#its also just further prove that kh is originally about sora and riku and their relationship. kairi has always unfortuanetly been an

[embraceyourdestiny]

i feel like nomura not knowing what to do with kairi's character has a very meta explanation of kairi doesnt even know who she is and nomura lives / writes his characters so thoroughly that the quandary hes having is because shes having it too. we really live our characters when we're imaging their life and i myself have felt the total confusion, the heartbreak, the love, the fury, the betrayal, the anger of some characters as emotions completely separate from mine so it makes sense for him to be "stuck" / not utilizing her until now because he didnt know where she fit in because kairi didnt know her place in the universe either

[themattress]

When did _____ jump the shark?

Because I'm a masochist, I looked through release-order cutscene compilations on Youtube to remind myself of the exact point in which Kingdom Hearts characters jumped the shark.

Sora: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

The idea of Ventus' heart becoming a part of Sora's was not a bad one, but not only is it botched by having it set up at the start by Sora's newborn heart communicating with Ventus' heart and healing it by connecting with it, this event sets the stage for "Blank Points" and its depiction of Sora as this Messianic hero who is so pure hearted that he can heal everyone's hurt, nay, is obligated to heal their hurt. Yes, it was 3D that first botched his personality, but even before that it was hard to enjoy him on the same level as before because of this.

Riku: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

Once again, a chance meeting between Terra and Riku was a good idea, but the execution proved devastating for Riku's character, as the scene completely reframes his character as this wise-beyond-his-years kid with the noble dream of venturing to other worlds to find "the strength to protect the things that matter" (protect them from what!?) This will continue to inform Riku's character going forward, and it does not work because it is at complete odds with his character beforehand, the one we saw back in the first KH who was immature and his yearning for other words - sparked only by Kairi's arrival on Destiny Islands, btw - was fundamentally rooted in selfishness. It's an overidealization that just makes Riku a bore.

Kairi: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

While Kairi's encounter with Aqua was also botched, it actually wasn't bad enough to damage her like Sora and Riku's similar encounters with members of the Wayfinder Trio were. Oh, but don't worry - "Blank Points" more than made up for that with the damage it did to her. She's only on screen for less than a minute, but what happens in that time is devastating: she smiles vacantly as Sora repeats the bullshit from the King's letter as a reason he has to leave, and in response she gives him her lucky charm again and simply says "See you soon". Um, NO. That's not Kairi; not how she was depicted and set up in KH2 anyway! Kairi had a Keyblade, she merged with Namine, she insisted on not waiting behind anymore....she even said "from now on wherever one of us goes, the other follows!" But now Nomura just pretends it never happened and rewrites her whole character into a bland love interest who won't be proactive or developed any further. No more Destiny Trio, it's just the Sora/Riku duo now.

Donald Duck: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

Goofy: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

Coded's 6th chapter was the point that game took a hard downturn in quality, which was already mixed to start with, and one of its biggest casualties was Donald and Goofy. It's difficult to explain, but something about their role in the Datascape's Hollow Bastion alongside Data Sora while actively calling back to the original KH's Hollow Bastion level really pisses me off. The game acts like it's being profound, but all its really doing is disrespecting the memory of that level's unparalleled awesomeness and cheapening Donald and Goofy's friendship with Sora by having it be so easily transferrable to a data copy who the game nonetheless insists is his own individual. While I loved seeing Sora, Donald and Goofy reunite in KH3, them and their dynamic wasn't quite the same; nowhere near as strong.

Mickey Mouse: KH-COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

King Mickey always had a serious edge to him which made him a cool character, but he was also still Mickey. That balance of whimsy and seriousness is what made him so great. But starting in 3D, the Mickey-ness gets sucked out of him and he's now a bland, serious, short-statured hero who is more or less just Yen Sid's flunky. I think the moment best cementing it is his confrontation with Master Xehanort, a guy he never interacted or even heard about in BBS but now 3D is acting like they're old rivals and Mickey is kicking himself for not realizing that of course Master Xehanort was behind everything as part of some omnipotent master plan, because it was so obvious in retrospect! And he only just got worse from there (Re:Mind excluded), with Bret Iwan painfully struggling more and more with the material he's given.

