Bloody Monday

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

24... In Japan!

A deadly viral outbreak in Russia somehow comes to the attention of "Third-I", a top secret Japanese investigative group under the Public Security Intelligence Agency, and their top hacker, student Fujimaru "Falcon" Takagi. Through a complex and disturbing web of deceit, lies and covert-ops, Takagi and his friends must help Third-I prevent a dangerous cult from initiating their "Bloody Monday".


Tropes used in Bloody Monday include:
  • A Child Shall Lead Them - J and K are both children, well....
    • And our beloved Falcon ends up commanding a squad of Third-I when things get really nasty.
  • Action Girl: Aoi, the second-placed Karate champion in Japan.
    • There's also Minami, who is a fully-trained Third-I officer.
  • Adults Are Useless - And how.
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Bittersweet Ending: Japan is saved from the terrorist attack. But Fujimaru lost two of his best friends. Maya goes into hiding but realizes that she's broke.
  • Blood From the Mouth / Eye Scream - the plague-like symptoms of BloodyX
    • As it turns out, most of the deaths from Russia were due to radiation poisoning; BloodyX was designed to have similar symptoms in order to cover this up.
  • Bodyguard Betrayal: Sayuri Hosho, the Third-I agent who is assigned to watch over Fujimaru and Haruka while their dad is on the run.
  • Cain and Abel - subverted with the actual Cain and Abel sisters who love each other dearly, played straight with J and his older half-brother, Otoya.
  • Clear My Name: Ryuunosuke Takagi.
  • Damsel in Distress: In the first season, Haruka is kidnapped three times and exposed to Bloody-X once. She gets less kidnap prone in the second season, though.
  • Extreme Graphical Representation - Done with images of a falcon flying through corridors of data.
  • Fan Girl - Anko really does admire Falcon's work... maybe a bit too much. And she's the head of a crazy cult. Great...
  • Five-Man Band - The Newspaper Club.
  • Gambit Roulette - How the hell did they know she was going to be handcuffed to that exact pipe?!
    • The Third-I chick was just one of the moles within the group and they had worked it out before hand. Though that
  • Genki Girl - Anko. Which goes out the window whenever she's doing something as "K".
  • Gorn - You know what this manga needs? More people vomiting blood.
  • Guile Hero - Falcon often figures out what his opponents are trying to do, and regularly comes up with counter-plans to manipulate them to his advantage. The success rate, on the other hand, is iffy at best because his opponents are Magnificent Bastards in their own right.
  • Heel Face Turn - J tells Falcon about the bomb.
  • Hellish Pupils - Falcon and his dad get freaky cat's eyes when they tap into their Badass Normal powers.
    • And look at the eyes of anyone who's in full-on cultist mode. Scary!
  • Hollywood Hacking - Computer security is portrayed accurately, with bad guys employing tools that would give the NSA fits -- but which takes the Falcon five minutes to crack the Third-I mainframe, including a two minute bathroom break.
  • Hot Teacher: Maya Orihara, at first.
  • I Know Mortal Kombat: Turns out all those helicopter sims Fujimaru used to play were close enough to the real thing.
  • I Know You Know I Know - Pretty much applied liberally between Falcon and J.
  • Ill Girl - Haruka. The enemy often takes advantage of this, even in the second manga. She's on her way to recovery in the second season, though, indirectly via Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Sasha, one of the Russian agents employed to help Third-I, uses this to force Anko's "mom" to talk.
  • Just a Kid - Why Judas kills K.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters - The series start off as just a few high school kids trying to outsmart a teacher. Later on we have more than a dozen of main characters. The story reaches a point where if a minor or secondary character appears at least once then they'll play a larger role in the future. Heck by the end of the manga we still have new major characters appearing.
    • Chapter 86[1] shows you how large the current cast of main and secondary characters is. That's excluding all the dead and minor characters.
    • And now there's a whole new group of terrorists, the Shooter of the Magic Bullet, in the sequel of the manga.
  • Long Lost Sibling: J aka Jun Kanzaki is actually Otoya's half-brother
  • Manipulative Bastard - J. The things he manages to pull off get pretty ridiculous.
  • Meaningful Name - The cult has loads of these, with the prominent members getting names based on figures from the bible. Most of the names are significant of their character, but the biggest example would have to be Judas. In retrospect, having a guy with that name around as a trusted disciple was a pretty terrible idea - but not for the guy who originally gave him that name.
    • The organization Third-I is actually a word play on the concept of Third Eye. [2]
  • Mission Control: Kirishima and Fujimaru.
  • Oblivious Younger Sibling: Subverted for Haruka. Though Fujimaru and Ryuunosuke tried their best to keep Haruka from getting involved in the trouble that they've gone through, she is still aware that they're up to something. In the last season, she is aware that Fujimaru is involved with the hostage situation.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat - tries to take over the unit handling the BloodyX case while the unit runs an elaborate Xanatos Gambit behind his back.
  • Omnicidal Maniac - Jack Daemon, a former SWAT team member.
  • Path of Inspiration - The cult.
  • Rapid-Fire Typing - Done by all the hackers during the tense moments. Averted in some cases where the hacking is done by software loaded in a USB key.
  • The Rival - Hornet, who doesn't show up until Chapter 84.
  • Rule of Cool - While Falcon is described as a "wizard" class hacker in-universe, many of his feats are impossible in reality given the time it takes to accomplish it, or the computing power required to accomplish such feat in that time frame. Or simply impossible with the lack of equipment.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: Hide
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee - Played straight and subverted in equal amounts throughout the story.
  • The Mole - two within Third-I and one of Falcon's best friends.
  • Time Bomb - When infected with "Bloody-X," a person has two to three hours before they die.
    • Subverted with Anzai Mako, as she's K, and thus the countdown was useless. Still dramatic, though, considering that you didn't find out she was K until after she was cured.
    • Also, there's, ya know, the actual time bomb...
  • The Vamp - Maya.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic? - the cultists.
  • Xanatos Gambit - Practically every other chapter.
  • Voice with an Internet Connection: Fujimaru, those who are in the Third-I HQ and the enemy hackers.
  • Walking the Earth: J and his loyal supporters. But they came back at the end of the second season and played a big role in the last season.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - Judas killing the cult's leader is reminiscent of another famous tale.
  • Viewer-Friendly Interface - Too many scenes to count properly.

