Literature / Outbreak Company

Outbreak Company is a light novel series written by Ichiro Sakaki (of Scrapped Princess, Strait Jacket, and Magician's Academy fame) and illustrated by Yugen, which was published from 2011 to 2018 and consists of 18 main books plus two volumes of side stories. An anime adaptation aired as part of the Fall 2013 season, with a semi-original storyline which compresses and rearranges the events of books 1-4 and 7 into something less episodic.

Shinichi Kanou is an otaku that has recently quit his NEET phase. When he finally gets a job, it is in another world where dragons soar through the skies. Shinichi find himself employed as a cultural attache of a Japanese diplomatic mission to the fantasy kingdom of Erdant. His mission is to bring "otaku culture", a novelty in the kingdom, to facilitate effective commerce between the two countries. As an expert in anime, light novels, manga, and dating sims, Shinichi is revered and admired in the new world, and an unexpectedly fulfilling real life awaits him!

Will "moe" change the world, or bring its destruction?

Compare Gate - Thus the JSDF Fought There, where the military route is taken instead of diplomacy.

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Outbreak Company provides examples of these tropes:

• The Ace: Miusel has been said and proven to be exceptional in her ability to use magic. She is also very competent at housework and absorbs the Japanese language at an exceptional pace. In episode 7, she learns how to make omelet rice - complete with a character drawing using ketchup - after seeing it just once at Akihabara.
  • Petrarca has also been shown to have quickly grasped the Japanese language, easily reciting a tongue twister (twice, no less) without the help of her ring.
• Actor Allusion: Several.
  • Both Miusel and Sherlock shares the same voice actor, Suzuko Mimori. Miusel wears a pink beanie hat and ermine cape as disguise when she goes to Akihabara in episode 8, gets a Sherlock plushie and watched Milky Holmes anime with Shinichi. Later, in episode 10, there's a shot of Miusel trying to tame a wild bear, which references episode 4 of Milky Holmes.
  • Petrarca shares the same voice as Cure Rosetta. Guess what doujin Shinichi throws to distract the guards in episode 9? Later during the movie filming she does the rosette sign.
  • Minori says "Gatcha!" in episodes 9 and 10.
  • In her debut episode, Sumire Uesaka Elbia's favorite character is listed as Takanashi Yozora from Mama no Iu Koto wo Kikinasai. In episode 10, she's also playing Sora's character in the bits parodying Listen to me, girls. I am your father!. And in episode 11, she sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Gratuitous English, which everyone sang with Hina in one episode.
  • Shinichi's indie movie in episode 10 has a scene where he's running around with a pair of scissors, saying that he needs to cut.
    • And he's trying to use it in episode 12. Sadly it doesn't work.
• All Men Are Perverts: Usually this is the case.
• Almighty Janitor: Essentially every servant has also served in the military. The maids tend to have elven heritage that allows them to use combat magic. Shinichi's gardener is a huge lizardman, so physically imposing that when Shinichi panics and punches him, Shinichi's knuckles bleed.
• Ambiguously Evil: Matoba clearly has less than pure intentions for integrating otaku culture into Eldant society.
  • Affably Evil: Finally comes up in episode 11, where he calmly explains his intent to subjugate Eldant society by monopolizing the supply of otaku culture, and cruelly pointing out to Shinichi that he was nothing more than an expendable tool of the Japanese government. Despite this, he maintains an amicable tone and bears no ill will towards Shinichi until the end of the episode, when Shinichi decides to Take a Third Option.
  • Just Following Orders: When attempts are made on Shinichi's life, Matoba seems to make empty excuses on behalf of Japan's government. However, he does help Shinichi goad the superior to threaten him within earshot of Petrarca, leaving the viewers to believe that despite Matoba's intentions, he ultimately falls under this trope.
• Ambiguously Gay: Garius. He blushes when Minori says he would be the uke in Shinichi x Garius pairing.
  • He borrows a BL book from Minori later on and claims he doesn't "bat for both teams".
  • After Petrarca eats rice off of Shinichi's face, he follows suit. Though this could be because he simply doesn't understand the implications.
• Assassin Outclassin': Due to Shinichi throwing a Spanner in the Works of Japan's attempt to takeover Eldant using cultural warfare, they attempt to kill him at least twice in episode 12. Fortunately for him, Petralka realized this, so she put her elite guard, which consisted of her maids, to protect him. They even used ice magic to conceal themselves from the soldiers' thermal scans.
• Attention Whore: Petrarca usually demands attention from Shinichi, and only him.
  • In episode 7, Petrarca becomes depressed and listless when she finds out she cannot see Shinichi until the next day, as he left for Japan without her knowing.
• Apologises a Lot: Miusel. She has apologized to Shinichi a lot, often when she feels that she may have overstepped her boundaries and is causing trouble for him.
  • Elbia, more due to the fact that she constantly falls victim to her natural animalistic tendencies and causes trouble than any other reason.
