Characters who appear in White Cat Legend.
Main Characters
Li Bing
- Affectionate Nickname: Chen Shi refers to him as "Catty Lord" and he doesn't even try to correct the other.
- Awesome by Analysis: He leads the case division in the court and he's incredibly sharp when solving each one.
- Badass Adorable: Li Bing is smart, acrobatic and good at using weapons in a fight. Despite his no-nonsense demeanor, he's still a furry, human-sized cat with a round, fluffy head and big eyes.
- Benevolent Boss: After everyone gets over the shock of seeing him as a cat, they welcome him warmly and he treats his colleagues well. During one of his first cases when he solves it and tells the man how his brother died, instead of jailing him for causing a disturbance, he instead banishes him from the city and assures him he and his family will be reimbursed for his brother's death as well as docking the pay for the construction worker who didn't fulfill his duties.
- Catapult Nightmare: The dreams he has of his family usually cause him to wake up jerking up from his bed and in a cold sweat.
- Cat People: He is this, though apparently not by choice. He gets fairly annoyed by his colleagues who treat him as a cat and give him gifts cats would like since he's human.
- Cats Are Mean: Subverted and downplayed. Li Bing is made out to be a bloodthirsty criminal at the start of the series, but he turns out to be faking it in order to test his candidates' loyalty. He's not exactly easy to get along with, but there's a reason he's the Vice Minister of Justice.
- Cute Monster Boy: he a cat demon but he isn’t bad-looking.
- Does Not Like Spam: He doesn't like the radishes in his soup and often asks Chen Shi to tell the chef to not put any in. The chef refuses his request.
- The Faceless: The audience is never fully shown what his human face looks like.
- Forced Transformation: It's hinted at that his transformation into a cat was not by choice. When he doesn't take his medicine on time, he not only starts to act like a feral cat, he also transforms back into his human form until he takes it again.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: He carries a sword on his person and is a very skilled warrior.
- Mysterious Past: Besides the fact that he's apparently paying for the "sins" of his family, and he was once a soldier serving under commander Qiu, much of his past remains as one of the big mysteries of the story.
- Mystical White Hair: His human form has this.
- Not So Above It All: Despite his serious demeanor, he does have moments where he lets loose. Like stopping an attempted assassination by shredding the assassins' clothes and looking smug about it afterwards.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When he forgets to take his medicine, he starts acting more like a wild, feral cat which leads to everyone panicking.
- Recurring Dreams: He constantly dreams of his family members screaming at him for betraying them.
- Sins of Our Fathers: He's made to eradicate the people in his family, as well as being turned into a cat through experimentation by the Empress because his family turned against her.
Chen Shi
- Audience Surrogate: He serves as one.
- Chekhov's Gun: He gifts Li Bing with a flask shaped like a fish so he can carry his medicine with him if Chen Shi isn't around. He ends up forgetting it accidentally in the final episode of the season, causing Chen Shi to try and find him before he goes feral again.
- Country Mouse: He came from the country side in order to search for his brother, so he not only doesn't speak proper, he also can't read a lot of characters that everyone else in the court can.
- Determinator: No matter how demanding or stressful a situation, he is determined to see it through no matter how much pain it puts him through.
- The Illegible: His handwriting is atrocious, and only Alibaba can understand it.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Chen Shi is prone to this, notably able to have snot come out of his nose despite not having one. In one instance when he cradles a dying Li Bing tears run down his face and into his mouth, making it look like he’s drooling.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: He's fond of cats, which might explain why he refers to his superior Li Bing as "Catty Lord". Chen Shi takes care of a stray kitten and brings it with him while working, but it promptly gets thrown out by Li Bing.
- Never Learned to Read: Coming from the country-side, he has very little knowledge in literature.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Chen Shi’s face is drawn incredibly simple compared to the other characters’, having only a mouth, two dots for eyes and no nose. His face is so distinct that it becomes a clue to finding his lost brother, who is a dead ringer according to the numerous residents who knew him.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Although he never met his brother, when he asks around, the two of them apparently look really similar to one another.
- Undying Loyalty: Although he's already loyal to a fault, he's especially loyal to Li Bing and does whatever he can to make the life of his lord easier.
Case Division
Wang Qi
- Ambiguously Gay: He don’t mind cross-dressing and he may have a thing For Cui Bei like calling him “cute”.
- Butt-Monkey: Usually deserves it when he's inflicted with some kind of misfortune or pain.
- Disguised in Drag: He does this a lot when pulling off certain schemes. Any time he dresses up as a woman, things will go bad for him, whether it's getting beaten up for causing trouble for everyone else or taken as a hostage by a serial killer.
- The Gadfly: Wang Qi’s M.O. is to cause trouble either to lighten the mood or because he feels like it. He kept causing trouble ever since he was a little kid.
Alibaba
- Big Ol' Unibrow: His M-shaped unibrow goes all across his forehead, and while he tends to serve the purpose of a comic relief, he arguably gets less of those moments than his fellow co-workers, especially Wang Qi.
- Bishie Sparkle: When he's first introduced, he gives off this effect to go along with his glistening eyes.
- Determinator: When it comes to exams, Alibaba is hell-bent on making sure he passes, even if he failed two times before and later gets taken hostage by bandits. He doesn't pass the third time either, but there's always next year.
