Superior
Superior, later known as Superior Cross, is a High Fantasy manga.
The story is about a world in which humans and monsters co-exist; but since many years ago both races have been at war, aiming for the complete extermination of each other.
Among the monsters arose an extremely powerful one, the Demon Queen; the leader of the monster race, managing to slay half of humanity all by herself.
The surviving humans elected a Hero whom would have the duty to kill the Demon Queen and release humanity from her oppressive rule.
But the Hero, Exa, questions his mission, for he anguishes upon the fact that all monsters are living creatures, the same as humans, and does not wish to kill any of them. Sheila, the Demon Queen, becomes interested in the Hero's principles and decides to hide her identity and join his side. Eventually however, she realizes that she has fallen in love with Exa, whom despite his wish for humans & monsters co-exist peacefully, has vowed to kill the Demon Queen himself.
Tropes used in Superior include:
- Axe Crazy:
- Sheila in the past.
- Copy even moreso.
- The original Demon Lord makes Copy's worst days look sane.
- Babies Ever After: Angelica and Lakshri.
- Bait and Switch: The begininning of the finale leads the reader to believe that Exa hooked up with Angelica, until it's revealed that the kid he's holding is actually Lakshri's.
- Baleful Polymorph: While being taught healing magic, Sheila ends up turning herself into a dog, that can only say meow.
- Battle Couple: Exa and Sheila
- Big Bad Friend: Take a guess.
- Becoming the Mask: Sheila
- Berserk Button: Do not hurt Exa. Sheila will burn your face off.
- Non Sequitur Episode: Renee's...story. Thing. All to get Exa to crossdress. Hilarity Ensues until it doesn't.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: constantly.
- Broken Hero: Nearly everyone, especially Exa.
- Broken Pedestal: When the prince first meets Exa and realizes that the rumors that he won't kill demons is true.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Lakshri.
- Cloning Blues: Copy seeks to wipe out Sheila so she can be the true demon lord.
- And then it turns out that Sheila herself is a copy.
- Cool Sword: Exa's sword can change into any form he wants and he normally keeps it in a form that is non-lethal.
- Cute Bruiser: Angelica.
- Cute Monster Girl: Both Sheila and Angelica
- Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You: Angelica's grandfather left because the townspeople agreed to leave his family alone if he did.
- Defeat Means Friendship
- Dishing Out Dirt: Sheila seems to have an affinity with earth magic. Two particular examples are when she created Copy and when she stabs Rossi's father with a sword made of stone.
- Doomed Hometown: Exa's hometown was destroyed when he was a child. By Sheila.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: played with.
- Fantastic Racism: Humans vs Monsters
- Flipping the Bird
- Forgotten First Meeting: Exa and Sheila first met when Sheila wiped out Exa's entire village. The reason that Exa didn't recognize Sheila (despite the fact that this meeting made him commit his entire life to killing her) is because they never saw each other's faces, as both were obscured by dust the entire time.
- Give Her A Normal Life: Sheila erased Third's memories and left her with Shion. During the final battle, her memories return.
- Good Feels Good: Sheila
- Half-Human Hybrid: Several, throughout the series. Angelica is actually 1/4 monster, though.
- And during the distant finale, she and Lakashi have a kid who is 1/8 monster
- Harmful Healing: Basically everything that the self proclaimed sadist, Dr Reynolds, does.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the end, Sheila is trapped in another dimension and Third offers to sacrifice her body to get Sheila back. She comes back without Third being sacrificed.
- Identity Amnesia: Sheila, after she hits her head
- Interspecies Romance: Guess who.
- I Was Quite a Looker: That one bear monster who is Angelica's grandfather, who used to look like a Bishonen with bear ears.
- Lonely at the Top: Part of what kicks off the events of the plot is Sheila's boredom and Friendless Background.
- Martial Pacifist: Exa
- My God, What Have I Done?: Third, when she realizes she killed her closest friend.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits
- Papa Wolf: Kanagi to Shiela as he raised her from a young age and went to great lengths to protect her from harm.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Having killed half of Humanity before the story even begins... Sheila definetly counts.
- Pocket Dimension: The final battle with the original demon lord takes place in one.
- Poisonous Friend: Sheila, at first.
- Retired Badass: Dr Reynolds was the legendary warrior that originally owned Exa's Cool Sword.
- Runaway Groom: Larkashi tried to pull this off on the day of his Shotgun Wedding with Angelica, but her grandfather literally carries him back potato sack style.
- Sanity Slippage: Copy was... never exactly stable, but as of Superior Cross volume 3 she got even worse.
- Shotgun Wedding: In the Finale, Lakashi and Angelica get married after she has his child.
- Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: All over the place. Half the chapters involve fourth wall breaking hijinks, and the other half involve, well...
- Spell My Name with an "S": Sheila/Shira/Sheyla
- Sheela in the italian adaptation.
- The Messiah: Exa.
- The Mole: Subverted in that Sheila is her own boss and has only herself to answer to.
- That Man Is Dead: At the end of volume 4 of Superior Cross, Sheila tells her companions she is no longer the Demon Queen.
- The Fettered: Exa, as contrasted with Sheila
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Sheila's excuse for her actions
- The Power of Friendship / The Power of Love
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: In spite of all the battles he's been in and all the times he's fought, Exa has yet to kill anyone at all. Human or monster.
- Averted in the case of the Demon King, who he has said on no uncertain terms, he will kill. At the end of Volume 4 of Superior Cross, he learns who Sheila is.
- And in the end, he never kills anyone.
- Averted in the case of the Demon King, who he has said on no uncertain terms, he will kill. At the end of Volume 4 of Superior Cross, he learns who Sheila is.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Shiela is not the original Demon Lord but a resurrected copy that Kanagi created.
- Too Dumb to Live: The transforming demons from book 4. Saying you don't want to fight anymore to a crazier version of a demon that is already known for killing her own men is generally not a good move.
- Verbal Tic: Sheila does it deliberately, nyaaa!
- What Happened To The Cat?: Addressed. Exa promises to teach Sheila healing magic in the first volume of Superior. It's not until the second volume of Superior Cross (a full 9 volumes later) that he ever get's around to it or even mentions it again. Sheila points this out.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Exa's biggest gripe against his fellow man is that he feels they're way too eager to kill monsters.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The automatic reaction of said fellow man when they find out he won't kill.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Sheila
- Copy and the original demon lord even more so.