Anime / Pacific Rim: The Black

We fight, together!

Pacific Rim: The Black, also called as Pacific Rim: The Dark Continent in Japan, is an original animated series produced and distributed by Legendary Television Studios and Polygon Pictures in association with Netflix, based on and expanding the story of Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim: The Black follows siblings Hayley and Taylor, who learn to pilot an abandoned Jaeger in a post-apocalyptic Australia overwhelmed by the Kaiju. The series was originally greenlit for two seasons with a 2020 release before it was pushed back to 2021. The first season was released on March 4, 2021, and the second season was released on April 19, 2022.

There was a time when Kaiju rose from the Pacific Rim only to encounter gigantic robots, Jaegers, built to fight them back. That time has passed. Now, Australia has been overrun by Kaiju, forcing the evacuation of an entire continent. Left behind, teenage siblings Taylor and Hayley embark on a desperate search for their missing parents, teaching themselves to pilot a battered, long-abandoned Jaeger to help in their quest and give them even the slightest hope of surviving.

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Pacific Rim: The Black provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Takes place after the events of Pacific Rim: Uprising, itself after the events of Pacific Rim, which were both this trope at the time they were released.
• Activation Sequence: In true mecha anime fashion, reused sequences of the characters slotting into Atlas Destroyer's pilot rigs and the pilot plugsuits securing around them happen consistently, a sure sign asskicking is about to ensue.
• Adaptation Deviation: The anime's depiction of the Drift is different from the films, showing the characters submerging into a sort of Mental World, surrounded by bubbles containing their memories.
• Adaptational Species Change: The Rippers from Uprising are changed from being biomechanical vaguely insectoid robots to relatively small wolf-like Kaiju.
• The Alcoholic: Joel, Bogan's resident tech-wizard, is introduced three sheets to the wind from drinking bottle after bottle of alcohol. Drifting with him is an excruciatingly unpleasant experience that incapacitates several Riders.
• Apocalypse Cult: Mention is made of the Sisters, a mysterious group of women who collect kaiju eggs for an unknown purpose and are dreaded by the various groups of bandits. In the final episode of Season 1 it's revealed they have some control over the Rippers and worship the Precursors — viewing the Boy as the Kaiju Messiah. In Season 2, they serve as the main antagonists, pursuing the protagonists in order to brainwash Boy to serve that role for them.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Boy was created to be a Kaiju Messiah who would lead the Kaiju in finishing the destruction of Earth, but somehow slipped away from the Sisters' possession and ended up in a PPDC lab, where Taylor and Hayley found him. Ultimately, his love for them causes him to reject the Sisters' control.
• Asshole Victim: Rickter, the leader of Shane's Riders, is a nasty piece of work whose first impulse upon encountering Taylor, Hayley, and the Boy is to pull a gun on them — albeit after they accidentally cause the deaths of two of his men. Him confronting Taylor intent on revenge leads to a shootout between Bogan and a rival gang, and he's all too happy to comply when Shane sends him to kill the three after they leave Bogan. Mei stops Taylor from killing Rickter once the siblings and the Boy disarm him... and then coldly shoots him through the heart herself. Subverted when Season 2 reveals he somehow survived.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Though it's not made clear what's going on across the rest of the planet, by all appearances, the Precursors appear to be winning the war against the humans, harvesting the Earth of all its resources, and let the Kaiju roam free and lay waste all over the planet.
  • There is, however, some evidence for hope. In the finale of Season 2 the group finally reaches a very intact and functional Sydney Base. Despite Australia being overrun with Kaiju and mostly abandoned, the humans managed to hold on to this little corner of it. And they haven't just survived: Sydney Base is guarded by some new and very impressive looking Jaegers. If the PPDC can still afford to not only make new Jaegers, but to send them to a continent that's already lost, then that implies that the rest of the world can't be in that bad of shape.
• Back for the Dead: Hercules Hansen, after being absent in Uprising, returns here in a flashback, being responsible for starting the last resort Black directive that declared Australia a lost cause just before being killed in battle with an Acidquill. Subverted as he's listed as missing in action by the pilot files.
