You and your rival get yourselves into a fist fight. You each throw a punch simultaneously and, through some wild fluke, strike one another squarely on each others' fists. What happens? In Real Life, of course, the result would be two broken hands and the fight would end in a draw. In anime, video games, and other heavily stylized works, on the other hand, the punches cancel one another out and both parties are unharmed. In fact, one or both parties probably did this ON PURPOSE. This is a Punch Parry. It may be justified if both punchers have Nigh Invulnerability or Invulnerable Knuckles, but more often than not the only explanation is the Rule of Cool.