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 Synchronized Ass Kicking = Pure Awesome
The "en garde" combat stance which is adopted by hand-to-hand fighters in combat, just before opening cans of whoop-ass. Ideally, the stance used should not merely be functional; it must visually convey the message "Your butt, kicked by me."
A common variant is, rather than a combat stance, to smile threateningly as if to say "I'm about to kill you. Very much." A second variant is, faced with a display of force, to simply play The Stoic and exude an aura of "You guys are so toast." Can include cracking knuckles, or cracking the cartilage in one's neck. When kicking someone's ass, it's important to be limber!
See also Bring It On — a challenging gesture daring the opponent to attack. Supertrope of Super Sentai Stance.
Contrast Victory Pose. Usually in animation, the pose is rendered in more detailed artwork.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Masane Amaha from Witch Blade, after tranforming for the first time, does the "come hither for your ass kicking" version, namely the defiant stance coupled with index finger motioning for the asshole to step forward for their aforemented asskicking.
- Voltron adopts such poses during Stock Footage transformation sequences, particularly when creating weapons.
- Just Voltron? It'd be easier to name the Super Robots that didn't.
- None.
- See how easy that was?
- Two words and a letter: Dragon Ball Z.
- Three words, if you wanna get techical: The Ginyu Force.
- Let's not forget "The Great Saiyaman!"
- Transformers. Pretty much every version of Transformers ever, in fact.
- Most of the HiME from Mai-HiME (except Yukino), after they draw their weapons out of thin air. Gaze upon Shizuru's spear stance, ye lowly, and despair!
- Naruto has Rock Lee, whose combat stance involves a mid-to-low center of gravity, left hand held behind the back (potentially to grab kunai and such), and right hand ''held forward in the classic "come and get me" gesture.'' Definitely a sign of rampant badassery, whether or not it ends up working.
- In just about every episode of Fist Of The North Star, before kicking some ass Ken's shirt would explode off and he would crack his knuckles.
- Parodied in the supplementary manga of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, which had a huge background picture of the Staff Chick Caro doing this while Hayate mentioned how she might lose to her too since she's undergone Nanoha's Training From Hell.
- Played completely straight in Episode 25 of StrikerS. Nanoha stomps the ground "to brace herself." In the DVD adaptation, the stomp cracks the ground underneath her feet. Immediately thereafter, the Crowning Moment Of Awesome for the entire series happened.
- Ku Fei of Mahou Sensei Negima assumes what looks like some kind of Crane stance
 after she deals with crowds of common challengers. Which, in addition to the incident during the Summer Festival, she does every day before class. Kotaro and Negi do one before their fight against Wilhelm.
- Inu Yasha often cracked his knuckles before a fight. One handed. Open in a claw hand, not clinched into a fist.
- In the Lucky Star OVA, 3/4 of the main characters and their teacher are playing a MMORPG, and discuss finishing poses. What they wind up with is the end of the Hare Hare Yukai dance, with a random passerby filling the needed position. They quickly agree that it doesn't work.
- Parodied in Mahoujin Guru Guru. The "Cool Pose" is an actual ability that can only be used by The Hero. Nike strikes a pose while a sphere of yellow light surrounds him. Though it's noted the ability has no actual function besides making everyone stare at him in awe.
- Rurouni Kenshin has a couple. Kensin's Battousai glare is one, notable for scaring the bejeezus out of Kurogasa and several small-time villains. There's also his battou-jutsu stance, which looks so ridiculously cool that it has reached the level of being powered by its awesomeness.
- One Piece has a lot of these. The Straw Hats use them alot obviously: Luffy typically cracks his knuckles or stretches before a fight. Zoro usually puts his sword in his mouth before fighting, but the real Ass Kicking Pose comes when he takes the bandana off his arm and puts it on his head. Robin most often crosses her arms in front of her and closes her eyes when she's using her powers. Chopper's arms-folded-in-front-of-him Death Glare is not even slightly ruined by the tiny blue knapsack and pink hat that he always wears.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh manga, Yami would usually point at people beofre giving them a punishment game and driving them fucking insane.
- The eponymous Gunbuster has an iconic stance of standing with its armed folded. It's Bad Ass.
Comics
- While Batman's combat stances tend to be more practical than showy, he does like to use his cape — along with his imposing physical stature — to devastating psychological effect.
- Speaking of Batman: A subversion in the 1989 film, when one of the mooks threatens Our Hero with a series of flailing martial arts poses. The technique is about as useless as it appears, since Batman manages to flatten the guy with one punch. On two separate occasions.
- Similarly subverted/parodied in Bleach with a lesser shinigami flailing his sword impressively only to get knocked out with a single punch from Chad.
- Another such subversion in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. You know which scene I'm talking about.
- And again, subverted in The Cannonball Run. During the Big Brawl scene, Roger Moore (essentially playing himself) squares off against one thug, adopts an Ass Kicking Pose... and promptly gets his lights punched out.
- The Shinobi Five, a freelance ninja squad from Gintama.
