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I've watched some mainstream anime such as Naruto and One Piece and annoyingly
found some episodes for both to have spoiler titles. Seems to occur quite
often when there's a big action scene. Such as when "Character X" is fighting
and about to kill "Character Y", the title of the next episode is sometimes
like:

> Character Y's Ultimate Attack!

My impression: _Oh...I guess Character Y lives and wins._

Or

> Character Z rescues Character Y just in time!

My impression: _Oh...I guess Character Z didn't die 5 episodes ago then._

This is why I always immediately look away when the title shows up.

**What is the point of spoiler titles (apart from completely ruining the
episode)?**


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-27T21:32:22.807
39165
2017-08-30T15:12:33.363
2017-02-27T22:08:12.637
10654
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question
anime-production
Why do some anime have episodes with spoiler titles?


Just guessing: looks like anime is just a revision of manga. Producers thought
that every one should know the whole story first, then see the anime.

But with this kind of title, it is easy to index some episode. Maybe it is
also an aspect.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-27T21:56:39.903
39167
2017-02-27T21:56:39.903
31206
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answer


Where you see spoilers, someone else sees clever marketing.

Typically, episode titles like "Y's Ultimate Attack! Z Goes Down!" are used in
long-running shounen action shows. Long-running romance shows will also
sometimes use episode titles like "Throbbing heart of Y! A Kiss with Z at
Last?!" for the same reasons. But shorter-running shows will often have opaque
titles like
"[Ultramarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Beyond_the_Boundary_episodes)"
or "[Intermezzo of Light and
Shadow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kanon_episodes#Kanon_.282006.E2.80.932007.29)"
or "[Rhapsody in
Flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound!_Euphonium#Season_2)" that touch only
lightly on the story, if at all.

Long-running shows are long-running, naturally, and they have both a small
core of dedicated viewers who will turn up for every episode on a weekly basis
no matter what, and then a wide diaspora of casual fans who might catch an
episode here or there and might skip a few in the middle. For casual fans like
these, such episode titles are helpful for a few reasons:

  * A quick scan of recent episode titles can get you up to speed on what happened ("So, we had 'The Battle Kicks Off! Y vs. Z', then 'Z Overwhelmed?! Secret Attack!', then 'Z Strikes Back! Y On the Ropes!', and now I'm feeling good and ready to tune in for 'Y's Ultimate Attack! Z Goes Down!'")
  * Maybe I, a casual fan, already know that Y is going to beat Z in the end, because come on, Y is the determined scrappy hero who's not too smart but has a dream, and Z is the rich, snobby jerk who treats his bit beast like a slave, doesn't believe in the heart of the cards, and eats kittens. So I'm not interested in following the whole back and forth as Y appears to be winning, then Z comes back and seems to have the upper hand, then Y pulls out his ultimate attack that he learned from his dead master's final breath and wins the battle. But maybe I do want to see what Y's ultimate attack is, or I just want to see Z go down because that guy's a jerk and he's had it coming for the past 43 episodes. 
  * Or, continuing that thread, maybe I, a casual fan, had started to lose interest in the show because it was dragging on forever, and had stopped watching it, but Z's defeat is going to lead us into a new arc where things get interesting again. (In real life, I got bored with the "five minutes till the Planet Namek explodes" battle in _Dragon Ball Z_ and stopped watching the show, but became interested again when future Trunks and the Androids appeared.) Seeing that next week's episode is where Z finally goes down, I know next week or the week after are when I can start watching again.
  * Or maybe I, a casual fan, had been following this whole Y vs. Z battle, but I was thinking of skipping next week's episode to go to an onsen or eat some ramen or learn some ikebana or polish my katana or whatever else those Japanese people do when they're not watching anime. However, upon seeing that the title of next week's episode is "Y's Ultimate Attack! Z Goes Down!", I know that the fight is about to end and we're moving on to something else, so I might as well tune in next week and see how it all turns out.

The studios want to go after those casual fans because there are far more of
them than there are hardcore fans, and the hardcore fans are in it no matter
what anyway, so there's no reason to bother doing things to hook them in. But
the casual fans are constantly teetering on the edge, in danger of falling off
and being lost. So the studios have to show their cards a little, get those
casual fans good and riled up for next week's episode so they'll keep on
watching. If they can keep some of those casuals hooked, they might even
transmute into hardcore fans after a while, and start buying wall scrolls and
figures and tie-in manga and DVDs and dakimakura covers and all that, where
the real money is.

* * *

I would argue, however, that these titles aren't really spoilers in the sense
that they don't "spoil", i.e. ruin, your enjoyment of the episode in any real
sense. (At least for most values of "you".) Long-running shounen action has
very few tricks up its sleeve. Some characters fight, somebody wins, somebody
loses. Typically it's the heroes who win, except in a few limited scenarios
where some individual hero might lose. But the heroes always _ultimately_ win,
even if some of the individual fights are lost.

Basically, these shows have very simple plots. If you've seen enough of them,
you can typically predict in any given scenario what's going to happen. But
people who know what's going to happen, episode titles or no, can still enjoy
these stories. I'm so, so, _so_ over this genre, but I still picked up a few
volumes of _One Piece_ and enjoyed them. Was it the complex plot? No, I knew
exactly what the ultimate outcome was going to be in every story. The
realistic characters? No, the characters are simple archetypes. The uproarious
humor? No, the humor is repetitive and childish. I enjoyed the unique art
style, the inventive action scenes, the creative world. I enjoyed seeing Luffy
engage in a weird battle where he has a giant ball of gold solidified around
his hand, even though I already knew he would win it. I enjoyed the weirdness
of seeing a reindeer take some kind of magic drug and transform into a super
reindeer. The outcome of the fight was a foregone conclusion; it was obvious
from how it was set up that Chopper would win the fight after taking the magic
drug. But knowing this didn't ruin my enjoyment of it.

I already knew Luffy was going to win every battle where the stakes really
mattered. I already knew he would end every story arc as the same idiot with a
dream he'd always been. I already knew Sanji would hit on girls and Usopp
would cower and Nami would yell. Those don't matter. To enjoy this genre is to
enjoy the journey, not the final destination. What in other genres would be
window dressing or added style is the entire point of the shounen action
genre. It's the ultimate triumph of style over substance. A one-sentence
episode title can only spoil the plot because the plot is so simple, but the
plot is so simple because it's not the main attraction; the style, action,
powers, and raw teenage emotions are. If you're finding that the episode title
ruins your enjoyment of the episode, maybe this genre just isn't for you.
Maybe you need something with a more complex plot to enjoy.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-04T17:34:02.653
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2017-03-04T17:34:02.653
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answer