So, let's say you're watching a movie. As you get introduced to the characters, you might expect the title card to show up soon. However, several minutes pass without it. You wonder briefly what's taking so long, but then decide to just enjoy the film. Once the characters have completed their journey and the movie ends... the title card finally shows up.
What took so long? The answer can differ depending on the story. Maybe the title refers to something the protagonist spent the entire plot learning. Maybe it refers to something the character becomes by the time the story ends. Maybe the title contains a spoiler. Then again, maybe it just felt unique.
Contrast The Teaser, where the title takes a few minutes to appear, but still does so before the conclusion. See Title-Only Opening when the opening credits consist of only the title. If a work's title appears at both the beginning and the end, it belongs in Bookends.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- The title to Episode 8 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann does this, as not only does it reference the most pivotal moment of the entire series, it is also the last words of one of the main characters. In Japanese, it's Abayo, dachiko, translated, it means "See ya, buddy(s)".
- This is replicated in Super Robot Wars Z2-Hakai-hen.
- Episode 10 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The opening is shown at the end of this particular episode and doubles up as the credits screen. Fitting, since the entire episode focused on what happened to Homura before the current timeline.
- The Ouran High School Host Club episode about Kaoru and Hikaru meeting Tamaki for the first time, "The Door the Twins Opened", saves its title card for the closing scene, after the twins open the door to the Host Club's room.
- Ouran: The Vaguely Abridged Series did the same thing when abridging this episode.
- The first original OVA for Ai no Kusabi shows the title right before the end credits roll.
- Episode titles for Wolf's Rain appear at the end. (This is used to poignant effect in Gunshot of Remorse.)
- Bleach chapter 416 had the title "Deicide 18: [The End]"...at the end of the chapter, when Ichigo finally emerged out of Dangai Precipice World, and after Gin's defeat by Aizen.
- Kubo did it again at the tail end of the Fullbringer arc - the standard "Bleach - Tite Kubo" tag Jump manga have in the panel gutters is there, but the title card "Bleach 459: Death and Strawberry 2" doesn't appear until the second to last page, right before Ichigo gets his shinigami powers back in full.
- Chapter 52 of Kuroko's Basketball had this. It can be considered to be a Spoiler Title, but the spoiler is not about the chapter itself, but about what the events of the chapter would lead to, since in that chapter they lose the championship, but the title is "A new challenge", giving some hope for the next competition.
- The Little Busters! anime has the episode titles displayed as the beginning of the closing credits.
- Episode 15 of the Gungrave animation. While the audience knows who is Doomed by Canon, the episode stays low key up until the violent murder of Brandon Heat, and slams the Wham Episode home by cutting to the black title card: Death.
- Done twice in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. The first time was done for emotional impact in episode 11 "One Person Had Survived On Her Own", which is a Flashback Nightmare to before Kaoru met Hajime. The second time was for spoiler purposes in episode 13, "Me, Her, and Another."
- Bodacious Space Pirates: Endings of anime series episodes prevalently begin on a black screen, with music playing and episode number then name appearing offset towards lower-right, followed by part of the credits up to the cast part, all in text with strong neon-pink color accents. From "cast" part onwards, credits run along with pictures or footage, and are a tamer black and white text.
- Episode titles for Macross Delta appear at the end, right before the credits.
- Chapter 39 of My Hero Academia is the climax of the battle between Midoriya and Todoroki, during all of which Midoriya has been trying to get Todoroki to overcome his trauma and use his full power. The chapter ends with Todoroki finally accepting his fire powers as his own, along with the title of the chapter Shoto Todoroki: Origin.
- Episode 78 of the anime ends with the title, "Bright Future," in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, after a Title Drop made by Sir Nighteye, as his last words.
- Episode 88 of the anime, the last episode of the fourth season, which involves Endeavor truly establishing himself as the #1 Hero by defeating the High-End Nomu, closes on the title, "His Start."
- Chapter 285 of the manga ends with Bakugo Taking the Bullet for Midoirya, and ends with the title, "Katsuki Bakugo Rising."
