Storm: Power of lightning, strike again! Spider-Man: Um... power of webshooters, get real sticky! —Spider-Man: The Animated Series

You don't activate your magic or superpower without an announcement. After all, randomly bursting into flames at a dinner party would be rather rude of you, if you were theHuman Torch.

So you put together a ritual that triggers things, complete with aCatch Phrase. You shout "Flame On!" and the other dinner guests—or anyway, theaudience—knows things are about to get flame-y.

In short, you (the writer) invoke your character's power tosuspend disbelief long enough to do something way out of the norm. Itcan be an incantation orPower Words. More often than not, though, it's just theRule of Cool in action, rather than an actual incantation.

ThePstandard Psychic Pstance gesture seems to be a universal invocation of psychic powers. Contrast withIn the Name of the Moon andTransformation Name Announcement, which comeafter the transformation, but before the buttkicking. Brother ofCalling Your Attacks. Not to be confused withMagical Incantation,By the Power of Grayskull orWords Can Break My Bones where the words actually do something. May overlap with theSurvival Mantra or theBadass Creed.

Anime andManga

• The Gate users onGate Keepers would often shout "Gate Open!" inGratuitous English when manifesting their abilities.
  • Except for theChinese Girl. She uses "Kai Men!" (The same phrase, but in Chinese.)
• Mirai fromMoldiver doesn't need to shout "Metamorforce!" when she triggers the Mol Unit, she just does it because she thinks it's cool.
• "[Insert colour] Pearl Voice!" in theMermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga is either this or theMagical Girls' hero identities' naming format; it's not entirely clear which, but if it is a transformation phrase, it's an Invocation, because they certainly don't say it all the time. In the anime, though, it's clearlyBy the Power of Greyskull instead.
• Emiya Shiro fromFate/stay night tends to say "Trace, on" (or off) whenever he uses his Projection spell. It doesn't really seem to do anything aside from making himself concentrate on the spell,considering that his future self only says it once in the entire game (naturally, toconfirm that he was the future version of Shiro).
  • Justified in the game. Most magic in the setting is done bysimply channeling Mana through your magic circuits (presumably in the correct manner), but since this is hardly a natural human action, mages tend to make up verbal spells that they associate with specific magic circuit usages. What the words actually are is irrelevant, since it's simply a kind of self-hypnosis. Of course, since this is the Nasuverse, we always get exceptions, in this case Medea who usesDivine Language where apparently the sounds themselves create their own magic circuits and one person fromKara no Kyoukai: who talks to the world and convinces it to change.
• Pretty much every exorcist inD.Gray-man, usually with a dramatic "Innocence", Activate!"
• Minamoto inZettai Karen Childrenalways yells out "Special ESPer Team, The Children! RELEASE!" as he deactivates theirPower Limiters with his phone in a suitably dramatic way.
• Though it's unknown if its necessary for ninjas inNaruto toannounce their attacks, they always do it at least the first time and are never heard by anyone but the audience.
• Dai Mahou Touge: "Kill Them All!"
• Rockman.EXE: "Plug In, Rockman.EXE! Transmission!"
  • Mega Man NT Warrior: "Jack In! Megaman, Power Up!"
• The mages ofMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha frequently use "[Name ofIntelligent or Armed Device], Set Up!" to transform, although it has been shown that saying just "Please" or even nothing at all is enough to start the process.
• Digimon Adventure 02 had the main humans yelling "Digiarmor energize!" to trigger armor evolution, though this is occasionally skipped over in the interest of time.
  • There's also "Spirit Evolution!" and "Digisoul, charge!" Neither of which is technicallyneeded to initiate evolution, but it does sound cool.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!!: Every duel is officially begun by the duelists shouting "It's time to duel!" or "Let's duel!" Each turn also tends to end with "Your move" or "Your move, (opponent name)." Though the real-life manual indicates that this is simply good manners. The Japanese Invocation is simply "Duel!"
• TheYu-Gi-Oh! GX English tended to use "Duel!", except for Jaden's "Get your game on!" and the occasional "Let's duel!"
• Devil Hunter Yohko ("Dark powers whose black deeds escape even the light of the moon/ Behold now the radiance yada yada yada...")
• Pretty much any long runningHumongous Mecha series withCalling Your Attacks will present it but invariably they will be shown doing the attack at some pointwithout calling it.
• WhileLelouch Lamperouge does actually need to speak for his geass to do anything, he'll occasionally add "Lelouch vi Britannia commands you..." to let you know that he means business.
• Slayers is a mixed bag. On one hand, the protagonist Lina doesn't strictlyneed to use the words of her incantations beacuse she's a pro. On the other hand, they do work better when she does. If pressed for time she'll just say the first line to get in the mood and skip to the spell name.
• "This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! Its bright shine tells me to defeat you! Take this! SHINING FINGER!!"^[1]
• TheShinigami inBleach can use theirKido spells without any incantation (by simplycalling the spell's level number and name), but the resulting effect is usually far weaker than it would be if they had had the time to recite it (some of them arereally long—see below). However, it takes a somewhat skilled Kido user to be able to use it without the incantation and not have it blow up in their faces.
  • Since their use of Kido is almost strictly for combat (save for some healing and shielding spells, and even those are sometimes used in combat), they tend to either recite the incantation beforehand if at all possible, or simply use it without the incantation. This, of course, means that when a skilled Kido user (especially a captain-level one) recites the incantation for a spell, theHSQ of the target goes to through the roof(unless, of course, that target isSousuke Aizen, in which case he'll juststare blankly and say something to the effect of "Since when were you under the impressionthat your pathetic spells can hurt me?").
  • While the incantations are usually very word salad-y, they are also pretty cool:
    • Kakushitsuijaku (Summoning of the Tracking Sparrows)

