Boobs of Steel



The tendency for the strongest physical female fighter in a group or cast to also have the largest breasts. Some of the reasons for this trope are discussed on the Analysis page.

A physically strong female without Boobs of Steel is most likely a Cute Bruiser. Compare and contrast with Most Common Superpower and Gag Boobs. See also Amazonian Beauty.

Note that this trope is not common enough to be averted. Unless it is lampshaded, it's just an ignored trope. Also note that in general, this is limited to one or two examples per work.

Anime and Manga

 * Cattleya from Queen's Blade sports a bust far larger than the rest of the cast and as far as raw strength goes, she's far stronger than the rest of the cast as well. She's also very muscular, a true Amazonian Beauty.
 * Sailor Jupiter of Sailor Moon is the most talented of the group in more ways than one.
 * Tsunade from Naruto. She's physically the strongest character introduced in the series yet, and can beat the snot out of guys her own age and relative skill level. With ease. And in the fight with Kabuto, at least in the manga, she recovers fast from an attack that cut off her air, and he wonders how that happened, and focuses his gaze at her chest.
 * Air Gear has Rika who, out of the Noyamano sisters, is the most physically capable and the most skilled Storm Rider. She's also a professional wrestler.
 * Saber Marionette J, with Boisterous Bruiser Bloodberry being the bustiest of the three female protagonists, and recon specialist Cherry is the complete opposite.
 * In History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, almost all of the strongest female martial artists have huge busts with the sole exception of Kisara. No woman who is not a martial artist has breasts comparable in size to those who are.
 * Ibuki and Angela in Asu no Yoichi! are very busty and near the top tier of characters in terms of martial arts mastery.
 * Ranma Saotome is both busty and a strong and excellent fighter. When he's in female form, that is. Shampoo is even bustier than Ranma's girl form, and she's the physically strongest female in the series by a wide margin.
 * Cool Big Sis Julia from Rave Master is the sole female melee fighter in the group and also has the largest breasts.
 * In Outlaw Star, the female with the most physical strength is the obviously well endowed Aisha.
 * Satella Harvenheit from Chrono Crusade has the most physical (and for a while, spiritual) strength of all the women, and makes her Boobs of Steel very clear to anyone with eyes.
 * In Otome Kikan Gretel Nagi, the owner of the biggest bust, has Super Strength.
 * In the Full Metal Panic! universe, compare the athletic prowess of Mao, Kaname, and Tessa. And then compare their figures, as demonstrated during their considerable time nude together.
 * Naeka of Kamen no Maid Guy. Has enormous boobs, and is also a kendo expert.
 * Angel Blade takes this trope to its natural extremes. Big Bad Phantom Lady not only has an enormous rack, she's practically invulnerable. Heck, an attack that can break her helmet can't even dent her skin, and given how much she's showing, that's saying a lot.
 * Boa Hancock of One Piece has the largest breasts of perhaps the entire cast. Therefore, she obviously kicks the most ass.
 * At first, Fragile Flower Princess Shirahoshi looks to be an exception until
 * Sakakikido Tsukiko, the main character of Samurai High School and the bustiest. She's easily the strongest person in her school, and her goal is to be supreme commander. Unfortunately, she has to switch places with her twin brother as there are gender restrictions.
 * Elenore Baker and Madlax from Madlax are quite well endowed; one being theNinja Maid the other being able to destroy armies.
 * Kallen/Karen of Code Geass. Undoubtedly, she is the most endowed, and she's easily the most physically active member of the Black Knights, being their elite mech pilot. In fact, she's pretty much the only woman in their ranks who's involved in any actual fighting.
 * Hungary of Axis Powers Hetalia is a rather busty Ninja Maid Action Girl.
 * In Sekirei there is a direct correlation between a Sekirei's breast size and how powerful she is.
 * Although this trope gets deconstructed in the case of Kuu, who proves big things come from small packages. Likewise, the punishment squad's Benitsubasa, the Red Sekirei, is one of the deadliest fighters...and an A-cup...
 * In Heaven's Lost Property, Astrea, the Angeloid with the biggest bust, is also the best fighter of the Angeloids even when compared to Ikaros who is slightly smaller. Nymph is an A-Cup therefore she has no fighting ability.
 * In the Project A-ko Alternate Universe OVA The Vs., the bounty hunter Liza is quite busty, and she gives A-ko a run for her money in hand-to-hand combat.

