Itsuki Nakano

* **Overview**
* Gallery
* Relationships

* Anime
* Manga
* One-Shot

**Itsuki Nakano** (中なか野の 五月いつき, *Nakano Itsuki*?) is one of the main characters in the manga and anime series *5-toubun no Hanayome*. She is the youngest of the quintuplet sisters, along with Ichika, Nino, Miku, and Yotsuba Nakano. She is the first quintuplet that the protagonist Futaro Uesugi encounters, and the two have a complicated relationship throughout the series.

Itsuki is portrayed as an intelligent and confident student, but also a bit stubborn and headstrong at times. She is very close to her sisters and takes on a protective role towards them, especially when it comes to their father's, Maruo Nakano, expectations for their academic success. She is also passionate about food and aspires to become a food-related professional in the future.

Throughout the series, Itsuki's character undergoes significant development as she confronts her own feelings for Futaro and navigates her complicated relationships with her sisters. Her story arc highlights themes of family, personal growth, and the challenges of adolescence.

## 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 Futaro 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.

### Gallery

Itsuki Nakano design.Itsuki Nakano character profile.Itsuki Nakano sketch.
## 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 older sister, comments that Itsuki is too straight-laced.

Itsuki is a girl who bears grudges, as shown when she rejects Futaro'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 Futaro, each Nakano has their own characteristics regarding their sheets. In Itsuki's case, she would rather use an eraser than scribble on them.

## Ability

Itsuki is commended as a diligent girl, and she does things very precisely. She is also perceptive and has a good sense of detail. Despite that, she has an awful sense of direction. Her poor sense of direction is first mentioned, when she became sensitive to the cold so she sneaks into Nino's futon. She also has poor eyesight and is often seen wearing glasses.She has good observation and deduction skills. On exams, Itsuki generally scores high compared to her sisters, with her strongest subject being Science.

In spite of her excellent deduction skills, she was the last of her sisters to realise Miku's affection towards Futaro.

## Relationships

Main Article: *Itsuki Nakano/Relationships*

## 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 (**a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example *motel* (from ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’) or *brunch* (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’)**) as the name **Itsuki** means "five" (五) (**itsu**) and "moon" (月) (**tsuki**).
* Unlike her sisters, Itsuki was born on May 6 at 12:00 AM, this is confirmed by the manga in volume 14 since, according to the character file, the following is indicated: "She was born when the date changed, but she tries to prevent someone from investigating this fact too deeply..."
* 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 Futaro 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-like personality, being initially harsh to Futaro). Both of them are also close to each other and often seen hanging out, and Nino is very vocal and protective 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 Futaro. However, she is the first Nakano to have a picture with Futaro taken properly.
* Itsuki habitually speaks honourifically in Japanese. She uses a speech form, *keigo,* which is the polite form of speech. She addresses Futaro 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.

## References

1. **^** https://dic.pixiv.net/a/中野五月#h2\_6
2. **^**
*Manga* Chapter 64 (p. 1).
3. **^** [@5Hanayome] (Feb 8, 2018). “「教えて！五月せんせー！」 その１『標準体重』” (Tweet in Japanese) – via Twitter.
4. **^**
*Manga* Volume 9 –
Extra Bonus Comic.
5. **^**
*Manga* Chapter 71.
6. **^** Yu, Apphia [@soymilkpudding] (January 31, 2019). "Yo, I'll be directing the dub for The Quintessential Quintuplets this season, and it's gonna be A+. Check out this adorable romcom now!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
7. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1, page 19.
8. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1 (p. 45).
9. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1 (p. 46).
10. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1, page 22.
11. **^** *Manga* Chapter 19, page 3.
12. **^** *Manga* Chapter 24, page 18.
13. **^** *Manga* Chapter 15 (p. 2).
14. **^** *Manga* Chapter 19 (p. 17).
15. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1, page 20.
16. **^** *Manga* Chapter 17, page 14.
17. **^** *Manga* Chapter 31, page 12.
18. **^** *Manga* Chapter 12 (p. 5).
19. **^** *Manga* Chapter 26 (p. 18).
20. **^** *Manga* Chapter 12, page 5.
21. **^** *Manga* Chapter 25, page 14.
22. **^** *Manga* Chapter 17, page 15.
23. **^** Volume 1 Special Extra Comic.
24. **^** *Manga* Chapter 60 (p. 4).
25. **^** *Manga* Chapter 35 (p. 10).
26. **^** *Manga* Chapter 2, page 7.
27. **^** *Manga* Chapter 25, page 3.
28. **^** *Manga* Chapter 6, page 7.
29. **^** *Manga* Chapter 12, page 8.
30. **^** *Manga* Chapter 52 (p. 2).
31. **^** *Manga* Chapter 30, page 16.
32. **^** *Manga* Chapter 6 (p. 7).
33. **^** *Manga* Chapter 20, page 7.
34. **^** *Manga* Chapter 67 (p. 2).
35. **^** *Manga* Chapter 31 (p. 12).
36. **^** *Manga* Chapter 39 (p. 14).
37. **^** *Manga* Chapter 57 (p. 18).
38. **^** *Manga* Chapter 63 (p. 14).
39. **^** [1]
40. **^** *Manga* Chapter 1, page 10.
41. **^** *Manga* Chapter 34.
42. **^** *Manga* Chapter 59.
43. **^** *Manga* Chapter 7 (p. 19).