Literature / Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!

She is the Chaos that always crawls up to you with a smile!

Mahiro Yasaka is an Ordinary High-School Student who happens to be a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos. One day he was attacked by a creature he identifies as a nightgaunt, only to be saved by a Mystical White Haired girl ... who introduces herself as none other than the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep.

This strange girl — "Nyarko" as she prefers to be called — is an agent of the Planetary Defense Organization, tasked to stop a smuggling ring revolving around a precious cosmic commodity... Earth's entertainment, specifically anime (and especially hentai). But she's not only out to perform her task, she also takes it to herself to protect Mahiro ...and to go shopping.

Nyaruko: Crawling With Love! (a.k.a. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san) is a Romantic Comedy Light Novel series written by Manta Aisora and illustrated by Koin (of Kanokon fame) with elements from Toku and the Cthulhu Mythos, which was published under the GA Bunko imprint from 2009 to 2014 for 12 volumes. Despite the H. P. Lovecraft-inspired premise and characters, it's actually Lovecraft Lite, and it doesn't take itself all that seriously; it turns out that while the mythos beings are real, Lovecraft pretty much exaggerated the stories from his Nyarlathotepian friend and turned them into horror tales.

The series has been well-received in Japan, spawning numerous drama CDs and a nine-episode short-Flash anime called Haiyoru! Nyarani. An 11 episode TV Flash series called Haiyoru! Nyaruani Remember my Love(craft-sensei) aired in Winter 2010, followed by a traditional animation season come Spring 2012. The opening for said anime would achieve memetic status on Nico Nico Douga with the Un! Nya! Let's GO! portion of the opening. This was followed by second season named Haiyore! Nyarko-san W, which aired during the Spring 2013 lineup. Haiyore! Nyarko-san F, an OVA intended to adapt the rest of the novels, was announced in 2014, but stalled out after a single episode (possibly because of the tragic passing of Cuuko's seiyuu Miyu Matsuki). The franchise also received a Visual Novel for the PS Vita, and characters from the series will appear alongside many others in Sega's Crossover rhythm game Miracle Girls Festival.

Being a slapstick comedy based on the Cthulhu Mythos, it's a pretty violent story. It is also a hurricane of anime, manga and RPG Shout Outs and Mythos-ology Gags, and Kamen Rider. Lots of Kamen Rider.

Crunchyroll streamed both TV seasons under the title Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos, releasing the two Nyaruani series before the first to drum up interest; all four shows can watched for free here. The two TV seasons were later licensed by NIS America under the title Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! (and Second Season for W), releasing both as sub-only Blu-rays.

Compare to The Elder Sister-like One, a series with a similar premise but with Shub-Niggurath as the moe-ified Mythos monster.

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These are the Tropes that crawl up to us with a smile!

