Manga / Rave Master

"Quest for glory! Accepting our fate with the power that we own. This is a hero's story, we'll be the greatest the world has ever known!"

—Opening theme to the English dub

Once upon a time, an evil force known as Dark Bring was plaguing the planet, turning hearts twisted and corrupt with its dark power, which in turn sparked wars and turmoil. One man, known as the Rave Master and armed with special powers known as Rave used to counter against the Dark Bring, attempted to stop the madness by tracking the Dark Bring's source and destroying it once and for all.

He... didn't quite get the job done, for as soon as the Rave Master thought victory was his, the source of the Dark Bring proceeded to explode, taking one tenth of the known world's landscape with it—not to mention losing most of Rave's powers in the process.

Jump ahead fifty years on a little-known bit of land called Garage Island, where Haru Glory catches a strange-looking "dog" called Plue while out fishing. One thing leads to another before he's deemed the 2nd Rave Master whose job is to bring peace to the world and save it from the lingering threat of the Dark Bring and those who wield its powers for their own selfish and destructive ends. He gains allies along the way and overall has one heck of an adventure.

Known in Japan simply as RAVE, this was the first major manga to bring success to eventual Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 1999 to 2005 and compiled into 35 volumes. The manga was adapted into an anime in 2001 titled Groove Adventure Rave, which ended in 2002 with 51 episodes that only cover the first third of the story before its premature cancelation. While Hiro Mashima has continued hoping his series will one day get a second chance at adaptation, this stumble has put a big damper in things.

In the United States, the anime was severely edited and aired on Toonami, and didn't see the light of day again for a few years until Sci Fi Channel picked it up as part of their Ani-Monday block. It did feature many Californian voice actors who would go on to better projects, mostly under VIZ Media or Bandai.

The manga as well as the anime was owned by Tokyopop, who dropped the series in 2009 without warning with only three volumes left to go. Thankfully, Del Ray and later Kodansha Comics (who are the holders of Mashima's other series Fairy Tail) picked up the series and released the series from beginning to end. They published the final three books as a single volume.

Though Rave Master ended years ago, it received a fun little revival in Mashima's later work, Fairy Tail. Not only are several characters designs and elements lifted directly from Rave, Fairy Tail eventually featured a Crossover Omake called Fairy Tail x Rave, which was adapted into an Original Video Animation in 2013. Mashima has since continued the tradition in his third major manga, EDENS ZERO, which draws heavily from both series. Rave Master made another return in crossover form on October 16, 2019, this time as a 10-chapter manga series with both Fairy Tail and Edens Zero, titled Mashima HERO'S.

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This manga and anime provides examples of the following tropes:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The roulette table from the first episode sticks out like a sore thumb.
• Action Girl: Julia.
  • Elie as well. She was the weakest early on, but she still had several Action Girl moments, and really got going once she got a power boost in the Blue Guardians arc.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the anime, Elie recalls being branded as a Test Subject 3173 in the middle of her talk with Sieg. There was no Test Subject 3173. In fact, the closest thing to a hint of its origin in the manga is that Resha's hometown was named "Elie Village".
• Aerith and Bob: Belnika, Sieg, and Musica... and Elie, Julia, and Ruby.
• After the End: Technically the world Rave Master is set in was previously destroyed. Someone however went back in time and changed the past to keep it alive.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Used by Plue and Griff. The Jiggle Butt Gang also try to escape this way, but they get stuck, and as a result vent collapses.
• The Alcatraz: Not as extreme as some examples, but Mega Unit, with its Informed Ability, may qualify.
• All Deaths Final: In a stark contrast to Mashima's following series, no one who dies here ever comes back to life. There are death fakeouts, but no resurrections.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Character bios are included in the back of each volume, giving information such as heights, birth dates, hobbies, and even blood types of all significant characters. Try taking Sieg seriously when you know that his hobby is watching clocks. Occasionally, other information like how to translate Symphonian writing or figure out someone's elemental alignment is also included. Lucia was actually born aligned to the light element before changing to dark, something which is never even mentioned as possible in the story itself and makes his name a little more understandable.
  • What happens beyond the first encounter with Oricion Six is only found in the manga.
• Always Someone Better: The first time Haru get his hands on the Ten Powers sword, he has no clue what to do because he's never had sword training. Shiba even thinks to himself that it was a bit much to expect him to master every aspect of being the Rave Master so quickly. Haru does pick up on sword skills as the story progresses, but it's clear that after two years, he's still nowhere near as skilled as Shiba was with his 50+ years of experience.
• Ambition Is Evil: Slade's desire for a promotion pre-story results in King's shift from Well-Intentioned Extremist to full on terrorist, and sparks Lucia's transformation from a shy little child to a psychopath so twisted that even the demon lords feel he's worthy of bowing down to.
