Anime / [C] – Control

Finance deals never looked this good.

Set in a financially-bankrupt Japan with only the government as a safe employer, [C] - The Money of Soul and Possibility Control ([C] - Control or [C] for short) is an anime about economics, finances and beautiful battles over money ending in private insolvency of the loser. In exchange for a prospective borrower's future (including his prospects, possibilities, lifespan etc.), an organization known as Midas Bank will take him on as an Entrepreneur and lend him a large, zero-interest sum of money under the condition that he participate in weekly "Deals" — battles over each participant's money using familiars called "Assets"—against other Entrepreneurs on an alternate plane called the Financial District.

College sophomore Kimimaro Yoga is sucked into the whole affair when he is approached by the alarmingly eccentric Masakaki from Midas Bank's Commercial Division, who offers him a loan as they need a new Entrepreneur, and Kimimaro needs money. Though he refuses, he is more or less coerced into partaking. Kimimaro quickly piques the interest of and is recruited by Souichirou Mikuni, a powerful and exceedingly wealthy—even by Financial District standards—businessman who leads the Starling Guild, a collective that seeks to minimize any effect the Financial District and its "Midas Money" might inflict on the real world's economy. But when Mikuni executes a plan that risks the future of Japan, Kimimaro is recruited to stop him and preserve the future.

The series is directed by Kenji Nakamura, whose previous projects, Mononoke and Trapeze, should be enough to tell you that Mind Screw and mindbogglingly good-looking scenes await those who take this anime on. Broadcasted as part of the noitaminA block starting in April 2011. It is produced by Tatsunoko Production.

Courtesy of Funimation, subtitled episodes (and a few English-dubbed ones) are available on YouTube and can be viewed here.

Not to be confused with Control, a 2019 videogame by Remedy Entertainment.

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This anime provides examples of:

• Above the Influence: It's made clear in episode 7 that an Entre can rape their Asset without much difficulty, if they feel like it. Kimimaro ends up sucker-punching the guy in question. And later, Msyu asks him to kiss her (she doesn't really understand the implications), and he politely turns her down.
• Action Prologue: Every episode starts with this.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Kimimaro has a crush on Hanabi. She has a boyfriend. Msyu has a crush on Kimimaro. He sees her as a daughter.
• All There in the Manual: The website gives names and info on Entres and Assets that aren't named in the show.
• Alien Sky: The Financial District.
  • Shown in the 8th episode to be a different color in different Financial Districts; whereas the Far Eastern Financial District has a red sky, the Southeast Asian Financial District's sky is green and the American is purple.
• Alternate Character Reading: The ending theme, "RPG" by School Food Punishment, has "future" (未来) read as "you" (きみ).
• Alternate Universe: The final episode implies that Kimimaro steps into one when he rebuilds the future; it's possible that that means that Mikuni remained in the world without a future.
• Ambiguously Evil: Mikuni, Takedazaki, and Masakaki. Mikuni is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Takedazaki is a Guile Hero, and Masakaki is... something.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Financial District looks awesome.
• An Arm and a Leg: Msyu ends up losing her right arm in the batle against Karma. Although since she is an Asset and it happened in the Financial District she can regenrate the damage.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: An "asset" is a representation of a person's future, and can be like this. The "entre" is a representation (from a larger perspective) of a stock in the Financial District. "In the red", futures, bonds, collateral, using collateral to "secure" debt, and everything in the Fridge. These are all common stock market methods of making and securing money. Even as early as Episode 1, you can see the names of people flowing down the trade bars in red (down) and green (up) arrows.
• The Anti-Nihilist/Straw Nihilist: Somehow, Mikuni manages to embody both at the same time. His ultimate goal, protecting the present at the cost of the future, is because he believes that someday the future will be destroyed regardless of how hard he struggles for it, so he'd rather protect the present, even though he's destroying millions of lives to do so. So he doesn't believe in hope of the value of lives in the future, however at the same time he is fighting for an altruistic (if distorted) goal to protect the lives of people in the present. It doesn't have a happy ending for him.
• Apathetic Citizens: The more a country's future is sacrificed to the Financial District, the more apathetic and depressed its population becomes. Many people are simply erased from existence while the remaining citizenry loses all sense of motivation or joy as they can no longer remember why they're even doing the things they're doing. This depression and catatonia is accentuated whenever a Darkness card holder spins the Rotary Press to generate Midas Money out of an entire country's future. Eventually, the district grows so despondent that it's claimed by [C] and wiped off the map.
