History Manga / Appleseed

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Subverted, as with Ghost in the Shell (which shared a similar Timeline if not outright happening in the same universe), despite ''two'' world wars, one of which was nuclear, civilization just kept right on chugging along, without even a die back. That said, the world is still a very chaotic place, and you probably wouldn't want to live there.

* RaceLift: Though it's nearly impossible to tell in the manga due to the lack of a... well, a FACE, Briareos is apparently North African originally, as seen in some artwork Shirow has done (including a very odd-looking beach-scene). In the 2004 film and ''Ex Machina'', Briareos is retconned to be a rather Japanese-looking {{Bishonen}}.

* TheVerse: ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' and ''Appleseed'' both take place in the same continuity, despite being more than a hundred years apart in the setting (and Appleseed's comparable downgrade in technology since it was written first.) Appleseed established numerous geo-political settings and details used in Ghost in the Shell, such as the existence of the Human Liberation Front organization, the [[DividedStatesOfAmerica United States of America, Imperial America, & the Russo-American Alliance]], Bioroids, and animal-themed mecha and vehicles (though this is a staple of Creator/ShirowMasamune in general), among other things.

The one-shot OVA[[note]]a co-production between Creator/StudioGainax and Creator/{{AIC}}[[/note]] was produced in 1988 and is loosely based on the first volume. The plot concerns a colleague of Deunan and Briareos, who feels that instead of Utopia, Olympus is a GildedCage designed to prevent humans from living a fulfilling life. To destroy this cage, he conspires with a professional terrorist and it's up to Deunan and Briareos to stop them.

The one-shot OVA[[note]]a co-production between Creator/StudioGainax and Creator/{{AIC}}[[/note]] was produced in 1988 and has little in common with the original manga except the setting and the characters. The plot concerns a colleague of Deunan and Briareos, who feels that instead of Utopia, Olympus is a GildedCage designed to prevent humans from living a fulfilling life. To destroy this cage, he conspires with a professional terrorist and it's up to Deunan and Briareos to stop them.

* DueToTheDead: Manuel Aeacus is buried with full honors after being put down when he's infected with [[spoiler:a bioweapon designed by Dr. Kestner]]. Deunan, in full uniform, is one of his pallbearers.

Has a character sheet in need of some [[NeedsWikiMagicLove wiki magic love]].

* ArcWords: From ''XIII'': "Vengeance belongeth unto me."

* CowboyCop: Colonel Hades was one during his LA SWAT days; this factored into his expulsion from the group by Deunan's father, [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope which fueled his ultimately suicidal revenge scheme against the Knutes]].

* DividedStatesOfAmerica: In 1988, the Cold War came to a peaceful resolution with the formation of the Russo-American Alliance, composed of the 13 colonial states, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, California, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Tereus]] saves Deunan from being impaled by [[spoiler:Xander's]] CombatTentacles. [[spoiler:And survives]].

* MegaCorp: Poseidon in ''Ex Machina.''.
** They seem to be OneNationUnderCopyright, to boot, in ''XIII.'' They even have national boundaries and territorial waters.

* ZombieApocalypse: not exactly, but the BrainwashedAndCrazy mob in ''Ex Machina'' looked much like it, right down to the ZombieGait.

* RougeAnglesOfSatin: In the 2004 film, we get a good look at a computer disc labelled "SEACRET".

* LadyAndKnight: Talos and Nyx are a villainous variant of this in ''Alpha'', with Talos being a Black (ironically a ManInWhite at the same time) and Nyx being a Dark Lady with EvilWearsBlack.

* ThreeDEffectsTwoDCartoon: ''XIII'' contains a rather strange variant of this - the characters and objects are CG, while several backgrounds are rendered through traditional means.

* ConspicuousCG: ''XIII'' contains a rather strange variant of this - the characters and objects are CG, while several backgrounds are rendered through traditional means.

* VillainHasAPoint: When General Uranus states his case to Deunan, she concedes that he might have a point before letting him know that at least it isn't in the Bioroids' nature to kill even their own kind.
-->'''Deunan''': Maybe you're right. Maybe they can't be trusted, but after what I've seen I know this much: ''Bioroids don't try to KILL each other!''

* MayDecemberRomance: In addition to the relationship quirks of dating a cyborg, Briareos is a solid nine years older than Deunan.

* FriendOrFoe: The IFFs of the autonomous combat drones in ''Alpha'' either don't work, or nobody remembers how to designate themselves as a friend. Either way, the drones attack everybody.

The one-shot OVA[[note]]a co-production between Creator/StudioGainax and {{AIC}}[[/note]] was produced in 1988 and has little in common with the original manga except the setting and the characters. The plot concerns a colleague of Deunan and Briareos, who feels that instead of Utopia, Olympus is a GildedCage designed to prevent humans from living a fulfilling life. To destroy this cage, he conspires with a professional terrorist and it's up to Deunan and Briareos to stop them.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: In ''Appleseed Alpha'', Iris & Olson are very much on the idealistic scale, believing they can build a better world, Deunan is somewhere in the middle, while Briareos is firmly cynical. [[spoiler: This flips a bit halfway through after they find Olson's corpse, where Deunan briefly loses hope in finding Olympus, but this leads Briareos to adopt a more idealistic viewpoint if only to keep Deunan's spirits up. The villain, Talos, is far on the cynical scale, believing that Olympus's ideals are nonsense and that humanity needs war to continue existing.]]

