Ass-Kicking Pose

Danny: What do we do now?!
Chris: I don't know, it just feels right to pose like this!

— Bravest Warriors

The "en garde" combat stance which is adopted by hand-to-hand fighters in combat, just before opening cans of whoop-ass upon their oh-so-very-dead opponent. Ideally, the stance used should not merely be functional; it must visually convey the message "Your butt, kicked by me."

A common variant is, rather than a combat stance, to smile threateningly as if to say "I'm about to kill you. Very much." A second variant is, faced with a display of force, to simply play The Stoic and exude an aura of "You guys are so toast." Can include cracking knuckles, or cracking the cartilage in one's neck. When kicking someone's ass, it's important to be limber!

See also Bring It — a challenging gesture daring the opponent to attack. Supertrope of "Super Sentai" Stance.

Contrast Victory Pose. Usually in animation, the pose is rendered in more detailed artwork. Can also be combined with the Pre-Asskicking One-Liner.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• It is pretty common among Super Robots:
  • Mazinger Z asskicking pose was pretty simple: upon activation, Mazinger flexed his arms over his head. Most likely it is a Shout-Out to Gigantor, which did the same thing. Great Mazinger and UFO Robo Grendizer, on the other hand, had not one.
  • Getter Robo: Getter Robo G stood upright with its arms folded across its chest. It was so popular and badass-looking it was reused by a lot of mecha shows, Anime/Gunbuster being the best known.
  • Kotetsu Jeeg used the same pose when it was assembled.
  • Combattler V: Combattler flexed one arm backwards as it stretched its other arm forward.
  • Voltes V: Voltes crossed its arms across its thorax before spreading them outwards. Electromagnetic energy crackled from its hands and formed a "V" letter.
  • Daimos: Kazuya was an expert karate fighter and its robot mimicked his motions, so Daimos used asskicking poses the whole time.
  • GoLion adopts such poses during Stock Footage transformation sequences, particularly when creating weapons.
• Parodied by Angel Blade, whose heroines do this in the buff.
• Parodied in the Azumanga Daioh Supplementary Materials. Tomo asks Chiyo what a cool pose would be. She responds with an exaggerated Ass Kicking Pose, prompting Kagura to ask, "What's with the cool pose?"
• Subverted/parodied in Bleach with a lesser shinigami flailing his sword impressively only to get knocked out with a single punch from Chad.
• Code Geass had quite a few for a lot of different people. One example is the pose that the new Guren SEITEN Eight Elements is in during the Second Battle of Tokyo. After fighting its way to Lelouch's position (and slicing through dozens of other Britannian Knightmares) Kallen floats her way down in front of Lelouch. After she stops, her energy wings swing out and a pink circle starts pulsing out from the Guren for no reason other than to look awesome. During her "fight" with Suzaku's for-once inferior Lancelot, she almost never leaves this position. Said pose can be seen here.◊
• Dragon Ball Z. About every character, but special mention goes to the Ginyu Force and "The Great Saiyaman!"
• In just about every episode of Fist of the North Star, before kicking some ass Ken's shirt would explode off and he would crack his knuckles.
  • Defied by Souther of the same show. His style is explicitly based on Attack! Attack! Attack!, and as taking a stance implies defence he never uses one. He later reveals it has one stance and unveils it to Kenshiro during their final battle, but even then Ken defeats him shortly afterwards.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • There's Ed's clap pose^note Ed can transmute without circles if he claps his hands first and Roy's finger-snap-ready stance.^note The gloves Roy wears have transmutation circles on them and spark when he snaps, giving him all he needs to start Playing with Fire
  • Also when Ed takes his red cloak off, and/or his shirt.
  • Alex Louis Armstrong; nearly everything he does when sparkling, during a fight or not, is his Asskicking Pose.
  • Ling Yao and his guards tend to make these poses a lot.
• The Shinobi Five, a freelance ninja squad from Gintama.
• The eponymous Gunbuster has an iconic stance of standing with its armed folded. It's badass.
• Inuyasha: The title character often cracks his knuckles before a fight. One handed. Open in a claw hand, not clenched into a fist.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has these everywhere. As pictured above, You can't go a single chapter without seeing one. The "JoJo pose" is an actual Memetic Mutation in both Japan and the West thanks to how over-the-top (and/or anatomically improbable◊) they are.
• In Karas, the eponymous fighter performs these so often it can veer a little into Narm territory. Although all the other awesome going on generally balances it out pretty well.
