24... In Japan!A deadly viral outbreak in Russia somehow comes to the attention of "Third-I", a top secret Japanese investigative group under the Public Security Intelligence Agency, and their top hacker, student Fujimaru "Falcon" Takagi. Through a complex and disturbing web of deceit, lies and covert-ops, Takagi and his friends must help Third-I prevent a dangerous cult from initiating their "Bloody Monday".
Bittersweet Ending: Japan is saved from the terrorist attack. But Fujimaru lost two of his best friends. Maya goes into hiding but realizes that she's broke.
As it turns out, most of the deaths from Russia were due to radiation poisoning; BloodyX was designed to have similar symptoms in order to cover this up.
Bodyguard Betrayal: Sayuri Hosho, the Third-I agent who is assigned to watch over Fujimaru and Haruka while their dad is on the run.
Cain and Abel - subverted with the actual Cain and Abel sisters who love each other dearly, played straight with J and his older half-brother, Otoya.
Distressed Damsel: In the first season, Haruka is kidnapped three times and [[spoilerexposed to Bloody-X]] once. She gets less kidnap prone in the second season, though.
Guile Hero - Falcon often figures out what his opponents are trying to do, and regularly comes up with counter-plans to manipulate them to his advantage. The success rate, on the other hand, is iffy at best because his opponents are Magnificent Bastards in their own right.
And look at the eyes of anyone who's in full-on cultist mode. Scary!
Hollywood Hacking - Computer security is portrayed accurately, with bad guys employing tools that would give the NSA fits — but which takes the Falcon five minutes to crack the Third-I mainframe, including a two minute bathroom break.
Ill Girl - Haruka. The enemy often takes advantage of this, even in the second manga. She's on her way to recovery in the second season, though, indirectly via Heroic Sacrifice.
Loads and Loads of Characters - The series start off as just a few high school kids trying to outsmart a teacher. Later on we have more than a dozen of main characters. The story reaches a point where if a minor or secondary character appears at least once then they'll play a larger role in the future. Heck by the end of the manga we still have new major characters appearing.
Chapter 86[1] shows you how large the current cast of main and secondary characters is. That's excluding all the dead and minor characters.
And now there's a whole new group of terrorists, the Shooter of the Magic Bullet, in the sequel of the manga.
Long Lost Sibling: J aka Jun Kanzaki is actually Otoya's half-brother
Manipulative Bastard - J. The things he manages to pull off get pretty ridiculous.
Oblivious Younger Sibling: Subverted for Haruka. Though Fujimaru and Ryuunosuke tried their best to keep Haruka from getting involved in the trouble that they've gone through, she is still aware that they're up to something. In the last season, she is aware that Fujimaru is involved with the hostage situation.
Obstructive Bureaucrat - tries to take over the unit handling the BloodyX case while the unit runs an elaborate Xanatos Gambit behind his back.
Rapid-Fire Typing - Done by all the hackers during the tense moments. Averted in some cases where the hacking is done by software loaded in a USB key.
The Rival - Hornet, who doesn't show up until Chapter 84.
Rule Of Cool - While Falcon is described as a "wizard" class hacker in-universe, many of his feats are impossible in reality given the time it takes to accomplish it, or the computing power required to accomplish such feat in that time frame. Or simply impossible with the lack of equipment.
Unspoken Plan Guarantee - Played straight and subverted in equal amounts throughout the story.
The Mole - two within Third-I and one of Falcon's best friends.
Time Bomb - When infected with "Bloody-X," a person has two to three hours before they die.
Subverted with Anzai Mako, as she's K, and thus the countdown was useless. Still dramatic, though, considering that you didn't find out she was K until after she was cured.
Bittersweet Ending: Borderline to Downer Ending. Despite that Japan is saved again and that Peter Pan and his supporters got what they deserved, the real Hibiki is still missing and the Prime Minister is revealed to be the leader of the terrorists and the man responsible for Ryuunosuke's death.
Call Back: The monstrously perverted teacher from Season One helps release a member of the terrorists' memories, after attempting to sexually assault his former "sex-slave".
Maya arrives to deal information, The Mole's Brainwashed and Crazy-Eyes remind Fujimaru uncomfortably of S.1's cult leader, and J. also gets a mention when Fujimaru fears The Mole was sent by him.
The deadline for the threat is again on a Monday, which is lampshaded by Fujimaru.
