Kusou Saiki

Kusou Saiki is the main protagonist of the Saiki Kusou no Sai Nan anime and manga.

Kusou has all kinds of ESP-related abilities. He usually avoids getting into troublesome situations. His trademark appearances contain his green-tinted glasses and two pink antennas located slightly above each ear which have the function of limiting his power. In the beginning, he was always seen alone but as the story progresses he eventually gets along with his schoolmates, especially Riki and Shun.

Appearance
As a child, Kusuo does not wear any limiter and has striking pink hair that differs from both of his parents. In his current image, he has a limiter on the both sides of his head which is never removed unless absolutely necessary or by accident. During his days at school, he wears the standard PK Academy uniform that all male students wear, while on his days off he wears clothes that are sewn by his mother. However there are times he is forced to buy clothes with Shun and Riki. Kusuo's appearance is not limited to that of a male, as he can also transform into anything (but it takes 2 hours to transform).

In his female form, Kusuo is first known as Kusuko (he later changes it to Kurikou). The female form features lighter Pink hair and lacks limiters though she still wears glasses. In his cat form, Kusuo is known as 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 of the finale, he no longer wears his limiters or glasses. However in the unadapted GIGA chapters, he reprised them as his powers begin to return.

Personality
As a Psi user, Kusuo is usually emotionless and constrains himself from having any friends, preferring to do whatever it takes to not to be associated with others so that he doesn't expose his powers. Due to this, he has never spoken using his voice, instead preferring to project his words via telepathy into the minds of others. Although he didn't have any friends first year, during his 2nd year, a lot of his classmates like Riki, Shun, Kineshi, Aren, Kokomi, Chiyo, Reita and Mikoto kept on bugging him and somehow changed his perspective. He later thought of himself as a friend of theirs and even outwardly called Shun his friend.

Although he doesn't express much interest in many things due to his powers (e.g. surprise parties, romance, fortune-telling, etc), Kusuo is addicted to the dessert known as coffee jello and can be persuaded to participate in anything his friends are in as long as he receives his coffee jello. His addiction is not just limited to coffee jello but also to different kinds of sweets. Despite being able to get anything he wants without using any money, Kusuo uses money and saves up money to buy something he wants, like the Coffee Jelly Maker. His kind momwas the sole reason why he didn't abuse his own psychic abilities for nefarious activities. Kusuo also has an interest in television shows, due to electronics (unless he uses his psychometry) being unaffected by his powers, allowing him to enjoy dramas/scenes that prevent the use of his telepathy which leaves him open to spoilers from the thoughts of others.

Psi Powers
The current list of powers Kusuo has displayed thus far.

Apport - The power to pull something from somewhere else and have it appear before you.
 * Astral Projection - The power to separate his/someone else spirit from their body.

Bilocation - Kusuo can use this power to duplicate himself. It is one of Kusuo most difficult powers for various reasons. He cannot control how the clones look or act, he needs to remove his limiter to use this power, the clones have all his powers and can feel anything he feels, including the removal of his limiter, which means they could cause serious damage if left unchecked.
 * Possession - Kusuo taking over someone's body by switching his spirit with theirs.

Clairvoyance - Without having to move, this power allows Kusuo to view objects or people anywhere he has been unobstructed by crossing his eyes.

Cryokinesis - The ability that allows a person to create and control ice with their mind.

Curse - The ability to create misfortune to others and can be done by touch. The course of the curses can be changed at Kusuo's discretion.

Death Vision - A vision of a living person prior to their death.

Flight - The ability to fly/float.

Hydrokinesis - The ability to freely use water or create water. Also the ability to create sweat on the body.

Hypnosis - Kusuo uses this power to disguise other people, making Reita look like Kokomi, or making his father look like himself. He cannot use this power on himself.

Invisibility - The power to turn himself invisible for 10 minutes. It is canceled if someone touches him while he's in that state. When the time runs out, or if someone touches him, he has to wait 1 minute before turning invisible again.

Mediumship - Also called channeling - communicating with spirits. This power seems to work best on Nendou Dad's spirit.

Memory Alteration - Delivering a strong impact to someone's head to eliminate the desired memory. In the anime a wacky yellow bat resembling TV Tokyo's mascot must be used. In the manga anything that causes an impact (ex: crowbar) may be used.
 * Memory Supplementation - The drawback of this power as Kusuo uses restoration on the brain of the person, the memory is filled with a random different memory on each person.

Perspective - The visual ability to see through objects. The permeability to view through things increases every seconds: 3 seconds the clothes and 5 seconds the skin. This is one of Kusuo's ability that he can't control. When the limiter is removed, Kusuo can only see the bones.
 * Mind Control - The power to influence the minds of every single person on the planet - this can even change the laws of nature and human ecology itself, making it one of his most powerful abilities. Kusuo also considers it his most dangerous power as he could wipe out humanity with a single thought

Petrification - The power to turn a living being to stone by looking them in the eye. This happens automatically unless he is wearing his glasses. It takes a full 24 hrs for an affected being to turn back to normal. This is one of Kusuo's ability that he can't control and one of the few not to be affected by his limiter.

