Spin to Deflect Stuff

Who needs shields?

The principle is simple: spin a rod (or rod-like object) fast enough and you can get it to function as a makeshift shield. Of course, this raises questions like how it can be done without injury (human joints have limited articulation), how the rod can get up to speed fast enough to actually block stuff, how the user manages to recover from the exertion so quickly, and if bullets are being blocked, how the rod isn't damaged if it's not stronger than usual. Your answer? It's cool.

An example of Implausible Fencing Powers and Sister Trope to Parrying Bullets, but can be done with any long and thin object. If it goes beyond deflection into redirection, you get an Attack Reflector. Distinguished from a plain I Know Karate display because it's normally only done when there are dangerous airborne objects approaching. Martial Arts Staff users can be counted upon to do this at least once in their careers. This can also be done using a Spin Attack with almost anything, even your entire body!

This is a tiny bit Truth in Television in that a few hundred years ago, when bows were the norm rather than guns, there were martial artists who claimed that they could spin a staff fast enough to deflect arrows.^note An arrow is about a meter long, so to block one reliably, the staff has to complete half a revolution/second for each meter/second of speed the arrow has. Even at a mere 10 m/s (slower than a sprinter), that's 5 rev/s... hard to pull off continuously, but it only needs to be spun for the brief window between the arrow being en route and being in your chest. A medieval-style longbow can fire at 60 m/s, requiring 30 rev/s. If you could spin a staff half that fast, you could stick airfoils on it and become a human helicopter. To its credit, rotating slower would still provide a better defense than just holding a weapon steady, though not nearly to the degree that it's most commonly depicted.

