Anime / Endride

Endora: where unusual weapons go hand in hand with unusual tan lines.

Endride is a 2016 portal fantasy anime by Brains Base, directed under Keiji Goto, written by Touko Machida and with character designs by Kazushi Hagiwara and Nobuhiro Watsuki.

Asanaga Shun is an Ordinary High-School Student with a particular passion for crystals. Upon touching a mysterious crystal in his often absent father's office, he finds himself Trapped in Another World called Endora, where he meets Prince Emilio Langheim, currently imprisoned for attempting to kill his adoptive father, King Delzaine. Shun quickly learns he is able to summon a weapon out of thin air (called a Warp Relic) and he and Emilio begin a testy partnership as they break out of the castle together. Despite their mutual dislike, they agree to work together to get Shun back to "the surface" by way of a remote site called Babylon in exchange for helping Emilio to kill Delzaine to avenge his real father, King Alzerm. Encounters with a childhood friend, an omnidisciplinary scientist (or three), and a revolutionary army soon make it clear that Emilio completely lacks a plan for what happens after, which is where the real work of changing the world and growing up begins.

Warning: The examples below include unmarked spoilers!

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Tropes:

• Alas, Poor Villain: Emilio may have spent much of his life wanting nothing more than revenge on Delzaine, but when Delzaine dies protecting him from Ibelda, Emilio regrets it very heavily and it's not hard to feel sympathetic. There's also an element of this when Ibelda slaughters his fellow Truculent.
• Alien Sky: Adamas lights up the sky in a very green hue during the day (with permanent rainbow streaks for good measure), and purple at night.
• And Then What?: Multiple people, including Delzaine himself, level this one at Emilio, but none more often than Demetrio. Emilio is so consumed by Revenge Before Reason that he gives no thought to what's going to happen to the kingdom once the king is dead—a concern the older cast members take much more seriously.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Or at the very least, selfish, and there needs to be a process of discussion, with aristocrats listening to the plights of the common people, according to the Ignauts. Most of their attempts to reason with the evil aristocrats don't work out, but they're not about to stop trying.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Demetrio is the master of this, although a few others get their chance, most of them directed at Emilio about his plans. The one that most visibly shakes him is Demetrio's "So, you kill the king, what happens next?" to which he has no answer.
• The Atoner: Louise, despite initially wanting to leave the Ignauts after her betrayal, chooses to stay and atone for her wrongs by helping the cause.
• Axe-Crazy: Ibelda becomes increasingly irrational and out for blood as time goes on.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Appears frequently, but Emilio and Shun especially tend to fight in tandem and cover for each other's weak spots.
• Badass Normal: While no one knows what dictates who gets a Warp Relic, it's generally assumed that people who have them are more powerful than those without. Demetrio undercuts these assumptions by kicking more ass than anybody else, something that, being born without a Warp Relic, he achieved by hard work. As he points out to Emilio mid-asskicking, it's not about the weapon you have, it's who has it.
• Bash Brothers: Shun and Emilio become this over time, as they seemed to be most effective when working (and bickering) together.
• Beast Man: Zoozians. They come in every kind of animal form, some more aquatic and some more land-based.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The motivation for Felix and Mischa to join Demetrio is because he helped them when no one else would.
• Becoming the Mask: Louise acknowledges that up until the arrival of the prince and subsequent harsh reminder of her job, she was really starting to like the Ignauts and feel the revolutionary fervor.
• Blood Knight: While most Truculent are doing their dirty work for the money, Ibelda seems more in it for the fight, disobeying orders not to kill.
• Born Unlucky: Eljuia is a danger magnet, but as Louise mentions, there is debate as to whether he isn't really Born Lucky considering that none of it has yet killed him.
• Brainwashed: Mischa and other assassins are brainwashed in childhood in order to make them more effective killers.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Mischa is tiny but arrogant and only wants to listen to or speak with Demetrio, and often gets into petty one-up-man-ship with Felix.
• Break the Haughty: Many of the cast wanted Emilio to stop being arrogant and act responsibly, but it's Delzaine's death does this to him, as Emilio realizes he can no longer talk out his problems and he grieves over a lost father figure. It doesn't help Delzaine defends him from Ibelda shortly before dying.
• Brick Joke: As revenge for Shun trying to use booby-traps to trigger him into having a vision, Eljuia fake prophesies that Shun can go home if he finds an Endora bluebird, which leads him right through his own trap. Out of earshot, Felix comments no such species exists. Several episodes later, Gradido gives the Ignauts a whistle and gets Shun to blow on it, summoning a blue-feathered bird which they can use to communicate. Shun's first reaction?
  "Is this one of those Endora bluebirds?"
• Body Horror: With Babel being blocked on one end, Ibelda ends up being broken down and then spit back out with some eldritch additions.
• Broken Bird: Louise and Emilio. Louise because of the discrimination and suffering her parents faced for their interspecies marriage, resulting in her working as The Mole to make money to support them, and Emilio because of the betrayal he felt upon hearing rumours that his substitute father figure killed his real father, and later exiled his substitute substitute father figure. Both eventually get Character Development that helps them get past this.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: Parodied when Shun arrives in Endora and discovers he has a Warp Relic. He immediately names it Excalibur and tries to call it forth like he's in a henshin scene, even though that's not how it works. Emilio tries to get him to shut up because the shouting does nothing and only calls attention to them as they try to escape.
• Call-Back: During their first fight, Demetrio attempts to introduce himself to Guidoro, who cuts him off and says his name doesn't matter. Naturally, during their second fight, Guidoro attempts to give his name but Demetrio cuts him off and says his name doesn't matter.
• Character-Magnetic Team: Although it's Demetrio's principles that form the basis of the Ignauts, most of the team makes it clear when he's given a choice between his life or the others' that without him to lead them, there'd be no revolution.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Alicia has feelings for Emilio although he treats her pretty poorly and she's waiting to see whether things change for either of them before she says anything.
• Les Collaborateurs: The Truculent are a team of five members from a race disadvantaged by King Delzaine's rule but nonetheless on his payroll, whose job involves eliminating threats and undermining movements like the Ignauts.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Mischa and other child assassins are emotionally broken and then brainwashed in order to become more effective killers.
• Cool Big Sis: Louise takes this role opposite Alicia's sweet Girl Next Door archetype.
• Cool Old Guy: Louise considers Pascal this after he introduces the flamethrower and all his other helpful camping gadgets when he and Alicia join up.
• The Cynic: Louise, whose half-Zoozian status has given her a lot of reason to see the worst in humanity.
• Death by Origin Story: Lucio exists to give Demetrio his reason to leave his sheltered aristocrat existence and form La Résistance. However, despite the importance in getting him there, it's made clear that over time Demetrio gave up on revenge and understood that enacting wide-scale change was a more fitting tribute.
• Defusing The Tykebomb: Beating Mischa in battle, destroying her collar, and offering his trademark Warrior Therapist skills is just enough for Demetrio to get her to give up on being an assassin.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Delzaine.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: This happens Eljuia a lot. Shun outright invokes it when describing the Ignauts to an innkeeper:
  Shun:' Have you seen a guy with a feather sticking out of his hat? Or this guy who kind of looks like a girl?
• Dynamic Entry: Guidoro flies right into the fray and saves Demetrio's life in the process when he reappears after his Disney Death several episodes earlier.
• Emotionless Girl: Mischa, who was brainwashed to be emotionless in order to make her a better assassin.
• Enemy Mine: Guidoro isn't in this for the Ignauts revolution, but he's going to kill Ibelda and Ibelda is after Emilio and Shun, so they work together.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Demetrio, who is charming, heroic, and has a very nice hat.
• Evil Is Hammy: Delzaine largely avoids this trope, but it's clear Ibelda thinks the scenery tastes delicious.
• Evil Power Vacuum: When Delzaine is killed, massive social instability follows and petty lords step in, raiding villages and demanding wealth for protection.
• The Exile: Pascal was heading up the work on Babel, but Gut Feeling told him they shouldn't be trying to move between worlds. When he expressed this to Delzaine and begged him to explain what his motives were, Delzaine exiled him for insubordination. Unfortunately for Delzaine, Pascal purposefully put an error in the Babylon design that took years for anyone to catch and figure out.
• Fainting Seer: Eljuia, who tends to either faint because of an oncoming vision, or get into an accident, faint, and have a vision in the meanwhile.
• Fantastic Ghetto: The island in the middle of the sea where the Endras shipped all the Zoozians who were too weak to work. There are still Zoozians scattered throughout the lands, but their biggest settlement is on the island.
• Fantastic Racism: Zoozians^* a race of Beast Men are more powerful but less populous than Endras^* basically humans, so the Endras used their superior numbers to force them into doing the worst labour. Endras tend to instinctively fear Zoozians, while Zoozians feel justified distrust towards the Endras.
