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| Makoto Itou | |
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| Age | 16[citation needed] |
| Born | October 16, 1988 (Libra)[citation needed] |
| Blood-Type | O |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 167cm (5’6”)[citation needed] |
| Hair | Black |
| Eyes | Light Brown |
| Affiliation | Sakakino School Class 1-3 Member of the Student Council (Temporary) |
| Occupation | High School Student |
| Family and Relatives | Tomaru Sawagoe (estranged father)
Moeko Itou (mother) |
| Seiyuu | Daisuke Hirakawa (credited as "Tatsuya Hirai" in the games) |
Makoto Itou (伊藤 誠 Itō Makoto) is the protagonist of School Days and Summer Days.
A generally mild-mannered student of class 1-3, his life becomes more complicated when Sekai Saionji helps him with his romantic life and sets him up with Kotonoha Katsura (Makoto's first crush). Being a generic harem protagonists from a visual novel, his actions and personality depend heavily on the player's actions and it also varies significantly with his manga and anime incarnations.
He is friends with Taisuke Sawanaga and a few other boys from class, but starts to pursue more romantically oriented relationships after getting set up with Kotonoha.
He lives with his divorced mother who often works longer hours as a nurse, thus he's proficient in taking care of himself and is usually alone at home. This provides many opportunities for him to pursue sexual relations with many girls.
He enjoys a very close relationship with his little sister, who loves him dearly, which is just more proof he is good with children, due to the fact he gets along good with Kokoro Katsura (Kotonoha's younger sister).
Appearance
Makoto is plain with a slightly skinny build with short stature. He usually wears a school uniform and casual clothes, which depend on different occasions. It has varied slightly in the three games. His physical appearance is typical to that of a teenage boy yet he seems to suffer from low amounts of energy at times, such as being tired from sitting by the poolside without swimming at all. However, he still has an abnormally large sex drive and it doesn't seem to tire him until it leads to huge consequences.
Personality
Generally, Makoto is a gentle and nice guy and gets along with girls without much trouble. But he is somewhat of a loner who isn't all that outgoing. In Shiny Days, according to Ikeda, one of his classmates, all the guys avoid him because he seems to attract all the girls in his vicinity. However early on in the visual novel he is very indecisive, unable or unwilling to choose among the women he comes cross, possibly because he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and as a result not breaking things off with a girl. He is also weak-willed and can easily fall under other's control; even Kotonoha Katsura has been shown to be able to manipulate him. Moreover, Makoto seems to possess a "natural dull", acting too slow when being confessed by girls, which renders him even more indecisive. As seen when Otome Katou confesses to him.
The Visual Novel
In the visual novel, Makoto's personality can develop differently depending on the player actions. For example he can be more caring and protect Kotonoha Katsura from her bullies, or be decisive and commit to a single girl, or be indecisive and continue a relationship with multiple girls and have it come out bad for him. He's capable of true love in some of the routes and can even admit to his indecisiveness.
Anime
Makoto is shown to be rather selfish and cruel, possibly not even aware of it. While he still can be kind outwardly, he often lets his hormones get the better of his judgement. This is shown when he becomes bored with Kotonoha Katsura due to the lack of sexual activity in their relationship and (possibly) lies to Sekai Saionji that he loves her to get her to sleep with him. Sekai doesn't want to continue the affair until Makoto breaks up with Kotonoha but due to his indecisive character,he ends up just ignoring Kotonoha and lying to Sekai about it. This becomes worse as the series progresses as he ignores both Kotonoha and Sekai, and starts to sleep with every girl who shows an interest to him. Later in the story he gets all ties cut from his lovers because he got Sekai pregnant, and in the end loses his life when he tries to dump her and go back to Kotonoha. Perhaps the anime is a lesson to highlight the realistic consequences of actions like that of Makoto's. Makoto, as a character, is not meant to be likable, since he is supposed to be part of the realistic theme conveyed by the anime.
Manga
Here a different side of Makoto is shown as his motives are based more on love than on desire. His role has similarities to that of the anime; however, in the manga he does love Kotonoha Katsura and he feels guilty about cheating on her with Sekai Saionji, He tries to set things right by cheering Sekai up after breaking up with her and that he will always be a good friend to her but that he loves Kotohona, which works but its too late because at that point Kotohona already turned insane. He's aware it's his own fault that Kotonoha goes insane and even after getting stabbed by her he decides to be with her to calm her down. In a major difference from his anime counter part, Makoto is willing to sacrifice himself for his friends and take responsibility for his own actions.
