Tokyo Revengers: No One Understood Kazutora

Meet the man of mischief. No, this is not Kisaki. This is Hanemiya Kazutora. Tokyo Revengers has a lot of phenomenal characters and Kazutora is no exception.

I bet many of you don’t like the guy. But I do. In fact, he is my favourite character in the series. Yes. Really.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead of Tokyo Revengers anime NOT the manga.

Introduction

Kazutora is one of those characters who have a lot of complexity filled into them. They do bad things at the start and have their own reasoning for it (doesn’t matter how absurd they are) but they ultimately redeem themselves in the end whether someone likes it or not.

It is up to the viewer if they want to sympathise with the character or not. Many of you may have already done it, but many of you would have straight-up rejected the character (No mercy?).

Whatever you may have done, everything is understandable.

For me though, I understood him and very much have sympathy for him, but would have I forgiven him for what he did? Hmmm, that’s a bit tough, to be honest.

Watch this video to get more clarity on Kazutora’s character if not, keep reading.

The thing to understand

We all know that Kazutora killed Mikey’s brother, Sano Shinichiro, in his own bike shop in front of Baji, Mikey’s childhood friend.

It was a total wreck that shocked many fans out there, including me.

But what happened in the end?

Everything was blamed on Mikey.

It’s all Mikey’s fault

Kazutora

Realistically speaking, everybody knows that it wasn’t. Then the question is …

Whose fault was everything?

Was it Mikey’s?

Baji’s?

Kisaki‘s?

No.

It was all Kazutora’s fault, without a question, without a second thought however, the cause of his unstable mind was something else.

In the later episodes, it was Kisaki’s fault too.

But yes, Kazutora didn’t want to accept that he killed Mikey’s brother. He didn’t want to take the blame for everything that he did. Due to his unstable mind, he kept on blaming Mikey. He didn’t accept that it was his fault.

This was the reason that Kazutora became the second most hated character of the show after, of course, the ultimate villain: Kisaki Tetta.

• First of all, Kazutora didn’t need to steal a freaking bike from a shop.
• Second, Kazutora didn’t need to swing a freaking weapon on a person’s head.
• Third, he didn’t need to blame Mikey for it.

But he snapped.

If Mikey didn’t have a birthday then he and Baji wouldn’t have come to steal a bike for him. But Mikey did have a birthday hence, it was Mikey’s fault.

This was the thinking process of Kazutora.

Twisted, right?

Why blame others when the fault is inside you only?

After everything that he did, he was forgiven by Mikey in the end. That was a pretty big deal. But the reason behind Mikey forgiving Kazutora was a bit different.

Mikey did not forgive Kazutora

What?

Yes, really.

Are you shocked or confused? You would think I am spouting nonsense, right?

I just said that Mikey forgave his brother’s killer but it wasn’t Mikey speaking for himself. Mikey forgave Kazutora just because of his childhood friend, Baji.

In the first place, Kazutora didn’t even ask Mikey to forgive him. It was all Baji’s wish to advise Mikey to forgive Kazutora.

Baji had already told Mikey that Kazutora wanted to make Mikey happy but boy! How the events unfolded we all know. Nevertheless, Mikey did everything for Baji and NOT for himself, at least that is what I think.

Maybe, Mikey still hasn’t forgiven Kazutora? What do you think?

Would you have?

This could be a tricky question for many.

In place of Mikey, would you have forgiven Kazutora for his wrongdoings?

I bet that would be a tough decision to make for anyone.

What went wrong?

What went wrong with Kazutora exactly? Was it the stealing of the bike?

No.

The thought about stealing the bike was a majorly twisted one to come into Kazutora’s head, but he already had a twisted mind. Previous episodes of Tokyo Revengers has suggested that the childhood of Kazutora was basically ruined.

His backstory is present in a different digital material of Tokyo Revengers which is not found on the internet like the manga.

The instability between his parents disturbed him to the extent that a fun quote appeared from Kazutora’s mouth.

If you kill people, that makes you a bad guy. But if you kill enemies, that makes you a hero.

Hanemiya Kazutora

A great line, to be honest.

Ultimately his messed up childhood hurt his head that’s why his life was destroyed (went to juvie twice!)

Why I like Kazutora

The best part.

I already told you that Kazutora is my favourite in Tokyo Revengers.

One reason is, his character design is … fantastic. His hair is like banana peels but doesn’t matter because it looks so good.

The other reason being:

I like characters who have some kind of complexity in them (not in real life though).

In Attack On Titan, my favourite character is Reiner Braun, who has a lot of complexity that adds a lot of depth into his character, making him likeable to me.

Characters like Gaara of Naruto, Akaza of Demon Slayer, Light Yagami of Death Note are some of the characters that I like.

Kazutora falls under this category of complex and interesting characters who make you think certain things and really work up your mind. You get to see things from a different perspective and try to understand the character’s personality.

You will have to think outside the box sometimes in order to grasp the character’s ideals and values which can be a daunting task sometimes.

Understanding Kazutora was a challenging task for many people which was certain when I saw many reaction videos of episode 16 of Tokyo Revengers. People were, simply put, baffled.

All in all, Kazutora is precious because manga readers know what they have seen in the later chapters. Right, manga readers?

Do you know what else is precious or rather “who” is precious?

Hanagaki Takemichi. Read this blog post because don’t sleep on him, I am telling you!