History AwesomeButImpractical / AnimeAndManga

** In Part 5, there's Pannacotta Fugo's stand, Purple Haze. Purple Haze's ability is producing flesh-eating bacteria that kills people in 30 seconds. The problem is the viruses can't tell friend from foe and Purple Haze himself is ''extremely'' [[HairTriggerTemper short tempered]] and difficult for even Fugo to control, and ultimately his stand is a StoryBreakerPower forcing him to be PutOnABus. In "Purple Haze Feedback", Purple Haze gets a NecessaryDrawback to prevent him from being overpowered.

** Now we have Super Saiyan ''God'', a form that requires five good-hearted Saiyans donating energy to a sixth and has such a high power drain, Goku barely has time to use the thing. The next movie introduces Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, which is essentially an improved and more efficient version without all the drawbacks. The Super Saiyan God seen in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' lessens the Impractical by giving it an extended duration and making it more of a challenge for Beerus..

** Another prime example is Super Saiyan Grades 2 and 3, the "advanced" Super Saiyan forms created during the Cell Saga (not to be confused with Super Saiyan 2 and 3). These forms greatly bulk up the user and make him far more powerful, but it drains stamina and reduces speed, which makes it useless since all the power in the world does you no good if you can't hit your opponent. Goku and Vegeta figured that these forms were useless on their own[[note]]Goku instead opts to master the initial transformation and try and surpass Super Saiyan entirely, resulting in Full Power Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 2 respectively, while Vegeta works out a more efficient way to use Grade 2 to minimize the drawbacks[[/note]], but the less savvy Trunks found out the hard way when fighting Cell.
*** Super Saiyan 3 itself also counts. It's the most powerful Saiyan transformation seen in DBZ, but consumes an enormous amount of energy, which has a number of drawbacks attached to it. For example, Gotenks using SSJ3 shortens his normal FusionDance time limit from 30 minutes to 5, while Goku using the form as a delaying tactic against Fat Buu reduces the amount of time he has left during his once-in-an-afterlife visit to the mortal world. Later on, after Goku is brought back to life, he finds out that Super Saiyan 3 puts an incredible strain on the body that causes him to tire out quickly during the fight with Kid Buu. Goku later on manages to minimize these drawbacks, but by the time he does Super Saiyan 3 has become SoLastSeason.

** Speaking of the impractical, we have the Super Kaio-Ken, the combination of Super Saiyan and Kaio-Ken. Which was seen only once during Goku's filler arc battle again Pikkon (though it is mentioned again in Dragon Ball Super). This technique sounds very awesome, but it is so dangerously impractical that it results in ''instant death'', and Goku [[ItOnlyWorksOnce can't even use it again]], even while dead.

* Uryu Ishida from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' possesses an attack like this--the deadly Sprenger, which requires him to set up a pentacle of Scheele Schneiders around his opponent and detonate their stored spiritual energy in a focused blast. He remarks that the attack takes so long to set up that it's impossible to use it in battle without a partner to distract the enemy.

** The Ginyu Force's poses and set ups for their attacks. Lampshades by Goku who points out they take too long and leave themselves wide open.

