Energy Ring Attack

Energy blasts in fiction come in a variety of shapes, from beams to spheres. And then we have energy blasts shaped like rings.

This trope can be divided into four categories:

• Concentric Circle Beam: A beam or energy burst fired in a concentric circle pattern.
• Single Circle: A singular, circle shaped blast which can either hit edge-on or is shot with the flat side outward.
• Blast in a Circle: An energy blast attack surrounded by one or more rings.
• Energy Cuff: This one has the energy ring used to restrain the opponent.

Not to be confused with Ring of Power. It's not about ringing noises either so it shouldn't be confused with Make Some Noise or Super-Scream, although some sonic projectiles are depicted as rings of energy. May overlap with Deadly Disc if the energy ring is a ring-shaped blade created by the user's power. Sub-Trope of Rings of Activation.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Aquilamon's primary move is "Blast Rings", a beam of red energy rings fired from his beak.
  • Digimon Tamers:
    • Gorillamon's "Energy Cannon" fires a purple beam surrounded by yellow rings.
    • Sakuyamon's "Twin Blades of Beauty and of Truth" attack generates two large rings of energized cherry blossom petals.
  • Digimon Adventure: (2020): MetalGreymon's "Giga Storm" attack is sometimes depicted as twin orange beams surrounded by rings.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • Majin Vegeta creates five energy rings to restrain Goku during their battle. Two restrain Goku's arms, two others restrain his legs and the fifth one is placed on his neck.
  • Gotenks has an attack called "Galactic Donut" which creates a large glowing halo to bind his opponent. By binding them in multiple rings, he can trap them in a volley ball. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 gives him a variation of the technique called "Super Donut Volley" which has him fire multiple energy rings that explode on contact.
  • Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might: Turles has an attack in which he forms a ring of energy with electric sparks between his palms and fires it at the enemy with the flat side outward. The attack was never named in Tree of Might but is called "Kill Driver" in Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. Turles gets a stronger version of the attack called "Hyper Kill Driver" in Dragon Ball: Fusions.
• EDENS ZERO: Illega's Ray Gun fires a concentric circle beam which turns people into stone.
• Godzilla: Singular Point: Godzilla's Atomic Breath is signalled by glowing blue rings appearing in front of its maw, encircling the beam of energy when it's fired.
• High School D×D: The anime gives Irina the ability to use halos of light to bind her enemies. In volume 4, she displays the ability to create rings of light which home in on the enemy.
• My Hero Academia: An unnamed student from Masegaki Primary School has a Quirk called Hula Hoop which allows him to create a large energy hoop to throw at the enemy.
• One Piece: Foxy's Noro Noro Beam takes the form of a purple light beam surrounded by white rings.
• YuYu Hakusho: En can create rings of spiritual energy for offensive purposes.

Asian Animation

• BoBoiBoy: BoBoiBoy Fire sets hoops on fire and sends them flying towards his Evil Knockoff BoBoiBot, who is then restrained by them tightening around him. BoBoiBoy Fire proceeds to make them hotter, causing his opponent to malfunction.

Comic Books

• The Defenders: Ringer's suit can fire a variety of rings such as explosive rings, freezing rings and constricting rings. He can also use a series of interlocking rings to form ladders, lassos, or whips. Later versions of his suit had a "particulate-matter condenser", which could form rings from soot and smog in the air.
• She-Hulk (2004): When She-Hulk realizes that Starfox used his powers to make her fall back in love with her ex-boyfriend John Jameson, she angrily attacks him. Moondragon and Captain Marvel (Phyla-Vell) interfere, with the former trying to pacify She-Hulk using a Psi Blast that takes the form of a thin beam surrounded by rings.
• MonsterVerse: In the Kingdom Kong graphic novel, Camazotz' sonic screech takes the form of visible ring-shaped sound waves, to highlight that it is a Super-Scream.
• Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide:
  • Rouge Woman's "Black Wave" attack is a pink energy orb fired from her Arm Cannon. The orb produces growing and disappearing purple rings as it moves forward.
  • During the fight with Eggman and Wily's forces in part ten, Dr. Light gets ahold of a laser gun and blasts Gemini Man with it. The beam traps Gemini Man in a containment field made of four rings.
• Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite: Sonic Man can fire rings that bind enemies.
• X-Men: Havok can absorb ambient cosmic radiation and release it in the form of plasma beams with a tell-tale concentric circle pattern.

