History Manga / BlackCat

* ADayInTheLimelight: In the anime, Kyoko receives the most character development among all the Apostles of the Stars, featuring several scenes about her lonely life with her parents abroad and her relationship with her JapaneseDelinquent friends and her beloved Train. However, while it leads to a HighHeelFaceTurn as expected, it receives no conclusion at the finale, leaving the entire affair to feel meaningless.

** Eve, Kyouko, and Train get [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of themselves in ''Manga/ToLoveRu''.
*** Understandable, of course, because the two have the same artist, and an assistant on ''Black Cat'' is the writer for ''To-Love-Ru''.

* ShipTease: Train and Kyoko, mostly because he doesn't reject overtly her mad affections as usual in the VillainessesWantHeroes trope and because they share a scene in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue (although in said scene, she just finds one of Train's cats while unaware than the latter is walking away behind her back). He is shown to be mostly uninterested in her, though.

* AnimalMotifs (Oh, have a ''guess''. Here's a hint: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It's right there in the title of the series]].)

* {{Anticlimax}}: In the manga, Train getting turned into a kid via nanomachines is a serious issue, requiring him to visit Eve's creator to figure out how to reverse it. In the anime, Tearju is missing from the series until the anime's GeckoEnding, so Train just...gets better. Somehow.

* AtopAMountainOfCorpses: The lite version. Janus defends Rinslet from a group of 30+ mobsters and is shown afterward sitting on a pile of their mostly unconscious bodies. (A couple are still groaning.)

* FailedASpotCheck: Woodney, the guy who claims to be Number 13, the Black Cat. He speaks with Train, the ''actual'' former Number XIII, multiple times and doesn't notice the fact that Train openly carries a black gun with "XIII" on its barrel and has the same Roman numeral tattooed on his collarbone, always revealed by his loose collar. Sven [[LampshadeHanging even notes]] that Woodley is completely oblivious as to whom he's speaking to.

** Chrono Number II, Berzé, is spotted by Train in a crowd ahead and flash steps behind the group to speak to them.
** Number VII, Janus Hazard, flash steps behind Rinslet while introducing himself.

* GeckoEnding: A very bizarre case, as the anime actually does get to the end of the manga, and then suddenly a new arc comes out of nowhere with only one very minor piece of foreshadowing ([[spoiler: Rinslet finding a CD with the word "Eden" printed on it,]]) to keep it from being a complete AssPull.

* HyperspaceMallet: reconstructed by Eve since the mallet doesn't actually come from hyperspace

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Most hair colors in Black Cat are fine, as it's set explicitly not in Japan. Leon's and Jenos's dark green is probably just stylized black and Echinda was blonde before her Tao mutation, but Sven's green and Rinslet's purple just deny explanation.

[[caption-width-right:300: From left to right: Train, Sven, Eve, and Rinslet.]]

* CaptainErsatz: Many characters appear to have been borrowed wholesale from other manga. Train is a lot like [[Manga/RurouniKenshin Himura Kenshin]], [[Anime/CowboyBebop Spike Spiegel]], and [[{{Trigun}} Vash]]... ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' seems to be the most obvious one: Creed is a bit like Vicious, Jet is like Sven, Faye is similar to Rinslet...

** In the original pitch of the series, Sven had a beard, which was degraded into (still BadAss) PermaStubble.

* TookALevelInBadass: Eve is a textbook example of how to do this the right way through character development. At the start of the series her shapeshifting powers are largely undeveloped and limited to turning her hands into blades, and Eve herself is an emotionless {{tykebomb}} taking orders from a scumbag weapons merchant. By the end of the manga she's [[TakingTheBullet taken a bullet]] and [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow lived to tell about it]], used {{Heroic Resolve}} on at least one occasion, [[ThrowingDowntheGauntlet thrown down a gauntlet or two]], and her developing imagination has shown her dozens of other ways to use her powers. She ends the series as the strongest of the main heroes aside from Train (...maybe) and arguably the most {{badass}}.

* AnachronismStew: The setting the series takes place in has a bizarre mix of different time period tastes despite being located on Earth. People wear either modern or classic clothing, conventional modern and futuristic technology is shown, the locations' architectures overlap in-between early 20th Century to present day, 1950s-style cars are being driven, and '''steam locomotives''' are being used.

* AnachronismStew: The setting the series takes place in has a bizarre mix of different time period tastes despite located on Earth. People wear either modern or classic clothing, conventional modern and futuristic technology is shown, the locations' architectures overlap in-between early 20th Century to present day, 1950s-style cars are being driven, and '''steam locomotives''' are being used.

%%* TheyWereHoldingYouBack

** River's hair was inexplicably turned from blond to ''pink'' in the anime, though. And I think Leon's hair was light purple in the manga...

They would be content to just live out their lives chasing bounties and living a carefree lifestyle, but Train's old life has a habit of catching up to him: former partner Creed Diskenth is attempting to overthrow Chronos and take over the world with his own group, the Apostles of the Stars. And Creed wants Train to join him, no matter the cost. And did I mention that Creed killed the woman who convinced Train to abandon the assassin's lifestyle?

* {{Leitmotif}}: Train has one for whenever he makes a dramatic entrance. And it is [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome awesome]].

%%* TheObiWan: Saya, [[spoiler:complete with ObiWanMoment]].

Not to be confused with the same-named MarvelComics character. Or the horror movie ''Film/TheBlackCat''. Nope, not even Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's poem.

