Nonchalant Dodge

"Do you mind? I'm trying to read."

There are three main versions of this trope, and it's an easy trope to get:

  1. The character barely moves to dodge, they do the most minimal of movement to avoid an attack. This usually doesn't interrupt combat or overly insult the attacker with their miss.
  2. The character completely dodges the attack at the last moment, but it looks like they were hit. However they appear somewhere else and not only are unharmed, but usually quite mouthy on the subject. The villain gets to Jaw Drop for their failure.
  3. Not only did they dodge perfectly, they don't appear to be paying attention. This generally leads to the villain becoming outraged and the onlooking non-affiliated characters being baffled.

This makes the character appear more awesome with minimal effort on the part of both character and artist. Only the first one doesn't completely upset the mood and generally mean the fight scene is ending or shifting to a different mood, fact is the first one is generally a start of the fight move.

Will often overlap with Excuse Me While I Multitask. If you're going on the offensive after this trick, expect an Offhand Backhand to happen.

Examples of Nonchalant Dodge include:

Anime & Manga

  • Dragon Ball
    • Goku is not the only character to use this trick, however they generally all stick with Type 1. When showing off their speed, characters often do Type 2 as well, and Vegeta and Freeza were so superior to their opponents they pulled Type 3, standing with a look of boredom in front of a raging and punching opponent.
    • A particularly memorable example came when Goku fought Jeice and Burtur. They launched a number of co-op attacks against him, which seemed to simply go through him while he stayed absolutely still. It was only after the barrage when they saw the torn up dirt at his feet they realized they fell for a type 1.
  • Anything by Captain Tylor is Type 3.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima
    • This is done for laughs during two fights. The first we see a clone of Kaede get hit by an attack, followed by four Ninja clones of her appearing around her enemy commenting on how much that would have hurt. Later on, Kotaro and Negi do the same thing against a different opponent.
    • Also played for laughs with Asuna vs. Ayaka, Makie, and the twins in issue 176; Asuna unthinkingly dodges or blocks all the attacks thrown at her, at one point actually thinking "Huh? She's slow." Yeah, a couple of months of Training from Hell will do that.
  • Naruto
    • The entire Hyuuga fighting style is based on Type 1. Shown by the Neji vs. Naruto fight best.
    • Certain uses of Clone and Replacement Jutsu count as Type 2, especially when an opponent attacks X number of Naruto clones and all of them are fake.
    • Type 3: In Kakashi's first fight against Naruto (pictured) he never stopped reading his book.
    • Gaara's Sand gives him the least moving Type 1 as he didn't have to move to block most attacks. Making him much more menacing.
    • Rock Lee, drunk, Type 3. Bonus points for being completely and sincerely asleep.
    • When Kiba tried to attack Tobi, Tobi pulls a type 1 and skips [dead link] out of the way.
    • The anime takes this so much farther, as he also does this too pretty much all of the Leaf ninja and after doing it to Naruto he loudly shouts "Ole!".
  • Bleach
    • Captain Aizen and his cheating antics.
    • Chad's hopeless battle against Kyoraku. The guy doesn't even drop his drink as he avoids every single attack with infuriating and amusing ease. Mind you, Kyoraku appears perpetually unconcerned about anything—suspect execution, treachery (his own), the above Big Bad. He also didn't want to fight Chad at all, instead inviting the young man who'd invaded his home and was beating his subordinates senseless to share a drink. Captain Kyoraku treats almost everything nonchalantly.
    • Inverted Trope by Kisuke. He invites Hiyori to kick him in the face. She attempts to do so. Kisuke has enough time to move his head out of the way, smile, and move back.
  • In Ranma ½, Ranma does all three at various points, such as Type 3 while sleeping.
  • After the Time Skip, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has an episode in which Kittan threw punches at Rossiu, only to be met with Type 1.
  • One Piece
    • There's a whole technique called kami-e (one of the six forms used by CP9) used principally for Nonchalant Dodging.
    • Apart from that, during Luffy's big fight with Lucci, the later spends several seconds effortlessly dodging a high-speed barrage of devastating punches while wearing an eerily tranquil smile.
    • Luffy once dodged an explosive-melee attack by simply grabbing on to the non-explosive staff of it and clinging on to it. Didn't really help him the second time, though.
