Characters / Date A Live - Itsuka Siblings

Date A Live Main Character Index
Itsuka Siblings | Spirits (1st to 5th Spirits, 6th to 10th Spirits) | Ratatoskr | Deus Ex Machina Industries (Isaac Ray Peram Westcott) | Others | Extracanonical Spirits | Quasi-Spirits

Spoilers for all works prior to the end of Volume 11 are left unmarked.

The Itsuka household is a seemingly ordinary family in which Shido was adopted after being abandoned by his birth mother at a young age. He takes care of the house and his foster sister Kotori while their parents are busy. Secretly, his sister is an airship commander of the organization Ratatoskr, which seeks to peacefully resolve the Spacequakes by using Shido's mysterious ability to seal the powers of the Spirits who cause them with a kiss.

Both

• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Shido is gentle and a good cook, while Kotori is aggressive and leaves all the domestic tasks to Shido.
• Not Blood Siblings: They're actually siblings through adoption, but Shido only sees Kotori as a sister, which ticks her off. He is willing to kiss her, but only because it is the way to seal her out of control powers.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shido is the mild-mannered Blue Oni and Kotori is the hotheaded Red Oni. Their roles are reflected by their hair colors.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The older brother Shido has a nice and meek personality, in contrast to his little sister Kotori's short-tempered and abrasive attitude.

Shido Itsuka

Shido Itsuka

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese), Saeko Zougou (Japanese, as "Shiori"), Yukiko Aruga (Japanese, young), Jessie James Grelle (English), Ryan Reynolds (English, as "Shiori"), Mikaela Krantz (English, young), Isaid Pelayo (Latin-American Spanish), Lupita Leal (Latin-American Spanish, as "Shiori")

"If people refuse to accept you, I'll just accept you even more."

The protagonist whose actions form the basis of Date A Live. An Ordinary Highschool Student who sees the true face of the supernatural disasters called spacequakes when he ignores an evacuation alarm to look for his little sister. He finds said little sister... leading an organization saving the world by seducing the Spirits rather than destroying them. Shido is the key to their plan, thanks to his ability to seal the power of these Spirits with a kiss. Shido agrees to represent humanity and date the girls without knowing just how tightly his personal history is tied to the Spirits.

