YMMV / NEEDLESS

• Arc Fatigue: The fight with the Pretty Girl Squadron takes up roughly a quarter of the anime's run time. To put this into perspective, the battle against the Quirky Mini Boss Squad of a member of the primary Quirky Mini Boss Squad takes longer than any of the other battles in the series, including the final one.
• Awesome Music: The first OP theme, "Modern Strange Cowboy".
• Cliché Storm: Combining psychic powers, robots, loli-fetishes and even eldritch angels
• Crosses the Line Twice: Pretty much everything Blade does. Turning Cruz into a girl against his will and then not bothering to change him back may take the cake.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Pretty Girl Squadron are secondary antagonists, but are some of the most well known and remembered characters. It helps that they up the already abundant Fanservice to even greater levels.
  • Cruz's stint as a crossdresser was initially only meant to last for a single arc, but was so explosively popular that he ended up spending the rest of the series as one.
  • Teruyama is also one to a lesser extent due to being a combination of a lovable Butt-Monkey and an all-around badass.
• Fridge Logic: Where did the container with super-concentrated Derodoro go? Probably inside Eve's body, she could easily hide it using her fragment.
• Ho Yay: Cruz's worshipful treatment of Blade and deep desire to earn his respect can come off as a crush at times. It's not helped by the fact that Blade is openly attracted to Cruz when he's in drag. Near the end of the series, Blade uses his god powers to turn Cruz into a girl, essentially removing any remaining doubt that he isn't sexually attracted to him.
  • Cruz and Saten get a similar amount of this when they're traveling together during the Eve arc. Blade's younger form actually mistakes them for a couple initially.
• Les Yay : Same-sex relationships are common enough in St. Lily Academy that when Rin tries to expose Setsuna as a lesbian (or so she thinks) it falls completely flat. Kuchinashi is one of the biggest cases, though she'll make an exception for boys who look good in girl clothes (i.e. Cruz).
  Kuchinashi: Don't worry, I'm not that interested in guys.
• Nightmare Fuel: Here and there, but few enough. For example, Arclight devours Needless rebels to gain their power.
• Older Than They Think: When the anime aired, a number of people accused it of copying Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and they are indeed fairly similar. However, the manga started in 2003, four years before Gurren Lagann aired.
• Squick: Blade's unabashed pedophilia and the large amount of exploitation of the (presumably underaged) Mio of the Pretty Girl Squadron can be quite shocking and off putting to those who came into the series unaware of it and expecting a more straightforward action series. Cruz's series-long crossdressing and eventual unwilling gender bending can be equally as discomforting for similar reasons. That said, by the time the latter two events happen, the reader has generally become accustomed to the absurd line-crossing Rule of Funny humor of the series.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The series begins with the set up of Cruz, Blade and their companions trekking across the Black Spot, a dangerous post apocalyptic wasteland filled with all sorts of dangerous Needless with unique powers. They instead spend the vast majority of the first arc in SIMEON's tower battling the same handful of opponents. The second arc follows through with the initial premise much more, but still ends up restricting the heroes to fighting in a single area for a very long time.
• The Un-Twist: Saten, the guy who looks even more like Blade than Blade's Evil Twin Adam Arclight does, turns out to be the original Adam? No way!
• Viewer Gender Confusion: As soon as Cruz starts crossdressing, he is never shown wearing male clothing again. Over time, his appearance and mannerisms become more and more feminine (to the point of covering his chest when naked). It becomes very easy to forget that he's even a guy at all because of this. This might explain why he ends up actually becoming a girl near the end.

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