This might be used in an Injection Plot to immediately justify a character's reluctance to get a shot; they might be willing to get a prick from a regular needle, but not that big ol' needle.
Giant medical syringes tend to occur alongside the Naughty Nurse Outfit in Japanese media as a form of visual wordplay: "chu" means kiss, while "chuusha" means injection. It often serves to exemplify the cuteness of the character holding it and any Cute and Psycho tendencies she might have.
Such a huge syringe can probably make for an easy Improvised Weapon in the hands of a Deadly Doctor, if it's not just made as a weapon to begin with.
May involve Playing with Syringes, which is for unethical medical experimentation.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Crayon Shin-chan has Shin-chan's dad, upon having his hemorrhoid surgery, being shocked into fainting by a giant syringe held by the nurse before getting the actual anaesthetic injected.
- Digimon Adventure: Demi-Devimon has an attack called Demi-Dart which has him hurling a (for him) over-sized syringe at an opponent. He tried to use it on TK in an effort take him forget about Patamon, so presumably it's filled with something less beneficial than medicine.
- In the Pokémon: The Original Series episode "A Chansey Operation", when the Team Rocket Trio try to steal all the injured Pokémon at a hospital James threatens Ash with one of these but is stopped by the titular Chansey.
- In Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure, the Healing Good Arrow is a giant syringe that is used as a weapon.
- In Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, Kurumi Mugen is a nurse-themed Magical Girl who uses a giant syringe as one of her primary weapons. While she is the group's healer, she also doubles as their Torture Technician and at any given time her syringe could be loaded with anything from truth serums to flesh-melting chemicals.
- Ako's Artifact in Negima! Magister Negi Magi is a massive syringe (the needle alone is noted to be 1.8 cm wide) that can bestow effects like boosting her allies abilities or messing with an enemy's sense of direction. Oh, and it has to be injected through the butt.
- In one episode of Sailor Moon R, the droid Pharmacon attacks by shooting giant syringe needles, and the same applies to the phage "Sailor Doctor" from Stars.
- Mika Mizumi from Usagi-chan de Cue!! has volunteered to perform cosplay as a school fundraiser, choosing to wear a Naughty Nurse Outfit, complete with a giant syringe as a prop. The mostly male crowd reacts strongly when Miku straddles the thing coquettishly.
Asian Animation
- 3000 Whys of Blue Cat: In Dinosaur Times Series episode 118, a rock-paper-scissors fight between Blue Cat and Feifei ends with Feifei grabbing a big syringe labeled "Anesthetic" and using it to stun Blue Cat.
- Noonbory and the Super 7: Discussed in "Pongdybory's Cold Feet" when Cozybory and Jetybory claim that Doctorbory gave them injections with very long syringes (much to Pongdybory's dismay).
Comic Books
- MAD Magazine Issue #198 had a catalog for school supplies, such as a 2-speed drinking fountain ("Feeble Drip" or "Soaking Splash"). One item was a set of 4-foot-tall hypodermic needles for the school nurse's office, designed to encourage kids who are faking being sick to recover quickly. The syringes are actually designed for tranquilizing elephants, but the kids don't need to know that!
- Simone: The Best Monster Ever: In "Take Your Medicine", Simone is trying to get Morris to get over his fear of getting shots from the doctor. She tells him it's just one tiny needle, presumably unaware that the one the doctor has is so big, he has to sling it under his arm.
Comic Strips
- One Garfield Sunday strip has Liz administer shots for Garfield and Odie. Subverted for Odie, whose shot was smaller than what Garfield told him in the waiting room. Once it's Garfield's turn, however, Liz is carrying a needle that's almost as long as she is tall.
Fan Works
- Naru-Hina Chronicles: In Chapter 9, Naruto tells a story to Hinata about how he was afraid of a needle that was as long as his arm during a medical exam.
Film — Animated
- In Monsters vs. Aliens when the army arrives to deal with the newly giant Susan, they bring along a needle of sedative so large it needs to be administered via ballista. After getting hit in the leg, Susan pulls it out and throws it, impaling a soldier's foot. This whole sequence is a Shout-Out to The Amazing Colossal Man as described below.
