Characters / Police in a Pod

Characters of Police in a Pod.

Okajima Prefectural Police

Machiyama Koban

Mai Kawai

Voiced By: Shion Wakayama

• Author Avatar: Likely to Yasu. Both of them started their first day doing beats from the koban before they were given responsibilities in public safety campaigns and sketching suspects.
• Big Brother Worship: While not her sister, later in the manga is shown Kawai admires Fuji a lot, who act like a Mix between Stern Teacher and Cool Big Sis.

• Character Development: Gradually Kawai complains less about police work and becomes more competent. It shows because contrasting with episode 1 when she wanted to quit for petty reason , she still keep doing her job. It reaches the point that in one chapter she told Fuji that she wants to be a police officer she could be proud of and that she was going to work hard to get there.
• Generation Xerox: Her trying to prevent this and her overworked dad is the reason she became a police officer wanting to be a public servant. She is a more explicit example to Fuji, a classmate and friend who was in a hit and run. That's why Fuji went to the Koban; she thought the criminal would return with Kawai near.
• Daddy's Girl: Downplayed example. Mai doesn't show any issue with her mother but she always write to her father. However, she has no issues jokingly threatening him for his drunk antics.
• Hidden Depths: Turn out Kawai is extremely good at making criminal sketches, because even if the drawing aren't pretty, she is good inferring characteristics of the witness statements and her sketches are easy to recognize. During her run with the the Yakuza while scared, she was shown to be less afraid than Shikine who could barely speak.
• Dumbass Has a Point: While Kawai is The Ditz sometimes she is shown to be right with even Fuji changing to her point of view, for example: When she and the other officers raided a thief's apartment Kawai was extremely meticulous in her search for any missing items, even when others complained (because she was looking in the garbage making the apartment smell bad) she says that she had to look into another woman's private belongings making her feel like she knew her even if she hadn't met her and she didn't want her to get in anymore trouble because now she is going to be all alone in this apartment while her boyfriend is in prison, so the least they could do is make things more easier her, so she could live quietly, also she can't really take the thief word at face value, after saying that Fuji started helping Kawai look for any possible jewelry the could have missed,and the thief start looked in shock
• Irony: Kawai is a police officer, who dislikes the police surprising many characters admitting she doesn't like their dramas or movies, even stopping a manga she liked because the sequel has a police setting, is implied that Kawai herself married a police officer in the future
• Fair Cop: In a more cute, than sexy way but Kawai is considered quite cute with even Minamoto (who see policewoman as apes) telling her that she is cute, once one of her classmate outright admitted than she is jealous of Kawai's boobs and figure.
• My God, What Have I Done??: When Kawai messes up for not taking something seriously, she tend to have this reaction. An example is when they had to deal with a suicidal caller 3 times in the same night: the first time he just wanted attention, so in the third call after not answering his door, Kawai was ready to leave and return in the morning, but Fuji broke the window and entered and he really did hang himself. Kawai takes the lesson to heart.
• New Meat: Recently graduated from a police academy in Okajima Prefecture.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: While she herself admits to not being good at sports, she is the only female police officer of the main cast in the best shape after Fuji, this was shown during a training exercise in which Kana tell the deputy chief that the riot shields and satsumas are too heavy for them (she, Makitaka and Kawai) to use, but in a later chapter Kawai was shown carrying both at the same time. Fuji in one chapter admitted that maybe she was too soft training Kawai before meeting her mentor and Kawai's old instructor at the academy Aoi, with Kawai thinking she was overreacting. After meeting it is shown that Aoi doesn't really mind Kawai's personality, making Fuji thinks she Took a Level in Kindness (which Word of God supports), but in a flashback to Mai's time at the academy we learn that Kawai's classmates are just as bad if not worse than her. Multiple character also note that Machiyama and Fuji just have high standards.
• Took a Level in Badass: The purpose of the story, which is about Mai's journey and growth as a police officer.
• What Would X Do??: When Kawai is in a pinch she thinks what would Fuji do. Considering she becomes the first female principal of the police academy of the prefecture, she succeeds.. It reaches the point that higher ups start thinking she is going to be a big fish in the future.

Seiko Fuji

Voiced By: Yui Ishikawa

• The Ace: She's a 4 dan in kendo, excellent detective with over a decade of experience, graduated at the top of her class, being a strong example of a class 2 leader, not to mention her good looks. Lampshaded by her academy nickname Ms. Perfect. Her biggest weakness is relatively poor marksmanship, which in reality doesn’t significantly affect Japanese police officers as most of them live out their careers and retire without ever using their sidearms. Chapter 49 also shows that she only knows the very basics of dusting for fingerprints, as when she and Minamoto try to put on a demonstration for Kawai and Yamada at a car break-in crime scene, they fail to find any prints. It requires an specialist forensics officer to do a more detailed check and find some fingerprints from a few savvy locations that neither Fuji nor Minamoto even thought to look at.

• Easily Forgiven: Fuji was forgiven rather quickly for Kawai with even her surprised, after learning that the reason she joined the Koban was to see if white angel come back because she looked similar to Sakura, using her as a bait, justified because Fuji has shown a Big Sister Instict with Kawai and she admitted to regret this even wishing White Angel never coming back, or that he is even near Kawai.

