To-do list:
- Disambiguate between Most Common Superpower, Buxom Beauty Standard, Heroic Build, Fanservice, and possibly other tropes.
That is not how people use the trope. Here is a wick check I did
.
- Correct usage: 18/52 (and some of those are being charitable)
- Action girl has breasts: 26/52
- Woman has breasts: 2/52
- Unclear: 8/52
So we see that not only is the trope misused over half the time, at least half the misuse is just noting that women in action series have visible bosoms, which is not tropeable.
I suspect the trope as defined is valid; the issue seems to be the name. It sounds like it's the female counterpart to Balls of Steel, when in fact it's completely unrelated.
So I propose a rename to something clearer. Best Battler Has Biggest Breasts or something, but less clunky.
I'd like to page ~lexii, who started the thread that got me to finally make this proposal.
Wick check:
Wick check for Boobs Of Steel.
52 wicks were checked. Fractions add up to a little over 1 because in a couple of cases there were multiple examples on a page.
A few of the examples listed here as valid are ambiguous, and I made a judgement call as I'm not familiar with most of these.
- Boobs of Steel: It comes with the build. She well endowed, and has shown hints of being able to fight.
Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General (Note: The first subbullet is incorrect but the second one is accurate, so I'm going to list this under correct usage)
- Boobs Of Steel:
- Impact has a decently big chest, being slightly smaller than the General, which does well to signify that despite being strong enough to be one of the Top 4 Heroes, her debilitatingly massive appetite, which causes her to lose her strength if she misses a meal, prevents her from being as effective a powerhouse as she could be.
- Mother Justice has the absolute largest chest among the entire female cast, visibly beating out the General by 1-2 cup sizes, and she is far and away the strongest hero in the story, to the point that she's The Dreaded for the next 3 strongest heroes.
- Boobs Of Steel: The strongest fighter in the first half of the game next to Yuri, and even at the end, she and Keith are the strongest. And of course, she's far more buxom than Alice.
Characters/Shadowverse
- Boobs Of Steel: Magic variation, she has the largest breast size when compared to the other female characters.
- Boobs Of Steel: One of the few female Battleborns whose methods of attack are dedicated to melee, comprised with stats to compensate the inability to block direct attacks or hide behind the frontlines while having a bust that is easily recognizable to her outfit compared to the other well-dressed femme fatales.
- Boobs Of Steel: She has G-cups and is the tankiest of the bunch.
- Boobs Of Steel: She’s one of the more powerful characters. Needless to say, she has the largest chest in the series.
- Betty and Veronica: Sasuke was the Archie to Sakura's coy and smitten Betty and Naruko's Tomboyish and feisty Veronica. What draws the parrellel more is that Sakura is more book smart and intelligent while Naruko shines in the muscle and jutsu department. As time goes on, Sakura becomes stronger and Naruko becomes smarter. Plus, the size of their busts are very different as Sakura is very sensitive about her lack of growth and Naruko has the size comparable to her tomboyish attitude.
- Evil Is Sexy:
- Balalaika is hot. Revy is hot. Shenhua is hot. Eda is hot. Roberta is hot. All of the main female characters are, to some degree, evil (as is everybody else in this series). And they are hot.
- And the men aren't? Mr. Chang is hot. Rock is hot. Dutch is hot. Benny is hot. Villainy apparently makes for very sexy bodies.
- Boobs Of Steel: She has at least a D-cup, can easily dish out the most damage in combat
Earth Twenty Seven The Justice League
- Boobs Of Steel: As you may have noticed, Karen is rather buxom. And being a Kryptonian she's one of the strongest heroes DC has to offer.
Fire Emblem - Recurring Characters
- Boobs Of Steel: Called "The Voice", the daughter of Naga the Divine Dragon, and extremely powerful and long-lived in her own right. AND by the time she reappears in Awakening as an adult, she's among the bustiest of the cast, perhaps only behind Aversa and Tharja. Even further hammered home when she appears in a bikini as part of Heroes' "Ylissean Summer" Banner - without the dress to cover them up, it's clear she's buxom enough to give Camilla a run for her money. As icing on the cake, Female Robin, who is also revealed to be fairly well-endowed in the same Banner, is decisively smaller in comparison to Tiki when looking at both in swimwear side-by-side.
