Dead Leaves

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"We the people, who are dedicated to protecting the common good, do hereby charge you with trespassing, theft, violence, assault, illegal possession of firearms, and a really crappy attitude! You are therefore sentenced to life imprisonment in the DL Correctional Facility on the moon."

One can describe Dead Leaves here. Alternately, one can describe the end result of an unholy fusion of FLCL and Superjail made after doing a rhino-sized dose of super-distilled crack cocaine and LSD.

Either way, things will get weird.

Pandy (a woman with a red ring around her right eye) and Retro (a man with a TV for a head) awaken on Earth with no clothes on and no memory of their pasts. After a brief crime spree through the streets of Tokyo, the duo end up incarcerated in the titular lunar prison facility. After they discover Dead Leaves serves a dual purpose -- as a top-secret cloning facility -- and all of the prisoners are "cloned genetic garbage", the imprisoned lovebirds orchestrate a mass prison break.

Did we mention the sex scene, the prisoner with a drill for a penis, the insane warden, and the strange children's story?

This OVA shares a director with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, and FLCL's fifth episode -- which explains both very little and oh-so-much…

Both Netflix and YouTube carry a legal stream of this OVA.

Tropes used in Dead Leaves include:
  • Action Girl: Pandy
  • The Alcatraz: Dead Leaves
  • Animesque: Dead Leaves inverts this trope; the design aesthetic seems inspired by American underground comics.
  • Anyone Can Die: Guards and inmates alike end up slaughtered by various means -- and they don't come back. At the end of the OVA, the amount of survivors from the prison break Pandy and Retro orchestrate numbers in the low single digits.
  • Appropriated Appellation: Pandy and Retro name each other in this way upon waking up.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Pandy and Retro both receive life sentences for "tresspassing, theft, violence, assault, illegal possession of firearms, and having a really crappy attitude."
  • Author Appeal: The character designer (and director) also worked on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; take a look at Chinko Drill's... "equipment."
  • Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Pandy and Retro react this way when they're first separated at prison. It's an oddly sweet moment, especially considering the characters and the rest of the story.
    • Pandy's reaction to Retro having his head ripped off by the Big Bad also qualifies, as does their reaction after they finally escape Dead Leaves.
    • A bit of Reality Subtext (see below) makes this especially funny and heartwarming.
  • Ax Crazy: Retro, The Warden, Triple-Six, and a lot of the inmates qualify for this trope.

Retro: DAMN, IT FEELS GOOD TO BE VIOLENT!!!

  • Badass: Retro, Triple-Six, and Triple-Seven
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: This trope briefly occurs in the first part of Retro and Triple-Seven's fight.
  • Book Ends
  • Click. "Hello.": Pandy's baby makes its introduction to the world by pulling out a pistol and shooting the warden through the stomach -- just before it births itself.
  • Cloning Blues: Being a clone without the "mutation gene cluster" makes an inmate exceptionally expendable. One inmate remarks:

"Oh well, even if we all died tomorrow, there's still a whole nother batch of clones to take our place. C'est la vie."

  • Clothing Damage: Pandy goes from the top half of the prison uniform, to... half of that, during her fight with Triple-Six.
  • Daddy Issues: The Warden
  • Dark Action Girl: The Warden
  • Deadpan Snarker: Retro's delivery was a bit too amped up to be called "deadpan", but Pandy tossed out some cool snarks.

Pandy [to naked Retro]: "The cold isn't doing you any favors. Trust me."

