History Characters / KaitouSaintTail

* InternalReformist: Episodes 33-34 of the anime imply that by this point, he's already aware that he's probably on the side of [[AssholeVictim the wrong people]] but can't spend too much time investigating because he needs to worry more about keeping Saint Tail safe. Meanwhile, by putting up an act and maintaining his position, not only can he [[TheMole prevent others from catching her in his place]], he can also let Saint Tail take care of the actual problem while he has the police follow up in apprehending any criminals she exposes.

* InternalReformist: Episodes 33-34 of the anime imply that by this point, he's already aware that Saint Tail is probably right and that he's on the side of [[AssholeVictim the wrong people]], but he can't spend too much time investigating because he needs to worry more about keeping Saint Tail safe. Meanwhile, by putting up an act and maintaining his position, not only can he [[TheMole prevent others from catching her in his place]], he can also let Saint Tail take care of the actual problem while he has the police follow up in apprehending any criminals she exposes.

* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Averted when it comes to Asuka Jr., especially in the manga: he's rightfully terrified of her penchant for violence, and him escaping the consequences of his bet with her is just as much preventing him from having to become her [[PropertyOfLove romantic slave]] as it is keeping Saint Tail's identity a secret. (She herself seems to buy into the double standard in-universe, since both the manga and the anime involve her making a joke about Asuka Jr.'s masculinity at some point.) It's initially played straight when it comes to making Sawatari into her punching bag, but that's less about her being a girl and more about him being a KarmicButtMonkey in general, since it's at worst DisproportionateRetribution for him being on legitimately bad behavior again.

* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Averted when it comes to Asuka Jr., especially in the manga: he's rightfully terrified of her penchant for violence, and him escaping the consequences of his bet with her is just as much preventing him from having to become her [[PropertyOfLove romantic slave]] as it is keeping Saint Tail's identity a secret. (She herself seems to buy into the double standard in-universe, since both the manga and the anime involve her making a joke about Asuka Jr.'s masculinity at some point.) Played straight when it comes to making Sawatari into her punching bag, although that's less about her being a girl and more about him being a KarmicButtMonkey in general.

* ButtMonkey: Whenever he starts rambling about something, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere people leave mid-speech as soon as he tells them what they need]]. Takamiya ends up getting in the habit of using him as a punching bag to vent her frustration after a certain point [[spoiler:(and even a whole eight years later)]]. Every time Meimi seems to show interest in him, she's actually [[FilleFatale stringing him along because she wants something out of him]]. Asuka Jr. even calls him a monkey whenever he annoys him, which is pretty much most of the time. That said, he can't be said to be completely innocent of [[KarmicButtMonkey things that warrant this sort of treatment]]; even Seira, the one who treats him the most kindly and sees him as a NiceGuy, would really like it if he came around and repented for his [[ImmoralJournalist questionable journalism philosophy]], [[spoiler:and she's not entirely above leaving him to his fate when he deserves it]].

* DevotedToYou: Played with. He's a self-reliant person and also wants Meimi to be independent, taking care not to invade her boundaries or allow her to become overly dependent on him. It's just that this doesn't stop his concern over Meimi's welfare from unconsciously devouring his brain space and completely rewriting his motives for catching Saint Tail.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: He starts off firmly on the Lawful side at the beginning of the series, respecting Saint Tail's altruistic motives but condemning her as a thief. Over time, he realizes that she's actually helping genuinely desperate people who may not have gotten that help otherwise, resulting in him becoming more hesitant about whether what she's doing is all that wrong. [[spoiler:Eventually, he becomes a PrivateDetective who's implied to use Seira's tips to get ahead of the police, and he fully acknowledges Saint Tail as someone who worked to protect the city.]]

