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Ōban Star-Racers (2006) is an Animesque racing series created by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, co-produced by French and Japanese animation studios.

Every 10,000 years, teams from all over the galaxy are gathered by the mysterious Avatar to compete in the Great Race of Ōban, a race with much more at stake than just honor or prize money. According to legend, the winner is awarded the Ultimate Prize, which is rumored to grant any wish; from large-scale destruction to, perhaps, the resurrection of a loved one. Some want it for glory, others as a means of galactic conquest. However, the true nature of the Prize is shrouded in mystery, and things are not what they appear to be...

Eva Wei is caught in the middle of it all while trying to find her father, who had abandoned her after the death of her mother. Under the name of "Molly", she follows her dad's racing team to the heart of the galaxy, where they take part in the Great Race. Having learned of the Ultimate Prize, she hopes to win it to bring back her mother and put her family's life back together.

Deciding working for another company would not give him the creative control he needed, creator Savin Yeatman-Eiffel founded his independent own animation studio, spent years raising funds and years more perfecting the animation in cooperation with Japanese studios. Yeatman-Eiffel worked hard to secure the best talent available from both France and Japan, wrote the scripts for all twenty-six episodes in several languages and was personally involved in every level of the project, sparing no expense and spending years polishing the final result to a mirror shine. Start to finish, almost a decade.


Tropes:

  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: On the star racers, the racetracks, and a small number of the characters. It only really gets glaring on the racers that have exposed pilots, like Aikka's and Ceres'.
  • A-Team Firing: Inverted; Jordan's phenomenal aim is offset by his inability to conserve ammunition. That, and his weapon is far too weak to hurt most opponents, and never hits the ones who have no protection.
  • The Ace: Rick Thunderbolt, who is taken out of the race in the second episode; and it turns out to be a Career-Ending Injury too.
  • Action Girl: Molly and all other female pilots in the show, though her rivals are definitely in the Dark Action Girl category.
  • Alien Invasion: Type 1. Before the start of the series, Earth was attacked by the Crogs. The aliens retreated only because of the 25 year Truce of Ōban, and they have every intention of trying again.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: Played with. While most of the alien opponents don't think highly of humans and stop at nothing to win, they still have sympathetic qualities and a few even befriend the Earth team. That said, guys like Groor, Toros, Kross, Lord Furter, and Canaletto are total bastards who would cause untold pain should they get their claws on the Ultimate Prize.
  • Aliens Speaking English: Averted only by Spirit, Muir and O, only because they can't speak.
  • All or Nothing: There is only one prize at the end of the race, so only one out of the hundreds of challengers from across the galaxy can take it. In the Swedish dub, this trope is Molly's Catchphrase.
  • All There in the Manual: The Art of Ōban Star-Racers features an in-depth timeline and backstory on racers like Toros and Ceres - and explains in full the significance of Jordan's grandfather.
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The English opening is called "Never Say Never".
  • Amusing Injuries: Don Wei hurts his right arm in episode 3 by punching a hard surface while arguing with Molly during her first race. Said arm is in a sling later in the episode, and it's still there for the entirety of the next.
  • And I Must Scream: Due to being Too Powerful to Live and disrupting Canaletto's plans, Sul is banished to another dimension and is never seen again.
  • Animesque: Is it an anime with a Western director/creator, or a Western animation series with a lot of anime talent? This series blurs the line.
  • Anime Theme Song: Actually in both Japanese and French, for the French, British English and Japanese versions. The American English release used a somewhat generic English-language song, though they left the end theme the same.
    • The DVD simply uses an entirely English version of the original song.
  • Anime Hair: Molly, Jordan and Don Wei all have multicolored hair; Molly's red is really Delinquent Hair, Don's white stripes are from old age. Meanwhile, Rick and Maya both have long hair, with the latter having pink hair.
  • Anti-Villain: Ning and Skun, after it's revealed that they want the ultimate prize to reunite their people. The same can be said for practically any of the opposing pilots in the Ōban cycle except for Lord Furter, Sul, and Kross.
    • Hell, the worst you could call Sul is a Jerkass. He isn't actually evil, he has simply done everything — except win the Ultimate Prize, that is — and wants to win just for the sake of doing it. He's actually a fairly nice for someone who's almost godlike in power and lifespan.
  • Anyone Can Die: It doesn't matter if you're a villain, a neutral racer, or a hero, very few characters have immunity in this series. It's especially notable once Canaletto takes center stage. Among the casualties are the Mad Scrub, Toros (although this hinges more on implications), Sul, Kross, Satis, O, and Canaletto himself by the end of the series. This also includes non-fatal renditions of this trope: Rick Thunderbolt is permanently thrust out of the plot halfway through the series due to a Career-Ending Injury, and Jordan becomes the next Avatar to save Molly from Canaletto's influence.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Ceres constantly hurls verbal abuse at his opponents and likes to reiterate his superiority by playing his flute to make them hallucinate and probably crash. Groor plays it similarly, focusing on humiliating his opponent and disabling their star racer. He confronts Molly after his loss with the serious intention to kill her.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Jordan jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar to save Molly from Canaletto, obliterating the latter and healing Oban. He learns the hard way that being the Avatar isn't all it's cracked up to be, as the holder of the position is doomed to outlive all of their loved ones.
  • Badass Biker: Molly on her rocket seat, which she grafts on the the Arrow's steering column. Ning and Skun's star racers are both essentially flying motorcycles - one is a racing bike and the other's a chopper, based on the handlebars.