• Apocalypse How: Regional/Metaphysical Annihilation for Singapore. For Japan, Regional/Societal Disruption, though in this case the "disruption" is actually beneficial to society in most ways. America withstands the aftershocks of [C] without so much as a quiver.
• Artistic License – Economics: The show is based on an Author Tract for austerity and against deficit spending, so the extent to which you think it's taking artistic license will depend on which policy you favor, but it at least drastically oversimplifies the underlying debate, to the point of cutting out most of the actual policy arguments even for austerity (because in order to make them it would have to more accurately acknowledge the opposing arguments first.)
  • Its analogy seems to assume that all deficit spending is simply put in a pile and burned on useless short-term things, producing nothing useful in the long term... when in reality, of course, anyone advocating deficit spending is doing so under the argument that either it will fund future growth that will outweigh, in some fashion, the debt incurred, or that it is necessary to avoid taking a more severe long-term loss.
  • The actual economic and political arguments over the topic of deficit spending by the government deal more with how the money should be spent, what forms of investment are worth more than the money spent, how much to invest, whether (and when) spending is more effective when directed by a central government vs. private competition, philosophical debates over whether it is better for spending to be controlled by democratically-elected government or by the people at the top of the economic heirarchy, who should bear the costs of an economic shock, and so on... but these are more complicated topics than just Austerity Good, Deficit Spending Bad.
• Author Tract: It's basically a pro-austerity propaganda piece.
• Badass Longcoat: Mikuni, although he seems to just drape it around his shoulders without filling the sleeves.
• Bad Powers, Good People: In most mon series, someone whose mon's powers include deception and taking over the opponents Assets would be a villain. Ms. Sato may appear morally ambiguous at first, but by the end of the series she's very unambiguously one of the good guys, despite Georges' manipulative power-set.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sennouza, a noted philanthropist who uses his Midas Money to help kids in impoverished countries, and offers to reimburse the lost half of an Entre's fortune if they back out of a deal with him. If you do battle him, however... what he will unleash upon his opponent is quite literally comparable to the wrath of God himself. Complete with an angelic (but still utterly terrifying) Asset, Dramatic Thunder, lightning bolts and Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• Big Bad: Souichirou Mikuni, initially a benevolent businessman who sought to alleviate the effects of bankruptcy in the Financial District, becomes this when he takes over and floods Japan with Midas Money to save the economy- which results in mass disappearances, increased poverty, and overall misery. Kimimaro Yoga decides to stop Mikuni from sacrificing the future to preserve the present. Though Midas Bank itself is running the corrupt system that Mikuni is trying to save people from, and there are hints of the bank’s representative, Magasaki, being The Man Behind the Man.
• Big Damn Heroes: The White Knight flation used by Kakazuzu allows him to invoke this trope. Deals are normally one-on-one duels, but when White Knight is used, then Mikuni can bring another one of his Assets into the fray.
• Bigger Stick: Mikuni's solution to almost every problem is to throw more money at it, and his wealth (and therefore power) is functionally limitless, especially when he activates the Rotary Press. Appropriately, his Direct is a BFS instead of the dagger that most Entres use.
• Bittersweet Ending: Japan's future is saved as C passes over it and the rotary press reverses to restore the lost future. However, in the process, Kimimaro arrives in a world that is very different to his, with Japan forced to give up the now-worthless Yen, an important part of their culture, in favor of adopting the US Dollar as the official currency. Mikuni's sister/Q passes on and they can never meet again, as he stays behind and disappears, and Masakaki appears before Kimimaro gleefully revealing that the immortal Financial District/Midas Bank will continue to go on with so many new bright futures ahead. However, on the plus side, there's a good chance that because of this, Kimimaro will be able to see Msyu again.
• Black Blood: If struck by a Direct, an Entre will bleed a slurry of black oil and cash. Assets that take significant damage also have the oil bit, as well.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: The "Angel" Flation used by Sennoza's asset, Karma.
• Canis Major: Jennifer's hulking, minibus-sized Asset György.
• Casting Gag: Brina Palencia and J. Michael Tatum playing a supernatural being and a smart entrepreneur in an economics-based anime. This should sound familiar to fans of Spice and Wolf, though the characters are on opposite sides this time.
• Central Theme:
  • The "Midas Bank" is really a metaphor for real-life central banks. What happens in the second half of the show due to Mikuni's actions is a negative representation of the effects of contemporary government and central bank policies (very roughly, injecting trillions of dollars "out of thin air" into the economy to bail out companies/buy government debt), which, according to Austrian-school Economics, make the economy look better in the short-term but results in much harsher consequences in the future.
