History Characters / DominoesTheIrregulars

* TheTeam: Of [[ChildSoldier teenage superheroes]].

* {{Expy}}: They're basically a conceptual [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of the Franchise/TeenTitans.

* {{Expy}}: The Robin to Yuusaku's Franchise/{{Batman}}.

* LikesClarkKentHatesSuperman: Aoko is romantically interested in Kaito [[spoiler:until chapter 5]] but ''intensely'' hates the Kaitou KID. [[spoiler:Now that she's found out they are one and the same, her feelings are more confused, but she's so far fervently sided with ISHA against him and is currently desperately clinging to any reason she can find to maintain that he's the bad guy to ISHA's good, [[IRejectYourReality even though those reasons keep]] [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity collapsing into irrationality]].

* DifferingPrioritiesBreakUp: [[spoiler:Aoko and Kaito have a ''very extreme and explosive'' version of this which destroys both their budding romance and their friendship--on their very first date, no less. When Hakuba exposes Kaito is KID to Aoko, Aoko suggests to Kaito a way to "fix" the situation so their relationship can be salvaged; namely, Kaito turns himself in, does his penance in prison, and ceases to menace ISHA and the public any further. Kaito is so insulted by Aoko's suggestion (given that Kaito does ''not'' see ISHA as a benevolent authority and perceives them ''deserving'' of his vengence) that he verbally associates the life she wants for him with a surrender of identity and calls it "vapid." Aoko interprets this to mean that he saw their entire relationship as vapid, clings to the idea that ''she's'' trying to do the right thing, and Kaito replies with the character quote in his Character Folder. As much as they both did and likely still do really care each other, their currently irreconcilable difference of opinion on ISHA puts them at opposite ends of the battlefield, and given Aoko's BlackAndWhiteInsanity and Kaito's obsession with {{Revenge}}, it'd take something pretty big for either to decide to change their minds.]]

* DifferingPrioritiesBreakUp: [[spoiler:Aoko and Kaito have a ''very extreme and explosive'' version of this which destroys both their budding romance and their friendship--on their very first date, no less. When Hakuba exposes Kaito is KID to Aoko, Aoko suggests to Kaito a way to "fix" the situation so their relationship can be salvaged; namely, Kaito turns himself in, does his penance in prison, and ceases to menace ISHA and the public any further. Kaito is so insulted by Aoko's suggestion (given that Kaito does ''not'' see ISHA as a benevolent authority and perceives them ''deserving'' of his vengence) that he verbally associates the life she wants for him with a surrender of identity and calls it "vapid." Aoko interprets this to mean that he saw their entire relationship as vapid, clings to the idea that ''she's'' trying to do the right thing, and Kaito replies with the character quote above. As much as they both did and likely still do really care each other, their currently irreconcilable difference of opinion on ISHA puts them at opposite ends of the battlefield, and given Aoko's BlackAndWhiteInsanity and Kaito's obsession with {{Revenge}}, it'd take something pretty big for either to decide to change their minds.]]

* MakeMeWannaShout: Kazuha can scream to volumes literally painful for others around her and thereby destroy or damage nearby items.

The forth member of the Irregulars to join after she developed the ability of a [[MakeMeWannaShout dizzyingly loud screech]]. She can also [[InASingleBound bounce at high speeds in a psuedo-flight manner described similar to a slingshot]].

* ChildSoldiers: What the Irregulars functionally are, under the veneer of superheroship. They're being trained by Yuusaku to function like a specialized military squad and even report, brief, and debrief like soldiers. The fact that Hakuba has apparently been going on missions since elementary school makes it clear that ISHA's superhero program is a glorified child soldier grooming process, something that automatically underscores the shady nature of ISHA as this would be a war crime in RealLife and is generally a felony in most countries owing to the fact that neither the various ages they were upon joining nor the ages they are now can legally consent to anything, let alone to being a soldier, owing to the fact that they're not considered mentally developed enough to fully understand, consider, decide, and manage such matters in a healthy and responsible manner--something the Irregulars validate, considering how poorly they cope with and understand the negative impact their Irregular membership has had on themselves and those around them. Further, the way they're being "trained" basically amounts to the adults involved using the childrens' dreams of being superheroes to exploit them for human resources and shore up support for both actual disaster responses and the adults' personal manipulative agendas, using the children's ignorance of the emotional complexities of the situation to further their goals at the childrens' expense. At the point of [[spoiler: his quitting in]] the post-Part 1 interludes, Hattori refers to his and Kazuha's membership as a "curse" that "ate them up and spit them back out, nastier and meaner and that much crueler." [[spoiler:It's darkly fitting, then, that the bizarre "monsters" they occasionally fight and eliminate are also children, and often younger than them.]]

