History ConservationOfNinjutsu / AnimeAndManga

* Initially Averted in Manga/DetectiveConan when a case leads Conan, Ran and Sonoko deep into the woods to face the [[MonsterOfTheWeek murderer of the week]], only for it turn out that he has a small army (~50) of Main/{{Yakuza}} on his payroll. While [[ActionGirl Ran]] manages to hold them of for a while, she still clearly overwhelmed. Its then played straight though when [[spoiler: [[OneManArmy Makoto]] shows up out of nowhere]]. And together [[BackToBackBadasses he and Ran]] have no problem dispatching the rest of the Yakusa. Despite still being heavily outnumbered.

* Played with in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV''. The [[EliteMooks Obelisk Force]] usually defies this trope by having 3 of them gang up on 1 or 2 opponents and then crushing them through using the nature of Battle Royal duels to their advantage (largely by attacking said opponents before they get a turn). Played straight (even exaggerated) in other cases, such as [[spoiler: Kaito]] taking down an entire battalion of unnamed Academia students by himself, or Yuri [[OneHitPolykill simultaneously annihilating]] 5 renegade students [[CurbStompBattle without taking damage]]. Justified in some of these cases with the side of one using monsters that can attack multiple times or otherwise benefit from a target-rich environment, such as Shun/[[DubNameChange Shay]] and his Raidraptor - Rise Falcon.

* Saito from ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' took on about a couple thousand soldiers alone at the end of the second season and took down most of them before falling and being revived by a wood elf.

* ''LightNovel/{{Inukami}}'': Sendan's group, even as a whole, is less powerful than Youko is by herself. Subverting the trope, they're even worse off when fighting individually.

* In ''Anime/Persona4GoldenTheAnimation'', due to Yu Narukami revisiting the Inaba Murders under a NewGamePlus, he brings a fully-leveled Izanagi to the ''tutorial'', which results in millions of Shadows to show up and all are effectively slaughtered with Maziodyne, Vorpal Blade and Megidolaon.

* ''LightNovel/FateZero'''s Assassin invokes this trope; his body-splitting ability divides his stats among the split bodies, making each one very weak. But all the Assassins are trounced by [[spoiler:Rider's army]], which greatly outnumbers them. And then [[spoiler:Archer effortlessly defeats Rider and his entire army, thanks to his ludicrously overpowered ''universe-destroying'' Noble Phantasm]].

* In the first series of ''Lightnovel/FullMetalPanic'', most major arcs end with a showdown between the protagonist Sousuke who fights the BigBad Gauron, who fights using an Arm Slave equipped with a Lambda Driver, which makes it nigh invincible for all intents and purposes. In each encounter, Sousuke is pushed to the brink of his physical limits just trying to take down one of these things. At the end of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, he has an encounter with five enemies who are using the same invincibility device he struggled against in season one, and dispatches all five of them with relative ease.

* Two legendary ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' scenes are made up of this trope. In the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', Amuro's awakening Newtype powers are revealed when he pushes the RX-78 Gundam to take out 12 Rick Doms, then Zeon's newest and strongest {{Mook}} unit, in three minutes. 20-some years later, Kira uses the Strike Freedom Gundam to defeat 12 [=GOUFs=] in 2 minutes in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]''.
** This is a pretty common trope in Gundam media, 1 ace pilot will take out dozens of mooks on either side of the war regardless of whether they're fighting for or against the good guys without taking a scratch, only when it's ace vs ace do they end up losing. The aces are not only the best pilots on their side, they usually in some of the best mobile suits their side has to offer.
** This trope is played with in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. At the start of the first series, the SuperPrototype Gundams steamroller all non-[[AppliedPhlebotinum GN]]-powered suits... Until one episode, where the world's 3 main superpowers team-up to defeat them, and it almost works, if not for [[spoiler: TheCavalry showing up]]. Then, when {{Mook}} tech levels catch up, the Gundams are on the back foot again... until the second series. [[Anime/Gundam00AWakeningOfTheTrailblazer The movie]], on the other hand, averts this trope nicely. The ELS, which number in the '' '''TRILLIONS''' '', trounce the mere hundreds of thousands of Earth forces, [[spoiler: Gundams included]], with barely any effort, and would easily win, if not for [[spoiler: Setsuna]].
* Most ''Franchise/Gundam'' shows make use of this trope, but some do it more than others:

** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny'' does it just as much as its predecessor when it comes to its treatment of mooks, often with stock footage outright reused from the first show. It also has the particularly standout example of the Destroy Gundams: the first unit, piloted by a named character TykeBomb, takes several episodes to beat and manages to destroy most of Europe in the process. When five are deployed at once later on, with another named villain in one of them, they're defeated without much trouble. When three are fielded at the same time and ''none'' of them have named pilots, it's almost a non-event.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' mostly manages to avoid it, as the main characters are typically portrayed as UnskilledButStrong and a superior numerical force is one of the tactics that their opponents frequently use to gain an advantage over them. The last battle, however, features the trope taken to the point of absurdity when the BigBad loads thousands of clones of a previous villain into what are essentially piloted missiles, and the main characters proceed to mow down dozens of the clones per second.

* ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' normally plays this straight early on, with dozens of relatively strong monsters losing to a single strong hero and vice versa, it brutally averts this trope throughout the Monster Association Arc. This is most notable during [[spoiler: Atomic Samurai (Or any Hero barring Saitama) vs. Black Sperm]], where the latter's ability to overwhelm with numbers makes quick work of what would be serious opposition in a one on one battle, or how a group of middling heroes manage to become a serious threat to [[spoiler: Garou]] of all people when working effectively together.

** This is very common in the franchise. If it's a one-on-one duel, you can basically count on the victor being whoever is the more important character. If it's a two-on-one or a three-on-one, suddenly the multiple-person side becomes much more vulnerable - even TheRival or TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou can go down in such a duel. If the numbers of one side go above four, they're going to get crushed.
* Played with in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV''. The [[EliteMooks Obelisk Force]] usually defies this trope by having 3 of them gang up on 1 or 2 opponents and then crushing them through using the nature of Battle Royal duels to their advantage (largely by attacking said opponents before they get a turn). Played straight (even exaggerated) in other cases, such as [[spoiler: Kaito]] taking down an entire battalion of unnamed Academia students by himself, or Yuri [[OneHitPolykill simultaneously annihilating]] 5 renegade students [[CurbStompBattle without taking damage]]. Justified in some of these cases with the side of one using monsters that can attack multiple times or otherwise benefit from a target-rich environment, such as Shun/[[DubNameChange Shay]] and his Raidraptor - Rise Falcon.


* Akane of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' vs [[AllMenArePerverts half the guys]] in the school. Multiple times in multiple episodes, and presumably tens of times offscreen. [[SarcasmMode Sounds like a fair fight...]] {{Justified|Trope}} in that she practices martial arts extensively, whereas most of her opponents train fighting as a hobby if at all. However, some few of her opponents are judoists and a very noticeable sumo wrestler...
* An episode of ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'' had Cobraja create an army of Desertians through children's unwillingness to do their homework over summer break. For the most part, these tiny MonsterOfTheWeek are just annoyances. It's when they become a full-fledged monster that the girls are given trouble.
** Also happens in ''Anime/PrettyCureAllStars DX 3''. Two of the teams of Cures (the leader group of Cures Black, Bloom, Dream, Peach, Blossom and Melody and the bright colored group of Shiny Luminous, Milky Rose, and Cures Rouge, Lemonade, Pine, Passion, Sunshine and Moonlight) deal with groups of Monsters of the Week with ease, but the remaining team (soft colored group comprised of Cures White, Egret, Aqua, Mint, Berry, Marine and Rhythm) are put through the ringer with only a small group of monsters.
** An interesting version happens in ''Anime/HugttoPrettyCure'' episode 37. Near the end, the Hugtto, Max Heart, and Kira Kira teams, along with Cures Dream and Peach, are surrounded by thousands of monsters and it's presented as a subversion as they feel that they can't fight them all. A few seconds later, the arrival of the Princess and Happiness Charge teams clear our a few hundred of them and the arrival of everyone else allows them to play this trope straight.

