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emotionallychargedtowel · 6 days ago

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Kaito x Stacey: being seen authentically & the value of consent

A little background: Last February, I heard that Sekoguchi Ryo was going to have a significant role on Zettai BL 3 and I got really excited but had nowhere to channel that energy, so I decided to start a sideblog where I’d post one screenshot per day of Stacey, his character from Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger. To keep up my screenshot supply for the blog, I rewatched the series a lot, which led to thinking about the show in a deeper way than I had before. I'd already known I was a fan of the Stacey and Kaito ship, but I hadn’t given much thought to why. All that rewatching helped me develop my thoughts about it more.

I usually write this kind of relationship-focused analysis stuff about BL series. I don’t know if tokusatsu fans want to read this sort of thing about toku shows, or if the folks who read my BL posts would be interested in a relationship analysis about a toku ship. Well, I guess I need to get this out of my system either way, so here goes!

All of the gifs in this post were made by @my-rose-tinted-glasses, who is so generous with her time and considerable skills that, well, I don't know, I'm going to have to knit her a sweater or something. I mean, seriously, how pretty is the gif below? Even if you don't want to read my ramblings, I recommend scrolling through to look at the rest.

Special thanks as well to my sister @porridgefeast for talking through this set of ideas with me.

A very brief overview for the unfamiliar: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger is a Super Sentai series that ran from early 2021 through early 2022. The lead member of the Zenkaigers—and, as it happens, the only human member—is Goshikida Kaito. (The rest of the team are all Kikainoids, robot-like inorganic beings from a different world that got mixed up with Kaito’s.) Kaito is the quintessential sunshine character. I’ve described him before as “a golden retriever who’s had three espressos," which sums him up fairly well. For my fellow BL-watchers, you'll likely recognize some actors in this post. Kaito is played by Komagine Kiita from 25 ji Akasaka de, and as I mentioned above, the actor who played Stacey, Sekoguchi Ryo, played Hatano in season 3 of Zettai BL. Mashiko Atsuki, of My Personal Weatherman fame, also has a prominent role in this series. But you won't be hearing much about him in this particular discussion.

In the sixth episode of Zenkaiger, an antagonist/antihero character named Stacey is introduced. At first you just know that he’s a hired gun for the Tojitendo (the Zenkaigers’ enemies, a Kikainoid dynasty led by its latest heir, Lord Bokkowaus, which went from being tyrants in their own world to taking over nearly every other world in the multiverse...and in most cases, turning those worlds into small metal gears—but let's not get into that). Stacey turns out to be the half-human son of Barashitara, a senior general in the Tojitendo who Stacey absolutely loathes. We’ll get back to him later on. Instead of being associated with his father, Stacey works for Ijirude, an evil scientist with a senior position in the Tojitendo court.

As the series progresses, Stacey and Kaito get increasingly close and (here comes an incredibly obvious spoiler that anyone could have predicted almost as soon as he was introduced) he eventually becomes one of the good guys. Any sort of romantic relationship between Kaito and Stacey is a matter of subtext during the series itself. (Though the subtext gets pretty strong at times! They even have an angsty heart-to-heart conversation at a playground at night.) In the TV movies and live shows that followed the series, that subtext starts to resemble (and arguably becomes) text. For example, in a DonBrothers movie where they make a sort of crossover appearance, Stacey writes Kaito a love letter that gets lost and starts a series of misunderstandings. In one live show, the stage lights go out and then come up again to reveal Kaito lying on the ground with Stacey on top of him. In another, Kaito gives Stacey a butt smack right in front of everybody. But during the series? Their relationship is clearly very important and fraught with emotion, but the show maintains a kind of plausible deniability at all points—there isn’t really anything that happens that the show’s screenwriter, Komura Junko, couldn’t explain by some other means.

As I said, while I was doing all of that rewatching, I thought a lot about why Kaito’s and Stacey’s relationship meant so much to me despite the fact that it mostly exists as subtext. Part of it is just that I loved Stacey as a character overall and took a liking to both Sekoguchi Ryo, who plays Stacey, and Komagine Kiita, who plays Kaito. But it’s more than that. As I kept going through the rewatch process, I identified some of those reasons—things that make this portrayal of a relationship special.

It’s a unique take on the time-tested enemies-to-lovers trope (or something like it).

Anyone who has spent any amount of time watching/reading stories that center on love and romance has come across the “enemies to lovers” trope. The relationship between Kaito and Stacey is closely related to the interplay between these two types of relationships, but it’s complicated. If you really want to get specific, it isn’t exactly an enemies-to-lovers story. Rather, I’d describe it as a story about two people, one of whom is trying really hard to be the other’s enemy but failing, and one of whom is trying really hard not to become enemies but keeps getting forced into conflicts with the other. Despite all the pressure he’s under to relate to Stacey as an enemy, Kaito keeps pushing back against taking that role. This pressure not only comes from his friends and compatriots but from Stacey himself. Stacey wants to relate to Kaito as an enemy, but he keeps finding himself helping him, sparing him, even worrying about him in spite of himself.

Of course, Kaito and Stacey really are enemies in a very real sense. They’re fighting on opposite sides of a war. They try to hurt and/or kill each other on many occasions, including one in which Kaito and his friends succeed and actually kill Stacey. (Stacey ends up being revived—an advantage of being half-mechanical is that he can be brought back to life.)

But when Kaito and Stacey first meet, they don’t know they’re enemies. Even after finding out he works for the Tojitendo, Kaito resists fighting Stacey. In their first battle, he won’t fight or even transform into Zenkaiser (his superpowered suit form) until Stacey gives him no choice. At first, Kaito’s reasons for being friendly to Stacey and holding back from fighting him are a bit superficial. Basically, Stacey looks human, so Kaito is reluctant to do anything that might hurt him, and he keeps thinking that if he talks to him he might be able to get him to come around. (It probably doesn't hurt that he's an adorable tsundere twink, either.) Kaito doesn’t usually appear to be biased against Kikainoids, but he does seem to have a bias in favor of Stacey because he’s so human-looking. Thankfully, it isn’t long before his reasons become significantly more complex. For one thing, he starts to find out through stray comments Stacey makes that he's been through a lot of trauma and loss, including the mysterious death of his mother (likely either at the hands of his father or on his orders).

