"Fufu... I will say that despite me looking down on you, your overall performance was excellent. I believe that deserves a compliment."
— Mikado Sannōji (to Nikei Yomiuri), Super Danganronpa Another 2, "Chapter 4: Can There Be Truth in the Lies of a Liar"
Much in the same way as Actually a Good Idea, but occurs more in the aftermath of said trope. Take a scenario where Alice finds out about an event Bob was in or had caused. Bob had done such actions that may have performed incredibly well, so much so that it’s impossible to believe. (Whether or not these actions were successful.) While Alice is rather appalled, jealous, or frightened by Bob’s actions, they can’t help but admit they’ve made a good effort, and briefly praise their work.
There is also a variant of this trope that goes hand-in-hand with Refuge in Audacity. Bob may have committed a transgression that severely inconveniences Alice, and in any other circumstance she would throttle him like a ragdoll. However, the transgression is so brazen or over-the-top that Bob escapes punishment — not because Alice finds it impossible to believe, but because she just can't bring herself to be mad at Bob out of admiration. It's one thing to try to fight Cthulhu and get obliterated for your troubles. It's another to waltz straight to his throne room, call him a Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head, moon him, and then waltz right back out. There's a pretty good chance Cthulhu might spare you instead, simply because he respects the sheer bravery of a mere mortal insulting him to his face.
Might serve as the last item on a list of Arson, Murder, and Admiration, or as The One Thing I Don't Hate About You. Compare Everyone Has Standards when the observer is willing to support the doer, even despite the very person they are, Not Bad when the observer doesn't give any overt praise to the doer, but it is implied that they did find the deed to be impressive all the same, and Touché when the observer gracefully concedes a good point or event in the other’s favor. May lead to Villain Takes an Interest if the hero does something impressive in front of the villain. Compare and contrast Audacity Earns Approval, where it’s the spirit to try it that impresses them, instead of their actual performance. May overlap with Worthy Opponent, Graceful Winner, Graceful Loser and Smile of Approval. Differs from A Success, by Comparison, where some form of progress is made while doing a task that was designed to result in unimpressive failure. See also Actually Pretty Funny, and Actually Quite Catchy. On the other hand, if it comes from a bitter enemy, the person might respond, "Your Approval Fills Me with Shame", and dismiss their compliments.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: In Chapter 44, Rentarou’s Zany Scheme for satisfying Kurumi’s craving for a French kiss consists of Hahari serving as his Body Double to prevent Kurumi from getting a head start on him ahead of all the other girls. After learning that Hahari had blindly French’d another girl at random while they were sleeping so that none of them could claim they weren’t French’d by Hahari ahead of Kurumi, Kurumi can’t help but admire the dedication of everyone to helping resolve the situation.
Fan Works
- The Blue Dragon (Batman): Implied; Zuko states that shortly after he completed his swordsman training with Master Piandao, he caught Azula trying to steal his swords. Zuko states that Azula stealing someone's weapon is usually her way of saying she's impressed by what someone else can do and furious she can't do it herself.
- Danganronpa Re:Programmed: In Chapter 4, after Mukuro Ikusaba was recently revealed to be the traitor among their group, Chihiro confronts her about why she’d joined Fenrir, a dangerous terrorist organization. Mukuro explains that she got into it when she picked up her interest in military equipment. When she was a child, she won a survival game tournament her school hosted. Then as she got older she wrote for military magazines. Eventually, she would join Fenrir and would become one of the greatest terrorists alive. Chihiro thought of her journey to be rather impressive, and Mukuro was a little flattered by his compliment.
- The Morrigan: During the battle between Suletta and Ericht, Ericht's taunts distract Suletta enough that Ericht can barely clip the Schwarzette's blade antenna, and she gloats that in a formal duel, she would have won by then. Suletta responds by firing her Azimuth laser, turning everything around her to slag and precisely slicing off Ericht's own blade antenna. Ericht plays it cool in the moment, but she later admits that Suletta is much better than she gave her credit for, and she had to resort to cheating to win the match.
- Spider-Ninja: Doctor Octopus angrily admits to himself that Donatello possesses remarkable intelligence, as he managed to not only copy the work of Doctor Reed Richards but modify one of his inventions to suit the needs of his team (something the villain has not managed to do). This leads to him kidnapping Donnie to try and force him to build a machine for him.
