Canaan

Neophyte professional photographer Maria Osawa travels from Japan to Shanghai to report on the annual festival, where she also hopes to meet Canaan, a mysterious Action Girl who saved her life a couple of years ago and has been fascinating her ever since. However, things get ugly when a Nebulous Evil Organization targets Maria. Known as the "Snakes", they are led by Canaan's arch-rival Alphard and are somehow involved with the "Ua Virus"--the biological weapon that left Maria the only known survivor of the deadly Shibuya terrorist attack. Fortunately for Maria, Canaan shows up to save her again, much to her (and the fans') excitement.

Canaan is an anime series based upon a scenario from the Wii mystery Adventure Game titled 428: Fuusasareta Shibuya de ("In Locked-down Shibuya"), which (the scenario, not the whole game) was created by Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi of Type Moon fame (at which point many tropers rush off to leech it from the Internet, no further questions asked). Since the game is really obscure outside of Japan (its notability in the West basically being "that Visual Novel Famitsu gave a 40"), here's a detailed synopsis of 428 in English.


 * Action Girl: Canaan.
 * A-Cup Angst: Yunyun, who stuffs rolls and meatbuns (and in the final episode watermelons) down her shirt to make herself look bigger.
 * Alliterative Name: Alphard Alshaya and Minoru Minorikawa.
 * All Part of the Show: In the first episode, multiple people are shot and killed (or die horribly from the Ua Virus), and everyone thinks it's just part of the festival. Maria's partner Mino, however, attests that it's something else.
 * Anguished Declaration of Love: does this after Liang Qi tricks her into using  He was already dying and requested that the last words he heard are "I love you."
 * seconds before he shoots her. Mind you, she was dying anyway.
 * Anime Chinese Girl: Yunyun.
 * Arc Tune: The melody Alphard and Syam have been humming seems to be shaping into this.
 * Attention Whore: Liang Qi, oh so much. It's not hard to extrapolate that her revealing attire is her attempt at attracting Alphard's attention.
 * Axe Crazy: Liang Qi
 * Badass Bystander: The taxi driver. Also an example of Crazy Awesome. Being voiced by Joji Nakata really helps.
 * Badass Longcoat: Alphard's favorite accessory
 * Badass Normal: Some characters take awesome risks. Mino . Cummings.
 * Bare Your Midriff: Alphard and Yunyun are fond of this.
 * Bathing Beauty: Liang Qi is the craziest one ever.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Canaan rescues Maria from Malevolent Masked Men.
 * Bilingual Bonus: Lots and lots of Chinese, and also a smattering of English, is used in the series due to the Shanghai setting. Levels of accuracy vary.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Blasting It Out of Their Hands.
 * Blood From the Mouth: In gratuitous amounts.
 * Bond One-Liner: "... and play cat's cradle."
 * Book Ends: Canaan up in a tower with a sniper rifle, with some sort of candy stick in her mouth.
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Brought Down to Normal:
 * Brown Note: The fact that is only noticeable by the responses of other people.
 * Bullet Time: One of Canaan's many combat abilities.
 * Butt Monkey: Cummings. Poor dude never seems to catch a break, though the events of episode 11 ventures into Woobie territory.
 * Yun Yun as well. It seems like nothing goes right for the poor girl no matter how hard she tries. Let's see,, her boss considers her life disposable  , she had her workplace shot up by her own "allies" twice, she failed an assignment because her boobs were too small to interest the target, and she got interrogated at gunpoint with her own gun (while still wearing the embarassingly skimpy bunny girl outfit from her failed assignment to boot).
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Yunyun. It is even Lampshaded by Maria and Mino from episodes 2-5 as they wonder who the hell she is.
 * Child Soldier: Canaan's background. Alphard's, too.
 * Close-Call Haircut: Canaan gets one in episode 9.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Maria. As Yunyun put it: "I've just found the Eighth Wonder of the World."
 * Yunyun herself isn't far behind Maria ...
 * Compilation Movie: Three of them are upcoming, though it remains to be seen if they will actually have any original material, or simply be all the episodes strung together.
 * Conspicuous CG: Pretty much every vehicle that shows up, plus the cutesy avatar Liang Qi uses to troll the crowds during episode 6
 * Cool Guns: Alphard's FN Five seveN Tactical, and Canaan's Beretta PX 4 Storm.