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• Accidental Misnaming: Reine claims she can't remember his name, calling him "Shin" instead. She does start calling him by his proper name later on, but never to his face. The reason why she kept calling him Shin is revealed in Volume 17: "Shin" was the name Reine (who was the First Spirit back then, now known as Mio Takamiya) first uttered when he introduced himself to her 30 years ago four months after her arrival into their world. "Shin" turns out to be short for "Shinji".
• Accidental Pervert: In Volume 2, he repeatedly walks in on Tohka when she's using the bathroom. This was planned intentionally by Kotori as part of his "training".
• Action Survivor: Shido is just a normal guy living in extraordinary times and only becomes badass because circumstances force him to.
• All-Loving Hero: Shido just wants everyone to get along and goes to great lengths to ensure his friends and loved ones are happy, even if it means putting his own life in danger. In fact, all the Spirits stood by him simply because he cared that much.
• All Your Powers Combined: Later volumes have him using various Angels, and using multiple powers at the same time.
• Always Save the Girl: When there's a Spirit girl in trouble, Shido will go to hell and back to save her.
• Ambiguously Human: Early in the series, a few characters have considered the notion that Shido might not be entirely human, given that he can seal and use Spirit powers. Further mudding the issue was the revelation that Spirits themselves used to be normal humans. Volume 17 reveals Shido used to be a regular human, until he was killed by Wescott and Mio recreated him as her surrogate child. When it was time for her to give birth to him, he had acquired the ability to wield Spirit powers, as Mio intended him to become a Physical God, just like her, thus now making him a human/Spirit hybrid.
• Amnesiac Hero: Other than faint memories of his biological mother abandoning him, Shido doesn't remember anything about his life before he was adopted by the Itsuka family.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: In Volume 6/second half of the anime's 2nd season, he dresses up as "Shiori" to get close to Miku. He pulls it off very well, though Tohka, Origami and Kurumi see through it at a glance.
• Bait-and-Switch Sentiment: After sealing Kotori's Spirit power with a kiss, Shido affirms he did mean it when he said he loves her very much... As a sister, of course. Kotori kicks him for that.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Kotori, is his little sister, to the point where Shido ignores an imminent disaster warning to look for her. While her bossy commander mode put him off, he still cares for her deeply.
  • Yoshino has trouble communicating with others without Yoshinon until Shido agrees to become her new "hero".
• Big Damn Heroes: Towards the end of Volume 7, he pulls an epic one by jumping in Inverse Tohka's way and rescuing Miku, and this along with several other factors prompts her Heel–Face Turn.
• Brought Down to Normal: Mio's death removes all the powers he's sealed throughout the story, but in-universe, it's left ambiguous if he kept his ability to seal spirit powers.
• Butt-Monkey: The Fraxinus crew punishes him whenever he messes up his training. Punishments involve broadcasting embarrassing moments from his past, penalty games, and the like. They even make him do outlandish things just to please the spirit of the week.
• The Casanova: The series is entirely about making a Fake Ultimate Hero version of this. Volume 12 plays it straighter, what with him hitting on every single female character in reach.
• Cast from Hit Points: Using Angels strains his body, since he technically isn't a Spirit. His Healing Factor can heal the damage, but it still hurts pretty badly.
• The Chew Toy: He doesn't get paid even remotely enough for all the stuff that regularly gets thrown at him in the run of a week.
• Chick Magnet: Invoked. Ratatoskr sends Shido to make Spirit girls fall in love with him so he can seal their powers with a kiss.
• Children Do the Housework: Because his adoptive parents are working overseas, Shido cooks and does the household chores for himself and his younger sister Kotori.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Shido always insists on helping anyone in danger and doing the right thing, even if there is nothing for him to gain. It's a Fatal Flaw, as it can push him into borderline martyrdom sometimes.
• Chuunibyou: He had several embarrassing fantasies that Kotori periodically threatens to expose to the public if he doesn't follow orders.
• Comically Missing the Point: Origami points out that Shido calls her by her last name, but Tokha by her first name. She wants that to change.
  Shido: So this means…? Should I call Tohka "Yatogami" from now on? Somehow I can't get used to that…
• Covert Pervert: Despite his self-control with the girls, it's clear their advances are resonating with him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Surprisingly for a Harem MC, Shido can be quite sarcastic and often making snide remarks especially at the start of the story but this habits of him slowly decreasing in the later volumes.
• Death Is Cheap: He's actually died and come back several times, courtesy of Kotori's Angel. Unfortunately, it doesn't work if he One Hit Killed.
• Death Seeker: He was this in his younger days, Kotori mentioned to Reine that the feeling of being abandoned was so bad that even after being adopted, for a long while she felt he seemed suicidal. Ironically it was this time of his life that made him sensitive to feelings of sadness, and therefore made him want to save all of the Spirits.
• Determinator: He takes saving the Spirits very seriously. To reach Yoshino when her Angel goes out of control he pushes his way through a passive barrier of ice shards (which according to Kotori is equivalent to dodging machine gun fire) that is guaranteed to kill a person without Spirit power, and he can't let his Healing Factor heal the damage because the barrier's active component would freeze him solid. His body is charitably described as "raw meat" in the novel.