• Hypocrite: As a female police officer, Fuji isn't fond of Stay in the Kitchen attitudes and stereotyping in regards to female officers, the former of which is part of why she quickly got annoyed with Shikine. However, this doesn't stop her from trying to use her gender as an excuse to get out of work or training, nor did it stop her from lying about her exact role in the force during a mixer as to not scare off the guys she and Kawai were with. This is all Played for Laughs of course. Also justified because when she used her gender as a excuse for training, she was being a Troll to the lieuntenant.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Many see her reassignment as a patrol officer as this, after years of being a detective. The local gossip even assumes this is a "punishment" from abusing her prior position. she doesn't see it that way because it was voluntary and she wants to make Kawai a "true" police officer
• Sherlock Scan: Fuji is a master of this: noticing burglar tools while helping the man up, noticing a woman wearing only one bedroom sandal as they drive by, picking up clues about a runaway seconds after seeing her and her stepfather together: she could tell he was sexually abusing the girl at a glance. Deconstructed in a later chapter in which she and Minamoto discuss that this trait causes her to hyperfocus on the flaws of her boyfriends, causing them to end things with her.
• Troll: One chapter opens with her and Kawai questioning two delinquents, who immediately try hitting on them when they're done, complimenting their looks and asking for their numbers. Fuji seems to oblige them, giving them a folded piece of paper, but it turns out to be "110," the police emergency number.

Traffic Division

Shikine

• Eager Rookie: Shikine manages to be a miraculous combination of obnoxious enthusiasm, boneheaded sexism, and an eagerness to catch any minor infraction, even trying to give someone a ticket (and asking for his license) for presumably looking at him funny. It's only after a tense encounter with a group of Yakuza that he sees the value of having women on the field and relaxes slightly.
• Hypocrite: Despite displaying some rather Stay in the Kitchen views, he's quick to be a bit of a slave driver towards Kawai, making her his patrol partner while explicitly stating he doesn't plan to go easy on her, dragging her around town, and dragging her into a conflict with Yakuza thugs due to his inability to think ahead.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Shikine blatantly displays a rather misplaced sense of chivalry, believing all female officers should be subjected to desk work while the men handle stuff like patrolling and making arrests. Naturally, this doesn't endear him to Fuji despite him otherwise acting like a total ass-kisser towards her.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his first appearence and Fuji "The Reason You Suck" Speech he becomes way less aggresive and reasonable even, as shown in his interactions with the cast who in the beginning couldn't stand and later become more cordial to him.

Saburo Miyahara

Criminal Affairs Division

Seiji Minamoto

Voiced By: Ryota Suzuki

• Drives Like Crazy: Has a habit of wrecking patrol cars. Which nearly leads to him getting his entire department fired for it.
• The Rival: Said to rival Fuji because of having similar known skills and excellent LEO experience.

Takeshi Yamada

Voiced By: Shimba Tsuchiya

• Butt-Monkey: Examples that greatly affected Yamada include being hazed for Fuji and Minamoto during the police academy, losing his police badge, being mocked for a burglary among other things.
• Clueless Detective: Zig-Zagged while not incompetent his simple nature and lack of special talent make him less competent that Minamoto, is shown because for Fuji and Minamiti treat sometimes just like Kawai even if he is only 1 year his junior.

Miwa Makitaka

Voiced By: Kana Hanazawa

• Brilliant, but Lazy: According to everyone she could easily ace the exam to become a Sergeant but she doesn't want the responsibility, so she doesn't take them even if she could get a raise.
• Older Than She Looks: Downplayed but she is actually older than all the main cast. While all the other officers joined the academy straight out of high school, she was a college recruit, so even if she was part of the same graduating class, she is older.

Kana Kuroda

• Foil: to Yamada her classmate, while Yamada is a detective who is kinda clueless but succeeds in physical prowess, Kana is pretty good at reading people but is atrocious at anything physical, this is even show at their relationships with other officers with Yamada being treated just like a rookie, Kana is highly respected also Kana quit, meanwhile Yamada remain a detective.
• Weak, but Skilled: Kana's not really booksmart and she's physically weaker than the average policewoman because she is shorter than the minimum height required to be a cop, but her being Older Than She Looks and her detective skills make her an excellent Dirty Harriet that could go pretty anywhere.

Tamotsu Hojo

Voiced By: Rikiya Koyama

• Cool Old Guy: In Volume 23, Hojo mentored the younger officers when he worked in community affairs after being forced to retire with Nasu.

Nasu

• Reluctant Retiree: Volume 23 says that Nasu couldn't do detective work after he was forced to step down with Hojo after the wife of a suspect planned to sue the police for harrasing her husband and forced him to killed himself, who is a suspect in a rape case

Leadership

Fukushocho

Voiced By: Kendo Kobayashi

• A Father to His Men: During his free time he helped Kawai with a woman with a knife once, at one point he admitted that he gave Training from Hell to his officers because he doesn't want them to get hurt.