Black Cat »

Manga

Black Cat, by Kentaro Yabuki, is a manga that originally ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2000 to 2004, with an anime adaptation that ran from 2005 to 2006. It centers around a pair of bounty hunters, 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.

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 we mention that Creed killed the woman who convinced Train to abandon the assassin's lifestyle?

Allied with world-renowned cat burglar Rinslet Walker and living bioweapon Eve, Train and Sven try to live a carefree life even as both Creed and Chronos attempt to drag both into an escalating global conflict.

Now available on Hulu in subbed and dubbed format. (If you live in the U.S.) The manga is licensed for English release by Viz Media and is under their Shonen Jump imprint. It is available on their Shonen Jump app, but the physical volumes are out of print.

Not to be confused with the same-named Marvel Comics character or the manga Dark Cat. Or the horror movie The Black Cat. Nope, not even Edgar Allan Poe's poem.

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This series provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: 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. Additionally, several of the Chrono Numbers appear only in the anime, and Train and Saya's relationship was much more developed.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the anime version, Train's inexplicable recovery from nanomachine-induced Fountain of Youth. In the manga, Train and company track down Dr. Tearju, Eve's creator and "mother," to figure out how to get Train back to normal.
• A Day in the Limelight: In the anime, Kyoko is developed more than any other Apostles of the Stars not named Creed, featuring several scenes about her lonely life with her parents abroad and her relationships with her Japanese Delinquent friends and her beloved Train. However, while it leads to a High-Heel–Face Turn as expected, it receives no conclusion at the finale, leaving the entire affair to feel meaningless.
• All Love Is Unrequited: This series really actually has very complicated romantic relationships, and pretty much every one of them is unrequited. Most of it is Stupid Sexy Train's fault, though...
• Ambiguously Gay: Creed is never stated outright to be gay... but... well, you know.
• A God Am I: Creed in the story´s final.
• Anachronism Stew: 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.
• Animal Motifs: Oh, have a guess. Here's a hint: It's right there in the title of the series.
• The Antichrist: Creed, who compares himself to Lucifer.
• 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 Gecko Ending, so Train just... gets better. Somehow.
• Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain: Most of Chronos numbers, varies Between Unscrupulous Hero, Nominal Hero and Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: A lot of the non-Japanese names in this manga sounds quite funny. But "Tearju Lunatique" takes the cake, as it seems the author just made up a name that sounds "foreign" despite it being rather ridiculous and doesn't have any meaning.
• Assimilation Plot: The anime's Gecko Ending comes from hurling itself into one of these for four episodes. The #12 Chrono Number turns out to be a traitor who's been secretly working on an "ultimate peace" plan for the past 20 years, creating a mechanical lifeform that will use a combination of Tao and nanomachines to infect humanity and reduce them to mindless puppets of its central consciousness, thus eliminating want, war, conflict, etc through the elimination of individual personalities.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: The lite version. Jenos 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.)
• Ax-Crazy: There are a number of these in the series. Creed has more than a bit of Ax-craze, Durham and Gyanza qualify, and two of the Numbers are obviously insane and bloodthirsty, and will even attack their own comrades. Neither Creed's gang nor the Numbers like their bloodthirsty comrades.
  • The two aforementioned Numbers are far and away the most psychotic. At one point in the manga, another number mentions that they’ve wiped out towns in order to kill their target.
• Badass Bookworm: Eve, who reads hundreds of books and remembers each one.
• Badass Longcoat: Belze, Train (while still with Chronos) and Sven (while still with the IBI.)
• Badass in a Nice Suit:
  • Sven.^note Fedora included.
  • Train, on occasion.
  • Even Eve gets a few shots of her wearing Sven's suit.
  • All of the Chronos numbers have some pretty fancy duds, although some (like Belze) obviously take better care of them than others (like Jenos).
• Bad Boss: Creed, although Chronos is rather Machiavellian at times, and Sephiria says that she'll become the devil himself if she has to.
