Mugging the Monster/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Mugging the Monster in Anime and Manga include:

  • In Hajime no Ippo it's shown during his fight with Takamura that Brian Hawk was nearly mugged in the streets of New York. Of course, it wasn't successful as Hawk proceeded to beat the mugger nearly to death with his bare hands.
  • Trigun: A bunch of slavers to try and intimidate Legato, and become increasingly angry when he keeps ignoring them, asking a waiter for a new spoon when the bandits shoot the first one out of his hand. And then he stops ignoring them...
    • There's also the episode 'Quickdraw' in which an official with few morals hold a small boy hostage to force Wolfwood to kill Vash for him, since he recognizes the hazard of going after Vash outright. Problem is Wolfwood is actually the more dangerous on an average day, and if Vash hadn't been there a lot of the guy's deputies would probably have died.
    • Also the time Vash takes on a bank robber gang without his gun, and every single person in town turns out to be armed because of a Chekhov's Gun incident mentioned earlier in the episode. They just needed his example to make a stand. (Incidentally, the baddies are using his name here.)
    • And people really ought to expect this every time they attack the infamous Vash The Stampede. That lynching scene with the truck—are you stupid? You're trying to lynch him because he blew up two cities and a chunk of the moon. What do you think is protecting you?
    • That time Vash was taken hostage by the vengeance people, nonlethal example. Possibly also the resolution of the sandsteamer thing. Vash gets underestimated a lot.
  • Ax Crazy Psycho for Hire Blood Knight Kurudo Akabane of GetBackers fame gets so much of this. People have attempted to mug and antagonize him so many times...including, occasionally, the protagonists. Considered that Akabane is considered one of the, if not the, most powerful characters in the series' universe, it usually ends pretty badly for the muggers.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: This is actually how Robert E.O. Speedwagon (stop laughing) and Johnathan Joestar meet and become friends. John is looking for the antidote to a poison in a rough part of town and is accosted by a gang of thugs led by Speedwagon. John gives them a speech telling them that no matter what, he's getting the antidote, so they best move on. As a display of resolve he takes a knife through his hand and Speedwagon declares him to be his new best friend on the spot.
    • Later on, a senator has the misfortune of having his car commandeered by Dio Brando and tries to push him around by mentioning how important he is. Dio is not impressed.
  • How many times has this happened to Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star? Every page. Every single page. Everywhere he goes, he is instantly attacked by crazy maniac Road Warrior people whose destiny is to literally explode after he strikes them. You would think word of this man would get around.
    • That would require some bad guys being left alive to spread said word. Given what usually happens to them when they mess with him... yeah.
  • In Shakugan no Shana, some street thugs try to mug Aizenji in an alley. He promptly slices them in two with his Blade of Fearsome Size, and eats them.
  • The Slayers. Lina Inverse's stock in trade. The first series and at least one of the movies (Slayers the Motion Picture) begins with bandits trying to rob Lina. Magical butt-kickings ensue. She didn't get the title "Lina the Bandit Killer" for nothing.
    • Hellmaster Phibrizzo's attack on Lina after he screws up her casting of Giga Slave certainly counts. Pressing the attack after Lina remained standing led him to the realization that he'd just attacked the Lord of Nightmares (aka God) by mistake. Cue justified panic.
      • Worse in the novel. He reveals he had a back-up plan to destroy Lina's heart. He does so. Lina no-sells it. He realizes who he just attacked.
  • Episode 2 of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu has a gang of delinquents picking a fight with main character Sagara Sousuke, a paranoid 16 year old sergeant of a top-secret UN counter-terrorist force who is undercover as a bodyguard for main heroine Chidori Kaname.

Kyoko: You're really woried about Sousuke, aren't you.
Kaname: (Face Palm) No. I'm more worried about those guys surviving.

  • In Soul Eater, Death The Kid (the "son" of a Physical God) met the Thompson Sisters when they tried to mug him. The encounter apparently (based on flashbacks) ended badly for them, but luckily his Super OCD meant a pair of identical weapons was exactly what he was looking for and they became partners.