"Heart of the south, eye of the north, finger of the west, foot of the east, arrive with the wind and depart with the rain. Way of Binding, number 58:Kakushitsuijaku!"

• • • Tenteikūra (Heavenly Rickshaws in Silken Air ^{[dead link]})

"Black and white net. Twenty-two bridges, sixty-six crowns and belts. Footprints, distant thunder, sharp peak, engulfing land, hidden in the night, sea of clouds, blue line. Form a circle and fly though the heavens. Bakudo, number 77: Tenteikūra!"

• • • Sōkatsui (Blue Fire, Crash Down ^{[dead link]})

"Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws. Hado, number 33: Sōkatsui!"

• • • Senjū Kōten Taihō (Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling-Sear ^{[dead link]})

"Limit of the thousands hands, respectful hands, unable to touch the darkness. Shooting hands unable to reflect the blue sky. The road that basks in light, the wind that ignited the embers, time that gathers when both are together, there is no need to be hesitant, obey my orders. Light bullets, eight bodies, nine items, book of heaven, diseased treasure, great wheel, grey fortress tower. Aim far away, scatter brightly and cleanly when fired. Hado, number 91: Senjū Kōten Taihō!"

• • Shinigami who have not reached bankai must also release their shikai with a command, followed by the name of the zanpakuto.

Comic Books

• The Wonder Twins' "Wonder Twin Powers Activate!" was originally revealed as being this in theSuperfriends tie-in comic. They didn't say it because they needed to, but rather just because they thought it was cool.
• The Human Torch of theFantastic Four, as noted above. Ben Grimm, The Thing, famously roared, "It's Clobberin' Time!", often as he burst out of histrenchcoat and fedora.

Films

• Parodied in the firstSpider-Man film, as Peter Parkertries to get his web power to work.
• InDune the Harkonnen Mentat recites a mantra after drinking "sapho" juice as part of a ritual to heighten his mental powers. This does not feature in the book and was an invention of the director/actor.

Literature

• In theDoctor Who spinoffFaction Paradox, Cousin Justine recites a little prayer/poem whenever she's about to use hersombras que corta to do something clever. It goes like this:

Bloodline to bloodline, in constant transition. Our pattern, our flesh, and our one restoration. Conception, completion, the will of the city. Grandfather watch me, Spirits maintain me.

