Love Hurts? More like love kills.
"Laser is not difficult
Concentrate your mind
Mutter the spell to the Mini-Hakkero tenderly
Aim at someone you don't like
Now, unleash your annihilation of love!"
Concentrate your mind
Mutter the spell to the Mini-Hakkero tenderly
Aim at someone you don't like
Now, unleash your annihilation of love!"
In a nutshell, a character who uses Love as one of their Elemental Powers.
A character with this power is fueled by or themed around innocence, love, beauty, attraction or lust. Because these are more feelings than a proper element, the abilities of the user will have to do a lot with their personality and the general tone of the series.
The signature and tell tale sign that this element is at work is when a character makes Heart Symbols show up during their moves, or if they take the place of sparks, stars and explosions during physical impacts.
If they do their own fighting, expect their style to be very feminine. They tend to be associated with slap attacks and dance moves, and suggestive butt attacks and kissing attacks.
If they're not the fighting type, a character with this element will use Intimate Healing or the Kiss of Life. May be able to purify their opponents and empower their allies or seduce and hypnotize them. Usually through magic or weapons that act like concentrated Love Potions or hyper potent pheromones in more 'realistic' settings.
The user is almost Always Female and likely to be The Heart of the team. With rare exception, good or evil, they're also very attractive. Male examples are usually with their girlfriends nearby. A solo male example might be Played for Laughs, but throughout the new 10s and into the 2020s there's been growing acceptance of neutral and positive examples of a man that's In Touch with His Feminine Side enough to use it unironically.
Sub-Trope of The Power of Love. Sister Trope to Holy Hand Grenade. Super-Trope to Projectile Kiss.
Usually the powers of a Love Goddess or Cupid's Arrow.
Compare Care-Bear Stare, The Power of Love, Heart Is an Awesome Power, What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?. See also Super-Cute Superpowers (this tends to look cute, but it's not really a subtrope, since this concept is "weaponized power of love").
Has nothing to do with using a heart as an Improvised Weapon to apply a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Melonpanna from Anpanman has the "Mero-Mero Punch", (mero-mero meaning lovesickness), which causes her enemies to become immobilized by love, leaving them open for attack from the other heroes. Also, thanks to her Melon Juice being a component of her big sister Rollpanna's good heart, she can use this to bring her out from her evil heart side.
- Bleach has two rare villainous examples. The first is Zommari Rureax, the Séptima (7th) Espada. His Resurrección ability is called "Amor" (Spanish for "love") and allows him to take control of any object by placing a sun-shaped tattoo on it. The second example of this trope is the Quincy PePe Waccabrada who can launch a heart-shaped projectile and cause anyone it hits to fall in love with him and make them do whatever he wants. His Quincy: Vollständig gives him a technique in which he produces several ropes of linked hearts that are launched at the opponent. The ropes stab through his target, completely immobilizing his victims.
- The Battle Lovers on Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! use Love Attack to subdue their opponent and Love Shower to heal them.
- "Warrior of Love, Cutey Honey!" has hearts all over her main outfit, but most incarnations have Combat Pragmatist instincts.
- Digimon Frontier: Kazemon's 'Love Tap' attack, induces infatuation after an Ass Kicks You. However, hitting things with her butt rarely did her much good.
- Ribrienne, a parody of Magical Girl fighters in Dragon Ball Super, has a number of Ki Manipulation examples that are heart-shaped. Most of them explode on contact with tremendous force.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam provides what probably is the most over-the-top example of this trope in Mecha Anime. In the grand finale, Domon and Rain now the Official Couple after Domon delivers an Anguished Declaration of Love to Rain, breaking her free from the Devil Gundam perform the Sekiha Love-Love Tenkyoken, a move that actually leaves a heart-shaped hole through the Devil Gundam's chest.
- Naruto: Fuka, from one of the filler arcs, seduces opponents and uses the Kiss of Death to steal their powers. Also blows magical kisses in the opening sequence.
- There are two characters in One Piece who have love-based attacks, though in different ways. Boa Hancock can turn anyone attracted to her into stone (she does this through heart-shaped attacks such as heart beams or heart arrows that turn people to stone on contact). Emporio Ivankov is a Creepy Crossdresser whose attacks include throwing winks, which have oddly immense destructive power via a blast of air pressure.
