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Music / Evillious Chronicles

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sdsbackground133_365.jpg
A few members of the cast of the Evillious Chroniclesnote 

The Evillious Chronicles, commonly referred to in Japanese as the "of Evil" series (悪ノ), is a dark-fantasy multi-media franchise created by the Japanese Vocaloid producer Akuno-P, or "mothy." Although mothy started the series by releasing songs with simplistic one-picture videos such as "Wordplay" and "The Daughter of Evil", as his popularity and budget boomed he's produced more varied PVs of much higher quality and using more Vocaloids. "Wordplay", his first known Evillious song, was released in March 2008.

More than songs, mothy has conveyed the narrative of the Evillious Chronicles through light novels, databooks, short stories, mangas, poems, interviews, and cryptic tweets. The narrative as a whole concerns the fantasy continent of Bolganio, primarily its western half, called Evillious. Over a one thousand year period, the franchise covers multiple stories where people on this continent are affected by Demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins. Many stories in the franchise draw from western aesthetic, mythology, and folklore. A theatrical adaptation of the songs called The Daughter of Evil ~Gemini of Charm~ was written in 2010 by Hidekatsu Tokunaga of X-QUEST, but was made without mothy's involvement and as such differs significantly from the canon narrative. The songs "The Daughter of Evil" and "The Servant of Evil" are also prominently featured in several Vocaloid concerts and video-games.

The story of the franchise is told in anachronistic order through several intersecting song series, the most famous being the Daughter of Evil series (which was the first to get its own Light Novel series, though takes place in the chronological middle of the timeline.) The various series can be summarized accordingly:

The Daughter of Evil Series: The first series to be expanded outside of songs on by mothy, focusing on the political turmoil and strife instigated by Princess Riliane as the ruler of Lucifenia, as well as various background conspiracies. It begins around the time of Riliane's ascension to the throne, going over the genocidal "Green Hunting" against the people of Elphegort, the resulting Lucifenian revolution, and the conflicts that occurred in the aftermath. This is the centerpiece upon which the rest of the franchise was built, with the most adaptations, stories, and fan content devoted to it, taking place roughly in the center of the Evillious timeline.

The Seven Deadly Sins Series: An overarching plotline that spans throughout Evillious' history, this expands more heavily on the Demons of Sin that had a more minor role in the Daughter of Evil series. It does this through showing the exploits of other individuals possessed by the seven demons of sin, centering on their most famous and influential hosts: Lust's Duke Sateriasis Venomania, Gluttony's Duke Banica Conchita, Sloth's Marchioness Margarita Blankenheim, Envy's Kayo Sudou, Greed's The Supreme Court Director of the USE Dark Star Bureau Gallerian Marlon, and Wrath's Nemesis Sudou. Pride is the exception, as Princess Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche's life is its own series.

The Original Sin Story: The origin story of the entire series, detailing, among many other things, the fall of the Magic Kingdom of Levianta (a highly advanced Magitek kingdom), the origins of the seven demons of sin, and the beginning of the thousand-year struggle between Elluka and Irina Clockworker. Much of it centers around Project MA, the kingdom's attempt to avert their doom by having their most powerful (female) mage give birth to the reincarnation of the dragon gods Levia and Behemo. Naturally, the project causes almost all of the problems that Evillious struggles with for the rest of its history.

The Clockwork Lullaby Series: Taking place mostly in the modern era of Evillious' history, this series focuses on a troupe of characters that live within Evil's Theater in Held's Forest, attempting to collect all of the vessels of the seven demons of sin in order to create "utopia". They are led by the Clockworker's Doll (a vessel of sin herself), following in the footsteps of her "father", Gallerian Marlon.

The Four Endings Series: A set of songs listing four "Masters" who correspond to the four "endings" fated to befall the setting at the end of the timeline: the Court, the Graveyard, the Hellish Yard, or the Heavenly Yard. Although the shortest of the song series, there's a good deal of overlap between this one and the rest, especially the Clockwork Lullaby song series and the Seven Deadly Sins Light Novel series.

    open/close all folders 

     Songs 

Original Sin Story:

The Seven Deadly Sins series:

Seven Deadly Sins Answer Songs:

The Daughter of Evil:

Clockwork Lullaby Series:

Four Endings Series:

Miscellaneous Songs:

     Albums 
  • Evils Theater
  • Screws, Gears, and Pride
  • Prelude to Forest
  • The Daughter of Evil ~Gemini of Charm~ Vocal and Soundtrack
  • Evils Forest
  • Evil Food Eater Conchita (revised)
  • Evils Kingdom
  • Judgment of Corruption ~A Court of Greed~
  • Evils Court
  • Four Melodies of Evil ~The Daughter of Evil Novel Music Collection~
  • Original Sin Story -Act 1-
  • Original Sin Story -Act 2-
  • The Daughter of Evil: BGM Reading Collection
  • The Muzzle of Nemesis
  • Seven Crimes and Punishments
  • Original Sin Story Complete Edition
  • Lucifenia Trinity
  • master of the heavenly yard
  • Clockwork Lullaby
  • Evils Extra
  • E.A.T Prologue

     Literature 

The Daughter of Evil series (official website):

Deadly Sins of Evil series (official website):

Original Sin Story series

Miscellaneous Literature

     Manga 
  • The Daughter of Evil: Novelette of White (Short story, released with The Daughter of Evil: Wiegenlied of Green.)
  • The Daughter of Evil: Retrouver of Silver (Short story released in Entr’acte of Evil: The Daughter of Evil Worldguide)
  • Her Reason (Short story also released in Epic of Evil: The Daughter of Evil Fanbook.)
  • The Lunacy of Duke Venomania
  • Aku Musu (Non-canon yonkoma manga)
  • The Servant of Evil ~Opera Buffa!~ (Non-canon comedy manga.)
  • Welcome To Conchita Dining Room (Non-canon yonkoma manga released with Deadly Sins of Evil: Evil Food Eater Conchita.)
  • Deadly Sins of Evil (Non-canon yonkoma manga released with the Waltz of Evil: The Deadly Sins of Evil Guidebook.)
  • Judgment of Corruption Side Story: Gallerian (Short story also released in the guidebook.)
  • The Daughter of Evil: Act 1
  • The Daughter of Evil: Act 2
  • Quartets of Evil (Non-canon yonkoma manga.)
  • Seven Crimes and Punishments! (Non-canon yonkoma manga.)
  • The Daughter of Evil: Act 3
  • The Daughter of Evil: Act 4

     Theatre 
  • The Daughter of Evil ~Alluring Gemini~ (non-canon play adaptation)
  • XXX of Evil (non-canon play adaptation)
  • The Daughter of Evil ~One for two~ (non-canon play adaptation)
  • The Lunacy of Duke Venomania -Everlasting true love- (non-canon play adaptation)
  • The Daughter of Evil Musical (non-canon play adaptation)

