Kusuo Saiki (斉木 楠雄, さいき くすお lit. Saiki Kusuo) is the main protagonist of Saiki Kusuo no Ψ Nan who has all kinds of psychic related abilities. He usually tries to avoid getting into troublesome situations. His trademark appearance contains his green-tinted glasses and two pink antennas located slightly above each ear, which have the function of limiting his power. In the beginning, he was always seen alone but as the story progresses he eventually gets along with his schoolmates, especially Nendou Riki and Kaidou Shun.
Info[]
Appearance[]
Kusuo wears a limiter on both sides of his head which is never removed unless it is absolutely necessary or by accident. During the days he has school, he wears the standard PK Academy uniform that all male students wear. On his days off from school, he occasionally wears clothes that are sewn by his mother. However, there are times he is forced to buy clothes since his mother has an interesting taste in clothing patterns.
Kusuo's appearance is not limited to that of a male, as he can also transform into anything (but it takes 2 hours to transform.) While in his female form, Kusuo goes under the name Kuriko (formerly Kusuko). In this form, he has lighter pink hair, lacks visible limiters, wears glasses (although not tinted green) and usually wearing the female standard PK Academy uniform. In his cat form, Kusuo is known as Psi and has white fur. In this form, he still wears his glasses and his limiter is in the form of a collar around his neck.
As a child, depending on the time period, Kusuo does not wear any limiters nor his glasses, showing his violet colored eyes. He has striking dark pink hair, that differs from both of his parents and the rest of the world, until he used mind control.
As of the finale, he no longer wears his limiters or glasses. However, right in the end of the epilogue chapters, he reprises them due to his powers begin to return.
Personality[]
As the main character and the story is nearly driven by his narrative, Kusuo is a full, round character that changes over the course of the series.
When Kusuo was a child, he was more open to his emotions. Part of it was due to the fact that he was unaware of what his powers did, such as breaking a whac-a-mole machine in an arcade and thinking the machine was giving him praise. He was highly mischievous, such as making his parents look for him for 5 hours after he teleported, and smiled around others without a second thought. However over the course of time, with having to hide his psychic powers from others and his abilities slowly ruining experiences for him, he started to close himself up. Thus, in the present, Kusuo is reticent. He hates being the center of attention, is quite reserved, and rarely uses his voice, instead preferring to project his words via telepathy into the minds of others.
Kusuo is unselfish, most of the time, preferring to let others have happiness over himself. He gave up his coffee jelly to get a baseball back to a child, gave Chisato a plane ticket to Okinawa knowing that it will lead to Kokomi winning her way, and preferring to let his father be him, himself being left alone, just so he does not ruin the fun for the other characters. Due in part of this trait, it tends to make him hate burdening or owing a favor to someone. He always helps Kineshi after he helps him and was visually disappointed in himself for making his mother keep his abilities a secret. With these characteristics in mind, others that know him well, as well as himself consider him as a tsundere.
He is also responsible. He helps with chores around the house, such as cleaning and doing groceries. Despite being able to get anything he wants without using any money, Kusuo uses and saves money to buy something he wants, like the Coffee Jelly Maker. He is capable of cheating in exams to get a good score, but he decides to get average scores to avoid attention. Most of all, he tries heavily to not rely on his powers, wanting to achieve things for himself.
He has some faults. While he is quite intelligent, he lacks some common sense on some concepts, especially when it involves emotions and the internet. Once he nearly got scammed by an online shop, believing an item would be cheap and didn't check for delivery details. He can easily be manipulated with any sweets, especially coffee jelly. He likes to pry on the other characters. A big topic he likes to pry the most is love. While he has stated that he personally does not think he will not fall in love, he likes to watch it happen to others and helps them if he can. Such examples be him deciding to spy on Chiyo and Shun walking together the day after Valentine's Day and helping Satou Hiroshi with his crush on Suzumiya Hii. Some other characteristics include being stubborn, pessimistic, and a bit of a hypocrite.
