Infinite Ryvius

"I don't want to die. I want to live."

Infinite Ryvius (Mugen no Rivaiasu) is an anime series set in the year 2225 AD. A Negative Space Wedgie called the "Geduld Phenomenon" has created a sea of plasma stretching across the solar system, leading to a rise in space travel and the colonization of many planets. The space station Liebe Delta is a training center for children who wish to become astronauts. However, the station harbors a dark secret, which leads terrorists to sabotage it and send it plunging into the Geduld. All of the instructors on board sacrifice their lives to save the students. In the aftermath, 486 children of varying ages find themselves aboard the Ryvius, a mysterious spaceship which was concealed within the core of Liebe Delta. With limited supplies, no adult supervision, and hostile forces still after them, they struggle to escape their pursuers and form a stable society. All they want is to be rescued - but a Government Conspiracy has convinced the media that the Ryvius has actually been commandeered by the same terrorists who destroyed Liebe Delta, so finding safe harbor will be no easy task.

While the series has Loads and Loads of Characters, with at least 33 named recurring characters, most episodes focus on a few core cast members. There's Kouji Aiba, an Ordinary High School Student (or astronaut-training equivalent thereof) and main protagonist; his younger and far more violent brother Yuki Aiba; their childhood friend Aoi Housen; the charming but fervent Ikumi Oze; and the mysterious girl in a strange pink outfit who nobody recognizes and who seems to appear and disappear like a ghost (Neya). Other significant characters include the arrogant Zwei (elite cadet) leader Lucson Houjou, the popular and talented Zwei member Juli Bahana, the vicious gang leader Airs Blue, and the religious girl Faina Shinozaki.

The show has been described as a cross between Lost in Space and Lord of the Flies, by way of The Hunt for Red October. It won the 2000 award for Best TV Animation at the fifth animation Kobe.

Tropes used in Infinite Ryvius include:

• A House Divided Occurs with great speed
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council After all the adults die, the Zwei elite class decide that they're in charge.
• Accidental Kiss Happens between Kouji and Aoi in Episode 13. Aoi spends most of the next episode angsting about it.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played straight from Episodes 16-25 with Juli and Blue; averted with Kouji, whom both Aoi and Faina are in love with.
  • Gender-flipped (Or not, see Transexual below) with Charlie and Criff. While Charlie is an easily manipulated, but good at heart, boy, Criff is a manipulative juvenile delinquent, until she realizes that Charlie genuinely loves her in Episode 16.
• Aloof Big Brother: Inverted, Yuki is Kouji's younger brother and is cooler, stronger, taller, and better looking than the nebbish, goodie-two-shoes Kouji.
• Anime First: The manga is a POV Sequel from Aoi's point of view.
• Apocalypse How: A single Vaia Ship can do a Class X. A second Geduld Phenomenon would cause a Class X-2.
• Artificial Gravity: Only in Vaia Ships; the depiction of gravity in conventional ships is pretty realistic.
• Ascended Extra: Cullen starts the series as a background character collecting music; she evolves into an Action Girl mecha "pilot" and Yuki's girlfriend.
  • Natalie Sheen, a girl with prominent glasses who sometimes appears in the background but has no spoken lines, gets development in the manga and drama CDs.
• Ax Crazy: Most notably the captain of the Blue Impulse, though all of the captains of the Vaia Ships go insane in combat. It's implied that the Phlebotinum is detrimental to their mental health.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Justified in-universe. Several characters (even Radan, aka "Pillow Boy") are seen doing repair work on the hull without spacesuits, as the Ryvius is capable of creating both an artificial gravity field and atmosphere around itself.
• The Battlestar The Ryvius, the Impulse, the Dicastia, and the Geshpenst.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When Kozue is beaten, Ikumi snaps HARD.
• Book Ends: The cold openings to the first and last episodes.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted: due to wasteful firing, the Ryvius eventually runs out of ammo for its Barge Cannons.
• BFG: The Ryvius's Barge Cannons can detach to be used as guns by the Vital Guarder.
• Brother-Sister Incest: Part of Ikumi's backstory
• Break the Cutie: Too many examples to name.
• Bridge Bunnies: The Zweis
• Butt Monkey: Lucson Houjou, the self-proclaimed leader of the Zwei and captain of the Ryvius. After being deposed, he is forced to work as the ship's janitor, frequently has his clothes stolen, and is constantly ridiculed by his fellow students. Even eight-year-old Pat thinks Lucson is "uncool."
  • However he's redeemed in the end, when his fellow students offer him the position of Captain and seem to treat him in a more friendly way; even Heigar seems to be more mellow towards him.
