Tekkaman Blade

Someone's wounded heart is burning in the lonely sky...

—first (and oddly appropriate) OP

Space Knight Tekkaman Blade is a 1992 Anime series by Tatsunoko Production, re-imagining their 1970s series Tekkaman the Space Knight. The setup for the series is that the Earth is being invaded by parasitic aliens known as the Radam (Venomoids in the English version). The Radam are led by mysterious armored warriors called Tekkamen (Teknomen in the English version). The Earth military and the Space Knights have been unsuccessful at fighting the invading aliens until the arrival of a mysterious young man known as D-Boy, who can transform into the powerful armored warrior Tekkaman Blade.

Tekkaman Blade was dubbed in English under the name "Teknoman" in two versions. The American dub, which only lasted 26 episodes and the International Dub, which was shown everywhere else besides America and Japan. The DVD American release is of the International Dub.

A sequel series, Tekkaman Blade II, takes place ten years after the events of the first series. The Radam are invading yet again, and the expanded Space Knights train a team of new Tekkamen to fight them. The first half deals with the continuing Radam war and focuses on Yumi Francois/Tekkaman Hiver, a clumsy mechanic who is nonetheless recruited into the new team. The second half details the appearance of Tekkaman Dead and his struggle with David Kruegel, Tekkaman Sommer, as well as with Blade himself.

Though its premise is more like an armored super hero, it still made its way to Super Robot Wars (J and W). Go figure. And if superheroes (and Capcom) are more your cup of tea than giant robots, then you can check out Blade's playable appearance in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars.

A character sheet is constantly in-progress.

