U Cooked W This One - Blog Posts

Picking Apart Kou’s Character (Analysis)

Through Nene’s pov he’s introduced as a very sweet guy and stuff but the problem here is that Nene’s is an unreliable narrator since she romantices life + Kou speficially treats her a lot nicer.

He is also heavily morally righteous and tries to hear Hanako out even after knowing he murdered someone, saving him from Teru.

Kou also ends up trying to shoulder other people’s problems, and many of his actions are seen as “heroic” or “selfless” BUT sometimes this due to a more ugly part of his character the fandom seems to discard often.

^ To elaborate, I want to bring up this scene since it’s iconic asf

On the surface it’s like: omg wow so brave of him to kill himself for his bf !! However, in the red house arc (which for context shows him his biggest desires) we can see that he just wants mitsuba to rely on him to the point of extreme measures.

This is rooted from his inferiority complex due to being outshined by his older + younger siblings; AND to add on, Hanako straight up tells Kou twice hes unable to do anything. Then to push it further, Teru’s like ur weak lil bro go back to the kitchen during the no.6 fight. Mitsuba dying infront of him 6 times doesn’t help either..

When Mitsuba asks if Kou is okay and needs to talk about his problems, (I forgot which specific chapter..), Kou automatically assumes that Mitsubas just worried about Kou’s reliability because he has such a low self esteem and is used to given up on.

His inability to actually make stuff happen and ppl telling him he can’t do shit make him very eager to try and shoulder other ppls problem in an attempt to have someone depend on him.

So when Mitsuba comes in with nobody (besides tsukasa but he does more harm than help so wtv) who can help him, Kou.. heh.. ig u could say.. JUMPS at this opportunity.

Anyway, in the Nightlife arc Mitsuba is like “hey can u kill me I’ve given up on being human”, and Kou finally lashes out. Mitsuba is indirectly telling Kou that he gave up on him trying to make his wish come true; AND THEN to make it worse, Mitsuba brings Tsukasa right after up..

Kou gets desperate and forces Mitsuba to stay alive even if he doesn’t want to because both

1) if mitsuba leaves nobody will depend on him and

2) he’s gay for him + misses him after watching him die + can’t bring himself to kill Mitsuba

Yes, he cares a lot for Mitsuba as a person and making his wish come true, but he also just wants to be depended on after being told he’s a let down over and over again.

As I mentioned before, Kou has a trend with diverting his problems from other people and keeping his real feelings in. Nobody expect for nene knows about Mitsubas and Kous relationship, and it literally took Kou like 70 chapters or smthn to give her the basics.

He’s speechless when Akane asks if Mitsuba and him are close because Kou never mentions Mitsuba at all. Teru doesn’t know what’s up with him, and just assumes he “has a goal in mind”. Even when having his big speech defeating Habuko Kou just refers to Mitsuba as “him”.

Okay anyways the point Im trying to get is Kous character is a lot more complex than the fandom passes off !! Yes he can be very sweet and all but there’s other parts to his personality that aren’t so black and white.