Itsuki Nakano

Itsuki wearing a suit at the beach.

**Itsuki Nakano** (Japanese: 中野 五月) is one of the main characters of *The Quintessential Quintuplets* series. She is the fifth sister of the Nakano Quintuplets, all aged 16 (17 by third year). Itsuki is serious and diligent, yet also a glutton and crybaby.

## Appearance

Itsuki is a serious looking girl with medium-length hair and an expressive ahoge. She has reddish-orange hair colour, ranging from light pink to salmon pink in Volume 1, and deep orange to orient red in Volume 4. Her notable accessories are a pair of star-shaped hairpins near both of her eyes, which Fuutarou Uesugi called unfashionable at one point. Like her sisters, she has dark blue eyes, an average height, and a well-endowed figure. In class, or when she does activities that involve academics, she wears glasses.

Itsuki is noted to be "cute" by her classmates and she looks very similar to Rena Nakano, according to Shimoda.

She wears her uniform normally without any accessories, like most of the girl students, and on occasion, she wears a handbag.

## Personality

Itsuki is a serious and earnest girl  who usually wakes up early compared to her sisters. She is well-mannered; never being late or missed a class, and always speaks formally. In the Japanese script, she almost exclusively speaks with a *keigo* speech pattern. Nino, her sister, comments that Itsuki is too straight-laced.

Itsuki is a girl who bears grudges, as shown when she rejects Fuutarou Uesugi's tutoring partly because of a previous quarrel they had. She is also someone who can't be honest with herself and has difficulties being more straightforward. Both of these qualities often make her struggle on her own. She is easily agitated, be it about unfavourable situations, scary things or her stubborn self.

She has a huge appetite and is frequently seen eating something or being hungry throughout the series. It appears that she doesn't mind treating her sisters unfairly when it comes to food-related topics. This shows where during one scenario when she proposed to her sisters to share their cakes; suspected to sample all the flavours by Ichika.

According to Fuutarou, each Nakano Quintuplet has their own characteristics regarding their sheets. In Itsuki's case, she would rather use an eraser than scribble on them

## Quotes

* *"In the end, we can't know what he feels, what he thinks, unless we ask him personally"*
* *"Aren't you going to set a good example? We're counting on you"*
* *"How does it feel to receive words of gratitude from someone you taught? For me. I want to treasure the feelings from that time"*
* *"The numerous days we spent studying for exams, fireworks festival, field trip, new year celebration, we spent all that time together. Doesn't that already make us... friends?"*

## Trivia

* Itsuki is the only girl whose name is a portmanteau as the name **Itsuki** means "five" (五) (**itsu**) and "moon" (月) (**tsuki**).
* Itsuki is seen wearing glasses when she's about to do a test (Chapter 2), suggesting she has hyperopia (far-sightedness). In Chapter 3 with Fuutarou Uesugi, he remarks that Itsuki can't see far away, suggesting she has myopia (near-sightedness). Despite sharing eye problems with Nino Nakano, only Itsuki wears glasses.
* She and Nino seem to be the most similar to each other among the quintuplets (both of them do sit-ups in the morning, have long hair, poor eyesight, a fear of needles, and a tsundere personality, being initially harsh to Fuutarou). Both of them are also close to each other and often seen hanging out, and Nino is very vocal andprotective regarding Itsuki.
* Itsuki believes in fate and charms.
* Itsuki's notable accessories are two stars on the front of her hair, representing number 5, which is a part of her name and the order of her birth.
* Itsuki won 3rd place on the Japanese popularity poll with 1235 votes.
* Itsuki's food critic pseudonym, *May* (M·A·Y?) literally means May in English, as in the fifth month of the year. The Kanji of *Itsuki* (五月?) is also used for "May" in Japanese.
* Itsuki is the second Nakano Quintuplet to get her picture taken alongside Fuutarou. However, she is the first Nakano Quintuplet to have a picture with Fuutarou taken properly.
* Itsuki habitually speaks honourifically in Japanese. She uses a speech form, *keigo,* which is the polite form of speech. She addresses Fuutarou by his surname referring to him as "Uesugi-kun", and ends her sentences in "desu" (です) and "masu" (ます), or variations of the phrases, which are speech particles added as a formality in sentences.

## See also

* List of anime girls age 16
* List of anime girls age 17
* The Quintessential Quintuplets

## References

1. ↑ *(Second Year)* She is 15 years old prior to May 5 and 16 years old from May 5 onwards.
2. ↑ *(Third Year)* She is 16 years old prior to May 5 and 17 years old from May 5 onwards.