A-G

• Actor Allusion:
  • Nyarko (Kana Asumi) imitates Miya Tachibana's "Nii-nii" while roleplaying as Mahiro's little sister in Episode 3, then when she switches to older-sister mode, she applies Shizuka Sado's suffix "-chan" onto his name. In Episode 8 she gets to dress up as and even imitate the hairstyle of Popura Taneshima, complete with Cuuko alluding to Popura's Berserk Button of being called tiny. And in Episode 11 she talks about an art high school girl and a nudist — Asumi voiced such roles as Yuno and Mio Kitahara, respectively.
  • Mahiro (Eri Kitamura) is warned by Nyarko during Episode 8's Wagnaria!! parody that unless he is careful in dealing with his coworkers, a beautiful girl with a katana may cut him off, alluding to Kitamura's role in said show as Yachiyo Todoroki, and in Episode 9 "he" ( actually Nyarko in his body ) quips the famous "I'm so stupid" quote of Sayaka Miki moments before she is turned into a Witch.
    • In the final episode of Nyarko-San W, Cuune references Dream C Club, saying "I won't chose the inventor girl with the Osaka accent!" — who is of course voiced by Kitamura, a nod to Cuune's hatred of Mahiro.
  • The only difference between Cuuko (Miyu Matsuki) and Isumi Saginomiya are the lines, but otherwise they share a deadpan tone.
  • Hasta (Rie Kugimiya) gives Mahiro for his Christmas present a "handmade Hasta" scale model, alluding to Hand Maid May, a show about palm-sized Robot Maids, where Kugimiya voices Cyberdoll Rena. In Season 2 Episode 1 Mahiro even tells him off with the famous "Urusai, urusai, urusai!" ("Shut up, shut up, shut up!") Catchphrase of Shana, herself Kugimiya's breakout role.
  • Yoriko (Aya Hisakawa) has referenced Sailor Mercury's rollcall phrase "[douse yourself in water and] you should apologize". In Season 1 Episode 8 she was also seen wearing a gray Kerberos hairpin. She has also quipped the "That's a top priority" Catchphrase of Mizuho Kazami, played by Yoriko's drama CD voice actress (and Hisakawa's Ah! My Goddess co-star), Kikuko Inoue. In Season 2 Episode 4 she also assumes the pose and quotes the post-transformation Catchphrase of Cure Moonlight.
  • Satomi Arai, Shantak-kun's anime voice actress, does some narration at Episode 8 of W in a manner similar to her role as the Lemony Narrator of Ōkami-san. She even states that "this story won't include a girl with menacing eyes and a lazy boy who doesn't like to be stared at". Shantak-kun also reacts upon Cuuko naming her and Mahiro's prospective child "Kuroko".
  • Nodens (voiced by Bin Shimada) delivers several of Paptimus Scirocco's more iconic quotes; in the last episode of Nyarko-San W, Yoriko remarks that his dramatic speech patterns make you almost think he came from Jupiter (referring to the fact that Scirocco was the captian of the Jupiter Energy Fleet).
  • In the first episode, Masaki Terasoma provides the voices for brief clip of Kamen Rider Expy Iron Striver that Nyarko watches; Terasoma has provided two rather famous voices to that franchise in the past: Shadow Moon and Kintaros/Den-O Ax Form.
  • Episode 9 of Nyarko-San W has the characters quote Crossbone Gundam several times; the episode's villain is voiced by Kouji Tsujitani, who plays Crossbone's Kincaid Nau.
• Adam and Eve Plot: Invoked in episode 7 of season 2 along with Behind the Black, by Nyarko. Mahiro wakes up on what appears to be a deserted island with Nyarko, and she immediately mentions this trope to him. However, in actuality, they're still at the indoor swimming park, and several people walk by when he mentions it, and the camera also changes angles, revealing the shops on the other side of the two.
• Adaptational Heroism: Hell yes. "Heroism" might be stretching it a bit, but psychotic stalking and smuggling is a lot better than actively looking to ruin human civilization.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The aliens are based on the Cthulhu Mythos, so it comes with the territory. Nyarko and Cuuko are psychotic stalkers, and the Great Old Ones are so obsessed with Earth pop culture that they have smuggling of it, and some of their media watchdogs try to destroy the Earth over considering it a threat to moral health. And people say Humanity Is Insane.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • You can tell those in charge of the series are quite familiar with and are fans of Lovecraft's work and the actual Cthulhu Mythos, and use that to great effectiveness here.
  • The show also cheerfully skewers the Harem genre; while Mahiro has three Pretty Freeloaders, one is interested in another, while the third is a guy.
• Agitated Item Stomping: In Novel 1/episode 2, when Nyarko offers Mahiro a box which she says contains an engagement ring, he responds this way. She immediately apologizes, saying that was just a joke and the box really contains a protective charm.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A first it looks like it's this for the Banshin and then it looks like it gets subverted because they simply based its mind on Nyarko's and then it turns out that it really is crazy enough to kill Mahiro after all.
• Alien Geometries: Nodens' auction house in R'lyeh is Bigger on the Inside that on the outside, of course.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Almost all the relationships in the series. Hasta, Tamao and later Cuuko have feelings for Mahiro, Luhy develops feelings for Hasta, Cuune has feelings for Cuuko... and of course, the series centers around Nyarko's feelings for Mahiro, but he actually does like her even if he's not willing to say so out loud, a situation that slowly improves.
• All There in the Manual: One can watch the anime without reading the novels, but it does provide a lot of useful information. For example, after busting up Nodens' black market auction, Nyarko took 300 years' worth of paid vacation in order to be with Mahiro, and Mahiro is revealed to be able to perceive and resist fluctuations in space-time (which is mentioned early on, but becomes a Chekhov's Skill later).
• Amusement Park of Doom: In Episode 2, we learn that R'lyeh is essentially a twisted version of Disneyland which caters to Eldritch Abominations. Of course, other than the fact that it's full of alien beings, there's really nothing deadly about it.
• Anachronic Order: An odd adaptational version, as the anime doesn't stick with a straight one-to-one transfer from the novels. For example, episodes 4 & 5 of the first season, which sees Cthulhu Corp. kidnapping Mahiro's mother, were drawn from the fourth novel; episodes 9 & 10, in which Mahiro and Nyarko swap bodies, were based on the third.
  • Nyarko-San W adapts novels 5-7; while the fifth and sixth occur in order, stories from the seventh are sprinkled throughout the season. On top of that, the final episode is based on a short story collected in the eleventh novel, and this of course isn't taking into account the anime-exclusive episodes, which include the finale of the first season.
• Analogy Backfire: In episode 7 of the second TV series, Nyarko compares herself and Mahiro to two trees which have grown together; he responds that diseased limbs need to be removed immediately.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Nyarko does it to Mahiro in episode 6 of season 2, after being extremely unhappy watching his fake date with Kuuko. She lays on top of him in his bed, and tells him yet again that she cares for him deeply, and wants to know what his feelings towards her are, as she's unsure of them.
• Animation Bump: Remember my Love(craft-sensei) is a Flash series, but the Ending credits are done traditionally. As a result, the Credits have better animation than the show itself.
• Art Evolution: Comparing the character designs from Remember my Love(craft-sensei)'s ending to the two TV shows an interesting reversal. In the former, Mahiro's face was more lean and angular (and therefore looked slightly older and more masculine), while Nyarko's was rounder (and therefore younger-looking and more feminine); in the latter, these traits have swapped, so Nyarko's face is more angular while Mahiro's is rounder.
• Artistic License: Aisora lampshaded this in the second light novel, discussing how he has to twist the elements of the Cthulhu Mythos more and more as the story goes on. He joked that by the 10th volume, it would be beyond recognizable, and Nyarko would have to destroy the world in order to reestablish it.
• Artistic License – Physics: Cuuko claims that her cousin Kunne's flames can reach a "thousand degrees", and that her chill attack could reach below one thousand degrees ^note this would be well below Absolute Zero. Mahiro responds that it sounds like something a kid would think up.
  Mahiro: "Don't ignore the laws of physics."
• Ascended Extra: Shantak was a minor character in the 2012 series, but got a pretty important role in the sequel.
• Aside Comment: Nyarko looks at the camera and repeats a second time that she has a convenient barrier to keep up The Masquerade because, in her own words, it is important information.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Nyarko loses track of objectives easily, especially when confronted with her hobbies or anything fun.
• Babies Make Everything Better: In episode 7, Yoriko says she approves of Nyarko dating Mahiro, but asks her to slow things down, since "high schoolers should have a high school romance". Nyarko agrees, but thinks to herself that parents always change their minds when the grandchildren start being born ...and develops a Higurashi Slasher Smile that creeps Mahiro right the hell out.
• Bad Boss: According to Nyarko, her boss is unreasonable and sleeps all the time, and if you disturb his naps he gets mad enough to destroy the universe. Yup, he's Azathoth.
• Beach Episode: Episodes 6-7.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Mahiro in episode 11 moans that he wish he could have peace and quiet. Then in episode 12, he gets it, and ends up being the last man on Earth, and he starts to realize how important his friends and family really are to him.
• Beehive Barrier: In Episode 10, Nyarko (in her own body again) summons one to block an energy blast from the leader of the rogue Yithians.
• Behind the Black: See Adam and Eve Plot. The starting shot that may have looked like an uninhabited island for a moment, is followed by camera changing angle.
• BFS: Nyarko's crowbar turns into one in episode 12.
• Big Brother Attraction: In episode 3, Nyarko tries to play both the big and little sister for Mahiro (while channeling some of Kana Asumi's other roles), suspecting he has one of these. He angrily denies it.
• Big Book of War: The alien characters have Citizen Bright's Amazing! Our Space CQC. Basically, it's summed up as "CQC is what you want it to be, even if others disagree."
• Big "NO!": Tamao lets one out in Ep. 9, Season 2, after she realizes that's shes playing Twister with Yoichi, who just happens to be under her skirt.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Played for Laughs. Mahiro is chased after by his Stalker with a Crush Nyarko who has her own Stalker with a Crush in the form of her fellow female Human Alien Cuuko. The very girly-looking Hasta also a crush on Mahiro.
• Black Comedy Rape:
  • In episode 2 Kuuko defeats Nyarko in battle and then ties her down on a four-poster bed.
  • At the end of Episode 6 Nyarko tries to get Mahiro in his bed. In both cases the attacker believes it to be an act of love, and the victim succeeds in fighting them off.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Cuuko would frequently invoke this trope to justify her promiscuous attitude towards Nyarko, including stripping off her bikini in the middle of the beach while she's suffering from a Heroic BSoD/Color Failure after Mahiro bluntly states that he doesn't like her in Episode 7.
  Cuuko: The standards of your world do not apply to us.
  Mahiro: You really want a fight or what?!
  [Cuuko whistles away]
• Blue with Shock: Happens to several characters from time to time.
• Bodyguard Crush: Nyarko practically begged to take the job of protecting Mahiro after seeing his picture.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: With Nyarko as the boke and Mahiro as the tsukkomi.
• Book Ends: Both the first and the last battle occur at the same place. The latter even starts the same way as the former.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase: Cross-series, with pretty much the entire cast telling someone to "Count up their crimes" at least once. In case you missed it, the writers really liked Kamen Rider Double.
  • Mahiro's "That doesn't make any sense," itself borrowed from Doraemon, gets used by a couple of other characters, most prominently Nyarko in episode 2.
• Boyfriend Bluff: In episode 5 of season 2 (W), Kuuko claims to be Mahiro's fiance in order to thwart her cousin Kuune's advances and avoid a marriage interview. The later doesn't seem too convinced at first, so Kuuko asks the other characters to play along, and bribes Nyarko into doing so by giving her the contract Mahiro wrote (while trapped in Nyarko's body) in the first episode.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the first episode of the second TV series, after Mahiro nearly misses her hand with a fork, a freaked-out Nyarko asks if he's trying to get them taken off the air.
  • In the Nyaruani episode "Cooking":
    Mahiro: "Wait a minute. Why did you get censored by the broadcast code?" "Why's there a mosiac over that thing you're holding?!"
  • And in the second season's first episode too:
    Cuuko: "The magic circle effects were difficult. We're using them now while we still have room in the budget."
    • The first part of this episode combines this with Info Dump as Nyarko addresses the audience directly to get new viewers up to speed, for example giving little introductions for Yoichi and Tamao when the group gets to school. She's asked several times by various characters who's she's talking to.
• Brutal Honesty: "I don't like you", by Mahiro to Nyarko in Episode 7. It was enough to drive the latter into a Heroic BSoD and Color Failure which Mahiro would later have to reluctantly rectify himself of at the sight of Cuuko about to exploit Nyarko's shock to undress her in the middle of the beach, apologizing to her and then bringing her on a date at Yoriko's suggestion.
• Buffy Speak: When asked about the crowbar she was holding, Nyarko describes it as "some kind of unspeakable bar thing."
• But Thou Must!: Spoofed in Nyaruani episode 5, "RPG", where Nyarko describes the big popular RPG in space. Sometimes the monsters you defeat will want to join your party; your choices are "Yes" or "Yeah", and then they demand payment or refuse to help you.
• Cain and Abel: Nyarko's older brother Nyar-o ran away from home because he's Book Dumb while Nyarko is a Child Prodigy (she was a topnotcher at a prestigious university, while he had to drop out of a C-list college). He blames her for his downfall (because she hit his head while playing space gateball) and tries to antagonize her after he gains his own Full Force Form — or so he wanted to be.
