Special move
3The Telling · 48Also written: hissatsu waza, signature move, named attack
A named technique, often shouted as it is used, that a character develops and relies on in battle.
3A 3 by its term: creative communicator, and therefore the telling.
What it means
A special move, or hissatsu waza, "certain-kill technique", is a named technique unique to a character. In battle and sports manga, characters often shout the name of their move as they use it.
Where it came from
Named techniques appear in older martial-arts fiction, but manga of the 1970s and 1980s made them central. Masami Kurumada's boxing manga Ring ni Kakero gave its punches names and powers, and his Saint Seiya, Fist of the North Star and Dragon Ball's Kamehameha made the shouted attack a convention. Sports manga such as Captain Tsubasa gave names to shots and saves.
Why it works
A name makes a technique memorable and lets a manga build anticipation: readers know what a move does, so they can wait for it and fear it. Developing a new move is a way to show a character's growth, and countering an enemy's move is a way to show cleverness.
Why it matters
Special moves are one of the most recognisable features of battle manga and have become part of their structure, as well as a favourite subject of parody.
The term by its numbers
Every letter here carries a digit; together they make 48, which folds down to 3. The weight sits in “Special”, which carries 29 on its own and reduces to 11.
Three is creative communicator — communication, creativity, and the public stage. The reference files it as an act of telling. Read that way, what the entry is really recording is the 3's instinct to turn everything into a story worth telling.
The vowels alone reduce to 8, the consonants to 22. Power underneath, construction on the surface. The gap between them is where the subject is most interesting.
The 3 talks past the point. Where an entry here runs long, it is usually because the technique was more fun to describe than it was important. What the 3 still asks is that you watch the technique rather than the plot it is carrying. The other entries that reduce to 3 are collected on The Telling.
Seen in
- Saint SeiyaTeenage warriors in armour shaped like the constellations fight to protect the reincarnated goddess Athena.
- Fist of the North StarIn a world wrecked by nuclear war, a wandering martial artist who can kill with a touch fights the warlords preying on the survivors.
- Captain TsubasaA boy who treats the ball as his friend sets out to become the best footballer in the world, in the series that made a baseball country love soccer.
- Dragon BallA martial arts adventure about a boy with a tail searching for wish-granting orbs, which became the template most subsequent battle shonen was built against.