Saiki Kusuo

* Present
* Normal
* Female
* Cat

### Likes

Coffee jelly, anime and manga, sweets, respect, stating opinions, being normal, making new friends

### Dislikes

Bugs, being in someone's debt, selfishness, rudeness, manipulation, disrespect, arrogance, Makoto Teruhashi, not being normal, Nendou's goofiness, making new friends (Formerly), sexism, romance (Formerly)

## Professional Status

### Affiliation

Occult Club (President)
PK Academy

## Relationships

### Parents

Saiki Kuniharu (Father)
Saiki Kurumi (Mother)

### Other relatives

Saiki Kumagoro (Maternal Grandfather)
Saiki Kumi (Maternal Grandmother)
Maternal Great-aunt
Paternal Grandmother
Paternal Grandfather †

### Partner(s)

Asia Ritter (Girlfriend)
Kaidou Shun (Crush)

## Voice Actors

### Japanese

Hiroshi Kamiya
Aimi Tanaka (Young)
Haruka Tomatsu (Female)

### English

Jerry Jewell
Lara Woodhull (Young)
Jamie Marchi (Female)

**Kusuo Saiki** (斉木 楠雄, *Saiki Kusuo*) is a teenage psychic who has all kinds of psychic related abilities. He usually tries to avoid getting involved in problematic or attention-grabbing situations, but his attempts always end up going wrong or having unusual ends to his displeasure. His trademark appearance contains his constant frown, his green-tinted glasses and two pink antennas located slightly above each ear, which have the function of limiting his power. Initially he was always seen alone, but in the course of the story he develops lasting friendships with his classmates and schoolmates, especially with Riki Nendou and Shun Kaido, or with his neighbors like Yuuta Iridatsu.

## Description

### Appearance

Kusuo wears a pair of controller devices, one on each side of his head, which are never removed except in situations of absolute necessity or by accident. The devices resemble white, cyan antennae, with pink, lollipop-like spheres. Accompanying the devices, Kusuo wears white glasses with lime green lenses to prevent his petrification power. During the days he has school, he wears the standard PK Academy uniform that all male students wear. On his days off from school, he occasionally wears clothes that are sewn by his mother. However, there are times he is forced to buy clothes since his mother has an exotic taste in clothing patterns.

It is hinted that he is considered to be quite attractive as he gains attention from female characters like Teruhashi, Chiyo, Imu, Asia and Aiura.

Kusuo's physical appearance is unlimited, since he can transform himself into any other living being, but each transformation has a 2-hour interval. While in his female/genderswap form, Kusuo goes under the name Kuriko. In this form, he has lighter pink hair (slightly larger), lacks visible limiters, wears clear glasses, and is usually wearing the female standard PK Academy uniform. In his cat form, Kusuo is known as Psi/Sai and has white fur. In this form, he still wears his glasses and his limiter is in the form of a collar around his neck.

As a child, depending on the time period, Kusuo does not wear any limiters nor his glasses, showing his violet eyes. He has striking deep pink hair, that differs from both of his parents and the rest of the world, until he used mind control.

### Personality

Kusuo is a fully rounded character that changes over the course of the series.

When Kusuo was a child, he was more open to his emotions. Part of it was due to the fact that he was unaware of what his powers did, such as breaking a whack-a-mole machine in an arcade and thinking the machine was giving him praise. He was highly mischievous, such as making his parents look for him for 5 hours after he teleported, and smiled around others without a second thought. However over the course of time, with having to hide his psychic powers from others and his abilities slowly ruining experiences for him, he started to close himself up. Thus, in the present, Kusuo is reticent. He hates being the center of attention, is quite reserved, and rarely uses his voice, instead preferring to project his words via telepathy into the minds of others. To avoid interactions, he tries to make other disinterested in him or avoid others as much as possible. For example, Kusuo hiding from the other characters in the bathroom and Kusuo talking to Imu, knowing Kokomi would not like it. Despite this, Kusuo is very adept at determining what people want and executing plans based on them. He was able to single-handedly raise Chiyo's favorability of Takeru from 54 to 95, and to raise Reita's of Arisu to 98 on a whim.

