Awesome / Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai

• Avan casually writing a whole magic circle across the island upon arriving, and creating a dome repelling the Dark Lord's influence over the whole island.
• Popp starting his Character Development, graduating from Dirty Coward to Cowardly Lion when he, a Squishy Wizard, goes against Lightning Bruiser Crocodine. Then he proves he has brains and taken to heart his lessons by renouncing to fight directly, and to ensure a Brainwashed Blass can't harm Dai, using the same legendary spell as Avan in the process. He was also prepared to pull a Heroic Sacrifice if needed, even if it was because he could not live with himself if he abandoned the party like that. This was so awesome that Crocodine had a My God, What Have I Done? moment that kickstarted his Heel–Face Turn, and his respect for humankind.
• Even though he did get help from Gomechan, and his Dragon emblem, it is still very awesome to see Dai get up, give a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Crocodine, and proceed to block everything he can throw at him before taking him out. He acknowledges Dai as a true Hero with his dying breath. While he did get resurrected, he would then turn ally to Dai and his friends.
• Dai getting up on sheer Determinator power, and even though it's a Not Himself moment, he takes down Hyunckel by combining magic and swordsmanship without relying on the Dragon emblem.
  • Of note: It is outright said in-universe that such a feat is beyond what a mere human can do, and it is the first hint to Dai's true nature.
  • Then this combination technique gets to show against Flazzard how hard it hits, who gets quite the Oh, Crap! moment, and is forced to reassess Dai's threat level, having to use a very cowardly tactic to turn the tables on the party.
• Hyunckel gets a succession of three awesome moments, that made it in the anime :
  • Before fighting Hadlar near the Ice Tower, Hadlar is about to skewer Maam on the top of the tower, but Hyunckel makes the mother of Big Damn Heroes entrances by shattering the damn thing. Even Hadlar is left speechless.
  • During his fight with Hadlar, after getting his armor pierced and filled with flames, he still stands up on pure Heroic Willpower alone, unleashing Grand Cross and wiping every low level mook.
  • Just after that first awesome moment, when Hadlar somehow escaped damage by using his mooks as a shield, and goes for the finishing blow from behind, with a lot of Evil Gloating, just as it seems he is helpless and screwed, Hyunckel tops his previous moment of awesome, using his very last spark of Heroic Willpower to turn his sword on his helmet back into a blade... piercing Hadlar's second heart, who dies acknowledging Hyunckel's victory, sincerely impressed by his valor. Hadlar's death does not stick, but this would be the first step to him seeking true victory and valor as a Noble Demon, ultimately redeeming himself.
• Once Dai fully masters Avan Strash, he proceeds to trash Flazzard TWICE.
  • Once as his ice/fire self, slashing through his core.
  • One more time when Flazzard comes for more after getting converted to a demonic flame spirit and lodged in the strongest suit of armor Mystvearn can give, impervious to magic and making him a Lightning Bruiser beyond even Crocodine. The rest of the (weakened) party promptly gets thrashed, but Dai made the resulting Curb-Stomp Battle look downright EASY. Everyone stares in plain disbelief as Dai pulls a Nonchalant Dodge on every single strike, even though he is still blinded from the blood on his eyes.
• After that, even though it is low key, an exhausted Dai summons all of his Heroic Willpower and activates the Dragon emblem on his own for the first time, outside of battle, granting him the power to cast Sizzle (which Popp could not do anymore since he had ran out of MP) and break Leona's ice prison.
• Too bad Baran is just way too strong for Dai to fight on an even footing, but it is nonetheless awesome to see he can now casually use techniques that were a problem for him. Case in point? Raideen Strash. Too bad Baran can just No-Sell it.
• During his second fight with Baran, Dai musters enough Heroic Willpower and his human side to shift his Dragon emblem on his fist, making himself immune to Baran's Mind Control.
• The Demon Rock Castle is finally revealed to be a Humongous Mecha, wreaking havoc with its laser eyes, massive strength and hordes of Mooks... until Dai steps in and single-handedly demolishes it. Let us state it in simple words : Dai literally sliced a castle in two.
• Vearn finally meets Avan's disciples, who are at full strength, much younger, furious at the death of one of their most powerful allies, and outnumber him five to one... HE WIPES THE FLOOR WITH THEM.
• Hadlar, knowing it's hopeless, still has the balls to oppose Vearn, all because he wants to be the one to defeat the disciples of Avan. Even Vearn has to acknowledge and show respect to that.
• EVERYTHING about Avan's past before he became the Hero and Master of Heroes. He is of a family of scholars, wears glasses, is a failure at sparring, prefers to skip an important meeting just to teach ladies how to cook, and skips guard duty to hunt bugs. Then turns out the only true thing of those is that he's a scholar. He wore dud glasses, intentionally failed at sparring, taught cooking because that also included teaching the ladies how to prepare meals for the wounded and sick, skipped guard duty to hunt Poisonous Moths to make a frenzy-inducing powder drug that could be used to cause Hadlar's monsters to fight each other, fought toe-to-toe with Hadlar while he was still inexperienced in combat. And even before then, he saved Princess Flora when he was probably just a little older than Dai, cleaving a man-eating plant in a single stroke.
• Despite all her clumsiness, Princess Leona's amazing leadership skills are what makes the pursuit for the Minakatoru (Kaglimmer) successful. Had they started heading back as soon as the ten-hours candle burned out, it would have been all for naught, but she still believed they could make it and that she could inherit the ultimate holy spell in order to be able to dispel the curse in the dungeon and be able to use Evac to get back to the surface.
