20 Minutes into the Future, a nuclear disaster has caused monstrous creatures known as Daemons to appear all over the world. These Daemons, which come in various shapes and sizes and multiple of which have special powers, are considered a danger by most humans and hunted as vermin. Some humans, known as experts, force Daemons to work for them. One boy, Kento Tachibana, however, has formed a genuine friendship with a Daemon named Anna, whom he treats as his pet and friend, which earns him the scorn of most who meet him. When a bounty hunter comes to take Anna, Kento's mother gets caught in the crossfire and is fatally injured. Struck with grief, Kento and Anna embark on a journey to Kyushu to find a Daemon that can supposedly reverse time, and thus hopefully restore Kento's mom back to life. However, a mysterious organization has its eyes set on Anna and offers a large reward for her capture.
Tropes:
- Admiring the Abomination: Kento, full time. Where most people consider Daemons ugly and evil, Kento sees the beauty in them. It mostly shows in his gushing over Anna, but he also shows it towards other Daemons.
- Artificial Limbs: Uraga the Daemon Expert has an robotic right arm in which he integrated a holographic computer screen to control his various gadgets, including the camera around the neck of his Daemon Baron.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Daemons can come in any size, including some that are Kaiju sized.
- Black-Hole Belly: Anna's power is that she can absorb objects and store them in a Pocket Dimension inside her body for future use. She can even absorb items much bigger than herself, and what she absorbs remains unchanged until she releases it again (a plate of food she absorbed was still warm as if freshly prepared when she released it 3 days later). There are limits however; she can only store dead and inanimate objects, but has trouble with living things.
- A Boy and His X: An elementary school boy and his pet daemon.
- Crapsack World: In a world where everything went crazy after a nuclear explosion, no matter what you are, you are screwed. If you’re a human, just hope to not get killed by rampaging Daemons or to not get contaminated by their particles; on the other hand, if you’re a Daemon, prepare yourself to not get slayed or enslaved and abused by humans.
- The Dog Bites Back: The bounty hunter that hunts Kento and Anna in episode one has a Daemon of his own named Casper, whom he controls through a shock collar. Once Kento removes the collar, Casper turns on his master and devours him.
- It’s actually a recurring theme. Many Daemon experts have no shame at abusing their own Daemon at the slightest mishap, as they view them as tools at best or vermin at worst. Some of them even go as far as experimenting on them for sick curiosity. As result, the next moment Daemons somehow manage to break free from their control, they immediately unleash their resentment towards humans, even when innocent people are involved.
- Extra Eyes: Anna has eyes all over her head.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: Uraga, the daemon expert Kento meets in episode two, has a little brother who is suffering from an unspecified illness, though his bald head leaves little to the imagination what this sickness is.
- The Fundamentalist: In episode 1 Kento has to deal with a nun who views Daemons as evil. She even reports Kento to the authorities when she learns he has a daemon as a pet.
- Go Through Me: Kento's mom is fatally injured when she jumps between Kento and the bounty hunter as the latter throws a knife at Kento.
- Interspecies Friendship: A human boy, Kento, and his Daemon pet, Anna. It all started when one day, as he was wandering in the woods, Kento found Anna when she was just a Daemon particle, and decided to take her home and raise her both out of curiosity and fascination towards Daemons, recording every stages she went through, until she became a multi-eyed dog-like creature.
- Improbable Weapon User: Over the course of the series, Anna becomes quite skilled at using her storage powers to weaponize whatever happens to be around her. Mainly by unleashing the objects she absorbed earlier at crucial moments.
- Moving Beyond Bereavement: This is Kento’s entire arc of the first seasons. After losing his mother at the hands of a bounty hunter who was after him and his Daemon pet, Anna, he embarked on a quest to find a time Daemon with the ability to reverse everything back to normal. Even when other characters brought up the possibility that there’s no way to bring her back, his response was always stubborn denial. Once he found him, not only the latter was revealed to be very antagonistic towards humans, but he even manipulated him by shapeshifting himself like his mother. The worst part was Kento knew it right from the start, but he was willing to live in a lie rather then face the reality, as long as innocent people weren’t involved. In the last episode, he had a vision with his mother, and finally decided to give her a proper grave, accepting his grief in the process.
- Mundane Utility: When Kento's mom learns of Anna's powers, she immediately asks Anna to store some food products that are about to expire to prolong their shelf life.
- Mons: Type 4; the Daemons are considered a danger by humans, Daemon Experts use force to make their Daemons obey, and the world itself is largely uninhabitable due to them.
- Nuclear Mutant: What the Daemons appear to be at first, as they were born from radioactive particles spread after a nuclear disaster.
- Open-Minded Parent: Kento's mom sees no harm in her son having a Daemon as a pet. She is unique in this considering the general opinion of Daemons. Of course, considering Kento's condition, it is likely she put up with Anna because she wants Kento to be happy for what little time he may have left.
- Our Demons Are Different: While they come in different shapes and sizes, the final episode of Season One reveals the Daemons’ true origins: namely that they are the result of nuclear tests that caused the ground to be contaminated by Hell itself, making them in a way literal demons, which explains why many humans have an innate repulsion towards them. However, unlike many examples, these demons can be reasonable if treated with respect and kindness. They are also born from a faintly shining red grain of sand called Daemon’s Particle (which is the Daemon’s equivalent of its egg state), which can be found in the wild, or can infect a living body, although the latter is basically a death sentence for its host.
- Pokémon Speak: Anna can only say her own name. Several other Daemons also say just their name.
- Running Gag: Kento calling Anna cute much to everyone’s confusion.
- Shock Collar: How most experts control their Daemons. They have them wear special colars with which they can administer a painfull electric shock. In an attempt to attract less attention, Kento has Anna wear a broken collar so people will think he is in control of her.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The series is set in the near future.
- Would Hurt a Child: the various Daemon Experts that want to catch Anna have nog qualms about hurting or even trying to kill Kento if he gets in their way.
- Your Days Are Numbered: It’s established in the first episode that Kento’s mark on his face actually contains a Daemon particle, and if said particle hatches into a Daemon, Kento would die in the process. Indeed, the doctor says that the possibility that Kento would reach adulthood is rather slim.