Punishing: Gray Raven - Playable Constructs
- Boobs Of Steel: Has the largest bust thus far, and is a very physical fighter who uses a very large weapon.
Dragon Age: Inquisition – The Inquisitor
- Boobs Of Steel: In addition to being the most physically imposing, a female Qunari inquisitor is bustier than human, elf, or dwarf inquisitors.
- Boobs Of Steel: Fitting for the ultimate knight.
Unbreakable Red Silken Thread Secondary Characters
- Boobs Of Steel: She has these just like in cannon, in chapter 11 she confirms they're a Double D 42. She is also probably the strongest character in the entire story so far.
- Boobs Of Steel: She's definitely stacked, and she's strong enough to throw a Terran Marine in full power armor over her shoulder.
- Boobs Of Steel: It's Wonder Woman; this is a given.
Skeleton Knight in Another World
- Boobs Of Steel: She's one of the deadliest Dark Elves and is quite stacked.
- Boobs Of Steel: Downplayed. Ronka's got some curves, but they haven't been given much focus yet.
- Boobs Of Steel: Both Maya and Kilmaria are well-endowed women who are the two most powerful beings in the fantasy world.
- Boobs Of Steel: Well endowed and the sturdiest tank in the game.
- Muramasa: The Demon Blade gives the Tiny Guy, Huge Girl couple of Fuujin and Raijin. Raijin is a visibly and hugely muscular woman (seriously, she'd put any and all female bodybuilders to shame) about 3.5 times larger than the player with little in terms of clothing, a large chest, and monstrous thighs (think "tree trunk-sized") that'd make Chun-Li look like a twig. She's still very beautiful, especially when her "dere" side finally comes to the surface. Fuujin, by contrast, is a very mellow, very adorable little imp, usually calming down the thunder goddess in her less rational moments. He also states (in the original Japanese version and in the Aksys retranslation) that he loves her fat ass.
- Boobs Of Steel: Even as the other players do get stronger, Ouka is the only main team member (aka not Balmung) to be able to take an enemy down in one hit. Hell, her first scene in human form is beating the crap out of a data-bugged skeleton with her fists, something that gave everyone else trouble. Of course, that also falls into Rule of Funny whether or not she's able to.
Video Game/Drakensang
- Boobs Of Steel:
- An Amazon character may become this, if you choose the right body type.
- in TRoT Eilif Thunderfist, who also doubles as Large and in Charge.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: The duo Asra line, Ninja and Archer (especially Archer), for two big reasons. They're the ones with the most variations and re-releases.
- Bullet also strongly resembles Angel in, eh... build, hair colour, dress sense and fighting style, though their personalities couldn't be further from each other.
- Boobs Of Steel: Leigh and Mai Giru, who Naruko nicknames 'Busty boobs' and 'Super-busty-boobs-sensei' because of this.
- Boobs Of Steel: Clarissa's core cadre of assassins is all women with sizable busts, including Zaki.
- Boobs Of Steel: She's quiet busty and once even killed a crocodile.
Incredibles 2 (Helen might be a valid example, but the example as written takes the trope to mean "big breasts" rather than "bigger than the other action girls")
- Fanservice Pack: Helen was redesigned to be more buxom and toned, and Violet has slightly wider hips than in the first movie. Violet and Tony also received upgraded designs, the former also having longer hair.
High School D×D: SLASHDØG (one or the other might be a valid example, but they can't both be). [[quoteblock]]
- Boobs Of Steel: The Harem King Memorial artbook listed her boobs size at 100 cm, surpassing the likes of Rias.
- Boobs Of Steel: As the head of the Himejima family she is a powerful mystic with an immense purification ability. She also ties with her cousin as having the biggest recorded breasts in the series at 102cm.
- Boobs Of Steel: Every female hero in the game have sizable busts, and all are badasses.
Black Widow [[quoteblock]]
- Boobs Of Steel: She quite well endowed and is a deadly physical fighter.