• Call-Back: In Episode 11, Nyarko uses the Mirror of Nitocris to suck back the Shaggai hornets she intended to eat as barbecue at Mahiro's request. Then Mahiro remembers that it was the same mirror with which Nyarko let him realize that they have switched bodies. Naturally, he's not too thrilled about the implications as to what it could have done to him.
  • In the OVA Haiyore! Nyarko-san F, Mahiro repeated Nyarko's work from the very first episode "It's not a crime if no one find out"
• Calling Your Attacks: Isurugi and Isuka do this in episode 10. After a while Mahiro questions if they're grade school kids.
• Call on Me: Nyarko tells Mahiro to say her name if he needs her.
• Calvinball: Space CQC is explicitly stated to be whatever one claims it to be. Even if their opponent disagrees.
• The Cameo: Characters from other light novel series, such as Miyamasanchi no Berutein (written by Aisora) and Rl'yeh High School (illustrated by Koin) can often be seen in the background, with the two main girls from the latter actually appearing as Mahiro's classmates. In turn, Mahiro, Nyarko and Yoriko appeared as minor characters in the former.
• Canon Foreigner: By medium:
  • Yonkoma: Nakko, a nightgaunt that got stuck in little girl form and left behind on Earth after the Nodens incident.
  • Nyaruani: Nyarue, Nyarko's overly excitable cousin.
  • Anime: Guthatan and Roy Fogger from the first season, Tsuruko and the Dreamlands gods from W.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Basically sums up Mahiro's relationship with Nyarko, Cuuko and Hasta. No matter how often their personalities (and preferences) clash, it's obvious that all four of them need each other. He learns this lesson at the end of the first season when he's sent to a completely empty world; the second season has a similar situation, where the trio are being recalled by their bosses, but Mahiro's main conflict is the fact that he's powerless to stop it.
• Captain Ersatz:
  • The hero of the Nyarko's favorite Toku series Kurogane no Striber is basically an amalgamation of several different Kamen Rider heroes. His hero form primarily resembles Kuuga Ultimate Form but with an old-school Scarf of Asskicking, but overall he bears more similarities to Kamen Rider Decade, including the same card-reading Transformation Trinket, Borrowed Catchphrases, and his human identity even resembling Decade star Masahiro Inoue to a degree.
  • Guthatan look very similar to R'lyeh Ruru, the heroine of Maumi Shoujo R'lyeh Ruru, with twintails, and by proxy, this mean she most like Cthylla.
• Cassandra Truth: In Episode 7, Mahiro insists that Nyarko isn't pregnant with his child (after the latter's failed attempt to seduce him at the end of Episode 6) despite the latter's insistence. That doesn't stop Yoriko, Hasta, Tamao and even Yoichi from believing her.
  Mahiro: "Seriously, why is this happening to me?"
• Catapult Nightmare: Episode 9 opens with Mahiro having one ...but, because it's Mahiro, the "nightmare" is the Dating Sim ending of the previous episode altered so that he says "I love you" to Nyarko and kisses her willingly instead of being Tsundere as usual.
• Catchphrase
  Nyarko: "I'm the Chaos that always crawls up to you with an smile, Nyarlathotep!"
• Chekhov's Armory: Mahiro lampshades this trope and at the same time claiming that Nyarko and company would have the resident Chekhov's Gun.
• Chekhov's Boomerang
  • The "protective charm" Nyarko gives Mahiro from Episode 2^note  Which Lovecraft fans will recognize as the Shining Trapezohedron comes back in Episode 10 to play Pocket Protector and save Nyarko-in-Mahiro's-Body. It returns again in episode 10 of Season 2, when Mahiro summons a sick Nyarko in a particularly nasty foreshadowing/subversion loop (ultimately subverted; Nyarko can't fight in her state, and the Yuggoths are vaccinated against her sickness). It still has the potential to boomerang back, since its primary purpose is to let Mahiro summon Nyarko in times of great need.
  • The Mirror of Nitocris also becomes this when, in Episode 12, Mahiro uses it to suck in a Nightgaunt, and was eventually used by Nyarko to move him out of the alternative dimension he is trapped in.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: A few examples.
  • Cuuko doesn't like that Nyarko is always swooning over Mahiro.
  • Nyarko doesn't like Hasta too much when the latter seems a bit too friendly with Mahiro. Cuuko's attempts to hook them up only makes things worse, particularly as Hasta doesn't seem to mind it.
  • In episode 5 of season 2, Kuuko pretends that Mahiro is her fiance to thwart her cousin Kuune's advances. Although she promises to give Nyarko the contract Mahiro wrote in the first season (while trapped in Nyarko's body), Nyarko is clearly uncomfortable with the plan, and shatters her tea cup after watching Kuuko clinging onto his arm. She also becomes unhappy at the fake date Kuuko goes on with him in the next episode.
  • Kuune, Kuuko's cousin, also exhibits this trope in episode 6 of season 2, and tries to thwart their plans from time to time during the fake date.
• Color-Coded Characters: Human characters can be distinguished by their natural hair color; the Lovecraftian characters have bright color motifs based on their Mythos counterparts. Hasta is yellow (alluding to Hastur's title, the "King In Yellow"), Luuhi is green since she is Cthulhu, and Cuuko is red — alluding to Cthugha, a sentient fireball. The odd one out is Nyarko, whose hair and Henshin Hero form is silver. Nyarlathotep's traditional color is black, though it is used for her standard outfit.
  • In Remember my Love(craft-sensei), Ato-ko's color motif is black, appropriate for a Yamato Nadeshiko.
• Color Failure: Throughout the first anime...
  • Mahiro has one near the end of Episode 1 after seeing Nyarko brutally beat a Nightgaunt to a bloody pulp — beside him his "Sanity Meter" is also shown going down the drain — and again at the end of Episode 3, when Yoriko calls him telling she's coming home.
  • Nyarko also has had these moments twice. The first is in Episode 4 when she misunderstood Yoriko's advice to her to start her relationship with Mahiro as Just Friends for being friendzoned before Giving Up the Ghost. The second is in Episode 7 (coupled with Heroic BSoD) after Mahiro bluntly tells her that he doesn't like her. She goes into it again later in the episode to guilt trip him into doing things with her, but he draws the line when she tries to drag him into a sex museum.
    Mahiro: Turning white's not going to work this time.
  • Cuuko and Hasta simultaneously in Episode 10 after Nyarko (in Mahiro's body) gives Mahiro (in Nyarko's body) a really deep French kiss. They remain that way during the entire climax.
  • Kuune, Kuuko's older cousin, does this when the former mentions she's getting engaged to Mahiro. It must have been shocking, as Kuune is still whited out a few scenes later.
• Conflict Ball: The trio's reactions to Guthatan in episode 11 fringe on this, Nyarko especially. While Mahiro is trying to look after this child who was put in his care, the trio acts even more selfish and disruptive than normal, with Cuuko is needling Mahiro about breakfast while Nyarko and Hasta get insanely jealous of the attention he's giving Guthatan. Probably the worst of it is when Nyarko notices that Guthatan's hair is wet and she's in new clothing^note Mahiro had to bathe her after she got her clothes dirty in the kitchen and jumps to the conclusion that Mahiro had sex with the underage alien girl. You can kind of understand his anger at that point.
• Conservation of Detail: The main characters muse that Yoichi must be possessed by a Yithian because he hasn't come to school. When they go check on him, they turn out to be absolutely correct.
• Conversational Troping: In Episode 10 of Nyarko-San W, Nyarko (who's caught a human cold because she isn't immune to it) explains that even powerful aliens can have Weaksauce Weaknesses, like tomatoes^note A Shout-Out to the Japanese movie Daijobu My Friend, moon rocks^note Giant Space Monster Girara, and music. The Mars Attacks reference becomes a Chekhov's Gun when Nyarko's ringtone — an alien pop song — causes the Monsters of the Week's heads to explode.
• Content Warnings: Used in "Remember my Love(craft-sensei)", accompanied by dramatic music. Each episode begins with one, followed by some Non Sequitur:
  ATTENTION PLEASE!! When watching animated shows, please make sure the room is well-lit and do not sit too close to the screen. Also, there's not much movement.
• Cool Car:
  • Luhy's blatant Shout-Out Back to the Future time travelling DeLorean DMC-12.
  • Nyarko's submersible Nephren Car, complete with multiple torpedo launchers.
• Cover Version: There's an entire mini-album consisting of songs from other works (many of which owe inspiration to the Cthulhu Mythos) performed by the Nyarko cast, including Tales of Phantasia's theme sung by Kana Asumi (Nyarko), the Demonbane PlayStation 2 game's theme done by Eri Kitamura (Mahiro), and Yuka Otsubo (Tamao) performing Mahou Sentai Magiranger's ending theme.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Mahiro drowns after being accidentally ejected off Nyarko's underwater Cool Car but is eventually rescued off-screen. Reviving him is best described as... Hasta's First Kiss.
• Crash-Into Hello: Hasta bumps into Mahiro while lost and looking for Mahiro's house. Sparks fly! (in one direction)
  • Mahiro does it to Nyarko in Episode 8, even though they've known each other from the start. It hints at what just happened, parodies the trope and is a Shout-Out to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• Crazy-Prepared
  • Mahiro keeps a fork in his pocket, for whenever Nyarko is going wild over him.
  • Isurugi, the renegade Yithian, prepared a Space CQC Jammer to combat Nyarko. Isuka, the Yithian on Nyarko's side, prepared a Space CQC Jammer Canceler. Countered by a Space CQC Jammer Canceler Breaker, then by Space CQC Jammer Canceler Breaker Eraser... and so on and so forth. Even though Isurugi eventually wins out, things still do not go according to plan.
  Mahiro: What is this, a kid's fight?
• Creator Cameo: That little ghostly devilfish that sometimes appears in monstrous crowds or flying quickly across the screen is Aisora's avatar.
• Credits Running Sequence: Mahiro does a brief one running in place with a giant Nyarko and Earth in the background in the opening for W (season 2). He also does one where he's running away from Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta.
• Crossdressing Voices
  • Mahiro Yasaka is voiced by Eri Kitamura.
  • Hasta is voiced by Rie Kugimiya — a male (albeit effeminate) role and a sweet, cuddly departure from the Tsunderes she's used to voice.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: Call of Cthulhu blatant Shout Outs are quite surprising when you consider they are jokes about a classic, but not "mainstream", Western tabletop RPG.
• Curbstomp Battle: Well, this is what happens when you pit mere monsters against the Crawling Chaos.
• Damned by Faint Praise: In episode 7, Mahiro attempts to apologize to Nyarko for saying he didn't like her, but the best he can manage is to say that he likes her better than certain foods (which, as Tamao points out, nobody likes). But it's good enough for Nyarko.
• Dancing Theme: A brief one in W's (season 2) opening by various characters.
• Date Peepers: Kuune, Nyarko, Hasuta, Shantak, and Mahiro's mom all follow him and Kuuko on their date in episode 6 of season 2. Then it turns into more of a group outing while at the restaurant as they all join the two for lunch.
• Dating Sim:
  • Lovecraft Plus, mentioned in the fourth episode of the short Flash, is an inverted version of the standard dating sim that happens to have SAN among its stats. Instead of getting the girls to fall for you, the girls try to get you to fall for them Your SAN points are basically your resistance to the Yandere Stalker with a Crush's advances. Lose enough SAN and you end up with her forever, wallowing in your mutual insanity. Definitely a game worthy of the title.
  • This is also the premise of Episode 8. The characters are stuck in Doki Doki High School until Mahiro scores with either Nyarko, Cuuko, Hasta or Tamao.
• A Day in the Limelight: Shanta-kun gets one in episode 8 of season 2, when she becomes a little girl thanks to Kuuko.
• Dead Pet Sketch: One episode of the Flash series plays with this. Cuuko feeds something to Mahiro's goldfish. Mahiro becomes angry, but being an alien, Cuuko doesn't realize that fish shouldn't have spouted legs.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: Episode 8, where all of the main characters get sucked into a Dating Sim game.
• Deserted Island: In episode 7 of season 2, Nyarko tells Mahiro that they're both stranded on a deserted island after he awakens from having fallen in the water. However, as soon as he points out they're still inside the swimming park, several people walk by, and the camera changes angles to show the shops on the other side of where they are.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A Nightgaunt, actually. A subversion, since Nyarko's an Outer God, in the form of a schoolgirl. Played straight with Mahiro who frequently threatens Nyarko with a fork.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: For Nyarlathotep, it was Love Before First Sight. Mahiro's case is different; he's obviously attracted to her, but acts Tsundere because she's too Manic Pixie Dream Girl for his tastes and because he's afraid that she's lying about her feelings to screw with his head — like the original Nyarlathotep would probably do. He does get better over the course of the novels, though.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The first episode of Nyarko-san W has Nyarko drag Mahiro to a Cosplay Café with a karaoke machine, where we get to see her, Cuuko, and Tamao sing "Taiyo Iwaku Moeyo Chaos", the theme song for the first season. Mahiro lampshades the fact that Tamao apparently showed up just to sing and then immediately vanished.
• "Dinner, Bath, or Sex" Offer: Exaggerated. Nyaruko offers Mahiro three choices, all of which are her:
  "You must've had a hard day at work. Would you like to start with me? Or would you prefer me first? Or maybe you'd like... me?"
• Disappointed by the Motive: Used as a Running Gag. By the end of a story arc, almost every villain's goal all along will be revealed to be 1) related to japanese pop-culture somehow and 2) completely absurd. It starts with the first villains trying to kidnap Mahiro so they can have him play in the film adaptation of a Boy Love manga and only gets sillier from there.
• Disney Death: Nyarko in Episode 10. She's actually fine — the black crystal she gave to Mahiro back in Episode 2 saw to that.