* ''Manga/FairyTail'', to the point that you can predict the outcome of any given battle. Every time the heroes team up against their enemies, they're going to lose, but when they fight those same enemies by themselves later, even 1v2 or more, they win.
** This is averted in the Alvarez Empire arc, where most of [[QuirkyMiniBossSquad the Spriggan Twelve]] are too powerful for any one hero to beat on their own, requiring many of the villains to be beaten by two or three people working together.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', individual witches are unique, have names, and are highly dangerous. Some are capable of defeating multiple {{Magical Girl}}s singlehandedly. In the last scene, Homura is shown fighting "distortions" [[spoiler:(the replacement for the erased witches)]], which are more numerous than witches and apparently much weaker, since she takes on several simultaneously and nonchalantly. (The manga adaptation makes it clearer these are made of the same basic stuff as witches, but below the necessary critical mass; normally witch familiars would catch and feed them to their witch long before they became visible or able to affect humans.)
* ''LightNovel/FateZero'''s Assassin invokes this trope; his body-splitting ability divides his stats among the split bodies, making each one very weak. But all the Assassins are trounced by [[spoiler:Rider's army]], which greatly outnumbers them. And then [[spoiler:Archer effortlessly defeats Rider and his entire army, thanks to his ludicrously overpowered ''universe-destroying'' Noble Phantasm]].
** The larger Fate/ universe applies this to magecraft. Most magecraft systems draw from a power source specific to the system, so when many draw from it the overall effects are weakened and getting around that becomes an important skill. For instance, the Holy Church maintains an organization of demon hunters numbering a total of eight (one of whom is kept in reserve). Though they have a high turn over, their low numbers mean that the source of their power is concentrated enough to effectively match (or even exceed) the Mage's Association, who have sufficient numbers to maintain a nearly sustainable population complete with eugenics programs.
* Noticeable in the first part of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure''. Dio kills a sizable amount of [[SupernaturalMartialArts Supernatural Martial Artists]] despite (presumably) not possessing any abilities not inimical to vampires; however, the same team of martial artists has no difficulty in taking down large mobs of zombie minions created by Dio.
* Gamillian ships in ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'' change between MookMobile and legetimate threat depending of how many of them there are. At one point, the Yamato almost casually cut a path through a 10.000 ship strong fleet, taking the time to blow up their stargate on the way out. At other times, a handful or even a single ship can suddenly put up a fight.
* The "Nomu" clone-mutants in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia''. The first time they appear, there's only one--an extremely dangerous EvilKnockoff of All Might designed to defeat him. It nearly succeeds--the highest-ranked hero in the world, to whom most villains are child's play, needs a HeroicSecondWind and some help from his students to defeat it. It even survives being [[ATwinkleInTheSky punched into the sky]], and the police are able to capture it only because it's too mindless to do anything without orders. Other such clones show up later, and they're still powerful, but can be taken out relatively easily by professional heroes. By the time [[BigBad their master]] shows up and sends in the whole lot of them, they're little more than a distraction. [[JustifiedTrope This is reasonable]], as each of the clone-mutants is custom-made with a particular set of superpower quirks - the first one was specifically designed to defeat All Might and only seen in those circumstances, whereas the later ones are general-purpose.
* In ''Anime/Persona4GoldenTheAnimation'', due to Yu Narukami revisiting the Inaba Murders under a NewGamePlus, he brings a fully-leveled Izanagi to the ''tutorial'', which results in millions of Shadows to show up and all are effectively slaughtered with Maziodyne, Vorpal Blade and Megidolaon.
* This applies to almost all of the fights Eikichi and Ryuji get into in ''Manga/GTOTheEarlyYears''. In Chapter 46, Eikichi goes alone to face Fumiya, who brought at least 20 guys. He manages to take down at least 15 of them before they can tie him to a rope and [[WhatADrag take him for a drag behind Fumiya's bike]].
* Happens in the first episode of ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler'', where Baki (at the age of 13) fights 100 [[NeverBringAKnifeToAFistFight weapon-wielding]] gangsters at once. They attempt to justify it by explaining that no matter how many opponents you have, only about four of them can attack at the same time (since otherwise they'd be in each other's way). This is a downplayed version of this trope, however, as while Baki does manage to defeat 37 of them, he eventually tires out and takes enough damage from their weapons that he couldn't dodge anymore and would have lost if the police detective hadn't ordered all of them to leave.
* Initially Averted in Manga/DetectiveConan when a case leads Conan, Ran and Sonoko deep into the woods to face the [[MonsterOfTheWeek murderer of the week]], only for it turn out that he has a small army (~50) of Main/{{Yakuza}} on his payroll. While [[ActionGirl Ran]] manages to hold them of for a while, she still clearly overwhelmed. Its then played straight though when [[spoiler: [[OneManArmy Makoto]] shows up out of nowhere]]. And together [[BackToBackBadasses he and Ran]] have no problem dispatching the rest of the Yakusa. Despite still being heavily outnumbered.
* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'': During the cruise, most of the hitmen that attacked Yor and the Director en-masse or in quick succession failed to hurt them or do any meaningful damage. In contrast, the Swordsman that fights mostly by himself manages to knock out the Director and comes the closest to actually killing Yor.