• Big Bad: The High Priestess of the Sisters is the main villain of Season 2, pursuing the protagonists in order to brainwash Boy into becoming the Kaiju Messiah.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Copperhead and Shane are the main villains of Season 1. Copperhead serves as the primary Kaiju antagonist, attacking and destroying Hayley and Taylor's hidden village and hunting them relentlessly. Post-apocalyptic gang-leader Shane is the primary human antagonist, taking Taylor and Hayley prisoner in order to seize Atlas Destroyer for himself.
• Bittersweet Ending: Taylor and Hayley are able to make it to Sydney in which they are reunited with their father. They also rescued the Boy from the Sisters who are all dead and Mai is able to live her own life with her original memories. Sadly, it doesn't come without a heavy price as many have died along the way including Shane, Brina, the Apex and Loa. Also, the world is still ravaged by the Kaijus.
• Child Soldiers:
  • Taylor was training to be a Jaeger pilot since he was ten. Given that drift-compatible individuals are rare, and the Kaiju are bringing about The End of the World as We Know It, the world needed all the Jaeger pilots it could get.
  • When drifting with Taylor, Mei is revealed to have been taken in by Shane at a young age and raised to be his right-hand lieutenant. It later transpires that Shane used his drift tech to Mind Rape her by feeding her false memories while suppressing her real ones.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Apex is one of the Kaiju-ized Jaeger drones from Pacific Rim: Uprising, the only one that survived the feedback loop used to kill the others. Its further evolution follows plans Del Toro had about a sequel.
  • Three pilots are said to have survived piloting solo: Raleigh Becket, Stacker Pentecost, and Hercules Hansen. The former two did so in the first film, while the latter does so in this series.
  • In the Jaeger/Kaiju graveyard, November Ajax is one of the wrecks. This was the police Jaeger that chased down Scapper at the start of Uprising.
  • Herc Hanson is seen again, piloting a mostly identical version of Striker Eureka, his original machine from Pacific Rim.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Joel, courtesy of the explosive Shane implanted in all of his radios as an "insurance policy" against anyone who would betray him.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: As in the films, piloting a Jaeger solo is a terrible idea due to the mental strain. Taylor only manages to do it by drifting with the memory of someone who survived doing it, and even then all he has to do is walk around a bit until he can grab Hayley and get her to the conn-pod. The stress is such that he has to swap out with Mei almost as soon as Hayley joins him. In addition, he gains some of Herc Hanson's memories - but unlike drift memories from two pilots, Taylor is unable to distinguish them from his own.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Mei was raised by Shane to be a ruthless soldier from a young age, and had her memories scrambled by his drifting tech so that she doesn't know which are real or not. As such, she refuses to drift with Hayley and is reluctant to do so with Taylor, telling Shane her memories are no place for naive children.
  • Loa, Atlas Destroyer's AI, is implied to have a dark history linked to the mech being decommissioned from combat service, as she glitches out when scanning one of the derelict Jaegers and cagily refuses to tell Taylor why. In Season 2, she admits her desire to keep her original pilots safe from harm actually resulted in their deaths.
• Darker and Edgier: The upbeat tone of the films has been lost here, and humanity is clearly losing the war against the Kaiju far worse than ever before. Australia has been reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where humans struggle to survive, Kaiju run rampant, and permanent settlements seem to be nonexistent. The first episode begins with everyone the protagonists care about being slaughtered, leaving them with only the slim hope that their parents are still alive out there. Most notably, the series features outright human antagonists, subverting the films' message about humanity uniting in the face of common enemy. Shane and his Bogan colony aren't helpful criminals like Hannibal Chau or under Precursor mental control like Newt... they're just out to get whatever they can for themselves and screw everyone else.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Loa, Atlas Destroyer's AI, possesses a dry sense of humor. Upon meeting her for the first time, Joel, Bogan's alcoholic technician, quips that her sarcasm is a turn-on and grouses that it's just his luck that his ideal woman would turn out to be a twenty-story mech.
  • Mei, one of Bogan's lieutenants, has her Establishing Character Moment killing a crocodilian kaiju with an RPG, and then stopping Rickter from shooting Taylor, Hayley, and the Boy in retribution for the kaiju having eaten two of his Riders. When Rickter snaps that the two dead mooks were her friends too, she brushes him off and quips that she can't take him seriously with them all over his face. She also takes to sarcastically calling Hayley a princess due to presuming her to have had a sheltered upbringing.
