Our ragtag group of misfits
"Right now, my blood is totally blazing!!"
—Baba Lamune
Our hero, Baba Lamune encounters a mysterious girl selling video games on his way home from school. When he gets back home, he starts playing the game he bought, named "King Sccashernote ". After playing for hours, he beats the game — and then the girl who sold him the game comes out from the television. She introduces herself as Milk and asks him to save her world — Hara-Hara World — from a Evil Overlord. And then she promptly drags him into the TV before he could ask any question or say no... Humongous Mecha and Hilarity ensue.
NG Knight Lamune & 40 is a traditionally straightforward Kid Hero Shōnen series, which is quite a popular theme for the age group.
NG Knight Lamune & 40 premiered in 1990; until recently it was never distributed by any English-language production company, despite the fact that it was dubbed in Arabic, Korean, Cantonese and European Spanish. The series was originally followed by 2 OVA series: NG Knight Lamune & 40 EX and then NG Knight Lamune & 40 DX. They were both aimed at an older age group than the original.
In 1996, a full-fledged sequel, VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fire was broadcast. This version spawned its own OVA sequel, VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fresh — which for a long time was the only installment released in English (as Knights of Ramune — with an R).
In June 2019, Discotek Media licensed both NG Knight and VS Knight TV series for home video release and both are
also streaming on Crunchyroll. Discotek has also renewed the license for Lamune & 40 Fresh, which they re-released under its original name, as well as eventually acquiring the EX and DX OVA's.
Note: Not related in any way to the 2005 Lamune anime.
The Lamune & 40 franchise provides examples of:
- Adaptation Name Change: Several minor characters had their names tweaked in the official subs. For example, King Kamekameka from the Hawaiian Adventure Town was adapted to "Kamekemak" to allow the Fun with Palindromes jokes in the episode to work.
- Affectionate Parody: As expected since this IS written by Satoru Akahori.
- Anime Hair
- Anime Theme Song: All of the openings and endings.
- Animation Bump: The later episodes
- Bald of Evil: Don Harumage, the villain of the original series.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: In fact, everyone can. The Doki-Doki Space seems to have air.
- Big Eater: Milk gets very angry when she doesn't have enough to eat. (Cocoa mentions that their kingdom's castle had to be rebuilt three times after she ran out of food.)
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: It's a common feature in Takehiko Ito's character designs, this also shows up in his other series, Outlaw Star, K.O. Beast and Lord of Lords: Ryu Knight.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: One of the standard abilities of villains through the franchise.
- Don Harumage, the villain of the original series, was able to brainwash people in Adventure Towns into his minions, conveniently indicated by a symbol magically appearing on their foreheads. Several of the Monscars were also King Squasher's fellow mecha Reforged Into Minions.
- VS Knight continues in this tradition: after brainwashing the people of the Ara-Ara Kingdom to hate Lamunade and Da Cider, the new villain Don Genosai brainwashes the captive princesses Cocoa and Lesqua into attacking the heroes to buy time to finish freeing the ancient evil, Abruram. And as soon as Abram awakens, he stabs Genosai, revealing that the villain was actually the brainwashed mentor of Parfait and Cacao.
- Catchphrase: For Lamune, it's "ORE WA IMA MOREZUNI!! NEKKETSU SHITERU!", which translates to "My blood is really boiling!! Right NOW!!" (or "Right now, my blood is totally boiling!" in the official Discotek translations.)
- And for Da Cider, it's "Yatte yaruze!", which is a shout out to Dancougar as Kazuki Yao voices both Shinobu & Da Cider.
- Co-Dragons: The last four of Don Harumage's mecha army, they even have dragon like designs.
- Combination Attack: King Sccasher and Queen Cideron.
- Combining Mecha: Several of the heroic mecha in NG Knight are able to combine with each other for a power-up.
- Cool Ship: Cocoa's transforming airship the "Stan Han-sen" ('Hanship' in the official subs), succeeded by the spaceship "Hulk Ho-kan" ('Hogunship') in the second half of the original series.
- The Corruption: A few of the villain's initial mechs were corrupted allies of King Sccasher including those that Lamune destroyed.
- Demoted to Extra: Kinda...the original main cast of NG Knight Lamune & 40 was unfortunately pushed to the wayside in VS Knight with only Lamune, Milk & Da Cider frequently contributing to the events of the series. The manga was a bit better about this, ESPECIALLY during the final chapters.
- Though compared to the characters from the original series who didn't show up AT ALL in VS Knight, Lamune, Milk, Da Cider, Cocoa & Lesqua should consider themselves lucky.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Nearly every song featured in the series.
- Edible Theme Naming: Lamune (after the Japanese soft drink), Milk, Cocoa, Lesqua ( also known as Cafe au Lait), Da Cider, and many more.
