Web Animation / Algicosathlon Rises

All contestants and the two original hosts as of Season 2. Top row: Maroon,Red, Orange, Yellow, Tan, Ivory, Lime, Green, Olive, Navy, Cobalt, Cyan. Middle row: NotScotish, Bolivia. Bottom row: Aqua, Teal, Purple, Lavender, Violet, Magenta, Pink, Periwinkle, White, Silver, Grey, Black, Brown.

Algicosathlon Rises, also known as NotScotish Algicosathlon is a Web Animation of the Algicosathlon genre, produced by NotScotish, which debuted in his YouTube in July 4th, 2020. It lasted for two seasons, ending its original run in August 13th, 2022. The show is notorious for mixing characteristics of both the Algicosathlon and Polandball genres.

Like all Algicosathlons, the show's format is inspired on Cary Huang's original Algicosathlon, along with other notable series of the genre, especially Dancingfb18, Algorox and LucidSigma.

The first season revolves around the contestants discovering the games they would have to play in order to win Algicosathlon and the million dollars. It was mostly non-serious, with more slice-of-life action. Its first episode was aired in the aforementioned July 4th, 2020; while its last episode aired in November 14th of the same year, premiering to mixed reviews from the Algodoo community.

The second season was a more serious installment, that focused more on the worldbuilding and emotional aspects of the franchise, opening many lore opportunities and an immense Myth Arc involving the show's entire world. The season premiered in January 1st, 2021; and met its end in the already mentioned August 13th, 2022. It was much more praised than the first season, although not without its criticisms.

Despite its end, the series has a confirmed non-Algicosathlon Romantic Comedy Midquel in development stage, called You and I, which is set to air in June 2024.

Not to be confused with No True Scotsman, which is a logical phallacy based on imposing rules based on just being part of a group.

Check out the show's official YouTube channel here.

Tropes present in the main series (Algicosathlon Seasons 1 and 2):