- Chapter 300, "The Hellish Todoroki Family, Part 2" appears at the end, when the rest of Endeavor's family, including Rei, who was unable to face him until now, comes to his room to talk about Toya.
- Chapter 132 of My Monster Secret. After the horrible revelation that in the future Shiho will be married to Shimada, she ends the chapter by shouting "Let's change the future!", which is also the title for the chapter.
- Most of the Side:Despair episodes of Danganronpa 3 do this, treating them like Spoiler Titles. Some of them appear right before the credits; others immediately afterward. One exception is episode 4, Komaeda's spotlight episode; in this case, the title's revealed after the first scene, when he resolves to find a way to stop the practical exams.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
- Combined with Title Drop in chapter 45 (I Can't Hear The Fireworks, Part 2) when Kaguya mentions how loud her heart is beating after everything Shirogane did to get her to a fireworks festival. The anime also did this for it's adaptation of chapter 44.note
- Chapter 59 (The 67th Student Council) ends this way, with a final shot of the Student Council room after Shirogane's first term as president comes to an end.
- The anime used this in its adaptation of Chapter 68 (I Want to Make Miko Iino Smile), with Miko having finally earned the respect of her peers.
- Chapter 187 (Ai Hayasaka and Kaguya Shinomiya's Friends) does this to mark the end of the class trip arc and the beginning of Hayasaka and Kaguya's new dynamic as friends.
- Episode titles for Your Lie in April only show right before the closing credits. The one exception is the final episode that both inverts this by having it right after the opening credits and plays it straight with the work's title as the one that precedes the closing credits.
- The title of the last episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena only appears after the end credits have finished rolling and a final scene plays:
Utena: Listen, if you ever have a problem, come to me first. I want us to be friends like that. And someday, together...
Anthy: Someday together...?
Episode Title: Someday, Together, We'll Shine - The episodic title cards in given are shown just before the end credits. As each episode is named after a song, the title card usually relates to the themes of the episode preceding it. For one example, episode 10 ends with a Love Confession, followed by the title card for "Wonderwall".
- In Bloom Into You, the last page of the last chapter is the title page for the chapter, as well as one of the two color pages.
- In Fly Me to the Moon, Chapter 99 ends with Nasa and Tsukasa discussing Nasa's offer to marry Tsukasa, a discussion that concludes with Tsukasa thanking Nasa for believing her. It ends with the title, "Thank You."
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Episode 45 concludes with the title card, "The Promised Day," after a message warning about the day in question makes its rounds among the protagonists.
- The anime adaptation of Super Cub does this sometimes.
- Episode 7 ends with the title card, as Koguma uses the phrase in the title to describe Shii.
- Episode 12 also ends with the title as Koguma talks about how life changed after she got her Super Cub.
Asian Animation
- The titles for each season of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf do appear in the openings, but it's also common for the titles to be prominently displayed after the seasons' end credits.
- Tik Tak Tail does this within the episodes themselves, having Tak be squashed by the series logo at the end of each episode.
Comic Books
- 100 Bullets did a few, such #75's "Amorality Play".
- A six-page Archie story, "A Winner Never Quits...A Quitter Never Wins," ended with its moral as the title, which was saved for the last panel. Or as they put it in their own early-70's faux-hip terms, "We're gonna lay it on you at the end of this yarn.
- The Atomic Robo comic "Why Atomic Robo hates Dr. Dinosaur
".
- The early issues of the Batgirl (2000) series sort of combined this with No Title. In order to emphasize the minimalistic nature of the stories and their protagonist, writer Kelley Puckett would often stick the credits in the very last panel of each comic, and provide no title. Guest writers, such as Chuck Dixon, often broke the trend.
- Christopher Priest's Black Panther storyline "Seduction of the Innocent" does this at the end of every part.
- The comic detailing Captain America's death, "The Death of the Dream", saved its title for the closing.