- Super Danganronpa Another 2: Downplayed in the third trial. When Kanade is pinned as the culprit of Setsuka's murder, she sadly admits that she's the killer. While Syoubai had helped expose her crime, he tries to cheer her up and compliments how genius her murder plan almost was, and she was one of the smartest criminals he ever met. But Kanade dismisses his compliments, for it's not gonna change the fact that she's gonna get executed soon.
- Tangled Up With Turtles: Donatello pauses in the middle of the battle with the Automatons to marvel at how quickly Varian was able to put them together.
Donnie: When did he even have time to build these? Even Stockman takes weeks to build his death machines, and he has modern technology to help him. I'll admit, I'm actually impressed...
- Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite: In the end of "You Regatta Be Kidding Me", when Duncan succeeds in destroying Chris’ mansion, he gloats that he still has his bad boy image. Courtney, Duncan’s ex, scowls that she still hates his guts, but she admits that she was impressed with the damage he made to Chris’ place.
Films — Animation
- Despicable Me 2: Lucy, after Gru is given the offer to join the AVLnote , tells him that she always thought his work as a villain was "kind of amazing".
- The Iron Giant: Dean McCoppin complains that the Iron Giant is eating his artworks, pointing out that the one currently in its mouth is one of them. The Giant, curious, emulates Dean's work a little bit before placing a new metal sculpture down. Dean admits that it's actually pretty good.
- Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: When she's hired to capture Alex, Marty, Melman, Glora, and Co., DuBois chases them all over Monte Carlo. She even uses a leash to try and catch a ride on their plane. Alex and Mort manage to finally shake her when the lion cuts the leash, dropping her into a rooftop pool. She actually respects the fact that he managed to get away from her, even tipping her hat before admitting she's not done hunting him.
DuBois: Well played, lion. Game on.
- Monsters University: Despite being utterly humiliated at losing the Scare Games to Oozma Kappa, Johnny Worthington and the rest of his fraternity (minus Randall) tell Sulley that his performance during the Games was impressive, and try to welcome him back into their fraternity. Sulley doesn't even talk to them.
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water: The end of the film has Burger Beard and the seagulls singing the show's theme song, only for Bubbles to interrupt it out of annoyance. After Battle Rapping with the seagulls, they resume the theme song with a grandiose finale, to which Bubbles says "That was pretty good actually".
Films — Live-Action
- Subverted in Diamonds Are Forever. After a gangster throws Plenty O'Toole off a hotel balcony so that she lands safely in the hotel pool, James Bond compliments him on his aim. The gangster replies that he didn't know there was a pool there.
- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: Upon discovering his dog managed to somehow climb inside his refrigerator, defecate, and eat a whole wheel of cheese, Ron admits he isn’t even mad about the ordeal, he’s just impressed.
- Captain America: The First Avenger: Colonel Phillips believes Steve Rogers is absolutely the wrong candidate for the super-soldier program, and intends to prove Rogers is as unprepared for war in mind as he is in body. Phillips does this by throwing a grenade onto the field where the candidates are exercising. All of them dive for cover, except Rogers, who quickly falls on the grenade and yells for everyone to stay back. Once they realize it's a dummy grenade, Phillips takes a moment to contemplate how there may be more to Rogers than he thought, though he covers this with the retort, "He's still skinny."
- Secretariat: In the film's climax, when Secretariat wins the Triple Crown with a record-breaking lead, everyone (including the film's antagonist) can only stare in awe.
Martin: That's impossible...
Literature
- In the poem "Horatius" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, when Horatius dives into the Tiber after holding the line against the Etruscan enemy while his allies destroy the bridge, even the Etruscans are impressed when they see him resurface:
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.
Live-Action TV
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Several species, even those that don't like Starfleet, have a bit of respect or admiration for Data. The Klingons think that his superior strength makes him a Worthy Opponent, while the Romulans think he's impressive because his heightened intelligence gives him the ability to not only strategize on the fly, but figure out an opponent's strategy and use it to his own advantage (which is how he single-handedly ended the Klingon civil war by exposing the whole thing as a gambit by the Romulans). This respect is a double-edged sword, though, as Data was once kidnapped by a collector specifically because he's so impressive.
