Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Probably accomplished at the end of Angel Sanctuary when The Messiah chops off the head of God.
  • 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.
  • Mazinger Z: Done by Kouji Kabuto in the Mazinger-Z vs Devilman movie, when he beats the crap out of an army of demons 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 Simon duking it out with the Anti-Spiral, after they had just battled in galaxy-sized mecha.
  • 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 Reinforce sealing herself away for all eternity 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 Marik's Winged Dragon of Ra with his Gearfried the Iron Knight, but he falls into a coma before he can give the attack order.
      • In the English dub. In the manga and the Japanese anime, he dies. He recovers.
    • During their final duel, little Yugi managed to take down all three of Atem's 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 Atem 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 robs the Crimson Devil of all of it's power, using it to make his new ace monster.
  • The Obsidian Lord 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, Arika manages to defeat Nina, who was at the time, powered up by the Harmonium and capable of destruction of apocalyptic proportions, with almost disappointing ease.
  • 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 screws up and is possessed by said creator of the multiverse.
      • 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, she gets possessed before it attacks and the Lord of Nightmares herself kills the lord. 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 kissing her. Which makes this more: "Did You Just Romance Cthulhu??".
    • Also, in the novels Kyon domineers over the Data Overmind, which has nearly godlike powers by threatening to provoke Haruhi into recreating the universe with him, to a place where the Overmind would not exist. Which is in some ways more impressive than just Punching Out Cthulhu. After all how many mortals have ever made a god back down in fear?
    • 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 the "collective unconsciousness", a gigantic mass of souls without physical bodies, which his father Charles says has been referred to in the past as God.
    • 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.

Eboshi: 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.

  • In S-Cry-ed, after being thrown into The Other Side, Mujo 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 killed the Sea God, essentially the Berserkerverse's equivalent of Cthulhu. 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. Possibly subverted as the Lifemaker wasn't destroyed - it possessed Zect and later Nagi himself.
    • Then, chapter 265 has Loli-chisame Bright Slapping One-Winged Angel Negi. It's as awesome as it sounds.
  • The Anime version of Soul Eater takes this trope very literally as the series ends with Maka defeating the Kishin, a god-like, nigh-omnipotent being fueled by madness with a single punch, fueled with the power of Courage!
    • 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 manipulate Rem, a Shinigami into violating a rule for which the punishment is death.
    • Not to mention, after he becomes the 'God of the New World' i.e. killed L when his god complex reaches its height, he ends up getting shot. By Matsuda.
  • 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. He was actually trying to catch it, but the Haunter had a god complex from all the worship it received and blew itself up rather than get caught.
  • 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, shortly after the Time Skip, Luffy one-shots a Kraken, and later tames it.
    • Not to mention that this is after he's yelled at Zoro and Sanji for doing too much damage to it before he can punch it. Cutting or kicking Cthulhu just will not do.
  • 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 Hashirama Senju who could control the demons themselves. He didn't just punch out Cthulhu; he made them roll over and play dead.
      • To better aid her husband, Naruto's great aunt distant relative? Mito Uzumaki sealed the Kyubi inside herself, becoming the first Jinchuuriki in over a thousand years since the Rikudou Sennin.
    • 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.
    • Then there is The Sage of the Six Paths who not only beat the Jubi by sealing into himself, he then went on to create the moon the seal it's body in and split its chakra into the afore-mentioned Bijuu's. There's a reason he was seen as a God, y'know.
    • In Chapter 498 Naruto's Mom (and Mito's student/descendant), Kushina Uzumaki, binds down the Kyuubi......in chains.....with ONLY her chakra
    • Chapter 499: Naruto completes the process. After a Non-Stop Gargantuan Rasengan Barrage, he pulls out five of Kyuubi's tails. Then with an Rasenshuriken, he pulls out the remaining four, and absorbs them into himself becoming the Rikudou Sage's reincarnation. Then he imprisons the Kyubi's body/hatred in a newer, stronger seal of his own design.
    • Orochimaru attempts to do this when he first encountered the Four-Tailed Naruto. It doesn't work (Naruto rips him in half, although admittedly that doesn't last long).
    • 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, Shinji and Unit 01 have started Third Impact and are spoken of as things beyond any ever seen. Then Kaworu stops that by dropping a lance on Unit 01 from above. 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. with some help from The Hero and a good old Heroic Sacrifice, he wins.
    • 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 Gemini Aspros, who managed to kill a Titan with powers comparable to Chronos single-handedly.
  • In the manga Shin Angyo Onshi when Munsu walks into the courtyard after Aji Tae has just annihilated everyone in the army who has a pure heart, an unburdened conscience, or who loves somebody by telling them "Die" and punches Aji Tae in the face after Aji Tae tries his power word Die on Munsu and fails
  • Almost literally in the second-to-last chapter of Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed punches Father, who has recently absorbed a god, in the face. Hard. Considering the being in question is generally able to alchemically block, disintegrate, or explode anything incoming without moving, this is especially impressive.
    • Before that, everyone of the protagonists do this in the final battle to get him to uses up his stone. For awhile it doesn't seem like nothing affecting Father as he just stands in one spot using his powers to deflect the attacks. And then something changes and he's actually forced to block an attack with his arm. This doesn't go unnoticed by the heroes, cue orders to hit him harder with Father getting knocked around from all sides.
  • 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 Ichigo appears in the nick of time with a "final" power up and with little more than raw strength, grabs Aizen by the face and drags him miles away from Karakura to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Aizen actually isn't killed, but his zanpakuto ceases to exist, he is fatally weakened, and he gets sealed away for 20,000 years in the deepest pit of Hell.
  • My Balls takes the Refuge in Audacity route, as usual: did you just defeat Beelzebub with armpit sex?
  • Baka Test: Yoshii defeats Ironman, a foe long thought to be unbeatable.
  • Fairy Tail: Team Natsu defeats Hades
    • In the Time Skip, Natsu actually manages to go toe to toe with Sabertooth's leader Jinema, whose guild is considered the strongest of the land after seven years.
  • High School DxD: Ise is the first of the Occult Research Club to outright defeat Loki.
  • 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.