First of all, spoilers for Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Pretty much the whole entry will be spoilers so be warned.
Second of all, I’m sorry I keep making FMA entries. I just love the series too much. I promise this is the last one.
I’m going to go with Roy killing Lust in FMA:B. This. Scene. Is. Awesome. It almost made it into my epic scene spot, but it screams ‘BADASS’ just as much as ‘EPIC’.
She just asked for a light, Roy.
You have a homunculous being burst into flames over and over and over by Roy just standing there like a boss with the most determined and awesome look on his face, never faltering even though he’s facing a supposedly immortal creature who just nearly killed, and actually paralyzed, his comrade and severely wounded him moments ago.
That’s what builds to the awesomeness of this scene. He’s not only standing firm like a statue and blowing up a homunculus like it’s the Fourth of July, he’s also severely wounded while he’s doing this. Not only THAT, but in order to refrain from bleeding to death, he had sear his own wounds closed with his fire alchemy. Not only THAT….TOO, BUT he also had to carve a transmutation circle into his own freaking hand in order to make the fire.
And he was blindfolded, had both of his hands tied behind his back and was riding a dragon when he did it.
…..Okay, that last part didn’t happen, but you thought it might have, didn’t you? Because Roy is just that badass. The end.
He obviously had to her kill her before she got any closer. Can’t scuff that purty mug.
Really starting to pain me huh, Challenge? ‘Epic’ is such an iffy word in this context. There are so many scenes that are epic in anime but in different ways. Epic action, epic impact in visuals, epic in terms of emotion, epic romance, it’s such a difficult area to tread into. It’s also difficult because there’s an entirely different section for a badass scene.
I decided that ‘epic’ in this regard should mean a huge scene, likely a fight, that is just so ridiculously awesome yet over the top and overpowered and just overall fun….And I’m gonna make people mad because this is a scene from Yugioh. Trust me, it surprised even me because I had several fight scenes from awesome anime in mind.
I’m talking about Dragon Master Knight’s debut.
Should really be called ‘Blue Eye Ultimate Dragon Feat. Black Luster Soldier if you squint.’
Assuming you know of YGO, and most people do to some degree, this takes place during the virtual reality arc. Kaiba is trapped in a virtual Duel Monsters game of his creation by his board members called the Big Five. Yugi, Joey and Mokuba go in to save him and eventually (and randomly) see Mai there who decides to help too.
Yugi and the gang join up with Kaiba to take down the Big Five, who have manifested themselves into a giant five-headed multi-elemental dragon called the Mythic Dragon who has 5000 attack points. The group tries to fight the thing to no avail and they start dropping like flies to its power…..Literally. They start getting killed. (Well sorta) It’s down to Yugi and Kaiba who are forced to join forces and create one of the most overpowered and ridiculously difficult to create monsters I’ve ever seen.
Dragon Master Knight or it’s Japanese name Master of Dragon Soldier (is it me or do both of those names just sound like they have horrible grammar?) is created by making Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, which requires fusing three Blue Eyes together, and creating Black Luster Soldier, which requires pulling off a ritual. After that, you have to fuse those two monsters together. In any other situation, this would be near impossible, but the powers of Yugi and Kaiba’s insane luck as well as the power of the virtual reality game which basically allowed them to make these monsters without going through the proper channels in the first place came through for them. Hooray convenient shortcuts!
But believe it or not, even that ridiculous fusion is not enough to take down the Mythic Dragon. They have equal attack strengths, so they’d only end up destroying each other. Ultimate Dragon (4500 atk) + Black Luster Soldier (3000 atk) = 5000 atk? I know they don’t stack the attack, but a 500 point bump is a little disappointing is all. In hindsight, that’d be fine to have them stalemate as long as they beat the Mythic Dragon, but we have to totally kick its ass.
That’s achieved through its insane special ability that allows it to gain 500 extra attack points for every dragon ever played in the duel, of which there are eight, so Dragon Master Knight gets a point boost to 9000, almost twice as much as the Mythic Dragon.
It ends up killing the Mythic Dragon with the most awesome attack name ever. Not the dumb dub name of ‘Dragon Sabre Blast’, the awesome Japanese name of Galaxy Crusher. Friggin’ Galaxy Crusher!
This entire arc is ridiculous and this battle is so over the top both in both the ‘dramatic’ (and usually unnecessary) deaths, the silly costumes the group has to wear because of the world they’re in, the speeches, the completely insane summoning of an insanely overpowered monster (Hell, Kaiba’s deck is loaded with dragons. Can you imagine how much more powerful that thing would be if he decided to chuck those in there?) it’s just ridiculous and silly epic fun that only one of the weirdest arcs in Yugioh could’ve delivered.
Bonus: For people who don’t like to partake in the silly awesomeness that is Yugioh sometimes, my other choice was going to be Levi’s attack on the female titan from Attack on Titan. I mean, he’s already built up like a titan killing god, but look at this;
He is going straight up Sonic the Hedgehog: Saw Edition on the most dangerous titan they’ve encountered so far. My views on Attack on Titan are mixed, but the concept of the maneuver gear and that battles that occur on it is by far one of the most interesting and epic parts the show, and Levi just flaunts it in that scene. That was just awesome.
Okay, if I was going to cheat again (since this is an anime-styled show and not Japanese in origin) I’d say Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. Hands down. I could’ve cheated and made him my favorite male anime character, but I didn’t. And that pained me. But I’m not going to cheat, as much as my unhealthy love of Zuko may tempt me.
In terms of actual anime, well I have to go with my old-time favorite in Ken from Digimon.
He is one of if not the most complex and interesting character in Digimon, and he also gets the most character development. He does start out as evil, which didn’t do it for me mostly because he kicked a puppy. D: However, he does eventually see the error of his ways and become a good friend to the Digidestined, even if it took time and work to finally earn their trust.
After he becomes good, he is shown to be a very brave, caring and smart person, and Yolei is lucky to spontaneously end up with him for some reason. Plus, he becomes a private eye partnered with Stingmon.
Solving crimes one sting at a time.
It’s Ken in a trench coat! Come on!
Honorable Mentions: Android 17 from DBZ, Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket.
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