Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Difference between revisions
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== Anime and Manga ==
* The former [[Trope Namer]] is Inspector Zenigata from the ''[[Lupin III]]'' series. He set the standard for a whole host of wacky detectives following in the example of his relentless pursuit of Lupin. By this point, he's come to admit he wouldn't have any idea what to do with himself if he ''did'' catch Lupin. He's also very much in the "good, just not as good as his quarry" column of
** In his younger days?? In ''Dead Or Alive'', which is most certainly in the contemporary timeline, he takes on a gang of armed soldiers by himself while drinking some tea in a cafe without getting a scratch. Much BIGGER, well trained soldiers. [[I Know Karate|With Judo]]. [[Badass]].
** Zenigata has also actually been able to catch Lupin clean a few times. In the original series, he caught him with a
*** He's also let Lupin go more than a few times, too. While Lupin is his archenemy, it's a matter of the two being [[Friendly Enemy|on reasonably good terms with each other]], and he'll stop chasing Lupin if there's a worse villain to be caught, even to the point of ignoring Lupin escaping if the
* In ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'' and its pilot of sorts, ''Riding Bean'', Percy is the head investigator, obsessed with catching Bean Bandit the legendary Road Buster. Bean finds him most amusing.
** At least until ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]: Burst'', where Percy tries to have him ''assassinated''.
** Percy has never been a ''good'' cop. He'll happily put innocent lives at risk, orders his men to near-suicidal
* [[Sherlock Hound
* ''[[Kaitou Saint Tail]]'' has the [[Amateur Sleuth]] Asuka Jr constantly trying to foil Saint Tail. Of course, complications arise from Meimi's on-off crush on him outside her alter-ego, eventually leading into [[Dating Catwoman]].
* Tadashi from ''[[Astro Boy (manga)|Astro Boy]]'' started out in this role.
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** Eventually, he gets ''yet another'' Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist... Conan from ''[[Detective Conan]]''.
* Detective Leon Orcott of ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]''. He finds Count D to be a threat to humanity. Count D finds him to be endearingly/irritatingly thick-headed. Both are correct in their assessment. [[Go-Karting with Bowser|This doesn't stop either of them from having tea with one another several times a month]].
** Leon also finds himself disturbingly attracted to D (disturbingly so because D is male - sort of), just as D finds himself disturbingly drawn to Leon (disturbingly so because Leon is human). Eventually, as Leon really begins to trust D, he lets his little brother live in the titular Petshop because he feels it would be ''the safest environment'' for the kid
* ''[[Seto no Hanayome]]'' has [[Shout-Out|Zenigata]] Mawari, a policeman's daughter obsessed with enforcing rules with all her might. Comes with a [[Catch Phrase]]: "Must Mawari teach you the rules of..."
* Another female example: Atsuko "Jambo" Jackson, from ''[[Michiko to Hatchin]]''.
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* Captain, later Commodore, Smoker in ''[[One Piece]]''. He's a marine, and catching pirates is his job - not wrongly so, since a lot of Pirates really are terrible criminals in this world. It just so happens our hero is also a pirate, if a really nice one that [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|never pillages or hurts innocents]]. He catches plenty of other, less nice pirates along the way and {{spoiler|actually helps foiling the plans of the [[Big Bad]] in the Alabasta arc}}. Also notable in that Luffy stands no chance against him in a fight and he probably could take the Straw Hat in, but dumb luck, circumstance or help of allies always gets him out of Smoker's grasp.
* L from ''[[Death Note]]'' would qualify as a more serious and less hands on example. As the worlds greatest detective, he early on (correctly) fingers out the main protagonist as the most likely candidate to be the notorious mass serial killer known as "Kira" and continues to pursue his hunch for the rest of the series, even when circumstances (orchestrated by Light of course) seem to disprove this. {{spoiler|It's also a rare example where the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist's opponent ends up losing because of his hard work, albeit through his successor}}
** It should probably be noted that, though he does correctly finger Light as Kira ''and'' assert that he's never been more sure of a deduction in his life, he also asserts that he's only seven percent sure that Light is Kira, so he's kind of on the outer fringes of being a
*** Note that L's tendency to put percentages on everything is at least 50% bullshit. When he says "7% certainty", [[Word of God]] asserts that he's actually ''very'' convinced of Light being Kira.
*** It's not even that. [[Word of God]] says that whenever L gives a percentage, it's actually over 90%. Near sums it up the best. To paraphrase:
{{quote|- '''Near:''' I'm 99.999% sure that Light is Kira. The final 0.001% is just the lack of decisive evidence.}}
* Misaki Kirihara of ''[[Darker than Black]]'' manages to be one of the most sympathetic characters in the series despite spending most of it working against the (amoral, but generally also sympathetic) main characters. It helps that the series runs on [[Grey and Gray Morality]].
* ''[[Cat's Eye]]'': Inspector Utsumi will never, ever catch the three [[Classy Cat Burglar]]s. Because they're the protagonists, and because
* Several police persons appear in [[Hana no Ko Lunlun]], ranging from this trope to [[Inspector Javert]]. The most archetypical Sympathetic Inspector Antagonists are the policeman who chased after Sayid and Scharo in the first part of the Morocco miniarc, and the inspector form the Egypt episode who pursues a [[Gentleman Thief]] that Lunlun has befriended {{spoiler|and actually ''succeeds'' in catching his target. Poor Lunlun never knew she was aiding an outlaw, tho.}}
* The wearin a shirt called "Checkmate" from [[Tenjho Tenge]]
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* Lt. Kellaway from ''[[The Mask (comics)|The Mask]]''.
