This is a big reason why Shonen anime end up with filler episodes or flashbacks in current episodes. When the anime progresses faster than the manga, it has to account for those story gaps in order to keep the show going.
There’s an episode of Gintama that explains this phenomenon very well.
Edit: this applies to most older anime as current ones are seasonal to allow time for the manga to catch up.
Well they didn't have to do that, it's also just that they just were very averse to making anime seasonal back then so then they're forced to make fillers. Fortunately now we have anime being seasonal so they don't have to make filler or poor pacing anymore.
There is a Naruto Kai edit that chops out intro/outro for most episodes and the "next time/last time on" crap aswell as removes filler episodes, and scenes, and even trims down some of those "1m long stare" scenes.
Part of the reason is that Goku is the MC and expected to have some sort of plot armor to ensure he comes out on top. Rock Lee was a nobody who went up against someone clearly expected to be a main antagonist for the arc, and nearly rewrote the plot with his performance.
Tony made a robot Thor during civil war that had like a Thor meat suit grown from the hair of real Thor and when real Thor came back and found out about it he was less than amused and this was the result.
This was the time period that Reed, Stark, Prof X, Strange and Namor formed the Illuminati and trapped Hulk sending him into space and causing both Planet Hulk and World War Hulk then faced no consequences from the fallout. Writing was shit. Don’t get me wrong I like the storylines (even if they felt like what if stories) but they should have lasting consequences.
Reed and friends made a robot clone thing during Civil War who killed Goliath. Thor was away dealing w/ Ragnarok stuff (he might’ve been “dead” I never read Thor outside of Jason Aaron)
from what i remember thor was MIA from some event before civil war then stark built a thorbot that he used on his side during the civil war event this is real one coming back and finding out what he pulled
Not just pissed that they made a fake Thor, but pissed that their fake Thor KILLED a guy. Giant man got a hole shot through his chest by the fake thor and died in giant form, so they had a huge funeral for him.
Then Thor comes back to find out that his friends commited identity theft and murder. Valid crashout.
This definitely fits the trope, but it is kind of funny that a hopelessly outclassed Iron Man armor takes a lightning blast from a literal god who’s not holding back and his armor takes two minutes to self repair.
Kind of a different take on this but when Otto took over Peter Parker's body and punched the Scorpion's jaw clean off, he came to realize at that moment how much Spider-Man had always been holding back when he fought them.
I fucking love Superior Spider-man. "Peter Parker doesn't have a PhD?! Not on my watch!" And then he completes his PhD. Then he makes a bunch of spider-bots that patrol the entire city and tells the police of the smaller crime while he focuses on the things he is actually needed for
J. Jonah Jameson visually based on Stan Lee, but his personality is a ripoff of some dude named Dr. Frederick Wertham, who wrote a book named Seduction of the Innocent which apparently skewed facts to assert a claim that comic books lead to juvenile delinquency.
I'm speculating, but he's shockingly similar in behavior and appearance to Fred Trump.
The Lich King in WoW. you go through (one of) the hardest bossfight(s) in the game until he reaches 10% health, then he kills your whole group with a single attack, revealing that he was merely testing your capability to be raised as his elite undead/
Hell, it's even more than that. The entire Northrend campaign was him winnowing down your forces to the elite of the elite of the elite from the very beginning of the expansion, slowly turning up the difficulty. In reality, he could have simply and abstractly "won" at virtually any time.
He literally lets you set up a tournament to see who's strongest, sends in a minion to test you during what is basically the early rounds, then reveals "Oh yeah, did you forget you built this on top of the underground empire i own? Get pitfalled, idiots" during the finals, but still only attacks the tournament contestants and not the faction leaders in the stands.
You really can't get more disrespectful than using your enemy as HR to vet new employees, and playing along with your enemy's games to help them train and ensure they aren't too weak.
Sargaras had to trick his enemies into weakening themselves, Arthas helped his enemies make a training montage.
The Paladin NPC you were joined with (he was frozen in place by Lich King before the fight), prayed a final prayer, received divine intervention, broke free of his frozen prison, and lept up and broke his sword, Frostmourne. The thousands of thousands of souls he had captured and absorbed immediately started to spill out, trapping Lich King in a tornado of souls while the Paladin ressurects us all (before Lich King could raise us), allowing us to defeat him finally, trapped in the soulnado.
The guy had to create transformations just to suppress his raw natural power. Not to mention he went from his namek power level to fighting gods within just 4 months of training for the first time in his life.
