"With the birth of the machine, are we walking the path to our destruction?"
Lychee Light Club (Litchi Hikari Club) is a Manga adaptation of the Tokyo Grand Guignol production of the same name, detailing the story of a vaguely fascist-tinted club of nine middle school age boys in their endeavor to create life for their own purposes. Cobbled together of a mixture of human and robotic parts, the elegant machine Litchi is sent by the boys to procure a girl their own age for as of yet unknown reasons. A new theatrical play is in production based off the manga, and Usumaru Furuya announced a continuation series on his website that would reveal more about the cast.
The original manga is available in English from Vertical Inc.
Not to be confused with Litchi Faye-Ling.
This series contains copious amounts of Gorn.
Litchi Hikari Club provides examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: The boys' base of operations.
- Ambiguous Innocence: The club has no problem gutting a teacher or removing the eyes of a classmate, but are cripplingly shy in the presence of girls their own age.
- Apple of Discord: Kanon's presence gradually disrupts everything in the Club, especially after she begins to spend time with Litchi and influence his behavior. Once Jaibo realizes that Zera is attracted to Kanon, his jealousy is a key factor in his betrayal of Zera.
- Art Shift: Between the original and the prequel, as the boys get older and more extreme the more angular and stylized the art becomes.
- An Arm and a Leg: Zera gets an arm ripped off in the last chapter by Litchi.
- Artificial Human: Litchi, "The Elegant Machine", is programmed to become more and more human, with results even the Club members couldn't have predicted.
- Axe-Crazy: Jaibo is responsible for the most gory, brutal kills in the manga aside from those done by Litchi, and at the end, is revealed to be Zera's betrayer.
- Berserk Button: For Litchi, it's being forced to kill Kanon.
- Beware the Honest Ones: Tamiya, “Bullet of Truth”
- Blindfolded Trip: The fate of the classmate caught trespassing. To start with, anyway.
- Chekhov's Gun: The toilet makes a critical appearance in the last chapter as Zera gets it run through his body by Nico.
- Chekhov's Skill: Kanon tells Litchi that she can hold her breath longer than anyone because of her swimming lessons. This lets her fake being drowned during the "execution by roses" and turn the tables on Zera and Daibo.
- Chess Motifs: Addressed by Zera himself, invoked by Tamiya.
- The Chosen One: Zera believes this of himself, and it's how the rest of the Hikari Club sees him. When he was younger, he was told by a fortune-teller that he would either rule the world by the age of 30, or die by the age of 14. The latter comes true.
- Crapsack World: Keikou city doesn't exactly appear to be the nicest place in the world.
- Creating Life: The Hikari Club creates a living machine, Litchi, which eventually begins to think of itself as human, especially once Kanon starts interacting with it.
- Creepy Child: In the prequel, Jaibo (rumored to have drugged a classmate as a child and loves killing animals) more so then Zera (rejects love and adulthood after his parents' miserable divorce strands him in Keikou).
- Deliberately Monochrome: Cover and fan art seems to follow a palette of black, white, crimson and yellow/gold.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": "Is my blood Tsunegawa? No. Is my flesh Tsunegawa? No. Tsunegawa is vague and intangible. According to the Hikari Club, I am designated as Zera."
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Before it's graphically revealed that Daibo is male, with his long hair and somewhat effeminate face, it's easy to mistake him for a girl.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Kanon in chapters three and four. Dafu goes against Zera's order to leave Kanon untouched and masturbates while molesting her while she's unconscious.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: By the end of the story, Kanon is the only survivor.
- Eye Scream: Removing the eyes of the student who trespassed in chapter one. Niko's eye removal as well.
- Eyepatch of Power: Inverted with Dafu, “Dream Seeing Eyepatch”
- Finger-Tenting: Zera, “Emperor Of Ruin”
- Flash Back Echo: Opening of chapter four.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Zera is a heartless, manipulative dictator to start with, and gets more and more unhinged as the story progresses.
- Giggling Villain: Jaibo is somewhere between this and Verbal Tic
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Niko, which is rather odd for an eighth grader. The prequel reveals that he sacrificed his eye because Zera wanted Litchi to have a hardened human eyeball.
- Gorn: It was taken from a Grand Guignol production, so you know this is in the cards.
- Gratuitous German: Again, primarily in the first chapter.
- Growing Up Sucks: "We are not rejecting growth. What we reject is the fact that you haven't died." Also, Jaibo is afraid that his growing up and suffering the effects of puberty will make Zera cease to love him. So it can be argued that a lot of the chaos that happens can be traced to to the fear of becoming an adult. The prequel reveals that Zera's parents' divorce was the reason he came to town; having his mother constantly saying he reminds her of his lousy father probably didn't help his view of adulthood.
- Hidden Eyes: Kaneda most often, but the school caps are equal opportunity obscurers.
- Kids Are Cruel: All the Club members actively participate in horrible deeds, with some enjoying it more than others.