Stacey also bonds with Kaito’s grandmother Yatsude, who doesn’t realize he’s the Tojitendo soldier who’s been giving her grandson so much trouble (she mishears his name as “Satoshi” when they first meet and he rolls with it). His mom issues draw him to her at first, then her sweet, accepting nature helps them relate to each other in a really meaningful way. Understanding Stacey’s context better and seeing a different side of him through his connection to Yatsude convinces Kaito that Stacey really could be redeemed and brought around to the side of good, and he’s eventually proven right.

Which brings us to the next thing I appreciate about the relationship between Kaito and Stacey.

Kaito goes to the trouble of really seeing Stacey, which not only allows him to attend to those times when he shows his authentic self, but also helps him recognize when he's not dealing with the real Stacey.

Thinking that Stacey is capable of change is a sign that Kaito sees him more clearly than other people do. In this respect, he understands Stacey better than Stacey understands himself, because right up to the point where he switches sides, he sees himself as so irredeemable that joining up with the good guys must be an impossibility.

But Kaito also has other ways of showing that he really sees Stacey. One of the biggest ways this is shown is through the possession subplot that happens toward the end of the series. A being who claims to be God, the creator of all the parallel worlds, shows up and wants to team up with the Zenkaigers against the Tojitendo. (Their powers are relatively limited for a god, so they can’t just make them go "poof." Eventually they admit that they don’t have all that much power beyond the creation and destruction of worlds, hence their need for help.) This God can only communicate with people by possessing someone’s body, and when it’s time to get in contact with the Zenkaigers, they choose Stacey’s. But they don’t identify themselves at first—they just pretend to be Stacey instead.

When God is pretending to be Stacey, some of the differences in their behavior are obvious to everyone. But Kaito is the most observant by far of the disparity between Stacey’s current behavior (really God’s) and his usual way of acting.

The most noticeable difference at first is that Stacey is smiling, which is very out of character for him. He’s also acting unusually flirty and cute. “Is it me or is he extra cutesy today?” one of Kaito’s teammates observes. It’s true. He speaks in a slightly higher register than usual, enunciates words differently, and he keeps tilting his head and slowly blinking at Kaito in a flirty way.

(In an interview with Komagine and Sekoguchi translated by @mirai-e-jump here, Sekoguchi talks about when he first received a script in which he would play God. As his interviewer points out, the stage direction for the script instructed him to read the lines "sweetly." Sekoguchi says that he didn't know what to make of it at first, but it got him thinking about gender presentation and led him to decide to try to portray God in a gender-neutral way.)

In addition to God's flirty, "sweet" manner, Kaito notes that this version of Stacey is too easygoing, too ready to cooperate with others. When God first appears, the villain-of-the-week is called Headwind World. They put a sort of curse on the Zenkaigers that makes it so that no matter which direction they turn, they're always buffeted by a strong headwind. Discussing how different Stacey seems and his claim to want to join the team, Kaito says:

Maybe....If it’s the truth, I’ll be full power* happy! But something seems off to me....Whenever I’ve talked to Stacey, he was never like that. He tends to be more…sorta…Yeah! He’s a lot like this headwind! *Kaito's catchphrase is "zenryoku zenkai," which means "full power" or "full throttle" and is the source of the Zenkaiger's team name.

God-in-Stacey's-body makes things too easy. Trying to work with the real Stacey is like walking against the wind. And as challenging as that is, Kaito would rather work with the real Stacey than this flirty, easygoing impostor.

Later in the episode, when they fight side-by-side against Barashitara, “Stacey” seems to find him entertaining. The real Stacey could never find humor in the things Barashitara does. After all, he’s his abusive father and probably murdered his mother. After this fight, “Stacey” suggests that everyone should trust him now that he’s demonstrated his willingness to fight on their side. Kaito responds:

I still don’t get it. You’re not the Stacey I know. If Stacey was fighting Barashitara, he wouldn’t have been like that. He’d be more prickly and less compromising. He’d say stuff like “Stay out of this!” or “This is my battle!” Stacey’s feelings toward Barashitara aren’t like that.

“Stacey” tries to play it off, but is clearly frustrated by Kaito’s skepticism. But Kaito doesn’t waver. His facial expressions and body language in this scene are really noteworthy. His face looks stern. He looks at Stacey fixedly, seldom blinking, and his hands are balled up into fists at his sides. This is really out of the ordinary for him—he's typically friendly to a fault. It's unusual for him to even look this way at an enemy. But it won't be the last time his affect looks this way around God.

Kaito is the first person to realize that this person who appears to be Stacey isn’t really him. Explaining to others—both his teammates and God themselves—how he knew this gives him an opportunity to show the audience how well he knows Stacey, how much he has observed about his personality. But that’s not the only way in which the theme of being seen shows up.

One of the ways Kaito sees Stacey authentically is by noticing and acknowledging his deeply painful experiences with trauma and loss. Despite pressures to the contrary, Stacey eventually does the same for Kaito.

Stacey goes through quite a process to get to the point where he can acknowledge that Kaito has had his own difficult history and continues to struggle in ways he can relate to. When he first meets Kaito, he fights him but claims it’s “nothing personal"—but that changes quickly. The second time they interact, they have a conversation in which Kaito wrongly assumes that Barashitara is helping Stacey and that he's doing so out of parental concern. Naturally, given how far this is from the truth, this is makes Stacey extremely angry. He retaliates by needling Kaito about his missing parents. He mentions the possibility that, given their apparent involvement with the Tojitendo, they could be “lying dead in a ditch somewhere, just like [his] mother.” Then he decides to twist the knife a bit more. “Maybe they weren’t kidnapped, but they abandoned you! Like Barashitara did to me.”

Kaito responds by passionately defending his parents and insisting that they would never do that to him. Seeing how much faith Kaito has in his parents infuriates Stacey. He feels envious and bitter because the only parent he had any faith in is long dead and his father was never worthy of his trust. Kaito’s faith in his parents pushes all of these buttons and more and Stacey becomes enraged. He tells Kaito that fighting him is no longer “nothing personal.”

