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[[quoteright:295:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SoukouNoStrain_2.JPG]]
->''"[[ArcWords Only you can do what you've decided to do. If you keep that in mind, nothing is impossible.]]"''
Take ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'', [[RecycledInSpace put it in space]], add HumongousMecha and a lot of angst, twist the characters around and throw in some {{Fanservice}} to keep the fanboys with low attention spans.
Sara Werec (a jumbled "Sara Crewe") has been groomed from birth as an elite Reasoner, pilot of a mecha called a Strain. Only those who were chosen before they were born can pilot one (the thing relies on a psychic connection with a power core that includes the user's own brain cells), generally meaning the upper crust military families. Her main reason for joining the army is to find her beloved brother, over whom the staff at Grabera Academy gushes. She's just about to graduate and take the side of the galactic Union in an ancient war against the empire of Deague...
[[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Then in come Deague forces, led by a stolen, modified Strain piloted by Sara's dear brother. The entire school is destroyed. No one except Sera is left alive.]]
Several months later, she takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language localization release is titled ''[=STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry=]''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
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!!This show provides examples of:
* {{Aesoptinum}}: [[spoiler:The Emilys]]
* AgainstTheSettingSun: First episode; after the big tragedy, such speeches happen gazing out at space.
* AlmostKiss: Interrupted once by an enemy attack and once by a phone call. [[spoiler:Both are immediately followed by the death of one of the would-be participants.]]
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: While Sara was popular at Grabera, she's picked on in Basion.
* AloofBigBrother: Ralph, of course.
* AlphaBitch: Isabella, towards Sara. [[spoiler: She doesn't last more than a few episodes, and afterwards her posse continues to harass Sara, blaming her for Isabella's death.]] A later episode has Isabella's friend as the new leader, [[spoiler:but this girl ends up bullying her close to death. Not even Funimation's Youtube channel has this episode as part of it.]]
* AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* AnyoneCanDie: Made clear in the first few episodes, where the cast is pruned from hundreds of extras to double- and single-digits.
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* BadassLongcoat: Ralph.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: Played straight early on, subverted with Lavinia in episode 7. Particularly embarrassing for her as she unintentionally runs out of the shower naked after accidentally kissing Jessie, then runs through the ship in her birthday suit in shock.
* BerserkButton: Lottie's gets pressed accidentally by Sara at the end of episode 8 [[spoiler: when she hears Sara calling Ralph her brother.]]
* BetaBaddie
* BigBrotherAttraction[=/=]BigBrotherWorship: Both Sara and Lottie.
* BigDamnHeroes: Sara does a couple of these.
* BlackBox: The invention of Strains and Mimics.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Happens to [[spoiler: Ralph]] later in the series.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants being snapped off as they destroy each other's Strains.]]
* BottleEpisode: Quite a few.
* BreatherEpisode: Episode 6 and 7. Enjoy it while you can, because the story really goes downhill from there.
* BrokenPedestal: Ralph was Sara's inspiration up until he slaughtered her classmates.
* BroughtDownToNormal: Sara losing her first Mimic.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Melchi and Carmichael, the two mechanics. Melchi especially tends to be a bit eccentric, but his superiors seem to overlook it because he does some genuinely useful things that end up saving a lot of lives.
* CainAndAbel: Ralph and Sara.
* CapturedSuperEntity: [[spoiler:Both Emilies.]]
* CartwrightCurse: [[spoiler:Sara's two serious love interests both get killed in battle.]]
* CharClone: The show's been called "''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' starring Sayla". Some would argue, though, that Sara is as much or more of a Char than Ralph is.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* TheCheerleader: The Gambee pilots act like this towards Sara, which progressively gets worse when the Strain pilots try to befriend her and when she gets Ram-Dass. [[spoiler:Comes to a head after Isabella is killed in battle, at which point Mariette lures Sara to an isolated portion of the ship and starts harassing her, before she starts actually beating Sara up. Thankfully, at about the point where she goes for a large lead pipe, the Strain pilots intervene and shut the incident down.]]
* ChekhovsGun: the Emilies.
* CollapsingLair: [[spoiler:Inverted with the ''Kunrun''. Medlock activates the SelfDestructMechanism ''before'' any of the heroes are anywhere near it, to try and trap Ralph inside. Only after that does Ralph take the controls and ram the ship into the ''Libertad''.]]
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Strains other than Sara's Ram-Dass (magenta and blue) and Ralph's modified Gloire (brown and gold) are mass-produced, so there's a lot of this; the trainees at Grabera used yellow and green Flyssas, while the ones for the trainees in Basion are green, and the instructors and higher-ups at Basion are briefly seen with purple Strains of an unknown model. Ralph's first Gloire was blue and white, as are those belonging to the instructors at Grabera.
** The uniforms at Basion are colour-coded, too. Orange for Gambee pilots, powder blue for Reasoners, teal for BridgeBunnies, white for medics.
* CompetenceZone: The entire Basion force is made up of teenagers, although it ''is'' based at a school that was drawn into the battle, and they ''do'' keep calling for adult backup.
* CoolShip: Both the good guy's and the bad guy's main ship in the series.
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: When the Reasoners are fighting thousands of Tumors, they cut through them like butter. When there's only a few Tumors around on the other hand, they have a lot of trouble with them.
** A blatantly hilarious example happens in the beginning of episode 12, when Lottie and her remaining crew manage to destroy what looks like tens of thousands of them in a few moments. Then there's 2 left, and she's unable to get them off without Sara's help.
* ConspicuousCG: The Strain fights. They're still pretty rad-looking, but, compared to the actual animation, they're obviously computer-generated.
* CurbStompBattle: Pretty much any fight that Ralph participates in, until episode 13.
* ADayInTheLimelight: "Lavinia's Lovely Plot"
* DeadStarWalking: Mary and Isabella were both played by the same, fairly famous, VA.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Ralph.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Sara herself.
* DittoAliens: The Emilies.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Every one of Sara's love interests at least starts out as this. Lavinia, the GenderFlip version, plays the concept truest.
* DoomedHometown: Grabera.
* [[TheDragon Dragon]]: Arguable subversion; Ralph is clearly Medlock's Dragon for much of the series, but he, not her, is always presented as the "villain".
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Ralph, as crazy as he was, gets a moment to recognize his sister and entrust her with Emily's care just before he dies.]]
* ElegantGothicLolita: Emily wears lolita dresses.
* EmotionlessGirl: Sara tries to come off as this, but her facade breaks throughout the course of the series.
* EmpathicWeapon: Mimics are created from the user's brain cells and are made to synchronize with the user and run their mecha.
* TheEmpire: Deague is implied to be this; if you look carefully during the first episode where the lecturer is explaining the war, you will see the word "DIGUO." ''Dì guó'' is the Mandarin word for "empire." Additionally, on the series' [[http://www.s-strain.jp/story.html official website]], Deague is written with the Chinese characters for "empire," 帝国.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:The Bitch Brigade is fine harassing Sara in all sorts of ways, but when Mariette gets into actual violence, the other girls say it's going too far and beg her to stop.]]
* EverybodysDeadDave: Grabera again.
* EvilCounterpart: Sara and Ralph.
* ExplosiveDecompression: Well-done in the first attack on the ''Libertad'', where the bridge is ripped open and becomes a vacuum -- people have time to at least get to safety. However, in later episodes, [=TUMORs=] and mechs rip into the ship ''and whole conversations are had with the big hole to hard vacuum in the background''.
** [[AWizardDidIt Ram-Dass plugged up the hole in the ship, okay?]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Ralph, of course.
* FacialMarkings: The living Emily.
* FallenPrincess: Sara. The show's based off ''A Little Princess'', even.
* FallingIntoTheCockpit: At least she's a trained pilot.
* {{Fanservice}}: Quite a bit; it comes to the surface in the form of showers, change rooms and, well, [[MsFanservice Lavinia]].
* FasterThanLightTravel: Not actually present. The effects of relativity causes some interesting time distortion effects that basically shape the whole plot.
* FingerSuckHealing: Lavinia tries to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope with Sara but fails.
* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: ''Ohhhh'' boy.
* FlatCharacter: Martha's sole personality trait is "Likes meat."
* ForgottenChildhoodFriend: Ralph resembles this, despite most certainly not being forgotten.
* FunWithAcronyms: [=STRAIN=]: [=STRategic=] Armoured [=INfantry=] (also the show's official English title). Many other terms -- like GAMBEE -- are actually acronyms.
** [=TUMOR=] is apparently an acronym (Tactical Unmanned Maneuver [=ORb=], for the record), but more of a MeaningfulName.
* GenreShift: It ''seems'' to be a shoujo-ish mecha series, odd as that may sound ([[VisionOfEscaflowne or maybe not]]). Then [[WhamEpisode everyone's dead]].
* GirlInABox: The doll Emily is a Doll In A Store Room and the living Emily is a Girl In A Stasis Pod, each taken in by one of the Werec siblings. [[spoiler:A third Emily is a Girl In A Mech found in much the same way. She doesn't survive.]]
* GirlPosse: The Gambee pilots at Basion.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler: Happens to Ralph, when he discovers that an "unmanned" robot he was fighting turns out to have what looks like a little girl inside. She then reveals how the girls share all their thoughts and memories with each other over vast distances, and gives him the same feelings. Which then causes an immense guilt trip when he discovers the Union performed hideous secret experiments on the little girls, effectively torturing their entire species.]]
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Ralph has an Evil Scar over his eye.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Every time [[spoiler:Ralph kills someone on the Deague ship ''Kunrun''.]]
