Kida Masaomi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rabukidastrophes) wrote2010-06-27 06:55 pm
rabukidastrophes) wrote2010-06-27 06:55 pm
End of Anime + Novels Essays! SPOILERS!
Okay, so this passing Friday, the Durarara!! anime ended. There will be two more episodes appearing on DVD, and of course we are all hoping for more seasons to cover the rest of the novels, but since that would involved a lot of waiting and self restraint on my part, I dipped into ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anni_fiesta's journal and read all of her provided Durarara!! translations. Now that I am FULL OF SPOILERS, I have many things to essay on regarding the end of the anime, and where things eventually go. Many of these essays involve questions, and if you have MORE SPOILERS THAN ME and want to add in anything, I will more than appreciate the help.
On Orihara Izaya
So. Kida hates Izaya more than anything in the entiiiiire world. At the point in canon I have taken in from (After episode 19, I believe?) he still hasn't spoken to Izaya since the events in which Izaya traumatized him for life. And since Kida is very much still chained by his past, and his feelings that he is a terrible person for being unable to find the courage to save his girlfriend, anything touching upon that subject, PARTICULARLY Izaya is prone to doing things just to grind salt into the wound, has the effect of making him completely freeze up.
It's really sort of entertaining. But anyway. Kida thinks of Izaya as a 'monster who uses words', and the fact that Izaya doesn't have Shizuo's terrifying strength is pretty much irrelevant. He would frankly RATHER be hit by a vending machine then have to talk to Izaya. His defense around Izaya, at this point in time, is to simply talk as little as necessary and remain totally emotionless. This really just results in taking it longer for Izaya to hit his buttons and make him freak out, but it's the only defense he really has.
By the end of book 3, or rather by the end of the anime, Kida has confronted his fears. He has not really defeated them, and (as I'll explain more later) he remains something of a pussy in many aspects. But on the subject of how terrible he feels because of what happened to Saki, and how much he hates himself for being too much of a coward to save her, and how much Izaya scares the shit out of him for knowing everything he's done, he is more or less on the road to recovery for the better.
I DO plan to update Kida to end-of-anime once some things have played out. And that will be fun because his attitude on Izaya shifts from "Aaaaa aaa I hate him I can't talk to him what's he doing this time" to "I hate you you are a bitch die die die die and I hope bugs eat your rotting corpse".
Basically! Kida starts enjoying healthy barely contained loathing! He's a complete dick to Kanra-san online, despite this giving off the appearance of him being the one that is an ass, and he doesn't mince words when talking with Izaya on the phone. He stops being as guarded and becomes a lot more aggressive.
And that is all fun and amazing because while Kida does all of this he still goes to work for Izaya.
Seriously what?
And this is why I say that while Kida is recovering with many of his issues, he's really not uh. Totally all right or anything. Because not only does he put himself on a bus, but he goes to fucking Shinjuku and gets a job working for Orihara Izaya, who has done severe psychological damage to both him AND his girlfriend. But they will do research for him and take his money instead of getting normal healthy jobs that are not connected to Izaya which is what you should do if you want to be a more mentally stable person.
I have THOUGHTS on this subject. I would like to see the conversation in which Izaya hires Kida and Saki. I'm also not sure if they were meant to be long term employees, like Namie is, or if they were just hired for that one job to go find Jinnai. I suspect Kida's reasons for working with Izaya have to do with keeping an eye on him. And if not for the fact that I am sure Jinnai could track down and hurt Izaya ALL ON HIS OWN I would sort of suspect Kida might have tipped him off.
Anyway. For whatever reason he works for Izaya while openly hating him. Which is still a healthier step up from being absolutely terrified of him and avoiding him at all costs and freezing up whenever he is around, but is probably a step down as far as intelligent life choices go.
On Saki
Okay the fandom may have mixed opinions on Saki or something. IDK, I don't follow fandom. I don't care either. I freaking adore Saki.
The thing with Saki is that I really think she's just a girl!Kida. They have similar looks, similar personalities, but she is much weaker and more feminine in the things she does, the way she is broken and fails.
