Mon Colle Knights is a mediocre, but funny, low-budget anime that knew it was exactly just that. It can be considered a parody of various things, itself included. The show is gag-driven for the most part and deals with two "teams" traveling to an Alternate Universe to gather six magical items that will enable them to connect their world with the Six Gates world. The lead characters, a Mad Scientist (Ichirobei Hiiragi) who recruited his daughter (Rokuna Hiiragi) and her boyfriend (Mondo Ooya) as "Mon Colle Knights" compete with Count (Ludwig Presto Von Meinstein) Collection and his lackeys, who try to gather the items to rule the world.By the way, there are a few episodes less upbeat and silly, which begin to pop up a little more towards the end...
Balance Between Good and Evil: The original version pretends this is going on at first, but eventually subverts it thoroughly. The dubbed version plays it straight all the way through.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the original version, each episode starts with a bit of exposition where the Narrator explains the audience about the world. He is frequently interrupted by the characters who want to take over his job, sometimes they succeed.
Evil Plan: Reda shows a rather nice one. He kidnaps Rokuna, forces Mondo to give him the Monmon items and deceives him with a rat disguised as a fake Rokuna, has the real Rokuna trapped inside Terror Dragon's neck, provides Mondo with the Sadistic Choice of destroying Terror Dragon and Rokuna with it or getting destroyed by it himself trying to save her, exiles all his allies to a void, then leaves just before Zaha arrives. Zaha and the knights confront the Terror Dragon, of which either outcome is something that helps Reda: Zaha dead, or the Terror Dragon dead and the enemy stalled long enough to start the ritual - all part of his brilliant plan to summon Oroboros to destroy everything so he can create in their place a world filled with formless souls, free of war and suffering.
Expy: Count Dragula, huh? Subtle. While the vampire's name is not mentioned in the original, it has it's own : Sylanprivania is the area's name. Either could double as Homage.
Hellish Pupils: played straight and subverted; good monsters can also have evil eyes.
Here We Go Again: In the end Reda and Oroboros are defeated, but all the collected Monmon Items are destroyed. New ones are then scattered once again, leaving the heroes and villains exactly where they started.
Parental Abandonment: In the original version, Rokuna's mother left cause she was bored, leaving Rokuna to tend to the household and an work obsessed dad, much of her early years were lonely. In the dub, she's still around offscreen.
Prophetic Names: Rokuna and Mondo : Roku + Mon = Rokumon, the Sixgate.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Ogres. Their strength contests are awarded by a blessing and the right to fight a monster.
Puni Plush: Mainly with the child characters. Slightly less so with certain others such as Namiko, Bacchi, and Guuko. Not present at all with most other characters.
Shoo Out the Clowns: Oddly averted. The Terrible Trio remains almost entirely out of sight of the heroes during all the drama of the finale, being deliberately shooed in the wrong direction. They end up carrying a vital plot coupon to the Big Bad and thereby more or less accidentally start the apocalypse.
Shout Out: During a discussion over a good line to say while leaping out of a burning car, Mondo suggests "Rats! I left my Digimon: The Movie CD in there!". The English cast worked on Digimon.
Something about a Rose: CountCollection has a massive rose fetish. Never poses without one, and he poses a lot. He's so involved with roses that he even fails in roses, as the mushroom cloud after his ship crashes always assumes the shape of a wilting rose.
World of Ham: In the dub, at least, and most of it is provided by Dr. Hiragi and Prince Eccentro. The original version is pretty heavy on it too, at one point Mondo and Hiiragi deliberately get loud and hammy to escape eating Rokuna's food.
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