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"Get up on the hydra's back!!"
A specific exchange between two characters of different size scales, and a way for the little guy to get a leg up.
The smaller character attacks the bigger character by climbing his body, avoiding his ponderous opponent long enough to attack a vulnerable spot. Can involve climbing on fur, hair and clothing, or can alternately involve invasion under clothing. If the attacker is swallowed, this can quickly become a Fantastic Voyage.
Generally, this occurs between a normal-sized person and a giant monster, or a tiny-sized character and a normal-sized opposite. It is a feature in many Incredible Shrinking Man and Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever plots, and is a common tactic of rodent or insectoid animal characters ( talking or speech-impaired). Can also happen if the smaller person Had no idea they were on the larger one in the first place.
A milder form has a small child trying to bring down an exceptionally big thug, but it almost never works.
Since most western animation is designed as kid-friendly stuff, this will most often not be done to a female character, and the vulnerable area attacked will not be the most vulnerable area.
It has also become a common game trope, especially during Boss Battles. It treats the boss monster as an element of the environment, and designates parts of his body as platforms, to give a clear shot at his Achilles Heel.
See also Stepping Stones In The Sky. When it happens in a shooter, it's a Battleship Raid.
Examples:
Film
Live Action TV
- Believe it or not, Power Rangers has done this quite a few times, although it is sometimes regarded as an live action anime.
Western Animation
- Disney's classic short of The Brave Little Tailor features Mickey defeating the giant in exactly this way.
- On Kim Possible, this is Rufus' preferred attack against human targets, he does it to Drakken at least once. The producers were careful not to over-use it.
- Ditto the lead rodents from Chip And Dales Rescue Rangers
- 70's cartoon detective Inch High Private Eye invades clothing often enough; in his appearance on Harvey Birdman, he invades Gigi's bra.
- In Ben 10, if Ben is forced to go into a fight as the six-inch-tall Grey Matter, this is generally a big part of his strategy.
- In Family Guy, while combating a giant monster made of paraplegics, Stewie climbs on the arm to get to the head (Joe).
- Happens twice at least in Jackie Chan Adventures. The first time a shrunken Jackie and Hak Foo have to scale the entire body of the giant Tohru. They both end up in his ear and out his nose. The second time shows features a normal sized Jackie and Valmont climbing the hoodie of Jade, who is gigantic in this scene.
- Code Lyoko: Toward the end of Season 4, this happens twice with Ulrich and the aptly named Kolossus. First, to fight William on its shoulder, and then to dispatch the giant itself by striking its two weak spots; Ulrich manages to do this but is crushed by the falling Kolossus.
Anime/Manga
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has one of these in the Bahamut SIN fight. It gets harder than usual because the monster flies. There is a rather silly (or awesome) scene where Cloud is thrown further and further up in the air by a succession of allies until he can finally reach the monster.
- In Macross 7, a friendly fanservice example from The Movie. One of the giant alien Meltrandi women shares a campfire with the hero and the kid sidekick. The kid has a quite innocent play session in her cleavage (she's at least 30 feet tall, and her breasts are easily the size of beanbag chairs, and the kid is about four years old.)
- Masaru and Agumon pull one of these in the final battle against the Big Bad. It doesn't quite work out as planned (they get nabbed by the Big Bad's Combat Tentacles once they reach the top), but it's still awesome.
Comic Books
- In X-Men, the trope enabled the more melee-oriented Wolverine to pull his weight whenever the team had to fight the Sentinels.
- Subversion: That is if someone who had superstrength wasn't around to serve him up a Fastball Special.
- In Issue 20 of Archie Comics' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a giant Foot Soldier is unleashed and begins destroying the city. After an initial futile assault is launched on its shins, they climb up in search of a vulnerable spot. Turns out that they only wind up being a diversion so that a fireman-turned-dragon (thanks to an old curio shop owner's powder) can defeat it.
Video Games
- Trope Namer: The game Shadow of the Colossus is an entire game of these battles, with some exploration and platforming in between.
- Quite literally occurs in the fight with Colossus in The Misadventures Of Tron Bonne.
- In Sly 3, Carmelita Fox is transformed into a giant berserker by a cursed mask, and Sly must climb her clothing in an attempt to free her.
- Many of the enemies in Kingdom Hearts can be approached this way; anything big enough can be climbed on.
- Most of the actual boss battles in Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones incorporate acrobatics on the boss itself. In one case, the Prince climbs a monster, and rides him into a wall at the end of a maze.
- Also, previously in Warrior Within, the Prince faced Iron Golems that could only be hurt by slashing at their ankles until they fell to their knees, then climbing up on their shoulders and stabbing them in the neck. For that matter, the Prince's signature move throughout the series is to use his great agility to run up an enemy's torso and vault over them, thus getting into position to wail on them from behind.
- In the battle against the giant Butcher in Psychonauts, Raz must use the boss's own arm to reach his face for a melee atack.