Terra: KH2-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3

In 3D, there are two scenes not too far apart from each other. One is Riku facing Ansem and out of nowhere bringing up Terra and how he still remembers him as the reason he can wield the Keyblade, the reason he wanted to go to other worlds so badly (fuck Kairi, then) and the driving inspiration behind "obtaining strength to protect what matters". And the other is the big confrontation in Organization XIII's throne room, where Master Xehanort confirms that Terra is still under his control. Together, these two scenes paint a clear picture: Terra isn't really a character anymore. He's an accessory. He's something that matters to actual characters such as his friends and Riku and Xehanort, but otherwise he's got nothing going on for himself.

Ventus: Days-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3

Ventus was a pretty iffy character to begin with, but nothing was flat-out ruining him until Union Xross came along and said "Surprise! He's actually a Keyblade wielder from the ancient past!" And as far as the mainline games go, KH3 is the one that brought that garbage into things, so it gets the nod. Ven, go play with your Chirithy and never bother us again, OK?

Aqua: BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3

Aqua was a cool character in BBS, but she didn't really have much depth or even an arc. 0.2 gave her those things, so now she's all set for greatness in KH3, right? Hahahaha, wrong! Aqua's whole shtick in KH3 is making badass declarations and then immediately getting bodied in the most humiliating ways possible. Even that depth and character arc she got in 0.2 is rendered meaningless. It's so bad that Willa Holland's already subpar vocal delivery plummets to new levels of lifelessness. So much respect for a female Keyblade Master!

Jiminy Cricket: KH-COM-KH2-Coded-3D-KH3

Jiminy discovers technology in Coded. As later seen in KH3, it was a huge mistake.

Pluto: KH-COM-KH2-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

He's just there, doing nothing. Get used to it, 'cause that's his new normal!

Yen Sid: KH2-BBS-Coded-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

In KH2, Yen Sid was just a guy giving exposition and useful items to Sora, Donald and Goofy at the beginning of their quest in Mickey's place as a favor to him since Mickey was his pupil. In BBS, we get to see Mickey being his pupil and it's said Yen Sid was once a Keyblade Master, which is a cool detail and fits in perfectly with why Sora got a second Keyblade at his tower in KH2. But starting with the secret ending of Coded, Yen Sid suddenly becomes the Big Good, the leader of the guardians of light whom Mickey actively reports to and obeys even when he isn't studying under him anymore. Worse still, he is awful at his job; foolish, arrogant and hypocritical in the most frustrating ways. He gets one cool moment in KH3, but it's not enough to redeem him, especially when MOM puts him right back in his old ways.

Maleficent: KH-COM-KH2-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

Pete: KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

The other duo that Coded's 6th chapter ruined! In just the previous chapter things had been looking fine! Pete was great, and Maleficent had an awesome entrance at the very end where she destroys Data Sora's Keyblade! But then Maleficent, following a painful joke about her not understanding the word Datascape, reveals this is part of a plan to take over Disney Castle because...she didn't get Organization XIII's castle as was implied she would in KH2, which makes her arc in that game feel pointless just like Kairi's. And then we see Pete infiltrated the actual Disney Castle, which should be impossible due to the Cornerstone of Light, which has apparently just been forgotten about. Then she and Pete initiate that awful recreation of Hollow Bastion's events, insultingly merging Riku and Kairi's roles in the process. Three strikes, they're out. And ever since their last scene added in the cutscene movie version, they've been on the same fruitless quest for the Book of Prophecies, which is doomed to failure since the new OC Big Bad is even more omnipotent than Master Xehanort!

Namine: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

OK, so on it's own, Namine's showing in Days might not have ruined her. It would just be a frustrating bit of character regression in a messily written game. But this always soft-spoken, sad and guilty-feeling, head-down and hands-clasped depiction of Namine ended up directly allowing the Data Namine we see in Coded to happen, which in turn opened up the bullshit "Thank Namine" retcon that has hounded her ever since. The poor girl deserved better.

