Shinichi Saimori

* Anime
* Manga
* Live-action

**Shinichi Saimori** (斎森 真一, *Saimori Shin'ichi*?) is the head of the Saimori family and the father of Miyo Saimori and Kaya Saimori who favors Kaya over Miyo since they were kids due to Kaya inheriting the supernatural talents of the Saimori family.

## Appearance

Shinichi is a middle-aged man. He has black hair with streaks of gray in it. He has purple eyes and wears a pair of round spectacles.

## Personality

Shinichi is a cold and indifferent man, especially towards his oldest daughter Miyo Saimori. He is shown to ignore his daughter when she is harassed by either his wife Kanoko Saimori or youngest daughter Kaya Saimori's behavior towards her, but he is shown to be quite fearful when the consequences of his negligence arise when Kaya, Kanoko and Minoru Tatsuishi plot bewhind his back to kidnap Miyo and force her switch marriage arrangements. After losing his mansion, his fortune, and his royal status he become a broken man.

## History

Shinichi was born in the Saimori family, a long-established noble line who had risen to prominence through ridding the land of Grotesqueries. However, the family has been in decline for a long time, they are almost entirely lacking in Gift-users, and their fall from nobility is clearly on the horizon.

As a young man, Shinichi fell in love with a woman named Kanoko. To his dismay, he was forced by his family to end his relationship and enter an arranged marriage with Sumi Usuba. The marriage had been been purely strategic: his parents hoped the marriage would improve their bloodline, if children with the Gift would be born from the union.

Their loveless union resulted in Miyo Saimori’s birth. Shinichi was kind towards the child not out of love, but his tenderness was simply because she’d been a baby. However, when he discovered that Miyo couldn't demonstrate the Spirit-Sight ability, he was under the impression that she was Giftless and resented her for it. He'd felt bitter dejection when the child of the woman he’d been forced to marry in spite of his love for another hadn’t fulfilled the familial expectation of inheriting the Gift. It's all but shouted that he started turning his back on Miyo while Sumi was still alive, as a flashback has her begging him not to reject his daughter.

When Miyo was two years old, Sumi passed away from illness and Shinichi wasted no time in remarrying his former lover. Kanoko despised Miyo since day one, but Shinichi was so overcome with guilt toward his second wife that he deferred to her in everything. When Kanoko gave birth to his second daughter Kaya Saimori, he lost all interest in Miyo, since he preferred the daughter of his beloved. When at the age of three, Shinichi discovered that Kaya possessed Spirit-Sight, he is especially overjoyed and praised Kanoko for giving him a Gifted daughter.

After Miyo was imprisoned by his wife in a storehouse at the back of the mansion, Shinichi did not only not come to her aid, instead allowed Miyo being divested of her status within the household and henceforth being treated worse than a servant. From then onwards, he never intervened nor stopped his wife and younger daughter from mocking his older daughter, and would simply act as if nothing had happened. He hadn’t defended her once in the past several years and he never would.

## Plot

One day, Shinichi calls for a meeting and tells his eldest daughter that Kaya will be marrying her childhood Kouji Tatsuishi, the second son of the family. This deeply hurts Miyo, who initially thought she would be Kouji's bride, as her half sister looked on in glee at her suffering. Then, he tells Miyo she is to be married off to Kiyoka Kudou, a man from a powerful family who has a reputation of driving off many potential brides and being cruel; he does this as he believes she’ll become a servant there and be mistreated or be kicked out to the streets, in either scenerio he and his family would be rid of her for good.

Shinichi had given her a set of fine clothes so that she wouldn’t bring shame to the Kudous by arriving at their residence dressed in rags. His gift shows that he had been aware she’d owned no presentable clothes but had simply been unbothered by her plight until now, plus the kimonos were of a very gaudy style that would have fitted Kaya much better.

Sometime after, Kiyoka visits him and his wife telling him he actually wants to marry Miyo, much to their shock. Things take a turn when Kiyoka reveals to them that he has learned about the abuse towards Miyo. He also adds that he will only be willing to allow them to do business with them if they sincerely apologize to Miyo for their actions, and if they do not, he’ll sever ties with them with only taking Miyo as his wife.

Shinichi starts to rethink Miyo’s importance as she’s accomplished what many other women failed to do with Kiyoka, even going as far as to refuse Kaya's request to sever Miyo's marriage engagement and tell her off to learn how to cook and sew as a suitable wife. However, due to his negligence, he was not aware that his daughter, wife and Minoru Tatsuishi (Kouji's father, who was unhappy at Shinichi's decision to marry Miyo to Kiyoka and not one of his own sons) plotted to kidnap Miyo, and was surprised and horrified when he saw Kiyoka barge into his estate with Kouji to rescue her, knowing that Kiyoka will end his deal with him and their family will be in ruins. He and Minoru tried to stop him, but Minoru used fire magic and burned the Saimori house down; at this, Shinichi slumps to the ground in despair lamenting that it had to be this way.

After Kiyoka rescues Miyo, Shinichi and his family were stripped of their status for their crimes against the Kudou family and abuse against Miyo. He and Kanoko were banished to the countryside to live in a small house as commoners while Kaya is forced to work as a servant for a strict family, all of this as punishment for their actions.

## Abilities

**Barrier technique**: Shinichi can generate force fields that act as a defensive barrier. He creates one with Minoru Tatsuishi when facing Kiyoka Kudou at the Saimori estate.

## Trivia

* Shinichi only wears glasses in the anime. In the original novel and the manga adaptation, he does not.
* It is stated that Shinichi was a better father during Miyo Saimori's early childhood, although it's unclear whether his second wife's influence, Miyo's lack of a gift, or both, led him to start treating her like a servant rather than a proper daughter.
* It is unknown that he, his second wife, and Kaya learned that Sumi sealed her powers because Miyo have Dream-Sight.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 1
2. ↑  Manga, Chapter 1
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1  Anime, Episode 1
4. ↑  Novel, Volume 2 Chapter 5
5. ↑  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 2
6. ↑  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 4