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Alice
Alice
Voiced by: Yui Ogura (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English)
The mysterious female protagonist who lives on the third floor above the Hanamaru ramen shop.
- Amateur Sleuth
- Batman Gambit: Alice in the baseball game. To elaborate, her small frame drastically reduced the size of the strike zone, which caused the pitcher to overcompensate on the third strike, resulting in a uncaught third strike. The subsequent fielding errors and delayed reaction from the catcher and pitcher allowed her to push two of her team's players onto second and third.
- I Shall Taunt You: She also mocks them on their mistake while casually walking to first base.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: When she goes out, complete with a cute little hat.
- Expy: Alice is a black-haired modern day Victorique.
- Gamer Chick
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Alice's room is full of them and is rarely seen out without her giant bear. She will go into a panic if her favorites are damaged.
- Hates Baths: At one point, she called Narumi and told him it's an emergency when Ayaka bathed her.
- High-Pressure Emotion
- Hikikomori
- Hime Cut: Level bangs, sidelocks, and long hair.
- Indirect Kiss: In episode 6, Alice sips from a DokuPe can, then gives it to Narumi, and he sips from it. It's not commented on.
- The Insomniac: She suffers from severe insomnia.
- Let Them Die Happy: Inverted, when Alice tells Hakamizaka a few parting words to ensure that he will die in despair.
- NEET
- Ominous Multiple Screens: Alice's room. Her computer monitors and screens are her window to the outside world.
- Parental Abandonment: Alice's parents are never mentioned outside of the novels. In the first novel she claims to have run away and is in hiding, hinting that her family is rich and powerful and intentionally kept her trapped.
- Playful Hacker
- Put Me In, Coach!: In the Baseball Episode, Alice, as the coach, subbed herself in. While completely failing to actually hit the ball, she managed to steal a base, which directly led to a one-point victory.
- The Runaway: She has disclosed that she has never attended school, and that she ran away from home some time before deciding to become a NEET detective.
- Token Mini-Moe: Her age is unknown, but she has the appearance of a 12 or 13 year old.
- Serious Business: For Alice, just about everything is Serious Business... except for stuff that tends to matter for most people, like hygiene or eating properly. Rather, its avoidance is Serious Business, particularly whenever someone else thinks she should do it. The rhetorical webs she will spin to get out of something she doesn't want to do...
- Surrounded by Idiots: Alice generally considers herself to be this, just because nobody can keep up with her intuitive leaps and constant data-digging.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Dr. Pepper. Changed to DoKuPe in the anime.
- Wise Beyond Their Years
Narumi Fujishima
Narumi Fujishima
Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Japanese), Blake Shepard (English)
An ordinary 16-year-old high-school student who lives with his elder sister.- Accidental Pervert: Ayaka starts stripping Alice since she hasn't taken a bath in two days, not noticing Narumi was there.
- The Magnificent: Narumi has just been collecting nicknames.
- Vice-Admiral by Hitoshi
- Gardening boy by Souchirou
- God hand by Souchirou's/his computer illiterate henchmen
- Mr. Assistant by Meo.
- Modesty Towel: Narumi seems to catch girls coming out of the bath constantly, and so has seen this more than a few times.
- Number Two: To Souchirou.
- Ordinary High-School Student: For now, anyway. The others consider him a "NEET-in-waiting" no matter how he protests.
- Power of the God Hand: Parodied, Narumi is called "God Hand" by Souchirou's gang members because they are fantastically computer illiterate and he knows how to run a virus scan, so he inevitably has to fix their computer after they visit too many sketchy porn sites.
Secondary
Ayaka Shinozaki
Ayaka Shinozaki
Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Brittney Karbowski (English)
Narumi's classmate, an active and cheerful girl who works part-time at a ramen shop called Hanamaru.- Driven to Suicide: In episode 10. She survives.
- Genki Girl
- Locked Out of the Loop: Ayaka considering her brother's drug activites. It doesn't end well. She finds out and tries to solve matters on her own... and things get worse from there.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Ayaka takes it upon herself to be this for Narumi because she sees herself in him and is using it to project and manage her own problems through someone else. And then run away from them.
- Ordinary High-School Student
- Stepford Smiler: Ayaka is a Type A, crossing into a painful Deconstruction of the Purity Sue. The novels are much more up front with this about her, compared to the anime which takes its time to present her as anything but a happy, high-spirited Genki Girl.
- Wham Episode: When Ayaka tried to commit suicide in episode 10.