*** Part's 4 The Hand is generally considered to be one of the most powerful stands in the series, not only it's strong and fast enough to keep up with Crazy Diamond but it also has the ability to erase ''anything it wants'' with it's [[MeaningfulName right hand]]. And range isn't a problem either because it can erase the space between the user and his target. In other words, The Hand is a OneHitKill machine capable of defeating almost anything with just 2 arm swings. Too bad it's user Okuyasu Nijimura is too nice to ever kill someone with it and a TooDumbToLive fighter.
** The Stand Arrow from Part 5 has the same ability as all Arrows: it jumpstarts the spiritual power of those who are it by it, leading to them either developing a Stand or dying. It is also attracted by those with enough spiritual power to successfully survive the ordeal, so you can know in advance who can survive it and who cannot. However, the Arrow can also be used to pierce a ''Stand''; doing so can result in either a massively powerful (but unpredictable) Stand, or instant death. And unlike the previous case, there's no attraction effect; you just have to stab your Stand and pray that it works.
* ''Franchise/{{Zoids}}: New Century Zero'' - Bit Cloud gets the amazing, highly offensive Panzer unit upgrade for his Liger Zero, at the cost that he ''cannot move'' (in the anime; in the manga, he can move slowly) and the zoid ''overheats'' and he nearly melts in the cockpit.
* This covers of the special "Invisible 9" units in ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'' in a nutshell, which feature soldiers transformed into supersoldiers in order to counteract design and equipment failures, or to accomplish things that could otherwise be done cheaper with technology improvements. The 908 High Temperature Troopers, for example, use souped-up flame-throwers that are so powerful they cook the users alive. Their "protective suits", rather than actually shielding them from the heat and dispersing it, are instead filled with special chemicals that keep them pain-free and able to function, though they die quickly and in hideous pain if they take the suit off.
* ''Franchise/SailorMoon'': Sailor Saturn, otherwise known as the Senshi of Ruin, has power that far eclipses the other senshi (save for Usagi herself.) In the [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]], she states that she can destroy an entire planet by herself. The downside is that using it kills her; she takes out one season's Big Bad (she gets better) and then against all the others after that never gets to use it again.
* Giga Slave from ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}''. Sure, you can destroy any enemy/mazoku with it, but chances are you're going to bring on an AssimilationPlot or [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt worse]], [[spoiler: be possessed by the (dark) creator of the Universe and most likely ''die from that mere fact'' (like it happened to Lina in ''Next'', only surviving when the Lord of Nightmares saw Gourry's UndyingLoyalty to her)]] and if/when you manage to dodge all the above, you still lose your magical powers for a few days [[ArsonmurderAndJaywalking and]] [[LockedIntoStrangeness your hair might turn white until you recover]].
* The very first episode of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' (Duel Monsters anyway) has Yami Yugi winning the match by summoning a monster named Exodia, whose power is defined as... well, ''winning the match''. Obviously it's as powerful as you can logically get, but the caveat is that you need to gather all five parts of Exodia in your hand... which is roughly equivalent to drawing a royal flush of a specific suit, one card at a time, while your opponent tries to kill you, after managing to collect five extremely expensive and rare cards, and then adding them to your deck despite the fact that they are ''absolutely useless by themselves''. When confronted with it, his opponent is suitably shocked and claims that nobody had ''ever'' managed to win this way before, which is pretty believable.
** Though later in the series we're introduced to a character whose entire deck is built around Exodia and cards to stall the game or draw cards. And a character who uses Exodia Necross, which is basically Plan B for an Exodia deck.
** There is also the anime-exclusive card "Ragnarok", which Yugi uses to finally get rid of Marik's Winged Dragon of Ra in the Battle City finals. It removes all of the cards on your opponent's field from play, which is good, but under what conditions? First, you need to have two "Dark Magician" family cards in play, which isn't hard to manage. Second, you need to remove every other monster in your hand, deck, and graveyard from play. Presumably, you could smack the opponent for 4,000+ damage with the Dark Magicians afterwards, which is more than the player starts out with, but there are easier ways than THAT. Even then, Yugi still could have lost. The real point of the move was to weaken Marik's SuperpoweredEvilSide which had fused itself to the Winged Dragon of Ra to power it up. Destroying the dragon freed Marik from his evil side's control. His evil side tried to convince Marik to continue the duel, but Marik, grateful to Yugi for freeing him and abandoning his lifelong grudge, forfeits the duel.
* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' has several Duel Disks that certainly qualify. There's one than spins like a buzzsaw, one that appears to be made of three razor blades, and one that fires cards like bullets out of a gun. A type similar to the latter shows up ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', which also features some very impractical motorcycles.
** Speaking of GX, Adrian Gecko plays a few cards in his Cloudian deck that kill him if he doesn't win that turn. Big Summon Cloud sends all the cards in his Deck to the Graveyard just to Special Summon a Cloudian from his hand. He wins anyway.
* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' has Sleeping Giant Thud, a monster that can't be beaten in battle, or spells and traps, and can destroy any monster it battles. Only problem? You can summon it only if you have a LV 1 Monster on the field for '''20 TURNS'''. In an anime where duels rarely get past 7, this is...near impossible. It's never been summoned past Team Taiyou.
* The titular character of ''Manga/ZatchBell'' has the spell "Jikerdor", which magnetizes and immobilizes enemies. Seems awesome, until you realize you need a large amount of metal for the spell to make contact with, and very rarely do the opponents conveniently fight in a location like that. In fact, a filler arc where the {{Mooks}} consisted of iron-suited baddies were the only time the spell became truly important.
* Drifting as dramatized ''Manga/InitialD'' looks good in the anime, watching the cars slide and such. But in practice, drifting is more or less a spectacle rather than an often used technique in racing. Most of the reason is because your tires will wear out very fast. Averted in the later seasons (stages) when exhibition drifting wasn't really used. The drifting in the later stages were more akin to drawn out versions of rally drifting. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKpa99O1oZ4&feature=related]]
* The Pactio cards in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' can be used for {{Telepathy}}. Cool, right? Except that you can only use them to ''send'' thoughts to a single person, who can't communicate back unless they have their pactio card with them, and telepathy is very easily blocked. Several characters point out that a cell phone is generally superior, as you have two-way communication, and can call multiple people with it. Negi also has a very limited mind-reading ability, which requires him to put his hand on his target's head for a few seconds, and walk away with maybe two words, which are likely useless. To be fair, Pactio telepathy has been around for a thousand years or more. On the other hand, telephones are less than 140 years old, and decent cell phones have only been around for less than two decades. So yeah, Pactio telepathy is far inferior to cell phones, but they've been around and in use for much longer. Modern day technology has simply made it redundant.

