Spectacular Spinning

aka: Everythings Better With Spinning

You spin me right round, baby.

Puppet General Hammond: Sergeant, make it spin!
Puppet Sergeant Harriman: Spin? Sir... it doesn't spin.
Puppet General Hammond: What? It has to spin - it's round! Spinning is so much cooler than not spinning. I am the General, and I want it to spin! Now!

— Stargate SG-1, "200"

(While you're on this page, listen to You Spin Me Round. It will make the page even better. Why? Because spinning, that's why.)

Presumably, this trope is the case because fast-moving things are generally better than slow moving things, and circular motion allows something to accomplish this while actually remaining on-screen.

This trope shows off the awesome power of spinning things at high speeds, or flying around in a circle. In skilled hands, this ability can be used to create tornadoes or even bend the space-time continuum. It's also a good trick.

Spinning makes pretty much everything cooler, so these are just a handful of the subtropes heavily affected:

Subtropes

• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range (limb spinning)
• Battle Baton
• Battle Tops
• Blow You Away (Some variants)
• Centrifugal Farce
• Dizzy Cam (especially when combined with P.O.V. Cam)
• Do a Barrel Roll
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud
• Doppelgänger Spin
• Fight Woosh (sometimes)
• Gatling Good
• Girly Skirt Twirl
• Gun Twirling
• Helicopter Blender
• Helicopter Hair
• Heli-Critter
• Human Hammer-Throw
• Hurricane Kick
• Instant Flight: Just Add Spinning!
• Mega Maelstrom
• Monowheel Mayhem
• Orbital Kiss
• Orbital Shot
• Orbiting Particle Shield: Particles of various forms orbit around someone for defensive purposes.
• Rolling Attack
• Roundhouse Kick
• Roundabout Shot
• Round Table Shot
• Sphere Factor
• Spin Attack
• Spin to Deflect Stuff
• Spinning Clock Hands
• Spinning Out of Here
• Spinning Paper
• Spinning Piledriver
• Spinventory
• Swirling Dust: Battle Aura stirs a dust cloud around the character.
• Swirly Energy Thingy
• Swivel-Chair Antics
• This Is a Drill
• Tornado Move
• Twirl of Love
• Unrealistic Black Hole
• Weapon Twirling
• When Things Spin, Science Happens

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The king of this trope is Beyblade; that whole franchise is about spinning things!
• How about all of the anime series that contain a Transformation Trinket with a spinning element? For example, the wands used in the second season ('sharp') of Ojamajo Doremi feature a spinning musical note in the middle.
• Ah! My Goddess: When Aoshima tricked Belldandy into coming into a Love Hotel with him and then tried to rape her, the visual implies strongly that she set the bed spinning at high speed before sending it smashing through a wall to fall into the sea. Fortunately for Aoshima, it floated.
• Maki, the Airmaster, successfully turns her gymnastics into a unique fighting style that gains its power from, among other things, a mid-air spinning tuck. She also specializes in fast-rotating capoeira-style kicks.
• In Attack on Titan, you know a good Titan-slayer by how much they spin. Mikasa tends to spin around a lot when taking out Titans, but Levi takes it to a whole other level by making spinning his primary mode of attack; when fighting the Female Titan, he takes it down by spinning up and down its arms and legs to avoid its attacks and disable its limbs.
  • Levi is sometimes called "Humanity's Strongest Noodle" by fans because of his fighting.
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers: This show introduced the "Spin-top" Bakugan that have a top that spins when the Bakugan opens. They've gone on to become their own archetype, albeit they were seldom used before the New Vestroia season (where two of the main heroes use Spin-Top Bakugan).
• Sechs from Battle Angel Alita: Last Order takes this to an absurd degree in his fight against Zekka, where he takes his double-bladed BFS and spins on all three axes like a gyroscope, turning himself into a giant whirling sphere of death.
  • And then he pins Zekka down by spinning said BFS around his torso so he can't move out of the way of his next attack.
• On Battle of the Planets there was a move known as the "whirlwind pyramid". It could work with as few as two of the team.
• Captain Tsubasa: Ryoma Hino develops his Signature Move Tornado Shot based on this principle; by rotating his body before kicking the ball, he adds more momentum and thus more power and speed to the shot. He's even able to do so in the air and on the ground.
• In Code Geass, Suzaku is known for the sheer amount of spinnery he pulls off throughout the series. The most egregious example is his flying twenty feet across the room to deliver a spinning kick, then falling short and delivering a punch instead.
  • Sayoko is definitely not above this either. For that matter, neither is Lloyd. Or Euphemia. In fact, just search 'Code Geass spin' on YouTube and see all the variations.
  • Don't forget about Gino! He's done it once too!
  "TAKE THIS! THE SPIN OF MY LOYALTY!"
• Classic example: Combattler V. "Choudenji Ta-tsu-ma-ki! Choudenji SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"
• Spinning-based attacks occasionally turn up in the Digimon franchise, most prominently in Digimon Frontier, where all of the Dark Legendary Warriors except Duskmon have some sort of spinning attack, and several of the good legendary warriors have spinning attacks too. Calmaramon subverts this trope when her spinning attack is entirely unusable, because it causes her to lose control of her beast spirit.
  • Additionally, spinning at various speeds was a staple of the evolution sequences of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02; later series pretty much phased this out, but it's back (albeit briefly) for OmegaShoutmon in Digimon Fusion.
• The ending credits of End of Evangelion (which are actually in the middle of the movie) wind up the screen while spinning.
• Fate/stay night has Gilgamesh with his sword Ea, which is described as closer to a rock drill than a sword. It's made of three sections that rotate in opposite directions, and it works by drawing in and compressing air so hard that time/space collapses, revealing a glimpse of the true form◊ of the world before Heaven and Earth were separated, before hurling the enemy into the rift. Unfortunately, while the visual novel's artwork of this attack is fairly awesome, the animated version is just a cheap-looking blob of semi-transparent red.
• In the Tournament Arc of Flame of Recca, the fighter who fights Tokyia on the first round is considered dangerous because his attacks have a spin.
• The Silver Alchemist from Fullmetal Alchemist. In Brotherhood, he isn't even touching the ground when he does his spinning attack.
• F-Zero: GP Legend: In the infamous Falcon Punch scene, this is part of the real reason for the explosion. Rick was driving around Black Shadow's Doomsday Device thing at high speeds. While spinning. While his engine was spinning inside his vehicle. This somehow made it unstable, which is a pretty serious design flaw when your arch-enemy is a racer with a lot of racer friends.
• The Beetle from Getter Robo Go is much, much smaller than the other Humongous Mecha in the series (roughly twice the size of its pilot, and he's a Japanese teenager), and only used for scouting. Gou unlocks its full potential by spinning it really fast, to the point that once it jumps into the air, it effectively becomes a humongous drill capable of tearing full-sized mecha in half.
  • Way before this, there was Musashi Tomoe's signature attack, the Daisetsuzan Oroshi, which is a modification of his signature judo throw. As Getter-3, the machine would grab its opponent and spin really fast, tossing them away and setting them up for further punishment. After Musashi's death, Benkei was taught the attack. In the Super Robot Wars series, Shin Getter-3 has a variant called the Daisetsuzan Oroshi Nidan Gaeshi that follows up the attack with either a ramming Getter Crash or the Missile Storm attack.
• Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin has the Zetsu Tenrou Battouga attack, where the user spins really, really fast while flying through the air. May not sound that impressive, but the main character slices a giant bear's head off with it. A couple of the manga-only Battougas also involve spinning somehow.
  "Spinning Dog Attack, go!"
• Although not necessarily a spin attack per se, Hajime no Ippo's Date Eiji has the Corkscrew Blow, which is essentially a right cross delivered with a full inward rotation of the wrist. This was shown to be capable of stopping an opponent's heart for a brief moment, putting them in an awfully precarious position given their current location and profession.
• Higurashi: When They Cry: Takano in Minagoroshi-hen.
  "Nippaaaaaaaaaaaa~"

