How Do I Shot Web / Anime & Manga

Characters struggling to figure out how their powers work in Anime and Manga.

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• Skuld gets this in Ah! My Goddess when she tries to develop her water powers. It doesn't work out, and she puts herself in danger by trying to accelerate things; this danger being caused by her proclivity for Tim Taylor Technology.
• A good amount of Attack on Titan is dedicated to everyone attempting to figure out how to operate and utilize Eren Jaeger's Titan-Shifting abilities.
• Beet the Vandel Buster started off with the five ultimate weapons given to him by his dying heroes. Of course, he still had to learn how to use them, and after several years was only able to use one, the spear, effectively. He eventually learns to fire more than one shot with the gun, and comes closer to mastering the shield with training from its original owner (who was Not Quite Dead). With foresight he learned to work around the axe's twelve-second materialization time, and over time got better at the sword bit by bit if nowhere near able to master it. In fact, when the series was cut short at twelve volumes, Beet still arguably hadn't totally mastered any of his weapons!
• The BirdMen spend significant time learning the basics of how to fly, and for one particular character, it took a Die or Fly moment to learn it.
• Bleach:
  • Ichigo Kurosaki accidentally sets off his Getsuga Tenshou attack immediately following his achievement of Shikai. He doesn't learn how to fire it at will until he reaches Bankai. Much plot with Ichigo concerns the fact he has great power, but no real clue how to control it. His sword is mocked explicitly for being a "Big ball of fluff".
  • It got even worse when Ichigo unlocked his Fullbring. At least with a sword you know that the basic goal is to stick the stabby end into the bad people, but how the heck are you supposed to fight with a giant glowing swastika?
  • And now yet another ability has come out in this way. Ichigo's about to get his throat carved out, and suddenly manifests Blut Vene... a Quincy defensive technique that blocks the attack. Ichigo not only has no idea how he did this, he didn't even realize that he had done anything at all until the bad guy pointed it out. Put bluntly, until then, Ichigo didn't even know he had Quincy heritage.
  • Making things even worse, Ichigo had a Power Limiter or three he didn't know about, most of which were operating sporadically. So trial and error wasn't a reliable method of figuring out what he could do or how, either.
  • Chad and Orihime aren't exceptions, either. They have to learn how to summon their powers at will (with fairly amusing results at first, especially when Chad tries to remember what Ichigo's younger sister Karin looks like), although Orihime manages to improve to the point where she can use her Shun Shun Rikka without calling their names. In the Bount Arc, Uryu has these issues with the artifact that he uses to fight without his powers.
  • Part of the reason for Renji's loss against Byakuya is that he didn't know how to control his Bankai, enabling Byakuya to disrupt its rhythm and leave him vulnerable. Byakuya claims that mastering bankai takes at least ten years of training. Something that he has, and Renji (who had just achieved bankai that day) lacks. The reason this didn't apply to Ichigo was because (1) his Superpowered Evil Side intervened for a while, (2) although he lacked much control over it, his bankai had more than enough raw power to compensate, and (3) it's unusual in that his power is turned inward, meaning there's no new techniques or whatever to master: just everything he already knows cranked up.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • Touma Kamijou has no idea how Imagine Breaker works. Throughout the series, he slowly learns its limitations, and eventually figures out how to pull a Catch and Return with it. To be fair to Touma, almost nobody knows how Imagine Breaker works. Aleister Crowley is the only one who has hinted that he knows how it really works (and he has no particular desire to explain it to anybody else).
    • Later deconstructed when Othinus reaches her full power and alters the world to her whims. Touma is the only one unaffected and knows Imagine Breaker can change the world back, but is unable to figure out how. Fortunately, he gets her to pull a Heel–Face Turn, and she is convinced to restore the world to the way it was.
  • Sogiita Gunha has a multitude of powers like Super-Strength, Super-Speed, force fields, etc. While he knows how to use them, he has no understanding of the science behind them. It is pointed out that he would become much more effective if he knew how his powers worked and took better advantage of them. This is unlikely to happen as Gunha is an Idiot Hero who lives by Honor Before Reason and guts alone and has no interest in brainy topics.