- Superman has his Ass-Kicking Pose, which is unique, as it is largly him floating silently with his hands across his chest. This being Superman, this works. Also, if he really wants to scare someone, or you're pissed him off, expect the Glowing Eyes Of Doom as well.
Films
- Trope name comes from Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, where the term was used in a decidedly derisive tone. Both Charlie's Angels movies were rife with these poses, commonly struck in choreographic unison.
- Darth Maul's famous lightsaber stance in The Phantom Menace would qualify.
- And the little smile that accompanies Obi-Wan's "Oh, I don't think so" definitely qualifies as a Ass Kicking Smile.
- Don't forget the classic fencing "sabre twirl" salute Count Dooku gives to Yoda in Episode 2.
- Pick a martial arts movie. Any martial arts movie.
- The Karate Kid introduced into the pantheon of Ass Kicking Poses the "Crane Stance". Note that according to That Other Wiki, "Crane Stance" refers to just about any stance where only one foot touches the ground, regardless of the arms' position (and the other foot usually rests on the ground leg's knee).
- Also notable in that unlike an Ass-Kicking Pose that doesn't suck flamingo testicles, the Crane Stance tells you exactly what move Daniel-san is about to use, and should, if you aren't a complete and total dimskull, tell you how to beat him. Actually, Daniel spends a lot of time telegraphing his moves. Having limited martial arts experience, I can no longer watch a Karate Kid movie.
- Just watch the extras instead of the leads. At least in the first one (can't vouch for the others; haven't seen them), the no-names tend to actually have some idea what they're doing...
- Bruce Lee was the master of the Ass Kicking Pose. Just watch Enter the Dragon and stand in awe.
- Oh, and he LOVED the Crane Stance. Specifically, when his opponent used it. One push, falling crane.
- In ""Romeo Must Die"", one of the black guys uses the Crane Stance to mock Jet Li, complete with screeching "waaaa" sound. Cue immediate kick in the fork.
- The last shot in the first Mortal Kombat movie.
- Totally averted by Fighter In The Wind. Choi's favoured stance is a simple boxing guard. The few opponents stupid enough to try elaborate stances get unpleasant things done to them. Then subverted; at the end Choi and Kato are so evenly matched that they take a moment's time out to limber up and get into their preferred stances again.
- The Ass Kicking Smile also appears in Superman Returns in the scene where a thug shoots Superman in the eye.
- The film version of Undercover Brother parodies this trope by using awkward-looking stances.
- Of course, The Matrix.
- Of particular note is Neo's continual use of the "Bring It On" hand gesture throughout the series.
- The Gun Kata style of Equilibrium relies extensively on these to position the body just so while gunning down enemies.
- After Wolverine and Bruce Banner escape captivity in the animated movie Hulk vs. Wolverine, the Weapon X team all strike Ass Kicking Poses before running off to hunt them down. Deadpool lampshades this by shouting Strike a pose!
- Serenity. After River slaughters the entire Reaver horde the doors open to show her in a very simple stance, legs spread apart and and axe and a sword in her hands that pretty perfectly conveys the fact that many, many people just got pasted by a ninety pound girl. When the Alliance troops bust in moments later, she doesn't even shift her stance, instead just very slowly turning her head to face them - the implication being that, even with their heavy body armor and a dozen guns pointed at her, she is going to massacre them too, just as easily.
- Fight Club. Brad Pitt's character Tyler Durden does several of these during his final fight with the narrator and another one when the narrator is on the phone with Marla for absolutely no reason except Brad Pitt being bored and wanting to try it out.
Live Action TV
- Power Rangers, both humans and mecha. The concentrated awesomeness of these poses will often cause explosions and bursts of colored smoke.
- There's a lot of ceremony behind it: each Ranger has his or her own personal pose, with a little routine of a few moves before snapping into the final pose (with optional smoke clouds.) Some teams have an entire routine where each gives his or her Ranger designation while posing, and then all pose together after the team's In The Name Of The Moon phrase - this is known to fans (well, some fans) as the "roll call." When Rangers return for a Reunion Show years or even a decade after their most recent appearance, the poses are always done just as they were before. Z of Power Rangers SPD had a habit of quickly taking on her final pose without suiting up just before running in to take on Mooks, though the full routine was saved for roll call scenes.
- Neds Declassified School Survival Guide played with this and then hung a lampshade on their playing with it, when Ned and Cookie fought. They imitated every cliche Ass Kicking Pose possible, then made up before throwing any actual blows. The Combat Commentators left in disgust.
- Parodied in the TV show Vanishing Son: the hero (seeking the Villain of the Week) kicks down his office door, to reveal a gigantic man behind a desk. Said man jumps up, puts his hands in front of him, shouts "I'm a temp!" and runs past the hero.
- One word: Henshin!
- Parodied in Kamen Rider G. After the titular Rider finishes his pose, the building behind him has half of its windows blown out to form his logo. Hope he has Hero Insurance.
Professional Wrestling
- WWE wrestler Rob Van Dam has a tendency to get knocked down, then pop right back up into an Ass Kicking Pose.
- Pretty common in Professional Wrestling anyway - usually after a series of very quick reversals and chain wrestling, with both guys doing a "kip up", as it's termed, into the pose before relaxing so the crowd can show their appreciation.