• Disguised in Drag: Ratatoskr forces him into dressing up as a woman named "Shiori" to get close to (and try to seal) Miku, who Does Not Like Men and while she, and everyone not named Tohka or Origami, is fooled for a while, he's eventually discovered, forcing him to come up with an alternate plan to seal Miku.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Rasiel and Michael are considered Story Breaker Powers within the narrative itself, so the former gets mostly stolen by Westcott, while Shido lacks the experience to properly use the latter by the time the War Arc begins.
• The Dulcinea Effect: Almost every arc, Shido goes to great lengths to protect and save a Spirit girl he has known for a few days at most.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Develops the telltale whitened pupils of a Spirit around Volume 5 while using Angels, his eyes becoming gold in color when this happens.
• First Friend: To Tohka. As the first to accept Tohka as a person rather than a threat, he would become her Living Emotional Crutch.
• First Kiss: He shares one with Tohka at the end of the first volume. Except that he kissed Kotori five years earlier.
• Gender Bender: In certain sidestories and later in Volume 12, he can use Natsumi's powers to become Shiori beyond mere crossdressing.
• Gender-Concealing Voice: When disguised as Shiori, Shido uses a special device to make his voice sound like a girl's.
• Gender Vocabulary Slip: He can't quite remember to change his speech patterns as "Shiori". Miku notices the use of the very masculine ore, but doesn't dwell on it, simply passing "her" off as a tomboy Ore Onna.
• Got Volunteered: Initially against Kotori's plan to date the Spirits to seal them. Turns out to not have a choice, for a variety of reasons.
• Happily Adopted: The Itsukas adopted Shido when he was young. While he started out in a near-suicidal depression over his birth mother abandoning him, he recovered in about a year. Although he doesn't see his adoptive parents much, Shido does love Kotori as a sister and is very happy to be her family.
• Harem-Powered: Each Spirit who falls in loves with him provides him another Angel. The Angels were always meant to be used by him, and were simply given to human girls who became Spirits so he wouldn't be burdened with all the power at once.
• Harem Seeker: A rare case of the Harem Seeker not wanting his harem. He's only dating the Spirits to save the world, as Kotori puts it. When he tries to come up with an alternative, Kotori shoots down his arguments.
• The Hero: The main character, the center of the Battle Harem and the one with the most serious dedication at keeping the Spirits safe.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Even after he gets accustomed to other Angels, he defaults to Tohka's Sandalphon in direct combat.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • In Volume 3, after witnessing how Ax-Crazy Kurumi is (particularly having a Freak Out at the sight of her killing people), he begins to question whether dating and sealing her is really the right thing, as he'd believed up until then that Spirits only caused harm through involuntary spacequakes or self-defense. Kotori smacks him and tells him that he has to if only to stop Kurumi from claiming more lives, and Tohka convinces him that him reaching out to her was likely the only thing that stopped her from ending up like Kurumi, restoring his drive.
  • He suffers another in Volume 14 after Mukuro makes him question whether his Spirit sealing is actually beneficial to the Spirits in the long run, as it hasn't stopped DEM from antagonizing them and in fact makes them more vulnerable. His doubts are further reinforced when Westcott traps him and the Spirits in Beelzebub's Lotus-Eater Machine and the Spirits are overwhelmed by various fairy tale villains because they can't use their powers at all, but they're saved by the Shido from the Spirits' doujinshi who restores Shido's resolve.
  • In Volume 18, he loses the will to fight Mio after learning that she has already killed all the Spirits, but Tohka (who was revealed to be a Pure Magic Being like Mio) revives herself and snaps him out of it. He continues fighting even after Tohka gets completely annihilated by Ain, and Kurumi’s final clone covertly reminds him that he still has her Sixth Bullet Vav so he can fix the mess.
• House Husband: Because Kotori is busy at Ratatoskr, Shido is usually the one doing all the housework.
• I Gave My Word:
  • To Miku after his Big Damn Heroes moment in Volume 7. Him actually keeping his promises is what makes her fall in love with him and do a Heel–Face Turn. Of course, The Dulcinea Effect may have something to do with it...
  • His promise to Tohka not to kiss any other girl, on the other hand can't be kept, because it's the last step in sealing a Spirit's power. Tohka being Tohka means she doesn't equate sealing with kissing until Volume 12.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: The reason he didn't kill Westcott in Volume 18, despite all the atrocities he committed throughout the series (including the death of his previous incarnation Shinji).
• Ignore the Fanservice: When Nia tries to get him turned on, or at least flustered, he ignores her every attempt, from pressing her boobs into his back to wearing a skimpy maid outfit to trying to put his pay envelope for helping her with drawing her manga in her (nonexistent) cleavage. He's more focused on helping her throughout all this than her attempts to seduce him, and it takes her revealing that she's a spirit for him to even consider romance with her. A drastic change from when he was being trained not to ogle girls in bikinis before sealing Kotori.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: By Ellen when he attempts to save Tohka. Even though he survives, Tohka gets Inversed.