• Badass Adorable: Miusel may be just a cute maid, but her elven heritage allows her to use powerful magic, and she's even a military veteran. She obliterates a squad of terrorists with a blast of wind.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Petralka in episode 10's Stylistic Suck film. Shinichi deliberately leaves scenes in where she flubbed her lines. She becomes increasingly embarrassed by it, and tries to ban the movie, but the audience seems to be enjoying it.
• Because You Were Nice to Me / Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Hinted to be the reason why Miusel is quite dedicated to Shinichi despite starting to serve him only a short time ago, even asking him to take her back to Japan when he gets to return home one day. Also justifies Petrarca's attachment to him, because he treated her kindly without having any ulterior motives, so she didn't need to put a guard up around him.
  • Miusel shows further examples of this, wishing her efforts to be acknowledged by Shinichi, even reiterating her desire for him to take her back to Japan when he gets the chance to return home. She doesn't mind if she can never come back to Eldant.
  • Elbia also falls under this, as Shinichi manages to get her off the hook for being an unwitting enemy spy.
• Beach Episode: Episode 9.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Prime Minister Zaharl. A veteran of a thousand battles, now basically Petrarca's babysitter.
• Berserk Button: Shinichi does NOT take Petrarca's harsh treatment of Miusel well.
• Big Damn Heroes: Minori seems fond of these. In episode 3, she pulls one on the terrorists after Shinichi gives her an opening.
  • In the last episode, after Elbia is tazed and held at gunpoint, Minori comes to her rescue. Then, both of them make an entrance to save Shinichi and Miusel from the burning library.
• The Big Guy: Bluk, the lizardman that the kingdom assigned as manservant for Shinichi's household.
• Bland-Name Product: Numerous examples, and parodied by Matoba's frequent mistake of bringing Shinichi cheap knock-offs of the products he asked for.
• Blank White Eyes: Shinichi displays some briefly when he first sees Miusel.
• Blatant Lies: When Shinichi wishes to bring Miusel back to Japan with him during a shopping trip, Matoba claims that Eldantians cannot breathe the air of Earth, and that their respiratory system will shut down immediately. However, nobody explains this to Miusel, who stows away in Shinichi's luggage and suffers no ill effects from Earth's atmosphere.
• Blithe Spirit: Shinichi inadvertently becomes one, simply by being able to treat people as people.
• Blow You Away: Seems to be the main form of magic used by both elves and half-elves like Miusel.
• Boring, but Practical: After a terrorist sets off a flame orb with the intention of destroying the school, it's put out by a good ol' fire extinguisher. Shinichi he didn't think it'd actually work but tried it anyway.
• Brutal Honesty: Shinichi has trouble keeping his thoughts to himself. It nearly gets him killed twice in episode 2.
  • In Episode 11 Matoba straight up tells Shinichi that he is an unwitting pawn in the Japanese government's plan to conquer Eldant. He also tells Shinichi why he was chosen for the role in the first place; not because of his love of Otaku culture, but because no one in Japan will miss him or care if he disappears forever.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Petrarca cannot seem to tell Shinichi that she likes him directly, instead opting for indirect approaches.
  • Miusel suffers from this as well; she was content with her current situation until the appearance of Elbia. She also tends to drop hints that she has feelings for him that are deeper than a mere servant-master relationship but never outright tells him that.
• Captain Ersatz: No character in particular, but every manga, light novels, and whatnot are clearly meant to be something that is published in Real Life.
  • In episode 2, Petrarca is trying to read Gaishi. Later in the episode, Shinichi is reading Attack on Titanic Gods^note Shingeki no Kyoshin, AKA Attack On Titan for Petrarca, especially the part where Hannes tries to save Carla from being devoured by a Titan.
  • In episode 3, Shinichi does a dramatic reading of Attack on Titanic Gods for the students in his school. It's the scene where Eren vows to kill all Titans.
  • From the same episode, it's revealed that Shinichi is a big fan of Rental Madoka and honors the birthday of the eponymous Magical Girl. The alarm he sets in his cellphone is pivotal in bluffing the terrorists later.
  • The first part of episode 5 is essentially an homage to the history of dating sims. We have a parody of Princess Maker, Tokimeki Memorial, and Da Capo II, with the last one even directly parodying a scene introducing main heroine Yume.
  • Later on in episode 5, we see a parody of Seitokai Yakuindomo called Seitokai Yakuintachi, and the heroine in question is called Shino as well.
  • Episode 6 is centered around sports-based series like The Prince of Tennis, Inazuma Eleven, and Kuroko's Basketball.
• Chekhov's Skill: Miusel's startlingly quick mastery in speaking Japanese turns out to be the reason the group was able to uncover the plot of the insurgents, as she manages to act as a translator while their translator rings are off, with their enemies none the wiser. She goes from awkwardly able to speak the language to being quite fluent in just twenty days.
  • In episode 7, because the rings have no effect outside of Eldant, she is shown to speak Japanese fluently enough that the ring isn't necessary.
• Child Soldiers: Shinichi is shocked to learn that young children are trained to be soldiers. This is typical for to non-human races as military service is the quickest, easiest job for them to get and is a path to citizenship.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Shinichi. He reacts with excitement to his harem and Minori, but he is also the kindest guy in the series.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Petrarca, and it's the main reason why she antagonized Miusel in the beginning.
  • Miusel is one to a lesser extent. She obviously doesn't like Elbia hanging on Shinichi so much, as she feels her usefulness to Shinichi isn't as important. She also tries to wordlessly brush off Elbia's advances towards Shinichi, but Minori calls her out on this, and she lets slip that she'll have to work harder.
  • In episode 7, Miusel is shown to be attached to Shinichi, enough that she actually disguises herself as luggage and sneaks into Japan with him. And when he spends a night with Peltralka in episode 8, she suffers a Heroic BSoD from it.
  • Petrarca gets jealous over Shinichi's suggestion that Miusel should become a teacher at the school, teaching Japanese. She realizes the implication of them spending pretty much 24/7 with each other.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: At least Miusel and Bluk are. When Shinichi accidentally started hitting Bluk in a panic, Bluk just said the attacks were weak, as he had scales to protect himself, and offers Shinchi a stick to hit him with. When Miusel finds out, she was much more worried about Shinichi's knuckles bleeding than she was about Shinichi's reason for punching Bluk. It turns out that masters beating their servants was a common occurrence in their world, and thus they accept it accordingly.
• Conversational Troping: During Shinichi and Minori's first day at school. Their lessons are on Zettai Ryouiki, Vapor Wear, Dude Looks Like a Lady/Unsettling Gender-Reveal.
• Cope by Creating: A while after the werewolf Elbia joins the protagonists as their group artist, she starts hiding away in her room, drawing non-stop while avoiding food, sleep, and baths. Shinichi confronts Elbia over this, fearful that he's turned her into a hikikomori. Instead she explains that short-term obsessive episodes are considered perfectly normal for werewolves, who had to find more socially acceptable ways of channeling their hunting instincts after they were integrated into human society. The Animated Adaptation, however, isn't an example - Elbia is shown losing sleep, but it's treated at face value as Shinichi getting her addicted to Japanese art (in general, the adaptation drops out a lot of the novels' racist themes in order to focus more on its allegories for the British opium trade).
• Covert Pervert: Miusel, her favorite manga is their world's equivalent of Seitokai Yakuindomo and her favorite character is SHINO.
• Crapsaccharine World: Eldant looks like a gorgeous fantasy world, complete with magic and dragons and pretty girls. But it's a medieval fantasy world. Classism and Fantastic Racism are rampant, 80% of the people are illiterate, and it's perfectly fine for nobles to beat their servants. Shinichi tries to build an integrated school to teach Japanese, and it's nearly blown up by terrorists who hate the "lesser" races.
• Cunning Linguist: Matoba, the diplomat who is Shinichi's boss, is able to save Shinichi's neck by convincing the queen that 'little girl' has positive connotation.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Interesting variation of this in episode 6's soccer game. The dwarves dominate the first half of the game. But then the second half is dominated largely by the elves once magic use is allowed.
  • The Japanese military vs the giant dragon in episode 10. While the dragon did destroy some things they brought over initially, once they go on the attack, the dragon doesn't stand a chance, and is forced to flee.
  • The soldiers who try to attack Shinichiin episode 12 absolutely gets stomped by Peltralka's elite troops. And when they try a more subtle attempt later, they fail yet again. It's only because Peltralka likes Shinichi that she didn't just kick all the Earthlings out of her kingdom.
• Dark Secret: Petrarca is an elf. The kingdom will crumble if it ever gets out.
  • Which also makes her a particularly unnerving example of Boomerang Bigot, when you consider her initial treatment of Miusel. Then again, half-elves apparently suffer discrimination from both pure humans and pure elves.
• Deadpan Snarker: Petrarca can be really to the point when she sees through someone's attempt to put wool to her eyes.
  • Shinichi often does this in his head as well, especially when in the school.
• Death World: Earth is supposedly this to people from Eldant; they'd quickly suffocate because of the high air density or something. Actually, they have no difficulty surviving on Earth. Matoba made this up to prevent Shinichi from dragging Miusel with him to Japan.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: By the end of the second episode, Shinichi is surprised by how casually Myucel and Brooke accept the idea that he would beat them, since they're servants. He also has a hard time with the fact that nearly 80% of the population is illiterate of that Child Soldiers are a common thing, especially among nonhuman races.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Shinichi tries to convince Petrarca that Elbia is not a foreign spy. Unfortunately, Elbia kept on blurting out lines that made it obvious that she was a spy. Petrarca isn't amused.
  • Also Shinichi trying to convince Petrarca that he's interested in Elbia just for her drawing ability.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Moe is treated like a religion, with Shinichi as its chief of religious mission. When the Japanese 'Papacy' attempt to control Eldant through said religion and threaten Shinichi with assassination if he doesn't play along, Shinichi immediately propose to establish a native church to the queen. The entire thing plays out like the Catholic-Anglican split.