 * In a flashback, Canaan is seen using a Beretta 93R when she was being trained by Syam.
 * In Liang Qi's flashback, Alphard has a silenced P90.
 * Cooldown Hug: Mino to Hakko.
 * Crazy Prepared: Liang Qi, especially in episode 11 when you see her massive stockpile of weapons, grenades and ammo, one will notice shurikens and a freaking chainsaw among the lot.
 * Curtains Match the Window: almost the whole cast. About the only ones who don't are Liang Qi and Cummings.
 * Cute Little Fang: Yunyun.
 * Cute Mute: Hakko, what with being "voiced" by Mamiko Noto.
 * The Cutie: Maria, oh so very much.
 * Dark Action Girl: Alphard, Liang Qi
 * Dark-Skinned Blond: Canaan is a mild version, closer to a White-Haired Pretty Girl than anything.
 * Dead Person Conversation: Canaan with Shan in the last two episodes
 * Despair Event Horizon:
 * Death by Despair:.
 * Damsel in Distress: Maria
 * Dodge the Bullet: One of Canaan's powers, which becomes prevalent in the last episode.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: Liang Qi: "She's going to pull my tongue out; slowly and slowly, she's going to cut my neck open, then reach into the wound and churn my insides!"
 * When Mino, sitting on a park bench, is thinking of the previous night when he first met Hakko (in her rather revealing Catgirl costume), a jet from the fountain suddenly shoots into the air. When she appears later on in the same scene and comes to sit down next to him, a whole bunch of jets go off.
 * Dragon Lady: Liang Qi's choice of dress and sadism gives her elements of this trope, along with The Baroness.
 * The Driver: The taxi driver.
 * Eagle Land: A mildly done flavour 2, but the United States is given a rather unflattering depiction in Canaan; They have a bombastic bozo for a President, a corrupt crook for a Vice President, are shamlessly neoconservative, and the CIA collude with a terrorist/private security organisation in the development of biological weapons, using Chinese villagers as test subjects.
 * Even the Girls Want Her: Alphard. Besides the obvious example in Liang Qi, she sets the hearts of both the male and female party guests in episode 4 aflutter when she passes by them in her sexy evening gown.
 * Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Canaan is referred to as "Synesthesia Girl".
 * Fan Disservice: A Squicky Twofer from episode 11.
 * First, there's
 * Second, there's Hakko's
 * Fingore: In episode 12, when her nail visibly cracks and bleeds.
 * Foe Yay: Alphard does like pinning Canaan down a lot, and isn't particularly in a hurry to kill her, which makes Liang Qi quite jealous.
 * Foot Focus
 * Freud Was Right: Subverted. In episode 4, Santana says he will "Make [Hakko] happy in bed." What does he do? Shows her some magic tricks. No, not those magic tricks.
 * Later played straight in a rather f'ed up and tragic manner.
 * Furo Scene: Liang Qi has upwards of half a dozen.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Done by Maria of all people
 * Girls with Guns
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Canaan's Synesthesia abilities induce this (whether it's literal or for the audience's benefit is not established).
 * Gratuitous English: Episode 7
 * A lot of the Americans' dialogue in that episode.
 * "GET SOME GET SOME GET SOME GET SOME"
 * ULTRAVIOLET AND NOISE-CANCELING HELMET!
 * Gun Fu: Canaan's primary style of combat, with a healthy dose of Gun Kata thrown into the mix.
 * Gunpoint Banter
 * Gun Stripping
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * Heroic Bloodshed
 * Heroic BSOD: 's actions after the death of could bee seen as such.
 * Heroic RROD: gets one of these in Episode 7, when
 * Hyper Awareness
 * Hyperspace Arsenal: The crazy old Unbloom guy who Canaan fights early in the series.
 * Idiot Hair: Maria has it. Canaan even lampshades this in episode three.
 * Idol Singer: Nene.
 * Improbable Aiming Skills
 * In Love with Your Carnage: Liang Qi
 * Irrevocable Order: The vice president cannot call off a.
 * Just Plane Wrong: Someone forgot to inform the animation staff that B2 stealth bombers do not have vertical stabilisers, or afterburner nozzles on the engines.
 * Karma Houdini: At the end of the series Canaan is still working with Natsumi despite the fact that
 * Kick the Dog: Liang Qi, all the time.