Remember the Bloody-X virus? It's BAAAAAACK!
Child Soldier: While we don't know how old Hibiki is, it's clear that she's been a well-trained soldier for most of her life Three generations prior to conception, in fact.
Cloning Blues: Hibiki is one of eight clones created from the genetic material from three generations of her country's best agents, and possibly the only one who ever questioned her training. Two of her "sisters" have since entered Japan.
Disc One Final Boss: Arthur is killed after the attack on the power plant and Peter Pan takes over as the Big Bad.
Defrosting Ice Queen / What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Hibiki is shaken by Fujimaru's dying father's decision to give his kidneys to his ailing daughter and it appears that she's thinking about the families of the victims for the first time; most significantly she's stopped threatening to kill herself.
Fujimaru: I can't believe you're getting jealous over me caring about my own sister! Hibiki: Jealous...? I see, this is jealousy! Hee hee, this is the first time I've been jealous!
Did Not Do the Research: Pandora's Box, the nuclear launch control system carried with the President of the United States. The equivalent object in reality is referred to as a nuclear football, and cannot be used to launch nuclear missiles, only to authorize their launch. Peter Pan's plan to hold the world hostage would never work in reality because the Pentagon knows the Box is his goal and any authorization coming from it would be disregarded.
Government Conspiracy: Third-I is one for secretly keeping the country safe, whoever sent Hibiki (since this story deals with a rouge cosmonaut with a Russian nuke, I'm gonna guess the Russians).
Heel Face Turn: Hibiki, who is a foreign agent trained to be emotionless and efficient, defrosts when she sees the Takagi family dynamics, and completes her Heel Face Turn when she falls in love with Fujimaru.
Hostage Situation: Averted a bit. The "fake" Hibiki held a clinic doctor hostage to make Fujimaru gain access to Pandora's Box. Too bad the doctor was killed before Third-I agents gunned her down.
Info Dump: Fujimaru's workmate-turned-mole Hibiki reveals a lot of information about "The Last Emperor" — so much so that Fujimaru tells her to stop and another person calls her Wikipedia-chan.
Manipulative Bastard: This season gives us Hino Alexei. From the same terrorist group, Peter Pan, which is more evident when he betrays Alexei, who is only the guy who raised him.
Put on a Bus: We only get to see Aoi on the first few chapters but then, we never know what happened to her.
Psycho for Hire: "Peter Pan", Nikolai, and the dozens of guys he hired then put through an impromptu Battle Royale to get the best of the best for his "Dream Team".
Retired Badass: Fujimaru hasn't even touched a keyboard since "Bloody Monday" but this is just a ploy to avoid involving his friends again.
The Rival: Peter Pan, who is said to be what Falcon could become given a few years (which should already give some indication how powerful he is), and who had a hand in making Falcon the master hacker he is in the first place.
She Cleans Up Nicely: Minami. Her Third-I teammates were surprised about this, at first. Later, she does it again in the last season.
Confirmed in Chapter 43, to the point where Minami becomes comically disgusted.
Too Dumb to Live / What an Idiot: The Minister of Justice ("They've all been bad"), who think Third-I is wasting time and money trying to attack Arthur & Co. and they should just get rid of the bureau anyway.
The American head of security, who's so overconfident he doesn't realize that Peter Pan has already taken over a powerful spy satellite.
President Adams, who thinks he can make a deal a terrorist who previously said she could have killed any one of the dignitaries by moving into the penthouse next door and apparently forgot a retina scan doesn't require your eyes to be attached to your head.
We Have Reserves: Hibiki won't hesitate to kill herself if the situation goes south since whoever she works for will just send someone else (in fact, they'll likely send seven identical people). The Third-I crew decides to keep her alive just in case whoever they send is worse.
Bloody Monday: Last Season contains examples of
Elites Are More Glamorous: CraUNs, an elite JGSDF unit with some of its agents fighting alongside Third-I operators in the Neo Tokyo Tower.
Slight Alignment Change?: Fujimaru seems to be on the side of Chaotic Good now.
Heel Face Turn?: Fujimaru and Hibiki are now working with J. as (counter-)terrorists. Seems that J and his allies are "against" the Storyteller as well.
Apparently Mamiya's been on Storyteller's side the whole time (unless of course he's a double-agent like Fujimaru's dad).
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