Spirit Bomb - Television Tropes & Idioms

He's got the whole world, in his hands...

Dark King: Where do you get such power?
Nagisa: You've made a mistake! You're not just fighting the two of us...
Honoka: ...you're fighting all the life on this world! All that life us connected through us!

— Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart

A special attack that uses the abilities of everyone in a cast, with the coup-de-grace being delivered by the lead. This can be literal energy or a special coordinated team attack. Often made possible By The Power Of Greyskull.

A common subtext to the trope is that the worst villains are inevitably weaker because they don't have friends to rely on (see The Power Of Friendship). It's also a handy way of showing that the hero is very strong without nullifying the importance of the other cast members.

Often combined with Gondor Calls For Aid. May be fueled by Innocent Bystanders Fighting For Survival. May include the Power Of Trust and/or Clap Your Hands If You Believe. Not to be confused with Combination Attack or Combining Mecha.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Naturally, Goku's Spirit Bomb in Dragonball Z, which is powered by living things lending their energy to a good heart. This evolves throughout the series. The first time it's used, it's just the planet's power itself. The second time draws on the power of other planets and moons nearby. The third time, everybody on Earth sent power, only to be outdone by the final time, where everybody in the universe helped. Every time, doing this took forever. It should be noted that despite all the trouble involved in using it, until the very end of DBZ the Spirit Bomb never actually works.
- That's ok, everything takes forever in Dragonball.
- It should be noted, that there's very good excuses for the first two attempts not working: Vegeta was hit with a diminished Spirit Bomb (delivered second hand by Krillin; Goku seemed to know it would only buy them time). The second time, he had to draw from the planets because Frieza had killed all the life on Namek. (That, and Frieza couldn't be defeated until the legendary Super Saiyan appeared)
- Plus it tends to work pretty well on The Movies.
- It worked in GT.
  - In what?
- Ironicly the Dragon Ball Z fan community plans to use a 'Spirit Bomb' In Name Only to stop Eagleland's evil Fox from making a sequil to Dragon Ball Evloution. The plan involves combining the hopes and dreams (foul language ridden Youtube videos) of all "True Dragon Ball Fans" (Vocial Minority because most couldn't care less)
  - low Ticket sales make it unlikely regardless of the fan's 'super powers'
The "Sailor Planet Attack" and "Sailor Teleport" occasionally used in Sailor Moon. Not to forget the entire Sailor Team combining their powers to give Sailor Moon a mandatory power-up at the beginning of the fifth season, and her using support from Earth's entire population to defeat the Big Bad in the fourth.
- It's actully Chibi-Moon who calls on the people of the earth. Still counts though
Ichigo powers up temporarily at times in Tokyo Mew Mew by taking on some of her friends' powers. In the manga, this also takes their weapons and combines them into the gigantic Strawberbell Version Up.
Episode 13 of Keroro Gunsou has the Keroro Platoon beating rival alien invader Viper by going into a series of Toku/Sentai inspired poses, leaps, and sound effects, ending in a team-up super-attack based around basketball metaphors (though Keroro messes up and uses golf).
Yes! Precure 5, halfway through, gives the girls weapons. Combining the five weapons together turns them into a giant mecha-butterfly, allowing the girls to perform Pretty Cure Five Explode. In Yes! Pretty Cure 5GoGo!, they all get swords, allowing Pretty Cure Rainbow Rose Explode, which involves combining giant man-eating flowers. Yes.
Digimon Adventure: Taking out a Big Bad required Angemon to use the digivolving power of all other characters and funnel it into his attack.
- Angewomon's debut required everyone's attacks (including Angemon's) to take out a badder Big Bad.
- The second Digimon movie had Izzy redirecting billions of emails from around into the Big Bad, causing him to slow down to a crawl from the lag.
- And the fourth movie had half of Tokyo redirecting its collective goodwill for the heroes through their cellphones, which inexplicably took the form of a BFS for their 30-foot-tall cyborg dragon-man.
Digimon Frontier's highest Evolutionary Levels required that all the other characters' powers be given to the two who can evolve that far, essentially resulting in all but those two being Brought Down To Normal (as once villains started getting tough enough to require these forms frequently, most of the characters' roles became to simply give their powers to The Hero and The Lancer and get out of the way.)