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Battle Tendency: One of Wamuu's signature techniques is to create a pair of tornados by rapidly rotating his forearms like a pair of drills.
  • Stone Ocean: Lang Rangler's Jumpin' Jack Flash has centrifuges on its wrists that it can use to launch nuts and screws at enemies.
  • Steel Ball Run: The concept of spinning itself becomes a supernatural power, capable of doing things that it has no right doing, similar to the Ripple concept in Part 1 and 2. Gyro Zeppeli is a master of the Spin, and he teaches the Spin to The Protagonist, Johnny Joestar. The Spin is explained as being accomplished by spinning a spherical object at a frequency modeled after a Golden Spiral. This unlocks the secret powers of Gravity itself, which is the only force in the universe more powerful than fate. Reaching the Perfect Spin (which requires extremely specific circumstances) unlocks an Unblockable Attack, because the projectile will turn into a perpetual motion device powered by gravity, and thus holds potentially infinite energy.
• In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, this is the basis for Siegfried's entire fighting style. At first he spins to deflect attacks and then counter, using his opponents own momentum for power. Later on, he trains in Tibet, and after being inspired by a spinning pillar, improves his spinning powers to the point where he can deliver untold amounts of pain on anything near him. He becomes a spinning tornado of destruction (and song!).
• Whenever Vita from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha uses Graf Eisen's Raketenform, she'll always spin around a few times before smashing her target. Zerstörungsform is a gigantic drill.
• In Mazinger Z, there's the "Daisharin Rocket Punch" where Kouji makes Mazinger Z's arms spin around like a windmill before firing the Rocket Punch, delivering a more punishing blow.
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam: "God Slash Typhoooooonnnnn!" Also, Schwarz Bruder's ultimate technique, "Sturm und Drang".
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, the Wing Zero actually takes advantage of the fact that it Dual-Wields BFGs and has a move where it holds both rifles out at arm's length and spins while firing, scything the beams through the area around it. Super Robot Wars dubbed this attack "Rolling Buster Rifle."
  • This was the purpose of the DODS Rifle and its variants in Mobile Suit Gundam AGE. Normal beam shots were not powerful enough to shoot through Vagan Mobile Suit armor, thus the AGE System created the DODS Rifle for the AGE-1. The DODS Rifle instead spins the beam shot like a drill, giving it the extra "oomph" to pierce through. The rifle was later mass produced for the other units in the Federation.
• My-HiME:
  • Mikoto does a spin of at least 460° when wielding her sword, Miroku, to build up momentum.
  • Natsuki will engage in Gun Twirling before doing a spinning dance to summon her Child, Duran.
  • The rings that compose Mai's element spin whenever they aid her in flight or generate fire. In addition, a pair of turbines on her Child, Kagursuchi's back when he's about to use his Breath Weapon.
• Naruto's signature Rasengan attack, Neji's Kaiten, Lee's Leaf Whirlwind, Kiba's Wolf-Fang Over Fang and Kakashi's Kamui. Uzumaki means whirlpool, Naruto means Maelstrom, the Uzumaki clan symbol is a spiral. The symbol of Hidden Leaf has a spiral included. Tobi's mask has a spiral pattern. Killer Bee, when he wields all seven of his swords, attacks by spinning around in bizarre and unpredictable fashion.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy often makes a lot of his normal attacks stronger simply by twisting his limbs. Gum-Gum Rifle is pretty much just Bullet, but with the fist releasing the twist. Gum-Gum Pinwheel might be the most simple, with Luffy simply twisting his body around, grabbing the foe, and unleashing. Luffy's peak use of this is when he uses it to defeat Crocodile with his Gum-Gum Storm, continually spinning while using a Gum-Gum Gatling to perpetually pummel him until he breaks through the ceiling of the underground chamber they were fighting in and up into the streets of Alabasta.
  • Sanji has his basic Party Table Kick Course attack, with him getting on both hands and legs stretched out while spinning. He also has Diable Jambe, where he spins around so fast his leg bursts into flames.
  • Also, Zoro has Tatsumaki.
  • The king of this though is Mr. 2 Bon Clay, who spins with pretty much all the time, regardless of whether he's fighting or not.
  • Buffalo of the Donquixote Pirates ate the Spin-Spin Fruit (Guru Guru no Mi) which literally allows him to spin parts of his body around which he can use to fly like a helicopter or create gale-force winds.
• Jukai from Outlaw Star attacked by spinning rapidly causing a tornado.
• Panda Z doesn't do a lot of spinning, but its Anime Theme Song, Voyager (by JAM Project) supports the general policy: "Rock and Roll! Can you feel it now? Just spin around!"
• Panzer World Galient: Enemy mecha Zauel's sword spins like a drill when it attacks.
• In Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, this is introduced as a strategy by Dawn, who uses this technique for her contests. Ash uses this strategy when he faces Roark in their Gym Battle rematch to counter Roark's head-on attacks. It eventually evolves into the Counter Shield tactic, which can be described as "Spin really fast while spamming your attacks."
• Ranma ½ has Ranma's "Hiryû Shoten Ha" (where Ranma needs to lure his enemies into a spiral in order to blast them with a tornado) and Ryû Kumon's "Demon Gods' Mad Violent Dance" (where he spins around at high speed while at the same time unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of vacuum blades in all directions). Let's not forget several attacks from the Golden Pair, and a few of Ranma's practice katas.
• Rurouni Kenshin. Kenshin's ultimate attack, the Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki: if blocked, the vacuum from the backwash of the first strike sucks the enemy in, leaving him open for the second. Also seen in any variant of the Ryuu Kan Sen, where the centrifugal force increases strike effectiveness and allows some degree of evasion.
• A majority of the transformations and attacks from Sailor Moon contain an amazing amount of spinning. Is it really necessary? Maybe not. Does it look freaking awesome? You bet.
  • A prime example is the Moon SPIRAL Heart Attack (and its upgraded variant, Rainbow Moon Heartache), as well as her Penultimate attack, Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss.
  • And then we have Jupiter Oak Evolution.
  • Setsuna aka Pluto has a thing for spinning when she opens her Gate, when transforming, ''and'' when attacking. In her case it has more to do with her affiliation with time, particularly an analogue clock, considering one of her transformation sequences (when she's spinning, and viewed from above) is sometimes superimposed on a clock's face with her spin in sync with the clock's rotating hands.
• School Rumble: The opening is basically/apparently ABOUT spinning. And it even shows Harima and Karasuma spinning (the girls too, but they are arranged in a roundabout fashion).
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman features the Ninja Art: Tornado Fighter technique, wherein all five members of the team stand on each others shoulders and spin around, creating a whirlwind powerful enough to knock everything in the room down.
• Soul Eater's Maka, who wields a Sinister Scythe, tends to incorporate spinning into her fighting technique. The 3rd Ending Theme has Black☆Star and Kidd doing flourishes with their weapons, too.
  • TSUBAKI. FIRST OPENING SONG.
  • Pretty much every Weapon who can be spun, gets spun around at some point, often simply for the look of the thing.
• In a Super Robot show, the only thing better than a Rocket Punch is a spinning Rocket Punch. Just ask GaoGaiGar or Mazinkaiser.
  • They got beaten to the punch by Great Mazinger and his Drill Pressure Punch.
  • Who got beaten to the "punch" by Mazinger Z himself with the Daisharin Rocket Punch, which doesn't itself spin, but has its power disproportionately magnified by winding it up. EI-15 in GaoGaiGar used the same trick to duplicate "Zonder Broken Magnum."
  • Speaking of GaoGaiGar, Big Volfogg's Hissatsu! Dai-Kaiten Madan technique. He turns on his Mirror Coating and spins like a top, firing little shards of mirror energy (or something) at the target. If you're lucky. If you're unlucky, he'll also hit you while spinning.
    • Which lead to the unintentionally hilarious battle of spinning tops against Polturn in FINAL.
  • And then there's UFO Robo Grendizer, who could launch fist drills, drill missiles, and flying buzz saws.

• In Tekken Chinmi, one of Chinmi's teachers is a practitioner of Whirlwind Fist kung fu, which revolves around the martial artist spinning rapidly in place at high speed, giving them incredible skills at deflecting blows and striking in retaliation. Chinmi eventually likens the style to a spinning top, then realizes that the weak spot is to attack the practitioner from directly above — while they can deflect any blow that comes from their side, they can't defend against an aerial strike.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is the ultimate example — if Heroic Resolve is forced into physical form, it becomes a drill. In fact, this is formulated as "Spiral Power," and is stated to be the reason for everything from why a gyroscope becomes more stable while spinning, to the process of evolution (DNA is helix-shaped).
  • General Guame the Immovable takes this to the logical extent; he powers both his personal mech, the Gember, and his flagship, the Impregnable Fortress Dai-Gundo, by rolling into a ball and spinning in place (He's an armadillo evolved into humanoid form through sheer willpower). His last words: "Round and round, are you watching this transpire your majesty? Your humble servant Guame is still spinning!"
• Tower of God: Mule Love is a Wonsulsa, meaning that he can use certain Shinsu techniques that require the Shinsu to spin.

Comic Books

• The Flash:
  • Speedsters such as Flash sometimes use the tactic of spinning or running in a circle to produce a whirlwind. Flash has also been depicted shooting tornados from his arms by spinning them.
  • There's also a Flash villain named The Top who gets his super speed by spinning. Also he can brainwash people, by spinning.
  • This is lampshaded by Flash villain Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad. After kicking a third-rate terrorist speedster off the side of a castle, Boomerang yells after him that the Flash sometimes saves himself from falling by spinning his arms really fast. Once the terrorist splats:
    Boomerang: Huh, guess you weren't quite in the Flash's league. You sure as hell weren't in mine.
• Marvel Universe villain Whirlwind is a mutant who can spin really fast to deflect attacks and move quickly, and not only can he spin his arms really fast to generate whirlwinds, but he also has wrist mounted sawblades.
• There is also Torpedo of the New Warriors who had spinning fans on her wrists and ankles in order to create super strong currents.
• Superman:
  • Clark Kent is a master of solving problems with unrealistic uses of spinning.
  • As an example, in one animated adventure he put out a forest fire by spinning over a lake and creating a waterspout.
  • He also once followed a signal into the future by spinning at SUPER super-speed.
  • In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004) Harbinger's duplicates surround Superman to keep him contained. Superman spins around and punches them all at once.
  • In Who Took the Super out of Superman?, the Man of Tomorrow takes care of a swarm of killer bees by spinning around until forming a whirlwind that drags the bees away from Metropolis.
    Superman: I'll have to treat this swarm as a single unit— spiral around the bees... like a whirling football... and sweep them up... in my own backdraft! I'll count on any stray bees not caught in my wake... to follow the bulk of their friends by instinct!
  • Two for the Death of One: At the start of the final battle, Lord Satanis hurls a barrage of giant boulders at Superman, who has lost his invulnerability at the time. So, he ricochets the boulders away by creating a whirlwind.
    Superman: "No! Those boulders flying at me— They could kill me! I can be super-strong, but my invulnerability has been absorbed into Satanis. But, if I can create a super-fast whirlwind, use wind-force to ricochet those rocks away before they perforate me— Did it!"
  • A Mind-Switch in Time: When one Euphor's minion grapples with Superboy, Kal-El shakes him off by rapidly whirling around.
  • Supergirl is also good at using spinning moves or generating whirlwinds to solve problems.
  • In Red Daughter of Krypton she performed a spin attack to repel a squad of alien enemies: she grabbed an alien and used his body as a blunt weapon, spinning around to hit all enemies surrounding her with her "weapon".
  • In Demon Spawn, Supergirl spins around at Super Speed to create a whirlwind and put out a fire burning a building down.
  • In another Supergirl story, a massive boulder is about to crush a village. Linda/Kara charges right away at it, spinning around at super-speed and becoming a super-drill, pulverizing her way directly into the rock core to stop it and drive it away.
  • And in yet another classic Supergirl story, Parasite grabs Supergirl's cape and spins her around before slamming her face into a railroad track.
  • In The Killers of Krypton, Supergirl tunnels her way out a Green Lantern's construct by rapidly whirling around.
  • The Immortal Superman: As visiting a future Metropolis, Superman diverts an explosion by spiraling around the exploding building, simultaneously preventing the blast from spreading and channeling the explosive force upwards.
  • In Must There Be a Superman?, Superman de-pollutes a sea by spinning quickly over the surface, creating a tornado which sucks in the junk littering the waters.
• Wonder Woman
  • In Volume 2 Diana learns how to use a bit of magic to change from her civilian gear into her Wonder Woman costume by spinning.
  • Wonder Woman 600: Diana gets to finish out a story that had been left hanging from Volume 2 and her spinning transformation sequence to change out of her Wonder Woman is now complete with added pink sparkles.
• Riptide, an enemy of the X-Men, also has the mutant power of spinning real fast and flinging pieces of fast-growing bone shurikens.

