It's Really Cool That It Wasn't Just A Random Pattern On His Shirt - Blog Posts

I've been wanting to share my thoughts on the print on Kaito's shirt for a while now. This post is largely inspired by this one

Kaito's shirt has a print of a special type of makeup used in traditional Japanese theater. This makeup type is called Kumadori. I'm not an expert, so I'll just briefly summarize what I found about it.

The makeup itself is a dramatic pattern of symmetrical lines that highlight facial features, drawn on a base of a certain color that is applied to the face in advance. The placement of the lines and their color reflect the character's personality.

Dark red (which is what Kaito has) is used to reflect courage, bravery, and a sense of justice, but can also reflect anger and short temper.

There are many types of this makeup. The one on Kaito's print most closely resembles Suji-guma (筋隈). This style is used for roles of strong heroes full of anger, which suits Kaito perfectly.

The post I linked says that in each game there is a character in a white shirt with a red print that somehow reflects their death. Leon has a broken skull, Nagito has something resembling a spear (or toxic fumes). And Kaito has his "mask" of a hero. And technically, that's what killed him. His desire to be a hero.

He tried to act like an indestructible hero the whole time. He hid his illness from his friends. He became a murderer to save Maki. And he agreed to Kokichi's plan to give others a chance to be saved. He died from his illness in the middle of an execution, but what drove his illness to that point, and what led to his execution, was his desire to be a hero.

So in a sense, it was Kaito's heroism that led to his death.

Sites where I found information about traditional Japanese theater makeup:

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And what the Suji-guma (筋隈) style itself looks like