Use Your Head / Anime & Manga

• Baccano!: In one scene, Jacuzzi Splot uses a series of relentless headbutts to the face to distract and disorient his opponent.
• Bleach:
  • Isshin has used this on his son Ichigo more than once. Specifically, to break him out of Heroic BSoD's, like the one that came after losing to Gin Ichimaru.
  • A truly spectacular headbutt is the key to Ikkaku finally defeating Shishigawara in the X-Cution arc.
  • Similarly, when Mask de Masculine beats the shit out of Kensei in the 1000 Year Blood War, among other things he applies a BIG one to his victim.
• In Blood Blockade Battlefront, Leo does this more than is probably healthy. So far he has headbutted not only the king of despair but he also breaks Dr. Gamimozou's eye of the Gods by repeatedly headbutting him. He also headbutts a Beyondian for laughing at Riel after breaking his arm, which is less impressive compared to the above instances, but no less admirable.
• Blue Exorcist: Rin does this when told by his brother to start using his head in battle. He literally does when knocking back a demon twice his size with a headbutt and the only damage done to him is a minor nosebleed, which is only seen in the anime.
  • Better yet, the demon provided all the momentum — it charged him and all he did was hold his ground and intercept it. With his head. And then he goes and befriends said demon aka the size shifting friendly Kuro.
  • For bonus points, Yukio didn't see it◊ coming.
• Captain Tsubasa: Ryo Ishizaki's sort-of trademark is using his face to block dangerous soccer shoots — at great risk to himself, as often said shoots are so powerful that he ends up knocked out. He's not the only user, either: Tsubasa once did it as well to block Hyuga's Tiger Shoot, though he was savvy enough to use his leg and his arm to hold on the goalposts.
• Case Closed uses this twice:
  • An extremely angry Miwako Sato headbutts a suspect who has abducted her boyfriend Takagi and put him in a very cruel Death Trap, having mistaken Takagi for the guy whom he blamed for the suicide of his pupil who was like a daughter to him.
  • A Whole Episode Flashback shows that a four-year-old Shinichi got so pissed off at a boy who had been harassing Ran despite his and Sonoko's objections that he ended up headbutting the HELL out of the bully as corollary to a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• In Code:Breaker, this appears to be The Prince's favorite way of getting her point across.
• Deadman Wonderland: This particular move is used for great effect by Ganta. He headbutts Minatsuki so hard she passes out while bound by her hair whips, then immediately tells the crowd to fuck off when they demand blood.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Tanjiro's head is incredibly tough and he frequently uses to headbutt his foes when his arms are restrained. It has proven effective even on supernaturally tough demons and even the Pillars, the strongest members of the Demon Slaying Corp. It's parodied in one gag strip, where it's used to chop wood and even as a cutting board. Apparently he inherited this trait from his mother, who was known to out headbutt their forest's wild boars.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds have a remorseful Doraemon - after realizing his Cloud Disperser Cannon has been hijacked by the poachers and is being used to bombard the Cloud Kingdom - deciding to atone for himself by using his head as a missile to ram into the cannon's side. This actually works, with the cannon getting destroyed with the rest of the villainous poachers in the process, though Doraemon was saved from death thanks to being revived by Kibou later on.
• Digimon Adventure 02: Veemon's main attack is Vee Headbutt. It's also worth noting that one of his evolved form's moves, Fire Rocket, can be this. That name covers two completely different attacks in the English dub though, the other being him shooting fireballs from his fists, which is known in Japan as Fire Knuckle.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Early on in the manga, a flying headbutt was just about Goku's primary finishing move, being used to end many of his fights, for example, against Staff Officer Black.
  • Goku headbutts Piccolo Jr. to send him out of the ring and win. That's right. He saved the world with a Ring Out. He already tried the same strategy against Tenshinhan 3 years ago, where it would have worked if it wasn't for that damned truck driver in the way.
  • Dragon Ball Z: His son Gohan performs a rather impressive, armour-splitting headbutt on his uncle Raditz. He also pulls one against Garlic Jr. on filler.
  • Goku vs Majin Vegeta includes a scene where the two of them repeatedly headbutt each other while grappling.
  • During the inter-dimensional tournament in Dragon Ball Super, Goku ends up fighting a guy who fits the definition of Stone Wall. Vegeta tells him to use his head, with predictable results. Goku then actually does figure out a logical weakness - the guy's used to letting his opponents whale away at him and doing nothing, so Goku simply flips him and drags him out of the ring.
• Fairy Tail: Natsu Dragneel has two magic attacks as headbutts. He flies towards the enemy and hits him/her with his head while he's wreathed in flames. They are called Karyu no Kenkaku and Shiranui Gata: Guren Hōō Ken.
  • Both, Gildartz and Bluenote clashes together with their heads.
  • Laxus does this to Hades as his first attack.
• Gangsta.: When Alex is suffering withdrawal symptoms from the TB meds her pimp Barry gave her to keep her compliant and is hallucinating that Worick is a John she kisses Worick and starts undoing his pants, but Worick stops her immediately and resorts to headbutting her to snap her out of it. It works but it also puts Worick on the ground in agony as it turns out Alex has a Hard Head, which she immediately apologizes for.