This franchise provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

     Tropes Related to the whole Evillious Chronicles 
  • Abusive Parents: A common trend in many of the stories of Evillious, with many villainous or troubled characters suffering from awful childhoods full of physical and (more commonly) emotional abuse at the hands of their parents/guardians. Additionally, while not necessarily abuse, there are many characters that suffer from parental neglect or being straight-up abandoned.
  • Aerith and Bob: mothy tries to put in a "Western" feel (including the style choice of his songs), but the names...sometimes just sound plain bizarre even from a native English speaker standpoint. Elluka? Gallerian? Yukina? That's not even getting into Milky, Pollo, and Neruneru. These are contrasted with more normal-sounding names like Ron, Anne, Mariam, and Allen.
  • After the End: Desert Bluebird hints at taking place in this sort of scenario, mentioning ruined towns and nuclear radiation.
    • It's revealed late in the series that Evillious as a whole takes place on a more conventional Earth after it was destroyed and then rebuilt.
  • All There in the Manual: Many of the songs are given more detail in mothy’s albums, several of which have an informative booklet containing either exposition or in-character commentary.
    • The two novel series have also received their own databooks containing miscellaneous info on the setting, character aftermaths, creator interviews, English spellings, and other trivia.
  • Anachronic Order: The reason why so many fans have trouble connecting all the dots of the series is that the songs and stories aren't always released in chronological order. Few realized mothy was telling this kind of narrative in the songs until "Chrono Story". Even the novels, while still holding a basic chronological progression within their respective series, jump between time periods in the epilogues.
  • Animal Motifs: Some characters in the Evillious Chronicles have these. Including...
    • The Demons of Sin, with the exceptions of Sloth and tentatively Wrathnote , all have one—Lust has goats, Gluttony has pigs, Pride has bats, Envy has fish and Greed has owls. Venomania inherits the Demon of Lust's goat motif when he takes on his own demon form.
    • Irina Clockworker has cats, due to her transformation into a literal one, earning all of her puppet bodies the moniker of "Red Cat Mage".
    • Levia and Behemo are both associated with dragons, due to Held forcing them into the body of a two-headed one.
    • Banica's mother Megour Conchita is described as resembling a pig, and Banica even sees the decidedly piglike Demon of Gluttony as a reflection of her mother.
    • Carlos Marlon has dogs as a prominent motif—he describes himself as "like a dog running away with his tail between his legs", is revived as a dog-man during Banica's journey through the multiverse and his song "Drug of Gold" even abbreviates to "D.O.G", something mothy implied was intentional.
    • Michaela and Lich both have bird motifs; Michaela has melodic, peaceful robins while Lich has scary, death-associated crows.
    • Eater has bears, big, intimidating but also docile unless provoked.
  • Animated Actors: mothy treats the Vocaloids this way, as each is credited for the role of the character in the PVs they're in, even if their vocals weren't used for the song. (Some PVs play with this by censoring or otherwise obscuring parts of the credits to not reveal the "cast member.")
    • Some Vocaloids who don't appear in the song are even credited for lighting and props, as in the "Evil Food Eater Conchita" PV.
  • Anti-Villain: A common character type in mothy's works; as a more common example, Allen in Daughter of Evil series is a Woobie Anti-villain acting out of love for his sister.
  • Anyone Can Die: This is played straight in that main characters die all the time in the novels (Leonhart, Allen, and Michaela in the Daughter of Evil series and nearly all of the Deadly Sins of Evil protagonists are some non-spoileriffic examples) but it's averted in-spirit for the franchise as a whole due to the fact that souls and the afterlife exist, allowing many dead main characters to potentially come back later. For instance, almost every main character in the series reappears in the Heavenly novel when the world's ended, save for one or two special circumstances.
  • Arc Words: "Lu Li La," a lullaby that often appears in various songs of the series. As well as being an actual spell song, it's the sound of Second Period technology working.
    • The term 'Merry-go-Round' with variations thereof, with the song Prophet Merry-Go-Round, Calgaround in the region of Merrigod, the Merry-go-Round drug, and Madam Merry-go-Round.
    • "What in the world is evil?" is a common phrase across the series, starting from the Daughter of Evil series.
    • "The bell/chime that signals the end rings". A phrase present in "Daughter of Evil" at Riliane's execution, "Servant of Evil" in the same moment, "Master of the Heavenly Yard" when Riliane confronts Gammon, and "Ten Minute Love", when Rin's crush is about to get off the bus.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: A very common trope, with Sateriasis Venomania, Riliane, and Banica Conchita as some of the worst examples.
  • Art Evolution: While there are multiple artists working on the Evillious Chronicles, the work of Ichika (the artist considered by many to be its "official" one) has been developing more realistic facial and body proportions since her illustrations for the Daughter of Evil novels. The increase in quality between "Her Reason" (a manga she illustrated in "Entr'acte of Evil"), and "The Daughter of Evil Manga Act 2", released about four years later, is palpable.
  • Baby Be Mine: The twist to "Moonlit Bear". Eve Moonlit, supposedly under the impression that she was taking apples away from a bear, was in reality stealing a set of infant twins from their mother, Meta Salmofer, whom she then killed. Moonlit later raises the children as her own.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Invoked for the country name Jakoku, which literally means "Land of the Snake"note  but is intended to be left untranslated, showcasing it as Eastern by the other Western countries.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The chronicles as a whole has a bittersweet ending, fortunately with more emphasis on "sweet" than "bitter". After Ma's death, Adam, Eve, Gammon, and Irina are incorporated into the Court Ending, which is them relieving the Third Period multiple times (possibly, but not certainly, forever.) Banica and all of her servants instigate the Graveyard Ending, which is them seeking more food through alternate worlds. For everyone else, Riliane and Allen start a new world—one that has both good and evil in it, but one in which everyone, purified and reformatted, can have truly fresh starts. Additionally, Kiril Clockworker has regained his sanity, atoned for the Levianta Catastrophe and been reunited with the real Elluka, ultimately marrying her...but he still lost Irina.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: As the series was initially translated largely by fans with little experience in Japanese (sometimes going off of Chinese or Spanish translations to boot) the interpretations leave quite a lot to be desired. One good example of this is how the "Levianta Catastrophe" was written for the longest time as "Levianta Fire Disaster". It doesn't help that mothy himself isn't good at translating to English. Efforts have been made to clean this up a bit, though no official translations exist.
  • Book Ends:
    • The album cover of Master of the Heavenly Yard, with Allen and Riliane facing opposite each other with their arms outstretched, mirrors a similar setup for the Evils Theater jacket art with Rin and Len, complete with the clockwork gears in the background. These are also the last and first albums of the franchise, respectively. Furthermore, the series both begins and ends with a Brothers Grimm reference.
    • Chronologically, the franchise ends with mothy's debut song, "10 Minute Love", just as it begins with "Wordplay". Both songs are Kagamine Rin compositions.
  • Call-Back:
    • "And Then the Girl Went Mad -End of a Moonlit Night-" has several references to "Abandoned on a Moonlit Night", from song lyrics that are similar—if not identical—to ones said in the other song, the similarity in titling, the same hut in the middle of the forest in both, and short lines sung by Hansel and Gretel.
    • The "Master of the Heavenly Yard" song, as the series' finale, contains lyrical, instrumental, and musical callbacks to an impressive number of previous songs, including Regret Message, Daughter of Evil, Re_Birthday, Heartbeat Clocktower, Handbeat Clocktower, Project 'Ma', Ten Minute Love, and more.
  • Canon Welding: According to mothy he began to conceive a larger narrative after the release of a few of his songs, and with songs like Heartbeat Clocktower and Chrono Story he began making it more apparent to the fans.
  • Cerebus Retcon: Kind of. Mothy's first song, "Ten Minute Love" was a cute little Silly Love Song about a shy girl and her crush on the bus and despite many fans attempts to dissect it, it had no dark twists to it at all and seemed to just be a normal story about a normal little girl played by Rin, with mothy never indicating a connection between it and the increasingly dark Evillious Chronicles. Master of the Heavenly Yard reveals that "Ten Minute Love" takes place not only in the Evillious verse, but also in mothy's other work Unlock City (which is also dark). However, "Ten Minute Love" remains fairly innocent in its tone and context.
  • Christianity is Catholic: Downplayed, as the Levin religion is a parallel to Christianity rather than a direct representation, but all major denominations expanded on have distinctly Catholic features in some form. The Held sect in particular has clear connections to Protestantism, being far less ostentatious in design and having heavy roots in the country based on Germany, yet despite this they still have confessionals, monasteries, religious orders, etc—all hallmarks of Catholic Christianity.
  • Color-Coded Characters: As the characters are all "played" by Vocaloids, they all have their own color schemes that repeat throughout the various arcs (such as KAITO characters are blue, Miku characters are turquoise, Meiko's characters are red, etc). This ends up being plot relevant, as it's a rough indicator of things like genealogy and in some cases when it's the same character, either as an immortal in disguise or reincarnated.
  • Continuity Porn: Comes with the Canon Welding above, mothy's later songs feature some of this. Master of the Heavenly Yard, as the finale, is the best example of this, with tons of callbacks in the music and in the main characters that show up on-screen.
  • Crapsack World: Evillious certainly qualifies, with all the tragedies that happen in a thousand year stretch. Although every time period has a host of issues, special mention goes to the world by Gallerian's era, where the "rules" that govern the world are breaking down and there are zombies roaming around, parents giving birth to bizarre (sometimes tiger-shaped) babies, and people are getting infected with Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome and more strange things, all for no reason. And it seems every power in the world, from the Freezis Foundation (now Freezis Conglomerate) to the Evillious governments, are maliciously corrupt.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Levin religion is very similar to Christianity despite being polytheistic, with similar symbolism and teachings.
  • Dead All Along: Quite a few of the reveals through the series are linked to a character being dead from the start and being impersonated by someone else. Examples include Sateriasis Venomania, Mikulia Greeonio, Joseph, the Calgaround daughter, Margarita Felix, Bruno Marlon, and the Lorre sisters.
  • Death of a Child: Even if you don't count characters as young as 14 that get killed as children there's still stillbirths (Cain and Abel in "Original Sin Story"), babies dying in accidents (Ren in The Tailor of Enbizaka), or just being killed off in general (Both Mikulia/Eve killing her son in "Flower of the Plateau" and what Behemo has done to the leftover Ghoul Children in the Pierrot bonus story).
  • Demonic Possession: Unless you’re completely carefree or a powerful mage, you are at risk for being possessed if you come in contact with the Demons of Sin. Most of the problems in the series are due to this happening as the result of a Deal with the Devil or someone else's interference, shown in the Seven Deadly Sins series and the The Daughter of Evil series.
  • Doing in the Scientist: Played with. Just when it seemed to be revealed that all magic and godhood was a result of advanced technology, the story suggests that the beings of the Second Period really did create actual magic with their technology. In this case, the Scientist and the Wizard seem to be working in tandem.
  • Doing In the Wizard: Played with. Late in the series (although it was surprisingly hinted at a lot beforehand) the reader discovers that the Second Period was really Earth, and the "gods" are all former scientists, and by extension, magic is just exercising extremely advanced technology. Then, the reader learns that the Second Period was actually a simulation made by the First Period, aka the Earth we know. The people in the Second Period were so much more brilliant than their creators that, after they were unknowingly brought into the real world, they created actual magic. Ultimately, just because the magic had scientific origins doesn't mean it's not magic.
  • Earth All Along: The world of the Evillious Chronicles is Earth. The First Period is the Earth we're familiar with, destroyed by nuclear war or some other catastrophe. The Second Period is a simulation of Earth, whose A.I.s became far more advanced than the First Period; they were brought into the ruins of the First Period and, thinking it was another planet, rebuilt it into the world of Evillious that we all know.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: It's common to see frilly, doll-like dresses among characters in the chronicles - justified by the times they take place in. In particular, Michelle Marlon and The Master of the Graveyard resemble this the most.
  • Epic Rocking: The Grand Finale "master of the heavenly yard", has a total length of 15:54 in twelve seperate parts, and features not only many references to the previous songs in the series, it is also the longest song as well!
  • Evil Mask: From the Second Period there was an entire race of sentient masks; granted, it's not said if they all were evil, but this trope applies to Seth Twiright in particular, the one mask to survive to the Third Period. He specifically denies being able to take over someone's body, though he does have other abilities.
  • Family Theme Naming: All members of the Rogzé family have names that start with a "P", from normal names like Prim to... names like Plus.
    • Members of the Elphen royal family have names based on plants, given the kings "Thorny" and "Soil".
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
    • The entirety of Bolganio is Eurasia, with:
      • Lucifenia as France.
      • Elphegort as Germany.
      • Marlon as Great Britain.
      • Asmodean as Saudi Arabia.
      • Beelzenia as Rome, Spain or Italy, depending on the year.
      • Levianta as Russia. (With the bonus of Magic Kingdom Levianta based on Rome)
      • Jakoku as Japan.
    • A new continent named Maistia is discovered in later centuries with clear parallels to the Americas, Africa, and the United States.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Played with. All of the novels are based on pre-existing songs that make a complete story on their own—thus all of the endings are known ahead of time (such as Conchita eating herself, Allen getting executed in Riliane's place, etc). Yet part of the novels' main drawing point is that the information they reveal dramatically changes how the story is viewed anyway. For example, Conchita does eat herself in the end of her book— but that turns her into the new Demon of Gluttony because she ate the demon with her.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • In "Chrono Story": There are three women who appear at the beginning of the song; blonde, pink, and black haired respectively. These women are the forms that Elluka (technically) took across the series; her original form, Lukana Octo's body wearing her Daughter of Evil sorceress garb, and Kayou Sudou's original body.
    • Among Venomania's victims are Tette Cetera, a soldier, Neruneru Nerune, a spy, Rindo Blum, a nun, and Mickina Olliba, a widow. In Praeludium of Red, Chartette Langley eventually becomes a unit leader in Beelzenia's military, while Ney Phutapie was a spy for Marlon all along. Riliane also became a nun in her old age while Keel eventually died, widowing Mikina.
    • Just before the beginning of the actual song in the video for "Miniature Garden Girl," the sound of someone winding a clockwork key is heard. The song ends with the reveal that Gallerian Marlon's "daughter" is actually a clockwork doll.
    • A hint to the demons' true nature as being from a highly advanced race of beings is when the Demon of Gluttony talks to Banica when she's dying from Carlos' poison, telling her that her baby is a "vaccine". As per Banica's confusion, vaccines wouldn't be invented for at least a couple more centuries.
    • Allen being able to disguise as the Postman in Muzzle of Nemesis foreshadows that the Postman is a Riliane reincarnation, and it's also a call-back to when Allen disguised as Riliane.
  • Grief Song: Pops up from time to time—"-Clockworker- Recollective Music Box", "Regret Message", "The Last Revolver" and "The Portrait Glassred Drew" are some notable examples.
  • Half-Identical Twins: Every set of twins in the series is a boy and a girl who are identical despite being different sexes. This is taken for granted as being based on the design of the Kagamine twins, but ends up being foreshadowing of a sort for the reveal that Levia and Behemo, the twins that all the Kagamine characters in the series are based on, are not really twins at all; Levia was designed as a female version of Behemo.
  • Hollywood Law: Comes up every time judge Gallerian comes into play. The system of law he participates in is clearly based more strongly on Japanese courtrooms (where judges have all the power over innocent or guilty verdicts) than Western (where a jury decides guilt and a judge merely does sentencing).
  • Humans Are Special: Held in Wiegenlied of Green makes a commentary on humans being stronger than gods, and some commentary is made of there one day being a time when gods and magic are completely unnecessary. This theme is touched on again in the Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep novel, where Elluka discovers the survivors of Margarita's Gift—some of them with a natural resistance—have already devised a medicine to combat the effects, and that the day was saved by humanity's resourcefulness and strength, not magic.
