Summary
- Limitless, Gojo's cursed technique in Jujutsu Kaisen, is one of the most broken abilities in modern anime.
- Gold Experience Requiem from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is an overpowered Stand with the ability to negate any action.
- Sugar's Hobby-Hobby Fruit in One Piece is possibly the most broken Devil Fruit power, turning people into toys and erasing their existence from everyone's memory.
Anime, like any medium, is filled to the brim with stories that feature utterly broken superpowers. In many stories, it's a quick way of making a hackneyed narrative with little to no substance, but when used effectively, the powers in question work well with their respective stories and add to the overall entertainment value instead of detracting from it.
There are countless anime that feature utterly broken powers, and shonen anime, in particular, has plenty of noteworthy ones. In a lot of cases, a shonen anime character's power will be broken because of how big of an advantage it gives them over everyone else in their setting, but in other cases, they'll be overwhelmingly overpowered for the medium as a whole, and make the character one of the most powerful characters in anime.
Whatever the case, many powers in shonen anime are completely broken no matter how someone looks at them, and there are a few in particular that are especially noteworthy.
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10 Gojo's Limitless Is One Of Modern Anime's Most Broken Abilities
Jujutsu Kaisen
Release Year |
2020 |
Number Of Episodes |
47 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll |
A very iconic ability in modern anime is Limitless, the cursed technique of Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen. Gojo's Limitless technique complete mastery over the gravitational forces of attraction and repulsion, including a barrier that's always active around him that can only be broken in a few ways, and when those opposing forces are combined, they create the devastating Hollow Purple technique that can destroy nearly anything it comes into with. Add in how Gojo's Six Eyes allows him to use Limitless nearly indefinitely, and it's easily one of the most broken powers in modern shonen anime.
9 Gold Experience Requiem Might Be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Strongest Stand
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
Release Year |
2018 |
Number Of Episodes |
39 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix |
Another broken power from a modern shonen anime, at least due to when it was finally adapted, is Gold Experience Requiem from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. With the power of the Stand Arrow, Giorno's Gold Experience transforms into Gold Experience Requiem and gains the ability to negate any actions that are supposed to happen; this can even be used to negate someone's death and trap them in an infinite loop of being murdered over and over again. There are some Stands that can work around it, but as it stands, Gold Experience Requiem easily gives Giorno one of the most over-powered abilities in the entire franchise.
8 One Piece's Most Powerful Devil Fruit Belongs To A Minor Antagonist
One Piece
Release Year |
1999 |
Number Of Episodes |
1089 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu |
One Piece is filled to the brim with insanely powerful Devil Fruit abilities, but the one that's possibly the most broken of all of them is Sugar's Hobby-Hobby Fruit. At the cost of keeping her from aging, Sugar's Hobby-Hobby Fruit can turn anyone she touches into a living toy that’s forced to follow her every command, and anyone transformed by her ability is erased from the memories of everyone in the world. Devil Fruits have always thrived off of their creativity, and the creativity of the Hobby-Hobby Fruit easily makes it one of the most broken powers in One Piece, if not the most broken.
7 Yami Yugi Has The Power Of Literal Cheating On His Side
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Release Year |
2000 |
Number Of Episodes |
224 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix |
Another broken ability from a classic shonen anime is Yami Yugi's use of the "Heart of the Cards" in Yu-Gi-Oh! While the Heart of the Cards is usually just a metaphor for believing that you'll draw the right card, Yami Yugi can will the cards he draws to always be whatever he needs, so almost every instance of him conveniently drawing exactly what he needs has likely been him magically influencing his deck to give him good cards. There are numerous examples of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists blatantly cheating, but it's hard to see any of them as more blatant or iconic than Yami Yugi weaponizing the Heart of the Cards.