• In Code Geass Lelouch instinctively knows the basic principle behind the Geass, (leading to the iconic "Lelouch vi Britannia commands you... Die!" scene) but he doesn't know all the specifications, and after a couple of mishaps, he takes on the task of testing it to figure out exactly what it can and can't do. The fifth episode shows just how Crazy-Prepared he is by that point by having him rattle off all the things he's learned via experimentation, such as its maximum effective range of 270 meters. The audio commentary lampshades this when the voice actors (including Lelouch's) muse on exactly how he discovered these things, suggesting (for the range example) that he used cell phones in walkie-talkie fashion.
• Kouya's Garuda Eagle from Crush Gear Turbo was once the Gear of Kouya's deceased elder brother, who happens to be the World Champion. Apparently, said Gear has a very powerful super move. Unlocking the secret involved several episodes of having the Gear analyzed by an ultra-powerful supercomputer just to learn the underlying science for the super move, and another batch of episodes of Kouya trying to find the right conditions to use the technique, and use it reliably. Even better, the supercomputer belonged to Kouya's wealthy rival Manganji who had his men surreptitiously copy a virtual data of Garuda Eagle, and said discovery of a special ability was a complete accident.
• Death Note:
  • There's a sequence involving Light Yagami learning the rules and limitations of the Death Note before he embarks on his great scheme of moral cleansing. He continues to experiment with its powers and devise loopholes throughout the series. By the end of episode three, he knows more about the thing than Ryuk, a shinigami.
  • The Yotsuba executives also learn some of its rules this way, for instance, giving someone a death condition that is physically impossible will result in that person simply dying of a heart attack. The Death Note's owner, Higuchi, actually does understand the rules, but has to avoid revealing them openly to hide his identity.
• Di Gi Charat: Unlike her older sister Dejiko, Puchiko is unable to fire Eye Beams, instead usually firing strange blob creatures or other random things. An episode in both the original series and Nyo! focus on her attempting to learn how to properly do the technique, and actually succeed, only to be unable to replicate it again afterward.
• In Dog Days, each of the summoned heroes slowly learn new techniques and get the hang of their powers. Later, during a "Freaky Friday" Flip, everyone has to get the hang of each other's bodies and techniques.
• In Dragon Ball Z:
  • Quirky Mini Boss Squad leader Captain Ginyu trades bodies with Goku. This is fairly ingenious, because he waited until he was weakened and nearly defeated by Goku before trading. To make it even better, he inflicted a severe wound to his own body (punching himself through the chest) immediately before making the switch. However, he couldn't get full power out of Goku's body, because he doesn't know his powerup technique, the Kaio-ken. Unfortunately for him, Vegeta then shows up and beats the snot out of him before he gets it to work. And then when he reverses the trick so he can try the same technique to body-jack Vegeta, the trick doesn't work twice; they throw a frog in the way.
  • The same thing happens with Goku Black in Dragon Ball Super: Even though Zamasu was quite powerful after stealing Goku's body, he had no idea how to use Goku's abilities and only learned to do so after watching him in action. Even later, as his power continues to grow, he rips a hole in reality. When Vegeta asks him what exactly he just did, Black shrugs and says he has no idea: his power has grown beyond his own understanding of it.
• In The Familiar of Zero, the reason why Louise seems to be an Inept Mage is because her affinity is Void Magic, a long forgotten art. Once she learns this, she becomes much more effective when she figures out the kinks. Saito's power is to become an Instant Expert with any weapon, but it takes him a while to realize that it only works with real weapons. He tries to use an ornamental sword and gets his ass kicked. He also needs to be in a real fight, as when he tried to twirl a sword around to show off, he made a fool of himself.
  • Above example is anime only. In the original light novels, Saito is capable of wielding the ornamental weapon as if it were any other and the activation of his abilities was merely dependent on being in contact with a weapon. The ornamental weapon was still meant to be a weapon, it just broke the first time Saito used it because it wasn't durable enough to withstand being used to strike stone by someone of Saito's strength. The trope is still played straight with Saito's combat abilities, though. He can swing a sword like a natural and gains incredible speed and strength, but it takes him some time and a fair bit of practice to be able to fully get a good head for actual combat.
• When Pist from Final Fantasy: Unlimited steals Kaze's Magun, the device that allows him to summon powerful beings using special bullets, he tries to use it himself (including a bizarre subversion of the normal firing sequence) but the resulting summon turns on him.
