#I swear I have mil theories that don't involve gay ponders

[opalspring]

Some observations about the gay Kazui theory

A lot of people have been discussing this and it’s super interesting so I wanted to share some stuff I noticed too! Posting this before cat since it’s possible this theory will get either debunked or confirmed by then.

Lyrics from Cat

First, let’s talk about the preview of cat from the 2nd trial song previews. One thing I personally dislike from the staff’s English translation is this part:

“Devotion-love, lame, cheating”

While the first two tl choices are good imo, the third part could have been chosen better. The reason for this being, while it’s not a wrong tl per say, 化かす (bakasu) means “to confuse”, “to delude” according to my dictionary. There’s also the expression 狐と狸の化かし合い (kitsune to tanuki no bakashiai), which refers to two people outfoxing each other. 

While I get this might be for localization purposes, I feel like the word “cheating” has connotations in English that are way too different from the original in this case. What I’m trying to say is that we should probably wait for the mv itself to draw our conclusions regarding this (though it’s also possible this really is just about cheating).

These lines caught my attention too, but for another reason:

“Love + Fate = Crap”

“Disgusting playing-house + Disguise + Fake”

While at first glance, these lyrics make it look like Kazui might be a cheater (and not shy about it), I feel like this could be a case of Kazui lashing out after he spent so much time in a relationship with a woman when he’s not attracted to them in the first place. It’s possible Kazui actually saw his wife in a best friend kind of way, and that they only got married because of their families’ and society’s pressure, compulsory heterosexuality, you know. There Are a lot of suspicious things about Kazui that he needs to explain, but maybe cheating isn’t actually one of them. We’ll see, though.

Next, let’s discuss some things from the half mv. 

How Shidou and Kazui respectively visualize their partner

This next section will reference Triage, where we have a look at Shidou’s family for the first time. As a quick note, there has been some debate over the woman in the mv potentially being Shidou's sister or other family relative but I personally believe she's his lover because of this part:

Shidou (we recognize him as he has the same outfit as in the rest of the mv) has his arm around her waist so I assumed they’re romantically involved because of it.

But how does this all connect to Kazui? You guessed it, the way Shidou and Kazui visualize their partner in their respective mvs vastly differs. Let’s have a look. 

Shidou’s visual representation of his lover.

And here’s Kazui’s.

Notice anything? In my opinion, these choices were very deliberate. As various people in the fandom have pointed out, characters in mil mvs who have faces are very important to whichever story is being told (Rei in Muu’s mvs, Shidou’s lover mentioned earlier etc). So it can make one wonder, why does Kazui’s wife, who he obviously cares deeply for, not have a detailed face when we see her? 

To continue this particular point, I want you to look at these consecutive shots from half:

It’s unclear who the blonde woman on the top is, she could be someone Kazui met at the bar, or a coworker etc. It’s not really important who she is for our theory, what’s to note is that these two shots come one after the other, and that the composition in both is extremely similar. My interpretation for this is that, between a woman who is in the grand scheme of things a stranger to him, and the woman he married, Kazui makes almost no difference in the way he visualizes them (as in facial detail).  Because ultimately, if he’s gay, no matter how hard he tries, no matter the woman, he won’t be able to love them romantically. This could be what the staff was going for here.

The green apple and the pixelated person

There’s a cool detail about the two shots above. To start off, the first one’s composition is a little curious. It follows the rule of 1/3; 2/3 with Kazui in the third third of the screen, but the remaining part of the image feels strangely empty, save for the green light at the top. 

It could represent Kazui’s solitude in the theater, but a few scenes later we get the second shot, where we see the green apple on one of the seats.

A fun fact is that, if you count the seats between Kazui and the apple, you notice that 4 seats on Kazui’s right seats the apple… Which corresponds to the second leftmost seat in the first screenshot. The apple was with him the whole time, and the green light stands right in the middle of the two. Hmm. But what does this mean? Honestly I’m not sure. If anything it means the apple is so important to Kazui it was given this special place. 

But then there’s also the pixelated person in the back of the second screenshot. Who are they? They’re probably very important to the story, especially when the apple stands right between them and Kazui.

Since the mystery person isn’t in the first shot where we’re introduced to Kazui, it could mean that whoever they are/represent, Kazui would rather not acknowledge them. At least not until he has to.

Look at the lyrics that play when this scene is on screen. 

“Where did I go wrong, probably from the beginning”

And then, during the same sentence, we get this Kazui who looks like he just had a revelation.

This sentence probably refers to the fact Kazui’s relationship with his wife was bound to fail, because of his sexual orientation. And the mystery person might be a representation of men in general, who Kazui could be attracted to.

The chair and what it could represent

At certain parts during half, it seems as if Kazui is talking to this chair. Some examples:

It should be noted that both times Kazui does this, the lyrics he sings are the same. This part in particular caught my eye:

“Please tell me what I should do”

Who exactly is Kazui talking to here? He could simply be thinking of his wife here, but since there’s so much emphasis on the chair, I thought they could be symbolic for an entity or a group of people Kazui knows. I have two guesses: it might represent either his family, or maybe society in general. 

I don’t think it’s the former because Kazui seems at odds with them and possibly got disowned, so I feel like he wouldn’t value their opinion too much. As for the second option, it could be Kazui asking us what he should have done/ how he should have handled the situation (with him being gay and unable to love his wife romantically, but not wanting to hurt her feelings). It’s hard to know because we don’t have a lot of context for this part so it could be anything really.

Some parts of the lyrics that could specifically refer to homosexuality

These don’t really fit in any of the other points I talked about but if we look at them in the context of this theory they can be pretty telling:

“So many things I wish I hadn’t known, I’m just a coward”

“What I gave up a long time ago, why is it questioning me now?”

“So many things I should have known, I’m just a coward”

Kazui’s possible coming out to his wife

In my opinion, this part could be the aftermath of Kazui coming out to his wife. Let me explain. Here we have the apple (temptation/the forbidden fruit = the idea of homosexuality here?) in the background, so that’s one thing. Add to that the lyrics playing:

“All this time till now has hurt me, The scales of my heart have decided to sway”

This line could refer to the moment Kazui felt like he had to be honest with his wife, because as much as he loved her, pretending to basically be someone he wasn’t was hurting him. Hence “the scales of his heart swaying”. This scene then led to Hinako jumping from the balcony at some point, but at the moment we don’t know the details.

Hope you enjoyed!