  • The deals themselves are a smaller-scale representation of the hidden costs of creating new currency. When new ("printed") money is issued to someone/something, it devaluates the currency and everyone else holding the same currency is worse off. Whenever Entres win a deal, they get Midas Money in exchange for making someone else's life worse.
• Coat Cape: Mikuni wears his coat this way.
• Cool House: Mikuni has his house, garden, and pool on top of a skyscraper.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Masakaki has a particularly worrying one, as does Takedazaki, the Information Broker with the mouthful of gold teeth.
• Color-Coded Characters: Entres each have a personal color motif. Kimimaro is blue and Mikuni is red.
  • The QR code for one episode tells us that there's a CMYK colour scheme to the ending. Kimimaro is Cyan, Msyu is Magenta and the Financial District is yellow. It goes on to say that if you combine the three you get black which is the future.
  • The "black" here is significant: the old stock market saying "in the black" means that the person/company/stock is making money. Of course, black can also mean greed, corruption, etc. On the same note, the stock market saying "in the red" is the opposite: the person/company/stock is losing money. Now which area had the red sky? In the same episode Jennifer has three burgers wrapped in Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. She offers the yellow one to Kimimaro. Eat the Financial District? That may also have a double meaning: A "blue chip" stock in the stock market is a stock that is notably well-reliable. Considering that magenta and cyan create blue when combined...
  • Every Financial District has its own Masakaki, all in different colors.
• Comeback Mechanic: The Stock function somewhat like this. They are the glowing orbs arranged like the Tree of Life sometimes visible in characters. Every Asset has 10 stock and an Entre can sell upwards of nine of them to gain a boost in their current deal. Buyers gain the benefit of being able to use a copy of the Asset they bought it from, but an Entre can also buy back the Stock at a later date. When the tenth is sold however then they lose the Asset and it is given to the buyer.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Lots of it, but Episode 7 is absolutely stuffed with this, to the point of being filler.
• The Corrupter: Masakaki's initial M.O. is an attempt to get Kimimaro to take the loan with the possibilities inherent in all that money.
• Cosmic Horror Story: What the series is shaping up to be with Episodes 8 and 9.
• Counterfeit Cash: Midas Money, which appears perfectly identical to normal cash to non-Entres.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The duel in the first episode can hardly even be called one.
• Curtains Match the Window: Masakaki has yellow and lavender eyes; the latter match his hair. His equivalent in the Southeast Asian District has turquoise hair, and his eyes are half turquoise to match.
• Cute Monster Girl: Msyu. Also Q. usually.
• Cutting the Knot: Kimimaro's strategy for defeating Mikuni and the Financial District is to use Jennifer and Takedazaki's influence to launch a massive propaganda campaign against the public's faith in the Japanese yen, compelling a series of bank runs and currency exchanges as the population desperately tries to switch to the more stable American dollar. Once the value of the yen drops completely to zero, Mikuni's Midas Money, backed by the yen's value, becomes worthless. Kimimaro is then able to gain control of the Rotary Press and reverse it to return all of Japan's future, creating a new reality where the yen has been abandoned as the national currency in exchange for dollars.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 4 is told from Sato's point of view, and episode 7 is half Mikuni's origin story and half Msyu reflecting on her relationship with Kimimaro.
• Deal with the Devil: Midas Bank offers to invest in you (or, more specifically, your future). They give you a bit of startup capital and then throw you into the deep end of what amounts to a basic futures contract - you agree to give away something (in this case, your future) for a fixed sum right now. With a Black Card, you can also withdraw more money from the Midas Bank for more of your future but the effects can be equally devastating for everyone else.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After Kimimaro defeated him, and in so doing, retconned his children's birth, his marriage, and most everything except being an ordinary schoolteacher, his teacher Ebara became a valuable advisor when it comes to handling the Deals and the consequences thereof. For a while.
• Design Student's Orgasm: The Financial District and both credits sequences.
• The Determinator: Kimimaro. Later, Jennifer, in a very tear-jerking way.
• Deus ex Machina: In episode 10 you learn that Mikuni has a special card that lets him spin the Midas Money rotisserie and steal the entire country's future in order to produce massive amounts of Midas Money. When the heroes can't stop him, with virtually no explanation, the "higher ups" decide to give Kinimaro one, thus giving him a fighting chance.
