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shockersalvage · 1 year ago

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Salvage Showcase - Kyoka

This has been a longtime coming, but here is the next Showcase on the misc Danganronpa entry front. She's lean, mean and made of green in the literal sense. The main antagonist for Kirigiriso - Kyoka!

Summary

In the true route, the Plant Girl route, Kyoka was created by the efforts of Santa Shikiba and another unknown creator with DNA off of Kyoko from a case 10 years ago mixed with DNA from an unknown lifeform that was recently discovered to contain plant and animal DNA. As a clone of Kyoko, she grew up quickly, raised in Santa's mansion, though was also quite lonely, wanting to see the outside for herself. Unfortunately, her biology had her highly allergic to the outside, meaning if she would leave, it would kill her.

During this time, other Hybrids would be created, but since they lacked proper 'nourishment' (AKA human flesh), they could not be as perfected as her. In order to help them out, Kyoka began making false requests to the Detective Library, luring in detectives before feeding them to her family in efforts to make them the same as her.

Her most recent false report, would be to lure in Kyoko Kirigiri who would arrive with a civilian named Kohei Matsudaira. Of the true route to the game, both would become aware of the history behind the mansion, avoiding being consumed by these plants there and Kohei finding her diary, would encourage him to reach out Kyoka. That all three of them can go outside together.

But, knowing she couldn't live a life knowing she killed countless to feed her family, she instead sets the house on fire while the two escape. The hybrids manage to get her body outside, before they die, but she's already dead by that point. Kyoko and Kohei bury the family before leaving.

Six months later, Kohei returns to the scene and spots a giant white flower where they buried Kyoka. A flower he mistakes for her.

In the Earth Defense Force route, a non-canon story of Kirigiriso, Kyoka is a member of Santa Shikiba's Earth Defense team against the Rhinogradentia, aliens from outer space that seek to conquer the world. When Kohei and Kyoko arrive at the mansion, they join the team and the quartet are attacked by the aliens. Ultimately, Santa sacrifices himself to burn down the mansion with the invaders in it. However, Kyoko is able to deduce soon after that Kyoka is also an alien working with the Rhinogradentia. As the True Super Galaxy Level Invader, she claims her forces are trying to save the Earth from humans. She orders her mothership to send a laser right at their location, but when Santa (who is pretty much unkillable in this route) tankts the hit since it would destroy Kyoka's sakura tree, she weeps for her Captain who she thinks is dead (he is not, again unkillable) and calls off the invasion. When Santa is revealed to be alive, she happily agrees to make him sakura tea again.

There's the non-canon joke route, Extra Scenario. ES has Kyoka as the younger adopted sister of Kyoko, looking after her sister whose been asleep many years. Kyoka urges Kohei, whose been lured in by illusions by a sleeping Kyoko, to kiss Kyoko to wake her up. This is just a dream from Kohei whose been in a car wreck.

In a non-canon alternative ending to Plant Girl, Another End, when given the chance to escape from the mansion, she takes it and becomes close to Kyoko and Kohei, living like a regular friendly girl to her new friends.

Kyoka is Kyoko's polar opposite in many ways. While Kyoko is stoic, calm, and very close off Kyoka differs by mainly being warm, highly expressive and very open to others. However, this is just surface level. Kyoka is characterized as being very callous to harboring dislike against human lives. In the Plant Girl route, she's a serial killer that feeds humans to her kind as a means to an end, wanting her kin to be just like her. For EDF, she's a spy that hates humans for their crimes against nature. Regardless of both, she's an expert manipulator and skilled in deception, able to hide her true intentions up until its either too late for her victims or when someone has the means to call her out. When exposed or in control, she's rather ruthless and has her forces attack her enemies, usually without mercy.

She isn't completely devoid of empathy to humans. In the true route, she's incredibly lonely and desires to see the world, hindered by her body preventing her from going out. When Kohei offers her to escape, she's genuinely touched, but refuses out of knowledge that she can't live normally due to her crimes. In EDF, she genuinely forms a bond with Santa and once she sees his selflessnes, is willing to call off the attack to Earth. Both routes, and Another End, show she is someone who holds potential to reform when faced with true kindness.

Rundown

Like her creator, Kyoka emobides the Kirigiriso theme of Choice - Selflessness and Selfishness.

