Magical Detective Loveline

Magical Detective Loveline in Persona 4 The Animation

Magical Detective Loveline is a book and franchise in the Persona universe.

Game Appearances

Persona 4

In Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden, the protagonist can receive a book from Kou Ichijo during a special Social Link hangout on May 29th. In the Japanese version of Persona 4, the book is called Magical Detective Loveline, and the description talks of an unfolding romantic comedy that begins when an ordinary girl named Lovely finds a magical dog. In the English version of Persona 4, the book is localized as Witch Detective, and the description was rewritten to be a reference to Twilight for unknown reasons.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night

The P4 Animation DLC adds "Detective in Love", the Loveline theme song from Persona 4 The Animation, as a playable song with a textless version of the animation used for episode 13's ending for the video. Nanako's costume set gives her the detective outfit she wears in the anime.

Anime Appearances

Persona 4 The Animation

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The anime incorporates a sub-plot during summer using the name and description of Loveline from the Japanese version of the book in the game.

In the beginning of episode 13, Nanako Dojima comes across the Fox from Tatsuhime Shrine during the rain, and gives it her Magical Detective Loveline umbrella. Her dad scolds her after she claims she lost it. Dojima and Nanako both begin noticing that Yu returns home every day, goes straight to his room, and doesn't talk much. Dojima and Adachi grill Yu about what he has been up to one night during dinner, but Nanako does not hear his answer. She turns on the TV and gets inspired by watching Magical Detective Loveline. The following day, when Yu leaves the house, she dresses up in a Loveline costume and follows him around town to figure out what he has been doing.

Episode 14 shows the events of episode 13 from Yu's perspective. After Nanako leaves her umbrella with the fox, it blows away and gets run over by a car. When Nanako comes home, Yu notices she does not have her umbrella. After being given Shu Nakajima's ema tablet by the fox and seeing Shu's mom's ad for a tutor, he takes up multiple part-time jobs to pay for a replacement. This further leads to him also having to pay to replace an expensive Phoenix Ranger Featherman toy after an accident at his daycare job. When Dojima and Adachi ask him about what he's been doing, he says he is helping the shrine fox, but neither take him seriously. At the end of the episode, the fox digs into the stash of coins thrown into the offering box, Yu buys the replacement Loveline umbrella, and the fox gives it to Nanako.

Loveline is depicted as having a magnifying glass that resembles a dog in a tophat and monocle based on the dog from the book's description. Nanako has a toy version of the magnifying glass with a button that makes it say phrases from the show and one of the anime's gags is her pressing the button until it says a phrase she wants to hear. The magnifying glass can also extend, which Ai Ebihara uses to retrieve her scarf from a tree. The ending of episode 13 is a Loveline song called "Detective in Love" and the visuals show Nanako sleeping at the table, surrounded by drawings of her and Loveline tailing Yu around Inaba.

In Japanese, Chie Satonaka's voice actor Yui Horie does the voice of the Loveline who appears on TV and also sings "Detective in Love". Chafurin voices Nanako's toy, credited as "Magical Dog (Magnifying Glass)".

Nomenclature

In the Japanese name, the word 魔女 (まじょ, majo) is used to describe the titular character as a magical girl, a common trope in Japanese media. In most other contexts, the word 魔女 instead has the meaning of "witch."

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	魔女探偵ラブリーン Majo tantei raburīn	Magical Girl Detective Loveline