kiznaiver 06 - thoughts
So much to talk about oh my god this episode sure delivered!
Ramblings about Maki/Ruru, Maki, Katsuhira, Sonozaki, Yuta, Maki/Yuta, Katsuriko, Tenga, Tendori, etc under the cut!
Maki and Ruru aka Charles de Macking:
- The pseudonym may sound ridiculous but boy is it clever! lol, It hides both Ruru and Maki in plain sight (シャルルドマッキング).
- The one-sided love flags are as strong as they come with Ruru. In fact, they’re so strong that a part of me is ready for Okada to throw a curve-ball and make it Maki->Ruru instead, just to mess with us.
- But for now, that scene up there was textbook: Yeah, of course, I’m stupid. I’m in love with my best friend and I know she doesn’t love me back.
- For now, we can only look to all the blatant self-inserting going on in their manga for answers. The MC of the manga was obviously paralleled to Maki this episode, what with the “I don’t care if I break” line while she tried to use a boy with feelings for her to get over her forbidden love.
- But I still can’t help but think that forbidden love for the teacher was likely based on Ruru’s real feelings for Maki. Which would actually give this:
- A whole new layer of meaning, because Maki would basically be behaving like Ruru. Because I mean, Maki seems to harbor a lot of guilt and self-hatred, right?
- Well, this right here?
- That sounds a lot like the latter. Ruru obviously had a lot of issues going on. And that “incurable illness” that made it to the manga? Yep. Hers, too.
- So for now, I’m leaning towards: Ruru was in love with Honoka, Ruru tried to make a move but Honoka didn’t return her feelings. Which led to either Ruru committing suicide or her illness getting the best of her. Any would’ve been enough for Maki to feel responsible for Ruru’s death.
- Hell, Ruru seems kind of unstable. So I could even see her wanting to orchestrate her death to permanently tie herself to Maki (in a: this way you won’t ever forget my fashion). Hopefully not though! lol
- Though if Okada is feeling particularly evil, I’d LOVE it if Maki did actually return her feelings but either didn’t own up to it or never realized it until it was too late.
Nico
- When Nico’s voice breaks here. Ugh, my heart.
- Nico reaching out to Maki because she doesn’t want Maki to be lonely. Like I’m literally overwhelmed by how precious that was!
- I’m betting everything Nico does, down to her attention-craving, maybe because her parents were always too busy to pay her enough attention. So Nico grew up lonely and friendless.
- And of course, Maki's strongest reactions are to Nico and Yuta. But I’ll get to Yuta and Maki later. For now:
Tenga (and lowkey tendori)
- Where do I even begin when it comes to Tenga??
- Chidori is making the huge mistake of letting Tenga’s outward behavior blindside her. Since Tenga is always so brash and honest, it’d be easy to think he’s an uncomplicated person with uncomplicated, straightforward feelings. But that’s obviously far from the truth.
- And it SHOWS so damn much. First with Tenga noticing the little things about Chidori and offering his help to her in the most serious, sober fashion.
- And IN THIS EPISODE. Tenga showing how insightful he can be by saying Maki’s lonely! (Granted, Yuta is lonely too and that’s going to become obvious soon, I think. But to his credit, Yuta hides it way better than most of them lol)
- But yeah, back to those pictures above. THAT. SERIOUS. TENGA. And then he tried to pretend like he didn’t basically just say, no, even I feel the stuff I’d rather you guys not know about.
- And AGAIN the emotionally-loaded foreshadowing happens with… you guessed it, Chidori! First with her jab about his parents, and now with her jab about his feelings.
- This is going to get so good in the upcoming weeks, guys. We better faster our seat-belts!
Katsuhira, Noriko, Katsuriko and the Kiznaiver Experiment
I’ve got so much to say about them. This show has got me guessing so much that I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore, tbh.
I’ll start with the cute:
- We knew this would happen, but I for one didn’t expect him to call her that this soon. my heart wasn’t prepared.
