"Loving both evil and cowboy movies as much as the next guy, the sinister Emperor Von Mal was unable to hold back his grin and was practically skipping for joy as he speedily drew his ray gun and in 1 [sic] smooth motion fired when the countdown had only gotten to "2" (The bad guys were so evil they didn't even care about playing fair and following the rules, you see, and Von Mal was certain his perfect draw would have won him the award for fastest hands in the west)"
— Togetherly Long's opening paragraph.
When a crazed conqueror from space lands in the fantasy-setting village in which nearly ten year old Oukii and his life-long friend/pet/guardian/brother/sister/sidekick Chiisai live, a duel ensues for the fate of the planet, and when one of our heroes receives life threatening injuries, the evil emperor offers his partner a deal: Join him and live as his slave, and he'll provide the necessary technology to save her best friend's life.
It's not just a choice between life and liberty, but the heroes live by a simple rule: Always do the right thing, no matter what. Though joining the villains is wrong and her friend would gladly die for their ideals, Chiisai can't stand the thought of being left alone again, and so she betrays her beliefs in order to save her best friend, blasting off with her new master that very night and leaving her newly healed best friend behind.
But all is not lost, because Oukii is able to pull the spear of the great hero Yuushi from the ground, and with its power rescues his friend and defeats the villain, blowing up his ship in the process and raining down all kinds of technology on the land that the inhabitants have never seen before.
The story continues with the people of the land slowly adopting the new technology, as the villain plots his revenge on the hero who bested him.
The Villains:
- Von Mal, an evil emperor and Card-Carrying Villain whose hobbies include conquering planets (is said to have already conquered 999,999,999 planets, making this next one his millionth), turning people into statues to keep as trophies, and feeling like a cowboy.
- Teeves, the emperor's number one minion and a robotic flying TV, he enjoys serving his master, using the knowledge he's gained from studying everything there is to know in the universe to educate others, and has been known to bend the rules to aid the heroes behind his master's back
The Heroes:
- Oukii, the hero.
- Chiisai, an unidentified magical creature resembling a giant newt with quills, she's Oukii's best friend who single-handedly raised him after finding him as a baby in the jungle. She still likes to think of him as her little Oukii sometimes, and though scared of many things, she's happy to stand by his side against danger as his sidekick.
Tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Used in two ways, namely:
- Nearly every named location in the land of Kuni, for example, the hill "Sparkle Slope" or the cliffs "Dangerous Drop."
- The titles of of all the multipart episodes, for example, "Starry Story Start" or "Emperor's Escape."
- Adoptive Peer Parent: Chiisai was saved from the loneliness and fear of living by herself in the jungle when she found the parentless Oukii as a baby wandering around for help. Though her age isn't given explicitly, she's said to be a few years younger than Oukii by the time he's grown up to be around ten due to her species aging slowly, and though at that point their relationship has really changed to be more like best friends than parent and child, she still likes to think of him as her little Oukii sometimes.
- An Aesop: Several:
- In episode 4 we learn, "Teasing can be fun as long as no one gets hurt."
- In episode 6 after many kids have been injured by adults rolling wheels down hills a thinly-veiled message about drunk driving gets summed up as, "The world would be a lot safer for all of us if we were all just a little more careful."
- In episode 8 after Von Mal treats Chiisai unkindly, we find out that, "Even bullies deserve love."
- In episode 13 after Chiisai had befriended Teeves during her brief stay on Von Mal's ship, we're told that, "You'll always be able to find a friend, even in the most unexpected of places."
- In episode 15 during a story line revolving around Oukii not liking baths in which Chiisai discovers that his main concern was getting water in his ears when she held his head under the water to wash his hair, we're told that, "Even boys can enjoy bathtime if we just work a little harder to keep it fun."
- Artificial Limbs: Oukii, who with the strength of his robotic arm was able to pull Yuushi's spear from the ground after having failed previously back when the only arms he had were made of meat.
- Big Brother Instinct: Oukii loves Chiisai with all his heart and will be by her side in a heartbeat if he ever feels she needs a hug, a kiss and a nuzzle to comfort her.
- Child Hater: The town cooper, who can't stand the sound of their happiness and isn't above loudly telling his friends how much he hates them and wants them to go away in order to be overheard on purpose, and he's also broken the baker's son's arm twice due to a lack of regard for their safety.
- Dehumanizing Insult: Von Mal says that sentient magical creature Chiisai is not a person or even an animal because of how odd she looks, and he says that she's nothing more than a "thing," immediately causing her to have to cry into Oukii's chest.