As time progresses, he grows from not have any friends in his first year of high school, having no single thought of becoming close to anyone, to later thinking of himself as a friend of several of his classmates after much pestering from Riki, Shun, Kineshi, Kokomi, Chiyo, Reita, Aren and Mikoto. He always takes care of them when they are in trouble and vice versa. He trusts them enough to nearly tell them about his psychic powers but ultimately did not, just so he will not burden them with a big secret.
For pastime, he is a bookworm, owning several books in his room and is frequently in his school's library. He enjoys watching television, including anime, due to electronics (unless he uses his psychometry) being mostly unaffected by his powers. While not being able to set foot in a movie theater without getting a spoiler, he also enjoys watching movies.
History[]
Kusuo was born on August 16th by completely normal parents, housewife Saiki Kurumi and manga editor Saiki Kuniharu. He was raised by them along with his older brother, Kusuke Saiki.
During his mother's pregnancy, Kusuo was using his transformation ability which can be seen in the CT scans. When he was born in the hospital, he came out as a girl but an hour later he became a boy. At the age of 1 year old, Kusuo was able to fly, teleport and use telepathy to communicate with his parents. Kusuo was then pursued by an Intelligence Agency of a certain nation for his powers when he was 4. Since then Kusuo conceal his powers to avoid unnecessary trouble and erased the Intelligence Agency along with the nation.
When he was 6 years old, he slowly started to befriended Akechi Touma, an observant boy who criticizes one of their classmates. They first met in their elementary school's entrance ceremony, Touma wets himself due to nervousness, and Kusuo took him to the restroom. They ended up in the same class and sitting next to each other. One day, after school, Kusuo was about to teleport behind a bush, due to wanting to see a certain television show, and he witnesses his classmates bully Touma. Thinking Touma has passed out, Kusuo healed him by touching the tip of his shoe to Touma's arm.
Prior to current Kusuo travelling back in time, Touma quickly wakes up and asks young Kusuo if he just healed him and if he is a psychic. Kusuo uses his "playing dumb face" while several other kids were around. The other kids leave but Touma sticks around, still amazed at what he has done. Kusuo takes a liking to him; Touma asks him to show him more and thus he tells Touma about his powers. After some events, Touma ends up telling the class he is a psychic and Kusuo ended up destroying the classroom. Kusuo then swore to himself to never reveal his powers to anyone after that.
After current Kusuo traveled back in time, he influenced the event and everything changed. Young Kusuo leaves before Touma wakes up and unknowingly dropped his name tag. The next day, in PE class, Touma was bullied in front of his classmates. Right before he was about to be hit again, Kusuo uses his powers to their classmate on the pull up bar. At that moment Touma loudly exclaimed that Kusuo is a psychic but Kusuo doesn't say a word about it.
A year after the pull up bar incident, Touma still talks to Kusuo. They do small talk, such as talking about an art project. Kusuo made a robot for the project, which he later uses to destroy Kusuke’s own robot. Touma thought it was trash but quickly apologizes to him. Touma is soon bullied by their classmates but Kusuo only watches others help him. It became an occurrence where Kusuo sees him get bullied, such as classmates taking his shoes and writing mean things about him in the chalkboard, but does not help him in fear of Touma finding about his abilities. Then one day, Kusuo was walking home when he suddenly heard Touma was in trouble. He runs back to the school and finds that Touma has been knocked out by his classmates and is been made fun of. Kusuo snaps and destroyed the classroom. The next scene shows the destruction of the classroom and the bodies of injured children on the ground with Kusuo standing with a stolid face. He erases their memories of him arriving to the scene and made Touma forget about the pull up bar event. Kusuo soon transfers away, afraid that their memories will come back if he stays.
Sometime closely afterwards, Kusuo started wearing his green-tinted glasses, that he found in his toy box, to block his petrification ability. They are shown when he visited his maternal grandparents. He got along well with his grandparents in the trip, but did not tell them about his powers.
