Time Manipulation is a broad category used to encompass all powers capable of controlling/altering time in some way.
Applications:
- Freeze time
- Dodge attacks with ease by slowing the time it takes for an attack to hit the user
- Rewind time, repeating a situation all over again
- Aware of the future and the past
- Can time travel
- Looping time
- Repair damaged objects
- Heal wounds (by rewinding the time back to before a wound is inflicted)
- Resurrect the dead (by rewinding the time in which they died)
- Accelerate the age of people, reducing them to dust
- Re-Age oneself by rewinding the time around the user
- Manipulate the time of an object
- Freeze attacks in midair
- Limited knowledge of the future and past
- Accelerate one's personal time, moving in superspeeds
- Cheat Death
- Destroy Time entirely (has various effects depending on the verse)
- BFR a foe to a different time period
etc.
Depending on how the power works, this type of ability can be very broken. One common controversy in the battledome involves a specific ability, the ability to travel back in time and kill/incapacitate your opponent before he/she/it becomes a threat. Objections to this type of strategy include:
- It's cheating, since it involves affecting things before the fight began to prevent the fight itself from ever actually occurring, thus it undermines the whole purpose of an OBD fight
- It's impossible, since OBD fights take place in a neutral universe (unless specified otherwise), therefore both characters have no history in that universe
The proponents of this strategy tend to counter the above arguments, respectively, with these rebuttals:
- There's no such thing as "cheating" in an OBD fight since all combatants are allowed to use any powers or abilities they have to win
- This doesn't apply if it takes place in a definite universe (for example, character A vs. the Narutoverse), and even if it does take place in a neutral universe, if the time - traveling character can also travel across dimensions then he/she/it can go to the opponent's original universe and wipe them out in the past. The standard counter to this is that it would count as leaving the battlefield, thus forfeiting, although a counter-counter is that if they use their time travel to arrive as soon as they left, then they were never really gone.
This was a very controversial subject in the past, but the latter arguments have prevailed in the modern OBD.
Other types of time manipulation are much more clear - cut in their effects.
Examples of characters who can manipulate time:
- Chao Lingshen using her Cassiopeia device and Koyomi with her Pactio artifact Horaria Porticus from Negima
- Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic the Hedgehog series are capable of multiple kinds of time manipulation
- Clockwork from Danny Phantom can freeze and reverse time as well as travel through it
- Dante with Quicksilver from Devil May Cry
- Fuzetsu from Shakugan no Shana
- God from Preacher was able to stop time and presumably created it
- Guldo from Dragon Ball can stop time temporarily
- Heralds of Galactus, Phoenix Avatars, Nathaniel Richards, Kang the Conqueror, Kronos, Doctor Strange and many others from Marvel Comics
- Higher tier psykers, Greater Daemons, Necrons and several others (such as Magnus the Red and the God Emperor of Mankind) from Warhammer 40,000
- Hiro Nakamura from Heroes
- Illyria, Willow, and a few others from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Kahnohi Vahi from Bionicle can manipulate time in various ways, and even destroy it.
- Kain from Legacy of Kain with use of Incapacitate
- Kakeru Hase from Psycho Busters has the ability to stop and reverse time and change the past
- Kratos with the Amulet of the Fates or the Amulet of Urubrous from God of War
- Jotaro Kujo/Dio Brando (Time Stoppers), Kira Yoshikage (Time Looper/Repeater), Diavolo (Time Skipper/Eraser), Ringo Roadagain (Time Rewinder), Enrico Pucci (Time Accelerator) from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
- Lekti from Heroic Age
- Many characters and technologies, such as the TARDIS, from Doctor Who
- Mothra Leo from Rebirth of Mothra Movies
- Pokemon such as Arceus, Celebi, and Dialga and have shown to have Time Manipulation powers (Dialga is likely capable of all versions of time manipulation as he is said to govern all of time. Has already displayed time travel and time loop. Remained in contact with someone he temporally displaced thousands of years. Arceus is said to have created time)
- Sailor Pluto and others from Sailor Moon
- Sakuya Izayoi from Touhou
- Several technologies and characters from Star Trek
- Shinku from Rozen Maiden using her artificial spirit Holie
- Spawn and many others from Image Comics
- The Downstreamers, from the Manifold Series
- The Flashes, Green Lanterns, Pre-Crisis Kryptonians and Daxamites, Superman Prime, The Time Trapper, Booster Gold, and many others from DC Comics
- The Shrike from the Hyperion Cantos
- Ubik from Berserk
- Vanilla Mille, Moon=Millenniummon, ZeedMillenniummon, Cherubimon Virus, Alphamon, Omegamon, NEO, Mephismon, etc from Digimon
- Various Final Fantasy characters
- Various Riders and characters or creatures from Kamen Rider series(s) can time travel, distort the flow of time, stop it and manipulate to other various extents
- Vector Prime from Transformers Cybertron
- Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, and Haruhi Suzumiya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Z and several other characters from Tenchi Muyo!
- Zetta and Lujei Piché from Nipponverse
- Angels, Archangels, God, and Death from Supernatural
- Every god worth their salt in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys & Xena: Warrior Princess
See also:
- Acausality
- Spatial Manipulation