#Or how he uses his knowledge of anthropology and human beings during the seance to kill Tenko

[justsomeelf]

Was Korekiyo Shinguji Innocent?

!tw: lots of abuse topics !!This is very long but there’s a TLDR at the bottom !!!Danganronpa spoilers ahead for V3 (obviously)

Cough oh shit look at that, discourse which no one cares about because I’m irrelevant.

No but seriously, I want to make this perfectly clear before I begin, I am writing this while throwing away my biases and being as open-minded as I always try to be. This is going to be an incredibly long post about what people think about Korekiyo Shinguji, and that reasons for disliking him isn’t as shallow as just disapproving of the actions he took in the game. If you’re interested about what I have to say, click keep reading, if you just want a shorter version of what I meant there’s a TLDR at the bottom.

Oh wow you actually clicked it? Wait, wait, gotta keep this professional. So I’ll be splitting the topics around Korekiyo as; Storyline, Character Design and Personality, Fandom’s Backstory Headcanons, The “Main Problem”, and a Conclusion. Remember, you don’t have to read all of it, there’s still a TLDR at the bottom, but thanks for giving this a chance!

Danganronpa V3 Storyline

We are all aware at this point at what happened in V3 regarding Shingucci, and if you aren’t aware, then why are you reading this-

Throughout the first chapter Korekiyo is mostly just neutral and calm throughout everything, but still a little creepy with a few off hand comments about the beauty of humanity. Similar events happen in Chapter 2, calm, not really bothered by his fellow Ultimates no matter how bizarre some of them are. Rather helpful in the trial but still annoyed by Himiko’s insistence on genuine magic and continues to theorise how she could be the culprit, but was still mostly the same even after seeing Kirumi’s undignified exit and execution at the end of the trial. Chapter 3 rolls around and Angie decides to try and resurrect one of our fallen Ultimates, Kiyo decides to hold a seance to communicate with one of the lost spirits as well, but of course this is just a murder plan in disguise to send his sister more “friends”. Angie accidentally walks in on Kiyo mid-saw-cutting and to make sure she couldn’t tell anyone about his plans later on, he hits her over the head then brings her to her own lab, ends her life, and sets up a lock mechanism to lock the lab with the corpse in it.

He continues his seance plan due to ‘not wanting it to go to waste’, and says the next day they should use it to contact Angie. More stuff happens and Kiyo’s pleased with Tenko being such a good candinate to be his sister’s friend, and proceeds to kill her with the plan he originally set up. (While also setting it up so he could almost perfectly pin it on Himiko.) During the trial he’s as composed as ever but as more clues show him towards him being the culprit to both of the murders, he becomes increasingly more erratic, and the tulpa split personality of his sister appearing to calm him, but he eventually admits to being the culprit. After the trial he confesses his reasoning, the incestuous relationship with his older sister who he swore to send 100 (female) friends to after her sickly passing. Obviously, people were going to be disgusted by the incestuous relationship he had with his older sister, but that’s not always the reason people are going to dislike him in the story. 

Korekiyo obviously hadn’t done much in the first two chapters aside from being helpful in the trials, and people don’t particularly like it when characters they like are killed, in Chapter 3 that concerns Angie, Tenko, and Kiyo. Angie was increasingly infuriating towards her demise, with the Student Council and the actions she took for what she wanted with the school, but was still an enjoyable character with her cheery attitude and honestly good intentions. Tenko both is and isn’t quite popular, with her resentment of men (which I won’t get into because that’s another topic entirely) gaining her hate, but her good intentions and wishes for friendship making her a likeable character. Kiyo hadn’t done much to establish his character side from being creepy, calm, and neutral, which doesn’t put much towards liking him if there’s no reason to, that isn’t to say there’s a reason to dislike him, just that there’s not enough events to show him in a highly positive light.

Character Design & Personality

To be perfectly fair, Kiyo’s final design was pretty well made in terms of appearance. By Kodaka taking a combination of multiple sorts of imagery, including underground culture, anthropology, and visual style, made him pleasing to look at aesthetically and in terms of genuine character. People can dislike him but still see his positive points essentially, at least design wise.

His personality is essentially what was previously mentioned, neutral, calm, creepy sometimes, and that’s essentially it. During the third trial he quickly became panicky when it was becoming obvious he had killed both Angie and Tenko (side note: it was extremely obvious he had killed Tenko from the start, Angie was the difficult one) but was calmed down by the ghost of his sister, also claiming he was deeply in love with her with what seemed to be genuine sincerity. There is also the fact that Kiyo felt no guilt for killing all those women to send to his sister, and seemed to consider everyone in the academy his “friends”, indicating he’s unable to understand or care about what other people feel. In the end he finally accepts his defeat and is executed by Monokuma and the later appearance of his sister’s spirit, causing his last expression to be disbelief and horror as both of them banish his spirit to the afterlife. The point of this paragraph is that although I understand why people can like his personality, people are allowed to dislike the kind of person he is by finding him boring, maybe a little annoying, selfish for having no regards for what the other characters felt, and it’s fine, because even if people dislike his personality they can still see why people like his personality.