School Days
The Visual Novel
During his second term of his first year of high school he takes a notice of a girl on his train but is completely clueless of what to do. His luck changes when a seat change occurs on homeroom and Sekai Saionji is seated next to him. After Sekai discovers Kotonoha's picture on Makoto's phone and finds out about his crush she decides to help him make Kotonoha his girlfriend. They have lunch on the roof and Makoto and Kotonoha introduce themselves and set up a date to go to Sakakino Hills. Before their date Sekai kisses Makoto, later claiming it was only a tease.
From here on Makoto's personality, choices and affections develop drastically differently depending on the player choices. Makoto's fate varies from ending up happily with a girl to getting himself or his loved ones killed. He can end up with Kotonoha, Sekai, Hikari, Otome or Kotonoha and Sekai together. In one ending he can have sex with various girls while regretting what his life has become. In the bad endings because of his actions he can get any one of Kotonoha, Sekai or himself killed. See endings for more plot details.
Anime
The anime initially plays similarly to the visual novel, though there are many small plot details added to pad out the series' 6 hour length as opposed to a shorter duration of a single playthrough of the visual novel. For example Makoto relies on a book for relationship advice which only makes things worse. Sekai offers Makoto to train with her (Having sex) and then Makoto starts to have real sex with Sekai after confessing his love (or lying just to sleep with her). Makoto continues a relationship with Sekai until the school festival when he has sex with Otome. He then continues to have sexual relations with multiple girls including Hikari and Otome's Trio friends. His address book also has dozens of girls not even mentioned but is implied to be girls that he had sex with. Kotonoha is still unwilling to give up on Makoto and goes insane because of her abandonment and being bullied by Otome and her friends.
Sekai is revealed to be impregnated by Makoto and wants to have their child and have a life with Makoto. Because of Makoto's indecisiveness he accuses Sekai of cheating and wanting nothing to do with the child in front of everyone. Sekai has an outburst at school informing everyone of the situation. Almost every girl Makoto had relations with leave him because they think the same will happen to them if they keep seeing him and they are more then disgusted by Makoto's eagerness to sleep around with other girls while he knocked up Sekai. During a night Sekai cooks Makoto dinner at his home and Makoto goes out for a walk. Frustrated that none of the girls he slept with is taking his calls because they blocked his number he finds Kotonoha, and seemingly begins to repent for the way he's treated her. He decides to get back together with her, going as far as taking her home and making out with her in front of Sekai. He then pressurizes Sekai to get an abortion because he doesn't want the responsibility of raising a child. Sekai feeling betrayed kills Makoto. Kotonoha then comes and finds Makoto dead, then she severs his head and sends a text message from Makoto's phone to Sekai to meet her. She accuses Sekai of faking her pregnancy, and then she shows her Makoto's severed head and attacks and kills her. She then opens Sekai's womb and claims that her suspicions were correct. Kotonoha then sails away on a boat with Makoto's severed head, claiming now they can be finally alone together.
Manga
Like the anime he cheats on Kotonoha with Sekai, but he does love Kotonoha and feels guilty about the affair. He then breaks up with Sekai, who accepts being dumped but still wants to remain friends. He begs Kotohona to forgive him but she is already too far gone in her jealousy and insanity. Makoto jumps in front of Sekai and uses his own body to prevent Kotohona from stabbing Sekai. Makoto survives and despite what happened he wants to return to Kotohona because he blames himself for the entire ordeal and thinks he should take responsibility for what he's done.
However a week later Sekai kills Kotonoha while Makoto is still hospitalized, saying she's far too insane and dangerous. She also makes some remarks that could be construed as insane, such as saying that only she'll be the one who brings Makoto happiness ,and that she wants to start over with a clean slate.
Unlike most of his spin offs this Makoto shows a caring side and doesn't seem to be obsessed with sex as he does in the games and Cross Days manga. He really loves Kotohona and cares deeply for Sekai as a friend.
Summer Days
Cross Days
He also appears in Cross Days as a secondary but important character as well.
The Visual Novel
His role is still largely the same as in School Days but the game takes places in a difference universe as he is a side character. He is still in a relationship with Kotonoha and is cheating on her with Sekai. He is also mistakenly believed to be cheating with Roka, who lied about their relationship in order to get protagonist Yuuki Ashikaga jealous. Yuuki, after failing to stop Makoto from cheating on Kotonoha, dresses and pretends to be a girl named "Yuu" in order to protect Roka and Kotonoha from Makoto, as well as show the girls his true intentions. Makoto falls for the female-Yuuki and, depending which route you take, Makoto can end up with Yuuki after finding out who he really is. In the "Only You" ending, even after "Yuu" is exposed, Makoto confesses that he loves Yuuki nonetheless and it is implied that he will continue a (secret) relationship with him. This is the only route in which Makoto ends up with another male character. In the "Love Destroyed" ending, Makoto is implied to have been traumatized upon discovering "Yuu"'s identity. In the "Mayfly" and "Divine Punishment" endings, "Yuu" will break things off with Makoto and it's heavily implied that Makoto becomes depressed and hardly sleeps or eats despite Kotonoha trying to give him affection.
Manga
Unlike the game, the Makoto in the Cross Days manga is rather sadistic and cruel. He is in a three-way relationship with Sekai and Kotonoha, but reveals to Yuuki that he doesn't love either of them but likes them for their bodies and willingness to do anything for him. He mocks Yuuki's attempts to stop him and throughout the manga tries to convince Yuuki to join in the three-way relationship. Yuuki dresses up as "Yuu" when Makoto says he might leave Kotonoha and Sekai if he finds any other cute girls to have sex with. Makoto goes on to try and seduce "Yuu", often in a very aggressive and predatory manner. He also attempts to rape Roka but is stopped by Yuuki, who ends up exposing his alter-ego in the process. In the end, Yuuki washes his hands of Makoto when he discovers that Kotonoha was in the three-way relationship willingly, and after Makoto reveals his identity of "Yuu" to her, thus destroying their friendship.
Endings
Hobbies
Makoto is an all-around good student and an accomplished housekeeper, especially proficient in culinary arts, even surpassing many female characters. But he merely consider his skills as necessities of daily life, according to his own statement, his mother is not good at housekeeping and is always at work, so he must study everything by himself to support home. At the surface, Makoto seems to be the type who has no distinguishing hobby, since he is supposed to be a generic protagonist.
Although not seen he can make cloisonneware and silver jewelry, which he intends to make Kotonoha for christmas.
Judging from his video game consoles, it is deduced Makoto likes playing video games.
In Summer Days, Makoto is seen to be dragged away by Otome to repair vital assets for the rite of Summer Carnival, which hints he possesses knowledge of carpentry. He goes fishing when he's not playing with Itaru, and catches enough for dinner and then some in a day.
In Cross Days, Makoto demonstrates his skills of clothes design when he gives the cross-dressed Yuuki Ashikaga a dress hand-made by himself. This is possibly because of being the only male in his house between his mother and sister and because he often looks after the latter, therefore necessitating he know how to mend and match clothes for them as well as himself if the need arises.
Home
Relationships
Makoto generally leaves good impressions to almost every character, at least during the initial phase of stories.
See Makoto Itou/relationships for a breakdown of all his various relationships with other characters.
Gallery
Trivia
- The name Makoto means "sincerity" (誠).
- The origin of his full name is an allusion to Hirobumi Itō (伊藤 博文), a statesman and four-time Prime Minister of Japanese Empire, also the supreme director of Japan-occupied Korea, and they share same birthday. More coincidentally, Hirobumi Itō is known for his prurience of women.
- Makoto's surname Itou means "this" (伊) (i) and "wisteria" (藤) (tou).
- In School Days and Summer Days, there are many medals and trophies in Makoto's bedroom, but in Cross Days they are removed by unknown reason. It's possible that, being a separate timeline, Makoto simply hadn't competed in anything in Cross Days.
- Although a lustful, womanizing sex addict, Makoto doesn't seem to get away with rape. Any time he attempts or commits rape, things turn out badly for him.
- According to the official family tree Makoto has children with Sekai and Setsuna but the official continuity is still unknown, see this.
- Because of his addiction to sex and treatment of women, Makoto is hated and despised by many audiences.
Sources
- JIVE Fan Book "Cross Days まること 桂言葉グラフィティー", ISBN978-4-86176-773-9.
- JIVE Fan Book "Cross Days", ISBN978-4-87376-338-5.
- JIVE Fan Book "School Days 公式ビジュアル·アートーワクス", ISBN978-4-86176-263-5.
- JIVE Fan Book "SummerDays & SchoolDays Visual Collection", ISBN978-4-86176-330-4.
de:Matoko Itou es:Makoto Itou