Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?/Anime and Manga

": Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god. A god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him."
 * Probably accomplished at the end of Angel Sanctuary when
 * Masaru of Digimon Savers literally punches out a god. As an encore. The punch shatters said god. And that still isn't the most ridiculous of his punches. Throughout the series, Masaru frequently punched giant Digimon and actually harmed them, to the point where he was literally incapable of making Agumon evolve without first punching a Digimon. His father Suguru was shown to do pretty much the same thing in a flashback, and the two are the only human characters to do anything like that.
 * Taiki in Digimon Xros Wars did something similar when he
 * Mazinger Z: Done by Kouji Kabuto in the Mazinger-Z vs Devilman movie, when he as piloting his Humongous Mecha.
 * The very soul and fiber of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is woven with this sentiment. As one of the songs says: "Do the impossible, see the invisible! ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH! ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH!"
 * The movie then '''takes the literal version of the trope and cranks it Up to Eleven, with
 * The berserked defense program of the Book of Darkness in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a gigantic bio-mechanical monstrosity that had destroyed countless worlds in the past and is considered to be impossible to kill due to its reincarnation cycle, which lets it reform itself somewhere else whenever it dies. It went up against Nanoha's massively overpowered party, consisting of a mage that had merged with the cleansed Book of Darkness, the four guardians the Book of Darkness created to defend itself, and five other mages that are able to match said guardians in battle. All of them were throwing around Eleventh-Hour Superpowers, Finishing Moves, Super Modes, and Wave Motion Guns like there was no tomorrow, backed by a Cool Starship packing an even bigger Wave Motion Gun, and accompanied by Nana Mizuki's insert song for the season. The nigh-indestructible destroyer of countless worlds never even stood a chance.
 * Not quite. Even though they did defeat it, it was only temporarily and it took to finally put an end to it.
 * It should be mentioned that they only beat the actually really Cthulu-esque "Darkness of the Book of Darkness". When Nanoha and Fate fought against Reinforce they didn't stand the slightest chance. She's made to be a powerful being that can destroy entire worlds and she does not disappoint.
 * Several of the main duelists in Yu-Gi-Oh! are able to (or come close to) take out the legendary Egyptian God Cards with a series of impressive, but otherwise mundane, card combos. Examples include:
 * Yugi uses Malik's own Osiris infinite combo against him to deck him out.
 * Joey nearly took down
 * In the English dub. In the manga and the Japanese anime,
 * During their final duel, little Yugi managed to take down all three of Egyptian God Cards with a combo involving his Magnet Warriors and Osiris' own effects, a feat that had the distinct honor of forcing the otherwise-stoic Kaiba to acknowledge the little twerp as his better.
 * Also in the final duel, Yugi manages to simultaneously increase the Silent Swordsman's power while decreasing Obelisk's power so that the two of them manage to destroy each other. Near the end of the duel, he seals away Monster Reborn, and then reveals that he did so when tries to resurrect Osiris, preventing the resurrection and enabling him to directly attack him and win the duel.
 * In 5D's, Jack Atlas goes up against the Crimson Devil, Scar-Red Nova, the oldest Earthbound God that drove the Crimson Dragon to it's limit. During the battle, he acquires Burning Soul, and.
 * The from My-HiME and his accompanying star have been said to have influenced Earth's affairs for many centuries, but the star eventually gets blown up by the same powers it granted and he gets destroyed too.
 * Furthermore, in Mai-Otome,.
 * In Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon defeats the personification of Chaos itself as well as its four incarnations.
 * Naked, no less, while jumping into a metaphorical Shark Pool.
 * In The Slayers TRY, Lina and company destroy a fusion of the highest ranked demon and god from another plane, bent on remaking all planes of existence free of strife. Granted, they had access to a prophecy on how to destroy it.
 * Does slaying Dark Lords (especially one that literally plays with the souls of humans) that have godly levels of power count if you channel the supreme god and creator of your multiverse to do it? Because Lina does this. Twice. And the second time she.
 * Not really; the first sub-Dark Lord that was defeated was done so by another sub-Lord, and while Lina intended to destroy the second with that spell, There's a third that was fought in the novels, but it barely survived.
 * At the end of Evolution-R, she just killed the fragment of Shabranigdo she had destroyed in the first season but that got resurrected... again. That's right, Lina has now been personally responsible for the destruction of a one-seventh fragment of the ultimate evil god of her world... twice. Take that, Cthulhu. (Lina actually defeats Shabranigdo twice in the novels as well, although the events surrounding her second victory are very different from those of the anime.)
