Diebuster

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A six-volume OVA that serves as a sequel to Gunbuster, released as a 20th anniversary project for Studio Gainax. With director Kazuya Tsurumaki at the helm, who also directed FLCL, this series could easily be described as the love-child of the two series. While its source material is very story-centric, Diebuster maintains a strong overarching story while including more action and style that would set the groundwork for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann three years later (fans even joke that Nono is the TTGL protagonists' mom).

The OVA follows Nono, a rather klutzy girl who leaves home to try and become a Space Pilot. Unfortunately for her, she ends up in a run-down cafe in the middle of nowhere. One day, a girl named Lal'C Melk Mark, of the elite Topless units, amazes Nono by saving her from some Space Pilot perverts, and she immediately idolizes her. Nono follows her back to the city, where she ends up in the cross-fire of a space monster attack. Lal'C fights in her Buster Machine, Dix-Neuf, but it is actually Nono that saves the day, sans-mecha, with the classic Inazuma Kick. The story takes off with the realization that Nono is not all that she appears.

The plot revolves almost entirely around character interaction, with the overarching premise of the Space Monster attack serving as a motivating factor. Nono knows she comes from a lowly background, and even with her abilities she spends much of the next few episodes trying to prove herself. Lal'C has to come to grips with being the mentor to this bubbly girl, and slowly sees her personality shift as Nono's boundless optimism has an effect on her. Tycho, another Topless pilot, not only resents the other Topless because of an unfortunate event in her past, but even has suicidal tendencies. Finally, Nicola, an older Topless, engages in a scheme to try and keep his rapidly dwindling powers, with great consequences.

The parallels between Gunbuster and Diebuster are readily apparent. Both series focus on two girls - one, a hyperactive girl with natural talent but no actual skill; the other, a more stoic figure, a veteran of training, and the one person her compatriot idolizes. Both stories revolve around human emotion and the draining effect a drawn-out war can have on the combatants and their relationships. They both idealize the principle, common to the Super Robot genre, that with hard work and determination, and The Power of Friendship, anything is possible. Finally, they also realize, rather poignantly, that even with incredible power, sacrifices must be made. The duology is a testament to the Mecha genre, and the talent of Studio Gainax, and should definitely be watched by any anime fan.

