When I first saw Mizuki I wasn’t that excited. First of all, he can’t climb walls and I think it would have been really funny if Overwatch just decided that, in the future, all Japanese people (and one guy from Scotland) can do parkour. The second thing I wasn’t terribly fond of was his hat. I know from playing Ashe and Hanzo with his Kabuki skin that, even though it does not increase your hitbox, a very smart person will be able to use that highly visible hat to aim better headshots. And that’s definitely what you don’t want to worry about as a support player.
But then I saw his kit and I tried it out, and I really enjoyed it! I love annoying the shit out of Reinheardts as a support. I can confidently counter them as Juno and Lifeweaver, and I’m getting the hang of timing Mizuki’s chain to prevent that asshole from charging at my beloved Wuyang.
But there’s something else I’ve begun to love about Mizuki and a reason why he’s become special to me in a very short period of time. And I haven’t actually seen it spoken about at all yet.
Mizuki has OCD.
I don’t think anyone realizes this unless they have or have had OCD, even if you have some knowledge of psychopathologies, you’d have to know a lot about what the internal workings of this disorder is to pick up on this, I believe. But it’s clear as day to me.
Mizuki is extremely superstitious, and believes his family is cursed. He was *told* this by his father, who was also extremely superstitious. Many mental health disorders, such as OCD, are hereditary, though children can also learn to have anxiety through observing their parents. These thoughts (obsessions) to manifest themselves often. He talks about how he feels like there are “spirits” breathing down his neck and in his one conversation with Wuyang expresses that he is compelled to stand under a waterfall. But if that isn’t enough evidence that these thoughts are recurring and distressing, he has voice lines with Kiriko where they talk about how he very religiously purchases lucky amulets, and also gets anxiety when he loses them.
The crazy thing is that, I caught onto this far before I even heard any of these interactions. This respawn voice line was enough evidence for me.
I used to repeat things three times when my OCD was bad. I’m mostly in remission now, but when I was a preteen, it took over my life so badly that I thought that was how it would be my entire life. I was so frustrated and angry and scared all the time.
Regardless of if this is canon or if I’m projecting, it’s been rather important for me to be able to play a hero that has these traits. My 12 year old self really just wanted good OCD representation, and to have a playable hero in a video game who is badass enough to chain Reinhardt down to the ground mid-charge despite having all these obsessive and intrusive thoughts and compulsions? I think that would have meant the world to little me.
Hugging Mizuki and his creators right now.
