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Rapid transit through an urban or suburban area by means of [[In a Single Bound|extraordinary leaps]] from housetop to housetop. Can be found in martial arts and [[Sentai]] series. Sometimes it's in live action movies.
Helps someone get across town quickly without running into obstacles on the ground and keep their destination in sight. Also a lot easier to draw than a busy street. For a reality check, the world record for running long jump is just under 30' (9m), while a typical two-lane street in America is 22' (6.5m). And that's not including sidewalks or setbacks between the street and the building's footprint, which may be required in some places. So while this trope would be easier in some countries and neighborhoods than in others, doing it in [[New York City]] would require a [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] at the very least.
A related trope common from American [[Superhero]] stories is the [[Building Swing]]. Real-life
▲A related trope common from American [[Superhero]] stories is the [[Building Swing]]. Real-life roofhopping is an element of [[Le Parkour]]. When performed on moving vehicles, it's [[Hood Hopping]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
* Roofhopping can be found in ''[[Ranma ½]]''.{{context}}▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* And from the same author, ''[[Inuyasha]]''.{{context}}▼
▲* Roofhopping can be found in ''[[Ranma ½]]''.
▲* And from the same author, ''[[Inuyasha]]''.
* Nuku-Nuku and Eimi both do a lot of roofhopping in ''[[All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku]]''.
* The ninjas in ''[[Naruto]]'' also make use of roofhopping.
* The first season of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' had several instances of ''implied'' roofhopping, in that the girls leapt off into the sky and vanished into the distance. As well, Zoisite also engaged in
** [[Sailor Moon Abridged|"Jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, even though I can teleport!"]]
* Meimi, as ''[[Kaitou Saint Tail]]'', does quite a bit of roofhopping to get around.
* Kurumi does a fair amount of
* [[Lupin III
** And Lupin for pretty much the rest of the movie.
* The few creatures who can't fly in ''[[
* ''Shinigami'' who have mastered flash steps roof hop in place of [[Flight]] in ''[[Bleach]]''
* Most everyone with any power in ''[[Kekkaishi]]'' can do this. The Kekkaishi themselves, however, go Kekkai-hopping (leaping on magic airborne boxes).
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** Not to mention hopping off and [[I Have the High Ground|standing on]] lampposts and such.
* ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]] Tokyo 2040'' has the Knight Sabers using their [[Powered Armor]] to do this
* Lime, Cherry, and all of the marionettes in ''[[Saber Marionette J]]''. Lime is also shown roofhopping while on her job as a delivery person in ''[[Saber Marionette J To X]]''.
* Renamon from ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' does this a fair bit in the first part of the series, before they go to the Digital World.
** Impmon's shown to travel this way a few times as well. Usually with Calumon following him.
* Kei Kurono enjoys a bit of Sky Scraper hopping in ''[[Gantz]]''.
* ''[[Ah! My Goddess
* Given the size of [[Elaborate University High|Mahora Academy]], this is standard for the magically-informed in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. Since
* Panther does this recreationally and for exercise in ''[[Eyeshield 21]]''. Yes, the football manga.
** To be fair, the racist coach wouldn't let him train with the rest of the team and Panther isn't too well off, hopping off the roof of apartment buildings was just convenient.
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* Louis from the beginning of [[Darker than Black]].
* Arf does this in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' after {{spoiler|Bardiche and Raising Heart are damaged while clashing over a Jewel Seed}}.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' has the two mask duelists who constantly jump across buildings.
* Almost any nimble martial artists in [[The Breaker]] can do this.
* [[Noblesse]]s like to do this a lot, combined with [[I Have the High Ground]].
* Bulga in ''[[Oku-sama
== Comic Books ==▼
▲== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Inverted in an issue of ''[[Catwoman (comics)|Catwoman]]''. During an adventure in Miami, she notes that the trick doesn't work so well in other cities when she runs out of rooftops.
