#(in part based on their reaction to the unintentionally discouraging comments)

[boysnberriespie]

When someone says something unintentionally discouraging to the person you knowwww should be on estrogen

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.2

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as we began chapter 4, Gonta has become even more desperate to be useful to everyone, Monokuma gave out another motive that makes no sense as a motive from his point of view, Keebo became partially responsible for every future death through inaction, the true nature of this situation was hiding in plain sight in Shuichi’s lab, and Kaito vowed to protect his sidekicks despite having no way to guarantee it (because he’s also become even more desperate to be useful to them).

Kaito also found a Flashback Light, so we’re about to do that. Everyone’s gathered in the dining hall except Kokichi.

Himiko:  “I guess… he must be a real pro at hide-and-seek. I magically looked all over the school, but he was nowhere to be found.”

And you’d think Himiko would be good at finding hiding places, because her, uh, magic, often involves secret passageways and hidden compartments. So I guess Kokichi really is just that good at hide and seek.

Tsumugi:  “But I’m still uneasy about these Flashback Lights… Are they really okay to use?”

I don’t know, Tsumugi, you tell us.

Anyway, Kokichi shows up.

Kokichi:  “Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the card key.”

Shuichi:  “You couldn’t use it?”

Kokichi:  “Yeah, I had no idea where to use it, so I just gave up instead.”

This is of course a lie, and Kokichi did in fact find where to use the card key and view the outside world. So now’s the time to talk about this.

It could be argued that at this point, Kokichi falls into despair upon seeing the outside world and genuinely wants the mercy kill outcome that he gets Gonta to try and achieve. But that cannot be the truth, because he deliberately outs Gonta in the middle of the trial while everyone is still pretty sure Kokichi did it, and later outright shows everyone else the outside world, even though the whole point of the mercy kill would have been to prevent them ever seeing that. That interpretation just does not make sense, and I’ll be giving more detailed and precise reasons why as we get into the case.

But even if we ignore the events of this particular chapter’s case and the theoretical attempted mercy kill, him falling into despair here still doesn’t fit. See, Kokichi has made it very clear by now that he’s aware this killing game is being put on as a show for people’s entertainment. His entire plan in chapter 5 hinges on the fact that there must be an audience; if he’d started believing here in chapter 4 that everyone was dead, that plan wouldn’t make any sense. And he’s clearly already working on that plan during this chapter, based on his hints at being the mastermind and the fact that he gets Miu to build him some things that he’ll need for it, most notably Electrobombs.

So, since Kokichi is basically certain about his audience theory by this point, when he sees that the outside world is supposedly completely barren and uninhabitable – therefore there’s no people who are watching this? – he has to conclude that it must be a lie.

Upon seeing a supposed apocalyptic world outside that’s really just a big lie to make an exciting story for people’s entertainment, he might even have started to wonder what else is a lie – everything from the Flashback Lights? Maybe even their very talents?

This isn’t the moment Kokichi falls into despair. This is the moment he figures out that everything is fiction.

Kokichi was already angry at the gamemakers for forcing him into this game he hated just for the sake of other people’s entertainment, and he was already vaguely intending to claim to be the mastermind as part of getting some kind of revenge on them. All this would do is make him even more furious at them for fucking around with him on an even deeper level. It’s very like Kokichi to throw a tantrum when somebody else uses lies against him, like he will in this chapter’s trial. So he’s now more determined than ever to get some kind of petty revenge and beat the gamemakers at their own lying, manipulating game.

Kokichi:  “Oh, hey, the Flashback Light. Lemme see that. Kaito doesn’t have the balls to turn on the switch—”

Kaito:  “Of course I do!!!”

Good job making it look like you’re manipulating Kaito to do whatever you want him to when he was literally about to turn it on anyway, Kokichi.

Maki:  “Similar meteorite impacts happened millions of years ago… All living organisms on Earth were annihilated…”

Yeah, no, that’s not what happened. A mass-extinction, sure, but not literally everything. Even if it was a fictional, more intense meteorite impact than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, I still don’t believe it’d wipe out everything – some organisms are really stubborn little fuckers. And if it did wipe out absolutely everything, then the chances of life arising again, on the same planet, are astronomically small. The person writing this story apparently doesn’t really know their science and is just going for spectacle.

Kaito:  “Then what happened to that plan? The one to save the world from the meteorites?”

Tsumugi:  “Oh right… I just remembered that…”

Sure, you definitely just remembered it and didn’t know about it this whole time because you came up with it.

Miu:  “Sh-Shut up! I’m tired of this! Let us outta here! Let us out!”

