Saikano: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Every time I watch the last episode of Saikano, I feel like I'll never be happy ever again. The world could end, and I wouldn't notice because I'd be too busy feeling the after effects..."''|[http://www.animenewsnetwork.comcc//shelf-life/2004-11-25 Shelf Life]}}

The tentative budding relationship between petite Chise and bitter, emotionally distant ShuujiShuji becomes a little more complicated when ShuujiShuji discovers that Chise has been converted into [[Person of Mass Destruction|a living weapon of mass destruction]] by the JSDF.

* [[Action Girl]] -- Chise—Chise

* [[Adaptation Distillation]] -- The—The anime removes some of the extreme [[Mood Whiplash]] present in the manga. It also adds some characters and scenes to fill in the parts with long monologues.

* [[Ax Crazy]] -- —"YOU IDIOTS, shoot if you dare. Sorry, you're all going to die."

* [[Barbie Doll Anatomy]]: Done in a few scenes involving more nudity than just some exposed undergarments.

* [[Black Comedy]] -- Along—Along with [[Gallows Humor]] below, there's a sequence in the manga where {{spoiler|after Chise and Shuji run away and start hitchhiking, they eventually get picked up by a military truck. Chise says off-handedly that everyone that knows what she actually is is already dead. The punch line to this is that the soldiers on the truck DO recognize Chise and know what she is and have a collective [[Oh Crap]] in their thought bubbles.}}

* [[Blessed Withwith Suck]]

* [[Body Horror]] -- Chise—Chise's uncanny body.

* [[Broken Bird]] -- Fuyumi—Fuyumi.

* [[Cerebus Syndrome]] -- The—The show is mildly optimistic for all of one episode or so. It goes downhill very, very fast after that.

* [[Character Development]] -- Arguably—Arguably the main draw of the show.

* [[Clothing Damage]] -- Chise—Chise. So. Much.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]] -- Chise—Chise. Also partly a case of [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] when she acts like an ordinary schoolgirl.

* [[Creepy Child]] -- Chise—Chise's [[Super -Powered Evil Side]] plays with this trope.

* [[Determinator]] -- One—One of the main themes is people's amazing will to survive even though they know they're doomed.

* [[Deus Angst Machina]] -- It—It can always get ''much worse''.

* [[Driven to Suicide]] -- —{{spoiler|The nervous, sweaty middle-age man who oversees Chise's transformation}}.

* [[Dying Declaration of Love]] -- —{{spoiler|Akemi}}

* [[Emotionless Girl]] -- Subverted—Subverted. {{spoiler|Near the end, Chise ''does'' have emotions, but she doesn't quite understand them.}}

* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] -- Set—Set [[Just Before the End]].

* [[Fan Disservice]] -- Usually—Usually involves Chise's scars and lack of control over her transformation.

* [[Femme Fatale]] -- Fuyumi—Fuyumi.

* [[Gallows Humour]] -- Where—Where do we ''start''? Pretty much the whole series is this, particularly when the focus shifts to the military men.

* [[Hammerspace]] -- Chise—Chise has to have something like this. That or she fabricates the things on the spot.

* [[Half -Human Hybrid]] -- If—If "half human, half killing machine" fits into this trope.

* [[Hannibal Lecture]] -- Chise—Chise occasionally gives this to soldiers. Sometimes from her own side.

* [[Hell Seeker]] -- Tetsu—Tetsu wants to go to hell because he thinks that's where he'd go after death and that death is the only way out of his misery.

* [[Hot for Student]] -- —{{spoiler|Fuyumi}}, in flashbacks.

* [[Humans Are Bastards]]the --Real NotMonsters]]—Not played entirely straight, but the show makes it clear that everyone is guilty to some extent. At the same time, some passages sing the beauty of human life and the merit of committing to memory the fact that humans existed.

* [[It Got Worse]] -- repeatedly—repeatedly

* [[Jerk Withwith a Heart of Gold]] -- Shuuji—Shuji. He gets better.

* [[Kill 'Em All]] -- This—This series gives ''[[Space Runaway Ideon]]'' a run for its money in a quarter of the episodes.

* [[Magical Girlfriend]] -- Deconstructed—Deconstructed in a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|horrifically mean-spirited]] way.

* [[Manly Tears]]—Especially -- Especially ShuujiShuji.

** In both the anime and the manga, one character mentions that "Chise" means "the hearth" or "home" in the Ainu language.

* [[Mix and Match]] -- School—School life (a bit on the [[Moe]] side) + war/mecha + [[Magical Girlfriend]] + '''pure horror''' with a side of [[Tear Jerker]]

* [[Mood Whiplash]] -- Probably—Probably one of the most egregious and extreme cases in manga. Ordinarily happens several time on the same ''page''.

* [[Nuclear Weapons Taboo]] -- Chise—Chise practically is one, given her unstoppabilityrelentlessness and growing reputation for total destruction.

* [[Only One Name]] -- According—According to [[Word of God]], this was in order to create an atmosphere of familiarity with the characters.