• In the Lucky Star OVA, Konata, the Hiiragi twins, and Ms. Kuroi are playing a MMORPG, and discuss finishing poses. What they wind up with is the final pose of the "Hare Hare Yukai" dance, with a random passerby filling the needed position. They quickly agree that it doesn't work.
• Parodied in the supplementary manga of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, which had a huge background picture of the White Magician Girl Caro doing this while Hayate mentioned how she might lose to her too since she's undergone Nanoha's Training from Hell.
  • Played completely straight in Episode 25 of StrikerS. Nanoha stomps the ground "to brace herself." In the DVD adaptation, the stomp cracks the ground underneath her feet.
• Parodied in Magical Circle Guru-Guru. The "Cool Pose" is an actual ability that can only be used by The Hero. Nike strikes a pose while a sphere of yellow light surrounds him. Though it's noted the ability has no actual function besides making everyone stare at him in awe. In the 2017 remake, the "Cool Pose" can wipe out hordes of monsters with a blinding light coming from the user, making the "ass-kicking" part living up to its name.
• Most of the HiME from My-HiME (except Yukino), after they draw their weapons out of thin air. Gaze upon Shizuru's spear stance, ye lowly, and despair!
• Naruto:
  • Rock Lee, whose combat stance involves a mid-to-low center of gravity, left hand held behind the back (potentially to grab kunai and such), and right hand ''held forward in the classic "come and get me" gesture.'' Definitely a sign of rampant badassery, whether or not it ends up working.
  • One of the people it didn't work on was Gaara. His combat stance is a Badass Armfold. And he shows that he can back that stance up every time he fights.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Ku Fei assumes what looks like some kind of Crane stance after she deals with crowds of common challengers. Which, in addition to the incident during the Summer Festival, she does every day before class. Kotaro and Negi do one before their fight against Wilhelm.
  • Jack Rakan, one of the strongest people introduced in the manga, in his tournament final fight against Negi, struck a totally serious combat pose. This man blew up a mountain on accident and one of his first attacks in the series was mistaken for a terrorist bombing. and he even held back on that one to keep from turning the opponents to dust. When the smile gets wiped off his face and he gets serious...It's scary.
• The Straw Hats in One Piece use these poses a lot. Luffy typically cracks his knuckles or stretches before a fight. Zoro usually puts his sword in his mouth before fighting, but the real Ass Kicking Pose comes when he takes the bandanna off his arm and puts it on his head. Robin most often crosses her arms in front of her and closes her eyes when she's using her powers. Chopper's arms-folded-in-front-of-him Death Glare is not even slightly ruined by the tiny blue knapsack and pink hat that he always wears. Franky has his "SUPER!" pose. Sanji lights a cigarette before his ass kicking.
• Like Sailor Moon, every main heroine in the Pretty Cure series does this. It leads to one hilarious moment in Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2 when the five teams (classic/Max Heart, Splash Star, Yes! 5 Go Go, Fresh and the rookie Heartcatch) strike a asskicking pose... then Cure Blossom and Cure Marine start wondering what they just did.
• The scene where The Puella Magi Holy Quintet first fight together in Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion, right after the transformation sequences is this, as seen here.◊ Also counts as a Team Shot.
• Reborn! (2004): If you see Sawada Tsunayoshi raise both his hands up, one in front pointing at you, the other creating a massive fireball behind him, get down on your knees and pray for a swift death.
  • If he crosses his hands and flames start pouring from the vents on the backs of the gauntlets, there's no need to pray; your swift death is coming. And it's coming very fast.
• Rurouni Kenshin has a couple. Kenshin's Battousai glare is one, notable for scaring the bejeezus out of Kurogasa and several small-time villains. There's also his battou-jutsu stance, which looks so ridiculously cool that it has reached the level of being powered by its awesomeness.
• About every episode of Sailor Moon has the title character doing such a pose at the end of any In the Name of the Moon speech.
• In Soul Eater, Death the Kid has his "Sin" and "Punishment" stances. Cue beat down.
• Transformers. Pretty much every version ever, in fact.
• Masane Amaha from Witchblade, after transforming for the first time, does the "come hither for your ass kicking" version, namely the defiant stance coupled with index finger motioning for the asshole to step forward for their aforementioned asskicking.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Yami no Yugi would usually point at people before giving them a punishment game and driving them fucking insane.
  • For full effect: One Pointer Finger + Red Eyes, Take Warning + Slasher Smile + Pre-Asskicking One-Liner = You going insane.