- Those who have seen Magician's Academy are familiar with the thing known only as Halpshiel.
◊ An Angel of love and former teacher, he was exiled for forcibly French-kissing the entire student body and faculty. Among other grievances.
- In Re:CREATORS, Magical Slayer Mamika plays this completely straight with her pink, heart-shaped magical blasts - which cause a shocking amount of collateral damage.
- A Sailor-suited Pretty Soldier of Love and Justice: Sailor Moon! - her attacks are the only ones that purify their opponents. Also Moon Spiral Heart Attack and Rainbow Moon Heart Ache slam her opponents with a giant heart that shatters on impact. It's quite lovely.
- Soldier of Love and Beauty, Sailor Venus! - The Love Me Chain and Love and Beauty Shock are made of Heart Symbols. She also uses Rolling Heart Vibration in the manga and live action series.
- For Love and Justice, Sailor Chibi Moon! - The Pink Sugar Heart Attack sends tiny Heart Symbols to pelt opponents, though its effectiveness varies. The manga also had her team up with Sailor Moon to use Rainbow Double Moon Heart Ache.
- On the villain side, there was a Monster of the Week named Die-Heart, who not only dressed up like one, but also had powers to brainwash opponents with heart-themed attacks, and created minions of her own.
- In Shugo Chara!, Amu's Amulet Heart transformation has a definite heart motif, as does her Open Heart attack.
- Pretty Cure:
- In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, Cure Dream has heart as her element.
- In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, all five shown heroic Cures have this as a secondary element, due to the way their monsters of the week work.
- Cure Happy from Smile PreCure! could also have this as part of her power, as evidenced by her Happy Shower attack and her rarely used, almost motherly, giant Ultra form.
- And the aptly named Cure Heart of Doki Doki! PreCure.
- Cure Lovely from HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!.
Comic Books
- The Sensational She-Hulk: Captain Rectitude's costume contains circuitry that allows him to fire purple energy beams from the heart-shaped emblem on his chest.
Fan Works
- Pokémon Wack: The Heart type is introduced. Lilligant, Luvdisc, and Mesprit have been given this new type, along with moves such as Attract, Heart Swap, and Heart Stamp.
Film — Animation
- Barbie in Princess Power: Kara's energy blasts are pink and sparkly, and she forms them in the shape of a heart at one point.
Live-Action TV
- Desiree Atkins, one of the Freak of the Weeks in Smallville, used pheromones from her breath, which looked like a pink smoke, to seduce men into killing each other for her.
- Hathor on Stargate SG-1 has the ability to hypnotize men to fall in love with her. It proved fortunate that the SGC has women too.
Mythology
- Older Than Feudalism: Eros (Cupid) had the power to make others fall in love by shooting them with golden arrows, starting with the 5th-century BCE tragedian Euripides. Modern pop culture portrayals typically take care of the Heart Symbol associations.
- Many mythologies have their own gods and goddesses of love, desire, beauty and eroticism. Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, and Ishtar are some of the better known examples.
Video Games
- The hero of the first Arcana Heart game, and playable character in the sequels, Aino Heart (add a space, and it literally translates to "Heart of love") has a heart and love-based motif. Her ahoge is in the shape of a heart, her signature move is "Heart No Punchee", several of her attacks show a heart animation, and her Arcana is Partinias, the Arcana of love.
- Castle Crashers: The Pink Knight's magic attacks fire rainbows and summon heart-decorated animals.
- Cultist Simulator: Heart is one of the schools of occult lore, and the fact that its symbol is a realistic heart in a sickly shade of pink should tell you it's no better than the rest. It still represents the usual "heart" elements, just with a decidedly creepy take. Heart cultists are cheerful and upbeat before you recruit them, and psychotically happy afterwards (though very good at removing notoriety). Heart magic, meanwhile, is good for staving off curses, healing, and charming people without violence, but it can also summon perpetually-dancing horrors from the Mansus.
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness:
- Love Freak Flonne has a healing spell called The Power of Love and an attack called Holy Arrows, which is a volley of explosive arrows shaped like hearts.
