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Shinzo (Anime)

Mushrambo, also known as Shinzo, is a 32-episode Shōnen series produced by Toei Animation and was broadcast on TV Asahi in 2000.

Saban Entertainment licensed the series and aired it on Fox Kids in 2002 note  and in 2005 later aired in reruns on Jetix where the series finished its run internationally.

In the 22nd century, humankind was wiped from the face of the Earth by their own genetically engineered creatures called Enterrans (Matrixer in the original Japanese). As man's defeat approached, one scientist, Dr. Tatsuro (Dr. Shindo in the original Japanese), placed his daughter, Yakumo, into suspended animation with hopes that when she awoke, she could reach Shinzo/Center, where the last humans are supposed to be.

She awakens 500 years in the future (300 in Japanese) and begins her journey in search for Shinzo/Center to save the humans and bring peace between them and the enterrans. Along the way, she befriends three enterrans who vow to protect her, Mushra, Saago, and Kutall. With a price on her head and a group of villains after her, they do quite a lot of protecting.

The show tends to be more about the battles with the three enterrans each having their own Super Mode (later with wings) and are even able to combine into the legendary Mushrambo.

The adaptations differ per country, but all tend to follow the general travel-and-battle Shonen plot.


The series provides the following tropes:

  • Aborted Arc: The first season sets up an arc where the heroes have to confront the so-called Seven Enterran Generals who started the war that wiped out humanity and ending with their leader, who is of course the most powerful one. This quest is cut short when the third General on the list reveals that she had already killed the remaining ones to absorb their power, then herself is killed by a time-displaced version of the Big Bad. Killing him then causes a Temporal Paradox that changes the entire history of the show.
  • After the End: The 22nd century, 300/500 years (depending on which version you watch) after a huge war that destroyed the humans.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: The enterrans or kadrians that don't look human or huggable. If an enemy does look human, they will undergo a transformation that makes sure you know they're evil. Unless they're female, in which case they'll only die in a degrading way.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: In season 2, the main characters stumble onto a silver amusement park in the middle of nowhere and don't find anything fishy about that. The entire thing is actually the liquid-metal body of Eilis, one of the Co-Dragons of Lanancuras.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: The cards grant enterrans new powers.
  • Arc Villain: Both seasons had a different Big Bad, but season 1 also had the so-called Enterran Generals who were essentially mini-bosses working for the first Big Bad.
  • Artistic License – Biology: Just how does the ecosystem function if all death results in the body vaporizing, leaving no biomass at all, just a card?
  • Artistic License – Geography: 300 (500 in the English dub) years into the future, the statue of liberty is partially buried and surrounded by forest, with miles and miles of land around. At the same time, Egypt has become an ocean. Global warming apparently is only regional.
  • Bad Boss: Most villains who have servants will be seen harming/killing said servants for no apparent reason; often, they didn't even fail them.
  • Bird People: The Bird Enterrans, although they vary in their degree of anthropomorphism. Most of the mooks are very birdlike, but Lord Caris is halfway to human with feathers covering only part of his body, talons for feet and a human face with a beak, and Queen Rusephine is a Winged Humanoid.
  • Cute Kitten: Este/Sanju, Rei, and Sen are tiny little cat enterans.
  • Deader than Dead: With difficulty and the right tech, an Enterran reduced to End Card form can be revived. Cut the card, however, and that's that.
  • Diabolus ex Machina: After the heroes have just spent several episodes trying to save Robot City from the Bird Enterrans led by Lord Caris, after he is finally defeated his angry boss Queen Rusephine immediately destroys the city from afar to render all their efforts null and void. This drives Mushrambo to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against her and the rest of her forces.
  • Deus ex Machina: The card that turned Mushra back into a god and as is the random power-up of pink light in the final episode. It's a justified example as it was a battle involving the gods/Guardians.
  • Distant Finale: Manga only Five years into the future, Saago and Kutaru return to a small village where Matrixer live peacefully with humans and are greeted by a girl who is the daughter of Mushra and Yakumo.
  • Dub Name Change: Saban surprisingly left most of the characters names intact. However, Yakumo has her last name changed from "Shindo" to "Tatsuro" and Sanju's name was changed to "Este" in the dub. In regards to the terminology, "Matrixer" was changed to "Enterran" and "Center" is changed to "Shinzo".
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: In the original Japanese, Mushra's name is pronounced "Mush-ra" as in "mushroom", however the dub has his name pronounced "Moosh-ra" instead and of course this applies to the titular Mushrambo as well.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Mercury, Venus, and almost Earth during the Final Battle.