Precognition - The power to see events that will occur before they actually happen, usually accompanied by a headache. This can happen when he is asleep. Kusuo has no control over his ability and can misinterpret or even cause what happens.

Psychic Hold - The ability to throw an electric current to the opponent to bind him.

Psychokinesis/Telekinesis - The ability to bring forth a physical energy just by thinking it, which you can use to do things like move or break objects. It's one of his most commonly used powers.
 * Full Force - Without any precaution, Kusuo's power increases every time he attacks.


 * Assist - When full force is applied, there is a great increase on the power and speed of the object/person the psychokinesis in being used and is possible to continue until exhaustion


 * Psycho Bit - One of the main techniques Kusuo uses which allows him to move multiple rocks and inflicts damages to someone regardless of his/her distance.

Psychometry - The ability to receive information stored in an object if he touches it without his gloves. This power can also allow him to copy the powers of other psychics he touches.
 * Limit Released Psychokinesis - The ability to create a ball of energy in the air. It's power was able to destroy a whole island.

Pyrokinesis - The ability allowing a person to create and control fire with their mind. He can use this power to make other people blush.

Restoration - The power to revert a person or object, and everything it touches, by 24 hours with the restriction of reviving the dead and undoing petrification. May only be used once a day per a target.

Shrinking Power/Size Augmentation - The power to shrink down his body to small sizes. It takes 1 hour to return to normal size. Later it's revealed that he also has the power to grow huge, but it's basically useless. Shrinking = fast, growing = slow.

Song Cancellation Laser - A laser beam from Kusuo's eyes cancels the song on the karaoke. It would seem invisible on human's naked eye.

Super Strength -The ability of having extreme strength, beyond what is believed to be normal. It is easily one of the powers he has the least control over, though he has gotten better at throwing balls at a human levels. He also can't control this power when he is in a non-human form.

Sweating - The ability to secrete sweat freely. Kusuo uses it to cover up his body so that it doesn't easily tire out.

Telepathy - The ability that is used the most, due to the mode of Kusuo's communication. The power to read and talk through minds. It works on humans and animals, but Kusuo can't turn it off. It doesn't work on an idiot like Riki or bugs.
 * Angel Whisper - The ability which telepathically speaks of the crime on the doer to stimulate guilt.


 * Brain Lullaby - The ability that sends a lullaby to the opponent's brain to put them to sleep however this may differ to whom it was used.


 * Bug News - A pseudo "foreboding" that feeds telepathic advice or call for help.


 * Favorability Meter - The ability to quantify the favorability using telepathy. Relationships and human's nature significantly changes it.


 * Foreboding - The ability to telepathy to plant an idea/sense of foreboding in someone's head.


 * Forced Telepathy - The ability to forcefully relay feelings/thoughts from one to another.


 * Immediate Telepathy - The ability to give others visual information with audio via touch.


 * Subliminal - An ability which is a bit similar to that of Angel Whisper with the difference of the amount of words not more than one

Teleportation - The power to send back himself and something he touches to a faraway place. But he can only teleport once before needing to wait three minutes until he can use it again. He can do it on impulse, like when he sees a bug.
 * Telepathic broadcast - Sending a big load of 'thoughts' to other people but significantly interferes with thinking.

Transaction of Apport and Teleport - Anything teleported needs to be exchanged using Apport with something of exactly equal value or within a 10% difference.

Thoughtography - The ability to recreate picture perfect photos just by thinking it.

Time Travel/Time Leap - The power to escape the flow of time by jumping to either the past or future. It also activates itself randomly, getting Kusuo stuck in a loop, and the only way to get time to go back to normal is for him to completely empty his mind of all thoughts.

Transformation - The ability to physically transform his body into anything- takes 2 hours to fully transform (with the exception of his female form), when he takes on a non-human form, it's hard for him to control his physical strength.

X-Ray - The power to see through things you normally couldn't like underside of a face-down card, or the contents of an airtight box. This ability cannot be switched off allowing to have regular vision for only 5 seconds before things become increasingly transparent. Because of this he often sees through the skin of other organisms and views their muscular and skeletal systems making other humans and living creatures unattractive. The ability is reset whenever he blinks or closes his eyes.

Useless Powers
Before chapter 206 came out, the author asked readers to send in fan letters with the most useless ESP powers they could think of.
 * 1) Barrier - for 24 hours, a 50cm barrier will appear. (as noted by Saiki, it isn't entirely useless)
 * 2) Makes Coffee Really Bitter for Anyone Drinking it Gracefully
 * 3) The Power to Turn All Drinks Into Carbonic Acid
 * 4) Mosaic-ization - instead of turning invisible, his whole body is covered in a mosaic
 * 5) The Power to Make Matryoshka Dolls Pour from the Palm of Your Hand
 * 6) Eye Lasers - the power to shoot strong lasers out of his eyes
 * 7) The Power to Turn Collections Into Sand - Kusuo turns the figurines of his father into sand
 * 8) Child-ification - the power to change someone's mind to that of a child
 * 9) The Power to Change Your Hairstyle
 * 10) The Power to Summon a Large Swarm of Crows
 * 11) The Power to See the Age of Someone's Skin
 * 12) The Power to Hide Something with that Mysterious Steam that Appears in Shonen Magazines to Censor Things
 * 13) The Power to Change Everyone's Voice to that of Kamiya Hiroshi
 * 14) A Beam that Upgrades Your Computer to Windows 10
 * 15) The Ability to Tie a Knot in a Cherry Stem Using Your Tongue
 * 16) Evaporation - the power to evaporate almost all the water from any living thing
 * 17) Curse - a curse where something will definitely hit Kaidou in the shin
 * 18) Materialization - the power to make something appear out of nothing