• Absurd Phobia: Cobalt has many of these, including other contestants and the GROUND. This is the setup for his Face Your Fears plot later on in Season 2.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episodes near a rejoin mean that the eliminated contestants are guaranteed to appear in at least one skit.
  • Season 1's episodes 10, 11, 13 and 17 show the eliminated contestants' routine and dynamics.
    • A special case was Aqua gaining some lines in Season 1 Episode 9, despite having been eliminated 6 episodes earlier.
• A Dog Named "Dog": All characters are named accordingly to their color.
• After the End: By 4040, the sun has been blown up and brought back.
• Animation Bump: Season 2's animation is considerably more fluid than Season 1's.
• Arc Number: 4. It was the number of Artifacts of Doom that Periwinkle produced and utilized, and also a part of Spraymatic 214 and the 4040 world.
• Arc Symbol: Almost all Season 1 contestants have a symbol associated to them. ^note Red- a megaphone; Maroon- the letter "M" and a basketball; Orange- a heart; Yellow- the sun; Tan- a trophy; Lime- a hammer; Green- a flute; Olive- waffles and an olive; Blue- a medical cross; Navy- rainy clouds; Cyan- a mountain; Purple- a book of jokes; Lavender- the moon; White- a triangle; Magenta- a time machine; Black- a raindrop, Grey- a prohibition sign. Aqua doesn't have symbols associated to him.
  • The show has also started on July 4th, of 2020, meaning both the day and the year of the premiere sum up to four.
• Artifact of Doom: The Spraymatic 214, able to corrupt a character's personality.
• Artistic License – Engineering: The 4040 4-screen Iphone is brought as a more eye-friendly phone, when it would provide the opposite effect in real life.
• Ascended Extra: Polandball was seen as a crazy guy at his first appearance, but quickly proves important to the show's Myth Arc.
• Audience Participation: The viewers would normally vote on rejoins, and, until mid-Season 2, send fanart to the contestants. This was downplayed later on as a part of the show's Cerebus Syndrome, but mostly due to its Broken Base.
• Badass Cape: NotScotish and Polandball have these after they start fighting for the army in Scaloin. This is only seen in the last scene.
• Bald of Evil: No character has hair, including the villains Navy and Periwinkle.
• Babies Ever After: Ivory and Cobalt are revealed to have 2 children in the Where Are They Now in the last episode.
• Berserk Button: Mentioning "Côte D'Ivoire" to Ivory will result in an outburst, even if it is a silent one.
• Beta Couple: Green and Tan didn't really have many big moments, aside from their marriage.
  • By season 2, Cyan and Blue have been pushed into this status, dilue to Blue being Out of Focus as a result of being eliminated first.
• Big Damn Hero: NotScotish appears right at the moment to fight Navy and Periwinkle over their evil actions, on course, saving all the contestants from them... for now.
• Big Damn Reunion: Tan and Green during the first season's finale. As Tan says, it's been three months.
• Big "NO!": In Season 1 Episode 17.
  Green: Tan! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • There is an instance of Magenta speaking French in Season 1.
  • "Boseru", Violet's native island, means "both" in Japanese.
• Bittersweet Ending: Black returns to normal in the last episode, but this costs Magenta's life, making him depressed again. However, Navy and Periwinkle are temporarily defeated, and all other characters live in relative peace.
• Black-and-White Morality: The show takes every effort it can to present the heroes as purehearted and compassionate, and the villains as ultimately rotten beings. This was only subverted with two characters: Pink and Violet.
• Bland-Name Product: Played straight with "Marblegram" and "Mbay", but averted with Google.
• Bookends: Season 1 both started and ended with explicit references to Dancingfb18.
• Boring Insult: Maroon in Season 1 Episode 13: "You know who's so lame? Red and Navy". Although this was enough to put them off.
• Break the Cutie: Several characters end up being negatively affected by the show, isolation, or other contestants' ruthlessness. This includes Yellow, Black, Orange, White, Magenta and Lavender. Some skits actually show that the eliminated contestants live better than the ones still in the competition.
• Bullied into Depression: Navy and Red's favourite target in Season 1 is Black, who, after enduring them for an entire season, starts to question his self-worth. It goes From Bad to Worse in Season 2 as he gets corrupted and his love interest and soon-to-be girlfriend dies for him to return to normal.
• Bullying a Dragon: Navy, Periwinkle, Red and White (these two formerly)'s main target is Black.
• But Not Too Foreign: Violet is technically a foreigner, as she comes from Boseru Island, but she doesn't have any cultural gimmick based on it.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Olive will either lose his waffles, get extremely full of them or both.
