The worst spirit in history is set to be your favorite anti‑heroine—and maybe, just maybe, find what she’s been looking for.
By Chiron V.
Right before our interview, Kurumi Tokisaki excused herself to adjust the clockwork mechanism behind her left eye. The results were smoother than anyone has a right to expect from a woman who has been shot, stabbed, erased from time, and cloned into multiple murderous duplicates of herself. “It has a mind of its own,” she says, one crimson eye peeking out from beneath her black bangs, a playful smile curling at the corner of her lips. “Much like me.”
This might mark the first and only time Kurumi has slowed down for anything. Her return in the latest season of Date A Live has been a methodical and steady resurgence—she first appeared years ago as the series’ most captivating antagonist, a spirit who devours time and lives with equal appetite. After a long absence, her chance came again.
In the intervening years, she had grown up a lot—or rather, she had lived through countless timelines, dying and resurrecting, killing and being killed, all in pursuit of one goal: to find the First Spirit and rewrite the past. She brought a hard‑won, weary depth to her latest appearance, where she fought alongside—not against—Shido Itsuka and the other spirits. Date A Live has always been “such a beast of a project,” between its labyrinthine timeline and Kurumi’s own endlessly multiplying clones.
“Every version of myself I’ve played, I’m always ‘Team Kurumi.’ Even the ones that are extremely evil—and I have many of those—there’s a way to justify what they did,” Kurumi says, tilting her head. Her clock hand spins. “I did judge my past self a bit for falling for Shido so easily. It’s like, ‘Just shoot him and take his time already,’ but it’s so much more complicated than that. He’s so different from anyone else I’ve met. He doesn’t want to seal me away. He wants to save me. No one has ever said that to me before.”
Kurumi has always been a loner. She studied at the school of hard knocks—specifically, the kind where you watch everyone you love die in front of you. She spent years hunting through shadows, building her strength, creating an army of her own clones. “When I was younger, I thought power was the only thing that mattered,” she says, her voice softening almost imperceptibly. “Now I’m not so sure.”
Next up for Kurumi is a trifecta of emotional confrontations. This season, you can catch her facing down Mio Takamiya—the OG spirit, the source of all her pain. The original betrayal happened when Kurumi was just a human girl, tricked into becoming a spirit and losing everything she held dear. But she’s nevertheless a fan of revenge (and of dramatic irony in general). “I’ve watched my own death so many times,” she says, laughing darkly. “Night after night.”
In the hands of the Date A Live writing team, the latest arc “has so many iconic nods and throwbacks to the original while also charting its next‑gen-ness,” Kurumi promises. It comes complete with a cast that includes Shido, the other spirits, and her own numerous clones—each one a little different, each one still her.
Kurumi has also appeared in the spin‑off Date A Bullet, which she filmed in parallel dimensions immediately after the main series’ most devastating arc. “Parallel worlds actually scare me a lot less than emotional honesty does,” she notes. And after our interview, the news broke that she would be facing her ultimate choice: continue her centuries‑long quest for revenge, or accept something she never thought possible—a future with others who care about her.
But her heart still resides in the glow of that single, impossible hope. She’d love to finally rest. To stop running. To sit in a quiet café—the one she haunts in every timeline—and drink a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste grainy like regret.
“I’d also be down to do a real romantic subplot,” she says, adding jokingly, “I think it’d be fun to, I don’t know, hold hands. In public. Without trying to kill anyone.” Knowing Kurumi, she’d find a way to make that utterly compelling—and utterly terrifying.
Hair by The Chop Chop. Makeup by Ainz Tulip. Photography by HARENOHI.
WATCH NEXT
Essential Kurumi Episodes to Stream Before You Run Out of Time
Date A Live Season 1, Episode 7–8 ("Spirit of Time" / "Closed Night of Three People")
Her first appearance. The introduction of the clockwork assassin who steals every scene she's in. Watch and understand why the fandom never let her go.
Date A Live Season 2, Episode 9–10 ("The Nightmare Before the Festival" / "Another Nightmare")
Kurumi vs. Miku. Betrayal, bullets, and the first hint that she's not purely evil—just deeply, dangerously heartbroken.
Date A Live Season 3, Episode 12 ("Make Her Your Own")
The climactic battle where Kurumi and Shido fight side by side. You will cry. We don't make the rules.
Date A Live Season 4, Episode 11–12 ("The Demon King" / "A World Purged by Demons")
Her darkest hour. Also her most beautiful. The moment everything changes.
Date A Live Season 5 (Current Season) – Episodes 1–4
Kurumi vs. Mio. The past comes home to kill her. And Kurumi does something she's never done before: she asks for help.
Spin‑off: Date A Bullet (Two‑Part Film)
Kurumi's solo adventure in a parallel world. Less Shido, more Kurumi being Kurumi. Essential for the completist.
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