Funny / Fuga: Melodies of Steel

This never happens.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a dark, melancholic game where War Is Hell, but that doesn't mean that it's forgotten that it stars some Funny Animal kids being… well, kids.

This is a Moments page, so all spoilers are unmarked per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Main Game

General

• Someone pointed out that in the art for the messroom, the children's plates just so happen to be doggy bowls.

Chapter 1: "Night Without End"

• How do the Berman soldiers figure out their new adversaries are a bunch of kids? Because Kyle shows his face to gloat at them, with Mei joining him in ignorance. Even funnier is that this is just after he told Malt not to get cocky.

• From the first (dummy) intermission:
  • Kyle invents scrap fishing seemingly by accident.
    Kyle: There was a fishing rod, so I let it drag on the ground and caught some junk. I don't know if any of it's useful, but it's good for taking your mind off things.
  • Hanna's joy towards learning the Taranis has a kitchen is undercut by Boron eating up their ingredients.

• Another great Kyle moment from just before the fight with Colonel Pretzel:
  Hanna: I'm afraid to fight…
  Kyle: (clearly putting on a brave face) I-I ain't afraid…! Let's kick their asses!
  Socks: R-right…!

Chapter 2: "The Morning Rain"

• One thing Mei can ask during an intermission is if the Berman Army's reason for kidnapping her and Malt's grandma was because they wanted her yummy jam. Aside from being a sweet look at Mei's innocence, it nevertheless gives off the hilarious mental image of someone like big, scary Shvein Hax kidnapping an old lady to force her to make jam for him, and probably reveling in it.

Chapter 3: "Two Arabesques"

• Hanna assures to Hack and Chick that they won't let the two do anything dangerous. Just before they enter a battle for the first time. And just before you're allowed to use either of them as Soul Cannon ammo. Yes, to be fair, it's not like she wanted that to happen…
• Kyle's enthusiasm about the new recruits.
  Kyle: (sigh) Oh, joy. More noisy kids...

Chapter 6: "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"

• Wappa's very passive-aggressive way of declaring herself the leader by telling the other kids that they don't seem very dependable. There's the different reactions the kids can have to it. For instance, Sheena expresses her indifference towards it, Kyle's upset because he's the leader and chastises Wappa for thinking she can "lay down the law", and Mei cluelessly accepts before asking, "What's a leader?"

Chapter 10: "Council of the False Gods"

• Wappa undercuts the kids' heartwarming reunion with their families by patting herself on the back about how great a leader she is.

Chapter 12: "From Dawn To Noon On the Sea"

• All the kids are panicked or horrified by the Vanargand's monstrous appearance… with one exception:
  Jin: Heh. This is interesting…

Link Events

• "Future Inventor" (Malt and Socks):
  • Malt gets an odd concern once Socks expresses that he's gotten an "overflowing" creative urge. After Socks rambles on for a bit about the Taranis' tank treads being like all-terrain feet, he shifts to a very worried expression before bailing.
  • This exchange:
    Socks: The Taranis has something that is unequivocally different to all other tanks!
    Malt: Yup. It's big.
    Socks: Heh heh heh! An amateur's deduction!
    Malt: Which… includes yourself.
  • Socks later expresses that his idea for a bipedal tank will take centuries of research and development to be realized. Malt tries to cheer him up by saying that Socks could just leave the completion of it to a possible descendant of his. Socks is left stunned, and calls this proposition "unscientific" because it means he would have to marry down the line.
    Malt: Not sure how that's related to science…
  • Malt embarrassing Socks by calling him "Professor".
• "Love Me" (Hanna and Kyle): Hanna's first conversation with Kyle is her telling him that they need to "get to know each other better". Kyle assumes she's referring to him at first and appropriately panics, only for her to clear up that she meant that the Taranis crew in general should try improving their relationships with one another. Kyle settles down before ending the conversation immediately.
• "Master Prankster" (Hack and Hanna):
  • Hack's conversation with Hanna has him offer to teach an earnest girl like her how to play pranks. After some insistence, she obliges, and Hack soon tries to give her the idea to tie up the sleeves of all the clothes in the laundry. Hanna recalls that happening before, and realizing Hack was the one responsible for it, lividly scolds him for forcing her to untie them all as he attempts to fawn to her.
  • Hack eventually begins easing off on pranking, admitting to Hanna that he doesn't want to incite her wrath. Hanna curiously asks him if she really does comes off as that scary, though Hack admits she pales in comparison to his own mom. It becomes heartwarming when Hanna declares to fill the void for Hack while they're on the Taranis, and Hack seems cheerful about that. It goes back to being funny when:
    Hanna: (maintaining her cheerful expression) Whenever you do pranks, I'll be sure to get angry enough to even rival your mother!
    Hack: Nooooooooo!!
• "The Ultimate Prank" (Hack and Mei): Hack, the "prank teacher", tries to teach Mei how to do harmless pranks, with the aim to find out what the "ultimate prank" is. Mei ends up figuring it out first, and she refuses to tell Hack what it is. After Hack insists (to her amusement), she reveals what it is— a prank where you wonder what the prank is, ergo, absolutely nothing. In Hack's eyes, the student has become the master.