* ''[[The Tick (comic)|The Tick]]'' oh ho ho ho, ''The Tick''. Due to being [[Nigh Invulnerable]], [[Super Strength|Super Strong]] and being built like a linebacker on steroids, he tends to leave footprints on the roofs during jumps. When he visits Europe for a superhero exchange program, he's forced to go pedestrian because his roof-hopping antics damaged historical buildings.
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* This was how [[Superman]] got around in the early days, when he could just "leap tall buildings in a single bound" -- he jumped from skyscraper to skyscraper. He only graduated to [[Flight]] after the first couple Fleischer [[Superman Theatrical Cartoons]] animated the roof-hopping and they decided it looked silly.
==
* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', Kyon had fun when he gained the ability to do this. It helped with a [[Dynamic Entry]] later on.
== [[Film]] ==
* Films set in Brazil will likely have at least one of these scenes, since the homes are tightly packed. Examples include ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' and ''[[The Fast and the Furious|Fast Five]]''.
* In the film of ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'', this is Hellboy's preferred method of tracking what Liz Sherman and John Myers are doing on their 'going out for coffee' walk. Here Del Toro shows the risky chance of encountering civilians on rooftops - milk-and-cookie-distributing-civilians, but still. Hellboy, even with his superman abilities, still nearly misses one of the jumps.
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** He also attempts it on foot, before developing his Batman persona. He learns it's not easy at all. Ouch!
* ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'' used this trope, but with [[Special Effect Failure|noticeably unnatural movement]] in the CGI.
* ''[[30
* ''[[Casino Royale]]'' uses this in the opening scenes, with [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] performing jumps that would have resulted in agony and likely broken legs for anyone else.
* ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'' has Ginormica roofhopping to escape the alien robot. [[MST3K Mantra|(Don't ask how the roofs don't crumble under her feet.)]] She jumps to one tilted roof that's too far for her, scrambles to hold on as she slips down, loses her grip... and safely lands on the ground, since she's almost as tall as the building.
* ''Rumble In The Bronx'', where [[Jackie Chan]] jumped from a parking garage to a fire escape, breaking his ankle.
** The ankle breaking actually happened in a much "easier" jump. Onto a moving hovercraft!
* ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'': Rorschach does this early on, while breaking into Dr. Manhattan's facility. He leaps from one roof to another, a distance that looks about
* Subverted in ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick Ass]]''; the titular character initially tries to train himself to roof hop as a means of getting around the city, but quickly realises how
* ''[[Blade Runner]]'': Rick Deckard tries to do this and just barely manages to catch onto a beam sticking out of the building on the other side, Roy Batty on the other hand (owing to his genetically engineered strength), does manage, and proceeds to [[Heel Face Turn|rescue Deckard from his predicament]].
* The chimney sweep scene in ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' is a song and dance number on rooftops.
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* Optimus Prime in the first live-action ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' film.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* In ''God Stalk'', book one of P.C. Hodgell's ''[[Chronicles of the Kencyrath]]'', the Cloudies of Tai-tastigon live their entire lives on the roofs of the city, which is their Cloud Kingdom, and refuse to allow ground-dwellers to climb up there. Many of them have never set foot on the ground. Jame, the books' protagonist, saves a prince of the Cloud Kingdom and is given the freedom of the skies; after that, she prefers the rooftops to the streets.
* ''[[Doorways in The Sand]]'' [[Roger Zelazny]]: The main character is a roof hopping building climber among other things.
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* In Felix Gilman's ''Thunderer'', Jack and his gang often use this to get around within Ararat.
* Jimmie Dale, the Gray Seal, did some roofhopping at least once. (Possibly the Burrage Spring-Heeled Jack did, too.)
* ''[[Discworld]]'': Assassins are expected to be able to do this. ''[[
* One of the characters in ''[[The Alienist]]'' demonstrates remarkable abilities traveling roofs and other urban structures.
* This is a very common way of getting around for the titular extraordinarily empowered individuals of ''[[Mistborn]]'', since they can telekinetically push and pull on metals.