* DarkSecret: Being Saint Tail becomes more and more of this for her as the series goes on, since the consequences would involve revealing Meimi as the criminal Sawatari loves slandering Takamiya has no qualms about punishing, let alone the thief Asuka Jr. is assigned to arrest. [[spoiler:By the time of the epilogue, she still has to keep this from everyone around her, but she at least has Seira and Asuka there to help protect her secret and well-being.]]

* TheDividual: They're pretty much always seen together; unlike with Ryoko and Kyoko, the anime doesn't even differentiate them much further than the manga did other than hair color. In fact, they could probably be easily mistaken for other unnamed students from class if not for the fact that they're the only two to be consistently seen accompanying Asuka Jr. and portrayed as more familiar with him than most.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: The names Yasuhiro and Chiba come from episode 39 of the anime, with their names coming from their voice actors.
* OnlySaneMan: Considering that they're usually seen in the vicinity of [[NoSocialSkills Asuka Jr.]] and [[ButtMonkey Sawatari]], they often come off as the only people who can make levelheaded comments when it comes to the boys' side.

* SocialCircleFiller: They hang out with Asuka Jr. and seem to know him well enough that he can't be said to entirely have a FriendlessBackground, but their relationship with him is superficial; they'll gladly join the rest of the class in mocking him, and they only say good things about him when he does something successful enough to get in the newspaper. It's because of this that Meimi's opinion eventually ends up being the only one that actually means anything to him.

* SecretSecretKeeper: An anime-original scene has Eimi covering for Meimi when she sneaks out and express pride over her [[FollowInMyFootsteps following her in her footsteps]], but it's left ambiguous whether Eimi has actually figured out that she's working as Saint Tail or whether she's just impressed at her daughter being good at sneaking out.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: According to Meimi, he has no idea how much she'd been practicing and mastering the magic he'd taught her when she was little, and he also doesn't seem to be aware that Meimi's SurpassedTheTeacher and is using her abilities as Saint Tail (Eimi is implied to have possibly caught on in the anime).

* SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: As far as the anime {{Filler}} episodes and the first half of the manga are concerned, he's only the antagonist on a technicality because him "catching" Saint Tail would mean getting her arrested; in practice, [[MonsterOfTheWeek the various individual villains of each case]] are Saint Tail's real enemies, with Asuka Jr. closer to being TheRival. He completely loses the "antagonist" status and becomes the {{Deuteragonist}} in the second half of the manga, since it turns out that he's in favor of Meimi's well-being while [[HeroicFatigue being Saint Tail starts ruining her mental health]]; once Meimi "running away" from him is redefined as "emotionally blocking him out", the idea of "the detective catching the thief" becomes a very ''good'' thing.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Zigzagged. In the anime, he starts off cockier and more of a KnowNothingKnowItAll, he's more willing to tease or provoke Meimi, added {{Filler}} episodes in the early stages of the anime portray him as taking longer to develop the level of concern over Meimi he does in the manga, and later episodes have him putting on a front of continuing to be cocky about the FriendlyRivalry when he's actually secretly trying to protect her. On the flip side, he's also more open about his respect for Saint Tail from the get-go, and he's also portrayed as more openly friendly and sociable in general; in particular, his HairTriggerTemper is downplayed to the point he's able to have far more casual interactions with others than he would have been capable of in the manga (in fact, he's able to tease Meimi more specifically because [[AdaptationalAngstDowngrade she doesn't take it as hard]]).