• Fantastic Science: Although the world of Endora is magic to us^* Innate magical swords you can summon, a crystal that hangs in a sky and functions as a sun, and a magical ancient transporting device that moves you between their world and the surface!?, to the multiple scientists in the series, it's totally scientific, they just need to research more. They're working on it!
• Fire-Forged Friends: Emilio and Shun don't get along, but from jailbreak to running off to join revolutionaries to fighting off the Truculent, they begin to rely on each other out of necessity.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Within the Ignauts, the dynamic leader Demetrio is sanguine, the peaceful Non-Action Guy Eljuia is phlegmatic, the energetic but cynical bruiser Louise is choleric, and the broody quiet one Felix is melancholic.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Pascal and Joseph both have incredible inventing skills, having created everything from flashlights to flying vehicles (independentally of the other!) in a canon that otherwise has the technological advancement of your standard Medieval European Fantasy setting.
• Gem Heart: Unusual in that they're on the outside of the body, but Endora boars have crystal horns that function as gem hearts. If you cut off/through the horn, the animal will die.
• Genki Guy: Leave it to Shun to get excited about doing laundry simply because it means he's part of a heroic band of revolutionaries.
• Girl Next Door: Alicia, who is Emilio's Childhood Friend and overall fits the nice, wholesome archetype.
• Girly Bruiser: Louise claims to be sick of only hanging around men^* (although she's trying to get information from Alicia, at the time) but she's frank, energetic and the most physically powerful teammate the Ignauts have, courtesy of her Zoozian heritage.
• Good Feels Good: Louise becomes the mask over time as she feeds off the positive energy among the Ignauts and is moved by the possibility she could right the wrongs that happened to her family, leading to her Heel–Face Turn.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Ibelda is quick to take offense, even among comrades.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Louise is half-Zoozian, half-Endra, and although she has been able to pass as fully human because of her appearance, she grew up facing the discrimination and censure that was brought upon her parents due to Fantastic Racism.
• Heel–Face Turn: Despite being the The Mole, Louise really did start to like the Ignauts and sympathize with their goals, which eventually lead her to this.
• Heroic BSoD: Shun, when he learns about Asanaga not being his father and that he killed Emilio's father.
• Hollow World: Endora is really just the world on the inside of the world, with no sun of its own, but a giant crystal that sucks in sunlight from the outside and filters it instead.
• Ideal Hero: Among the Ignauts at least, there seems to be the idea that Demetrio can do no wrong. He's heroic, fair, talented in a fight but advocates for non-violent change, and wants to empower the disadvantaged despite coming from the nobility himself.
• Laughing Mad: Asanaga's reaction when Shun defends Emilio from him and when he teleports himself and Emilio back to Endora.
• Living Is More than Surviving: Both Emilio and Mischa experience this. When Emilio claims he only lives to kill Delzaine and will gladly die for it, Demetrio mocks him for his foolishness and tells him to take more responsibility. More kindly, when Demetrio frees Mischa from her collar, he encourages her to take the opportunity to learn how to live properly and find her own reasons for going on.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Oh, is Eljuia ever pretty. The long hair unquestionably contributes to the Dude Looks Like a Lady effect in-universe.
• Long-Lost Relative: Shun and Emilio are revealed to be cousins.
• Magnetic Hero: Demetrio is the master at gathering characters, mostly via kindness, persuasiveness, and generosity. Occasionally through asskicking and a winning smile.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Louise's parents who ended up being forced to do hard labour despite their skills because of their inter-species marriage.
• Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: While watching Emilio and Shun brawl, Demetrio claims that fighting is just men's way of coming to understand one another's viewpoint. Louise thinks it's utterly ridiculous.
• The Mole: Louise, who works for Delzaine as the fifth member of the Truculent.
• Naïve Newcomer: Shun gets Trapped in Another World and has no knowledge of Endora. It's a running gag for him to severely over- or underestimate Endoran wildlife, with others correcting him.
• Non-Action Guy: One of the first things we learn about Eljuia is that he has no fighting skills. His Warp Relic is a protective cloth barrier so he can use it to prevent someone landing a blow, but almost always when there's a fight he's standing in the background carefully watching things unfold.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Guidoro, when invited to join the Ignauts, makes it clear he's only in this to get his revenge on Ibelda, who will be coming for Shun and Emilio sooner or later.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Guidoro swoops in and saves Demetrio from Ibelda even though we last saw him getting run through by the latter a few episodes previous.
