#of course fuck the writers of team DanganRonpa

[pekasairroc]

I really wish Kiyo didn’t have that backstory. Sure, he’s a bit creepy but. You know. That whole big thing aside… He’s got of lot of fun information about his talent and mythology nevermind he is incorrect about Medusa I can’t forgive that

[himiko-yumehellno]

Kodaka very obviously wants to make Danganronpa 4, but as many people have pointed out already, this would conflict with the ending of V3. I thought I would make things easier on our resident murder mystery writer who appears to really like making mascots that remind me of Whisper from Yo-Kai Watch, and come up with some solutions to this problem! Organized in approximate order of increasing silliness and grasping at straws, with some additional director's notes from ✨me✨!!

So, how can Kodaka make a new Danganronpa game that works with the ending of Danganronpa V3?:

Danganronpa isn't actually a killing game franchise loved around the world; Tsumugi either lied or was lied to herself (probably with the use of a Flashback Light to make her believe she was a willing ringleader). Allows for some interesting angst if it's the second option.

Despair made a sudden comeback and took over a good portion of the world. Tsumugi fudged some details, but it's true that a lot of the world now enjoys killing games, because normal life is just boring to them (a life without despair and death?! Ugh! Who'd want that, am I right?). We find out in a later installment that the survivors joined with other forces fighting against despair. Danganronpa 4 explores a separate killing game also put on in the name of this new global wave of despair.

Danganronpa 4 turns out to be a prequel (possibly featuring a killing game that the in-game franchise was inspired by, possibly just being one of the numerous previous installments Tsumugi threw out there in her exposition monologue, possibly some secret third option), and ends up with some ridiculous name so fans don't get confused on the sequence of events. Personally, I hope the name is Danganronpa Negative Four.

As so many postgame fics have taken to declaring, the entire game was a simulation. Except to make this work, it probably wouldn't be a simulation designed by Team Danganronpa – no, no, no! Perhaps this killing game was put on by Remnants of Despair or – *exaggerated gasp* – the Future Foundation themselves, hm?

Danganronpa V3 was a really fucked up social experiment and none of the "reality TV" backstory was real. No one knows how it got past the ethics committee, so don't ask.

It was all an alternate dimension/timeline. ... Look, if all it takes to brainwash someone into mass murder is forcing them to come to anime night, they can throw in a little time or dimension travel!

To piggyback on that last idea, the "reality TV" backstory was true; Danganronpa V3 and all the previous installments in this series were fiction... in the Rain Code universe. Or some other video game setting made by Kodaka. Nothing of the sort happened in the actual Danganronpa continuity, however.

Danganronpa V3 was Junko Enoshima's idea of heaven. Of course, it wouldn't have been complete without the despair of her ideal world being destroyed, hence the survivor trio shutting down her killing game show. Danganronpa 4, therefore, takes place in the living world, continuing off vaguely where the Danganronpa 3 anime left off. Notably, all questions about how Junko's heaven works and why she even got to go to heaven in the first place are not solved until a separate anime series, where we find out it was originally supposed to be her hell until she made the demon in charge of looking after her quit and give her full range of the place. It's never answered whether the participants of the killing game were other dead souls or just beings she created.

The entire thing was just the Monokuma Children playing with dolls. ... Or, knowing them, dead bodies.

Before V3 came out my brother had this whole theory that all of the characters were in a pseudo time loop where every time a killing game concluded, they'd just roll out a set of clones of everyone and start all over again, presumably killing off the survivors of the last game. I have no idea how this would solve Kodaka's issue but I want to see if they could find a way to make it work.

I'm excited to see what becomes of Kodaka's newest works, but apparently by his own admission he's interested in returning to Danganronpa at some point, so I thought I'd do the hard part for him. Feel free to take any of these ideas and run with them, Kodaka!

(feel free to add your own suggestions on how to make the ending of V3 work with a new Danganronpa game!)

[tobiasdrake]

Re: Yuta's death- I have to say that I've always sort of viewed it in a different way. To me it's always felt much less like the writers begging us to care about 'poor baby Yuta 🥺' after spending like no time with him, and much more like his death was placed there to be a characterizing moment for Komaru, who sees this random ass teen die in front of her and is like "well team time to give up :) I don't like the running, I don't like all the death, being in an apocalypse is fucking hard and I think I will lay down and die instead ^_^" (and by extension a charactizing moment for Toko, who obviously Won't Let Her Do That). A very blatant plot point used to set up the MC's arc of finding the strength to keep fighting, to not to give up as easily - one that's wearing a cute little bow that goes "oh look he's the sibling of one of the survivors! Isn't that fun :)" before the bow tragically drifts downstream. How attached or unattached we were to him as a character never really seemed like an issue to me, let alone one that the writers seemed to care about, because Komaru is clearly affected, and that's the real payoff there to the plot-point-disguised-as-a-character that is Yuta Asahina. Less a cheap "look, character died, now cry!" moment, or more like...he got fridged. Komaru's tears are more important than he was. That feels by design to me idk

Those two things don't contradict each other. I was pointing out that Yuta isn't really a character so much as he is a plot point for that emotional moment.

Danganronpa typically introduces us to all the characters right off the bat so that we can build at least some sort of rapport with them before it starts killing them off. But Yuta literally just showed up right at the start of his death scene. We have never even heard of this person before he suddenly dies.

It's clear that they wanted to have someone die here for emotional weight. But they couldn't be arsed to introduce anyone to fill that role. So the result is, Yuta shows up, introduces himself briefly, and then dies immediately. He has very slightly more characterization than the eighty bloody corpses that Komaru and Toko passed on the way to the bridge, that restaurant host she watched get ripped apart by Monokumas, and the Future Foundation soldiers she also watched get ripped apart

She's seen a lot of death at this point. And (quite reasonably) broken down several times over it. So there's nothing new about her doing it again. Yuta's just another dead nobody on the pile, except for his connection to another person that Komaru doesn't know.

The one new thing his death does add is that it establishes what happens if you try to leave the city. The bomb bracelets detonate if the perimeter is breached. But Toko and Komaru seem to have missed that plot point entirely because after Komaru's done having her latest breakdown, their next course of action is, "Let's find a train so we can leave the city.

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

I'm seeing a lot of posts about Danganronpa S supposedly confirming ships (I've been seeing mostly wlw ones and putting aside what I'm going to say next, honestly good for yous /gen) and to be fully cynical on main - that confirms my worries about DRS being a soulless fanservice game? For reference, I was never into there being a new DR game or it not being written by Kodaka.

If these ships never appeared in canon, I don't want them to be "confirmed" by some non-canon spin-off game released by Spike Chunsoft after the creator left to do his own thing. I think headcanons are a beautiful way to explore the ships you love, and I wouldn't want a corporation to taint that for me.

I'm not sure I appreciate seeing a bonus game potentially retcon a character who was written as cishet to turn them LGBTQ. To me that's no different from your typical rainbow capitalism. And that's not even mentioning the vagueness of these "confirmations" and the potential choices made by the localisation team (we already know that one of Hinata and Komaeda's events was changed to make Komaeda seem like a creep, when the Japanese text featured Hinata being the one to try and befriend him).