- Deadpool has some stories, including the ones below, that don't show their titles until the end:
- In the last issue of Gail Simone's Healing Factor storyline, the chapter number and title appeared at the end of the story, as well as some credits and a dedication to the readers.
- In a story where his eardrums get destroyed by an explosion, and then he ends up fighting magical mimes, there are no words at all till the last page, and the punny title, Silent But Deadly, is the very last thing of all.
- "It's Your Funeral," an issue of Exiles.
- Every issue of the John Stewart-centric comic Green Lantern: Mosaic had the story title on the last page.
- The infamous Hellblazer story Warren Ellis wrote about the Columbine shootings that was initially pulled by DC Comics saved its title for the last page because it was the last thing one of the shooter's victims said to him: "Shoot."
- Most of Brad Meltzer's comics feature this, and they're usually just taken from lines in the issue.
- Spider-Man:
- The Night Gwen Stacy Died saves the title for the last panel, in order to prevent readers from discovering too soon which Spider-Man character Marvel decided to kill off.
- Peter David's The Death of Jean DeWolff did this as well.
- Each issue of the mini-series The Secret History of the Authority: Jack Hawksmoor.
- "Your Mother Should Know," an issue of the Will Payton-era Starman.
- There was a DC storyline that went by the title Superman Super Leauge, up until the end of the first issue when Superman said "I'm dying." Then the true title was revealed: The Final Days of Superman.
- The Elementals: A girl with a crush on Tommy runs away from home. He rescues her. The final panel shows them dancing together at her prom, and since we see the title is "My Little Runaway", you can't help but hear the Del Shannon song.
Fan Works
- The Reaping of Hatsune Miku: In keeping with the source material, each chapter is given its name at the end, with the chapter-title system of Archive of Our Own instead being used to name the timeframe of each chapter (The 1st Day, etc).
- A fanfic kind in the The Mummy fic Fairy Tales and Hokum. There's a couple of Title Drops, but the last line of the story is "After all, he was particularly well placed to know that you can only go so far on fairy tales and hokum alone."
Films — Animation
In General:
- Another common trend involves "presents" cards for the studios popping up at the beginning, while leaving the films' actual title cards at the end. Examples include The Angry Birds Movie, The Emoji Movie, Ferdinand, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Movies:
- The title of Big Hero 6 is the last thing to appear before the credits, following a shot of the team jumping towards the screen and Hiro narrating, "Who are we?"
- The Lion King both opens and closes on the title, serving as Bookends to the story. Both the beginning and end show the birth and presentation of the current Lion King's child to the public, set to The Circle of Life.
- Epic (2013): The title card doesn't appear until the very end, making the movie the world's longest cold open.
- The title card for How to Train Your Dragon is the LAST shot of the movie before the credits roll.
- Ditto for How to Train Your Dragon 2. The Hidden World keeps the tradition alive as well.
- The LEGO Movie and its spin-offs The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie build their title cards a few minutes into the end credits.
- Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is a Bookends example of this.
- The Incredibles. Although with such artistic end credits, it doesn't feel like the end.
- Moana also does this right after the final shot of the main character.
- My Little Pony: A New Generation does not have its title until the very end of the film, thus being the first My Little Pony movie in the franchise to do so.
- Ralph Breaks the Internet
- Sausage Party
- SCOOB!
- Soul does not have its title until after the final shot fades out, thus being the first Pixar movie to do so.
- Storks doesn't display its title until before the end credits.
- Tangled Ever After does not display its title until after Eugene and Rapunzel are declared husband and wife, and Maximus and Pascal lose the wedding cake.
- Teacher's Pet: The Movie
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
- Turbo
- Uglydolls has its title shown at the beginning and end.
- Wonder Park
Films — Live-Action
- With the move away from films having opening credits sequences, this trope has become more and more common in cinema.
- A Fistful of Dynamite. In the end the Italian title of the film, Giù la testa ("Down with the Head") is shown. It can be seen as the answer to the main hero's last words, which are "What do I do now?".
