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Excited Episode Title
Anime episode titles, especially for shounen series, tend to be two exclaiming sentences (sentence fragments are also common). The sentences are typically unusually descriptive by Western standards (but see In Which A Trope Is Described), and can reveal crucial plot details or work as an out and out summary of the episode. Generally, the format is a summary of the episode with exclamation points, followed by a comment on the episode that sounds as if it was something one of the main cast would say.

In dubbing, these are usually changed to something else entirely, usually a pun of some sort.

If Western fiction used the same style of titling, we'd probably have "Battle in the Cloud City! Luke's Father Revealed!" in place of "The Empire Strikes Back". Bonus points if the title did the revealing, since you obviously have to be a fan of the manga, and thus, You Should Know This Already.

A specific form of Idiosyncratic Episode Naming. See also Excited Show Title.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • The Pokemon anime: "Explosive Birth! Cycling Road!!" 280 out of 519 episodes (54%) of the translated titles are like this, while none of the English dub titles are like this.
    • Though the manga adaptation of the eleventh movie adds a random exclamation point to the end of the title: Giratina & the Sky Warrior!
  • One Piece is the king of the Excited Episode Title: "Monsters Appear! Don't Mess with the Whitebeard Pirates!" 298 out of 329 episodes (90.5%) of the translated titles are like this.
  • Fist Of The North Star tends toward this formula, and also towards somewhat... violent terminology ("Criminals! Pray, Before You Die!")
    • "Rip Into the Nerve Cells! No Requiem for the Bad Guys!"
    • "Search Order, From Satan!"
  • Ranma 1/2 did this. 46 out of 173 (26.5%) of the episode titles are in this form.
  • Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z!(even the title's exciting)
  • All four The Slayers series did this. In fact, the first and forth did it alphabetically.
  • This trope remembers there was a big upset during the run of Digimon Tamers because of how spoilery these titles can be. Especially when one episode title was "The Kindhearted Hero!! Leomon Dies!"
    • In fairness, this shouldn't surprise anyone.
      • However, there was a subversion in episode 21, "Juri's Partner? My Leomon-sama!". The rumour mill from the announcement of the episode title on ran with exclamations of the most obvious interpretation, and moderators and Big Name Fans worked just as hard to calm the rumours down or squash them. Guess what? Both sides were right: Juri does become the fourth Tamer, and Leomon does become her partner — but not yet, and not for a long time.
    • Of course, this wasn't the only example of such titles in Digimon. Most third season titles were like this, and though this troper's too lazy to count and calculate a percentage... it's definitely a good chunk of them.
    • One episode of Digimon Frontier has the dub title "It Can't Be! Lucemon Reappears", which is roughly what its original title translates to. No dub episodes before or after feature an Excited Episode Title, though. Also, while some dub titles throughout the series are puns, overt references to songs, literature, or other works are much more common.
  • The episode titles in Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai are usually something like "Adventure! Sword and Sorcery Shopping Arcade!"
  • This is even parodied in some anime series. In Dai Mahou Touge (a Dead Baby Comedy Magical Girl Parody), there's an episode called "Holy Crap, Decisive Battle of Breakfast?! If you don't pray you'll be killed, Cuckoo-san!" The title has nothing to do with the episode. The titles in the series get progressively longer and more absurd, until "You had swept your bangs back for the first time when I saw you under the apple tree. The flower-comb in your hair, I thought you were a flower, too." Yes, that entire thing is the episode title.
  • Nearly every Sailor Moon episode had a title like that. 86% of them, to be exact. The English dub, however, replaced them all.
    • The most spoiler-filled of these being the second to last episode of the first series, otherwise known as The Sailor Senshi Die! The Tragic Final Battle! I'd take the name "Day of Destiny" myself, even though that particular dub episode is the definition of Macekre.
  • Naruto, in 44.6% of episode titles.
    • One title spoils Asuma's death. Worse than that, there are Post Episode Trailers...
      • That was the title of the two-episode special for "Unfulfilled Scream" and "Last Words", neither of which indicates who is going to die unless the viewer already knows. It should be noted that excited titles are quite rare in Shippuden, with most being one or two words.
  • The only Yu-Gi-Oh episodes not to have titles like these in Japan are the season-enders. An random example: "The Strongest! The Magnificent! Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon!". One of the only non-season ender titles is also spoilerific "Jounouchi's Death", though he gets better
  • The TV series of Ah My Goddess has those a lot, usually starting with the exclamation "Ah!", for instance "Ah! A Demon has Come and is Creating Calamity!"
  • Maison Ikkoku also has a lot of excited spoiler-type episode titles, like this one: "Kyoko's Heart Goes Pitty-Pat! Godai is put to the Test".
  • Tokyo Mew Mew has a bunch of examples, too.
  • Blue Seed. This French troper doesn't remember any title being translated (may be different in the US), but there were definitely many exclamation marks among the Japanese characters.
    • This troper (an American) has seen the dub aired on TV. The titles were translated correctly, retaining the effect.
    • This Troper, also an American, watched the subbed DVD's. The titles were translated, usually three sentence fragments from the main character. The energy in which she yelled them became a bit of a running gag in the Anime Club.
  • Marmalade Boy was also a repeat offender of this trope.
  • Most titles episodes for the anime adaptation of Mitsuru Adachi's Touch were in this form.
  • Several episodes of Lovely Complex as well.
  • Bleach does this very often. The English dub gives the episodes more sensible titles.
  • KOUJI KABUTO DIES IN LAVA. Well, not really.
    • What's worse is they try this stunt again in Mazinkaiser. They should've tacked on "And this time we really mean it!" just for lulz.
  • Sonic X does this sometimes. For example, "Clash! Sonic VS Knuckles!"
    • The Minigames in Sonic and the Secret Rings also followed this naming pattern, which was retained in the English translation, oddly enough.
  • Konjiki No Gash Bell does this a lot as well, especially in its third season where virtually every episode title was made up of three phrases, two of them having exclamation marks.
  • Every Koi Koi 7 episode title is both excited and very long. "Glamor Galore! Hot Body Contest: Pierce the Skies of Odaiba" is one such example.
  • Soul Eater, every episode.
  • Damn, you Inu Yasha titles!
    • Here would be an example. One episode is entitled Tetsusaiga breaks! and break it does.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho is similar to the previously mentioned Bleach, using exclamatory titles in the original version ("Koenma of the Spirit Realm! A Trial Toward Resurrection") and shorter ones in the dub ("Koenma Appears").
  • Virtually every episode title of Shugo Chara has at least one exclamation mark, many have two, and the !? combination is not uncommon.
  • Sometimes they'll even be complete sentences. An episode of Transformers Headmasters is entitled "The Emperor of Destruction Vanishes on an Iceberg".
    • Another example from the same series is " Ultra Magnus Dies!!". Guess what happens in that episode.
    • Then Transformers Super God Masterforce took this to its logical extreme, in which every single episode except for the very last one was two sentence fragments with at least one exclamation mark, and sometimes as question mark as well. Transformers Victory carried on this tendency, but was more restrained.
    • And it's not just the episodes. The Japanese dubbers didn't find the series title "The Transformers'' to be Excited enough, and inflated it to "Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformer." After the post-movie Time Skip, it becomes "Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformer 2010."
  • Azumanga Daioh indulges in this occasionally, in four episode titles ("We're 2nd Year Students!", "The Ocean, Summer Kimonos, and a Party!", "Entrance Exams Study Camp!", and "Onwards, Entrance Exams!") and four chapter titles ("Wildcat Tomo-chan!", "Go With Enthusiasm!", "Sea!" and "Fight!"). I can't speak for the Japanese episode titles, but of the chapter titles, "Fight!" is the only one whose original Japanese title is not as excited.
  • Happens occasionally in the Mahou Sensei Negima! manga.
  • Saint Seiya: All episodes, except possibly for one or two. Usually following the pattern of "Verb! Something happens"

