History Main / SlapOnTheWristNuke

* In the ''Videogame/LikeADragon'' headlined by Ichiban, this is played with in that several of the Kiwami Attacks have some particularly ludicrous animations, most notably the {{Kill Sat}} that Ichiban can unlock by completing the business minigames. Of course, a lot of this is stated to simply be Ichiban's overactive imagination at play visualizing what are presumably just mundane attacks ([[CharlesAtlasSuperpower for the standards of the series]]) as JRPG nonsense.

* Some moves in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' series fall victim to this, looking absurdly powerful but in reality not being much stronger (or even being weaker) than some far more mundane attacks. For instance, [[OlympusMons Palkia's]] signature move of Spacial Rend is described as tearing apart space itself (and looks as though it practically ''destroys reality'' in ''VideoGame/PokemonXandY''), yet it possesses a relatively unimpressive power of 100 (For comparison, Head Smash, which is simply described as being a full-power headbutt, has 150 power), and worse, can be [[NoSell completely nullified]] by Fairy-type Pokemon due to it being a Dragon-type move.

* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Gilgamesh possesses a sword said to be bound with the creation of the world. Its main attack is described as 'anti-world' in strength and thus presumably capable of destroying the world -- except that whenever it is used, it never seems to do worse than knock the main characters around a bit and put a few dents in the local concrete. The reason being that while it's ''capable'' of destroying the world, its wielder has zero interest in doing that (kind of a dumb thing to do when you're planning on ruling the world). The only times we see a hint of Ea's real power is in ''LightNovel/FateZero'' and ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', where Ea is used in alternate dimensions, and thus those dimensions are the "world" that is destroyed by it. At its full strength, it's shown ripping holes in reality and annihilating entire armies with a single swing.

** Madara Uchiha drops a meteor on someone's head, and then ''another'' meteor on top of ''that'' one. [[spoiler: Edo-Nagato]] forms a floating planetoid with his enemy crushed in the center, then blows the whole thing up with his ArmCannon. Etc, etc... It gets more blatant when you compare them to the Ultimate Jutsu from characters earlier in the series. Young Obito's Ultimate is basically some fireballs and a kunai stab, yet it does as much damage as any of the aforementioned moves.

** The Chinese in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'', however, do have an explicit Slap On The Wrist Nuke: an artillery cannon, probably based on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29 M-338 Davy Crockett]], that fires ''nuke shells''. It counts more as a WaveMotionGun that fires AbnormalAmmo, though. China's superweapon in ''Generals'' is also surprisingly weak, given it's an ICBM launched nuke. It's weaker than the GLA toxin-laced ''Scud Storm'', has a longer cool-down timer, and (unlike the ''Storm'') requires power.

*** There's also one of Squall's {{Limit Break}}s, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-76GjVPfuUs Blasting Zone]]. It turns his Gunblade into a [[{{BFS}} gigantic]] [[LaserBlade energy blade]] that appears to be on the order of a thousand miles long. He then brings it down on an enemy and causes the same maximum damage of 9,999 that almost every other attack in the game is limited to. Naturally, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation no thousand-mile gashes in the Earth result]].

* A quarter-gram antimatter annihilation occurs in both the book and movie versions of Creator/DanBrown's ''Literature/AngelsAndDemons'', doing little more than shaking things up a tad. Such a reaction would release a medium-altitude areal photon burst of 45 terajoules (11 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiloton kilotons]]), equal to the flash-burn caused by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man Fat Man]], such a burst would handily have blinded everyone in Rome outdoors at the time (especially the large crowd watching the burst) as well as set fire to any medium colored surfaces in line-of-sight.

** Also lampshaded in [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0141.html an earlier strip]]. "You'd think that destroying the entire planet would be more damaging..."

* ''Anime/TheAnimatrix'' two-part short "The Second Renaissance" goes into more detail about how the world of ''Film/TheMatrix'' became the CrapsackWorld it is, which includes humanity deciding to nuke Zero-One, the city the machines built. However, despite what nuclear weapons would do in real life (frying electronics with an EMP, and radiation and melt would destroy anything exposed to it), the machines are uneffected.

* ''Anime/TheAnimatrix'' two-part short "The Second Renaissance" goes into more detail about the world of ''Film/TheMatrix'' became the CrapsackWorld it is, which includes humanity deciding to nuke Zero-One, the city the machines built. However, despite what nuclear weapons would do in real life (frying electronics with an EMP, and radiation and melt would destroy anything exposed to it), the machines are uneffected.

* The ''Film/{{Animatrix}} two-part short "The Second Renaissance" goes into more detail about the world of ''Film/TheMatrix'' became the CrapsackWorld it is, which includes humanity deciding to nuke Zero-One, the city the machines built. However, despite what nuclear weapons would do in real life (frying electronics with an EMP, and radiation and melt would destroy anything exposed to it), the machines are uneffected.

** Things peak with the Athena Exclamation, a technique that releases the power of a ''Big Bang''. Three Gold Saints must work together to perform the attack, and it IS a forbidden technique, but it's eventually used anyways. And then, not too long afterwards, ''two'' are used at the same time, ''against'' each other. If not for the actions of Shiryu, (or the four Bronzies if you're talking about the OVA) the series would have had a [[RocksFallEveryoneDies painfully quick ending.]]

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* In ''VideoGame/DragonBallZBudokaiTenkaichi 2,'' a particularly strong attack will show an [[DistantReactionShot animation of half of the Earth exploding]], and change the stage you're playing on to a "ruined" version - but will do 1 1/2 health bars of damage. Mind you, this is pretty much exactly how it happens in the series. The Budokai series did this too but ultimate attacks were a bit harder to pull off, and only a handful of them did it. Tenkaichi 2 went a bit overboard as any energy blast ultimate would do it, as long as it hit the character while they were on the ground, or just hit the ground directly. Budokai Tenkaichi 3 had to tone it down a little by having this happen only once certain conditions are met.

* The VideoGame/GundamVsSeries plays this straight, especially in ''Extreme Vs.'' and its sequels where several units' [[LimitBreak Super Moves]] are iconic moments from their source anime. Though the moves ''are'' appropriately powerful, they can be survived by all but the most fragile of mecha. Examples include [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Wing Zero]]'s [[{{BFG}} Twin Buster Rifle]] (powerful enough to destroy a space colony), the [[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Double X]]'s [[WaveMotionGun Twin Satellite Cannon]] (blew up a small island), the [[Anime/TurnAGundam Turn A Gundam]]'s [[GreyGoo Moonlight Butterfly]] (which single-handedly reverted Earth to pre-Industrial Revolution levels of technology), or even [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack Sazabi]]'s ColonyDrop (self-explanatory). The trope is even played literally with a few machines like the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory Gundam GP02A]] or [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gyan]], which actually do [[NukeEm throw nuclear missiles at their enemies]].

* ''ShadowWarrior'' is one of the few [=FPSs=] with nukes. Since the game is pretty silly to begin with, the nuke's ability to kill everything in the game's largest rooms is reasonably impressive. [[ContractualBossImmunity But it still won't kill a boss in one hit]].

%%* PK Starstorm in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/Mother3''. There is reason to believe that what it really is is the psionic equivalent to a meteor shower.

* {{Invoked}} in ''WebComic/AxeCop'', "Axe Cop Gets Married". Axe Cop uses the [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Forbidden Move]], which picks up the adjacent province and hits the target with it. However, since he can do it ''right'', it only obliterates the target and not everyone else in the two provinces. (The tornado that picks up the province also really quickly removes everything but the target and then puts it back again after the impact before anyone can notice.)