Nix ✮‧₊˚

Through Nene’s pov he’s introduced as a very sweet guy and stuff but the problem here is that Nene’s is an unreliable narrator since she romantices life + Kou speficially treats her a lot nicer.

He is also heavily morally righteous and tries to hear Hanako out even after knowing he murdered someone, saving him from Teru.

Kou also ends up trying to shoulder other people’s problems, and many of his actions are seen as “heroic” or “selfless” BUT sometimes this due to a more ugly part of his character the fandom seems to discard often.

^ To elaborate, I want to bring up this scene since it’s iconic asf

On the surface it’s like: omg wow so brave of him to kill himself for his bf !! However, in the red house arc (which for context shows him his biggest desires) we can see that he just wants mitsuba to rely on him to the point of extreme measures.

This is rooted from his inferiority complex due to being outshined by his older + younger siblings; AND to add on, Hanako straight up tells Kou twice hes unable to do anything. Then to push it further, Teru’s like ur weak lil bro go back to the kitchen during the no.6 fight. Mitsuba dying infront of him 6 times doesn’t help either..

When Mitsuba asks if Kou is okay and needs to talk about his problems, (I forgot which specific chapter..), Kou automatically assumes that Mitsubas just worried about Kou’s reliability because he has such a low self esteem and is used to given up on.

His inability to actually make stuff happen and ppl telling him he can’t do shit make him very eager to try and shoulder other ppls problem in an attempt to have someone depend on him.

So when Mitsuba comes in with nobody (besides tsukasa but he does more harm than help so wtv) who can help him, Kou.. heh.. ig u could say.. JUMPS at this opportunity.

Anyway, in the Nightlife arc Mitsuba is like “hey can u kill me I’ve given up on being human”, and Kou finally lashes out. Mitsuba is indirectly telling Kou that he gave up on him trying to make his wish come true; AND THEN to make it worse, Mitsuba brings Tsukasa right after up..

Kou gets desperate and forces Mitsuba to stay alive even if he doesn’t want to because both

1) if mitsuba leaves nobody will depend on him and

2) he’s gay for him + misses him after watching him die + can’t bring himself to kill Mitsuba

Yes, he cares a lot for Mitsuba as a person and making his wish come true, but he also just wants to be depended on after being told he’s a let down over and over again.

As I mentioned before, Kou has a trend with diverting his problems from other people and keeping his real feelings in. Nobody expect for nene knows about Mitsubas and Kous relationship, and it literally took Kou like 70 chapters or smthn to give her the basics.

He’s speechless when Akane asks if Mitsuba and him are close because Kou never mentions Mitsuba at all. Teru doesn’t know what’s up with him, and just assumes he “has a goal in mind”. Even when having his big speech defeating Habuko Kou just refers to Mitsuba as “him”.

Okay anyways the point Im trying to get is Kous character is a lot more complex than the fandom passes off !! Yes he can be very sweet and all but there’s other parts to his personality that aren’t so black and white.

It's partly him having fun and partly his way to keep everyone at a distance. This is especially true with the other mysteries, he can act very bratty and it doesn't really matter because they know he's in charge at the end of the day. He does what he wants and however he wants.

Which leads to this:

In fact, even Nene and Kou had this initial impression of him. It was gradually changed by the fact that, since they're inexperienced with the supernatural, they HAVE to trust him. And even when he says he won't, Hanako still instinctively protects them. Why? Because humans die very easily.

Which then leads to Nene and Kou spending more time with him and trying to understand him which then leads to the discovery that Hanako is... Kind of sweet sometimes?

And this is how we get my favorite part of this manga and this character.

Which is that Hanako starts fucking slipping.

He can go on and on about how he's dead and doesn't care for the living and existence is hopeless and whatever. But as readers we already know how soft he can be. He tries to push Nene and Kou away. He tries to go back to being Honorable Number Seven, uncaring and cold and powerful. And everytime he just keeps failing because of these two.

(I could put more examples if I looked for them but I already hit the image limit and this is the best example I can think of)

This is an extensive post of how abuse afflicted Yugi Amane and even Hanako's behavior well into afterlife. Of course, emotional abuse is directly related to physical abuse, so I'll be talking about them together for the most part.

1. Behavioural Signs in Yugi Amane

We don't know why or who is behind this, and I won't particularly talk about it since it's not the focus anyway. We know his abuse started somewhere during his first year and was repeated until his suicide, july of his 2nd year. According to Tsuchigomori, he was badly injured every single day, so that's at least around a year worth of constant physical abuse.

However, it's important to note that it's very likely that before the physical abuse, emotional abuse was already consistently taking place, with multiple signs- He's isolated, experiences social withdrawal and has no friends, skips classes & school activities and has poor academic performance that contrasts his actual capabilities.

His emotional development is poor; He has difficulties expressing and understanding his own feelings, very likely a factor in the degradation of his and Tsukasa's relationship where Tsukasa can't understand Amane and Amane can't understand Tsukasa either due to lack of proper communication, and something that carries well over into the afterlife as Hanako.

The physical abuse worsened his already messed up mental state, and everything ultimately drove him into depression. He engages in behavior that puts his own safety in jeopardy (Like when he was way too close to falling over the window, both of his feet were at the very edge of the window frame), and while his love towards space stayed the same, he was overtaken by feelings of helplessness.

Even a rock could travel from the Moon to Earth, which gave him hope. It's important to highlight the word "even". He claims that if 'even' a rock can go this far, so can he, suggesting very low self-esteem. It's an object that carried him through many hardships because of this hope, but everything got so bad said hope just made him feel worse. At some point he started experiencing active suicidal ideation, marked by him giving away his treasured possession to Tsuchigomori in order to rid himself of this "hope", and declaring that he decided he wouldn't "go anywhere", a clear metaphor for deciding he would give up on his future and take his own life. He decided he cannot go anywhere near farther than a rock.

