Our number 5 is the all-out brawl that happened between the Tokyo Manji Gang and Valhalla, an affair that had 450 participants in total! The significance of the fight cannot be understated—it is this fight that causes the chain of events that lead to the establishment of the Tokyo Manji Gang of the future that is a notorious criminal organization, and the reason why Hina dies. This fight had so much chaos as hundreds of combatants duke it out, and Takemichi can barely avoid catching hands! The best parts; however, were the moments focused on Mikey’s raw destructive power and ability, especially when he takes a steel pipe to the temple and not only survives it, but ends up punishing his assailants. The bubbling conflict between Mikey and Kazutora (Baji by extension) climaxes in this fight, in which Kazutora fatally wounds Baji, leading to the death that gave this fight its name.

Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) was one of the greats of the summer season because of the raw emotions it can draw from the audience; however, it also has its fair share of interesting fight scenes! One of the best fights in the show is the first time Fushi and Gugu go up against the Nokkers, who are some kind of existence that feed on Fushi’s memories of the people he has been with. Fushi struggles with the Nokkers, and he’s unable to fend them off for a large part of the series, but he’s also aware of the mortality of the people around him so he doesn’t want them getting involved.

The disfigured child Gugu undergoes a self-acceptance arc as he runs back to the Booze Man’s shop to get a large amount of alcohol, which Gugu would hold in the strange organ the Booze Man gave him when he performed surgery on Gugu’s life-changing injury. With the booze in his stomach, a young Gugu gets easily intoxicated, but his desire to help Fushi, whom he sees as an older sibling, enables him to grab a lit torch and run to the scene. The idea is simple—Gugu will use the alcohol from his stomach to spray jets of flame at the Nokker, which results in its defeat. This is the first time that Fushi actually wins against a Nokker, and it teaches Fushi to rely on others.

Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) Season 5 had a particularly slow start and didn’t really get as exciting as it had been in previous seasons for the most part; however, the “My Villain Academia” arc was a true nugget of brilliance for several reasons. One of these reasons is the fact that it featured heavy character development for villain characters, Tomura especially, but also because of the intense showdown between the bosses of opposing villain groups—Shigaraki Tomura of what was the League of Villains and Re-Destro of what was the Meta Liberation Army. Tomura’s memories had been coming back to him in snippets, but he’d also been experiencing strange physical symptoms and fluctuations in the effectiveness of his Quirk, Decay.

To even arrive at the tower where Re-Destro was holding League of Villains member Giran hostage, Shigaraki and his crew had to plough through literally thousands of suped-up soldiers with enhanced Quirks. Re-Destro’s Stress Quirk made him a physically overwhelming force, especially against Shigaraki’s not-as-intense physicality; however, Tomura was in the middle of an awakening as his past continued to come back to him. By the time he’d remembered why he became what he became, Tomura’s Decay ability had evolved immensely. The sheer destruction levelled everything in sight and even when Re-Destro tried using a mecha to overwhelm Shigaraki, Decay was the great leveller. By the end of the fight, Re-Destro will is shattered and he pledges allegiance to Shigaraki, overwhelmed by his display of the true liberation and exploration of his “Meta Abilities”. By the end of it all, Shigaraki had not only defeated Re-Destro, but essentially beheaded and absorbed the MLA, turned Re-Destro into his worshipper, and earned the respect of All For One’s secret weapon: Gigantomachia.

Group fights were clearly in last season, and this banger of a bout from Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) Season 2 Part 2 is up there in terms of just how satisfying it was! Rimuru had some cold revenge on a plate served up for Demon Lord Clayman, who fans will remember as the guy who was in the shadows orchestrating what eventually became the Jura Tempest Massacre. Rimuru’s own ascension to Demon Lord was out of a desire to reincarnated the citizens who died, Shion in particular.

What was especially great about it is that the showdown happened at the Demon Lord banquet known as Walpurgis, where Clayman attempted to have the other Demon Lords become hostile towards Rimuru, but Rimuru managed to expose his lies and expose him to a barrage of fists courtesy of Shion! Shion being there to beat Clayman into a self-effacing pulp was the ultimate revenge for both herself and Rimuru. The stakes kept getting even higher as Clayman, desperate to defeat Rimuru, assumes his more grotesque true form, but he’s no match for Rimuru at all. Clayman’s mind-controlled ally, Milim, first had her attention set on Rimuru, but the fight only heats up when Veldora unexpectedly enters the fray and takes on Milim as his opponent, making it a battle between draconic powerhouses!

In the Veldora vs Milim battle, the high-paced, high-stakes bout featured two primordial forces in the lore of That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime, and the battle definitely showed that! The best part; however, has to be Veldora’s fight choreography and performance—as of 2021, Storm Dragon Veldora is one of the few non-Dragon Ball characters to successfully perform the legendary Kamehameha! On top of that, Veldora’s otakuness enables him to copy many famous techniques, including Street Fighter character Ryu’s Shoryuken and Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (both of which are appropriate considering that “Ryu” means dragon, “Shoryuken” means “Rising Dragon Fist”, alluding to Veldora’s draconic character, while “Tatsumaki Senpukyaku” (Tornado Whirlwind Leg) is a clear nod to Veldora’s title: Storm Dragon. These easter eggs were quite the treat and a lovely addition to the satisfying annihilation of one evil Demon Lord.

If you told us a long time ago that one of the best fight scenes we’ve seen in a while would be coming from Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid), we probably wouldn’t have believed you. However, this hilarious and tender slice of life comedy featuring a dragon living with a human has surprised us all, and incredible, not only because it came out of the slice of life comedy that is Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, but particularly because this was animated by Kyoto Animation, returning after the horrible incident of July 2019, and they did an incredible job!

This season of Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid) had its fair share of flashy combat sequences, but the fight we’re focused on is the match between Ilulu and Tohru! The fight went from 0 to 100 almost immediately, and it was the animators truly strutting their stuff as the two clashed.

This fight was brilliantly animated with dazzling flashy animations, lasers, and even those hand-to-hand brawls that look like they came straight out of a Dragon Ball Z episode. The stakes were really high because Ilulu was fighting all-out, while Tohru did her best to protect the city and fight, but also because the two dragons were having a clash of ideology, with Ilulu admonishing Tohru for being a chaos dragon living in harmony with humans. We see brilliant projectile attacks, beams and lasers, and brightly-colored fire! Elma puts up a barrier at Kobayashi’s request, enabling Tohru to go all-out, firing a massive beam attack at Ilulu just as she was about to assume her true form. After stunning Ilulu with her beam, she opens up a dark portal and sends her opponent through it before making it all disappear.