History Anime / JuushinkiPandora

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/90499l.jpg]]

In the year 2031, an experimental power source known as the quantum reactor is developed in order to provide an alternative to rapidly dwindling fossil fuel reserves. Unfortunately, the reactor doesn't work as planned, and instead merges machine and animal creating B.R.A.I - giant hostile biomachines roaming a now desolate Earth. In the aftermath of the so-called "Xianglong Crisis", humanity is on the brink of extinction, with ever-growing B.R.A.I overwhelming the limited humans. Humanity fights an existential war; and the era of massive evolution is upon them.

The series, created by Creator/ShojiKawamori and animated by Creator/{{Satelight}}, collaborating with several Chinese animation and production companies, began airing as part of the Spring 2018 Anime season and was distributed under the MarketBasedTitle ''Last Hope'' by Creator/{{Netflix}} worldwide (excluding Latin America, when the original Japanese one is used instead). Part 1 premiered on September 14 and Part 2 on December 21 2018.

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!!General tropes:

* AceCustom: Leon, Doug and Queenie all have personalized mechs adjusted to their respective specialties.
* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Glenn makes the mistake of attacking Queenie while he was wasted, and it's only thanks to the timely intervention of his companions things don't get ugly for him.
* AllThereInTheManual: The official site has the [[http://www.project-pandora.jp/mechanic/ mechanic page with the mechs used]].
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: When they were young, Jay always fell short when compared to Leon, who barely even noticed his presence and didn't remembered him when they met again years later.
* AMechByAnyOtherName: They're called M.O.E.V. here
* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:While it's true Sieg has been sealed, possibly forever, the B.R.A.I. and the evolution field are still out there, meaning Team Pandora once more has to go out and face whatever may come]].
* AstralProjection: How [[spoiler:Fiona]] interacts with the other characters.
* TheAtoner: Leon feels guilty for being the SoleSurvivor of the disaster unleashed by the Hyper Reactor, and now he dedicates himself to fix it in any way.
* BareFistedMonk: Quinny is very good at hand-to-hand combat.
* {{BFS}}: Kain Ibrahim Hassan wields one of this.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Queen Bee B.R.A.I. is gigantic when compared to its minions.
* BigEater: Using the Hyperdrive too much makes Leon get very hungry.
* BloodKnight: Won loves nothing more than inflicting bloodshed, especially if it is against Quinny.
* BridgeBunnies: The four unnamed girls that serve as MissionControl for Team Pandora. Their names are revealed to be Shen Ryu, Chun Wu, Ming Fan and Shia Fu.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Leon Lau is eccentric and occasionally spacey, but he's a genuinely brilliant scientist and the best hope for defeating the B.R.A.I.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: Glenn is a terrible drinker, and gets completely wasted after some time.
* ChameleonCamouflage: The chameleon B.R.A.I. from episode 9 can turn itself invisible at will.
* ClarkesThirdLaw: Fiona and Cecil are shown to have various [[spoiler:abilities that seem supernatural in nature, as befitting their backgrounds as Taoist priestess, though Sieg claims that they're actually harnessing and manipulating Quantum Energy using their family rituals as a [[MagicFeather focus]].]]
* CombinationAttack: [[spoiler: Neither Cain nor Glenn can handle the strain of using a Hyperdrive by themselves, but in the finale they hook up a single Hyperdrive between their mechs and can achieve a partial activation; creating a multi-dimensional [[GattlingGood gattling gun]].]]
* ConnectedAllAlong: Edgar Kim, the owner of the restaurant that Team Pandora frequents after missions [[spoiler:is the father of David Kim/Mr. Gold]].
* CoolMask: Fau, Mr. Gold's bodyguard, has one that covers half-his face.
* CoolOldGuy: Cain is the oldest person in the main cast and is generally friendly and pleasant.
* CreepyCentipedes: The Chilopoda B.R.A.I. is a gigantic monster that attacked Neo Xianglong two years prior, and now it's back, this time under Gold's command.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: When Leon reveals to Jay and Cecil that [[spoiler: Fiona has been [[AstralProjection visiting]] him for some time, an incredulous Jay asks Cecil if such a thing is appropriate. Cecil responds by saying that her younger sister is often lonely, and that if she's chosen Leon as someone to spend her time with, she hopes that he can ease her loneliness. It could read as her being glad her [[SiblingTeam younger sister]] is making friends, or it could read as her approving of [[ShipTease something]] [[ShipperOnDeck else]].]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:The Gleaming Darkness, the embodiment of Chaos itself created by the clash of the Hyper Drive and Dark Drive.]]
