a mizutori chapter! yay! where mizuki attempts to help tori set herself up with kanata! and she does it! yippee! butâŠ
main course: what is izumi sakishimaâs problem.
in the second scene of t1p51, rui approaches izumi with a problem thatâs been persistent since t1p36: audrey is coming onto him extremely strongly and despite his wanting to distance himself from her, she ignores his boundaries anyway. what should he do? just deal with it?
unfortunately izumi says something more alone the lines of âitâs your problem, not mineâ which is arguably worse.
like christ what kind of response is this.
izumi, as we know, is pretty flippant about things generally. he says ânever mindâ often, he wants to know about everything but never really engages in the things he wants to know about! and goes about things in a roundabout way. we see this behavior with mizuki too in t1p49, where he could have probably asked mika and nina himself but instead he decided to ask through mizuki. for some reason. itâs almost like he is keeping a long distance from everyone.
we havenât seen anything that could possibly show any sign of vulnerability in himâhe likely isnât involved in the umbrella girl incident, but he has something to do with mizuki, who is tied to the umbrella girl in some way.
the question circles back. why didnât he help rui?
leaving him to deal with an overbearing upperclassman is a little too far beyond mere avoidance or keeping people at armsâ length. and yet it doesnât seem motivated by spite either. so why did he do that?
there isnât a motive for this that we know of. and actually he claims ruiâs problem doesnât exist, which is equally crazy because it actually is right there. why wouldnât it exist?
something is wrong with him and i need to know what it is.
side dish: mizuki is losing the plot
i mean pretty clearly she is.
most of this chapter in the first scene is very wholesome! mizuki hypes up tori, who gathers the courage to slip in a love letter, they are intruded on by may, and the three of them go stake out the meeting spot. cute! nothing to analyze here
there is one sequence of dialogue from mizuki, however, where she expresses hesitance over her own actions
mizuki has expressed these exact emotions before, in the girlsâ day out arc. she should set up kanata and tori; she can get kanata off her back and tori can have the guy she really likes. everyone wins! so why does she feel like this is a bad decision?
in girlsâ day out arc she doesnât know, just thatâs itâs a bad thing and it canât be because sheâs jealous, cause she hates kanata. but in this part she assumes itâs because kanata is seriously unwell and is only going to hurt tori, and hopes she gets shot down. which begs the question
why would mizuki set tori up for failure?
tbh the most reasonable answer is that itâs not intentional. mizuki very often justifies her behavior regarding kanatori with the logic above; everyone serves to benefit, therefore, it must be a good thing! but mizuki probably subconsciously knows she actually loses in this scenario
bear in mind her friendship with may and joshua is⊠rocky at best, they keep telling her not to worry about something specific. sheâs virtually waiting for the day they stop talking to her. thereâs tension between them that there oddly isnât with kanata
knmz have a dynamic where emotionally they are secure around each other but logically they are both aware they could kill each other if something goes wrong. this is especially prominent on mizukiâs side given kanata has actually attempted to kill her before, but sheâs figured the solution to that is simply play along and donât try to provoke him. and through that she has also figured, weirdly enough, that she can lower her guard around him (if t1p32 is anything to go by). but not entirely, she is still absolutely catering to him.
another important facet of mizukiâs character is that she might have attachment issues, she wants connection but doesnât want to work for it; she is scared of getting closer but doesnât want to lose what she has. she is terrified of change. how does this tie in?
if mizuki succeeds she loses kanata. in theory this is great but she doesnât consciously know that emotionally it would be pretty awful. not that she is interested in him at all, but she loses probably the only person whom she feels even remotely comfortable around and thatâs really bad.
anyway. whatâs wrong with all these kids? get them help right now
honestly i like kchan more but thatâs mostly because I really like hating him. I think mizuki is a more complex character and sheâs also so me fr. I too am anxiety walking
a long, LONG post about why I love Mizukiâs character
first: mild YHR spoilers. itâs a webtoon. please go read it if only for mizuki and/or kanata (but this isnât about him).
once upon a time i said i could write an entire essay on t1p42 and this is that essay
TLDR: mizuki shiratori has no core identity whatsoever and god i love her
this girl has such a unique mix of confidence and people pleasing it makes me feel. oh. mizuki please
mizuki is the protagonist and narrator of YHR, having been sort-of peer pressured into accepting a position at an exchange program. when weâre first introduced to her sheâs really just your typical teenage girl; sheâs cute, sheâs clever, she has sensibility, and enough strength where she survives a scissor attack from a stranger (later revealed to be kanata).
sheâs got a decent amount of self-confidence and can hold her ownâor can she? thereâs a lot of evidence pointing to her confidence being one massive trick of the mind so letâs break it down
1. a quick diagnosis
mizuki, even from the very beginning, immediately backs down from a serious confrontation. light banter, most often shown between her and kanata, allow a constant back and forth. he never gets seriously mad, heâs easy to rile up, and besides itâs really funny. i guess
but compare her interactions with may, who is much more serious despite her cheerful air. a lot of interactions between them are may telling mizuki not to pry so much into the collectiveâs shared past. mizuki actually has a good reason to ask because she has weird dreams? visions? whatever they are, they are likely reflective of events and people that everyone but her knows and is not giving her answers to
mizuki values stasis the most. sheâs fine with letting kanata grow violently obsessed with her, sheâs okay with may and joshua dismissing her with⊠relative frequency. the situation is already awful but as long as she can predict future events, things cannot possibly get any worse. if she does nothing about it, it canât get worse.
mizuki presses once and not again. which is strange because she talks back really quite often and regrets it every time; after all, of her friendships shift, bad things will happen to her, she thinks. she thinks she should do nothing. there doesnât even need to be pushback. joshuaâs non-reaction also made her back down, which makes you wonder:
why does mizuki⊠act the way she does?
2. heroine complex
hinted at in t1p19 and fully fleshed out in t1p42, we learn mizukiâs personality is really just nothing but a survival mechanism. if she doesnât act in this wayâcallous, snarky, and brightâpeople will ignore her. âan accessoryâ, as she describes it, something she doesnât want to become.
mizuki does not like being ignored. this includes the dismissing of her questions and feelings may and joshua constantly do. âyouâll get used to itâ no she wonât, what are they talking about?
for that reason she needs to play the role of âheroineâ, someone people will like. when left alone for too long she is aware of it, like in t1p19 and t1p42; but other times like in t1p49 she thinks itâs just who she is. her personality was tailored to entertain, everything a tease with no weight to it, every word meant to elicit a certain reaction. this falls flat with may and even joshua because itâs a toss up as to whether or not the joke will even land with them.
but it works fantastically well with kanata, who is easily provoked and gives her the frantic reaction she wants. which is crazy because sheâs also aware he could kill her at any given time. this will be further discussed in the knmz section
everything mizuki says and does is meant to make people like her. itâs nothing but a social survival mechanism. she has to, or they will have no need of her. she is easily replaceable, she thinksâwhich is why she needs to make herself irreplaceable. and she thinks she can accomplish this by playing the confident and teasing protagonist. thatâll do it!
3. except it doesnât
and this hurts her relationships. her humor falls flat, she says things that are outright insensitive, which is interesting for her being a people-pleaser. she is trying so hard to emulate being a likeable person, but she is not that person. she is trying to have traits that donât fit her. a noticeable point to mizukiâs behavior is that any time she doesnât get an expected reaction, a little bit of her real self comes out.
her truest self, as we know it from t1p32 and t1p42 is marginally less confident. she self-deprecates, thinks nothing matters in the long term, thinks she shouldnât care about any of themâshouldnât, not doesnâtâand that she isnât worthy of the attention she craves, but wants it all the same. this is not yet explained why but can be mildly deduced from t1p49, DOA and t1p1 to be due to nina and mika being terrible friends
there is no weight to mizuki. her personality is fluid, adapting to each individual person. she has absolutely no idea what she wantsâshe thinks happiness will come when everyone likes her, but she ends up liking herself less, constantly catering to everyone and ending up pleasing nobody. in t1p49 and DOA izumi mentions her cheerfulness is out of character.
mizuki doesnât like herself and must suffuse it with others liking her, which is a sick cycle sheâs trapped herself in. if she breaks it, nobody will want her around, which she thinks is much worse.
and yet she finds happiness not in the admiration of others, but the dumb stuff they do in their daily lives (if t1p49 is anything to go by). unfortunately for herâŠ
4. reciprocity is not real? (aka knmz section)
mizuki noticeably does not want to get closer to her supposed friends. in t1p42 she states nothing matters because theyâll all part ways soon, but she still wants to be liked and admired. she wants people to like her but she doesnât actually desire any sort of connection, and doesnât try to build friendships, opting to tease everyone lightly to keep them all at armâs length, but not far enough where they lose interest in her.
this is subverted with kanata kanazawa.
kanata is arrogant, princely, insufferably pretentious, and is allegedly spoiled. he genuinely is disrespectful at times, and is possibly a psychopathâso why is he mizukiâs closest friend, relatively speaking?
because kanata innately has something mizuki values highly, and itâs that he is honest to a fault. he is incessantly rude but doesnât lie about or sugarcoat anything, a quality which makes him infinitely more tolerable than everyone else who has peace to keep. kanata has no peace to keep, he probably doesnât even care.
in a bizarre form of opposites attract, mizuki has a confidante in this prick who tries to kill her and is also violently obsessed with and projecting on her simply because he listens to her and values her opinion, which she values in turn. and she knows how to act to make sure he doesnât hurt her, survival mechanism and all⊠but subconsciously she lowers her guard. despite her knowing he is dangerous, mizuki trusts kanata a lot more than she thinks she does.
on the contrary, kanata interprets this as her wanting him to chase her (??? idk how he reached this conclusion in t1p40) and projects harder, but this isnât about him.
in essence, they have a weird friendship that fundamentally is a bit transactional in nature. they help each other out, but only because they each serve to gain from the otherâmizuki validates herself, kanata gets to be obsessed with her. but at least it is somewhat amicable as opposed to the tension mizuki finds in every other friendship she has.
itâs really interesting how the first person mizuki subconsciously feels comfortable around is the guy who tried to murder her frame one
anyway i love mizuki
this girl is just a mess and i love her. sheâs full of self-contradictions, she thinks the things she should do are what she wants, but what does she really want? she doesnât know the answer to this question but if i had to guess she thinks she already knows it.
my prince boy with a personality disorder of some nature who thinks stabbing things will make them go away. my silly little guy with a horrifying lack of personal space and a persistent obsession with his ex. i love to hate you
