YMMV / Bokurano

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Jun's reasons for joining the contract toward the end of the manga can be subject to varying interpretations. While his stated reason is that he doesn't want some stranger to have to fight and die in his place, it's also possible that he (consciously or otherwise) is influenced by feeling Survivor Guilt after his mother, sister and best friend's deaths, or is perhaps otherwise broken and no longer wants to live after everything else he's been through. On the one hand, he has changed for the better and learned empathy for others, and is motivated to fight for the sake of his half-sister, someone he's only met once, but on the other, he's still fairly cynical and doesn't hold out hope for humanity changing for the better. Whether you believe he's telling the truth depends on how much you think he honestly cares about the life of one single stranger.
  • Near the end of the manga, Koyemshi mentions that there's a possibility that his home universe could once again have to fight battles for its survival, and theorizes that the more universes that get destroyed, the lower the chance of that happening is, but says he doesn't know for certain. While Koyemshi seems like the kind of person who doesn't care about anyone besides Youko, Youko brings up the potentially viable theory that Koyemshi actually does care about his own world, which is why he tries hard at his role.
  • During Komo's battle in the manga, the other Koyemshi teleports the pilot out of the robot in the middle of the battle, thereby more or less guaranteeing the destruction of the pilots' home universe through a loss or draw. Was this done because the other Koyemshi's apathetic about his job, or because he sympathizes with the pilot's having crossed the Despair Event Horion after the death of his daughter?
• Broken Base. Anime adaptation. While the show was generally accepted positively and became Cult Classic, some fans of the original manga were very unhappy with the fact that the anime first rewrites the story of Jun's parents toward more melodramatic, and then reverses the ending, replacing Downer Ending on Bitter Sweet Ending with the surviving Kana.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In the anime, it is very satisfying to see Ushiro and Machi outsmart and kill Koyemshi after an entire series of him showing callous, sadistic and self-serving behavior.
  • In the manga, Kirie, after hearing Hatagai express how unrepentant he is for having his friends gang-rape Chizu, getting her pregnant and ruining her life, responds by stabbing him with the knife Chizu gave him.
• Cult Classic: This is the one of the most famous deconstructions of the Mecha Show apart from Evangelion and Ideon.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: In spite of saving the world and (generally) leaving behind a legacy to be proud of (not to mention Koyemshi's Heel–Face Turn at the end of the manga), most people tend to dwell on the fact that all the main characters died (except for Kana in the anime). This is discussed in the manga, as Kirie talks with Misumi about how he's disturbed that people can see a movie where many extras die and only the main characters are better off and consider it as having a happy ending.
• Harsher in Hindsight: As dark as Bokurano is, there's a few examples:
  • When Ushiro accuses one of the pilots of getting cold feet, Misumi admonishes him, saying that "Everyone's scared." When you consider that she's his mother and is all but certain that her son is going to die, you can see that she's referring to herself and her comment has more weight.
  • In the manga, during Kako and Chizu's fights, the fighter planes are ordered to fire on the enemy robot, and told that anyone who misses will be demoted. One of them flippantly remarks that it isn't possible to miss such a large target- unfortunately, the planes' weaponry does absolutely nothing to the enemy. The anime then shows why the pilots' superiors ordered them to be sure not to miss when the robot rotates its saw blade, causing a missile to accidentally hit the aquarium, killing Kako, who's trapped inside.
  • While Maki isn't wrong to call Ushiro out for hitting Kana, her claim that Ushiro is taking advantage of the "security" of being blood related falls flat when it turns out that he and Kana aren't even related. Similarly, her complaining that Ushiro's adoptive father is "useless" for not spanking Jun gets a bit more uncomfortable when you learn that Ushiro's father never really connected with him, out of fear that he'd be rejected.
  • In the manga, after Chizu kills Kako, resulting in the group being short a pilot, Ushiro callously suggests that they use Kana instead, even knowing that she'll die if she pilots. It turns out that Kana already joined the contract, and her death ends up affecting Ushiro more than one might expect.
  • In the manga, Machi says the kids might have assassins sent after them, which is considered as a passing comment making some black humor about the situation. She's shot to death some episodes later by an assassin, and Koyemshi has to kill her to ease her suffering.
  • In chapter 40, after the kids are told of the reactions to the fake Zearth announcement, Machi mentions she heard someone saying rival countries were talking about sending assassins to kill them. While the line itself isn't that funny, the kids' expressions are. Fast forward to chapter 58 with Machi getting shot in the head by a rival country's assassin. No more funny. At all.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Machi finds fireworks, you do not suspect anything and the scene looks ordinary. At the same time, later, when it turns out that it was rigged up, it's hard to keep a chuckle from how it was played out and implausibly "accidentally".
• Ho Yay:
  • Ushiro and Kanji, in the manga. Ushiro even tells Kanji that Waku wasn't the only reason he stuck around despite not being in the contract, and Kanji realizes that it was for him.
  • There's a bit of Les Yay between Maki and Komo in the manga. Komo once comments, "I think your butt is a knock-out, Maki" in response to her new outfit, the two spend a lot of time together before Maki's battle, and when Maki dies, Komo is visibly devastated by it, even though it seemed as though the pilots had gotten used to their members dying after Kodama's death.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Daichi. He soldiers on despite being Promoted to Parent for his younger siblings after their father's disappearance, and even declines his uncle's offer to take them in simply so that his father will have somewhere to come home to. When he learns he's going to die, he's more worried about his siblings than about himself.
