WARNING
This article is based on the Web Novel which is a separate canon from the Light Novel.
Any information here should not be used with the official Light Novel and related media.
Information may be outdated and incorrect compared to the official release.
Itsuki Kawasumi (川澄樹 Kawasumi Itsuki?) is a major supporting character in the web novel series The Rising of the Shield Hero.
He was summoned to another world as the Bow Hero (弓の勇者 Yumi no Yuusha?) to fight against the wave of calamity.
Appearance[]
Though his appearance is younger, he was actually 17 years of age when he was summoned. He has naturally curly hair that flops.
Personality[]
He feels in his own mind that he's the strongest of the heroes, and he 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, who reminds him of his weakness.
Like the other heroes, Naofumi excluded, he believed the world they had come into was a 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 he, 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. As Naofumi and later Rishia both states Itsuki's justice is not the same as someone else's justice, and there are as many types of justice in the world as there are people. 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 and it got worse when he was affected by the curse series.
He can also be quite gullible and unobservant, though not to Motoyasu'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 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 to rape charge and later without any proof of Naofumi trying to take credit for things Itsuki had done, which wouldn't be hard for anyone to do because Itsuki tries to be a robin-hood-esk 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. 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[]
Before being summoned into the world where the story takes place, Itsuki lived in an alternate world to our own, where some people were born with various supernatural-like abilities. Itsuki was born with the supernatural ability "Accuracy," meaning any ranged shot of a weapon or device he fired would - if not blocked - hit its target. As such, he was admitted to a school designed for children with abilities.
Under the impression that he was particularly special due to his middle-school years in a regular class with non-special people, his ego plummeted upon entry to the high school when he found he was classed among the weakest of those with abilities. Due to his supposed weak ability, he was bullied throughout his school years and turned to console games to escape reality. The bullying throughout his first life led to his hatred of "evil" and an inflated sense of justice and righteousness, particularly in his second life.
While on his way home from Prep School one day, Itsuki was run over by a dumpster truck that took a high-speed left turn and was killed immediately. Upon his death, he is summoned into the world of Melromarc by the Church of the Three Heroes, along with Naofumi, Ren, and Motoyasu.
Summary[]
The Rising of the Shield Hero[]
He is rumored to be the strongest Hero, but he has a messiah complex and claims everything he does is in the name of justice. He vanquishes those he sees as evildoers without thinking of the consequences of his actions. He likes to 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.
Itsuki's group arrived before Ren and Motoyasu's. Half a day faster at that. And he destroyed one of the statues just like the others.
But nothing happened, and the group was captured by the soldiers of the country.
Armor pushed all of the blame onto Itsuki. He shouted at him, telling him that he was no hero of justice.
With their trust broken, the group was thrown into jail. They were set to have an audience with the king… but the Spirit Turtle revived, and Itsuki was forced to challenge it.
But without lifting a finger… His comrades came to a silent agreement. They got together behind Itsuki’s back. They ran away, leaving him as a sacrifice to the Turtle.
Later Mald declared. That Justice without power was no Justice. Since Itsuki was unable to stop the Spirit Turtle, he was no justice.
To satisfy his sense of justice, he went off to challenge the Spirit Turtle, and his comrades had had enough and fled.
The Reprise of the Spear Hero[]
Information to be added later on.
Legacy[]
As the Hero of the Bow, he saved the world. After the subjugation of the Goddess, he proclaimed that there was still evil in the world, and went on a journey with the Hero of the Projectile. While records of him exist in all countries around the world, none of them told of exploits great enough for his name to be handed down.
Abilities[]
Itsuki's quiver endlessly produces arrows for his bow, the arrows appear simply by tightening his grip on the bow. Itsuki was an E class ESPer, with the ability Accuracy. With Accuracy, if he set his aim, he could hit things much easier than normal humans. If needed, he could also act as a sniper from afar. It has quite a bit of combat capabilities. If the ranking is S-F, it's around the lower end. Itsuki specializes in wind and earth magic. He can use a bit of recovery and support magic
Legendary Bow Skills[]
- Earth Pinning Shot: "description here."
- Splash Arrow: "description here."
- Sleep Arrow: A Splash Arrow with a sleep effect.
- Second Arrow: "description here."
- Shining Arrow: A manifested arrow of light. It takes a while before he can shoot it.
- Frozen Rain: "description here."
- Blaze Arrow: "description here."
- Saint Arrow Rain: "description here."
- Bind Arrow: A restraint skill, arrows pin the opponent to the wall behind him or her.
- Bird Hunting: Itsuki’s arrow divides, and rains down on his opponent.[1]
- Spread Arrow: "description here."
- Transfer Bow: "description here"
- Eagle Piercing Shot: "description here"
- Meteor Bow: "description here"
- Arrow Squall: "description here"
- Spread Strafing: "description here."