Most of the time, Kusuo is selfless, willing to sacrifice his own happiness for others' sake. He gave up his coffee jelly to get a baseball back to a child, gave Chisato a plane ticket to Okinawa knowing that it will lead to Kokomi winning her way, and preferring to let his father be him, himself being left alone, just so he does not ruin the fun for the other characters. Due in part to this trait, he hates burdening others or owing favors. He always helps Kineshi after he helps him and was visibly disappointed in himself for making his mother keep his abilities a secret. Kusuo is also careful to never disrespect or insult his acquaintances in their faces. With these characteristics, coupled with his reserved nature, those that know him well, and even Kusuo himself, consider him a tsundere.

Kusuo is one of the most responsible characters in the series. He helps with chores around the house, such as cleaning and buying groceries. Despite being able to get anything he wants without using any money, Kusuo saves up money to buy the things he wants, e.g. the Coffee Jelly Maker. He is capable of cheating in exams to get a good score, but he decides to get average scores to avoid attention. He also protects other people's privacy and wellbeing. Most of all, he tries heavily to not rely on his powers, wanting to achieve things for himself.

In spite of his kind-hearted nature, Kusuo does have some faults. While he is quite intelligent, he lacks some common sense on some concepts, especially when it involves social boundaries and the internet. For example, he nearly got scammed by an online shop, believing an item would be cheap and not checking for delivery details. He can easily be manipulated with any sweets, especially coffee jelly. He likes to pry on the other characters, though it is often for their own good; for example, while he has stated that he personally does not think he will not fall in love, he will watch others who are in love and help them if he can. Examples include deciding to spy on Chiyo and Shun walking together the day after Valentine's Day and helping Satou Hiroshi with his crush on Suzumiya Hii. He is also prideful, such as being irritated at the thought of being pickpocketed as he is an esper, describing how incredible his own powers are throughout the series and sometimes referring himself as god. Not to mention, he is stubborn, such as the case when he refused to admit his obvious seasickness. Despite this, Kusuo is very good at listening to other people, and accepting that he is wrong when the evidence is very clearly against him; his pride doesn't get to his head. Some other flawed characteristics include being somewhat pessimistic and a bit of a hypocrite.

As time progresses, he grows from not having any friends in his first year of high school, having no single thought of becoming close to anyone, to later thinking of himself as a friend of several of his classmates after much pestering from Riki, Shun, Kineshi, Kokomi, Chiyo, Reita, Aren and Mikoto. He always takes care of them when they are in trouble and vice versa. He trusts them enough to nearly tell them about his psychic powers but ultimately did not, just so he will not burden them with a big secret.

Due to a combination of his introverted nature and his subconscious ability to read minds, Kusuo holds little interest in social activities. Therefore, he typically spends his free time alone; he is a bookworm, having several books in his room, and is frequently in his school's library. He enjoys watching television, including anime, due to electronics (unless he uses his psychometry) being mostly unaffected by his powers. While not being able to set foot in a movie theater without getting spoilers, he also enjoys watching movies.

## Etymology

* His name, Saiki Kusuo, is a pun on the word Psychics *(サイキックス lit. Saikikkusu).*

## Trivia

* He is scared of bugs and Riki because he can't read their minds; insects being too small and Riki being too stupid. He appears to have inherited his fear of bugs from his father.
* He has a sweet tooth. He loves any type of sweets, with coffee jelly primarily being his favorite.
* He hates being in someone's debt.
* He rarely talks using his voice, preferring to speak using his telepathy.
* He has repeated his 2nd year of high school 6 times due to him resetting the Earth that many times.
* His attendance number is #7.
* His deep pink hair color is the complementary color of PK Academy's teal uniform.
* He is ambidextrous. He tends to use his left hand when he is comfortable (when he is around those that know of his powers, and when he thinks he is alone), while using his right when he is trying to blend in (usually around those that don’t know his powers).
* According to Kusuke, Kusuo had to transfer schools about 3 times, with the last time being in high school.
* In different languages, Saiki's name can be translated into: Russian - Сайки Кусуо, Japanese - 斉木 楠雄/さいき くすお, Chinese - 齊木 楠雄, Arabic - كوسو سايكي, Greek - Κουσούο Σάικι, Hindi - कुसुओ साइकी, Korean - 사이키쿠스오.
* Asia and Saiki are one of true soulmate pairs of the series, having a strange but strong bond with each other.
	+ Both of their signature colors matches perfectly:
		- Asia: Blue
		- Saiki: Pink
	+ Love for sweets and hate for bugs.