    • Kouji and Charlie should probably be under this entry as well.
• Cain and Abel: Kouji and Yuki
• Came Back Wrong: A rather loose case: Neya based her humanoid form off the body of a dead soldier floating out in space near the Ryvius at the time of some vaguely-alluded to incident. That s oldier was Anjay Viscuess, Conrad Viscuess's daughter. This leads to Conrad momentarily thinking his daughter had come back from the dead when Neya confronts him on the bridge of the Geshpenst
• Cassandra Truth: When the children on the Ryvius send out the distress call, the military assumes that the signal is a trick by terrorists who have seized control of the ship.
• Character Development: Everyone goes through it, with the biggest examples being Kouji, Charlie, and Lucson.
• Chekhov's Gun: There is exactly one gun aboard the Ryvius, stolen from one of the terrorists. It naturally plays an important role.
• Children Are Innocent: Played surprisingly straight with cute little boy Pat, who maintains his innocent personality throughout the series.
  • However, this doesn't apply to the next youngest characters, Nicks and Michelle, who are just as devious as their older classmates.
• Coming of Age Story
• Converse with the Unconscious: In Episode 24, after Kouji is shot and wounded by Ikumi, then treated by Criff, a heartbroken Aoi spends a good amount of her remaining screentime in the episode begging for him to regain consciousness.
• Cool Starship: The Vaia ships.
• Corrupt Church: Faina's religion inspires Kouji at first, but grows more malignant as time passes. This turns out to be the Path of Inspiration, as Faina was deliberately twisting the teachings of her actual religion.
• Creepy Monotone: Neya speaks like this, except when the collective emotions of the crew reach a high point.
• Dead Little Sister: Ikumi and Captain Viscuess, though in the latter case it's his daughter.
• Delinquents: Airs Blue and his gang.
• Determinator: Conrad Viscuess
• Did They or Didn't They?: Kouji and Aoi at the end of Episode 21. Nothing explicit is shown, but the two are seen embracing, then falling onto a bed.
  • Lampshaded in an episode of Ryvius Illusion, where Kozue sends "fanmail" asking whether they "did it." Needless to say, Aoi is not pleased...
• Distant Finale The very end of the final episode takes place thousands of years after the events of the series.
• Driven to Suicide Airs Blue, at one point. But he doesn't go through with it. Viscuess on the other hand does, once he realizes he's thrown the entire weight of Earth's naval forces behind destroying a ship crewed by children
• Dolled-Up Installment: According to some sources, Ryvius is actually based on a rejected pilot version of Space Battleship Yamato written before Leiji Matsumoto's involvement in its development.
• Easily Forgiven: A lot of people do a lot of bad things over the course of series and every one of them, even Faina, Heigar and Ikumi are forgiven for their crimes
  • Last episode strongly suggest that even Blue and Ikumi got a second chance.
  • Don't forget that the epilogue takes place nine months after the end of the actual events. One can assume the process of forgiveness wasn't so easy. And it's shown that not everyone managed to forgive and forget.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• Earthshattering Kaboom: Hyperion-shattering kaboom
• Empathic Weapon: Neya and the other Sphixes of the Vaia ships; the effect is two-way with the ships' captains -- if they have any.
• Emotionless Girl: Neya begins the series as a blank slate; by episode 22 she's capable of talking and acting like a normal human, as being around the kids has helped her learn by osmosis what it's like to be human
• Engineered Public Confession:(Heigar records Airs Blue talking about stealing the Vital Guarder and abandoning the crew of the Ryvius. He later plays the recording via intercom. Break out the Torches and Pitchforks
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even Blue, who took over the ship at gunpoint in the earlier episodes, is disgusted by what Ikumi degenerates into by the end of the series
• Everybody Lives: Sort of; All but two named children who survive the initial disaster survive to the end)
• Everything Trying to Kill You: For a time it looks like if the government didn't get them, they'd have killed themselves eventually anyway
• Evolving Credits
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Kozue stops putting her hair up into pigtails, representing her loss of innocence after being attacked by the other girls and likely sexually assaulted.
• Failure Knight: Ikumi is motivated primarily by the death of his sister
• General Ripper: Conrad Viscuess, captain of the Grey Geshpenst
• The Ghost: The fifth and sixth Vaia ships are alluded to, but never seen on screen, partly because the Geshpenst (Vaia ship #4) is rushed out of drydock as a last-ditch effort to capture the Ryvius before it leaves the solar system.