Comedies of Steel

• Malt wakes up in a cold sweat from a horrible nightmare where he was the youngest member of the crew instead of the oldest. Boron is appropriately in disbelief.

• Mei loses a baby tooth, and Hanna helps her perform a ritual where it's said throwing it into the roof of your house means you'll be blessed with healthy teeth when you grow up. Mei tries to throw it on the top of the Taranis… but doesn't get far because of how little she is.
  Mei: (as the tooth bounces back off her forehead) I can't do it!

• Kyle's introduction has him solemnly discuss how he's a Fish out of Water trying to find his way in this unfamiliar country lifestyle. And then Malt pops in to blurt out loud about Kyle's crush on Hanna, leaving the poor boy stuttering in embarrassment.

• Boron asks Kyle for help on looking for his right shoe… which is on his head. Kyle's response? Swiping it off and furiously hissing at Boron. And then Socks comes over to Kyle asking where his glasses could've gone.

• Boron's introduction has an Imagine Spot of him and Kyle— as in, the Perpetual Frowner who's constantly annoyed by him— happily frolicking in the meadows together on their way to a picnic. Perhaps Boron has it written in red somewhere, too.

• "Good Listener Boron" further shows how bad the kid is at reading people when Socks and Jin try to explain designing and engineering to the boy. He spaces out into the astral plane both times, only to return to the land of the living to congratulate them on how cool their work is.

• Jin sleeping in the pharaoh pose with his tools— uh, "friends".
  Jin: Good night, Adam, Edgar, Paul and Emil…
  Malt: G-goodnight, but my name's Malt.

• On that note, Socks "borrowing" Jin's tools through the use of Puppy-Dog Eyes. Jin believes that they must have such a mysterious power (which Socks denies) if they can convince him to give away his "friends", and he likewise begins grieving as he watches Socks working with them. "EDGAAAAAAARR!"

• Socks' life dream of making a super-powered Humongous Mecha is painfully undercut by Malt and Hanna asking him to invent things for them.
  Malt: Make a machine to make it easier to cut moosheep wool!
  Hanna: It'd be great if you could make something that dries clothes faster.
  Socks: (internally) Malt and Hanna… my friends just do not understand. Oh, boy.

• Socks' weak spot is trying to avoid being a quivering mess when faced with the other great mystery of the universe besides all the Lost Technology around them: girls. Jin does ask him why Hanna is the one exception to this.
  Socks: I grew up around her in the village, so I never really thought of her as a girl. Hanna is just… Hanna.
  Jin: The way you just said that is really annoying. Can I smack you?

• Hack gets a case of the hiccups (represented as squeaking noises). Wappa, as expected, tells him that he'll die if he hiccups a hundred times. She even counts all the way up to ninety. Hanna thankfully jumps in to explain how hiccups really work to calm down the boy, and it works… though all the technical terms Hanna uses go over his head.
• Wappa insists that she's definitely the leader of the gang, and plays "king of the hill" with the Taranis to emphasize it as the others clamor for her to come down.
  Wappa: Looking down at my little minions… it doesn't get much better than this!
  • The others simply decide to let Wappa have her fun since she managed to get herself up, assuming she'll call for help getting down sometime soon. The narration then reveals that Wappa was stuck up there until the next day.

• Wappa allowing Chick to look inside her bag, getting a frog to jump on her face. Hack has competition.

• Sheena's expression to Hack and Chick about her Nono powers being a curse only makes them more in awe about it.

• There's a shot of Sheena at a convention, selling a catalog featuring Hanna in different outfits. Kyle, wearing a mask, sheepishly comes over to buy a couple of them.

• Malt and Kyle decide to roshambo over who gets to clean the toilets. Malt chooses scissors, Kyle chooses paper… but Kyle insists that it's a tie since showing his claws clearly means he also chose scissors. Malt responds appropriately.
  • Malt loses the next round (choosing scissors, with Kyle choosing rock), and insists that a lack of claws means it must be paper. Kyle then tells him it doesn't work like that.
  • Boron treating Malt and Kyle's argument like a sporting event.
  • Kyle insists that Cats Hate Water prevents him from cleaning the bathtub.
    Malt: What are you talking about!? You're always in the bath the longest! Even longer than the girls!
    • Kyle's bullshitting becomes even more obvious when you realize that real-life Abyssinian cats actually like water.
  • One round of roshambo later, and Malt loses… again. With the paper and scissors between him and Kyle reversed.
    Malt: I don't get it…!