- Non-Idle Rich: If he wanted, he could have spent the rest of his life swimming in a pile of riches and luxuries, and his family would be more than happy to provide him with that. The reason he rejected his life of luxury and travelled to China was to start a new life on his own.
- Odd Name Out: His name and appearance clearly shows how different he is from everyone else around him.
- Spoiled Sweet: He lived in the lap of luxury as a prince, but decided to strike out and make a living on his own. He's nothing but kind and helpful and he prefers to keep his status as a prince a secret. He even offers to pay for anything Chen Shi would like during the festival because he had no money.
Sun Bao
One of the largest people who work in the case division and is close friends with Wang Qi.
- The Big Guy: He's the tallest and burliest out of everyone else working in the case division.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: Despite being the biggest guy around, he's apparently afraid of ghosts and gets easily scared.
- Religious Bruiser: He's shown to be a very religious man and he can really pack a punch.
Cui Bei
- Born Lucky: For as much trouble Cui Bei gets into because of his Doom Magnet properties, it's also because of those properties that he's still in one piece. Who else has been kidnapped by a gang of bandits, a tiger and a trio of thugs in one day and lived to tell the tale?
- Chekhov's Gunman: Cui Bei doesn't see much action after his first appearance, but his bad luck is what stops Yi Zhihua from making his escape (though he still got away because nobody took into account that he's apparently immortal).
- Cursed with Awesome: Causing natural disasters around your friends? Pretty bad. Doing the same for your enemies? Pretty awesome.
- Defeat Means Friendship: He's beat up by Wang Qi as he comes to collect him as the Transcriber for the Dali Court and Wang Qi has stuck to him ever since.
- Doom Magnet: Anyone or anything who comes close to him experiences bad luck and misfortune. Funnily enough, Wang Qi is the only one unaffected by this.
- The Eeyore: He talks in a deadpanned and sad tone, and given he brings misfortune wherever he goes, it's not hard to understand why he acts this way.
- Personal Raincloud: He has one follow him overhead wherever he goes. If Cui Bei wallows in his sadness for long enough, the raincloud grows into a giant thundercloud.
- Pretty Boy: His looks are noted upon, from Wang Qi calling him "cute" to the three bandits who tried to kidnap Alibaba wondering if they could sell him with his good looks.
The court of Wu Zetian
Empress Wu Zetian
- Cute and Psycho
- It's All About Me: The main reason she does anything is for her own amusement or benefit. She even changes the new year celebration date so it falls onto her birthday. Also, when she doesn't get whatever she desires, she starts throwing a childish tantrum.
- Lack of Empathy: Empress Wu Zetian does not care much for what happens to her followers. When Li Bing is stabbed in the gut during his battle with a four-armed demon, she applauds the "show" they were putting on and orders the clearly distraught audience to "cheer up".
- Manchild: She throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t have her way, and she’s pushing 70.
- Older Than They Look: She is 68 years old, but looks and acts like an eight-year-old.
- Stepford Smiler: She rarely loses her smile, but when she does, she looks utterly terrifying.
- Tantrum Throwing: When her advisor tells her they can't celebrate her birthday openly because they don't have a lot of money, she asks him to repeat that... before tearing up and throwing herself onto the floor.
Soldiers
General Lang
- Ambiguously Brown: She's one of the more darker skinned characters in the story.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Whatever inconveniences the citizens of Luo Yang encounter, they can bet their asses General Lang will be there to lend a hand. Exaggerated when Lang is tasked to prevent would-be criminals from committing crimes on Wu Zetian’s birthday, and arrests anyone who makes the slightest of misdemeanors, including a dog marking its territory.
- Crush Blush: Her face visibly flushes around General Qiu.
General Qiu Shenji
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Easily takes out three of the bandits holding Alibaba hostage without breaking a sweat.
- Four-Star Badass: General Qiu is a strong and competent man, being able to leap several feet in the air off a horse's back and elbow another person down to the ground in mid-air.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: It’s safe to assume the real General Qiu earned his rank of a Four-Star Badass, but he most likely was not capable of throwing an adult man 10 metres away one-handed or leaping high into the air and elbowing a giant cat person down to the ground like his animated counterpart is.
- Non-Standard Character Design: While the series's cast of characters has a slightly toony look to them, General Qiu has a more realistic design that would fit right in in the average anime.
Others
Yi Zhihua
- Ambiguously Human: His unnaturally sharp teeth and affinity for human flesh would be reason to assume he's more than just a human. However, one time he falls face-first on the pointy-end of a knife and is presumed to be dead, but later turns out to still be alive and manages to escape from the authorities while their backs are turned. Some of his dialogues with Li Bing imply he might be a cat demon under the guise of a human.
- Ax-Crazy
- Green and Mean: His main colors are green and he seems to enjoy killing people.
- I Am a Humanitarian: He's seen mostly eating raw animal meat, but he'll also settle for human meat on some occasions. Then again, he might not be human at all.
- Perpetual Smiler: He never loses his cheshire-like grin whenever he's on screen.
- Professional Killer: He was apparently hired by General Qiu on personal jobs.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Just so happens to be a notorious criminal who has green eyes and red hair. He also turns out to be immortal, making him stand out even more from the rest.
- Slasher Smile: His default expression, showing his sharp pearly whites on full display.