• Disney Dog Fight: Nyaruani episode "Loyalty" has Nyarko getting jealous over how much Shanta-kun seems to like Mahiro; he responds by suggesting they do this. Shanta ends up choosing Nyarko...after some percussive persuasion.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In episode 10, the Yith, or at least an extremist, space Moral Guardian cult of them, wish to destroy Earth because they're corrupting morals of space aliens with Earth's entertainment.
  • Ghutatan's butler in episode 12 wants to get rid of Mahiro because the latter made it hard for him to get his hands on Eroge.
  • In the light novels, Nyarko and Cuuko used to beat up their grade-school classmate Nyogta for bullying Hasta; as an adult, he gets his revenge by erasing the girls from existence.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Nyarko uses this against Cuuko in episode 6 by throwing out some pictures and claiming pictures of her in a swimsuit flew out. This distracts Cuuko long enough for Nyarko to hit her with a finishing blow. Said pictures were actually of Mahiro taken from various angles.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Kana Asumi [Nyarko] sings the themes of all three adaptations — solo on the first Flash opening ("Like, Like, Love") and the anime ending ("Always Be With You"), collaborative on the second Flash ending ("Catharsis of a Woman's Love", with Azusa Kataoka (now Azusa Enoki) [Atko] and Sayuri Hara [Nyarue]) and the anime opening ("The Sun Says 'Burn, Chaos'" with Miyu Matsuki [Cuuko] and Yuka Ootsubo [Tamao]).
  • For the TV series, there's "Ushiro kara Haiyoru-tai" (Team Crawling Up Behind You), a musical unit formed by the voice actors which sings almost all of the theme and image songs. If the group's name has a letter after it, it indicates which character takes the lead (Nyarko, Mahiro, Cuko, Hasta, Tamao and Yoichi) as well as a few joint groups: B for Boys and G for Girls; ironically, when Eri Kitamura sings as part of the B group, she sings purely female parts (as seen in the Iron Striver themes).
• Domestic Abuse: Mahiro on Nyaruko and even Cuuko. Treated as comedy, as a lowly human is able to regularly reign in ancient eldritch aliens with a table fork to the head.
• Don't Explain the Joke: In episode 5 of the first TV series, Mahiro chastises Nyarko for having to spell out the pun behind the Xoth game console's name.
• Dope Slap: Mahiro on Nyarko many, many times. In episode 2 of Nyarko-San W, he takes a page from Akiko Narumi's playbook and uses a green slipper.
• Double Entendre: Believe it or not, Hasta uses the crap out of this. Most of the time he uses the term "gattai"^note "Combine," frequently used for Combining Mecha to refer to doing it; this is not a corruption as the term can mean such an act. However, all bets are off when he refers to it as "Final Fusion."
• Double Standard:
  • In Episode 9, Cuuko cries foul when Nyarko fawns over Mahiro wearing glasses, but brushes off Cuuko's attempts to use some Meganekko charm on her.
    "Sniffle. Double standard..."
  • A gender-based one, in Episode 7 Mahiro made it very clear to Nyarko that he wasn't interested in her and she finally took it seriously. So how did everyone respond? By pressuring Mahiro to take her out on a date. Admittedly Nyarko was shocked and saddened when Mahiro told her, but if the genders had been reversed the scene would have been considered very creepy.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Gender inverted. Mahiro often hits Nyarko and even Cuuko when they get on his nerves. Treated as comedy.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Not outright rape, but Nyarko's repeated attempts to seduce Mahiro (presumably in the hopes that he'll get into it) are treated as comedy, when the same acts committed by a man on a woman would most certainly not. It might have something to do with the fact that you know Nyarko will never succeed, thanks to Mahiro's skill with forks.
  • Her implied actions when in his body probably was an outright example.
  • The end of the light novel series has Their First Time be one long sex marathon, with Mahiro screaming that he's hurting, about to die, and wants to stop thousands of times.
• Dragged by the Collar: Nyarko likes to grab Mahiro and run with him in tow.
• Dramatic Chase Opening: The anime series begins with Mahiro being chased by a nightgaunt.
• Dynamic Entry: Episode 11 of Nyarko-san W sees Nyarko do this — with the Rider Rocket Drill Kick, no less — to stop a Love Potion-ed Cuuko from getting busy with Mahiro.
• Ear Cleaning: Kuuko does it to Mahiro in the beginning of episode 6 of season 2. Kuune and Nyarko, who are both watching from nearby, are not pleased with it. Especially when Cuuko drops the pick and leans over to retrieve it, putting her breasts right on Mahiro's head.
• External Retcon: It explains away the Cthulhu Mythos as being Lovecraft trying to make sense of the real natures of these beings.
• Faceless Goons: Nightgaunts are recurring enemies with no facial features but a vertical mouth.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: The "guns" Isuka and Isurugi use in episodes nine and ten resemble old handheld cameras, or radar guns. The characters still react to them as real guns however, such as when Isurugi, while inhabiting Yoichi's body, points the gun at his own head. They based on the description of Yithian weapons from The Shadow Out of Time, which could be quite deadly.
• Fanservice: The Light Novels are illustrated by the artist who did Kanokon's, so one should expect it. Invoked in the first TV episode with Nyarko telling Mahiro that since this is an anime adaptation, their fans surely want to see them get wet. Mahiro flatly rejects it, claiming that he doesn't care about that kind of fan.
• Fantastic Diet Requirement: An ongoing Running Gag. Nyarko keeps using alien ingredients on everything she cooks, be it Shantak bird eggs, Shub-Niggurath (the "Black Goat of the Woods") meat or her famous "BLT" (Byakhee-Lloigor-Tsathougga) sandwich, and then there's the hotdog from Episode 4 of the second anime — "dog" here meaning "Hound of Tindalos". However she did use Earth ingredients once, and by that we mean Pterodactyl.
  Mahiro: "I'm definitely gonna kick the crap out of you if you prepare something like that!" (Episode 1, referring to the "BLT")
• Fast-Forward Gag: In the first episode of the second anime series, Nyarko's explanation for who/what she is and her purpose for being on Earth gets fast-forwarded due to being extremely long-winded and Mahiro has to summarize everything in a format that the audience can understand and respects broadcasting time constraints.
  • Even funnier, if you slow down that sequence to half speed, you can understand Nyarko's dialog; it's an almost direct quote from the original light novel where she (indirectly) reveals that her boss is Azathoth.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Nyarko and Mahiro in episode 10.
• Feuding Families: As a race, the Nyarlothotepians and Cthuguans are mortal enemies, with Cuuko's crush on Nyarko being a case of If It's You, It's Okay. When Cuune shows up, Nyarko explains to Mahiro that the shame and dishonor that would result if the crush became public would probably destroy Cuuko's family.
• Fictional Geneva Conventions: In the "Cooking" segment of Nyarani, Nyarko mentions difficultly of getting an "ingredient" due to the Space Washington Treaty.
• Fighting a Shadow: Conversed in episode 1 of the second season, as Mahiro and Nyarko talk about their compatibility issues. Mahiro points out that Nyarko (as a beautiful human girl) is not her true form. However Nyarko counters that, as the being with a Thousand masks, she doesn't have any one "true" form so her human shape is as legitimate as any other.
  Mahiro: "I'm scared to see the remaining 999."
• Flashback Echo: In a few episodes, Mahiro blushes and gets really flustered whenever he gets a good look at Nyarko's lips — because he's remembering the two times they've actually kissed so far.
• Foreshadowing: Occurs in Episode 5. Mahiro tries to figure out why Yoriko was taken by Luhy. He thinks it has something to do with "sononium", which he thought was merely her excuse to hug him. It turns out he was mistaken. The real foreshadowing was his mother discussing how she collects old video game consoles.
  Mahiro: "That was the foreshadowing?!"
  • This gets discussed again in episode 9 of season 2 regarding the vacuum cleaner Mahiro's mom is using throughout the episode, as well as events that happened in an earlier episode with Kuune. Both Mahiro and Nyarko comment on said vacuum, which did nothing in particular aside from screaming "Cyclone!"
  • It comes into play again during episode 10 of season 2. The latest alien threat seems ready for anything Mahiro, Kuuko, and Hasuta can throw at him, and then they all fail for one reason or another. Then Nyarko's phone begins to ring, and its the music from it that causes them to die. Mahiro immediately points out that it wasn't much of a foreshadowing clue.
  • Mahiro's actually gotten to the point where he's actively trying to find the foreshadowing in every plot arc. He always chooses whatever he thinks would result in the dumbest, most nonsensical ending, and while he's right in that regard, he still tends to be wrong because something always comes out of nowhere that's even dumber than what he suspected.
• Fork Fencing: Mahiro and his mom use forks to keep Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta in line when they act out. Despite having weaponry that's literally out of this world, the forks seem to be the most feared thing to them anytime he pops one out.
  • In episode 3 of Nyarko-San W, Mahiro gets so annoyed with the combined Zhar/Lloigar to start flinging forks; he starts screaming in pain, and Nyarko says that "for some reason", Mahiro's forks hurt a lot.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Mahiro tells Nyarko he pictured Nyarlathotep far more monstrous. She offers to show him some of her other forms... if he doesn't mind losing his sanity. Mahiro passes. Cue a shot of twenty SAN Points getting dashed off of a Call of Cthulhu character sheet.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Spoofed in episode 5 of Nyaruani, where Mahiro and Nyarko answer fans' questions about the series. The first question is about a Series Continuity Error^note "Why is lunch after third period in the first light novel, but after fourth period in the GA Magazine short?" which annoys Nyarko so much that she rips up the postcard and ends the segment there...but still says "To Be Continued" afterwards.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: When Isuka, a Yithian (currently in Tamao's body), fails to take over Nyarko's body, this happens to her and Mahiro. The device of course runs out of power immediately.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In episode 8 of the second season (the Trapped in TV Land Dating Sim episode), Nyarko's Christmas present to Mahiro is a marriage registration. Reading it reveals a lot of amusing details; for example, Nyarko's birthday is April 15, 2009 (the day the first light novel was released), her parents are Father of the Million Favoured Ones and the Bloated Woman (two of Nyarlathotep's other forms), and one of the marriage witnesses is Harvey Walters, the sample character in the 5th edition of Call of Cthulhu.
  • In the Nyaruani episode "RPG", Nyarko's description of the game is accompanied by mental images of the game; the monsters who ask to join are iTunes, Quicktime, and Bonjour (as in, the program icons with little eyes drawn on).
• Funny Background Event: The Flash series feature this often.
• Gag Series: The Flash series focused on surreal humor more than any plot. The TV series probably falls halfway between this and Excuse Plot.
• Gender Flip: Nyarko, Cuuko, and Luuhi. In the Mythos, Nyarlathotep's human forms tend to be male, and Cthugha and Cthulhu are considered "male".
  • On female-to-male side, Bast, the Egyptian goddess of cats, is portrayed being male.
  • On the meta side, Atlach-Nacha was originally described as male, though later writers turned "him" into a female.
  • Another, anime-related meta example: Mahiro is tsundere, helpless against monsters, but has no problem with hitting Nyarko; Nyarko is bold, hyperactive, and is easily beaten by Mahiro despite being powerful fighter. In other words, they're the gender-flipped version of the standard anime couple.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-Universe. Nyarko and Cuuko explain that this trope applies on a galactic scale, a conversation triggered when Mahiro recognises Cuuko's manga as one that only lasted six issues, but which the girls explain was revived by an alien publisher.
• Glamour Failure: Humanoid Nyarlathotepians can be distinguished from regular humans (and other anthropomorphized Lovecraftians) by their silver hair and huge cowlick, most prominent of which are Nyarko, Nyar-o and Nyarue.
• Godiva Hair: Nyarko sports this pretty much any time she's nude; they even make it so her hair magically falls in the right place to cover her butt in episode 1.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: When Mahiro first meets Nyarko, he wonders why she looks like an average human girl, and not an Eldritch Abomination. She mentions that she could go into that form if he really wants her to, but wisely decides against that due to this trope.
• Goroawase Number: Tsuruko says that her favorite number is 801 — Ya-O-I.
• Grand Theft Me: Focus in the third Light Novel volume. One such Yithian, Isuka explains to Nyarko that her more aggressive kin are trying to pull this off on humanity in order to learn more of their entertainment. In an attempt to take over Nyarko (ostensibly to be able to fend off her more aggressive kin), she ended up causing Nyarko and Mahiro to switch bodies.
• Gratuitous English: All over the place. Nyarko herself is a serial offender.
• Groin Attack: Nyarko does this to one of the nightgaunt in episode 1. Even Mahiro kind of empathizes with it after she attacks there.
  • Even worse, she used Kuuga's Mighty Kick to do it.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Episode 11 ends with Mahiro trapped inside one, waking up once more on the Sunday he chewed out Nyarko, Cuuko and Hasta for being too violent while dealing with a bunch of Shoggoths, apparently accidentally wounding their guest, Ghutatan, in the process. Then it was revealed that Lloigor, Ghutatan's butler, planned it all along, and actually intentionally wounded Ghutatan himself, to remove him, the last obstacle to gaining every eroge in the world.
• Gut Feeling: In episode 3, Nyarko says "I have a bad feeling about this..." (and Mahiro agrees) when Tamao says a new student is joining their class: a cool girl with fiery twintails and A-cup breasts. Of course, it turns out to be Cuuko. By episode 5, they've gotten even savvier, and have the same exchange when Hasta leaves; sure enough, he turns up at school the very next day, prompting both to mutter "I Knew It!..."

