"I became a comedian because I was the only Asian in my high school... that failed math."
— Dat Phan (Vietnamese stand-up comedian)
Pretty much any East Asian character in western media who isn't a martial artist or a gangster (and sometimes even if they are) will be highly intelligent and/or unusually geeky. If done clearly and more on the intelligent side than geeky, this will be an exaggeration of the Brainy Brunette.
The polar opposite of this, becoming more common in recent years, is the Asian Airhead — a character archetype centering on an Asian who is dumb as a brick.
The reasoning behind this stereotype is that most Asian cultures regard education and smarts as very important things. Children are expected to study very hard to obtain good grades and get into good schools. This also means that "nerdiness" is viewed more positively in these cultures (as evidence of studying hard, rather than too hard as it is usually perceived in American popular culture). For this reason, this character is all but guaranteed to have an Education Mama.
May grow up to be a Magical Asian if the character ends up being a mentor for his new students (who may also be nerdy).
The possible Trope Codifier was Japanese leader Hideki Tojo, who wore glasses and had an overbite like so many stereotypical nerds, and was portrayed as very nerdy in World War II Allied propaganda. In fact, you could argue that the classic Nerd archetype is a combination of how Jewish people (supposedly) talk with how Japanese people (supposedly) look.
Wikipedia has an article on the "model minority"
stereotype from which this trope is derived. Contrast All Asians Know Martial Arts, as most Asian and Nerdy characters lack the athletic ability for martial arts, though it's possible for these two tropes to overlap. For the South Asian Sub-Trope, see Bollywood Nerd. For related tropes, see Germanic Efficiency, Jewish and Nerdy, and Black and Nerdy. See also Yellow Peril for when this trope overlaps with Evil Genius.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Reversed, possibly consciously, in Black Lagoon: the central team's techie is the only white member.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers, as its anthropomorphic characters are based on National Stereotypes. South Korea is said to love gaming and the Internet and Japan is a Teen Genius, a Gadgeteer Genius, and something of an Otaku. Taiwan is an anime fan and she cosplays in the 2011 and 2013 Halloween events, Vietnam is a gamer, and India is a Bollywood Nerd who's good with numbers.
- My Hero Academia has Momo Yaoyorozu. Although the majority of the students at U.A. seem to be intelligent enough (excluding the fact that they're all Japanese), Momo seems to stand out amongst the other intelligent students, mostly the females. Not only does her good grades support this, but Momo literally knows everything about her Quirk, tutors her classmates to help with studying for finals, and even becomes the Vice President of her class. She also recognizes her classmate's failures during the battle trial, and specifically explains it through what she saw while the others watching couldn't recognize it at all.
Comedy
- Vietnamese-American comedian Dat Phan, as evidenced by the page quote. The assumption of this trope is how the eight other people sitting around him also failed math.
- Chinese stand-up comedian Joe Wong, with his slight frame, wire-rimmed glasses and strong accent reinforcing his background as a chemical engineer who graduated from two universities in China before furthering his studies at Rice University in Texas and is never afraid to portray himself as a Funny Foreigner in his routines. Some of his material deals with the perception of all Asians as this trope.
Comic Books
- The DCU:
- Ryan Choi, who takes up Ray Palmer's mantle as The Atom, and also works at the same university.
- Giantkiller: Dr. Steven Azuma is a Japanese-American scientist specializing in bioengineering. He is the one who created the titular Giantkiller by splicing human and Kaiju DNA.
- The Judd Winnick run of Power Girl features Nicco Cho, an expert hacker and inventor who aids Power Girl.
- Tan and Patel, Spot's tech-support colleagues in iZombie, are heavy examples.
- Marvel Universe:
- The Incredible Hulk supporting character Amadeus Cho is Korean-American and incredibly good at math, to the point that he's apparently one of the top ten smartest people in the Marvel universe.
- The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist: Tomine, who is Japanese-American, narrates an incident where a cartoonist assumed he was an internet technician rather than a fellow cartoonist.
- Takeshi Matsuya/Wiz Kid is a mutant of Japanese descent who has powerful Technopath abilities and the computer and engineering smarts to make full use of them. Fellow Avengers Academy student Hazmat outright calls him "Asian stereotype boy".
- Sharri Barrnett, the Filipino programmer in Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool.
