"Fighting off monsters with a bouquet of flowers? How romantic."
When a character has super powers (especially the glowy variety), artists will want to personalize them. After all, seeing twenty lime green Battle Auras would make viewers think they're watching a rave, not a Martial Arts and Crafts Cooking Duel. And so it goes that most Ki Manipulation, Deflector Shields, Glowing Eyes of Doom, and sundry visual effects are Color Coded to the character.
Well, some are a tad more original when they personalize their offensive repertoire. They use... flower petals! That's right, this character attacks enemies by spontaneously creating a swarm of lovely flower petals. These petals aren't harmless though, they're usually either razor sharp or explosive, accompanied by a gale force wind, deadly poison, or a powerful barrier. Or all of the above, in order to annihilate a foe with a deadly display of beauty.
The petals can be from any flower, but commonly, it's rose petals, peach blossoms, or Cherry Blossoms (these are a big favorite in Anime). Leaves aren't out of the question either, though using Vine Tentacles is not this trope. The attack itself may or may not actually be made of petals; it could just be a fancy visual aid that disintegrates post attack. That said, most instances of this trope come with flower based names and they actually do evoke power over plants in some form.
Sub-Trope of Single Substance Manipulation. Not to be confused with Flower Power. Users are prone to wear Garden Garments.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In the Ah! My Goddess anime, Peorth has her Storm of Roses attack, which is a storm of rose petals, though she uses whole roses in the manga version.
- Bleach: Byakuya's zanpakutou releases by shattering the blade into thousands of microscopic blades. When the light reflects on a blade, it creates the illusion that there's a floating Cherry Blossom petal. His Bankai summons two thousand giant blades which promptly shatter into billions of these blades. This lowest level of his Bankai has the flexibility to form sword or dagger-shapes as necessary, allowing Byakuya to attack via the microscopic blades, a Flechette Storm or a Storm of Blades. At one point during his fight against Renji, he does all three at the same time.
- The "Flower" card from Cardcaptor Sakura. While it is not malevolent, the sheer mass of uncontrolled petals created quite a mess at that school festival.
- In Chrome Shelled Regios, Felli Loss has this justified as her weapon actually are "flakes" (shaped like pink petals) of metal that she controls as a psychokinetic.
- In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, users of the Flower Breathing sword style have flower petals flowing in the direction of their sword attacks as a visual representation of their skills. The prominent user of the Flower Breathing is currently Kanao Tsuyuri, but in the past it is shown her older adoptive sister Kanae Kocho was a Flower Breathing user as well.
- Lillymon, Sunflowmon, and Rosemon from Digimon have attacks that fit this.
- And even Crusadermon, who is not flower-themed. Turns out, the rose that's typically a prop (see James from Pokémon) can be used to create a storm of petals to blind/distract the enemy. (It actually seems to hurt them just once.)
- Mard Geer from Fairy Tail can create rose petals from his Thorn Curse that explode.
- Guiche of The Familiar of Zero has a rose for a magic wand. Among other tricks, he can make the petals turn into animated suits of armor when they hit the ground.
- Archer from Fate/stay night is capable of using the legendary shield Rho Aias of the greek hero Ajax the Greater, which takes the form of seven large flower petals.
- In Last Exile, while not a power per-se, Delphine dropping clouds of flower petals across a ceremony while flying above certainly causes Alex to flip out.
- Several of the attacks of the Shinmeiryuu school of swordfighting from Love Hina and Negima! Magister Negi Magi incorporate cherry blossoms in their name and special effect. Presumably, the sword does all the work. Just to drive the point home, the name of the Negima swordswoman is Sakurazaki, written with the kanji for "cherry blossom".
- Usually when Negi sneezes, clothes often turn into flower petals because of the explosion of magic from his magical shield.
- In Mokke, Mizuki gets attacked by spirits using cherry blossoms.
- One of Mocchi's attacks in Monster Rancher is Cherry Blossom Blizzard, which sends a whirlwind of cherry blossom petals at the enemy.
- Naruto:
- The kunoichi Karenbana from the 3rd film uses a jutsu that makes her body seem to dissolve into pink petals, which hide her position and prevent her enemy from seeing her attacks.
- And in a Part 1 filler arc, we are called to "witness the Flower Ninja Art of the Land of Vegetables": the heads fly off flowers in the field where the fight takes place, turning into shuriken or exploding.
- Kagero does this in Ninja Scroll in order to stave off a swarm of wasps. The petals are stated to have a calming effect.
- In One Piece, Nico Robin, who ate the Hana Hana no Mi (Flower Flower Fruit), has the ability to replicate her limbs on any solid surface. When she does this, white-purple petals will fly from wherever she sprouts the replicated limbs.