• Odd Couple: Emilio and Shun are of very different temperaments, being "Prince Gloomy" and a textbook Genki Guy respectively.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Pascal, Joseph, and Rodney seem to dabble in mechanical engineering, biology, and chemistry among other things.
• Parental Substitute: Emilio has two: he first idolized Delzaine and referred to him as "father," until he learned that Delzaine might have killed his real father, at which point he became angry and resentful. He then met Pascal, who became his second parental substitute, only for Delzaine to exile Pascal for his disapproval of the Babylon plan. Pascal then spends the first cour using his parental substitute role to try to talk Emilio out of killing his first parental substitute, and comforting him in his grief when Delzaine is killed by Ibelda instead.
• Parrot Exposition: Most of Eljuia's dialogue doesn't have new content, but rather eases the conversation along.
• Precursors: Some kinda aliens created Endora and it's technological marvels, then apparently departed to places unknown.
• Power Crystal: Adamas is a giant floating crystal that absorbs sunlight through the North and South poles and then projects it throughout Endora, creating an artificial daylight, which drains by the end of the day for an artificial night.
• Powers in the First Episode: Shun arrives in Endora and immediately summons a Warp Relic.
• The Professor: Pascal, who is the main scientist, mentors Joseph, and is a Parental Substitute to Emilio. His inventions (particularly his disguises) sometimes get Played for Laughs, but he is undoubtedly brilliant and studies just about everything.
• Psychic Powers: Eljuia's powers are vague but include precognition and some kind of ability to read auras/emotions and sense the presence of beings. Ironically, when these powers are first mentioned, Shun (who is from the real, non-superpowered world) automatically believes in them and thinks it's cool, whereas Emilio is immediately skeptical and refuses to believe Eljuia actually has visions.
• The Quiet One: Felix and Mischa. Both people of few words and great loyalty to Demetrio.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Truculent, who are the main opponents of the Ignauts up until Babylon, when Louise defects properly and Ibelda slaughters their other teammates.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Louise tries to deliver one to Demetrio when she betrays the Ignauts, calling him out on his naivety and foolishness for tolerating her presence even though he knew she was The Mole, but her resolve ends up breaking down in the middle of it because she's long since become the mask.
• Rebel Leader: The charismatic idealist Demetrio heads up the Ignauts, trying to make King Delzaine abdicate the throne.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shun and Emilio.
• La Résistance: The Ignauts are a revolutionary army seeking an ideally non-violent overthrow of the kingship in hopes of more equality and support for the disadvantaged. When Delzaine dies, they become something of a temporary peacekeeping militia instead.
• Revenge Before Reason: Emilio is so guilty of this literally every person around him spends the first cour trying to persuade him he shouldn't kill Delzaine for revenge but talk to him instead, especially since he's given zero thought to what happens after he kills the king. When Ibelda kills Delzaine first, Emilio is, of course, seized with regret as Delzaine was his father figure and now there's no chance of reconciliation.
• Rummage Sale Reject/Impossibly Cool Clothes: Which outfit is which is in the eye of the beholder, but there's no question there are a lot of belts, feathers, complex layers, and other unusual and purely aesthetic costuming choices going on.
• Sadistic Choice: Gradido offers his support to the Ignauts only if Demetrio will offer his life in exchange to demonstrate the strength of his principles. Otherwise, Gradido will not only not lend support, but kill the others there and let only Demetrio live. Demetrio's willing to take it, but fortunately interference from the others and Gradido's own good grace win out.
• Settle It Without Weapons: After an escalating verbal battle, Shun and Emilio summon their Warp Relics, only to throw them aside in silent consensus and begin an inelegant fistfight as all they really want to do is punch each other's faces.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Emilio has no idea what life is like for people outside the palace, and doesn't even carry money because growing up, if he needed something, someone would provide it. It's implied many of the nobility who aren't actively malicious are like this, and before Lucio's death Demetrio had shades of this as well.
• Slave Collar: Mischa has one as a sign of her assassin status. It's unclear whether it has any special power, or whether it's merely symbolic, but when Demetrio cuts it off, it forms the start of her journey to live for her own reasons.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: The scientists of the cast are the glasses-wearers.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Emilio isn't the greatest with people thanks to the Revenge Before Reason phase and his general gloomy aura. Shun and Alicia laugh over how embarrassed he seems when the Royal Guard hoist him on their shoulders and congratulate him after seeing him in battle for the first time.