Of course, now we do it for bullets and lasers, but nobody seems to mind a lot because it's quite a sight to behold.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the manga Blade of the Immortal, Manji's dozen swords include a pair of sai-like things that are specifically designed for this — each has a round hole in the blade to twirl them by.
• The Shen Hu of Code Geass can do this with its slash harken.
• Angemon from Digimon can do this by spinning his Angel Staff, most notably in Digimon Adventure 02: "Digimon Hurricane Landing!! Transcendent Evolution!! The Golden Digimentals".
• Sui from Double Arts uses an iron hoop, spinning it in a sphere-shaped shield around herself while she is curled up inside the 'shield'. How she avoids any form of dizziness (or even if she gets dizzy at all) is never addressed.
• Young Goku does this regularly in Dragon Ball with his magic staff, even against full-automatic gunfire. That is, before he plain and simply becomes Immune to Bullets. To clarify: since the start of the series, he never takes any actual serious damage from the bullets — they just used to hurt like hell.
• Kenshiro manages to do this with nunchucks in an early chapter of Fist of the North Star. Not only that, but he manages to deflect them in such a way so that they hit the guys who threw them in the first place. He's Kenshiro, after all.
• Volfogg of GaoGaiGar uses this in his Big Volfogg form — the rotary blades of the Gunglue serve as the spinning stick.
• The Gundam series use this quite a bit, and is semi-plausible because they're Humongous Mecha.
  • In ∀ Gundam, protagonist Loran Cehack was fond of doing this with the titular machine's beam saber. Sometimes he did it with both sabers. He even did it with a ball and chain.
  • Some of the grunt machines in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 have a Defense Rod based on this very concept. The benefit of course lies within the fact that it was designed exactly with this purpose in mind with no secondary benefit. The grunts are not going to be given state-of-the-art material for a mundane shield and the shield rod uses far less material while being overall lighter. And since Defense Rods are primarily used by mecha that can transform into a fighter jet, there's all the more need for every component to be as lightweight as possible. This suits a mecha that more or less is made of paper because a makeshift spinning rod is far more effective for blocking hits than a giant shield that would weigh them down. In the second season, the grunts have shields with Defense Rods, but since The Federation has gained access to GN particle technology by this point, the rods have the added benefit of generating a circular particle field for additional defense on top of everything else.
  • The Beam Rotors in Mobile Suit Victory Gundam are based on this concept, and they provide lift for many Zanscare machines in copter mode.
  • The Raider Gundam in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED can do this too, swinging its morning-star like weapon. The tech spec of the mobile suit itself actually said that the wire used is coated in anti-beam coat, making the use more than just makeshift; rather, it's an intentional one.
  • The title mecha of Mobile Suit Gundam F91 could do this with beam sabers. Even if it already had a beam shield!
  • Not to be left out, Mobile Suit Gundam AGE has Captain Ash using a grappling hook to block energy bits.
• Played Straight in GUN×SWORD. Van is basically impervious to bullets because whenever he's shot at, he is somehow already spinning his sword, cutting all bullets coming at him in half (and somehow simultaneously stopping them).
• In Hentai Kamen, Shunka-san can spin a pair of nunchuks fast enough to deflect bullets. Yeah, the series cannot be exactly called serious anyway.
• Hunter × Hunter: Kurapika blocks bullets with his chains.
• The title character in Karas can do this without holding his sword, and is used both offensively (flying buzzsaw style) and defensively (as in this trope...) seeing as magic is involved in empowering said sword and the armor... this isn't as implausible as it sounds. This is carried over into his appearance in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom in both its variants.
• In Lupin III: The Italian Adventure, Goemon is able to deflect machine gun fire by doing this with his sword.
• Kaede in Negima! Magister Negi Magi uses her gigantic Fuuma Shuriken to deflect one of Kotaro's attacks this way. It even has a convenient pull string for that purpose.
• Nerima Daikon Brothers: Hideki does this with a daikon radish against a volley of syringes.
• Io Otonashi from Place to Place blocks snowballs using one-handed-spin wooden chopsticks during a snowball fight.
• Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: Ash makes frequent use of this trope with the Counter Shield technique, which involves his Pokemon spinning while using one of their moves to combine offensive and defensive tactics. The technique is impressive enough for several other characters to make use of it as well, including Dawn, Brock, and even Paul.
• Puni Puni☆Poemi:
  • Itsue does this with a whip. That IS her special power, and the only one that is actually useful out of all the Aasu sisters.
  • That's nothing... the bad guy in Puni Puni Poemi spins his testicles in order to deflect Nabeshin's attack.
• Ranma ½: Ranma spun a simple wooden staff to deflect fire, even though he is a normal human, is afflicted at the moment with a shiatsu point that increases his sensitivity to heat (even lukewarm water is painful), and her (at the time) hands aren't even singed. The next time he uses a staff as a defensive measure, he explicitly blocks the attacks by swinging it instead of spinning it.
• Ronin Warriors: Kento, and the Ancient One wield staffs and often spin them rapidly for defense. The Ancient's staff is so powerful it can even break weapons rather than simply deflecting them.
• Kenshin does this more than once with his sword in Rurouni Kenshin, including once against a flamethrower.
• Sailor Moon: Tuxedo Mask does this with his fancy cane/wand (it looks like a magicians' wand, but is probably meant to be a cane) on several occasions.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Guame combined his Impregnable Fortress Dai-Gundo with the city of Teppelin, then used that to deflect any attack on said capital.. from any direction except down. Even then it was virtually impervious to attack until he made the fatal mistake of dropping it on Gurren Lagann, which provided the title mech the momentum it needed to pierce even the mighty ship's armor.
• Here's an example that actually makes sense in some regards: Joey in the sixth volume of Yu-Gi-Oh! spins around Yugi's Millennium Puzzle (which is on a string) to act as a shield against several yoyo-wielding thugs. It doesn't deflect them, but instead tangles them up, rendering them useless.

Asian Animation

• Mechamato: In the Mechamacho form, Mechamato quickly spins a dumbbell to deflect the hot water of Janitoor's pressure washer attack.

