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"Watch the power of Aura!"
When psyching themselves up for battle, warriors emit a coruscating, Kirlian-like glow around their bodies. These glows are frequently examples of Good Colors, Evil Colors, with good guys having a blue aura and the bad guys having a red one, although this is by no means a hard-and-fast rule (for example, Shadow the Hedgehog's aura in Super Mario Bros Z is black).
Sometimes the battle aura is a metaphor, and sometimes it is visible to bystanders, who take it as a sign to run away or dive for cover. Either way, it is a sign of power, because Power Glows.
In Western Super Hero comics, a similar effect known as Kirby Dots is used to indicate great energies at work, though not necessarily related to combat; these are primarily a print technique, but have at times been translated into animation in particularly slavish adaptations.
This is a subtrope of Power Glows, and the supertrope of Animal Battle Aura. Compare Holy Halo and Throat Light. Occasionally manifests as a Sphere of Power or Dramatic Wind. If only certain people can see it you could be looking at Aura Vision. Characters experiencing morality shifts may have their aura experience a Convenient Color Change.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
Comics
- From Uncanny X-Men, Phoenix.◊
- Excalibur's Rachel Summers, future daughter of Alternate Universe Jean and Scott Summers, "Baby" Phoenix.◊.
- Green Lanterns (and the other colors as well, with the apparent exception of black) have an aura generated by their ring. They seem to be able to control the brightness, though.
Film
- In the 1985 film The Last Dragon, there is The Glow: when a fighter's hands glow, he is among the best in the world - when his entire body glows, he IS the best. Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, demonstrates the former towards the end of the movie, but Leroy "Bruce Leroy" Green demonstrates the latter after a beatdown.
Fan Works
- The Guile Hero / Magic Knight protagonist in Dragon Age The Crown Of Thorns can go from Glowing Eyes of Doom to shining white from his whole body to exuding enough energy that something like gossamer mist strands form around him, culminating with, when he's really serious, looking like an ascended being from Stargate. The ironic part is that it gets dangerous the more he lets loose, what with his magic power coming from a tear in the Veil he harbors in his body, which is unstable even at the best of times.
- In The Tainted Grimoire, Luso radiates this when preparing a Fighter ability.
Literature
- Older Than Feudalism: Homer's The Iliad features Diomedes being powered up by Athena: "She set the man ablaze, his shield and helmet flaming, with tireless fire like the star that flames at harvest, bathed in the Ocean, rising up to outshine all other stars. Such fire Athena blazed from Tydides (Diomedes is Tyndeus' son, hence that appellation) head and shoulders..."
- Harry Dresden wraps himself in an aura of light when stepping out to confront Cowl (Darth Bathrobe) and apprentice in Dead Beat. The necromancers are impressed.
- Which is impressive considering that Cowl is more powerful than Ebenezar McCoy, member of the Senior Council and past master of the Colony Drop.
- Also just before he fries the elder fetch in Proven Guilty when he taps into Lily's Summer Fire.
- Aes Sedai and other woman channelers "glow" when embracing saidar to other female channelers or those who have the potential to learn to channel.
Live Action TV
- In Smallville, when in Clark time, all speedsters have a pulsating aura surrounding them. Don't ask how, it is cool. Clark has blue, Bart Allen has red, Lana has purple (bad) or orange (good), Raya has yellow, Maxima has green, Bizarro and Brainiac had black, while Doomsday was dark grey.
- Any Super Sentai team if they get fired up enough. This means their Power Rangers counterparts get the same effect.
- Power Rangers RPM has the creator of the Ranger tech explain the post-morph explosions as 'excess energy runoff.' It is later WEAPONIZED.
- William Adama has got one of these. Battlestar Galactica isn't usually a show for this sort of thing, but Edward James Olmos is too awesome for naturalism to work. In the mutiny arc he deploys it several times. First when being led away the CIC by two rebel marines he scares one so shit-less that the other loses focus allowing Tigh to whack him. Then at the climax of the arc having been rescued from execution, he lead a charge to CIC, no-one dares challenge him, and half the crew follows behind him.
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, characters that expend large amounts of Essence display what is referred to as an Anima Banner, a totemic image of their character's soul. One can often discern another's Exalt type by their Anima Banner.
- The glowing goes up with amount of power used (or down with time since power was used). At first, it's just a glittery forehead, then it's a brightly shining forehead, then it's your standard close-in battle aura, then it's a bonfire aura (a la Dragonball), then it reaches the level where it shows a totemic display of the Exalt's soul. The last two versions are visible for several kilometers around.
- ...Which is why the Night Caste Solars, the game's stealth specialists, have the unique ability to mute their anima banners, making them fainter and less noticeable. After all, a spy, thief, or assassin giving off light clearly visible for miles around wouldn't be very good at his job...