* This trope is first subverted and then justified in ''Manga/TokyoESP''. Early on, multiple opponents bumrushing Rinka is usually a sound strategy; she only won her first fight with a group of people because they lacked ESP and weren't expecting her to show up. Every other time following that up to a point she usually gets her ass handed to her. [[spoiler: This is in fact [[TheHeroDies what ends up killing her at one point,]] because she goes up against three powerful Espers who, while not on her level in a straight fight, are more than a match for her in a three-on-one, with additional help from a bunch of mind-controlled students.]] [[JustifiedTrope However, as mentioned, this is eventually played straight with a pretty good justification.]] [[spoiler: While Rinka is a great martial artist, it took Yoda teaching her a trick for her to realize she can easily abuse Conservation of Ninjutsu; tactically retreat to force group fights into one-on-one fights, where Rinka naturally dominates with her 15+ years of martial arts training. This ends up working so well [[FamedInStory that most opponents learn to either fear or admire her,]] and by the end of the manga, even ''entire squadrons of trained Espers'' can't take her in a fair fight.]]
** It should be noted that while this trope is eventually justified for Rinka, other characters don't share this luxury. [[spoiler: When dozens of trained ARES PMSC soldiers storm Kozuki and Minami's hideout, Minami is immediately overwhelmed, and Kozuki only barely escapes due to some clever trickery and forethought. Even so, by the time we see those two again, Kozuki is on her last legs, and nearly gets killed by one of the soldiers, only surviving on pure luck due to the man not knowing she can teleport in firearms. Even after that, she's easily swarmed by the other soldiers and would have died then and there had Zeusu not shown up.]]
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' takes this trope to new heights. Not only do minions and other extras actively exhibit the trope, but Naruto himself possesses the ability to make a good 1000+ clones of himself. To that point, if he creates 1-5, they're usually the key to his victory, but almost any time he goes over 10 or so (which turns out to be his most common [[IdiotHero strategy]]), they turn into cannon fodder, as their main weakness is that they usually go poof with just one hit.
** The "Uzumaki Barrage" attack used against Gaara seems to avoid this trope since it relies more on the simple physical weight of the clones rather than their martial arts skill. It still fails more often than not, though. (Also because [[ThemeMusicPowerUp the theme song was playing at the time]] so it was to be expected that he was about to kick a lot of ass.)
** There are two instances where the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu fails to apply to Naruto. His "Shuriken from A Thousand Directions" technique utilizes mass numbers of clones to bombard a single target with shuriken. Also, at the beginning of the anime, his assault of Mizuki is conducted with a thousand clones, which end up beating up the supposedly more skilled opponent into a pile of mush.
** Post-TimeSkip, after his CharacterDevelopment frees him from being an IdiotHero (to a certain extent), this blind multi-clone rush becomes a viable strategy, as [[spoiler: Naruto realizes that he learns everything his clones learn. So, he charges an enemy with five or so clones, learns their strategies, and formulates his own plan.]]
** This is played spectacularly when (in the fight between Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura) Kakashi takes down the aforementioned 1000+ Naruto clones ''using only tai-jutsu''.
** Ironically, the Shadow Clone jutsu itself seems to be a skill possessed by only a few, extremely badass ninja (everyone else uses non-physical clones or element based clones). Thus, the most effective way to personally apply the Law of Ninjitsu Conservation is itself conserved.
** [[ZigZaggingTrope Shadow Clones are all over the board on this one]]. Officially, the user has to divide his power evenly between each clone, so all the clones are collectively as powerful as the user. Naruto bypasses this by having massive amounts of chakra, so he can make clones that are every bit as capable as he is. But most of the time they get taken out casually by a single opponent.
** The show makes note of this trope: The standard squad is made up of four ninja. Kakashi says that any more and the team starts getting slow, clunky, and disorganized. A bigger team is worse at completing missions than a smaller one. Plus, any ninja that stands alone is pretty much badass enough to beat an entire squad.
** Akatsuki has apparently gotten wise to this; [[OddlySmallOrganization they only work]] [[EvilDuo in two man teams]]. To give you an idea of how effective this is, each team is usually on equal standing with an ARMY. An army of NINJA.
** During the fight of Sakura and Chiyo vs. Sasori, Sasori summons about a hundred puppets at once, most of were taken apart easily by Sakura and Chiyo's Ten Puppet of Collection Chikamatsu. Later in the fight, the ten puppets quickly lose advantage as Chiyo pointed out that Sasori controlled his puppets better as their numbers dwindled.
** Zig-zagged with Pain. Jiraiya takes on and defeats three bodies, but is ambushed and thrashed when the number increases to six. During the Invasion of Konoha, the Pain bodies vary in effectiveness, with Deva and Asura path outmatching Kakashi before reinforcements, while the Naraka Path is quickly disposed of by Konohamaru, who outside of being taught Rasengan by Naruto is a Genin level ninja. When Naruto engages them, he picks the bodies off reasonably smoothly, before the now solo Deva Path sweeps him and his Frog Familiars down just as fast. The fight is concluded by Naruto defeating Deva Path by using hundreds of Shadow Clones to counter his repulsion power. The law played straight is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by Pain channeling his power into the bodies, and thus being able to focus more on the remaining bodies as the number dwindles, not to mention that the Deva Path started the fight with Naruto [[WorfHadTheFlu unable to use its power thanks to just nuking Konoha into a crater]], which would have made incapacitating Naruto easy from the start and only regained access to it once most of the other bodies were beaten.
** Played straight with the fight of [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain Madara Uchiha]] versus [[RedshirtArmy Gaara's Division]] of the Shinobi-Alliance]], where the former [[CurbStompBattle curbstomps]] the later with Taijutsu only. This only happens in the Anime, which takes his physical combat-abilities up to eleven. [[spoiler:His [[FunctionalMagic Ninjutsu]] and [[MagicalEye Sharingan]] are handy, too.]]
* ''Anime/NinjaScroll'': Jubei eliminates ninja after ninja flunky with prototypical displays of gushing HighPressureBlood. Only the Eight Devils of Kimon can give him a challenge; all others die with pathetic ease.
** The same goes for ''Manga/{{Basilisk}}''.
* Played with in ''Manga/NinjaNonsense'', where Shinobu's fellow ninjas are faceless mooks who can't do anything right. Miyabi can defeat the whole clan easily, and she's about twelve.

* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' does use this. The Hellsing Organisation's operatives mop the floor with masses of enemy ghouls but find more trouble in dealing with lone strong vampires. However, there are exceptions. Seras assisted Alucard against the lone Tubalcain Alhambra and helped her side win instead of making the odds worse, as the Inverse Ninja Law would have. Similarly, when Alexander makes his one-man charge towards Alucard and a newly-summoned army of familiars in a later part of the story, he finds that the numbers actually are to Alucard's advantage and it takes reinforcements to save him.
** Subverted spectacularly in OVA 8, where a count of how many members of each warring faction remain by the time Alucard, Anderson and the Captain meet is done before the climax. One side has thousands of humans, one has hundreds of knock-off vampires, and the final has been reduced to two true vampires and one human. However, instead of whittling down the larger forces' numbers like we might expect, the last side simply unleashes [[SealedArmyInACan enough familiars]] to rout the others through [[ZergRush sheer force of numbers]].
* ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' normally plays this straight early on, with dozens of relatively strong monsters losing to a single strong hero and vice versa, it brutally averts this trope throughout the Monster Association Arc. This is most notable during [[spoiler: Atomic Samurai (Or any Hero barring Saitama) vs. Black Sperm]], where the latter's ability to overwhelm with numbers makes quick work of what would be serious opposition in a one on one battle, or how a group of middling heroes manage to become a serious threat to [[spoiler: Garou]] of all people when working effectively together.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}} TheMovie'' plays this very straight for both the heroes and [[BigBad Diaboromon]], whoever has greater numbers tends to be on the losing side. Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon can barely get a hit in on Diaboromon in between all the ass-kicking that he's giving them, but when he multiplies into several thousand copies and they [[FusionDance become Omnimon]], the army is mowed down within seconds. When he gets to the last Diaboramon, the fight is now one-on-one and is more evenly matched (if only because he's too fast to hit).
** For the entire ''Digimon'' franchise, it is very rare that any Digimon one level below another can ever so much as scratch that other Digimon, and this applies to both the good guys and the bad guys. It's routine that the entire team of protagonist Digimon of any given series working together will get their butts kicked over and over by a higher level villain Digimon until one of them eventually rises to the villain's level, and for the villains to send dozens of evil Digimon at the higher level protagonist Digimon only to have them slaughtered with no effort.
** Most blatant with Myotismon, who was able to effortlessly NoSell the attacks of the 5 Protagonist Digimon of the same level as him and 1 lower until the 8th Digimon prophesied to beat him evolved to his level despite the same Digimon that had being able to fight him evenly when they fought 1 on 1 to the point that Myotismon runs from them. In fact, the Champion level Digimon fighting him is the only one that even manages to scratch Myotismon while Myotismon is literally disintegrating the other Protagonist Digimon attacks of his own level with a wave of his hand.
* From the same franchise comes the final battle of ''Anime/DigimonXrosWarsTheYoungHuntersWhoLeaptThroughTime'', and it concerns Myotismon and his two Mega forms Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon. Back in the first 2 seasons of the series, Myotismon on his own was a very powerful opponent, able to hold his own against multiple ultimate Digimon and later Mega Digimon simultaneously. The final battle of YHT involved not just 1, but a complete ARMY of Myotismon, who later digivolve into THREE Venommyotismon and several dozen of Malomyotismon. But although they have the main characters in a pinch at first, once the other leaders and their (mega level) Digimon partners show up, the various Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon start dropping like flies.

* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'':
** Two resident [[HighlyVisibleNinja Obvious Ninjas]], one plays this straight the other subverts it slightly. Inugami Kotaro can't create Shadow Clones of equal power to himself (and his cap was seven in the Tournament sub-arc). However Kaede with her Sixteen Shadow Clones CAN... but not at full count. When she has four shadow clones they are all equal to her alone. Proving with Training at least in Negima you can bypass this trope.
** Later in the series [[spoiler: the main lead's father Nagi and his team the Ala Rubra were fighting in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon against the absolute BigBad. A single sneak attack from him was enough to wipe out the entire party. Then, after being [[HealingHands healed]], Nagi managed to single-handedly take out the BlackCloak-wearing ultimate evil. Hammering the point home, each member of the Ala Rubra were more than capable on their own against their [[PlotTailoredToTheParty stylized]] [[PsychoRangers PsychoRanger]] opponents they'd faced previous]].
** A textbook example occurs in chapter 254. Negi takes down a small army of Governor Godel's elite [[BlatantLies "private bodyguards"]] in a matter of seconds, but when [[spoiler: he fights Godel one-on-one, the Governor takes his legs out before he can react, then nails him with a barrier piercing attack whilst he was unable to dodge.]] Negi was on the floor before he knew what hit him.
** An even more textbook example occurs in 314 and beyond. [[spoiler:While Fate Averruncus is a massive threat capable of taking out Negi and characters beyond his level like Rakan, the three Averruncuses mentioned to be every bit his equal get laughably curb-stomped and one-shotted in back-to-back chapters the moment they try to go against the people at Negi's power level, complete with notes from Fate about how soft their attacks were]].
* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', Apostles were a major threat early in the series, with Guts needing to fight with everything he had to kill one, and Guts probably would have died fighting the Count if the Count's daughter hadn't conveniently burst into the room for Guts to use as a hostage. Now that all the Apostles in the world are serving Griffith, they've been demoted to [[EliteMook Elite Mooks]]. Justified, since Guts has the [[DeadlyUpgrade Berserker's Armor]], which makes him much stronger and brings out his SuperpoweredEvilSide. That being said, Zodd still manages to prove to be a major threat every time he shows up.
** Wylad and Zodd both nearly kill Guts, Zodd stops when he sees Griffith's Behelit and Wyald (after being stabbed through the face and neck) is only put down when [[spoiler: Zodd shows up and tears him in two for his insubordination to the God Hand]]. When the eclipse happens Guts tears through dozens of Apostles, [[ImprobableWeaponUser tearing off ones horn and using it as a spear]]. Sadly this trope doesn't extend to the other Hawks...
* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' sometimes shows a character (usually Manjoume/Chazz) defeat several duelists at once offscreen. In Manjoume's case, apparently it's his coattails of doom that makes him elite enough to do this.
** This is very common in the franchise. If it's a one-on-one duel, you can basically count on the victor being whoever is the more important character. If it's a two-on-one or a three-on-one, suddenly the multiple-person side becomes much more vulnerable - even TheRival or TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou can go down in such a duel. If the numbers of one side go above four, they're going to get crushed.
* Played with in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV''. The [[EliteMooks Obelisk Force]] usually defies this trope by having 3 of them gang up on 1 or 2 opponents and then crushing them through using the nature of Battle Royal duels to their advantage (largely by attacking said opponents before they get a turn). Played straight (even exaggerated) in other cases, such as [[spoiler: Kaito]] taking down an entire battalion of unnamed Academia students by himself, or Yuri [[OneHitPolykill simultaneously annihilating]] 5 renegade students [[CurbStompBattle without taking damage]]. Justified in some of these cases with the side of one using monsters that can attack multiple times or otherwise benefit from a target-rich environment, such as Shun/[[DubNameChange Shay]] and his Raidraptor - Rise Falcon.

