#(sorry for being incredibly boring) (i'm having a lot of fun speculating though!)

[egophiliac]

I hear you on brave but I think Mr. CEO man could be woz

Which I’m all here for tbh

anon you sent this over 9 hours before the reveal, h...HOW DID YOU KNOW

(I am also all here for it honestly) (I kind of hope they lean really hard into the overworked-CEO bit...how is he supposed to fight evil when there's all this paperwork that he has to get in by Friday, ugh)

[oumakokichi]

Could you possibly talk a little bit about tsumugi's character? I see she's in your top 10 fairly solidly. I'm really intrigued to just learn more about her and why you like her

Haha, it’s a little bit difficult to talk about Tsumugiin-depth if you’re not prepared for lots of spoilers. Like Ouma, she’s afascinating character with tons of interesting points about her, but talkingabout those points requires breaching on a lot of endgame territory.

That said, she really is an excellent character. She’s highup not only on my ndrv3 Top 10, but she almost made it into my overall DR Top10 as well (I think she scored #12 or so, the last time I took it). If you’reprepared to handle spoilers for pretty much the entire game, then keep reading!If you’re trying to avoid spoiler territory though, I’d recommend waiting onthis one until the localization comes out in September so you can experiencethings for yourself!

So, the long and short of it is that Tsumugi is the ndrv3mastermind. Well, the more specific word for it is actually “ringleader,” butit means pretty much the same thing. It’s pretty much impossible to talk aboutTsumugi as a character without evaluating her as the ringleader. After all, shedoesn’t have much of a character outsideof being the ringleader. She’s intentionally hollow, someone who only shineswhen she’s within a world of complete fiction and fabrication.

Unlike Junko, whose development into the mastermind andcharacter we all know and love can be traced through her journey as RyoukoOtonashi, we know absolutely nothing concrete about Tsumugi as of now. And that’sbecause “Tsumugi Shirogane” is a façade, a fake, something she considers everybit as much of a “character” as all the other personas she cosplays. As shesays when dropping the act and revealing herself as the ringleader, she’s sorryto any fans of Tsumugi’s character for the big bad ringleader reveal, “not thatshe thinks she’d have any,” since she was intentionally set up to be as plainand boring as possible.

Tsumugi is absolutely fascinating in how easily she slipsunder the radar. Unlike Junko, who absolutely cannot stay out of the spotlight,Tsumugi fools absolutely everyone, playing along with everyone’s expectationsof herself as a plain, reliable, occasionally quirky girl who’s there to makeotaku references, act all friendly and cooperative… and not much else. Shecomes across as boring and uninteresting, and she knows it, and uses it to heradvantage. As she mentions in her FTEs, she’s the kind of person who couldeasily just slip into a movie theater without even needing to buy a ticket.

This philosophy of slipping right past people’s notice orawareness governs her actions throughout all of ndrv3, and it’s an absolute joyto go back and notice these things about her on a reread. Because all of thisis little more than a fictional escape to her, she honestly does view herselfas little more than an observer before stepping up as the ringleader. Thesearen’t people for her to get to know—they’re characters who she’s watching fromthe sidelines, only worthwhile as long as they’re being interesting andentertaining to her and the rest of the killing game audience. Everything isfiction to her, everything lacks meaning; there’s no point in her genuinelytrying to incorporate herself into the group or really getting to know themall, because it’s all fake to her.

When these characters deviate from the scenarios and scriptshe had planned for them, she’s so obviously not pleased. Tsumugi demonstratesthe most noticeably shocked reaction at Saihara enterting the cafeteria withouthis hat in Chapter 2. When Himiko begins acting noticeably more energetic andfired up to honor Tenko’s memory, Tsumugi is one of the only ones in the grouppretty displeased with this drastic change in personality. She keeps bringingup Gonta’s death again and again as an attempt to guilt trip the othercharacters or attempt to distract them from putting things together logically.She responds directly to Monokuma and the Monokumerz more than any othercharacter, as if following a prewritten script with them.

All the signs of her being the ringleader are there rightfrom the beginning, and they are incredibly fun to notice—moreso since Tsumugiand ndrv3 in general toys with the player’s preconceived notions about how a DRgame is going to go. I think most people were pretty skeptical of Tsumugi evenprior to the game’s release, just because SHSL Cosplayer is way too good of atalent to pass up at least making her a culprit with, but making her theringleader was one of the best decisions they could do, in my opinion at least.They put her talent to the best possible use, toying with the idea of howblurry the line is between fiction and reality, between “the real deal” and a “merecopy.”

It’s an absolute joy to see how Tsumugi uses the verytrends, tropes, and cliché that DR is best known for to play with both thecharacters and the players themselves. The Hope’s Peak remember light which shesets up in Chapter 5 tricked not only all the characters (except Ouma andMomota, who never used it) into believing that this was a game about the usual “hopevs. despair” dichotomy, but also succeeded in getting quite a lot of players tofall hook, line, and sinker for the same exact thing.

I have seen countless people either unfamiliar with ndrv3’sthemes or who at the very least haven’t read a full and accurate translationcounting on the game tying in with the Hope’s Peak arc in some way or another,despite Kodaka denying that this would be the case very early on, even beforethe game was released. It’s so easy to miss out on tons of clues andforeshadowing by taking the easy way out and assuming that the game is going tofollow the same comfortable, familiar patterns. Tsumugi can very easily slipright under the radar when most people’s assumption, even the characters, isthat Junko is responsible yet again, not her.

The most fun thing about Tsumugi is that while she canreplicate pretty much anyone and everyone, she herself isn’t someone I thinkany of the other characters would be able to imitate. She has no core oressence to imitate; she deals in imitations and mimicry, but if you strip thataway, she’s just blank. There’s nothingto her, and that’s exactly why she specializes in making herself appear asuninteresting and boring as possible, because the show is supposed to be aboutall the other “fun, interesting, wacky DR characters,” not her.

Characters like Junko, even Ouma, could never successfullystick to the shadows like that. Junko hid herself away as the mastermindbecause she knew she’d be too conspicuous. Even Mukuro pretending to her wastoo big of a loose end for her to leave lying around, and that’s yet anotherreason why she decided to kill her early on, before the bad act could get foundout by their classmates.

Boredom is like a poison to the most intelligent andanalytical characters in DR; they crave excitement and entertainment becauseboredom, the act of knowing everything, is absolutely killing them from theinside out. Not Tsumugi, though. She specializes in boredom, in the firm beliefthat there’s absolutely nothing interesting or memorable about herself unlessshe is literally trying to be someone else entirely.

There’s so much room for speculation with her, consideringwhat an open-ended conclusion ndrv3 gives us. We have tons of room fortheorizing and speculation, tons of “what-if”s. Tsumugi herself is an endless “catbox”of sorts; there’s no definite way of knowing just yet if she was telling the truthabout working with the Team DR producers, if she was a fan who seized controlof the reins for herself and made an imitation killing game, or if she’ssomething else entirely even. All that we really do know for sure is that she’sintelligent, quick on her feet when it comes to adjusting to new scenarios andwrenches in her plans, and extremelyeffective as an antagonist.

I’m currently thrilled at the possibility of a potential v2spinoff. Not only would it be nice to get more information on Amami ifpossible, but finding anything at all about Tsumugi herself is something Ithink a lot of people are looking forward to.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts on her! I’ve written someother Tsumugi meta before so I’ll leave it at this for now, so that this doesn’tget too long. I hope this clears up your question, anon! If you haven’t seenTsumugi in action as the ringleader yet, I’d really recommend watching aplaythrough when you get the chance—Chapter 6 is really, incredibly fun towatch. Thanks for asking!