Modern-day anime has grown to accommodate almost every ability that one could think of. Even though, in some instances, all that these abilities do is ruin the originality of their anime. But for most, they end up producing something good. We have seen anime characters with the ability to manipulate time, and this has given them a greater advantage in battle. So we will be looking at some of the best time manipulators in anime that you might want to check out.
Some anime have managed to produce interesting storylines without time manipulation in their entire series. But as things like character development brought in the ability to manipulate time, then a lot of things changed. We saw this in Boruto when Sasuke traveled to the past with Boruto and got to see how going to the past can even affect the future. And ever since, it looks like the idea of time travel in the franchise was dropped as it might change everything as we know it.
On the other hand, other anime managed to incorporate the idea of time travel and time manipulation so well that we got to see characters who could use it to their advantage. So without further ado, let’s look at what they have been able to achieve as the time manipulators in the anime world.
Rolo Lamperouge: Code Geass
Raised and trained as an assassin, Rolo is quite skilled in firearms and other weaponry usages, including knives, poisons, and explosives. He is also a skilled pilot, and using his Vincent Knightmare frame in combination with his Geass, he can throw his opponents in shock and confuse them. Rolo’s Geass grants him the ability to suspend the subjective sense of time of anyone who is within his range.
Its effect freezes opponents in time for the duration of its activation. When he activates it, a Geass sigil manifests in his right eye, projecting a red sphere representing its area of effect. The range of his ability is determined when he activates it, and so far, no upper limit has been shown as it can even reach several hundred meters with ease. It is not even affected by electronic equipment or physical obstacles, and his geass remains under his control all the time.
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Shunsuke Otosaka: Charlotte
Shunsuke’s ability is straightforward and simple. He has the ability to time leap and also be able to go back into the past and alter the outcome of events that have already happened. In order to activate his ability, both of his eyes need to be exposed to light, and there is a catch to his ability. If the user keeps on using this ability excessively, it will eventually turn them blind. So as one of the time manipulators in anime, Shunsuke has one dangerous ability.
Due to Shunsuke constantly leaping back to the past several times, his eyesight would gradually start to become worse. He did not realize this drawback until his fourth leap, when his eyesight started to blur. He tried to compensate with glasses during this period, and after his faith and final leap, he went completely blind and used a white cane to travel around.
Yuki: Haruhi Suzumiya
Time manipulation abilities come in different ways. Some solely rely on moving through time, while some rely on influencing time to their advantage. Yuki’s ability is different and one that is also rare to come across. Even if you are to closely analyze it, you will notice that it is just at the margins between time manipulation and other unrelated abilities.
Yuki has the ability to transport her consciousness through time as she can synchronize it with that of her in a different time. But she blocks this ability off after the disappearance arc in the anime as she notices the errors that her ability would create in reality. This also gave her more options for the future, and she managed to live peacefully afterward.
Dimaria Yesta: Fairy Tail
When the Alvarez empire arc started, we managed to see magic at an even greater scale than what we were used to. Dimaria Yesta has the age seal time magic that she learned from the god of time himself. This gives her the ability to freeze the time around her allowing her to move freely in its area of effect. It is quite a useful ability as she could do as she wishes with her opponents while her ability is active.
She is one of the dangerous time manipulators in anime, as we have seen during her fights and her only weakness seemed to be Ultear’s magic which helped Natsu and his allies a lot in battle. Otherwise, she would have been an invincible opponent, and no one would be able to touch her. When she deactivates this magic, the events that she did during her magic activation happen as if they all took place within the blink of an eye.
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Ultear Milkovich: Fairy Tail
Ultear’s magic is the arc of time, and it allows her to manipulate the time of all organic and inorganic but nonsentient objects. She can either move them back or forth in time and change their condition from aging to becoming younger or the other way around it. She claims that her magic is perfect for fighting against element molding mages and within her ultimate magic world. Her arc of time would allow her to change bad memories of her younger self into good ones.
It was not revealed until the anime’s time skip that her time arc magic couldn’t directly affect a person. Her time magic has different variations like “restore,” in which she uses her time magic to restore back inorganic items to the state they were in before they received damage. Other variations include parallel worlds, Luminous minutes, and flash forward. Her magic seems to be vast as it has way more variations that she can combine with her skills in battle to her advantage.
Gasper Vladi: Highschool DXD
His appearance would confuse many as he appears as a timid-looking young girl. But in fact, Gasper Vladi is a cross-dressing male Dhampir. He is also a half-vampire and half-human, but he was later turned into a Devi by Rias Gremory. His ability is to stop time as Ras’s first Bishop, among many other abilities and skills that he has shown in the anime. His equipment, the forbidden labor view, allows him to have this ability, and his range lasts as far as his field of vision.
He has expressed difficulty in controlling his powers for a long time, and this has increased when he is unconscious. He ended up gaining more control over his powers after using his vampiric powers while increasing their effectiveness in the process. So this makes Gasper one of the interesting time manipulators in anime, and he has many other abilities alongside his time manipulation gear.