• Amnesia Danger: Compare Elie's efficiency in battle toward the start of the series (with amnesia) and toward the end (where she's remembered a lot more). If Elie had never lost her memories, she could have been such a massive help back then. Then again, the story would be over much quicker that way...
• Anachronism Stew: While 50 years ago was very medieval-esque, the present has wizards, mermaids and dragons along with flying ships and machine guns and very modern clothing
• Anti-Magic: One of Belnika's abilities.
  • Also the Ten Powers'/Commandments' Eisenmeteor and Runesave forms are useful for fighting magic users. Eisenmeteor is a normal iron blade, which cannot be affected by magic. Runesave can cut through magic like any other sword can cut through a solid object.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Elie.
• Appropriated Appellation: Demon Card was supposed to be called Demon Guard, but Gale Glory painted their name wrong.
• Art Evolution: Mashima's artwork changes quite a lot during the series.
  • Lampshaded in the chapter where they find out someone made a manga knockoff of their adventure when Musica says the art really sucks and Let claims it gets better starting with volume seven.
• Artifact of Doom: The Dark Bring, and especially the Sinclaire. Dark Bring can grant great powers for its user but will turn the user into evil if used too much.
• Artificial Limbs: Shuda and Lazenby.
• Artistic Age: Elie doesn't look 15, especially in the anime.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Lucia gets one.
• Badass Crew: All of Haru's True Companions are pretty much one-person awesome machines.
• Balloon Belly: Happens to Plue.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Done by Sieg in his fight with Haru. Justified in that, Haru was using a magical sword and Sieg, being a sorcerer, used his magic to stop the blade rather than just his fingers.
  • Also, later in the series, Doryu the Demon Lord blocked Musica's spear with his finger.
• Battle Couple: Let and Julia.
• Because Destiny Says So: More or less the only justification Lucia gives for his actions.
• Berserker Tears: Lucia.
• Big Bad: One for each story arc. Lucia is one for two arcs, and he generally still has a large presence in the arcs where he isn't the chief threat.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Haru and Elie at the end of the series, who have a very heartwarming reunion that turns into a genuinely affectionate and steamy kiss on the lips, right in front of everyone else.
• Big "NO!": As shown by Haru after seeing his big sister sleep with his old rival. Little brother protector syndrome much?
• Birthday Buddies: Gale Glory and Gale Raregroove shared not only the same given name, but also the same birthday.
• Blood from the Mouth: Horribly abused. Characters may experience this simply from being punched in the gut. On rare occasions though, it's because of something a little more plausible.
• Blow You Away: What Reevil of the Blue Guardian's ability is.
• Bound and Gagged: Nagisa when captured by her father Hardner.
• Break the Cutie: The ending to the Levin bonus story—to Haru and Elie's shock.
• Breather Episode: Right before the final battle and right after Sieg's death they throw a party and everyone but Shuda ends up drunk. Actually, in the manga, every grueling battle is followed up by a silly chapter or two.
• Breath Weapon: Let and Julia have the ability to breath fire due to their dragon race.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Plue is a dog. Apparently.
  • He's a bug!
• The Cameo: Cocona, a character from an earlier manga of Hiro's, makes a cameo in one of the chapter covers.
• The Cape: Lazenby is a parody of this.
• Cardboard Prison: For both King and Lucia.
• Casting a Shadow: Doryu.
• The Cavalry: Everyone who the main characters have helped in the past become this when Haru and the gang are overwhelmed by Lucia's Golem Soldiers.
• Changing of the Guard: From Shiba to Haru, though not fully made official until many chapters later down the line.
• Chastity Couple: Let and Julia look and act like they're Vitriolic Best Buds most of the time (or Julia acts this way, and Let acts like the team grandpa). While a relationship is there if you know to look for it, you only know to look because each has a single occasion where they openly say there's something between them.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Alice's potions.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Lucia, Saga, and Resha.
• Clock Roaches: Endless.
• Clothing Damage: This happens to almost every character that fights (much more noticeable in the manga).
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Elie, mixed with some aspects of Genki Girl. Also, seems to really like bugs.
  • She likes bugs so much that she wanted to become one as a child.
• Collector of the Strange: Ruby.
• Cool Big Sis: Julia. A bunch of guys who fall for her even ask if they can call her Big Sister.
• Cool Old Guy: Shiba and Galein Musica... on occasion.
• Cosmic Plaything: The Raregroove family as a whole.
• Covert Pervert: Griff. Practically how he debuts! However, in the English dub, any dirty humor is heavily watered down—though it's still easy to add two and two together.
  • Belnika as well. When Haru strips completely naked to keep Elie's own clothing on (long story), Bel spends the ENTIRE time staring at Haru's... sword.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Two. While most deaths in the manga are swift, to say the least, the last king of Symphonia dies slowly from a magic induced illness shortly after becoming a father. The second, or first depending on how you want to look at it, is Sieg Hart, who starves to death over twenty years before being born. He could have avoided the situation if he'd used the fact that when first going back to Symphonia he had a hole in his gut.