* [[Oracular Urchin]] -- —{{spoiler|Chise's increasinglycybernetics knowsgradually whatdevelop willaugmented happenpredictive asand asensory resultabilities that give her something like premonitions of approaching disasters like earthquakes in addition to predicting the warenemy's imminent attacks.}}

* [[Out -of -Clothes Experience]] -- Happens—Happens to Chise at the very end of the manga.

* [[Pettanko]] -- Chise—Chise; young Fuyumi.

* [[Pet the Dog]] -- Chise—Chise and ShuujiShuji love kitties. {{spoiler|They die horribly}}.

* [[Plot Hole]] -- Could—Could be said to be voluntary. The fact thatThat we never learn who's at war with whom and the identity of the [[Big Bad]] strengthens the status of ''Saikano'' as an allegory about war at large. Similarly, knowing how come Chise is chosen to become the ultimate weapon and how on earth that actually works isn't quite the point. See [[The Un -Reveal]].

* [[Poor Communication Kills]] -- Double—Double subversion {{spoiler|we learn fairly early on that some soldiers speak English. Then Tetsu meets up with soldiers and tries to talk them down in English. They don't understand English.}}

* [[Raging Stiffie]] -- Manga—Manga-only; Shuji.

* [[Rape Asas Drama]] -- In—In a recent volume of [[Omake|canon stories happening in the universe of Saikano]], one story focuses on the relationship between a teen soldier and a girl who got raped by soldiers from the other side. Particularly jarring since {{spoiler|he waited for them to be finished before he killed them because he knew they'd feelbe '"spent'" (and therefore easier to dispatch) after sex. And sinceOnce they supposedly fall in love, he convinces the girl to have sex with him whilewhen she doesn't really want to}}.

* [[Rule of Cool]] -- Let—Let's face it, a moe with tech wings is ''cool''.

* [[SchrodingersSchrödinger's Cat]] -- In—In the manga, one of Shuji's friends goes deaf during the first bombing. In the anime, said friend bites it (though from how little he gets featured in the manga, he might as well have died).

* [[Seinen]] -- In—In the small Afterward in the manga, [[Word of God]] stated this was for young adult boys to adult men. This is also how he got away with {{spoiler|including a rather graphic sex sequence}}.

* [[Shotacon]] -- —{{spoiler|Fuyumi's tryst with Shuji when he was 13 is a borderline example. (The line between pedophilia and hebephilia is typically drawn between the youngster's being 12 and 13 years of age. Of course, any way one looks at it, she was abusing her authority as a teacher and he was severely underage jail bait.)}}

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]—the meter's reading Hard--Cynicism on this Ooohone, boypeople.

* [[Snicket Warning Label]] -- Besides—Besides the Episode 10 fansub, there is a warning in the manga in volume 2 that [[It Got Worse|it WILL get worse]] [[Fridge Horror|and you are in the MIDDLE of volume 2.]]

* [[Split Personality Takeover]] -- Gradually—Gradually happens to Chise.

* [[Star -Crossed Lovers]]

* [[Stepford Smiler]] -- Chise—Chise; ShuujiShuji to a lesser extent; Fuyumi; Tetsu.

* [[Super -Deformed]] -- The—The manga does this a ''lot'' in the most [[Mood Whiplash|inappropriate]] places.

* [[Super -Powered Evil Side]] -- Though—Though Chise's superpowered side isn't ''evil'' per se, it certainly is [[Ax Crazy|sadistic and creepy]].

* [[Surprisingly Good English]] -- The—The most noticeable use of English was from invading soldiers, who spoke passable (if noticeably accented) American English.

* [[Ten -Minute Retirement]] -- When—When Chise {{spoiler|dies}}.

* [[Trickster]] -- Chise—Chise (debatable).

* [[Tsundere]] -- Akemi—Akemi.

* [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]] -- —{{spoiler|Akemi}}

* [[The Un -Reveal]] -- For—For example, why and how was Chise chosen as the ultimate weapon? What actually happens to the earth at the end? Who ''were'' the enemies?

** The best we get for the former in one of the OVA'sOVAs is {{spoiler|she, and only she, just so happened to fit the criteria to be the ultimate weapon. It's even mentioned that it could've been anyone and they would've used him/her.}}

* [[Wave Motion Gun]] -- Kind—Kind of.

* [[What Measure Is a Non -Human?]]

* [[Where I Was Born and Razed]] -- Spectacularly—Spectacularly averted: Chise's hometown not only doesn't get destroyed by her as one could expect, but it's in fact one of the only "safe" places on the earth due to Chise [[Meaningful Name|protecting it]], to such an extent that it gets dubbed "Chise's town" and people flock to it in a desperate effort to find refuge. However, she eventually decides that when the time comes, she'll {{spoiler|[[Shoot the Dog|destroy it herself rather than let everybody die painfully]]}}.

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] -- Who—Who do you think?

* [[Yandere]] -- While—While Chise technically isn't one, her characterization certainly plays with this trope.