Combat Commentator

Oftentimes you'll have Combat Commentators.

Riza: Since you'll be the only one not participating in the battle, you have to give an excruciatingly detailed play-by-play of what's going on, as if you were describing it to a bunch of idiots.
Winry: You've got to be kidding.

— Pokémists, Pocket Alchemists

Where active conflict between characters plays a major role, the combat commentator is the character who's seen most of the moves before and is kind enough to provide a running commentary for the less-seasoned characters (and, by extension, the audience) as to who has just done what, and why they've done it. Sometimes the character takes the role of an actual commentator or sports announcer, complete with microphone.

Obviously, this works best in a martial arts-based series, where the commentator may well know not only the names and effects of a move, but the history of them as well. However, it can just as easily appear in any other type of series with a competitive bent.

Sometimes, commentators may well change over the course of the series, such as in Initial D, where the commentators tend to be replaced by more skilled counterparts as the level of Takumi (and later Project D) continue increasing.

Near-obligatory for a Tournament Arc. Often make use of Talking Is a Free Action, allowing commentators to provide a thorough, detailed explanation of the effects, drawbacks, and origins of a move within the two or so seconds it takes to execute. When a character acts as their own Combat Commentator, even when it serves no purpose except to help their opponent, that's Explaining Your Power to the Enemy.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Everyone in Angelic Layer, from Dei to Those Two Guys to the company officials, seems to find the time to comment on Misaki's matches with depth, insight, and a disproportionate amount of vested interest.
• Captain Tsubasa, Inazuma Eleven, actually, any football anime possible. Justified Trope: not every reader/viewer is aware of the rules of the games the anime is centered on.
• Akagi's commentaries tend to take up more of an episode than the actual dealing, drawing, and calling of tiles. Onlookers analyze the dealing of any single tile to an extreme degree, sometimes even throwing in some extreme metaphors for the players' in-game actions for good measure.
  • Likewise in the author's other work Kaiji.
• Justified in All Rounder Meguru, since most of the fights are Shooto matches with trainers and spectators onlooking.
• In Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin, there are two news announcers, known only as Female Announcer and Commentator-san. They appear at every tournament, and will gladly cover any other battle they stumble upon for their program.
• Beelzebub:
  • Spoofed, along with Calling Your Attacks. The protagonist calls a normal punch and kick by impressive names made up on the spot, and his Non-Action Guy sidekick immediately comes up with some bullshit to "explain" to the people standing near him.
  • Later spoofed again in a Mundane Made Awesome game of extreme volleyball, in which one of the two commentators is wearing a cat costume, and is supposed to only say "meow". He occasionally gives genuine comments, but is promptly chastised for such by his partner.
• Beyblade:
  • Bakuten Shoot Beyblade has Blader D.J. as the ever-present commentator. The dub team wanted to bring the sports feel through the fourth wall and added the voice-only duo of A.J. Topper and Brad Best, so that the kids at home could imagine looking at a genuine match. Then there was also Umikawa as a one-time commentator for the Akebono town tournament. Kyōju serves as the BBA Team's personal combat commentator.
  • Metal Fight Beyblade has Madoka, Kyōju's Expy.
• Bleach:
  • Shinigami have a habit of doing their own combat commentary, explaining exactly how their sword works either before or after demonstrating it. Soi Fon gets into a little trouble with this for explaining her two hit kill power before even landing the first hit. Her opponent dodges and berates her for explaining the attack when she could have just done the attack and be over with it.
  • Sometimes while demonstrating it.
  • Most fights also have at least one or more witnesses that will comment upon the fight.
  • Deconstructed by Mayuri who shows an encyclopedic knowledge of Quincy gained by performing hideous experiments on the souls of deceased Quincy including Uryuu's grandfather.
  • Non-shinigami will often do this MORE than shinigami will. Count the number of times Ishida explains that Quincy attack using arrows formed from spirit particles - it's bound to be more than most captains explain how their swords work. Arrancar explain every named attack they use right after using it. And Bount yammer on about their dolls so much you'd expect them to be starting a tea party.
  • During the fight between Starrk and Kyoraku, neither are keen to explain their abilities and repeatedly attack without the usual preamble. They make far more observations of one another, however, and the lack of understanding leads to some bad mistakes from both men — in part because they are actively deceiving each other. Lampshaded (?) by Ukitake when, asked by Starrk how he appeared to fire a cero, he tells the Espada to work it out for himself by firing at him some more. Starrk does figure it out a bit later.
  • Kyoraku later plays it straight after releasing and using his Shikai - it forces combatants to fight using rules of children's games and he explains them.