Close Professional Wrestling
Video Games
- When the boss Elvis tries an elaborate one of these in God Hand, Gene mocks it: "You can 'wax on wax off' all you like, I'm still kicking your ass." Gene himself has a much simpler set of poses used before major battles.
- Almost every robot master/Maverick from Mega Man and Mega Man X does one of these, right after making their grand entrance.
- Many Super Smash Bros taunts are of the Ass Kicking Pose variety. Lucario and his Aura poses, Captain Falcon's "Show me ya moves" and Wario laughing at his opponents for example.
- Viewtiful Joe has poses that are so awesome it destroys enemies!
- The recent Power Rangers game Super Legends does this as well, giving the rampant posing in the TV show a significantly better use.
- Name a fighting game, almost Any fighting game made after 1995, especially if there's a strong Martial Arts theme.
- Kilik oddly enough does NOT use a crane stance (see Film example above) as one of his pre-battle poses, despite that his "Crane stance + Staff held at a 45 degree angle" pose is extremely iconic for the series.
- In what can only be an affectionate parody or lampshade hanging to Charlie's Angels, the three heroines of Final Fantasy X-2 kick the game off by appearing in an ass-kicking pose stolen directly from the movie (minus the exotic FF weaponry)
- In Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess after you kill a boss Link twirls his sword and then sheathes it, looking particularly bad ass.
- It can also happen when you bead a stronger monster and time putting the sword away just as it poofs away.
- Combine this with the Mortal Draw for some nice showy iaijitsu.
- By the way, Link originally did the sword twirl in the Zelda Cartoon many Zelda Fans denounce as So Bad It's Horrible. Your Mileage May Vary, as I found it to be So Bad It's Hilarious.
- Sonic the Hedgehog, whether after clearing a mission, beating the big bad, or just to piss off Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, will likely do a bunch of fancy stuff, but will always end his pose with a thumbs up.
- In brawl, this is proven, as his entrance is to roll/bounce onscreen and flash a smile and thumbs up.
Web Comics
- In one fight scene from El Goonish Shive, Elliot berates Nanase for striking what he calls a "Look at me, I just kicked Elliot" pose.
- Parodied in 8-bit Theater when preapring to fight a major villain, Red Mage, ever the role-player, calls for everyone to adopt "battles poses" and to make it look good.
- Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance gets these a lot.
- Problem Sleuth from MS Paint Adventures has a panel entitled "Pose as a team CAUSE SHIT JUST GOT REAL!". And then later, "POSE AS A TEAM AGAIN CAUSE SHIT JUST GOT MORE REAL!" In all, there's about four panels, where shit continues to get increasingly real.
Western Animation
- In The Incredibles, when the family must fight as a team for the first time, they all adopt a simultaneous Ass Kicking Pose.
- Also from that film: one scene features Mr. Incredible flashing an Ass Kicking Smile.
- It's also mocked earlier in the film when Elastigirl catches Mr. Incredible sneaking in to the house. She startles him, and he adopts an Ass Kicking Pose, which is largely undone because his mouth is full of chocolate cake which is dribbling down his chin.
- Ron in Kim Possible has a tendency to invoke random, ridiculous poses in futile attempts to mimic Kim's stances. Kim, Shego and assorted ninjas could pull it off, though.
- More than a few incredibly awesome examples of these appeared in Kung Fu Panda, especially on the part of Tai Lung and the Furious Five. Notable ones occurred during the snow leopard's prison escape sequence and the fight on the suspension bridge. Noticeably averted during the showdown between Tai Lung and Shifu, however; despite being a major Badass, the snow leopard was also a Determinator and so didn't waste time doing fancy poses when he had a master to defeat and a scroll to claim. Also hilariously averted with Po, who attempted such poses only to be an Epic Failure nine times out of ten.
- Mocked lightly in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, where MetaBrawl has degenerated into a pathetic, bingo-hall level company, complete with fighters who spend all their time doing Neo's "just bring it" pose and comparatively little time fighting each other.
- In Teen Titans, Cyborg prepares for a fight by cracking the cartilage in his neck. Fridge Logic would say this shouldn't happen because Cyborg's joints are mechanical, but then again, machines sometimes crack and squeak...
- I just assumed his spine was still organic.
- Additionally, Robin often struck these in preparation for a fight.
- How can Avatar The Last Airbender not be mentioned here yet?
- Hilariously parodied by Deadpool in the Wolverine section of the 'Hulk vs' animated movie. After Wolverine escapes, the Weapon X team is ready to hunt him down and kill him and Deadpool shouts ''strike a pose!" immediately after the shot changes to them standing in said pose.
Real Life
- This guy.
- Well this was already mentioned in the film section, but as a former practitioner of Martial Arts, there quite literally is such thing as an "Ass Kicking Pose". It's actually effective and for your own safety. If your stance isn't proper before a fight, most likely your opponent will take advantage of your apparent lack of balance (i.e. don't look clumsy if you're getting ready to defend yourself).
- Not to mention that a well-executed pose-sequence can be really intimidating if your opponent isn't a martial artist, himself.
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