Ichiru Kuga

* Original
* Anime
* Manga
* Stage

### Signature

**Ichiru Kuga** (久我 壱流 *Kuga Ichiru*) is an idol under TSUKINO TALENT PRODUCTION. He is a member of the unit QUELL and the younger twin of Issei Kuga.

## Appearance

Ichiru is a young man of average height, with black hair with long bangs framing his face and dark blue eyes. He is distinguished from his twin, Issei, by the fact his bangs are swept to the left and he is typically seen smirking.

 Personality

> *"Blindingly bright and free like an open flame. The half of intensity."* -TSUKINO PARADISE profile
>
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Between him and Issei, Ichiru has been described as being the straightforward, competitive and expressive twin, who is known for being quick to pick a fight. He is easily swayed by his emotions: he is quick to anger (usually on behalf of Issei) and also cries quite easily.

Unlike Issei who has been shown to be extremely smart, Ichiru has often been picked on by others for being perceived as stupid (including Tsubasa). He is also quite distrustful of strangers, as seen by his initial suspicions of Shu.

## History

Ichiru and Issei come from an orphanage in Hokkaido. As a result of growing up in an orphanage the twins never went to high school, instead,they worked at a production factory.

## Plot

### 2016

* **Age:** 16
* **Height:**  170 cm

At some point in 2016 Ichiru and Issei encountered Shu Izumi while he was on a press tour in Sapporo, after learning of their difficult circumstances he offered to take them back to Tokyo with him. He then introduced the twins to the president of TSUKINO PRODUCTIONs who eventually agreed for them to debut as idols. While leaving the meeting the trio ran into Eichi Horimiya, an assistant director Shu had befriended while filming one of his TV shows, who was promptly invited out to dinner with them by Shu. Over the course of dinner Shu proposed that Eichi should become their unit manager causing interesting reactions in the others. Eichi instantly panicked at the suggestion meanwhile the twins were confused about being in a unit; Shu failed to communicate his intentions clearly.

Eventually, Eichi decided to take Shu up on his offer and soon quit his AD job to become QUELL's manager. Thanks to his skills from his previous job combined with his friendly personality Eichi proved to be a competent manager and enjoys fussing over everyone, especially the twins. One day the twins suggested that Eichi should become an idol too, due to his good looks and impressive dancing skills, rather than be their manager. Eichi once again panics at the suggestion, but Shu agreed that it would be a good idea; leading to the full formation of QUELL.

### 2017

* **Age:** 17
* **Height:**  172 cm

### 2018

* **Age:** 18
* **Height:**  173 cm

### 2019

* **Age:** 19
* **Height:**  175 cm

### 2020

* **Age:** 20
* **Height:**  176 cm

### 2021

* **Age:** 21
* **Height:**  177 cm

### 2022

* **Age:** 22
* **Height:**  177 cm

## Relationships

### QUELL

**Shu Izumi** - Due to his protective nature when it comes to his twin, Ichiru was initially very distrustful of Shu and found him suspicious but he has since warmed up to him considerably. After learning that despite Ichiru being fond of cake he only ever got to eat it on his birthday, Shu has since been frequently buying Ichiru cake. When Ichiru asked him why Shu said "no particular reason".

**Eichi Horimiya** - Ever since he joined QUELL as their manager, Eichi has been looking after the twins a great deal. Due to Ichiru's natural tendency to be a hot-head, Eichi frequently ends up having to calm him down, especially if he's been arguing with Tsubasa. Eichi and the twins spend a lot of bonding time in the kitchen together due to their proficiency with cooking, and usually they're the three in charge of cooking dinner.

**Issei Kuga** - Despite Ichiru being the younger twin, he is the one who is overprotective of Issei, just like the rest of QUELL. This is because Ichiru recognises how introverted Issei is, and how much difficulty he has around crowds and new people. Ichiru easily gets mad on Issei's behalf, because he knows Issei won't say anything otherwise, and while growing up he used to get into fights so often as a result that he would carry bandaids with him.

Due to growing up with no other family the twins are extremely close and do pretty much everything together, despite their differences in personalities and interests. To this day, the twins still often fall asleep together in the same bed, often while holding hands; Shu and Eichi find this cute and often take photos of them.

### SolidS

**Tsubasa Okui** - Tsubasa and Ichiru have had a very uneasy relationship ever since their first meeting, as Ichiru took offence to Tsubasa being too friendly with Issei even though they'd just met. Tsubasa in turn was offended by Ichiru's behaviour and they immediately started fighting before being told off by Issei, Shiki, and Shu.

Ever since, the two constantly pick on each other; Tsubasa in particular loves to tease and mess with Ichiru, who strongly dislikes being treated like a kid. Ironically, Issei actually thinks the two have a lot of similarities. At S.Q.P. -SQ PARTY 2017 SUMMER- Ichiru reluctantly admitted that despite his initial impression Tsubasa is actually a pretty good guy.