* GrailInTheGarbage: Sara finds the doll Emily in what looks like a scrap junkyard portion of the ship. She immediately grows attached to it.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The Union uses GratuitousEnglish naming schemes (although all the characters have English names, so it would be less realistic if the machines and locations had Japanese names), while Deague names places and things in Anglicized versions of Chinese words (including "Deague" itself, which comes from "diguo" for "empire").
* GreenEyedMonster: Isabella and her friends are a bit jealous at how skilled the "new recruit" Sara is, and continually try to undermine her as much as they can. They even go so far as to steal her pendant, berate her, and tear her uniform, and later [[spoiler: Mariette nearly kills Sara after Isabella died in an earlier battle, and blames Sara not helping out sooner in that fight.]]
* HairColors: Blue, maroon, pink, and purple. Ralph's white appears to be caused by trauma, since his natural hair colour is blond.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Medlock and the living Emily.]]
* HeroicBSOD: Sara is in this mode for much of the series, actually.
** Happens to Lottie in episode 9, and she nearly kills Sara over it.
* HeroicSacrifice: Cedie in the first episode. Averted with [[spoiler:Melchi and Dufarge. They were unable to stop the self-destruct of the enemy ship, so decided instead to move it as far away from the Libertad as possible. But then Lottie flies in to pull them out of there.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: Ralph.
* HighPressureBlood: Explicable in some cases -- they're in space, after all.
* HighSpeedMissileDodge: ''Lightspeed''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Medlock, killed by her own Tumors once Ralph deletes her from the ship's recognition system.]]
* HumansAreBastards: [[spoiler: When Ralph learns what the Union did to the little girls, he swears to avenge them, hence why he goes around killing as many humans as he can.]]
* HumongousMecha: Strains are the actual ''humongous'' variety. Gambees are only slightly bigger than their pilots.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: [[spoiler:Sara's got the CartwrightCurse; who do ''you'' think this applies to?]]
* ImagineSpot: Lavinia has a couple of these in episode 7.
* ImportantHaircut: Sara chops off her hair between episodes one and two.
* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum
* ImprobablyFemaleCast (Basion Tactical Training School at least ''started'' with an equal number of male and female pilots, but the mass slaughter of most of the students ended up with a squad of pilots mostly composed of cute girls and all reporting to male officers too old to be a [[{{Shipping}} ship]] threat. Only two male Reasoners are left, [[spoiler:one dies later, and the other spends the last battle on the sidelines with a broken arm.]])
* IsThatCuteKidYours: The living Emily on Sara and Carris' "date".
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Or at least it did at James and Annie Werec's funeral.
* ItsAllMyFault: Sara blames herself for Grabera's destruction. [[spoiler:Lavinia later blames herself for Carris' death, as she lost the important item that he was searching for when Ralph killed him.]]
* ItsPersonal: Both Sara and Lottie have personal motivations for fighting in the war and for wanting to defeat Ralph.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sara mid-series.
* JigsawPuzzlePlot
* KarmicDeath: Happens to [[spoiler: Isabella. She seemed impatient at getting out into the battle, and as a result, was one of the first Gambee's attacked and killed.]]
* {{Kiai}}
* KilledOffForReal: Might be easier to just list survivors considering the high body count in this series.
* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Eventual aversion.]]
* LastOfHisKind: The two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
* LikeThatShowButWithMecha: It's based on ''Literature/ALittlePrincess''.
* LipstickLesbian: Lavinia, oh, so much.
* LittleMissBadass: Lottie may not be child, but her flat chest and shortness were enough to give her the FanNickname. Also subverted by the [[spoiler:army of Emilys, actual lolis in mechs, who went down like... well, dolls.]]
* LoopholeAbuse: The enemy ship chasing down the Libertad has sensors that closes off portions of a ship to unauthorized personnel. Emily tries walking around at first, but keeps getting locked off. Later, when Ralph returns to the room and takes a shower, she puts his jacket on, and while it's clearly too big for her, it lets her pass, and she's able to board one of the transport shuttles to head towards Gala.
* LonersAreFreaks: Subverted, somewhat.
* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
* LostTechnology
* LukeIAmYourFather: First episode.
* LuminescentBlush: Lavinia.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Arguable subversion; see Dragon.
* MadLove: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Or at least ''she'' thinks so. It ends up going the other way around.]]
* MayflyDecemberRomance: [[spoiler:After Lavinia's aged and Sara hasn't, she ''still'' has that crush on her.]]
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Surprisingly averted. Women die just as often (and pointlessly) as the men do in this series.
* MidSeasonUpgrade: Sara's mimic and Strain mech is destroyed in the first episode, but she gets replacements in episode 4, which are much tougher.
* MisanthropeSupreme: Ralph Werec.
* MistakenForSpies: Sara creates a new identity to avoid this. [[spoiler:For good reason -- once she's outed, everyone believes she's a spy for the Deague anyway.]]
* ModestyTowel: [[spoiler:Medlock first operates and then escapes from the ''Kunrun'' wearing nothing but one after Ralph kills the rest of the crew while she was locked in her shower. Justified in that her security pass is incorporated into her clothing, and depriving her of it leaves her dependent on Ralph.]]
* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: While some stuff is on the soft side of this scale, other aspects border on the harder parts, such as when they travel in close to lightspeed, they age slower than people in normal time. In one episode, an instructor mentions that four days have passed for them, while back on their home planet, a month has passed. Also, when they reach Gala, Carris mentions having a little brother, who is actually physically older than him due to the amount of time Carris spent in at relativistic speeds.
** [[spoiler: A quick glance at the displays in Sarah's STRAIN shows that her final sublight battle with Ralph took ''five years'' of relative time, supported by her friends wearing full military (as opposed to cadet) uniforms when they come to rescue her in TheStinger.]]
* MoodLighting
* MoodWhiplash: Again, episode seven.
* MoralityPet: The living Emily. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]
* MotiveDecay: Ralph's insanity makes him go from "make things right" to "make the Union pay" to "kill all the humans ever".
* MsFanservice: Lavinia. She even gets her own episode where she fantasizes about Sara, kisses Jessie in the shower, and runs around naked.
* MyGreatestFailure
* NaiveEverygirl: Sara, to a point.
* {{Narrator}}: Sara narrates the beginning and end of some episodes, although, in a few cases, she might be talking to Emily.
* NewMeat: Sara once she joins the Spatial Armour Division.
* NewTransferStudent: Sara in episode 2.
* NeverGrewUp: See ReallySevenHundredYearsOld below.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lavinia in episode 7 [[spoiler: when she tries hiding Emily in the hopes that helping Sara "find" her would help win her over. Unfortunately she put her in the garbage room, and the doll got knocked into the trash chute. Which then got sent into a garbage truck, which is also speeding away from the ship to take out the trash.]]
* NietzscheWannabe: Ralph Werec.
* NonIndicativeFirstEpisode: As you can see.
* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Ram-Dass. In their defense, creating custom mecha was ''illegal'', and the Union made an exception on the spot.
* NotADate: Episode eight.
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:Lottie is a young girl who entered the military in order to follow in the footsteps of her beloved big brother -- just like Sara. The main difference is that Lottie's brother was killed by Sara's, which results in Lottie demanding answers from Sara at gunpoint once her identity is revealed. The realization that they really aren't so different convinces Lottie not to shoot her.]] This is even lampshaded by the title of the episode where we learn all this: "Like Looking At Myself".
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Sara and Lottie both claim this right against Ralph.
* [[OrphansPlotTrinket Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants.
* PaperThinDisguise: How did Sara's hair divorce and new last name fool anybody!?
* ParentalAbandonment: Sara's parents are dead, and nobody else's are mentioned.
* PhlebotinumAnalogy
* PlayboyBunny: Lavinia owns a {{pink| means feminine}} Playboy Bunny suit. [[http://media.animevice.com/uploads/2/25603/487882-1164854850938b010xz1.jpg She wears it]] in one of her many, many failed Sara-seduction plans.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: [[spoiler:The last episode.]]
* PostEpisodeTrailer
* PreExplosionGlow
* ThePromise: Sara and Lottie promise to meet their brothers in the army. It doesn't go well.
* PsychoSupporter: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Although not entirely: he is insane, and he does hate the Union, but he also hates the Deague and all other humans. He's just pretending to support the Deague because it's convenient for him.]]
* RainAura
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Done in episode 12.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: in its truest sense, the Emilys, Melchisedec and Carmichael; due to sub-lightspeed travel, just about everybody.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The captain on the Libertad. He actually takes suggestions and advice given to him by his subordinates, such as giving the crew some time off on Gala, and when he learns of Sara's true background, he tries to understand why she did what she did without throwing random, baseless accusations.
* ReliableTraitor: Subverted -- he's killed by yet ''another'' traitor before he can enact his plot.
* {{Retirony}}: graduation, not retirement.
* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Martha and Ermengarde, who would have every appearance of being lovers but are probably straight.
* RuleOfCool
* SchoolgirlLesbians: Lavinia and Jessie; the classic stereotypes subverted by Martha and Ermengarde, who seem to be very much straight.
* SelfDestructMechanism: Medlock has one installed on the ''Kunrun''. [[spoiler:A subplot in the last few episodes is devoted to first engaging it and then trying to disengage it.]]
* SenselessSacrifice: Pretty much anyone who dies in this series. None of them really get to do anything heroic, they're just another casualty as far as the bad guy is concerned.
* SlidingScaleOfLivingToys: Emily's at Level 0.
* SnowMeansDeath: Used by juxtaposing happy SnowMeansLove scenes with serious battles in the end.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Melchi, who seemingly can't go a single conversation without mentioning how much of a genius he is.
* SnowMeansLove: Hopefully not siscon.
* SpaceOpera
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is Sara's home planet Grabera or Glabella? The manga and the official subs use the former, but official art and the website use the latter. Also, "Deague" is pretty consistent for the most part, but "Diguo" is used once, and it has an actual meaning. Looks like, in both cases, other gratuitous foreign languages were [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign transformed]] to look like GratuitousEnglish to match the rest of the series' terms.
** Another question is whether "Strain" and other acronyms should be capitalized or not. (The official release doesn't capitalize them.)
* SpiritualSuccessor: Shares many themes with ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''.
* SpoilerOpening: At first; eventually subverted by the death of a character in the OP and the survival of some that didn't make the cut.
* StealthHiBye: The living Emily does this to Carris and Sara in episode 8 when at the open air restaurant.
* SurvivorGuilt
* {{Synchronization}}: Reasoners and Mimics.
* TeamSpirit
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Or at least Sara didn't go see one before changing her name and running off to join the army.
* TimeDilation
* TimeTravel: Oh, theory of relativity, you drive this entire plot.
* TokenYuriGirls:
** Lavinia and Jessie. They never do get together in the end, or at least it's left open-ended, despite having a ''very'' close encounter due to a misunderstanding. Which is rather strange, since Jessie seemed very responsive, yet she [[ResetButton never brings up the incident again afterward]].
** Also contains some mindbreaking hints at a possible relationship between Sara and her ''doll'' Emily. Things get worse when [[spoiler:we discover that the "doll" actually contains the living brain of an alien girl. Whose race shares a common hive mind. So by acting nice to her, Sara acts nice to a whole goddamn OneGenderRace. Is this someone's weirdest yuri harem fantasy or what?]]
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Martha and Ermengarde.
* TomboyishSidetails: Sara.
* TookALevelInBadAss: While Sara was pretty competent as a Strain pilot, her brother absolutely stomps her the two times she tries to fight him in episode 1. As the series goes on, she's gradually able to withstand him a little better, and finally can stand toe to toe with him in episode 13.
** And in episode 4 she would have curb-stomped him if she wasn't trying her hardest not to. Which is awkward.
* TrainingFromHell: Mostly self-inflicted.
* TronLines: Mercurion circuits in Strains.
* TrueCompanions: Lottie makes it clear that her team are this, and Sara is ''going'' to treat them like equals.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
* TwoDSpace: Formations all seem to rely upon it.
* VaporWear: the first episode makes a point of showing that [[FanService Sarah doesn't wear anything under her flight suit]].
* VillainousBreakDown: [[spoiler: Ralph seems to suffer one after Emily refuses to go with him because she didn't want him going on another killing spree.]]
* WarIsHell: While they don't preach it, many characters suffer relatively pointless and non-dramatic deaths. They seem important in one scene, then [[AnyoneCanDie get caught in an explosion or stabbed/sliced apart by Ralph in the next.]]
* WellExcuseMePrincess: Ermy to Dickon.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Ralph feels what humans did to the little girls is unforgivable, and will stop at nothing to wipe them out. Hence his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* WhamEpisode: The very first episode. You think you know what's going on and then there's a brick to the face. And then the third episode, and then... heck, the show basically tosses a solid object at your anatomy ''every other episode''.
** There ''is'' a BreatherEpisode. [[spoiler:Which is also a Wham Episode.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Mariette and her posse in episode 5. At first they're extremely angry at Sara somehow being responsible for Isabella's death, but as Mariette continues her beating, even the other girls begin to get a little disgusted by how far she's taking it. [[spoiler: It's likely she would've killed Sara with the lead pipe had Lotte and the other Reasoners not of intervened.]]
* TheWrongRightThing
* UnfortunateNames: Sara's Strain is actually named Ram-Dass. Yeah, it's a literary allusion, but ''seriously?''
* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Medlock.
* ZettaiRyouiki: The female cadet uniforms aboard the ''Libertad'' default to an outfit with thigh-high stockings, a miniskirt, and about a handsbreadth of space between the two -- Grade A, in other words.
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->''"[[ArcWords Only you can do what you've decided to do. If you keep that in mind, nothing is impossible.]]"''
Take ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'', [[RecycledInSpace put it in space]], add HumongousMecha and a lot of angst, twist the characters around and throw in some {{Fanservice}} to keep the fanboys with low attention spans.
Sara Werec (a jumbled "Sara Crewe") has been groomed from birth as an elite Reasoner, pilot of a mecha called a Strain. Only those who were chosen before they were born can pilot one (the thing relies on a psychic connection with a power core that includes the user's own brain cells), generally meaning the upper crust military families. Her main reason for joining the army is to find her beloved brother, over whom the staff at Grabera Academy gushes. She's just about to graduate and take the side of the galactic Union in an ancient war against the empire of Deague...
[[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Then in come Deague forces, led by a stolen, modified Strain piloted by Sara's dear brother. The entire school is destroyed. No one except Sera is left alive.]]
Several months later, she takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language localization release is titled ''[=STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry=]''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
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!!This show provides examples of:
* {{Aesoptinum}}: [[spoiler:The Emilys]]
* AgainstTheSettingSun: First episode; after the big tragedy, such speeches happen gazing out at space.
* AlmostKiss: Interrupted once by an enemy attack and once by a phone call. [[spoiler:Both are immediately followed by the death of one of the would-be participants.]]
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: While Sara was popular at Grabera, she's picked on in Basion.
* AloofBigBrother: Ralph, of course.
* AlphaBitch: Isabella, towards Sara. [[spoiler: She doesn't last more than a few episodes, and afterwards her posse continues to harass Sara, blaming her for Isabella's death.]] A later episode has Isabella's friend as the new leader, [[spoiler:but this girl ends up bullying her close to death. Not even Funimation's Youtube channel has this episode as part of it.]]
* AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* AnyoneCanDie: Made clear in the first few episodes, where the cast is pruned from hundreds of extras to double- and single-digits.
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* BadassLongcoat: Ralph.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: Played straight early on, subverted with Lavinia in episode 7. Particularly embarrassing for her as she unintentionally runs out of the shower naked after accidentally kissing Jessie, then runs through the ship in her birthday suit in shock.
* BerserkButton: Lottie's gets pressed accidentally by Sara at the end of episode 8 [[spoiler: when she hears Sara calling Ralph her brother.]]
* BetaBaddie
* BigBrotherAttraction[=/=]BigBrotherWorship: Both Sara and Lottie.
* BigDamnHeroes: Sara does a couple of these.
* BlackBox: The invention of Strains and Mimics.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Happens to [[spoiler: Ralph]] later in the series.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants being snapped off as they destroy each other's Strains.]]
* BottleEpisode: Quite a few.
* BreatherEpisode: Episode 6 and 7. Enjoy it while you can, because the story really goes downhill from there.
* BrokenPedestal: Ralph was Sara's inspiration up until he slaughtered her classmates.
* BroughtDownToNormal: Sara losing her first Mimic.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Melchi and Carmichael, the two mechanics. Melchi especially tends to be a bit eccentric, but his superiors seem to overlook it because he does some genuinely useful things that end up saving a lot of lives.
* CainAndAbel: Ralph and Sara.
* CapturedSuperEntity: [[spoiler:Both Emilies.]]
* CartwrightCurse: [[spoiler:Sara's two serious love interests both get killed in battle.]]
* CharClone: The show's been called "''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' starring Sayla". Some would argue, though, that Sara is as much or more of a Char than Ralph is.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* TheCheerleader: The Gambee pilots act like this towards Sara, which progressively gets worse when the Strain pilots try to befriend her and when she gets Ram-Dass. [[spoiler:Comes to a head after Isabella is killed in battle, at which point Mariette lures Sara to an isolated portion of the ship and starts harassing her, before she starts actually beating Sara up. Thankfully, at about the point where she goes for a large lead pipe, the Strain pilots intervene and shut the incident down.]]
* ChekhovsGun: the Emilies.
* CollapsingLair: [[spoiler:Inverted with the ''Kunrun''. Medlock activates the SelfDestructMechanism ''before'' any of the heroes are anywhere near it, to try and trap Ralph inside. Only after that does Ralph take the controls and ram the ship into the ''Libertad''.]]
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Strains other than Sara's Ram-Dass (magenta and blue) and Ralph's modified Gloire (brown and gold) are mass-produced, so there's a lot of this; the trainees at Grabera used yellow and green Flyssas, while the ones for the trainees in Basion are green, and the instructors and higher-ups at Basion are briefly seen with purple Strains of an unknown model. Ralph's first Gloire was blue and white, as are those belonging to the instructors at Grabera.
** The uniforms at Basion are colour-coded, too. Orange for Gambee pilots, powder blue for Reasoners, teal for BridgeBunnies, white for medics.
* CompetenceZone: The entire Basion force is made up of teenagers, although it ''is'' based at a school that was drawn into the battle, and they ''do'' keep calling for adult backup.
* CoolShip: Both the good guy's and the bad guy's main ship in the series.
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: When the Reasoners are fighting thousands of Tumors, they cut through them like butter. When there's only a few Tumors around on the other hand, they have a lot of trouble with them.
** A blatantly hilarious example happens in the beginning of episode 12, when Lottie and her remaining crew manage to destroy what looks like tens of thousands of them in a few moments. Then there's 2 left, and she's unable to get them off without Sara's help.
