Arm Cannon - Television Tropes & Idioms

Dragon Ball Z: Android 16 had two cannons called "Hell Blasters" in his upper arms. In order to use them, he had to remove his forearms, usually holding them in his armpits. It helps that his forearms can also be used for a Rocket Punch.
- In Dragon Ball, villain Tao Pai Pai also got an Arm Cannon after being cybernetized.
004/Albert Heidrich from Cyborg 009 looks normal, but as part of his cyborgization process all his limbs were replaced and now contain variable quantities of armament. The most remarkable are his finger guns (take that literally) and the rocket-launcher in his knees.
Two Words: Astro Boy.
- Astro Boy didn't actually have arm cannons until recently (2003). Before that, he had rocket hands, but rarely used them, as his weapon of choice was instead a pair of machine guns that popped out of his tush.
Bonnie from the first Gunsmith Cats manga arc was maimed after a run-in with Rally and May. Afterwards, she had a shotgun built into her prosthetic leg (along with a few other toys, including a garrote replacing the thumb Rally blew off) and went with her brother to seek revenge.
Hy?go Kujiranami in Rurouni Kenshin first uses an Armstrong Cannon for an arm, and then a grenade launcher in his plot to get revenge on Kenshin for cutting off his arm and not killing him as a warrior should.
Kazuhiko, the main character of the CLAMP manga Clover, has a prosthetic arm that can transform into a weapon.
Vash the Stampede in Trigun has something similar to this: his Artificial Limb folds out into first a pistol, then later a submachine gun. His other arm can morph into something akin to a Wave Motion Gun.
Not very common in Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex for most of the logical reasons. One of the few exceptions is a political assassin who has a shotgun built into her forearm. She cocks it by pulling back her own thumb, and it's modified to shoot a roll of gold coins into the target — the target being a wealthy plutocrat.
- There is a second exception: in Innocence, Batou reveals that he has a cannon (well, a single-shot large-caliber firearm) built into his arm.
  - While not a cannon or even a gun, the existence of the crab claw military prostetic has led this troper to believe that other more extreme guns are available.
  - It's actually mentioned to be a shotgun of some type, and it has more than one shell available — look at the fight at the end.
- Similar to Batou's built-in arm cannon, a Russian KGB agent from the anime series sports a large-bore cannon built into her elbow. It is presumably a last-ditch weapon, as it is rather cumbersome to fire — her forearm must fold backward on a hinge to expose the muzzle.
- Angelfeathers had a shotgun built into his wrist.
- Motoko Aramaki built a grenade launcher into her own arm.
The titular hero of Space Adventure Cobra has an cannon replacing his left arm, the "Psychogun", which fires beams powered by his psychic energy.
Guts in Berserk has a Steam Punk mechanical left hand with a gunpowder cannon under it, the original having been chiseled off with a broken sword by Guts himself after it was caught in a demon's jaws during the Eclipse. To work it, he has to flip the hand up and pull out a lever buried in the side of the cannon. The arm also has a repeating crossbow built into it, which he uses for killing human foes and torturing fallen demons.
Franky from One Piece has a machinegun/cannon infinite-ammo combination in his left hand. His right hand extends on a chain and is very strong. Both hands are also impervious to normal damage... although those are not the only weapons he has integrated into his body.
Miyu in Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome can turn her arm into an energy gun and a flamethrower, in addition to having knee cannons.
After losing an arm (and an eye and a leg) in a No One Could Survive That moment in Gundam SEED, Andrew Waltfeld appears in the sequel series Gundam SEED Destiny sporting a prosthetic replacement which, in a pinch, turns out to have a gun built into the wrist, revealed by partly detaching the hand.
Rize Greymon in Digimon Savers had a huge revolver arm transformed from his Rookie form's wrist straps.
The protagonists of Ayakashi and Mushi-Uta have organic arm cannons. For the former, he normally has a Power Fist, but in the finale, his arm mutated into a dragon cannon. For the latter, his Bond Creature attached to his gun, and as the influence from the merger spread, it mutated his arm and, near the end, most of his body.
One episode of Fullmetal Alchemist featured a character who had a single-shot weapon built into the knee of their automail leg. Not quite an arm cannon, but it should count for something.
- However, in the same episode, one character is seen cleaning (or polishing or something) an unused arm canon. And a much earlier epsisode featured a man with an 'arm gun'.
- On top of that, both Edward and Wrath (anime version) have transmutated their arms into attached cannons/machine guns.
A character in episode 3 of Samurai Seven had a drop-down gun in his arm that fires big needles from a revolver-like chamber. It was fired by flexing the wrist.
The Jeeg Bazooka was, in the anime Kotetsu Jeeg, a fairly large bazooka that replaced his arm. In Koutetsushin Jeeg, it becomes large enough for him to 'hide' in - a BFG.
After a major upgrade, Chachamaru of Mahou Sensei Negima now sports one of these.
- Sayo also gained one after Haruna made her a robot body.
The cyborg Talos from Crusher Joe has a prosthetic arm with a built-in machine gun and a prosthetic hand that fits on the end, concealing the gun from enemies.