  • The worst example may be Shinji. He fights Aizen, knows Aizen's powers, knows that he has one shot to take out Aizen, Aizen doesn't know Shinji's powers, and has every advantage. So, out of the blue, Shinji spends a good five minutes explaining his sword's powers, and throwing away every single advantage that he has in the fight. Slightly lampshaded as in-character cockyness - Shinji proclaims that even if Aizen knows that his powers invert all his senses of directions, he wouldn't be able to adjust. While he manages to land one hit, Aizen manages to adjust soon after.
  • Zommari Leroux combines this trope with Idiot Ball during his fight with Byakuya. He explain in complete detail his every single technique or ability used during the battle through very long winded lectures.
• In Break Shot, Shinsuke plays and Ryoji comments and vice versa. It's especially useful because they're usually on the same team. The one that asks questions is Asako, who doesn't really play.
• Every match in rank wars in World Trigger has three commentators to explain the actions that happen and the tactics behind such actions. This is justified as rank wars are used by Border to train the tactical prowess of their agents.
• Weirdly enough, Death Note has a grip of this; it's averted during actual action sequences, but a lot of the show is the major characters carefully outlining their insanely elaborate plans for various bystanders. One of the functions that Ryuk serves during the 80% of the plot when he's just hanging out not doing anything is that he provides someone for Light to monologue to at length about why he's doing what he's doing.
• As the fantasy world's civilization in Dog Days has replaced their wars with an eclectic mix of athletic competitions, arena parkour and Non-Lethal K.O. magic, their "wars" have commentators as a dedicated role. The whole thing is televized to boot.
• Dragon Ball:
  • This role first fell to Yamcha in the original who was stalking the heroes so that he could steal the Dragon Balls, and had heard of just about everyone they ran into. It's later picked up by Roshi, then Kami, then Piccolo or Vegeta, who explain to their unknowing peers (and the audience) how amazing it is that Goku can manipulate his energy in whatever way he does. In the very last parts of the Buu arc of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, it's the old Kaioshin doing this.
  • There is also the World Tournament announcer, who is friends with most of the main characters. He's just a normal guy, but is knowledgeable enough to know that Mr. Satan is just a fraud. He also establishes the concept of a tournament arc in which the referee and the announcer are the same person.
• Spoofed in a side story for Durarara!!, where Erika decided to play Combat Commentator to one of Shizuo and Izaya's fights. The catch is that Erika is a Yaoi Fangirl who sees romance where there is none, so the resulting commentary of the fight ends up completely indistinguishable from slash fanfic (complete with Mills and Boon Prose, no less).
• Eyeshield 21 has characters on the sidelines recognizing maneuvers used by the players, from running and passing patterns to special "attacks" such as Shin's Spear Tackle. There are, of course, actual commentators, Riko Kumabukuro and "Machine Gun" Sanada, but players from nonparticipating teams are usually present and have things to say. A running gag eventually developed around one of them, Onihei, always being wrong in his analysis.
• This is the fated role of almost any noncombatant in Fist of the North Star.
• Kage Houshi often commentates for fights in Flame of Recca, to the point where, during the arena arc, she is invited to be a guest commentator at the play-by-play table. This is particularly egregious because Recca's team was missing a member and they had to recruit a former villain for the role. Since Kage Houshi is Recca's mother, quite skilled in ninjutsu and literally unkillable, it boggles the mind why she didn't just step in that role instead.
• In Food Wars!, every shokugeki has loads of this- almost everyone in the scene feels the need to explain why that character is putting that ingredient in that dish, quite often finishing each others' sentences.
• In Future GPX Cyber Formula, Checker Sugimoto provides commentary throughout ZERO along with Jun Nakazawa (in Double-One and ZERO), and Dave Lombard provides it from SAGA onwards.
• Gintama:
  • During the Kyuubei arc, when Kondo realise that the reason why Gintoki had disapeared for two episodes was that he was stuck in the toilet and blame him for it, Gintoki point out that all Kondo have been doing during thoses episodes is commenting the other's fights.
    Gintoki: All you've been doing is providing commentary on other people's battles like Yamcha.
  • Abuto gets into this during the Rakuyo arc, where he follows Umibozu and make observations about his actions. Honestly, when the strongest warrior in the universe is seriously chasing someone, the best thing to do is step back and comment.
• Hajime no Ippo has everyone playing Combat Commentator, from the coaches, to the spectators, to the announcers, to even the boxers themselves (though that's to the audience, not anyone else). When Takamura and Date were stuck as this in one of Ippo's matches... Uhm. Oh, boy.
• Several characters offer commentary on Go matches in Hikaru no Go.
• IDOL × IDOL STORY!: The manga follows sixteen idols engaged in a Reality TV competition. Since manga don't have soundtracks (obviously), the characters themselves have to do a lot of the heavy-lifting to convey to the audience how and why the prospective idols made certain creative decisions when performing against each other.