- I’m sorry, but I just… Headcanon time: Katsuhira was actually the one who started to call Noriko “Nori-chan”, back when they were kids. Then she picked it as her nickname when she became the project’s idol. So now that Katsuhira’s calling her that again, things have come full circle! /cough, end of headcanon
- Katsuhira’s been texting Noriko even though she’s been ignoring his texts. Let that sink in.
- Katsuhira coming up with the plan to find out about Maki’s past. Sobs. He becomes really pro-active when it comes to helping other people. He did the same with Hisomu, too.
Now, what kills me here is the following:
- This apology right here? Noriko meant that.
- The last episode showed that Noriko doesn’t want to make them suffer, what she wants is to make them bond. She was probably willing to let Maki come into her own at her own pace but knowing that the experiment may get canceled made her force Maki’s hand.
- I don’t think Noriko’s happy with herself, to be honest. But right now she has a “the ends justify the means” mentality, and since she expects the Kiznaiver project to do all of them good, she probably figures it’s worth it.
- But - and here comes the thing - hearing Katsuhira say that he’s disappointed in her though? Damn, that flinch was no joke and it gave Noriko away.
- With every passing episode, I’m more and more convinced that Noriko is doing this just so that Katsuhira can have his pain back. So that “I’m disappointed in you, Nori-chan” must have been very bittersweet for her. Sweet, because it’s proof that Katsuhira’s making progress, which is what Noriko wants. Bitter, because it’s coming at the expense of his opinion of her, and that’s bound to hurt.
Which takes me to:
- So Noriko does think her and Katsuhira’s hearts aren’t connected, doesn’t she? Hell, I’m probably projecting here, but I do sense some sort of wistfulness when she says the whole “[you were able to] connect the pain in your hearts.” In Episode 00, her seiyuu said she was told about Noriko’s backstory while she was recording episode 3, and that after knowing it playing Noriko became a lot easier.
- Now, there is something that caught my eye about all this, but I’ll go through it in another post because it’s kind of image-heavy lol
Back to that last scene between them though,
- It starts to build up way before it actually happens. And the saddest thing about it is that Noriko didn’t actually plan the entire thing! The timing just worked out in her favor.
- But Katsuhira doesn’t know that. He just sees the results.
- Literal parallel to the first episode (Katsuhira staying behind because he wants to talk to Noriko), except with the opposite outcome.
- When Katsuhira says “I understand. I’m… disappointed in you, Nori-chan.”
- He is !! actually !! understanding !!! his emotions now. This is HUGE. Like he literally looked within himself and he was able to put a name to his feelings!! For once!!
- And it’s ridiculously fitting that it happens with a feeling aimed towards Noriko.
Also. Not even going to talk about the injection here because this thing is WAY to long already and I have yet to rave about Yuta and Yutaki!!
YUTA AND MAKI / yutaki, whatever they’re called
- Yuta and Maki have been the surprise of the show for me, to be honest. At first, they reminded me way too much of Yukiatsu/Tsurokko from AnoHana, another Okada show. I went into AnoHana with those two as my OTP and came out not caring at all about them lol So tbh, that kept me from having any sort of investment in Yuta and Maki as a ship.
- But they are just awesome. Individually and together. I love how Maki reacts the strongest to Nico (because she reminds her of Ruru) and to Yuta because he’s the one to call her out all the time and as such, the one able to make her feel the most.
- Not only that, but Yuta was more or less paralleled with the guy from the manga. Aka, the boy the protagonist was using to get over her forbidden love.
- “Judging from the shape of her ankles” YUTA PLEASE.
- No, seriously. Yuta was too damn cool the entire episode.
- But
- This moment right here was THE BEST. Yuta is too precious for this world. He’s probably the one that wants to go after Maki the most, but he knows she needs space. Again, we have one of the parties putting the other’s feelings above their own and giving the other what they need at the expense of their own feelings. So this really makes me think that if Chidori->Katsuhira came across as selfish during her outburst last episode, that was very much intended.
Hisomu:
- HE ACTUALLY GOT TO DO SOMETHING THIS EPISODE!
- Plus once again, we’re shown that Hisomu is pretty smart and resourceful when he wants to be.
- Using SNS in his favor? Genius.