Later in the series, the shift in how they relate to each other is both illustrated and deepened when Bon World (a villain-of-the-week based on a Japanese holiday) becomes the latest adversary to try to take over Zenkaitopia. Bon World causes characters’ ancestors to return from the dead to visit them. Stacey gets a particularly surprising and poignant visit from his mother, Lise. At first he doesn’t trust that she really is who she purports to be, but eventually he’s convinced. He gets to spend a little bit of time with her after their years apart.

But like a lot of the Worlds the Zenkaigers fight, Bon World’s powers have a two-step effect. First, they bring back ancestors. After a while, these ancestors snap and start going after their descendants, trying to kill them—including Stacey’s mother.

When the ancestors manifested by Bon World start to turn homicidal, the Zenkaigers have their hands full. Zyuran’s great-grandfather turns on him at the same time the Goldtsuikers are attacked by their grandfather. Kaito’s friends need him! But he leaves, trusting them to handle the situation themselves, so that he can come to Stacey’s aid. Why? Because he has a realization during their fight. One of the people he has to battle is Hakaiser, a Tojitendo “experimental soldier” who Kaito has recently learned is actually his brainwashed and physically altered father, Goshikida Isao. He tells Hakaiser he understands why it’s so upsetting for the others to have to fight their ancestors because he’s being forced to fight his own dad. That’s when he remembers that one of the returned ancestors was Stacey’s mother. He asks Hakaiser where Stacey is and they both rush to his aid (with Kaito in Super Zenkaiser mode).

After he comes to Stacey’s rescue, the rest of the Zenkaigers defeat Bon World and the ancestors all disappear. Stacey asks Kaito why he would come to his rescue. After all, they’re enemies. Kaito tells him, “I knew that you and your mom would both hate this happening.” Here’s what I think he means. It’s obviously a bad thing to be visited by an ancestor who tries to kill you. That was true for everyone who had that experience because of Bon World. But for Stacey, seeing his mother again and then having her attack him involved a whole other level of pain and trauma. It was deeply triggering and a terrible insult not only to Stacey’s memory of his mother but also his mother’s love for him. Kaito could see this from Stacey’s perspective as well as Lise’s. For Kaito, this meant that this particular instance of an ancestor attacking someone was a bigger deal than the others and required a more urgent response. But it wouldn’t have been quite so urgent if it weren't for the fact that Stacey means something to Kaito.

Stacey is profoundly touched by Kaito’s actions and what he told him about his reasons for helping him. This moment ends up being a big turning point in their relationship. The reason for this isn’t just that Kaito helped Stacey (though he did) or that he was kind to him (though he was). It’s also that Kaito showed a remarkable degree of sensitivity and understanding in realizing what this experience meant for Stacey. He showed that he paid close attention to things he had learned from and about Stacey, viewed those things as important, and took them into account. I think it’s also clear that as someone whose parents disappeared when he was a kid, Kaito has a better understanding of the loss Stacey has experienced than other people would. And of course, it matters that Kaito prioritized helping Stacey even though his teammates and allies were facing similar challenges.

Stacey ends up keeping Kaito’s experiences in mind and acting on them in a similar way. The biggest example of this is his decision to stand aside while Kaito deprograms his father, Hakaiser/Goshikida Isao. Hakaiser had been Stacey's friend prior to that point, something exceedingly rare in his experience. In fact, Hakaiser may well be the first friend Stacey has ever had. It helped that despite his brainwashing, Hakaiser retained a lot of Goshikida Isao’s warm, optimistic, Kaito-esque personality. Hakaiser quickly became really important to Stacey. So when he learned that Hakaiser was really Goshikida Isao, he felt conflicted because his concern for both Kaito and Yatsude pulled him in one direction while his desire to keep his friend pulled him in the other. At first, Stacey turned his back on the Goshikidas in favor of keeping Hakaiser in his life. But once Kaito protects him from his mother's ghost, Stacey can’t keep that up for long. And he doesn't just stand aside during the Zenkaiger's deprogramming efforts. He also leaks data to the Goldtsuikers that helps them to safely extricate Hakaiser from a giant mecha superweapon he’s controlling (without which the team would have been forced to either endanger Isao or risk countless human beings getting hurt or killed).

Stacey doesn’t say much about why he decides to let Goshikida Isao go. But he makes it clear that he sees how unjust and hypocritical it would be to keep Hakaiser around at Kaito’s expense while decrying the way his father took his mother away from him. It's also apparent that the bond he's formed with Yatsude and Kaito plays a role.

To go from resenting Kaito's faith in his parents to helping Kaito get his father back involves a lot of growth. Just as earlier, the differences in their respective situations angered Stacey, the similarities between them eventually lead him to shift toward helping Kaito rather than hurting him.

Now I'm going to circle back to the possession storyline to talk about some of its other implications.

The possession storyline allows Kaito to show how much he values consent and bodily autonomy—particularly Stacey's.

Remember how Kaito suspected immediately that the possessed version of Stacey wasn’t really him? An episode and change later, Kaito and the rest of the Sentai finally find out that Stacey is being possessed by God. Kaito doesn’t say much about it when this is first revealed to him, but his eyes are glued to God-in-Stacey’s-body and he turns stone-faced again. He remains like this for the rest of the interaction while God aims more head-tilting and slow-blinking his way.

The next time the Zenkaigers confer with them, God is in a hurry to get them to agree to work together. But Kaito says there’s something else he needs them to address before that can happen. He asks God what happens to Stacey when they’re possessing his body. Their answer is disturbingly flippant: “His consciousness takes a little nap.” Then he asks God if they have Stacey’s consent to do this. “Do I really need it? When I’m a God?” they ask contemptuously. That’s when Kaito tells them that he can’t trust someone who would use someone’s body without their permission, so they won’t be able to work together—unless God sets Stacey free. He offers to let God possess him instead in order to communicate with the group, and the other Zenkaigers chime in to say they’ll volunteer as well. That’s when God leaves Stacey’s body for the last time.