    • Also happens when Soul and Maka go to Italy and are harassed by some of the locals. Said locals end up in a heap. It doesn't get much better for them, since later they try more or less the same thing with the Demon Swordsperson Chrona. They end up having their souls harvested. Baaaad idea.
    • Chapter 73 reveals that Kid actually went looking for the pair known as the Demons of Brooklyn (or somesuch). A boy of around 13 goes looking for violent, criminal EquippableAllies because he liked their aesthetics. Good job he's a young god because otherwise he's hopelessly naive.
  • Late in the Chunnin Exam arc of Naruto, a group of shady types confront one of the competitors on his way to the arena floor for his fight and demand he take a dive because someone is betting on his opponent. Said competitor is Gaara. It does not end well for them.
  • Early in Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature, a motorcycle gang chases down what they take to be a woman in a trench coat. She packs quite a scratch, leaving all but Ryo wounded with no wounds herself.
  • One Piece,
    • In the "Water 7" arc. First, a band of one-shot pirates try to take advantage of the Galley-La company, only to get thrashed by the Dock 1 shipwrights. Then, the Franky Family try to rob the Going Merry—while Zoro is watching it.
    • Then, when Franky Family actually do succeed in their mugging (in this case Usopp) they ended up triggering the Straw Hats' Berserk Button, leading to one of the most massive beatdowns of the series.
    • Shortly after Enies Lobby, Zoro (of course) gets lost while trying to make his way back to the crew to warn them about some Marines in the area. Some random dudes try to rob him. After an off-panel beatdown they're quite apologetic and more than happy to help him get back to the crew.
    • In a flashback, Ace is shown being harassed by bullies as a small child, who are talking smack about Ace's dead dad, the former pirate king. Cut to Ace sitting on a rock, being asked what happened in town, a bunch of thugs were beaten half to death!
    • During a flashback very early in the series, we see some random bandit harass Shanks... who actually more or less ignores them to avoid trouble. When they mess with Luffy, however... Turns out Shanks is one of the four pirate Emperors, and Shanks is apparently the Badass Normal of the group yet on par with a guy that can (supposedly) destroy the world with his earthquake causing devil fruit power.
    • This turns into a Crowning Moment of Awesome when Luffy and Zoro play this out when Bellamy and crew beat them up before they get word that Luffy's bounty is 100M and Zoro is 60M. Luffy returns to show them exactly how he earned a bounty that large.
    • Then, after the timeskip, Luffy gets mugged by an imposter pirate crew claiming to be the Straw Hats. He knocks them out effortlessly. Earlier the same people were harrassing Nami and Usopp when he came later. Both promptly show them why you don't mess with them.
    • In the movie One Piece: Heart of Gold, the Straw Hats meet Olga, a child (well, truthfully, a girl cursed with eternal childhood) who actually tries to take Luffy hostage in an attempt to demand food and water from them, with the rest of the crew watching, no less. Less benevolent pirates would have crushed her on the spot, though in this case, Luffy (who actually looks a little bored as she does so) quickly figures out the poor girl is desperate and starving (and is really in no mood to fight) and gives her what she wanted.
    • Luffy is on the other side of this Trope when it is Played for Laughs during the Egghead Arc. Usually, picking a fight with Atlas (the combat-oriented Satellite of Vegapunk) would fall into Bullying a Dragon, as she is literally larger than Kaido (something Luffy quickly discerns) so huge and hulking that she makes the ground tremble as she walks. However, prior to meeting her, the Straw Hats are beset by a lot of monsters and giants, which turn out to be holograms created by Atlas for training exercises. When Atlas herself appears Luffy assumes she is another hologram and refuses her polite request for them to move out of her way - Atlas has something of a Hair-Trigger Temper and the situation almost turned into a fight. Almost because Atlas' first punch threw Luffy into a group of vending machines which he and Bonney quickly figured out the purpose of.