Comic Books

• The Mighty Thor:
  • A regular part of Thor's bag of tricks is spinning his hammer by its handlestrap to create a "shield". Justified by the hammer being magic and the wielder being a god. Note that this is also a variant of the tactic he uses to open dimensional portals, so along with blocking incoming shots, he may be siphoning them away.
  • Longtime Thor enemy Thunderball has done this at least once, though he was in a Spider-Man comic at the time — he spins his ball-and-chain in a circle to deflect small arms fire. Thunderball is human, but he and his ball-and-chain are empowered by Asgardian magic.
• Shang-Chi's villainous sibling Sister Hammer can deflect bullets this way with her namesake weapon.
• Superman:
  • In A Mind-Switch in Time, Superboy confronts two bank robbers who are armed with weapons called magma blasters which really pack a punch. Superboy resorts to spin around to deflect the beams while flying towards the crooks.
  • The Planet Eater Trilogy: Brainiac unleashes a barrage of red-sun laser beams to destroy Superman, so Clark wraps himself in his indestructible cape and whirls around to deflect the beams.
    Superman: "They've got to be concentrated sun-rays designed to destroy me. But they won't, not if I spin quickly enough...and deflect the beams before they can do their damage."
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Donatello and Master Splinter do this on what must be an episodic basis with their Martial Arts Staff. Leonardo and Michelangelo also do it frequently. Even Raphael has pulled it off a couple of times with his sai.

Films — Animation

• Slightly subverted in Mulan, when Captain Shang uses his spinning Martial Arts Staff to deflect rocks thrown by his students: although he successfully deflects them, it's clear that he's specifically blocking individual attacks, not simply spinning his staff so fast that attacks can't penetrate. When other characters (specifically Mulan herself) try the same thing without proper training, they just end up twirling their staff uselessly as stones pelt them.
• One antagonist from the Slayers movies blocks Lina's fire blasts like this. Subverted, in that said antagonist's sword catches fire.

Films — Live-Action

• In Beverly Hills Ninja, Chris Farley's character, Haru, deflects the bullets Tanley shoots at him with his two swords, and not spun very fast either.
• In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Li Mubai spins his sword to deflect a barrage of poison darts thrown at him by Jade Fox. It almost works, but not quite; he is hit by a single dart, which proves fatal.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Aquaman: Vulko shows off this technique in one of Arthur's training flashbacks. In this case, it's not just that he's spinning his trident, but that he's summoning water around it to serve as an outright barrier. During the final battle with Orm, Arthur gets to pull it off himself.
  • Wonder Woman 1984: Wonder Woman can deflect bullets fired at her by spinning her Lasso of Truth in circles.
• The propeller zombie from Frankenstein's Army is Immune to Bullets thanks to the Deadly Rotary Fan it has instead of a head. It's defeated by cutting its fuel line.
• When fired upon by multiple guards, Kroenen in Hellboy spins his blades to deflect them.
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: When the elves launch a volley of arrows toward the dwarves, the dwarves launch ballista bolts that have spinning things on the end of them that knock all the arrows out of the air.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor spins Mjölnir in the opening battle against Surtur to deflect his fire blasts. Somewhat more plausibly than most examples, Thor spins his hammer by the cloth strap at the end of the handle rather than the handle itself.
  • Avengers: Endgame: Thanos, wielding a double-bladed BFS, deflects electric and repulsor strikes from the Avengers this way. He is also able to deflect six continuous laser beams at the same time, in utter defiance of common sense and physics.
• Played for Laughs in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, when Will Scarlett shows off his fighting prowess by spinning twin daggers so quickly that an arrow fired at him from point blank range is reduced to sawdust and the daggers are left smoking (presumably from the friction).
• Star Wars:
  • Jedi and Sith have been shown to do this with their lightsabers, although they often don't spin them as fast as you might expect. They don't actually spin the blades as a shield, they parry the blasts much as one would a blow from another sword. Of course this is due to the Force allowing Jedi to anticipate where to block before the shot's even been fired.
  • General Grievous does this a couple of times, although there's a good reason.
  • There is a specific lightsaber form dedicated to near total impenetrable defense utilizing sweeping, circular motions close to the body called Soresu. Obi-Wan is the master of this form, and uses it the majority of the time in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
• True to tradition, Donatello does this with his signature Bo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Against machine guns. At point-blank range.
• Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends has the villainous Ultraman Belial doing this in the opening fight , twirling the Giga-Battlenizer in circles to deflect beam attacks. It's even strong enough to deflect Ultraman Zoffy's M78 Ray, one of the most powerful attacks from the various Ultramen.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Done in X-Men Origins: Wolverine rather impressively; Wade Wilson walks into a room full of Mooks and manages to deflect all the bullets fired at him using rapidly spinning dual-wielded katanas. His mutant power is to see in bullet time, so like many other examples, he's not making a truly impenetrable shield, but blocking individual shots. The spinning is highly implied to be him showing off.
  • He tries it again in Deadpool 2 against gunfire from Cable, with rather less success. Good Thing You Can Heal.