• Government Conspiracy: The reason why the children aren't rescued right away
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: The names of the Vaia ships. "Impulse" is obviously English, "Dicastia" comes from the Greek word, "dikastis," meaning judge, and "Geshpenst" comes from the German for ghost. "Ryvius," on the other hand, seems to come from a variety of English words and phrases, including "Leviathan" and "Reawake us." As for Brattica...your guess is as good as mine. Gratuitous Gibberish, perhaps?
  • However, almost all of the English used in the series is gramatically correct.
• Gratuitous German: Quite a few of the characters have German names, some of which sound as though they were pulled from a "Beginning German" textbook. For example, three of the Zwei are named Stein, Eins, and Kreis. While "Stein" is used as a given name in some countries, it seems a bit silly that two of the characters would have the German words for "one" and "circle" as their given names.
• Hello, Nurse!: Criff, who actually is a nursing student.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The instructors on Liebe Delta, who sacrifice themselves to save the children. Particularly notable is Pat's father, who gets Famous Last Words as he begs for the plan to work while being crushed and incinerated by the Geduld
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In the English dub Koji is Light Yagami, Yuki is Miroku, Kozue is Gretel, Neya is Lacus Clyne, Airs Blue is MegaMan, Juli is Barbie, Ikumi is Shade, Faina is Piper, Criff is Shana, Lucson is Edd, and Cullen is ShadowCat.
• Humans Are Flawed
• Humongous Mecha: The Vital Guarder. The crew laugh at it when it's first discovered, but you can't argue with success...
• Immune to Bullets: Airs Blue shoots Neya, to no effect
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Neya. Just... Neya. Lampshaded when she attends a party.
• Infinite Supplies: Averted: the limited supplies on the Ryvius are a major source of tension amongst the crew
• In Space: Lord of the Flies... in space!
• Jerkass: Yuki, most of the time.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arguably Yuki and Ran.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Ikumi
• Just in Time: Subverted. When Liebe Delta is falling into the Geduld, the Zwei activate the engines Just in Time... except that the engines don't actually activate. Oops.
• Kids Are Cruel: Numerous examples throughout the series
• Knight Templar: Ikumi
• Large Ham: Lucson
• Little Miss Badass: Michelle, especially after her imprisonment.
• Living Ship: All of the Vaia Ships
• Love Makes You Crazy: Both Ikumi and Faina's face heel turns are partially driven by this, though the latter was possibly insane to begin with.
• Love Redeems: Criff Kei and "Charlie"
• Love Triangle: Aoi likes Kouji and Yuki; Kouji likes Aoi and Faina
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Nearly five hundred children are on the Ryvius! In addition, there are about fifty named characters. Naturally, the series focuses on just a few, and organizes many of them into Cast Herds.
• The Mutiny: Usually happens once every five episodes
• My God, What Have I Done?: Several instances, but most notably Ikumi and Faina in the penultimate episode
• My Name Is Not Durwood: In Episode 4, Team Blue nicknames Good Turtleland III "Charlie." Despite his insistence on being called by his real name, it is all but forgotten within a few episodes. Viscuess also, puzzlingly, refers to the Ryvius as the Brattica
• Non-Action Guy: So very much Kouji.
• No Name Given: Neya is a major character who is introduced in the first episode, but we don't learn her name until near the end of the series. The other two Vaia ships aren't named either, though in fairness they don't even make it out of drydock by the time the Ryvius is cornered
• Noodle Incident: The series never properly explains the events that lead to the Ryvius being sealed away on the Liebe Delta, or how and why it was responsible for the death of Conrad's daughter
  • It's actually mentioned that the Ryvius went wild on its first flight and activated her gravitational field, which ended up killing his daughter.
• Norio Wakamoto: Conrad
• One-Winged Angel: Grey Geshpenst
• Only a Flesh Wound: Averted when Kouji gets shot in the shoulder: he only survives because he is immediately taken to the medical center and undergoes surgery, and the official timeline notes that he underwent three months of physical therapy and recuperation afterwards. In the final episode, he says that he can no longer raise his right arm above his shoulder
• Parental Abandonment: Justified; all of the adults on Liebe Delta die while saving the children
• POV Sequel: The manga
• Prison Rape: Implied when Criff and Michelle are imprisoned after the coup in episode 16. While nothing explicit is shown, there are a few lines of suggestive dialogue and it is seen that Michelle is shackled up with her legs spread
• Promotion to Parent: Juli, and to some extent, Lucson, after Pat Campbell's father, who was also one of their teachers, dies trying to save the children aboard the Liebe Delta.