H-M

• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Isurugi and Isuka have one when they constantly try to cancel each others field.
  • Nyarko and the vacuum.
    "JOKER!"
    "CYCLONE!"
• Harem Genre: Played with. Mahiro is a high school boy who lives with three love interests, but only one of them, Nyarko, is a viable romantic option (one he angrily rejects). Of his other freeloaders, Cuuko only has eyes for Nyarko initially, and Hasta is male.
• Harmless Villains: Both Nodens and Nyar-o went down with extreme anticlimax.
• Haunted House: Several of the characters visit one in episode 11 of season 2.
• Heel–Face Turn
  • Cuuko, obviously. It took Mahiro playing around her Psycho Lesbian crush on Nyarko to convince her to let go of him and even win her over as a mutual ally by (purportedly) helping her get Nyarko.
  • Luhy has bounced back from her Villainous Breakdown when she was laid off by Cthulhu Corp. and has since taken many jobs, ranging from a takoyaki vendor to a Magical Girl at a stage play (with Nodens, who also seemingly pulled this off as a Kaiju), and later a teacher at Boryo High.
  • In Episode 10, Isurugi, the rogue Yithian possessing Yoichi, upon discovering that his boss is actually a Space Moral Guardian who infiltrated his faction for his own agenda.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Played for Laughs in Episode 7 by Nyarko (coupled with Color Failure), when Mahiro bluntly tells her he doesn't like her. It took the sight of Cuuko about to exploit the chance to molest Nyarko to make Mahiro reconsider his stance, apologize to her and take her on a date.
  • Played straight in episode 6 of season 2, when Nyarko becomes extremely upset at the fake date between Kuuko and Mahiro. After she complains about it, he tells her she should just go home if she's not comfortable seeing their playacting in order to fool Kuuko's cousin Kuune. Nyarko becomes downcast for the rest of the day and evening, and ambushes him in his room later that night with an Anguished Declaration of Love.
  • Nyarko suffers another one during the first half of episode 12 in season 2, after learning that her, Kuuko, and Hasuta's job of guarding Earth was done since they got the guardian for Earth done way ahead of schedule (it was supposed to take about 500 years to complete, but they managed to do it overnight). She is also told that staying on Earth any longer would be considered a crime, and Mahiro tells her he can't do anything about it either. She snaps out of it the instant she hears that they want to field test the new guardian, with the intention of destroying it so as to be allowed to stay on Earth while her superiors have to build a new guardian.
  • In season 2, when Cuuko kisses Mahiro on the cheek (which is considered a major love ritual by her race), Cuune flips out, quotes the Big Bad of Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam ("Burning...the Earth is burning...") and flies off while laughing maniacally.
• Hey, You!: Cuuko not only calls Mahiro only "Boy", but also adresses his mother as "Miss Boy's Mother".
• High-Pressure Blood: Mahiro's fork-stabbings make Nyarko gush blood in the light novels and Nyaruani shorts; in the TV series the worst they do is little lumps on the head.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Cuuko's full body blushing is actually harmful. Justified, considering she is a living fireball.
  Nyarko: "Stop hugging me! You wanna burn me to death or what?!"
• Homage: In the first Flash animation series, Atoko and Nyarko re-enact the silent elevator ride from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Episode 12 of the second TV series contains several direct homages to the second Urusei Yatsura movie, which was also about people being transported into a world with no other humans, as well as an apparent "Groundhog Day" Loop. This includes several shot-for-shot recreations of the latter, including the Red Herring scene of Guthatan sitting nearby a bank of pay phones which ring as Mahiro attempts to call Nyarko.
• Hot Springs Episode
  • Episode 5 of second Flash series downplays this trope. The camera was focused on bathing Shantak-kun for whole episode, so the audience couldn't see anything despite all the naughty dialogue. Atoko even lampshaded that she felt bad for deceiving the audience.
  • Happens for real in Episode 6 of the TV series, complete with Shantak-kun bathing scene with Aisora's Author Avatar next episode.
  • Not to mention the DVD-exclusive episode for Nyarko-san W.
• Henshin Hero: Being Nyarlathotepian, Nyarko can transform into Full Force Form and her pet Shantak-kun will become Machine Shantaker via Final Form Ride. Pretty much a Shout-Out to the Kamen Rider series.
• Humans Are Special: On top of Earth's entertainment, humans are also sought after by aliens.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the second episode, Nyarko complains that Cuuko's lasers shouldn't be considered close-quarters-combat. At the beginning of the episode, Mahiro raised the same point about her using hand grenades.
  • Many of Nyarko's frequent insults towards Cuuko revolve around her hobbies, like gaming... In the first episode she was drooling over an anime/manga store's entire stock, including the games.
    • Nyarko's entire relationship with Cuuko is almost exactly the same as the one Mahiro has with her: an entirely unwanted admirer with extreme Perverse Sexual Lust who wants to make babies. Often, she'll even hit Cuuko with the same insults that Mahiro threw her way just minutes before (which Mahiro will Lampshade).
• I Always Wanted to Say That: In the Next Episode preview for episode 10 of the second TV series, Nyarko takes advantage of having Mahiro's voice (and body) to shout "I'll destroy that kind of adult, philistine! Sniping the target!"; Mahiro stops her before she can say "Pilder On!"
• I Ate WHAT?!: In Luhy's seaside restaurant, the gang is enjoying her takoyaki. Mahiro was also about to reluctantly eat some... then he saw the restaurant's banner with an image of Cthulhu. Needless to say, he lost his appetite.
• Idiot Hair: All Nyarlathotepians have one, pretty much a replacement of tentacles.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Even if it's actually Mahiro in Nyarko's body, Cuuko would still attempt to have her way with him, so long as it's Nyarko's body. The fact that Mahiro is relatively easy on her compared to Nyarko also helps.
  Cuuko: "Just her [i.e, Nyarko] body will do."
  • Kuuko gives Mahiro a kiss to thwart her cousin off in episode 9 of season 2. He later asks if that was okay, since Kuune said that particular kiss was an important love ritual. She says that she didn't mind doing it because it was him.
• If We Get Through This…: Referenced in the last (regular) episode of Remember my Love(craft-sensei):
  Nyarko: Mahiro-san, when I get back, let's have lots more fun together, okay?
  Mahiro: Hey, don't go setting flags like that!
• I Have No Brother: Nyarko really doesn't want to admit that Nyar-O is her older brother, and when Mahiro questions this she quickly changes the subject.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: In episode 4 of Nyarko-san W, Nyarko hopes that even a Nice Guy like Mahiro might feel the "Beast On" and demonstrate his Extreme Fantastic Technique on her. He quickly tells her it ain't happening.
• Immodest Orgasm: Shanta-kun in S2E2, Cuuko three episodes later.
• In Another Man's Shoes: The "Freaky Friday" Flip has minor elements of this, particularly the bath scene where Mahiro muses on how Nyarko fights to protect him without hesitation despite having such a delicate-looking body, which makes him resolve to be nicer. The only thing Nyarko gets out of it is an intimate understanding of Mahiro's body.
• Incompatible Everything
  • Cuuko would love to jump on Nyarko if she has the chance. Never mind that they are both girls, and that cthughans and nyarlathotepians are mortal enemies and different species, much less that Nyarko tries her darndest to get her off her back, she's more than willing to do just about anything just to win her over. Mahiro managed to use her own personality to win her over as an ally.
  • Hasta reveals to Mahiro in Episode 5 that he once gave him CPR after nearly drowning while traveling to R'lyeh, and that it was his first time (cue Mahiro insistently telling himself that it doesn't count as a kiss) then tells him "I love you." Needless to say, Mahiro is clearly perturbed by the implications, but nevertheless plays along with him. It also helps that Hasta looks like a ridiculously effeminate young boy.
• Indirect Kiss: Mahiro and Kuuko order some crepes in episode 6 of season 2. When Kuuko tries to take a bite out of his crepe, her cousin Kuune shows up from behind the bushes and eats the entire thing in one bite. So she shares her crepe with him, and when he takes a bite out of it, Kuune becomes extremely upset.
• Informed Attribute: We're told that Nyarko is very intelligent (always did well in school, graduated a top-level college) and a well-respected space cop. We never see her exercising anything beyond normal intelligence, and some of her interaction with her superiors suggests she's on thin ice. These both might be justified by her attitude; she acts like she's on vacation because she is,^note In the novels, after busting up Nodens's smuggling ring she takes 300 years of paid leave to be with Mahiro and she addresses her boss in the same flippant, casual way she addresses everyone.
• Inside a Computer System: In Nyaruani, Mahiro tries out a alien JRPG. Much to his chagrin, he ends up being transported within the game.
• Instant Bandages: Nyarko gets these when Mahiro whacks her on the head. They vanish again moments later.
• Intimate Healing: Kuuko sucks on Mahiro's finger in episode 5 of season 2 after he cuts it from a Wham Line she asks him.
• Kill It with Fire: Mahiro's reaction to seeing Nyarue's true form is ask "Just tell me if this is combustible or noncombustible?". Nyarko says she definitely isn't. Note that the word for "combustible" they use is "moeru".
• Kissing Cousins: Since Nyarko, Cuuko, and Hasta all claim to be Mahiro's cousins, their romantic entanglements look like this to outsiders ...and so far, nobody seems to care.
• Klingons Love Shakespeare: Earth is the gold mine of the universe entertainment industry. Our manga, especially that kind, are restricted goods.
• Large Ham: The "Cyclone" vacuum in episode 5 of season 2, bonus points for being voiced by Norio Wakamoto.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: At the end of the Trapped in TV Land episode, it seems the only person who remembers anything is Mahiro. It's implied that Nyarko does as well, since she was looking at him and smiling a lot, but refused to say why when he asks.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Episode 3 of Nyarko-San W has Nyarko trying to make it sound like this is the end of a TV show (shouting "Our battle has only just begun!", or making it look like the story is being told by an old Nyarko to her grandchildren. It ends when they cut to show a Super-Deformed Mahiro and Nyarko recording their dialog in the studio and SD Mahiro throws his copy of the script at SD Nyarko's head.
• Lighter and Softer: In the Light Novels and first Flash series, Nyarko actually bleeds when stabbed by Mahiro's fork. The TV series uses Instant Bandages instead.
• Lightning Glare: Nyarko and Kuuko do this to each other when they both spot the last copy of a limited edition game in episode 8 of season 2.
• Loophole Abuse: In episode 12 of season 2, Nyarko is told that her superiors finished building Earth's new guardian way ahead of schedule, finishing it overnight instead of taking the estimated 500 years to complete. As a result, she, along with Kuuko and Hasuta, are ordered to return to space, and Mahiro says he's just an Ordinary High-School Student, so he can't do anything to help them. As they tour the area where the guardian was built, Nyarko overhears her superiors mentioning a field test for the guardian to ensure its working correctly. She, along with Kuuko and Hasuta, instantly decide to volunteer for it, reasoning that if they could defeat the guardian, it wouldn't be able to actually guard Earth. In reality, the three just wanted an excuse to bash the thing so they could then stay with Mahiro longer.
• Love Before First Sight: Nyarko fell hopelessly in love with Mahiro the moment she saw his picture.
• Lovecraft Lite: It's a comedy featuring the Crawling Chaos as a silver-haired hyperactive teen girl. This shouldn't be hard to figure out.