• Spanner in the Works: Ibelda's selfish betrayal of the Truculent and Delzaine messes things up for both the villains and the heroes, sending the story in a new direction.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Warp Relics. Nobody knows what dictates who gets them, but they are weapons of all descriptions that can be summoned by people of any race, may level up with use, and are generally considered a prestige item. However, their usefulness can vary (see Eljuia, whose Warp Relic is a protective cloth rather than a weapon) and ultimately depends on the wielder (see Demetrio, who has no Warp Relic but kicks everybody's ass).
• The Stinger: The final episode ends with this.
• Superhuman Trafficking: Warp Relics are common, but not universal, which leads to a slave trade of child assassins groomed for their magical fighting capabilities.
• Team Pet: Alicia's Warp Relic, Falarion, which mostly seems like a Sidekick Creature Nuisance until the reveal that her missing father's soul is sealed inside it.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: While Louise's father is a great scientist, her mother is a great seamstress.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Demetrio stops Eljuia from interfering with his fight with Louise, presumably because he thinks he'll be more effective bringing her back around to their side if it's just one-on-one, and also because he was the one who let her stay even though he knew she was The Mole.
• Token Mini-Moe: Mischa, although she happens to be a former assassin.
• To Win Without Fighting: This is the ultimate aim of the Ignauts. If they build enough allies, they think they might be able to sit down and negotiate with Delzaine to step down and prevent things from coming to bloodshed.
• Trapped in Another World: Technically, Endora is the inside of our own world (a kind of Shamballa), but Shun is sucked into it by a crystal and spends the rest of the series trying to figure out how to get back to the surface.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Most of the Ignauts get one. Demetrio's shows his friendship with Lucio until Lucio's murder. Felix's ends more happily, with Demetrio offering him his first kindness.
• Troubled, but Cute: Emilio to a T at the start of the series, being an angry, brooding and antisocial prince with a much ignored childhood friend, although he gets Character Development later.
• True Companions: The Ignauts as well as Shun, Emilio, Alicia and the scientists all end up as this. While Demetrio is the glue that holds a lot of it together, the rest of the characters do come to care about each other the more they stick together.
• Tyke-Bomb: Child assassins like Mischa are kidnapped or taken from the streets, emotionally broken and brainwashed, and then trained to use their powers to kill and sold to the highest bidder. Demetrio manages to successfully defuse Mischa by besting her, breaking her collar and offering her the chance to change her future.
• Undying Loyalty: Most of the Ignauts have this toward Demetrio, but especially Felix and Mischa who go out of their way to distrust people on his behalf because he tends to be quick to mercy.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Emilio used to be pretty happy and earnestly admired Delzaine, until he overheard that Delzaine had killed his real father, prompting a long, revenge-fueled emo phase.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: For Kazunobu Asanaga, the actually adoptive father through abduction of Shun, it's totally OK to use Warp particles to ensure the prosperity of the Surface despite destroying Endora in the process of harvesting them.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Eljuia is pretty upfront that he doesn't have much to go on in his visions of what's about to come, but it always looks bad.
• Villainous Rescue: Ibelda is busy choking the life out of Demetrio when Guidoro swoops in from nowhere with a grudge to repay Ibelda for slaughtering their teammates.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Circumstances are such that Shun can't survive in Endora or get back home without Emilio's help, and Shun is the only person gullible and powerful enough to help Emilio take out Delzaine, so they spend most of their time together early on exchanging insults and sometimes outright blows. Eventually they just spend so much time together, they start caring by default, whether they get along or not.
• Volleying Insults: Shun and Emilio's favourite pastime.
• Waif Prophet: Eljuia, the token Non-Action Guy whose most useful power, premonition, is uncontrollable and comes with a side effect of fainting.
• Warrior Therapist: Demetrio, who has successfully dealt this out to Mischa and Louise, and attempted it with several others.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Happens with Louise although played with in that while Demetrio and Eljuia are willing to grant her easy forgiveness, Mischa and Felix explicitly aren't, and Louise's guilty conscience is somewhat eased by someone holding her accountable for what she's done.
• Wham Line: In Episode 19. "Do you not understand, Shun? You were... never my son. *gunshot*"
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Shun gets tired of waiting for his dad to come home for his own birthday and decides to go drag him back from the office. He accidentally ends up transported to another world where he immediately meets someone with significantly larger Daddy Issues than his.
• Worthy Opponent: Guidoro to Demetrio, which is why he invites him to join the Ignauts once Delzaine is gone and the Truculent disbanded.