Hey, Spike Chunsoft - fuck you. It's about time I said it, and not just in reference to Danganronpa S specifically. Danganronpa is your cash cow now and you have no shame in ruining its strengths to turn it into a corporate fanfic with no real story. I'm not even sure whoever wrote events of Mikan and Ibuki being friends in Danganronpa S KNOWS that Mikan killed her in Danganronpa 2 (/hyp). It's not that I don't want them to make up (or make out), but that I want it to be in a real continuation of their experiences, not a contextless environment where everything that made them them stops existing.

Of course, please take all that I say with a grain of salt, as I didn't play the game for myself. Maybe there's a very smart part of the context that validates everything somehow. Who knows? Not me at least.

Still, all that I want to say is... Making Genocider, an already kind of offensive take on DID, act out of character to please Toukomaru fans isn't as woke as you think it is. Much like I mentioned in a previous post about Danganronpa S, it's better that you let her rest in 2010 when she was written. Please write new stories about and with LGBTQ characters. Hire LGBTQ writers and actors, if you haven't already. (Also applies to characters with mental illness!)

I wish I lived in a world where Danganronpa had good LGBTQ rep to begin with, but that's just not how it is. And if we want better rep in the future, we need to stay aware and not let one of the laziest publishers I know use the community for a quick buck.

I'll be honest, if I ever play Danganronpa S, even if I see events that look like they make sense in regards to the characters in question, I won't be able to see it as anything more than a fanfic tainted with capitalism. I know very horny fanfic writers with better integrity.

Besides, the swimsuit sprite edits were lazy, create new games with real creative teams ffs.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.7

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in trial 6, Tsumugi was very clearly just cosplaying Junko despite no-one properly figuring this out for ages, Danganronpa trivia was really not necessary to prove everyone’s memories are fake, Tsumugi kept insisting that Shuichi called this trial because of her backstory when really it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with Kaito, Maki was very distressed to learn even more how she was just being controlled and manipulated like always, Tsumugi was a literal fucking shapeshifter, everyone was more upset than they should have been over Hope’s Peak being fictional for something they’d only known about for two days, but at least that meant that the outside world was…

Well… about that.

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu… Forget about the world. It wants nothing to do with you.”

Oh boy. It sure doesn’t, even though it should. Here we fucking go.

…Does anyone have any idea what “kumafarre”, the word plastered all over the trial background from this point on, is meant to mean? Because that’s always stumped me. It has to mean something for them to have put it there. Kuma is bear, obviously, but “farre” can’t be Japanese, so… ???

“first!”

Pfft, of course that’d be the first message to show up. But it also proves that everyone in the audience can see their messages showing up here, so they should know that the characters can see what they’re saying.

“Bring on the spoilers!”

How does this even make sense? You can’t have spoilers for a reality show that’s happening live. The only possible spoiler is who the blackened is during a trial, but we’re way past that now.

“Kyoko is my waifu.”

“Sakura is my muscle waifu.”

“Chiaki #1 waifu”

Ugghh waifu culture. And also, I told you everyone was a bunch of genwunners in this audience! No-one mentions anything like this for any character outside of DR1 or 2. And yeah, obviously seasons past 3 don’t exist in the out-universe, but the out-universe writers could totally have just thrown in some random names we’ve never heard and expect us to assume that they’re talking about unknown characters from other seasons. Fifty other goddamn seasons they could be choosing from! But nope, it’s all gotta be mostly season one with some two, that’s all that counts.

“My husbando Shuichi!!!”

And of course Shuichi gets that shitty treatment too, even though he’s a real goddamn person who never asked to be famous and nobody is entitled to anything from him.

“Wow, Himiko is still alive…”

Seriously, that’s the first thing someone wants to say when their messages are getting displayed in a place where Himiko can see it? Lovely.

“Viewers get to participate now!”

“I feel like I’m participating, too!”

At least these couple of people are currently being fairly reasonable – they’re just excited to be a part of it in some way!

…The first two characters Tsumugi cosplays after this moment are Kyoko and then Sakura, and then Chiaki pretty soon after that. She’s pandering to those people whose messages she saw, isn’t she.

“Sakura”:  “Of course, those you see here are only a fraction of our total viewers.”

I. Should. Sincerely. Hope. So. Because that’s the only thing that makes this even remotely believable – the idea that the majority of the fanbase are somewhat more decent human beings than this (you know, aside from the watching real people kill each other thing) and we’re just seeing the vocal asshole minority right now.

…That’s really not what the narrative is going to be going for with this, though. If they actually wanted us to think that this audience we see is just the asshole minority and everyone else is more decent, this topic should get addressed in more than just this one throwaway line, and it is not. So probably the only actual reason this line is here is to establish that the number of viewers is way higher than suggested by just these commenters, and not that the attitude of the rest of them is significantly different.

“I believe in Keebs.”

This is a little early hint to the Keebo deal, since a lot of the audience should be thinking about him the most.

“You can do it, Shuichi!”

I like this person! This person is the most decent and realistic person we’ve heard from so far! Yeah, cheer on Shuichi just like I’ve been doing throughout this commentary! They care about him and want him to succeed! It is of course more twisted in this person’s case because he’s not actually fictional, and becomes even more so now that Shuichi can actually hear them and any pretense that he’s just fictional can’t be maintained, but at least this is otherwise a realistic and relatable response to this.

Shuichi:  “W-Wait, why would a peaceful world need a killing game like th—”

“Taka”:  “It’s *because* the world is so peaceful that this killing game is necessary!”

“Celeste”:  “It is so very peaceful… And so, it is so very boring.”

“Kyoko”:  “With so much peace, people have become bored. They need stimulation…”

That’s… kinda bullshit. First Shuichi’s assumption that only a world full of strife could possibly create a reason for a killing game, but then also the idea that peace would make people bored. Humans don’t start wars for entertainment, you know. World peace should be the least boring thing for humanity, because without having to spend so much effort on survival and equality, everyone would have more energy left to make all kinds of technology and art, including entertainment which should not have to involve killing real people to be entertaining!

To be fair, Tsumugi is probably exaggerating somewhat, given that she’s part of Team Danganronpa and is trying to sell the idea that her product is so necessary for the world. But it would seem that we are in a world where one way or another it’s become socially accepted to watch real people kill each other for entertainment… which doesn’t seem like a peaceful utopia at all, really.

“Chiaki”:  “Every person in the outside world watching this is a huge Danganronpa fan.”

We get a demonstrative image of people all over the world apparently excitedly watching Danganronpa, most of whom are vague and faceless. If it were just them then it could be possible to imagine that Tsumugi is lying and this is just a hypothetical image of what she’s talking about rather than the truth. But… Makoto’s also there. The kid that we, the out-universe audience, very definitely saw at the beginning of the chapter in a context that had no connection to Tsumugi and no reason to be a lie. Which gives this image a lot of credibility.

(And if this is the truth, again, it really doesn’t look like it’s a shady hidden thing only accessed on the darkest corners of the internet.)