  • Not to mention their plan to hook the Eldant Kingdom's population on anime and manga, and then demand labour and resources from them in exchange for keeping the imports going is very similar to a drug pusher/addict dependency.
• Dull Surprise: Miusel, when she sees Shinichi supposedly getting it on with Elbia, and tries to walk away. Just moments later she displays the same expression when Elbia glomps Shinichi once again.
  • Actually all characters do this, when really shocked. It is played for laughs.
• Elves Versus Dwarves: Even though they are both oppressed by humans, elves and dwarves don't get along with each others. This causes some problems in the desegregated school.
  • This even applies to their favored aspects of moe. The elves love the delicate mastery of the narratives, while the dwarves love the craftsmanship that goes into character figurines. Heated debate ensues.
• Enslaved Elves: Not quite, but when you either go to the military or have a demeaning job, you're on standing on the fringe of slavery.
• Evolving Credits: The first opening uses the same song, but has some slightly different scenes than the one shown later in the series. Some examples are Shinichi falling into the gate between Eldant and Japan versus simply showing it the first time, and still shots used of Miusel and Petralka near the end of the song, as opposed to a fully animated sequence.
• Eyes Always Shut: Matoba. His eyes open once in the first episode, when Shinichi wants to call it quits on his new job and Matoba bluntly asks if he knows the way back. His dull gaze along with his soft chuckle is our first clue to his Affably Evil status.
  • Opens again at the end of episode 11 when Shinichi openly defies him in front of Petrarca. At the start of episode 12, Japanese soldiers try to assassinate Shinichi in his sleep.
• Evil Plan: To take over Eldant by making its entire population into otaku!
• Fantastic Racism: Society treats anyone non-human unfavorably. Non-humans have a difficult time landing a respectable occupation. For many of them, the only way to a decent life is by enlisting in the military.
  • Half-Breed Discrimination: People with mixed heritage like the half-elf Miusel have it the worst, since they are viewed as abominations.
• Feed the Mole: Shinichi's excuse plan to keep Elbia alive and in his company.
• Flame War: An interesting version, Shinichi's students have taken this to real life. They argue what makes a game, the actual game or the figures that come with it. It goes to the point of them insulting each other.
• First Contact: Happened some time before the story actually start. A conflict nearly erupted because the Eldantian initially perceived the bumbling JSDF scouts as alien (human) invaders. The diplomatic mission is established to prevent even bigger faux pas from happening in the future.
• First-Name Basis: The queen orders Shinichi to call her Petrarca.
• Fish out of Water: Shinichi, and later Miusel when she visits Japan.
• Foil: A meta example when compared to Gate, a work that shares a similar premise. Outbreak Company has a Japanese government using a peaceful cultural exchange with ultimately malicious ends; they intend conquest through the provision of cultural goods. Gate on the other hands starts with a Japanese government engaged in the use of military force but they are generally benevolent. Yes they do want to exploit natural resources but they'll happily accept some as part of a peace treaty or diplomatic deal rather than conquering the New World outright.
• Freudian Slip: Miusel unknowingly lets out affirmation of her romantic affection towards Shinichi near the end of episode 5 when Minori teases her.
  Minori: Looks like you can't rest on your laurels anymore.
  Miusel: R-Right. I'll try my best. *silence* O-Oh no, I didn't mean it like that!
• Genre Blindness: Though Shinichi recognizes a lot of anime/manga tropes, he never seems to catch on that he's surrounded by girls like the main character of a harem series. Petrarca even calls him out on it at least once, but Shinichi never catches onto her seemingly Clingy Jealous Girl status. He's actually aware of this too but is playing dumb because he has been dumped in the past for being an otaku, thus subverting this trope.
• The Glomp: Elbia, who has a tendency to glomp Shinichi whenever he makes a statement about not minding her race.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Petrarca is extremely nasty to Miusel because the latter gets more attention from Shinichi. Whether the abuse is exacerbated by or masqueraded as racism is up to debates.
• Guile Hero: Shinichi. In episode 3, he manages to trick the insurgents by pretending his cellphone alarm is a deadly incantation.
• Happiness in Slavery: Non-human races have no concept of personal rights, so being treated pretty badly by humans and being forced to serve in the army for any social mobility is normal to them. Shinichi hopes he can get rid of this by treating everyone equally, but this riles the feathers of some extremist humans.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Shinichi doesn't take it well when he turns out to be an invader to Eldant society after all, even if unwittingly. He goes back to being a shut-in until Miusel breaks him out of it.
  • In episode 8, Miusel doesn't take it very well when she hears that Shinichi is spending the night at the palace with Petralka. She ends up taking a long time making dinner, and when the others complain about it, they go into the kitchen only to find out she's stirring an empty pot, while asking them to just be a little more patient.
• Hidden Buxom: It's surprising, but Miusel's actually quite stacked underneath that maid outfit of hers.
• Hostage Situation: Some conservative terrorists raid the Japan-built school in episode 3, taking hostage of the queen.
• Humanity Is Superior: The foundation of Kingdom of Eldant: humans are not as magical as elves or as industrious as dwarves, but humans are the best to rule. Therefore humans rule, and other races must be 'grateful' for being 2nd-class citizens under human governance.
• Hypocritical Humor: Minori claims Shinichi is teaching the students terms that are too high in level, and suggests she take over for a while. She then proceeds to teach the class BL terms.
  • A group of dwarves appeared to stop some of their classmates from arguing heatedly about Dating Sims, only to declare that they should be debating the relative merits of young girls. Slightly justified since dwarf females remain this size for life.
• I Choose to Stay: At the end of the series, Shinichi is quite happy to remain in the other world with Miusel and the others. It's left ambiguous if the Japanese government would let him go back to Earth, even if he wanted to.
  • Averted in the final volume of the Light Novel, where he returns to Japan with Miusel in tow as his new girlfriend.
• Idiot Hair: Both Shinichi and Elbia sport one.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Nothing fazes Shinichi in the fantasy world, as he's exposed to every fantasy tropes in the anime. The guys they sent before him failed because they were not as Genre Savvy as him.
• Intimate Lotion Application: During the Beach Episode / Episode 9, Shinichi is both elated and nervous when Minori asks him to put sunscreen lotion on her back. While he does it, he can't seem to drag his eyes off her Sideboob, even when they start talking, and she eventually has to tell him to "Stop talking to my sideboob".
• Klingon Promotion: Gallius's parents tried to do this, but it backfired: Petrarca became the Empress instead, and the murderous parents are MIA. See Wham Episode.
• Little Bit Beastly: Elbia, the werewolf girl.
• A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": Not rock and roll per se, but Shinichi's job is to introduce the people of Erdant to contemporary Japanese popular culture.
• Lizard Folk: They are bigger than humans, have blue skin, are protected by tough scales, and their eyes glow bright red in the dark. Bluk is one of them.

• Love Epiphany: Shinichi has one in episode 3, after Miusel takes off her ring and attempts to converse with him in Japanese without help from it. She later also asks to take her back to Japan when he leaves. He pieces the clues of her message together, but tries to beat the romantic notions out of his head, recalling his previous rejection from a girl he liked who rejected his Love Confession due to being an Otaku.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Apparently Elbia's heat cycle was triggered by Shinichi. Minori later asks if she'd just jump any guy out there when it happens, but her second guess that only Shinichi was able to trigger that was correct, as Elbia later confirms.
• Love Redeems: The story of the demon king and his female slave. It really tugs Miusel's heart-strings.
• Luminescent Blush: Miusel gets plenty of these whenever she's alone around Shinichi. It doesn't help that he constantly tries to go out of his way to make her life easier.
  • Petrarca falls victim to this when Shinichi claims she's a "bishoujo".
• Mage in Manhattan: Muisel visits Tokyo in Episode 7, "Maid in Japan".
• Marshmallow Hell: Episode 3, when the terrorists get informed that Shinichi would become a martyr if he's executed, he gets thrown to Minori. She exploits this to have Shinichi to push out a hidden pen knife.
• Meido: Miusel.
  • Also some of the maid cosplayers in Akihabara.
• Mighty Japanese-y: The series might as well be titled Shinichi and The Queen of Eldant, at least at first. Then it ends up being not so simple with Shinichi realizing that the cultural suppression tactics the Japanese government are using are harmful to the native culture and they're perfectly willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of their goal. Realizing he was this trope ends up causing him to have a Heroic BSoD.
  • Bonus Point: Shinichi is here to sell addictive stuffs (namely Moe), just like any good capitalist. His improving the country is just part of building the market. You know, just like the old British Empire. The Japanese government on the other hand are portrayed extremely negatively, which eventually causes their colonization efforts to fail. Just like the British Empire.
• Moe: Played with In-Universe, for all seriousness. Moe will either make or break diplomacy.
  • Not only that, Shinichi even considers Miusel this In-Universe.
• Moment Killer: In episode 8, Miusel is having an almost tearful confession to Shinichi about she doesn't want him to get hurt (complete with dramatic background music) when suddenly her bikini top falls off, the music promptly stops and the next few seconds is Shinichi staring in awe.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • A rather dramatic one happens in episode 3. It goes from being a light hearted comedy with some romance thrown in, and switches gears abruptly when some terrorists infiltrate the school Shinichi had built, with plans to kill him and blow it up.
  • We have a fun-filled episode 7, with lots of gags and cute moments from Miusel... then the tension drops to zero almost immediately when Petrarca trudges off depressed because she couldn't meet Shinichi.
• NEET:
  • After he was rejected by a girl for being an otaku, Shinichi spent some time being one. He already got over it, though.
  • Petrarca decides to become one after being over stressed with all of her work. Shinichi helps her go full NEET, but later shows to her that her staff members are worried about her and his own history as a NEET to snap her out of it.
