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.
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.
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.
Ninjas are typically silent assassins, not badass anime protagonists. (I’m looking at you, Naruto!) Their deeds are not generally honorable in nature. Historically, they’re seen as more of an unfortunate necessity to preserve dynasties. The honorable warriors are the samurai. Although history has shown that the whole “way of the samurai” thing was actually made up for Japanese theater and they weren’t historically honorable either.
Regardless, when it comes to modern-day Japan, they love the concept of an honorable protagonist who wins by sheer willpower, even if the odds are stacked against them. Giving their opponent the advantage and then still winning in the end is seen as a clean and respectful victory.
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
Pokemon world in shambles
Jujutsu kaisen lol
