ever since i learned that nata calls the hunter 'sensei' in the jp dub i've been experiencing horrible visions of kazu just being the most useless older brother figure to him imaginable and it stresses alma tf out-
compiled a small profile for my hunter based off the official website profiles hehe !!
also dynamic/relationship chart with avis unit + olivia hehe
he has a little more lore/trivia below (there are light story spoilers for the LR campaign and HR!!)
background rundown-
kazu would technically be the hunter who lived through the events of rise (pre-sunbreak arc, he leaves kamura shortly after the end of rise); born and raised in kamura village alongside his elder brother, sou, and younger sister, koharu, the two older brothers would eventually become hunters.
though sou was very conscious of his duties as a hunter, kazu tended to have a more jaded view on his role: this would lead to disagreements between the two regarding the rampage, with kazu refusing to help in the efforts to hunt ibushi and narwa, believing it better to fortify kamura than to confront the elder dragons directly
despite his efforts to dissuade sou from the hunt, his brother would go on anyway and would fall to ibushi. this would cause kazu to finally accept the gravity of the situation, and lead to him taking on the assignment in sou's stead, going on to slay both ibushi and narwa.
though his efforts would lead to the end of the rampage, he'd leave kamura and wind up working for the hunter's guild main branch where he would remain until he was assigned to the forbidden lands research commission
⚠️ WILDS LR CAMPAIGN / HR40 SPOILERS ⚠️
i kind of reverse engineered a parallel to nata with kazu's backstory, with him not fully understanding the weight of being a hunter / a hunter's role in preserving the ecosystem, and throughout the story he'd eventually come to see his younger self in nata -- hence kazu made a show of acknowledging alma's authorization to slay arkveld; here he'd be showing nata the true purpose of a hunter, while also refusing to neglect his duties like he did while still in kamura
my personal cheesy hc is that the line "The path we must take is clear" was actually something that sou said to kazu shortly before going to confront ibushi, so kazu hearing nata say it had him like 🥺
misc trivia
his sister, koharu, is in a different unit within the forbidden lands commission -- she coincidentally wound up there after her mentor was assigned to the commission (more on him another day...-); this is the first time the siblings have met since kazu left kamura (and koharu is relieved to see he's still as cringe as always <3)
kazu is married to his childhood best friend, yuito (ykz forever..); yui would probably normally function as his handler
on that note ik people ship their hunter w/ alma but in my vision she finds herself embarrassed bc, despite canonically looking into the mc hunter's background, she only looked at kazu's record and didn't know he was married until a little into working with him ... a one-sided crush that quickly fizzled out after he offhandedly mentioned his husband...-
