Shido Itsuka

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

- Shido Itsuka, to Tohka Yatogami

Shido Itsuka is the main protagonist of the Date A Live franchise. He was adopted into the Itsuka family at a young age, and he has a younger foster sister named Kotori Itsuka, as well as a younger sister named Mana Takamiya.

Shido has been living a fairly average normal life until just recently. At the start of the series, and his new high school year as a 2nd year student, he accidentally stumbles into a world unknown to him or to the public for that matter of facts. Discovering the real reason behind the spacequakes and the fight between the AST and the Spirits; forcefully or voluntarily, Shido was brought into the secret organization known as Ratatoskr that is commanded by his little sister, which was also a surprise to him. With the only explanation from her being that only he can save the Spirits, Shido reluctantly joins due to his nature to help and/or save people in need. Going about with his normal life and saving Spirits is one thing, but with each new encounter and new Spirits to save, there is always some type of new hardship on Shido's mental health, since he has to deal with the opposite gender, which he does not have much experience dealing with.

Appearance
Shido has all the looks of an average high school boy. With blue hair down to his neck, amber brown eyes, and has straight hair and bangs. He is usually seen wearing his school uniform. His height is stated to be 170 cm in the anime. During the events of Miku Lily, Shido crossdresses as a girl in order to interact with Miku, and he disguised himself as his alternate identity, Shiori Itsuka. During the time he crossdressed, he was seen with long blue hair, and he wore the standard female Raizen High School uniform. He also had a hair clip, which seemed to be a flower of some sort.

Personality
An average teenage boy that originally had no interests in the opposite gender until he got forced to be by his little sister. Basically, he has to deal with females on a constant basis, which he is not used to.

Another interesting personality Shido has as described by Kotori: "onii-chan had become strangely sensitive to the despair inside people.—Mm. Something like everyone rejecting oneself—thinking that one will never be loved by anyone else. Well, basically what he had been like back then. If there was someone with such a melancholic expression, even if it was a complete stranger, he would probably go help them without a second thought."

Shido is also a very kind-hearted person, and can sympathize with others; these traits are what caused most of the Spirits to fall in love with him, as the thing they seem to lack most of all has always been a person who can do exactly this: i.e. accept and understand them. Even Miku, who treated everyone like puppets, ended up changing her world view because of him.

He also possesses a strong will and a friendly willingness to forgive others. He will press on to save the Spirits despite great personal risk to himself. When responding to Natsumi's comment about the trouble she caused him, he compares her actions to what he went through during all of his past attempts to help spirits and can only call her actions childish pranks: this is a girl who nearly ruined his reputation and erased all his friends and would've then erased him had she succeeded.

History
Abandoned by his birth mother, Shido was adopted into the Itsuka household at a young age. Five years ago, an incident caused Kotori to become a Spirit due to a misunderstanding on her part and was tricked into becoming one, but neither of them can remember anything about that incident until Kotori personally used her powers again five years later, which somehow awakened those memories in both of them again. It was discovered that Shido somehow possesses the ability to seal the powers of Spirits around the time Kotori became a Spirit, but it is not known how he got it in the first place.

Before the incident, Shido seemed to have met Origami, who lived in the same apartment building.

Powers & Abilities
Shido has the mysterious, and unique ability to seal the powers of the Spirits into his own body, which was first discovered sometime in the past when Kotori was turned into a Spirit. To use his ability to seal a Spirit’s power, the Spirit in question must meet a certain condition or requirement. Those conditions or requirements are that, the Spirit in question must show affection, trust, closeness, and/or intimacy towards Shido. Once these conditions of affection are high enough between Shido and the Spirit in question, he can seal their power by kissing them on the lips.

Depending on the Spirit itself and how much power they originally had, Shido can either seal a majority of their power or all of it. Shido can also “borrow” the power of a Spirit he sealed, but it depends on how close or intimate he is with that Spirit. This explains the nature of his regenerative abilities. However, it seems that using a Spirit's power (other than regeneration) taxes his body with great pain.

Thus far, he has automatically used Kotori's healing powers and has learned to use Tohka's Sandalphon, and later even summon Yoshino's ice. He was, however, unable to call these powers out of his own free will until the case with Natsumi, where he finally pulled out Sandalphon intentionally. Also, due to the sheer amount of Spirit energy sealed inside of his body, Shido has been shown to possess a level of protection or immunity towards the abilities of other Spirits, being able to withstand Kurumi's City of Devouring Time with little effort, as well as being unaffected by Miku's Solo.

Should the Spirits' emotions become unstable enough, their powers will begin to return to them and leave Shido. This means he'll have to seal them again should their powers fully return to them, but usually this only results in the Spirits temporarily regaining portions of their original power. However, as shown in the cases of Kotori, and much later on Tohka, it is possible for the Spirits to take back their full powers without the need to become emotionally unstable.

Additionally, in terms of other abilities, Shido also possesses good cooking skills and, much to his own dismay, due to having to crossdress in order to interact with Miku, Shido learned how to utilize makeup on a level comparable to most girls, enough that he was the one asked to use said skills on Natsumi. His acting skills proved effective enough to deceive his schoolmates and Miku herself, who was, at the time, a serious man hater.

Trivia

 * Shido has two little sisters. Kotori Itsuka as his foster sister and Mana Takamiya as his real sister. Both Shido and Mana have amnesia about their pasts.
 * Shido is the one who gave the black ribbons to Kotori after he sealed her powers in the past.
 * His family name "Itsuka" can mean "someday" or "the fifth day of the month."
 * Due to a promise to Tohka that he wouldn't kiss any other girl but her, Shido always tries to seal a spirit's powers when Tohka isn't looking.
 * This doesn't always succeed as Tohka ended up walking in on the Yamai twins' powers being sealed.