Headscratchers / Bokurano

• Suppose a group of players managed to gain complete control of their robot,as the protagonists did near the end of the anime. Later during an away game it becomes evident that they are going to lose. Could the players other than the current pilot escape destruction by leaving their robot?
  • Given that on at least one occasion the winning team was there to watch the defeated universe be destroyed it would appear that there is some way to tell entities from different universes apart, as Zearth wasn't destroyed. I would imagine the "game rule" is that all matter associated with the doomed universe is, well, doomed.
    • They're doomed. They would be spared death from the robot being destroyed, but the rules of the game are: "if your planet's current pilot is killed by a member of an enemy planet, you and your entire universe cease to be".
    • In the manga, it's stated that when a robot is defeated, the universe that said robot belongs to and everything and everyone originating from that universe will cease to exist. No exceptions.

• During Aiko/Anko-chan's fight with the Mech sporting those reach-type needles, why does she run right into and grab the core, instead of backing off and shooting it with the lasers from either the Zearth's face or arms. We even see in the previous fight that Zearth has laser on its arms, would it not make sense to go with a ranged attack?
  • I assumed that Zearth has plenty of abilities but only certain people have the skills to unlock them. Like in Kirie's battle, Zearth always had the ability to move like that but only a few could actually do it. Similarily, though it could have just been the opponent, Komoda's laser seemed to be much stronger than Waku's laser.
    • Speaking of which, how is "skill" determined? Is it gained through watching other pilots, or innate ability? The pilots seemed to get better in general as time went by (Waku, the first pilot after Kokopelli, clearly isn't as good as most of the rest), but there were some exceptionally talented ones, like Kirie.
  • In the manga, its explained that the younger the pilot is, the more powerful they are. The anime doesn't seem have a rule like that or if they did, it's never explicitly shown or mentioned. It's most likely experience from watching others and innate ability.

• What would happen if no one in a particular world was willingly to enter the contract.
  • Probably what happens when one universe runs out of pilots before all the battles are up; "If there is no pilot for the robot, the battle starts regardless. All attacks to the robot are nullified. If no pilot is contracted within 24 hours of the battle's start, then the other side wins, but the pilot will still die. If a pilot is contracted, then the battle takes place in the remaining amount of time."
• After Kanji's battle against Javelin, there's a huge hole across the Earth... yet there's no further mention to that. Why so? Really, if this doesn't qualify as Fridge Logic...
  • The Earth fixes itself. It's held together by gravity after all. The tunnel should collapse on itself.
    • I'd suppose the collapsing would have some effect on the surface, with all that soil falling... at least a few tremors on the areas over it, for example.

• Why all "Dung Beetles" must look like robotic cartoony mouses? Apparently it's not uncommon for the pilots to know what's behind the superficial plot, so why hide their "alternative" human appearances?
  • All the abilities are channeled through robotic cartoony mouses. There's really no reason why they shouldn't be robotic cartoony mouses.
    • There's also no reason they shouldn't be invisible psychic moles, and yet they are not invisible psychic moles. There must be a reason for them not to be simply human.

    • To be fair, it could just be so the Dung Beetles look like something otherwordly so not only the new pilots won't recognize it as a "friend" but will also give the Dung Beetle a mask to hide his face, origin and current emotions so he can properly act like a guide that couldn't care less.
  • It makes sense for them to be something that doesn't appear human, from their perspective. It's a lot easier to keep up the illusion of the whole ordeal being a game to fend off the world from "aliens" if the manager is a cartoony mouse than another human. It also keeps the pilots/victims from asking the inevitable questions sooner, and realizing the horrible truth.
  • Also, in the manga, there's no reason to think that humans are the "default"; worlds seem to just be paired with worlds very similar to themselves. Most sentient species might look more like Dung Beetle.

• Could someone clear something up for me regarding the novels? That Other Wiki lists a completely different order of pilots for them, which includes Kozue and Tsubasa, among others; I know the translator of the novels has said she's tried to correct the chapter names and pilot order on there to no avail (and I saw that in the page history), but the novel chapter list on the Japanese Wikipedia has the same pilot order that's on That Other Wiki. So what's going on there? Are there two light novel series or something? Elaborate troll on the Wikipedias? I'm confused! @.@;
  • I would assume it's an elaborate troll, but only because the only Bokurano light novel series that I have ever seen does not include those two girls as pilots. (Since early concept sketches for the novel do include artwork of those two girls, I might also assume that the order was given based on preliminary artwork and not the finished product.)
  • That Other Wiki (English and Japanese versions) is correct. That supposed "translation of the novels" is actually fan-fiction, as I explained in the discussion section of the main article. In fact, I'm the one who reverted the (supposed) "translator" (so that was the "translator" herself, huh?)'s attempt to change the chapter list on That Other Wiki. 'Sure looks like _that_'s where the "elaborate troll" lies, here...
  • Aah... that explains a lot, then. I did think some parts didn't seem quite right (like, IIRC, the "interview" talking about the endings of both the manga and anime even though the last novel volume was published a fair while before the manga ending) but thanks for clearing all that up. It was pretty good fanfiction, I'll give them that, but I guess at the end of the day that's all it was - fanfiction.

