Line #119 Manga/Alyosha


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AlyoshaCover_1458.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:250:Fulfilling her final mission to the best of her ability.]]
3	''Alyosha!'' is a {{seinen}} manga by Rururu Kondou, which was serialized in ''Young King OURS'' from 2010 to 2013 and compiled into five volumes.
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5	Foreign exchange student Alyosha Stalina has been attending a Japanese high school for 3 months. She comes from the nation of Solessia but she is yet to fit in with the other students because of her unfriendly demeanor and cold personality. Rightfully so because Alyosha is a trained assassin that has been murdering people since she was 5 years old. Officials in Estolakia, a country devastated by the attacks from Solessia, found the orphaned Alyosha and trained her as a top notch assassin to work against Solessia.
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7	Her most recent and soon to be last mission is to murder the president of Solessia who is to attend the high school she has infiltrated for 3 months. However, the mission is aborted and she is ordered to remain a student. The only thing Alyosha knows how to do is to be an assassin and has never learned how to be a normal teenage girl. Will Alyosha be able to complete her most difficult mission yet?
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9	Compare to the {{yonkoma}} ''Manga/KillMeBaby'' and the original "TykeBomb in High School" series, ''Literature/FullMetalPanic''.
10	-----
11	!!''Alyosha!'' provides examples of the following:
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13	* AMillionIsAStatistic: [[spoiler: 500 passengers on a plane died because Katie was supposed to be on it if she didn't get distracted by her hobby, but as far as the main cast (and by extension the readers) are concerned, the fact that she wasn't on it is all that matters. Also, Alyosha is a trained assassin who has killed 283 people, but the whole story is about her trying to live a normal life.]]
14	* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Alyosha's... whatever it is. Has been shown to cut through glass and ''through a person's head'' (skull and all) without meeting any resistance.
15	* AcademyOfAdventure: The amount of assassins, foreign operatives and spies enrolled or getting hired in Shiyoh is astounding, considering it is a high-brow High School for elites.
16	* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Well resistance anyway, for Alyosha. A result of the assassin training program she had to undergo.
17	* AndAnotherThing: Just after telling Katie she's Kortik, Alyosha leaves the room saying [[spoiler: that she's just the second Kortik, and there are a Kortik-1 and Kortik-3]]
18	* ArtisticAge: Katie, Alyosha and Miru are sixteen years old. Katie might pass for a woman in her mid-twenties, and Miru looks barely as a tween. [[spoiler:Sarah [=McLaren=] ]] is ''thirty six'', yet she looks in her late teens.
19	* BeautyBrainsAndBrawn: Miru, Katie and Alyosha.
20	* BigOlEyebrows: Part of Katie's design.
21	* BlandNameProduct: Little Katie watched ''Magical Girl Sewing 5'' in [[Creator/CartoonNetwork Gartoon Channel]].
22	* BlankSlate: Alyosha doesn't really have likes, dislikes or opinions at the beginning of the series. In short, she's an ExtremeDoormat that just does as she is told. But if anything, she's adaptable.
23	* TheBully: Both Miru and Katie have had problems with bullies, Katie because of her [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation intelligence]], Miru because of her red hair and being a ShrinkingViolet.
24	* ButNotTooForeign: Miru. Because of her grandmother, she's 1/4th Irish.
25	* CantHoldHisLiquor: Poor, poor Katie. Showcased when her plan to get Alyosha drunk (to loosen her tongue) backfired spectacularly on her.
26	* CatFight: Breaks out over ''anime'', of all things. Specifically between [[spoiler:Katie and Sarah]] over whether or not anime from 2000 onwards are merely aping the ideas of earlier shows, or distilling their intristic themes.
27	* ChildhoodFriends: Miru and Ryuunosuke. Subverted in that neither of them make much of it.
28	* ChildProdigy: Alyosha and Katie, respectively. Alyosha made her first successful assassination when she was barely ''seven'', while Katie was able to read and write at middle-school level at ''two''.
29	* ChildSoldiers: Alyosha obviously, overlapping with TykeBomb. [[spoiler:By extension, her clones, the Kortik 3 series]].
