Aqua Regia, formerly known as Acid Rain, is an Argentinian cyberpunk comic published through INKR, made by Fluhor. The setting is a fairly typical Cyberpunk, set in a version of Argentina where the dictatorship of the '70s never ended.
The year is 2054. Daniel Dietrich, a mercenary who tries to live as better as he can, takes odd jobs from the most mundane to including murders. He's not happy with his life, he's even shown being stressed because of this. Shit hits the fan when he interrupts a robbery in a local market, and engages in a fight with a thief that ends with Daniel badly injured and the thief dead.
Moments later he escapes because he doesn't want to end up in jail, because after all, a murder is still a crime. Daniel collapses in a back alley, where he's found by Rouge and contracted to fight against the country's dictatorship. After deliberating, he reluctantly accepts.
A few days later, in a hidden base, Daniel starts telling Rouge and the others how he came to be a mercenary. The second arc of the story starts with his teenage years and first years as a mercenary, and up until the time of the prologue, apparently.
Read it here
and here in English! Character sheet in progress!
Contains examples of:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: The girl César was dating when introduced was as much, but it's quickly noted she has problems picking men, the people from "Le Perv" are tired of her giving patrons problems.
- Anahí with Daniel is implied to be this, but as the story progress and we get to know them, they're actually good people caught in extremely shitty situations.
- Always Night: Averted in the chapters themselves, most of the episodes are seen mostly set in broad daylight, the covers play this trope straight.
- Animesque: As you can see in the art style, it's influenced by both manga and western art, as a small nod to this, one of the characters is of Japanese descent, but still of mixed heritage.
- Art Evolution: A Downplayed variant, the first three episodes had a crude and somewhat off sense of... Everything... Luckily, each passing chapter the art becomes more and more detailed.
- Badass Longcoat: Used sparingly by characters to hide Powered Armor, or somewhat normal that no one comments on. The handlers in Daniel's flashback have them too, playing this trope straight.
- Banana Republic: Argentina has been in a dictatorship over 60 years.
- Barbarian Long Hair: Daniel's mane, which in-story is considered very odd, according to author notes, is a Take That! against the overused undercuts in the Western influenced cyberpunk characters.
- Battle Couple: Implied first with Daniel and Anahí at the beginning, showing them scarred, track #10 shows them fighting together for the first time instead of each other like in their conscription days, and winning.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Logically, by the end of the second chapter, Daniel gets confirmation that he's still being pursued.
- Big Damn Heroes: Daniel stars one moment when he saves his mentor and friend, Leo from three other soldiers. Which, ends with Daniel's face badly scarred through Cold-Blooded Torture.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Machina Revoltare", Machina is self-explanatory, it's for machines, but Revoltare can be translated from Romanian as rebel, but in tandem, it means "Revolting Machine". Fitting for overpowered technology that does more harm than good to the user.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: How Anahí and Daniel react to their first time heavily injuring a person, fatally in Daniel's case.
- Body Horror: What defective and overheated Machina Revoltare does. Courtesy of their fail-safe mechanisms, they only work with registered individuals, illegal surgeries to punks, end up with them having their brains fried and becoming drones.
- Better exemplified with César, the serial killer in the flashbacks, ending up as an unholy union of Tetsuo: The Iron Man and the Rogue Titan.
- Combat Cue Stick: Attempted and failed miserably, to be fair it was used against an Implacable Man Cyborg. Cue Daniel being grabbed by the neck.
- Creator Provincialism: The author is Argentinian, and thus the story is set mostly in Argentina, however, Brazil is also a prominent example in the setting, interestingly enough.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Whenever Machina Revoltare stars to malfunction, you're good as gone, and turn into a "Drone", which is basically an electric powered zombie full of Body Horror.
- Cyberpunk: Well, yeah, stars a group of mercenaries, in a decadent Argentina and South America in the year 2054, full of crime and controlled by the military instead of a MegaCorp, it fits because they're using their military prowess to move their economy.
- Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: The first chapter opens with a cloudy, gray day, and other chapters have rain ocasionally.
- Cyborg: One of the thieves at least, among several other people. Rouge or the robbers have Glowing Mechanical Eyes for example. It's been pointed out In-Universe that only the army and very wealthy people can afford them, so cyborgs are not something that's seen much in the city.
- Track #8 shows that mercenaries have them, too.
- Destructive Romance: All over the place, even for the heroes...
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Totally Averted, it's depicted as horrifying, even if there wasn't a rape in the end, it's horrific to Daniel and Leo.
- Dystopia: The entire setting, which is essentially an Argentina where the infamous National Reorganization Process never fell.
- Fan Art: The
Bonus Material at the end of Volume 1 has officially submitted fanart with Fluhor talking about it and linking their twitter handles. - Fanservice: Downplayed, but still present, Daniel taking a shower and Rouge taking showers are totally this, same with sex scenes and bonus art.
- Foregone Conclusion: The first pages show a flashback in the year 2052 in which Anahi and Daniel break up. Why? Well, the flashback will tell us how it happens...
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Discussed, characters have problems and traumatic experiences, yes, but how they deal with them it's how several things end up happening. Good Parents, their place in society, and love
- Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: Explored, good prosthetics are not only the ones Rouge and the good guys have, but also the ones who work for the government, while look clean and sleek, their users are... Varied. The evil prosthetics are there for everyone, but also are prone to malfunction, even if they're top of the line Machina Revoltare ones, see Body Horror.
- Home Sweet Home: after his first kill, Daniel goes back with Anahí at his home, they spend a couple of months into hiding, and healing their scars... Until Sirio calls him back, much to his displeasure.
- Hot-Blooded: Anahí, combined with her fiery red hair.