  • Identical Grandson: Common in the series, partially due to several being represented by the same Vocaloid and so retaining their appearance. This phenomenon is even discussed in "Gloom of Held".
  • Idiosyncratic Album Theming: All of the Original Sin Story albums are called Original Sin Story -Act Something-.
    • Evils Forest, Evils Kingdom, and Evils Court all feature in-character commentary as part of a Framing Device for the songs. They also continue the "Evils" trend started by mothy's earlier album, Evils Theater.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Much of the franchise takes place in a country or region named after a demon that's associated with one of the sins: Asmodean (Asmodeus), Beelzenia (Beelzelbub), Lucifenia (Lucifer), Levianta (Leviathan), and Elphegort (Belphegor), Marlon (Mammon), and at one point an empire named Tasan (Satan).
    • This is all within a region called Evillious.
    • In Marlon’s northern half is a region called Blood Pool.
  • Immortality: Elluka, Hansel, Gretel, and Gumillia. The twins are confirmed to be Born-Again Immortality.
  • In the Blood: Many of the magical attributes featured in the series are passed down over the generations, including the Loop Octopus Clan's prophetic dreams, Banica's healing factor, and Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: This causes a lot of confusion among fans. Non-Japanese fans have an even harder time with this, as the franchise is primarily in Japanese and some pieces of the puzzle are revealed a lot later or less accurately by fan translators.
  • Lyrical Cold Open: Present in "Lu Li La, the Resounding Song", "The Maiden of the Tree ~Millennium Wiegenlied~", "Blink", "Handbeat Clocktower", "Cappricio Farce" and "Wordplay".
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "Red Shoe Parade", an upbeat marching song about how the Shadow Parade decides to Rape, Pillage, and Burn the homeland of the "Bad Thief".
  • Mad Scientist: Seth Twiright as well as Adam in Original Sin Story, but one also features in "Full Moon Laboratory". Irina herself can be considered one; while she doesn't sport a labcoat, her shtick is conducting evil experiments with the Vessels of Sin.
  • Mandatory Twist Ending: The series has been accused of having this—almost every novel mothy has written in the chronicles has featured some kind of twist that subverted information implied in the songs. It got to the point where fans were clamoring to know what the twist was before The Tailor of Enbizaka had even come out.
  • Mood-Swinger: Elluka Clockworker acts this way, moving from solemn and contemplative to cheerful and playful, as well as lashing out and getting angry on a dime. At least some of this is hinted to be from Stepford Smiler tendencies.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • Halfway through "Playing With Words". Where the girl goes from learning words like "water", "together", and "dreams" to learning words like "lie", "crime", and "evil".
    • In the CD Evils Theater, the cannibalism song "Evil Food Eater Conchita" is immediately followed by the cutesy "Ten Minute Love". Which is quickly followed by "Regret Message", making it a double example.
    • In the Lucifenia Trinity album, the intense song about Mariam's origins as an experiment of Abyss' created to be an assassin is followed up by "Swear an Oath on That Bridge", which has been described by some as sounding like a saccharine Anime title opening song.
  • Morality Kitchen Sink: Most of the characters are some shade of gray, with a few irretrievably evil individuals and the occasional genuinely good person thrown into the mix.
  • Most Writers Are Writers:
    • There's Ma, who likes to write stories and screenplays about other people's experiences (several of which are specifically given the same titles as the novels.)
    • There's also Yukina Freezis, who eventually becomes famous for penning what would be known as the Freezis Fairy Tales.
    • There's also Hanne Lorre really Elluka in disguise, a reporter for the Shuburg Newspaper.
  • Murder Ballad: Some of the songs; examples include "The Tailor of Enbizaka," "Abandoned on a Moonlit Night", and "Flower of the Plateau,"—it's a staple of the franchise.
  • Music Box Intervals: Occasionally done in the franchise's songs, most notably in "Recollective Music Box".
  • Mythology Gag: Many references are made to Vocaloid and the characters therein (or at least their Fanon interpretations) that play or inspired the Evillious inhabitants. And this isn't even including all of the names that are puns off of the Vocaloid they're played/inspired by; in fact, in fact, at least half of the cast may reference the names of their respective Vocaloid (in at least one case, the Vocaloid names are straight-up used, if with different kanji). The pairings present in the series also have a tendency to have Fan-Preferred Couple status regarding their “actors” in the main fandom.
    • Gatt Coulomb, whose design is based on Gackpo, using Samurai dialect is a reference to how Gackpo has a samurai-inspired design (complete with katana and armor) and is often depicted talking like a samurai. Many Gackpo inspired characters in the series also have associations with the Venom Sword (a katana), with the main contractor himself being played by Gackpo, which was very much intentional since the sword was actually not a katana initially.
    • Miku's favorite food is the leek—Michaela uses a magic leek to communicate in the Daughter of Evil series.
    • Michaela and Clarith (Yowane Haku) being closely associated with each other - Haku is a derivative of Miku. Clarith’s personality is also clearly inspired by Haku’s.
    • Sudou Kayo's favorite food is takotunayaki—Luka's favorite food is tuna, and she has an alternate form called Tako Luka.
    • Ziz the octopus is also a reference to Tako-Luka. “Octo” is also a family line that plays a prominent role, one of its most notable members being Lukana, played by Luka.
    • The town of Rolled is a reference to Rin and Len's Road Roller.
    • Irina Clockworker is played by Iroha Nekomura, who has a Hello Kitty inspired design and otherwise has cats as her Animal Motif; it’s even in her name. So fittingly, Irina has to inhabit the body of a stuffed cat for a while.
    • While it's not obvious due to how it's spelled in English, Karchess Crim's last name is a reference to cream—or rather, Ice Cream, KAITO's favorite food.
    • Banica's vessel of sin is a glass of wine, and Germaine becomes an alcoholic later on in the story—MEIKO is well known for her frequent drinking binges in fanon.
    • In a literal mythology gag, Eve and Adam are (sort of) reincarnated as a pair of twins. Japanese folklore includes stories of how lovers in a past life would be born as twins in the next because of their strong bonds.
  • Night of the Living Mooks: The undead soldiers used by Banica and later Ney Phutapie in the franchise, most of which only retaining a small semblance of their former life and mindlessly tearing apart those they come in contact with.
  • No Biological Sex: Forest spirits don't have genders, hence why Michaela uses "boku" as a spirit, and "Watashi" as a human during Wiegenlied of Green. Elluka nonetheless considers the spirits to be female.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It's very common (though there are exceptions) for mothy to cut away from fight scenes in the light novels. The Duel of Merrigod Plateau in particular begins and then immediately skips over two hours of the fight to detail how it ends.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted several times, although most examples have the individuals centuries apart, such as Ayn of the Daughter of Evil era sharing names with constable Ayn Anchor and his grandfather. Even that is averted with the name Riliane, however; first there was Empress Riliane Roses, then Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche, and the soldier Riliane Mouchet.
    • There is an entire organization that used "Bruno" as a code name in the Gluttony era, which carries on to others adopting the name "Bruno" as a Legacy Character.
  • Only One Name: Most everyone in Elphegort has only their given name, save for nobility.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: They're a strange mix of voodoo and plague—it's one of the powers of the demon of Gluttony to raise the dead to serve as minions, but in particular it seems to focus on people who suffered from the Gula disease during life. Though later on in Judgment of Corruption there's an epidemic of zombies that are unrelated to Gluttony—those are not explained aside from a Hand Wave of the world's rules breaking apart.
  • People of Hair Color: Played straight with Elphegort but subverted everywhere else; despite Marlon and Lucifenia having nicknames like "The Blue/Yellow Country" respectively, there's more ethnic diversity there and everywhere else in Evillious (in fact, it's revealed their nicknames are not based on hair color.)
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Several throughout the Chronicles, though Riliane, Master of the Graveyard, and Margarita Blankenheim's dresses are the best examples.
  • The Plague: The Gula disease, which causes its victims to grow rapidly malnourished and always hungry for whatever is on hand (even if it isn't edible,) and the only way to survive it is to satiate that hunger for a span of ten years. By the Daughter of Evil period it can be treated and later a cure is developed, but not before killing millions of Beelzenians and others through history.
    • Might count as Mystical Plague, seeing its connection to the Demon of Gluttony.
    • Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome appears to have started like this in the Second Period before becoming a hereditary disease.
  • Poison Is Evil: Played to its fullest, with the Rogzé family in the Daughter of Evil using poison as their weapon of choice, Venomania's poison and venom motif, and Margarita's Gift.
  • P.O.V. Sequel: Quite common. Particularly so with the Daughter of Evil series, where in the songs "The Daughter of White," "The Servant of Evil," and "The Maiden of the Tree ~Millennium Wiegenlied~" can all be seen as one to "The Daughter of Evil", and in the books Wiegenlied of Green is one to Cloture of Yellow.
  • Punny Name: If it's not a Meaningful Name, mothy tends to do this instead. Special mention goes to the Conchita family, who all have names that relate to eating. Tettipea, for example, which with the katakana reversed sounds out as "appetite", or "Tasute", which with the katakana reversed sounds out "taste".
  • Recursive Canon: The songs get this from time to time; one example is "Recollective Music Box," telling the story of Elluka's past, which is also a spell-song Michaela uses in-universe. The first line from "The Last Revolver" reversed is also part of a spell-song.
    • Michaela sings the song "South North Story" to a little boy to cheer him up.
  • Reincarnation: A common theme in the series as well as a plot point for Hansel and Gretel, and Allen and Riliane, who keep being reincarnated throughout the franchise.
    • Subverted sometimes; for instance, the Master of the Graveyard seems to think Kyle is a reincarnation of Adam in Prefacio of Blue, but mothy confirms she was just mistaken because of their similarities.
    • This is the case for some of the Evil's Theater inhabitants in a sense, albeit unconventionally; several of them are souls whom Lich provides mud bodies for, and the Master of the Court is a reincarnation for Irina. It's not clear what Gear is, but Adam's soul is definitely inside him in a similar vein. Adam and Eve Moonlit later reincarnate as the irregular twins, Adam and Eve.
    • The ending of the series has nearly everyone reincarnating in the truest sense, as the world is rebuilt according to the Heavenly/Hellish ending.
  • Religion of Evil: The Behemo Sect of the Levin religion is, at least, treated this way in-universe for its demon-worship. During Original Sin Story Held followers were also accused of following this, their god branded evil by Magic Kingdom Levianta.
  • Reused Character Design: The same Vocaloids are used to represent multiple different characters. Justified in several cases.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Some of the chronicles (both the Seven Deadly Sins Series and the "End of Four" series) heavily reference an early XVI century painting called "The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things" (The four last things are: Death (Graveyard), Judgement (Court), Hell (Hellish Yard) and Glory (Heavenly Yard)).
    • There are several name shoutouts to mythology, especially Norse and Greek, during the Greed and Wrath arcs of the series.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: The mistreatment of Venomania's descendants feature in nearly all parts of the story.
  • Snow Means Death: Lemy Abelard is shot by Gumillia on a snowy night. Nyoze is also shot by Nemesis in the middle of winter.
  • Spell My Name With An S: For a long time the fanbase referred to the characters from the Daughter of Evil series by their Vocaloid names (Rin, Len, Miku, etc) before the canon names in the novels (Riliane, Allen, Michaela, etc) became widespread. As demonstrated below, multiple debates also occurred on the proper English spelling of the canon character names, with many more examples than this listed.
    • There used to be confusion on whether Banica's name was "Vanika" or "Banika" before Word of God explained it was a torsion on the word cannibal. Amusingly, in-universe Banica's folklore persona is called Vanika.
    • There was also a debate on Allen's last name being correctly spelled as "Avadonia" or "Abbadonia", although this debate tended to ignore the way his name was actually spelled in katakana, which specifically represented the 'v' sound.
    • Entr'acte of Evil: The Daughter of Evil Worldguide as well as Epic of Evil: The Daughter of Evil Fanbook cleared up many debates on how some of the names, such as Riliane, Clarith, or Germaine, were supposed to be spelled.
    • "Lily" Mouchet's full name is often debated as either Liliane or Riliane. On one hand, her name is said to be the same as the Daughter of Evil's, which is why she strongly prefers her nickname. However, her nickname works better with Liliane than with Riliane, even though both are spelled the same in Japanese. Complicating matters further is that both women were named after a common ancestor, Riliane Roses. Since the Daughter of Evil's name has been officially written as Riliane, it should follow that the other names are Riliane Roses and Riliane Mouchet, but Liliane remains very popular for the latter.
    • The Clockwork Lullaby; no one is sure if it's spelled "Lu Li La" or "Ru Ri Ra".
    • For the longest time, Karchess' name was spelled as "Kachess", due to a translation error with the double a in the Japanese spelling (Kaachesu). This was cleared up by Word of God stating an r in the name is intentional (although invokedShrug of God on the rest of the spelling).
    • It isn't uncommon for Duke Venomania's name to be spelled as "Sateriajis" or otherwise with a "j". It doesn't help that his Japanese name does have a "j" sound in it.
  • Split Personality: The protagonist of "Blood-Stained Switch"; we're told that this is a possible symptom of Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome.
  • Stealth Sequel: Unlock City and "Ten Minute Love" are this to the Chronicles as a whole.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Played straight with the characters represented by KAITO, MEIKO and Gackpo and subverted by characters represented by Miku, since they're either unrelated to each other or are just Eve's transmigrations.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While Evillious is far from realistic, many of the twists of the series rely on the audience implicitly accepting many unrealistic tropes of the fantasy genre and fiction in general before revealing how wrong they are. Some examples; Hitting someone on the head hard enough to knock them out will cause brain damage, many cases of identical ancestors have an actual explanation behind them as genes aren't that exact, different sex twins being identical can't occur naturally, and you can't truly revive someone from death with what is essentially a spaceship.
  • There Are No Therapists: Most of this series, if not all of it, takes place in a realm reminiscent of the time before therapists were a thing. But still, people like Sateriasis Venomania could have really used one.
    • Averted in the Second Period, as Levia is a psychiatrist. In this case, though, they're ineffective as they can't successfully treat HER Syndrome.
  • Title Drop: Seen in multiple songs - The Daughter of Evil, Judgment of Corruption, Wordplay, and Flower of the Plateau, to name a few.
  • Twist Ending: This trope is used liberally in the Chronicles, particularly the songs—several are quite disturbing, such as Kayo Sudou’s "lover" really not knowing her at all. Deadly Sins of Evil light novels also tend to employ at least one twist per novel, most noticeably from Gift onwards.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Many of the songs are sung from the perspective of a particular character, meaning there are often details of the situation that are either left out or distorted by the singer's perspective.
    • Albeit in a minor way Levia turns out to be one in The Muzzle of Nemesis's seventh chapter. She mistakenly believes that Sickle is her friend Luna Hadzuki and wonders how Luna got into a bat body, when Sickle is actually TALOS.
  • Vestigial Empire: The Tasan Empire, which splits due to inner conflict and has its pieces conquered by Beelzenia in the first century EC, with Retasan Fortress being it's last known remnant.
    • The Beelzenian Empire becomes this way over the centuries as it loses more and more of its territory, a shell of its former glory by the Daughter of Evil.
  • Wham Line: The Evillious adjacent collab song "South North Story" features one when the two different Rins are sharing their backstories. South Rin states that she's an ordinary schoolgirl. North Rin?
    North Rin: (over an image of Riliane and Allen) In the north I ruined a countrynote 
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Elluka Clockworker's immortality is a considerable source of angst when it means she will inevitably watch all her close friends die of aging, disease, or less natural causes.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: Being based off of VOCALOIDS, a large percentage of Evillious' denizens have unnaturally colored hair from birth, such as the people of Elphegort all having hair in some shade of green (or teal), the Marlon family line usually having blue hair (or bright red in Arkatoir's case), Lukana Octo having pink, etc. This is implied to be due to Evillious' nature as an artificially created world.
  • World Tree: The Millennium Tree, which is inhabited by a god. The first one featured in the story is Held, and he is later replaced by Michaela.
  • Year Zero: The birth of Hansel and Gretel, the twins believed to be reincarnations of gods, marks the beginning of a new calendar. With a few exceptions every event in the series takes place during the Evillious Calendar.