• Initial D went through several commentators — Nakazato Takeshi covered most of season one and two, along with Takahashi Ryousuke. Ryousuke continues commentary through Fourth Stage, though Ninomiya Daiki and "Smiley" Sakai are added to the commentator roster after their defeat by Project D.
• In Inuyasha, Kagome and Shippo — as the weakest combatants of the Five-Man Band — are almost always relegated to this role. Less justifiably, Miroku and Sango also fall into the role of commentator more and more as the series progresses, thanks to Inuyasha's penchant for insisting on doing everything himself and the ease with which Miroku's strongest weapon can be turned against him by Naraku's poisonous insects.
• Common in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, along with Exposition Diagrams to help the readers understand the complex strategies employed by the heroes. Lampshaded in Stone Ocean when an injured Jolyne yells at Anasui to stop commentating and go assist their ally in the fight.
• The climax fight against Odin in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has multiple Combat Commentators, each offering their perspective on the fight. The Shinpaku alliance observes it on ground level, with Nijima making comments on the "power level" of the combatants. Miu and the Ryouzanpaku masters also observe the battle through a telescope. Kensei-sama, aka Isshinsai Ogata, Odin's master also observes the battle. Notably, Kensei becomes more and more impressed by Kenichi's prowess, to the point where he attempts to stop the battle so he can take Odin and Kenichi as his disciples. Fortunately the Ryouzanpaku masters stop him.
• Meta Knight of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Seems like every time Kirby absorbs a new enemy, the masked Knight is contractually bound to come and explain it to somebody. Yes, even when he was literally nowhere in sight five seconds ago. This seems to lead to the creepy implication that Meta Knight is constantly stalking Kirby, just waiting for the opportunity to explain the newest ability. Well hey, he is Meta Knight.
  Meta Knight: It is (insert random ability here) Kirby!
  Random person, usually Fumu/Tiff: (insert random ability here) Kirby?
• Done often in Kuroko's Basketball, usually by other teams sitting in the audience.
• Usually not present in Lyrical Nanoha... but since the StrikerS manga Special featured a Armed Forces sponsored televised match between Nanoha and Signum, this was practically required, with Hayate stepping up to plate for the role together with someone named Serena Aruz from Armed Forces Publicity.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, the mock battle is overseen by Megane Alpine and Sein, who comment on some of the tactics at play, especially Nanoha's.
• Used in MegaMan NT Warrior's N1 tournament, where one commentator was a hyperactive TV reporter and the other a Chip merchant. Played for humor when a villain disguised himself as the store owner and his co-host chose that episode to constantly ask him for his opinion on combat choices or moves.
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam specializes in utilizing the Combat Commentator to a ridiculous degree. Not only is every fight narrated by every character involved, several spectators, and news reporters, but sometimes the circumstances leading up to a fight are explained as well. In one instance, mentor Master Asia spends nearly 20 minutes explaining what is happening, who is involved, where the big showdown will take place, how he will trounce the hero, when the hero will fall for the trap, and why he is doing so. This is all supplemented by a short primer on Sun Tzu's The Art of War and how it applies to the finer points of giant robot camouflage.
  • And the way Master Asia does it cements him as a total badass of a Genius Bruiser.
• In My Hero Academia, voice-based superhero/DJ/U.A. English teacher Present Mic provides running commentary on the events of the U.A. Sports Festival, including the one-on-one matchups that happen in the final stage. In the anime, he announces every newly-introduced character and their Quirk, except hilariously when he's the focus in the End of Term Test, which is instead voiced over by Aizawa.
• Minor characters Chie and Aoi do this in the second volume of the My-HiME manga when Haruka and Yukino challenge Mai and Natsuki (who, at this point, are visibly mad at each other, since both require Yuuichi's help to be effective in battle and neither wants to share) to an impromptu tag-team duel. The girls narrate the action with an air of cluelessness and an obvious bias toward Mai's team.
• Naruto:
  • Early chapters used this a whole lot, especially during the Chunin Exams. At times it hilariously appeared as if either time was distorted in mid-attack or the fighters suddenly decided to stop doing anything long enough for one of the commentators to explain the technique.
  • In later arcs, this role falls to Zetsu, who, due to his ability to merge with anything, will often poke his head out of walls to watch battles and explain things to us.
    • His role is parodied hilariously in this comic.◊
  • Parodied in the anime version of the "fight" of the Leaf Village ninja against Tobi, where Tobi acts as a Combat Commentator despite it being a battle he himself is fighting in, loudly announcing the strategy he easily figured out his opponents are using against him, and still acting like it's catching him off-guard.
  • Tobi plays this role in the Sasuke vs. Danzo fight. This is lampshaded by Danzo:
  "It seems Tobi isn't going to join the battle. I will fight him later."