Comic Strips
- Asok the Intern in Dilbert. Scott Adams has said that if he keeps getting complaints about stereotyping, he'll make Asok a drug dealer.
- The sibling pair of Phoebe and Eugene Wu in FoxTrot. They're introduced in a series of strips in which Jason, Marcus, and Eileen attend a science-themed summer camp, and prove to be just as geeky as them (with Eugene also being an Insufferable Genius who even grates Jason's nerves).
Fan Works
- Abraxas (MonsterVerse): Ren Serizawa (who was introduced in this fic before his canon counterpart was introduced as a Gadgeteer Genius in Godzilla vs. Kong) is academically-accomplished enough to collaborate with archaeology professors and lead a professional scuba-diving expedition to submerged ancient ruins. The fic's ending also reveals that Ren has advanced engineering skills like his MonsterVerse counterpart.
- Fairy Friends (The Fairly OddParents!): Trixie retains her canonical Asian ancestry and love of comic books while also getting hit with a case of Adaptational Intelligence since it's stated that she's the smartest student at Dimmsdale Elementary School after the resident Child Prodigy A.J.
- In now that i can see your face (i can stand up to anything.), teen Grade Skipper Velma is at least half-Asian. Her mother is from Japan.
- Silent Wish: Trixie is Asian and described as an academic comic book fangirl.
Films — Animation
- Big Hero 6:
- Hiro Hamada and his brother Tadashi, who are half-Japanese and both robotics prodigies.
- Gogo is Korean and also a skilled mechanical engineer.
- Over the Moon: Fei Fei is at the top of her class and also manages to build a functioning rocket all on her own.
- In Turning Red, protagonist Meilin "Mei" Lee is Chinese-Canadian, a straight-A student, and a general overachiever. On the geekier end, she wears a calculator wristwatch and carries a Tamagotchi pretty much everywhere with her.
Films — Live-Action
- Subverted in 21 and Over. At first, we're led to believe that Jeff Chang is a straight-A student who tutors people in science. We later find out that he's on the verge of failing out of college and is being tutored in science.
- Deconstructed in Better Luck Tomorrow. The protagonists are all high-achieving Asian American teens, who use their goody-two-shoes appearance to get away with a number of crimes, while they secretly live a wild party lifestyle. This rebellion is a response to the pressure of the role they're expected to play as top students- as the protagonist puts it
Ben: I enjoyed doing things I couldn't put on my college application.
- The early John Cusack comedy Better Off Dead combined this with Jewish and Nerdy by having an Asian immigrant learn English by watching ABC's Wide World of Sports, and thus talk constantly in Howard Cosell's distinctive nasal voice.
- Due to his ancestry, Keanu Reeves frequently plays with this trope, being (for example) a "jock" in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and a "nerd" in The Matrix.
- The 1981 film The Cannonball Run featured a pair of racers of indeterminate Asian origin (one of whom was played by Jackie Chan!). Their car is a 1980-81 Subaru hatchback modified to a James Bond-esque gizmo-mobile which even turns into a submersible at one point. Jackie returns in the sequel, this time as the team engineer for Mitsubishi and paired up with driver Richard Kiel.
- Lau in The Dark Knight was hired by the mobs to launder their money because he was "good at calculations". In particular, he was an accountant who lived in a country where he couldn't really be touched by the US. Still fits this trope, but it's justified.
- Bruce (Masi Oka's character) in the 2008 Get Smart movie. Of course, he was flanked by two geeky white men: Lloyd and Max himself. Also, in the direct-to-video spin off Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control, Bruce is apparently more successful with the ladies than Lloyd.
- The Green Hornet Serials. This incarnation of Kato is a scientist and inventor. In one episode, Britt asks Kato to examine the superweapon they just retrieved from the crooks to see how it works. In another, when Britt needs to check on a scientist, his first idea is to send Kato over to talk inventions (and Kato's delighted to do so).
- Ellie in The Half of It is introverted, has excellent grades, wears huge glasses, plays the guitar and keyboard, and writes essays as a side hustle.
- Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: Subverted by Cindy Kim and her East Asian Club. They appear to be straight-laced nerds, but turn out to be drug-using party animals.
- The "Asian Nerds" in Mean Girls. Averted by the "Cool Asians."
- MonsterVerse: Though an American Godzilla franchise, it has seen several egghead characters who happen to be of Asian nationality and exceptionally smart: Monarch's monster experts and field specialists include the MonsterVerse's resident Dr. Serizawa, the Chen family and San Lin, whilst Serizawa's son Ren is a technically-gifted engineer.