Comic Strips

• Garfield:
  • There is one time when Irma asks Jon and Garfield why they prefer to sit by the food counter instead of at the diner's tables, and the two reply, with demonstration, that because the stools by the counter can spin.
  • Subverted in another comic where Jon gets a spinning display stand for his Christmas tree and Garfield replaces it with a blender.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Some of the Titans pull this off during the fic when battling. Rodan, like in canon, is fond of performing twirling aerial maneuvres like the aileron roll. Monster X at one point performs a Human Hammer-Throw when one of its heads gets its jaws on the tail of one of the Many's Mind Hives. And Keizer Ghidorah at one point manages to knock Rodan out of the air with a dual Tail Slap whilst the former is spinning.

Films — Animation

• In Turning Red, Ming simply turning around while the size of a Kaiju imparts enough spinning force that her tail subjects Mei to a Centrifugal Farce.

Films — Live-Action

• In Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., the saucer-shaped Dalek spacecraft has two rows of windows that spin in opposite directions, which was a fairly cool effect for 1966.
• In that case we may as well mention Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, which also had cool spinning Flying Saucers.
• Initially averted by the Hammer weapon test video in Iron Man 2, but then played straight during the actual combat.
  • Also played straight by Black Widow's ridiculously over-the-top twirling takedowns on Hammer security, which look more like lucha libre than anything else.
• The Last Starfighter, naturally!
• Legion: Gabriel wields a mace that is quite obviously not deadly enough as the head starts spinning once Michael pinned against a wall but looks like he may escape. Did I mention it was a huge mace with mechanical spikes to begin with?
• The Mask when the characters are on his Transformation Sequence before entering on action.
• In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, one of the finishing moves in a fight is the Corkscrew Kick (Suh! Ayah!)
• The machine turning ordinary humans into mutants in X-Men has metal rings spinning very fast.
• Shaolin Soccer. The more spinning you see before a strike, the more powerful it is. No exceptions.
• Speed Racer... words cannot describe how awesome the spinning was... on the last lap of the Grand Prix...
• Star Trek (2009): Spock's Jellyfish is so far the only Star Trek vehicle to feature a permanently spinning part of its external body: whenever the ship's flying, its tail components spin in opposite directions.
  • At the end of Star Trek: First Contact, the Vulcan vessel's landing gear spins slowly as it deploys. (This was purportedly inspired by the Vulcan shuttle from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which did some weird somersault thing to dock with the Enterprise.)
  • In Star Trek Beyond, Krall's shoulder armor has a spinning disc that serves no purpose other than to look awesome.
• Star Wars series.
  • "I'll try spinning, that's a good trick!"
  • And Darth Maul's lightsaber fighting techniques include a few completely illogically placed spins because they look cool.^note Likewise, Ray Park does that spin in every role of his.
  • Yoda's fighting in the prequels is heavily inspired by Wuxia and is by far the most ridiculous, over the top, flashy and acrobatic style of any of the characters (even the ones who use the same in-universe fighting style that he does!). As well as tons of dramatic leaps and flips, it includes plenty of gratuitous spins. Other Jedi like Obi-Wan, Luke and Qui-Gon occasionally do a random 360 in the middle of a fight for sheer Rule of Cool, but don't do it constantly like Yoda does.
  • In his younger days Obi-Wan was a master of Soresu, the most defensive form of lightsaber combat focusing heavily on circular motions of the lightsaber to create a nearly impenetrable defense.
  • In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine gracefully twirls in the air while pouncing at the Jedi Masters that have come to arrest him.
  • All over the place in this movie. Dooku does a random frontflip before fighting Anakin, Anakin does a fancy twirl before using a brutal Finishing Move on Dooku, Grievous tries an Intimidation Demonstration of his lightsabers on Obi-Wan, and see above about Master Yoda's spin-happy fighting style. Weapon Twirling also abounds, like it does in all the prequels.
  • In Star Wars Rebels, the Inquisitors have dual bladed lightsabers that spin like a propeller on a circular handle. They can even use it to fly like a helicopter.
  • Luke does a gratuitous front-flip at the beginning of the sail barge fight in Return of the Jedi.
  • And now the Stormtroopers are in the act. Ladies and gentlemen, meet ''FN-2199'' of the First Order. The guy spins his riot baton and gets ready to kick ass. Said baton is able to counter lightsaber strikes!
• Superman: The Movie: Superman uses this twice: first when he spins like a top while drilling into Lex Luthor's underground lair, and second when he flies around the Earth to make it spin backwards and turn back time.
• The Time Machine (2002) also uses metal bars spinning at high speeds.
• Michael Bay believes that this is the case with the Transformers Film Series (combined with Stuff Blowing Up, of course).
• The film of West Side Story uses a scene of Maria spinning around and changing colors as a transition from her preparing for the school dance to her attending the school dance.
• Wuxia martial arts films are often filled with spinning acrobatics. As mentioned above, in a real fight, this is not a good idea.

Literature

• Discworld: In Night Watch the incoming Patrician inquires about the possibility of getting one of those special office chairs, you know, the sort that swivel and spin, as a sort of symbol of his new-found power. His canny secretary assures him that a skilled swiveller can be there with a toolkit within the hour, sir, and your every wish to spin and swivel will be granted. This is a Shout-Out to the scene in Yes, Prime Minister where the incoming government minister, James Hacker, asks about getting a chair he can swivel on. Sir Humphrey Appleby assures him, with complete truth, that he will ensure the Minister has complete control over selection of his office furniture.
• In the novel Star Trek: Immortal Coil (a Data-centered story which revisits most of the various series's artificial-intelligence episodes), Dr. Soong discovers the android-making machine from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" He finds it fascinating... but can't figure out for the life of him why it spins around like that when it's working.
• In The Underland Chronicles, Ripred and eventually Gregor spin. It is implied that all ragers can.

Live-Action TV

• BattleBots, also had its fair share of fighters with spinning weapons. Those with the spinning saw blade variety and variations thereof fared rather well, but the best was to Son of Whyachi's spinning weights, especially after it took down one such saw blade-type in a single well-placed attack. Not only that, but said vertical-spinner (Nightmare) was originally going to do a quick spin right before impact, but the Hell Razors popped up the wheels.
  • Awesome moment was Blendo (built by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman), which had a spinning dome with blades around the outside. It wasn't against the rules, but the chunks it ripped off of its opponents were a danger to the audience, so the organizers had to declare Blendo a "co-winner" to eliminate it.
  • Mechavore, especially after it ripped off BioHazard's lifting arm. Battle Bots has a higher default weight-class than Robot Wars, meaning that its spinners tend to be more powerful and face heavier armor.
• Inverted in Babylon 5. All the cooler and more advanced spaceships (Minbary, Shadows, Vorlon, White Stars) have artificial gravity and don't need to spin, unlike Terran ships and the eponymous station.
• The Wonder Woman and Superman spinning transformations are lampshaded in a Halloween episode of Bones; Brennan and Booth finish up a case while dressed for a Halloween party. Brennan is dressed as Wonder Woman, and at the end of the episode does a little spin, which Booth finds hilarious.