I will say one thing in this world’s favour. I’m not remotely trying to defend the part where they watch real people kill each other, but Danganronpa really must be hugely popular among absolutely everyone for this to have somehow ended up not extremely illegal. Which means, given the fact that the audience are basically telling themselves it’s fiction and treating it as such, this is also a world in which it’s socially accepted, not just in niche geek subcultures but in mainstream culture, to get really excited by and invested in fiction. If you took all the awful murderiness out of it and made sure it was all actual fiction, man I’d love to live in that kind of world. As it is, in our world, only children are really socially expected to get super-excited about fictional stories all the time, like it’s something people are meant to grow out of as adults. Among adults, only very few extremely mainstream fictions get even close to that kind of widely-accepted level of importance in people’s lives. Which is disappointing to me.

“Chiaki”:  “This killing game is for everyone… So it’s everyone’s killing school semester.”

That’s the Japanese subtitle of this game, which actually turns out to be very meaningful! The general sense of it she’s talking about here would have applied to every season up until now, but there’s also the more specific sense that this season in particular has audience participation, which is apparently the first time it’s happened, making it even more “everyone’s” than before.

And the localisers just decided to nope on that subtitle and change it to the meaningless “Killing Harmony”, which is honestly a shame. Maybe the Japanese subtitle is a bit too long and too much of a mouthful for western standards, but they could have at least changed it to something which kept that relevance.

“Killing Harmony! I just got it! LOL”

Haha, no, that doooeees not work in the localisation.

“I’ve waited three years for this.”

“I thought the franchise was done.”

Huh, this is some juicy info. It’s taken three years since season 52, long enough that some people thought there wasn’t going to be another one? (And a lot of the rest of the chatter at this point is people applauding, perhaps being happy that they got another season.) That… suggests that Danganronpa might have been already on its last legs even before what happens in this trial comes and puts the lid on it all, which maybe makes things a little more believable. That’d also potentially explain why this is the first time they tried the Keebo gimmick, if they were trying to keep things fresh after worrying people would be getting bored of the same old thing.

Also, even if it’s usually less than three years between games, you’ve still got to imagine it’d be at least one year or so, which means it’s been over half a century since the Danganronpa franchise began. A lot of people who worked on it while it was still pure fiction wouldn’t even be alive anymore at this point.

Plus, geez, how long did they keep Rantaro in limbo between games? Was he allowed to live a relatively normal life for the time being while knowing that if they ever did get around to a season 53, he’d be forced into it, meaning he lived dreading that day and desperately hoping it’d never come? Ouch, poor Rantaro. Or possibly they do in fact have real cold sleep technology in this universe and they just stuffed him in one of those for three years.

“Shuichi, look this way! <3”

That’s… rather entitled but also kind of believable as something someone might do, since it seems like a lot of the audience have forgotten that these characters don’t just exist to perform for them.

“Get to the punishment already!”

Aaaand here’s someone who’s barely a believable person. Do the audience really just watch this to see people be horribly executed, rather than for all the character drama that happens in between those parts?

The opening theme music for this game starts playing… and apparently this is being played in-universe, based on the fact that Maki reacts to it.

Maki:  “What is this…?”

“Fuyuhiko”:  “Can’t you tell? It’s the title of the current Danganronpa you guys are doing.”

God, that has to be incredibly disturbing and wrong, being told that you’re hearing the theme music for you and your friends’ suffering and death… and it’s just this chill jazz tune, of all things. This probably hammered home more than anything else the awful sense that all of their struggles have just been entertainment.

“Chihiro”:  “Danganronpa’s gone on so long because the whole world enjoys and supports it.”

No mention of the fact that apparently some people thought there wouldn’t even be a season 53? Of course not, Tsumugi wouldn’t want to admit that the franchise might be on its last legs.

“Makoto”:  “What season do you think we’re on? You should be able to tell from the logo.”

So she claims. But you know what I thought when I first heard her say this? Since I already figured it was probably season 53 from Junko the 53rd, I thought the clue in the logo was the negative space between the V and the 3.

It’s actually kinda shaped like a 5 if you look at it that way! But nope, that’d make way more sense that what it’s actually supposed to be.

(I bet Shuichi figured it out from the Junko hint and not the logo, too.)

“V is the Roman numeral for 5.”

*deep breath*

That is not how Roman numerals work!!! In Arabic numerals, “5” can mean five, or fifty, or five hundred, etc, depending on its position within the number. But Roman numerals do not work like that! “V” only ever means five, and its position in the number does not change that. V3 cannot possibly mean fifty-three. It’s combining two number systems that work completely differently and do not make any sense being combined, but if one were to try and make a number out of it, it’d simply mean “five-three”, separately. Or maybe you’d add them together, so it’d mean eight.

In Roman numerals, fifty is denoted with an “L”. To actually get fifty-three in any vaguely sensible way by combining Roman and Arabic numerals, it’d be L3. Or, heck, why don’t we write the whole thing in Roman numerals? Then it’s LIII. Which just so happens to look and sound very similar to the English word “lie”. If the Japanese writers of this game wanted to do a clever little number/letter trick, why didn’t they go for that? It would have been great! Or they could call it L3 but make the negative space between the L and the 3 look kind of like an I somehow, so that “LI3” almost looks like “lie” as well. Missed freaking opportunity there, guys. Instead it’s just very apparent that nobody in Spike Chunsoft (or Team Danganronpa, for that matter) has any idea how Roman numerals work.

“Danganronpa 25 was the best.”

Shout-outs to this person. They’re the only person we ever see here who mentions any series other than 1, 2 or the one they’re currently watching. Props to them for knowing what their favourite season is and sticking to their guns in a sea of people who disregard every new season that comes along as soon as it’s not current any more in favour of obsessing over the first ones like they’re the only ones that matter. Season 25 probably was genuinely one of the best ones if it has a dedicated fan like this. You go, random person. I feel you.

“This is my first Danganronpa.”

Huh, so despite how much Tsumugi is trying to make us think everyone is obsessed with it, there have to still be at least a few people who don’t get what all the hype is about, if this person only just decided to check it out for this season.

(Clearly there hasn’t been a large enough proportion of these uninterested people who are upset about the whole killing-real-people thing to be able to put a stop to it before now, though. Even if it’s not their thing, if the rest of the world’s okay with it then it must be fine, right???)

“I love Shuichi <3”

Yes, thanks, we’re getting that impression. This is probably the same person from before, who still feels the need to mention this while everyone else is talking about this being season 53.

Monokuma:  “The seasons just kept coming, and with it came more killing games… Until it transcended games and anime to become this, the Ultimate Real Fiction…”

They gloss over this quite quickly, but it is important to note that yes, the earlier seasons really were just fiction in this universe like they were in ours. They’re not trying to retcon that the Hope’s Peak killing games were actually only happening for entertainment thanks to Flashback Lights and fabricated backstory. DR1 and 2 were completely fictional in this universe, which means that nothing happening here matters to or compromises that storyline at all.

After all, it does make sense that Danganronpa would need to have worldwide popularity already before society collectively decided that doing this with real people (but definitely not really real people, right) would be totally okay. It’s unclear exactly when the transition to “real fiction” happened, although Shuichi and Maki’s comments on the files in his lab kind of made me assume that there were more real ones than fictional ones. So… I was just shouting out season 25, but that one probably involved real people being killed, too.