• Death World: No, not just because it's Australia. Thanks to the rampant Kaiju attacks forcing the PPDC to abandon the continent, Kaiju have taken over the ecosystem, including man-sized dog-like Kaiju called Rippers. There are still venomous snakes and scorpions, though.
• Disaster Scavengers: Shane's gang of Desert Bandits, Bogan, scrounges the deserts and ruined cities collecting scrap, Pan Pacific Defense Corps weapons and vehicles, Jaeger parts, and kaiju eggs to trade with other gangs. Once he learns of Atlas Destroyer, he sets his sights on obtaining the Jaeger for himself to become the top power in Australia.
• Dying Dream: After Brina is mortally wounded helping to save Boy from the Sisters, Loa and Hayley place her in a Drift-created simulation of them all reaching Sydney and being reunited with the siblings' father. She passes away shortly after.
• Exact Words: Shane promises to spare Taylor, Hayley, and Boy if they leave Bogan by sunup. He then sends Rickter to kill them, because he made no promises about what would happen to them after. Mei views it as a deep betrayal anyway, and turns on him as a result.
• Extreme Omnivore: Copperhead eats one of Atlas Destroyer's arms after ripping it off.
• Failed a Spot Check: When Taylor and Hayley's parents take them to where they believe a base would be, all they find is an empty canyon. Five years later, Hayley falls into the underground base by accident while running away after a fight with her brother, and stumbles across Atlas Destroyer. They do mention, though, that with the evacuation at the stage it was in, the PPDC couldn't leave anything of value behind, destroying what they couldn't take and burying what they couldn't destroy.
• Feed It a Bomb:
  • Taylor and Hayley's parents launch a missile at an Acidquill Kaiju, which deflects it with one of its Combat Tentacles. They catch the missile before it hits the ground then force-feed it to the Kaiju, killing it at the cost of the Jaeger's arm.
  • Mei shoots an RPG down the throat of a crocodilian Kaiju, blowing it to bits.
  • Copperhead is finally defeated when a nuke is shot into its open chest wound.
• Freeze Ray: One of Hunter's weapons are a pair of shoulder-mounted cryo guns that can freeze a Kaiju solid in just a few seconds.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Precursors serve as this. While they have yet to appear, the Kaiju that are ravaging the world, with one constantly pursuing the heroes, are still controlled by them making it clear that their actions have greatly shaped the series setting and story. Then it's revealed that the Sisters are an Apocalypse Cult that worship the Precursors and are heavily implied to be carrying out their commands within The Black, working to turn Boy into a Kaiju Messiah who will finish destroying the world.
• Happy Ending Override: The triumphant ending of Uprising had the Precursors repelled once more with the implication that humanity was poised to invade their world. In this series, it's shown the war against the Kaiju has been going terribly since then, with the Precursors now capable of opening breaches anywhere and entire continents being lost to the invasion.
• Heel–Face Turn: Mei starts off as one of Shane's best soldiers — a standoffish woman with a sarcastic sense of humor, but steadfastly loyal to her boss. However, her Undying Loyalty to him crumbles when Joel reveals Shane gaslit her and altered her memories, and reneged on his word to let Taylor, Hayley, and the Boy leave. The last straw comes when Shane repays her stopping Atlas Destroyer from stepping on him by killing Joel with an exploding two-way radio intended for her.
• Hellish Pupils: Leaving aside his superhuman strength and durability, Mystical White Hair, and nonchalantly attempting to eat every small animal he comes across, one of the main clues that the Boy isn't exactly human are his vertically-slitted pupils. The final episode reveals he's a Kaiju in human form.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Not by choice. As a training Jaegar, Atlas Destroyer has no weapons. It isn't until it enters a Kaiju/Jaeger graveyard that it gets one from Apex—a grappling arm to replace the one it lost to Copperhead.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Midway through Season 2, Shane uses the Drift to enter Brina's subconscious to free her from the Sisters' control. He succeeds, but in the process the Sisters' influence wipes out his own mind, killing him.
  • Apex is heavily damaged restoring Boy's lost memories to free him from the Sisters' control and uses the last of it's strength to complete the process, deactivating shortly afterwards.
  • In the finale, Loa self-destructs Atlas Destroyer, killing herself but in the process also taking out Breacher.