• Similar to theFate/stay night example above, djinn in theChildren of the Lamp book series use a particular "magic word" as an aid in focusing on their magic, but the word itself is arbitrary. The only rule is that the word be somewhat long and complex, but this is just to make sure that the djinni in question doesn't accidentally use magic in the course of daily conversation. Thus we get everything from real words like "SESQUIPEDALIAN" and "ZYGOBRANCHIATE" to the meaningless but familiar "QWERTYUIOP" to the truly nonsensical "FABULONGOSHOOMARVELISHLYWONDERPIPICAL".
• Played with inThe Dresden Files. Ritual,Calling Your Attacks, and even Focii are all just to help the wizard visualize their spells. Only a very few spells (usually heavy-duty summoning or massive rituals) actually require more than mental focus at all levels of talent and power. However, they help, so wizards do them. But then, since a wizard's power is tied to their beliefs, its possible that this trope (and all the other listed stuff)becomes necessary. Note, though, that invocation also has another feature, insulating the mind against the magic - which is why wizards all choose dramatic, old languages that they don't speak, because that gives them a bit of distance from what they're saying.

Live-Action TV

• Hiro ofHeroes scrunches up his faces and wiggles his jowls to stop time. Hey. Whatever works.
  • As time has gone on, he's progressed to often just blinking at things.
  • Scrunching and wiggling to make his powers work?Not like we haven't seen that before.
  • At first it looked more likesevere constipation.
  • This became moreBy the Power of Greyskull when Ando manually activated Hiro's powers when he was unconscious bysqueezing his features into that expression. Yeah...
• All the Objects fromThe Lost Room have a special invocation: turn the Key, Comb the hair, tap someone with the Bus Ticket...
• Amanda, the human-raised Q inStar Trek: The Next Generation, makes little gestures when using her powers, as does the suicidal Q inStar Trek: Voyager. No other Q does this. Unless you thinkTrelane was a Q. Though those who hold to this theory often also decideTrelane wastheQ. Although, Q did tend to snap his fingers when using his powers, on-and-off. Presumably,all are doing it for dramatic effect, except Amanda, raised as a human.
  • Incidentally, the idea that Trelane was a (but notthe) Q is usually consideredFanon, as it was central to one of the best respected Star Trek novels,Q-Squared. Trek novels, however, are neveractually canon.
    • The shows are barely canon themselves, from one to the next; what do you want from anE.U.?
• In the 1950sThe Adventures ofSuperman, George Reeves would look over the tops of his glasses when Supes was using X-Ray Vision, a gesture repeated onSuperman: The Animated Series. InSmallville, Tom Welling tilts his head foreward and squints when X-Raying, since this version of Clark doesn't wear glasses (except once as ashout out). TheSilver Age andSuperfriends Supermen also shouted "Up, up and away!" before flying.
  • The "looking over the glasses" motion was also used by theLois and Clark incarnation of Superman, when he used x-ray or heat vision. Which makes sense for heat vision (cos otherwise he'd melt his glasses) butwhy can't you x-ray through glass?
    • Refraction?
• Power Rangers falls into this a lot. Particularly on occasions when rangers actually show that they can morphwithout calling out some codeword, but rather just quietly pushing the button on their morpher. Plus they often have to call out the name of the weapon they want to use, even if it was sitting right there in their holster!
• WheneverRodney McKay snaps his fingers repeatedly, he is about to enter full-genius mode (possibly due to his Chance-Of-Impending-Doom-O-Meter is about to goOff the Scale). How it's connected with his brain activity is unknown, but it lets the viewer know he is up to something.
• EveryKamen Rider series (exceptHibiki, which wasn't even KR until it wasExecutive Meddled into being one) has the Rider shout "Henshin!" before they transform. It doesn't seem to be required, merely a stylistic convention andShout-Out to the original, with the sole exception ofDelta, whoseTransformation Trinket is voice-activated.
  • With the second Rider (who was the first to do it) the phrase opened the cover of theTransformation Trinket so the wind-powered transformation would begin. (Kamen Rider #1 didn't have the cover, and he said nothing initially. However, when he returns after a long absence, he takes up his successor's habit.) But yeah...all the others seem to be doing it for just dramatic effect, and furthermore, are not instructed to say it by anyone when they first get their powers.)