** Luffy's Gear Third as soon it has been used will reduce Luffy's size turning him into a midget or toddler as he is smaller than even a young child. As well as reducing his size, his power is also limited, and he loses the ability to use his Devil Fruit powers. This requires Luffy to run and hide until the effects wear off. This lasts for the same amount of time that was needed to use Gear Third. However, after [[spoiler:the TimeSkip]], he seems to be now able to use it without shrinking at all, and can use [[spoiler:the Color of Armarments Haki]] to make it even stronger.
** Also similarly ''all'' of Franky's attacks can be considered this as he uses up his cola using normal attacks, more so when he uses his charged attacks. This causes him to seek more cola. Until then his strength is severely reduced, also causing him to employ his teammates' help. Any edible liquid other than cola can be used as a power source; ''however'', doing so can and will alter his personality, to a degree which causes him to ''not'' want to attack. Therefore it is imperative that his only power source be cola.

* In ''Manga/InuYasha'', Miroku's potentially phenomenally powerful wind-tunnel, which sucks anything and everything in the vicinity into a void in his hand, is rendered and utterly useless by a permanent swarm of lethally poisonous insects called Saimyosho which constantly buzz around the main antagonists. There are a few instances in which Miroku uses the curse anyway as a last resort, but the vast majority of the time he is prevented from using it. To be fair, without the Saimyosho to balance the field, his power would be quite a GameBreaker. Also later on in ''The Final Act'', [[spoiler: Naraku orders the Saimyosho to stop protecting Hakudoshi, allowing Miroku to use the wind tunnel to destroy him]].
* ''Manga/BreakShot'': Chinmi and gang do ALL SORTS of awesome and cool and flashy shots which involve jump shots, 8 ball combos, air resistance, etc... all to sink a shot that could have been done in 1-2 normal straight shots most of the time. The crowning moment is probably when the 8 ball is in the corner pocket and all Chinmi has to do is tap it in... but he's afraid of sinking the cue ball. Does he do what any normal player would do and tap it on the side or put some backspin on it? No, he does some crazy 20 foot high jump shot!
* In the ''Manga/ShamanKing'' anime the main characters develop giant weapons referred as Giant Oversoul (Giant Spirit Control in the dub) that drain his spiritual energy. Due to the excessive use of energy the main character Yoh reduces his Oversoul-Spirit of Sword/Grand Halo Blade so that it will not use to much energy, [[spoiler: secretly making it stronger since the energy is controlled and stabilized]]. In the manga the characters instead learn the third, improved version of the Oversoul, Armor-type Oversouls, that is less tiring, stronger, and maintains furyoku.