* Inspector Ginko in the Italian series ''[[Diabolik]]''.
* Finch in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' is an effective and honorable detective, it's just that V, his opponent, is a master of [[Batman Gambit
* In [[The Incredible Hulk]] comic books, [[Genius Bruiser|Doc Samson]] kept trying to stop the Hulk when he was savage or grey. He ought to be good at it, since he's almost as strong as the Hulk, but as the grey Hulk put it: "You know what [being almost as strong as me] means? NOTHING!"
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** Sterling is also an interesting example because he doesn't actually care all that much about capturing Team Leverage unless it somehow serves his own purposes and ambitions. Most of the time, he just leaves them alone.
* Hank Schrader of ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' is this to an elusive crystal-meth manufacturer known to him only as "Heisenberg." [[Dramatic Irony|Little does he know]] that "Heisenberg" is actually his brother-in-law Walter White, the [[Justified Criminal]] protagonist of the series.
* Doakes serves as the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist in ''[[Dexter]]''
* Seasoned detective Kwak in the [[Korean Series]] ''[[Bad Boy]]''.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Planet of the Dead", the detective pursuing [[Classy Cat Burglar|Lady Christina]] is mostly played for laughs, ignored by UNIT and other authorities, and in the end, the Doctor helps her escape as he watches in futility.
* Detective Carter in ''[[Person of Interest]]'' is a serious version, pursuing the vigilante protagonist. She does occasionally team up with Finch and Reese,
* Chief Inspector Teal in ''[[The Saint (TV series)|The Saint]]''.
* One episode of ''[[Burn Notice]]'' has a police detective, correctly, link Mike's group to various C4 explosions around town. {{spoiler|She lets him go when the group frames a group of criminals she could never pin anything on and is told investigating Mike further will require her freeing those criminals}}.
== Video Games ==
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** Carmelita is unique among Sympathetic Inspector Antagonists in that at the end of the series, {{spoiler|she DOES capture Sly...in a manner of speaking. The two of them end up romantically involved and Sly quits the thief business so they can be together. Of course, he does this by faking amnesia, so it's hard to say who really ends up on top here.}}
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls|Oblivion]]'', Hieronymus Lex - one of the Imperial City's Watch Captains - is the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist to the Gray Fox, leader of the Thieves' Guild in Cyrodiil. In fact, he is one of the only members of the Imperial Watch who even believes the Thieves' Guild exists, and has dedicated himself to becoming a perpetual, overzealous thorn in its side. {{spoiler|He mellows considerably after you inform him that he's been reassigned to the city of Anvil... although not without a brief rant about how the Gray Fox must have been behind that, too.}} {{spoiler|He's right.}}
** Although for fun,
*** So many layers of irony were in that 'reassignment'. {{spoiler|On one hand, Lex is now unwittingly working for the Gray Fox. On the other hand, it was the Gray Fox who, after so many years of cat-n-mouse evasion between them, hand-picked him to be his head of security. This actually reveals a huge respect for the man.}}
* Officer Denise Marmalade in ''[[Mega Man Legends|The Misadventures of Tron Bonne]]''.
* The captain of the Schwann Brigade In ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]''. In a final side quest with him before the final dungeon, after Yuri escapes from him one final time, he even laughs and says "I wouldn't have it any other way".
* Luke Atmey plays the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist to [[Gentleman Thief]] Mask*DeMasque in ''[[Ace Attorney]]: Trials and Tribulations.''
** And in ''Ace Attorney Investigations'' Detective Badd's spent ten years chasing a vigilante thief called the Yatagarasu and has become an expert on his techniques. {{spoiler|By which we mean he ''is'' the Yatagarasu, or at least one of the three people in the Yatagarasu group. Since he's the main detective on the case he can easily erase all evidence of the Yatagarasu's identity.}}
** Dick Gumshoe is usually this, but even moreso in ''Investigations'', where he's Edgeworth's assistant/sidekick. Though he's most used for comedic purposes, he has shades of [[Inspector Lestrade]], [[Determinator]], and [[Dumbass Has a Point]]. Notably, in the last case, he was able to deliver all the remaining evidence needed to incriminate the suspect without ''even being told what to look for''. If he pays more attention to Edgeworth, he could easily [[Took a Level
* Spectre Jondum Bau from ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' is a semi-example. He's not against Shepard, but he is trying to hunt down one of Shepard's friends, Kasumi Goto, [[Classy Cat Burglar]] extraordinaire. Both Bau and Kasumi have great respect for each other.
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* [[Fat Bastard|Rancid]] [[Fat Idiot|Rabbit]] from [[CatDog]].
* [[Stupid Boss|Principal Pixiefrog]] from ''[[My Gym Partner's a Monkey|My Gym Partners a Monkey]]''.
* Mr. Wilter and Principal Stringet from ''[[
* Ranger Stu from ''[[Squirrel Boy]]''.
* The Angry Cop from ''[[The Goode Family]]'' episode "Gerald's Way or The Highway".
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Cops and Detectives]]
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