* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Sara's decision to stay with the children. Was it because of her promise to Sis to look after them or because after the trauma she went through, she felt she could no longer go back? Or possibly both, trying to honor her promise to Sis and bring hope to a nearly hopeless world.
** Shu. Throughout the series he continues to show IncorruptiblePurePureness even when people are dying around him and a man bleeds to death in his arms. He is just continually in denial about the atrocities or does he truly believe that having hope will save the day? It is shown that his continued hope and optimism did influence many characters, especially Lala-Ru, so it might be the latter.
** Hamdo. Why is someone like him in charge when other more competent leaders (Abelia) could easily replace him? What makes him so charismatic and how did he remain in power for so long without others trying to usurp control? As stated elsewhere, he might have been originally intelligent and reasonable but something happened to fracture his mind. He does have moments of lucidity.
* AngstAversion: This show's reputation for being one of the most uncompromisingly depressing anime series ever made has steered many away from giving it a try.
* AngstWhatAngst: Played straight with Shu; averted with Sara.
* AntiClimaxBoss: Shu finally faces off against [[BigBad Hamdo]] and [[TheDragon Abelia.]] Abelia shoots at him a few times and Shu...runs past her and beats Hamdo with his stick until he runs away crying. Hamdo soon dies along with Hellywood and Abelia gets apprehended without a fight by the Zari-Bars people.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: "Awesome" may be the wrong word, but [[https://youtu.be/e3vaGByEfBM Standing In the Sunset Glow]] is one of the most heart-rendingly beautiful compositions ever featured in an anime.
* CatharsisFactor:
** After 13 episodes worth of horrors perpetrated by Hamdo, it is deeply, ''deeply'' satisfying to watch [[spoiler:Shu [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown pummel the living crap out of him]] in the final episode, [[UndignifiedDeath before he's left to drown like a rat, crying and screaming all the way as his empire topples once and for all]].]]
** Anytime the adult Hellywood soldiers die is well deserved, on account that they're all shown to be vicious rapist murderers who further Hamdo's genocidal plans and brainwash kidnapped children. Special mention goes to the one who tried to rape Sara before she escaped, while smugly gloating she'd produce a good soldier son. It's hard not to cheer watching Sara ''smash'' his head to pulp, even if her situation is still agonizingly tragic.
* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad King Hamdo]] plunders resources from a desperate land and kidnaps children to use as soldiers in his army. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Introduced]] [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals strangling his own cat to death]], Hamdo reacts with insane glee upon learning his men have found a girl who possesses an amulet capable of creating water, a precious resource in this world. When he discovers she's lost said amulet and refuses to help him find it, Hamdo flies into a rage and is implied to rape her. So cowardly that any threat to his life sends him into a panic, Hamdo orders his second-in-command to fire upon the frontline, not caring that his own {{Child Soldier}}s are engaged in combat.
* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Averted. Along with ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies'', this is one of the few (anti)-war shows that doesn't make war or the life of a soldier look like fun.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Some fans actually complain that the story follows Shu instead of Nabuca.
** The dark-skinned, blond-haired boy in Nabuca and Tabool's corps has a surprising amount of Japanese fanart, as does that corps' drill sergeant. Pretty remarkable, considering neither of them even get ''names.''
* EsotericHappyEnding: Even setting aside the whole GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion thing, the script seems to entirely forget that Sara's parents [[spoiler:are now never going to see her again and she's very likely going to be killed by the Earth's still supernova-ing sun]]. Shu's optimism seems just a ''little'' misplaced.
* {{Fanon}}: A prevailing theory is that [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Lala Ru is a magical girl who made a wish for water, and her pendant is a Soul Gem]].
* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Scottie Ray's performance as Elamba really shines as he tells his tragic backstory. Who'd have guessed [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 the Shredder]] could be so emotional?
* HarsherInHindsight: in 2018, voice actress Hiroko Konishi (Boo) revealed the sexual harassment she experienced in the industry, which include being told to go to the springs naked with director Daichi and being denied further roles for refusing.
* HilariousInHindsight: "Hilarious" is probably not the best word, but here, Creator/CrispinFreeman is a deranged, volatile young man with spiky hair fanatically loyal to a monstrous, insecure megalomaniac in a crushing story of war and depravity. Years later, he's a deranged, volatile young man with spiky(electrically charged) hair fanatically loyal to a monstrous, insecure megalomaniac...[[WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderman in an action-packed, lighthearted superhero show.]]
* JerkassWoobie: Elamba, so [[HeartbrokenBadass very,]] [[KnightTemplarBigBrother very]] [[HeWhoFightsMonsters much.]] He goes way too far trying to force Lala Ru to negotiate with Hellywood, including [[spoiler:shooting Sis and the village doctor]], but he has also suffered horribly because of Hamdo. His village was set on fire and his sister was taken away to be a BreedingSlave for the Hellywood soldiers, then abandoned in the desert after her illness proved to be inconvenient for them. He found her being eaten by desert animals.
* LoveToHate: Hamdo is a [[HateSink truly repulsive human being]] with no EvilIsCool qualities whatsoever but his gleefully unhinged and bombastic behavior makes him equally horrifying and darkly comedic in an otherwise ''very'' unfunny show.
* MainstreamObscurity: As much as this series is mentioned, very few have actually gotten around to watching it. [[AngstAversion There's a very good reason for that, though.]]
