Itsuki Kawasumi

"Huh? Why am I crying? Rishia... I'm sorry... for everything."

- Itsuki

Itsuki Kawasumi (川澄樹) is the Bow Hero (弓の勇者), one of the Four Legendary Heroes summoned in Melromarc.

Appearance
Although Itsuki's appearance suggests he is younger, he is actually 17 years of age when summoned with naturally curly blonde hair that flops, giving him a charming appearance.

Personality
Itsuki feels in his own mind that he's the strongest of the Heroes, and undergoes stealthy missions to kill corrupt nobles and save villages, almost always just for the praise. Being a bullied child has left Itsuki with a desire to be special and superior. His sense of justice and need for praise both stem from this, as does his inability to deal with the meek Rishia Ivyred, who reminds him of his weakness.

Like the other heroes, Naofumi Iwatani excluded, Itsuki believed that the world they had come into was identical to that of a video game, but he goes further than they do and believes Naofumi has met God, i.e. the game master, and received powers from him to explain his superiority. Even after becoming a yes man and having everything shattered, he still feels that the fact that Rishia is stronger than him has to be a cheat. He also thought he was immortal since the "game" wouldn't let him die.

He called himself an ally of justice and tried to act on it, at least at the beginning. But, he lost the true essence of justice and instead just acted on his own selfish desires of getting praised, under the guise of justice. His sense of justice was so overpowering that he refused to listen to what anyone had to say and believed his own to be the only true justice. Though he goes on about justice on a regular basis, his view of it is incredibly self-indulgent and one-sided. He was willing to put everyone he believed to be evildoers to death just because he believed they were evil and was willing to kill them. This got worse when he was affected by the Curse Series.

He can also be quite gullible and unobservant, though not to Motoyasu Kitamura's extent, as all of his teammates excluding Rishia are in fact extremely untrustworthy people who just praise him all the time. They just fed his desire to be praised and every time they did, he felt satisfied by their praise. Then again, he can be easily fooled like he was by the Church of the Three Heroes when they lied about Naofumi's misdeeds and that Naofumi had an item that supposedly had the power to raise his EXP intake. After awakening his curse series, he believed Naofumi was evil for having slaves and turning away people who he could supposedly revive from the dead because Malty S Melromarc tricked him into thinking the latter was possible. He believed those who praise him and not others who tried to reason with him.

He has a hero complex which means he will wait until people are in a crisis before acting so he can "save" them in a heroic fashion, going far enough to lie about his abilities to cover up his inaction before people fall into critical situations. He's extremely petty, and not very smart, believing Naofumi is guilty of both the false attempt of rape charge and later of trying to take credit for things he had done, which wouldn't be hard for anyone to do because Itsuki tries to be a robin-hood-esque hero who conceals his own activities often. His pettiness was once again exposed when Rishia was praised over him for her efforts against L'Arc Berg. To get back at her, he framed Rishia for breaking an item and kicked her out of his party.

In short, he's stuck up, gullible, and wants to be praised by others. The one thing Naofumi ever said to him that genuinely enraged Itsuki was simply "I thought you were better than this, my evaluation of you has dropped," for which he was willing to go so far as to shoot the Shield Hero in the back of the head.

Background
On Itsuki's way home from prep school, he was suddenly hit by a speeding truck with no warning where he later found himself summoned to another world as one of the Four Legendary Heroes, the Bow Hero.

Etymology

 * The name Itsuki means "tree" (樹).
 * Itsuki's surname Kawasumi means "river, stream" (川) (kawa) and "clear, pure" (澄) (sumi).

Trivia

 * According to Itsuki, this world is similar to the console game known as Dimension Wave, but he was the first to agree that there is some difference.