In the middle of the longest bridge in the world sits an abandoned artificial island. Long forgotten by its creators, it is now a lawless wasteland split into multiple districts, in which conflict is always imminent. Home to societal drop-outs, runaways, organized crime families, serial killers, and its own generation of children, the island becomes the stage on which many people come and go to live out their stories.
Etsusa Bridge is part of Ryohgo Narita's overarching Verse of light novels and serialised works of fictions that includes Vamp!, Baccano!, Durarara!!, Hariyama-san, Wednesdays Smiling with Otsuberu, and Pandora Shark. The Etsusa Bridge series has been chronologically the last series in the verse for over a decade, until it became a prequel to Pandora Shark in 2021. It's complete with 4 volumes and 1 collection of short stories.
Tropes in Etsusa Bridge include:
- Animal Motifs: The first volume, Bow Wow! ~Two Dog Night~, is centered around two characters that are likened to dogs. The title of the second volume is Mew Mew! ~Crazy Cat's Night in reference to Jun Sahara being called the "Kitten of the Eastern District".
- Animal Theme Naming: The above-aforementioned characters (Hayato Inui and Seiichi Kugi) both have kanji relating to dogs in their names.
- Cast of Snowflakes: Especially impressive considering that none of the characters have any supernatural elements to them, unlike Narita's other Light Novels.
- Chainsaw Good: Jun's preferred weapon. Her lightweight, powerful double chainsaws have been known to scare some into submission.
- Clueless Detective: Charlotte. If not for Sherlock, they probably wouldn't even be in business.
- Eyes Out of Sight: Jun always has hair covering her eyes,
- Floating Continent: Limited to just an island, but still counts.
- Kids Are Cruel: The Rats rely so heavily on each other that they don't hesitate to beat up anyone who might threaten their group. And they end up leaning toward Children Forced to Kill.
- Made of Iron: Kuzuhara, but his bullet-proof gloves and coat help with that image.
- My Greatest Failure: Seiichi regards the death of his best friend by a stray bullet in a shootout since they weren't supposed to be there in the first place.
- Odd Name Out: Look at the list of Naritaverse works. Etsusa Bridge is the only one with A) more than one word, and B) no exclamation points, until the release of Hariyama-san.
- Overly Long Name: Gitarin's names are not only extremely long but also constantly changing. Names include "Char de Grandeur Ratzfend Zorba Gitarin Santamaria Redrum Masamune" and "Levert Lowe Sturbaiken Gitarin Chloroclad Kagenomiya the 666th".
- Signature Laugh: Kelly's ever-present "Heehahahaha!".
- The 'Verse: Directly connected to Durarara!!, and said to be set 15-20 years after it.
- Tsundere: Lihuang has been shown to have some Tsundere-like feelings towards Charlotte.
- Wretched Hive: The floating island appears to be this.