• High-Pressure Blood: Virtually every major wound inflicted on a kaiju results in this. Notably averted with human casualties - with the exception of a couple of hapless mooks.
• Hope Spot: In Episode 5, Rickter is sent by Shane to kill Taylor, Hayley, and the Boy... who proceed to overpower and disarm him. Taylor holds Rickter at gunpoint with his own firearm, but is stopped from shooting him by Mei. Just as Rickter lets out a sigh of relief, Mei pulls out her own gun and shoots him through the heart herself.
• Ineffectual Loner: Mei, once she turns on Shane's gang and strikes out on her own searching for the truth about her past, though she eventually ends up rejoining the siblings.
• It Has Been an Honor: Loa says this to Taylor and Hayley in the Season 2 finale right before evacuating them from Atlas Destroyer and then self-destructing the Jaeger to kill Breacher.
• I Will Find You: The secondary plot is Taylor and Hayley trying to find their parents.
• Karma Houdini: When last seen, Rickter is now running what's left of Bogan and never suffers any consequences for any of his actions throughout the show.
• Karmic Death: After spending all of Season 2 trying to brainwash Boy to serve her vision, the High Priestess is killed by him when he rejects her.
• Kick the Dog: Shane blows up Joel's head to get back at Mei for leaving.
• Legacy Character: In Episode 6, Taylor and Hayley come across a derelict Mark-IV Jaeger called Horizon Bravo, modeled and named after the old Mark-I Jaeger Horizon Brave in the same vein that Gipsy Avenger was named and modeled after Gipsy Danger. Loa, Atlas Destroyer's AI, apparently has a history with Horizon Bravo as she starts glitching upon scanning it.
• Living Is More than Surviving: Hayley feels suffocated living in the hidden community. Taylor tells her that he promised to keep her safe, not entertained. She almost quotes this trope verbatim.
• Made of Plasticine: Both the Jaegers and Kaiju seem to be noticeably more fragile than in the films, with Atlas Destroyer being significantly damaged by PPDC-tech RPGs, and kaiju being killed by single blows, or dismembered by seemingly shallow wounds.
• Mechanical Monster: Apex used to be one of the Kaiju-Jaeger hybrid drones, but its biological and technological components have merged to the extent that it's metamorphosed into a predatory biomechanical Robeast with a black-and-red exoskeleton covered in chitinous spikes, eight red eye-lenses, talons, and a mouth full of sharp teeth that it can hide behind a faceplate.
• Mind Rape:
  • Shane uses drift tech to interrogate Taylor and raid his memories, leaving the boy unconscious and nauseated afterwards.
  • Drifting with a number of Rickter's Riders in rapid succession leads to Joel - Bogan's alcoholic technician - having a seizure that scrambles most of his memories, leaving him unable to repair Atlas Destroyer as Shane ordered... but pretty handy at using screwdrivers as throwing knives. He also starts using more Australian slang terms like "bonza", presumably also picked up from the predominantly-Australian Riders.
  • Mei discovers that Shane used his drift tech to gaslight her, suppressing her true memories and implanting false ones in order to turn her into his loyal second-in-command. She initially refuses to believe it's true, but turns on Shane after seeing how cruel he really is and starts searching for her true past.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Hayley's desire to leave their hidden village leads to her and her brother accidentally launching a Jaeger, getting the attention of a Kaiju which then finds the hideout and slaughters everyone except her and her brother.
• My Parents Are Dead: Taylor refuses to leave the community until their parents come back for them, even though it's been five years since they heard anything from the outside world. Hayley bluntly tells him she believes that they're dead.
• Naïve Animal Lover: Bunyip Man thinks the kaiju living in his canyon feel a real emotional bond with him and he treats them like pets but it turns out that the reason they were so docile is because he was regularly feeding them. The moment he's unable to feed them, they turn on him and he's eaten by the very same kaiju he hand raised from infancy.