• In Flame of Recca's Tournament Arc, one opponent manages to steal one of Recca's flame dragons. However, he has no idea which of Recca's eight dragons he's acquired (he was hoping to get the most powerful one). As it happens, he'd acquired Setsuna, a one-eyed dragon who, according to one of Recca's other dragons, is quite powerful but rather disobedient. When the opponent tries to sic Setsuna on Recca, the very annoyed dragon promptly asks why the hell he should listen to some new guy and fries him in response.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Ed learns of the ability to transmute without a circle by clasping his hands in frustration then grabbing a basin of water, heating it through alchemy to boiling temperature. Afterward, he has no clue how he managed to do it, and his attempts to reproduce the effect are unsuccessful until he finds himself in another emergency situation (saving someone from a collapsing structure). It was only after that he realized how he did it.
• In Gate Keepers, Ukiya Shun is blessed by the Gate of Wind. It took him several episodes just to properly summon the power again (which he did in the first episode on instinct), and an episode testing a new technique (which he later perfects).
• Gundam:
  • In an episode of G Gundam, a disgruntled fanboy steals Domon's Gundam believing that he can pilot it better. However, things go awry when he doesn't know how to properly operate the Gundam, requiring Domon to come and save him. It isn't "proper operation" so much as "any sort of physical training" — the suit-up process is shown to be quite painful, even to a trained martial artist like Domon, so the preteen boy nearly broke several bones before Domon hit the abort. Plus, it was calibrated specifically for him. When Rain tries piloting it, she notes how tight the system compresses her but has less trouble with the Rising Gundam which was calibrated for her.
  • Amuro and Garrod's first sortie was "Use vulcans and scare off my enemies and tank the machine gun rounds" and then "use sword to fend off enemy mobile suits". It was only after the first battle that they got the knowledge to pilot the suit. For Garrod's first experience firing the Wave-Motion Gun, it gives Tifa a Heroic BSoD. Lucky for them that Amuro has Psychic Powers and Garrod is a genius at improvisation.
    • Kou Uraki of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory was just a rookie using a captured Zaku II for testing when he's forced to take up the GP-01. His inexperience with everything leads to him getting the GP-01 shot up when he takes it out into space without it being modified for space combat first.
  • Judau Ashta of Gundam ZZ had even less luck, despite his own considerable Psychic Powers: his first experience flying a Gundam mainly involved him clumsily crashing into things and defeating his opponent by sheer luck. Likewise Elle, who could only figure out how to move the Gundam's arms her first time, let alone make it walk or fight.
  • Tobia Arronax of Crossbone Gundam specifically has a Worker MS license, but this isn't much help in a Combat MS. In his first sortie, he expects to only be an extra turret, and his Batara flounders around a little before righting (it ends with Seaboo-, er, Kincaid bisecting it). In his second, some time after the first, he's in over his head and has to eject so Kincaid can take over. In his third, he survives largely because Barnes doesn't want to kill him. Then they give him a Pez Batara and he uses a Bit as a stepping stone, at which point his future Ace Pilot status is all but confirmed.
  • Seabook Arno of Mobile Suit Gundam F91 suffers from this for a bit as the only reason he pilots the titular MS is because his mother took part in its construction and he had a licence to pilot. He gets better. Much better.
  • While Christina McKenzie of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket is a MS Test Pilot, the NT-1 "Alex" was designed for a Newtype (re: Amuro Ray), thus piloting it became a real chore because its reflexes were greater than her own.
  • In Gundam Wing, Zechs Marquise is already an Ace Pilot in the beginning of the series. But even he nearly dies when he gives the Tallgeese a test run. The Tallgeese is a Super Prototype that performs far better than just about every mobile suit that followed it (it was the first one ever). Its performance was too good, since its speed (and lack of shock absorbers) transferred too much G-Force to the pilot. It takes Zechs a little while to become skilled enough to safely pilot the Tallgeese. He eventually becomes so skilled that the Tallgeese can no longer keep up with his own reflexes.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters, Reiji's first attempt at piloting the Build Strike just has him flailing the limbs around in a goofy dance. He gets the hang of it real quickly.