DiZ: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-3D-KH3-MOM

"Blank Points" shows that he didn't die in the explosion that clearly killed him in KH2. It just somehow warped him to the Realm of Darkness...which is treated as the Realm of Nothingness he was banished to before even when those are different things...and he now has a black coat for some reason....and he reveals to Aqua that he put data inside of Sora that can help him heal everyone even though that makes no sense for him to have done so....and he speaks of Sora at length as if they were personally acquainted even when they never spoke to each other once....and gaaaaah, it's so stupid! If he had just remained dead, he'd have stayed a strong character and Christopher Lee's passing wouldn't have affected anything (nor would Genzo Wakayama's should the series continue with the character).

Ansem: KH-COM-KH2-Days-Coded-3D-KH3-MOM

So, let me get this straight...Ansem regained all his Master Xehanort memories (which should include that Kingdom Hearts is light, so what the fuck?) and discarded his body to travel back in time despite writing that he was doing it for the sake of knowledge. He travels back to Young Xehanort on Destiny Islands and gives him the power to travel into the future, then just stays hidden on Destiny Islands for years until it's destroyed in KH, where he also afflicts a time-traveling future Sora with some kind of curse because it was "etched" that he do so. Then later after possessing Riku and going through the Final Keyhole, Young Xehanort shows up, extracts his heart and takes it into the future where it's put into a replica body, and from this body Ansem time travels into the future so that he can attend the gathering of the "true" Organization XIII. Then after returning to the replica body, KH3 happens and he's defeated and thus returns with no memories of the future to beyond the Final Keyhole to be defeated again, still somehow not knowing that Kingdom Hearts is light....and GAAAAAAH, it's so FUCKING stupid!!! Ansem was such a great villain the way he was, why ruin that!?

Xemnas: KH-COM-KH2-Days-3D-KH3-MOM

3D strikes again in ruining an awesome villain in service of a lamer one, this time saying that Xemnas wasn't trying to claim a heart for himself and power over all hearts by becoming the supreme existence; he and the other Nobodies had hearts all along and he just lied to the others that they didn't so that they would feel empty enough to be filled with copypastas of Master Xehanort's heart when they completed Kingdom Hearts. No more tragedy and depth; Xemnas is just a bad guy working on behalf of a worse guy just like Ansem. KH3 did an admirable salvage job by suggesting that Xemnas hated being a disposable pawn to someone else and had deep self-worth issues because of it and as a result was honestly trying to become the supreme existence through harnessing the Keyblade's power (unlike Ansem, whose betrayal plan was just about surviving Master Xehanort's reset of the universe alongside a girl he supposedly cared for in his own way), but it's still not as compelling as when him being a Nobody truly meant something and when he wasn't anyone's minion.

Xigbar / Braig: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

"I'm already half-Xehanort! Except as if, I'm actually Luxu! I'm also Brain and Bragi in a certain way, both names which coincidentally sound like Braig! What's in the box, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know!" Sigh....a once interesting character, now just an irritating one.

Xaldin / Dilan: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

Lexaeus / Elaeus: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

In the newly added ending to Coded's cutscene movie version, we see Dilan and Eleaus sprawled out on the floor. They might has well have stayed that way, for what little they say and do afterward. In hindsight, it's honestly sort of a miracle Eleaus had some lines in 3D!

Vexen / Even: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3-MOM

Zexion / Ienzo: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3-MOM

I'm impressed that these two hung on for as long as they did! I guess only being major villains in COM, a game early into the series' run, before their major supporting hero role in KH3 helped with that, since their brief appearances in between never did enough to tarnish them. But unfortunately, their roles in KH3 were also very conclusive ones, so seeing them again, alongside their should-be-dead master, in MOM immediately afterwards sours me on them.

Saix / Isa: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

Axel / Lea: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

The decision to put young Isa and Lea in Radiant Garden in BBS in place of young Squall and Cloud was a horrible one which somewhat negatively impacted Saix and Axel in Days and absolutely negatively impacted them in all other games. For reference, in Days it is subtly implied Saix and Axel are in the Organization for the sake of a girl they knew in Radiant Garden (a vague idea that would later be fleshed out into something worse, like with Xion), which lessens both of them. Worse still is the bullshit redemptions they go through once restored from their KH2 deaths, which is especially bad for Axel. As Lea, everything that made Axel a great character is thrown into the garbage, turning him into an unfunny comic relief who is only part of the main cast and a Keyblade wielder because of his past popularity (something he obnoxiously lampshades in KH3), with his vices either swept under the rug or dishonestly reframed as virtues. It's sad. These two excellent villains make two lousy heroes.

