Fantasy Dimensions

Here is some food for thought, can any anime attack be too long or too short? I’ve recently been thinking this over as I watch a class Shounen Jump anime known as Yu Yu Hakusho. In regards to attack names I would like to present a few attacks:

The Kamehameha

I may have spelled that wrong although the spellcheker isn’t flipping out. It is basically one of the longer attacks having the caster shout for upwards to a minute the phase then unleashing a ball of their own spirit energy (from DBZ). This attack’s long name really helps continue the suspense of the moment as you wait to see if the ball hits or not.

The Spirit Gun

The Spirit Gun is Yusuke’s weapon in Yu Yu Hakusho. He shouts “SPIRIT GUN” or for the Japanese version it’s “REI-GUN”. This attack, his most powerful, is very short and by the time he is done saying the name the blast is off. No suspense is built.

The Shining Finger

G Gundam’s famous Shining Finger involves a long winded burning passion filled threat the enemy followed by an incredibly hot hand usually melting parts off the other Gundam. As the attack winds up you feel yourself in suspense as you know he’s about to unleash his major attack.

Gomu Gomu no

In One Piece, Luffy often uses his “Gomu Gomu no ” after time he does on of his stretching moves. Generally he has two forms the quick “GOMU GOMU NO GATTLING GUN” for instance and the long “GOOOMMUUU GOOOMUUU NO PIIIIIIIISSSSSSTTTTTTTTOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL”. The short one is hardly noticed as he does it in quick attacks, but the long one builds up the suspense as you hope it works to damage the enemy.

Okay, I think I will stop. While taking a small sampling out of various Shounen series we have discovered the longer the attack name the cooler it becomes. Why? The suspense and drama associated with the attacks.

As two people draw back to unleash their attacks, the longer they spend “powering up” as it were the more excited you become about the actual attacks. For instance in G Gundam, when the speech starts you know something awesome is about to happen and get glued to your seats. While in Yu Yu Hakusho he quickly shouts Spirit Gun and it’s unleashed. While I’m not trying to discredit Yu Yu Hakusho from being a bad anime, I am trying to create a point in relation to the length of the attack names vs. the enjoyment of it.

That said, I think you can have too long of an attack. The Spirit Bomb unleashed by Goku took way too long, although it was REALLY dramatic when it went off against Freiza. It was really hard to debate as it took several episodes to power up and when it was unleashed you knew that it was going to be epic.

So, in summary, I believe the longer the attack the better. Anything over say 3 minutes is too much and anything less then 20 isn’t enough. I think within 3 minutes you can get an entire speech out and launch the attack and anything under 20 seconds is just them quickly screaming out the attack name and launching themselves forward.