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  • Watanuki’s character is about the inability to accept equal, lasting, reciprocal love despite being immensely loving and kind. Having lost his parents at such a young age, he is unconsciously averse to developing bonds that are free of barriers to true intimacy. He can fawn over Himawari because he instinctually knows her condition makes it so he can never get close to her. The motherly spirit lady’s presence nearly kills him. Haruka is dead and they can only meet in dreams. A child such as Kohane is much younger and therefore safe to love. He can accept his affection for Yuko because her role as wish-granter/Time-Space Witch as well as her wisdom, power, age and otherworldliness sets them apart.

    For Watanuki, there is a single person with whom there exists no gulf of them being unhuman, much different in age, dead, a dream, more powerful, cursed, or harmful to him: Doumeki. Terrifyingly, he is similar, accessible, and beneficial to Watanuki. What’s more, he repeatedly proves his love through his actions. From the first flying kick, Watanuki intuited what the fortune-teller divined to him: Doumeki is the one who can become truly close to Watanuki. Thus, he is reflexively seen as a threat. 

    Holding a dead cat, we see that Watanuki identifies himself with fundamental loneliness. When Yuko dies, Watanuki is fixated on his desire for her to return in part because he knows it will never happen. Love, to Watanuki, is not about mutuality and constancy, but about insurmountable distance and pain.