• Cry into Chest: First Haru after he loses his father and hugs Elie in tears, then Elie after she breaks down into heartfelt sobs at the sight of Haru when he returns alive after his final battle with Lucia, tenderly hugging him.
• Curtains Match the Window: For Haru, Elie, Sieg, Reina, and Lucia.
• Cut Short: The anime only covers a third of the manga before it abruptly stops, not even having a Gecko Ending and ending right after the introduction of the true Big Bad. You have to read the manga to find out the rest—which is for your own benefit.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Haru's father left when he was a baby to find Rave and stop his Big Bad Friend. Why this wasn't explained to Haru until he was sixteen is unknown. Why Gale didn't just try talking down Gale before trying to find Rave is simply mind-boggling.
  • Nobody knew about the Big Bad Friend angle, only that Gale Glory had gone off in search of Rave. Haru himself had no particular interest in his father (quite the opposite) so he probably just didn't care to know. Also worth noting is that Haru's father had the Overdrive stuck in him, which as far as he knew could have gone off at any time, making staying the hell away from his children the single best thing he could have done for them in his mind.
• Damsel in Distress: Let us count the times Elie been kidnapped in the series:
  • First by Lance, then Sieg doesn't kidnap her but he comes pretty close to killing her off. She gets snatched up by an Oni and handed over to Doryu. Then Lunar takes her to Hardner. Then Ashura kidnaps her at the beginning of the final battle, then immediately after Haru gets her back, Lucia takes her away, though this one is probably justified since Lucia's the biggest of the Big Bads.
  • There was also an attempt by Shakuma, but that kind of backfired on him, as Elie fights back and ends up responsible for his demise.
• Dance of Romance: Haru and Elie share a brief romantic dance scene in Volume 22.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Let's Roar of the Dragon God, among others.
• Dark Action Girl: Reina.
• Dark Is Evil: Even though Ruby says being aligned to the dark element doesn't make you evil, every villain whose alignment is known is dark. Even King and Lucia, who were born aligned to ocean and light respectively.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite evidence to the contrary (and also the above), the ninth form of the Ten Commandments, the Darkness-aligned Sacrifar, only went screwy with Haru because the form was made to be used by Shiba.
• Death by Origin Story: Inverted. With the exception of parents every character significant enough to get a name who died in an origin story was invariably either actually alive or a spirit in an animal's body.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: The immortal Hardner, and the Endless.
• Defeat Means Friendship: See Heel–Face Turn.
• Department of Redundancy Department: That was strange Poyo. It wasn't normal Poyo.
• Determinator: Everyone.
• Deus ex Machina: An In-Universe example. The reason none of the Rave Warriors ultimately died is thought by the characters to be the world's way of saying "Thanks for saving me." The most egregious example, of course, is Haru being revived a year after Elie destroyed Endless along with him.
• Disappears into Light: Haru.
  • And Lucia, sort of. There's no other way to describe his death, which was just ambiguous enough that he may have actually made it to the original world after all.
• Disc-One Final Boss: King. Demon Card itself is a subversion. Heck, it looks like a highly climactic battle, except that Haru's sword doesn't have all the powers yet and there are still two more rave stones to find.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Lucia loses his parents and childhood. Therefore, the whole world must die.
• The Dog Bites Back: A pretty good way of looking at Lucia's sudden arrival in the story.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Pumpkin Doryu says this after the Rave Warriors learn about his Start of Darkness.
• Draconic Humanoid: Let, at least initially. All members of the Dragon Race go through a phase where they spend some time in this state, before either conquering or succumbing to their inner dragon. Let conquers his and becomes more human-like in appearance afterward. His former flame, Julia, succumbed, and ended up a full-fledged dragon. At least until he cures her after defeating Jegan.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Well, more like a giant tower, but nevertheless this is how Gale Glory died, and yes it was as sudden as the trope implies.
• Dual Wielding: Blue Crimson.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Probably not intentional, but either Nagisa or a girl who looks exactly like her shows up for a few panels in Volume 2. Also, the name Belnika is first used as Nagisa's alias.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Like Father, Like Son.
• Everyone Can See It: Even Lucia, who has spent next to no time with the cast, is able to catch on to Haru and Elie's feelings and mock them for their inability to act.
• Evil Counterpart: King to Gale. Lucia to Haru. And also anyone stupid enough to jump into the Dark Bring Spring.
• Evil Power Vacuum: During the six months where there's no leader of DC.
• Evil Weapon: Sacrifar is actually a subversion. The Decalogue is not.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A sword named Explosion? What does it do?
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Happens quite a bit in the manga, mostly when new moves are introduced to the audience. Possibly deconstructed during the fight with Doryu when Ruby, explaining to our heroes how innate magical alignments work, accidentally reveals the alignments of the heroes to the bad guy. His saving grace was that he changed their alignment to Dark earlier, making the information useless.
