Literature / The Ending Chronicle

The Ending Chronicle (Owari no Chronicle) is a Light Novel series written by Minoru Kawakami, the same author of Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere. It takes place in the same universe as Horizon, several thousand years in the past. The series takes place in the second era of Minoru's six-stage universe, AHEAD.

Once there were 10 alternate worlds besides ours. Those worlds were perceived as individual Gears and so they are referred to as such. They had their own unique characteristics or Concepts. They were not parallel, they existed in multiple phases atop each other like a planetary orbit and they could approach each other and interact on cycles. There were ten Gears from 1st-Gear through 10th-Gear and a Low-Gear (that represents the Earth).

It was scheduled that in the year 1999 the worlds would collide and destroy each other, leaving only one world. To avoid this, the worlds started the Concept War, in which they stole each others' concepts in order to destroy the worlds until only one world was left. Our world won in the year 1945, the same year World War II ended. All of this was concealed so no normal people are aware of this fact in the current time.

On the 25th December of 1995, the Minus Concepts, in other words the negative concepts of our world, became active and caused what is known as the Great Kansai Earthquake. It has been predicted that the activity of the negative concepts will reach its critical point at exactly ten years after it began.

In the year 2005, after the death of his corporate blackmailer grandfather, the Ordinary High-School Student Mikoto Sayama is suddenly summoned by the giant corporation IAI. He learns about the Concept War in which his grandfather took part and how this world is headed for destruction due to the acceleration of the Minus Concepts. To prevent this, negotiations must be undertaken with the survivors of the other Gears so the 10 Concept Cores formed from the positive concepts of the destroyed worlds can be released and absorbed by our world. And Sayama has been given the right to be the representative of Low-Gear in the Leviathan Road, the final negotiations.

And so Sayama is caught up in the final battle to clean up after the Concept War which left behind so much enmity.

The series had 14 volumes published from 2003 to 2005.

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Provides examples of:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Cowling Sword Futsuno, created by Akio Kashima. Thanks to its name (which means "the cutting soul"), the 2nd-Gear concepts give it the power to cut through anything. Even light and darkness.
• Abusive Parents: In his madness to try and stop the destruction of 3rd-Gear, Zeus stopped viewing the inhabitants of his world as human beings and only saw them as tools for survival in the war, and his own children were no exception. When it became clear his daughter Artemis could not have children, he sent her will to Tartaros and used her body to construct a God of War. He also planned to use his unborn child Mikage for a cloning program to increase the population of 3rd-Gear.
• Action Prologue: The series prologue features a woman being chased by a werewolf and a God of War. Sayama and Shinjou arrive to save her just in time.
• All Men Are Perverts: Nearly all male characters are perverted to some level.
• All Myths Are True: Before the destruction of the other Gears, the worlds interacted with each other through gates and Low-Gear created connections via its Ley Lines, so that has given it the characteristics of all the other Gears’ along with myths, legends, and cultures related to said Gears. In other words, each world is the basis to one of the mythologies of Low-Gear.
• All Witches Have Cats: The 1st-Gear witch Brunhild has a cat Familiar.
• Another Dimension: Before the Concept War, there were 10 alternate worlds besides ours.
• Arboreal Abode: Teacher Ooki lives inside a tree in the middle of the forest.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Volume 7 is about the epic battle to save the world, and it occurs during Christmas.
• Baku: Sayama has a pet baku that can create visions of the past.
• Battle Couple: Team Leviathan is full of them:
  • Sayama and Shinjou form the Guys Smash, Girls Shoot dynamic whenever they team up in battle.
  • Izumo and Kazami fight together as the Team Leviathan vanguard force.
  • Hiba and Mikage pilot the God of War Susamikado together.
  • Harakawa and Heo work together in battle with Harakawa piloting the mechanical dragon Thunder Fellow and Heo synchronizing her mind and senses with it to control the machine's limiters.
• Beta Couple: Izumo and Kazami. They have their dysfunctions, but they still have it easier than the main couple Sayama and Shinjou.
• Beyond the Impossible: This is the hidden power of Low-Gear no other Gear possesses. Low-Gear has a contradiction allowance Concept which makes anything in the world possible, from the birth of a Sex Shifter to the creation of new Concepts.
• BFS:
  • V-Sw, an unconventional enormous Cowling Sword that has 6th-Gear Concept Core sealed inside and powering its abilities. V-Sw has a will on its own, recognizes Kaku as its owner and its power is based in the concept of "destruction and rebirth" making it one of the most powerful weapons that the Japanese UCAT has at their disposition.
  • The holy sword Gram from 1st-Gear is about two meters long.
  • Futsuno, the Cowling Sword created by Akio Kashima. It's even larger than Izumo's V-Sw.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the prologue, just as the chased woman is about to be finished by a God of War, Shinjou and Sayama appear and save her.
• The Big Damn Kiss: The final volume dedicates an illustration to Sayama and Shinjou kissing with each wearing one of the Georgius gloves after the end of the Final Battle.
• Big Fancy House: The Tamiya household is a large estate filled with extended gardens and a large Japanese-style house.
• Birthday Buddies: Sayama and Shinjou share the same birthday; December 24th, Christmas Eve.
• Bizarro Universe: Top-Gear, which was basically Low-Gear except it was made of only positive Concepts as opposed to the negative ones of Low-Gear.
• Boarding School: Sayama, Shinjou, Izumo and Kazami all live at the male student dormitories of Taka-Akita Academy.
• Body Sled: Sayama uses Nijun as a surfboard during their duel at the mountains of Okutama to make things more fun.
• Bookcase Passage: In Volume 6-A, Team Leviathan discover the Secret Room in the Kinugasa Library after they figure out what books must be moved to open the bookcase passage.
• Bridal Carry:
  • Akio Kashima carries his wife like this after she loses her umbrella, to keep her from getting wet in the rain.
  • Ryuuji Hiba carries Mikage in his arms several times, since Mikage's legs don't work well and she can't even stand up on her own.
• The Caligula: After usurping the throne from his father, the king of 3rd-Gear Zeus gave in to his desperation and madness to ensure his Gear's survival. He ceased to see his own people as humans, permitted incest in an attempt to increase the population, those who could not give birth or disobeyed him were sent to the Tartaros Machina while their bodies were joined with Gods of War and he also had people from other Gears abducted in order to use them as tools for 3rd-Gear's own survival.
• Calling Your Attacks: Invoked. 2nd-Gear concepts give names powers, therefore attack names will give form to the attack itself. Sayama tests it in a hilarious way by turning Boldman's baldness into a weapon with the Bald Flash.
• Cats Are Snarkers: Brunhild's cat familiar sure is quite snarky and enjoys getting in his master's nerves.
• Cherry Blossoms: The final volume ends with Sayama and Shinjou visiting the Taka-Akita Academy during spring with the cherry blossoms in full bloom. There, the two proclaim their love for each other and have their Happily Ever After.
• Crotch-Grab Sex Check: Sayama does this to both Sadame and Setsu Shinjou to be sure of their genders and to clear any suspicion that they might be the same person. However, he fails to consider the possibility that Shinjou is in fact a Sex Shifter.
• Cybernetic Mythical Beast: The mechanical dragons originated from 5th-Gear.
• Dead Person Impersonation: The man who calls himself Abram Mesam is actually the former King of 9th-Gear Sarv, who assumed the identity of the real Abram after the latter died in the Concept War.
• Defector from Decadence: Rhea betrayed and abandoned 3rd-Gear out of disgust of the inhuman methods Zeus had resorted in his madness to increase the population and win the Concept War.
• "Dinner, Bath, or Sex" Offer: Played for Laughs between Kazami and Izumo when she lets him in her parents' house.
  Kazami: "What will it be first? Dinner? A bath? Or…"
  Izumo: "Right in the entranceway!?" *gets punched by Kazami*
• Distant Finale: At the end of the final volume, the story jumps back to two years in the future where the initial prologue took place. Sayama and Shinjou, now graduates, visit Taka-Akita Academy where they reaffirm their love for each other.
• Distant Prologue: The prologue takes place two years after the main plot happens, with Sayama leading Team Leviathan in a battle against werewolves and a God of War.
• Divided for Publication: Similar to Minoru's other light novel series Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, Owari's volumes are divided in chapters, some in two while others are in three, but keeps the same numbering.
• Doorstopper: The final volume is around 1090 pages as seen here◊ (Owari is the one on the second stack from the left). Still, it's nothing compared to the length of the novels Minoru came up later for Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere.
• Draconic Humanoid: The half-dragons, a race of humanoid dragons from 1st-Gear.
• Dream Weaver: Baku, a small boar-like creature that can show people the past through dreams.
• Elaborate University High: Taka-Akita Academy takes up the area that would cover three-fourths of a city. It has a few shopping districts, farms, and factories on the grounds and a lot of the city's people live inside it.
• Empathic Weapon: The concept weapons that house Concept Cores have wills of their own and they choose their master.
• Energy Beings: The Messengers of Wanambi of 8th-Gear are thermal life forms that continued to live by emitting heat into the empty space of their world. For that reason, they took a form that does not allow to excess heat to escape and they build up heat through thought.
• Fake Twin Gambit: Sadame Shinjou and her "twin brother" Setsu Shinjou are actually the same person, Sadagiri Shinjou. She recurrently switches identities to hide her Sex Shifter situation.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The culture of the Gears mirrors those of countries of our world; 1st-Gear is based on Germany, 2nd-Gear is Japan, 3rd-Gear is Ancient Greece, 4th-Gear is Africa, 5th-Gear is America, 6th-Gear is India, 7th-Gear is China, 8th-Gear is Australia and so on.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Several mythological and fantastic creatures came to our world after the destruction of the other Gears, this goes from witches and dragons to giant robots to even gods. And that's why you can find those creatures everywhere in Horizon.
• First-Name Basis: Kaku Izumo and his girlfriend Chisato Kazami call each other by their first names as a sign of great intimacy.
• Flaming Sword: The Cowling Sword Hinokagutsuchi. With a philosopher’s stone, it can produce high enough heat to cut through metal. In a 2nd-Gear Concept Space, its name gives it the ability to shoot out fire.
• Flat World: 1st-Gear was a small world with diameter of one hundred kilometers formed by table of land surrounded by a finite sea and a starry dome with the sun floating around above and below the world.
• Floral Theme Naming: Miyako Tsukuyomi invokes this to give real names to the automaton maids at Apollo's mansion. She lets them choose a pot with flower seeds in it and the name of the flowers they chose will be their names.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Izumo and Kazami switch bodies under the effect of a concept during their fight against Gyes and Aigaion. The same happens to Sayama and Shinjou once they enter the Concept Space.
• Gadgeteer Genius: The king Cronus of 3rd-Gear was said to be skilled at making automatons and Gods of War, and he also modified the Tartaros Machina to be used for invasions. He was even able to create a type of automaton with the capacity to evolve into a human being.
• Gender-Bender Friendship: Making herself pass as her own twin brother, Shinjou becomes Sayama's roomate and they form a friendship.
• Gender-Bent Alternate Universe: All Low-Gear humans had an opposite-sex counterpart in Top-Gear. Most of the members of the Army are the opposite-sex version of a member of Team Leviathan (Mikoku is female Sayama, Tatsumi is female Hiba and Alex is male Heo).
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Team Leviathan, eventually formed by four boys (Mikoto Sayama, Kaku Izumo, Ryuuji Hiba, Dan Harakawa) and four girls (Sadagiri Shinjou^note Shinjou is both sexes, but her character is treated like a girl in general, Chisato Kazami, Mikage Hiba, Heo Thunderson).
• Ghost Reunion Ending: At the explosion that destroys Noah near the end of the final volume, Sayama and Shinjou see the ghosts of all the major characters who have died through the course of the series, including their own parents.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: In the middle of the final volume, Sayama fights Mikoku at Babel's Tower as Mikoku activates its transformation into the dragon Leviathan. The dragon then destroys UCAT's headquaters where Shinjou was undergoing surgery. Sayama returns to the academy as he's suffering over not knowing if Shinjou is still alive... Until he finds her naked at her bed in their bedroom. Sayama kisses Shinjou and both decide it's time to take their relationship to the next level.
• Gravity Master: The people of the 3rd-Gear are masters of gravity. They were the ones who created the automatons and gave them the power to control gravity.
• Gray Rain of Depression: Rain is a symbol of drama and depression through the second arc. It's mainly related to an accident caused by Kashima's sword testing eight years prior to the series in which he caused a disastrous landslide and caused an accident that nearly killed the woman who later became his wife.
• Great Offscreen War: The Concept War, in which all the Gears except ours were destroyed. It happened 60 years before the start of the story and the main plot deals with the consequences of the war such as conflicts with the survivors of the other Gears.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: All the Gears survivors to antagonize Team Leviathan are portrayed in sympathetic ways. Even the members of the Army are shown to be decent people outside of battle and the way they interact with each other could make you forget they are the villains. In fact, one of the main points later in the story is the characters questioning who are the real good guys and bad guys of the story.
• Groin Attack:
  • Izumo says one time Kazami put a molester that touched her ass on the railing next to the train seats like it was a wooden horse and shoved his crotch against the metal pole again and again.
  • Kazami does this to herself when she and Izumo get their bodies swapped. Needless to say, she regrets it soon.
• Half-Identical Twins: Sadame and Setsu Shinjou. They look identical except that Sadame is a girl and Setsu is a boy. Subverted as they are actually the same person.
• Happily Married: Akio Kashima and his wife Natsu are a very happy married couple. However, there's a lot of drama surrounding them due to a troubled backstory.
• Hive Mind: The plant lifeforms of 4th Gear possess a single collective will and they view themselves as a single being.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The destruction of 2nd-Gear was caused by its own Concept Core, which went out of control, transformed into the fire dragon Yamata and burned down the entire 2nd-Gear world.
  • 5th-Gear's land and its people were destroyed by the mechanical dragon Black Sun which they created when it went out of control. It's later revealed Black Sun actually did it to put a stop to the suffering of the humans of 5th-Gear after they were attacked by a concept bomb from 9th-Gear.
• Humongous Mecha:
  • The Gods of War, giant mechas originally created by the people of the 3rd-Gear World.
  • There's also Susaou, the giant humanoid machine created to restrain the fire dragon Yamata.
• I Know Your True Name: The answer to the question necessary to seal Yamata is its real name, which it forgot after 2nd-Gear lost control of their Concept Core. Relating it to the legend of Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi, Team Leviathan concludes Yamata's real name must be either Kusanagi or Murakumo. It turns out it's both.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Shinjou is writing about her adventures with Team Leviathan and making it into a novel.
• Lap Pillow:
  • Kazami lets Izumo rest in her lap after she knocks him out.
  • After his fight with a werewolf, Sayama asks Shinjou to let him rest in her lap with her singing a lullaby.
• Last-Name Basis: All the members of Team Leviathan are called by their last names. Only Mikage and Heo are called by their first names.
• Ley Line: The Divine States-World Interaction Theory says Japan has the same geographical features as the world, so it's the center of the world ley lines and by connecting them closely to the world's ley lines, the direction of the world is headed in can be discovered and its future trends can be influenced. According to this theory, each of the regions of Japan are connected to a continent; Kansai/Chugoku is Europe, Kyushu is Africa, Hokkaido is America, Shikoku is Australia and Tohoku/Kantou is Asia.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Kaku and his girlfriend Chisato act a lot like this. In fact, they're in a de facto marital relationship already and even live together in the academy dorms.
• Long-Lived: Some of the races of the other Gears have much longer life spans than regular humans. The people of 3rd-Gear could live for thousands of years.
• Look-Alike Lovers: A rare case which turns out to be plot-relevant. A woman from Low-Gear married her own male counterpart from the Top-Gear. The result was a child with a sex-changing body, Shinjou.
• Love Triangle: According to Ryouko, there was one between Sayama's parents and Shinjou's mother. Asagi ultimately married Yume when the third party moved away and they received news that she married someone else.
• MacGuffin: The Concept Cores. They're masses of each Gear's positive concepts. All the Concept Cores were split in two, usually with one stored within a dragon and the other within a weapon. The concepts used by Low-Gear are usually a degradation extracted of one of these Concept Cores, and they are needed as a master for creating Concept Texts. The objective of the Leviathan Road is to get the other Gears' Concept Cores and release them to save Low-Gear from destruction.
• Maid Corps: Apollo's mansion is inhabited by hundreds of Robot Maids from 3rd-Gear.
• Masquerade: The existence of the other Gears, the Concept War and the real function of the UCAT institution that is in charge of the negotiations and control of the survivors of the destroyed Gears is kept secret from the public. The aboveground portion of UCAT is disguised as an IAI transportation administration building.
• Mayfly–December Romance: A peculiar romance develops between Apollo (a 3rd-Gear human who has likely lived for thousands of years) and Miyako Tsukuyomi (a regular Low-Gear college student).
• A Mech by Any Other Name: The Humongous Mecha from 3rd-Gear are called Gods of War.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: In 3rd-Gear, metal possesses life and therefore mechanical inventions such as the automatons have life and a conscience like any other living thing. There is even an automaton with the capacity to evolve into a human being.
• Memento MacGuffin: The rings Sayama and Shinjou wear, which are connected to their pasts. The rings are in reality the rings of Sayama's parents. They're the key to opening the barrier in the secret study of the Kinugasa Library, where the missing right half of Georgius is hidden.
• Memory-Wiping Crew: The automaton Moirai sisters have the function of erasing and altering people's memories. However, the Fake Memories they insert can be too... extravagant and therefore the effect doesn't last long.
• Mysterious Parent: The parents of most of Team Leviathan's members, particularly Sayama's and Shinjou's, are wrapped in mystery due to all of them being involved in the Great Kansai Earthquake and UCAT's blank period. Finding out more about their deceased parents is one of the most important plot points in the story which eventually leads to the truth of the destruction of Top-Gear.
• Near-Death Experience: In the final volume, Shinjou is on verge of death because of getting stabbed by the power of the name Mikoku (carve into life). Her mind awakes with no memories in a shore where there's people boarding a boat. Shinjou contemplates the possibility of going to the other side to meet with her parents, but Sayama's grandfather and mother stop her and help her remember she needs to go back to be with Sayama. She later questions it was a mere dream or not.
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Army, a mysterious group lead by a man named Hajji, who claims their goal is to destroy every concept save the ones that preserve them.
• No Loves Intersect: There's multiple Official Couples and no romantic rivalries.
• Official Couple: Every member of the Team Leviathan is in a romantic relationship with another.
  • Mikoto Sayama and Sadagiri Shinjou. The development of their relationship is one of the main points of the story.
  • Kaku Izumo and Chisato Kazami. They are even living together and are practically a de facto married couple.
  • Ryuuji Hiba and Mikage.
  • Dan Harakawa and Heo Thunderson.
• One Cast Member per Cover: Like in Horizon, each novel volume has a different girl on the cover. Only the main heroine Shinjou appears on more than one cover (1-A, 2-A and 7). The sole exception is Volume 3-B having the three Moirai sisters on the cover.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The glove Georgius only accepts to be worn by Sayama and Shinjou. If anyone else tries to put it on, they will get their hand seriously injured.
• Opposites Attract: Sayama and Shinjou are opposites in every way; he is a self-centered and arrogant self-proclaimed "villain", while she is a naive and insecure pacifist.
• Orochi: Yamata, the eight-headed fire dragon formed from the Concept Core of 2nd-Gear, the world that is the basis of Japanese Mythology.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Sayama's father died in the Great Kansai Earthquake and his mother followed him shortly after. He tries to pretend this doesn't bother him, but it clearly does.
  • Shinjou has no memory of her parents and is currently looking for them.
• The Pen Is Mightier: Sayama faces a werewolf using just two silver ballpoint pens to defend himself.
• Perception Filter: The Art of Walking, originated from 2nd-Gear, is a technique that makes the user imperceptible by moving into the target's mental blind spot. Those most skilled at it, like Atsuta, can hide their presence from everyone in a big room.
• Phantom Zone: The Concept Spaces. They are pseudo-alternate worlds created by borrowing a portion of an area's string vibration. When a Concept Space is deployed, two versions of that area exist on top of each other. They are created by rewriting a portion of the parent string vibration, creating a space where a part of reality is based on the concept of another world. As only a portion of its parent string vibration was altered, they are connected to reality and are easy to deploy and remove. Due to the difference in vibration density one cannot leave without a String Watch that match the wearer’s parent string vibration accordingly. Without one of those, one cannot usually enter into one unless their string vibration was registered by the one who made the space.
• Philosopher's Stone: Philosopher's stones are devices that can be used to give the bearer advantage in Concept Spaces or to give them special abilities outside the Concept Spaces. People can also use them to stop their aging.
• Pipe Pain: Aigaion uses gravity control to attack Izumo and Kazami with pipes.
• Planimal: 4th-Gear's inhabitants take the form of animal-like creatures made out of plants.
• Pre-Climax Climax: In the final volume, Sayama and Shinjou finally have sex right before the Final Battle against Mikoku and Noah begins.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Characters and weapons related to the Gears are named after elements of the myths their Gear is based on.
  • 1st-Gear (based on the epic poem Nibelungenlied and The Ring of the Nibelung) has Siegfried, Brunhild, Venerable Hagen, Princess Gutrune, Doctor Regin, the half-dragons Fasolt and Fafner, the mechanical dragons Fafnir and Fafnir Custom, and the holy sword Gram.
  • 2nd-Gear (based on Japanese Mythology) has characters with the surnames of Shinto deities like Kashima, Tsukuyomi and Atsuta, the fire dragon Yamata, the sword Totsuka and the giant humanoid machine Susaou.
  • 3rd-Gear (based on Greek mythology) has the King Zeus, his father Cronus, his children Apollo and Artemis, Rhea, the God of War Typhon and the Concept Weapon Keravnos. There's also the names of the different types of automatons; the combat-oriented Hecatoncheires and the three Moirai created to manipulate and manage people's memories.
  • 4th-Gear (based on African Mythology) has the tree serpent Mukiti.
  • 5th-Gear (based on Aztec Mythology) has the mechanical dragon Xolotl 3. The mechanical dragons Black Sun and White Creation are also called Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl respectively. In this case, it's made explicit that the humans of Low-Gear were the ones who gave the 5th-Gear mechanical dragons their names since all the humans of their world had already died.
• Restart the World: In the final volume, Mikoku and the automaton Noah plan to use Concept creation to make the world immortal, which will greatly change the world's parent string vibration and the world would be remade from scratch.
• Retirony: According to Harakawa's mother, his father wanted to quit the military and open a bookstore to live a quiet life with his family. However, he ended up dying at the Great Kansai Earthquake before he could retire.
• Rewriting Reality: One of 1st-Gear's main concepts is writing is magic and objects could become anything they wrote on them. The problem was the lack of restrictions of this concept prevented 1st-Gear's society from using writing to create history records and share knowledge.
• Ring World Planet:
  • 2nd-Gear was a cylindrical world surrounded by empty space and divided from top to bottom into a Heavenly Territory, an Earthly Territory and a Crust Territory.
  • 4th-Gear was a world of a three-layer ring of land. The rings rotated around the star in the center.
• Robot Girl: The automatons, which were originally developed by the 3rd-Gear.
• Robot Maid: Most of the automatons created with 3rd-Gear technology are dressed like maids and function under the directive of serving a master.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Sayama and Shinjou. Sayama is a self-proclaimed "villain" who is always insulting and mocking those around him, his partner Shinjou is sweet and gentle to the point of refusing to harm her enemies. In fact, Sayama chooses Shinjou as his counterbalance because he thinks she's the "good" he needs for his "evil".
• School Festival: Takaakita Academy's spring school festival known as the All Holiday Festival.
• Sealed with a Kiss: The final volume ends with Sayama and Shinjou kissing after promising to always be together.
• Series Mascot: Baku, a small boar-like creature that always appears in illustrations at the start of the volumes and is almost always resting on Sayama's shoulder.
• Sex for Solace: According to Ryouko Tamiya, she and Sayama slept together once. She says it was just a "spur of the moment kind of thing" since it was a very depressing time for both; Sayama's father (whom Ryouko was in love with) died during the relief operations for the great Kansai earthquake, his grandfather was busy with work and it's implied his mother attempted a shared suicide with him.
• Sex Shifter: Shinjou. Her body changes sex from day to night; she is a boy during the day and a girl during the night. She pretends to be her own twin brother when she's a boy to hide this.
• Shiritori: The Wanambi of 8th-Gear communicate through this after being taught the game by Shinjou's grandfather.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Sayama gives one to Shinjou when she confesses she's both Sadame and Setsu and she tells him he shouldn't kiss a boy, but Sayama shows her he doesn't mind.
• Sinister Scythe: The 1st-Gear concept weapon, Requiem Sense. It's a giant scythe that stores the souls it hears and is essentially the underworld itself. Venerable Hagen originally possessed it as the chief administrator of the underworld, but it's currently in possession of Brunhild Schild.
• Snow Means Love: Early in Volume 6-B, there's a flashback to a snowy night in Top-Gear where the parents of Shinjou came to understand each other and decided to be together.
• Stable Time Loop: The entire universe and the crucial events of the series are the result of one. In December 25 of 1995, the Five Great Peaks created a barrier to send Top-Gear's concept creation facility Noah into the void to prevent its uncontrollable negative concepts from causing more damage to Low-Gear. The void Noah was sent to was in fact the Primordial Chaos. Noah's negative concepts became the trigger of Low-Gear's creation which then produced the ten Gears and its positive copy Top-Gear. Billions of years later, Top-Gear created Noah to make the necessary concepts for all the people of the other Gears to live in Top-Gear, but they were unstable and started the destruction of the positive world which is why Noah had to be sent into the void. In addition, Sayama's father was sent back in time by the blast that vanished Noah. He then changed his name to Tenkyou Kinugasa, revealed the Concept War to Low-Gear, established the foundations of what eventually became UCAT and discovered Babel, which is actually Noah after being sent back in time. He also left everything ready for Sayama and Shinjou to eventually find the missing right Georgius that Asagi was carrying when he was transported back in time.
• Standing Between the Enemies: Siegfried does this when he interrupts the duel between Brunhild and his niece Diana.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: In 2nd-Gear, names provide power and therefore characters and weapons get powers and abilities related to their names. For example, those with the name of the sword god Kashima are very skilled at swordsmithing and those with the name of the moon god Tsukuyomi have the power to control moonlight. There's also a Flaming Sword named after the fire god Hinokagatsuchi.
• Synchronization:
  • The pilots of the Gods of War must fuse themselves with the mecha in order to ride it. When the God of War is damaged, the injury is sent back to its pilot.
  • The mechanical dragons also need humans to synchronize with them so they can be piloted, but in this case if the pilot maintains themselves synchronized with the mechanical dragon for too long, they will irretrievably fuse themselves with the machine and become one with it.
• Taking the Bullet: Princess Gutrune shielded Siegfried from the out-of-control mechanical dragon Fafnir. She died shortly after from her wounds.
• Talking Weapon: Concept weapons such as G-Sp2 and the holy sword Gram are able to talk.
• That Man Is Dead: When Hajji calls his former king Sarv, this one replies Sarv is dead and Abram is the one who still lives.
• Their First Time: Sayama and Shinjou consummate their relationship in the final volume. Special mention to Sayama doing it with the girl and boy versions of Shinjou.
• Title Drop: The holy sword Gram tells Sayama that going through the Leviathan Road means he will have to see "the history of how everything came to an end"; the ending chronicle.
• Tower of Babel: A tower that it's said to be the relic that tells of the beginning of the Concept War. Not much is known about it and any information has been completely shut down, but it's most likely located in Kii Peninsula, Japan's version of the Middle East. Since the tower appears in The Bible, Babel must be related to Low-Gear's biblical mythology, the only mythology that is not based on another Gear.
• Truth Serums: The philosopher's stone interrogation device Shameful 2000 developed by American UCAT functions as this. It contains a philosopher's stone that will make the person it's affecting want to let out all their secrets. The person will begin making confessions of their own accord in proportion to the volume setting.
• Twisted Christmas: The disaster of the great Kansai earthquake, in which Sayama's father died, took place on Christmas of 1995. It has been predicted that the activity of the negative concepts will reach its critical point and bring destruction to the world on Christmas of 2005.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Sayama becomes attracted to both Sadame and Setsu Shinjou. Luckily, they turn out to be one and the same.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: During the Concept War, the king of 3rd-Gear Cronus had his position usurped by his son Zeus. Once he was in control and decided to ensure his world's survival no matter what, Zeus tried to encourage a population increase by even permitting incest. Those who could not give birth or disobeyed Zeus' orders were sent to the Tartaros Machina while their bodies were joined with Gods of War to continue the fighting.
• Umbrella of Togetherness: Kashima carries his wife and his baby daughter in his arms with all of them under an umbrella to keep them from getting wet in the rain.
• The 'Verse: This is the series for the second era of Minoru's six-stage universe, which is divided in FORTH, AHEAD, EDGE, GENESIS, OBSTACLE and CITY. It takes place in the distant past of On a Godless Planet (the EDGE series), Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (the GENESIS series) and the CITY Series.
• Villains Out Shopping: When the Army isn't working on their shady plans, we get scenes of them having meals together and going out shopping like normal people. Sometimes it's easy to forget they're the villains.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: Apollo gives a hilarious one to Miyako Tsukuyomi, with him simply bowing and asking her to marry him before even properly introducing himself.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: All of Team Leviathan minus Mikage are teenagers who go to school normally while juggling it with their secret jobs at UCAT and mission to deal with all Gears before the world is destroyed in Christmas.
• Was Once a Man:
  • The mechanical dragons of 5th-Gear besides Black Sun and White Creation are actually humans of that world that combined themselves with the incomplete mechanical dragons to survive a chemical weapon from 9th-Gear.
  • There is also the pair of gloves Georgius that are in fact Shinjou's father who transformed himself into a Concept weapon to fight in the battles that would come after the destruction of Top-Gear.
• The Weird Sisters: The three automaton Moirai sisters: Moira 1st is gentle and somewhat ditzy, Moira 2nd is quiet and distant and Moira 3rd is hyperactive and childish.
• World in the Sky: The 3rd-Gear World was a collection of giant floating continents with other celestial bodies outside the atmosphere.
• World Tree: 10th-Gear was a layered world in which a heavenly world, an earthly world, and an underworld were supported by a world tree.
• The X of Y: The title of the series can be translated as "The Ending Chronicle" or "The Chronicle of the End".
• Yakuza: The Tamiya family was a yakuza family until some years ago. They supposedly have reformed, but they still seem to be involved in some shady business.
• You Are Number 6: Several automatons are named through numeration, such as the automatons of the Kanda laboratory (some named are #4 and #8) and the Moirai sisters (named Moira 1st, Moira 2nd and Moira 3rd).