The Curse Escape Clause said that it can be broken by a kiss from a princess... so he should have found a real one.
Some kisses are so sweet that they feel like magic, but some kisses really are magic. A Magic Kiss has some supernatural effect that either binds or releases a spell, for weal or woe.
While it's often used as an excuse for fanservice or ship teasing in modern works, chaste examples of fairy tale magic kisses are Older Than Steam.
Most of the examples of Magic Kiss fit into its subtropes:
- True Love's Kiss is the solution to 99.9% of magical curses, and is very common in Fairy Tales.
- A Magic Contract Comes with a Kiss: pactio your way into someone's heart.
Intimate Healing qualifies as a magic kiss if it isn't, well, more intimate; the literal examples of Kiss of Death may also be a magic kiss. Kissing Under the Influence could be the result of magic, but isn't magical itself. Compare Heart Beat-Down and Kiss of the Vampire.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri normally puts his pinwheel in someone's mouth to suck out spirits, but without it he can do the same with an open mouth kiss. He does this to Suzu when she's possessed by Shadow Mei, and despite the possessor trying to turn it into a Kiss of Death, Suzu compensates by Fighting from the Inside because of the kiss itself.
- Used in the Burst Angel manga by Amy—or rather, an army of holographic copies of Amy—in order to pacify an army of zombies.
- In Campione!, a Campione is immune to most forms of magic, including beneficial ones like healing or knowledge transfer spells, unless it is inserted directly into his body. To use such beneficial spells on Godou, a member of his Unwanted Harem administers it via a kiss.
- The protagonist of Date A Live, Shido Itsuka, has a mysterious ability to seal the powers of superpowered girls called Spirits by kissing them, but it only works after they've developed feelings for him, necessitating that he date them beforehand. It later turns out that he can utilize those sealed powers himself.
- Baise from Hunter × Hunter has the ability to make one a slave for 180 minutes by kissing a person. In the first anime, she tries to entice another boy into kissing her. Too bad he is The Stoic.
- In Isuca, when Shinichirou kisses someone, he automatically learns their true name. He can also transfer his energy to significantly boost the person's power.
- In the Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics episode "The Magic Heart", Lisbeth a girl who was kidnapped by a witch to be her daughter and apprentice, is shown to be cursed that whoever she kisses will turn into a snake, she is seen doing this to several birds she is feeding, she never kisses Frederick presumably so this won't happen to him, the spell is broken after the witch's death.
- Kiddy GiRL-AND has Di-air kissing other ES members and even an artificial monster to super-charge their super powers.
- In Magika Swordsman And Summoner, the hero has the ability to use the magic of girls who love and trust him; the stronger their feelings toward him are, the higher-level magic he can use. But for each girl, the first time he kisses her will momentarily force a full connection and allow him to use the highest-level magic they possess regardless of her feelings. It only works with that first kiss though, after which the girl develops a "resistance" to its power.
- In My Hero Academia, the school's nurse, Recovery Girl, is a little old lady who can heal people by kissing their injuries.
- In Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Heimdall kisses Mayura and puts a spell on her, which Loki later has to remove with a kiss.
- In Outlanders, Kahm gives Tetsuya the ability to understand her alien language with a kiss. Though later they cast an area-affect version of the spell, probably so Kahm didn't have kiss the entire Nuba tribe.
- Evoked in Princess Tutu;
- Princess Kraehe kisses Mytho as she steals his feeling of love. The kiss (presumably) isn't actually magical, but it sure looks like it.
- It also (seemingly) happens between their true selves, Rue and Prince Siegfried, in the finale; the moment they kiss, Rue is suddenly clad in a Fairytale Wedding Dress.
- In Red River (1995), the Japanese-born Yuri Suzuki can't speak or understand the Hitite language until Prince Kail gives her a kiss. It's used as a Hand Wave for the usual issues regarding Language Barriers and the like, and it probably worked only because Kail himself is a magic user.
