Katsuhira’s romantic feelings for Noriko through the show
Hello, @shippingheartsbelieve! I came across your post in the tag, and since you mentioned you’d like to understand how Katsuhira comes to love Noriko through the series, I wanted to try and explain it! :D
Especially because I’ve seen people wondering the same thing you wondered about:
I understand Katsuhira's fascination with her and everything but the biggest thing that I did not understand is how his thoughts of episode 9 “I can’t stop thinking about you and I don’t know if this is really liking you” go-to “I love you” in episode 12 when between then was only one interaction.
The thing is that when Katsuhira tells Noriko “I don’t know if it’s that kind of like,” it’s not that he didn’t like her yet (or even that he ‘only’ liked her).
He already did. He just wasn’t emotionally capable of realizing it yet, because at that point he had yet to find himself (aka he was unable to understand himself).
Truth is, Katsuhira has actually been attracted to Noriko since the very first episode.
That was the entire point of him falling to his death while thinking of nothing but the glimpse he got of her panties. That was also the point of Katsuhira’s trembling eyes when Noriko entwines their fingers. And of why Katsuhira starts his confession in Episode 12 by something as superficial as Noriko appearing “calm and mature”—because these are surface traits about her that caught Katsuhira’s eye from the get-go.
Episode 2 expands on this.
When Noriko asks him if she was wrong in saying that “smelling a girl’s sweet aroma” (meaning: her aroma) made Katsuhira’s heart speed-up, Katsuhira says she wasn’t wrong (Iya…). Which means his heart did speed up. He simply mistakes the reason for his speeding heartbeat as him never having been that close to someone else before, and the show points out that there’s something off with his reasoning right there through Noriko sighing and saying Katsuhira “hasn’t changed at all.”
By Episode 4, Noriko is already at the forefront of his mind. He spends the entire episode wondering about her and about what she’s thinking, trying to connect to her and understand her. This makes his feelings for her develop and strengthen, and Honoka explains why in the finale:
Of course, we have to add to that his obvious attraction to Noriko (as shown by how he can’t take his eyes off her and the fact that Tenga says he is smirking as he looks at Noriko’s phone number). When put together, both things become a desire to be close to Noriko: hence why Katsuhira asks her if she would like him to carry her stuff.
So by Episode 4, Katsuhira has gone from being attracted to Noriko to liking Noriko. Again, the way he just stares at her phone number, how he can’t take his eyes off her and how he wants to do something nice for her just because are all there precisely to show that. Katsuhira’s behavior this episode features most of the typical hints of someone with a crush.
In Episode 6, we once again see that Noriko is always weighing on Katsuhira’s mind. But most importantly, we find out just how strong are the feelings Noriko is capable of arising within Katsuhira, to the point, Katsuhira expresses his disappointment in her using “ 軽蔑 ” aka despise/disdain which is extremely powerful wording. And this is Katsuhira we’re talking about! That was huge!
Then comes Episode 7 and Noriko—as always—weights on his mind, and he approaches Honoka’s situation while also thinking of his own with Noriko. He has never asked her anything, so how can he possibly hope to understand her?
(Now that I think about it, if I remember correctly, Katsuhira only makes such an expression twice: here and in Episode 11, and both cases are out not being able to understand Noriko).
Episode 8 goes without saying. When Noriko wonders about “the color of longing” while staring at Katsuhira’s unread message, we then find out that Katsuhira is doing the exact same thing: staring at the message he sent to her (”Do you want to meet?”).
In other words: Katsuhira was also longing for Noriko right there. Those scenes are meant to parallel each other. Then we get Urushii’s perspective on Katsuhira’s feelings for Noriko. And Urushii, someone who was 100% spot on about literally everyone’s feelings, thought Katsuhira liked Noriko romantically. This means that’s how his behavior towards Noriko up to that point was meant to be read.
So even if Katsuhira can’t tell the nature of his feelings just yet in Episode 9, they were already romantic. In fact, I’d dare say that Katsuhira is already in love with Noriko by Episode 8. And as if on cue, then came Episode 10 which confirmed that even when he was a little kid, Katsuhira loved Noriko romantically.
And we get Urushii telling Katsuhira that he hasn’t “changed” right after Katsuhira says that he thought that by going there, he would be able to meet Nori-chan. Which once again connects Katsuhira’s current feelings for Noriko, to the way he used to feel about her when he was a child.
After Katsuhira finds himself within Noriko and regains the missing pieces of his past, he is able to actually feel his emotions for Noriko more acutely. This is why he is much more assertive in both Episodes 10 and 11.
And in Episode 11, we also see two very important scenes. The first is Katsuhira’s somber, pained reaction when Noriko rejects the Noriko that exists within him and thus his understanding of her.
He is struck by it because Noriko is the one person he honestly believed he understood (notice he literally asks everyone to confirm his conclusions about them, but not Noriko), because she is the person whose existence he found within himself. Even at the end of the episode, when Urushii tells Katsuhira that he has “found it"—aka, the real connection sought by the Kiznaiver program—while looking at the Kiznaivers, Katsuhira simply says that yeah, he has. But:
Even when he couldn’t tell what the nature of his feelings for her was, Katsuhira was unable to group Noriko with the rest of his friends. Because what he felt for her wasn’t friendship: he loved her.
Hence why we literally get Katsuhira musing about it in the finale, before Chidori helps by telling Noriko that Katsuhira likes her.
And all this is without even taking into account the two instances where Katsuhira was able to sense Noriko’s location (Episodes 6 and 8), once again showcasing the strength of their connection and how much he thought about her.
So it’s not that Katsuhira’s feelings for Noriko suddenly went from possibly platonic in Episode 9 to True Love in Episode 12.
Katsuhira’s feelings for Noriko were already romantic by episode 9 because he spent the entire show falling in love with Noriko all over again.
What changed is that his feelings for Noriko now are even stronger than they were when they were children (from ‘suki’ to 'daisuki’), which is natural given their age and everything they have gone through. And this is illustrated by how, while young! Katsuhira liked Noriko because of her virtues (her niceness, her kindness, her smile), this Katsuhira now likes hers despite her flaws. In other words: his feelings for her are more mature, now.
The thing is that when it comes to Katsuhira and Noriko, Kiznaiver does a lot of "showing and not telling” because they were two individuals incapable of understanding themselves, less of all their own emotions. So their feelings for each other were shown through their actions, reactions, and behavior, to the point the only episode without any relevant Katsuriko development was Episode 3.
I hope it’s a bit clearer now! Also, I’m sorry about the length!! I’ve been meaning to talk about how much I like their development for a while now, so this was the perfect chance haha
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