---

Tropes used in Tekkaman Blade include:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The various Tek-lancers, which can cut tanks in half.
• Adjective Noun Fred
• After the End
• Air Jousting
• Alien Kudzu: The Radam trees/tekkaplants.
• Alien Invasion
• All Deaths Final
• Alliterative Name: "Ringo Richards", "Star Summers" and "Mac MacElroy" in the dub.
• Alternative Calendar: The series begins in United Space Calendar Year 192.
• Angst: Turning into an alien monster and having to fight and kill your family members and closest friends (Goddard was practically family, and Fong would've been his sister-in-law if the Radam had snared the ship a day later) who still seem to be mostly themselves (they have their personalities and memories, their loyalty is just to the Radam over the human race) is a pretty tall order no matter how you slice it. Add on the fact that he's deathly afraid of getting close to anyone ever again because of it, the fact that if he goes overtime in his Tekkaman form he could become an out of control threat potentially worse than the Radam (and does), the fact that early on he is at best mistrusted by the others and at worst hated and treated like a monster... especially considering his general emotional response is to just run on sheer anger and hate for the Radam and the wangst only comes up when he's out and out overwhelmed, as anime leads go, Takaya's emo moments are pretty damn justified.
  • Which make his amnesia as the side effect of the Blastor Form more of a blessing than a misfortune, really.
• Ascended Fangirl/Hero Worshipper: Yumi really idolizes Blade.
• Asteroid Thicket: During their meeting with the convoy from Io, the Blue Earth flies through one of these.
• Awesome but Impractical: Blastor mode.
• Badass: Among many examples, Blade himself. He took a nuke to the face and shook it off like it was nothing!
• Badass Abnormal: Every one of the Tekkamen.
• Batman Cold Open: Blade begins with D-Boy's attack on the Radam occupying the Space Ring, in contrast to Teknoman's Villain Opening Scene.
• Battle of the Still Frames: Most battles are portrayed this way in the series; not so much in the OAV.
• Blade Lock
• Big Fancy House: That looks more like a Big Fancy Castle; the Space Knights stay in it for at least two days.
• Bio Augmentation: By way of Imported Alien Phlebotinum.
• Bittersweet Ending
• Body Horror: Saying that D-Boy's transformation in the OVA "Twin Blood" special looks incredibly painful is a gross understatement.
• Bridge Bunnies: Milly/Tina.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: D-Boy and Aki.
• Bullying a Dragon: How the plot of II pretty much kicks into gear.
• By the Power of Greyskull: "Tek Setter!" In Teknoman, "Tekno Power!"
• Cain and Abel: Teknoman actually renames one of the brothers "Cain". The first episode of Tekkaman Blade II includes the biblical Cain and Abel story in its title crawl.
• Came From the Sky: Blade/D-Boy.
• Call Back : The end of series speech Blade made to Dead to live on and let Tekkaman Dead to die is a Call Back to the end of the first series where he state that Takaya Aiba is dead before defeating Omega.
• Calling Your Attacks: Only Blade calls all his moves, but it seems no Tekkaman can resist shouting "VOLTEKKAAAAA!" at least once.
• Cast of Snowflakes
• Catapult Nightmare: Takaya has a few, though more often it's a dream about killing his fellow Space Knights.
• Clip Show: Out of 49 episodes, this series had four. The last two were only separated by a couple of episodes (40 and 45).
• Clothes Make the Superman: Noal and Balzac get Powered Armors based on Tekkaman abilities.
• Coming in Hot: Blade / D-Boy's landing on Earth.
• Crapsack World: Though, by then end it seems to be getting better.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Miyuki gets pinned to a wall by her wrists and stabbed by Evil and co.
• Cultural Translation
• Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique/Deadly Upgrade: In the beginning of the first series, the main character's incomplete transformation allows him to retain his free will, but has a side effect; his constant transformations into his superpowered form are destroying his central nervous system. The upgrade to Blastor Mode fixed this problem, but caused transforming to burn up his memories instead--he even forgets how to transform at one point. And dialogue by the arch-villain, in the Australian dub at least, implied that this Super Mode upgrade would cause a Teknoman to burn out and die within a few months, though this doesn't come to pass.
• Darker and Edgier: The original Tekkaman was already pretty grim, but Blade throws Idealism into deep space and space lances it.
• Dead Little Sister: Miyuki/Shara. We actually see her die, and it wasn't exactly in a peaceful, quiet way.
• Death Is Dramatic
• Demoted to Extra/Put on a Bus: Takaya/D-Boy aka Tekkaman Blade in the first half of Tekkaman Blade II. However, when he returns, he returns.
• Desolation Shot: many, often featuring the Ruins of the Modern Age.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Takaya's father had one.
• The Ditz: Yumi in Tekkaman Blade II.
• Divided We Fall: The Space Knights and the Allied Defense Force are at odds over who gets control of Tekkaman Blade.
• Double Weapon: The SPACE LANCE Tek Lancer.
• Dramatic Shattering: Blade's tekset crystal.
• Dropped a Bridget On Him: Dead End. That's all.
• Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: Actually a "he". Just goes to show how much Aki cares for D-Boy... And leading her to Converse with the Unconscious.
• During The Bug War
• Dying Like Animals / Fighting for Survival
• Escape Pod: Takaya's father puts him on one when the Radam attack their ship.
• Establishing Series Moment: The series starts with Blade fighting the Radam, and barely slows down from there.