Comic Books

• While Batman's combat stances tend to be more practical than showy, he does like to use his cape — along with his imposing physical stature — to devastating psychological effect.
• Superman has his Ass-Kicking Pose, which is unique, as it is largely him floating silently with his hands across his chest. This being Superman, this works. When he really wants to scare someone, or if he's really pissed off, expect the Glowing Eyes of Doom. If the mook in front of him is holding a gun and tries Shooting Superman, Supes likes to melt it down with his heat vision as a warning shot.
• Daredevil turns this trope into a fine art form.
  Brave mook: Come on... we've got guns and we've got him outnumbered four to one. We can take him.
  Other mooks: (stare in disbelief)
  DD: (smiles)
  All mooks: (run down the street)
• Robin (1993): If Tim Drake wants to intimidate someone before attacking rather than his usual preferred method of starting the attack before his enemies know he's there he generally to finds somewhere with a height advantage to menacingly perch with his staff in hand before drawing their attention. He usually paired it with an audacious grin as Robin, while as Red Robin he just goes with a glare.
• Spider-Man has his characteristic contortionist/three-point-crouch thing going on.
• Wonder Woman (1942): Slimeballs that ignore when Bobby Strong is standing with one fist raised and a glare while Glamora grins with her feet planted by her side to continue whatever criminal activity they're up to tend to end up much worse for wear.

Fan Works

• In The Requiem of Remnant, Giorno Giovanna has posed more than once, as is fitting a JoJo character. He does so in Chapter 3, during an intense fight with Mercury Black, leading to this reaction:
  He wondered if the blows to his head were making him see things. And then he realized that, no, he wasn't hallucinating.
  And once he realized that what he was actually seeing was real, the confusion and disbelief within him were killed by immense outrage.
  Why?
  Because this bastard was fucking posing!
• In Wonderful (Mazinja), Taylor poses constantly. In chapter 11:
  There was a flash of light, and before his eyes, the girl was wearing the more familiar red clothes he had seen at the hospital, black mask on her face… and throwing a punch at the empty air.
  She was POSING.

Films — Animation

• Bolt always assumes the same stance when he's about to issue the Superbark.
• Parodied by Deadpool in the Wolverine section of the Hulk Vs. animated movie. After Wolverine escapes, the Weapon X team is ready to hunt him down and kill him, and Deadpool shouts ''strike a pose!" Immediately after the shot changes to them standing in said pose.
• The Incredibles:
  • When the family must fight as a team for the first time, they all adopt a simultaneous Asskicking Pose.
  • It's also mocked earlier in the film when Elastigirl catches Mr. Incredible sneaking in to the house. She startles him, and he adopts an Asskicking Pose, which is largely undone because his mouth is full of chocolate cake which is dribbling down his chin.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • More than a few incredibly awesome examples of these appear, especially on the part of Tai Lung and the Furious Five. Notable ones occurred during the snow leopard's prison escape sequence and the fight on the suspension bridge.
  • Noticeably averted during the showdown between Tai Lung and Shifu, however; despite being a major badass, the snow leopard was also a Determinator and so didn't waste time doing fancy poses when he had a master to defeat and a scroll to claim.
  • Usually averted with Po, who attempted such poses only to be an Epic Failure nine times out of ten.
  • Another example occurs when Tai Lung faces Shifu with flaming fists, pausing to snarl and brandish his burning paws before continuing the fight, his paws didn't even seem singed afterward.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie take one just as the group defies the Dazzlings at the party. Pinkie having a cookie in her mouth ruins a bit the effect, though.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: When Sunset Shimmer springs out of bed from being woken up by Twilight, she takes a karateka's "en garde" pose (with her eyes still closed).
• In Turning Red, this is Played for Laughs; Priya is not as belligerent as Abby, but when it comes to defending Mei, she poses as though she's about to cast a spell on someone and is even heard saying "I banish you!" to Tyler when he mocks Mei about the Daisy Mart incident.