Bloody Monday: Season Two contains examples of:

  • Action Girl: We have a new one in the form of Hibiki, who is a foreign agent trained since birth to be an efficient spy and assassin.
    • From the Shooter of the Magic Bullet, Snow White.
    • Another Dark Action Girl is Alissa, the only other surviving member of Nikolai's "Dream Team" until she was killed along with Pres. Curtis.
  • Air Vent Passageway: Used to break into a nuclear reactor chamber. It's a tight fit but an injured Hibiki manages.
  • Badass Normal, possibly Colonel Badass: "Arthur" the terrorist leader is an ex-astronaut.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Borderline to Downer Ending. Despite that Japan is saved again and that Peter Pan and his supporters got what they deserved, the real Hibiki is still missing and the Prime Minister is revealed to be the leader of the terrorists and the man responsible for Ryuunosuke's death.
  • Call Back: The monstrously perverted teacher from Season One helps release a member of the terrorists' memories, after attempting to sexually assault his former "sex-slave".
    • Maya arrives to deal information, The Mole's Brainwashed and Crazy-Eyes remind Fujimaru uncomfortably of S.1's cult leader, and J. also gets a mention when Fujimaru fears The Mole was sent by him.
    • The deadline for the threat is again on a Monday, which is Lampshaded by Fujimaru.
    • Remember the Bloody-X virus? It's BAAAAAACK!
  • Child Soldier: While we don't know how old Hibiki is, it's clear that she's been a well-trained soldier for most of her life Three generations prior to conception, in fact.
  • Cloning Blues: Hibiki is one of eight clones created from the genetic material from three generations of her country's best agents, and possibly the only one who ever questioned her training. Two of her "sisters" have since entered Japan.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: See Call Back.
  • Disc One Final Boss: Arthur is killed after the attack on the power plant and Peter Pan takes over as the Big Bad.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen / What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Hibiki is shaken by Fujimaru's dying father's decision to give his kidneys to his ailing daughter and it appears that she's thinking about the families of the victims for the first time; most significantly she's stopped threatening to kill herself.