Literature
  • A few of the books in the Geronimo Stilton series (e.g. "I'm Too Fond of my Fur!" "Watch Your Whiskers, Stilton!")

Live Action TV
  • While not every Super Sentai series does this, Juuken Sentai Gekiranger is one that does. "Zowa-Zowa! Five Venom Fists!". The first exclamation of every Gekiranger title, by the way, is total nonsense, even in Japanese. They're words made up by Jan/GekiRed who was Raised By Wolves.
  • The Japanese dub of Doctor Who replaces the episode titles with more descriptive ones, so Boom Town becomes "It comes, it is sad, Slitheen" according to Alta Vista Babelfish.
  • Star Trek Voyager had an episode titled 'Bride of Choatica!' The only episode to date to end with an exclamation point, as it was a parody of sci-fi of the early twentieth century.

Music
  • Possibly related is the fact that the rock band The Aquabats seem to end the titles of all their songs in exclamation points: "Super Rad!", "Lobster Bucket!" "Fashion Zombies!", etc.

Video Games

Webcomics

Western Animation
  • Clerks The Animated Series may not be anime, but its titles get progressively longer with each episode, culminating in "Dante and Randal and Jay and Silent Bob and a Bunch of New Characters and Lando, Take Part in a Whole Bunch of Movie Parodies Including But Not Exclusive To, The Bad News Bears, The Last Starfighter, Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom, Plus a High School Reunion." I kid you not.
  • Batman The Brave And The Bold has all of its episode titles end with an exclamation mark, in reference to the Silver Age cartoons.
  • Superjail! <—see the end of the title?
  • The Raccoons did this with Every. Single. Episode.

Evolving Credits
« Anime Tropes »
Expressive Hair
Exactly What It Says On The Tin
« Title Tropes »
Excited Show Title

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