Line #15 ShoutOut/ApocalypseZero


1	[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
2	* With his white Japanese Navy uniform, katana, black hair and stoic, non-nonsense personality, Kakugo resembles a bespectacled version of Shutaro Mendou of ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''.
3	* A lone, ripped fighter with short dark hair, whose name starts by K and who uses a supernatural martial art, travels through a post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear war while fighting nasty brutes. He pursues a former acquitance and user of his same martial art who betrayed him, left him with scars and took a loved one away from him. It's also discovered that said baddie's mind was corrupted by another baddie. Kakugo in ''Apocalypse Zero'' or Kenshiro in ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''? Even Kakugo's seven Steel Balls are placed in direct reference to Kenshiro's seven scars.
4	* Kakugo's Tactical Evil form is a reference to ''Manga/{{Devilman}}'''s title character, not only visually, but also because, like him, Kakugo manages to take over his demon body and use it to strengthen himself.
5	* The luminous tentacles, the bugs healing Kakugo and the bugs that absorb radiactivity at the end of the series all evoke ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind''.
6	* The Fortified Armor Shells are basically human-made, steel-coated ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'' armors. The lead also uses his own to fight mutated humans turned into monsters (Tactical Evils in ''Zero'', Zoanoids in ''Guyver'').
7	* A lone, ripped fighter with short dark hair and who carries a sword travels a dark world while fighting nightmarish monsters who used to be humans, and the very first monster he faces onscreen is a horrid, sexually deviant female, which he kills by piercing through her mouth. Kakugo in ''Apocalypse Zero'' or Guts in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''?
8	** The ShoutOut also works in reverse. Chidokuro's helmet may resemble Femto's, adding to his grafted female breasts feeling like a jab to Griffith's androgyny, and his sexual abuse of Tsumiko also feels like a parody of Femto's most infamous deed towards Casca. Eikichi is also similar to Wyald, an old man turned into a lecherous, abrasive monster with a weaponized penis. However, in a subversion, the ''Berserk'' chapters featuring Wyald and the Eclipse came out one year after ''Apocalypse Zero'' had concluded. Those developments only made Guts resemble Kakugo even more, as he now pursues a former acquitance of him who was a bishonen genius and his superior in fighting, who later betrayed him after being corrupted by a dark entity and becoming a human demon, and who also took a loved one away from him.
9	* One of the manga Tactical Evils is a monstrous parody of ''Manga/SazaeSan'', sporting the name of Sazae and featuring several heads based on the family's members.
10
11	[[AC:{{Film}}]]
12	* Chidokuro's appearance is also near-identical to the titular character of ''Film/PhantomOfTheParadise'', which matches him being confronted in an amusement park.
13	* The main antagonist is an AMAB character who [[GenderBender changes gender]] to get more powerful and, breaking some of the worst stereotypes of the era, is easily one of the biggest stand outs of the series; a nigh-[[InvincibleVillain invincible]] VisionaryVillain whose gender change is never ridiculed or vilified, and who honestly appreciates their minions (to the point that their lover is a male underling)[[spoiler:-- in fact, their defeat is only possible after they [[MomentOfWeakness dedicate too much love to somebody else]]]]... This definition could either belong to Harara Hagakure, or Dongfang Bubai from the ''[[Film/{{Swordsman}} Swordsman]]'' series[[note]]The films were definitely popular in Japan, as one of the main antagonists of ''[[Anime/MobileFighterGGundam G Gundam]]'' was also clearly inspired by Dongfang Bubai[[/note]].
14
15	[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
16	* Creator/FrankHerbert's ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', another work with ecologist themes set in a faraway future, lends a ton of visible inspirations.
17	** The armors' life support system is very similar to how stillsuits are described. Being living bio-suits composed by multiple entities, they also resemble Leto II's trout suit in ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune''.
18	** Many of Oboro's philosophical lectures sound straight out of ''Dune'', but the quote about how "people who only want to live on are not more than animals" is a direct reference to the Bene Gesserit creed. The armors' collective conscience of dead people evokes the Other Memory, the explanations about Zero martial art sound a lot like Prana Bindu, and Harara's kiss is described in similar terms to imprinting or neuro-seduction.
19	** The horribly obese, perverted Hamuko also reminds of Baron Harkonnen in both things.
20	** As in ''Children of Dune'', the manga stars two siblings of different sex, among which the female is possessed and becomes evil by action of a similarly evil ancestor.
21	* Shiro Hagakure, while clearly referencing by name the infamous Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii, is clearly inspired on Yasunori Kato from ''Literature/TeitoMonogatari'', another undead Japanese Imperial Army officer who tried to use his offspring to cause mayhem (and whose offspring eventually turned against him). He's even drawn with Kato's ''seiman'' pentagram-decorated white gloves.
22	** Similarly, just like Kato was possessed and powered by the grudge of the people killed by the Japanese Empire, [[spoiler:Harara is possessed by the grudge of the victims of Shiro's experiments.]]
23	** Tsumiko is possessed and turned into a monster, just like Yukari Tatsumiya.
24
25	[[AC:Other]]
26	* Classic tokusatsu elements, especially from the ''Franchise/KamenRider'' franchise and the ''Franchise/UltraSeries'', are also thrown together.

Context ShoutOut / ApocalypseZero