History ConservationOfNinjutsu / AnimeAndManga

* ''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 asskicking that he's giving them, but when he multiplies into several thousand copies and they [[FusionDance become]] [[{{Badass}} 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).

* 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 the same vampires.

* Played with in Anime/YuGiOhArcV : the [[EliteMooks Obelisk Force]] usually defies this trope: using the nature of Battle Royal duels to their advantage, 3 of them gang up on 1 or 2 opponents, overwhelming and crushing them. 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]].

** And in the original series, Prescia Testarosssa took out a platoon of magical enforcers in a single attack, while Nanoha and crew ripped through her automatons with ease.

* Played with in Anime/YuGiOhArcV : the [[EliteMooks Obelisk Force]] usually defies this trope: using the nature of Battle Royal duels to their advantage, 3 of them gang up on 1 or 2 opponents, overwhelming and crushing them. Played straight (even exaggerated) in other cases, such as when [[spoiler: Kaito]] takes down an entire battalion of unnamed Duel Academy students all by himself, or when Yuri [[OneTurnKill simultaneously annihilates]] 5 Students without taking any damage during the duel.

** It's also a DiscussedTrope--as Kenshin would tell it, he usually didn't cut down swaths of {{Mooks}} at once, but created circumstances in which he was only up against a few of them at a time, and dealt with them that way. (Using this advise, KidSamurai Yahiko deals with a bunch of thugs by fighting them in a narrow alleyway, and then [[BigDamnHeroes Kenshin and Sano]] surrepticiously show up to support him so things don't get too deadly.)

* Gamillian ships in ''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.

* 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.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The Straw Hats are attacked by a horde of [[SuperpoweredMooks Captain-ranked Marines]]. Each one displays unique powers, fighting skills, or weapons. Each one a few chapters ago would have been a boss, or at least a major enemy. Now, they were dangerous only because of their sheer numbers.
** Morgan was also a captain, and Luffy defeated him without taking a single hit. T-Bone was an EliteMook, and while he presented a threat to the Rocketman, Zoro defeated him in one hit, so the strength of Captain-ranked Marines is not that significant at this point in the story.
** Quasi-invoked by Tashigi during the Alabasta arc. While staring down Nico Robin with a veritable army of Marines, she realizes who Nico Robin is, notes that "numbers don't mean anything to Robin," and ''sends her army away'' to fight Robin one-on-one. [[spoiler: She immediately loses.]] Perhaps you have to be a main character for this to work.
** ''Manga/OnePiece'' does this to the point of ridiculousness. During the Assault on Enies Lobby, Luffy single-handedly defeats an army of 2000 Marines without receiving even a scratch. Immediately afterwards, he fights one-on-one against Blueno, who gives him significantly more trouble. However, given that Blueno was an elite agent and the Marines were just foot soldiers, it's somewhat justified. Indeed, Luffy's reaction when told that Enies Lobby has a garrison of over 10,000 soldiers:
-->'''Luffy:''' ''And I am alone. '''''Get out of my way!'''
** The Enies Lobby assault in general was a massive invocation of this trope. The Frankie Family and Straw Hats numbered about 60 and in total there were about 10,000 soldiers on the island. That's right--taking down one of the World Government's strongholds housing the [=CP9=] ''and'' a garrison of 10,000 strong took ''only 60 people''. Moreover, ''about 50 of those 60 were extras'' and the remaining '''10''' did all the work.
** The start of the Whitebeard War seemed to be pretty even too, even though Whitebeard's men totaled only those on his four ships plus about 40 other crews from the New World. The Navy, on the other hand, had 100,000 soldiers. To be fair, most of those were still further down in the plaza, but it's still a pretty massive example.
** An army of fishmen numbering 100,000 fights against the Straw Hats and Jimbe. The opening move in their battle consists of Luffy knocking 50,000 of the enemies unconscious simultaneously.
*** By STARING at them. Although it is kind of justified as this is an ability that you have to be born with and only a really small portion of the people in the world have it and is one of the most powerful abilities in the world. Also they were all {{Redshirt}}s by this point in the story.

*** But subverted by Metal Cooler in one of the movies. After a long struggle, one copy is defeated, only for hundreds more to show up... each of whom are just as strong as the original.
*** The movies in general are better about this. Sansho, Ginger, and Nicky manage to take down Piccolo with a CombinedEnergyAttack, despite being individually weaker than him, Bido, Zangya, and Bujin are able to take down the powerful Super Saiyan Gohan with teamwork, and in the above Metal Cooler example, Goku and Vegeta managed to defeat the original Metal Cooler by combining their energies. Generic {{mook}}s also manage to take down Gohan and Krillin in the Lord Slug and Metal Cooler movies, again by ganging up on them, despite sustaining heavy losses.
*** In the History of Trunks, it is implied that Gohan is about as strong as one of the androids. Too bad 17 and 18 attack as a team, completely overwhelming Gohan.
*** ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' plays with this trope. Though the heroic team of Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, Master Roshi and Manga/JacoTheGalacticPatrolman triumph over Frieza's thousand+ strong army, the heroes are quite outmatched and have to resort to a bit of trickery to defeat them.

* ''{{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.

* ''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 asskicking that he's giving them, but when he multiplies into several thousand copies and they [[FusionDance become]] [[{{Badass}} 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).
* In ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion End of Evangelion]]'', Asuka fights nine mass-produced [[HumongousMecha Eva]] units, each with weapons that can cleave straight through her nigh-impenetrable [[BeehiveBarrier AT Field]]. Asuka's Eva, meanwhile, has only a Progressive Knife and three minutes of battery power. In that timespan, Asuka disables or destroys ''every last one''. [[spoiler:Only to find out that they were OnlyMostlyDead, and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bpx66Ld-TI promptly get her]] [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown ass kicked horrifically]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bpx66Ld-TI Whoops.]]]]

* ''MahouSenseiNegima'':

** Akatsuki has apparently gotten wise to this; in a nice show of GenreSavvy, [[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.

* Played with in ''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.

** Played straight with the fight of [[spoiler:[[BiggerBad 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.]]

** Averted during [[spoiler: Madara's fight with the Bijuu, in which despite his strength and prowess, gets handily owned by the teamwork of the tailed beasts albeit he has no eyes]]. Then played horribly straight when he gets [[spoiler:just ''one'' of his eyes back]] and becomes virtually unstoppable.

* ''{{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 is also a lot of subversion. 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.

** Like so many other times in this franchise, however, this is almost immediately subverted after the count is made [[spoiler:as Alucard quickly summoned ''millions'' of familiars to completely overwhelm the other two forces with a very literal tidal wave of fresh troops.]]
* Played with a lot in Franchise/{{Digimon}}. Anime/DigimonAdventure, [[Anime/DigimonAdventure02 02]], and [[Anime/DigimonTamers Tamers]] subvert it (divide and conquer is a common and effective strategy on heroes and villains alike, anyone can be overwhelmed by enough numbers, etc). ''Anime/DigimonXEvolution'' both plays it straight (the original is vastly superior to the copy) and subverts this, by the Digimon defending their lives being worn down gradually to their destruction. Surprising, for a shonen (or is it kids? ) anime.
** 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 asskicking that he's giving them, but when he multiplies into several thousand copies and they [[FusionDance become]] [[{{Badass}} 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).
* [[spoiler:Subverted]] in ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion End of Evangelion.]]'' Asuka fights nine mass-produced [[HumongousMecha Eva]] units, each with weapons that can cleave straight through her nigh-impenetrable [[BeehiveBarrier AT Field]]. Asuka's Eva, meanwhile, has only a Progressive Knife and three minutes of battery power. In that timespan, Asuka disables or destroys ''every last one''. [[spoiler:Only to find out that they were OnlyMostlyDead, and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bpx66Ld-TI promptly get her]] [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown ass kicked horrifically]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bpx66Ld-TI Whoops.]]]]

* The Type-3 [[MechaMooks Gadget Drones]] in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', which slapped Elio around for most of the fight when there was only one of them during the first mission, but gets taken out by the Forwards in seconds when they come in groups in later missions. {{Justified|Trope}} since said Forwards were going through Nanoha's TrainingFromHell every single day.

** This trope is subverted with Ginga, who was defeated by three Combat Cyborgs despite being a better fighter than all of the Riot Force 6 recruits. Also by Teana, the weakest among the Riot Force 6 recruits in terms of magical power, but defeated the most number of Combat Cyborgs [[AwesomenessByAnalysis by outsmarting them.]]

* ''Manga/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 first episode itself could be a subversion. That mook was using Anubis's weapon.
** [[HandWave Or the weapon was just an imitation of Anubis,]] but 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.

** Somehow averted considering said Sailor Senshi don't have much trouble defeating the lone monster even though they outnumber it.

* 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?
** Significantly subverted in that the light novel tells us that he managed to take down only about 250 of them before falling, which isn't a large amount - numerically - given that he was fighting against 70,000 of them. Admittedly, he did manage to stop them from pursuing Tristain's fleeing army, though, so it still certainly serves as an example of the trope.
** The 250 were high ranking officers he deliberately targeted to cause confusion, he didn't kill any of them. Also worth noting his sole purpose was to slow the army down until his allies could escape, which he succeeded.
* Averted in ''Manga/{{Holyland}}''. Yuu can win one-on-one duels, but usually does poorly in a target-rich environment.

** 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. Possibly justified as 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.
** Subverted in at least once instance when [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Heero]] ended up fighting in one of the the mass produced Leo mooks he was quickly curbstombed along with his similarly equipped allies by the much better Taurus mobile dolls.
** This trope is [[PlayingWithATrope 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, where it [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-zags it]]. [[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 TTGL]].
** 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.
** It is sort of averted [[spoiler:after the time skip when almost everyone dies,]] but even then, they seem to be powerful against many of the same type of enemy, of which only one gave them trouble mere minutes before.

** Actually averted against King Faust, but to be fair he was in a giant mecha at the time.
** Also averted against Master Hades of Grimoire Heart. However, Natsu got the main credits.
** Played straight with [[spoiler:every dragon they fight. A dragon is strong enough to defeat several guilds.]]

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

** Averted/subverted in the next part, as Joseph and Lisa Lisa recognize the threat of being surrounded by (literally) a thousand vampires, and choose to retreat instead of facing them head-on.

** Also happens in ''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.

** ''Manga/OnePiece'' does this to the point of ridiculousness. During the Assault on Enies Lobby, Luffy single-handedly defeats an army of 2000 Marines without receiving even a scratch. Immediately afterwards, he fights one-on-one against Blueno, who gives him significantly more trouble. However, given that Blueno was an elite agent and the Marines were just foot soldiers, it's somewhat justified.
** The Enies Lobby assault in general was a massive invocation of this trope. The Frankie Family and Straw Hats numbered about 60 and in total there were about 10,000 soldiers on the island. That's right--taking down one of the World Government's strongholds housing the [=CP9=] ''and'' a garrison of 10,000 strong took ''only 60 people''.

* The ''{{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.

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* ''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.

* ''{{Dragonball}}'' is a frequent offender, especially in plots involving the Red Ribbon Army or Frieza's men, but the most blatant usage is in the Bardock TV Special. As he races to attack Frieza in the climax, he has to fly through an army of {{mooks}}, which cause him so little trouble that, in some cases, they look like they're splattering on his face.
** Anyone in ''{{Dragon Ball}}'' who possessed the ability to duplicate themselves usually followed a similar rule, because the person using the technique actually does divide his power up evenly amongst his clones. So a fighter with a power level of 2400 becomes two fighters with power levels of 1200 or three fighters with power levels of 800 and so on. The creator of the Division technique actually gets criticized by his rival for creating a move with such a debilitating flaw.

* The Type-3 [[MechaMooks Gadget Drones]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS'', which slapped Elio around for most of the fight when there was only one of them during the first mission, but gets taken out by the Forwards in seconds when they come in groups in later missions. {{Justified|Trope}} since said Forwards were going through Nanoha's TrainingFromHell every single day.

* ''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.

* ''RoninWarriors'' is almost absurdly blatant about this:

* All throughout ''{{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.

* Saito from LightNovel/ZeroNoTsukaima 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?

* Averted in ''{{Holyland}}''. Yuu can win one-on-one duels, but usually does poorly in a target-rich environment.
* ''RosarioToVampire'' gives a nice example when [[BashBrothers Gin and Haiji]] take down an entire branch of [[AntiHumanAlliance Fairy Tale]] by themselves.

* Highly present in ''RurouniKenshin'' - somewhat justified in that Kenshin's Hiten Mitsurugi style is specifically mentioned as an exceptionally rare and deadly style (no more than two people are masters of it at any given time, and Kenshin chooses to let it die with him) that specializes in combat against multiple opponents.

* 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...

* ''{{Dragonball}}'' is a frequent offender, especially in plots involving the Red Ribbon Army or Frieza's men, but the most blatant usage is in the Bardock TV Special. As he races to attack Frieza in the climax, he has to fly through an army of {{mooks}}, which cause him so little trouble that, in some cases, they look like they're [[BugSplat splattering on his face]].

* ''Manga/GetterRobo Armageddon''. On one end, an entire army of GetterRoboG, the second of the Getter Robo line. On the other, a singular classic Getter Robo, piloted by Ryouma Nagare. Ryouma owns them easily.