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Nonchalant Dodge

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Spanker: What are you going to do about it, old man?
Jason Bentley: Well first I'm going to lean this way... [dodges punch] lean that way... [dodges punch] have a glass of wine... [elbows Spanker as he drinks] and then scratch my knee. [knees him in groin]

There are three main versions of this trope, and it's an easy trope to get:

The character barely moves to dodge, they do the most minimal amount of movement necessary to avoid an attack. This usually doesn't interrupt combat or overly insult the attacker with their miss. The character completely dodges the attack at the last moment, but it looks like they were hit... until the camera reveals they're standing off to the side, completely unharmed. Or they'll make some witty remark to let their baffled would-be attacker know they missed. Not only did they dodge perfectly, they don't appear to be paying attention. This generally leads to the attacker becoming outraged and the onlooking non-affiliated characters being baffled. This variant may cross over into Coincidental Dodge in more humorous situations.

This makes the character appear more awesome with minimal effort on the part of both character and artist. Only the first one doesn't completely upset the mood and generally means the fight scene is ending or shifting to a different mood. The first one is generally a start of the fight move. The user gets extra points if their dodging causes the attacker to fall into harm.

Part of The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort; if they stop being "nonchalant" you know that they're in trouble. It will often overlap with Excuse Me While I Multitask, Casual Danger Dialogue, or Strolling Through the Chaos. If you're going on the offensive after this trick, expect an Offhand Backhand to happen.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Claire Stanfield does a bit of both 2 and 3 during his fight against Graham Spectre in the Baccano! Bonus OVA before ending with a blade handstand about an inch away from his face.
  • Black★Rock Shooter: In episode 1, Black Rock Shooter attempts this when battling Chariot's tank. It charges at her and she coolly sidesteps, only for it to suddenly sprout Spiked Wheels that stab her.
  • Bleach:
    • Captain Aizen and his cheating antics.
    • Chad's hopeless battle against Kyoraku. The guy doesn't even drop his drink as he avoids every single attack with infuriating and amusing ease. Kyoraku appears perpetually unconcerned about anything — suspect execution, treachery (his own), the above Big Bad. He also didn't want to fight Chad at all, instead inviting the young man who'd invaded his home and was beating his subordinates senseless to share a drink. Captain Kyoraku treats almost everything nonchalantly.
    • Inverted by Kisuke. He invites Hiyori to kick him in the face. She attempts to do so. Kisuke has enough time to move his head out of the way, smile, and move back.
    • Gremmy Thoumeaux leans out of the way of Yachiru's sword slash and says her attacks are boring. Keep in mind that Yachiru's sword attacks on three planes of existence and Guenael Lee, a guy who could turn invisible, had trouble dodging it.
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • Awaki Musujime dodges one of Kuroko Shirai's needle attacks by backing up about a foot.
    • Seria Kumokawa can dodge gunfire by leaning from side to side while walking at a leisurely pace.
    • In A Certain Scientific Railgun, Misaka 10032 ends up playing a game of tag during the School Festival, and her opponents find "Mikoto" far more slippery than expected.
      10032: Misaka has fought over ten thousand battles with a man who could kill with a touch. You will not catch her so easily.
  • Cowboy Bebop: Spike Spiegel... except when he's fighting Appledelhi, who does it to him. And when he dies in the last episode. Maybe. Somebody forgot how to dodge, huh?
  • Dragon Ball:
    • During the original Tournament Arc, Master Roshi manages to nonchalantly dodge all of Goku's attacks disguised as drunken stumbling.
    • In the second tournament arc, Roshi, dodges Man-Wolf's furious assaults while blatantly ogling women in the audience. While it's unclear if Roshi is intentionally trying to wind up Man-Wolf, the clear gap in their skills is evident.
    • In the Tournament of the Piccolo Jr. arc, Kami (using the body of Shen/Hero) disguises his dodging with buffoonery intended to insult the opponent for their overconfidence.
    • In one anime-only scene from the Saiyan Saga, Piccolo uses the multi-form technique to train against himself. One Piccolo fires at the other, who dodges by simply tilting his head.
    • A particularly memorable example came when Goku fought Jeice and Burter. They launched a number of co-op attacks against him, which seemed to simply go through him while he stayed absolutely still. It was only after the barrage when they saw the torn up dirt at his feet they realized they fell for it.
    • Frieza was all too happy to demonstrate this to any opponent he felt was unworthy of his time, particularly just tilting his head.
    • Super Saiyan Goku utilizes this when initially fighting Frieza, appearing to rapidly shift to the side without moving any part of his body.
    • Upon battling the newly Super Saiyan 2 Gohan for the first time, Cell is quite upset at how effortlessly the child dodges his onslaught.
    • Vegetto takes this up to 11 as at one point his dodges are so fast it seems Buu is missing him deliberately.
    • Beerus does this to Goku in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods on their first encounter on King Kai's planet for a brief moment before landing a chop that instantly brings Goku to the brink of death.
    • Ultra Instinct grants its user this ability on a sub-conscious level. When using Ultra Instinct, the user's body reacts without thinking, allowing them to dodge everything with absolutely minimal effort. Whis demonstrates this when training Goku and Vegeta, acting bored while effortlessly dodging their attacks, commenting on the weather, and drawing symbols on their shirts.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Cobra, who can read minds, predicts Erza and makes a very slight change in position to dodge her Storm of Blades attack.