• Indirect Kiss: In the Drama CD, Shido gives Kurumi some of the drink he's already had. She points out it counts as an indirect kiss.
• Insistent Terminology: He's a human who can use Spirit powers, not a Spirit. He has good reason to say this since his eyes don't always have the trademark whitened pupils, and his sister Mana has never shown any signs of being able to use spirit powers herself.
• Kamehame Hadoken: During his galge training early in Volume 1, Kotori threatened to reveal a video of him posing to fire "Secret Art: Roaring Flash Wave" half-naked. Come Volume 12, the Not Himself Shidou fired a powerful blast from his palms using the Spirit powers trapped inside him. He would later use it in Volume 18 to defeat Westcott, who was caught off guard because he didn't expect Shido to use an attack unrelated to Angels.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: He has more holes in his memory than anyone else, with Tohka as the sole exception.
• Leeroy Jenkins: His plan to rescue Tohka is rushing into the building where Tohka was being held captive and search it from bottom to top. Without Miku's assistance and his regenerative powers, he would've been screwed.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Becomes one for several Spirits. Deconstructed in the sense that DEM is counting on this for their evil plan. By making him a crutch for the Spirits, killing him in front of them would make them inverse all at once.
  • Tohka is at her happiest when together with Shido. When they're separated, she gets upset easily. This is why she's put in the same class at Raizen, while the Yamai sisters could be put in another because they have each other. She believes that meeting him may have been the only thing that prevented her from eventually snapping and becoming as Ax-Crazy as Kurumi. In Volume 15, it's been shown Shido has been such a major influence on Tohka to the point that losing her memory of Shido was enough to make her Inverse naturally. This is taken to the extreme in Volume 22 where, in an alternate universe, Shido died, which caused Tohka to transform into Beast and destroyed the other spirits and the world.
  • Origami too. Early interactions make it very clear the two met after shortly after her parents' death, and that she imprinted on him for some reason. He doesn't remember at all. Turns out she met his time traveling future self, who was trying to stop her from Inversing. Unfortunately, his first attempt wound up creating the circumstances that led to her doing so. At the end of Volume 11, she admits that she was treating him as this in the old timeline, but she's going to start loving him for real from now on.
• Man of Kryptonite: He ends up as this to the Nibelcoles, as Nia still likes him enough to be sealed and they are fundamentally connected to Nia. As such, all it takes is one kiss - even a blown one, which is useful if they try to run - to instantly seal them, which makes them immediately fade away due to not being real Spirits.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His first name means "Samurai's Code", a reference to his loyal personality and dedicated nature.
  • The character for five is right there. The number 11 can be derived from the first character in his given name (士 = 十 + 一 = 10 + 1 = 11).
• Messy Hair: For most of the series, he carries a mild case of bed hair.
• Mistaken for Gay: Twice, thanks to Natsumi taking his appearance and screwing around with his classmates.
• Modesty Shorts: Even when forced to crossdress as "Shiori", he refuses to simply wear panties under his skirt.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He angrily brushes off Hiroto's attempts to learn more about Kotori when it becomes apparent that the latter is desperate for a girlfriend.
• Mysterious Past: We know nothing about his birth parents, his biological sister was a member of DEM when they reunited, and both Phantom and Westcott seems to know something about his real identity.
• Nice Guy: His nice and trustworthy character is what draws several of the Spirits towards him.
• No-Sell: The spirit power he's sealed makes him resistant, if not outright immune, to some Spirits' abilities, like Kurumi's City of Devouring Time, Miku's Compelling Voice, and Inverse Nia's future describing (though he had to actively exert spirit power to resist it).
• Not What It Looks Like: Considering that sealing a Spirit's powers causes their Astral Dresses to disappear, and their dresses are manifestations of their power, it means that Shido risks one of these situations every time he does this.
  • He actually suffers this from Tohka when he seals Yamai's and Miku's powers, with Yuzuru hilariously declaring she can't be a bride anymore. While in Miku's case it's the staff member (Tohka again in the anime) walking into them right after the sealing that's the issue.
  • Also, this happens to him twice with Yoshino, courtesy of Tohka. (The first was an accidental kiss, the second was him demonstrating to Yoshino what happened the first time).
• Oh, Crap!: When Tohka sees him about to kiss Yoshino for the second time, just as he was trying to demonstrate what he accidentally did to her the first time! Of course, this is just asking for trouble…
• Old Shame: He feels terribly embarrassed when Nia uses Rasiel to reveal the manga sketches he used to draw.
• Only Sane Man: Considering the company he keeps, it's not really that hard being the most normal guy around.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Dealing with these is the entire plot of Volume 12, as he's somehow become a womanizer.
• Parental Abandonment: His surrogate mother abandoned him, his father isn't mentioned, and his foster parents are both working overseas.
