Manga / Mission: Yozakura Family

Just your average family of superspies.^note Clockwise from the top: Futaba, Shion, Goliath, Nanao, Mutsumi, Taiyo, Kengo, Shinzo, Kyoichiro.

Taiyo Asano is an Ordinary High-School Student with a sad past; his entire family was tragically killed in a car crash, with Taiyo the only survivor. Afraid of getting close to anyone, the only person he can confide in is his Childhood Friend and love interest, Mutsumi Yozakura, who promised that she would never leave him.

Unfortunately for him, their friendship becomes complicated when their teacher threatens to kill him for being so close to her.

Turns out, Taiyo's only friend is anything but ordinary; she's actually the the heir of a family of super-powered super spies infamous throughout the world of espionage. That murderous teacher? Mutsumi's hyper-overprotective Knight Templar Big Brother, who would rather kill his baby sister's only friend then risk her getting in danger of any kind.

But Taiyo's had enough of losing the people he cares about, and resolves to get out of the situation the only way he can — marry Mutsumi by taking the ceremonial rings passed down for generations, making him an official member of the Yozakura family.

Now, Taiyo must get to know his new, extremely eccentric in-laws, and quickly learn the art of espionage in order to protect the girl he loves.

Written by Hitsuji Gondaira, Mission: Yozakura Family (夜桜さんちの大作戦) is a Shonen action Romantic Comedy that began running in Shonen Jump in August 2019. After a time-skip, the focus of the manga changed to Taiyo and Mutsumi's kids, Hifumi and Alpha, as a showdown with the Yozakura's greatest enemy fast approaches.

An anime television series adaptation by SILVER LINK. is set to premiere on Hulu (in the US) and Netflix (internationally) on April 7, 2024.

---

Mission: Yozakura Family contains examples of:

• Acquired Poison Immunity: Part of the family's training is to cook their meals with small doses of poison to gradually build up an immunity. Of course they tell that to Taiyo after he's started eating.
• A Day in the Limelight: Each and every Yozakura member gets one of these as the series goes on, usually between major story arcs.
• Air Vent Escape: In classic spy fashion, the Yozakuras often find themselves entering and leaving facilities by crawling through the air ducts. But the story points out how cramped these things usually are, and the Yozakuras are trained to dislocate and relocate their own bones at will in order to fit. Unfortunately for Taiyo, he's not nearly as well-trained and recoils in pain when he performs a Dramatic Dislocation.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Hazakura drug developed from the blood of Mutsumi's mother is able to give anyone the powers of every single member of the Yozakuras at once, albeit watered down compared to the real thing. Even still, it's enough for one spy to easily overwhelm Taiyo and manage to injure Shinzo.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: The one and only rule in the Yozakura family is that family members cannot kill each other under any circumstances. This rule is what convinces Taiyo to marry Mutsumi, as it was the only way he could protect her and himself from Kyoichiro's wrath.
• Appearance Angst: Nanao's Yozakura talent manifested in his body's ability to adapt to nearly any poison and constantly strengthen itself to protect him from harm. As a result, he possesses a hulking physique and is three meters tall. He has to take special medicine to shrink himself down to his original size to actually go to school and knows that he has to stop going once the medicine stops working. His strange genetics led him to feel alienated from other people, particularly from the girl he has a crush on, Kitasato.
• Artistic License – Biology: It's stated that the largest concentration of someinine, the compound produced by the Yozakura head in their blood, is produced and most concentrated in the heart. However, blood and all its related components are actually created in the bone marrow, not the heart.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: After being taken to the Yozakura mansion, Taiyo tries to rationalize his situation by thinking it's a prank show and grabs a nearby gun thinking it's a water gun. He then points it into the air and squeezes the trigger, putting a hole in the ceiling in the process. As any gun user would know, it's important to assume that every gun is real and every gun is loaded, as Shinzo tries to tell him before that happens.
• Badass Family: The Yozakuras are a family of international superspies who all have superhuman powers and prowess.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: None of the Yozakuras are slouches, but they all have their quirks (i.e. Kyoichiro is one of the best spies in the world but also a Knight Templar Big Brother, Nanao is a Gentle Giant who constantly wears a bucket on his head while Futaba dresses in gothic lolita).