• Expository Theme Tune: In the English dub, Raveolution by Reel Big Fish.
  • The full version is even better. Yo!
• Extra-ore-dinary: Musica, Reina, and Ogre.
• Extreme Omnivore: Plue.
• Fan Disservice: Lucia may be attractive, but we didn't need to see his naked butt.
• Fanservice: Chapter 105, which starts off with an image of Reina and Sieg Hart in swim wear.
  • In Book 28, Elie, Belnika, and Nagisa bathe in the hot springs together.
• A Father to His Men: Yuma Ansecto. Members of the Resistance call him "Daddy".
• Fear of Thunder: Elie, after her traumatic first encounter with Sieg Hart.
• Feed It a Bomb: How Shuda counters Deep Snow's rain.
• Feuding Families: The royal houses of Raregroove and Symphonia.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Because if the battle for Star Memory didn't happen with one party already in possession of it then that would hardly be dramatic.
• First Kiss: Elie has hers stolen by Lucia. At least, it was probably her first.
• Flight: Apparently it's second nature for any good sorcerer.
• Foregone Conclusion: It's revealed partway through the manga that Haru and Elie are Levin's parents, so it isn't surprising that those two survive.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: A very humorous way of bringing in an excuse to give the characters medicine that can heal anything.
• Fruit of the Loon: Evermary and apples.
• Full-Potential Upgrade: Ravelt. Shiba's Ten Commandments sword was crafted specifically for his use. As a result, when Haru starts getting into the sword's stronger powers, he can't use them properly, if at all. He's nearly consumed by Sacrifar, for example. With Ravelt, Haru has a sword crafted for his use and could, in theory, use all his forms safely if he used them all after gaining it.
• Gender-Blender Name: Lucia. Big Bad with a girls name that means "light". Hilariously obvious in Volume 32 since whoever wrote the summary on the back hadn't actually read the story and referred to Lucia as "she" or "her" several times.
• Generation Xerox: Seems to be this way for the Raregrooves, Glorys and Musicas, in fact it's a major plot point for the former that this occurs.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Various allies appear to help the Rave Warriors get through the Final Battle's Redshirt Army. Apparently, Sieg Hart from 50 years in the past sent the letters.
• Gonk: Some of the random background characters can be... scary.
• Gotta Kill Them All: The Dark Bring, or, more specifically, the Sinclaire Dark Bring.
• Groin Attack: Elie manages to land one on Julius, but its not until he hits his face that he retaliates.
• Group Picture Ending: The manga closes with a page of the main characters and their friends at Haru and Elie's wedding, smiling at the readers.
• Guns Are Worthless: Hammered home by Lucia catching a bullet with his teeth when fired at from a range too close for any living creature to actually dodge.
• Happily Married: Both Gale and Sakura Glory in a flashback, and then Haru and Elie, at the very same chapel, no less.
  • King and Emilia, also in a flashback.
• Healing Hands: Belnika.
• Heel–Face Turn: Shuda, Let, and Julius to name a few.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gale Glory (Haru's father) and Reina.
  • Don't forget Sieg Hart. He sent Haru and Elie back to the future, then parked himself on a rock so he wouldn't change the past and just sat there until he died.
  • And in the final battle, most characters use a suicide attack to help Haru get to Lucia. Although no one actually dies from them.
  • Haru himself does this at the end of the final battle after he's trapped inside the Endless after defeating Lucia. He convinces Elie (though it takes some effort) to use her magic to destroy it rather then let it destroy the world. Like the example above, he comes back to life.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Many of the Oracion Seis had one of these, but Reina's is higher profile than any of the others except Shuda, who's a special case in many ways. Musica even tells her "You don't belong with these guys... because you're a good person."
• Hitchhiker Heroes: The adventure begins with Haru and Plue. Then they're joined by Elie, Griff, Musica, Let...
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Subverted with Six Guard's Chien, who actually grows stronger when knocked out by his own sleep power.
• Hope Spot: After being defeated by Let, Jegan washes up on an island, and is starting to make new friends, when the island is destroyed by Deep Snow, along with everyone on it.
• Humans Are Bastards: Doryu is a firm believer in this ideology. And given his past it's kind of hard not to sympathize with him.
• An Ice Person: Julius.
• Identity Amnesia: Elie forgot who she was when she acquired amnesia. The name she goes by she guessed must have been hers since it was tattooed on her arm. Her actual name is Resha Valentine. The tattoo was the name of her home village.
• I Did What I Had to Do: King's original justification for Demon Card. His later justification was much different.
• Idiot Ball: Haru has some pretty dumb moments, but he must have temporarily flushed his brain down the toilet when Ruby convinced him that that pile of poo was a snail.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Believe it or not, Lucia.
• Impossible Thief: A Running Gag has Musica and Nagisa stealing each other's underwear right out from under each others' clothes. Musica gets Nagisa's panties once and her bra twice; Nagisa gets his belt and later mentions having snagged his underwear as well.
