Demonbane



"I am innocent rage I am innocent hatred I am the innocent sword I am DEMONBANE"

Kurou Daijuuji is a poor detective living in Arkham City (no, not that one). One day, he's asked by Ruri Hadou of the Hadou Financial Group to search for a magical grimoire. As Kurou searches for the book, he unexpectedly runs into Al-Azif, a pretty girl who turns out to be the grimoire Kurou is searching for. While being chased by the villainous Black Lodge, Al forges a contract with Kurou, bestowing him with powerful magic. Soon afterwards, Al also activates the Demonbane, a Deus Machina owned by the Hadou Financial Group, to combat the mechanical menace from the Black Lodge. With this, the war between the Hadou Financial Group and the Black Lodge begins....

A series by Nitroplus with Humongous Mecha and Cthulhu Mythos elements, it began as an Visual Novel Eroge for the PC, then was ported to the Sony PlayStation 2 as a non-eroge remake. A sequel action game, a prequel novel, an OVA, an Anime of the Game and a conversion to manga followed the remake.

Not to be confused with the artifact from NetHack.


 * Achey Scars:
 * Affably Evil: Doctor West
 * A Plague on Both Your Houses: The last words of Sandalphon.
 * Alice Allusion: The entire incident with the Mirror of Nitocris.
 * All Webbed Up: In Atlach-Nacha's lair.
 * And Then What?: Sandalphon is asked what he intends to do after he defeats Metatron. He doesn't really have an answer.
 * Animal Motifs:
 * Anime Hair: Everyone
 * The Antichrist: Master Therion, according to one of the trivia pages, translates to 666 in a magic system that assigns numerical values to letters, and he has a personality cult and vast magical ability..
 * Anti-Magic: Doctor West's Dig Me No Grave.
 * The Archer: Liber Legis's Sirius Bow.
 * Ascended to A Higher Plane of Existence: In one ending,.
 * Attractive Bent Gender: Kurou gets forced into drag at one point, and though we don't get to see it, even Doctor West found him hot.
 * Avenging the Villain:
 * Babies Ever After: The sequel plays with this,  However, both of them come from alternate future.
 * Badass: Almost every named character.
 * Action Girl: Metatron and Elsa. Ruri later joins this trope in her route.
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: Kurou and Winfield during the battle at Innsmouth. Elsa and Ruri do this in their route versus Claudius.
 * Badass Automaton: Elsa.
 * Badass Biker: Doctor West, Al, Metatron,  and Kurou get their chances at being this.
 * Motorcycle Fu: Done by Metatron,  and Doctor West on three separate occasions.
 * Badass Crew: Anticross is the evil version of this.
 * Badass Grandpa: Every image we see of Ruri's grandfather points to him being this. Just look at those muscles, and that hair, and that pose! Yes, seriously. The sequel add Laban Shrewsbury to this trope.
 * Made less squicky by the fact that
 * Badass Normal: Winfield.
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
 * Little Miss Badass: Al and Etheldreda.
 * Determinator: Kurou, Winfield and Doctor West.
 * One-Man Army: Almost every magically empowered character.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Every fighting character.
 * World of Badass: Excepting faceless civilians, everyone is this. Hell, even Stone and Ness qualify as Badass, if for no other reason than the ability to survive the kind of stuff that would kill anyone else more times than one can count, even when they are at ground zero for a lethal attack!
 * Worthy Opponent: Titus and Winfield consider each other such.
 * Battle Butler: Winfield, who's a Homage to H.P. Lovecraft's father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft.
 * Beach Episode: The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Obviously, it's of the Busmans's Holiday type.
 * Because You Were Nice to Me:
 * Beyond the Impossible: Elder God Demonbane's Athleta Aeternum ability can summon countless variant of itself in multiverse. And not just those exist in the multiverse, it can summon those that shouldn't exist as well.
 * BFS: The Shining Trapezohedron, which can supposedly cut through dimensions and seal gods. The Scimitar of Barzai also counts.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Blade Catch: When retrieving the independent Scimitar Of Barzai
 * Bleached Underpants: PlayStation 2 version
 * Blood Knight: Half of Anticross consists of these.
 * Blush Sticker: Chibi-Al Azif and Sonia, the smallest of Ruri's maids.
 * Bondage Is Bad: With a name like "the Tyrant", y'think?
 * Bound and Gagged: Chiaki winds up like this a few times, albeit Played for Laughs.