- Julia from The Rainbow Experiment is captain of the volleyball team, a member of the Chinese and National Honor Society, and a violinist. Matty is convinced that she'll someday be President.
- The 2009 live-action Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins Continuity Reboot has cast a Japanese-American actress as Velma. However despite being a Race Lift this isn't noted at all, and furthermore, when she's in the Velma costume, you wouldn't know she's Asian.◊
- Defied in the Disney Channel movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior. Wendy herself averts this trope, but because of the film's title falls into the stereotype of martial artist. Her brother, however, averts both stereotypes as a popular and somewhat dim jock.
Literature
- 4 Kids in 5E and 1 Crazy Year: The Chinese Ah Kum is a Shrinking Violet who gets perfect grades on most assignments and paints, writes, and knits. However, she is also a Deconstructed Character Archetype of this, as she enjoys hanging out with Lovable Alpha Bitch Destiny, secretly wants to dye her hair and only cares about her grades because her terrifying father wants her to be a pharmacist when she grows up to improve their status as poor immigrants and will make her life Hell over The B Grade, let alone anything less than that. Destiny makes a mental "Not So Different" Remark about Ah Kum and Max after seeing the look on Ah Kum's face as Max yells about his abusive father during an argument.
- Averted with Claudia Kishi of The Baby-Sitters Club: artsy but terrible in all her other subjects. Her sister definitely qualifies, though.
- The main reason why Park Sheridan in Eleanor & Park has such a hard time with fitting in his predominantly white and non-geeky community is his race and geekiness.
- Played straight and subverted in Blood and the Stars.
- Orelius Zhang is one of Coror's scientists, and is known for being intelligent, to the point that Masto Cost mistook Pootus for being one of his creations.
- Galius Cho, on the other hand, is a boxer, not a thinker.
- Element Bots: Starla's a young Japanese woman who's a Gadgeteer Genius and wants to make the world a better place through the power of science. To that end, she built three Fembot Robot Superheroes with Elemental Powers. To go along with all of that, she wears black glasses with semicircular lenses and thin frames.
- Fear Street: Phoebe is Japanese-American and probably the third or fourth smartest student in her class, although she's also a cheerleader.
- In the Thea Stilton spin-off of the Geronimo Stilton series, Violet is the Chinese member of the Thea Sisters and has a passion for studying and reading, so much that her friends consider her a walking encyclopedia and Thea herself describes her as a "real intellectual, just like [her] brother, Geronimo".
- Erin Hasegawa from Girls on Film, who is Hardestadt's Japanese-American partner who adores technology, pop culture, and playing tabletop games.
- Averted and defied In-Universe by Elijah The Golden Feather, who complains about people who think he's "smart" because of this trope when in reality his grades are pretty mediocre.
- The Great Greene Heist:
- Victor Cho is a self-proclaimed "intellectual nerd" who runs the chess club.
- Hashemi Larijani is a Trekkie and Gadgeteer Genius.
- In The Hunger Games, everyone in District 3 is implied to be Asian. While the books don't specify the races of many characters (which is justified, as the setting is a dystopian America After the End, so the racial definitions of modern society aren't the same), the engineers "Volts" Beetee and "Nuts" Wiress from from District 3 are described as having black hair, ashen skin, and small builds, traits which are common for the rest of their District and the narrator of the Scholastic audio books puts on a distinct stereotypical Asian accent. (The Catching Fire movie averted this by making the former black and the latter white—Beetee even gets the black-sounding surname of Latier.)
- A very odd case (and possibly an Ur-Example) is from the Land of Oz! It was revealed in The Royal Book Of Oz that the Scarecrow had once been Emperor of the Silver Islands, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Imperial China (as written by a 1920s American). It was due to some magic gone sideways that led to his spirit possessing a Munchkin Scarecrow on the other side of Nonestica with no clue as to who or what he really was.
- Janine Cho from Miracle Creek was practically ignored as a child so her parents could focus on her brother, their firstborn son. She rebelled by throwing herself into her studies, eventually becoming a doctor, while her brother dropped out of college to become an actor. She laughs at the irony: her rebellion against Korean gender stereotypes led her right into the white American stereotype of brilliant, overachieving Asians.
