Code Geass : Lelouch in R2 when he gets the Shinkiro . He even has an attack called the "Zero Beam";

When you turn on a Laser Sight , it immediately shows up on your target. This is because it's a laser and moves at the speed of light. cheep tickets airlines So wouldn't you think a laser weapon would also (effectively) immediately hit the target? Logically, yes; but this is TV, where Hollywood Science rules. Thus, energy weapons move a lot slower than the speed of light (and a lot slower than bullets in the same show) and can be dodged after they are fired. Occasionally, it's explained by the dodger seeing the person aiming at them and going for the trigger, and moving in the split-second before they pull it. Also don't expect the lasers to do more than make victims stumble backwards a few feet , unless of course cheep tickets airlines the targets are inhuman or just not very important .
Speaking of knockback, an Energy Weapon in fiction will always have knockback cheep tickets airlines (which is usually okay ) and recoil (which makes no sense at all), in spite of the fact that light has negligible momentum. Finally, regardless of a laser's cheep tickets airlines frequency and the medium it's shooting through, cheep tickets airlines it will make futuristic zap noises cheep tickets airlines and be visible (and glowy ).
Most of the complaints about laser weapons not behaving like real lasers are because their primary cheep tickets airlines function in TV are not to be realistic depictions of how real energy-based weapons would work. They are merely stand-ins for "real" guns to appease media watchdogs , to establish a show as being futuristic , or simply applying the Rule of Cool . In fact the usual "laser bolts" effect looks a lot more like machine gun fire using tracer bullets (which was even colored according to nation, as in Star Wars ) and early writers' World War II experiences cheep tickets airlines may have inspired the effect.
There actually are "real lasers" in weapons research and development like the Airborne cheep tickets airlines Laser and THEL . These lasers are supposed to burn through targets (like missiles) and cause their fuel/warhead to explode or their airframe to disintegrate when it hits, although this is also a continuous beam and requires some time to work. Solid-state pulsed lasers are also in development, which fire bursts of energy cheep tickets airlines and are lighter than fluid-based lasers, but harder cheep tickets airlines to cool. Last but not least, the heat from a powerful laser wouldn't just burn through clothing or make a neat, bloodless, cheep tickets airlines pin-sized hole. There's a common misconception that laser beams cauterize wounds, but real laser wounds are every bit as bloody as knife wounds. It can also cause the water in the body to boil, expand and rip the surrounding tissues apart, much like a high velocity cheep tickets airlines bullet cheep tickets airlines impact. There are also electrolasers under development, which ionize the air so that electric current can be sent along the beam's path. Ironically, all of these characteristics make lasers far more effective as weapons than their portrayal in most fiction, which is in fact the main reason that the military is developing them in the first place. It's also probably the main reason we're not likely to see realistic laser weapons in children's shows.
For those keeping score, the title of this trope comes from an otherwise cheep tickets airlines unrelated line in the first Austin Powers movie ("I want sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads! " - and when they appear on the third movie, they are realistic lasers instead of a Ray Gun ). For really frickin big laser beams, see Wave Motion cheep tickets airlines Gun . For real handguns Bowdlerised into energy guns, see Family-Friendly Firearms . If it's Raygun Gothic , it's probably a Death Ray . When such weapons are used excessively , see Beam Spam . And when they track their target like missiles, see Homing Lasers . Often overlaps with Hand Blast for the user's convenience.
Occasionally misspelled " lazer " in fiction, commonly to differentiate from actual LASERs. Frequently misspelled "lazer" in Real Life , because people don't know better, or because it's easier to trademark names that aren't real words. In reality, the name "L.A.S.E.R." is an acronym of " L ight A mplification by S timulated E mission of R adiation", since that's what lasers do . It helps that, by happenstance, the acronym cheep tickets airlines "LASER" makes for a cool-sounding name . (It also sounds like an agentive , which lets us back-form the verb "to lase", meaning "to use a laser on".)
Beam weapons in Gundam , while fast, are frequently dodged when they are fired. (First few episodes of the First Gundam, Char Aznable stated very clear that he dodges where the gun points, not the beam) This is also because the beam weapons aren't laser beams, but are made up of particles with a considerable cheep tickets airlines amount of mass, called a "Mega-particle", and thus are much slower than the speed of light. See below, and also see Minovsky Physics (the Wave Motion Gun -grade weapons like the Solar Ray and Solar system are portrayed as travelling at the speed of light; fortunately, Newtypes sense the shots before they fire in Gundam).
Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino has commented, in later years, that he chose to use particle beam weapons over more realistic lasers for dramatic purposes, feeling that the invisibility and unerring accuracy of lasers would make for boring combat sequences.