- In Revolutionary Girl Utena, Anthy would kiss Utena's sword (which she had just pulled from Utena's chest) to "abandon her body and protect the sword".
- In the movie she does this to transform into the Rose Bride and give Utena her sword to fight Saionji.
- A major element in Sekirei, in the form of winging and a winged Sekirei's most powerful ability, the Norito.
- The "Kiss of Life" from UFO Princess Valkyrie is both this and A Magic Contract Comes with a Kiss. Specifically, when Valkyrie first uses the Kiss Of Life to save Kazuto by injecting him with half her soul, it's a case of a kiss contract... but subsequently, after she's wound up in Sleep-Mode Size, she could 'reconnect' with the missing half of her soul and temporarily regain her magical powers by kissing Kazuto again - which would be another magic kiss.
- Vermeil in Gold: After making a magical contract and becoming Alto's Familiar, Vermeil feeds herself by draining his mana via kissing. In turn, she can amplify the energy and kiss him back in order to make him stronger.
- The entire concept of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. The so-called witches use their Psychic Powers by kissing. The so-called witch killers copy/steal a witch's power by kissing her. Hilarity Ensues when one of the witches orders the the titular Yamada (one of the witch killers) and his girlfriend to have sex in the middle of the street to find out if the powers can be activated by other displays of affection than just kissing. It's later mentioned that there is a specific reason why kisses are needed to use the powers, though that reason is never revealed.
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: The frog prince in Season 6 episode 37 is looking for a princess who can turn him back into a human prince with her kiss. Big M. finds a bunch of "princesses" who can give the kiss he needs, specifically the monsters he recruits for his evil missions, but none of them can give the kiss he wants. It's later Sweet S. who gives the magic kiss that turns him back into a normal prince.
Comic Books
- In the Superman story arc The Dominus Effect, where Superman is trapped in four different realities at the same time, Superman and Lois Lane's kiss in the Golden Age reality storyline causes them to temporarily appear in modern age Metropolis during a fire rescue. The little girl present in the story (who turns out to be Kismet) gets them to see what they're doing to reveal the truth behind the Golden Age reality when they kiss a second time for much longer.
- Starfire of the Teen Titans can learn any person's language by kissing them. (She says immediately after kissing Robin that it can work with any form of touch, but she prefers kisses because it's more fun that way.)
- In the fantasy Elseworld "Facets" in New Titans Annual #10, she is created so that the first Titan she touches will lose their powers. Nightwing (who has wings in this setting) chooses to take the hit, and says he "had the best of the bargain".
- In the print version of Nodwick, Tiffany reveals that as The Chosen One of The Powers That Be she has the ability to literally "kiss it better" with her Sacred First Kiss — whoever she bestows it upon is given a one-time opportunity to re-create their life to get the best possible outcome out of it. In the end she's forced to give it to Yeagar in a Batman Gambit against The Dragon — thanks to some Character Development, Yeagar only modestly alters a few things to give them a fighting chance against the Big Bad and leaving The Powers That Be impressed with how little he managed to mess things up.
Fairy Tales
- In "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh", Childe Wynd kisses the dragon three times to turn the beast back into his sister, Princess Margaret.
- In The White Dove, kissing the dove (in gratitude) reveals that she is a princess.
Films — Animated
- The Princess and the Frog is all about Naveen and Tiana searching for a princess to administer the magic kiss that will turn them human again.
- As per tradition, a flashback in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract shows Starfire learning English by kissing Dick Grayson. Like her animated series counterpart, she seems to need to kiss the person specifically rather than absorb the language through any form of touch, as she had already crash-landed into Dick before kissing him.
- In The Magic Riddle the seven dwarfs and Pinocchio have been turned into wooden statues by the evil Widow, Cindy breaks the spell by kissing them.
Films — Live-Action
- In the Lindsay Lohan film Just My Luck, the main characters can swap their Born Lucky and Born Unlucky status with each other by kissing.
