Heroes Fight Barehanded

Many times, heroes have to face their enemies in battle. They can have access to a vast variety of weapons, from swords to axes to staves to knives. However, sometimes the hero will take a third option and fight with his own hands.

Sometimes is because the character is a Bare-Fisted Monk who use martial arts, or perhaps doesn't like weapons or killing. Sometimes is because the character is so damn strong that he doesn't need weapons at all. Often it represents a very blunt, straightforward personality. If the main hero travels with his friends expect for his lancer or Big Guy to use weapons instead, to make the contrast clear. This can also played with the unarmed hero and the weapon-using villain.

Attacking them with weapons is usually a bad idea.

Examples of Heroes Fight Barehanded include:

Anime and Manga

In One Piece Monkey D. Luffy fights without weapons at all, while his first mate Zoro is a swordmaster.
Natsu from Fairy Tail, contrasting Erza, Gajil and Gray, who all use weaponry of some sort.
Toriko fights with his bare hands, although he can also manifest a knife and fork to attack stronger enemies with.
In Naruto the titular hero heavely relies on Taijutsu, contrasting Sasuke who prefers to use a lightning-enchanted katana. On a similar note we have Tsunade versus Orochimaru (Uses the Kusanagi sword) and the Raikage compared to his brother Kirabi.
Inverted in Bleach, as The Hero Ichigo swings around his massive Big Fancy Sword while The Lancer Chad fights unarmed. Ok, with Power Fist for hands but still unarmed.
Kenshiro himself in Fist of the North Star as well as almost all the other characters, except Mamiya and Jagi
Subverted in Gamaran: the main character is a swordsman, and at one point he fights the Kyosen Ryuu warriors, whose martial arts revolves on bare-handed combat.
Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima slowly phases out his weapons after he gets a ring to serve the same purpose as his staff.
Ichise from Texhnolyze, mainly because he's a prize fighter. He does get a sword later on.
Played with in Sazan Eyes. Yakumo has to win a kickboxing match against an opponent with a highly superior fighting technique and he can't use magic because of all the muggles betting on the fight. So he purposely requests a barehanded kickboxing match without boxing gloves, so he and his opponent will get hurt more, so he can win in the long run do to his healing factor.
Knights of the Zodiac: While some saints does have some sort of weaponry with them, most of them fights barehanded. Usually most of the Big Bad here have weapons of sort.
Elemental Hero Neos, from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. He may be the most popular, powerful, and heroic of Judai/Jaden's monsters.
In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple (which anyway gives more emphasis on weaponless fighting) there is an example with two groups of evil martial artists: it has been implied several times that the members of the weapon division of Yami are inferior both in fighting skills and fighting ethics to the weaponless Yami fighters. Many weaponless Yami masters tend to be more anti-villains, while the weaponed Yami masters are usually presented as ruthless hoodlums.

Comic Books

Most of the Marvel/DCAU comics heroes.
- Notable exceptions include Tim Drake and Dick Grayson of DC, both former Robins who now fight crime as Red Robin and Nightwing respectively. Tim uses a Bo staff and Dick a pair of Escrima sticks, presumably because their focus on agility over strength compared to other barefist DC fighters means the weapons give them the 'kick' they need.
Marv from Sin City has a gun which he named Gladys but mostly just uses his "mitts". Considering his brutish strength, it makes sense.
Action Comics had... uh... fist air fight: Supermobile.

Film

The Rundown: The main character refuses to use guns, and to beat the shit out of everyone around him, even when it would easier to bust caps in asses... well, until the end. Lampshaded when he say "When I pick up guns, bad things happen."
Subverted with Raiders of the Lost Ark: After beating the asses of several opponents, Indy is sick of fighting. So when another opponent steps up with swords, Indy just pulls a revolver on him.
Eliot from Leverage prefers to fight bare-fisted or using an object as a club, even when faced with guns. He constantly says he Doesn't Like Guns, thinking they're too sloppy.

Literature

In The Fifth Elephant Captain Carrot faces the Nazi-esque Wolfgang disarmed, giving him a chance to fight dirty. Furthermore Carrot, despite owning a Cool Ancient Absurdly Sharp Blade prefers to use his bare hands (capable of demolishing trolls) in many situations. Not mentioning his unearthly charisma.

Live-Action TV

Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu.

Video Games

In Blue Dragon the only good guy with a sword is Zola but she's The Lancer.
In Dragon Quest VIII you can have a barehanded hero and armed party members, but in this way you miss the chance of using powerful and useful weapons. You can however learn how to cast Razor Wind.
In The Elder Scrolls series you can make a hero who fights barehanded.
Can be played straight in Final Fantasy I with a Monk/Master as the main character. The fact that he's also unearthly powerful helps a lot.
In a similar way, in Final Fantasy II you can focus on the barehanded fight and obtain good results.
Inverted in The Legend of Dragoon: Dart has a sword, and The Lancer (sort of) Haschel fights without weapons.
Vhaidra from Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 can be this if you play as her. You can still give her halberds and staves but her unarmed fight skills are faster and stronger.
In Zeno Clash, most of the combat's done with fists, apart from the occasional shooting level.
In Sengoku Basara 3 Tokugawa Ieyasu can be considered the main protagonist and fights bare-handed (so he too can feel pain), contrasting with his rival Ishida Mitsunari.
In Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Adell finds weapons just not [his] style, and fights barehanded (though he can be given any weapon in gameplay, he's just not too good with them, suffering slow skill gain)
Snow in Final Fantasy XIII has no weapon and battles monsters using only his fists.
Tifa Lockhart of Final Fantasy VII, though some of her gloves include Wolverine Claws.
Zell Dincht of Final Fantasy VIII.

Western Animation

In Adventure Time, despite owning at least two swords, Finn usually fights with his bare hands.