YMMV / Space Runaway Ideon

• Awesome Music:
  • "Cantata Orbis", the closing music from Be Invoked. Though we must consider on how ironic the lyrics meant, as how it portrays glorification of life and God, all the while when all the characters are already dead in the end.
  • "Overwhelming Power". When you heard it, you know that anyone who opposed Ideon is just good as dead.
  • The opening song, "Fukkatsu no Ideon", is very catchy and empowering for a series where tragedy and war struck. Then, there's the lyrics that give away the ending.
  • The ending song, "Cosmos ni Kimi to", is a great ballad that reflects on the tone and experiences the characters faced throughout the series.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Piper Lou drinking milk from the cow's udder in episode 2. Yes, he's hungry but that scene can make one viewer scratch their head.
  • The blue frog scenes. While it didn't add anything to the story other than showing what Lou was doing, it does break the ice on some serious scenes.
• Common Knowledge: Perhaps the most well known fact about the show was that the Ideon blew up the universe and then recreated it near the end of the series. Except that is just an exaggeration, While the Ideon did indeed explode, it only took out a solar system with the blast before it faded not long afterwards. The fact that the scars from the shows previous battles are clearly shown after the fact just makes this clearer. It doesn't help that the Gundam vs. Ideon manga by Yuuichi Hasegawa asserts the same misconception.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Everyone dies in the most cruel and tragic way, including children, after which the explosion of Ideon destroys a huge chunk of the galaxy. And then... the child of Karala and Bess becomes a real Messiah and leads the souls of the dead supporters of her mother and father of the newly reborn planet.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "The Gun" for the Ideon Gun in Super Robot Wars Alpha due to how horribly broken it is.
  • "Afro Amuro" for Cosmo whose character design and personality is similar to Amuro of Mobile Suit Gundam.
• Faux Symbolism: Cosmo and Kasha name Karala's child Messiah.
• Fridge Horror: Just how many times has the Ide pushed the reset button and what exactly happened to preceding sapient civilizations that the Ide annihilated?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Mechas called the Dogg Mack and 'Take off every Zigg Mack'.
  • As Ideon and Macross essentially have the same idea, but told it in a tragic and correspondingly optimistic way, it can be quite fun to watch the first brutally scoff at the idea of The Power of Love victory over xenophobia and the war between two different peoples.
• It Was His Sled: One of the most well-known parts of the series is its "Everybody Dies" Ending.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Harulu. Despite being a loyal Buff Clan commander who disinherits and shames her younger sister, Karala, she has her own issues. As the oldest daughter of the Supreme Commander of the Buff Clan military, she's raised to become a warrior who has to disregard her emotions and focus on her duty to her people with so many expectations on her shoulders. As the show goes on, she loses several of her trusted officers including her lover, Darama, in the war against the Solo Ship. By then, she becomes more enraged at the humans. When she learns Karala is pregnant, she kills her in cold blood because she's distraught that Karala gets to have a child with a man she loves who is the enemy while she lost Darama.
  • Sheryl. Initially, she has a huge interest in the Ideon and the Solo Ship and often clashes with some of the crew members, particularly Karala. However, she grows out of her dislike of Karala and falls in love with Gije who defected from the Buff Clan. In the latter part of the story, Sheryl starts to lose the people she loved such as her sister Lin, who was killed by the Ajian commander, and then, Gije, who dies in combat. At that point, Sheryl's mental health worsens and in Be Invoked, puts Piper Lou in danger of invoking Ideon until she dies.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ideon destroyed the universe!, due to the "Everybody Dies" Ending. Which is odd, because it only destroyed the solar system it was in/that part of the galaxy it was in. However, that does not sound nearly as dramatic.
  • Frequently, Doba's manly-tears-closeup near the end of Be Invoked is a standard ImageBoard reply to something awe-inspiring.
  • The titular mecha itself is also crowned as "The King Of GMs".
• Misaimed Merchandising: A number of Ideon toys, marketed for children, was produced by Popy before Tomino created the anime series. After the show didn't turn out as Popy expected, Tomino warned that this is the lesson for every toy company and that "companies shouldn't make toys before the anime".
• Moral Event Horizon: This series had these moments:
  • Gije crossed it by ordering sub-light missiles if they didn't hand over the Ideon to them. This action was, later slapped by Karala and this leads him to regret his horrible decision. Thankfully, this sequence was completely averted in the movie version.
  • Harulu eventually crossed that line when she killed Lotta and later shot her pregnant sister, Karala out of spite in Be Invoked. And her father even approves of it.
  • The Terran aren't any better when they want the Ide for their own interests.
  • The Commodore crossed it by ordering his Ajian soldiers to shoot the civvies, including Lin, Sheryl's younger sister.
• Narm: This series has the characters punching and slapping each other which predates the ridiculous slapstick in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. But the scene that takes the crown is Karala and Sheryl slapping the hell out of each other.
• Narm Charm:
  • Even now, fans can't decide if Cosmo's massive afro is really hilarious or really awesome.
  • If you've heard the ending of the series before watching it and started to watch this show in our time, its absurdly excessive cruelty, especially in combination with the old-fashioned anime, can get very much into this trope, up to the point that it will be perceived as an evil parody of the old Super Robot Genre.
• Once Original, Now Common: At the time, Downer Ending and Mind Screw were so shocking and depressing in this show that ratings began to fall sharply, and the studio reduced the number of episodes. Now its despair is more likely to be treated as Memetic Mutation and Narm Charm because of the nature of the "strange old mecha show".
• So Okay, It's Average: The movie is really the main reason this show stays on the map, as it was where most of the over-the-top violence and the "Everybody Dies" Ending actually played out. The actual show isn't terrible, but the episodes are Strictly Formula and rather cliché-ridden (and the glacial pacing makes the show unsuitable for binging more than 5-6 episodes at a time), and the animation budget wasn't exactly huge.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The TV series has a lot of problems mentioned in So Okay, It's Average. The Movie, Be Invoked, is considered some of Tomino's finest work.
• Trope Codifier: For the philosophical Space Opera with an esoteric downer ending.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Turning a children's show with robots into an extremely tragic-depressing version of Romeo and Juliet with one of the most famous Downer Endings in the history of anime, was obviously not a good idea. But it worked and made this anime a legend, yes.
• The Woobie: PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE who became part of Solo Ship's crew and refugees from Planet Solo.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Reviewers on the Internet have pointed out how Buff Clan generals' uniforms resemble stereotypical Elvis impersonators' outfits. They're more than likely meant to invoke the look of alien warlords from the days of Flash Gordon and other 30s serials.

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