Other Powers

 * Kusuo can magnify distant objects in his vision so he can see them clearly. This ability can be considered another form of Clairvoyance.
 * Kusuo can bend and dislocate his joints in any way he wants at his will. This causes him great pain.
 * Kusuo can remove the fog in his glasses while eating ramen using his mind.
 * Kusuo can check if there’s poison in food without touching it.

Weaknesses
Uncontrollable Powers: When the limiter devices on his head are removed, even for a second, Kusuo himself is knocked unconscious and even after waking up, he is unable to control the muscles in his entire body. Worse, his mind control powers are not controllable either. He states that his powers will wreak havoc onto the entire world and cannot be stopped by even him. It should be noted that there are times where Kusuo himself is shown to remove his limiter devices in order to use some of his more powerful powers, but he is not shown suffering afterwards from any of the setbacks mentioned above. One such time was when he used mind control to make it so that PK Academy students can work part-time jobs. He also had one limiter device removed at the beach by Teruhashi while he was asleep, but was able to fix the trouble his Bedpsyching caused, seemingly moving properly without issue even before he got the limiter device back. As Kusuo is shown to be able to use repetitive practice/training in order to learn to be able to control his excessive capabilities (like his ability to throw balls that exceed sonic speed), it can be assumed that if he trains hard enough, he might become able to control his powers better as well. Unfortunately, it can also be easily assumed that he relies on his Control Devices instead because the world will be destroyed by his powers first before he can master their control through repeated practice. A proof of this case is when he took more than 16,000 tries to master using his powers (at a limited state) while his mind is empty, due to being stuck in a looping time leap during one of his usual days.
 * Bedpsyching: The ability to use psychic abilities while sleeping. This abilities were one of Kusuo's problems before when he still haven't got any control devices. According to Kurumi, his bed psyching continued until 4th grade. Though it will come back if someone removes his control device while he's sleeping.


 * Allergies: Saiki's powers are affected by allergies and will cause stuff to blow up when he sneezes. He also has no way of curing allergies with his powers.

ESP-related Objects
Colored Glasses: The glasses Kusuo uses to stop his eyes from petrifying people he sees. When Kusuo transforms into other life forms, his glasses turns into mask, helmet or visor.

Control Devices: Devices used to take control of Kusuo's psychic powers. The devices were first made by Kusuke when Kusuo was still a 5th grade student. Kusuke intended for the device to suppress Kusuo's powers entirely, but failed. It's original shape would be an antennae but it is referred as a "hairpin" due to Kusuo's hypnotic powers. When the device is removed, Kusuo's full psychic power goes out of control and multiplies by the amount of time his powers were limited. Removing his limiters were shown to depict the world destruction. When the control devices were reinstalled, it would take time before his powers stabilizes. The control devices cannot stop the growth of Kusuo's power and before the device was used by Kusuo, he said his current limited power matches when he was just five years old. The device also does not effect all of his powers, such as his Pyschomotry and Petrefication.

Gloves: Kusuo always wears a pair of very thin gloves that are invisible to the naked eye. These gloves are used to seal his Psychometry, which cannot be turned off. If the gloves are ripped, his Psychometry has no restraint.

Germanium: An element that makes Kusuo unable to use his telepathic powers when in contact with it. However, due to this he is unable to react ahead of time to peoples actions. This is shown when he wears a germanium ring that was left by a salesman. As soon as he wore the ring in public he was instantly unsettled and considered everyone around him a Nendou-like being while wondering how "regular" people were able to walk around without knowing if the person next to them was a murderer.

Trivia

 * His name, Saiki Kusuo, is a pun on the word Psychic (Saikikku).
 * His gender bender name are Kusuko and Kuriko.
 * He is scared of bugs and Riki because he can't read their minds; insects being too small and Riki too stupid. He appears to have inherited his fear of bugs from his father.
 * His Zodiac sign is Leo.
 * He made a small cameo in Assassination Classroom, while his limiter made a cameo in Gintama.
 * He hates being in someone's debt.
 * He never talks using his voice.
 * He does once in the final chapter.
 * He has been 2nd year 4 times due to resetting the Earth many times.
 * He is the reason why they stayed young because he controlled the time.
 * His attendance number is #7.
 * He is ambidextrous.
 * His record in Janken is 296 wins, 0 losses and 58 ties.
 * Kokomi and Chiyo thinks Kuriko is Kusuo's little sister.
 * He does end up saying "Oh" to Teruhashi, but not directly. He say "Oh" in Season 2 Ep17.