Martial Arts Technique in Anime:
The world of anime is full of amazing fight sequences. And with those scenes, we have also seen a lot of amazing fictional but unique fighting styles. Some of them are dangerous while some are outright forbidden to be used against other opponents. It is time we look at some of the most lethal combat arts that ever found their way to anime.
10. Champuru Kendo
Champuru Kendo is the sword fighting technique developed by Mugen in the anime Samurai Champloo. As a rogue samurai hailing from a far off island province, Mugen had very little access to formal Kendo training. But his enthusiasm to learn sword fighting made him develop Champuru Kendo. The fighting technique borrows heavily from other fighting styles like Capoeira, Akikido, and Zui Quan. It even takes some leaves from break dancing.
Since it is a combination of so many combat arts, predicting it is very difficult. The art is particularly helpful for a wandering Samurai like Mugen who regularly crosses paths with multiple opponents whom he has to fight at the same time. Champuru Kendo is deadly, volatile, and makes Mugen look like a dancing Angel of Death when he uses it in battle.
9. Panzer Kunst
Panzer Kunst was a fighting technique developed to fight opponents in Zero Gravity environments. First shown in Alita: Battle Angel, Panzer Kunst is very effective in predicting and analyzing an enemy’s moves to plan out counter attacks! It is used to fight armed and unarmed opponents but its primary focus is fighting cyborgs that always come equipped with powerful armor and weaponry.
Panzer Kunst focuses on launching one’s entire body into certain pressure points, striking them with all the force a Panzer Kunst user can muster and thus dealing with critical and often irreparable damage to the enemy. What makes it even deadlier is that a Panzer Kunst user is trained and mentally conditioned to defeat their enemies by any means necessary, even going so far as to sacrifice themselves in their fanatical pursuit of victory in a fight.
8. Santoryu
Santoryu is better known as the Three Sword Style. It is used by Roronoa Zoro, one of the founding members of the Straw Hat Pirates in the anime and Manga series One Piece. The Santoryu or the Three Sword Style is a very unconventional sword fighting technique. It uses both of Zoro’s hands and even his mouth to hold three blades. Each blade can be used in conjunction with the other blades in a combination attack or used individually to inflict damage.
Zoro has perfected the Santoryu art so much that he could even manipulate the air and wind around his blade and use them as projectile strikes. Zoro has fought many powerful foes with this blade and has even deflected bullets using the Santoryu. It has amazing defensive capabilities and is perfect to fight multiple opponents.
7. Nanshin Shadow Style
The Nanshin Shadow Style was developed for one purpose and one purpose only – To Kill. No matter how easy one goes on their enemy, the user of a Nanshin Shadow Style will at least leave a very crippling amount of damage on a foe, which would be more or less permanent. It was developed during the end of the tumultuous Meiji era of Japan when the country was in tremendous unrest. The Style focuses on nerve points.
Using these pressure points in a human body, Nanshin Shadow Style Users can paralyze enemies from the waist down or use a combination attack to kill someone with relative ease. The style is labeled as a ‘murderous martial art’ and its use is frowned upon and forbidden even by the people who practice it. The Nanshin Shadow Style has only a handful of practitioners left in the world. It is an art best left forgotten.
6. Hokuto Shinken
To master Hokuto Shinken, one must experience true love and overwhelming sadness. That is the first and most important criterion. Like many other martial arts in the list, Hokuto Shinken also targets critical junctions and pressure points of an enemy combatant. But it takes the art a step further. Hokuto Shinken can be used to make a person explode, be controlled without his or her will, or be paralyzed. But it also has healing abilities.
Hokuto Shinken can be used to give a blind his vision back or a dumb person his voice back. Its primary focus though is still assassination. A Hokuto Shinken User can seal his pressure points, rendering him impenetrable to other Hokuto Shinken Users, or even use the technique to copy other people’s fighting styles after looking at it for just once.
5. Kaio-Ken
Ki is the energy radiated by all living organisms. The power to manipulate and use Ki in combat forms the basis of all fighting techniques in the universe of Dragon Ball. And Kaio-Ken is probably one of the anime’s most popular fighting styles that depend on effective Ki control to destroy enemy opponents. Kaio-Ken was developed by King Kai but the only known user of the technique has been Goku.
Kaio-Ken helps increase the amount of Ki produced by a wielder of the style for a split second. As a result of increased access to Ki, the user can momentarily become stronger than a much more powerful foe. That is a huge advantage in battle but the technique has its flaws. The more Goku used this technique, the more strain his body took.
4. Mountain of a 1000 Fists and Sea of a 1000 Fists
Both the techniques are powerful combat styles developed by the legendary Genma Saotome in the anime Ranma ½. The fighting technique is inspired by a burglar robbing a home. The human body is seen as a house with the legs as support and the head becomes the front door. Mountain of a Thousand Fists is a brute force technique that helps overwhelm an opponent while Seas of a Thousand Fists helps perform stealthy sneak attacks. Both techniques can take down an opponent within five moves or less.
3. Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist
Invented by Bang – the 3rd most powerful S-Class hero in the One Punch Man series, Water Stream Rock Smashing fist has been described by Genos as the “perfect blend of offense and defense”. The art borrows heavily from real-life martial art Tai Chi. It is a very fluid technique that can be powerful enough to deflect powerful energy attacks. It has also been used to repel dust particles and even bladed weapons. The martial art also trains the human body to act on muscle memory. So even if the user of Water Stream Rock Smashing fist goes unconscious, he can continue to fight.
2. Gentle Fist
In the world of Naruto, each Ninja has what we call a Chakra Pathway system. This Chakra is how Ninjas can perform fantastic Jutsus. The pathway system in question is connected via tenketsu points. And Gentle Fist is using Chakra to close off these Tenkestu points, thus rendering an enemy useless in a fight since he or she will not be able to use chakra anymore. Gentle Fist requires a user to possess the Dojutsu called Byakugan, which allows a person to look directly into another person’s Tenketsu points.
Gentle Fist is not just applicable to humans. Any chakra based substance can be taken down using this technique. Gentle Fist is a subtle, soft and extremely deadly form of combat. Neji Hyuga has even developed it further, using it as an ultimate defense technique by ejecting Chakra from all his 361 nodes to form a Chakra shield around him.
1. Ultra Instinct
Ultra Instinct ranks the highest on our list because of obvious reasons. The very fact that Ultra Instinct is a martial art style that is called “The Technique of the Gods” should be enough to give you guys a clue. It depends on the user being able to access God Ki, a more powerful version of bodily energy that no ordinary mortals could achieve, and then channeling it inside one’s body all the while eliminating the neural link that exists between the mind and body.
As a result, since the ability to think and act (which is what leads to delay in decisions during a fight) is taken out, the body moves on sheer intuition and instinct, hence the name. Ultra Instinct combines the ultimate power with divine intuition. It has no counter.
