This isn't a fair fight. This is barely exercise. You outclass every fighter that the Medusa's Head has to offer, battering them senseless without needing to concentrate. Did you pay that bill? When is the coalman coming tomorrow? Why are people giving you rostygold? Oh, that's right.
— Fallen London, when brawling at the local pit fights
When the task is "kicking ass," some really go above and beyond. Sure, our protagonist may have just infiltrated the enemy base and killed six armed guards with his bare hands, but the fact remains that the enemy stronghold still contains at least a hundred other Mooks who are still alive and breathing, and that just won't do. As he's breaking necks without breaking a sweat, the constant stream of new foes is just barely enough to keep him from getting bored. He's suffering from Epic Battle Boredom.
He might be reading their name tags, or stealing them, or checking his watch in the middle of a fight—the point is, he's bored. Hopefully the viewer isn't.
This happens frequently when the character is a One-Man Army, or just a plain old regular badass. Sometimes involves Excuse Me While I Multitask or Casual Danger Dialogue. The person may think Victory Is Boring, and may tend to do Blasé Boast. Compare Strolling Through the Chaos, where they (often) aren't even thinking of battling, merely walking through, while ignoring anything around him.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Saitama from One-Punch Man is so overpowered he kills every enemy in one punch without any effort. Or if he feels nice he either dodges or effortlessly blocks every attack. Much of the story revolves around his disappointment with the complete lack of challenge he experiences in combat—he only wanted to become a hero "for fun," and he (almost) never gets any excitement out of it.
- Basically how Accelerator in A Certain Magical Index is in any fight with his vector control (even after it having a time limit after being shot in the head while concentrating too much on eliminating a virus from Last Order); seeing as his automatic reflection makes any attacks go straight back to the attacker, he quickly gets bored slaughtering mooks. This changes when he finally goes up against someone who can counter or get around his automatic reflection.
Comic Books
- The Asterix comic books have Asterix and his friend Obelix casually beating up people (usually Romans) who try attacking them. The page image is from Asterix the Gladiator. A trainer is trying to capture Asterix and Obelix to put them in the arena by sending tough mooks to catch them as the two wander around town. Asterix and Obelix keep on casually batting their attackers away while discussing their real mission. Then on the way back to their inn, Asterix finally lampshades that he hasn't even noticed that anyone was attacking them.
- Lucky Luke once traveled through a mountain pass, casually disarming outlaws and Indians while monologuing to Jolly Jumper. Upon arrival at his destination, he is surprised to be told that there were supposed to be bandits on his route, and he cannot explain where the arrow stuck through his hat came from.
Fan Works
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- It portrays Nappa as being like this, as he's countering Piccolo and Krillin's clone forms, he's singing "Patty-cake".
- Freeza has heard so many heroic speeches that he keeps a tab on how many times he's heard certain cliches (to the point that he's even heard "We're going to f&*$ your FACE!" twelve times already). Later, when fighting Vegeta in Final Form, he thinks to himself how badly the Namek mission has been going and decides to send gift baskets to the families of the deceased Ginyu Force. Turns into a Brick Joke when Goku cheerfully declares "I'mma deck ya in the schnozz!" ... that, he's never heard before.
Films — Live-Action
- The Matrix: After his resurrection, Neo looks thoroughly bored as he effortlessly fights the agents attacking him, like it wouldn't seem that out of place if he put his hand over his mouth and yawned.
Video Games
- Ace Combat 5 Arcade Mode. Mobius One, who already got the Memetic Badass status from the previous game, is back. And single-handedly defeats an entire army, shooting down dozens of enemy planes, without saying a single word. Judging from the rather boring radio chatter of AWACS Sky Eye, Mobius One doing that is a matter of fact.
- Sonic 3 & Knuckles: If Tails stands in place for a little while, he will yawn from boredom. As Super Tails, he and his army of Flickies can take down enemies and bosses while he's doing this.
- In Fallen London, once you've become a Person of Some Importance, you can head into the ring fights and take on all comers. If you succeed at the Dangerous roll, you end up outclassing everyone so hard that you get lost in thought and forget why you started fighting until they hand you your prize.
Web Comics
- In Grrl Power, even as he's fighting multiple supervillains at once, Math complains to Maxima that she had promised him opportunities to fight truly challenging enemies and so far he isn't seeing any.
Western Animation
- Castlevania (2017): Trevor Belmont's first instinct on seeing Dracula is to punch him in the face (despite having Leon Belmont's sword and the Morning Star with him). Dracula doesn't even flinch, and then sighs "You must be the Belmont..."
- Rick and Morty: When fully equipped, Rick suffers from this if there isn't any good loot to be found. One example is in the early goings of Vindicators 3, where Morty ropes him into participating in a supposed battle for the fate of the universe. Rick is just grumpy and complains loudly the whole time.