Films — Live-Action

• A subversion in the 1989 Batman film, when one of the mooks threatens the Dark Knight with a series of flailing martial arts poses. The technique is about as useless as it appears, since Batman manages to flatten the guy with one punch. On two separate occasions.
• Again subverted in The Cannonball Run. During the Big Brawl scene, Roger Moore (essentially playing himself) squares off against one thug, adopts an Ass-Kicking Pose... and promptly gets his lights punched out.
• Trope name comes from Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, where the term was used in a decidedly derisive tone. Both Charlie's Angels (2000) movies were rife with their eponymous poses, commonly struck in choreographic unison. Although, in Real Life, these poses aren't used by people who know what they are doing, and basically venture into Cool, but Inefficient. Let's break it down...
  • Girls, you're standing too close together. You'll be tripping over each other.
  • None of you have your hands up in a defensive posture to protect your heads. There's a reason why boxers have their gloves up like that.
  • Ditto for boxers keeping their arms close to their body to protect their ribs and solar plexus.
  • Cameron, your midriff is completely exposed. Oh, and leaving your crotch open means you'll quickly find out why groin attacks are just as painful for women as they are for men. In addition, standing with your legs like that means it is going to be very easy for someone to dislocate your knees. Your armpit is going to be the least of your issues.
  • Lucy, you're a trained martial artist, right? Are you facing your opponent or not? In order to either attack or defend, you will have to shift your stance completely... which no Genre Savvy opponent is going to give you the chance to do.
  • Drew, you are in a southpaw stance, which is okay since you are left-handed. However, your right arm is extended too far to throw a punch and too low to effectively block one. You are, however, sticking it out far enough for your opponent to easily grab and break, or use to put in you in an armbar, or act as a convenient lever to throw you wherever they want to put you. Also, like Lucy, you have too much weight on your leading foot.
  • To be fair, with only two hands, no matter which parts you try to cover, something is going to remain wide open.
• In Donnie Brasco, Donnie's first "mission" with Lefty is to collect a debt from a guy whose response is to claim to know kung fu and to adopt a movie-style martial arts stance (it is the '70s, after all). Needless to say, Donnie has little trouble dealing with this and they leave with the man's car.
• The Gun Kata style of Equilibrium relies extensively on these to position the body just so while gunning down enemies.
• Fight Club. Brad Pitt's character Tyler Durden does several of these during his final fight with the narrator and another one when the narrator is on the phone with Marla for absolutely no reason except Brad Pitt being bored and wanting to try it out.
• Totally averted by Fighter in the Wind. Choi's favoured stance is a simple boxing guard. The few opponents stupid enough to try elaborate stances get unpleasant things done to them. Then subverted; at the end Choi and Kato are so evenly matched that they take a moment's time out to limber up and get into their preferred stances again.
• Indiana Jones has this as a recurrent joke: in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a swordsman offers a good pose and demonstration of skills, and Indy answers by shooting him dead; the pose was useless. In the following movie, several thugs do the Ass-Kicking Pose, Indy reaches for his gun again and... he had lost the gun somewhere. Oops.
