#robokaito

bonus

The original concept started off being called Kintsugi and this was my prompt piece: 

Kurobot isn’t necessarily an evil robot. He’s just.....misguided? He was created in a lab, and as such has very little - or even no - comprehension of human* lifestyles or actions.

*Human in this case meaning beings who aren’t himself.

Kaito’s something of an unreliable narrator in these panels- not because what’s happening isn’t true, but because he’s giving all the wrong emotional cues. Which, of course, is to be expected since Kaito’s really entitled and, despite knowing how to walk in other people shoes, doesn’t really ever think about other people (unless that “other people” is Aoko and, on occasion, victims of circumstances that Kaito can relate to). And of course, as a human, he has the instinctual aversion to death, since it’s permanent- what he  doesn’t realize is that permanence doesn’t make sense to something whose entire existence is literally comprised of being built and repaired.

What’s even wilder, though is that Kurobot doesn’t even know that he’s a robot. Going back a page, we see-

This means that Kurobot doesn’t see humans as dispensable like most “evil robots” do, he literally believes that humans can be “repaired” because he’s associated himself with being human.

And then later on, Kaito goes back to being somewhat unreliable, emotionally. He immediately sees Kurobot’s disassembly as an indication that Kurobot knows he’s a robot, which isn’t necessarily true? All his memories taken from Kaito indicate that he - Kurobot - is the real human, since of course the real Kaito would believe that as well. And, of course, going back to the fact that there’s so much that the scientist may or may not have revealed, or had refused to disclose to Kurobot in order to control him, we don’t know exactly how much Kurobot actually knows about his own existence.

This feels most like the turning point for Kurobot. He’s alone with KID, with his entire skin ripped off, so there’s no need to try and convince Kaito that he’s the “false Kaitou KID”. Does he truly believe it? Is he just trying to convince himself?