- The twins, Houzuki and Bonbori in Otome Youkai Zakuro. They can put their souls into flower petals and use them as attack, defense, and tracking devices. However, they can only use them while singing.
- Pretty Cure:
- Milky Rose from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO!. Her attack "Milky Rose Blizzard" is a blue rose petals storm. "Milky Rose Metal Blizzard" is the metallic and stronger variant.
- Cure Blossom and Cure Flower from HeartCatch Pretty Cure! have cherry blossom powers.
- Cure Ace from Doki Doki Pretty Cure uses red rose petals.
- Cure Flora from Go! Princess Pretty Cure has special attacks ranging from a storm of Pink Petals (Flora Tourbillon), Red Rose Petals (Rose Tourbillon) and white lily petals (Lys Tourbillon}. Pink Petals even storms out when she punches or kicks something real hard, usually as a cue for her Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Puni Puni☆Poemi parodies this trope with Nanase Aasu, who can summon a whirlwind of flower petals...to absolutely no effect.
- In Ranma ½, Kodachi Kuno often has black rose petals around her. Usually incorporated into her exits or entrance, but occasionally involved in an attack. Parodied in one episode, where Akane struggles to clean up the petals left after one of Kodachi's dramatic exits, then eventually gives up and goes to bed.
- In Rozen Maiden, Shinku uses rose petals for her attacks.
- Sailor Moon:
- Pictured above: Zoisite from Sailor Moon. His (her in the DiC dub) dark energy attacks take the appearance of cherry-blossom petals.
- In the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal, some of Jupiter's attacks also involved petals, such as her "Flower Hurricane".
- Additionally, Cere Cere from the Amazones Quartet specializes in plant-summoning and once blew hypnotic petals at Chibiusa's friend, Momoko. Tuxedo Mask gets an honorable mention, because his multiple-rose attacks involve whole flowers, not just the petals.
- Pisces Aphrodite from Saint Seiya who use several type of rose (petals included) for his attacks. He also filled the stairs behind his temple with poisonous roses so, even if he lost, Seiya and Co. wouldn't reach their goals. Too bad Marin derails his plans, though to be fair, he didn't have any way to know she'd show up there.
- Slain Youko from Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura dissolve into a cloud of petals. Later it turns out that this happens to anyone killed with the heroine's sword, monster or not.
- White Crow of the Three-Color Gang at the beginning of Samurai Deeper Kyo, whose Limit Break relies on trapping the opponent in an illusion-generating storm of cherry blossoms.
- One episode of Uta∽Kata had Ichika transform into someone with this power.
- Kurama from YuYu Hakusho has his Fuuka Enbujin attack, which is basically Razor Leaf with rose petals. The dub had two different translations for it, one of which was "Petals and Thorns".
Asian Animation
- One of the monsters of the week in the Chinese animated series Kodama uses petal attacks, such as forming a fist from them.
- In Little Door Gods, the spirit Huaxian/Bloom fights using pink petals.
Comic Books
- The Outsiders: Subverted in Batman and the Outsiders Annual Vol 1. Geo-Force was pitted against Mayflower, a girl who controlled plants. After a lengthy fight with her, Geo-Force notices that Mayflower was almost a spitting image of his sister. Mayflower then commands a dandelion to grow and disperse its seeds in a cloud, covering the hero's face in a layer of thick fluff that suffocates him enough to knock him out.
Film
- The Wuxia film The Bells of Death offers a live-action example, when the protagonist, an expert swordsman with a high level of chi, uses his interior chi energy to grab a handful of dead leaves and fling them on a group of enemy mooks. The leaves ends up sticking on the mooks' faces with enough force to rip off their skins.
- An inversion: in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, the three fairies protect Prince Philip from a rain of arrows and spears by magically changing them to harmless flowers.
Literature
- In Bequin, the Chaos Space Marine Teke can control rose petals with his sorcery. He can send them to attack people like a swarm of bees, or wrap them around himself and magically transform them into either a bodyglove or a suit of Power Armor.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider 555: The Rose Orphenoch fires blasts of petals from his Hakaider-like brain-window-thing.
- Super Sentai:
- Viscount Cherry Blossom in Gosei Sentai Dairanger, who became "Terror Blossom" when he appeared in the second season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
- The Torchwood episode "Small Worlds" has a race of evil fairies that kill people by shoving flower petals down their throat.
Podcasts
- Hannah/Spring from Sequinox can summon roots, vines, and flowers. Syd/Autumn can also make leaves that are sharp as knives and throw them with her wind power.
Tabletop RPG
- The Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition sourcebook Book Of Exalted Deeds includes at least one spell that manifests a rain of magical flower petals.