Fandom’s Backstory Headcanons

Of course to start off with, there’s the canonical backstory of Korekiyo that we were given through FTEs and the storyline.  Kiyo had a sickly older sister who almost constantly required to be in the hospital, since she was lonely without friends Kiyo would spend all of his time with her. One day reading a book about Anthropology with his sister who suggested he could research it, motivating him to become an anthropologist. His sister normally picked most things for him, his hair, tailoring his uniform, and so on. According to Korekiyo, he had an incestuous relationship with her, believing it was truly love with no care of what others thought, although at some point his sister died. Left alone and frustrated he swore to kill and send 100 friends to her since she had none in her lifetime, we’re also able to assume he got somewhere close to that number before his death though. (side note: I personally headcanon that Tenko was the 99th “friend”). While travelling he had been captured and tortured by locals, leading him to hallucinate his sister that calmed him down, which also caused him to form a split personality/tulpa.

Since that’s about all the information we were given, of course it left the fandom theorising and wondering about possibilities. There’s the semi-popular headcanon of Kiyo that he was abused by that sister, of course there’s obvious signs of manipulation in their relationship, telling him how to act, dress, talk, what to do and like and so on. The headcanon is also backed up by canon, which essentially does imply he was manipulated and abused by the sister, as he spent so much time with her that she relied on him.

(Personal Experience Ahead, I don’t mind it if you skip) I tried to force myself to like Kiyo. I really did. I thought that with this idea it does explain his actions better than the canon did. But I couldn’t. I was and still am abused by my older sister for a decade now, emotionally/psychologically, verbally, and physically. Now leaving me medically diagnosed with anxiety (social and generalised), depression, and PTSD. While the fandom seems to say Kiyo had been abused psychologically and some add sexually abused. Abuse is a difficult topic to talk about, even bringing it up in this sense has brought back horrible memories from my life, if you do genuine research or know from experience what that abuse like that is like, it’s fine and I wish the best for you. But please do not just slap “abused” on like a label, like it justifies his actions. I said previously it explains it, not justifies. The “Main Problem”

I’m sure some people would be aware this was coming, if you have knowledge of V3′s full game, simply hearing Kiyo’s name will remind you of the third trial.

Korekiyo’s sister. Implied to be abusive, manipulative, constantly sick, dependant on Kiyo, now deceased, and previously in an incestuous relationship with him. The things Kiyo said about her would obviously throw everyone off, incest is quite revolting, so of course people would dislike him after hearing he was in a relationship with his older sister.

But that does not mean it’s the only reason to dislike Korekiyo.

(Intense) Kiyo fans immediately go to hating on and blaming the canon whenever someone says they dislike him, assuming they’re always referring to the sister relationship for their dislike. That is not always going to be the reason. Yes, the presence of the incestuous relationship is problematic if you want people to like Kiyo, but please don’t always assume it’s because of the third chapter. It’s as simple as having an open conversation, not attacking the creators, the character, or the person you’re disagreeing with, then if you can’t reach a conclusion, just agree to disagree and leave it there.

Conclusion I guess

Obviously most of this was just covering what we already knew, but reminding information is normally necessary for things like this. Did I just waste hours of my time writing an essay on a fictional character? Yes. Do I expect everyone to agree? No. Do I mind? No. Was there a reason to make this? Yeah, kinda. I just want to lay it out there that people are entitled to their own opinions, free speech and all that good shit. So people are allowed to decide whether they like Kiyo or not, just don’t hate them or assume and scream that it’s only because of chapter 3 that they dislike him. Everyone can have an opinion, people like Kiyo for their own reasons, people dislike Kiyo for their own reasons, V3 is done and finished. If you’re still unsatisfied you can go ahead and argue with me, I’ll try to stay level headed and hear you out. 

TLDR: People can have opinions. Kiyo stans don’t always assume it’s because of the sister that people dislike Kiyo, you can say he’s underrated or overrated it doesn’t matter either way, just don’t shove it down people’s throats. You’re all entitled to your own opinions and ideas, as long as you can reach a conclusion together that doesn’t end in hate it should be fine.

Either way, if you read this far I hope you have a good day/night! Stay hydrated, eat some snacks and all that jazz!