• Improbable Age: Ignoring that Cattleya took on the role of mom when she was 11, Griff is a six year old pervert.
• Inconsistent Dub: Due to the last three volumes being published by another company, this crops up a bit. Suffixes come out of nowhere, Yuma goes from being 'Daddy' to 'Father', Star Memory becomes Stellar Memory, and the Mystical Realm becomes the Makai world.
  • Also at the very beginning: Haru's sword was initially referred to by its Japanese name of the 'Ten Commandments', but became the Ten Powers from pretty much volume two onward.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: 90% of the dub. The other 10% is incredibly lame fight scenes. Sometimes they overlap.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain/Harmless Villain: The Jiggle Butt Gang.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Often used for scenes more intended to be silly. When the mood is meant to be serious, Manly Tears are used instead.
• Interim Villain: Pumpkin Doryu, who is the primary antagonist between King's death and Lucia reviving Demon Card.
• In the Blood: If your last name is Glory, you're a white haired, gray eyed, justice loving hero who will end up saving the world. If your last name is Raregroove you're a golden eyed blond who started out nice and sweet, suffered some horrible tragedy, and decided to destroy the world. Ironically, the sole survivor of the original world, who distorted time to create the current "parallel world", was Aciela Raregroove.
• Is It Always Like This?: Asked by Sieg upon seeing Elie wanting to climb into the trunk of a horse (?).
• I Surrender, Suckers: Lance.
• Large Ham: King.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Elie. Twice.
• Let Them Die Happy: Subverted. Elie lets Shiba die holding her, because she resembles his dead love. Turns out she is his love, who faked her death.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Inverted by Shuda, who opted to cut off his hand and fall to his not quite death instead of letting Haru save his life. Nearly happens a second time later, after Shuda's become one of the True Companions. Finally, Elie attempts to do this to remove a magic restraining bracelet so she can fight in the Final Battle, but is saved from doing so by Musica.
• Little Bit Beastly: After his evolution, Let goes from dragon-like lizard on two legs...to a human-looking creature with pronounced canines.
• Long-Lost Relative: Lucia unintentionally recruits his step-brother and grandfather when aiming to strengthen Demon Card. Whether or not he is aware of his relationship with Deep Snow is never addressed (not even Deep Snow knew that King really did consider him a son), but Shakuma confirms that Lucia is unaware of the fact that Grandpa is the batty old wizard he's bossing around, as well as mentions his belief that Lucia neither needs nor would care to know about any family he might have left.
• Love Makes You Evil: The reason for Jegan's actions.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Putting back the world to how it was is in fact the Bad Guys' plan.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Musica, in the body swap chapter. Elie was not amused.
• Manly Tears: Haru falls into a crying fit when he learns Gale Raregroove killed his mother, Sakura. Later, he has an even worse one when his father, Gale Glory, who he's been searching for all this time, pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and dies saving his son's life. He breaks down in Elie's arms from the unbearable agony of this disaster.
  • Gale Raregroove himself, after both Haru and Gale Glory defeat him with a fatal strike, and he has a Villainous BSoD that causes him to cry in remorse over his actions.
  • To a lesser extent, Musica and Gale Glory.
  • Played for Laughs when the Jiggle Butt Gang leader told Haru his "tragic" life story.
• Meaningful Name:
  • RAVE is named for Resha Valentine
  • Haja. His parents had to have known he'd have grown up to be evil, since they named him evil.
• Meet Cute: Haru first meets Elie when she helps him hide from someone by putting his head between her legs, letting him get a peek at her panties.
• Mind Rape: Sieg Hart's original strongest move. He never uses is on a villain, but it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
• Monster Mash: The whole theme of the Doryu arc.
• Morph Weapon: Haru's Ten Commandments sword, King and Lucia's Decalogue, Musica and Reina's silver.
• Motive Decay: Lucia. You get the sense that, at first, he had no idea why the heck he was trying to kill everyone. In fact, he goes from wanting things like power and world domination to a twisted desire for normalcy and a plan to obtain this by destroying the world. This is because that if this world is so right, then why did his family die and his life suck so much? In the end, maybe he has no straight motive; he's just nuts.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Whether Jegan failed or never really wanted to kill Let is unknown, but he let both Let and Julia believe he'd killed the other one.
  • As a side note, Lucia tries to kill Haru, and very much likes Elie.
• Musical Theme Naming: Most locations on the Song Continent are named after musical genres, arguably including Haru's home, Garage Island (as in "garage band").
• My God, What Have I Done?: Hardner when he learns that Nagisa is his daughter and realizes he had her tortured for information.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Ruby and Elie both 'feel something big vanish' when Haja blows up.
• Naked People Are Funny: Julius.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Sieg's namesake is Siegfried, from the Nibelungenlied. The sword Mel Force comes from, wait for it... Mel Gibson and the force.
