YMMV / Rage of Bahamut: Genesis

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Virgin Soul Kaisar sparks some debate. He's a knight now, and because of that he's under the king's control, but some fans think that his circumstances took all the fire out of him. He knows that what Charioce is doing isn't right, and he has his own say on the matter, but the right to call Charioce out on it or voice any sort of dissenting opinion is debated.
  • Nina, after the halfway mark in Virgin Soul. Some like her because of her interesting powers, backstory, and her gag of getting flustered around handsome men, which decreases over time in the series as she falls in love. However, some feel like she has no real stake in the plot besides her dragon powers being useful to both sides, and by the latter half of Virgin Soul her desire to be with Charioce consumes her whole character. She does gain points for trying to call Charioce out on his cruelty, but her story is tied to his by a lackluster romance and at the end of it all she's just thrown around by the narrative with little to no agency of her own.
  • Charioce XVII inspires a lot of this, due to his complex nature. Either he's irredeemable because of his actions and policies over the years, with his more human side doing a terrible job of making him more sympathetic, or he's a villainous yet tragic character who's doing what he has to as king and has to forcibly separate his empathy from his duty.
• Broken Base:
  • Is Virgin Soul an improvement on the first season, or is the first season superior?
  • Was Nina and Charioce's relationship done well? Fans point to episode 6 for most of this, having their amicable relationship contrast with that of her and Azazel's, but others found their subplot and the episode that began it to be cliched.
• Catharsis Factor: For many, when Favaro punches Charioce in Episode 20. After having a series where Charioce doesn't quite get the comeuppance that he deserved, Favaro slugging him in the face helped satiate them.
• Complete Monster: Gilles de Rais—Martinet and Lavalley—the true mastermind behind the plan to re-awaken the titular apocalyptic dragon, is a human criminal overly obsessed with death, so much that he played both Heaven and Hell like fiddles just so they squander their resources into fighting each other while he set his schemes into motion unchecked. He takes advantage of Beelzebub's own ambition to control the Bahamut—posing as his henchman in the process—and absolutely revels in the misery and deception he causes, be it corrupting Michael's greatest champion, Jeanne, or trampling on Amira's hopes, revealing that her memories are nothing but lies he himself made up with his magic. As his plan succeeds, the only thing he says is how beautiful the world's despair is in front of Bahamut's unbridled rampage.
• Contested Sequel: Depending on who you ask, Virgin Soul isn't quite seen as a worthy follow up to Genesis, due to the underwhelming opinion of the leads, the romance between Charioce and Nina, and Jeanne's story arc being seen as drab compared to the moving plot of the original season.
• Creator's Pet: Some fans find Alessand to be this. His arc in the second season somewhat overshadows the plight of the main cast despite doing very little overall, and he's already on record for being the Creator's Favorite, as mentioned in an interview.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Azazel, at least in the first season. While he became more sympathetic in Virgin Soul, he was far more antagonistic and cruel in the original, overlooked by fans because of his devotion to Lucifer and his horribly pitiful victory record.
  • For the second season, we have Charioce XVII. He has some understandable reasons to be looking out for humanity (which is the main source of defense), and he does have glimpses of a tragic backstory, but throughout the first cour his main appearances have him cutting down his enemy with no remorse, he threatens Jeanne with the death of her son, and the kingdom he's created places innocent demons in terrible conditions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Bacchus and Hamsa are surprisingly well liked for secondary characters, thanks to their many hilarious moments.
  • Favaro's horse rescues Amira in a truly epic fashion and is never seen again after the latter makes her escape. This made fans want more screentime for the badass steed.
  • Among the Japanese audience it's Azazel, by far. Proof? Let's play a 'find the main characters' on one of the covers of the show's BD edition. Originally scheduled to die in Episode 7, now regularly featured among the protagonists in promotional art, merchandise and media. Supposedly also the director's protegee.
  • Also, as little of a role he actually plays in the Anime^note  According to the staff, this was because they had difficulty animating his wings, hence why they were reduced to just one set of white ones in Virgin Soul, Lucifer. It helps that regardless of what Cygames work he pops up in, he tends to be popular regardless.
• Fan Nickname:
  • 'Cosmo' for Favaro and 'Spain Dandy' for Kaisar, after their respective hairstyles.
  • 'The Legion of Doom' for Azazel and company is another popular one (and it just so happens that they're an example of the trope with the same name as well).
  • 'Cheerios', 'Cheetos', or 'Churros' for King Charoice VII and his descendant Charioce XVII. XVII also gets "King Genocide" in some circles.
  • "El Mugo" for Mugaro, after his reawakening as El.
• Funny Moments: From the second season, we have Kaisar dropping his weapon and surrendering to go back in the dungeon in true Favaro fashion, but the soldiers are having none of it and beat the shit out of him. What makes it good is that he gives them a half hearted grin while doing it, which only gets wider as they didn't buy into it.
• Genius Bonus: "Hansa" is named after the bird from Southeast Asia.
• Informed Wrongness: Virgin Soul's storyline is critical of characters who advocate Charioce XVII's overthrow or death, most notably Jeanne and Azazel. While Charioce isn't directly responsible for the crime that spurs the late-series rebellion against him, he has oppressed the demons and even fellow humans (through suppression of dissent) for years, and shows no remorse or inclination to change until the very end of the series. It's hard to blame Azazel and Jeanne for wanting to defeat him by force, rather than sitting around and waiting for him to reform.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Azazel, by and large. He starts out a naive but competent opponent in Genesis, but each subsequent interaction with the main cast across both seasons leaves him at even bigger disadvantages, with him not learning much from each encounter.