  • The Naruto v Pain battle. That battle is covered not by a single Combat Commentator, but by a combat commentary team.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi subverts this, for the most part. The Tournament Arc does indeed have a commentator, but she's a non-combatant, and her explanations never go further than "Character A just blew up a huge chunk of the arena!" Most of the actual exposition is done in training beforehand.
  • However, she's assisted by two people who are a little more competent: Chachamaru and some male fighter.
  • Asakura comments quite a bit, but rarely lets logic get in the way of entertaining the crowd.
  Asakura: What's this? Is it a love confession in the middle of the match?
  Asuna: YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS IS!
• Used from time to time in One Piece, for everything from executions to cooking competitions.
  • Itomimizu of the Foxy Pirates serves as announcer and commentator every time Foxy challenges another crew to a Davy Back Fight, being markedly less biased than the referees.
  • Played with during the fight between Luffy and Usopp. Watching from the sidelines with the rest of the crew, Chopper outright refuses to talk about the fight and instead pleads with both combatants to stop. An annoyed Zoro tells Chopper to either watch the fight or go to his room.
  • Gatz is a straighter example during the Dressrosa arc, being the announcer at the Corrida Colosseum. While he occasionally picks favorites (and barely tries to hide it), ultimately he does a good job at keeping the audience up to speed when unknown gladiators start gaining ground. He later serves as a more badass example when he taunts Doflamingo to buy enough time for Luffy to get his Heroic Second Wind. He gets impaled for his trouble, but when Luffy finally gets back on his feet to finish the fight, he makes damn well sure every soul in Dressrosa hears it. This culminates in Gatz struggling to announce Luffy's victory in the middle of his own Inelegant Blubbering, and the entire country ends up cheering on him so that he can spit it out.
• Renge in the Honey-and-Chika fight episode of Ouran High School Host Club. As with most things she does, she takes it to excess, rising up from below the floor with a sign saying 'Commentator', a microphone, and a movie screen for playback of the fight's climax.
• Subverted in the Patlabor: The Movie, with an overflying helicopter running a blow-by-blow commentary on two mecha wrestling.
• For Pokémon: The Series, the role of battle commentator usually falls to Brock, due to his experience as a Gym Leader. Occasionally he is substituted by Professor Oak, who draws upon his expertise in Pokémon research instead. Tournament battles or other matches with an audience will have real commentators in addition to the main characters commenting. This carried over to the Pokémon Stadium games and Spiritual Successor Pokémon Battle Revolution.
  • The extremely irritating commentators. "TAKEN DOWN IN ONE HIT!!!!!!"
  • Tracey acted as this during the Orange Islands arc, since Brock was with Professor Ivy at the time.
  • Max shares the role in Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire, being too young to own his own Pokémon but very knowledgeable about their abilities.
  • Cilan takes up this role in Pokémon the Series: Black & White, as the knowledgeable guy of the group and a gym leader as well.
  • Cilan and Burgundy even have a contest based around this: they both use their Connoiseur skills to observe a match and make judgements, then decide who is most likely to win.
  • Clemont does this in Pokémon the Series: XY, though more justified than usual since his little sister Bonnie often needs the explanations.
• Ranma ½:
  • Nabiki Tendo occasionally offers play-by-play and color commentary on Ranma's fights.
  • Pretty much every bystander, named or not, performs this role during battles, especially when the combatants are out of reach. Even Ranma himself stood back and delivered commentary during the first half of the Asura/Pantyhose Tarou aerial battle.
  • In a serious duel between Ranma and Genma, Soun took up the role —up to and including commenting through a microphone and interviewing the rest of the audience (his daughters) with it about their opinions.
• Real Bout High School actually has a small camera crew that chases down the various K-fights on the campus of Daimon High, led by Tamaki Nakamura, a girl who seems to have a microphone permanently welded to her hand. Tamaki and the high school's principal Takao Todo then provide co-commentary on every fight.
• Reborn! (2004):
  • Played straight in the Vongola Ring Arc. For any given battle, most of the characters are spectating, and so clearly someone needs to tell them what's going on.
  • Despite being the title character, poor Reborn almost always gets stuck with either this job, or that of Mr. Exposition. This is because there is always some plot device which prevents him from actually fighting (which is just as well, since it's hinted that he's actually powerful enough to crush any other character effortlessly) and he's got years and years of experience doing this sort of thing anyway.
• A mysterious bat in Rosario + Vampire delivers brief commentary on Moka's (short) battles, and doubles as a Censor Box outside of the battles.
• All of the main supporting characters share commentator duties in Rurouni Kenshin, discussing with each other Kenshin's special moves and strategy during the fight. Occasionally subverted when Kenshin reveals a previously-unused special move which the commentators know nothing about — of course, their very surprise increases the awesomeness of the move.
• Fujita "Pro" of Saki. Amusingly, she would sometimes go to strange non-sequiturs while the other commentator with her tries to make things exciting.
