Martial Arts and Crafts: Difference between revisions

 

Contrast [[What the Fu Are You Doing?]]

 

* ''[[Ranma ½]]'' is likely the [[Trope Maker]], certainly the [[Trope Codifier]], and the list of just how many different styles that the anime ''alone'' named is ridiculous. Most, but not all, are based specifically on one of the many [[Cooking Duel|strange competitions they have]]. But yes, it does include Martial Arts Calligraphy in a [[Filler]] episode. In general, you have "serious" ones (that is, ones where the contestants actually aim to hurt each other), and "contest" ones (martial arts that tend to be goofy even by this series' standards).

** On the serious side, we have these gems...

*** Martial Arts Calligraphy: while the combatants do aim simply to be the first one to draw a certain kanji/hiragana symbol, they are also allowed to beat the snot out of each other with letter openers, paper weights, ink, paper and calligraphy brushes the size of quarterstaves. An apparently lost variant allows the practitioner to draw special designs on a person's body that can manipulate their internal ki—the only example we're shown, the Mark of the Gods, is a goofy smiley face on the belly that amplifies the subject's skill something like tenfold.

*** Martial Arts Figure Skating: teams of two in extravagant costumes zipping around on an ice-skating rink and beating the living tar out of each other. This one is actually very dangerous, and the story arc involving it features arguably the most violent fights of the series. After all, you are fighting with the equivalent of daggers strapped to their feet, and over a hard, rough, icy surface.

*** Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics: implicitly a girls-only style (explicitly stated to be so in an anime filler episode involving an attempt to create a men's version), combatants use gymnastic props to beat on each other. Oddly enough, Ryôga knows this art well enough to teach it to Akane.

*** Martial Arts Cheerleading: another "girls only" style, Martial Arts Cheerleaders attempt to bolster their team through a mixture of cheering on their own teammates and beating up the opposing team, usually with very flashy moves.

* ''[[Hikkatsu]]'' is centered around the main character trying to turn [[Percussive Maintenance]] into a martial art.

 

* ''[[Mad]]'' had a reportage from the noble martial art of "House-Fu", where you use household items in combat. And the combat is assumed to take place in the kitchen.

* [[TMNT|Raphael]] using Chinese Butterfly Knives to trim a Christmas tree. This scene made it into the 2000s ''TMNT'' cartoon.

* In one issue of ''[[The Muppet Show Comic Book]]'', the special guest is the master of stealth tapdancing, [[A Worldwide Punomenon|Ninja Rogers]].

* A long-running cartoon in British newsmagazine [[Private Eye]] was ''[[The Cloggies]]'', an [[Oop North]] morris-dancing team who elevated traditional northern English clog-dance to the status of a lethal martial art, frequently winning dances by ''three groinings and a right uppercut''. Eventually collected in comic-book form detailing the lives and times of northern folk. Homaged by Terry Pratchett as the Lancre morrismen (see below).

 

== Fan Works ==

{{quote|"The prostitutes in Ninja Village are also ninjas! That's why we call them '''Ninja Prostitutes'''"}}

* During the golden age of ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fan fiction during the late 1990s and early 2000s, fan writers took ''Ranma'''s propensity for diversely silly martial arts and turned it [[Up to Eleven]], featuring such ''ryuu'' as Snack Food Martial Arts, Martial Arts Interpersonal Relationships, Martial Arts Speed Reading, the Sakkiken and Martial Arts Non-Violence in their stories. As early as 1998, [https://www.sanjiyan.co.uk/showthread.php?t=69982 attempts to compile lists of all such fan-created styles and schools]{{Dead link}} were already numbering in the dozens, easily outpacing the "canon" arts from both the manga and the anime.

 

* Parodied, of course, by ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'''s "Martial Arts Picking Up a Dumpling with Chopsticks" training scene.

* In ''[[The Long Kiss Goodnight]]'', the protagonist become really good in the kitchen shortly after a car-crash. She thinks her memories are starting to return after six years of amnesia, and that her great skill with knives mean she used to be a chef. She's right about the first part.

* ''[[Shaolin Soccer]]'' is centered on this trope. Stephen Chow's character believes that martial arts can be used for every day tasks. To promote the usefulness of kung fu, his [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|ragtag group]] of former shaolin monks use their kung fu superpowers to play soccer. We also see kung fu used to trim trees, park cars, and fetch objects from high shelves. Tai Chi is also used to cook.

* ''[[Dreadnaught]]'', a 1981 Hong Kong film directed by Yuen Woo Ping, may prove to be the [[Trope Codifier]]. This martial arts comedy (with dashes of horror) contains all of the following kung-fu applications: Medical treatment, Lion Dancing, being fitted for a custom-made suit, and a kung-fu serial killer using Chinese Opera motifs. But the biggest example from this movie is Yuen Biao's character, whose family's unorthodox ''laundry'' methods turns out to be the fabled Eagle Claw. He didn't even know it was Kung Fu until Master Wong Fei Hung saw him using it, and he ended up using it to defend himself against the aforementioned serial killer. Chris O'Donnell's laundry scene in ''Batman Forever'' is a shot-for-shot homage of Yuen Biao doing his laundry work in this movie.

* ''[[Bloodsport]]''—From Muy Thai and Sumo to Karate and Jungle Style fighting

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Discworld]]''

** A throwaway one-liner in some supplementary material indicates that in the Discworld's equivalent of Wales, "choral singing has been elevated to the level of a martial art".

