Ikumi Mito

Ikumi Mito (水戸 郁魅 Mito Ikumi) is one of the Tsundere characters in Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma.

Appearance
Ikumi has short blonde hair with an ahoge, tanned skin, and turquoise eyes. However, she has green eyes in the anime. She has a curvy figure and is considered to have a model-like body.

Unlike the rest of the students who wear standard uniforms depending on the season, she wears the slightly modified summer Tōtsuki uniform that exposes her cleavage. She also always wears a choker in all settings. She also wears a Bōsōzoku jacket on some occasions, at the recommendation of Kanichi Konishi. Most of her outfits are revealing and usually consist of a bikini top, short fringed shorts, two leather wristbands, and an arm sheath for her cooking knife.

Personality
Ikumi was raised under a notable house, the Mito Family, famed for their influence in the meat industry. As such, she flaunted her abilities and status to those who were considered lower than her. She has a fiery, combative personality and shows great pride in her skills as a meat expert. She is also a bold individual and is not above intimidation to get her way. Much of this stems from her father who told her to discard her weaknesses associated with being a girl since the Mito company needed a strong individual to be its successor.

Behind her tough exterior however, is a softer side which emerged after eating Sōma's Chaliapin Steak Don. Deep down, she is a kindhearted individual and becomes much friendlier, especially towards Sōma. She initially disliked being called Nikumi, but quickly changed once Sōma said that it sounded cute. Only those particularly close to her are allowed to call her Nikumi including Sōma, Kanichi, and the Polar Star girls. Ikumi has a mild crush on Sōma, but is too shy to admit it. When flustered, she sometimes acts violent when someone calls her out on her concern for Sōma. She is more than willing to aid Sōma whenever he asks for her help. More often than not, however, Ikumi misinterprets his requests thinking that he asked her alone for help, only for her to find others involved. Nevertheless, she provides all the knowledge and assistance she can give to him when asked.

Trivia

 * Ikumi (郁魅) is composed of the kanji for "cultural progress" or "perfume" (郁 Iku) and "fascination" or "bewitchment" (魅 Mi). Mito (水戸) uses the kanji for "water" (水 Mi) and "door" (戸 To).
 * Mito is likely a play on the English word "meat".
 * Additionally, her nickname Nikumi is a combination of her name Ikumi and the Japanese word niku (肉), meaning meat.
 * In the English dub, her nickname is Mi-Meat, which is derived from the repeating mi syllable when reading her name in Western order, and the aforementioned wordplay of her family name.
 * Ikumi shares some traits with Julio Rossi Saotome from the one-shot. Both of them were allied with Erina, they both challenged Sōma to a Shokugeki in Erina's stead, and both have lost the said matches. They're both noted to have good sensitivity as well.
 * Ikumi ranked 6th in the first popularity poll with 452 votes.[4] She ranked 9th in the second popularity poll with 1462 votes.[5]