- The 2002 spinoff of the Old Master Q Manhwa, titled Master Q's Fantasy Zone Battle, introduces the sidekick, Chin, who works as a doctor, his first scene teasing a flu patient with a humongous syringe as large as himself. The terrified patient predictably bolts out of the clinic just as Chin pulls out a smaller syringe, says "Nah, just kidding!" before realizing the patient had left.
- In The Rescuers Down Under, Orville the albatross crashes and is brought to a hospital where the creepy nurse mice try to use a syringe that requires six of them to move across the room. Upon seeing it he breaks his restraints in panic and flies away.
- A flashback in The Secret of NIMH shows the rats being experimented on using syringes that would be unusually large for use on humans, but are proportionally extremely oversized for rodents.
Film — Live Action
- In The Amazing Colossal Man, the heroic scientists use a giant syringe to inject phlebotinum into the bone marrow of a fifty-foot-tall giant, in order to stop his growth. The giant inevitably pulls the syringe out, looks at it (a real normal-size syringe in the actor's hand) with increasing disgust, and flings it down at the scientists, impaling one of them.
Tom Servo: Ooh! This is exactly why lawn darts were taken off the market.
- A famous gag scene from Kidnapping, Caucasian Style is when the heroes, disguised as medics, are giving the trio of villains sedative injections under the guise of vaccine. The Pro is injected with a huge syringe which the hero then struggles to pull out. In reality, it is called a Janet Syringe, and is used not for injections, but to flush out all kinds of filth like pus or earwax.
- X2: X-Men United. Mystique seduces and then knocks out a guard working in the prison where Magneto is being held, then yanks the unconscious man's pants down and jabs a huge needle filled with liquid iron into him. The following day Magneto uses his powers to rip the iron out of the poor man's blood through his body, so he can use it to escape.
Live Action TV
- Bottom: In the third live show ("Hooligans' Island"), Eddie tries to cure Richie of poison from a dart fired by the natives using a medical kit from a Japanese bunker housed on the island. Said kit includes a syringe which is over a foot long (which Richie is naturally none too pleased at the prospect of being jabbed with).
- In The Goodies episode "Kitten Kong", the titular trio have to resort to one of these to inject a kitten, who's grown to giant size after being fed a growth formula, with the antidote.
- Parks and Recreation: In the episode "Bailout", April has to ask Ann for a favor and does so in her own inimitable style:
April: I have to tell you a secret, but if you tell anyone I will kill you with a giant syringe. [brandishes giant syringe]
- Power Rangers Turbo/Gekisou Sentai Carranger: During the Rescuezords/VRV Machines' first battle, Wind Rescue/V Rescue (which is in the form of an ambulance) fires a giant syringe at Metallosaurus/Braking's... rear, whose eyes bug out as a result. (And in Carranger, it also prompts RitchiRitchihiker to let out a startled "Aiiiiii!".)
- One episode of Gilligan's Island involved Gilligan causing the others to sneeze around him due to his skin absorbing an allergic compound. The Professor comes up with a solution and Gilligan agrees to be injected with it. The Skipper and Professor decide to mess with Gilligan a bit by pretending they have to use a fake giant syringe first before Gilligan accidentally injects himself with the real solution by backing into the needle they were going to use.
Magazines
- Magazine/MAD Magazine Issue #198 had a catalog for school supplies, such as a 2-speed drinking fountain ("Feeble Drip" or "Soaking Splash"). One item was a set of 4-foot-tall hypodermic needles for the school nurse's office, designed to encourage kids who are faking being sick to recover quickly. The syringes are actually designed for tranquilizing elephants, but the kids don't need to know that!
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000: Doks (more commonly known as Painboyz due to their madcap sense of what counts as "medicine") are the Orks' medical specialists. Their kit often includes huge syringes called 'Urty Syringes that are either used in medical procedures on other Orks or to inject foes with nasty chemicals in melee combat.
- Injection Fairy Lily
in Yu-Gi-Oh! is a fairy nurse that is carrying a massive syringe. As a card, she is a Spellcaster-type card with 400 Attack and 1500 Defense with the effect of granting herself 3000 Attack whenever she attacks or is attacked at the cost of 2000 Life Points on the player. Despite the card depicting her with a syringe in the actual card game, the English version of the anime replaces it with a rocket.
