When reading the manga I was kinda hoping for another interaction between Kaigaku and Gyomei, taken that it was Kaigaku who was one of the temple orphans on top of being the one who snitched on them in order to save himself. When I read that part I was shook. Like, there surely would have been a lot of potential in both of them meeting again after such a long time.
(Putting this under the cut because I ALSO wrote a bunch!! I don't want to flood someone's screen and make them scroll a lot)
Looking back at Kaigakus character is also once again pretty sad.
He had no parents and survived on the streets by stealing. Yet he got actually quite lucky to be taken into the temple where Gyomei was lovingly caring for them. He was given a home and a chance for a better life, he even seemed like he was happy there, but he ruined everything by trying to steal from them because he was longing for more, and then the whole incident happened where he ran into a demon after being chased out by the other kids. Then he got incredibly lucky again when Jigoro took him under his wing in order to train him. Which was an even bigger chance to become something great in life. But nope, he still wanted more and wasn’t happy with what was offered to him. Followed up by him getting (unfortunate) lucky once again by meeting Kokushibo who saw something in him and offered to turn him into a demon, granting him immortality and even more power. Which was of course reason enough for him to ditch everyone and everything in a heartbeat.
He had so much potential but always ended up sabotaging himself. Never feeling satisfied with his life and what he had or could have, but instead only focusing on what he didn't get. Even in his final moments all he could think of was how Zenitsu got an “unfair advantage“ in order to master that final attack in their fight, saying Jigoro “really did play favorites“, which of course wasn’t true.
But did he always feel like that? Like he’s not getting the same treatment, even if people clearly cared about him dearly, leaving him thinking that he was the one who got robbed over and over in life? You really do have to wonder where he got this attitude from. And why he wouldn’t let anyone into his heart even after some of them showed him so much genuine kindness.
Like, if we look into theories about his childhood, I can’t help but feel like his parents could have been the type who might have not acted in his best interest and pretty much ditched him, leaving Kaigaku all alone and traumatized, making him feel worthless and weak. Parents should be there to protect their child. Children should be able to feel safe and rely on adults. Yet here he is, having to take care of himself at such a young age. It's kinda hard for me to imagine that he hates weak people when he went through the same, but then again, he certainly is a big hypocrite and he might just hate seeing his past, he probably rather wants to forget, being reflected in others.
Something like this could at least explain his strong hate towards weakness and his lack of trust and respect in anyone, because in the end he's the only person in his eyes that he can truly rely on. Even if he might get lonely at times. Even if there are people around him who "pretend" to care. He’s the only one who's there for himself, he knows what’s best for him and if you don’t agree with him you’re clearly against him and standing in his way. It’s like he developed somekind of superiority complex, he never was able to overcome until he went too far down an awful path with no way back anymore.
Otherwise it feels a bit like we’re missing a part of the puzzle here. Sure, he was an orphan trying to survive on the streets by stealing and got cursed for it. He just wanted to survive afterall. However most demons, like Akaza or Gyutaro for example, who were pretty much treated like trash since birth, were driven by something before being turned. But what was Kaigakus drive to go that far? Zenitsu wanted to protect people and be someone to be proud of, someone to look up to. What is it what Kaigaku wanted? There was no honorable or sincere goal behind his motivations besides wanting a fancy title.
Also, please don’t tell me that the necklace could have been a gift from Gyomei, because that would make the whole betrayal even more sad.
Kai Kai Kai… What are we gonna do with you?
Also, look at me! Writing a big post which is not about Douma for once!
I apologize for it being so long though ; ;
You did it! Don't feel sorry about the long post, I woke up and smiled from reading all of it. All of it 😎
I'm not going to go out there and say that KNY was great at showing us mental illness representation, but I will die on the hill that I believe Zenitsu has some form of depression along with his anxiety. I believe that he's higher functioning but that it still hinders his thought process immensely. I also believe that Kaigaku has depression too after reading their fight, but his thought process led him down a much different road than Zenitsu.
Zenitsu's thought process was, "I'm never going to amount to anything, so I should just give up and accept I will die a failure." We see that in our first scene with Zenitsu, he says that even though he survived the exam it didn't matter because he was just going to die in battle soon anyways. This is a foil to Kaigaku's thought process. His attitude was more, "I'm never going to amount to anything, so I should fight like hell and do anything I can to survive to see tomorrow-- even if it means being shameful or abusive to others." I don't believe that Kaigaku would ever say that he himself is worthless out loud but I have a feeling that he really thought that especially when he claimed that Jigoro played favorites and picked Zenitsu over Kaigaku in his eyes. When Zenitsu is struggling, he finds himself wanting to cower away from the situation but Kaigaku acts more like an injured animal and thinks "I have to survive by whatever means necessary," lashing out and victimizing others in the process, and because of that I think Kokushibo saw potential in Kaigaku becoming a demon. Kaigaku, in a way, had already lost his humanity long ago so becoming a demon wasn't that big of a change for him. It's interesting to once again see similar people with different fates fighting. I feel like KNY's fights center mostly on people with completely opposing viewpoints but with similar trauma to each other.
Seeing that one manga set showing how the different paths led both Kaigaku and Zenitsu broke my heart a bit, I wonder if things would have been different if Kaigaku had just made a friend or two. Kaigaku couldn't though... He couldn't see a point to it. Is a friendship going to save his ass? He didn't think it would, he was so used to being abandoned and having to survive on his own wits that he probably saw a friendship as a hinderance to his survival. We don't get any interactions between Kaigaku and Kokushibo other than when Kaigaku becomes a demon, but I think that they shared that mindset. Kokushibo saw his love for his brother as something that was of no value and did not produce results for himself. Kaigaku saw that his admiration for Jigoro got him nothing, all of Jigoro's attention went to Zenitsu in his eyes. In the flashback with Gyomei, we see Kaigaku is happy. He's smiling with the others.
We might not know where Kaigaku lost his morality but I do think that he knew what he did was fucked up. He was a scared child and thought the only way to save his ass was to sell out the other kids to the demon, not saying that was okay but at the time he didn't know what else to do.
I wonder how things would have been if the other temple children had lived. Maybe they would have lived a normal happy life with Kaigaku? Maybe they would eventually join the slayers with him?
Maybe he wouldn't have become so lost and become a demon.
