Battle Aura - Television Tropes & Idioms

Law of Melee Luminescence: Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than Evil.

—29th Law of Anime

Watch the power of Aura!

—Lucario, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, just before he does his Final Smash

When psyching themselves up for battle, warriors emit a coruscating, Kirlian-like glow around their bodies. These glows are frequently Colour Coded For Your Convenience, although this is by no means a hard-and-fast rule.

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.

Examples:

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 make her strangely more intimadating than Wrex, the seven foot tall natural super-soldier.
Elizabeth in Maburaho, as well as occasional others.
Ranma 1/2 not only shows the effect many times, it explicitly names it. At one point, Genma and Happosai face off and generate battle auras in the shape of themselves that grow to become city-sized. (They then promptly collapse from the effort of creating the battle auras in the first place.) More often, though, battle auras in Ranma are simply glows as described above. One enemy in the OVA has the power to drain Battle Auras, temporarily gaining physical strength and age, and then release the energy as a directed energy attack. Also, Ranma's Finishing Move involves using an enemy's own Battle Aura against them to blast them with a tornado.
Dragonball Z does this constantly, with a huge variety of colors, usually depending on the power used. (Kamehameha produces a blue aura, while Kaioken produces red, Super Saiyan is yellow, and so on.)
In Naruto, certain characters glow with a visible chakra-molded battle aura when tapping into their characteristic inner power. This is considered a big deal as chakra is supposed to be invisible to the naked eye. When Naruto specifically taps into the power of his Nine-Tailed Demon fox, his chakra aura turns red and depending on what stage he's in, takes on energy-based appendeges such as a tail and ears reminiscent of a typical fox.
In Kodomo No Omocha, Sana-chan, when angry, occasionally manifests effects — frequently the appearance of standing in a raging bonfire — that could be interpreted as battle auras.
In one episode of Azumanga Daioh, a young wild cat Sakaki had befriended in the previous episode shows up to save her from a pack of cats led by Kamineko, and scares them off by displaying a Battle Aura.
Onegai Twins had two rivals for the lead's heart stare each other down when large animal auras burst out of their backs. We think this is metaphorical, but it terrifies the timid Karen, who is watching.
During the Dark Tournament arc of Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke's aura is large enough to fill half of the arena. Younger Toguro, however, has such a powerful aura that it literally incinerates a portion of the audience.
The manga Parasyte has a variation: when one of the alien race known as the Parasytes threatens an Earth native, an image of a predatory creature overlays the alien (for example, just before one of them kills a lion, a spider appears over him).
Characters that are affected by the Satsui no Hadou (Killing Intent) in the Street Fighter series glow with a reddish aura, and characters that use Psycho Power often have a purplish aura added to their attacks.
Characters in Fist Of The North Star not only have battle auras that are visible to other characters, they also explicitly call them "Battle Auras" and expert fighters can even determine details of their opponent's combat style by looking at their aura.
Shinigami characters in Bleach have tangible Battle Auras, which at the high end of the spectrum can incapacitate low-powered enemies simply by being released. When two opponents are particularly focused, their battle auras also take on physical forms behind them, forming a shape that represents the spirit of the fighter. In one such fight, Ichigo's takes the shape of a Hollow's mask - foreshadowing his inner Hollow gaining in power. General Yamamoto's appears as a layer of flame.
Naru displays a battle aura several times before hitting Keitaro in Love Hina.
Comedic example: Yamazaki displayed a battle aura◊ in one episode of Welcome To The NHK, because someone told him that hentai games were something to be ashamed of.
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 Spirit Bomb 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.
Hikaru in Magic Knight Rayearth not only displays it when she's excited, it's part of her attack footage.
Highly skilled drivers in Initial D occasionally display their battle auras in the 4th Stage season.
Non-anime example: In the Tabletop Games 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 glowyness goes up with amount of power used (or down with time since power was used). At first, its just a glittery forehead, then its a brightly shining forehead, then its your standard close-in battle aura, then its 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 miles around.
Can also be seen in video games, including the unusual example of the Flash game Dolphin Olympics.
Demons and spiritually powerful humans have this in Inuyasha.
- Sango, the only member of the Five Man Band to have absolutely no supernatural powers, also manifests a Battle Aura several times when she is really pissed off (usually at Miroku). It scares the pants off Inuyasha every time.
Rurouni Kenshin has this (particularly in the Shishio saga) in the form of "swordsman spirit".
Webcomic example: Elliot and Nanase from El Goonish Shive.
- Something of a subversion, since the martial arts style they use is specifically designed off of anime. Literally, their sensei went on a DVD spree in an attempt to figure out how to shoot energy blasts.
Any Super Sentai team if they get fired up enough. This means their Power Rangers counterparts get the same effect.
Sumomo Mo Momo Mo has auras for any martial artist that's sufficiently powerful. Momoko is unusual because she can actually use hers to deflect attacks. As for colors, well, with twelve factions, you take anything that looks good. Hers is red.
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.
Meito Anisawa (aka "Anime Tenchou") of Lucky Star quite literally sets himself on fire, with someone on the film crew having to periodically put him out with a hose when he makes an appearance in a "Lucky Channel" segment at the end. His burning passion is enough to transcend reality in a mostly slice-of-life show.
These are typically avoided in Pretty Cure, but Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star went for it, particularly with Cure Bloom.
Yoshimori's initial attempts in Kekkaishi to perform Zekkai look like one of these.
Bamboo Blade has Tama's red battle aura which ignites whenever she gets particularly heroic, and Miyamiya's black aura, which activates whenever she goes crazy. Andou, Miya's rival from another school, also has a black aura.
Discarding the risible pseudoscience "justification", the Ripple from the first two parts of Jojos Bizarre Adventure is basically a Battle Aura. It is made from energy generated whenever a person breathes in, and is transferred out through natural means - the hands and feet are most obvious, but wool, metal and vegetable oil are all used to conduct the Ripple at points. Because all energy on Earth comes ultimately from the Sun, the Ripple has the same devastating effect on vampires as sunlight. In a different vein, the Stands from the third part on are essentially anthropomorphic Battle Auras.
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.
Naturally, Aura Battler Dubine for obvious reasons.
All of the main characters in Goblins have different coloured auras that are visible when ever they use magic items or class features. The colours also extend to their shouted comments and sound effects.
Junio high tennis players often sport battle auras while using physics-defying moves in The Prince Of Tennis.
And who could forget the golden glowing battle aura G Gundam's Domon Kasshu creates (among other characters in the same series of course)
In the video-game Grandia II, Millenia will get "annoyed" if she takes damage the more damage she takes the redder and angier 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 she'll run around with a red aura doing whatever the hell she pleases until she calms down.
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.
Not exactly Battle Auras, but the UC Gundam franchise has high level newtyoes use specific glow surrounding them, usually when they use the powers to their limits. Strong ones, as Kamilles and Judaus are even physically present and sheld Gunda,'s or damage opponents. Impressive, isn't it?
Digimon Savers: "DIGISOUL FULL CHARGE!"
The posthuman "daodan" protagonist and antagonist in Oni play this trope straight, right down to 'good = blue, bad = red'.
Saint Seiya explains the concept of Cosmo by saying that it is the miniature cosmos that exists within each atom in a Saint's body. So, when a warrior shouts, "Burn, Cosmo!" they're concentrating in exploding this power into an overwhelming aura. Sometimes, they burn their Cosmo so brightly it actually manifests as a spectral vision of their patron constellation (or, in Andromeda Shun's case, the Andromeda Nebula,) which is always the sign that the enemy is about to get his ass handed to him.