Consent isn’t a common theme in tokusatsu, at least not in any of the shows I’ve seen so far. I don’t know of another toku show that's had an entirely analogous possession story, but it’s not uncommon to see some kind of variation on this theme. Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO is an ancient supernatural being who possesses the body of a random young man on the verge of death, Ryotaro from Kamen Rider Den-O is possessed by a whole cadre of beings from the future at different points in the series, Wataru from Kamen Rider Kiva is briefly possessed by his own father, Otoya, and I have no doubt that there are other examples I'm not thinking of or just haven't come across yet. I've seen the moral implications of possession get some degree of attention in these shows, but I’ve never seen consent foregrounded in this way. (That said, I haven’t seen the entirety of either Den-O or OOO, and there are plenty of other series I haven’t seen, so there may well be examples I’m not aware of.)

It helps that consent doesn’t just come up in an implied way, in the background, or on its own. Instead, Kaito brings it up specifically and intentionally. The plot is racing along toward the climax of the series at this point. It would be easier for Kaito to allow God to continue to gloss over the question of Stacey’s consent. It certainly would have been easier for Komura Junko, the show's screenwriter, to skip over this question, too. She could have just used God as her story’s deus ex machina (no pun intended) without exploring the deeper implications.

It’s fitting that Kaito’s insistence on Stacey’s consent comes up in the form of an interruption that stops the forward momentum of the story, because when people are ignoring important consent issues and someone has to speak up about it, it’s often seen as an unwelcome interruption of things that are viewed as more important. Bringing up consent in those situations means bringing other matters to a halt and raising uncomfortable topics that others have tacitly agreed to ignore. As with so many important issues that we need to speak up about in our daily lives, bringing up consent is often intensely awkward. When Kaito brings it up, God is surprised and clearly put out, and it means the story has to take a detour before the Zenkaigers can defeat Bokkowaus with God’s help. Kaito doesn’t let any of this stop him, though. He understands how important it is. Even though collaborating with God is by far the best chance the Zenkaigers have of overthrowing Bokkowaus and saving the multiverse, he holds fast and insists that he’ll only work with God if they stop possessing Stacey without his consent.

It's worth noting another context in which consent comes up in the series, and that is the portrayal of Stacey's late mother, Lise, and her relationship with his father, Barashitara. Lise was Barashitara's 893rd "wife." I'm using scare quotes here because while we don't know the details of how Lise ended up tied to Barashitara and bearing his child, there's every reason to believe that she never consented to the relationship. When she appears again in ghost form, he refers to her having always been "feisty," which seems like code for "didn't let me do whatever I wanted against her will without any resistance." She, on the other hand, seems to hold him in contempt. In Komura Junko's current series, Kamen Rider Gavv, the protagonist's human mother is kept prisoner by a non-human father who refers to her as if they're in a relationship despite her protests that she never sought or consented to a relationship with him. This seems like a more explicit version of what was implied about Stacey's mother in Zenkaiger.

Stacey obviously has strong feelings about the way his mother was treated. When Barashitara reaches for her, commenting on how he's never been with a ghost before (and implying he'd be up for changing that), Stacey hurries over to pull his hand off of her and rushes her out of the room after yelling at Barashitara to keep his hands off of her. Again, Stacey's human mother and Kikainoid father could have been used as a plot device without digging any deeper into the nature of their relationship, but this series not only doesn't avoid the subject, it makes a point of commenting on it.

The themes of consent and seeing/being seen end up working together in a way that undercuts the ship in some superficial respects but ends up emphasizing what really makes it special.

Remember how one of the first clues that God isn’t really Stacey is their facial expressions, speech, and other ways of communicating with others? They keep smiling, speaking in a cutesy voice, and doing flirty mannerisms—and the biggest recipient of these gestures is Kaito. They also call Kaito by his given name, something Stacey doesn't do until the series' penultimate episode. When you add it all together, they’re pretty clearly flirting with him.

Some stories would take this as an opportunity to develop the ship between Kaito and Stacey. If God-in-Stacey’s-body flirts with Kaito, you could easily arrange things so that this helps him recognize or develop an attraction to Stacey that continues when the possession has ended. (It’s certainly been done before in other shows.) Any possession or body swap story is going to be partly about contrasts—that’s a big part of their purpose—but they can still foment changes that continue when everyone gets their own bodies back. Basically, if Stacey is too conflicted to flirt with Kaito, well, God can do it for him. It works in the other direction, too. If there are things Kaito would do with Stacey if he weren’t so considerate of his feelings, if someone else is walking around in his body, suddenly different possibilities appear. (And yes, I think some version of all these possibilities could be done even if the ship remained at a subtext level.)

There’s just one problem: Kaito may not figure out for certain that God isn’t Stacey right away, but within moments of meeting them, he’s 95% there. They can’t make him see Stacey in a different way if he doesn’t believe they’re him at least for a while. He isn't even open to relating to them in a positive way. It really is remarkable just how unfriendly he is to God-in-Stacey’s-body considering how friendly he always is to almost everyone else. And when they flirt with him? He’s not into it in the slightest. In fact, it just pisses him off.

Another thing about possession stories is that they can be a way for writers to cheat to get characters—well, close facsimiles of them who are mistaken for them by other characters—to do things they couldn’t justify otherwise. But Kaito refuses to let this happen. He gets suspicious of God almost as soon as they show up, he begins to grow hostile toward them even before he has fully processed the truth about their identity, and once he’s had a chance to think about the situation, he takes his next opportunity to refuse to work with God unless they set Stacey free as soon as possible.

By having the hero of the story behave in this way, Zenkaiger prioritizes consent and, by extension, the individual right to bodily autonomy. It prioritizes consent over ship advancement, over plot advancement, even over getting the danged heroes into the evil overlord’s castle so they can have their big showdown. There are moments where it’s on the verge of becoming annoying. As TV viewers, especially if we’re habitual tokusatsu watchers, we’re pretty used to possession plotlines of this type. When they start making things happen, we get caught up in escalating events. Having someone like Kaito suddenly show up and say, “Wait a second, is Stacey OK with this?” feels like a weirdly abrupt interruption.

