Kota Sagano

Kota Sagano (佐賀野功太, Sagano Kōta) is one of the protagonists in My Boy in Blue.

The titular character in both the English title (the "Boy in Blue" -part referring to his career as a police officer) and the Japanse title (P as in police officer, while JK is an acronym for Joshi Kōsei, meaning High School Girl- in this case, Kako), Kota is a young man who at first comes off as serious, even scary to some degree, hiding his more gentle and nurturing nature underneath.

Appearance
Kota is a somewhat tall young man, with short, black hair (sometimes depicted as dark brown) and dark eyes. He is noted by both his young wife and her mother to look good in uniform. His casual outfits often consist of plain t-shirts or sweaters, sometimes paired with different types of cardigans. With them, he often wears casual, tight-fit jeans and sneakers.

Personality
Kota is infamous for being a worry-wart, especially when it comes to Kako. He is also quite overprotective of her.

He initially comes off as rather serious and unflexible, however, deep down he is very tongue-in-cheek and adaptable, the latter of which helps him immensely in his work. He enjoys toying with Kako's emotions every now and then, to the point that he sometimes seems almost sadistic. That being said, he means no harm by teasing her. He is also occasionally very blunt about his negative emotions, especially when it comes to his father-in-law being annoying.

He is a workaholic, taking his career very seriously and not allowing for any sort of disturbance for him or his colleagues. This often leads to him treating Kako rather coldly if she happens to intervene with his work. Even though he often takes an adult approach to his relationship together with Kako, or just giving her advice in the rough storms of teenage drama, he has been noted by Kaoru to "[...] not [be] that much of a grownup". She could have been referencing his inner, somewhat childish nature, or the fact that he still has not gotten over his past trauma from when his father was murdered.

His father's death has shaken his psyche, worldview and personality drastically. He seems to have buried his trauma deep down within him, but once it gets triggered back into his conscious, he starts to suffer from typical PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms, such as insomnia, being easily irritated and sometimes having outbursts of rage, feeling anguish, getting uncontrollable flashbacks and isolating himself from his loved ones (particularly Kako). He also notes having a gap in his memory from the time of the incident. It has not been explicitly stated that he has the mental disorder, though his symptoms in general seem to point toward it.

Despite all this, Kota keeps a positive outlook on his life for most of the time. He cherishes his family dearly and has even once mentioned wanting to have kids in the future. (It is revealed in Case. 62 that he and Kako had a daughter.) It has been hinted by some of the other characters that he has a reputation of having had been something akin to a womanizer at some point. Regardless, he is also very good at self-discipline, at least when it comes to his "worldly desires" involving Kako.

Background
Kota was very troubled growing up. His mother died when he was only a five-year-old, and as such, he was raised by only his father and older sister, who adapted a motherly role for him. He was a delinquent during his teenage years, and he did not get along well with his father.

Relationships
An in-depth overview of all Kota's relationships can be found here.

Kota is married to Kako Motoya. The two met at a singles' mixer party intended for adults, where Kako had snuck as a minor.

Kota is best friends with Ryu Katsunaga, and the two used to go to the same police academy. It was also through him that Kako and her friends met Ryu, and how Ryu ended up flirting with Mikado Yaguchi, Kako's best friend. Kota knowns all of Kako's friends, though his opinions on them do not seem to be too high- he seems particularly unimpressed with Jiro Nagakura. On the other hand, his relationship with his rival in love, Heisuke Okami, is surprisingly good.

Kota had a rough relationship with his father and barely knew his mother as she died when he was little. He is, however, very close with his older sister, Kaoru Sagano.

Trivia

 * One of Kota's favourite foods seems to be dangos, as evidenced by how happy receiving them makes him and how vocal he is about liking them.
 * According to his second character page, his birthday flowers are Tatarian asters, Bluebeards, etcetera.
 * The meanings of these flowers are "Thinking of Someone Far Away," etcetera.
 * According to his last character page, the series' creator Maki Miyoshi never quite got his likeness down, and expressed that he was hard to draw to the very end of the series.