Ah, Kuronue, the fandom’s favorite sweetheart that has an actual screen time of like 3 seconds. We all agree that he’s Yoko’s boyfriend, right? Like, that’s canon, isn’t it? Or fandom canon, at least? I’m a bit rusty on this movie (Last time I saw it was the abridged version Lanipator did on youtube… it’s pretty funny even if its a million years old)

So you guys probably guess I’m a slut for canon so let’s start off analyzing this shit from what we can actually deduce from the show.

Under cut!

So, the problem with Kuronue is that this awesome looking bat demon’s appearance was stolen by that shapeshifting demon, so most of the time we see “Kuronue,” we’re actually looking at a different demon. 

There are only two ways we can judge his character then, by his 1 second of screen time and Kurama’s reaction to how the shapeshifter is acting. 

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll go chronologically. 

Remember that Kurama is extremely intelligent, so if he doesn’t pick up on this being a shapeshifter, then he’s playing Kuronue’s part pretty well.

So, Kurama gets attacked by this demon, who claims to be Kuronue, and his first reaction is to try to calm him down and talk to him. Which tells me 2 things. 1, Kuronue definitely could have a vindictive steak. If he was a super nice guy, Kurama would have called the demon out on his bullshit, saying something like “Kuronue wouldn’t act like this.” So our dear Kuro must have had some ability to be at least somewhat cruel (enough to want to get revenge on a now weakened Kurama by joining a group looking to kill a lot of innocent humans). And 2, he wasn’t too cruel or Kurama wouldn’t have even tried talking. With Yomi, he tried to steer clear of the whole “sorry I tried to kill you” thing for as long as possible, and even faced with the assassin, didn’t bring it up himself or try to apologize there and then. So Yomi is crueler, more likely to be hot-headed.

So two possibilities here. Either Kuro is the type of person who will go pretty far to get revenge when he feels he’s been slighted, but not nearly as cruel or vindictive as Yomi and Yoko. Or they were total fuck buddies with feelings and Kurama’s hoping that’ll get through to him enough that he’ll wait and listen. Or, a little bit of both.

So, the shapeshifter is using some memory manipulation crap? It’s not 100% clear but Kurama does this after their meeting:

So he’s either really fucking upset or his head is hurting for some reason, like maybe cause someone’s trying to fuck with it. 

But! Here’s the thing. We Know Kurama’s head is hard to mess with. Whether the movie follows the canon of the show or not I am not 100% sure, (I mean, they do make up a whole new realm). But in the show, Kurama’s mind is incredibly well guarded. A literal mind reader can’t read his thoughts. So either this demon he’s facing is way stronger (in which case why bother with the disguise?), Kurama’s more susceptible because of the emotional connection (he wants to believe it’s Kuro), or the manipulation isn’t actually working and this is just Kurama’s actual emotional reaction.

So from Kurama, we can somewhat confidently assume that Kuronue isn’t cruel, but won’t take shit, either (so he was a nicer dude than Yoko, but perhaps not as nice as Kurama). We can also conclude that he wasn’t unreasonable, and could be talked down. And we also get hints that perhaps these two were very close. 

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So that’s how Kurama’s reacting. After that, we have only really 3 scenes we can analyze for the REAL Kuronue.

One.

Two.

Three.

So, let’s try to squeeze as much as we can from these frames.

1) We see Kuro laughing along with Yoko as they run away from a heist. They’ve been found, they’re being chased, but they have the treasure, and they’re laughing. Both of them are laughing, so Kuro couldn’t have been the “more careful” one, nor could he have been the “I’m so done” kind of boyfriend partner. He was just as into stealing shit and having fun as Yoko. 

They sort of remind me of two college students who keep making chaotic neutral D&D characters. They’re not evil, they just want to have fun and fuck shit up.

2) We get this goddamn thing

in a shot as it’s cut off and Kuronue freaks out and tries to go back for it. So, there are 2 possibilities here. 

Kuronue either really fucking loves this goddamn thing like, he’ll die for it, important. (As far as I can tell it’s just a pendant. Was it given to him by someone? Or was it just a regular pendant?) So depending on how important this thing is, we could judge how dumb he is here. 

What’s heartbreaking is that we get these shots of Yoko:

So we can conclude a few things from Yoko’s reaction.

1) from that gif there, we see he immediately goes all “No don’t!” 

So they KNOW what they’re doing is dangerous. They’re thrill seekers. They running high on the fact that they’re a hair away from death but they’re gonna make it, and gonna make it with some awesome treasure. But Kurama seems more aware of the danger than Kuro is. Yoko must know how important the pendant is to Kuro, as he’s not at all suspicious of how often the dude is fondling the thing

*fondle fondle*

But Kuro goes back for it, either thinking he has the time, or that it doesn’t matter if he does. Personally, I like to go with the “he’s a dumbass” headcanon, cause I like the idea that Kurama’s type for dudes is “loves the dark and is stupid.”

So Kuro isn’t as careful or aware as Yoko. Once again, college students come to mind. Perhaps two dudes doing drugs or drinking alcohol. Yoko has more experience or is just smarter with it, so he knows the limits. But Kuro thinks he can handle more or just isn’t thinking as clearly and gets fucked up and Yoko’s like oh fuck no, I did this I shouldn’t have brought this dumbass to this party.

Then 2) Yoko full on stops. He’s being chased, too, but he stops and stares for a good while. We get two different shots of him just watching in shock. So this tells me either this isn’t normal behavior for Kuro… and/or Yoko really liked that ass and is just super fucking shocked it’s gone. Or, also a possibility, Kuro is acting normal, but Yoko just can’t fuicking believe he just died for that goddamn pendnat wat the fuck kuro we talked about rthsi!!!

(deep breaths…)

Lastly, 3) Kuro yells for Yoko to run. He doesn’t just cry in pain or ask Yoko to save him, he sees that Yoko is frozen, and yells at him to run. This tells me 1), Kuro isn’t selfish. He could have tried to take Yoko down with him by accident, by asking him for help, or on purpose (which would make him more evil). But he doesn’t. This also once again screams “there’s something juicy here!!!”

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SO! My conclusions?

• Canon compliant/derived from canon: Kuro is
• Sentimental (can’t let go of the pendant)
• Willing to go great lengths for revenge… but is not evil or cruel in it.
• Willing to listen to reason.
• A little too quick to act
• Not as careful/aware of his surroundings as Yoko
• Thrill seeker
• And relatively selfless when it comes to those he cares about.

Now for my personal headcanons: 

• He is a dumbass
• That pendant was given to him by someone he cared for, either a family member or maybe even Yoko? Which I think would sweetly add to the tragic factor. If Yoko was the actual reason he died in the end, because he gave him the dumb thing…
• The pendant has some small magical properties, which is why it was a worthy gift
• He and Yoko totally fuck
• He has a tendency to cut himself a lot hence the stupid black bandages
• He doesn’t mind following cause it lets him be more of a dumbass if someone else is making the plans
• he’s not really all that serious, he likely had a more comedic personality, which is why these two are laughing so freakin much, cause he brought out the fuckign happy light in yokos fuckign life and ghgjreg

So that’s my conclusion. Followers, any thoughts?

– Mod Lola