Kota Sagano/Relationships

Spoiler warning! This page contains heavy spoilers from Case. 50 and onward. Read at your own discretion!

Kako Motoya
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Kako and Kota first meet at a singles' mixer party for adults, which Kako and her best friend Mikado had snuck into, pretending to be 22-year-old college students. Kota spends a good portion of the night observing Kako and her actions, taking notice of her respectful behaviour toward the shop owners, as well as the others around her. He offers to drink a tequila shot she cannot have, unknowingly saving her from being pressured into underage drinking. When the party is over, he is surprised to get a non-alcoholic drink from Kako as thanks for helping her out earlier. He, in turn, offers to walk her home, willfully missing out on an afterparty that the other adults are going to attend.

On their way home he ends up asking Kako if she is single, and to his relief, finds out that she is. However, another thing that he ends learning is that she is actually 16. This annoys him, seeing as from his point of view all of Kako's past nice and respectful actions are completely crushed under the weight of her being out so late, joining a drinking party and leading him on despite her age. It is especially vexing for him, as he is a police officer who has to deal with these kinds of irresponsible children as a part of his job. He immediately gets her a taxi, scolding her in the process while making sure that the driver takes her straight home.

The following day while at work he stops two high school girls after seeing them riding a bike together. He then comes to realize the girls are the very same girls he had seen at the mixer the night before. He ends up scolding the two for breaking the law but will not entertain a longer conversation with Kako.

What follows is a series of events, in which Kako and Kota keep getting dragged into each other's company, whether they want to interact with one another or not. These incidents include Kako almost getting molested and subsequently being saved by Kota, a workshop visit to the Oto High School by the police force, etcetera. These events lead to Kota almost getting jumped by a group of local delinquents, only to be saved by Kako, who had overheard their plans earlier. Kako gets hurt in the process, and needs to be hospitalized. Feeling not only responsible for Kako's sorry state, but also frightened by the possibility of losing her, Kota ends up coming to see her in the hospital after work, waiting for her to wake up. This upset her parents, as they think Kota's motivations behind this are fully guilt-based. However, when Kako finally comes to, Kota is relieved, and after a short conversation with Kako, he ends up proposing to her, explaining that dating would be impossible for them, but marriage would allow them to be together. After her initial shock over the sudden proposal, Kako is overjoyed and accepts.

After this, their married life begins with a rocky start, but gradually turns into a sweet, loving relationship.

Tsuu-chan
Tsuu-chan is Kota and Kako's daughter. She and Kota are shown to have a slightly more complicated relationship than the one Tsuu-chan shares with Kako. That being said, Kota's relationship with his toddler-aged daughter is clearly very warm and loving, and the previously mentioned complications seem to mostly stem from Kota being a bit clueless about how to handler her, and her having inherited her mother's bullheaded nature. The two are shown butting heads with one another, but this is clearly not because of a lack of love or care. On the contrary, Kota has seemingly taken a similar overprotective disposition for Tsuu-chan as the one he had for Kako. As an example, he freaks out when he let his focus slips whilst watching her and she ended up eating a tissue, and he blames himself for not keeping his eyes on her when the family was visiting Kota's parents' graves, and Tsuu-chan stumbled and hurt herself. After this, he hugs her to calm her down when she is crying. Moreover, ironically enough, when Kako asks Kota what he would do if Tsuu-chan wanted to get married as a teenager, Kota replies "No way."

Unlike Kako, who is fine with Tsuu-chan calling her "mommy," Kota would rather be called "father" than "daddy" by her daughter.

Out of the two, Tsuu-chan is noted by Heisuke to take after her father looks-wise.

Kaoru Sagano
Kota shares a very close relationship with his older sister, who ended up adapting a role akin to that of a mother figure for him, as their actual mother died in an accident when Kota was only five years old. That being said, they still treat each other like siblings, which can be seen in their treatment of one another, especially when the two bicker.

When Kota is going through a rough time after having suddenly met the one resposible for his father's death, it is Kaoru who does the most to bring him back to his feet. She visited him to check up on his condition and explained to Kako and Heisuke why he was having such a hard time. She also begs them to help Kota as the two people in his life who have seemingly had the biggest impact on him in the past years.

Kako notes that the two siblings resemble each other very much.