Hiro
Hiro
Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (Japanese), David Matranga (English)
One of the NEET Detective Team members and the only one with a driver's license.- The Casanova: Because of his very handsome and gentle appearance he is quite popular among girls, having numerous girlfriends at the same time.
- NEET
Major
Major/Hitoshi Mukai
Voiced by: Kōki Miyata (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English)
One of the NEET Detective Team members, a university student whose appearance is that of an elementary-school boy.- Brilliant, but Lazy: Hitoshi is supposedly smart enough to be in university, but plans to drop out and become a NEET. The only reason he stays is because their library has all the books on military and political history he needs. He puts more effort into just barely passing the minimum number of required courses to remain a student than some people put into actually graduating.
- Gun Porn: Hitoshi is never seen without a rifle in his hands or wearing military camouflage.
- Mistaken Age: People occasionally mistake Hitoshi for an elementary schooler. He's in university.
- NEET
- Otaku: He is a military otaku who spends most of his time playing survival games.
- Stealth Expert: He's an expert on spying devices.
Meo Kusakabe
Meo Kusakabe
Voiced by: Saki Ogasawara (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)
A fourteen-year-old Thai girl with apparently brown skin whose father, Masaya Kusakabe, is a Japanese man who married a Thai woman who died in Japan.- But Not Too Foreign: Meo is half Vietnamese, half Japanese. In the anime, she's half-Japanese, half-Thai.
- Girlish Pigtails
- Meaningful Name: Meo, is derived from "Maeo" (Thai: แมว; Thai pronunciation: [mæːw]), a Thai word meaning "cat". Her real name is Charuni (Thai: จารุณี), a Thai word derived from Pāḷi, Cāruṇī, meaning a young pretty girl.
Ming Li Huan
Ming Li Huan
Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese), Shelley Calene-Black (English)
The current owner of the ramen shop Hanamaru, the one who takes care of the members of the NEET Detective Club.- Cool Big Sis: Min-li fulfills the role for the team.
- Sarashi: Her undergarment of choice.
- Serious Business: For Min-Li, ramen.
- Tomboyish Ponytail
Renji Hirasaka
Renji Hirasaka
Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese), Mike Yager (English)
The former leader and one of the founding of a young NEET yakuza group called the Hirasaka Group who broke his oath as a sworn brother to the Fourth after their roommate Hisan was supposedly killed.- Cool Shades
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Singer of the ED theme.
Tetsu
Tetsu
Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese), Adam Gibbs (English)
One of the NEET Detective Team members, an ex-boxer addicted to gambling, especially dice games, pachinko, and horse races.- NEET
- The Gambler: He's addicted to it.
Yondaime
Yondaime/Sōichirō Hinamura
Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (Japanese), Illich Guardiola (English)
The head and one of the founding members of a young NEET yakuza group called the Hirasaka Group.- Aloof Big Brother: Towards Narumi, as his sworn brother.
- Anime Hair
- Big Damn Heroes: In episode 3.
- In-Series Nickname: Souchirou is known as the Fourth. Alice gave him the nickname because he hates it and can't stop her from using it, and she thinks that's hilarious.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique
- Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Souchirou is taking his group in this direction, pointing out in Page 5 that they can't survive on shady stuff forever. Though they're not above doing some very family-unfriendly things to people who cross them and the lines they set for their territory (like drug-dealing). Souchirou in particular has more than a little blood on his hands, in the past and from current events.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Souchirou's henchmen are incredibly computer illiterate, to the point where Narumi's basic computer skills have earned him the nickname "God Hand".
Minor
Denchuu
Iwao
Keichi Nemoto
Keichi Nemoto
Voiced by: Taketora (Japanese), Rob Mungle (English)
- Serious Business: Baseball.
- Yakuza
Masaru Handa
Masaya Kusakabe
Mika
Mika
Voiced by: Ikumi Hayama (Japanese), Kris Carr (English)
- Curtains Match the Window: Hair are eyes are the same color.
Miku Kimura
Satoshi Teraoka
Sayuri Kuroda
Shirou Hakamizaka
Shouko Sakuma
Shouko Sakuma
Voiced by: Harumi Sakurai (Japanese), Elizabeth Bunch (English)
- Alliterative Name: Shouko Sakuma
- Compensated Dating: Shouko's chosen outlet for stress, and one of the eventual reasons for her suicide.
- Driven to Suicide: The victim in the first episode.
- Modesty Towel
Tomio Kimura
Toshi Shinozaki
Yoshiki