 * Bridge Bunnies: Ruri's servants Makoto, Chiaki and Sonia.
 * Brought Down to Badass:
 * Butt Monkey: Kurou does not have much luck with the women in his life. At all.
 * Doctor West is also one, especially if you count all the times he gets "beat the shit out of". In fact,
 * Calling Your Attacks
 * Canon: The visual novel has Multiple Endings. In the sequel, it turn out that most of them occur, with exception of the bad ending. This is possible because of time-loops and alternate timelines.
 * Charles Atlas Superpower: Winfield is able to go toe-to-toe with an Anticross sorcerer by virtue of the fact that he's a master boxer. Apparently boxing in Demonbane can make you superhuman.
 * Chick Magnet: Kurou gets over half the women in the game to go googly eyed for him in one way or another. While being a Butt Monkey at the same time.
 * Clingy Jealous Girl: Al, especially in Ruri's route
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Kurou and Doctor West have dialogue that could strip paint off walls.
 * Combat Tentacles
 * Combined Energy Attack: It's vengeful.
 * Conservation of Ninjutsu: You'd think when Demonbane has the ability to summon every Demonbane that exists, could exist, could never exist and doesn't ever exist to fight alongside it, this trope would be the first thing to come into effect. Thoroughly subverted, as having infinite Demonbanes makes it truly unstoppable.
 * Cool Bike: Hunting Horror.
 * Cool Guns: Cthugha is a pimped-out Mauser C96, while Ithaqua is a pimped-out Mateba revolver.
 * Cosplay Otaku Girl: Al seems to like changing her outfit to be "theme appropriate" to her situation quite a bit, and since the visual novel is an eroge, most outfits have a sexual theme which she lampshades without shame.
 * Curb Stomp Battle:
 * Anyone who fights Kurou in the finale of Ruri's route, up until the very last one.
 * Anyone who is foolish enough to go up against the Tyrant. Except Master Therion, where the joke's on her.
 * Cute and Psycho: The Tyrant. Or at least, she's cute beneath all the bondage gear.
 * Cyborg:
 * Damsel in Distress:
 * Dark-Skinned Blond:  is a tanned White-Haired Pretty Girl.
 * Demoted to Extra: Despite being major characters, Metatron and Sandalphon are nowhere to be seen in anime adaption. Also Alison, who got a whole chapter of focus on her Character Development in the visual novel version only.
 * Depraved Bisexual: Tiberius, though his preference seems to slant towards women, has some creepy affectionate dialogue for Sandalphon.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Done rather spectacularly.
 * Did You Just Romance The Necronomicon
 * Dual-Wielding / Guns Akimbo / Swords Akimbo: The Demonbane and Kurou when using Cthugha & Ithaqua, Kuzaku "Two-Sword"/"Two-Gun" and his Demonbane Two-Sword, and lest we forget Titus of Anticross, a four-armed sword wielding samurai.
 * Dumb Muscle: Caligula.
 * Dying as Yourself:
 * Eldritch Abomination: A few. The likes of don't bother anyone too much but  cause some major brain breaking at first.
 * Eldritch Location: An entire section of the city has been sealed off for being one of these. Any normal person who enters would simply die instantly.
 * Electra Complex: Another Blood wants to replace her mom. To make it more complicate, she comes from an alternate future and thus is not really related to her parents in the present. And since she's a book like her mom, their genetic relationship is hard to judge.
 * Ending Fatigue: In-universe version. In prequel novel, got bored of never-ending battle between Gunshin Kyoshuu Demonbane and Gunshin Kyoshuu Liber Legis (after watching it for strange aeons, even attack that destroy multiverses can be boring...). So she tweak the timeline, kicking whole events of prequel out of canon (and erase those two from reality), result in one that of the Visual Novel.
 * Even Evil Has Standards
 * Most members of Anticross have contempt for Tiberius. Doctor West finds him to be an illogical abomination, and Sandalphon even resorts to  to screw him over.
 * A few members of Black Lodge find excess violence rather distasteful. Titus will kill people far below his level if ordered to, but otherwise finds it pointlessly brutal. Doctor West also finds outright slaughter to be so unappealing
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In . The narration make it clear that, to the Ancient Ones, there shouldn't be any good gods.
 * Evil Counterpart: Liber Legis is the ultimate evil to Demonbane's ultimate good and they have similar but opposite attacks. Metatron and Sandalphon also have this dynamic going on.
 * Evil Is Deathly Cold: Master Therion's Liber Legis' "Hyperborea Zero Drive" reduces its target's temperature to absolute zero. Also, Caligula's Kraken's main attack.