• Never My Fault: Shane blames Mei for Joel's condition post Mind Rape and Taylor for Copperhead heading for their location (as he and his sister failed to kill it before). Both of those things are entirely Shane's fault for forcing Joel to drift with too many of his mooks trying to get Atlas Destroyer walking - including one who turned out to be epileptic, resulting in both pilots having a seizure while in the Drift and causing Atlas Destroyer's warning sirens to activate, attracting Copperhead.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Apex is extremely powerful and has killed numerous opponents in the past - implicitly both Kaiju and Jaeger - and attacks Atlas Destroyer after killing the Kaiju they were fighting. But it's only acting like a territorial animal, and even helps the group after Boy calms it down.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Mei initially refuses to let Hayley drift with her due to having been raised as a Child Soldier by Shane, but upon being forced to do so she's taken aback by Haley's memories of accidentally killing her friends. Haley is unfazed by Mei's memories and afterwards remarks they're not so different from one another.
• Operation: [Blank]: The titular "Black", a PPDC directive in which an area is declared lost and satellites are brought down for a Colony Drop.
• The Promised Land: Sydney is this to the protagonists, being the only city in Australia still under the PPDC's control and safe from the Kaiju. They finally reach it in the Season 2 finale.
• Protectorate:
  • Taylor promised his parents he'd look after his little sister Hayley. Five years later, however, the now teenage Hayley finds his protectiveness overbearing and rebels against his strictness by neglecting her chores, sneaking out of the hidden village, and stealing supplies. This leads to Hayley trying to run away after a particularly nasty argument with Taylor, and stumbling into the long-buried Pan Pacific Defense Corps base where Atlas Destroyer is stored.
  • Hayley takes it upon herself to look after the Boy, implicitly motivated by the trauma of having accidentally caused the deaths of all her and her brother's friends. Apex is later revealed to have formed a similar protective relationship with the Boy even before the Black, and their shared desire is what prompts the biomechanical Jaeger to spare and help repair Atlas Destroyer after scanning the Boy and Hayley's memories.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Subverted with Apex. While it's extremely dangerous and almost destroys the siblings' Jaeger, it's just acting like a territorial animal. After Boy calms it down, it's rather peaceful and even offers them a replacement arm for the one Atlas lost to Copperhead.
• Redemption Equals Death: After being part of the Big Bad Ensemble in Season 1, in Season 2 Shane sacrifices himself to free Brina from the Sisters' control.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
  • Hercules "Herc" Hansen - a veteran pilot not seen since the first Pacific Rim movie - briefly returns as the pilot of the Jaeger seen fighting an Acidquill at the very beginning of the first episode.
  • The Jaeger Marauder Zeus is named after the Top God of Greek mythology.
  • The main Jaeger, Atlas Destroyer, is named after the Greek Titan who supported the heavens. In Episode 6, it gets a replacement arm from a Jaeger called Chaos Nemesis, named after the Greek cosmological concept of nothingness and the Greek goddess of vengeance, respectively.
• Sacrificial Lamb: The first episode alone shows Shannon, a girl Taylor is implied to have a crush on, as well as Rosa, a girl who is Hayley's best friend... both of whom are abruptly killed when Copperhead attacks their village following Hayley's activation of Atlas Destroyer.
• Scavenger World: Having been abandoned by the rest of the world, those living on Australia survive by scavenging anything they can.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Loa mentions that the PPDC tried to remotely self-destruct Atlas Destroyer when they abandoned the base. It's not clear why it didn't work.
• Shared Dream: Sharing memories and dreams is part of drifting. This means that Hayley now knows that her brother does subconsciously blame her for all their friends' deaths.
• Ship Tease: The first episode teases that Taylor has a crush on a girl named Shannon, awkwardly accepting her invitation to a gathering at the falls despite previously being angry at Hayley for neglecting her chores. Shannon being killed by Copperhead is shown as particularly devastating for him.
• Silicon Snarker: Despite not understanding sarcasm, Loa, Atlas Destroyer's AI, nonetheless has an extremely snarky wit.
  Taylor: Loa, what happened?
  Loa: Power cells are at 3%, which is—
  Taylor: A little warning would have been nice!