    • Also, during the Oracion Seis arc, Midnight dodges a sword that Erza throws just by moving his head to one side while continuing his Curb-Stomp Battle. Of course, Erza uses her Awesomeness by Analysis to realize that Midnight can't reflect blows and attack at the same time since he neglected to use his reflection to avoid the sword unlike all the previous attacks and uses that knowledge to turn the tide.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Fuhrer King Bradley when it is discovered that he is a Homonculus. His attacker, a snake chimera with whip-like arms, lets off a volley of attacks. He dodges all of them by barely moving his head from side to side.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has Izumi both dodging and blocking Ed and Al's attacks while teaching them lessons about alchemy from a book she was currently reading during a training session.
  • Hajime no Ippo: In his match with Hoshi in Osaka, Manabu Itagaki realizes he's gained control over his previously untapped natural gifts, allowing him to perceive Hoshi as if he was coming at him in slow motion and dodge all of Hoshi's punches with ease. Itagaki tests his ability by trying to dodge the incoming punches by the narrowest margin he can: first he dodges by ten centimeters, then by five centimeters, and then he allows one to brush the tip of his hair. No matter what, Hoshi can't hit him! By now Itagaki has started to enjoy himself, and he taunts Hoshi by appearing in front of him, tapping his glove just to show "I could have gotten you", and then disappearing again before Hoshi can do anything.
  • Roxanne from Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World makes this the core of her combat style: she keeps evading enemy attacks by the thinnest of margins, which allows her to wear down their stamina and allows her to counter more easily.
  • In the manga version of Haruhi Suzumiya, Nagato Yuki dodges attacks this way. The light novel explanation for how she dodges (fake) bullets is kind of... confusing.
  • Inuyasha:
  • Practically Sesshomaru's trademark, usually used to drive the point home that he is that much faster than Inu-Yasha, and everyone else.
    • One-Episode Wonder Goshinki with the explanation that he can read his attackers' thoughts.
  • In Kill la Kill, Nui Harime has an amazing talent for dodging attacks simply by bobbing around.
  • Luciola from Last Exilein the episode in which he is introduced the crew of the Silvana. His expression does not change in the slightest as he proceeds to knock out the guy throwing the punches.
  • In the third season of the Monster Rancher series. There's an undefeated champion mocchi by the name of Most. He holds an exhibition match and he dodges every attackby simply tilting his head or body from side to side, since he's being attacked from two sides at once he does this rapid fire, with his eyes closed.
  • In Episode 10 of My-HiME, Shizuru dodges a burst of boiling hot chocolate with a minor tilt of her head, while still drinking her tea. This turns out to be Foreshadowing that she is another HiME, where she later demonstrates an ability to swat bullets out of the air with her weapon, albeit with more visible effort.
  • Naruto:
    • The entire Hyuga fighting style, shown by the Neji vs. Naruto fight best.
    • Certain uses of Clone and Replacement Jutsu, especially when an opponent attacks a number of Naruto clones and all of them are fake.
    • In Kakashi's first fight against Naruto (pictured) he never stopped reading his book.
      • When Kakashi gives Naruto and Sakura the bell test again at the start of Shippuden after the Time Skip, the fact that he doesn't do this shows just how much stronger they've both grown. Kakashi even references this, taking out his book and then putting it away rather quickly when he realizes he can't do that anymore. He somewhat lightheartedly complains that his students aren't so easy to trick or evade anymore.
    • Gaara's Sand gives him the least movin as he didn't have to move to block most attacks. Making him much more menacing.
    • Rock Lee, drunk. Bonus points for being completely and sincerely asleep.
    • When Kiba tried to attack Tobi, he skips out of the way.
      • The anime takes this so much further, as he also does this to all of the Leaf ninja and after doing it to Sakura, he loudly shouts "Olé!".
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • This is done for laughs during two fights. The first we see a clone of Kaede get hit by an attack, followed by four Ninja clones of her appearing around her enemy commenting on how much that would have hurt. Later on, Kotaro and Negi do the same thing against a different opponent.
    • Also played for laughs with Asuna vs. Ayaka, Makie, and the twins in issue 176; Asuna unthinkingly dodges or blocks all the attacks thrown at her, at one point actually thinking "Huh? She's slow." Yeah, a couple of months of Training from Hell will do that.
  • One Piece:
    • There's a whole technique called "Kami-e" or "Paper Art" (one of the Six Powers used by CP9) used principally for Nonchalant Dodging.
    • Apart from that, during Luffy's big fight with Lucci, the later spends several seconds effortlessly dodging a high-speed barrage of devastating punches while wearing an eerily tranquil smile.
    • Luffy once dodged an explosive-melee attack by simply grabbing on to the non-explosive staff of it and clinging on to it. Didn't really help him the second time, though.
    • Luffy mmediately following the Time Skip, doing little more than tilting his head to the side to dodge a Pacifista's laser.
    • Zoro tends to do this from time to time too.
