmates is turned into a monkey. His face and head are animated in a paper cutout style, in a completely different form of animation from the rest of the show.
    • Let us not forget about the angels with their halos removed. Extreme case of explosive diarrhea happens. Poor bastards.
  • Inko-chan from Toradora! is a pet parrot Gonk, of all things.
  • Calmaramon of Digimon Frontier, who Slide-Digivolves from the idol Ranamon is Gonk in her universe, something which causes her to lose her entire fan club. Think Ursula from The Little Mermaid meets anime. A picture doesn't really tell you much, you have to watch the show and hear her laugh to truly understand her Gonk.
    • Sakkakumon is even worse. Seriously, what the heck is that?
  • Fullmetal Alchemist has the Armstrong family where the father and the mother and the middle children look pretty much the same except for the oldest and youngest.
    • Also, Gluttony.
  • My Hero Academia has no shortage of hero characters with odd or unusual physical appearances, but most are of the Little Bit Beastly or Cute Monster Girl (or boy) categories. Villains, however, are almost universally unpleasant to look at. Some are simply ugly or have twisted expressions, some are deformed, and many are outright monstrous.
  • Most of Tsukimi's friends in Kuragehime fall on the Gonky side, especially compared to their gender-flipped Nerd Nanny, Kuranosuke.
  • Frequently happens in Go Nagai series, due to his very cartoony style. Of note are Mazinger Z‍'‍s Boss Borot, whose mouth apparently opens to the side, and Juzo Kabuto, who scares even his own grandson.
  • In the infamous "Sandbox Sequence" from the complementary conclusion to Neon Genesis Evangelion, The End of Evangelion, Shinji sees two doll-like girls with very disturbingly-accentuated features, that definitely fall under Gonk. As with Perfect Blue (see above), it is not played for laughs.
  • Buppa, a gang leader in Tokyo Tribe 2, from the infamous "Goosh Goosh" sequence.
  • Gokita (first panel) from Addicted to Curry.
  • Played for laughs in the anime version of THE iDOLM@STER. The girls wanted to be more adult, wearing make-up, high heels, padding... It... doesn't end well.
  • Phryne, the Amazoness leader of the Ishtar Familia in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, is firmly convinced that she isn't ugly.

Comic Books

  • The Yellow Bastard from Sin City stands out, but Marv could possibly be viewed as this as well, due to the impossible skeletal structure of his face, but in his case, it makes him look equal parts gonk and equal parts badass. The same can't be said for That Yellow Bastard. He's just one ugly (and smelly) dude.
  • Penelope Platypus from Sonic the Hedgehog looks more or less like a cartoony platypus on two legs wearing a backpack, while other orginal females from the comic have the figures of developed young women, yet still retain animal heads and fur.
  • A lot of Archie's supporting characters in the early decades qualified. In the '40s, most anyone outside the main cast fell under this trope; Miss Grundy was almost toothless and had a prominent wart. Well into the '80s, being a Gonk was Big Ethel's defining character trait. Both characters have had makeovers in the last couple of decades; Miss Grundy has upgraded to Cool Old Lady status, and Ethel is tall, lanky and a little mannish, but no longer a runner-up in the Lena the Hyena contest.
  • Sam Lesser from Locke and Key.

Film

  • In What Planet Are You From?, Garry Shandling played a Gonk. It counts as character design because the problem wasn't his natural features so much as his 'I just ate a bag of lemons' expression. By the end of the movie, one troper had to turn away every time he came on. (He was the main character, so that was a lot.)
    • That's not too far off from Shandling's normal face, really. While calling him a real-life Gonk would just be mean, he's still never exactly been a heartbreaker.
  • Hongkong slapstick comedies will sometimes cast such ugly actors just to get this effect.
    • The Landlord in Kung Fu Hustle will hit on Anything That Moves, and to get this point across, one of them is a Gonk.
    • In CJ7, one of Dicky's classmates is a girl who looks like an adult male. She's supposed to be TEN.
  • Johnny of The Room is rather creepy looking with an indeterminate accent, yet beloved by all.
  • Not to be insulting, but Danny Trejo is typically cast in frightening roles precisely because his unusual features make him look intimidating. Peter Lorre would be an earlier example, with an appearance that made him easy to accept as a villain. Maybe has Unfortunate Implications for all of us.
  • All the bad guys in Yojimbo except for Unosuke are extremely ugly.
  • The douchey Prince from Dragonheart, or at least according to The Nostalgia Chick.
  • In Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings most of the hobbits are fairly normal looking and the younger ones look like children, but Samwise is very ugly. He has a huge head, crooked teeth, a big nose and chin, and at times seems to have a lazy eye.
  • Sykes, Ernie and Bernie from Shark Tale.
  • Dr. Glickenstein, King Malbert and His Royal Guards from Igor
  • Steve Buscemi is usually cast as creeps of some sort, and not without reason.
  • The main actor playing the main character in Gummo looks quite unusual, which actually fits very well with the overall strangeness of the film.
  • Men in Black "Watch out, its a ballchinian!"

