As You Know / Anime & Manga

• Berserk (2016): In episode 2, when Farnese is interrogating Guts, she basically recaps the history of the Band of the Hawk to him, who knows it better than anyone because he's one of the only people who survived their destruction. The Watsonian reason is that she wants to emphasize that she already knows everything about him and that he'll only drag out the inevitable by refusing to confess to his "crimes", but the Doylist reason is to get viewers who haven't seen the Golden Age adaptations caught up on the backstory.
• '80s anime series The Mysterious Cities of Gold employed this trope regularly. This was mostly because, unlike many other '80s cartoons, it featured an on-going storyline that frequently built upon events from previous episodes. Children couldn't be expected to watch a show that patiently, so cue many long conversations with characters telling each other "Yes, you may remember the golden condor we discovered underneath the Inca ruins," etc., etc. This trope is only present in the English version, however; in the original French (the show is a France/Japan co-production and the writing team was French) characters never use this trope. At best it's them applying what they previously learned to new situations (if X was solar powered, then Y must also be!).
• The anime version of Witchblade tends to occasionally fall back on this.
• Team Aqua and Team Magma meet for the first time onscreen in Pokémon Advanced, and not only speak in an As You Know, but also make an Introdump at the start of that dialog.
• Early chapters of the Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga have Lucia constantly being reminded she's a princess, a mermaid, forbidden to date humans, can't go into water in public, and various things she already knows. Then again, she's always been a bit headstrong about these limitations anyway. The anime got rid of this by tacking on a prologue on every episode explaining the whole situation.
• Rebuild of Evangelion:
  • Hit hard by Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, during the scene in which Ritsuko explains the specifics of Operation Yashima to Misato, the person who came up with the plan in the first place. The dub tries to fix this by turning it into a Let Me Get This Straight.... It helps... a bit.
  • Mari in 2.22 frequently gives exposition... to herself.
• In episode 112 of Bleach, Urahara and Isshin Kurosaki have an extended conversation telling each other things they both already know about the two new sets of bad guys on the plot horizon, for the benefit of both the audience and some other characters standing off to the side. What is most inexplicable is that they don't just tell the other characters instead of talking to each other, which would have made the scene make sense!
• Used rather neatly in Naruto with the explanation that the main character is an idiot who never paid attention in school. Things frequently have to be explained to him several times in gradually simpler terms. This is usually done during training segments, so it has a natural feel to it. Sasuke, on the other hand, is improbably ignorant given his backstory. Plenty of other characters among the rookies are clueless about things they absolutely should know as well, especially the members of team "InoShikaCho," whose fathers have been grooming them as heirs.
• In the first episode of HIGHSPEED Étoile, if exposition isn't being given through the race commentary or through a narrator, it's through characters with varying degrees of explaining things other characters should be familiar with.
• Kiddy Grade uses this trope right off the bat in the first episode to set up the show's premise.
• In Episode 14 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Fate quizzes her adopted children Erio and Caro on history as a way of providing the viewer with exposition on the origins of the TSAB.
• In the first chapter Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, Sakura and Shaolan tell each other how they first met and for how long they've been friends, obviously to fill in the reader on their backstory. In this case, they are simply revelling in memories.
• This way of recapping is constantly and irritatingly used in World of Warcraft manga. A commander telling his fellow warriors about the great battle in which they all participated...
• There's a strange example from A Certain Magical Index. After the first arc, Touma has had his memory erased, so whenever someone like Stiyl starts talking about something that happened then, Touma is more or less completely in the dark, even though it's something he should know. It'd be a fine example of As You Know if he actually did know.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, every time an effect is activated, the player has to explain exactly what it does — sometimes more than once for the same card in the same duel in the same episode. Either this is because most players do this in real life, or it caused most players to do this in real life. The Chicken or the Egg? Strictly speaking, this is actually a rule of the game. Made no less funny when Kaiba lampshaded it as unnecessary in The Movie, then explained it anyway.
  • This is also justified by the fact that card effects suddenly change to reflect their OCG counterparts, and the same card in the same series has two different effects depending on the era it is played. Then there are cards like "Makiu, the Mystical Mist" which changes its effect every time it is played.
  • In the third episode of the second anime, Yugi and Jonouchi revel in memories of how they became friends. Since the anime skipped almost everything from the first seven volumes, it is the only way to explain what happened in chapter 1.