It reminds me a bit of something Kathleen Hanna from the band Bikini Kill says in The Punk Singer, a documentary about her life. Commenting on a specific example from her life, she says that speaking out about sexual violence often results in a "who farted" moment—one in which a group is collectively uncomfortable and looking for someone to blame, generally the person who mentioned a taboo subject like sexual violence.

Kaito fearlessly embraces a “who farted” moment when he asks about Stacey’s consent or lack thereof. Of course he does—that’s who he is. A principled, morally rigorous guy who would rather be cringe as fuck than hurt someone unnecessarily. It’s no wonder he’s able to turn the “demon prince of the Tojitendo” to the side of good…and even get him to write him love letters.

In other words, by refusing to exploit the possession storyline for a cheap version of ship development, Komura Junko develops the Kaito x Stacey ship even more, and more meaningfully.

Could this storyline have been written by the typical cishet dude tokusatsu screenwriter?

It seems noteworthy that this choice was made by one of the few women to have held a head writer position on a toku series. Of course, women are not the only people who care about consent and bodily autonomy, just as they aren't the only people who are subjected to their bodily autonomy being compromised and their right to refuse consent ignored. But women, people who are perceived as women, and men who don't fit into a normative cishet image are more likely to have such experiences than cishet men and thus more likely to find such themes salient, so it would make sense if a woman writer was more likely to include them in a series than the ostensibly cishet men who make up the vast majority of tokusatsu screenwriters.

I would argue that the importance of being authentically seen is also particularly salient for many women and that this may have played into the way Komura weaves that theme into the Kaito and Stacey story. Women and people perceived to be women tend to experience a great deal of objectification, and being authentically seen and acknowledged is basically the opposite of objectification.

I recently ran into Martha Nussbaum's typology of objectification for the first time and found it really useful. It turns out that Nussbaum's typology applies to God's possession of Stacey remarkably well. In the interest of time and length, I'll leave it at that for now, but I could say a lot more about it and probably will in a separate post at some point. Suffice it to say that God's treatment of Stacey illustrates a number of the facets of objectification Nussbaum lays out. So what does this have to do with the Kaito and Stacey ship? It comes back to my point about how the show presents the possession storyline with all of its potential for ship development and has Kaito refuse to engage with any of it out of concern for Stacey. This makes God a kind of foil for Kaito that gives him the opportunity to show that his interest in Stacey isn't based on objectification.

So there you have it. There are plenty of reasons to appreciate the Kaito x Stacey ship without digging into issues like these. The characters are interesting, affecting, and fun. Their personalities fit together in a classic cinnamon roll/tsundere way. The actors have great chemistry with each other. But the way the story treats these concerns, which I contend is colored by the different perspective Komura Junko brings to toku based on her gender, is part of what makes it particularly special.

#kikai sentai zenkaiger #zenkaiger #stacey #stacey zenkaiger #sekoguchi ryo #ryo sekoguchi #komagine kiita #kiita komagine #stacy #suteishi #goshikida kaito #kaito goshikida #kaito x stacey #komura junko #tokusatsu meta #zenkaiger is a BL

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mirai-e-jump · 1 year ago

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Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger: Zenryoku Zenkai Book Kiita Komagine x Ryo Sekoguchi Cross Talk (translations below)

Publication: April 15, 2022

-From, "What's with this guy?" to sworn enemies-

"Although Kaito and Stacey were enemies, it was a relationship where a type of friendship gradually developed, but how did you both feel about your roles?"

Sekoguchi: In the beginning, when it comes to Kaito, you feel like, "What with this guy?" He's a completely different person from Stacey, so he couldn't accept him. That's why I felt that he wasn't good around Kaito, and the more he met him, the more he felt against Kaito. If they both weren't interested in each other, they wouldn't have gotten involved with each other. However, they fought each other many times, and there were times where Stacey cared about Kaito, so even though they had different ways of living, I felt that they were attracted towards each other because they had similar cores. I think of them as a comedic version of the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke in "Naruto" (laughs).

Komagine: As Kaito, it wasn't like, "Because it's Stacey" or something like that, he wanted to be friends with everyone, including people and Kikainoids, so I played the role while genuinely wanting to get along with him. Every time they met, Kaito was rejected, but that didn't mean he gave up, and for a year I kept thinking that someday their feelings would reach each other. I didn't waver in that part, and I played the role without abandoning his desire to become friends with Stacey.

"For Kaito, he treats Stacey the same way he treats Juran and the others."

Komagine: That's true. Kaito doesn't really care about appearances or where someone comes from, he just sees them as human…..which not all of them are (laughs), but, he wants to get along with a guy named Stacey, and that's the one thing that never changes.

"He really never got discouraged, huh?"

Sekoguchi: He's really strong mentally (laughs).

"As for Stacey, he's annoyed by the fact that Kaito keeps approaching him, but isn't it more accurate to say that he's someone you can't help but face?"

Sekoguchi: Stacey isn't interested in other people to begin with. However, the first time he met a type of person like Kaito, he stuck with him somewhere in his heart. I don't think even Stacey himself understands how to express the feelings that were created by him. So, I think the reason he has to defeat Kaito is because there's a part of him that's worrisome to Stacey. There's also Zox and the others, but he only thinks of them as troublesome or an annoyance. However, he has to face Kaito, so the way he looks at him is completely different from the way he looks at the other members.

Komagine: This is going to be abit more focused on Kaito, but throughout the year, Kaito seems to have everything, but he doesn't have his parents, and Juran and the other Kikainoids also have lonely pasts because their families are missing. Because of these pasts, Kaito's trying to do his best, so I wonder if he felt the same thing as the Kikainoids, and reached out to Juran and the others. At first, I played the role with straightforward feelings, but Kaito's old friends don't really make an appearance, and there was a side of him that tried to force himself to do his best, which I thought was normal for a boy his age. That might also be why he decided to reach out to Stacey, who was all alone.

"Even though the tone is usually lighthearted, for episodes involving Kaito's parents, the heavy parts are hidden and revealed at crucial moments."