• Gintama: Several characters have incorporated the headbutt in their fights, usually without much effect on themselves.
  • Gintoki ends his fight with Jiraia this way. It only knocks him out for a little bit though.
  • When Takasugi punches Gintoki repeatedly in their fight, the latter manages to stop him by headbutting him.
  • Kagura's family seem to love doing this to each other when pissed off. Umibouzu did to a young Kamui (who was holding a baby Kagura at the time — Umibouzu managed to snatch her away first), and Kagura and Kamui do it to each other constantly in their fights.
  • During the Rakuyou Arc, Gintoki attempts to "kill off" (knock out) a heavily injured Umibouzu this way so he can take his title as the strongest man in the universe and fight Kamui himself. Unfortunately for him, 1) it nearly knocks him out too, and 2) Umibouzu mistakes the headbutt for a fly, leading Shinpachi to retort that Gintoki's headbutt didn't even have any impact.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers, young Romano (South Italy) does this to Spain after the latter irritated him by pulling on his Idiot Hair.
• In Holyland, Katou doing this to Shougo starts the latter's defeat.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Phantom Blood: After reaching his Rage Breaking Point with Dio, Jonathan headbutts Dio, and repeatedly punches him until he actually cries.
  • Stone Ocean: Jolyne takes down Officer Westwood by delivering a single headbutt after he got slammed by a flaming shoe.
• In Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru the defensive use is the trademark of Kaburagi-ryu Karate: if you can't dodge or block a strike to the face, take it on the forehead and have the enemy's limb smash itself on the thickest bone in the human body. This works quite well: during Minoru's kickboxing fight with Skandalaki Minoru breaks the arm of his otherwise extremely superior opponent by headbutting it while he tried an elbow strike, and when Takenaka (at the time the weakest named member of Kaburagi-ryu) is challenged by a delinquent the latter's attempt at headbutting him results instead in the delinquent being headbutted on the nose.
• In Kinnikuman: Scramble for the Throne, this is how the finishing move Muscle Revenger starts. The victim is headbutted into the air repeatedly before put into a lock on the way down.
• The Law of Ueki has a minor character whose power is the ability to turn his head into diamond when his hands are in his pockets. His only attack is using his head.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Arf does a charging headbutt in wolf form that sends Zafira flying in the second episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's to prevent him from interfering with Nanoha's Starlight Breaker.
  • During one of her matches in the Tournament Arc of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, Harry/Halley found herself unable to use her hands to block her opponent's incoming fist. She responded by meeting it with a headbutt, injuring her opponent's hand in the process.
• Mazinger Z:
  • Kouji — who is a full-blown Combat Pragmatist — has no qualms using that tactic when he is fighting with Mazinger-Z. This is especially dangerous since Mazinger-Z's cockpit is on its head.
  • Great Mazinger: Tetsuya is an even bigger of an offender than Kouji.
  • UFO Robo Grendizer: Duke also uses that tactic sometimes, although he has a good excuse: usually he is trying to ram the enemy rather than head-butt it, but his Humongous Mecha head is on the front of his starship when both mechas combine, so that it is the first thing hits the enemy.
  • Mazinkaiser: Kouji also does it in this series.
• Naruto:
  • This happens during the title character's fight with Gaara. There is some injury, causing both characters to bleed, and it also shatter Gaara's control over his jutsu. You try maintaining the form of a hundred-foot tall Eldritch Abomination through that.
  • Also, the filler episode where Hinata opens a door to find Naruto standing upside-down on the ceiling so that his face is, like, three inches from hers. She, of course, blushes beet-red with her crush so close to her. When Naruto puts a hand to her forehead (he mistakes the blush for a fever-flush), she screams and then impulsively headbutts him across the room, knocking both him and herself out.
  • At the end of chapter 563 Naruto does this to Tobi immediately upon finding him. That's right, his opening move against the Big Bad is a headbutt. Naruto complains about him having too hard a head afterward.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • This is what Nagi does to Arika to stop her from her Heroic Self-Deprecation. TWICE. While running away from a horde of monsters. With no magic.
  • In chapter 320, Negi invokes this to object with Fate.
• Ninja Scroll: Jubei keeps headbutting an immortal enemy until that enemy's face is caved in towards the end of the movie.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy's attack, Gum Gum Bell. This one has the added advantage of Luffy being able to stretch his neck out over 100 feet before he executes it. Justified in that Luffy's rubber body renders him pretty much immune to blunt damage. One interesting use is when he wraps his arms and legs around Captain Kuro, then uses his head, his only free part, to headbutt him and knock him out.
  • After the timeskip, Luffy can vulcanize his head (or at least his forehead) to make his Gum Gum Bell hit with the force of a bungee-powered, iron-crushing bowling ball.