 * In Suzumiya Haruhi, the main male lead stops a Reality Warper with the power to create and unmake worlds from unmaking existence by . Which makes this more: "".
 * Also, in the novels Kyon domineers over Which is in some ways more impressive than just Punching Out Cthulhu.
 * During the production of the SOS student film, Kyon comes dangerously close to punching out Cthulhu in a much more literal sense, but is stopped by Koizumi.
 * In Code Geass R2 episode 21, Lelouch uses his Evil Eye on.
 * Though the guide states that the people/collective unconsciousness already wanted a tomorrow implying that Charles' plan was doomed from the start and Lelouch actually didn't do anything until Zero Requiem which was the will of the collective unconsciousness. If you rewatch the scene you can clearly see that Lelouch asks it in the form of a request, and even uses please.
 * In the first two seasons of Pretty Cure the Dark King, the very embodiment of ultimate annihilation, whose goal was to destroy everything and reduce the universe and all dimensions to a state of eternal void. The only ones standing in its way were a spunky, Hot-Blooded, verbally-clumsy Big Eater, and a quiet, bookish, selfless Teen Genius. Their names? Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro. And guess what? They defeated the Dark King in direct combat. Three times! The Dark King has probably made himself into the laughing stock of every Eldritch Abomination everywhere...
 * In Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi manages to pull this off with a rifle. Unfortunately, killing said loving nature god only let out an infinitely more pissed off destructive god. Nice job releasing Cthulhu, Eboshi.


 * In S-Cry-ed, after comes back with a borderline better form, proclaiming that his lifelong hunger for power is finally satisfied. The heroes... are unimpressed.
 * Guts from Berserk takes on an entire army of eldritch abominations armed only with a broken knife.
 * And in the manga, Guts is attacked by Slan of the Godhand but manages to fight her off thanks to his Evolving Weapon. It is averted somewhat, as the body Slan was in was only a construct made from what was available (e.g troll guts), and he didn't actually kill her.
 * Later, Guts manages to wound Emperor Ganishka, an absurdly powerful being made of mist, in an act that not even an army of demons could accomplish, thanks to said Evolving Weapon.
 * And now, Guts has  Yep.
 * Getter Robo punches out (or Getter Beams, or axes, or drills, or...) absurdly powerful baddies every Tuesday, and sometimes on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
 * In the Kyoto Arc of Mahou Sensei Negima, the Big Bad was successful in summoning a massive Demon God of 1600 years ago which wasn't even scratched by the best attacks of the main character. It seemed like nothing can stop it now. Then Evangeline appeared and demonstrated just how powerful she was by taking it out with one shot. The scary part is, based on Rakan's Power Level chart, the Demon God was, far, far, far stronger than anything Negi faced even after nearly 200 chapters.
 * Perhaps subverted because, if all the stories about her are true, Evangeline herself is a Cthulhu. The demon had a fearsome reputation and great power but so did Evangeline.
 * And then there was Nagi, who, when faced by a being known as the Mage of Beginnings and the Lifemaker that had just wiped out his entire party with one attack, proceeded to take said being out with what looked like a super-powered Shoryuken.
 * Then, chapter 265 has . It's as awesome as it sounds.
 * The Anime version of Soul Eater takes this trope very literally !
 * Special mention should go to Black*Star, who in the previous episode managed to beat the fuck out of the Kishin, pretty much on his own for a decent portion of the battle. Maka may have slayed him but Black*Star held his own pretty well.
 * In Death Note, Light manages to.
 * Not to mention, after he becomes the 'God of the New World' when his god complex reaches its height,
 * Ash from the The Electric Tale of Pikachu, in the fourth volume, basically kills a giant, high-level Haunter that the previous inhabitants of the area worshiped as a god.
 * Eneru from One Piece claims to be a god, as he is made out of pure lightning and no one can touch him. In comes Luffy, who literally punches out Cthulhu because he is made of rubber, which doesn't conduct electricity.
 * Screw that, Wiper beat Luffy to the punch on that one. A few things of note: Wiper is not made of rubber, he's just as vulnerable as any other human, and his main weapon is the Reject Dial, a weapon that sends attacks back at the enemy while causing potentially lethal impacts to the user. Wiper enters into single combat with Eneru, and using the Reject Dial, Seastone skates, quick thinking, and just plain Badass determination, actually kills Eneru. Eneru's lighting restarts his heart, but Wiper actually killed him!