** The power to steal souls (or portions of them) at the cost of your own
** Gaara's Armor of Sand that coats him in a skin-tight, impenetrable armor capable of blocking high-speed taijutsu. but drains his chakra much faster than his active defenses and significantly limits his movement.
** The signature jutsu of the Yamanaka Clan, the Mind Body Switch Technique. How can a jutsu that can swap your body with an enemy allowing you to do absolutely ''anything'' to them not be awesome -- by creating a technique that leaves your original body defenceless, by creating a technique that doesn't allow you to physically injure your opponent in any way because it would injure you too, by creating a technique that only moves in a straight line and is slow enough to be dodged by first year Genin, by creating a technique that uses so much chakra it can't be used immediately afterward forcing you to wait whilst your enemy uses their less stupid and useless jutsu on you. Yeah, awesome technique that. Which is why the Yamanakas have a more advanced jutsu that lets them take control of an enemy's body without losing control of their own. It's just that Ino hadn't mastered in Part 1.

** [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique The Mangekyo Sharingan]] causes its user to goes blind from overuse. And for some people "overuse" can happen rather quickly. And for [[GlassCannon Uchiha Itachi]] [[spoiler: unless in Edo Tensei form where he has unlimited stamina and chakra.]] It's much worse. Itachi is one of ''[[TheAce the strongest]]'' ninjas in the whole world, gifted with three incredibly haxxed techniques. But Itachi...has ''[[RedShirtArmy genin]]'' level stamina. He has only ''three'' uses of it before he exhausts his normal supplies of chakra, more than that ''kills him''. Using the MS five times during his battle with Sasuke is what partially killed him-accelerating his disease AND adding chakra exhaustion to boot.
** Hidan's [[VoodooDoll curse jutsu]]. It is a highly complex technique to follow: first, Hidan must ingest the blood of an opponent, from which he must then undergo that skeleton man transformation and then draw a large Jashin marking (an upside down triangle within a circle) on the ground. So long as he's within the circle, the jutsu is active, whereas if he moves out of it the jutsu is cancelled out; which means he's now stationary. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, then there's the real clincher: it can only be used on one opponent at a time. That's right, after all that setup, Hidan can only inflict damage on one target, all the while remaining vulnerable to said target's teammates, who can more or less work to force him out of the circle. Oh yeah, and due to the nature of the jutsu, whatever damage Hidan wishes to inflict on the target he has to inflict on himself first; in other words, if it weren't for his immortality, he would have to kill himself just to take out one guy. Overall, the jutsu seems to only work for sadomasochists (which Hidan happens to be); otherwise there are far more efficient and effective techniques in the Naruto universe. It wouldn't be so bad if Hidan just slit his throat or has Kakuzu taking care of the other enemies the moment the ritual is complete but being part of his religious process and his inherent sadism makes him take his time.
** Kakashi's Chidori was this when he first developed it. The extra speed and power the technique grants its user also causes tunnel vision, making it impossible to avoid counterattacks. His teacher Minato (the future Fourth Hokage) warned him not to use it again since it was an incomplete technique. A Sharingan can remove the tunnel vision, making the Chidori more practical in the hands of a Sharingan-user (if it could actually kill someone).

