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Date A Live (デート・ア・ライブ Dēto A Raibu^?) is a Japanese light novel series written by Kōshi Tachibana and illustrated by Tsunako. An anime adaptation series aired on TV from April 6 to June 22, 2013. Each episode was streamed in lower quality on Niconico a week before its TV premiere. Following the end of the first season, a second season was announced.

Plot

Thirty years ago a strange phenomenon called a "spacequake" devastated the center of Eurasia, claiming the lives of at least 150 million people. Since then, smaller spacequakes plague the world on an irregular basis. Shido Itsuka, a seemingly ordinary high schooler comes across a mysterious girl at the ground zero of a spacequake and learns from his sister Kotori she is one of the "Spirits" who are the real cause of the spacequakes that occur when they manifest themselves in the world. He also learns that Kotori is the commander of the airship Fraxinus, crewed by the organization Ratatoskr, and is recruited to make use of his mysterious ability to seal the Spirits' powers thus stopping them from being a threat to mankind. However, there is a catch: to seal a Spirit's power, he must make her fall in love with him and kiss her.

Characters

Main

Shido Itsuka (五河 士道 Itsuka Shidō^?)

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki

The protagonist of the story, he possesses a strange power that allows him to seal the powers of a Spirit in his body with a kiss; however, the seal will only work if the Spirit holds enough trust or affection toward him to allow it. Although considering trust and affection is a two way street he probably needs to have a certain amount of affection too, or at least genuinely want to help the spirit from the bottom of his heart which he usually does even before seeking out a spirit. This ability to seal and contain 99% of a spirit's power might have been given to him by Phantom soon after it turned Kotori into the spirit Efreet. After sealing a Spirit's powers, there will be an invisible link connecting him and the Spirit, through which a portion of the sealed power will flow back to the Spirit if said Spirit's mental state becomes unstable, and back to Shido once the Spirit's mental state restabilizes. So the more angry/distraught/unhappy a spirit is the more power she takes back temporarily while conversely the happier/content/joyful a spirit the more her power level doesn't rise from the minimum level of 1%. He also has the ability to recover from severe injuries which would normally be fatal. This ability is revealed in volume 4 to be due to his having sealed Kotori's power five years prior to the start of the story, and him using her healing ability each time he gets injured. Although this only works on severe or life threatening injuries, minor injuries like scratches and bruises that would heal naturally will heal at a normal human level unless a severe injury triggers the healing flames. Later in volume 5, he discovers he can also use the powers of the Spirits (other than Efreet's) that he has sealed but he can only use the powers in a limited fashion for a short time as even doing one strong attack drained his energy to the point where he almost passed out.

Abandoned by his birth mother, he lives with his foster sister Kotori. He has blue hair and brown eyes, and is in his second year in Raizen High School, class 2-4. He was in despair for a time after being abandoned and subsequently adopted, which made him sensitive to similar feelings from others and wanting to bring them out of it, fuelling his desire to save the Spirits. He meets his real sister Mana Takamiya later in volume 3. In volume 7 Westcott briefly addresses him as Takamiya before switching back to Itsuka.

Tohka Yatogami (夜刀神 十香 Yatogami Tōka^?)

Voiced by: Marina Inoue

She is the first Spirit saved by Shido. She transfers into his class at the end of the first volume. Shido named her for the date of their first meeting, the 10th (though one kanji is different, the tenth day of a month is pronounced as Tohka). Reine later added the Yatogami surname for her. She has long dark purple hair and purple eyes. She is ignorant of the ways of the world, but nevertheless has a normal sense of embarrassment. She seems to have strong feelings for Shido, which she is shown to be unable to understand when she gets jealous after seeing Shido accidentally kiss Yoshino. However on learning that Yoshino is a Spirit like herself she decides to support Shido in his cause to save the other Spirits such as Kurumi, even actively participating in battles at times.

She gets captured by DEM Industries at the end of volume 6, then in volume 7 on seeing Shido ambushed and is about to be killed by Ellen, she is filled with such despair that she transforms and goes on a rampage, attacking everyone in sight including Shido. However he manages to kiss her to bring her back. Westcott calls her transformed state the Demon King, adding that this transformed state is the actual form of Spirits like her in the bordering dimension that they come from before manifesting in this world.

Her Angel is Sandalphon, which takes the form of a a broadsword, usually with a throne that doubles as the scabbard, although at times it seems as though she can do just as much damage with or without it, using her hands to project dark energy spheres or bolts in order to slice through inanimate objects with ease. Her Astral Dress, Adonai Melek, consists of a purple ballgown. At full power she shatters the throne (volume 1) and combines the pieces with the sword turning the blade into Halvanhelev (the Last Sword) lengthening the blade several meters long, dramatically increasing her powers and can be charged to unleash an ultimate blow. Fortunately, the one time she used Halvanhelev charged up Shido was able to stop and seal her before the energy was unleashed. When she goes completely berserk (volume 7) her Angel changes to Nehemah, a stronger version of Sandalphon, and her Astral Dress becomes darker in colour and more revealing. Her AST and Ratatoskr codename is Princess.

Origami Tobiichi (鳶一 折紙 Tobiichi Origami^?)