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Taiyo is on the receiving end of most of the story's slapstick.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Mutsumi is so used to being the target of assassination plots that she chastises her brother for misleading Taiyo by giving him a gun, as it wouldn't help against the bombs or poison her assassins tend to use.
• Changing Yourself for Love: Downplayed. Taiyo and Mutsumi are married in the first chapter in order to get Kyoichiro off their backs. But Taiyo soon realizes the magnitude of the danger Mutsumi is constantly in and decides to become a superspy strong enough to protect her and be worthy of being her husband against the expectations of others.
• Childhood Friend: Taiyo and Mutsumi have been friends ever since they were little, but they only became truly close after Taiyo defended her from bullies teasing her for her hair.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Taiyo and Mutsumi have known each other since they were kids and end up getting married in order to escape Kyoichiro's wrath.
• Chucking Chalk: In "Dozing Off", Kyoichiro throws chalk at the speed of sound to "wake up" Taiyo in class after multiple all-nighter missions leave Taiyo drained. The chalk buries itself in the locker behind Taiyo when he dodges in a nick of time.
• The Coats Are Off: Taiyo takes off his blazer and undoes his tie before preparing to face off against Alexandryu for the sake of preventing the unwanted arranged marriage between Shinzo and Katana.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the Yozakuras is associated with a particular color, which shows up in their hair and eyes.
  • Taiyo - Red.
  • Mutsumi - Deep blue.
  • Kyoichiro - Black.
  • Futaba - White.
  • Shinzo - Green.
  • Shion - Pink.
  • Kengo - Yellow.
  • Nanao - Teal.
• Cowardly Lion:
  • Taiyo is the Only Sane Man and thus easily spooked, but if he's on assignment and/or protecting Mutsumi, don't be surprised if you're suddenly hit with his 2-million-volt Lightning Gun.
  • Shinzo is also shown to be this, desperately hiding in his trash can even as his gadgets pop out of it to wreak havoc on everything in the area.
  • Nanao boasts monstrous Super-Strength that allows him to flip over a sixteen-wheeler with ease, but is shown to be shy enough to hide behind Mutsumi when first meeting Taiyo.
• Curtains Match the Windows: All of the major characters have matching hair and eye colors. For instance, Taiyo has red hair and eyes while Mutsumi has blue hair and eyes with the exception of that one white streak.
• Cuteness Overload: When Taiyo is turned into a baby in Chapter 60, the entire family is smitten by his cuteness. Even The Stoic self-proclaimed Child Hater Shion and the antagonistic Kyoichiro couldn't bring themselves to remain indifferent to him. Futaba even quotes the trope verbatim when Ayaka keels over, asking if she stopped breathing from cuteness overload.
• The Daily Misinformer: Spy Day is the spy world's most popular tabloid. While it has a vast network of connections privy to the deepest, darkest secrets of the highest profile spies, it's just as prone to publishing libelous articles to sell papers when it can get away with it. Alexandryu, the magazine's editor-in-chief, regularly threatens his detractors with "social annihilation" to blackmail them into doing what he wants.
• Deadly Training Area: The Yozakura's entire mansion is this. The AC emits nerve gas, every stairwell and room is booby trapped, the food is poisoned and there's a complex lock on the bathroom door. Even the alarm clocks are rigged to explode after ten seconds.
• Dissonant Serenity: Due to coming from a family of superspies, the Yozakuras and Mutsumi in particular can discuss the most outlandish things with the straightest face. For instance, Mutsumi casually mentions that Shion forces her brothers to play games with her until they collapse from exhaustion and packs guns and grenades into their lunches.
• Dungeon Bypass: Shinzo upped the Yozakura's booby traps in the first chapter in an attempt to keep Kyoichiro out, but the latter was so pissed at Taiyo that he simply tore through all of them instead of dodging them.
• Establishing Character Moment: Taiyo is introduced sitting glumly at a desk and constantly shuddering as his classmates try to get him to hang out with them. He begins to froth at the mouth soon after he declines their invitations.
