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"In the name of the Moon, I will punish you!!" — Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon
Before the Magical Girl confronts the Monster of the Week, she invariably issues a formal challenge, involving an always-repeated catch phrase and some topical variant. Reused every week as Stock Footage, typically following the Transformation Sequence (not preceding it) and against some sort of symbolic background. A signature pose and/or gesture generally accompanies the declaration, and there may be Dramatic Wind involved.
Frequently, the Magical Girl somehow magically knows exactly the right formula to say directly from her first or second battle, even if she fumbles and is otherwise unsure of her powers.
This isn't just a Magical Girl thing, though... Heroes of every stripe have opened a battle with a signature phrase or speech, a bold declaration of purpose. Even some villains have taken up this habit, loudly spitting their purpose at the fools who would dare stand against them.
Note that, unlike By The Power Of Greyskull, the speech doesn't trigger, activate, or otherwise have anything to do with the Magical Girl's powers. Instead, it's meant to demonstrate the righteousness of her cause and the amount of ass-whup she's about to uncork.
Named after the challenge catch phrase that Usagi always utters in every Sailor Moon battle. A type of post- Invocation, related to other forms of Word Power.
Don't expect anyone to attack the hero during this speech, though. Talking Is A Free Action.
Contrast Battle Cry, often shorter (but louder) and uttered just before or during the fight.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- Sailor Moon: "Hold it right there!", followed by a description of the bad thing the bad guy was doing. "Unforgivable! Agent of love and justice, pretty soldier in a sailor fuku, Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"
- Fushigi Yuugi sends up the practice in its first episode, in which Miaka confronts a gang of street thugs: "The moon may forgive you, but I won't..."
- It's something of an in-joke; the voice actress who did Miaka also did Chibi-usa, Sailor Chibimoon.
- The voice actress in question, Kae Araki, actually did fill in for Kotono Mitsuishi as Usagi for a few Sailor Moon episodes while the latter was recovering from an injury.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: "Grant me the power to bring the world revolution!"
- Bakuen Campus Guardress: "Summoned by Heaven, Earth, and my pager...."
- Legendary Love Angel Wedding Peach gently subverts this: brides are supposed to be feminine and non-confrontational, so Peach's challenges are always phrased gently and euphemistically.
- Naturally, Excel Saga gets in an explicit parody — of Sailor Moon, of course, as Usagi and Excel have the same voice actress in Japanese. Excel berates a band of gangsters who are selling counterfeit animation cels and declares, "In the name of the moon, I will spank you!" (in the North American dub, it becomes, "In the name of the toons, I will punish you!"), complete with Sailor Moon's trademark gestures. Just to hammer the point home, though, she's standing in front of a sheet metal crescent moon and wearing tennis balls and lengths of rope in her hair.
- The manga version has Iwata, as the closest the Daitenjin get to The Hero, lurch between a few of these: "Are there any bad children here?!?" or "Er... I take command of the heavens and the earth from now on!", for instance.
- Lampshade Hanging: While Nagisa and Honoka in Futari Wa Pretty Cure automatically make their speeches from the first, Nagisa at least is rather upset that she doesn't seem to have a choice about it — "What am I saying?" and "I said something weird again!" are just two of the comments she makes. In a later episode, she becomes annoyed when another pair of girls consistently misquote her part of the speech.
- Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash*Star also had the girls wondering what they were saying the first time they said the following:
Bloom: The shining golden flower, Cure Bloom! Egret: The sparkling silver wing, Cure Egret! Both: We are Pretty Cure! ( ka-ching!) Egret: Those who desecrate the Holy Fountains... Bloom: ...stop your cruel behaviour!
- And Yes! Precure 5 takes it a step further by giving each girl her own speech, as well as one for the whole team ("The power of hope and the lights of the future! Five hearts flapping beautiful wings! Yes! Precure 5!" (ka-ching! again).
- Fresh Pretty Cure isn't different either. The girls follow a certain pattern when they say their respective speeches, and they have one for the team as well, a very simple one: "Let's! Pretty Cure!" (third ka-ching!).