• The Karate Kid introduced into the pantheon of Ass Kicking Poses the "Crane Stance". Note that according to That Other Wiki, "Crane Stance" refers to just about any stance where only one foot touches the ground, regardless of the arms' position (and the other foot usually rests on the ground leg's knee). Though, in real life, the Crane Stance would tell you exactly what move Daniel-san is about to use, and should tell you how to beat him. Fortunately for Daniel, Rule of Cool doesn't care about real life. Just watch the extras instead of the leads. At least in the first one, the no-names tend to actually have some idea what they're doing...
• Bruce Lee was the master of the Ass-Kicking Pose. Just watch Enter the Dragon and stand in awe. Oh, and he LOVED the Crane Stance. Specifically, when his opponent used it. One push, falling crane.
• The Lord of the Rings movies have a fair share of these as well; a notable example would be Gandalf's "You! Shall Not! Pass!" stance while facing the Balrog.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The current reigning champion of this trope appears in the climactic battle of Marvel's The Avengers. Ass Kickers, Assemble!
  • In one scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers all strike mid-air battle poses right before falling upon a platoon of doomed HYDRA troops.
  • In Black Widow (2021), Yelena Belova calls out big sister Natasha Romanoff's tendency to drop into Three-Point Landing stances as being this and suggests she's doing it to show off.
• Of course, The Matrix. Of particular note is Neo's continual use of the "Bring It" hand gesture throughout the series.
• The last shot in Mortal Kombat: The Movie, where after Shao Kahn threatens Earthrealm, Johnny, Sonya, Kitana and Liu Kang engage in such a pose.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End more of a Pre-Ass Kicking Pose. As the pirates Hoist The Colors and prepare to battle the East India Trading Company, most of the captains stand motionless as the banners rise behind them.
• And again in Race for the Yankee Zephyr, where the hero responds by kicking the Kung Fool down the mountain.
• In Romeo Must Die, one of the black guys uses the Crane Stance to mock Jet Li, complete with screeching "waaaa" sound. Cue immediate kick in the fork.
• Serenity. After River slaughters the entire Reaver horde the doors open to show her in a very simple stance, legs spread apart and and axe and a sword in her hands that pretty perfectly conveys the fact that many, many people just got pasted by a ninety pound girl. When the Alliance troops bust in moments later, she doesn't even shift her stance, instead just very slowly turning her head to face them — the implication being that, even with their heavy body armor and a dozen guns pointed at her, she is going to massacre them too, just as easily.
• Star Wars:
  • Darth Maul's famous lightsaber stance in The Phantom Menace would qualify.
  • And the little smile that accompanies Obi-Wan's "Oh, I don't think so" definitely qualifies as a Ass-Kicking Smile.
  • Also the classic fencing "sabre twirl" salute Count Dooku gives to Yoda in Attack of the Clones.
  • Darth Vader has a sort of anti-pose. It isn't flashing, it is him just standing there holding his lightsaber with two hands. But it is that cool calmness combined with his massive frame, imposing costume and steady breathing that just made kids watching go "Oh crap!"
  • Better yet, we have his pose from the climax of The Empire Strikes Back, where he doesn't even break his pose to ignite his lightsaber, one-handed.
  • And then another one at the end of Rogue One, where he stands in a darkened hallway before igniting his lightsaber at his side. And then proceeds to effectively, mercilessly, and effortlessly slaughter the rebels of the ship he's in without even breaking stride.
• The Ass-Kicking Smile also appears in Superman Returns in the scene where a thug shoots Superman in the eye.
• The film version of Undercover Brother parodies this trope by using awkward-looking stances.

