Loups=Garous

Loups=Garous is a 2010 Post Cyber Punk anime movie directed by Junichi Fujisaku, based on a book by Natsuhiko Kyogoku. It is set in a world Twenty Minutes Into the Future, where everyone is constantly watched by an omnipresent surveillance system and mostly communicate online. Children are educated online, so schools are replaced by Community Centers that teach them how to socialise.

The story's protagonists are four girls assigned as a group: shy and quiet Hazuki Makino, energetic Mio Tsuzuki, emotionless Ayumi Kouno and old-times anime fan Yuko Yabe. A series of brutal murders occurs in neighbourhood. As Yuko nearly becomes one of the victims, girls come together to protect her and gradually develop a genuine friendship. However, the murderer keeps hunting them, easily manipulating police and the whole surveillance system. To survive, they have to uncover the truth behind the society's facade.

Tropes used in Loups=Garous include:

• Abandoned Area: Mio has her Hacker Cave in a designated redevelopment area.
• Action Girl: Myao.
• Action Survivor: Hazuki.
• Adults Are Useless: Yuko's parents are only mentioned. They never show up or protect her in any way.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Riichiro Ishida.
• Augmented Reality
• Ax Crazy: Nakamura and Kawabata.
• Berserk Button: Kawabata: "You're copying the design of that art piece! This is an original! Your pictures profane the art piece we respect so much!"
• Big Brother Is Watching: Thankfully, Big Brother doesn't listen.
• Bittersweet Ending: Big Bad is dead and won't eat little girls anymore, but society is still quite bleak, Big Brother is still watching, and Ayumi has to flee.
• Blood Knight: Ayumi: "The reason doesn't matter. Those who can kill will kill."
• Break the Cutie: Ayumi
• Clarke's Third Law: Invoked in-universe by Mio: "In this world where people rely on the System for everything, I'm the equivalent of a magician. I can do whatever I want."
• Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: Nakamura and Kawabata attack Yuko, but they turn out to be just two random psychopaths, not real culprits of serial murders.
• Computer Equals Monitor: Evi cops at Hazuki's house, and then the girls themselves in SVC office.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Suzuki Keitarou
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Suzuki Keitarou tried to avoid this. He created his whole synthetic food empire to recreate the taste of human flesh. Bt it turned out that nothing can beat the original.
• Death Equals Redemption: Subverted. Suzuki Keitarou: "Will you release me from this curse?" Ayumi: "No. I'm only killing you."
• Eats Babies: Suzuki Keitarou
• Emotionless Girl: Ayumi
• Everything Is Online: To the point that they need a word for offline communication and programs for teaching kids how to make a Real Contact.
• Evil Gloating: Ishida Riichiro
• Extreme Graphical Representation
• First-Name Basis: Girls make point of moving to this now that they are friends.
• Future Food Is Artificial
• Genki Girl: Mio
• Good Times Montage: Girls becoming friends at Ayumi's hideout.
• Hacker Cave: Mio has one.
• Hollywood Hacking: Mio does this.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Suzuki Keitarou
• I Never Said It Was Poison: This is how Ayumi finds The Mole. She asks him what time it is now. He looks at his monitor (pocket computer) which means he knows that she doesn't have one.
• Insecurity Camera: Mio: "The problem with this magic is that it can fool the mechanical eyes, but it can't fool human eyes."
• I Was Never Here: Mio does this.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Nakamura and Kawabata.
• Mini-Mecha: Mio has one.
• Mood Whiplash: Yuko's death
• Never Found the Body: Mio's "death".
• Peace and Love Incorporated: SVC: "Wonderful life and time for all the people. It applies about us."
• Playful Hacker: Mio.
• Police Are Useless: They are controlled by Riichiro Ishida
• Rape as Backstory: Ayumi
• Rashomon Style: The opening scene of Nakamura and Kawabata assaulting Yuko is retold four times from different angles.
• Shrinking Violet: Hazuki
• Sinister Surveillance
• Sociopathic Hero: Ayumi: "I am Loups Garous, a beast hiding in human skin."
• Stab the Salad: Mio does it when she first enters Hazuki's house. Later the scene is repeated, but now the knife is held by an actual killer.
• Start of Darkness: Ayumi's backstory. She was raped by a maniac. Then he cried, apologised to her and gave her the knife he used to assault girls. She killed him accepting her new self as a cold-blooded murderer, Loups Garous
• Staying with Friends
• Stealth Hi Bye: Ayumi does it.
• Super-Deformed: In-universe. Yuko is a fan of old-style anime, she even draws all the girls as a group of super-deformed characters.
• Supervillain Lair: Lampshaded by Ayumi: "The center of this world. In other words, it's where the villain is."
• Sympathetic Murderer: Ayumi
• Talking Is a Free Action: Robots chase and encircle Ayumi and Hazuki, but do not attack until they finish their conversation.
• Technology Marches On: In-universe. "You mean the celluloid videos from the past century, right? They were called ani-something."
• Tempting Fate: Mio: "In this robot, a car could hit me, and there wouldn't be a single scratch." Right after this she is pulled out of it silly.
• The Man Behind the Man: Suzuki Keitarou is behind Riichiro Ishida
• The Mole: Touji Kunugi
• Title Drop: Ayumi calls herself Loups Garous.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future
• Unperson: Unregistered people. "If they never really existed, right from the beginning, the police won't do anything if they disappear."
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Riichiro Ishida
• Villain with Good Publicity: Suzuki Keitarou. He created artificial food empire that fed the humanity. They even built statues of him.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Hazuki's father.