Grasp the Sun

"Can't beat 'em? Eat 'em!"

"Follow the sun!
Catch the sun!"

— Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan Theme Song

A visual motif wherein a character who is about to attempt some superhuman feat reaches out towards the sun (or the moon, Earth, etc.) with their hand, as if to grasp it. The camera then switches to his point of view as the hand "grabs" the selected celestial body via Depth Deception. This symbolizes the human will to seize things that are just too big for them.

Additionally, it is the source of the expressions "reach for the stars", "shoot for the moon" and "touch the sky."

Not to be confused with cases where characters literally grasp the sun.

Compare Got the Whole World in My Hand, Milking the Giant Cow and "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending.

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Examples:

Advertising

• There's a series of PSAs encouraging children to go out and play that has them using the sun as a ball. One is set to "Why Does The Sun Shine?" as recorded by They Might Be Giants.

Anime & Manga

• In the End of Evangelion film, Asuka clutches at the sun while trying to get up after she gets fragged by mass-produced EVAs, refusing to give up...then that arm gets split in half as she is impaled repeatedly. She is associated with the Sun several other times throughout the series.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Lockon tries "grabbing" the Earth while he delivers his Final Speech.
• Love Hina: Keitarou does this to the Tokyo University clock tower.
• See the finale of the Fullmetal Alchemist (2003).
  • Edward is very fond of doing this in the 2003 anime openings. He just never learns, does he?
  • Used in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episode 45, where Greed announces his intention to Take Over the World and then makes a grabbing gesture toward the moon.
  • Brotherhood also has it as a recurring motif in the opening songs. The gesture has particular relevance due to how Father consumes God — he opens the gate of heavens in the circle created by the moon and the sun's corona during a solar eclipse, climbs into the sky, and absorbs it into himself. In other words, he grabs the sun and moon.
• A variant in Hellsing, where Alucard does this to the moon.
  • In the OVA series, Maxwell caresses the moon for a second while giving a speech.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, naturally.
  "He takes the burning sun in his hand and withstands the heat!"
• Sorcerer Hunters: Carrot does this in the opening credits animation.
• Mayuri Shiina of Steins;Gate does this with some frequency. Okabe calls it Stardust Shake Hand. He does it himself at the climax of Episode 23.
• In The Last: Naruto the Movie, Naruto "reaches out to the sun" when he makes his Heroic Vow to save Hinata from Toneri and properly return her love for him. Goes hand-in-hand with Visual Pun, as Hinata's name means "sunny place/towards the sun".
• In the Little Busters! anime opening Riki reaches for the sun but doesn't quite manage to reach it even with creative camera angles.
• No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!: Tomoko does this in the OP.
• In the last episode of Pokémon the Series: Black & White, Ash does this as he recalls all of his previous traveling companions and thinks ahead to Kalos region.
• In one episode of Hyouka, Satoshi reaches out to grasp the moon, declaring that he will catch the thief that's been prowling the culture festival.

Comic Books

• Lucifer: The series has an interesting use of this trope. After creating his own cosmos (not simply a dimension within the existing one, but a completely new one totally separate from his Father's Creation,) Lucifer appears to the people he's allowed to move in as a horizon-spanning titan, lays down his one rule (worship nothing, not even him,) and informs them that they'll know if they displease him because the sky will turn black. As he says this he moves his hand behind the sun and grasps it in his palm. It's not totally clear whether this was a vision he induced in the watchers, or if he physically altered himself and his universe to make it literally possible; given his power within his new universe, either might be true. However, even if he literally did it, the symbolism usually applied to the gesture still apples; he is openly challenging God with his own Creation, and despite knowing that his opponent is omnipotent and omniscient, and having been directly told by the Archangel Michael that God does not consider Lucifer to have moved outside His jurisdiction, Lucifer still continues to defy a power and reach for things that should be well beyond even him.
• Squadron Supreme: In Supreme Power, Hyperion flies into orbit for the first time as a boy and looks down at Earth. Light from the sun gets in his eyes, and he puts his hand in front of him, over Earth. He pulls his hand back... and then puts it back in front of the world as if to clutch it.

Fan Works

• HERZ: During her nightmare in chapter 2 Asuka reminisces how she clutched at the Sun while threatening the Evas after getting her left eye impaled.
• RE-TAKE: Asuka's "death", as it was in the movie. And in the final chapter she does this after Shinji has put an engagement ring around her finger.
• Sinner Blue Darks Misfortune: Done by the eponymous protagonist.

Films — Live-Action

• Subtle use of this trope in Apollo 13: Tom Hanks' character Jim Lovell makes a habit of obliterating the moon by holding his thumb in front of it and closing one eye so it seems to disappear. Later used in an Ironic Echo when he does the same trick with the Earth. And in fact, in real life, Lovell was the first astronaut to mention being able to cover the Earth with his thumb.

Literature

• One character in American Gods mimics taking the moon, conjuring up a silver coin for the protagonist Shadow. When they meet again in a metaphysical place, she asks him for the coin back and literally puts it into the sky as its moon to light his way.
  • Mad Sweeney does the exact same thing, only with the sun into a golden coin, showing off for Shadow while drunk(er). By the time he realizes that the coin he plucked was not just any coin and tries to get it back, Shadow's already buried it with his recently deceased wife. This act leads, through separate means, to Sweeney's death and his wife's resurrection. Later on, Shadow learns to do this himself.
• A famous bit of symbolism in The Great Gatsby involves the titular Anti-Hero reaching to grasp the light across the water (at Daisy's mansion).
• Wings of Fire shows the births of two dragons (Darkstalker and Moonwatcher) who were empowered psychically by moonlight touching their eggs. In both cases, the dragonet's first act was to instinctively (try to) grasp one of the moons in their talons.

