Argai: The Prophecy (Original title: Argaï: La Prophétie) is a 26-episode French animated series created in 2000, in which all characters are anthropomorphized.Year 2075. The evilDarkQueen is ruling with an iron fist on what is a Crapsack World, from her levitating base located on top of New York City. She's immortal, as throughout time, she has stolen the youth of several maiden, and keeps them in eternal sleep to maintain the effects of her immortality. But back in 1250, she stole the youth of sweet and beautiful Angèle, who happens to be the fiancée of Prince Argaï, the protagonist.This guy, who's one hell of a Determinator, goes then on a journey to save his beloved, and engulfed in a lightning flash, finds himself transported to New York City in 2075. He then meets private detective Oscar Lightbulb, his assistant Barnaby and their secretary Miss Moon. They decide to help Argaï, and discover that a book of prophecies details the antidote, as well as the 13 ingredients needed to create it, that would take out Angèle of her slumber, and thus at the same time save Angèle and destroy Queen Orial. They get a hand on the book and have the wise move of making a copy of it by scanning it, before Queen Orial steals the original from them. Now starts a quest throught time to gather the antidote's ingredients, with Queen Orial knowing their every next move.An epic Time Travel series, it's one of the few recent good French animated series ever done (and that's coming from a French Troper) and Needs More Love.
Becoming the Mask: Oscar's friend Hector, who the police thinks he studies dreams, but really does brain research and has a machine that can erase certain memories from one's head.
Book Ends: In the first and last episode, a lightning strikes inside the monastery. Prince Argai says that everything started in the monastery and there it will end.
Burn the Witch!: In Chapter XIII, while deciding punishments for Argai, the Dark Queen refuses to burn him since she says that this is punishment for witches, not for princes.
The Bus Came Back: Many of the characters the heroes met in previous episodes, appear in the last few episodes of the series.
Cave Mouth: In Chapter XIII, after running away from a crocodile, Oscar and Moony ended up going inside a skull-shaped tunnel.
Chekhov's Gun: The blind man stealing Barnaby's futuristic stuff, including his phone, which led to the Dark Queen taking it from him, which allowed our heroes to contact Queen Orial to offer her a dealshe can't refuse.
Also the 3 items Kargal gave Oscar and Moony in Chapter XIII.
Chekhov's Skill: Master Wang's ability to transport anyone (even himself) into the place he or she is thinking of. This comes very handy in the last episode, in which he transports himself from Asia to TirLoch, and then transports Argai into the Dark Queen's spaceship so he can find Angele.
Good Is Not Dumb: Moony, as she saves both herself and Angele from being taken to the Dark Queen.
Good Is Not Nice: Before F.107 explodes, the bad guy who isn't much of a threat and is chained up and can't get away, pleades the heroes to take him with them, but they leave him behind.
Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The majority of the series is the Dark Queen trying to capture Argai, as she senses he represents a great danger to her.
Immortality: Type X. Queen Orial has enchanted enough maidens to gain eternal life, but she can still be killed by a physical force and she's probably vulnerable to sickness and diseases.
Left for Dead: After getting the Sacret Pearl, Argai and Barnaby jump into the river below from a great height, just in time to avoid been blown to bits by one of the Queen's battleships, and survuve. The Dark Queen thinking she killed Argai and Barnaby is justified by her having put up wanted posters with only Oscar's and Angele's picture on them and no one else.
Living MacGuffin: In Chapter II called "The man in the mask", said man is the guy who first saw Argai. The Dark Queen tries to hunt him down for information, and our heroes hunt him to make sure the Dark Queen doesn't get him.
Narrator: Before an episode starts, he briefly sums up what happened from Episode 1 till the current episode, and after the episode ends, he prepares the audience for the next episode.
Shapeshifting: The Dark Queen is shown to be capable of this.
Shoot The Fuel Tank: The Dark Queen's spaceship explodes thanks to fire in the ship's fuel tanks room.
Smart People Play Chess: Oscar and Barnaby. After a debate in the first episode whether it was check or checkmate, they decide to resume their game of chess at the end of the series.
The Smurfette Principle: Moony is the only female in the group. And there aren't many female characters in the show.
Taken for Granite: In Chapter XIII, Queen Orial turns Barnaby's body from the neck down into stone.
Take That: After the Queen replaces Geko with a robot, he decides to get back at her by helping the heroes find Hugsley's time machine.
Talking Is a Free Action: Instead of pressing the Earth-destroying button right then and there, the Dark Queen takes her time to talk about how's she's gonna destroy everyone because only she decides her destiny. 50 seconds later, she's destroyed before pressing the button.
Time Travel: This series plays with a lot of tropes in this category. And there's an added twist in time travel in this series, not seen in any other time travel fiction: When a character is killed in another time than his own, he does not die, he just comes back to his own time. This is why it's necessary for the heroes to defeat Queen Orial in 2075, and for Queen Orial to kill Argaï in 1250.
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