#i think what happened is that the fandom saw the h+n+k trio fill these roles

[roguecyn]

Definitely late to the discussion but I feel like the reason Togami + Komaeda + Ouma are labelled “antagonists” is because people correctly label Naegi + Hinata + Saihara as the protagonists, see T+K+O oppose them in some way, and go “the opposite of the protagonist is the antagonist, so T+K+O are antagonists”. I think “rival” would be a better term, like in shounen manga? You have the protagonist (N+H+S), a rival that challenges them in some way (T+K+O) and the antagonist (Junko and Tsumugi) that’s behind everything and has to be defeated in a final confrontation.

As for why T+K+O are often elevated/discussed/featured in fanworks over Junko and Tsumugi, I think it’s partly a matter of screentime and partly a matter of them being more living representations of thematic ideas than actual characters. Tsumugi was intentionally designed to be plain and boring so her reveal as the mastermind would come as a shock, and she spends pretty much the entire game until the sixth trial being a glorified background character. When the mastermind reveal comes in Chapter 6, her big moment, she spends it hammering in how everything is fiction, nothing matters, and pretending to be other DR characters (and while the game refutes her, V3’s ending was still extremely controversial and she’s the one who revealed the big twist). All the interesting parts of Tsumugi’s character are tied up in her being the mastermind and V3’s reveal, so it makes it hard to fit her into any fanwork that isn’t explicitly about her. Junko only appears at the end of the games she’s featured in, and while she’s a very enjoyable character, she’s also the incarnation of despair itself, pretty abusive to Mukuro, and like 60% of her screentime outside of the games is from the DR3 anime, which isn’t exactly well-liked. She has a really good showing in IF, but barely anyone’s read IF. If you put her in fanworks that aren’t about the killing game then you either have to make her chill out (which makes her way less entertaining) or like, have her be setting up the Tragedy or murdering babies or something in the background.

Kamukura… yeah, I absolutely think that’s usually a case of fandom’s male centrism because he has practically no substance as a character, basically never appears in the game he’s the “mastermind” of and acts as a living embodiment of Hope’s Peak being terrible and Hinata’s many issues, I’ll fold there.

ok i do really hate the danganronpa fanon category of "antagonists" (ie. komaeda, togami, + ouma as a group). in part because its just the wrong term for these characters and it can be confusing whos being referred to, like i saw a post saying like 'danganronpa is wild the antag will tell the protag they want them carnally and just move on no explanation' and i was like ???????????? when does junko say that to naegi?????? tsumugi said something like that????? kamukura????????????????

and my bigger issue with it, is its really hard to not see this as like a direct symptom of people ignoring women characters and over-valuing male characters. i know this accusation gets brought up a lot in fandom spaces, and then it just becomes a circular argument of misogynistic writing leads to fans favouring male characters which reinforces the demand for male focused stories etc etc or ppl being like 'im gay of course im going to have a preference for male/male stuff over things with women', but it really really does feel like women get completely pushed to the side to center two men. using the dr1 characters as an example, its not even like how kirigiri and fukawa are "pushed to the side" as romantic interests so togami and naegi can be together, its over crediting togamis character to be at an "antagonist" level when junko (and mukuro and even sakura if u want to generalize her role as 'the traitor') is Right There. it also isnt lost on me how out of the main three actual antagonists kamukura is included in fanworks/written out the least (though the 'ultimate evil abuser' kamukura vs 'totally innocent' hinata that happens frequently isnt great either...... but like at least hes there vs junko and tsumugi who are forgotten.)

but idk, i know languages changes and a group of ppl being like 'hey to our group this term means this even if is not the original definition' happens all the time. sometimes these shifts are useful, especially for the in-group doing the re-defining, but it can also be confusing and frustrating for the fandom at large when the words have other agreed upon meanings and when women are being ignored/erased