When he was 11 years old, he started using his control devices that he and mostly Kusuke invented. They, along with their parents, initially thought it would completely remove his powers. However, the devices instead weaken his powers, to the point of removing his petrification ability for a period of time. Kusuo quickly figured out that his left device limits his powers but did not understand what his right one did. He soon finds out Kusuke put it as a self destruct switch, which, upon removed, his powers were to be revealed to the whole world. Kusuke made it a competition between the two, where he would try to remove it over the years and Kusuo beating him every time. Eventually, about a year later, Kusuke leaves to England and Kusuo does not see him for several years.
Kusuo and his family lived in a different area in Japan up until he was in middle school. Around his first year of high school, his family moved to Hidari Wakibara after buying a house from Kusuke and due to an accident with his powers. Thus, at 15 years old, Kusuo transfers into PK Academy.
Once again, Kusuo keeps his distance from classmates to keep his psychic powers a secret. The only person to talk to him is Nendou Riki. Riki, known as the class delinquent, asks Kusuo for his homework. Riki, believing Kusuo was the only one to be on his side when everyone else thought he stole his classmates wallets, started to become friendly with him. After a while, Kusuo discovers he can not read Riki’s thoughts after a day of trying to avoid him. After another attempt to avoid Riki, Kusuo then learns Riki is a nice guy. Riki came to his aid against some punks and allows himself to get hurt to let Kusuo run away. Kusuo respects him in this aspect, helps him fight the punks and slowly allows Riki to be around him.
After the two got friendly, Shun went to befriend Kusuo. Kusuo rejected his quest on finding a mysterious alien, which later turns out to be Kusuo. After learning why Shun is so insisted on looking for the alien, just so Shun can have an excuse to talk to him, Kusuo just gives up. Kusuo transforms into the alien, met Shun later into the evening and teleported away once Shun saw him. With this, it allows Shun to talk to him the next day and ends up meeting Riki. The three started to hangout since then.
Present[]
In Kusuo's 2nd year in PK Academy, he ends up in the same class again as Riki and Shun. There he also meets his new classmates that will soon be part of his ‘disastrous’ life. Yumehara Chiyo, a girl who initially had a crush on him. His class representative, Hairo Kineshi, a highly charismatic individual that pushes Kusuo to do his best. Teruhashi Kokomi, a beautiful popular girl who also ends up crushing on him.
Around after the summer holidays, he meets Toritsuka Reita, a fellow psychic who can see ghosts. Reita transfers to his school, albeit is in a different class, and after some events he formally meets Reita’s spiritual guardian, Takeuchi Riki, Riki’s dead father who acts like his son.
In the fall, the school has their sports festival, Kusuo having to attend after his parents begging. There his class accidentally finds out he is a fast runner, no one telling him the other students he was competing against were part of the track and field team. Sometime after, Riki removes his left side control device making him go unconscious and nearly causing the near end of the world. Kusuo wakes up after the control device was inputted on his head again, however lacks control of his abilities. He decides to leave, but after feeling guilty that everyone was worried about him, he stays. He participates with the team activities and they nearly won if Kusuo did not have lack of control of his body. A month later, on Christmas, his family, Riki and himself enjoy dinner and shared presents. A week later, it is the new year, his parents and him, go to the shrine. After praying for a peaceful day, Kusuo runs into Shun, Kineshi, Riki and Kokomi. His parents, happy he has made friends, invite them to the house for snacks. While there his mom accidentally tells them about Kusuo being a psychic. Kusuo makes them forget of what she said but get attached to him more due to the disadvantage of the ability he used.
Sometime afterwards he meets Anpu and later on transforms into his female form to indirectly help Matsuzaki with Takahashi and friends.
One day, after helping his parents get rid of door-to-door salesmen, he discovers a ring that, if worn, makes his telepathy disappear. He finds out the ring contains a metalloid, called Germanium, that can cancel his telepathy. Overjoyed at the discovery, he goes to a movie theater, only to run into Kokomi and meet her older brother, Teruhashi Makoto. Soon after the ordeal, Makoto goes to visit Kusuo and tell him to leave his sister alone as well as his true feelings of hating him and loving his sister too much.