Video Games

• Brutal Legend: Several.
  • "How do I get this thing started? Oh man...Dear evil, messed up, demon powers. Of darkness. Please transport me off this awesome corpse pile. I am but a visitor in this strange world, which some would call hellish, but I have to admit is kinda badass."
  • "Oh, mighty sun. Burn the creatures of the night from this land while I enjoy coffee and bacon!"
• Colette's Mystic Arte, Holy Judgement, fromTales of Symphonia. The invocation for Holy Song, one of her Angel Artes with the effect of buffing the team, is usually: "Thy faithful servant asketh for thy blessing. Honor us with the splendor of thy song." However, when doing the Mystic Arte, Colette slips up and intones: "Thy faithful servant asketh for thy blessing. Honor us with the special... uh... oops! I messed up!" Instead of the spell failing, however, Colette'sdivine clumsiness results in the spell setting off Holy Song andJudgement at the same time, both significantly increased in power.
• Cortez inTime Splitters: Future Perfect with the incredibly cheesy"Time to split!" line before travelling through time. Most of the rest of the cast notice the cheesiness and occasionally comment on it, particularly Super Spy Harry Tipper.
  • Parodied in Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, where Matt says his catchphrase "It's hazard time!" before doing anything. Everyone makes fun of him for it.
• .hack//G.U.: Almost every time Haseo activates his Avatar,
  • Come on... Come on... I'm right... here... SKEITH!!!!
  • Each of the other Avatar PC's have a similar Incantation. Interestingly, in anAll Your Powers Combined moment in the third game, they all recite Haseo's.
• The characters inFinal Fantasy Tactics occasionally bust out an invocation for their spell (or in some cases, just battle skills).
• BlazBlue: When Bang Shishigami activates hisFu-Rin-Ka-Zan, he eithercalls it out or gives us this invocation...

Bang:Quicker than the wind and as still as the forest, hotter than flames and more magnificent than a mountain!

• • And theAstral Heats:

Nu: From beyond the realm of souls and birth I call upon the ur-sword to bring ruin on my enemies.Perish! Tsubaki: White feathers for innocence, black feathers for darkest sin. We are the messengers and hammers of God, come to deliver righteous justice! Let sinners be punished! Let justice be done! Hazama: By the darkness of a thousand souls, in the name of Susanooh. I command you awaken! Nox Nyctores Ouroboros! Mu: The seven celestial gods! The world created by the hands of the gods. Everything is false! Everything is a lie! The final days have come! Now, let everything be destroyed!

• InAdvance Wars, whenever a CO activates his Power/Super Power, he will say something cool before.
• InSkies of Arcadia, every magic spell is invoked with "Moons, give me strength!" Its the same for every spell, regardless of what it does. Likely just something to get them focused.
  • Here's one you'll probably be hearinga lot of:

Aika: "Fire consume my enemies! Lambda Burst!"

• Eternal Sonata has this in spades. Every special attack needs to be invoked, and if the power gauge is more full (resulting in a more powerful attack and a longer more dramatic pause), a longer invocation is said. Most aren't even coherently audible... =/
• An important part in the worldbuilding ofYggdra Union andBlaze Union, where the most common form of attack magic—Tactics Cards—are representations of magical contracts that have been given form by a rare and very powerful type of magic called the Power of Words. Given that the Power of Words has essentially founded the current system and is based in speech and writing, a player who knows about the worldbuilding will easily be able to spotNessiah as a critically important character by the fact that he wields a spellbook, not a staff. This characteris actually the founder of the Tactics Cards system himself; heput himself through hell to master the Power of Words, too.
• Valkyrie Profile has some truly epic statements being made when it comes to the great magics; the sequel was a little lacking in that regard. Invoking theHarmoniums of Asgard to summonAncient Lightnings is pretty awesome. The physical warriors also get some pretty impressive ones with their Purify Weird Soul moves. It's probably not necessary to announce "My soul burns; my power has awakened!" right before transforming into a giant dragon to blast foes to oblivion; it certainly is memorable, though. These were similarly toned down forValkyrie Profile: Silmeria.

Web Original

• In theStrong Bad Email "transformation", Strong Bad always prefaces his transformations with "Shape of... (something)!" Then, the transformation would be accompanied by a "DWAYNE!!" sound effect in Strong Bad's own voice.
• Used by Generator in theWhateley Universe to activate her faux "devices". They're actually powered byher "autonomous telekinetic constructs", which is to say basically disembodied copies of herself who generally already know what they're supposed to do, but by shouting "activation commands" she deliberately creates the illusion of being just another mutant high-tech geek.

