Akira

### Place of death

• School (Yangire Mode, Bad Ending in Normal/Hard Mode)• Akira's flat (probably in one of the endings in Nightmare mode)

## Appearances

### Appears in

Saiko no Sutoka, Saiko no Sutoka no Shiki

### Debut

Saiko no Sutoka alpha 1.7

**Akira Ishida** (石田 彰, *Ishida Akira*) is the main protagonist of *Saiko no Sutoka* and *Saiko no Sutoka no Shiki.* He is the one-sided romantic interest of Saiko-chan, who has an unhinged and obsessive crush on him. She refers to him as "Senpai".

In main game (Easy/Normal/Hard mode and Yangire/Extreme Yangire mode) Akira must escape from school and beware of Saiko-chan (and Elissu, if player choose Extreme Yangire mode). He has to get the exit key and run away before Saiko will kill him.

In *Saiko no Sutoka no Shiki*, Akira must defeat Yui and/or Elissu to get the key and escape from forest. In this mode, he has ally Saiko-chan, who turned into a zombie and can help to steal the key. In the mode "Rotten", Akira has to defend himself against Yangire Elissu. In the mode "Hell", he needs to escape from Yui and Elissu without any help.

## Background

### Childhood

Akira was born and raised in the small Japanese town of Hakogoya, surrounded by a loving aunt and her husband/Akira's uncle. According to Akira, he doesn't know much about his parents: his mother was ill most of her life and passed away when Akira was seven. Akira's father was a foreigner, who left the family when his son was born.

As a child, Akira met Shinji Yamazaki, who became his best friend for several years. Later, Saiko-chan was transferred to their school and fell in love with Akira, leading to the events of the game.

### Main story

At the first day of school, Saiko met Akira in the hallway when he helped her up off the floor after she accidentally tripped. Shortly after this, she became obsessed with him and started stalking him. Akira only became somewhat aware of the extent of her crush when he saw her in the men's bathroom at school. He asked his best friend to talk with Saiko, thinking that it will help him to get away from his stalker. However, Shinji only provoked Saiko's aggressive attitude, and he later learned that she ignored his threats.

It is revealed in Yandere Mode that shortly before the events of the game, Shinji had stolen Saiko's diary from her home and hung out the pages on the school's walls. The students found out about Saiko's past and her life, and began to bully her. After that, Saiko's mind could not withstand the pressure and she broke down, allowing her evil personality to take control of her. She killed Shinji and later kidnapped Akira, tying him to a chair in the principal's office in Normal/Hard mode.

### Game

In the classic "Normal/Hard mode", Akira is forced to flee the school in fear of Saiko. In two of the three endings, he survives and runs away from the school. In the bad ending, he is killed by Saiko.

In "Yandere mode", Akira already was kidnapped and hidden in a school locker when Shinji was looking for him. However, even if Shinji finds Akira or if Shinji tries to get away from Saiko, he won't help him.

Canonically, he escaped from the school. Saiko broke the glass of a door leading outside to get to him and pull him back inside, but she accidentally impaled herself on the broken shards in the process and died.

In "Nightmare mode", Saiko came back to kill Akira in his twisted nightmares.

## Appearance

Akira appears to be a young man with a blue and blonde, all-back hairstyle. He wears a typical Japanese male school uniform, consisting of a white buttoned-up shirt and black dress pants. As Akira acts as the player character in every mode except for Yandere - and the player is always in first person view - his appearance is almost never seen in-game. However, he can be seen in mirrors and in the ending cutscenes. He also appears briefly on the game's main menu, where he's tied up to a chair, gagged and unconscious.

Before alpha 1.7, Akira didn't have his own model for game. At first, whenever the player picked up a key, it would appear to be flying midair. However, in alpha 1.6, the developer used a placeholder to fix that until they had a design for him.

## Personality

Unlike his best friend, Akira seems to be a kind and pleasant person. He is an ordinary teenager who lives a normal life and enjoys spending time with Shinji. However, he doesn't reciprocate Saiko's feelings, which causes her mental break.

He appears to stay quiet and calm despite being kidnapped, but that could be the result of shock and fear. Both he and Shinji appear to be rather naive, as they both fell for Saiko's tricks, even if what she was actually doing seemed blatantly obvious.