  • A Certain Magical Index opens with a group of tough customers trying to harass a middle school girl. The hero intervenes and then leads the punks on a merry chase. It was then that it was revealed that he was trying to save them from being electrocuted by the girl they were harassing, who was actually one of the strongest espers in the city. A Certain Scientific Railgun shows their first meeting under similar circumstances.
  • In the first episode of Baccano!!, Firo has his fingers cut off by a random beggar after he sees just how much money Firo is carrying around. The fingers in question instantly reattach themselves, and he asks: "Did you do this knowing that I am Firo Prochainezo of the Martillo family?" Following this, the beggar promptly has his face rearranged by his would-be victim.
    • Not to mention the two different would-be villains who, one immediately after the other, try to murder that one redheaded conductor, not realizing that he's everyone's favorite Sociopathic Hero Claire Stanfield. Bad idea. Really bad idea.
    • In the Light Novels, Ennis remembers an incident in which someone tried to mug her and wound up getting killed by her master/"father", the immortal Mad Scientist Szilard.
  • Elfen Lied: Lucy had a pretty miserable childhood due to other kids constantly bullying her because of her horns. Lucy hardened her heart and stoically put up with their abuse for a long time... until they realized they'd get more of a reaction out of her if they beat her puppy to death while she watched helplessly. What they didn't know was that Lucy had horns because she was a diclonius, a condition that also came with the ability to tear people apart with her mind. And thus, a cute little girl who could theoretically wipe out humanity in a matter of years was filled with an overwhelming hatred for people.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Some school bullies tell Tirawit to jump as it's part of the "traditional Japanese greeting," but obviously so the change in his pockets will jingle. As the head guy closes his eyes and explains, Tirawat jumps about twenty feet straight up and then crushes the coins between his fingers ("And this is a traditional Thai greeting.") and makes them his minions.
    • And any time that someone unknowingly picks a fight with one of Kenichi's masters. The foremost example is when Freya's Amazon Brigade decides that it would be a great idea to attack Shigure. Good thing Kenichi talked her out of using an actual weapon. Instead, she disarms all of her enemies with a wooden spoon. And by "disarm" we mean "sliced all their weapons into pieces and cut their clothing in places that made Kenichi bleed out from his nose" naturally.
      • In their minimal defense, they thought Shigure was a Disciple... which at her age would imply that she's pretty damn incompetent because she should have graduated already. Unfortunately for them, Shigure was not Ryozanpaku's oldest Disciple but their youngest Master, and she got that title at her age by being extremely competent.
    • Subverted hilariously by Kenichi after the end of D of D arc. Kenichi and co have returned to school after fighting their way through life-threatening battles against opponents who had the skill, ability and mentality to kill them. Kenichi is promptly approached by a group of incoming wannabe delinquent freshmen and shows the fruits of his training and experience by... averting his eyes and cowering away. Nijima and the Shinpaku alliance have to bail him out and Nijima expresses his disbelief that Kenichi can still be afraid of common thugs. Kenichi responds that he's still traumatized from all his years as a professional bullying victim.
  • In Angel Densetsu, it's a small wonder Ryoko or Ikuno still finds people bothering them. You'd guess that after beating up half the city's delinquents, the other half would smart up a bit.
  • In Monster a pair of hoodlums attack old, slightly chubby Doctor Reichwein, who promptly disarms the first and knocks the other unconscious with a headbutt. As he tells the former, while choking him out, "I used to train with the Swiss Guard!"
    • Also Japanese surgeon Dr. Tenma has the balls to walk into a bar frequented by neo-nazis and ask about the gang's boss. He wouldn't take shit from anyone.
  • "Death Glasses Takamichi" in Mahou Sensei Negima! is capable of using air pressure to simulate the force of a punch from about 15 meters away without magic. The people on campus thus have tremendous respect for his problem-solving abilities...but not visitors to the school festival. They are all flattened in seconds when they refuse to stop trying to pick a fight.

"You're rushing at me? You must not go to this school."