Literature

• Isana does this with water in in the Codex Alera final book. A small pool of water on her arm shaped like a shield and spun at high speed deflects vord attacks, and nearly tears her arm off.
• Subverted and played straight in Steven Brust's Dragaera books. In the Khaavren Romances, Khaavren fights a duel against an enemy who spins his sword around to block Khaavren's attacks. Khaavren reflects on how dumb that move is, then moves his sword in a spiral to get past the guy's defenses and stab him in the heart. Vlad Taltos, on the other hand, spins his magic chain Spellbreaker in a circle to make an effective spell shield.
• Cashel from The Lord of the Isles can do this with his quarterstaff. Of course, it helps that he's a natural magic-user. When he spins his staff it creates a blue barrier than can stop magic, so clearly the spinning is an aid rather than the whole protection.

Live-Action TV

• One instance of Power Rangers Turbo has the Turbo Megazord using its Finishing Move to deflect the attack of the baseball-themed Monster of the Week back at him.

Tabletop Games

• The feat to perform this in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition is called "Spinning Defense" (from Dragon Magazine #331). It requires a polearm and focusing entirely on defense, but allow the use of Deflect Arrows an unlimited number of times (while it's usually limited to one projectile per round).

Toys

• Beast Wars: Dinobot's velociraptor tail can be opened up and spun around to deflect things, a feature shared with other characters based on his toy design.
• BIONICLE:
  • Nokama's Hydro Blades had this function in Legends of Metru Nui. The toy couldn't do this as easily.
  • Keetongu's Whirling Shields not only blocked energy attacks, but transferred their power to Keetongu himself. On the toy, an axle allows you to spin them.
  • Tahu Nuva in his flying Adaptive Armor had Rotating Fire Blades. They worked on the toy, but with some friction issues.

