Thoughts on Different Kento Nagayama Characters: pt.1/? - Kirihito from Invisible (2022)
Hello. I’m posting this because I really wanted more appreciation online for Kento Nagayama as an actor. Idk if I’m going to make this into a fully fleshed out series or not, but I will just say that one of my friends ended up finding the Tokyo Revengers 2023 live action movies for me online towards the end of 2024, and I have not been able to stfu about him since. I just wanted to say that he embodied my favorite character (Baji Keisuke) so well ofc I had to check out literally every piece of media that he’s been in ever. Duh!
Anyways, I wanted to write a Kirihito analysis since I couldn’t really find anyone talking online about Invisible (2022) besides the reviews on imdb & MyDramaList, and I find his character to be absolutely fascinating and worth analyzing. So technically this is an informal review / ramble on some of my thoughts on the show, so heavy spoilers ahead, and slight warning because the attitude that Kirihito has towards his sister is… weird. It’s not necessarily incestuous, but he is super possessive of Kiriko in a way that reads as very unhealthy in an unusual manner.
For context, Invisible (2022) is a TBS detective series surrounding a police officer (Shimura Takafumi) teaming up with an infamous crime coordinator called “Invisible” (Kiriko) to solve miscellaneous cases that, at first, look unrelated, but string together to reveal a bigger picture. Overall, I’d rate it a pretty solid 7.5/10, primarily because there is some handwaving reasoning here and there for the convenience of the plot, and the story has this really odd relationship with approving police brutality — but another reason why I would personally consider Invisible (2022) as a show that is good, but could have been great is because of the way that they don’t incorporate enough flashbacks about Kiriko and Kirihito’s backstory.
Essentially, the reason why Kiriko collaborates with Shimura and the police force is so she could find her brother (Kirihito) and put a stop to him; and that brother-sister relationship to me is by far the most interesting part of the show, especially since it shows the way that the siblings fundamentally don’t see eye to eye on what’s right and wrong.
There’s some aspects of their backstory that have really awesome potential, especially since both siblings have vastly different stances on their father. I think it may be because the show doesn't have an actor for their father?, but I think it would have been super effective and interesting storytelling if they showed 1) them as children more to display the almost familial abuse and isolation that Kiriko and Kirihito went through, 2) them as young adults where Kirihito shows obvious contempt for their father and gets to know the Reaper, and 3) the scene where he actually decides to kill his father.
There was a lot of dialogue when Kiriko and Kirihito talk to each other about what happened, but I think it would have been really cool to have seen Kirihito’s obvious flip in mindset once the Reaper starts influencing him as an older male role model in his life — especially since it’s revealed later that Kirihito gets the idea that he can just kill anyone he doesn’t like from the Reaper.
The Invisible siblings were incredibly isolated growing up, groomed to take on their family business of coordinating murders for their clients that make up the dark underbelly of society; and I think it’s really interesting to see how their childhood influences their adult lifestyles and behaviors. It led both of them to be manipulative of the people around them, but whereas Kiriko realizes what they’re doing is evil, Kirihito sees nothing wrong with it. He genuinely treats killing people as a game, and the boyish way he acts comes off as innocent and childlike, which is directly contrasted with his complete awareness of what he’s doing, along with the insidious nature of the murders that he’s coordinating.
Due to the fact that he wasn’t exposed to anyone else in the entire world during important stages of his mental development, he ends up evolving into someone that is incredibly cruel and inhumane; viewing others as lesser than himself despite how badly he longs for a sense of authentic human connection.
He is also incredibly resentful. One of my favorite scenes from the show was when Kirihito finds the childhood drawing he made of him, Kiriko and their father sitting around a table and he just starts stomping on it until the glass shatters because he’s so angry but was never taught a proper way to deal with all that anger that’s been building up in him since he was a child. Kiriko wholeheartedly believes that Kirihito put in the order to kill their dad solely because he viewed him as an inconvenience, but it genuinely runs so much deeper than that.
He’s angry because their dad messed them up so badly, which is directly shown in this one scene where he essentially goes “how did he even love us? He isolated us! He didn’t even give us names.” Like that really stuck out to me, because it clicked in my brain that the kanji that makes up the base for their titles — “Kiri” — means “see through.” So ostensibly their father named the two of them the equivalents of “invisible man” and “invisible woman,” which within itself is dehumanizing.
The whole interaction indicates that he really did want a normal childhood and a normal life, but was never really given the chance; and I think that the reframing of the narrative from Kiriko to Kirihito’s point of view on events is really interesting — because from Kiriko’s perspective, Kirihito murdered their father because he was getting in his way & viewed killing people as a game; and even though that’s true — from Kirihito’s perspective, it has the added context of him seeing himself as “in the right” because he’s standing up to his abuser.
This is also really interesting because it’s directly contrasted with his incredibly stunted empathy, and his incapacity to really think of anyone besides himself and what he wants. This leads to his objectification of Kiriko, because regardless of what she wants, he just stubbornly keeps insisting on doing things his way; and I think it’s interesting how they both technically want the same thing, i.e.: a repaired relationship with each other. However, it’s also clear that the ideal versions of their siblings that they’re seeking a connection with are different from who they actually are as people.