• Love Trapezohedron: Nyarko is madly in love with Mahiro, who claims he doesn't like her and/or doesn't want to date an Eldritch Abomination. Cuuko is also madly in love with Nyarko, gender issues and racial animosity notwithstanding, and develops feelings for Mahiro over time. Hasta also likes Mahiro, but they're the same gender and Mahiro is not sure how to react, though he also admits to feeling the same for Luhy, who may or may not also feel the same. Tamao has an unspoken crush for Mahiro, but relents in favor of Nyarko. It just gets crazier from there.
• Love Epiphany: Kuuko has one in episode 5 of season 2, largely because of what a Nice Guy Mahiro has been to her, particularly after he agreed to help her get rid of her cousin Kuune.
• Love Hurts: Nyarko becomes extremely jealous during Mahiro's fake date with Kuuko in episode 6 of season 2. After she complains to him privately that she's not happy seeing it, he tells her to go home, causing her to suffer another Heroic BSoD, and causing her to deliver an Anguished Declaration of Love to him later that night.
• Love Potion: In episode 11 of Nyarko-San W, Nyarko's friend Atoko sends a box of chocolates which she shares with everyone (except Mahiro, who refuses). A short while later, everybody seems to have hiccups, and the next thing you know Mahiro is being pursued by everyone except Nyarko, who's herself trying to escape from an obsessed Luhy. One phone call later, Nyarko learns that there was a love potion in the chocolates which makes you fall for whomever spoke to you after you hiccuped, but thankfully only lasts an hour. Nyarko insists that she didn't know about it, or else she wouldn't have shared the candy with everyone; besides, she wants to win Mahiro's love legitimately. When asked why she wasn't affected, she suggests that her love for him is stronger than anything the potion could have caused.
  • It also affects Yoichi at the end, who was left behind and fishing the entire time Mahiro was being chased. Tsuruko also pops out, having caused a lot of the stuff that happened in the haunted house earlier. He sees her passing by, and then hiccups...
  • Nyarko didn't have those reservations in the first Remember my Love(craft-sensei) short, where she attempted to serve Mahiro a breakfast which was apparently laced with aphrodisiacs (judging by the fact that Shanta-kun snuck a sausage off the plate and ended up rolling around in ecstacy).
• Luminescent Blush: This very obvious blush is proof that Mahiro isn't that annoyed by Nyarko's presence. Sometimes.
  Nyarko: "Oh, you're blushing! How cute, Mahiro!"
• Lyrical Dissonance: The first TV series' theme song is a peppy, upbeat number whose lyrics are pretty much what you'd expect from something related to the Cthulhu Mythos. It's even more obvious when the song cameoed in Wake Up, Girls!^note thanks to the two shows having the same composer and was sung by a cute Idol Singer with her male fans eagerly singing along.
• Ma'am Shock: In episode 11, as Mahiro and Guthatan are being chased by Nyarko et al, they pass by Luhy's takoyaki stand. Mahiro asks her not to say anything, but since Guthatan called her "obaa-chan" (a Japanese term of address for older women, such as grandmothers), she immediately rats them out when Nyarko comes by.
  • In the OVA, Nyarko refers to Luhy as a "30-year-old mage"^note A meme on Japanese message boards that says if you're unmarried by age 30 you can become a magic-user; this pisses Luhy off enough that she starts freezing over the living room.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The Nephren Car holds unspeakable amounts of underwater warfare munition.
• Magical Girlfriend: Parodied, with the girlfriend in question being a Lovecraftian horror.
• Male Gaze: Used quite a bit in the show.
  • Subverted with the pan up Nyarko's legs to her face in the opening, as it's not a male looking, but the very female Cuuko.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Subverted, and played straight when inverted. When Nyarko and Mahiro switched bodies, Nyarko wasted no time at all and comes back from a LONG trip to the restroom happily singing "Oh, boys are so great!! It's a feeling that girls just won't understand!!". On the flip side, Mahiro can't even find the courage to look at Nyarko's naked body while taking a bath.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Nyarko's entire personality basically both purposely plays up and spoofs this character type. She literally drags around Mahiro, and despite all his resistance he does find her cute.
• Medium Awareness: Brought to you by Rule of Funny. Mahiro, for example, somehow reads an imaginary number bubble floating next to Shantak-kun.
  • Spoofed in the first episode of Nyarko-San W, where he interrupts the Bewitched opening parody, only for it to be revealed as a video project Cuuko is putting together for Nyarko. Strangely, he doesn't seem to notice that the title card for himself also mentions some woman named Eri Kitamura...
• Mister Seahorse: Invoked by Cuuko when she eventually makes the switchover from Psycho Lesbian lusting after Nyarko to Depraved Bisexual who wants Nyarko and Mahiro as her wife and husband; she declares that her new end goal is to become pregnant with Nyarko's child... and to make Mahiro pregnant with her child. Mahiro flips out at the idea, likely because, given who's talking, she probably could get him pregnant if she wanted.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: The Great Old Ones depicted as teen girls (as well as one hot adult woman and an effeminate boy).
• Monster Roommate: To protect Mahiro "from good morning to good night" Nyarko moves to his house. Not to mention the other cosmic nightmares that board at Mahiro's.
• Space Moral Guardians: The leader of the rogue Yithians turns out to be a Hive Mind of such guardians, bent on destroying the Earth because its entertainment industry allegedly causes a high number of sex crimes. And because their boss wants the social status.
  Nyarko: "So you've revealed your true intent."
• Mundane Utility: In the first anime series, Cuuko summons Aphoom-Zhah, the Cold Flame: a bright grey living flame that freezes on contact. Cuuko uses it to cool down a dessert.
• Mundangerous: Mahiro's fork. In one episode Nyarko even remarks that "For some reason, Mahiro's forks hurt a LOT..."
  Mahiro^note said while threatening Nyarko, Hasta and Cthuko: Do not underestimate the fork.
  Mahiro: The fork... is the strongest weapon in the universe.
  • Episode 4 of Nyarko-San W reveals that Mahiro specifically sharpens his forks for the purpose.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Episodes 11 and 12 cause this for Mahiro: he's right about the trio being entitled attention whores, but realizes that he was way too harsh on them. Unfortunately, his actions have horrible consequences.
• Mystery Meat: Mahiro never got to know what was the "chicken" in the boxed lunch, let alone Luhy's takoyaki.
• Mythology Gag
  • Considering the titular character, Nyarlathotep references are common.
    • In the Mythos, Nyarlathotep can change to a wide range of forms, including some horrific humans. While unlikely, it won't be too farfetched to assume that this Eldritch Abomination can take the form of a bubbly schoolgirl.
    Mahiro: "I don't need a thousand-faced little sister!"
    • The three-lobed red single eye in darkness with bat wings is a form of Nyarlathotep described in The Haunter in the Dark... and a description of Nyarko's Henshin Hero form's helmet.
    • The "protective charm" Nyarko gives Mahiro in the first novel/Episode 2 of the anime is the Shining Trapezohedron, one of the most powerful artifacts in the Cthulhu Mythos, which is directly tied to Nyarlathotep's power and can be used to summon the Haunter.
    • Nyarko's brother, Nyar-o, has a pharaoh-like costume. Another usual trait of Nyarlathotep is being associated with Ancient Egypt (thus the "-hotep" suffix).
    • Nyar-o's Full Force Form resembles yet another known avatar of Nyarlathotep - The Bloody Tongue - which is encountered in the Call of Cthulhu adventure module Masks of Nyarlathotep.
    • Nyarko's Ahoge also refers to The Bloody Tongue.
    • One of Nyar-o's grunts is "Tezcatlipoca!", alluding to the Aztec god of destiny being one of Nyarlathotep's avatars in the Call of Cthulhu RPG.
    • Nyarko's police car is called... the Nephren-Car. Nephren-ka, otherwise known as the "Black Pharaoh", is, depending on the source (Robert Bloch's Mythos stories or Call of Cthulhu), a corrupt pharaoh who is either a devotee of Nyarlathotep or the deity himself under one of his many guises.
  • Cuuko's crush on Nyarko is likely a reference to August Derleth's "The Dweller in Darkness", where their namesake gods appear in the story, one being used to fight off the other.
  • Nyarko's pet Shantak-kun is weak against Nightgaunts. In "The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath", Shantaks fear Nightgaunts, servants of Nodens, who himself plays a minor role in this series.
  • In Episode 1, the subtitle for the then-current season of Iron Striver is "Star Vampire Crusaders", mashing together "Star Vampire" (a type of creature from the Mythos) with "Stardust Crusaders" (the third arc of Jojos Bizarre Adventure).
    • Likewise, in Episode 3, Nyarko mentions that the next season is "Trapezohedron is Unbreakable", merging the Shining Trapezohedron (mentioned above) with "Diamond is Unbreakable", Part 4 of JoJo.
  • R'lyeh, the eldritch house of Cthulhu... turns out to be an amusement park. The "taxi" taking Mahiro and Nyarko to R'lyeh is Dagon, the male leader of the Deep Ones, worshipers of Cthulhu in the original Mythos.
  • The "BLT" sandwich from Episode 1 of the anime means "Byakhee, Lloigor and Tsathoggua". Unlike the first two, the latter is not a species, but an individual Great Old One. This may or may not be an error — she might be referring erroneously to the whole species by that name, as most mythos gods are members of wider species in this series, but generally with an added suffix, not given in this case, to differentiate each member. But being Nyarlathotep, wanting a specific Great Old One for a sandwich ingredient isn't out of the question either.
  • From Episode 5 Nyarko quips "You fool, Cuuko is dead!", taken from The Statement of Randolph Carter (replacing "Warren").
  • The video game rivalry between Cthulhu Corp. (of which Luhy was an employee) and the Carcossa Computer Entertainment (owned by Hasta's father) alludes to Hastur and Cthulhu's Sibling Rivalry, which gets directly lampshaded by Nyarko a couple of episodes later when she remarks "Cthulhu and Hastur have never gotten along."
  • Hasta was once employed as a "librarian at Celaeno Library". In The Trail of Cthulhu, the Library is a repository of elder lore on another planet. Byakhee, servants of Hastur, infest the place and can take travelers there.
  • In Episode 7, while suffering a Heroic BSoD over Mahiro bluntly telling her he doesn't like her, Nyarko mentions "rats in the walls", alluding to a a short story titled as such written by Lovecraft himself in 1924.
  • In Episode 8, Nyarko offers Mahiro a marriage registration for Christmas; as noted under Freeze-Frame Bonus on the main page, it contains a few of these, including identifying Nyarko's parents as two other avatars of Nyarlathotep.
  • In Episode 9, Nyarko exclaims "The Window! The Window [Shopping]!", alluding to the last lines of Lovecraft's "Dagon".
    • She also said "The window...the window..." during the afforementioned Heroic BSoD.
  • The yellow plant alien playing video games in Episode 10 is a reference to the "bulbous vegetable entities of Mercury", whose bodies the Yithians will use in the future.
  • Cuuko's eccentricities. In the Mythos, Cthugha apparently is insane.
  • A Mythology Gag not related to the Cthulhu Mythos: In the first episode of the 2012 series, Nyarko says "That's right, I love you!", a line from "Like, Like, Love", the ending theme of the second Nyaruani.
    • And then once more, in the first episode of Nyarko-San W, she says "Always be with you", referencing "Zutto Be With You", the ending theme from the 2012 series.
  • In episode 5 of Nyarko-San W, we see that Hasta has covered the corners of his room with putty, and refuses to elaborate when Mahiro asks. Lovecraft fans will realize that Hasta is attempting to protect himself against The Hounds of Tindalos, who are said to live in "the angles of time" and can appear anywhere through angles like the corners of walls; filling in the corners is how you keep them away.