• Everyone Knows Morse: All of the Yozakuras are proficient in Morse and they also teach Taiyo. They can do it so rapid-fire that Kyoichiro can essentially send creepy texts to Mutsumi in class by tapping chalk on the board.
• Eyes Always Closed: Kyoichiro's eyes are always shut, emphasizing his shiftiness as well as his barely contained bloodlust.
• Family Theme Naming: All of the Yozakuras have a number in their name.
  • Kyoichiro as in "One".
  • Futaba as in "Two".
  • Shinzo as in "Three".
  • Shion as in "Four".
  • Kengo as in "Five".
  • Mutsumi as in "Six".
  • Nanao as in "Seven".
  • Even Taiyo gets in on this despite not being born into the family, as he's the fourth-eldest son by marriage. The "Yo" part of his name is homophonous to the Japanese word for "four."
• Fantastical Social Services: The Spy Foundation runs an orphanage for the children left behind when their spy parents are killed as well as orphans taken in by spies on missions. In addition to being an Orphanage of Love, many of the orphans are taught the skills necessary to become spies themselves so they'll find employment once they come of age.
• Food as Bribe: Hifumi attempts to get Alpha to play with her by offering him his favorite apple pie with extra butter and sugar. He's tempted to take that offer until he remembers that he's angry at her and refuses.
• Finger Poke of Doom: When Taiyo catches Sosuke spreading rumors about him and Mutsumi behind their backs, he offers to let Sosuke off with just a finger flick because they're friends. Sosuke thanks Taiyo for his kindness right before Taiyo's finger flick buries Sosuke in the nearest wall.
• First-Name Basis: Taiyo and Mutsumi are on this with each other, showing how close they are given how Last-Name Basis is standard in Japan. The Yozakuras also initially refer to him as "Asano", but switch to Taiyo once he marries into the family.
• Gamer Chick: Shion is one, to the point that she can hack anything by having a program convert its OS into a video game for her to beat to take control of it.
• Gentle Giant: Nanao is massive and imposing with the Super-Strength to match, but he's also incredibly shy and kind, trying to hide behind the much smaller Mutsumi when speaking to Taiyo. He's also the family's doctor and prescribes drugs to help them stave off exhaustion.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Taiyo starts putting himself down, Mutsumi gives him a chop to the face to snap him out of it. Futaba repeats this when he works himself to the breaking point in an effort to become strong enough to protect Mutsumi.
• The Grappler: Futaba spends much of her battles beating her foes black and blue with her ribbons as a Dance Battler. But when she has her opponent in her clutches, she doesn't hesitate to twist them into an immobile ball.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Zigzagged. Taiyo puts himself through hell to train and become strong enough to protect Mutsumi. His single-minded devotion to this goal is what gets him to work to the point of collapse, but at the same time he clears every trap in the Yozakura mansion in a single month. But even then, it isn't enough for him to handle more experienced spies and he quickly gets his ass kicked. It's also discussed; Futaba while trying to dissuade Taiyo from pushing himself too hard tells him that even though she went on her first mission at the age of six, it still took her three years of training before she was prepared even with her talent.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Kyoichiro is a world-class spy, but he also uses social media constantly, which is why people learn about Taiyo's and Mutsumi's marriage. Taiyo is shocked on how many professional spies use social media when he looks at Kyoichiro's phone.
• Government Agency of Fiction: Hinagiku is a special intelligence branch of the Japanese government founded and run by Rin Fudo. They handle under-the-table work for the Japanese government beyond the scope of regular law enforcement, such as tackling terrorists and rogue spies.
• Honey Trap: A spy was once dispatched to seduce Taiyo and get him in a compromising position that could be used to publish slanderous articles about him. It fails because said spy made the mistake of calling herself a fan of the Yozakuras, resulting in Taiyo prattling on for hours about Yozakura family stories and how much he loves his family. Eventually, the spy couldn't take it anymore and left.
• Idiot Hair: One strand of Taiyo's hair sticks up and curls around.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: In the beginning of the manga. Taiyo appreciates it when people reach out to him, but he's so terrified of losing them that he shirks any and all social interactions to the point of passing out. This quickly goes away after spending some time in the Yozakura household.
• Implacable Man: Even with his five siblings ganging up on him all at once, the worst Kyoichiro gets is a few scuffs on his suit as he easily repels all of them. According to Shion, all five of them have only won thirty percent of their fights with Kyoichiro, and there's an 85 percent chance that someone will need six months of recovery time and a 25 percent chance the house will burn down.
• It's All My Fault: Taiyo blames himself for his current predicament and is constantly apologizing to people for troubling them, ignoring how his Ax-Crazy brother-in-law is the one who started this whole mess.
• Living MacGuffin: Mutsumi is this for the Yozakuras, as she will be essential for producing the next generation of Yozakura superspies. Naturally, their rivals will do anything to get their hands on her to produce their own superspies or kill her to end the Yozakura family.
• Locked into Strangeness: A streak of Mutsumi's hair turned gray after the incident that drove her brother mad to protect her and refuses to be dyed.
• Loophole Abuse: The ironclad rule of the Yozakura family is that family members may not kill each other. To get Kyoichiro to stop trying to kill him, Taiyo agrees to marry Mutsumi by wearing her cherry blossom ring.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Kuroyuri heavily implies that the accident that killed Taiyo's family was actually a murder. Shion later discovers from Kuroyuri's optical data that Taiyo's parents had attended the ninth head's wedding reception and hidden data of Taiyo's father in the Library of the Dead reveals the family was purposely eliminated by an organization called Tanpopo for a yet undisclosed reason.
• Marriage of Convenience: Downplayed. Taiyo genuinely loves and cares for Mutsumi to the point of being willing to jump off a building to protect her from a bomb attached to him, but they wouldn't have gotten married if her older brother hadn't forced their hand by nearly killing Taiyo.
• Medicinal Cuisine: Mutsumi sets out to make a traditional Yozakura manju bun to help treat the Heroic RRoD Taiyo is experiencing after being dosed with her blood to give him the powers of a Yozakura. The ingredients are downright lethal, including potassium cyanide, poisonous pufferfish, and hydrochloric acid, and it's fully intended to knock the consumer out on consumption. It works as intended after Taiyo manages to help her finish it, though it still knocks him unconscious in the process.
• Miserable Massage: Futaba heads to the mall to get a massage done by her usual masseuse. Said masseuse is a hulking ex-spy old lady who massages Futaba so intensely that the person in the next room wonders if they're bending steel pipes. The experience is relaxing for Futaba of course, but it's blatantly clear that anyone who isn't at least as tough as she is would be in for a very bad time.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Taiyo doesn't get noticeably brawnier after his Training from Hell, but it's obvious that he's nearly superhumanly strong when he can stop people from falling down the stairs with a single hand and toss a baseball across an entire field with pinpoint precision.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Yozakura's daily routine is this. Need to change the channel? You better be able to hit the remote with a pistol from 100m away. The food? Poisoned to give you diarrhea. Hope you have the skills to crack a multi-layered lock to get to the bathroom. Waking up? Hurry up. The alarm clock is set to blow in 10... 9... 8...
• Next Sunday A.D.: Implied by the "Annoying and Gross Spy" ranking, which shows the winners from 2020 to 2023.
• Nice Guy: Taiyo is a little dour, but ultimately a kind person who won't hesitate to put his life on the line for the people he cares about.
• Noiseless Walker: The Yozakuras can all do this due to being an entire family of superspies. Taiyo learns to do this as well, which creeps people out as they mistake him for some kind of ninja.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Makoto attempts to break Taiyo by showing him the memories of the founder of the Yozakura Family's wish to die and destroy the Yozakuras, claiming that both of them have been toys of the Yozakura family as men who had nothing until they were used as pawns for the Yozakuras' ends. The pain of having all these memories shoved into his head paralyzes Taiyo, but all it takes is feeling Mutsumi's heartbeat and will through his ring for him to get back into the fight.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Ayaka ambushes Taiyo in the bath, she ends up electrocuting herself by accident. In his rush to save her, Taiyo ends up on top of her while naked... just as Kyoichiro shows up.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: The Yozakuras are all zany Bunny-Ears Lawyers who repeatedly drive Taiyo up a wall with their weirdness and quirks. Despite this, they appreciate how much Taiyo means to Mutsumi and all of them (save Kyoichiro) accept him as a member of the family without hesitation. Heck, the only one this trope really counts for is Kyoichiro, and the family also find him obnoxious (especially Mutsumi).
