Legendz

Legendz, a story about a boy and his dragon... or really, it's more the other way around.

This is actually a fairly popular series in Japan, or was while it lasted, even ranking up there with other Mons shows like Digimon or Pokémon at the height of its popularity. It came in two distinct (and oddly separate) series, the Manga and the Anime. However, only the Manga has hit US shores.

Tropes used in Legendz include:

Big Bad: Lord Jabberwock; Necrom
Bittersweet Ending: Although they save the world, Ken can no longer talk with Shiron. However, their friendship is still implied. Afterwards, Ken moves to America, leaving behind his friends, to face the American champion, the boy he knew from earlier.
Eldritch Abomination: Jabberwock/Necron. His influence is enough to cause all Legendz to go crazy just by existing.
Expository Hairstyle Change: Leo Engokun. Just before he makes his big entrance in the Legendz Carnival, he slicks his hair back into spikes.
Funny Afro: Namino Curly
Heroic Sacrifice: Shiron. The very final page of the manga shows that he got better.
Holding Back the Phlebotinum
- After learning that the Golden Soul Figure can power up Shiron to ridiculous levels, he actively decides not to use the powerup ever again, because winning battles using outside help won't help them grow. To his credit, he and Shiron wipe out like 500 Mooks and a Triton by themselves before the arc is out. They use it again, in the battle with Necron, as a form of All Your Powers Combined with the other Sagas.
- Interestingly, the Golden Soul Doll isn't actually activated at all in the entire manga; Ken uses its power, but refuses to use the Legendz. It makes one wonder if the series could have had a better ending had he just Reborn'd the thing...
Mythology Gag: During the Legendz Carnival, one of the souvenirs Ken buys is a key-chain with a Windragon on it; it looks just like Shiron's Fun Size Mode from the anime.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: Toward the end of the manga, the main characters' Legendz tend to "evolve" into new forms as needed.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: While invading a high school, Ken encounters Ninja Werewolves. (He even notes how ridiculous it is.)
Serious Business: Of the "The creatures are real and hold the power to save/destroy the world" type.
The Chosen One: Ken, Leo, Kaoruko and Ririko are the Four Sagas, chosen by the four elements.

