Shaping Your Attacks

Ki Attacks and Elemental Powers are cool. But what if you want something more appealing than the usual Kamehame Hadoken wave or fireballs or lightnings? The answer is: Give your attack a special form.

It can be anything, including weapons, objects and animals. Usually is strictly done for Rule of Cool or for characterize the user of said powers, for example a bird-related character will make avian-shaped attacks. Dragons tend to be a popular choice too. May overlap with Weapon of Choice in some cases of weapon-shaped attacks.

Don't confuse with Energy Weapon, which is usually perpetual while the "Shaped Attack" is only temporary. When used to create a weapon it becomes a form of Spontaneous Weapon Creation.

Examples of Shaping Your Attacks include:

Anime and Manga

Used a lot in One Piece, expecially with Logia users. Eneru was a big offender and all the admirals have at least one attack modeled after their animal theme.
Naruto's Rasenshuriken and many elemental jutsu, starting with the "Water Dragon Jutsu". Furthermore, outside elemental releases we have Nagato (a huge soul-devouring dragon), Hinata (a Lion-shaped attack), and Gai (a punch that shapes air into a tiger head).
In Fairy Tail Gajeel shape his metal Dragon Slayer in form of several weapons and of course both Gray and Lyon can do the same with Ice Make magic. Laxus tries to kill Natsu with a pike made of Lightning.
- Natsu sometimes turns his flame attacks into draconic limbs like wings or claws.
In Yu Yu Hakusho, one of Hiei's most powerful techniques is the Dragon of Darkness Flame.
The Bao Zakeruga from Gash Bell.
In Hunter X Hunter the resident Badass Grandpa assassin Xeno Zaoldyecks can make a literal Dragon out of his Nen. Chrollo's Ghost fish attack may count too.
Goku's Dragon Fist attack.
In Bleach the Sokyoku is a gargantuan halberd used for capital punishments. When activated it turns in a colossal Phoenix made of energy which proceed to annihilate the victim with the raw power of a million of zanpakuto.
- In the Video Games series, Yachiru can use her feline-shaped Battle Aura as a ramming attack, but this isn't confirmed by Word of God.... yet.
In Knights of the Zodiac the Silver Saint Sagitta can shape his cosmo into deadly golden arrows.
A lot of elemental attacks (especially lightning-based) in Mahou Sensei Negima take the form of spears. Kotarou's shadow hounds may count too.

Comic Books

Green Lantern, being equipped with, well, a Green Lantern Ring, use this superpower. On one occasion he used the ring to manifest sumo wrestlers and sic them at some mooks.
In X-Men, Jean Gray can unleash her "Phoenix Force" in the form of a phoenix made of fire and psychic energy. Another mutant, Psylocke, can create a literal psychic knife.

Literature

In the Harry Potter series the Expecto Patronum spell goes from a silvery mist to a shapeless mass of light but to, when mastered, the form of the character's animal spirit.
- Fiendfyre is also described as taking the shape of raging animals—dragons, lions, serpents, anything dangerous. It does this in the film as well, and takes Voldemort's form when a horcrux is consumed.
In an early Wheel of Time book, the Amyrlin Seat demonstrates that it's possible to shape a sword out of Air, which is even fairly strong, but says it's less practical than just pushing things around.
Justified in the Codex Alera. There are lots of animal-shaped attacks because Elemental Powers come from furies, and the most powerful ones typically have a preferred shape (for instance, Bernard's earth fury is a dog, Amara's wind fury is a horse, and Gram's fire fury is a hummingbird).

Film

In Lord of The Rings movie The Balrog seemingly made his sword and whip out of pure fire. In the book they're simply described as fiery weapons.

Tabletop Games

In Dungeons and Dragons the player character is actually suggested to give his spells a distinctive form, like using a star-shaped fireball, but the spell has its limits. There's also the "animate breath" spell which can make a temporary mook out of a breath weapon.
In the Dragonlance setting there's a spell that can create spears of lightining.

Video Games

In The Legend of Dragoon Greham has an attack that makes spears of energy, while the White Silver Dragoon can make arrows out of light.
In Devil May Cry Dante with the Sparda Devil Trigger can toss a dragon made of crimson energy at his foes.
Masou Kishin bots in Super Robot Wars can use ultimate attacks that take energy and shape it into animal-like forms, like Cybuster's Akashic Buster.
Burn in Psychic Force can shape his flames to form pentagrams and fowls.
In the first title of Samurai Shodown, Amakusa can fire some ghost-shaped fireballs, Ukyo can send a swallow-shaped blast from his sword and the Warrior Monk Gaira can smash and stun his enemies summoning a shining Asura demon made of energy.
Oichi from Sengoku Basara 3 can shape her darkness in the form of two or more huge black arms. However in this case is unknown who controls who.
Kenshin Uesugi from Samurai Warriors can summon phoenixes and wolves made of energy, and in late games even a temporary, huge copy of himself made of transparent light.
The Ghost units in Wesnoth can send "wails" in the form of purple face-shaped attacks.
An attack similar to the above-mentioned wail happens in Splatterhouse 2 with one boss.
In Dragon Quest VIII there are Megagash and Gigagash, which consist in huge sword-shaped energy streams. The hero can also learn a Dragon-shaped energy attack similar to the Ryuuken attack.
Viewtiful Joe has several dragon-shaped attacks, including the "Red Hot Dragon Kick"
FALCON PUNCH!