• BFG: Beluga's rather large bazooka, "Verethragna."
• BFS: A very subtle subversion. Creed's Imagine Blade can easily slice through helicopters, but doesn't actually have a blade. It's only the hilt of a blade broken by Saya.
• Big Damn Heroes: Invoked by Train at Professor Tearju's house. After Echidna and the mooks leave Train admits he waited until a critical moment to enter the fight in order to make it more dramatic.
• Big Eater: Train actually manages to use up millions of dollars from hard-earned bounties on food.
• Bishie Sparkle: Charden when he takes off his glasses, Train a few times in his more lighthearted bits.
• Bland-Name Product: The Playcube video game console that Train and Eve use to get a message from Glin.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Train does this a lot.
• Bloody Murder: Charden's Tao power is the manipulation of blood, usually his own.
• Blow You Away: Leon has control over the air.
• Bounty Hunter: The three central characters, plus a lot of secondary ones.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: It is stated that the Doctor's hobbies include playing Go and vivisection.
• Bullet Time: Sven's body is forced into this whenever he uses his "Glaspar Eye".
• Calling Your Attacks: River's Cyclone Grenade punch, a couple of Leon's wind attacks, Sephiria with the Arks Ryūkenjutsu attacks, and a few others, but on the whole it's averted more often than not.
• Captain Ersatz: Many characters appear to have been borrowed wholesale from other manga. Train is a lot like Himura Kenshin, Spike Spiegel, and Vash... Cowboy Bebop seems to be the most obvious one: Creed is a bit like Vicious, Jet is like Sven, Faye is similar to Rinslet...
  • Except for his outfit’s color, Sven might as well be an Expy of Jigen.
  • Eve, Kyouko, and Train get Expies of themselves in To Love Ru. Understandable, of course, because the two have the same artist, and an assistant on Black Cat is the writer for To-Love-Ru.
  • Let's be honest.◊ Who's the first character you think of when you see Creed?
• Care-Bear Stare: In the anime, apparently Train's Orihalcum bullet from his railgun shot against Creed acts as this, causing Creed's sudden Heel–Face Turn.
• Celibate Hero: Train isn't attracted to Rinslet, Kyoko, Creed, or pretty much any girl or guy he ever meets. And even with Saya, it is revealed canonically that he only saw her as a close friend.
• Chick Magnet: Train. Kyoko, Saya (what "close friend" invites a guy to a (romantic) evening looking at fireworks?), and even Rinslet develop very obvious feelings for him. You just know that Jenos wouldn't even have a chance with Rinslet if Train showed at least the smallest sign of reciprocating her feelings.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Rinslet is a beautiful, well-dressed woman who is also renowned as a thief-for-hire.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Kyoko gets hit with a grenade at point-blank range while fighting Belzé, and although she protects herself with her Tao powers, her coat and blouse get torn up.
  • Eve's dress in the final assault loses its sleeves and gets torn a bit on the way to the mansion. The color page in Chapter 160 shows the edge of either a bra or an undershirt.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Apostle of the Stars member Kyoko Kirisaki, who seems to have only the vaguest idea what is going on around her at any given point. It's cool, though, she doesn't let that get her down.
• Compressed Adaptation: The anime, which removes whole arcs, completely rearranges the whole start of the series, and cuts a lot of character development for everyone but Train and Eve, or distilled in a very awkward way. Which is strange considering that the anime is also an example of Adaptation Expansion.
• Contract on the Hitman: Train was an "eraser" for Chronos before he quit to live a life of freedom. Chronos doesn't like that he knows a lot about them and is also alive.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Creed to Train, especially with his attitude towards Saya.
• Crazy-Prepared: Belze´s (Number II) fireproof coat, Sephiria´s (Number I) bracelet. It explodes upon her death, killing the target.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Given the alternate-universe nature of the world it takes place in, this is surprisingly averted. The first scene of the anime (ignoring the foreshadow sequence that precedes the opening sequence) explicitly takes place in a church, with a man praying to Jesus for mercy.
