Kazuya Makino

**Kazuya Makino** (牧野 和也) is the main male protagonist of the Pumpkin Night series. Initially appearing as the love interest of Naoko, Kazuya would soon go insane after her apparent death and briefly become the second person to use the Pumpkin Night title before he creates his own persona as the Pumpkin King.

## Personality

Kazuya is the only member of Naruto Kuroki's gang shown to be a genuinely good person, he is shown to be a kind and decent person and the only person to not bully Naoko. He is also shown to be a very shy person, being unable to tell Naoko his feelings towards her, this is something that carries on into him being unable to protect Naoko during all the times she was bullied by Naruto and the rest of his friends, resulting in him coming across as cowardly for not stopping his friends sooner. The bullying of Naoko, her incarceration, escape, and then indirect murder of Asumi has gotten his attention, even though he fails to save Asumi from the attack. Then the next day, he and the bullies end up on the crosshairs of Naoko when they get a follow from her social media profile and get attacked by her when they were on their way to rescue Saki from being incinerated, as well as witnessing Naoko's atrocities, of which concern Kazuya even more, especially from the news on his smartphone. They recover from their light injuries but have not escaped the wrath of Naoko who not only kills off Saki but also disguised herself as Saki to fool them, Kazuya included. Afterwards, he stays in the room in spite of the obvious and takes a nap and dreams about the time he met up with Naoko just before the incident, and during this time, Naoko tries to strangle him but holds off. Then he leaves the room and ends up being tricked into having a discussion with Matsui and Hayakawa, via the latter's disguise of the Pumpkin Night; and in a separate room learns about more of Naoko's killings and happens to know Saki's corpse. They try to go to Saki's room but was foiled by a stampeding crowd caused by an emergency alarm set off by Naoko and Kazuya ended up being separated from the duo and right into Naoko herself in an elevator who has dawned a hoodie and pants to slip away who tells him about the pranking that ruined her face. When they get out of the elevator, they go their separate ways, with Kazuya pondering about the incident more than he had when he meets back up with Naruto and Arata. However as he learns more about what had happened to Naoko from Arata, he begins to finally stand up to Naruto and Arata after he stops them from almost killing Naoko and finally confess his feelings to her.

After Naoko seemingly dies in front of him Kazuya has a complete mental breakdown, going insane and hell bent on getting revenge on Naruto, his father and Arata, the three he held responsible for Naoko's death (in spite of the carnage Naoko unleashed upon the innocent bystanders in her path and of course Noizumi), and inspired by Naoko he briefly takes on the mantle of Pumpkin Night before creating his own identity as the Pumpkin King. As the Pumpkin King Kazuya is shown to be just as violent and sadistic as Naoko can be, although thanks to how severe his insanity is he is incapable of preparing complicated plans to murder his victims like Naoko can, while being able to plan his kills out he doesn't make them as complicated as Naoko's, although he still has the mental capacity to stalk and psychologically torture his victims; as seen with Naruto as he both purposely chased him through a crowd that wouldn't believe his claims and laughed at his attempts to call for help, mirroring how Naoko must have felt after her face had been burnt, and then showed Naruto he was going to kill him with an entire bottle of sulfuric acid, terrifying him all while getting revenge for what Naruto had done to Naoko.