• If there is an infinite number of parallel earths, no amount of "pruning" would do any good anyway.
  • It looks like the universes are branching from each other, and "pruning" is apparently needed, so I'd assume that means there isn't an infinite number of parallel universes. Probably (?) a humongous number of them, but "the game" apparently exists to keep things in check (or, at the very least, to postpone the inevitable "out of memory" blue screen of death?).

• Is it just me, or do all the Alternate Earth robots suck? Zearth appears to be a decent, well-rounded fighter with strong defenses, but everything else I've seen thus far (I'm following Viz's release) seems to be a one-trick pony that utterly crumbles once it's gimmick is countered. I know, Zearth's the main characters' robot, so it has to win each fight, and this isn't really pushing my suspension of disbelief, but it seems odd that, as far as I know, it's never noted that Zearth seems to be inherently superior to its opponents.
  • Actually, they get to fight stronger opponents as they progress through the fights. For example, Kirie got to fight a blindingly fast mecha that would had utterly destroyed any other pilot given the pace everybody else moved. We also get the twin mushrooms and the 30-hour death-match in the anime. Another theory could be that the more "derailed" realities are given weaker robots so they will really have to fight for their survival, like the horrible, horrible acid kettle-pot robot. It may also just be that the kid's reality got one of the Jack of All Stats mechas.
  • This can also be explained by the Anthropic Principle; we just happen to see the perspective of one of the universes that survives.
  • In the manga, Dungbeetle mentions being told that the younger the pilot, the more powerful the robot. Most of the rival pilots we see are adults, but the main characters are all twelve or younger, giving them an edge.

• Why is it that some of the enemy teams have been through many more battles than the protagonists when they face them (i.e. there are fewer lights on in their robot)? If the "pruning" is in a tournament style, shouldn't each contestant have faced the same number of battles (for example, of the 16 in the first round, 8 progress to the second, and 4 to the third, and so forth), or is it different, in that a team that won several battles already might get defeated by another on its first battle?
  • In the manga, Jun and Kanji discuss this mentioning that several signs point that the pruning is not conducted as a tournament, although how it is actually conducted is never clarified.
  • The number of battles they and their opponents face in this set-up isn't relevant and has no bearing on the outcome, other than the observing pilots gaining experience vicariously. There are no byes: each Earth has to win 15 battles no matter what.

• Isn't there a very easy way to save the children from being pilots? As shown with Tanaka, Seki, and Machi, a pilot can enlist to fight even if there are already fifteen designated. In the anime, Seki is saved despite enlisting because he did not have to fight. Therefore, if fifteen willing pilots enlisted, those fifteen can fight and die while the children would have been saved. Granted, Koyemeshi is the only thing stopping them from doing so but its shown that not all of the koyemeshis are as cruel as the one they received and probably would have allowed this.
  • This would not be a guaranteed way to save the kids, or the Universe for that matter. The pilot is selected randomly amongst everyone enlisted, not based on any kind of pattern. Therefore, even if several dozen soldiers enlisted, the kids might still be the ones chosen. Also, Zearth becomes stronger, the longer the pilot has left to live, and since they already had plenty of trouble with some of the later enemies, they would certainly prefer for Zearth to be as strong as possible.
  • In the manga, Koyemshi mentions another possible drawback. His universe had a surplus of pilots, which led to a fair amount of strife among the group, since some people tried to run away, and others knew that their turn wouldn't necessarily come up, and desperately hoped they wouldn't get picked. It's thus possible that other problems would ensue as a result of increasing the number of pilots.
  • In the anime, Koyemshi suggests that it's not totally random when selecting the order of pilots when Kanji berates him. Machi later confirms it when asking the remaining crew to help steer her chair into the selection circle. Knowing that, and knowing how much of a Jerkass Koyemshi is, he probably would have made sure the kids got selected even after contracting more pilots, just For the Evulz.

• If the universe loses and the koyemshi assigned to that universe gets assigned another mech and sent out to another universe, than who would be used as a demo pilot for that new universe if everyone from the old universe is dead?
  • I have a question related to the one above. In a universe that wins the fight, where the final pilot dies, one person is left to contract a new set of pilots. The dung beetle that leads the protagonists in this series made it out to be the only chance anyone had of surviving, but if the surviving pilot has to go demonstrate the game for a new group, won't they die in the new universe?

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