    • Random guys in a magic world bar also try picking on Negi thinking he's a weak pretty boy. Not so much.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • One episode where some random crook shoots Tao Paipai. Without warning. From behind. Tao Paipai deflects the bullet straight at the attacker with his hand.
    • In fact, this is how Son Goku meets several of his future friends in the first series. Both Yamucha and Oolong first attempted to rob or take advantage of him because he was "just a little kid", only to be taught very quickly that Goku is no one to trifle with. Fortunately for them, Goku will forgive almost anyone.
    • During the Crossover with Dr. Slump, General Blue tried to prevent Goku from attacking him by holding Arale at knifepoint. It did work at first, as Goku didn't know about Arale's strength either, but then he tried to kill Goku, and Arale sent him flying to Egypt.
    • Then in Dragonball Z, the androids C17 and C18 are attacked by a group of gangsters. Those are thrown into the sky.
    • Finally, in an anime-exclusive filler, Majin Buu, now a nice guy, is shot during a hold-up in a jewelry. Being The Blob, he absorbs the bullet, spits it out, then playfully throws it back with enough strength to put a crater in the wall behind the crooks. Said crooks promptly gave up and surrender to the police. Gohan and Videl show up and strike a pose reminiscent of the Ginyu Force only to be completely confused about why the bad guys are surrendering before they beat anybody up.
    • Majin Buu himself does this in Dragon Ball Super, refusing to give up the pudding that Beerus wants, then insulting him, and then licking it before handing it over. Beerus is someone that everyone - even Vegeta - knows you should never piss off, and that the best way to deal with him if he shows up is to give him whatever he wants, as Beerus is known to demolish whole planets when he gets angry and erase people who annoy him from existence. In fact, it was pretty much Buu's fault that the Z-fighters had to fight Beerus at all.
  • In Darker than Black, one unruly client wants to leave a restaurant without paying and beats those who try to stop him. Including the waiter, a guy who was nicknamed "the Black Reaper" before he got super powers. And the place was owned by Yakuza to boot. The only reason he didn't get zapped senseless or stabbed within seconds of his first punch was that Hei was undercover.
    • Also none-too-bright: Goons are meeting November 11 to arrange a deal. He brings a bunch of money as a down payment. They break off negotiations halfway through, and he goes to pick up the money and leave... at which point a thug slams his hand down on the briefcase and blows smoke in November's face. Whoops. He gets his arm frozen off. The second guy gets stabbed through the eye with the contents of a cup of coffee. Their boss tries to get away, but April causes a rainstorm and November froze his feet to the ground. November 11 gets his information, and said boss ends into a much more fatal than usual Human Popsicle. See, that's why you should cooperate with the nice sociopaths.
  • Happens a few times in Kaze no Stigma, most noticeably when a guy comes up to Kazuma and Ayano as they walk through some street. Defeated in seconds. Also, since members of the Kannagi family are pretty strong, Ren easily beats one of his classmates older brother who happens to be sort of possessed by a youma.
  • In Blassreiter, young harmless Malek and his only friend Johann are bullied by the upperclass German natives, who look down on them for being immigrants. When Malek becomes an Amalgam, this turns out to be a bad move.
  • In the Cowboy Bebop two-part episode "Jupiter Jazz", the same group of thugs try to mug Faye and then Spike. It doesn't end well for them either time, particularly since their leader makes the mistake of calling Spike by the name of his rival Vicious.
    • Happens in at least another episode when a thug tries to mug Spike using a knife. He is dispatched with no effort whatsoever. Spike in general seems to attract this, because people just assume thin equals weak, and he's definitely not weak.
  • This is practically a Running Gag in Inuyasha, as 95% of the time you ever see bandits (or arrogant feudal lords leading dozens of armed men), you know in five minutes they're gonna be scraped off the floor after meeting the Monster of the Week. The rest of the time, they'll last just long enough to harass one or more of the heroes. Sango is a popular target, being a beautiful woman living in deeply misogynistic feudal Japan, but her complete lack of superpowers didn't stop her from slaying demons for a living.
