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 (瀬戸 健二 Seto Kenji) is a major character in Katawa Shoujo and attends Yamaku Academy. He is Hisao Nakai's neighbor (across the hall in the dorms), who is legally blind that he is 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."

Kenji often rants about feminist conspiracy theories, claiming that feminists are evil and want to rule the world, among other pointless subjects, possibly rivaling Rin Tezuka's "uniqueness" in that aspect.

Personality

"Think about it. When did housing and land start becoming more and more expensive? When women began entering the work force, because it created two-income nuclear families. Yeah I forgot my graphs, but, and you'll just have to take my word for it, women are connected to the decay of all society."

— Kenji

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 Satou, 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 Nakai 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 believes at times that deep down, Kenji really is a decent 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

Kenji has what can be defined as his own "route", including an ending, which is colloquially known as "death". On the day of the festival, Hisao Nakai finds he has nothing planned for the day, so Kenji invites him to his "fort" on the roof of the school. The two boys have a "manly picnic" on the roof, complete with whiskey and pretzels. Hisao, in a drunken state, listens intently to Kenji's insane feminist conspiracy ramblings. When he suggests going trawling for women, Kenji leans uncomfortably toward Hisao. Hisao tries to lean back with Kenji leaning forward, causing the former to accidently fall off the roof of the building, and dies.

It is worth noting that, in Act 2 of Emi's route, during the scene Piracy on the High Seas, Kenji mentions how "if I were going to kill someone, I'd do it by throwing them off a roof and making it look like an accident," setting sinister undertones to the end results of his "route." However, the game never states that Kenji pushed Hisao off the roof when you get Kenji's ending, and Hisao doesn't realize he's falling to his death until it's too late, implying that Hisao's death really was an accident.

The player has four opportunities in Act 1 to make a "bad choice" (depending on previous choices).

• "Mind Your Step"
• "Creative Pain"
• "Slow Recovery"
• "Home Field Advantage"

A Gruesome Past

In "The Deep End", Kenji reveals that he once had a girlfriend, about a year before Hisao transferred to Yamaku. According to him, he had sexual intercourse with her one time. After the experience, Kenji claims he felt more fatigued than expected. This of course reveals Kenji's misogyny stems from a combination of his own ignorance of how tiredness is a natural effect of sexual activity and his own poor stamina.

From this, he believed that there was something "sinister was in the works" and formulated a theory that "women are dangerous, sapping the life force of all men through the one commodity that is almost solely theirs to control". This is later contradicted by his claim that women created industrialization to cover their tracks, which ignores how such a thing wouldn't have been allowed by the men of that era.

Many fans speculate that the ex-girlfriend was Yuuko Shirakawa and this was true in the beta, but it was removed from the finished game. Some fans believe however that Kenji is deep in the closet and that his misogyny is a cover for his homosexuality. Evidence for this is that Kenji may've been planned to be the game's "gay route" originally, him appearing buck naked to Hisao in the bathroom asking him for money to buy a pizza and his "manly picnic" ends with him leaning in toward Hisao with the song "To Become One" (the game's resident sex scene song) playing as Hisao falls to his death.

Etymology

• The name Kenji means "healthy, strong" (健) or "study, sharpen" (研) (ken) and "two" (二) (ji).
• Kenji's surname Setou means "swift current, rapids" (瀬) (se) and "door" (戸) (tou).

Trivia

• According to a fan poll on 4chan, Kenji is the most liked secondary character.
• Kenji's black hair, round glasses and red-and-yellow scarf gives him something of a resemblance to Harry Potter of the Harry Potter series, with the scarf being similar to those provided to students belonging to House Gryffindor.
• To Become One's usage at the end of Kenji's route seems weird and out of place until you remember a few things: To Become One can be read as Two Become One, reflecting Kenji's belief that he's the last sane man in an insane world, To Become One is used for sex scenes, and Kenji's "sex scene" is averted by it's ironic usage for Hisao's demise and To Become One is exactly what happens when Hisao dies, leaving Kenji as the only one left on the school roof.
• Kenji's ending is foreshadowed on multiple routes: In Emi's route, he mentions pushing someone off a roof as the best way to murder someone, foreshadowing Hisao accidentally falling to his death after Kenji moves closer to him. In Shizune's route, Misha tells Hisao not to spend all day being a paranoid person who stays in their room all day, foreshadowing Hisao throwing his lot in with Kenji if he doesn't try to spend time with anyone.

es:Kenji Setou