* ConspicuousCG: The Strain fights. They're still pretty rad-looking, but, compared to the actual animation, they're obviously computer-generated.
* CurbStompBattle: Pretty much any fight that Ralph participates in, until episode 13.
* ADayInTheLimelight: "Lavinia's Lovely Plot"
* DeadStarWalking: Mary and Isabella were both played by the same, fairly famous, VA.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Ralph.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Sara herself.
* DittoAliens: The Emilies.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Every one of Sara's love interests at least starts out as this. Lavinia, the GenderFlip version, plays the concept truest.
* DoomedHometown: Grabera.
* [[TheDragon Dragon]]: Arguable subversion; Ralph is clearly Medlock's Dragon for much of the series, but he, not her, is always presented as the "villain".
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Ralph, as crazy as he was, gets a moment to recognize his sister and entrust her with Emily's care just before he dies.]]
* ElegantGothicLolita: Emily wears lolita dresses.
* EmotionlessGirl: Sara tries to come off as this, but her facade breaks throughout the course of the series.
* EmpathicWeapon: Mimics are created from the user's brain cells and are made to synchronize with the user and run their mecha.
* TheEmpire: Deague is implied to be this; if you look carefully during the first episode where the lecturer is explaining the war, you will see the word "DIGUO." ''Dì guó'' is the Mandarin word for "empire." Additionally, on the series' [[http://www.s-strain.jp/story.html official website]], Deague is written with the Chinese characters for "empire," 帝国.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:The Bitch Brigade is fine harassing Sara in all sorts of ways, but when Mariette gets into actual violence, the other girls say it's going too far and beg her to stop.]]
* EverybodysDeadDave: Grabera again.
* EvilCounterpart: Sara and Ralph.
* ExplosiveDecompression: Well-done in the first attack on the ''Libertad'', where the bridge is ripped open and becomes a vacuum -- people have time to at least get to safety. However, in later episodes, [=TUMORs=] and mechs rip into the ship ''and whole conversations are had with the big hole to hard vacuum in the background''.
** [[AWizardDidIt Ram-Dass plugged up the hole in the ship, okay?]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Ralph, of course.
* FacialMarkings: The living Emily.
* FallenPrincess: Sara. The show's based off ''A Little Princess'', even.
* FallingIntoTheCockpit: At least she's a trained pilot.
* {{Fanservice}}: Quite a bit; it comes to the surface in the form of showers, change rooms and, well, [[MsFanservice Lavinia]].
* FasterThanLightTravel: Not actually present. The effects of relativity causes some interesting time distortion effects that basically shape the whole plot.
* FingerSuckHealing: Lavinia tries to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope with Sara but fails.
* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: ''Ohhhh'' boy.
* FlatCharacter: Martha's sole personality trait is "Likes meat."
* ForgottenChildhoodFriend: Ralph resembles this, despite most certainly not being forgotten.
* FunWithAcronyms: [=STRAIN=]: [=STRategic=] Armoured [=INfantry=] (also the show's official English title). Many other terms -- like GAMBEE -- are actually acronyms.
** [=TUMOR=] is apparently an acronym (Tactical Unmanned Maneuver [=ORb=], for the record), but more of a MeaningfulName.
* GenreShift: It ''seems'' to be a shoujo-ish mecha series, odd as that may sound ([[VisionOfEscaflowne or maybe not]]). Then [[WhamEpisode everyone's dead]].
* GirlInABox: The doll Emily is a Doll In A Store Room and the living Emily is a Girl In A Stasis Pod, each taken in by one of the Werec siblings. [[spoiler:A third Emily is a Girl In A Mech found in much the same way. She doesn't survive.]]
* GirlPosse: The Gambee pilots at Basion.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler: Happens to Ralph, when he discovers that an "unmanned" robot he was fighting turns out to have what looks like a little girl inside. She then reveals how the girls share all their thoughts and memories with each other over vast distances, and gives him the same feelings. Which then causes an immense guilt trip when he discovers the Union performed hideous secret experiments on the little girls, effectively torturing their entire species.]]
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Ralph has an Evil Scar over his eye.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Every time [[spoiler:Ralph kills someone on the Deague ship ''Kunrun''.]]
* GrailInTheGarbage: Sara finds the doll Emily in what looks like a scrap junkyard portion of the ship. She immediately grows attached to it.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The Union uses GratuitousEnglish naming schemes (although all the characters have English names, so it would be less realistic if the machines and locations had Japanese names), while Deague names places and things in Anglicized versions of Chinese words (including "Deague" itself, which comes from "diguo" for "empire").
* GreenEyedMonster: Isabella and her friends are a bit jealous at how skilled the "new recruit" Sara is, and continually try to undermine her as much as they can. They even go so far as to steal her pendant, berate her, and tear her uniform, and later [[spoiler: Mariette nearly kills Sara after Isabella died in an earlier battle, and blames Sara not helping out sooner in that fight.]]
* HairColors: Blue, maroon, pink, and purple. Ralph's white appears to be caused by trauma, since his natural hair colour is blond.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Medlock and the living Emily.]]
* HeroicBSOD: Sara is in this mode for much of the series, actually.
** Happens to Lottie in episode 9, and she nearly kills Sara over it.
* HeroicSacrifice: Cedie in the first episode. Averted with [[spoiler:Melchi and Dufarge. They were unable to stop the self-destruct of the enemy ship, so decided instead to move it as far away from the Libertad as possible. But then Lottie flies in to pull them out of there.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: Ralph.
* HighPressureBlood: Explicable in some cases -- they're in space, after all.
* HighSpeedMissileDodge: ''Lightspeed''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Medlock, killed by her own Tumors once Ralph deletes her from the ship's recognition system.]]
* HumansAreBastards: [[spoiler: When Ralph learns what the Union did to the little girls, he swears to avenge them, hence why he goes around killing as many humans as he can.]]
* HumongousMecha: Strains are the actual ''humongous'' variety. Gambees are only slightly bigger than their pilots.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: [[spoiler:Sara's got the CartwrightCurse; who do ''you'' think this applies to?]]
* ImagineSpot: Lavinia has a couple of these in episode 7.
* ImportantHaircut: Sara chops off her hair between episodes one and two.
* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum
* ImprobablyFemaleCast (Basion Tactical Training School at least ''started'' with an equal number of male and female pilots, but the mass slaughter of most of the students ended up with a squad of pilots mostly composed of cute girls and all reporting to male officers too old to be a [[{{Shipping}} ship]] threat. Only two male Reasoners are left, [[spoiler:one dies later, and the other spends the last battle on the sidelines with a broken arm.]])
* IsThatCuteKidYours: The living Emily on Sara and Carris' "date".
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Or at least it did at James and Annie Werec's funeral.
* ItsAllMyFault: Sara blames herself for Grabera's destruction. [[spoiler:Lavinia later blames herself for Carris' death, as she lost the important item that he was searching for when Ralph killed him.]]
* ItsPersonal: Both Sara and Lottie have personal motivations for fighting in the war and for wanting to defeat Ralph.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sara mid-series.
* JigsawPuzzlePlot
* KarmicDeath: Happens to [[spoiler: Isabella. She seemed impatient at getting out into the battle, and as a result, was one of the first Gambee's attacked and killed.]]
* {{Kiai}}
* KilledOffForReal: Might be easier to just list survivors considering the high body count in this series.
* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Eventual aversion.]]
* LastOfHisKind: The two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
* LikeThatShowButWithMecha: It's based on ''Literature/ALittlePrincess''.
* LipstickLesbian: Lavinia, oh, so much.
* LittleMissBadass: Lottie may not be child, but her flat chest and shortness were enough to give her the FanNickname. Also subverted by the [[spoiler:army of Emilys, actual lolis in mechs, who went down like... well, dolls.]]
* LoopholeAbuse: The enemy ship chasing down the Libertad has sensors that closes off portions of a ship to unauthorized personnel. Emily tries walking around at first, but keeps getting locked off. Later, when Ralph returns to the room and takes a shower, she puts his jacket on, and while it's clearly too big for her, it lets her pass, and she's able to board one of the transport shuttles to head towards Gala.
* LonersAreFreaks: Subverted, somewhat.
* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
* LostTechnology
* LukeIAmYourFather: First episode.
* LuminescentBlush: Lavinia.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Arguable subversion; see Dragon.
* MadLove: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Or at least ''she'' thinks so. It ends up going the other way around.]]
* MayflyDecemberRomance: [[spoiler:After Lavinia's aged and Sara hasn't, she ''still'' has that crush on her.]]
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Surprisingly averted. Women die just as often (and pointlessly) as the men do in this series.
* MidSeasonUpgrade: Sara's mimic and Strain mech is destroyed in the first episode, but she gets replacements in episode 4, which are much tougher.
* MisanthropeSupreme: Ralph Werec.
* MistakenForSpies: Sara creates a new identity to avoid this. [[spoiler:For good reason -- once she's outed, everyone believes she's a spy for the Deague anyway.]]
* ModestyTowel: [[spoiler:Medlock first operates and then escapes from the ''Kunrun'' wearing nothing but one after Ralph kills the rest of the crew while she was locked in her shower. Justified in that her security pass is incorporated into her clothing, and depriving her of it leaves her dependent on Ralph.]]
* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: While some stuff is on the soft side of this scale, other aspects border on the harder parts, such as when they travel in close to lightspeed, they age slower than people in normal time. In one episode, an instructor mentions that four days have passed for them, while back on their home planet, a month has passed. Also, when they reach Gala, Carris mentions having a little brother, who is actually physically older than him due to the amount of time Carris spent in at relativistic speeds.