6 Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu Is One Of Anime's Best Take On Illusion Abilities
Bleach
Release Year |
2001 |
Number Of Episodes |
392 |
Where To Watch It |
Hulu, Viz |
A third example of a broken ability from a classic shonen anime, and another iconic one, is Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu from Bleach. One of the most notable traits about Aizen was that Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu could trap anyone who had seen its activation in a perfect illusion that can't be broken by any means, so the only workaround to it is to have somehow never seen him activate it. Illusion powers in fiction are usually able to be resisted in some way, most often by being aware that you’re in an illusion, and Kyoka Suigetsu lacking any weaknesses like that is a big part of what made Aizen so powerful.
5 Alucard Is So Powerful That He Can't Be Erased From Existence
Hellsing
Release Year |
2001 (Anime) 2006 (OVA) |
Number Of Episodes |
13 (Anime) 10 (OVA) |
Where To Wach It |
Crunchyroll |
Vampires are often written as some of the most powerful characters in modern fiction, and a perfect example of that in anime is Alucard from Hellsing. Alucard boasts an incredible power set that includes regeneration and weaponizing darkness, but Alucard's most powerful ability is his immortality, which is so great that he was able to resist having his very existence nullified by absorbing the living paradox that was Schrödinger, albeit at the cost of all the lives he had consumed up to that point. Alucard is virtually indestructible and has a far more versatile move set than other characters, so it's no surprise that he's such a broken anime character.
4 Yuki Nagato's Alien Abilities Sur Even God
The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya
Release Year |
2006 |
Number Of Episodes |
28 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll |
Yuki Nagato is the SOS Brigade's resident alien, or "humanoid interface", in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and her abilities are amazingly broken. Not only does Nagato have superhuman strength and speed and the ability to alter reality through her data-based powers, but as shown in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, Nagato is even capable of stealing Haruhi's godlike powers, thus allowing her to make the same changes to space and time Haruhi does by accident completely on purpose. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya rarely focuses on action, but it still made Nagato one of the most overpowered characters in shonen anime, regardless.
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3 Spiral Power Is The Greatest Utilization Of Willpower In All Of Anime
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Release Year |
2007 |
Number Of Episodes |
27 |
Where To Watch It |
Crunchyroll |
Characters using sheer force of will to power through a situation is a very common trope in anime, and nowhere is it more overpowered than with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's Spiral Power. With Spiral Power, Simon and the rest of Team Dai-Gurren can weaponize their willpower to literally make the impossible possible, and by the end of the series, the use of Spiral Power escalates to the point of allowing everyone to create Gunmen so big that they eclipse the entire universe in size several times over. No other anime has ever used willpower to such an insane degree, and that’s exactly what makes Spiral Power such a broken ability.
2 Bernkastel's Witch Powers Make Her One Of Anime's Most Powerful Villains
Umineko: When They Cry
Release Year |
2009 |
Number Of Episodes |
26 |
Where To Watch It |
Unavailable |
While the anime adaptation of Umineko: When They Cry didn't progress far enough to show it off, one of its main villains, Bernkastel, has an absolutely broken power set. As the Witch of Miracles, Bernkastel can make anything she wishes happen so long as the chances of success aren't zero, and in addition to using her cats to create magical constructs capable of destroying entire universes, she can even weaponize universes as she sees fit. If Umineko were to ever receive a new anime, it would be great if it could go on long enough to show off just how utterly overpowered a character Bernkastel is.
1 Najimi Ajimu Is The Most Purposefully Overpowered Character In All Of Anime
Medaka Box
Release Year |
2012 |
Number Of Episodes |
24 |
Where To Watch It |
HIDIVE |
Another broken power that wasn’t fully explored in the anime, and the last notable broken ability to discuss, is the powerset of Najimi Ajimu from Medaka Box. While it wasn't fully explored in her single appearance in the anime, Najimi Ajimu has over 12 quadrillion different abilities, with many of them being blatantly overpowered such as power nullification, atom splitting, and reversing causality, and throughout the manga, she only ever shows off a fraction of said powers. Najimi is easily one of the most overpowered characters in all of anime and manga, and that, of course, makes her skillset one of the most broken shonen anime powers of all time.