After killing Naruto Kazuya's mental state worsens to the point that he is unable to escape getting caught and sent to a mental hospital, with orderlies seen having to stop him redoing the dance he did after killing Naruto, all while having a vacant look on his face while smiling. A year later however it seems he finally had the chance to recover mentally somewhat and come to terms with Naoko's supposed death, because of this Kazyua became depressed due to believing Naoko was dead, going into a semi catatonic state and having started self harming himself much like Naoko had done. When he's told by Matsui that Naoko was in fact alive his entire behaviour and mental state changes completely, crying tears of joy after hearing of Naoko's survival, while having recovered almost entirely from his catatonic state he's still shown to be mentally unhinged with very violent tendencies; merely grinning and laughing after being beaten by the orderlies working for Sae Kuroki and not long after biting the nose off of one of the orderlies. Meanwhile, Naoko comes over to the clinic to rescue him when she found out about him being held there, yet at the same time, he was subjected to numerous tests to enhance his strength and brainwash him into thinking Naoko is his enemy and causes him to be in his Pumpkin King persona. He brutally murders all the henchmen in the holding room and kills a few more who were trying to flee Naoko and her new ally Shingo; his mentally unstable, violent nature makes him unrecognizable to even Naoko, who doesn't take this well as she didn't know about Kazuya's killing spree after her 'death'. The two clash, as planned by Sae, with Shingo being knocked down after having his eyes injured (and one of them gouged out) although Naoko doesn't try to put up a fight as she was struggling to figure out how to get him back to recognizing her and stop fighting. After beating her up, Naoko manages to convince him that he knows her and the two manage to hug yet he still tries to kill her by strangulation as evidenced by a way of neurological manipulation. During this time, a supposed ghost taking on the form of Naruto appears behind the two as "witnessed" by not only them but Shingo himself to some extent, who tells him from behind that a nerve is controlling him to kill Naoko no matter the circumstances and that he has a choice to either somehow remove it at the risk of his death or allow the nerve to have him kill Naoko. Kazuya refuses the latter, saying he doesn't care if he dies in the process to save Naoko's life, and then the "ghost" vanishes, followed up by Shingo punching Kazuya down to the ground very hard much to Naoko's displeasure. However, this brutally simple move restores Kazuya back to his "usual" self and has ceased fighting her and the two make up and head off to not only rescue Naoko's mother-like friend but also kill Sae. Yet their efforts would end up being undermined as he fights alongside Naoko against the PMC unit who are sent by Sae to kill everyone at the clinic. However although the brain washing done to Kazuya has been undone it seems the attack done by Shingo has altered the programming; it seems that now, whenever he is exposed to violent situations, such as when witnessing the violence Shingo inflicts on the soldiers brought in by Sae Kazuya, Kazuya will now revert into his Pumpkin King persona and gleefully attack whoever he sees as an enemy rather than going for Naoko. He and Shingo succeed, and he leaves the clinic with Naoko by his side. Sometime later, he moved into a remote house on the beachside in Okinawa with Naoko and friends where he lives a seemingly normal life with her. However, he still has the enzymes implanted in him that cause him more and more pain that could potentially kill him, worse yet, the condition is implied to be incurable, meaning it's a terminal condition; although Ryuichi mentions a "way" for the couple to stay together "forever" of which concerns Matsui.

During the battle against Farms's PMCs and drones sent against Naoko's residence, he had to stay behind in the basement with Matsui, Yoshimoto, and Yuki to watch the action, due to said condition preventing him from joining the fight. When the spider drones become more of a threat to the house, he yells at Naoko to run away but she stood her ground and fought off the drones with the help of the doctor and Shingo. Farms then sends missiles to the house, which gets destroyed, worrying Naoko to the point of sacrificing herself to save him, in spite of her supposed immortality.

## Trivia

* Kazuya's Pumpkin King mask bares a resemblance to the mask worn by Winslow Leach in the 1974 musical *Phantom of the Paradise*.
* Similar to how Naoko has traits from horror icons Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Micheal Myers Kazuya shares traits from two slasher villains from the *Friday the 13th* series, primarily Pamela Voorhees and Roy Burns:
	+ Much like how Kazuya lost a loved one so too did Pamela and Roy; seemingly Jason according to *Friday the 13th* and Joey Burns in *Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning* respectfully. While Kazuya shares his desire for revenge and descent into insanity from the death of a loved one with Pamela he closely resembles Roy Burns as not only do they desire revenge against the people who caused the death of the person close to them but they also briefly take on the role of the previous villains before them; with Roy Burns assuming the identity of Jason Voorhees for one film (who in turn became the main antagonist of the series following his mother's death), while Kazuya takes on the identity of the Pumpkin Night from chapters 21 to 25 before becoming the Pumpkin King in chapter 26.
* Chapter 1 shows possible homages to Scream (1996) in context to how Naoko reaches her first victim via text, following her on a account deemed, "Pumpkin Night", and even talking to Kazuya through her first kill's phone. The similarity of both slashers using phones to lure their victims is a take on a common slasher trope with the killers using technology in the context of their kills