One-Man Army/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of One-Man Army in Anime and Manga include:

  • Both Killy and Sana-Kan from Blame! (who are essentially opposite sex versions of each other in personality, will and even Weapon of Choice) rack-up literally thousands of kills in the manga alone. But seeing as how both of them are thousands of years old, it could well be in the billions by now. Their signature guns make such a massive kill-count plausible.
  • Hiraga Saito from the The Familiar of Zero light novel/anime series stopped an army of 70,000 for about two days by targeting the commanders and flustering their movements. His predecessor destroyed an army of 1000.
  • Guts from Berserk is called the "Hundred Man Slayer" because he tore apart the good part of an entire company of Blue Whale Knights, which numbered at least a hundred men, singlehandedly. His personal body count of both men and demons over the course of the Berserk manga has probably more than tripled this amount, cementing Guts's status as an all-out Badass.
    • At this point he's actually a "Thousand Man Slayer", if you count foes that were no longer entirely human when he killed them.
      • I think the point of the nickname is that Guts has killed 100 men in a single battle. Alone. Though, in this story setting, doing that is actually much less impressive than killing an Apostle. And Guts has been picking them off one by one for a while now too.
    • At one point an enemy commander during the Griffith rescue arc insists to his nervous men (who are waiting to ambush Guts and the Hawks) that the one hundred men story must be an exaggeration, and no one could possibly do that. And Guts is currently running on pure apeshit Unstoppable Rage after seeing the state that Griffith was in. Yeah. Nice knowing you, fellas.
  • Ogami the Lone Wolf once killed 70 other samurai in one fight. This in a manga that's supposed to be realistic...
  • Several characters in Tower of God, especially Zahard's Princesses like Yuri and Maschenny and the High Rankers like Yu Han-Sung, Koon Eduan, Evankell and Zahard himself. For them it is already at the point of subversion because what they are able to do has reached a terrifying notoriety.
    • Then there is the case of Irregulars, those whose presence violates the basic rules of the Tower. Mostly because they were able to open the doors to the Tower themselves, they are among the most powerful beings in the universe, so powerful in fact, that they are either the highest ranked Rankers or go even above that. Urek Mazino was able to climb the Tower in less than fisty years, at least 10 times as fast as anybody else. Enryu killed the Guardian of the 43rd floor, even though they were practically immortal. And finally, Phantaminum appeared out of nowhere and stormed Zahard's castle, killing hundreds of High Rankers in his way, reaching Zahard and decided, for some unknown reason, to leave again. In the end, there was no choice but to make him the highest ranked of the Tower.
    • On a smaller scale, Ja Wangnan convinced Baam to make a truce with him because even if he was strong, he wouldn't hold out against the next six contestants. When the rest arrive and start squabbling, Baam decides to fight them all and nearly beats all but Ja, whose master skills and PokéBombs save his ass.
  • In Shadow Skill, it is said that a Kuruda mercenary defending his friends and family is a match for a thousand soldiers. Gau Ban proves this in the assault on Blorahan by taking out the entire Soulfan army by himself.
  • In Dragon Ball, Son Goku defeated the Red Ribbon Army, the strongest army in the world at the time by himself. At age 13. When he told his friends, who had come to back him up the look in their faces was priceless.
    • Everyone in later Dragonball and all of Dragonball Z can be considered this.
  • In the second season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Graham Acre Mister Bushido has a "One-Man Army license", carte blanche from the Federation government to do whatever the hell he wants as part of the anti-resistance task force. Unlike this trope however, while he easily could go around wiping out whole bases, he mostly just ignores orders and has inconclusive duels with The Hero. Members of the group behind the Government Conspiracy, unsurprisingly, also have one.
    • Gundam 00 a Wakening of The Trailblazer introduces Captain Shaman and the Mobile Armor Gadelaza, which carries over a hundred and fifty GN fangs! The sheer speed at which he racks up kills is mind-boggling.
    • For that matter, any of the Gundam Meisters (or the Sol Braves squadron, made up of six of the best mobile suit pilots in the world), who are shown taking down entire enemy battlefleets single-handedly throughout the final fight (it says something about the sheer overwhelming numbers the enemy possessed that this hardly slowed them down).
  • Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala, Shinn Asuka, and Rau Le Creuset of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. Stella may also count once she gets inside the Destroy, and Neo Roanoke becomes one after gaining the Akatsuki.
  • And of course, Amuro Ray and the original Gundam. Proof here.
    • For those without Nico Nico accounts, the video is of every kill Amuro made in the original series. 142 on-screen kills. And since some of those were Mobile Armors or battleships, the actual number of Zeon soldiers he killed is quite a bit higher. This all took place in a couple of months, remember.
  • When the Redshirt Army gets wiped out by Precia's Mecha-Mooks in the first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Chrono steps up to the plate... and proceeds to mow down Precia's welcoming commitee with little effort much to Nanoha's astonishment, then tells Nanoha and her friends to handle the out of control Jewel Seeds while he blazes a trail to Precia on his own.
    • The other characters eventually gain this trait in later seasons too, soloing waves of Mooks on their lonesome. For example, Signum once demonstrated her new upgrade by showing up as the only reinforcement against an invading squadron of Gadget Drones, and destroying all fifty of them in one shot.
      • Earlier in the series, Hayate had wiped out four groups of 48 of the same Mooks with a single spell. With one hand figuratively tied behind her back.
  • Vagabond has "Musashi and the Seventy." The Yoshioka swordsmen are not all Faceless Goons (in fact at least three have full names and a number have internal dialogues), but EGAD Miyamoto Musashi is right up there with Guts; it ends up catapulting him from a local celebrity to a national figure.
  • The 4th Hokage in Naruto is the target of a "flee on sight" order from the opposition during the war. Later, he takes out an entire force by himself.
    • In the 4th Shinobi World War arc, Kabuto resurrects a bunch of these to fight the good guys, including many of the former Kages and the real Uchiha Madara.
    • The 3rd Raikage was able to single-handedly match a a force of 10,000 for several days, though they ultimately killed him.
    • Naruto is one himself now, with each of his clones being a Kage level threat. And then there's Physical God Pain, who soloed the entire village of Konohagakure by himself.
      • Now that Naruto has tamed Kurama, he is now a TRUE One-Man Army. He curbstomps Five Biju all at once.
    • Madara Uchiha annihilates most of the relatively undamaged Fourth Division by using his powers for a Colony Drop x2!
    • Tobi defeats the entirety of the First Division using Gedo Mazo, getting the sealed Kinkaku and Ginkaku like he was taking a summer stroll.
  • As the Big Bad in Bleach points out, each Shinigami Captain is considerably more powerful in battle than every member of their respective squadron put together.
    • Aizen HIMSELF is a walking death machine what with him having twice the fighting power of an average captain.
      • To wit, Captain Broken has the same point total as the strongest of the Shinigami, except that he trades a bit of muscle for more brains compared to old man Yamamoto.
    • Starrk is this, in a way.
      • Hell, if given the chance, the top five Espada could be this. Starrk and Barragan are a Walking Wasteland given form, Harribel can drown and/or scold armies at once, Ulquiorra's shown the ability to be more efficient than any other villain besides Aizen(and that's stretching the definition), and Nnoitra has 100% defense and enough attack power to hold himself.
  • Elfen Lied's Lucy, in both the anime and the manga, was known for gaining a massive headcount (literally), as in the escape scene at the beginning of the story.
  • Saiyuki's Hakkai killed one thousand demons with nothing but his own hands and a small knife. Unfortunately for him, this led to a Karmic Transformation because "bathing in the blood of a thousand demons" turns you into a demon. Unfortunately for everyone else, this makes him a lot more powerful. And he's the Team Mom!
    • Seiten Taisei (Goku's Super-Powered Evil Side) and Nataku count as well.
    • In Saiyuki Gaiden in their last stands kenren takes out a good number of the wierd genetically engineered animals that li touten created, and tenpou the same for a lot of men (he arguablly would have won if his glasses hadn't been knocked off) tenpou is also said to do the work of an entire unit (although thats not on the battle field
  • Black Lagoon. Revy, Ginji, Fabiola, but especially Roberta. That chick wields a .50 caliber sniper rifle one-handed, and she could shoot you with her belt buckle.
  • Monkey D. Luffy. from One Piece:

Marines:Hey, Straw Hat! Where's your army? Enies Lobby's forces number in ten thousands!
Luffy:Yeah... and I'm alone. GET OUT OF MY WAY!

    • Fisher Tiger also counts, climbing the Red Line and raiding a Marine base by himself. Not to mention freeing all the Celestial Dragons' slaves.
    • Generally speaking, the more powerful crews such as Shanks' and Whitebeard's consist of an army of One Man Armies
    • At the time of Mihawks introduction Gin referenced him as being one man destroying 50 ships. Oda seems to love this trope, maybe he's just a strong believer in quality over quantity. Even Luffy himself said he was just looking for about 10 crew members.
    • Zoro took out a hundred bounty hunters in Whiskey Peak on his own without even breaking a sweat.
    • Capone Bege ate a fruit that made him a fortress for minature armies, when an object or human goes out of the barrier, the object or human expands to normal size. So, he is literally an one man army.
    • Admiral Akainu is the series' penultimate example during the war. Once he'd made up his mind to kill Luffy, not even the combined efforts of Jinbei, Ivankov, Inazuma, Crocodile, Marco, and pretty much every remaining Whitebeard pirate could do anything more than slow him down. And this is AFTER getting into a one-on-one fight with Whitebeard and living to tell about it. To top it off, not only is he still standing at the end of the war, but shortly thereafter he goes after the Blackbeard pirates...who promptly get the hell out of dodge when they hear that Akainu is in the area.
  • Several characters in Hellsing (Anderson, Walter, The Captain, Seras), but most notably Alucard. Not only is he capable of single-handedly slaughtering hordes of ghouls or normal humans but when he has his full power unleashed, he is capable of summoning familiars made from the souls of every being whose blood he has drained, numbering in the millions.
    • He may have lost this ability while recovering from the quantum indigestion caused by eating Schrodinger. Not too big a loss considering that the only one he needed to use it on is dead.
  • Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!. Even at the age of eleven, he was shown to have single handedly killed at least fifteen trained soldiers during one battle in a war zone without breaking a sweat. Gauron saw the aftermath, and it was Love At First Sight.
    • Gauron himself is a One-Man Army.
  • Demon Eyes Kyo from Samurai Deeper Kyo is credited in the prologue and throughout the series as a samurai who once slayed 1000 men in a single battle.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia has the Anthropomorphic Personification of England vs. America and a whole bunch of soldiers. England still manages to get America at his mercy, though in the end he can't bring himself to shoot.
    • It's also interesting that there are moments of allegory in which they literally are a one man army; the most prominent example would be China single-handedly defeating both Japan and Germany with just a wok.
    • And then there's Hungary taking out the entire Prussian army by herself. Probably another instance of allegory, but still pretty freaking awesome.
  • Any high level Mage in Mahou Sensei Negima probably counts as this. The most extreme example is Jack Rakan, who, well, just look. Nagi also counts, being even more powerful than Rakan. Fate is also implied to be at a similar power level.

Rakan: "Are you sure you wanna take us on? I mean, you don't have that much firepower."
Commander: "We have two entire fleets of airships and over three thousand elite soldiers beyond the next rise! Even you can't possibly..."
Rakan: "Like I said: are you sure? You don't have that much firepower!"

    • And now Negi is worthy of such title, slaughtering through hundreds if not thousand of shadow demons while barely slowing down. Other members even lampshade it by saying that he doesn't leave any enemies for them to fight.
  • Fallan Denzell from the criminally short-lived Double Arts is rumored to have taken on and defeated 50 bandits single-handedly. Eventually, though, he sets the record straight: it was actually 500.
  • The Super Robot genre can be summed up as "a single guy in a giant robot is more than enough for vanquishing an entire alien invasion / interdimensional Eldritch Abominations / whatever wants to destroy the world this week."
    • Mazinger Z -the Trope Namer and Trope Codifier myself- is interesting because it both plays straight AND subverts the trope. The Humongous Mecha titular is certainly powerful enough to trash an entire army... but when Kouji has to fight more than two Robeasts at once, he struggles (Mazinger versus Devilman movie) or loses (Mazinger versus Great General of Darkness movie, Mazinkaiser...). Its sucessors, Great Mazinger and 'UFO Robo Grendizer have been seen taking on entire armies and winning (the former in one manga chapter penned by Gosaku Ota).
    • More Super Robot examples: Kotetsu Jeeg, Raideen, Combattler V, Voltes V, Daimos, Zambot 3, Daitarn 3... all of them are more than capable of single-handily winning against one entire army or achieving things an army is unable to. Ideon and Gunbuster are most likely the most triumphant examples of the Super Robot Genre. The former is capable of cutting one planet on half. The latter is capable of wipe out hundreds of thousands of aliens on One. Single. Freaking. Battle.
    • Even then, Ryoma Nagare stands out, because of that time when he didn't have his mech... and stormed the enemy capital by himself anyways. And would have won if the bad guy didn't summon four kaijus to help.
    • ANY Evangelion Unit or Angel is this, due to being quite literally invulnerable to anything up to a antimatter (positron) cannon powered by an entire country's electricity supply. Including nukes. Asuka futher proves this point by, in End of Evangelion, lobbing a BATTLESHIP into an entire tank and artillery brigade. A description of the very first and weakest Angel might give a better image: "...chewed through a Tank Battalion in four minutes flat, destroyed three dozen aircraft and took more firepower than the entire Pacific Fleet could dish out, right up to the use of Strategic scale N2 weapons. The UN and JSSDF threw everything they had at it and barely slowed it down at the cost of over a thousand lives and half a billion US dollars".
  • In the 17th episode of Durarara!!, Shizuo Heiwajima takes on over a hundred supernaturally powerful and durable Knife Nuts at once using only Good Old Fisticuffs. He doesn't just win—he Curb Stomps them while suffering nothing worse than a number of shallow cuts and scratches.

Shizuo: How many are here? Let's just go with a lot. Yeah, this should be enough. With this, I think I can finally go all-out.