Manga/Freezing [[quoteblock]]
- Boobs Of Steel: Generally prevalent among the stronger and strongest cast members, particularly Satellizer and later, Cassandra, but some characters such as Charles Bonaparte are extremely skilled and very petite in build.
Punishing: Gray Raven - Playable Constructs
- Boobs Of Steel: She's typically not this as she's a long-ranged fighter, but her Abystigma frame puts her into this category by both making her an incredibly powerful melee combatant and most overtly showing off her ample bust.
- Boobs Of Steel: Susuki is quite stacked and kicks plenty of ass.
- Boobs Of Steel: Lt. James has an incredible rack and is the only female character to have engaged extensively in combat. She's good at it, including hand-to-hand — reference the brutal butt-stroke she deals out in "Divided" and when she "kills" Scott at the beginning of "Pain".
Azur Lane Sakura Empire Battlecruisers And Battleships
- Boobs Of Steel: Has a quite sizable rack, and she's one of the strongest Sakura Empire battleships.
Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA
- Angelica, full goddamn stop. The fans are already clamoring for her when she first appeared with her awesome Gilgamesh Install, and her following appearances gave her plenty of time to shine, what with The Reveal about this series' background and her awesome fight vs. Kuro and Miyu's brother. After her Heel–Face Turn, she's become even more popular as the fans jokingly said that she embodied "the perfect heroine for TYPE-MOON", with her combining traits of all three of Stay Nights heroines (blonde hair, Girlish Pigtails, big boobs', stoic yet honorable nature, and older sister-like personality).
- Boobs Of Steel: Yang and Ceres have the largest busts and the hardest punches.
Wanna Be the Strongest in the World!
- Boobs Of Steel: Tons. It's justified since many of the female characters are wrestlers.
- Boobs Of Steel: Is very well endowed and since she wears Sarashi, it shows.
- Boobs Of Steel: She's quite fit and very well endowed. Her large chest somehow doesn't affect her running. Anna is confused by this, and how she got them.
- Boobs Of Steel: She's one of the bustier girls of the main cast, and she's no slouch in the physical strength department, either, as her Action Girl entry shows.
- Boobs Of Steel: Tang Xuan supposedly has the largest chest of the main characters, and she's also a very tough tomboy.
- Boobs Of Steel: Awesome Girl is a very tough Flying Brick with a very large bust to match.
- Boobs Of Steel: Hanzo.
Fabricant 100 [[quoteblock]]
- Boobs Of Steel: One of No. 100's clear characteristics beside her strength is her very large breasts size.
- Boobs Of Steel: She has one of the largest busts among the characters and is one of the three leaders of her biker gang.
Survival in Another World with My Mistress! [[quoteblock]]
- Boobs Of Steel: Sylphy is quite stacked, and one of the most lethal ground combatants in the series.
- Boobs Of Steel: Zig-zagged. Ayame is the bustiest character (so far) but is below a less-endowed Yarizui in terms of fighting capability, but Matsy used to be the "Monarch Butterfly", the strongest Wolf in the east, and she's bustier (even back then) than Yarizui is.
- In Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja Shizune has huge breasts that she notably lacks in the regular universe, meanwhile Tsunade (Boobs Of Steel incarnate) ironically inverts this, since she is flat chested here.
- Kirze from King's Raid is a Cat hybrid with Boobs Of Steel and Hartman Hips, has cat-like mannerisms when you speak to her in the inn and her trascendence animations, and her default outfit is a corset with a transparent short Showgirl Skirt and high boots.
Conclusion: Fully half of the examples are cases of people thinking the trope is simply about action girls with visible bosoms, and that's not even all of it.
I suspect the issue is the name. It sounds like the female counterpart of Balls of Steel, but is a completely unrelated trope.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 10th 2023 at 6:11:56 AM
This thread was long overdue.
Honestly, I don't know what to think. On the one hand, I see the point that this might just be tropers finding patterns where there are none, or the good ol' "correlation does not imply causation" (or "intent" in this case). On the other hand, it could be a genuine trope used for character design. Analysis.Boobs Of Steel has some interesting points, namely the second and fourth bullets.