• In Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou episode 4, Tenma's attempt to protect Akane from Akuram results in him activating his Hachiyou powers for the first time, nearly frying Akuram with lightning. Tenma is clearly surprised by this ability, but when he tries to repeat this move on purpose a few minutes later, it doesn't work. In the next episode, he complains about the Hachiyou powers being useless due to not working when they are needed.
• Inazuma Eleven has this: Endou's Seigi no Tekken and God Catch, Tachimukai's Majin the Hand and Mugen the Hand, and Kidou/Fudou's attempt to create Emperor Penguin No.3.
• Inuyasha:
  • Inuyasha didn't even knew about Tetsusaiga's Kaze no Kizu / Wind Scar when he first got it. It took some time until he learned about it, more time to use it accidentally, even more time to use it at will and even more time to truly master it. When he gains a new power in his sword, he has to learn how to use it. Like the Wind Scar, the Dragon-Scale Tetsusaiga was something he struggled desperately to master and, in both situations, something his brother said was what started him on the road to mastering the power (in the case of the Wind Scar, his brother's help was accidental, in the case of the Dragon-Scale, his brother's help was deliberate, if not cryptic). In both cases, the main lesson for Inuyasha wasn't what the powers could do (which only had limited functionality) but what he could achieve when he believed in himself as a half-demon.
  • Sesshoumaru has the ability to instantly master any weapon, especially swords. He even knows how to master swords he hasn't even touched (such as Inuyasha's Dragon-Scale Tetsusaiga). However, when Tenseiga gained the Meidou Zangetsuha power, Sesshoumaru struggled to master the ability. When he did finally master the ability (after a humiliating encounter with an old enemy of his father), he realized that he wasn't meant to keep the power and passed it on to Inuyasha instead. It was the only sword power in the entire story that required a compassionate heart to master instead of fighting/weapon skill or instinct, and the lesson for Sesshoumaru was that he should never wield a sword without feeling fear at the possibility of losing loved ones or without feeling compassion for even his enemies.
• Inuyashiki: Both Inuyashiki and Shishigami go through this, which is justifiable considering they got their 'superpowers' by getting killed and having their minds uploaded into alien battle bots. It took both of them quite some time to even realize their bodies weren't their old bodies any more, nevermind figuring out they had beyond-human capabilities. Shishigami adapts and discovers his capabilities quicker, because of his youth and being a fan of superhero manga. Inuyashiki on his end needs a lot of motivation and help to reach the same level because he didn't really want to become a hero in the first place.
• In Jigoku No Gouka De Yakare Tsuzuketa Shounen, Flare initially struggles to control his hellfire with any degree of precision, burning away underbrush haphazardly and nearly burning Primavera while trying to take care of a raging giant boar. He comes up with the idea of using his shaman magic to concentrate the fire around his arms to make them easier to handle rather than shooting them everywhere.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Not everyone will immediately know what their Stand is capable of when they first gain it. The protagonist of Part 3, Jotaro Kujo, has no idea what his Star Platinum can do beyond being a physically powerful humanoid. When he faces Dio's The World, who can stop time, he realizes Star Platinum is the same type of Stand and learns how to stop time too.
  • Part 4 introduces the Arrow. When it hits a person capable of using a Stand, it grants them one; otherwise it's like being shot with a regular arrow. When Koichi is struck by it, he's mortally wounded; however, Josuke saves his life with his healing powers... which acts as something of a loophole and gives Koichi a Stand. Unfortunately, because Koichi wasn't meant to have a Stand, it takes him a while to figure out how one works (those meant to have Stands innately know their powers).
• Prequel stories of K show the original HOMRA trio figuring out their powers this way in Izumo's bar, after Mikoto first awakens as the Red King and makes the other two his Clansmen. So if you were wondering why Izumo had to replace the bar...
• Karin from Kamichama Karin wore the Goddess Ring for YEARS without having a clue that it could allow her to transform into a Physical God. And even when she finds out, she struggles long and hard before even being able to transform without help, much less be any kind of useful. It probably doesn't help that she's really, really stupid.
• Ryuko, of Kill la Kill, took a while to figure out how to use Senketsu properly. Though Senketsu had enough raw power and Ryuko enough talent to get her through her first few fights, they were badly synchronized and Senketsu required a constant supply of blood, which left Ryuko ending most fights on the verge of passing out. This is eventually revealed to be due to Ryuko's anxiety: she finds wearing the ridiculously skimpy outfit to be incredibly humiliating, a mental block which she overcomes by learning to view Senketsu as a second skin rather than revealing clothing.