• Punny Name: Yuki's lonely ex-girlfriend's name is Elina Rigby, a pun on the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby." In additon, Stein Heigar seems to be named after a German variety of gin called Steinhager.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The final episode
• Rebellious Rebel After he's overthrown Blue abandons his band of delinquents
• Replacement Goldfish: After she is assaulted, Kozue becomes a replacement for Ikumi's beloved older sister. Also, Neya becomes this, unintentionally, for Conrad Viscuess's daughter, Anjay, and when he sees her for the first time he loses his mind
• Sapient Ship: The Vaia Ships are mostly technological, but each has a living Vaia at its core. The Vaia are sentient, though only one is a full-fledged Spaceship Girl.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted; there is no FTL and the Ryvius spends months traveling between planets
• Scholarship Student: Juli Bahana
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Used when Faina murders Sandy and Mc Bane
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Kouji and Aoi
• Shotacon: Possibly Ran's feelings toward cute little boy Pat.
• Some Kind of Force Field: The Vaia Ships can control gravity and deflect attacks by bending space.
• Space Friction: Averted.
• Space Is an Ocean: Literally; the "Geduld Phenomenon" has produced an ocean of plasma in the solar system
• Space Madness
• Space Whale: The Vaia; more like space-squids, actually
• Spaceship Girl: Neya
• Spell My Name with an "S": Fina/Faina, Neya/Neeya, Criff/Cliff, Kouji/Kouzi, Cullen/Karen
• Straw Vulcan: Heigar - which makes it even more creepy when he cracks
• Talking the Monster to Death: When Neya confronts the Sphix of the Geshpenst, she doesn't attack it, instead pleading for it to see reason even as it pummels her. She finally succeeds in convincing it to let her speak to Captain Viscuess.
• Talking to Himself: Due to the large cast, most of the Japanese voice actors took on at least two roles. As a result, there are quite a few scenes where two characters voiced by the same VA interact with each other.
• Team Pet: Rafra, the ferret mascot of the Ryvius
• Techno Babble: Most of the conversation occurring in the Vital Guarder control room
• Teenage Wasteland
• Thematic Theme Tune
• Theme Naming: Blue Impulse, Crimson Dicastia, Grey Geshpenst, Black Ryvius
• The Captain: Goes through four of them over the course of the series.
• The Vamp: Michelle Kei
• This Is a Drill (The Blue Impulse's Vital Guarder, the Vorticular Drill)
• Those Two Guys (Kikki and Radan, the "Dinosaur Girl" and "Pillow Boy". These two are usually spotted once per episode, sometimes just in the background. They're notable because of their strange attire, a big blue dinosaur costume and a modesty-preserving pillowcase. Interestingly, they only appear together for one scene over the course of their entire series)
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Threatened a few times, but never actually done
  • There were two people dragged behind the ship on lines (in spacesuits) as a punishment at one point, however.
• Transsexualism: Criff. For all intents and purposes she's a woman but at one point Michelle calls her "big brother."
  • Confirmed by the official character profiles.
• Treacherous Advisor: Heigar turns down the position of captain, preferring to be an advisor instead. He even goes so far as to engineer a coup to set himself up in this position. Naturally, he dreams of being The Man Behind the Man
• Tron Lines: Appear when the Ryvius first activates in episode 3, and again when the gravity control system powers up in episode 5
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Aoi, though by the end of the series, she is actually a Victorious Childhood Friend.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Ikumi and Heigar's philosophy as captain of the Ryvius
• Victorious Childhood Friend: Aoi.
• Villainous Breakdown: Viscuess, after seeing Neya and realizing the Ryvius really is crewed by children
• Weasel Mascot: Rafra
• Wild Teen Party: After the fight at Mars, the crew throws a party to raise morale and release tension. It features, among other things, a contest to program the Vital Guarder to dance. Unfortunately, it gets cut short by the announcement that the crew of the Ryvius have been declared terrorists. Also, as later shown in a flashback, one person gets murdered. All in all, not a success.
• Yandere: Actually more than it seems at first sing. Obvious one being weird guy obsessed with certain girl who often is seen stalking her, giving her points he earned or even assaulting her boyfriend . Fina, who was trying to kill her ex-boyfriend and girl he left her for and even killed her previous ex and her friend who called his name, is quite less obvious at the begining. Ikumi showed some triats when he has taken control over entire ship to make sure his girlfriend will be safe.
• Younger Than They Look: Blue, Criff, and Lucson qualify
• Yuppie Couple: A girl in a mascot costume (Kikki Kibure) and a boy in a towel (Radan) appear in the background of at least one scene in every episode