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Mar 15

Yume motif explanation: Cecil's cat tail

The lore reason that my Cecil has a tail is because Cecil's curse of being trapped as a cat gets broken by a true love's kiss in Repeat. When Leonie kisses him as a cat, full of affection for a pet but not for a human she actually knows- from the person he was never supposed to love and in turn be loved by no less— it acts as a defective true love's kiss. It's not like one shared with Haruka, his soulmate. It transforms him back as a human, but not all the way, imperfectly- with caveats, a permanently inconvenient cat tail, sticking out like a sore thumb and constantly reminding him he's still not free, that he has duties to fulfill and obstacles to overcome. He's become a human again but he isn't allowed to bask in it, not truly. His duties are still what's on his mind until everything gets dealt with and settled, he's not allowed to be free and he certainly won't allow himself to be.

The meta reason... what caught my eye first was the few illustrations where Cecil does have a tail and no ears- for seemingly no reason, everyone else in the illustration series gets to be quote unquote normal, but Cecil gets a cat tail- often as vampires? You see characters get cat ears but no tail sometimes, or regular kemonomimi with both ears and tail- but having a tail yet no ears? For most, that's getting the least fun part while not getting to the main event. It's ugly. It... Looks and seems weird, feels off or incomplete, like something else entirely than a catboy. It's something that to my memory, only really Utapri has shown me. So it stuck with me, and it interested me, and I wanted to explore the whys and hows. Cecil, the catboy against his will- that only gets the less desirable half of the package deal.

The idea with the tail is like… Even as a catboy he is only half of one, defective. It's even more alienating and weird and isolating. It's a magic mishaps misfire. Because nothing can ever go well and he always has problems to perfectly overcome or else he fails. For someone who often tries to hide when things are bad for him, it being made manifest means it's way harder to hide- but he tries, hides the tail in his pants while out and about- because he wants to be human, he does. And then, eventually, when he can grow comfortable not hiding it in someone's presence... It's growth. It's also a physical representation of fate- what happens if you deviate from it and try to break it off with someone who's not your soulmate. You get halved because that's not your other half.

It's also something meaningful to my character, since she met Cecil as a cat first- in a way it symbolizes that it's still the same guy that she once felt so effortlessly comfortable with- it shows that he's a misfit like how she feels too. Cecil... Has always had to strive so hard to fulfill expectations for his station, and then to fit in as a foreigner, and then to end his cat curse– He's always had to fight to be human, and to perform that humanity, that he deserves respect and recognition, that he's intelligent and wise and worth your time- something that he's gotten little of from the people in Agnapolis in the past. And also someone normal, that you can treat casually- that you can give pats to and relax in the presence of- as someone of both royal and divine natures. Performing humanity is also something my sona is familiar with, as someone autistic. But unlike Cecil, wanting to be human is less out of enthusiasm and more out of fear- she feels alienated from humanity. She's hesitant around humans, always feeling as if she's rejected from it, too much below human standards to be considered one, she fears humanity. That Cecil appears like an inbetween like her at first helps form a bond there too- you're different from me, but you're also just like me.

So Leonie makes cat ears out of her hair of her own will, to externalize her alienation because it feels cathartic and truer. So Cecil has a cat tail against his will, something branding him and physically manifesting and embodying his outsider status despite his best efforts. Alienation forced upon you and reclaimed or fought against. One embraces it and one flees it- and maybe the ideal is somewhere inbetween. In being comfortable being imperfect yet not giving up on belonging because of it. Together, they make up one cat, but two humans.

That Leonie means lion feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy too in a way, stepping into fate's designs, despite being compared to a lion tending to be about having qualities, things to be prideful over, it's still a wild animal, undomesticated and dangerous and apart. What Cecil shows her is that carving your place in the world is doable- and not something you should be scared of or too hesitant to do. You are all that you are, unapologetic and unashamed. Be shameless, like the sun.

A Japanese-to-English translation blog for Uta no Prince-sama

Eventually, once they deal with their demons and Cecil saves the world in his route yay they properly confess and kiss and yay! True love's kiss, for reals this time :] Built upon many meaningful moments and mutual understanding of each other as humans and inbetweens. And with the curse truly broken, so too does the tail leave~