Let's Diagnose Key Characters

Key Discussion
#1

Anyone here into Psychology? I’m an undergrad Psychology student myself, and today I got the idea of a little exercise I could do; diagnosing Key characters. I’ve started with the Little Busters.

Kurugaya - Anhedonia?
Komari - Extreme Necrophobia resulting in Dissociative Amnesia
Mio - Dissociative Identity Disorder
Haruka - Paranoid Personality Disorder
Kud - Pathological guilt?
Masato - Schizophrenia

Riki - Separation Anxiety and Narcolepsy
Rin - Autism Spectrum Disorder

What do you think? Feel free to attempt diagnosing other Key characters, aha.

Please make sure to reference any late-game/series information in [spoiler] tags.

Little Busters! - Haruka Saigusa Route & Character Discussion
#2

Could you elaborate on that a bit? I only know that Shizophrenia is commonly confused with Dissociative Personality Disorder, but I’m not clear on the actual definition…

#3

Shiori - KeyAIDS
Nagisa - KeyAIDS
Komari’s brother - KeyAIDS
Otonashi’s little sister - KeyAIDS

8 Likes
#4

Mental diagnoses, please :slight_smile:

#5

Schizophrenia is a very broad diagnosis that can refer to a bunch of different things, but in a nutshell it basically means a breakdown in thinking and feeling. I feel like a lot of the symptoms match up with what Masato experiencesIn Refrain. Let’s look at some.

-Hallucinations. Hundreds of Masatos. Check.
-Delusions (I am the strongest!) Check.
-Disorganized thinking. Debatable, but I think he seemed pretty out of it.
-Paranoia. Masato’s afraid everyone is out to get him.
-Don’t think they’re crazy. (It’s this damn world that’s gone crazy!) Check.
-Clumsy motor skills.
-Directionless, walking to nowhere in particular.
-Speaking in an abstract or tangential way. Nonsensical logic. The conversation they have with Masato right before he starts completely losing it. “Why? Because I’m the strongest. I’m going to start proving that I’m the strongest now.”
-Difficulty understanding simple things. He falls for the trap so easily, and doesn’t realize he can just take his jacket off.
-Sensitivity to light. Perhaps the biggest indicator of all, they made a point of Masato expressing discomfort at having the torch shone on him, because it’s too bright.

Seriously! We know Jun Maeda studied Psychology in his earlier life. It’s as if Episode:Masato was pulled right out of a psychology textbook.

1 Like
#6

Yay! Psychology student Taka! And more Mai time~ <3

Mai Kawasumi-

  • Suffers from Psychosis.
  • Dependent on others.
  • Negative Self-Image
  • Lack of speech
  • Lack of expression
  • Apathy
  • Self harm

Quite a lot in there! @.@ And that’s just from the top of my head… (Ignoring the Key Magic…)
I’m kinda new with diagnosing mental disorders… but if I had to label it, I would guess that Mai began to suffer from Pediatric schizophrenia after a certain childhood event, and grew up with it, eventually becoming the young-lady we meet in Kanon~
However, she loves animals due to her memories of them, and she opens up to the people she comes to trust, so she’s pretty much perfect once you get close to her~ Ahaha~

Not very confident with this though x.x I just want to say “Oh, it’s Key magic!” Any ideas?

#7

but it was all part of Kyousuke’s cheap tricks…
I suck at giving diagnoses, but this thread is funny.

3 Likes
#8

Petition to make CHEAP TRICKS into an officially recognized diagnosis!
I have absolutely no idea what the definition of it would be, but still.

1 Like
#9

I’ll make it my life goal to have CHEAP TRICKS recognized as a mental disorder in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

1 Like
#10

The CHEAP TRICKS health fund logo has to be the silhouette of a man pointing with a baseball bat.

2 Likes
#11

I’m now imagining Phoenix Wright with a baseball bat…

#12

Hm, CHEAP TRICKS, eh?
Symptons/Effects:
Bipolar Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Necrophobia
Delusions

1 Like
#13

Holy crap man. Several of these I never really made the connection with, but when you list them off here, it makes total sense.

#14

[Spoilers] I can agree to all of that, but the self harm point was a lot more towards Sayuri’s character than it was to Mai’s. While yes she did attempt suicide (or attempted to attempt suicide in the Toei adaptation), but that was more because of what happened to Sayuri.

#15

Self harm was in reference to the “demon” hunting. It became obvious that Mai knew what she was doing.

#16

I remember some guy on 4chan was it (not to be trusted, I know) said that Haruka showed severe signs of PTSD. Considering her background, yeaaaaah. So, super cheerful, only to hide her angry side seems like a classification in that direction.

Well, I always said that Little Busters was a game where all the heroines have some sort of mental problem. At least, all except Kud :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#17

Walking around screaming Wafu is far from the picture of perfect mental health.

1 Like
#18

Haruka having PTSD is directly shown in Kanata’s route, where Kanata finds her in a broken state as kids.

Also, Kanon, wafu is literally the same thing as gao and uguu, so Kud is the least unstable one, only getting trauma through her bad end iirc.

#19

It’s got nothing to do with mental health. It’s a verbal quirk and nothing more. Adding verbal quirks to anime characters is common practice and we are well aware of Key frequently using those (“Ahaha”, “Hae”, “Au”, “Uguu”, “Gao” etc.)

And pls be careful with Kanata route spoilers…

#20

Wafu ain’t the same as Gao and Uguu.
Ayu is effectively a 10 year old and Misuzu, well, that’s not exactly hidden, she’s definitely not a picture of perfect mental health.

Kud has no excuse, she’s long past an age where she should be running around shouting woof woof.