  • Blue is also very prone to physical pain, especially in the first season.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Navy and Red make it explicit that they're the bad guys in Season 1, with Periwinkle joining this club in Season 2.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Season 2 was much more Darker and Edgier than Season 1, with more dramatic arcs and the characters gaining more awareness of their own problems and mortality.
• Character in the Logo: Thumbnails for episodes would always include a specific character.
  • Aside from that, "Algicosathlon S2"'s letters were colored according to the characters.
• Cheer Them Up with Laughter: Season 1 Episode 18's first few minutes involve Purple and Aqua trying to cheer Black up... to little success.
• Christmas Episode: Season 1 has the Christmas Special, its 21st episode.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Zigzagged. Orange has had shades of this since Season 1, where, after only ONE interaction, she gets inquisitive about Lime liking Lavender. This evolves to their breakup caused by Lime's "alleged" cheating. However, she'll normally keep herself collected.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Grey has one of such scenes in Season 1 Episode 11, after discovering he had earned only five rejoin votes.
• Color Character: The characters are distinguished by their colors.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The characters' phones are all painted on their own colors.
• Convenient Escape Boat: Periwinkle and Navy use one of these to escape from Not Scotish in the finale.
• Create Your Own Hero: Navy and Periwinkle led to Black's corruption, which caused Magenta and Not Scotish's Hero Arc, along with the coming of Polandball.
• Crush Blush: Overused in the series, as basically all characters who have had a crush on another character had this.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: The world in 4040 has a shop is full of crystals on the outside.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2, in comparison to Season 1.
• Death Is Cheap: It's revealed Bolivia has the power of recovering the dead. Subverted when he loses this ability, leading to the show's Cerebus Syndrome.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Violet starts out as a very negative, snarky Friendship Hating Villain. She changes her ways after bonding and forming a good friendship with Orange.
• Disney Acid Sequence: In Season 1 Episode 14, White has one of these in a Flashback, where she finds a multi-colored Genie in a Bottle who gifts her the trademark triangular eyes.
• Differently Powered Individual: According to the finale, 3% of the individuals have some sort of power. Black, NotScotish and Bolivia are three of them.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Red and Navy were a duo of like-minded pranksters, but they have gone in different paths through Season 2, as Navy partnered up with Periwinkle to harm more people while Red refrained from doing so, starting his Character Arc.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Olive might be dim-witted, but, in Season 1 Episode 13, he not only inferred that the best way to stop Navy and Red would be pranking them back, but he orchestrated The Plan in an EXTREMELY effective way. This makes him the first character in the ENTIRE SERIES to outwit a villain.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Breaking the Fourth Wall was MUCH more common in the first season than in the second one.
  • Many characters had different personalities, which were changed for the sake of drama. That's the case of Yellow, who had a 180 between being a chill, responsible girl, to a Nervous Wreck who Cannot Spit It Out.
• Eating Contest: Olive hosts one of these in the show's finale. The contestants are Grey, Maroon and Yellow.
• Eject the Loser: All eliminated contestants end up being placed in a "recap" track and eventually thrown in the Elimination Box.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Olive zigzags this, as he is sometimes shown mispronouncing words and sometimes speaking them normally.
• Epic Fail: Cyan and Blue do a Ramp Jump in Season 1 Episode 16. She suceeds in the stunt, but he falls off the cliff they were jumping.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Lavender tried to throw a Tracking Device on her with a slingshot, missed the throw, interrupted a pingpong in the Losers' Box to, by sheer probability, land it on Cyan's back.
• Expy: White was originally meant to be an expy of Dancingfb18's Algicosathlon's Yellow. This was lampshaded by her in Season 1 Episode 1.
• Extendable Arms: White has these.
• Exotic Eye Designs: White has triangular eyes.
• Face Death with Dignity: Magenta took the fact that she would need to sacrifice herself for Black with a lot of dignity.
• Face Your Fears: Cobalt starts Season 2 as a panophobic scaredy-cat. By the passing of the episodes, he manages to get through his fears and social anxiety, and even strikes up a relationship with fellow outcast Ivory.