  • Elemental Powers: Fire, water, earth, time, darkness, light, web, ice and ghost.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Prior to the series' first timeline, there was global genocide on the human race, leaving the world to the Enterrans. In the second timeline, Lanancuras threatens it as well.
  • The Farmer and the Viper: This happens quite a lot; when Yakumo shows kindness towards a villain, you can bet they'll try to kill her anyway. Even regular Enterrans will betray her kindness in a second; Yakumo saves an Enterran child, but once the villagers find out she's human, they try to burn her.
  • Four Gods: The five heroes symbolize this trope.
    • Mushra represents the Vermillion Bird of the South, with his Hyper Mode being red and bird based.
    • Sago represents the Azure Dragon of the East. He is predominantly blue and his Hyper Mode has several draconic features, such as horns and wings. He is also able to summon dragons made out of water.
    • Kutal represents the White Tiger of the West, as his Hyper form is based on a large cat.
    • Hakuba represents the Black Tortoise of the North, since he is a vehicle based on a turtle.
    • Yakumo can be seen as an analogy to the Yellow Dragon of the Center, as she is the core of the group and the reason why the group stays together.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: In the Toon Disney version, Kutaal somehow gets drunk on apple juice.
  • Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Somehow, mixing the DNA of humans with those of animals granted the some of the resulting creatures magical powers of the elements, the spirit world, and the time-space continuum.
  • Golden Super Mode: Earlier in the series, a Humongous Mecha turns gold when at full power.
  • Gotta Kill 'Em All: While the overall Myth Arc is about Yakumo trying to find the fabled city of Shinzo, season 1 also set up a plot where the heroes had to confront the Seven Generals who started the Human-Enterran War and kill them to collect their cards. This plot is abandoned halfway through by the time they get to the third major villain on the list.
  • Heroic Bystander: When Mushra returns to godhood Saago and Kutal can only watch.
  • Hidden Villain: The identities of the Enterran Generals were kept hidden at first, as well as who the Big Bad was.
  • History Repeats: At the start of the series, Mushra is hanging on a cliff and is rescued by a girl named Yakumo. Later, they find allies with other Enterrans named Sahgo and Kutal. At the start of season 2, Mushra is hanging on a cliff and is rescued by a girl named Binka. This is because, at the end of the arc of the Seven Enterrans Generals, Mushra and Yakumo defeated the last general and rewrote the past.
  • Kaiju: Enterrans are basically mons that populate the earth After the End. They don't get ginormous... usually. One Big Bad has as The Dragon an actual three-headed dragon named Grendora. Grendora is positively enormous, shoots ice blasts, and uses canned Godzilla roars.
  • Kick the Dog: Specifically, try to kill the kittens.
  • Killed Off for Real: Whenever an Enterran dies, they drop an EnCard. Destroying this card results in this trope, as it is shown an Enterran can be resurrected from their card.
  • Literal Split Personality: The three male heroes are revealed to actually be different components of the Enterran overlord Mushrambo, whose soul was split into several parts by Yakumo when he tried to kill her.
  • MacGuffin Location: Yakumo is trying to reach the eponymous Shinzo, the last human city several centuries in the future. However, it's more about what happens along the way than actually reaching it, as when they do we find out that in season one, the original Mushrambo destroyed it. After he is defeated prior to this and time is altered, in the new world where humans and Enterrans live in peace there is no need for a human refuge, and the city is empty ruins. In both timelines, the journey to Shinzo is important, but what they expect to find there and use to solve all their problems doesn't exist.
  • MacGuffin Title: Only the dub is referred to as "Shinzo", the place Yakumo is trying to go.
  • Mental Fusion: The Enterrans turn to cards when killed and can be absorbed for power, or can do it voluntarily to give another Enterran Super-Empowering, returning to normal afterward. Sago and Kutal would later on do this to give Mushra enough power to enter his (near) final form.
  • Merchandise-Driven: A defeated monster will turn into a card.
  • Merger of Souls: All Enterrans, the new inhabitants of Earth, are reduced to an Encard when defeated. The victor can then decide to keep the card, destroy it (effectively destroying that Enterran's soul) or eat or absorb it. The soul and power of the eaten Enterran are then merged with the eater's, who usually remains in control but does take over some of the physical characteristics of the other Enterran.
  • Monumental Battle: A fight in the second episode finally shatters the already-wrecked Statue of Liberty. Nobody but the viewer knows the significance of it.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Queen Rusephine pulled the original Mushrambo from the past before he had finished wiping out the human race. Once the trio defeated him it caused a massive change in the timeline, where the human race survived.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Gyasa beat the shit out of the guardian trio. Saago and Kutal turned into cards and Mushra would have followed if he didn't turn into Mushrambo.
  • One-Winged Angel: Every major villain will transform into some sort of grotesque monster during their battle sequence.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Not ominous, but definitely Latin when the gang meets Yakumo again in the second timeline.
  • Outdoor Bath Peeping: In the 7th episode, Yakumo is looked at while bathing in a lake by monster warriors who try to attack her. But Mushra shows up and fights them — and gives Yakumo a towel.
  • Plucky Girl: Both Binka and Yakumo are determinedly optimistic; the former is more rambuncious and the latter is more patient.
  • The Pretty Guys Are Stronger:
    • Gyasa is a scary, physically imposing Medusa, but the actual King of the Reptiles, Ryuma, is a short, boyish Bishōnen.
    • Lord Caris is a very muscular Winged Humanoid, but his much stronger master Queen Rusephine is a delicately-build, angelic-looking woman.
    • Dark King Mushrambo is easily the strongest of the Seven Generals, despite several of them being much larger and buffer than he is. King Daku, for instance is a towering giant in insect-themed armor, but is the first (and thus weakest) of his minions faced by the heroes.
  • The Promised Land: The eponymous Shinzo is a Promised Land for the human lead Yukumo to find the rest of the human race, in a world populated by animal-human hybrids called Enterrans. It turns out that Shinzo doesn't exist anymore, as Mushra, Katul, and Sago go 500 years back in time to the end of the Human-Enterran War, and find out Mushrambo had destroyed it.
  • Protagonist Title: The original name for the series, Mushrambo.
  • Quest to the West: Shinzo, the goal of the series, is located in the west.
  • Rule of Seven: As the king of Mechano City tells Yakumo and the heroes, the Seven Enterran Generals led the Enterran forces against the humans. Later, after Queen Rusephine summons Dark King Mushrambo from the past, he kills her and absorbs the cards of the six generals.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Mushra, angel wings and crosses.
  • Safe Zone Hope Spot: The whole plot is about Yakumo, after waking up from hibernation centuries After the End, trying to reach the last human stronghold somewhere out west. Only at the end of the season does she learn that Shinzo was already destroyed by the Dark King of the Enterrans at the end of the war.
  • Sidekick Glass Ceiling: Aside from Mushra being stronger, when the three lose their powers to Lanancuras, Mushra finds out he actually still has another power and can keep going, while Saago and Kutal become useless.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Even more grating since the first half of the series takes place in areas dominated by mutants based on animals were normally the females are stronger and bigger, yet they encounter only 2 females. Unless you count the female member of the kittens that is.
  • Story Arc: The series has 32 episodes, divided into two larger "seasons", each dealing with a specific arc:
    • For episodes 1-21, the series focuses on Yakumo, Mushra, Saago and Kutal trying to locate Shinzo and fighting the Seven Enterran Generals who once wiped out humanity.
    • For episodes 22-32, the series focuses on the alien Kadrians and Lanancuras threatening to break out of his meteor prison. After he escapes, the final episodes become an extended fight scene between Mushra, Saago and Kutal and Lanancuras.
  • Story-Breaker Power: The Mushrambo upgrade makes the trio (Mushra, Saago, and Kutall) unstoppable when they fuse together. His first appearance is bad enough and further alterations make him even more overpowered. The villains recognize they can't beat him and so their plans involve exploiting the transformation somehow. At the end of the first season, all they can do is summon an evil Mushrambo because nothing else is up to the task.
  • Time Paradox: Rusephine for inexplicable reasons sends Mushra, Saago and Kutal back to the past, getting rid of Yakumo's guards. In the past, they destroy Mushrambo and save Yakumo's life, leading to Yakumo in the future gathering them together to the point of being sent back in time. In order for this time loop to occur, Yakumo should've been able to survive Mushrambo's visit without anyone's help.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: What do you expect from a series where time is a power alongside spider-web and phantom energy? It's going to be weird and inconsistent.
  • Winged Humanoid: A number of characters, including the Bird Enterrans, Egg Card-infused Hyper Mushra, and Celestial Mushra.
  • Women Are Delicate: Yakumo can't save a life without being shown collapsing afterward/losing consciousness/needing help herself/dying from exhaustion, the male heroes save lives looking all heroic. Similarly, female antagonists will either be absorbed by someone with only their face sticking out and get Mushra's spear shoved in said face, another died by having Mushra fall on her from high altitude, the last was killed by Yakumo (who collapsed afterward). Whereas all main male enemies died in combat with the heroes in full battle mode and got epic deaths. Also, the very same powers that make Mushra a god and boosted Saago and Kutal are apparently too much for Yakumo to handle and they end up killing her.

Alternative Title(s): Mushrambo

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