* HandicappedBadass: Kranz is completely blind... [[ImplausibleFencingPowers and can slice bullets in half]]... [[KnifeNut with a knife.]]

* CaptainErsatz: Many characters appear to have been borrowed wholesale from other manga. Train is a lot like [[RurouniKenshin Himura Kenshin]], [[Anime/CowboyBebop Spike Spiegel]], and [[{{Trigun}} Vash]]... ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' seems to be the most obvious one: Creed is a bit like Vicious, Jet is like Sven, Faye is similar to Rinslet...

** Eve, Kyouko, and Train get [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of themselves in ''ToLoveRu''.

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: Numerous times, Train unknowingly causes Creed to be aroused when he kills. In the anime, he even gets turned on when Train smashes his sword with his orichalcum gun. Train even SITS on Creed with his legs spread, and belatedly realizes that Creed is practically having an orgasm over Train's awesomeness, and moaning "Oh Train, you are the best!" (In the English dub: "That's it... my Hartnet..." which is arguably even worse).

* ImplausibleFencingPowers: Creed's Imagine Blade can cut through pretty much anything except Orichalcon (the material the Chronos weapons are made of)--stone, helicopters, whatever. As mentioned before, Kranz is a blind man who can cut bullets apart with a knife. The first appearance of Sephira's weapon, a stylized broadsword, involves her using the blade to juggle a glass of water without damaging the glass or spilling a drop as fencing practice. During Creed's fight with Sephiria, one of his sword strikes hits the floor and tears it up for about 20 feet in front of him, leaving a giant gouge in the floor.

** Several of the the Chrono Numbers also use some really ''odd'' weaponry, including a RazorFloss glove and some kind of bizarre rocket-powered flail. The winner would have to be Number X, Lin Xiao Li, who uses what can only be described as a weaponized ''blanket''. It has Orichalcum fibers woven into it to make it bulletproof and razor-edged... but it's still a blanket, and he still uses it as a weapon. Somehow.

* {{Unobtainium}}: Each Chrono Number has a weapon made of indestructible Orichalcum. Each weapon bears the Number of its user, and has [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic a mythological name]]. Train's gun is called "Hades".

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Anime-only: How Train was shown to be much cooler and {{Badass}} before he became a pacifist.

* ScaryBlackMan: A lot of minor villains fit this trope [[UnfortunateImplications for some reason]].

* ImaginationBasedSuperpower:
** Creed's Tao ability is this. He even calls it "Imagine Blade." His sword's physical presence depends on him imagining it, which means he can control its length by imagining it to be a certain length.
** Doctor has this: his Tao is an AlternateDimension of his creation where whatever he imagines becomes reality.
* ImplausibleFencingPowers: Creed's Imagine Blade can cut through pretty much anything except Orichalcon (the material the Chronos weapons are made of)--stone, helicopters, whatever. As mentioned before, Kranz is a blind man who can cut bullets apart with a knife. The first appearance of Sephira's weapon, a stylized broadsword, involves her using the blade to juggle a glass of water without damaging the glass or spilling a drop as fencing practice.

* LoveDodecahedron: This trope happens to go hand in hand with the AllLoveIsUnrequited trope. It's incredible how intricate and complicated the character's romantic feelings (or lack thereof) for each other are.

* MasterOfDisguise: Lin Shaolee can convincingly make himself look like Train, Creed and a number of other people. His disguises are so good that even when minimal, Train didn't recognize him as [[spoiler: [[PaperThinDisguise Glin]]]]
** A bit funny when you consider that the first time Train meets Lin, who was in a disguise that don't look like him at all, Train recognize him immediately, but when Lin disguised himself as [[spoiler:Glin]], [[PaperThinDisguise he looks like his normal self so much, but this time Train doesn't recognize him. Some kind of inverted effectiveness disguise is working here]].

* MeaningfulName: Saya -- an alternate translation for the name is 'scabbard'.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: Creed plays it a little too straight in his murder of [[spoiler: Saya]] (I've killed her, see, now you can join me!), and when Train still doesn't come around, he [[spoiler: attempts it on Train's [[HeterosexualLifePartners Heterosexual Life Partner]] Sven]].

** Sven wears a fedora. After it's destroyed, within a page he has it back (cited as an "emergency spare").

* OhCrap: Creed, when accidentaly hitting Train with [[spoiler: nanomachine "Lucifer"]] bullet. Again, Creed seeing Train's charging [[spoiler: Burst Railgun]].

* OlderThanTheyLook: Sven, who is comfortably within the CompetenceZone, ages from 28 to 30 over the course of the series. He looks a bit closer to mid 20s, but that doesn't stop him from getting called an old man more often than he'd like.

* PoliceAreUseless: The police in Sangeles City did not notice the completely conspicuously-dressed people that were the Apostles of the Stars. This got them killed.

* PsychoForHire: Subversion. Chronos Numbers Kranz and Baldorias aren’t actually for hire, being as they've worked for Chronos all their life, but they do seem to eh...[[AxCrazy enjoy their work]] [[JerkAss a little too much.]] Also [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Kyoko]] who signed up with Creed so she could [[PyroManiac burn things]], and [[InterplayOfSexAndViolence kiss people]]. At the same time.

* SharpenedToASingleAtom: Eve turns her hair into two blades with the edge only "several microns"-thick in the final assault, but the first time she uses it she overdoes the work and renders two {{Mooks}} naked instead.