• Wappa, Hack and Chick run the "Secret Nibblers Club" where they snack on food between meals. Upon them announcing themselves to the world, Boron shows up and asks to join. Wappa declines since Boron is already a Big Eater in both size and personality, and thus doesn't nibble away food so much as he swallow it whole.
  Wappa: I mean, what's the point in joining our team if you always sneak nibbles anyway?
  Boron: (genuinely surprised) What? How'd you know!?
  • Later, Boron beats the three to the messroom, prompting Hack and Chick to tie him up with rope as Wappa berates him for scarfing down an entire plate instead of, y'know, nibbling from it.
  • Wappa then vents to Hanna about it… and accidentally lets slip to her about the "Secret Nibblers Club". The narration then explains that this is what led it to be disbanded.

• From the "Fight Sleepiness" episode:
  • Socks falls asleep following an all-nighter of designing, and Jin decides to keep him awake by screaming in his ear that they're under attack.
  • Hanna tries helping Sheena fall asleep by telling her to count moosheep. Sheena's never seen a moosheep before, so Hanna tries suggesting that she count Borons instead. Sheena's Imagine Spot is thus one Boron struggling to jump over a fence while the rest are stuck waiting in line.
  • Malt tries reading Mei a bedtime story to get her to sleep, only to fall asleep himself as soon as he gets to "Once upon a time". Mei's reaction to this is priceless— it even reminded some of the "Surprised Pikachu" image.

• "Set Your Soul Ablaze!" finally manages to get humor out of the Soul Cannon:
  • During a tough battle, Malt insists on sacrificing himself to the super-weapon, and he has a dramatic argument with Hanna about it like one you'd expect to see in a war movie, only for Hanna to just stop him in his tracks by slapping the crap out of him from behind.
  • Jin suggests something else: the kids shouldn't use their life force to power the Soul Cannon… if they just kidnap Berman soldiers and stuff them into it instead! Hanna, already hating the violence the kids go through daily, is predictably shocked and appalled by Jin's suggestion to go even further with it, and elbows him in the back even harder than she did Malt.
  • A couple YouTube comments have joked that, in-universe, a slap to the head is how Hanna applies Soothing Song to relieve the kids of their fear.

• Jin's towel unfortunately gets lost in the rainstorm before being blasted to bits by a lightning strike. He holds the Berman responsible.

• Malt, because he's the oldest, attempts to get Kyle to confess his love for Hanna through giving her a bouquet of flowers.
  • This exchange between the two after Malt's first attempt:
    Malt: Those flowers… you didn't give them to Hanna. As the oldest, I take full responsibility…
    Kyle: Yeah, and it's all your fault.
  • Malt decides to give the flowers to Hanna for Kyle, prompting the cat boy to attempt to restrain onto Malt only to be dragged across the floor.
    Hanna: (watching from behind) Aw, they're such good friends—♪
  • The revelation that Malt did eventually give the bouquet… to Jin.
    Jin: (blushing, holding the bouquet and a love letter) Uhh, thanks for the gesture, but… I can't accept these!

• Boron's Imagine Spot of a Taranis made of bread.
  • Boron weeps over how his eating of a giant sandwich was All Just a Dream. Socks comments on it though using our kind of language:
    Socks: Ah, the "it was all just a dream" trope… this is actually an ancient method to end a story.
  • Skinny!Boron. Socks is horrified, but Malt is relieved.

• Hanna's job as the Team Mom is a heavy burden to bear:
  • Malt scrap fishes with Mei and finds a pair of panties, prompting the two to do a celebratory song and dance while a Hanna painted red expresses horror.
  • Hack trying to get Hanna's attention by breaking things. After three strikes, she's had enough. Did she figure out that Hack was breaking stuff on purpose or that she is furious that Hack is just that clumsy? We will never know.
    Hanna: Hack… don't.
    Hack: O-okay…
  • Hanna hates bugs and kills one (whose utterly squashed remains are pixellated), and it's described that Kyle "disposed of the body" later. Elh would sympathize.