• Nemesis Weapon: King and Lucia wield Decalogue, a sword with the same transforming abilities as Haru's Ten Powers, but powered by a Dark Bring instead of by Rave.
• Nice Job Guiding Us, Hero
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Aciela Raregroove used Star Memory to create a parallel universe where humanity doesn't go extinct. As a result, this universe becomes determined to make her son, grandson, greatgrandson, greatgreatgrandson, etc. as miserable as possible.
• Non-Elemental: Sieg's elemental alignment.
• No-Harm Requirement: At one point, the Etherion sealed within Elie reaches an unstable point and threatens to destroy the world. Seighart had been trying to destroy her because of this power, but Haru is able to use Rune Save to seal the power without killing her.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Plue, Griff, and Ruby.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Practically everyone (though some are significantly bigger offenders). Several times. No matter what happens to a character, whether they die or not seems to have more to do with plot than the actual extent of their injuries.
• Official Couple: Let & Julia, and Haru & Elie in the end.
• One-Steve Limit: Deconstructed.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Two instances. The first is Shiba, who is actually introduced in the first chapter while under disguise. He removes his mask and reveals his true face to Haru, which just has a few less wrinkles and less bushy eyebrows. Later on while trapped in the past, Elie is mistaken for Resha by several Symphonians who want her to come with them. Elie, fearing Sieg's wrath, tries to get out of going with them by putting Plue on her head and saying "You seem to have mistaken me for someone without a hat".
• Parental Abandonment: Nearly all the main characters are parent-less.
• Perpetual Poverty: Starting with the defeat of King, the gang always seems to be in financial trouble. They recruit one of the richest 'men' in the world, and he goes broke. They eventually get a rare collectable item and sell it, but over time they spend all the money they got from that. They then win over a million Edel in a contest, and Evermary spends it all on snail caps in a matter of days while they fight the current Big Bad.
• Playboy Bunny: Julia working at Ruby's casino after the Final Battle.
• The Power of Love: Shiba, fighting for 50 years due to his love for Resha. Haru's main reason for fighting is for Elie. Sieg Hart guarded Elie for 50 years and continues to do so in death. Basically, all three of them dedicated their life for the same girl.
• Power Perversion Potential: The Dark Bring glasses. Though they're only used to see through walls and find weaknesses Elie can only imagine them being used to see through her clothes, and insists on calling them the "Pervy Glasses".
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Pretty much the majority of the antagonists of the series.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Shuda. He does ballet. He claims to be the king of ballet. Cue everyone imagining him in a tutu.
• Redemption Equals Death A common staple in the series. Most noticeable with a crying and extremely sorrowful Gale Raregroove after his defeat. Averted with Hardner.
• Reforged Blade: Pretty early on in the story, the Ten Commandments broke. They brought it to the blacksmith who originally forged it, "Musica," the old one. The sword is stronger thanks to advances in technology.
  • Reforged again by "Musica", the young one, towards the end of the series.
  • The Decalogue also counts, as it broke in a fight between Lucia and Haru before Endless appeared. It came back, stronger than ever.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: At first averted with Nagisa's apparent suicide mission. Later played straight when Nagisa reveals she did that on her own.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Plue.
• The Rival: Elie believes Celia to be one, but Haru isn't interested in her. The two girls manage to become friends in the end though.
• Room Full of Crazy: Lucia's prison.
• Screw Destiny: Tattoos are introduced late in the story which allow a person to change their fate to a limited degree.
• Sealed with a Kiss: Haru and Elie share their long-awaited kiss in the final chapter after the Star Memory resurrects Haru a year after the final battle.
• Second Love: Elie originally fell in love with Shiba when he was younger but after faking her death and suspended in animation she later meet Haru and... well you get the gist.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Sieg Hart's death. It's great and all that he was willing to give up his life to get Haru and Elie back to the future (no, that's a lie, it sucked) but Elie, who by then remembered how to control Etherion, could have just used it to put them all in a deep sleep where they didn't age until the proper time having already done this once in the desired time span.
  • Actually a subversion. Remember the skeleton they found in front of Resha's grave? It was his skeleton. In other words, his death was necessary for the Stable Time Loop to happen. Without it, the gang wouldn't have had any idea what to do at that point, and the whole thing would have fallen apart.
  • Earlier on Reina dies as well in order to save countless people, including the main characters, and destroy the Silver Ray. However, with the amount of Normally, I Would Be Dead Now this series utilizes, survival was not out of the question. While it is true that her death wasn't completely pointless as it does grant Musica a fair deal of his character development, the same improvements to his character could have been made without her death, as Reina is actually present during at least one of those moments as a near death experience.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Attempting this is essentially what caused all the events in the story.
• Shirtless Scene: A lot of the major battles involving Haru. Musica and Let have a few too and even Julia barely has one in her aforementioned debut fight.
• Shout-Out: A Fun with Subtitles variation, or possibly an elaborate bout of Bowdlerization, since it seems unlikely that the author would quote ¡Three Amigos!.
