Maron Kusakabe may seem to be an Ordinary High School Student, but secretly she is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, KaitouJeanne! Maron is on a Mission from God to seal demons hiding in works of art, which possess and corrupt pure-hearted people that admire their beauty. Unfortunately, sealing the demon also causes the artwork it inhabits to disappear, making Jeanne seem to be nothing more than a petty (if stylish) thief to most, meaning that the police and Maron's best friend Miyako, who dreams of becoming a detective, are dedicated to catching her. Fortunately, Jeanne has God's blessing and a number of divine tools at her disposal, giving her an edge over them.Because her divorced parents live and work overseas, Maron lives alone in her apartment with tiny angel Finn Fish. Across the hall live Miyako and her family, unaware of Maron's identity. Then, Handsome Lech Chiaki Nagoya moves in next door. He gets on Maron's nerves, but Miyako instantly falls head-over-heels in love with him. Soon after, Kaitou Sinbad, another kaitou wielding the same powers as Jeanne, appears on the scene and starts competing with Jeanne to see who can seal the demons first. Finn and Maron wonder who he could be, as Maron was supposed to be the only kaitou. Finn and Maron both conclude that Sinbad must be Jeanne's opposite - a kaitou working for the devil. All may not be as it seems, however....Published in the shoujo magazine Ribon from 1998 to 2000, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne is the first major work by Arina Tanemura. It was adapted into a 44 episode Anime by Toei in 1999. It stands apart from most Magical Girl series by having a Broken Bird heroine, and can be quite a Tear Jerker at times.
Chivalrous Pervert: Chiaki, despite being opposed to Jeanne in his role as Kaitou Sinbad, tends to act this way towards girls, but Maron in particular. He did originally approach her with an ulterior motive, but developed feelings for her instead. Apparently, it also runs in the family.
Clear Their Name: Miyako's secret motivation for catching Kaitou Jeanne is to pre-emptively protect her childhood friend Maron by revealing Jeanne's secret identity, since the two bear an uncanny resemblance. Unfortunately, Maron really is Kaitou Jeanne...
In the manga, it's subverted; turns out that Miyako knew Maron and Jeanne were the same person all along, and was keeping up the act so no one else got suspicious.
Cooldown Hug: This is how Maron defeats her evil twin in the final battle.
Costumer: One episode is set in a recreation of an Edo period village.
Crazy Jealous Guy: Chiaki acts like this toward Maron at times, like when he yells at her for simply talking to another guy when he and Maron aren't even dating yet. (The other guy turns out to be evil, but Chiaki and Maron didn't know that at the time.)
Love Potion: In a side story, Access grows a magic flower that causes anyone who eats its petals to fall in love with the one who grew it. He plans to use it on Finn, but Finn prematurely eats the flower by accident and starts acting all gushingly in love with Access, who quickly realizes that he likes her better when she has free will.
Magic Skirt: Jeanne. Maron usually has one, but apparently it turns off when Chiaki's around.
Meet Cute: Zigzagged in the case of Maron's parents. They met twice in front of the same carousel, years apart and by various coincidences, and fell in love. By the time of the story, they're working in different countries from each other and their daughter, and they unknowingly cause a Heroic BSOD in Maron by telling her they're planning a divorce. As it turns out, the Devil appears to have intervened to destroy their feelings of love for each other as part of an Evil Plan to end Jeanne's cycle of reincarnation by breaking Maron's spirit. Only, that's not really the case: it's revealed that they would have broken up anyways, and no intervention was required. At the end of the series, her parents are shown meeting each other again in a third iteration of the same Meet Cute, implying that it really was the Devil's intervention that caused it.
Mentor Mascot: Finn Fish serves as Jeanne's. Too bad she's not entirely trustworthy.
Mirror Match: The final battle in the manga has Maron fighting an evil twin version of herself.
Mythology Gag: Two characters from I-O-N make a cameo appearance, both possessed by demons: Miyako's older brother is the same Toudaiji who was a member of Mikado's research club, while Tagosaku appears briefly in a side story.
Obfuscating Stupidity: In the manga, Miyako always knew that Maron was Kaito Jeanne, and was intentionally failing to catch her.