2. Behavioural signs in Hanako

As we mostly see his ghost self, we have a clearer vision of Hanako than we have of Amane. We can easily see his horribly low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. When we catch a glimpse of his perspective, we see how distorted his sense of self is.

He repeatedly claims that he isn't worth anything and that his existence itself is a punishment, and so refuses to disappear, considering that it would only be a release from the torment he deserves.

He hates himself down to his core, although this is a combined result of both depression via his experienced abuse and his PTSD of the murder-suicide. As Amane, he was capable of saying that it's fine if he's tormented this terribly, that even if there's no reason for it, he forgives it, massively contrasting Hanako who is incapable of forgiving himself, claiming that even if he had a super special reason for Tsukasa's murder, there's not a single justification that would warrant forgiveness. He's capable of forgiving anything that anyone does to him no matter how horrible, but not of forgiving himself.

As such, verbal abuse directed at him is taken positively by him, such as when Akane states that "reformed villains", refering to Hanako, make him sick, continuing to talk about how he can never take back what he did, essentially degrading him. He was given very harsh words that visibly hurt him, even implying that it triggered his PTSD for a moment, yet he could only claim that Akane is the type of person he likes most, as he was essentially validating and feeding into Hanako's already deeply negative view of himself.

This is also supported by his time in the Picture Perfect arc via his belief that he's undeserving of anything better for himself. Hanako said it himself in 71 that he wished he could've lived a normal life with Nene and Kou, and the Picture World reflected exactly that.

It's a world that was shaped exactly like he wanted, and that's exactly why he hated it. He knew what his reality was, and furthermore, he knows of his crimes and how he was the one who destroyed his own future, and so thinks he's undeserving of it.

He refuses to look at the stars for too long, because that reminds him of the hopes and dreams he gave up on in reality- He has no right to dare pick them up again, further highlighted by him refusing to go on the moon in the End of a Dream. His wish wasn't granted while alive, and now can't be granted after death.

In his helplessness, he is unable to reach for better circumstances for himself. After all, he's quick to adapt to whatever bad thing comes his way. "It's just how the world works", and he has to accept it.

However, we know how that doesn't apply to the people he cares about. He may have given up on everything, but he is unable to give up on the people he loves. No matter how much he suffers, no matter what he has to do, he wants the people he loves to find happiness.

No matter how much he tried to tell himself he isn't supposed to care, he desperately wants them to live the fulfilling lives he didn't have. And if he is the one that gives them the salvation they need, he finds the indulgence to want a small part of him to live through them, the indulgence to hate himself just a little bit less.

He actively attempts to hide his past from other people, being content with them only knowing basic information about it (that he's a murderer), mainly because he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or know how much of a horrible person (according to himself) he actually is.

When it comes to people he has a good relationship with like Nene, he's actually afraid of them finding out, and even months after promising he would tell Nene everything, he's still reluctant to do so due to overall difficulty with opening up- exposure to characters or topics that relate to his past more often than not results in reactions varying from heavy emotional distress, expressing aggression, anger, guilt and/or shame, to reliving traumatic events. Avoidance seems to be his main method of coping.

Hanako suffers from emotional dysregulation. He not only has high difficulties processing and expressing his feelings, but has difficulty picking up on others' emotions as well. For half a century he had been socially and emotionally neglected while also being incapable of ever maturing past the age of 13, much less healing from his past experiences. They rather worsened due to a supernatural lifestyle. When he first met Nene, he wasn't behaving appropriately at all due to this and their relationship went through many difficulties due to his lack of boundaries and poor emotional intelligence, and him communicating his true feelings is always a rare occasion.

Not only did he not take into account other people's feelings ("Yashiro will hate it, but it's ok, she'll move on someday and live her life", not taking into account and understanding others being possibly spiteful over his actions and direct their hate towards innocent parties), he doesn't even take into account his own ("Why? Good question. Why am I doing it?" and "Even though I was prepared to never see you again, I'm so happy to have you back. Weird, right? There must be something wrong with me"). However, due to Nene's influence, he seems to be a little more upfront with his feelings lately.

He's also incredibly self-reliant. Both events of Picture Perfect and the Severance were a result of Hanako doing everything by himself without consulting anyone. He decided by himself that he's the only one that should dirty his hands as he was already a sinner, that it's easier to dump everything on the one that's already guilty of similar crimes, because he didn't have any other solution in sight. It's important to note that he took the *entire* blame for the Severance- Even if all he did was feign ignorance to no. 6's actions.

Him being grounded in the miserable reality he finds himself in is both a strength (as he is quick to adapt to his conditions) and a major weakness- He'll only be able to see the most practical, yet unfortunate approaches.

In the Clock Keepers arc, he wanted to trust Kou when he said he would save Nene, but his attempt quickly turned to failure when he was not seeing any tries, let alone results. He was even upset at Kou when he considered that if he wanted the job done he should have just done it himself, knowing that his methods aren't ones someone would approve of. Methods that he doesn't approve of himself, but carried them out anyway in his despair.

In fact, Hanako did not break free from the shackles of abuse. He is a child that has been placed in a position of leadership filled with various responsibilities for fifty years. He is committed to his duties as a mystery after being promised salvation by 'God', believing that his sins would be forgiven, but he's essentially just being used.

♡ happy mitsuba day 2026 !!! ☘︎

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