- The Samurai Pizza Cats would give an introduction to pretty much every fight they were about to jump into. While it was different every time in the Dub version, the Japanese version had them repeat a uniform motto everytime. The Rescue Team had their own version of this.
- Brilliant, brilliant twist: the Marmalade Boy movie features a memorable scene where five small neighbourhood boys encounter the protagonist as she's practicing tennis, and pretend to be a Super Sentai Five Man Band, including a formal introduction of the entire team and lots of highly stylized called Ki Attacks. The teenage girl in question decides to be the Cool Big Sis, and cheerfully pretends to be the Monster Of The Week in response.
- In Suzumiya Haruhi, Haruhi uses one of these when accepting the Computer Society's challenge, though only after kicking its president in the head.
- Dokkoida?! has both the titular hero and Neruloid Girl use this trope; it has the Lampshade that they're trying to sell their power suits to the companies they're working for, so they have to help sell the merchandise.
- Mew Ichigo's "I'll be your server for the earth's future -nya!" in Tokyo Mew Mew. Fans of the English dub know this one as "Mew Mew style, Mew Mew grace, Mew Mew Power, in your face".
- The English manga translates it as, "For your evil actions, I will make you pay!"
- Corrector Yui found it hard to think up a pre-battle catchphrase that had to do with deleting things off a computer; she decided on "You'll go in the recycle bin and be empty, empty, emptied!" Lampshaded in one episode;
Virus: What does that even mean?
Yui: It has no meaning!
- In the Angelic Layer anime, each Deus must think of an entry line that announces their Angel before competing.
Misaki Suzuhara: Wings of an angel! Please guide me and Hikaru!
- Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z ("Fighting Love! Science Legend!")
- Re: Cutey Honey: "Flowers on the Earth! Love to the people! Warrior of Love, I am Cutey Honey!"
- Princess Tutu: In nearly every episode, the title character transforms into her Magical Girl form and teaches the Monster of the Week the evil of its ways through ballet (as strange as it sounds). Every encounter is initiated with the invitation, "Will you dance with me?" and the exact same footage.
- Team Rocket from Pokémon' recite their motto — the same motto — every time they appear, no matter what they've come to do (although they've been known to humorously modify it on a situational basis), and are often accompanied by special effects from nowhere that disappear a moment later.
- They do change the motto with each new generation, though.
- This does not go unnoticed by the protagonists, who even perform a version of it themselves in the episode with Ditto. Team Rocket is not happy with this.
- Kamina, then Simon, and eventually the entirety of Team Dai-Gurren of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann often launch into inspirational speeches against whatever enemy they may be facing (even when that enemy is the moon), and will always end it with some variation of the phrase "Who the hell do you think I am?". Given the nature of the show, the enemy will then be utterly, explosively destroyed seconds later.
- Both Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa in the Pretty Sammy series sometimes give speeches upon appearance detailing their roles.
- The Children in Zettai Karen Children usually perform a roll call when their power limiters are released. The roll call is usually relevant to the situation and frequently comes with heroic posing and colored smoke. Variations of it are frequent, such as adding "... and Wild Cat" to the end when Naomi joins, and Aoi doing one of these when she's on a mission solo.
- Often someone will then rebuke them for standing on the table or setting off pyrotechnics in an enclosed space.
- In Naruto, this just isn't done by working shinobi, but Konohamaru and friends do it all the time as little kids playing Ninja pre-Time Skip. Genre Savvy may be involved.
- Subverted in Mai-Otome when Haruka issues a verbal challenge to Aswad leader Midori before she changes into her Robe, and promptly faceplants when Yukino tells her that she hasn't given Haruka authorization to use her powers yet.
- The Lord of Nightmares, from Slayers Next, does a completely emotionless version of this, immediately before erasing the Big Bad from existence.
"You who stand before me, desiring destruction... so shall you be destroyed."
- I am not sure if you can give the ultimate being in existence a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but if so, this is it!
- At one point in the Hellsing manga, the Iscariot Organisation give a pre-battle speech that takes up an entire chapter, "The Screamer" ("We are Iscariot, the Zealot Judas!"). Granted, Anderson does chop up a few vampires while saying his parts, but no one else does.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! tends to feature this when the God Cards are summoned in a textbook case of What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome. This was featured much less in GX, but Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds reintroduced this with the speeches all the characters give when they Synchro Summon a Monster (Yusei: "Clustering stars will call upon a new power; become the path of light it shines upon!"), although the dub tends to reduce this to a simple Catchphrase like "Let's rev it up!"
