Spriggan is a sci-fi anime series that revolves around agent Yu Ominae, who works for an organisation that claims to protect the world from the dangers of scientific relics left behind by ancient civilisations.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
This is a world where scriptures on tablets made of mysterious elements warn present-day humanity. There are creations of advanced ancient civilisations that developed too much and ended up destroying themselves.
As per the warning, if current humanity does not have the power to control it, they must seal it away. They are called Out-of-Place Artifacts (OOPArts).
ARCAM, and global organisation, claims to prevent humans from facing this dire threat, and lock away the relics themselves. The missions to find and protect the artefacts are taken up by their agents, known as Spriggan.
When ARCAM sends a genius professor named Rei Yamabashi to Japan to decipher ancient writings, there is an attempt to kidnap her.
She is saved by a mysterious 17-year-old Spriggan agent. After he saves her, she tells him that she is looking for Yu Ominae, a boy who saved her by being her friend when they were in an orphanage.
The agent tells her why it’s so important for her to understand what’s happening by showing her the ancient scriptures.
A (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) captures her and forces her to activate the Flame Serpent in a volcano using words that only she can read.
He also reveals that the agent she was with all this time is the Yu Ominae she was searching for. Threatening to kill him, he convinces Rei to activate the relic.
Yu arrives and fights him using the muscle suit, which is enhanced by the power of relics. He uses the ancient tablet to break his sword and deactivate the Flame Serpent.
Rei has a chat with him about how he messed up by not telling her he was Yu all along and he apologises.
After she leaves, Yu tells the ARCAM director he works under that she was the one who saved him when they were little. Yu was lost and when he saw she needed a friend, it gave him purpose.
The next relic Yu has to protect is Noah’s Ark. The survey team that is looking into the artefact is facing attacks, coming from the Pentagon in US.
They kill many of Yu’s allies, and he, himself, is saved by the arrival of his friend and fellow Spriggan agent Jean Jacquemonde.
Colonel MacDougall, a young boy with cybernetic psychic powers arrives and takes control of the professors. Jean saves Yu again.
After the Colonel takes over the Ark and gains the power to end the world. Yu battles him and his words reach him. He decides to spare humanity. But, he ends up destroying the ark along with himself.
Yu’s next mission takes him to Forest of No Return in Mysore, India to locate the immortal elixir Soma. The forest’s curse has taken lives of agents from across the world, including Spriggans.
Yu temporarily teams up with mercenary Yushino Somei and Akatsuki, member of Trident, an organisation that uses the relics to turn them into military weapons for sale.
They find a dead Buddhist and Yushino uses her necromancy powers to manifest his spirit. He tells them about the ancient tablet he unearthed that had instructions to brew Soma.
It was decided that it would be kept in the Forest of No Return to protect it from the evil of humanity, but humans kept entering the forest to find it. They died and their hatred made the forest sentient, which is what’s attacking everyone who enters.
Yushino goes her own way and finds the tablet. The forest attacks her to retrieve it. Yu breaks it and reunites the idols of a king and her consort from ancient stories, appeasing the forest.
The king placed the curse because he lost his consort in ancient times. Yushino is distraught by the tablet breaking as she wanted to sell it.
Akatsuki wants to fight Yu, but realising that Yu would turn against ARCAM if their intentions are not right, he leaves.
Yu tells Yukino that despite the picture she took of the tablet, Soma cannot be brewed without an extinct flower called Ambrosia, ruining her plans.
After this, Yu attempts to retrieve an artefact but fails. The British experiment on it, led by Lieutenant Colonel Maria Clemente.
The artefact turns out to be Berserker, a weapon of war and it kills most of those present. Yu arrives and finds Maria, who survived the attack.
Together, they attempt to now stop it from causing mass destruction across the world. As she takes up the control centre, Yu fights it head-on, hoping to keep the promise of reaching sports day at his school, as his friend is leaving the school soon and wants him to be there.
Yu manages to get the Berserker into a nuclear bunker and uses the humid air to nullify its lasers, ending up cutting its head off.
As it enters self-destruct mode, Yu runs for his life. Maria believes he died and mourns for him, but he survives.
A joyous Maria loses consciousness because of her wounds and Yu provides first aid. She wakes up in a hospital and realises the government will cover this up as a terrorist attack. She decides to leave her position.
Yu arrives just in time for the relay race and wins it for his team as the last runner, much to the happiness of his friends.
Professor Kawahara, Yu’s acquaintance from ARCAM, is killed trying to protect the crystal skull, a relic that can produce more energy than a nuclear explosion.
Suzuko, his daughter and a history teacher, does not understand why he neglected his family, as she is unaware of the presence of these ancient relics.