  • Bar Brawl: Molly and Jordan get into one of these with Groor. Aikka intervenes before too much stuff gets broken.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: Kross does this in episode 17 with one hand, and even breaks the blade.
  • Barrier Warrior: Sul's star-racer is pretty much just a pyramid of pure energy that, along with letting him fly, shields him from all attacks. Not even multiple direct hits from Kross's BFG, or the combined firepower of four other pilots, does anything but slow him down a bit.
  • Become a Real Boy: For all his boasts about mechanical superiority, Ondai wants to use the ultimate prize to become an organic creature.
  • Benevolent Precursors: The Great Beings. In short, they made everything that exists and set up a system to keep it safe before they died out.
  • Betty and Veronica: For Molly, Jordan is the former and Aikka the latter. She's initially more attracted to Aikka, but starts to feel more for Jordan later, yet she doesn't get either of them in the end.
  • Big Bad: Canaletto, a former Avatar sealed away inside the Temple of Ōban.
  • Big Good: The Avatar serves as one for the entire galaxy provided someone evil doesn't claim the position. On the other hand, the nine Great Beings ultimately serve as these in a way, being the one who created the Avatar system... though it's subverted since at best, they're well-intentioned yet neglectful, since they didn't stop Canaletto from going on his destructive rampage to destroy all life in the universe, and only intervened when Canaletto freed himself and attempted to take back his lost power.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Rick becomes this for Molly.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows:
    • Jordan has a pair of thick black brows, apparently inherited from his grandfather. They glow white when he becomes the new Avatar.
    • Satis has a pair as long as his beard!
  • The Big Race: The whole premise of the show is the "Spacecraft" type, since the Great Race is a multi-planet event that involves several contestants from multiple races. The main prize is a wish from the Avatar that would grant anything the winner would ask for, and because the stakes in getting said prize is so high, Great Races often turn into a Deadly Game as competitors are willing to seriously injure their rivals for the sake of winning (though outright killing rivals is forbidden). The stakes get even higher once everyone learns that the real prize is becoming the Avatar itself; a Physical God with a ten-thousand-year lifespan.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Jordan Wilde becomes the new Avatar, destroying Canaletto and restoring Ōban. However, he does this having just admitted his love for Eva. The last shot of him is one of him silently crying, as the chances of him ever seeing Eva again as the Avatar are unlikely. Everyone else, however, returns home to happier lives - Stan and Koji return to their old boss, who's quite delighted to see them again; Eva failed to bring her mother back from the dead, but she did finally come to accept her loss and reconcile with her father. Aikka parted with Eva on friendly terms and returned home, along with everyone else who survived the Oban races. But behind the scenes, the Earth government covers up what happened, which means that humanity might be even less prepared for the race in 10,000 years, assuming they still exist that far into the future. Furthermore, the government's willingness to resume war early, and their hope to use an Avatar to ensure human supremacy, has illustrated that humanity and the Crogs are not that different.
  • BFS: Crog vehicles are basically flying versions of these. Powered up, their blades are able to slice through metal.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: After the conclusion of the Great Race, Aikka parts ways with Eva in order to liberate his homeplanet, which is last seen under Crog occupation. It's not clear whether he will be successful or not.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Rush.
  • Butt-Monkey: Jordan. Poor, poor Jordan.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Very savagely! When Don Wei finally reveals that he's discovered Molly's masquerade, she spends a third of the episode unloading a decade's worth of hurt on him; not only for abandoning her years ago out of grief, but failing to recognizing his own daughter throughout the event.
    Eva/Molly: The other children thought I was an orphan, and they were right! I had nothing! [...] The day I finally ran away from school and met you, YOU DIDN'T EVEN RECOGNIZE ME! [...] I broke my neck for you for 17 races before you finally understood. What a joke! To you, I was dead! I didn't exist!!
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Lord Furter, a space pirate captain who's unapologetically underhanded and greedy.
  • Cat Girl: Para-Dice, though it's implied that she's a cyborg.
  • Catchphrase: Molly uses "Here goes nothing" and "Not good" quite a bit.
  • Chainsaw Good: Rush's Star racer has a laser chainsaw, and his pick-axe has a similar feature.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Molly's belt music player. During the race with Ceres, Rick uses it to shake Molly out of Ceres' mind-influencing music. This has the added side-effect of making Ceres slam into the course wall at high speed. He is not heard from again.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: O, the Wandering Eye. Enigmatic. Inscrutable. Never speaks. Cruises through the grand finals with an unremarkable score. Doesn't seem in it to win the Great Prize. Probably knows more than anyone else.
  • The Chessmaster: Canaletto. He was behind the events of the entire series, subtly manipulating Molly so that she would win the title of Avatar but turn it down, allowing him to be freed.
  • Climax Boss: In the third-to-last episode, General Kross serves as Eva's final opponent in the Great Race, as they both gun for the tournament's Golden Snitch after every other finalist is incapacitated. Canaletto emerges as the ultimate Big Bad for the final two episodes, but the conflict with him takes place after the effective end of the tournament itself.
  • Combat Tentacles: Muir and his bio-ship, though Muir's are also used for telepathy.
  • Combining Mecha: Ning and Skun's space-bikes can fuse together to form a BFG that shoots heat-seeking plasma missiles.
  • Conflicting Loyalty: The main source of Aikka's problems is this; he values his friendship with Molly, but his loyalty to his kingdom and his "alliance" with the Crogs keeps getting in the way.
