Guardian Fairy Michel

Guardian Fairy Michel (or just Michel in English) is a 2006 Korean animated series for children. It was released in English by the former ADV Films.

Kim White is a pilot, and the daughter of a famous scientist, Dr. White. She's constantly at arms with the Black Hammer Gang, a group of thieves with Giant Robots who'll go after anything so long as it vaguely resembles treasure. She goes after them one night after they steal a precious gem, and, in the ensuing air battle, the two sides end up lost in a gigantic cloud formation known as the Devil's Coast. Strange, glowing lights pull Kim deep into the heart of the storm, and with a terrified tremble, she fears it may be over...

...But she wakes up in a place with a clear sky, unhurt, beneath an enormous tree. A mysterious young boy greets her, and explains that she's landed on the mystical Sitel Island, home of the Tree of Life that keeps the balance of nature in check. Kim befriends the boy, and learns that his name is Michel. He's friend to the fairies of nature that live on the island. And Kim would be having a lovely time getting to know them, if she hadn't accidentally led the Black Hammer Gang to the island with her. They love anything pretty, and the Tree of Life certainly counts. With their robots, they kidnap all of the fairies, causing the tree to wither--and, in the process, transform all of the fairies into monsters!

The tree is destroyed, but there is hope. The tree will regrow from its seed if all of the fairies can be rescued. The spirit of the tree gives Kim and Michel a special task: Rescue all of the fairies. Michel is the Guardian Fairy, and can use his fairy friends' powers once they've been rescued. Kim is given the Arrow of Light, which can revert monsters to their fairy forms. Together, they must save the fairies, stop the Black Hammer Gang, and restore the balance of nature!