- Doubly subverted in Gish Jen's Mona In The Promised Land: Mona Chang, daughter of Chinese immigrants, is not particularly interested in school despite pressure from her parents, but hangs out with her Jewish classmates and eventually converts to Judaism. Her sister, however, fits this trope. (In another subversion, her parents run a pancake restaurant.)
- Roys Bedoys: Downplayed on both counts for Maker, who seems to be part Asian (his dad’s last name is Chan and looks like he could be Asian, while his mom is clearly white) and is the best student and sometimes has general knowledge the others don’t.
- Space Force by Jeremy Robinson: Jian is a Chinese hacker who is the physically weakest of the anti-alien team, a huge anime fan, and a massive gamer who knows Captain Stone by his gaming livestreams versus special operations credentials.
- The trope is heavily referenced in Takotsubo: The story of a superhero. Chinese-American Cord Cai is a troubled young man who repeatedly calls himself a failure because he's not a kung-fu artist or a doctor. After his fiancé Roland gets shot and the police completely mishandle it, Cord thinks this is a sign that leaving the streets is hopeless, shoots the murderer because gang justice is better than no justice, and resigns himself to running a vigilante gang. As the tagline states, Cord is a superhero who shoehorns himself into the villain role because he's never seen any Asian-American superheroes.
- Chloe Cho from Unidentified Suburban Object is one of the best students in her school, as well as a violinist who's made first chair in the school orchestra for the last three years. Adam Wheeler, her only real competition, complains that she only beats him because Asians have a violin-playing gene, which infuriates her.
- Jester, the Asian member of Ben's ace tech team in Wars of the Realm.
- Myishi from The Wish List is one of Hell's top scientists and engineers, and was Japanese when he was alive.
- World's Greatest Animals: Crystal is a young Chinese woman who loves and is incredibly knowledgeable about animals. She has degrees in biology, botany, and zoology. She also has a large collection of animal memorabilia that includes many ZooBooks, multiple Eyewitness books, several Eyewitness VHS tapes, and two of the Zoo Tycoon PC games.
Live-Action TV
- Averted on Bones for the most part. Angela is half Chinese and a gifted computer tech person, but she avoids the nerd stereotypes. She’s outgoing, confident, flirty and embraces her sexuality.
- Doctor Kitasato in Charité, though the trait isn't too pronounced seeing as all the non-Asian scientists and doctors in the series are, of course, just as nerdy.
- In Community, the school's Math Club appears to be comprised solely of this trope, as lampshaded when Jeff and Chang (himself an underachieving aversion) are pinned down by them during a paintball tournament:
Chang: Relax. I have a plan. [louder] Hey, Math Club! I'm Asian! Are you guys Asian?
Math Club Member: ... That's pretty racist, dude.
Chang: That wasn't a no! I'm coming over! - This was double subverted in the weirdest way possible in Degrassi Junior High, where Yick Yu, a dorky bespectacled Asian kid, had to work extra hard in class to break the stereotype (that apparently exists in the Degrassi world) of Asians as Dumb Jocks. Originally to be played straight, but the actor complained.
- Vince Masuka of Dexter. However, he subverts some of the stereotypes by showing interest in and, occasionally, success with women. And by not being very Asian, except in appearance.
- Scott Fuller from From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series was adopted from China. He's also fluent in Elvish and uses ''Frack'' as a swear word.
- Grimm: Lampshaded and parodied in Season 1, Episode 3. When asked if he can hack a blocked text, Sgt. Wu sarcastically retorts "Of course, I can. I'm Asian!" Hank laughs at the joke, but Wu has it hacked in seconds. This becomes a hallmark of Wu's constant ability to be both sassy and serious at the same time.
- Hiro in Heroes (2006). It helps that he's played by Masi Oka, who's a genuine article geek.
- Dr Chi Park, third-generation team member on House, is an over-achieving Bespectacled Cutie. In a twist of events, she's asked resident Chick Magnet Robert Chase out on a date, and he's said yes.
- While she's thoroughly Americanized and acts like an Asian Airhead, Zoe from the short-lived Knight Rider 2008 series speaks 9 languages and is a genius at computers.