  • The Naritaverse also gives us Baccano!'s Claire Stanfield, a.k.a. Vino, known for most of the anime only as Rail Tracer. The train contained two groups of a dozen or so armed thugs apiece. He slaughtered nearly all of them singlehandedly with what seemed like very little effort, and still found time to torture Czeslaw for trying to get more innocent passengers killed, convince Ladd to throw himself off the train, save Isaac and Miria, and propose to Chane while covered in blood.
    • Jacuzzi Splot most definitely qualifies, what with raiding eighteen Mafia speaksies single-handedly within one night. Given that each hideout usually has at least a dozen mooks or so...that's about....yeah...
  • In Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin is perfectly capable of taking on numerous mooks and dispatching them with pure speed. He doesn't have the title "Strongest of the Patriots" for nothing. One of his former allies Tani, a corrupt isshin-shishi states that an entire military unit wouldn't be enough to handle him.
    • Also, Sanosuke took out 200 mooks while simply relieving stress, and he's far outclassed by Kenshin.
    • Most of Kenshin's allies and enemies fall under his trope, particularly of Central troops.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, King Bradley proves himself to be this during the battle with the Briggs soldiers; for one thing, the guy takes down a tank by himself.
    • With a sword, no less.
    • Greed is able to take out just as many, if not more, Central soldiers and he destroys a truck with his bare hands.
    • The State Alchemists are viewed as such in-universe. The Ishbal war had been dragging on for years until the State Alchemists were sent in. It ended, quickly, abruptly and messily.
  • Shou, the main character of Akumetsu manages to take down 50 people unarmed before being subdued at one point.
  • In Beast Wars Neo, Big Convoy was told to be the "One Robot Army". However, since most of the time he's seen leading a group of Maximals, it could be just an Informed Ability.
  • Inazuma Eleven, Fudou tries to be this during the third season's match with Korea's Red Dragon. The result? He pisses other member off. This happens again with Brazil's captain.
  • In Ah! My Goddess, Lind the Valkyrie's job description is essentially that of Heaven's own One Woman Army. Belldandy has the skills and potential but not the personality to be the same.
  • A Certain Magical Index actually has a few: namely the saints, the level 5 espers, Knight Leader, and Ollerus, just to name some (proven by Accelerator and Misaka, the #1 and #3 espers respectively, both taking out large military groups on their own.)
  • Inuyasha: Naraku has a tendency to send out armies of Youkai mooks against the good guys. This is problematic for him because Inuyasha has a sword which is legendary for its ability to slay a hundred youkai with a single swing, something he finally masters saving Miroku from one such tactic - and Miroku himself is capable of being a One-Man Army due to being both Blessed with Suck and Cursed with Awesome at the same time. And, just in case Naraku didn't think Inuyasha and Miroku together needed careful planning to oppose, Inuyasha's older brother eventually gains a sword of his own which, as Byakuya learns the hard way, is capable of taking out thousands with a single swing.
  • Gintoki in Gintama can be this when he feels like it, which is pretty much never. It's stated to be one of the reasons no one bothers Otose in Kabukichou. Most people would rather deal with the nose-picking lazy bum living above her shop instead of the White Demon.
    • Other characters, including villains, are shown to be this as well, Okita, Hijikata, Katsura and Takasugi (usually in flashbacks), Housen, Kamui and Jirochou have all mowed down mooks by the truckload.
  • Wolfwood in Trigun. Vash is a Person of Mass Destruction.
  • Manji in Blade of the Immortal. It helps that the "Hundred-Man Killer" has Wolverine-like healing powers.
  • Kongo Agon of Eyeshield 21 is a One-Man Opposing Sports Team, playing nearly every position and covering almost all of Deimon's plays by himself.
  • Eight years before the storeline of Daily Lives of High School Boys started, there was this "Archdemon", the menace of all kids around town. Ten Bully Hunters allied to "pacify" her...and they could barely make a draw with Archdemon.
  • The anime short Kigeki centres around the Black Swordsman, who is hired by a young Irish girl to take out an army coming to attack her village. The Swordsman obliges, and calmly slaughters all 200 fully armored knights on horseback in a few hours. Then he eats them for good measure.
  • In Shaman King Hao (Zeke) becomes so powerful with Spirit of Fire that he destroys an entire naval fleet designed to kill him and a shaman with a spirit stronger than Spirit of Fire. Then he becomes the Shaman King. Instant annihilation if he even looks at you.
    • Amidamaru also fits. He killed an entire army that came to capture him. Of course, he dies right after.
  • The penultimate episode of the second season of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? shows that a single Level 5 (or higher, on a seven-level scale) dungeon adventurer is able to defeat an entire mundane army without breaking a sweat.
Back to One-Man Army
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/One-Man_Army/Anime_and_Manga?oldid=2038351"