  Georco: "Son of a motherless goat!"
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Haru to Lucia.
• Single Line of Descent: The Raregroove family seems to be in the habit of only ever having one child, as Lucia is the sole descendant of the only survivor from the original world after his father and grandfather pass away.
• Sinister Scimitar: Played straight by Sacrifar and averted by Million Suns.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Slade appears in a grand total of two chapters before King kills him, and yet his actions are what ultimately resulted in both King and Lucia going off the deep end and trying to destroy the world.
• Snake Talk: Let does this in the dub, for no apparent reason.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The manga has to keep going somehow.
• Spell My Name With An S: Iulius/Julius, Doryu/Drew, Sieg/Seig/Jeid/Jade (the general), and Sieg Hart/Seig Hart/Jaker (they spell it differently whenever talking about him in Fairy Tail).
  • To be fair, Jaker was a result of scanlators translating from Japanese to Chinese to English.
  • A surprisingly large number of people spell Elie's name with two 'L's, despite it being drawn into images (and not typed up by translators) with only one L. There is a marking on her arm that comes and goes which spells her name in big capital letters, it is engraved into the back of the pendant she wears, and if you flip it you get the number 3173. These are all things that come up as plot points multiple times, meaning there's absolutely no good reason for anyone not to have noticed.
  • The anime and manga also disagree on whether one of the Knights of the Blue Sky was named Clea or Claire, and if one of the Big Bads is Doryu or Drew.
• Stable Time Loop: The skeleton seen at the wasteland of Symphonia turns out to be Sieg Hart.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Everyone says the relationship between Haru and Elie is doomed. Averted at the end.
• Start of Darkness: Quite a few of them. Gale Raregroove, his son Lucia, the aforementioned Doryu, Hardner, etc.
• Story-Breaker Power: Etherion magic. The story did its damnedest to make sure that Elie would only recover it right before the final battle and that she couldn't use it against anyone except the Big Bad during the battle and just to make sure the Big Bad doesn't go down without a fight first, Elie gets kidnapped and a bracelet which blocks her from using her magic, which she can't remove until well into Haru having the battle with the Big Bad.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Hardner's Endgame. As well as Lucia.
• Superpower Lottery: Sieg who, by not being aligned to any element, can easily use all types of magic and has no elemental weakness.
• Super Smoke: Georco.
• Super-Speed: The Dark Bring "Dress Up" gets used for this.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The Ten Powers/Commandments.
• Sword over Head: Haru does this to Lucia. Naturally, he fails to kill him.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Haru's felt this towards many of his foes, but he's learned not to let that stop him from fighting against them if they're unrepentant.
• The Syndicate: Demon Card, who rules The Darkness (i.e. the global underworld).
• Tag Along Kid: Nieble develops into this by the end.
• Taken for Granite: One of the Oni's powers.
• Take Our Word for It: What is Wonderful Gocch's (the leader of the Jiggle Butt gang) back story? We'll never know, but it was the most depressing thing Haru ever heard.
• Take Up My Sword: Teased, as Haru once, when seriously injured, tells Ruby who will be the third Rave Master, and that this information will be crucial since he won't last through the fight. Since he does survive, though, we never find out who he named.
• The Slow Path: Sieg Hart devotes the rest of his life guarding Resha's "grave" after going back in time and realizing his role. To ensure the Stable Time Loop, he retrieves Elie's necklace from Resha, and later forewarns Haru's friends of the final confrontation.
• The Talk: Invoked humorously in Volume 30, when one of the series' numerous Mentor Archetypes tells the crew that in the original timeline, the population of the world was reduced to just one person at which Elie exclaims "Only one person? But that means no more babies," to which Cool Big Sis Julia quips "Well, I guess this means we won't have to have that talk."
• Talking Animal: Ruby.
• Tears of Joy: When Elie sees Haru alive and well at the end of the manga, she tears up, then openly cries in Haru's arms. Followed by a loving kiss... and now EVERYONE ELSE IS CRYING!
• Tears of Remorse: Gale Raregroove, crying in pain after realizing the hell he's put Gale Glory, his son, and daughter through by killing his wife, Sakura. He dies soon afterward.
• Technicolor Blade: Blue Crimson and some of the other forms of the Ten Commandments.
• Temporal Paradox: Okay, so Haru, Elie who's really Resha Valentine thrown 50 years into the future and Sieg Hart travel 50 years to the past to recover Elie's memories of being Resha. While there, Haru foils an assassination attempt against Resha but lets the assassins escape. Because of his interference, the assassins return a few days later and almost kill Resha. In the process she receives a cut on the arm a duplicate of which instantly appears on the arm of her older self, Elie. Talk about Delayed Ripple Effect. Rave also begins to malfunction when Resha is in greatest peril, kinda like Marty's hand beginning to disappear when his future is threatened in Back to the Future. Best not to try to make sense of any of it.