  • Cool Old Guy: Satis/Super Racer. He's quite eccentric, but he's very friendly and helps the Earth team in his own way.
  • Cool Shades: Rick wears these.
  • Cool Ship: All three versions of the Whizzing Arrow, and some of the alien ships are pretty cool, too.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Quite a few characters suffer from this trope.
    • Eva's mother crash-landed and died horrifically as she burned with her ship, which was seconds after Spirit passed by her. Her father, Don Wei, abandoned her in a boarding school with an abusive dean because she looked too much like his deceased wife, and never bothered contacting her even once. When Eva ran away years later to find her father again, she was shocked and hurt that Don Wei didn't recognize her, and took on the name of "Molly" because she was unable to tell the truth at the time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg - every single tragedy that Eva had suffered was because Canaletto used her as an Unwitting Pawn ever since she was born.
    • Jordan suffered quite a bit of bullying at school because his grandfather, William J. Wilde, was rumored to have sided with the Crogs, making him a traitor on the level of Benedict Arnold. This largely served as his motivation to join the military and, implicitly, his choice to become the next Avatar and save Molly from Canaletto.
  • Dark Is Evil:
    • The Crogs are a warmongering, imperialistic race of completely black-skinned creatures and glowing yellow eyes. The two Crogs that participated in the Great Race have both been very antagonistic towards the Earth team.
    • Canaletto, the show's Big Bad.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Spirit. Molly thought he was responsible for killing her mother, but it turns out that Maya Wei knew that something's wrong with her ship and let Spirit pass the finish line - if she had crash-landed while she was ahead, Spirit would have been killed or at least severely injured. For his part, Spirit felt incredibly guilty, yet due to lacking a mouth, he couldn't properly articulate what happened that day.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Stan and Koji in episode 12.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Most of the main cast, except maybe Aikka (unless he's talking to Jordan).
  • Death Course: The race track in episode 4 is this. The first trap is a series of huge spinning turbines, the second is a giant, rolling boulder that can only be bypassed via flying through a hole in its center. This is followed by tunnels with swinging blades, a guillotine door, collapsing buildings and then a whole freakin' labyrinth of guillotine doors. Unfortunately, it's all rigged in Flint's favor, as all the traps conveniently shut down just in time for his star-racer to slowly cruise through.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Jordan has amazing aim, yet abysmal flying skills. When he attempted to fly the Whizzing Arrow II, the ship started swerving out of control immediately after liftoff. According to Stan and Koji, Jordan's flying instructor retired out of sheer trauma.
  • Drunk on Milk: Molly begins Drowning Her Sorrows in episode 4 on..."grenadine milk," complete with a typical I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough! exchange.
    "Lady, you should stop. You know what they say: never drink milk and drive!"
  • Dwindling Party: A necessity of the race format, though there are only a few casualties or fatalities in the qualifying rounds. It soon becomes much closer to a Deadly Game once everyone is on Ōban, though. Only five (of nine) teams apparently make it off Ōban judging by the end sequence and the remaining ships around the temple; the Earth Team, Ning and Skun, the Nourasians, Muir, and Lord Furter (and his crew, of course). Of those, only one or two still have flight-worthy racers. Sul is banished to another dimension by Canaletto for being Too Powerful to Live. Kross is killed in the final race, when Molly manages to crash his star-racer. Ondai is incapacitated in the city by Aikka and likely destroyed when Canaletto crashes the Flying Temple into the city. Finally, O performs a Heroic Sacrifice so that Molly, Jordan, and Aikka can face Canaletto. By the time the show ends and the heroes emerge victorious, Jordan becomes the next Avatar, leaving Molly and Aikka behind, and leaving the Earth team down to four people when they go home.
  • Eccentric Mentor: Satis.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Canaletto.
  • The Empire: The Crog Imperium, which (prior to the Great Race) had already plundered the resources of Rush's planet, forced Aikka's planet into submission, and attacked Earth simply because they thought humans were getting too powerful.
  • Facial Markings: Eva and her mother, Maya. Word of God confirms that they're tattoos.
    • Ning and Skun both have these as well. They deserve some special mention, though, in that they can easily be mistaken for face paint.
  • Fake Ultimate Hero: The flamboyant Flint is the track favourite on his homeworld of Alwas, and, along with his gunner, Marcel, is believed by everyone there to be unbeatable. However, when Molly actually races him, she quickly learns his true secret to success: the judges fix races for him by deploying traps that only affect the challenger. When trying to play fair fails, Molly decides to goad Flint into proving his "skills" by flying into the traps; he promptly crashes.
  • Falling into the Cockpit: When Rick is unable to fly the Arrow, Don Wei stubbornly refuses to let Molly take his place, despite the fact that she is the only other person on the team with any hope of success. So what does Molly do? While Don's not around, she uses her Wrench Wench skills to reconfigure the Arrow's controls and hijacks the ship for the next race. She barely manages to win, but Don is still so angry with her disobedience that he wants to withdraw the whole team from the race. It takes a reprimand from the President of the Earth Coalition to keep him from doing so, and another disaster with Rick, to make Molly the team's permanent pilot.
  • Fantastic Racism: Jordan Wilde harbors intense distrust towards nearly every alien race, never missing a chance to call them "scum". He despises the Crogs for their invasion of Earth, and accuses the nourasians of being their allies (when in fact they were conquered and vassalized by the Imperium).
