Meimi Haneoka (羽丘 芽美) is one of the main characters of Saint Tail. During the day, she is a normal student at St. Paulia's Academy, a catholic private school. However, at night, she assumes the form of Saint Tail, a mysterious phantom thief who steals back unfairly obtained items and returns them to their rightful owners.
Bio[]
Apperance[]
School Uniform[]
Meime has long orange hair and deep blue eyes. Her hair falls to her mid back with long, fluffy bangs that reach the tops of her eyes and small pieces cut short along the side of her face. She has two separate school uniforms, the main one consisting of a pale yellow pleated skirt with an orange stripe along the bottom, a white undershirt, a pink jacket buttoned up over her shirt, a large green neck bow, and yellow boots that she wears over black knee-length socks. Her uniform is also depicted with a matching pink hat that has a black ribbon in the back, however she does not wear her hat while in class. In later episodes, another version of her uniform is seen. This version consists of a white collared, short sleeve shirt, a hot pink pleated skirt with a thin, matching hot pink vest, and a large green neck bow. This uniform is worn with the same black knee-length socks and similar yellow dress shoes. This uniform appears to be the summer form at St. Paulina's. Meimi is around the same height as her classmates.
Saint Tail[]
As Saint Tail, Meimi's long hair is pulled into a long, sleek ponytail that curls upwards at the bottom. Her ponytail is held up with a dark black ribbon. Her outfit is inspired by a stage magician, and consists of a sleeveless white collared shirt worn under a dark black vest with a high neckline. She has long dark black gloves that reach the center of her upper arm and dark-pinkish black leggings and boots. Above her leggings, she wears a short, light pink skirt with a off-white stripe along the edge. Against her neck is a fluffy dark black ribbon; in the anime, this also includes with a small, intricate golden cross broach that has a ruby in the center and wings against its back on the ribbon's knot. She occasionally has a dark black top hat with a light pink ribbon.
While the manga colors her outfit with pure black, the anime adds some pinkish tones to its shading.
Personality[]
Meimi is confident, brave, headstrong, determined, passionate, caring, compassionate, and moral. She cares deeply for those who have been wronged, and is determined to return whatever was stolen from them no matter the risks to herself or her secret identity.
Relationships[]
Seira Mimori: Meimi and Seira have a close friendship. Seira is the only one openly aware of Meimi's role as Saint Tail, as she is the one who gives Meimi all of the information regarding the items to steal and people to return them to. Seira is supportive of Meimi in all of her actions, yet cautious when she feels like Meimi might be put in danger during a risky mission.
Eimi Haneoka: Eimi is Meimi's mother. She is supportive of her daughter, even when she catches Meimi sneaking out from her bedroom window at night.
Genichiro Haneoka: Genichiro is Meimi's father. He is supportive of his daughter and loves to share the new magic tricks he's come up with for his job as a stage magician.
Ruby: Ruby is Meimi's pet hedgehog. She is expressive and loves spending time with Meimi. Ruby has a matching bow to Meimi's Saint Tail form.
Asuka Jr.: Asuka is Meimi's classmate and the lead detective for the majority of the Saint Tail investigations. The two often argue, however both have romantic feelings for each other and eventually end up dating. Meimi leaves notes for Asuka Jr. as Saint Tail, warning him of her next heist before it happens so he knows where to meet her.
Rina Takamiya: Rina is a transfer student to Meimi's school. She works alongside Asuka Jr. when she first arrives, and takes brutal measures to attempt to catch and stop Saint Tail. Because she also has romantic feelings for Asuka Jr., she and Meimi are seen as rivals.
Saint Tail[]
Saint Tail holding her pendant from her transformation sequence
Saint Tail is the name of Meimi's secret theif identity and is described as a "phantom thief." Her design is inspired by a stage magician, with a black top hat, vest, long gloves, boots, and magician's wand. Meimi transforms into Saint Tail by praying, "Oh Lord, forgive me, for I use no gimmick or trick," and then clasping her hands around a large gold and pink pendant with a winged cross and ribbon at the bottom. She yells "One!" while summoning her top hat in her left hand, "Two!" while summoning four playing cards - these cards consist of (from left to right) a three of hearts, an ace of hearts, the queen of hearts which shows Saint Tail at the top and Meimi at the bottom in place of the queen, and a joker card which shows Seira dressed in her nun uniform in the place of the Joker -with her right hand that she then tosses into the air, and "Three!" as the top hat falls in front of her, showing her in her full uniform with her staff in her right hand as if she's coming from the top hat. Her whole transformation features a motif of cherry blossom petals.
Powers[]
Saint Tail from the first intro of the anime
As part of her stage magician motif, Saint Tail has the ability to create various illusions while in this form, most often using her ability to summon a bright light in order to stun her enemies for long enough for her to get away. She has also used this ability to create snow, a UFO-like structure in place of her balloons, and more. Additionally, Saint Tail has the ability to summon real objects and animals, most often summoning a deck of playing cards that she throws towards her enemies similar to throwing stars, or to summon a flock of doves that will swarm and peck at those attacking her. As mentioned, Saint Tail also summons a set of balloons quite often. They mostly consist of a large pink balloon and a crowd of smaller orange, red, pink, and yellow balloons that wrap around the base of the large pink one. They are held together with a big pink ribbon, and Saint Tail uses them to hang on to and fly throughout the sky. She seemingly has control of where the balloons float in order to properly fly, and often uses them to enter and leave heists. On certain occasions, she is also seen to have the ability to summon similar balloons in specific areas which she has used to cushion the fall of anyone who needs them. Saint Tail also has control over her pony tail, wrapping it around her face to obscure it on more than one occasion.
Catchphrases[]
Other than the "One... Two... Three..!" that Saint Tail says during her transformation sequence, and the prayer that she says in order to transform, "Oh Lord, forgive me, for I use no gimmick or trick," Saint Tail has a couple other catchphrases. The most noteable being another prayer, "May the blessings of God be with us" which she says with Seira at the end of her transformation sequence. Just before casting her magic, in japanese original she says "Its... Show... Time..!", in english dub she says "Take your seats everyone. The show is about to begin!".