Meanwhile Miu has apparently snapped. Based on her reaction here, this might well be the moment she starts seriously plotting murder. I actually find it pretty neat that, for once, we have a character who decides to commit a murder not because of any chapter-specific motive but just because the overall stress of being stuck in here with the constant threat of being murdered has driven them over the edge. Chapter-specific motives shouldn’t have to be necessary. Admittedly, in a game like this one where there’s a much greater sense of co-operation than in most, it figures Monokuma would think they are necessary, so it also figures that it’d be one of the only two paranoid and non-co-operative people who’d snap in this way.

(Kokichi already snapped basically as soon as the game began, but he didn’t consider becoming blackened because he knew that’d just be playing the game and losing.)

Gonta:  “Miu, calm down! It’s okay! Gonta will protect you!”

AAAGFHDSGHDSGH

Kokichi:  “We probably need one more… Everything will start to connect after we remember one more thing…”

Meaning that, based on what he saw of the outside world, Kokichi’s already put all the pieces together and figured out most of the “story”.

Kokichi:  “That’s why, if the meteorites really did fall on us, anything could’ve happened. A mysterious virus could’ve spread, or some weird technology… Or even an unknown substance brought to Earth that could’ve bent time and space—”

And, see, this doesn’t come across as a Kokichi who’s secretly in despair because he believes the outside world is in ruins. If that were the case, he’d just be saying something like “hey, maybe the meteorites really did wipe out humanity, who knows?”, because he likes to drop hints about truths he’s figured out like that. Instead of that, he’s listing all these fantastical possibilities which have no definite correlation with what he saw out there – because he’s figured out this is all fiction, and therefore he knows that any of these things really could be where the writers want the story to go from here.

Kaito:  “Tch, that’s just stupid! It’s like the setting for some third-rate anime or game!”

And Kaito is unintentionally helping out with the implication that this is what Kokichi’s really thinking about.

Kokichi:  “Do you think I’m making this up? But then, how would you explain Flashback Lights, Exisals, and even Monokuma? We may be used to it *now*, but that kind of stuff goes against common sense, y’know? Which means… it wouldn’t be too farfetched if any of the things I mentioned actually happened.”

Kokichi’s laying this on thick. He’s never really talked about this kind of thing to this extent before. This is making me much more convinced that I’m right in my assumption that he just recently figured out this whole thing is fiction. The reason I came up with that idea in the first place is that it’s the only thing that makes any sense, not because I knew of anything in particular hinting at it being the case – but his behaviour here, the first time we see him after he’d have figured it out, definitely seems to be a deliberate hint towards it.

Gonta:  “Oh, before we go, Gonta put manhole cover back how it was. If we wanna challenge underground again, this time Gonta definitely—”

Kokichi:  “Ah-haha, no-one’s dumb enough to challenge that dump again!”

So I wonder – did­ Kokichi see the outside world from the door at the end of that tunnel? Because that might explain why he would want to discourage people from trying the tunnel again now, if he knows what’s at the end of it and wants to keep everyone from falling into despair until he’s ready to have that happen as part of his plan.

Shuichi:  (We can’t keep going like this… We need to find a way out. I need to solve all of these mysteries.)

Not just you, Shuichi! Yes, you’re the detective, but almost everyone’s started relying on you so much that they’ve forgotten there’s things they could do to help, too, leading to you forgetting that you’re not alone in this.

And now it’s Free Time.

Kaito:  “Meteorites all over the world… No! There’s no point thinking about it right now! I’m better off thinking of something else!”

Kaito may be freaking out a little about the possible end of the world.  But, being Kaito, he’s refusing to let himself dwell on that and trying to stay positive! By… ignoring the problem, but, I mean, what else can you do in this situation.

(He’s in Keebo’s lab for some reason. I guess he’s interested in all the sci-fi technology in here. Shame it never occurs to him to try and encourage Keebo to actually use this stuff.)

Tsumugi:  “A biohazard from a mysterious virus spreading… Infecting people with an unknown disease…”

Excuse me, Tsumugi? I know this is just a reference to some videogame or other, but man, that sure is appropriately timed with the recent revelation about the meteorites, now, isn’t it. She’s deliberately foreshadowing while passing it off as one of her usual arbitrary references.

Gonta:  “What can Gonta do… to be useful for everyone? Gonta think he could protect everyone… in underground passage! Gonta… no can take it anymore! Gonta not wanna lose anyone else!”

Oh Gonta; he just wants to be useful and stop anyone else from dying. He’s not even thinking at all about the meteorites next to this much more immediate issue.