- One of Etna's recurring attacks is Sexy Beam. It hits the field in a heart shaped blast, and she seems to create the energy from it by posing in various ways. The hearts likely symbolize lust rather than love in this situation.
- Within the Disgaea 'verse itself Heart is regularly shown to be an awesome power. Provided that it's really and truly genuine, and not merely emptily declared sentimentality. Other times it's a symbol of lust, like the hearts that appear when succubus characters strike the enemy.
- Eternal Senia: Hydrangea After The Rain: Succubi attack by blowing a kiss, sending a pink Heart Symbol to strike the enemy.
- Chalis (Heart in Japanese) from Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, is heavily associated with hearts. While it mostly plays into a tarot or playing card theme, she is known for seducing men to manipulate them and has some attacks that come across this way (Illusion Perfume, Scornful Caress).
- Elphelt Valentine from Guilty Gear Xrd has a motif of love and romance as part of her character. She's seemingly obsessed with finding love, wears an outfit similar to a wedding dress in -SIGN-, some attacks have her using a bouquet of roses alongside her variety of artillery, her Overdrive "Judge Better Half" summons a giant wedding cake with the opponent on it and has her cut it with a sword that looks like a cake knife, and her Instant Kill move "Magnum Wedding" has her taking out her sniper and shooting the opponent with a bullet that has them fall in love.
- In Final Fight Revenge, Poison can use a Kiss of Death as a projectile, complete with heart symbols.
- In Hades naturally Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, grants this. Abilities empowered by her boons make enemies Weak, causing them to deal less damage, and can charm them to fight for the player, in addition to granting an impressive damage boost. And if you piss her off due to picking someone else in a God Trial, her intervention in the ensuing brawl is spawning homing heart projectiles that will cause both heavy damage and stunning.
- In Kid Icarus: Uprising, the Angel Bow and Viridi Palm both shoot heart-shaped projectiles. Hot Goddess Amazon Pandora does this too.
- Makai Kingdom has the Staff weapon type, a Magical Girl-style scepter entwined with ribbons. Most of its moves summon hearts or ribbons to demolish enemies with magic.
- Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis:
- Nikki possesses a skill called Heart Cracker, which bears the appropriate description "sometimes, love can hurt". It has no visible heart motif, but using it as the finishing blow to beast-type enemies allows her to charm them and collect heart-shaped items, which can then be used to summon creatures of the same species in subsequent battles. The upgraded version, Heartful Action, reads "Stronger love hurts more."
- Pamela can summon a skeletal ghost with heart themed armor.
- Roll.EXE is the only female NetNavi in Mega Man Battle Network's main cast, so to go along with her "girl" motif, hearts feature prominently in a lot of her attacks. She can also heal other NetNavis, presumably by dropping giant, pink hearts on top of them.
- A subtle example that lacks the heart motif and is entirely missable if you used a name for the "favorite thing" that wasn't the default, but Lucas from Mother 3 has this in the form of PK Love, his only damage-based PSI attack; the Ω version is the most powerful in the game next to Kumatora's PK Ground. Definitely on the innocence and love side of the scale though, given the character.
- Pokémon:
- The Attract move infatuates the opponent, shown with Heart Symbols, giving them a 50/50 chance of deciding to fight back.
- The Jynx evolution family, and their iconic moves Sweet Kiss and Lovely Kiss, use kisses to a variety of effects.
- There's also the move Return. It becomes more powerful the more the user likes its trainer, and the animation shows the user giving off a shower of hearts before attacking.
- Heart Stamp is the iconic move of the Swoobat evolution line, which involves pressing their heart-shaped noses against opponents causing them to flinch.
- Ally from Puyo Puyo is a borderline Love Freak who has the spells "Brave Heart" and "Love's Light." The former is shooting a heart, the latter being a ring of it.
- In the Rune Factory series, Love is an elemental damage type, just like Fire or Wind. While usually associated with healing spells, certain rare weapons (usually quirky ones) can use it offensively. Being hit with offensive Love magic makes monsters easier to tame.
- Shantae: The mermaids series have an attack where they blow a kiss and little hearts float above them, damaging Shantae if she touches the hearts while jumping over them.
