#his stupid overtly 'leave it to me' act is definitely him overcompensating but it's not fully dishonest.

[malaierba]

I really get this strong strong feeling that part of the regrets that Karamatsu has from highschool is just the fact that he maybe wasn't a very good model of an older sibling, and that that inability to be reliable and relied on kind of contributed to his siblings dealing with things on their own and drifting apart

I also think that he blamed his timidity on him not giving off a reliable vibe, so that + the fact that he honestly liked and admires flashy people, pushed him to try to act more confidently + start offering his siblings help when he could

There's also the fact that he's sensitive and family oriented, he's got an empathetic side yknow. He wants to help in that way, but he'll settle for bringing you soda (dumbass). Like I know word of God said he likes thinking of himself as a nice guy, but I really think the Nice Guy™ is the image of cool reliable big bro he wants to project; at his core he IS kind, it gets obscured because he's become a tryhard and his tendency for grand dramatic gestures obscure a bit his honest intentions.

I like to contrast him with Osomatsu because funny enough I think that in hs he was super comfortable with himself (that never changes, as he says in the movie: "you'll always be who you are so just accept it") and I think that instinctually he just trusted that things would be okay after highschool.

At that age he probably still resented having the responsibility of being the eldest thrown onto him, being more interested in messing around, but even then I think his one on one relationship with his siblings was like 'ack everyone's moody but I can't wait to finish highschool and get to mess around with these guys freely'. His anxiety for the future just seems to be naturally low.

The argument I'm kind of trying to make here is that because Osomatsu understands himself and his brothers, he knew things were weird at home but it wasn't a source of anxiety to him.

Karamatsu by contrast was anxious, feeling unsupported by watching his siblings drift, and being an emotional person with not a lot of ways to vent his feelings regularly (seriously he had zero emotions processing skills)...

I think he felt uncomfortable on his own a lot of the time, not to mention uncomfortable in his skin, and seeing his brothers change without being able to ask them why? Yeah I don't think he had a good time, especially during his third year. Within his brothers be was a bit of an underdog but without them he barley even has a voice!

(WHICH IS WHY I THINK THAT DRAMA AND MUSIC AND EVEN FASHION BECOME SUCH THEMES FOR HIM. Mediums of self-expression!!! And it's ENCOURAGED in those circles!!! When he got the chance he probably felt great about it!! A weight off his shoulders and honestly fun)

(also why I think that drifting apart from Ichimatsu was painful for him. Ichi is also rather shy and sensitive, and like Karamatsu he hides it. Back in high school his coping mechanism of choice seems to have been social masking and TBF he does show that he's observant and good at reading people, but the downside is that by virtue of being a natural introvert, the constant monitoring and trying to conform to a social script, rather than being blunt as he can be with his brothers... Yeah

Kara and Ichi could probably communicate on a similar wavelength and they could breath around each other, like, they just understood each other well. When Ichi starts hanging out more with his friends (I think he genuinely liked them and Karamatsu is his brother anyway he's not going anywhere), he inadvertently put himself in a position that lead to burnout. Maybe he was a bit detached from himself and his emotional state back then.

(I feel like I'm so close to figuring out what their dynamic changes so drastically but it's eluding me. Something about him liking and needing straightforward people I guess, like Jyuchi and Oso are as adults, they may have agendas but their intentions are always crystal clear usually by default)

I'm rambling. I'm just trying to say that even if some of 18!Kara's timidity still lives inside of him, the same can be said the other way around for some of NEET!Kara's values being important to his high school self. It's messy development but it's good.

And the changing point where he decides to step up or at least stop letting his worries paralyze him, really might've been that fight, when everything exploded and he was probably left feeling like he watched a very slow train wreck happen and he just failed to do anything to keep it from happening .