Sumire
Sumire (スミレ, Sumire) is a supporting character from Baoh. She is a young girl with psychic abilities which Doress seeks to exploit for their own gain.
Appearance
Sumire is a young girl with light hair tied in a ponytail. Sumire has big oval eyes with long eyelashes, fitting her youth, and also thick eyebrows.
Sumire loosely wears a plain light dress over a dark shirt, and sneakers.
Sumire also keeps a pet named Notsuo with her. Notsuo is a strange squirrel-like creature with a striped tail, large furry ears, and large red eyes. Notsuo is often seen standing on Sumire's shoulder.
Personality
Sumire can be summed up as a bright but impertinent little girl.
Sumire is remarkably clever for two reasons. The first is her natural resourcefulness; for instance she was able to use the items in her cell to make an elaborate trap and trick Sophine and she is proactive in acting out plans for her and Ikuro to make money. The second reason is that her psychic powers give her an edge in foreseeing dangers and predict the next best course of action. Her strong intuition allowed her to figure out that she was being drugged but also that Ikuro was a trustworthy partner.
Sumire is also quite rude and has little respect of authority. She is remarkably impertinent to adults she doesn't like, notably Sophine who was her handler but also the old man who she insulted repeatedly. Perhaps because of her youth, Sumire is also indifferent to the law and doesn't hesitate to steal or cheat at gambling, excusing it by the urgency of her situation. However, Sumire has a soft heart and wept when a women and her child were murdered by one of Doress' monsters.
Sumire shows a great deal of determination against Doress. She is consistently defiant against them and whenever she is captured makes it a point to escape or make her captors' life hell, but could also endure the torture of being exposed to deafening sound for hours without screaming.
Sumire keeps a pet named Notsuo with her; while she likes him, she is also disgusted at Notsuo for licking her face and eating bugs.
Sumire seems to have a crush on Ikuro Hashizawa due to his looks and her knowledge of his good heart. Even seven years after Ikuro's disappearance, Sumire eagerly awaits his return.
Abilities
Sumire is a remarkable psychic whose powers revolve around divining relevant information. The nature of the information and the method by which she obtains it is irrelevant, but is instinctive and automatic. Sumire has manifested her divining skills in the following ways:
- Instinct: Sumire has a strong instincts and she can usually feel the truth of precise matters. For instance, she automatically trusted Ikuro but also was sure that Ikuro was merely slumbering at the bottom of the sea rather than being dead.
- Automatic Writing: She can write unconsciously to produce words or numbers which can be used to access codes to locking mechanisms.
- Precognition: She occasionally has visions of future events, which allows her and Ikuro to act ahead of time.
- Table Turning: She can gain information with this power using a coin and notepad with numbers and "Yes" and "No" on it.
History
Before Doress captured Sumire, it is explained that she used to live in an orphanage. She openly manifested her psychic powers when she divined the license number of a car involved in a hit-and-run for the police, catching the attention of Doress who took her in and put her on a train to their secret laboratory. Incidentally, a Baoh was being contained in another wagon.
At the beginning of the story, Sumire tries to escape the train and reaches the wagon where Baoh is contained but is caught by her handler Sophine. In the struggle, Sumire turns a valve that causes a failure of the containment system, releasing the Baoh. Sumire exploits the commotion to detach the back cars from the lead cars and get away, but is soon joined by Baoh, in reality a teenage boy named Ikuro Hashizawa.
Afterward, Sumire decides to stick by Ikuro, trusting him and having a crush on him too. When the pair are attacked by a knife wielding assassin, she warns him of the incoming threat and subsequently flees with him on a motorbike. When they arrive to a gas station, Ikuro is ambushed by the same assassin and seemingly killed. Witnessing the murder, Sumire faints from the shock, but Baoh manifests itself and kills the assassin. He returns to normal before Sumire wakes up. Later, Sumire and Ikuro cheat at horse races, using her power to predict which horse will win. The pair take refuge in an abandoned building but are soon attacked by a death squad sent by Doress. She faints again, missing Ikuro's second transformation and massacre of the squad but is woken up by Notsuo, allowing her to see the aftermath of the battle. She then witnesses Baoh's fight against another assassin and his pet monster Martin. When Ikuro gets cornered, she tries to stop the assassin but gets whipped for her trouble and the pain Baoh senses allows him to overpower the assassin's tricks. Ikuro then returns to his human form.
Later, Sumire and Ikuro take refuge at an old couple's house in the countryside. In here, they are attacked by another assassin named Dorudo, a cyborg who can also command bats. Dorudo is beaten but he escapes and takes Sumire with him as a hostage and a bait to lure Ikuro to Doress' laboratory. In here, Sumire is tested for her psychic powers but Pr. Hazyeye decides to torture her so that Baoh is lured in by her pain. Sumire is eventually freed by Baoh, but a powerful psychic named Walken intervenes, destroying the floor and sending them down a cavern. In the cavern, Baoh points the way out to Sumire, leaving her to battle Walken. Sumire has no choice but to abandon Baoh.
Years later, it is shown that Sumire was subsequently adopted by the old couple. Sumire impatiently waits for the day Ikuro will awaken from his slumber and get out of the sea.