* EvilCounterpart: With Taoist concepts such as the duality of Yin and Yang being important motifs in the story, most of the main characters have counterparts on the antagonist side who both contrast and complement them. They are usually the ones most directly in conflict against each other, as well.
** Leon's is Sieg.
** Queenie has Hao Wang.
** Doug's would be [[spoiler:Emilia Valli...or rather, her AI copy]].
** Cecile has Mr. Gold.
** Jay's is Fau.
* TheExile: Leon was banished from Neo Xianglong for his part in creating the Reactor, being made a scapegoat to public opinion; he willingly accepts this out of a sense of guilt and goes into exile in the wastelands to research a way to defeat the B.R.A.I. as a form of atonement for his part in the world's destruction.
* FacialMarkings: When using the Hyper Drive, its pilots develop this around their eyes.
* FriendlySniper: Doug Horvat pilots a sniper mecha, and he's generally laid back and friendly.
* FoodEnd: Quite a few episodes end with the main cast settling down for a meal after the day's problems have been dealt with.
* FoodPorn: Food and cooking are heavily featured in the series, with the characters often visiting restaurants or indulging in home cooking. And it looks ''good''.
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: Leon and Jay went to the same school, but when they met again years later at the Hyperdrive reactor project, Leon only got the feeling he had seen Jay before.
* GettingHotInHere: When a swarm of B.R.A.I. bees attacks the water supply of Neo Xianglong, the temperature of the entire city steadily rises, forcing Cecile, Jay and the rest of the control room to take off their jackets to alleviate the heat.
* GiantEnemyCrab: The very first B.R.A.I. faced in the series is a pair of gigantic mutant crabs that fuse together. A swarm of much smaller crabs appear on a later episode.
* GiantFlyer: The falcon B.R.A.I. controlled by Won is bigger than the average M.O.E.V., and Leon mentions it uses the Hyperdrive to fly despite its size.
* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:Sieg implies Gold is being sponsored by someone else.]]
* HiddenVillain: Mr. Gold and his group remain outside of Neo Xianglong's radar for most of the first part of the story.
* {{Kaiju}}: The B.R.A.I. are sometimes small, but they grow to gigantic sizes with time.
* KindHeartedCatLover: Doug is always accompanied by his pet cat Emilia.
* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Secretary Jay Yun.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The B.R.A.I. seen on episode 4 weaponizes the sonar of a whale to create an ultrasonic wave that damages machines and drives humans with pain.
* {{Magitek}}:
** The Quantum Reactor is revealed to [[spoiler:have been built using the skull of an EldritchAbomination as its power source]], and the Hyperdrives and Dark Drives draw upon yang energy and yin energy respectively.
** As part of his ultimate plan to eradicate Neo Xianglong once and for all, Mr. Gold desecrates the graves of his ancestors and performs a taboo ritual to power up a Dark Drive-augmented centipede B.R.A.I.]].
* MaleGaze: We're introduced to Cecil Soo boobs first.
* MocapMecha: The transformation on hyperdrive-equipped M.O.E.Vs causes the controls to shift from a traditional cockpit to this.
* MonsterOfTheWeek: The first episodes involve Team Pandora dealing with different types of B.R.A.I., all while giving each member ADayInTheLimelight.
* MultiEthnicName: The main characters tend to have a western first name and an eastern last name.
* NotBloodSiblings: Leon and Chloe Lau aren't actually related, but they have a contract and they treat each other as actual siblings.
* NotSoStoic: Quinny is calm and aloof for the first few episodes, but when she comes across the same person that killed his teacher, all the bottled up rage comes out.
* OneDegreeOfSeparation: It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler: Doug and Cain once worked against each other in the past in their mercenary days, and neither recognized each other until Cain described the [[ColdSniper sniper]] who gave him his [[DentedIron handicap]].]]
* OpenMouthInsertFoot: When Queenie acts as Cecil's BodyDouble, Leon mentions their busts are different. This earns him a slap. And later he asks Queenie her weight to compare it to Cecil's. This earns him another slap.