• Cute Bruiser: Eve is tiny, adorable, a bookworm, and she can kick your ass.
• Cute Little Fangs: Train gets one occasionally, to further the cat motif, and Rinslet has one a couple of times.
• Death Dealer: Number IX David Fapper in the anime.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Whenever Train or the other main characters beats one of the Apostles of the Stars, they convince them to give up their life of crime and some even come back to help later.
• Diagonal Cut: Creed cuts a pillar behind Train in Chapter 15 and it slides to the ground. He does the same to an angel statue in Chapter 40.
• Dirty Cop: Most if not all of the police in Champagne City are in league with the local mob.
• Disguised in Drag: Both Train and Sven end up in women's clothing at one point, Train because his body got de-aged for a while and Eve's clothes were all that fit him, and Sven because he had to pose as a woman to lure out a bounty. Attractive Bent-Gender is very much averted, as he points out.
• Disposable Woman: Saya is pretty much introduced just to give a reason why Train is at odds with Creed.
  • More so in the anime than in the manga, where her spirit visits Train and helps him out.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Leon, weirdly: during his fight with Eve, she emerges from underwater transformed into a mermaid, wearing only a Seashell Bra and sporting a surprisingly developed body for her age (however, it may be just her shapeshifting abilities in action). His reaction and the following shot, showing Eve from his perspective, tell everything.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Quite a few fight scenes between Train and Creed, and the dialogue between them doesn't help. "That's it... my Heartnet..."
  • Doctor after he sees the extent of Eve's powers: "My desire to know... is throbbing!!"
• Dog Food Diet: Train and Sven have this (especially in the anime, where it's shown they rely on eating bread crust leftovers from a waitress).
• Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Dean Slakthy is considered so Bishōnen that it's hard to tell he's male until he starts ranting about how much he hates women.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Eve has a particular predilection for black lace dresses, tights and silver cross jewelry.
• Epic Flail: Baldor from Chronos not only uses a flail, but one that is powered by rockets for additional awesomeness.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Train has many female admirers and one very obsessed male admirer who refuses to take "no" for an answer.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Played straight and inverted. Creed just can't understand why Train wouldn't want to join him... or why Train would be upset at all his attempts to Murder the Hypotenuse. Meanwhile, in part due to being Oblivious to Love, and in part due to leaving his own time as a sociopath behind him, Train can't understand just why Creed would do the various evil acts he does throughout the series.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Tao, nanites... whatever can give him power, Creed wants it and wants to use it on his followers.
• Extreme Doormat: Train in the anime was this for quite a few episodes during his time in Chronos.
• Eyepatch of Power: Sven's eyepatch isn't there because he's missing an eye, but because he has a magic seer's eye that can see a few seconds into the future.
• Failed a Spot Check: 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 even notes that Woodney is completely oblivious as to whom he's speaking to.
• Fainting Seer: Early in the series, since Sven never really used his precognitive powers much and doesn't have much control over them, he gets noticeably exhausted no matter what he sees. As the series progresses and control over his abilities becomes more important, he gradually starts to get over the Fainting Seer syndrome.
• Fatal Attractor: Train isn't very lucky when it comes to love interests... this might be a contributing reason to why he isn't interested in romance.
• Feather Flechettes: In one fight Eve grows a pair of wings on her arm in order to do this.
• Flash Step: The Chrono Numbers/Time Guardians are generally shown to be capable of this.
  • Chrono Number II, Belzé, is spotted by Train in a crowd ahead and flash steps behind the group to speak to them.
  • Number VII, Jenos Hazard, flash steps behind Rinslet while introducing himself.
  • Train flash steps into the air above Maro to avoid a palm strike and get around Maro's gravity wall technique.
  • Sephiria has a technique based around this.
  • Eve does one in midair to get behind her cyborg opponent, then proceeds to declare she's done going easy on him and take him out Charizard Seismic Toss-style.
