Written by Masami Kurumada after he finished Saint Seiya prematurely due to the insistence of his publishers four years ago, B't X has a similar premise but with a different setting and execution. Some people consider it Saint SeiyaWITH SCIENCE!!!The story begins with Teppei Takamiya, as he travels to China after years of living quietly in the fictional Kamui Island. He attempts to reunite with his brother Kotaro, who left Germany five years ago to study robotics at a university. Unfortunately, no sooner than his brother begins an exhibition about an advanced form of machine, he's kidnapped by a Humongous Mecha in the shape of a wasp and a servant of the Machine Empire. Teppei starts a chase, using a gauntlet known as the "Messiah Fist" to hold onto the wasp as it travels to a secretive base in the Gobi Desert which serves as the Empire's headquarters.Getting thrown into a garbage heap and facing a cyborg he somehow is familiar with, Teppei's blood awakens a relic from the past; a kirin-type B't known only as "X" which, five years ago, was considered the most powerful B't in existence. Both are equally stubborn, although quite different in many ways, and after a few initial squabbles, X resolves to help Teppei in his quest to save his brother.Along the way, we find out quite a bit about Teppei's past, the reasons Kotaro was kidnapped, and the Machine Empire's plans involving a home-grown monster of Devil Gundam proportions.Both the manga and the anime have been licensed in America.
This series provides examples of:
Action Girl: Teppei's teacher Karen, who had been one of the Empire's Four Knights up until five years ago. Aramis is another example.
Air Jousting: A lot of fights take place in the air.
Armor Is Useless: averted for the most part. Foh, Hokuto, and Ron rarely use theirs simply because they either hate fighting (Foh and Hokuto's reason) or they're just that good. (Ron's reason)
The Atoner: Foh, who almost let his best friend kill him over the whole dead little sister thing.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Applies to everyone with a B't. Except for instances involving the B'ts' Weaksauce Weakness (see below), a B't's protective "Guard System" enables it and its rider to withstand anything ranging from magma to the void of space.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Made apparent with the cyborg named Metalface, who considers sacrificing his own flesh and blood for an immortal robotic body to be an obvious choice.
Dark Is Evil: The Death God and his Bat BT are a very straight example
Dark Is Not Evil: Karen creates a black version of X, Shadow X, that is just as powerful, a girl, and good.
Deadpan Snarker: At least in the Tokyopop manga, the narrator pulls this off in the recap of the previous volume, complete with Lampshade Hanging various issues such as Teppei's Vitriolic Best Buds status he eventually gets with Foh and company, the fact that Juggler's real face looks just like a clown face anyways, etc.
Defeat Means Friendship: Averted. Teppei never actually defeats Foh in a fight and the best he does against Ron is fight him to a draw. he also never duels either Karen or Hokuto. However, they all eventually side with him.
Distaff Counterpart: Karen's new B't made from spare parts, Shadow, is a female black Kirin.
Dub Name Change: Teppei is named Marlon, Foh is changed to Falcon, Hokuto to Homer, Karen is named Lourdes and so ford. The only ones that remain somewhat the same are Kaos and Metal Face.
Eldritch Abomination: Raphaello in every sense of the word. For a good part of the series, the Empire has to move heaven and hell to keep it under control. And they fail miserably at it.
Expy: Pretty much everything in this series can be tracked down to Saint Seiya:
Teppei looks very much like an older Seiya.
Ron looks a lot like Shiryu. This, however, doesn't apply to his personality.
Foh also looks a lot like Hyoga. Then again, it doesn't apply to his personality as well. He can also be seen as the unholy child of Saga and Shaka, with a dash of Lyra Orpheus thrown in. With Shion's hair.
Adding to the "Huh" factor of the look-alikes, Kotaro looks an awful lot like Shun, if he grew up and cut his hair real short.
Hokuto is pretty much like Mu with Shaka's aloof personality.
Karen is basically Aioros, since both are labeled as traitors despite having the best intentions and have a great deal of an impact on the main characters.
And last, but not least, the B'ts and Battle Gears. Subverted in that they don't split-up to form an armor for their owner.
The Faceless: We do not see the Machine Emperor in person until the final volume, and never once in the anime.
Faceless Mooks: the regular soldiers from the Machine Empire.
Filler: three episodes dealing with the Dark Knights (while in the manga they were defeated all together and very anticlimactically), along with encountering an old member of the Four Knights and also a reclusive scientist.
Filler Villain: Chaos and the three Dark Knights. Chaos plays an important role, however, coining the phrase "Buddy", which is used a lot in the remainder of the series, and furthering Teppei's Character Development. The Dark Knights serve to foreshadow Teppei's connection with the Sun, and the potential he has.
The Four Gods: The B'ts used by the Four Knights, replacing Byakko with a Kirin.
Four is Death: Subverted. The Four Knights are, naturally, four in number, and they all eventually resolve to help Teppei. The seven Demon Knights, however, are all out for his blood.
Grappling-Hook Pistol: One of the main funtions of Teppei's Messiah Fist, his "Shining Knucle" attack is the power enhanced version of this function.
Heel Face Turn: Plenty, especially when people realize how dangerous Raphaello really is.
Heroic Sacrifice: Again, lots of people. Metalface managed to pull it off twice. Once sacrificing a means of safely travelling a minefield to help out a young Karen years ago which caused him to require his cyborg parts, and once again to secure the force that would destroy Raphaello at the cost of his body
High Heel Face Turn: A noticeable aspect in this series. Pretty much every female character who serves in the Machine Empire, such as Salome, Karen, and Nasha, will end up having the brains to help Teppei by the end. Too bad that all of them die in at least one version of the story with the sole exception of Karin. In addition, of all the Devil Knights, the sole female Salome is the only one to decide to help Teppei once she regains her faith in humanity. Unfortunately, Juggler had different ideas.
