Heroic Age

Storyline

The story’s theme is based on stories in Greek mythology, especially those surrounding Heracles, upon whom the main character is based, and his Twelve Labors. Many of the other characters are also based on Greek mythological figures; characters share similar names to their Greek counterparts, and how their relationship is defined with others correspond with Greek stories. The title of the series, Heroic Age, is also a slight testament to the similarities to Greek mythology, referring to the time of the Heroic Age. The tribes featured in the anime are loosely based on Hesiod’s Five Ages of Mankind.

Age

Age has the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, but is actually 120 years old; it is unknown how much of this time he was actually “living”, as he may have been in stasis for over 100 years. Age lived on the ruined planet Oron, a world that was once verdant and peaceful, but later suffered from a cosmic cataclysm; he lived in an old, abandoned ship, and he addressed the mainframe A.I. of the ship as his mother. Age is wild by nature, but he can nevertheless be extremely good-natured. Since he was taught by the Golden Tribe, whom he considered to be his fathers, Age has limited knowledge about human society, not even knowing the meaning of ‘numbers’, simple words, or common phrases. Age’s character may be based on the mythological hero Hercules.

Age’s Nodos form is called Bellcross. Bellcross has a humanoid body approximately 50 feet (15 m) tall, and joints made of very large blue spheres. It is shown to have the ability to absorb its enemies’ life force and release it as a destructive energy blast.

Bellcross is considered to be the strongest of the remaining Heroic Tribe. Like the other remaining members of the Heroic Tribe, he apparently lives only for destruction and can apparently counter all the other 4 Nodos’ powers with ease. While Frenzied, he releases powerful shock waves whenever he moves through space, powerful enough to destroy nearby ships. Iron Tribe computers calculated that if he continued to remain in Frenzy, he would ultimately release energy on the scale of a supernova explosion. Bellcross’ main ability is originally thought to be existence, but it is later revealed that he is the key to The Golden Tribe’s power.

Nodos

A Nodos is a person carrying the ‘essence’ of a Heroic Tribesman, and can thus transform into a member of the Heroic Tribe. In this form they have superhuman abilities, including enhanced strength and agility, breathing in space, sustaining weapon fire and explosions without injury, and enduring atmospheric reentry.[1] They also seem able to freely move in zero-gravity. The Heroic Tribe life-form is stored in a stone that is wrapped around the optical nerve.

Each Nodos, including Age, has a contract with a fixed set of rules, called “labors.” With the exception of Age, these include protecting the Silver Tribe’s Nodos, Yuty. Yuty mentions that if they do not abide by their contracts, each of their races would be destroyed. The labors of the Nodos appear to be conflicting with each other.

In extremely violent battles, such as when two or more Nodos fight, they will go completely berserk, attacking and destroying everything around them, having been consumed by their own instincts. The Silver Tribe refer to this state as being in a “Frenzy.” Aware of the Heroic Tribe having destroyed hundreds of solar systems while in a Frenzy, the Silver Tribe strives to prevent multiple Nodos from fighting each