• Past-Life Memories: When he sees Mana in the middle of his Reiryoku high in Volume 12, he implies that she was kidnapped by DEM and that "Mio" saved her, which slightly triggers buried memories in Mana's head. He later tries to "unlock" his memories with Michael, which fails for him but allows the audience to see it. Mio would then properly give him his memories as Shinji before intending to erase the memories of his current life, but it doesn't work because Shido can't identify himself with Shinji's memories and still thinks of himself as his own person.
• Physical God: Volume 17 reveals that, thanks to his recreation, he has the potential to become this. His inability to wield multiple Spirit powers at once is only temporary. When he reaches maturity, his power will be comparable to Mio's.
• Power Parasite: He seals Spirits' powers within himself by kissing them. Unlike most cases of this trope, the original owners still have their powers, but much weaker than before.
• Promoted to Playable: During the first run of Ais Catastrophe in Memoria Freese, he was neither obtainable as an adventurer nor even an assist, however, the second run addressed this by making him obtainable as an adventurer.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Has great make-up skills due to his training as Shiori. He also is a great cook and finds the task enjoyable.
• Reincarnation: Volume 17 reveals that he is the recreated/reincarnation of Shinji Takamiya, who died 30 years ago protecting Mio, the First Spirit, from Wescott. To save him, Mio absorbed him into her body and carried him in her womb as his surrogate mother.
• Say My Name: At least once per volume, usually the name of the arc's focus character. Special mention to volume 1 when he screams Tohka's name after the Fraxinus drops him out the airlock. Recreating the scene is key to undoing Tohka's Despair Event Horizon in Volume 7.
• Second Year Protagonist: The story begins with Shido in his second year at Raizen High School, albeit a few months from summer break. Tohka and the Yamais are also labelled second-year high schoolers for convenience, with Tohka in the same class as him.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Volume 11 is all about this; unfortunately his initial attempt helped make things go wrong. He got it right the second time... mostly.
• Skyward Scream: Courtesy of Love Hurts at the end of Rinne Utopia.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: When crossdressing as a woman, Shido uses the alias "Shiori".
• Stock Light-Novel Hero: Shido starts off as an Ordinary High-School Student whose life completely changes when he discovers he's the only human with the power to seal Spirits and use their powers for himself. The necessity to build a harem, though, is baked right into the plot—the danger threatening the world are Apocalypse Maidens called "spirits" who can only be saved by falling in love with him and then kissing Shido.
• Straight Man: He usually plays the levelheaded everyman to the quirky Spirits' antics, especially those of Tohka and Origami.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: His normally brown eyes turn gold with glowing white pupils like a Spirit while he's using Angels.
• Supreme Chef: Side material lists cooking as his favorite thing; he frequently cooks meals for the Spirits, including the gluttonous Tohka. He even manages to beat his past life Shinji in a cook-off where the two judges Reine and Mio should have been biased in the latter's favor.
• Take a Third Option: Shidou states he cannot stand only having two options; he always works with three in his dating sim training. When limited to two, he forces the third. Just ask the Yamai twins.
• Taking the Bullet: For Tohka in Volume 1. He would have done this for Kurumi in Volume 4 (while he couldn't heal or cheat death if it hit no less), but Kotori shifted her aim in time. And does it again in volume 11 when he pushes Origami's parents out of the way from one of Origami's laser beams.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Westcott's plan hinges on Shido becoming a Living Emotional Crutch to all the Spirits, killing him so they all Inverse simultaneously from despair, and then having Artemisia use her territory ability to plunder the Qlipha Crystal from each of the Inversed Spirits so he can put them into himself. The plan would have been a success if Kurumi haven't turned back time over 200 times to save Shido.
• Took a Level in Badass: Given that he can use the powers of the Spirits he kisses, his level of badassery increases as his harem does. Taken even further when he gains the ability to wield Sandalphon.
• Trapped in Another World: In Memoria Freese's crossover campaign, Ais Catastrophe, he, alongside several members of his harem, find themselves transported into the world of Orario as the result of an unknown cause. It's later revealed that it was the work of a false Kaguya Yamai.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Volume 5/episode 4 season 2, Tohka suffers a defeat in battle leaving Shido to watch helplessly as the enemy prepares to carry her away. Wishing he had the power to protect her, he raises his hand helplessly... and a copy of Sandalphon appears.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Tohka, it's fairly clear that the two have strong feelings for each other, even if neither one has said anything. Considering Shido's experience with girls before meeting her, he may have a case of Cannot Spit It Out.
• Unskilled, but Strong: When he wields Sandalphon. On one hand, he doesn't have much experience using Spirit powers and he's not even a trained swordsman, so all he can do is swing the sword around like a baseball bat and hope his enemies will run into it. On the other hand, Sandalphon is a magic sword with enormous cutting power, so he can afford to attack his enemies with reckless abandon. In general, he can't use Angels as freely as the original owner because of the strain put on his human body until he's sealed them all in Volume 19.
• You Already Changed the Past: In Volume 11, his first attempt at changing the future contributes to the exact outcome he wanted to avoid. Surprisingly, the second attempt works and creates a new (better) timeline.