Close Anime and Manga

Cyborg of Teen Titans can transform one arm (both in some stories) into a "sonic cannon".
In one of the many, many attempts by the DC writers to counteract the whole Superfriends cock-up, Aquaman had his arm nibbled off by piranhas when his powers were disabled. He got it replaced with a harpoon, and later a cybernetic hand that could shapeshift into a harpoon gun. The hand was later replaced with one made of mystical water. Neither really helped much.
- The animated version actually cut his own arm off when chained up, in order to save his infant son. He gets the harpoon replacement and sticks with it throughout the series. Can we say Badass?
  - Yes. Yes we can.
In another DC example, Guy Gardner (one of the many Green Lanterns) turned out to have an alien lineage that gave him the ability to shift his body into any weapon. It was the Nineties, what can we say.
The KGBeast, a Russian Batman villain hacked off his arm and replaced it with a gun.
The Marvel Universe Villain Bushwacker can transform his right arm into a gun, thanks to CIA experiments preformed on him.
- Wait, Bushwacker gets a mention before Iron Man?
The Amory Wars: Coheed has his right arm end up one of these. It's quite possibly the most realistic power of all the Kilgannons. (Coheed's left arm has several curved blades that pop out of it, as well as being able to destroy stars; his wife, Cambria, has tele-everything [-kinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance...], their surviving child, their son Claudio, has natural star-killing abilities, and can aparently melt through walls. As well as clairvoyance.)
This was the schtick of Handgun, one of the minor Astro City villains murdered in the "Tarnished Angel" arc. His widow is seen trying to sell his spare handgun units.

Close Comics

Cherry Darling of Grindhouse: Planet Terror gets a leg cannon(!). (The original leg got eaten. It happens.)
In Robocop 3, the titular hero has gotten an upgrade: he can now detach one of his forearms and attach a combination machine gun, flamethrower, and rocket launcher when he knows he's facing a serious firefight. Or when he's just plain pissed off.
The T-X in Terminator 3 can turn its arm into an energy gun and a flamethrower, among other weapons.
EVE from WALL-E. Like Mega Man, she can morph it from gun to hand, and even a little transistional mode which she uses most of the time. It's even detachable, and has an outside trigger which lets it be used by other characters as a conventional weapon. Darn it, WALL-E.
Then there was the strange cross between Kill Bill and Planet Terror that is the Japanese movie The Machine Girl and its titular character. It is rule of cool incarnated.
Videodrome
In Disney's Treasure Planet, Long John Silver was a cyborg and had an arm that transformed into a cannon at one point.
In the 2007 Transformers film, Ironhide whips out two huge, glowy cannons from his forearms (quoting Dirty Harry in the process), and Megatron turns his arms into a huge cannon!
The heroine of the Japanese film Kataude mashin gâru (a.k.a. The Machine Girl) is tortured and has her arm cut off by the Yakuza. The owners of a machine shop who rescue her replace it with a machine gun.

