Blood Upgrade

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Oh, Ken! When will you learn?

"It's my BLOOOOD!" — Gaara from Naruto

Some people become a little squeamish when they see blood. Others... well, let's just say they don't take it nearly as well.

This trope applies to whenever a character becomes incredibly deranged and/or powerful at the sight of their own blood. Perhaps their agility increases, or they become more alert, or they begin to realize their opponent is a serious threat and decide to go all out. In any case, their skills suddenly increase when they realize THEY are the one who's bleeding.

The most cliched way this is depicted is for a man to take a blow to the face, causing his lower lip to bleed slightly at the corner. He wipes the blood with one finger, looks at it, and smiles, right before kicking ass.

Often Truth in Television. Fighting males tend to restrain themselves until one of them is injured at which point the fight becomes "serious" and they use potentially lethal force. Females have a tendency to avoid fighting until seriously provoked, which causes them to engage in seriously injurious fights without a ritualistic or build-up phase.

Somewhat related to Minor Injury Overreaction.

Examples of Blood Upgrade include:

Anime & Manga

• Ur-example: Mr. Heart, the Giant Mook from Fist of the North Star.
• As in the quote above, Gaara exhibits this trope when Sasuke lands a blow on him and manages to draw blood. Justified since, due to being constantly protected by his own sand powers, this is the first time Gaara has bled. Ever.
  • Nearly averted, actually. He panics so much on seeing the blood that he aborted his original upgrade and was in a funk for a good while afterwards. But once he adjusted to having been injured...
• One Piece does this with the character "Pearl" from Don Krieg's crew. When he find out that he has a small nosebleed he overreacts and starts becoming more frantic and uses more powerful moves.
  • According to the crewmen, he grew up in "the jungle" where his instinctive response to any danger was to light a fire. He perceives the loss of any blood to be a sign of great danger and thus powers up.
• "Prince the Ripper" Belphegor from Katekyo Hitman Reborn becomes more deranged and powerful at the sight of his own blood.
  • "Ushishishi, the blood of the royal clan is flowing!"
• As the example pictures show, T.K./Takeru Takaishi reacts this way in Digimon Adventure 02 against Ken Ichijoji. To drive the point home, it was also mentioned in earlier episodes that Ken had martial arts training. Takeru doesn't. However, judging by Takeru's reaction to Ken's master plan, he was probably planning on punching his teeth in regardless.
• Vegeta's response to Goku drawing blood on him during their first major battle was an attempt to destroy the entire damned planet, leading to a spectacular Beam-O-War between him and Goku.

"Blood! My noble blood, spilled by the sheer luck of such - such trash?! YOUR INSOLENCE JUST COST YOU THIS WORLD!"

• Jean-Luc from Spriggan turns into a manbeast and kills everything he sees moves when he sees his own blood.
• Whenever Leo Aoi of the manga BeastMaster sees blood, his animalistic alter-ego emerges.
• At one point of Bus Gamer, Nakajou Nobuto gets his Achilles' tendon cut off by a random gamer. After explicitly stating blood fascinated him, he proceeded to beat the crap out of his attacker. Saitou asked why he was soaked in blood after he caught up with him. Nakajou told him it was mostly not his own blood, so he shouldn't worry. Did I mention he's a doctor?
• In Gamaran there's Sakon Daimaru. Normally he's a deadly warrior, but when he gets wounded and bleeds he becomes "scared" of his opponent... and puts much more effort in eradicating the source of his fear. Partly justified as Sakon's not quite right in the head.
  • Later Shingo of the Myojin Ryuu (a huge guy wielding a 48 pounds spear) becomes even more dangerous and faster after being wounded twice by Gama.

Film

• Dodgeball's Big Bad only starts to get really upset once he's been made to bleed.

White Goodman: "It's over between us, Kate. Nobody makes me bleed my own blood - nobody."

• In the films Bruce Lee made as an adult, when you manage to wound him and draw blood, you'll have stunned him, then you see him taste his own blood, and then you can prepare your will because you've really riled him up now!

Live Action TV

• Gibby from "iCarly" fights to save his friends with rutheless abandon, but only after his opponent bloodies his lip does he take off his shirt and begin really kicking ass.

Tabletop Games

• In Hong Kong Action Theatre, the Signature Move "Blood Rage" owes its existence to Bruce Lee above. If a character with this signature takes a wound without defending at all, his or her next attack on whoever delivered the wound is made at a +5 bonus to hit and does double damage if it connects.
• 4e Dungeons & Dragons has the "Bloodied" status, after losing enough Hit Points. Depends on the creature or character in question, this could trigger new and exciting effects. For both the bloodied victim, or someone fighting them.

Video Games

• Kefka in Final Fantasy VI absolutely flips out when anyone injures him in the early parts of the game. "Blood, blood, BLOOD!" Later on, he gets tanked up on magic and starts to take it in stride.
• In Wet, whenever Rubi gets blood on her face, she goes berserk and the game cuts to her on an Unstoppable Rage.
• In Halo, Elites will get visibly pissed and become more ferocious when their blood is spilled after their shields pop. The Expanded Universe materials say that losing blood is a HUGE dishonor in Elite culture.
• The Sniper seems to start reacting like this after getting his cheek cut in the Team Fortress 2 short 'Meet The Spy', but he just gets backstabbed anyway.

Web Original

• Used to awesome effect in this animation regarding 4chan's 'ROW ROW' incident. Basically, /v/ fights the hordes of /b/ users easily at first, but eventually gets caught up with by several of the members at once. He receives bloody scratches across his head. Cue energy nuke.

Western Animation

• Nelson the bully in an early episode of The Simpsons