< Serial Escalation

Serial Escalation/Anime and Manga

  • Pretty much any anime set in a World of Ham will be subject to this.
  • Air Gear is no stranger to this. Starting out, it's crazy cool tricks like wall riding and shooting compressed air out of one's rollerblades that dominate the series. Later on though, making tornados with your bare hands, accessing the tricks of others via futuristic software, or combining roads to make insane hybrids of other roads, i.e wind and gem road equal the jade road. take the place of once plausible tricks in favor of asinine tricks that could never be acheived in a million years.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
    • Every single fight scene is cooler and more Crazy Awesome than the last. And if you thought that's enough, in the second movie, they go one step further ! It gets to a point where you realize that Having the Humongous Mecha pilot another Humongous Mecha, which happens to be the moon is just par for the course. For reference, here is a video that illustrates the size of the titular mecha. And, if you take the movies as canon, this is not even the biggest one in the franchise. That one is one hundred times larger.
    • It has been said that Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is 1.8% the size of the observable universe. To give you an idea of how inconceivably large that is, according to the numbers on the observable universe from The Other Wiki, STTGL has a volume of about 7.38 × 1030 light years cubed.
    • Not only the sheer size, but also the abilities and massive firepower of the Mechs as the series goes on.
  • Mobile Fighter G Gundam can probably be considered its predecessor in many aspects, but doesn't get nearly as far. They finished with a robot the size of, or rather made out of, a space colony that is apparently the size of Japan. They more than make up for it by trying to out cheese themselves in a Writer Revolt.
  • From the Gundam 00 manga, Mobile Suit Gundam 00V Battlefield Record, we have Setsuna's new Gundam after the Raiser was nearly totaled fighting Ribbon's suit. The 00 Gundam Seven Sword. It has seven blades as opposed to the usual one.
  • Movie 10: The Private Eye's Requiem, for the unnecessary Cast Herd pileup. How many of the 30+ regulars can fit in one movie?
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
    • The series thrives on this. Each new installment of the 8-part (and still ongoing) saga has weirder powers, more sick-in-the-head ubervillains, more insane stunts, more Mind Screw...
    • The 6th installment involves breaking out of a prison full of super-powered, extremely weird criminals and stopping a Sinister Minister from resetting the ENTIRE UNIVERSE as we know it to repeat past events again, starting from the beginning of time.
    • Part 7 is probably one of the saner storylines so far. Even though it's about a cross-country horse race which doubles as an attempt to stop a power-hungry President from gathering the mummified body parts of Jesus Christ and using them to conquer the world. Yeah...
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: How can we break Shinji today? What next happens to the characters that no psychiatrist can help with?
    • To be concise, the series starts off making Shinji and company a Chew Toy to fate. The first few episodes aren't so bad, and it looks as though the mental agony is starting to taper off near episode 13. Then comes the second half of the series... which promptly reintroduces all characters to a hellstorm of mental destruction... which keeps getting worse. Sound awful? Take a glimpse at the last two episodes... Not satisfied? Gaze upon the Grand Finale... End of Evangelion.
  • Rebuild of Evangelion makes the most spineless child of anime into a certifiable Badass when he trumps his previous level again and again. Special mention goes to the Angels in general, which look far more freaky and bizarre than in the original and the fights against them become increasingly epic. Possibly for cinematic effect, possibly for the hell of it, many aspects of the series are blown up to incredible levels:
    • Compared to her somewhat underwhelming introduction as a supposed Ace Pilot, Rebuild 2.22 has Asuka managing to take down a colossal Angel while falling from the sky, only to realize she destroyed the wrong part and then still manage to place 6 crossbow bolts right on each other's end, in the right core... And top it all off with what looks like an Inazuma Kick. In less than 70 seconds.
    • Almost as if to trump this introduction, Kaworu's Evangelion Mk.06 was made its first appearance with him stopping the Apocalypse with an unstoppable weapon while gently floating down from the Moon.
    • The famous battle against the 13th Angel is Bloodier and Gorier than the already insanely bloody and gory original, and even more horrifying. In the series the final attack is Unit-01 crushing Toji's entry plug in his hand, Rebuild has Unit-01 crushing Asuka's entry plug between its jaws.
    • The soundtrack is recorded with a richer, more powerful orchestra. "The Beast" epitomises this, being renamed "Les Bêtes" - pluralised and French - sounding utterly crazed and featuring facemelting guitar leads and shrieking violins.
  • FLCL: What will come out of Naota's head next? How many double entendres and half-veiled sexual references can be packed into a single episode? How impossibly bizarre can the plot ultimately become?
    • And lets throw in a baseball-themed episode. Because why not?
  • Ranma ½: Who's going to fall in love with Ranma this time? What crazy move will Ranma master this time? Just how angry can Akane get with him this time?
    • Slightly related to the first question: How many times can a man betroth his toddler son in exchange for food?
  • Sousei no Aquarion: How terrible a pun can Gen make? What Saturday-morning-cartoon-on-acid lesson can the heroes learn? How over the top can the symbolism become? How can crystal power save the universe this week?
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: How much more powerful will Nanoha's magical cannon get? How much effort will she have to use to "befriend" her latest ally? How much Subtext can be inserted between her and Fate? How high can the rankings get? The answer to all of these questions, of course, is "infinity." Subverted with the character ability/power levels also. In first season, Nanoha and Fate were pretty damn powerful. So in A's the even more powerful Wolkenritter had to be enemies. However, in StrikerS flying is no longer a default case (see poor Teana, who doesn't even have Not Quite Flight), unlike with the mains of previous two seasons, where even Non-Action Guy Yuuno could fly, and some characters clearly on lower level than the oldbies.
  • Mariasama ga Miteru: How much more romantic subtext can they put in the relationships between the girls without them actually going anywhere? How much more will Yumi berate herself for being insignificant, despite several of the school's most popular girls fawning over her? How long can they postpone Sachiko's inevitable graduation? There has to be a massive black hole in the vicinity of the Lillian high school to explain the immense slowing down of time between New Year's and April, since that period gets covered by least a dozen Light Novels.
  • Dragon Ball Z -- How big can we make this energy blast? What will the villain blow up next? Just how blond and glowy will Goku become next? How many of the cast will die and be brought back to life by the Dragonballs? How many episodes will the battle last?
    • A sign of how the series works, Son Goku's level reaches 32,000 just a few episodes after those famous words were spoken. (X4 Kaiô-Ken) Indeed, less than two months later, he had defeated Freeza, whose (canonically given in the Daizenshuu) power level in his final form was 120,000,000 (Though it had dropped due to fatigue). So, Goku had gone from 416 (him fighting Raditz) to 150,000,000 in barely over a year. And they just get stronger from there. Son Goku's power has to be considered to grow exponentially. Non-canonic numbers are hard to consider afterwards, as there are multiple ideas about the power levels beyond Frieza. Not that it removes any entertainment value. (As a side note, This Very Wiki statesBroly from the Non Serial Movies to have a power of 1.4 billion)
    • Achieving the level of Super Saiyan was considered to be a myth and the equivalent of a Saiyan achieving godhood. Fittingly, Goku accomplishes this, with a Super Saiyan from the future arriving, and then Vegeta, and Goku's son Gohan. Then they got wind of a possibility of going beyond that, known as "ascending the threshold of Super Saiyan", Vegeta and Trunks did it in a sense, Goku and Gohan were the closest, but the latter truly accomplished this and became a Super Saiyan 2 or a "True Ascended Saiyan". Then, facing Majin Buu, Goku gave a tutorial on Saiyans and their transformations; going to Super Saiyan 3; literally saying as he transforms "And this... is to go even further!" Even the English dub voice actor went Up to Eleven with that massive Kiai he was scripted to do! Truly, becoming an Super Saiyan 3 is this, if anything.
      • It doesn't even stop there. In Dragon Ball GT, he goes Super Saiyan 4. Then Vegeta does it too. Then Goku and Vegeta do the Fusion Dance and become Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta; SS 4 Up to Eleven.
  • Macross 7 -- How much more ridiculously awesome can Nekki Basara get? First he's just the awesome front man to an awesome band, then he's flying his Cool Plane with an Electric Guitar for a joystick into the very center of a battle to wow his enemies with The Power of Rock.

