Kasa7 Card Analysis!!
I was not expecting this (well I lowkey was) and now I’m gonna analyze it poorly bc it comes out tomorrow!
CARD ITSELF
So the card looks like he’s having a panic attack (dilated pupils, shaking, double vision, blurred background). To add, he seems to be in his casual outfit at home. This could take out the possibility of it being a performance like kasa6. To add, in the event description, it says that the performance itself went fine, but Sakaki thought it could be better. Now, there are 2 factors that could cause Tsukasa to act like this. 1. Tsukasa hearing that he didn’t do his best could trigger his perfectionism, he would feel as though he didn’t take full advantage of the present moment. However, this time, it would be his fault and not someone else’s. 2. He method acted the character, and the experience of the character closely mirrored his own. This allowed his performance to be very raw and realistic. However, when Sakaki said that it could be better, it made Tsukasa feel subconsciously invalidated and that his work was for nothing. Another possibility is that the new draft that Sakaki revised aimed for Tsukasa to have a similar level of emotion as the kasa6 performance. However, instead of him “safely” getting out of character/compartmentalizing (I have a whole essay on his method acting) while practicing in his house, the trauma he digs up causes his to spiral because it is something that he had hidden away before (via selective amnesia). Combine this with how dazed he was during the kasa6 performance, and he might be finally be facing the consequences of his own actions, all finally triggered by Sakaki invalidating him. This would cause Tsukasa to have a panic attack and might face some of the symptoms of chronic character bleed, depersonalization (which is why he’s looking at his hands), and a psychotic break (or nervous system overload). To add, you can very faintly see some eyebags, which are caused by a lack of sleep. Hmmm, I wonder who trained until they had nightmares in kasa6. Also, leading up to the breakdown, he might experience disordered sleep due to his unexpressed and unhealed trauma. (Some of this has been addressed in my previous essay about Tsukasa’s method acting, and another one I have). All in all, this is all I have to say about his card so far (wait also he might be alone in his house which could further trigger him) (also I just realized he looks really confused, so something triggering him to have a panic attack or a psychotic break seems pretty likely).
THE EVENT NAME
Ok, so I’m not sure what Phantom Maze Monster could mean, but I do see a connection. First, the monster could reference his role from Rui5, but I’m not sure why they would do that (maybe it’s because Sakaki is also critiquing Rui, which could lead to his card name). Second, this could reference kasa1 (and this event seems to be referencing kasa1 a lot (the cube from the trailer). How it references it is by clashing 3 words together in a way where it makes sense, but it isn’t a proper sentence (Wonder Magical Showtime). That event, he had to sacrifice his own desire for the greater good of Emu’s wish to save the park. However, you can see how much he sacrifices for roles now, so what if he sacrifices more of his mental health for the troupes safety from Sakaki’s expectations?
THE EVENT TITLE DESIGN
Now this is the part I’m looking forward to. The title’s design shows Nene, Rui, and Emu being connected and holding hands (the opposite on the other side, but Rui is in the middle regardless. Maybe this could show how close they are). Tsukasa is the one shining the brightest, but he is also the most isolated (not holding hands). To add, it references his kasa3 card. How? Well, in the makeup in the kasa3 cards, everyone has a star on their face. However, Tsukasa’s drips down into a tear because, on the inside, he doesn’t view himself as a star (even in his focus songs he refers to himself as an ordinary man pretending to be someone else. Ex: “narcissist fools himself” “the greed of an ordinary man: crawl to move forward” “my imitation of someone else is excellent, but I am ordinary in the end” “I wish I could be more like you” (I’m quoting from memory here). To add, it is already confirmed in the Toya/Rui area convo that Tsukasa’s personality is just a persona (whether it be his star, leader, or older brother persona, they all lack one thing: true selfishness. I could go on about it, but I’ll leave it at that for now. However, what makes him different from someone like Mafuyu is that he genuinely believes that that is him, his true self. But, in kasa6, it is revealed that with his dream of making people smile, he has no identity. This can also be seen in his focus songs (“I’m a utterly hopeless person” again quoting from memory), leading me to believe that he subconsciously knows he has no identity (“I’m already different from you, I have no place to return to” (referring to if he loses his dream)), but consciously doesn’t know this. This could also be the reason why Emu doesn’t/wouldn’t suspect anything, his joy in entirely genuine, so she has no anomaly to identify (unlike Mafuyu). Anyways, that is what the dripping star means, and it’s burning brighter than the others, but it’s also crying. Unlike the jester makeup, the tear fully falls into the water. However, in the card art, smoke obscures it from the rest of wxs from seeing it, leading the silhouette to look like a crown. You know who else has a crown? The kasa1 card! He might hide this and channel it into his new performance, leading wxs to believe he is just growing even more as an actor, obscuring them from looking at how he is falling apart as a person.