• Dai, with the aid of Nova, develops a new technique that is far more devastating than Avan Strash by combining both the Arrow-Type and the Break-Type of the technique. Nova is justifiably horrified, because not only it shattered his Aura Sword but also cleanly cut many trees behind him, and the only thing keeping his head above his neck is that he brought his Aura Sword up on time.
• Popp, being such a massive Determinator when it came to trying to make his Avan Insignia shine, goes on to train himself really hard and burn his MP casting Frizz Cracker multiple times, and to punish himself for slacking he casts Donk on himself.
• Due to him receiving the most Character Development in the story, Popp is a mine of these: He makes an epic one-man stand against Baran's Dragon Riders elite warriors, a Heroic Sacrifice to explode against Baran himself (and would've seriously injured him had Baran not chickened out at the last moment), becomes capable of throwing massive spells, and stops Vearn's Kaiser Phoenix with two fingers.
  • During the final battle, Vearn uses a special stance that allows him to use three different Counter Attacks at the same time. So what does Popp do? He learns how to cast two spells at the same time, and attacks Vearn. Vearn uses two attacks to deal with Popp's spells, and uses the third (Kaiser Phoenix) to attack him directly... except that Popp was wearing the Mirror of Shahal under his clothes. Cue Vearn being hit by his own attack. And then Dai hits Vearn with Avan Strash Cross.
• Maam playing soccer with Alvinas' Thousand Needles barrage, before blasting a hole in her chest. In the shape of a tiger.
• Hym was able to will himself to come back to life after receiving a fatal blow from Hyunckel AND the death of Hadlar (which means every Royal Guard would be dead anyways). Not only he gained an actual life aura (meaning his life was now truly his), but he also became strong enough to easily match Dai's aura blade. Oh, and he gained a flowing silver mane of hair like Hadlar's.
• How did Hyunckel knock down reborn Hym? By making a risky move using the Hollow Stance to use Hym's force against himself, pretty much having Hym ram into his Aura-enhanced fist at full power.
• In his final battle, Hyunckel, after being beaten to an inch of his life (literally 1HP by King Maximum's measurements) by a horde of Mooks, is ambushed by eight chess pieces warriors made of orichalcum. He tears them apart with his bare hands.
• The secondary characters finally get one near the end when, after receiving a beatdown by the Big Bad, the heroes cannot stop the imminent apocalypse. Realizing what needs to be done, all of the friends they've made during their journey rush to the pillars and stop them themselves. Under Matoriv and his party's encouragement, self-acknowledged Dirty Coward Masopho finally mans up and rises up to save the day. This is espcially touching since thanks to his life advice, Masopho was the one who kickstarted Popp's Character Development into the badass he is by the end of the story, and now even he can see that his fate is not set in stone.
• With his Hyper Zombie defeated, Zaboera escapes from the battle, only to find Crocodine waiting for him. Zaboera pleads for mercy, promising not to hurt anyone anymore. Crocodine lowers his axe... and Zaboera attacks him with his poisoned nails. Crocodine points at the handle of his axe, already falling to trap Zaboera's hands.
• When Avan explains where he has been all along when everyone thought he was dead, he responds that he went to train alone at the Cave of Trials to catch up to the rest of the team. How deep did he go? 150 floors. And it originally took 10 hours and a team of five for Princess Leona to reach only level 25 and they were barely able to get the Kaglimmer Spell. Popp mistakenly assumes Avan must have found a spell six times more powerful than Kaglimmer, because of how he blocked out Kill-Vearn's Nine of Diamonds trap.
  • And what makes Avan more awesome? He didn't get any new spell beyond Kaglimmer. He merely came up with a new way to use the power of purification by combining it with another spell, since it weakens things like traps and doors, allowing a weaker spell to overpower them easily. As an example, he cited using the secret way of purification with Safe Passage to nullify Kill-Vearn's trap, and then shows it in full by using the same arts with Click to open a gate that would take more than two Dragon Knights to cut open.
  • Again, it has to be stressed, and spelled out. Kill-Vearn and Vearn are RIGHT to fear Avan, since for what he may lack in raw power, he possesses a type of strength, the strength of the human soul, that is completely at odds with Vearn's beliefs in brute strength being the one absolute law of the world, and he goes and exemplifies it in the most irrefutable way: he can bypass what would otherwise take twice the power of what may be the most overpowered creature in the world.
  • It should also be said that the only bad guy to not react with contempt or fear to Avan would be Myst-Vearn, but see right through him would be Myst-Vearn... who would know one thing or two about strength beyond the raw strength of the body.
• Leona deserves mention here in the final fight against Vearn in his final, true form. He has just trounced Dai with his ultimate technique, and is about to force her into his service as a songstress that will tell the tale of how the Hero lost against him. Most normal souls would just crumble under the pressure and fall in the Damsel in Distress stereotype, but Leona retains her wits and remains 100% focused on her goal: to support Dai as best as she can. Just as Vearn is about to use more attacks on him, she takes a stab at him with her dagger. No more than a scratch, so it was just a futile gesture? Think again. She proved to Dai that Vearn is NOT invulnerable, boosting his spirits, AND also gave him a very important hint: there is a glaring flaw in his technique since it requires his full focus, and to top it all: she removes all value in Vearn's former proposal: if left alive, she would tell the tale of the strongest girl who managed to wound the Dark King! This incenses Vearn enough that he outright imprisons her in a jewel to ensure she can't support him in any way.