* MoralEventHorizon:
** King Hamdo has a few, before the series started, he had abducted numerous children, put them into combat [[spoiler: and destroyed their villages so they can't go home.]] Other examples could be ordering Shu tortured.
** Tabool [[spoiler:shoots Nabuca and kills him]] without showing any remorse, showing that the years under Hamdo has broken him and turned him to Hamdo's ideals.
** Elamba shooting [[spoiler: Sis and the Doctor, leading to both their deaths]] shows just how far into HeWhoFightsMonsters he has descended after all the fighting.
* {{Narm}}: King Hamdo's tendency to flip his shit at the drop of a hat, [[EvilIsHammy proclaim things in the most unsubtle, overblown way possible]], and generally act like [[PsychopathicManChild a middle-school bully all grown up]] makes him hard to take seriously as a villain for some viewers. Then again, this might just make his behavior more disturbing to others.
** Hamdo's attempts to threaten and interrogate La-La Ru are initially unsettling and very uncomfortable, but eventually devolve into him whining and begging her to talk like someone trying to coax a pet parrot. The fact that La-La Ru just sits there looking bored doesn't help.
---> ''Why won't you talk to me?!? [=LaLa=]-Ru? [=LaLa=]-Ru! La-La Ruuu! Nyehehe! Why won't you look at me? Why are you ignoring me!? La-La Ru, La-La Ru! LA-LA RUUUU! Why do you torture meee?!?''
** Hellywood activates and becomes airborne with Hamdo vowing to destroy Zari-Bars in revenge. The whole sequence is terrifying and awe-inspiring, until Hamdo leans his face ''directly'' into the camera and yells [[ChewingTheScenery I WILL KILL YOU AALLL!"]] like he's [[AsideGlance screaming at the audience.]] Then it cuts to a shot of La-La Ru reacting in surprise as if she somehow heard him yelling from miles away.
* NarmCharm: For how childishly over-the-top Hamdo's behavior is, it also serves to emphasize what a deranged and twisted sadist he is, especially in the English dub.
---> (To [=LaLa=]-Ru) ''What is it? Don't you ''want'' to help me...(chuckles)[[SuddenlyShouting If you REFUSE,]] [[AndYourLittleDogToo I'LL KILL ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!]] I'LL GRIND THEM UP, SQUEEZE OUT THEIR BLOOD, AND ''DROWN'' YOU IN IT!''
* RealismInducedHorror: Despite all the sci-fi and fantastical elements present in the show, there's a very, very, VERY deep sense of realism in this series that is what makes it such a profoundly haunting and emotionally harrowing experience to begin with, especially considering that it was inspired by the Rwandan Genocide (one of the most gruesome periods in human history). What with [[WarIsHell its portrayal of war]], extraordinarily grimdark subject matter, [[ViolenceIsDisturbing horrific brutality]], the straightforward depiction of psychological trauma that soldiers (especially the [[ChildSoldiers children ones]]) suffer, a [[PinballProtagonist main character who is completely powerless]] and must endure all the atrocious shit that goes on, concentration camps, child rape, widespread thirst, extreme starvation, ethnic cleansing, [[FinalSolution genocide]], and a [[TheCaligula ruthless, horrifyingly insane dictator]] who would make [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] look perfectly sane by comparison, this is one series that ''will'' traumatize you, and is hands down one of the bleakest and most depressing anime ever made, period.
* StrawmanHasAPoint: Elamba is portrayed as an unreasonable radical for focusing on hitting back at Hellywood rather than caring for the children of his village. What this neglects to mention is that his resistance force is the only thing ''protecting'' Zari-Bars and its people from a war-mongering military superpower bent on taking over the world and exploiting children. Also, Hamdo is a [[AxCrazy horribly unstable, hideously sadistic madman]] in charge of a flying fortress whose death would prevent so much more war and tragedy. Sure enough, Elamba proves correct when Hellywood launches a full-scale war against Zari-Bars.
* TooBleakStoppedCaring: After the NonIndicativeFirstEpisode, the series pulls no punches in being relentlessly grimdark, complete with [[CompleteMonster an absolutely abominable villain]] and a main character who is [[PinballProtagonist near-powerless to change much.]] In the end, the protagonist has no great influence and is able only to inspire the actually-powerful Lala-Ru to bring about a more-or-less happy ending. The mostly-positive outcome feels insignificant after the series' overall dark journey.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: Since La La-Ru is a personification of water, her speech about how she hates humans because they will always exploit and abuse her when she's trying to help them comes of as a very poignant metaphor for climate change and unequal resource distribution. [[{{TearJerker}} And it's heartbreaking.]]
* TheWoobie:
** All of the main cast have their moments of this with the exception of King Hamdo, but Sara especially stands out in this category. She's kidnapped by Abelia after being mistaken for Lala-Ru, then raped by Hellywood soldiers, at least one of whom gets her pregnant.
** All of the child soldiers in Hellywood's army, including Nabuca, Boo, and Tabool, were kidnapped from their villages, conscripted into service, and forced to commit horrible atrocities. They've been promised that they'll be able to return to their homes when the war is over. [[spoiler:And this turns out to be a MotivationalLie; every village raided by Hellywood is destroyed. None of those children will ever see their families again.]]
----