Lt. Junta Sagano
Kota had a rather rocky relationship with his father. He used to believe that his father was ashamed of him and even hated him, which of course could not be further from the truth. That being said, a similar misconception seemed to have lived within Junta's thoughts as well. As such, they both kept up a facade of being appalled by the other, hiding their true feelings so only Kaoru was aware of their mutual love and deep caring for each other. Kota has been left with a lot of regrets regarding his relationship with Junta post his death. This is what led to him choosing his family of Kako and Tsuu-chan over his career advancing in the last chapter of the manga, as he no longer felt like he needed to fullfill his father's dreams, but rather live out the life his father would have had, had he and Kota had a better relationship.

Ryu Katsunaga
Ryu is Kota's friend and roommate from the Police Academy, with whom he had to separate when the two were assigned to different cities for work. Despite their years apart, they still share a close relationship, clearly knowing each other incredibly well. Both of the men were excited to be able to work together as co-workers when it was announced that Ryu would be changing workplaces.

Shuichi Yamamoto
Shuichi is a higher up in the same office as Kota, and they have known each other since Kota's days in high school when he was still a rowdy delinquent causing trouble for the police with his antics. Shuichi is clearly very proud of how far Kota has gotten in his life since then.

Fumi Komori
Kota and Fumi are co-workers at the Oto Police Office and share a mutual respect for one another. They work great as a team and seem to be on quite friendly terms with each other.

Heisuke Okami
Heisuke and his old friend group were local trouble makers, whom Kota had taken into custody seemingly multiple times. Kota is at first very wary of Heisuke and finds it rather troubling that Kako seems to see nothing wrong with being friends with him, despite Heisuke having hurt Kako in the past. Nevertheless, as time goes on, he grows somewhat attached to Heisuke, and they develop a relationship easiest described as being frenemies. They share a mutual love and attachment to Kako, which leads to the two of them being rivals in love, while simultaneously respecting each other. Kota tries his best to assure Heisuke that he can trust the police, and ultimately inspires him to want to become an officer himself as well. Because of this, Heisuke is often referred to as Kota's protégé, even if this embarrasses the both of them. Kota is shown taking opportunities at keeping tabs on Heisuke under the veil of pretending to want to spite him instead, showing that deep down he really cares for the boy.

Heisuke does not want his little brother to fall in love with Tsuu-chan, as she, according to him, looks exactly like Kota- he probably would have been fine with it, had Tsuu-chan instead inherited both Kako's personality and looks, as he says he is fine with his brother falling for Kako's daughter, but not the Kako's daughter who looks like Kota.

Mikado Yaguchi
Kota is of the mindset that Kako and Mikado are both "good girls". As such, he seems to want to help Mikado and genuinely get to know her, especially as she is Kako's best friend. This has led to him often asking Mikado well-meaning questions about her love life, which he almost always ends up getting punished for. Mikado's ways of punishing him include insulting him by calling him a lolicon (referring to his relationship with Kako) or a pervert-cop, throwing whatever she has at hand at him (like, say, a drink), or stabbing him with a pencil. These things have happened so often, that Kota is shown to be mildly intimidated by Mikado when she is angry.

Jiro Nagakura
While Kota does not outright hate Jiro, he can definitely see why someone would feel disdain toward him.

When meeting Jiro for the first time, he immediately gets the impression that Jiro an utter idiot, and his suspicions are almost immediately proven correct, when Jiro sees it appropriate to ask him how many people he has had sex with, leaving Kota in surprise, slightly offended and very confused by his question. When he refuses to answer straight out, Jiro comes to the conclusion that he is a virgin, at which point Kota feels pressured to give him some sort of an answer by denying his accusation.

Almost every time Kota is with Jiro, he seems to be unwilling dragged into something he does not (at least at first) want to be a part of. These instances include having to bathe with Jiro and Heisuke at the Nagakura bathhouse and running around the neighbourhood with Jiro dressed in a bunny suit, asking him for love advice which Kota does not feel like giving. Still, while often initially refusing Jiro in these instances, he later comes around and actually gives him good advice or hangs out with him and Heisuke.

Tee-sensei
Kota has a deep resentment for Tee-sensei, seeing how he is the one responsible for his father's early demise. Tee-sensei, on the other hand, feels incredible shame for his past actions, and just like Kota, is unable to forgive himself for what he did in the past.

Seeing Tee-sensei again after many years makes the trauma left from his father's death resurface, dealing a hard blow not only to Kota's psyche but also to his relationship with Kako, who despite all this, has developed something akin to a friendship with Tee-sensei.