## Relationship

### Shinji

> *"I can't even imagine goin' places without him."*
>
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Shinji is a local bully, but also Akira's best friend since childhood. According to Akira, Shinji constantly helped Akira "with everything". Shinji tries to help his best friend with his personal life, such as when he tried to scare away Saiko or help Akira talk to his crush, Yui. Akira also appreciates his friend very much, despite his reputation and childishness. Shinji's loyalty toward Akira ends up getting Shinji killed; he is murdered by Saiko after deciding to look for his missing friend at the school.

Shinji's death was very traumatic for Akira, which caused him to see the still-alive Shinji in his nightmares. In Nightmare mode, Shinji can be his ally or enemy, depending on situation.

### Saiko-chan

> *"Why did you do that?"*
>
>

Saiko is Akira's stalker. Before his kidnapping, Saiko followed Akira around for a long time before Shinji noticed. Creeped out, he "politely" asked her to stop. This seems to bother Akira, possibly because he was worried about how Shinji went about it, but after this, it appeared that she had stopped chasing Akira. In reality, Saiko continued to do so, but more secretively.

In the teaser to the 10th part, it was revealed that Akira had tried to talk with Saiko by himself, but she was scared and probably ran away (either because of Shinji's threat and/or because of fear to communicate with Akira). It isn't known how their relationship developed further. However, Saiko's first statement in her diary - "why did you do that?" - implies that she believed that Akira may be somewhat responsible for her bullying.

Akira was very afraid of Saiko. Usually Akira runs away in case of danger, hiding or evades attacks. In normal mode, he does not even try to protect himself when Yangire Saiko attacks him. He also repeatedly rejected her, as he did not return her feelings. Nevertheless, despite the whole experienced horror, it's implied that he feels guilty for the death of Saiko, and all the events that had happened. For example, in the Good Ending of Yangire Mode, Akira says "sorry" to Saiko and hugs her. He looks sad after Saiko's death in the Halloween Edition. In "Me-Me-Me", he remembers his first meeting with Saiko-chan.

In Nightmare Mode, she appears as a ghost/hallucination that chases Akira in his twisted dream. The reason why Saiko turn into a ghost is unknown.

In *Saiko no Sutoka no Shiki*, Saiko is revealed to have turned into a zombie. She becomes his ally, helping him go against Yui.

### Yui Ichikawa

Yui is Akira's crush. The girl does not know about his feelings, because Akira doesn't have the courage to talk to her. Although Akira likes her, she treats him rather badly. In *Saiko no Sutoka no Shiki*, Yui hunts Akira and insults him. She blackmails him, promising to tell everyone a certain "secret" of Akira. In this way, she shows her sadistic side to both him and Saiko. In Nightmare Mode, she also will try to kill Akira, but sometimes she can be his ally and give him medicine or other useful things.

### Akira's Aunt and Uncle

> *"During her sick days my aunt took care of us, when my mom passed away, she raised me like her own.* *Her husband...my old man...he is pretty strict towards me..."*
>
>

Akira's aunt and uncle are his legal guardians. They have been taking care of him since his mother died, and they love him and treat him like their own son.

According to Akira himself, his uncle is a businessman, which allows the family to live well. Akira indicates at some point that his uncle is "pretty strict" towards him, and in Part 8th of the lore, his uncle called Akira's friend, Shinji, a "brat", indicating that he didn't approve of their friendship. Aside from Shinji's general bad behavior, a reason for that could be that Shinji's elder brother works with the Yakuza.

Akira's aunt is less strict than her husband. Even from Akira's birth, she helped to raise her nephew. She also makes frequent comparisons between Akira and his father, although Akira doesn't like that.

### Akira's Mother

Akira's mom passed away when he was seven. In the last years of her life, she was often sick, so Akira's aunt was mainly involved in raising her son. Akira is implied to be very warm towards her mother, as he has her picture on his table.

### Akira's Father

Akira is a complete copy of his father in appearance. When Akira was a baby, his father abandoned him and his mother, and most likely went to his homeland. This has caused him to resent his father.

Given the looks of Akira and his father, the latter most likely came from Europe or the United States.

## Trivia

* He shares the same name with a Japanese actor Akira Ishida.
* According to Akira, the game/series takes place in the fictional city of Hakogoya.
	+ The subtitles in the video say Hakog**o**ya, but in the dialogue it is pronounced Hakog**a**ya in Japanese, creating a discrepancy.