 * Life or Limb Decision: A zig-zaggy, blurry, sort-of-inverted example. In the final episode,
 * Les Yay: Canaan and Maria. They flirt a lot, indeed. At one point, Maria even
 * Location Theme Naming: Canaan.
 * Syam may refer the region now known as Syria.
 * Locked Into Strangeness:
 * Love Hurts:
 * Love Makes You Crazy: Liang Qi, so much so that she does not take very well.
 * Love Martyr: Cummings to Liang Qi.
 * Magic Skirt: Despite the extremely short hemline and often sitting with her legs apart, while in her Qipao Liang Qi somehow never manages to flash the audience, mainly through creative use of camera angles. As she becomes (even more) unhinged she quits with the skirt altogether and just goes around in lingerie.
 * Malevolent Masked Men: Which actually makes sense, since the scene takes place during a carnival.
 * Manipulative Bastard:
 * Meaningful Name: "Canaan".
 * "Alphard" means "the solitary one" in Arabic. It's also the name of the brightest star in the constellation Hydra, marking the heart of the snake. She wasn't quite modest when she chose her new name.
 * Written in kanji, Hakkō can mean "misfortune" (薄幸).
 * The Messiah: Maria.
 * Minion with an F In Evil:
 * Mistress and Servant Boy: Liang Qi and Cummings are a particularly dark and violent version of this trope. Liang Qi couldn't care less about Cummings and mainly takes her frustration out on him, but Cummings has a (one sided) infatuation with her and even seems to like the abuse he suffers. He loves her so much, in fact,
 * Ms. Fanservice: Liang Qi. She likes long baths.
 * Hakko in her hostess club outfit counts for this as well.
 * Mummies At the Dinner Table:.
 * Murder the Hypotenuse: Liang Qi is always attempting to kill Canaan because she believes that Canaan 'changed' her beloved "Nee-sama".
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Liang Qi's stomach-churningly vicious beating of Maria.
 * Non-Action Guy: Minoru
 * No One Could Survive That:, though his "death" was revealed to be but a sly trick by the Snakes to make US bomb their own president.
 * . Not much explanation is given, although Yunyun appears to have a major hand in it.
 * Finally,  survives falling off a train trestle, as seen in the epilogue.
 * The Obi-Wan: Syam to Canaan.
 * One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: Canaan's power doesn't come with a corresponding weakness unlike the rest of the Borners.
 * One-Scene Wonder: CHINESE STYLE. HIGH TENSION!
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Alphard towards Canaan. She even delivers a speech to that effect to Canaan in episode 9.
 * Onee-Sama: Liang Qi refers and relates to Alphard this way.
 * Orgasmic Combat: Holy shit, Liang Qi.
 * Plucky Comic Relief: Yunyun.
 * Plucky Girl: Yun Yun in the last episode,.
 * Private Military Contractors: The Daedala Corporation. But they aren't entirely a PMC considering that
 * Product Placement: That red detonator Liang Qi uses in episode 6 looks suspiciously like a red Wiimote Nunchuk; the aforementioned airsoft pistols Liang Qi uses to torment Cummings.
 * Psycho Lesbian: Liang Qi is obsessed with her "nee-sama". They are not biological sisters, though, as Liang is Chinese, while Alphard is a Middle-Easterner.
 * Psychotic Smirk: Liang Qi's usual facial expression.
 * Qipao: Liang Qi's favorite attire.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Subverted hard and played straight at the same time in episode 10..
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Canaan
 * Red String of Fate: Used to play "Cat's Cradle".
 * Rescue Romance: Maria attempts to replay her first meeting with Canaan by getting in trouble.
 * Liang Qi had set up a trap for Alphard to get captured in the beginning so that Liang Qi would get to rescue her. Alphard was very aware of this, and went along with it merely because she was curious where Liang Qi was going with it.
 * Running Gag: Liang Qi's airsoft pistol,.
 * Also Yunyun and her, uh... inventive use for pork-buns.
 * Rule of Cool: Synesthesia does not work that way! Who cares?
 * Save the Villain: Canaan saves . How does the rescuee respond?.
 * Scenery Censor: Liang Qi's first scene, in which she gets out of the bath in Cumming's office and, still nude, goes to retrieve some documents for him. As she bends over to hand them to him, a conveniently-placed plant on the table in the foreground acts as Censor Foliage.
 * Sequel Hook:.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Liang Qi is quite poetic at times, especially in regards to hurting people.