Demyx: COM-KH2-Days-KH3

Luxord: COM-KH2-Days-3D-KH3

Marluxia: COM-KH2-Days-3D-KH3

Larxene: COM-KH2-Days-3D-KH3

Just like with Ventus, Union Xross bullshit popping up in KH3 ruins these characters. They're still entertaining if you just ignore it, but after all is said and done you just know that the series is going to continue on with it and it's not a pleasant prospect at all, especially for Luxord.

Roxas: COM-KH2-Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

Like with Namine, the disappointing depiction of Roxas in Days would not have single-handedly ruined him. It's how it carried over into subsequent games that did the real damage, as for some reason the game and its depiction of Roxas really caught on in Japan and thus there was high fan demand for Roxas' tragedy to be reversed and for he and his friends to have a happy ending. That's why the next few games all included Roxas in his stupid black coat and referenced the pain of losing his stupid friends whom he stupidly eats ice cream with all the damn time, and culminated in his nonsensical resurrection in KH3 that Nomura has personally confessed was done out of fan pandering. Oh, but he wasn't alone on that....

Xion: Days-BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

And we're three-for-three with a character whom was problematic in Days but wouldn't have jumped the shark if that had been it for them; in this case the biggest character in that game. If the series had just stuck to how Xion's fate was described in Days, which was being as dead and gone as is humanly possible to be, then she'd still be looked upon as an effective tragic character. Instead, we just kept on seeing her in game after game against all logic, almost always with some sad look on her face to the point her tragedy became a comedy, culminating in her nonsensical resurrection for fan pandering alongside Roxas in KH3.

Master Xehanort: BBS-3D-KH3-MOM

No further comment. We all know this one.

Young Xehanort: BBS-Coded-3D-KH3

Yes, this character actually jumped the shark in his debut. Why? Because he fundamentally made no sense. Not only did him coming from Destiny Islands and wanting more than just his small world lazily rehash Riku from the original KH which in turn negatively affects both Terra and Riku's characters, but he also makes both Master Xehanort and Terra-Xehanort feel superfluous. Why not just have this character be the villain who ends up with amnesia and becomes Ansem's apprentice? Why have him at all if you're just going to age him up only to possess a younger character's body? And if you're going to do that, then why still include this character in the plot as a time-traveling minion of his older self!? And if you're going to do that, then why then give us an even younger version who got off Destiny Islands earlier only to pointlessly return and completely retcon all the other Xehanorts' fundamental motivations!?

Terra-Xehanort: KH2-BBS-3D-0.2-KH3-MOM

Same deal as with Terra and Ansem. 3D turned Terra-Xehanort into just an accessory; a minion to Master Xehanort even though that defeats the whole purpose of his existence.

Vanitas: BBS-3D-KH3

Vanitas came SO CLOSE to never jumping the shark. But then Re:Mind just had to throw in a new scene where he references the Union Xross bullshit retcon of him being an "ancient being of darkness" who wasn't born from Ventus' heart at all! Thanks, Nomura, I hate it.

Riku Replica / Dark Riku: COM-3D-KH3

Riku Replica was good as just a character in COM. The idea 3D foreshadowed of an evil version of him being a part of the "true" Organization XIII made a lot of sense, and I would have been fine with it. But KH3 wrecked it by also including the original version of the Riku Replica, even though he, much like DiZ and Xion, should have been irrevocably dead. And it was for no other purpose but a deus ex machina to grant Namine a body she didn't need! His evil counterpart on Xehanort's side ending up being a bland let-down didn't help matters.

Master Eraqus: BBS-KH3

Young Eraqus has way too big of a disconnect from Master Eraqus. How am I supposed to believe that this upbeat kid who is also a clever chessmaster (supposedly clever; he really just cheats) is the same person as the stern zealot whose idiotic blunders did much of the heavy lifting for Master Xehanort's evil plan in BBS? And how am I supposed to believe he and Xehanort had this super close bond when Xehanort so casually murdered him in BBS?

