#I'd love an interaction with him and Akane that touches on it a bit. Or Sonia. There's a lotta fun ideas to take Ryoma's public perception.

[saishiichuus]

I can actually answer that question about Ryoma’s case! I apologize in advance for my literal ass essay, but at the same time I don’t because I love talking about Ryoma all the time.

OKAY!

So while it’s not directly stated in any way in game, it is most definitely implied that Ryoma just straight up never told anyone the reason he went after the Mafia.

Funny enough I mainly use the Ultimate Talent Development Plan for this kinda info. Because what little we do know about his crime is generally pretty interesting (at least to me har har!). 

Kaito is very helpful in this regard! And he basically outright says that he has no fucking clue why Hoshi did what he did. 

There’s no way in hell that Kaito would be wondering “why Ryoma became such a sad sack” or “why he’s a total coward” if he knew  all of Ryoma’s loved ones are literally corpses in the dirt. And it’s not like Kaito is some rando nobody either, he was one of Ryoma’s fans when he was in the Tennis Club! Everyone that would play Tennis would know his name. If anything, other tennis players would prolly be the first to know? So it confirms that Hoshi didn’t even tell the person he left his cat to or any of his Team either.

But we DO at least that the general public also have no idea why Ryoma killed the mafia. And that’s confirmed in Ryoma’s interaction with Hajime in the UTDP, and with Shuichi & Kaede in the prologue!

So besides confirming that Kaede absolutely does not stay informed on any events that happen IRL ever (relatable) and that Shuichi still reads newspapers (old man alert), the general public does not know a thing. Neat.

Which I suppose also makes Ryoma’s statements in his 4th FTE all the more interesting in hindsight:

Also tiny shoutout to Ryoma calling Shuichi spineless in the process lol. Makes me laugh every time.

Along with his like, constant self deprecation and the way he really eggs people on like “oh I’m such a horrible person I’d leave my lover to die” and “I’m so awful I’m a convicted murderer” he really makes sure to put in the 9 years to both whine that he absolutely doesn’t want to tell anyone about what happened, but also really wants to tell someone what happened to him lol.

Combine that with his hesitation with being around detectives,

it seems like he’s could have had run-ins with a detective or two in the past. Prolly during the Investigation for his crime. And from the looks and sound of it, likely didn’t tell them anything either. (Take a moment and imagine what his poor defense attorney must have had to go through tho. Couldn’t even get an emotional plea out of that man and Ryoma was prolly just saying “I’m guilty” all the time. Was prolly stuck doing an insanity plea to maybe get him a life sentence. I’d hate to have that nightmare of a case. Yikes!)

Whether or not he was actually was interrogated for that info would be a Your Milage May Vary kinda deal. But it is possible, depending on how you read his dialogue.

It’s totally possible Shuichi is the first person he’s told.  Neat to think about.

The only person that seems to know about Ryoma’s more personal business otherwise is Fuyuhiko (and maybe Peko by that logic??) 

But also like, no shit the largest Yakuza clan leader in the literal globe would know why an entire mafia got murked by one guy. Mad impressive to hear I’d imagine, almost too fake to believe it’s real. Someone should write a fic about that tbh.

Also Peko says organizationS, as in multiple. Also destroyed is a really fuckin raw word to use. Very funny. Genuinely curious about Ryoma’s body count though. Is it in the triple or even quad digits??? 

Also I wonder if this implies that Ryoma knows that Peko works for Fuyuhiko or at least the mob and just doesn’t care because she asks for cat pics all the time?? Very funny to think about.

Anyways! We know generally p much nothing about general perception to how people react to Ryoma’s case. But it’s interesting!! Really interesting! And it’s a topic I wish was actually brought up more, because I would imagine someone like Akane (who’s lived in the slums and scaped by watching her siblings casually die and likely watched the mafia and loansharks do their thing) may view what he did as a good thing, or Kiyotaka being conflicted that Ryoma killed people but also killed very bad people who do very bad things you get me?

It’s a fun fanfic premise. Ryoma’s a very fanfiction-able guy honestly lol. 

But the parallels are VERY interesting! And I’d like to now derail this post and talk about those similarities you mentioned in the first paragraph, to talk about the absolutely best part of Ryoma and Shuichi’s chemistry together (as friends or otherwise whatever floats the boat): Shuichi’s closure in Ryoma’s 5th FTE.

I’d say you could definitely read Shuichi’s dialogue here about respecting Ryoma’s decision as a way of making amends with the guy from his past. And to have Ryoma accept those feelings? Damn bro, it’s so touching. Like a load off the shoulders. He doesn’t really have this type of interaction with anyone else either at any point, so it makes it all the more impactful.

That’s actually partially why I say Ryoma and Shuichi have such great chemistry, if just because they both help each other with their issues and don’t necessarily “solve” or “get rid of” them, they do provide closure for one another in their own dorky ways. It’s just neat. Love it a lot.

Anyways, lil detour over, but I def. agree that the additional content (the UTDP and Danganronpa S) definitely could have touched on it more. It’s REALLY cool to explore in fanart or fics tbh. Underrated potential.  I for one, would love more info about the general perception of Ryoma. He’d definitely have a weird creepy fanbase like serial killers do and he’d fucking LOATHE it lol.

You know, I've never seen anyone talk about how Ryoma and Shuichi's backstories mirror each other, when it comes to significant events in their life. Maybe this was gone over in-game and that's why nobody talks about it while I just missed it, but whatever, I'm gonna talk about it anyway

So we've got the murder case Shuichi solved, right? A crime was committed against the killer's loved one (driving them to suicide), so the killer took revenge by killing the victim. And then. And then!! We have Ryoma's altercation with the mafia, where they committed a crime against his loved one (killing his girlfriend, and I think his family too iirc?) and he took revenge by killing the entire mafia. Do you see the similarities in revenge murders playing a big role in both backstories?

However, this makes me curious about what happened directly after Ryoma's arrest. Shuichi was struck with the idea that maybe he was in the wrong for helping convict someone who'd just taken their revenge – were there people with similar opinions when it came to Ryoma's case? Did people even know the full story of his case, and why he killed that mafia? Or would there be people who didn't need to know the full story to argue what he did was righteous, because they saw the mafia as merely scum better off gone?

I think there's a lot of opportunities to explore when it comes to this parallel and the opinions of the general public surrounding Ryoma's murders. And I'm probably missing some details since it's been five years since I saw a playthrough of the game, but... knowing Danganronpa, they probably could have done more with this.