• Disappeared Dad: Kimimaro's father. It's revealed in Episode 3 that he was once a rather successful Entre, but then went bankrupt all at once and was Driven to Suicide as a result. His body went unidentified, so (almost) no one knew what happened to him.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Buying government bonds and bailing out companies with money created out of thin air.
  • Masakaki.
  • Easy loans backed by collateral.
  • Q is eating money. That's... paradoxical.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Part of the effect of the flation E.B.O. wielded by Georges causes him to take on Jennifer's appearance, thus creating the illusion that there are suddenly more of her.
• Dramatic Thunder: Played with during the battle between Kimimaro and Sennoza. The dramatic thunder is actually produced by Sennoza's lightning-wielding asset, Karma.
• Driven to Suicide: Makita jumps in front of a train after losing to Mikuni. Kimimaro's father hung himself after going bankrupt. Ebara is talked out of jumping off a roof, but later walks into oncoming traffic.
• Dueling Messiahs: This ends up with partisans of two rival economic ideologies fighting for control; one messiah wants to mortgage the future to preserve Japan in the present (a metaphor for supporting a failing economy with more government debt), and the other wants to sacrifice the present and destroy Japan's status as a financial center to rebuild the future (which is supposed to represent financial austerity). As this is a pro-austerity propaganda piece, the second hero wins.
• Eldritch Abomination: The thing that attacks/eats the Southeast Asia Financial District when it goes bankrupt, and spins the Rotary Press when Mikuni activates it.
  • It also appears as the logo on Black Cards.
• Eldritch Location: The Financial District.
• 11-Episode Anime
• Evil Laugh:
  • The Southeast Asian Masakaki as the Southeast Asia district, and by extension Singapore, are wiped out of existence.
  • Masakaki as he operates the Midas Money rotary press in in Episode 9.
• Familiar: It appears that, given the series' Deal with the Devil premise, this is what Assets essentially are.
• Femme Fatalons: Msyu.
• Fiction 500: Mikuni is so rich that:
  • The only reason Japan stays afloat is because Mikuni is buying enough government bonds to stop the country's collapse
  • He buys the real-world trillion-yen corporations of failing Entres to keep them from crashing.
  • In episode 9, he buys 80% of the companies and stocks in Japan to prevent Japan from being destroyed by C. Most of that was paid for by money from Guild members or his Rotary Press loan, rather than being a feat of his personal fortune.
• Fog of War: Jennifer's asset Georges has the Mezzoflation E.B.O. which causes the entire battlefield to become shrouded in a fog, both limiting visibility as well as hiding the second part of the flation, namely that it causes Georges to take on Jennifer's appearance thus making it seem like she is coming from several directions at once.
• Foreshadowing: Whenever we see Q, she is eating Midas Money. We find out later that her Macroflation is "Cannibalization", where she eats anything made of money, including Entres and Assets.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: There are two blink-and-you'll-miss-it QR codes in the ED. The first one in the first episode basically amounts to "the ED was made in Adobe AfterEffects, which is awesome, and everybody should show us the videos they've made themselves with it". The second states that the anime was planned to be titled Control but was shortened to C when they found out that a show with a similar title would be on the air at the same time.
  • It changes every episode adding some sort of director commentary to each episode.
• From Bad to Worse: Kimimaro's teacher went bankrupt. As a result, his children no longer exist and his wife leaves him...
• Gainax Ending: Technically speaking, there is no ending at all. It goes through the climax and then goes straight to credits. We the viewers have no idea what happens at all. Of course, there's always The Stinger.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Msyu's introduction involves punching and slapping Kimimaro quite a bit until he gets with the program.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom/Red Eyes, Take Warning: Q sports them when she enters the fray.
• Gold Digger: Masakaki implies that Hanabi is one; if Kimimaro has enough money, maybe he can win her away from her current boyfriend. No evidence as to whether this is true.
• Gorn/Darker and Edgier: It starts getting darker around Episode 5, and then the fights start having lots of Black Blood. Earlier fights, in comparison, usually have somewhere close to Gory Discretion Shot. The Angel fight (Episode 6) is where the series goes full overdrive, and completely averts discretion.
  • Meanwhile, Takedazaki, the shady Information Broker, is a more straightforward example, dealing the decisive blow that wrecks the Far East Financial District and saves Japan.
• Good Versus Good: According to Masakaki's superior, everyone involved in the Financial District was a good guy who was trying to make the world a better place.
• Gratuitous English:
  • The negotiations use business lingo as invocation of their attacks, most which only makes sense in context. Jennifer Sato also speaks English in this manner in Episode 3.
