Casshern Sins

File:Casshern-sins-cover 9298.jpg

"Kill Casshern... Devour Casshern..."

Casshern is a humanoid robot who finds himself in a decaying, desolate world. The plague known as Ruin kills humans and robots alike, and apparently Casshern is the cause for having slain the world's guardian entity, Luna. Unfortunately, he isn't sure how much of this is true, since he has amnesia. All he knows is that he is built for combat, immune to the Ruin and able to regenerate any damage — and that rumor has it any robot which devours Casshern will live forever.

A Darker and Edgier Continuity Reboot of the postapocalyptic 1970s anime Neo-Human Casshern, the 2009 Madhouse anime Casshern Sins focuses on the sudden appearance of death among robots who once thought themselves immortal.

Made its US television debut on Cartoon Network/Adult Swim's Toonami block on May 26, 2012. Is also available (in some countries) on Youtube.

Tropes used in Casshern Sins include:

• After the End
• Always Second Best: Dio, towards Casshern
• Anime Hair: Almost everyone has improbably fluffy, spiky hair.
• Apocalypse How: Class 3a, moving closer to Class 4.
• Artificial Human: All of the robots have emotions, they can feel empathy and they can learn. A few of them look completely mechanical and more like traditional robots, but there're those of them who can't be told apart from humans.
  • Casshern, Dio, Leda and Ringo are, technically, not even robots anymore. Luna might also count.
• The Atoner: Casshern, Good Lord, Casshern...
  • Both Braiking Boss and Ohji show elements of this as well, since they both feel somewhat responsible for the assassination of Luna. The first one gave the order to kill her, while the second one created the killer.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Casshern, in the end of episode 8.
• Ax Crazy: Leda, with hints of Woman Scorned.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Dio eventually succeeds in his goal of beating Casshern in a fight. Fortunately, since that's all he cared about doing, he simply wanders off and waits to die afterwards.
• Barrier Maiden: Luna, and also a combination of Fisher King (well, queen) and Cosmic Keystone. Her death not only introduced entropy to the previously immortal robots, dooming them to eventually die, it caused some form of environmental collapse. Even her mysterious resurrection did little to restore the world.
• Battle Couple: Casshern and Lyuze once they begin traveling together, and even more so once they fall in love and become an actual couple.
  • The two robots that appear in episode 19, Castor and his unnamed female companion also seem to be this.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Through the whole show, we see that the effects of the Ruin on robots aren't pretty, with most of them rusting and falling apart slowly till they die. However, on Lyuze's case, she only gets a little rust on a few parts of her body (which are not immediately visible) and dies in Casshern's arms with her body pretty much intact.
  • Appears in-story as well: Leda's ultimate goal for seeking eternal life is to ensure her beauty and perfection are never tarnished. Ironically, her greed distorts her horribly in the end.
• The Berserker: Casshern doesn't like fighting, but push him hard enough and he's liable to lose control and try to slaughter everything in sight, enemy or not.
• Bishounen: Casshern, for a robot, is slender and very pretty. Everyone comments on it.
  • Dio counts too, and Margo strays into flat out Dude Looks Like a Lady territory.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Post-resurrection Luna turns out to be this, having a disdain for everything affected by the Ruin, and death in general, to the point that she refuses to stay with her loyal bodyguard as he's dying, pretty much calling him disgusting.
• Blessed with Suck: Casshern's immortality can really come in handy, but he also hates it for varying reasons through the course of the story, the worst one probably being that he outlives Lyuze.
  • Luna's actual, pre-death power also counts. Her powers of death allowed her to grant mortality to robots and immortal humans, but the experience was apparently so traumatic that after her resurrection she became hellbent on creating a world of eternal life so she wouldn't have to deal with death ever again.
• Blood Knight: Sophita, who can only express herself through combat and really loves fighting. It’s no wonder she comes to love Casshern’s strength.
• Blue Eyes: Casshern's big blue eyes are very prominent. They also glow blue when he's about to get serious.
• Canine Companion: The aptly named Friender.
• Cheerful Child: Ringo, in contrast to her bleak surroundings.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Braiking Boss never seems to be without one.
• Chick Magnet: Casshern certainly has a lot of women (almost all them robots to be fair) following him around and/or sighing over him during the course of the story. The list includes - Lyuze, Sophita, Lizabel, Janice, Ringo and Nico, not to mention Luna and Leda also think he's beautiful.
• Crapsack World: Imagine that you're a near-human robot with type II immorality. Now imagine waking up one morning and learning that the immortality of your entire race has been not only stripped from you but that you're guaranteed to die a shocking, horrific death as you slowly rust away into nothing. Now consider the fact that you're nearly as likely to fall into the Despair Event Horizon and commit suicide before then or find yourself getting torn to pieces by half-insane robots who want to use you for spare parts. Sure, there is some small glimmer of hope here and there but this includes either devouring perhaps the only true immortal left who eventually accepts his position as the avatar of death or walking the span of the globe in hopes of meeting a healer who is probably dead.
  • Though depending on your take on the ending (see below), it eventually becomes a A World Half Full.
• Cry for the Devil: Both Dio and Leda get a lot of sympathy from both protagonists and probably audience by the end.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Once Casshern gets a better control over his own power and is able to go full strength into battle without falling into his Super-Powered Evil Side / Unstoppable Rage, he starts delivering this to anyone not named Dio (as opposed to his more destructive tendencies seen through the first half of the series).
• Darker and Edgier
  • An impressive feat, given that the original Neo-Human Casshern was already set in a postapocalyptic world with an army of robots/cyborgs hellbent on wiping out humanity. (It's still more upbeat than the Live Action Adaptation, though.)
• Despair Event Horizon: Some robots are so far beyond this that anything even remotely hopeful only serves to piss them off.
• The Determinator: Dune especially, but also Dio and Casshern.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? / Rule of Symbolism: Despite being blamed for bringing forth the Ruin, Cashern is ironically treated as a Christ figure, whose death will make those who feed on him live forever.
• Does Not Wear Shoes: Ringo.
• Doting Parent: Ohji. Lyuze put it best:

Lyuze: He'd probably research a way to change the color of the sky if it would make Ringo happy.

• Double Entendre: The entirety of episode 4
• Downer Ending / Bittersweet Ending: It depends on your take on the whole ending. On one hand, Lyuze and Ohji die from the Ruin, Luna is still granting salvation to whoever wants it, Casshern is once again wandering the Crapsack World alone, still cursed with immortality and Ringo grew up with only Friender to keep her company. On the other hand, while Luna grants life to those who want it, Casshern has decided to become death itself to remind the immortals that merely being alive and actually living are two very different things.
  • It's also implied that Ringo has healed from the Ruin by herself, and will have a normal lifespan (neither immortal, neither dying from the Ruin), thus giving hope that the world can return to the normal balance of life and death, which along the flowers seen on various spots through the world, and particularly those grown by the main cast, grants a way for the planet, and life on it, to be returned to normal.
    • And while this is neither mentioned nor even implied, it’s highly likely that Casshern and Ringo (once she completely grows up, of course) can repopulate the earth.
• Evil Duo: Leda wants Dio to lead an army of robots, Dio wants to defeat Casshern.
• Fantastic Racism: Even the Ruin hasn't stopped many robots from trying to kill any humans they find.
• Foe Yay : Dio and Casshern, so much. Given the show's propension to hidden meanings and double entendres, it's probably intentional.

Dio : "If there is a meaning to life, then you are the meaning to mine, Casshern!"