Fujimaru: I can't believe you're getting jealous over me caring about my own sister!
Hibiki: Jealous...? I see, this is jealousy! Hee hee, this is the first time I've been jealous!

  • Did Not Do the Research: Pandora's Box, the nuclear launch control system carried with the President of the United States. The equivalent object in reality is referred to as a nuclear football, and cannot be used to launch nuclear missiles, only to authorize their launch. Peter Pan's plan to hold the world hostage would never work in reality because the Pentagon knows the Box is his goal and any authorization coming from it would be disregarded.
  • Emotionless Girl: Hibiki, after it's revealed that she's The Mole. Defrosts soon enough, though.
  • Face Heel Turn / Well-Intentioned Extremist: Otoya's dad is the terrorist leader, and he "wants the world to change"
  • Government Conspiracy: Third-I is one for secretly keeping the country safe, whoever sent Hibiki (since this story deals with a rouge cosmonaut with a Russian nuke, I'm gonna guess the Russians).
  • Heel Face Turn: Hibiki, who is a foreign agent trained to be emotionless and efficient, defrosts when she sees the Takagi family dynamics, and completes her Heel Face Turn when she falls in love with Fujimaru.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Takagi Ryuunosuke.
  • Hostage Situation: Averted a bit. The "fake" Hibiki held a clinic doctor hostage to make Fujimaru gain access to Pandora's Box. Too bad the doctor was killed before Third-I agents gunned her down.
  • Info Dump: Fujimaru's workmate-turned-mole Hibiki reveals a lot of information about "The Last Emperor" -- so much so that Fujimaru tells her to stop and another person calls her Wikipedia-chan.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: "Snow White". Arthur has done this to her several times.
  • The Load: President Adams. After he tries to make a deal with Psycho for Hire Alissa, even telling her that some info they just got was fake, she straight-up tells him the only thing they need from him are his eyes and KO's him.
  • Manipulative Bastard: This season gives us Hino Alexei. From the same terrorist group, Peter Pan, which is more evident when he betrays Alexei, who is only the guy who raised him.
  • Meaningful Name / Theme Naming: The terrorists' code-names are from fairy tales: Arthur is the leader; a youthful hacker is Peter Pan; a Bishounen(?) is Hansel and his counterpart is Gretel actually Gretel is a guy, a young woman is Snow White, and their chief is called Story Teller.
    • Hibiki and her clone sisters apparently go by Greek letter: the just-arrived Alpha and Beta, with Hibiki as Zeta.
  • The Mole: - or not, Fujimaru's dad is just using his previous friendship with the terrorist leader to infiltrate them.
    • Fujimaru's workmate Hibiki is also a mole. Although she's the "fake" one.
    • The seemingly incompetent third-I dude is "Gretel" to a bishounen's "Hansel"
    • Otoya's dad -- the prime minister of Japan -- is Storyteller, the head of the terrorists.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Hibiki has no shame about stripping down in front of an entire platoon of Third-I troops.
  • No Kill Like Overkill / Earthshattering Kaboom: The "Third Emperor" is actually the only remaining Tsar Bomba nuke, the most ridiculously destructive bomb ever created.
    • No ka-boom, but Peter Pan's plan is to use the Third Emperor demand enough money to throw an entire country's economy into chaos.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: President Adams sure looks like George W. Bush and is a bit overconfident, but he also seems to be fairly level-headed.
  • Put on a Bus: We only get to see Aoi on the first few chapters but then, we never know what happened to her.
  • Psycho for Hire: "Peter Pan", Nikolai, and the dozens of guys he hired then put through an impromptu Battle Royale to get the best of the best for his "Dream Team".
  • Renegade Russian: Hino Alexiel
  • Retired Badass: Fujimaru hasn't even touched a keyboard since "Bloody Monday" but this is just a ploy to avoid involving his friends again.
  • The Rival: Peter Pan, who is said to be what Falcon could become given a few years (which should already give some indication how powerful he is), and who had a hand in making Falcon the master hacker he is in the first place.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Minami. Her Third-I teammates were surprised about this, at first. Later, she does it again in the last season.
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: What Hibiki and Fujimaru seem to be becoming after Hibiki's Heel Face Turn.
    • Confirmed in Chapter 43, to the point where Minami becomes comically disgusted.
  • Too Dumb to Live / What an Idiot!: The Minister of Justice ("They've all been bad"), who think Third-I is wasting time and money trying to attack Arthur & Co. and they should just get rid of the bureau anyway.
    • The American head of security, who's so overconfident he doesn't realize that Peter Pan has already taken over a powerful spy satellite.
    • President Adams, who thinks he can make a deal a terrorist who previously said she could have killed any one of the dignitaries by moving into the penthouse next door and apparently forgot a retina scan doesn't require your eyes to be attached to your head.
  • We Have Reserves: Hibiki won't hesitate to kill herself if the situation goes south since whoever she works for will just send someone else (in fact, they'll likely send seven identical people). The Third-I crew decides to keep her alive just in case whoever they send is worse.

