How the Buff Clan handles The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry. Even worse? She is pregnant at the time as well.
In a span of 39 episodes and two films, Space Runaway Ideon has proven itself to be hands down Yoshiyuki Tomino's darkest work, and one of the darkest anime series ever conceived. Due to the utterly terrifying situation that the characters have to face, it's not hard to see why this is the main inspiration for Hideaki Anno in Neon Genesis Evangelion alongside Devilman (which is also one of the darkest manga series ever conceived).
- EVERYTHING about the Ideon. To put it this way, imagine piloting a mech that is more like an Eldritch Abomination than a traditional mech, and it has the capability of leveling an entire universe. Now have it piloted a bunch of not mentally sound children. But that itself is not the creepiest aspect of Ideon:
- As the story goes, it is told that Ide (the main consciousness behind Ideon) is a combination of souls of the past civilizations in the form of a somewhat intelligent battle mech. Sounds kinda majestic, isn't it? Later episodes revealed that Ide only collects "pure and untainted souls", which turns out to be souls of babies who never grew into adults. And the characters eventually realized that Ideon resides as some sort of a guardian god of their universe that utterly despises war between the universe's denizens. Which leads to the next part...
- Though Ide supposedly keeps on protecting the denizens of Solo Ship, a grim realization appears that all Ide is protecting is Lou and Messiah, the unborn child of Bes and Karala. Because Ide sees them as pure souls that it can preserve as a proof that their generation of civilization isn't completely hopeless, it will just leave others to their deaths which results in the anime's infamous Downer Ending. And you'll start to think about how many times Ide has done this before...
- It also shows why things went as disastrously badly as they did in Be Invoked. Karala and her unborn son's murder at the hands of Harulu, with their father's approval, is what ultimately leads Ide to decide humanity is beyond saving and Invoke their destruction.
- The Reveal when the Ideon itself turns out to be the ultimate evil of the series, with the crew learning that it has secretly been launching bombs at both human and Buff Clan colonies from across the galaxy as it traveled, goading both sides into ramping up their war effort. Its ultimate goal is and always has been to push its crew past the Despair Event Horizon so they will grant it the opportunity to genocide all sapient life.
- As punishment for helping the Solo Ship's humans, the Buff Clan devastates Ajian with an orbital bombardment. The destruction wreaked upon its surface was so intense and demoralizing that when the Solo Ship returnes in a later episode, its survivors pulled a Face–Heel Turn under a deal brokered with the Buff Clan. The first incident is the main reason the Solo Ship's crew is mistrustful of Gije, as he was the one who ordered Aijan's bombardment.
- While the original series itself can be pretty gruesome in terms of how the characters die from one another (as seen here
), Be Invoked delivers the horror in spades due to how their deaths are presented relentlessly and how the war between Ideon and the Buff Clan escalates rapidly. Let's list them properly, shall we?- Right in the frickin' intro, we have the reimagined death of Kitty Kitten being beheaded by an explosion during the Buff Clan's attack in Ajian. Poor girl has it rough in the original series for being killed (by Daram Zuba's gunshot), and her horrific reimagined death in this intro is enough to awaken Cosmo's rage to fight the Buff Clan.
- After Ideon and the Solo Ship were hit by a comet (a result of the Buff Clan's trap), the enraged Ide retaliate immediately by effectively turning planet Earth, Earth's colonies, and Buff Clan's home planet into smithereens by showering them with a massive amount of meteors. Listening to the colonies' crying for help as their planets are bombarded into space dust really showcases the apocalyptic feel in Solo Ship's final battle against the Buff Clan.
- Karala's death. We didn't see the aftermath of her face got shot three times. But considering the state of her body and the fact that she was pregnant at the time, would you really like to know how it's like? Even Cosmo can't bear to look at her corpse afterwards because of this exact reason.
- And the real crowning example of the list comes with the death of Ashura who gets beheaded by a fucking rocket shell in the penultimate battle. Totally horrifying, certainly, but do we need to remind you as well that she is only 5 years old at the time?
- The infamous "Everybody Dies" Ending. During the climax, the last survivors of Solo and the Buff Clan both totally exhausted their manpower and strength, which results in Ideon and Gando Rowa destroying each other in the final battle, and the subsequent explosion destroys the star system they're in and possibly a large chunk of the Milky Way.
- Though it may count as a Karmic Death for Ideon, the way it's vaporized along with Cosmo, Deck, Rapappa, Bes and the last survivors of the Solo Ship is both horrific and heartbreaking. Ideon's paint burns away, the Solo Ship is warped by the beam's heat, Bes' helmet breaks he screams as he's exposed to the vacuum, Deck tries to hold on and gets his right arm ripped off as he's blown away. Cosmo also loses his left arm, which expels a massive amount of blood that covers the whole screen before he and Ideon are vaporized, and Gando Rowa itself gets cleaved in two. Not even Doba's own ship, the Bairal Jin, is spared from the destruction.
- The Ideon’s roar. It starts off as just mechanical noises but escalates into a loud earth-rending shout. Cosmo’s crying afterward doesn’t help at all.
