"I'm dreaming again... a dream of that summer day."
Full name - Noein: To Your Other Self (Mou Hitori no Kimi e)Haruka is an average girl, living an average life. Or so she thinks. In fact, she is a Cosmic Keystone being sought by the forces of two alternate dimensions, La'Cryma and Shangri'La. Each represents a possible future for Haruka's world, and Haruka has the power to determine which one becomes reality. La'Cryma is a shattered, dystopian place... but there is something sinister about the seemingly serene Shangri'La as well. Which side should she choose?Haruka and her friends find themselves in the middle of a war, with multiple factions and rapidly shifting allegiances. Some wish to protect her, while others will go to any length to abduct her. A few important characters include:
Haruka: Main character and MacGuffin Girl, despite those two usually being mutually exclusive.
Yuu: Haruka's troubled friend/love interest. Emo Teen extraordinare, complete with box cutter.
Karasu: A Future Badass version of Yuu from La'Cryma, sent to abduct Haruka but desiring to protect her.
Assimilation Plot: Shangri'La is composed of all of the other realities that Noein wishes to prevent from happening. The inhabitants of Shangri'La are all humans whom Noein has absorbed into his cause.
Bad Future: La'Cryma, but arguably Shangri'La as well. At one point Noein shows Haruka a bad future where each of her friends ends up getting broken. Creepily enough, the specific injuries the other characters sustain imply that the timestream Noein shows to Haruka is Lacryma's past.
Body Horror: The Dragon Knights' powers involve some very uncomfortable transformations of their physical selves. Atori's power-up mode in particular is disturbing, given how unstable he is.
Can Not Spit It Out: Yuu's feelings for Haruka, which Karasu encourages him to confess. Ditto for Ai and Isami.
Catch Phrase: Isami thinks that it is impossible for him to have a catch phrase.
Cat Fight: Haruka gets into one with Ai, who is jealous over what she believes to be a budding romantic relationship between Haruka and Isami, despite Haruka's attempts to explain. The audience knows from the get-go that it's not too serious, though, as it's accompanied by playful, cheerful background music (and they make up at the end of the episode).
Dead Little Sister: Atori had one, leading him to eventually viewing The Ditz Miho as a sort of substitute.
Haruka functions this way for Karasu as well, and he goes to great lengths to protect her in the past after being unable to save the Haruka from his timeline.
Diabolus ex Machina: The "future" shown to Haruka by Noein in episode 22, where she sees all of her friends' lives ruined (Hasabe's in particular stands out). Highlights include Fujiwara turning into a punk and losing his eye, Hasabe learning of this and losing use of her leg in the process, effectively ruining her future of being an all-star soccer player and Miho turning into a depressive Hikikomori due to bullying. Although the episode does end on a high note.
Drives Like Crazy: Yukie-chan, driving completely off the road. Justified in that she was trying to lose someone, but she was clearly enjoying it.
Dub Induced Plot Hole: Not plot, so much a terminolgy. A line near the begining of the second episode; sub: this spacetime is warped, dub: this dimension is a mistake.
Evil Phone: In one episode, after things start getting strange, Haruka asks her mother if she's ever encountered anything paranormal, and her mother mentions that her old house phone once rang, even though it was unplugged. At the end of the episode, the same unplugged phone rings again when Haruka's alone, so she picks it up, and realizes the person on the other side is her mother in the past. Haruka's mother is puzzled, while Haruka is very amused by the situation... and then her mother gets disconnected, and Haruka finds herself talking to ''herself'' from an alternate future. Her future self sounds so sad, and combined with the advice she offers, our Haruka is left quite shaken up by a vague hint at something terrible.
Explosive Overclocking: Dragon Knights can turn themselves into huge beings of energy, but it is very dangerous.
Future Me Scares Me: Yuu is scared by how cold and intense Karasu is. Karasu is disgusted by his cowardly former self. Furthermore, Noein is yet another future version of Yuu, who despises both of them.
Karasu glaring at Yuu earned the honor of page picture for this trope for a very good reason.
Gas Leak Coverup: The first appearance of the Shangri'La attackers was explained to the public as a meteorological phenomena. Given their incredible obliviousness, probably it worked for the second time as well.
