Theorizing: Midori and Phone Blocking Chiaki

let’s discuss: why does midori block chiaki’s phone? (my thoughts and theories about it)

introduction

supervillain was released in january 2023, and the story is set in march of ES 1st year. in that story, it’s revealed that midori has blocked chiaki’s phone number.

but why does midori block chiaki from contacting him via the phone?

we don’t know the actual reason why midori blocks chiaki. but, we can infer based on the times it’s happened or mentioned, especially by piecing it with other things about their relationship.

before gourmet’s release, when we only had the above scene from supervillain, i had initially thought that the reason had to do with the tense times in ryuseitai; that midori became so stressed by what’s going on, and so upset by how little chiaki talks to them about what matters (his true feelings etc.), that he blocked his number so that he emotionally doesn’t have to deal with that. so i thought that this meant, now that ryuseitai is happy and united after the events of supervillain, he won’t have him blocked anymore.

but then gourmet happened, and it changed my perspective of it entirely. i had the above interpretation for about a year and a half since january 2023 (supervillain release) to june 2024 (gourmet release), and was actually genuinely SO SURE that that was the reason all along… up until gourmet shed new light on the matter, and gave us a MUCH easier way to connect the dots.

gourmet’s chapter

the chapter in question is Flood of Customers 4. set in ES year 2, may

first, gourmet reveals that all along, midori never unblocked chiaki’s phone number since supervillain (as mentioned by shinobu saying "not to mention didn’t you block his number too?"), and second, midori reacts with panic and frustration to what chiaki did in gourmet ("i am takamine" and all) and then proceeds to block him in even more forms of contact, not just his phone number now.

so the first thing i realize here is, "oh my god, his block has NOTHING to do with the ryuseitai tense arc, this is an entirely separate thing related to his personal relationship with chiaki". after all, if ryuseitai is united now and are together far more often, then he should have unblocked him, right? but he didn’t. and in fact, he has now blocked him in even more places. so now, this is enough to at least let us know, it doesn’t have to do with the things midori was upset about chiaki during the tense arc (like never talking to them about what matters, taking all the blame, etc).

the second thing that i notice is, gourmet is actually the perfect story to look into what this is possibly about and make potential theories. we have the perfect series of events to give us an idea of what could possibly make midori block chiaki, something much clearer than how the phone blocking was first introduced to us back in supervillain.

in gourmet, chiaki suddenly gets the idea to become midori (stated by him as "make midori possess him"), then starts performing a strange song and dance, and then ends that with yelling at the top of his lungs "I AM TAKAMINE", all in prime-time television.

midori tends to feel anxious being perceived (he doesn’t like to stand out), and he struggles with having the spotlight on him out of nowhere, so for one thing, i think midori was probably panicking by suddenly being in the spotlight of so many people’s eyes (or well, ears) after chiaki dragged him into something that is broadcasted on prime-time TV.

for another thing, chiaki is suddenly involving midori in something midori never consented to and never knew was going to happen. chiaki just suddenly decided, i’m going to become takamine! i’m going to make takamine possess me so I can fight against eggplants!

of course, chiaki had no clue he was being filmed at the time, so there’s an added flavor of "another one of midori and chiaki’s misunderstandings and unintentional results from actions" (i.e. it’s not like chiaki was acting that way with the knowledge it’d be filmed as well, that’s not something he was aware of, and midori is likely not aware that chiaki didn’t know he was being filmed either)

but in the end, midori sees all of that and panics in confusion and frustration. one of the first things he says is "what the hell is that ‘i am takamine’ about? why’s that guy yelling my name on prime-time television? don’t get me involved with this, makes me wanna die". he is clearly in distress about the sudden events unfolding in the audition. and so, right after this is when he opens his phone to block chiaki’s account on more forms of contact, to which shinobu points out that chiaki would cry if he learned about this.

after a while of more discussion on midori’s block on chiaki, tetora mentions that "we’re meant to be cheering him on, so what’s the point in blocking him? i get how you feel though", and midori says "you understand" with a smile on his face. and i love the voice acting for midori in this chapter, it really elevates his emotions throughout! when he says "you understand", he audibly sounds relieved and happy. it shows that midori isn’t just doing this For No Particular Reason, there is something that compels him to block chiaki. after all, tetora is saying that "he understands how he feels".

after that, midori starts looking chiaki up online. tetora points out how he immediately looks him up, and midori responds that "okay yeah i do but someone has to monitor him since he barely keeps contact when he’s away for work". then shinobu says, "if that’s what you say then it’s puzzling why you block him. your actions and words contradict each other".