Himiko is in Tenko’s lab! Aww. (While apparently being unfazed by the hidden Monokuma that happens to be dancing right by her feet.)

And she’s actually who I’m about to have Shuichi hang out with. He needs to have one more new hangout partner this chapter, and of the remaining people he’s not already been hanging out with who are generally pleasant people (on the surface), Himiko seems like the one Shuichi would have the most active reason to go for. After the hell she went through last chapter, and especially since he helped encourage her through it during the trial, it seems plausible that he might want to continue reaching out to her and trying to be her friend. Plus, she’s the other final survivor, so it seems appropriate. Also, there… may be one other reason I’m picking her, but we’ll get to that next chapter.

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh…”

Shuichi:  “Himiko?”

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh…”

…Unfortunately, doing Himiko’s early FTEs at this particular time is not quite in line with canon, since they’re written for depressed-Himiko and not positive-Himiko. I imagine most first-time players who choose to hang out with Himiko during their main playthrough also get this awkward whiplash, because probably most of them don’t do so before this point. I know I said I’d keep the FTEs in line with canon as much as possible, but it can’t really be helped in this case. Still, the actual topics she talks about are something she’d have talked about regardless of when it happens; the only awkward part is her attitude about doing so.

Himiko:  “It’s real magic, okay? You get it, right?”

Shuichi:  “Real magic, sure.” (I feel like this conversation will go nowhere if I disagree…)

Himiko:  “No, it’s magic. How many times do I have to tell y—”

Pfft, she’s so used to having to correct everyone that she’s genuinely caught off-guard when someone plays along. Having Tenko be all in on her magic thing must have been very refreshing for her, even if she was under too much of a depression haze to really feel happy about it.

Shuichi:  (Isn’t it strange that such a lazy girl would go through so much work for a magic trick?)

Shuichi’s questioning this, but Himiko has occasionally mentioned her reasons for being a magi – uh, mage – before. She wants to make people smile, just like Kaede did!

Himiko:  “A typical amateur question. You don’t need annoying preparations for magic.”

You really do, though. She must put a lot more work into her magic than you’d think to look at her. (And even if it was real magic, presumably you’d need lots of practice to get good at spellcasting, right?)

Shuichi:  “You have a master, Himiko?”

Himiko:  “Nyeh…? Did I not tell you?”

Shuichi:  “This is the first time I’m hearing it. So there are apprentice magicians?”

Himiko:  “Hm, that’s right. My master was an amazing archmage…”

Himiko’s master is going to be the topic of the rest of her FTEs, but the fact that he exists is basically the only thing we learn from this first one. It abruptly ends right after this because Himiko gets mad at Shuichi calling her a magician again.

Nighttime! Which means…

Shuichi:  “It’s time for training!” (I feel like I haven’t done it in a long time… Alright, to the courtyard!)

Training! Shuichi’s so into it now! Kaito would be proud.

On the way out, he runs into Gonta.

Gonta:  “But Gonta think it best not to go out at nighttime.”

Look at him worrying about everyone’s safety. Don’t worry, Gonta – Shuichi, Kaito and Maki would protect each other if anything happened!

Shuichi:  “But the promise I made to Kaito is really important to me. I can’t break it.”

It’s adorable how much this means to him and how determined he is to keep it up already. Shuichi and Maki (and Himiko) will absolutely continue their training every day when they escape from here too.

Gonta:  “Gonta not know you make such important promise to Kaito. Gonta… so useless.”

Aww, Gonta. He’s had nobody that he’s grown close enough to (FTEs aside) in a genuine enough way that he could have made that kind of promise with. Not only is he feeling useless, but even though he considers everyone here a friend, he must still be feeling kind of alone in his uselessness.

Shuichi:  “Not at all, Gonta. Don’t worry about it. We all know how much you care about us.”

We do! Knowing that already helps in terms of emotional support, Gonta! You don’t need to go risking your life to be useful when you’re already important just by being you!

Gonta:  “Shuichi, Gonta come to decision!”

…But that’s exactly what he’s just decided to do.

Gonta:  “Gonta will sleep good tonight and prepare for tomorrow! Good night!”

And he’s suddenly so much happier now he’s figured out a way he can be useful, even though it’s this.

Kaito:  “Ah, good. You’re here, bro!”

Shuichi:  “Yeah… it’s been so long since the three of us have done this.”

The three of them have only done this together once, in fact – and yet they still feel so much like a trio by this point that Shuichi’s talking about it in a way that makes it seem like they’ve done so more often than that already. I love these three so much.