Close Films

David Weber's Honor Harrington had a pulser (hypervelocity needle launcher) built into her cybernetic arm as a holdout/emergency weapon. She needs a fingertip replaced whenever she uses it, but it does the job of a hand well enough and is almost impossible to spot.
The Cobra cyborg warriors in Timothy Zahn's series. Each Cobra warrior (the good guys, by the way) has a laser built into each hand, a powerful shock launcher capable of frying electrical equipment, and a tank-killer class laser built into their leg. All without any external cues that would indicate their augmentation.
- Not to mention the unbreakable bones, strength enhancement, brain-integrated microcomputer, and built-in-the-chest sonic weapons. That's an arsenal I wouldn't mind having!
In Clive Cussler's Oregon Files, Juan Cabrillo, the leader of a team of heroic mercenaries, has a high-caliber pistol built into a false foot — in addition to a number of other goodies, making it something of a Swiss Army Foot.
Aside from many obvious instances mounted on the Humongous Mecha of the setting, two separate characters (who never actually meet) in the BattleTech Warrior trilogy have custom laser weapons built into their prosthetic forearms. One of them finds his rather handy a couple of times when no other gun is available and just slugging an opponent with his metal fist isn't an option; the other never actually gets the chance to use his because when finally confronted with a would-be assassin, the latter reveals that he'd already infiltrated his victim's home days before and among other things made sure to drain the weapon's power cell.
The Star Wars Expanded Universe includes a type of four-armed nanny droid with blasters hidden beneath detachable hands on two of the arms. They're intended for the kidnapping-vulnerable children of politicians and such. Leia's custom-modified model for her son Anakin included this function on all four arms.

Close Literature

Autons (of the shop window dummy variety in Doctor Who) have guns built into their right hands, which drop open to fire.
- Although they hardly use them, so do the alternate universe Cybermen. Their original universe counterparts just carried guns.
Cylon Centurions from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica have hands that transform into guns. Additionally, said hands are apparently bladed, as seen in one particularly ugly moment during an early sequence of the second season.
In Blakes Seven, Travis has an artificial left hand with a gun built into it.
Riderman, from Kamen Rider V 3, was notable for being a Kamen Rider whose only technological augmentation was his right arm, and just for that, he still threw down more than any regular human ought to be able to. The arm itself could change somehow, through cassette cartridges inserted in his right elbow, into various forms (a drill, a claw, a net launcher, the original Hookshot...) but it wasn't until he showed up in Kamen Rider SPIRITS that he got a proper gun. And how! A proper Machinegun Arm that could, in a pinch, fire individual shells; seeing as how he just didn't have the firepower to take down some of his foes, these shells were hardening agents, on the theory that, if they couldn't attack him, he didn't actually need to blow them up.
Adam, in season 4 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, had both a mini-gun, and a grenade launcher built into his arm.

Close Live Action TV

The Obliterator cult from Warhammer 40000 is a cult of extremely chaos-mutated space marines whose bodies have been literally fused to their own weaponry and armour, allowing them to morph their warped body parts (with arms being preferred) into various types of BFGs at will, literally turning themselves into walking humanoid heavy weapon platforms. The question of where the ammo to these weapons are kept is, perhaps, better left unasked.
- It's implied that Obliterators can access the Warp and use its energy to power their weapons. They also don't have kinetic-energy weapons anymore, so there's no point wondering where they store the ammo for heavy bolters or autocannons.
- Space Marine Terminators have Assault Cannons, gatling type guns that are attached to one hand. Their Chaos counterparts have a similar gun, the Reaper Autocannon.
The Shadowrun RPG offers these as a type of cyberware. The end of the gun is in the palm, and locking one's hand back links it to the rest of the gun barrel. Rarely used as typically not worth the cost or essence, it does allow one to use their hand though. There was also a picture of a character with the more traditional gun as a hand in the older Critter's book.
- Later Shadowrun rules deleted the essence cost for cyberguns implanted in cyberlimbs.... Merry Christmas!!
Though there are no official "standard" magic items to do such, creating a component for a warforged (from Dungeons & Dragons' Eberron campaign setting) that did something similar would be a matter of upgrading the damage an armbow could cause.
Alchemical Exalted can get a special ability that allows them to turn their arm into a gun that fires pure Essence, as demonstrated here by The Elegant Nova of Progression.
The post-Steampunk roleplaying game Etherscope includes rules for both cybernaughtic (i.e. robotic) arms and integrated weaponry, allowing a character at second level to integrate a pistol, or even a miniaturized grenade launcher into their arms. This character is currently playing a character whose pair of robot arms contain said grenade launcher, a large autocannon, and a steam-powered chainsaw.
The collectible miniatures game Monsterpocalypse includes Rogzor of the Planet Eaters, who has two arm cannons.