    • Luffy really gets in on the Type 1 immediately following the Time Skip, doing little more than tilting his head to the side to dodge a Pacifista's laser.
    • Zoro tends to do this from time to time too.
  • Luciola from Last Exile does the type 1 version in the episode in which he is introduced the crew of the Silvana. His expression does not change in the slightest as he proceeds to knock out the guy throwing the punches.
  • Cowboy Bebop: Spike Speigel... except when he's fighting Appledelhi, who does it to him. And when he dies in the last chapter. Somebody did forgot how to dodge, huh?
  • All three versions are used in Rurouni Kenshin at one point or another, mainly to establish that the characters are superhumanly powerful swordsmen.
  • Vash from Trigun is a master of this, liberally applying Type 3 as part of his Obfuscating Stupidity to make his inhuman abilities look like dumb luck.
    • In an early episode, he bursts in on the villain about to kill a Badass in Distress Action Girl. He confronts the attacker with a look of Tranquil Fury and dodges the first round shot at him with a perfect and highly impressive type 1 of the motionless-translation type; afterwards he gets back into character and does his trademark frantic-looking type 3s. It ends up as a hint at his true badassness.
  • Katekyo Hitman Reborn
    • Kyoya Hibari does the Type 1 dodge in his fight with Belphegor. When Bel threw his knives at Hibari, they kept flying past him, causing much confusion to Bel. He later realizes that it wasn't that his knives were aimed improperly at Hibari, but that Hibari had managed to dodge them and move back into his original position with minimal movement.
    • Much earlier in the series, Adult I-pin does a Type 3 where she dodges the attacks of three thugs then defeats them while reading a book.
    • In the first part of the series (before the Genre Shift) Type 3 was used as a running gag involving Lambo's constant attempts to kill Reborn. No matter how flashy or destructive a weapon Lambo came up with, Reborn would refuse to acknowledge his existence, dodge his attacks while taking his morning coffee or reading a book, and continue to act as though nothing had happened after Lambo's weapon inevitably backfired on him.
    • Later on, this got to the point that Reborn didn't even BOTHER to dodge, secure in the knowledge that Lambo would inevitably screw up the attack and blow himself up. Which he always did.
  • Claire Stanfield does a bit of both 2 and 3 during his fight against Graham Spectre in the Baccano!! Bonus OVA before ending with a Blade Run handstand about an inch away from his face.
  • In one of the later fights of Yu Yu Hakusho's Dark Tournament arc, Hiei is cut in half by his opponent... except that it was actually an afterimage, and he appears behind the enemy, having already severed the arm used in the attack.
  • In the manga version of Haruhi Suzumiya, Nagato Yuki dodges attacks this way. The light novel explanation for how she dodges (fake) bullets is kind of... confusing.
  • In Tenchi Muyo, the brief but awesome fight between Kagato and Yosho begins with Kagato firing an energy blast at Yosho... who dodges it by casually tilting his head a little bit to the side.
  • In Soul Eater, Liz attempts to punch Kid when he comments that she has smaller breasts than Patti (because this sort of thing concerns him). In the anime, he is hit, the manga has him leaning out of the way while looking in a different direction. Later on, Black Star is able to dodge Kid's attacks easily (with his hands in his pockets, even -- he's that nonchalant), at least until Kid loses his patience.
    • Later still Black Star and Tsubaki are confronted by an upgraded Crona after his/her Heel Face Revolving Door on the DWMA. Despite becoming much stronger, Black Star is able to dodge his/her attacks pretty easily.
  • Inuyasha: Type 2 is practically Sesshomaru's trademark, usually used to drive the point home that he is that much faster than Inuyasha. And everyone else.
    • In a villainous example, One-Episode Wonder Goshinki uses type 3 with the explanation that he can read his attackers' thoughts.


Comics -- Books

  • Batgirl III was notorious for being a type-1 example of this trope (often leaning away from bullets after they were fired... for giggles).
  • Spider-Man, having his signature Spider Sense, generally uses 1 and 2 during fistfights. As Peter Parker in The Spectacular Spider Man, he does 3 in order to avoid a thrown football.
  • Sin City: Miho does number three a lot. Especially in Family Values when a mook uses a racial slur against her. She decides to take her time, making sure he's good and humiliated before slowly killing him.


Fan Works

  • Shinji pulls a Type 1 in Shinji and Warhammer 40 K when Toji tries to punch him at their first meeting. He makes it a little more mocking by tapping the extended arm with the side of his head.
  • "Odile" the fae mercenary does type 3. while fighting 3/4 of the main cast of Roommates. Later subverted when her opponents outright tell her that they did not intend to defeat her.


Films -- Live-Action

  • Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
    • Our introduction to the title character's future master comes when Remo shoots at him. The man does a Type 1, later explained as him watching Remo's muscle movements to tell when he was about to fire.
    • Remo later does the same trick, but it doesn't look nearly as badass as when Chiun does it.
  • Zed in Men in Black. Jay accidentally releases the Bouncy Ball of Doom, it ricochets through Zed's office as he's doing paperwork, and he casually leans to the side to avoid it. This is a rare case of a type 3 turning into a type 2. The ball is ricocheting around Zed's office at speeds that would get you arrested on the Autobahn. He just sits there doing his paperwork like nothing's going on, only tilting his head at the very end because it would have gone straight through his skull.
  • Freddy vs. Jason. At one point Freddy sends several unstable propane tanks flying towards Jason, who makes absolutely no effort to dodge them—he just keeps walking forward and doesn't even seem to notice them whizzing by.
  • Gothmog, the disfigured orc general in Return of the King. A Gondor catapult hurls an enormous chunk of building directly at him. Gothmog orders his orcs to stay put, waits until the very last second, and then gracefully twists out of the way so that the giant piece of masonry lands just next to him instead of on top of him. And then he spits on it.
  • The Matrix: After unlocking his potential as The One, Neo could dodge (or parry) any single attack even by an Agent this way (type 1 or 3), although then they start throwing more and tougher opponents to him so that he has to start paying attention again. A good example of when he actually does it is when the three new agents attack him in Reloaded and the first one aims a kick at his head. He nonchalantly dodges the first kick easily, as well as its follow-up (which he blocks one-handed, the other hand behind his back in disdain). He only notices the agents have been upgraded when he realizes he has to actually use both hands to parry.
  • Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2 orders the Bride to attack him with a sword to demonstrate his superior skills. All his dodges are nonchalant, but at one point he simply lightly moves his head like in deep thought, while she uselessly swings the sword all over the place, mysteriously only hitting the air.
  • An unintentional version occurs in Spider-Man; when Flash Thompson throws a punch at Peter, his recently enhanced reflexes are shown as Flash's arm moving in slow motion, allowing Peter to look at the fist, shoot a confused look at Thompson, then go back to the fist while the punch is still in motion.
  • Characters in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland dodge the march hare's projectiles as second nature.
  • Michael Myer's response to Laurie's knife throwing act in Halloween H20.


Literature

When Thanaer tried to strike, Janson took the blows on his forearms or shoulders, or, in the case of especially clumsy shots, withdrew a handspan or two and let Thanaer unload his blows into empty air.

  • Quite amusingly done in Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures. A belligerent innkeeper, challenged to try to hurt Rumo, fires both shots of a double-pull crossbow at him. He goes into Bullet Time, then spends the next several paragraphs debating in his head how best to dodge so as to make the best impression. Eventually, he deflects one bolt into the ceiling and catches the other (and of course then gets major injuries on the catching hand, since while in Bullet Time he underestimated how fast the bolt was moving).
  • Discworld: The main fighting style of The Silver Horde is to always be where they want to be, which is never where the enemies' attacks are. They are able to be this precise because they have over three centuries' experience at not dying. There's only six of them.
  • Mistborn do this when burning Atium


Live-Action TV


Pro Wrestling

  • In one hilarious moment, Shawn Stasiak tried to spear The Rock in the middle of a promo. The Rock dodged the spear easily, Stasiak flew into the ropes and the Rock continued his promo without missing a beat.
  • William Regal has been known to walk away from opponents jumping off the top turnbuckle while taunting the fans.
  • Samoa Joe will often do this when an opponent attempts an aerial move off the turnbuckles, casually walking to the side as the opponent crashes to the mat.


Tabletop Games

  • Spirit of the Century allows players to invoke this trope with the "Right Place, Right Time" stunt. Normally in physical combat, a character must use some appropriate combat skill such as Athletics (representing physical agility) to dodge attacks. With the stunt, the character may use their Resolve skill (representing mental/spiritual fortitude or willpower). In-game, this is described as Type-3 Nonchalant Dodging.

"So there he was, bullets flying all over the place, and he just walked over to their leader and punched him out like it was just the next thing on his to-do list."


Video Games

  • Fire Emblem
    • Certain "fast" classes in the sprite games have dull dodge animations that match with Type 1. Swordmasters are the ever present example.
    • As a general rule, Promoted classes all have more nonchalant dodges than their unPromoted counterparts, partly to show how much better they're getting at fighting.
    • Path of Radiance has a particularly baffling example: a mounted unit moving backwards to dodge an arrow heading straight towards them.
  • Rachel Alucard of BlazBlue is a classic Type 3. She nonchalantly blocks anything, even attacks that actually damage her with poor Nago. Even her defeated animation is simply lying down, bored. The only exception to this is if she triggers Hakumen's Astral Heat, which result in a wonderful Oh Crap moment for her...and her player.
  • A very silly bit of a cutscene near the beginning of Mass Effect shows Matriarch Benezia leaning slightly to one side with a bored look on her face as Saren throws his infamous furniture-flinging tantrum.
  • The title character of Bayonetta does all three variations throughout the game. In just about any given cutscene, you are guaranteed at least one type 1 or 2.
  • Devil May Cry
    • Dante from Devil May Cry 4 proves he's a Type 1 when Nero throws a giant statue sword at him. Dante responds by just barely moving his head out of the way, then barely reacts to the object's size and force of throw.
    • Runs in the family; Vergil does the same in his introduction movie in Special Edition, dodging an enemy's scythe à la Type 1.
  • Shikamaru in Naruto Clash of Ninja casually leans away from attacks without taking his hands out of his pockets.
  • Wesker from Resident Evil 5 does this whenever someone tries to shoot him; he casually leans to the side to avoid being hit by the bullets, before following up with a faster-than-the-eye-can-see attack on the person who shot at him.
  • Video Game Speedruns (especially the tool-assisted variety) frequently feature Type 1 Dodges. In any case where dodging an attack slows you down, you can save time by having the attack come within one pixel of your hitbox and/or waiting until one frame before impact before moving just far enough to avoid it.
  • From League of Legends, Irelia's father, Lito was allegedly admitted to the Ionian council of Elders by standing on his rooftop during a rainstorm and staying dry. Without moving his feet.


Web Comics


Western Animation

  • Particularly effective with Princess' debut episode in The Powerpuff Girls. After Princess trashes Buttercup and Bubbles thanks to her powerful gadgets, Blossom gets into it, and she is pissed. Cue complete ownage, with Blossom merely moving her head to avoid Princess' flurry of punches. Pissed, she was, but she demonstrated that Tranquil Fury trumps Unstoppable Rage, at least for that episode.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender
    • Toph is a Type 1, sometimes Type 3. However, she more often blocks attacks.
    • Avatar-state Aang is almost as bad with Type 1.
    • We also see a random villager do the Type 1 against a gorram platypus bear in "The Fortuneteller".
  • We sometimes see a Type 1 Nonchalant Dodge in Code Lyoko. Notably, Odd dodging a Crawler's fire at point-blank range in episode "Franz Hopper", or William casually moving his head away from Aelita's energy field in "William Returns".
  • Edd, of all characters, does this in one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. While both Ed and Eddy are running around like crazy getting hit by water balloons (getting thrown at them by the Kanker Sisters, of course), Edd just causally steps to the side and easily dodges each and every one.


Real Life

  • There is a Type 3 real life example. Japanese swordsman Odagiri Ichiun was ambushed by two men while taking a nap in a sitting position. When one attacked him with a sword, Odagiri dodged the first cut by swaying to the side, the second by swaying in the opposite direction, and the third by reflexively catching the man by the wrist and throwing him—and then got back to sleep.
  • Anderson Silva is the patron saint of this trope. Particularly types one and three [dead link] , but sometimes two as well.
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