Komagine: This show has the perfect balance of funny and serious.

Sekoguchi: If you don't pay attention, it'll suddenly creep up on you.

Komagine: It's a funny seriousness, or so to say. Like even when Kaito found out his father's true identity (No. 35 Kai!), everyone was saying, "Dia! Dia!" (laughs).

-We learned about each other's personalities through switching places-

"We'd like to ask about each of your performances, but when it comes to the comical aspects, we were impressed by Stacey rushing into the tennis match in No. 29 Kai!."

Sekoguchi: I think that was the first time Stacey acted for someone else. He tried his best to camouflage himself, but it was obvious who he was (laughs).

"When filming scenes like that, do you have to think about how far you want to deviate from your usual character?"

Sekoguchi: I felt that Stacey's character would change once his costume changed, so I played him without changing his inner self at all. It feels like he acted for Yatsude's sake. I think his seriousness is what makes him interesting (laughs).

"Did you enjoy filming it?"

Sekoguchi: I enjoyed it!

Komagine: Since we always do something like that, we're always like, "Here comes the next one!" But in this episode, Ryo-kun was dressed up as Stacey in the form of a tennis player, which was even more refreshing and interesting than usual. Another one, is that he also became a teacher at the school! (No. 33 Kai!).

Sekoguchi: It was because of that World's power (laughs). I was also on the side of the viewers the whole time, so I was able to enjoy it. I felt like I was getting caught up in that position. In No. 32 Kai!, I can't help but think that the two of them swapping places due to Inverted World's power was comical, but also an important episode in the sense that the two of them confirmed things about their respective positions.

Komagine: Since Ryo-kun and I were switching roles, we had alot of discussions with Director (Kyohei) Yamaguchi while reading the script, which we hadn't done since the beginning of filming. We always see each other on set and in the finished footage, so we know each other, but when it comes to acting, it's a different story. Only Ryo-kun understands the details of Stacey, and only I understand the details of Kaito. I felt that there were alot of things that I learned for the first time because we switched roles.

"Like what specifically?"

Komagine: When I'm Kaito, my emotions go from 0 to 100 all at once. It feels like I unknowingly do things as Kaito that I normally wouldn't do. It's done completely unconsciously, so when I looked at Ryo-kun's Kaito, I realized, "So this is how he looks, huh!" We also studied standing posture together, and we learned alot from looking at it objectively.

"What does Sekoguchi-san think?"

Sekoguchi: I felt that Kaito's much more sensitive to various things happening in front of his eyes than we see in the footage or on the set. He looks simple but is complex, looking like a perfectly straight tree with fine branches growing from it. It was a great discovery to find out that our main character has a sensitive side to him that requires constant attention.

Komagine: Speaking of which, I also thought that Stacey would've been fine if he just spoke in a smooth voice and without hesitation, but he's totally different from me in terms of looks, and even when he did the movements that Ryo-kun did, he doesn't look like me, so I wondered what would be the best way to go about it. Kaito faces his opponents head on, but Stacey turns his head the other way. However, if someone's talking to you, you reflexively turn in that person's direction. Ryo-kun doesn't do that…..but, sometimes I wanted to turn, so it was very difficult to get the hang of it (laughs).

Sekoguchi: Also, there were our voices. We each did the actual voicing during the dubbing, but on set, the voices and movements had to be linked. The performance of Kaito, who raises his "voltage" all at once, was the complete opposite of Stacey's, so we had to rewatch past episodes multiple times while working on it.

"Saying that, was the dubbing also difficult?"

Komagine: It was difficult! We had to match the movements of the other's mouth, and I think Ryo-kun felt this way too, but there were parts of him that I couldn't quite match. Still, the viewers who watched it were satisfied, so I'm really happy about that.

Sekoguchi: I wasn't really sure what to say, but somehow the results turned out alright! (laughs).

Komagine: We cleared it with passing marks (laughs).

"Were you aware of any of the characteristics that the other said they discovered?"

Sekoguchi: I feel like I'm already doing things unconsciously. I've been doing this from the beginning, so by the time it was completely ingrained in my body, I was behaving as if it were normal.

Komagine: Maybe we were thinking about it in the beginning, but at this time we were already very familiar with it, so we weren't really conscious of it at that point.

"Listening to you talk about it, it seems like while the swap was fun, it was also a very difficult challenge."

Komagine: It's not just limited to that episode, but even if you think, "It made the cut, so I did a good job," isn't that just a self evaluation? We're doing this so that everyone can see something good, so we can only feel at ease after hearing everyone's reviews. We have to constantly check with all the viewers feedback. Even if I think I did good, if there's a discrepancy in the viewers comments, it's just a difference in my own judgment, so I have to adjust and correct it. I'm definitely nervous until the broadcast date. Especially since I also played the role of Stacey being swapped.

-Stacey welcomes change with friends-

"The development of working with Hakaizer is a turning point for Stacey, and in No. 34 Kai!, the sight of Kaito looking happy saying, "You're working with Hakaizer, right?!" was also memorable."

Komagine: Kaito originally thought that Stacey was all alone, but when he switched places with him, he found out that he was being oppressed at Tojitendo, which convinced Kaito that Stacey was completely alone. When Stacey brought along a comrade for the first time, it made Kaito really happy.

Sekoguchi: At first, Stacey wasn't interested in friends or anything like that, and he was a character who didn't trust people to begin with. However, when switching places, he realized how important human connections are and the things that can come from them. Then, in No. 34 Kai!, when he was told by Kaito, "Isn't it much better to win a whole lot by working together with some friends?," up until then, he couldn't accept it, but he decided to give it a try…..I think that's how he felt.

"Later, in No. 38 Kai! in which Bon World's ability brings him face to face with his mother, Lise, when he's attacked, he's shocked and thinks, "Is the same thing happening to Hakaizer and Goshikida Kaito?……" and we wonder if that was the catalyst for the change."

Sekoguchi: I don't think he would've been able to realize it on his own, but as he interacted with more and more people, he came to learn alot of things, and it may have been because he was attacked by his mother that helped him look at his own actions objectively. At first, he started out wanting to beat and surpass his father, but he came to realize how pathetic he was for acting the same way.