• Older Than They Look: Despite being half Mutsumi's size and dressed in gothic lolita clothing, Futaba is Mutsumi's older sister. Goliath, too, is a specially bred dog that was originally their great-great-grandmother's pet.
• One Head Taller: Taiyo is this to Mutsumi after his Training from Hell. The two of them were closer in height before then.
• Only Sane Man: Due to not being born into a family of superspies, Taiyo reacts appropriately to the insane antics he gets into.
  Mutsumi: [after telling Taiyo about her family's work] Ahh, it was such a pain to keep quiet all these years. I feel a weight off my shoulders. I'll go make some tea.
  Taiyo: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!!! Spies?! What? What the heck?! Don't just say that like your family runs a grocery store!
  Mutsumi: Isn't it kind of the same thing? Instead of handling radishes and eggplants we handle guns and intel.
  Taiyo: It's not the same thing!! It's different, right? Huh?! I can't tell anymore!
• Ordinary High-School Student: Taiyo starts out as this, but it goes right out the window after he marries into the Yozakura family and goes through Training from Hell.
• The Power of Love: Taiyo is willing to put himself through intense punishment out of his love for Mutsumi to the point of using drugs to forgo sleep and train as much as possible. He continues doing this until his body gives out and he collapses from exhaustion. Futaba even notes that Taiyo's love for Mutsumi is bordering on insanity for him to withstand all of this. Even so, the dedication his love gives him allows him to clear all of the Yozakura's traps in a single month when it took them years to do the same.
• Product Placement: The Nintendo Switch shows up often on covers, and is the gaming console of choice for most of the cast, both protaganists and antagonists alike.
• Properly Paranoid: After being assigned to guard her while Kyoichiro is at work, Taiyo notices that Mutsumi never eats anything she's given right away and never goes anywhere by herself out of fear of the assassins constantly after her life.
• Razor Wire: Kyoichiro's preferred weapon is Steel Spider, a set of gloves that produce seemingly endless amounts of wire that can rip apart an entire mansion. In addition to tearing things to ribbons, Kyoichiro also has a enough precision with them to interfere with the wiring of a bomb, catch people who are falling to their deaths, restrain people without harming them, and fling said bomb to another building with pinpoint accuracy.
• Rude Awakening: The second chapter opens with Kyoichirou looming over Taiyo's bed and stabbing at him before yanking him out as Taiyo's house explodes.
• Running Gag: When some new gadgets and devices are introduced, the descriptions include some standard explanation of the devices...and a non-sequitur comment.
  Yozakura Loungewear: Blade-resistant, bullet-proof, super-lightweight and machine-washable.
  Black Cherry Blossom Telephone: A hotline for just the family. You can't use it to call out, with the exception of making a delivery from the neighborhood ramen shop.
• Sanity Slippage: Kyoichiro's possessive behavior began after one of his mistakes nearly cost his sister's life, making him an insane siscon who is willing to keep her in a Gilded Cage in the name of ensuring her safety and murder people she loves to make her comply with his wishes. The Yozakuras hope that with Taiyo marrying Mutsumi, Kyoichiro will be finally able to let go of his obsession and return to normal.
• Sauna of Death: While vacationing at an inn for the weekend, Taiyo, Shinzo, Kengo, and Nanao get into a contest over who can last the longest in the inn's sauna, which goes up to a blood boiling 300 degrees Celsius. Taiyo and Kengo immediately feel like they're melting once the temperature gets up to 200, while Shinzo manages to hold on. Nanao is in similar discomfort, but decides to cheat by using his mutated form, which can adapt to heat better. He ends up winning after lasting 60 minutes in the sauna, while Shinzo lasts 50 minutes, Taiyo 15 minutes, and Kengo just 12 minutes. The sign on the door even warns patrons to be careful about burning themselves to death.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The poster for the anime shows Taiyo shooting at the viewer.