“Leon”:  “What, did the letter in there throw you off? Well, I guess that happens. But isn’t it just rad how it looks like a letter, but it’s really a number!?”

I am way too amused at how they made it be specifically Leon, mister 11037 himself, who mentions this point. Nice one, guys. Nice.

“Sonia”:  “Since this is the 53rd season, one would expect to see a multitude of characters…”

Tsumugi:  “But you only have memories from the first two, so you wouldn’t recognize any others.”

They shouldn’t even recognise the ones from season two, like I’ve been saying! But she’s been cosplaying them anyway. So it’s probably a lot less about keeping them recognisable for the students here and more just about pandering to those genwunners and twoers outside.

(Obviously there’s a very good out-universe reason for this, but, you know.)

Tsumugi:  “So yes, I’m the mastermind! But the *real* mastermind forcing you to do this is… the people of the outside world!”

Way to deflect your responsibility, Tsumugi! Yes, everyone outside is also partially responsible by demanding this and giving it an audience, but you’re still the one who made it all happen and got everyone killed!

The audience starts chattering about how they’re the mastermind, but it’s in a way that sounds happy about it, like they’re just excited to be part of the story. They don’t seem to register the fact that, hey, maybe being literally actually responsible for the suffering and death of the characters they’ve been watching and caring about isn’t actually a good thing.

“Mmm… Shuichi’s nose <3”

Meanwhile Shuichi’s “fan” here still has a one-track mind and is getting increasingly creepy. I refuse to believe that this is the same person who was cheering Shuichi on earlier, since that person actually cared about him and didn’t only shallowly see him as eye-candy.

“put Maki back on kthx”

Also apparently Maki has “fans” too. But hers probably aren’t the good kind either.

“Mikan”:  “The ones managing this killing game aren’t psychos like the Remnants of Despair…”

“Ibuki”:  “They’re literal managers! Literally!”

Just because they’re managers, that doesn’t stop them from being shitty, evil people on par with the Remnants of Despair in terms of awfulness. They are quite evidently both.

Tsumugi:  “So I want to hear your best guess. What company is running this show?”

…

Shuichi:  “…Team Danganronpa?”

I love how Shuichi’s tone of voice makes it clear that he’s just pulling this name out of thin air. How is he supposed to know? Conveniently, Team Danganronpa were apparently just really uncreative when it came to naming themselves. (I guess this is realistic enough, though – our world does have The Pokémon Company, which makes Pokémon.)

We – and therefore presumably the students and the in-universe audience – get shown the opening movie that was right at the beginning when you start a new file, the one that summarised seasons 1, 2 and 3 and then implied this one would be a continuation of it. Which still doesn’t actually make any in-universe sense, since all the evidence other than this clearly points towards Hope’s Peak having not being part of this game’s backstory until Tsumugi improvised it in chapter 5. Maybe this was a promo video Team Danganronpa then hastily slapped together after that point to try and act like they totally had this planned all along?

The only difference from before (because it would have been a huuuuge spoiler to see this last time) is that we also see the supposed logos of every Danganronpa season up to 53. 4 through 10 are clearly the out-universe writers having a field day referencing other works of fiction, but then 11 through 52 are all exactly the same logo with only the number being different. Yeah, that’s not how it actually was, is it. The out-universe writers just didn’t want to take the time to make that many unique logos for a split-second each of screentime. (And, fair enough.)

We then get shown a collage of what appears to be basically all of the illustrations in this game. Which you’d think shouldn’t actually exist in-universe, because the audience’s camera is supposed to be Keebo’s eyes, and he wasn’t there for half of this stuff! So this strongly suggests that despite what Tsumugi’s going to claim about that later, the audience could also watch the game through the Nanokumas’ footage instead and potentially saw all the same scenes that we saw that way.

…Makoto is on there, though. He definitely should not be. The out-universe writers didn’t catch that, I guess.

Shuichi:  “Shut up… Shut up!”

Yeeeaaah, I don’t blame Shuichi for this. Tsumugi and Monokuma and the audience have been blabbering on for quite a while now, barely letting him and his friends get a word in edgeways while treating them like objects for their amusement. That has to be awful.

And even aside from Shuichi’s feelings about it, the way the audience has been suddenly babbling excitedly about Danganronpa in general to the point of almost completely ignoring the characters who are in this actual story they’re supposed to be invested in is pretty shallow of them. That’s already a sign of how unrealistically awful an audience they’re going to keep showing themselves to be.

Shuichi:  “No matter how many false memories we’ve been implanted with, *we* aren’t fictional!”

This line is here as a setup for the big reveal, of course, but even so… he’s right. Just because literally all of their memories from before this killing game are fake, it doesn’t change that they’ve been real people from the moment they got all of those memories.

Shuichi:  (Who… are we…?) “We… are real! We’re living, breathing human beings!”

“Nekomaru”:  “No! You’re just like MEEEEEE!!!”

I made Shuichi answer this incorrectly at first because I really feel like he would want to assert this… and he’s still not wrong! They are very definitely living and breathing right now, nobody can deny that!

“Makoto”:  “You’re just fictional characters created solely for this killing game.”

“Teruteru”:  “Nothin’ we can do about it, I’m afraid. Danganronpa’s that kinda property.”

I’m sure it’s much less some intellectual property dispute and more the idea that everyone might have slightly more issue with actual real people from the outside world being killed in this. It’s totally fine if they were created solely for the killing game, though, because then they’re not real and only exist to die here, right?

And honestly… that does make all the deaths in this game come across as just slightly less awful and tragic, in that context. Not because they aren’t still extremely real people who very much did not deserve to suffer and die, but, since they were created to die, anyone managing to survive and escape despite that feels like even more of a victory than in the previous games. It’s less Monokuma killing a bunch of people who were never meant to die, and more Shuichi managing to save at least a small handful of people who were never meant to live.

“Gundham”:  “Your immaterial existence is a fabrication, independent of your actual flesh and blood.”

To translate the Gundham-ese: their “souls” were created separately from their bodies. Kind of like how they were discussing when going into the Virtual World how odd it is that the two can be separated like that.

Tsumugi:  “Yep, you’re all fictional.”

“Ibuki”:  “You guys out there beyond the fourth wall already knew that, right!?”

I like how this works as simultaneously talking to the people beyond both fourth walls at once, while not actually breaking the real one. (Though the people beyond the in-universe fourth wall are only telling themselves these guys are fictional and aren’t actually right.)

Tsumugi:  “You all didn’t look like this when you first came to the Ultimate Academy… Those were your true selves. Now you’re all just fictional characters. That’s the truth.”

Shuichi:  (That’s the truth? Then… our real identities…)

Don’t get caught up in her manipulation, Shuichi! You are not any less “real” just because different people used to inhabit your bodies!

Tsumugi goes on to talk about when they first arrived at the school as their pregame selves before they got their outfits and memories. And again, we saw this. It is quite ridiculous to assume we saw an entire lengthy section in the prologue which just straight-up didn’t happen. The game has lied to us, but only with very small lies of omission (re: Kaede’s inner monologue). If the game was willing to lie to us about entire sections we played through, we couldn’t trust anything. We couldn’t even trust if this trial we’re playing is really happening right now, or if anything we saw really happened, which would render this entire story meaningless.

“Byakuya”:  “But boring, everyday characters have no right to be in Danganronpa…”

Honestly, why, though? Sure, the talents are supposed to be a Danganronpa thing, but you could totally do a killing game with ordinary people. It might make for an interesting change, especially after 53 seasons.

“Peko”:  “Which means your Ultimate talents are all just fiction.”

They may have come from fake memories, but they have those talents now. Nobody can deny that Shuichi’s been a pretty great detective.

Maki:  “Our talents as well…?”

Maki Roll, you never killed anyone, and you’ll never have to! This is great news for you!

…I bet if Kaito were still here, he’d immediately turn to her with a big grin and tell her that. Encouraging and being happy for the sidekick with a bright side to this would be way more important than however he might be feeling about this revelation in respect to his own talent.

Maki doesn’t react here with anything other than shock and disbelief, though, so I don’t know if this quite sinks in for her yet. It’s probably very hard for her to accept that she suddenly doesn’t deserve to feel guilty about anything. After all, this won’t diminish the effect Maki’s memories have on her and that she’s going to have to live with feeling like she’s killed countless people for the rest of her life. But knowing that nobody real actually died because of her has got to help a lot. I’m sure that’ll sink in eventually, once she’s had more time to think about it without the trial getting in the way.

“Chiaki”:  “I mean, they suited you to a certain extent, but mostly in a placebo effect sorta way. Kinda like a form of autosuggestion… You know, like if you do it, it’ll all work out.”

We’ve seen Flashback Lights do plenty of things that aren’t just straight-up remembering stuff: brainwashing everyone to be filled with meaningless “hope” and a sense of the completely wrong meanings of the words “hope” and “despair” in chapter 5? Brainwashing Shuichi into suddenly being a creepy pervert for that optional scene in chapter 3? Kaito’s phobia of ghosts leading him to feel anxious and nauseous upon simply thinking about a certain irrational stimulus? So, given that, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine they can do this kind of thing too. Heck, most of the talents in this game are things that only require knowledge, and perhaps a certain kind of personality, something Flashback Lights can very evidently do. Some also require muscle memory, which is a bit more of a stretch, but it’s still memory.

The hardest one to buy for me is probably Angie’s talent. There’s some muscle memory and some knowledge involved, but a lot of what makes someone good at art is more intangible and hard to define and might be difficult to encapsulate in a Flashback Light. However, Angie was unique in that she explicitly did not remember creating her art, because Atua was supposedly possessing her, and she had to be alone for that to happen. That’s how she made the waxworks. So it’s possible that what was actually happening was some kind of hypnotic trigger making her pass out when she thinks she’s about to create something, and then the gamemakers put pre-created waxworks in her lab. Remember how Angie made four waxworks without having intended to? Almost as if the gamemakers weren’t sure who she’d choose for the ritual and just made all four in advance. …And, okay, admittedly it’s very unclear how anyone could have got inside the school to put the waxworks there, which is the same question as how a hypothetical clone-with-a-Flashback-Light would have got in for the resurrection thing if that was going to be possible. But there’s something there. (Can you tell I hadn’t thought of this idea until after the commentary for chapter 3 had gone up and so I’m awkwardly fitting it in here instead.)

And ultimately, if the characters being “fictional” is the point of this story the out-universe writers decided to tell, then that always had to include fictional talents as well, since Danganronpa insists on having all its characters be Ultimates. So Flashback Lights have to be able to do this, even if it’s a little bit of a stretch to believe, because it’s just necessary for the premise to work.

It’s a lot like how we had to buy that the Exisal randomly had a voice changer that could perfectly mimic any student’s voice, simply because that was vital for the fifth trial’s premise and that story wouldn’t work if it didn’t. We can’t just use the fact that it was somewhat unrealistic of the Exisal to have a voice changer as any kind of evidence to propose that it actually didn’t.

Another example: I once saw a blind LP of the first Danganronpa game where it got to the memory wipe reveal and Junko handwaved how memory-wipe technology worked. And the LPer was all “Um, no, how is memory wiping even possible? I think it’s pretty important to establish this, actually!”, like he was using the fact that he didn’t understand how to question whether it had even happened at all. But that was missing the point; explaining the technology really wasn’t all that important. The existence of memory-wiping technology was just a necessary part of that story that had to be accepted, because if memory wipes weren’t possible then that story couldn’t have happened. This story is the same, except with Flashback Lights and the multitude of things that they need to be able to do to make this story work. At least in this case, Flashback Lights and some of the things they can do are well-established already, which is better setup than the memory-wipe technology had in DR1.

Tsumugi:  “Can you really say you’re not fictional now?”

Yes! Yes, they can and should say that!

“Hajime”:  “Even if your body is real, your identities, personalities, talents and past are all fiction.”

Past, sure. Identities… maybe? At least if we’re just talking about legal identity? But their talents are quite evidently still talents now, as I’ve just been saying, and their personalities are also something they’re expressing right here and now. Even if they were deliberately crafted and created to be that way, it doesn’t mean those personalities aren’t now real. You can only call a personality “fake” if that person is knowingly putting on a façade and pretending to be someone they’re not. So the only fictional personality we ever saw was Kokichi’s supposed love for this killing game. …Oh, and Tsumugi’s, of course.

Also, hi, Hajime. It’s fitting that she’d choose him for this. If we’re supposed to believe that Izuru got shoved full of every single talent imaginable by them doing weird brain stuff to him, it’s perfectly reasonable to also believe Flashback Lights could do something similar on a lesser scale. And Izuru’s entire existence was created from that process, but that didn’t make him any less “real” of a person than Hajime was. If anything, it made him more real at that point, because he’d overwritten Hajime completely (at least until the simulation). It’s honestly a very similar thing. Maybe Hajime’s story partially inspired the idea for this game.

Shuichi:  “…”

Unfortunately… this seems to be working on Shuichi.

…You want to know what Tsumugi ought to think of as the real reason she killed Kaito? Not to have his death inspire Shuichi to become even stronger. That would still be happening anyway if Kaito were still by his side encouraging him; all that was needed for that final push was for Kaito to admit that Shuichi’s even more of a hero than him and tell him that. The real reason for his death should have been because Kaito would completely annihilate what Tsumugi is trying to do here.

Because the only thing that matters is what you want to believe! Tsumugi is trying to argue that their pasts being fabricated means that they don’t count as “real” people, but who even cares about that? They believe they’re real, and have always believed that, and still want to believe that, so why should anything else matter? Someone like Kaito who puts such value in belief and has such strong, unbreakable convictions about being true to himself wouldn’t be listening to any of this crap. He’d be shaken to learn his memories are all fake and that his grandparents and fellow astronaut trainees don’t exist, sure, but it wouldn’t even scratch his belief in who he is. He’s Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars! Who cares if he’s only this way because someone else wanted him to be, it’s still who he wants to be, so it’s who he’s going to keep being, dammit! And, of course, upon seeing that his sidekicks are having trouble with this idea and are starting to doubt if they’re really real, he’d give them just the pep talk they’d need to keep believing in themselves and their own existences.

Kaito is exactly the kind of person who would be able to blow this whole trial out of the water, and nerfing him enough to prevent him from doing that required nothing less than him not being alive any more.