Bloody Monday: Last Season contains examples of

  • Beauty Equals Goodness / Evil Makes You Ugly: When Mamiya is revealed as a mole his appearance changes from dashing adventurer to sniveling coward.
  • Character Alignment: Fujimaru went from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good while Outoya's dad goes from Lawful Good to Lawful Evil.
  • Elites Are More Glamorous: CraUNs, an elite JGSDF unit with some of its agents fighting alongside Third-I operators in the Neo Tokyo Tower.
  • Heel Face Turn?: Fujimaru and Hibiki are now working with J. as (counter-)terrorists. Seems that J and his allies are "against" the Storyteller as well.
    • Apparently Mamiya's been on Storyteller's side the whole time (unless of course he's a double-agent like Fujimaru's dad).
  • The Mole: Storyteller, see above. Also Mamiya, evidently.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: The new one, Curtis, has a beard!
  • Power Tattoo: Not magical but all the terrorists have big omega symbols on their faces that can only be seen with the masks.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Storyteller's "prologue" involves shooting a half-dozen hostages on live TV -- including children -- in order to get the other countries to sell their US dollars and make the Yen powerful. His lackey "Seagull" seems hesitant, so someone else does it. Fortunately the order was given by Fujimaru with a voice synthesizer and "someone else" was Hibiki with a taser.
  • Spy Catsuit: Hibiki dons one after infiltrating a diplomatic party
  • Theme Naming: Storyteller's group uses birds for code-names like shrike and kingfisher.
  • Time Skip: One year later
  • Title Drop: "We are Bloody Monday!"
  • Violence Really Is the Answer:

Storyteller: The idea that violence cannot change things... is a lie. Every time the world has been changed it was by unilateral violence. [...] We are sacrificing ourselves as terrorists to make this nation ( -- Japan --) a truly independent nation that has pride!!

  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: See above.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Hibiki after gunning down what appeared to be hostages. They're actually bad guys.
    • Hibiki again: she kills a bunch of bad guys, but only to prevent Otoya from becoming "sullied".
    • J has to keep reminding Fujimaru that Everyone Lives isn't an really option but Fujimaru does his best anyway.
  • White Mask of Doom: Storyteller's terrorists wear them, as do the disguised counter-terrorists Too bad the good guys don't seem to know about the invisible face paint....
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