- Last-Name Basis
- Licking the Blade: Jaibo does this just before before eviscerating a history teacher from his school.I haven't tried this since frog dissection.
- Made of Plasticine: Two deaths, both at Litchi's hands. He bends Kaneda backwards until his spine snaps and he's literally folded in two, and he hits Jaibo hard enough to pancake him into an unrecognizable pile of goo.
- Meaningful Rename: At least Zera, but other members of the club seem to answer to a name other than their birth name. Additionally, the nicknames/titles presented with each member on the cover all reflect some aspect of their personality or appearance.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Niko and Jaibo are utterly devoted to Zera. By the end, though, both have turned on him.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Emperor of Ruin, Zera's descriptive article on the cover. This becomes more and more apt as the story progresses, especially since he relates himself to the mad Roman emperor Elagabalus.
- New Transfer Student: How Zera is introduced in a flashback, complete with Friendless Background.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Jaibo really likes Zera and Tamiya.
- Number of the Beast: Used to activate Litchi.
- Numerological Motif: Zera counts off the club members in German when asking things of them as a group.
- Oral Fixation: Kaneda appears to be perpetually chewing on his left thumb.
- The Power of Blood: Invoked with the litchi wine in chapter two.
- Prequel / Interquel / Mind Screw Driver: Bokura no Hikari Club, about the founding of the original Hikari Club by Tamiya, gets a little more into some of the characters' heads and eventually catches up with Litchi. For example Tamiya didn't exactly feel nothing when Jaibo killed the student and teacher at the beginning of Litchi.
- Pretty Boy: The club believes even their innards are beautiful, although it's more like they believe their bodies are somehow purer than disgusting adults. Zera is very disappointed when the blood starts flowing and he's not that different from a normal human inside or out.
- Psycho Supporter: Jaibo. In true fashion though, he ends up ruining pretty much everything.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Possibly the entire club, although Jaibo is the most prominent by far.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Club members are often depicted with red eyes in color fan art to go with the series' apparent palette.
- Restraining Bolt: Zera reveals in the last chapter that Litchi has one. Harming Zera in any way will cause him to self-destruct.
- Rule of Three: "And now, the curtain rises on the Tokyo Grand Guignol's third performance of Litchi Hikari Club."
- Sadistic Choice: Zera forcing Tamiya to chose between executing Dafu and having his little sister crushed by Litchi in chapter four.
- Say My Name: "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" "Zera!" ad infinium
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Zera. Dentaku's are always clear.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: Somewhat justified in that the club tends to meet after school most of the time.
- Secret Circle of Secrets: The Hikari Club bears resemblance to one, especially in chapter one.
- Sissy Villains: Raizou and Jaibo are the most effeminate of the Club's members, with Jaibo taking it as far as it can go by being Zera's lover.
- Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: Very Gritty, Keikou city appears to be a dying industrial city.
- Smart People Play Chess: Zera is a very skilled chess player and does a lot of his scheming using chess motifs. However, he doesn't realize which play was the correct one to reveal the real traitor until it's too late.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Dentaku “Science Boy”
- Taking You with Me: Nico uses the last of his strength to kill Zera.
- Teen Genius: Zera and Dentaku. Jaibo also turns out to be a lot smarter than what might at first seem.
- There Are No Adults: The only adult that's shown is the teacher who's killed in the first chapter.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: After seeing Litchi kill Kaneda, Kanon tells him that to become truly human, he cannot kill. He tries to keep to this and shuts down after being ordered to kill Nico and Tamiya.
- Torture Cellar: The warehouse is used as one in the opening chapter.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: The Club's members all engage in extremely violent and psychotic acts, and Daibo and Zera are lovers even though they're barely in their teens.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
- Tamiya at the very least, and he still is to an extent.
- The prequel reveals that the members of the Hikari Club used to be sweet kids until Zera started comparing himself to insane emperors and then Jaibo started influencing Zera.
- Villainous Breakdown: Zera slowly but steadily cracks as the Club's activities begin to go more and more off the rails and the members increasingly break away from his control. At points he seems on the verge of a psychotic break.
- Wicked Cultured: Elagabalus is not generally mentioned in middle school curriculum.
- Would Hit a Girl:
- The unfortunate teacher who's stripped, humiliated, and finally butchered in the first chapter.
- Tamiya's little sister is threatened with execution by being crushed by Litchi if Tamiya doesn't kill Dafu and she ends up being violated with a metal pipe anyway.
- In the final chapter, Daibo threatens to kill Kanon in front of Zera, nicking her neck and face with a piece of glass before he's killed by Litchi.
- Yandere: Jaibo is one for Zera. His growing disgust with the other Club members taking Zera's attention away from him, combined with the obsession over Litchi and Zera's attraction to Kanon, caused him to set up everything that happened to the other Club members to keep Zera for himself.
- Yes-Man: Niko “The Faithful Knight”