  Loa: A warning was indeed issued. To avoid any confusion in the future, when you hear me say "Warning", consider yourselves warned.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Mei starts out as a cold, sarcastic, tough-as-nails soldier loyal to Shane, but has a deeply-buried warm side. She begrudgingly betrays him after learning that he messed with her memories to brainwash her, and reneged on his word to let Taylor, Hayley, and the Boy go by sending Rickter to kill them. She helps the siblings escape, but strikes out on her own after Shane kills Joel in retaliation. After reuniting with the siblings, she initially demands they leave (partly because of knowing that Atlas was a magnet to Copperhead, but also implicitly blaming them for Joel's murder) but loosens up enough to share some hot chocolate and even dances with them for a little while before her PTSD is triggered and she shuts down again.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Copperhead pursues Atlas across Australia to find and destroy it, even after being knocked out twice.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Almost to the point of being a deconstruction of various mecha shows. Taylor and Hayley's combat inexperience is a significant handicap throughout, as is Atlas Destroyer's status as a stripped-down training Jeager. The lack of dedicated maintenance facilities and technicians is also a constant problem, and the capabilities of mind-linking technology are exploited for rather dark ends.
• Taking You with Me: In the Season 2 finale, Loa self-destructs the critically-damaged Atlas Destroyer in order to kill Breacher.
• Tempting Fate: When arguing with Taylor in the first episode, Hayley snaps that nothing bad will happen to Shadow Basin on account of her sneaking off to explore because nothing ever does. Cue Copperhead being drawn to Atlas Destroyer's activation sequence and slaughtering the inhabitants of Shadow Basin.
• They Look Like Us Now: In the Season 1 finale, Boy is revealed to be a humanoid Kaiju, able to shapeshift into a Kaiju form when sufficiently angry.
• Time Skip: The series takes place an indeterminate period of time after Uprising, though not terribly long since Hercules Hansen is still an active pilot. Rifts are now opening all over the place and the Kaiju invasion is so bad that the PPDC is willing to abandon entire continents. It then jumps ahead five years after Taylor and Hayley are left behind.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Once discovering Atlas is still operational, complete with an AI assistant program named Loa, and has a full set of instructional videos on how to safely deploy the Jaeger, Hayley ignores Loa's warning that she needs training and skips all the tutorials to unlock the Jaeger for deployment. It's only Loa telling her that she needs a partner to Drift with that keeps her from killing herself trying to launch it solo.
  • When Taylor shows up, Hayley's very excited to be able to launch... right until she realizes that the launch sequence includes several loud alarms, which attracts the attention of a Kaiju. What should have been a major find for their settlement instead got them all killed save Taylor and Hayley.
• Two Girls and a Guy: Taylor, Hayley and Mei, as each of them has piloted Atlas Destroyer with one of the other two.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: When Taylor shows up, Hayley's very excited to be able to launch... right until she realizes that the launch sequence includes several loud alarms, which attracts the attention of a Kaiju. What should have been a major find for their settlement instead got them all killed save Taylor and Hayley.
• Virtual-Reality Interrogation: Shane uses a modified drift engine to trick Taylor into revealing the location of Atlas Destroyer, making it seem like they're both in a normal interrogation room while Shane dives into Taylor's memories without his knowledge.
• Wasteland Warlord:
  • Shane is the ruler of Bogan, a camp of survivors and mercenaries who prowl the Australian Outback, scavenging and trading in Jaeger and Kaiju parts. Shane is the main human antagonist to Hayley and Taylor in Season 1, as he tries to take Atlas Destroyer from them.
  • The High Priestess of the Sisters is effectively one as well, as the cult controls a stretch of the Outback known as the Divide, and under her rule has a tendency to kill every man they meet, and forcibly induct and brainwash women.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Shane is a walking manifestation of this trope; torturing kids for information using drift tech, being all too willing to murder said children in cold blood, and having kidnapped and brainwashed Mei from a loving family, blotting out her memories of a happy childhood so she believed he rescued her from the streets.
  • Rickter is all too eager to follow through with Shane's order to kill the teenaged Taylor, 14-year-old Hayley, and the apparently prepubescent Boy — even grinning as he shoots the latter first.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Shane, the leader of Bogan, is fond of killing people he no longer has a use for, and views his Riders as disposable fodder - at one point quipping that he made one of them drink yolk from a kaiju egg and watched his face melt. When reminded by Mei about Shane's tendency for this, Joel retorts that he's indispensable due to being the only Jaeger technician left in Australia... right before Shane unintentionally scrambles his brain by forcing him to drift too many times in rapid succession, leaving him incapable of fixing Atlas Destroyer and at risk of being summarily executed - which happens when he answers Mei's radio later on.

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