• Doctor Who:
  • The TARDIS is sometimes shown spinning while in the process of travelling through the Time Vortex (after dematerializing and before rematerializing).
  • Averted with Daleks, who have a tendency to spin around in circles before they blow up. Then again, that's probably better for everyone else.
  • "Planet of the Dead": The Doctor tracks rondium particles with a strange device, expressing his disappointment that the little dish isn't going round. He subsequently gets very excited when it starts to spin.
  • The Eleventh Doctor seems to love spinning 270 degrees right in order to go left. He's just a bit uncoordinated like that. He also redesigns his TARDIS so the top of the console spins.
    • In The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, the classic Doctors are nonplussed by the spinning TARDIS console:
      Sylvester McCoy: And what the heck are those things? Have they turned it into a helicopter?
• In the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon admitted that he had no clue how the engine on board Serenity in Firefly worked, except that when it wasn't spinning, things were bad.
• Game of Thrones has the spinning rings of the astrolabe sun in the title sequence. They briefly show the backstory of the show, and finally the Title Card.
• Kamen Rider Imperer from Kamen Rider Ryuki has Spin Vent. His Contract Monsters also do frontflips in his Final Vent before they slam into the target one by one and Imperer knees the target in the face.
• Superman spins from Clark Kent to Superman in later seasons of Lois & Clark.
• The miniseries The Lost Room featured a number of Objects which gave their wielders various powers — some very useful, some not so much. One of the protagonists scoffs as they are going to confront an enemy with the Scissors which, they have been told, allow the wielder to "rotate objects." "What is she gonna do, spin us to death?" As they enter a room, a large, heavy object flies quickly at them in a wide arc, knocking them to the ground, and provoking the revelation: "Oh. Rotate."
• The Orville, when trying to escape three Krill cruisers in season 3:
  Lt. Malloy: Sir, what if we tried an Expanding Helix maneuver?
  Cmdr. Grayson: Never heard of it.
  Lt. Malloy: That's because I just made it up.
  Cmdr. Grayson: Do it. [ship begins to spin]
• In just about every season, Power Rangers and Super Sentai would have a spinning attack whether it would be on a Zord, or a Ranger.
  • The first Super Sentai, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, changed into their costumes by simply spinning round once on the spot.
  • Gekisou Sentai Carranger / Power Rangers Turbo: The finishing move of the RV Robo / Turbo Megazord is to spin insanely fast while rushing towards the enemy and coming to a sudden stop after slicing through the enemy with its sword.
  • Special mention goes to Power Rangers Samurai (and of course Samurai Sentai Shinkenger) whose general motif revolves around spinning discs used as powerups for the Rangers' various weapons and zords. In fact, the secondary zords all have a giant spinning discs as part of their designs. As a bonus, each disc also features a pattern which forms the template of a zoetrope that animates when used in the spin swords.
  • Right up there with Samurai is Power Rangers Ninja Storm (Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger). In keeping with the "storm"/"hurricane" idea, there are several bits that spin to evoke (or actually create) whirlwinds and cyclones.
  • Power Rangers Ninja Steel (Shuriken Sentai Ninninger) is another season heavy on the spinning stuff, as the powerup items were shuriken that the Rangers would insert in their equipment and spin to activate. They'd even call out the activation with the phrase "Ninja spin!"
• Robot Wars had plenty of spinning metal. House robot Dead Metal's saw blade cut through most armor like butter, Hypno Disc's spinning disc weapon did its fair share of massive damage (their slogan was "Spin to win"), and Carbide's spinning bar destroyed nearly everything in sight, including parts of the arena. Some robots used spinning in one place as their main attack or defense mechanism.
  • Warhog, a design with bladed, spinning dome, failed to take Newton's Third Law into account and ended up dealing more damage to itself than the other robots, being thrown backwards through the air whenever it tried to ram anything. Later machine Typhoon 2, a lower conical spinner, did much better, becoming champions of the 7th series.
• Despite the page quote (which was a tongue-in-cheek puppet parody of the show, itself), there was never any explanation given for why the eponymous Stargate needed to spin in order to "dial".
  • In Stargate SG-1, this was addressed by having the majority of gates not spin — any gate with a DHD dials automatically, while the SGC (who presumably never figured out the communication protocol for fast dialing) manually dials every time, hence the spinning. (Compare an old school rotary dial telephone to a modern day touch tone to understand the difference.)
  • The spinning is done away with almost completely in the Stargate Atlantis spin off, as the Pegasus Stargates all work digitally, with no spinning parts. The lights do activate in a circular pattern as the gate is dialed, though.
  • To continue the "rotary phone" analogy, the first-generation Stargate found in Stargate Universe functions by rotating the entire gate, rather than by simply wheeling around an inner track. While horribly inefficient, it looks awesome, thus confirming that this trope is in play.
  • In addition, SG-1 season seven's "Heroes, Part 1":
    Emmett Bregman: Could we get a shot of the gate spinning?
    Samantha Carter: ... sure. It's really cool. Steam comes out of it and everything.
  • Lampshaded in "200":
    General Hammond (in Marionette Form): But it's round. It has to spin. Spinning is so much cooler than not spinning!
• The "Mark Jensen Family Christmas" sketch from Saturday Night Live features Will Ferrell singing a Christmas song in front of a choir while inexplicably standing on a revolving platform. Hilarity and vomiting ensue.
• The bad guys in Walker, Texas Ranger were usually finished with a roundhouse kick. It also became his most powerful move on Chuck Norris Facts.
• The "game show" Wipeout / Total Wipeout:
  • The Dizzy Dummies game involves spinning the contestants around at high speeds for 40 seconds, then gets them to do a small obstacle course whilst completely dizzy.
  • Total Wipeout also has the many variants of The Sweeper, involving a long rotating beam that the contestants have to jump over. While stood on small podiums 20 feet over a pool of water.
• In Wonder Woman (1975), the eponymous heroine spins to change from Diana Prince to her super self. The comics have since used this as well.

Music

• Vinyl records. Tapes. Compact discs.
• Round/Like a circle in a spiral/Like a wheel within a wheel/Never ending or beginning/On an ever spinning reel.
• The video for "Midnight Mover" by Accept.
• "You spin me right round, baby, right round, like a record, baby..."
  • ...in a manner depriving me of an inertial reference frame. Baby.
  • "You spin my head right round, right round, when you go down, when you go down down.."^note "Right Round" samples "You Spin Me Right Round"
• Jump 5's song "Spinnin' Around" definitely counts.
• Kylie Minogue: I'm spinning around/move out of my way/I know you're feeling/cause you like it like this!!
• Newsboys concerts sometimes feature two drummers and their sets strapped to a raised platform that tilts and spins above the crowd. It started with the "Take Me To Your Leader" tour, but the audience loved it so much, they kept it.
• Likewise, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee had a 360 spinning drum kit.
• They Might Be Giants: "The spiraling shape will make you go insane!"
• Vocaloid: ''The radius of 85 cm is the distance this hand can reach, I will spin around now so please stay away!"
• ZZ Top: Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill simultaneously spin their guitars a full 360 as a Signature Move, and even Frank Beard got in on the act with his marching drum in the band's Back to the Future Part III cameo.

Pinballs

• On the backglass of Black Hole, the titular object spins around (though this feature was sadly removed from export copies).
• Monopoly has a spinning flipper on the far right of the playfield. It's something of a nuisance, since it screws with the ball's path.
  • Prior to that is Chun Li's "Spinning Helicopter Kick" in Street Fighter II, which also used a spinning flipper that the player must shoot past.
• The Death Star in Star Wars (Data East) spins, even though it has no need to.
• In Gottlieb's Super Mario Bros., Bowser's castle spins, for no reason other than simply because it can.
• Spinning the magic lamp in Tales of the Arabian Nights builds up its magical power.
• Both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Data East) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Stern) have a spinning pizza disc as a major gimmick.
• Whirlwind has a Spinner and three discs that rotate during multiball and when a lock is lit, though the latter is intended to screw with the ball.
• The backglass for Hurricane shows the rollercoaster in the middle of a corkscrew; it spins at periodic times during a game.
• Striker Xtreme (and its Americanized remake, NFL) has a goalie who spins to block shots to the goal.
• The top center playfield of Indianapolis 500 has a toy Indy racer on a circular platform; its only purpose is to spin when the cabinet shakes.
• In Jersey Jack Pinball's The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's house spins because it wouldn't be Oz without it. There's even a "Spin the House" mode to lampshade the point.
• Port Royal in Stern's Pirates of the Caribbean is a spinning compass that flings pinballs about, hitting targets along the perimeter.
• Hook has the Windcoaster Ramp, a gigantic spiral ramp complete with red chase lights.
• The western version of NBA has a spinning basketball disc in the playfield to redirect pinballs.

Pro Wrestling

• It is a gospel part of Wrestling Physics that any high-flying move will be more powerful if done while spinning. Initially, this was just spinning in the direction of motion (ex: 450 splash), but then people started spinning backwards (Shooting Star Press) just 'cause it looked cool (unless you botch it at Wrestlemania, Brock), and you eventually got people like M-Dogg 20 who made their careers out of spinning like tops in every possible direction any time their feet left the ground. Utterly absurd when you think about it, but hey, it seriously does look really, really cool.
  