* AdaptationalDumbass: A rather strange example caused not by his character inherently being more of an idiot than he was in the manga, but by [[AdaptationalContextChange a lack of consistent context]] making his HiddenDepths more unclear. In particular, the addition of {{Filler}} episodes portray him as significantly less perceptive of the idea that Saint Tail might be Meimi, [[spoiler:although his GreenEyedEpiphany in episode 40 still indicates that the mirror incident had the same effect on him as it did in the manga]]. Meanwhile, since Meimi is [[{{Tsundere}} much worse at hiding her feelings]] in the anime than in the manga, him not picking up on them makes him come off as significantly more ObliviousToLove.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Aside from her being {{Tsundere}} in the early chapters, the manga version of Meimi was never hostile to Asuka Jr. beyond [[JerkassHasAPoint legitimate callouts for bad behavior]] (at worst going a little overboard with it), and the fact she never treated him as a failure and was actually genuinely supportive of him was [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe the main reason he fell in love with her]]. In contrast, the anime version ''does'' frequently mock him and even rubs in his failures at catching Saint Tail multiple times, including the one from the locket caper that had involved her having a ''panic attack'' over nearly being caught and Asuka Jr. being very obviously conflicted over the incident (although she does notice that she may have gone too far and dials it back).

* AdaptationalJerkass: Zigzagged. In the anime, he starts off cockier and more of a KnowNothingKnowItAll than he was in the manga, added {{Filler}} episodes in the early stages of the anime portray him as taking longer to develop the level of concern over Meimi he does in the manga, and later episodes have him putting on a front of continuing to be cocky about the FriendlyRivalry when he's actually secretly trying to protect her. On the flip side, he's also more open about his respect for Saint Tail from the get-go, and he's also portrayed as more openly friendly and sociable in generall; in particular, his HairTriggerTemper is downplayed to the point he's able to have far more casual interactions with others (especially Meimi) than he would have been capable of in the manga.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Zigzagged. In the anime, he starts off cockier and more of a KnowNothingKnowItAll than he was in the manga, but he's also more open about his respect for Saint Tail from the get-go. Added {{Filler}} episodes in the early stages of the anime portray him as taking longer to develop the level of concern over Meimi he does in the manga, and later ones have him putting on a front of continuing to be cocky about the FriendlyRivalry when he's actually secretly trying to protect her. On the flip side, he's also portrayed as more openly friendly and sociable in general, and his HairTriggerTemper is downplayed to the point he's able to have a number of casual interactions with others (especially Meimi) than he would have been capable of in the manga.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Zigzagged. Unlike in the manga, he actually ''is'' fixated on the Saint Tail chase for rivalry reasons (at least at first), but it also means he sees it as a FriendlyRivalry rather than being as scornful of her as his manga counterpart could be. On the flip side, he's ostensibly more rude to Meimi (in particular, the anime takes out the context of him having been thoroughly emotionally compromised when he called her "nosy, loud-mouthed, and unfeminine", making it come off as more of a genuinely mean-spirited insult), but his BelligerentSexualTension with her is more casual, and he gets along with her much better in the long run.

* ClingyJealousGirl: Downplayed: while Meimi still gets upset at the idea of another girl being interested in Asuka Jr., what ''really'' sets her off is the fact that [[InnocentlyInsensitive he cares so little about said girls that he doesn't even treat them nicely]], leading her to constantly have mixed feelings about it and call him out for his insensitivity. Beyond that, while she's willing to support Sayaka when she has a crush on him, Takamiya is so aggressive about her advances on him that even her mere presence can set Meimi on edge.

* DevotedToYou: The more she falls for Asuka Jr., the more she feels she wants to make him happy by letting him catch her despite knowing full well that this will mean getting herself arrested. In fact, her reason for worrying about him finding out about her identity has less to do with being arrested and more with the fact she's simply terrified of him coming to hate her for it. [[spoiler:This is ultimately what gets Asuka Jr. to figure out her feelings for him in the finale: her agreeing to [[ThePromise their promise]] to send him the calling cards and saying "if I end up getting caught, I want to be caught by you" basically meant that she'd let him do whatever he wanted with her if it made him happy.]]

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: [[spoiler:Meimi goes into her final caper knowing that rescuing Asuka Jr. is basically the same as revealing her identity to him, believing that it's likely he'll hate her for having deceived her this entire time. She still considers him important enough that she's determined to take him back anyway.]]