"What did you think of Stacey's development at that time?"

Komagine: Kaito wanted him to be happy, that goes without saying, but he also cared about him and wanted to save him. That's why he went to help him with Hakaizer at that time. Of course, Kaito wanted to become friends even towards the end, but I thought, "What should I do to make Stacey the happiest?"

"While having to win the battle against Tojitendo, Kaito also has to worry about his parents and Stacey, so he's quite busy."

Komagine: I feel that way too. However, he's not the type to try to figure out things. He acts on instinct and intuition, so he just does whatever he wants to do. In No. 5 Kai!, when he says, "Instead of mom and dad, I should've focused on saving everyone by taking down Sushi World," at that moment, Juran intervenes with, "Of course it's important to take care of your own business." Because of that episode, if we don't keep his stance of, "Always ready to go all out for anything!" Kaito's character will be lost. I didn't over think that part, and just went with what was written in the script.

-The difficulties of playing God-

"Towards the very end, there was a twist in which Stacey was possessed by God. As the climax approached, you had to make a big change in performance."

Sekoguchi: It was challenging. Until I read the script, I had no idea what Gege's purpose was, so when I finally found out I was like, "Really?!" (laughs). I felt that I had to break down or forget about Stacey once the mysterious guy entered him, and his character was completely different from my usual way of speaking and facial expressions.

"When your body was being taken over, "(Sweetly)" was written in the dialogue part of the script."

Sekoguchi: I was like, "What do they mean by (sweetly)"?! (laughs). So, I started thinking about whether God has a gender in the first place. I didn't want God to have a gender, so I was conscious of the neutrality of the image, where it's hard to tell whether they're male or female. In addition to God's composure…..I thought that it had to come from within, but that part of the performance was difficult.

"How was it working with Stacey, who was in a different state?"

Komagine: Hmmm…..He’s clearly different. He made me think, "Even if it's not me, you'll notice!" (laughs). But, it was really cool to see Kaito go to God and say, "Is Stacey even fine with this?!" I was like, "That's it!" it's just like Kaito to make a point like that.

Sekoguchi: He says the most straightforward things at any moment (laughs).

"We were surprised to hear him say lines, "I'll become your friend" while he was being controlled."

Sekoguchi: I didn't say it in the original state of Stacey, so it was beyond my own image. I'm alittle sad about it (laughs).

"God leaves Stacey's body after No. 46 Kai! Then, a series of exchanges with Kaito saying, "I mean, Stacey, you're really nice," and Stacey replying, "Stop that!" was also memorable."

Komagine: For the first time, Stacey complained to Kaito with, "I'm tired…." so my feelings when acting were, "I have to do something about this!" Still, I thought the viewers would be nervous to see Stacey leave, and as Kaito, I felt that Stacey's state of mind was wavering between the Zenkaigers and the position he held up until now. There was a feeling of suspense about what was going to happen in the next few episodes. I'm sure that even when he's with everyone else, Kaito is thinking about Stacey, and Stacey is thinking about Kaito. But, the parts that didn't work well together kept coming up, and I kept thinking, "What's going to happen in the end?!"

Sekoguchi: It started with the scene where he looks sad as he watches the Zenkaigers take back Hakaizer. Not only is his only comrade gone, he now has no place to return at Tojitendo. He had to meet Kaito in such a situation where he's lost everything, so at that time, Stacey was in a very weak state of mind. He was already past his limits.

"It was quite a painful development to watch."

Sekoguchi: If I'm allowed to say it, he's simply not good at living…..(laughs). Of course there are many things that make me feel sorry for Stacey as well, but it's definitely due to his own actions up until now. It's no one's fault but his own, and if he doesn't change, nothing will change. In No. 46 Kai!, he's on the verge of understanding his interactions with Kaito. Up until then, I think there was always a part of him that was blaming his surroundings or the people around him.

Komagine: Kaito wanted to help his father, and he achieved that goal, but the fact that he took Stacey's comrade away has always remained with him. In regards to that, when his father told him in No. 41 Kai!, "If you don't want to leave Stacey alone, you need to do something Kaito," I felt that his resolve to save Stacey was strengthened once again.

"Speaking of, when it comes to the Goshikida family, Yatsude is obviously an essential part of Stacey's life, isn't she?"

Sekoguchi: She really saved him. The scene at Colorful where Stacey confides everything to Yatsude was really great.

Komagine: I'm really glad that Yacchan is played by (Sakakibara) Ikue-san. In the scene where Stacey confides in her, there was a part where she stood tall and firm, so as Kaito, I was proud of Ikue-san for taking it seriously. The way she carried herself on the set was wonderful, and I thought I should learn many things from the way Ikue-san makes everyone on the set smile.

Sekoguchi: Stacey 's grateful to the Goshikida family because they gave him so many things. He received love from Yatsude, the father taught him camaraderie and bonds, the mother gave him her blood, and in the end, Kaito taught him friendship. Stacey receives everything that's important to him from the Goshikida family.

Komagine: Since he has the mother's blood in him, he and Kaito might actually be brothers (laughs).

-The two who have finally became friends-

"We were moved by the sight of him finally rushing over to Kaito after his admission to Yatsude in No. 47 Kai!."

Komagine: Up until then, if I grabbed him by the shoulder, he'd shake me off, but this time I was happy because we were able to say things like, "Let's go back together to Colorful," and "That's the plan." I felt like this was the first time someone accepted me, so it was like I was both myself and Kaito! It's hard to imagine Zox and Stacey teaming up to fight together (laughs). That's part was cool too, and I could see the passion these two have, so from No. 47 Kai! to Final Kai! it's really interesting!

"What was it like playing the role of Stacey, who was finally forgiven?"

Sekoguchi: Stacey wasn't thinking about anything in particular at that time, but he was able to become more honest, or rather, he regained his sense of identity. I had the scene with Yatsude-san before that, and based on that scene, he felt embarrassed, but I'm glad he was able to be honest with himself…..I played the role with that kind of nuance. He felt relieved when he saw Kaito, and couldn't help but laugh when Vroon said, "I'm also a former Tojitendo," and it was a moment where I could see the happiness of everyone fighting together.