Video Games

• Conqueror's Blade features Cudgel Monks (based on real-life Shaolin monks), who can perform a charge while spinning their cudgels (staves) and blocking incoming arrow attacks. The Spear hero class features Lugh's March, a similar spinning move which also blocks ranged attacks.
  • Subverted with the Cold Dragon move for the Pike hero class—it has you spinning the pike, but it doesn't block anything.
• 9 Monkeys of Shaolin have you being attacked by mooks armed with projectile weapons like blow-pipes, arrows or rifles. They have a habit of staying out of your weapons' range, too, but you can spin your weapons (either a Martial Arts Staff, a spear or a powerful mace on a long handle) to send their projectiles back at them.
• In BioShock 2, the last of three possible upgrades for your Drill weapon allows you to reflect all bullets that hit it while it's spinning.
• PWR Loaders from Borderlands 2 are armed with a pair of huge grappling claws. They spin them as they advance and deflect anything short of rocket launcher rounds.
• Katt's defensive stance in Breath of Fire II shows her spinning her staff faster than humanly possible. Then again, she's not human.
• This is a standard move in many Castlevania games, where holding the attack button would make you spin your whip. This would block many basic projectiles before they reached you. A lot of magic shields in Castlevania games have also have a habit of spinning around. This doesn't actually block out everything. A spinning whip deals less damage than a normally flung whip, and enemies can still run into you while taking damage. Also, if you have a set of n things (where n is usually 2, 4, 6, or 8) whirling around your character, projectiles can still fall through the cracks and hit you. Thus, both of these tactics are most useful for dealing with weak but annoying enemies, such as medusa heads. Also, don't forget the recurrent Spear Guards, who have a nasty habit of deflecting projectiles this way. In some games (Harmony of Dissonance, in example) they become completely immune while doing this.
• City of Heroes: The Staff Fighting power set has a move called Guarded Spin that increases your defense to certain attacks if you land a hit, reducing their chance to hit you. The animation for the attack sees your character twirling the staff at their sides and in front of them.
• In Crash Bandicoot you'd expect this to be the case, however unless it's an enemy moving quite fast, it's painfully averted.
• Destiny 2's Forsaken DLC has this. The Arcstrider's "Way of the Current" lets the player use the Arc Staff to deflect enemy attacks, which also triples the Staff's damage for a few seconds.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Bolverk and Plutonian from Devil May Cry 2 have the ability to deflect bullets by spinning their weapons.
  • Vergil used this in an extremely badass Bullet Time version in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, catching a bunch of bullets that Dante had fired at him. He then slid his katana along the ground, depositing all of the bullets, perfectly intact, in a neat row... before sweeping them up and returning them with a single swing. Taken to extremes in his boss fights when he can negate armour-piercing rounds and rockets just by doing the same move. In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, this is also Vergil's block animation.
• Drill Dozer, you can deflect bullets by using the Drill Dozer's drill.
• Boris from Dusty Revenge and Dusty Raging Fist is a Pig Man boss who wields meat cleavers on chains, and can spin them to block bullets. He even displays this ability in the tie-in comic.
• Dynasty Warriors:
  • A Dynasty Warriors 6 cutscene involves Lu Bu spinning his spear to deflect a river.
  • The intro video to Warriors Orochi 2 has Cao Pi deflecting bullets from his allies Masamune Date and Magoichi Saika to defeat enemy troops swarming them.
• Fatal Fury: Billy Kane has had a staff spin as his main technique for nearly as long as he's existed (the original Fatal Fury had it in his win pose, but not as an actual move) which, in most games, serves to block projectile attacks as well as attack close opponents.
• In Ganbare Goemon (Legend of the Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon), Yae can receive an upgrade for her katana that allows her to spin it to deflect projectiles.
• Randy in Guardian Heroes both attacks and blocks this way.
• Guilty Gear:
  • When Faust blocks an attack in Guilty Gear, he does so by spinning his giant scalpel.
  • Slayer has the same strategy in Guilty Gear XX, though he "parries" everything with one hand.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • There are at least two instances of this in Kingdom Hearts II, both within boss battles. The first is about halfway through the game in Timeless River, in which Pete attempts to escape on a steamboat. He creates objects that fly towards Sora, who spins his Keyblade in a reaction command to deflect them before knocking them right back at Pete. The second occurrence is at the end of the game during the last battle with Xemnas, whose desperation attack surrounds Sora and Riku with hundreds of red laser bullets. The player must mash two buttons to command the pair to dodge about and spin their Keyblades nonstop to deflect the incoming projectiles.
  • In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Marluxia's take on the Block ability is this trope.
• In Kingdom of Loathing, Mer-kin bladeswitchers in the Mer-Kin Colosseum will sometimes use a special attack where they spin their weapons around themselves, deflecting any attempts to attack them back at you. To prevent this, you have to counter with one of the special moves learned for the Mer-Kin dodgeball when you see them prepping their special attack.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, your spinner (also known as the man-sized frisbee) can deflect flaming arrows. And yes, it spins. And yes, it is awesome.
• In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Sonson levitates and spins her staff in front of her to block attacks.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man (Classic):
    • One of the enemies in Yamato Man's stage in Mega Man 6 does this with spears. The idea is to attack it after it throws the spinning spear at you but before it retrieves another one.
    • Top Man of Mega Man 3 does this too, when he's using Top Spin (see, THAT would've made it a lot better in Mega Man's hands).
    • Well, there ARE about a gazillion "spinning shield" weapons that Mega Man can get, ranging in utility from the useless Power Stone from Mega Man 5 (which actually had TWO such weapons, the other being the slightly less useless Star Crash) to the nearly impenetrable Jewel Satellite from Mega Man 9...
    • Heck, quite a few other Robot Masters can do it too, like Blizzard Man from 6, Clown Man from Mega Man 8, Pirate Man from Mega Man & Bass, Strike Man from 10, Punk from the Game Boy III (returning in Mega Man 10), and Sunstar from the Game Boy's V.
  • Zero's Shield Boomerang in Mega Man Zero is actually the Z-saber spinning really fast, allowing him to block and deflect enemy bullets, as revealed by concept art.
• Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater uses Gun Twirling to protect himself from a swarm of hornets.
• The third Patapon game introduces the Wooyari class, whose Super Mode attack has them repeatedly spinning their spear/pike to create a ring of fire that deflects incoming arrows. Said attack can only be performed by patapon in this class if they are an Uberhero,^note  A literal demigod making this a justified example.
• The Chinese version of Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has the Hammer Zombie and Nunchuck Zombie in its exclusive world. After walking a certain distance through the lawn, both zombies stop for a bit to spin their respective weapons and bounce back any projectiles shot, then take a breath and resume walking. Another zombie from the same world as the above two will always reflect back projectiles due to his idle animation involving spinning his torch, but if the torch is put out, the zombie will stop his deflection.
• In Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Azimuth can deflect projectiles by spinning his double-sided wrench in front of him so fast it becomes a blur.
• Trained psychic soldiers in The Red Star have large staff-like weapons called Hooks, often adorned with blades and other weapons, that they can spin to deflect bullets. Since this is done telekinetically, the Hook suspended in mid-air by pure mental force, this gets around the physical impossibility of spinning them by hand.
• In Sengoku Basara, Yukimura blocks attacks by spinning one of his spears. Then again the whole game runs on Rule of Cool.
• In the home console edition of The SpongeBob Movie Game, the upgraded versions of the Karate Spin and Star Spin respectively allow SpongeBob and Patrick to deflect enemy projectiles, which even works during both fights against Dennis.
• In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Bentley the Yeti can spin his club to deflect projectiles; it's not particularly helpful against enemies, but it does help you solve a few puzzles.
• Subverted in Suikoden V when Roy attempts to deflect a hail of arrows by spinning his three-section staff. It doesn't work out so well for him, as some of the arrows get through and kill him. Fortunately, the player can avoid putting him in the path of those arrows in the first place.
• Mace Windu can do this in Star Wars: Episode I - Jedi Power Battles.
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order also gets in on it, with Cal's general deflect being spinning and twirling his blades around.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Pit in Brawl has this as one of his special attacks with his bow/swords called Angel Ring.
  • ROB's side special, where it spins its arms around its body, has this as a secondary use.
• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation: The game's middle levels have a type of black-robed Elite Mooks who have swords that they can twirl to deflect Lara's bullets.
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron: Decepticon Bruticus can do this with the helicopter blades on his arm, courtesy of Vortex, the Combaticon who transforms into said arm.
• In Valkyria Chronicles, Selvaria Bles' Valkyrian shield (which was modeled after a nautilus seashell and gyrates in a fashion that accentuates this) was used this way during a cutscene to send an armor-piercing tank shell off course.
• In Vanquish, View Hounds can spin their rotor blades to deflect attacks while in robot mode.
• Used in Wonder Boy in Monster World with all spear weapons to make up for the lack of a shield, funny thing is that you can actually do Collision Damage to the enemy if they touch the spinning spear.
• The Wonderful 101: The Unify Naginata deflects projectiles when spun, which is also the only attack with that particular weapon. Said deflectable projectiles range from drill-like cells to bullets from a Humongous Mecha.