- Joseph Cheng from the Leverage: Redemption episode "The Double-Edged Sword Job" is a villainous version of this trope, although the Asian part is downplayed. He's a tech genius with No Social Skills who has created Searchlight, which is not only the most scarily advanced Facial Recognition Software on the planet, but also predicts its subjects' behavior. He's too amoral to worry who uses Searchlight, or why; a Domestic Abuser tracking down his terrified ex? Fascistic Private Military Contractors? Dictators making sure their victims can't escape? Cheng doesn't care as long as he gets paid. He also happens to be Chinese-American, although no one ever brings this up.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: The protagonists are a half-Japanese, half-American former schoolteacher, and a Japanese intuitive former artist that are half-siblings through their father; Hiroshi Randa, who is secretly working for Monarch like his parents, including Dr. Keiko Miura-Randa, used to. There's also Dr. Suzuki, the reclusive Japanese scientist who invents a Titan-attracting gamma ray simulator in the 1950s plot.
- The late Grant Imahara of MythBusters was a Real Life example.
- Grant plays up to this stereotype. He builds robots for fun and in the jailhouse rope episode had pi on his "prisoner" outfit as a "prisoner number". At least he's not a stereotypical bespectacled dork; he's very handsome (see picture above). When they tested lie detectors, Grant was asked if he had ever thought of building a robot girlfriend. He said "no", and the machine flagged it as a lie.
- He tweeted a photo of himself dressed as Spock, and played Sulu in the fan series Star Trek Continues.
- When he was inducted into the 501st Legion (think Civil War reenactors, only with Stormtroopers) he attended his ceremony dressed as the Tenth Doctor.
- Evelyn Kwong from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is the smartest person at James K. Polk besides Cookie, leading to a lot of competition. She subverts a lot of the accompanying tropes that go with this though, she's competitive, rude, loud, mean and a sometimes Stalker with a Crush.
- Never Have I Ever: Devi is Indian, gets top grades, and even plays the harp.
- Andy in Nowhere Boys. The character was created by Tony Ayres, who himself has an Asian background. It consequently has a realistic portrayal of a kid from a Singaporean migrant family, rather than a shallow stereotype.
- Dr. Seth Park on Open Heart. He makes a makes a level-up joke when London delivers him a patient’s urine sample and sarcastically says "mission complete".
- The "Power Rangers" franchise has quite a few of these, with nearly every team having one Asian Ranger in it.
- Played with in regards to Trini, the Yellow Ranger, in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as she is shown to be a good student though the biggest nerd in the group is Billy - she was his Translator Buddy early in the series. She's more like a combination of Billy and Valley Girl Kimberly.
- Trip the Green Ranger in "Power Rangers Time Force" sort of counts due to being played by a Filipino actor, for despite being an alien, he's also the team's tech guy.
- Cam the Green Ranger on "Power Rangers Ninja Storm" served the first half of the season as the Guy In The Chair, helped build the Storm Megazord, the Power Spheres, the Wind Rangers Tsunami Cycles, and created a cyber double of himself.
- Twins Gem and Gemma, the Gold and Silver Rangers on "Power Rangers RPM" worked with Doctor K at Alphabet Soup before the Venjix Virus attack. Despite their crazy personality of attacking first, they're both pretty smart, with Gemma even helping Flynn out at one point.
- Lucy Chen from The Rookie is of Chinese descent and is smart enough to become a cop and score the second highest on the six month rookie exam. Towards the end of Season 7, she gets promoted to sergeant after scoring the highest on the exam.
- Zach from School of Rock though downplayed. He gets good grades and has very strict parents who dislike their son's interest in rock, preferring him to study classical music.
- John Cho's character Henry on Selfie is the more grown-up, non academic version of this trope, being an intelligent Workaholic who is good at his job and almost obsessed with it.
- In the short-lived Some of My Best Friends, Camp Gay Vern attempts to fix a broken TV. Another character dubiously asks if he can really fix it, and he responds, "Hello! I'm Asian!" Turns out he has no clue.
- Cody's nerdy Asian girlfriend, Barbara, from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. She even takes A.P. lunch. She's also extremely competitive, as during one episode whenever Cody one-upped her she stomped on his foot. It only worked once, the next time she hurt herself because he was wearing steel-toed boots. Barbara also counts as Jewish and Nerdy.
- The Spiderwick Chronicles (2024): Downplayed with Japanese-American Emiko, who is tough-talking and fashionable but also Good with Numbers and knows a lot of fairy tropes from fantasy media.