Video Games
- Brave Nine: Galania happens to be called a genius psychopath nurse and her weapon of choice is a giant syringe. It seems she can use it to extend a patient's immortality by two seconds at the expense of being 120% the pain.
- Bug Fables: When Team Snakemouth accepts Patton's services to reassign their stats, he pulls out a massive syringe out of his tiny bag to extract the team's stats, and then the scene irises out right before he literally starts Playing with Syringes. In the aftermath, Team Snakemouth clearly appears to be in pain from his experimentation.
- CarnEvil: The Dr. Klot enemies, which are Monster Clowns in doctor outfits, are sometimes seen using giant syringe needles as weapons. If not a needle, their other weapon of choice is a giant bonesaw.
- The Nyx enemies in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin are demon nurses wielding giant syringes that inflict poison status if they successfully stick the player character.
Nyx: "Medicine time!" *Jab* "Don't you feel better now?"
- In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Ultimate Nurse Mikan Tsumiki chases Hajime with one of these at the end of one of her Free Time events. Her execution has Monokuma approaching her with a giant syringe of glowing green liquid... which he then uses to fill a giant arm-shaped rocket up with fuel and launch Mikan into the stratosphere.
- Dark Deception: The Reaper Nurses from "Chapter 4: Mortal Ramifications" wield giant syringes as their main weapons.
- Deltarune Chapter 2: Susie brings one out whenever she dresses up as a nurse to give the Virovirokun "tender loving care", as per the ACT command. There's also the enemy Ambyu-Lance from the same chapter, an antivirus program with a giant syringe for a head, topped with a siren light.
- Fate/Grand Order:
- BB's Noble Phantasm C.C.C. (Cursed Cupid Cleanser) transforms BB into a nurse with a huge syringe she needs an underarm grip for and injects the enemy with what appears to be a bunch of Ascension materials. The actual process is apparently much more complex, with BB turning into a nurse and injecting the enemy using a needle just being what outsiders observe.
- Greek god of medicine Asclepius reveals that he has his own comically huge syringe in the seventh summer event for when he needs to treat certain cases. All characters he wants to treat with it on-screen are terrified.
- Founders Fortune: Your settlers can get injured or fall ill. If you trained one of them as a doctor, he/she can administer various cures to help them recover. One of the animations features the doctor injecting the patient with a syringe that is about half the size of an adult settler.
- Gourmet Warriors have a floating giant robot boss whose main weapon is a gigantic syringe... attached to it's groin. Which it will use to repeatedly stab at you.
- In Grow nano vol.3, one of the items used to heal the sick Onky is a giant syringe. The sick Onky needs to sleep to receive his shot, or else he'll avoids it.
- Guilty Gear Gaiden Game Guilty Gear Petit has a blonde nurse called Fanny, whose weapon of choice is a huge syringe she can use both as an attack and as a standing post.
- Faust also uses a giant syringe of his own in one of his attacks.
- Downplayed in Love Live! School Idol Festival. One of Kotori's costumes has her dressed as a nurse and carrying a giant two-handed syringe, but it's just a prop. It doesn't actually do anything.
- One of the weapon types in Makai Kingdom is giant Syringes. These weapons are particularly useful for healers, because their damage is based on the Resistance stat, which also determines the power of healing spells. A Syringe allows your healer to deal ample damage without sacrificing their healing capabilities.
- Mega Man X: Command Mission: One of Cinnamon's weapons is "Injector" - a pair of large syringes that completely replace both of her hands. For some reason it can inflict "Virus" Status Effect, as in computer virus, since everyone involved are robots.
- In the Neptunia games where she is playable, a comically oversized syringe is Compa's weapon of choice.
- Team Fortress 2: The Medic's Crusader's Crossbow is a crossbow that fires a giant syringe, which can heal allies in addition to hurting enemies.
Webcomics
- Awful Hospital: Doctor Phleboto Mizer's head is a huge rusty syringe atop an extensible neck, with his eyeballs floating inside. He actually uses it to inject medications, which might or might not be at all appropriate to the physiology of his patient.