N-R

• Never Say "Die": Inverted? In episode 7 of season 2, Kuuko and Nyarko talk about how the former's cousin, Kuune is dead. Mahiro immediately corrects them, saying she's merely trapped in another dimension, and a short scene from episode 6 showing Nyarko destroying the room changing device to also show she's not dead. They then settle for her being lost somewhere. The very end of episode 8 shows that she managed to escape, in a style parodying The Ring.
• Never Trust a Trailer: In the tenth episode of the second season the preview makes it look like episode eleven will focus on Tamao confessing to Mahiro. While she does, it's under the influence of a love potion and is relevant for less than a minute.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Kuune reappears in episode 9 of season 2, she at first seems uninterested in what's going on right next to her while playing a video game. Namely that Nyarko is acting all lovey-dovey towards Mahiro. Due to the commotion they make, suddenly Kuune does indeed start looking at what those two are doing, and wondering if Mahiro was just pretending to be Kuuko's fiance to throw her off. Kuuko then does a kiss on his cheek, which shocks everyone around them, and Kuune is shocked as this particular kiss amongst their kind signifies a ritual of love.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: While they're not bad guys per se, Nyarko's superiors rebuild Earth's guardian in episode 12 of season 2, which means Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta are no longer needed to guard the planet. They also upgrade it, and in initial field testing against Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta, their attacks do nothing against it. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they programmed the guardian with Nyarko's mind, causing the guardian to then obsess over Mahiro, giving the three a real excuse to destroy the machine and thus claim its not ready to protect Earth. Which would then allow them to continue guarding Earth a little longer and watch over Mahiro.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased:
  • Mahiro spends a lot of time keeping Nyarko's advances at bay. In episode 5 of season 2, he quietly mentions that if she wasn't so aggressive in her pursuit of him, he'd probably like her, although Nyarko doesn't hear it, and in episode 6, he tells her to tone it down a little bit during her Anguished Declaration of Love, which she totally ignores the next morning.
  • Nyarko does the same towards Cuuko.
• Nominal Hero: While technically a space cop doing her job, Nyarko is protecting Mahiro out of a crush, takes on the bad guys with too much enthusiasm and does a little personal smuggling of the kind she's supposed to stop.
  Nyarko: "It's not a crime if no one finds out."
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Gets used three times in the first season, each with the same subversion: the person in question can't whistle, resulting in Not-So-Innocent Blowing Noises.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • When Yoriko arrives home at the beginning of Episode 4, the first thing she sees is her son pinning one girl to the ground (and positioned between her legs) while another clings to his back. Of course, he was really trying to kick Nyarko and Cuuko out before his mother came home.
  • In episode 3 of Nyarko-San W, Tamao calls up Nyarko, who says it's not a good time to talk...between heavy breathing, gasps of pleasure, and "Oh, Mahiro!"s, and then Mahiro yells at her to quit fooling around, at which point we see they're surrounded by angry monsters.
  • Episode 8 of Nyarko-San W has Yoichi and Tamao coming out of Agent Smith's Mind Control in the middle of a game of Twister. Of course, Tamao lets out a Big "NO!".
• Oblivious to His Own Description: In episode 12 of Nyarko-San W, Nyarko's reaction to the rampaging Banshin's unusual behavior (namely, obsessing over Mahiro and doing Kamen Rider poses) is to ask if it's brain is short-circuiting or something. Mahiro quickly points out to her that it's acting that way because it's based on her. At which point she starts praising it.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The second TV season, Haiyore! Nyarko-San W; since it's pronounced "Double", it's probably a Shout-Out to Kamen Rider Double, though in the preview attached to the OVA episode Nyarko suggests it's a nod to Gundam Wing.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In the opening for episode 3 of W (season 2), Nyarko charges a large group of aliens/monsters. Then the opening credits roll, and after its done, the scene cuts back to the characters standing around all of the defeated aliens/monsters Nyarko presumably beat up.
• Oscar Bait: Parodied with one of the promos for the OVA, which has dramatic music and implies that Nyarko is going to die...along with title cards mentioning that it's a Nyarcademy Award nominee. Naturally, this all turns out to be Nyarko's usual runaway imagination.
• Otaku Surrogate: Nyarko shares the same obsession her race has with Earth (specifically, Japanese) entertainment.
• Overt Operative: Despite taking human forms, Nyarko, Cuuko, and Hasta use their real names when introducing themselves to Mahiro's class. Nyarko even goes so far as announce that she travels the stars and fights villainous deities.
• Parental Abandonment: Mahiro lives alone largely because his parents travel a lot. His mom does return home occasionally however, and is seen more in season 2.
  • His father's absence is explained in episode 4, where Yoriko says that he's going to be stuck at the office for a while making up the vacation days he took off for their latest honeymoon.
• Phantom Zone: The "convenient barrier" Nyarko uses to fight in privacy.
• Pixellation: Used several times in the first Flash anime. For our own good too.
• The Plan: Roy Fogger the Lloigor, Ghutatan's butler, turns out to be yet another space smuggler and an avid eroge player. Irritated that, by snatching an eroge Nyarko lent to Ghutatan, Mahiro is indirectly denying him access to them, he used the chaos of Nyarko, Cuuko and Hasta's fight against the Shoggoths to deliberately injure her, so when Mahiro chews them out for (apparently) accidentally wounding Ghutatan with their boisterousness and leaves them alone, Roy would use the chance to trap him inside a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Unfortunately, he never took into account the Mirror of Nitocris, let alone Nyarko's resolve to lay the pain on anyone who hurts Mahiro.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Occurs unintentionally in episode 9 of Nyarko-San W, where the villain Agent Smith challenges Mahiro's group to a series of games in order to free the school from his hypnosis. Smith picks the games he thinks he can win easily^note including Daifugo, Mahjong, and Darts, but ends up losing because Nyarko and Mahiro are just plain better. Played the straightest with the game of Darts, which Mahiro handily owns thanks to his fork-throwing skills.
  • This sequence also turns the "Cyclone!" "JOKER!!" Overly Long Gag into a Chekhov's Skill, since Nyarko's ability to create infinite Jokers is what lets her beat Smith.
• Pocket Protector: See Chekhov's Boomerang.
• Polyamory: Cuuko asks Mahiro to marry her so that she can, by extension, be married to Nyarko.
• P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: Fits this trope to a T.
• Power Levels: Jokingly referenced in the first novel, where Nyarko claims that she's one of the strongest fighters on Earth with a Fighting Power of 530,000^note For DBZ fans, that's equal to Frieza's first form; she even mentions that an ordinary farmer with a hunting rifle has a Fighting Power of 5.
• Prehensile Hair: Nyarko's Idiot Hair. Nodens's beard can grab people.
• Pretty Freeloaders: All of the aliens in Mahiro's house. Of course, even if they do offer to help out, Mahiro will probably tell them "No", since they tend to make things worse.
• Product Placement: The shop in Episode 1 of the anime has covers and posters of publications of GA Bunko, this series' Light Novel label. An instantly recognizable one is the cover for Volume 1 of Oreshura.
  • Season 2's first episode aired fairly soon after said series' anime had just ended, so when they returned to the shop, there are posters for it all over the place.
  • Taking this to Mind Screw levels, you can actually spot posters for Nyarko-san itself in that scene.
  • In season 2's second episode, Mahiro randomly finds a copy of the Heaven's Memo Pad light novel from a bookshelf at the Celaeno Library. It plays a key role in the next episode.
  • The miscellaneous "Nyarko Goods" Nyarko gives to Mahiro, including the Yes/No Cushion and body pillow, do exist in the real world; in fact, the body pillow scene happens in the light novel as well, but the illustration uses the more NSFW side.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Nyarko shouting and striking poses that form the letters of B! L! T!
• Pun: Being from Japan, and a parody, the series is chock full of these. Here's a few shining examples:
  • In episode 2 of Nyaruani, Nyarko's computer has 出る (meaning "to go") on the back — which is pronounced "deru" — the same way the Japanese would pronounce "Dell".
  • Cuuko (as in "Kuudere") for a Chtughan girl.
  • R'lyehland sells Cola of Cthulhu.
  • Nyarko's "Three Minute" Cooking segment. When she pulls out a censored alien ingredient, Mahiro freaks out, and Nyarko points out that it's "SAN-pun" (Sanity Points) Cooking.
  • The DK-do 10-year-anniversary premium cake made by D. Endo^note In Japanese, "decade" is pronounced di-kei-do..
  • Cuuko's "dun-wich". Lampshaded when Mahiro responds "You don't have to force yourself to make bad jokes, you know".
  • The title of Episode 7 is Blue Coral Reef, which in Japanese is "Aoi SANgoshō".
  • And a subtle one in the title alone: Haiyore! Nyarko-SAN.
• Race Against the Clock: Used in Remember my Love(craft-sensei). After the initial short is over, it cuts to a scene of a massive Borg-ish ship heading towards Earth, with the days left "Until The End Of Mankind". Then again, the shorts have nothing to do with the ship, until the last episode or so.
• Real-Place Background: Nodens' auction house front just looks like the Sagrada Familia, a famous church and touristic spot of Barcelona, Spain.
• Red Herring: Ghutatan is shown lounging around an observation deck even as Mahiro fruitlessly searches for Nyarko and company amidst the "Groundhog Day" Loop he has just woken up to. Turns out that scene is just part of an overall Shout-Out to Urusei Yatsura, and Ghutatan is just as much a victim of the time loop as Mahiro.
  • In episode 9 of season 2, the school is taken over and the main characters at first blame Cuune since they're attacked by fire guardians. They end up running into another Cthuguhan who challenges them to a contest in order to release the students, or force them to take part if they lose. It turns out Cuune had nothing to do with any of this, since she was off getting the newest Dagomon game.
    • That same episode ends with both Nyarko and Mahiro remarking that they thought the Cyclone Vacuum would end up being the Chekhov's Gun that saved the day, especially after all the build-up it was give.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Nyarko's "convenient barrier" to keep The Masquerade turns the scene dark and tinted red, sky and Moon included.
• Red String of Fate: Nyarko certainly believes so, she alludes to it in the second episode as the "red tentacle of fate" and she calls Mahiro her soulmate.
• Reference Overdosed: Counting the Kamen Rider, Gundam and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Shout Outs alone is daunting.
  • The Chinese translation of the novels actually includes an appendix at the end of each volume detailing every reference made. It adds up to about ten pages per volume.
• Ret-Gone: In one of the later novels, Nyarko and Cuuko get written out of existence by Nyogta, a grade-school classmate of theirs who they beat up for bullying Hasta. Mahiro and Yithka end up going back in time in order to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
• Rubber Face: Nyarko does this to Kuuko in episode 9 of season 2.
• Rule of Three: Whenever Mahiro asks somebody to make a long story short, he asks him/her to summarize it with three lines or less^note The phrase he uses is essentially the Japanese version of "TL;DR". The fourth will always be entirely unrelated.
  • Eventually he got so sick and tired of everyone giving him four lines that he decides to ask the next enemy to summarize it with four lines. Of course he is met with a three-line response.
• Rule 34: In the first episode of Nyarko-San W, Mahiro is horrified to discover that this rule applies to him, as an alien Doujin circle wrote a Boys' Love manga with him as the "star". Nyarko, Cuuko, and Hasuta fight over it until Mahiro buys it and destroys it.
• Running Gag: As well as those listed under Rule of Three and Fantastic Diet Requirement, whenever Mahiro starts to accept his feelings towards Nyarko, she drives him off by topping all her previous perverted behaviour.
  • Also, Nyarko's yelps of pain will be themed for a particular episode; for example, in the first episode of the TV series, her yelps are all mecha from Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam. Other themes include Buff Clan mecha, Aura Battlers, and Kamen Rider OOO's Combos.