30	* CloakAndDagger: The Karamazov Group.
31	* CloudCuckoolander: The impression her classmates have of Alyosha. To be fair Alyosha ''does'' act strange at times, but this is because of her upbringing as an assassin and as well as being born in a different country with different social practices.
32	* CombatPragmatist: Alyosha. Bodies tend to pile up afterwards.
33	* ComplimentBackfire: Alyosha is trying very hard not to stand out, so she gets depressed when Ryuunosuke tells her she is outstanding.
34	* ConflictingLoyalties: Katie is torn between her job as a law-enforcer and her friendship with Alyosha, an assassin.
35	* ContractOnTheHitman: The main source of conflict in this series is the endless stream of assassins sent to kill Kortik-2.
36	* CosplayOtakuGirl: Katie, obviously.
37	* CrazyCulturalComparison: In Solessia, kissing in the lips is common among close friends and family as a greeting or to show gratitude. Miru and Katie, not being Solessians, find it... [[LesYay odd]].
38	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Miru's tutor Okada Shigeru. Looks like a reedy and bespectacled geek, ''really'' a member of a clan of ninjas and an expert in security devices.
39	* DarkMessiah: One of the theories the FBI has put forward for the intense interest in Alyosha is that [[spoiler:Commander Karamazova]] is setting her up to be a terrorist version of this, even to the point of spreading a suspiciously sounding "prophecy" connected to it.
40	* DeclarationOfProtection: Alyosha to Miru (see MistakenIdentity). Later extends to include Katie and Ryuunosuke.
41	* [[spoiler: DisneyDeath]]: Katie is such an {{otaku}}...
42	** And later on, [[spoiler:Alyosha herself, supposedly getting killed while protecting Commander Grekov from an angry mob]].
43	* DistantFinale: The final chapter skips eight years into the future, and shows what Miru and Katie, [[spoiler:and finally, Alyosha]] have been doing since then.
44	* TheDitz: Miru. She is even described in-series as a "natural airhead".
45	* EnfantTerrible: [[spoiler: Kortik-3.]]
46	* EvilTwin: [[spoiler: Kortik-3, thru cloning.]]
47	* {{Expy}}: Miru's Head Maid is named Rokuten Maya, that sounds a lot (say it very fast, and remember the "u" is almost mute) like ''Anime/HeidiGirlOfTheAlps'' meanie governess Rottenmeier, and looks and acts exactly like her.
48	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Many countries in the story are obviously counterparts of real-world countries:
49	** The Solessian Union is this setting's version of the Russian Federation.
50	** Likewise Katie's home country of Ameria is the counterpart to the USA.
51	** Finally Alyosha's home country of Estolakia seems to be based in part on Chechnya.
52	* FBIAgent: Special Agent Katie Lindberg, of course.
53	* FieryRedhead: Subverted with Miru. While she has the red hair (a gift from her Irish grandmother), she doesn't have the personality. Indeed, she's more like a ShrinkingViolet.
54	* FishOutOfWater: Alyosha had a hard time adjusting to being a "normal" high school girl, to say the least.
55	* FlowerMotifs: Shiyoh High School's symbol is a white FourLeafClover on a green field.
56	* ForeignExchangeStudent: Alyosha's initial-turned-permanent cover, and later on, Katie's as well.
57	* ForTheEvulz: One part of why [[spoiler:Kortik-3 kills people]].
58	* FriendOrIdolDecision: Run the international underworld or stay with her friends? Alyosha knows what she wants.
59	* FriendlessBackground: Katie, prior to her assignment to Japan. Alyosha and Ryuunosuke also, though for different reasons -- the former because she was an assassin; the latter because he focused too much on his studies to even try. Miru, for being a mixed ancestry ShrinkingViolet.
60	* GenderBlenderName: Alyosha and Misha are Russian male names. Of course, here they are Solessian names.
61	* GirlishPigtails: [[spoiler:The Kortik-3 series of clones have these as standard]].
62	* GiveHimANormalLife: Colonel Grekov finds a good excuse to let Alyosha live a normal life when the coup d'etat fails.
