If I have to animate another decapitation sequence, I'm going to scream.
Remember Tokyo Babylon and X1999? "Oh CLAMP," you said, "between the gratuitous homoeroticism and the gratuitous heterochromaticism, you're tugging on my heart strings! This pain, it is beautiful and terrible."
This fic is the same, only even worse.
The premise of CLAMP's manga and anime X/1999 puts the Apocalypse in the hands of a fifteen year-old boy, Shirou Kamui. His choice between saving humanity and saving the planet is complicated by his own indecision, his own lack of information. Epic is an Alternate Universe Fic by Mithrigil
that updates the situation—what if Kamui had been given ten additional years, to make an informed decision?
Given that premise, it's no wonder Epic takes the Darker and Edgier route. Gone are The Woobie and the concept of breaking the cutie: with the youngest member of the central cast a twenty-four year old animator, this is definitely not a story about people pretending to be ordinary high school students while saving the world. It also directly challenges the concept of "too soon", discussing terrorism in a directed political fashion.
Epic is complete and can be read here.
Provides examples of:
- Alas, Poor Yorick: Subverted, they never find Daisuke's head.
- Anyone Can Die: Played straight. A reversal of X, actually: Fuuma spares the little girl's life, whereas ten years later in Epic, Kamui leaves her to die with the rest.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Despite his obvious mental instability and the fact that he's sleeping with the enemy, Subaru has managed to rule the Sumeragi Clan unchallenged for seven years on sheer value of kicking ass.
- Chekhov's Gun: Seishirou's car, which would make Yoshio Chekhov's Gunman and Subaru Chekhov's Boomerang. Kamui drives a Subaru, after all, and Sorata, ever the hanger of lampshades, makes the pun on Subaru-the-car after the collapse of Nakano in book 2.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Even the monk calls "Horseshit."
- Death by Irony: Representative Kigai is electrocuted and drowns.
- Also later, Kakyou, who has been going blind, gets stabbed through the eyes.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Quintuple-subversion! Cars are established as a big deal in book one, including Seishirou's Tommy Kaira tb. Then, in the beginning of book two, the Dragons of Earth inform us that Every Car Can Die. First subverted when Kamui sacrifices his Subaru after Nakano, double-subverted when Subaru thinks he can blow it up with a cigarette, discussed and triple-subverted when Seishirou explains that it takes effort to blow up a car and that it'll take more than a little cigarette to do it, quadruple-subverted when Kakyou fails to blow it up in a firefight, and shot to hell when Subaru blows it up with a little cigarette anyway. Phew!
- Eye Scream: Kakyou's whole arc deals with eyes.
- Kakyou himself is going blind from all of this eavesdropping on people more powerful than he is.
- Then he sees that, when They come for him, They have one of each others' eyes.
- And then They stab him through his.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Sorata.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Aoki with the same electrical wires he used to kill Kigai.
- Ho Yay: Discussed, occasionally realized.
- Seishirou and Subaru are in a functional, if parasitic and disturbing, relationship. As in Tokyo Babylon and X, this is far enough out of subtext and into text to qualify. Pretty much every scene they are in together ends or begins with sexual activity.
- Kakyou is carrying a torch for Hokuto, but has multiple dreams that twist and conflate her with Subaru and Seishirou.
- Fuuma and Sorata also have a Last Kiss.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Twice, Inuki and then Aoki. In the Back.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: Subverted. Kusanagi has to ask which cars they were hidden in. The Ambulances.
- Invisible to Normals: As in X. Inuki's invisibility to normals is more tragic and disturbing here, however, as Yuzuriha is married to Daisuke who cannot see him.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Multiple times, thanks to Kakyou.
- Kick the Dog: Kamui is very fond of doing this.
- Just. The Ambulances. Which might actually cross the
Moral Event Horizon.
- Just. The Ambulances. Which might actually cross the
- Love Makes You Evil: Double-subversion: Subaru, Subaru, Subaru.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Subaru has Sorata and Arashi over for tea ceremony, during which he tells them very politely where they and their apocalypse can stick it.
- Officer and a Gentleman: Kusanagi.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Seishirou explicitly tells Subaru that he will not permit anyone but Subaru to kill him—and that he'll have to.
- Only One Name: Hinoto, Kanoe, Nataku, Anonymous.
- Parental Obliviousness: Aoki has no idea who Yuka's boss is.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Imonoyama. See also Screw the Rules, I Have Money!.
- Redemption Equals Death: Kakyou calls Subaru out on his inaction and gets a fist through the eyes for it.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Most of the ones that pass through Kakyou.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Subaru's sacrifice negates all the supernatural components of the apocalypse and severs the connection of magic to the world, effectively making everything Kamui and Fuuma did pointless.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Burly, athletic and gigantic Fuuma and frail, sickly and artistic Kotori.
- The Everyman: Segawa Keiichi, sports reporter.
- Wrong Genre Savvy:
- Kamui thinks he is a Villain Protagonist when he is in fact neither.
- Fuuma thinks he is an Everyman Hero in either an Urban Fantasy or a Spy flick, and is wrong on both counts. Etc.
- Yuzuriha educates Kusanagi on the brief history of heroes and villains in anime, at the beginning of book 2, and she still doesn't get it.