    • During the first match of Luffy Vs. Eneru, Luffy shut off his mind to stop Eneru from predicting his moves with his mantra ability, for the short time he was like this, Luffy had zero problem dodging all of Eneru's attacks.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, while fighting the witch named "Charlotte," Homura apparently gets chomped several times, only to drop in from just offscreen, unharmed and barely paying attention to the enemy. She turns out to have planted bombs in the monster while inexplicably escaping each chomp. Kyouko later swings a spear at her — the camera changes position simultaneously, and as Kyouko moves forward, Homura comes into view behind her, eyebrow raised in dull semi-amusement. Eventually you learn that time-freezing allows her to do this, and she's done it all so many times that it's become unimpressively predictable to her.
  • Reborn! (2004):
    • Kyoya Hibari in his fight with Belphegor. When Bel threw his knives at Hibari, they kept flying past him, causing much confusion to Bel. He later realizes that it wasn't that his knives were aimed improperly at Hibari, but that Hibari had managed to dodge them and move back into his original position with minimal movement.
    • Much earlier in the series, Adult I-pin dodges the attacks of three thugs then defeats them while reading a book. (Specifically, she was trying to study for a geometry test, and commented that it was difficult to understand upon defeating the thugs.)
    • In the first part of the series (before the genre shift) a running gag involved Lambo's constant attempts to kill Reborn. No matter how flashy or destructive a weapon Lambo came up with, Reborn would refuse to acknowledge his existence, dodge his attacks while taking his morning coffee or reading a book, and continue to act as though nothing had happened after Lambo's weapon inevitably backfired on him.
    • Later on, this got to the point that Reborn didn't even BOTHER to dodge, secure in the knowledge that Lambo would inevitably screw up the attack and blow himself up. Which he always did.
  • All three versions are used in Rurouni Kenshin at one point or another, mainly to establish that the characters are superhumanly powerful swordsmen. One time, Kenshin attempted to do this against Hanya's punches, but since Hanya's costume creates an optical illusion that makes his arms look shorter, Kenshin misjudges his safe zone and doesn't lean back far enough, and he gets punched in the face twice.
  • This trope plays a role in Makoto's (soon to be Sailor Jupiter's) introduction in Sailor Moon. When her boyfriend is endangered by Zoisite, one of the supernatural Dark Generals, Makoto attacks him head-on with no idea she has any superpowers waiting for her. Zoisite, who does have magical powers and isn't even human, nonchalantly avoids her attacks, hovers around, barely even looks at her, casually tilts his head to one side when she shies an earring at him like it's nothing — and then she hits him.
  • In the Sands of Destruction manga, Naja interrupts Kyrie's training session and forces a fight. Kyrie swings his pipe as hard as he can, but Naja barely bothers to dodge or fight back because he's simply so much more powerful and better-traine, at one point it he calmly blocks the pipe with his bare hand as though it's nothing more than an errant butterfly.
  • Soul Eater:
    • Liz attempts to punch Kid when he comments that she has smaller breasts than Patti (because this sort of thing concerns him). In the anime, he is hit, but the manga has him leaning out of the way while looking in a different direction. Later on, Black Star is able to dodge Kid's attacks easily (with his hands in his pockets, even — he's that nonchalant), at least until Kid loses his patience.
    • Later still, Black☆Star and Tsubaki are confronted by an upgraded Crona after his/her Heel–Face Revolving Door on the DWMA. Despite becoming much stronger, Black☆Star is able to dodge his/her attacks pretty easily.
  • In Tenchi Muyo!, the brief but awesome fight between Kagato and Yosho begins with Kagato firing an energy blast at Yosho... who dodges it by casually tilting his head a little bit to the side.
  • After the Time Skip, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has an episode in which Kittan threw punches at Rossiu, only to be met with casual dodges.
  • Tiger Mask:
    • Mr.Chi's main defense: being supremely skilled but physically weak due extremely old age , he can't block or suffer his opponents' blows, but he's very good at dodging... And sending them hitting on something. He faced Oki (one of the greatest wrestlers of all times) in a hotel room and actually defeated him by dodging.
    • Later Tiger Mask himself gets in the game for the match with Black V: having trained by having Giant Baba bat baseball balls at him until he could dodge them, Tiger Mask was capable of dodging his opponent's Missile Headbutt almost casually, sending him to entangle himself on the ropes or hit the ring post, and, when he decided to piss Black V enough for his strategy for victory, kicking him in mid-air and sending him on concrete and ridicule.
  • In Episode 5 of the anime adaptation of Tower of God, in a fight between minor characters in the Crown Game, Blarouse keeps dodging just out of the way of Inoa Yoran's kicks and punches until striking back.
  • Vash from Trigun is a master of Obfuscating Stupidity to make his inhuman abilities look like dumb luck. In an early episode, he bursts in on the villain about to kill a Badass in Distress Action Girl. He confronts the attacker with a look of Tranquil Fury and dodges the first round shot at him with a perfect and highly impressive motionless-translation type; afterwards he gets back into character and does his trademark frantic-looking dodges. It ends up as a hint at his true badassness.
  • In one of the later fights of YuYu Hakusho's Dark Tournament arc, Hiei is cut in half by his opponent... except that it was actually an afterimage, and he appears behind the enemy, having already severed the arm used in the attack.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: Although most of the Bat-family is known for this, Batgirl II was notorious foroften leaning away from bullets after they were fired... for giggles.
  • Sin City: Miho does number three a lot. Especially in Family Values when a mook uses a racial slur against her. She decides to take her time, making sure he's good and humiliated before slowly killing him.

