Web Animation / Symbolics

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"Symbolics" is an animated series created by TJGvideos. As of writing, the show has completed its first season.

The series revolves around the titular species of cute and colourful children show characters based on the alphabet, who were created by a machine and are now living in the real world with humans. It began as a parody of British children's TV shows, but halfway through became its own thing entirely.

The entire first season can be viewed here👁 Image
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T is for Tropes!

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: While not really the animals they resemble, Dratta and Droprat look like rats wearing bows (while the latter dons a top hat as well).
• Aerith and Bob: A majority of the Symbolics have some rather strange-sounding names, but there are a few with more human-like names, such as "Charly" and "Gracie".
• Alphabet Song: Episodes 1-11 use a parody of this as the end credits to showcase the Symbolics. This was changed in episode 12 and 13, and eventually the end credits were removed entirely.
  • The two symbolic twins who actually share the same colors are the D and N twins. But except Droprat's inner ears and tail are green, the opposite of Dratta's pink.
• Animesque: The Symbolics themselves are drawn in a cute and simple chibi-like style.
• Art Initiates Life: The main Latin Symbolics from the first season are created via a rather complicated variation of this trope.
• Badass Adorable: The Symbolics might be cute, but they aren't afraid to fight when they need to. This is especially seen in the episodes "X: The Discarded Deity" and "Zestful Conclusion".
• Bait-and-Switch: The beginning of “Rule of Two” with Ragger and Rummer performing at a concert could trick viewers into thinking this is a Concert Episode, only to be revealed it was Ragger’s dream the entire time.
• Bittersweet Ending: The season 1 finale ends with Arch being rightfully defeated, but Alphaville is destroyed for the second time.
• Big Bad: Arch counts as this, as he assaulted several of the Symbolics in the first half of season 1 and caused several other crimes.
• Big Little Brother: Iodina is Jaji's older sister but Jaji is taller than Iodina.
• Bloody Horror: Episode 13 showcases Arch tearing Marma's chest open. Although the open-flesh wound is censored, Masher is clearly shocked and disgusted once he sees it.
• Canon Welding: Despite originally being made as a one-off project, Symbolics was later made canon to ‘One Jolly Day: Alteration Revision’, ‘Time Lords’ and the game ‘Ultimate JOLLY Night: Legacy Edition’, all of which were also created by TJGvideos.
• Captain Ersatz: Half of the Latin Symbolics in the first season, specifically the ones that are opposite genders to the former Symbolic Deities, are this with the entire main cast of 'Alphablocks'.
• Cartoon Creature: Symbolics are artificial, cartoon mascot-like humanoids.
• Cast of Snowflakes: All of the Symbolics look very unique from one another. Whenever they do look similar, it’s because the symbols they represent are related to each other.
• Clothing Appendage: The Symbolics’ "clothes" are actually part of their skin. This includes their comically gigantic shoes.
• Dream Intro: "Rule Of Two" starts off with Ragger dreaming about him and Rummer performing a concert for the other symbolics. He is later woken up after hearing Rummer's voice.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Yovo and Zetta appear early in “X: The Discarded Deity” before their proper debuts later on.
  • A few other Symbolics appeared in their Deity forms prior to their main episode.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The pilot episode, “Glyphers’ Play”, is incredibly strange compared to the final product, with the story being more-or-less a parody of the web series Alphabet Lore instead of having its own plotline, using earlier designs of the Female Symbolics, and lacking male Symbolics, among other oddities.
  • The credits at the end of episodes 1-11 feature the exclamation and question mark Symbolics, who don't appear outside of this instance. They were, however, teased to return outside of the main series in the future.
• Expy:
  • Rummer is an expy of Hatsune Miku, as the former was designed in the latter's image.
  • In terms of Pokémon, Wunder is this with Plusle and Minun, while Bastian of the Greek Symbolics is this with Torterra.
• Fingerless Hands: While most of the Symbolics are shown as having actual hands with fingers, there are a select few who have simple nubs instead.
• Forced Transformation: Near the end of episode 12, Arch transforms Ellie and Declan into Symbolic-Hybrids after knocking them out.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Subverted for Beti and Yovo. Both are female and purple in color, but their designs aren't feminine in nature.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: For the Latin Symbolic pairs from A-Z, there are twenty-six boys and twenty-six girls. In other words, there is both a male and a female each representing one letter.
• Gentle Giant: Jaji, as well as the Symbolics of the letters E, N, R, S, T and W, are all colossal in height compared to other Symbolics. However, these Symbolics are just as friendly as the smaller ones.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Symbolic Deity Tsade, who developed envy over being the weakest Deity, is the major antagonist of the second half of Season 1.
• Green Means Natural: Bari and Gracie are both green in color and represent nature.
• Half-Identical Twins:
  • Averted for many of the symbolics. While all of the letter twins have Tertiary Sexual Characteristics and Secondary Sexual Characteristics, many of the brother and sister twins have contrasting colors. The only symbolics who are completely different to each other are the C and J twins.
  • Downplayed for the D twins, where they share the same primary color, but their secondary colors are the opposite.
  • Straight for the N twins, where they both share the same colors.
• Hidden Depths: Taytay and Timtim may look like legless Symbolics with spinning top appendages, but it is later revealed that they actually do have legs and that their spinning tops have portals on top to hide them.
• Kids' Show Mascot Parody: The in-universe children's show featuring the Symbolics is this, with them being the mascots.
• Mass Hypnosis: The second to last episode, "Yearning For Freedom", ends with Arch dropping a bomb of angrinite onto Alphaville and successfully corrupting all of the symbolics and both Doctor Spime and Doctor Tace.
• Meaningful Name: Many of the Symbolics’ names are based on their personality, what they look like or what they are associated with.
• The Noseless: The entire Symbolic species lack noses. To compensate, they have gills on their retracted necks instead.
