On Your Mark

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"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.

See it here. [dead link]

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