  • From Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions: After Kaiba loads the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle into the machine that will reassemble it, the space station AI explains to him how the system has scanned each piece in a 3D scanner while suspended in a zero gravity field, and by recognizing the patterns in the pieces and comparing them all at once, it will be able to put the puzzle back together in only a few hours.
    Kaiba: Don't you think I know that? I invented the blasted thing.
    AI: Affirmative, but my AI has recognized your affinity for being reminded of your genius.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: When Ryo Marufuji/Zane Truesdale aka Kaiser and Hell Kaiser duels Samejima/Chancellor Sheppard, Samejima starts recapping their past together. Hell Kaiser gets extremely annoyed and points out he of course already knows this, but Samejima doesn't stop. Of course, Samejima was trying to snap Hell Kaiser out of his destructive rampage, which didn't work.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Done deliberately by Jack during his duel with Yusei in episode 5. Jack tells Yusei (and us, the audience) what Stardust Dragon's effects are, which is the Signature Mon he stole from Yusei before the series began. He does so to mock Yusei and he even tells him that Yusei already knows what his stolen card can do. Of course, Yusei intentionally made Jack use Stardust Dragon's effects, so that he can use Harmonia's Mirror to get Stardust Dragon to his side on the field.
• In the first two episodes of Sailor Moon S, the Professor retells his plan to Kaolinite for the audience's benefit, even though she, as his second-in-command, should already know it in the first episode and definitely knows by the second.
• Soul Eater: The main objective of the protagonists (collect 99 evil souls and then a witch's to make your weapon into a Deathscythe) is revealed to us in this manner by Death himself in the first episode... except, the main characters had already exposited about it as they got the 99th soul, earlier in the episode. Death even goes as far as actually saying the words "As you know" in his explanation. It's very odd since the earlier scene would have precluded the need for this.
• IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix does this at the end of episode one. As Team Satomi prepares to race Team Sledgemamma in the first race of the IGPX-1, equivalent to the major league, the announcer Benjamin Bright explains the rules of IGPX to thousands of fans, and the racers. In the English dub, he actually says, "Let's recap the rules of the IGPX for those two or three of you who don't know."
• Space Patrol Luluco: At the start of episode 1, Luluco manages to remind Keiji of everything he already knows but the audience doesn't, in response to him praising her for turning out so normal growing up in an abnormal environment:
  Luluco: You're part of the Space Patrol that upholds Ogikubo's law and order, and hardly get any time off. Mom left home after a fight and took all the furniture with her, so now we live in this run-down apartment. Yeah, we're super normal alright."
• Fairy Tail:
  • When Lucy meets Natsu and Happy for the first time, she goes into detail explaining to them what guilds are and that she wants to join the most popular guild around (the eponymous Fairy Tail guild), and then laughs it all off as something the two wouldn't be interested in. She doesn't realize until later that the two are from the guild she's trying to join. Granted, Lucy doesn't refer to Fairy Tail by name in her description, and Natsu and Happy really don't seem very interested in what she has to say, but considering how everyone in the series seems to know what guilds are (in fact, there probably isn't a character in the series who hasn't heard of Fairy Tail) it's all the more obvious that she's explaining it to the audience. This comes off a touch better in retrospect once Lucy's educated but sheltered backstory is known, as at the time she probably wouldn't know just what the average citizen knows and has reason to expect there are a lot of topics she'd know more about (this just isn't one of them). And while the city they're in does get wizard traffic, the plot implies it's well off the beaten path for guild members.
  • Master Hades has one later on, explaining the nature of the wizards in his guild — to nobody but himself.
• One Piece:
  • Invoked during Impel Down when Bon Clay, in the disguise of the vice-warden Hannyabal, wants to know more about the phenomenon "demoning away" that has apparently taken away his great hero Ivankov. He asks a jailer to explain it, and when the jailer confusedly says that Hannyabal already knows, Bon Clay asks him to tell it again since it is "such a great story". Fortunately, the real Hannyabal is weird like that, so the jailer doesn't get suspicious.