  • Femme Fatalons: Skun has these. They are sharp enough to cut a hole in the Arrow's hull.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Canaletto. His name doesn't sound threatening, but his appearance and motives are.
  • Flying Seafood Special: Ōban has flying manta rays, and some of them are really huge.
  • Fragile Speedster: The Whizzing Arrow is one of the fastest ships in the competition. Only the crog racers even come close once the Mid-Season Upgrade comes into play. It is, however, ridiculously fragile compared to most other racers, and is armed only with a weak machine-gun turret. Most of its losses come from it being taken out by the competition, sometimes without even trying.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Eva's distant father Don Wei was once a successful and happy man who managed one of the biggest racing companies on earth and was Happily Married to the pilot Maya. Then his world came crashing down when Maya was killed in a racing accident. Sinking into despair, Don began to doubt his ability to raise a child, which led to him abandoning his daughter at a miserable boarding school. After some time as a drifter with no purpose, he soon grew into a cold,hard man who distanced himself emotionally from everyone. When Eva confronts him about this, she furiously tells her father of all the years she waited for him to come back, that she was just as hurt by Maya's death as him, and that he never made an attempt to even contact her. What's more, Don eventually did find a successful team, and he still could never find the time for his daughter, to the point where he didn't even recognize her when she showed up again. Don himself admits he can't blame Eva for hating him after his utter carelessness.
  • Freudian Trio: Molly, Jordan and Aikka are officially designed to fit this trope. The emotionally reserved Aikka is reluctantly on the Crogs' side thanks to the latter subjugating his people; Jordan is brash and hot-tempered, yet his heart is ultimately in the right place; and Molly rounds them out by showcasing a combination of recklessness and her intuition to do the right thing.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: Several instances of this occur throughout the series. In the first episode, Rick is holding a champagne bottle that had its color changed to blue in the US broadcast but was left unchanged on the DVD release. Likewise, the tavern on Alwas is a popular hang out for the heroes, but none of their beverages are ever referred to as alcohol. (Molly's drink is "grenadine milk," Rick's drink is "o-fish soda.")
    • Jordan also drinks coffee a lot, but the one time he actually called his brew 'Jordan's Java Jolt', the line was cut from the US broadcast.
  • Gambit Roulette: Canaletto's Evil Plan involves emotionally scarring a girl with the right background, then ensuring she is the one to represent her planet during the races, and counting on her to win so her scars will cause her to reject the role of Avatar so he can steal it for himself. Even with limited precognition it counts as this trope because it is ''limited' so there are many things that he actually didn't account for.
  • Genki Girl: Para-Dice, an energetic gaming Cat Girl whose star racer is controlled by a DanceDanceRevolution-style gamepad.
  • Gentle Giant: Rush; Ōban has the Drudgers (those huge singing creatures).
  • Ghibli Hills: Mostly Ōban, though Alwas has elements of this, too.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: Muir, and his even bigger bio-ship.
  • Glass Cannon: Prince Aikka's arrows are very powerful, but his beetle is easily harmed.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Eva wears hers over her eyes sometimes, though they are more of a keepsake/fashion statement than anything else. While they make sense while piloting her hoverbike, the Whizzing Arrow has a fully enclosed cockpit.
  • Golden Snitch: The later races of the second tournament are worth much more than the earlier ones, naturally allowing the Earth Team to catch up in the rankings.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Most of the characters that aren't outright villains are still fairly mean-spirited, though it's usually the result of the intense competition and the increasingly high stakes.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Kross' scar across his right eye is partially used to differentiate him from Toros, but also makes Kross more intimidating than his predecessor.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The Crog Imperium, a hostile alien empire that's in the midst of a standoff with Earth. Both Humanity and Crog alike are racing to determine the outcome of this war, and the Crog champions Toros and Kross are huge obstacles for the heroes. However, the Imperium itself stays in the background and ultimately Canaletto is the galaxy's formost threat.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told: In the end, the Earth government forces the remaining protagonists to swear to secrecy over everything that happened during the Great Race of Ōban; the official story is that humanity and the crog willingly stopped fighting and called a truce, rather than being forced to stop by the new Avatar. What's more is that the Earth government is planning to go to war with the Crogs early, and using Jordan to promote human supremacy.
  • Happily Married: Don Wei and Maya were this, which made her fatal crash in her race against Spirit all the more devastating.
  • Hartman Hips: Eva/Molly.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Thrice.
    • Spirit did not kill Maya Wei. In truth, Maya noticed that something was very wrong with her ship, and told Spirit to pass by her at the finish line, forsaking all chances of winning. If she had crash-landed while she was ahead, Spirit would have gotten severely injured, or died with her.
    • O, wanting to make up for abandoning Satis when he needed help with fighting Canaletto, protects Molly, Aikka, and Jordan from two giant temple guardians controlled by Canaletto. His unique absorption abilities allowed him to take the attacks until he exploded, taking the guardians down with him.
    • Jordan is a non-fatal example. Despite being injured with a broken leg, he saves Molly from Canaletto's influence by crawling to the Pyramid of Power, and jumping onto the orb that would allow Canaletto to become the Avatar. While this obliterated Canaletto and healed Oban, becoming the next Avatar meant that Jordan would outlive all his friends, never to return to Earth. And he did all this out of love for Molly.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Stan and Koji.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Aikka gains the opinion that humans can't be trusted after the race between him and Molly. Before the race both had promised not to shoot as long as they other didn't, Aikka because his mount had been hurt in the previous race, Molly because one of Aikka's arrows could disable their ship. They go most of the race doing this, but just before the finish line Don Wei unlocks Jordan's turret (which Molly had shut down at the start of the race and locked the techs out of). Jordan immediately shoots, Aikka disables the ship, then insults Molly before finishing the race.