 * Sex Is Violence: It certainly is for Liang Qi, a potential poster child for this trope.
 * Sexy Backless Outfit: Canaan's shirt.
 * Shameless Fanservice Girl: Only demonstrated in episode one, Liang Qi is the BEST SECRETARY EVER! All other things considered.
 * Shout-Out: The US President is clearly a fan of Trigun, he managed to get the entire crowd and other world leaders screaming 'LOVE AND PEACE!!'
 * Shower Scene: Alphard gets a vaguely plot-important scene where we first see that she has the same tattoo as Canaan.
 * Shown Their Work: other then the of glaring errors with the stealth bomber the creators clearly spent some time researching everything from US military uniforms through Chinese railroads to the local cuisine of Xinjiang province.
 * Shoot the Dog:
 * Sugar and Ice Personality: Canaan.
 * Single-Target Sexuality: Arguably most of the main cast has this going for each other, but Liang Qi for Alphard and Cummings for Liang Qi are the most obvious. Cummings even.
 * Sophisticated As Hell: Liang Qi, again.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: Alphard's humming in the first episode.
 * China Kibun de High Tension plays during a life-or-death chase scene, in which the taxi Maria is in is being pursued by an insane old man with an Uzi.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Canaan and Alphard's mentor, Siam/Syam/Cham, suffers from this. Judging by the envelope Alphard carries, Siam seems to be the correct spelling.
 * Stereotypes of Chinese People: Well, it does take place in Shanghai.
 * The Stoic: Alphard and Syam
 * Superpower Lottery: The kind of mutation a Borner gets, along with its strengths and drawbacks, seem to be entirely random. Hayatori in episode 2 has two hearts, granting him immense agility and premature aging, while his brother in episode 3 can contort and squeeze inside small spaces, though he's physically trapped in a child's body. Meanwhile has been granted... two appendixes.
 * The "winner" until now is :
 * Surprisingly Good English: Episode 7. (it isn't English, but still!)  is also surprising good.
 * There's also a little bit of Surprisingly Good German in this episode...
 * The Delta Force commandos in the 11th Episode. Averted in the North American release as the lines were removed.
 * Take My Hand: This is how Canaan and Alphard's ultimate duel ends, but Alphard really doesn't want to be rescued by her...
 * Thirteen Episode Anime
 * Too Kinky to Torture: Liang Qi's assistant Cummings eventually starts enjoying her constant abuse.
 * Liang Qi herself would appear to be getting very excited when Alphard is beating her down in episode 11.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Canaan and those sugar candy stick things she's often shown munching on.
 * Triang Relations: Alphard, Liang Qi and Cummings are in a Type 5, since Cummings loves Liang Qi, who only has eyes for Alphard, and Alphard doesn't seem to care about either of them.
 * Tyke Bomb: Liang Qi.
 * The Virus: Obviously.
 * Unfortunate Names: Maria Osawa, bearing a too-close-for-comfort name of Maria Ozawa, a Japanese porn star.
 * Vaporware: The announced three theatrical releases have yet to appear.
 * War for Fun and Profit: Alphard helps all countries go to war with each other and takes money from everybody; and she also helps countries go to peace (since peace also results in rearmamenting and sales opportunities).
 * What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Yunyun is a Borner mutant... with two appendices.
 * Where It All Began: The train (possibly the same train, but at least the same make) was both the setting for the beginning of Canaan and Alphard's feud and their climactic duel.
 * The airport that is sitting in during the epilogue would seem to be the same one from the last scene in 428.
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl: Canaan, leaning towards the "death symbolism" subtype. Subverted: At first, there's nothing to suggest she's not an ordinary, naturally white-haired anime girl. Then we find out that.
 * Horrifyingly subverted when . Her hair turns white...
 * Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Yunyun, lampshaded by Minoru and Maria, and then explained in episode 5  Could also be a reference to the potential after effects of China's economic growth spurt as Yunyun mentions that many in the slums take up several part-time jobs to make ends meet.
 * Yan-Fucking-Dere: Liang-Qi.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * Your Head Asplode: 's power, to a degree.
 * Your Mom: In episode 5, Santana and Minorikawa eventually devolve into slinging this back and forth.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Liang Qi manages to combine this with a cheongsam.
 * Maria sports it on one occasion as well.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Liang Qi manages to combine this with a cheongsam.
 * Maria sports it on one occasion as well.