"Half" by Mukuhara Kazui (MILGRAM)

"Half" Album Cover

Kazui is the 7th prisoner in MILGRAM, as well as the one who makes extremely sad when I think about him too hard. Kazui is a 39 year old man. He is the oldest, tallest, and strongest prisoner. Before his time at MILGRAM he was a detective, or in some kind of law enforcement.

This video, "Half" makes me so sad when watching it, that even when hearing the first few notes and him singing makes me soar with sadness.

A big theme in this song is about "the masquerade" and how he is the king of it. We also know that he had a wife before entering MILGRAM, and in this song he often talks about "the curse of reuniting with you puts a dagger in my heart." So it has something to do with his wife, most likely. The video also has a reoccurring scene of him at a bar with a faceless woman, and a male bartender who actually has a face. A lot of the video is also him sitting in the audience of a theater watching himself perform, but the version of him on the stage is wearing a masquerade mask.

He continues to talk about his relationship and how the happiness in it has faded, but he doesn't know where he went wrong, "Probably from the beginning." There is also a lot of imagery regarding apples, mainly red apples with a hidden green one in the crowd of red.

From my first watch of this trial, I've thought his storyline is about his wife, and that she is the one who's death he is responsible for, but he didn't actually kill her. A lot of people thought he cheated on his wife with that woman at the bar, but I always thought it was because he is a closeted gay man who didn't think he could be himself. The woman at the bar, it was very clear that she was drunk, but Kazui never touched her, not even a gentle shoulder touch, it was very apparent that he was keeping his distance. In this same song there is a part where you can hear him reading his wedding vows over the music playing and it is SO sad when listening.

The lines before the last chorus furthers this idea because he says "What I gave up a long time ago / Why is it questioning me now?" There is more background information given about Kazui in his interrogations about his dad and how his dad was a very traditional man. He also says that he's pretty sure his family is embarrassed by him, and that he doesn't really like himself, AND that he'll never act on his emotions again. This makes me so incredibly sad, because as a gay man, this resonates with me on such a high level. He was even asked if he regretted his murder and he says "I should have kept lying." I can see how people would take this as a cheating husband, but for me, it went right to repressed homosexuality.

He also mentions that he wants his "weakness" to be tolerated. He sees his feelings as weakness and that it should be repressed--most likely due to his father. His second trial dives much more into his feelings about himself lying, rather than him actually lying, like in the first trial.

Kazui's story resonates extremely deeply with me, and I genuinely feel so much for this fictional character. Gay men, especially those from very a masculine background, struggle with their sexuality for a long time, and Kazui is no exception. He knew about these feelings, but felt he had to restrain them in order to appear "normal" (his words in the second trial). He had married a woman because he felt like he had to in order to keep up this facade--this masquerade, and it fell apart because he could never truly feel the same way about her as she did for him. I think she ended up committing suicide once he came out to her, "I've failed before when prioritizing emotion. I'll never act on my feelings ever again." and "I do regret it. I should have kept lying." He finally gathered the strength to be honest with his wife, and she ended up committing suicide. There will be on this in the second post I make about him, his second trial, "Cat" is much more heavy on the background and the imagery is very clear.

Kazui was voted innocent for this trial. I'm so very happy with how the people voted on Kazui's trials. As we know from Amane's trials, the people voting were clearly not understand what it meant, but Kazui's voters did. I think if he was voted Guilty it would have furthered his self-hatred and made him repress his feelings even more. Him being voted innocent told him that we think his feelings are valid, and that he shouldn't be ashamed of who he is, which I think is very important for gay men struggling with their sexuality.

Kazui holds a special place in my heart. I cannot wait for his final trial and to finally know what the writers of MILGRAM have on his backstory.