Who can predict moves and lost?

November 18, 2009 10:45 AM

Silly Request. Can you moments in anime series where an opponent is able to see/predict the moves of the enemy, but is too slow to do anything about it?

I wish I had more information than that. It is a faine memory and it is bothering me enough to post this. I remember the "hero" was fighting someone and the enemy boasted that he can predict any move the hero will make. In the end, he was able to predict the moves, but still got beaten up because he was too slow to do anything. I also *think* i remember it being a very trivial and comical fight.

Anyone remember a situation and a popular anime/manga?

posted by kaozity to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

Can you remember what type of show it was? Did the fight involve swords? Was it unarmed? Do you remember if it was a period show or took place in the present or science fiction?

This is sort of a popular motiff in a lot of anime series. I can think of Rurouni Kenshin, for example, where someone will predict the next move, but it'll be so powerful that the predictor still gets overcome by it.
posted by Atreides at 11:36 AM on November 18, 2009

Response by poster: I remember it being kind of silly and it was hand to hand combat. I was originally thinking the original dragonaball series, yuyu hakusho, or one piece but I cannot remember such a fight in any of them.
posted by kaozity at 11:39 AM on November 18, 2009

There's a scene in the anime/manga Naruto that's almost but not exactly what you're describing. It takes place early in the series with the characters Sasuke and Rock Lee.

Sasuke possesses a hereditary trait in his eyes that lets grants him an enhanced sense of time, slowing down time for his mind - but not for his body. When he fights Rock Lee, a very agile melee fighter, Sasuke is able to see and anticipate the moves as they're coming but finds (to the dismay of his ribs and innards) that he doesn't have the reflexes to respond to them.

The fight wasn't really comical, but it was short.
posted by ThatRandomGuy at 11:40 AM on November 18, 2009

Response by poster: Google searches kept pointing me to that fight in Naruto, but I am pretty sure it's not Naruto I am remembering. I definitely remember it being comical.
posted by kaozity at 11:53 AM on November 18, 2009

Response by poster: Also, I remember the person giving up or submitting because he knew that he was too slow. He got beat up afterwards anyway.
posted by kaozity at 11:56 AM on November 18, 2009

It's probably not the one you're thinking of, but something like that happens in episode 4 of "Those who Hunt Elves". Junpei and Rapier meet for a contest at a riverbank, and stand for a long time in fighting stance watching each other, making subtle changes in their positions as they each predict what the other is planning to do.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:40 PM on November 18, 2009

I feel like I remember something similar to what you're talking about in the Afro Samurai series, but I'm not sure. It would have been one of the first two of three episodes.
posted by Night_owl at 5:07 PM on November 18, 2009

I seem to remember something like this happening in one of the World Martial Arts Championships in Dragonball or Dragonball Z. Either that, or it's just the kind of thing they'd do, and the silly/trivial fits right in. If you google slightly there are all kinds of systematic breakdowns of what happens in the DB universe.
posted by cmoj at 5:42 PM on November 18, 2009

Best answer: I remembered what series I was talking about last night before going to bed. It was "Soul Eater". It happened in the Manga and not in the anime.

http://www.onemanga.com/Soul_Eater/54/14/

I guess this happens way too often in manga/anime to ask such a general question...
posted by kaozity at 1:06 PM on November 19, 2009