• Secret Path: The Yozakura mansion is littered with secret passageways in the walls and ceilings that allow one to move from one room to another without being seen. Kyoichiro uses them as part of his constant stalking and watching over her, but the other Yozakuras also use them to spy on each other sometimes, either to prank or the eavesdrop.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The story of Sosuke Michibata, a wallflower who is such a living Perception Filter that his effectiveness as a spy is based on the fact that people barely even notice he exists. His encounters with Taiyo and Mutsumi seemed to be on the way to change that, as Taiyo saw his skills as impressive and Mutsumi is enough of a Nice Girl to remember Michibata. But then she sees that he has many candid photos of her and she promptly tells Taiyo to shock him.
• Shotgun Wedding: Taiyo is targeted by Kyoichiro for assassination for the crime of being Mutsumi's Childhood Friend. Despite the Yozakuras' best efforts to stop Kyoichiro, Taiyo decides that the best way to protect himself and Mutsumi is to agree to marry into the family to exploit its Ape Shall Never Kill Ape rule. Kyoichiro even tries to stop them by binding Taiyo's hand with Razor Floss, only to be taken completely by surprise when he grips it in order to get Mutsumi's ring around his finger. Unlike most examples of this trope, the relationship is a happy one despite Mutsumi's hesitation over Taiyo's long-standing trauma.
• Shrinking Violet: Taiyo is so terrified of social interaction that he froths at the mouth and passes out after the shortest social exchanges. This is because he sees himself as a Doom Magnet and fears that he'll lose everyone he cares about. He mostly gets over it out of necessity after being married into the Yozakura family.
• Sole Survivor: Taiyo is the only survivor of the accident that killed his parents and little brother — which we later learn wasn't an accident at all.
• Starts with Their Funeral: The first scene of the series has Taiyo at his family's funeral.
• Stern Teacher: Ritsu Katai is a newly hired teacher at Taiyo's and Mutsumi's school who is obsessive about manners and discipline to the point of confiscating Mutsumi's ring even though it wasn't against dress code. Katai justifies this by saying that there are unwritten rules that should be followed and that Mutsumi's ring and chatter with Taiyo are "indecent".
• Super Costume Clothier: The Yozakuras make all their gadgets, including their work clothes, in-house to keep up with their superhuman spy shenanigans. The loungewear that Taiyo gets is sewn to be bulletproof and blade-resistant while being as lightweight as normal clothing. Kyoichiro is later said to have sewn clothes with the same level of protection for his four-year-old his niece and nephew after the Time Skip.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: After Mutsumi is kidnapped by Hanawa, Taiyo and Kyoichiro raid a trafficking facility to try and find information on their whereabouts. Despite being told to control himself, Taiyo's Big Brother Instinct takes over when he hears that a kidnapped little girl is going to be taken to "hell". He breaks his cover and ultimately short-circuits the entire facility to save her, costing him his lead on Mutsumi's location. Luckily, the little girl they saved had seen Mutsumi get loaded into a truck, allowing the Yozakuras to track her down anyways.
• Tea Is Classy:
  • The Yozakura family are the top of the underworld's elites, and the eldest, Kyoichiro, is particularly fond of drinking imported expensive teas. He is also the classiest among the siblings (if one looks past his sister complex), never seen without a formal suit and tie, and enjoys reading while having his tea.
  • The second oldest, Futaba, as well. She is always wearing Elegant Gothic Lolita dresses and kimonos, and her hobbies include calligraphy and sewing. Her favourite beverage is green tea, and when she serves as an examiner during Taiyo's silver-rank exam, she conducts a tea ceremony and challenges the examinees to drink her tea without getting blown away by her techniques.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Momo Yozakura, the Yozakura siblings' father, knows them all so well that he leaves a recording of himself speaking to them as though he were in the same room as all of them, having mimed out the entire conversation in his head. He predicts all of their words and gestures down to the second, showing that he does love them despite his actions as part of Tanpopo under Obfuscating Insanity to fool Asa.