Close Tabletop Games

Barret in Final Fantasy VII switched his prosthetic arm to a gun when he got permanently pissed off, and changes back in supplementary materials once he's done.
- In Advent Children he upgraded to a cybernetic arm that can shift to a Gatling gun or a particle beam cannon.
Jack in Ar Tonelico has his left arm (and most of his torso) converted into machinery, with his arm doubling as a gatling gun. Of course, he only uses it in his powered-up state, and normally just fires a pistol that he holds in his right hand.
Mega Man in many incarnations. ~~Some~~ ~~Most~~ All versions justify this by having his arm morph from the cannon to a regular hand.
- Zero has a transforming handheld saber, shield, pogo lance, hookshot, and tonfas, and a looted energy pistol. It doesn't stop him from using the Z-knuckle to graft enemy turrents and flamethrowers onto his arm, classic-style, in the fourth game.
- And on the subject of Zero, Fighting Fefnir. By extension, Model F users in ZX, which actually falls into the second category.
  - Model FX users just have Really Big Guns Akimbo.
- In the Mega Man X series, Zero's arm cannon is actually of the second type, emerging from his forearm. Odd that it switched over between series, but whatcha gonna do?
  - Because he lost his body at the beginning of the Zero series. The so-called Z-Buster is a pistol he grabbed off a dead redshirt to fight the Pantheons.
Wild Dog in the Time Crisis games.
Vectorman has guns in the palms of his hands, combining features from both types.
In Persona 3 Aigis gets the deluxe version: Many of her equippable weapons (including her starting one) feature an Arm Cannon that allows her to fire bullets from her fingertips.
Forcystus in Tales Of Symphonia has one of these; it's never explained how he got it, since he's a minor boss villain, but given that he wears an eyepatch as well, it's likely a replacement for a battle injury.
Tytree in Tales Of Rebirth fights with his fists and a crossbow attached to one of his arms. For one of his dual hi-ougis, the crossbow turns into a BFG.
In Super Mario RPG, all weapons equippable by Geno have to do with some sort of gun. Standard guns shoot from his fingertip, his punches launch his forearms at the enemy, and one weapon, the "Hand Cannon", actually shoots canonballs from his elbow.
The towering Cyberdemon from Doom has a rocket launcher instead of his left forearm, and the grotesquely obese mancubus from Doom 2 has both of his hands replaced by rockets as well.
In the Armored Core series, arms with integrated weapons are possible part selections for your humongous mecha. This Troper has seen every type of weapon integrated into the arms — arm machine guns, arm beam swords, arm beam cannons, arm bazookas...
The {{Pokémon}} Rhyperior has holes in its palms that serve as cannons; it shoves rocks and the rare Geodude down the holes and shoots them. This is how it uses its signature move Rock Wrecker (Rock Cannon in Japanese).
- Magmortar does this too. You can see it at the beginning of Giratina and the Sky Warrior.
KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga series.
Hunters from Halo have a fuel rod cannon(Covenant Rocket Launcher) attached in place of a right arm. At least they seem to use the left one to fire
Several bosses from [1] have arm cannons, such as the Grosse Family and Adolf Hitler.
At the end of Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox shows up wielding a laser cannon arm; with absolutely no explanation as to where it came from.

Close Video Games

Reona from the webcomic Zap! lost her arm in the backstory, and had it replaced with a retractable arm cannon.
The superhero Cannon from Heroes of C.R.A.S.H. has one as his superpower.

Close Web Comics

Mecha Sonic of Super Mario Bros Z has a machine gun/missile launcher hidden in both arms (though he only ever uses one at a time).