  • Humongous Mecha: Ondai, the robot from the Ōban arc of the show, flies a spaceship that can transform into a bipedal robot with a pair of Laser Blades!
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Most episodes are named using a pattern of "Adjective Like Name of Enemy Racer", most of which are alliterative.
  • Invincible Hero: Averted quite nicely; The Earth team is not only a dark horse at best, they've also spent time at the very bottom of the rankings. When they get to the semifinals, against the likes of Toros and Aikka, they come to Ōban in third place... out of three, and only because Aikka beat the racer who would've taken that spot otherwise. They squeak by a win at best and lose hard to better racers at worst (against Toros, Aiika, and Spirit), and are dead last for the majority of races on Ōban itself. In the battle against Canaletto, Molly, Aikka, and Jordan are hopelessly outmatched and end up either injured, or brainwashed into subservience by Canaletto himself. The only reason the heroes won was because Jordan crawled past Canaletto while he wasn't looking, and jumped onto the Pyramid of Power and became the new Avatar.
  • It Runs in the Family: After finding out Molly is his daughter, Eva, he wryly comments in episode 18 that stubbornness possibly runs in the family.
  • I Shall Taunt You: Used a few times. Molly defeats Flint by taunting him into taking on the traps the judges had been rigging in his favor. Toros defeats Rush by this method as well.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Don Wei is very rarely pleasant, so he's mostly just a jerk. He was a very nice man before his wife was killed. He started acting mean to protect himself from the pain, and other people, too.
  • Karmic Death: Canaletto spent his time as the Avatar destroying worlds because he saw life itself as a mistake, and spent thousands of years crafting a plan that revolved around using Molly as his Unwitting Pawn so he could free himself and retrieve his lost power. He is killed when an injured Jordan, out of love for Molly, crawls to the Pyramid of Power underneath Canaletto's nose and jumps, becoming the new Avatar and unleashing a World-Healing Wave that obliterates Canaletto.
  • Large Ham: Satis as Super-Racer.
    Satis: I see you tried to top the fabulous design of my Super Star-Racer! Your attempt has failed!
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Rick's encounter with Canaletto in the Alwas Cycle is erased from his memory.
  • Last of His Kind: Double-subverted with Ceres, who seemingly avoids the usual angsty portrayal by being extremely proud to be the last surviving member of one of the oldest races in the universe. However, the art book establishes that this is mostly a front and he's actually bitter about being so alone.
  • Lightning Bruiser: One of the reasons Toros and Kross are so formidable - their star racers have great cruising speed and powerful offensive capabilities.
  • Line-of-Sight Name: Eva chose the name "Molly" from a signed poster of pin-up model she saw in Don Wei's hangar.
  • Living Ship: G'dar (Aikka's giant beetle), Spirit (he IS his ship), Muir's ship, and O's ship (both Organic Technology).
  • Loads and Loads of Races: In addition to all the alien contestants, there's tons of strange background aliens as well.
  • Lonely at the Top: The Avatar. Being a godlike being with a 10,000 year lifespan and immense magical powers sounds cool at first, but it comes with the price of protecting the galaxy alone until a new Avatar replaces you. Jordan learns this the hard way after finally confessing his love to Molly and watching the rest of his team leave for Earth; the realization that he would be alone on Oban for the duration of his life is enough to make him cry.
  • The Lost Lenore: Maya is this for Don (Type A). Doubles as I Let Gwen Stacy Die.
  • Love Confession: Jordan tries unsuccessfully to tell Molly his feelings multiple times, only to get interrupted. He finally does it in the last episode, but unfortunately, it happens right before he jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar, destroying all chances in pursuing a romantic relationship with Molly.
  • Love Triangle: Molly, Jordan and Aikka. She doesn't pair up with either of them in the end, as Aikka returns to his people and Jordan, while he becomes the first to confess to her, ends up becoming the next Avatar.
  • Luke, You Are My Father: Though Don Wei eventually puzzles it out on his own.
  • Luminescent Blush: Happens between Molly and Jordan, many times.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Para-dice's racer fires swarms of missiles, tipped with cat emoticons.
  • Made of Iron: On top of their amazing strength, Crogs seem almost impossible to hurt bordering on them being Nigh-Invulnerable. A lightly-armored assassin is shown completely ignoring a barrage of military-grade lasers hitting him on all sides, and Kross caught a sword strike in the palm of his hand. It took being in the center of a crushed exploding Crog Trident to kill Kross.
  • Magical Native American: More like "Magical Indigenous Person", but Ceres is an ancient creature designed after totem carvings and such. His star racer is propelled by planetary magnetism and he can hypnotize people with his flute or use sound from his star racer to slice things in half.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: After Arrow II gets trashed during the race with Spirit, it gets rebuilt with the help of the Alwas locals, and gains an improved Nitro Boost equivalent to the one Toros used to beat it in a previous race.
  • Mighty Glacier: While it might seem counter to the idea of a race, Grooor's star racer has very poor speed but phenomenal defense. This fits in nicely with his usual strategy of crushing his opponents against a wall.
    • Well, in a series of races where magic arrows, lasers and machine guns are allowed it helps more than you would think.