• Never Learned to Read: Played straight for the demi-humans in the other world. Only nobility get to learn to read and write, and they're all humans. Later subverted when Shinichi sets up a school for them and starts to teach them how to do so.
  • Played straight and subverted in the case of Miusel. She can read, write, and speak Japanese thanks to Shinichi's guidance, but apart from being able to speak Eldantian, she is unable to read or write in her native language.
• Nice Guy: Shinichi, excessively so.
• Nosebleed: Shinichi gets one whenever he sees a well-endowed woman.
• Oblivious to Love: Subverted, Shinichi notices that Miusel might like him. Due to past experience, he tries to pass it off as him reading too much into the situation. Played straight with Petrarca.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Rare inverted, heroic example. In episode 12, Japan attempts to kill Shinichi after he attempts to stop their attempts at cultural warfare with Eldant. Both of their attempts fail, and after the second one Petralka threatens to cut off all diplomatic ties if the Japanese government attempted to kill him again, or hindered his work at introducing otaku culture to them. It seems to work, as Matoba later says that what Shinichi is doing may benefit them more in the long run, and for now at least, allows him to continue working without threatening his safety.
• Off with His Head!: Petrarca nearly executes Shinichi after he cheerfully calls her "little girl" in a burst of excitement. In episode 3, he is almost beheaded again by a group of insurgents.
• Older Than They Look: Petrarca qualifies; she's already turned 16 years-old but doesn't look to be older than a 10 year-old girl.
  • And the dwarves. Dwarf males look like short, old men from early childhood, and dwarf females still look like little girls even when they grow old.
• Otaku: Shinichi is a particularly well-versed one. The knowledge helps him greatly in the fantasy world. His father and mother are a light novel author and an eroge illustrator respectively. He is truly a thoroughbred otaku.
  • Which also makes this an almost-example of Most Writers Are Writers.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Elbia is a werewolf, but she looks no different from a human girl, save for the fluffy ears and tail. She does have some strange behavior, though, such as her obsession with chasing balls and her tendency to run on all fours when she's excited.
• Out of Focus: Played straight. Petrarca's involvement seems to have greatly diminished after the initial episodes. Episode 5 has her reduced to having a gag scene, and she's actually one of the main heroines. Justified in light of the recent terrorist attack on her life, which required her to tone down her public presence and prevented her from regularly visiting Shinichi's school.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: During the filmmaking in episode 10, the Japanese govt builds a giant robot dragon, after attempting to use a real one failed. Unfortunately, a real dragon shows up, destroys the robot one, and proceeds to attack the characters. Gallius attempts to gather the Erdant soldiers to defend against the dragon, only to then be forced to stand around in awe as the Japanese Army, using modern human weaponry, delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to said dragon, forcing it to flee.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Parodied. Gallius promises Petrarca he'll summon Shinichi if she finishes a huge stack of paperwork, only to discover that he's in Japan and can't be brought back quickly enough. So Zaharl puts on a completely unconvincing Shinichi disguise... which Petrarca sees through immediately.
• Patriotic Fervor: The conservative terrorists ain't gonna let no stinkin' foreigners change their way of life, especially if it means liberation of lowlives and equalization of the citizens.
• People of Hair Color: Elves, including half-elves, have hair in the lighter shades of brown and eyes in the shades of purple.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The 12-Episode Anime adaptation follows the rough outline of the first 4 volumes of the series, but with many of the details changed. Most notably:
  • Brooke was never a major character but here he's Demoted to Extra, with any hint of his backstory or connection to the lizardman Tribal Council being Adapted Out. His wife Cerise appears only as a cameo in the opening credits. By contrast Romilda and Loek receive extra focus.
  • The Eldant soccer tournament from book 3 is compressed into a single Elves Versus Dwarves match between Shinichi's students.
  • Petrarca's bout of ennui is concluded long before the movie filming; as a result Gallius has no opposition to the project, and even acts in it himself. The anime version of "Faldra" isn't a marionette dragon lifted by wyverns but rather a walking animatronic built by the JSDF, and is destroyed before it can be used.
  • The Beach Episode draws loosely on material from book 7, while Myusel's trip to Japan is anime-original (though a similar event would happen in book 9, released after the anime's completion).
  • Book 4's Sequel Hook is removed by having the attack on filming come from a wild dragon, rather than one under Bahairam control. Instead the anime's finale is the "Shinichi angers the Japanese government" storyline from book 2.
• Pragmatic Hero: When a terrorist has a magical fire bomb about to go off, what does Shinichi do? Put it out with a fire extinguisher.
• Properly Paranoid: It turns out the terrorists in Episode 3 were right about Shinichi and the Japanese being a threat to Eldant society, though Shinichi is an Unwilling Pawn.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Elbia, who is an actual werewolf.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Petrarca occasionally comes off as a Royal Brat, but is quick to cite when a ruler should be merciful with her subjects. After Miusel nearly sacrificed herself to save her, she even completely drops her previous Fantastic Racism towards her. Later on she spares Elbia and allows her to work for Shinichi as an artist.