* FiveManBand: Subverted. They ''are'' a team of five superheroes in training, but they don't really fit the archetype well. Hattori and Hakuba fit the best, with Hattori as TheLancer and Hakuba as TheLeader. Hattori is a good personality foil for Hakuba, making him a solid Lancer, but in terms of the classic leadership roles, Hakuba's not really charismatic, headstrong, or a mastermind, and while he has a levelheaded demeanor it's mostly used to emotionally tear down descent rather than to unify, which leads just as often to internal group conflicts as it does to cooperation. The other three roles are TheBigGuy, TheChick, and TheSmartGuy, but none of those fit well with the three remaining members, Ran, Kazuha, and Aoko--or rather, none of these roles apply to any particular remaining members in ways that couldn't be arguably applied to the others just as much. [[spoiler:The FiveManBand archetype falls further apart when Hattori quits the team after the events of Part 1]].

* TrustBuildingBlunder: [[spoiler:After TheReveal of their identities to Shinichi, the status quo, as well as his trust in any of them, was hanging on by a single thoroughly frayed thread. They promised to attend his championship game in an unstated attempt to regain ''some'' kind of trust, considering they were simultaneously trying to convince him to accept the role they've given him as the continued receiver of abuse from them and their boss and that kind of thing tends to destroy any existing trust between people. Then they [[MissedTheRecital forgot about the game until it was long over.]]]]

* TrustBuildingBlunder: [[spoiler:After TheReveal of their identities to Shinichi, the StatusQuo, as well as his trust in any of them, was hanging on by a single thoroughly frayed thread. They promised to attend his championship game in an unstated attempt to regain ''some'' kind of trust, considering they were simultaneously trying to convince him to accept the role they've given him as the continued receiver of abuse from them and their boss and that kind of thing tends to destroy any existing trust between people. Then they [[MissedTheRecital forgot about the game until it was long over.]]]]

* BreakThemByTalking: Ran's conversations with and lectures towards Shinichi are basically LighterAndSofter versions of Shinichi's father's own emotionally abusive rhetoric, with the insulting perception of him heavily implied rather than directly stated. While we only see a few instances of this directly, it's all but said outright that this treatment characterizes the vast majority of their interactions in the last year or two because Ran, having cut everything but ISHA and Shinichi out of her life, has little else from her life that she can talk about honestly with him anymore. Early in the story it's directly implied by Shinichi that this has deteriorated their relationship to the point where Ran's presence destroys his ability to feel proud, successful, or even generally good about himself, and he subsequently contemplates leaving his house via the ''dining room window'' to avoid encountering her or anyone who would alert her to his presence.

* TheUnreveal: There's a second major secret he and Yuusaku are hiding from Shinichi, but KID interrupts before Hakuba can tell him.

* SociallyAwkwardHero: Deconstructed. Hakuba is emotionally suppressed as well as rigid and poor at adapting in the face of social upsets and bad at communicating on an interpersonal level, so while he can lead his teenage hero team through basic strategies, he's completely unqualified in guiding and regulating their work culture and social environment in an appropriate and healthy manner because he doesn't have the social and emotional intelligence to handle the issues, frequently resulting in a failure of support and guidance for those around him and inevitably leading to an increase in individual emotional hardships and conflicts within the team that they can't afford when their job as heroes is already so challenging on a personal level.

** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as both a detective and a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone how to lead others through it. Indeed, he relies almost entirely on information and plans that either Yuusaku or Shinichi give him to follow for all of Part 1, and his emotional arc revolves around an eventual act of rebellion via choosing to follow Shinichi in spite of Yuusaku, after which he goes back to following Yuusaku.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba proves himself to still rely on direction by others.

** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as both a detective and a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone how to lead others through it. Indeed, he relies almost entirely on information and plans that either Yuusaku or Shinichi give him to follow for all of Part 1, and his emotional arc revolves around an eventual act of rebellion via choosing to follow Shinichi in spite of Yuusaku, after which he goes back to following Yuusaku.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba proves himself to still rely on direction by others. All of this is not to say that it was wrong to follow Shinichi's lead, but it is to say that it puts in sharp contrast that Hakuba ''didn't'' have a plan and is, in this moment, less adequate for the role than an untrained [[LockedOutOfTheLoop outsider.]]

** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as both a detective and a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone how to lead others through it. Indeed, he relies almost entirely on information and plans that either Yuusaku or Shinichi give him to follow for all of Part 1, and his emotional arc revolves around an eventual act of rebellion via choosing to follow Shinichi in spite of Yuusaku, after which he goes back to following Yuusaku.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba proves himself to still be an obedient ChildSoldier who needs direction. All of this is not to say that it was wrong to follow Shinichi's lead, but it is to say that it puts in sharp contrast that Hakuba ''didn't'' have a plan and is, in this moment, less adequate for the role than an untrained [[LockedOutOfTheLoop outsider.]]

** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as both a detective and a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone how to lead others through it. Indeed, he relies almost entirely on information and plans that either Yuusaku or Shinichi give him to follow for all of Part 1, and his emotional arc revolves around an eventual act of rebellion via choosing to follow Shinichi in spite of Yuusaku, after which he goes back to following Yuusaku.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba seems to still be a ChildSoldier at heart, not a metaphorical general: despite knowing that he's supposed to be in charge of his team and being able to organize them to do basic things, he's still not yet proactive, competent, or assertive enough to define himself as a leader and tends to both default to others' plans and replicate the behavior of whoever is leading ''him'' when he ''does'' have to try to lead. All of this is not to say that it was wrong to follow Shinichi's lead, because Shinichi actually had a plan and the confidence and integrity to unify support through the conviction of its validity, but it is to say that it puts in sharp contrast that Hakuba ''didn't'' have a plan and is, in this moment, less adequate for the role than an untrained [[LockedOutOfTheLoop outsider.]]

** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as both a detective and a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone how to lead others through it. Indeed, he relies almost entirely on information and plans that either Yuusaku or Shinichi give him to follow for all of Part 1, and his emotional arc revolves around an eventual act of rebellion via choosing to follow Shinichi in spite of Yuusaku, after which he goes back to following Yuusaku.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba seems to still be a ChildSoldier at heart, not a metaphorical general: despite knowing that he's supposed to be in charge of his team and being able to organize them to do basic things, he's still not yet proactive, competent, or assertive enough to define himself as a leader and tends to both default to others' plans and replicate the behavior of whoever is leading ''him'' when he ''does'' have to try to lead. All of this is not to say that it was wrong to follow Shinichi's lead, because Shinichi actually had a plan and the confidence and integrity to unify support through the conviction of its validity, but it is to say that it puts in sharp contrast that Hakuba ''didn't'' have a plan and is, in this moment, less adequate for the role than an untrained [[LockedOutOfTheLoop outsider.]]

* FailureHero: Despite being a lauded TeenGenius, detective, and superhero, Hakuba fails even at things he ''should'' be good at throughout Part 1: his effectiveness as a leader appears mediocre at best; he doesn't solve Part 1's big case (that's done by the guy both Hakuba and Yuusaku have repeatedly insisted over whom Hakuba is superior); he doesn't protect the city--in fact, he and his team arguably destroy more structures than they protect; he ''does'' protect civilians... but not the ones whose need for protection drives the plot's conflict (he's notably led his team to [[DeathOfAChild kill]] and/or abuse ''those'' civilians and/or [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot arguably cause their deaths through a failure to perform his duty proactively as both detective and hero]]); and just when it looks like he and the rest of the teenage cast are about to subvert this by working to solve one of the plot's major crises in an effective manner, [[spoiler:ISHA cruise missiles the problem before they can do anything.]] By Part 1's end, Hakuba's [[spoiler:failed to even perceive the majority of the arc's criminal case until someone else explains it to him in the last chapter, failed to impede KID from freely doing what he wants, failed to manage/control Shinichi, failed to protect Shinichi, failed to protect the kidnapped children like he promised Shinichi, failed to have a meaningful impact in the protection of Tokyo during the Black Hole Crisis, and doesn't even manage to obtain either kind of nullifying agent (neither the superior intravenous nor inferior aerosol varieties).]] About the only "successes" Hakuba leads his team to achieving in Part 1 are the death of the fireball "monster" in chapter 2 and assisting in the slew of minor incidents during the early gravity anomalies of the Black Hole Crisis, and even those are [[DeathOfAChild tinged with personal failure]] [[EmptyPromise in hindsight]]. There's a deep and poignant irony to this situation, as Hakuba, positioned by Yuusaku onto a pedestal and stepping on Shinichi all the way up it, fails at every goal he believes he's caused all of this misery ''for.''