  • Episodes 9 and 10 have fairly long conversations in English that, while not perfect, is pretty damn good for anime standards.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Happens to Jennifer after the duel with Mikuni.
  • Mikuni cuts Kikuchi vertically at the climax of their deal, but he survives as he doesn't get bankrupted.
• Horned Humanoid: All Assets have horns of some description. Some Assets are humanoid.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Souichirou Mikuni and his asset Q. He's quite a bit taller than the protagonist of the series and Q is a short, elfin girl. Meeting together her face is stuck right in his stomach, antlers not even reaching his shoulders.
• Hypnotic Creature: Jennifer Satou's asset George has the Macroflation "Mergers and Acquisitions", which allows Jennifer to assume control of the opponent's asset. Unfortunately it appears that doing so puts an extreme strain on George and cannot be done more than once a Deal.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • They all start with "C."
  • This also applies to the Japanese titles, except for the final episode, which has "未来" (Future).
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Kimimaro says this verbatim.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Q eats Midas Money and things made from Midas Money. This includes other Assets and Entres.
• Improbable Weapon: Money as ammo and weapons!
• Incest Subtext: Late in the series, Kimimaro becomes aware that Assets are derived from the Entre's future and suspects that Msyu is his future daughter. This does not prevent him from exploring her tonsils with his tongue in the series finale as the Far East Financial District crumbles around them.
  • Even more explicit is Mikuni and Q, who admit they are on a date at one point. It is later revealed she is literally his sister, somehow.
• Information Broker: Takedazaki.
• Invisible to Normals: Midas Money, while not invisible, appears like normal money to everyone but members of the Financial District. Played a bit when it comes to the district itself, while a few people in various high power positions are aware of both the district's existence and C, only card holders are granted access.
• Invocation: Each Asset's attacks and the scale of attack (Macro/Mezzo/Micro) are activated this way. However, in the first episode there is a flaw in the invocation system. Normally, Mircoflations are not named, the voices simply say "Micro" or "Microflation". In the first episode, once the card is activating the Microflation, the words "Bulk Sale" can be seen on the card. This is the only Microflation in the series that is named.
• Jump Cut: They appear frequently; a director trademark.
• Kill It with Fire: Msyu.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: An Entre can "treat [his Asset] like a human, if you know what I mean." Kimimaro is not thrilled with the guy who makes the suggestion. It doesn't help that by that point in the series, he sees his own Asset as something of a daughter-figure.
• Laser Blade: Made of cash!
• Last Kiss: Between Kimimaro and Msyu, as the latter vanishes along with the rest of the District.
• Layered World: Even if someone doesn't fully lose a Deal, it affects the Real World. Losing a deal can result in financial problems, or a company having to lay off people or in ways not anything to do with money like failing a class or having a house set on fire.
• Life Meter: Whenever a deal is started, the Equities of the entre's manifest as huge iris-like structures that eventually clash with another entre's. These function as both a sort of life gauge as well as an indicator over how well one entre stack up against another, with some being rather equal in size, while others might completely dwarf the opponents. These Equities will grow or shrink depending on how the deal is going for any of the participants. Outright earthquakes are generated when the Equities of really powerful entre's clash, with the clash border barely being visible between them.
• Light Is Not Good: Kou Sennoza is a wealthy philanthropist who distributes vaccines all over the third world. While not evil, his rage is also something to behold, and he wields the Asset Karma, a nightmarish angel who attacks with lightning strikes.
• Like Brother and Sister: In the site's mini-drama/monologues, it's stated that Hanabi has known Kimimaro since high school and views him as a brother and someone to take care of. Kimimaro ends up seeing his relationship with Msyu this way, with a dash of trying to be a Parental Substitute.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: The left half of Kimimaro's opponent's Asset at the end of Episode 5 erupts into a mess of sticky insect limbs.
• Love Triangle: Kimimaro has a crush on his classmate Hanabi, who already has a boyfriend. Not that Msyu or Jennifer really help this situation either.
• Magical Girlfriend: Msyu Is Yours. Specifically, she is the Asset given to Kimimaro and helps him during fights in the Financial District. It ends up as a Double Subversion — Kimimaro treats her as a surrogate daughter, turning down her romantic advances, before eventually giving in to his own feelings in the finale.
• Market-Based Title: Funimation changed the subtitle slightly from The Money of Soul and Possibility to The Money and Soul of Possibility.
• Marshmallow Hell: Jennifer applies one to Kimimaro.
