Character	Hideo Ozaki
Appearance	Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains
Media	Otome Game
Type	Obsessive
Love Interest	Protagonist/ Yuriko Nomiya

Hideo Ozaki is Yuriko’s childhood friend. While they often played together when they were young, Hideo drifted away and grew colder towards Yuriko in the recent years. He had graduated from the military academy, and is the second lieutenant of the army.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

Hideo had known Yuriko since their childhood, and had often played together as kids. However, as they grew older, Hideo became distant and cold towards Yuriko for some reason. The two interacted less, until Hideo showed up for Yuriko’s birthday party. Although he tried to subdue his emotions, Hideo was visibly upset during the party. He revealed to Yuriko the true intention behind her luxurious birthday party – her father was trying to find a husband for her.

To make things worse, Yuriko’s father was soon murdered at the party, and her mother fell into illness after the tragedy struck. A businessman named Shiba also came barging into Yuriko’s life, offering to clear her family’s debt should she marry him. In a short span of time, Yuriko’s life had turned upside down.

Hideo also have his own share of worries. In truth, Hideo grew distant from Yuriko due to the strained relationship between their families. Yuriko belongs to a long-standing aristocratic family, while Hideo’s family earned their title due to their war contributions. As such, Yuriko’s mother, Shigeko, considered Hideo’s family to be inferior, and rejected the marriage talk between Yuriko and Hideo when the topic came up between their families. Later on, it was revealed Shigeko probably had prevented their marriage due to the uncanny obsession Hideo had with Yuriko when they were children.

Nevertheless, this rejection from Shigeko resulted in resentment between the families, and Hideo’s parents scrambled to search for a lady from an even more prestigious household for Hideo out of spite. Eventually, they succeeded. However, Hideo wants nothing to do with the marriage. If not obvious by now, he had all along loved Yuriko since they were young. But due to Shigeko’s rejection, he was pushed into another marriage he did not want. To some extent, he blamed Yuriko (whut) even though she was unaware of this incident (WHUT), which also resulted in his cold attitude towards Yuriko (WHUT..!!!). I just want to say: Hideo, I don’t know if you are dumb or dumb, but you are barking at the wrong tree here.

For whatever reasons, Yuriko saw no wrong with his logic and sympathized with him. From here on, they slowly started to spend more time together despite Hideo being engaged and Yuriko recently being proposed to by Shiba. Yuriko began to develop feelings for Hideo. Eventually, they agreed to take a couple shot when offered by a passing photographer. One things leads to another end they ended up sharing a kiss. Unbeknownst to Yuriko, this event solidified Hideo’s conviction to love and marry Yuriko, and no one else.

Shortly after, Hideo informed Yuriko that he just made an important decision, and that Yuriko wouldn’t like it. Hideo’s fiancé belongs to a much more established aristocratic family. As his family and his fiancé’s family had long agreed to their marriage, a sudden back out will not only cause damage to the fiancé’s family, it will also hurt his own household as well.

To exit this marriage in an upright manner, the only way Hideo could think of was to volunteer to go to war in Siberia. Any family would not want their daughter to be married to a man who will die anytime in a war and be left widowed, so they will most likely break off the engagement. Should Hideo survive and come back, he will be able to marry Yuriko properly. Also, in the event that Yuriko decided to go with Shiba, Hideo would rather be at war or even die than to witness the scene. Basically, Hideo was ready to give his life for Yuriko. And when he told Yuriko this decision, she certainly did not like it.

Regardless, Hideo ended up going to war. In the good end, Hideo came back in time and saved Yuriko from an assault. After learning that the two of them were truly in love with each other, his fiancé decided to withdraw from their engagement. Hideo and Yuriko married each other, and even had a child. Hideo quit his lieutenant position, and decided to pursue his long term passion as an avian researcher.

In the good end, we see more of Hideo’s obsessive nature. He will bring Yuriko along wherever he goes, even when Yuriko is not enthusiastic about the excursion. He could not stand to be apart from Yuriko, and was even jealous at the attention Yuriko gave to their child.

He would be jealous when Yuriko pays attention to others, and often reminded Yuriko that she belongs to him. Yuriko was deeply in love with Hideo as well, so she was fine with his behaviour. He also revealed that when they were younger, Yuriko did not notice his affections for her, but he was quite blatant about his feelings towards the adults. Hideo had told Shigeko outright that he wanted to make a taxidermy mount of Yuriko to display in his room. Of course, Shigeko freaked out, and later on rejected the marriage talks between the two by using their family statuses as an excuse. Hideo’s obsession with Yuriko in fact started as early as they were children.

In one of the bad ends, Hideo’s fiancé insisted on keeping their engagement despite Hideo going to war. Desprate, Yuriko proposed to Shiba that should she marry him, she must be allowed to meet with Hideo regularly. Shiba reluctantly agreed, but he made sure to keep Yuriko close with him, and eventually Yuriko even carried his child.

Through all this, Yuriko kept her affair with Hideo and met up with him regularly. Hideo became increasingly upset at the way things turned out, and often lashed out at Yuriko. As an extremely strait-laced man, adultery was almost impossible for Hideo, but he did it because it was with Yuriko. Even if these fleeting meetings were all they could have, he could never let her go.

To me, Hideo is the typical mandatory tsundere that every otome has, only more obsessive. I don’t really have much to say about him as I don’t like tsunderes most of the time. When they like someone, they always refuse to admit it, choose to wait for the other party to approach them, and still push them away. To me, they act almost the exact opposite to yanderes, hence my disinterest for them.

Here, Hideo acts similarly. He was cold and distant to Yuriko at the start, and was snarky towards Yuriko even when he loved her. Should other bachelors approach Yuriko, he will simply back off. Even when he came into the picture to protect Yuriko or take her away out of jealousy, he refuses to admit it unless we are on his route. In his route, you can definitely see his obsession with her. But I simply can’t bring myself to love such a passive character. (Ahem, Shiba FTW!)

I think his route was fine. Despite my lack of interest for his character, the plot and writing was good enough to go through his route without feeling bored. His love and concern for Yuriko was very clear. Even as he acted rude and snarky towards her, I could immediately see that he cares for her. Overall, I would say that his route was good, but his character was meh for me (seriously, go check out Shiba).