* OrganicTechnology: B.R.A.I. are an amalgamation of both animals and technology, and they grow even bigger with each year.
* ThePlague: Episode 12 involves the team dealing with a plague called Red Death, which unsurprisingly was caused by a Dark Drive.
* PosthumousCharacter: Lon Wu, Leon's mentor and director of the Hyper Drive Reactor project, who died during the explosion of the reactor.
* RivalTurnedEvil: Quinny and Wang used to be martial arts students under the same teacher, until the Hyperdrive explosion occurred and Won decided to throw away his humanity in pursuit of strength, killing everyone but Quinny.
* RunningGag: Chloe and Leon, and later the rest of Team Pandora, say an article of the Family Contract.
** The different side-effects that occur to the pilots after using the Hyperdrive.
** Doug calling Gren 'Delinquent' (or Sarge on the english version) and the latter yelling he's Captain. On the final episode Doug calls him Captain and funnily enough Gren answers he's Delinquent before realizing what he said.
* ScientificallyUnderstandableSorcery: The series correlates Chinese Taoism and concepts like [[KiManipulation Qi]] with quantum physics.
* ShoutOut: In Season 2 Episode 11, [[spoiler:the AI formed from Emilia Valli's personality [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey sings "Daisy Bell" in a distorted voice]] when Leon and Queenie come across her trying to hack into Neo Xianlong's government; with the pair even noting the similarity to HAL 9000]].
* TheSwarm: A swarm of B.R.A.I. bees led by a queen attack Neo Xianglong in episode 10, and much like real bees, they use their vibrations to increase heat, turning the city into a giant hot pot.
* TeamPet: Emilia the cat becomes this for Pandora.
* TransformingMecha: Leon creates one that goes from vehicular mode to humanoid shape thanks to the Hyper Drive.
** Quinny's becomes able to do the same in episode 6 after Leon installs its own Hyper Drive on her M.O.E.V.
** Doug's M.O.E.V. is also installed with a Hyper Drive in episode 9.
* TokenMiniMoe: Chloe is the youngest and smallest among the main cast.
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: Turns out Doug named his cat Emilia [[spoiler:after his dead girlfriend Emilia Vallis]]
* WhamEpisode: Episode 14: [[spoiler: Leon fails to prevent the Chilopoda B.R.A.I. from planting the skull devices that nullify the Hyper Drive reactor, and he and the rest of Team Pandora are defeated while Gold puts the city at check.]]
* WorldOfTechnicolorHair: While some characters have normal hair colors, like Cain and Grenn, Leon has red hair at the front and blonde on the back, Chloe has pink hair, Queenie has white hair that turns blue at the tips, Doug has green and orange hair and Jay's black hair has a red stripe on the side.
* {{Wuxia}}: Queenie and Hao Wang's subplot could be comfortably dropped into a wuxia series with very little change.
* YouKilledMyFather: Glenn Din blames Leon for causing the Hyper Reactor explosion, which created the B.R.A.I. and indirectly killed his family.
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* BridgeBunnies: The four unnamed girls that serve as this for Team Pandora.

* CoolMask: Fong, Mr. Gold's bodyguard, has one that covers half-his face.
* CoolOldGuy: Kain is the oldest person in the main cast and is generally friendly and pleasant.

* RivalTurnedEvil: Quinny and Won used to be martial arts students under the same teacher, until the Hyperdrive explosion occurred and Won decided to throw away his humanity in pursuit of strength, killing everyone but Quinny.

* WorldOfTechnicolorHair: While some characters have normal hair colors, like Cain's brown and Grenn's light brown, Leon has red hair at the front and blonde on the back, Chloe has pink hair, Queenie has white hair that turns blue at the tips, Doug has green and orange hair and Jay's black hair has a red stripe on the side.

* AceCustom: Leon, Doug and Quinny all have personalized mechs adjusted to their respective specialties.
* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Glenn makes the mistake of attacking Quinny while he was wasted, and it's only thanks to the timely intervention of his companions things don't get ugly for him.

* YouKilledMyFather: Glenn Din blames Leon for causing the Hyper Reactor explosion, which created the B.R.A.I. and indirectly killed his family.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: When Quinny acts as Cecil's BodyDouble, Leon mentions their busts are different. This earns him a slap. And later he asks Quinny her weight to compare it to Cecil's. This earns him another slap.