• Oh, Crap!: Jejo has this expression as soon as Quazi asks him who Arch is in “Questioning the Greek Truth”, as Jejo has already had a bad history with him.
• Our Gods Are Different:
  • The Symbolic Deities, implied to be all-powerful gods, simply just look like cartoon ghosts more than anything, though they are still incredibly powerful and omnipotent.
  • Jull, the observer of the town the Symbolics live in, is just a blue face with one large eye. Justified as besides being a floating face, Jull acts more-or-less like a regular guy who treats the Symbolics and their town like a live children’s show for his entertainment.
• Our Titans Are Different: The Symbolic Titan is the forced fusion of all the Greek Symbolics, found rotten in the ocean by Oata, and looks incredibly disturbing to say the least. It would eventually be revived and later separated back into its components once the magical obelisk holding them together was destroyed by Deity Tsade.
• Out of Focus:
  • Because there are fifty-two Symbolics to work with, the first season tends to have most of them play very minor roles outside of their introductory episode. A few of the Symbolics don’t even speak at all due to this trope.
  • The Greek Symbolics, despite being incredibly lore-heavy, don’t seem to have much focus since the series is primarily about the Latin Symbolics.
• Overnight Age-Up: Veevoo and Voovaa magically transform from babies to adults while being driven on the way to Alphaville in Vindication.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Many of the Symbolics are pink girls and blue boys, as well as the inverse: pink boys and blue girls.
• Pink Means Feminine: Jaji is depicted as a cute-looking fairy princess with her main color being pink.
• Planimal: Bastian, one of the Greek Symbolics, resembles a tortoise with plant features, specifically bearing a tree on his back.
• Plant Person:
  • Beti, Bari, Gracie and Grhubarb are humanoids resembling various different types of plant life.
  • Gethsemane and Divine Psi of the Greek Symbolics also appear to be plant-like humanoids.
  • Relic Rose, a character appearing late into the first season, is also this, with Declan indirectly confirming her to be part of a species of plant people that do magic.
• Propeller Hat of Whimsy: While not seen in the series itself, Timtim’s infant form shown on the official wiki👁 Image
  has one of these.
• Real After All: The Symbolics are this in-universe after “Mischievous Mishaps”, as the ambulance workers put Marma into the ambulance and are understandably confused as to what she is.
• Red Hot Masculinity: Ragger is a male symbolic who is red, gets mad easily and has feet strong enough he can create a magnitude 3 earthquake.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Oata. No questions asked.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Symbolic Deity Tsade does this once becoming her One-Winged Angel form in “X: The Discarded Deity”, after she gains the power to create entire armies of clones of the Greek Symbolics she captured.
• Rubber Man: Acie and Arte can stretch their arms to around 3 times their original length, and they appear to have armour around their arms too.
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics: All of the female Symbolics have long black eyelashes and slimmer torsos, while all of the males have straighter torsos with some having eyebrows as well.
• Sequel Hook: Symbolics based on double-letters DD, FF and LL were shown physically in the final scene of “Zestful Conclusion” where they arrive on Earth through portals while wearing protective suits, setting the stage for a second season.
• Sibling Rivalry: Downplayed. Cho-Cho doesn't like her twin brother, Charly, because she find his presence annoying and deems his cool nature to be "The annoying breed." This sibling rivalery is one sided with the sister expressing hatred towards her twin brother.
• Subverted Kids' Show: The show itself appears to follow this trope just fine due to the increasingly dark nature of every episode. This trope appears to be abandoned at around the second half of season 1.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Some of male symbolics will wear tophats and two will wear shades to express their masculinity along with masculine hairstyles and a few having facial hair, while females just have feminine hairstyles and only two wear head bows.
• The Dog Bites Back: There are three instances of this, all of which involve Arch.
  • In “Mischievous Mishaps”, after several episodes of tormenting the Symbolics with Kicki’s attempt to retaliate backfiring terribly, it is Masher who is able to fight back against Arch and win.
  • In “Zestful Conclusion”, Jaji snaps Arch’s neck as payback for the events of “Just Like Jelly”.
  • Also in “Zestful Conclusion”, after attacking the Symbolics and destroying Alphaville for the second time, the fusion between Arch and the Ultrastigma gets his just desserts when Strianoterios drives a van into him.
• Totally Radical: Charly speaks like this in spades.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Marma and Masher are huge fans of marmalade and mashed potato respectively.
• True Blue Femininity:
  • Subverted for Kicki. Her appearance is a cute blue fairy, but he happens to be a total tomboy.
  • Straight for Oata, as she is described as a cute blue female symbolic.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: All of the Symbolic sibling pairs all look very similar to each other with the difference being their complementary colours and what they like doing. The only exceptions to this are the C siblings and the J siblings, who look very different from one another.
• Unknown Character: On the series’ official wiki, there is an entire library of unseen Symbolics outside of the ones appearing in season 1, with some having short bios that determine their personalities. Some have even become Ensemble Dark Horses in the series’ fan following.
• Unreliable Narrator: Arch is this in multiple instances, especially when he’s narrating over a Symbolic suffering as if it never happened.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The humans don’t appear to question why there are giant mascots made out of living tissue roaming the world.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Every character in the series has the tendency to have smaller irises whenever they show signs of surprise, shock, fear or extreme anger.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Cho-cho in her debut episode appears to not understand the concept of money.
• Would Hit a Girl: There are examples of Arch, the male antagonist, abusing the female symbolics, which also includes physically hurting them.
• Would Hurt a Child: Arch threatening to kill baby Veevoo and Voovaa in Vindication.