63	* GrandTheftMe: The ''other'' theory that the FBI has come up with regarding [[spoiler:Karamazova's]] interest in Alyosha; rather than looking for an heir to run her criminal network, she's literally interested in taking over Alyosha's body for herself.
64	** This theory soon proves correct: her ways of artificially extending her life were starting to fail, so she latched on the plan to transfer her consciousness to a compatible "container", and the most compatible one happens to be Alyosha.
65	* HollywoodToneDeaf: While Alyosha can quickly memorize the lyrics of a song after just a single listen, what she ''can't'' do is actually ''sing'' the song, as Katie soon found out to her horror.
66	* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Colonel Grekov resents having turned Alyosha into an assasssin, but Estolakia needed it.
67	* IJustWantToHaveFriends: One of Katie's secret desires. Finally fulfilled with Miru and Alyosha.
68	* ILetGwenStacyDie: The news of [[spoiler:Katie's]] death hit hard Alyosha, proving she's NotSoStoic.
69	* ImprobableAge: Alyosha and Katie, again. The former has been assassinating high-profile targets of her country since she was at least seven. The latter was recruited by the FBI at ''twelve'', and is a fully-trained agent by the time she's sixteen.
70	* InstantExpert: Another result of Alyosha's training, so she can easily blend in to the surroundings of her target. Too bad this doesn't extend to singing...
71	* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Katie was simply too bright to fit in during her childhood.
72	* InvisibleParents: Miru's mother and father are nowhere to be seen. However it is revealed later on that the two are actually in Singapore, serving in official capacity (as managing director and managing president, respectively) there for their family business at the company HQ there.
73	* ItsPersonal: What happens whenever someone targets any of Alyosha's friends.
74	** Played for laughs when Katie wants Alyosha to get rid of [[spoiler:Sarah Mclaren]] for breaking her collector's edition Magical Sewing 5 anime figurine. SeriousBusiness indeed.
75	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler: Rokuten-san is actually pretty fond of Alyosha, even to the point of secretly paying from her own pocket bonuses to her salary.]]
76	* JustInTime: [[spoiler:Katie in chapter 18]], with a BaitAndSwitchGunshot on top, when it looks like [[spoiler:Alyosha]] is about to [[TakingTheBullet take a bullet]] for Miru and Ryuunosuke.
77	* KilledOffscreen: Alyosha [[spoiler:is apparently killed off-panel while trying to protect Grekov from angry rioters. Of course, they NeverFoundTheBody so...]]
78	* KingIncognito: The hobby of Miru's grandfather. Owner of a sprawling business conglomerate during weekdays. But during the weekends? Nondescript and scruffy park-sleeping hobo.
79	** SlummingIt
80	* LapPillow: Ryuunosuke comes round in Alyosha's lap after the incident with the false teacher.
81	* LegacyCharacter: Or in this case, Legacy Codename. Alyosha is the second assassin to be awarded the NomDeGuerre "Kortik".
82	* LimitedWardrobe: Alyosha has no clothes other than her school uniform and maid outfit.
83	* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Miru, to Alyosha's past as an assassin, and everything generally connected to it. She used to be this to Katie's job as a FBI agent, though Katie has already come clean about that one.
84	* LoveAtFirstSight: Katie is ''instantly'' smitten by Ryunosuke's older brother, mostly because he's a dead-ringer for the character Mysterious Zoro, a Tuxedo Mask-esque hero from her favorite magical girl anime ''Magical Sewing 5''.
85	* {{Meido}}: What Alyosha becomes, once she gets hired by Miru's family. The family employs a pair of other maids to help with the maintenance of the mansion as well.
86	** NinjaMaid: Due to her skills, what Alyosha technically becomes. Hilariously formalized when she is given a "graduation" scroll by the head of the Momochi clan, a family of ''real'' ninjas serving the Nayuki family.
87	* MarshmallowHell: Miru is put through this, no thanks to Katie's upgraded boobage.
88	* MasterOfDisguise: [[spoiler:M16 agent Sarah Mclaren.]]
89	** LatexPerfection: Her preferred modus operandi.
90	* MistakenIdentity: As far as the new Karamazov Group knows, ''Miru'' is "Kortik-2".
91	* MoodWhiplash: The series has always been something of a {{Genre Bust\|ing}}er, but the "Tea Party" arc, that starts with girly tea party preparations, follows with some teen drama and then a bit of knife fighting to the death, to finish with bloody BlackComedy, stands out.
92	%%* NeverGetsDrunk: Alyosha. Another result of her assassin conditioning.
93	* {{Ninja}}: Miru's family has a whole clan, the Momochis, serving them. The Momochis mostly focus on corporate espionage these days, but each is more than able of defending themselves and their charges.
94	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The Solessian president that Alyosha was supposed to assassinate is ''obviously'' not based on Vladimir Putin. Really.
95	* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: Kortik-3 barely survived her fight with Alyosha and was rescued by Kortik-1. The body the [=FBI=] found was provided by one of the failed Kortik-3.]]
96	* NotSoStoic: Alyosha is not a sociopath, it's just that she didn't know anything else but killing, as proved by her reaction to [[spoiler:Katie's not-quite]] death.
97	%%* OccidentalOtaku:
98	%%** Katie, full stop. It actually becomes a ''plot point'' during a chapter, as she's such a huge otaku that it actually saves her life.
99	%%** It turns out [[spoiler:Sarah Mclaren]] is ''also'' this, except for anime from the 70s and 80s. This is all ''Katie's fault'' too, since the former only started watching anime to better understand and work with her.
100	%%* TheOjou: Miru. Subverted in that she doesn't ''act'' like one, due to the rules of self-sufficiency that her grandfather had put in place.
101	%%* OlderThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:Commander Karamazova.]] If Katie is to be believed, she's ''at least'' 95 years old. She looks like she's barely twenty-five.
102	%%** [[spoiler:Sarah Mclaren]] is this as well. See ArtisticAge above.
103	%%* OneWordTitle: Also a ProtagonistTitle.
104	%%* PhenotypeStereotype: Both Alyosha and Katie are blonde and blue-eyed.
105	%%* ProfessionalKiller: Alyosha for most of her life, prior to her "final mission".
106	%%* ProtagonistTitle: Also a OneWordTitle.
107	%%* TheProfiler: Katie's role in the FBI is this.
108	%%* RummageSaleReject: Katie has no fashion sense.
109	* ScarsAreForever: [[spoiler:Commander Karamazova's body is crisscrossed by scars, Captain Harlock-style.]]
110	%%* SchoolFestival: Katie is thrilled, of course.
111	* SenseiChan: Candice Hogg, the teacher from England that the Japanese Culture Research Club suddenly gets saddled with as an adviser. [[spoiler:Really just a cover for M16 spy Sarah Mclaren.]]
112	%%* SeriousBusiness: Ultimately, Sarah and Katie don't get along because [[spoiler: Sarah is an OccidentalOtaku too, of the kind that hates "{{moe}} crap" like ''Magical Sewing 5'']].
113	%%* ShesAllGrownUp: Miru and Katie in the DistantFinale. [[spoiler:And of course, Alyosha when they finally reunite]].
114	* ShoutOut: Not surprising given Katie's hobby, a few manage to sneak in:
115	** One of the costumes Katie brings with her to the karaoke session was a [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion familiar red plugsuit]], and the song she sung while wearing it was titled Cruel Angel ''Rhapsody''.
116	** During the Cultural Festival, Katie cosplays as [[ShowWithinAshow Super Sewing Vicuna]], but we also see [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Miru as Madoka]], [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Alyosha as Lum]] and Candice-sensei as Anime/{{Creamy Mami\|TheMagicAngel}}.
117	** Another costume was of a familar twin-tailed and aqua-haired Vocaloid.
118	** Play 53 a shout out to the infamous action 52.
119	** Yet ''another'' costume was of a [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica blonde and buxom senior magical girl]].
120	** Alyosha worked for the Karamazov agency. Alyosha is also the nickname of the youngest of ''Literature/TheBrothersKaramazov'', Alexei.