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • The troll doll from Terror of the Autons was billed as a Gonk novelty. Actually, it was an Auton.
    • The Sontarans

Guard: He looks like a giant baked potato!

  • Father Jack from Father Ted is incredibly ugly, with stringy unwashed hair, crusted lips and skin, and a near-permanent grimacing snarl.
  • Peg's mother was implied to be one of these on Married... with Children, although we were fortunate enough to never actually see what she looked like. Chances are we'd probably Go Mad from the Revelation, after all.
  • Half of the non-Puppet aliens in Farscape. They seem to try to go overboard on crusty features and grotesque prosthetics.

Newspaper Comics

  • Cathy bears the unusual distinction of having a Gonk protagonist, with gigantic eyes, stringy hair, and no nose. Out-of-universe, she's sometimes considered Ugly Cute, but in-universe she remarks that the only people who've ever called her attractive have been trying to sell her things.
  • In The Family Circus, the protagonists themselves are drawn in such a way that they bear no resemblance to their parents, i.e., the children are squat, stocky and have melon-shaped heads while their parents are drawn fairly realistically.
  • Garfield has rather bland characters, most of the time. Liz is supposed to be quite attractive, but she pretty much looks like Jon, who is usually said to be, at best, plain, and Nermal, the cutest cat in the world, is not that much skinnier than the ostensibly obese Garfield, so when the strip has to convey that a character is ugly, or especially beautiful, they have to go way out of their way.
  • Dick Tracy used this in many of its villains, such as Pruneface, Flathead, The Brow, Rodent...