Maki:  “…It’s because Kaito was scared of ghosts.”

Which is to say, it was Tsumugi’s fault. She cheated us out of more adorable training trio scenes. Boo.

Kaito:  “First off, 100 sit-ups! You guys better get pumped up!”

Yeah, they better, because Kaito’s… not going to.

Shuichi:  “One… Two… Three!”

Maki:  “25, 26, 27, 28…”

…

Kaito:  “When you really think about it, the universe is impossibly vast.”

Oh, Kaito. I’m pretty sure the reason he suggested sit-ups rather than push-ups this time is that he knew he was in too much pain to do much training, and so he at least wanted to be able to look up at the stars while he’s “slacking off”. It’s also a clever misdirection that he can make it look like he’s simply being distracted by space rather than that he has a more worrying reason to not be doing any.

Shuichi:  (Kaito stood up slowly, his body hesitant.)

There go Shuichi’s observational skills picking up on evidence that indicates Kaito is in pain… and then not following up and coming to a conclusion from that evidence, because – well, probably because there’s still some truths he doesn’t want to pursue, especially when he’s not in class-trial, if-I-don’t-face-the-truth-we-all-die mode.

Kaito:  “Sorry… gotta use the bathroom.”

Translation: just gonna go cough up some blood, guys, brb.

(Also, look at him apologising. Simply needing to use the bathroom should not ever count as “doing something wrong” even in his warped logic, so he’s not really apologising for that, is he.)

Shuichi:  (Kaito slowly began walking away toward the school building.) “…I wonder what’s wrong. He’s not in much of a hurry for needing to go to the bathroom.”

Again, making relevant observations that he won’t be consciously drawing any conclusions from because that’s too worrying a truth.

Maki:  “Do you want me to go check on him? I just finished doing my 100 sit-ups.”

Shuichi:  “What? Already? But, ah, maybe you shouldn’t go… Because it’s… the boys bathroom…”

Maki:  “…”

Shuichi:  “…Did that not occur to you?”

Yeah, things like gendered bathroom taboos kind of get lost by the wayside when you’re forced through hellish training to become a child-slave assassin.

Also, man, the problems in this game that could be solved if the school just had unisex bathrooms. Shuichi would have found the secret passageway, Maki would have discovered that Kaito is dying…

Maki:  “By the way… this seems like a good time to ask, but… Did you… like Kaede?”

So, of course, Maki’s asking this because she’s starting to wonder if she “likes” Kaito in that same sense and is trying to figure that out.

Maki:  “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird.”

Shuichi:  “What do you mean, ‘weird’?”

Maki:  “Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi:  “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki:  “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

But she doesn’t understand why she would start feeling this way, because regardless of how great a guy Kaito may or may not be, it doesn’t make any sense that she’d feel this way about him, or about anyone for that matter, and it’s inconvenient and annoying. But if Shuichi also felt that way about Kaede in the same kind of situation, maybe it’s not quite so nonsensical after all?

Here’s the thing: the way Maki approaches this and her opinion of this concept here read as incredibly aromantic. I would know – I’m aromantic, and everything she just said sounds perfectly logical to me and is very similar to how I feel about such things. Yet I gather that such an opinion is an outlier and most people don’t usually see it this way.

Obviously, Maki does in fact feel this way about Kaito, or at least is beginning to, since she explicitly admits to her feelings at the end. I’m going to trust her judgement of her own feelings in that future moment enough to assume that she isn’t mistaken about them, since learning to trust and understand her own feelings is a large part of her character arc. So… Maki is demiromantic? There’s no evidence that she felt anything towards Kaito before he befriended her, so it could entirely be that the platonic affection she gained for him once he reached out and started helping her is what this has grown from. (That said, I’m not demi, so I don’t know exactly how that feels and whether that’s applicable here. She could also just be grey-aro.)

I’ll be honest: I kind of doubt that the writers were deliberately trying to portray Maki as being on the aro spectrum here, because haha canon aromantic representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially that which is more complicated than just plain aro, that’s a joke. They were probably just trying to write her as someone who’s been so emotionally numbed by her hellish backstory that she never got a chance to feel anything romance-related until now, now that she’s started to open up and be a person again. But the end result is that they’ve written a character who is incredibly aro-coded, whether they meant to or not.

Maki:  “…Nevermind. Just forget I ever asked.”

Shuichi:  “Forget you asked? Why did you bring this up, Maki?”

Maki:  “…No reason. I was only curious.”

Shuichi:  “No reason? Maki, you’re being… cruel. You ask me a personal question, then act like you don’t care—”

Shuichi’s reaction here strongly indicates that he did feel that way about Kaede, because if he truly didn’t, then he wouldn’t be hurt so much by Maki’s apparent indifference. But I should point out that this is the only actual piece of evidence in the canon storyline that Shuichi felt this way. I never mentioned his romantic feelings towards Kaede during chapter 1 because they weren’t relevant. The most important point is that they were friends. Everything Shuichi was shown to feel about Kaede back then was entirely consistent with a deep friendship brought about by this awful situation causing them to bond very quickly. All of it would have been the same even if he didn’t also happen to have had romantic feelings towards her. The romantic feelings were just an extra thing, confirmed to be most likely the case here, but not remotely the main focus.

And I appreciate that! The writing of chapter 1 could have insisted that we should care about Kaede and Shuichi specifically because there was romantic love involved, but it didn’t. Platonic love is just as important.

(This is also the case with Maki’s romantic feelings towards Kaito, for that matter. This scene and the very end of trial 5 are pretty much the only points at which they are relevant while Kaito is alive. The rest of the time, the focus isn’t on anything except their friendship. Her romantic feelings are a little bit more relevant, but there is a point to that that’s not just purely for the sake of romance itself, which I’ll talk about when we get there.)

Kaito:  “Hey! Were you guys making out while I was gone!?”

So, clearly Kaito is oblivious to what they were just discussing, and I also highly doubt that he really thinks Shuichi and Maki are into each other – at no other point does he seem to think that way or particularly care about that kind of thing. This comment probably came about because Kaito was worried during his blood-coughing session that Shuichi and Maki might have figured out something was wrong, so he deliberately tried to shut down any conversation of that nature that they might have been having by making an awkward comment like this as soon as he returned.

Shuichi:  “*Anyway*, what’s wrong, Kaito? Why did you leave all of a sudden?”

…Not that it was very successful, perhaps because of the very nature of the conversation Shuichi and Maki were actually having.

Shuichi:  “Continue? I… don’t recall you doing even one yet, Kaito.”

Heh, Shuichi is being so sassy about it. He’d… probably be less sassy if he was more aware of the reason why Kaito hasn’t even started yet.

Kaito:  “So, from the beginning! Of course, you guys are gonna restart with me!”

It’s so like Kaito to turn his own problems into an excuse to motivate his sidekicks to train even harder. Plus, this way it might not seem quite so obvious by the end that he’s done way fewer than them, at least if they don’t stop and think about it.

Kaito:  “Let your sweat wash away all your sadness, fear, worry and hardships. Just start moving your body and your pain will become memories before you know it.”

Oh, Kaito. He’s giving such good advice while being so wonderfully hypocritical about it at the same time. (Although, in fairness, he’s specifically talking about emotional pain, and at least some of his own pain is physical, which is only going to be made worse by moving his body.)

Maki:  “…Then you should train, too.”

Maki might have partially picked up on the fact that Kaito is in some amount of emotional pain, if she’s saying this.

Kaito:  “Well, I don’t have anything to worry about. Cuz, I mean… I’m Kaito Momota! Luminary of the Stars!”

But what is she talking about, Kaito is fine. The Luminary of the Stars couldn’t possibly have any worries, obviously. If he did, then he wouldn’t be able to be a very good luminary, right? So, precisely because he is the Luminary of the Stars, he must be fine. He has to be.

Shuichi:  “H-Hey! No fair, Kaito!”

Meanwhile, Shuichi is only finding it unfair that Kaito not having any worries means he supposedly gets out of having to do any sit-ups. He is not disputing the truth of what Kaito just said at all. Kaito apparently really does have Shuichi fooled, at least in terms of his emotional wellbeing, if not necessarily his physical health.

(But Maki is perhaps a little bit less fooled in the emotional department, in keeping with how last chapter made it clear that she didn’t see Kaito as particularly emotionally strong, not that that stopped him from making a difference to her.)

Shuichi:  (In the end, Kaito convinced us to do all of our sit-ups over… But Kaito and I had to give up, and only Maki was able to finish.)

Apparently Kaito did end up doing at least some sit-ups after all. Still, the final tally is: Maki did two hundred sit-ups, Shuichi did a decent amount over a hundred, and Kaito… didn’t even make it to one hundred. Yeah, he is not okay.

(Given that his symptoms include stomach pains, and that sit-ups exercise the stomach muscles… looks like Kaito’s plan to give himself an excuse to look up at space while not exercising backfired on him. Whoops.)

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