Live-Action TV

• In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Face My Enemy", both May and Agent 33 do a number of asskicking poses during their fight.
• In Cutie Honey: THE LIVE, bubbly Honey keeps trying to do this with stoic Miki. Miki refuses.
• In the Doctor Who episode "A Good Man Goes to War", Rory Williams a.k.a. "The Last Centurion" adopts a double-wielding stance with sword in one hand and gun in the other and a matter-of-fact "come on, then" expression on his face.
• Kamen Rider, one word: "Henshin!"
  • Parodied in Kamen Rider G. After the title Rider finishes his pose, the building behind him has half of its windows blown out to form his logo. Hope he has Hero Insurance.
  • In addition, the pose of Hongo Takeshi (a.k.a. Kamen Rider 1) is iconic in Japanese media.
  • Played for Laughs in Kamen Rider Drive, when the heroes battle a Monster of the Week with an Otaku personality. He thinks Mach's signature pose is cool and expects Drive to do one as well; however, Drive's normal pose is so subdued that the monster insists he do a better one, which results in his performing the Gekisou Sentai Carranger pose.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide played with this and then hung a lampshade on their playing with it, when Ned and Cookie fought. They imitated every cliche Ass Kicking Pose possible, then made up before throwing any actual blows. The Combat Commentators left in disgust.
• Power Rangers/Super Sentai, both humans and mecha. The concentrated awesomeness of these poses will often cause explosions and bursts of colored smoke.
  • There's a lot of ceremony behind it: each Ranger has his or her own personal pose, with a little routine of a few moves before snapping into the final pose (with optional smoke clouds.) Some teams have an entire routine where each gives his or her Ranger designation while posing, and then all pose together after the team's In the Name of the Moon phrase — this is known to fans (well, some fans) as the "roll call". When Rangers return for a Reunion Show years or even a decade after their most recent appearance, the poses are always done just as they were before. Z of Power Rangers SPD had a habit of quickly taking on her final pose without suiting up just before running in to take on Mooks, though the full routine was saved for roll call scenes.
  • There's often an explosion after the pose. Once in RPM, Mission Control tells the Rangers that that's due to "clearing the energy channels." Later in the episode, one of the Rangers uses this to nuke a small army of Mooks.
  • Another time, it was used in combination with Defeat Means Explosion. The extended cast of a team-up episode lets the enemies have it with their combined finishing move, then they all turn around and do a roll call, finishing just in time for... KABOOM!
  • Parodied in Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, where Large Ham Dr. Ulshade morphs into KyoryuViolet and does a particularly elaborate pose routine — throwing his back out and leaving him immobile for the subsequent fight.
  • Kyoryuger parodies it more than once. There's the time they started to not do it and the bad guys told them, "no, do it right!" There's the time they did it... and two of the generals applauded at the show. Then there's the teamup where the resulting explosion threw the ToQgers on their butts.
  • And the time they did it in the base, and The Mentor Torin quickly tells them to keep it down because of where they are. So they say the last part quietly, and instead of a big fireball, we get a small pop of sparks. And one time, the Stock Footage posing scene background got knocked over.
• Parodied in the TV show Vanishing Son: the hero (seeking the Villain of the Week) kicks down his office door, to reveal a gigantic man behind a desk. Said man jumps up, puts his hands in front of him, shouts "I'm a temp!"

Music

• Lights: The Darker and Edgier "Ice" clip, featuring the Mirror Match.

Pinballs

• The backbox art for Mac Attack shows the Captain with teeth clenched as he grips a pair of gun controls, while behind him are his two crew members, each with a raised fist and a large gun ready to fire.

Pro Wrestling

• WWE wrestler Rob Van Dam has a tendency to get knocked down, then pop right back up into an Ass Kicking Pose.
• Pretty common in Professional Wrestling anyway — usually after a series of very quick reversals and chain wrestling, with both guys doing a "kip up", as it's termed, into the pose before relaxing so the crowd can show their appreciation.

Tabletop Games

• Mei Feng in Malifaux has this as an actual game ability: "Badass Pose" gives her a buff after performing her "jackhammer kick" maneuver.