  • Senketsu is also an example as it starts with little idea of its own capabilities other than its need to be worn by Ryuko and all of its subsequent power upgrades come as Emergency Transformations during battle.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Even though he had it first, Yuuno of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha never was able to properly use Raising Heart, only being able to fight with its crystal-like Standby Mode and needing to say a really long activation phrase to do even that. One must wonder how he felt when the then-beginner mage Nanoha was able to easily unlock a full Barrier Jacket, activate RH's alternate Modes, and do all of that without the need of the long incantation. According to the novel version and the official page, Raising Heart fine-tuned herself for Nanoha. Guess given the choice of being a tool for a Bombardment Mage or a Force Field Mage, AIs go for the path that lets it blow stuff up.
  • In Sound Stage 3 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Teana, having had the fourth and final stage of her device limiter removed, has a new long-range mode for Cross Mirage, but decides to work on the skills she has since there won't be enough time to master it before the final battle.
• Macross:
  • In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, whenever they figured out a new thing the eponymous ship could do, trying it always led to embarrassing mistakes. The first time they tried to take off, the anti-grav units broke free of the ship. Using the fold system left them millions of miles off-course, surrounded by inhabited bits of the island they folded near, and the fold engine disappeared. The first time they transformed the Macross, they destroyed the entire city inside the ship. The first time they fired up an impenetrable energy shield, the shield generator overloaded and destroyed Toronto. Though they were able to use that last one to take down Boddolza's flagship by using the Daedalus Maneuver to break through the hull and then activate the shield while inside. It nearly destroyed the ship.
    • Humorously, this is also why they survived so long against the Zentraedi attacks: whenever they pulled one of these stunts, the Zentraedi commanders were unsure of whether the humans meant to do that or not, and therefore wonder what other tricks they must have up their sleeves, leading to an overly-cautious approach on their part.
    • On a much smaller scale, Hikaru in the second episode is a very competent pilot... of airplanes. When his Valkyrie unexpectedly turns into a giant robot, he promptly tries to make it walk. He topples forward and wrecks Minmay's room in doing so, and needs a conveniently-passing-by seafood truck to right him again.
  • Macross Frontier has an excellent deconstruction of this trope. Sheryl Nome received some basic training on how to operate a VF-25; when the time came to put it to the test, her eyes narrow and she even gets a Theme Music Power-Up, which lasts long into her glorious failure at even flying in a straight line.
• Played with in Made in Abyss. Reg has amnesia, so he literally Forgot About His Powers. When Riko gets carried off by a flying monster, he instinctively powers up a Wave-Motion Gun; right when it starts firing, he realizes he doesn't even know what he's about to do, let alone how to control it. Luckily, the out-of-control death beam hits most of the monsters and barely misses Riko. He first used this weapon from offscreen in the first episode, before he lost his memories, and focused it into a narrower beam that time.
• At one point, Padudu of Magical Play (a.k.a. Magical Witchland) saves two other characters from death via suddenly being able to fly. When asked by Pippin why she hadn't done that in the pilot, when she fell on Pippin and cost her a tournament, Padudu says: "Oh, that time, I forgot I could fly!"
• In the original Mazinger Z manga, Kouji can't control Mazinger-Z when he first gets it and is forced to have Sayaka run out in the Aphrodite A to stop him and get him under control. The Mazinkaiser OVA takes it one step further: Kouji thinks he can control it, but it takes control of him then goes into a berserker rage.
• My Hero Academia: Several characters had to practice with their Quirks in order to make something useful out of them. Standout examples include:
  • The protagonist Izuku Midoriya himself. Unlike his classmates, who had their Quirks since they were toddlers and thus had a lot of time to learn how to use them, Izuku only received One for All recently. Much of the beginning of the series is him figuring out how to use his god-like strength without literally destroying his body from the stress. Then he starts manifesting the Quirks of previous One For All users, and has to learn those as well.
  • Mirio Togata, who has a difficult to use intangibility quirk that has the potential to kill him if used incorrectly. By training hard to learn the intricacies of his abilities, he manages to develop his Quirk into a Difficult, but Awesome Story-Breaker Power that rockets him to the #1 spot in UA's graduating class.