    In the Grand Finale, he speaks of how he wanted to sing to make a mountain move as a child, and today, he would move that mountain. Basara defeats the Big Bad and saves every single life form in the galaxy from death with The Power of Rock alone. Truly, the fact that Nekki Basara ever existed in any medium is a feat of awesome.
  • Super Dimension Fortress Macross , Max Jenius outflew The Hero on his first combat sortie, steals the title of The Ace from Roy Focker, fights the enemy ace in single combat and wins three times consecutively, then woos and marries her within hours of her third defeat, starting the first Interspecies Romance and spawning not one but seven children -- who all apparently inherit some of his awesome. You'd think he'd call it quits at that point, but no, that's just what happened before Macross 7.

    In Macross 7, he's been promoted to command a New Macross-class Battleship and the entire Macross 7 defense fleet, where he proves why he is worthy of the trope. He orders his crew to fire the Macross Cannon at empty space. The second the gun fires, the enemy fleet defolds directly in the beam's path and is instantly vaporized. Yes. He killed the enemy fleet with tactics before it even arrived. He later goes on to effortlessly fly into the Big Bad's lair, with a nuke, after all the best pilots in the fleet tried for several minutes unsuccessfully (except Basara, whose awesome has already been explained).
  • One Piece -- How much freaking blood can Zoro lose in one fight?
  • Gash Bell: How big can we make a demon's next spell? How massive can we turn the Baou? How badly can the main characters be injured without being killed? Just how tearwrenching can we make the next protagonist "death?"
  • Bleach:
    • How insane will the fights get? How many more ridiculously strong power-ups will Ichigo stack on at once?
    • How ridiculously strong are the Bankai of the 7 11, (counting the Vizards) remaining Shinigami that have yet to release their Zanpakuto? A particularly interesting case is Zaraki, that beats most of his enemies by bashing them with his dull sword, and does not even know how to release the sword or use his powers properly.
    • How much more talking will we go through before we fight? How about how much while we fight. Nice coat, by the way, I really like the white-on-black...
    • How much Gambit Roulette does Aizen have? The only thing left for Aizen is the fact that he planned out the manga. Too late.
    • How much higher can the reiatsu levels rise?
    • To give you an idea, they have now reached the point where simply being within a few kilometers of the fights can cause normal Hollows to explode.
    • Officially, as of chapter 418, Kurosaki Ichigo, has went on ahead, and has absolutely shattered the power scale of Bleach. Even AIZEN HIMSELF IN HIS SECOND HOGYOKU FORM called Ichigo's actions "Ridiculous". So far, Ichigo has destroyed a mountain with a single sweep of his blade, caught Aizen's Zanpakuto bare-handed, and proceeded to smash a level 90 Kido, cast with a chant by Aizen, with his bare hands.
    • How many more evolutions can Aizen have?
    • How many people can Unohana scare the shit out of just by smiling?
    • How many villains will have the ability to Mind Rape?
    • How many people can a Vandenreich member kill in a single chapter? They seem to be outdoing each other with every chapter that gets released. (The record, by the way, is 116 in a single chapter which took only three minutes to achieve.)