Actual cheep tickets airlines laser weapons are briefly seen in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing , which otherwise uses the franchise-standard cheep tickets airlines particle beams. They are depicted as hitting instantaneously and melting armor on contact. It's not explained why they aren't in more widespread use.
They are all over the place in the Mazinger series - Mazinger Z , Great Mazinger , UFO Robo Grendizer -. Mazinger-Z is equiped with Eye Beams , making it -again!- the Trope Maker in Humongous Mecha , and Grendizer is armed with three or four kinds of different laser beams. Plenty Robeasts from all series are equipped with sundry kinds of laser beams, and the Vegans were mainly armed with ray guns or rifles. Dr. Hell also build ray guns for human use but intriguingly his minions cheep tickets airlines nearly never used them. his Co-Dragons and Mooks prefered guns or machine guns shot bullets . Both Humongous Mechas and Robeasts are frequently seen dodging beams.
Done right (according to real physics) in the anime Starship Operators . Beam weapons would hit the ship without warning, to the point the crew had to hide their vessel behind a large asteroid to avoid being destroyed by attacks they couldn't dodge.
Also, the main way beam weapons destroy ships is by overheating the entire target ship past their capacity to vent (instead of causing localized damage as with all the other weapons systems) until it blows up from said heat.
Wolfs Rain deserves a mention here. The laser-like weapons installed in the Nobles' airships fire beams that can actually ZIG-ZAG en route to their targets. (To quote another cheep tickets airlines series , "don't ask me how it works or I'll start to whimper".)
You'd think that a series like One Piece would be void of any beams of the sort, but through the powers of one of The World Government's three Marine admirals , and technology 500 years ahead of the current time, even pirates can face off against Frickin' Laser Beams .
Sailor Venus' Crescent Beam. It's described as been made of light, but moves far slower. Also in one notable occasion the Crescent Beam bounced on the enemy, regrouped as a ball on his head and then launched a dozen beams on his head (appropriately, this variant was named Crescent Beam Shower ), while in another Venus fired a few dozens curving beams.
Averted and played with in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2: when Haruhi subconsciously gives Mikuru the ability to "shoot laser beams" for a special effects shot, the resulting beam is not cool-looking and innocuous, but invisible, cheep tickets airlines instant and razor-thin. Later, Mikuru is enchanted with various other beam weapons which also adhere to the specific principles of whatever name Haruhi used.
Another point the show got correct: cheep tickets airlines even if the lasers hit instantly, they don't DESTROY instantly. Thus requiring one character to use Ramming Always Works on a missile that has negated laser defense cheep tickets airlines systems... just by having an erratic flight path to prevent a continuous beam.
Transformers Cybertron actually pokes fun at this in one episode by having Starscream open fire with his laser cannons, point out that lasers travel at the speed of light, cheep tickets airlines and then having Optimus Prime promptly dodge his lasers with ease.
Code Geass : Lelouch in R2 when he gets the Shinkiro . He even has an attack called the "Zero Beam"; which can be condensed cheep tickets airlines into a single laser beam, or when he shoots his diamond thing it can work like a mirror, and deflect several beams into dozens cheep tickets airlines of enemies.
Neon Genesis Evangelion actually portrays lasers somewhat accurately. cheep tickets airlines Despite coming from the eyes of Eldritch Abominations , the only thing visible about the beams for the most part is the glint from excess light emanating from the source. The two exceptions are Ramiel, who has an extremely visible cheep tickets airlines beam and Zeruel's beam as it blows off Unit 01's left arm during its fight. Justified in Zeruel's case, as the place it was fighting in was being smashed by the combat, filling the air with ample dust and smoke particles to reflect the beam or be burnt-up by it . This only applies to the beams themselves, not their effects .
In Worldwar: War of Equals , the Boeing YAL-1 and the US Navy's COIL laser program gets a huge increase in funding to fight the invaders. Currently only the YAL-1 has seen combat use and in it's first use it takes down five alien aircraft - at 200 miles away.
The blasters of Star Wars are not actually lasers ( retconned into plasma-casters) and neither are the lightsabers , nor the ship-to-ship turbolasers, nor the Death Star's superlaser (though one component in the beam is a proton MASER). That said, Attack of the Clones shows off some lasers that do act like lasers, a constant beam that appears instantly.
And that one Star Destroyer's constant-beam laser in Revenge of the Sith that breaks a Banking Clan Comm Ship (right before a bit of debris from it hits the Star Destroyer). The sound of it was awesome.
If you pause the s