History Literature / ZetsubouRobo

* {{Ace Pilot}}: Three of them to boot. Carmen Rockewell, Edward Delgado, and Priss McNichol. Hiromi comes pretty close near the end, after she finally gets shaken out of her Heroic BSOD.

* {{Shout Out}}: To ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'', courtesy of Priss McNichol, who is named after Priss Asagiri and Leon McNichol. She also has an affinity for motorcycles and brown hair.

* {{The Ace}}: Priss McNichol. She frequently survives things that would kill most people, such as crashing a motorcycle into a mech or being cornered by the Bellafaun on a battlefield.

* {{Heel Face Turn}}: Doridan Mosk, sort of. He was already sick of fighting ''before'' he changed sides. Empreror Grishnak's death just finally gave him an excuse to do so, really. A more interesting example would be Emperor Lutwai, who only does so after Hiromi catches him in her mech's hand and practically threatens to kill him if he doesn't agree to sign a cease-fire and a peace treaty.

* {{The Atoner}}: Horatio Newman briefly becomes this before he dies, as his accidental killing of Princess Limero Grishnak practically destroyed any chances of Emperor Jheld Grahsnak signing a peace treaty to end the war.

** During the fourth chapter, it is mentioned that an unmanned human warship, piloted by a single AI, was named the Makhross, which is pronounced exactly the same as Macross. This is even explained, after a lengthy disclaimer, in the after-epilogue end-notes of the book.

* {{Shout Out}}: To Bubblegum Crisis, courtesy of Priss McNichol, who is named after Priss Asagiri and Leon McNichol. She also has an affinity for motorcycles and brown hair.

* {{Anyone Can Die}}: Seriously, ''anyone''. The story itself was heavily influenced by the Gundam and Halo franchises, which should tell you quite a lot about how many characters probably die over the course of the story.

** The End of New Olympia. Period.

** Hiromi Callahan watching as the ship her mother and sister are still on is destroyed by Grishnak's Royal Cruiser in the third chapter. This, of course, sets up her quest for revenge.
** The Third Battle of Concordia. New Olympia has already fallen by the time the Leningrad reaches Concordia (in an attempt to lure the Bellafaun fleet away from New Olympia and give the remaining forces time to evacuate, which fails because only one ship actually follows them), Hiromi Callahan finds her father's desecrated corpse and becomes an emotional wreck, Carmen Rockwell is killed and Elliot Carver becomes an emotional wreck as well after he learns that Carmen was pregnant with their love child at the time of her death, Horatio Newman dies, and nearly all of the Marines on Sergeant Mulcahy's squad are killed while trying to destroy Empress Kulam's Royal Carrier. The only things that prevent this from becoming suicide material are the fact that Empress Kulam's Royal Carrier ''is'' successfully destroyed, two of Mulcahy's Marines survive by virtue of guarding Callahan and Carver on Concordia's surface, and the Leningrad is still intact. That's pretty much it.

** The Third Battle of Concordia. New Olympia has already fallen by the time the Leningrad reaches Concordia (in an attempt to lure the Bellafaun fleet away from New Olympia and give the remaining forces time to evacuate, which fails because only one ship actually follows them), Hiromi Callahan finds her father's desecrated corpse and becomes an emotional wreck, Carmen Rockwell is killed and Elliot Carver becomes an emotional wreck as well after he learns that Carmen was pregnant with their love child at the time of her death, Horatio Newman dies, and nearly all of the Marines on Sergeant Mulcahy's squad are killed while trying to destroy Empress Kulam's Royal Carrier. The only things that prevents this from becoming suicide material are the fact that Empress Kulam's Royal Carrier ''is'' successfully destroyed, two of Mulcahy's Marines survive by virtue of guarding Callahan and Carver on Concordia's surface, and the Leningrad is still intact. That's pretty much it.

* {{Despair Event Horizon}}: There are many in the book, but some stand out more than others. Also, the books name "''Zetsubou'' Robo" comes from the Japanese word for despair.

* {{There Are No Therapists}}: Averted. There are many points in the book where various characters are mentioned to be undergoing psychiatric review and therapy sessions following their battles with the Bellafaun. Two characters even have a conversation about their therapy sessions, and one character is forced to attend therapy sessions after attempting suicide.

* {{Anyone Can Die}}: Seriously, ''anyone''. The story itself was heavily influenced by the Gundam and Halo franchises.