• Genki Girl: Ringo.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Signals Casshern going into Super-Powered Evil Side mode.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Tohru Furuya is Casshern in this adaptation, while Kenji Utsumi reprises his role as Braiking Boss.
  • Meanwhile, Toshiyuki Morikawa is Dio, Casshern's rival.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Braiking Boss. Once the leader of the robot army that conquered the world, now just another robot Walking the Earth and slowly succumbing to the Ruin just like everyone else. For added irony, he was the one that ordered Luna's death to begin with, making his eventual fate his own fault.
• Identity Amnesia: At the very beginning Casshern doesn't remember anything from his past, including his name. Thus he begins a quest to remember who he is, and the truth behind his past (particularly, Luna's death), though he never really remembers much of his past by himself, and only learns of it from others.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Casshern's killing of Luna, which was what set off the Ruin in the first place and led to so much suffering. While he doesn't remember killing her, he feels responsible for the after effects.
• Immortality: Before the Ruin, robots had type II and it's implied that, eventually, humans achieved it too which prompted Braiking Boss to start his war against humans.
  • Let's not forget, Casshern himself who is a type III. Luna is also implied to be a type III, but we never actually see it onscreen.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Apparently an effect of the Ruin on humans, complete with Blood From the Mouth.
• Invincible Hero: Casshern, aside from being immortal, was anyway the strongest robot ever before he got that, so this should come as no surprise. The only times he ever gets defeated are when he’s actively seeking to get killed and even then, he still tends to win anyway. On the other hand, while there’s plenty of combat in this series, the focus of the show is never on the actual fighting and much more on the conflicts and motivations behind all that, so of course, this trope is hardly detrimental to the series.
  • He does legitimately get defeated on his final match against Dio though, where neither of them is holding back and Dio manages to deliver a blow that would’ve been fatal had Casshern not been immortal. The fact that Dio is also dying from the Ruin by this point makes it even more awesome.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The truth behind the assassination of Luna, her true purpose, the origin of the Ruin, Casshern’s immortality and pretty much anything else that happened before the beginning of the story is revealed very little by little, forcing the viewer to pay attention through the whole series and fit the pieces together, with some elements even being only implied and never outright stated as such. In fact, a second viewing is almost guaranteed to grant newer insight into the plot as a whole, since random elements that appeared unimportant upon first watching will suddenly gain a new meaning.
• Kill'Em All: Along with all the dead One Shot Characters, out of all the recurring characters, only Casshern, Luna, Ringo and Friender make it to the end of the story.
• Left Hanging: Leda’s past, her connection to the lab where Luna was created and whatever happened to her while she was pregnant, as well as the fate of her unborn child are never explained, aside from it all having been fairly traumatic. It’s very heavily implied that Ringo is actually her child, but how exactly did she end up where Ohji later found her, is also for the viewer to imagine.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: All of the robots that want to eat Casshern are this trope. They're pissed because they were enjoying immortality and now they can't because of the Ruin.
• Mauve Shirt: Do yourself a favor and don't get attached to any of the one-shot characters (of course, most of them are written so well that it's hard not to.)
• Mayfly-December Romance: Casshern and Lyuze eventually fall in love with each other, but since they decide to accept death rather than receive Luna's salvation and he's an immortal, Lyuze dies in his arms.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: robots became Ridiculously-Human Robots, but they still couldn't breed (meaning that newer robots had to be built, either by humans or other robots) nor grow (so if a robot is created as a child or baby, they remain so forever). For this reason Braiking Boss asked Ohji to create robots that could actually function as an actual specie and thus, Casshern, Dio and Leda where created, being heavily implied that Ringo is actually Dio and Leda's child.
• Mind Screw: Episode 18. Lyuze experiences some pretty abstract dreams of her dead sister Liza, along with repeated photographs of a live action woman who may or may not be Lyuze's voice actress.
• Monstrosity Equals Weakness: while robots never get too terribly monstrous, the standard mooks that get killed in the thousands all look completely mechanical and have weird proportions, while the more human looking robots (the ones more along the lines of a cyborg) are usually much stronger.
• Mysterious Waif: Luna, a young Emotionless Girl with god-like powers whose origins are never really explained.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Dune, the God of Death.
• Nice Hat: Braiking Boss dons one for his fight with Casshern
• Nightmare Face: This very pretty shot of flashback!Casshern that likes to pop up frequently just before the OP.
• No Antagonist: Apart from loads and loads of Mooks, all of the main characters are sympathetic to at least some degree. Dio and Leda are the closest thing to Big Bads, but their ambitions are rather petty to consider them as truly evil.
• No Body Left Behind: Robots turn to dust when they die.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Casshern whenever he goes into his Super-Powered Evil Side / Unstoppable Rage mode (his mask closes and his eyes glow green) delivers this against pretty much everyone, without even realizing he's doing it. The only two to ever stand a chance here are Dio and Jin.
• No Immortal Inertia: While the ruin moves much slower than how this trope is usually applied, it can still be shown to affect robots much faster than rust would affect machinery in real life. At one point a robot strong enough to choke the life out of another is suddenly blown away by a strong wind. Suffice to say, ruin moves at the speed of plot.
• One-Woman Wail : The main musical piece, "Luna's Theme".
• One-Shot Character: Since he’s Walking the Earth, Casshern seems to meet at least one of these (sometimes several, though the main focus is still only on one of them) on almost every single episode for more than half of the series. They will usually teach him an important lesson about living your life to its fullest. The worst part of this is that at least half of them should have been seen again (see, What Happened to the Mouse?).
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Dio to Casshern, to the point of obsession.
  • Lyuze shows some hints of this, at least at the beginning, and she even goes so far as to save Casshern from Dio once, citing this as her reason.
• Panty Shot: Ringo gets quite a few, though in her case they seem to be more innocent, due to her young age.
• Ridiculously-Human Robots
• The Rival: Dio to Casshern, to the point that when he finally defeats him in a fair fight, he sees no more reason to continue living.
• Robot War: happened in the backstory, where Braiking Boss created a robot empire and wiped a big majority of the human population.
• Scenery Gorn: This show absolutely loves its beautifully painted desolate landscapes.
• Snow Means Death
• Stock Footage: Some battle scenes are reused a few times during the course of the show.
• Super-Powered Evil Side, Unstoppable Rage: We're not quite sure what Casshern's snapping exactly is, but whatever it is, it leaves nothing but complete devastation in its wake. This is quite tragic for Casshern himself, who personally seems to have very little awareness once it starts - he basically comes back around to see that everything he was getting friendly with has been torn into shreds and to wonder why his hands are soaked in oil.
• Surprisingly Good English: The songs Janice sings in episode 8 are performed in perfectly recognisable English.
• Team Pet: Friender (of the useful, kickass variety), who can generally be seen helping Casshern fight and/or waking him up from his Unstoppable Rage.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Lyuze eventually tells Casshern that he's not allowed to die until she kills him and gets revenge for her sister. Though eventually, she refuses to let him die so that he can find a way to save the world instead.
  • Dio also wants to be the one to kill Casshern.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The dub version's tagline spoils the entire theme of death being preferable to immortality. It's part of the title graphic as well, so you get reminded once an episode that the Ruin is actually the robots' salvation.
• Tsundere: Lyuze, once she decides she won’t kill Casshern just yet, begins showing a very gentle side to everyone but him, though at this point her hate for him has nothing to do with the affection of a tsundere. Of course, this all changes once they star traveling together and she falls in love with him, though she’s still a very mild example of a class B, and once she comes to terms with her feelings, and they sort it out, the violent streak goes completely away.
• Turned Against Their Masters: As part of the backstory, the robots at some point in the past rebelled against humanity (lead by Braiking Boss) and wiped the vast majority of it. Interestingly, plenty of powerful robots decided to stay on the side of humanity by their own choice and are the main reason why we weren’t completely obliterated in the first place, and, in fact, the focus of the story has little to do with the Robot War anyway.
• Unholy Matrimony: Dio and Leda, who in the end really do love each other.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: There’s plenty of this between Casshern and Lyuze once they start traveling together, but unlike most cases, it doesn’t take them that long to resolve it.
  • Episode 18 even gives us a glimpse inside Lyuze’s head, and the conflict between her hate against her sister’s killer and her newfound love for the actual man he has become, as well as the fairly trippy nightmares this is giving her.
• Walking the Earth: What Casshern and most of the main characters do through the vast majority of the series.
  • This is also what Casshern decides at the ending, promising to travel the world forever in order to become death for those who don't know of it (mainly Luna’s immortals). To quote his parting words:

Casshern (to Luna): “If they can live, then it's better than just dying. I won't oppose you. But… If you… if any of you ever forget about death, then I’ll be back”.

• What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Bolton?
  • To elaborate, Bolton is an injured robot Casshern left behind with the promise that he would get Luna to heal him. We never hear of him again.
  • And for that matter, whatever happened to every single character, human or robot, that Casshern meet through the first half of the series and wasn’t dead by the end of its episode or didn’t fulfill their goal? Does Sophita ever meet Casshern again as she promised?, is Janice still bringing hope to humans and robots through her songs?, Does Jin and his group ever find Luna? Does Toro ever get to repair Gido? We will never know. And while they aren't the focus of the story, all of humanity could be included here as well, since after the first half of the series, no human appears ever again on the story, and the fate of humanity by the ending is anyone's guess.
    • Actually, it is implied that Janice dies since she dedicated her final song to Casshern.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Dio, all the way. He looks like Leda's twin sister.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl: Luna of the mysterious type, and Leda for a more sultry type.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: After realizing how the robots saved by Luna become completely devoid of a purpose in life once she grants them immortality, Lyuze, Ringo and eventually Ohji decide they would rather die from the Ruin, but with their feelings and personalities intact.
  • The first one to accept his death, rather than become immortal was Dune. Dio, and eventually, Leda, also count, both deciding to die from the Ruin in the end. Same thing with Braiking Boss, who despite bringing plenty of robots to drink Luna's blood to be saved from the Ruin, decides not to do it himself and dies fighting Casshern, as a way to repent for his role in the current state of the world.
  • Originally, Luna granted both immortal humans and robots alike the gift of a natural death, until Braiking Boss sent Casshern to kill her.
• What You Are in the Dark: One of the major themes of the series. Once-immortal robots now have to deal with the prospect of inevitable yet unpredictable Ruin. What do they do about it? Some sit and wait for the end. Some stake everything on rumors of immortality in a desperate attack against an immortal robotic killing machine. As the series reveals, still others cross the wasteland in search of salvation in the form of the reborn Luna. And some just try to find purpose or meaning in their actions before their Ruin, despite the hatred of those who surrendered to nihilism and despair.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The human-looking robots tend to have brightly coloured hair, like pink, green or blue.