History Manga / BlackCat

Now available on [[http://www.hulu.com/black-cat Hulu]] in subbed and dubbed format. ([[NoExportForYou If you live in the U.S.]])

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Sven to Train, Rinslet to Jenos. Remember that the receivers are Chronos numbers.

* NiceHat:
** Sven wears a fedora. After it's destroyed, within a few pages he has it back (cited as an "emergency spare").
** Charden wears a top hat.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: [[SharpDressedMan Charden Flamberg]], [[AxCrazy Kranz Maduke]], [[PosthumousCharacter Zagine Axelox.]], [[TeamDad Sven Vollfied]] and [[IdiotHero Train Heartnett]] all have very cool sounding names.

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

* KnifeNut: Kranz from the Chrono numbers wields a vibrating knife as his primary weapon.

* {{Bishonen}} : [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/train-animestocks-090.jpg Train]], [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackcat_creed_25.jpg Creed]], and [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/janus.jpg Jenos]] may all fit this description. The winner of them all is chipper assassin [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lin_shao_lee_grin.jpg Lin Shaolee]], who is the prettiest person in the series (including the girls).
** What about [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charden_6779.jpg Charden?]] Kyoko goes all blushing fangirl when he takes off his glasses the first time.

* 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 Echidna was blonde before her Tao mutation, but Sven's green and Rinslet's purple just deny explanation.
** Also, Kyoko, who is explicitly stated as being from the in-universe equivalent of Japan ("Jipangu"), [[AvertedTrope does have black hair and dark eyes]].
** River's hair was inexplicably turned from blond to ''pink'' in the anime, though. And Leon's hair was light purple in the manga...
** The eye colors, however, are [[TechnicolorEyes considerably less realistic...]] (Orange, red, yellow, gold, pink, purple...)

* BaldOfAwesome: Nizer is bald, and he is awesome.

Not to be confused with the same-named Creator/MarvelComics [[ComicBook/BlackCatMarvel character]] or the manga ''Manga/DarkCat''. Or the horror movie ''Film/TheBlackCat''. Nope, not even Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's poem.

* BadassBeard: Many male characters have beards, and most that do are good guys.
** In the original pitch of the series, Sven had a beard, which was degraded into (still badass) PermaStubble.

Not to be confused with the same-named Creator/MarvelComics [[Characters/MarvelComicsBlackCat character]] or the manga ''Manga/DarkCat''. Or the horror movie ''Film/TheBlackCat''. Nope, not even Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's poem.

** Eve does one ''in midair'' to get behind her cyborg opponent, then proceeds to declare she's [[IAmNotLeftHanded done going easy on him]] and take him out [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Charizard Seismic Toss]]-style.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: [[SharpDressedMan Charden Flamberg]], [[AxCrazy Kranz Maduke]], [[PosthumousCharacter Zagine Axelox.]], [[TeamDad Sven Vollfied]] and [[IdiotHero Train Heartnett]] all have very cool sounding names.

* AllLoveIsUnrequited: This series really actually has very complicated romantic relationships, and pretty much every one of them is unrequited. Most of it is [[StupidSexyFlanders Stupid]] [[EvenTheGuysWantHim Sexy]] [[CelibateHero Train's]] fault, though...

** 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''.

* EffeminateMisogynisticGuy: Dean Slakthy is considered so {{bishounen}} that it's hard to tell he's male until he starts ranting about how much he hates women.

* FountainOfYouth: Creed [[spoiler:wants to use nanites to make himself immortal forever.]] Also, Train [[spoiler:gets temporarily de-aged by nanites...]] which is less fun than it seems, since he can't [[spoiler:fire his gun properly.]]

* HeelFaceTurn: Eve, [[spoiler:Kyoko]], and [[spoiler: in the anime, Creed.]]

*** Also, Sephiria [[spoiler: has some [[ManipulativeBastard Manipulative Bitch]]-like tendencies: such as reminding Train about what happened to Saya so he would hunt down Creed, using the Sweeper Alliance as a decoy, knowing full well that some of them might die and acting like a total bitch towards Rinslet. Her polite moods are a reminder to BewareTheNiceOnes.]]

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Train allows [[BigBad Creed]] (who at least ends up in a psychosis-induced coma), [[TheDragon Shiki]], [[TheBrute Maro]], [[TheDarkChick Echidna]], [[EvilGenius The Doctor]], [[PyroManiac Kyoko]], and [[NobleDemon Charden]] to escape]]. Whether getting the crap beaten out of them first and (in some cases, at least) finding a new lease on life is enough of a punishment is left up to the reader.

** She [[spoiler:does end up getting him in the end, albeit as a nurse/mommy substitute.]]

* 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 doesn't recognize him as [[spoiler: [[PaperThinDisguise Glin]]]]

** Although in French, "hasard" just means "fortune", which is consistent with his first name (spelled Janus in the French edition, as in the Latin deity) and makes it a regular MeaningfulName (... except, WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic)

* PsychoForHire: Subversion. Chronos Numbers Kranz and Baldorias aren’t actually for hire, being as they've worked for Chronos all their lives, 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.

* SuckMyRose: Creed carries a rose many times, and sometimes even puts it in his wine (in the manga). This is exaggerated in the anime, where he even lies in a bath of roses.

* 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.