** Parts 1 and 2 have Hamon/Ripple abilities. Hamon users can control energy using special breathing techniques, allowing the user to [[GoodThingYouCanHeal rapidly heal wounds,]] [[ArmorPiercingAttack send impacts through solid objects,]] and, most notably, kill Vampires by simulating sunlight. This all sounds amazing, but once one gets past the grueling training (which is supposed to take ''years'') they find out that Hamon techniques require uninterrupted breathing, full range of movement, and proper blood flow in order to use. So if the user is underwater, is having their blood sucked, is frightened, has frostbite, has their limbs tied, is being choked, is in a cramped space, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking or is just tired,]] then Hamon is unusable. These all sound like extraneous circumstances, but the Hero is fighting Vampires, ([[CaptainObvious that suck blood]]) the leader of which can [[AnIcePerson freeze anything he touches.]] All of these weaknesses are highlighted in every Hamon fight in part 1.
** There are also many special cases where the only weakness a stand has is it's own user. Part 3 has Iggy's The Fool, a stand made of sand/dirt that can shapeshift at will and virtually immune to any kind of damage, and Pet Shop's Horus who can manipulate ice at will. The only problem with them is, well, Iggy is just a tiny dog and Pet Shop is just a bird who died after a single bite.

* ''Manga/Eyeshield21'' explains that this is the underdogs by necessity. A training that can give the mostly rookie team the equivalent of three years of physical conditioning for the sport? Awesome but there is a significant chance that the training cripple you for life. Perform onside kick after onside kick since the defense can't stop the others attack power? Awesome but statistically the other team will still get his hands on the ball more times than you even with a great kicker. Fly over the line for a 2 point conversion? Awesome but can be done only once per late game since the star player will likely get his shoulder dislocated if he keeps doing it. Yet sink or swim plays such as these are the only viable choices when the other teams are leagues above the underdogs since not only can they turn the table but psyche out the other team.

** The Ginyu Force's poses and set ups for their attacks. Lampshaded by Goku who points out they take too long and leave themselves wide open.

*** Speaking of ''Resurrection F'', Frieza's new Golden form also qualifies. While it gives him speed and power surpassing the improved Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan/ Super Saiyan Blue ''while holding back to torture Goku as slowly as possible'', he practically bleeds stamina, meaning that he can only maintain it for a couple of minutes at full strenght before it starts weakening, after which it quickly peters out and leaves him completely gassed out afterwards. This is entirely Frieza's fault; as Vegeta surmises, once he achieved the form he immediately rushed to Earth to take his revenge, rather than undergoing any further training in order to address the flaw. Dragon Ball Super makes it less impractical as Frieza can control his power in the form, allowing him to last a while longer than in the film while holding back (although he still kicks Goku's ass, and he is still burning Ki at an accelerated rate), but conversely he burns out after only a minute of using his full power. [[spoiler:In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper''[='s=] Universal Survival arc, we find out that Frieza spent his time back in hell ''fixing'' that problem, making him ''so much stronger''.]]

** The Ginyu Force's poses and set ups for their attacks. Lampshades by Goku who points out they take too long and leave themselves wide open.

** [[WeakButSkilled Krillin]]'s [[AbsurdlySharpBlade Kienzan/Destructo Disc]] is one of the deadliest techniques ever created in all of Dragon Ball as it was confirmed by WordOfGod that it can cut through anything. ''Anything''. It's essentially a OneHitKill, but it has one fatal and significant flaw... [[BlessedWithSuck Krillin can't control it once he throws it]].[[note]]It also has [[CallingYourAttacks another flaw]], but that one is Krillin's fault, not inherent to the attack itself. And yes, calling it ''does'' allow his target to dodge the perfect assassination skill.[[/note]] Also, Toriyama negated his own WordOfGod when a canonically ambiguous ''mook'' was able to catch it and throw it back, and again much later when a much more powerful Krillin tried it on Cell, who could ignore it entirely.
*** The Destructo Disc's flaw is highlighted when compared to [[BigBad Frieza's]] death saucer attack which not only creates two discs, but allows the user to mentally control them to home after their target. This attack ''does'' wind up backfiring on Frieza far, far worse than Krillin's inferior version ever did, but due to his own lack of attention.