  • Lampshaded and Played for Laughs. As Rayleigh limited Luffy's access to the outside world during his two years of training, Luffy, and, by extension, us, missed out on several major events in One Piece universe. Notable events are the fall of every island in Whitebeard's territory, the battle between Akainu and Aokiji that resulted in Aokiji's resignation and Akainu's promotion to Fleet Admiral, the rise of Luffy and the other Supernovas' bounties, Sengoku and Garp's resignation, Law and Buggy as the new Warlords of the Sea, the new danger to the Devil Fruit users, Blackbeard's usurping of Whitebeard's Four Emperors seat, his crew's rise to power, the moves of the Revolutionaries, and most notably how exactly Blackbeard usurped the above mentioned seat. But, these above events changed the power of the world so much, that these are household talks. Quoth Usopp:
    Usopp: [to Luffy] This was huge news!! Where were you eh, hiding under a rock???
  • And happens once again during the Wano Country Arc while during the Act 2 Interlude, major plot points and the Four Emperors' as well as Gol D. Roger's bounties were casually revealed by Brannew and Sengoku in a history lesson to the Marines to make the point of how dangerous a pirate alliance between Big Mom and Kaido would be. But it helps that Sengoku also reveals information that is kept secret from the general public and the newer generations of Marines, like that three of the original Emperors used to sail under the flag of Rocks D. Xebec and that Roger and Garp teamed up to defeat the Rocks Pirates.
  • At the beginning of the flashback telling the story of Kozuki Oden, a servant reports to Kozuki Sukiyaki about the exploits and accomplishments Sukiyaki's own son Oden has achieved in his 18 years. Sukiyaki already knows all of this and is visibly bored, whereas the servant is telling the life story in such a hammy and thrilled passion that it's clear that he's a massive fanboy of Oden. He even begins the report with "I suspect you probably know".
• In Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, the villains Scanty and Kneesocks often explain their plans to each other, saying they both already know but like to hear themselves talk.
• The Big Bad of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) reveals her backstory by explaining it to literally the only other person in the world who already knows. You'd think it would have been easy to avoid that.
• Played straight in Sword Art Online, where veteran MMORPG players feel a need to explain things among themselves from the major gameplay elements to the very basic ones such as "use potions to heal HP." Granted, it's justified sometimes if they're talking to newbie players who are still getting a handle on the mechanics (and the fact said mechanics are now literally life and death means an occasional refresher isn't too out there), but it doesn't help when they're doing it between each other.
• Lampshaded in the first episode of Myriad Colors Phantom World when Haruhiko describes Phantoms to Izumi, noting, "It's common knowledge, but I'll explain anyway."
• Attack on Titan: Mostly averted since the 104th Trainee Corps would logically have explained things to them for the first time during training and at the start of service in their branch. At one point, though, the Drill Sergeant Nasty yells at Connie for screwing up the salute ("I've already explained to you that the salute represents..."). Going by what it represents (see Strange Salute), he likely thought his heart was on the right side of his chest.
  • Just after the Time Skip, Gabi reminds Falco about the war they've been fighting in for the past four years, as well as the operation they're conducting to win that war, because she notices he may have suffered a concussion and might not remember any of those details.
• In the first episode of the third season of Symphogear, one of the Bridge Bunnies is seen explaining to his co-worker everything that happened to the organization they work for in the 3 months Time Skip after the episode's opening scene.
• An amusing example of a Justified Trope in ∀ Gundam. When Identical Strangers Queen Dianna and Kihel Heim get trapped in their Twin Switch, they use this kind of conversation to brief each other on what they're supposed to know and how they should act.
• Case Closed:
  • The series has frequent recaps in the manga due to the chapter format and original magazine publication. While it's both an established convention for mysteries and believable for a detective at some point to sketch out the case, suspects and evidence, at times this ends up happening multiple times to an identical audience in a remarkably short period of in-universe time. And as in this series the detective doing the recap is rarely a major factor in the investigation s/he may not even know about developments in the case and have anything new to say, or be audibly working anything out.
  • Men in Black at times do the same thing (explain their plans and situational knowledge to each other) when they show up, usually about things they've long since communicated with each other previously and more securely. While going over the plan isn't unreasonable, especially as "the plan" often involves somebody being killed, at times this also gets suspiciously repetitive. Sometimes even those end up as plausible, because their modus operandi includes constantly testing to see if somebody's aware of their existence or the details of their discussions.
• The recap at the start of the My Hero Academia anime's second season is framed as a letter to one of All Might's mentors, Gran Torino, but includes details about the mechanics of All Might's quirk, One For All, that are both closely guarded secrets and information Gran Torino is already well aware of.
  • The season three opener as well, with a scene where two of the adults summarize the powers of every kid in Class 1-A.
