While there are otakus of every shape, size, and genre, there’s bound to be plenty with that infamous mirror. Whether it’s in the bathroom or propped up within someone’s bedroom, there’s always this one mirror that otakus everywhere use to practice the latest move from an anime. Signature moves are a staple across anime.
Fighting may be a key element to several action series, but fighting alone just doesn’t have the same impact without a branded move set. These are the go-to attacks for a key protagonist, the surreal powers that give a series color, and the finishing moves to an epic fight. Most anime action characters (particularly of the battle shonen variety) have that one signature move that they’re synonymous with. The question just remains: Which one is the most powerful?
10 Maka’s Kishin Hunter
The world of Soul Eater is riddled with demons stealing, hoarding, and consuming souls to become as powerful as possible. Fending them off is a clandestine world of professional hunters (and some really talented kids) who use demon weapons to take them down. The relationship between meister and demon weapon is a special one, where the talent and harmony in both souls can be used to summon greater power.
The greatest of any meister skill is the legendary Kishin Hunter. This move essentially allows a meister duo to summon a much larger, shinier weapon that’s capable of slashing down the world ending monsters known as Kishin.
9 Ichigo’s Getsuga Tenshō
A lot of modern anime fans got a bulk of their Japanese vocabulary from Bleach‘s signature moves. Whether the series is just immersing people in a classic, Japanese aesthetic or displaying the various ways to scream “Take this!,” Bleach had a lot to teach its fans. At the forefront of that education is Ichigo Kurosaki who’s iconic Getsuga Tenshō scared middle school bullies everywhere.
With it, Ichigo delivered an incredible slash capable of dicing entire buildings and giving more than a few scratches to some of the supernatural world’s most powerful.
8 All Might’s United States Of Smash
Because My Hero Academia is based off of Western superheroes, its creator, Horikoshi Kohei, made sure to include a character that literally named all of his attacks after the United States, including his ultimate attack. All Might is famous for his Detroit Smash, Carolina Smash, and Missouri Smash; but in his epic encounter with the villainous All for One, he had to bring out the big guns.
Summoning nearly every last ounce of strength that he had left, All Might used his strongest punch of all, the United States of Smash, a punch so powerful that it leveled several city blocks and took what little pieces of face All for One had left.
7 Yusuke’s Spirit Gun
Children everywhere already had enough fun firing finger guns at each other as a game, but it wouldn’t be until the Toonami classic, Yu Yu Hakusho, that they’d really take the stance seriously. As a Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi has to stand up against all manner of ghostly creatures and criminals.
By just pointing his finger like a gun, Yusuke is capable of unleashing a concentrated charge of spiritual (and, later, demonic) power that he calls his Spirit Gun. This handy little power can either knock out small criminals or even destroy an entire mountain. To help deliver cosmic justice, he utilizes the Spirit Gun to take down demonic forces.
6 Luffy’s King Kong Gun
Monkey D. Luffy may be a pirate, but One Piece is rife with fantastical and sci-fi elements that are the furthest things from dellinger guns and rapiers. In fact, those who still wield regular weapons are kind of a disadvantage to this world’s slew of giant robots, giant giants, and Devil Fruits. In Luffy’s case, he ate the Gum-Gum Fruit which allows him to stretch and extend his body to epic proportions.
While in his Gear Fourth form, he’s able to blow an extraordinary amount of air into one of his arms. Fusing the power of air pressure, rubber, and anime strength, he’s able to unleash a punch so powerful that it can single-handedly level an entire city.
5 Meliodas’ Full Counter
Here’s the anime equivalent of “No you.” The Seven Deadly Sins is filled to the brim with characters with exciting and outrageous powers for any shonen series. The leader of its titular bunch, Meliodas, just so happens to have the most overpowered ability of all. With Full Counter, Meliodas is able to reflect magical attacks with more than double the attack’s original force.
While this ability sadly does not extend to physical attacks, the fact that it’s able to not only render magical abilities useless against him but even dangerous to their own users makes Meliodas a terrifying force.
4 Naruto’s Rasenshuriken
While ninjas are more well-known for unleashing lethal moves with quiet, subtle force, subtlety just doesn’t have the same impact in a world where people can summon meteor showers and giant monsters. As the Hokage-in-making, Naruto Uzumaki had to develop a power worthy of beating any foe. As such, he evolved his father’s own rasengan into the even more powerful rasenshuriken.
In its base form, the rasenshuriken is able to destroy its opponents at the molecular level, i.e. if it hits, they’re dead. The rasenshuriken, however, is capable of being fused with a variety of elements between fire and tailed-beast energy to create an even more devastating path of destruction.
3 Goku’s Spirit Bomb
Perhaps one of, if not the most, famous power move of all, Son Goku has a technique that not only devastates his intergalactic enemies but can also unify the whole world (a side effect that’s pretty powerful on its own). Though the Kamehameha is more synonymous with Goku, his go-to for exceptionally powerful beings is the Spirit Bomb.
By summoning the unified energy of the planet and, if necessary, the universe, Goku is able to wield a giant ball of energy that will obliterate his enemy (and a bit of whatever else it touches). Even without all the destruction, the visual of the giant, glowing ball, and people across the world raising their arms for Goku is already a powerful sight.
2 Simon’s Giga Drill Break
In Gurren Lagann, the future team of Studio Trigger gave an early message that they truly more about style over substance. That isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of heartfelt, sincere scenes in this series, but the level of flash and campiness is absurd. There is no better personification of this than in Simon’s Giga Drill Break.
This is a giant drill used to destroy Team Dai-Gurren’s enemies; but in every incarnation, it gets bigger and bigger. It eventually exceeds the size of the giant robot carrying it, the very planet that it’s trying to protect, and even the entire universe that encompasses it. It’s a really, really big drill, and getting hit by it wouldn’t be a nice experience in any way.
1 Saitama’s Serious Punch
While the power of battle shonen heroes is already overpowered, things reach ridiculous proportions once that energy meets slapstick comedy. In One-Punch Man, after doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10km run everyday for a year-and-a-half, Saitama gained the ability to just beat anybody with a single punch.
Anybody.
This has come to mean giants, advanced robots, hyper-evolved mutants, world-ending meteors, and intergalactic conquerors. With his slightly more powerful variant, Serious Punch, Saitama unleashes a knockout hit that can clear the entire sky and damage a near-immortal being past their regenerative abilities.
