Now and Then, Here and There



""All the good people of this world are already dead.""

Not for the faint of heart.

Now and Then, Here and There (aka Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku or "The Me That's There Now") is a grim piece by Akitaroh Daichi, the director responsible for such manic comedies as Kodocha and Fruits Basket. Only this time he put the laughs away in a lockbox for a future project.

Now and Then, Here and There takes the old anime plot of being transported to another world and turns it on its head. Shu, our hero, is on his way home from kendo practice one day when he sees a strange girl sitting atop a smokestack. Curious, he goes up to meet her. The girl's name is Lala Ru and as Shu is introducing himself and talking to her two strange machines warp in and attack them. Shu attempts to defend the girl but is easily brushed aside and Lala Ru is taken. Shu renews his attack as Lala Ru calls for help but everyone ends up getting transported back to where the machines came from.

The normal conventions of this genre decree that the alternate world be a cool, mildly dangerous place where the transportee soon hooks up with some cool friends and a protector/mentor who explains the new world and guides our hero on his great quest to rescue the damsel...

Not this time. Shu is transported to a dying desert planet orbiting a bloated sun in the early stages of nova. Only the worst of humanity has survived this crucible and Shu has been dumped alone into the heart of this hell. Shu tries to behave as the hero would, ever optimistic that good will always triumph and that if he tries hard enough he will win and restore goodness to the world. Only things don't work that way in Hellywood, the fortress ruled by an insane king served by a super-efficient minion who inflicts his every demented whim on a helpless population.

Daichi pulls no punches in the thirteen episodes of this TV series and gives us no let-up. In this world, children are the targets of atrocities committed by other children. Neighboring villages are raided for vital supplies and young boys to be conscripted into the insane king Hamdo's army. Women and young girls are captured to be passed around to and raped by Hellywood soldiers as a reward for good performance in the hope that they will become pregnant and provide future soldiers and breeders. This latter fate befalls a young American girl named Sara, who is mistakenly grabbed because of her resemblance to Lala Ru. Indeed, a couple episodes in the middle of the series focus entirely on her story, not Shu's.

Daichi was influenced to create this story based on reports coming out of Rwanda during the genocide taking place in that country, and boy does it show. The anime is considered by many fans to be a masterpiece, but be warned: it's intense enough that you will probably only be able to watch it once. This one belongs on the shelf right beside Grave of the Fireflies.

Tropes included in Now and Then Here and There are:

 * Adorably Precocious Child: Boo, though the responsibility is of the emotionally scarring kind.
 * Adult Fear: A child stuck alone in a foreign land.
 * Aerith and Bob: The females all have real names, even in ; Soon is a Korean name, Abelia is the name of a plant, and Sis is likely a nickname. And then you have the guys; Boo, Tabool, Nabuca...
 * Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Lala Ru's pendant has . How much more concentrated do you get?
 * Anyone Can Die: And by anyone we actually mean everyone. Especially if you can feel any sympathy for them.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Hellywood's airship is fueled by...water?
 * To be fair. They put in the briefly shown "Converters" which allow the water to be used as fuel.
 * Apron Matron: Sis
 * Art Style Dissonance: It's not exactly cutesy, but it's unusually stylized for such serious subject matter. This arguably works in its favor, softening the blow of the most traumatic scenes.
 * The Atoner: Abelia is strongly implied to become this, after Sara shows her mercy. The spy soldier who brought Hellywood to Zaribars pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save one of the kids Sara's escorting.
 * Bedouin Rescue Service: Sis
 * Bodyguard Crush: The straight trope and the inversion are both played with between Abelia and Hamdo. It's heavily implied that Hamdo used to be sane, and that the only reason Abelia stays with him is because she remembers what he used to be like. That combined with  There's also her rage towards Lala Ru, who Hamdo talks to like his lover half of the time. As for Hamdo's feelings, the way he touches Abelia (caressing her face, hugging her from behind) is not quite sexual but definitely more than friendly.
 * Break the Cutie: In spades.
 * Breather Episode: Episode 8. While Shu and Lala Ru do talk about the horrors of the world they're in, it's not up in your face, so you can take a break from the depression brought on by the last 7 episodes while they fight a giant desert plant monster with grenades.
 * The Caligula: King Hamdo
 * Character Development: Some of them change almost completely throughout the show.
 * Child Soldiers: played much more realistically and darkly than usual.
 * Children Are Innocent: Arguably the entire point of the show, to such an extent that Nabuca, even though.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Abelia goes right past the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique and into this. An adult woman torturing a young boy into unconsciousness for information is just not something you see in many media.
 * Cool Airship:
 * Crapsack World: The epitome and the definition.
 * Death Glare: You wouldn't guess her capable of it, but Lala Ru managed one when Hamdo had Abelia shoot Shu. For half the series, he bribed, cajoled, pleaded, and threatened her without so much as getting her to look at him. After the shooting? "Why are you looking at me like that?... Stop looking at me like that!"
 * Decoy Protagonist: While almost the entire series is shown to us as seen through Shu's eyes so as to achieve the haunting effect of a child's perception of brutality, surprisingly little of the story has anything to do with him.
 * Deconstruction: If this show is not THE quintessential Deconstruction of the whole Trapped in Another World plot, then what is?
 * Actually Averted. While the world is brutal, "realistic", and plausible in his apocalyptic mindset, it isn't a true Deconstruction because it doesn't actually follow the tropes in Trapped in Another World. Most works are done in the Medieval European Fantasy setting, with White and Black Morality or at least gray ("All the good people of this world are already dead." indeed), Heroic Fantasy conflicts and following the Hero's Journey... which this work doesn't. It would be like trying to deconstruct the Lord of the Rings using the Dark Sun setting by Terry Goodkind.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Lala Ru and Abelia.
 * Determinator: Shu
 * Did Not Get the Girl: Arguably she wasn't up for grabs to begin with.
 * Downer Ending:
 * Driven to Suicide:, though Shu stops her.
 * The Dulcinea Effect: Shu knows Lala Ru's name and precisely nothing else at the time he starts casually risking his life at every turn for her.
 * Enfant Terrible: Tabool
 * Evil Versus Evil: Elamba vs Hamdo
 * Emotionless Girl: Lala Ru, and to a lesser extent, Soon.
 * Eternal English
 * Expy: Tenchi? Tenchi who?
 * Foe Yay: Tabool's unhealthy obsession with Nabuca and subsequent rage whenever Nabuca rejects his attention are typically interpreted as an example of this.
 * Freeze Sneeze
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Shu tries this on Sara when she's Driven to Suicide. Doesn't quite have the result he'd probably hoped for.
 * Good Girls Avoid Abortion:
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Played straight with ; averted with and.
 * Harmful to Minors: Very.
 * Heel Face Turn: ; done beautifully in a gradual buildup rather than a last-minute decision.
 * Also in the last episode.
 * Heel Realization: and  both start to realize the wrongness of their actions in Hamdo's army after Shu shows up.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * He Who Fights Monsters: Elamba. He is so desperate to get his hands on the MacGuffin that he's willing to shoot and let  die slowly. When the village doctor wants to tend to the wound, he refuses and shoots the doctor after he invokes this trope.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Dan Green as Nabuca in the English dub.
 * Rachael Lillis (aka Misty from Pokémon) as Boo and Sis. The fact that the warm and motherly Sis sounds exactly like Jessie from Team Rocket is more than a little nightmare inducing.
 * Lisa Ortiz (Lina Inverse) as Lala Ru, of all people.
 * Tabool is none other than Crispin Freeman. STORM OF LOYALTY, my foot. On the other hand, Shu is Ted Lewis, otherwise known as Giovanni, Tracey, Bakura, King Dedede, and JACK ATLAS.
 * Honor Before Reason
 * Hypercompetent Sidekick: Abelia to Hamdo.
 * I Choose to Stay:
 * Important Haircut: Sara, after.
 * Infant Immortality: Not even. No one is safe, no matter the age.
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha
 * Interrogated for Nothing: Happens to Shu over the course of several episodes.
 * Interrupted Suicide: Sara, after, tried to drown herself. Shu interrupting her only made her hurry.
 * Given that her response to being interrupted was to
 * Yes.
 * It Got Worse: Every five minutes or so.
 * Just Following Orders
 * Karmic Death:
 * Kill'Em All:.
 * Kill It with Water:
 * Larynx Dissonance: The English dub is notable in that none of the child characters sound like children, which takes away at least 50% of the story's impact. Shu suffers from this in the French dub as well.
 * MacGuffin Girl: Lala Ru. Deconstructed in that she gets a speech about how being one sucks. People only want to use her, and eventually kill each other over her.
 * Mama Bear: Sis