Kotori Itsuka

Commander Kotori Itsuka

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese), Bryn Apprill (English), Melissa Hernández (Latin-American Spanish)

Code name: "Efreet"

Angel: Camael (Halberd)

Astral Dress: Elohim Gibor

^{Click to see "Efreet"}

"Now, let our date (battle) begin."

Shido's foster younger sister who is also the Commander of the Fraxinus. Her personality depends on the ribbons she's wearing: she acts like a perfectly normal girl her age when she's wearing white ribbons, but switches to a Tiny Tyrannical Girl when she's wearing black ribbons. Nevertheless, she still cares deeply for Shido.

Volume 3 reveals that she is the Spirit codenamed Efreet, having been turned into one by the Phantom, who then told her to kiss Shido to seal her powers. This was how she learned about Shido's ability to seal Spirits' powers. She takes them back to save him from Kurumi in Volume 3, then has them sealed again in Volume 4.

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• A-Cup Angst: She gets pissed off when Natsumi (in adult form) mocks her inferior figure. She's also rendered speechless when her clothes don’t fit over Mukuro’s chest. The Ais Catastrophe crossover campaign in Memoria Freese also displayed this trait in an outfit story when Hestia tries out a replica of Kotori's commander outfit.
• Adaptational Nice Girl: The anime considerably tones down Kotori's verbal and physical abuse toward Shido.
• Anger Born of Worry: Whenever Shido throws himself into a situation where she doesn't believe that his Healing Factor will save him.
  • After Shido braves Yoshino's blizzard (which would pelt him like a machine gun and freeze him if it detected Spirit power from his Healing Factor) to return her puppet, Kotori punches him and tearfully berates him for not listening to her orders.
  • She later punched him again with much sterner criticism after her Spirit form narrowly avoids killing him when he jumped in between her and Kurumi (Kotori's unsealed powers meant that he didn't even have the Healing Factor at that point).
• Anguished Declaration of Love:
  • At the end of her first date, a berserk Origami is determined to kill the spirit Efreet that's inside Kotomi, Shido has no idea what her Love levels are, and Kotori is weakened and frightened. Shido tells her that she's his beloved, cherished sister and that he loves her no matter what. Kotori is at first too flustered to respond, but at Shido's urging, she yells out that she loves him and always has.
  • When Shido tries to convince her to allow him to confront Beast, knowing that he may be killed without Camael's Healing Factor, she expresses how she can't bare to see him die because she loves him.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: She acts very childish towards her older brother at home, especially when she's wearing her white ribbons, such as waking him up by kicking him.
• Authority Sounds Deep: Downplayed. Her commander mode has a deeper voice than her childish white ribbon personality, though it's still fairly high-pitched given her age.
• Ax-Crazy: When she taps into Efreet for too long, she starts giving in to bloodlust, nearly killing Kurumi with a maniacal grin before Shido's pleas bring her back to her senses.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: Kotori's Angel takes the form of a huge, flaming battle-axe, prolonged use of which will make her succumb to destructive impulses and start gleefully trying to kill others.
• Big Brother Attraction: As a Freudian Slip, she mentions to Mana that being a blood-related sibling means Mana can't marry Shido. That said, put into account that Kotori and Shido are Not Blood Siblings.
• Big Damn Heroes: She first reveals her Spirit powers to stop Kurumi from destroying Raizen High School by creating a spacequake to cancel out Kurumi's.
• Blood Knight: As Efreet, she slowly starts losing control of herself and practically begs for a good fight, taunting a defeated Kurumi about how disappointing of a performance the latter put up.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Sibling variation. When she's in her "black" mode, Kotori calls her adoptive older brother Shido by his first name instead of "Onii-chan" or any other term the Japanese use to refer their brothers. This is so that he could view her as a woman rather than his little sister.
• The Captain: As improbable as it is, she's the commander of the Fraxinus ship, and directs Ratatoskr's operations when it comes to Shido dating Spirits.
• Character Catchphrase: She habitually says "Now, let's get this date started." to kick off each "mission".
• Clingy Jealous Girl: When Shido's biological sister Mana shows up, Kotori attempts to assert herself as Shido's only true sister and gets into an argument over whether a biological or adoptive sister is better.
• Coat Cape: She has the habit of wearing her red commander jacket over her shoulders like a cape. She only wears it properly in front of Woodman.
• Curtains Match the Window: Red eyes and hair bordering on coral.
• Elemental Eye Colors: Her red eyes (as well as hair) go in line with her Spirit form's fire powers.
• Establishing Character Moment: When we're first introduced to Kotori, she wakes Shido up by getting on top of his bed and kicking him in the stomach. Then, Shido scares her but they quickly reconcile shortly afterwards.
• Evil Redhead: The bloodlust-stricken Efreet is easily as much of a threat as the Ax-Crazy Kurumi, although Shido manages to seal Kotori again.