    Fan Works 
  • Chronicles of Harmony's End: Discord dodges Array's attacks by flipping and dancing around in the air, laughing like a child having the time of his life.
  • Pharaoh does this to Ben in the Ben 10 Fanfic Hero High: Earth Style. Even though Ben was using his Aliens and Pharaoh was a normal human. He credits this to watching Ben's battle data and studying the various aliens strengths and weaknesses. Giving him a Curb-Stomp Battle with only his skills and a cane.
  • Naru-Hina Chronicles: When Suigetsu swings his sword at Yuko, this is how she dodges it, making him complain that she barely even moved.
  • Shinji in Shinji and Warhammer40k when Toji tries to punch him at their first meeting. He makes it a little more mocking by tapping the extended arm with the side of his head.

    Films — Animation 
  • Mima dodges a can thrown by a heckler while performing during the opening of Perfect Blue without interrupting the song.
  • In Turning Red, this is how Priya plays dodgeball. She doesn't move her feet; only her head and upper body.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Characters in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland dodge the March Hare's projectiles as second nature.
  • In Bulletproof Monk, Chow Yun-fat's character does this to Kar at the movie theater. Then again, he's also shown to be quick enough to track bullets with his eyes and casually watches one fly past his face.
  • Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Li Mu Bai is fond of this when "training" Jen, even spouting homilies as he does.
  • In the Shaw Brothers film The Eunuch, the titular eunuch loves to do this when fighting opponents which are leagues inferior to him in martial arts skills, to establish his dominance over his foes.
  • Freddy vs. Jason. At one point Freddy sends several unstable propane tanks flying towards Jason, who makes absolutely no effort to dodge them — he just keeps walking forward and doesn't even seem to notice them whizzing by.
  • During an action sequence in Goldeneye, Bond just barely flicks his head to dodge a bullet, continuing to concentrate on setting a timing device.
  • Played for Drama in Gone with the Wind, where Rhett barely moves to dodge Scarlett's slap. She loses her balance and tumbles down the stairs, leading to a miscarriage.
  • Michael Myers' response to Laurie throwing knives at him in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.
  • Ip Man 3: A teenage Bruce Lee asks to become Ip Man's student in martial arts and boasts that he is fast, so Ip Man tells him to prove it. Lee attempts to kick the cigarette in Ip Man's mouth, but Ip Man casually tilts his head out of the way each time.
  • Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2 orders the Bride to attack him with a sword to demonstrate his superior skills. All his dodges are nonchalant, but at one point he simply lightly moves his head like in deep thought, while she uselessly swings the sword all over the place, mysteriously only hitting the air.
  • Gothmog, the disfigured orc general in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. A Gondor catapult hurls an enormous chunk of building directly at him. Gothmog orders his orcs to stay put, waits until the very last second, and then gracefully twists out of the way so that the giant piece of masonry lands just next to him instead of on top of him. And then he spits on it.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the titular Soldier detonates a smart mine under a moving SUV and calmly sidesteps around it as it bursts into flames and careens out of control.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Drax the Destroyer throws one of his daggers at Korath the Pursuer; Korath dodges just by moving his head out of the way. It's not entirely wasted, though, since it hits a Mook right behind him.
  • Major Grom: Plague Doctor. After being framed for his crimes by the Plague Doctor, Major Grom is shown chained to a desk, while special agent Evgeny Strelkov hands him a form to write out a confession. Grom tries to headbutt him instead, but Strelkov just pulls his head back to avoid it.
    Strelkov: (smirk) Judo.
  • The Matrix: After unlocking his potential as The One, Neo could dodge (or parry) any single attack even by an Agent this way (Types 1 or 3), although then they start throwing more and tougher opponents at him so that he has to start paying attention again. A good example of when he actually does it is when the three new agents attack him in Reloaded and the first one aims a kick at his head. He nonchalantly dodges the first kick easily, as well as its follow-up attacks (which he blocks one-handed, the other hand behind his back in disdain). He only notices the agents have been upgraded when he realizes he has to actually use both hands to counterattack.
  • Men in Black: Zed. Jay accidentally releases the Bouncy Ball of Doom, it ricochets through Zed's office as he's doing paperwork, and he casually leans to the side to avoid it, only tilting his head at the very end because it would have gone straight through his skull.
  • Mirror Mirror (2012): Prince Alcott casually blocks multiple strikes from Snow White over his shoulder while walking away and taunting her.
  • The Mummy Returns: Shafek loves doing this. Multiple times, he will duck or jerk aside at just the right moment in order to let whoever happened to be standing behind him take the hit instead. It's done for purely comic effect, however, as he always looks amazed that he actually pulled it off. He later ends up on the receiving end, though, when Jonathan dodges a spear and Shafek takes the hit.
  • Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
    • Our introduction to the title character's future master comes when Remo shoots at him, later explained as him watching Remo's muscle movements to tell when he was about to fire.
    • During his training, Remo dodges four bullets from Chiun's gun, watching him in the same manner. After the four, he turns and walks away. Chiun tries to fire off another round, the chamber clicks, and Remo responds, "You used the other two yesterday." Chiun squeezes off another round, barely missing Remo and replies, "I reloaded."
    • Remo later does the same trick, but it doesn't look nearly as badass as when Chiun does it.
  • In Rogue One, Chirrut smoothly evades two blaster shots aimed at his head/torso in rapid succession by casually leaning a bit to the left and the right, respectively. This would be impressive enough for any regular fighter already, but this guy is blind.
  • In Snow White & the Huntsman, Ravenna effortlessly dodges Snow White's sword swings by slightly leaning out of the way and doesn't even have to look. She only loses because she stops to indulge in some Evil Gloating, at which point Snow White stabs her in the heart.
  • An unintentional version occurs in Spider-Man; when Flash Thompson throws a punch at Peter, his recently enhanced reflexes are shown as Flash's arm moving in slow motion, allowing Peter to look at the fist, shoot a confused look at Thompson, then go back to the fist while the punch is still in motion.
  • Revenge of the Sith: At one point during the duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan on Mustafar, Obi-Wan lunges and Anakin barely moves his head to dodge, swipes away with his own lightsaber, and the battle continues.
  • In TRON: Legacy, Rinzler tends to invert this, doing elaborate flips for no other reason than because he can. But in his arena battle with Sam, after a particularly complex dodge of Sam's disc, he lands and then simply ducks about an inch or two to avoid the disc as it bounces off the wall behind him.
  • Ultraman Cosmos 2: The Blue Planet have Musashi, the human host of Ultraman Cosmos who inherits the Ultra's reflexes, dodging an energy bolt fired at him by slightly tilting his head. He does get grazed lightly in the cheek, which barely fazes him.
  • The ending of Us features Red avoiding Adelaide's frenzied swings with just a few, dance-like steps at a time. She even takes the time to sit down and turn her back to Adelaide before dodging another blow and resuming the fight.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League. Superman does this to the Flash who is running at super speed! Barry crashes into Aquaman instead, who's not impressed and gives Barry a Death Glare after the battle is over.