  • Lucifer, in some regards. While he is a plenty powerful character, most Western fans found that his presence in the story was actually very little and joked that he was always reading whenever anything major in the story happened.
• Memetic Mutation: FAVARO!!! ^Explanation Kaisar's iconic First-Name Ultimatum towards Favaro, now compiled for the first season
• Mis-blamed: All of the criticisms of the second season are put squarely on the scenario writer. Although she was responsible for the writing on some points, such as the interactions of the characters, she had no say in the overall plot of Virgin Soul.
• Narm: The scene where Charioce as "Chris" plays with demon children in the slums in episode 17. It's meant to show his hidden softer side in comparison to his image as a fearsome tyrant and ruler, but to some it comes off as unintentionally hilarious and awkward because his rule put those children there in the first place. The rest of the date qualifies as well.
• No Yay: Kaisar and Rita, especially since Rita herself is a zombie and Really 200 Years Old. Unfortunately, the overtones are there, with Rita acting extremely possessive of Kaisar, and him being her Morality Pet. The second season downplays this by having Rita gain a one-sided crush on Kaisar, while Kaisar seems fixated on Jeanne when they reunite at last.
• Romantic Plot Tumor:
  • If you have not guessed by reading the other tropes regarding the Charioce/Nina relationship in this page, episode 17 was when many people felt like this about their relationship, given that about half of the episode was devoted to them having a date, when most people would have rather seen what the characters planned to do about the Dromos weapon, Azazel and Mugaro's reunion or at least finding out Charioce's motivation for his deeds as king.
  • On Nina's side, people feel like her entire role as a protagonist has been absorbed by her relationship with Charioce, forgetting about her subplot about sympathizing with the plight of the demons, instead having her worrying more about the world hating Charioce (especially when everyone, including a good chunk of the main characters have reasons to do so) or learning about her issues with her transformation, which was of course resolved by her finally kissing him, her relationship with Charioce basically overshadowing almost every other interaction or possible storyline that she has had.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Mostly tame in the first season, but Virgin Soul flared one up in the form of Charioce/Nina vs. Azazel/Nina.
• Squick: The Fanservice of Amira becomes this once it's revealed that she's mentally and chronologically five years old. This also casts her apparent last-minute romance with Favaro in a disturbing light.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • The first season has Favaro/Amira. Though it is shown that they love each other in the finale, their previous interactions didn't seem to point towards that direction.
  • After the first half of the series, how some audiences felt Charioce/Nina was handled.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • There's a lot of this reaction towards Charioce from the moment it was made clear the audience is supposed to feel for bad for him and his role as King. Reasons vary, but it usually boils down to people feeling that he either stole screentime from the far more popular Azazel, and that his backstory and motivations are not nearly enough for his character to be sympathetic let alone to be redeemed given that he had yet to be shown feeling any type of remorse for all the things he pulled since he was made King. It's suggested that the audience is intended to feel bad for Charioce and angry at Azazel and Jeanne for trying to kill him in blind rage after the death of Mugaro, but Charioce made it clear that he wanted the boy for several cryptic reasons, and Jeanne has every right to be mad considering he told her straight to her face at the beginning of the series that he could kill Mugaro at any point and she'd be powerless to stop him.
  • Nina, at least where Charioce is concerned. Her love and defense of Charioce is dismissed and mocked by some fans, considering that the group she's travelling with and some of her acquaintances (Jeanne, Mugaro, and Azazel) are directly suffering from the actions of his regime. The show goes out of its way to have Nina realize it and ponder it a bit, acknowledging that he has done a lot of wrong, but she never dwells on it for very long, which makes her seem downright insensitive to her acquaintances' legitimate grievances with him.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Amira is seen as this to a lot of people. Her quest to find her mother and her personality made her well liked among watchers, but it gets sidelined along the way. And in Virgin Soul, she comes back for a small cameo, but she doesn't even interact with Favaro for it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Azazel and Kaisar butt heads in the second season, but not really. Not only does Kaisar not bring up the grudge he had last season against Azazel for orchestrating his father's death and the ruination of his family's name but actually tells Azazel he deliberately failed to capture him, and warns him to run away from the capital so he won't get captured by the Onyx knights. Some fans feel the creators dropped the whole storyline so they could make Azazel more sympathetic.
  • The second season in general is seen as such. The world building and character interactions are interesting, such as Jeanne's search for her son, the morally complex landscape between races, Nina struggling to control her transformations and her romantic arc with Charioce, but the plot doesn't utilize any of it properly.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Cygames gave an unlimited budget to Studio Mappa, home of some of the most talented animators in Japan. The results were mouth-watering.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Angel boys are usually like this. For example, Michael confused a hell of a lot of people in the first season, and Shouta Aoi's androgynous interpretation of his voice helped nobody.
  • If the intention was to make Mugaro completely androgynous, the team did their job well. Ever since the kid first appeared, debates have been raging over whether they're male or female. On Nina's part she believes the kid to be a girl as of Episode 4, but that isn't on any way the conclusive answer. The debates seem to have ended when Episode 9 revealed Mugaro to be a boy.

• The Woobie: This series puts its female characters through the wringer, with Amira and Jeanne especially enduring great emotional suffering. The demons in Virgin Soul are a Woobie Species due to being enslaved.

---