Hayner, Pence and Olette: COM-KH2-Days-KH3

.......................Never. They never jumped the shark at all. Who would have ever guessed: out of all characters in the series, it's these three mundane civilians who stayed consistent!

[komoryriku]

Queering KH Part 4: Hearts in Tune

Actually KH Finally lol

Pictured: Riku humming Sora’s name in a soft, adoring, wistful voice the way a swooning straight person sighs the name of their beloved of the opposite gender.

Kingdom Hearts gives off so many subtextual signals of queer coding that it genuinely BAFFLES me how people can really believe it is straight. You may be wondering what makes me so confident in that when there has not been anything in the games to explicitly prove any of the characters are not straight, and I will be happy to tell you. It is because in order to believe Kingdom Hearts is straight, you have to ignore WAY too much subtext. To truly believe that Sora is in love with Kairi and only coded to be interested in Kairi, you have to ignore his questioning of what love is. You have to ignore the combined keyblade he shares with Riku. You have to ignore how much the narrative is driving him to understand that Riku is his most important, cherished person. This all goes doubly for Riku who has a coming out story not unlike Elsa’s metaphorical one, in which his love for Sora is his greatest source of strength. You have to pretend the necklace gifting plot point is entirely straight and cannot possibly mean anything homoromantic. You have to ignore the way Sora cries while clutching Riku’s hand compared to his subdued and non-emotional reunion with Kairi- that’s just too much “accidental subtext” for me to confidently ignore lol. Intentional or not, KH is Gay~

Here’s how we’re gonna do this.

So where the hell do I even begin with coding KH? Well- I can’t possibly queer the whole of KH text in 1 summer, so what I plan to do is this:

Give you the tools to understand KH’s coding so that you can code it yourself~

Queer a few major KH scenes so that everyone can see that the proof is in the pudding.

I’m gonna try to break down various scenes to decode them and queer them so you can see what’s at play in KH. Originally when this meta was a single doc, I was only gonna cover 4 scenes. But since I’m breaking it into parts to update at my leisure, I’m gonna just add scenes and meta as I go~

Now without further ado:

How the Hearts in Tune scene is Gay Coded

This shouldn’t be too hard at all.~

This scene is almost too easy. 

The scene opens with Sora bringing Mickey the sound idea he found but as it turns out, one sound idea is not enough. Sora tells us not to worry because he has a friend who is always picking up the slack for him. Likewise, on Riku’s end, he brings his sound idea to Mickey and is surprised to see that Sora’s sound idea is necessary to complete the song. 

Once the sound ideas meet, this beautiful visual plays out in which the 2 sound ideas swirl around each other and the soundtrack title “Dearly Beloved” plays. 

Now, there are several things I want to note about this sequence- heck this visual alone before we move on. 

Recall earlier when I discussed Shiki’s point that blue and pink (likewise blue and red) “go together”, romantically.

I will let the visual of Sora’s sheet music being pink while Riku’s is blue speak for itself. But I will also add how this ties into the yin and yang themes I’m about to discuss:

Yin and Yang

This concept gets its own section because it’s such an influential concept in so many aspects of various cultures around the globe.

Yin and Yang is an eastern philosophy which illustrates the concept of dualism. In short, it is the concept that 2 opposite halves are complements to a whole. The original term in fact translates to dark-bright.  

I am neither a philosophy professor or student so I will keep this as brief as I can and simply encourage you to study up on Yin and Yang at your own leisure. I will however paste this section from wikipedia because I think it is extremely helpful information to have for studying eastern media in general. 

Yin and Yang: husbanded opposing forces. Dark-Light, Moon-Sun, Chaos-Order, Winter-Summer, Negative-Positive.

Female (Yin)-Male (Yang): Yes this is often used in a heteronormative heterosexual context because people are homophobic and believe in gender binaries, unfortunately, but I implore you to consider the concept in more figurative, spiritual, aesthetic themes, especially since Yin and Yang is a much grander philosophy than mere sexuality discourse; it’s about complementary forces creating a whole. 