Video Games

  • Ape Escape: Monkey Yellow is a good example of this. And he (she?) considers himself (herself?) the best-looking character in the series.
  • Eunice in Bully. Subverted in Beatrice, who would be attractive if she lost the glasses and got some Abreva for her mouth.
  • The EarthBound (or Mother) series has a few Gonks, primarily in its fat female characters; however, Lardna Minch is their queen. Maybe it's something about how her mouth is bigger than the rest of her head, or how plastic and grotesque her smile is, but it's kind of disturbing.
    • And her son Pokey looks quite disturbing, even for someone of his weight; when he fights alongside Giygas in the final battle, he appears to have blue skin.
  • Queen Brahne in Final Fantasy IX, who outranks most of the monsters in the game in sheer ugliness for no easily explained reason. This may be a vague dig at Beauty Equals Goodness (compared to the villainous but attractive Kuja) as her subjects usually insist Brahne is a competent and respectable leader, at least pre-game. It is particularly bizarre because her daughter doesn't look anything like her which theoretically isn't a problem because Garnet is revealed to not be her biological child. Except that Garnet was adopted by the royal family because she looked close enough to the real Princess Garnet to take her place, which means that Brahne still had a biological child that looked nothing like her.
  • On a similar note, a good proportion of Final Fantasy characters for the first six games in the series are Gonks, due to the fact that main artist Yoshitaka Amano has no middle ground between "is that even human" and "TAKE ME, YOU GORGEOUS DEVIL, TAKE ME".
  • Every Fire Emblem game includes one playable gonk. The bandit class seems to be solely composed of these. One gonk by the name of Gheb achieved internet popularity. In fact, one can pretty reliably tell which enemy characters will eventually join the player... they're the ones who don't look like either a monkey's behind or Morticia Addams.
    • Gonzales from Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword would like a word...
    • And Oliver, who takes the cake because of his delusion that he's the most beautiful thing in the world despite all evidence to the contrary.
  • Gannon the carpenter from Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness is considerably less attractive than the other inhabitants of the island. His daughter Eliza, on the other hand, is so cute it hurts.
    • The Gourmet. Dear lord, the Gourmet. Some fans are convinced he's not actually human. Island of Happiness and related replaced him with a cute kid Expy.
  • Most of the characters in the Kunio-kun games are generically cute... except for Misuzu, who is a seven-foot schoolgirl with a head the size of a pumpkin and the face of a middle-aged woman.
  • Monokuma from Danganronpa, due to the right half of his face looking like a cuddly polar bear while the left half of said face looks like the monster that he actually is.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Tingle.Seriously.LookAtHim. The only thing that can be said is that he looks way different than any other person you come across.
    • And let's not forget, that in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Link, Zelda, and MAYBE a few of the villagers seem to be the only Hylians that WEREN'T born with severe birth defects.
    • The doctor in Castle Town. He looks like the elderly arthritic love child of Moleman from The Simpsons and a goblin. Actually, come to think of it, the actual in game goblins aren't as ugly as he is.
    • The woman/man/creature that lives in the house near Lake Hylia in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.
  • Gutsman's operator Dex in the Mega Man Battle Network franchise. Naturally, his Star Force Expy Bud also falls under this. Dex looks like some strange obese shark person, while Bud is some obese guy with his hair shaped into horns.
    • This might be a possible shout out to Astro Boy 's designs; Osamu Tezuka characters have a distinctive old-school flavor that often looks really strange to newer anime fans.
  • A non-fat gonk in Persona 4 would be the homeroom teacher, "King Moron," who seriously needs a dentist. Possibly a dentist with a hacksaw. He also bears a striking resemblance to Steve Buscemi, which just makes things worse.
    • And then there's Mitsuo's fish-eyed face making him look for all the world like the Gerber Baby, but in his case he's supposed to be unsettling for a different reason.
    • Persona 3 has The Gourmet King and Igor, but he's nothing on Persona 4's Hanako.
  • King Hippo from Punch-Out!! is obese and barely looks human. Captain N takes it one step further and gives him blue skin.
  • Gen-An Shiranui from Samurai Shodown is so terrifically ugly that it is impossible to even tell his species. (He's not a tengu, and he's not an oni, but he definitely isn't human...)
    • He's a follower of the dark back, and in the second game he's a zombie.
    • There's also obese Texan ninja Earthquake, and then there's Kusaregedou, a literal Complete Monster who's uglier than Gen-An and Earthquake combined.
  • Rufus from Street Fighter IV, although as a martial artist, he's definitely in-shape. (Spherical is a shape, right?)
  • Yohm from Breath of Fire IV is pretty much the prototypical example of Geezer Gonk. Stick legs, round body, his nose looks like a potato, and the impression one gets is of Anpanman gone terribly wrong and evil.
  • Larsa, the Final Boss of Mushihime-sama Futari, is a very obese and ugly woman.
  • Most of the fighters in Super Strip Fighter IV are, naturally, beautiful, scantily clad women with various fetish-related moves. All except for Jin Tendoh. He's The Fat Guy With the Big Lips And Pimply Nose. And yes, you can strip him.
  • Borgan from Lunar 2. Used for a hilarious bit of Fan Disservice in-game, where they sneak a picture of him in the collection of pictures of the game's more attractive characters.
  • Roughly one-third of the characters from Infinite Space can be considered as Gonks.
  • The Ace Attorney games have otherwise normal to attractive characters have gonk moments, but special mention must go to eternally gonk Sal Manella, the sweaty otaku TV director, and perverted hospital "director" Hotti.
  • Large amounts of recruitable characters in Inazuma Eleven are gonks among other weird faces.
  • Super Mario Bros.: With their huge pink noses, constantly clenched teeth, wicked mustaches and nonstandard bodily proportions, Wario and Waluigi are a lot uglier than the rest of the cast. However, that's part of their charm.
  • In Alice: Madness Returns, pretty much everyone except Alice - good or evil, real world or Wonderland - is ugly, creepy, or both. (Alice is "just" creepy.) At least some of it may be distorted by her condition, however.
  • Although many NPCs in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are homely at best and hideous at worst due to the random face generation, there are a few that go to cartoonish extremes. One member of the Bravil Mages' Guild who turns out to be evil has a ridiculously large forehead for no apparent reason. Also, pretty much everyone in Hackdirt, but especially the "Breathren", although they have the excuse that it's implied they're descended from nonhumans.
  • Wario Land 4 gives us its "Wario Princess" and basically all of its bosses (most notably Spoiled Rotten's "angry" form, the Golden Diva's unmasked form, and Cuckoo Condor's clock form).
  • Prince from Power Instinct is a fat, ugly parody of all the Prince Charming stereotypes... until you knock him down. When he hits the ground, he briefly transforms into a Bishonen.
  • Stunfisk in Pokémon Black and White. It's not so bad (Okay, yes it is), but it lives in a world of cuteness. Ironicaly, in the Pokémon anime, Cilan, a character known for his good looks and Bishonen-ness, is the one who catches it.
    • Jynx is a Gonk all the way from the Indigo League. It also looks like a blackface caricature, possibly intentional assuming it's a combination of Black Pete and an Opera Singer. Another interpretation is that it was based on Japanese fashion trend "Ganguro" but Gamefreak admit they don't remember what they were thinking when they drew it, most likely it was this trope.
  • Jet Set Radio has a collection of colorful and unique-looking characters. Soda takes this a step further with his tall height, long limbs, big nose, and odd hairstyle, which make him look sorta like a Muppet.
  • Undertale has Burgerpants and the Amalgamates.

Web Comics

  • Heaven, a minor character in Asperchu.
  • On his first appearances, William Winsbury in Gunnerkrigg Court is markedly uglier than the main characters, with his odd colouring and pointy teeth. After some Art Shifts, and as he becomes a less unsympathetic character, he gets rather more handsome.
  • Turns up now and again in Ow, My Sanity. Once lampshaded (most likely by coincidence) by having Nancy actually get squicked enough into feeling fear.
  • Waluigi in Brawl in the Family is particularly hideous among a cast of generally-adorable characters.
  • Reika Kongouji, from Getter Love!! And she's female!

Western Animation

  • Duchess in Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends.
  • Ren and Stimpy from The Ren and Stimpy Show.
  • Cotton in King of the Hill.
  • Debbie the prostitute in The Life and Times of Tim.
  • The American film Quest for Camelot utilizes this with its villain, Lord Ruber. His huge misshapen body and shrunken face makes him really stand out from the other Knights of the Round who are perfectly normal looking people. Presumably this is so you can tell he's the villain, but this begs the question of why some freaky guy like this was ever let onto the Knights of the Round in the first place.
  • Canadians in South Park with their horizontally separated heads which bobble when talking, not to mention other ridiculously cartoonish features, even for characters in South Park.
    • However, the Canadian kids are actually rather cute.
    • Additionally, famous Canadians, such as Paul Watson and Justin Bieber, are drawn in the standard character style rather than the "Canadian-specific" character style, most likely to make them more recognizable. Celine Dion is a notable exception, as she is depicted in the "Canadian-specific" style.
    • Also, Sarah Jessica Parker. While every other character in the series has basically the same facial layout, she is fugly.
    • Celine Dion loves Ugly Bob, even though he is so very, very ugly.
    • What about the most obvious examples, The Ugly Kids?
  • Bloth in The Pirates of Dark Water, although he may be intended to be some sort of ogre.
    • Not just him either; the extreme divergence of body and facial types between natives of different islands makes for some really weird-looking people.
  • Most of the characters from Adventure Time who don't quite fit in with the standard character design of the oUo face end up invoking this trope. Special mention goes to Xergiok, many of the monsters, the Tree Witch, and arguably, Lemongrab. In a show where most of the characters have very similar faces, the difference can be extremely jarring, and the gonks may not even appear to be from the same show.
  • Han Solo in The Star Wars Holiday Special's animated segment. He looks nothing like Harrison Ford or anyone else in the cartoon. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and compare Luke and Han. * shudder*
  • So many of Spark Plug Entertainment's characters are like this, but the best example is the lantern-jawed bee Pistol in Plan Bee. All the cars in A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure easily qualify, too.
  • A large number of (recurring) backround characters in Invader Zim.
  • Beavis and Butthead are a protagonist example. They have enormous foreheads, chins, and lips compared to the rest of the cast who are more realistically proportioned.
  • Dr. Robotnik's Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog incarnation. Though he is the only major human character in the show, his bizarre, exaggerated face still stands out.
  • Lok and The Pupununu Tribe in Tak and the Power of Juju.
  • Vlad from Shuriken School (especially when he yells).
  • Jimmy The Idiot Boy from The Ripping Friends.
  • Kate from Will and Dewitt.
  • Snips and Snails from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic qualify (especially Snips, who looks more like a buck-toothed piglet than anything equine). They're unicorns like some of the other mane cast but even among the colts of the series are pretty ugly, just barely bordering on Ugly Cute.
  • Anyone who lives in Planville who isn't Rudy or Penny from ChalkZone.
  • Peppertmint Larry and Doctor Barber from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
  • Kyle and Ranger Stu from Squirrel Boy.
  • Samy Garvin and General Molotov.
  • Vlada from The Critic.
  • Duck from Almost Naked Animals
  • Nester and Paddy from Scaredy Squirrel
  • Most non-humans in Ugly Americans, as the title would suggest.
  • Two cars in Paris in Cars 2 have mismatched eyes on their windshields, have dented bodies, and crooked teeth inside their bumpers. However, a forklift artist for some reason actually decided to draw them as both being extremely attractive-looking.
  • Anton St. Germain and Penny from The Mighty B!. An online reviewer even stated theat Penny looks like a gorilla.
  • The Angry Cop and the guy that sold Gerold a highway from The Goode Family episode "Gerold's Way or The Highway".
  • Baby Taz from Baby Looney Tunes.
  • Meelo from The Legend of Korra.
  • Many of the characters in the Courage the Cowardly Dog series, most notably:
    • Mondo, whose true form looks like a horrifically mutated version of NES Bowser.
    • The Ulcer, who is basically a living fetus with a comically oversized head and a barely-even-existent actual body.
    • Di Lung, who is so absurdly skinny that he might as well literally just be his own skeleton.
    • Ma Bagge, who is a bald woman with a chin that is almost as big as Eustace's.
    • The "Perfect" creature, to the point where one of his arms is basically just a giant tentacle that happens to be connected to the top of his head (while his other arm seems to be some sort of "hammer thing").
    • Conway The Contaminationist, whose physical condition far-too-clearly reflects both his age and his "wallowing in filth" lifestyle.

Other

  • Presumably the Trope Namer, troll dolls are also known as gonks (among other things).
  • Gaia Online decided to pull a fast one on the members when asking if they wanted cute child star Timmy to remain a child or become an adult. After the votes were tallied and adult Timmy was chosen, he was aged up as promised and turned into an incredibly ugly and gangly man with an enormous honker (while everyone was expecting yet another hot anime guy). One member actually responded by posting a smiley called "gonk".
    • Actually, he wouldn't look so bad if he switched to adult clothes. The old ones are not his size anymore.
  • Give the Freelance Astronauts access to a character creator and they'll make another horrifying incarnation of Dongs "REO" Speedwagon. In Oblivion she was a crone-like, green-faced, blue-haired dark elf with butterfly wings and a penchant for bludgeoning people to death with a fish. In Saints Row 2 she was an obese, slack-jawed, blue-haired woman with poor posture and a man's voice who was so disturbing that Maxwell scrapped her for Gangsta Link. And now in Mass Effect we have Dongs Shepard, with a man's head on a woman's body and something seriously wrong with her neck.
  • One version of Major Lazer's "Keep It Going Louder" takes butterface to a whole new level.
  • One of the videos for Simian Mobile Disco's "Hustler" definitely gonks the girls out at the end. I guess that's what they get for eating so much...
  • Quentin Matsys' painting "The Ugly Duchess", which is believed to be the inspiration for the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland.
  • The Forever Alone guy, especially when he opens his mouth.
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