  • Naruto
    • The series has been getting into this ever since the Killer Bee Arc. For example: how badass can we make Kumo? How insane can we make Killer Bee and A in comparison to the other characters? What can we do to top Konoha's destruction? How big will Naruto's Rasengans get?
    • One word the THIRD RAIKAGE!!!!!!!!!
    • Of particular note is Naruto vs. the Kyuubi, where the two go at it, Naruto with a little help, like cats and dogs. After getting a second wind, Naruto Curb Stomps the beast so hard it near instantaneously became a Jerkass Woobie in some of the Fandoms eyes.
    • Just how evil can Madara Uchiha get? His status as a Complete Monster has been trumping itself by the chapter, and he doesn't look to be backing up anytime soon.
    • Yakushi Kabuto joining this group is officially confirmed in Chapter 515.
    • Episode 167 of Shippuden. The action and animation are turned Up to Eleven and the characters use moves and survive attacks that they'd never be able to pull off in the normal continuity, simply because it looks cool.
    • How many more paper tags Konan can utilize? You have no fucking idea how much.
    • How big can the Shinobi Armies get? How does 80,000 soldiers sound? How big can Madara's Zetsu Clone Army get? 100,000. This is a huge leap from part 1 where Orochimaru thought he could destroy Konoha with just 100 Suna Ninja, Gaara, three summoned snakes, and himself.
    • How much weird flora and fauna that may or may not be summons nor tailed beasts can we introduce (I'm looking at you Turtle Island)? How much more Crazy Awesome can we squeeze out of dead-but-not-exactly characters? How much more Plot Holes will have to be made/solved/thrown around in order to stabilize the increasingly wildly-flailing reality of this universe? Believe me, one can never know.
    • How Ax Crazy can Sasuke get? How many times is he going to kill someone through sheer luck?
  • Mahou Sensei Negima:
    • How over-the-top and ridiculous can Jack Rakan's improvised techniques become? He starts off by summoning a skyscraper sized sword, moves on to accidentally blowing up a mountain while making up a finishing move for Negi, surfs on a sword, defeats enemies by stealing their panties, and destroys a pocket dimension by first disrupting the artifact maintaining (by flipping the owner's skirt, repeatedly) then generating a micro-black hole. This is lampshaded by other characters to no end.
    • His list of accomplishments includes fighting a Legendary Dragon to a standstill. Apparently the skyscraper sized sword does have a logical purpose. It's how he has his record of destroying 137 airships. Rakan modestly placed his power level as 12,000 to boot.
      • Evangeline, as a 'High Daylight Walker', is said to be on a similar power level to the Dragon, and thus Rakan. Nagi, who beat the pre-series Big Bad, a being that scared Rakan and is possibly the creator of Mundus Magicus is beyond even them.
    • For reference, the demon god of the Kyoto arc was ranked at 8000, this is Rakan's new estimate on the Big Bad too.
    • Rakan's response to a reality warper capable of turning a punch into a tea party, using the power that created Rakan's race and the world it lives on, and quite justifiably calling him a puppet?