Yu makes her realise the danger of the situation. He directly confronts the person who sent the mercenary to steal it, Kutheimer, an ally of Hitler in the past and someone who believes the Nazi leader still ‘talks’ to him.
While Yu takes care of his underlings Hans and Bo, he is clearly bested by Mirage, who uses martial arts to overpower his muscle suit. Yu escapes, knowing he’s outclassed.
As Suzuko witnesses the destruction herself, she realises what her father actually stood for. Yu tries to retrieve the skull during an auction for it organised by Kutheimer.
Suzuko also arrives to get the skull that her father protected with his life but ends up getting taken hostage.
As she is about to be killed by Hans, the same person who cut up his father, Mirage saves her, who turns out to be Oboro, the strongest Spriggan agent, and Yu’s mentor.
Oboro destroys Bo in a fight. Yu takes revenge on Hans for killing Kawahara. He and Suzuko chase Kutheimer, who is escaping with the skull.
Yu throws a grenade inside his escaping car, retrieving the fallen skull. Oboro arrives and kills Kutheimer, who can only think about Hitler even during his death.
Oboro also reveals that Yu’s parents suffered a gruesome death, much to the surprise of Suzuko, who was only concerned by her own father’s death throughout.
ARCAM assigns her as his new history teacher. When she asks him after school where the skull is now, he assures her it’s safe. He kept it alongside his school bag.
The final chapter takes them to a mysterious land.
If you still have doubts about the ending, here’s a full breakdown:
Spriggan ending explained in detail: (Episode 6: The Forgotten Kingdom)
Enter the vanishing island
ARCAM receives knowledge of an island that appears and disappears after certain time periods. Yu calls the highest-level special advisor to the ARCAM Ocean Development Team, Captain Foster.
Yu needs the high-tech survey ship he has under his command to reach the island, especially with the Trident in search of the island as well.
Space bending technology from ancient civilisations is what makes the island disappear into a different dimension. Yushino crashes their mission and Foster allows her to accompany them.
During their journey, a Trident ship attacks their own survey ship, the Rosinante, with missiles but its lasers intercept them. As the situation gets trickier, they are only saved by Yu’s quick thinking.
They finally reach the warping island. Trident sends a mysterious agent with one sole mission, to retrieve something on the island.
Once they enter, they find ships and planes from across history on the island, explaining their disappearances.
The island’s guardians attack them, but Yu manages to destroy them. Yushino sneaks away again.
Blast from the past
As she scours the island, she finds a corpse. With him, there’s a necklace she finds valuable. When she wears it, she is shown vision by the technology in it.
Yu is attacked by the Trident agent, who has a tone of familiarity. He reminds him of the past lessons.
As he bests Yu, he criticises him for still being too naive. It’s Yu’s former teacher from ARCAM, Instructor Bowman. He has the power to generate a doppelganger.
Yushino interrupts their fight, telling them that the island has shown her everything. It has been storing energy from the Earth and this time when it warps, it will take the entire Pacific to another dimension with it.
Bowman comes up with the idea to destroy the island’s power reactor with a lost plane called the Thunder Bolt. It has a nuclear bomb that can destroy the reactor in the pyramids on the island.
He fixes the battery for its fuse and puts a timer of 90 minutes before the bomb explodes and destroys the island.
Tough decisions
Yu reminisces the time when Bowman was still working for ARCAM and the lessons he instilled into him.
Before letting Yushino go, Bowman takes her necklace. Yu tells her to leave, and escape with the captain if he doesn’t return before the explosion. Yushino calls him a jerk for risking his life for some relics and leaves.
Yu and Bowman have their final fight. He continues to berate Yu for being naive and letting his comrades die because of this.
In a final clash, Yu hesitantly puts Bowman on the brink of death, who is actually proud of how far his former student has come. He asks why Bowman changed his allegiance from ARCAM to Trident, and he simply states Yu will realise it by himself soon.
He suggests that ARCAM isn’t always right and Yu must act according to what he thinks is right. His final words are that he is at peace looking at Yu now, as he succumbs to his injuries.
Yu lets out a scream owing to his despair at killing his former teacher. Yushino convinces the captain to wait for Yu, and he gets back on board.
The bomb explodes, stopping the threat of the island. Foster tries to console Yu that this is what Bowman wanted, as he remembers his words against ARCAM.
At the end of season 1, Yu, Yushino, Captain Foster and the crew look at the beautiful sky that was created by the vanishing of the island.
In a post-credits scene, an unnamed soldier is assigned with the mission to kill Yu by masquerading as his classmate.
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