• Flight: Eve can fly once she learns how to shapeshift wings for herself.
• Fountain of Youth: Creed wants to use nanites to make himself immortal forever. Also, Train gets temporarily de-aged by nanites... which is less fun than it seems, since he can't fire his gun properly.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Averted with Charden, who's probably the most sane member of the Apostles. The Doctor, on the other hand, plays this straight.
• Gecko Ending: 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 (Rinslet finding a CD with the word "Eden" printed on it) to keep it from being a complete Ass Pull.
• Gentleman Thief: Rinslet could be seen as a female version of this.
• A Glass of Chianti: Creed has one of these in the manga, complete with a rose in it.
• A God Am I: Creed does this after he uses nanomachines to make himself immortal.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Final few episodes of the anime, during the Eden arc. Train literally calls upon every single character ever introduced that isn't dead and/or directly allied with Mason to assist with Eve's rescue.
• Good-Guy Bar: The bars where Sweepers can trade information on targets.
• Gravity Is Purple: The Brute Maro can both control the gravity around him and project super-dense gravity bombs, which are purple-colored.
• Gun Kata: Train's fighting style.
• Guns Akimbo: Kevin's fighting style.
• The Gunslinger: Mostly Train, but Durham fits the classic Western image (minus the beast mask).
• Handicapped Badass: Kranz is completely blind... and can slice bullets in half... with a knife.
• Handsome Lech: Jenos. He tries so much to be The Charmer, but always fails despite his above-average looks.
• Heel–Face Turn: Eve, Kyoko, and, in the anime, Creed.
• Hellish Pupils: Train's eyes, even in their normal state, are this. Presumably to maintain the "cat" theme.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Sven and Train are definitely this.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Baldor and Kranz definately, Sephiria may even apply, in fact the entire organization of Chronos can pretty much qualify.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Kyoko leaves the Apostles of the Stars with Charden after falling in love with Train (at least in the anime; in the manga, she falls in love with him after leaving them).
• Hitman with a Heart: Train, definitely.
  • Describes most of the Numbers, actually. Except for the Ax-Crazy ones, the Numbers tend to be rather nice, compassionate people (Belze, Jenos, Shaolee, Sephiria) who still kill their targets.
    • 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 Razor Floss for a weapon!
    • Also, Sephiria has some 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 Beware the Nice Ones.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Train manages to eat huge amounts of food (including a giant plate of deep-fried bread crusts) and still remain stick thin.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Reconstructed by Eve since the mallet doesn't actually come from hyperspace
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In this case, "I Am Left-Handed." Although he's trained himself to be ambidextrous, Train switches to his originally dominant left hand in a fight with Creed to incrementally increase his speed.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: 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).
• I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Train is lousy at video games — even first-person shooters and light gun games (the latter particularly perplex him, as he notes the similarity between them and target practice).
• If I Can't Have You…: Creed eventually tells Train that, if Train is unable to "break away from that woman's curse" and join him, he will kill him.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Doctor's Tao is an Alternate Dimension of his creation where whatever he imagines becomes reality.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Creed's Imagine Blade can cut through pretty much anything except Orichalcum (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.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Train can shoot down bullets in midair with ease. In the opening chapter he shoots two bullets down the barrels of his opponent's guns to blow them up, and does it again against Durham. One time during target practice he shoots a can into the air, then shoots it six more times; he is frustrated when there are three holes in the can because it means two out of the six didn't go through the original hole.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Sven's attache case basically contains whatever he needs. It's also a Swiss-Army Weapon with all sorts of useful gadgets.
  • Several of the the Chrono Numbers also use some really odd weaponry, including a Razor Floss 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.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Creed gets really aroused whenever he sees Train go berserk and kill.
• It's Personal: Train's reason for wanting to kill Creed. He gets over it.
  • Eventually Train turns out to want Creed to redeem himself and "rebuild this world as a human." Creed actually pays attention to this, which could be seen as a baby step.