  • This happens to Armitage, in what is possibly her most dehumanizing and—dare I say it -- monstrous scene in the first OVA. In the defense of the muggers, once she drops her cloak and they can see the battle damage she sustained earlier in the series, they realize they've made a huge mistake.
  • Everything that happens in Yu-Gi-Oh!! before the children's card games kick in revolves around this trope. Yugi frequently gets the crap kicked out of him or gets taken advantage by someone with decidedly evil intentions, and his tormentors then inevitably suffer the consequences when Yugi's Super-Powered Evil Side challenges them to karmically-appropriate Shadow Games, which usually leave the loser dead or insane.
  • In the first episode of the first season of Koihime Musou, Kannu is accosted by a group of bandits. She beats them easily.
  • In Durarara!! a panicked Nasujima tries to rob the first person he sees after running from Anri. The first person he sees happens to be Heiwajima Shizuo. The same author created Baccano! (see above); it would seem he's fond of this.
  • An odd example in the detective series Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro wherein a boy who is being horribly bullied decided to kill his bullies. In the typical style of the manga he uses a strange over-the-top method of murder by creating an animal-head shaped mask that sprays flesh-dissolving acid from the snout. However, when finding one of the boys, knocking him to the ground and attempting to melt his face he finds the boy just calmly smiling at him and talking through the melting bloody gloop that is his head. Turns out he just attacked Kaitou Sai, a shapeshifter whose already killed the boy and taken his shape so he could murder a pedophile teacher for the giggles. Strangely he isn't killed for this attack, instead the villain seems to agree with what he had done, reassure him that he had never bullied him since he had stolen the shape very recently and eventually basically hired the kid.
  • In Eyeshield 21 when Sena and Monta try to get a table at the local McDonald's ripoff so they can start talking about who should be in the Japan National Team, the guys they ask to move basically tell them to screw off and start taunting them. But wait a minute... OH SHIT they're Deimon's Superstars! AND THEY'VE GOT SHIN, GAOU, AND AGON WITH THEM! RUN!!!
  • Bleach, Kenpachi Zaraki vs Nnoitra Jiruga. Nnoitra ripping off the eyepatch is probably the biggest mistake in all of anime.
  • As a beautiful woman in a crapsack and crime-ridden feudal Japan, Oyuki, a.k.a. Lady Snowblood, is frequently targeted by would-be rapists. They do not survive their attempts.
  • In Digimon Frontier a Sagittarimon tries this on the digidestined, but they were saved by Angemon, still he comes back with some Centaurmon to back him up, only to be beaten up by the digidestined.
  • Tokiko was trying to invoke this trope in the first chapter of Busou Renkin, but was thwarted by Kazuki's Senseless Sacrifice.
  • Hanaukyo Maid Tai episode 5. While Taro and Konoe are out of the mansion they're approached by three thugs who proposition Konoe and grab Taro. Konoe responds with martial arts attacks that quickly drive the thugs off.
  • Gunsmith Cats: Anyone who attempts to rob the home of Irene "Rally" Vincent will quickly learn why breaking into the residence of a gun shop owner/bounty hunter and the lover/apprentice of the mob's #1 bomb specialist is a very bad idea.
    • Then there was that guy who tried to steal Bean Bandit's cargo from him. It's amazing how many people keep trying to double-cross or con him, even though it's common knowledge that entire gangs have disappeared overnight after trying to make a fool of him.
  • Kumiko Yamaguchi of Gokusen is very short and thin. What idiots who attack her don't know is she grew up in a house full of Yakuza who taught her how to fight.
  • In Gantz Nishi classmates are calling him a psychopath and are constantly bullying him (going as far as throwing him of the second floor window), then they find out that he really is a heartless killer that has no real problema with killing others and have both the equipment and fighting experience of super-soldier.
  • Semi-comic example from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman episode 'The Secret of the Birdstyles.' Jun goes out by herself as bait for Galactor agents. Two men, one armed with a knife, force her into an alley. We hear sounds of a beat-down, then she comes out unharmed and gripes, "Just a couple of street thugs. I thought they were Galactor!"
