The Case of Kuji Chikai

Sarazanmai Episode 8 “I Want to Connect, but We’ll Never Meet Again”, a more Chikai-centric episode. Which means we finally get to analyse him more.

This post will be discussing child abuse, child grooming, paedophiles, and incest. Spoilers regarding the episode within.

This week, we finally get to find the start of our forgotten memories that have been hinted at throughout the show. We learn that after the shooting, Toi threw his football into the river as Kazuki watched and told him he needs to give these things up now.

It’s the same in the present, he stands at the bridge with Chikai, who tells him he needs him, but not only that he needs him, but that Toi needs Chikai as well.

Now, he’s reset in Toi’s mind that Toi needs him. He’s telling Toi something he’s planted in his brain a good while now. Toi needs him to survive. There’s no one else out there who can care for him. This isn’t Toi’s decision or words, he’s told he needs him. Toi’s grown distant from the adults who previously cared for him because of Chikai. This is the only adult who can love him now, anyone would hate him for being a bad person, he needs his brother. Which is of course off set by the fact he now has friends who still care for him despite knowing he killed someone.

The other thing about this is Chikai telling Toi he needs him. As an adult guardian, whether it is to your own child, a sibling, or any child you are raising for whatever reason, there’s this understood rule. While they may need you, you can’t tell them you need them. Your goal as their guardian is to help them grow up and become independent. If they feel that you need them, they can’t move away and become independent. By telling Toi he needs him, he’s keeping Toi close, he keeps him from moving away. It keeps Toi under his thumb.

You can also talk about the romantic coding to the understanding of telling someone you need them. You don’t really tell a family member you need them even if you’re the child in the situation. Feeling as though you need each other in life holds a heavy romantic meaning.

Toi reaffirms to Toi that he wants Toi to come with him. We can talk about a rather romantic tone to this idea too; this idea of eloping, getting away from the bad memories, the bad people, going away where they’re safe and together.

There’s also a consistency in shots of Chikai from Toi’s perspective.

Chikai from Toi’s perspective is typically blocking out light, his face is in darkness, he’s towering over him. He’s bigger than Toi, he’s someone blocking him from the light of the world. This is used to present a character as someone in darkness, a bad person, someone in this case keeping Toi from the normal light of the world. Of course, there’s the odd image out which shows the scene much brighter. This is from the leak of Toi’s secret. This version of events has been tampered with by Toi’s mind leading him to have a better image of his brother. He wants to believe his brother is a good person, so he sees him in the light. In his head, Chikai is good, his saviour, his light. However, it’s different in the reality, which he’s trying to ignore.

Moving back to this scene, when Chikai tells Toi to come with him, for the first time in presumably a while, Toi hesitates. He’s been begging to go with his brother and be together, but suddenly he has friends, he has people who know the truth and still care for him, and he doesn’t want to just disappear from their lives.

Toi immediately notices it, his brother doesn’t like it. Chikai’s eyebrows furrow, he’s noticed he’s lost a bit of control over Toi, and he doesn’t like it. Toi reassures him he going with him and he allows it, but he’s clearly unhappy that Toi has been making friends. He laughs it off though, giving himself the image of the caring brother who’ll let him say bye, and tells him he’ll wait.

They part ways with a simple threat; Toi has one day to say goodbye.

Chikai then happens to meet up with Enta, who’s at the arcade, with his grandma not paying much attention to what he’s doing. Enta is clearly annoyed after the leak got him caught last week, Kazuki found out he’d been the one sabotaging them since he was annoyed at Toi getting all of Kazuki’s attention. Enta in this situation is a young teen, on his own, no real supervision, clearly annoyed at his friends and the world. He’s a teen in one of the easiest situations to take advantage of.

Chikai, an adult who does not know this child approaches him, and rather than ask him what’s wrong, he does this. He tells him that if he hates these things, he should just throw them away. His friends aren’t doing what he wants? Just throw it away. His life here isn’t what he wants it to be? Just throw it away. He doesn’t need these things, he doesn’t need to face his failures when there’s an easy route. As he says this, Chikai is holding one of the blue balls, blue being Toi’s signature colour. This is going to come in a bit more later. An other point about this shot is once again, Chikai is tall, he’s an adult saying something for Enta to look up to. Enta doesn’t suspect this nice man of anything, and so sees him in the light unlike Toi does.

Enta here is presented very small, soft, cute, this very childish outfit of the cap and shorts, the lollipop in his mouth. Chikai leaning over him to play the game for him, standing rather close as he uses his right hand to do it. We’ve got this clear set up of someone very young and an adult being very close to him.

Enta thanks him with a lollipop and Chikai notices Reo and Mabu out after him. Rather than leaving Enta here, Chikai opts to take him out with him. Chikai knows fine well he’s about to put this completely unsuspecting child in danger, he’s been doing this for years, he’s a criminal, he knows these cops are after him and aren’t people to mess with. Chikai uses Enta to sneak around them and get away, hoping Enta is going to have some faith in him as a nice man.

Now that they’re out of the way of the cops, Chikai starts gathering a little info about this kid. He’s still not asking anything like “where’s your family”, or making any attempt to send him home or anywhere safe with adults he actually knows. Instead, he’s gonna start trying to build a bond with this kid he just met. How old is he? Wow kid, you sure are small. Haha it’s cute how you get annoyed at being called small. Still no attempt to part ways with this kid. And Then,

He puts his arm around him. He sneaks his arm round him to put his hand on Enta’s shoulder. This is weird to do to a kid in general, it’s not casual to rest your hand on someone’s far shoulder, it’s a showing of intimacy, it works to pull them closer towards you, even to bring their face closer to yours. No one casually holds a child in such a way. Especially given Japan is a lot less of a touchy-feely place, it’s weird to be touching a child he literally just met. Holding him this way is also very possessive, it’s not as easy for him to get away from. If Enta were to make a move to get away, Chikai can tighten on him.

Now we can actually return to the talk about that blue ball being Toi’s colour as Chikai talked about throwing it away. Chikai offers an exchange of information, building up knowledge of each other to form a bond. He tells him he’s got a brother Enta’s age, but Toi isn’t cute anymore. The issues in Toi’s life have forced him to grow up faster than the other kids and Chikai doesn’t like it. Toi’s lost his appeal to Chikai, he’s not small and cute anymore. Chikai has already said to Enta he’s small, and gotten his age. He’s showing intimacy towards him, he’s building up Enta’s trust in him, making Enta see him as a friend he will want to be around. Chikai is in the process of throwing Toi away because he got too grown up for him, and moving on to someone smaller, who still acts like he wants a kid to act.

Remember stranger danger? Remember when you were a kid and you were told to not go with strangers and not accept candy or ice cream from them? Now you’re grown up, you know that’s because the adults in your life didn’t want you abducted by a paedophile. Here is Enta at an amusement park with an adult man, eating ice cream. This is everything those PSAs told you not to do. Of note, this is the same amusement park Toi and Kazuki had their fake date in in episode 2.

We can debate if this is Chikai showing his heart, but I will call back to the start of the episode where this same man told Toi he has a day to decide to go with him, with the implication that otherwise he will never see him again, or he’ll be forced to go without saying goodbye to his friends, and was furrowing his brows at the suggestion Toi had someone else he cared about. With this in mind, he’s baiting. He’s showing he cares but putting himself down as if to make Enta go “you can’t be that bad, you have to have your reasons since you love your brother so much”. He’s wanting to make Enta sympathetic towards him so that he can bring Enta closer to him.

We are shown a flashback to when Chikai disposed of the gun, leading to Toi giving up football for him. In this scene, Toi has this belief that Chikai gave up everything for him. Toi has quickly taken on this belief, ignoring the fact his brother was already a criminal who’d been well involved in this scene before stealing the money. Toi has developed quickly to his brother’s its you and me against the world. Toi gives up what is most precious to him for Chikai and Chikai doesn’t actively push Toi to not do this, he doesn’t try and force his brother to a normal life and truly let him forget about the incident. Instead, he allows this, and makes Toi believe that there’s only him by his side. He can’t stay friends with Kazuki, he can’t keep his previous bonds, he can’t build new ones. Chikai could hide Toi’s involvement; in the present no one is after Toi. He could tell Toi to go to football, play his matches, keep his dream alive, but it benefits him for Toi to drop that ball and follow him.

This is a blatant lie. We know he told Toi that he needed him and that it was them against the world.

I know many people see Chikai as the honest, kind, earnest adult in this show, but even if you don’t think he’s a paedophile… here he is kicking a child at a man with a sword to use as a meat shield while he gets away. Chikai hasn’t built up anything to really care for Enta yet, and this gets across that at this point he really is just using him. Enta is expendible to him, he can throw this one away to get killed and find someone else, especially when he’s planning to get out of town anyway.

Enta ends up getting left to meet Reo and Mabu, narrowly getting away to hide from them. Thanks to Keppi and Sara however, we get a little more info for us.

We know that because Reo and Mabu are after him, Chikai has some sort of paraphilia, and here we get a quick shot of Mabu speaking to Enta’s grandmother who was meant to be watching him when he went off with a strange adult man they didn’t know. It’s possible that her knowledge of Chikai taking Enta with him is relevant to Reo and Mabu’s work.

Despite Chikai’s expectations, Enta survives (for now) and manages to catch up with him. Unluckily for him, Enta now knows that he’s definitely an awful person. He’s blown his chance with this kid so he quickly throws him away, takes back his suggestion of Enta giving up on his friends, throws him some lollipops (in Enta and Kazuki’s colours), and leaves. He ruined his chance here but he can always try another lonely kid after all, and he’s skipping town anyway.

Chikai takes a phone call, on the other end of the line is someone he’s planning to meet with after he skips town. Here he says Toi will be coming with him, despite up until this point he’s been trying to play as though Toi still has a chance. He’s been saying things like “he’s trying to choose between me and his buddies”, but here he lets it slip that he doesn’t have a choice. He’s going with Chikai. Toi hasn’t confirmed that himself yet, but Chikai says it’s happening. This was act to fool the kids, and make himself out as better than he is.

I will also say there is some suspicion on why Masa knows about Toi and why Chikai confirms he will be going with him

Skipping ahead, Toi and Kazuki have their farewell phone call, where Toi confirms he will be leaving with his brother and they will never see each other again. His brother has made him give up something important to him again, and it’s those who have a chance to rescue him from this situation. Toi looks dead inside.

Chikai knows this. Chikai knows what he’s done. He’s done it and kept Toi under his thumb, where he wants him to be. This shot works to make Chikai seem so much bigger than Toi, and Toi’s head fits right in the palm of his hand. He’s bigger, he’s in control, Toi is his to control like this. He fakes sympathy when this has gone right according to his plan.

In Conclusion

Chikai inappropriately touched a child, endangered that same child, and made some weird loaded comments to him. He’s being targetted by two cops who deal with people with paraphilias. He is actively manipulating Toi and continuing to separate him from anyone who may be able to help him. Chikai has all the buildings for a paedophile.