Finally, weaponized friendship.
So you're in a show which is near the idealistic end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, and the villain (often powered by hate or another negative emotion) is way too powerful for you to beat: He shrugs off all your Applied Phlebotinum like it's nothing, he laughs while ignoring your ultimate attacks, and he is about to destroy your whole squad just by sneezing at them.
It's time to form... the circle of friendship!
All the heroes get into a circle (or a Heart Symbol shape if the writers don't mind being really cheesy) and generally start to sing or do the 'closed-eyes-concentration' thing. The villain may laugh at the circle, but it's generally the last mistake he makes...
A beam of pure friendship / love will fire at the Big Bad, often instantly killing him. No matter how strong the Big Bad is, if it hits him, he'll instantly either be reduced to a corpse or turn good. Nothing can resist it. It is the ultimate incarnation of The Power of Friendship and the Combined Energy Attack.
There's no guarantee that this will work on the next villain. The solution is usually adding more friends to the circle.
Compare Care-Bear Stare.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the first episode, Anzu marks the back of her friends' hands with marker to form a smiley face as a symbol of their friendship before Yugi duels Kaiba.
- Sailor Moon: The Sailor Planet Attack! Pictured above for your convenience.
- The end of Pedro's story in Excel♡Saga parodies this (specifically the Sailor Moon take on it, with a fair doze of Dragon Ball thrown in; "Na-be-ha-me-ha!"); to add to the fun, everyone on his side has afros.
- Digimon Adventure 02 used one of these, as did 01.
- The Japanese-only Transformers series: Headmasters. Bonus points for the members of the literal circle being giant robots. Double bonus points for it being the idea of the Token Human. Triple bonus points and a 1-up for him being given the idea by the angsty loner.
- The SD Gundam Force members Captain, Zero and Bakunetsumaru had something like this. It became a Moment of Awesome during the final episodes.
Asian Animation
- A recurring element of Noonbory and the Super 7 is the Super 7 (sans Mamby and Lukybory) pumping their fists in a circle either before rushing off to their mission or after completing their mission. This is phased out after the second season's retool.
Literature
- In Stephen King's IT, the main characters do this to help a hospitalized main character take on a Brainwashed and Crazy nurse.
- It lacks the visible magical beam, but in the first of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic books, the protagonists are trapped in a cave during an earthquake, and using a circle of woven thread Sandry had on her from the beginning, they infuse it with their magics and by shared power cause the cave to not crush them and the thread gives off light so they can see (Sandry is afraid of the dark). This thread goes on to have more significance later.
Video Games
- In the final battle of EarthBound (1994), your attacks are mostly ineffective against the Big Bad, and so the only way to beat him is to use Paula's "Pray" command, which will start a special cutscene-like event during the battle and all of the people that the characters met during their travels, including the player him/herself, pray for the destruction of Giygas. After this command is used a few times, the player will deal hundreds of thousands of damage to Giygas, defeating him.
- Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, its sequel Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 and their associated game Elite Beat Agents all end with the inhabitants of Earth singing and dancing together to fire a giant hadoken of love and music at whatever was going to destroy the world today, be it a giant meteor, the mothership of an army of music-hating aliens, or the dying sun.
Web Video
- Played with in the YouTube video College Saga, where the group has to face a tree, and decide to sing a song when unable to damage it by normal means. Upon singing a song that has nothing to do with the "game", the tree is instantly destroyed.
Western Animation
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The mane six defeat Nightmare Moon in this exact way, though it takes the Elements of Harmony to create the "friendship beam." They do roughly the same thing to Discord at the end of part 2 of "The Return of Harmony".
- In the "Hearth's Warming Eve" episode, it's revealed that the founders of Equestria also used this, by accident, to destroy the Windigos, a group of spirits who feed off of The Power of Hate and were attempting to freeze the world. Instead of the rainbow from before, it forms a flaming heart that incinerates the Windigos. It would appear that weaponized friendship is the method of choice in Equestria for dealing with Eldritch Abominations.
- In Twilight's Kingdom Part 2, the Mane Six open the box produced by the Tree of Harmony, giving them Rainbow Power. Opening the box is done by standing in a circle around it and turning all six keys at once, giving it this effect. They then follow this up with a new Friendship powered Wave-Motion Gun to defeat Tirek and seal him back in Tartarus. The ending implies their upgrade comes with the ability to do this at will.
- A running theme in Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders. "Enchanted Jewel Circle" is a potent healing technique and is activated with the phase "friends forever!"
- X-Men: The Animated Series: The X-Men form a circle and hold hands so that their combined life forces can allow Jean Grey to be free of the Dark Phoenix alien.
- Mocked for its cheesiness in Saturday Morning All Star Hits with the Strongimals who are later joined by Skip.
- Played with in the finale of Gravity Falls. The Zodiac Wheel has all the makings of this, but, when everyone tries to use it, Stan and Ford wind up getting into a petty argument long enough for Bill to take notice of their attempts to use it and stop them, so they have to find a different way to beat Bill.