* ''Anime/AfroSamurai'' is ''made'' of this trope. Afro will triumph over any number of foes attacking in numbers, but have trouble one-on-one.
* ''Manga/YakitateJapan'' inverts this by having Kageto Kinoshita's only endearing trait be his ability to clone himself. He is full of so much suck that his power alone is zero anyway, so making clones can't hurt.
* One of the manga of ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'', shows Urd demonstrating her copying ability, in an omake, and explaining, as she gets into the hundreds or so of copies, they start to become, well... jelly...
* ''Anime/RoninWarriors'' is almost absurdly blatant about this. In the first episode, they face a single one of Talpa's samurai {{Mooks}}. It takes the entire episode and the Hero summoning his armor and using his FinishingMove to take him out. Any subsequent attacks by them can generally be handled ''without'' transforming, and in the second arc, ''two'' of the heroes can take on hundreds of them. The series got even more blatant when [[AmplifierArtifact The Jewel Of Life]] held by [[TheScrappy Yuli]] was taking them out by the ''dozens.'' By that point, the Mooks were less a threat and more a hindrance like a field of tall, groaning grass.
* Watch an episode of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' and you'll have the basic formula: Sailor Senshi weaken monster, Sailor Moon finishes it off. Now watch one of the movies, where there can be dozens to hundreds of monsters at once, and EVERYONE will be able to pick them off with an attack or two.
** The reverse also holds true, where the inclusion of *all* the hero characters instead of only a few in a standard episode rarely has a bigger effect on the outcome of a fight than the episode's time constraints. Ironically, [[Series/PrettyGuardianSailorMoon The live action version]] ends up accidentally subverting this; the busy schedules of the actresses meant many fights only involved two or three of the girls at a time. Full team assaults were generally filmed for important villains, creating the implication that as a full assembled team could handle most things easily.
* All throughout ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'', Awakened Beings are shown to be extremely formidable, requiring several Claymores banding together to outnumber them in order to defeat them, and even then only barely and requiring multiple episodes dedicated to the fight. In the final arc of the anime when the Awakened Beings attack en masse, they don't take near as much effort to kill as previously. Though this is only as a result of the anime's GeckoEnding. In the manga, despite gathering half of the Organization's warriors, they only manage to kill eight Awakened Beings before being wiped out. The Awakened Ones' field commander actually notes that this was an exemplary result for the Warriors.

* Any nameless mook in ''VideoGame/{{Utawarerumono}}'' is canon fodder and will die in the dozens per sword slash from a general or important character. The large scale battles are really battles between named characters. The mooks on either side are just window dressing and will not get any kills in.

** Hibari taking on an entire army of Millefiore soldiers and coming out fine [[spoiler:only to get beaten when he goes one on one against Genkishi]].
** Most recently with Hibari again [[spoiler: during his match with Adelheid. In their one-on-one before they were about even, but now it seems that 500 Ice Clones of Adelheid, who have her same strength by her measure, can't even scratch Hibari.]]
** And Hibari goes for a hat-trick, taking out [[spoiler: three of [[QuirkyMinibossSquad the Varia]] in a single hit.]] It seems like his entire strategy in this arc revolves around this, as his entire team consists of nobody but himself.
* Most ''Franchise/Gundam'' shows make use of this trope, but some do it more than others:
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' is one of the few shows in which the main characters actually pilot machines besides their Gundams on a regular basis. Whenever a named character hops into the cockpit of a Leo, it goes from exploding in a single shot to being badass enough to take on a squadron of mobile suits more advanced than it is.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed'' relies on this trope extensively. The majority of battles in the first half of the first show take place with Kira going up more or less alone against four enemy pilots who all have Gundams from the same prototype run as his, all of whom together fight him to a draw in nearly every episode. The second half of the show introduces more allies for Kira and reduces the number of recurring enemy aces to three, but the new trio fares much better against Kira and his four allies than the previous quartet would usually do against Kira alone. The second half of ''SEED'' is also infamous for its extensive use of stock footage in which Kira's new MidSeasonUpgrade is able to wipe out entire armies of grunts in a single salvo.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny'' does it just as much as its predecessor when it comes to its treatment of mooks, often with stock footage outright reused from the first show. It also has the particularly standout example of the Destroy Gundams: the first unit, piloted by a named character TykeBomb, takes several episodes to beat and manages to destroy most of Europe in the process. When five are deployed at once later on, with another named villain in one of them, they're defeated without much trouble. When three are fielded at the same time and ''none'' of them have named pilots, it's almost a non-event.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' mostly manages to avoid it, as the main characters are typically portrayed as UnskilledButStrong and a superior numerical force is one of the tactics that their opponents frequently use to gain an advantage over them. The last battle, however, features the trope taken to the point of absurdity when the BigBad loads thousands of clones of a previous villain into what are essentially piloted missiles, and the main characters proceed to mow down dozens of the clones per second.
* In the first series of ''Lightnovel/FullMetalPanic'', most major arcs end with a showdown between the protagonist Sousuke who fights the BigBad Gauron, who fights using an Arm Slave equipped with a Lambda Driver, which makes it nigh invincible for all intents and purposes. In each encounter, Sousuke is pushed to the brink of his physical limits just trying to take down one of these things. At the end of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, he has an encounter with five enemies who are using the same invincibility device he struggled against in season one, and dispatches all five of them with relative ease.
** Somewhat justified in that in the fights with Gauron, Sousuke either had trouble with or failed to use his own Lamda Driver. In the fight at the end of TSR, his Driver is functioning perfectly, allowing him to fight on an even level as his enemies and beat them with his skill and their reliance on their Lamda Drivers saving them.
* Saito from ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' took on about a couple thousand soldiers alone at the end of the second season and took down most of them before falling and being revived by a wood elf.
* ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' gives a nice example when [[BashBrothers Gin and Haiji]] take down an entire branch of [[AntiHumanAlliance Fairy Tale]] by themselves.