  • Missing Mom: Maya Wei, who died when, during a race with Spirit, her ship crash-landed and burned right in front of her daughter and husband. It's later revealed that Canaletto invoked this by having a minion sabotage Maya's ship, leading to Maya's fatal crash — all in the name of cementing Maya's daughter, Molly, as his Unwitting Pawn.
  • Morality Kitchen Sink: This is in full-effect due to the many different factions and characters battling for the Ultimate Prize and fate of the galaxy. Of the Earth Team, Eva and her friends are generally good, while Don Wei is a greyer shade due to how his actions affect his team and loved ones. Prince Aikka is a noble warrior forced to take difficult choices by the state of his homeworld. The other alien racers range from gray to orange. Meanwhile the Earth government takes some alarming action to ensure humanity wins the race and triumphs over the Crogs. The Avatar is the Big Good, but otherwise a neutral force unless a planet proves worthy of his aid and his morality ultimately depends on the morality of the racers who win and take the position. Finally, Canaletto and the Crogs are unambiguously evil.
  • Multi-Armed Multitasking: Ceres' six arms allow him to multitask impressively.
  • Musical Assassin: Ceres uses a magical flute to lull his opponents and cause them to hallucinate, which would likely lead to them crashing.
  • Necromantic: Molly and Muir both want to bring back a loved one with the ultimate prize. When it's revealed that this isn't possible, Muir drops out of the tournament completely, and Eva nearly does the same.
  • Neck Lift: Grooor does this to Molly in one episode, and Kross does this to Aikka in another.
  • Never Say "Die": Played straight most of the time, with one notable edit in the US broadcast; in episode 14, all lines about Toros committing suicide were cut out. Ironically, this just leads to the implication his superiors pulled a You Have Failed Me.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Molly's race with Aikka. Given that Aikka is a Glass Cannon who rides a giant bug instead of an easily repaired vehicle, he was resigned to blowing Molly away in accordance with his government's orders. When Molly approached him with an offer of a straight-up race, he was moved by her competitive yet friendly attitude and was willing to take a loss as long as his wounded mount wasn't killed. She locked down Jordan's turret as the race began, and was winning soundly - until Don Wei unlocked Jordan's turret and ordered him to open fire. Cue humiliating defeat, as well as a Humans Are Bastards comment from Aikka.
    • Molly's decision to refuse the position of Avatar and attempt to have Aikka replace her was well-meaning, but led to Canaletto breaking free from his prison. Canaletto would have won and become the Avatar again if it weren't for Jordan sacrificing himself to save Molly and the entire galaxy from his destruction.
  • Nitro Boost: The Whizzing Arrow has a hyperdrive (no, not that kind), Aikka has a spell he can cast on G'Dar, and the Crog's ships have an unnamed speed boost system.
  • The Noseless: Everyone in the show lacks noses due to the art style. Apparently, the artist hating drawing noses.
  • Not Just a Tournament: The Great Race of Ōban was devised by the Great Beings as a method of selecting a candidate to become the new Avatar, when the current Avatar's ten-thousand-year reign is ending. By extension, the wish-granting "Ultimate Prize" rumored to be waiting for the victor is possibly a misinterpretation of the prize's true nature, the truth distorted over an unfathomable amount of time.
  • Novelization: There is a novel adaptation that covers the first six episodes of the series, but it's only available in French and there's no word as to whether the remaining twenty episodes will be novelized.
  • Obviously Evil:
    • The Crogs have pitch-black skin/fur, red clothes, deep voices, yellow eyes, and a love of sharp, pointy weapons.
    • The Big Bad Canaletto, as well. He's heavily associated with black, has ominously red eyes and a sinister deep voice and appears as a crow-like being with spider legs fanning out from his back in an utter perversion of the Avatar's holy sigil. His appearance alone shows that he is a major villain, and most of his actions involve some kind of manipulation of sorts, with much of his plans depending on Eva/Molly, whose very life he controlled and ruined for the sake of freeing himself from his prison.
  • Old Master: Satis, both in and out of his Paper-Thin Disguise. He pops in and out to advise and mentor Molly in a roundabout fashion, and her race against him is a final test. He plays up Obfuscating Stupidity when first faced with the Earth Team, mistaking their tarp-covered crafts for 'giant flying pillows'. Still wouldn't be the weirdest craft to enter the race, though.
  • Opt Out: Eva and Muir elect to abandon the tournament on the eve of the final race, after learning that the Avatar's power won't bring back their lost loved ones, though Eva eventually changes her mind.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Satis as Super Racer. His Avatar disguise is much better.
  • Parents as People: Don and Maya Wei managed to subvert this while Eva was little; despite having successful careers and being very in love with each other, they somehow still had enough time to dote on their only child. Don plays it painfully straight after Maya's fatal accident, leading straight into the next trope.
  • Parental Abandonment: Don Wei stuck his daughter in boarding school and did his best to forget about her after the death of his wife. To his credit, he does get better in the end.
  • Physical God:
    • The Avatar is a long-lived, godlike being of immense power, and serves as the diplomatic steward for the entire galaxy. Whoever wins the Great Race every 10,000 years will inherit the position of Avatar. Satis served as one in his life, and after he dies, Jordan succeeds him, replacing Molly out of necessity. Canaletto is a former Avatar until he was sealed for refusing to give up his position, and even so, he still displayed immense power without it.
    • Sul blurs the line; he also has godlike power, and is also incredibly long-lived, but he's also mortal like the rest.
  • Pilot: Molly Star-Racer, made in 2001.