     Tropes Related to the Original Sin Story 
  • Arc Symbol: "Red fruits," representing Hansel and Gretel, show up in some of the PVs.
  • Arc Words:
    • "Malice" appears throughout this arc.
    • In "Project 'Ma'," the opening phrase "This is the story of the beginning. Where should I start? My name is _____, the best _____ in this country..." are sung three times. This structure reappears in "Master of the Heavenly Yard".
  • Artificial Human: The Ghoul children of Levianta are this, each of them created by Seth Twiright.
  • Back from the Dead: Elluka after Kiril uses the Sin to revive her, this being the beginning of her long life of immortality. Or not, given the reveal that Elluka Clockworker is really Levia. Elluka Chirclatia never comes back.
  • Benevolent Mage Ruler: Before the Catastrophe this was Levianta's preferred ruler, with first a prophet in charge (her son not indicated to be her heir) and then the new queen chosen among the most powerful mages (who are also made out to be the mother of gods, 'Ma'.
  • Dark Reprise: "Recollective Music Box" receives one in a slower and sadder remix sung from the perspective of Kiril Clockworker. The melody also shows up in "Survival 'Ma' -Who Will Survive?-" as part of the musical break before Irina kills Elluka.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Elluka, following the Levianta Catastrophe, awakens to find the whole country destroyed and everyone she knew either dead or missing.
  • First-Episode Resurrection: Elluka Clockworker of the Seven Deadly Sins series is shown being killed and then resurrected in this early arc. Although it's a lie, the audience isn't privy to that until later.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Fans watching the videos in order of release would have soon guessed the ending of "Escape of Salmhofer the Witch" was Meta's children being stolen after seeing "Moonlit Bear."
  • Foreshadowing: Around the 0:26 mark in the PV of "Moonlit Bear," there's blood on the hem of Eve Moonlit's dress. At the end of the song, we find out that she murdered Hansel and Gretel's mother.
  • Fractured Fairy Tale: Hansel and Gretel in "Abandoned on a Moonlit Night."
  • Grand Theft Me: The actual plan for the children borne by the 'MA' in Project MA. The twins would be left to grow until they were at the ideal age, at which point Levia and Behemo would be able to leave the ark in spirit and use the bodies for themselves, suppressing the souls already inside with their superior power.
  • Heel Realization: Eve in "Moonlit Bear," realizing that she's a kidnapper and a murderer, stealing two twins and killing their mother.
  • Ironic Echo: In "Escape of Salmhofer the Witch," "My children are nowhere to be found."
  • Lunacy: A running theme in both "Moonlit Bear" and "Abandoned on a Moonlit Night."
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: In "Survival 'Ma'," Irina kills Ly Li by sending her off a cliff, and it's claimed she tripped and fell.
  • Murder by Cremation: Hansel and Gretel come across a witch and shove her into the oven. Oh, and that "witch" was actually their adoptive mother.
  • Never Suicide: Milky is found hanged during Survival 'Ma', and sure enough, a flashback shows Irina hanging her.
  • Nostalgic Musicbox: Fittingly, this is used in the first verse of "Recollective Music Box."
  • Offing the Offspring: Attempted in "Abandoned on a Moonlit Night" where the twins are left behind in the forest.
  • Ominous Music Box Tune: The beginning of the instrumental "Prophet Merry-Go-Round."
  • Ouroboros: In the PV of Escape of the Salmhofer the Witch, two ouroboros symbols are seen at the end, probably representing the "Twin Gods".
  • Psychotic Smirk: Meta Salmhofer has this expression at two points in the PV for "The Escape of Salmhofer the Witch;" once to demonstrate how evil she was as a member of Apocalypse, and a second time when she's exonerated in exchange for becoming the new 'Ma'.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Eve Moonlit for half a second in the PV of "Moonlit Bear."
  • Science Fantasy: The science part is most heavily emphasized in this era.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The only reason Ly Li was allowed to become part of Project 'Ma'; her father was a noble and heavily funded the project.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Hansel and Gretel, killing their adoptive parents.
  • Separated at Birth: Pale Noël and Seth Twiright. Later averted, since they're not actually twins.
  • Tempting Apple: The events that transpire in "Moonlit Bear" are heavy in apple-related imagery, which isn’t the last of the Biblical themes used in this series.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Meta, at least after leaving the Institute. Who leaves their twin babies alone in the forest in the middle of the night? This leads to her babies getting stolen and her killed.
  • Virgin Power: Invoked by Project 'Ma', where one of the requirements is to be a virgin. It's clear that there is no actual reason for this requirement since several of the candidates—among them a prostitute—are obviously not virgins, and Meta, the only successful Ma, was Pale's lover.
  • Wham Line: Adam delivers one to Eve at the end of "Moonlit Bear."
    "Please return these children to their true mother's side".
  • Wham Shot: The above line from "Moonlit Bear" accompanies the two apples morphing into crying babies. Similarly, from the same video, the image of the dead bear changing into Meta's dead body.
    • The Survival 'Ma' PV revisits Milky and Ly Li's deaths near the end and shows Irina killing them.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Kiril Clockworker is last seen in the ruins of Levianta, living as a broken madman. We are never told of his fate afterward and he isn't seen again until the Clockwork Lullaby album's booklet (which reveals that he eventually earned his happy ending).