- The spell "Marin Karin" in some Shin Megami Tensei games also deals moderate damage as well as the Charm ailment.
- Touhou Project gives us Marisa Kirisame, a magician who deliberately plays up as many Magical Girl tropes she can get away with (since her other personality traits subvert the hell out of the archetype). As such, her Signature Move is a spellcard named "Love Sign: Master Spark", and her original Leitmotif was "Love-Colored Magic", later remixed as the famous "Love-Colored Master Spark".
- Viewtiful Joe 2: The second stage Viewtiful Switch move has Joe and Silvia hold hands and spin around before making a cute little pose. This creates a heart that damages all enemies onscreen. If you look closely at the rounds fired from Silvia's pistols while in VFX Slow, you'll notice that there are hearts inside of her bullets.
Webcomics
- In 8-Bit Theater, Black Mage technically uses this since his Hadoken is powered by love, but in the same way a car is powered by gasoline - each time he fires it there's a measurable increase in the divorce rate.
- Dabbler from Grrl Power. She is basically an alien succubus, with powers that mostly relate to inspiring lust, and she can draw power from lust or sex in her general vicinity, especially if she is personally involved.
- In Homestuck, this is the specialty of active classes with the Heart Aspect, whereas passive classes are more akin to healers or being the Living Emotional Crutch of their team. So far, Dirk Strider, the Prince of Heart, has been shown to literally destroy souls. And it's quite painful.
- Also being Heart players, Nepeta and Meulin are likely to have this ability to, especially since the latter is also implied to be an active class and the former's specialty is theft. In other words, Nepeta steals souls.
- Jordie's Holy Smite spell in Our Little Adventure.
- Sleepless Domain's Heartful Punch lives up to her name with pink heart blasts and heart-accented pugilism.
Web Original
- In RWBY, Nora seems to be invoking this trope, even though her Semblance is about using electrical energy to fuel her attacks. She decorates her grenade launcher/hammer combo and its projectiles with cute little heart symbols, and during a battle in Volume 3 unleashes a supercharged attack that fires all her munitions at once, in a heart-shaped spread. The resulting explosion is not only pretty and pink, it also leaves a good chunk of the arena a smoking ruin.
- In Suburban Knights, Ma-Ti uses his "heart" power to kick Malachite's ass.
- In Thalia's Musings, Love Goddess Aphrodite is acknowledged as the only goddess with the power to influence the Fates. She's very temperamental about when, how, and on whom she bestows her powers.
- Cytherea of the Whateley Universe uses this as her go-to power. Not surprising, since she's the avatar of Aphrodite.
Western Animation
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Princess Cadance's magical ability is bringing love to others and mending broken relationships. In the second episode of the season two finale, Queen Chrysalis is taken out by her and Shining Armor with a massive explosion of pure love that reforms the Deflector Shields and ejects her and her Changeling subjects out of Canterlot and over the horizon. The background music is even called "Love Conquers All".
- Queen Chrysalis and her fellow changelings gain power by impersonating others and feeding on the love from their loved ones. Chrysalis was able to win a Beam-O-War with Celestia (surprising even Chrysalis herself) after posing as Cadence for a while, during the preparations for Shining Armor and Cadence's wedding.
- Queen Chrysalis also embodies this trope in as much as she gains magical power from love, and uses mind-control, and perhaps mundane romance, to affect her "food".
- Cadance's love shield in the Season 3 two-parter opener is capable of repelling and hurting King Sombra.
- Every unicorn has magic based on their special talent, and Cadence is an alicorn, meaning Physical God tier, whose special talent is bringing/mending love. Basically, she is The Power of Love. That goes double with her and Shining Armor being Happily Married.
- In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Princess Star wields Super Cute Superpowers through her magic wand. Her magic is an Imagination-Based Superpower, so it takes the form of the things that occupy her Genki Girl mind: hearts, rainbows, puppies and whimsical imaginary friends.
- One of Star's one-off spells is Dagger Crystal Heart Attack, which stabs monsters with heart-shaped daggers.
Star Butterfly: Feel the love.
- One of Star's one-off spells is Dagger Crystal Heart Attack, which stabs monsters with heart-shaped daggers.