    Literature 
  • Collegium Chronicles: Mags is already proficient in the first type when he gets to Haven. Justified in that it's the only form of self-defense that was safe for him to pick up in his mine-slave days.
  • Played with in the Conrad Stargard series. Conrad Stargard is on a riverboat with the Mongols firing on them from the bank with trebuchets. The Captain gives an Oh, Crap!; next moment there's a massive hole in the deck where he was standing. Conrad thinks he's been killed, only for the captain to reveal he's standing on the other side of Conrad, who demands to know why he didn't warn him the rock was coming. The captain explains that he didn't have time, plus the rock was clearly going to miss Conrad so it might have been bad had he dodged the wrong way.
  • Discworld: The main fighting style of The Silver Horde is to always be where they want to be, which is never where the enemies' attacks are. They are able to be this precise because they have over five centuries' collective experience at not dying. There's only six of them.
  • Mistborn do this when burning Atium, which allows them to literally see their opponent's moves before they actually happen.
  • Quite amusingly done in Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures. A belligerent innkeeper, challenged to try to hurt Rumo, fires both shots of a double-pull crossbow at him. He goes into Bullet Time, then spends the next several paragraphs debating in his head how best to dodge so as to make the best impression. Eventually, he deflects one bolt into the ceiling and catches the other (and then gets major injuries on the catching hand, since while in Bullet Time he underestimated how fast the bolt was moving).
  • The Saint does this quite often in his early adventures. A particularly memorable example is in The Wonderful War. One of the Ungodly tries to punch out Simon in the midst of a Banana Republic siesta time. Templar simply dodges his opponent's powerful but unskilled punches until the bad guy sinks to the ground in sweat-soaked exhaustion.
  • Hiro Protagonist pulls one of these in Snow Crash when Raven hurls a glass-knife-tipped bamboo harpoon in his direction. He slaps the incoming spear aside with the flat of his sword entirely on reflex... and then spends the rest of the night feverishly training, unable to sleep, having realized just how close to death he came.
  • In Starfighters of Adumar, while Wes Janson is performing a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on an aristocrat who tried to kill a friend, the aristocrat tries to punch back but is ineffectual.
    ''When Thanaer tried to strike, Janson took the blows on his forearms or shoulders, or, in the case of especially clumsy shots, withdrew a handspan or two and let Thanaer unload his blows into empty air.
  • In Super Powereds, Mister Numbers casually dodges a spit from a guy being interrogated. It's even stated that it looked as if he knew exactly how the spit would fly. Given that he's effectively a living computer (in fact, his brain is faster than any computer ever created), that's probably a pretty accurate description. It also means he would likely be able to predict an opponent's moves, if it came to a fight.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Adventure Inc has a case where the team is struggling to fight a vampire who at one point deliberately falls over to avoid a punch and immediately kips back up to illustrate just how superior he is.
  • In the Angel episode "War Zone", Angel is investigating a seemingly abandoned vampire den. But the creepy music starts playing as we see that there's a vampire lurking in the rafters... and then Angel coolly sidesteps, leaving his would-be ambusher to have a sudden and unpleasant introduction to the floor.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Brilliantly done by Syrio Forel on the first day of Arya's Training, invoking almost explicitly the real life use of the trope.
    • Daario Naharis avoids some arrow fire by taking a step back out of range.
    • Used for The Worf Effect when a White Walker dodges a huge battle-axe wielded by Loboda the Thenn chieftain, who's already taken out quite a few wights. He casually dodges two blows, then shatters the blade.
  • The Goodies. In "Kung Fu Capers", Graeme does a huge flying kick at Bill, who just steps aside and waves as Graeme goes crashing into Tim and then a wooden fence.
  • The titular character of Healer does this quite a bit, most notably when he's in his wimp persona and pretending to be beaten up by muggers. When he angles for sympathy points from the heroine later, her unimpressed father points out he looks perfectly fine.
  • In the Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi, when Reva attempts to kill Darth Vader, Vader effortlessly dodges her lightsaber strikes, using the Force to toy with her.
  • Person of Interest. In "Pretenders", the Number is a milquetoast office worker pretending to be a Hardboiled Detective. When he encounters genuine badass John Reese, the latter dodges his wild haymaker with a grin on his face, then knocks out the Heroic Wannabe with one punch.
  • In Supergirl, this is how Brainiac 5 defeats a group of Children of Liberty... with physics, without touching them once. At one point, he casually dodges by standing on a wall (it helps to have a Legion flight ring). Given his "12th level intellect", he probably saw their clumsy attacks coming from a mile away.
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey. In "Trunk from the Past", Jake Cutter accuses Ted (an Old Flame of Sarah White) of lying, so Ted throws a punch which Jake dodges just by leaning sideways, leaving Ted's fist poised in mid-air. Jake then punches Ted through the nearest door.
  • Uchu Sentai Kyuranger: The Jark Matter assassin Ikargen pulls this off throughout his appearances in the show, with the Kyurangers unable to land a hit on him even in a ten-on-one fight. He acts like he has the power of foresight, but the team eventually figures out his secret: his body is covered with eyes, giving him 360° vision. Lucky manages to get around this by using the Gemini Kyutama to make several dozen copies of himself and fire more lasers than even Ikargen could avoid.
  • Done throughout the day in the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "A Day in the Life", Xena casually dodges nearly every attempt by Gabrielle to either tag her with her staff or tackle her. Only at the end of the day did the bard finally tag her... at nightfall while lying down to sleep.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • In one hilarious moment, Shawn Stasiak tried to spear The Rock in the middle of a promo. The Rock dodged the spear easily, Stasiak flew into the ropes, and the Rock continued his promo without missing a beat.
  • William Regal has been known to walk away from opponents jumping off the top turnbuckle while taunting the fans.
  • Samoa Joe will often do this when an opponent attempts an aerial move off the turnbuckles, casually walking to the side as the opponent crashes to the mat. One time however, Sonjay Dutt leapt to the ropes for a moonsault, stopped and turned his head and saw Joe casually move out of the way. When Joe didn't hear the crashing sound of him hitting the mat, he turned around, and then Sonjay nailed him with a moonsault.
  • Vince McMahon once had a net dropped from the ceiling onto D-Generation X, but it fell so slowly that they were able to walk out of the way.
  • Orange Cassidy, whose gimmick is that he's really lazy, tends to start matches with his hands in his pockets and dodge everything his opponent tries until he finally decides to fight back.
    • One week Rey Fenix attacks Cassidy from behind and beats him down. The next week Cassidy walks to the ring to fight Fenix and stops...as Fenix completely misses with a flying kick. Fenix drops his head looking defeated as Cassidy strolls away.