• The Fake Cutie: She acts as Shido's cutesy little sister until she turns very aggressive and physically abusive the moment she switches her white hair ribbons for black ones.
• Fiery Redhead: She's a very hotheaded redhead, especially when she wears black ribbons.
• First-Name Basis: One of the things that alarmed Shido when he first saw her in her black ribbon "commander mode" was her addressing him by his name instead of "Onii-chan" like her white ribbon personality that he grew up with. She will occasionally slip back in her more vulnerable moments.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Anyone who pays attention to her eyes in the anime and light novels can easily tell that it has whitened pupils, and once Tohka finally appears, it's clear those are a Spirit's eyes.
  • Her Spirit form's berserk state and the way she acts towards friend or foe is just a taste of what a Spirit will do and act like in their Inverse Form.
• Freudian Slip: While having an argument with Mana regarding who is the better younger sister to Shido, Kotori lets out that blood siblings can't marry... with Shido in earshot.
• Genki Girl: Kotori with white ribbons is a ball of energy who is introduced dancing on top of Shido to wake him up.
• Girlish Pigtails: She sports long twintails, and is among the youngest characters in the story.
• Glacier Waif: She's small and delicate-looking, yet her Angel Camael comes in the form of a large halberd that's twice her size and she has no problem wielding it with one hand.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Her eyes start giving off a red glow when she loses control of herself.
• Healing Factor: Shido's Healing Factor comes from her Camael. Kotori in turn got the Angel from Phantom. Kotori demonstrates just how ridiculous this ability is by shrugging off nearly everything Kurumi threw at her (including being shot in the head!) before writing the latter off with her Angel.
• Hidden Depths: The reason why she wears her black ribbons and her "Commander" personality in general isn't just for her to be strong, its so that Shido could view her as a woman rather than a little sister.
• Horned Humanoid: She gains a pair of Oni-like horns in her Spirit form.
• Idiot Hair: Has a noticeable forelock of hair in all appearances.
• Important Hair Accessory: Her ribbons, more to show her switching personalities rather than Character Development, though. She'll be the nice little sister with her white ribbons, or the sadistic commander with her black ribbons. This is because when Shido bought her the black ribbons for her 9th birthday, he made her promise to be a strong girl as long as she wears them. Guess it worked too well. They eventually show her character development as, after realizing that Shido's feelings for her as a sister doesn't have to be inferior to that of a lover, she starts wearing one of each.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Her Astral Dress is a kimono worn loosely around the shoulders.
• Improbable Age: She's the commander of a Cool Ship in Ratatoskr at the age of 14. And according to the light novel, she started training for the position when she was 8. Volume 4 states that it's because she was given Spirit powers when she was eight before they were sealed by Shido.
• Insane Troll Logic: Her reasoning for making Shido date a Spirit falls on this: to make them harmless, they must come to love this world. Ergo, make them fall in love with you, and they will view the whole world as beautiful. However, she has some basis for this, as he sealed her powers when she awakened as a Spirit years earlier, though she was unsure of how he did it back then.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Date A Live: Rinne Utopia assumes you've read up to volume 4 (i.e. finished watching the anime's first season), as it makes no secret about Kotori's identity as a Spirit.
• Legacy Character: Kotori isn't actually the first wielder of Camael. That was actually Saya Yamada, Kurumi's friend.
• Letting Her Hair Down:
  • Her ribbons are tied to her horns in her Spirit form, leaving her hair to fall down freely.
  • In her adult form in Volume 16, she wears her ribbon on her wrist.
• Little Sister Heroine: Kotori is a parody of this when first introduced. Her foster brother Shido (and others) even call her his "cute little sister". It then gets subverted when we meet her other personality. The romantic subtext is unclear; she is implied to have some not-quite-sisterly feelings for her brother, but doesn't have a problem setting him up with the Girl of the Week. The only time she goes into Clingy Jealous Girl mode is when she meets his biological sister Mana, at which point she reveals the level of her interest in him by arguing about who's better and finally declaring that not having any real relation is better because a real sister couldn't ever marry him.
• Magical Floating Shawl: Her Astral Dress includes a floating, transparent blue hagoromo that adds to her Spirit form's mythical Japanese motif.
• Male Gaze: Shots of her rear are often shown, mainly during the Opening Narration. Even the first shots of her are her panty covered butt.
• Meaningful Name: Her Angel's name means "the severity of God", and her Astral Dress is Hebrew for "Almighty God". Considering just how brutal her victory over Kurumi's Superpower Lottery was, even if Kurumi was handicapped, there's no contesting its rightfulness.
• Morph Weapon: Her Angel can transform from a battleaxe to a BFG.