 * Ithaqua too, since all magic is technically "unholy".
 * Evil Twin
 * Doctor West's "Demonpain", which can do almost everything the original Demonbane can and is even powered by some of Al Azif's pages.
 * Another Blood from the sequel visual novel is another one, being the
 * Expresssive Idiot Hair: Doctor West, similar to Sumika.
 * Expy: Metatron and Sandalphon have a variant of the Blade and Evil dynamic.
 * Faceless Goons: The Black Lodge mooks.
 * Facial Markings: Half the people with Anime Hair, mostly those from Black Lodge.
 * Fate Worse Than Death
 * The bad ending,
 * In Al's route, Instead, he gets  Al and Kurou couldn't see what was in there from where they were, but  What he saw was enough to make  actually beg for death instead of being sucked inside. Kurou simply points out that  whatever is in there surely won't be enough to do put an end to him either.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Vespasianus. Sure, he's fairly erudite and disturbingly polite for an Anticross member, but his deeds and what he'll do to accomplish them reveal it's but a thin veneer over his Complete Monster Mad Scientist self.
 * Fille Fatale: Ennea
 * Finishing Move: Lemuria Impact.
 * Fragile Speedster: Lord Byakhee.
 * The Gadfly: Ennea is quite fond of trolling Al.
 * Genre Blind: Nero is indeed the most powerful among Anticross and has no problem fighting both Augustus and Vespasianus at same time. Too bad, she confront them inside Cthulhu, surround by countless Naughty Tentacles. Since Demonbane start as Eroge, it doesn't matter how powerful she is...
 * Genre Savvy: The entire civilian population of Arkham City seem to be transplanted from The Big O and Bubblegum Crisis, especially given their in universe reactions to all the crazy shit that happens every other day.
 * Girls Are Really Scared of Horror Movies: Invoked and averted should you decide that Kurou and Ruri will watch a horror movie. Winfield thinks that Ruri will get really scared and thus the standard scene will take place... but as Kurou and Ruri point out in utter boredom, they see this kind of thing every day and fight such monsters.
 * Half the Man He Used To Be:
 * Hair Color Dissonance: Al's light pink hair is referred to as silver.
 * Hair-Trigger Temper: Claudius
 * Healing Factor:
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * In the sequel,
 * Hero Insurance: Everything's paid for by the Hadou Financial Group, though that doesn't stop Kurou from worrying about all the damage done in the fights.
 * Heroic BSOD: Kurou has one after he . He temporarily recovers after Al slaps some sense into him. Too bad, because he soon faces another one after, and is nearly Driven to Suicide until Winfield puts an end to that.
 * Henshin Hero: Metatron, one of the Black Lodge's many enemies.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!
 * In the anime, Winfield's voiced by Takehito Koyasu, Augustus by Norio Wakamoto, Titus by Joji Nakata, Master Therion by Hikaru Midorikawa, Claudius by Tomoko Kawakami, Nya by Ai Orikasa and Makoto by Yuu Asakawa.
 * Oh, and Kurou? He's voiced by Kentarou Itou, whose voice you might recognize as belonging to Renji Abarai, Chouji Akimichi, or War-Rock.
 * Sandalphon is voiced by the King of Braves himself.
 * H-Game POV Character: Kurou is a Type II B.
 * Homoerotic Subtext: Between Doctor West and Kurou, thanks to a misunderstanding on the part of the former. Neither one is happy.
 * Human Mom, Nonhuman Dad:
 * Humongous Mecha: The Deus Machina and Doctor West's Destroyer Robots.
 * In the prequel novel, Demonbane appears as Gunshin Kyoshuu Demonbane (War God Demonbane), particularly notable for being the' largest mecha in fiction, even dwarfing Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It grows so large that it pops the universe it's in, and accidentally destroys other universes by brushing against them. Of couse, its Arch Enemy 'Gunshin Kyoshuu Liber Legis is as big and as powerful.
 * Hypocritical Humor: Tiberius crying rape when Al tries to remove De Vermis Mysteriis from him.
 * If I Can't Have You:
 * Immortality
 * Tiberius' grimoire makes him immortal as type 3 (regenerative) and type 5 (the undead)
 * Immortality Talisman: Tiberius' grimoire makes him absolutely unkillable so long as it is unharmed. As a side effect, he is a perpetually rotting corpse.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Perhaps in Homage to Desperado, Doctor West arms himself with a guitar case with a built-in rocket launcher, which he shoots in the same way as that guy from Desperado.
