On Your Mark
"On Your Mark" is an Animated Music Video made in 1995 by Hayao Miyazaki, set to the eponymous song by Chage & Aska.
The video is set in a futuristic megapolis, and begins with a police raid on a religious cult, rescuing a girl with huge white wings. The two men that found her endeavour to set the girl free.
Tropes used in On Your Mark include:
- After the End: It's heavily implied that some kind of nuclear disaster took place prior to the events of the video.
- Big Damn Heroes: First the police raid on the cult headquarters, then the truck revealing it can fly.
- Broken Angel
- Cool Car: The massive, bright orange utility vehicle that can fly.
- Cool Shades
- Cult: With giant eye symbols and "GOD IS WATCHING YOU" motto.
- Domed Hometown: The city is domed to protect it from radiation.
- Dynamic Entry
- Expy: The angelic girl is pretty much a carbon copy of Nausicaa. May also be the Ghibli house style.
- The eye symbols are also reminiscent of the hidolas in the manga.
- Faceless Goons / Gas Mask Mooks: The cultists and cops/lab workers, respectively.
- Fair Cop: One of the policemen is pretty handsome. He kinda looks like an older Ashitaka. And considering those roses on his desk, the ladies think so in-universe too.
- Forgot I Could Fly
- Free Wheel
- Ghibli Plains: The ending shot, when the angel is flying away into the sky, takes place in a lush, open field. After escaping from the narrow, confined habitats and nuclear reactors, you'll arrive at wide Ghibli Plains in their natural habitat.
- Groundhog Day Loop: It's implied that there's something like this in place without any characters being aware. The events are repeated again and again until they rescue her the right way.
- It's more of a non-linear editing thing. They screw up, and the action resets to the last "save point".
- Heroic Sacrifice: The two guys seem to intend one, as they're trying to get the girl to fly away even as they're falling from miles up.
- Not to mention driving into the radioactive zone to free the girl.
- Hidden Eyes: One of the policemen never takes his goggles off.
- I Will Only Slow You Down
- People Jars
- Product Placement: Coca Cola cans can be seen littered around the winged girl, apparently the only "food" the cult gave her.
- Scenery Porn: ... Duh?
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Those two policemen are ready to do anything to set that girl free. Treason included.
- Smoking Is Cool
- They Would Cut You Up: Ostensibly the girl's fate had she not been rescued from the lab.
- Winged Humanoid