Close Web Original

Loads and loads of Transformers.
- Honorable Mention goes to Beast Wars Megatron, who had two ludicrously big arm cannons in his original form. They became the head and tail of his T. rex mode. Thankfully he could remove one of them to use his hand.
When Lightning Lad of the Legion of Super Heroes Animated Series has an arm blown off by Big Bad Imperiex, it's replaced with a large mechanical replacement that can be used to channel and amplify his powers. He's surprisingly okay with the loss of his limb. It probably has more to do, though, with finally getting his sister back than with the cool replacement.
A video game section of Futurama parodies this trope by having the digital version character fire from their fingers, and in Fry's case, from his arm, which makes the sound of a shot gun cocking.
Zachary Fox, from The Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers has a bionic arm. It needs a bit of charge time before firing making it an arm-sized Wave Motion Gun more than an Arm Cannon.
Can't forget Deadshot from Batman: Gotham Knights... complete with dakka!
In the Teen Titans animated series, Cyborg has weaponry in almost all of his appendages. No, he's not kidding about the shoe rocket. His sonic cannons remain his favorite weapon, though.
In the Animated Series of The Mask, the titular character has a pirate form that has an appropriately-styled cannon replacing one arm.
In Code Lyoko, among XANA's monsters the "Tarantula" has two laser cannons stubs in lieu of arms (and legs too, though the latter are never seen in use). Its firing position is a crouch reminiscent of Star Wars' Droidekas.

Close Western Animation

This troper knows of at least one real-life example of a machinist building such a device, so a one-armed man could compete in target shooting. In a strange case of life imitating fiction, he was eventually barred from competing with the "arm cannon" because it made him such a good shot — the gun was triggered by his opposite shoulder muscle and bolted on firmly, giving much more stability when firing than anyone could otherwise achieve.
Jay J Armes

Close Real Life

In Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, when the group first comes across a kudan gang war, the gang members are aiming their arms at each other while shooting off energy from just above their wrists, clearly meant to evoke the arm-mounted cannon.
The Gundam "Alex" in Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket has a Gatling gun hidden in each forearm, which came as a nasty surprise to the Zeon commando who tried to take it out.
- Likewise, the Shining Gundam has a pair of light beam guns on its arms.
The Power Launchers in Heavy Metal L-Gaim are among these.
Nove's Gun Knuckle in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which was modified by Jail to fire energy bullets like a machine gun as well.
Absalom from One Piece combines his invisibility powers with a pair of arm mounted bazookas to surprise his enemies.

Close Anime and Manga

The DCU villain Deadshot typically gets into gunfights with a pair of wrist-mounted guns.

Close Comics

The Predator has a wrist-mounted launcher that can shoot out small, piercing ordnance, such as pincers, needles, or forked blades. Also of note is the shoulder-mounted plasma gun.
Super Battle Droids from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, of course. Their right wrists are equipped with blaster and small-caliber rocket launcher.

Close Films

The Pyrrans in Harry Harrison's Deathworld are born into the losing side of a technology-vs-biology conflict that has an entire planet forcibly mutating to attack them. They train with large caliber pistols with live explosive rounds from about the time they're old enough to walk, making them exemplars not only of arm-cannons, but several other kinds of insanity as well.

Close Literature

The Kull Warriors from Stargate SG-1 have an energy weapon mounted on both arms, more efficient that the standard Serpent Staffs.
Laserblast as seen on MST3K.
Soaron and Blastarr from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future have arm-mounted Digitizers attached to their forearms; they slide over their fist and lock into position when used to digitize a hapless human victim. Blastarr also has cannons on his fingertips.
- Additionally, Hawk from the Future Force has a miniature rocket launcher mounted on top of his arm. It fires tiny but devastating missiles.
The Interceptor in Interceptor had his zapper mounted to his left sleeve.

Close Live Action TV

Both the first and second kind of Arm Cannon are available in Rifts. The rulebook specifically points out the difficulties of the Type One Arm Cannon, but justifies it by pointing out that hands are tricky to get right, and Rifts is set in a (borderline) Scavenger World.
HIT Marks from Mage the Ascension, while more commonly shown using the gatling guns stored in their backs, do have machine guns in their arms as well.