Comic Books

 * Astro City takes this to its logical extreme with Beautie, a human-sized robot Barbie doll whose proportions border on freakish at that size: "My skin is ferro-styrene over an omnitanium frame. My breasts and buttocks are rigid. And I have no genitalia." She's also one of the strongest members of the Honor Guard...
 * Gen 13's Caitlin Fairchild. In fact, she acquired the Most Common Superpower at the same exact time that she acquired the Super Strength and Nigh Invulnerability that would make her the team powerhouse.
 * In the comic Chaos Campus, pink-haired goth(ish) Jamie is the strongest character, and beats monsters to death with a wrench as a matter of course. So she also has breasts bigger than her head, thanks to enormous breast implants. She's described as "Elly Ripley with silicone."
 * In Transmetropolitan, the less-action-oriented Filthy Assistant says she'd have to be hit in the back with two cruise missiles to fill out a dress the way the one whose specific responsibility is bodyguarding does.

Film

 * In the film Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, the strongest warrior is Lux, the tall, busty barbarian. The other two significant female characters are both waspishly slender spellcasters.

Live-Action TV

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Faith plays it straight, doling out all kinds of whoop-ass while being one of the bustiest girls on the show.
 * At least one of Sarah Michelle Gellar's fighting doubles was noticeably better endowed, leading Whedon to note in commentary: "Oh, looks like Buffy's got her fightin' boobs on!"

Newspaper Comics

 * Generally, in the heroic fantasy comic Torkan, the most endowed (and/or scantily clad) woman in the storyline would be a) an Action Girl, and b) the Girl of the Week. Actually lampshaded in one storyline, in which the girl's first appearance was disguised as a man complete with sensible armour and helmet: when she slips into something more comfortable, yet less practical, for mixed adventuring and titillation purposes, Torkan comments that she must have had difficulty breathing in that armour.