** [[spoiler: A quick glance at the displays in Sarah's STRAIN shows that her final sublight battle with Ralph took ''five years'' of relative time, supported by her friends wearing full military (as opposed to cadet) uniforms when they come to rescue her in TheStinger.]]
* MoodLighting
* MoodWhiplash: Again, episode seven.
* MoralityPet: The living Emily. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]
* MotiveDecay: Ralph's insanity makes him go from "make things right" to "make the Union pay" to "kill all the humans ever".
* MsFanservice: Lavinia. She even gets her own episode where she fantasizes about Sara, kisses Jessie in the shower, and runs around naked.
* MyGreatestFailure
* NaiveEverygirl: Sara, to a point.
* {{Narrator}}: Sara narrates the beginning and end of some episodes, although, in a few cases, she might be talking to Emily.
* NewMeat: Sara once she joins the Spatial Armour Division.
* NewTransferStudent: Sara in episode 2.
* NeverGrewUp: See ReallySevenHundredYearsOld below.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lavinia in episode 7 [[spoiler: when she tries hiding Emily in the hopes that helping Sara "find" her would help win her over. Unfortunately she put her in the garbage room, and the doll got knocked into the trash chute. Which then got sent into a garbage truck, which is also speeding away from the ship to take out the trash.]]
* NietzscheWannabe: Ralph Werec.
* NonIndicativeFirstEpisode: As you can see.
* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Ram-Dass. In their defense, creating custom mecha was ''illegal'', and the Union made an exception on the spot.
* NotADate: Episode eight.
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:Lottie is a young girl who entered the military in order to follow in the footsteps of her beloved big brother -- just like Sara. The main difference is that Lottie's brother was killed by Sara's, which results in Lottie demanding answers from Sara at gunpoint once her identity is revealed. The realization that they really aren't so different convinces Lottie not to shoot her.]] This is even lampshaded by the title of the episode where we learn all this: "Like Looking At Myself".
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Sara and Lottie both claim this right against Ralph.
* [[OrphansPlotTrinket Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants.
* PaperThinDisguise: How did Sara's hair divorce and new last name fool anybody!?
* ParentalAbandonment: Sara's parents are dead, and nobody else's are mentioned.
* PhlebotinumAnalogy
* PlayboyBunny: Lavinia owns a {{pink| means feminine}} Playboy Bunny suit. [[http://media.animevice.com/uploads/2/25603/487882-1164854850938b010xz1.jpg She wears it]] in one of her many, many failed Sara-seduction plans.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: [[spoiler:The last episode.]]
* PostEpisodeTrailer
* PreExplosionGlow
* ThePromise: Sara and Lottie promise to meet their brothers in the army. It doesn't go well.
* PsychoSupporter: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Although not entirely: he is insane, and he does hate the Union, but he also hates the Deague and all other humans. He's just pretending to support the Deague because it's convenient for him.]]
* RainAura
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Done in episode 12.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: in its truest sense, the Emilys, Melchisedec and Carmichael; due to sub-lightspeed travel, just about everybody.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The captain on the Libertad. He actually takes suggestions and advice given to him by his subordinates, such as giving the crew some time off on Gala, and when he learns of Sara's true background, he tries to understand why she did what she did without throwing random, baseless accusations.
* ReliableTraitor: Subverted -- he's killed by yet ''another'' traitor before he can enact his plot.
* {{Retirony}}: graduation, not retirement.
* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Martha and Ermengarde, who would have every appearance of being lovers but are probably straight.
* RuleOfCool
* SchoolgirlLesbians: Lavinia and Jessie; the classic stereotypes subverted by Martha and Ermengarde, who seem to be very much straight.
* SelfDestructMechanism: Medlock has one installed on the ''Kunrun''. [[spoiler:A subplot in the last few episodes is devoted to first engaging it and then trying to disengage it.]]
* SenselessSacrifice: Pretty much anyone who dies in this series. None of them really get to do anything heroic, they're just another casualty as far as the bad guy is concerned.
* SlidingScaleOfLivingToys: Emily's at Level 0.
* SnowMeansDeath: Used by juxtaposing happy SnowMeansLove scenes with serious battles in the end.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Melchi, who seemingly can't go a single conversation without mentioning how much of a genius he is.
* SnowMeansLove: Hopefully not siscon.
* SpaceOpera
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is Sara's home planet Grabera or Glabella? The manga and the official subs use the former, but official art and the website use the latter. Also, "Deague" is pretty consistent for the most part, but "Diguo" is used once, and it has an actual meaning. Looks like, in both cases, other gratuitous foreign languages were [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign transformed]] to look like GratuitousEnglish to match the rest of the series' terms.
** Another question is whether "Strain" and other acronyms should be capitalized or not. (The official release doesn't capitalize them.)
* SpiritualSuccessor: Shares many themes with ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''.
* SpoilerOpening: At first; eventually subverted by the death of a character in the OP and the survival of some that didn't make the cut.
* StealthHiBye: The living Emily does this to Carris and Sara in episode 8 when at the open air restaurant.
* SurvivorGuilt
* {{Synchronization}}: Reasoners and Mimics.
* TeamSpirit
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Or at least Sara didn't go see one before changing her name and running off to join the army.
* TimeDilation
* TimeTravel: Oh, theory of relativity, you drive this entire plot.
* TokenYuriGirls:
** Lavinia and Jessie. They never do get together in the end, or at least it's left open-ended, despite having a ''very'' close encounter due to a misunderstanding. Which is rather strange, since Jessie seemed very responsive, yet she [[ResetButton never brings up the incident again afterward]].
** Also contains some mindbreaking hints at a possible relationship between Sara and her ''doll'' Emily. Things get worse when [[spoiler:we discover that the "doll" actually contains the living brain of an alien girl. Whose race shares a common hive mind. So by acting nice to her, Sara acts nice to a whole goddamn OneGenderRace. Is this someone's weirdest yuri harem fantasy or what?]]
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Martha and Ermengarde.
* TomboyishSidetails: Sara.
* TookALevelInBadAss: While Sara was pretty competent as a Strain pilot, her brother absolutely stomps her the two times she tries to fight him in episode 1. As the series goes on, she's gradually able to withstand him a little better, and finally can stand toe to toe with him in episode 13.
** And in episode 4 she would have curb-stomped him if she wasn't trying her hardest not to. Which is awkward.
* TrainingFromHell: Mostly self-inflicted.
* TronLines: Mercurion circuits in Strains.
* TrueCompanions: Lottie makes it clear that her team are this, and Sara is ''going'' to treat them like equals.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
* TwoDSpace: Formations all seem to rely upon it.
* VaporWear: the first episode makes a point of showing that [[FanService Sarah doesn't wear anything under her flight suit]].
* VillainousBreakDown: [[spoiler: Ralph seems to suffer one after Emily refuses to go with him because she didn't want him going on another killing spree.]]
* WarIsHell: While they don't preach it, many characters suffer relatively pointless and non-dramatic deaths. They seem important in one scene, then [[AnyoneCanDie get caught in an explosion or stabbed/sliced apart by Ralph in the next.]]
* WellExcuseMePrincess: Ermy to Dickon.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Ralph feels what humans did to the little girls is unforgivable, and will stop at nothing to wipe them out. Hence his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* WhamEpisode: The very first episode. You think you know what's going on and then there's a brick to the face. And then the third episode, and then... heck, the show basically tosses a solid object at your anatomy ''every other episode''.
** There ''is'' a BreatherEpisode. [[spoiler:Which is also a Wham Episode.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Mariette and her posse in episode 5. At first they're extremely angry at Sara somehow being responsible for Isabella's death, but as Mariette continues her beating, even the other girls begin to get a little disgusted by how far she's taking it. [[spoiler: It's likely she would've killed Sara with the lead pipe had Lotte and the other Reasoners not of intervened.]]
* TheWrongRightThing
* UnfortunateNames: Sara's Strain is actually named Ram-Dass. Yeah, it's a literary allusion, but ''seriously?''
* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Medlock.
* ZettaiRyouiki: The female cadet uniforms aboard the ''Libertad'' default to an outfit with thigh-high stockings, a miniskirt, and about a handsbreadth of space between the two -- Grade A, in other words.
----
to:
->''"[[ArcWords Only you can do what you've decided to do. If you keep that in mind, nothing is impossible.]]"''
Take ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'', [[RecycledInSpace put it in space]], add HumongousMecha and a lot of angst, twist the characters around and throw in some {{Fanservice}} to keep the fanboys with low attention spans.
Sara Werec (a jumbled "Sara Crewe") has been groomed from birth as an elite Reasoner, pilot of a mecha called a Strain. Only those who were chosen before they were born can pilot one (the thing relies on a psychic connection with a power core that includes the user's own brain cells), generally meaning the upper crust military families. Her main reason for joining the army is to find her beloved brother, over whom the staff at Grabera Academy gushes. She's just about to graduate and take the side of the galactic Union in an ancient war against the empire of Deague...
[[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Then in come Deague forces, led by a stolen, modified Strain piloted by Sara's dear brother. The entire school is destroyed. No one except Sera is left alive.]]
Several months later, she takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language localization release is titled ''[=STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry=]''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
----
!!This show provides examples of:
* {{Aesoptinum}}: [[spoiler:The Emilys]]
* AgainstTheSettingSun: First episode; after the big tragedy, such speeches happen gazing out at space.
* AlmostKiss: Interrupted once by an enemy attack and once by a phone call. [[spoiler:Both are immediately followed by the death of one of the would-be participants.]]