  • Playful Hacker: Para-dice is a female, cat-like alien hacker with a head resembling a computer or TV set. She tricks Jordan and Molly into playing an arcade shooter that turns out to be linked to their ship thanks to her hacking, causing damage to the Whizzing Arrow II's left engine. When Jordan and Molly race her, Para-dice lures them both into a closed area that required a difficult maneuver to escape from. While Para-dice ultimately (and barely) loses, she doesn't truly mean any malice and treats the Great Race as a game for her to win.
  • Posthumous Character: Maya Wei, who died when Eva was a little girl.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Crogs, and the Inna.
  • Put on a Bus: Rick Thunderbolt, put on a giant flying stone egg at the end of the Alwas cycle, never seen again.
  • The Quiet One: Spirit, and later O (yes, that's his name). Both characters are tragic deconstructions — Spirit was unable to tell Molly that he didn't kill her mother, and that she actually let Spirit pass her in their race so she wouldn't end up crashing and taking him with her (or at least severely injuring Spirit), while O couldn't express his true feelings or intentions, causing the Earth team to treat him with suspicion. It's only after his Heroic Sacrifice that Jordan, Aikka, and Molly to realize O was Good All Along.
  • Redeeming Replacement: In this case, the redeeming replacement is Jordan himself on two levels.
    • Jordan's grandfather, William Wilde, served in the military and eventually went down in history as a traitor on par with Benedict Arnold. While not a direct replacement, the stigma that came with being related to a national traitor motivated Jordan to join the military in the first place.
    • Jordan also ends up succeeding Canaletto as the galaxy's Avatar at the very end of the show. When he was Avatar, Canaletto was an utter Omnicidal Maniac and abused both his power and position to lay waste to countless civilizations so he could make the galaxy "pure", without life. While Molly was supposed to succeed Canaletto, she didn't want to become the Avatar, forcing Jordan to take it for her instead out of necessity. And by this point, Jordan has lessened his Fantastic Racism towards aliens significantly, furthering the contrast between him and Canaletto.
  • Revival: In 2017, a Sequel Series has been announced by Thomas Romain, and currently in development.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: The blue 'jelly-bunny' creatures that stick to Molly's windshield in the Pilot and episode 17. Jordan immediately starts wanting one as a pet, gushing about how adorable they look.
    Jordan: What are those things? They're really cute! I want one!
  • Rookie Red Ranger: Molly joins the Earth Team as a stowaway. Even when she proves herself as a pilot, the Chilly Reception doesn't fully wear off until halfway through the show due to her being an unexpected replacement for their original pilot, Rick Thunderbolt.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Prince Aikka. He's in the race for pretty much the same reason Team Earth is in too. Also, Eva and Jordan wouldn't have gotten as far as they did in the climax without him and O.
  • "Save the World" Climax: What starts as an inter-galactic race between beings of all kinds for the mysterious Ultimate Prize culminates in the cast having to band together to stop a dark being for taking over the universe.
  • Secret-Keeper: Rick is the first character to figure out that Molly is Don Wei's daughter. He tells her he knows, but leaves it up to her to tell Don.
  • Secret Test: The entire Great Race of Ōban is this. The contestants can use any tactics short of murder to win the Ultimate Prize and have their wishes granted. However, the real prize is becoming Avatar for the next 10,000 years.
  • Sensual Spandex: Rick Thunderbolt, when he's not a Walking Shirtless Scene.
  • Shouting Shooter: Jordan has a tendency to yell at whoever he's shooting at, whether they can hear him or not.
  • Sinister Geometry: The Crog Imperium's naval formations, seen in the first and second-to-last episodes. When viewed from the front or back, the Crog fleet resembles a glowing lattice framework, with the largest warships connected to each-other by chains of progressively smaller spacecraft.
  • Single-Biome Planet: Played straight with Alwas, but strongly averted with Oban. Savin says that the Innas home planet was a subversion, as the seemed to be fighting over it with an unnamed, all male race, meaning there were two races there.
  • Skintone Sclerae: The Nourasians have this.
  • Sleep Cute: Molly and Jordan, three times. First, on Rush's ship with blankets, second, sunrise at the Grand Temple, and third when they're unconscious.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Lord Furter proves to have a severely inflated opinion of his own racing ability, even though he knows he cheated his way into the finals.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Molly is the only prominent female for much of the series, but she subverts the trope by being a Hero Protagonist.
  • Space Amish: The scrubs of Alwas live simple coastal lifestyles. Flint explains that the Elders of Alwas have outlawed the use of technology - apparently to the point they don't have a method to make fire - but are willing to turn a blind eye to Flint's own star racer since he gives them a shot at winning the ultimate prize.
  • Space Elves: The Nourasians, Type I. Sul qualifies, too.
  • Space Pirates: Lord Furter and crew, to the point that he chooses to explain it to Molly when he attacks her during a race.
    Furter: I'm boarding your ship! That's what pirates do! They board ships!
  • Spikes of Villainy: Crog ships.
  • Stab the Scorpion: After Prince Aikka wipes out, Jordan opens fire on him. He gets a "What the hell?" look from Eva, until she sees the corpse of the giant bug thing that was stalking Aikka.
  • Starfish Aliens: Pretty rampant, especially once they get to Oban.