• Never My Fault: Berated Shido for asking Kurumi to show him her panties when she was the one who (unknowingly) suggested it to him.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She acts like a typical younger sister when we're first introduced to Kotori and Shido, with her freaking out when he claims he'll be infected with a virus that causes him to uncontrollably tickle her if she doesn't let him sleep ten more minutes. When he finds her later in the episode, she speaks with a much different tone and manner than at the house. This is when he finds out she's the commander of Ratatoskr's Fraxinus airship.
• Oral Fixation: She often has a lollipop in her mouth.
• Overnight Age-Up: In Volume 11, she's turned into a highschooler's age briefly by Natsumi. Happens again in Volume 16, this time as an adult.
• Parental Abandonment: Both her parents are working overseas, and there is no mention of them coming back anytime soon. Her parents finally make their appearance in volume 11.5.
• Phrase Catcher: To Shido, she's his "cute little sister". Regardless of the ribbons she wears.
• Playing with Fire: Her Spirit powers give her control over fire, and nearly all of her attacks are punctuated with violent flame bursts.
• Promoted to Playable: In the first run of Memoria Freese's Ais Catastrophe campaign, she was merely an assist. The second run made her playable as an adventurer in her Spirit form.
• Pyromaniac: If Kotori's Spirit powers are active for too long, she succumbs to destructive impulses and begins eagerly trying to incinerate everyone and everything around her.
• Red Baron: Her Angel Camael is aptly described as "Blazing Annihilating Demon"
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As soon as Kotori's personality gives way to the bloodthirsty Efreet, she violently flashes glowing red eyes.
• Red Is Violent: The already Tsundere Kotori becomes dangerously unstable in her Efreet persona and has the ability to control fire.
• Showgirl Skirt: Her Astral Dress is a kimono that leaves the skirt open at the front to reveal her legs.
• Signature Hair Decs: Her ribbons. They determine her personality depending on the colour. Horns also stick out next to her ribbons when in Spirit form.
• Spit Take: Does this on Reine when she spots Shido and Tohka on their date.
• Split-Personality Switch Trigger: Her character changes according to the color of the ribbons she's wearing. While wearing white ribbons or not wearing any, she is that of her "weak self"; a delicate little sister who is very dependent upon her big brother. When wearing black ribbons, she becomes her "strong self"; a charismatic and sometimes domineering leader able to successfully command the airship, Fraxinus. The personalities are considered "little sister mode" and "commander mode" respectively. This switch in character is due to Shido giving Kotori black ribbons as a present for her ninth birthday after sealing her powers, and telling her to be strong as long as she wears them.
• Superpower Lottery: Unquestionably, what with her ridiculous power, her Healing Factor allowing her to shrug off just about everything that doesn't annihilate her, with offensive powers lethal enough to deal lasting damage even on other Angels.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Her Efreet persona nearly consumes her with bloodlust, and it's implied later on that her Efreet Spirit form may have its own Superpowered Evil Side.
• Sweet Tooth: She loves Chupa Chups lollipops.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: Kotori is 4'9 feet tall and when she's in her "black mode", she turns into a domineering and short-tempered commander who is prone to comedic violence towards her adopted older brother Shido and her masochistic subordinate Kannazuki.
• Token Mini-Moe: Kotori is the youngest official member of Ratatoskr, being only 13 years old at the start of the series. Meanwhile, all the members of her crew are adults.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She's rarely seen without lollipops, which according to the light novel carry the Chupa Chups brand.
• Tsundere: When wearing her black ribbons, Kotori acts as a strong Harsh (Tsun) type. She takes on an arrogant and bossy attitude to everyone including Shido, but nevertheless still cares deeply for her brother as shown on many occasions.
• Undying Loyalty: She is the only girl whose Love levels for Shido never change. Regardless of any actions he takes, her levels are always maxed out because her affection for him has been cemented for years.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She punches Shido after he agreed to Kurumi's game in Volume 16, risking the Spirit powers within him if he loses. Though she admits that he had no choice and feels partially responsible for losing contact with him at the time, thus she offers him to hit her back (he instead responds with Friendly Tickle Torture.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: A classic example; she nearly loses control of herself shortly after defeating Kurumi, and only Shido's pleas to stop snapped her out of it. This got so out of hand that she had to be confined like a Spirit, shortly before starting her own date with Shido.
• Wreathed in Flames: When her powers are active, Kotori is accompanied by a blazing inferno.
• Young and in Charge: She's a middle school student and the commanding officer of the Fraxinus airship's crew.

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