Hyperspace Armor: The fighters summon their armor out of thin air.
Idiot Hero: He grows out of it eventually, but Teppei's VERY MUCH this trope for a good chunk of the series. It takes a double whammy of him almost getting X killed and Fou telling him how much of a fucking loser he is for him to wise up.
Incurable Cough of Death: Hokuto suffers from radiation poisoning. During at least one point in the series, it catches up to him at the worst possible moment.
Kick the Dog: Misha violently blows up a mooks helmet because he was a bit too insistently asking for orders.
Kill 'em All: the manga kills off a lot of people, and in the end pretty much the only two protagonists, both human and B't, that survive are Teppei and Kotaro. In the anime, the last scenes implies that everybody died, including Teppei and Kotaro.
Kill It with Fire: Teppei's initial Finishing Move in the anime is "Break On", a pillar of flames. He ditches that later on.
Lady of War: Aramis, a high-ranking Machine Empire general and in fact the renowned and undefeated Rose Knight. During her fight against Juggler, she struts her stuff and trounces him.
Mad Scientist: literally with Dr. Poe, who suffers from multiple personality disorder.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Je T'aime's high-pitched screeches exploit a B't's sound-based vulnerabilities.
Meaningful Name: "B't" is pronounced like "beat", as in "heartbeat". Appropriate considering blood is required to activate one. Raidou, Ron's B't, and Je T'aime, Foh's B't, are other instances.
"Blind Idiot" Translation: In the Spanish localization, however, B't was turned into Beta, deleting any meaning of the original name.
Mid-Season Upgrade: After X dies for the first time, Hokuto repairs him. Among other things, Teppei's armor changes and he gets a new attack.
Mighty Glacier: Hokuto's B't Max is infamous among the Empire for having unparalleled defense. This doesn't stop Dr. Poe from destroying all of her except for her head. In terms of actual people, Amigo fits this.
Monster Clown: Juggler. He gets better in the manga, however.
Mook Face Turn: Karin, Karen's younger sister who calls it quits fairly early and spends the rest of the series taking care of the kids at Foh's orphanage.
Musical Assassin: Foh uses a violin bow as a weapon to go along with Je T'aime's attacks.
Must Make Amends: Marcellos does a lot of very, very stupid and amoral things, striving him to do everything he can to help Kotaro when that time comes. In the anime, his knowledge of the tower's layout is utterly crucial.
My Country Rightor Wrong: Deconstructed with the remaining guardians after Karen's supposed betrayal.
Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted. Hokuto's radiation sickness was triggered by being just outside the direct killzone of a nuke that destroyed his home and family and he's got the burns on his back to prove it. Aramis also tries to kill Raphaello by loading Rosemary up with every nuclear warhead she can find and performing a Heroic Sacrifice, but Raphaello's power makes it a Senseless Sacrifice.
The Messiah Fist as well, at least in the anime. Turns out it was reverse-engineered from a sample of Raphaello's cells.
Physical God: In the manga, Gai technically doesn't exist, is immortal, can make an infinite number of copies of himself, and has possibly unlimited firepower.
Pirates: There's a guy named Captain Hook, and is one of Teppei's first enemies for essentially no reason.
The Power of Love: The only reason Foh was able to defeat the Demon Knight Gai. with his bowstring broken and Je T'aime's speakers destroyed, he used his bows and she used her wings to resonate at the frequency of a baby crying out for a mother's love and defeated him.
Punctuation Shaker: Played straight with "B't", but justified with Je T'aime, which is French for "I love you."
Redemption Equals Death: Many, many people, especially in the manga. Juggler, Marcello, Amigo, and Aramis just to name a few. Misha and Nasha also die in the anime after each makes a Heel Face Turn.
Signature Style: The inclusion of a kirin. In many of Kurumada's other works, a kirin (or occasionally a pegasus) has something to do with the protagonist.
Suicidal Overconfidence: Teppei suffers from this early on. It takes X essentially dying for him to start realizing he can't act stupid, if only for the sake of others.
Foh and the other members of the Four Knights trying to determine if Raphaello is indeed an evil that has to be put down and if they should help Teppei.
Kotaro's adventures in Wonderland Underhell where he tries to figure out Raphaello's weaknesses.
Utopia Justifies the Means: The Machine Empire's subordinates believe they are fighting to bring about an end to war. Some of them are more dogged in this belief than others.
Viewers Are Geniuses: Hokuto vs. Dr. Poe... plus any time Kotaro is writing formulas.
Weaksauce Weakness: B'ts are vulnerable to certain sound frequencies that damage fragile parts of their systems.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Teppei initially views X as a tool to help him rescue Kotaro. It takes a while for him to realize X has his own thoughts and feelings. This also applies to Metalface, although his realization came too late.
What Measure Is a Mook?: The juggler uses mooks as People Puppets, to which Teppei is horrified despite having killed hundreds of them by that point. Interestingly, once he manages end his Villain Override of them, their helmets harmlessly blow up and reveal their faces.
Logical Fallacies: Deliberately invoked by Hokuto at one point to distract an enemy.
You Killed My Sister: The reason Quattro wants to kill Foh. Foh has no objections.
You Shall Not Pass: In the anime, when at death's door, Amigo wraps his arms around metal pipes and blocks a door with his body, which stalls the enemy mooks long enough for Teppei to arrive and finish them off.
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