A theory about Kaho’s family life
I was thinking:
In the world of Watanare, what if it’s normal for the man to take the woman’s surname when they get married?
As you already know (and for those who don’t), in Japan, when two people get married, it is normal for the woman to take her husband’s surname. Cases where the man takes his wife’s surname, or where both spouses keep their own surnames, are very rare.
With that said, why do I think that in Watanare, it might be normal for the man to take the woman’s surname?
In general, we don’t know much about the Quintet’s parents’ pasts. Two of the Quintet’s mothers are single mothers, while the other two only appear a few times. The scattered information Mikami Teren provides doesn’t help much either, and the families of the Quintet aren’t explored in much depth.
However, there is one member of the Quintet who can give us at least a little insight into this, and that is Kaho.
Kaho is Renako’s childhood friend, but at first, Renako didn’t recognize her because Kaho had drastically changed both her personality and her surname. Kaho’s current surname is Koyanagi, while her previous surname was Minaguchi.
Kaho explains that the change of surname happened because her parents got divorced and she went with her father. And this is where my question comes in: Why did they have to change their surname if, normally, the surname that is adopted is the man’s?
From this point onward, there is a lot of speculation, since we know very little about Kaho’s past. It’s possible that Kaho’s father chose to take Kaho’s mother’s surname, or that both of them agreed to keep their original surnames. It’s even possible that Kaho’s current surname is actually her stepmother’s surname.