• Just in Time: Train does this a LOT when rescuing people. Quite a few times on purpose, as it is later revealed in a few instances that he had arrived earlier but wanted to wait for dramatic effect.
• Karma Houdini: Train allows Creed (who at least ends up in a psychosis-induced coma), Shiki, Maro, Echidna, The Doctor, Kyoko, and 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.
  • Whether or not it is personally satisfying, it fits with the tone of the manga, given that Train (and some others) sees himself as a Karma Houdini of sorts. He may be doing his best to repent his days as an assassin, but even he thinks he got off pretty lightly.
• Ki Manipulation: "Tao" allows people to access their ki and use it to manifest abilities unique to each person.
• Killing Intent: Strong fighters are generally capable of emanating killing intent. When Train actually gets serious, he releases very powerful killing intent.
  • When Train briefly snaps from thinking about "the old days" in Chapter 9, his killing intent is so strong that all of the guards become frozen in fear before he even steps out from cover, and the floor actually cracks a tiny bit.
    Security Guard: Th-This guy's... a monster... Even if a hundred of us attacked as a group... We'd be absolutely no match....
• The Klutz: Professor Tearju, who also has elements of the Lethal Chef.
• Knight Templar: Chronos is an orginization of these.
• Lady of War: Chronos Number 1, Sephiria Arks. Quiet, dignified, wielding a relatively small, ladylike weapon, and one of the deadliest people in the series.
• Leitmotif: Train has an awesome one for whenever he makes a dramatic entrance.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Eve points this out to Rinslet and Sven at one point in the anime, much to Rinslet's irritation (and Sven's pain).
• Living Weapon: Creed's Imagine Blade is one when it's at Level 2 or Level 3. If the fact that it has a face and occasionally cackles isn't enough of a clue, Creed tells Train it is alive and synchronizes with his mind.
• Love at First Sight: Creed is revealed to have fallen for Train at first sight (as shown in a short excerpt in the manga, where the scene of their first meeting is shown). This also cements Creed's status as a masochist, considering that his first interaction with Train consists of Train glaring disdainfully at him and basically telling Creed to shove off because he's useless to him. And Creed, being Creed, ends up getting aroused by this and becomes Train's Stalker with a Crush.
• Love Dodecahedron: This trope happens to go hand in hand with the All Love Is Unrequited trope. It's incredible how intricate and complicated the characters' romantic feelings (or lack thereof) for each other are.
• Love Martyr: Echidna is this way for Creed. How she can put up with Creed's obsession with Train and insanity is a mystery.
  • She does end up getting him in the end, albeit as a nurse/mommy substitute.
• Magic Bullets: Train never misses his target, or fails to do damage, except when his shooting is used as a Worf Barrage.
• Magical Eye: Sven's right eye, which can see up to 5 minutes into the future (and eventually speed up his perception of motion). Comes with an Eyepatch of Power.
• Master of Disguise: 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 Glin.
  • A bit funny when you consider that the first time Train meets Lin, who is in a disguise that doesn't look like him at all, Train recognizes him immediately, but when Lin disguises himself as Glin, he looks very much like his normal self, but this time Train doesn't recognize him. Some kind of inverted effectiveness disguise is working here.
  • Nothing of the sort. Lin notes that he doesn't need a fancy disguise, since no one knows what he really looks like anyways.
• Meaningful Name: Saya — an alternate translation for the name is "scabbard." She sheathed the sword that was "Train the Assassin."
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Saya is killed by Creed.
• Mood Whiplash: Anime only but seeing Train go from a brooding, Badass Longcoat to a Badass Adorable Idiot Hero at the span of one episode can be quite jarring.
• Mr. Fanservice: Creed likes to wear chest-baring shirts a lot, and even has a long lingering pan of his body as he lounges naked in a bathtub with only strategically placed roses. Not to mention the shot of him getting OUT of the bath.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Creed plays it a little too straight in his murder of Saya (I've killed her, see, now you can join me!), and when Train still doesn't come around, he attempts it on Train's Heterosexual Life Partner Sven.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Jenos Hazard, Chronos' VII, who is depicted as a very dangerous fighter armed with Razor Floss.