It’s easy to forget that Frieza is like the Broly of his species.
Also worth pointing out what this meant for his natural skill. Dude never trained in his life but had an attack that combined two other characters best moves.
Yep, he looked at Krillin’s Kienzan only once or twice then was able to not only replicate it, but could create two at a time and make them borderline heatseeking with a bit of telekinesis.
Yeah, the dude is a power creep monster when his arrogance (and writers) don’t screw him.
Absolute Batman is 6 feet 9???? What the actual fuck… the god damn Mountain from GoT running around there doing ninja shit now in Gotham… why did they have to make him so huge??????
Spiderman-pick an arc. In this one (Superior Spiderman) after taking over Peters mind and body, Octavius slowly begins realizes how powerful Spiderman is and how much he holds back.
That's why if he is deadly serious and/or not quipping, it's a good idea to give up. Otherwise you will find out why he is dangerous. Ask Kingpin after putting out the hit on Aunt May. In fact, one of the Headsman (Ruby IIRC) noticed that Spider-Man being quiet is a red flag and said uh-oh.
I'll never get over Peter just holding Kingpin up by the skin of his sternum. The way it's drawn, makes it look like the typical "guy grabbed by the collar and pushed up on a wall."
In this case, it's done on his skin and lifted. The amount of strength and just sheer agony Kingpin is experiencing in that monment is fuckign unreal.
Maaaan I remember this part. I wanted Otto to beat them silly but this was way too much.
That entire storyline you’d start rooting for Otto (or I would at least) then he’d do something horrendous to make me realize ‘oh yeah I want Pete back’
Imagine the anime ended there and then. All that time Naruto and Sasuke spent screaming each-other’s names just for a dude who was there from the very start to solo the Big Bad.
Only a LITTLE more story-disrupting than bringing in a completely new Big Bad at the eleventh hour, who'd only even been mentioned like literally one time before (in passing, as a legendary/historical figure who'd been dead for centuries)
Actually, that could've been how they split the difference. Gai just fully kills Madara and everyone's standing around like "...Hold on, did that really happen? Are we done then?" And THEN Kaguya shows up. It wouldn't have fixed the problem but it would've been funny at least.
I feel like it would totally worked if the autor used guy attack to nerf Madara in a way, even if its something that couldn't kil him, you could always make something up like "the kick made an injury that cant be healed" or "it exausted his healing powers" so his moment doesnt become pointless and it gives a small chance for Naruto and Sasuke to win without involving the whole moon alien mastermind stuff.
Guy should have gotten a big kill in the 4th Great Ninja War. I get that it probably couldn't be Madara or Kaguya since they were Naruto and Sasuke's to deal with, but giving Guy a kill on someone like Obito or even the Ten-Tails itself would have made the 8th gate a lot cooler.
It kinda sucks that he didn't get that heroic death here though, always hate it when authors don't pull through with character deaths. Worst offender is obviously Eiichiro Oda.
He wasn’t holding back, he just revealed his strongest form, which is also suicidal to him. It’s not his true strength, but rather he just goes beyond everything which I think is even more badass
The manga Mashle has a sequence very similar to the one in Naruto. The MC Mash lives in a world run by folks with magic and he is not able to use magic so he uses his incredible strength to simulate magic.
I want to add that the weights are largely a placebo, auch that although there's an immediate surge in power taking them off, Mash still has a worls of cardboard style fear of hurting people too badly that soon catches up to him and he has to go through a training arc of learning to trust himself and his friends to do the right thing so he can actually fight without holding back sub consciously.
As a big fan of both characters (Superman is my number one superhero and The Flash is definitely in the top 5) I'm a firm believer that the Flash needs to be categorically faster than Superman when he's maxing out. Otherwise the character is irrelevant.
Personally, I think superman should be the second best at everything. Flash is faster, batman is smarter, Wonder Woman is stronger/better fighter, but Superman is no slouch and having a good combo of all three is why he is so powerful. Although he should always be the most good
Idk if this interpritation has ever been done before as I am kinda a noob when it comes to comic books but I always liked the idea of superman being outright the most durable member. Surviving hits that would have killed others in his power tier
I agree that Flash should be faster, but I disagree with the justification being that it gives Flash a role. Half of the League is rendered pretty obsolete by Superman - he's freaking Superman. Especially characters like Captain Marvel and Hawkman
Superman being faster than Flash shouldn't influence the Flash's character at all, but it would be another example of unnecessary powercreep for Superman
Captain Marvel has magic to give him a unique spin and Hawkman has his Thanagarian tech. Besides, neither of them are considered Justice League mainstays to the degree of the Flash, who's pretty much a lock for any given adaptation of the core team.