- Evil Is Petty: Von Mal, evil Galactic Conquerer and tyrant of almost a million worlds that he is, still isn't happy unless he cheats in duels by firing when the countdown reaches "2," doesn't allow two best friends to say goodbye after he enslaves one of them and takes her away, literally tosses the other friend out the window of his spaceship, bullies his new slave by giving her contradictory orders (such as "don't speak" and "always acknowledge an order given to you") and then shouts at her for failing them regardless of what she does, calling her a crybaby and chanting, "cry, cry, cry!" at her when she starts to show tears in her eyes, bullies another one of his minions by giving him cake on his birthday and punishing others who bully him, never wears his seatbelt, pilots an escape pod and watches a transmission at the same time, gloats over having enjoyed a delicious meal and not shared with his number one minion, refuses to do any work around his evil lair but lounges around all day and but still takes the credit for fixing it up, insults a nonhuman sentient creature by calling her a "thing" and making her cry, and scares the Kid Hero whose number one fear is heights by swinging him around high up in the air and threatening him with how he could fall at any moment.
- The Food Poisoning Incident: Von Mal experiences symptoms (or "side effects" as the story calls them for some reason) similar to a cold as he has, "a cold sweat, blurry vision, a headache, aches and pains over his whole body and a feeling like he might throw up" after eating some of the land of Kuni's dangerous abunai mushrooms when he was forced to survive on his own in the woods for a day. When Teeves discovers what's happened, he's horrified as his master will presumably die (Though the Never Say "Die" that's so strong in this story means this isn't explicit) if he doesn't get cured by sunset, and so he goes out to collect a cure for his master, leaving him behind alone. While he's gone, Von Mal nearly kills himself accidentally when he sees his reflection in the mirror and not realizing what it is in his current state, fires at it with his ray gun. The blast would have bounced back and hit him had Teeves not returned just then and knocked him out of the way, but things still aren't better, because the cure that Teeves brought is ten pounds of berries and nuts and his master is so spoiled that he doesn't want to eat what he considers to be peasant food even if it will save his life. Eventually Teeves convinces him to at least try the food, and when his master is immediately cured after just tasting it, he admits that the large quantity he brought was only there to make the idea of just tasting a small amount seem more palatable. His master is not amused and chases him around their lair as the story for some reason thinks it's a good idea to attempt a "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending, which makes so little sense in a written work that the author has to explain the effect he was going for right after.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Several examples:
- The names of Oukii, Chiisai, and Yuushi are all simply Japanese words and mean "big," "small," and "hero" respectively, though in the case of "Oukii" the name is slightly misspelled, as it should have been romanized as "Ookii."
- The land of Kuni itself where the story takes place, as "kuni" simply means, "land."
- Overlaps a bit with Department of Redundancy Department when a villager is described picking "delicious oishii berries" or when translated "delicious delicious berries."
- Nearly the same as above with "dangerous abunai mushrooms" or "dangerous dangerous mushrooms."
- Kid Hero: He's only ten and smaller than most of the other boys he knows, but Oukii never lets that get him down, and he's still more than willing to do his best in order to protect his planet from the malevolent Emperor Von Mal.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Oukii seeks to pull the spear of the great hero Yuushii from the ground and fulfill both his dream and the legends by becoming the next big hero; however, he is unable to do so until he has his arm replaced by a robotic one.
- Never Say "Die": During the duel for the fate of the planet when Chiisai is standing in the way to protect Oukii from having a Coup de Grâce administered to him by Von Mal, it's only said that Chiisai would rather "be destroyed" than let her best friend "end." Even death in the past seems to be taboo, as the story says that Oukii, normally a brave Kid Hero who's willing to face any danger, has one true fear of heights, but it doesn't say it's because he's an orphan whose parents died in a fall when he was a baby, but it says instead that it's because, "he didn't have parents because of a great fall they'd had when he was a baby."
- Purple Prose: Appears seemingly randomly during the "Bathtime Blues" story line. Without warning the story simply switches gears for two episodes before returning to business as usual just as quickly.
- Science Fantasy: On the one hand you have Oukii and his magic spear and other such stuff, and then on the other, you have Von Mal and his ray gun.
- Spike Shooter: Chiisai, who can throw her quills easily and have them grow back in only a few days.
- Super-Speed: Teeves, who's able dodge attacks so quickly that he simply seems to have disappeared and shown up somewhere else.
- Taking the Bullet: Chiisai does this for Oukii when Von Mal's about to shoot him with his ray gun. Things don't quite go as expected, however, because Chiisai ends up transforming from a boy into a girl.