Whis: Dragon Ball Super
When Dragon Ball Super made its debut, Whis was introduced as Beerus’s attendant, and he displayed godly powers as well. His techniques can be said to be unlimited, and there seems to be nothing that he cannot do. You could think of him as one overpowered individual with no limits, and he can do almost anything as we have seen in the anime, and his abilities seem to be endless.
Whis also has the power to manipulate time, as we had seen when the earth was destroyed during one of Goku’s fights. But shortly after that, when he realized that earth has so many fine delicacies, he did not want to miss out on them and ended up turning back time by three minutes just before it was destroyed.
Sailor Pluto: Sailor Moon
As the anime of the previous era but still had interesting aspects like time manipulation in its stories, Sailor Moon used to take things to a different level during its time. Sailor Pluto was the Sailor guardian of space-time and possessed the space-time key that allowed her to travel through time. She can use the key’s powers to travel to various timelines and also call on other users of the key that came before her.
She is one of the early time manipulators in anime, and during Sailor Moon’s time, most anime didn’t focus on time manipulation but on other action-based superpowers. The key was once blocked by Pall Palla’s seal around the dead moon circus. The space-time keys can also be worn as silver chains, as we have seen with Sailor Ploto’s attire.
Diavolo: Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure
We all know that if we are talking about Jojo’s Bizzare adventures characters and their powers, then we will be talking about their stand. Diavolo’s stand, King Crimson, is an extremely powerful stand with tremendous physical strength and a terrifying ability to erase time. If you look at it, this could be a power of its own kind because we have hardly seen similar time-based powers from any other anime.
King Crimson can erase up to 10 seconds time frame and also predict anything that happens over 10 seconds in the future. Just like any other power, it has its own limitations as well. These powers render Diavolo invincible in a fight as he can foresee and counter enemies’ moves or render them null and void by erasing the time in which they are to happen.
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Homura Akemi: Puella Magi Madoka Magika
Homura has a strange shield that can turn back time, as seen in her numerous attempts, where she even went as far as completely stopping time. This ability seems to have no limitations on the number of times she can turn back time. Despite all this, we have never seen her using this ability in a battle, but she uses a combination of time-stopping magic and regular non-magic guns she steals from the police and other organizations while time is stopped.
She has been previously known to craft her own bombs before stealing weapons, and she has no natural magical offensive attacks. As one of the strange time manipulators in anime, Homura uses her powers differently throughout the Puella Magi series.
Ainz Ooal Gown: Overlord
If you are an overlord fan, you would know that if we talk about Ainz, then there aren’t many types of magic out there that he doesn’t have. He has proven to be a true overlord and has hardly lost any of his battles. In fact, he has been showing off how great he is in every fight he has been in. He also has the ability to manipulate time, as we saw when he appeared before Gazef Stronof.
Gazef had challenged Ainz to a single duel, and as soon as their fight started, Ainz stopped the time around them except for him and started using his spells to kill Gazef instantly. This meant that their encounter ended within the blink of an eye as Ainz proceeded to tell Climb and Brain that he could stop the attack if they were to concede surrounding areas to him.
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Jotaro Kujo: Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure
Jotaro’s Stand, Star Platinum, is considered to be one of the strongest stands in the series and possesses superhuman strength, senses, stamina, and accuracy. It also has greater speed, similarly to other close-range stands, and has the drawback of a range limited to only 3 meters from Jotaro. It has powers similar to that of Dio in the sense that it can also be used to stop time.
The ability to stop time was revealed at the very end of Jotaro’s fight with Dio as it was a very desperate situation for him. So before his encounter with Dio, we knew so little about Jotaro’s time manipulation in the anime. In the end, this meant that Jotaro would be joining other time manipulators in anime.
Dio Brando: Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure
Jojo’s Bizzare adventure and time manipulation seem to have lots in common. Because we have seen several characters whose stands have the ability to manipulate time to a certain extent. At least we haven’t seen one that takes things as far as time-traveling because that would clear the stage for stand powers and would derail the series as we know it. Dio’s stand is known as The World, and it specializes in melee attacks.
The World has also shown an ability to stop time, and at first, Dio could only use this ability for a very short amount of time. By the end of part 3 of the anime, he was able to stop time to a maximum of 9 seconds, and this would have continued to increase if he had not been defeated. When he stops time, he looks as if he is teleporting or moving at superhuman speeds.
Miranda Lotto: D. Gray-Man
Miranda has vast powers that manipulate time in many different ways, and with her time record disk, she is able to use time recovery. With this, she sets up a time zone where everything within it will recover and revert to its original state. When activated, a giant clock face appears above the affected zone. But if the clock is damaged, Miranda will feel the pain as well.