- Kevin Tran in Supernatural. In his first episode, he's introduced playing the cello in his bedroom (which is filled with honors and awards). When his phone starts ringing, he doesn't pick up until a timed alarm on his computer tells him practice time is over, at which point he starts talking to his nearly-as-nerdy girlfriend. Then he gets hit by a celestial lightning bolt and appointed translator of the Word of God. Of all the things to happen on exam day...
- Toshiko Sato in Torchwood is the team's shy, nerdy tech person.
- Glenn from both iterations of the The Walking Dead is a subversion, possibly a slight Deconstruction of most of the older Asian stereotypes. Before the outbreak, he was very far from the innocent, quietly nerdy Asian archetype. In fact, he never spoke to his parents, and was so far in debt from college and other purposes, he had to resort to car theft with his friends, and various low-paying jobs such as pizza delivery to make ends meet. After the outbreak, he quickly becomes the Guile Hero of his survivor group, as a comparatively rational thinker with a preference for sneaking around the walkers.
- The White Lotus: Ethan Spiller is of Asian descent and made his money from tech, and (along with his Latina wife Harper) is one of the most book-smart and socially conscious of season 2's roster. More dramatically, his white friend Cameron frequently emasculates him, which Ethan resents.
Toys
- Uranus from Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls is a bookworm highly concerned with her younger sister, the laidback surfer Neptune's, education. Her nerdiness is further emphasized by her schoolgirl attire and glasses.
Theatre
- Sean Liu-Ogden in Peter Fenton’s Abandon All Hope initially comes off as a straight (even exaggerated) example being an engineering major at an Ivy League school after having been Valedictorian and National Honors Society President in high school. However, the archetype is deconstructed as it’s revealed Sean put all the pressure on himself to be successful in these areas to differentiate himself from his parents, who are an A-List Actress and Director. He resents that the only Ivy he could get into was the school his father went to.
- Marcy Park in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee can be this, depending on the production. note In a cast of nerds, Marcy is likely the smartest, as she placed in the top ten at the National Spelling Bee and has a whole song about how she is fluent in six languages. The only reason she doesn't win the Putnam Bee is because she decides to throw the competition.
Video Games
- C14 Dating: This is downplayed, but Shoji, the geekiest option among Melissa's potential love interests, happens to be half-Japanese. The two of them initially bond over a shared love of video games and one of Shoji's insecurities in his romantic route is that their relationship might not advance beyond the two of them becoming gaming buddies.
- Subverted in Disco Elysium, where Kim Kitsuragi is stereotyped as being a nerd due to his Seolite ancestry and dependence on Nerd Glasses, and is assigned demeaning, geeky jobs by his employers (such as working with children, or assuming he will be good at playing pinball as it was invented in Seol). However, he is perfectly elegant and cool in a way your player character will never achieve. During his debriefing of your player character at the end of the first day, the player character's internal monologue might start fanboying over how cool Kim is, and may even ask him how he got to be that way, or even realise it's something Kim cultivated to protect himself from this stereotype. He does have some nerdy interests — in particular, he has a keen interest in tinkering with machines and loves playing civilisation-building board games and gets excited when the player starts popping out play tokens from their cardboard frame— but his need to counter this stereotype forces him to act a little defensive about this side of himself. If the player is leaning into a Dumb Muscle playstyle, they will also have the option to call Kim a "bino" (a nerd), which Kim mostly ignores.
- Exaggerated in Fallout 2 with the Shi, descendants of the crewmen of a Chinese nuclear submarine who went on to repopulate San Francisco's Chinatown. They went from being a bunch of sailors to the most technologically advanced faction in all of postwar America, surpassing even the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute, with even random civilians bragging about how they're smarter than they look. The only faction proving to be close to their intellectual equal is the Enclave, who they're all too happy to avoid.
- Ling-Ling Johnson from Guilty Party is The Smart Guy in a group that's already pretty clever, and in addition to being a cracking good Kid Detective, she's a Gadgeteer Genius who designed portable lie detectors.
- Mei Ling from the Metal Gear series is a Chinese-American data analyst going to MIT at the time Metal Gear Solid game takes place.
- Jenny from MySims has an Asian appearance. Her Interests are Geeky and Studious. More specifically, she "is president of five science fiction clubs, seven video game clans, and a prolific fan fiction author."