  • Succession Crisis: In the last parts of the show, Molly wins the race and is chosen to become the next Avatar. But since she knows that becoming the Avatar won't bring back her mother, she instead turns it down and opts to have Aikka take it instead, causing Canaletto to break out of his prison. Canaletto tries to become the Avatar again by brainwashing Molly and absorbing the power contained in the Temple of the Heart, but he is completely blindsided when Jordan unexpectedly jumps onto the Pyramid of Power, unleashing a World-Healing Wave that restores Oban and destroys Canaletto. Ultimately, Jordan becomes the new Avatar, but while he saved the galaxy, he isn't very happy about it, as he cries upon realizing that his new duties would prevent him from visiting Earth with his friends.
  • Supernatural Floating Hair: Upon becoming the Avatar, Jordan's short crop becomes long and perpetually rippling with power.
  • The Team: The Earth Team.
  • Team Dad: Don Wei for the Earth Team. The especially strict, disciplinarian type.
  • Telepathy: Spirit and Muir use their own variations of this. Sul does it, too.
  • 10,000 Years: The Great Race is hosted by the Avatar every ten-thousand years, with the winning pilot becoming the new Avatar for the next ten millennia.
  • That Man Is Dead: Sort of. In the final moments of the series, Eva comments that it was fun to be Molly, but is glad to be Eva again.
  • Third-Person Person: Groor routinely lapses into this, at least in the English dub.
  • Those Two Guys: Stan and Koji are a pair of mechanics who always work together.
  • Tournament Arc: The series is divided into two of these. The Alwas cycle (and its equivalent on two other worlds) weeds out dozens of competitors in a succession of one-on-one single-elimination matches, before narrowing down to six racers who compete repeatedly with each opponent, with the top three moving on. The Oban cycle, meanwhile, includes only the nine winners from the previous cycles, who all race simultaneously and compete for points on a scoreboard, with no eliminations.
  • 20 Minutes into the Future: The events of the series take place in the year 2082 AD, but aside from some of the technology and making contact with aliens, Earth is much the same as it is now.
  • The Unchosen One: Jordan was never intended to become the Avatar, as Molly was the winning pilot while he's only her ship gunner. But Molly's refusal to assume the mantle led to Canaletto breaking out of his prison, which would fare badly for the entire galaxy due to the sheer loss of life caused during his reign. Thus, Jordan becomes the Avatar out of necessity, foiling Canaletto's plans (and obliterating him) and saving the galaxy.
  • Underdogs Never Lose: Played with. On Alwas, the Earth Team won seven out of ten races and had the lowest points of the three playoff teams headed for Ōban. After that, they won only TWO out of nine races, and both wins were due to a Golden Snitch.
  • The Unintelligible: Muir.
  • Vague Age: Aikka's age is never specified. He looks like a teenager, but Word of God states that Nourasians have longer lifespans and slower aging than humans.
  • Wacky Racing: Fills many of the staples, in the spaceship-racing style - Quirky pilots flying distinctive and heavily-armed racecraft. The Alwas races are all based on a single track that is repeatedly altered with various challenges and obstacles, while the races on Oban are chaotic natural environments where the pilots must fly through rings to score points. Nearly any tactic is permitted, from blackmail to track rigging to Hollywood Hacking to Mind Manipulation; only outright killing is disallowed.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss:
    • Grooor is this to the Earth Team. He's the first opponent they face, which displays how woefully underprepared humanity actually was for the Great Race when he destroys the Whizzing Arrow I while an Ace Pilot was at the helm.
    • Toros is one for the final rounds on Alwas. He hands Molly her first defeat, by effortlessly overtaking the Arrow II with a superior hyperdrive and bisecting it with his ship's blades. It takes a Mid-Season Upgrade to even the odds for their second race.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Rick Thunderbolt 60% of the time; otherwise, he's in Sensual Spandex.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Gender-inverted. Eva's motivation for most of the series is to get back the love Don Wei denied her for ten years. The irony is that due to his own grief and trauma over losing his wife, Don doesn't know she's his daughter at all until well into the latter half of the series.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Rick returns to Earth after the preliminary races finish, but he's not seen or heard from again, even at the end of the series.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The remaining members of the Earth Team have one of these at the end - Koji and Stan return to their old boss to continue their careers, while Eva now lives with her father and attends a new school.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Eva was this while at boarding school by wearing a boy's uniform. This caused Don Wei, who hadn't seen her in ten years and did not recognize her, to mistake her for a boy.
  • Winds of Destiny, Change!: Sul is famous across the galaxy for this power. However, Canaletto has the same power, and he's been using it a lot longer than Sul has.
  • The Wise Prince: Aikka, also a Warrior Prince.
  • The Worf Effect: Sul vs Canaletto. Sul is almost a god and shoots a really powerful blast at Canaletto, but Canaletto is unaffected and drags Sul into some kind of portal, never to be seen again. Before that, a number of other racers had attempted to eliminate Sul during the race, but he was not only undamaged by any of their attacks, he took them all down easily.
  • Wrench Wench: Not only did Molly build her own rocket-seat by herself, but she later grafts it onto the Whizzing Arrow's steering column!
  • You Have Failed Me: Despite making it through to Oban, Toros is implied to have killed himself for his "unacceptable" loss to Molly, the first loss of his racing career.
  • You Killed My Mother: Molly's attitude towards Spirit, the racer who she thinks is responsible for her mother's death. When she faces him in the race, she wrecks the Whizzing Arrow trying to flat-out kill him. It's only when he shows her the events of that day through his eyes that Molly learns that Maya's death was an accident, and that Spirit actually tried to warn her about the engine fire. Later, however, it turns out that Canaletto engineered the "accident."

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