• Fan Art: From mid-season 1 to mid-season 2, a fanart would be sent to NotScotish in his Discord server, and later wheelpicked to appear in an episode. The suspension of these is a minor detail in the show's Cerebus Syndrome.
• Fictional Social Network: Marblegram is an example of this.
• Flashback: Uncommonly used in the show:
  • One flashback, in Season 1 Episode 14, shows the story of White being bullied by the Golden Brothers, and how she got her triangular eyes because of a Genie in a Bottle.
  • Another one shows Violet's life in Boseru Island, and how she was friends with Lilac before being emotionally betrayed by her, with this being her Freudian Excuse for her Friendship-Hating Antagonist personality.
• Foreseeing My Death: Olive does this in Season 1 Episode 4 (although it was his own elimination, not death).
• Flowery Elizabethan English: Poland uses this form of English when talking to the other characters.
• Foreshadowing: Cobalt picking Ivory first to her team was a foreshadowing of them hooking up after the season's end.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: The Christmas Skit is the only non-competitive episode.
  • The cancelled Video Game project called "Marble Fans: The Raid" would be the only non-animation episode.
• The Future: The world in 4040 is accessible by Magenta's house.
• The Future Will Be Better: Complete peace, health and a thriving society.
• Fan of the Past: Magenta was born in the future, but decided to move to the past because she found a more fullfilling life there.
• Funny Foreigner: Magenta, to some extent. She isn't from another country, but from the future. She tries to hold this secret for a while, but it spills out in the end.
• Game Show Physical Challenge: All challenges count as these, although the fact that the constestants lose their sentience during the challenge time means that no challenge is specifically easy or hard.
• Genie in a Bottle: White finds one in a Season 1 Episode 14 flashback, who grants her one wish: standing out (which was granted with her Exotic Eye Design.
• Gravity Is Purple: Defied, as the only character able to Gravity Screw in the series is Purple.
• Gravity Screw: Purple constantly defies gravity when announcing "do you wanna hear a cool joke".
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Lavender's plan to track Cyan results on this when Magenta alerts her about it.
• Gratuitous French: Magenta during Season 1 Episode 20: "Bonjour, Lavenda!"
• Happily Married: Green and Tan.
  • Ivory and Cobalt as of the Where Are They Now in the last episode.
• #HashtagForLaughs: "#LIMESUCKS!" from a deeply salty Navy after Lime rejoins.
• Hat of Authority: Downplayed. Cobalt, at the last scene, wears one, and he is now a father.
• Heel–Face Turn: Red as of the Christmas Special, as he apologizes for his mean antics, and gets to be an "official" part of the "good guys".
• Hand Wave: 4040 has all diseases' cures being bottled and distributed for free, along with many technology that can't be seen in the past. This ends up being the way Yellow is cured from her anxiety.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Magenta does this for Black to be uncorrupted.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Happens to some characters, but especially seen for Violet.
• Improbable Weapon User: Navy, and it's not because of his personality, but because "Algicosathlon Rises" it's, at most, a PG-rated series. Laser guns don't count.
• Jerk Jock: Downplayed for Grey. He is a jock and ends up as a basketball player, seen as a jerk by half of the cast and is VERY snarky and grumpy, but not exactly mean-spirited.
• Jet Pack: Lime invented one of these for Cyan to use.
• Killed Off for Real: Magenta, as a Heroic Sacrifice for Black.
• Last Moment Together: Magenta and White have a very tearjerking last scene together, just as White managed to redeem herself and fully restore their friendship.
• The Laws of Magic: NotScotish explains his powers as "Scotland being a magical place". Although this gets subverted when Polandball explains some people are just born with powers.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: NotScotish has a tendency to call the contestants "characters". Justified due to Algicosathlon being a Show Within a Show
• Love Doodles:
  • Cyan holds one of these right after Blue gets eliminated in Season 2. However, this is subverted as it is quickly revealed that the doodle in question is a Fan Art, included in the show for the sake of gratitude from NotScotish.
  • Black did one of these for Magenta in Season 2, giving it to her right before he gets corrupted.
• Luck-Based Mission: Algicosathlon events and eliminations are COMPLETELY luck-based.
• MacGuffin: Season 1's prize is a diamond trophy, with 100,000 dollars in cash inside of it.
  • Season 2 subverts this with the revelation that there's gonna be no trophy due to NotScotish enlisting to the Scaloin Army.
