Manga / Sorcerer Hunters

They were called Sorcerer Hunters.

Sorcerer Hunters is a light novel and manga series written by Satoru Akahori with art by Ray Omishi, which was adapted into a 26-episode anime TV series and 3-part OAV, both produced by XEBEC with the TV series as their first work. The series also spawned various video games and radio dramas.

The Spooner Continent is ruled by "Sorcerers", mages who rule over the "Parsoners" as a noble class. With their magical powers, they can exploit the Parsoners virtually at will. However, there are rumors of those who will punish any Sorcerers who abuse their powers and harm the innocent - a mysterious band of five teenagers, the "Sorcerer Hunters".

Meanwhile, Casanova Wannabe swordsman Carrot Glacé, his Bishounen little brother Marron, Clingy Jealous Action Girl Chocola Misu and her Unlucky Childhood Friend Shrinking Violet little sister Tira, and borderline Macho Camp muscleman Gateau Mocha Walk The Earth... and you can see where this is going, can't you.

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Sorcerer Hunters provides examples of:

• Adaptational Modesty: Tira and Chocola's outfits are a lot more modest in the anime than in the manga, probably because the only way a faithful reproduction of Chocola's outfit wouldn't involve flashing her nipples every other frame would be is if her top was glued on.
• After the End: It's ultimately revealed that the Spooner Continent is actually set at least a generation after the God of Destruction rampaged over the land, seeking to annihilate the world to recreate it.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Carrot actually finds it easier to get a date after The Reveal that he's possessed by the God of Destruction. The village girls think it makes him cool and mysterious.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Downplayed. Whilst the powers that Sorcerers wield does incline them to rule cruelly over the Parsoner majority, nothing inherently says a Sorcerer has to be a sadistic, self-absorbed monster. Their powers simply make it easier to indulge their dark sides, and many do succumb to the temptation, to say nothing of how the basic premise of the series is a band of elite assassins hunting the worst Sorcerers of all. A small number of sympathetic Sorcerers do appear, at least in the Animated Adaptation.
• Ambiguously Gay: Marron. According to one postscript in volume 10, the initial story made him openly gay; the wording didn't make it clear how much this aspect was changed.
• Art Evolution: Tira's outfit changed from orange in the series to black in the OVAs.
• Baby Morph Episode: Episode 8 "The Forbidden Fire" has the Hunter sans Carrot infiltrate a sorcerer's seemly noble crusade of fighting evil spirits in nearby ruins when in reality, he deages his victims and tortures them until he gets tired.
• Beach Episode: Anime Episode 4 " The Fireworks of Love" and Manga Chapter 10 "Beware of Beach Babes" has the Hunters head to the beach for a little R&R.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Gateau's younger sister Eclair once vowed that she would never fall in love with any man who couldn't beat her in a fight.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Marron, Mille, Tira, Abricot, Cinnamon...
• Beware the Superman: The Sorcerers are treated as nobility to keep them from really causing trouble.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Gateau and Onion
• Bowdlerize: For the TV series, the costume designs were changed significantly due to broadcasting restrictions.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Gateau and Carrot in the second volume of the manga.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Carrot may be a hopeless lech, but if he learns that a pretty girl already has a boyfriend, he will immediately leave her alone.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: This is apparently Tira's main job, with the Cloudcuckoolander in question being Carrot. Between whipping Carrot's monster forms until he changes back and smacking Carrot around in human form to make him suspend his lecherous idiocy to concentrate on work, she spends more time keeping him in line than she does hunting sorcerers directly.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Carrot and Tira's voice actors, Shinnosuke Furumoto and Megumi Hayashibara, sing the opening theme for the TV series. Hayashibara also performed the OVA's ending theme along with Chocola's voice actress Yuko Mizutani.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Tira and Chocola constantly abuse Carrot, which is supposed to be seen as funny. Granted, he is a pervert.
• Dub Text: Marron is more or less asexual and doesn't really pay attention to Gateau's flirting, but the dub adds lines about his possible homosexuality.
• Dueling Messiahs: Big Mama vs Sacher Torte. Both believe that the world is not a nice place anymore, but while Big Mama strives to heal it, Sacher Torte wants to destroy it and rebuild it from scratch, believing it too far gone for redemption. Big Mama's dedication to maintaining the world is so absolute, she even attempted to kill Carrot so he wouldn't turn into the God of Destruction.
• Edible Theme Naming: Everyone. All named from desserts. Relatively obvious are Carrot, Onion, Abricot (apricot), Count Potato Chips, and Cinnamon Tea; there's also Tira Misu, Chocola (chocolate) and Marron (chestnut). Gateau, eclair, and mille-feuille are all French pastries. Sachertorte is a rich Austrian chocolate cake. Even Charlotte is a food name. Satoru Akahori is fond of this trope, and practically everything he writes uses it.
  • Abricot's maiden name is Anzu, which is Japanese for...apricot. So her name is basically Abricot Apricot. Double Edible Theme Naming!
• Episode of the Dead: Manga chapters 11-13 "The Spellbook of the Necromancer" and OVA episode 2 in which the Hunters battle a necromancer named the Death Master who's turning living humans into his zombified slaves.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The ending of episode 9 of the anime attempts to present itself as a Bittersweet Ending, but fumbles the landing. Anna Pastry kills the Sorcerer Lord Croissant who was keeping her hostage on his estate out of misguided love, which she never wanted and instead wanted to return to performing on the stage. The problem is that Anna is under a curse that leaves her trapped as a cat. Croissant could temporarily turn her back into a human on the nights of the full moon, but wasn't strong enough to break the curse fully. So, with Croissant dead, Anna is stuck as a cat for the rest of her life and will never return to the stage again anyway; at least before she could be human on a select few nights!
• Expy:
  • The artist notes in the manga that Eclair's initial appearance is deliberately based on a certain female fighting game character, who is clearly Cammy from Street Fighter. Not only that, but Eclair's brother Gateau is said to have been designed in the image of Guile. The artist also notes the village elder's similarity to Yoda of Star Wars.
  • You can also spot tons of Expy Extras in the background of various manga panels, especially in the beach episodes, and Cosplays of characters from Samurai Shodown, Darkstalkers, Urusei Yatsura and Super Dimension Fortress Macross, amongst others. In the 'Iron Chef' chapter, most of the cast of Angelique seems to be in attendance.
• Face–Heel Turn/Heel–Face Turn: Eclair, Gateau's younger sister in the manga.
  • Plus a vanilla Face–Heel Turn in the backstory Sacher Torte, who later does a bit of a turn again, but unfortunately Redemption Equals Death and numerous Heel–Face Turn examples Sirius, the village elder and his lover.
• Fan Disservice: You'd think a butler who lives to please his master and crossdresses would be hot. Unfortunately, the master is a small child with a lisp and the butler is little old man. Pass the Brain Bleach, please.
• First Girl Wins: Tira in the manga.
• For the Evulz: A lot of sorcerers perform a wide variety of atrocities on the local population for no reason beyond their own entertainment.
• Gainax Ending: The last episode of the anime has an ambiguous ending. Sacher kills all of Carrot's companions, then starts smacking him around to try to force him to unleash the God of Destruction. Big Mama commits suicide, and then proceeds to track down the other hunters in the next life so that she can awaken their memories of their previous life. This somehow allows them to come back to life with an apparent powerup, but instead of defeating Sacher, they run to embrace Carrot and celebrate the fact that he didn't give in. Sacher refuses to admit that he was wrong and flees, Mama somehow revives herself, and the world goes back to its daily routine. Then the series ends on a scene in the next life where someone like Carrot is hitting on a girl who looks like Daughter.
• God in Human Form: The Sorcerer Hunters are all the reincarnations of five deceased gods. Carrot is the reincarnation of Hakaishin, God of Destruction, whilst Tira, Chocola, Marron and Gateau are the reincarnations of Apros, Qurin, Yaksha and Karlman, who were respectively the Gods of the West, South, East and North and who perished after subduing Hakaishin
• Healing Hands: Tira has the power to heal others in the manga. The manga connects this to her past incarnation as the goddess Apros, whose divine portfolio was healing.
• Harmless Villain: Potato Chips is a sorcerer who repeatedly causes trouble for the heroes, but as he's basically just a kid who's trying to pick up girls, most of the problems he causes are more accidental than intentional. This is why he makes it through the series alive.
• Heel Realization: [[spoiler:In episode 11 of the anime, Yukke initially attempts to perform a Forbidden Magic spell in hopes of reviving his dead parents with the same excited eagerness as his twin brother Kuppa. When he sees the result, however, he is horrified — and even more aghast when Kuppa crushes the seed-like remnants of their victim's bodies, causing them to die when he had the power to return them to normal. Yukke becomes completely opposed to Kuppa's mad scheme
• Heroic Sacrifice: Marron in the anime, Tira and Gateau in the manga. They come back, though.
  • And And Mama and the Haz Knights, in the manga. They don't..
• Hotter and Sexier: The OVA. Tira and Chocola get their all black dominatrix attires faithfully adapted (minus the swastika on Chocola's hat) and the first episode especially indulges with the nipple shots.
• Identical Stranger: Chapter 14 "Carrot Turns Into a Girl?!!" has the gang meet Ginny who's essentially Carrot with boobs and a side ponytail. After beating her admirer/Sorcerer of the Day, Carrot naturally hits on her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Carrot and Onion are jerks, but they do care for each other and their friends.
• Knight Templar: Sacher Torte will create a better world At Any Cost(tm).
• Last of His Kind: Daughter and Sirius are the last of a species of Winged People in the manga, which is never expanded on past volume 6.
• Like Brother and Sister: The reason Carrot's not into Chocola or Tira.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The anime episode with the magic Chocola that grants the Hunters' wishes; Carrot gets split into three parts to grant both his wishes and the Misu sisters'. The episode also proudly leans on the fourth wall.
• Love Father, Love Son: Millefeuille's thing for Onion seems to have passed down to Carrot. Though to be fair, he likes teasing everybody, he just enjoys flirting with those two the most.
• Love Triangle: A Sibling Triangle between Carrot and the Misu sisters. Either sister fine with the other winning Carrot's heart to the point when Tira wins in the manga, Chocola has no problem wanting to make it A Family Affair.
• Lunacy: Episode 9 of the Animated Adaptation features a Sorcerer who draws his power from the moon. The fuller the moon is, and the more exposed it is in the night sky, the greater his powers are. In particular, it's declared that under the light of a full moon, his spells and his Healing Factor would make him virtually invincible, and that not even the Sorcerer Hunters might be able to defeat him. His unwilling lover defeats him by stabbing him in the heart whilst the moon is covered by a cloud.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: Ultimately, Tira and Chocola's former selves, Mother of West Apros and Holy Demon Kurin, respectively. Naturally, Carrot marries the younger, cuter, less aggressive and more maternal of the two sisters, while the older, sexier, and more ruthless one cheerfully asserts herself as his mistress.
• Mage Species: The difference between Sorcerers and Parsoners is a genetic trait; having it lets you use magic, lacking means you can't use magic. At least, not that type of magic...
• Magic A Is Magic A: There are at least two different forms of magic in the setting. Sorcerers use one type of magic, which requires a specific gene. Eastern Style Magic, as practiced by Marron, doesn't require the Sorcerer Gene.
• The Magic Goes Away: Reviving the God of Destruction drained all the magic in the world, and destroying him didn't bring the magic back. As such, by the end of the manga there are no more sorcerers, and therefore no more need for Sorcerer Hunters.
• The Magocracy: The Sorcerers are the ruling caste of the Spooner Continent, as their magical powers simply allow them to crush any attempt by the non-magical "Parsoners" to resist their wills, causing the Parsoners to declare Sorcerers their rulers mostly in hope that this would appease them and keep them from being too cruel. That said, there is a hierarchy of Sorcerers, and it's possible for Sorcerers to become impoverished if they mishandle their holdings.
• Mama Bear: Abricot Glacé. In the manga, she took on a DEMON LORD to protect Carrot. When said demon tried to possess her to capture Carrot, she killed herself to stop him.
• Market-Based Title: ADV Films released the second half of the series as "Spell Wars: Sorcerer Hunters' Revenge" to persuade the American market that the anime had Grown The Beard.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: According to Millefeuille, Carrot's zoanthropy works in this way adapting to whatever magic he absorbs and transforming into the appropriate form needed for the moment.
• No Fourth Wall: Happens constantly, but especially courtesy of Potato and his butler. The most blatant example is a chapter near the middle of the manga where Carrot thinks the series is ending, and proceeds to promise all his teammates their ideal endings. An author cameo jumps in just in time to ruin the ensuing Carrot/Marron Ho Yay, and explain that Carrot got the chapter title wrong.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Carrot's reason for spurning Chocola and Tira's advances.
  • Well, it's also because they regularly beat him senseless with whips and imprison him when he tries to chase girls and are just generally terrifying.
• Older Than They Look: Salad Chips is 35 for a good portion of her appearances, but looks like a junior high schooler.
• Parental Abandonment: Quite a few dead or missing parents in this one, folks.
  • Add Parental Betrayal, as Chocola and Tira's surrogate father, Sacher Torte, does a Face–Heel Turn and becomes the Big Bad during their backstory.
  • Missing Mom: Carrot and Marron's mother, Abricot.
    • Though she manages to get better in a surprisingly well-justified way.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Carrot has the "God of Destruction" sealed within him. This is the source of his shapeshifting powers, and also means that Big Momma is willing to consider destroying Carrot if it seems like he may turn into a threat to the world.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You: Carrot is a Hits On Everyone But You towards Tira and Chocola - probably because the way they act when they take their coats off scares him. Naturally, the only girl either of these two is willing to lose Carrot to is the other, so this behavior just inspires more such treatment.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Gateau's attitude toward Eclair, even going as far to slap her when she wants to get in on the adventuring. Extra weird because she's the stronger of the two.
• Stock Footage: Three notable ones: Carrot transforming, and Chocola and Tira stripping off their outer layers to reveal their fighting outfits. Expect to see at least one in virtually every episode.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Lord Croissant in episode 9 of the Animated Adaptation. He's called out early in the episode as one of the rare Sorcerers who actively protect and help their people, but it turns out he murdered Gateau's first Sorcerer Hunter partner, Opera, because it was the only choice he had to rescue the woman he loved from an evil Sorcerer named Bagel, who had transformed her into a cat.
• Tragic Villain: Kuppa the Sorcerer in episode 11 lost his mother and father at a very young age and all he wanted was to somehow bring them back. So he spends years using Forbidden Magic to steal the souls of Parsoners and combining them with a portrait of his parents, murdering his test subjects when each experiment is a failure. In the episode proper, he attempts to use the souls of his own twin brother Yukke and Yukke's beloved Sanchu, convinced he's finally perfected the spell. Though the Sorcerer Hunters kill him, even they express sympathy, for his motivation was simply to have his beloved parents back.
• Token Heroic Orc: Partly because the Sorcerer Hunters do go after the most evil and cruel of the Sorcerers, the few Sorcerers who show up who aren't sadistic sons of bitches stand out.
  • In episode 10 of the Animated Adaptation, there's a Sorceress who is a reluctant partner in the business of running a Blood Sports arena featuring gambling debtors transformed into monsters and made to fight to the death; she clearly hates helping the ringleader and doesn't actively get involved. She even develops a crush on Gateau, who lets her live but also turns her down.
  • Episode 11 of the Animated Adaptation has Yukke, one of twin Sorcerer brothers. Whilst his brother Kuppa went screaming off the deep end and became obsessed with using Forbidden Magic spells to try and resurrect his parents by stealing the Life-Force of Parsoners, destroying his victims when each attempt failed, Yukke wanted nothing to do with this, spending years trying to persuade Kuppa to stop and sacrificing his own Life-Force to resurrect Kuppa's victims as apple trees in a desperate attempt to atone for his brother's crimes.
• Three Plus Two: The manga started with Carrot, Tia and Marron with Gateau and Chocola coming in ch. 6.
• Time-Shifted Actor: In the anime, Lake's younger and adult selves are voiced by Rei Sakuma, while her older self is voiced by the late Masako Sugaya.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Chocola in the manga. Not that she lets this stop her - she proceeds to declare herself Carrot's mistress and tries to horn in on Carrot and Tira's relationship on their wedding night.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Carrot's disturbed when he discovers that Millefeuille's actually male. Millefeuille is still happy to continue flirting; Carrot's reaction after the reveal falls under Stupid Sexy Flanders, as seen above.
• We Help the Helpless: The whole point of the Sorcerer Hunters is that they travel the world, battling the worst of the Sorcerers in order to protect the Parsoners, who are too weak to defend themselves against the cruelties of an unrestrained Sorcerous Overlord.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • The Sorcerer of episode 6 of the anime is a young boy who sought out a Forbidden Magic spell that can turn people into crystal in hopes of using it to protect his Parsoner sister from the many dangers of the world. He's one of the few Sorcerers who fight the Hunters and lives, because he chooses to give up his Forbidden spell when his sister begs him to do so.
  • The Sorcerer of episode 9, Lord Croissant, is called out as one of the rare Sorcerers who protects and helps the people he rules over. But he also keeps the opera singer he loves a veritable prisoner on his estate out of a combination of possessiveness and the fact she's under a curse placed on her by a rival Sorcerer that keeps her trapped as a cat, and he can only restore her to human form on the nights of a full moon. Also, he murdered a Sorcerer Hunter named Opera so that the Sorcerer who transformed his love interest would let him rescue her.
• Wham Episode: Episode 8 "The Forbidden Fire" reveal not only the dark and troubled past of Sorcerer Hunters, but reveals Zaha Torte and causes Carrot to go berzerk in his beast mode... without getting hit by magic.
• Would Rather Suffer: Anna Pastry in episode 9 hires the Sorcerer Hunters to kill Lord Croissant, the Sorcerer who loves her, because he won't let her leave his mansion and return to performing on the stage. Despite the fact that, as Croissand points out, she's under a powerful curse that traps her in the body of a cat; she can't be human unless he works magic to restore her humanity, and even he can only do that on the nights of the full moon. She doesn't care, because being unable to perform dismays her that much. Ultimately, she's the one who fatally stabs Croissant, choosing a life as a cat over her current life.

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