- Housepets!: Grape faints when she sees the vet get out a giant syringe. Turns out it's actually an industrial foam syringe, used to make pets faint in shock as a makeshift anesthetic, and the actual injection is done using a regular-size syringe.
- Sleepless Domain: One monster that appears in Chapter 19 is based on trypanophobia, or the fear of needles. As such, its arms are two massive syringes that function as Arm Cannons.
Web Video
- Sky Does Minecraft: In an episode of "Do Not Laugh" with YourPalRoss/House_Owner, Mithzan, and RedVactor, Sky jokes about Ross' trypanophobia by presenting him with a several-story tall syringe, claiming he is just going to "draw a little bit of blood".
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: In "Candy Streets", Lumpy Space Princess arrives panicking because she has supposedly been robbed. Princess Bubblegum goes to find something to calm her down, and returns with a needle almost three times bigger than herself that she uses to inject LSP with a tranquilizer. PB says that she might have given her too much, as LSP faints from the injection, but not before saying part of a name that Finn and Jake have to work off of to find the thief.
- In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "This Won't Hurt an Ed", Eddy learns that Kevin is afraid of needles and uses this to torment him by convincing everyone it's Booster Shot Day. Ed and Eddy use a crudely made giant medical syringe in one of their torment attempts.
- The Fairly Oddparents: In "Chicken Poofs", Poof gets the titular sickness and runs off when Dr. Rip Studwell presents the cure in the form of a needle as big as the doctor himself. Studwell breaks the syringe while chasing after Poof, so he and Wanda have to travel to a jungle in Fairy World to get a flower for more. Wanda gets fed up when not only does it turn out that the humiliating trip into the jungle was pointless because Studwell just uses the flower to get a 20% discount for a pre-made serum at the pharmacy, but the syringe is merely a dispenser to pour the medicine into a cup.
- Family Guy: In "A Lot Going On Upstairs", Stewie's nightmare includes a version of Dr. Hartman carrying an oversized syringe chasing Stewie.
- Hazbin Hotel: In the pilot's musical number "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", a demon diagnosed with "evil" is prescribed "love + fun", which is injected from a syringe larger than their head.
- The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack features this in the episode "K'nuckles is a Filthy Rat." Said episode has Flapjack adopt a flea-ridden rat and name it after Captain K'nuckles. The fleas eventually infect everyone with the Bubonic Plague. Saddened, Flapjack agrees to take the rat to Plague Island and after releasing it is told that as he's the only healthy person left, the doctor needs his blood to make an antidote for the plague. Flapjack remarks that it's nice to be needed and maintains a happy disposition even after seeing the doctor holding a needle several times his size.
Doctor: Don't you mean nice to be needled?
- The subplot of The Simpsons episode "Lost Our Lisa" has Bart get a bunch of novelty props glued to his face with toxic industrial adhesive. After being taken to Dr. Hibbert, Hibbert pulls out a bizarre gun with ten oversized needles and proclaims he can treat it with "a series of painful injections directly into Bart's spine!". As Bart is terrified at the idea, the props to fall off. Hibbert then reveals that the sweat dissolved the glue, and that the syringe was actually a button applicator.
Bart: Couldn't you have just turned up the heat a little?
Dr. Hibbert: Oh, heavens no! It had to be terror sweat! - The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! features an episode where King Koopa grows to a gigantic size, and the gang use a huge needle to shrink him down. Lampshaded by Toad.
Toad: This is the second biggest hypodermic needle I've ever seen!
Luigi: What was the biggest?
Toad: My last flu shot!note
Real Life
- The large-gauge syringes used for bone marrow transplants look like they are used to baste turkeys due to needing to penetrate deep into flesh and bone.
- Show up regularly in large animal veterinary medicine. It takes a big syringe to hold enough of most medication to treat half a ton of cranky farm animal.
- Suction syringes used to clear the airway in emergency medicine can look like this. They just don't have any needles.
- From the 18th and into the early 20th century, enema syringes resembled giant hypodermic syringes, though with a tube instead of a needle. Some Commedia dell'Arte lazzi (think "schticks" or "routines") involved a comedy medical exam from Il Dottore that involved one of these. These routines got Bowdlerized by the 19th century but remain in the form of the Giant Medical Syringe and the feared Injection in the Rear.