121	** [[Franchise/{{Gundam}} Solomo... Japan, I have returned!]]
122	* ShowWithinAShow: ''Magical Girl Sewing 5''. Katie is a ''massive'' fan of it, and Alyosha herself is an instant convert after Miru lets her watch her DVD collection of the show.
123	* ShroudedInMyth: Alyosha-as-Kortik's exploits were considered this, to the point that the FBI (prior to Katie) wasn't even sure what ''gender'' the mysterious assassin had. [[spoiler:Also the exploits of Commander Karamazova, a.k.a. Kortik-1.]]
124	%%* SpannerInTheWorks: Sorry [[spoiler:Commander Karamazova, Kortik-3]] won't let you get your way this time around.
125	* TheSpartanWay: The frankly ''ridiculous'' training regime that the Karamazov Group set up to raise assassins for its cause. By the end of it, only Alyosha was left, out of several dozen kids.
126	%%* SpeakInUnison: "Because we're friends".
127	%%* StandingInTheHall: And one student reminds Candice-sensei that it is a DiscreditedTrope.
128	* StartMyOwn: The Japanese Culture Research Club. Founded by Katie as an excuse to keep a close eye on both Alyosha and Miru, she soon starts to have a little too much fun during its activities.
129	* TheStoic: Alyosha's doesn't really emote much. Makes sense, because due to her upbringing as an assassin, she's never been taught anything about emotions, and what little she did have she was conditioned to suppress.
130	%%* SweetTooth: Alyosha, much to her own surprise. Indeed one of the few things ''guaranteed'' to get a reaction out of Alyosha is a sweet she hasn't tasted before.
131	%%* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Katie tried this to stop her bullying, and it worked.
132	%%* TeenGenius: What Katie eventually turned into, having graduated at MIT at twelve years old.
133	%%* TheQuietOne: Alyosha, again.
134	* ThanatosGambit:
135	** [[spoiler: Kortik-3 ''lied'' about the bomb being a fake so Alyosha wouldn't rush to deactivate and get forever haunted by her failure.]]
136	** The FBI theorizes that something like this was planned [[spoiler:by Commander Grekov all along.]] By letting himself -- one of the final vestiges of the Estolakia's brutal past -- be willingly assaulted and killed by anti-military demonstrators, it sped the democratization of the country.
137	* ThereIsAnother: Alyosha wasn't the only assassin created by Karamazov. [[spoiler: There are also her clones and her still living predecessor.]]
138	%%* [[ThoseTwoGuys Those Two Girls]]: Oomagari Namae and Aonuma Beniko.
139	* ThouShaltNotKill: '''Defied'''. Alyosha is both willing ''and'' perfectly capable of permanently disposing of the assassins who go after her and her friends. Katie has to clean up for her later on, using her connections with the FBI.
140	%%* ThroughHisStomach: How Miru gets Alyosha to finally open up to her: with cake.
141	* TimeSkip: Two through the whole series. The first one is a two-month gap as the clues to [[spoiler:Commander Kamarazova's movements]] go cold, while the second one is a [[spoiler:eight-year long timeframe, where a grown-up Miru and Katie visit Estolakia, and accidentally rediscover a very-much alive Alyosha.]]
142	* TykeBomb: What the Karamazov Assassination Group tried to create, using war orphans left by Solessia's invasion of Estolakia. Alyosha is the only survivor of this program. [[spoiler:The Kortik-3 series is a much straighter example of this trope.]]
143	%%* UnknownRival: Oomagari Namae to Alyosha, for Ryuunosuke's affection.
144	* VisibleSilence: It's very common for Alyosha to react to something with a simple "..."
145	%%* WhenSheSmiles: Given how rare it is, whenever Alyosha does this, it lights up the room.
146	%%* WhyAmITicking: Miru gets a dangerous gift.
147	%%* WigDressAccent: What one Karamazov assassin tried. Too bad Katie immediately sees through it.
148	%%* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Tends to happen with an alarming degree to the opponents Alyosha face who somehow get away from her, and always done by someone ostensibly on their side.

Context Manga / Alyosha