- And even if they don't mute their banners, their displays mask their faces; Highly Visible Ninja, anyone?
- They can spend a little bit more to avoid having a banner display at all. Both are options.
- Standard issue for Daemon Princes, Living Saints, C'Tan, and other super-powerful beings in Warhammer 40k. Most of these also tend to have actual effects as well.
- In the Dungeons & Dragons expansion Tome Of Battle, martial disciplines have color-coded auras. Stone Dragon is green, Setting Sun is yellow, Shadow Hand is deep purple, Devoted Spirit is pink, Diamond Mind is lavender, etc.
- In the Deadlands setting, one of the *disadvantages* that you can take for the Martial Arts magic path is "The Cup Overflows". This results in a very obvious Battle Aura that cannot be suppressed, and whenever you tap a mystic ability causes things like small dust devils, your feet do not quite touch the ground, static discharges, liquid lifting out of cups, etc etc. Pretty good for intimidating people but no way in heck you're going incognito.
Video Games
- In most versions of Karaoke Revolution, if you sing very well (i.e. match the pitch and timing the game expects) long enough, your on screen avatar starts to glow brightly.
- Mass Effect: upon landing on Noveria for the first time, having Liara in your active squad will let you see a biotic Battle Aura (she does it other times but this one is the best) when you confront the Corrupt Cop at the entrance of the base. While any other teammate or Shepard will just ready a gun, Liara readying her aura makes her strangely more intimidating than Wrex, the seven foot tall natural super-soldier.
- This pops up a lot more with biotics in the sequels. Even Shepard gets in on the action sometimes. The third game's DLC includes characters with the "Annihilation Field" ability, a weaponized aura that harms enemies and sets up combos.
- It also appears in a certain cutscene in the third game that implies recreational uses of biotics.
- A human-only ability in Devil Survivor; it prevents ''Scratch Damage' of less than 50. At the beginning of the battle where an enemy uses it, they'll glow green, although there's no visual effect for most of the battle.
- Characters that are affected by the Satsui no Hadou (Killing Intent) in the Street Fighter series (like Akuma and the Evil versions of Ryu and Ken) glow with a reddish aura, and characters that use Psycho Power (such as M. Bison) often have a purplish aura added to their attacks.
- In the final levels of Elite Beat Agents, the agents are surrounded by a Battle Aura while the people they're inspiring are dancing. This vanishes if the player misses a step, as the aliens overhead begin blasting them. At the end of the level, the aura is gathered into a Combined Energy Attack and fired at the alien mothership.
- The Japanese game which inspired Elite Beat Agents, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, used the combined Battle Aura of the entire world population in the final levels of both it and its sequel: in Ouendan, it was used to blast an asteroid out of the sky, in the sequel to re-light the Sun after it had gone out.
- Unusual example: the Flash game Dolphin Olympics.
- Mortal Kombat has this with Sub-Zero, Smoke, and Raiden.
- When a character in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl grabs a Smash Ball, they get a multicolored aura and their eyes glow yellow, which continues until after the Final Smash is used.
- Lucario, as per the page quote, has a functional Battle Aura (literally called "Aura"), which powers most of his attacks. Its intensity is based on how much damage he's taken, and as it grows stronger, so do his attacks.
- In the Brawl mod Project M, Lucario instead gains Aura charge by dealing damage in order to do super versions of his specials.
- In the videogame Grandia II, Millenia will get "annoyed" if she takes damage; the more damage she takes, the redder and angrier her picture at the bottom of the screen becomes. It'll eventually glow red, at which point she'll shout something (normally piss off), knock all the friendly characters out of her way, and then run around with a red aura doing whatever the hell she pleases until she calms down.
- The Paladin character from Diablo has literal auras of various types which can be shared with his allies.
- Heroes in Warcraft 3 often have a similar ability.
- While the Paladin in World of Warcraft uses auras extensively and the Shaman has it's aura-inducing totems, many other character classes have auras of their own with various amounts of glow.
- The posthuman "daodan" protagonist and antagonist in Oni play this trope straight, right down to 'good = blue, bad = red'.
- In almost every Final Fantasy game, characters give off a certain colored glow (which, for an Super Nintendo Entertainment System-gen era, have an aura-like movement) when afflicted with a status effect, whether buffed or debuffed. For example, when a character is afflicted with the Haste spell, he or she will give off a red glow.
- Also, in next-gen Final Fantasy games, this was removed and was instead given either different colors, or colors were just given to other unrelated spells.
- Final Fantasy VIII actually had a spell called Aura, which not only increases the possibility of a Limit Break, even with full HP, to nearly 100%, but also gives the affected character a golden aura.