     Tropes Related to the Seven Deadly Sins Series 
  • Abusive Parents: There's plenty of examples in this series: Venomania and Conchita's so far had the most devastating effects.
  • Alliterative Name: Occurs from time to time. Notable examples are Allen Avadonia, Gumina Glassred, Mira and Michelle Marlon, Mei and Miku Miroku, Neruneru Nerune, and Riliane Roses.
  • Arc Words: "Now, [so and so]" at the beginning of each PV. Interestingly, the Pride and Wrath songs are the only ones where it's spoken aloud.
    • In the Seven Crimes and Punishments rearranges, each phrase is spoken aloud before the song.
    • Additionally, all response songs are preceded by "If only [so and so]".
  • Arranged Marriage: Several, all of which invariably turn sour....
    • Sateriasis and Gumina for the Lust arc.
    • Banica and Carlos for the Gluttony arc.
    • Riliane and Kyle for the Pride arc.
    • Margarita and Kaspar for the Sloth arc.
  • Artifact of Doom: The vessels used by the Demons of Sin; Lust's the Venom Sword, Gluttony's Glass of Conchita, Pride's Four Mirrors of Lucifenia, Sloth's Clockworker's Doll, Envy's Kayo's Scissors (previously the Twin Swords of Levianta), Greed's Marlon Spoon, and Wrath's Golden Key.
  • Autocannibalism: The most famous and perplexing part of Banica's story is the scene where she eats herself.
  • Bad Boss: Elluka is a pretty bad boss to her "employee" Platonic, whom she technically kidnapped and enslaved. Loki from Gallerian's time also counts as one, since he slaughtered most of them for sport.
    • Banica's song sets her up as one when she eats all of her servants, but the novels that expand on her relationship to all of them tell a different story, making her actually friends with each person who works under her (if not lovers, in Carlos' case.) Well, excluding all of her other chefs, whom she killed when they got fed up with her appetites.
  • Bad Santa: Julia runs the criminal organization Père Noël under the title "I. Santa Claus", complete with Santa coat.
  • Battle Butler: Carol Shields is a servant of Gumina's who knows martial arts, and is incredibly loyal. Arte and Pollo also count as this.
  • Bilingual Bonus: In "Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep," the word "Gift" appears to be a case of Gratuitous English, sung in Engrish by Margarita. However, it’s actually a case of Gratuitous German, as "Gift" refers to her poison.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Many of the arcs in this series end this way, particularly in the novels; while the Arc Villains that had been causing the problems are dead at the end of the story, Elluka fails repeatedly to find and seal the vessels of sin that corrupted them in the first place.
  • Body Surf: Elluka enters a new body twice in this series, swapping bodies with Lukana Octo and then Kayo Sudou. Irina changes bodies to an even greater extent, coming in with a new medium each time she reappears—however, she's only controlling them remotely from her cat body, making this a subversion.
  • Break His Heart to Save Him: This was the real reason Gumina mocked Cherubim in "The Lunacy of Duke Venomania", wishing to save him from the (real) Sateriasis, who was jealous of their relationship.
  • The Bride with a Past: The plot of "The Flower of the Plateau" is a variant where the bride (Mikulia, a former prostitute) gets married in a new town, and it's outsiders who come to reveal her past to the groom. So she kills them.
  • Broken Bird: Elluka Clockworker is a snarky badass in this series who acts whimsical and a little cold, especially early on, as a result of all she lost in Original Sin Story.
  • Cain and Abel: Played with: Cherubim killed the original Sateriasis, but it turned out that the original Sateriasis was also planning to kill him.
  • The Caligula: Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche (AKA "The Daughter of Evil")
  • Call-Back: After the final line of "The Muzzle of Nemesis", you can hear Nemesis sing in the background "Sayounara, itoshii hito"(Goodbye my love), a line she sang in "The Last Revolver".
  • Child by Rape: Sateriasis Venomania's lineage throughout the series is a result of his "conquests" using the power of the Venom Sword.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Venomania and Gumina had this, as well as Margarita and Kaspar (at least on Margarita's side.) Both examples end tragically.
  • Chocolate of Romance: In the Waltz of Evil comedy stories, the Venomania story centers around the girls all competing to give the Duke chocolate for Valentine's Day.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Kayo Sudou takes this to disturbing extremes towards Kai, a man she believes is her husband. Though it's revealed in the novel that her motives are revenge instead.
  • Clockwork Creature: Gallerian's "daughter", the Clockworker's Doll.
  • Cool Mask: The Master of the Hellish Yard wears a stylish half mask over her eyes.
    • Nemesis also dons a Domino Mask by the time of The Muzzle of Nemesis.
  • The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Both Kaspar and Dr. Felix's deaths were written off as being related to tobacco abuse or choking, when it's obvious there was more going on. In this case, the World Police are forced to accept the testimony because of pressure from above.
  • Creepy Child: Lemy Abelard in Fifth Pierrot, with a subversion on Banica's adult-but-still-young-looking servants.
  • Deadly Hug: Venomania pulls the cross-dressing Karchess into a hug before Karchess stabs him.
  • Deal with the Devil: Venomania and Conchita have been shown to do this directly with their Demon of Sin. With Gallerian he's shown making a contract with Adam Moonlit because it's the only way he can communicate with his daughter, while Nemesis accidentally contracts with Seth when she's a child.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Margarita in "Gift from the Princess Who Brought Sleep" definitely crosses this, but it's unclear at which point.
  • Despair Speech: The final verse of "Gift from the Princess Who Brought Sleep." The first half doubles as a Motive Rant.
  • Dictionary Opening: The music video of "Gift from the Princess Who Brought Sleep" opens with an entry from an English-to-Japanese dictionary defining the word "gift", which appears to be the Gratuitous English Arc Word of the song. About halfway through the video, the dictionary entry is shown again, only to be replaced by a German-to-Japanese dictionary entry — and in German, "Gift" means "poison".
  • Disguised in Drag: Karchess disguises himself in drag, and in the song even sings with a falsetto.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "Muzzle of Nemesis" album booklet reveals that Elphegort, led by a dictatorial Nemesis, would eventually form an alliance with Jakoku and Beelzenia. Jakoku would then attack a neutral country called the "United States of Maistia", which led to Maistia revoking its neutrality and plunging the ''entire world'' into a terrible war.
  • Driven to Suicide: Margarita Blankenheim. Early in his own novel, Cherubim was about to do this.
  • Dual-Meaning Chorus: "Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep." What is initially an invitation to rest using said "princess'" sleep medication becomes an invitation to die from her poison.
  • Dwindling Party: Père Noël is a villainous version, as its few members begin dying off or fleeing the organization for various reasons.
    • Also applies to the scientists of the Second Period during the creation of the Third Period, as their fellows begin dying off in droves for one reason or another along the way.
  • Dying Alone: In the Waltz of Evil Fanbook, one of the short stories shows that Chartette died this way at the hands of Irina. Duke Venomania died alone in his mansion, after all of the women from his harem fled.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Venomania tries to do this as he confesses his love for Gumina, and appeared to do so in the song, but it's subverted—he was unable to say it out loud due to a lack of breath.
  • Evil Versus Evil: In Judgment of Corruption/Muzzle of Nemesis, corrupt judge Gallerian Marlon versus revenge-fueled assassin Nemesis Sudou.
  • Expy: Ma of this and the Clockwork Lullaby Series bears a strong resemblance to Yuuko Ichihara, though decidedly more morally ambiguous.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Banica Conchita, who eats various things that are inedible to normal people.
  • Fan Disservice: In "Flower of the Plateau", we get a completely nude image of Mikulia. Pretty hot, huh? Nope. Not only is her lower half seemingly mutated graphically to look like a flower, but one of her breasts has a massive slug crawling on it. Ewwwww.
  • Fantastic Nuke: The "Punishment" weapon in the EC 900s, which once detonated, is able to wipe out an entire forest, and Nemesis uses it to destroy Evillious. As a bonus, it's created in the middle of heavy WWII parallels for the franchise.
  • Foregone Conclusion: The outcomes of some of the novels are already known to people who have watched the songs, though many new details about the story are revealed instead.
    • On another note, because of the Daughter of Evil series the audience already knows Elluka fails to collect and seal the Venom Sword or Glass of Conchita.
  • Foreshadowing: From "Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep" Margarita states she was used "like a doll"; this foreshadows her ownership of the Clockworker's Doll as well as the fact that she IS the Clockworker's Doll, as shown in the novel.
  • For Happiness: Margarita's motive, to make everyone happy. Whether or not she honestly believes she's doing that or is just lashing out is debatable.
  • Framing Device: In the Evil Food Eater Conchita novel, Banica's story is narrated by a waiter in the Graveyard restaurant during the EC 990s.
  • Freudian Excuse: Many of the villains of the series have one, detailed in the novels and referenced in the PVs.
    • For the exact list: If Conchita didn't finish her food, she'd be harshly punished by her mother; Venomania was horrifically neglected by his father; Riliane was possessed twice in childhood and forced in a position of authority at a young age, and Nemesis grew up isolated and without her parents around.
  • From a Single Cell: All contractors of Demons of Sin have a Healing Factor, to the point where they'll even regenerate from being burned to cinders.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The song Drug of Gold as titled in English to spell out the word "DOG"...it's the story of a dog, i.e. Carlos.
  • Genre Roulette: The light novels in the series have all different genres depending on what part of the story mothy focuses on. The Lunacy of Duke Venomania is a darkly tragic romance, Evil Food Eater Conchita reads like a horror novel, Gift From the Princess who Brought Sleep is a mystery, Fifth Pierrot is a crime novel, etc.
  • Godiva Hair: Mikulia Greeonio aka Eve in the PV for "Flower of the Plateau."
  • Gold Digger: Kaspar, who married Margarita Blankenheim because she was the daughter of a doctor and thus had a lot of wealth, is a male version of this.
  • Gory Discretion Shot:
    • Some of Conchita's delicious (not) dishes are censored with mosaics, with the names either being partially censored out or even entirely censored.
    • "Muzzle of Nemesis'" PV fades to black just before Nemesis shoots Gallerian in the head.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The fragments of sin that were scattered across the world. Although Elluka's quest gets the most focus, Gallerian is trying to fulfill his own dreams by collecting them for Ma.
  • Handsome Lech: Duke Venomania.
  • Hanging Judge: Gallerian Marlon (but only if you can't pay him enough).
  • Harem Seeker: Duke Venomania.
  • Hate Sink: Not as much as in the Daughter of Evil series, but seeing as every protagonist of this series is a villain and many of them commit very heinous crimes (Venomania is a rapist, Banica is a cannibal, Margarita is a Serial Killer, etc.), it makes sense to have side characters to redirect the audience's hate to. Kasper Blankenheim is one of the more prominent examples, being one of the few characters in the cast who doesn't even have moments where he can be pitied.
  • The Hedonist: Duke Venomania and Duke Conchita even more so. The fact that they are related won't surprise anyone. Kasper Blankenheim also qualifies, though he isn't as likeable as either of them.
  • Iconic Item: The Sins each have one:
  • If I Can't Have You…: Kayo resorts to this after three instances of Murder the Hypotenuse in "The Tailor of Enbizaka" song, although it's more complicated in the actual novel. Additionally, in "Gift of the Princess who Brought Sleep," Margarita's husband, who only married her for the dowry and cheats on her often, is the first victim of her poison.
  • I Have Many Names: Many people in the chronicle are known to have many aliases and titles, but special mention goes to Irina Clockworker, who is known as I.R., Abyss I.R., ABC-IR, I. Santa, and Julia Abelard.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Banica Conchita, who eats all of her enemies and people who annoy her.
  • Improbable Age: Word of God places Gallerian at a rather young age to be a high-ranking judge. The novel expands on how he rose through the ranks so quickly, he was in college at the age of sixteen.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Kayo Sudou murders four people with sewing scissors.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Duke Venomania, despite all his smugness about seducing women, was horribly insecure about himself before making the contract due to the mockery he suffered.
  • The Infiltration: Elluka joins Père Noël under an alias, but when she tries to get Lemy to leave, he instead reveals her betrayal to Julia, and Elluka goes missing the next day.
  • Karmic Death: Several of the Arc Villains get this;
    • In "Evil Food Eater Conchita," the titular character eats herself.
    • In "The Lunacy of Duke Venomania," the duke is killed by a man dressed like a woman.
    • In "Judgement of Corruption," Marlon is sent to Hell with the exact same words he gave criminals.
    • In "Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep," Margarita commits suicide by drinking the poison she had given to everyone.
  • Knight Templar Parent: Gallerian Marlon.