* Deconstructed in the ''Age of Discovery'' trilogy by Michael Stackpole and done entirely seriously. A true Martial Artist may achieve true magic and potential immortality by completely mastering his style. But then again, so can a basket-weaver once he completely masters basket-weaving.

* Ambient magic in ''[[Circle of Magic]]'' books ''is'' this trope. Ambient magic is when people have magic that reacts to certain activities—such as gardening, metalworking, dancing, making clothes, you name it. Anything to do with that activity, that ambient mage draws power from it. Most of the time, ambient mages just work away at their own crafts, but when you get in a fight... well, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|just watch out, okay?]]

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* A variation appears in an episode of ''[[Sliders]]'' on a world where they have "seers" for every imaginable field—medical work, law enforcement, even politics. (But presumably ''not'' gambling.)

* ''[[The Goodies]]'' episode "Kung Fu Kapers" featured the Lancashire martial art of Ecky-Thump, which consisted of hitting people with black puddings.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** In the 3rd and 4th editions there were a handful of feats: weapon proficiency, exotic weapon proficiency, etc. that allowed you to specialize in virtually any "weapon" of your choosing that your GM would allow. My buddy told me how a GM let his kid brother quite literally specialize in using armor as a weapon, as he smacked enemies around using a suit of enchanted armor stuck on a training dummy. Picking the right feats and mixing and matching your class/prestige classes in 3rd edition, or the right powers & parargon paths in 4th edition, can lead to unique styles. Your mileage may vary, of course.

* ''[http://www.sirlin.net/yomi Yomi]'', an upcoming card game currently in beta, is based around a Olympic-style martial arts tournament. While some of the characters the players can use make sense to be in a martial arts tournament, four other characters make less sense—Jefferson DeGrey, Ghostly Diplomat; Max Geiger, Precise Watchmaker (actually something of a [[Time Master]]); Valerie Rose, Manic Painter; and Lum Bam-Foo, Gambling Panda. For some precision, DeGrey seems to be spicing up his martial arts with some debating, Geiger with time control, Valerie Rose has the most common Martial Arts Painting, and Lum Bam Foo spices things up with Martial Arts GAMBLING. (Complete with coin throwing.)

 

== Video Games ==

** The same goes for your woodcutters; they use ''battle axes'' to chop down trees. Tree trunks, legs... not a huge difference, right?

* In ''[[No More Heroes]]'', the story revolves around climbing the ranks to become the Number 1 Assassin. The problem is there are many characters, and none of them are an Assassin in any sense of the word. They clash giant, loud lightsabers, pilot giant robots, launch very illegal fireworks, and act like loud lunatics with random weapons.

 

== Web Comics ==

** The [[McNinja|French ninjas]] of "Le Restaurant des Ninjas" run their restaurant without being seen. Everything from directing patrons to their tables, to delivering [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01082.htm menus], [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01093.htm food] (including [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01110.htm desserts], [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01083.htm drinks] (including [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01090.htm refills]), and the [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01112.htm bill], all while being completely stealthy. Well, ''[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01081.htm almost]'' [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01113.htm completely]. They're so effective at hiding, [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01079.htm they hide their restaurant.]

** Ninja accountants appear on-screen in [https://web.archive.org/web/20120506224544/http://www.goats.com/archive/011119.html Goats].

* Played with in ''[[The Order of the Stick]],'' where a waitress, upon sneaking up on her customers and startling one, admits that she's waiting tables to pay for ninja school.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Fighters High]]'' sports this as an essential part of the eponymous school's culture. Within the first 10 minutes of the first episode, we've seen the school's cook face off against a student, blasting him into a wall using a fireball generated via spatula.

* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' features a ninja-style dancer.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', the various bending techniques are shown to have various practical applications. These range everywhere from the sensible (i.e. using firebending to set stoke a boiler, earthbending for stonemasonry, and waterbending to propel river boats) to the somewhat ridiculous (i.e. using earthbending to send mail).

** Cases such as the latter double as [[Awesome Yet Practical]], because it really is an effective system.

 

== Real Life ==

** Since the original meaning of the word gōngfu means [[wikipedia:Kung fu (term)|"one's expertise in any skill achieved through hard work and practice, not necessarily martial"]], ''everything'' is a form of Kung-Fu.

*** The [[Jackie Chan]] ''[[Karate Kid]]'' makes [[Bilingual Bonus|so much]] [[Fridge Brilliance|more sense]] knowing that!

** A third point of view is that the monks were getting fat and lazy, so they said, hey animals are never fat, if we copy their moves, maybe we could drop 30 pounds.

* A lot of weapons started out as agricultural and gardening tools including scythes, flails, and even kunai! In fact, the French Revolution was mostly fought with farming equipment.

** In fact, save for obvious exceptions such as swords and firearms, most weapons have mundane predecessors. The spear and bow were originally hunting tools, for example, and axes and hammers were and still are construction tools.

*** Gunpowder was invented in an alchemy experiment that was ''trying'' for an [[Immortality Inducer]], and a sword is just a longer knife. A great many battles have also been fought with hunting guns—the sharpshooter units of many European armies are called "hunters" (chasseurs in French, Jägers in German) ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|because that was what they did for a living in peacetime]]''.

 

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