Et Cetera
Ming Chao's grandfather has passed, so now she decides to travel through the the wild west to Hollywood to become a star. Not without her trusty Eto Gun of course! But wait! The Eto Gun is actually a gun that shoots bullets related to the zodiac animal it got the essence of! And the notorious bandit group, the Syndicate, want it! Along the way, she is joined by Baskerville, Benkate, Fino, Yaghi, and Alternate.
A Manga created by Tow Nakazaki and distributed in America by Tokyo Pop. It spanned 9 volumes.
Tropes used in Et Cetera include:
- Action Girl: Ming Chao, Benkate, and Fino.
- Badass Adorable: Mingchao.
- Badass Preacher: Baskerville until it is revealed that it was just a cover.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Despite the number of shirtless scenes/characters, both male and female, no one in the series has nipples. Granted, this may be because it's geared towards a 10+ audience.
- Big Bad: Goth.
- Big Brother Instinct: Baskerville towards Mingchao, and Fino towards Yaghi.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Benkate's eyebrows are magnificent.
- Luriele and Chisel have them too, except they're not quite as remarkable as Benkate's.
- Bishonen: Arguably Baskerville and Alternate, depending on what you think of the art style.
- Butt Monkey: Alternate
- Catapult Nightmare: Happens a couple different times to Mingchao, happens to Fino, and happens to Baskerville.
- Chekhov's Gun: Gordy's Syndicate coin.
- And the cross that Chisel gave Baskerville.
- Chinese Girl: Ming Chao
- Complete Monster: Among the syndicate members, Blush, Cavanaugh and Goth.
- Cool Guns: Benkate. She has a collection of 99 exotic guns, including a gun that looks like a cat, a four-chambered revolver, and an extremely powerful, seven-foot long folding rifle that can blow the arm off a man.
- Darker and Edgier: Started out as a simple Villain of the Week Shonen manga, but starting from the introduction of Fino and Yaghi and Baskerville's fake death and reveal to have been part of the Syndicate, the story started to get a bit more grim.
- Dead Little Sister: Baskerville's younger sister Chisel.
- Disney Villain Death: Cavanaugh gets killed this way. If having her neck pierced by a dagger didn't do it, then getting shot by Ming-Chao's Eto Gun and falling down a high floor certainly did.
- The Dragon: Cavanaugh.
- Eyepatch of Power: Cavanaugh gets one after being badly injured in a train accident.
- Face Heel Turn: Baskerville/Razy after he loses his memory.
- Fan Service: Fino's occasional nude scenes.
- Fantastic Racism: When Fino is introduced, it's established she has an immense hatred of white people. This is because the first white man she befriended (Blush) killed her parents. She gets better, though.
- Five-Man Band: The roles kind of flip around depending on the situation though.
- The Hero: Mingchao
- The Lancer: Fino
- The Big Guy: Benkate
- The Smart Guy: Baskerville
- Tagalong Kid: Yaghi
- The Sixth Ranger: Alternate
- The Fool: Mingchao. She always manages to get out of life-threatening situations with barely a scrape. Benkate even lampshades this at one point.
- Frying Pan of Doom: Arguably Ming-Chao's wok
- Foil: Blush and Baskerville/Razy. It's lampshaded by the former.
- Friend to All Living Things: Fino.
- Girls with Guns
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: Cavanaugh's lets her see in the dark.
- Heel Face Turn: Alternate
- Lethal Joke Weapon: The Eto Gun honestly looks like a toy. Many people throughout the series lampshades it.
- Kind of subverted in that while it does do a HELL of a lot damage as the strongest gun in the West, it can never actually kill anyone. It still hurts though.
- Double-subverted when Mingchao accidentally uses it to force Cavanaugh off a set of stairs and to her death.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The Big Bad Boss of the Syndicate is actually Ming Chao's long-lost father
- MacGuffin: The Eto Guns.
- May–December Romance: A hinted one with Ming Chao and Baskerville.
- Benkate and Yaghi, one-sided on Yaghi's part.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: To sum it up, the heroes foiling Alternate's repeated attempts to steal the Eto Gun eventually leads to them uncovering a massive underground drug operation.
- Ms. Fanservice: Fino
- Official Couple: Implied Baskerville and Mingchao, who still remain alone together at the end.
- Pair the Spares: Implied Fino and Alternate, who return with Yaghi to Fino's hometown at the end.
- Start of Darkness: After his wife -- Mingchao's mother -- died because racist doctors refused to bother treating her, her husband -- Mingchao's father -- swore revenge against the U.S. by becoming its kingpin of crime.
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Cavanaugh.
- The Reveal: Baskerville's real name is Razy and is a former member of the Syndicate.
- Villain of the Week: Begins as this, but the concept goes away as the story went Darker and Edgier.
- What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: The first book alone shows many gunshots, attmpted character murder, gambling, drinking, a drunk minor, Attempted Rape, and Ming Chao using the underwear from the guest character to power up a gun. The label clearly states that it is for ages 10 and up.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Subverted. Blush, the only major antagonist still unaccounted for by the end, is revealed in the Bonus Material omake after the main story, to already secretly have been killed during the Final Battle by the huge energy ball created by combined final attack of the Zodiac and Eto guns. However, no one else is aware of this at all, as Blush was in hiding from the protagonists when he was incinerated.