 * Monochromatic Eyes: No males have pupils.
 * Lala Ru is the real oddity, having blue eyes surrounding bluish-white pupils.
 * Mysterious Waif: Lala Ru. Word of God says . It's not uncommon for fans to perceive her as the spirit of the dying planet, or even water itself. Technically speaking, either would be a correct interpretation.
 * Necessarily Evil: most of the Child Soldiers as well as Abelia. They know that all of the killing and kidnapping is evil, but just want to get the fighting over with and go home. Hamdo, being a Dangerously Genre Savvy Omnicidal Maniac, made sure that'll never happen by
 * Non-Indicative First Episode: The first episode seems like a light-hearted, silly, generic Shonen series; the rest of the series is much darker and a lot more brutal.
 * Not So Harmless: Hamdo is presented as so utterly insane, childlike, and paranoid that it's initially difficult to take him very seriously. Fast forward to the episode where assassins break into Hellywood. Hamdo unloads six rounds from a semi-automatic into a single assassin's body within the span of about two seconds. Holy shit.
 * Overkill much?
 * Now Which One Was That Voice?: Completely averted. The opening theme begins with a Dramatis Personae showing the main characters with their names in English and Japanese, pictures, and the names of both their seiyuu and English VA. The end credits also show both actors for each character.
 * Opening Narration: A loose example describing the general tone of the series beginning each episode: Because ten billion years' time is so fragile, so ephemeral, it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness.
 * Parental Substitute: Sis to the war orphans. Also Nabuca to Boo, which is made especially more poignant when taken into consideration that Nabuca is a child himself.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Hamdo is not only insane, but childishly so.
 * Rape as Drama: Sara; also hinted with Lala Ru. More tragic than usual in that they're both children.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Lala Ru
 * Redemption Earns Life: When, the guards present raise their guns... and lowers them, despite being more or less directly responsible for all the cruelty she endured.
 * Redemption Equals Death:
 * Rei Ayanami Expy: Lala-Ru
 * Right-Hand-Cat: Subverted. King Hamdo kills his cat in a fit of rage during the second episode, and when Shu sees it, it takes a while for him to realize it's dead. Arguably also a Squick moment.
 * Right-Hand Hottie: Abelia qualifies for this, especially considering that the series has little to no fanservice whatsoever.
 * Rival Turned Evil: Tabool to Nabuca,.
 * Rock of Limitless Water: Lala-Ru's pendant is sought after for its ability to produce large amounts of water.
 * Rule of Symbolism: Shu's kendo stick, arguably.
 * Shoot the Dog: King Hamdo strangles a cat. You hear the last cry it makes.
 * Smite Me Oh Mighty Smiter: Partially subverted at the end of episode seven, where (during the previews for the next episode) King Hamdo has a conversation with God, calling him a "tease" for presenting him with so many problems.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Sara's name becomes Sala in the French dub, which particularly does not make sense because she's supposed to have an everyday American name. Hellywood/Helliwood/Heliud, Tabool/Tabur, and Zari Bars/Zali Barth also suffer from this depending on whether you watch the original, fansubs, the English subs, the English dub, or the French dub.
 * Take My Hand: Shu saves Nabuca from falling off to his certain death despite the fact that the two were fighting just a few moments previously, thus establishing Shu as a definite Wide-Eyed Idealist.
 * He does it again in episode seven. It's a neat juxtaposition in that both times this occurs, there's a definitive clash between Shu's philosophy and Nabuca's, but the second time around, it's Nabuca who saves Shu.
 * The Stoic: Nabuca, until the end. Also Lala Ru, and Abelia
 * Interestingly, he fits the Kuudere pattern as well. While he seems cold and impersonal, he is shown holding hands with frightened children (episodes six and seven) and also shares his water (a scarce commodity) with a boy who refuses to do his share of the work. He is even shown covering up for kids in his corps who misbehave, making him something of A Father to His Men as well.
 * Time Abyss: Lala-Ru claims to be thousands of years older than Sis. In addition, until Hamdo captured her she seems to have faded into myth in the setting, despite claiming that wars have been fought over her time and time again. She may well be tens of thousands of years old.
 * Token Good Teammate: Kazam among the adult soldiers of Hellywood
 * Took a Level in Badass: Shu in the last episode,
 * Training from Hell
 * Trapped in Another World
 * Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Even off the battlefield, the child soldiers tend to talk and act exactly like adults, though it is shown to be a facade/coping mechanism for at least two of the main characters.
 * Tyke Bomb: Implied that Hellywood is trying to do this with its breeding program, although interestingly enough, none of said tyke bombs are ever depicted on screen.
 * Used Future: The futuristic  fortress Hellywood is crumbling and can barely  . Guns appear to be held together with tape.
 * Villainous Breakdown: King Hamdo is introduced to us smack in the middle of one, and never recovers.
 * We Can Rule Together: Tabool tries to convince Nabuca that they can rule Hellywood together in the future. It doesn't end well.
 * We Have Reserves: Hellywood has a Wave Motion Gun capable of felling entire Land Battleships and the surrounding environment... which Hamdo has no compunction using despite his troops being engaged with said enemy. Interestingly though, they don't quite have enough reserves, as this shot in the foot left Hellywood highly understaffed.
 * What Measure Is a Mook?: Brutally averted. Hamdo's sacrifice of his troops is presented as senseless tragedy. His army is made up of people forced into it at gunpoint and with the  promise that if they're obedient, once the war is over they can go home. Some are children.
 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: Again, Shu; see Take My Hand example above.
 * World Half Empty: The dying world that Shu is transported to.
 * Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The reason Hamdo employs a child army, other than children being extremely easy to corrupt, is because he's banking on his opponents' hesitance to harm them. It's shown to work at least once during series.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Lala Ru and Abelia.
 * Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The reason Hamdo employs a child army, other than children being extremely easy to corrupt, is because he's banking on his opponents' hesitance to harm them. It's shown to work at least once during series.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Lala Ru and Abelia.