  • Lady Killer In Love: Played with in Venomania, who claims to fall in love with the multiple women he "seduces", although his true love is Gumina Glassred. Played straight with Kayo's husband in the Tailor novel, who is described as being a playboy before he married Kayo.
  • Lamarck Was Right: It is stated in the novels that people who descend from those possessed by one of the Demons of Sin can pull on their ancestor's power to increase their magical abilities. Word of God confirms that Venomania's descendants are just as, if not more, powerful than he was.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: There's a notable aversion for the website profiles of all the characters in "The Seven Crimes and Punishments", which explicitly dances around the twists introduced in the Deadly Sins of Evil novels—Sateriasis' doesn't even list his real birth date, instead listing that of his brother. It does, however, introduce new plot points for Kayo.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Nemesis does this in "Muzzle of Nemesis," declaring the end of the "story of sinful evil". In context, she means ending her father's tyranny and the events that led up to it, to the audience she seems to be referring to the end of the "Seven Deadly Sins Series".
  • The Magic Goes Away: It's mentioned in the Lunacy novel that after the Catastrophe, people with magical talent became scarcer, until magic became no more than a myth in the Daughter of Evil series. Lukana seems to be one of the few people with considerable magical talent left by 137 EC.
  • Masochist's Meal: Conchita, almost directly after making her Deal with the Devil—she devours a bunch of live worms and insects for dessert after a party.
  • Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: The song "Seven Crimes and Punishments" is one, being a showy piece featuring all the Seven Deadly Sins song protagonists, among other characters. It debuted, naturally, on the titular album to cap off the completed Seven Deadly Sins series.
  • May–December Romance: In the fourth verse of "The Tailor of Enbizaka," Kayo Sudou sees her boyfriend buying a yellow hairpin for a girl "that looks much too young". Subverted when we find out the yellow hairpin girl was the man's daughter, not his other lover.
  • The Mole: Elluka and Gumilia after joining Pere Noel.
  • Monster Clown: Lemy is a surprisingly cute example in "Fifth Pierrot."
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: This happens three times in "The Tailor of Enbizaka," although two of them were actually the man's daughters.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Nemesis eventually becomes the Evillious equivalent of Adolf Hitler, albeit without the racist ideologynote 
  • Nobility Marries Money: The once noble Felix family pushes Margarita to marry the noble (and now impoverished) Kaspar Blankenheim to regain their status, while Kaspar makes use of her fortune.
  • Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: According to Julia Abelard, secretly Mayrana in disguise, the town of Calgaround is this.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Gallerian insults Scherzer over his statement that one can never have too much money (as one of his motives for kidnapping the many women.) Scherzer rightly points out that the judge'll save anyone if they can pay money. Gallerian agrees, and that's why he judges Scherzer guilty after Bogaerts pays him to.
    • In the Tailor novel, Kiji Yarera muses that his motives for trying to kill Kayo were similar to Kayo's motives for killing the Miroku family—revenge for the loss of her loved ones.
  • Obsessed with Food: Banica Conchita; even before her contract with a gluttony demon, her life aspiration was to travel the world and taste all the cuisines the world had to offer.
  • Obsession Song: "The Tailor of Enbizaka" is about Kayo's obsession with her lover, a man who doesn't even know her.
  • Offing the Offspring: A subversion with Mikulia, who was impersonated by Eve when she kills Mikulia's son just to make sure that no one finds out her secret and with Banica, who changes her mind about eating her baby.
  • Oh, Crap!: Has appeared a few times;
    • In "The Lunacy of Duke Venomania," Sateriasis has this expression in the song when Karchess stabs him. In the novels, he reacts this way when the Demon abandons him to die.
    • The Demon of Gluttony has one of these reactions by the end of the "Evil Food Eater Conchita" novel when Banica decides to eat herself, and the demon by extension.
  • Once More, with Clarity: While the audience already knew something was off, the scene at the end of "Judgement of Corruption" where Gallerian holds his "daughter" as they both die is still kind of sweet. Then comes "Muzzle of Nemesis" and the shot of Gallerian holding the Clockworker's Doll (whom he's convinced is his daughter) with an oblivious smile, and ignoring his other supposed daughter, makes the whole thing become really creepy.
  • Perspective Flip: The Muzzle of Nemesis recreates the final scene from Judgment of Corruption from the perspective of his killer, Nemesis.
  • Poison and Cure Gambit: This was Père Noël's ultimate plan by having Margarita refine the Gift into an airborne pathogen. Using sap from the New Millennium Tree, a sole cure to the epidemic was to be devised and sold on the black market. The only problem was, Margarita had more interest in killing everyone than making the cure.
  • The Quest: Elluka was tasked by Held to collect the Vessels of Sin over the millennium, subverted when Levia realizes it was just busy work to keep her under Held's thumb.
  • Questionable Consent: The entirety of Duke Venomania's harem, who are being brainwashed by a demonic spell.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Venomania's defiling of the women he abducted is depicted to be just as bad as Riliane and Margarita's mass killings, and in fact his tendency to murder entire households is often overlooked in favor of commenting on the depravity of his "harem".
  • Really Gets Around: Venomania, with over twenty women in his harem. Later in life one of his victims, Mikulia, became a prostitute; Elluka comments that she seemed pretty happy as a favorite of the brothel-goers.
    • The demon of envy, Rahab, is apparently a female playboy with how many lovers she's implied to have had in the Second Period.
  • Replacement Goldfish: The Clockworker's Doll, for Gallerian's real daughter.
    • Kayo projects her dead husband and son onto other people to pretend that they're still alive; unusually, she snaps out of it in the case of her husband, as the novel reveals. She does this for Kokutan-douji, believing him to be her son and accepting him into her home when he comes looking for his true mother.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Gallerian Marlon's MO; if you pay him, he'll exonerate you as a judge.
  • Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Nemesis is frequently drawn in this pose. This album cover, for example◊.
  • Self-Made Orphan: In "Gift from the Princess Who Brought Sleep," Margarita's father is among the victims of her poison.
    • Venomania, as well, is responsible for the massacre that killed off the rest of the Venomania household.
    • Nemesis ends up killing both Gallerian Marlon and her mother, Ma, albeit the latter in self-defense.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: The theme of this series, and they're represented thusly:
    • Lust: Venomania brainwashes women into being filled with unceasing desire for him and keeps them in his harem as sex slaves.
    • Gluttony: Conchita desires to eat everything in the world, including the unthinkable.
    • Pride: Riliane's selfishness causes most of her and everybody else's problems.
    • Sloth: Margarita doesn't want to work to obtain happiness, so she takes the "lazy" route and makes herself "sleep forever"...but not before dragging everyone around her with her.
    • Envy: Kayo obsesses over a man she doesn't know and kills his various lovers who are not really his lovers to have him all for herself. The actual novel puts a different spin on it, though: she actually envied Kai his living family, as hers had been killed in the fire that he started.
    • Greed: Gallerian accepts bribes from criminals to absolve them of crime, and collects the sin vessels obsessively.
    • Wrath: Nemesis is sent into a revenge-fueled fury after being ordered to kill her lover and kills Gallerian to exact her vengeance.
  • Sex Montage: The PV for "The Lunacy of Duke of Venomania" shows the many conquests of the Duke, along with lists showing their name, age, and occupation before they "went missing." Disturbingly, some ages are censored.
  • She Is the King: Because in Beelzenia, "Duke" is a title referring to the Five Dukes, even females are called "Duke" rather than "Duchess" (as Banica demonstrates.)
    • As Master of the Graveyard, she is called "King of the Undead".
  • Skewed Priorities: Played for Drama in "Flower of the Plateau." Mikulia/Eve-posing-as-Mikulia cares more about keeping her secret than about a child's life.
  • Slasher Smile: Gallerian seems to be fond of this in his song PV and in the Seven Crimes and Punishments story, despite his more reserved manner in his actual novel.
  • Smuggling with Dolls: The Clockworker's Doll (the vessel of the Sin of Sloth) has a compartment inside of its stomach that can be used to store and hide small objects. Unsurprisingly given what kind of place Evillious is, it's been used for this purpose at least once.
  • Smug Snake: Riliane, as well as Venomania, are this in their respective arcs.
    • The "Judgement of Corruption Side Story" manga shows Gallerian dealing with one of these, a serial kidnapper named Scherzer.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Kayo Sudou, even though in her novel it turns out she didn't have the crush.
  • Stepford Smiler: Margarita Blankenheim in Gift From the Princess who Brought Sleep and Mikulia Greeonio in The Lunacy of Duke Venomania, though it's a milder variant in that she hides her frustrations with her peasant life.
  • Suicide Is Painless: Conchita eats herself without any problems so that she could taste all the food in the world, other than her baby anyway.
  • Synthetic Plague: The sixth version of Gift, which is what Margarita releases to kill off all of Toragay.
  • Taking You with Me: Held, just before dying, is capable of obliterating even souls with his godly power—it's for this reason Irina leaves him alone.
  • Tangled Family Tree: Nearly everyone is related to Duke Venomania.
    • It's taken up a notch in the Muzzle of Nemesis novel where it's revealed that Nemesis is not only Gallerian's daughter, she's also his half-sister and his mom (as she contains one of Ma's constituent souls) all rolled up in one.
      • And even more than that in the master of the heavenly yard novel, it turns out Master of the Court is Irina and Michelle forged a contract with Eve and absored one of her personas, so techinically, all of Gallerian's daughters are his moms.
  • This Was His True Form: It's shown that the Demon of Lust's abilities to change one's appearance aren't permanent, and when the Demon leaves Venomania's body, his second face returns.
  • Time Skip: Each novel and song takes place upwards of a hundred years after the latter.
  • Unholy Matrimony: Gallerian Marlon and Ma, hinted strongly at in their scene together in Praefacio of Blue and confirmed by "The Muzzle of Nemesis" PV.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Kayo Sudou.
    • Ma as well, she even lampshades it in the Evils Forest booklet.
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Karchess for Sateriasis in The Lunacy of Duke Venomania, the former stabbing the latter in the chest and removing his wig as he drops out of his falsetto.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Venomania and Riliane both get these toward the ends of their arcs.
  • Villainous Glutton: Banica Conchita, who even from an early age ate as a means of comfort, entertainment, and then obsession.
  • Villain Protagonist: Each song is sung from the point of view of the character acting out its “sin,” save for "The Daughter of Evil." Venomania and Conchita fulfill this role in their own novels.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Kayo Sudou, "With a good attitude and lovely skill, she's the talk of the whole neighborhood".
  • Wham Episode:
    • "The Muzzle Of Nemesis". Gallerian has a second daughter, named Nemesis, who is also the daughter of Ma. She's the one who killed him, and is implied to be responsible for Michelle and Mrs. Gallerian Marlon's death. Gallerian also commands hitmen in a recreation of Pere Noel.
    • "Gift From the Princess Who Brought Sleep" (the novel). There are quite a few disturbing revelations but they all pale in comparison to the one that comes after Margarita drinks her "sleep potion": Margarita died being born. Mikulia died in childbirth. Platonic never existed. They weren't even possessed by Sloth. It was Eve Moonlit. All of these people, when we see them after their deaths, were Eve inside the Clockworker's Doll brainwashing everyone she came into contact with. The whole time. What happened after Elluka tried to exorcise her is a mystery.
    • The Muzzle of Nemesis novel also counts for revealing that the Second Period beings weren't gods at all, but scientists. And one of them, Levia, is Nemesis.
  • Wham Line: Most commonly from the songs.
    • The infamous line from "The Tailor of Enbizaka":
      Kayo: He spoke to me as though I were a stranger
    • From "The Muzzle of Nemesis":
      "Mr. Pere Noel": I will never give over my fortune to the likes of you.
  • Wham Shot: In The Lunacy of Duke Venomania, the camera slowly (and then suddenly) pans up on Venomania's newest "bride" without her wig, revealing "her" as Karchess.
    • In "The Tailor of Enbizaka," the final shot zooms out as Kayo is back in her shop and reveals the body of her dead "lover".
    • The Muzzle of Nemesis has two similar shots that reveal the identity of previously silhouetted individuals - her employer, Gallerian Marlon, and her mother, Ma. In fact, an earlier one would be Nemesis making an offer to her employer, using the same gesture with her hand that Gallerian uses when making a deal.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Part of the risks making a contract with a Demon of Sin.

