Anchors Away



A favored weapon of sailors and pirates, the anchor ranks high on the list of badass improbable weapons. Anchor weapons come in two flavors: either strapped to a chain and swung, or as a large heavy melee weapon with a cool shape.

Anchors are supposed to be exceptionally heavy, their intended purpose is to hold down a ship. You'd expect any anchor wielder to be a huge, burly man. This just makes little girls swinging anchors all the more amusing.

Anime and Manga

 * Coon from Free Collars Kingdom uses a giant anchor as a weapon. However, since all the characters are the size of cats, it's not so much a giant anchor than just a fancy fish-hook. Still, it's giant to them.
 * One of the first scenes of Zambot 3 has Kappei and Shingo fighting each other with anchors meant for row-boats, using them somewhat like flails.

Film

 * In X-Men: First Class Magneto uses a telekinetically-controlled anchor to wreck the bad guy's yacht.
 * In Face Off, Castor Troy fights Sean Archer with an anchor during the climactic fight scene. Though to be fair, they are on a boat.
 * In Shark Tale Frankie is crushed to death by an anchor.

Live Action Television

 * The GaoMuscle formation from Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger uses the anchor on a chain variant.
 * Gokai Silver in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger wields the Gokai Spear, a Shapeshifter Weapon that switches between trident, laser rifle, and (when he uses his Super Mode) anchor modes. This meshes with the fact that the Gokaigers are Space Pirates.

Tabletop Games

 * One of the mercanary factions in Warmachine is a group of pirates. Their warjacks tend to wield anchors as weapons (or carry ship cannons as ranged weapons).

Video Games

 * May {pictured} of Guilty Gear, of course.
 * Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object brings us Captain Minamitsu Murasa, who flings around giant anchor bullets.
 * In a variation, the anchor bullets are generated from spiritual power as part of her Danmaku. Her actual weapon is the bottomless scoop she carries (which she does use to attack), which fits with her drowned ghost inspiration.
 * Edgar of Final Fantasy VI has the Air Anchor as one of his weapon tools, although he doesn't really wield it in any way and what it actually does is make the enemy hit by it die instantly the next time they attack. So in other words, an Useless Useful Spell.
 * In Final Fantasy VIII, Ward used a weapon that looked like a cross between an anchor and a harpoon. His Limit Break is called "Heavy Anchor" and involves him tossing it high into the air and then riding it down on the enemies with a huge shockwave.
 * In Runescape, the player can use a Barrelchest anchor as a weapon. Taken from the lack of a corpse of the Barrelchest itself, the previous user.
 * A sailor boss in Final Fight 2 uses one.
 * Beat'Em Up entry Vendetta had a gangster boss swing one of these, if memory serves.
 * The swung-on-a-chain version comes in to play at the end of an ESWAT level. You had to guess which height it would be swung at, and for some reason it was swung just right so the enemy could deflect your bullets.
 * Anchors could be dropped from odd places onto enemies in the third Sly Cooper game.
 * Logg from Suikoden V uses one of these as a weapon. Somewhat justified in that he's from a floating town made up of ships tied together.
 * There's also one (and only one) Pirate who uses "a martial arts weapon that looks like an anchor" in Suikoden Tierkreis. The weapon in question is clearly a lot smaller than a standard anchor, though, incidentally allowing him to wield two of them.
 * zOMG!: Anchor Bugs and Sea Anchor Bugs launch their anchor heads at you. You can also get a recipe to make an Anchor for your avatar to wield in the game as well.
 * Ruby Heart from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 uses both a normal (small) anchor to hit and a (small) anchor with a chain to grab her hapless opponents. The second one may end with her FIRING A CANNON at their bellies.
 * Sea Giants in Warcraft3 and World of Warcraft.
 * Chosokabe Motochika in Sengoku Basara wields his one handed and surfs through the air on it while its on fire
 * Huang Gai in Dynasty Warriors 7. He even jumps from one ship to another while carrying the thing.
 * The trailer for the sadly canceled Pirates of the Carribean: Armada of the Damned shows the "evil" Player Character using a chained anchor to devastating effect.
 * Nautilus from League of Legends wields an anchor with great effect, being able to grab and pull enemies towards him with it and root them to the ground with his autoattacks. He's also the single biggest playable character in the game.

Web Comics

 * Subverted in Problem Sleuth: Tootsie Roll Frankenstein Pickle Inspector tries to use his Comb Rave attack Anchors Away, but Mobster Kingpin smashes his Suckle Receptable onto Fiesta Ace Dick's head, completely ruining it. It Makes Sense in Context, of course.
 * Book 1 of Derelict features a huge Gargoyle (aptly named Iron Hand) with a full-size anchor and chain attached to his arm - he's able to decimate a barn in only a few swings, nearly killing the protagonist. She's barely able to defeat it by shooting it in the head with an UV glow-bolt.

Western Animation

 * Appropriately enough, Popeye has used an anchor as a weapon at least once.
 * And quite inappropriately, they end up as convenient 'hard and heavy' things for sillier cartoons, whether for dropping on heads or for loading into a bag of some sort and swung.
 * Wrapping back around to appropriate when they are used to replace parachutes as a prank.
 * In Hotwheels: Acceleracers Porkchop uses an anchor of the chain variety on a giant mosquito.