- The Thin Blue Line: In "Rag Week", Raymond foils an armed bank robbery by talking to the robbers in full-face masks in the manner of a Stern Teacher, as he believes them to be students having a laugh, not knowing that they are real criminals. His fierce rival Grim says that it's actually pretty cool to talk round armed robbers like that.
Grim: Well, you broke every rule in the book, Fowler. But I can't deny you ended the siege without bloodshed, it's pretty cool to talk round armed robbers like that.
Raymond: Oh really, hasn't the penny dropped? Armed robbers? I hardly think so. Under these silly masks, you'll find beardless spotty-faced students on a rag stunt. (He rips off their masks, to reveal bearded men) - Torchwood: In "They Keep Killing Suzie", the team discovers that Suzie had set up a massive Gambit Roulette to have herself resurrected, putting a series of subconscious triggers in a man and turning him into a murderer to kick off a series of events that would force them to bring her back and allow her to make her escape. Owen is briefly impressed.
Owen: You've got to admit, that is not bad. I'm picking her for my team.
Video Games
- Henry Stickmin Series: In the "Presumed Dead" route of Fleeing the Complex, Dmitri Johannes Petrov is sincerely impressed by the fact that Henry managed to break out of the Wall, being the first person to do so in 50 years.
Dmitri Johannes Petrov: I have to say, Henry, I'm impressed. Really I am.
- Limbus Company:
- During the Nocturnal Sweeping Intevello, Ricardo, a Big Brother of The Middle, is actually more impressed than pissed off when Smug Snake Shi Yihua decides it'd be a great idea to basically tap-dance on his Berserk Button by going on a long, insult-filled rant about his appearance. He's genuinely in awe that someone would be such a idiotic jackass that they set a record for how fast they managed to get into his Book of Vengeance after meeting him.
- When Outis joins some of the members of Rhodes Island to talk strategy during the Arknights crossover event, she actually has to begrudgingly admit she has nothing but praise for the Doctor's tactical acumen. Considering Outis is usually hyper-critical of the skills of anyone other than Dante, and Dante only gets that because they're her manager, it says a lot.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: In the first trial, when figuring out Teruteru as the murderer of Byakuya, Hajime figures out that the weapon that was used to kill Byakuya was an iron skewer, and hid it inside the food he prepared for the party. With the skewers being placed inside the giant meat on the bone. Once Monokuma reveals the weapon, Chiaki’s impressed how Teruteru disguised the handle of the skewer like an actual bone.
Chiaki: Check it out… the handle looks like it’s made of bone. Pretty clever.
- Celeste McCoy from Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane is astounded by the fact that Beatrice Frega, the person she and Tyrion are trying to convict, can cast the Invisibility spell all day long.
Celeste: Wow... That's actually really impressive.
Tyrion: Really?
Celeste: Casting spells may look effortless. But continuously casting spells takes a lot of stamina out of the caster. She must have a lot of stamina if she can cast a high-level illusion every hour.
Web Animation
- 13 Cards: In Clones In The Soup, Though Kuromaku is irritated by Waru's baking soda and vinegar prank, he admits that he's impressed by the knowledge of chemistry that went into the prank.
Kuromaku: I'm angry, but I am impressed at your basic knowledge of chemistry.
- DEATH BATTLE!: In "Samurai Jack vs Afro Samurai", after Afro knocks Jack off the rope bridge they were fighting on, Jack immediately leaps back onto the bridge. Afro is briefly surprised but then compliments Jack.
Afro Samurai: Heh. You jump good.
Samurai Jack: Oh, uh, thank you? - If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: the Emperor is usually exasperated and dejected at the various "victories" the Imperium has achieved since he was last active, often because those victories came at a huge loss or the commanders involved were just plain stupid. But when he hears about how the Astral Knight Space Marine chapter played a key role in destroying an enormous Necron superweapon called the World Engine, his response is "Well, slap me on the kneecap and call me a skeleton, that is actually amazing!"
- Space King: In "Space King 3", while playing with the green crystals, Captain finds the armor-piercing ability of Terry's gun too awesome to be mad over said gun carving deep grooves into his leg armor.