* {{The Ace}}: Three of them to boot. Carmen Rockewell, Edward Delgado, and Priss McNichol. Hiromi comes pretty close near the end, after she finally gets shaken out of her Heroic BSOD.

* {{Suicide Mission}}: The operation to destroy Empress Kulam's Royal Carrier doesn't start out this way, as the Marines and Mech pilots infiltrating it clearly intend to escape alive, but after their presence is discovered and the Marines guarding their escape ship are killed, it quickly becomes this, especially for Sergeant Mulcahy, after she realizes that everyone on her squad, save the two Marines still on Concordia's surface, is dead. She tells Harrison to get his mech pilots out while she holds the Bellafaun off long enough for the explosives placed in the ship's engine room to detonate.

* {{Dying Moment of Awesome}}: Jennifer Mulcahy, having been mortally wounded and trapped on Empress Kulam's ship with no way out, gains the empress's attention and gives her the middle finger before the bombs in the engine room detonate.

* {{Anyone Can Die}}: Seriously, ''anyone''. The book itself was heavily influenced by ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''.

* {{Anyone Can Die}}: Seriously, ''anyone''.

* {{Dwindling Party}}: Cobra Squadron. Two members of the team have already been killed in battle by the time the squad itself is introduced properly in the fifth chapter, which takes place after a seven year time skip. By the time the war is officially over, only four of the original twelve members of the team are still alive.

* {{Heroic BSOD}}: Happens many times, especially to Hiromi, who just can't catch a break as she has at least three over the course of the story. The two most notable ones for her are after her mother and Satsuki are killed and after she finds her father's desecrated corpse, and the third being after Elliot Carver's {{heroic sacrifice}}. Elliot Carver has one too, after Carmen is killed.

* {{But Not Too Foreign}}: Hiromi Callahan.

* {{Heel Face Turn}}: Doridan Mosk, sort of. He was already sick of fighting ''before'' he changed sides. Empreror Grishnak's death just finally gave him an excuse to do so, really. A more intersting example would be Emperor Lutwai, who only does so after Hiromi catches him in her mech's hand and practically threatens to kill him if he doesn't agree to sign a cease-fire and a peace treaty.

* {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}: Robert Hoffman, the head of the maintenance team for the Deinonychus Battle Mecha, to a degree. He can be quick to anger when his subordinates do something wrong, but he seems to be willing to at least ''listen'' to what they have to say instead of just dismissing them outright.

* {{Time Skip}}: Two major ones, with the first taking place after the Exodus of Concordia, and the second after the Leningrad finally reaches the colony of Yggdrasil in the Epsilon Eridani System, following the Bellafaun attack on New Olympia. The fourth chapter of the book covers an outline of the events that took place during this time skip, and it explains many different characters' back-stories, especially those of Doridan Mosk and certain members of Cobra Squadron.

* {{Dwindling Party}}: Cobra Squadron. Two members of the team are already dead by the time the squad itself is introduced properly in the fifth chapter, which takes place after a seven year time skip. By the time the war is officially over in the last chapter, only four of the original twelve members of the team are still alive.

While the story itself is mostly about Hiromi Callahan, other characters share just as much page time, including the other members of Cobra Squadron and even many of the antagonists, including Emperor Jheld Grishnak and Doridan Mosk. The majority of the story itself takes place over a period of eight years, with two major time skips and one minor one at the epilogue. The fourth chapter itself is mainly exposition that details the events during the seven year time skip between the Bellafaun's attack on Concordia and their latest incursion into human territory.

Zetsubou Robo begins in the year 2486 when humanity, which has colonized a significant portion of the Milky Way Galaxy, makes first contact with an alien race known as the Bellafaun. Things quickly go downhill for humanity from there, as the Bellafaun are highly xenophobic and racist, decalring that humanity has two choices: become slaves for the Bellafaun, or go extinct. Humanity chooses to fight the Bellafaun, and so an eight year war begins. The main protagonist of the story is Hiromi Callahan, a colonist whose family is almost completely wiped out during the Bellafaun attack on her home planet of Concordia. After hitching a ride on a refugee ship, Hiromi is left with her surviving relatives on the colony of New Olympia, and soon joins the military as a mech pilot, in order to get revenge against the Bellafaun. The squadron she is assigned to is known as Cobra Squadron, which is lead by Captain Leonard Harrison.