• The Masquerade: Of a sort. "There is no code of silence, but most wouldn't believe you, so I recommend silence." They don't seem to care if the whole world knows, it's just that the Financial District and its activities don't leave much believable evidence.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Msyu's name can be read a number of ways. In Hebrew it can be read as מתתיהו (Matthew) literally meaning "gift of God", while in Japanese it can be read as 真朱 (Mashu) meaning "Scarlet Truth".
  • Midas Bank, after the mythological king granted by the gods the ability to turn everything he touched into gold.
  • Every asset name and Flation attack has a hidden significance as well.
    • Gig, the name of the first giant asset fought, means an unattractive person. He is... not pretty.
    • Gyorgy, Jennifer's wolf asset, is named after a musical composer who had a fascination with wolves.
    • "Freeze Out", a Mezzoflation used by the asset Grue, allows her to freeze her body and attack. A Freeze Out in economic terms is when shareholders force each other to sell.
    • All flation attacks are named after economic phenomena:
    • "Bulk Sale", "Overheated Economy", "Pacman Defense", "E.B.O", etc.
• Messianic Archetype: Kimimaro, for the future of Japan, like an economic messiah. He buys the future of the country and leaves the reality where he initially existed.
• Mind Screw: To quote the first post of our very own forums: "What the hell did I just watch?"
  • Which is appropriate, since Real Life financial stuff is also very much this.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: Msyu, of the protagonist's future. They've managed to moe-ify an abstract concept.
• Money to Throw Away:
  • A convenience store customer complains that Kimimaro is not giving him the change he wants. Mikuni gives 50,000 Yen to shut him up.
  • Kimimaro does this in episode 8 when he sets fire to the entirety of his funds.
  • We also have Q, who is literally eating money.
  • Finally, Takedazaki does a literal example as part of his efforts to catastrophically devalue the yen. Out of a helicopter, no less.
• Mons: They're called "Assets."
• Morality Chain: One of Mukini's Assets, Aurore, functions as practically the only thing that keeps Q under control. Should Aurore leave Q's side for whatever reason, Q will shift from her usual sleepy, quiet self, to a vicious berserker.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Masakaki gets shark teeth whenever he is excited about something evil happening. Appropriate too, since he's a loan shark.
• Ms. Fanservice: Jennifer and Msyu.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Financial negotiations played out as extravagant, complex duels in an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Midas Bank. It should not be hard to guess the odds on a loan from them having unpleasant, unexpected outcomes.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In episode 6, Kimimaro faces Sennoza, a philanthropist who greatly helped the third world. He defeats him and may or may not have fully bankrupted him, reversing all (or at least a huge amount) of Sennoza's work.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Masakaki looks weird even in comparison to the other supernatural beings.
• No Sense of Personal Space:
  • Masakaki, naturally.
  • Jennifer as well, it would seem.
• Not Always Evil: The beings running the Financial Districts, possibly. At the very least, their motives are slightly more benign than one might have hitherto suspected, even if they aren't too fussy about the collateral damage they cause.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In episode 9, Jennifer implies that there's similarities between Kimimaro and his late father.
• Number of the Beast: Used repeatedly.
  • Naoya Makita, the salaryman in the first episode, uses a PIN of 666 to access the Financial District's services.
  • In episode 1, it shows that the taxi fare to the Financial District is 666 yen.
  • Deals have a time limit of 666 seconds.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Episode 6 has Kimimaro fighting a truly strong opponent with an Asset that shoots lightning, after almost losing within the first few seconds, it cuts to the real world, showing the aftereffect and stating that he won.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Masakaki makes a bad habit of it.
• Old Master: Kikusho is an old CEO and Black Card Entre in a Financial District full of young people.
• Olympus Mons: Karma, Sennoza's (vaguely) angelic Asset that smites enemies with freakishly powerful lightning bolts and was only defeated once (twice, after the battle against Msyu) in its existence, should count. As well as Q, the most powerful Asset ever known, and possibly Msyu.
• One-Letter Name: The asset Q, and the apocalyptic phenomenon known as C.
• One-Letter Title: The short title of the anime is simply [C].
• One-Woman Wail:
  • Used when Kimimaro's teacher reveals to him that anything gained through Midas Money will disappear from existence if you go bankrupt.
  • Also used when Msyu is damaged to the point of near-death during the battle with Sennoza.
  • And the end of Episode 8, during the Lovecraftian thing's attack on the SE asia district.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Given the abstract, symbolic nature of Deals, dismemberment, evisceration, and even being cut in half are not going to kill you, and they might not even knock you out of the match if you have enough money backing you up.