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Doctor West,
 * Insufferable Genius: Both Doctor West and Master Therion, as much as they might irritate most of the cast, are genuine masters of their fields.
 * Large Ham: Doctor West
 * Let's Get Dangerous: The invasion of the Hadou shelters after Big C is repulsed on several fronts by the combined effort of many supporting characters.
 * Living MacGuffin:
 * Lolicon: Makoto, one of the Bridge Bunnies, has an unhealthy degree of lust for Al.
 * Louis Cypher: If a rather creepy character going by the name of Nya in a Lovecraft story doesn't set off any alarm bells something may be wrong.
 * Lovecraftian Superpower: Tiberius' rather low combat abilities are based around him using his decaying body parts as weapons, such as making spears of his ribs or using his intestines as tentacles.
 * Lovecraft Lite
 * Made of Plasticine: People tend to blow up rather easily.
 * Mad Scientist: Doctor West
 * Magic Skirt: Compare the CG's of the PC version and the PlayStation 2 adaption. Al still wears the same costume, and makes the same poses, but the PlayStation 2 version no longer has the Panty shots.
 * Mecha Expansion Pack: Shantak, which allows Demonbane to fly.
 * Medium Awareness: Kurou and Doctor West often lampshade H-game tropes in their Genre Savvy moments.
 * Mega Manning: If something belongs inside her pages, Al can use its ability once she's subdued it.
 * Meganekko: Leica, Nya, Chiaki and
 * Mighty Glacier: Kraken.
 * Mind Screw: Al's Bad Ending. Seriously.
 * Mismatched Eyes: R'lyeh's Text and Kurou in Magius style
 * Moe Anthropomorphism
 * The strongest grimoires have their own souls and can manifest themselves as young looking girls. We see the Necronomicon, the R'lyeh test, the Pnakoptic Manuskripts and the spirit of the Nameless One.
 * Seen through the lens of the Neconomicon and filtered through Al's personality, cosmic horrors also become cute girls. Namely, Atlach-Nacha, Cthugha and Ithaqua.
 * Murder the Hypotenuse:
 * Multi-Armed and Dangerous:
 * Name's the Same: Winfield called Titus "Mister Bushido" long before the other one appeared.
 * Naughty Tentacles: Look no further than Tiberius and
 * Necromancer: Tiberius can and will raise the dead
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Near the end Kurou manages to . Sadly all this accomplishes is to allow.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Super West Invincible Robot Type-28 Special(s). It is/they are a varied robot series, always rebuilt and modified whenever it gets destroyed. It's usually a barrel-like thing with drills (capable of being launched), cannons, guns, missiles, lasers, etc.
 * Not So Invincible After All: Tiberius boasting how he's unkillable. You will hear him scream with fear against.
 * The Ojou: Ruri Hadou
 * Only Sane Man: Crossed with Irony and Played for Laughs. Despite the Lovecraftian premise, the sillier moments of the game have Kurou bemoaning he seems to be the only one with a constantly level head.
 * Perpetual Poverty: Kurou is so poor that he considers putting jam on toast and instant coffee to be living it up. He actually cries Manly Tears when Ruri offers to employ him. Averted in  where he becomes rich either by   or by.
 * Power Dyes Your Hair: Kurou's hair turns white when in Magius Style. hair also turns white when
 * Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Their hair also grows to waist length or longer.
 * Powers as Programs
 * Power Limiter: Using Demonbane's Lemuria Impact requires the Naascal Code. On the plus side, it doesn't drain any energy.
 * The Power of Sex:
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: Demonbane's animated ending is entirely original, made exclusively for the TV series. . The superior quality of the ending is attributed to the fact the animation staff enlisted the aid of the original work's staff for the final episode.
 * Punch Clock Villain: Doctor West
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: Anticross, all of whom are named after Roman Emperors.
 * Rasputinian Death: A lot, though certain instances like Caligula and Claudius stick out.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Al Azif amd Etheldreda.
 * The Rival: Titus to Winfield. Sandalphon takes this trope to extreme, and only joins in on operations if he'll get to fight Metatron.
 * Robot Girl: Elsa, who bypasses Do Androids Dream? by acting very human and quickly gets a crush on Kurou.
 * Rocket Punch: Kraken's wire-arms.
 * Rule of Cool: All magic in the Demonbane universe functions according to this principle.
 * Sanity Meter: Kurou makes reference to this trope during the Beach Episode.