  Other commentator: (After Kana roared) They say that in sports, you can get adrenaline to flow by giving out a large shout.
  Fujita: I wanna go to karaoke.
• Bontenmaru commentates battles for Yuya in Samurai Deeper Kyo.
• Hoshin Engi:
  • Since Shinkohyo isn't actively taking part in the conflict and prefer to watch from the sidelines, he is often seen making commentary or discussing about the events with his Animal Companion Kokutenko, who occasionaly act as The Watson so that Shinkohyo can explain something about a character.
  • During the fight between Taikobo and Choukoumei, both Shinkohyo and Kokutenko, Taikobo's friends, and Choukoumei's sisters are watching and making commentary of their own.
• What would The Prince of Tennis be without them? The main culprits are the journalist Mamoru Inoue and the photographer Saori Shiiba; since she's a rookie in tennis fields, Inoue has often to explain techniques and situations to either her or the Seigaku first years.
  • Actually, the whole point of the Seigaku first years is for there to ''be someone'' to explain things to. They really have no purpose other than picking up the tennis balls after each practice session.
• In Tekken Chinmi where there are tournaments with an audience, there may be some commentators, but usually the fights are explained with the fighters' thoughts. In Shin Tekken Chinmi and later series where there's no audience, combat moves, techniques, and strategies are entirely explained with thoughts, although the illustrations are very clear so the need for exposition isn't that great.
• The commentators of Ultimate Muscle are actually part of the action, and provide a great deal of the comedy.
• In Virtua Fighter the narrator provides explanation of the finishing move in the major fight of each episode, complete with slow-motion replay in wireframe.
  • In the English dub, it's even more ridiculous, with the announcer always going "This move is un-(adjective)-able!"
• In Yaiba, usually Musashi (Yes, that one) will end up doing this. Justified since as a 400 years old swordmaster he knows a lot of techniques and fighting styles that Sayaka or Gerozaemon may not know.
• Many characters in Yakitate!! Japan, usually the Manager and Kuroyan. Their explanations are usually triggered by Kawachi, the series' Kansai idiot, saying that he doesn't understand what's going on.
• In Yattodetaman, one of the Time Bokan series, every episode culminates in a battle between the good guys' mecha and the baddies' weird giant robots, and every battle is followed by the same reporter and his camera operator (a man so tall, his face is always off screen). This is strange because, while good and bad guys can travel through time and space, the two guys are never shown to do so, and just appear there(they must have their own time machine). Oh, by the way, those two guys are based on members of the production crew.
• Whichever characters aren't dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh! become de facto commentators. This has the odd effect, in the original series, of making some of the non-duelists (or the less experienced duelists) look like they know more about the game than some of the better duelists.
  • However, it's also not uncommon at all for duelists to explain their own moves and card effects, to both their ally and their enemy. Not because someone asked, but because explaining your action clearly is actually part of the game's rules.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, there's a twist. Godwin, Jeager, and Mikage, who literally have the entire city bugged, will pull up duels on a giant screen in order to do this.
  • There's also an official announcer in 5D's in the Duel Arena.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Kotori is the ultimate trigger for this trope; her voice actress' contract makes it so that she will always be there to question what just happened, no matter where is the dueling place, meaning someone will always have to be a Combat Commentator for her. A role that is usually taken by Astral if no one else is around - she becomes able to see Astral once the other kids are being made unable to follow Yuma for whatever reason, exactly so that she can retain her role as the Combat Commentator trigger, with Astral being the one who explains things to her.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Ayu and Futoshi acts as the trigger, while their smarter friend Tatsuya becomes the Combat Commentator.
• Media coverage for YuYu Hakusho's Dark Tournament was provided first by a fox girl named Koto, then by a mermaid-like demoness named Juri.◊ Both carried microphones, and provided peppy commentary over the bloodbath ensuing before them.
  • When it comes to actually explaining the logic and history behind certain tactics, Yusuke usually turns to Genkai or Kurama. Hiei, Koenma and either Kuwabara sibling can fill in a pinch for other characters. The current Big Bad also tends to know his stuff, since he's supposed to be a foil and contrast to Yusuke.
  • On occasion, the show itself will stop and explain a tactic; as an example, a close-up was shown of the Shadow Sword whilst the narrator explained what it did.
• Iron Wok Jan employs this often, due to the tournament nature of the series.
• While Kaname isn't usually a Combat Commentator, she enthusiastically takes up the role in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu when stumbling upon a Yakuza street brawl, using her half eaten custer-bread as a mock microphone, and even manages to get Sousuke in on the fun by asking for his expert opinion (his expert opinion being that none of the brawlers can fight worth a damn).