  • The beginning of the Sports Festival Arc also has Aizawa telling the class how the festival is a nationally-televised event more popular than the Olympics, which you'd think that they would already know.
  • In the aftermath of Midoriya, Todoroki and Iida's fight with Stain, the police chief tells the three about the law against unauthorized uses of Quirks to fight crime, pointing out that they should already know this — all so he can emphasize his displeasure that they used their Quirks to fight a villain anyway.
  • When Tsukauchi and Gran Torino bring Aizawa and Present Mic in to see the captured Kurogiri, they begin by explaining that Nomu are bio-engineered humans with multiple Quirks, something that Tsukauchi mentions that they already know, but insists on providing the background to prepare them for the real point; Kurogiri's Warp quirk was created with Aizawa and Present Mic's old friend Shirakumo's Quirk.
• Amusingly subverted in Carole & Tuesday. Tao tells Angela that 99% of the world's pop music is now generated by AIs, then remarks that she probably already knew that. Angela replies that she actually had no idea.
• Justified in Monster Musume. Miss Smith drops by in the first chapter to make sure that Kimihito knows the rules for the Interspecies Exchange Act and is following them because he's only been a host for Miia for a couple of days. And because she couldn't remember if she'd actually told them to him first. (And because it gets her free coffee in a place not containing her paperwork.)
• In Muhyo and Roji, during a flashback, Rio goes to Executor Elena to beg for the latter's help in saving Rio's mother from a ghost. In the anime, Rio apparently feels the need to remind Elena, an elite magical law practitioner, that artificers like Rio don't have the power to defeat spirits. To make matters worse, the fact that Rio can't use magical tools had already been explained to the viewer and become relevant in the previous episode, when her using a magical tool to save Biko revealed that Rio was a forbidden magical law user(the flashback showed why Rio turned to forbidden magical law and joined Enchu).
• In Charlotte, after Yuu's little sister Ayumi mentions having feeling that there used to be an additional member of the family- who turns out to be their older brother- Yuu reminds her that they've been living on their own since their mother abandoned them, with their uncle supporting them but not living with them.
• In Fate/Zero, Kayneth's fiancee Sola-Ui reminds him of the special trick he played when making a contract with Lancer — unlike other Master-Servant pacts, Sola-Ui provides Lancer with mana while Kayneth gets the Command Seals, so Kayneth can use his mana on his own spells- a secret only the two of them know. She does this as a way of chiding him for hiding during Lancer's first battle.
• The new Shaman King suffers from this in the introduction of Anna Kyouyama, who declares her entire backstory and role within the story to Yoh, the one person guaranteed to know it already.
• In My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, the elder princes and their fiancees were introduced to the audience this way. When they first appear in the School Festival event, Geordo reminds Catarina who they are and the fact that she must have seen them on an off-screen event previously. There're some in-universe justification, though: Catarina's extremely short attention span means it is very likely for her to forget who those people are.
• Invoked by villain Dholaki in Psyren: after the time-traveling heroes try to pass themselves as survivors on the move, he casually mentions the current year, 2018, to them. After a brief talk, he gets serious and points out that not only their clothing are too clean for survivors in a sand-filled, bleak wasteland, but also that they had a surprised reaction upon hearing which year it was. Thanks to that, he was able to confirm that he wasn't dealing with survivors, but something else.
• Cap Revolution Bottleman:
  • Episodes' first instances of Dew Yamamoto showing up have the text "This is Dew Yamamoto" on-screen, regardless of if you're already familiar with him. In later episodes, they list completely irrelevant information about him alongside an introduction (apparently he's also a Taurus and right-handed). In a later episode afterwards, the text reads "Is this Dew Yamamoto?" in one appearance and "Yes, this is Dew Yamamoto" in another.
  • In episode 20, Oi Goemon and Minezaki Hanta are given a text introduction similar to Yamamoto. This despite the fact that it's not only far into the episode and they've appeared already, but they already clearly stated their names.
• In Episode 4 of Spy X Family, Agent Twilight, a Westalis spy, having successfully completed the first step of his mission - find people to pose as his wife and daughter to enroll the latter in the prestigious Ostanian school Eden Academy - meets with his handler. The handler assumes that Twilight doesn't need a recap on the next phase of the mission - get close to Ostanian National Unity Party leader Donovan Desmond, whose son attends the school, and find out if Desmond is trying to start a war - but Twilight replies that he is feeling "off (his) game," and requests a reminder.

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