  • Legendary pirate Don Chinjao has a headbutt that can crack continents. Or rather they could back when his head was long and pointy, but Garp punched his head so hard that it dented it flat, which was also a problem as he needed his pointy head to break into his family's hidden treasure vault, hence why he hates Garp and (by extension) Luffy until Luffy punches his head back to its original form.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Ash's Scraggy likes to headbutt as a greeting, though this is natural for its species.
  • In addition to the use of the attacks mentioned above throughout the series, the opening battle scene in Pokémon 3 the Movie: Spell of the Unown shows Pikachu and a Quagsire suffer a Double KO when Pikachu accidentally smacks headfirst into it after rebounding off a swing.
  • Ash's Glalie is infamous for defeating a Charizard and a Metang with a headbutt, both opponents having a type advantage over Glalie. Even more impressive (and kind of unbelievable) considering the fact that Metang is a Steel-type and Normal attacks like Headbutt are ineffective against Steel-types.
• Pretty Cure does this several times.
  • In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, Cure Marine's "Odeko Punch" means translated Forehead Punch, and she uses it semi-frequently.
  • Cure Happy performs one to stop an attacking piece of Fusion in Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage. She does it again in Episode 32 of Smile Pretty Cure! and in New Stage 3, with Cure Rouge giving it the name "Happy Head Attack".
  • Rachel in Doki Doki! PreCure once wants to fight a Jikochuu for hurting Yashima. As he's in his fairy form, there's not much he can do, but he manages to drag Cure Diamond along with him as he smacks the Jikochuu with his head, essentially defeating it while hurting his cheek.
• Saint Seiya: Subverted in Shiryu's fight with Seiya. Shiryu had a shield legendary for being in destructive and gauntlet capable of destroying any material. However Seiya rushes head long into Shiryu's shield in what appears to be slamming his head into it and it gets destroyed and somehow so does the Gauntlet shocking the whole crowd, most of all Shiryu. However a slow down video recording of the act shows the subversion-Seiya may have literally used his head, however its not the head ram that breaks the shield but the fact he fell to the ground shortly after hitting his head into it. At the last moment before he fell down, Shiryu threw a hook in an attempt to put out Seiya for good but by the time he swings it, Seiya is on the mat cold and instead Shiryu hits his shield with his hook. Since both the shield and gauntlet are of equal power, they destroy each other in the process.
• SD Gundam Force has the final battle against General Zeong, where Chief Haro takes action to protect his subordinates and a princess... by leaping several hundred feet into the air and headbutting a guided missile into submission. It works. He then beats up other missiles with his bare hands, then headbutts another four of them simultaneously. This also works. Do not mess with Chief Haro.
• Slam Dunk:
  • Hanamichi Sakuragi does this so much, it's practically his off-basket signature move. One of his first scenes ever in the series involved him headbutting his True Companions for teasing him, then other people for unknowingly hitting one of his Berserk buttons, and more than once he has dealt them to his own teammates (like Ryouta Miyagi), schoolmates (like Tatsuhiko Aouta) or people from other teams (like Hikoichi Aida) if they piss him off enough. Takenori Akagi and Kaede Rukawa are pretty much the only ones who can resist his headbutts without being knocked-out.
  • A flashback reveals that the aforementioned Ryota Miyagi is also fond of this "move", as he's seen trying to defend himself from bullies led by a pre-Heel–Face Turn Hisashi Mitsui by headbutting their "boss" and knocking down two of his (Mitsui's) front teeth.
  • In a subversion, at some moment Sakuragi did this to himself. When Rukawa once called him out on not going all out on the rivals, Sakuragi's reply was to... hit his own head on the hard floor of the basketball court. From then on, however, he decides to stop holding back.
• ST☆R: Strike it Rich: During their fight, Riku powers through Hina's blows to headbutt her. This is the first time Hina gets hurt by an attack.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: this is, oddly enough, how hacking works. (The Gurren Lagann also has a habit of using its head, admittedly as a guided missile).
• In Tiger Mask, the headbutt is the main shtick of the real-life wrestlers Kintaro Oki and Bobo Brazil (the latter of which being fond of the Coco Butt, consisting in headbutting the upper part of his victims' skulls for increased damage). Bobo Brazil's fictional apprentice Black V brought it up a notch (as Brazil specifically wanted to create an improved version of himself), as he used the ring ropes and spinning to give himself momentum and execute a devastating Missile Headbutt, and Tiger Mask himself used Bobo Brazil's trademark Coco Butt on The Convict, who, having never received one before, suffered a lot from it.
• Transformers Zone: Sonic Boomer uses the spike on his head to headbutt Trypticon.
• World Break: Aria of Curse for a Holy Swordsman: Ranjou does this to Moroha in their first meeting. He then mentions her name from a past life, and she excitedly asks if she can headbutt him again to jog his memory.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • Chu tries to finish off Yusuke with a headbutt, but Yusuke counters it with an even stronger headbutt, and then quips that humans invented it.
  • Yusuke uses his head during the Curb-Stomp Battle that is one of his last fights. While possessed by his demon ancestor, he fights Sensui a second time and absolutely beats the living shit out of him, including this trope, Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and Meteor Moves to reduce the ex-Spirit Detective to a beaten body on the ground. Which he then fries.

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