Voiced by: Misuzu Togashi

A highly intelligent classmate of Shido who is athletic, "beautiful", and the most famous person in Shido's school. She is often described as doll-like in appearance. She has short white hair and blue-grey eyes. She is the only human "girlfriend" of Shido, and out of all the other girls who like him, she is the most aggressive in her pursuit of him showing no bounds in her attempts to learn more about him, get closer to him, or even on trying to get more intimate with him. If not obsessive it borderlines as she does some weird things such as knowing Shido's exact measurements, and dressed up as a maid when he visited her after overhearing he likes maids. Her dating preparations include an energy drink where one drop will increase his energy a hundredfold, chloroform for emergencies, and a pair of handcuffs with masking tape in case she needs to use them. She knew Shido from when they were children living in the same apartment building and him doing something that had a profound impact on her.

Her hatred of Spirits stems from a Spirit who killed her parents five years prior when it blasted her parents after they managed to escape their burning home. Due to this, she joined the AST, in which she holds the rank of Master Sergeant, in an attempt to find the Spirit responsible for the fire codenamed "Efreet" and kill her, as she believed that "Efreet" was the culprit. However "Efreet" who turns out to be Kotori was not the Spirit responsible. She reluctantly believes Shido when he tells her that while Kotori unintentionally started the fire, she did not kill Origami's parents and that there was another spirit there (later named Phantom.) Although whether Phantom killed her parents, or another spirit was there and was the one who killed Origami's parents is unknown. However, considering Phantom went to great lengths concealing its identity such as not having a clear image or voice whenever meeting anybody in addition to wiping Shido's and Kotori's memories 5 years ago its unlikely that it was the girl Origami saw mocking her parents death. This singular aim of revenge has enough drive within her to overcome her calm, calculating, and composed personality for her to go to the extent of disregarding orders and hysteria, getting her into trouble on more than one occasion. Notably, she was about to be discharged from the AST in volume 5 until Westcott intervened, after which her punishment was reduced to two months of not being allowed to use Realizers.

She is also a protagonist of Date AST Like, a spin-off manga which focuses on her relationship with Mikie in the AST, as well as the main character of Date A Origami, a 4-koma comic strip manga which focuses on the romantic comedy aspect of the main series.

Kotori Itsuka (五河 琴里 Itsuka Kotori^?)

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu

Shido's foster sister who was a human that gained the power of a Spirit five years prior to the start of the main story and thus, saved by Shido at that time. There is no record of how she obtained her Spirit powers, and she herself cannot remember; she does not know why both Shido's and her own memories are vague or missing at that crucial point, though she suspects someone may have tried to erase those memories. However, she isn't able to handle her Spirit powers for long before she loses control and is overcome by a powerful need to destroy and kill. When her Spirit powers overwhelm her, she retains almost no memories of any events that transpire during that time. She temporarily takes back her powers from Shido to save him from Kurumi with her power being sealed by Shido once more later on. The reason another sealing was needed was because she took all 100% of her power back breaking the Spirit Link between them that would cause her powers to return to Shido when she calmed down. During this state Shido has none of Efreet's powers and thus is completely and mortally human which will stay dead when killed. At the second sealing, she and Shido both regain their lost memories of the first sealing: an entity called "Phantom" granted her her Spirit powers when she was left alone at home and crying (with which she destroyed everything around her and nearly killed Shido), told her to kiss Shido if she wanted him to live (which was how Kotori knew about the method to seal a Spirit's powers, and also the ability to heal from serious injuries that Shido got from her), and afterwards stripped them of their memories of its existence, as well as Shido's memories of the entire incident. This memory also disproves Origami's belief that Kotori was the one who killed her parents, and that it was another Spirit that did it. Considering how Phantom went to great lengths to conceal its existence it seems likely that a third spirit was present and the one who Origami saw murdering her parents. Especially since Phantom never shows itself with a definable appearance or voice while the figure Origami saw was definitely a girl who apparently wanted to be seen.

She has red hair, often in twin ponytails, and her eyes are red. She is almost always shown with a Chupa Chups lollipop in her mouth. She displays two very different characters, bordering on split personality. When she wears white ribbons in her hair, she is completely relaxed and peaceful and shows an immature, spoiled character that's always clinging to her brother. When on the Fraxinus or dealing with major situations, she switches to black ribbons taking on an arrogant, superior attitude to everyone including Shido, but nevertheless still cares deeply for him as shown on many occasions. This difference in character is revealed in volume 4 to be due to Shido giving her black ribbons as a present for her ninth birthday after sealing her powers, and telling her to be strong as long as she wears them. However she is extremely weak to horror-related things, and reacts strongly to them regardless of character. She also shows evidence of concealed romantic interest, such as when she declared to Mana that a foster sister is better than a full sister because full siblings can't marry, then gets flustered when she realizes she said it in front of everyone else.

Her Angel is Camael, a halberd with a flame edge that is capable of changing shape to a cannon that extends to her right elbow. The cannon takes a little time to charge up and absorb Kotori's flames but has a devastating attack that almost killed Kurumi and blew a hole clean through her angel. Kotori with her powers has the ability to recover from severe injuries, which Shido is able to use unconsciously while her powers are sealed inside him. Its represented by healing flames coming out of the wounds. How much of this effect remains when her powers are sealed is unknown. Her Astral Dress, Elohim Gibor, is a kimono which mainly consists of the colors pink and cream. In her Spirit form she also has horns growing on her head, with her black ribbons tied on them. Her AST and Ratatoskr codename is Efreet.