• Everyone Can See It: Between Aki and D-Boy; or so Noal claims.
• Everyone Looks Sexier If French: Inverted subversion: Yumi is clearly Japanese, but she has a French surname... and she's the cute ditz instead of the "sexy" (that title goes to the Russian Natasha).
• Eye Scream: Tekkaman Dagger has this happen to him after ironically causing a similar injury to Blade.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Sometimes crosses over into Family-Unfriendly Death.
• Fetal Position Rebirth: Anyone being made into a Tekkaman, at least in the first series.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Crush/Crash Intrude, which sometimes also counts as Hot Wings.
• Four Is Death: Tekkaman Dead, the fourth introduced new Tekkaman in Tekkaman Blade II. And he starts out evil too.
• Future Badass: Aki.
• General Ripper: Galt/Colbert.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Aki "Bright Slaps" D-Boy at one point.
• Giant Enemy Spider-Crab
• Gratuitous English: Freeman's Catch Phrase, "Blue Earth, Go!" In Tekkaman Blade II, the phrase is inherited by Aki and mocked by Yumi.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: Absolutely no one feels bad about killing off the Radam's hordes; the Tekkamen... not so much.
• Heel Face Turn: The enemy Tekkamen, considering D-Boy knew them all for years because they were either family members or close friends.
• Henshin Hero: Blade, of course. Also Rapier, technically. And of course, everyone in Blade II. To say nothing of the Radam Tekkamen.
• Here We Go Again: In the second series, the Radam come back.
• Heroic BSOD: Blade suffers one of these over several episodes as a result of a temporary Face Heel Turn.
• Heroic RROD
• Heroic Sacrifice: Miyuki/Shara, already dying, blows herself up in battle with the Tekkamen attacking the Space Knights' HQ at the end of the first season. However, in the second season, it turns out that the evil Tekkamen survived.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The ones that the Space Knights wear.
• Hour of Power: D-Boy can't stay in his Tekkaman form for more than thirty minutes, or he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage that will supposedly culminate in a permanent Face Heel Turn.
• Humongous Mecha: Sort of.
• Hurting Hero: Blade, natch.
• I Am Who?: D-Boy/Takaya, when his amnesia becomes especially pronounced.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: D-Boy directly asks Milly to make sure the Space Knights kill him if his Hour of Power is over and he goes into Unstoppable Rage.
• I Have the High Ground
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Blade sometimes tries to get through to his former friends and family who've been brainwashed into Tekkaman. Sure, it never works, but it shows how much he still cares.
  • Made all the more crushing when he finds out near the end of the series that each Tekkaman is only evil via a Radam parasite, and that he could've gotten through to them if only he'd known to kill the parasite first somehow.
• Ill Girl: Miyuki/Shara is a pretty tragic example.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: The dub is full of these. Leads to a bit of Mood Whiplash, as Blade will go from joking around to deadly serious in the span of 5 minutes.
• Insectoid Aliens: The Radam cannon-fodder.
• Invisible President: Only shown from the top of the nose down.
• Kill Sat: The Orbital Ring... which just happens to be under the control of the Radam.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Double Subversion: D-Boy apparently has amnesia at the beginning of the series, but it turns out he's lying. Then near the end, he starts losing his memory for real.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: A Tekkaman's lancer has never been shown as capable of cutting another one.
• Living Ship: The Radam travel in these.
• Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places: Poor David...
• Love Dodecahedron: Aki/D-Boy/Yumi, with Hayato having unrequited feelings for Yumi. Also D-Boy/Aki/David, with David eventually establishing some sort of Ho Yay with Dead.
• Love Martyr: Catherine/Feng-Li.
• Made of Indestructium: The Radam Tekkamen, and of course D-Boy when he's transformed.
• Melancholy Moon: D-Boy spends a lot of time staring up at it.
• Mildly Military: The Space Knights.
• Mission Briefing: Quite a few, mostly from Freeman.
• Monster Is a Mommy: A scene in II where Alien Tekkamen mourn the death of one of their own.
• Mangst: Despite all the endless and very angst-inducing problems D-Boy seems to have, he doesn't even TALK about them during practically the entire first half of the series, instead focusing all his efforts of kicking the Radam's ass. Pretty damn manly way to deal with angst.
• My God, What Have I Done?: D-boy, after he attacks Milly.
• Naked on Arrival: Blade, in a crater, covered in blood.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: At the end of the series.
• Not of This Earth: The Radam trees.
• Nuclear Option: It fails due to Blade's sheer power and durability.
• The Nudifier: Blade's transformation acted like this at first, before he gained Magic Pants.
  • In Tekkaman Blade II, all the Tekkaman recruits have changing booths with bathrobes inside for when they turn back to human.
• Ominous Walk: Seems to be a staple of Tekkamen.
• Pan-Up-To-The-Sky Ending: Looking out to the sunset in the first series.
• Pastel-Chalked Freeze-Frame
• Parental Abandonment
• People Pods filled with Mutagenic Goo.
• Perfect Health: When D-Boy starts showing signs of failing health, it's either his Heroic BSOD or something worse.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: D-Boy/Blade/Slade.
• Power Echoes: All of the Tekkamen.
• Powered Armor: The Tekkamen themselves actually become metallic lifeforms when they transform. However, the Sol Tekkamen/Teknosuits fit this trope.
• Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: Blade goes into an Unstoppable Rage after exceeding his time limit. When he recovers, he goes into a Freak-Out and is so afraid that it will happen again that he can't transform.
• Punch a Wall: Blade, during his Heroic BSOD.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The Radam.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: All of the Radam Tekkamen have red eyes.
  • Blade has green eyes that turn red once his Hour of Power is up.
• Screaming Warrior: Notably to the point that Blade's voice actor broke the microphone. Twice.
• She's a Man In Japan: Levin/Maggie.
• Shipper on Deck: Noal and Miyuki ship D-Boy×Aki.
• Shoulders of Doom: Most, if not all, of the Tekkamen, which usually leads to...
  • Shoulder Cannon: VOLTEKKA!!!
• Shout-Out: In one of the later episodes of the first series, during the evacuation to the Orbital Ring, we are treated to a child being picked up by their father, whom the scene lingers on while they talk. This father answers the child's concerns with "As long as we have Tekkaman, we'll be fine". Watching the "History Of Tekkaman" featurette on the DVDs, and the appearance of the father is a dead ringer for the 1970s main character.
• Single Phlebotinum Limit: The Radam technology.
• Sky Surfing: The only way to travel for Tekkamen.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Crash Intrude is sometimes spelled as "Crush Intrude" or even odder names like "Crush Interlude" or "Crest Interlude". Likewise with variations of Voltekka such as "Volt Tekka" and "Voltekker".
  • This also happened between the U.S. and international dubs of Teknoman: it was Ness Carter/Teknoman Slade (U.S.) versus Nick Carter/Teknoman Blade (international).
• Stock Footage: Blade's transformations and the launching of the Blue Earth, in particular.
• Stock Super Powers: Nigh Invulnerability, Super Strength, Flight, Pure Energy cannons, and a Big Fracking Spear. Later in the series, there's a Super Mode which grants Flash Steps and Beam Spam. (It was predicted to be a Deadly Upgrade, but fortunately wasn't.)
• Strong as They Need to Be: Somehow, Blade is simultaneously stronger and weaker in the sequel than he was at the beginning of the original series. No information is ever disclosed to explain this.
• Suicide Attack: Blade's last attack on Omega was nearly this.
• Superhero
• Super Robot Wars: Judgment and W.
• The Eternal Churchill
• The Juggernaut: All of the Tekkaman.
• Theme Naming:
  • The Tekkamen are named after bladed weapons from some time period (Axe, Sword, Lance, etc.).
  • The dub renames Noal and Aki to "Ringo" and "Star", probably after The Beatles.
  • The dub surnames of "Richards", "Summers", and "Jameson" may be Shout Outs to Marvel Comics.
    • For that dub, they had Eric S. Rollman as executive producer. For anyone who doesn't know, Mr. Rollman has been involved in pretty much every Animated Adaptation of the Marvel Universe from X Men to present shows like The Superhero Squad Show and Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes.
  • Tekkaman Blade II names three Tekkamen after the seasons in various languages: Sommer (German for "summer"), Vesna (which is a poetic word for "spring" in many Slavic languages), and Hiver (French for "winter"). Aki's name already means "autumn" in Japanese, so she fits the theme without even needing a Code Name.
• The Squad: The Space Knights.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: VOLTEKKA!!
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Miyuki.
• Took a Level in Badass: Aki in II, going from The Chick to The Captain and a Tekkaman herself!.
• Transformation Name Announcement: "Tekkaman Blade!" "Tekkaman Sommer!" "Tekkaman Vesna!" "Tekkaman Hiver!"
• Transformation Sequence: A rare example of a male nude transformation sequence.
  • There's also the typical female versions, which can double as a Fanservicey aversion of Nipple-and-Dimed (for some, anyway).
• Transformation Trinket: The Tek-set system is composed of a single crystal whose appearance varies between each individual Tekkaman. When Takaya's is shattered, it's later installed in his Humongous Mecha, Pegas.
  • And somehow regenerated in the sequel without explanation.
• Tragic Villain: Pretty much all of the evil Tekkamen.
• Transhuman: All of the Tekkaman, with those on the Radam side engaging in Transhuman Treachery.
• Troubled but Cute: D-Boy.
• Twin Telepathy:: Takaya and Shinya/Tekkaman Evil. Mildly subverted in that it's actually part of their Tekkaman powers.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Takaya, Noal, Aki. Goddard/Axe, Malotov/Lance, Feng Li/Sword.
• Unobtainium: Tekkaman armors and tekset crystals.
• The Unfavorite: Shinya/Cain in the Burning Clock special. He felt that his father viewed him as weaker than his older brother and blamed him for his mother's death. It doesn't help that even though Shinya often won the matches, races and other competitions he had with Takaya, his more outgoing twin would unintentionally overshadow him most of the time.
• Victory-Guided Amnesia: Or is it amnesia-guided victory?
• Wall Slump: D-Boy, also during his Heroic BSOD.
• War Was Beginning
• Was It Really Worth It?: Takaya is forced to murder his way through the members of his family to protect the Earth.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Levin--changed to a female, Maggie, in the dub.
• Wrench Wench: Levin... sorta. Really sorta. Also Yumi Francois, who started the OVA as a Blue Earth mechanic but quickly got upgraded to the first half's main character.
• You Are Not Alone: The Space Knights to D-Boy.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair
  • More Hair Color Dissonance than anything else (except for the second-to-last episode).