    Sports 
  • Mixed Martial Arts: Anderson Silva is the patron saint of this trope. Particularly types one and three, but sometimes two as well.
  • The more skilled defensive boxers have this as their calling card, some notable names include:
    • Muhammad Ali, natch, he famously employed masterful defensive head movement and playing mind games to outplay and tire out fighters who had a physical edge over him.
    • Argentinian light-welterweight world champion Nicolino "The Untouchable" Locche is perhaps the best embodiment of this trope in the sport, Locche's near superhuman reflexes and head movement meant no one could land a decent punch on him. His magnum opus coming in his world title fight, where he spent 10 rounds dodging and occasionally peppering his opponent with light counter hooks and jabs, demoralizing him to the point of giving up.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition has a class feature called "Uncanny Dodge" which allows a character to evade attacks even if they're in a position where they normally wouldn't be able to dodge, like being unbalanced or caught off-guard. The improved version of this feat prevents rogues using sneak attacks against the character unless the rogue is at least four levels higher, and the description of the feat implies that the character reflexively dodges attacks before they're even consciously aware of them.
  • Spirit of the Century allows players to invoke this trope with the "Right Place, Right Time" stunt. Normally in physical combat, a character must use some appropriate combat skill such as Athletics (representing physical agility) to dodge attacks. With the stunt, the character may use their Resolve skill (representing mental/spiritual fortitude or willpower). In-game, this is described as Nonchalant Dodging.
    So there he was, bullets flying all over the place, and he just walked over to their leader and punched him out like it was just the next thing on his to-do list.

    Theatre 
  • In Pokémon Live!, during "You Just Can't Win", Giovanni tries to punch Ash, who dodges and taunts him about it.
    Ash: Guess you're slowin' down, old man; can't hit what you can't catch!