Films — Animation

• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies: Captain Atom discharges an energy blast in the shape of the Rutherford atom model to make short work of the villains attacking Superman and Batman for Luthor's bounty.

Films — Live-Action

• Mars Attacks!. After General Decker starts shooting at the Martian leader, the leader whips out a Shrink Ray and fires back. The Shrink Ray takes the form of concentric blue rings that strike the general, reducing him down to an inch in height.
• Mortal Kombat (2021): After killing Kano and acquiring his Birthmark of Destiny, Sonya Blade gains the power to fire bursts of pink energy in the form of concentric rings. She uses this ability to kill Mileena.
• Star Wars:
  • A New Hope: The Stormtrooper's blaster fires a set of blue concentric hexagonal rings when set to "stun."
  • The Last Jedi: Leia stuns Poe with a ring-shaped beam from her blaster.

Live-Action TV

• Charmed (1998): A Rat Demon in the episode "Trail by Magic" displays the ability to form rings of red energy to strangle victims.
• Super Sentai/Power Rangers:
  • Power Rangers: Dino Thunder:
    • In "Game On", Demangnetron fires a concentric circle beam that sucks Ethan into the game he's playing.
    • In "A Ranger Exclusive", the villains hijack a TV station's satellite dish to use it as a weapon to destroy Jupiter. The beam the weapon fires as a concentric circle pattern.
  • Mahou Sentai Magiranger/Power Rangers Mystic Force: Densetsu Gasshin MagiLegend/Manticore Megazord can fire a beam of ring-shaped flames from its staff.
• Ultra Series: A number of heroes have attacks like this as a Finishing Move.
  • Ultraman has the Ultra Attack Beam, an upgraded version of his Specium Ray which is depicted as a series of spiral-shaped energy blasts. Some later Ultras have similar attacks as well, such as Ultraman 80 and his Spiral Beam (a concentrated wave of green energy circles).
  • Ultraman Ace and Ultraman 80 have both demonstrated the ability to release energy rings which can be used as restraints to hold monsters in place, allowing the Ultra to more easily perform their Finishing Move(s).
  • Circles are a reoccurring motif in Ultraman Orb (befitting an Ultra named Orb), and the majority of Orb's Finishing Moves are circular energy rings and blasts, such as the Crescent Energy Wave, Water and Ground Calibur (which traps enemies in energy circles, respectively filled with cleansing water or seismic energy blasts) or the Orb Calibur's Counterattack (which absorbs an enemy's beam attacks into a spinning energy circle, which Orb then uses to smack his opponent with).

Toys

• Transformers:
  • Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Rail Racer can fire a beam composed of yellow rings from his chest.
  • Tranformers Cybertron: In their final battle, Galvatron fires a purple energy beam surrounded by rings at Optimus Prime. It doesn't kill the Autobot leader, but does significant damage.