* ''LightNovel/{{Inukami}}'': Sendan's group, even as a whole, is less powerful than Youko is by herself. Subverting the trope, they're even worse off when fighting individually.

* The ''Anime/{{Mazinkaiser}}'' OVA bounces around with this. The Mazinger Team goes off to fight Dr. Hell's {{Mechanical Monster}}s and lose badly, only for the monsters to get trounced when the titular Super Robot finally appears. It's played much more straighter at the end when Great Mazinger takes on ''all'' of Hell's monsters and wins.
* ''Manga/GetterRobo Armageddon''. On one end, an entire army of Getter Robo G, the second of the Getter Robo line. On the other, a singular classic Getter Robo, piloted by Ryouma Nagare. Ryouma owns them easily.
** Conversely, in ''Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo'', Shou and Gai are overwhelmed in the Neo Getter Robo when dozens of prototype Getters piloted by members of the Dinosaur Empire attack them. In this case, though, it's not a matter of Conservation of Ninjutsu, but the fact that, despite being prototypes, the dozens of Getters were using Getter Energy, thus are much stronger than the plasma energy-using Neo Getter and it doesn't help that Getter had only 2/3 pilots.
* Two legendary ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' scenes are made up of this trope. In the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', Amuro's awakening Newtype powers are revealed when he pushes the RX-78 Gundam to take out 12 Rick Doms, then Zeon's newest and strongest {{Mook}} unit, in three minutes. 20-some years later, Kira uses the Strike Freedom Gundam to defeat 12 [=GOUFs=] in 2 minutes in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]''.
** This is a pretty common trope in Gundam media, 1 ace pilot will take out dozens of mooks on either side of the war regardless of whether they're fighting for or against the good guys without taking a scratch, only when it's ace vs ace do they end up losing. The aces are not only the best pilots on their side, they usually in some of the best mobile suits their side has to offer.
** This trope is played with in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. At the start of the first series, the SuperPrototype Gundams steamroller all non-[[AppliedPhlebotinum GN]]-powered suits... Until one episode, where the world's 3 main superpowers team-up to defeat them, and it almost works, if not for [[spoiler: TheCavalry showing up]]. Then, when {{Mook}} tech levels catch up, the Gundams are on the back foot again... until the second series. [[Anime/Gundam00AWakeningOfTheTrailblazer The movie]], on the other hand, averts this trope nicely. The ELS, which number in the '' '''TRILLIONS''' '', trounce the mere hundreds of thousands of Earth forces, [[spoiler: Gundams included]], with barely any effort, and would easily win, if not for [[spoiler: Setsuna]].

* Pretty much all throughout ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann''. Yoko's gun is hard pressed to take down a single gunman, but in the battle with Die-Gunzan, she takes down many with ease. Later, in that same battle, their team gets nearly destroyed by a comparably equal force, but when attacking the Spiral King's stronghold, the same team plus a few additions take down clouds of Gunmen almost comically, surviving with ease.

* Initially Averted in Manga/DetectiveConan when a case leads Conan, Ran and Sonoko deep into the woods to face the [[MonsterOfTheWeek murderer of the week]], only for it turn out that he has a small army (~50) of Main/{{Yakuza}} on his payroll. While [[ActionGirl Ran]] manages to hold them of for a while, she still clearly overwhelmed. Its then played straight though when [[spoiler: [[OneManArmy Makoto]] shows up out of nowhere]]. And together [[BackToBackBadasses he and Ran]] have no problem dispatching the rest of the Yakusa. Despite still being heavily outnumbered.

** Later in the series [[spoiler: the main lead's father Nagi and his team the Ala Rubra were fighting in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon against the absolute BigBad. A single sneak attack from him was enough to wipe out the entire party. Then, after being [[HealingHands healed]], Nagi managed to single-handedly take out the BlackCloak wearing UltimateEvil. Hammering the point home, each member of the Ala Rubra were more than capable on their own against their [[PlotTailoredToTheParty stylized]] [[PsychoRangers PsychoRanger]] opponents they'd faced previous]].

** Most blatant with Myotismon, who was able to effortlessly NoSell the attacks of the 5 Protagonist Digimon of the same level as him and 1 lower until the 8th Digimon prophesied to beat him evolved to his level despite the same Digimon that had being able to fight him evenly when they fought 1 one 1.