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: While Sara was popular at Grabera, she's picked on in Basion.
* AloofBigBrother: Ralph, of course.
* AlphaBitch: Isabella, towards Sara. [[spoiler: She doesn't last more than a few episodes, and afterwards her posse continues to harass Sara, blaming her for Isabella's death.]] A later episode has Isabella's friend as the new leader, [[spoiler:but this girl ends up bullying her close to death. Not even Funimation's Youtube channel has this episode as part of it.]]
* AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* AnyoneCanDie: Made clear in the first few episodes, where the cast is pruned from hundreds of extras to double- and single-digits.
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* BadassLongcoat: Ralph.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: Played straight early on, subverted with Lavinia in episode 7. Particularly embarrassing for her as she unintentionally runs out of the shower naked after accidentally kissing Jessie, then runs through the ship in her birthday suit in shock.
* BerserkButton: Lottie's gets pressed accidentally by Sara at the end of episode 8 [[spoiler: when she hears Sara calling Ralph her brother.]]
* BetaBaddie
* BigBrotherAttraction[=/=]BigBrotherWorship: Both Sara and Lottie.
* BigDamnHeroes: Sara does a couple of these.
* BlackBox: The invention of Strains and Mimics.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Happens to [[spoiler: Ralph]] later in the series.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants being snapped off as they destroy each other's Strains.]]
* BottleEpisode: Quite a few.
* BreatherEpisode: Episode 6 and 7. Enjoy it while you can, because the story really goes downhill from there.
* BrokenPedestal: Ralph was Sara's inspiration up until he slaughtered her classmates.
* BroughtDownToNormal: Sara losing her first Mimic.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Melchi and Carmichael, the two mechanics. Melchi especially tends to be a bit eccentric, but his superiors seem to overlook it because he does some genuinely useful things that end up saving a lot of lives.
* CainAndAbel: Ralph and Sara.
* CapturedSuperEntity: [[spoiler:Both Emilies.]]
* CartwrightCurse: [[spoiler:Sara's two serious love interests both get killed in battle.]]
* CharClone: The show's been called "''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' starring Sayla". Some would argue, though, that Sara is as much or more of a Char than Ralph is.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* TheCheerleader: The Gambee pilots act like this towards Sara, which progressively gets worse when the Strain pilots try to befriend her and when she gets Ram-Dass. [[spoiler:Comes to a head after Isabella is killed in battle, at which point Mariette lures Sara to an isolated portion of the ship and starts harassing her, before she starts actually beating Sara up. Thankfully, at about the point where she goes for a large lead pipe, the Strain pilots intervene and shut the incident down.]]
* ChekhovsGun: the Emilies.
* CollapsingLair: [[spoiler:Inverted with the ''Kunrun''. Medlock activates the SelfDestructMechanism ''before'' any of the heroes are anywhere near it, to try and trap Ralph inside. Only after that does Ralph take the controls and ram the ship into the ''Libertad''.]]
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Strains other than Sara's Ram-Dass (magenta and blue) and Ralph's modified Gloire (brown and gold) are mass-produced, so there's a lot of this; the trainees at Grabera used yellow and green Flyssas, while the ones for the trainees in Basion are green, and the instructors and higher-ups at Basion are briefly seen with purple Strains of an unknown model. Ralph's first Gloire was blue and white, as are those belonging to the instructors at Grabera.
** The uniforms at Basion are colour-coded, too. Orange for Gambee pilots, powder blue for Reasoners, teal for BridgeBunnies, white for medics.
* CompetenceZone: The entire Basion force is made up of teenagers, although it ''is'' based at a school that was drawn into the battle, and they ''do'' keep calling for adult backup.
* CoolShip: Both the good guy's and the bad guy's main ship in the series.
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: When the Reasoners are fighting thousands of Tumors, they cut through them like butter. When there's only a few Tumors around on the other hand, they have a lot of trouble with them.
** A blatantly hilarious example happens in the beginning of episode 12, when Lottie and her remaining crew manage to destroy what looks like tens of thousands of them in a few moments. Then there's 2 left, and she's unable to get them off without Sara's help.
* ConspicuousCG: The Strain fights. They're still pretty rad-looking, but, compared to the actual animation, they're obviously computer-generated.
* CurbStompBattle: Pretty much any fight that Ralph participates in, until episode 13.
* ADayInTheLimelight: "Lavinia's Lovely Plot"
* DeadStarWalking: Mary and Isabella were both played by the same, fairly famous, VA.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Ralph.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Sara herself.
* DittoAliens: The Emilies.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Every one of Sara's love interests at least starts out as this. Lavinia, the GenderFlip version, plays the concept truest.
* DoomedHometown: Grabera.
* [[TheDragon Dragon]]: Arguable subversion; Ralph is clearly Medlock's Dragon for much of the series, but he, not her, is always presented as the "villain".
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Ralph, as crazy as he was, gets a moment to recognize his sister and entrust her with Emily's care just before he dies.]]
* ElegantGothicLolita: Emily wears lolita dresses.
* EmotionlessGirl: Sara tries to come off as this, but her facade breaks throughout the course of the series.
* EmpathicWeapon: Mimics are created from the user's brain cells and are made to synchronize with the user and run their mecha.
* TheEmpire: Deague is implied to be this; if you look carefully during the first episode where the lecturer is explaining the war, you will see the word "DIGUO." ''Dì guó'' is the Mandarin word for "empire." Additionally, on the series' [[http://www.s-strain.jp/story.html official website]], Deague is written with the Chinese characters for "empire," 帝国.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:The Bitch Brigade is fine harassing Sara in all sorts of ways, but when Mariette gets into actual violence, the other girls say it's going too far and beg her to stop.]]
* EverybodysDeadDave: Grabera again.
* EvilCounterpart: Sara and Ralph.
* ExplosiveDecompression: Well-done in the first attack on the ''Libertad'', where the bridge is ripped open and becomes a vacuum -- people have time to at least get to safety. However, in later episodes, [=TUMORs=] and mechs rip into the ship ''and whole conversations are had with the big hole to hard vacuum in the background''.
** [[AWizardDidIt Ram-Dass plugged up the hole in the ship, okay?]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Ralph, of course.
* FacialMarkings: The living Emily.
* FallenPrincess: Sara. The show's based off ''A Little Princess'', even.
* FallingIntoTheCockpit: At least she's a trained pilot.
* {{Fanservice}}: Quite a bit; it comes to the surface in the form of showers, change rooms and, well, [[MsFanservice Lavinia]].
* FasterThanLightTravel: Not actually present. The effects of relativity causes some interesting time distortion effects that basically shape the whole plot.
* FingerSuckHealing: Lavinia tries to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope with Sara but fails.
* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: ''Ohhhh'' boy.
* FlatCharacter: Martha's sole personality trait is "Likes meat."
* ForgottenChildhoodFriend: Ralph resembles this, despite most certainly not being forgotten.
* FunWithAcronyms: [=STRAIN=]: [=STRategic=] Armoured [=INfantry=] (also the show's official English title). Many other terms -- like GAMBEE -- are actually acronyms.
** [=TUMOR=] is apparently an acronym (Tactical Unmanned Maneuver [=ORb=], for the record), but more of a MeaningfulName.
* GenreShift: It ''seems'' to be a shoujo-ish mecha series, odd as that may sound ([[VisionOfEscaflowne or maybe not]]). Then [[WhamEpisode everyone's dead]].
* GirlInABox: The doll Emily is a Doll In A Store Room and the living Emily is a Girl In A Stasis Pod, each taken in by one of the Werec siblings. [[spoiler:A third Emily is a Girl In A Mech found in much the same way. She doesn't survive.]]
* GirlPosse: The Gambee pilots at Basion.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler: Happens to Ralph, when he discovers that an "unmanned" robot he was fighting turns out to have what looks like a little girl inside. She then reveals how the girls share all their thoughts and memories with each other over vast distances, and gives him the same feelings. Which then causes an immense guilt trip when he discovers the Union performed hideous secret experiments on the little girls, effectively torturing their entire species.]]
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Ralph has an Evil Scar over his eye.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Every time [[spoiler:Ralph kills someone on the Deague ship ''Kunrun''.]]
* GrailInTheGarbage: Sara finds the doll Emily in what looks like a scrap junkyard portion of the ship. She immediately grows attached to it.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The Union uses GratuitousEnglish naming schemes (although all the characters have English names, so it would be less realistic if the machines and locations had Japanese names), while Deague names places and things in Anglicized versions of Chinese words (including "Deague" itself, which comes from "diguo" for "empire").
* GreenEyedMonster: Isabella and her friends are a bit jealous at how skilled the "new recruit" Sara is, and continually try to undermine her as much as they can. They even go so far as to steal her pendant, berate her, and tear her uniform, and later [[spoiler: Mariette nearly kills Sara after Isabella died in an earlier battle, and blames Sara not helping out sooner in that fight.]]
* HairColors: Blue, maroon, pink, and purple. Ralph's white appears to be caused by trauma, since his natural hair colour is blond.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Medlock and the living Emily.]]
* HeroicBSOD: Sara is in this mode for much of the series, actually.
** Happens to Lottie in episode 9, and she nearly kills Sara over it.
* HeroicSacrifice: Cedie in the first episode. Averted with [[spoiler:Melchi and Dufarge. They were unable to stop the self-destruct of the enemy ship, so decided instead to move it as far away from the Libertad as possible. But then Lottie flies in to pull them out of there.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: Ralph.