  • 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 Meaningful Name (... except that it's Faux Symbolism).
  • What about a guy who goes by XIII?
• Nanomachines: The most commonly used Phlebotinum of the series. They can heal, turn body parts into weapons, mutate people into strange creatures, and in the final battle turns Creed into an indestructible god-man.
• Never Bareheaded: Sven Vollfied never stops doing three things; wearing a hat, flirting, and smoking. At one point the hat gets ruined, but he's got a spare prepared.
• Noble Demon: Charden, the blood-controlling Apostle who realizes that he doesn't approve of Creed's methods. He's still determined to do the right thing for the world, but he has to do it alone. He also jettisons his sidekick Kyoko because he doesn't want her to get hurt.
• Numerological Motif: The top operatives of Chronos are the Chrono Numbers. Train, the titular Black Cat, was XIII. Additionally, Jenos Hazard, VII, can be considered very lucky. Not with the ladies, but professionally speaking.
  • Not just numerological, but time-based as well, as in the hours on a clock. Befitting of a group called Chronos. XIII Is the wildcard.
• Oh, Crap!: Creed, when accidentaly hitting Train with a nano-machine "Lucifer" bullet. Again, Creed seeing Train's charging Burst Railgun.
• Older Sidekick: Sven is one to Train.
• Older Than They Look: Sven, who is comfortably within the Competence Zone, 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.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Chronos are a mysterious organization that secretly control one-third of the world.
• Parrying Bullets: Done with both Tao powers (by Creed and Maro) and several current and former members of the Numbers (Creed and Kranz - the latter who slices them with a knife).
• Partial Transformation: Eve transforms parts of her body into weapons as her main tactic in combat.
• Perpetual Poverty: Train, Sven, and Eve are almost always strapped for money (if it's not because they can't claim the bounty, it's because Train destroyed things or eats too much).
  • And when they do actually score a large bounty, Train will often turn down all but around 20% or less of the reward money...
• Pistol-Whipping: Train's gun even has a cord on it to let him do this from a distance.
• Police Are Useless: The police in Sangeles City do not notice the completely conspicuously-dressed people that were the Apostles of the Stars. This gets them killed.
• Posthumous Character: In the manga, Saya and Lloyd are both only seen in flashbacks (or ghosts/hallucinations on Creed's and Sven's part...)
  • Train and Sven also feel the presence of their deceased friends at appropriate points, although it's left up in the air if it's their actual spirit or just their imaginations.
• Power Limiter: Shiki's mask holds in the great majority of his powers.
• Pretty in Mink: The first episode shows a number of Socialites wearing fur wraps.
• Psycho for Hire: 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...enjoy their work a little too much. Also Kyoko who signed up with Creed so she could burn things, and kiss people. At the same time.
• Raised Hand of Survival: A wall crumbles down on Train, and his arm shoots up out of the rubble before the rest of him follows.
• Razor Floss: Jenos' weapon Excelion uses this. He's capable of slicing stone pillars into rubble and defeating dozens of opponents, although he can also snatch people out of the air without harming them, or tying them up.
• Razor Wind: Leon is able to do this.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the manga, Train delivers one at the end: when Creed is in shock at his defeat, wondering why Train could follow Saya's way of life even though Creed and Train are Mirror Characters, 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 Freudian Excuse and instead tried to make the world better in her own way, without destroying anything.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Train wears a red one in the last four episodes of the anime (episodes 21-24).
• Scary Black Man: A lot of minor villains fit this trope.
• Secret Test of Character: Sephiria tells Kyoko she'll kill her unless Kyoko becomes an eraser for Chronos. In actuality, she knows about Kyoko's promise with Train to never kill unnecessarily again and is testing her resolve to stick to that promise.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: Eve's modus operandi in combat. She starts out only able to turn her hands into blades on account of the lack of imagination that comes with her initial Tyke-Bomb status, but as the series progresses she starts to branch out into other types of transformations, like turning her body into steel, growing wings, turning her hands into shields, and turning into a mermaid. Her ultimate technique turns her hair into a mass of monomolecular blades.