  For the record, with the Shooting Star Press, you're meant to land with your lower body first, as that's where the downwards motion is. Ain't nothin' illogical about the Shooting Star Press.
• The Spinning Backfist, used as a Finishing Move by Aja Kong (who calls it the Uraken) and Eddie Kingston, who calls it the "Backfist to the Future."
• Mitsuharu Misawa was known for twisting in midair upon connecting with his flying lariat. He also innovated the Rolling Elbow and thus popularized spinning 360 degrees before throwing a strike.
• Chris Hero (aka Kassius Ohno) idolized Misawa, so he loves the Rolling Elbow and uses countless variations. Additionally , he invented a discus pump kick called Cyclone Kill or the Cyclone Boot.
• The Spinaroonie. However, since this is a drawn out break dance taunt, it's a good opportunity for Booker T's opponent to recover, attack, and likely win. This was less the case in WCW, where Booker would just quickly break dance back to his feet after taking the opponent down, sort of like Shawn Michaels' 'kip up' move. Then WCW was bought by the WWF, who presented the spinaroonie as his finishing move.
• When John Cena became WWE champion, it led to the creation of the infamous "spinner belt," which had a spinnable jeweled WWE logo over the usual gold plating. Serious fans were not pleased. The same thing happened when he became US Champion, though it changed back to the old design after he lost it. The WWE belt remained a spinner for a much longer time. When Rob Van Dam held both the ECW Title and the WWE Championship he said he would wear the former proudly. Noting the other one, he said, "And look at this one—it spins!"
• R-Truth spins for no apparent reason after hitting opponents with his flying attacks. Because spinning is cool! One of his signature moves, the Lie Detector (Corkscrew flying forearm smash), involves him running at an opponent, leaping into the air, spinning, and smashing his forearm into his opponent mid-spin.
• Kofi Kingston's Finishing Move, the Trouble In Paradise, is a 360 Degree spin kick to the head.
• John Morrison's Starship Pain (Split-Leg Corkscrew Moonsault) involves as much spinning as you can get in one move.
• Adrian Neville's finisher is a corkscrew Shooting Star Press. "Absolutely breathtaking" indeed. Not to mention all the triple backflips, standing moonsaults, and huricaranas he does...
• The logic of The Young Bucks is as follows: take a Tombstone Piledriver, which doesn't look too devastating when done by anyone besides Kane or The Undertaker. Have a tag partner perform a springboard to aid the piledriver, suddenly it's a viable finisher. Now have the person springboarding do a somersault for no other reason than it looks cool, and you have The Meltzer Driver, which coincidentally won "Best Wrestling Maneuver" from the magazine the move was named for.
• Masaaki Mochizuki of Dragon Gate uses a spinning brainbuster known as the Twister as his primary finishing move. There's also a reverse brainbuster version and "Twister II", the spinning Falcon Arrow. Unrelated to the Twisters but still relevant: the Illusion.

Sports

• In the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, you can increase your score by executing full body rotations and/or windmill motions with your arms during the dunk. Of course, this won't earn you any extra points during an actual basketball game.
• Figure skating. Many of the techniques involve spinning. There's specifically a required spin element (abbreviated Sp) for which the skaters are scored. The jump element also involve spins, classified by the technique and the number of rotations the skaters do in the air: single, double, triple, and quad for one, two, three, and four respectively. ^note Scientists and experts have stated that it's going to take a few decades before we see the first quintuple jump, if ever; it's going to take a very special skater to do it; and even then it will be a rarity, nowhere near the current ubiquity of quads in competition. None of this have stopped skaters from trying. The more rotations there are, the more difficult the jump and spectacular the result. Squeezing as many quads as possible into a performance is also considered impressive in some circles. ^note Detractors claim that the popularity of quads have turned figure skating into an overly-technical rather than artistic sport. As of 2019, the record is held by Nathan Chen, the first man to execute five quads in one routine. Ladies are now also jumping quads, with Alexandra Trusova having landed most amongst them.
  • Apart from the jumps, spinning without jumping is also an important element in figure skating. The record for fastest spin was set by Olivia Oliver from Canada. Figure skaters who were known for their spins include Yulia Lipnitskaya and Stephane Lambiel. Satoko Miyahara is also notable for being able to spin in both directions.

Tabletop Games

• Night Goblin Fanatics in Warhammer, doped up on Psycho Serum and spinning an Epic Flail in great, infantry-crushing circles while they revolve around the battlefield, crushing everything in their path, friend or foe.

Theatre

• Difficult pirouette sequences are a crowd-pleaser in any ballet. The ballets Swan Lake and Don Quixote are both famous/notorious for asking the principal ballerina to execute a lengthy set of fouettés at the end of an equally lengthy pas de deux — in the case of Swan Lake, thirty-two of them.

Theme Parks

• At Universal Studios:
  • The riders are sent rapidly spinning in The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man as they plummet down into the sewers while escaping the villains.
  • The Cat in the Hat used to be very known for it's intense spinning motions until it was drastically toned down sometime in the early 2010's.
  • In Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, one of the bank's security trolls grabs the ride vehicle and sends it spinning for a few seconds.
  • The ride vehicle violently spins every time it gets hit by an alien in Men in Black: Alien Attack.
  • There are multiple times in the former attraction, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, where vehicles spun around rapidly.
  • In Space Fantasy: The Ride, the coaster cars spin throughout the ride duration.
• At Disney Theme Parks:
  • The Mad Tea Party (Hunny Pot Spin in Shanghai).
  • Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.
  • Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, to a lesser extent.