  • This trope is specifically why the Big Bad All For One doesn't take the quirks of people whose abilities are Difficult, but Awesome: because he doesn't want to waste the years on abilities to become useful when more straightforward and easy to use Quirks are more practical.
  • On a different note, this trope is generally averted with hero costumes and support equipment. They normally come with instructions.
• Naruto faces this difficulty with controlling the Kurama's chakra throughout the series. After the time skip it's largely a matter of not going berserk while using it, but pre-time skip his major problem is accessing the power to begin with. This led to a month of humiliating "training" in summoning tadpoles, culminating with being thrown into a ravine. And just to make it worse, when summoning really counts, he's only able to get a toad the size of his hand. Twice! Course at the time Orochimaru had hit him with a sealing spell which was throwing his Chakra out of balance. By the time Jiraya had removed that handicap, it was only a few days before Naruto had to fight in the second Chunin tournament, so he really didn't have any time to master it.
• Ako Izumi has this problem after getting her Status Buff Pactio in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. She manages to get the hang of it soon, though.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: The first time Shinji Ikari tries to pilot an Eva with no training or preparation, he falls on his face. Fortunately, putting him in danger this way activates the Crazy-Protective Alter-Ego of his Eva suit, who handily defeats the Angel for him.
• In Omamori Himari, Himari and other characters are confused as to why Yuuto's powers have not awakened when he turned 16 like they were supposed to. Later, he uses them by instinct during a life-or-death situation. The next episode has him trying to train to use them at will, which doesn't go anywhere. It is triggered by his will to protect others. Later on in the manga it's explained that the Twelve Families traditionally only passed on the knowledge of how their powers work through oral tradition, and since Yuuto's family didn't teach him the family secrets before they died, he honestly has no clue how the Light Ferry works, and there's nothing and no one he can consult for lessons. He has to rediscover all his family's techniques from scratch.
• One Piece:
  • Nami with the Clima-Tact in her fight with Miss Doublefinger. Unfortunately for her, half of the functions on the device are party tricks (and they're listed first in the instruction manual), and the other half are abilities that are useful, but only if used correctly, and Usopp may not have known how good they can be (he suggests playing boomerang catch with the Cyclone Tempo). Despite this, once she manages to find the right functions to use, she can win if she identifies the good moves and learns how to use them. Nami's experience with the Perfect Clima-Tact is also like this to some extent, but only because she didn't realize how powerful it was the first time she used it.
  • This applies even more to the Devil Fruits. The average person who has absolutely no idea what their fruit even does unless they've either read a restricted access catalogue or been outright told. Even then, you'd have no idea how to activate it until you experiment. Brook's power only activated after he died, meaning he could've started off simply knowing he couldn't swim. Hell, Brook takes this even further after the Time Skip, when he develops his powers into the abilities to use Astral Projection and channel Ghostly Chill into Ice Powers. This means that it took Brook well over fifty-two years to realize these powers were available to him and work out how to use them. A Devil Fruit's powers aren't entirely unknown to the eater — once a person eats a Devil Fruit, they gain an awareness of the Fruit's basic ability. However, the specifics of how the ability works and any further aspects and uses of the ability often require some experimentation to figure out. In Brook's case above, he actually knew in advance that he would come back to life once he died, but spent the next fifty years following his resurrection operating under the assumption that that's all the Yomi Yomi Fruit did, before he eventually discovered other aspects of its power.
  • A flashback to Luffy's youth showed that it was years before he could even use Gum-Gum Pistol (basically just a stretching-arm punch, which is Luffy's most basic attack in the main storyline) without hitting the ground or it rebound into his own face. Though that can be largely blamed on his youth and his relatively small body at the time.
  • After Kaku ate a Devil Fruit that transformed him into a giraffe or giraffe-man hybrid, he has trouble changing into the specific form he wants and, since he hadn't been able to explore his new capabilities, just makes new attacks up as he goes along. That said, because he was a skilled fighter before he ate his DF, adapts to his new powers much faster than the average DF user and thus is still a formidable opponent. Still, having a full-grown giraffe fall through the ceiling made for some hilarious moments.
  • Tashigi, after she gets body-switched with Smoker, has a hard time using the latter's Devil Fruit powers, and has to ask how to use them.