- Of course, then they realized that this strategy didn't work, as the only time they even managed to frighten the current villains was when they all used their normal transformations along with some of the dead bad guys. Subverted Trope? Maybe.
- Then there's the battle with Icedevimon, in which the two most powerful Digivices are "frozen," forcing the others to pick up the slack. Yes, it was a little hokey that a Champion-level could isolate Digivices, but if it means I get to see some more buttkicking action from the sidekicks, I'm not complaining!
  - The final evolution was the ultimate example though, merging all the good guys and defeated foes to work together.
In the final episode of Shaman King, Yoh defeats Hao by channeling the spiritual energy of everyone on Earth.
Sky Girls Delta Lock (OVA and TV) and Quadra Lock (TV only) attacks which are used to dispatch each Monster of the Week.
The third season of Slayers ends this way, with Lina doing the honors.
A good deal of battles, particularly arc-ending battles in Saint Seiya end with Athena's Saints (usually just the Bronze Saints, but sometimes the Golds if they're available) willingly relinquishing their Cosmo to either Seiya or Athena herself to deal the final blow. Even more notable in that the Saints' patron constellations (like Cygnus, Draco, Phoenix, Andromeda, or Pegasus) manifest visually as helpers to the character delivering the attack.
The Spiral Light spell in Magic Knight Rayearth is the team-based version, wherein Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu combine their Fire, Water, and Wind magic in a singular attack that they deliver simultaneously.
- Of course, their ability to defeat Lady Debonair in the anime because everyone is believing in them is the second. "CURSE YOU, MAGIC KNIGHTS! CURSE YOU, PEOPLE OF CEPHIRO, AND CURSE THE HEART THAT BELIEVES!"
Ronin Warriors has the Armor of Inferno which is the merging of all the armors of the team.
Zettai Karen Children has Kaoru attempting one of these in a clear parody of the Dragon Ball one, only she asks for the energy of perverts.
Towards the end of the Thriller Bark arc of One Piece, the Straw Hats (plus Brook who hadn't officially joined yet) finished Gecko Moria's biggest baddest zombie, Oz, by combining their talents to get him into position for and receive the maximum amount of damage from Luffy's final attack.
During the showdown with Nakago in Fushigi Yugi, Miaka and the other Celestial warriors send all of their power to Tamahome to enable him to take Nakago down.
Pokemon Special is pretty fond of this. The two main instances are at the end of Yellow saga, where Red tells his fellows to send all their power to Yellow so she can unleash Pika's Megavolt on Lance, and at the end of Emerald saga where the ten Pokedex holders command the ultimate techniques - Frenzy Plant, Hydro Cannon, Blast Burn, and Volt Tackle - from their Pokemon to defeat the Kyogre illusion.
The Shuffle Doumeiken (Shuffle Alliance Attack) from G Gundam. Similar is one of Kyral's ultimate attacks, which super-charges his allies with power, turning them all into highly destructive comets.
Chain/Team Soul Resonance in the Soul Eater anime. Best demonstrated during the Brew arc by Maka, Black Star and Kid, where the combination of the soul wavelengths enhanced the group's strength, awareness, and agility as a team (at one point, Maka 'knows' when to duck after attacking Mosquito, just in time for Kid to shoot him at close range). The team effort was concluded with the Soul Resonance attacks of each team, ending with Maka's newly-realised Demon Hunter.
- Not so in the manga, where Soul ends his black-blood provoked piano recitation before Maka attacks.
- The second team of students, made up of Ox, Kirikou and Kim, also use the technique during the same mission.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has the Giga Dril Breaker, which is already a powerful and awesome attack on its own, get an upgrade in the movie. The spirits of everyone in the DaiGurren-dan are infused into it, allowing Simon to blast through the generals' gestalt Gunmen. It's pretty awesome.
- The Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann from the end is a closer example.
The final battle with Yakumo in Yu Yu Hakusho Poltergeist Report should count here. Yusuke's Spirit Gun, Hiei's Dragon, and Kurama's Whip, and Kuwabara's spiritual energy sent Yakumo through a skyscraper, top to bottom. It may not have completely killed him, but it was pretty damn cool.
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yami Yugi defeats Yami Marik and the Winged Dragon of Ra in the Battle City finals with "Ragnarok," a card that removes every monster from his Deck and Graveyard from play for its cost. All the monsters then come out and lift Ra out of the field, including Kuriboh! (In the manga, they cling onto Ra and explode.)
In the Gash Bell The Movie, the spell Bird Force combines the powers of Gash and his friends into a giant Pheonix.

