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billiuspendragon · 21 days ago

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Hiding Behind a Mask

A character study of Kaido Shun from Saiki K and Oregon Shawcross from Fresh Meat.

Fresh Meat and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K are two very different comedies. Fresh Meat is rooted in reality, dipping in and out of seriousness as it goes, while Saiki K specialises in absurdity and satire. The characters in Fresh Meat change drastically from season to season as the characters find their footing in the world, while the characters in Saiki K are literally trapped in a time-loop, and remain almost in stasis until the very end. Fresh Meat doesn't really have a main character, while Saiki K very much does.

Despite this, the two shows have some similarities. They can both be considered coming of age stories, as both end with the group of main characters coming to an end of an era and wondering what they will do next in life. They both contain characters who hide behind their own egos, desperate to fit in or be seen as cool.

One of Oregon's earliest scenes shows her being caught in a lie. She makes up tales about what she did in her year before university in an attempt to sound more interesting, and later contradicts herself by saying that she wished she's had a year out, in order to relate to the others. Immediately we are shown that Oregon believes identity to be something she can fabricate. She considers herself a blank slate that she can paste a personality onto, and hides everything about herself in an attempt to create something new.

Kaido does much the same thing. In the transition between middle school and high school, he creates an extravagant false identity called "The Jet Black Wings" in an attempt to bury his shy, boring middle school personality. Unfortunately this backfires, his lies are far too ridiculous for anyone to believe, and he is labelled as a social outcast for his eccentricity. Still, we are shown that Kaido, much like Oregon, doesn't know how to be happy in himself. He believes that in order to have friends, he has to turn himself into someone that will impress people.

The characters begin to differ when we examine how they go about living in their false identities. While Kaido is more or less consistent with his Jet Black Wings persona, Oregon changes herself to match each new person she admires, a new identity ready to replace each one she takes off. She begins by imitating Vod, who is the epitome of "cool", parroting everything she says even when she doesn't really agree, and constantly aiming to please her. However, after the two of them become close friends, she soon moves on to something else.

While Kaido sometimes imitates characters from TV shows he likes, or picks up new skills in order to impress people, he always falls back upon the same edgy fantasy that was there from the beginning.

They both present themselves very differently towards their parents than they do towards their friends. At home, Oregon's name is "Melissa". She comes from a privileged background (something that she hides from her friends) and is under a lot of pressure to do well academically. She spins her parents as many lies at the end of the show as she does towards everyone else at the beginning -- she lies about her grades and tells them that she is President of the Student Union (which, to be fair, she was -- before she was impeached), painting herself as the perfect achiever that she so desperately wants to be.

Kaido is also under a lot of academic pressure. While he doesn't outright lie to his mother, he tries to keep his friends from meeting her as he is afraid she won't approve of them, and adopts a meek, polite personality whenever she is around.

It is clear that he is scared of her, and that this fear only pushes him to hide things from her instead of encouraging him to be better in his studies like she wants. It's possible that this is what drives his tendency to lie to his friends as well -- he is held to a much higher standard than he is capable of, and this has taught him that he must simply appear a certain way in order to earn the approval he desires.

Both Kaido and Oregon have a streak of childishness. In Kaido's case this is extremely prominent -- he is referred to as a "chunibyuu" (which roughly translates as "eighth grade syndrome") and is often taken advantage of by bullies who pretend to believe in his fantasies and trick him into giving them his money. Kaido wants to believe that he is special. It only takes someone telling him that he is secretly from some strange and distant planet, or that he's possessed by the spirit of a hero, and he will go along with anything they say.

In Oregon's case, she is manipulated to a much more serious degree when she has an affair with one of her tutors. She, like Kaido, wants to believe that she is special, and better than other people. Dr Shales (who I despise with every inch of my being) appeals to this by telling her that he loves her for her mind, and giving her higher marks than her work really merits. It takes her a while to get out of this relationship, and even after she does he attempts to emotionally manipulate her into sleeping with him countless times, and it becomes more and more apparent that he is an utterly pathetic and disgusting person.

Kaido and Oregon are both rather bad at the things they really, really want to be good at. While Kaido is passionate about his storytelling, his works are often portrayed as cringeworthy, with a childish edginess and pretentiousness. Oregon, while good at many things, is not very good at English Literature, which is her main passion. She is often bitter towards people who are better than her, and is even unable to be happy for her best friend Vod, when she unexpectedly gets a higher mark in the end. At one point she is shown emulating Candice, a younger student who is more knowledgable than her, by copying her dress sense. This reminds us that even while following her passion, Oregon is more focused on appearances than actually... following her passion. She wants to be recognised as someone who is good at English Literature more than she actually enjoys the subject.

Her and Kaido both display some quite selfish behaviours to protect their image over the course of the show. In Kaido's case this is balanced out by the genuine acts of bravery he sometimes does (though Saiki usually has to chip in with his powers to stop Kaido from getting hurt or making a fool out of himself), while Oregon is almost entirely focused on herself. She shows a lack of empathy towards others -- which isn't a problem on its own, only she is never very compassionate either. While Kaido's friends clearly mean the world to him, he also isn't above putting them down occasionally to boost his own ego -- a specific example of this is when he spreads embarrassing rumours about Saiki after they and their friends were trapped on a desert island together.