Comic Books

• Judge Dredd: The team of judges touch down on planet Agros, where warfare is televised as a sporting event. The battlefields (at least eight) have referees and commentators conducting play-by-play and situational analyses. There are even roving reporters interviewing commanders and casualties alike.

Comic Strips

• In one Beetle Bailey strip, Beetle and Sarge are fighting to a background of commentary that makes it seem like an official match of some sort. It turns out it's just Rocky narrating it on the phone to his presumably interested mother.
• In one Fred Basset strip Fred commentates a fight between a Scotty and a corgi while the action is taking place off-panel.
  Fred: It's a really great fight, this, folks. I wish you could see it!

Fan Works

• Here Comes The New Boss: The Butchers often comment on Taylor’s fight.
• Several characters take this role in The Tainted Grimoire though on occasion the combatants themselves take this role.
• In the Tamers Forever Series during the battle between Gallantmon and Piedmon, Henry provides this role for the much less experienced Jeri.
• In Blaze: Into the Inferno Harry spent part of a battle with Death Eaters imagining how Lee Jordan would describe it if he were commentating.

Film — Live-Action

• A variation is seen in The Princess Bride, with the two fencers discussing the moves as they Flynn.
• Edmund and, to a lesser extent, Caspian and Doctor Cornelius serve as Combat Commentators during Peter's duel with Miraz in Prince Caspian.
• For a while, it seems like Rene Mathis' entire purpose in Casino Royale (2006) is to explain to Vesper what James Bond is doing for the benefit of audience members who don't know how to play Texas Hold 'Em.
• Howard Cosell gives play-by-play for a political assassination in exactly the same style as his sports analysis at the beginning of Woody Allen's first film, Bananas. (And at the end, he does the same for Fielding Mellish's wedding night)
• The final battle between Sing and the Beast in Kung Fu Hustle has the Landlord and Land Lady identifying several of the technique the pair uses against eachother.
  Isn't that the Toad Technique of Kuan Lu?
  Do you remember the Buddhist technique of the palm descending from heaven?
• Sherlock Holmes (2009) reverses the order by having Sherlock's internal monologue explain the moves he is about to use in a fight (and their implications) in slow-motion, then the fight plays out very quickly.
• In Love on Delivery, this is parodied with a pair of ringside commentators who, when the main character and the Big Bad are in a complete standstill (literally) for more than one round, start quoting from Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, bewildering the female heroine and her friends, who were stuck in the building's elevator. It gets better when the commentators start quoting erotic novels.
• During the final game in Necessary Roughness, the referee becomes this after one of the Armadillos goes all Cobra Kai on a couple of the opposition players.
  Referee: "lllegal contact, Number 51! Zenkutsu elbow thrust to the halfback, Oi-mawashi roundhouse kick to the quarterback, Tegatana sword block to - oh, shit, never mind! Fifteen yards - first down!"
• Played for laughs in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, when Shang-Chi is battling for his life against assassins on a moving city bus, one of the passengers takes out his phone and starts livestreaming:
  "I actually did take a little bit of martial arts as a youth, so I'm gonna try and grade this fight as we're going..."

Literature

• The Chronicles of Narnia: Peter's duel with Miraz in Prince Caspian, as described in the film section above, plus the battle between Prince Rabadash's and the Archenlander/Narnian armies in The Horse and His Boy is narrated for Aravis and Hwin by the hermit.
• Also, the battle against Nihel's minions in Nuklear Age is narrated by the leader, Variel, to the next most powerful, Safriel.
• In his role as Mr. Exposition, Mr. London offers running commentary/advice during the two dinosaur fights he witnesses in Dinoverse. It's not always fluid.
  London: The tail, yes! The bones in the end of your tail are only six inches long. That's what gives you the incredible range and variety of motion. Used like a whip, your tail can travel at more than seven hundred miles an hour! Use it on the Acrocanthosaur!

Live-Action TV

• Parodied in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide- professional-looking sports commentators appear and discuss the action when Ned and Cookie fight in a classroom. After the "fight" ends with no punches thrown, they say it was "more like a tough pose contest" and leave.
• Bae the commentary fly is present at every Humongous Mecha battle in Juken Sentai Gekiranger, due to him living in the stomach of chameleon-themed villainess Mele. On the rare occasions Bae was not able to give commentary, other People in Rubber Suits have filled in for him.
• Power Rangers:
  • The above has been brought over to Power Rangers Jungle Fury where Flit the Fly performs the same function, though less often then Bae did.
  • In Power Rangers Wild Force, Toxica and Jindrax set up an announcer desk and narrate the battle between the Rangers' possessed and non-possessed Zords as if it was a sporting event.
• Shinichiro Ohta, Kenji Fukui, and Dr. Yukio Hattori (plus the celebrity guests) on Iron Chef. Alton "Good Eats" Brown and Kevin "The Thirsty Traveler" Brauch provide a less hyperbolic version on Iron Chef America.
• In Burn Notice, the main protagonist, Michael provides the audience with a 3rd-person commentary stylized as though he was teaching the audience about this particular situation and how to deal with it, aided by the subtitles to identify persons relevant to the situation. One example would be in the pilot, when he explains how he disabled a drug dealer safely by shooting him in the knee, with a pistol, duct tape and various home-improvement tools.
  Narration: ...Guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.
• Tiger on Round the Twist has a running commentary for any kind of action, usually a fight or contest of some kind.
• Kaamelott: Yvain likes to indulge into commenting the fights during tourneys (like he were a modern sport commentator), despite his own martial skills being rather lacking.

Music

• P.D.Q. Bach's "New Horizons in Music Appreciation," Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with football-style color commentary.
  "The crowd is getting very excited. The brasses have come in and the tympani and everybody, and it's extremely exciting! I think we're building up to a fugue!"