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** Played straight with the fight of [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain Madara Uchiha]] versus [[RedshirtArmy Gaara's Division]] of the Shinobi-Alliance]], where the former [[CurbStompBattle curbstomps]] the later with Taijutsu only. This only happens in the Anime, which takes his physical combat-abilities UpToEleven. [[spoiler:His [[FunctionalMagic Ninjutsu]] and [[MagicalEye Sharingan]] are handy, too.]]

* ''Anime/RoninWarriors'' is almost absurdly blatant about this. In the first episode, they face a single one of Talpa's samurai {{Mooks}}. It takes the entire episode and the Hero summoning his armor and using his FinishingMove to take him out. Any subsequent attacks by them can generally be handled ''without'' transforming, and in the second arc, ''two'' of the heroes can take on hundreds of them. The series got even [[UpToEleven more]] blatant when [[AmplifierArtifact The Jewel Of Life]] held by [[TheScrappy Yuli]] was taking them out by the ''dozens.'' By that point, the Mooks were less a threat and more a hindrance like a field of tall, groaning grass.

* This applies to almost all of the fights Eikichi and Ryuji get into in ''Manga/ShonanJunaiGumi''. In Chapter 46, Eikichi goes alone to face Fumiya, who brought at least 20 guys. He manages to take down at least 15 of them before they can tie him to a rope and [[WhatADrag take him for a drag behind Fumiya's bike]].

** Zig-zagged with Pain. Jiraiya takes on and defeats three bodies, but is ambushed and thrashed when the number increases to six. During the Invasion of Konoha, the Pain bodies vary in effectiveness, with Deva and Asura path outmatching Kakashi before reinforcements, while the Naraka Path is quickly disposed of by Konohamaru, who outside of being taught Rasengan by Naruto is a Genin level ninja. When Naruto engages them, he picks the bodies off reasonably smoothly, before the now solo Deva Path sweeps him and his Frog Familiars down just as fast. The fight is concluded by Naruto defeating Deva Path by using hundreds of Shadow Clones to counter his repulsion power. The law played straight is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by Pain channeling his power into the bodies, and thus being able to focus more on the remaining bodies as the number dwindles.

* ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'' gives a nice example when [[BashBrothers Gin and Haiji]] take down an entire branch of [[AntiHumanAlliance Fairy Tale]] by themselves.

** For the entire ''Digimon'' franchise, it is very rare that any Digimon one level below another can ever so much as scratch that other Digimon, this applies to both the good guys and the bad guys. It's routine that the entire team of protagonist Digimon of any given series working together will get their butts kicked over and over by a higher level villain Digimon until one of them eventually rises to the villain's level, and for the villains to send dozens of evil Digimon at the higher level protagonist Digimon only to have them slaughtered with no effort.

** For the entire Digimon franchise, it is very rare that any Digimon one level below another can ever so much as scratch that other Digimon, this applies to both the good guys and the bad guys. It's routine that the entire team of protagonist Digimon of any given series working together will get their butts kicked over and over by a higher level villain Digimon until one of them eventually rises to the villain's level, and for the villains to send dozens of evil Digimon at the higher level protagonist Digimon only to have them slaughtered with no effort.

* From the same franchise comes the final battle of ''Anime/DigimonXrosWarsTheYoungHuntersLeapingThroughTime'', and it concerns Myotismon and his two Mega forms Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon. Back in the first 2 seasons of the series, Myotismon on his own was a very powerful opponent, able to hold his own against multiple ultimate Digimon and later Mega Digimon simultaneously. The final battle of YHT involved not just 1, but a complete ARMY of Myotismon, who later digivolve into THREE Venommyotismon and several dozen of Malomyotismon. But although they have the main characters in a pinch at first, once the other leaders and their (mega level) Digimon partners show up, the various Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon start dropping like flies.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'':

* In ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'', Apostles were a major threat early in the series, with Guts needing to fight with everything he had to kill one, and Guts probably would have died fighting the Count if the Count's daughter hadn't conveniently burst into the room for Guts to use as a hostage. Now that all the Apostles in the world are serving Griffith, they've been demoted to [[EliteMook Elite Mooks]]. Justified, since Guts has the [[DeadlyUpgrade Berserker's Armor]], which makes him much stronger and brings out his SuperpoweredEvilSide. That being said, Zodd still manages to prove to be a major threat every time he shows up.

* ''Manga/YakitateJapan!'' inverts this by having Kageto Kinoshita's only endearing trait be his ability to clone himself. He is full of so much suck that his power alone is zero anyway, so making clones can't hurt.

* ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'':

* Played with in ''Manga/NininGaShinobuden'', where Shinobu's fellow ninjas are faceless mooks who can't do anything right. Miyabi can defeat the whole clan easily, and she's about twelve.

* ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'' plays this to high levels, with highly possible ([[{{Fanon}} but unconfirmed]]) Justification. A single Destroy Gundam helps the Earth Alliance to stomp over much of Europe, takes multiple episodes to go down and the repercussions of its destruction linger for several episodes afterward. When the EA field three, they go down in the same episode without too much trouble. When they field five at the same time, it's almost a non-event. The Justification is: 1. Stellar, a TykeBomb piloting it, while these mass-produced unit are issued to Mooks, also 2. the one she rides is shown having MORE feature than the mass-deployed (although STILL unconfirmed), in short, SuperPrototype.