Legendz, the anime, provides examples of the following tropes

A Boy and His X: Played straight with more or less the entire lead cast. With so many Mons coming out of the woodwork, there's a good chance of finding a boy (or girl) learning important life lessons from it.
Ambiguously Gay: Crocodile Dandy and his male room-mate Salamander. He gets all misty-eyed, complete with Bishie Sparkle, when his "Aniki" Shiron shows up and drives what appears to be a pink minivan around.
Anvil on Head: Used on Shiron to help snap him out of Colonel mode in the last two or so episodes.
Apocalypse How: The Legendz War is pretty clearly a Class 2.
Armor-Piercing Slap: Meg dispenses these with great frequency at first, but slowly cuts down on these as the series goes on
Art Shift: The manga has a more defined art style than the anime, which has the humans drawn in a cartoony fashion while the titular Legendz are drawn in great detail.
Authority Equals Asskicking: If a Legendz has a rank somewhere in his name, just run. This only applies to militiary titles like Commando or Colonel, "Lunch Lady" and "Club Treasurer" don't count.
Badass Preacher: Ranshiin, who not only gets to wear what appears to be a dragonized version of a White-Collar Preacher's outfit, but he also gets to deliver a Hannibal Lecture and even claims he's on a Mission from God.
Berserk Button: Whatever you do, Don't call Dandy a Crocodile. (He's a Devour Gator, thank you very much.) Only crocodiles call other people crocodiles.
Beware the Nice Ones: Mac and Shiron.
Bittersweet Ending: Shiron defeats Jabberwock, but all of the Legendz disappear, and are permanently forgotten by everyone.
Blessed with Suck: Ranshiin somehow managed to strike a deal with dark forces for great power and knowledge, including the ability to see the future. Unfortunately, the deal gave him a Weaksauce Weakness. Despite being a Wind-element creature, exposure to the open sky causes him to both lose power AND experience debilitating pain. (Wether this is the curse itself or a side effect of purification is up to debate.) To the point that, despite him not only having wings and being able to fly and having Elemental Baggage, he spends his time in a cramped wind tunnel and has to use a little hover pod called the "Bird Cage" to get around in.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: This is done numerous times, mostly lampshading the obvious clichés that the show is going through. "What kind of an anime is this??~!!, 'Warrior of Light?' That's not written in the script!" and to a lesser extent the part where Shiron talks about how hard it would be to make a Legendz anime.
Breather Episode: The "Ed and Fired Giant in: Adventure of Fired Brothers!" episode.
Broken Pedestal: Ms. Hepburn used to love legendz, then she became disenchanted with them and the people who hang out with or research them. This includes her Papa.
Calling Your Attacks: Oh yes, this happens.
Cerebus Rollercoaster
Corrupt Corporate Executive: The C.E.O. Who is the underling of a more literal dragon. That dragon being The Dragon of the local Cosmic Horror.
Cosmic Horror: Reborn, Jabberwock!
Curb Stomp Battle: Shiron's first battle with Ranshiin, at least until Shu shows up.
Dark Is Evil: Played mostly straight, only slightly averted with Skeleton in the last few episodes.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Of the characters, Meg consistently shows a somewhat irrational fear of Legendz. This is especially egregious towards Zuou, until she eventually warms up to him.
Do Not Adjust Your Set: Although instead of taking over the world, the CEO just has some instructions for children (to "save the world").
Eagle Land: The anime show is set on New York with the point of view of Japanese. Flavor one to the extreme point it has no military forces whatsoever.
Elemental Baggage
- A lot of the lesser legendz, namely Dandy and Salamander, can control their respective element but not produce it. For example, Salamander produces oil from his tail and lights it on fire from some other source and Dandy can't produce water, but he can cause tidal waves when near the ocean.
- Also, all legendz get antsy when they can't get regular exposure to their element of choice. Windragons love windy areas, Goblins constantly dig and mine, and Devour Gators such as Dandy get some serious scale itch when not regularly moisturized.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Fire beats earth, earth beats wind, wind beats water, water beats fire, and the usual light/dark relation. This is even used in a minor Batman Gambit involving attacking each of the protagonist's homes with an element they are weak to. It would have worked if the apocalypse didn't start right that second.
Evil Twin: The two windragons. It's actually more complicated than that, given they're two halves of the same person.
Fantastic Racism
Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Hey, you know all those old stories of skeletons and things? They were all true... Sorta.
Geo Effects: Most Legendz get powered up by being on relevant terrain. Forests for earth types, and so on. More powerful Legendz can Element Shift to change it to their favor.
Giant Enemy Crab: Shows up in one of the earlier episodes. It doesn't listen to anyone, but all it wants to do is to return to the sea.
Good Angel, Bad Angel: Or in this case, Ms. Hepburn has three. Schoolteacher, Adventurer, and Stripperiffic.
Good Is Impotent: The light/spiritual legendz. Justified in that they're apparently visible or audible only to those Pure of Heart enough.
Goldfish Poop Gang: J.J., and their boss, Betty.
Gratuitous English: Oh good lord so many to invoke pseudo-New York flair, the Carrot-nosed Eigo-Eita, and most, if not all, the in-show text.
Hannibal Lecture: Yui, the Saga of Darkness, is the worst offender in the series for this. His pet Legendz also does this.
Hellish Pupils: Used to indicate your Legendz has become Brainwashed and Crazy.
Heroic BSOD: Shu gets one of these when his mom becomes Taken for Granite. This immediately leads to the chain of Oh Crap occurences, and causes Shiron to have a Heroic BSOD as well.