Tropes used in Diebuster include:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade -- Or Absurdly Sharp Buster Beam, as the case may be.
• Arc Words -- Nono wishes to become "a Nonoriri." It's actually "like Nonoriri."
  • This is rather significant because "Nonoriri" is a bastardization of "Noriko", the protagonist from Gunbuster.
• Artificial Human -- Nono is revealed to be a robot at the end of the first episode and another ordinary one shows up as a naval advisor (this one male)
• Artistic License Physics - Justified by having a very literal device called Physical Canceller.
• Attempted Rape -- Episode 5.
• Backstory -- A few short ones. Guess who used to be a Meganekko?
• Badass Longcoat -- Buster Machine No. 19, Dix-Neuf.
• Beam Spam -- The Space Force battleships in episode 2.
• BFS -- Buster Machine No. 27, Vingt-Sept.
• Beyond the Impossible -- In episode 5, we find out that The last space monster is trapped in a black hole, and is attempting to break out of it. Not only does it succeed despite Nono's best efforts, but it OVERCOMES the black hole in size and uses it as it's POWER SOURCE. Note that the black hole is the one created in Gunbuster with the self-destruction of the Excelion.
  • In the final battle in episode 6, Lal'c and Nono not only obliterate the space monster, which had taken a planet to the face and shook it off as if nothing happened, but they also CRACK a black hole. After that, what appears to be a giant pair or hands clasps over the black hole until it is subdued. Even the android military advisor on one of the remaining ships stated something to the effect of, "It is pointless to try and explain. They are now beyond our understanding..."
• Big Damn Heroes -- The ending of episode 4.
• Bittersweet Ending -- Lal'C loses Nono for real in the end.
• Bird Run -- Done by Nono in Episode 3.
• Calling Your Attacks -- INAZUMA KICK!!
• Chekhov's Skill -- In the first episode, Nono mentions, almost as a joke, that she's good at splitting things in half when she breaks a plate and an apple with absolutely no effort. This is almost immediately forgotten until the fourth episode where she bisects Saturn's moon Titan and in the final episode where she uses the same power to destroy a black hole.
• Coming of Age Story -- Though the cast is on the brink of adulthood, the Topless's world is filled with numerous references to childhood. Their power involves bending the world to some degree and growing up means losing it, heavily coupling things with Growing Up Sucks.
  • A lot of equipment resembles toys and candy. Mostly dated ones. Vingt-Sept hijacks and warps other machines through old RC car remotes. Quatre-Vingt-Dix comes packaged like an action figure. The Mega Nebula colony Lal'C's team lives in is shaped like an obscure Japanese candy in its wrapping.
  • The grownups get most of the busy work and look at the Topless with envy or spite. Most notable is Casio, a depressing depiction of someone who failed to leave childhood. There's even side material of when he was the thin, crass pilot of Dix-Neuf to rub it in.
  • Dix-Neuf is decked out like a teenage ruffian but sheds the frivolous decor to reveal a mature, clean-shaven appearance before heading to his death.
• Conspicuous CG -- It's not a major problem, but the CG does date the animation.
• Continuity Nod -- Both girls make themselves Topless like Noriko does during Gunbuster's final episode as bookends: Nono does it in episode 1, and Lal'C does it in episode 6, after taking in a degeneracy engine. They both precede Inazuma Kicks.
  • What became of the flagships in Gunbuster.
  • Gunbuster's 5th omake explained the generations of space vessel technology. Buster Machines 1 & 2 and the Exelion were 4th gen, utilizing black holes and ether waves for warp travel. Buster Machine 3 and the Eltreum being 5th gen, rewriting physics for propulsion. A certain 6th generation interstellar cruising device further refined the last one for wider application.
  • The numbering of one Buster Machine and mankind's current predicament imply the little known manga sequel to Gunbuster is canon. Lampshaded by the creators. The manga featured three new Buster Machines, bringing the number before Nono to 6. They battled an enemy more than scary enough to drain mankind's resources and/or frighten it into curling up in its solar system.
• Creepy Twins -- The Serpentine Twins.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass -- Nono is happy, friendly and goofy most of the time. When she stops being happy, friendly and goofy, property values on Titan start falling in a hurry.
• Curb Stomp Battle -- Episode 4, when the Variable Gravity Well awakens and mops the floor with the assembled Topless and their Buster Machines...and then again when Nono merely uses it to punctuate her speech
• Dark-Skinned Blond - Lal'C.
• Distant Finale -- Ten years later. There's a moment of realization about halfway through that may be the series's finest moment.
• Earthshattering Kaboom -- Occurs at the end of Episode 4.
• Empathic Weapon -- The Buster Machines.
• Energy Ball -- Quatre-Vingt-Dix's (No. 90's) Buster Smash fires energy tennis balls from a racket!
  • In episode 4 Nono uses one to warp. It's actually a micro black hole; having no degeneracy reactor, she creates one outside her body whenever she needs one.
• Expy -- The two protagonists are clearly based off their precursors in Gunbuster.
  • The captain in episode 2 is based off Amarao from FLCL.
• Fan Service -- It's Gainax. Enough said.
• Foreshadowing -- "The only thing I'm good at is splitting things". She probably wasn't thinking about black holes.
• Genki Girl -- Nono.
• Gratuitous French -- The Buster Machines are numbered in French, and use the Vigesimal numeric system.
• Growing Up Sucks -- The Topless lose their powers after adolescence.
• Heroic BSOD -- Everybody who isn't Nono has at least one.
• Heroic Sacrifice -- Nono sacrifices her life to get rid of the black hole created by the climactic battle.
• Hey, It's That Voice! -- Nono is Nia. That is all.
• Hourglass Plot -- Their attitudes don't shift much, but Nono goes from minor curiosity allowed to tag along with Fraternity to humanity's one hope for survival as Lal'C goes from being the most elite of the elite to a girl with a disease
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl -- Nicola and lal'c.
• Humongous Mecha -- Puts Gunbuster to shame.
• Idiot Hair -- Nono has an epic ahoge. (It only gets more so when she's in Buster Machine 7 mode.)
• Informed Ability -- The cast has had traits including their hobbies and favorite foods listed online since the series began. Some, like Lal'C's love of cocoa and Nicola's action figure collection, would appear in side material. Why Nono likes Japanese food would come up in the main series. It's still played for laughs on the side, since she does not know or remember how any of it works, making it a strange hobby.