In the novels, Izaya mentions that these teenage girls he collects are just girls who were abused in some way by the people they love, but despite this abuse they continued to love and be devoted to them. Izaya just transferred that devotion to himself through manipulation. Saki mentions that she thinks Izaya knows everything, and I imagine through following his orders maybe she freed herself from the abusive love of her (I assume?) father. It also mentions that the girls think of him as a fortune teller, so basically by following his plots to the letter, whatever he promised would happen totally happened, and psychologically broken little girls that they were, they bought into Izaya's charm and manipulation and became devoted little pawns.
So basically, yeah. In a lot of ways Saki is undoubtedly psychologically weak. She's a follower, she's broken, she's the type of person who will love someone and not hold a grudge against the pain they cause her. Theoretically if Kida WAS an abusive boyfriend who beat and raped her, she'd probably continue to love him anyway, and I really don't think she is mad at Izaya for the horrific things he's done to her. But in the end she had to choose to save Kida or continue to follow Izaya's instructions, and she wanted to save the boy that she was in love with.
The thing about Durarara!! is that it's all about messed up love relationships. And Kida/Saki, adorable as it is, has several layers of being fucked up to it. None-the-less their love is not less true just because she is sort of submissive and broken or because he is a lying liar face that can never ask anyone else for help, or because neither of them can quite escape Izaya's influence on their lives.
I really really love their relationship and ship it though. I love Saki's airy personality that accepts absolutely terrible things and doesn't apologize or feel embarrassment. I love the way that her love really IS kind of crazily devoted, and she doesn't feel jealousy over Kida and other girls. And I love the way she is SO broken that she continued to act like she was crippled because Izaya told her to, even after she'd already had her legs broken because Izaya set her up for it.
And only slightly related, but I love the way Izaya didn't seem to expect that she would turn on him, but doesn't at all mind either.
On Polygamy
THIS subject is the main reason I won't update Kida in SC until I know how canon handles Kida having a girlfriend. Because while in his heart he is currently devoted to Saki still, technically he considers them broken up and thus he is available to go on dates and do whatever else he wants without it qualifying as cheating.
But to be perfectly honest I don't know for sure if Kida's polygamy is a show he uses to flirt with all women while still keeping them at arms length, or if he would genuinely continue to hit on other women even while being with Saki.
Similarly, Saki tells Kida that she doesn't care how many women he hits on, or dates or sleeps with, because she knows he'll always love her the most (Izaya-san told her so...). But I don't know if this is TRUE or if that is the abused little girl inside her talking.
Basically. I LIKE POLYGAMY, and from a character standpoint I think a swinging couple that is comfortably in love with and ultra devoted to each other, but still hits on and flirts with other people sounds fabulous. In my personal headcanon, Saki eventually starts going to Raira with Kida and Mikado and Anri, and they become an OT4. And Saki hits on Anri's fabulous chest, and tells Masaomi that if he doesn't hurry and make his move, she's going to steal Mikado from him, and basically they just flirtatiously hit on everyone and have a grand old time.
And this would be AMAZING!!
But! Kida and how he treats women is a HUGE part of his canon and I don't want to get it wrong because I made assumptions. So I need something from the novels that tells me how he acts regarding them once he's officially with Saki. And basically I think there are four possibilities.
A) Kida continues to act exactly the same as ever. He flirts with and hits on girls all the time, even while Saki is around, she may very well enjoy it and join in.
B) Kida continues to act the same as ever, but only when Saki is not around. When he's with her he doesn't do much shameless flirting with anyone but her, and when he's alone he doesn't really try to pick girls up, but will still complement them outrageously.
C) Kida continues to act the same as ever, but ends everything with 'but sadly MAI RABURI RABU I have a girlfriend who I love forever and am eternally devoted to so we can never be!" basically he still flirts with girls outrageously but always lets them know he's in a committed relationship so it's just flirting.
D) Kida actually stops flirting with girls all the freaking time.
Option A would be my ideal, but I think C or D might be the most likely. B seems unlikely since that's sort of skeevy.
But I cannot update til I know the answer to this, because once Kida is taken from post-anime he'll consider himself more or less married to Saki.
Getting on a Bus
So finding out that Mikado was the leader of the Dollars and that Anri was the slasher punched Kida in the kidneys a bit. But it didn't really make his loyalty waver, it just made him scared. In the end he couldn't confront Mikado himself with the information, and when it turned out his gang was going to try to kill Mikado he found he wasn't afraid anymore. Couldn't even remember what he'd ever been afraid of, really. He was ready to die and ready to kill.
Briefly on that subject, I think the reason Kida faultered in saving Saki is because he'd really never mentally prepared for it. He thought gang wars was just some good, rough, childish fun. It never occurred to him that he could die from it, that his girlfriend could get seriously mangled. They were just fucking middleschoolers, for chrissakes.
So when it happened he utterly panicked. He'd gotten used to taking advice from Izaya by that point, and frantically tried to call him to find out what he should do. I honestly think if Izaya had answered the phone and just said "Go in there and kick their asses, duh", Kida would have done exactly that. But between fear and panic and being utterly abandoned for anyone to give him a direction and suddenly completely out of his depth he just. Froze. He couldn't make a decision. He snapped and Kadota saved the day and every day since then Kida's been trying to cope with why the hell did he freeze, why couldn't he save her, why was he such a useless coward.
So! When the exact same thing starts to happen again, he KNOWS what to do. He knows that not risking his life has made him utterly miserable. He hates himself, he questions himself. He could not cope going through it again if Mikado were hurt. In light of that, giving up his life is easy. Killing is easy. There's no reason to hesitate.
Anyway, back on track. By the end of the anime Kida sort of knows stuff. The three never really fully explain themselves, but they all agree that they trust each other and are sorry they weren't more upfront, that they shouldn't have lied. I don't know if Kida really understands Anri's brainwashing powers, or Mikado's dollars gang, but he knows that it's THERE, and they know he's a gang leader.
I would like a more detailed canon explanation on why Kida leaves Ikebukuro and runs off with Saki. I think if not for the fact that he went to work for Izaya it makes a certain degree of sense to leave the town that nearly broke him several times over and just recover for a bit. However, he completely cuts himself off from Mikado. While he continues to appear in the chat room as Bakyura, and it's an open secret that Mikado knows Bakyura is Kida, Bakyura doesn't really talk to Tanaka Taro so much as the chat in general. He also never talks privately to Mikado, he doesn't call him or answer his calls, he doesn't explain why he dropped out of school and ran away, and he doesn't say where he's gone or what he's doing.
Basically, after confessing to Mikado that he was afraid Mikado was drifting away from him and it scared him, he totally cuts himself off from Mikado and Anri with no explination.
Now, theoretically Kida is doing better, emotionally and psychologically in a lot of ways. After all he has a girlfriend that loves him, he isn't a gang leader anymore, and he's found the balls to tell Izaya to go fuck himself. But CLEARLY he is still having issues, since he did not choose to go back to living a happy ordinary life with Mikado and Anri like he wants, and instead went to Shinjuku and started working for the person he hates the most.
Since everything Anri, Mikado, and Kida seems to do revolves around trying to get back their ordinary life, I imagine Kida is DOING DIRE SHIT AGAIN and not telling Mikado about it.
I also suspect that now that his playful mask has shattered, Kida isn't quite sure how to interact with Mikado and Anri. He's a very good liar. But now they know that there is something underneath his happy-happy facade, and I really don't think he'd know how to cope if they started calling him on it whenever he was secretly miserable, or if they started questioning him every time he was acting happy, or if he would feel bad putting on that front again knowing that he used it to deceive them.
But! I don't think that's his reason for cutting town, I just don't know what it is. This is somewhat troublesome since if I update Kida to end of anime and he starts not wanting to interact with Mikado or Anri, I want to know why he'd be doing that.
Mikado and Gangbanging
So, in later volumes, Mikado gets into some dire shit and Kida is still AWOL. Aoba, a creepy little Izaya wannabe, starts manipulating shit so that he can get control of Mikado, thinking that through him he can control the Dollars, and that Mikado is a little pussy pushover.
He discovers that Mikado is NOT actually a pussy when Mikado stabs his hand with a pen and scares the shit out of him. Then Mikado uses the strength of Aoba's gang, the Blue Squares, to start going through the Dollars and cleaning house. Basically Mikado has decided to take control of his gang and get rid of all the bad apples, by force. But since Mikado is a scrawny little non-combatant, this process involves a lot of getting his face kicked in. Kida, who is finally moving back to Ikebukuro, sees a completely beaten up Mikado on the street and I guess his reaction is something like "WTF MIKADO?!??!??". Mikado roughly explains that he's trying to make the Dollar's a better gang and is taking responsibility for it, and Kida is probably something like NO BAD END and Mikado is like no I'm doing this so that once things are better you can come back and we can all be happy again.
And. IDK. That conversation does not end in Kida kissing Mikado's ring and promising eternal devotion. But shit son. Mikado's name means "Dragon Peak Emperor" and Kida's means "Righteous Vassal" so if this series does not culminate in the Dollars becoming an underground mafia with Kida as Mikado's right hand man and primary bruiser I will eat my hat.
At the VERY LEAST, Kida is back in town, and clearly pussies out for the time being. But he's not functionally capable of ignoring the fact that Kida is getting the life beaten out of him regularly. I think he'll either A) try to get information behind the scenes on who Mikado needs to get out of the dollars and get there first. OR B) he'll tell Mikado that if he is going to do this crazy ass shit that is getting him hurt, Kida is going to come with him because goddamn it Mikado you cannot fight for shit.
Joining the Debt Collectors
So, after working for Izaya briefly, Izaya gets stabbed in the side and then disappears off the radar for an entire volume. Kida and Saki decide to head back to Ikebukuro, and SOMEHOW Kida ends up working for the debt collectors.
Yes I mean Tom and Shizuo and (presumably) Vorona, if she hasn't left yet.
This is HILARIOUS and makes me giddy, since Kida is such a thug at heart so it's really the perfect job for him. I DESPERATELY CRAVE information on this subject, as I am playing with Shizuo-mun quite a bit in SC and would like to know if I am doing it right.
All I really know right now is that at some point Kida calls Shizuo 'Shizu-chan', and of course Shizuo flips his shit. Kida, thinking he is about to die, mentally says his goodbyes to Anri, Saki, and Mikado. But Shizuo only flicks him in the forehead, rendering him instantly unconscious.
But seriously I totally want translations of this aaaaaaaaa I am so excited \o/
Also I wonder if Shizuo likes Kida as his kouhai as much as he liked Vorona as one.
Also if Kida hits on Vorona I know whether or not he's still a playa.
And, in conclusion, I think I have covered all the subjects I wanted to. As I said before, if you know extra info, have opinions, or questions, or other essay requests or whatever, please hit me up <3 I do not get tired of talking about Kida. And I want allllll the novel info I can get my grubby little paws on.
anni_fiesta's journal and read all of her provided Durarara!! translations. Now that I am FULL OF SPOILERS, I have many things to essay on regarding the end of the anime, and where things eventually go. Many of these essays involve questions, and if you have MORE SPOILERS THAN ME and want to add in anything, I will more than appreciate the help.On Orihara Izaya
So. Kida hates Izaya more than anything in the entiiiiire world. At the point in canon I have taken in from (After episode 19, I believe?) he still hasn't spoken to Izaya since the events in which Izaya traumatized him for life. And since Kida is very much still chained by his past, and his feelings that he is a terrible person for being unable to find the courage to save his girlfriend, anything touching upon that subject, PARTICULARLY Izaya is prone to doing things just to grind salt into the wound, has the effect of making him completely freeze up.
It's really sort of entertaining. But anyway. Kida thinks of Izaya as a 'monster who uses words', and the fact that Izaya doesn't have Shizuo's terrifying strength is pretty much irrelevant. He would frankly RATHER be hit by a vending machine then have to talk to Izaya. His defense around Izaya, at this point in time, is to simply talk as little as necessary and remain totally emotionless. This really just results in taking it longer for Izaya to hit his buttons and make him freak out, but it's the only defense he really has.
By the end of book 3, or rather by the end of the anime, Kida has confronted his fears. He has not really defeated them, and (as I'll explain more later) he remains something of a pussy in many aspects. But on the subject of how terrible he feels because of what happened to Saki, and how much he hates himself for being too much of a coward to save her, and how much Izaya scares the shit out of him for knowing everything he's done, he is more or less on the road to recovery for the better.
I DO plan to update Kida to end-of-anime once some things have played out. And that will be fun because his attitude on Izaya shifts from "Aaaaa aaa I hate him I can't talk to him what's he doing this time" to "I hate you you are a bitch die die die die and I hope bugs eat your rotting corpse".
Basically! Kida starts enjoying healthy barely contained loathing! He's a complete dick to Kanra-san online, despite this giving off the appearance of him being the one that is an ass, and he doesn't mince words when talking with Izaya on the phone. He stops being as guarded and becomes a lot more aggressive.
And that is all fun and amazing because while Kida does all of this he still goes to work for Izaya.
Seriously what?
And this is why I say that while Kida is recovering with many of his issues, he's really not uh. Totally all right or anything. Because not only does he put himself on a bus, but he goes to fucking Shinjuku and gets a job working for Orihara Izaya, who has done severe psychological damage to both him AND his girlfriend. But they will do research for him and take his money instead of getting normal healthy jobs that are not connected to Izaya which is what you should do if you want to be a more mentally stable person.
I have THOUGHTS on this subject. I would like to see the conversation in which Izaya hires Kida and Saki. I'm also not sure if they were meant to be long term employees, like Namie is, or if they were just hired for that one job to go find Jinnai. I suspect Kida's reasons for working with Izaya have to do with keeping an eye on him. And if not for the fact that I am sure Jinnai could track down and hurt Izaya ALL ON HIS OWN I would sort of suspect Kida might have tipped him off.
Anyway. For whatever reason he works for Izaya while openly hating him. Which is still a healthier step up from being absolutely terrified of him and avoiding him at all costs and freezing up whenever he is around, but is probably a step down as far as intelligent life choices go.
On Saki
Okay the fandom may have mixed opinions on Saki or something. IDK, I don't follow fandom. I don't care either. I freaking adore Saki.
The thing with Saki is that I really think she's just a girl!Kida. They have similar looks, similar personalities, but she is much weaker and more feminine in the things she does, the way she is broken and fails.
In the novels, Izaya mentions that these teenage girls he collects are just girls who were abused in some way by the people they love, but despite this abuse they continued to love and be devoted to them. Izaya just transferred that devotion to himself through manipulation. Saki mentions that she thinks Izaya knows everything, and I imagine through following his orders maybe she freed herself from the abusive love of her (I assume?) father. It also mentions that the girls think of him as a fortune teller, so basically by following his plots to the letter, whatever he promised would happen totally happened, and psychologically broken little girls that they were, they bought into Izaya's charm and manipulation and became devoted little pawns.
So basically, yeah. In a lot of ways Saki is undoubtedly psychologically weak. She's a follower, she's broken, she's the type of person who will love someone and not hold a grudge against the pain they cause her. Theoretically if Kida WAS an abusive boyfriend who beat and raped her, she'd probably continue to love him anyway, and I really don't think she is mad at Izaya for the horrific things he's done to her. But in the end she had to choose to save Kida or continue to follow Izaya's instructions, and she wanted to save the boy that she was in love with.
The thing about Durarara!! is that it's all about messed up love relationships. And Kida/Saki, adorable as it is, has several layers of being fucked up to it. None-the-less their love is not less true just because she is sort of submissive and broken or because he is a lying liar face that can never ask anyone else for help, or because neither of them can quite escape Izaya's influence on their lives.
I really really love their relationship and ship it though. I love Saki's airy personality that accepts absolutely terrible things and doesn't apologize or feel embarrassment. I love the way that her love really IS kind of crazily devoted, and she doesn't feel jealousy over Kida and other girls. And I love the way she is SO broken that she continued to act like she was crippled because Izaya told her to, even after she'd already had her legs broken because Izaya set her up for it.
And only slightly related, but I love the way Izaya didn't seem to expect that she would turn on him, but doesn't at all mind either.
On Polygamy
THIS subject is the main reason I won't update Kida in SC until I know how canon handles Kida having a girlfriend. Because while in his heart he is currently devoted to Saki still, technically he considers them broken up and thus he is available to go on dates and do whatever else he wants without it qualifying as cheating.
But to be perfectly honest I don't know for sure if Kida's polygamy is a show he uses to flirt with all women while still keeping them at arms length, or if he would genuinely continue to hit on other women even while being with Saki.
Similarly, Saki tells Kida that she doesn't care how many women he hits on, or dates or sleeps with, because she knows he'll always love her the most (Izaya-san told her so...). But I don't know if this is TRUE or if that is the abused little girl inside her talking.
Basically. I LIKE POLYGAMY, and from a character standpoint I think a swinging couple that is comfortably in love with and ultra devoted to each other, but still hits on and flirts with other people sounds fabulous. In my personal headcanon, Saki eventually starts going to Raira with Kida and Mikado and Anri, and they become an OT4. And Saki hits on Anri's fabulous chest, and tells Masaomi that if he doesn't hurry and make his move, she's going to steal Mikado from him, and basically they just flirtatiously hit on everyone and have a grand old time.
And this would be AMAZING!!
But! Kida and how he treats women is a HUGE part of his canon and I don't want to get it wrong because I made assumptions. So I need something from the novels that tells me how he acts regarding them once he's officially with Saki. And basically I think there are four possibilities.
A) Kida continues to act exactly the same as ever. He flirts with and hits on girls all the time, even while Saki is around, she may very well enjoy it and join in.
B) Kida continues to act the same as ever, but only when Saki is not around. When he's with her he doesn't do much shameless flirting with anyone but her, and when he's alone he doesn't really try to pick girls up, but will still complement them outrageously.
C) Kida continues to act the same as ever, but ends everything with 'but sadly MAI RABURI RABU I have a girlfriend who I love forever and am eternally devoted to so we can never be!" basically he still flirts with girls outrageously but always lets them know he's in a committed relationship so it's just flirting.
D) Kida actually stops flirting with girls all the freaking time.
Option A would be my ideal, but I think C or D might be the most likely. B seems unlikely since that's sort of skeevy.
But I cannot update til I know the answer to this, because once Kida is taken from post-anime he'll consider himself more or less married to Saki.
Getting on a Bus
So finding out that Mikado was the leader of the Dollars and that Anri was the slasher punched Kida in the kidneys a bit. But it didn't really make his loyalty waver, it just made him scared. In the end he couldn't confront Mikado himself with the information, and when it turned out his gang was going to try to kill Mikado he found he wasn't afraid anymore. Couldn't even remember what he'd ever been afraid of, really. He was ready to die and ready to kill.
Briefly on that subject, I think the reason Kida faultered in saving Saki is because he'd really never mentally prepared for it. He thought gang wars was just some good, rough, childish fun. It never occurred to him that he could die from it, that his girlfriend could get seriously mangled. They were just fucking middleschoolers, for chrissakes.
So when it happened he utterly panicked. He'd gotten used to taking advice from Izaya by that point, and frantically tried to call him to find out what he should do. I honestly think if Izaya had answered the phone and just said "Go in there and kick their asses, duh", Kida would have done exactly that. But between fear and panic and being utterly abandoned for anyone to give him a direction and suddenly completely out of his depth he just. Froze. He couldn't make a decision. He snapped and Kadota saved the day and every day since then Kida's been trying to cope with why the hell did he freeze, why couldn't he save her, why was he such a useless coward.
So! When the exact same thing starts to happen again, he KNOWS what to do. He knows that not risking his life has made him utterly miserable. He hates himself, he questions himself. He could not cope going through it again if Mikado were hurt. In light of that, giving up his life is easy. Killing is easy. There's no reason to hesitate.
Anyway, back on track. By the end of the anime Kida sort of knows stuff. The three never really fully explain themselves, but they all agree that they trust each other and are sorry they weren't more upfront, that they shouldn't have lied. I don't know if Kida really understands Anri's brainwashing powers, or Mikado's dollars gang, but he knows that it's THERE, and they know he's a gang leader.
I would like a more detailed canon explanation on why Kida leaves Ikebukuro and runs off with Saki. I think if not for the fact that he went to work for Izaya it makes a certain degree of sense to leave the town that nearly broke him several times over and just recover for a bit. However, he completely cuts himself off from Mikado. While he continues to appear in the chat room as Bakyura, and it's an open secret that Mikado knows Bakyura is Kida, Bakyura doesn't really talk to Tanaka Taro so much as the chat in general. He also never talks privately to Mikado, he doesn't call him or answer his calls, he doesn't explain why he dropped out of school and ran away, and he doesn't say where he's gone or what he's doing.
Basically, after confessing to Mikado that he was afraid Mikado was drifting away from him and it scared him, he totally cuts himself off from Mikado and Anri with no explination.
Now, theoretically Kida is doing better, emotionally and psychologically in a lot of ways. After all he has a girlfriend that loves him, he isn't a gang leader anymore, and he's found the balls to tell Izaya to go fuck himself. But CLEARLY he is still having issues, since he did not choose to go back to living a happy ordinary life with Mikado and Anri like he wants, and instead went to Shinjuku and started working for the person he hates the most.
Since everything Anri, Mikado, and Kida seems to do revolves around trying to get back their ordinary life, I imagine Kida is DOING DIRE SHIT AGAIN and not telling Mikado about it.
I also suspect that now that his playful mask has shattered, Kida isn't quite sure how to interact with Mikado and Anri. He's a very good liar. But now they know that there is something underneath his happy-happy facade, and I really don't think he'd know how to cope if they started calling him on it whenever he was secretly miserable, or if they started questioning him every time he was acting happy, or if he would feel bad putting on that front again knowing that he used it to deceive them.
But! I don't think that's his reason for cutting town, I just don't know what it is. This is somewhat troublesome since if I update Kida to end of anime and he starts not wanting to interact with Mikado or Anri, I want to know why he'd be doing that.
Mikado and Gangbanging
So, in later volumes, Mikado gets into some dire shit and Kida is still AWOL. Aoba, a creepy little Izaya wannabe, starts manipulating shit so that he can get control of Mikado, thinking that through him he can control the Dollars, and that Mikado is a little pussy pushover.
He discovers that Mikado is NOT actually a pussy when Mikado stabs his hand with a pen and scares the shit out of him. Then Mikado uses the strength of Aoba's gang, the Blue Squares, to start going through the Dollars and cleaning house. Basically Mikado has decided to take control of his gang and get rid of all the bad apples, by force. But since Mikado is a scrawny little non-combatant, this process involves a lot of getting his face kicked in. Kida, who is finally moving back to Ikebukuro, sees a completely beaten up Mikado on the street and I guess his reaction is something like "WTF MIKADO?!??!??". Mikado roughly explains that he's trying to make the Dollar's a better gang and is taking responsibility for it, and Kida is probably something like NO BAD END and Mikado is like no I'm doing this so that once things are better you can come back and we can all be happy again.
And. IDK. That conversation does not end in Kida kissing Mikado's ring and promising eternal devotion. But shit son. Mikado's name means "Dragon Peak Emperor" and Kida's means "Righteous Vassal" so if this series does not culminate in the Dollars becoming an underground mafia with Kida as Mikado's right hand man and primary bruiser I will eat my hat.
At the VERY LEAST, Kida is back in town, and clearly pussies out for the time being. But he's not functionally capable of ignoring the fact that Kida is getting the life beaten out of him regularly. I think he'll either A) try to get information behind the scenes on who Mikado needs to get out of the dollars and get there first. OR B) he'll tell Mikado that if he is going to do this crazy ass shit that is getting him hurt, Kida is going to come with him because goddamn it Mikado you cannot fight for shit.
Joining the Debt Collectors
So, after working for Izaya briefly, Izaya gets stabbed in the side and then disappears off the radar for an entire volume. Kida and Saki decide to head back to Ikebukuro, and SOMEHOW Kida ends up working for the debt collectors.
Yes I mean Tom and Shizuo and (presumably) Vorona, if she hasn't left yet.
This is HILARIOUS and makes me giddy, since Kida is such a thug at heart so it's really the perfect job for him. I DESPERATELY CRAVE information on this subject, as I am playing with Shizuo-mun quite a bit in SC and would like to know if I am doing it right.
All I really know right now is that at some point Kida calls Shizuo 'Shizu-chan', and of course Shizuo flips his shit. Kida, thinking he is about to die, mentally says his goodbyes to Anri, Saki, and Mikado. But Shizuo only flicks him in the forehead, rendering him instantly unconscious.
But seriously I totally want translations of this aaaaaaaaa I am so excited \o/
Also I wonder if Shizuo likes Kida as his kouhai as much as he liked Vorona as one.
Also if Kida hits on Vorona I know whether or not he's still a playa.
And, in conclusion, I think I have covered all the subjects I wanted to. As I said before, if you know extra info, have opinions, or questions, or other essay requests or whatever, please hit me up <3 I do not get tired of talking about Kida. And I want allllll the novel info I can get my grubby little paws on.