- In Dissidia: Final Fantasy, characters glow brightly when in EX Mode.
- Several different units in Age Of Mythology glow to indicate some kind of combat enhancement in effect.
- Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 and W give Mazinkaiser an attack known as Kaiser Nova, which should be seen for yourself.
- In Vile's mode in Mega Man X Maverick Hunter X the final boss is X and Zero fighting together. When the boss health bar gets low enough one of them will fall, and the other demonstrates just how ticked off they are with a red or blue battle aura.
- The Tekken series has had aura customizations since Tekken 5. They don't do anything, but they look pretty.
- You can undergo a special quest in City of Heroes to unlock special Aura costume pieces, which are implied to be this. Many powers also give off auras, though you can turn them off outside PVP at the tailor.
- They've even added an option to only display your aura during combat, finally making it a literal example of this trope.
- Characters in the Disgaea series briefly shine with an aura when initiating a team attack, and also get one for quite a few special attacks. There's also the Majin class that has a perpetual one, the color varying depending on what class rank they're at.
- Twice over in A Promise Unforgotten does Fuka flare up with one - the first when her back's against the wall against Valvatorez and Fenrich in Chapter 2, and again at the end of Chapter 8 when Des X (Fuka's killer, naturally) gets overly clingy with Genjuro.
- Even though Akira Toriyama designed the characters for the entire Dragon Quest series, and earlier games did in fact have enemies who could gather strength, even giving you the ability in Dragon Quest VII as Psyche Up, the visual component of this didn't show up until Dragon Quest VIII, where you can actually see the characters battling. All four characters can Psyche Up to build up tension and make their next attack, healing spell or buffing spell more powerful. If a character Psyches Up four times in a row, they enter a state of 'Super High Tension', complete with a bright pink-ish glow and their hair standing up like a Super Saiyan. For the main character, this is also accompanied by his signature bandanna coming off, revealing spiky hair. Once this happens you see that the hero looks just like Teen Gohan, though even without seeing the hair the resemblance was very strong. There are some enemies that can Psyche Up too, including a few bosses.
- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker also includes the ability, available to any monster with the 'Psycho' trait, but the visible aura isn't quite as exaggerated.
- LifeAura in Mega Man Battle Network serves as a shield.
- In Yakuza 3, Kazuma Kiryu emits a color-coded aura when he builds up Heat energy, which enables him to perform special attacks.
- Fallout 3 might count with the Enclave Tesla Power Armor's constant electric discharges between the coils. Prior to Broken Steel, it was the best non-unique armor in terms of protection but made the wearer much less stealthy due to the glow and its heaviness. Plus it also gives a nifty bonus to energy weapons.
- The Glowing Ones, as their name implies, have a Sickly Green Glow, and the Feral Ghoul Reavers burn with green smoke.
- Battle Auras don't normally show up in Kingdom Hearts, but there are exceptions.
- Lexaeus uses one in Chain of Memories. His "Absent Silhouette" in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix has one that grows absolutely massive by the end of the battle. For some reason, he also has a steadily-increasing "power level" in the top corner of the screen. Yes, DBZ jokes were made, moving on...
- In Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Terra gets a pitch-black aura whenever he's tapping into darkness. It's a flickering flame when he squares off with Eraqus in order to protect Ven, and becomes a raging inferno pillar of blackness when he flies into a rage against Xehanort during the Battle at the Keyblade Graveyard.
- Some characters in the Touhou universe display battle auras when using their spellcards (if you can see them through the fog of bullets. Fujiwara no Mokou takes the prize, with a battle aura that manifests in the shape of a pulsing phoenix.
- Ironically, Utsuho, whose power is literally that of stars (i.e. nuclear fusion), doesn't glow. At all. Then again it would be hardly noticeable considering the miniature suns she lobs around.
- In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, Justice is surrounded in glowing aura when activating his primary combat buff. Other Warriors can be trained in Spirit Warrior specialization for the same effect.
- When Starkiller uses Force Fury in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, he has a blue, electric aura.
- In the old Taito arcade title Kuri Kinton, the player character is a martial artist taking on a mafia-like group to save a family. Standing still long enough allows the player to generate an aura, going up in color from blue to yellow to red. Not only does each color increase attack power, it allows the player to take a hit without losing health; however, the aura will drop down in rank with each hit, requiring the player to generate it again.
- The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion After becoming a god of madness (or at least the steward of madness) you gain the ability to be wreathed in green flames.
- Meanwhile, in Skyrim's third DLC, Dragonborn, the player gains access to a new Dragon Shout which shrouds them in a multicolored. dragon-shaped aura.
