Is there an industry-specific reason that many characters in martial arts anime announce the name of their attacks?

Question

In Naruto all characters announce the names of their jutsu. In Dragonball (and its descendants), characters do the same thing, at least for their special attacks. I'm sure can come up with other examples. Is there a reason for this? I'm asking more about why it appears to be a trope in anime, so not specifically "is there a reason for this in X anime", but rather "is there an industry-wide reason for this in general"?

Answer 1

From the TV Tropes entry for Calling Your Attack:

[Used] properly and skillfully it can be an effective and compact narrative device. There isn't really a simpler way to let the audience know that Captain Kirk's next phaser blast isn't supposed to kill the alien, or that Judge Dredd's next bullet is supposed to go "boom". Especially in manga, it's particularly difficult to let the reader know what special attacks are used without either motion or color, so having the characters say it is probably the most practical solution.

Answer 2

I was having trouble finding a specific reference for this. Its mentioned in some articles but I haven't seen it come directly from a manga creator or anime director, but...

I assume this has to do with most anime being based on manga. Since being black and white illustrations, it can sometimes be a little difficult to tell exactly what a character is doing in the middle of a fight. Calling out an attack name not only lets the reader know what the character is doing (being able to differentiate attacks with similar poses or advanced versions of previously used moves) but also shows when a character is attacking, not defending, moving quickly or prepping for attack.

A good example of this can be seen in a One Piece panel.

We see an attack from far away, with the line

1080 Pound Phoenix!!!

This tells us a few things:

1. We know for sure Zoro is making the attack, as we have seen it before. This isnt the cause of something else interfering.
2. We know he is using all three swords as this attack has 3 versions (360 pound for 1 sword and 720 pound for 2)
3. And this is a leveled up version of an old attack, which had 36, 72 and 108 pound attacks.

Things like this allow the writer to give a wider variety of panels and not focus so much on conveying the attack itself but rather its affects and the scene as a whole, while still giving a lot of information for the reader to fill the gaps in their mind.

Since these are commonly used throughout manga to assist the reader, these naturally made their way into the anime adaptations, even though they are not as necessary.

Also as a side note, in some fantasy series magic based attacks require invocation. That is saying a specific phrase out loud in order to commence the attack (this is common in other media like Harry Potter and D&D). So in those series the power system actually requires the move to be said out loud before use.

Note: I will edit this to include some references if I can find something reliable.