  • Komo in the anime. Her father has not only been disgraced and forced to resign, but also gets murdered by the conspiracy's assassins shortly before her battle. Rather than wallow in grief or self-pity, she resolves to fight for the earth like he did, and manages to win her battle.
• It Was His Sled: The true nature of the mech battles; the winning pilot dies and the loser's universe is destroyed.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Jun treats Kana terribly and is (initially) one of the colder and less empathetic characters, but he has been through quite a bit, to the point where in the manga, Kana puts up with the abuse for his sake. By the end of the manga, he's lost his best friend, his younger sister, his real mother (shortly after realizing her identity), and the girl who loved him, resulting in people (reasonably) fearing that his Survivor's Guilt is so bad that he has lost the will to live.
  • Kako doesn't take his impending death very admirably, including even trying to rape Chizu at one point, and he ultimately dies without fighting. Still, his experience is hardly pleasant, especially considering he's the first pilot after The Reveal in the anime, and even Ushiro feels sorry for him in the anime. In the manga, his family acknowledges that he was a troubled and deeply flawed individual, but wish that he could have had a chance to live a normal life.
  Ushiro: (getting ready for his battle) I bet Kako wanted more time, too...
  • Chizu's responsible for many, many deaths by collateral damage, whether deliberately (in the manga) or inadvertently (in the anime), only stopping when she knows she'll have to kill her sister. On the other hand, she's been betrayed by the teacher she loves, and knows that not only is she going to die, but so will her unborn child.
• Mainstream Obscurity: More known for being depressing than actually watched.
• Memetic Mutation: The "Vermillion" ending has a number of parodies.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Mr Hatagai goes straight over this with what he does to poor Chizu in the manga- having her gang-raped by his associates and blackmailed with the video footage, with the implication that he'll do it to her again ("Thanks for yesterday. And for next time too."). So much that he had to be seriously toned down in the anime.
  • In the anime, Koyemshi threatening to kill Ushiro to force Kana to join the game. Fortunately, Jun himself out-gambits him with the help of Youko. In the manga, this is averted, as while he's definitely not a saint, he doesn't do anything this terrible, and Kana's decision to fight and die was her idea.
  • As sympathetic as she is, Chizu firing Zearth's lasers at her rapists, and killing many innocent people by collateral damage in the manga can be seen as this. Her family acknowledges what happened to her, but even they consider what she did to be quite terrible.
  • In the anime, Harazaki orders unmanned drones to nuke both sides in the penultimate battle, not caring whether it kills Zearth's pilots or the civilians who haven't evacuated yet.
• Narm:
  • The sex scene between Chizu and her teacher in anime. It's so badly animated that it's reminiscent gif-image of the IKEA Erotica.
  • At the same time, Jun's run at the end of adaptation is so cartoonish that he looks like Bugs Bunny.
• The Scrappy: Though some of the characters are more or less popular than others, local Hate Sink and serial child rapist Hatagai just absolutely takes the cake. In a series where Anyone Can Die, one would be hard-pressed to find literally anybody who's remotely okay with the fact that not only is he never killed or put under any comeuppance for his actions, but in the manga, where he's even worse, he winds up causing a shitload of trouble for the pilots by leaking information about them to the media, survives a stabbing attempt, and is explicitly stated to have been promoted to a very nice, well-paying job higher up in the education system where he can find even more victims, while the heroes are the ones who all die horrible deaths instead.
• Signature Scene: Waku's death after winning his battle, which gives a good idea of what kind of series this is.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Let's just say, not many people like to watch a show in which fifteen children are doomed to die and many a universe is wiped out with no way to save them.
• Values Dissonance:
  • While hardly any of the cast approves of Jun physically abusing his younger sister, Kana, no one actually tries to do anything about it, since the Japanese are hesitant to have outsiders intervene in family problems. That said, Kanji, a long-time friend of the siblings, admits to having a more personal reason for not doing anything — Kana asked him not to.
  • Spanking is presented in a somewhat more positive light than in Western media, as Maki's adoptive father, who spanks her when she misbehaves, is presented as a good parent, and his doing so after she teleports out of the house to speak with Ushiro is Played for Laughs. Maki even says it takes "courage" for her father to spank her, and chides Ushiro's adoptive father (who has a more distant relationship with his son), as "useless" for not doing so.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: At first glance, a show about 15 kids, Humongous Mecha fights, and a flying plushie named Dung Beetle seems like it's meant for kids who are the same age as the main characters. However, it's actually aimed at an older male audience, and for very good reason; one may start to notice something is up when the amount of characters each episode begin to dwindle.
• The Woobie:
  • All the main characters get this at one point or another. It's a Mohiro Kitoh series, what would you expect?
  • Of the side characters. Mrs. Komoda stands out, especially considering that she loses her husband and her daughter in rapid succession.
  • Also Mr. Ushiro in the manga he loses his entire family and is seen as horribly depressed in chapter 64, until his students appear to try and cheer him up
• Woolseyism:
  • The official English translation of the manga explains the name "Zearth" as a case of Xtreme Kool Letterz rather than delving into a lengthy explanation of the mechanics of the Japanese language that can put a "z" at the start of "The Earth."
  • Toward the end of the manga, when Ushiro meets with Waku's family, he uses "boku" rather than "ore" to say I, an unusual show of politeness that Machi teases him about. In the official English localization, he calls Waku's father "sir," prompting Machi to tease Ushiro by calling him "sir."

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