S-Z

• Saying Too Much: In the Nyaruani episode "Cooking", Nyarko's recipe for Cooked Whole *BLEEP* revolves around an ingredient that's really hard to get thanks to the Space Washington Treaty; immediately after saying this, she thinks to herself "Crap, I shouldn't have said that."
• Serious Business: The entities of the Cthulhu mythos view Earth's entertainment as this to the point where there's laws regarding how much can be taken from Earth, smuggling involving it, and some psychotic Moral Guardians feeling it being a bad influence is such a big that they should destroy the entire Earth.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Playing with Lovecraft's taste for colorful, archaic adjectives and words, Nyarko sometimes gives ominous, long descriptions of mundane things. For example, after Mahiro alerts her to a Nighgaunt attack with a bump on the head...
  Nyarko: "I'm suffering from abnormal and blasphemous amounts of ominously chaotic pain."
• Sexy Discretion Shot/Rape Discretion Shot: Hilariously subverted; at the end of episode 6, Nyarko manages to get herself alone with Mahiro at night in his room, after making sure all her rivals won't interfere. The episode ends with her making her move on a terrorized Mahiro, with a flower dropping the floor in the next room. The very next episode, it's revealed Mahiro managed to fight back and restrain her using a bedsheet and a lot of forks. Not that it prevents her from lying about what really happened.
• Share the Male Pain: It might have been sent to kidnap him, but even Mahiro feels sympathy for the Nightgaunt who takes a Mighty Kick to the groin.
• Shout-Out: Has its own subpage to preserve this page's sanity.
• Sick Episode: Nyarko catches a fever in episode 10 of season 2.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Nyarko and Hasuta towards Mahiro, and Kuuko towards Nyarko. Subverted with Kuuko who falls for Mahiro.
• Slapstick: Plenty of physical comedy. Unusually it's mostly the two girls, Nyarko and Cuuko, who get hit, but everyone gets their share.
• Small Reference Pools: Those not familiar with the expanded Mythos won't know Cthugha or Atlach-Nacha. As a result, some have mistaken Cuuko as Cthulhu because of the similarities of their names. Also, Elder Gods, Great Old Ones and Outer Gods are not synonymous.
• Space Police: The Planetary Defense Organization has sent Nyarko to stop a smuggling and human-trafficking ring.
• Space "X": Nyarko and Cuuko refer to the alien equivalents of CQC, Kindergarten, etc. by simply adding the word "Space" before them.
  Mahiro: "You can't just add 'space' to everything."
• Squee: In the first episode of the 2012 series, all the girls in Mahiro's P.E. class do a simultaneous Squee when Tamao (falsely) says that Mahiro admitted to being attracted to Nyarko.
• Starfish Aliens: Nyarlathotepians, Chtughans, etc. are actually abominations the human mind cannot grasp without going insane. The human forms they take are quite pleasant, though.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • In episode 6 of season 2, Nyarko returns to her former Genki Girl mood after being reassured by Mahiro that he doesn't hate her. She also traps Kuuko's cousin Kuune in another dimension when she gets rid of the room changer device she bought so the alien characters could have their own rooms inside Mahiro's house while the latter was sleeping after having an overnight gaming session with Kuuko.
  • The finale of season 2 has Nyarko, Cuuko and Hasuta being told that their stay on Earth is coming to an end. Atfter some shenanigans, they are granted an extension. Mahiro sighs and says that Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta would always figure some excuse to stay on Earth and in his house.
  • Ato-ko erases Mahiro and Nyarko's memories after they kiss at the end of the Nyarko-san F OVA, undoing the huge step forward their relationship took.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Isurugi, while inside Yoichi's body, does this to stop the main characters from trying to interfere in his plans in episode 10.
• Strip Poker: In episode 7, Nyarko suggests playing this after Mahiro (in a desperate attempt to ignore her) suggests that he and Yoichi go play cards. This is what leads to the infamous Brutal Honesty and Heroic BSoD moments.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: True to the original source, the "deities" of the Mythos are really advanced and freaky aliens.
• Super-Deformed: Happens on occasion in the anime.
• Supporting Harem: You know that Nyarko is the one who's going to win in the end — she's the title character, after all. Unfortunately for Mahiro that doesn't spare him the affections of Hasuta and later Cuuko. The "budding romance" part is also given a twist in that Nyarko tends to do things "three steps forward, two steps back", annoying Mahiro by being too goofy and clingy, but pulling him back from the brink at the last moment with honestly heartfelt expressions of love.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Zig-zagged. In episode 12 of season 2, while touring a factory where the new Earth guardian is being built, Mahiro and the others run into the chief engineer, Nodens, who was the first villain they encountered in the first season. However, despite looking and sounding exactly like the first guy, this Nodens claims he's not the same guy. But then he goes up to Mahiro and claims the boy would be good in some alien pornos, which was also what the first Nodens wanted to do to him. Nyarko's bosses then threaten to report him, causing him to back off and continue with the guardian demonstration.
• Survival Mantra:
  • After losing his SAN, Mahiro begins to repeat "It's only ink..." while trying to forget about the pool of Nightgaunt blood shed by Nyarko.
  • After Cuuko gets attacked by Mahiro's mom during the pool episode. She starts repeating "I'm sorry" over and over as a reference to Higurashi.
• Take a Third Option: In the last episode of Nyarko-san W, Nyarko asks Mahiro for a kiss (or a baby) as reward for fighting off the out-of-control Banshin. Yoriko comes up with another idea, suggesting that Mahiro pat her (as well as Cuuko and Hasta) on the head if they succeed. The trio deems this acceptable and heads off to kick robot butt.
• Take That!: In the light novel, Nyarko explains that the Cthulhu Corporation always pressures the Space Government for copyright term extension, so they keep their mascot Mr. Innsmouth from entering the public domain. Eventually the space governors get tired of the nagging and simply pass the Innsmouth ProtectionAct.
  • The various jammers and other gizmos used in Episode 10 are a clear dig at Gundam SEED's Neutron Jammer, Neutron Jammer Canceller, etc.
  • The main villain of episode 10 is a clear shot at Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo and the man behind numerous obscenity laws aimed at cleaning up anime and manga.
• Taking the Bullet: Nyarko (in Mahiro's body) does it for Mahiro (in her own body). Luckily she survives.
• Tender Tears: In Episode 7, poor Hasta (voiced by Rie Kugimiya, no less) storms off the cafeteria crying when he thought Nyarko is pregnant with Mahiro's child, despite the latter's insistent (and truthful) denial.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Hydran-chan looks just like Dagon-kun, but with an added pink bow and lipstick.
• That Liar Lies: In episde 7, Mahiro desperately tries to convince everyone that Nyarko is lying when she claims to already be pregnant with their child. He fails, and even his own mother falls for it (though in her case, it might have been I Want Grandkids). When Hasta runs out of the room sobbing, Mahiro quietly remarks "Well, I guess it's okay for him to think it's true..."
• Themed Harem: A harem composed of Moe Anthropomorphisms of Cthulhu Mythos Eldritch Abominations.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mahiro gives a couple to Nyarko, largely because of her antics and tendency to go overboard in various situations. His Brutal Honesty in episode 7 of the 2012 series probably qualifies.
  • In episode 6, Yoriko gives a less-insulting version to Luhy when she explains why the Xoth-731 console is doomed to failure. It's even funnier once you notice she's making very cogent points about the real-world game industry.
• The Theme Park Version: In the Trapped in TV Land episode, Mahiro finds himself experiencing only the events one would encounter in a Dating Sim (like Christmas and Valentine's), causing him to "leap" randomly. It's never addressed if this holds true for the other people trapped in the game, but the fact that Nyarko apparently had the time to knit Mahiro a scarf for Christmas implies they didn't.
• Toast of Tardiness: Nyarko does this in episode 8, complete with toast in her mouth when she does a Crash-Into Hello on Mahiro.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Spoofed in the light novel, where Mahiro will research new characters by looking up their Cthulhu Mythos counterparts — but instead of something like the Necronomicon, he uses Chaosium's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters.
• Trapped in TV Land: The premise of Episode 8 of the anime — the gang gets trapped inside a WonderSwan-lookalike (with a Dating Sim currently playing), and they couldn't get out unless Mahiro chooses either Nyarko, Cuuko, Hasta or Tamao.
• The Triple
  • Nyarko has come to Earth with three duties: protecting Mahiro, destroying a smuggling ring, and shopping.
    Mahiro: "Obviously the last one is of your own making."
  • "Hasta is an alien? Hasta is Hastur, the Outer God of Wind? Hasta is... a boy???"
• Token Mini-Moe: Hasta and Guthatan in the TV series. 4koma manga adds Nakko and also extends the role of the humanized Shantak-kun.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In the second Flash series, with Nyarko and Nyarue.
• Trailers Always Lie: The OP of the first TV series makes it look like it's a normal anime with Romantic Comedy themes. It's still a short gag Flash animation.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: As is proper for a bumbling ineffective villain, Nyarko's brother is thrown over the horizon screaming.
• Undead Tax Exemption: While they don't explicitly state they are aliens, none of the students at school seem fazed that they just happen to have three transfer students all join their class in a very short period of time.
• Unwanted Harem: Very much so. Nyarko, Hasta, Guthatan, and even Cuuko, and that's not getting into the "sanity-depleting abomination" issues. Ironically enough, the only human with a crush on Mahiro isn't on that list because she doesn't want to get in the way.
• The 'Verse: Haiyore! Nyarko-san set up the world that's also used in Aisora's later works, Miyamasanchi no Berutein and Valkyrie Works.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Nyaruko has one, as shown in episode 3 of the second season. Even though she's nearly flat-chested.
  • Kuune, Cuuko's cousin, pulls a tape recorder and a huge binder out of her cleavage in the same scene.
• Voices Are Not Mental : In EP 9 and 10.
• Welcome to Corneria: Poor Yoichi has to do this in episode 8 when everyone is Trapped in a Dating Sim. He even repeats the same dialog as Mahiro shakes him and says "Not you too!"
• Wham Line: Mahiro delivers one to Nyarko in episode 7.
  Mahiro: I don't like you.
  • Nyarko (while in Mahiro's body) delivers one to Mahiro (who is in Nyarko's body) in episode 9.
    Mahiro: Nyarko, I love you!
  • Kuuko asks Mahiro one in episode 5 of season 2. It causes him to cut his finger as he was preparing some dinner.
    Kuuko: Boy, do you like Nyarko after all?
  • In episode 12 of season 2, the first thing Nyarko says after entering her Heroic BSoD, and the point where the gravity of the situation finally hits Mahiro.
    Nyarko: So does this really mean I have to leave Mahiro-san forever?
• Weaksauce Weakness: The aliens in episode 10 of season 2 are defeated by the music coming from Nyarko's ringtone.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!:
  • In episode 12, after Mahiro gets his wish to get some peace and quiet, he begins to miss the other characters despite his complaints about them.
  • "How to Defeat a Kind Enemy" (a short story adapted into an OVA episode) has Mahiro try to get Nyarko to act like a Magical Girl instead of a Henshin Hero in the hopes that it'll make her act less crazy and violent. Unfortunately, she gets even worse, spouting cliché Magical Girl talk about "purifying souls" while lighting Nightgaunts on fire and making them vomit blood, so Cuuko and Mahiro neuralize her back to normal.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • After Mahiro's Wham Line in episode 7, Nyarko suffers from a long lasting Color Failure. Which prompts his mom to ask him if she really is that awful, since she has been saving his life and saved hers as well. She essentially forces him to take her on a date to make up for hurting her feelings.
  • Nyarko's Anguished Declaration of Love in Nyarko-San W could be seen as this, since she outright tells Mahiro that his refusal to just spit it out is tearing her apart.
  • Mahiro has finally had enough of Nyarko's bitching in episode 11 of the first series when their fighting goes too far and appears to injure Ghutatan and snaps at the girls with a short, but scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, demanding that they apologize— not to him, but to the girl.
  Mahiro: Do your job, Planetary Defense Organization agent.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…:
  • When Mahiro's mother is being kidnapped in episode 5, Cuuko forms a fire barrier around the house so Nyarko can't get in. Nyarko says that everything can be solved with a karate kick, and proceeds to kick it, only to hilariously burn her foot in the process.
  • Mahiro and his forks. Nyarko, Kuuko, and Hasuta seem deathly afraid of it, and he even buys some for his mom who uses them during her adventuring.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: In episode 4 of Nyarko-San W:
  Tamao: Why don't you try just kissing him?
  Nyarko: I already did.
  Tamao: ...Okay, never mind, I'll think of something el—WHAAAAAT?!
• Would Hit a Girl: Mahiro has no problems with hitting Nyarko and Cuuko when they annoy him.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: In "How to Defeat a Kind Enemy", Nyarko's Magical Girl training with Luhy takes place in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, though unlike the DBZ cast, they only spend a month inside (two hours outside)^note This completely averts Writers Cannot Do Math, since 2 hours × 365 = 730 hours, which is just shy of 30 days.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form:
  • Played with in that, while Nyarko does indeed have many forms that would break Mahiro's mind, she insists that as the being of a thousand masks, she doesn't have any one "true" form, so her human shape should count as an aversion too.
  • The series also features the interesting situation of not being able to grasp one's own true form. To human senses, Mahiro is just an average looking human boy, but in the Alien Geometry that beings like Nyarko can perceive, he's apparently the most beautiful being in existence! (Much to his consternation.)
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Yith creature in episode 10 tells this to Isurugi (who is inside Yoichi's body) in episode 10 after the latter creates a device which he thought was going to transplant Yith beings into humans so they could experience human and Earth culture first-hand. Instead it turns out to be a portal where the Moral Guardian can destroy Earth because its corrupting space morals.
• You Wanna Get Sued?:
  • In Nyaruani episode 4, "Gal Games":
    Nyarko: Lovecraft Plus, or for short, Love Pl-
    Mahiro: Hang on, didn't I just recently tell you not to piss people off?!
  • In the OVA "How to Defeat a Kind Enemy", Mahiro stops Cuuko from saying "Accel World"; earlier, Luhy refering to her training room as "the Room of Spirit and Time/Hyperbolic Time Chamber" gets cut off by Shanta-kun sneezing.
• You Watch Too Much X: Mahiro says this to Nyarko a lot; particularly at the end of episode 2, when she declares "There are still enemies to fight!" and he responds with "You sound like a character from a cancelled TV show."

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