### Six Gravity

**Koi Kisaragi** - Despite not having many interactions between their units it has been shown that Ichiru is somewhat familiar with some of the members of Six Gravity, including Koi. Due to their mutual love of manga the two often swap their manga volumes and recommend good series to each other.

**Arata Uduki** - Similar to Koi, Arata and Ichiru sometimes swap manga with each other and discuss good series they've read.

## Etymology

* When the sei (星) and ru (流) kanji from the twins names are combined it can be read as 'shooting star'.
* Ru, the kanji from Ichiru's name, means 'flow' or 'current' (usually read as nagare).
* Both twins have the kanji (壱) in their names, though it is read slightly different in their respective names it always means 'one'.
* Ichiru's fanclub name, SPES, is the latin word for "hope".

## Trivia

* His catch phrase for 2021 is "Do your best."
* Ichiru is the younger twin.
* He and Issei share the first kanji in their given names (壱).
	+ The twins were given their names by the people at their orphanage, not their parents.
* He likes to eat meat.
* The twins were given White Day chocolate by the staff at TSUKINO PRODUCTIONs.
* Ichiru still wants to grow taller.
* The twins are capable of cooking simple dishes, though they probably have started to learn more since they started helping Eichi cook their daily meals.
* It's been shown that Ichiru has difficulty reading Kanji (one of the reasons why some characters have implied he's not very smart) and he may also have trouble with spelling.
* Neither of the twins owned a smartphone until they joined QUELL.
* While Issei has a high tolerance for scary things such as horror movies and haunted houses Ichiru is particularly weak to them, and has been rated as being the biggest scaredy-cat in SQ (just behind Tsubasa).
* The twins favourite food is gratin, Ichiru is ok with pretty much all kinds of food but Issei can't handle greasy things like yakiniku (fried meat).
	+ Ironically, Ichiru has said that yakiniku with rice bowls is one of his favourite foods.
* Ichiru really likes desserts with lots of cream and strawberries on top, including cream puffs, chocolate cake, strawberry shortcake and Mont Blanc.
	+ Since finding out that Ichiru really likes cake, but was only able to have it on his birthday before joining QUELL, Shu has been buying Ichiru cake a lot.
* He's usually uncomfortable with silence, though he said it's tolerable if he's with Shu.
* Ichiru has his Lizz on his backpack.
	+ He thinks that the Lizz-kuns have dumb faces, but thinks you can't really hate them at the same time.
* He really hates studying.
* Ichiru has difficulty opening paper milk cartons, and as a result usually makes Issei do it for him.
* Upon learning that Eichi has a six-pack Ichiru was so jealous that he declared he was going to train so hard he'd end up with a twelve-pack.
* Ichiru wants to go to Okinawa at some point.
* Unlike Issei, he doesn't enjoy reading, despite Shu's attempts to recommend books to him. He does, however, enjoy reading manga and often swaps manga with Six Gravity's Koi and Arata.
* He and Issei share their birthday with Shunsuke Takeuchi, Shu's seiyuu, as well as Tsubasa Sasa, Naosuke Oyama's seiyuu.
* Ichiru sometimes goes out to dinner with members from other TSUKINO units, and as a result has recently become addicted to playing a particular online game with Koi, Nozomu & Naosuke Oyama.
* For the twins eighteenth birthday they received cream puffs from Rikka, coffee jelly from Shiki, and a pair of matching necklaces containing fragments from the same meteorite from Eichi. Shu wanted to give them a star but the paperwork was going to take longer then he thought.
* Although the salary is transferred to Ichiru's account, Shu and Eichi still spend 20,000 yen each month for the twins and can only withdraw when consulting with them. The goal is to teach Issei and Ichiru how to spend money in a healthy manner.
* He knows sign language, having learned it when he and Issei were still in the orphanage.
* In Gekkan TSUKIPROINFO Tokubetsu Gou 2018 Profile, Ichiru likes and good at: Issei, gratin, pizza, grilled meat, sparkling drinks, hamburgers, ikura (salmon eggs), crab, tendon (bowl of rice and fried fish), oyakodon (chicken and egg rice), gyudon, curry, music, general exercise, starry sky. While his dislikes and bad at are: bad mouth, bossy people, studying, bathing, doesn't hate any kind of food.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Originally from TSUKINO PARADISE, English translation provided by Quell-tea-salon on Tumblr.
2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Originally from SQ Twitter, English translation provided by Quell-tea-salon on Tumblr.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Originally from S.Q.P. -SQ PARTY 2017 SUMMER-, English translation provided by Quell-tea-salon on Tumblr.
4. ↑ English translation provided by Quell-tea-salon on Tumblr.
5. ↑ TSUKIPRO THE ANIMATION.
6. ↑ Originally from An encounter -deai-, English translation provided by AkemiLena on Tumblr.
7. ↑ Episode 3
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Gekkan TSUKIPROINFO Tokubetsu Gou 2018 (translated by Shero on Twitter)
9. ↑ Gekkan TSUKIPROINFO Tokubetsu Gou 2017
10. ↑ ROMEO - in the darkness -