Mixing fiction with reality is also a theme that comes up for both characters, though in very different ways.

The fact that he lives through his fantasies is a very major part of Kaido's character. They help him to interact with people, giving him "lines" to say when he doesn't know how to talk to people. He is more comfortable bullshitting his way through conversations than he is simply being a person, and uses his imagination to turn the world into something he can control. If nobody else knows what he's talking about, he is automatically in charge of the conversation.

With Oregon, this theme only really comes up once. In season 3 she writes a play based on her and her housemates, though she renames everyone and maintains that they are all original characters. Within the play, "Delphine" (Oregon) is presented as the "good person", while the others are either degraded or turned into villains. When asked, Oregon shows a distinct lack of understanding of what makes "Delphine" a good person in her story. Delphine is a good person because she says "I wish I wasn't such a good person" and because the other characters tell her what a "good person" she is. It's also worth noting that she casts Candice to play the character to is an obvious self-insert.

Oregon believes in her own goodness for the simple fact that that's how she wants to be seen. She still believes that a personality is something you can craft, like an outfit, and doesn't seem to realise that actions are what determines what kind of person you are. Oregon does a lot of bad things during her time at University. Her affair is something I don't like to blame her for considering that she was being manipulated, but she does suggest gaslighting his wife when afraid that the secret will come out. She accidentally injures a man during sex, which results in him being deported. During her time as the Student Union President, she cuts the funding for several very important things (such as the bus for a disabled rugby team) in order to fund a poetry event, then cuts the funding for more things in order to fix her earlier mistakes, only creating more problems and resulting in her being voted out of the job.

However, despite all this, Oregon clings to the idea that she is a good person. If she lies about the things she does, then they don't matter.

I suppose the main difference between Kaido and Oregon is that Kaido's false identity is there to give him the confidence to interact with the world, while Oregon simply doesn't know another way to be.

Moreover, Kaido's character development is subtle, with him slowly chilling out around his friends and becoming able to talk to them normally, while Oregon's seems to happen all at once. She spirals into a worse and worse person over the course of the show, until it all collapses at the last minute. Her parents find out that she doesn't really have top grades, and that she isn't really President of the Student Union anymore, and that everyone apart from her close friends hates her guts.

With her not getting the grades she needs, Oregon's plan for the future collapses, and she loses her parents' approval. In the end, her friend Vod tells her she should try writing a novel despite failing to get into a creative writing course, and the two decide to travel abroad together.

This brings me to the last point of similarity between Kaido and Oregon: their best friends.

Kaido becomes friends with Kuboyasu Aren, a reformed punk, soon after Aren's transfer into PK Academy. Determined to leave his thug life behind, Aren sometimes finds it difficult to keep his violent instincts at bay. He is clearly someone Kaido looks up to and admires, and the two of them have a very strong friendship.

While Vod was never a gangster, she has had a tougher upbringing than Oregon. Her cool, "don't give a fuck" demeanour is something Oregon first tries to emulate, then begins to resent, and eventually grows to accept. She's someone who doesn't really abide by the law, and owns a grenade as one of her childhood treasures.

Both Aren and Vod have grown up with an abusive parent, though in Vod's case this is a very serious plot point, while Aren only casually mentions his dad beating him to "toughen him up". They even both decide to become teachers, though Vod makes sure to specify that she wants to be a "cool teacher".

Of course, Kaido's friendship with Aren is different from Oregon's with Vod. Kaido and Aren never seem to fall out despite their differences, while Vod and Oregon very much do. Oregon's self-absorption is something that genuinely affects her connections with other people, as she acknowledges other people's faults but not her own. She mistakenly believes that Vod is less intelligent than her, and judges her for being callous with other people's feelings -- which is ironic, since Oregon herself displays the same flaw. However the two always come back to each other despite their ups and downs, and care about each other more than anyone else. While Kaido's eccentricities make it difficult for him to make friends, he seems to have no problem keeping them once they are formed, since the people who are drawn to him are naturally those who can put up with his antics.

Oregon and Kaido are both characters who are afraid of being themselves. They both lie, creating new names for themselves as they transition to high school/university. They are both hiding things from their parents. They also both invoke an intense feeling of second-hand embarrassment as they are unaware that they do not come across as cool as they think they do. However, despite Kaido's patheticness and Oregon's frankly awful personality, or perhaps because of these reasons, these are some of my favourite characters in their respective shows.

Below I've included a behind the scenes clip of Oregon running for president to give you an idea of her character, as well as my favourite Kaido AMV in the unlikely chance that somebody will read this who hasn't seen The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.

youtube

I hope you enjoyed this very long post about these two unrelated characters! Now if I can just do the same thing for Hamlet and King Lear that would be great...

#long ass ramble sorry #cw toxic relationship #cw child abuse #fresh meat #the disastrous life of saiki k #saiki kusuo no ψ nan #saiki k #tdlosk #kaido shun #oregon shawcross #fresh meat (tv)#Youtube #this is based on my own interpretations

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