- However this trope is deconstructed several times when a character acts this way, everything goes wrong.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Let's see, we have a totalitarian government that has people eating on the palm of their hands, but still "safe", a Vigilante Man that means well but it's equally deranged like the people he hunts down, and a CEO that is willing to do sacrifices, even sacrifice herself, for the greater good.
- Good Parents: The Dietrich family, amazingly enough for the genre. Daniel had a nice Nuclear Family with a Papa Wolf to boot... And then the recruiters came for him.
- Hand Cannon: Daniel is wielding a R Sh-12, one of the meanest revolvers in existence, it's yet to be explained, but for now is pure Rule of Cool, that and it looks very futuristic.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: All the way due Author Appeal, both for heroes and villains, but it still has a practical purpose for defense.
- Heroic Build: Daniel in the flashbacks looks positively buff.
- Nothing but Skin and Bones: In the present, however, not to this extreme, he looks way less muscular.
- Information Wants to Be Free: One of the goals of Rouge:
- "Use the media to make the truth come out, while people is aware that we live in a dictatorship, we're pushing them to act, our greatest weapon is the truth, expose everything, the reality of our world, not only our country, the people just caught glimpses of it, not USA, France, Japan, Russia, among many others."
- Latino Is Brown: The entire cast so far is shown to be mixed, while one could argue that the characters are white, they're all Latinos, Argentina is called Melting Pot for a reason. The named characters that play this straight are Anahi and Rouge, so far.
- Like a God to Me: Downplayed Daniel thinks of Rouge as a Vakyrie for saving him in chapter 3."Was it fate to meet her? Was it God? I felt as if a cybernetic valkyrie... Picked me up at that alley...
- Lower-Class Lout: The robbers of the first chapter.
- Neck Lift: An standard attack by cyborgs in the setting, apparently, with Daniel usually being the victim.
- Neon City: Morón in the first episode, but not overtly shown due the fact it's plain day, thus making it a much more City Noir example. The covers play this trope straight.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: All over the place, good deeds end up badly most of the time, with some people killed, tortured, or traumatized. Sometimes it ends with civilians saved, other times, not so much.
- Patriotic Fervor: A prevalent theme, what's patriotism? Loving your country despite knowing how atrocious it is with their citizens? Fighting for freedom against the system despite said system being a viable way of helping them? What if it fails, and power ends up corrupting you the same way?
- Society Is to Blame: This one is also discussed, despite their ups and downs, several characters are influenced by their place in society and where they come from, although Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse is also discussed.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: A combination of this kind of dictatorship, with applied Schizo Tech, selective censorship and fashion, and state brutality against the people who break the rules, even if they don't do anything wrong per se.
- Pixellation: All the nudity is presented this way.
- The Quincy Punk: The punks on the underpass of Flores are designed to look at this, but they don't act any more negatively than any other normal civilian.
- Anahí too, as an Anti Heroic example.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: While there's a variety of weapons present, revolvers are shown to be of more significance.
- Serial Killer: César the cyborg, who ends up with a grudge against Daniel.
- Sex for Solace: Sex between Daniel and Anahí, is implied to be this, the fact that the chapters in which this happens are named after songs based on this trope, it's fitting.
- Shock and Awe: The usual method in which Machina Revoltare works, produces electricity. Also, Daniel's katana used to have a battery to fight drones but it was busted years back.
- Sociopathic Soldier: The handlers from the flashback. The Captain call himself and his group "Enhanced Patriots".
- Street Samurai: Daniel is inspired by the archetype. He has the long hair, the katana, and is currently serving Rouge.
- Still Wearing the Old Colors: Daniel still wears his green fatigues, scarf and hat from the army, which shows:
- Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: He has long hair, wears combat boots with stars embedded, a red and black jacket, and other complementary colors, showing that despite his military background, he's still in a vendetta against the militia.
- Their First Time: Chapter 8 opens up this way, and although it wasn't Daniel's first, Anahi is happy she's doing it with him for the first time.
- Through His Stomach: Food is something shown several times, with both Anahí and Daniel enjoying them most of the time.
- Underground City: The tunnels beneath Buenos Aires note
- Unlimited Wardrobe: The characters change outfits pretty often, but wear consistent clothing of their own fashion sense, e.g. Rouge wears goth fashion, Anahí wears punk-ish outfits, Daniel is a fan of leather, etc.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Both The Captain and Sirio are interested in grooming Daniel and Anahí into killing machines pushing the human limitsr:
- The Captain presents himself as an Evil Mentor to Daniel since the day they met.
- Sirio on the other hand, wants Anahí after she dared to defy him in their first meeting due her fighting spirit, but also wants her and then to join his Bodyguard Babes.
- Would Hit a Girl: One of robbers at the end of the first chapter gropes the poor cashier and then punches her because she actually defended herself. Same with César in the flashback.
- Wrecked Weapon: The katana of Daniel is actually chipped if one takes a look at it.
- Our Zombies Are Different: They're normal people with cybernetic implants that constantly produces energy, but due the fact that they're faulty unless they're keep in check, they end up overheating and start to desfigurate the person in question and frying their brains, only the electric shocks and adrenaline segregations are what keeps them moving, making them walking corpses, the only way to put them out of their misery is the good old zombie cure. Daniel states as such in the second chapter:"After you're consumed by "MR", you're pretty much a zombie, he's done for, he has no reasoning, only moves by adrenaline injected into his nervous system, he's burned out"
- Unfriendly Fire: How one of the robbers meets his end.
- Wall Bang Her: The drugged punks are having sex this way in the underground alley of the third chapter.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Chapter 4 onwards is a sort of Golden Age akin to Berserk.