I've also read the Trope Talk thread that inspired this TRS thread, and some posts are good food for thought. I specially like this, this, this and this.
Not sure on everything else yet, but a (potentially) less clunky rename could be Best Fighter, Biggest Breasts
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Loserswithwifi
Ninja Gamer Writer
What about The Bustier, The Stronger? Alternatively, The Stronger, The Bustier?
Edited by Zerukin on Jul 31st 2023 at 11:55:05 AM
Most Common Super Power is only for superheroines, though. Boobs Of Steel covers all kinds of characters.
She / Her
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to renaming.
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
x4 I'm thinking of something punny like Breast Brawler, Biggest Boobs
Edited by Nen_desharu on Jul 31st 2023 at 4:48:59 AM
Kirby is awesome.
Just stoic wisdom.
Edited by Yindee on Jul 31st 2023 at 5:48:46 AM
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
the Retromancer
Calendar enthusiast
To Biggest Breasts Brawls Best if the decision is to preserve the trope.
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
Biggest Breasts Brawls Best is a much better name.
Kirby is awesome.
While I know new names are being hashed, I do think the argument that this isn't actually a trope has merit. I can see the logic in the argument about big boobed women = fanservice and good fighters being prioritized in works that focus on fighting, but this seems like just a very loose association. At best, this would suggest that big breasted women are going to be hand to hand combatants more often than not in such works for maximum jiggle fanservice (which already is a stretch given Guys Smash, Girls Shoot), but this "trope" tries to take it a step further by suggesting there's a comparative power level component to it amongst female characters that is barely implied by the base logic. I think this is also part of why there's so much "misuse" of people missing that last component. I think Most Common Superpower is the most we can accurately say is happening and agree with a merge into it or disambig involving it.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jul 31st 2023 at 7:10:08 AM
She / Her
to Yindee's rename suggestion because I feel this is different enough from Most Common Superpower and it doesn't have to be played for fanservice as it stands.
Edited by RandomTroper123 on Jul 31st 2023 at 5:53:53 AM
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Agreed. I still think this isn't a trope and should be disambiguated.
Killing is my business
This trope does feel very ecchi-exclusive, tbh.
"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter
Same here.
Yeah, this is the thing that really gets me about it potentially just being a coincidence. "Action girl has large breasts" is a very conceivable deliberate design choice; "the best female fighter in the work has the largest breasts" is not a thing I'm aware of any cases where it's been done intentionally.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I feel as though this may just boil down to the fact that the strongest female fighter is more likely to have more screen time, and the creators want eye-candy. That's the only way I can actually explain this "trend".
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I agree.
I still don't think there's a point in renaming if it's not a trope, especially with so few correct examples.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 31st 2023 at 10:26:36 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Killing is my business
Like I said, I'm pretty certain action ecchi and fanservice-heavy shows do this deliberately, and likewise examples should be limited to such examples only. If we are to keep the trope at all.
"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter
I think they deliberately have female melee fighters have big boobs for maximum jiggle, but I think very few actually care about making them the strongest. Sometimes it coincides, but often it doesn't.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jul 31st 2023 at 12:22:48 PM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Yeah, we've already gone over how the thing that's done deliberately is giving fighters large breasts. What's being questioned is whether there's actually a pattern of the best fighter having the largest breasts (which is what Boobs Of Steel is supposed to refer to) or whether this page made that up, especially since so few examples use it that way.
As for the broader concept, it might already be covered by other tropes like Most Common Superpower (among other fanservice tropes).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 31st 2023 at 12:50:31 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Original YKTTW for reference.
(Because pings don't work in OPs, very belatedly paging ~Tropers/lexii. The edit was to add the sentence above, not this one, so the ping should still have gone through.)
Edited by MorganWick on Aug 1st 2023 at 1:11:54 AM
Crown Description:
Boobs Of Steel is heavily misused, and there are doubts that it's even a real trope. What should be done with it?
Some examples were borderline and I had to make judgment calls. I did say some of the "correct" examples were being charitable.
If this isn't a real trope, I vote to make it a redirect to Most Common Super Power.
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