• Palette Swap: Masakaki and the other Districts' Midas Bank reps are simply recolors of each other.
• Parental Abandonment: Kimimaro's father left and later committed suicide and his mother died. He's supported by his aunt.
• Perpetual Smiler: Masakaki.
• Phrase Catcher: Kimimaro has a lot of people call him "strange" or "weird" over the course of this anime, which is ironic since he just wants to be normal.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: While Msyu is not abnormally small on a human scale, she is pretty small for an Asset (though not the smallest). During his first Deal, Kimimaro, faced with a skyscraper-sized metal ball-throwing beast knight thing, remarks that his own Asset looks pretty underwhelming compared to his opponent's, but when Msyu gets him to let her use her Mezzoflation, she proceeds to prove him wrong. Q is this as well, being somewhat of a counterpart to Msyu.
• Power at a Price:
  • It doesn't get any more literal than "it costs money to use your Asset's powers".
  • The whole concept of Midas Bank. It's probably the "simplest" way to make good money in a completely screwed up economic environment, but you constantly need to participate in "deals", and if you go bankrupt, you lose way more than just your money.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Midas Money is backed by the mortgaged futures of the Entres and, in the case of money printed on demand from the Rotary Press, everyone else covered by the area of the Financial District.
• Power Equals Rarity: In the financial district, all cards used by Entres are divided into four ranks with higher ranks providing different benefit's. The silver card marked with a sun is the most common, after that follows the gold card marked with a moon, and after that the platinum card marked with a skull and finally the rarest of them all is the Darkness/Black card marked with some kind of tentacled abomination that allows it's holder to use the Midas Press.
• Precocious Crush: Whilst her precise age is unclear, Msyu's crush on Kimimaro ends up coming across this way, given his initial reaction.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: It appears that the digitized announcer has absolutely no idea what level of Flation Q's Signature Move Cannibalization is supposed to be:
  MAMAMEMEMEMACROMEMIMEME CANNIBALIZATION
• Ret-Gone:
  • Bankruptcy means that you lose your future — or, more specifically, anything that Midas Money made possible for you. This can include shops, possessions, and even children. This then gets even more extreme in episode 8 with the revelation that entire countries aren't safe.
  • As a market reaches its dying days, even people and businesses not directly related to specific Entres begin to disappear in the blink of an eye. One minute a person exists, a second later nobody remembers they even existed. This results in whoever isn't claimed by a bankruptcy ending up listless and confused, not knowing why they were there when whoever they came with no longer exists.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Whenever the movement of money causes something to disappear, only Entres will remember the way things were before the change.
• Rousseau Was Right: Both Kimimaro and Mikuni want to save Japan's economy, but simply have different methods for doing so- Mikuni by pumping money into the economy to temporarily relieve it, and Kimimaro through austerity programs that will make things harder for the present but preserve Japan's future. The beings in charge of the Financial Districts put it best:
  You debated for a long time over what was right and wrong, didn't you? There is no right answer. Everyone is correct. Everyone fought to make the world a better place, and so the world is now better than it was before.
• Sanity Slippage: The more the economy goes down the toilet, the worse Hanabi's mental state gets. Once Mikuni's bailout package has hit the market, she's barely functional.
• Ship Tease:
  • The conversation between Jennifer and Kimimaro ends with quite a bit. "I like your eyes", indeed.
  • Q and Msyu, of the Foe Romance Subtext variety.
• Signature Style: Mind screwy plot events and trippy, extravagant visuals? Sounds like a Kenji Nakamura anime, all right.
• Significant Double Casting: In both Japanese and English, Q shares her actor with Mikuni's sister Takako- it last turns out that they are the same person.
• Spoiler Opening: It's very vague, but it dictates what happens in the final three episodes. Worldwide currency inflation, falling money by using an airplane to drop it all in Japan which transitions to the US Dollar that makes the Yen extremely worthless, the four kinds of cards of which only Black cards can control the Eldritch Abomination that is Midas Money, and the finale between Kimimaro and Mikuni directly underneath said abomination for its control.
  • While the rest is very subtle, the battle between Kimimaro and Mikuni is very clearly spoiled, which is fairly significant because he does not become an antagonist until nearly the end of the series.
• Stay with the Aliens: Mikuni remains in the destroyed Financial District. What exactly this means is unexplained, but from Kimimaro's perspective, he disappears.
• Stepford Smiler: Something is very wrong with Hanabi, and it only gets worse as Japan's future slowly peels away.