For shipping purposes, think opposites attract. Think concepts that are traditionally associated with femininity meshing with concepts that are traditionally associated with masculinity. Queer media has a wonderful way of subverting heteronormative Yin and Yang tropes by showing that cis-hetero standards can be hypocritically non-compliant with the complementary concept.

Rather than thinking of this, 2 heteros in love based on being just- the same person with opposite genders:

Think of this, same gendered couples with complementary personalities:

Think about how an aloof scrappy butchy vampire queen attracts an uptight calculating femme princess.

Think about how this goody-goody dumb jock with a martyring hero complex attracts this naughty cunning jock with a self-loathing villaness complex.

And now think about how badly we need more canonical mlm couples in children’s media lol. Oops my finger slipped. But I’m getting ahead of myself lol.

The concepts of interconnected opposite forces are so important and prominent in literature throughout the world, but yin and yang is ESPECIALLY important in Kingdom Hearts because it is a story that explicitly explores Light and Dark forces. It explores how they both oppose one another in catastrophic ways,

and how they complement each other in harmonious ways.

Getting ahead of myself again… But hey speaking of harmony, back to the matter at hand.

Hearts in Tune.

This scene shows a number of romantic symbols. As I was saying before the yin and yang tangent, pink and blue (nee red and blue) are already symbols of romantic suggestion. And in the case of them representing 2 parts of a whole song, these song pieces act as complementary halves, adding another layer of dualism to the scene. Furthermore, the music sheets swirl around each other in a yin and yang fashion. Harmony has been achieved. This lets us know these forces belong together. These forces representing Sora and Riku. They are husbanded together. These 2 hearts in question are part of each other. In fact, Mickey even says so:

Perhaps most damning, however, is that the song in question is “Dearly Beloved”, arguably the theme song for Kingdom Hearts as far as the score goes. I’m sure it goes without say that “Dearly Beloved” is not only in itself a romantic sounding phrase but it is also the phrase specifically said by officiators of weddings to the congregation before the wedding vows are exchanged. “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today…” 

I will also mention that Riku’s dream eater symbol visible in the shot is specifically designed based on a bleeding heart flower, a symbol of passionate love. Credit to Steam for pointing this out here, please follow them and read their posts they are magically delicious:

So almost everything about this scene is aesthetically romantically coded, and I didn’t even mention the fact that Dream Drop Distance’s whole color palette is themed with rainbows, which as I said earlier is absolutely still a gay symbol in Japan. Note the rainbow of colors animating from the sheet music. 

So in terms of the atmosphere of the scene, its already incredibly homoromantic in every way I can think of. But what about the dialogue?

Well lets talk about the dialogue. Dialogue should always been read with care when you’re trying to queer a text. Often a lot of queer messaging in a text is subtextual. This means the text itself may actually say something gay, but you have to read further into it. This is an old method of queer writing designed to protect the writer from getting in trouble for their gay crimes.

Historical aside on this:  If you’ve ever read Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, you may have note that Lord Henry can never just simply say that he is gay, lest Oscar Wilde be charged for homosexuality in 19th century England. Instead, Lord Henry simply tells us he is married to a woman, but makes it clear throughout the text that this marriage is mostly performative and he is not emotionally invested in it whatsoever, going against the puritanical, heternormative ideals of Victorian prudery. Lord Henry is by contrast MUCH more invested in following the life and times of his very close friend Dorian Gray, with whom he shares a hedonistic philosophy in the name of Fin de siècle. Not to be a downer but for the sake of understanding how real this subject of oppressed gay censorship is, despite keeping the homosexual themes as purely subtext, Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted of homosexuality and this book was used against him in court. 

What we are privileged to have today with KH is a cutscene and not just a script. Meaning we have visuals, animation, voice acting, musical cues, etc etc to follow along with to enhance our subtext. 

On Sora’s end of the conversation, Mickey points out that the song is incomplete with just his sound idea alone, and Sora tells him not to worry, as Riku is his dependable friend who will fill in where he fails. The text in the official English translation is:

Mickey: That's strange... Is one Sound Idea not enough?

Sora: Don't worry. I've got a friend out there who will help. He's always 

picking up the slack for me.