Video Games

 * Tifa is the fighter in Final Fantasy VII most reliant on the strength of her muscles.
 * Beatrix is easily the strongest female character in Final Fantasy IX and nigh-invincible, being able to crush almost any enemy with one or two attacks.
 * Even by Dead or Alive standards, Tina Armstrong's boobs are huge, the largest of the ladies at 95 cm. And being a wrestler, she is the physically strongest'.
 * Lamia Loveless of Super Robot Wars. She's probably the female character with the biggest boobs between all other Banpresto Originals thus far, and physically the strongest, despite not using her strength too much (being a mecha pilot and all) because... well... she's an android.
 * Aschen Brodel and Kaguya Nanbu from Endless Frontier both count. Aschen is a very powerful android but she's still beaten in the chest department by Kaguya "Dairy Cow Princess" Nanbu, who fights with a sword that's almost as big as her.
 * The King of Fighters has Shermie, Angel, Blue Mary, and Vice (who are grappler/power characters) who all have larger bust measurements than Mai Shiranui. Also, in the first KOF Maximum Impact, Lien Neville (no official 3-sizes given) actually has the largest in-game breasts and is fittingly, the strongest female character. The final boss from the second Maximum Impact game, Jivatma, has "another model" that looks female and has probably the largest bust in the game. There's also Vanessa, introduced in The King of Fighters '99, who is notably busty, bounces quite a bit, and is a purely physical brawler.
 * Ayla the cavewoman from Chrono Trigger has the greatest strength of any party member. She can do more damage with her bare hands than Crono can with his Infinity+1 Sword. And the more you Level Grind them, the larger the strength gap between Ayla and everybody else gets. As Spekkio puts it, she might not get to use magic, but she makes up for it with other assets.
 * Judith, who is easily the best stacked of the three female PCs in Tales of Vesperia and is also the only melee fighter among them.
 * In Tales of Hearts Innes Lorenz has an even larger bust and is also the token Mighty Glacier character. And she can also lift objects way more heavy than she is, with ease. It's also lampshaded repeatedly, as first the Boobs of Steel and her massive axe blade are the subject of an Innocent Innuendo skit. Later in another skit, Beryl theorizes about Innes' super strength, and the player is allowed to choose her guess: "It comes from her breasts!" or "Innes is a Mechanoid!"
 * Vanessa of Virtua Fighter not only has the biggest breasts of the female characters, but she's almost a Mighty Glacier.
 * Robot Girl Mei-Fang from Arcana Heart, being the physically largest playable character all around and strongest unarmed fighter. There is also Parace L'Sia, who is even more well-endowed than Mei-Fang, and one of the most overpowered boss characters in Fighting Game history.
 * Marilyn Sue of Akatsuki Blitzkampf not only hits harder than any other female character, but also happens to be both stacked like pancakes and braless, all the better to Gainax with.
 * Suikoden has several examples:
 * The first one has Ronnie Bell, who is called "the giant woman" for a damn good reason (she's at least seven feet tall and might actually be half-giant), and whose chest, due in part to her sheer size, is noticeably the largest of the entire cast. And she's a monstrous bruiser who fights with her fists.
 * Suikoden II has Oulan, who is by far the most stacked female in the game (she noticeably bounces in her battle animation) and one of the top five tanks in the game as well as a bruiser who can dish out absurd amounts of damage repeatedly if properly set up. She's a bodyguard, and does her job barehanded.
 * Suikoden V has Nikea, a Big Eater martial artist who keeps up the tradition of dealing tons of damage with just her fists. Also notable is Kisara, an Action Mom who passed on a great deal of 'talent' to her daughter, Lun.
 * In the Battle Team Lakers series, Natsume is consistently the strongest (physically) of the eponymous team. And despite being a series of H-Games, she's the only one with notably large breasts. The others have "large-but-within-reason" busts typical of Silver Age comicbook heroines.
 * The recent Wii game Muramasa the Demon Blade has this in the form of Raijin, a hugely muscular woman who is more than happy to squish (or zap) Momohime Jinkuro. Interestingly enough, she has a "cute girl" sitting posture if you knock her down, and an implied thing for her co-god Fujin (who appears as a tiny green imp).
 * In the side-scrolling beat'em up Knights of Valour the average looking female mooks of the forest respond to the genre's stereotype: they use hit and run tactics, attack mostly using jump kicks, and are quite frail. In later stages of the game, mooks with larger breasts prove to be substantially tougher.
 * In Disgaea, all of the "human" recruitable women are flat chested, except for the Magic Knights, Kunoichis, Cheerleaders, and Gunslingers. The "monster" recruitable women (Succubi and Nekomatas) are very big-chested, and the Nekomatas are straight up brawlers, utilizing the highest counter attack rate and damage. For storyline characters, Jennifer in the first game specializes in fist-type weapons and easily has the largest breasts in the cast.
 * Zola in Blue Dragon certainly qualifies, moreso with her choice of—or perhaps it would be more correct to say lack of—undergarments.
 * The Fighter class in Dungeon Fighter Online has large boobs and powerful muscles.
 * Mavi and Vanessa from Luminous Arc. While Mavi is depicted to be physically the strongest, Vanessa has higher attack power and has bigger breasts.
 * Luminous Arc 2 got as one of your best fighter, with great speed and 5 MOV. For obvious reasons, her physical defense is not quite as high.
 * In Sonic the Hedgehog, boob size seems to be proportionate to how Badass you are as a woman. There's Cream, with none at all, who is very weak. Then there's Amy Rose, who has a gigantic hammer and pounds people with it. Then there's Rouge, who kick-boxes and has not only got large breasts (for a kid's game) but also displays actual cleavage. Though one has to take into account that Cream is a child and Amy is a pre-teen while Rouge is a government agent.
 * In Phantasy Star Online, it's possible to change the size of the female characters' breasts. The HUnewearl, a melee specialist, get the biggest growth.
 * Radiant Historia features Raynie, who of the three ladies in your party, is the bustiest.
 * Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword features Vaida, the second-bustiest character in the game and the biggest playable lady; she's essentially a Blood Knight.
 * The Tellius continuity brings us Lucia and, as of Radiant Dawn, Mia. Both are Hot Chicks With Swords with very sizable busts. In-universe both have reputations as highly competent fighters. There's also Nailah, who's the bustiest of the playable female characters and is also one of the most powerful characters in the game, and has an in-universe reputation to match.
 * The Pirate captain Eiliff Thunderfist from Drakensang is the one of the strongest fighters in the game outside of the main party and has huge boobs. Partially justified as she's quite bigger than other characters and not exactly attractive. Last but not least, The Amazons tends to be this.
 * Lita Halford from Brutal Legend is the most busty character in the game, which is saying a lot considering that all female characters in the game are large-breasted. She's also a very skilled warrior who fights with a large polearm. At one point of the game she easily defeats the less-endowed Ophelia in single combat.
 * In Seitenshi Yumiel, Yumi's breasts grow when she transforms into the eponymous Yumiel.
 * In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the CharGen "weight" slider more is more accurately described as a muscle mass/body frame slider, and for female characters, it's also a breast size slider.
 * Invoked in Bunny Must Die: one of obtainable power-ups is a Playboy Bunny costume that increases Bunny's damage, defence, and breasts.
 * Amidst the "three stooges" of NOL Academy from BlazBlue, Makoto Nanaya is arguably the most stacked, and also freakishly strong. On the whole scale, Litchi Faye-Ling has the biggest boobs and not only she has the biggest, most damaging Astral Heats, story-wise shows that under certain circumstances, she is able to overwhelm a gigantic cyborg like Tager.
 * The Female Heavy mod by Chemical Alia is roughly the same body-shape as the male Heavy, down to the 'huge chest' thing.