Komagine: Then there's the final episode, where Kaito has to fight alone in the spirit world, but he realizes that he's not fighting alone, which gives him confidence. I think this also embodies the best part of Super Sentai, where they fight as a team, and the fact that it ends with rock paper scissors is typical of Zenkaiger (laughs). Since the ending seems like a continuation, I can also imagine how each of us will go on our own journeys and become happy, so I'm glad things didn't end with Sushi World! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: The real thrill of Super Sentai was felt towards the end. Each of them had their own problems and were born in different environments, but Stacey, for example, could achieve his goal of defeating Barashitara not alone, but with his friends and comrades. It made me think once again that Zenkaiger is a show filled with such qualities.

-Reflections on the days of our strange friendship-

"At first, where did you think the relationship between the two of them would end up?"

Sekoguchi: I was thinking of all kinds of possibilities, but I stopped thinking about them halfway through and just hoped that the story would progress well. And then God appeared! Whether they're defeated or become friends, each has its own merits.

Komagine: I truly thought that Stacey was going to be defeated. He helped Kaito when they were fighting Barashitara, and at the end, he fought with everyone else as Stacaesar, but they ended up fighting each other. It made it seem like he'd say," I wish I had joined you sooner…..please give my regards to Yatsude….." *whoosh* (disappears).

Sekoguchi: I predicted something like a good ending would happen for "the villain" (laughs).

"It's understood that you all sometimes predicted what was going to happen next."

Komagine: We all did it. I had suggested to the staff that Final Kai World should appear and that it ends with a bang, but they rejected it. "Today is the final episode of Zenkaiger, Final Kai!" and then it would abruptly end…..

Sekoguchi: Who would be satisfied with that?! (everyone laughs). Well, it definitely fits with Zenkaiger (laughs).

Komagine: But, after filming the final episode I thought, "I'm glad it didn't happen!"

"Has your impressions of each other changed up to this point?"

Sekoguchi: They've changed. At first, I heard that he was shy, but now I don't find that to be the case at all.

Komagine: Ryo-kun's appearance is very cute, so I imagined him to have a selfish personality. I thought he was aesthetically pleasing and very beautiful….However, his personality is that of an old mans! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: That's for sure (said straightforwardly).

Komagine: He's so carefree, that he'll even take his clothes off when eating! In a good way, I felt that he wasn't high class or too distant. So I felt that we didn't have to worry about things, and in that way, I felt close to him. It's completely different from my first impression of him when we first met, that's why Ryo-kun feels younger than me even though he's older than me, and I can talk to him freely.

"During filming, there was no particular reason for you not to speak to each other just because your roles were that of enemies."

Komagine: There were none at all (laughs). When the cameras are rolling, I think Zenkaiger is a show where everyone does whatever they want to do in an interesting way, so I usually interacted with Ryo-kun without thinking of him as an enemy or an ally.

"Moving away from the main story, we saw the third part of the Unmasked Warrior series at G Rosso. We thought the part during the play where Kaito encourages Stacey's competitive nature and dances, as well as the teasing relationship between the two of them was adorable."

Komagine: You won't see that in the main story (laughs).

Sekoguchi: Stacey was acting alittle different than usual, so it was difficult!

Komagine: Well, it had a nice feel to it, even if it deviated abit from the regular TV version.

"Was it difficult to perform on stage?"

Komagine: When Stacey says, "Next time we meet, we'll be enemies, so be prepared," and tries to leave, Kaito says, "Why don't we go home dancing?" and Stacey was like, "Why should I…?" But in that scene, they start dancing, and the line shows that Stacey took what Kaito said seriously and as a challenge. I was honestly just trying to say that we should dance (laughs). So when Stacey said, "Oh no!" I was like, "Eh? Eh?"

Sekoguchi: It was difficult to get the timing down for "Oh no!" It's because the lines were different every time.

"The third part is also available on DVD, so we hope everyone will take this opportunity to watch it again (laughs). Could you tell us about some highlights of the fourth part?"

Komagine: We're more involved in it than in the third part, and there's action scenes, so I feel like it's more Zenkaiger like. Some highlights include seeing the transformations of the 5 Zenkaigers, as well as the secret transformation of Flint. Also, Gaon, played by Tsuta (Tsutamune Masato-san), will also appear.

"Wouldn't it be better if it was already played by the actors themselves?"

Komagine: That's true. The person who had been playing Gaon up until then saw Tsuta-san during rehearsal and said, "Ah, the real guy…" and even though he's the same Suit Actor, I thought it was different. It's very reassuring to have Tsuta-san in the fourth part, and it's very easy to work with him. We'll be performing for a while, so I hope you'll enjoy watching it.

Sekoguchi: The overall atmosphere of the fourth part is "cute" (laughs).

Komagine: The relationships in the stage play change before and after the final episode, so I hope you'll enjoy that as well!

"How do you feel looking back at the relationship between the two of you?"

Sekoguchi: Rather than the bond between Kaito and Stacey being formed in the traditional Super Sentai style, they gradually became more aware of each other from a distance, and I thought it was wonderful that in the end, although we didn't express it in words, our hearts were firmly connected. I was thinking about this myself while playing Stacey, but I like the atmosphere that seems to exist between the lines of the story, which isn't captured on film, as their hearts move through the process of becoming friends.

Komagine: Looking back on Zenkaiger, I had alot of fun, and it was so fulfilling that I thought, "There's no better place to be on set than this, huh?" Ryo-kun joined us later, so I wonder if I could've supported him better since I was there from the beginning. But, I was really impressed by the way he played Stacey, to the point where he became a popular character. I'm glad that the actors I was able to work with this time were Acchan (Mashiko Atsuki), Hina-chan (Mori Hinami), and of course Ryo-kun. The popularity of Zenkaiger is largely due to Stacey, so I'm grateful for that as well! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: No, no, don't be ridiculous! It's all thanks to everyone's power in Zenkaiger that it's as popular as it is now!

Komagine: (laughs).

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