Humans Are the Real Monsters: Some of the Legendz had a very strong intention to wipe out mankind because Humans Are the Real Monsters. But subverted into Rousseau Was Right since none of the human characters was evil (none of them even poacher, woodcutter, or litterer!), they are only manipulated by the evil Legendz.
- This troper is nawt so sure... some people let the evil control them, others found the strength to resist. Maybe, SOME humans are bastards?
Idiot Hero: Shu. Then again, he's like... 10 at best, so we can forgive him for it, but he's still noted for being a very... Silly person even by his peers.
Incredibly Lame Pun: Ambiguously Gay or not, he still is Crocodile Dandy.
Indecisive Deconstruction
Innocent Fanservice Girl: Haruca. She keeps jars of bits and pieces of Legendz in her closet.
Interspecies Romance: Haruca goes on a happy date with Shiron. Shiron almost gets forced to marry Meg's mouse counterpart. Shiron has Dandy clearly head over heels for him. (See a pattern?) Then BB and Greedo... The less said about Ed and Linda the better.
Image Song
Jazz: Some of the background music has this.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: All the Legendz have it. They can't remember the last war at all. Or at least don't until the next one starts.
Light Is Good
Lonely Rich Kid: Dino Sparks
Loyal Phlebotinum: Shu's Talispod. He can't get rid of it, even when he's actively trying to.
The Magic Comes Back: The Legendz were sealed away but then they made a comeback and the world was shaken.
Master of Disguise: Haruka-Sensei... Who happens to be one of those international superspy types. She is also a complete and utter Fan Girl for anything Legendz-related.
Merchandise-Driven: Yep. Definitely some of this in there.
Mon Machine: Talispods.
Mood Whiplash: The show is relatively lighthearted, but more or less takes a huge nosedive during the whole Griffon in the Arboretum segment.
Mundane Utility: Salamander's day job has him use his control over fire to cook food.
My Greatest Failure: Greedo's previous saga- No, no, not the one with the wig,: died because of him through the Cast from Hit Points effect. He never really got over it.
My Name Is Not Durwood: Dino gets called "snob" by Shu. A lot.
Nice Hat: Shiron's flight cap, which even has an episode centered around it, and to a lesser extent the Original Fire Saga's extravagant red wig.
No Fourth Wall: The anime constantly calls attention to it's own insanity, especially through Shu. Episodes often begin with the phrase "What kind of show IS this?" and throughout several of the episodes Shu comments, "What a typical anime _______" In the last episode, the characters refer to the script, unsure of the true ending.
Oh Crap: A chain of these are set off right when the Legendz War begins. It starts by Shu's mom becoming a casualty. Shiron has one of these when he sees Shu has gone into shock. Garion and the others also have an Oh Crap when the wind suddenly and violently stops blowing. And then Jabberwock gets summoned.
Power-Up Food: Garion and Garlic Hamburgers for some reason. They end up curing her Laser-Guided Amnesia as well as her garlic breath being used as a somewhat silly finisher on a vampire she fights the same episode.
Rousseau Was Right: None of the human characters are genuinely evil. The bad guys just manipulated by the evil Legendz.
Shoddy Knockoff Product: One of the main Character's father's made his fortune selling "Talispads", toys based off the popular "Talispod" toy. This is after years of effort and originality barely payed his bachelor bills.: This is applied again later, when the Goldfish Poop Gang gets fired, and they open up the "DuckDuck Toys" toy shop selling toys both knockoffs and originals.
Show Within a Show: The show about the dancers singing about their yellow wigs.
Sleep Mode Size: All the Legendz have one form of this or another. Shiron's turns him into a hamster-sized Ridiculously Cute Critter who often acts as Shu's Head Pet. He even went on a somewhat trippy Alternate Universe -style adventure, where he encountered mouse versions of the human cast.
Spell My Name with an "S": There's been quite a few arguments on just how to represent the two dragon's names. And Haruca/Halca's name.
Stripperific: Haruka after Face Heel Turn. It shows on the second OP!
Super-Powered Evil Side: See the Hellish Pupils entry above.
Synchronization: A saga gets to be the Kid with the Leash and all, but one of the downsides is summoning a Legendz and keeping it out is taxing, to the point that it can, and does, kill people.
Take Me Instead!: Haruka and Rashiin, respectively saving Haruka's mother and Haruka herself from the Jabberwock 's heart.
Taking the Bullet: Shuu's mom takes a pointy thrown crystal meant for him.
Toyetic: Despite being artifacts capable of destroying the world, the Talispods and Talisdams all look like they just rolled off of Bandai's factory production lines.
Trademark Favorite Food
- Mac loves hamburgers... He doesn't mind if they get roughed up a bit, but if one becomes damaged to the point of being completely inedible, his Super-Powered Evil Side comes out until he runs out of energy because he hasn't had lunch yet..
- A lesser extent with Shiron's favorite drink, the "Sweet Dandy".
Transformation Trauma: Near the end of season one, Mac turns into Garion the Griffon with a somewhat startling transformation sequence... While he later doesn't remember a thing, Meg is the one who is traumatized...
Tomes of Prophecy and Fate: The Legendz Book is a history book. It just so happens to contain future history as well.
You Can't Fight Fate: Sorry, this war is going to happen one way or another. Jabberwock will be reborn, Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. He'll even make you Brainwashed and Crazy to do so... And unfortunately, he SUCCEEDS causing The End of the World as We Know It. Thankfully, the Light Legendz had access to a reset button, (which they pushed,) and Shiron has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. So the whole thing was averted after all.
What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Dino's mom? Sure she shows up again, but why she left or came back or how she got so fat is never explained.
Weirdness Censor: Two people think it was normal seeing a Giant Enemy Crab chasing people.
Wind from Beneath My Wings: Two words. Wing Tornado.