Origin: Spirits of the Past

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Agito awakens Toola from cryogenic sleep. Toola has some adjusting to do, as a science experiment Gone Horribly Wrong has left the moon a bit less intact than it used to be, has turned plants into destructive forces of nature, and has made water a bit scarce. As she's attempting to adjust to her new life, Shunack, another former cryogenic sleeper, arrives.

Shunack informs Toola that there's a way to return things to the way they were before. Toola, not coping with the murderous forest and other changes well, agrees to leave with him. Agito doesn't think this is a good idea, and the forest and its representatives agree with him. Agito is enhanced with some of the forest's energy so he can stand up to Shunack and the legion of soldiers and Humongous Mecha under his command. As this goes on Toola starts seeing glimpses of just how militant Shunack can be, and starts to figure out that putting things back to "normal" is going to cause a lot more destruction than she thought.

Tropes used in Origin: Spirits of the Past include:
  • Alien Sky: Although the film is set on Earth, the moon is clearly cracked and has a line of debris extending from it.
  • Apocalypse How: Somewhere around class 1 or 2, apparently.
  • Badass Grandpa: Only shown in one scene, but one of three enhanced funders of the Neutral City.
  • Black and Gray Morality: At first the entire point of the film seems to be an Anvilicious Green Aesop however it also kind of appears to be a Deconstruction of one as well. Ragna is a seemingly anti environmental ruthless empire, however the altered "eco-system" of the Earth is a sentient, animalistic, mass murdering, force of literal nature that demands that its protectors be turned into trees.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Near the end of the movie, Agito runs down an exploding volcano with Toola in his arms while being closely pursued by a very fast (and presumably very hot) lava flow. The ground he's running across is glowing red and actually looks molten in some places and yet neither of them suffer so much as a singed hair.
  • Creepy Twins: The twin forest spirits. Especially the one with the high, squeaky voice.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Those who become enhanced by the forest gain extraordinary super-strength, but using that power can gradually cause Metamorphosis and effectively an early death. When their time comes, they mostly accept their fate, claiming to finally be in peace with nature and themselves.
  • Fastball Special: A comical variation - after Agito gets enhanced, his inaugural battle on behalf of the forest begins with a Druid unceremoniously kicking him off a mile-high cliff and into the midst of Ragna soldiers siphoning water. He immediately recovers with his Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: Toola and Shunack.
  • Genius Loci: The Forest is both a place and a Hive Mind consciousness.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Genetically modified plants break the moon in half, land on Earth, and kill most of humanity when one of the scientists, Shunack, got impatient and decided to speed the experiment along a little.
  • Hive Mind: The Forest seems to behave this way.
  • Human Popsicle: Toola and Shunack used to be these, it's implied others are still sleeping.
  • Karmic Transformation: Shunack, who not only caused the Forest to overrun the world, but is attempting to destroy it, gets turned into a tree along with Agito. Agito gets better, but Shunack doesn't.
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: E.S.T.O.C. is inside a mountain. It takes up the entire thing.
  • Metamorphosis: Enhanced humans eventually turn into trees.
  • Mind Screw: So many parts of the movie and its world produce more questions than answers -- flat whats abound.
  • Nature Hero: Agito
  • One-Man Army: Anyone, who was touched by the Forest. Agito doesn't seem to have problem with jumping great hights and singlehandly destroying tanks.
  • Physics Goof: At the end of the volcano scene mentioned above, Agito jumps off the side of the mountain with Toola and both of them fall a good thousand feet. The landing actually kicks up a plume of dirt. Both are totally fine. Now, even if Agito is a silver-haired superman Toola is just a normal human and the sudden stop should have snapped her neck.
  • Plant Person: Again, enhanced humans.
  • Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The Forest and Ragna, though which side is which is debatable. On the one hand there's the whole nature vs. science thing, on the other Ragna and especially Shunack are obsessed with the past while the Forest is a genetically engineered Hive Mind of plants (possibly a biotech Posthuman) that brought down the old order.
  • Ruins of the Modern Age: Most cities are completely taken over by the Forest and are reduced to rubble, while only a few buildings still stand. This hits Toola especially hard, as she remembers how the city used to be.
  • Say My Name: "TOOOOLAAAA!!!"
  • Spider Tank: "Walking Sticks" and "Ragna Tanks".
  • Super Strength: Enhanced humans get this Up to Eleven.
  • The Empire: Everything about Ragna screams this trope, from their blood red armor to their Humongous Mecha to their heavily industrialized, military society. However, they're far from Exclusively Evil. For the most part, they're generally decent people trying to live independently from the Forest, which is easy enough to see as a monstrous, tyrannical entity.
  • Tron Lines: The entryway to the volcano that contains E.S.T.O.C. lights up with these in response to Tula's raban.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The setting.
  • When Trees Attack: Don't piss off the Druids. Just don't.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Shunack, and later Agito, though it's not much of a spoiler, since his hair is showed white in the advertisements for the movie... and is also the Japanese title. Gin-iro no Kami no Agito, lit. "Silver-haired Agito". Subtle.
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