Web Animation

• Dreamscape: Keela can create a black shield by spinning her scythe.
• DSBT InsaniT: Alex does this with a spear when Robo-Wolf shoots at him with bullets. Seth points out the impossibility of this.
  Seth: There is no humanly-possible way you could twirl your spear fast enough to deflect gunfire.
• RWBY:
  • Ruby uses this to deflect shots with her massive scythe. It seems to only work on smaller caliber weapons with larger explosives capable of getting through.
  • So does Adam — he deflects incoming fire with his sword in his character short, and he even uses it offensively — by twirling the sword so fast before throwing it as a flying buzzsaw!

Web Comics

• Cosmic Dash has the title character use this technique to deflect Sarress Aeven's thrown blades.
• Mag Isa: That's how Eman gets out of an attack from all sides.
• Rusty and Co. gives us Madeline the Paladin, who deflects some thrown daggers with her weapon (a hoe).
• User Friendly subverts this twice.
  • First by having all projectiles go through the whirl. Good thing it was a mock-figth.
  • Then by using a water balloon.

Web Videos

• In the France Five final episode, Blue Accordéon and Yellow Baguette spin their weapons to shield themselves against lightning thrown by Glou Man Chou. And they hold a conversation while doing it.
• Malachite from Suburban Knights uses his staff to block machine gun fire from Angry Joe and Obscurus Lupa.