     Tropes Related to the Daughter of Evil Series 
  • 0% Approval Rating: Riliane, who's hated within only two years of ruling Lucifenia.
  • Aborted Declaration of Love: Allen backs out of telling Michaela he loves her while she is hidden and safe in the well. Michaela still takes notice of his feelings, but also realizes she can't love him back. He manages to confess too late, when he finds her on the verge of death from Ney's attack.
  • Adaptational Alternate Ending: The (non-canon) 2017 musical adaptation had one that was...controversial, to say the least—basically, when asked if she regrets having someone die for her by Clarith, Riliane replies that she doesn't (though it's clear she does)—this leads to Clarith attempting to burn her alive, with Riliane escaping and forcing Clarith to kneel to her, seeming to have learned nothing from her experiences. Meanwhile, Kyle Marlon turns into a tyrant almost immediately and kills Germaine due to Ney spreading a lie that she's the one who killed Michaela. The latter element actually comes (sort of) from the novels, but as the beginning to the second half of the series, not the ending of the first.
  • Agony of the Feet: As punishment for their crimes, the members of the Red Shoes Parade are forced to dance in burning hot red shoes, giving them their Karmic Death.
  • Alas, Poor Yorick: In the velvet mix version of "The Servant of Evil," one of the first images depicts Riliane crying as she cradles Allen's head.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: A running cause of angst throughout the series, and in some cases a plot point:
    • Riliane's love for Kyle going unrequited was the cause of the Green Hunting.
    • Several characters, including Allen and Kyle, have their love for Michaela going unrequited, since she only loves Clarith.
    • Prim's feelings for Arth (if such twisted feelings can be called love) were part of the reason why she grew to hate Anne.
  • Amazon Brigade: The Espionage Task Force, a group of women in iron masks led by Ney Marlon.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Michaela receives two. The first one comes from Clarith, who desperately tries to stall for time so the sleeping pill she gave her could take effect and Michaela could be taken to safety. The second one comes from Allen, as he finds her dying in the well he admits he loves her.
  • Arc Words: The phrases "[To do so and so], I’ll even become evil" and "If I could be reborn" have featured in some of the songs as well as the novels, short stories, and manga.
    • "That king was born from the mud" is repeated a few times throughout Lucifenia Trinity, referring to King Arth, who managed to sway the Three Heroes to his side during the Lucifenia Expansion war.
  • Arranged Marriage: Riliane and Kyle. Until he called it off to pursue Michaela, that is.
  • Ax-Crazy: Ney completely loses control in Praefacio of Blue, murdering her mother, becoming possessed by Conchita's glass, and trying to kill Kyle.
  • Battle Butler: Riliane has several servants who are capable of combat, whether she knows it or not. To give names, these would be Allen, Chartette, Mariam, and Ney, although not all of them end up fighting on Riliane's side.
  • BFS: Chartette has a huge sword. According to the guidebook, it's two meters long.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Ignoring some of the things that happened after, Allen and Michaela die, Riliane would live with the regret for the rest of her life, Clarith loses the first true friend she ever had, Kyle loses his entire family, Germaine gets possessed by Irina and Yukina's family is essentially shattered. The "sweet" part is that Riliane ultimately becomes a better person, Michaela becomes the New Millennium Tree, Allen is in heaven and still impacting the story, Kyle is free from his mother's control and lives the life he wanted, Germaine manages to avenge her father, Clarith starts to gain new friends (including Riliane) and Yukina becomes a famous storyteller.
    • The short story Daughter of Fog ends this way as well. Yvette Shalgam was able to move on from her dark past and find peace at the monastery, but she never got over Gast, and the Golden Key she killed her father with is now missing.
  • Blood from the Mouth: Clarith's mother, who is ill with a widespread disease that also killed the previous rulers of Lucifenia, dies while vomiting blood.
    • The undead soldiers all have this because of their own death from said disease.
    • Mariam Phutapie displays this after she is stabbed in the back by Ney.
  • Book Ends: The song "The Daughter of White" begins and ends with Clarith finding a collapsed girl, nursing her back to health, and befriending her despite a difference in status. In fact, the next-to-last verse quotes several lines verbatim from the first.
  • Break the Haughty: Riliane in Daughter of Evil's first half.
  • Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: In the PV of "Handbeat Clocktower," Prim slumps down in her chair and dissolves into a swarm of butterflies during the lyric "On top of the Clocktower, you sit on a chair decaying".
  • The Caligula: Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche (AKA "The Daughter of Evil")
    • Prim Marlon is also this, and without demonic possession as a justification.
  • Call-Back: That King was Born from Mud contains the line "たとえ世界の全ての人が"note , a line sung multiple times by Arth's son in Servant of Evil.
  • The Chessmaster: Prim Marlon.
    • Abyss I.R., too, befitting her other appearances in the Chronicles.
  • Child by Rape: In Praefacio of Blue, it's revealed that Prim used the powers of the Venom Sword to seduce Arth and have sex with him, leading to Ney's birth.
  • Child Prodigy: Yukina Freezis
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Riliane is only 14 years old when she comes to power, but this trope is deconstructed; it's clear what the pressure of the position and loneliness from being separated from her twin had done to her.
    • Played straight with Shaw Freezis once he takes control of the Freezis Firm under Keel's guidance.
  • Chocolate Baby: Ney's blonde hair meant that she could not have been the child of the blue-haired Marlon king, forcing Prim to cover up her infidelity by handing her off to Abyss I.R. and claiming the baby was stillborn.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Riliane, to King Kyle. In addition, Prim was this towards Arth before deciding she'd rather kill him to spite Anne.
  • Clock Tower: Features in Praefacio of Blue as well as its corresponding song "Handbeat Clocktower."
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: A common trope not just with the characters (being sung by Vocaloids) but also with the countries they came from; Lucifenia as the "Yellow Kingdom," Elphegort as the "Green Country," and so on.
    • Interestingly, the nicknames for the different countries all come from different sources in-universe.
  • Cool Mask: Kyle and later the Espionage Task Force wear these.
  • Court Mage: Elluka Clockworker for the court of Lucifenia, Abyss I. R. for the court of Marlon.
    • Shortly before the start of the story, Elluka had served this role for Beelzenia as well.
  • Cry into Chest: Clarith does this when Michaela tells her she's a wonderful person, shown in "The Daughter of White."
  • Dark Action Girl: Ney Phutapie, a deadly assassin working for her mother. Prior to the story proper, Mariam was also this as an assassin working for Abyss I.R.
  • Dead-Hand Shot: The final panel of "Retrouver of Silver," being Mariam's hand.
  • Death Seeker: Gast has been searching for a good location to die, eventually deciding to make the palace of Lucifenia his final battleground. He does not hold back in battle, though, and he comes close to killing Germaine before she gets the upper hand.
  • Declaration of Protection: Serves as one of the Arc Words in the story; Allen’s to Riliane is featured most prominently, with other characters quoting him almost word for word.
  • Died on Their Birthday: Allen (disguised as his twin sister, Riliane) is executed via guillotine for his sister's crimes on their shared birthday.
  • Disguised in Drag: Allen dresses himself up as a girl in order to pull off the swap that saves Riliane from execution.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Princess Riliane's response to the man she loves rejecting her in favor of a girl from another country is to completely destroy said country, and the first novel states that she regularly sentences people to death for minor "crimes" such as spilling water on her dress or just looking at her the wrong way.
  • Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Chartette, who ends up tearing up clothes and breaking furniture when trying to help set up a party in the beginning of Clôture of Yellow. It does help her with manual labor, however.
  • Downer Beginning: "The Daughter of Fog" short story begins with Gast's mother committing suicide and then, a little later, his little sister dying. It gets a little bit better, but not much.
  • Downer Ending: "Retrouver of Silver" ends with Mariam Phutapie getting stabbed in the back by her adopted daughter Ney.
  • Dwindling Party: They were a small party to begin with, but the Three Heroes get subjected to this early on. Leonhart is killed by Allen, Mariam is killed in the revolution, and Elluka flees.
  • Dying Alone: Riliane feared this as the Revolution came close to succeeding and all her servants but Allen abandoned her.
    • It's also how Mariam dies, betrayed by everyone she knew. Chartette also shares this fate, although she dies decades after the Daughter of Evil series proper.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Chartette's death, or so we're told, as she dies having just managed to prevent Abyss I.R. from getting her hands on a vessel of sin.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Clarith in "The Daughter of White" after all of her fellow villagers (and Michaela) were killed in the Green Hunting. "Gone, everyone's gone..."
  • Evil Stole My Faith: As a result of the violent discrimination they faced from devout Levin believers solely because of their heritages, Gast and Clarith both developed atheistic beliefs; in Gast it's more of a grudge against the church specifically, while Clarith simply doesn't believe in God when he fails to prevent her emotional abuse and her mother's death from the Gula Disease.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: In the novels, Riliane's hair is eventually cut short, while Kyle's hair is brushed back while he's still under Prim's control.
  • Eyes Never Lie: After Allen murders Leonhart, Gast looks in his eyes much later and is able to tell from that that he killed a man.
  • Fantastic Racism: The Elphe's treatment of all foreigners is an example of this.
    • So too is their treatment of the Netsuma Clan, who are indigenous to Elphegort but were persecuted to near-extinction because of events way way in the past.
  • Forced into Evil: Mikina Freezis was tricked by Prim into entering a contract with the demon of Greed, which resulted in her accidentally killing her father, and was told that the demon would go after her husband and kids next if she didn't start working for Abyss. This resulted in the deaths of Michaela (and all the fallout from that) and Ney, and nearly that of Yukina.
  • Foreshadowing: In "The Daughter of Evil", the narration points out that Allen's face strongly resembles Riliane's. This foreshadows both the revelation that they are, in fact, twins, and their Twin Switch.
  • Forged Message: In "The Letter She Kept Waiting For", the orphans forge a reply to the nun's letter to make her happy in her dying moments.
  • Freudian Trio: The Three Heroes of Lucifenia, with Leonhart Avadonia as the Ego, Elluka Clockworker as the Id and Mariam Phutapie as the Superego.
  • Friendless Background: Clarith; Michaela is her first actual friend, as everyone else either hates her or is too timid to go against those who do by befriending her.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!:
    • Riliane, a tyrannical despot who executes several people a month for petty crimes. That is, until she realizes what she's done and regrets it, after her brother's sacrifice and death.
    • Prim Marlon too, who instigates decades of war and demonic possession for similarly petty reasons.
  • Grief Song: "Regret Message" is about Riliane's grief after realizing how selfish she was as a princess.
  • Hate Sink: With every major character, including even Riliane, being a massive Woobie, it makes sense that there'd be characters here and there to act as lightning rods for hate in the interim. The most prominent would be Prim Marlon, but General Shalgham in the Daughter of Fog short story and Chelsea from Wiegenlied of Green also serve this role.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Ney Phutapie; she's killed, and her dying moments are to talk to Kyle in a dream and lament that it's too late to make up with him, Allen, and Riliane for what she's done.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Riliane in the first half of the series, turning from a cruel and selfish child to a humble nun.
  • Heel Realization: Riliane, Kyle, and Ney all experience this.
  • Heroic BSoD: Yukina gets hit with this after Mikina confesses to assisting Abyss, helping kick off the Green Hunting and telling Ney where Michaela was. When Abyss surrounds Yukina with fire, she's still too shocked to do anything but give up and wait to die.
    • Earlier Kyle Marlon was hit with this once he found out Ney Phutapie was his sister.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Allen switches places with Riliane in order to save her from execution.
    • Ayn also ends up getting killed while protecting Michaela and Clarith.
  • Humanity Ensues: Voluntarily done for Michaela and Gumillia, two forest spirits who reincarnate into human bodies to help Elluka.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Clarith prays for a friend before meeting Michaela.
  • Internalized Categorism: Clarith puts herself down constantly for having white hair, while talking about how beautiful everyone else's green hair is.
  • Interspecies Romance: Between a snake and a frog in Yukina's story, "The Frog's and My Love Romance." Yeah, it's just as weird as it sounds. It also doesn't end well... This is also included in Wiegenlied of Green, with Michaela (a spirit of the forest who previously spent time as a robin) being the target of affection for several humans.
  • In the Back: Ney kills Mariam this way. To add to it, Mariam had just finished retreating from a battle she was badly injured in.
  • It's All About Me: Riliane has this attitude, only happy when people are giving her lots of attention and fussing over her. However, she eventually snaps out of it.
  • Kaleidoscope Hair: Michaela's hair color changes somewhat with each release. Sometimes it's teal, sometimes blue, sometimes green.
  • Kangaroo Court: Becomes the norm for the Lucifenian justice system once Riliane is in charge.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Brought up where Allen has to kill his adopted father because Riliane told him to. Later, he is ordered to kill Michaela, the girl he fell in love with. He isn't able to carry it out or save Michaela, but he still takes the blame.
  • King Incognito: Kyle whenever he visits Keel, although he's not in disguise so much as just not announcing his presence; he also uses a pen-name for his artwork, which he adopts when he joins the revolution. Two female examples are Princess Ney, who keeps this up even when she stops being a spy and goes back to Marlon, and Riliane, who is forced to do this after she was supposedly executed.
  • King on His Deathbed: This kind of plot features in the short story "Twiright Prank," with King Arth having just passed on from a longstanding disease and one of his ministers taking advantage of this to manufacture a Succession Crisis.
  • Lady and Knight: Riliane and Allen are of the dark type; also an unusual example in that Allen is only a knight from his own perspective, as from Riliane's perspective (where she is ignorant of the lengths of his devotion to her) they are Mistress and Servant Boy archetypes.
    • In the previous generation, their mother Anne and Allen's adoptive father Leonhart were straighter examples of, respectively, the bright and white type.
  • Lady of War: Mariam Phutapie, who moves elegantly in battle even when covered in the blood of enemies she's cut down.
  • Let's Duet: Towards the ends of "The Servant of Evil" and "Thousand-Year Wiegenlied."
  • Long-Lost Relative: Riliane lost her memories of Allen being her brother, and it's only when he's preparing to sacrifice himself for her sake that she finds out about it. Additionally, in Praefacio of Blue, it's revealed that Ney's father was the king of Lucifenia, making her a half-sister to the twins, although they never knew. Prefacio is also where Kyle learns that Ney is his own half-sister as well.
  • Love at First Sight: Both Allen and Kyle fell in love with Michaela at first sight.
  • Love Chart: "Entr'acte of Evil" has one for the Daughter of Evil series.
  • Love Dodecahedron: While not a romantic love, Allen has very strong devotion for Riliane that is eventually returned. Riliane is engaged to Kyle and wants to go through with it, but he has no interest in her and pines for Michaela, who is also loved by Allen. Michaela instead loves Clarith, which is reciprocated. In addition, Ayn from Clarith's village had feelings for her, while multiple men proposed to Michaela. Gumillia, whether by friendship or something more, is also competing with Clarith's feelings for Michaela.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Allen is an example of the "genuinely well-meaning Love Martyr" variety (in "The Servant of Evil," he even says outright that he's willing to become evil if it's to protect Riliane)
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Prim asks Abyss I.R. to do this to Arth, leading to his supposedly being infected by Gula.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Prim Marlon and Ney Phutapie; the former is indirectly responsible for all of the strife in the Daughter of Evil series, while the latter is directly responsible for a big chunk of it.
  • Meaningful Echo: Allen's declaration to protect Riliane is echoed to an extent in Michaela's declaration to protect Clarith and Clarith's declaration that Michaela is the only friend she needs.
  • Mistress and Servant Boy: Riliane and Allen are a variant of these, with Riliane just barely older and being a more malicious female employer while Allen waits on her hand and foot. They also double as a Lady and Knight from Allen's perspective.
  • The Mole:
    • Ney Phutapie, who was a mole for Prim Marlon while she worked in the Lucifenian Royal Palace.
    • Chartette dons a disguise and starts feeding information to the growing rebel group in Lucifenia, even though she still spends time drinking tea with Riliane. It's only after the revolution hits the palace that she severs all allegiance with Riliane.
  • Moral Event Horizon: An in-universe one; the "Green Hunting" was such a brutal and devastating event that it led the Lucifenian people to rise up and decide that Riliane must be punished for it.
  • Morality Chain: Inverted; instead of going even more insane and becoming crueler, Riliane becomes racked with regret and self-loathing after Allen dies, and desperately wants to change her ways afterward.
  • Mother Makes You King: Prim doesn't care who she has to crush in order to make Kyle the king, even if it's Kyle himself.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: The whole reason Elphegort was invaded and the green-haired women were massacred in the Daughter of Evil was because Riliane wanted to be sure she killed said hypotenuse, which she succeeds at.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Riliane long after the revolution; one night she even sneaks into a confessional to fully apologize to god for everything she'd done.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: Allen to Riliane.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Riliane laughs this way at the very beginning of "The Daughter of Evil."
  • Off with His Head!: The ending of "The Daughter of Evil" and "The Servant of Evil" has Allen being executed this way, while in Praeludium of Red Lily beheads the undead previous Emperor of Beelzenia in combat.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: Yukina figures out that the person claiming to be Elluka may not actually be her because she claimed to hate tea when she was offered it, called Gumillia by an incorrect name, and didn't even remember Yukina's name.
  • Plucky Girl: Yukina Freezis, the protagonist of Praeludium of Red, for traveling across the continent on her own.
  • Pocket Protector: During Michaela's death, the necklace Kyle gave her saves her from a fatal injury, but the wound is still too deep and she bleeds out. Kyle, wearing the same necklace and facing the same assailant, is mostly unharmed while the blade shatters the necklace—unbeknownst to him, however, it had been enchanted beforehand.
  • Princesses Rule: Riliane. Justified, as she refuses to accept the title of Queen out of respect for her late mother.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain: Inverted in "A Hero's Armour is Always Crimson", which chronicles Leonhart's development from a cold-blooded killer into a true hero.
  • Puppet King: Kyle Marlon is constantly criticized as being a puppet of his mother, who unofficially holds the true authority in Marlon.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Elluka looks to be in her 20s but has been alive since near the start of this roughly thousand year saga, being an immortal sorceress. Gumillia and Michaela also look in their early teens or mid-twenties, but are actually 1028 years old, being forest spirits.
  • Re-Cut: The VG rereleases of Clôture and Wiegenlied, which have extra dialogues, new scenes and some changes made to existing ones.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: In the PV for "Red Shoes Parade," the eponymous group of vagabonds is represented by shadow puppets wearing red shoes.
  • Red Herring: Michaela is killed by a golden-haired assassin, which fans attribute to being Allen Avadonia. It's actually the blond-haired Ney Phutapie who killed Michaela under her birth mother, Prim Marlon's, order.
  • La Résistance: Germaine starts building one after her father's death, and it eventually grows into a complete revolution.
  • Royal Brat: Riliane, who will throw a massive tantrum if anything ever happens to get in her way.
  • Separated at Birth: Riliane and Allen, separated at the age of six—Riliane doesn't remember him, thanks to the events of Twiright Prank.
  • Sharing a Body: Gumillia and Elluka, after the latter's body is stolen by Abyss I. R..
  • Shout-Out: Riliane and Allen's switch in Cloture of Yellow is one to A Tale of Two Cities.
    Riliane: If there's no bread, let them eat snacks.
    • "The Very Amazing Spring Onion" used by Michaela is a reference to the leek, Miku's character item; similarly she's called a "Diva" by Elphegort for her singing talent.
  • Shrinking Violet: Clarith is incredibly timid and unsociable due to the abuse she suffers.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Riliane is selfish and proud, Allen is a self-sacrificing Love Martyr. While part of this can be attributed to their different upbringings, the song "Twiright Prank," which takes place before the twins were separated, reveals that Riliane has always been the more selfish twin.
  • Sketchy Successor: Queen Anne was actually quite competent and fair, with Lucifenia becoming prosperous under her reign. Once she died and her daughter Riliane took over, it all went right down the drain.
  • So Happy Together: "The Daughter of White" and "Thousand-Year Wiegenlied" cover this.
  • Story Within a Story: "Red Shoe Parade" and "A Frog's and My Love Romance" are both based on stories written by Yukina Freezis.
  • Succession Crisis: Two of them: first, when Riliane and Allen/Alexiel lost their father, a political struggle took place over which one of them would get to rule after their mother died, resulting in the assassinations of two ministers and, according to the official records, Alexiel. The second was in Marlon thanks to the king having numerous children with his first wife. To ensure that only her child Kyle could rule, Prim assassinated almost all of his half-siblings.
  • Survivor Guilt: In "The Daughter of White," Clarith felt this after the green-haired women were killed, especially for her friend Michaela, whom she wished she could have switched places with.
    • "Regret Message" is about this, though it really is her fault in this case.
  • Tangled Family Tree: The d'Autriche, Avadonia, Phutapie, and Marlon lines can all be connected on the same tree. Kyle and Riliane, who are engaged, both have Ney as a half-sister. The d'Autriches are also distantly related to the Mouchet family, of whom Riliane Mouchet is a member.
  • Tap on the Head: In the fourth novel, Abyss I.R. while taking control of Mikina hits Keel Freezis in the head to escape and kill Ney. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the Fanbook states Keel never truly recovered from the concussion, and had to retire early, leaving Shaw (who was way too young at the time) in charge of the Freezis Firm.
  • There Is a God!: While previously unable to believe in God because of her abuse, Clarith finally experiences friendship, she gradually starts believing in his existence. After Michaela is killed and Clarith falls back into depression, Keel asks her if she believes in God. She replies that though she didn't in the past, she does now. Clarith ends up becoming a nun in a Held monastery and later founds a monastic order in her name.
  • Timeskip: The novel Praeludium of Red takes place five years after Clôture of Yellow. There’s also a minor timeskip near the end of Wiegenlied of Green.
  • Treachery Cover-Up: After the climactic battle with Prim and Ney, Kyle covered up their crimes to keep the country from falling into chaos.
  • True Companions: The Three Heroes of Lucifenia, or at least Elluka thought so; Elluka gained her humanity back just from being friends with Mariam and Leonhart, and it's extremely painful for her to lose them. From how often the three rely on each other and consult with each other before Mariam and Leonhart's deaths, it's clear they reciprocate in kind.
  • Twin Switch: A major plot point when Allen switches places with Riliane to save her from the guillotine. She decides to change her ways due to this.
  • Tyrannicide: The main goal of La Résistance is to depose the petty, despotic Princess Riliane and execute her for the sake of the kingdom. Unfortunately, she performs a Twin Switch with her Half Identical Twin. Fortunately, however, it leads to her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Undying Loyalty: Allen to Riliane.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Kyle furthers his mother's ends to make Marlon the most powerful nation in Evillious, after initially annexing Lucifenia for just until the country got back on its feet.
  • "The Villain Sucks" Song: As most of "The Daughter of Evil" is sung about Riliane, rather than from her point of view, it's closer to this than to Villain Song.
  • Weeding Out Imperfections: In the song "Daughter of Evil," the vicious tyrant princess Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche is compared to a beautiful flower, while the peasants are compared to "pitiful weeds" that only exist to die and be turned into sources of nutrients for her.
  • Wham Line:
    • From "The Servant of Evil:"
      Allen: Wear my clothes and flee...
    • From "The Daughter of White":
      "I wonder who that boy was..."
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The Epic of Evil: The Daughter of Evil Fanbook contains an Aftermath section that elaborates on several of the main characters and their fates, with Praefacio ending on such a sudden note.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Yukina Freezis; she's only fourteen, but is shown to be extremely intelligent and already catching on quickly to the politics of the world she lives in.
  • You Killed My Father: Germaine's and Allen's adopted father Leonhart rebelled against Riliane's rule and snuck food out to the hungry people, but was caught and killed for his efforts. Germaine swore to avenge him, and later led the successful revolution against Riliane. Despite the fact that they didn't catch Riliane, just Allen pretending to be her. Before his death, Germaine pleaded with him to escape with her, but Allen pointed out he was the one who actually carried out the order so the execution would continue.