- A Wrinkle in Time has the title appear during the closing credits.
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 focuses on the symbol on Spider-Man's back directly after the prologue, yet the title appears over the symbol only at the beginning of the end credits.
- Apocalypse Now has its title and the opening credits moved at the end.
- Arrival
- Avatar's title appears at the very end of the film, after Jake's subconscious is permanently transferred into his Na'vi avatar.
- Beverly Hills Cop III
- Blade Runner 2049
- The Bucket List
- Catching Fire, which also includes shots of the gold mockingjay pin transforming into the three book/film logos.
- Cats opens without any opening credits and the film's title is stated just before the end credits roll.
- Christine, against a black background and establishing a suitably melancholy mood, as the film ends with Christine Chubbuck killing herself.
- Cinderella's title didn't appear until the very end of the film, before the credits scroll up.
- Contact likewise has the title card and the rest of the opening credits immediately preceding the closing ones.
- Contagion
- Courageous, egregiously.
- The 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls starts immediately without any opening titles whatsoever, causing the title to appear during the end credits.
- Edge of Tomorrow only has its title appear a few times during the end credits.
- The title card for 2014 film Exists appeared before the end credits.
- The card for Firehouse Dog appeared during the end credits.
- Gangs of New York
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) has its title appear right before its Creative Closing Credits.
- Green Book
- Hairspray: Title appears at the beginning and end.
- Head (1968) might be the Ur-Example.
- Hoffa didn't have any credits, not even the name of the film, until the end.
- In Hot Fuzz, the title card does not appear until the very end of the film. This can be backed up by the DVD Commentary.
- The Hurt Locker
- Into the Woods does not have its title appear until the end before the Video Credits.
- Isn't It Romantic
- The title of The Last Mimzy appears at the very end after Teacher Lena finishes the story of the attempt.
- Lion saves the meaning of its title for the very end, explaining that after the main character Saroo reunited with his mother, he learned his named was actually pronounced "Sheru", which means lion.
- Maleficent's movie title is the last thing to appear before the credits.
- Man of Steel
- Most Marvel Cinematic Universe movies from 2011's Thor onwards save their title cards for the end credits, the only exceptions being The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy films, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black Widow.
- The Miami Vice remake.
- Les Misérables (2012) has no opening credits, causing the title card to show up during the end credits instead.
- Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous for some reason.
- Moonlight (2016) does the same thing.
- The Mummy Returns
- Nachalo (Начало) - a Soviet film. It's actually playing with The End trope, as "Nachalo" means "beginning" in Russian and the film deals with the beginning of a movie star career.
- Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight II: The title against a black screen cuts in at the end, cutting away from a shot of Adas getting fluids extracted from his head.
- Christopher Nolan films:
- Inception doesn't have a title card until the end credits. Where it is displayed three separate times. Of course, given the events of the film, this is probably on purpose...
- Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises also don't show their titles until the end (though they do each start with a symbolic Batman symbol in place of a title card).
- May be Fridge Brilliance when you realize that he put the title card at the beginning of Memento, a film where the events are shown in backward chronological order.
- He also did this for Insomnia, but that gets a pass due to being a remake.
- Noelle
- The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
- Once Upon a Time in the West has a very long, drawn-out opening scene in which essentially every possible credit is shown except for the title, which shows up when the end credits begin. Hailing from 1968, this is one of the oldest examples of this trope.
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- The Passion of the Christ: Only a Bible verse is at the opening; all other credits are saved for the end of the film.
- Parental Guidance: The title card appeared during the end titles.
- The Pianist
- The Place Beyond the Pines
- A Prophet does this—probably because the lead character emerges as a metaphorical "prophet" fully only by the end of the film.
- A Michael Mann example happens in Public Enemies.
- While Quantum of Solace has the film series' traditional opening credits and theme song, an ending title still appears before the credit roll, even making use of the series' trademark Bond Gun Barrel.
- Unlike the the first and third movies, RoboCop 2's title isn't shown until the end credits.
