DARLING in the FRANXX

Synopsis

In a post-apocalyptic future, humanity has been under constant threat and driven to endangerment by giant beasts known as klaxosaurs, which are sub-divided into at least four categories based on their size: ‘Conrad’, ‘Mohorovicic’, ‘Gutenberg’, and ‘super Lehmann’. In the 21st century, the progress of human civilization accelerated by ground-breaking discoveries in mining technology, allowing extraction of magma energy for a low-cost and all-encompassing energy source. Scientists who contributed to this discovery formed APE, an internationalized organization that gained large influence over politics and the global economy. After discovering human immortality, much of humanity opted to become immortal but at the cost of their reproductive systems. The magma energy drilling eventually led to the sudden emergence of the klaxosaurs, which began attacking the drilling facilities and leading to a huge number of casualties. Pushed to the brink of extinction, APE led the remnants of humanity to abandon Earth’s surface for the relatively safe mobile fortress-cities called Plantations. The adults live in these cities and have become immortal due to receiving injections of magma energy but at the cost of their reproductive systems. The adults live peaceful and uneventful lives within the Plantations where procreation and relationships have become obsolete. To defend the Plantations, humanoid military weapons called FRANXX were created. However, it was later found that they required a male and female pilot who retained their reproductive functions. Because all of humanity lost those functions in exchange for immortality, there were was a need for fertile children and through genetic cloning, children were born. The children, referred to as ‘parasites’, are educated only for piloting the FRANXX in boy-girl pairs and are kept in isolation throughout their childhoods, and placed in environments called ‘Birdcages’, which emulate that of a bygone era, so they can develop the emotional responses needed to pilot the FRANXX. After a century of warfare against the klaxosaurs, a parasite named Hiro, who is initially viewed as a prodigy, fails his capacity test and is deemed unfit to pilot, making him lose interest in life. While skipping out on his class's graduation ceremony, Hiro encounters Zero Two, an infamous FRANXX pilot who is actually a human-klaxosaur hybrid with red horns on her head and a dark past in which her partners die after riding with her thrice. After her partner is killed in a klaxosaur attack, Hiro says to Zero Two that he'll help her pilot her robot to defeat the klaxosaur. After they succeed, Zero Two announces she has found her "darling." "I found you, my darling!"