Falcon Twin
"It's not that I want to die... but I don't really want to live, either."
Falcon Twin tells the tale of Mika Murakami, a Shrinking Violet who is constantly bullied by her classmates, with only her friend Yumiko willing to stand up for her. Though she endures the abuse quietly, Mika secretly boils with rage and jealousy, wishing she wasn't so limited by her own defeatist attitude, but unable to find the strength of will to believe in herself or change anything. Her already pretty crappy life takes an even nastier turn, however, when a Class Trip to her sister Rie's workplace is derailed by a terrorist attack. During the ensuing chaos, she and her friend Yumiko, both seriously wounded, get transported to another realm... which quickly turns out to be just as terrible as their own. Her attempt to find help just leads to Mika getting separated from Yumiko, and she quickly gets caught up in an adventure she doesn't want, with a Complete Monster for a rival and unsure of what she really wants or hopes to gain... if she has any hope at all.
Not a cheerful story by any stretch.
The series ran from April 2003 to 2007, and can be found here.
- Art Evolution
- Black and Gray Morality
- Black and White Morality: Evan sees the world like this, in keeping with the teachings of his church. This leads him to lecture the other, more cynical members of the party on their lack of morality, which never goes over well.
- Book Ends
- Burning Building Rescue
- Crapsack World
- Death Seeker: Mika develops into one over the course of the series due to her massive amounts of Survivor Guilt, self-loathing and gradually becoming convinced everyone would be a lot happier without her.
- Deus Angst Machina: Constant.
- Emo Kid: Mika.
- How We Got Here: The prologue opens with Mika fighting Sydney, then jumps back in time to trace the steps that brought her to this point. The series ends right after catching up to the prologue, in fact.
- In Love with Your Carnage
- Les Yay
- Martyr Without a Cause
- Not So Different: Sydney loves mocking Mika with this.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog
- Survivor Guilt: Mika struggles with this due to seeing her cousin and so many of her classmates die, as well as leaving Yumiko to look for help, only to get unintentionally sidetracked.
- Trapped in Another World
- We Have Reserves: Sydney sees nothing wrong with watching Mika single-handedly slaughter an entire battalion of troops because of this. (Also because she's a Complete Monster.)
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mika gets a lot of these, mainly from Evan. She also gets a huge one from Treska after she left behind a letter confessing her feelings.