WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Tribe Nine Episode 7, now streaming on Funimation.
Tribe Nine is a dystopian anime set in Neo-Tokyo, where tribe disputes are resolved with games of Extreme Baseball. The protagonists' tribe, Minato, lost its star player when Shun Kamiya died in Episode 4. Minato Tribe's newest member, Kazuki Aoyama, made a complicated first impression. His surveillance equipment provided a vital advantage when the team was in a dire situation, but his condescending attitude toward the other members made it hard for them to work together with him.
In Episode 7, Minato Tribe's Haru Shirokane became paranoid after a thief tried to steal his treasured beam bat that Kamiya left him. Meanwhile, the tribe joined a dubious contest at the rival Setagaya Tribe's mansion to win 10,000,000 yen, with Kazuki investigating the mysterious premises. These scenes revealed another side to Kazuki's personality that was more cooperative and empathetic, but his most heartwarming moments of the episode involved his surprising bond with the cats that live outside the tribe's diner headquarters. Even so, could the aloof player still be hiding something?
When the tribe heard a noise in the storage room, Haru went to investigate and saw a masked thief trying to steal his bat. Minato's cat Nekomaru scratched the thief's right hand and Haru unsuccessfully chased them outside the diner. In a farcical yet oddly suspenseful turn of events, a series of coincidences coalesced to implicate Kazuki as the thief in Haru's mind. Kazuki also had scratches on his right hand, which he hid from Haru, and he made an ominous comment about keeping the bat close because "Minato's a dangerous place."
Everything Kazuki did invited the audience into Haru's suspicious perspective. When playing a card game with Santaro Mita and Manami Daimon, Santaro accused him of cheating. Kazuki's response that he was "doubting him for no reason" seemed poetically targeted at Haru. What Haru didn't notice because of his paranoid mindset was that even playing this game was an early example of Kazuki earnestly trying to become closer to his teammates.
Another small way in which Kazuki showed his more personable side was when he told an apparently amusing anecdote to Minato Tribe's leader, Saori Arisugawa. The two laughed about the story. This was an especially meaningful development in their relationship because Arisugawa had been apprehensive about Kamiya never introducing them when he was alive, but now Arisugawa has the opportunity to establish her own relationship with Kazuki.
Despite this, Kazuki's mean streak also shone through in the episode. When a slapstick scene resulted in the diner being damaged, Minato Tribe entered a batting contest to win money for repairs and then some. Looking at the flyer, Kazuki commented unprompted that "It's too bad Taiga couldn't join us. Not that he'd help much." Even when Taiga isn't present, Kazuki feels the need to go out of his way to undermine him -- even though he has the potential to be one of the team's best players.
At the contest itself, Kazuki disappeared from the team to investigate the mansion. Minato Tribe won under dubious circumstances. Adachi Tribe were given energy drinks that made them sick, for example. A suspicious Haru refused to accept the cash prize from Setagaya Tribe's greedy, chauvinistic Eiji Todoroki, at which point Kazuki emerged to reveal that Setagaya was responsible for the attempted theft.
Todoroki's personal assistant Ikejiri, who turned out to be the diner thief, tried to take the bat again. This time, however, Kazuki revealed that he had replaced the bat with a decoy. He justified this sleight of hand as being "surprisingly sneaky." Haru may have noticed that this deftness meant that Kazuki could have theoretically stolen the bat at any time, and had clearly chosen not to, honoring Kamiya's wishes.
It ultimately transpired that Kazuki had injured his hand trying to befriend an especially aggressive cat that lived outside the diner, and his comment about the bat foreshadowed his investigation of the true thief. A fondness for animals is a reliable way to make an arrogant character more endearing, although Haru already knew he liked to spend time with stray cats and was still suspicious. The only reason Haru and the audience didn't immediately assume he got the scratch from a stray cat was the remarkably incriminating comparison to the attack on the thief.
Some of Haru's initial suspicions were not resolved by the end of the episode, however. Haru recalled eavesdropping on Kazuki directing Taiga to meet his new mentor Hanafuda Sakura, but his flashback now revealed that Kazuki scoffed and said to himself, "so simple" as soon as Taiga had left. This comment, alongside Sakura's shortcomings as a mentor, made it seem as though Kazuki was trying to sabotage Taiga. Alternatively, this may have been another comically contrived misunderstanding; Kazuki may have been referring to how simple it had been to distract Taiga from his anxiety about his batting skills.
In a moment of dark comedy, after Todoroki’s mansion was bombed by Ota Tribe, Kazuki assured everyone that he wasn’t responsible. Kazuki seems to always have a positive attitude and a smile. This makes it hard for Minato Tribe to know what he’s thinking, but it could also mean that he is more offended by their negative assumptions about him than he lets on. Ultimately, Kazuki may become like the “feisty” cat he befriended: hard to trust, but not so much that his new friends will give up on him.