*** Speaking of ''Resurrection F'', Frieza's new Golden form also qualifies. While it gives him speed and power surpassing the improved Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan/ Super Saiyan Blue ''while holding back to torture Goku as slowly as possible'', he practically bleeds stamina, meaning that he can only maintain it for a couple of minutes at full strenght before it starts weakening, after which it quickly peters out and leaves him completely gassed out afterwards. This is entirely Frieza's fault; as Vegeta surmises, once he achieved the form he immediately rushed to Earth to take his revenge, rather than undergoing any further training in order to address the flaw. Dragon Ball Super makes it less impractical as Frieza can control his power in the form, allowing him to last a while longer than in the film while holding back (although he still kicks Goku's ass, and he is still burning Ki at an accelerated rate), but conversely he burns out after only a minute of using his full power.

** [[BullyAndWimpPairing Crona and Ragnarok's]] partnership. The good: first they have scream resonance. It's a unique resonance that greatly uplifts their already amazing powers. Second, Ragnarok's black blood hardens within Crona's body to make even the strongest of attacks barely faze [[AmbiguousGender him/her]]. In the rare occasions that Crona does bleed, the black blood will become another offense for Ragnarok to control while Crona attacks. Plus, the more souls Ragnarok eats, like with most weapons, the more powerful he becomes, only the fact that he eats the souls of those who aren't on death's list ends up making him even MORE powerful, and causes him to change form; going from a small creature, to a huge muscle god, to an even more muscular dragon. The bad: The more of these illegal souls Ragnarok consumes, the more insane he and Crona become. And they weren't exactly pillars of sanity to begin with. Also, when their souls are disrupted, it may cause them to go through soul rejection, as two beings aren't truly meant to share a single body. It is unknown if this can kill them, however. There's also the fact that consuming so many illegal souls may also result in Ragnarok losing his mind and consuming Crona's soul. Later on in the series, Crona and Ragnarok [[spoiler: return to Medusa and descend even further into madness, causing them to gain an evolved versian of Black Blood called ''Mad Blood'', which is so powerful it can flood entire cities with black blood, and if anyone tries to break hardened mad blood, they will go insane]], the problem is, as stated above, to have such a power, Crona has to be so dangerously close to madness, that even standing near him/her is a total danger.

* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'': Revy's twin shoulder rig for her pistols wouldn't exactly work in real life. With the exception of a sitting position, it'd be too easy to lose the guns if you move too much. That being said, they do earn major style points.

** [[WeakButSkilled Krillin]]'s [[AbsurdlySharpBlade Kienzan/Destructo Disc]] is one of the deadliest techniques ever created in all of Dragon Ball as it was confirmed by WordOfGod that it can cut through anything. ''Anything''. It's essentially a OneHitKill, but it has one fatal and significant flaw... [[BlessedWithSuck Krillin can't control it once he throws it]].[[note]]It also has [[CallingYourAttacks another flaw]], but that one is Krillin's fault, not inherent to the attack itself. And yes, calling it ''does'' allow his target to dodge the perfect assassination skill.[[/note]]
*** The Destructo Disc's flaw is highlighted when compared to [[BigBad Frieza's]] death saucer attack which not only creates two discs, but allows the user to mentally control them to home after their target. This attack ''does'' wind up backfiring on Frieza far, far worse than Krillin's inferior version ever did, but due to his own stupidity.

*** As of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', Akira Toriyama has [[WordOfGod declared]] that both Super Saiyan 2 and 3 fall under this trope, draining stamina at an increased rate while not offering enough of a power increase to justify it. As a result, Goku and Vegeta have mostly abandoned these forms, using them only on rare occasions and instead focusing on increasing their power in their normal states and the original Super Saiyan transformation.

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' has the titular character's [[WaveMotionGun Starlight Breaker]]. It required a really long charge time so its caster must be protected or the target needs to be immobile, and its strength is only equivalent to the total amount of scattered mana in the area, making this technique only suitable as a last resort. It also practically guarantees victory if it is cast successfully. Hayate Yagami also views her abilities in this regard, as her techniques are mostly large scale heavy bombardment spells that require a full unit of BridgeBunnies to help her aim if Rein is not around. Hayate's literally incapable of using weaker, and generally more practical, spells.