• Stripperiffic: Played with. Msyu's not wearing much beyond her bra and miniskirt, but she's also got lots of red markings on her body.
• Summon Magic: Negotiations involve summoning familiars called Assets to fight alongside you. Unlike some forms of Summon Magic, Entres (the summoners) are fully expected to fight alongside their Assets; it's not just Asset on Asset. Which means that it's possible to penetrate an opponent's defenses by bypassing the enemy Asset and going straight for the Entre.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Entres' eyes become gold when they deal or when they watch a deal.
• Sweet Tooth: Most of time, Jennifer appears eating a lollipop or fast food.
• Synchronization: One of the nastier side-effects of Hurst's "Pac-Man Defense" is that if the opponent successfully manages to attack Kikusho, then the damage he receives will also be inflicted on the attacker as well.
• Take Our Word for It: All we get to see of Kimimaro's fight with Sennoza is Msyu getting beaten within an inch of her life. Somehow, Kimimaro wins, but we don't get to see how.
  • Sennoza explains the reason he lost is because he got hit by two Mezzoflations.
• Talking the Monster to Death: How Msyu survives her battle with the deadly, cannibalistic asset Q.
• Take Up My Sword: Jennifer Sato gives her Asset to Kimimaro like this for the final fight. Particularly significant since her Asset represents her future, so as long as he has it, part of her future will literally survive.
• Technicolor Eyes:
  • Entres in the Financial District can change their eye color to gold, with concentric black circles.
  • Masakaki has white pupils and two concentric irises in lavender and yellow. His Southeast Asian equivalent has similar eyes, but with turquoise inner irises.
• Technicolor Fire: Midas Money burns bright indigo and violet. With glowing numbers flying out of it.
• Time Stands Still: One of Q's abilities, called "Economic Blockade". It allows her to effortlessly negate even enemy Macroflations.
• Title Drop: Mikuni refers to some kind of event called "C" in episode 8, which is later explained to be the chain reaction caused by a Financial District's collapse. This may only partly be a case of a Title Drop, since the title's "C" stands for "Control", but the chain reaction C appears to stand for something else.
• Throw-Away Country: Singapore is bankrupted and devoured by an Eldritch Abomination in order to show that this could happen to Japan if Mikuni is allowed to continue trashing the economy.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Instant shoyu ramen for Msyu. This is unusual, as Assets do not actually require food; Msyu starts asking for them after seeing Kimimaro eating a bowl and expresses interest in the concept of food. Meanwhile, Q's is Midas money, which Mikuni actually leaves in wine glasses for her.
• Tsundere: Msyu is a classic Type A.
• The Vamp: Jennifer's recruitment pitch to Kimimaro was delivered while on top of him.
• Waistcoat of Style: Mikuni wears one.
• We Can Rule Together: A variant. Mikuni's original reasoning for having Kimimaro join the Starling Guild is because Kimimaro is one of the few in the Financial District who isn't actually obsessed with money and also doesn't want his opponents to have to deal with the deep repercussions that come from large losses in deals. These factors are what convince Mikuni to begin grooming Kimimaro to be his successor. Unfortunately for him, Kimimaro doesn't agree with the practice of giving up the future for the sake of the present.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Due to the Grey-and-Gray Morality of the series, both Mikuni and Kimimaro are this.
  • Mikuni wants to save the failing economy of Japan, but does this by making a deal with the predatory Midas Bank to pump their reality-warping Midas Money into the economy and throwing it at whatever he can. This alleviates the economy, but only temporarily, and at the cost of inflation, increased homelessness, and people mass-disappearing from existence. He is fully aware of this, but is willing to sacrifice any number of potential futures in order to preserve the present.
  • Kimimaro and his allies, Jennifer and Takedazaki, want to stop Mikuni and save the future of Japan, but are willing to sacrifice the present by intentionally hastening the inflation, making them just as responsible for crashing the Japanese economy.
• Wham Episode: Episode 8, in which hundreds of people disappear at a time along with the entirety of Singapore due to the Southeast Asian Financial District's collapse. And this isn't the first time, either—apparently there used to be a Caribbean Republic.
  • Episode 9, in which the future of Japan has just been mortgaged to prevent the destruction of Japan in the present. This results in quite a few children vanishing just to keep the rest of Japan from going up in smoke.
• Workaholic: Kimimaro at the start of the series. The Financial District offers him... alternatives.
• You Taste Delicious: Q reveals that her Macroflation is cannibalization of Midas money and stuff made of money. She suddenly appears next to Jennifer and says that she smells something delicious.

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