Close Tabletop Games

Samus Aran in the Metroid series. It's a part of her Power Suit, though, so she can take it off whenever she feels like it. The Metroid Prime games give more detail about how it works thanks to the X-Ray Visor: you can see inside the cannon with it, showing the bones of Samus's hand, and she apparently just pulls a trigger. In the first Prime, you even see her changing her hand gesture to switch weapons. (Prime 2 doesn't have the X-Ray visor, and Prime 3 only has upgrades to weapons, rather than different weapons to switch between, with the exception of the missiles.)
The Majestic XII Commandos from Deus Ex have some sort of devices built into the arms of their suits that packs the capabilities of pretty much all the normal weapons in the game (assault rifle, sniper rifle, flamethrower, rocket launcher). To fire, they level their arms at their target while clenching their fists.
The Alt Eisen and Weiss Ritter in Super Robot Wars both have guns mounted on their left arms.
- This comes from being based on the Gespenst, since every type of Gespenst has three barrels mounted on their right arm. Strangly only the Weiß Ritter and Alt Eisen actualy have build in weapons which use them as range attack and the Gespenst II M, makes use of the barrels as close range weapon. Which makes someone wonder why the other types have those barrels but no weapon build in to use them.
  - On the older Gespensts (and the MK II M), those are apparently the hilts of their Beam Sabers. The MK II M's are designed to be able to do the Jet Magnum attack.
In Front Mission (SNES) and its later PlayStation remake (and the Nintendo DS port of that) named Front Mission 1st, at least one of the early game arm parts has an integral machine gun; it's strong, has good accuracy for the early game and can save you money due to not having to buy a separate machine gun for a regular arm. Its only downsides are the inability to unequip, the weight, and those of a machine gun (as a Short range weapon its priority is higher than Melee weapons but lower than Long range weapons, and between Short range weapons its priority is less than a Rifle which only shoots once per attack).
Slipskulls in Resistance: Fall of Man have their guns mounted to their arms with metal bands. When you find a pair of their weapons lying around in the New Game +, you just use them like regular machine pistols, though.
Not cannon nor anything resembling firearm, but Marisa's mini-hakkero counts. It must be held and aimed at the person or thing she doesn't like to shoot a laser beam.
- Utsuho's wielded nuclear control rod, on the other hand, is not a weapon.
Glitch in Metal Arms: Glitch in the System actually has his weapon replace his right hand. Meanwhile, his left hand can also be used to throw grenades and hold a scope.
Colonel Daren from Red Dead Revolver has an arm cannon after certain events in the beginning of the game.

Close Video Games

Jordan Kennedy, the evil genius landlady from Exploitation Now, has a cybernetic left arm with a built-in plasma cannon.
The Cyantian Chronicles: Cere, a cybernetically altered anthropomorphic kangaroo, has one built into her arm. But it's not too reliable.

Close Web Comics

Rob from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes sports a Mega Man-esque blaster on his right hand when in Guardian form.

Close Web Original

Megatron in Transformers Generation 1 has a very big, very intimidating gun attached to his right arm, as does his counterpart in Transformers Animated shown above.
- So do lots of other Transformers in varying sizes.
- Animated Swindle actually has a BFG that he attaches to his wrist like Megatron, and a pair of retractable cannons on each arm. This is in addition to his over-the-shoulder lasers, and the gatling gun coming out of his chest.
Every robot or cyborg character on Gargoyles has a retractable particle beam gun in its forearm, with an almost identical extend/retract mechanism. Sensible, since all of them were evolved from designs stolen from Cyberbiotics by Xanatos, and it's hard to reinvent the wheel when you didn't invent it in the first place.
Buzz Lightyear, of Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command fame, has a laser on his wrist — at least on the latter; on the former it's "a little lightbulb that blinks".
- In the latter's case the wrist-mounted laser is part of the standard issue Space Ranger suit.
Odd from Code Lyoko, in his Lyoko Avatar, fires "Lazer Arrows" from his wrists.
Wildwing in The Mighty Ducks has an 'explosive puck' launcher (effectively a grenade launcher) mounted on his right gauntlet.

Close Western Animation

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Examples of the First Kind (arm is cannon)

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