Hilarious Outtakes: Much to the English cast's surprise and glee many of their outtakes, ad-libs, and general screwing around was preserved on the official DVD's. Except Crispin Freeman, his were too dirty.
Bad Future Miho attempts to overdose, but is stopped by Atori.
Light is Not Good / Dark Is Not Evil" While Karasu slings dark lightning bolts around in their duel, Ax Crazy Atori throws white lightning. Noein, similarly, decorates his realm like a Buddhist paradise and is clad in pure white.
Limited Wardrobe: Considering the span of time the story encompasses, some characters change clothes very rarely.
Haruka changes frequently but seems to have three outfits.
Mask Power: Noein often appears as a floating mask.
Meaningful Name: "Noein" is Greek (νοεῖν), which roughly translates to "I think/I know". More specifically, it refers to something that is known, but not through the traditional senses of the human body, only in thought. In other words, an existence defined solely by thought.
Mood Whiplash: There are a few, but the carcrash that killed Haruka and the others in Noein's timeline is exceptionally jarring. Probably because it was realistic.
Nigh Invulnerability: Of a sort. For the Dragon Knights, thanks to mechanical replacements and the bizarre way they take damage, its as if they were made of a uniform shiny substance underneath their skin.
Omnicidal Maniac: Noein's ultimate plan for utopia is to erase the entire multiverse and start it again from scratch.
Open Minded Parent: While the kids teacher rather than a legal guardian, Miss Nijou certainly fits the bill. When Kurasu lies mortally injured after a battle with the forces of Shangri'La, she is completely unfazed by the fact that the person her students are helping is missing a limb, is bleeding blue sparkles and has no reconizable internal anatomy whatsoever.
Ouija Board: Paranormal-obsessed Miho suggests using one to figure out the weird stuff going on with Haruka early in the series. It spells "Noein", but at the time none of the characters present had ever heard the name, so they chalked it up to nonsense.
Ouroboros: The motif appears with all the crazy quantum time wizzywigging. A giant one even serves as a portal to (effectively) The Legions of Hell.
Parental Obliviousness: It takes the house disappearing before Haruka's mother realizes something strange might be going on.
Parrot Exposition: Kōriyama-san. Almost any scene with him talking to Uchida-san eventually descends into her effectively talking to herself.
Power Born of Madness: Noein. He was an ordinary high school student until a car crash killed his true love in front of him, after which it's suggested that his single-minded rage alone propelled him to gather followers, take over his Earth, master interdimensional travel and nearly succeed in obliterating everything in the multiverse. By contrast, Karasu is a badass hero, but Uchida's technobabble baffles him.
Noein has some elements of this as well. Unlike the Dragon Knights, whose bizarre powers are explained as being the result of Sufficiently Advanced Technology, Noein doesn't seem to use machinery at all, and can just do things. He started off as an ordinary human. How did he become the dimension-hopping Humanoid Abomination he is now? No one knows.
Say My Name: played rather masterfully in Episode 13 when Karasu is mortally wounded
Schrödinger's Cat: The Schrodinger's Cat scenario is actually an important plot point on two occasions.
It's arguable that the entire plot can be boiled down to a schrodinger's cat. Yuu is indecisive about the future. Therefore, many possible futures exist. When he takes control and decides what he's going to do, the path he did not choose disappears.
Stalker with a Crush / Yandere: Kosagi followed Karasu to Haruka's dimension in order to kill both of them, after realizing her feelings for Karasu were unrequited.
Strange Minds Think Alike: Everyone in the story. For some weird reason, they all instantly identify Layze particles (glowing blue sparks floating upside down in a small area) as blue snow.
Talking to Himself: Karasu and Noein, who are voiced by the same person in both the original and the dub. Justified when it's revealed that they're the same person from alternate timelines.
Theme Naming: The Dragon Knights are all named after birds; Karasu is the Japanese word for crow, for example.
Also the names of two of the futures: Shangri-La is a fictional utopia in the novel Lost Horizon (as well as a term for utopias in general). The lacrimal (La'Cryma) ducts are where tears come from.
Actually, "lacrima" means "tear" in Latin. Which is why it's ridiculous that even the official translation went with the nonsensical La'Cryma spelling as if it was just a random fantasy name. (Incidentally, this spelling for "lacrima" comes from the J-Rock band La'Cryma Christi).
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