(Meanwhile, if Kokichi were still alive at this point, he’d be his usual infuriating self. “Oh, you guys are only just figuring this out now?”)

Also, if Kaito were still alive in this trial and ultimately ended up surviving and escaping while having learned that his memories are fake and he was never actually an astronaut trainee… you know that would not stop him from striding up to JAXA’s front door and being all “Let me take the astronaut exam, sure you already know I’m too young but you’ve also seen I’ve got exactly what it takes”.

---

[Next post]

[golden-redhead]

Insanity

Ouma is Momota’s unhealthy coping mechanism.

Oumota, post-game Virtual Reality AU (with a twist). 2203 words. Spoilers. Dedication for @tricky-leader

Read on AO3.

Insane.

This is the only word that comes to Momota’s mind as he watches Ouma paint himself to be the villain of this season, a tablet with Team Danganronpa’s logo on it grasped tightly in his hands.

He is watching that scene after the very end of the fourth trial, just after Gonta gets executed. He watches it over and over again, to the point where he can almost trick himself into thinking that he doesn’t feel nauseous anymore. His eyes hurt and he is fairly certain that they’re bloodshot, but he stubbornly stays where he is, hands clutching the tablet close to his chest with enough force to make his knuckles turn white. The faint bluish glow of the screen hits his eyes as they search Ouma’s face when he says all those horrible things, lips stretched in a sickening smile of a madman. Momota himself isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he knows for a fact that he’ll know once he finally finds it.

Maybe he’s hoping to notice some crack in Ouma’s act.

Anything that his tortured brain would use against him to prove him that all of this was avoidable, that if only any of them noticed sooner and Saihara figured it out faster, if only someone knew… The truth is, he doesn’t know what would have happened if that was the truth. Breaking through Ouma’s endless walls of lies and distrust and deftly masked fear sounds like a mission impossible to anyone.

Sometimes, Momota wonders how would it feel to be a part of the audience of Danganronpa’s fifty-third season, just one of those people who get to enjoy the game from the outside, blissfully unaware of the trauma and the empty feeling in your stomach that haunts you long after you make your big comeback to reality. Would it be easier to decipher Ouma if he was simply watching him act like a character on a show, safe and sound on the other side of the screen?

He remembers himself from the times when he was simply one of the fans. He remembers himself from the times when the idea of this senseless suffering would excite him, make his heart beat faster, face flushed and eyes wide and fervent. He was never quite on the same level as Saihara who was one of those hardcore psycho fans who jack off while watching the executions, but he still enjoyed the show, his pulse quickening whenever he saw it airing. The more bloody the season, the better. He remembers the elation he felt when a big fat envelope with a familiar logo on top found its way into his mailbox, stuffed with a short ‘Congratulations, you’ve made it into the 53rd season of Danganronpa!’ note and a contract.

Back then, he celebrated.

The copious amount of alcohol, music blasting at full volume and girls, many girls, who would pass through his bed, moaning and writhing under him, only to be followed by another. He was at the top of the world.

None of that matters anymore. None of that is important now.

He wonders who would have ended up being his favorite character.

Akamatsu, while entertaining to watch, was just a goody two-shoes, so sweet that it was almost nauseous. The only thing that he would have found even remotely interesting about Akamatsu was her ending, but it simply happened too quickly.

Saihara also wouldn’t have been his typical choice, too meek and cautious. Too innocent. Momota was always more into the potential culprits rather than heroes. To think that he ended up being one of them… If there’s one thing he can say for sure about the writers working for Team Danganronpa it’s that they’re sick fucks. The absolute worst. He wonders if it gives them some sense of perverse satisfaction, all this twisting of their original personalities into people that they barely recognize, people who feel so distant and yet so familiar.

Then again, Momota has no right to complain. If anything, Team Danganronpa actually fixed him. He feels a shudder crawl down his spine just thinking about the Momota from before the game. This angry creature he used to be, not caring for anything or anyone. He was so full of shit back then, always ready to lash out, ready to attack, eagerly awaiting for any chance to feel provoked just to have an excuse to fight. This person is still inside him, trapped somewhere under the thick layer of ideals they stuffed him with. Still, he got lucky. Being stuck with this new identity might feel weird, but between the old and new one he would choose this new Momota without a moment of hesitation.

Not everyone can say the same thing, though.

His mind flashes to Korekiyo and he grimaces with distaste. This whole incest subplot, especially when paired with the fact that he was a murderer even before the game started, was a bit of an overkill, even by Danganronpa’s standards. He almost feels sorry for the guy. There’s no redeeming trait Korekiyo could rely on. His personality was reduced to being a fucking creep and Momota feels an intense sense of unfairness everytime he thinks about it. There’s also some relief, though. This nagging voice muttering good thing it wasn’t me at the back of his head. Even though the villain characters tended to be interesting, Korekiyo had a fairly small fanbase and would always end up at the very bottom of every favorite character poll. Momota has no idea how Korekiyo is doing now but he can’t imagine him being happy with what Team Danganronpa had done to him.

So yes, Momota considers himself lucky, at least in this one aspect.

Momota Kaito, Luminary of the Stars might be a fake name, a fake persona, but it’s the one he fully accepts and chooses to embrace, if only so he can keep some resemblance of sanity.

Anyway, now that he thinks about it there’s no way that he would choose Saihara as his favorite and Korekiyo is obviously also a definite no.

Out of his two sidekicks Harukawa seems like a much more likely option than Saihara. Old Momota would have been overjoyed. Pretty girl? An assassin? What a delightful combination. Sexy, too. Good looks on one hand and the promise of some professional and well-executed bloodshed on the other - what more could one ask for? The fans must have been ecstatic when her real talent - none of that boring caregiver or whatever bullshit - was exposed. Of course, if things went like they did in the end, he would have been pretty disappointed that ultimately Harukawa became one of the survivors and never actually got the chance to kill anyone. With how much of a deal they made out of her hiding her talent it was probably frustratingly underwhelming to never see her in some bloody action.

Well… that’s not entirely true, he still remembers the sting of an arrow piercing his arm, but that’s besides the point.

He briefly wonders what he would have thought about his own role in the killing game but quickly dismisses it. Momota Kaito from the game was way too heroic for his liking, a tragic hero who would literally let himself bleed to death just to save everyone.

Pathetic.

Weak.

Lame.

He really should have wrapped his hands around Saihara’s throat once he gained his trust.

And then there’s Ouma.

The trickster.

The antagonist.

The mastermind.

The martyr.

There are so many words that one could use to describe Ouma and none of them would ever be good enough.

He escapes all the definitions, remains a mystery even after the game is over while the rest of the participants get to go home, rest and - hopefully - heal. Even weeks after the game ended Internet forums and websites continued to speculate about Ouma’s character. It’s been quite some time since a character made such an impact. Danganronpa has been going for fifty-three seasons and even despite having many devoted fans some of the appeal started to fade. Teenagers being thrown into a world in which their only choice is between hope and despair can become boring after some time, especially with such a defined structure of the show. Unexpected culprit in the first chapter, double murder in the third one, unclear situation in the fifth … Momota knows it all.