Other abilities include “time out,” a defensive technique that allows her to create a space where time stops and negates all attacks that attempt to enter the area, similar to a shield. When she deactivates it, the affected space returns to normal, with the damage taken vanishing as well. With the reverse technique, she can encircle a target with the power of a time record and draws out its time to rewind the location of the target and freeze it.
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Hit: Dragon Ball Super
Hit is a strange character given that he is an assassin of honor and would usually reveal himself to the opponent that he does not wish to strike from behind and also explain his presence. He has been shown to have mercy on those he is not required to kill and would offer his opponent a chance to surrender.
Hit has a special ability of time skip that allows him to skip time for a tenth of a second, where he will be able to move freely. This technique does not actually stop time, but an unaware opponent would mistake it as if time has stopped. The drawback to this technique is that the user will not be aware of how their opponents will react at that time, so they can prepare a counter in advance that can be dangerous to the user.
Merlin: Seven Deadly Sins
Merlin has been one of the characters who are difficult to figure out in Seven Deadly Sins anime. She is well experienced in magic and can even use spells that affect time. With her infinity magic, Merlin can stop the time of her magic spells and cause them to last forever. Most have labeled this as cheating, and on top of that, she can use absolute cancel magic.
With absolute cancel, Merlin can instantly erase other spells or completely stop their time if they are too powerful for her to cancel. She can also use spells like Chrono coffin that tallows her to stop time within an affected area.
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Kurumi Tokisaki: Date a Live
Kurumi can use time combinations with shadows and Reiryoku to manipulate time with her bullets. With her flintlock pistol and musket, she possesses special bullets that can cause different effects on the subject’s time depending on the number of bullets she uses. To activate her powers, she needs to call her angel and position her flintlock at the number of the bullet on the angel from which the power will be loaded.
Then she will be able to fire a loaded gun at her targets and if she intends to use the effect on herself. She will have to shoot herself, which is quite strange. With the first bullet Aleph, she can accelerate external time on her targets, and she frequently uses this bullet to increase he own speed. She is one of the time manipulators in anime whose powers are used through bullets, and with her second bullet, she can slow down external time on her targets.
Baraggan Lousenbairn: Bleach
Bleach is an anime about swords, and it takes them to a point where they can do feats that one would never expect from swords. Baraggan is the Espada representing the aspect of death that is brought forth by time. So he has abilities like the time dilation field that he can project a field around him where time slows down. He can use this ability to reduce the speed of his targets and render their attacks useless.
This ability also gives him more time to counterattack in real-time while his opponents are still slowed down, as we have seen in his fight against Sui Feng, who would not even land a hit on him. With age acceleration, he can accelerate the age of everything that he touches and managed to age Sui Feng’s arm to a point where its bone even breaks after becoming brittle.
Hari Kurono: My Hero Academia
With My Hero Academia Anime, all we can talk about when it comes to characters’ powers are quirks. Hari has a quirk that allows him to slow down the movements of anything with his clock hand-like hair. The minute hand on his clock slows a target’s movements for a minute while the hour one slows in by one hour.
He can also extend his hair to have a wider reach when in attack mode, but this only applies if he is stationary as one of the few time manipulators in anime. Hari’s ability is one of the few quirks that can manipulate time in My Hero Academia anime.
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Chronos: Fairy Tail
Fairy Tail is one of the anime with a number of characters with time manipulation abilities, and Chronos is one of the characters with exceptional time magic. With his age seal, he can completely freeze time around him, and he refers to the frozen time as his World. But his seemingly impregnable World can be altered by others, albeit to a small degree, especially those who can control the flow of time.
Chronos can also use ages scratch to assault his opponents with magical clock hands that force the body of his targets to receive all of the pain they have experienced in their lives at once. This type of magic is also one of its kind, and Chronos ranks differently amongst time manipulators in anime as his powers focus on a different aspect of time rather than the common time travel about the past or the future.
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Julius Novachrono: Black Clover
As the Wizard King at the start of the series, he is still active thanks to his time magic. Julius possesses the time magic that houses to manipulate time to a point where he can accelerate, stop or decelerate the flow of time. His powers go as far as reversing time, and he can even use this technique to heal wounds by reversing the time on his and other people’s wounds.
Since he has irregular time magic, he has the ability to defeat even the devils, but ever since, he has lost most of his powers. His magic stage has changed to unknown levels. He can even use his magic to trap his opponents in a time loop and can also use transformation magic as he would usually travel around in disgust to avoid attention from the citizens as the current wizard king. Julia has proven to be one of the time manipulators in anime with unique powers.
The True Nature of Time Manipulation Powers in Anime
There are lots of anime characters out there who can manipulate time. But these ones seem to stand out amongst them as their powers seem to be unique and interesting. Lately, anime that involves time traveling is not as interesting as anything can change at any moment regardless of when it has happened, so they kind of lose their originality.
It’s a good thing modern anime has taken the time manipulation powers to more than just time travel. And this has allowed this area to expand without ruining the overall story and hype of most anime series.