- Rurouni Kenshin: The Final and Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning do this, in contrast to the previous Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, which always had their titles at the start.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) is a strange example: It does begin with a credits sequence... for a fake movie called "The Littlest Elf". The film's proper title doesn't appear until the end.
- Star Trek Beyond, a first for the (then) 50-year old franchise.
- The title for TRON: Legacy does not appear until during the credits. While a title does appear at the beginning, it only says TRON.
- Unbroken
- Van Helsing
- Wanted: Though it may be argued that the film title shows up (as part of a newspaper headline) about an hour into the film, making it one heck of a teaser.
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare doesn't display its title until a few mintues into the closing credits, somewhat fitting for its status as a Real World Episode.
- Wonder Woman: The title of the film only appears at the end of the main set of credits.
- The same goes for Yes-Man.
- Zero Dark Thirty
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: The Grand Finale "Sleeping in Light" has no opening credits, and closes on the title card and credits.
- Doctor Who:
- "Sleep No More" has a Special Edition Title-Only Opening, thus the episode name doesn't appear until after the "Next Time" trailer for the following episode.
- "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" and "Resolution" have the title card at the beginning of the credits. There's no opening credits.
- The final episode of Ultraman Orb, has the title shown before the ending credit of the show.
Music
- Claude Debussy's Preludes pour piano have highly evocative and poetical titles. They are written after each piece, specifically to void influencing the musician with preconceptions and instead let them focus on the actual, very subtle sound effects.
- Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" saves the Title Drop until the very end.
- The Title Drop for George Michael's "One More Try" is the last line of a six minute song.
- All of the non-instrumental songs on American Football's first album end with a Title Drop.
Video Games
- The Bridge's title is not displayed until after the ending sequence.
- Deltarune: Each chapter ends with the game's title.
- DOOM (2016) ends with this, as well as begins with a Cold Opening.
- The title card for The World That Never Was in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance does not appear for Riku until after he defeats the Anti-Black Cloak and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and just before the final boss marathon.
- School Days does this in both the original visual novel and the anime. Justified in the VN; the chapters' contents change drastically depending on player choices, so even the game doesn't know what to call the episode until it's over.
- The ending for the reboot of Tomb Raider displays not only the game's name, but emphasizes its themes by showing the tagline, "A Survivor is Born".
- The World Ends with You does this with its day-by-day chapter titles, showing you the title of the chapter once a day ends. There's a reason for this.
Web Animation
- Lobo (Webseries): Most of the episodes end with the show's title.
Webcomics
- Strip titles for The Non-Adventures of Wonderella are at the bottom of the page (though also in the URL).
Western Animation
- Camp Lakebottom: The first episode's title isn't revealed until the end. It's "Escape from Camp Lakebottom".
- The Pixar Short Day & Night does not have its title displayed until the ending, after Day and Night have become friends.
- Infinity Train: The first episode of Book Four: Duet does this, appearing at the end of the episode after that season's protagonists are placed in their pods and shot off to a distant part of the train.
- The BBC kid's show Kerwhizz ("The quiz with added whizz") has a "K" logo and a theme song which includes the title at the start, and it's referred to several times per show, but the title only appears on-screen during the closing credits.
- The last thing you see in the very first episode of The Owl House is the show's title just before the credits roll.
- Every episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee ends on a hard cut to the show's title.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The show's seventh and final season, coming out several years after the previous season, dispenses with its previous Title, Please! tactic and copies the two below-mentioned follow-up series by placing the titles early in the credits.
- Star Wars Rebels shows the card with the episode title at the beginning of the closing credits.
- Star Wars Resistance, made by many of the same people as Rebels, puts its episode title cards in the same place.
- The Venture Bros. does this with episode titles.
- In the Wander over Yonder episode "The Liar" the title appears again at the end, after Sylvia claims she knew all along things were going to work out.
- The Series Finale of Regular Show has the series title appears at the end of the episode on a tape Pops is watching in Heaven, to which he says "Jolly good show!"