• Sharpened to a Single Atom: Eve turns her hair into two blades with edges 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.
• Ship Tease:
  • Rinslet gets some with Sven in the anime's opening, where she turns angry at him for flirting with a woman in the classic Tsundere fashion. 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 get a lot of it. He doesn't reject violently her feelings as usual in the Villainesses Want Heroes trope, being just uncomfortable with her impetuosity and allegiance to the Apostles of the Stars, and calmly accepts her as an ally when she drops the latter (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 "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, 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 being unaware that he is walking away behind her back).
  • Eve and Leon, as she saves him for no discernible reason (him being an enemy she has never met before) after their first battle and he is later shown to have inner struggles to fight against her.
• Shower Scene:
  • In episode 2 Rinslet gets a Sexy Silhouette while a showering behind a purple shower curtain.
  • In episode 14, Train is seen having a shower at the end. When he comes out, he is only wearing a towel◊
  • Rinslet gets a shower scene as well in chapter 85, showing off her Toplessness from the Back and Sideboob.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Creed is "Train-sexual." Train could be a man, woman, cat, three-eyed Martian and Creed would still be hot for him.
• Something about a Rose: 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.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: At the end of the first episode, Train is having a flashback about when his parents died, to the tune of Konoyo no Uta (the song Saya sings).
• Spell My Name With An S: Sven Vollfield/Borfield/etc, Sephiria Arks/Axe, Jenos/Janus, Sharden/Chalden/etc, Lin Shaolee/Xiao Li, Grin/Glin/Green...
• Specifically Numbered Group: Chronos Numbers go from I to XII, with Train (XIII) being a special case (The reason is that Chronos means 'time' so, twelve members for each hour and XIII is a special agent so wouldn't count with the rest of them).
• Sprouting Ears: Again, Train in more lighthearted moments.
• Stalker with a Crush: Creed is reeeaally interested in Train and refuses to accept that Train just ain't interested. If Train says no, Creed thinks he must be being influenced by someone evil. Kyoko becomes a more humorous example after her Heel–Face Turn.
• State Sec: Chronos has got this one covered.
• Stripperiffic: A one-off nameless character that Charden and Kyoko run into. Kyoko asks her if she's cold, since she dresses so skimpily. (And then refers to her as "the girl that's cold all the time" before burning her to death.)
• Super-Reflexes: Train has an absurdly fast reaction time and the agility to act on it. Other fighters do as well, but not to his extent.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: Eve's shapeshifting powers wind up turning into this as her imagination develops and she thinks up new ways to make herself useful.
• Team Dad: Sven often scolds Train and sometimes Eve for their immature behavior, worries a lot about Eve's well-being, and is usually the one thinking most about the logistics of their survival. Lampshaded by Train after he and Eve escape from Doctor's "Warp World" and meet up with Sven:
  Train: [Off-screen] Daddy!!
  Sven: Dad...? [Turns around]
  Train: I have lots of owwies, too! Worry about me, Daddy Sven!!
• Technical Pacifist:
  • Train, which is why he will occasionally throw his gun instead of firing it. Even when he does fire, it's usually something like a "freeze bullet" that doesn't kill but immobilizes.
  • All the sweepers go to extreme lengths to avoid actually killing anyone, regardless of how much they deserve it. This is explained by a rule that says if anyone dies during the capture, they only get half the reward (except for the highest class of criminals, usually violent murderers).
  • Even some of the Chronos Numbers, who are assassins, avoid killing. Jenos manages to slice up and pile up a large number of attacking thugs without actually killing them, and Shaolee prefers to slice off hands or guns rather than actually kill (and he likes manipulating people bloodlessly even more).