- Jung Park in Rainbow Six: Vegas is a South Korean electronics specialist. He carries the radio, does all the hacking and can recognize a Farraday Cage from thirty paces. He's also a former member of the South Korean 707th — also known as the "White Tigers" — and is a crack shot with his G36C.
- In the Sakura Wars franchise, Kohran Li is the only Chinese member of the original Imperial Flower division, and is the team's resident Gadgeteer Genius who's in charge of the maintenance of the Koubu, as well as an avid inventor in her free time. Although she's more social and cheerful than the average example of this trope.
- Hannah, Nikhil, and Jake from Yearning: A Gay Story are all Asian (albeit of different nationalities: Hannah is Chinese, Nikhil is Indian, and Jake is Thai) computer science students who excel at classes and geek out over board games. Hannah in particular is said to have parents who expect her to get straight As and takes on a triple major in mathematics and Japanese in the epilogue.
Web Animation
- Dayum: Zheng’s dad, the “Asian” on “Types of Parents Portrayed by Minecraft”, canes his son for getting a 99/100 on his exam.
- Vivi Yukino from Mystery Skulls Animated is a Japanese horror and mystery enthusiast that works in a store that deals exclusively in horror themed novels and comic books and leads her own Scooby-Doo esque group of paranormal investigators.
Webcomics
- Pavel (Bombay by way of Seattle) of Bad Moon Rising is the go-to researcher for the vampire hunting heroes.
- The main character of Fisheye Placebo Vance Lee is a huge fan of anime/manga and memes, as well as a masterful hacker and computer science major, to boot.
- Ki Oshiro-Wellington from General Protection Fault, who can out-nerd almost anyone.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Played with in regards to Tedd, who is half-Asian and very nerdy indeed. Although, he seems to have a lot more in common with his dad in that regard over his Japanese Missing Mom.
- Tedd's cousin Nanase averts this. Despite doing amazing at school thanks to an overbearing Education Mama, she's athletic and toned as well as very popular.
- Played completely straight by Chika, one of the characters in the Q&A segments. She's an analytical and level-headed Asian scientist, who plays the Straight Man to Amanda and Lisa.
- My Hot Ass Neighbor lampshades and subverts this with main Wong who has all the physical traits expected of a stereotype from his height making him the shortest character by a wide margin save for his grade-school sister despite being in high school, to his coke bottle glasses and buck teeth, which Sharona points out as the reason she needs him as a tutor (and then some) then subverted as he has "something else" that gets the ladies going, too.
- Wannabe: Andy is Filipino and a social anxious playwright.
Web Original
- The Huang Twins were born in the US to Chinese parents. Michael mostly focuses on music composition and animation, whereas Cary focuses on AI and software coding.
- Halo 2 ARG I Love Bees has nerdy medical student Hiroyuki, roommate of the Middle-Eastern and Nerdy protagonist Kamal.
- One article from The Onion interviewed a pair of Asian students who, due to lazy and stupid behavior, were praised for breaking stereotypes.
Web Video
- The entire point of the song 'Nobody's Asian in the movies' by Maurissa Tancharoen from the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog musical commentary, Commentary! The Musical. The song ends with "I'm gonna go play with my violin and... math!" Possibly a jokey jab at the lead actress of Dr Horrible, Felicia Day, who is not Asian but was a violin performance/math double major.
- Tomorrow's Teachings: Alex in "Kid Ruined By Eating Junk Food, You Won't Believe It" is Asian and prefers to study all the time instead of hanging out with his friends (although this can be justified by the fact that he's a university student). He is also nicknamed a "nerd" by Jake because of his interest in robotics.
- SKZ Family: The father (Played by HAN) who happens to be Korean comes off as a nerd, because he can be very awkward, ditzy and clumsy around his family. His mom I.N and dad Felix also come off this way due to their antics in trying to be hip with the kids.
Western Animation
- Toshi, one of Steve's friends in American Dad!, is a highly intelligent Asian. Who speaks Japanese all the time and wants to kill, humiliate or mutilate Steve, usually. Averted by Jerk Jock Vince Chung, who is "so cool that you forget he's Asian."
- In 'American Dragon: Jake Long'', Jake’s younger sister, Haley, is half-Chinese like him and is a Child Prodigy, who is talented in things like violin and has better grades than him. It’s averted for Jake himself, who doesn’t have the best grades, and is shown to be more interested in hip hop and rap culture.