Professional Wrestling

• Pro wrestling announcing teams typically consist of a play-by-play announcer (Gordon Solie, Jim Ross, Joey Styles, Mike Tenay, etc.) who focuses on what's going on, and a color commentator (Bobby Heenan, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Don West, etc.) who focuses on why: the wrestlers' backstories, why they're prone to certain styles of wrestling, and the physical toll of specific moves. The color commentator is usually an ex-wrestler, or has some other special knowledge of the physical side of wrestling. Some color commentators also root for the heels and defend their actions, pouring more fuel on the audience's outrage (Heenan was a heel manager as well as a commentator, so of course he did this).
• IWA Mid-South and early Ring of Honor the position as Dave Prazak's partner at the commentary table was regularly filled by a pool of wrestlers. You never knew who'd you get beyond knowing that if they did it once they'd probably be on commentary again, eventually. Later ROH made an official ruling that if wrestlers wanted to stick around after their matches they had to stay at the commentary table. At the 2017 Festival Of Honor there was a raffle for fans to call matches with Ian Riccaboni and Kevin Kelly, silver tickets being prerecorded, gold being live!

Video Games

• Justified in the Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries video game, on the Solaris levels. As your character is fighting in a sports arena to entertain a crowd, there's supposed to be a commentator — and the game obligingly supplies you with a sports color commentator's voice-over, reacting to your victories and/or defeats, during the arena matches.
• The Ratchet & Clank games have this in the gladiatorial arenas. The fourth game, Ratchet: Deadlocked, employs it in every level, as the game is essentially one giant arena tournament.
• In Persona 3, the character pulling Mission Control duties will politely inform you that you, or a teammate, have just defeated an enemy or discovered said enemy's weakness. In addition, your party members will often react with surprise and encouragement when someone hits that weakness successfully.
• MadWorld has Howard "Buckshot" Holmes and Kreese Kreely (voiced by Greg Proops and John DiMaggio respectively) giving color commentary over the Blood Sport "Deathwatch". Howard is a professional commentator with depraved tastes, while Kreese is a former Deathwatch contestant who opens every boss battle by reciting the injuries that boss inflicted on him when they fought. almost everything they say Crosses the Line Twice.
  Howard: [on female boss Rinrin] Didn't you two have a thing going?
  Kreese: If by "thing" you mean "a five-minute fight that left me spitting teeth and pissing blood", then yes, we did.
• Monday Night Combat has announcer Mickey Cantor for the titular Blood Sport. He's apparently hated so much that there have been three attempts on his life, two of which have been successful. The sequel replaces him with GG Stack and Chip Volvano. GG is a professional — yet extremely dysfunctional — commentator and (usually) the Straight Man, and Chip is the somewhat dim, yet much more well-adjusted former pro.
  GG: So, Chip, are you going anywhere during the break?
  Chip: "The wife and I are spending the week in St. Kit's with the President and First Lady. After which, I'll jet to Paris to receive France's highest civilian honor for my contributions to broadcasting. And you?
  GG: ... I'm going to move my bed into the living room and judge a pizza eating contest at the mall.
  Chip: Ooh. My advice: Wear a plastic bib. Those things can get out of hand in a hurry.
• Blood Bowl: The computer game has two commentators taken from the tabletop game's rulebook; the vampire Jim Johnson and the ogre and former Blood Bowl star, Bob Bifford. The two make comments throughout the match, either remarking about famous events for the sport (all of which are paraphrased from the rulebook) or about what just happened on the pitch. Sadly, the commentary gets repetitive quickly and we can only hope that the developers'll add new dialogue for them in future content.
  Jim: That blow knocked his teeth down his throat!
  Bob: He's gonna have trouble blowing his nose after that punch!
• Both Virtua Fighter 5 and Street Fighter IV have color commentary when the game is played in versus mode. Thankfully, it can be turned off.
• The two Robot Wars games on the PC have a large assortment of recorded commentation from Jonathan Pierce (the commentator for the TV Show). Surprisingly, the commentation isn't as annoying as you'd expect and has enough variation to stay fresh for a while.
• Unreal Tournament's announcer. Especially in Unreal Tournament 2004.
• NBA Jam is famous for some of the things the announcer calls out. "Is it the shoes?" "BOOMSHAKALAKA!"
• Any game to feature Gladiator Games will probably have this.
• Certain Pokémon games have this, mainly ones in the type of Pokémon Stadium.
• Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory. It can be annoying when the announcer decides to go "Ooohhhhhhhh!"
• Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius has the "Oshaberi" ("chatting") feature, which causes a Japanese guy to provide a facetious running commentary on the action of the game.
• The announcer fish from Spongebob Squarepants fulfills this role during the Boss Battles of Spongebob Squarepants Battle For Bikini Bottom.
• In J-Stars Victory VS, if players pick Gintoki Sakata, then he'll have Shinpachi Shimura (who is depicted as a pair of glasses) to comment on whatever Gintoki's doing. Hilarity Ensues.
• One of the DLC stages for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is played on the back of Azurda, who has several things to say depending on what's happening — noting when a stock was lost, if a dominating character triggered an audience chant, reminding players when time is running out, etc.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck, both normally teachers, provide commentary during the Vytal Festival Tournament in Volume 3. Justified in that they are teachers at a combat school, and both are highly competent fighters in their own rights.
• Parodied in a special episode of If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, in which the Emperor challenges Kitten to a game of Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker. The other Fabulous Custodes provide commentary, but all that one of them can say during the duel is "how is Kitten ever going to win now?!" in increasing amounts of hysteria, until he's just making incomprehensible grunts.