• Temporal Theme Naming: Haru, meaning spring is an example of Mashima's protagonists being named after seasons, which he continued in Fairy Tail where Natsu is named after Summer and Monster Soul where Aki is named after Autumn.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Haru is shocked to find Elie on the other side of a door he was just blown through. Elie just wants to know how his hand ended up where it did upon his landing.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Rave Warriors make a big deal of doing this as much as possible. To the point of Saving The Villain more than once.
  • Though this seems to go out the window whenever the opponent is a demon.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Elie is the legendary Resha Valentine.
• Tongue Suicide: After failing her mission to assassinate Julius, Nagisa attempts to kill herself by biting off her tongue. She didn't bite hard enough, and the heroes promptly sends her to medical care, saving her life.
• Tragic Villain: King, Lucia and Doryu all qualify. King, despite being a criminal, genuinely tried to care for his followers and loved his family. Haru's dad, trying to stop him from being a criminal, made the mistake of trusting the wrong man, who went in guns blazing. This resulted in the death of King's wife and seemingly his son. This loss, combined with the knowledge that his best friend had betrayed him, was what caused him to snap. Lucia, being King's son, was caught up in the raid and locked in prison for ten years purely because of who his father was, leaving him ripe for Sinclaire to seduce him. Doryu tried to build bridges between humans and sentinoids, only to be brutalized and abused by humanity and locked in prison unjustly.
• Trapped in the Past: Sieg Hart, who opts to not interfere any more than he can help.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: If there's no need for speed (or a need to stall) the gang must travel by foot or with Griff's horse. If they need to get somewhere fast they have either Musica's airship or, if it's out of commission (and it always is), they can hitch a ride with the resistance. The time they most need speed, they get a ride from an airship full of sorcerers who can teleport it to where it needs to be.
• Turn the Other Cheek: While Haru is still furious at King when he learns that King murdered his mom, he also acknowledges that King was wronged in the same tragedy.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Haru and Elie. Lucia even points it out.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Shuda.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Lucia.
• Victory-Guided Amnesia: As Elie remembers more of her memories, it gives more clues to the mystery of Rave.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Hardner after discovering his daughter, whom he thought had died in her mother's womb after a plane crash survived. Made worse by the fact he had unknowingly tortured her when he held her captive.
  • He has one earlier when Haru tells him he's no longer immortal.
  • King has one after he finds out his wife and home have been destroyed by Gale.
  • Shakuma goes from being a stoic wizard to a disgusting Sadist when Elie successfully lands a blow on him.
  • Doryu, after Ruby pities him after he reveals Freudian Excuse, goes Madness Mantra and One-Winged Angel immediately afterwards.
  • Lucia goes Berserker Tears when revealing his Freudian Excuse.
• Villains Out Shopping: After a tiny bit of payback from Elie, the gang is content to leave Julius to enjoy his dance contest rather than take advantage of how nauseatingly low the evil general has left his guard.
• Walking Shirtless Scene
• Walking Spoiler: Due to a massive twist and the tropes' organization Resha since she was actually Elie.
• Walking the Earth: The heroes are always traveling and never settle in one place except for the arc's adventure. Deconstructed by Let after he joins the party when he brings up a point most Walking the Earth series tend to ignore: funding. He openly questions how the group intends to pay for all the expenses like food and fuel they would accumulate with none of them having an income. The group is often shown later acquiring means of transport and food as thanks for helping the citizens.
• Wedding Finale: The final page of the manga features the wedding of Haru and Elie.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Deep Snow who saw Gale Raregroove as a father figure.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Feber, Haru's first enemy, never appears again after Haru defeats him with a sword. A question about him even made it into the Q&A section of one of the manga.
  • Furthermore, who would have been the third Rave Master had Haru died?
  • Every Demon Card general either dies or switches teams... except Deep Snow. What did he do after he fought Shuda? Did he just go back to Demon Card? Did Demon Card off him? Did he just go lead a civilian life? He's never shown again.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Chapter 143. Seriously. The chapter of the manga that's about manga.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Potentially Lucia, though moreso in his flashbacks than during the present.
• World of Pun: The dub is overflowing with puns.
• Wrecked Weapon: Haru shatters to pieces the Ten Powers/Ten Commandments towards the end of the first volume. As Shiba notes, a sword that's seen constant use for 50 years isn't going to last forever. The next couple volumes focus on tracking down and persuading the blacksmith Musica to repair it.
• Write Back to the Future: How Sieg makes sure that aid reaches Haru in time for the Final Battle.
• You Already Changed the Past: Before the climax Haru and Sieg discover it.
• You Monster!: The main cast often accuses the main villains of this, but only Shakuma truly deserves it.
• Your Costume Needs Work: More like "You named your strange pet after the legendary dog Plue", but it's the same in the end.
• You're Insane!: Haru yells this at King when he learns of King's motivation.

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