• Memorial Statue: In the last scene, a sculpture of Magenta is shown, resembling her life and death.
• Mirror Reveal: The first thing White does after gaining her triangular eyes from the Genie in a Bottle.
  White-AAAH! I DIDN'T WISH FOR TRIANGULAR EYES!
• Mondegreen Gag: In the series finale, Bolivia ends up misunderstanding a randomizer wheel for an Ebay car wheel.
• Myth Arc: While the show is going on, a war deflagration against Scotivia happens, and the contestants are apparently the only ones who don't know it yet. Things go awry when one of the enemy spies is revealed as a formerly eliminated contestant.
• Narrating the Obvious: Not Scotish narrates most of his actions.
• Never Gets Fat: Olive eats hundreds of waffles and never gains a pound. That was justified as being part of the marble physique.
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • White, due to her triangular eyes.
  • Black has white eyes, and when corrupted is the only character to have red eyes.
  • The countryballs (NotScotish, Bolivia, Polandball) have white eyes with a black outline. Polandball also has a way more detailed design when compared to other characters.
• Off-Model: Many episodes have counting mistakes leading to the increase/deduction of points in the competition. However, they are corrected in the very next episode.
• One-Winged Angel: Black gets corrupted in Season 2 Episode 10, leading to his real personality being hid in a facade of aggressiveness.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Aqua in his friendship with Purple and Black.
  • Maroon, in his group with Grey and Olive.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: White and Magenta don't want to explain the Heroic Sacrifice that is going to be done in a few hours. Lavender even lampshades this.
• Outside Ride: Cyan has one of these in Season 1 Episode 9. She ends up falling from the plane in the end.
• Picnic Episode: Green and Tan have a picnic in Season 1 Day 6 (which is interrupted by Red and Navy's mean and exaggerated pranks).
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Silver fits this trope, especially in his earlier appearances, where he was obsessed with "MarbleGram".
• Precious Photo: After Green is eliminated in Season 1, Tan carries a photo of them together.
• The Prankster: Navy and Red fit this trope, ESPECIALLY in the first season.
• Ramp Jump: Cyan decides to do jump from one cliff to another in Season 1 Episode 16. Blue tags along with her, much to his own misfortune.
• Real Song Theme Tune: All theme songs were NCS musics before they were included as theme songs. Most commonly, Season 2 used "Silence" by Axollo and Josh Bogert.
• Really Dead Montage: The last scene in Season 2 is this, as Cobalt explains to his kids about his competition mates' futures and about Magenta's sacrifice.
• Sadist Show: Some of the events and Not Scotish's carelessness are enough to include this show as one.
• Self-Deprecation: In Season 1 Episode 7, Red intends to blow a firework saying "Not Scotish is stupid". Too late...
• Sensory Abuse: In Season 1 Episode 6, Orange suffers one of these from Red.
• Smoke Out: Periwinkle has a portable smoke curtain.
• Soulful Plant Story: Downplayed. Orange plants a coffee tree while in Season 2, which grows to be a symbol of Scotivia Island in the last scene.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: Purple's jokes fit this situation.
• Scaling the Summit: Cyan's very first daredevilish act is this. She does indeed make it - In a minute.
• Shipper on Deck: White instantly noticed (and supported) Blue's crush on Cyan.
  White:"Oooh, they're in love!"
• Show Within a Show: "Algicosathlon Rises" is a reality show in-universe.
• Slice of Life: The first season had more slice-of-life content as the skits simply focused on the characters' adventures and friendships being formed. The Finale Season changed it completely, as it focused more on inter-cast rivalries and expanding the show's Myth Arc.
• Smoke Shield:
  • Red and Navy use a smoke bomb as a prank to ruin Lime's new invention, while getting away "easily".
  • Periwinkle utilizes one to hide from NotScotish in their confrontation in the final episode of the series.
• Speech Bubbles: That's how characters talk in all episodes, except for two shorts.
  • Color-Coded Speech
• Stuff Blowing Up: In Season 1 Episode 7, Cyan blows a bullseye up for the sake of it. Again, with a huge, (not so) eye-appealing explosion.
• Strictly Formula:
  • In normal episodes, the intro plays, there is a starting skit that takes from 4 to 8 minutes, a challenge is described and executed, the characters receive their placements and move in the leaderboard according to them, thus, leading to the elimination of the contestant with the least points. Soon after that, they have a farewell mini-skit (or, in the case of the SeasonFinales, tying up the loose ends.