  • Deranged Animation: "Animation that dispenses with all semblance of reality, and sanity, taking the viewer into a nightmare world where anything goes"? Check.
  • Disney Death: Unlike the aforementioned inmates, Retro does come back, though he subverts the trope by lacking a body upon return.
  • Eat Me: What Pandy and Retro's baby does to the giant space caterpillar at the end.
  • Elite Mooks: The robotic guards.
  • Erotic Eating: Pandy sure does love that hot dog...
  • Express Delivery: Pandy and Retro's baby. The two of them have sex early on in the OVA, and she is visibly pregnant roughly ten minutes later; not long after that, the baby just kind of...comes out of its own volition, but ages super fast and dies in short order, all thanks to the mutation gene cluster.
  • The Faceless: In the few brief flashback shots we see, Retro's human face is always hidden.
  • Faceless Masses: Every normal citizen is depicted with the same blank, Eyes Always Shut expression.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the scene where the prisoners get shot, a penis flies off and into another's mouth. No, really. At 17:38, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, keep your eye on the robot prisoner's head.
  • Gag Penis: Chinko Drill, one of the inmates, has a large drill for a dick.
  • Groin Attack: After one particular explosion, Chinko Drill finds himself landing dick-first into a pile of rubble.

Retro: "That has GOT to hurt!"

    • He later uses his drill as a weapon to attack 777 as an actual Groin Attack.
  • Humongous Mecha: Used as mere cannon fodder during the initial car chase.
  • Immune to Bullets: Triple 6 and Triple 7.

666: "I wouldn't use those crappy bullets to scratch my ass!"

Retro: "DAMN IT FEELS GOOD TO BE VIOLENT!"
Retro: "My ass! OH DEAR GOD, it's sucking my ASS!"

  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Pandy and Retro have no memory of their past, but know how to get out of their straitjackets and handcuffs, and know their way around the prison.
  • Licking the Blade: 666 does this during his fight with Pandy, remarking "I can taste your panties."
  • Lull Destruction: The dub is an example of this totally working. The vast majority of the quotes on this page are dub-exclusive, as the people in charge of the Japanese script forgot to add much humor until they were at least halfway done.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Fired at a bunch of robots with ONE rocket launcher.
  • Made of Explodium: If it is mechanical, it can explode.
    • Pandy exploits this by cracking the casing of a statue open and extracting a football sized cylinder - which she then jammed in to 777's torso and detonated.
  • Mauve Shirt: Chinko Drill, as well as a few other inmates, get enough characterization to become endearing.
  • Meaningful Name: Pandy and Retro are pretty obvious, but as for Chinko Drill, well..."chinko" is Japanese slang for "penis".
  • Mind Screw: There has to be some symbolism in there other than the obvious varieties through that children's story...
  • Mismatched Eyes: Pandy has one red eye and one blue one.!
  • More Dakka: The basis of several fight scenes, most obviously Retro vs. 777.
  • Mr. Exposition: The Doctor.
  • Nightmare Face: The giant caterpillar near the end.
  • The Number of the Beast: 666 and his sidekick 777, The Number Of The Moose.
  • Offhand Backhand
  • Off-Model: The visuals are extremely stylized and there is actually no model. Yes, even Off-Model can be good.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: We don't actually get told if Pandy and Retro even have real names (because after a certain point...does it even matter?). They get "Pandy" and "Retro" because, respectively, Retro observes that the mark on her face makes her look like a panda bear, and Pandy retorts that that old-school TV on Retro's head makes him look like a dumbass.
  • Only Sane Man: Retro when he's not around Pandy. Pandy, otherwise.
  • The Power Of Love(making): Sex breaks Pandy and Retro out of their cell. No, really.
  • Prison Rape: And oh, dear Lord, it's done by Chinko.

Chinko: You want me to kiss you first?

  • Pregnant Badass: Pandy, through most of the movie.
  • Reality Subtext: A twofer: not only are the English voices of Pandy and Retro married in real life, but Pandy's voice actress became pregnant with their first child while working on the movie.
  • Redshirt Army: Pretty much the prison's entire population, guards and inmates alike.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The original script plays out as an action movie with small pockets of comedy here and there. The dub of the OVA, however, borders on Gag Dub -- while keeping the original script as intact as possible.
  • Right Through His Pants: Pandy and Retro have sex while wearing the prison's standard outfit (best described as an overgrown straitjacket).

That was some serious boot-knockin'!

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