Illusion? Puppets? Heheh, What about 'em? Screw that crap!

    • Rakan then tops everything. Reality is warped so that he ceases to exist entirely, prompting a Heroic BSOD and Super-Powered Evil Side relapse in the Kid Hero. Rakan immediately wills himself back into existing temporarily, for the sole purpose of smacking Negi upside the head.
      • THEN HE DOES IT A THIRD TIME!!!!
      • Of course this creates one of the best and saddest lampshades in the entire series with Chisame breaking down crying saying that Rakan was the character that should have infinite cheats.
    • Negi and Rakan's entire fight is turned into this. It starts with Negi revealing his artifact, that lets him use all his partners' artifacts and builds through multiple rounds of No One Could Survive That by Jack and I Am Not Left-Handed by Negi. Insert Crowning Moment of Awesome for Jack, Negi, and Kotaru while we're at it until... Negi applies the Lightning Bruiser concept literally to go Super Saiyan 3 while using a power absorption spell to hit Jack with his own power. All to bring it down to a joyful slugfest that ends in a tie. As a side show it breaks the arena safety barrier rated for magical battleship fire. (Oh and for comic relief has Jack using Eternal Negi Fever... on Negi)
    • Chapter 263: Ultimate extreme KISSING. Where Negi either ensouls a robot or bends the laws of pactio. Take your pick.
      • Of course, there is a third option, with Negi convincing a robot who does not believe she has a soul, to believe so, by kissing her. Or it could be all three. That is how far the power of Negi's kiss could go.
    • Thousand Thunderbolts, Ending World (and Freezing World, its less deadly version), Burning Sky, Tearing Earth, are called as Ultimate spells of lighting, ice, fire and earth element respectively. We are shown that there can be something stronger when Negi combines the Thousand Thunderbolts with a lighting spear spell to create Titan Slayer, but in latest chapter Evangeline show us her original spell: Endless White Nine Heavens, which combines Freezing World with lighting element. It takes all the bad guys out aside from the Big Bad. And she only spent few months working on this spell.
  • Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic: How squicky and "Double-You-Tee-Eff?"-inducing can the characters' connections and relationships with each other get? How utterly convoluted could the Gambit Pileup get? How much angst can we pile up on Fay?
  • Prince of Tennis. Basically, it's Dragon Ball Z, only MORE. With junior high school tennis.
  • Bobobobo-bobobo. How more truly messed up can we make the villains, the heroes' techniques and the ENTIRE show itself?
  • Getter Robo: How batshit freakin' insane can the characters get? How big can the mecha get? How many completely improbable things can the mecha combine with? How intense can the crazy expressions get? How manly can the heroic sacrifices get? Will there ever be a page that doesn't feature dinosaurs and if so, will it show up before our brains explode from the awesome?
  • Death Note: How much more audacious can L and Kira get in attempting to unmask each other? At least in the first half. The second half reduces this tension immensely.
    • Also, just how many more schemes can be added to the immense Gambit Pileup?
  • Paranoia Agent: How screwed up and/or insane can the characters become?
  • Baccano!!: How bloody can the violence get? How Badass can the characters be? How weird/dumb/awesome can Isaac and Miria get? How badly can karma fuck up Dallas this time? How much can we screw over Czeslaw now? Just how batshit yet supremely awesome are Ladd and Claire going to be in this episode? Will there ever be enough machine guns?
  • Katekyo Hitman Reborn: How many more Bishonen are going to be introduced? How much larger is Tsuna's harem of possessive, dedicated Bishonen bodyguards going to get? How many more magical powers does the mafia have? Subtopic for the last question: How many worlds does Byakuran exist in and can draw knowledge from? Answer: All of them. He's just Crazy Prepared.
  • The whole of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. Almost every main villain ups the ante from the last. Early on, it's just some teenagers trying to contend with some jerkasses giving them a hard time. By the time Seasons 3 and 4 roll around they're fighting Physical Gods from ancient Egypt and Atlantis. Season 5's villain plots to basically destroy the space-time continuum by re-writing history so The Bad Guy Wins in the past. In GX it's a lot more easygoing at first, but the first real ongoing plot already involves saving the world, and by Season 3 we're into saving the multiverse. Season 4 scales back a bit, not by much through, with a villain being the embodiment of all darkness in the hearts of humans who was trying to instigate an Assimilation Plot. In 5Ds saving the world begins almost immediately, and in the crossover film and the final seasons the villains are once again screwing with the timestream to re-write history. The final villain claims to be a god. Given that Zexal just started we can't tell yet where it'll go, but Astral is apparently from another dimension so you can be sure at some point the multiverse will be endangered somehow.

    The gameplay becomes extremely over-the-top as well. At the beginning, it's only a few cards which make realistic combinations. By the end of Season 4, Yami Yugi can pull off a victory against Dartz's infinite-attack power monster by drawing precisely the right cards to reach Infinity+1 Sword. No, literally, his monster's attack is stated to be higher than infinity. Season 5's villain was defeated by fusing three of the aforementioned Physical Gods into the embodiment of all light. GX and 5Ds didn't get much better--GX's final villain used cards that were the metaphysical embodiments of darkness, while in 5Ds they opted for Faux Symbolism with the final villain using cards representing the ten aspects of the Sephirot and named after Archangels. And let's not get into the "card games on motorcycles"...
    • Parodied in The Abridged Series in episode 52. This was about the time the show really turned things up in the Noah arc.

Yugi: "Okay, since when did this show become AMAZING?"

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