#kazakami

takamatsu-sensei continues with her beautiful and delicate writing, respecting her characters so that they themselves come into their own at the right moments — extending even to the secondary characters.

when i first opened the chapter and saw kazakami, i confess i was a little surprise. on one hand, exploring more of his character was something i was waiting for so long. on the other, it surprises me how she chose such moment to explore him a little further, but now I understand why she did it.

while we see the ending of the summer trip and mitsumi opening up to her friends as a closure to a long storyline, we do have to keep in mind that it only opened another door, way more tricky to explore. to dive deep into that right away would give her little to no time to explore the other characters that englobes the narrative and makes it function. it’s such an intelligent way to keep the plot flowing and adding more details to it.

well anyways, i digress. let’s focus on kazakami for now:

i’ve seen a lot of people often calling him a little selfish or self centered before, since the little scenes we had with him, his posture were always nonchalant. for me, it always felt like something was off, something he was hiding. not that i was sure about it, it just felt like “hm…this comes from a place of defense”. giving up soccer and focusing on being the president, for exemple, gave me an impression of him trying to find a distraction and a way to keep boosting his curriculum. and now, with more information, i have my doubts.

for kazakami’s backstory, sensei uses a plot she’s been using for a while: the “show not tell”, where she explicit give us a little of said character as a way to keep us going — for shima, the scandal; yasaka, her bedroom; now for kazakami, it was dive. opening the chapter with him pretending to be the main character was a very smart idea. that instantly broke the image we had of him, as this serious, ironical guy, specially after how ch 57 ended. now, we clearly see he’s just a boy with his own story and interests.

that brings the reader closer to kazakami (specially since us, the readers, also love anime and such lol). and she keeps on “showing, not telling” when she choses to show how kazakami is on school first to later expose his life at home.

that wall he build, that nonchalant attitude, it’s all a result of strict parents. it’s not that kazakami doesn’t want to be a normal teenager with interests: he was raised with the mindset of productive rather than pleasure. he was repressed into this box and feels guilty to break from it — by doing that, he’s afraid to sound ungrateful and selfish; that’s why he just swallows his food and accept his fate. the next day, a little more gasoline is added to the fuel. kanechika is the exact opposite of him, the perfect description of “freedom”.

but he also is someone who’s fighting for his dreams, someone who have his parents approval, someone who never let go of his interests and still have a bright future ahead of him. it’s frustrating for kazakami. he had to let go of everything in order to have the same future of the the “authentic” guy who never let go of anything. it’s a slap on the face, specially when kanechika holds dear the same thing as him: dive. the contrast between both characters is amazing and

i’m glad sensei chose to explore both at the same time. yes, we do focus more on kazakami, but we know a little about kanechika’s future and we also know a little more of his personality (i mean, he ran after kazakami just to talk about anime. he is observant, he can see that there is something more there). it’s a balance between narratives to maintain the equilibrium and use kanechika’s kindness as a way to tell more of kazakami’s backstory. but this is a conversation we will only continue when the next chapter is out…

the battle between who you are, who you want to be and what people think of you: who do you trust to form your identity?

when i read chapter 58, i had this whole idea in my head for the next chapter. i thought kanechika would get closer to kazakami and help him get a little more comfortable with himself. well, i wasn’t entirely wrong. what i forget to consider was how sensei always have a card on her sleeve, ready to surprise us at any time. and this time, the surprise came in form of a teacher.

but first, i want to start with the obvious: the conversation at the beginning of the chapter. after having so many internal battles, kazakami is left with nothing but shame of himself, his hobbies and his recent outburst. he’s feeling defeated and alone, with his internal voices giving more and more power to his parent’s. and suddenly, a boy with dreams as big as the world stop him on his tracks and break his walls.

for the first time on the chapter, kazakami receives his first confirmation: yes, it wasn’t right of his parents to do that to him. just having someone outside of his personal zone blasting this out loud made it clear to him, made it easier to see. that’s why there was no need to go grab his figures back — all he wanted was a confirmation of his pain, someone that would be brave enough to say “this is wrong and you have the right of being hurt”. there was all he needed; nothing solid, but words as concrete as the burden on his back.

i love how kanechika was left surprised because of it. for him, it was easier to just go and resolve the misunderstanding. that’s the contrast between them: one who moves thought actions and the other who moves through words. and that was the best opening for the next scene, with the ace card sensei pulled: hanazono.

i don’t think i’m wrong when i say that it wasn’t surprising to see how everyone was acting when they found out she was pregnant — the prejudice, the side eyes, the judgment. and kazakami wasn’t innocent in all that: he also had a previous image of the teacher on his head, having it a little shaken after hearing her words. he’s once again grabbed by the neck and forced to look outside of his box, once again having to face his own past judgments.

hanazono isn’t the type of person he thought she was. she’s bolder, more assure of herself and with strong convictions. she’s someone who manage to look at herself in the mirror and ask the hard question: who are you? who do you want to be?

contrasting with what kanechika had to say (as in, giving voice to a feeling he already had, but couldn’t put a name to it), hanazono challenge’s him to see everything from another perspective. “the person i thought i was isn’t the right one so…who do i want to be?”. he’s now left with more questions than he had before. so…is it right to give up on everything he loved just to seek the future his parents want? the “self” he seeks to find, is it the one who’s a proud diver fan or the one who has nothing but someone else’s dreams?

this is very, very confusing for an adolescent who had it all stripped from him. kazakami thought he had an idea of himself before, but it’s all proving to be wrong as the time passes. he wasn’t someone that get sad about figurines — but now he heard his feelings out loud. he wasn’t someone who would lose his time with football, girls and other frivolous things — but is he the one who his father want him to be?

sensei has a talent for portraying confusion and deep, weird emotions we all felt as teenagers (the seek for our identity, the chance we need to be who we are), so it wouldn’t be different now. what we’re seeing of kazakami is only the beginning of his journey of finding who he is and who he want to be. and now, to make things even better, we have a new mother who’s ready to show the world how strong and capable she is without all of them.

this really made me happy, honestly. i’ve seen so many people say bad things about kazakami but you are so right about that. he does keep his distance from people and make some mistakes, yes, but he was always very kind and wanted to help people the way he could. at the end of the day, he’s just a boy, who’s facing this very difficult moment, of course he won’t say the right things all the time!!