** Hidan's [[VoodooDoll curse jutsu]]. It is a highly complex technique to follow: first, Hidan must ingest the blood of an opponent, from which he must then undergo that skeleton man transformation and then draw a large Jashin marking (an upside down triangle within a circle) on the ground. So long as he's within the circle, the jutsu is active, whereas if he moves out of it the jutsu is cancelled out; which means he's now stationary. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, then there's the real clincher: it can only be used on one opponent at a time. That's right, after all that setup, Hidan can only inflict damage on one target, all the while remaining vulnerable to said target's teammates, who can more or less work to force him out of the circle. Oh yeah, and due to the nature of the jutsu, whatever damage Hidan wishes to inflict on the target he has to inflict on himself first; in other words, if it weren't for his immortality, he would have to kill himself just to take out one guy. Overall, the jutsu seems to only work for sadomasochists (which Hidan happens to be); otherwise there are far more efficient and effective techniques in the Naruto universe.

** And now, we have [[spoiler:Soifon's bankai]], which is big, clunky, requires three days for full recovery from ''one'' use, and above all ''loud'' and ''flashy'', not exactly the best tool for a (covert) assassin.

*** Seven Swords... Why on Earth would anyone find it necessary to carry seven swords on one Mobile Suit? It only has two hands to hold them, after all. Sure, it's awesome and Setsuna manages to put all swords to use once, but the one time he does it on-screen, he destroys six of the Seven Swords, just because he had to destroy the enemy he'd stabbed six of the swords into. [[AllThereInTheManual Various sidestories and Gunpla instructions]] revealed that the Exia's successors, the 00 and the 00 Qan[T], also had Seven Swords types. Both were designed to help stabilize the Twin Drive Systems and both were rendered unneeded due to various reasons (focusing on the 0 Raiser and the 00 Qan[T] not needing extra equipment to reach full synchronization).
*** Dynames' GN Full Shield counts too, since its huge size makes it impossible for Lockon to use the shield and snipe at the same time (the shield covers the entire front, save the head). In fact, the only time the GN Full Shield becomes remotely useful is during the first Lockon's final battle, while he's using the GN Arms, [[spoiler:and when the GN Arms Type-D is destroyed and Dynames fights on its own, its arms and legs are blown off, so the shield is just drifting through space, being utterly and completely useless]].

* Subverted in the "Phantom Bullet" arc of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'': [[LaserBlade Photon Swords]] in ''Gun Gale Online'' possessed incredible attack power, but were considered this trope due to their limited range, meaning that by the time anyone got close enough to attack with one, they'd be riddled with bullets. Kirito, however, manages to transform the Photon Sword into a LethalJokeWeapon, using his personal experience in VRMMO games that emphasized swordfighting to not only dodge bullets, but [[ParryingBullets deflect them using his Photon Sword]] before going in for the kill.

* ''Break Shot'' manga. Chinmi and gang do ALL SORTS of awesome and cool and flashy shots which involve jump shots, 8 ball combos, air resistance, etc... all to sink a shot that could have been done in 1-2 normal straight shots most of the time. The crowning moment is probably when the 8 ball is in the corner pocket and all Chinmi has to do is tap it in... but he's afraid of sinking the cue ball. Does he do what any normal player would do and tap it on the side or put some backspin on it? No, he does some crazy 20 foot high jump shot!

** The forces of the Japanese government opposing BigBad Chief Kakuzawa cook up Vector Tanks, essentially giant Diclonius brains as combat vehicles. Problem--they're only useful against Diclonius, and shake apart when confronting an amped-up Lucy.

** This is probably the reason why there are only two known Belkan Unison Devices running around when the TSAB presumably has the capacity to make them. While they do grant an enormous power boost to their lord, they have to be compatible for it to work properly (and compatibility is innate rather than being developed). Plus, Unison Devices are {{Living Weapon}}s, so they can end up overtaking the person they're in unison with.