Still, Ouma managed to do something that no character did in a long time. He brought back something that made Danganronpa so alluring all those years ago, when it was still a new concept that would provoke outrage and controversy. Hell, some people even say that he single-handedly saved the name of the entire franchise. There’s no guarantee that there will be any future seasons, but even if there won’t be - Danganronpa definitely went with a bang. And all of that because of some purple gremlin with a death wish.

The same gremlin who was now trapped in a coma with no means of escape, enslaved by the very contract he signed with his own hand.

Team Danganronpa made good use of all the loopholes in the law, exploiting any ambiguity they could find to keep Ouma in the simulation as long as they deem it necessary, possibly long enough for them to revive Danganronpa and put him in the next season. It wasn’t clear what exactly they were planning to do, but as long as Ouma was involved, it was sure that they would definitely make profit off of him, seizing the opportunity to its maximum potential.

No one ever won against Team Danganronpa, despite the fact that many tried. If what the press has been reporting was to be believed then the company was basically drowning in lawsuits. And yet, they managed to evade every single one of them and keep the biggest sensation they ever created clutched tightly in their grasp, using Ouma as leverage to achieve their goal, bending both the law enforcers and fans to their will. There would always be fans begging for more, defending the series with blind adoration, their thirst for blood never quite satisfied. They were the precious children of Team Danganronpa, the ones who didn’t know the life without Danganronpa in it and couldn’t care less about Ouma’s future as long as they got what they wanted.

Danganronpa created the society so obsessed with killing that it lost all traces of humanity.

Even though Momota was once part of it, all of them were, it doesn’t feel right anymore. None of it feels right. The fact that it took him so long to realize, the fact that they literally had to screw with his brain to make him see that… it doesn’t feel right, either.   

And so Momota watches as the fourth trial, because there’s very little besides that that he can do, watches as it comes to an end and Saihara utters his infamous line. The one that fans quote all the time.

The one that marks Ouma’s even further descent into madness.

You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.

And almost as if tapped with a magic wand, Ouma’s face turns blank. For a long second he just stares at Saihara, for once quiet and still, and it’s a second that lasts a lifetime.

Momota thinks about how scary it looks.

Ouma’s blank face is much scarier than any of his masks, much scarier than those twisted faces that barely look human anymore as he slips into the role of a bloodthirsty villain. Momota has scrolled through many threads filled with screenshots of Ouma’s most horrifying expressions, but that one that shows a complete devoid of emotion is by far the most dreadful, yet hardly ever recognized by fans as what it truly is. Momota feels stupid, really, when he realizes for how long he remained blind to it himself, how he was too focused on Ouma’s intentional misleadings instead of on cold hard facts. In his defense, however, Ouma is good at this. Maybe even too good. After all, even Saihara fell prey for his act. Ouma’s a skillful liar, exploiting any weaknesses he can find and never showing his true face, always hidden behind carefully planted lies.  

It’s not a surprise that Team Danganronpa doesn’t want to let him out of their grasp.

And maybe, just maybe, Momota from before would have fell prey, too.

Maybe in all of his brashness he would have become obsessed with this boy who looked like Momota could snap his bones in seconds. Maybe he would have been rooting for him against all odds, simply to see what would happen.

Instead, he’s stuck rewatching the game until it all becomes a blur, until he has it all memorized, imprinted behind the eyelids.

Ouma taunting and lying and smiling. Ouma being the one who, in his own strange way, saved them all.

Somehow he’s even more of a mystery after the end of the game, even if the truth slowly unfolds itself before their eyes.

There’s a weird sense of insanity to it all.

And so Momota finds himself re-defining this word, insanity, because it sure as hell isn’t what he thought it to be.

[rirururu]

Danganronpa V3 Thoughts + Chapter 5 Rant

Okay so I’m super late seeing as the game released two years ago but after the disaster that was the DR3 anime, it took a while for me to build up the motivation to play DRV3. I just finished it recently. And what do I think of it?

It was... not as bad as the anime. Actually, it’s not bad at all. Far from it.

But there were still so many nonsensical and dumb decisions made. Just like in DR3. I know for most people, it was chapter 6 and the ending that broke the game and made it horrible for them. But those didn’t particularly bug me. It was actually chapter 5.

(Warning: spoilers for the entire DRV3 game below cut)

(Warning: here’s to be to the return of my salty Hajime rants)

Before you ask, no. It’s not because Kaito and Kokichi died.

We can get that whole “who is best boi/gurl” stuff out of here right off the bat. That has nothing to do with it. If it fits the characters’ arcs and gives the game a proper conclusion or progression, then it’s perfectly fine to kill characters off no matter how much you like them.

That being said, I think it’s safe to conclude that most of the running theme of DRV3 is the idea of “lies versus truth” and “belief versus distrust” as opposed to “hope versus despair.” I have no complaints about that. Actually, it’s a much more impactful and relevant conflict to use in a game where finding the truth and being suspicious of friends is such a paramount part of class trials in the first place.

I can see where the writers were going with Kokichi and Kaito’s characters. Kokichi was meant to be the embodiment of lies and distrust, Kaito was the embodiment of belief, while Shuichi himself was the pursuer of truth. Seeing these three characters in particular be able to play off of each other was one of the highlights of V3, possibly one of the most well-written dynamics in the entire Danganronpa franchise. Why?

It’s because despite Shuich being the seeker of truth, we’ve seen him lie in trials before (a nifty and sometimes necessary new mechanic). Despite Kokichi being a perpetual liar, we’ve seen him tell the truth with how he some times encourages the others in previous cases. Despite Kaito yelling poetry about believing in his friends all the time, we’ve seen Kaito lose belief in Shuichi after what happened in chapter 4. We’ve seen how Kokichi’s distrust in Maki backfired in chapter 2′s trial and led to him being incorrect while Kaito’s belief in Gonta backfired in chapter 4′s trial and led to him being incorrect. The whole message here is that people are multi-layered and can never live with only one or the other. There is no wrong side; you need all four. It was honestly a really good narrative theme.

That is, until chapter 5. The dreaded chapter that officially broke the game for me.

The lesson I got out of chapter 5 after the two most narratively driven characters were killed off was simply “lying is bad.” Really, game? You’re taking such a complex and morally ambiguous conflict as finding the truth and lying to oversimplify it so much? I'm baffled to see the game use such a strong topic just to flub it up so spectacularly for no reason. It put a metaphorical coffin on what was four and a half chapters of buildup. If the whole overlap of  “truth versus lies” and “belief versus logic” weren’t going to go anywhere, then why introduce them in the first place?

Let me explain a bit more. Chapter 5 portrayed Shuichi’s pursuit of the truth and unwavering borderline psychotic focus on finding the truth due to what Kaede said (which also led to him helping Monokuma in chapter 5 like wtf) as the right thing to do all along. Screw Kokichi. Shuichi will help Monokuma as long as the black-and-white terrorist is trying to find the truth too. ‘Because truth good and lies bad.’ While we’re at it, screw Kaito and Maki and everyone else who ever challenged Shuichi and questioned whether sometimes lying is the better choice. Screw all the previous trials where Shuichi was shown acknowledging that lying was sometimes necessary. Shuichi’s always right, baby. And he gets absolutely zero repercussion for it. He’s canonically portrayed as having done the right thing even though his pursuit of the truth actually led to the killing game ending in chapter 6 instead of chapter 5 like the super-big-baddy-evil-villain-just-because-he-lies Kokichi was trying to do.

