Venus Versus Virus

Lucia & Sumire

One day middle school student Sumire Takahana meets the mysterious Lucia Nahashi, who is part of a group called Venus Vanguard. From that day on, Sumire is drawn into Lucia's ongoing battles with "The Virus", an evil spirit that snatches people's souls away. Sumire discovers that she not only has the power to see the Virus, but that she can turn into a mindless living antibody, called "Berserker mode"--an ability that Lucia finds highly useful for her purposes. It's needless to say that these events turn Sumire's life totally upside down.

Venus Versus Virus started as a manga series by Atsushi Suzumi and got adapted into an anime series by Studio Hibari in 2007. Even though it's filled with action and supernatural mystery, the focus of the series is on the relationship between Sumire and Lucia in face of the threats they encounter.

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Tropes used in Venus Versus Virus include:

• Action Girl: Lucia and Sumire.
• Action Prologue: The beginning of the anime.
• Alliteration
• A God Am I: Aion thinks of himself as this. In the anime, Lucif does.
• All Love Is Unrequited: This appears to be the case with Lucia to Sumire. Though the ending of the manga is just vague enough to suggest that it's no longer the case.
• Artificial Human: In the anime, Lucif's henchmen, including Yoshiki.
• Art Evolution: Compare the oneshot to the actual manga.
  • Also, during volume 6, the characters look (somewhat) noticeably rounder and cleaner.
• Ayahi Takagaki: Lucia's voice actress.
• Bait and Switch Lesbians: A picture of Lucia and Sumire is even used on the main page. Combined with Bait and Switch Credits. The girls are not quite so lovey-dovey in the anime itself, except...
  • In the manga there are more over-tones, it's even dubbed a Girls Love series, but it's still subtle.
• Battle Aura: Sumire's doesn't glow, but it has enough heat to vaporize the snow in a radius around her feet.
• Because Destiny Says So: A lot of things, according to Lucif. Also, maybe Lucia and Sumire's friendship, since they are the key and the gate. Sumire has Lilith's powers, which didn't awaken until she touched Lilith's brooch.
• Bi the Way: Sumire has a male love interest, but it's all but outright stated she's in love with Lucia.
• Big Bad: Aion in the manga, Lucif in the anime.
• Bishie Sparkle: In the anime, Yoshiki does this toward Nene and Riku.
• Blessed with Suck: Lucia and Sumire sometimes feel this way about having Vision.
• Blow You Away: Sumire displays this in the last episode of the anime.
• Body Horror: When a human becomes a Virus.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Sumire in the final volume of the manga, when she buys into Aion's whole spiel about the True World being a paradise for all.
• Cooldown Hug: Sumire does this literally to Lucia on one occasion.
  • Perhaps this is also what happens during Lucia and Sumire's final showdown in the anime.
• Comic Book Time: Averted. The characters appearances change over the time of the manga, especially for Riku. He grew quite a few inches over the volumes.
• Creepy Cool Crosses
• Creepy Twins: Lola and Layla have some of this when they're together.
• Dark Action Girl: Ruka.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lucia's definitely qualifies.
• Deflector Shields: Used extensively by Guy.
  • A variation is also used to contain Sumire when she's in her Berserker mode.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Lucia, and she begins to warm up to Sumire as the series progresses.
• Did Not Do the Research: Even a blank can do serious damage when the gun is is fired from a very close range.
  • Also, a vaccine is for enhancing a person's immune system, not for destroying viruses directly. Since they're not literal viruses or vaccine, it's probably more Rule of Cool.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Sumire goes into berserk mode, all the time in the anime and at first in the manga, she acts as if she wants to rape Lucia.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Lucia, Ruka, Lola, and Layla.
• Emotionless Girl: Layla, especially in the anime. Lucia often behaves like this too.
• Enemy Within
• Evil Eye: Lucia.
• Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Sumire and Lucia, but they aren't the only ones.
• Eyepatch of Power: Lucia has one over her left eye.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Or at least arrange flowers.
• Gecko Ending: In the anime, leaving the viewer with a game of "guess what the symbols mean".
• Girls with Guns
• God: Aion is considered to be the God of the True World he and Sonoka are trying to make.
• God of Evil: This is the the protagonists describe Aion as, although he claims the True World is beyond the concepts of good and evil.
• Go Out with a Smile: Tsukuyo
• Grand Theft Me: In the manga, Aion possesses Lucif and Yoshiki, and Sonoka possesses Ruka.
• The Gunslinger: Lucia, although she loads her gun with blanks containing Virus-antidote.
• Gun Twirling: Sumire tries this once in the anime. She ends up dropping her gun.
• Happily Ever After: The manga and presumably the anime.
• The Heartless: When people with Vision lose their Fragments, they turn into Viruses.
• Heel Face Turn: In the anime, Yoshiki betrays Lucif to save Sumire, and in the manga Ruka betrays Sonoka to get even for Sonoka treating her like a disposable minion.
• Hellish Pupils: Viruses, plus Berserk!Sumire and Lucif, have cross-shaped pupils.
• Homoerotic Subtext: There are hints between Lucia and Sumire, as pointed out by a few characters.
• The Hunter: Lucia and Sumire.
• I Have the High Ground: Ruka is often depicted doing this.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Sumire, at regular intervals.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Lucia to Sumire in the finale of the anime, and to a lesser extent at the end of the manga.
• Intertwined Fingers: Sumire and Lucia do this often, starting in the opening credits.
• Interrupted Suicide: Lucif. This is the way Lilith, Lucia's mom, dies in manga. It's a Tear Jerker and The Reveal.
• Invisible to Normals: Only those with Vision can see Viruses.
• Kill'Em All: In the anime, Nahashi, Lucif, Sonoka, Ruka, Guy, and Yoshiki all die, and the fates of Lucia and Sumire aren't made clear, at least not without going into Wild Mass Guessing territory. But in the manga, the only ones who die at the end are Aion and Sonoka.
• Kissing Cousins: Riku, Sumire's younger male cousin, has a crush on her.
• Kuudere: Lucia, sometimes with hints of Tsundere occasionally.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Near the end of the anime, after Lucif kidnaps Sumire, no other characters remember Sumire, besides Lucia, Lola, and the villains.
• Left Hanging: The fates of Lucia and Sumire in the anime.
• Limited Wardrobe: Lucia usually wears the same dress. In fact, most of the characters have little variety in their wardrobes, except Sumire who usually wears something new each volume.
• Luminescent Blush: When Lucia gets one, it's really telling.
• Limp and Livid: Sumire in her Berserker mode.
• Magic Skirt: For all the jumping around Sumire does in a miniskirt, there's never a Panty Shot.
• Magnetic Medium: The Virus prefers to attack people who see it.
• Meaningful Name: Lucia's name means "light," and her parents are named Lucif and Lilith, although those ones are also kind of silly.
  • Sumire Takahana keeps flowers around to lend cheer to Lucia's environment. For those non-Japanese speakers, hana means "flower."
• Minori Chihara: Sumire's voice actress.
• Mismatched Eyes: Lucif (red/gold), Lucia (blue/gold)
• More Than Mind Control: The way Aion prefers to manipulate others.
• Older Than They Look: In the anime, Lola and Layla are ageless artificial humans, so they're much older than Lucia and Sumire. In the manga, they're just preteen girls with psychic powers.
• Onee-Sama: Lucia gets addressed this way by Sumire's classmates.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catchphrase: "I'll kill you gently! Teehee!" (As said by Lola.)
• Our Ghosts Are Different: In the anime, Lola summons the ghosts of Nahashi and Lilith to restrain Lucif from attacking Sumire and Lucia. They fall under types 2 and 7 and look like blue-white versions of themselves.
• Our Souls Are Different: Those with Vision have a Fragment of the True World within their souls.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The Virus often has the appearance of zombies.