Western Animation

• Given Aang's weapon, this is inevitable in Avatar: The Last Airbender. But he has airbending to help lend speed to his staff spin. It also creates a buffer of air that helps deflect or stop attacks, making this example somewhat justified.
• Ulrich from Code Lyoko; you'd think a Jedi Master trained him the way he can use his katana to deflect the laser fire from XANA's monsters.
• In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Whiplash 3.0 bounces IM's lasers back at him by spinning his whips.
• Looney Tunes: The 1958 Daffy Duck cartoon "Robin Hood Daffy" famously parodies this trope. Daffy, as Robin Hood, shows off his quarterstaff skills to Porky Pig, as Friar Tuck. He executes a number of maneuvers, calling his attacks, including "SPIN!" The first time he tries it he hits himself in the face. The second time, Porky inserts a little stick into the spinning quarterstaff, with the result that the staff stops spinning and Daffy starts spinning around instead. He ends up flying into the river.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Cat Noir's weapon of choice is a retractable staff, so of course he does a lot of spinning with it to deflect attacks coming from the Monster of the Week.
  • Ladybug also does it by spinning her magic yoyo; however in this case it doesn't so much deflect as create an impenetrable shield that disintegrates what's thrown at it. She uses it once to protect herself and Cat Noir from a blown-away bus; this doesn't stop it, but they end up safely inside through a perfectly round hole on its side.
• On Monster Buster Club, a floating squid-like alien can deflect laser fire by spinning its tentacles very fast. (It's not a full-body example since only the tentacles spin, as if on an organic axle, not the rest of the body.)
• Motorcity: Mike Chilton does this with his skull-staff frequently.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the episode "Daring Don't", Daring Do is seen spinning her tail to deflect a volley of arrows with a mini-tornado. Although it was a retelling by Rainbow Dash of a scene from the book, so she might be exaggerating a bit. We don't know if the true Daring Do can do it.
• Star Wars:
  • General Grievous does this much more impressively in the Star Wars: Clone Wars animation, where he attacks five Jedi at once via judicious spinning of two lightsabers and his own rotating torso.
  • In the same tradition, the inquisitors of Star Wars Rebels have lightsaber hilts that are actually built for spinning the weapon. It's noted to be very effective at frightening novice force adepts who don't know what they're doing, but close to worthless against experienced force users — like Sith Lords who don't want to risk being overthrown by their pawns.
• Jazz from Transformers: Animated can spin nunchucks to deflect lasers.
• Ruel Stroud from Wakfu can do this by spinning his shovel. Notably in season 2 episode 8, he uses the move against demonic Combat Tentacles.

Real Life

• As noted in the trope summary, the use of staff weapons to deflect arrows. The staff doesn't actually need to be spinning so fast that it's impossible for any arrows to get by, it just needs the staff wielder to have a good idea of when and where the arrow will arrive and time the spin to hit it.
• Truth in Television: There was a man who did this with an umbrella. The police tried to spray him with pepper spray and he spun his umbrella making it go into the eyes of the crowd that had gathered.
• There is an obscure weapon called an "arrow catcher", used by Gatka martial artists. It is essentially 20 chain flails, linked together to form a giant spider's web, which is then spun around quickly. It's all probably just for show though.
• Many jujutsu (and other "soft martial arts") grab defenses involve spinning your arm around the attacker's grasp to reverse the leverage advantage of the attack. A favourite of Steven Seagal.
• A fast boxer facing a slower opponent might defend from jabs by swirling his arm around the punch, allowing it to slide harmlessly along his arm rather than hit him squarely.
• That is actually the main mechanism of a fencing parry. You spin around your opponent's blade to push it out. A pair of fast and stubborn inexperienced fencers often end up playing "windshield wiper" where they both try to outspin the other.
• The clear view screen is a glass disc attached to a motor that was developed as an alternative to the rubber blade windshield wiper. The motor spins the disc at over 1000 RPM, keeping the glass free of rain and snow. The clear view itself is limited to the size of the disc, so nowadays they're usually seen only on ships and larger vehicles.
• Modern-day Samurai Isao Machii demonstrates his skills by slicing a baseball fired at him from a pitching machine at 160 KMH in half with his sword.
• The staff technique, Plum Flower, has this as an application.

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