Video Games

• Another video game example or five... any gaming wrestler who uses the Giant Swing is guilty of this too. Yes, King, this means you. For the record, the move is a) grab victim's legs b) spin in place to build up speed c) release d) wave. D optional.
• Spinning around "rotation poles" is the only way to arrest forward momentum, avoid bottomless pits and collect all the treasure in Clu Clu Land
• Backyard Sports: "Oh no! We're in a spin cycle!"
• beatmania IIDX 17 Sirius introduces a new kind of note in which you spin the turntable for the duration for the note, then spin it the other way at the end of the note.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine: Bertrum has become a spinning amusement park ride.
• Bendy in Nightmare Run: The animation for almost all thrown weapons.
• Binary Boy has giant spinning balls on chains as one of the obstacles. Also, at the very end of the game, walking onto the broken pieces of your rail causes both these sections and the entire screen to spin around.
• BlazBlue. Taokaka. Spinning! That is all.
• The CABAL Online Warrior class has at least a complete rotation in at least one axis for almost every skill. Most of the other classes also have skills that involve rotation.
• Chrono Trigger has the main character have two attacks that involve spinning — Cyclone (spin around and hit things inside the arc with your sword) and Confuse (spin around an enemy smacking away at the foe trapped inside the circle). Notably almost all of Crono's early Dual Techs (X-Strike with Frog was the big exception) involved combining someone else's trick with Cyclone to basically make a version of the other person's attack that was bigger, stronger, or hit more targets.
  • Robo has his Laser Spin, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin (he spins around with laser beams active), and Ayla has her Tail Spin. The three together can perform the Twister, where they summon a screen-covering cyclone by spinning together.
• Crash Bandicoot's signature attack. In the third game, it gets taken to the next level where you can spin for three seconds, enough to keep Crash floating in the air.
• Ayane from Dead or Alive spins with almost every attack she makes.
• At level 30, Barbarians in Diablo II gain access to the Whirlwind attack. The in-game description of "Whirling dance of death" is sufficient enough to describe what that move is and does.
• Dizzy: a game character and series based around the idea of rotation.
• The Mad Duck enemy in EarthBound has a move in which it "[makes] something spin around!" What it is that's spinning will forever be a mystery. The something might just be whoever was affected by said attack, seeing as it renders the attack target unable to concentrate. (Read: Silence status ailment) Just a small theory though...
  • Oddly enough, the enemy set Spinning Robo, Whirling Robo, and Hyper Spinning Robo don't actually do any spinning.
• Fairune 1: Hope Girl spins in a circle when she touches the Sword of Hope but before performing her Item Get! pose.
• Barbariccia's Spin in Final Fantasy IV, which makes her invulnerable to physical strikes.
  • Sabin's Blitz techniques Air Blade and Bum Rush in Final Fantasy VI.
• In Fire Emblem most Critical Hit animations have the character spin their weapon before attacking. Heroes and a few other classes will mix spinning with thrown swords, where the weapon spins in mid-air before they drop it on the opponent. This is pretty much the basis of Ike's Aether skill.
  • The Berserker is just as likely to spin himself for his critical animation (Female Path of Radiance Swordmasters do a Shoryuken style spinning sword uppercut for a critical). Both of these look really cool.
  • And then there's the Warrior's axe-critical from the GBA games. Judging from the fact they basically turn into a tornado, they're apparently part Tasmanian Devil.
  • The Bride DLC class from Awakening is all but incapable of doing anything without spinning.
• From the Depths:
  • Railgun magnets will spin around advanced cannon barrels to indicate their charge level; static is uncharged, while they turn into a blur at maximum charge.
  • Twin Guard vessels often mount their Deflector Shields projectors on rotating sections. This greatly increases the craft's durability as if a shield is brought down, a new shield rotates to take its place
  • A number of White Flayers craft are nothing but spinning sawblades with engines. Ramming Always Works.
  • CRAM cannon barrels will retract and spin when reloading.
• This joke review of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 complains that "all you do is spin your ship around; you spin and spin and spin!"
• Multibeam frigates in Homeworld have to spin their whole body around their axis before they can fire for no reason.
• I=MGCM: Ultimate Magica Lilly's "Devil Grinder" skill has her throw her magical weapon and then spin into a giant wheel of fire and sweep the opponents horizontally.
• Jak and Daxter:
  • The lower section of the Palace from Jak II: Renegade rotates slowly for no other reason than to show off the entire game world rendered in real time.
  • One of Jak's main attacks is a spin kick. From the second game onward, it can be combined with a gun to release a flurry of bullets in all directions.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • One of Goofy's abilities in Kingdom Hearts II, Goofy Tornado, is to spin around the area. He learns this in Timeless River.
  • In Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Sora can perform a spinning move with certain Dream Eaters such as Kooma Panda and Majik Lapin.
  • Xemnas, one of the major antagonists, frequently uses Dance Battler-like moves that incorporate spinning.
• The King of Fighters: Rugal Bernstein's Dead End Screamer.
• Kirby:
  • Kirby's Tornado copy ability basically makes him spin around like... well... a Tornado. Whilst it can be difficult to use, when used correctly, it can even take out Final Bosses without any trouble whatsoever or the use of whatever Ultimate Weapon Kirby is often forced to use at this point. Example — Dark Nebula in Kirby: Squeak Squad. In the Kirby's Dream Land games, having the Animal Friend, Coo, and the Parasol copy ability would have you spinning around like crazy too.
  • In Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, when the Master, Meta Knight's very own sword in this game, ability is obtained, his attack whilst dashing makes his sword into a drill with which he flies horizontally across the level, just like Meta Knight does in Brawl. (except Kirby can't change direction)
  • The Sword and Hammer abilities also do this. Kirby's attack whilst dashing with the Hammer has him spin horizontally and with both Hammer and Sword, attacking whilst in the air makes Kirby spin around. (Sometimes, the spinning maneuver is given to the Cutter power instead.)
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards gives one of the more amusing applications of spinning as a deadly attack: the Ice + Cutter ability turns Kirby into an olympic-level skater, whose quadruple axles kill on contact.
• League of Legends: Garen. "DEMACIAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!". Also featured very prominently with Katarina, Wukong and Draven. It's basically Memetic Mutation at this point.
  • Not to forget Dravens brother Darius who even has two ingame quotes in which he asks how a "he", with which he obviously means Garen, is able to do "it", after he tries to spin around for more than 360° and fails. Darius is the only champion with a spin ability that ends after 360° and does not last for several seconds.
  • The precursor of this, although not to the level of Memetic Mutation, is Defense of the Ancients, whereas Juggernaut also possesses a skill that lets him spin around for massive damage (and as of Dota 2, comes complete with a loud yell of "JUGGERNAAAAAAUUUUUTTT!!!!"), not to mention granting him magic immunity. Darius' predecessor, Axe, also has a single 360° spin skill, in which it activates randomly if someone attacks him, so in a way, he could do this multiple times, but always in a single 360°.
• The Legendary Starfy's main move is spinning.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails:
  • Trails in the Sky: Estelle inherited her father's staff fighting style which is based on this concept. In a specific sense, her Wheel of Time S-Craft on multiple levels. First, she spins fast enough to create a whirlwind around herself as she charges the enemy, then she spins around her victim at high speed, creating a whirling vortex of energy around the target as she repeatedly pummels it from all angles.
  • Trails to Azure: Noel's has the "Rebellion Shot" Craft, where she spins around while firing her guns at the enemies surrounding her.
  • Trails of Cold Steel: Aurelia Le Guin spins her sword a few times whether it's her deflecting tank rockets or winding up her sword to unleash her S-Craft.
  • Trails through Daybreak: Van's "Stun Slash" Craft, as well as it's upgrade "Magna Slash," has him turn in a circular motion as he slashes the target.
• In The Legend of Zelda, the ever-present Spin Attack, originally called the "Whirling Blade" when it debuted in A Link to the Past. The Wind Waker version can upgrade it to a Hurricane Spin Attack, which is a faster, longer and more mobile version of the attack, but pushes the spinning a bit too far and causes Link to be dizzy afterward. Twilight Princess has the Great Spin, which allows Link to release a very powerful spin when he's full on HP. The game also added a tool called the Spinner, which rotates walls in dungeons, and you can ride grooves.
• maimai has some charts that require your hand to follow slide notes that go around the circular screen. More difficult charts will require you to keep up with tap notes that spin the same way.
• Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne makes use of this trope during the slow-mo reload animation.
• Mega Man:
  • The Top Spin of Mega Man 3 is incredibly effective against one of the Robot Masters, and takes out the last boss in one hit. In fact, it takes out almost anything it can actually damage in one hit. However, it's INCREDIBLY awkward to use, so much so that 99% of players never use it outside of the aforementioned boss battles. When Top Man uses it, it's significantly less useless: it causes collision damage to you and deflects all of your shots, making him Nigh Invulnerable.
  • Tundra Man is effectively Top Man fused with a ice-themed Robot Master as a figure skater. The majority of his attacks involve pirouetting around the stage to slam into Mega Man, and can also deflect shots by spinning fast enough.
  • Finally, Mega Man Geo-Omega's Elemental Cyclone attack in Mega Man Star Force 1 and Star Force 3, has him spinning to create a leafy tornado.
• Vamp from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty can spin in place and dodge bullets. This isn't just from one shot. He dodges constant fire from an M16 while spinning in place.
• Metroid:
  • Samus has the Screw Attack, and the Spin Attack (a/k/a "Ghetto Screw Attack" in many strategy guides). The former makes Samus invincible, frequently combines with the space jump to allow infinite midair attacks, and usually deals a one-hit kill to all but bosses and (usually) metroids. The latter is a significantly weaker, one-time-only version achieved by spin jumping with the charge beam fully charged. Samus also has access to the Space Jump, which lets her jump an infinite number of times as long as she remains in a somersault.
  • Super Metroid: Two of Samus's best upgrades, the Space Jump and Screw Attack, invoke a lot of airborne spinning. In fact, given that Samus won't spin-jump (and thus activate the Space Jump or Screw Attack) if her horizontal velocity isn't high enough when she jumps, the game is an extremely literal example of this trope; her jumps really are much better with spinning. Even before acquiring the Space Jump or Screw Attack, Samus must also spin-jump in order to wall-jump successfully.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes had those annoying Quad enemies (and their boss Quadraxis) who would attack by spinning at Samus like a top.
  • The Prime series also introduces the Boost Ball upgrade, which normally propels the Morph Ball forward. But use the boost in a spinner device, and Samus spins in place to manipulate the attached machinery with her kinetic energy. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption kicks it up a notch in Skytown, which has these circular generator things that you have to boost around for a while to activate whatever they're connected to.
• In Minecraft Dungeons, some melee weapons use spinning attacks in their combos, and there's an enchantment that allows you to apply this trope to any melee weapon.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Hammer users in the games have a spinning hammer attack available to them. It looks cool, but since it's actually a botched version of the charged hammer stomp, there are usually better attack options.
  • Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: Duramboros attacks primarily by spinning its tail around the rest of its body to perform a skyward launch and try to stomp the hunters. It's a very powerful attack (a layer with little health can faint easily due to this attack), but it leads to Duramboros needing a brief cooldown period before being able to stand up to reaume attacking. During this period, the hunter can proceed to attack the monster without risk. The monster's desert-dwelling subspecies in 3 Ultimate (Rust Duramboros) can do this as well.
• Mortal Kombat
  • Kung Lao. His hat is a giant sawblade! He spins around to create a deadly energy...thing!
  • Kabal also has the ability to spin others as a disorienting move, and to messily dismember opponents with later fatalities. Cyrax spins his own head to somehow not only fly off the screen like a helicopter, but turn it into a death-propeller and chopping up his opposition.
• Paper Mario:
  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, when you are attacked, you can press A to cover up and reduce some of the damage taken, or if you think you're up for it, you can press B for a "super reversal" where the attacker takes one point of damage. Of course, when you do this command, Mario spins in place momentarily. Likewise, most attacks have a hidden set of alternate Action Commands which cause Mario to perform them more "stylishly" for a bonus; some of the "stylish" versions involve spinning.
  • Also the Super and Ultra Hammer's Attacks involve spinning.
  • In the first game, Mario could spin in whatever direction the player was holding at the time. Whilst it's main use was to get to places quicker, if a certain badge was equipped it could cause the Dizzy (read: Confused) status ailment whenever he used it to run into an enemy.
  • There's also an item called the Dizzy Dial, which causes the Screen to Spin around when used and is supposed to cause the Dizzy ailment when it works.
• Persona:
  • Persona 3: Koromaru doesn't just charge into shadows with a knife, he somersaults into them.
  • Persona 4:
    • Yousuke spins around with both weapons in hand for his follow-up attack.
    • Teddie's follow-up attack has him drill into the enemy with his claws, spinning around as he does.
    • Yukiko spins with her fan to strike her tarot card, in which her Persona proceeds to spin around before attacking or healing; Chie's Persona spins its weapon during some spells/attacks and Yousuke even does a spinning jump to strike his tarot card.
• Pokémon:
  • There's an attack called Rapid Spin, which deals pathetic damage but clears the field of hazards and cancels trapping moves, making it incredibly useful in competitive play.
  • Gyro Ball is a physical Steel type attack, in which the foe is tackled with a "high-speed" spin. Ironically, the slower the user is compared to the target, the better, being capable of up to 150 base damage if the user has minimal Speed. (Steelix in particular loves it with Curse) However, Gyro Ball was somewhat neutralized by the "Bulletproof" ability from Generation VI onwards.
  • Generation V introduces the move Drill Run, where the user throws themselves at the enemy while spinning, and gains an increased Critical Hit rate to boot.
• In [PROTOTYPE], one of Alex's strongest melee attacks is the Cannonball, in which he tucks himself into a ball.
• Punch-Out!!: Super Macho Man's Signature Move is the Super Macho Man Combo, a series of spinning backhands which are technically illegal in real life. In nearly all appearances of the character, these punches are instant-knockout moves (the exception is in the Wii game's Contender Mode, as they only deal high damage; the instant-knockdown effect only applies in Title Defense).
• In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Courtney Gears and her backup dancers will attack Ratchet by spinning with their legs. As she is The Dragon to Dr.Nefarious, this would technically count as Everything's Worse With Spinning.
• The Shift series has the screen spin halfway whenever you shift. Touching gravity arrows also causes the screen to spin to the appropriate perspective.
• Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Sonic (spiny hedgehog), Shadow (genetically engineered spiny hedgehog), and Knuckles (spiny echidna) can do a spin attack. Tails (fuzzy fox) is just as deadly. Tails has whirling tails of fuzzy doom.
  • Then in Sonic Adventure...Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles still have their jump-spin attacks, and can roll. Sonic also has his spin dash. Amy can learn to stand still and spin with her hammer, although since her stages are primarily 'flee from the robot' and the maneuver is very stationary one may never find a use for it. And then Tails gets to spin his tails around, until you get his power up ... and then he gets to keep attacking while moving, nonstop. Even Gamma gets in on the spinny action, as an easy way to clear a room with him is holding the target button and spinning wildly.
  • Blaze the Cat spins... and also creates a Fiery Tornado. This is especially noticeable in Sonic Rush and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
• In Spiral Knights, the charge attack of the Calibur line of swords and the Fang of Vog is a 360° spin that can hit multiple times. The Spur and its upgrades are mechanized swords with built-in motors that are constantly spinning.
• The Void Rays in StarCraft II have spinning...parts around the gun.
• Star Fox: "Do a barrel roll!" Also falls under Spin to Deflect Stuff, since it's the primary means of avoiding damage by enemy fire.
• Tequila's ultimate Tequila Bomb attack in the John Woo game Stranglehold has him spinning around in slow-mo with guns in hand, arms outstretched like an angel of death (if you're using Guns Akimbo, that is), and blasting the hell out of every bad guy in the general vicinity. And to top it off, we get the doves flying in slow-mo along with this.
• Street Fighter II:
  • Has many moves, many of which involve spinning: Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku, Spinning Bird Kick, Spinning Clothesline, Spinning Piledriver, Cannon Drill, Psycho Crusher, and even the Shoryuken had the character turn 360 degrees. Toss in the Rolling Attacks (which are just spins in another plane) and it's easy to see how someone can get dizzy.
  • The character Zangief's whole move-set was designed around full rotations of the D-Pad, often resulting in an onscreen Spin in the performed attack. He's the spinning Russian man! And, in honor of Zangief, other grapplers in the Street Fighter canon (like Hakan in Super SFIV) gained 360-spin (really 270) power grabs. Zangief took Mike Haggar's piledriver move and added his own extra "twist". Throw in a few back drops and power slams, and you have his ultimate technique, the Final Atomic Buster.
  • And in the Alpha series, Guy has the Bushin Senpuukyaku which is basically a Hurricane Kick Shoryuken. The move was ported with him to SNES-only Final Fight 3.
  • In Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, Eagle from Street Fighter re-appears with a completely new moveset. All of his special attacks involve spinning in one way or another, except for Attack Reflector St. Andrews Green (which is a golf swing). When he taunts, he twirls his batons around like a drummer.
  • Super Street Fighter IV outright overkills with this, as nearly every single new Ultra attack involves some sort of spinning. In fact, of the 35 characters total, around 26 of them have an Ultra that involves excessive spinning of some kind (though your count may vary if you count repeated rolling and flipping as "spinning"). Especially infamous is Akuma's one.
  • Street Fighter V newcomer Rashid uses a lot of spinning attacks, keeping in line with his wind-based moves.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Both Captain Falcon and Ganondorf can spin around mid-punch which actually make the attack slightly stronger.
  • Elsewhere, Meta Knight's side-B turns his sword into a drill with which he flies horizontally across the stage, and neutral-B spins him in place like a tornado (mashing the B button will allow him to take flight). Likewise, Donkey Kong's up-B spins him up into the air like a helicopter. Falco gets in on the spin act, too, with his chain-A. Finally, taking a cue from Super Mario World, Mario can spin his cape at opponents with side-B, and has an attack called "Mario Tornado."
  • Luigi has his own version of the Mario Tornado, called the Luigi Cyclone, which (with Rapid B-Button presses) can send him pretty high into the air. Most Luigi players will prefer using this move for vertical recovery rather than his up-B.
  • Also in Brawl, Zero Suit Samus has a taunt which involves her twirling around while her whip spins around her body. Admittedly, this doesn't accomplish much of anything, but it looks amazing.
  • Kirby has a midair attack where he spins around, kicking at nearby opponents. It looks better than I'm making it sound, seriously.
  • Jigglypuff can spin along the ground like a wheel, with devastating effects. The game manual labels that as Rollout, which is a move in the Pokémon games.
  • Link's signature spin attack can launch him in the air and hit the enemy several times before sending them flying.
  • Rob. Almost every one of his attacks involves spinning. His side B causes him to spin like a top, his down B causes him to charge up a top, which does a lot of spinning, his down smash is a spinning attack, and his neutral air is a spinning thruster attack.
  • A few of Bowser's attacks involve him retreating into his shell and spinning, with the most notable being his up-B, the Whirling Fortress.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Spin Jump in Super Mario World and the Star Spin ability in Super Mario Galaxy.
  • The Topman Tribe in the Battlerock and Dreadnaught galaxies. Bowser would also get his own version of the Star Spin to use against you from the second time you encounter him.
  • Before spinning with a cape, Raccoon Mario from Super Mario Bros. 3 could spin and hit enemies with his tail.
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii gives us the propeller hat, which allows Mario limited flight if he, you guessed it... spins. He also slows his descent by spinning as he falls, and can turn his fall into a deadly, drill-like attack.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga has a few Bros Attacks that involve spinning. Notably, the Splash Bros Advance changes the attack from a combined jump attack to sending Mario drilling into the enemy.
• Tales Series:
  • The swordsman's technique Tempest. The swordsman makes a rolling leap through the air, twirling their sword around like a giant human rotary saw. Ruca, the main character of Tales of Innocence, can keep an enemy in the air for several seconds by chaining together Tempest, its enhanced version, and the burning version, Fire Tempest. The combo is both effective and awesome. It can also be used for flight in games with a battle mechanic that allows it to be spammed.
  • Tales of Symphonia gives us Presea, who wields a large ax that can be at least as large as she is. Most of her techniques involve at least one good full spin of the ax, but her advanced punishment techniques send her spinning like a top. Colette has a few attacks involving her spinning while holding out her twin chakrams. Finally, Regal is a kick-based fighter with a wide range of horizontal and vertical spins, including the Crescent attacks, which make him do vertical spin kicks that cut.
  • For another example that Western gamers can recognize, Yuri of Tales of Vesperia is a big damn showoff, as he cannot go one battle without his weapon spinning in one way or another. A lot of his animations involve him twirling the weapon around for no reason, notably the end of his physical combo. On top of that, his most popular arte is easily Shining Fang, which has him spinning his weapon vertically and is a crucial part of his infinite combo.
    • Same game, enemy example: Nan does a fair amount of spinning, but her Mystic Arte turns it up to 11.
    • Karol has multiple flavors of spinning attacks like the aforementioned Fire Tempest (Vertical spinning), Roaring Revolution (Rolling forward), and Ultra Punishing Swing and its variations (Horizontal spinning). The most notable of the latter would have to be his Ultra Punishing Storm, that makes him spin fast enough to create a tornado and fly into the air.
  • One of Kunzite's best moves in Tales of Hearts is the Kuuhasenmeidan, where he dives headfirst into the enemy with all four of his blades pointed forward and spinning like a drill. Overlaps, of course, with the one about drills (it's even in the move name).
  • Eleanor from Tales of Berseria spins her spear one-handed for almost all of her artes including her third mystic arte.
• Tekken:
  • Yoshimitsu and his nemesis Kunimitsu both have spinning backfist and spinning legsweep manoeuvres in the games.
  • Mishima Kazuya winds up a powerful uppercut while spinning as well.
  • Heihachi has 'Hellsweeps', too.
  • And as mentioned earlier, there's the Giant Swing throws.
  • Yoshi also has a blade spin move, and a helicopter move. Who knew katanas had aerodynamic properties?
• Touhou Project:
  • Ran Yakumo and Chen tend to spin whenever they fly around. Or fire bullets at you. Or are being used as projectiles by Yukari. Or any combination of those things.
  • And in the tenth installment, Mountain of Faith, we have Hina Kagiyama who twirls around pretty much constantly.
  • In more old-school news, PC-98 character Orange is frequently portrayed as a baton twirler due to carrying a baton in canon.
  • Some of Cirno's attacks in the fighting games.
  Ice Kick: Goes in for a flying spin kick while generating ice all around. There's actually no need for the spinkick, but she thinks it's cool.
  Cold Body "Super Ice Kick": A spinning kick from the heavens. The longer this attack hits, the more powerful it is, but Cirno gets dizzy after a while. There's really just no reason for her to be spinning...

  • When firing out larger numbers of bullets, Nitori spins at insane speeds.
• The Blademaster's Bladestorm from Warcraft 3 somehow makes him invulnerable to most magic attacks while he is spinning. Also applies to his Defense of the Ancients cousin the Juggernaut (NOT an example of The Juggernaut, incidentally) with the weaker Bladefury.
  • Warriors in World of Warcraft get this one, too.
  • Also from Warcraft 3, the Demon Hunter's repertoire of autoattack moves includes a spinning attack.
• In Diablo one of the warrior skills is a spinning attack which heals the warrior for a percentage of the damage dealt to opponents. This is the origin of the common adage "spin to win", since it's a very useful ability when you are surrounded and outnumbered.
  • Given to the character Sonya in Heroes of the Storm.
• WipEout: If you do a barrel roll during a jump, you gain a massive speed burst that drains a considerable amount of shield energy. Since you're already high up in the air, it's quite likely to shoot you right off the track into buildings or over the railings of bridges.
• In Pixel Junk Eden, spinning draws in nearby pollen, prevents you from gripping terrain you don't want to, and damages some enemies.
• Most ship based emotes in Earth & Beyond involved spinning. Players were fond of combining upward and downward vertical loops to make figure 8s in space. And of course there was the obligatory Do a Barrel Roll (with options of rolling on different axis), bonus points for being usable while in formation. If the formation leader did a barrel roll the entire formation would be forced to preform a giant arching circle through space around that barrel roll.
• In Carrie's Order Up!, Carrie can spin to breeze past customers and avoid colliding with them. Just watch out for puddles. And Carrie working up a sweat.