• Training from Hell: To avoid being dead weight in a fight, Taiyo puts himself through the rigors of the Yozakuras' training regimen despite lacking the supernatural abilities that let them handle it. Deconstructed when he collapses from exhaustion after three weeks of this training and he only cleared it with help from Shion's analysis, Shizo's practice, Nanao's medicine, and Kengo's fake skin to hide his wounds. It ultimately pays off, as he quickly becomes a Master of Disguise with a measure of Charles Atlas Superpower.
• Trap Master: Shinzo is in charge of the Yozakura's booby traps and throws up as many of them as he can when Kyoichiro is on the warpath. Shion also ups the difficulty of the house's traps after Taiyo successfully completes all of them.
• Twice Shy: Taiyo and Mutsumi are close and comfortable enough with each other to regularly defy this. However, Mission 14 shows the pair completely fall apart into blushing dorks who can't look each other in the eye when Taiyo gifts Mutsumi with a rose. By the Time Skip, this is no longer the case, as Taiyo and Mutsumi become parents to a pair of twins.
• Underestimating Badassery: Following a five-year Time Skip an ex-gold rank spy named Hydra estimates that he'll be able to beat Taiyo should he be deprived of Yae. But said spy underestimates what five years of experience as spy would do for Taiyo's abilities especially after his Blooming has strengthened to the point that Hydra's bladed Combat Tentacles all shatter harmlessly against Taiyo's skin and clothes. He soon realizes that Taiyo has forged his entire body into a weapon right before Taiyo ends the fight with one punch.
• Unnervingly Heartwarming: Dr. Kawashita congratulates Shirai on her recovery from her terminal illness several years after she left the hospital. While normally this would be a heartfelt moment, he does so while standing in front of dozens or hundreds of bodies that break apart with the slightest pressure after being treated with Hazakura like her. He then cheerfully informs her that he had the Asanos who worked so hard to get her treated murdered to hide the evidence and tells her to cherish the life they gave her, all while she's staring in wide-eyed horror at him.
• Used to Be More Social: Taiyo used to be an ordinary, outgoing kid who loved video games. But the trauma of losing his entire family in a single night from a fatal car accident has made him a recluse who struggles to interact with people. This changes as he interacts with the family — and learns that the car wreck was no accident.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 48 reveals that the Tanpopo agent that injured Taiyo is the Yozakura family's father.
• Wham Shot: In Chapter 45, the terrorist organization Tanpopo sends their elite agent after Taiyo and Shinzo, the panel zooming in to show that this agent possesses one of the Cherry Blossom Rings of the Yozakura family.
• What Does She See in Him?: Kyoichiro is constantly asking this question after Taiyo and Mutsumi agree to marry.
  Kyoichiro: [chewing on his own Razor Wire] Such an admirable girl... S-She's such a sweet girl... So why... is she with this guy.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: The Yozakuras make their own gadgets with the money they get from their jobs. Shinzo made the "Rope Man Belt" that can be used to rappel down a building, Shion builds her own robots, Kengo creates fake skin that can be used for Latex Perfection as well as a lockpick disguised as a normal hair, and Nanao is a doctor and a chemist who creates drugs that can stave off exhaustion.
• World of Badass: Anyone can be a spy if you look hard enough. That little kid down the street? A Hollywood Hacking specialist. The nice guy running the bubble tea stand? Sells bullets in exchange for blood, eyeballs, or cash. Even the dolphins at an aquarium can be spies.
• You Are Already Dead:
  • The modus operandi of Tanpopo's mysterious agent, shooting someone several times with such skill that they don't realize they're injured until several seconds later. Taiyo experiences this first hand and is only saved by the Yozakuras' medicine and Shinzo's immediate first aid.
  • After the Time Skip, Kyoichiro reduces a group of bounty hunters to giblets with a single motion. Said bounty hunters only have moments to realize they've been cut before their bodies fall to pieces.

---