• It Makes Sense in Context -- The term Topless sounds rather suggestive, but it does make a degree of sense. The powers disappear when someone reaches the peak of their growth, and the Japanese phrase for 'expire' works as a pun for 'reaching the top.' When Lal'C reaches hers, she overcomes the devastation to bring back the original's theme of actually aiming for the top.
• Latex Space Suit: Averted for most vacuum workers, but played pretty straight for the Topless.
• Legendary in the Sequel: The mystery behind the term "Nonoriri" is that it is an homage to Noriko from Gunbuster.
• Look What I Can Do Now! -- Nono as Buster Machine No. 7.
• Lost in Translation -- Like Spell My Name with an "S" below, several jokes and references to the original got lost. This might border on a bad translation.
• Lost Technology -- Warp technology was purposefully suppressed thousands of years before, when humanity stopped trying to explore the galaxy. Then, of course, there's Nono.
• Macross Missile Massacre
• More Dakka -- One of the Topless Buster Machines has that as a basic weapon
• Meaningful Name -- Nono, which has the same root as her ambition, "Nonoriri." It also sounds a bit like Nana.
  • Also a Line-of-Sight Name -- sort of. Nono is the named after the first things she said when she was found by an asteroid prospector: No no ri ri. Well, actually "No...no...ri...ri...ko."
  • The Topless struggling with running out of time are named after watches. Casio, Captain Hattori Seiko, Nicola Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger Le Coultre, and Piaget. The luxury brands also point to their higher social status.
• Onee-Sama -- Lal'C's position with Nono.
• The Power of Friendship -- The eventual resolution to the series.
• Ramming Always Works -- They try to pull this off with the planet Earth.
• Reality Warper -- All major combatants, to a mild degree. Used to explain the Rule of Cool in battles.
  • Aside from functioning as a generator, the Topless' abilities let them distort the laws of physics. It is dangerous and unpredictable, even to the user, to the point of needing to be sealed for daily life. This would imply the real Space Monsters themselves have such abilities.
  • Buster Machine 7 is a relic from the old Lensman Arms Race, able to rewrite nearby matter and physics to the point of creating and controlling micro black holes. Effective range prevents it from being used directly on something the size of a Space Monster, however.
• Red Baron -- Lal'C, the "Curve Breaker". And later, the "Mover of Planets".
• Ridiculously Human Robot Girl - Nono, who doesn't display a single remotely "robotic" characteristic until the end of Episode 4.
  • On the other hand she can breathe in space and not suffer burns from a rocket blasting off. Then there's the mechanical light in her eyes when she unknowingly commands the first monster to take her out to space.
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship -- Nono continually tries to forge one between her and her reluctant Onee-Sama Lal'C.
• Rose-Haired Girl: Nono fits the bill perfectly.
• Scenery Porn: The backgrounds tend to be scenic, detailed, brightly colored, or some combination of these.
• Self-Parody -- A drama CD track gathers up the voice actors from Diebuster and Gunbuster to have them make a mock trailer for a Troperrific, Fake Crossover of the two. Or at least the audio of it. Narrated by Coach. Rather than be faithful to either, it brings in things like the unimplemented Buster Homerun and made up kaiju on the old Gunbuster soundtrack cover with even more ridiculous shouted attacks. Sure, we got the movie that showed the distilled versions side by side, but imagine if they made this literal GunBuster vs DieBuster instead.
• Shout-Out -- Gainax loves to self reference.
  • Dix-Neuf's old war wounds parallel the Eva-01's major injuries. Spike through the right eye going out the back of the head from Sachiel, lost left arm complete with grafted replacement from Zeruel. While not an injury Dix-Neuf replaces his Collapsing Generator by tearing it out of another and absorbing it into himself, like an S2 Organ.
    • There's an End of Evangelion one in the final episode, When Lal'C and Nono are pulled into the Singularity. Nono takes Lal'C's hand and shoves it through her right breast, a la Gendo starting Insturmentality with Rei. Luckily, nobody turns into Tang; it's a gift of Nono's singularity, in the form of a paper crane.
  • Many elements from FLCL show up again.
    • Aside from the surface resemblance to Kitsurubami, Lal'C has the power to transport objects using her head much like the N.O. Channel. By episode 5 she can grab entire heavenly bodies as Atomsk was rumored to.
    • The above mentioned expy of Amarao.
    • Lal'C's Cool Bike is reminiscent of Haruko's Vespa. The similar riding clothes help too. There's a scene in episode 5 where it won't start, which is straight out of the ending credits.
    • The Fraternity may very well be the same mysterious organization from FLCL.
    • The first episode features Nono's clothes getting caught on a Humongous Mecha and dragged into the middle of a giant robot fight due to it. The same thing happens to Naota in FLCL's first episode, but he doesn't get dragged into orbit.
• Space Opera
• Spell My Name with an "S" -- Oh, lordy. Most of the Topless, and Lal'C is worst of all.
• Super Prototype -- Each Buster Machine is unique and powerful, but Buster Machine 7 stands out as the oldest and most powerful in this series. The previous model lost in series mythos may have been even stronger.
• Super Robot -- Buster Machines are now semi-mass-produced, and No. 7's final form is an extreme instance of this trope.
• Technicolor Eyes -- Nono has starburst-shaped pupils, possibly hinting at her non-human nature.
• The Reveal -- In addition to the Wham below...what does "Nonoriri" actually mean? Try "who" -- Noriko Takaya herself.
• The Singularity -- Back in Gunbuster. Nowadays, the solar system is backwater and doesn't even know it. Or just why it's even isolated from the rest of the galaxy. It does not help that its AI defense system was lost due to a slight malfunction. Some of it might be due to the previous generation honestly thinking the information should not be passed on.
• Title Drop -- In the final episode. Except the title mecha doesn't succeed at what it was meant for.
• Wham! Episode -- Episode 4 turns everything on its head. The Topless are actually the first stage of humanity's evolution into Space Monsters. The Space Monsters are actually the good guys, an automated defense system that mistook the Topless for Space Monsters. The Variable Gravity Well is actually a real Space Monster, from Gunbuster, and way out of Fraternity's league. And Nono is not just some android -- she's Buster Machine No. 7, the most powerful fighting machine in existence.
  • The space monster in the first episode was obeying Nono when she shouted she would go out into space.