- To be more specific, the lower-level spell creates a rain of red roses whose smell makes evil creatures violently sick. The more powerful one creates a rain of black tulips that explode on contact with evil creatures.
- Back in first-edition AD&D, 17th-level monks (the highest that class could go) were called "Grand Masters of Flowers". Which didn't sound very badass, but they were.
- The odic, a powerful tree-possessing evil spirit from the Basic/Expert/etc version of D&D, can send its drifting leaves to attack victims.
- In Exalted, the Wood-aspected Terrestrial anima can produce this effect. There are also several Wood-aspected combat Charms that can do this.
Video Games
- In BlazBlue, Rachel's Astral Finish causes her opponent to explode in a shower of rose petals.
- In Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, several of the Mandragora based spells involve attacking with flower petals.
- At one point in Conquests of Camelot, Arthur can summon a whirlwind of rose petals to guide him across a frozen lake.
- Dead or Alive's Kasumi has a Cherry Blossom motif, which she can use to teleport; her half-sister Ayame does the same with iris petals (appropriate to her name). Ryu and Hayate (Kasumi's brother) does it with leaves.
- Digital Devil Saga has a physical attack skill called "Sakura Rage" which creates this effect. It can also cause the "Charm" status effect.
- Diao Chan in Dynasty Warriors 7 invokes this power in most of her special attacks.
- The Final Fantasy franchise must have several hundred acres of cherry trees to provide the necessary petals to their characters.
- Also, Final Fantasy X has Yojimbo's Zanmato.
- In Final Fantasy IX, one of Freya Crescent's attacks is Cherry Blossom, which is a pretty standard slash that erupts into flowers for some reason.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics, secret character Cloud had a similar attack
- In Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning and Odin's attacks are accompanied by rose petals.
- In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the main character (and the main character's child) can learn a skill called Ignis. While it doesn't have any powers related to flowers, it does end in a shower of flower petals if the attack hits. This is a play on the skill's Japanese name, which can be read as Blossoming Flame.
- In Flower, it's pretty much the main thing, allowing you to open flowers and bring color back to the landscape. It is also useful for destroying some of the man-made structures or making them useful.
- Flora is a summon in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, who apparently attacks with flower petals. Flora is the Goddess of Flowers in Roman mythology.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- The Cure line of spells features leaves, vines and flowers that circle the characters and rain down healing magic.
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has Marluxia, who wields a massive pink scythe which has flower petal attacks. The PS2 remake runs with this, adding petal effects to almost everything he does, even the standard Villain Teleportation. Marluxia's powers are also death-themed, making them the opposite of the Cure line. As a side note, Marluxia is male.note
- In Kingdom Hearts II, the Samurai Nobody's Dual Stance reaction command summons up a shower of Cherry Blossoms. Likewise, starting in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Zantetsuken summons a shower of Cherry Blossoms.
- Speaking of Birth by Sleep, Terra and Aqua's weapon summoning effects are personalized beyond the simple flash of light, while Terra gets geometric shapes, Aqua gets a rush of cherry blossom petals, somewhat odd, since she's not associated with flowers beyond that.
- Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind: Every single one of Kairi's attacks are accompanied by animation of flowers.
- In The Legend of Dragoon, Lavitz and Albert both have protective spells that envelop the party in a storm of flowers or cherry blossoms.
- Mega Man:
- Plant Man from Mega Man 6 has his signature weapon, the Plant Barrier, which surrounds him with a protective ring of flower petals that rotate around him, which he can also fire at Mega Man. Mega Man gains the Plant Barrier after defeating Plant Man, though he can't fire it when he uses it.
- Mega Man X5: Spike Rosered/Axle the Red, uses a rain of deadly petals as his Desperation Attack.
- Mega Man Star Force: Dragon Sky has deadly cherry blossom breath as his signature attack.
- Lifeweaver of Overwatch has a pervasive lotus flower motif, with his "biolight" technology manifesting in various petal patterns. His primary healing power comes in the form of launching blossoming buds towards his allies, and he creates Hard Light "Petal Platforms" to lift people into the air.
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: Being flowers, Red Stinger and Nightshade (when powered by Moonflower) attack by throwing petals at zombies. The former shoots two at one go when placed in the back lines, and the latter's hurts so much, it kills a basic zombie in only two hits.
- Grass-Type Pokémon give us a few attacks like this.
- Petal Dance, a powerful Grass-type move. After using it the Pokémon is locked in for a couple of turns, and after the effects wear off, they are confused.
- Magical Leaf fits the trope even better than Razor Leaf, since in spite of the name it is actually more like a storm of rainbow petals attacking the opponent.
- Petal Blizzard is a physical Grass-type attack that hits everything besides the user.