- Rechtsfanatiker: Itsuki’s eyes turn red and begin to give off a suspicious light. Then the miasma envelops his body, forming a sort of armor. A winged, full-body armor, reminiscent of an angel, but some parts here and there seem demonic in design. The armor also bears resemblance to the combat suits wore by Rider and Ranger people. Hence, a status buffing skill.
- Alleinherrschaft: Countless orbs of light are scattered from his body. They destroy the ceiling (if there is one) and take on lion-like shapes in the sky. They then begin raining down endlessly upon the opponent.
- Shadow Bind: A skill that can block enemy movement by hitting their shadow.
- Heldenkaiser Reich: The bow multiplies and sprouts many wings imitating those of angels and devils, and all the bows fire at the opponent. The shots come together and form the shape of a bear-like beast as they fly at the opponent.
- Phalaris Bull: A statue of a giant Bull opens up and locks the opponent within. Then the statue glows as it fills with fire.
Relationships[]
Itsuki looked down on Naofumi considering him to have a weak weapon. As an easily gullible person, he believed Malty's accusation of Naofumi raping her and berated Naofumi without hearing or believing his side of the story. He believes Naofumi to be an evil person and readily accepted any accusation made against him, such as that of Naofumi brainwashing the people and kidnapping the second princess without doing any background check to those claims. He readily believed Naofumi stealing his achievement without any leads or evidence and still tried to stand on it when proven otherwise. After affected by the curse, he tried to kill Naofumi claiming him to be evil and brainwashing, though he was the one doing it. Itsuki believes Naofumi to have met a god who helped him in cheating the system for his unreasonable power with reference to his original world games and refuses to acknowledge Naofumi's hard work. After Naofumi's name was cleared, he agreed to the queen's idea of giving little preferential treatment to Naofumi, in-order to balance all the past misdeed against Naofumi, but Naofumi felt it to be just for say from Itsuki and was sure that he would throw a tantrum. Itsuki doesn't like the idea of being inferior to Naofumi (A weak job in his eyes) and felt him to be bossing him & other heroes. He openly stated to Naofumi of outshining him. This leads his involvement in the Spirit Tortoise incident. Likewise, Naofumi didn't view Itsuki in good light for he seen though Itsuki as a self-centered, approval-seeking person. However, what little respect he had for Itsuki completely disappears when Itsuki kicks Rishia out of his party for being weak. Despite all, Itsuki stood up for Naofumi for the rigged duel with Motoyasu and Melty's involvement in it. He also demanded the reason for revoking Naofumi's payment as he didn't get any job from the guild to support himself. Naofumi also defends Itsuki from Raphtalia's criticisms by stating that Itsuki was stuck up, but would never let harm befall his allies.
Itsuki along with Ren and Motoyasu fights wave boss, they even team up against Naofumi when the later was accused of kidnapping the second princess. Though he firmly believes Naofumi to be a villain, Itsuki lends ears to Ren for to investigate the back story of the kidnapping incident, to see if Naofumi was really telling the truth. This shows a certain degree of companionship between them. Despite fighting alongside, Itsuki was just as surprised as Naofumi after leaning Ren's way of working with his comrades.
Itsuki was little envious of Motoyasu's preferential treatment. Itsuki along with Ren and Motayasu fought waves and the final boss. Itsuki along with Ren called out Motoyasu of his rigged duel with Naofumi. Motoyasu considered Ituski and Ren as his buddies and went on a rampage against Naofumi after falsely informed of Naofumi involved in killing them. Later, he joins with Naofumi to fight against Pope for the same reason and vows to avenge them and give them proper funeral, but was surprised of them being alive.
Itsuki rescued Rishia from an evil Nobel man. From then on Rishia follows Itsuki to a letter, though she was mostly mistreated by her fellow peers. Rishia mostly reminded Itsuki of himself from his original world and tried to bury it. Itsuki and his comrades forced her to use her weak points rather than sharpening her strong skills. Itsuki finally snapped when Rishia received the praise of the queen for being useful in handling L'Arc while he wasn't. He framed her and kicked her out. When questioned by Naofumi, he replied to her being weak and did it for her own good, which pushed her to commit suicide. Later, Risha grown strong under Naofumi, confront Itsuki who was under the control of his curse and beats him in a one to one battle. She looks after Itsuki who was still under the curse at Naofumi's village. Itsuki still believes Rishia's strength of beating him to be a cheat and not genuine. Naofumi also finds them to be sharing the bed.
Glass defeats Itsuki with much ease, believing him to be a normal adventure and wonders where the other heroes were. While She acknowledging Naofumi alone to be a hero.
Trivia[]
- Of the Four Saint Heroes, he was the only one to survive the attack of Medea.