* HighPressureBlood: Explicable in some cases -- they're in space, after all.
* HighSpeedMissileDodge: ''Lightspeed''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Medlock, killed by her own Tumors once Ralph deletes her from the ship's recognition system.]]
* HumansAreBastards: [[spoiler: When Ralph learns what the Union did to the little girls, he swears to avenge them, hence why he goes around killing as many humans as he can.]]
* HumongousMecha: Strains are the actual ''humongous'' variety. Gambees are only slightly bigger than their pilots.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: [[spoiler:Sara's got the CartwrightCurse; who do ''you'' think this applies to?]]
* ImagineSpot: Lavinia has a couple of these in episode 7.
* ImportantHaircut: Sara chops off her hair between episodes one and two.
* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum
* ImprobablyFemaleCast (Basion Tactical Training School at least ''started'' with an equal number of male and female pilots, but the mass slaughter of most of the students ended up with a squad of pilots mostly composed of cute girls and all reporting to male officers too old to be a [[{{Shipping}} ship]] threat. Only two male Reasoners are left, [[spoiler:one dies later, and the other spends the last battle on the sidelines with a broken arm.]])
* IsThatCuteKidYours: The living Emily on Sara and Carris' "date".
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Or at least it did at James and Annie Werec's funeral.
* ItsAllMyFault: Sara blames herself for Grabera's destruction. [[spoiler:Lavinia later blames herself for Carris' death, as she lost the important item that he was searching for when Ralph killed him.]]
* ItsPersonal: Both Sara and Lottie have personal motivations for fighting in the war and for wanting to defeat Ralph.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sara mid-series.
* JigsawPuzzlePlot
* KarmicDeath: Happens to [[spoiler: Isabella. She seemed impatient at getting out into the battle, and as a result, was one of the first Gambee's attacked and killed.]]
* {{Kiai}}
* KilledOffForReal: Might be easier to just list survivors considering the high body count in this series.
* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Eventual aversion.]]
* LastOfHisKind: The two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
* LikeThatShowButWithMecha: It's based on ''Literature/ALittlePrincess''.
* LipstickLesbian: Lavinia, oh, so much.
* LittleMissBadass: Lottie may not be child, but her flat chest and shortness were enough to give her the FanNickname. Also subverted by the [[spoiler:army of Emilys, actual lolis in mechs, who went down like... well, dolls.]]
* LoopholeAbuse: The enemy ship chasing down the Libertad has sensors that closes off portions of a ship to unauthorized personnel. Emily tries walking around at first, but keeps getting locked off. Later, when Ralph returns to the room and takes a shower, she puts his jacket on, and while it's clearly too big for her, it lets her pass, and she's able to board one of the transport shuttles to head towards Gala.
* LonersAreFreaks: Subverted, somewhat.
* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
* LostTechnology
* LukeIAmYourFather: First episode.
* LuminescentBlush: Lavinia.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Arguable subversion; see Dragon.
* MadLove: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Or at least ''she'' thinks so. It ends up going the other way around.]]
* MayflyDecemberRomance: [[spoiler:After Lavinia's aged and Sara hasn't, she ''still'' has that crush on her.]]
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Surprisingly averted. Women die just as often (and pointlessly) as the men do in this series.
* MidSeasonUpgrade: Sara's mimic and Strain mech is destroyed in the first episode, but she gets replacements in episode 4, which are much tougher.
* MisanthropeSupreme: Ralph Werec.
* MistakenForSpies: Sara creates a new identity to avoid this. [[spoiler:For good reason -- once she's outed, everyone believes she's a spy for the Deague anyway.]]
* ModestyTowel: [[spoiler:Medlock first operates and then escapes from the ''Kunrun'' wearing nothing but one after Ralph kills the rest of the crew while she was locked in her shower. Justified in that her security pass is incorporated into her clothing, and depriving her of it leaves her dependent on Ralph.]]
* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: While some stuff is on the soft side of this scale, other aspects border on the harder parts, such as when they travel in close to lightspeed, they age slower than people in normal time. In one episode, an instructor mentions that four days have passed for them, while back on their home planet, a month has passed. Also, when they reach Gala, Carris mentions having a little brother, who is actually physically older than him due to the amount of time Carris spent in at relativistic speeds.
** [[spoiler: A quick glance at the displays in Sarah's STRAIN shows that her final sublight battle with Ralph took ''five years'' of relative time, supported by her friends wearing full military (as opposed to cadet) uniforms when they come to rescue her in TheStinger.]]
* MoodLighting
* MoodWhiplash: Again, episode seven.
* MoralityPet: The living Emily. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]
* MotiveDecay: Ralph's insanity makes him go from "make things right" to "make the Union pay" to "kill all the humans ever".
* MsFanservice: Lavinia. She even gets her own episode where she fantasizes about Sara, kisses Jessie in the shower, and runs around naked.
* MyGreatestFailure
* NaiveEverygirl: Sara, to a point.
* {{Narrator}}: Sara narrates the beginning and end of some episodes, although, in a few cases, she might be talking to Emily.
* NewMeat: Sara once she joins the Spatial Armour Division.
* NewTransferStudent: Sara in episode 2.
* NeverGrewUp: See ReallySevenHundredYearsOld below.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lavinia in episode 7 [[spoiler: when she tries hiding Emily in the hopes that helping Sara "find" her would help win her over. Unfortunately she put her in the garbage room, and the doll got knocked into the trash chute. Which then got sent into a garbage truck, which is also speeding away from the ship to take out the trash.]]
* NietzscheWannabe: Ralph Werec.
* NonIndicativeFirstEpisode: As you can see.
* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Ram-Dass. In their defense, creating custom mecha was ''illegal'', and the Union made an exception on the spot.
* NotADate: Episode eight.
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:Lottie is a young girl who entered the military in order to follow in the footsteps of her beloved big brother -- just like Sara. The main difference is that Lottie's brother was killed by Sara's, which results in Lottie demanding answers from Sara at gunpoint once her identity is revealed. The realization that they really aren't so different convinces Lottie not to shoot her.]] This is even lampshaded by the title of the episode where we learn all this: "Like Looking At Myself".
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Sara and Lottie both claim this right against Ralph.
* [[OrphansPlotTrinket Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Sara's and Ralph's matching musical pendants.
* PaperThinDisguise: How did Sara's hair divorce and new last name fool anybody!?
* ParentalAbandonment: Sara's parents are dead, and nobody else's are mentioned.
* PhlebotinumAnalogy
* PlayboyBunny: Lavinia owns a {{pink| means feminine}} Playboy Bunny suit. [[http://media.animevice.com/uploads/2/25603/487882-1164854850938b010xz1.jpg She wears it]] in one of her many, many failed Sara-seduction plans.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: [[spoiler:The last episode.]]
* PostEpisodeTrailer
* PreExplosionGlow
* ThePromise: Sara and Lottie promise to meet their brothers in the army. It doesn't go well.
* PsychoSupporter: Ralph to Vivian. [[spoiler:Although not entirely: he is insane, and he does hate the Union, but he also hates the Deague and all other humans. He's just pretending to support the Deague because it's convenient for him.]]
* RainAura
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Done in episode 12.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: in its truest sense, the Emilys, Melchisedec and Carmichael; due to sub-lightspeed travel, just about everybody.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The captain on the Libertad. He actually takes suggestions and advice given to him by his subordinates, such as giving the crew some time off on Gala, and when he learns of Sara's true background, he tries to understand why she did what she did without throwing random, baseless accusations.
* ReliableTraitor: Subverted -- he's killed by yet ''another'' traitor before he can enact his plot.
* {{Retirony}}: graduation, not retirement.
* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Martha and Ermengarde, who would have every appearance of being lovers but are probably straight.
* RuleOfCool
* SchoolgirlLesbians: Lavinia and Jessie; the classic stereotypes subverted by Martha and Ermengarde, who seem to be very much straight.
* SelfDestructMechanism: Medlock has one installed on the ''Kunrun''. [[spoiler:A subplot in the last few episodes is devoted to first engaging it and then trying to disengage it.]]
* SenselessSacrifice: Pretty much anyone who dies in this series. None of them really get to do anything heroic, they're just another casualty as far as the bad guy is concerned.
* SlidingScaleOfLivingToys: Emily's at Level 0.
* SnowMeansDeath: Used by juxtaposing happy SnowMeansLove scenes with serious battles in the end.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Melchi, who seemingly can't go a single conversation without mentioning how much of a genius he is.
* SnowMeansLove: Hopefully not siscon.
* SpaceOpera
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is Sara's home planet Grabera or Glabella? The manga and the official subs use the former, but official art and the website use the latter. Also, "Deague" is pretty consistent for the most part, but "Diguo" is used once, and it has an actual meaning. Looks like, in both cases, other gratuitous foreign languages were [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign transformed]] to look like GratuitousEnglish to match the rest of the series' terms.
** Another question is whether "Strain" and other acronyms should be capitalized or not. (The official release doesn't capitalize them.)
* SpiritualSuccessor: Shares many themes with ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''.
* SpoilerOpening: At first; eventually subverted by the death of a character in the OP and the survival of some that didn't make the cut.
* StealthHiBye: The living Emily does this to Carris and Sara in episode 8 when at the open air restaurant.
* SurvivorGuilt
* {{Synchronization}}: Reasoners and Mimics.
* TeamSpirit
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Or at least Sara didn't go see one before changing her name and running off to join the army.
* TimeDilation
* TimeTravel: Oh, theory of relativity, you drive this entire plot.