    Video Games 
  • BlazBlue:
    • Rachel Alucard nonchalantly blocks anything, even attacks that actually damage her with poor Nago. Even her defeated animation is simply lying down, bored. The only exception to this is if she triggers Hakumen's Astral Heat, which result in a wonderful Oh, Crap! moment for her...and her player.
    • Naoto Kurogane's Shift Sway special lets him to dodge an opponent's attack. Dodges highs/overheads, mids and projectiles. If Enhancer is used (while dashing) Naoto teleports himself forward via a turning-pivot dash that dodges through attacks.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Devil May Cry 4: Dante responds to Nero throwing a giant statue sword at him by just barely moving his head out of the way, then barely reacts to the object's size and force of throw.
    • Runs in the family; Vergil does the same in his introduction movie in the Special Edition of Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, dodging an enemy's scythe.
    • It's common to all iterations of the family: Dante in DmC: Devil May Cry often gets large chunks of the scenery thrown at his head, and moves just enough that they miss.
  • Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 introduced this mechanic for high-level Expert Mission and raid bosses as a replacement for Super Armor from its predecessor, making them dodge most melee attacks and basic ki blasts, making them sway to side and become blurred as they narrowly dodge your attacks. However, if they are hit by a charged ki blast or a ki blast skill, they can be staggered as normal, and attacked by normal means until they recover. Players were given access to this ability as well, when DLC5 introduced Android 13 with a new skill, Data Input. Unlike the boss version, however, it doesn't work against ki blasts at all, and will fail if the user is hit while moving or attacking. DLC6 introduced Ultra Instinct Goku, who has this ability from the start, but it works in a slightly different way from the others. While it works against basic ki blasts and while the user is moving, like with the boss version, it will not work while user is attacking, just like with Data Input, and unlike either of those, it drains stamina when dodging.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has players who avoid enemy attacks simply stand there and take the attack full force while "dodging" due to the limitations of animations. This is also in effect for enemies that avoid the player's attacks.
  • Fire Emblem
    • Certain "fast" classes in the sprite games have dull dodge animations that match. Swordmasters are the ever present example.
    • As a general rule, Promoted classes all have more nonchalant dodges than their unPromoted counterparts, partly to show how much better they're getting at fighting.
    • Path of Radiance has a particularly baffling example: a mounted unit moving backwards to dodge an arrow heading straight towards them. Many classes (especially mounted ones) also adopt the strange dodging strategy of moving backwards against an arrow in Awakening. Even more baffling is that some units (Pegasus Knights and their counterparts) occasionally move towards the arrow to dodge it, despite being able to dodge it by simply not moving. This still counts as dodging.
  • God of War Ragnarök has Heimdall, who's first encountered by Atreus in a Hopeless Boss Fight where — using his godly powers of foresight — is able to predict every single attack the boy will attempt to throw at him and casually avoids every one, either leaning mere inches away from his melee strikes or deflecting incoming arrows with his sword (all while relentlessly mocking the kid). It turns out the nonchalant part is important — Heimdall makes only the barest minimum of effort to dodge everything, allowing things to come close to hitting him than rather than just keeping a safe distance. When Kratos later confronts him while armed with a spiffy new Draupnir Spear, he's gradually able to get used to Heimdall's movement and soon outpace his physical ability — once Kratos actually lands a hit, Heimdall realizes he has to actually try now and very quickly loses his cool.
  • In Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, attempting to shoot any of the Force-sensitive Reborn with a sniper weapon will result in them effortlessly swaying to the side to avoid the shot.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Sephiroth dodges Tifa's flying kick easily, and then a flurry of kicks and punches (coming in at the rate of about two per second) effortlessly without apparently so much as moving his feet.
  • From League of Legends, Irelia's father, Lito was allegedly admitted to the Ionian council of Elders by standing on his rooftop during a rainstorm and staying dry. Without moving his feet.
  • A very silly bit of a cutscene near the beginning of Mass Effect shows Matriarch Benezia leaning slightly to one side, looking bored, as Saren throws his infamous furniture-flinging tantrum.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Raiden attempts to throw his high-frequency blade at Vamp during their first duel in Act 2. Vamp dodges simply by moving his head slightly to the side.
    • Raiden faces another example in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Monsoon is a cyborg whose body consists of dozens of smaller components which are held together by magnetism. Whenever Raiden attacks, Monsoon's body will seperate along the path of the incoming blade, avoiding the strike, all without interrupting the whole body's current animation: he'll continue running, attacking, whatever he was currently doing before Raiden's attack, except now half his body is floating in the air.
  • In Kraid's post-boss cutscene in Metroid Dread, the big guy fires one last belly spike at Samus as he sinks into the lava and she merely twists her body to the side to avoid it, capping off a fight Samus wasn't taking seriously to begin with.
  • Shikamaru in Naruto: Clash of Ninja casually leans away from attacks without taking his hands out of his pockets.
  • Wesker from Resident Evil 5 does this whenever someone tries to shoot him; he casually leans to the side to avoid being hit by the bullets, before following up with a faster-than-the-eye-can-see attack on the person who shot at him.
  • Super Smash Bros. has a variety of dodge animations for each character. While most of them are proper dodging, Wii Fit Trainer's animation is, like pretty much everything else they do, simply striking a yoga pose.
  • In Undertale, the Final Boss of a Genocide playthrough does this with every one of your attacks, quipping, "What? You think I'm just gonna stand there and take it?" Up until that point no other enemy had even tried to dodge, so it's a bit of a shock the first time. When you finally use an Interface Screw to attack him after he falls asleep, he manages to dodge again, and starts to ask if you really thought he'd fall for that. His question gets cut off when you attack him a second time, more successfully.
  • Yakuza 0: If an enemy gets into fight-initiating range while Kiryu is in a spot the game finds inconvenient for setting encounter boundaries, it moves Kiryu using a cutscene in which he simply steps and leans out of the way of an incoming punch, turns around in silent annoyance, and assumes his stance.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY:
    • Neopolitan fights like this against Yang, effortlessly dancing around Yang's increasingly clumsy and desperate punches with a smug smirk on her face. Yang is left so frustrated and tired by the end that Neo can easily take her out with a One-Hit KO.
    • Qrow also seems to be a fan of this trope, as exemplified in the beginning of his fight with Winter. Goading her into attacking him, she flies forward faster than the eye can follow with several stabs of her rapier, all of which fail to hit the older man, who sways back and forth with a smile. The final thrust is actually blocked, as he takes a bow, with her attack falling on the collapsed sword he carries on his back. Which he promptly unsheathes to its full length, and the real battle begins. The entire thing is made better by the fact that he's completely drunk. Though it's also shown that he only does this in situations he believes are easily handled. During the main part of the fight with Winter, he blocks most attacks with said BFS. And he takes his fight with Tyrian completely seriously.
  • Downplayed in Bidoof's Big Stand of Pokémon, which sees a Staraptor do a Nonchalant Dodge of a Lucario's Aura Sphere...after which it loses its indifference and proceeds to look very shocked from the loud explosion that the Aura Sphere causes from hitting a tree behind Staraptor.

    Webcomics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: "I think I woke up halfway through fighting off assassins."
  • In Circus Knights, two people dodge an aerial assault from a nightmare. One of them casually crouches, while the other takes a small step backwards while lecturing the Nightmare on why its attack is a bad idea.
  • The Unstoppable Higgs from Girl Genius shows just how unstoppable he is by indifferently sidestepping the attacks of a rampaging very well built Clank. He'd done the same earlier in a Bar Brawl full of Jägers.
  • Burk of Hero Oh Hero spends most of the first chapter doing these until the end, where Logan is dangerous enough to force him to put on a headband.
  • "Odile" the fae mercenary while fighting 3/4 of the main cast of Roommates. Later subverted when her opponents outright tell her that they did not intend to defeat her.

    Web Original 
  • Legendary Doom speedrunner Zero Master managed a tool-assisted speedrun (using slow motion and save states) in which he played through a massive map featuring over 23,000 demons, killed all of them, and didn't get hit once. It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Contessa of Worm excels at this thanks to her Combat Clairvoyance. In Lung's Interlude, she used the minimal movement variant to dodge and parry gunfire, and at one point she deflects attacks from Weld while carrying on a conversation on the phone.