* PlayingHardToGet: A rather unusual variant. She [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife doesn't have a lot of self-worth]] and wants to feel wanted, so she'd fallen for Asuka Jr. because of his passion in pursuing Saint Tail, despite the fact that he was originally doing it to satisfy his pride and have her be arrested as a criminal. The irony is that she's so fixated on this that she misses the signs of him actually being [[DevotedToYou much more meaningfully in love with her]] as Meimi for [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe unrelated reasons]] and convinces herself that because Saint Tail is the one he's physically running after, Saint Tail is the only one he cares about. [[spoiler:She's still so convinced of this by the time of the Christmas bonus chapter that she deliberately gets herself lost in a crowd to see if he'd come for her; this time, he figures out what she's pulling immediately, and while the results go [[SayMyName a little differently than expected]], Meimi is at peace knowing that she'll probably never "win" in her life.]]

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The implicit reason he fell for Meimi and ended up so [[DevotedToYou devoted to her well-being]] is that, outside of their BelligerentSexualTension arguments, she actually treats him with respect instead of joining the rest of the class in making a mockery out of him, and whenever they're not fighting, she's capable of making him feel comfortable instead of setting off his HairTriggerTemper. Notably, he seems to see her this way despite also believing that she hates him, mainly because [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he considers their past fighting to be his fault]] and sees her as a NiceGirl who'd still put up with him or show him kindness despite that.

* {{Deuteragonist}}: He's functionally the main character of the second half of the manga (chapters 13-24), corresponding to the "snow protecting the flower" part of the CreationMyth mentioned in chapter 15. Prior to then, he'd been portrayed as a WorthyOpponent SympatheticInspectorAntagonist who happened to be Meimi's LoveInterest, but the mirror incident creates a drastic shift that reveals that even if he wasn't originally on Saint Tail's side, he is ''absolutely'' [[DevotedToYou devoted to Meimi's well-being]], and the rest of the story becomes about him figuring out the truth behind what's going on with her before she heads for some [[HisOwnWorstEnemy extremely dangerous emotional places]].

* DevotedToYou: He's so [[NoSocialSkills socially awkward]] and [[PragmaticHero lacking in sentimentality]] that [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage he's absolutely terrible at expressing it well]], but don't let that fool you: he's ''really'' in love with Meimi, and has been utterly devoted to her welfare since ''before'' he'd ever been aware of his own feelings for her or was even able to express them past his own HairTriggerTemper issues. In fact, he's willing to go out of his way to help her [[WhatYouAreInTheDark without even telling her]], all despite believing that she dislikes him; in his mind, she's such a NiceGirl that she deserves it.

* HairTriggerTemper: He starts off this way, easily getting worked up and upset over even the smallest things (although that includes other emotions as well, including [[ProneToTears crying dramatically]]). His temper mellows out significantly as he gets over his inferiority complex, with his only remaining BerserkButton being out of [[DevotedToYou fear of losing Meimi]].

* ObliviousToLove: He's so terribly insensitive with romance topics that it initially seems he has a bad case of this, but it's subverted when it turns out that it's partially because [[SingleTargetSexuality he only has eyes for Meimi anyway]] and is still ''[[DevotedToYou extremely]]'' in love with her no matter how bad he is with romantic signals. His inability to catch onto Meimi's feelings is moreso her being [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage very hard to read]] than anything that's really his fault.

* SingleTargetSexuality: Part of the reason he doesn't bother with romantic topics is that he's ''only'' ever been interested in Meimi from the beginning. Despite [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage what others around him may think]], his FoeRomanceSubtext with Saint Tail only ever goes past the "subtext" level in relation to his increasing suspicion that they're actually the same person.