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom‍'‍s "Going ghost!" He's transformed just as many times without saying it, most memorably for a stretch of episodes after his newarch enemy mocked it.
• American Dragon: Jake Long‍'‍s "Dragon up!" When partially transforming, he would name whatever part he changed; "Claws of the Dragon" or what have you.
• Inverted inTransformers: Cybertron. TheTagalong Kid'sHumongous Mecha transforms for the first time without the vocal trope. The regular characters tell him he should shout "Transform!" the next time, as it makes the process much more exciting. (He does.)
• Transformers: Beast Wars, on the other hand, made a big show of having the characters shout "Maximize!" or "Terrorize!" along with an elaborateTransformation Sequence...for one season. After that, the Invocation was pretty much dropped without comment from anyone.
  • On the other hand, after Blackarachnia'stransformation to a Transmetal II and accompanying conversion to the Maximal side, she makes a show of accompanying her first transformation in her new body with Blackarachnia,Maximize!", informing the viewer that her transformation did, in fact, remove her Predacon programming.
  • The episode that introduced the FusorsQuickstrike and Silverbolt hasMegatron hacking into their CPUs and altering their transformation codes from "Maximize!" to "Terrorize!" and then uses it as proof that they have always been Predacons and just forgot. Silverbolt, though, doesn't like the word but has no other reason to disbelieve Megatron.
  • Additionally, since Dinibot keeps doingFace Heel Turns andHeel Face Turns, he "officially" changes his transformation code to the opposite as proof or his new loyalty. Nobody buys it, of course.
• She didn't use an actualCatch Phrase, butStorm in the 1990s animatedX-Men would often describe the weather pattern she was creating... inPurple Prose, not unlike a witch's spell. See the page quote above.
• Jérémie onCode Lyoko can transfer his teammates to Lyoko without saying "Transfer... Scanner... Virtualization" and jump back in time without saying "Return to the past now!"
  • Indeed, during a couple of Season 1 episodes, the RTTP kicks in without any help from Jérémie, purely from narrative habit. In one of the two, he was unconscious at the time and nowhere near the building, at that.
    • TheFanon explanation for these is that Aelita can launch herself the Return to the Past from inside the Tower.
• Captain Planet: Kwame introduces theBy the Power of Greyskull ritual with the Invocation "Then let our powers combine!" Even if one of the other Planeteers decides they should call Captain Planet, they wait for Kwame to say this first. He was even once able to use it to free the rest of hisBrainwashed team (although that wasAll Just a Dream).
• Chaotic: Almost every match begins with a "Let's Get Chaotic!"
• Bakugan loves this trope:
  • Staring a match: InBattle Brawlers, the players would use a special card and yell, "Field Open!", stopping time outside the field. Closing the field would happen automatically, or if the players used the same cards and said, "Field Close!', as seen in a few episodes.New Vestroia has "Gauntlet, Power Strike!", with the same time-stopping effect for those not in the match. It differed in that, unlikeBattle Brawlers, the battle didn't take place in a pocket dimension, even on Earth, leading to a lot of post-battle destroyed buildings.
  • Using a Bakugan: While throwing their Bakugan onto the field, players would always yell, "Bakugan Brawl! [Name of Bakugan] Stand!".New Vestroia added throwing a Bakugan Trap into the air, with a similar command: "Bakugan Trap! [Name of Trap]!" May possibly be justRule of Cool, as the invocations sometimes varied.
  • Gate and Ability Cards: "Gate Card, Set!" and "Gate Card Open: [Name of Card!", though the latter may actually be required to activate the card.New Vestroia's Gate Cards seem to always be called [Attribute] Reactor, butBattle Brawlers had a lot more variety. Similarly, "Ability Activate! [Card Name]!" triggered a special ability.New Vestroia added "Double Ability", "Triple Ability", and "Fusion Ability" to the game, making for somewildly improbable buthighly cool combos.Battle Brawlers had the Ability Cards held and activated similar to Field Cards, butNew Vestroia had the brawler put the card(s) into their Gauntlet to activate them.

• Trope
• Pages with Broken Links
• Invocation
• Speculative Fiction Tropes
• Word Power