Later on Kiriko reveals to Shimura that what she ultimately longs for is to have her little brother back. Not the corrupted man he is now, but who he was before the corruption, back when he was still a kid. So essentially both siblings want the other to join their side but they’re so different now morality wise they just don’t align; and they’re both just as unwilling to change their ways.
It’s apparent that Kirihito still yearns for Kiriko’s approval in a distinct “younger sibling” way, but the manner in which he is super possessive, jealous, and obsessive towards Kiriko also pins his actions with this very questionable undertone, especially considering the choices made in the acting (eg. instances where Kirihito never takes his eyes off Kiriko for extended, unblinking periods of time in a way that reminds me of a predator, or him subtly flicking his tongue over his teeth when she speaks or when he finally gets his way); and the reveal that they’re technically not biologically related does not make things better because in the end, they still view each other as brother and sister.
This is still ultimately a sibling relationship!!
If anything, the fact that the writers acknowledge that they’re not blood-related tells me that the undertones were intentionally written into the story. However, it’s obviously portrayed as something that’s supposed to be offputting since Kirihito is an antagonist.
Of course, there is a chance that I might be reading a little too into it, and it’s an observation that is actually kinda creepy and gross once you realize it; but unfortunately it’s also something that makes sense, because obviously if his sister is the only person he was around his entire life besides his father, then obviously there are some lines that are going to blur due to the insane isolation; and because of that he is basically rendered incapable of forming any kind of regular, healthy attachment. The show even displays that even in a best case scenario like with Kiriko where she wants to improve, she still hides information from her allies and feels the need to inherently manipulate the people around her to get what she wants.
The fact that Kirihito actually finds his line of work fun also adds a level of complexity to his character, because despite him resenting his father for forcing him and his sister into their bloody family business, he still finds enjoyment out of it, and doesn’t want to change.
I was a little disappointed that the storyline between Kirihito and Toko only lasted for a single episode, especially since there was missed potential with his ultimate weakness of wanting human connection whether he consciously realizes it or not. Though honestly it’s something I can forgive since it’s lowkey in Kirihito’s character to just be super impatient yet efficient in getting what he wants. He isn’t really willing to care about anyone else besides his sister. Thus, unless it comes to her he doesn’t have the actual patience to play the long game.
Also episode 8 with the Showmen in the Dark is by far the best episode imo since it’s Kirihito directly challenging Kiriko’s ideas of justice and “right and wrong” as a subjective matter. One of my favorite lines of dialogue in the episode was how he brought up that their father believed himself and his work as Invisible to be a “necessary evil” but in reality his own form of justice is just another kind of evil, which is really interesting in the context of Kirihito also saying “if we don’t do it who will” in regards to Kiriko confronting him about their dad and taking on the mantle of “Invisible” for himself, which shows that Kirihito really doesn’t gaf abt morality, and he’s just doing all that shit to be petty since Kiriko actively chooses Shimura over him.
In the end, I think that Kirihito was always doomed to be killed off by the narrative. After all, there’s practically zero way to teach a man about a form of socially acceptable morality if he’s just walking the path that’s already been laid out for him by their father — especially if he doesn’t view what he’s doing and killing people as wrong. Thus, there was zero chance of redemption for him. He’s also way too dangerous to be kept alive for the plot to resolve in a satisfying manner, so yeah that dude just had to die. RIP.
As an actor, I don’t think that Kento Nagayama is actually very intimidating in this role; despite obviously needing to be so. The factors of what makes him scary is purely due to the writing for the plot (and Kirihito’s unpredictability) rather than Kento Nagayama as an actor; and dare I say this is the only role I’ve seen thus far of Nagayama where I initially thought that he was an ill-fitting choice for the role he’s playing.
Usually Kento Nagayama is either casted in roles that are very funny (Satoshi Tsutaya from Saving My Stupid Youth & Ibuki Shintarou from Crazy Cruise/In Love and Deep Water) or very solemn and sad (Yujin Kamoshima from Double & Takashi Ariake from Love Like Falling Petals), or sometimes even both (Yosuke Miyama from Story of My Family in which all the actors have to have that flexibility to flip between funny and serious from scene to scene), but “scary” is something that is, imo, a little out of his range as an actor.
He just wasn’t very “final antagonist” material, and I was wondering why they selected him, because Nagayama as Kirihito is genuinely just “some guy.” (Though, that’s fitting narratively since the whole point is that he’s supposed to be invisible; and if he doesn’t really stick out in a crowd then he’s basically doing his job of just looking like a normal dude.)
However, the moment they introduced the Reaper (played by Kenta Kiritani) as a final boss things made a lot more sense since Kiritani has a much scarier presence overall, and it allowed for Kento Nagayama's portrayal of Kirihito as a "lost little brother" to shine through, which is what I believe was initially intended.
But yeah Kirihito really is the strangest mix of "valid but also your heart is very much so in the wrong place” — and even though I have very complicated feelings on his character, overall I find his story to be really interesting and wish it could have been elaborated upon more.
(I’ll probably go back and add more screenshots from the actual show later, but for now the sources for all photos shown can found on the official mydramalist page for Invisible (2022)).
