The Love Slap of Epiphany

Alice married for money. Bob, her husband, was a wealthy business man and the head of a multi-national conglomerate and was far too busy to come home often. That suited her just fine, though, since she had plenty of handsome young men competing for her affections. And who would she be to refuse them? A girl's got to keep herself entertained, after all.

One day, she was making her way through a crowded club which she often frequented. As she approached the bar, she came upon a Tall, Dark and Handsome stranger. She knew all the regulars, and this was not one of them. She scooted from her stool onto the one nearest to him and introduced herself. She told it was so nice to see a new face, and how a girl gets bored always meeting the same men. When he met her comments with silence, she refused to give up. She asked for his name, and "Charlie" was his reply. She leaned in close, and whispered, almost purred, "Well Charlie, how about a kiss?" Without waiting for an answer, she met his lips with hers. And that was enough.

To her surprise, he stood up, grimaced and raised his hand. *SLAP!* A sound loud enough to be heard over the music and chatter of all the patrons could be heard. Shocked, she stares up at him. "Ma'am, where do you get off doing whatever you please?!" As he walked off into the sea of people, she sat there dazed. Confused. As well as reflective. She thought back, and not once in her life did someone slap her. She realized now how many times she deserved it. She realized now what a true man was like.

It's kind of baffling phenomena. The Love Slap of Epiphany can turn the most selfish, manipulative, and sleazy of characters into an instant passive-atoner. None the less, this is a fairly common story device, where one slap is all it takes. All their wrongs and misdoings suddenly hit them like a load of bricks. It is almost always a man on the sending end, and woman on the receiving (which has Unfortunate Implications). Expect a one-liner as one or both of the parties walk away. Also expect a What Have I Done from the receiver, and for the sender to become their new Love Interest, as well as possibly their Obi Wan on their path to recovery.

Compare Armor-Piercing Slap, where a character allows themselves to be slapped, but with no 'life-changing' affect and Defeat Means Friendship, where killing each other makes you friends. A sister trope of The Red Sonja, where Defeat Means Friendship means a little bit more. For other kinds of life-changing slaps, see Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!.

Anime and Manga

 * of Kuragehime receives one of these later in the series.
 * A staple of shoujo manga writer Miyuki Kitagawa.
 * In ZERO Shu beats the female boss of the school gang. She instantly falls for him (overlapping with The Red Sonja) and decides to stop being a fighter & delinquent and become the perfect cute gf for him (which is not a part of The Red Sonja, and makes it an example of this trope).
 * Ojamajo Doremi has one whole episode where one girl wants to be slapped because it's a proof of love, and she doesn't stop escalating her misbehaving until she gets her wish.
 * Inverted in Virgin Love. Daigo gets kissed by some random girl at a club and Kaoru slaps him, which Daigo reads as Kaoru having feelings for him. Kaoru freaks out when he realizes this might be true.
 * In the opening of Takumi-kun the melodramatic school "queen" Takabayashi has it out for Takumi because he wants Gii, the school idol. When he goes after Takumi with a piece of glass, his roommate, Yoshizawa, who is in love with him, slaps him and scolds him for his behaviour. Somehow this leads to Takabayashi realizing he likes Yoshizawa back.

Film

 * Gilda: Johnny's slap to the title character.
 * And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot. She marries this guy she doesn't love, then behaves like a slut with all the boys in town, taking advantage of her husband's gentleness, until he can't stand it anymore and slaps the crap outta her. Then poof! she realizes she's crazy about him: she had been gradually falling in love with him all that time since their marriage.

Western Animation

 * The Bongo story in Fun and Fancy Free features as a plot point that bears show affection by slapping each other in the face. There was even a song about it.