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Manga: Litchi Hikari Club
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"With the birth of the machine, are we walking the path to our destruction?" Manga adaptation of the Tokyo Grand Guignol production of the same name, detailing the story of a vaguely fascist-tinted club of nine middle school age boys in their endeavor to create life for their own purposes. Cobbled together of a mixture of human and robotic parts, the elegant machine Litchi is sent by the boys to procure a girl their own age for as of yet unknown reasons. A new theatrical play is in production based off the manga, and Usumaru Furuya announced a continuation series on his website that would reveal more about the cast. The original manga is available in English from Vertical Inc as Lychee Light Club. Not to be confused with Litchi Faye-Ling.
Litchi Hikari Club provides examples of:- A Date with Rosie Palms: Dafu. Chapter four. That is all.
- Abandoned Warehouse: The boys' base of operations.
- Ambiguous Innocence: The club has no problem gutting a teacher or removing the eyes of a classmate, but are cripplingly shy in the presence of girls their own age.
- Apple of Discord: Kanon.
- Art Shift: Between the original and the prequel, as the boys get older and more extreme the more angular and stylized the art becomes.
- Artificial Human: Litchi, "The Elegant Machine"
- Axe Crazy: Jaibo.
- Berserk Button: Litchi
- Beware The Honest Ones: Tamiya, “Bullet of Truth”
- Bishounen: The club believes even their innards are beautiful, although it's more like they believe their bodies are somehow purer than disgusting adults. Zera is very disappointed when the blood starts flowing and he's not that different from a normal human inside or out.
- Blindfolded Trip: The fate of the classmate caught trespassing. To start with anyway.
- Blood Brothers: Chapter two. "Gentlemen, you who have partaken of my blood, you can say you are already part of me."
- Chekhov's Gun: The toilet.
- Chess Motifs: Addressed by Zera himself, invoked by Tamiya.
- The Chosen One: How Zera and the rest of the Hikari Club sees him. When he was younger, he was told by a fortune-teller that he would either rule the world by the age of 30, or die by the age of 14.
- Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Zera, “Emperor Of Ruin”
- Crapsack World: Keikou city doesn't exactly appear to be the nicest place in the world.
- Creating Life
- Creepy Child: In the prequel, Jaibo (rumored to have drugged a classmate as a child and loves killing animals) more so then Zera (rejects love and adulthood after his parents miserable divorce strands him in Keikou).
- Deliberately Monochrome: Cover and fan art seems to follow a palette of black, white, crimson and yellow/gold.
- Do Not Call Me Paul: "Is my blood Tsunegawa? No. Is my flesh Tsunegawa? No. Tsunegawa is vague and intangible. According to the Hikari Club, I am designated as Zera."
- Dude, She's Like, In a Coma!: Kanon in chapters three and four.
- Eye Scream: Removing the eyes of the student who trespassed in chapter one. Niko's eye removal and Zera and Jaibo licking each others' eyes in the prequel.
- Eyepatch of Power: Inverted with Dafu, “Dream Seeing Eyepatch”
- Flash Back Echo: Opening of chapter four.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Zera.
- Giggling Villain: Jaibo is somewhere between this and Verbal Tic
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Niko, which is rather odd for an eighth grader. The prequel reveals that he sacrificed his eye because Zera wanted Litchi to have a hardened human eyeball.
- Gorn: It was taken from a Grand Guignol production, so you know this is in the cards.
- Gratuitous German: Again, primarily in the first chapter.
- Growing Up Sucks: "We are not rejecting growth. What we reject is the fact that you haven't died." Also, Jaibo is afraid that his growing up and suffering the effects of puberty will make Zera cease to love him. So it can be argued that a lot of the chaos that happens can be traced to to the fear of becoming an adult. The prequel reveals that Zera's parents' divorce was the reason he came to town; having his mother constantly saying he reminds her of his lousy father probably didn't help his view of adulthood.
- Hidden Eyes: Kaneda most often, but the school caps are equal opportunity obscurers.
- Kids Are Cruel
- Kill 'Em All
- Last Name Basis
- Licking the Blade: Jaibo, "I haven't tried this since frog dissection." He says this right before eviscerating a history teacher from his school.
- Meaningful Rename: At least Zera, but other members of the club seem to answer to a name other than their birth name. Additionally, the nicknames/titles presented with each member on the cover all reflect some aspect of their personality or appearance.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Niko, Jaibo
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Emperor of Ruin, Zera's descriptive article on the cover.
- New Transfer Student: How Zera is introduced in a flashback, complete with Friendless Background
- No Sense of Personal Space: Jaibo really likes Zera and Tamiya.
- Number of the Beast: Used to activate Litchi.
- Numerological Motif: Zera counts off the club members in German when asking things of them as a group.
- Oral Fixation Fixation: Kaneda appears to be perpetually chewing on his left thumb.
- Peek-a-Bangs: Kaneda, “Eye Of Despair”
- The Power of Blood: Invoked with the litchi wine in chapter two.
- Prequel / Interquel / Mind Screw Driver: Bokura no Hikari Club, about the founding of the original Hikari Club by Tamiya, gets a little more into some of the characters' heads and eventually catches up with Litchi. For example Tamiya didn't exactly feel nothing when Jaibo killed the student and teacher at the beginning of Litchi.
- Psycho Supporter: Jaibo. In true fashion though, he ends up ruining pretty much everything.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Possibly the entire club, although Jaibo is the most prominent by far.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Club members are often depicted with red eyes in color fan art to go with the series' apparent palette.
- Rule of Three: "And now, the curtain rises on the Tokyo Grand Guignol's third performance of Litchi Hikari Club."
- Sadistic Choice: Zera forcing Tamiya to chose between executing Dafu and having his little sister crushed by Litchi in chapter four.
- Say My Name: "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" ad infinium
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Zera. Dentaku's are always clear.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: Somewhat justified in that the club tends to meet after school most of the time.
- Secret Circle of Secrets: The Hikari Club bears resemblance to one, especially in chapter one.
- Sissy Villains: Raizou, Jaibo
- Sliding Scale Of Shiny Versus Gritty: Very Gritty, Keikou city appears to be a dying industrial city.
- Smart People Play Chess
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Dentaku “Science Boy”
- Teen Genius: Zera and Dentaku. Jaibo also turns out to be a lot smarter than what might at first seem.
- There Are No Adults
- Torture Cellar: The warehouse is used as one in the opening chapter. Additionally, Fridge Logic dictates that the rest of Litchi's skin had to come from somewhere.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Tamiya at the very least, and he still is to an extent.
- The prequel reveals that the members of the Hikari Club used to be sweet kids until Zera started comparing himself to insane emperors and then Jaibo started influencing Zera.
- Villainous Breakdown: Zera
- Wicked Cultured: Elagabalus is not generally mentioned in middle school curriculum.
- Yandere: Jaibo. Oh, Jaibo...
- Yes Man: Niko “The Faithful Knight”
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