Having lived in Japan for 3 years and experiencing a lot of their culture, I’ve learned that the reason anime characters yell their attacks is because it promotes a fair, honest fight. Japanese people love friendly rivalries, and the only way to truly prove yourself better than your opponent is to give them every advantage and still come out victorious. Only a truly bad person would try to sneak in for an attack and catch their opponent unprepared. And that won’t settle any rivalry, even if they won the fight.
Plus, yelling your attacks just sounds cool.
One punch man then is very rude when he kills the opponent mid-speech?
He just matches whatever he’s facing. Usually he has the decency to say he’s gonna finish them off with Consecutive Normal Punches, or pretend like he’s also going for a finishing move like Serious Series: Serious Punch.
Many times he doesn’t even try and end a challenge with a punch, it’s more of a “move out of my way” smack because his mind is elsewhere.
It’s not even that is it? He’s constantly pulling punches because he doesn’t want to destroy everything in a general direction, something that even Tatsumaki didn’t think about.
Nah, even japanese are tired of gloating villains now. And it’s kinda funny to just cut them off.
So, like, I can throw a party balloon filled with 1.7 liters of urine at someone and it will be acceptable, as long as I remember to shout: DANGEROUSLY OVERFILLED PISS BALLOON as I toss it?
Alternate names for consideration: pissengan, urinitron, bakapeepee
EDIT: before you even tell me that I can’t go around hucking piss balloons, remember that these people might literally poke me in my actual anus, as a prank. If someone does that shit, I’m definitely piss-ballooning them, at the earliest opportunity.
So, like, I can throw a party balloon filled with 1.7 liters of urine at someone and it will be acceptable, as long as I remember to shout: DANGEROUSLY OVERFILLED PISS BALLOON as I toss it?
Rules of the roads, Bubbles!
Me when I have 4 seconds to figure out how to deal with my opponent’s World Ending Nuts Kick
Yeah, well, people attacking me with their wakarimasen special tends to be tiresome after a while. It’s not that powerful anyway.
Sneak attack? That’s like THE definition of a ninja; made in Japan
It’s an established fact in Manga/Anime, if you don’t name your Ultimate move its just not powerful.
Like even Saitama named his ultimate move “Serious Punch” and so far it hasn’t failed.
Pokemon world in shambles
My thought is that it helps the audience know what exactly they’re doing. Not saying it’s necessary because I think a good visual indication will let the audience know, but I think that’s what they were maybe going for.
I really liked YuYu Hakusho for having big title cards whenever some characters would use attacks (and sometimes equipment/weapons) without yelling. It was also nice that the narrator would sometimes explain things quickly to not detract from the action, though they stopped doing that pretty early on, presumably because they assumed the audience would have a better grasp on things as the show progressed, or because the characters actually had a reason to assess or explain things.
The ol’ Brock effect, a character who’s job 90% of the time was to tell the audience what was going on. More forgivable in a kids show, used to happen way too much in more adult shows too
Especially in manga.
My kiai says otherwise!
Jujutsu Kaisen would also like a word
Go Go Gadget Anime attack
It does in Jujutsu Kaisen… sorta.
I like how in JJK it’s a chance to create variation in power levels while also allowing an in-universe reason to expo-dump about a character’s power.
It makes a shonen trope feel like these genius characters aren’t just giving away all their tricks for shits n giggles. But then sometimes we just get a total lack of explanation and that’s fine too because it’s more fun, and the character doesn’t need to (cough Sukuna)
Meanwhile Saitama whispers…
consecutive normal punches
Jujutsu kaisen lol
I always just assumed they’re like magical spells and shouting the name is a requirement to cast them
Thunder breathing, first form
I’d have lost 90% of my hype if it wasn’t announced
Except in some power systems where it does.
Oh, it does! Tried it, once, very drunk, many years ago (many!), screamed something like “in your face” (actually German: “in die Fresse”) and he was out cold. Only medium knuckle pain, I’m not a fighter, so I thought it did something. Don’t worry, he earned it, believe you me.
name your attack {{{{ so the enemy doesn’t know whats coming