this is another key part of it: ryuseitai don’t really know his reason either, and shinobu finds it confusing because he blocks him YET looks up things about him immediately. and that "confusion" towards the contradiction is exactly midori in summary: his actions and words almost always contradict each other. in this case, one action contradicts the other.

it’s even MORE amplified when it’s to do with chiaki, where he seems to experience so many different emotions at once and acts on them in all kinds of ways. the story/writing itself acknowledges that this is confusing about midori, but it also gives enough hints to let us know he does have his own reasons that make him block chiaki while still also keeping the habit of looking him up online.

another thing is when kanata says that this must be what you call a tsundere, which shinobu responds "i feel as though there’s nothing but the tsun part". this is yet another part of it: how do you label this? kanata labels it as "what must be what you call a tsundere", but shinobu doesn’t fully agree, feeling as though only the "tsun" of tsundere is in midori’s actions.

it goes back to how midori is too confusing for even ryuseitai to fully give us the answer by themselves, they are also navigating this aspect of midori as much as we, the readers, are. and in my opinion, this scene goes to show how you can’t even slap the label of "tsundere" on this, because like shinobu says, in that case it feels like there’s nothing but the "tsun". so can that really be called "tsundere", when there’s not really any "dere"? midori is that confusing and difficult to pin down into One Specific Reason or One Specific Label that causes him to act this way.

theories

all this to say, just this one chapter alone gives so so so SO much food to chew on. to this day, we don’t know the actual reason, but there is still a lot we can learn about midori from this to make theories. personally, i have so many theories now thanks to gourmet, such as:

• maybe midori finds it overwhelming to be in contact with chiaki both close distance and long distance, and if he had to choose between the two, he’d go with pure close-distance. (theory based on how he’s bad at being in contact digitally with ryuseitai especially when he’s mentally not doing well, shown in comet show, supervillain, and tropical)

• maybe it’s an extension of how midori refuses to ignore chiaki, since ignoring him makes chiaki feel lonely. let's say that maybe, he can’t handle chiaki messaging him or calling him. BUT, if chiaki communicates with him via the phone, he cannot ignore him, i.e. he has to respond.

he shouldn’t ignore chiaki, because he knows now that it makes him lonely. so… he blocks him. if he blocks him, chiaki can’t message, so there is no message to respond to in the first place. and since chiaki has to go through so much effort to contact him (use someone else’s phone or have someone relay the message), it probably makes it so chiaki reduces long-distance contact to only necessities, which midori will respond to (as shown in the recent niki fs3, he went to ryuseitai as chiaki asked him to).

this theory is based on how important it became to midori to never ignore chiaki after climax (see below)

• maybe midori wants to stick to only close-distance between him and chiaki because that’s what he’s been so used to back in their first year together. chiaki would come pick him up Every Day and be in close contact with him all the time, even their club AND unit were the same, so long distance maybe feels too jarring for him with chiaki, on a personal level.

OR rather than wants to stick to only close-distance, he doesn’t want long-distance to be a possible thing between them because he is attached to the way their relationship was for a whole year. this theory is based on how much midori treasures his first year with ryuseitai and chiaki, to the point he called it his "happiest moment" in high and low, and part of his happiest moment was recounting that he’d be woken up by chiaki and walk to school with him.

• an extension of the above, but maybe midori is indirectly trying to make chiaki understand that he’d much rather chiaki comes to him if he needs him, rather than use a phone to contact him. based on the same theory as above, but also that chiaki was such a constant part of his life for a whole year (and that year was BIIIIG for midori, it changed the course of his life forever), so i think it’s normalized in his head to interact with chiaki in close distance rather than long distance

• maybe it’s a way for midori to feel a bit of control in his relationship with chiaki. for so long, it has always felt like he’s dragged into the whims of chiaki, almost always without his consent (and even if he expresses being reluctant about it, chiaki drags him in it anyway).

this theory’s based on how in gourmet, he was so panicked and frustrated by what he saw chiaki do that his reaction was to find new forms of contact to block chiaki on. it’s kind of random to do that at a time when chiaki doesn’t even have a way to contact him right now anyway, so it’s not like he’s at risk of being messaged immediately after the "i am takamine" moment. so maybe he did it to feel like he can damage-control chiaki dragging him into his public stunt?