* CassandraTruth: She's absolutely correct about Meimi being Saint Tail, but Asuka Jr. is so certain she must be wrong (or perhaps [[SelectiveObliviousness trying to convince himself she is]]) that he even accepts her wager about it, ironically in the hopes of protecting Meimi from her. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for Takamiya, by the time he learns she really was right, he's already in a fully committed relationship with Meimi and is [[DevotedToYou very much in love with her]].]]
** She's also not wrong about Asuka Jr. starting to have doubts about arresting Saint Tail, because he'd started to realize that he doesn't entirely disagree with what she's doing anymore and also has to worry about her potentially being Meimi on top of that. He still intends on catching her himself, but by this point it's more for [[DeclarationOfProtection personal reasons]] than it is upholding the law, and the "test" that was supposed to prove his intent to catch her had actually involved him [[LetOffByTheDetective secretly letting her go]] as part of an EnemyMine agreement.

* {{Foil}}: He's this to Asuka Jr. in that he's a social butterfly, [[SerialRomeo falls in love easily]], is a huge romanticist, and is open about his interest in Meimi but still does things to stroke his own ego more than he does anything for her, while Asuka Jr. is socially awkward, [[UnknowinglyInLove bad at understanding his own feelings]], dislikes things he sees as symbolic platitudes, and is in [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial serious denial]] that he's romantically in love with Meimi but is nevertheless [[DevotedToYou utterly devoted to her well-being]] under the table. Meanwhile, Sawatari's sociality is offset by him being [[TheFriendNobodyLikes constantly eyed with suspicion]] by those around him due to his wishy-washyness and penchant for being an ImmoralJournalist, whereas Asuka Jr.'s social awkwardness doesn't stop his peers from acknowledging his integrity (at least, when they're not making fun of him for his recent failures).

* CerebusRetcon: Eimi wanting Meimi to "[[FollowInMyFootsteps follow in her footsteps]]" to the point she and Genichiro are even proud of her sneaking out at night initially suggests that they see absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of Meimi being a career PhantomThief like her mother was, moral questionability be damned. Eventually, chapter 21/episode 40 reveals that she actually considered her life back then to be [[DarkAndTroubledPast miserable and unfulfilling]] compared to living a happier life with Genichiro, and that her regret of not being able to return the Star Ruby is still eating at her; she and Genichiro had merely been avoiding talking about all of the negative aspects, and her interest in Meimi "following in her footsteps" had only been in terms of the RequiredSecondaryPowers like stealth and athletic skills. As a result, what had seemingly been [[PermissiveParents excessive open-mindednes]] on her and Genichiro's part had actually been an accidental case of AndThatWouldBeWrong.

* DevotedToYou: According to Eimi, what drew her to Genichiro was that he was always trying as hard as he could to make her happy; even when he didn't have much money and "producing flowers" was the only magic trick he could do, he'd make sure she had tons of flowers in both hands every time they met.

* LoveAtFirstSight: In the words of his wife, "you took one look at me and fell in love." That the woman who'd fallen on his porch was a ''thief on the run from the police'' apparently wasn't an issue to him at all.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: Her "prophecy" made to demoralize Meimi [[JerkassHasAPoint isn't entirely wrong]]; it's true that her relationship with Asuka Jr. is unlikely to go well if she keeps hiding such a huge secret from him. What's ''not'' true is the assumption that his honesty and her secret make them so fundamentally incompatible that they're inevitably doomed; in actuality, he wants to understand Meimi better and [[DevotedToYou is willing to go out of his way to do so]], so the reason she shouldn't be keeping secrets from him is simply that he can't do anything to help her if she won't open up to him.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Aside from her being {{Tsundere}} in the early chapters, the manga version of Meimi was never hostile to Asuka Jr. beyond [[JerkassHasAPoint legitimate callouts for bad behavior]] (at worst going a little overboard with it), and the fact she never treated him as a failure and was actually genuinely supportive of him was [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe the main reason he fell in love with her]]. In contrast, the anime version ''does'' frequently mock him and even rubs in his failures at catching Saint Tail multiple times, including the one from the locket caper that had involved her having a ''panic attack'' over nearly being caught and Asuka Jr. being very obviously conflicted over the incident.

