Natsuki, Kotono and Misaki
Kotono Hayama is a young girl who lives with Joshua in a church. She and her best friend/admirer, the wealthy Natsuki Shirafuji, help out at the Kuroki Detective Agency. Their story begins with children being kidnapped, with a certain boy, Ewan, being the culprit. Kotono befriends him, and he bestows upon her the power to transform into a Magical Girl.
As it turns out, the Reverse Corporation, a nefarious group of tarot card users, has been scouting out Arcana City to find Ewan for their boss, President Kurtz. Kotono, Natsuki, and a strange newcomer named Misaki Hijiri form the Goth Loli Detective Agency to solve the city's problems as Black Loli, White Loli and Red Loli.
Saint October was an Anime First series by Konami, airing for 26 episodes from January to June of 2007.
- Note: all uses of the word "loli" within this series and its trope examples on this page are in the sense of Elegant Gothic Lolita, not the other meaning.
Tropes in Saint October include:
- Accidental Misnaming: When Suzukichi and Osuzu deliver a tape with a warning message to Kotono and company from Esmeralda, none of them can remember her name. She's accounted for this.
- Almighty Janitor: Eddie Tsukahara, Reverse's janitor, is able to repair Kotono's broken Justice card with no ill effects. He's Ewan's and Kurz's father and also heavily implied to be god.
- Avenging the Villain: Esmeralda is Herlock's kid sister, set to get revenge on Kotono for killing him.
- Bears Are Bad News: Played straight with a bear that attacks Kotono and Ryouhei on their camping trip, but it turns into an Androcles' Lion for Misaki. She befriends the bear and names him Hiroshi Piroshiki Romanov. He even becomes her mount!
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: President Kurtz is a bit of a weirdo. He experiments with random things in his office, seemingly unfazed by anything. But when he gets mad, he gets Laughing Mad.
- Butt-Monkey: Koshiro Kuroki, the (former) owner of the detective agency. He is useful a few times, but is generally on the receiving end of bad luck and punishment.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: The three Goth Loli Detectives have long, elaborate phrases when they transform.
- Catchphrase: Whenever Misaki is called "Misaki-chan", she responds with "Don't call me '-chan'."
- Cannibalism Superpower: Kurtz eats Ewan in slate form to gain his power and become king of the world.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Averted; when Kurololi hangs over liquid iron, she faints from the heat alone.
- Dissimile: One Enemy of Kotono's reasons of staying loyal to the Reverse Company is they have taken away a (literal) curse of bad luck from him. After he lists some of the things which have been happened to him, she replies with: "It's like a bargain sale of bad luck! Only nobody's buying anything".
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: They are the Goth Loli Detectives.
- Face–Heel Revolving Door: Ryouhei starts off as not affiliated with Reverse at all, joins them, is convinced to turn away, and then rejoins when the mass brainwashing begins.
- Imaginary Love Triangle: Cecil, a fellow student of Kotono's, thinks she's in love with Ryouhei, and even gets tarot powers to take her down. When it turns out they're not close at all, Cecil lets Kotono purify her.
- Indecisive Parody: When the show tries to be serious and deliver Wham, rest assured a major Mood Whiplash will follow.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Sophia is in love with Kurtz, and suffers for it.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Ash is Kotono's father. Joshua took her in because Ash was a neglectful parent who tried to hurt his own daughter once he got his hands on tarot powers.
- Morphic Resonance: When Suzukichi and Osuzu transform from sparrows into humans, they're still very visibly sparrowish.
- Morph Weapon: Misaki's arrows are incredibly versatile, transforming into whatever she calls out.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Kafka, a familiar of some sort.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Kurz is an amusing version of this. Most of the time.
- Premiseville: It's called Arcana City, and there are tarot cards involved.
- Spell My Name With An S: Various translations disagree on names like Elrock/Harlock/Herlock and Ewan/Juan.
- Super-Empowering: Ewan and Kurtz, being slates, can give the power of the tarot cards to anyone else.
- Taking the Bullet: H.P. Romanov takes a few arrows for Misaki in episode 25. Her brother did the same thing in her backstory.
- Tarot Motifs: All magical powers in the show are drawn from tarot cards. Reverse holds most of them.
- Team Pet: Two. Nike the parakeet and Xupery the cat.
- Theme Naming: There are two patterns to the girls' names. Kotono, Natsuki and Misaki spell out "Konami". There's also "Hijiri" (聖), the "To" in Kotono (小十乃) and the "Tsuki" in Natsuki (菜月), which together spell out 聖十月, the Japanese translation of "Saint October".
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cake, for all the Goth Loli Detectives. Joshua makes them a new one every episode.
- Transformation Sequence: A little more visceral than the usual magical girl fare. Fruit pulp covers their bodies and transforms them into their outfits.
- Trauma Conga Line: Kotono's whole life prior to the series, and in the finale.
- Undying Loyalty: Ash lives for Kurtz.
- Wham Episode: In Episode 12 Kotono finds out getting hit with Judgement for a second time averts Non-Lethal K.O.
- Wham Line: Did you become so possessed with power that you forgot your own daughter?
- Would Hit a Girl: Joshua. He slaps Kotono in the face in episode 2, and then fights her.
- Verbal Tic: Esmeralda exchanges all "shi"s for "chi", such as calling herself "atachi", and ends every sentence with "de chi".