Web Comics

• Every arena in Furry Fight Chronicles has one or two commentators who narrate the development of the match to the viewers.
• Ash's races in Misfile all have some form of commentary on them, usually provided by another racer currently watching as a spectator, but sometimes provided by the racers themselves.
• Played straight, then deconstructed and averted in Circumstances of the Revenant Braves when Sol starts to combat commentate before Fio tells him to put a sock in it.
• In Kill Six Billion Demons, God-Emperor Gog-Agog does this during the Ring of Power hosted by her fellow God-Emperor Solomon David in King of Swords. The Alt Text adds a little bit more to the story by revealing that Gog-Agog being allowed to narrate during the tournament is an olive branch from Solomon to keep her from feeling left out from a source of entertainment, and that until he allowed her to fill that very important role Gog-Agog would frequently show up uninvited and eat his competitors out of spite.

Web Original

• The short video To The Death shows a series of duels between a student and a teacher at a sword fighting academy, as the student attempts to defeat the teacher in order to graduate. While this is happening the school's master and a janitor who works there observe from the sidelines and comment on what they see going on in the fights.
  The Master: You need two things to win a sword fight: perfect distance at the right time. Right now the teacher controls both. If the student doesn't start forcing opportunities he's going to get cut.
  The Janitor: He's nervous.
  The Master: He's scared. And your body doesn't want to cooperate when you're scared.
• Whateley Universe:
  • Chaka does this more than once at the Super Hero School Whateley Academy. Since she can see Ki as it flows, she's able to tell things that no-one else can possibly know. "Sensei's starting to use his Ki now..."
  • Peeper and Greasy — yes, those are their real codenames — are the broadcast commentators for the Combat Finals at the end of the 2006 Fall term. Its specifically been mentioned that they won't be invited to do it for later terms, due to Peeper's excessively sexist descriptions of the female participants. Their (off-)color commentary ends up getting them interrupted by Jericho and Razorback more than once, who tie them up with duct tape and do the commentary themselves whenever Peeper gets too raunchy.

Western Animation

• Code Lyoko's Odd Della Robbia is his own Combat Commentator. He can make any Lyoko mission an extraordinary event.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006), episode "Champions". A battle takes place at the "Interplanetary Games"; the game commentators happily continue their job.
• In the Justice League episode Wild Cards the Justice League had to defuse several bombs and fight the Royal Flush Gang... all this while the Joker watched them on television, providing his unique brand of commentary.
• Justified in The Legend of Korra, at pro-bending matches, Supernatural Martial Arts-turned-spectator sport, announced not only to the stands, but broadcast over radio. However, the commentator takes this to the extreme, by commenting on a terrorist attack, while he's being attacked. He even ends his commentary before being knocked out with "I am currently wetting my pants."

Real Life

• GOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• The robot combat show, Battlebots. Color commentary was provided by Bill Dwyer, Sean Salisbury and and Tim Green, who got just as excited at the spectacle of two glorified RC cars tearing each other to pieces as they ever did at a football game.
• Its British cousin Robot Wars had Jonathan Pearce, an English football commentator, providing the combat commentary. He has kept this role through every series of the show, including the 2016 un-cancellation.
• Two of the most famous commentators in boxing are HBO's Larry Merchant and Showtime's Al Bernstein. If it's a three-man crew (typically on HBO), the third man will usually be a trainer or boxer, sometimes retired, sometimes active. This has run the gamut from awesome (Roy Jones Jr.), to passable (Emmanuel Steward and Max Kellerman), to So Bad He's Good (George Foreman), to So Bad He's Horrible (Lennox Lewis). Surprisingly, real life Cloudcuckoolander Mike Tyson is actually very knowledgeable and surprisingly competent.
• Mixed Martial Arts has the duo of Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg for the UFC, and Michael Shiavello aka The Voice and Guy Mezger representing HD Net's coverage of fight sports. The famous Bas Rutten often plays the role of color commentator for smaller orgs.
• Sport fencing.
• Nowadays even e-sports have comentators, some of them are even well-known in the community.
• Formula One history is famous for the pair of British commentators Murray Walker and James Hunt, who were working together for the BBC coverages during 1979-1993. Walker was a Large-Ham Announcer who had the unique British accent and delivery. Hunt, meanwhile was a Comically Serious because of his low voice and his armor-piercing criticism toward drivers.
• NASCAR: Retired driver Darrell Waltrip combines Large Ham with infinite knowledge of the sport, making for an entertaining commentator. Even received a personification in Pixar's Cars as a 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo named Darrell Cartrip.

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