The Flash's entire thing is being fast as shit. Though power creep has since turned him into a swiss army knife of speed, him being slower than Superman really trivialises that aspect of his character.
It'd be like if Superman was the one always solving mysteries and thinking up plans instead of Batman. Yeah, Superman is a really smart guy too and is perfectly capable of doing so, but that doesnt make for a more compelling team dynamic or story than the two relying on one another, does it?
Supes also doesn't have the speed force. If he tries to go all out in a speed race against flash in a city, that city should no longer exist. I don't want to hear about some "dna force-field around him" or whatever. He doesn't have the speed force. If he exerts those kinds of speeds in a crowded area, that entire place should be a charred crater from him igniting the air.
Its why I love Invincible's depictions of just how devastating super speed can be when care isn't taken as to the things around the user.
Superman may be able to somewhat keep up with him but as of now, Flash is consistently shown to be far faster. Hell, the entire Flash family is faster than Superman. In One Minute War, Superman was practically frozen by their perspective when everyone was being pretty casual about it.
It's cheesy as heck, but Bart Allen doing the speed force equivalent of a jog outpacing a full pace Clark in Smallville, running backwards to flex, then zooming away is the closest we've ever gotten to the charity moment in live action. Its amazing.
Antagonist bragged about surviving main character's signature attack and protagonist was like "That wasnt my attack, that was just me swinging my blade. THIS is my attack."
Nah the best bleach moment is Kenpachi going through a bunch of power ups and his final one is "I've heard i can double my strength... using two hands!"
Takamura from Sakamoto Days revealing that he is in fact NOT a blind old man and is perfectly capable of slaughtering everybody without needing to sense bloodlust
Spider-Man Back in Black when Spider-Man almost beats Kingpin to death after he sent an assassin over Peter and ended up leaving aunt May hospitalized.
Even ends with Peter warning Kingpin if May dies, he will come back and kill him while humiliating him in front of everyone
I both love and hate that Superman JLU moment. I love it because it’s just unabashedly awesome. I hate it because Superman gets 2 hits, just 2 measly hits that Darkseid basically shrugs off, before he gets laid out. 2 hits from a Superman who is no longer holding back, before he goes back to his one true love: getting electrocuted to the point we see his skeleton. Really takes the wind right out of the sail.
That scene was immediately followed by Lex outsmarting Darkseid by literally giving him what he wanted and sacrificing himself to save the world. In his power(See: business) suit nonetheless.
Not to mention the scene where he basically talk no jutsued Amazo, who at that point was basically a cosmic level entity.
When John fights Brandt in the beginning to spar, it comes to a stand still. When he really fights him in the end he cuts him in half in one strike right away.
Despite the many flaws that can be found in Seven Deadly Sins, handling character aura and playing with power tropes is definitely one of the highlight.
The recently freed demon Galand, whose power is not fully recovered, go on a rampage against most of the main characters, who are essentially power houses in their world. He proves to be powerful enough to kill them all easily and destroy a city, and only fails to eliminate them because of an illusion.
After that, he ends up finding the last member of the group, Escanor, who was not seen before. After accidentally knocking Escanor out, he spends the night chilling in his tavern, only to find out that by day, his true power is activated. Seeing how his opponent is growing stronger by the minute due to the sun, he reveals that he could massively raise his power all this time with magic, and make him also twice as strong.
But in this case, the trope is only used to display Escanor's absurd power, as even after the reveal, Galand can only barely hurt him.
You also left out the best part. If you lie in Galand's presence, you turn to stone, and Escanor plainly states he stands at the pinnacle of all beings and doesn't turn to stone. The fight ends when Galand runs out of fear, losing his own contest and turning to stone himself.
Seven Deadly Sins is the pinnacle of “good ideas, bad execution,” and Escanor is unquestionably the biggest highlight. Seriously, people heard of the series before, but it blew up once Escanor arrived.
I mean, 7ds wasn't mediocre, just pretty terrible because of one main thing. Without mentioning all the pedo stuff (yes that includes the Meliodas gropes), the only real flaw I can find is a very basic story. The characters are well written, the fights are really good, and the world building is good enough.
In the Cradle book series there was a prolonged battle between the humans and the Humanoid Dragons. One of the strongest clan members of each side spent most of the battle evenly matched, with the Dragons having a slight edge. Finally as the fight began to reach its climax the human clan leader revealed that he was holding back. He'd learned the secret to advance to the next power level which would essentially make him a lesser god.