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Comic Books

Film

"Angels in the Outfield": In the deciding game, a variation of this is used: No angels will show up because they want the baseball team to win the game on their own and prove to themselves that they can do it. However, to inspire Mel, the pitcher, to strike out the final batter, coach Knox and Roger fake an angel appearance by using the "angel signal" to trick Mel into thinking he has an angel with him. What Knox and Roger didn't anticipate was that the entire stadium full of fans would mimic the signal in order to give Mel the confidence and courage needed to throw one more strike. After he gets the last out, Knox tells Mel the truth.

Literature

The "prayers of the saints" are what literally empower God's Angels in This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness by Frank E. Peretti.
Similarly to Amterasu in Okami, deities in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books do not, specifically "attack" anything, beyond the odd thunderbolt, but they require the belief of their followers in order to maintain power and status as gods. Some gods go to great lengths to prevent this from happening-Blind Io, for example, is in fact EVERY thunder god in every pantheon across the Disc, and has over seventy hammers, thus ensuring that even if one particular thunder god's worshippers die out or convert, he is still riding the gravy train in Dunmanifestin.
- The Great God Om, in "Small Gods", was very nearly reduced to the wisp of consciousness that is the fate of all fallen gods, because all but one of his worshippers had gradually stopped worshipping him and started worshipping the rites, ceremonies, and sermons.
The Children of the Lens, in the Lensman series, focus the Psychic Powers of trillions of Lensmen across two galaxies into a single blast which finally destroys the evil Eddorians.
Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion has a story in which several incarnations (Erekose, Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum as far as this troper remembers) come together from their own universes, and combine into a single super-champion to defeat a powerful sorceror. (Or more than one story - I remember at least two versions, one with three of those champions and a later one with all four, possibly from the perspective of a different champion... Moorcock likes rewriting his stories.)
This is basically the point of Tamora Pierce's original Circle Of Magic series — in Sandry's Book, the title character weaves together the magics of the four leads, making them all stronger, and each of the subsequent book titles (Tris's Book, Daja's Book, Briar's Book) tells you which of the four takes the initiative this time in using their combined magics to resolve the plot.

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Live Action TV

In Buffy The Vampire Slayer's season four finale, "Primeval", Buffy's friends pump up her strength with theirs using a magic spell, so that she can fight the demonic cyborg Adam.
Most seasons of Power Rangers feature an uberweapon formed by combining the melee weapons of the individual rangers.
- Also used in the Power Rangers Mystic Force finale, when the human and mystic communities unite and their support supercharges the Rangers' magic.
In the Doctor Who episode "The Last of the Time Lords", over the past year, Martha has been travelling the world, telling people to think of the Doctor at precisely zero on the Master's countdown; the Doctor, interfaced with these people through the Master's own psychic control network, shines with power and defeats the Master. Some thought this ridiculously cheesy and What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic?, while others thought it incredibly awesome.
In the finale of Kamen Rider Den-O, the super-powerful Death Imagin is defeated by a Spirit Bomb version of Den-O Sword Form's Extreme Slash, where the blade detaches and strikes the opponent...except that this time, each of Ryotaro's allies "catches" the blade in mid-flight, imbues it with some of their power, and throws it at Death, before Den-O catches the blade, dashes in, and hacks it up with a flurry of All Your Colors Combined slashes.
In Kamen Rider Decade All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker, King Dark is defeated by Decade merging with J, forming a gigantic Decade, then performing his standard leap-through-cards Rider Kick...except that all the other Riders turn into the cards themselves, each donating their power to Decade as he passes through. Crowning Moment Of Awesome? Yes, why yes.
An interesting inversion in Volume 5 of Heroes. It's been revealed that Big Bad Samuel Sullivan's Earth Bending ability is powered by the presence of evolved humans. It's strongly hinted that if he gathers enough followers at the Carnival, he'd gain the power to split the Earth in half.