Video Games

• Chantelise and Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale: Eyebats fire green energy rings.
• Cuphead: In his first phase, Grim Matchstick attacks with Eye Beams that manifest themselves as a short row of rings flying in Cuphead or Mugman's direction. The last ring in a row is pink, allowing Cuphead and Mugman to parry-slap it.
• Doom Eternal: The Carcass enemy can fire three ring shaped lasers.
• Drakengard and Drakengard 3: The final boss fights involve a player-controlled dragon matching the rippling bell-like emanations of an Angelic Abomination in what is essentially a Nintendo Hard game of "Simon Says."
• Fatal Fury/The King of Fighters: Billy Kane can set his Magic Staff ablaze for extra damage. He can also use this power to create a ring-shaped, fire projectile.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • One of Rama's Arts animations has him throw a yellow energy ring at the enemy that circles back around to hit them again in the back. His Noble Phantasm Brahmastra, due to being an arrow he forcibly turned into a throwing sword so he could qualify for the Saber Class, turns into a giant flaming ring to slice through the enemy.
  • Sanzang's Extra Attack has her summon a yellow energy ring around the enemy to squeeze them.
• Golden Sun: Jenna and Eoleo have the Beam ability, which fires a beam of Mars Psynergy surrounded by several rings at nearby enemies.
• Gradius:
  • Several games feature the Ripple variant of the Laser powerup, which fires vertically oriented rings straight forward. They lack the ability to pierce through multiple enemies like the standard Laser, but have a wider range.
  • The standard variety of the recurring Moai enemies attack by releasing glowing, ring-shaped projectiles from their mouths.
• Kingdom Hearts II: The Strafer Heartless, native to the Space Paranoids, can use the Homing Beam attack. This attack manifests a homing ring of energy that travels slowly through the air to strike targets.
• Marvel vs. Capcom: Dr. Strange's "Daggers of Denak" spell generates ring-shaped energy projectiles.
• Mega Man X8:
  • Optic Sunflower's can command a Kill Sat to fire a beam surrounded by rings.
  • Sigma's final form grants him the ability to fire rows of blue energy rings from his hands.
• Metal Slug 3: The Martian Brain-pods assault players with green energy rings which loop around in an unpredictable pattern. The Amadeus Syndicate, the villains of Metal Slug 4, have access to Martian technology, including a Mecha which can fire similar-looking green energy rings.
• Metroid:
  • The Rinka "enemies" found in the first Metroid and Super Metroid look and behave more like ring-shaped beams emitted by Mother Brain's inner defense systems.
  • One of Mother Brain's attacks in Super Metroid is spitting ring-shaped beams directly at Samus.
• Mortal Kombat: Sonya Blade's "Armed Forces" move fires pink, ring-shaped energy blasts. Initially, this seemed to be an internalized superpower but starting from Mortal Kombat 9, the blasts are fired via tech bracelets Sonya wears on her arms.
• The Brain Aliens in Otto Matic can attack using slow, short-range rings of psychic energy.
• The Outer Worlds has a side quest in which the player can attain a mind-control gun. It emits a lavender spiral that makes enemies attack each other, as seen here at the 2:52 mark.
• Pokémon: The Hypnosis move is a psychic attack which manifests as a concentric circle beam.
• Ratchet & Clank (2016): The proton drum fires regular bursts of energy in a circle around it.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Adventure 2: Rouge's "Black Wave" attack has her creating a series of black energy ripples to damage the opponent. She uses this move as a boss in Knuckles's campaign and can only perform it as a playable character in two-player mode.
  • Sonic Heroes: Camerons attack by firing a slow-moving green energy ring.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog: One of the weapons that Shadow can get from the Black Arms is a gun that fires a slow-moving purple ring.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Bros. 3: Wendy can attack by creating rings which bounce across the room. She also has this power in Mario And Luigi Super Star Saga.
  • Super Mario Galaxy: The sentry beam enemy releases a circular pulse that must be jumped.
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Tabuu has an attack in which he releases three massively powerful pulses from his body. In a cutscene it's able to wipe out almost every single playable character, and in gameplay, after Sonic breaks his wings it's still the most powerful attack in the entire game.

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom:
  • The Fenton Thermos can project a beam surrounded by blue light rings which sucks in ghosts.
  • Johnny 13's Cool Bike can fire blue ring beams from the headlight.
• Justice League Action: In "Speed Demon", Zatanna uses a spell that creates energized Rings of Death while fighting Brother Night's stone creatures.
• Megas XLR: The S-Force's Ultra Sorb can fire yellow energy beams surrounded by white rings.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: The crossover with X-Men: The Animated Series has a woman named Genevieve who serves as an assistant to an anti-Mutant racist. It is revealed that Genevieve is a mutant herself with telekinetic powers which manifest as a concentric circle beam that levitates anything it hits.
• Star Trek: The Animated Series: One episode has a Klingon warship test out a stasis field ray against the Enterprise. When fired, concentric circles engulf the Enterprise, immobilizing it. The stasis ray is also fired at two supply drones that the Enterprise was escorting.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Eclipsa Butterfly's "Midnight Shriek" and "Black Velvet Inferno" spells take the form of energy beams surrounded by rings.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go:
  • Sparx's "Electro-Vibra Force" is a beam of red rings that stuns the opponent.
  • Gibson can fire light blue laser beams surrounded by white rings from his drills.
  • "Girl Trouble": Ciracus can fire a beam of purple rings that bind the enemy. He uses this to immobilize Gibson.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): Demon Shredder can shoot red energy beams surrounded by black rings. He can also fire beams of blue rings from his sword.
• Winx Club: Diaspro can create rings to bind her enemies.
• Young Justice: Asami Koizumi has the power of Ki Manipulation which allows her to make great leaps, generating a trail of concentric circles behind her in the process. She later learns to fire energy beams in a similar pattern.

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