 * When Luffy met Whitebeard, the most powerful man alive that could move entire islands with his tsunamis and earthquakes, he automatically challanged his title as King of the Pirates. Almost everyone in earshot were stunned to hear Luffy do this.
 * In a more literal example,
 * In Naruto this is done fairly frequently with regards to the Tailed Beasts. Every one of the them, despite being an immortal blob of concentrated energy has been defeated and bound into the body of a human by another mortal.
 * This is even more impressive in the case of
 * When faced with the One Tailed Tanuki, Naruto nearly perfectly recreated this trope when he decked Gaara across the face only for Gaara to just get pissed at him. Instead, Naruto had to go for a Did You Just Head-Butt Cthulhu moment. That one worked.
 * Naruto does it again
 * Then there is The Sage of the Six Paths who There's a reason he was seen as a God, y'know.
 * In Chapter 498
 * Chapter 499:
 * Orochimaru attempts to do this when he first encountered the Four-Tailed Naruto. It doesn't work (.
 * Despite all odds, Jiraiya DID punch out Cthulhu, unlike Orochimaru he managed to beat Four-Tail Naruto and return him to normal.
 * This is the signature move of Takashi Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou. He can deliver a punch that lays out youkai many times larger than him, much to their surprise. It's implied that it's not just physical force -- he inherited very strong spirtual power from his Identical Grandmother Reiko Natsume (who delivered most of her beatdowns via baseball bat.)
 * At the end of Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0, Whether this counts as Always a Bigger Fish... will have to wait for the other two films.
 * The main plot of Edens Bowy revolves around god hunters, humans who have the power to slay gods, and thus protect humanity from divine enslavement.
 * Saint Seiya enjoys and employs some very literal god-killing, it being the plot is basically 'oh crap, a Holy War, go kill Hades for me (Athena)'. So they do, killing Hypnos and Thanatos along the way-and in the movies they beat up Artemis and Apollo. Also seen in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, where at one point it's four Gods against Capricorn El Cid.
 * To say nothing about Cancer Manigoldo, who pretty much spends the entirety of the fight against Thanatos hanging on for dear-life as he gets curbstomped further and further into the ground, only to claw back from the brink every time and eventually destroy the God's body.
 * The grand champ of this all now is, who managed to kill a Titan with powers comparable to Chronos single-handedly.
 * In the manga Shin Angyo Onshi
 * Almost literally in the second-to-last chapter of Fullmetal Alchemist: Considering the being in question is generally able to, this is especially impressive.
 * This, along with The Power of Love, is the cornerstone of Kurohime.
 * In A Certain Magical Index 22th novel, Touma drops the "Star of Bethelem" on the Archangel Gabriel. And because this was not enough, he runs through the entire thing at the same time, so he can punch Gabriel in the face personally.
 * The super-powered villain Accelerator eventually gets his name added to the list of superpowered beings Touma has punched in the face.
 * Touma's first fight involved him punching out Innocentius, a powerful fire demon composed of 3000-degree flames. From here, he had nowhere to go but up.
 * In Bleach
 * My Balls takes the Refuge in Audacity route, as usual: did you just defeat with armpit sex?
 * Baka Test: defeats.
 * Fairy Tail:  defeats
 * High School DxD:  is the first of the Occult Research Club to outright defeat.
 * In Fate/Zero, Saber Excaliblasts Cthulhu. As in the actual Cthulhu, summoned by her enemy Caster.
 * Pokémon; as of 2021, Ash's Pokémon have defeated six Legendaries — Noland's Articuno, Brandon's Regice, Tobias's Darkrai and Latios, Gladion's Silvally and Tapu Koko.
 * High School DxD:  is the first of the Occult Research Club to outright defeat.
 * In Fate/Zero, Saber Excaliblasts Cthulhu. As in the actual Cthulhu, summoned by her enemy Caster.
 * Pokémon; as of 2021, Ash's Pokémon have defeated six Legendaries — Noland's Articuno, Brandon's Regice, Tobias's Darkrai and Latios, Gladion's Silvally and Tapu Koko.
 * Pokémon; as of 2021, Ash's Pokémon have defeated six Legendaries — Noland's Articuno, Brandon's Regice, Tobias's Darkrai and Latios, Gladion's Silvally and Tapu Koko.