30 young men and women who came together on a shady bus tour. The tour's destination: an elusive, possibly nonexistent village called Nanaki. In Nanaki Village, one can lead a utopian existence, free of the world's obstacles... or so it was rumored, like an urban legend. "In despair over the real world... wanting to escape the tedious daily life... wanting to restart your life from scratch..." The bus headed deep into the mountains, carrying 30 people each harboring their own expectations and wounds in their hearts…
The Lost Village (Mayoiga) was streaming on Crunchyroll
as part of the spring 2016 anime lineup.
The Lost Village provides examples of:
- A House Divided: Though the people in the group are technically considered a "family", they bicker and argue with each other quite a bit, and are just barely held together by some of the saner people.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Mitsumune was bullied up until middle school. Episode 3 reveals that Jack was also bullied.
- Ambiguously Brown: Yottsun. He stands out among the cast's uniform skin tone, but seems to be native Japanese. Given his rebelious attitude, it may be tanning to defy his parents.
- Asshole Victim:
- Implied with Yottsun, after he decides to ditch the group he was in and takes Masaki to an isolated area, likely to rape her. According to her, while they were heading into the woods, he suddenly left her to go investigate something and then never returned, prompting her to then go looking. At the end of episode three, his body is seen floating away in the river. Despite appearances, he turns up again, alive and well, in episode 10 outside the village. He went to confront the people he saw and wound up outside the village, where he was then saved by a professor he refers to as "Kami-sama"
- In episode 3, Hyouketsu insisting on giving everyone sharing the same room as him a lame nickname angers Jack enough that he leaves the room, only to return with a garden hoe and attacks the former.
- Axes at School: Jack once stabbed a classmate at school.
- Baby Factory: How some of the male characters see the women that accompany them.
- Bears Are Bad News: None are seen, but everyone is terrified of the possibility as they walk through the forest toward Nanaki Village. The tracks are said to be too small to be a bear, but this is quickly forgotten and everyone stays wary of bears. It doesn't help when Puuko notices bloody claw marks on a tree.
- Black Dude Dies First: Yottsun's skin tone is somewhat darker than the other characters, he wears hip-hop fashion and introduces himself on the bus by rapping. He's also the show's first "casualty." Subverted, however, when he's still alive in Episode 10.
- Burn the Witch!: The imagery of witch-burning is invoked heavily when the group interrogate Masaki and accuse her of being a ghost or otherwise in league with the monsters.
- Bystander Syndrome: When some of the group members try to execute/exorcise Masaki, most of the other people just stand by and watch without saying anything, with only a few members speaking up to her defense.
- Childhood Friends: Mitsumune and Speedstar (Hayato). They have depended on each other for years, and this becomes important in the climax.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Maimai tries teasing Mitsumune early on, but when he doesn't seem to show much interest in her, she gets angry at him. Later when serving soup to the group, she gives him a very tiny portion. When asked by her friend if she's jealous of Masaki, whom he's shown a lot of concern for, she tries to vehemently deny it.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- During the second bus stop in episode 1:
- They are just in time for the midnight playing of a creepy tune that is later revealed to correspond to a creepier lullaby that is traditional of Nanaki Village.
- They meet with a mysterious woman (Koharun) who is revealed to be a student investigating Nanaki Village, and who deduced its location.
- After the first exploration of the village in episode 2:
- Koharun reveals she received a timely anonymous email that was the last piece in the puzzle of figuring out Nanaki Village's location. This generates suspicion that she knowns more than she lets on.
- During the second bus stop in episode 1:
- Cute and Psycho: Lovepon as portrayed in the opening, and during her demand for the execution of the bus driver in episode 2. Sure enough, episode 3 has her trying to drown Mitsumune when he protests her insistence on executing Jack.
- The Cynic: Hayato only came along to disprove Nanaki Village's existence.
- Declaration of Protection: Speedstar to Mitsumune, when they were children.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Jack doesn't like being given a lame nickname by Hyouketsu, so he leaves the room, only to return with a gardening hoe and attacks the former with it. Maimai then accidentally lets slip that he was in trouble with the law before.
- Lovepon's insistence that anyone accused of any wrongdoing be executed. It's largely downplayed and Played for Laughs, until episode three, when she tries to drown Mitsumune after he protests killing Jack.
- Driven to Suicide: It's hinted that Mitsumune attempted suicide at some point before the trip.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Mitsumune becomes very attached to Masaki, despite only knowing her for a few days. When the other characters become suspicious of her, he immediately comes to her defense.
- Easily Forgiven: Despite Lovepon's attack on Mitsumine near the end of episode three, no one seems to punish her, or even reference said incident. Of course, this could likely be excused, as they discovered a dead body believed to be the missing Yottsun floating in the river, and focus on that instead.
- Education Mama: When Mitsumune checks his phone at the first stop, he discovers that his parents learned that he missed curfew and skipped cram school. His mother sent a text demanding that he respond within three minutes, and the last message from her is a demand to know what he wants and if he hates her that much, which has some... interesting implications.
- Enemy Without is the entire cause of their problems, as they must fight their inner demons manifest in order to escape
- Evolving Credits: The ending credits shows different characters at the end of each episode.
- Expy: Not of a person but of an old nursery rhyme. The Unlucky Hippopotamus is almost exactly the same as the Solomon Grundy Nursery Rhyme of old, with Tuesday being the only actual difference in the events. And you know, the upbeatness of the Hippo song.
