FRANXX

FRANXX are armor and control systems created by Dr. FRANXX to combat Klaxosaurs, usually piloted by children in boy-girl pairs. Those who can pilot FRANXX are called Parasites.

All FRANXX units are at the disposal of APE, the governmental body of this world.

The FRANXXs feature certain similarities to the flowers after which they were named.

FRANXX
FRANXX units are bio-mechanical weapons built by Dr. Franxx and under the supervision of APE. They were built from klaxosaur skeletal remains that were excavated from Earth’s surface through a drilling process called S-Planning. They were pecifically designed as defense arsenals against the klaxosaurs and are required for fertile male and female pilots to pilot. In order for the Parasites to connect with their FRANXX, each pilot has to first undress, put on a special underwear, and then change into a suit. The Pistil takes over the FRANXX while the Stamen maintains the control manuals. Every damage the FRANXX gets will be shared with the Pistil. When the paracapacity is low, only the female seems to get exhausted while the Stamen does not feel the stress. Therefore, they need to communicate verbally and maintain a network of trust between them in order to maintain a successful sychronization. Upon sychronizing, the Parasites connect their "minds" or to some sort of extrasensory level. The surrounding environment and the faces of the participants in the communication can be projected on the walls.

The FRANXX used by Cerasus differ from typical FRANXX as they each have individual and unique designs befitting of their users. This is most likely because Plantation 13's Parasites are considered special experiments due to that they were hastily thrown into the squad out Dr. Franxx’s curiosity of humanity’s previous emotional and reproductive instincts. As shown in Episode 6, the other Plantations have identical FRANXX units, suiting their blank-slate personalities. The 9's have custom made FRANXX units. The facial expression of the FRANXX captures the emotion of the Pistil including happy, angry, exciting and sad.

The FRANXX of Plantation 13 have specific colors that the pilots also wear to distinguish their psychological influence. Strelizia has red, which symbolizes excitement, danger, and passion to reflect Zero Two’s rebellious streak and dark past, the intense love she and Hiro share; Delphinium has blue, which symbolizes trustworthiness, leadership, and loyalty to reflect Ichigo’s status as Squad 13’s leader and the close relationship she shares with Goro; Argentea has pink, which symbolizes playful, immature, and adoring to reflect Zorome and Miku’s frequent childish quarrels as well as Zorome’s immaturity and Miku’s need to be cute; Genista has green, which symbolizes growth, dependability, and fertility to reflect the maturity of Kokoro and her relationship with Mitsuru and Futoshi, and Kokoro and Mitsuru’s promise to trust each other and their desire to have a family; Chlorophytum has purple, which symbolizes creativity, sensitivity, and mystery to reflect Mitsuru and Ikuno’s conflicted emotions and Ikuno’s secret feelings for Ichigo, and Futosh’s inspiration to do his best after the partner switch.

Parasites
Parasites are children who pilot the FRANXX, originally developed as the FRANXX could only be used by humans which still have their reproductive functions. In exchange for immortality, humans had lost their abilities to procreate. As such the need for new children was necessary, as they still retained their reproductive organs and their emotions were key to operating the FRANXXs properly. The need for new pilots was solved by Dr. Franxx's research on cloning and as a result, children were created (such as Squad 13 and Zero Two). These synthetic children will spend their entire childhood in the Garden, "selected" according to their aptitude test results and be given triple-digit codenames in Arabic numerals. The higher the aptitude, the closer the code will be to 000. To increase their capacity levels, they are given daily doses of yellow blood cells. For children whose test results show incompetence, they are given Elixirs Injections, a powerful drug that greatly increases their results but the drug has a 15% survival rate, resulting in a large number of children succumbing to the effects. Children who are deemed unfit to pilot are removed from the Garden and Dr. Franxx keeps them stored in a crostasis state within his laboratory. When they're old enough, the parasites will be discharged and participate in a graduation ceremony then assigned to a specific Plantation.

The female pilot is known as the Pistil while the Stamen is the male pilot. This is a direct reference to the male and female reproduction organs of flowers. Parasites will suffer physical and emotional effects due to the stress of piloting a FRANXX, most commonly fevers and headaches. However, they also suffer from an accelerated aging process that will cause them age faster than a normal rate, such as getting grey hair and permanently weakening their health. This is shown with Ikuno after overusing her strength and her hair starts to turn white and after ten years, she has shown to have aged into an elderly woman despite she should be in her mid twenties by that point.

Because the Parasites retain reproductive organs, they are capable of biologically reproducing children. Because stamens and pistols are solely needed for combat, Papa forbids them from ever experiencing any sentimentality aside from professional relationships. Parasites are allowed to build friendships with each other to enhance their teamwork but are not allowed to have romantic relationships because the parasites may lose interest in their piloting priorities and therefore become rebellious. As a result, the parasites are unaware of human reproduction and are led to believe they were specifically created by Papa. It is prohibited for a pregnant Pistil to pilot a FRANXX because it could interfere with paracapacity with the Stamen and may cause harm to the unborn fetus. This is seen with Kokoro, who although she managed to successfully pilot with Mitsuru during the early stage of her pregnancy, she became very ill and had to be hospitalized before learning she was pregnant and was banned from piloting during the rest of her pregnancy, and she later gave birth to a healthy daughter. Although not necessarily required, when a pregnancy occurs, it is strongly recommended to terminate it. If a parasite sires a child, the child will be taken away to be placed in the Garden and reared to become a parasite without having no contact with the parents. Though in Kokoro and Mitsuru’s case, they were allowed to keep their daughter due to APE having lost authority over the parasites following Papa’s betrayal, an act which gave all the other surviving parasites the freedom to start their own families.

The Parasites, due to being raised in isolation and taught nothing beyond what they experience from within their Plantations, know nothing in regards to human sexuality and sentimentality. When they do become aware and engage in such matters, they will be subjected to re-indoctrination or discharged from duty and placed in cryostasis in Dr. Franxx’s laboratory. Other acts considered dangerous to APE’s objectives, such as running away or parasites wanting to get married, warrant such punishments.

The 9's are capable of battling as either Stamen or Pistil, as explained by 9'a to Hiro in Episode 23: DARLING in the FRANXX.

Below are the names of the current Pistils and Stamen of Plantation 13.

Stampede Mode
Stampede Mode (スタンピード・モード) occurs when a pilot loses control of his or her FRANXX. When a FRANXX is controlled by only its Pistil, their negative factor will rise rapidly and the FRANXX will take on a more beast-like appearance. This will negatively affect the Pistil's health if continued for long periods of time.

This phenomenon is first shown with Strelizia. After 081 dies, Zero Two is forced to pilot alone, transforming it into its beast mode. When Mitsuru refuses to fight and Kokoro tries to pilot Genista alone, the lip of Genista's hat opens, revealing sharp metal "teeth" and two orange crosses for eyes appear, making an animal-like face.

Paracapacity
Paracapacity (, Para Kyapashiti) is the numerical value indicating the degree of synchronization between FRANXX pilot and their FRANXX. There are three levels of paracapcity: high, median, and lower range. The higher the paracapacity, better of a successful synchronization between the pilots. If a pair’s paracapacity falls in the lower range, they are given the option of a “partner shuffle”, or switching partners. If one pilot is deemed the cause of the low paracapacity, he or she will be the target of “pruning“, or will be deemed unfit to pilot and permantly removed.

FRANXX