- THIS HAND OF MINE BURNS WITH AN AWESOME POWER! ITS BURNING GRIP TELLS ME TO DEFEAT YOU! TAKE THIS! MY LOVE, MY ANGER, AND ALL OF MY SORROW! SHINING FINGEEEER!
- In Koi Koi 7, the eponymous Amazon Brigade gives a very long speech, with requisite posing, when they first appear. The speech doesn't appear much more after that.
- In UFO Princess Valkyrie, Sanada, in her Slayer of Evildoers form, Nekomimizukin, offers the following monologue before a fight with Spot, Mar, and Mur:
"Heavens call! Earth calls! The cats call! Known among the cats as the wandering hero! Mysterious hero Nekomimizukin comes forth!"
- "With the Name of LOCKON STRATOS, I will SNIPE YOU DOWN!!"
- In Final Fantasy Unlimited, Kaze — typically the only character who confronts an enemy — will combine this with Calling His Attack in his unnecessarily long transformation + summoning sequence.
- Nekki Basara would like everyone to "LISTEN TO MY SONG!!!"
- Bubblegum Crisis: "Knight Sabers, sanjo!"
Comics
- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used a lot of these for their 1960s Marvel Comics characters. The most famous are, "It's clobberin' time!" and "HULK SMASH!" But it also includes "For honor, for glory, for Asgard!" and the Sub-Mariner's "Imperius Rex!"
- Stupendous Man attempts one of these speeches after transforming from Mild-Mannered Calvin (and getting stuck in a locker):
S... for Stupendous!
T... for Tiger, ferocity of!
U... for Underwear, red!
P... for Power, incredible!
E... for Excellent physique!
N... for... um... something... hm, well, I'll come back to that...
D... for Determination!
U... for.. wait, how do you spell this? Is it "I"??
- And let us not overlook Green Lantern. Even though he rarely says it where the villain of the day can hear him, it still is a classic example:
In brightest day, in darkest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power — Green Lantern's Light!
- Marvel hero Moon Knight has actually been known to say "in the name of the moon" before laying on a holy beatdown.
Films
- Example (and inversion): in Pulp Fiction, Jules Winfield's (mis)quoting the Biblical book of Ezekiel before pulling the trigger.
- Spoofed in the film Galaxy Quest, where Classically Trained Extra Sir Alexander Dane (played by Alan Rickman) is tired of his character's Catch Phrase "By Grabthar's hammer...", even though the fans can't get enough of it. Naturally, the one time when he says this and actually means it is the emotional high point of the whole movie.
Literature
- Frodo defies the Nazgul at Rivendell, "By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair, you shall have neither the Ring nor me!" (Sadly omitted from the films.)
- Justified, because the name of Elbereth harms/drives off bad guys on at least one occasion.
- Beowulf issues formal challenges (and formal boasts at the mead hall the night before).
- The heroes of Homer's Iliad do likewise, down to formulaic repetition originally designed to allow extemporaneous reciters of epic poetry to keep to the meter. Thus this is Older Than Dirt.
- In Diane Duane's Young Wizards and Feline Wizardry books, protocol normally requires a similarly ritualized challenge upon meeting the adversarial Lone Power: "Fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance!" Oh, and always remember to ask the Transcendent Pig the meaning of life when you meet him (the older wizards hope that one day he'll just answer reflexively).
- You do have to be taught to say these things — it's not the Magical Girl's automatic posturing. But the intent is still there.
Live Action TV
- Some Power Rangers teams have a post-roll-call declaration:
"Power of water! Power of light! Powers unite!" — Alien Rangers
"Guardians of the Earth, United We Roar!" — Wild Force
"We call forth the Magic! — Mystic Force
- As do various Super Sentai. These can get quite long, and trying to list them would probably be a page in itself...