Video Games

• Name a fighting game, almost Any fighting game made after 1995, especially if there's a strong Martial Arts theme.
• ANNO: Mutationem: Ann, excelling in both athletics and combat, does a combat stance when she's about to battle opponents.
• The Arch-Vile from Doom is well-known for striking a pose, arms in the air, when it's about to raise demons from the dead or light you on fire.
• In Fallout 3, the statue◊ of the Anchorage War Memorial has three soldiers posing with their weapons. Then in the Operation Anchorage DLC, where you enter a VR simulation of that conflict, there's a scene with a journalist snapping a photo of a trio of soldiers◊, before he remarks that "maybe someone will make this into a statue someday".
• In most main-series Final Fantasy games as a whole, players can expect to see poses when the character enters battle, when they just stand around waiting for their turn, and of course the Victory pose when they win. In what can only be an affectionate parody or lampshade hanging to Charlie's Angels, the three heroines of Final Fantasy X-2 kick the game off by appearing in an ass-kicking pose stolen directly from the movie (plus the exotic FF weaponry).
• In the mobile spin-off game Fire Emblem Heroes, each of the four player-controlled units deployed in battle assumes one of these during the beginning of every player phase. Sword, lance, and axe-wielders brandish the weapon at the ready, tome-wielders hold their hands out in a preparatory casting stance, and Dragonstone users...hold them up in the air.
• When the boss Elvis tries an elaborate one of these in God Hand, Gene mocks it: "You can 'wax on wax off' all you like, I'm still kicking your ass." Gene himself has a much simpler set of poses used before major battles.
• Most characters in Juuzaengi has a few, including the heroine, since this is a game set in war times.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • There's one in The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games, of all places. Militron's version of the "you must die" line consist of him first making a Declarative Finger and then a Gloved Fist of Doom in you face.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, at the end of a boss defeat cutscene, or if you sheathe your sword right before a tough enemy poofs, Link will twirl his weapon before he sheathes it over his shoulder, looking particularly badass. Combining this with the Mortal Draw technique makes for some nice showing iaijitsu.
  • Technically, Link originally did the sword twirl in the Zelda cartoon. However, it was no where near as impressive as in Twilight Princess or any other example here, possibly due to the size of the blade and where the sheath was.
• All of your party members have one in Mass Effect, from Ashley and Wrex pulling rifles to Liara glowing blue in a threatening posture to Tali pulling out her omni-tool and waving "hi" to the opposition or Shepard pulling out his/her Cutscene Pistol of Doom.
• In The Matrix: Path of Neo, Neo does this when faced with bosses. A few mooks and Elite Mooks do this as well...they die.
• Almost every robot master/Maverick from Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X does one of these, right after making their grand entrance.
  • Starting with X4, X and Zero do this as they enter a stage. Also, X's armor warps into place.
  • When X is confronted as a boss, X's armor-warp gesture serves as this. Zero simply shakes his fist, if he bothers to gesture at all.
• The Phantom Thieves of Hearts from Persona 5 are prone to doing this, doing a JoJo-esque pose when using their Persona skills and the contributing Thief in an All-Out Attack doing their own unique pose if said attack finishes all enemies.
• The Power Rangers game Super Legends makes posturing an attack, giving the rampant posing in the TV show a significantly better use.
• Sonic the Hedgehog, whether after clearing a mission, beating the big bad, or just to piss off Doctor Eggman, will likely do a bunch of fancy stuff, but will always end his pose with a thumbs up. In Super Smash Bros., this is proven, as his entrance is to roll/bounce onscreen and flash a smile and thumbs up.
• Soul Series: Kilik oddly enough does NOT use a crane stance (see Film example above) as one of his pre-battle poses, despite that his "Crane stance + Staff held at a 45 degree angle" pose is extremely iconic for the series.
• Ibuki the cutesy girly ninja does a battle pose in Street Fighter V's story mode when she is about to battle Balrog.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Series-wide: Many taunts are of the Ass Kicking Pose variety. Lucario and his Aura poses, Captain Falcon's "Show me ya moves" and Wario laughing at his opponents for example.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: The Subspace Emissary adventure mode's cutscenes are positively saturated with them. One of the more spectacular examples involves DK and Diddy posing while a ''Bullet Bill explodes behind them'. Another iscenes ncludes Link, Mario, Kirby, Marth and Yoshi performing epic poses when a Subspace Army begins to regroup.
• In Undertale, it's an actual gameplay mechanic during the Mettaton Boss Battle, you have to raise the ratings of the battle to a certain point — and one of the ways to do it is to use the "Pose" ACT. It's more effective the more hurt you are.
• Viewtiful Joe has poses that are so awesome it destroys enemies!
• XCOM 2 introduced a Photobooth with its War of the Chosen expansion, which allows you to make posters of your individual soldiers or squads to celebrate a successful mission or promotion with a variety of badass poses, from fist pumps and arm flexes to class-specific poses showing off their equipment. The Tactical Legacy Pack DLC adds even more, like a soldier posing atop a pile of dead aliens... or getting a Viper coiled around them, or stomped by a Muton. And then there's a "Community Pose Pack" Game Mod that lets your soldiers dab on haters, T-pose to assert dominance, Face Palm when you miss that 95% to hit the shot.
• XenoGears: Each party member has a battle pose when in battle. Fei's Weltall is also in a stance when deployed.

Web Animation

• Bravest Warriors lampshade this trope. ^note They all were memory donked and can't remember much of anything.
  Danny: What do we do now?!
  Chris: I don't know, it just feels right to pose like this!