Visual Novels

 * Arcueid of Tsukihime has the biggest bust out of the main cast, and is by far the strongest character in the game, both in terms of physical strength and overall combat ability.
 * Among the cast of Fate/stay night, Leysritt is the biggest among all of the female characters and can wield a giant halberd with ease. She never actually fights in the Visual Novel, but according to notes she's actually physically stronger than most of the Servants.
 * Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai! is loaded with such girls, but most notable is the strongest (and therefore biggest) of them all - Momoyo Kawakami.

Webcomics and Other Web Originals
"I have to ask, IS there a combat advantage to humans having large mammaries, and if so, do I WANT to know what it is?"
 * The Blonde Marvel has enormous breasts to match her Big Beautiful Woman physique, and has super-strength to match. She once fought a woman with even larger breasts, and was losing the fight until she used her opponent's magic cigarettes to enlarge her own breasts. She then won.
 * In Crossworlds, the biggest boobs belong to Narhm, who also happens to be 'bout 7 feet tall (counting the horns) and muscled like a bodybuilder, thanks to her day job as a blacksmith. In combat, she wields a huge, two-handed warhammer with devastating effect.
 * Alice apparently has this boob based power according to this post of Loserz.
 * DiDi in Ménage à 3 verges on Gag Boobs territory, and is astoundingly strong. She is so strong, at one point, she was mistaken for a drag queen.
 * In Ronin Galaxy Leona dwarfs Taylor in cup size, making her, of course, the fighter-girl in the group.
 * In the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions Hamburger Pattie had big boobs & bulletproof skin.
 * Buxom Gal, of course. Her cup size varies in direct proportion to how much energy she's absorbed.
 * Adharia Kuvoe is heavily implied to have the largest breasts of the female Last Res0rt cast. The fact that she's also a lion-esque centaur only justifies this further, because she's already one of the larger cast members, period.
 * The Magnificent Milkmaid as well as Chocolate Milkmaid both have breasts that enlarge as they power up by drinking milk, to truly ludicrous sizes (links not provided due to NSFW issues). Fortunately, they can instantly manifest clothing... usually just before they enlarge, though. Pretty much everybody else in the comic has massive breasts, that being one of the site fetishes.
 * Mel'Arnach Val'Sarghress from Drowtales. Apart from being probably the nicest adult drow around (and being considered insane for it), she is much larger than most and also extremely well-endowed. And not bashful about it.
 * Damali in Love/Curse is by far the biggest, strongest and most buxom of the main the characters.
 * Pella from Looking for Group has a somewhat credible physique; being muscular but not excessively ripped allows her ample tracts of land to be shown to their best advantage. Just don't put your hand on her shoulder.
 * In Sluggy Freelance, Oasis and her Blue Oni clone-ish counterpart Kusari have the largest breasts of almost all the female cast, and are also superhumanly capable fighters.
 * Whateley Universe examples: Tennyo is the strongest girl on Team Kimba, and (having the shape of an older girl) has the biggest breasts. Compiler is the strongest member of the Whitman Lit Chix, and has the biggest breasts, since she used nanotechnology to improve her body and overdid it.
 * While most of the women of Girl Genius are rather well-endowed, the strongest and most skilled seem to have the biggest busts, like Pirate Queen Bangladesh DuPree and Zeetha.
 * In the Watchmen Rule 63 community, (yes, there is one) Edy and Joan are usually portrayed as being quite busty, where as Wanda and Adriene are depicted as flatchested. Danielle also tends to be largechested, but that has more to do with her weight.
 * Cato of Seekers is the hardest fighter of the group (male or female) and the most well endowed.
 * All women of Dominic Deegan gain a few cup sizes when fighting. Word of God confirms this as blatant Author Appeal.
 * In Elf Blood, the best hand-to-hand fighter depicted so far, Carlita Delacroix, is also the bustiest.
 * El Goonish Shive had some fun with it, justified in-universe with either "it's done by Tedd and he's a pervert, duh" or "magic have over-the-top flair for drama". Eventually lampshaded by a tiger griffin knight watching Elliot's transformation -

Western Animation

 * Leela of Futurama has large breasts and is the most combat-oriented crewmember (and female in general) in the show.
 * Ty Lee from Avatar: The Last Airbender has a rather sizable chest and is easily the physically strongest and most agile character in the series who has no powers, male or female. Her name even means "extreme strength".
 * In Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, the eponymous avatar, who is by far the toughest female on the show also is very well endowed.
 * Lana Kane of Archer is the bustiest woman in the show and also the best fighter. Also,
 * Cheetara of ThunderCats (2011) is both busty and a Lightning Bruiser Praetorian Guard to series' protagonist Lion-O. Her only other female teammate is a juvenile Artful Dodger and Magical Flautist with no real combat experience.