• another one is that it’s possible midori associates long distance with chiaki in a negative way, as chiaki suddenly stopped contacting them back in the beginning days of !! era (ES year 1). and midori didn’t take that massive drop in contact very well, feeling like chiaki is "dead" as part of ryuseitai, and being frustrated enough to complain that "all his ‘i love you’s weren’t true after all, he’s all talk and no action".

also, we know that by the time comet show was happening (so mid-late september), midori had been looking up chiaki online. and in his comet show mini talk, he talks about how upsetting it feels that chiaki is so far away now, when he was the one who was in midori’s business all the time in the past. so being in long-distance contact with chiaki could have felt like an affirmation of this: that chiaki is so far away that the only way they can be in contact now is long-distance, and that’s not what midori wants (and he also knows chiaki would much rather be in close contact with ryuseitai, since he loves them so much).

the above theory is based on the fact this phone blocking was mentioned all the way back in supervillain, which is an ES year 1 story, as well as his comment in gourmet where he says "he always neglects to keep contact whenever he has a long-term job, so someone has to monitor him". if chiaki not keeping in contact the moment he has a long-term job is what makes midori instantly go looking him up online, then it’s possible it affects how he feels about long-distance contact with him too.

• the list can go on because again, we don’t know the true reason just yet. i hope we do one day. it’s also extremely possible that the real reason is actually a mixture of several theories at once, because midori is impossible to pin down to "one sole reason".

for now, i think it’s a lot of fun that there’s so much to think about, and all of it has to do with midori’s perception of his relationship with chiaki and how he feels about it. one thing’s for sure, he clearly feels strongly about something to do with chiaki and contact via phone, and he has been acting on it by blocking him.

midori’s words

the one line of thought that i haven’t changed since 2023 is that the "i feel honored that i was able to become special to you" line from supervillain is likely one of the other keys to understanding this about midori. i feel like it’s important to keep in mind that in midori’s eyes, blocking chiaki’s contact and chiaki needing to jump through hoops to contact him makes him feel like he became something special to chiaki.

in japanese, he even says "senpai no tokubetsu" (lit. “senpai’s special”), so it’s even more blatant/stronger in the original script. i have several lines of thought related to that, but my main one is how midori-like it is to perceive something that society naturally considers "rude" or "wrong" (blocking someone you’re close to from contact, let alone your own senior) as something special to himself. i’ll copy paste what i wrote about this the last time i talked in depth about it because i still agree with it:

"NOOOBOOOODYYYYYYYY would interpret, define, or label "blocking someone’s phone number" as a sign of love or a sign of 'feeling lonely without them around'. nobody would think of that as a form of love (hell, chiaki even replies to him that he wishes they could be special in a positive way!)

but to midori? this is his opportunity. he has finally found some way to be "special" to his senpai. he is now the only person to have blocked him, the only person that chiaki has to go through so much effort to contact… "positive" or "negative" connotations don’t matter to someone who prefers to live his life as his true natural self rather than a "perfect image that society approves of, that is part of society’s norms". so of COURSE this is an honor to him. he’s insane. i love him. i LOVE him!!!!!!!! HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH CHIAKI IS SO LAYERED BECAUSE IT SHOWS EVERY LAYER OF MIDORI I LOVE HIMMMM"

(end of my previous answer about this)

final thoughts

i honestly really like where the phone blocking arc (?) has been going for the two’s relationship, and most especially i love how it inadvertently involves all of ryuseitai in it, whether to help be a mediator between the two (first it was kanata, and recently it was shinobu), or the way each member has a different perspective to it, and even side that they sympathize with (like how shinobu leans more towards chiaki’s side of it since he knows it’d upset chiaki, and tetora leans more to midori’s side since he understands how he feels).

i haven’t actually discussed everything the phone blocking shows; for example, there’s the theme of "chiaki does something (the initiator), and midori reacts to it (the reactor)" happening here. that's pretty usual for their dynamic, midori is usually in the position of "reacting" to chiaki’s antics. which is all the more why i love it, there’s just so much to talk about it because it's an extension of their typical dynamic!

and with all this being said, even if midori has blocked him or continues to block him in new forms of contact, it doesn’t mean chiaki can’t talk to him anymore. chiaki can go to him physically and talk to him, fetch him, hug him, whatever he wants.

we’ve also seen in es2 stories that midori does things for chiaki through action, like waiting for him to finish his work to walk home at night with him because chiaki’s scared (oniyasha), or preparing a cold towel for chiaki so that he doesn’t get heatstroke (overflow). usually what midori does for/with chiaki involves him actively trying to get close to him and then take some form of action.

while it can be inconvenient that chiaki can’t contact him on the phone… it’s also kind of funny that midori is doing this even in mega sphere, where they’re living together. they sleep and wake up in the same room, and chiaki can bug him all he wants. a phone is just a phone in the end, and they have so many ways to be together and spend time when they’re in close distance. i love how one of their most recent es2 stories, ten-code, even shows this: chiaki is still as overbearing and relentless as ever, and midori is pulled into his whims as always. that’s how the two have always been since day one of meeting each other, and hopefully continue to be 💞