  • All things considered, Matoba is a very reasonable boss for Shinichi. After the terrorist incident, Shinichi wonders whether he's actually an invader and that the ultra-nationalists are right. Matoba reassures Shinichi that he is not, as long as he doesn't hold the invader mindset.
• Retired Badass: Miusel and Bluk were part of the military before taking their current jobs as a maid and gardener respectively.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Surprisingly, Petrarca quickly transitions into this, diligently learning Japanese and helping Shinichi build an un-segregated school (even though she's leery of the idea). Her cousin and advisor, Gallius, has an active role as a military leader.
• Running Gag: Shinichi's tendency to go into outbursts and illiciting disdainful glares from everyone in the vicinity.
  • Minori's obsession with BL and insistence on pairing Shinichi and Garius. Later on, her repeatedly asking Shinichi if he's considering including BL into the lesson curriculum.
• Scenery Censor: Happens during the movie shoot in episode 10. While Shinichi does get a good look, the view for audiences is conveniently blocked out by various stuff.
• Self-Deprecation: Done at the start of episode 7 when Shinichi outright calls the director of a Minami-ke Okaeri parody "terrible". The director of its real counterpart also directed this anime.
  • It gets even more hilarious when you consider that Okaeri was actually well-received, compared to the previous season, which was widely regarded as awful.
  • Brick Joke: The director gets his payback by removing Miusel's lewd scenes with Shinichi in the episode, as revealed in the next episode preview.
• Serious Business:
  • What was supposed to be a friendly soccer match between elves and dwarves in episode 6 turns into this, as both sides go all out to win. Including destroying the field with magic and massive physical attacks.
  • Shinichi getting mad about the Japanese government constantly getting the wrong items he requests at the beginning of episode 7. And then totally forgetting to get said items when he goes back to Japan himself due to Miusel sneaking there with him.
  • Petrarca orders a group of the Empire's finest scholars and sages to deliberate on the perfect swimsuit for her. They take the job immensely seriously, with bitter Death Glares being passed around the table when one man shoots down another's suggestion.
• Shout-Out: So many that they get their own page.
• Shown Their Work: Despite the initial silly premise, it seems as if a lot of work was done in accurately representing a "What If?" situation in the face of such a culture clash. Many logical steps are taken in developing the Erdant Empire to become a country fit for enjoying foreign entertainment, including access to better technology (the windmill power plant) and better education (the school). It even takes the class structure aspect seriously, as even though Shinichi is shown to be teaching mostly nobles, he helps Miusel study just as much and intends on integrating the other races in his school as well.
  • The next episode preview is framed as part of videogame played by Bluk. When he starts it, he first blows the root part of the cartridge, just like how you start problematic copies of old NES or SNES games.
• The Smurfette Principle: Romilda is the only female dwarf out of all the students in Shinichi's class.
• Stylistic Suck: Shinichi does this in episode 10 with a movie, after someone leaks the footage the Japanese soldiers shot of the soccer game during episode 6. He does this to fool people into thinking said footage was merely a fantasy movie the Japanese military was making, and deliberately infringes on many copyrights in order to get cease and desist letters from the companies that own those copyrights.
• Super-Deformed: Several of the characters in the opening title.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Used to hilarious effect when Elbia constantly shoots herself in the foot as Shinichi interrogates her to prove that she's not a spy.
• Spell My Name With An S: Miusel, Myusel, Miuseru, Myuseru...
• Take a Third Option: In episode 11, Shinichi is forced to continue doing his job in spreading otaku culture, despite the Japanese government monopolizing the supply and manipulating Eldant society's demand into submission. If he does not, he'll be "replaced". What does he do? He gives Petrarca the idea that Eldant should make their own products, eliminating the need to rely on the Japanese government for their products.
• Taking the Bullet: Miusel takes a knife aimed at Petrarca, much to her shock. Petrarca even orders Miusel not to die on her.
• Taking You with Me: The terrorists in episode 3 attempt this by setting off their flame bomb. Fortunately for everyone, Shinichi manages to put it out with a fire extinguisher.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: Subverted in episode 3. While they seem like your typical racist supremacist group and they claim to view Japan as nothing but invaders, only taking captive of a few nobodies in our world to make a statement, when Shinichi calls the leader out on their Fantastic Racism motives, the leader AGREES. At the same time, the terrorists want to maintain the status quo, and continue to see Shinichi as a threat.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Petrarca after Miusel took a knife for her is much kinder to Miusel and seems to have abandoned her racism.
  • In episode 6, she is happily chatting with Miusel.
• Translator Microbes: Come in the form of rings that enable its wearers to understand and speak Eldantian. It's a telepathy-based magical artifact and doesn't work on recordings or if speaker and listener both aren't wearing a ring. For this reason, when the diplomatic mission need to discuss sensitive matters, they simply take off the rings.
