Kai Siden… He’s a character from “Mobile Suit Gundam”. He is a crew member of White Base who fights with the main character, Amuro, and is also a pilot of the Gun Cannon.
He is also a pilot of the Gun Cannon. Now, this character, Kai Siden, is personally a very interesting character. He’s not what you’d call a handsome guy, and he’s got a personality that’s a bit “soft”. He’s not necessarily a very likable person. However, I feel that this Kai Siden character has a human touch that attracts me strangely. As I’ll explain later, there is even a spin-off manga featuring this character, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way about this character.
So why is this Kai Siden character so interesting to some people? Let’s find out why.
What I personally find unique about the character of Kai Siden is the way he looks at the world from a bird’s eye view. Among the crew of the White Base, who are getting more and more involved in the war despite their young age, Kai Siden is the one who tries to emotionally distance himself from the war. Unlike Amuro, who is a civilian and has the ability, and Hayato, who volunteered, he became a pilot because he has a license to operate large heavy machinery.
In fact, from the very beginning, he repeatedly says and does things that indicate that he does not want to accept the situation as it is, and this can be seen by others as an irresponsible attitude.
In the midst of all this, he was trying to maintain a mental distance from the war, an experience that would later have a strong impact on him.
It’s the famous episode with Michal Latkier. When the White Base enters Belfast after escaping from Zeon’s pursuit, Kai is fed up with being immersed in the war and decides to get off the ship. There he meets Michal, and Kai is sent to stay with her for a while, where she lives with her brother and sister. However, Kai soon realizes that she is a spy for Zeon. Kai soon realizes that she is a spy for Zeon.
Eventually, Kai returns to White Base, only to find that Michal is mixed up as a spy on a ship leaving port. Kai hides her out of necessity. On the other hand, Miharu is also spying for Zeon, and is troubled to learn that there are children in White Base who are about the same age as her younger brother and sister. She asks Kai not to take the lives of other children because of her information, and goes out on the Gunpowdery herself, resulting in her untimely death.
Miharu’s death had a profound effect on Kai. Up until then, he had always prepared a way to escape, thinking that what was right in front of him had nothing to do with him, but here he started to face his own responsibility. However, his stance is different from that of Amuro, who is driven to battle, from Seira, who fights for personal reasons, and from Captain Bright, who tries to fulfill his role as a soldier. KAI, as he has always done, distances himself from the war and what is happening in society, and tries to understand this world that is dragging him into its conflicts by interpreting it in his own way.
His thoughts and feelings can be seen in his many lines.
I’m not going to grieve anymore, Miharu. Miharu, I’m not going to be sad anymore. I’m going to beat Zeon so that there won’t be more girls like you! Once and for all!
“I’ve seen with my little eyes a hell that even you as an adult can’t imagine, haven’t I?
No matter how hard you stand, you can’t become a god!
You don’t just shoot because you hate the enemy in front of you. He continues to ask himself what he has to fight for, whether he really needs to fight, and what kind of person he is that he can’t help fighting.
This attitude of Kai’s is also reflected in the way he conducts himself after the One Year War. While Amuro and Bright remain in the military, Kai attends university in Belfast, where he met Michal, and studies journalism. His later activities are also depicted in the sequel “Zeta Gundam,” so many of you may be familiar with it. As a journalist, Kai has a different perspective from Amuro and the others, and continues to ask what the war he fought in was about and why the war is being repeated again. As I mentioned above, this aspect of the story is described in detail in the spin-off manga “The Day After Tomorrow: Kai Report” and “The Day After Tomorrow: Kai Siden’s Memory,” which I highly recommend you read if you are interested.
Even so, Gundam is a work of great depth, with such a well-developed setting and life story for a single supporting character, and even a derivative manga.
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