* TokenYuriGirls:
** Lavinia and Jessie. They never do get together in the end, or at least it's left open-ended, despite having a ''very'' close encounter due to a misunderstanding. Which is rather strange, since Jessie seemed very responsive, yet she [[ResetButton never brings up the incident again afterward]].
** Also contains some mindbreaking hints at a possible relationship between Sara and her ''doll'' Emily. Things get worse when [[spoiler:we discover that the "doll" actually contains the living brain of an alien girl. Whose race shares a common hive mind. So by acting nice to her, Sara acts nice to a whole goddamn OneGenderRace. Is this someone's weirdest yuri harem fantasy or what?]]
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Martha and Ermengarde.
* TomboyishSidetails: Sara.
* TookALevelInBadAss: While Sara was pretty competent as a Strain pilot, her brother absolutely stomps her the two times she tries to fight him in episode 1. As the series goes on, she's gradually able to withstand him a little better, and finally can stand toe to toe with him in episode 13.
** And in episode 4 she would have curb-stomped him if she wasn't trying her hardest not to. Which is awkward.
* TrainingFromHell: Mostly self-inflicted.
* TronLines: Mercurion circuits in Strains.
* TrueCompanions: Lottie makes it clear that her team are this, and Sara is ''going'' to treat them like equals.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
* TwoDSpace: Formations all seem to rely upon it.
* VaporWear: the first episode makes a point of showing that [[FanService Sarah doesn't wear anything under her flight suit]].
* VillainousBreakDown: [[spoiler: Ralph seems to suffer one after Emily refuses to go with him because she didn't want him going on another killing spree.]]
* WarIsHell: While they don't preach it, many characters suffer relatively pointless and non-dramatic deaths. They seem important in one scene, then [[AnyoneCanDie get caught in an explosion or stabbed/sliced apart by Ralph in the next.]]
* WellExcuseMePrincess: Ermy to Dickon.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Ralph feels what humans did to the little girls is unforgivable, and will stop at nothing to wipe them out. Hence his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* WhamEpisode: The very first episode. You think you know what's going on and then there's a brick to the face. And then the third episode, and then... heck, the show basically tosses a solid object at your anatomy ''every other episode''.
** There ''is'' a BreatherEpisode. [[spoiler:Which is also a Wham Episode.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Mariette and her posse in episode 5. At first they're extremely angry at Sara somehow being responsible for Isabella's death, but as Mariette continues her beating, even the other girls begin to get a little disgusted by how far she's taking it. [[spoiler: It's likely she would've killed Sara with the lead pipe had Lotte and the other Reasoners not of intervened.]]
* TheWrongRightThing
* UnfortunateNames: Sara's Strain is actually named Ram-Dass. Yeah, it's a literary allusion, but ''seriously?''
* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Medlock.
* ZettaiRyouiki: The female cadet uniforms aboard the ''Libertad'' default to an outfit with thigh-high stockings, a miniskirt, and about a handsbreadth of space between the two -- Grade A, in other words.
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* SpiritualSuccessor: Shares many themes with {{Gunbuster}}.
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* SpiritualSuccessor: Shares many themes with {{Gunbuster}}.''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''.
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* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of Franchise/{{Gundam}}
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* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''{{Gunbuster}}''. ''Anime/{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of Franchise/{{Gundam}}''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
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Trivia
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* DittoAliens: the Emilies.
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* DittoAliens: the The Emilies.
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* FanNickname
** Dollmily and Emiloli to distinguish the Emilies.
** Loli - Lottie, because she's a head shorter and two cups flatter than the rest of her age-cohorts.
** The Animesuki forums called Isabella's (later Mariette's) GirlPosse "The Bitch Brigade".
** Dollmily and Emiloli to distinguish the Emilies.
** Loli - Lottie, because she's a head shorter and two cups flatter than the rest of her age-cohorts.
** The Animesuki forums called Isabella's (later Mariette's) GirlPosse "The Bitch Brigade".
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* DawsonCasting: All over the place, of course, but averted with Emily in the English version, where she's played by an actual child.
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Trivia
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* ADayInTheLimelight: "Lavinia's Lovely Plot"
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* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
* AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
* AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
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* AnimeFirst: Actually, anime concurrent with the manga, but the anime is clearly the ''point'' of the franchise.
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* AnimeFirst: Actually, anime concurrent with AlternativeCalendar: The first episode takes place in 7008 S.E. (Standard Era), and the manga, but the anime is clearly the ''point'' of the franchise.rest in [[FasterThanLightTravel various years around that time]].
* ArcWords: The page quote.
* ADayInTheLimelight: "Lavinia's Lovely Plot"
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* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:eventual aversion.]]
* LastOfHisKind: the two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
* LastOfHisKind: the two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
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* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:eventual [[spoiler:Eventual aversion.]]
* LastOfHisKind:the The two Emilys, one of whom you couldn't really call alive.
* LastOfHisKind:
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* LonersAreFreaks: subverted, somewhat.
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* LonersAreFreaks: subverted, somewhat.Subverted, somewhat.
* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
* ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway
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* LukeIAmYourFather: first episode.
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* LukeIAmYourFather: first First episode.
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** And in episode 4 she would have curb-stomped him if she wasn't trying her hardest not to. Which is akward.
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** And in episode 4 she would have curb-stomped him if she wasn't trying her hardest not to. Which is akward.awkward.
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* ATwinkleInTheSky: The first time Sara launches Ram-Dass, she speeds off into space, twinkles, and comes right back.
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whoever added this didn\'t pay enough attention to the show and has poor understanding of relativism.
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* TimeyWimeyBall: Going chronologically, Ralph travels to a point that happened long ago, but arrives there in the future. Then he teleports through space, putting him in the past, but he is now at least 20 years older and pilots a powerful mecha of unexplained origin. He then goes to a research facility and steals something that he already prevented from ever arriving there. Time proceeds to (almost) make sense from there.
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Strange Girl is a disambiguation now, so it\'s not a trope anymore.
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* StrangeGirl: Lavinia can be seen as such.
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White-Haired Pretty Boy was renamed to White Hair Black Heart. Zero Context Examples or poorly-written examples are being deleted.
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* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy: Ralph.
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* CharClone: The show's been called "''[[MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' starring Sayla". Some would argue, though, that Sara is as much or more of a Char than Ralph is.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like [[GundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''{{Gundam}}''.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like [[GundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''{{Gundam}}''.
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* CharClone: The show's been called "''[[MobileSuitGundam "''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' starring Sayla". Some would argue, though, that Sara is as much or more of a Char than Ralph is.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like[[GundamWing [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Zechs Merquise]] (plus a scar), who's viewed as the most blatant CharClone in ''{{Gundam}}''.''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''.
** Interestingly, Ralph looks '''exactly''' like
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* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of {{Gundam}}
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* XMeetsY: ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' meets ''{{Gunbuster}}''. With a little bit of {{Gundam}}Franchise/{{Gundam}}
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Moving to YMMV.
Deleted line(s) 39 (click to see context) :
* BizarroEpisode: Episode seven, which existed only for fanservice.
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De-wikiwording.
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The English language localization release is titled ''STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry''.
to:
The English language localization release is titled ''STR.''[=STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry''.
INfantry=]''.
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Needless circular redirect.
Changed line(s) 13,14 (click to see context) from:
The English language localization release is titled ''[[StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry]]''.
to:
The English language localization release is titled ''[[StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry STR.''STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry]]''.
INfantry''.
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Moving from YMMV.
Added DiffLines:
* MotiveDecay: Ralph's insanity makes him go from "make things right" to "make the Union pay" to "kill all the humans ever".
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None
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Then in come Deague forces, led by a stolen, modified Strain piloted by Sara's dear brother.
It's clear that Sara can't go back now, left as the only survivor by her murderous turncoat sibling. She takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language release is titled ''StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
It's clear that Sara can't go back now, left as the only survivor by her murderous turncoat sibling. She takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language release is titled ''StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
to:
[[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Then in come Deague forces, led by a stolen, modified Strain piloted by Sara's dear brother.
It's clear that Sara can't go back now,brother. The entire school is destroyed. No one except Sera is left as the only survivor by her murderous turncoat sibling. She alive.]]
Several months later, she takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language localization release is titled''StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry''.
''[[StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry STR.A.IN.: STRategic Armored INfantry]]''.
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
It's clear that Sara can't go back now,
Several months later, she takes another identity, goes to another school and starts training as a grunt pilot, having lost said brain cell core in the attack. But a mysterious doll with a psychic aura changes everything again, and soon Sara's back in the fray, although nothing will let her go that easily. Her goal: to find her brother and figure out just why he would do something so horrible. And when she does, can she face him?
The English language localization release is titled
Aside from its rather shocking beginning, the series has become notable for being chosen as one of the series to headline the launch of Funimation's own Internet video-on-demand service, allowing the entire series to be legally viewable online in fairly high-quality standard-definition for free, with higher-quality single-episode purchases and DVD purchases available. Anyone interested (and living in America) can see the series [[http://www.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=93 here]].
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* AlphaBitch: Isabella, towards Sara. [[spoiler: She doesn't last more than a few episodes, and afterwards her posse continues to harass Sara, blaming her for Isabella's death.]]
to:
* AlphaBitch: Isabella, towards Sara. [[spoiler: She doesn't last more than a few episodes, and afterwards her posse continues to harass Sara, blaming her for Isabella's death.]] A later episode has Isabella's friend as the new leader, [[spoiler:but this girl ends up bullying her close to death. Not even Funimation's Youtube channel has this episode as part of it.]]
