It’s a climactic battle, one that could decide the fate of our hero and his friends. However despite starting out equal to the opponent, the fight drags out to the point where the antagonist has victory grasped between his fingertips. So what does our hero do? Use the power of love/friendship/teamwork to win. No of course not were trying to be dark and deep . . . or something like that. The truth is despite his training and preparation for this battle the hero had no chance of winning from the start, the only thing preventing him from being completely curb stomped was buildup to this exact moment. The hero gets pushed to the absoloute edge and all hope is lost. Until the heroes darker side takes over and pulls victory straight from his ass.

I’m talking about any scene in shounen anime where the hero is only able to beat the big bad after going completely berserk on his ass, then recovering only to finish him off. Is it a well played scene of how desperation can push us to our very edge, or a cheap solution to finish a long dragged out battle. Truthfully it depends on the anime your watching, some can pull it off well others it just seems like the hero is cheating.
First we must address the undeniable, the bulk of these scenes are insanely cool. The music, the action, the drama everything is ramped up a notch for these types of scenes. If the character is endearing to us, we feel for him when the tension of the situation causes him to snap. Most are perfectly content with just turning there brains off for a moment and watch the hero utterly destroy his foe in an unstoppable rage.
We may be used to it as well, because this trope is everywhere in shounen. Let me start with the most obvious example DBZ. What finally pushes Goku to finally defeat frieza, only his best friend being murdered in front of his own eyes. In DBZ all the training in the world didn’t equal a good super saiyan scream session. The strongest example of course is Gohan. In the freiza saga it is constantly commented on his secret power that can only be accessed in times of emotional stress. Then the cell saga came, and it was awesome. Goku, puts his trust into his son, but at first it seems Gohan is no match for the perfect cell. However the over-confident cell, seeking a better fights starts to antagonize Gohan and after crushing android 16 unleashes his rage. Which leads to cell being powered by the new Super Saiyan 2 Gohan. Of course then gohan had to get all nerdy and useless in the buu saga. *Sigh*

Dragonball Z and anime like it started the trope, but we’ve barely touched upon how what kind of shounen it impacts today. Let’s take the two most mainstream examples, Naruto and Bleach. Both of the main character, Naruto and Ichigo have darker sides that tend to take over whenever the hero is losing badly, and for similiar reasons to boot. The kyuubi and Ichigo’s inner hollow only seek one thing, complete control over the hero’s existence. To the kyuubi this means freedom, to ogichi this means eating Ichigo’s soul. So when they are assisting there good sides in battle, it’s only to continue their existence and further there own goals. Of course both heroes have gone through training to control their inner demons but who knows how long that will last.

The mecha genre is in love with this trope as well, as we see it all the time. I mean what’s cooler then watching your favourite mech pilot completely lose it and tear apart his enemy piece by piece. The biggest example by far is Evangelion. Half the battles of the anime are solved by shinji relying on unit 1 going berserk on his enemies. This culminates into the second to last angel, when after all other mech pilots are destroyed with little effort shinji in the unit 1 attacks the angel with everything he has. However the five minutes runs out and shinji is royally screwed, until his mother takes over for him and literally eats his opponent. The Gundam series, GaoGai Gar and Code Geass are also guilty of resorting to the berserker rage to solve their problems.


Heck even Yu Gi Oh a show about CARDGAMES has a few moments of this. More specifically, DRAW MONSTER CARD! Nough said Jaden even does it in the last two seasons as well.

Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, D. Grayman, Full Metal Alchemist, Hitman reborn, etc. . . do any of these shows realize that rage is more likely to cloud your mind in battle then to help you in any form. I mean in shaman king they purposely avoid rage for the very same reason. Bleach seems to teach the opposite though, that tactics and thinking aren’t what wins battle. No the king is the one with the instinct, while the horse is the one who tries to think things through. Oh anime logic. Even american shows are starting to do this . . . cue avatar state. Just how far will the rule of cool stretch, and are these scenes epic, or just cheesy cliche. Ahh whatever I’m going to go watch bleach, they finally got out of filler.

Wait am I forgetting something? *Berserk* Oh well that’s pretty self explanatory, I mean it’s called berserk so I think the characters are going to go berserk numerous times.