  • Momonosuke also has a hard time figuring out how to control his transformations into a dragon and back after he ate an artificial Zoan-type Devil Fruit. Though in his defense, it's due to his young age, his inexperience with the fruit, and limited knowledge of Devil Fruits in general.
  • Sabo had some issues with controlling the abilities of the Flame-Flame Fruit after first eating it. While he was able to utilize its previous user's signature technique, he had trouble turning off the flames. Also, despite the Devil Fruit being a Logia and giving him "Made of Air" style Nigh-Invulnerability, he still dodged attacks simply out of habit. Although that dodge instinct could be considered a good thing, considering most figures he'd fight against (being in the Revolutionary Army) would have some knowledge on how to combat Devil Fruits.
  • Trafalgar Law's Op-Op Fruit abilities make him a borderline Reality Warper, but at the time he first ate the fruit he had no idea how to actually use its powers. Thus he was unable to help Corazon/Rocinante after the latter was riddled with bullets.
  • Van Augur ate the Warp-Warp Fruit, allowing him to teleport across vast distances. His claim that he hasn't fully mastered its power yet implies that he only ate it recently, and thus his range is limited to the island he's standing on.
• In Pokémon: The Series, occasionally one of the heroes' Pokemon will have trouble mastering a new attack until several episodes later. One of the Sinnoh arc's running gags was Gible's Draco Meteor misfires always homing in on Piplup. Then there was Duplica's Ditto, which couldn't master transformations for a long time... it would never get the face right.
• Sort of happens to the protagonist of Prétear, Himeno Awayuki — more of "How Do I Shot Wind?" It is implied that she should know instinctively how her powers work, but the first time she is forced to fight a monster, she panics and can't figure out what to do. However, this wasn't enough to make her give up, and she actually demands to receive some training in order to learn to use her powers properly.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Unlike virtually every other Precure before her, Tsubomi Hanasaki, alias Cure Blossom, of HeartCatch Pretty Cure! has to be practically hand-held through most of her powers and abilities early on. Compare this to her teammate Erika Kurumi, alias Cure Marine, who was able to figure out everything on the word "go".
  • A similar situation happens in Smile Pretty Cure! with Miyuki Hoshizora, alias Cure Happy, though she's quicker mastering her powers than Tsubomi. And once she does, cue the pink heart-shaped Kamehameha. Though, it's starting to seem like the rest of Miyuki's teammates are stuck in this same predicament.
  • These days, any Precure fans would notice a similar pattern of a newbie main Cure, while trying to figure out how their power works, accidentally and to their shocks, jumps absurdly high. This maneuver is eventually nicknamed the "Holy-Crap-I-Can-Jump-This-High" Maneuver.
  • In HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!, Hime is given a special stone that will search out her partner and allow them to become a Pretty Cure. She's never told how the stupid thing works and decides to chuck it and make the first person it hits her partner. It's a good thing the person she does hit, Megumi, does make it work.
• Season 3 Reborn! spoiler'd example: In the Future, when Tsuna first uses his Kill It with Fire X-Burner Attack, he can't find out how to set it off without propelling himself backward into a wall. When he figures out to use his other hand to make a balancing fireball, he THEN has the limitation that he can only fire on level ground, when he gets around THAT, he needs a way to balance out the flames. Luckily, we're spared that Training episode by Spanner.
• Rosario + Vampire:
  • The manga has Tsukune kidnapped by a shapeshifter, who copies his form and goes out to fight Tsukune's Unwanted Harem. Unfortunately, the fellow runs into quite a few How Do I Shot Web? moments as he tries (in vain) to kill them, not realizing that he's far, far weaker than they are in human form. When he wises up and copies Moka's Superpowered Evil Side, he's beaten for good when the power of the rosary weakens him.
  • Tsukune himself had a bit of trouble until he got some well-earned training with Inner-Moka and Touhou Fuhai.
• Not an actual superpower, but in The Rose of Versailles the citizens of Paris are in trouble during the storming of the Bastille because they have no idea how to load and fire their cannons. Thankfully, the French Guards show up and quickly figure how to do it (those cannons aren't too different from their muskets, after all), and while they aren't exactly excellent gunners the Bastille is an easy and fragile target...