* {{Portmantitle}}: Also a OneWordTitle.

* OhCrap: When the first police team busts through the to arrest the terrorists, just to walk in front of a gatling gun ambush.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler:General Uranus's plan to destroy the Bioroids involves blowing up the D-Tank, which actually contains a virus the Elders had forced Dr. Gilliam to synthesize that would sterilize all of humanity and slowly euthanize the human race. He doesn't realize that he was unwittingly helping along the death of humanity until it's almost too late.]]

* ButterflyOfDeathAndRebirth: ''XIII'' has an episode focused on a hotel with a garden in the middle that has butterflies that the daughter of the VIP likes to chase. [[spoiler:Her chase ultimately leads to the death of her father as he tries to save her from running off a bridge without rails.]]

* ArmCannon: Nyx in ''Alpha'' has a machine gun built into the palm of her right hand.
* ArmorIsUseless: In this universe, cyborgs are surprisingly fragile, with pistol rounds being able to take down even largely metallic ones pretty easily ([[spoiler:Talos is almost completely metal, yet Deunan's M1911 does severe damage to him with just a few shots]]). You'd think becoming a cyborg would make you tougher.
* AssholeVictim: Some of the "vampire" victims in ''XIII'' Episode 5 are war criminals from Eris (said to have committed genocide and ethnic cleansing).
* AssimilationPlot: [[spoiler: Kestner in ''Ex Machina'' wants to pull this off.]]

* AMechByAnyOtherName: MiniMecha are known as "Landmates", while PoweredArmor are called "Protectors".

* MayContainEvil: [[spoiler: The Connexus]] in ''Ex Machina''.

* ObviouslyEvil: Poseidon in ''Ex Machina''. They're a MegaCorp and OneNationUnderCopyright, their executive and diplomat is an EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette in a [[SpyCatsuit black leather catsuit]] with [[CreepyMonotone a soft, smooth voice]], and their battle commander has a [[GoodScarsEvilScars rather ugly scar]] covering one eye. They're also so polite and smooth about cooperating with Athena and Olympus that any smart viewer would expect that they're up to something ''seriously'' devious. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Nope.]] While they did accidentally leave some dangerous experimental AppliedPhlebotinum lying around, they cooperate fully with the protagonists when it comes time to clean everything up, and their offer to surrender control of their weapons to Olympus is entirely genuine.]]

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: [[spoiler:Hitomi.]]
* PhlebotinumInducedStupidity: In ''Ex Machina'', Briareos would likely have found unearthing the movie's central conspiracy much easier if the lingering nanite poisoning they used to temporarily take him over hadn't compelled him to take the most stupid, pointless, and needlessly violent actions possible whenever his adrenaline levels spiked. [[spoiler:Luckily for him, there's a treatment.]]

* PunchClockVillain/: In "Alpha", while it is mentioned by multiple characters that the numerous nameless cyborg thugs working for Two Horns are criminals and gang members, none of them act that unpleasant nor are shown doing anything evil throughout the course of the film. The worst any of them do is attack the better armed and more dangerous Deunan and Briareos when directly ordered to do so, and when ordered to return to the tank rather than continue attacking go so far as to look at each other, shrug, and calmly leave. The red one that acts as second in command to Two Horns in particular is portrayed as surprisingly mellow, level headed, and non-confrontational. Minor hints scattered throughout the film imply that these men used to be soldiers during the War, and after the war was over they simply continued to do the same things they used to just under new managment.

It also has a CGI anime series named ''Appleseed XIII.'' The series was produced in 2011 by Jinni's Animation Studios in association with Creator/ProductionIG and under the direction of Takayuki Hamana with Junichi Fujisaku as script supervisor. All 13 episodes of ''Appleseed XIII'' can be seen on Funimation's official Website/YouTube channel [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwazKLaN7rLi2U2hzVjSfcBZVLN_hSV3P here.]] An English dub of the series was released on DVD and Blu-Ray in June 2013.

* ConcealmentEqualsCover: Very, very averted. As is common for Shirow Masamune works, big guns will chew up the scenery. Of particular not is the huge Gatling guns used by the tanks in the intro of the first movie: they're shown punching straight through thick concrete and brick walls like they were made of stale crackers.

* ArmorIsUseless: In this universe, cyborgs are surprisingly fragile, with pistol rounds being able to take down even largely metallic ones pretty easily ([[spoiler: Talos is almost completely metal, yet Deunan's M1911 does severe damage to him with just a few shots]]). You'd think becoming a cyborg would make you tougher.

* BloodstainedGlassWindows The opening sequence of ''Ex Machina'', in fine JohnWoo tradition.