This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Kendra Kirai: This is just wrong.
- This trope is speculated to have been started in the Street Fighters video game franchise. In it, the developers, for the first (or at least first most well-known) time in a fighting game, gave names to the character's special attacks so players talking about the game could refer to them. after all, it's much easier to talk about a "Hurricane Kick" then a "Back-forward-kick-kick combo" move.
Giant robot anime has done this since at *least* the early 70's, almost twenty years before Street Fighter.
Ununnilium: Indeed. Moving this over to Older Than They Think.
Scrounge: And it's gotta be even older than that, since there's a western example, Peter Potamus, from 1964
Ununnilium: The Eragon example reminds me of another trope: Magic Language.
Lale: The paragraph on Avatar was well-written and nice praise of the show, but it wasn't an example. Doesn't belong.
Cassius335: Is it worth pointing out that it's actually not the Pokemon that call their attacks but rather their trainers?
Scrounge: Somehow, I doubt it... The trainers are giving the pokemon orders, so they have to shout the attack names to make sure their pokemon hears and hopefully obeys.
HQ: In "Bamboo Blade" it is pointed out that in kendo matches you do not score points unless you correctly call your attacks. I know nothing about kendo, but it sounds like a reasonable origin of this practice.
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Won Sab: The TTGL Giga Drill Breaker failure example seems to be neglecting the subsequent failure of the Lagann Impact.
HTL 2001: it may be notable that nearly all games with spellcasting, the status effect "silence" makes characters unable to cast magic, which to me implies they are calling their [magical] attacks
I always thought the subversion in TTGL was that the attack names were obviously being made up on the spot. —Document N
choco: Would "countdown" attacks be included here? I'm thinking of video games, particularly Square-Enix RP Gs, in which a high-powered boss appears to count down before blasting the entire party.
T Beholder: is this barely recognizable picture with Japan text really better than old and translated "fork" or i'm not the only one who wonders why?
T Beholder: See what happens? I still hold that the Pointy Fork was better.
Also, isn's the whole "SNEAK ATTACK!!" matter just a loonie-sh homerule?.
