Warning: Here there be spoilers for several shows. You've been warned.

In each anime and manga out there, there are characters that are BadAss. Characters who define awesome with their every step. However, even for such a character, there is one instant, one line, one scene, that just crowns over all the other awesome they could ever have thrown out.

And even regular characters have their CMOAs too.

So, talk about the ones you remember the most.

Lyrical Nanoha

In Nanoha A's, the lead character is beaten up and almost out of energy, but sees the only way out of a fight is to shoot through a barrier set up by the enemy. To do that, she has to use her strongest attack, and her sentient weapon, Raising Heart, is quite beaten up as well.

Raising Heart: Begin countdown: 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 3... 3..."
Nanoha: Raising Heart?
Raising Heart: It's okay, I can be shot.

And just as Nanoha is getting ready to shoot her attack, she gets an "Oh Crap" face when she sees Shamal's hand coming out of her chest, as Shamal just stole most of the energy from her "magic core". What does Nanoha do, you ask? She fires anyway. And breaks the shield. Because she's awesome like that.

Much later in the show, Vita, the resident BadAssLolita girl, is trying to stop a big-a** ship's engine (The Craddle,) but in her way there, she was stabbed through the stomach and is losing more blood than the average Mortal Kombat character loses per fight. To add up to the whole thing, she's facing a security system gone crazy and there's a hundred or so turrets about to fire their lasers at her. Her one-liner about such a dire, hopeless situation?

"Bring it on."

Teana, the gunslinger girl of the show, is surrounded by three very strong opponents, who've managed to injure her leg and force her to run and hide. What does she do? She analizes her enemies' attack patterns, finds a way to counter them all, lures them to where she is, and takes down two of them. With headshots. And when she has the last one at gun point, she calmly stands there and says "you're under arrest."

Later on, Nanoha is losing a battle against a reborn demigod, but while she's at it, she's sent a searching spell to locate the last one of the enemies, the evil group's SnarkyManipulativeBitch. Once located, Nanoha simply ties down the demigod she was fighting (who is her adoptive daughter, too) and proceeds to load up enough magic energy into her weapon to take down a small planet (or so it seems) and, since going to where the enemy is would take too much time, she simply shoots straight at her. The face of that enemy, Quattro, when she realizes Nanoha found her? Awesome. Her face when she realizes Nanoha is firing straight at her? Priceless. Her face when she sees the actual beam about to hit her? Nothing ever defined "Oh s**t!" better.

Sailor Moon

Sailor Jupiter beat the s**t out of a youma and Zoicite before she even got her first transformation. Screw Uranus, Jupiter is the One True BadAss of the show.

Also, the season's finale (the uncut one) is full of CMOAs for the Inner Senshi.

First off, Jupiter is caught by one of the "Fake Bosses" and gets a helping of electricity from her. She just snarls her famous "you dare using electricity against me?" line and then shoots a suicidally strong Supreme Thunder, killing two of the enemies.

Later on, Mercury is caught in a fireball by her foes. She calmly summons her computer, noticing it would be the last time she would use it, and the smashes the gem the enemy's leader had in her forehead, which had her friends tormented by illusions.

Venus falls down into a hole after getting Moon out of the way (who was BSODing from both Jupiter and Mercury's deaths,) and screams of pain ensue... Until there's a shout of Crescent Beam and a beam of light that would make Goku envious shoots out of the hole. Of course Venus is dead, but so is one of the evil bitches.

Later on, Mars is "dead" after taking down one of the last two enemies. The evil girl smiles and starts walking to Moon (who is, oh surprise, BSODing again,) but then notices she can't move. Looking down, she can see Mars grabbing her ankle.

Mars: (weakly) I'm not dead yet.
DD Girl: (Scared/surprised gasp)
Mars: (weakly) Fire.... (angry shout) SOUL!

Captain Tsubasa

Tsubasa has too many CMOAs.

First one I can remember is how he and Misaki go for a loose ball at the same time, thus creating the Twin Shot and letting the "invincible" goalkeeper Wakashimazu staring in disbelief.

Also, later on, Hyuga spends quite a damn long to develop his ultimate weapon, the Raiyuu Shot. A shot that can break through walls. A shot that Tsubasa later on imitates. But the first time Hyuga uses it is just awesome: He splits a tree in half with it, hence giving the shot its name (a Raiyuu is a Japanese god of lightning, which is said to split trees in half with its own claws.)

And for a normal guy like Ishizaki, the CMOA was when he stopped the Tiger Shot (a shot that was strong enough to break a goalkeeper's wrist if he was stupid enough to try and catch it/punch it away with one hand) with his face. Way to show why being a blockhead is a good thing in some situations.

But the best CMOA of the manga/anime is for Jun Misugi, the Glass Prince, who has a heart condition which makes it so he can't play for too long. Still, he's a tactical genius and an awesome player. He was losing his first match against Tsubasa, and, because his heart was starting to fail, he was thought to be pretty much out of the game. However, he picks up a loose ball, then runs through all of the rival team's defenders, Tsubasa included, to end it all with an overhead kick, all this while apparently suffering a heart attack. It turned out to be a false alarm, but being able to get through a whole team on his own while his heart was giving him s**t is just too awesome a thing to do.

Naruto

Rock Lee. Damn it, Rock Lee.

"I don't think just taking off some weight will make him fast enough to break through Gaara's defense."

*Zoom*

O RLY?

Sakura...

The fight against Sasori was pretty much one running CMOA for her. However, before that? The time right after the timeskip, when she and Naruto were facing Kakashi, and Sakura punched a crater into the ground to get Kakashi out of his favorite hiding spot.

And before that? Cutting her hair off then double-bluffing a guy before tackling him to the ground and almost biting his hand off.

Don't mess with the pink-haired ones...

Gaara

The Chuunin exams arc. Sand Coffin. Umbrella. Need I say more?

Also, not even being killed can kill him. I think that in itself is a CMOA.

Naruto

Each and every time he turns into his "Kyuubi form" much pain ensues.

His fight against Neji. Who said idiots can't be brilliant strategists?

And the whole fight against Pain, up to the point where he got his hands pinned down to the ground, was awesome. What happened after Hinata takes a seemingly fatal wound protecting him? Pain, meet pain.

Death Note

L's CMOA only comes when one realizes that, without all of the tiny little details he was "This Close" to connecting, then Near would have never caught Light.

Light's CMOA was, to me, forcing a god to kill herself while also taking down his greatest foe. Double CMOA, even.

But then, of course, comes the fact that he defeated the series' villain (himself) all by himself.

As for Ryuk, well... "Goodbye, Light Yagami."