- There is also the Z-Move Bloom Doom. It's probably better seen than heard.
- In the Fighting Game Spin-Off title, Pokkén Tournament, the character Gardevoir has rose petals accompanying many of their attacks, and similar effects in many of their related accessories or titles. This is of note due to the fact that Gardevoir is not Grass-type, but instead dual Psychic/Fairy type. That being said, the line does learn the Grass-type move Magical Leaf, amongst others.
- The Romancing Saga games feature the recurring BFS technique "Midare Setsugekka" which always involves a flurry of flower petals floating across the screen.
- In SaGa Frontier, there's the katana technique "Tres Flores" which has the attacker ensnaring the enemy within a giant glass flower, before shattering it into tiny, petaline pieces.
- Samurai Shodown: Yoshitora's special moves all produce flower graphics when they connect. He also yells the flower names.
- Both Secret of Mana and its sequel Trials of Mana feature "Sleep Flower" spells that use flower petals to put your opponents to sleep.
- Keiji Maeda from Sengoku Basara who, unlike other characters associated with the wind-element, invokes these during some of his special attacks.
- Sonic Heroes: When Team Rose unleash their Team Blast, it involves a balancing act that generates an explosion of flower petals. It's surprisingly effective.
- In Street Fighter IV, Vega's Bloody High Claw Ultra sends the opponent skyward, then lets them come back to the ground amidst a shower of dainty red rose petals. Except with Vega being Vega, those aren't rose petals.
- Suikoden also does this with one of its Wind-element spells, "Wind of Sleep".
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Peach's Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Peach Blossom, features plenty of the titular flower.
- Daisy's special moves in Mario spin-offs often feature trails of flower petals.
- A decent number of enemies in Super Mario RPG use the attack Petal Blast that turns the player's characters into mushrooms (unless prevented by a Trueform Pin).
- Raven from Tales of Vesperia has a spell called Arrivederci, which is a whirlwhind of flower petals.
- Terraria has the Orichalcum armor set; when worn, flower petals shoot towards enemies when you strike them. It also has the Flower Pow, a flail dropped from Plantera which shoots off petals in addition to its basic flail attacks.
- In Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom (of course), the final boss Yuyuko Saigyouji has the danmaku pattern "Perfect Cherry Blossom of Sumizome" (of course), which clutters the screen with falling petals. In the fighting games, it's her underling Youmu that makes cherry petals appear all around her when she slashes her sword real quick. In both cases, they're deadly or damaging to your health bar. However, if you collect the harmless sort of cherry petals (or the larger-value cherry blocks), you earn your way towards a Supernatural Border, which makes you invincible for a short time and allows you to clear the entire screen of bullets with the touch of a button.
- In Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Phiona's Soul Crush, "Crimson Grace", begins with the Battle Cry "Fall as the petals of the rose!", and ends with lots of red rose petals spattering around, almost like droplets of blood.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has Dunban and his "Blossom Dance".
- In Xenogears, Citan's "Rumble Earth" attack summons rose petals (though the actual damage comes from the katana he jams through his opponent's gut).
- In Xenosaga, there's MOMO and her "Floral Tempest" attack, with which she calls forth a gust of floral petals and a rainbow.
- Several entries in the Yakuza series allow you to obtain the 'Sakura' Katana as a secret weapon. It's fairly powerful, though by no means an Infinity +1 Sword, but it DOES trail sakura-petals whenever you use it, which can lend your brutal gangland beatdowns a certain... air of grace.
Visual Novels
- In Marco & the Galaxy Dragon, Haqua can appear and disappear in a swirl of cherry blossoms.
Webcomics
- In Asperchu, Wes-Li's very own version of the Curse-Yame-Ha looks to invoke petal power.
- From Kill Six Billion Demons, Nadia Om, known as The Blood Flower, uses this to disintegrate a dissident subject.
- Ren from Tower of God fought Anaak with a monster that had a four-petaled energy shield and a beam cannon.
- More straight examples came later with Yuri's Rose Shower and Dowon's general shinsu control skills.
Web Original
- SCP Foundation: SCP-143 is a forest of incredibly strong trees with razor sharp petals. The Foundation lost three staff members when they were out collecting petals, and the wind picked up.
- Ruby Rose from RWBY leaves a trail of rose petals whenever she uses her Super-Speed Semblance.
Western Animation
- One episode of The Backyardigans features a superhero named Flower Girl (played by Uniqua) who has this power.
- Flora from Winx Club, the shy and sweet fairy of nature, prefers the use of vine whips to wrap around her opponents and immobilize them. Even so, she has been shown using beams and attacks made of petals (or whole flowers), particularly in the later seasons and the movies.