Our Angels Are Different: In the manga, angels are amnesiac reincarnations of pure humans on Earth that carry and collect God's power, and are separated into ranks based on how much divine power they have built up over the years. These ranks can be easily distinguished by their size and their wings - Finn, as a low-ranking angel, is small with white wings. Fallen angels contain no power, and literally drain the power from angels they come into contact with, whether they wish to or not.
Paper-Thin Disguise: Averted: Maron and Jeanne have completely different hair and eye colors and hairstyles, instead of just wearing different clothes. And even then, some people notice that they look similar.
Parental Abandonment: Maron's parents both moved overseas when she was small and never call or write her.
Reincarnation: Not only is Maron the reincarnation of Jean D'arc, but she (and Jean) are also the reincarnation of Eve (Yeah, that Eve) in the manga and Chiaki is heavily implied to be Adam's reincarnation. Also Finn Fish is the angel-incarnation of Natsuki, a young Miko, who was murdered by her own possessed brother for profit (almost twice). Also, she and Access Time are both reborn in the end of the manga as Maron's and Chiaki's daughter Natsuki (yeah, creative) and Yamato's and Miyako's son Shinji.
Sadistic Choice: Noin sets up one of these as part of the process of breaking Maron. Seal the demon, kill the child. Leave the demon, and it will eventually consume the child's soul. The child eventually dies but later becomes a kuro-tenshi.
Shoot the Dog: Sinbad burning the photographer's house. This generally seems to be Sinbad's raison d'etre.
Spell My Name with an S: Finn versus Fin. The latter is less like a normal name, but makes more sense with her name. (It's supposed to be a pun, Fin Fish.)
She's called Fynn in Norway and Germany for some reason...
Sprouting Ears: Maron/Jeanne does this sometimes in the manga.
Subverted at the end. Chiaki no longer needs to transform to use his power (since Maron knows it's him), and Maron no longer needs it period since she is no longer using the power of her trinket, but the power of her self-belief.
Traumatic Haircut: Ever wonder how Finn got that odd haircut, short in the back with long sidelocks? In the backstory, a demon-possessed human cut her hair in order to steal her angelic powers. It worked too well and a bunch of humans died in the explosion, resulting in Finn's banishment from heaven.
Tsundere: Maron towards Chiaki, Miyako towards Maron and Minazuki, Fin towards Access
Unwitting Pawn: Jeanne herself and later Finn. Although in the manga, Finn wasn't unwitting and argued that she was using Satan just as much as he was using her.
Virgin Power: Maron can only turn into Jeanne if she is "pure" (leading to Noin attempting to rape her so that she can no longer become Jeanne). As it turns out, though, that's not the definition of "pure"; being "pure" means having a pure soul and believing in your own purity, and Maron realizes this about halfway through the series, also inspiring hope in her past reincarnation.
Was It All a Lie?: Maron asks Finn this after the latter reveals that she's been evil all along. Finn initially says that yes, it was all a lie, although she later admits that she did really love Maron.
Maron Kusakabe may seem to be an Ordinary High School Student, but secretly she is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, Kaitou Jeanne! Maron is on a Mission from God to seal demons hiding in works of art, which possess and corrupt pure-hearted people that admire their beauty. Unfortunately, sealing the demon also causes the artwork it inhabits to disappear, making Jeanne seem to be nothing more than a petty (if stylish) thief to most, meaning that the police and Maron's best friend Miyako, who dreams of becoming a detective, are dedicated to catching her. Fortunately, Jeanne has God's blessing and a number of divine tools at her disposal, giving her an edge over them.Because her divorced parents live and work overseas, Maron lives alone in her apartment with tiny angel Finn Fish. Across the hall live Miyako and her family, unaware of Maron's identity. Then, Handsome Lech Chiaki Nagoya moves in next door. He gets on Maron's nerves, but Miyako instantly falls head-over-heels in love with him. Soon after, Kaitou Sinbad, another kaitou wielding the same powers as Jeanne, appears on the scene and starts competing with Jeanne to see who can seal the demons first. Finn and Maron wonder who he could be, as Maron was supposed to be the only kaitou. Finn and Maron both conclude that Sinbad must be Jeanne's opposite - a kaitou working for the devil. All may not be as it seems, however....Published in the shoujo magazine Ribon from 1998 to 2000, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne is the first major work by Arina Tanemura. It was adapted into a 44 episode Anime by Toei in 1999. It stands apart from most Magical Girl series by having a Broken Bird heroine, and can be quite a Tear Jerker at times.
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