- Certain items in League of Legends give the character a visible aura. Examples include: Abyssal Sceptor, Aegis of the Legion, Emblem of Valor which build into Stark's Fervor, Frozen Heart, Mana Manipulator which builds into Soul Shroud, and finally Will of the Ancients.
- In Initial D Arcade Stage (ver. 1 through 3 only), the most popular video game adaptation of the Initial D series, you can have one too, if you get enough wins.
- The Deities from Asura's Wrath all have one, referred to as Mantra. The auras are Color-Coded for Your Convenience.
- In Xenoblade Chronicles, auras are a specific type of powerful buff that's utilized by both your party and enemies alike. They come in many colors and a few different styles, such as a faint glow or a highly visible flame-like one.
- In the Card Battle Game Weiss Survive: It depends on the power and experience of the player, which also powers up their cards (ex: Takeshi at the start of the story, had weak cards of 500 power while Michi, being experienced, has 3000 power). Lampshaded by the old man.
- Old man: In this dimension, the aura of the owner of the cards will change to become the "Ether State" and in turn, materialize through the use of the "theory of microbits".
- Takeshi: H-hey... Erm... This isn't the time to explain these...
- In Seinarukana, accompanies the use of a character's most powerful skill(s).
- Orbital Frames in Zone of the Enders activate an aura when in Burst state, usually proceeded by a powerful, unblockable attack and they come in many colors
- When Anubis shows up at the end of the first game, it's constantly emitting one with purple sparkles, just to showcase how utterly powerful it is, though in The 2nd Runner, it trades this for a black aura.
- In The 2nd Runner, auras start coming in more colors. Jehuty and Anubis are the only ones to produce electricity and absorbing effects in their Burst mode
- Taken even further with Jehuty when it starts ascending forms and changing color, ranging from paralyzing to outright obliterating enemies just by being near them.
Webcomics
- In ''Mag Isa, Claudita loves her battle aura.
- Elliot and Nanase from El Goonish Shive, can invoke this if they want to. According to Word Of God, it's only a visual indicator, and they could turn it off if they want to, but it's a good way to impress Greg.
- All of the main characters in Goblins have different coloured auras that are visible whenever they use magic items or class features. The colours also extend to their shouted comments and sound effects. They also have their own name - I.M.E. or Individual Magical Effect.
- It is not limited to colors. We have now seen Kore's effect. It's... horrifying.
- In Sluggy Freelance, Horribus gets this a lot whenever he's particularly fired up about killing Torg. He's the only one with an aura, though, so it might just be a Demon Lord thing.
- Bun-bun also started emitting an aura (sometimes, faint green flames) at times during his bid to become the personification of all holidays. Earlier on, he also started glowing red on one occasion when he was really, really, really angry... though an astute reader will note he was already the embodiment of two less spectacular holidays at that time, so it may have been the supernaturality leaking through even then.
- In the final battle of the Authors in Bob and George, both Authors create large battle auras (?) that cannot actually fight because 'we're using up the entire special effects budget just having them stand there'.
- Eastwood of Exterminatus Now gets a demonic red one after Lothar tries to take his coffee away from him.
- Fake News Rumble has this happen a lot for just about anyone using their powers.
- Sollux and Aradia of Homestuck both display this when using their potent psychic powers. Sollux's flashes red and blue, and Aradia's is white.
- Aradia has used a red and blue version herself, probably due to either her having red blood when alive but blue in her robot body or Rule Of Cool.
- John gets a blue one after ascending to the God Tiers whenever he uses his wind powers.
- Rose had a black aura whenever she used her Thorns of Oglogoth. Later, after she goes grimdark, said black aura becomes permanent, even seemingly after dying and being revived as her dreamself.
- Vriska gets a flashing blue one with purple ships in it when she rolls eight eights on her dice and accesses her ancestor's powers.
- Was used a lot in Life Of Riley, especially in the case of the Dans, whose auras were red and blue. Several demons and Starseeds also did this.
- Used in chapter forty-seven of Welcome To The Convenience Store as a Shout Out to Dragon Ball when Min Jun is punched by a customer.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Ron Stoppable got a Battle Aura in the Grand Finale of Kim Possible. The members of Team Go have that, too: Shego's green glow is notorious.
- When an Avatar, such as Aang, enters the Avatar State in Avatar The Last Airbender, he often produces a bright Battle Aura (sometimes with Chunky Updraft.) This is actually a plot point in the first episode, when it alerts an enemy to his presence.
- Sunspot from X-Men: Evolution gets the Kirby dot version (he's one of those aforementioned 'slavish adaptation' cases. Just like his comics counterpart did for most of his career, 'Berto becomes a black silhouette within yellow, Kirby Dotted flame. And just like his comics counterpart, sun-powered Super Strength is his power - no heat is generated, regardless of how fiery he looks.
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