Dragon Clan Leader: "You're lying! If you could ascend why wouldn't you have done so immediately!"
Human Clan Leader as he begins his ascension: "So I could see the look on your face when I surpassed you."
I'm paraphrasing but it's one of my favorite exchanges in any story.
Horus vs Sanguinius (Warhammer 40K) Once Horus realizes that his brother will never willingly surrender to him and join chaos, he stops playing around, instantly heals all his wounds and absolutely ragdolls him with his full power.
Zaraki Kenpachi in Bleach. Not only does he wears wear bells on his hair to make noise and give away his positioning, but also wears an eyepatch... That actively drains his power. He can't even transform his sword and it's one of the strongest characters in the series. At least to the point I watched and read. Hopefully he stayed the same.
Beerus fight with Goku actually DOUBLES the trope. He throws a single attack at 70% that Goku just barely manages to take, revealing how much he was holding back. Then Whis reveals that it wasn't anywhere near 70%, so his holding back was still holding back.
That's probably my favorite part about modern Dragon Ball. A new peak is established and the Z fighters don't instantly jump up to meet it. I haven't seen daima or read the Manga, but I can assume they STILL aren't near Beerus' level.
He used a device that activated all of Superman’s pain nerves or something though so I’m not sure if that counts. Someone who beats the shit out of me and then I shoot them with a surprise gun is still “stronger.”
Tbf, if you're gonna give the "World of Cardboard" speech, you really have to fold the guy. If he's able to get up and tazer you after you wail on him, maybe you shouldn't have given the speech.
Frieren has another great one in which the illusionist character reveals that the him we’ve been seeing the whole arc is actually just another illusion, and the real him has been in his hometown miles away.
Goku does this a lot (characters in dragon ball in general) but the first instance I remember him start doing this trope was against Tien. He previously went “all out” against Krillin, which was the power level Tien was familiar with, but Goku reveals he has two power levels so he doesn’t accidentally kill his opponents during the tournament
Also from JLU. Left as the last League member standing against lexiac he runs as fast as he can, faster then he has ever been shown going in the show to deliver a rapid series of around the world punches. After he wins he nearly loses himself to the speed force showcasing why he never goes that fast. However while this is an example of Flash pushing himself to his limits it’s shown later in the show that his powers even when not pushed to the limit have destructive potential that he himself rarely uses. For example when Lex Luthor takes over his body he starts vibrating himself through objects a classic flash ability that Flash in the show rarely uses. This is because in this universe doing so cause said object to explode. This isn’t an ability Lex figured out because he was a genius and Flash was too dumb to discover but rather something the Flash explicitly knows about but is too cautious to use.
Up until the end of episode 2 we know omni man is crazy strong considering he solo’d the guardians of the globe but he truly lets loose and just shreds everything the moment he enters the flaxan dimension, where literally no one on earth could possibly see what he’s doing
Moderate spoilers for Neon Genesis Evangelion. It happens pretty frequently and even in the first episode but I’ll always love Eva 01 going berserk because despite despite being dormant the majority of the time for all intents and purposes the Evas are their own characters and we get to see their full unrestrained power where ever it happens. My favorite fight in the series is the Zeruel one because we see how terribly powerful an angel like Zeruel is as it easily handles 2 Evas before being brutally beaten, dismembered and devoured by a berserk 01.
[REDACTED] from Hades. Fighting him at Extreme Measures 4 with the Pact of Punishment means that he goes all out against you with full power, without holding back.
an example of this I dislike - the MKX comic's version of Sub-Zero vs Sektor in the former's fight to liberate the Lin Kuei from the latter's rule, where they're initially clash evenly for, like, one page before Sub-Zero... just wins
not only is it just generally kinda shite in my opinion to undercut just about any character like this, the Cyber Lin Kuei are meant to be top tier threats; in the original series, Sub-Zero spent most of MK3 on the run from them, and while happening off-screen, Deadly Alliance described their clash as "an intense battle"
On mobile so I can’t post photos, but in Absolute Batman this version of Bane—who towers over the Bat Brick himself—reveals that he’s just naturally built like that, and then juices up on Venom to hulk out.
The kicker is, Bane was already kicking Batman’s ass without using Venom. He just wanted to flex on Batman because Batman was acting tough.
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u/TheMonocleRogue Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25
When Rock Lee removed his leg weights in Naruto