Webcomics
- My Bigger Boyfriend: At the end of the arm-wrestling match, Lance admits to Ocean that he didn’t have much of a high opinion of him but he respects how Ocean handled the fight responsibly. Ocean happily thanks him for the compliment, and joyfully slams the counter top, accidentally breaking it.
- The Order of the Stick: In #470
, Belkar reacts to Haley slaughtering two dozen hobgoblins singlehandedly.
Belkar: You know, normally this is where I would make an offensive — possibly sexist — remark... but that was just too awesome to ruin with words.
Haley: Gee, if I'd known that shooting hobgoblins would render you speechless, I would have saved that last one for later.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball:
- At the climax of "The Pest", Gumball confronts Billy as to why he’s been bullying his sister, Anais. Billy explains his story in the form of shadow puppetry, and throughout the sequence his shadow puppets shift into incredible figures, which should be impossible to do in real life. Once Billy finishes, Gumball briefly compliments Billy’s shadow work before calling him out.
Gumball: Okay, first how did you do that with your hands? That was amazing...
- In the B-Plot of "The Gripes", Richard notices Gumball's behavior and asks Anais what to do. Anais sarcastically says they should buy something for Gumball to complain about more, but Richard simply acquiesces and fails to understand her sarcasm. Anais would spend the plot teaching Richard about sarcasm. While the main plot revolves around Gumball and Darwin complain so much, they become actual charity cases. Gumball and Darwin attempt to tell the citizens they do not need the items, but their words fall on deaf ears, resulting them to prove they’re really poor. Once they trashed the house, the crowd of supporters arrive and give them a paycheck. But then Richard and Anais arrive with new jet skis for the boys, and the crowd turns on them for lying, but Anais assures them that after all the money Richard spent, they are broke now. So when a supporter asks if they’re poor or not, Richard sarcastically answers in the negative, causing the crowd to turn on them again.
Anais: Eh, bad timing. But good sarcasm.
- At the climax of "The Pest", Gumball confronts Billy as to why he’s been bullying his sister, Anais. Billy explains his story in the form of shadow puppetry, and throughout the sequence his shadow puppets shift into incredible figures, which should be impossible to do in real life. Once Billy finishes, Gumball briefly compliments Billy’s shadow work before calling him out.
- Amphibia:
- While Anne was trapped in Wartwood, the townspeople would constantly bully her seeing her as a freak of nature. Anne would then impress the people of Wartwood when she becomes the first person to stand up to the tax collectors, which rallies the rest of the town to do the same. During "True Colors", she shocks Andrias by reconnecting to her Calamity Stone and managing to take him down in a Curb-Stomp Battle (which he admits is impressive).
- Sasha wins Captain Grime (Sasha’s captor) over first by defeating a heron with a dish of mashed crickets and a barrel of mead, then by turning the tower's soldiers into a competent army with nothing but compliments.
- Big City Greens: In "Fast Foodie", when a new Burger Clown opens up by the Green’s house, Cricket tries to prove to Bill he can eat fast food for every meal. Resulting with Tilly getting gravely sick and Cricket becoming obese. So Bill puts the two on diet. While Tilly was able to cooperate, and are a lot healthier, Cricket still pursued to eat at Burger Clown, and manages to break out the house. With all the veggies Tilly ate, her senses has upgraded, allowing her to track down all of Cricket’s movements, before pointing out that he’d simply jumped out the window, making a hole of himself through it. Tilly also compliments how Cricket can break through the window while leaving a clean silhouette.
- Bluey: In "Tickle Crabs", Bluey and Bingo make sure their Puppy-Dog Eyes are extra-powerful in order to rope Bandit into a game he hates. It works, and while Bandit is chagrined, he also comments to himself that it was an impressive display.
- Dragons: Riders of Berk: Alvin the Treacherous is a long-time enemy of Berk obsessed with taking the island for himself. However, when he learns that Hiccup has found a way to train dragons to fly/fight with humans, he becomes very impressed... to the point that he becomes nigh-obsessed with kidnapping Hiccup and forcing him to train a dragon army for the Outcasts (something he almost accomplishes when he captures Hiccup in "We Are Family").