• Sailor Moon: In Usagi's first adventure as Sailor Moon, she has no idea what she is doing, not to mention she is panicking from being a young girl suddenly thrown into a life or death situation. She needs Luna to coach her through using her powers. In contrast, every other Sailor Senshi seems to automatically know how to use their powers.
• In The Seven Deadly Sins, King Arthur possesses incredible powers, but he has no idea how to access them yet.
• In the world of Soul Eater, certain humans inherit a trait that causes them to transform into Living Weapons. Once this ability starts to manifest (usually involuntarily, at first), they are scouted by Shinigami's school and given an education to deal with this trope. Just how far it goes is the choice of the student. Those who want to take advantage of their abilities take the EAT course and become hunters of evil (the characters of Soul Eater). Those who just want to get a hold of themselves and lead normal lives take the NOT course instead.
• In Symphogear, Hibiki Tachibana had a lot of trouble in the first few episodes because she literally couldn't summon her Armed Gear to use in battle. She got better when they decided to have her focus on using martial arts and channel the energy for an Armed gear into her fists.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
  • The rambunctious Kamina steals the Gurren and, confident that he has access to new powers, attempts to combine with the Lagann as the head. It fails pathetically and hilariously. They eventually get it to work through determination.
  • Similarly, Simon has a few issues with Lagann's systems at first, especially the jet thruster. Quoth Yoko: "Ah, hello? We're sorta falling..."
• In That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, this is usually averted by Rimuru Tempest thanks to the help of Great Sage/Raphael, whose major job is not just explaining his crapton of powers which he's constantly adding to and evolving, but also teaching him how to use them to their fullest potential. Though this won't stop him from not listening to an explanation, whether due to him tuning her out due to being distracted by battle or other thoughts or interrupting her attempts (the latter of which often makes her miffed and she'll wait for him to fall on his face before he swallows his pride to listen).
• In Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki struggles with even the basics of his newfound powers after becoming a Half-Human Hybrid. He begins wearing an Eyepatch of Power since he's unable to control his single kakugan, and struggles with learning how to control his kagune. Once he accepts his nature as a Ghoul, he rapidly begins to master his abilities, but continues to wear the eyepatch as an iconic look.
  • In the sequel, his in-series Expy, Tooru Mutsuki, suffers the same problems. His kakugan is always active, forcing him to hide it behind an eyepatch, and he feels vastly inferior to his comrades due to his inability to use his kagune. It's only after multiple traumatic incidents and a Time Skip spent training heavily that he's able to overcome this and begin mastering his powers.
• In the 1979 pilot short Unico: Black Cloud and White Feather by Sanrio Animation based on Osamu Tezuka's Unico manga series. Unico befriends a rat who gives him tiny bits of crumbs since he hadn't eaten anything in a while. After Unico discovers that the crumbs the rat gave him were originally intended for his children to eat, the children resort to nibbling on his tail. The little unicorn starts crying as he unknowingly uses the powers originating from his horn to give the rat and his children a small slice of cake. When Unico first learns this from the rat, he's completely confused and even tries hitting his head a few times for his powers to work again.
• In YuYu Hakusho, as Kuwabara is trapped inside Mitarai's water monster, he is determined to break free, and suddenly summons a special sword from his spiritual energy that can slice through dimensions, freeing himself and his friends and defeating Mitarai. The next morning, he tries to summon the same sword while fighting Sensui, but ends up getting his normal spirit sword instead.
• In Zatch Bell!, almost every time Zatch and Kiyomaro learn a new spell, Kiyomaro still struggles to understand that the spells are powered by emotion and will. However when they learn their third spell, which magnetizes their opponent, Kiyomaro tries several unsuccessful attempts to test this spell (which he didn't know the effects of at the time), and eventually tried singing the incantation, very badly. Part of the punchline with the third spell was that he was casting it successful in his tests, just that since the spell is purely magnetic and he tested in a place with no metal around, the spell had nothing to effect. Happens again with the fourth spell as despite putting in emotion, the spell didn't work. They later learn that instead that spell works off of tension rather than will. Eventually Averted when Kiyomaro dies and obtains Answer Talker, allowing him to know literally everything. And then used again when it turns out he doesn't even know how to control it yet, needing help from Dufaux just to get it to work.

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