Web Comics

• Parodied in 8-Bit Theater when preparing to fight a major villain, Red Mage, ever the role-player, calls for everyone to adopt "battles poses" and to make it look good.
• In one fight scene from El Goonish Shive, Elliot berates Nanase for striking what he calls a "Look at me, I just kicked Elliot" pose.
• In the Final Fantasy X webcomic Guardian, Lulu and Yuna assume one before the final fight with Seymour.
  Lulu: "Let's end this."
• MS Paint Adventures:
  • Problem Sleuth from has a panel entitled "Pose as a team CAUSE SHIT JUST GOT REAL!". And then later, "POSE AS A TEAM AGAIN CAUSE SHIT JUST GOT MORE REAL!" In all, there's about four panels, where shit continues to get increasingly real. Despite the fact that it's actually getting LESS real.
  • And in the end, "Pose as a team. The world is real."
• Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance gets these a lot. "Ka-click!"

Web Original

• HUNT the TRUTH deconstructs this. The series reveals that In-Universe the Halo 2 cover art was a photograph taken by Benjamin who saw the photograph edited for propaganda purposes, including cropping out the corpse of a Marine, reducing the numbers of Covenant forces in the background, and repairing damage to the Chief's armour.
• Chaka of the Whateley Universe. More than once, but the first time was in her first Whateley Academy fight, against a team of superpowered ninjas. She's also fond of the Bring It move.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender makes frequent use of this, and it can be argued that for most of the characters, Asskicking Poses are essentially their fighting style, since most of the actual combat is done with whatever element they happen to be bending at the time instead of actual hand-to-hand. Toph also has a pretty awesome Asskicking Smile in a few episodes.
• Done quite a bit with the Legion of Super Heroes (2006), especially Triplicate Girl in her three selves — justified in that she's one of the only ones who fights hand-to-hand. Bouncing Boy always pulls his goggles down before he smashes into someone or does a particularly daring maneuver on the ship — more of an Ass-Kicking Ritual than pose, but still.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Just before going into battle against the senior-citizombiefied Numbuh 60 in Operation: Z.E.R.O., Numbuh 362 strikes an Asskicking Pose so cool that she sparkles.
• Mocked lightly in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, where MetaBrawl has degenerated into a pathetic, bingo-hall level company, complete with fighters who spend all their time doing Neo's "just bring it" pose and comparatively little time fighting each other.
• Ron in Kim Possible has a tendency to invoke random, ridiculous poses in futile attempts to mimic Kim's stances. Kim, Shego and assorted ninjas could pull it off, though.
• In Teen Titans (2003), Cyborg prepares for a fight by cracking the cartilage in his neck. Additionally, Robin often struck these in preparation for a fight.
• With The Powerpuff Girls, it's basically them standing arms akimbo and furrowed brows. Crooks and villains know they're in for a thrashing.

Real Life

• The animal kingdom is replete with these, from a viper's coiling for a strike to a house cat's arching of its back and standing on tip toes. Most examples of this are heavy on the intimidate factor, trying to scare off a threat, and are only used when flight is not an option.
• This guy.
• Well this was already mentioned in the film section, but as a former practitioner of Martial Arts, there quite literally is such thing as an "Ass Kicking Pose". It's actually effective and for your own safety. If your stance isn't proper before a fight, most likely your opponent will take advantage of your apparent lack of balance (i.e. don't look clumsy if you're getting ready to defend yourself).
  • Not to mention that a well-executed pose-sequence can be really intimidating if your opponent isn't a martial artist, himself.
  • The practical purpose of an Ass Kicking Pose is to make yourself as small a target as possible while maintaining the ability to effectively strike at your opponent.
• These oftentimes backfire if the one doing the pose doesn't know what he's doing. Trying out a pose that only works in the movies is typically bad for your mobility, balance, ability to defend and counterattack, and in a real fight, your health as well.
• And others would recommend that you have no 'combat pose'. To paraphrase Miyamoto Musashi, your fighting stance should be your everyday stance; your walk should be your everyday walk. If proper fighting form (or terrain, such as marshland) requires you adopt a difference in walk or stance, then that should also be incorporated into your usual stance and pace.

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