This on its own sounds platonic. But note just how affectionate Sora’s voice acting is when he says it. Not only that, he clutches his heart to let us know how close he is to Riku and how much his connection with Riku matters to him. How much confidence he has in this friend he cares so much about. He then closes his eyes after saying it, smiling up in the air blissfully while he waits for their hearts to make their connection and finish the song.

Once it is finished, Mickey remarks that their sounds joined together to make something more powerful. Sora then says looking thoughtful, “Yeah. Two forces are better than one. Right, Riku?”

Following this, Sora leaves to fight the boss.

On Riku’s side, Mickey questions what happened, and Riku looks up thoughtfully, and says tenderly, “Sora.”

Mickey comments “Sora? Funny... Just hearing that name kinda makes me wanna smile.” and Riku tells him warmly, “Yeah. That's how he is.”

Mickey then goes on to say some really shippy stuff:

“Whaddaya know... Riku and Sora. The Sound Ideas you two set free joined together. And when they did, they made a great and powerful harmony.”

Riku then nods and tells Mickey brightly that “Sora can find the brightest part of anything, and pull off miracles like there's nothing to it. It's pretty hard not to smile around him.”

And I would like to pause to look at that line. “It’s pretty hard not to smile around him.” Although Mickey says the same thing, that just hearing Sora’s name invokes a smile, we sense a somewhat deeper meaning in Riku saying it. Why is that? Well, for one thing this game is entirely about Riku protecting Sora and exploring how much Sora actually means to him. This game is continuing Riku’s redemption arc from KH2, but it is also doing something perhaps even more important: it is providing him a journey of self discovery. This test resets Sora and Riku to level 1 so to speak, not just in their powers but even their models revert to variations of their KH1 selves. This helps to underscore Riku re-examining himself and his feelings. 

And then guess what? Mickey makes some even SHIPPIER commentary. He exclaims “Wow! No wonder the music sounded like so much fun. But I bet he's got you to thank for that. Having such a good friend means he could really enjoy it.”

Riku is taken aback by this comment. “Huh?”

Mickey continues, expressing some extremely yin and yang themed sentiments, 

“It's like each of you is holding on to a little part of the other. Your hearts are always in tune, so they're free to sing. Gosh, I hope I can be part of the team someday.”

Mickey did us a wonderful favor and expressed to us explicitly, for those who didn’t understand the romantic coding of the scene already, that Sora and Riku are a good match. Mickey tells Riku that the music sounded like fun in English, that it was a happy, pleasurable time, and tells him that Sora has Riku for a friend which is what must have made it so enjoyable. 

So from this dialogue we get assurance that Sora and Riku are two very close friends, whose hearts are connected, and they are 2 powerful forces that merge into an even greater one. Their hearts are in tune.

Now if this were a scene about a boy and a girl, I doubt anyone would question whether it was romantic. Why should we be asked to look at it platonically just because it is 2 boys? The romantic imagery is clear. 

And let me ask you this while we’re still on the subject of Dream Drop Distance: 

According to Riku’s character files, he had previously thought of Sora as a little brother, and tried to be a cool older brother to him. 

He then tells us that this has changed. What did it change to? 

The surface level, heteronormative answer would say it changed to them being merely friends. 

But isn’t that an odd regression? After all, found family is a thing, and that’s a bit weird for him to question since there is no reason for those feelings to change on that notion. If Sora loved him like a brother, that clearly hasn’t changed. Riku clearly loves Sora as deeply, so that didn’t change. The other problem with this phenomenon Riku is dealing with is that there is no reason for him to feel this strange sense of repression we keep seeing over this change. He is constantly holding back on some feelings for Sora but platonic and brotherly feelings are entirely acceptable. What is it that he is hiding? What sort of feelings for Sora would be hidden?

From the Kh2 Novel: 

He really did want to see Sora and talk. But that was impossible with this appearance. The things that mattered the most were what he couldn’t tell Sora. It had always been that way.

What sort of feelings might be systemically oppressed?

This scene is pretty much EXACTLY what I would do to say as explicitly as possible that Riku is gay without being able to say it outright due to censorship.