- Notably, a few times in Engine Sentai Go-onger, the sentient mecha have actually done their own declarations. When all twelve did their roll call, the ones who couldn't speak had their growls subtitled on the side of the screen.
- The "roll calls" themselves count. Every Super Sentai team and most Power Rangers teams will have each member say a phrase and/or their Ranger designation while getting into their Ass Kicking Pose.
- No, bad guys never interrupt this by shooting at them.
- Each of Kamen Rider Den-Os personalities has a post-transformation catchphrase.
- Momotaros typically strikes a pose and says, "Ore... sanjou!" (a particularly dramatic way of saying, "I arrive!").
- Urataros says, "Shall I string you along?" or "Can I reel you in?"
- Kintaros always says, "My strength has made you cry! Wipe away your tears!" post-transformation (and pre-battle!), occasionally followed by tissues fluttering from the sky like cherry blossoms.
- Ryuutaros says something along the lines of "Is it alright if I beat you up?" and quickly follows it with "Not gonna hear your answer!" as he starts shooting (very badly) while the enemy dives for cover.
- Both forms of Zeronos say "Let me say this to start..."
- For Yuuto, in Alair or Zero From, the most common version is "Let me say this to start: I'm pretty strong!"
- Deneb (Vega Form) spoofs this merely by using it ("Let me say this to start... I have nothing to say.")
- Though he only a few chances to use it, Seig's (Wing Form) catchprase is "Advent. At the top of everything."
- If you mention Kamen Rider, you have to mention Stronger: "The heavens call me...the Earth calls me...humanity calls me...they call upon me to defeat evil! Listen, evil-doers! I am a warrior of justice! Kamen Rider Stronger!"
- This is also very common in all sorts of Japanese live-action series, including jidai-geki (samurai shows). The heros of series like Abarenbo Shogun, Mito Komon, Tokugawa Buraicho, etc., all have set phrases they invoke before taking on hordes of mooks.
- Mito Komon is slightly different — not necessarily a subversion — as the phrase is accompanied by proof that the Old Man the bad guys have been trying to kill is actually "extremely" important. Very often, this is followed by the horde of mooks getting on their hands and knees, begging for forgiveness.
- Hayakawa Ken, the Ace of 'Kaiketsu Zubat', had a different take on it. When confronting a bouncer or hired gun, each of whom held great confidence in their particular skill (swords, guns, cutlery, swords while blindfolded, archery...), he would tell them that their level of skill was "only No. 2 in Japan". When asked, he would 'whistle' and thumb at himself, then proceed to completely upstage the bouncer.
- In every generation of Sukeban Deka — there have been four primary live adaptations over the past few decades plus several movies — the heroine has speech like this, different in every version. The director of the latest version, the 2006 film, has admitted he was tempted to use all the predecessors' speeches, but eventually settled for a new speech unique to the film.
- "Ryukendo!" "Ryuguno!" "Ryujino!" "Raijin!"
Pro Wrestling
- Some, but not all, WWE superstars have intro music that begins with their version of In The Name Of The Moon. Examples include The Rock's, "If you smellllll..."; Shelton Benjamin's "Ain't no stopping me now"; Edge's "You think you know me"; Undertaker's church bells; Stone Cold's glass shattering; and Triple H's "Time to play the game. TIME TO PLAY THE GAME!"
Video Games
- Sanger Zonvolt of Super Robot Wars gets a short version (in the "hero of antiquity" vein): "I am Sanger — Sanger Zonvolt! I am the sword that cleaves evil!"
- Other pilots, especially of Super Robots or when using special weapons like the Shishio Blade, get in their own as well. "There are two stars of calamity...", "One punch can't destroy the world, but it can certainly destroy you!", etc.
- Each individual in the Nippon Ichi game Phantom Brave seems to have their own phrase before entering into a battle. While this causes a Battle Aura, it's not entirely clear if it does anything else.
Ash:"You will go no further! For her sake, I will not fail!"
- And in the Nippon Ichi game La Pucelle: Tactics, the main character is likely to yell things like "In the name of the Maiden of Light" and "Repent!" before proceeding beating the crap out of a boss.