- The Egg Golem from Sonic Adventure 2 had platforms on its back pop out during one of its attacks, allowing Sonic to attack the control device on top. However, in the Dark story's version of events, Sonic reached the top in one jump
- The two memorable boss battles from God of War, especially the minotaur fight. While you don't technically climb the Hydra in the first boss battle, you do have to climb the ships' mast to get eye-level with it and attack. In God of War II, the player climbs on and inside a literal Colossus: the Colossus of Rhodes, and faces Titans so massive their bodies often ARE the stage.
- In Resident Evil 4, El Gigante must be killed by shooting at him for a while, then climbing onto his back and slashing at the parasite controlling the beast as it emerges. Of course, the player can also just shoot the parasite as well, but that doesn't look nearly as cool.
- Another computer game that features this is Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, where Rayman needs to run up the villain's arm to reach the magic thing in its back, in the second stage of the final boss battle.
- Several bosses in Steambot Chronicles can be climbed (a few need to.)
- On the first Bowser Jr. boss battle in Super Mario Galaxy, Mario must defeat a Humongous Mecha called Megaleg by climbing up one of his legs while avoiding homing missiles being fired from all directions.
- There's also the ''Heavy Metal Mecha-Bowser''
 star later in the game; it involves Mario climbing a massive windup toy of death, complete with spikes, flames and energy weapons and dismantling it as he goes.
- Possible subversion in the console version of Alien Hominid. When you fight the pudding boss, a downed lamppost leads straight from the ground to the monster's head. If you ever try to climb up the post, it immediately kills you.
- Devil May Cry 4 has a big one of these when Dante takes on the Savior in order to rescue Nero. This is combined with Womb Level as Nero takes it on from within. (Why does a statue have squishy innards...?)
- The boss of the Wind Temple of The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap. There are two creatures and they both fly, but Link does not fly. Consequently you spend the whole time standing on one or the other.
- Also in Minish Cap, multiple enemies require you to become tiny and go inside them to defeat them, including at least one form of the Big Bad.
- Two bosses in Twilight Princess don't have to be climbed as much as getting high enough to use the hookshot on their weak point on their back. Cue Link sitting on the boss frantically stabbing said weak point with his sword until he gets shaken off.
- Phantom Hourglass also features a variation where you get catapulted on top of the boss.
- LaMulana: the boss of the Mausoleum of the Giants is immune to ranged weapons (i.e. your subweapons), so you have to wait for it to punch diagonally into the ground, then climb up its extended arm and whack at its face.
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, several boss fights take this form (usually by requiring button matching sequences) againt a giant robot driven by Arcade, the frost-giant Ymir, and against Galactus.
- FFTA 2's final boss makes up about 80% of the level, but only a few spots are vulnerable: the hand (opens a shortcut), a moving spark (protects the core) and the head/core.
- An early boss in Star Fox Assault needs to be hovered onto with the landmaster tank.
- In Sonic Rush, the (sort of) final boss is a giant mech, and to attack you have to wait until it punches the stage, then run over its arm and shoulder to spin attack its head.
- X-MEN 2 in Clone Wars for the Sega Genesis does this quite impressively on its second, third, AND fourth levels. Video games typically struggle with portraying one of the X-MEN's major antagonists, the colossal robots known as Sentinels; often they are shrunken down to only slightly larger than human so they make a more manageable obstacle for the player. Clone Wars gets around this by having the X-MEN attack a Sentinel maintenance facility while the Sentinels are off-line. You spend two levels fighting your way up scaffolding to reach one of the Sentinel's heads, and one level going inside a Sentinel and fighting a Boss Battle against its reactor core, then running partway back down the scaffolding before the facility explodes from the power overload. Parts of two Sentinels' bodies are visible in the background throughout the levels, and they are true to their gigantic depictions in the comic books and television shows.
- Similar to the X-Men example above, the Super NES adaption of Star Wars Episode V (Super Empire Strikes Back) had Luke — after escaping his snowspeeder before it was destroyed — climb up an AT-AT's leg, work his way up from the inside, and walk across its backside before fighting the head, all in three separate levels! This contrasts from the movie, where Luke instead tethered to its underside, cut an opening with his lightsabre, and threw a bomb inside to destroy it.
- The boss Eligor in Castlevania Order of Ecclesia is a giant centaur-like creature which can only be damaged if the player hits its eye. This can only be accomplished by destroying the jewels on it's four legs, its two crossbows, finding a way to get under it and behind it without being crushed, and finally climbing up to its back and attacking its eye all while avoiding its various attempts to knock you off again. A certain glyph can skip a large part of this process however.
- Used in the bossfight agains the Humongous Mecha Quadraxis in Metroid Prime 2. In the phase 2 of the fight, Quadraxi's head separates from it's legs and starts flying around the arena. The player must climb the spiderball tracks on the legs and boost onto the head and then lay bombs into the weaks spot in order to damage it.
Literature
- In most adaptations of Gulliver's Travels, the Lilliputians use this, as a swarming attack, against the title character.
- The standard attack of the Nac Mac Feegle (six-inch-high Violent Glaswegians) in the Discworld novels is to clamber up their opponent and headbutt him with an effect like lead shot.
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