    Western Animation 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Toph in her Earth Rumble fight. However, she more often blocks attacks. By Legend of Korra, though, an eighty-ish year-old Toph can casually dodge airbending.
    • Zuko in his showdown against Earth Kingdom soldiers in "Zuko Alone", and has other instances of it throughout the show.
    • Aang against a random school bully in "The Headband".
    • Azula gets an entire scene of acrobatic dodging in "Day of Black Sun, Part 1". She also gets a notable moment in the comics of dodging Katara's ice spikes with a contemptuous sideways look as they go whizzing by.
    • Zuko when he coolly dodges a frenzied Azula's attacks, as he makes a minimal movement against one her fire punches. The brief exchange ends with them literally face-to-face, and instead of a witty comment, he stares her straight in the eye without flinching. It intimidates her enough to back off and try to shoot him full of lightning instead.
    • A random villager against a platypus bear in "The Fortuneteller".
    • Admiral Zhao when he stops Hahn's assassination attempt on him with a single swipe of his arm, knocking him overboard, and calmly continues his previous conversation with Iroh.
      Zhao: As I was saying...
    • Airbending and Waterbending styles have elements of this. The former is almost all about dodging and avoiding attacks. Aang used this on multiple occasions (goading Zhao into burning his own boats and dodging a bully at fire nation school). It's his reliance on this that makes Earthbending his hardest style to learn as it relies on standing firm. Waterbending on the other hand relies on getting the opponent to waste their energy and relies on this with a combination redirecting an opponent's attacks.
    • Ty Lee has this trope as well, being one of the more difficult members of Azula's group to pin down. She even comments that her dodges of Sokka's attacks makes it look like the pair are dancing.
  • Code Lyoko''. Notably, Odd dodging a Creeper's fire at point-blank range in episode "Franz Hopper", or William casually moving his head away from Aelita's energy field in "William Returns".
  • Edd, of all characters, does this in one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. While both Ed and Eddy are running around like crazy getting hit by water balloons (getting thrown at them by the Kanker Sisters), Edd just causally steps to the side and easily dodges each and every one.
  • The Lady bone demon from Monkie Kid when she does nothing more than tilt her head to the side as the monkey king's punch hits a wall inches from her face. Wukong's spooked enough that the Spider queen gets a chance to capture him.
  • Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): In the episode "Run the Rink", a speedster named Instantanegirl tries to rush at Moon Girl in one rush attack. On top of being confused at Instantanegirl's audacity, Moon Girl barely slid to the side for the speedster to smack into the roller rink's wall.
  • Particularly effective with Princess' debut episode in The Powerpuff Girls (1998). After Princess trashes Buttercup and Bubbles thanks to her powerful gadgets, Blossom gets into it, and she is pissed. Cue complete ownage, with Blossom merely moving her head to avoid Princess' flurry of punches. Including an Homage to Dragon Ball Z where Blossom dodges an energy blast simply by tilting her head, just as Piccolo did in one scene. Pissed, she was, but she demonstrated that Tranquil Fury trumps Unstoppable Rage, at least for that episode.
  • The Real Ghostbusters episode "The Cabinet of Calamari" opens with Egon and Winston playing chess while Peter chases Slimer, who's stolen his jacket, all over the fire hall. At one point, Egon calmly picks up the chessboard without even looking up when Peter jumps on their table and then puts it right back as if they do this every night (which is likely the case). And the pieces are still standing!
  • In the Samurai Jack episode "Samurai vs. Samurai", Jack challenges an obnoxious wannabe samurai called "Da Samurai". During their challenge, Jack effortlessly dodges all of Da Samurai's attacks.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Sabotage", this backfires on Anakin when a droid fighter fires a missile at him and Ahsoka. While Ahsoka rolls her starfighter away to the right, Anakin just tips a wing slightly so the missile will just fly past. The missile turns out to be carrying a cargo of buzz droids, which end up covering his fighter as a result, while Ahsoka had maneuvered herself out of harm's way.
  • Star Wars Rebels: In "Spark of Rebellion", when Kanan is about to reveal himself as a Jedi on Kessel, he comes out from behind cover and proceeds to just casually stroll through a hail of blaster bolts, only bothering to lean out of the way before he takes out his lightsaber.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) has Michaelangelo do this to Raphael in their fight in the Battle Nexus arc. Michaelangelo jokingly takes a bow to the crowds, ducking under Raphael's flying kick, and then dodges while mocking Raphael.
  • The Drifter from Thunder Cats 2011 turns this into an art form, helped by supernatural drifting skills. He passes on some of his skill to Lion-O.

    Real Life 
  • Japanese swordsman Odagiri Ichiun was ambushed by two men while taking a nap in a sitting position. When one attacked him with a sword, Odagiri dodged the first cut by swaying to the side, the second by swaying in the opposite direction, and the third by reflexively catching the man by the wrist and throwing him — and then got back to sleep.
  • The goal in most martial arts. Using the minimal amount of effort when dodging an attack conserves your own energy, and it leaves you closer to your opponent which is essential for many counterattacks.
  • During a 2008 press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at George W. Bush as an act of protest for his involvement in The War on Terror (in Arabic culture, the foot is the dirtiest part of the body, so stepping on somebody or hitting them with a shoe is supremely insulting). Bush, however, quickly dodged both shoes without breaking his composure. The incident became a popular subject of jokes as a result of the cultural specificity of the act, with many people quipping that Bush was secretly a ninja.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Effortless Dodge

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Joe Walks Out of Gargano's Way

Samoa Joe casually sidesteps Johnny Gargano as the latter attempts a flying attack against him.

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