EVENT TRAILER
I don’t have much to say in this section (again, I’m going off memory here).
The trailer had a lot of purple spikes and other colors, so maybe this could be how Rui might be harsher with Tsukasa in order to deliver the perfect performance? What stands out is the fact that barely any of the wxs colors show up, and the fact that the trailer is so… neon. Like instead of a slow depression, he goes full on manic to drown out the fact that he’s breaking (if that makes sense). To add, a saturated red-orange (a distorted version of Tsukasa’s color) takes up most of the screen. However, behind it there is a starkly grey background (reminiscent of the empty sekai color). There is also a cube at the end that is a reference to the kasa1 song 2d mv AND the kasa6 mv (they sit on a cube in there). The colors in the cube are also very bright and feverish (wait, fever, like filament fever. Maybe he will go fully manic in this event who knows)? Also, at the end, the box under the text inverts the colors I think. Anyways, I’m finally gonna address the elephant in the room and talk about the glitches. The trailer glitches out and shows blackness (not neon colors like traditional, cyberpunk like glitches). Also, the card seems to have a slight chromatic aberration, which it you don’t know, is commonly used in art to make glitches (it’s 3 colors that go out/side to side). In the trailer, that glitches could represent this scene, and it going back to normal could represent how Tsukasa, being a master of compartmentalization, will shove his emotions away (suppressal and might use temporal distancing like he usually does). However, his broken psyche and hidden nihilism (ok this sounds like a massive stretch but trust me it’s not, kasa6 (both song and event) hints at it and in the sekai song, it hints that he has a very absurdist mindset (the belief that everything is inherently meaningless, but you can forge your own meaning in life (refers to his dream, which is incredibly restrictive because instead of having multiple meanings, he only finds one, big meaning to live by. This is why his alternate reality was the way it was)), might leak out in an unscripted line, alerting wxs in a slight way. Ok, I think this is all I have to say about the trailer imagery itself (wait nvm. The trailer shows an explosion, so maybe it represents the his mental state might explode at first, but then slowly continue to fracture further in future events. Also, I think in filament fever, he says something about being “beyond saving,” and in Goodbye Heaven, Come Back to Hell, he states something about one scar being a fair trade (which normalizes his pain, also referenced in Filament Fever when he says that wounds won’t have any pain), and that “if you can live like this, then I have nothing to complain about.” This could show how his subconscious is a second person/voice of sorts (which fits with his potential future identity break), saying how, if his conscious mind can handle everything he’s doing, then he can’t complain about the “hellish” way he’s living) and that he is subconsciously already aware about the damage that has been done, and this event will be kind of a point of no return.
INTRUMENTAL
Ok so the commissioned song is by Wada Takeaki (I love his songs)! Now, he’s made My R, Trash and Trash, Show Off, and more. Show Off is for the famously angsty Saki3 event, No Seek No Find. Also, during an interview once, someone asked why he didn’t make the song more joyful for Saki and he said something along the lines of: “I’m Wada Takeaki, I don’t make happy songs.” So, that confirms that the song will be very revealing and not filler for Tsukasa.
Now on to the instrumental itself, it has a funky sounding main motif (I like it). To add, it sounds like it’s building up to something, before going into the main guitar part. It also deceives the viewer by making them expect the song to continue in the major scale, but then subverts this by adding a minor (or flat accidental) note. To add, Tsukasa songs are often very continuous, offering little to no break, or just very high energy. Now, underneath all the noise in the main chorus, there is a rather sad sounding piano. This could further support my theory of him suppressing his own trauma, realizations, and break, burying it under explosive energy and brightness.
In conclusion, I don’t think kasa7 will be filler, but I do think that it will be an event that worsens his already deteriorating mental state, and he will isolate his own feelings because of his high affection - low attachment way of loving people, which is fundamentally unsustainable.