- Extremely Short Timespan: A large majority of the anime takes places during a single night.
- First-Name Basis: How Mitsumune addresses Hayato. In fact, Hayato flat out tells him to address him as such as opposed to his username.
- Foreshadowing: In the Opening Sequence the words "mother, my true self, love, stuffed toy" can be spotted over a picture of Mitsumune. Over Speedstar's image the words "confinement, understanding person, doting, birdcage" can be seen. Come episode 7 and 9, those words will make a lot more sense.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Valkana spends a lot of time looking for Yottsun after the latter goes missing. Though he doesn't seem happy about it, he tells Koharun about being blamed for something he didn't do when writing a program for a big company, and doesn't want the others to suspect he's in any way responsible for Yottsun's disappearance.
- Lovepon's preoccupation with execution and torture as the answer to any (real or perceived) wrongdoing, and her generally fragile mental state, stem from the fact that she and her mother were abused by a nasty monk due Lovepon's father leaving them with massive debts.
- Hayato's Control Freak nature is due to his parents being abusive and controlling towards him, often beating him and locking him in the attic for not acting like they wanted him to.
- Ghost Town: When the group reaches Nanaki Village, they find that it's deserted. Yuuno, a former maid, guesses that Nanaki was abandoned at least a year ago based on the amount of dust.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Not everyone's personal issues can be fixed so easily, and everyone has different ways of coping with their issues. Sometimes people will choose to run away from their problems, and that might be the best thing for them. Not exactly a happy or uplifting message, but not invalid either.
- Hypocrite:
- The bus driver criticizes his passengers as being hasty and immature for completely abandoning society instead of working out their problems. Later that episode, he hastily and immaturely attempts to deliberately crash the bus and kill everyone because he doesn't think he can work out his problems.
- Yuuna claims to have come to Nanaki Village to help women lead fulfilling lives, but in Episode 4, when things become potentially dangerous, she tells the men to let the women escape first, then insists that men should protect the "weaker sex".
- I Choose to Stay: Some of the group decides to stay in the village at the end. They make a point that neither solution is "right" or "wrong", just depends on the person.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite Maimai's abrasive attitude, Mitsumune sees her going to the cell where Jack is being kept since she feels guilty that she spoke up about his past, which scared the others into locking him up.
- Mistaken for Gay: Since there are only two pairs that came on the tour together, one of which is a lovey-dovey couple, Lion assumed that Mitsumune and Hayato were dating. Even when Mitsumune clarifies their relationship, she doesn't seem convinced.
- Mysterious Past: Everyone is leaving their lives behind and not being open about who they were before the tour.
- Not Helping Your Case: Masaki's rather ambiguous answers and comments about the village makes her look even more suspicious to the other group members.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In episode 11 we see Jack and Judgness holding Lion, Maimai, Valkana and Nanko hostage at knife-point. The next time we see them Jack and Judgness are tied up and defeated with Valkana remarking that he and Nanko easily took them down. Sadly, we never actually get to see this.
- One-Steve Limit: Enforced in universe, with three girls with the Yuuna name; one keeps the name, the other two are renamed Yuuno and Yuune.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of the characters. Even Yuuna admits that her name is just a screen name. Speedstar insists that Mitsumune refer to him as Hayato, his real name. Episode 3 reveals Jack's last name is Sasaki. Episode 4 reveals that Mitsumune's real name is Mitsumune.
- Only Sane Man: Pink Goddess often tries to get everyone to calm down.
- Parental Marriage Veto: There is a couple in the bus that claims they are fleeing due to their forbidden love.
- Prone to Tears: Masaki cries because of the unlucky hippopotamus song of episode 1.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Most members of the group have a fairly upbeat and positive attitude about casting off their old life and starting a new one. However, things quickly go downhill for them as they run into unforeseen problems, and realize that the new village they were supposed to start living in isn't all its cracked up to be.
- Taking You with Me: The bus driver, calls the group a bunch of spoiled brats after they all state why they're going on the tour to start a new life. He then rants about his own misfortunes, and later tries to crash the bus until stopped by several of the others.
- Token Mini-Moe: Lion is the youngest and shortest of the tour group.
- Torches and Pitchforks: When the group starts suspecting that Masaki is a ghost, they start a witch hunt on her. At one point they can even be seen holding actual torches.
- Tsundere: Maimai tends to act this way towards Mitsumune. Oddly, she started off being friendly to him, just to play with him, but gets angry when he rejects her.Mitsumune: I was worried I fell in love too easily, but I don't feel that way towards you [Maimai].
- Vomit Discretion Shot: When Masaki gets carsick and throws up all over the bus driver. Later on, Lovepon pukes on Dozaemon's back.
- Wham Episode:
- Episode three, in which Yottsun and Masaki both fail to return to the group. They end up seeing some disturbing blood and claw marks on a tree, and Mitsumune finds Masaki hiding behind a tree by herself after he accidentally falls down a hill. Yottsun's body is seen floating down the river at the end of the episode.
- Episode ten, the first one that attempts to actually explain how Nanaki works. Not only there's the fact that Yottsun comes back, add to it that Koharun is actually The Mole that the others had been suspecting Masaki to be all along, and apparently is the Big Bad boss of Jack and Hyouketsu no Judgness.