* CerebusRetcon: Eimi wanting Meimi to "[[FollowInMyFootsteps follow in her footsteps]]" to the point she and Genichiro are even proud of her sneaking out at night initially suggests that they see absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of Meimi being a career PhantomThief like her mother was, moral questionability be damned. Eventually, chapter 21/episode 40 reveals that she actually considered her life back then to be [[DarkAndTroubledPast miserable and unfulfilling]] compared to living a happier life with Genichiro, and that her regret of not being able to return the Star Ruby is still eating at her; she and Genichiro had merely been avoiding talking about all of the negative aspects, and her interest in Meimi "following in her footsteps" had merely been in terms of the RequiredSecondaryPowers like stealth and athletic skills. As a result, what had seemingly been open-mindedness on her and Genichiro's part had been an accidental case of AndThatWouldBeWrong.

* AdaptationalDumbass: A rather strange example caused not by his character inherently being an idiot, but by [[AdaptationalContextChange a lack of consistent context]]. In the original manga, the MidSeasonTwist upgraded him to the {{Deuteragonist}} position and revealed him to have HiddenDepths that had been [[RedHerring deliberately obscured from the reader]] before then, but the anime adaptation removes those factors from manga-adapted episodes and makes his character confusing by adding {{Filler}} episodes that [[NegativeContinuity constantly reset his characterization]], leading to everything becoming so contradictory that it's easier for a viewer to assume that he has no idea what he's doing all the time. Combined with the issue being confusing enough to induce [[DubInducedPlotHole misleading translations]], it's easy to miss the part about [[spoiler:him being fairly certain Meimi is Saint Tail by the time he makes his LoveConfession to her, only stalling by invoking SelectiveObliviousness until he gets confirmation on his own terms]], something the entire final arc hinges on. The result is that you'll see descriptions even on this very wiki that describe him as being in a superficial TwoPersonLoveTriangle between Saint Tail and Meimi or confusing himself into thinking [[ComicallyMissingThePoint some kind of coincidental resemblance]], when in fact the point was that he was ''too'' much of a PragmaticHero to see things that way.
** Since Meimi is [[{{Tsundere}} much worse at hiding her feelings]] in the anime than in the manga, him not picking up on them makes him come off as significantly more ObliviousToLove.
* AdaptationalJerkass: Zigzagged. Unlike in the manga, he actually ''is'' fixated on the Saint Tail chase for rivalry reasons, but it also means he sees it as a FriendlyRivalry rather than being scornful of her as a criminal the way his manga counterpart was. Meanwhile, he's ostensibly more rude to Meimi (in particular, the anime takes out the context of him having been emotionally compromised when he called her "nosy, loud-mouthed, and unfeminine", making it come off as a genuinely mean-spirited insult for no reason), and he never gets as [[DevotedToYou singlemindedly devoted to her]] as he did in the manga, but his BelligerentSexualTension with her is more casual, and he gets along with her much better in the long run.

* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: She has a tendency to [[MegatonPunch punch her way]] into any situation where there's a crime, and she does ''legitimately'' believe that Saint Tail is a thief who needs to be arrested (although the manga makes it apparent that [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist her own selfish intentions still take obvious priority]]). In the anime, where she becomes more genuinely attracted to Asuka Jr. over time instead of instantly claiming him on the spot, her initial motive in chasing Saint Tail was that the idea of a thief sending warnings before her capers made her furious, and she'd perceived Asuka Jr. as too incompetent to actually deal with her.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: In the anime version of the Swan caper, she's obviously conflicted about trying to forcibly take Asuka Jr. away from something he cares about. [[spoiler:She eventually admits that she knew all too well that this wasn't going to work out. She still doesn't ''completely'' give up on him after that, but she cuts out the EntitledToHaveYou behavior and eventually accepting her position as a GracefulLoser once he starts dating Meimi.]]