Boring but Practical/Anime and Manga

"Gavrill: (to a gonky boy) You wanna be popular with the girls? Get plastic surgery and transfer to another school. Also, practice talking to people a lot. And if you need to, lie to women or buy them off with money."
 * Although Naruto makes extensive use of all two of his advanced jutsu, he's ended most of his fights in the entire series thus far by just punching the guy.
 * Then again, in some cases, this was necessitated by him using up most of his chakra using his advanced jutsu.
 * There's also Shikamaru's shadow manipulation jutsu, which never changes its basic function throughout the series (ensnaring and controlling people with their shadows), yet Shikamaru uses it efficiently and in a variety of methods. Overall, he's definitely a boring fighter, but far more practical at getting the job done than many others.
 * Bleach has Ichigo, who in a world where shikais and bankais give elemental abilities to weapons, turn them into entirely different weapons, summon giant poison baby familiars, win most fights by simply slashing and shooting blasts with varying levels of power.
 * Kenpachi Zaraki is a beast who relies on brute force but his ace in the hole is to hold his sword with two hands and swing nromally.
 * Hanataro's zanpakuto is pretty much useless for fighting, but its ability to heal any wound it "slashes" makes it the perfect medical device. Course, this pretty much summarizes Hanataro's boring yet greatly underappreciated character; not a fighter in any form of the word, yet one of the best healers in the Gotei 13. For example, he was the one who brought Renji back to full form after the latter was beaten and nearly torn apart by Byakuya several times over.
 * But if the gauge on the side is full, it turns into Awesome but Impractical because now the next one slash takes all the injuries the sword absorbed and launches them out into a single attack.
 * The Taiyouken/Solar Flare technique from Dragon Ball. It's probably the most generally useful technique in the entire story, even if It Only Works Once, and the Z-Fighters were more pragmatic a whole lot of story arcs would be about half the length.
 * Gets a lampshade in Dragon Ball Abridged when Gohan asks if Krillin thought to just use the Kienzan/Destructo Disc to kill Frieza when he was blinded (he didn't).
 * Most Holyland fights end after the second or third exchange and a character (Izawa) constantly reminds everyone else that basic movements are the best option, although the fact that he one-hit KO's most of his opponents can be considered Awesome Yet Practical; he claims that he doesn't do it because it looks cool, but because it's the safest way to go. Also, there's a fight that Yuu wins by using only left straights because his opponent was bigger, stronger and had longer reach than him, so using anything but a left straight would be too dangerous. A character even complains about this because he was expecting more from the fight.
 * Soul Eater: Black Star and Mifune deciding to finish their final fight on even ground as swordsmen (just ordinary katana, or as close as Tsubaki could make herself) makes for one of the best and worst moments in the series.
 * The advice of Gavrill from Franken Fran for the school students is a combination of this, Brutal Honesty, and Family-Unfriendly Aesop.


 * Fate/stay night, where generally massively destructive attacks rule supreme, and where the main heroine has a Sword Beam that can wipe out a city you have Assassin and (to a lesser degree) Lancer. Both their Noble Phantasms (read weapons and special attacks) do one thing: attack one, and only one person infront of them. Nothing else, not even environmental damage. Not very much compared to Saber's speed-of-light Wave Motion Sword, Archer's Field of Blades, Rider's 430kmph Pegasus, Caster's over-the-top Beam Spam, Berserker's   and   HOWEVER, Lancer's Noble Phantasm uses so little mana that he can fire it off 7 times in quick succession without draining himself completely, as opposed to most of the other attacks mentioned above. And though his attack isn't flashy or earth shattering, it will probably kill you in one shot. And Assassin's attack doesn't even use mana at all. It's just a very good sword technique that's undodgeable and instakill if he manages to set it up. It's not flashy, nor is it No Kill Like Overkill, and it's not even really magical, but it damn well works.
 * In theory.
 * Similarly, Magi can have an incredible repertoire too. Element Manipulation, Magic Infused Jewelry, Curses, Bounded Fields, Projection and, in rare cases, a Reality Marble. Nonetheless, in the end, the most effective one is a simple Reinforcement Spell combined with close combat skills. As demonstrated by.