One of the best things about action-heavy anime is the fight scenes, from incredible choreography to the brilliant animation and the awesome, unique powers that the characters have. Special attacks, signature moves and the like are a big staple of the medium; things like energy beams and superhuman punches have been seen all throughout anime.
The strongest anime attacks usually involve vast amounts of energy, such as ki, chakra, or cursed energy, and an equally powerful character may use these devastating techniques to great effect. Such anime techniques might level entire city blocks, fracture a continent, or even destroy entire planets at a time.
Update on May 9th, 2023 by Louis Kemner: it’s been years since the best and strongest anime attacks were ranked, and it’s long past time to re-evaluate these techniques and what they can do. Since 2018, many new anime techniques have been introduced, and some older ones have been improved or changed in newer seasons of their respective shows. Anime series such as Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia, for example, have added some incredible new moves that are worth mentioning.
20 Alchemy (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood introduced anime fans to a highly resourceful combat system where an alchemist may rearrange atoms and molecules to create or break down matter at will. Alchemy can take many forms, often constructive ones, but it can also level entire city blocks.
Extreme examples include Colonel Roy Mustang’s flame alchemy, which can incinerate an entire army, or Solf J. Kimblee’s explosive alchemy. Centuries ago, Father even tricked Hohenheim into performing alchemy and sacrificed one million Xerxians, wiping out an entire civilization overnight.
19 Spirit Gun (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Yusuke Urameshi’s signature move in Yu Yu Hakusho is the Spirit Gun, which concentrates his spirit energy into a single shot for one destructive and rather precise blast. It served as Yusuke’s main ranged attack, giving him some flexibility if his fists can’t finish the job.
Yusuke’s best fights involve high-intensity martial arts, and he tends to win those fights hand to hand. Still, to mix things up and take his foes by surprise, Yusuke is bound to fire at least one Spirit Gun shot to even the odds, and it even worked on his powerful demon ancestor, Raizen.
18 Chidori (Naruto)
The electric Chidori ranks among the most iconic ninjutsu in Naruto, and Kakashi Hatake personally taught it to Sasuke Uchiha during the chunin exam story arc. The basic Chidori is a hard-hitting jutsu that works best at close range, but Sasuke later improved upon it.
In Naruto Shippuden, Sasuke could extend the Chidori’s range and attack from over a dozen feet away, making his signature move that much stronger. Gradually, though, the Chidori was eclipsed by even stronger jutsu such as the Susanoo and Amaterasu.
17 Rasengan (Naruto)
The Rasengan is essentially a huge build-up and release of pure chakra, bringing with it a huge destructive force that has varying levels of power with the different versions that have been developed over time. The Fourth Hokage first invented it, and then his son Naruto improved the basic concept.
In Naruto’s hands, the Rasengan is devastating, such as when he makes an oversized version of it or fuels it with Kurama’s chakra. Naruto was also the first person to add elemental chakra to it, creating the wind-based Rasengan that finished off Kakuzu for good.
16 Kishin Hunter (Soul Eater)
Maka Albarn is already impressively skilled when using Soul Eater – her partner and weapon in the fight against demons, witches, and all other kinds of monsters, but add to this all the power-ups she and Soul have achieved, and the two are one powerful pair. One power-up in particular, the third ascension of scythe-based power-ups, the Kishin Hunter, is not to be trifled with.
After the Witch Hunter and the Majin Hunter, the Kishin Hunter is the strongest scythe power-up that Maka and Soul achieves in the manga and anime. “Kishin” essentially translates to “fierce god,” so the move is meant to slice through a god, making it one of the strongest anime attacks out there.
15 Fairy Law (Fairy Tail)
Fairy Tail’s magical combat system features a stunning variety of spells and techniques, most of which are unique to certain characters, such as Natsu’s fire dragon slayer moves. An exception is Fairy Law, a special technique that several characters have used to great effect.
The caster needs time to charge up Fairy Law, and once it takes effect, the payoff is enormous. Everyone whom the caster considers an enemy will be obliterated in a large area, leaving all allies unharmed. This kind of discretion makes Fairy Law more precise and effective than more general destructive techniques.
14 Megido (That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime)
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime stars one of isekai’s most OP heroes of all time, Rimuru Tempest the slime. He has many remarkable techniques and powers at his disposal, from Predator to telepathy to teleportation, but Megido is definitely his most lethal move.
Under the right circumstances, Rimuru can fire thousands of concentrated beams of light to slaughter an entire army at once, which he did to Falmuth’s invasion force. Those light beams aren’t even magic, so anti-magic spells and barriers won’t do any good.
13 Special Beam Cannon (Dragon Ball)
One of the most destructive and precise attacks in Dragon Ball is Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon, which, when charged up enough, can pierce a hole straight through even the toughest opponents.
However, as strong as the Special Beam Cannon is, it requires a lot of time to gather the energy necessary for the attack to be effective against stronger enemies. This, plus the fact that the attack is easy to predict, and thus avoid, makes it the weakest of the most powerful Dragon Ball techniques, though it’s still quite formidable.
12 Kamehameha (Dragon Ball)
The Kamehameha is like any other ki attack in the sense that the more energy is charged into it, the stronger it becomes. This attack, as many know, consists of charging ki between one’s hands and then releasing it as a massive beam of energy that can be redirected if the user is skilled enough.
Even in its most basic form, the Kamehameha is one of the most devastating and powerful attacks in all of anime, and one of the most iconic as well. Some Dragon Ball villains can merely shrug off a regular Kamehameha, but fans love it anyway.