Live-Action TV

• In the Merlin miniseries, the wizard appears to grab the moon and manipulate it like a coin, but then revealed that it was "just a trick". I gotta say, some trick!
• Super Sentai:
  • Doing this is part of Magishine's rollcall pose, where he takes the sun in his hand. Fitting for a sun-powered Ranger. This extends to his American counterpart, the Solaris Knight.
  • Parodied in Ressha Sentai ToQger. Akira, thinking that he's died, wonders if he's in Heaven or Hell as he reaches out and grasps Tokacchi's face, much to the former's embarrassment.

Music

• This theme comes up a lot in the Gloria Estefan's 1996 Olympic theme song, "Reach."
• Also, Duran Duran's "Reach Up for the Sunrise".
• Used by Hyadain to convey the lonely, melancholy mood of the eponymous singer in his "Bubble Man, I'm Bubble Man" Mega Man fan song.

Mythology & Religion

• In Hindu Mythology, when the monkey demigod Hanuman was very little, he mistook the sun for a juicy mango. So he reached out to it...and almost caught it, causing immense panic in everyone else. For this reason, Hanuman was depowered with Laser-Guided Amnesia until he grew older.

Video Games

• Lumine (not Sigma!) does this with the Earth during his motive rant at the end of Mega Man X8.
• Dante sort of does this to The Savior in Devil May Cry 4, holding his hand up to the towering statue from far away so that his hand appears larger than it. He says "You don't look so big from where I'm standing." He then clenches his fist over the statue and dusts his hands off, as if miming crushing the statue in his hand.
• Tsukasa does this during the normal ending of the visual novel Swan Song.
• Asura from Asura's Wrath does this with the moon. Before punching his way to the floating city of Shinto with the same hand.
• Dark Souls III: Appropriately, given the importance that the the Sun (and its absence) has in the setting overall, the player quite literally lifts the Dark Sign into the sky to replace the sun during the "Lord of Hollows" ending. The sight is equal parts inspirational and terrifying as while it signifies the End of an Era and the beginning of a new age of Dark and Humanity... the world is still in ruins and Darkness is Ambiguously Evil. While impressive, this still makes for a very bitter Bittersweet Ending at best.
• Riku does it with the moon in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded in the scene titled "A Sad Memory", though in his case it's more like he's realising that what he wants is far out of his reach at the time.
• In The Stinger for Kingdom Hearts III, The Master of Masters looks up to the full moon and holds his hands up to it in the shape of a heart. This visualizes his ambitions for Kingdom Hearts, which takes the physical form of a heart-shaped moon.
• Colin in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess does this after Link rescues him on the Bridge of Eldin. It's a more low-key example than most, but it shows that the kid is ready to get over his fear and learn to become a brave fighter, just like his father and Link already are.
• The gesture is inverted visually and thematically in the ending C of NieR: Automata, where A2 reaches out towards the sun just before she plummets to her death. Unlike a typical example, the POV is reversed, so we see her from above, rather than through her eyes, and instead of attempting some superhuman feat, she has just successfully accomplished the goal of her entire existence (as well as fulfilled an important promise she made along the way), and is happy to be finally able to join her long-dead friends and comrades in the afterlife.
• Elden Ring: When Melina immolates herself with the Flame of Giants to destroy the thorns barring the Tarnished from the Erdtree interior, she reaches up towards the sky with a grasping gesture — though not towards the sun (which plays little to no metaphysical role in this game), but rather towards the top of the Erdtree itself (which is pretty much the center of creation of the Lands Between). As the camera pans out over the scene, it frames her in a very particular way as to align her outstretched hand with the Erdtree crown.
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown opens with a shot of The Narrator Avril Mead standing in the middle of a desert with her right hand stretched out towards the midnight sun. As the opening scene unfolds, we get an explanation for this gesture: Avril (who is a mechanic and not a trained pilot) has spend years restoring an old fighter jet from scrap parts and is about to take it for its first test flight in that scene.
• In The Stinger for Final Fantasy XIV, Zenos yae Galvus reaches up to the harvest moon and closes a fist around it while having a soliloquy over their upcoming goals and eager rematch with the Warrior of Light.

Web Comics

• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Coyote shows Annie the extent of his powers by plucking the moon from the sky for her to touch. It's left ambiguous as to whether he actually removed the moon or employed some trickery to make it look like he did. Well, that changed a couple of strips later...
• Inhuman goes into Cinne's thought process a bit, punctuated by him "pulling up the sun".

Western Animation

• Not exactly the sun, but in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, after sending a drone to spy on the Little Green Men's Unimind, Emperor Zurg does this as he observes the mystical orb through a screen.
• General Shiva tries doing it just before his death in Exo Squad. but the sun is obscured by clouds.
• Invoked but avoided, by nature of the "fight", in the final showdown of The Flight of Dragons: when Ommadon threatens to rip the sun from the sky above and use it to scorch the land, Peter defeats the spell by stating as fact that the "sun" he's reaching for is actually an afterimage.
• Hazbin Hotel: In "Overture", when Charlie sings about getting Heaven behind her plan at the beginning of "Happy Day in Hell", she reaches out, and the camera shows her point of view as her hand appears to grasp for the light shining from the window.

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