  • In Fairy Tail, some street punks mistake Gajeel for his wimpy alternate universe counterpart. He kicks their asses.
  • During an episode of Last Exile, the crew of the Silvana end up having shore leave at Walker Palace, conveniently at the same time as the crew of the Anatoray battleship Goliath. Thinking of the newcomers as average renegades, the Goliath crew make the mistake of picking multiple fights with the Silvana bunch, leading to a brawl between the two crews. This brawl is only stopped upon Alex's entrance, but upon his attempt to call it off, the Goliath captain makes the even bigger mistake of throwing his glove at Alex, instigating a duel. Needless to say, when the Goliath people come to realize that they just picked a fight with the Silvana (literally known as "Kill Em All Silvana"), and the captain himself realized he just talked down to the one and only Alex Row, the expressions are just priceless. And then they made their last mistake by trying to shoot the Silvana in the back, before the order to fire was given... making them the ideal test subjects for the Silvana's new jet propelled shell cannons.
  • Most Gundam series start off like this: the antagonists invade the colony that the protagonist faction is testing the resident Gundam in, whether to search out for said Gundam or to attack the colony itself. After the antagonists make mincemeat out of the defending forces, the main hero will "accidentally" end up in the Gundam's cockpit and activate it. The trope kicks in when the antagonists notice the Gundam's activation and, thinking it's like any other mobile suit, attack it... only to realize that their weapons can't penetrate the Gundam's armor, and much more the Gundam is either packing more heat than their suits or is able to rip apart their MS with its bare hand manipulators.
  • A slightly more realistic example happens in Kodomo no Jikan. It's revealed that the previous teacher was a serious Jerkass who insulted, cussed out, and generally made all of Rin's class miserable. Then his torment of them made her friend Mimi stop coming to school. She proceeded to harass him so much that he quit and was seriously ill because of it. The Aesop? Don't fuck with Rin, she's willing to ruin (or end) your life.
  • People who've been reading Black Butler know from the outset that Ciel and Sebastian won't get successfully robbed by a group of homeless Indian immigrants in ragged clothes, no matter the difference in numbers. This is subverted when the new characters Soma and Agni appear, and Soma orders Agni to help their countrymen. Agni turns out to be Sebastian's equal in fighting. In a double subversion, Soma figures out rather quickly that they were siding with criminals and orders Agni to switch sides. The most one-sided Curb Stomp Battle in the entire series ensues.
  • In an episode of The Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments try to pick a fight with Escanor, believing (wrongly) that this incredibly handsome, arrogant, muscular, Adonis-like hunk is just another mortal fighter, and not the Lion's Sin of Pride and God of the Sun that he is. Even so, after Escanor proceeds to cut Galand in half with a single swipe of his sword, the others don't have the sense to back off...
  • A common occurrence in How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord, the "monster" in question being Diablo. The first time was when the stuck-up snob of a wizard Gallak tired to sic his giant level 30 fire-breathing salamander on Diablo and his companions. Diablo himself is level 150, and makes short work of the lamb in lion's clothing. Since then, it seemed every villain with a chip on his shoulder and a rotten attitude would underestimate the 6-foot-5 guy with scary black robes, facial tattoos and demon-horns whose name is literally a name for the Devil for some.... odd reason. Of course, in all fairness, Diablo isn't too confident of his own abilities, as unbeknownst to everyone, is an anxiety-ridden, anti-social nerd who was pulled into this fantasy world and turned into the overpowered character he used in a MMORPG.
  • In the National Superhero Registry Arc of One Punch Man, Sneck is an arrogant upper-classman who clearly has no idea that the newbie student he picks a fight with is Saitama himself (who as any fan of the show knows, can flatten a meteor on his worst day). Maybe slightly moving into Bullying a Dragon territory here, as Sneck did know the new student had set a new record in the physical tests of the entrance exams. Regardless, Saitama beat him senseless with one tap of a finger.
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