     Tropes Related to the Clockwork Lullaby and Four Endings Series 
  • All Just a Dream: "Madame Merry Go-Round" is what Gammon Octo thinks will happen to the Master of the Court if she continues to pursue the Sins. She doesn't believe him, but in the end, he's right.
  • And the Adventure Continues: The theme of "Banica Concerto!!" Having achieved her goal of tasting everything in the world, Banica Conchita, along with her loyal servants, travels to an entirely new one.
  • Animal Motifs: In "grEAT Journey", Banica's True Companions are turned into beast men—Arte and Pollo are "twin rabbits", Lich is a "black bird", Eater is a "moon bear" and Carlos is a "blue dog".
  • Arc Symbol: Gears feature in several songs, although "Heartbeat Clocktower" is the most obvious about it. Notably, gears are used as a metaphor for fate throughout the entire Chronicles.
  • Arc Words: "Lu Li La," the titular Clockwork Lullaby, is most prominent in this series. The word Utopia is also repeated several times.
  • Artificial Human: Sort of, BMD2-R and SN7F-R from Screws, Gears, and Pride are toys who gained free wills.
  • Badass Boast: The Master of the Hellish Yard's song contains one.
    "I am the Master of the Hellish Yard/The one who will overthrow hell note 
  • Beast Man: In "grEAT Journey", Arte, Pollo, Carlos, Lich and Eater obtain new bodies in this form, described by Carlos as "reduced to beasts" but his overall description ("wings on backs" "claws on hands" etc.) imply that they retain a humanoid shape. Carlos confirms that none of them regret this due to the fact that they did it for Banica.
  • Clock Tower: Evils Theater has one that is, naturally, the setting of "Heartbeat Clocktower."
  • Continuity Nod:
    • The various tunes of "Master of the Hellish Yard" are meant to resemble those of previous songs; "Wordplay", "Laboratory of the Full Moon" and "Recollective Music Box" in particular.
    • Unsurprisingly, "Master of the Graveyard" and "Banica Concerto!!" makes multiple lyrical and tune references to "Evil Food Eater Conchita".
  • Creepy Children Singing: Neo Adam and Neo Eve do this backwards at the end of "The Karma of Evil Will Not End", listing off Irina's various past incarnations chronologically in sing-song voices.
  • Criminal Found Family: Banica Conchita forms one of these with Arte/Gretel, Pollo/Hansel, Lich, Eater, Carlos and Seth at the end of the Chronicles.
  • Descent into Darkness Song: "Wordplay."
  • Fantastic Nuke: Nemesis' "Punishment" weapon is implied to be an Evillious version of the Atom Bomb. In its first test run, it destroyed an entire forest.
  • Framing Device: Several of the Evils album booklets serve as this.
    • Evils Forest, which is about Ma greeting an intruder and speaking to them about the forest and its “rules”.
    • Evils Kingdom, which is about Ma showing the “movies” to a soon to be judged theater intruder.
    • Evils Court, about Gammon Octo's thoughts on the scripts he helps Ma create.
    • Clockwork Lullaby, about Kiril examining the various lullabies and their subject matter.
  • Heel–Face Turn: By the end of "Master of the Heavenly Yard", everyone except Ma, Gammon, Eve, Adam and Irina ends up siding with Allen and Riliane, regardless of prior affiliation.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Gear takes out his own heart and uses it to prevent the clock from stopping in order to keep the Clockworker’s Doll alive.
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The Four Masters, given their status as four powerful, otherworldly beings whose main arc occurs right before the end of the world.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Judging by "Capriccio Farce", this is Master of the Court's opinion.
  • "I Am Becoming" Song: "Master of the Hellish Yard" and "Master of the Court".
  • "I Am" Song: The entire Four Endings series centers around this for the four "Master" characters, with the exception of Master of the Heavenly Yard, the Grand Finale to the franchise as a whole.
  • Info Dump: Both Heartbeat Clocktower and Capriccio Farce all count as this, as do the album books. Due to the nature of the series, it tends to be appreciated.
  • Jump Scare: Margarita/Michelle pulls a brief but effective one in "Master of the Heavenly Yard".
  • Kangaroo Court: Gammon Octo (the gardener) is subjected to this after arriving at the theater in the forest and getting captured. Master of the Court's song implies that everyone who makes it past the graveyard is subject to this.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the first verse of "Cappriccio Farce", the Awakened Vessels are searching for the Vessel of Wrath. Guess who else was waiting for Wrath at the time the song was released.
  • Leitmotif: "Ode to Joy" for the unnamed Rin character in Wordplay and elsewhere.
  • Madness Mantra: Hansel and Gretel have one in "Master of the Graveyard" and "Banica Concerto!!".
    "Abandoned! Cup! Beg! Crawl! Lose! Back! Lung! Ash!"
  • Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: "Capriccio Farce" features this with all the inhabitants of Evils Theater and the Master of the Hellish Yard singing about their quest for "Utopia". "Seven Crimes and Punishments" features all the Seven Deadly Sins characters plus Allen and Hänsel and Gretel singing of their stories.
  • Motor Mouth: The Servants do this a couple of times in "Capriccio Farce" and the Clockworker's Doll joins them the second time.
  • Multiple Endings: In-universe non-video game example. Evillious has four potential endings, Graveyard Ending (bringing everyone to "death"), Court Ending (bringing everyone to "judgement"), Hellish Ending (everyone is eternally punished) and Heavenly Ending (everyone is eternally forgiven). According to "Ending Boy Hansel", one of these endings must come to pass and there's no way any one of them can be avoided. All four of them end up doing so as a result.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: The instrumental "5 Minutes to Court".
  • Parasol of Prettiness: The Master of the Graveyard; definitely referring to the high class and femininity part, not the innocence and demurity part.
  • Parental Love Song: "Master of the Court" combines this with Villain Song, between both the titular Master and her "unborn baby" Irregular, and a few lines dedicated to her father.
  • Shout-Out: "Capriccio Farce" to Ace Attorney, being both a trial and formatted as the same kind of visual novel.
  • Slasher Smile: In the PV of "Capriccio Farce," Conchita's servants have this expression.
  • Solo Duet: "Screws, Gears, and Pride", which features two Rins as the main singers (although Len does show up for one verse).
  • The Starscream: About half the inhabitants of Evils Theater are blatantly planning against the Master of the Court, while the other half are ambiguous in their motives.
  • Take Up My Sword: The Clockworker's Doll became the clocktower's Director and Master of the Court after Gallerian's death. She even says she inherited the will of her father in her song.
  • Token Good Teammate: Waiter, a reincarnation of Riliane whose only actions in the theater are to save Gammon and then Nemesis from being killed.
  • Triumphant Reprise: Banica Concerto!! is essentially this to Evil Food Eater Conchita and Master of the Graveyard.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Like her father before her and Ma, this is the Master of the Court’s mentality. Both Gear and Gammon think that it will all just end in disaster.
  • Villain Song:
    • Master of the Graveyard’s titular song.
    • The Master of the Hellish Yard's song too, when you consider the context.
  • Visual Novel: "Capriccio Farce's" PV, in a shout out to Ace Attorney.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: This arc has two big examples.
    • The Master of the Hellish Yard, who believes herself to be destroying a blood-soaked hell after her life before adopting the title.
    • Gammon Octo, who wants to destroy the souls of the most notable demon contractors, believing them to be the root of the evil holding the world back.
  • Wham Line:
    • From "Miniature Garden Girl":
      In the burned remains of the house
      One can find the charred bodies of a man
      And a tiny clockwork doll...
    • In "Master of the Hellish Yard", the singer goes on quite a bit about how it's her job to destroy hell, claiming it shouldn't have existed. It's only at the end that she elaborates:
      This blood soaked hell, Evillious.
    • From "Master of the Heavenly Yard":
      Allen: (to Riliane) I've been waiting to see you again. Your name is...
      "Riliane": Ma.
    • More of a "Wham Melody", but the ending to "Master of the Heavenly Yard"—after the song fades out, you hear an alarm clock going off until it's stopped. Then, the instrumental to "Ten Minute Love" starts playing...
    • "grEAT Journey" has the following, after Arte and Pollo mention someone has been pursuing Banica's vessel during her journey through the multiverse:
      Arte and Pollo: It's Ma's ghost!
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: BMD2-R and SN7F-R in Screws, Gears, and Pride. They are sentient toys which were viewed as defective because they couldn't live up to the standards of their creators and ended up in a garbage processing plant because of it.
  • When It All Began: "Chrono Story" alludes to Eve's Original Sin and the dividing of the sin vessels.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last three songs of the Clockwork Lullaby series serve as this to the Evillious Chronicles on the whole; "Banica Concerto!!" explains the Graveyard Ending, "The Karma of Evil Will Not End" explains the Court Ending and "Song of the Third Period" explains the Heavenly or Hellish ending.
  • Where It All Began: The vessels of sin are placed in Evils Theater, which stands on Adam and Eve’s former home—where the Demons of Sin were released in Original Sin Story.

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