Unskilled but Strong: Difference between revisions

* Kouichi in ''[[Kurogane no Linebarrel]]'' is this [[Character Development|at first]]; most of his early victories are entirely due to Linebarrel being a [[Lightning Bruiser]], and he causes extreme amounts of collateral damage from inexperience. [[Weak but Skilled|Reiji]] points all of this out when ''he hands Kouichi his ass'' in the fourth episode of the anime.

* Yoshika from ''[[Strike Witches]]'' starts out as one of these, selected by Mio for her immense raw power. Her inability to focus her power causes problems early on.

** Katou also applies. Despite his lack of real training, he wins through brute strength, [[Combat Pragmatist|fighting dirty]] and drug-taking that makes him [[Feel No Pain]]. {{spoiler|He gets utterly destroyed later on when a MMA exponent decides to get serious.}}

{{quote|'''Touma:''' The strongest esper in Academy City... really has no skills at all, huh? Then grit your teeth, weakling. Because a punch [[Badass Normal|from the weakest]] ''[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|is gonna hurt]]''.}}

** Touma himself is tough as nails and an experienced street fighter, but he gets his ass handed to him when he faces trained martial artists like Kaori and Motoharu.

* The Evil Queen / Regina from ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'' is the [[Manipulative Bastard]] version of this. She's not very smart, and completely [[Genre Blind]]. But she has tools to make up for that—in the fairy tale realm her army and her magic, in the real world she can cower everyone with her status as mayor. With her hate driving her, she uses these to plow through any obstacle in her path.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Fourze]]'' protagonist Gentaro Kisaragi starts off like this, having no fighting skills when he [[Jumped At the Call|straps on the belt]] and starts fighting [[Monster of the Week|Zodiarts]]. This puts him at a disadvantage when he comes up against more skilled opponents, like the Unicorn Zodiarts (a member of the school's fencing club) and [[Second Rider|Kamen Rider Meteor]] (a practitioner of [[Bruce Lee|Jeet Kun Do]]). Eventually he [[Took a Level in Badass|takes a level in badass]] thanks to some training from his homeroom teacher Haruka Uesugi, who's a talented kickboxer.

 

 

== Sports ==

* {{spoiler|[[Runaway Brain|Julius]]}} as he appears in ''[[Kingdom Hearts 3D]]'' uses only punches, body slams, and charges for his attacks. However, the fact that he's a [[Bonus Boss]] in a ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' game should give you a good idea about how tough he is.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'': The Fighter and Warrior classes are the embodiment of this trope, with loads of raw strength and HP but poor speed and skill. This is further perpetuated in their battle animations, where half of the time they're practically stumbling over themselves. The fighter's axe and warrior's bow criticals, for example, consist of nothing more than the unit flailing his weapon around uselessly before attacking.

 

== Webcomics ==

* As the above quote explains, this was the fatal flaw of the ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' [[Big Bad]] Damien.

** Grace herself falls into this, as well, as she defeats Damien solely because of her [[Berserk Button]]. This has since been [[Lampshaded]], and Grace has agreed to start [[Boxing Lessons for Superman|martial arts training.]]

* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'': Xykon doesn't have the refined techniques of a wizard, and quite frankly doesn't ''want'' it. In his own words, the only two things a person needs are "Force in as great a concentration as you can manage, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide." However, you don't get to epic levels without a ton of practice.

** It's also worth noting that Xykon is also ''dangerously'' clever and full of nasty tricks. That Unskilled but Strong behavior isn't actually a lack of skill, it's Xykon being ''lazy''.

* Bob the Beholder in ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' isn't terribly bright and lacks finesse. He succeeds at his tasks in spite of this because he's... [[Eye Beams|well, a beholder.]]

* Subverted in ''[[Spinnerette]]'', where the titular hero's [[Super Strength|spider strength]] is no match for a black belt in aikido.

 

== Web Original ==

* New military technology often came out before the tactics to use it were fully developed but sometimes it remains effective because of its sheer power. One of the most prominent examples is that commanders in [[World War I]] rarely knew how to use tanks effectively, but simply sending them forward to attack was incredibly potent. This is less common with modern technology as modern weapons design has hit a plateau without many entirely new innovations that actually work <ref>The 70 years following the introduction of smokeless powder first in 1847 saw the first modern cartridge appeared in 1869, the box magazine in 1879, the machine gun in 1883, the semi-automatic in 1892, chromed barrels in 1911 and the man portable full automatic in 1916 among many other innovations. By contrast the 70 years proceeding 2016 have largely been refinements of the existing concepts and failed experiments outside of optics and artillery, which don't require substantially different different tactics from their predecessors, and vehicles, which seem to be hitting similar plateaus</ref> and the modern R&D process has learned to include steps to avoid this.

* Computer hardware often falls into a similar problem where drivers and programs aren't yet optimized to the new hardware, but as new hardware it is still substantially more powerful than its predecessors.

 

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