Web Animation

• Leekspin. And its many, many knockoffs.
  • But not meatspin. (No, I'm not linking it. Google at your own risk.) There is only one SFW version of meatspin, though. Here it is.
  • Among the same lines, Reispin, from our very own fora.
• Super Mario Bros. Z is practically a love letter to this trope.
• DSBT InsaniT:
  • Bill's Monster form, which is a spiked green quadraped that can roll into a ball. Pangle the pangolin can as well.
  • Robber Eel can form himself into a hoop shape and roll around.
  • By rotating in the air horizontally, Screech can create a huge drill in front of himself that allows for Fast Tunneling.
• Dreamscape: Kai can make a hula-hoop of natural energy appear around his body to boost himself forward and slice enemies.
  • Liz can create a hurricane by flying around and around.
• Teen Girl Squad: In Issue 10, Strong Bad gets carried away replaying a 360 rotational shot of the Teen Girl Squad saying their catch phrase "SO GOOD!". What's Her Face is left in spin mode for the rest of the episode ("Whee!"), or at least until she gets lathe'd in half by a tiny samurai.

Webcomics

• In Coga Nito, Eric's power set revolves around [heh heh] the ability to make anything he touches spin, with a direction and velocity of his choosing. If he tries to make a solid object 'spin' in multiple different ways at once, it builds up internal stresses that make it easy to shatter.
• In Dubious Company, Tiren gets knocked off the airship. To survive the fall, she starts spinning while repeating her mother's lesson that spinning controls everything...
  Tiren: [on landing] ...even gravity. [beat] Hugk!
• In Housepets!, one of Peanut's comics had Spot (Superdog) claiming to see the future. His girlfriend says his super-vision can't do that, but he simply replies, "Spinning was involved."

Web Original

• OMG IT SPINS!!!◊
• Whateley Universe:
  • Lancer, the flying super-brick of Team Kimba, has this as a move. He extends his PK field over a pair of shortswords and spins. Imagine Superboy as a buzzsaw.
  • Shroud, on the same team, uses a similar trick with bladed arms AND legs to create a double-layer buzzsaw in combat.
• The Whirlwind Batting Technique.

Web Videos

• Pink Kitty Rose loves this trope. Her favorite weapon in the Classic Mega Man games is the Top Spin, and she's made it a point to demonstrate that the weapon's not as bad as people say it is. Mega Mari's Rolling Slash isn't far behind.
• Vinesauce Vinny has the "SPEEEEN!" meme, originally inspired by the spin attack in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and quickly becoming an involuntary reaction to anything spinning — particularly when it seems like it shouldn't be. Though once it became the chat's involuntary reaction as well, it started turning into the first Discredited Meme in quite a while (as also demonstrated in the video).

Western Animation

• Amphibia: In "Flood, Sweat & Tears", the river lampreys twist their bodies together and spin around rapidly, effectively turning themselves into a living buzzsaw.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Airbending is based on the real-life martial art "ba gua", which utilises spinning to generate the maximum amount of energy. Aang mostly just spins his staff.
• In Centurions, John Thunder's Thunder Knife weapon system is essentially a gigantic circular saw, complete with spinning action, attached to a tank-like body.
• Yumi from Code Lyoko sometimes executes a wildly spinning move to confuse the enemies while deflecting/returning their fire with her tessen fans.
• Futurama: The episode where they deliver a huge block to the pseudo-Egypt planet. After the pharaoh dies, Fry decides to celebrate by spinning until he falls down. He gets roughly one revolution.
• In the episode "Beyond the Sea" of Generator Rex, Rex takes his huge sword, pulls a lever, and turns it into a gigantic spinning buzzsaw. It does pretty much the same amount of damage as it does as a sword, but looks a whole lot cooler. The buzzsaw also has an advantage in that it continues to do damage after the original impact, while the sword expends most of the power on impact. He can also make his giant hands spin to drill under something or just make his punches hurt more.
• Kim Possible:
  • Her sidekick Ron Stoppable give a new villain the idea for the Spinny Tops of Doom.
  • Subverted in the episode where Kim temporarily gains Hego's Super-Strength. After spin-drilling a tunnel into Aviarius's lair, she declares "I do not recommend that" while shaking off the resulting dizziness.
• Ninjago is this trope. The primary attack of the main characters is spinning so fast they turn into mini-tornadoes like the Tazmanian Devil. It isn't called Masters of Spinjitzu of nothing.
• Phineas and Ferb use this all the time:
  • During the song "Mix and Mingle Machine" for one, which Mixes and Mingles you quite violently, especially when you want to travel tangential to your motion.
  • They also build giant tops.
• Popeye has the Twister Punch, wherein he twists his forearm before punching, letting it untwist as it hits the bad guy.
• Rigby suggests this in Regular Show while trying to help Pops get over his stage fright. It works momentarily, but ends up making him so dizzy he falls into an alternate universe.
• The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror VII" features drooling aliens Kang and Kodos disguising themselves as presidential candidates, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. During a speech, Kodos (Clinton) tells his audience that they "must move forward not backwards, upwards not forward, and always twirling, twirling towards freedom", while spinning in circles. The crowd explodes with enthusiastic cheers.
• SpongeBob has "The Bubble Blowing Technique" which involves a lot of spinning.
  SpongeBob: First go like this, spin around. Stop! Double take three times: one, two three. Theeeen PELVIC THRUST. Whoooo, whooooooo. Stop on your right foot, DON'T FORGET IT! Now it's time to bring it around town. Bring-it-a-round-town. Then you do this, then this, and this, then this, then that, then this and that, and then-(Blows bubble)
• Steven Universe: Spinel can attack others just by spinning really fast and uses the said spinning a lot.
• Looney Tunes: The Tasmanian Devil. He eats... and spins... and eats and spins and eats! Of course, the same goes with Dizzy Devil from Tiny Toon Adventures.
  • Babs Bunny from Tiny Toon Adventures will frequently spin to change into a costume. In the episode, "Two-Tone Town", she tries to demonstrate this technique to older cartoon character, Goopy Geer, but he can't quite get it right (the first time he tries, he ends up naked), until the very end.
• Underdog did this sometimes, most notably once for effective Invisibility. (The idea is that he's spinning too fast to see. No explanation for him being silent as well.)
• In The Legend of Zelda (1989), Link had a tendency to spin his sword in a flashy manner. When he becomes incapacitated in one episode, Zelda uses his sword — and does the same thing.
• In the later seasons of Justice League, when Diana changes from civilian attire to her Wonder Woman outfit, she spins in a fashion similar to her live-action series.

Real Life

• Fidget spinners, which were designed as stim toys to help neurodivergent children focus, took off in popularity among neurotypical crowds in 2017 thanks to the inherent novelty of a toy designed to spin constantly. Various novelty versions capitalized on this trope by adding lights and sounds concurrently with the spinning, which ended up making them defeat the original purpose of the toys. A mixture of this and overexposure resulted in fidget spinners declining in favor of other stim toys more explicitly designed for neurodivergent users.
• Taekwondo match fought with World Taekwondo-rules gives two points for a standard kick to the chest and three points for a standard kick to the head (both fighters wear full protective gear) while a spinning kick gives one more point for both.
• Do a Google search for do a barrel roll. Or click here if your too lazy to type it yourself (may be not as smooth).
• Planets. If the Earth didn't spin, the planet wouldn't be inhabitable, as one side would be boiling hot while the other side would be near absolute zero. By the same token, if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, it would likely be a doomsday situation as, for one, everyone (other than people in space stations) would get flung due east at over 1000 miles per hour. And that's only the beginning.
• Although it's certainly not a fun experience for the idiots who subject themselves to it (or those unfortunate enough to be coerced into agreeing to take part), the Merry-go-round of Death challenge certainly is spectacular! Demonstrated in this compilation video, the challenge is reasonably simple — ride on a merry-go-round and try to hold on for dear life while someone spins you by using a motorcycle's rear wheel against the ride's disc. Brave Darwin Awards nominees attempting this challenge risk injuries that would normally be seen in fighter pilots, as over-G situations are very common; in addition, the Centrifugal force invoked from being spun at high speed gives plenty of chances for riders to literally be launched out of the ride at nearby objects.
• ''Semazen'', the Sufi meditation practice that involves spinning oneself around as an imitation of the planets.
• Guns are much more accurate thanks to the invention of rifling the barrel, giving the bullet a spin that keeps it flying straighter gyroscopically. This was the reason for the name rifle, but almost every modern gun now has this feature, including handguns. The only common exceptions are shotguns, since this wouldn't work on spread shot. Many have a rifled barrel for firing slugs, however.
• Dynamos and Turbine: they provide most of the electrical power on earth, with only a few power generation methods not using them in some capacity,meaning the modern world is powered by spinning (Photovoltaic cells and Thermoelectric generators being exceptions)
• Euler's Disk is a fun science toy that was featured in The Big Bang Theory and several online shows. It's like a spinning coin that keeps spinning for several minutes due to it exploiting inertia to spin faster and faster until coming to an abrupt stop.
• Inverted with neutron stars. They spin very fast (1000 times a second or more), and as a result throw out a vast amount of energy and radiation, likely rendering any planets within a certain radius uninhabitable. Fortunately, no such stars exist near Earth. However, this spinning is good for scientists, as it means that they're quite easy to find once you can determine just how fast it's moving.

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Like a record baby,
Right round round round!

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