* The live
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* The live action version of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'', made one attempt at showing roofhopping. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't anything to show to the Emmy committee, either.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': Buffy does some roof hopping chasing after the last bus out of Sunnydale in the final episode of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'': Kramer
* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'': An unsub tries (and fails) to do this in an attempt to escape arrest in the episode "Tabula Rasa". Morgan follows, with [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|considerably greater success]].
* Jim on ''[[No Ordinary Family
* In the ''[[Southland]]'' season 3 finale, a suspect tries to do this with Officer Sherman pursuing. The suspect succeeds the first time, but he's not so lucky on the second.
* The one generally admired part of BBC One's much-derided 2002 presentation revamp was [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMAr8y-Vtw ''Rush Hour''], a 90-second short film of roofhopping that would be used either as a straight promo or sometimes as an extended ident into programmes.
* Historical [[Korean Series]] are good for this, among them ''[[Sungkyunkwan Scandal]]'' and ''[[Iljimae]]''.
* In the pilot of the short-lived sci-fi series ''[[Something Is Out There]]'', the first clue the cop protagonist has that the woman he's chasing is not of this Earth is when she leaps across to the next building.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ''[[The Matrix]] Online'' enables characters to accomplish similar feats by means of the Hyper-Jump ability.▼
* The [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ''[[City of Heroes]]'' allows players who take the "Super Jump" ability (and who have reasonably good aim) to duplicate this feat with ease.▼
▲* The [[MMORPG]] ''[[The Matrix]] Online'' enables characters to accomplish similar feats by means of the Hyper-Jump ability.
▲* The [[MMORPG]] ''[[City of Heroes]]'' allows players who take the "Super Jump" ability to duplicate this feat with ease.
** And "Acrobatics" to a slightly lesser extent.
* Altaïr of ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' can use this to go pretty much anywhere he pleases.
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** The first level of ''[[Prince of Persia]] 2: The Shadow And The Flame''.
* One of the most impressive abilities of high-level Agents in ''Crackdown''.
* If you play your skills just right, you can do this in ''[[The Elder Scrolls
** In ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind|Morrowind]]'', you can attain this ability by exploiting certain glitches.
*** Or just level your acrobatics up to 100 or so. Never
*** And the Jump spell effect helps at any Acrobatics level.
** Roofhopping was also possible in ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall|Daggerfall]]''.
* ''[[Mirror's Edge]]'' is often all about this trope done with [[Le Parkour]] on top of skyscrapers.
* The preferred method of travel for living humans in Browser MMO ''[[Urban Dead]]'' is roof-hopping. Preferred because the alternative involves running through the zombie-infested streets till you are lucky enough to find a building that ISN'T barricaded.
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* An effective way to avoid, or just sneak up on the general [[Mook]] population in some of the ''[[Tenchu]]'' villages.
* Exercised extensively in the ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' series
* Cole does this all the time in ''[[Infamous (video game series)|inFamous]]''. Sucker Punch likes this trope.
* Suzu, in the opening of ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]''.
* Alex Mercer from ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' can both use [[Le Parkour]] and [[In a Single Bound]]. This is the natural extension.
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* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', this can be done as strategy for most of the classes, but the Scout is especially adept in hopping around high places as shortcuts other classes can't reach and can only rake with withering sniper fire, rockets, nades, etc.
* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' lets you do this in the unique rooftops of Paris.
