Originating as an old wives’ tale about sexual arousal leading to dangerous changes in blood pressure, the gushing nosebleed has become a ubiquitous feature of fanservice manga and anime. It can range from a small trickle to a full on geyser of blood, but the cause is always the same – something sexy is going on right in front of the character’s face.

Pretty much any manga with ecchi elements features this gag, but some characters can harness the power of the nosebleed for their own devices. Yamcha uses Master Roshi’s profuse nosebleeds to win a tournament battle in the original Dragon Ball by ripping off Bulma’s top while Roshi is standing in front of his invisible opponent. And Kakuka of Shin Koihime Musou has such frequent and exaggerated nosebleeds that she can use them as weapons. A little unorthodox, but we certainly admire the creativity.

In the Shinto religion, souls aren’t inherent in humans—they “inhale” divinity from the outside, so steps must be taken to ensure that the soul doesn’t escape the body. So it makes perfect sense that when a manga character is so comically shocked or injured that they feel just about dead, their soul trails out of their mouth.

Mutsumi from Love Hina and Kon from Bleach do this so often that it becomes a running gag, and ghost girl Oshizu from To Love-Ru literally escapes from her artificial body when sufficiently surprised. But we especially love this joke in Fullmetal Alchemist, when Winry whacks Ed with a wrench so hard that his soul comes out of his mouth. Al, who is actually a soul bonded to a suit of armor, freaks out and grabs it, yelling, “I’ve got your soul, brother!”

To emphasize an incredibly strong attack, manga authors might show the recipient of said attack rocketing off into the sky and disappearing with a twinkle. Surprisingly, this gag originates from World War II—Japanese gunners on naval ships were trained to watch for an approaching dive-bomber’s gleaming canopy, which would appear as a faint twinkle in the skyline.

Fairy Tail and Fushigi Yuugi make frequent use of the twinkle in the sky, and it’s used to emphasize particularly awesome beatdowns in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, My Hero Academia, and Fist of the North Star (where Kenshiro kicked a guy in the balls so hard that he flew off into space). But, of course, the most famous version of this manga joke actually comes from the Pokémon anime—it looks like Team Rocket’s blasting off again!