- Fiery Redhead: More like "Fiery Magenta", but Milk and her Expy Parfait.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: The 18th episode of Fire has Dandy and Lip use a mist-erious gas weapon to exchange the minds of Lamunade's party. While the Eyes Are Mental trope is in effect for the kids of all ages at home, Voices Are Mental is averted — and the voice actors and actresses do an admirable job portraying each other's roles. It's eventually revealed the ultimate plan that episode was to hijack the heroes' Humongous Mecha, but the villains didn't count on their Team Pet and supervisor still being close enough to the body-swapped heroes to be "persuaded" to change everyone back.
- Instant Cosplay Surprise: In the DX OVA, when Milk and Lesqua get enraged by Lamune and Da Cider's perverted intention to run off to rescue two barely clothed beautiful ladies, they and their sister Cocoa pursue them "disguised" as Seinaru Milky, Seinaru Cacao, and Seinaru Lemon and punish them for their misdeeds.
- Heel–Face Turn: Da Cider and Lesqua, most of the villain's mechs and also Narcissist Dandy & Pheromone Lip in VS Knight.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The final episode of VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fire, everybody dies, but they get better afterward.
- Hot-Blooded: AND HOW!
- Hotter and Sexier: VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fresh. As a direct to video OVA, this series uped the Fanservice to nudity and far less subtle sexual references.
- Humongous Mecha: There are 40 of them in total. In the original series, with the villain's final mecha topping all of them.
- Hurricane of Puns: At least half of the names of minor characters or Adventure Towns are puns. Not to mention Da Cider's attempts to play Pungeon Master.
- Legacy Character: VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fire has a boy named Lamunade take up the role of "Lamuness" after Lamune; the series eventually explores the history of the original Lamuness, and a future iteration of the cycle is a major plot point in Fresh.
- Mage in Manhattan: The plot of the EX OVA. 3 years after Don Harumage, a.k.a. Goburiki, was defeated, a mysterious new enemy from Lamune's home reality storms the Arara kingdom and takes Da Cider captive, forcing the Au Lait sisters to flee to the real worldnote in order to find Lamuness before it's too late. Lamune suffering Victory-Guided Amnesia complicates both his attempts to survive and his relationship with Milk.
- Noodle People: Not as prominent as in CLAMP's works, but this is sort of another prominent feature in Takehiko Ito's character designs.
- Ditto for VS Knight, since it has Tsukasa Kotobuki in charge of the character designs.
- Averted in the manga version of VS Knight; anyone familiar with Mine Yoshizaki's work would know why.
- Older Than They Look: Lamunade, the protagonist of the second series, looks like he's 10 (which is how old Lamune was in the first series); however, Lamunade's actually 15 and in middle school.
- Panthera Awesome: King Scassher/Squasher transforms into a robot lion to use its "Samulion" Super Mode. Queen Cideron has a similar Super Mode.
- Pointy Ears: Milk, Cocoa and later Lesqua once her secret heritage is revealed.
- Psychic Powers: Each of Co-Dragons has one.
- Robot Buddy: After arriving in Hara-Hara World, Lamune awakens Tama-Q, a small advisor robot. Tama-Q looks like a slime, sits on his shoulders, and dispenses an egg containing King Squasher whenever Lamune inserts a gold coin into his head. In episode 14, Don Harumage gives Da Cider Hebi Metako, a robot snake that allows him to take control of Queen Cideron. VS Knight introduces PQ, an expy of Tama-Q to advise Lamunade (and later, Parfait in the Fresh OVA).
- Shout-Out: Being a parody series, there are PLENTY of them.
-
Viewer Name Confusion:- Lamune's Humongous Mecha had generally been agreed to be called "King Scassher" by the English-language fandom, but the Discotek subs (as seen on Crunchyroll) opted for "King Squasher", instead. (According to the Edible Theme Naming, the robot was named after the soft drink "Lemon Squash", a competitor to the "Lamune" brand — and named to match the more popular "Orange Crush" brand.)
- Is Da Cider's snake Robot Buddy "Heavy Metal-ko" or "Hebi Metako"?
- Spiritual Successor: K.O. Beast, and to a certain extent Cyberteam In Akihabara
- Summon Everyman Hero: Both Lamune and his son Lamunade were summoned from the real world to save the day in their respective series. Although both of them were told they were part of a heroic legacy, they started out as normal Japanese children before being isekaied.
- Transforming Mecha: Many of the mecha in the franchise are able to transform, either to engage a Super Mode or just a more suitable alternate mode.
- Tsundere: Milk, although this is actually one of the reasons why she's one of the most hilarious characters in this show.
- This is also the case with Parfait in the second series.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Milk and Cocoa in the original. Parfait and Cacao in VS, especially in the Fresh OVA.
- Viewer-Friendly Interface: Controlling Humongous Mecha with 2 joysticks and a few buttons? May be justified as the target age group is low enough for that to be OK.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Quite a few characters and mecha from the original series that were nowhere to be seen in VS Knight. The manga adaptation tried to give them cameos, particularly during the final battle.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside