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Video Games

The final stage of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan involves the cheerleader protagonists leading the people of Earth as they combine their ki into a massive blast of energy in order to save the world from impact with a huge meteor. In Ouendan 2, the two rival cheerleading teams join up to cheer the people of Earth on as they combine their power to keep the sun from going out. In the American version/spiritual successor Elite Beat Agents, our heroes do much the same thing to destroy the mothership of the music-hating aliens invading the Earth.
In the final stage of Space Channel 5, the Big Bad disables the sound system on Ulala's spaceship, rendering her unable to follow his patterns... until the scores of people she helped in the game previously show up and provide music in the form of an a capella version of "Mexican Flyer", the game's theme song. At the climax, the people focus their energy on a radio antenna in order to power up an energy blast big enough to blow away the bad guy.
The Drive system of Kingdom Hearts 2 falls into this trope (not to be confused with the wide variaty of combination attacks possible). Sora can temporaraly use the power of one or both of his allys to access more powerful abilities.
Earth Bound's final boss fight ends on such a note as well through the Prayer ability, invoking the prayers of everyone the heroes have encountered, ever — eventually breaking the Fourth Wall and asking the player for his prayers.
There's not one, but two Spirit Bombs in Skies Of Arcadia. The first, Prophecy, has the entire party call down a giant moon on their opponents for a huge amount of damage. The second, Blue Rogues, has the crew of the party's ship either dealing damage to the enemies or healing the party. Either Spirit Bomb also makes the enemies skip their turn. Both of these require your Spirit Points be at full, though, so most players don't use them often.
Though it is not a specific attack, Amaterasu in Okami was only able to gather the energy needed to defeat the Big Bad when the world finally realizes that she's more or less God and offer her their prayers.
In the final battle of Final Fantasy IV, after the entire party is wiped out by Zeromus' Cutscene Power To The Max attack, they are brought back to life and restored to full health by the prayers of all the other Player Characters and important NPCs they've met over the course of their journey.
- This includes a character who died partway through the game.
- Pretty much exactly the same thing happens at the end of Final Fantasy III, including the Dead Ex Machina.
The prayers of everyone on Earth help empower Mega Man in Mega Man Battle Network 4 when he's challenging an alien who has put Humanity On Trial.
- and at the end of Mega Man Star Force 1 Luna, her two cronies, Sonia, Pat Sprigs (Gemini Spark) give their power to Mega Man Geo-Omega so he can blow up andromeda and save the world.
At the end of Paper Mario, the wishes of everyone in the world empower the living stars to grant Mario the Eleventh Hour Superpower he needs to counter Bowser's new superpowers.
- Also spoofed in the same scene where When everyone is wishing for Mario's success a young toad is shown wishing for Shroom Cake.
- Likewise, during the final battle in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the wishes of everyone Mario has helped give him the strength to confront the Shadow Queen.
In The Legend Of Zelda: The Windwaker, the Master Sword can only harm Ganondorf if the descendants of the Sages are praying for Link's success within their temples.
In Breath Of Fire 3, there's a dragon form that is different depending on which characters you have in your party.
- In the original Breath Of Fire there's one character who powers up by merging with the other characters, and the final dragon form combines everyone.
The various Team Attacks of the Suikoden series call upon the various interpersonal relationships between the Loads And Loads Of Characters — be it love, loyalty, family, Nakama, friendship, camaraderie, or even rivalry. For the most part, this results in attacks that are significantly stronger than the sum of their parts... though not always.
In Eternal Fighter Zero, Ikumi Amasawa's Final Memory attack, "Sword of Friendship", calls out her four friends from the game MOON to attack her foe, with Ikumi herself delivering the final blow. If the attack doesn't finish off the opponent, Ikumi and her friends will strike a pose together as her opponent plummets back down to the ground.
- The way it's executed is a huge Shout Out to Captain Commando's Captain Storm, not that it's any different from any of the other countless shout outs in the game...
The final battle of Persona 3 has the Main Character powering up his Universe arcana through the willpower of the rest of the cast.
- And even before the battle, he had acquired the power of The Universe through the bonds he had forged with various other characters.
- This happens again in Persona 4, in both forms. After technically beating the Cosmic Horror and learning that they can't proverbially punch out Cthulhu, the Protagonist collects the powers of the bonds he's formed and summons his ultimate Persona to deliver a proper knockout blow on behalf of humanity.
The last boss of Klonoa: Door To Phantomile is defeated by using the 5 Moon Cannons, ancient weapons each owned by one of the 5 tribes of the world, which only work when fired all together. Klonoa's job is to toss monsters into them as ammunition, but to finish it off, he has to launch his best friend Huepow at it as a projectile. Huepow survives, but barely.
An outright shameless 'Spirit Bomb' appears in Wild ARMs 4, in the form of the Arc Impulse group attack. Initially just an energy blast the four character pull off by reciting, rather cheesily, about positive philosophical concepts, the final boss being reduced to 1HP grants them an 'upgraded version' with which to strike the killing blow. This version results in the four pulling together a giant, combined ARM, and reciting a new set of cheesy philosophical lines, proceed to blast it into oblivion. Needless to say, this troper found it was freaking brilliant given how unashamedly the sequence was handled.
- Arc Impulse's first appearance in the series was very similar: in the final battle of WA2, the main character uses it, gaining more and more power from the wishes and friendship of just about everyone in the world, dealing more and more damage to the final boss, until the protagonist's Love Interest makes her speech...which, of course, gives him enough strength to deal a whopping 99,999 damage, destroying the boss for good. Forget "freaking brilliant," this is quite possibly the series' ultimate Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
Phantasy Star IV allows the P Cs to combine their attacks. The immensely powerful Destruction combination attack requires simultaneous action all four mandatory party members: three combine their most explosive attacks, and the fourth puts up a shield so the party doesn't get nuked.
This happens in the final boss battle of The World Ends With You. Although you start the battle alone and almost hopeless since your partners are absorbed/captured by Megumi, dealing damage allows Shiki, Joshua, and Beat to send their light pucks to Neku, multiplying your damage ratio higher and higher until Neku finishes the fight by funneling it all into his hand and firing it as a beam of light, actually ripping Draco Cantus' flesh off of its bones. and you though nekozilla was a powerful fusion.
How could ever forget about the ending to Warcraft 3: Reign Of Chaos. Thousands of wisps simultaneously detonating packs enough life energy to cause the demon Archimonde (who managed to trash you and your allies bases in the last mission of all the campaigns) to explode in a massive firestorm.

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