OK. So take a supernatural Urban Fantasy, Harem Genre-style anime, and throw in a magical Humongous Mecha. That's Asura Cryin' by Gakuto Mikumo (writer of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Strike the Blood, and Metal Gear Survive).
Tomoharu Natsume one day receives a mysterious package from Shuri, a friend of his older brother. This box, called the Extractor, is sought after by many. At the same time, Tomoharu has to keep secret the fact that his childhood friend, Misao, is constantly hovering, ghostlike, beside him. Then a miko with heterochromia breaks into his house searching for the Extractor. After a fight breaks out in his house, he opens the box. What lies within is a mecha-like creature called the Asura Machina. That is only the beginning.
Asura Cryin' is a series of Light Novels written from 2005-2010, concluding at 14 volumes. An anime adaptation by Seven Arcs was released in the spring of 2009, with a second season following in the fall.
Provides examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Because one isn't enough, the school has three:
- The First/Holy Guards: The Saeki siblings. Knight Templar-like disposition and clothing, and apparently more than allowed to brandish firearms inside the school.
- The Second/Pilgrim Union: Rikka and Shuu. The Mercenary Company.
- The Third/Royal Dark Society: Tooru, Shuri and the Science Club. Demon Protectors.
- Action Girl: Toru for most of the series, but Aki looks to be where she got it from.
- Anti-Magic: Every ex-handler is immune to both the science of the Asura Machina and the magic of the demons. It comes at a terrible price, though.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In episode 11, Higuchi outright asks if Tomoharu's a anime protagonist.
- Bedmate Reveal: Happens at the start of Episode 2, when Tomo wakes up to find Shuri sleeping alongside him.
- Chained Heat: A variation. A red ribbon ties together Kanade and Tomoharu as they're practicing for a three-legged race. Then Kanade ties it really tight. Then a superglue splashes on it, forcing them to stay together. Even when Kanade needs to take a shower...
- Cool Mask: Picasso Mask, a swordsman with almost unfathomable skill.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Nia asks why Kanade couldn't have just burned the ribbon off earlier. It's implied that she knows she could've, but wanted to spend some time with Tomo instead.
- Cute Ghost Girl:
- Misao, though she's not quite a ghost. She's a projected existence, which is close enough.
- Aine and Shuri's sister Yukari also count. In fact although some are rarely seen, every Asura Machina in the show has one related to it.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: It is revealed that overuse of Asura Machina will burn out the Burial Doll contained within until there's nothing left. Happened to Saeki's cousin Aine at the end of the first season and Tokiya before the series ever began. By sheer luck, Tomoharu managed to avoid that from happening by becoming an Asura Cryin.
- Cyborg: Shuri, whose body is loaded with guns. More Dakka!
- Dead All Along: Tomoharu's older brother is dead all along, and what assumed to be his older brother is his alternate universe counterpart.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Saeki.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Daughters" are treated as analogous to actual children. A male partner that refuses to accept his Daughter is treated the same as a deadbeat dad who runs out on a pregnant girlfriend. Later on, Kanade is sporting an intense blush and smile when she gets to introduce the Daughter she and Tomoharu made.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: When Shuri passes out (also, she has amnesia) Tomo wants to help her get into bed, but he wears a blindfold and has Misao guide him what to do with her voice so she makes sure he doesn't see or touch anything he's not supposed to. He still gets a nosebleed when she wakes up, though.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: In this case, it's actually the "main" universe that we see get sent to hell. It turns out the first world holds several answers, as well as letting the audience see several characters who were dead in the second world be alive in this one.
- Eye Color Change: Kanade normally has blue eyes, but if she "powers up" one of her eyes changes to green. This may change if she takes a level in badass and has both eyes go green.
- Eyelid Pulltaunt: Misao makes this gesture at Tomoharu occasionally.
- Eyepatch of Power: Rikka, after having her eye damaged in a fight with Picasso Mask.
- Face–Heel Turn: Club president and Toru
- Forgot About His Powers: Tomoharu. In the fourth episode he learns about how to become an Asura Cryin', but even when others of this kind are wreaking havok, Tomoharu holds out on making a contract with Kanade until the very end. In reality, he could have gained the power that could have resolved everything much earlier and with much less suffering.
- Justified in that at least through the end of the first season, Tomoharu was explicitly told by Saeki that becoming an Asura Cryin would sign his death warrant, and we see through flashbacks that the handlers and ex-handler that would enforce the threat have successfully done so in the past. In the end, despite some people's urging, Tomoharu becoming an Asura Cryin is better for everyone involved, as Misao/Kurogane would be immune from the burning out and both Kurogane and Kanade can be empowered further
- Future Badass: From another world, but Tomoharu-1 is a much more serious version of Tomoharu-2.
- Gone Horribly Right: Black hole experiments in the first world destroyed it and caused a collision of multiple dimensions.
- The Gunslinger: Shuri and several others. Definitely not for the younger-looking characters.
- Harem-Powered: A regular human is able to access two types of power.
- By sacrificing the physical body of a partner, they can draw power from their bonds/love and use them to power a Humongous Mecha called an "Asura Machina". The partner in question literally has their emotions drained to supply energy to the mech and its attacks. Eventually, that partner will lose all emotions, run out of Life Energy completely, and disappear.
- By forming a "contract" (usually a romantic/sexual relationship) with a demon, humans can create a Familiar called a "Daughter". The demon and the Daughter will gain power from the contract, but it will not only drain Life Energy from the demon (who will crumble into crystal once depleted) but also slowly erode the human's ability to love.
- The only way to circumvent the energy issue is by taking BOTH of these options and creating what's called an "Asura Cryin". This allows the Machina and the Daughter to circulate magic with each other, both increasing their power and slowing down (but not stopping) the energy depletion. However, this does NOT solve the emotion/mind drain problem. This is reason is why Asura Cryin are feared and typically killed on sight: they're a nigh-unstoppable Person of Mass Destruction who's had their empathy and mental state eroded to the point of insanity.
- In addition to this, Tomoharu ALSO gains powers from Nia, a demon who has luck-granting/draining abilities, which she can bestow upon him with a kiss.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Aine at the end of season 1
- Hikikomori: Tokiya Kagayaki, who prefers to communicate through a stuffed koala.
- Humongous Mecha: The Asura Machina, which is at least mecha-like. More accurately, it's a magical battle armor.
- Jacob Marley Apparel:
- Tomoharu questions Misao on why this trope doesn't apply to her. Her only response is that "it'd be boring". So, somehow, she can change her clothes.
- Although she never changes her Victorian Alpine look — even on the beaches of Hawaii! — Aine's outfit is also not what she was wearing when impaled.
- Karma Houdini: Kagakagari got away after trying (and failing) to bring down a plane full of highschool students. But in the second season karma bites him back.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Tomoharu-1. Killed by a gunshot.
- Love Makes You Evil: While Kagakagari seems to be this way at first, it's Kagayaki who's gone from doing questionable things to being outright insane.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Shuri loves this trope
- Miko: Kanade
- Murder the Hypotenuse: It's later revealed that Toru-2 was well aware that Aiki-2 was about to disappear due to overuse of Kurogane. Toru intentionally pushed Aiki over the edge to force her to disappear, in the hopes that Takaya would finally fall for her. To her despair, losing Aiki only made him obsess over her more.
- Nanomachines: Apparently both the ability to be a handler and the anti-magic of an ex-handler stem from these machines.
- New Transfer Student: Misao, which, upon obtaining the Stabilizer that allowed her to be visible to normals, gets treated as an Unusually Uninteresting Sight by her friends.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Tomoharu seems to be this. Until he got a steel box which many people sought after violently.
- People Jars: The Burial Dolls within the Asura Machina.
- Playing with Fire: Kanade's powers, once put to use in helping Tomoharu recover from a cold.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Asura Machinas, which is basically a Space Marine Dreadnought in all but name and form, though the body inside are healthy. Overuse of those that aren't Asura Cryin will drain whoever inside it. Happened to Aine at the end of season 1.
- The Power of Love:
- A twisted version. Demons, when they find a contractor, get their power by sapping their contractor's ability to love. Not that the alternative is any better.
- Later played straight when Kurogane literally becomes Harem-Powered. And on on fire.
- Reflectionless Useless Eyes: Rikka loses her vision in one eye near the end of the series, and it becomes dull-colored and non-reflective.
- She Is All Grown Up: Nia spent 5 years in World 1 before Tomo shows up. She's roughly the same age as he is when he reappears.
- Smug Snake:
- Kagakagari Takaya
- Try Kiyomi from the 1st Student Government. He's WAAAAY more of a Smug Snake than Kagakagari.
- Kagayaki. And his reason is that he wants the Hagane just to live in a world where his girlfriend is.
- Soul Jar: Hisui Reishirou's/ Aine's Asura Machina in Episode 12.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Saeki isn't wearing her hair like that because anyone complimented her or anything.
- Third-Person Person: Misao
- Those Two Guys: Higuchi and An.
- Took a Level in Badass: Nia, after five years fending for herself in the first world.
- Tsundere: Saeki
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Kagayaki's reason for fighting. Even if it means destroying everything.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Most of the villains:
- Saeki is willing to stop Tomoharu to become an Asura Cryin even if he needs to enforce it with a gun.
- Kagakagari is willing to stole everything, even committing several terrorist attacks, to bring his lover back.
- Kagayaki intend to tear the second universe in order to open a universe where her (previously burned-out) lover might be exist.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: The power of Ania and her family. She can give and take luck at will.