11 Gear Four (One Piece)
Monkey D. Luffy’s Devil Fruit powers are easily some of the most powerful in all of One Piece, particularly because they allow him to use techniques known as gear shifts. That’s while not an attack itself, but it does increase his strength, speed, durability and much more.
With Gear Four, Luffy can blow air into his muscles to inflate and strengthen them, which essentially turns Luffy into an unstoppable machine. This makes him stronger and faster, hardening his arms using a Haki technique to defeat the likes of Donquixote Doflamingo.
10 Gold Experience Requiem (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure)
The Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure can do various things, and some of them can even manipulate time itself. DIO the vampire and Diavolo can both tinker with time to get a serious advantage on the heroes, but Giorno turned it all around with Gold Experience Requiem.
This Stand’s incredible ability will trap the target in an infinite loop of painful deaths, and not even Diavolo could find a way out. In one move, Giorno defeated Golden Wind’s mightiest Stand user, clearing the way for him to become a mob boss himself.
9 Unlimited Void (Jujutsu Kaisen)
Jujutsu Kaisen depicts sorcerers who use their own negative emotions to fuel their cursed techniques, such as Boogie Woogie, summoning spirit dogs, and more. Satoru Gojo, meanwhile, has the series’ strongest technique by far, Unlimited Void.
Satoru can use the power of infinity itself to completely overwhelm any opponent, even a special-grade curse like Jogo, who vastly underestimated what Satoru can do. With this domain expansion, Satoru can win any fight while barely even getting his hands dirty.
8 United States Of Smash (My Hero Academia)
My Hero Academia’s Quirk-based combat system encourages a great deal of teamwork and resourcefulness, but at times, a direct, overwhelming attack is best, such as One For All’s Smash attacks. In All Might’s hands, OFA can win any fight, most of all with United States of Smash.
This incredible technique is what defeated All For One for a second time, and the world was saved with One For All’s last embers and All Might’s indomitable willpower. Unfortunately, it may be some time, if ever, before the United States of Smash is ever performed again.
7 Island Shaking (One Piece)
Captain Whitebeard once wielded the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, which allowed him to harness the power of earthquakes and shockwaves. It’s said in One Piece lore that this Devil Fruit’s power could destroy the entire world, though Whitebeard never went that far.
Instead, Whitebeard settled for his Island Shaking technique, which he used during the battle of Marineford. With that move, Whitebeard tilted the entire island that Marineford sat on, disrupting the entire battlefield and making everyone except an amused Doflamingo run in terror.
6 Zanka No Tachi, Kita: Tenchi Kaijin (Bleach)
In the new Bleach anime, head Captain Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto fought his Quincy nemesis Yhwach one last time, and finally activated his bankai. Yamamoto’s shikai is already a deadly fire-based technique, but the bankai is powerful enough to destroy the entire Soul Society.
Zanka no Tachi has one technique for each cardinal direction, and the one for north, Kita, is the strongest. It focuses Yamamoto’s blistering power in a single attack, wiping his target from existence with an unstoppable swing of his charred zanpakuto blade.
5 Giga Drill Break (Gurren Lagann)
The most exciting thing about Gurren Lagann is that the characters power their mechs with literal fighting spirit, so the more determined they are to win, the stronger their robots are. The spirit energy also allows for attacks like the Giga Drill Break, which essentially manifests a giant drill from thin air for Simon and Kamina to attack their opponents with.
It’s hard to truly analyze the power that the Giga Drill Break unleashes, since the attack itself is mostly theatrics, but just by the sheer size of the drill and the speed at which it spins, it can be assumed that the attack is enough to level mountains.
4 Spirit Bomb (Dragon Ball)
Among all the ki attacks in Dragon Ball, only one stands as the strongest, famed the spirit bomb. By gathering the energy of all the life around him, Goku can create a massive ball of energy that can obliterate whatever it is thrown at.
A few of Dragon Ball’s strongest villains have survived this attack, such as Jiren, but it was enough to fully vaporize Kid Buu, an ancient, evil alien that could regenerate from the smallest particle. While it might take some time to build up, the Spirit Bomb is easily one of the strongest attacks in all of anime.
3 Full Counter (The Seven Deadly Sins)
The Full Counter technique is clearly the strongest defense techniques in all of anime. As the name implies, it can push back any magical attack that Meliodas encounters in a fight. With this attack, Meliodas is able to fully reflect whatever magic his opponent is using, making it the perfect offense and defense.
The only minor drawback is the fact that the Full Counter attack varies depending on the magic he is reflecting/countering. So, the stronger the attack, the stronger the counter, meaning it can perfectly defend Meliodas from any attack and throw it back just as hard.
2 The Rumbling (Attack On Titan)
In Attack on Titan, the characters have relatively few traditional shonen combat techniques, though a few Titan Shifters are an exception. Lara Tybur could create weapons with her War Hammer Titan powers, for example, and now the antihero Eren Yeager can use the Rumbling.
With the Founding Titan at his command, Eren has unleashed Attack on Titan’s most devastating technique. Eren is launching an apocalyptic campaign to trample the entire world under the feet of millions of Colossal Titans, and at this rate, he just might succeed.
1 Serious Punch (One-Punch Man)
One-Punch Man is a satire seinen anime series that pokes fun at superhero stories with wacky characters and bizarre humor in every episode. Saitama, the protagonist, can defeat anyone with a single punch, but when the alien warlord Boros showed up, it was time for a Serious Punch.
In that climactic fight, Saitama finally claimed he was punching his enemy for real, but as he lay dying, Boros was confident that Saitama was still holding back. It’s not yet certain exactly how strong Saitama is at his peak, but for now, Serious Punch is his #1 move in the anime.
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