  • In the SeasonFinales, a modified version of the intro plays, the eliminated contestants do their hijinks for a moment, and fall from the Elimination Box to be hand-picked by the finalists to join their team. The final event happens, a medal ceremony is led by NotScotish, and some more minutes of narrative action are used for Dénouement.
• Super-Empowering: NotScotish did that to grant Bolivia's recovering abilities.
• Super Mode: NotScotish being able to use the power of thunder in his fight with Navy and Periwinkle. He has known about the power, but has never actually used it before.
• Teleportation: One of Magenta's abilities due to the fact that she waas born in the future.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: All female characters have eyelashes. Also, Ivory wears a bow at her last scene.
• Title Sequence Replacement: Between seasons 1 and 2 of the show. Also, the theme tune is replaced every once in a while.
• They Died Because of You: Polandball informs Black about Magenta's sacrifice for him, leading to him thinking he's the worst person in the world.
• Too Dumb to Live: Blue decided to Ramp Jump a cliff, just to impress Cyan. Unlike her, he had ZERO EXPERIENCE in surviving dangerous stunts.
• Tracking Device: A minor plot point in the first season is trying to use this to stop Cyan from doing dangerous stuff.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Season 1 Episode 19 was a trailer for the Season Finale. It spoiled the entire elimination sequence for people who missed the episodes.
• Tree Cover: Lavender and White hide in a bush while trying to slingshot the Tracking Device on Cyan.
• Truncated Theme Tune: Only the "and I hear you calling out" verse is heard in the intro.
• Vague Age: In Season 1, the contestants were referred as teenagers, although it is unknown on whether they have reached majority. The fact that some of them have established occupations adds one more layer to the vagueness.
• Valley Girl: White zigzags this in most of her appearances. While she didn't have the common Valley Girl accent, she had many common attitudes associated with the trope.
• Water Is Blue: Navy is constantly associated with rainy clouds.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Coincidentally, two of the biggest BaseBreakingCharacters.
  • Yellow has only competed in 10 out of the total 50 episodes of the season.
  • Purple was the first character out in the first season, and has only survived for 10 episodes in Season 2.
  • Brown and Teal debuted in Season 2 to participations, being eliminated in Episodes 2 and 4, respectively.
• We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: All diseases have been cured, to the point that the cures have been bottled and given away due to the scarcity of cases.
• Where Are They Now: The last scene in the entire series.
  • Blue and Orange work as doctors, Cyan is still on her daredevilish actions, Brown is a famous painter, Tan and Green are in a band, Maroon and Grey play basketball for Scotivia (with Olive as their biggest fan), Lavender is a scientist, Purple and Teal still keep contact, White is still rich from her prize money, Violet has adopted some snakes, Silver is an enterpreneur, Red, White and NotScotish are now soldiers for Scotivia (and get to wear cool capes, Yellow and Pink are missing, and Black is still depressed at Magenta's death, but Aqua is there to help him when he needs.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: During the events all the contestants are just ragdolls bouncing across a screen. This was lampshaded by Grey in Season 1 Episode 4, and then by Maroon in Season 1 Episode 6.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Purple during Season 1 Episode 20: "See, Aqua? Olive wants to hear a kool joke."
• Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Navy's season 1 picture has him associated with rainy clouds and two YELLOW lightning bolts.
• You Already Changed the Past: Magenta's time travel to the past didn't change anything on her fate, since she already built history back in the day. She has even watched the NotScotish VIDEOS in her time.
• You Are Not Alone: The show's ultimate message, as seen not only in the last episodes, but also in many situations across the two seasons.

Tropes Present in "You and I":

• Ascended Extra: Ivory lasted only 8 episodes in the main series' second season, but is getting full spotlight in this spin-off.
• Darkest Africa: Downplayed. According to the zecond teaser, Ivory wants to know what's the mystery with Ivory Coast's name change to Côte D'Ivoire.
• Genre Shift: "You and I" outright ditches Algodoo and becomes a narrative-only show.
• Midquel: The events are set to happen two years after the end of Algicosathlon, but 13 years before the main series' last scene.
• Road Trip Plot: The first teaser of the show had Ivory and Cobalt going on a road trip to Ivory Coast.
• Romantic Comedy: By the title and the trailers, it's very clear Cobalt and Ivory's relationship gets to be a very relevant plot point in the series.