Kenji Setou

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"Borderline hikkikomori, Kenji likes to spend a lot of time in his room, planning for whatever the radical feminist movement's next move may be. He is leery of the instant attraction that Hisao seems to have brought upon himself, but nonetheless very pleased to finally have a hallmate."

— Official Description

Kenji Setou (瀬藤健二, Setō Kenji) is a major character in Katawa Shoujo and attends Yamaku. Kenji is Hisao's neighbor (across the hall in the dorms), who is legally blind, being unable to see anything unless he is almost an inch close to them. He appears to be very anti-social, claiming to be the "last sane man in an insane world." He often rants about feminist conspiracy theories, claiming that feminists are evil and want to rule the world, among other pointless subjects, possibly rivaling Rin's "uniqueness" in that aspect.

Personality

Kenji tends to vacillate between reclusive, suspicious, and paranoid, and calm, friendly, and mildly sociable (albeit fairly awkward to talk to). He has a marked misogynistic streak that is something of a defining characteristic for him. He is convinced that women are inherently dangerous, and thus avoids talking to them whenever possible-- not even his class representative, Lilly, is fully able to get him to open up to her. He also has a poor grasp of acceptable social protocol-- at one point, he even goes into the bathroom naked, right as Hisao is leaving the shower, just to ask him to loan Kenji some money for a pizza. He also has a habit of getting inappropriately close to people's faces in order to identify them, rather than just asking who they are (due in part to his intermittent paranoia).

Despite his paranoid tendencies and misogynistic beliefs, Hisao notes at times that deep down, Kenji really is a good person-- for example, when he trips over Lilly's cane and accidentally drags her down with him as he falls over, he expresses concern for her, asking if she's alright and even attempting to help her up.

An Ending to End All Endings

Note: The following section is written out-of-universe in order to easier explain Kenji's ending

Kenji, in a way, has what can be defined as his own "route" in the plot. If, in Act 1, the player makes a bad choice during one of four possible points (different ones are reached depending on previous choices), his ending is reached. In this ending, come time for the festival, Hisao finds he has nothing planned for the day, so Kenji invites him to his "fort" on the roof of the school building. The two boys end up having a "manly picnic" on the roof, complete with whiskey and pretzels. Hisao, in a drunken state, starts to listen intently to Kenji's insane feminist conspiracy ramblings. At the end, Hisao falls off the roof of the building and dies (it is disputed whether or not Kenji pushed him), and the credits roll.

The following are the four possible choices that can get you to this ending:

• In the scene "Mind Your Step," choose "I don't really want to talk about it." over "Sorry, I'm not in very good condition."
• In the scene "Creative Pain," choose "I just kinda stuck with her, I think." over "I'm interested in the art club."
• In the scene "Slow Recovery," choose "Yeah, I sure was having fun fun fun at the nurse's office..." over "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
• In the scene "Home Field Advantage," choose "Kick them out of my room." over "Try to dodge the subject."

After choosing one of these choices at the appropriate time, gameplay will resume as normal until the end of the scene "Don't Panic," when Kenji asks Hisao what he's doing for the festival. This immediately begins the scene "The Deep End."

A Gruesome Past

During his ending, Kenji reveals that he wasn't always like he is throughout the game. He states that once, he had a girlfriend, about a year before Hisao transferred into Yamaku. He also mentions that he and this alleged "girlfriend" had sexual intercourse a total of one time. After the experience, Kenji claims he suddenly felt more fatigued than he would have expected, and believed that there was something "sinister in the works." From this, he began to formulate the theory that "women are dangerous, sapping the life force of all men through the one commodity that is almost solely theirs to control," which would eventually lead to more of his insane feminist conspiracy theories. Many fans speculate from this, and her own dialogue, that the ex-girlfriend was Yuuko Shirakawa. This theory was proven true in the beta.

Trivia

According to a fan poll on 4chan, Kenji is the most liked secondary character.

es:Kenji Setou