  • The only kingdom citizen who can 'talk' to Shinichi without rings is Miusel, who learned Japanese kana from him. She's, in fact, become so fluent in Japanese that she was able to spend a whole day in Japan without much trouble aside from some cultural issues.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Parodied. A post-episode preview reveals that Miusel survives being stabbed, since it shows her perfectly alive in an upcoming scene. The narration pretends that we still don't know if she survived, until a second narrator interrupts to lampshade her obvious not-deadness.
• Trapped in Another World: Downplayed. Shinichi is shanghaied to another world and forbidden to return to his home country, but he's enjoying this latest twist to his life.
• Tsundere: Petrarca frequently acts this way towards Shinichi. In episode 5, she intentionally puts on a stereotypical tsundere act, mistakenly calling it "tsundora" (tundra). Bonus points for her hilariously attempting to emphasise the tsun part of the act by going "Hmph!".
  • Even Gallius pulls off a tsun "Hmph!" in episode 4 on Shinichi.
• Undying Loyalty: Miusel makes it a point early on that she's eternally grateful to Shinichi for everything he's done for her, including teaching her how to read and write, allowing her to befriend the Supreme Ruler, and helping to eliminate Fantastic Racism altogether. She also doesn't hesitate for a second when Shinichi asks if she would come with him to Japan if they ever got the chance.
  • This finally reaches a point in the penultimate episode, where she outright states that he'll always be her master, and she doesn't care if he's an invader or not, because his kindness is genuine and both her life and the lives of everyone else in Eldant have improved thanks to him.
  • In the last episode, when Shinichi is knocked out in a burning building and Miusel isn't able to carry him to safety, she stays by his side, using her magic to protect him from the flames for as long as she can. When it looks like her magic is going to run out before help will arrive, she refuses to abandon him, even if it means she'll die as well.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Elbia had no idea she was a spy as she was just paid to draw locations. Minori even suspected as much but knew there was nothing that could be done.
  • Shinichi for the Japanese government.
• Verbal Tic: Elbia ends her sentences in "-su".
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Minori keeps a knife there, it's really useful during the hostage situation of episode 3.
• Weaksauce Weakness: A Fantastic Nuke gets defused by a fire extinguisher.
• Wham Episode: Subverted in episode 3; Miusel appears to die, but the next-episode preview intentionally reveals her survival. And subverted again in the beginning of the next episode, in which Petrarca and the doctors seem to be mourning the loss of Miusel, but it turns out they were mourning the death of Petrarca's fish, Elizabeth.
  • Episode 8 is a straight example. Gallius reveals that his parents murdered Petrarca's parents, and the former emperor (her grandfather) died from grief. Since Petrarca inherited the throne, Gallius's parents were presumably exiled or executed. Unusually for this sort of trope, Petrarca knows all of this, and her bossy tsundere attitude is apparently a facade to cover up how upset she is over this situation.
  • Episode 11, full stop. Matoba finally makes clear that their spreading of otaku culture was nothing short of an invasion to allow the Japanese government to monopolize Eldant's resources.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Shinichi initially thinks Eldant is your typically fairy tale kingdom where everyone lives happily and class issues are minor. Nope. Concepts like human rights and equality are not only alien to their culture, but downright offensive. Beating a servant is absolutely normal, and the servant can't do anything about it. Being suspected of being a spy makes you guilty, even if you were an Unwitting Pawn. Showing you're better than the nobility at something, or interrupting them during a personal moment, can get someone discharged, beaten or executed.
• Yandere: In-universe, one of the characters in a gal game that Shinichi was showing to his class is this.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Minori, she seems to ship Shinichi and Gallius, based on the second episode and the opening.
  • And confirmed as of episode 4.
    • Romilda, if her argument with Roic in episode 6 is any indication.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Shinichi suffers a Heroic BSoD upon Matoba's revelation in episode 11, that Japan was using cultural warfare via otaku culture as a means to invade Eldant. He later tells Miusel that he's an invader and it may have been better off if he wasn't there. However, she quickly points out the many things he's done to help bring Eldant society closer than ever before, and tells him to never say being there was a bad thing. It snaps him out of his depression.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Even if Shinichi wants to, the location of the rift to Japan is not disclosed to him.
  • If he is ever allowed to go back to Japan, he has to get drugged willingly before the special forces bring him back to his home.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Japanese government attempts to kill Shinichi after he throws a Spanner in the Works in their takeover plans by suggesting Eldant create their own work, rather than rely solely on the Japanese government giving them stuff. Fortunately for him, Petralka also realizes this, and helps protect his life.
• Younger Than They Look: Male dwarves are this trope to eleven. At age ten, they have full beards and some of them even have male pattern baldness. The anime even lampshades, when we see a male dwarf, there is a caption saying age 10. However, this is apparently averted for female dwarves like Romilda.
  • Female dwarves, on the other hand, are Older Than They Look eternal young girls!
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Minori helpfully points out that inequality is in the fabric of Eldantian society, and that forcing the issue may be detrimental to Japanese interests.

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