- Amphibia:
- Marcy Wu is a dorky teenage girl who gets effortlessly good grades and is into all kinds of nerdy things, especially video games and RPGs. Within Newtopia, she becomes an invaluable inventor, practically revolutionizing the whole city and molding her into a formidable warrior. Despite being extremely smart however, she is rather scatterbrained, and her incredible clumsiness and obliviousness to the world around her tends to get her into trouble.
- Averted with Anne Boonchuy, who is Thai and has terrible grades, being more of a people person.
- Macie from As Told by Ginger is half-Asian and fits in a non-typical way. She's not presented as particularly studious or smart, instead she is an unpopular, neurotic band geek.
- Lizbeth from Captain Flamingo is half-Chinese and half-Filipino, and she's strong and smart. However, she is a bit of a loner.
- Kim and Kam Chin from Class of 3000— but mostly Kam, who is more bookish and reserved than his twin sister.
- Tatsu from DC Super Hero Girls just moved from Japan. She's an academic and athletic Ace, only just barely bested by Diana Prince (AKA Wonder Woman).
- Lee Ping, the main character of Detentionaire, is a downplayed example. He gets good grades and used to be on the Mathletes team, but it rarely affects the plot and he uses more Street Smarts and intuition than anything to help him get out of messes. He acts and looks almost nothing like a stereotypical nerd and apparently only joined the Mathletes in the first place because his mom made him do it. Mrs. Ping is, incidentally, a math teacher at his school, and is probably at least in part responsible for his good grades.
- Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory is stated to be half-Japanese. His mother, Oceanbird, subverts the trope while his (apparently later retconned) little sister Olga is shown to be more of a ballet prodigy than an academic prodigy.
- The Dragon Prince: Prince Callum is Asian on his mother's side and is quite artistic and well read. While he eventually develops into a Academic Athlete he never looses his love of book's.
- Downplayed with Trixie from The Fairly OddParents!. Though a vain Alpha Bitch, she's also been shown to be a comics and superhero Closet Geek in "The Boy That Would Be Queen".
- Family Guy pokes fun at this trope often, such as when Peter tried using an elementary-age Asian boy as a calculator for a math test.
- Fireman Sam: The local schoolteacher is a Chinese-Welsh woman, Mrs. Chen, who is knowledgeable on many things, if rather stubborn.
- Futurama:
- "A Big Piece Of Garbage". Professor Wernstrom requests a group of interns, and that most of them be Chinese. Likely because it makes him look smarter (or so it has been suggested by tie-in comics).
- Amy Wong, though she's often shown to be dense and clumsy. She seems to be more of a Genius Ditz than a straight-up Asian Airhead, and she's introduced early on as a graduate student in applied physics and an intern working for Professor Farnsworth. In "That Darn Katz!", her research even managed to both doom and save the Earth! She even manages to earn her doctorate in said episode because of that research, and in episodes afterwards, she's often seen helping the Professor with his experiments around the laboratory.
- Kin Kujira from Grojband is The Smart Guy of the band and a Gadgeteer Genius, although his kooky, childish personality means that he more frequently leans into being a Ditzy Genius. Subverted by his twin brother Kon, who is more of a Genius Ditz and an even bigger Cloud Cuckoolander than Kin.
- The main characters of Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol, Lou and Louise, are of Asian descent, know a lot about safety, and aren't shy about sharing their knowledge with those in need of it.
- Sheldon Lee from My Life as a Teenage Robot a Gadgeteer Genius who has a crush on the main character partly because she's a robot.
- There's a minor character in South Park named Kevin Stoley. He's a Chinese-American and is quite a Star Wars nerd. Barely more than a Living Prop, we don't know his intellect though. There's also the rather weird fact that other than explicitly saying he's Chinese-American, nothing else implies this, including surname or appearance. It's not like South Park is usually subtle with this sort of thing...
- Many war time cartoons like Tokio Jokio, Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips and The Ducktators depict the Japanese as pathetic small wimps with glasses.
- Chloe Park from We Bare Bears, a little girl of Korean descent who's already attending college. Though her unusual intelligence is attributed to being a Child Prodigy who was just smart enough to be able to skip middle and high school, rather than her Asian ethnicity.
- In Zeke's Pad, Jay, who is Asian, is Zeke's Only Sane Man friend, trying to show him the downsides of using the pad for rash, selfish reasons. He also enjoys studying, math in particular.