The story starts when a young girl named Kasuga Tamaki is summoned by her grandmother to the small village where she lives. Things turn weird immediately when strange creatures appear before Tamaki in the woods. Well, it turns out that the women in Tamaki’s family are basically in charge of protecting the world and Granny feels that it's time to pass the torch to Tamaki. Not to worry though as she has got a little help; namely a magical little fox and several young men from the family whose ancestral duty is the protection of the Tamayorihime. Yes, this is a Shoujo series, how did you guess?
Unfortunately for Tamaki, she barely has time to settle into her new surroundings when Logos, a Germanic secret society, rolls into town. Their members are powerful, they want the local Artifact of Doom and they are willing to kill anyone who stands in their way; including Tamaki. So it looks like Tamaki is about to get a lot of on-the-job training.
The anime series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America.
This series contains examples of:
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Logos, exactly how old is Aria Rozenberg? note
- Alliterative Name: Drei's real name is Magus Melchizedek.
- Animal Motifs/Animal Stereotypes: The Five-Man Band reeks of this. To break it down we have:
- Ryou Kutani: Dog/Wolf.
- Yuuichi Komura: Fox.
- Suguru Oomi: Snake.
- Mahiro Atori: Crow.
- Anti-Magic: Aria Rozenberg is capable of neutralizing all magical attacks.
- Artifact Collection Agency: Logos is in town to acquire the Onikirimaru and some other miscellaneous items. Why they want these items and what they intend to do with them is not really elaborated upon.
- Asian Fox Spirit: Komura is descended from one.
- Back from the Brink: A good portion of the plot consists of Logos kicking the heroes' asses until the Endgame.
- Barrier Warrior: One of Oomi's talents is creating powerful seals and barriers.
- Blow You Away: Being the descendant of a Yatagarasu, Mahiro has control over the wind and can make powerful gusts of it at will and he can even summon tornadoes.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Mahiro Atori's personality can be summed up in three words. Loud, Energetic and Immature.
- Crossword Puzzle: Takuma's favorite hobby which is kind of surprising for The Big Guy.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Actually, the Big Bads do it to the good guys way more often than the other way around.....until Endgame.
- Driven to Suicide: Tamaki's grandmother implies that this is what she will do after going through with sacrificing Tamaki to restore the seal on the Onikirimaru.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Mitsuru gains these when its time for her to find the next Human Sacrifice.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Tamaki and the guardians, especially Mahiro, takes the revelations that Shinji and Suguru betrayed them, rather hard.
- Four Is Death: Aria Rozenberg has four assistants when first introduced, which are code-named one through four in German. Later we find out that Drei is one of the Four Wisemen.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: As the plot goes on it get harder and harder to tell which side you should be rooting for...
- The Grim Reaper: Zwei dresses in black, fights with a scythe, eats his opponents souls and Mahiro calls him a "death-god". Yeah, I'd say he qualifies.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Takuma is arrogant and short-tempered and often acts in a brash manner.
- Human Sacrifice: Blood is needed to keep the seal on the Onikirimaru. So far Suguru's mother and multiple others from the village has been sacrificed. Also Mahiro, as an Atori, has been stated to be the next one though now its Tamaki whose blood in now the only thing to combat the weakened seal on the Onikirimaru.
- Kick the Dog: Tamaki's Grandmother does this often, belittling everyone around her in practically every episode featuring her.
- Killed Off for Real: Eins died defending Aria from Drei in the anime.
- Little Bit Beastly: The heroes usually take on animalistic features when drawing heavily upon the power of their bloodline. Well, except for Takuma who is the descendant of an oni.
- The Load: Tamaki’s main purpose in the story seems to be a Damsel in Distress for the guys to rescue every second or third episode and rarely does she do anything really useful. Subverted in Endgame.
- Making a Splash: Oomi has the ability to control water.
- Master of Illusion: Yuuichi Komura is descended from a nine-tailed fox, so yeah, the fact that he is good with illusions is kind of a given.
- In the VN, it's revealed that his ancestor's illusion magic was taught to him by the Tamayorihime of that time.
- The Medic: One of the the areas of magic that Shinji specializes in is the power of healing.
- The Napoleon: Mahiro Atori is short and he is not happy about it.
- Non-Action Guy: Shinji in the anime. Not so in the VNs, especially on his own route.
- The Nose Knows: Kutani has a penchant for sniffing Tamaki which is due to his powers...well, he is descended from a from an dog-yokai.
- Pet the Dog: Despite the Kick the Dog examples above, Tamaki's Grandmother does get a noteworthy Pet the Dog moment, albeit by saying that she would essentially commit suicide after sacrificing her granddaughter to restore the seal of the Onikirimaru so that Tamaki wouldn't be alone in the afterlife.
- Phenotype Stereotype: The only two German women in the series are both blonde.
- Plucky Girl: For better or for worse, Tamaki doesn't take things lying down.
- Purple Is Powerful: Takuma has purple eyes, representing his uniqueness among the guardians as the most powerful and being the reincarnation of the King of the Underworld.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kutani. Takuma gets them too when he taps into his Superpowered Evil Side. Zwei has red eyes as well.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Five-Man Band seems split down the middle between the Reds and Blues. On the blue side you have soft-spoken Oomi and The Spock Komura. On the Red side you have The Big Guy Takuma and Bratty Half-Pint Mahiro. Then again, Takuma is literally the descendant of a Red Oni.
- Reincarnation: Tamaki and Takuma are the reincarnations of the Tamayori princess and the king of the Underworld, respectively.
- Reincarnation Romance: Implied between Tamaki and Takuma.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Drei often manages to pull off this look.
- Sinister Scythe: Zwei's preferred weapon of choice.
- Sleepyhead: Komura, whose narcolepsy is treated as an amusing quirk rather than a serious disorder.
- The Spock: Komura is The Smart Guy on the team and is usually very quiet and can be damn near emotionless most of the time.
- Summon Magic: One of Drei's magical abilities is calling in supernatural help to beat crap out of the heroes.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Komura. Considering that he is descended from a kitsune, it is not too surprising that he should have them.
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- Mahiro loves fried noodle rolls.
- Suguru Oomi seems almost addicted to tea.
- Treacherous Advisor: Aria's mother was murdered by Drei so that he could raise her in his own interests and he betrays her with the intent to kill later on in the story.
- Twincest: Implied between Shinji and Mitsuru.
- Urban Fantasy: The story takes places in modern day Japan.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Shinji gets this reception.
- Words Can Break My Bones: Shinji is actually capable of using words to control things in his surroundings.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Mahiro, to the point where when Tamaki calls him an elementary school student, he tries to hit Takuma, who said nothing.
- You Are Number 6: Ein, Zwei, Drei and Vier, which is German for One, Two, Three and Four. Yuichi actually comments on this.
- Later, Shinji joins the group and is given the codename Fünf which means five in German.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Zwei has a tendency to eat the souls of the people he defeats.
- Youkai: The series is rife with them. Not only that though but the heroes are descended from them as well. The exact lines of descent are:
- Mahiro Atori: Yatagarasu
- Yuuichi Komura: Kitsune
- Takuma Onizaki: Oni
- Suguru Oomi: Orochi
- Ryou Kutani: Okami
