History Anime / CaptainEarth

** Daichi's team is called the [[AMidsummerNightsDream Midsummer's Knights]]. In a further ShoutOut, the Planetary Gears' mothership is called Oberon.

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It was a summer I could never forget.

'''Captain Earth''' is a HumongousMecha anime from Creator/StudioBones and the team behind ''Anime/StarDriver''.

A second-year high school student named Daichi Manatsu spots a weird circular rainbow floating around above Tanegashima Island on TV on the eve of his summer vacation, noting that he's seen it before. Getting a bad feeling about the whole thing, he moves it by himself to Tanegashima Island, which houses Japan's Tanegashima Space Center where his Astronaut father launched on his final ill-fated mission. When he gets there, a 17-year-old guy named Teppei Arashi asks why Daichi has returned to the island. Daichi replies that he came back to fulfill a promise.

Thinking of other mysteries including his dad's accidental demise and the memories of other weird boys and girls he met when he was a kid, Daichi arrives at the island loaded with overwhelming emotions, and as alarms sound at the center, he finds a giant robot known as "Earth Engine" and acquires a strange gun called a "Livlaster."

Oh yeah, there's also this problem that equally-mysterious all-mechanical life forms called Kill-T-Gang are coming from Uranus to invade Earth for...something. Yep, sounds just like your average anime about a kid from high school piloting a giant robot in order to save Earth.

** Teppei's dad [[spoiler:or rather, genetic donor, has been in cold sleep for most of Teppei's life]]. It goes so far that for some time of his life, Teppei ''didn't even know what a father was''. After the episode where Eiji [[spoiler:is wakened from his sleep and escapes to Earth]], he is never seen again.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Is widely considered to be one to ''StarDriver''.

** The evil megacorp is called {{Macbeth}} Enterprises.

* TrueCompanions

* FiveManBand:

* AbsurdlyYouthfulParents: Eiji Arashi, [[spoiler: Teppei's biological father. Teppei is a [[DesignerBabies Designer Child]], and Eiji has been in cold sleep for a while.]]

** A boy with purple hair? Check. Red eyes? Check. Pilots a white, somewhat girly-looking mecha? Check. Affinity for pastel clothes? Check. Voiced by Creator/HiroshiKamiya? Check. [[spoiler: Has always known he's different from other people, and is later informed his race is humanity's enemy? Gets his own "I am human!" moment?]] Double-check. Teppei Arashi could be younger ([[VagueAge or older?]]) [[MobileSuitGundam00 Tieria Erde]].

* BleachedUnderpants: The original character designs are by ero-manga creator Minato Fumi (similar to 2013's ''Anime/SuiseiNoGargantia'', which had Naruko Hanaharu).

** Young Daichi's jacket bears a heavy resemblance to [[EurekaSeven Renton's]].

** The camera angles during the Livlaster introduction are evocative of the introduction of the [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Evas]].

** A boy with purple hair? Check. Red eyes? Check. Pilots a white, somewhat girly-looking mecha? Check. Affinity for pastel clothes? Check. Voiced by HiroshiKamiya? Check. [[spoiler: Has always known he's different from other people, and is later informed his race is humanity's enemy? Gets his own "I am human!" moment?]] Double-check. Teppei Arashi could be younger ([[VagueAge or older?]]) [[MobileSuitGundam00 Tieria Erde]].

* FireForgedFriends

** MetaMecha/MechaExpansionPack

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tropes_captain_earth_1386.jpg]]

* ThemeNaming: Outside of the previously mentioned numerous ShoutOutToShakespeare, the Manatsu family is composed of Daichi (earth), his father Taiyou (sun) and his mother Umi (sea). Naturally, Daichi and Taiyou pilot the Earth Engine and Star Engine respectively. And their last name means "midsummer", which is actually pointed out by Akari at the formation of the Midsummer's Knights.

* AmbiguousEnding: The finale [[spoiler: does not make it clear weather or not Daichi and Hana survives the destruction of the Blume.]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Kiltgang view earthlings as food.

* HumongousMecha: Earth Engine is this.
** The Nebula Engine [[spoiler: and Flare Engine]]

** The AI coordinating Macbeth and the Planetary Gears is called Puck, based on the the faerie from English folklore also known as Robin Goodfellow. The special weapons the Planetary Gears use are called Machine Goodfellows, while Puck uses the alias Robin when dealing with people outside Macbeth.

* BittersweetEnding:[[spoiler: Daichi and Hana manage to destroy Puck however they both ended up sacrificing their lives to save earth.]]