== [[Web
* Subverted in ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'':▼
{{quote|'''Gentleman Wednesday''': Um, my dramatic exit seems to have been foiled by the lack of another rooftop on this side of the building.▼
'''Wonderella''': Nope! Just my side!▼
'''Gentleman Wednesday''': Ah. ''Well''. Thank God for ''that''. }}▼
* Junpei from ''[[Megatokyo]]'' is adept of this.▼
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': In "That Which Redeems", the [[Beware the Silly Ones|so far relatively harmless-seeming]] [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Demon Lord]] Horribus is shown to be capable of leaping across a city from rooftop to rooftop ([[In a Single Bound|and not just adjacent rooftops]]) in pursuit of his nemesis, probably by virtue of his [[Super Strength]]. He does break the roof of the last building he lands on with his great weight, and humorously falls through all its stories after that.▼
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' Paris arc had a chase. and not just on foot, but [[Giant Spider]] riders after a walking vehicle. The best part? Violetta turned out to have ''experience'' in this area, because for a while the local aristocrats had a fad of hunting roof rats this way ([[Body Count Competition|for score]]), and she was Tarvek's driver.▼
* The web fiction serial ''[[Dimension Heroes]]'' is rife with instances of this, usually committed by Rob and Wyn.
* Hilariously averted in the IMP/IMP XS/VVV{{context}}<!-- MOD: What do these abbreviations stand for?--> crossover Christmas special "An IMP Crossmas"; when Talking Cactus and the former LSU girls engage in a "rooftop chase", it really consists of them driving buildings around like cars from the rooftop.
* In the final moments of Volume 3 Episode 12 of ''[[RWBY]]'', Blake is briefly seen roof-hopping across the skyline of Vale.
== Western Animation ==▼
▲== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'', Jackie does this whenever the enemies escape by car. Apparently, he can run 60 MPH at the right altitude.
* In the ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' animated show both the heroes and the villains do quite a bit of Roof Hopping.
* ''[[The Tick (animation)|The Tick]]'': The Tick does this as his primary means of travel; however, he is so heavy he leaves footprints on everything he lands on. While visiting Europe he was forced to ride a scooter instead after damaging several historic buildings.
* ''[[Static Shock]]'': Expertly executed by She-bang in her first appearance.
* ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' : The Turtles do this a lot. The [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|2003 series]] even [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1l-kcXEH78& does it to music].
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* Let's not forget ''[[Cybersix]]'', who roofhops across Meridiana while poor Lucas tries to keep up on the ground.
* In the ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' episode "Lightsaber Lost" Ahsoka chases the thief who had stolen her lightsaber earlier on the rooftops of Coruscant. The thief is a very agile "Terrellian Jango Jumper" who manages to outrun and elude her.
* Matrix in a season 3 episode of ''[[
* Done in the musical of the ''[[My Little Pony:
▲== Web Comics ==
▲* Subverted in ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'':
▲{{quote|'''Gentleman Wednesday''': Um, my dramatic exit seems to have been foiled by the lack of another rooftop on this side of the building.
▲'''Wonderella''': Nope! Just my side!
▲'''Gentleman Wednesday''': Ah. ''Well''. Thank God for ''that''. }}
▲* Junpei from ''[[Megatokyo]]'' is adept of this.
▲* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': In "That Which Redeems", the [[Beware the Silly Ones|so far relatively harmless-seeming]] [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Demon Lord]] Horribus is shown to be capable of leaping across a city from rooftop to rooftop ([[In a Single Bound|and not just adjacent rooftops]]) in pursuit of his nemesis, probably by virtue of his [[Super Strength]]. He does break the roof of the last building he lands on with his great weight, and humorously falls through all its stories after that.
▲* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' Paris arc had a chase. and not just on foot, but [[Giant Spider]] riders after a walking vehicle. The best part? Violetta turned out to have ''experience'' in this area, because for a while the local aristocrats had a fad of hunting roof rats this way ([[Body Count Competition|for score]]), and she was Tarvek's driver.
== Real Life ==▼
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
* In crowded parts of the world like parts of Europe, Britain and India, roof hopping is made much easier because the roofs may only be a metre apart. However, roof construction in some of these older buildings is mainly just light timber structure, roof tiles and... well, nothing else. You can also very easily go ''through'' the roof. Don't try this at a series of someone else's homes.
* Tony Hawk once cleared the gap between two buildings on a skateboard.
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