- Superman II. The "kiss of Laser-Guided Amnesia" Superman gives to Lois Lane at the end of the movie.
- In Thumb Wars (a Star wars parody using finger puppets, natch), learning the Way of the Thumb involves touching tongues with one's mentor.
- In The Cannon Group's loose 1986 adaptation of "The Frog Prince", the princess is a preteen and the frog is a Funny Animal, and their relationship is played more for Odd Friendship than romance. When she kisses him on the cheek in the climax out of relief he's survived captivity via her nasty sister, that it breaks the curse and restores his humanity is proof that she, not the sister, is the one who has actual Royal Blood and can be formally crowned.
Literature
- The Dementor's Kiss in Harry Potter is actually the Dementor sucking out the soul from a human's body.
- Journey to Chaos: Zaticana does this to impart her Omniglout blessing. When Eric tries to guess the magical mechanics of it, she says she just does it for fun.
- In Ruth Frances Long's The Treachery of Beautiful Things,
- The nix kisses Jenny, stealing her soul.
- Jack, having retrieved the soul, kisses the Faux Death body, rather brusquely.
- In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the unnamed Good Witch of the North gives Dorothy a kiss on the forehead, which marks her as being under her protection..
Live-Action TV
- Cordelia gets Doyle's vision power when Doyle kisses her in the Angel episode "Hero". She later also passes a vision to Angel that way.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The trope is lampshaded in "The Killer in Me" when Hot Witch Willow is turned into Warren, the villain who killed her former lover Tara. At the end of the episode Kennedy, her current Love Interest, works out how to reverse the spell.
- Demons seal their contracts with a kiss (or more...) in Supernatural.
- One episode had an indirect Magic Kiss. Sirens are Shapeshifting Seducers who control their victims with a kiss. They can do this because of a chemical in their saliva. So when Dean lets his new friend Nick drink out of his flask and doesn't wipe it afterwards...
- Super Sentai and Power Rangers:
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger uses a Whole-Plot Reference to The Frog Prince in order to introduce its Sixth Ranger Hikaru, who was turned into a frog by a curse prior to the events of the story. The curse can only be broken with a kiss from a Blue Magician like Urara, but Urara happens to have a severe phobia of frogs and is disgusted by his presence. She eventually relents out of pity when he saves her life, breaking the curse and allowing him to start helping the siblings as their magic teacher. This episode is adapted directly into Power Rangers Mystic Force, where Urara and Hikaru's counterparts Madison and Daggeron move on without thinking too hard about the usual Ship Tease associated with the trope, but the original Magiranger version has Hikaru lampshade it by teasing (a very embarrassed and unamused) Urara about whether this means she likes him now. When they do legitimately start falling hard for each other, it's in a decidedly less lighthearted context.
- Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger has a Monster of the Week which temporarily brainwashed Kyoryu Black in this way.
Tabletop Games
- Succubi and Incubi in Dungeons & Dragons (all the way to the 1st Edition) have an energy drain attack delivered though either a kiss or a hug.
- Both Forgotten Realms sourcebooks and novels by Ed Greenwood had spellcasters delivering touch-spells with an extra kink. Magic Missile Reflection spell in The Seven Sisters was called "Shalantha's Kiss" because its inventor always casting it on her adventuring band like this. Elmara in The Making of a Mage, trying to keep things silent, hits a surprised opponent with a Fleshflame spell — a kiss so hot that when it ended the smoke trailed from that guy's ears, literally. In Elminster In Myth Drannor Symrustar Auglamyr triggered a pre-set spell much the same way.
- The only described instance of rare spell "spellsingers' luck" involved a permanent silvery lips mark on the recipient's skin. Seven Sisters did cast in a similar fashion fate link and some beneficial spell. In the latter case Storm blew a silver "kiss" that flew from her mouth to the recipient's cheek and attached there as a tattoo-like mark.
Video Games
- Chrono Trigger: Ayla's Kiss ability heals your party members' health while confirming her interest in strong men and women.
