Ichika Houshi

Ichika Houshi (蓬茨 苺恋, Houshi Ichika) is a character and a participant in Tsuihou Senkyo. She is a High School student, Kaname Ichijou’s childhood friend and an sister-like figure to his younger sister, Misa Ichijou. She has absolute trust in Kaname, and even in extreme situations, works together in order to fulfil their goal. She is the focus of CASE 1.

Appearance
Ichika has pale skin, medium auburn brown hair, and shade between strawberry and rouge for eyes. She ties the sides of her hair into pigtails with strawberry design hairbands. Her overall design is somewhat similar to a goth, wearing a combination of reds, blacks and whites. Her outfit consists of a long-sleeved white lace shirt under a black blazer jacket accented with red at arm-ends, pocket lacing and for a central streak down the middle of her jacket. The jacket sports two yellow buttons at each end of the arm and a further four yellow buttons aligned two-by-two at the abdomen area. She also were a short and cut white skirt with an underlay of red, long white socks, and red slip-on shoes. Around her neck, left thigh, and both ankles, she wears matching red straps, with the exception of her collar strap which also had a loose golden chain.

Personality
Ichika is initially a loving and friendly girl. She is always by Kaname's side and is willing to communicate to anyone who does not introduce harm. Ichika makes up for being a sister figure and guardian to both Misa Ichijou and Nori. She is seen as a friendly character to the A Group, especially with Miori Himeno, a few of her interactions where she can act and smile as normal. Although, she seems to enter different personality modes based on the situation, at times almost instantly becoming very negative from her usual bright and positive self. In cases of Alice and Shihori Yurizono, she can become hostile and even dares to threaten or almost kill the latter with her chain. Ichika is shown to be able to switch states from being positive, friendly or cheerful, to tired, depressed or saddened, to hostile, murderous and cunning—being one of the few characters to display a full set of emotions.

Background
It is revealed that a few years ago, after the death of Ichika's mother, both Ichika and her father became deeply depressed. This later led her father to tie her up in their family's home basement to prevent him from losing Ichika. From her viewpoint, she was extremely terrified. This quickly led her into continuously crying and screaming for help. Her voice was heard by Kaname and Misa, who were nearby at the time. As the two siblings had walked in, all seem to have been mistaken of Ichika's father's intention of protecting her, instead they incidentally killed her father, resulting in Ichika wearing the chained collar as a reminder of that day. This further bonded the mutual trust between Ichika and the Ichijou siblings.

Kaname Ichijou
Kaname is Ichika's beloved childhood friend. Ichika is very fond of Kaname and Misa, especially after they had saved her life from her father. She places mutual trust in them, never lying to them with ill purpose. It is hinted that Ichika is in love with Kaname due to her deep affection, kindness, and protectiveness of him. Ichika and Nori are the two characters Kaname wanted to protect from the elections and also the exiles. The two trust each other absolutely. She also aids in trying to prevent him from being exiled during the last election.

Misa Ichijou
Misa treated Ichika like an elder sister figure, both in admiration and care for one another. When Misa dies during the first ever election, like Kaname, Ichika is very saddened to the point where she would help and comfort Kaname in any way possible. Throughout the game, in some parts, Ichika would mention Misa in context to the conversation, treating both she and Kaname like her own family members. She also has complete trust in her.

Nori
Reminiscent of Misa, Kaname's deceased sister, Ichika and Kaname decide to take care and act as guardians of her's during their time in Alice Land. Although, the reason they chose to care for Nori was because after Alice had explained the rules of the elections which follow every three days, Nori is shown to be alone which made her vulnerable and the most-likely target to be used for the second election. Later on, Ichika is shown to be the character around Nori the most, being with her in her room, while sleeping and a majority of the time during Kaname's absence—as he is exploring and conversing in the theme park.

Alice
Ichika is shown to be very suspicious of Alice, especially his encounters with Kaname. Never trusting him, Ichika would either keep a distance from the mechanical figure or would interfere if he were to do something which troubled her. During the last election session, Ichika plays a major role intervening with both Kaname and Alice, opposing Alice in the process for Kaname's safety and to prevent him from being exiled.

Trivia

 * Her name has sometimes been alternatively rendered as Ichika Hoshi.
 * Her name means "strawberry".
 * As relevant to her name, she wears strawberry hairband designs.


 * She was voted as one of the five most popular characters from an official character popularity poll.
 * Ichika, Kaname and Nori are the only ones who do have an exile scene but instead a death scene.
 * She uses the chain attached to her collar as a weapon.