Tropes used in Guardian Fairy Michel include:
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Big Applesauce features these in Episode 13.
  • Action Girl: Kim White: Sharpshooter, killer pilot, friend to fairies everywhere.
  • Adjective Noun Fred: Although the English version just uses a plain old Character Title.
  • Adult Fear: Poyo's innocent fascination with Kim's gun. Although it has slightly comedic overtones, Kim's concern over Poyo's playing with it is played quite straight. And with good reason.
  • All That Glitters: Frequently serves as the Aesop to many episodes. The Black Hammers go hunting "treasures," as they assume all treasures are wealth-based. However, the "treasures" either end up being something they can't really spend ( like seeds that can grow in any soil), or non-material things such as the love of family or the beauty of a city.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: The amusement park in episode 14. It's probably a nice enough place in the day, but Kim's there at night, and happens to be facing off against the Fairy of Light and Dark.
  • An Aesop: Once per episode.
  • Animal Motifs: The Black Hammers' robots are all shaped like animals.
  • Base on Wheels: The good guys have Sitel, and the bad guys have their flying castle thing. All the better to chase each other around the world with.
  • Batman Gambit: Salome often employs these; in episode 8 she attacks with a Wind Fairy--and steals Rena the Flower Fairy while they're busy, knowing that she can turn into a rare flower to gian treasure.
  • Big Applesauce: The city in Episode 13 isn't named, but is at the very least a New York Expy if nothing else.
  • Big Badass Wolf: Queen's true form.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Black Hammers lost all the fairies they captured and the Tree of Life is saved... but Michel dies in order to rejuvenate the tree. He will be reborn later, though.
  • Black Hammerspace: Salome makes sure her gang lives up to its name with her hammer-from-nowhere.
  • Blow You Away: Baron, the wind fairy.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy
  • City of Canals: Preccia, an obvious Venice Expy (it even played home to "Parco Molo"). However, it's been consumed by trash and the canals stink, which is unusually realistic where this trope is generally concerned.
  • Conspicuous CGI: Honeybee and the Black Hammers' base are CGI, but they're cel-shaded so they usually blend in. However, in at least on episode, the inside of the Black Hammers' base is all none-too-subtle CGI.
  • Cool Gun: Kim's Mirage Blaster, with the power to turn into a cool crossbow.
  • Cool Plane: The Honeybee.
  • Creepy Child: When Kim first meets him, Michel's supernatural calm is a little bit unnerving. He becomes more energetic later on, though.
  • Cucumber Facial: Lady Salome puts the cucumbers everywhere but her eyes, oddly.
  • Dark Action Girl: Lady Salome.
  • Do-Anything Robot: The Honeybee, while more of a plane that a robot, has pretty much whatever powers are needed for the plot.
  • Dressing as the Enemy
  • Enemy Mine: Episode 14, with both Salome and Michel kidnapped.
  • Evil Makeover: The cute fairies get transformed into huge monsters in their evil forms.
  • Five-Bad Band:
  • Fusion Dance: By fusing with the fairies, Michel gains their powers and then some, showing exactly why he's the guardian.
    • Biam and Polly accidentally fuse once, creating a forest dragon.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Dr. White was one. So is the Evil Genius Meggi.
  • Gender Blender Name: "Michel" is a perfectly respectable male name, but it's pronounced the same as the female name "Michelle," which is more well-known in English.
  • Genre Savvy: Salome at times; she hangs onto hostages and once sealed a tower they were climbing in case Kim showed up.
  • God Guise: The Black Hammers pretend to be messengers of a rain god to one highly-secluded village. Their guise actually takes on some legitimacy, thanks to the fact that they can use fairies to summon dark clouds, lightning, and rain.
  • Goldfish Poop Gang: The Black Hammer Gang.
  • Gotta Catch Em All: Gotta rescue all the fairies! Or else, the World Tree can't be renewed...
  • Gravity Screw: Salome expresses surprise that there even is a gravity fairy. And yes, it causes gravity to turn wonky. Which has been overtaxing marathon runners for several months in a certain village, as it turns out.
  • Grumpy Bear: Biam. "There's a black sheep in every family."
  • Husky Russkie: Ian and his sister in episode 7.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Baron gets turned into a monster, Rena begs her to remember her existence as a fairy and stop harming things. Electro is brought back in a similar way, but thanks instead to Harry, the human boy who befriended him.
  • In Medias Res: We begin with the Black Hammers stealing a diamond from a museum, and things take off from there.
  • Interspecies Romance: Sir Brown the fairy fell in love with a human princess. Thanks to a war, it never worked out.
  • I Will Wait for You: Sir Brown waited so long for his beloved princess, he turned into a tree. A tree of death.
  • Lean and Mean: Boogy.
  • Leitmotif: The Black Hammers' theme, and the six-note Tree of Life theme.
  • Level Ate: One episode features a city founded by a gourmand, and it looks like food.
  • Magic Feather: A variation in one episode. The people of a certain village believe that a floating golden feather in a glass orb helps the people of their village become great runners, and when the feather falls, the people begin to run out of energy and lose their ability to run. The variation comes from the fact that while the feather falling and the people failing to run are connected, it's a third, external force causing it: The manipulation of gravity. The feather is implicitly magic, but it was gravity's fault.
  • Master of Illusion: The illusion fairy, who resembles a manta ray. Effects range from Lotus Eater Machine to tricking Kim into nearly destroying Honeybee.
  • Message in a Bottle: A variation: The character sending them isn't deserted, just lonely because he lives in an isolated place.
  • Monster of the Week
  • Mood Whiplash: The trailer has pretty shots of the Tree of Life and talks about nature and a boy who protects it...then giant sci-fi robots. And then back to the tree.
  • NameDar: The little girl who found the Winter fairy just happened to give her her real name: Queen.
  • Never Say "Die": Averted, but with a really odd twist. One episode features an extremely Fat Bastard who collapses in the middle of a giant gluttonous meal. The episode doesn't shy away from saying that he's dying, and in fact revolves around his dying request--but rather than give a realistic cause for his collapse, like heart disease or diabetes, he's said to be dying of an "overworked stomach."
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Lady Salome's. "Ooh hoo hoo hoo!"
  • The Nose Knows: Salome can smell treasure.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Mahamina has a vaguely Middle Eastern accent, but her brother has none at all, despite them being from the same tribe.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: The Black Hammer Gang. They're comedic, and almost seem like they're going to end up in Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain territory... until it turns out they're not that ineffectual. Even the trailer points out that Salome will lie, cheat, and steal to get her way, and might succeed.
    • In particular, some episodes' plots are kicked off because of an early-episode victory by the Black Hammers, and sometimes they do get away with a treasure.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: The Black Hammer Gang's. It's also used as transportation.
  • Opening Narration: Kim describes the story so far, maybe a legend relevant to the plot, and, in the opening episode, the legend of the Tree of Life.
  • Peek-a-Bangs: Salome's hair covers her right eye.
  • The Phoenix: The focus of the seventh episode is an aging Russian man bent on seeing the Phoenix.
  • Plant Person: A couple of the fairies.
  • Pokémon-Speak: The only thing Poyo can say: "Old lady!"
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Michel appears to be a young boy, but he's as old as any other fairy, which makes him pretty much the same age as the Earth. Kid's got time on his hands.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Woogy attempts to take up knitting. He doesn't actually like it, as it turns out.
  • Engineer Exploited For Evil: Dr. White, whose greatest fear was that his inventions would be used for evil. Sadly, he was right.
  • Rescue Romance: Salome tries to invoke this in one episode in hopes of getting some treasure. It doesn't exactly work as planned.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Poyo, who sort of looks like a yellow winged dog/deer hybrid. And for that matter, all of the fairies.
  • Say My Name: Michel shouts the names of his fairy friends to summon them and make himself transform.
  • Secondary Character Title: Although Michel has the cool superpowers, the protagonist is mostly Kim.
  • Shout-Out: Michel's character is based on The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery, and the rose fairy is based on the prince's rose companion.
  • Spring Is Late: ...Because no one showed up to tell the winter fairy winter was over.
  • Super Mode: Poyo's adult form as the Fairy of Spring.
  • Team Pet: Poyo for the good guys, and Biam for the bad guys.
  • This Is a Drill: The Honeybee has a drill mode. No, it doesn't really make sense.
  • This Is Reality: When the Black Hammers learn that there's a time machine, Boogy remarks that " Time machines only exist in cartoons! They're not real!" Biam then retorts, asking if that's just like fairies, then. Boogy is forced to concede.
  • Totem Pole Trench: Michel and Joe pull one off in episode 13.
  • Tomboyish Name: The female fairy of the wind is named Baron.
  • Transformation Trinket: A living one in the fairies, whose powers Michel borrows and amplifies.
  • Turtle Island: Sitel is a fairy who happens to be one of these. And he can fly.
  • Twin Telepathy: The Magnetic Fairies share this bond.
  • Villain Song: The end credits song is the Black Hammer Gang's theme, sung by cute chibi-versions of themselves. With the fairies watching, of course.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back: Boogy, Woogy, and Meggi just don't feel motivated without Salome harping on them at every turn.
  • Winged Humanoid: Michel in his powered-up forms grows wings.
  • Winter Royal Lady: Although she's not royalty and doesn't look like one (she resembles a fox), the winter fairy is nonetheless named Queen, probably due to this trope.
  • World-Healing Wave: Frequently, whenever a fairy is rescued.
  • World Tree: The Tree of Life isn't a perfect example as it isn't gigantic, but it does fit from a magical standpoint.
  • Wrench Wench: Kim, who, while not her Gadgeteer Genius father, knows how to fix 'em.
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