- Freedom Force: Eve's Kiss is so powerful that it makes enemies have a temporary Heel–Face Turn.
- Odin Sphere:
- Apparently the kiss of a powerful fairy is capable of breaking certain curses, namely the more potent version of the frog transformation. After spending the first four chapters of Fairy Land trying to convince Mercedes to kiss him, Ingway is finally freed of his frog form after Mercedes gives him a peck on the head after he nearly dies from the strain of casting the curse that saves her from the wizard Beldor.
- Subverted with Oswald. While his kisses certainly aren't magic, a kiss is the key to waking Gwendolyn from her slumber.
- Divinity: Original Sin II: Almira the Succubus channels her magic through a passionate kiss. It's normally her means of enthralling mortals to her will, but she also uses it to teach the player character to improve their Source powers.
- The Pokémon has the status moves Sweet Kiss, which induces confusion, Lovely Kiss, which induces sleep, and the attack Draining Kiss, which steals some health.
Webcomics
- In Doc Rat, "Captain Kerpow" tries to invoke this.
- In Ennui GO!, fishgirls have the ability to make a human be able to breathe underwater for a short period of time through kissing them. This ends up saving a young Izzy and Adelie when Red Snapper's mother uses this power to help them breathe again when she saves them from drowning.
- In Homestuck, this is a SBURB game mechanic. If a player dies (and if they have an intact dreamself), they can be revived if another player kisses their corpse within an unspecified time limit (if time runs out, the wounds propagate to the dreamself, killing them too).
Web Original
- Sesla from Chrono Hustle can learn or teach a language with a kiss.
Western Animation
- An episode of Aladdin: The Series has Sadira create a fantasy world in which she could become a princess, and Aladdin could act as her knight in shining armor. Genie tries to close the portal before Sadira can take Aladdin away, but the conflict between his and Sadira's brands of magic leaves Aladdin as a street rat with delusions of knighthood. In order to regain his sanity, Aladdin has to successfully steal a kiss from a princess..."Princess" Sadira, much to Jasmine's dismay.
- In Ben 10: Alien Force, Charmcaster kisses Kevin putting him in a trance and orders Kevin to bring Gwen out. A Hypno Trinket was given to Kevin as the mind controlling device.
- In the Animated Adaptation of The Legend of Zelda (1989), Link spends one episode as a victim of Forced Transformation and can only be returned to normal by a kiss from a princess. This does not go quite the way he intends, and the one who dispells it is the Fairy Companion Spryte. Who, to be fair, is a Fairy Princess.
- In the Magnificent Muttley episode "What's New, Old Bean?," Muttley is Jack of the Jack & the Beanstalk tale. He climbs the beanstalk to the castle of a giant (Dick Dastardly) where a princess is imprisoned on the giant's harp. Muttley sets her free with a kiss.
- In episode 10 of Miraculous Ladybug, Ladybug kisses Chat Noir to get rid of a magic spell cast on him.
- Punky Brewster: In "Fish Story," Punky and Margaux are competing for the role of a mermaid in a school play. Glomer tries to help out by using his magic to turn Punky into an actual mermaid. Not wanting to be a tuna for the rest of her life, Punky subjects herself to a rather peculiar remedy Glomer whipped up to turn her back to normal which actually didn't work. Glomer bashfully confesses that the actual way to turn Punky back to normal was for a glomley (of which Glomer is) to kiss her on the cheek. It worked.
- In Steven Universe, Garnet is able to temporarily pass her future vision to Steven with a kiss on the forehead.
- In Teen Titans (2003), Starfire can learn new languages with a kiss, which makes her The Face. Unlike her comic and DCAMU incarnations, she doesn't explain why she kissed Robin when they first met, as she was under the considerable stress of fleeing from slave traders at the time, which is why he's so shocked in the movie when she kisses a Japanese boy to learn his language. (This version also seems to lack her comic counterpart's ability to assimilate languages through any form of touch as opposed to kissing specifically.)