- Games where you select and give commands to multiple characters (RPGs, RTSs, etc...) often have "chatter" that they give whenever you interact with them:
- Minsc, of the Baldurs Gate series, is famous for his amusingly overblown battle chatter:
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right Boo?"
"Butt-kicking! For goodness!"
"Feel the burning stare of my HAMSTER and change your ways!"
"I grow tired of shouting battle cries while fighting this mage! Boo will finish his eyes so he does not rise again! Evil, meet my sword! SWORD MEET EEVIIILL!!!"
- Killer7 has a boss who does a parody of Magical Girl intros: "Like a flower that blooms in the soil of our carnal and corrupt society, I shall administer retribution to stray vermin that graze this land. For I am the Chairman of the Education Guidance Council, Ayame Blackburn!" It's a fifteen-year-old girl in a very creepy anime-girl mask and carrying a machine gun. Also the power rangers style handsome men. "We are the punishing rangers, the handsome men!"
- Warcraft has quite a few of these, though the Orcs are perhaps the most frequent users of it with "FOR THE HORDE!"
- This Troper has found himself screaming that at his computer a great many times.
- This one too. Also Night Elves in Warcraft 3 also issue a challenge, which is quite similar to the trope name...
- Warhammer40000: Dawn of War (and expansions) has this with
the Space Marines any Imperial armies, whose phrases almost always says something along the lines of "In the name of the Emperor".
- Warhammer 40000 has several for every faction except Necrontyr and Tyranids, unless you count "gauss weapon discharge" and "chittering sounds" as an In The Name Of The Moon.
- Inspector Daria of Touch Detective frequently attempts to do these, but often puts so much "oomph!" into striking her poses she injures herself.
- Danzaiver! The Hot Blooded hero character of Evil Zone has perhaps two or more of these; "For everything that is good." being the first, and the second, longer version used in the final battle; "I cannot be defeated. Absolutely. Positively. For the sake of the WORLD! HERE GOES! THE POWER OF THE SUPREME RULER DESTROYS EVIL! THE ULTIMATE HERO; DANZAIVER!!!" It's hard to keep track sometimes, dude is SERIOUS about his job.
- This routine is done by a Quirky Miniboss Squad in Super Mario RPG, complete with posing:
Axem Red: We fight for evil!
Axem Black: We live for disorder!
Axem Green: We like what we do!
Axem Pink: We struggle for chaos!
Axem Yellow: We are... the AXEM RANGERS!!
Axem Yellow: We eat donuts!
Axem Pink: We wear the trendiest clothes!
All: We are... the AXEM RANGERS X!
- In Devil Survivor, Midori is a cosplayer who acts like a Magical Girl, and even has an In The Name Of The Moon speech to go along with it, as well as striking a pose when she does it on the battle screen.
Midori: I'm Magical Dolly, the Warrior of Love! My magical punishment strikes down all demons who do evil!
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
- Darkwing Duck, to some extent. The title character likes to mysteriously appear in smoke and dramatically introduce himself: "I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the [noun] that [verb]s your [noun]! I am Darkwing Duck!" The second sentence changes depending on the context; DW gives us such gems as —
I am the gum that sticks to your shoe!
I am the batteries that are not included!
I am the check-writer in the Cash Only lane!
I am the wrong number that wakes you at 3 AM!
I am the burned-out bulb you cannot reach!
- The Tick often starts a battle by giving at tongue-in-cheek descripion of the Villain Du Jour and telling that they face The Tick. This was played with in the Freaky Friday episode:
The Tick (in a zebra's body): Body pirates, you face The Tick!
Chairface Chippendale (in The Tick's body): No, I face a zebra. You face The Tick.
- It has been established that Beetlejuice only needs his name said three times to be summoned, but in the Animated Adaptation, Lydia dresses up the summoning with the same speech (and probably recycled animations). Although as a byproduct of summoning Beetlejuice, her clothing does in fact change.
- "By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!"
- Danny Phantom and many of his ghostly opponents have catch phrases, such as: 'Going ghost!' 'I am the Box Ghost!' 'I am Technus, Master of all technology!' and so on. Subverted in that, for Technus at least, talking is not a free action, and his tendency to loudly announce who he is and what he's doing is a disadvantage for him.
Music
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