 * Schedule Slip: The English release, so much, that among English-speaking Visual Novel readers it had the same reputation as Duke Nukem Forever.
 * Screw Destiny
 * Screw Yourself:, even official art potray them in questionable manner.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: The true nature of Shining Trapezohedron is
 * Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Kurou went through much trouble just to save . Only for her to die in.
 * Shrinking Violet: Alison.
 * Smug Snake: Augustus. Sure he's a smart and high-functioning villain, but in the end he allowed his arrogance to override his common sense. Vespasianus is one as well.
 * Stone Wall: Legacy of Gold has incredible tough armor and armed with numerous beam cannons. Now add regeneration ability when Augustus links it with Cthulhu...
 * Super Prototype: Two examples.
 * The Super West Invincible Robot Type-28 Special(s) maybe weak when compared to Deus Machina, but at least it can withstand Demonbane's head vulcan guns. One of the mass production Destroyer Robot even got disabled by Winfield on foot in Ruri's route.
 * The sequel reveal that Claudius's Celaeno Fragments is just a copy of Laban Shrewsbury's, which also has girl form call Hazuki. Similar to his Deus Machina, the Lord Byakhee maybe fast, but it still can't compare to Shrewsbury's Ambrose.
 * Super Robot
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: Al isn't jealous of Ennea at all. Nope. She just senses doom from her.
 * Team Pet: Dunsany the Shoggoth.
 * Thanatos Gambit:  tries this near the end. Specifically   tries to force Kurou   so that  . Unfortunately.
 * Theme Naming: The Anti-Cross are named after Roman emperors.
 * The Starscream:
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Claudius and Caligula.
 * Those Two Guys: Stone and Ness.
 * Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The Scimitar of Barzai functions as a boomerang when thrown.
 * Token Evil Teammate:
 * Token Good Teammate:
 * Token Loli: Al Azif and Etheldreda, both of whom are also Tomes Of Eldritch Lore.
 * Ennea also counts.
 * Tome of Eldritch Lore: As noted above, the original copy of each grimoire appear as a young girl instead of a book. The artist actually has design human version of every tomes used by Anticross as well, but none of them appear in story.
 * Tsundere: Evidently Al, but the visual novel expands this to Ruri in her individual character route.
 * Two Guys and a Girl: Odd variant here. Nya seems to like trying to seduce Kurou and, depending on her whim, and even though the latter party is aware of this, the usual jealousy one would expect is absent.
 * Tyke Bomb: Metatron, Sandalphon and the Tyrant, though rather than being their primary purpose it's a useful (or rather annoying, depending on one's point of view) side effect.
 * Unknown Rival: Doctor West is convinced that he's Kurou's rival, but Kurou just thinks of him as a pest.
 * Verbal Tic: Elsa's "-robo" is what convinces Kurou that she really is a robot, apparently.
 * Villainous Crush: To quote, "Then I shall answer you with unforgiving hate, and unrelenting love!".
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Caligula and Claudius act like they want to kill each other.
 * Wham! Episode: They pull this as fast as Chapter 2. The first chapter play like typical Super Robot Genre story, Kuro in Magius Style is super human who can catch and throw rocket back. Demonbane can withstand everything Destroyer Robot throwing at it (cannons, guns, missiles and lasers). In second chapter, he fight against Master Therion - who's without Liber Legis - and lose. The battle is mostly one-side to boost.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Given by Metatron to Kurou, regarding his being a Person of Mass Destruction predilections not being good for the health of the city in the long term.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Kuzaku.
 * World's Strongest Man:
 * Xanatos Roulette: The entire plot of Demonbane boils down to one massive Xanatos plot.
 * Yandere:
 * You Don't Look Like You: The artist took very deliberate interpretion on Great Old Ones appearance. Atlach-Nacha is a Giant Spider with human torso in place of its head. Cthugha has beast-like body in the middle of massive fireball. Ithaqua first seen as glowing red eyes in the mid of violent storm (Death Walker as called in Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)) but is really a massive dragon.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * Xanatos Roulette: The entire plot of Demonbane boils down to one massive Xanatos plot.
 * Yandere:
 * You Don't Look Like You: The artist took very deliberate interpretion on Great Old Ones appearance. Atlach-Nacha is a Giant Spider with human torso in place of its head. Cthugha has beast-like body in the middle of massive fireball. Ithaqua first seen as glowing red eyes in the mid of violent storm (Death Walker as called in Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)) but is really a massive dragon.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: