User:Welcometothegloria

Special agent theo, the world's most annoying Hakaze apologist, reporting for duty. Will theo ever stop talking about Kaoru? Top ten questions science still can't answer. Anyhow, I like to tl things sometimes, and, you guessed it, it's almost exclusively Kaoru content. What can I say? I am a man of culture.    

(Bridal_Flower)_Kaoru_Hakaze_Frameless_Bloomed.png The Man, The Myth, The Legend
I present to you now Hakaze Kaoru, the single most wonderful boy in the entire world. As a devout Hakaze apologist, I feel the need to, for better or for worse, dispel any common misconceptions about his person no matter the cost. And so, my heart on my sleeve, I step into the dangerous world of the Ensemble Stars fandom.

In the past, and occasionally even still, Kaoru has been seen by friends and fans alike as nothing more than a playboy character who only gets motivated by girls. On the surface, yes, I am sure you can make this assumption. However, this could not be further from his true nature. Though it may not seem like it, in reality he is just a man plagued with grief and looking for something to combat it. Perhaps the excessive dating was not the best way to go about his search, but nevertheless this is how things happened. As he has gotten older and more mature, you can see he has learnt to find love in other places.





Baby Steps
In the recent year, Kaoru has realised he can find love and appreciation in his friends and his unit. While typically distancing himself from his schoolmates, this year Kaoru has begun to call all of his unitmates by their first names--something he would have never done before--and he even goes as far as to call Rei his partner on occasion. This is an enormous step-up from avoiding them all together. Despite his history of poor relationships with men, particularly the one with his father, Kaoru has learnt that not all men are as bad as he once thought. Foul relationships have soiled his perception, but gentle ones have changed his life forever. And, while it has taken him a while to get to this point, I truly believe he is far stronger and far better because of it. There's a certain newfound sense of happiness that has come with this change, and it's a happiness we never would have seen without this realisation and acceptance. 



Baby of the Wasteland
Despite his assumed frivolous nature, this is only a kind of coping mechanism to deal with the death of his mother. Throughout his home life, as mentioned, his relationship with his father has been incredibly poor. On the contrary, he has, and continues to, held his mother quite dear to him. She was a kind and hardworking woman of which he misses substantially. While his relationships with his siblings aren't exactly bad, in my own opinion, his mother is the only person he has ever truly felt loved by, and, as such, his behaviour has stemmed from that as he desperately seeks out someone to love him in the same way she did. Again, as he matures, he discovers unconditional love from a woman is not the only love he needs. Rather, his friends and his unit help him to appreciate the sort of love they hold between themselves, and he learns to seek out that love instead of the previous short bursts of admiration that really mean nothing to him.  

The Sleeping Princess
While in the past Kaoru may have only flirted with Anzu because she was the only girl around, as time goes on, he does end up finding a very strong attachment to her. In whichever way you may choose to interpret it, it is undeniable he cares for her very deeply, wanting to keep her happy and healthy in any way he can. During Aquarium, he lectures her about how hard she works and how awful it would be if she were to work herself too hard beyond the reversible norm. Now, this particular piece of dialogue seems very personally motivated, leading me to believe this is the very same thing that happened to his mother. He has said she suffered from an illness and would take him to the Aquarium on her better days, but I believe this illness may have been caused by overworking. Part of the reason why Kaoru likes Anzu so much is because of how similar she is to his mother. Both hardworking, selfless and kind, he cannot stand the thought of going through that very same loss again.

(Wave-Riding_Surfer)_Kaoru_Hakaze_Frameless.png A Child in Disguise
Kaoru tends to let his guard down around Anzu, more so than he does anyone else. This is particularly important as he feels comfortable enough around her to show his true, damaged self. While he does not appear to be so and though he puts on an act, deep down he is just a frail child, battling the demons of his family as well as that of his own. Though, with the way he sees Anzu, he is able to more comfortably be weak around her, despite still wanting to have the image of a cool senior. One of the things I, personally, love most about Kaoru is the amount he feels and shows that feeling. In several of his stories, especially his gacha stories, he can be found crying, close to it or just past it. It is in this very weakness that he shows his strength; it is the ability to face and not run from his emotions, even when this can often be seen as more feminine (and for no good reason), that truly makes him strong, and I admire that a lot. The ability to show weakness around another person, too, is even stronger.

(Amusement_Park_Showtime)_Kaoru_Hakaze_Frameless_Bloomed.png Reliability
<p style="text-align:center;">While his Yumenosaki days still, in a sense, haunt him, Kaoru has truly grown into a loving and caring person. This part of him, while always there, had remained dormant until the latter half of his third year, during which he decides there are several people he wants to protect. Anzu, UNDEAD, his friends--he comes to develop his own sense of love, one that works the best for him, and in this, he discovers there are people he wants to protect and watch over. While it is a very strange change for them, his juniors in UNDEAD seem to get much of this. Before, Kaoru would never care much for his juniors, forgetting Adonis' name for a while and calling Koga "wanchan" instead of his actual name. As he moves past Yumenosaki and dives into the real world, as an adult he finds himself wanting to act more like a senior despite feeling like it may already be too late to reverse everyone's opinions of him. Though he cannot do anything to fix it now, he sincerely regrets his younger, more immature self.

(Sweet-Smelling_Skater)_Kaoru_Hakaze_Frameless_Bloomed.png The Strength of an Idol
<p style="text-align:center;">At the onset of his career at Yumenosaki, Kaoru tended to hate practice and many times would skip to go on dates or do anything to avoid going home. A lot of the time, Kaoru has not been motivated to pursue idol work because of the lack of encouragement at home. While his sister does support him, his father repeatedly tells him to quit, which he comes close to doing in Starfes. The relationship with his father is evident from the way he talks about him. In Starfes again, he refers to his father as "父親" his male parent and even "家の男ども" the men of my family--both of which are incredibly impersonal and distant. The two of them fought about Kaoru's status as an idol often, so it is no wonder he had no motivation to continue. In the current year, and after moving out of his family residence to the ES dorms, Kaoru has been far more motivated to work, even coming early to practice and noting how his own skills have improved. He takes daily life and work with a slight more of happiness, facing the world with a far more genuine smile than before.

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