- DuckTales: After the events of "The Shadow War", Lena a shadow of Magica De Spell gets destroyed and now is trapped within the shadow of her friend, Webby. Later in "Friendship Hates Magic", Webby meets a girl named Violet who‘s interested in contacting the shadow realm, where Lena’s trapped in. So Webby and Violet play with ancient demogorgon runes to contact the shadow spirits. At first, Lena mocks Violet, for she disbelieves she can actually contact her, but then the runes started to glow up from their chanting. Lena becomes worried about Violet’s skills and smacks the runes away, but she becomes even more surprised that she was able to touch them, despite being a shadow.
Lena: I touched that? [gasp] I touched that! [gasp] How? Did I touch that? Oh, she's good.
- Gravity Falls: Dipper learns that people can do whatever they want in the Mindscape and shares this knowledge with Mabel and Soos, allowing them to conjure powers and tools to fight Bill and protect Stan's mind. After taking a beating, Bill decides he's had enough and admits he underestimated them, saying he'll keep them around since they might be useful in the future.
Bill Cipher: You know, I'm impressed with you guys. You're a lot more clever than you look, especially the fat one.
- Horrid Henry: In "Perfect Peter's Horrid Day", Henry goes to steal one of Great-Aunt Greta's chocolates, only to find that his brother Peter has replaced them with slugs. Henry is impressed, but disapproves of it as he doesn't want Peter to usurp him as "the horrid one".
- Johnny Test: "Hoist the Johnny Roger" has Johnny and Dukey decide to steal Mary and Susan's Turbo Time Tea House and come up with a backup plan when the initial plan to take it without the girls' permission fails. After they paralyzed Johnny, Johnny secretly has Dukey use the time machine during dinner 30 minutes from that point, traveling back in time to when the sisters paralyzed Johnny and take Johnny to the time machine. Mary and Susan are angry with Johnny and Dukey for this, though they do concede that their plan was really clever.
- The Owl House: "Convention", when Amity and Luz are both exposed as frauds in their witches duel, Luz finds Amity and admits that (at this point in the series) she can only cast one spell using a light glyph. Amity tells her that, while light spells are pretty simple, she's never seen someone cast one with a glyph before.
- Rick and Morty: In "Rattlestar Ricklactica", while attacking the science facility of the Snake planet, Rick and Morty are stopped by a snake piloting a mini-mech. Rick stops to say it looks cool until it starts shooting at them and he's forced to kill it.
- The Simpsons: In "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment", when Marge finds out Homer has been defying Springfield's prohibition laws by sneaking alcohol in via bowling balls and sending them to Moe's, Marge is too impressed to be upset.
Marge: I've known your father since high school, and this is the cleverest thing he's ever done. Besides, he's only breaking a silly 200 year old law.
- Smiling Friends:
- After getting tied up by the witch to be cooked in "The Enchanted Forest", Pim and Charlie are genuinely impressed by the Witch’s great chopping skills.
Charlie: She’s actually pretty good at that.
Pim: Yeah, she’s really good. - "Le Voyage Incroyable de Monsieur Grenouille", after succeeding in everything, Mr. Frog’s feels depressed that he’s lost all meaning in life, so Pim and Charlie try to help cheer him up. Charlie first signs Mr. Frog up to be the next fighter in the Ultimate Fighter Championship, with his first fight being against their toughest opponent - the Insanely Crazy Lunatic. However, as soon as his foe runs into him, his adversary’s neck breaks and he dies. Stunned, the UFC announcer unleashes every fighter the organization has at their disposal but they all meet a similar fate. Later at a park, Charlie understand how Mr. Frog is going through some tough emotions, but he compliments how astonished he was seeing Mr. Frog defeat all of his opponents without throwing a punch, and becoming the #1 UFC champion in his first and only fight. He also admires the shiny medals he won.
- After getting tied up by the witch to be cooked in "The Enchanted Forest", Pim and Charlie are genuinely impressed by the Witch’s great chopping skills.
- The Venture Bros.: In the season 1 episode "Eeny Meeny Miney Magic" after Hank and Dean use their urine soaked shirts to free Brock from a Lotus-Eater Machine, without having a way to escape the physical machine they're trapped in, Brock bemoans that he's no better off now, though makes sure to let the boys know he's impressed at them showing some actual initiative for once.