From Kyoka's point of view, her actions are selfless. She is helping her own kind reach a state of perfection that she was only able to get because she was made from an Ultimate's DNA (...not getting into that can of worms) and just wants to see them perfected as well. This also goes for her actions in the EDF route: to her, and likely the other Rhinogradentia, she's being selfless by saving the Earth from humans who harmed it. Even in the ES joke route, she's trying to be selfless by guiding Kohei into waking up her sleeping sister.

But, in truth, her actions are dripping with Selfishness when looking outwards from a human or even morally right perspective. Kyoka is heavily prejudiced to favoring her own kin and nature, her idea of 'caring' for them involves destruction of another race entirely. Be it as a food source, or straight up genocide. She embodies love for the environment and family, but it shows that without even basic love for people as a whole it could lead someone to become a monster.

She also serves a literal inverse of Kyoko. Everything about her is designed to be the sheer opposite of her. Kyoko prefers to wear darker clothing, Kyoka is in a white dress. Kyoko is serious and brooding, Kyoka is bubbly and openly chummy with others. But its not a simple case of 'twin 'sister(?)' being peppy and the other not. It boils down to their inner character. Kyoko has shown throughout the series that she feels emotions just as much as everyone else, that she can be hurt, love, be remorseful, be sacrificial, have a strong sense of justice and struggles with balancing the expectations of being a Kirigiri with her own feelings concerning her past and the legitimate bonds she made with her friends or humanity as a whole. While she's known for her stone faced, cold front, and that's very much a part of her, its also a front for a much deeper picture.

So what happens when you have a Kyoko that's meant to be her counter? Well, that bubbly, comedic, openly emotional nature of Kyoka's is her 'front' as it were. It covers for her loneliness, her desire to explore, her want to connect, but also her deceptiveness, self-centeredness, and her twistedness from her own circumstances. A girl that is colder in life than Kyoko ever could or would be.

One front could alienate people, yet ultimately her actions are beneficial to humanity. The other brings people in, yet ultimately her actions can bring humanity's doom.

She also answers another what-if scenario about Kyoko: what happens if she never had someone to connect with while in her profession? While Kyoko was able to meet Yui and grow due to her bond with her and later meets the 78th Class who she befriends, Kyoka was quickly forced to grow up quickly without a chance to meet someone outside of her nature based kin or creators (who, more than likely, aren't the most attentive to her 'activities'). She hyperfocuses on it, to the point of going to the extremes if it meant she can benefit, at the cost of other's lives. Imagine a Kyoko who would do anything if it meant she could rank up quickly in the Detective Library, and didn't have someone to anchor her morally? It's easy to imagine her falling into letting people die if it meant gaining something from it or potentially framing someone to gain easy fame. It's something she avoids, but Kyoka presents a tragic outcome without that grounding.

Personal Thoughts

Kyoka to me is one of Danganronpa's unique and better Masterminds. While some may be...just baffled by the thought of a Kyoko clone running about (don't blame them as the concept is out there even by this series standards), I feel Kyoka works well as the game's villain. She's a tragic victim turned monster out of loneliness and no real path to take outside the mansion (Santa isn't winning best Dad awards any time soon) and, even when she's an alien in the EDF route, it works well in playing off the true route's showing of her: an extremist that would do anything for nature, even it costs people their lives.

The game does well in explaining her origins under a scientific manner than supernatural, which helps soften the blow of her nature as a clone. Furthermore, I also just think that Kirigiriso really does the 'Evil Kyoko' concept brilliantly. From how she dresses to how she acts and what she's truly up to - it was just pulled off extremely well in my eyes. She's, technically, an anti-villain since her motives are benevolent to a few, but unlike someone like Tengan (who is supposed to be that.......but fails. Miserably in the execution department), her methods of going about her goals are straightforward and why she does it like that is understandable. She's stuck in a mansion she can't really leave, luring people in with fake requests and later her friendly act is the best she can do. Her kin needs human meat as food, so of course she has to kill people and deceive them to do it. She has no way else to help them or help herself.

She's someone boxed in to really only picking the worst options in life, and its a tragedy like that and the what-if she holds, that has me really loving her. Also, I really like her more comedic, yet still just as threatening, portrayals in the EDF route (with her connection to Santa) and the ES route got some laughs from me. Kyoka's just a character that I think people should at least give a chance to read about and really makes Kirigiriso work.

#salvage showcase #kyouka #dr kyoka #kyoko kirigiri #danganronpa #kirigiri sou #kirigiriso #santa shikiba #dr kirigiri #danganronpa kirigiri

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