• We get another look at Malt and Kyle's dynamic:
  • Kyle has a Potty Emergency as Boron holds up the john, and so Malt, as the oldest, has a solution… the duck potty chair!
    Kyle: I AIN'T GONNA USE THAT!!!
  • Malt panting during a hot day and going ballistic when noticing that Kyle's still wearing tight, heavy clothing.
    Malt: Kyle, it's too hot! Take this off!
    Kyle: No, take your own stuff off!
  • Malt teasing Kyle over his crush on Hanna when noticing that the latter's nose is bleeding, and then calling out Kyle for apparently thinking up… certain things involving Hanna.
    Malt: I don't think so, Kyle!
    Kyle: (shocked) Telepathy!?

• Sheena and her doll Bleuette get cookies from Boron, so Sheena chooses to savor them out of respect by making very teensy-tiny nibbles. After five days, the first cookie's barely a quarter of the way eaten, and Boron— not realizing that they were the ones he gave to Sheena— assumes they were just nibbled on by a mouse and so gobbles them up to prevent them from going to waste, to Sheena's horror.

• Kyle daydreaming about Hanna as a doctor. While his first Imagine Spot is him being a doctor alongside her, his second is him being one of her patients, dreaming that he's being forced to take medicine that has the side effect of making him look like Boron. The kicker is Malt (in a female nurse outfit) tying him up to prevent him from resisting it.

• Wappa and Hack fighting over being the leader:
  • Wappa's leader-like "patrol" of the tank leads to her knocking Boron into a bucket of paint and proceeding to make a "tactical retreat" as Malt calls for her to come back and apologize. What makes it even funnier is Wappa's Sonic-like Wheel of Feet.
  • Hack proving that he's leader material by trying to carry Hanna's laundry basket and falling over.
  • Malt scolding the two over not considering what would happen "if the leader causes trouble for everyone". And then claiming that it doesn't matter because he's the oldest and that thus makes him the leader by default.

• Jin tries to prepare food without washing his hands first, so Hanna's response is to dunk his entire upper half into the sink.

• The Radio Woman gives the kids directions on where to drive the Taranis, which inspires Socks to eventually invent the Little Tail Bronx equivalent to the GPS.
  • One that's especially funny if you're sick of being told to use the Soul Cannon in battles: the Taranis is being constantly pecked at by a woodpecker (the post-Reset equivalent, given its mammalian ears and tail), and the Radio Woman thinks that it's a dire situation that needs the Soul Cannon, to Malt and Mei's shock.
  • Kyle, angered by Boron sleeping on his clothes, kicking the inside the Taranis so hard that the Radio Woman also thinks that they're in a Soul Cannon situation.

• Britz's episode starts with an introduction to his troubled past as a Child Soldier on a strenuous battlefield, followed by him defecting from the Berman to join the Taranis crew… which in itself is a battlefield of a near-dozen other rowdy kids living without adult supervision.
  • Britz feels "an odd pressure and gaze" during his time on the Taranis: namely, a paranoid Jin stalking him and repeating "Berman" over and over until jump-scaring him.
  • Kyle tries to help Britz fit in better by giving him a set of clothes other than his Berman army uniform. Where did he get them, you ask?
    Kyle: The design ain't great, but it's better than what you're wearin'.
    Britz: What's this… déjà vu…
    Malt: (banging from behind the door) Aw, come on! Where are my clothes!? Was it Chick again? Hack? Who did it!?
    Britz: I only have bad feelings about this…
  • The skit where Britz accidentally calls Hanna "Mom" in his sleep.
    Britz: AHHHHH! No, I didn't mean that… I was dreaming!
    Hanna: Everyone on the Taranis is like family, so I don't mind if you call me Mom! Heehee!
    Britz: I said that's not what I meant!

• The last episode, starring a pre-Solatorobo Baion with negative Knight of Cerebus traits:
  • "A hooded man. His name…? Hooded Man."
  • Baion's— er, we mean Hooded Man's stasis being treated like him taking a long sleep since "Children who sleep grow strong!", along with it being said to be why he also got so muscular.
  • Hooded Man decides on where to go by throwing darts at a map of Gasco (long after it broke up into Shepherd), but the dart unfortunately hits the Cloud Sea to the west. Apparently, the last method he used to decide where to go was a game of word ladder, of all things.
  • Hooded Man taking into account the beauty of this new world… only for a Berman tank to casually run over the flower he was watching.
  • His plans to eventually exterminate the Caninu and Felineko is referenced here, with him using a "Foolish Points" system to judge them:
    • Littering ("defiling their own land they'd die without"): 40 Foolish Points!
    • Overeating ("blinded by greed and cannot manage their own health"): 20 Foolish Points!
    • Fighting over a rag ("waging war to satiate the slightest desire"): 60 Foolish Points!
  • And we end the video (and the series) on a shot of Hooded Man writing down many, many more.