* {{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".
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:Creed. The breakdown's so bad that in the end, he can't even move or talk, although both Echidna and Train imply that he can get over it]]. He does seem to improve a little just at the thought that somebody cares about him without his power.

* WhatIf: The anime works as a What If story to the manga in some ways, starting with "What If... Train had met Sven while still an assassin [[spoiler:and was sent to kill Eve?"]]
* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Durham's answer to a lot of things is to simply shoot them. [[YouHaveFailedMe It comes back to bite him]].

* YouHaveFailedMe: Happens to various people like Durham [[spoiler: whom Creed killed because he left on his own, screwed up and vowed to kill Train]] and Gyanza [[spoiler:who wasted all his power until he died.]] Also happens in a much lesser way to Train during his Chronos days, when he was imprisoned for awhile because he [[spoiler:stopped killing his targets.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In the manga, Train delivers one at the end: [[spoiler: when Creed is in shock at his defeat, wondering why Train could follow Saya's way of life even though Creed and Train are NotSoDifferent, Train notes that Saya had just as terrible a life in her past as both Train and Creed. She just refused to use it as a FreudianExcuse and instead tried to make the world better in her own way, without destroying anything.]]

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

* 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.

''Black Cat'', by Kentaro Yabuki, is a manga that originally ran in [[Magazine/ShonenJump Weekly Shonen Jump]] from 2000 to 2004, with an anime adaptation that ran from 2005 to 2006. It centers around a pair of {{bounty hunter}}s, also known as "Sweepers", Train Heartnet and Sven Vollfied. Perpetually struggling for cash and jobs, they each harbor a secret: Sven is a former agent of an international police force, and Train used to be XIII, a deadly assassin for the world-spanning organization Chronos.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackcat.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:L-R: Train, Sven, Eve, and Rinslet.]]

* ColorAnimalCodename: Train Heartnet himself as the Black Cat, of course.

* ColorAnimalCodename: Train Heartnet himself as the Black Cat, of course.

''Black Cat'', by manga artist Kentaro Yabuki, centers around a pair of {{bounty hunter}}s, also known as "Sweepers", Train Heartnet and Sven Vollfied. Perpetually struggling for cash and jobs, they each harbor a secret: Sven is a former agent of an international police force, and Train used to be XIII, a deadly assassin for the world-spanning organization Chronos.

* AdaptationExpansion: At the cost of cutting out certain aspects of the manga plot, the anime added an entire arc towards the end of its run that sought to tie together the significance of Eve's origins and the work Dr. Tearju did, along with providing some background on The Doctor. Add to that several of the Chrono Numbers who appear in the anime only and it's kind of sad that they had to sacrifice much of the manga's character development. It truly could have been awesome. On the other hand, Train and Saya's relationship was much more developed in the anime, making Train's motivation more moving.

* BigEater: Train actually manages to use up millions of dollars from hard earned bounties on food.

* DeathByOriginStory: Saya Minatsuki.

*** Err... in the manga at least, Shaolee ''seems'' kind of nice and caring, especially to River and the Sweeper Alliance thing, until you finally see him fight... and gratuitously dismember one of his opponents, leaving him alive long enough to tell him basically "well, aren't you just unlucky to fight ''me''." ''Then'' he kills him. Jenos is freaked out, which tells you something for a Number. And Jenos is a guy who uses RazorFloss for a weapon!

* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Creed gets really aroused whenever he sees Train go berserk and kill. Uh, REALLY aroused.

* LittleMissBadass / LittleMissSnarker: These tropes ''are'' Eve.

** Rinslet gets a shower scene as well in the tenth manga volume, showing off her bare butt and sideboob.

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

** Despite the one-sided nature of their relationship, Train and Kyoko get a lot of it. He doesn't reject openly her mad affections as usual in the VillainessesWantHeroes trope, being just uncomfortable with her allegiance to the Apostles of the Stars, and calmly accepts her as an ally when she drops it (he even takes a bullet meant for her, and in the manga he states outright he wishes to protect her). Later in the manga, when Train is confronted by two doppelgangers of people he cares about in the Doctor's warp world, one of them is Saya and the other is Kyoko of all people. Finally, the anime shows them sharing a scene in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue, where he seems to have moved to the same city as her (although in said scene, characteristically, she just finds one of Train's stray cats while unaware that he is walking away behind her back).

** Rinsley gets some with Sven in the anime's opening, where she turns angry at him for flirting with a woman in the classic {{Tsundere}} way. This is a marked contrast to the anime itself, where she only gets tease with Jenos and even ends up dating him, and to the manga, where she has a brief crush with ''Train''.
** Despite the one-sided nature of their relationship, Train and Kyoko gets a lot of it. He doesn't reject openly her mad affections as usual in the VillainessesWantHeroes trope, being just uncomfortable with her allegiance to the Apostles of the Stars, and calmly accepts her as an ally when she drops it (he even takes a bullet meant for her, and in the manga he states outright he wishes to protect her). Later in the manga, when Train is confronted by two doppelgangers of the people he cares about in the Doctor's warp world, one of them is Saya and the other is Kyoko of all people. Finally, the anime shows them sharing a scene in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue, where he seems to have moved to the same city as her (although in said scene, characteristically, she just finds one of Train's cats unaware than the latter is walking away behind her back).
** Eve and Leon, as she saves him from no discernible reason after their first battle and he is later shown to struggle to fight her.