Afterwards Kusuo runs into Chouno Uryoku, helps him with his magic act and learns that his ex-wife is Nendou Midori, Riki’s mother.
Near the end of the school year, in April, the class decides to go celebrate the end of exams. Kusuo, on his way home, goes to eat coffee jelly at Café Mami. He ends up seeing Mera Chisato working at the place and gets an extra coffee jelly from her. He helps her with her dilemma and ends up changing how the day originally gone.
Summer arrives and Kusuo goes to his school’s class trip to Okinawa. The trip was off to a rough start, Kusuo stopped a typhoon and saved a plane from crashing. On the night before the 2nd day of the trip, his control device was removed and he makes the hotel and Kokomi disappear while asleep. He was able to resolve the problems but more trouble comes in that afternoon when the class goes to the beach. An incident happens with Kokomi and some guys, but Shun intervening and subtly some of Kusuo’s help, the guys leave. With this incident, it resulted in Chiyo getting over her crush on Kusuo, thus relieving him. Kusuo finishes the trip on a good note, getting an ice cold dessert he wanted on a large scale due in part of the others giving him a piece of their dessert.
After the summer holidays, another new transfer student arrives, this time in Kusuo’s class. His name is Kuboyasu Aren, a former delinquent trying to have a normal life. Aren tries to befriend Kusuo, to initial no avail. He ends up befriends those around Kusuo and gets into the group.
Fall arrives and the school culture festival comes in full swing. Kusuo’s class deciding on doing a display of interesting rocks they have found. On the day of the festival, Kusuo walks around with Riki and Shun and ends up helping a haunted house after Riki made one of students faint. Kusuo goes to the restroom to clean makeup off his face and Riki replaces Kusuo’s glasses with other ones. Due to this Kusuo sees Riki without his glasses and turns him into stone for 24 hours. Kusuo gets his father’s glasses to prevent from making another person into stone and protects Riki from breaking for the remainder of the time.
Time flies, several events go on, and spring arrives. Kusuo and his parents go to visit his grandparents, Saiki Kumi and Saiki Kumagoro. It has been years since he last visited. The trip goes with not much incident, aside from Kusuo scaring his grandfather at an amusement park ride. On the day the family is to go home, his grandfather makes it so they can stay another day, however Kusuo knowing his plot beforehand thaws his plans. His grandmother asks how he knew it was there, however his parents made horrible excuses for him. He remembers the last time his parents were going to tell them and gets annoyed at the reason on why it did not happen. The car suddenly stops, the road being blocked by huge chunks of rock. Kusuo decides to tell them about his abilities. His mother explains to her parents about him while Kusuo lifts the rock with ease. They are highly surprised but accepting of the fact, making Kusuo relieved and happy.
School starts again and it is the middle of May. Shun, Aren, Riki, Kineshi, Chiyo, Kokomi and Chisato planned for the better part of a week, a surprise birthday party for Kusuo. They have everything planned however it is not close to his birthday, it is all a misunderstanding. Feeling happy of what they have worked on, Kusuo does not stop their plans. He uses his father to be his decoy, while they can all enjoy themselves. He does not become a nuisance with his regular mood and ruin the party but his father changes his opinion. He finds out that the others caught on that he is acting different and that they prefer his normal self. Touched on the sentiment, he decides to continue the party with them.
Story of Joining Sora's Team[]
Once sensing the presence of the team's powers, Kusuo tried to avoid getting into the "nonsense" and Sora tried to respect his wishes, but got dragged into their mission still thanks to Nendou and Soos. Once they completed the mission in his world, Kusuo almost got out of joining; the ones that pursuaded Kusuo to join was Ginger Breadhouse, and Kenshi Masaki's cooking and Ginger's homemade coffee-jelly. After meeting Marinette in the world of Miraculouses, he has even more reason to stay on board the team once he tasted her homemade gallett.