• Overtook the Manga: The anime goes in a different direction than the manga and also ended earlier.
• Parental Abandonment: Lucia's mother is dead and her father is the Big Bad in the anime, or possessed by Aion, the actual main villain, in the manga. Sumire's parents are rarely mentioned, but they are alive and well.
• Perpetual Frowner: Layla, and Lucia to an extent.
• Poor Communication Kills: In the anime, Lucia tries to kill Yoshiki, even though he was in the midst of a Heel Face Turn. Lucif finishes the job.
• Psycho Lesbian: Sumire, in Berserker mode! It's a little bit subtle as she is violent with the Viruses and more sexual (in a rape sort of way) with Lucia, as at one point she says they should "become one."
  • Also, Lucia appears to be this in the anime, when she stakes Sumire's boyfriend.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Ruka, and Sumire in her Berserker form.
• Religion of Evil: Aion and his followers are described as being a cult and responsible for many of the problems involving the Viruses, and their religions has shades of Gnosticism.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Lucia prefers a revolver over the half-automatic gun Sumire uses, although Sumire also uses a revolver in the manga.
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Albeit a rather troubled one.
  • Lampshaded when Sumire's feelings for Lucia get pointed out to her by her male love interest, of all people.
• Say It with Hearts: Ruka is fond of doing this.
• Screw Destiny: Lucia and Sumire reject their destinies as the "Gate" and "Key" to the True World at the end of the manga.
• Sex as Rite-of-Passage: One of Sumire's friends, Mika, exclaims how Sumire has "become a woman" after she thinks Sumire lost her virginity during the spring.
• Shallow Love Interest: Yoshiki. At least he seems that way until his true intentions are revealed.
• Shower of Angst: Lucia has a few.
• Smoking Is Cool: Lucia, but only in the manga. Subverted, as of Volume 7 where Sumire finally convinces her to quit.
• Sparkling Stream of Tears
• Spell My Name with an "S": In the English version of the manga, two characters' names are spelled Ruka and Lola. In the English version of the anime, they're spelled Luca and Laura.
  • Also, in early fansubs of episode 1, Lucia was subbed as "Ruchia."
• Subtext: Ooooh boy, is there ever.
• Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Viruses see those with Vision this way.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Sumire's Berserker mode.
• Sweet Tooth: Lola loves chocolate, whereas her twin sister Layla prefers konpeito.
• Token Mini-Moe: Lola and Layla.
• Took a Level in Badass: Automatically Sumire when she enters Berserk mode. Even more so in the manga, where she can activate it whenever she wants and control herself.
• Twelve-Episode Anime: Also, Venus Versus Virus is hanging on a cliff, that's why they call him "Cliff Hanger".
• Urban Fantasy
• Vague Age: For the most part, Lucia is depicted as being older than Sumire, but she is apparently only one year older (two years in the anime).
• The Virus: Obviously.
• Weird Moon
• What Could Have Been: At the end of the first volume, you get to read the original oneshot, and look at the original character designs. The Viruses were more like demons, and Lucia's covered eye was different. Sumire's cousins looked very different too.
• Whole-Episode Flashback: Chapter twenty-two in the manga and episode seven in the anime, focusing on Nahashi's past with Lucia's parents.
• Yandere: In the manga, Layla, when she's not being an Emotionless Girl. Although it's not romantic, she has a creepy obsession with "becoming one" with Lola.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Aside from the teal-haired Lucia, characters have plausible hair colors, though Sumire's red-auburn is unlikely to be seen on a Japanese person.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the anime, Lucif knocks off his minions, apparently For the Evulz, and in the manga Sonoka does this to Guy after Yoshiki desouled him.
• Younger Than They Look: Lucia is only fifteen years old, although she looks like she is at least eighteen. It doesn't help that she smokes...
• Zettai Ryouiki: Sumire's school uniform has this.