    • ... though as mentioned earlier, Shaolee really comes across more as needlessly cruel and does end up destroying his targets (but they're actually cyborgs... and the transformation was voluntary).
• Technicolor Eyes: Notable in that for the most part, Black Cat is pretty good about using realistic hair colors. Eye colors, however, not so much.
• Teen Genius: Professor Tearju graduated from university when she was 14. With a double Ph.D.
• They Were Holding You Back: Creed's stated excuse for killing Saya, and the reason he gives for trying to kill Sven and Eve. Honest to an extent, although it does leave out Creed's other primary reason for trying to kill everyone around Train.
• 13 Is Unlucky: Train has the Roman numeral for 13 etched on the side of his custom-made gun. He also has it tattooed on his collarbone. His catchphrase is "I'm here to bring some bad luck."
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Train practises this after the first few chapters.
• Took a Level in Badass: 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 Tyke-Bomb taking orders from a scumbag weapons merchant. By the end of the manga she's taken a bullet and lived to tell about it, used Heroic Resolve on at least one occasion, 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.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Train is pretty much a milk junkie.
• Trick Bullet: At several points, Sven makes these for Train to use. Despite using firearms himself, though, Sven just uses standard bullets.
• Trigger-Happy: Train, although, being a pacifist, he's the non-lethal kind.
• Tsundere:
  • Rinslet is reduced to this in the anime, rather than the kickass thief out for herself. In addition, instead of having 'dere moments for Train she has them for Sven or Jenos.
  • Train himself is definitely one as well (though most notably in the anime).
• Tyke-Bomb: Eve and little Train
• Unexplained Recovery: After getting age regressed by nanomachines, Train has to seek out Dr. Tearju in the manga to help him get back to normal. In the anime, he sort of just goes back to normal after a while because the writers apparently needed to save Tearju for the Eden arc.
• Unguided Lab Tour: Rinslet sneaks into Tornero's lab to steal information and discovers human experiments that look like chimeras.
• Unobtainium: Each Chrono Number has a weapon made of indestructible Orichalcum. Each weapon bears the Number of its user, and has a mythological name. Train's gun is called "Hades".
• Villainous Breakdown: 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.
• Villains Out Shopping: Kyoko does this a lot.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Eve's body is filled with and even produces nanomachines, which allows her to transform part or all of her body however she wants. She can turn her hands into weapons or a shield, grow somehow-functional wings, form her hair into fists or blades and move them around, or turn her body into solid steel. Doing a lot of consecutive full-body transformations, however, will leave her completely exhausted.
• We Can Rule Together: Creed spends the ENTIRE SERIES telling Train this. Train doesn't seem tempted.
  • Another example occurs during Charden and Kyoko's fight with Belze, with Charden attempting to get Belze to defect from Chronos with this as the motivation. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't work.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Train's cat-like, yellow eyes. Both Creed and Saya mention how beautiful they are.
• What If?: 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 and was sent to kill Eve?"
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Durham's answer to a lot of things is to simply shoot them. It comes back to bite him.
• Wicked Cultured: Creed is definitely one of the more "cultured" characters in the series.
  • Lampshaded by the author in a side story where he's enjoying a glass of wine in rich surroundings... and goes bananas because of a cockroach.
• Yandere: Creed certainly goes crazy whenever anything has anything to do with Train. He loses all sense of rationale despite normally being a calm, Manipulative Bastard.
• You Can't Fight Fate:
  • Sven may be able to see the immediate future, but he's never been able to actually change the outcome. Although given the very limited timeframe he can actually see, it's debatable whether it's because You Can't Fight Fate, or because it just happens too quickly for anyone to be able to do anything about it.
  • Lloyd could originally see further in the future, but explicitly chose not to fight it in at least one instance... which is how Sven got his eye in the first place.
• You Have Failed Me: Happens to various people like Durham whom Creed killed because he left on his own, screwed up and vowed to kill Train and Gyanza 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 stopped killing his targets.

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