While we’re at, I guess the second morale of the story was that Kokichi could never learn to accept the importance of belief and truth until the very end. Kaito continued believing in people and could never learn to accept the importance of distrust and logic until the very end. “Whoever lies stays a liar.” “Whoever has belief in people don’t ever have to be suspicious.” Really, game? You’re taking the idea of humans being multi-layered and growing from that and turning them into one-dimensional personifications of the themes who can’t change?

Chapter 5′s outcome is a direct contradiction to where Kokichi, Kaito, and Shuichi as well as the entire game’s themes of truth, lies, belief, and distrust were foreshadowed as heading for over four chapters. I feel like 50% of the reason people think Kokichi is a well-written character is based off of Kodaka purposely making him ambiguous rather than actually giving him a proper character arc. I mean, yeah, why give him a proper character arc if the fans can do it for us? The only hint of a change I’d seen from him was in that he trusted his plan to Kaito, and even then that wasn’t real belief because he blackmailed Kaito into it. Then of course, he died a death that no one in the game seemed to care about because he’s the super-big-baddy-evil-villain-just-because-he-lies and Kodaka seemed so gungho about making him into another tragic Komaeda troupe.

Let’s not forget the other dumbass decisions made by the writers that contradict earlier events or conveniently plot convenient but actually totally impossible but let’s forget that because it’s convenient twists made in the murder itself. Sure, I totally believe that the Exisals had a voice changer that Kaito magically knew how to use. I totally believe that Kokichi would take off his shirt instead of just pulling his sleeve up while he was in the crusher just to give evidence for Shuichi to find. I totally believe that Kaito and Maki could drive an Exisal when it was clearly stated several times that only the Monokubs and Kokichi could do it to prevent anyone from hijacking one. I totally believe Kaito magically transformed into the Ultimate Imposter to impersonate Kokichi and Kokichi wasted his time writing an encyclopedia of a script that would’ve taken weeks to do when the entire DRV3 took place over a few days. I totally believe that Kokichi stupidly kept the remote control for the Exisals on him when he was crushed by the machine instead of giving it to Kaito just to make chapter 6 more unnecessarily difficult.

I totally believe that Maki was actually dumb enough to think that killing the supposed mastermind was the best way to end the killing game when Kaede already proved it wouldn’t. I totally believe that Kokichi would go on a suicide mission that was doomed to fail when nothing about his character before indicated that he wanted anything but to live. I totally believe that the class thought the best course of action at Kokichi actually trying to stop the killing game is to team up with Monokuma to stop Kokichi from stopping the killing game. I totally believe that Kokichi, already established as arguably the most intelligent character in the entire verse bar Junko or Izuru, would make an unsolvable case just to hand over the exact evidence that let Shuichi solve the case. I totally believe that something as trivial as a one-second pause in a video was enough for Shuichi to change the victim’s identity simply based off a combination of something almost resembling circumstantial evidence and his imagination and with no proof at all.

But I guess at the end of the day, plot holes are abundant in Danganronpa. That’s never been the game-changer for me. Normally, I can overlook logical and emotional plot holes if they serve a purpose. What shouldn’t be abundant is throwing away entire themes and character arcs built up for over four chapters just for the sake of making a case as dramatic and mind-fucking as possible.

What would’ve been a more consistent outcome and a better payoff? Let me go over each character.

I think it would’ve been better if Shuichi’s entire final argument segment in the fifth trial was actually an intentional lie on his part to trick Monokuma and the player. It would’ve been a nice extension to the new Lying during Non Stop Debate mechanic. Kaito should have been the victim and the pause in the video should have been a trap set up by Kokichi for Monokuma and one that Shuichi purposely used. Kokichi being the one in the Exisal makes more sense no matter how you dice it since the game wouldn’t have to try to explain all the bullshit with the script and imposter act that made no sense. This would cause a mis-trial because Monokuma was wrong, and subsequently lose the rights to hold anymore trials. The pursuer of truth, Shuichi, would learn to lie in order to save his friends.

I think it would’ve been better if Kokichi’s entire plan depended on (correctly) believing that Shuichi would catch on to the lies within the murder and analyze the meaning of the pause in the video. Kokichi has no control over what Shuichi does in the trial since he doesn’t want to give the impression of wanting Shuichi to analyze the pause for fear of being discovered by Monokuma. It would be true belief in someone, not the blackmail shit he pulled with Kaito in the canon trial. The real blackened should have been Maki, who ends up not being executed because Monokuma has no idea that she’s the blackened due to not knowing what killed Kaito first. The trial should’ve been deemed invalid after Kokichi was proven to be alive in the Exisal after the verdict is already declared and everyone voted for Kaito because not even Monokuma knows if it was Kaito, Kokichi, or Maki who killed Kaito. The whole setup he did wouldn’t have been a waste. The embodiment of lies and distrust, Kokichi, would learn to believe in someone in order to stop the killing game.

I think it would’ve been better if Kaito sacrificed himself since he knew that he was ill and was going to die anyway. While we’re at this topic, can I just point towards the stupidity behind Kaito jumping in front of Maki’s arrow to save Kokichi’s life just to turn around and agree to kill him like 5 minutes later? And for what? Because Maki’s life is somehow more valuable than Kokichi’s? Oh go off, Kaito. It makes him come off as a jackass who can’t act on what he’s been preaching about for over 4 chapters. To me, Kaito choosing to not trust in Kokichi’s plan out of desperation to save Maki's life is way more in character than Kaito choosing to kill Kokichi out of desperation to save Maki's life. Him not trusting Kokichi would be a direct result of what happened in trial 4 where his belief made him mess up. The subversion of what his character was capable of would've been less out-of-nowhere and more related to the narrative theme. Kaito forcing the antidote on Kokichi, convincing him not to commit suicide, then killing himself before the poison did to prevent as many deaths as possible all while using his life to end the killing game would’ve made much more sense. Because Kaito knew he was going to die from his disease anyway and would want to save both Maki and Kokichi. Having him be so selfish and only value Maki's life, once again, makes him come off as a jackass in my eyes. He’s right for not trusting Kokichi since in the end, it convinces Kokichi to continue living rather than committing suicide. This would’ve been a way better “fuck you” to Monokuma than relying on luck to use his disease to kill him before the execution did. The symbol of belief, Kaito, would decide not to trust someone in his last moment of living in exchange for sparing Maki’s life and helping Kokichi grow.

All three characters and their continual struggle with truth, lies, belief, and distrust would’ve actually gotten the closure that they deserve. They would’ve all grown past their troupes to learn that all four are necessary in order to become better people. And there’s no way you can convince me that this is a worse lesson than “lying is bad.” And I say it one more time: really, game?

This also fixes a lot of continuity problems I had with the other chapters as well. What Kokichi said in chapter 4 about Shuichi being useful to him would’ve actually made sense. What Kokichi did in chapter 4 with purposely encouraging everyone to blindly trust Shuichi despite Shuichi’s lies during the trial would’ve actually made sense. What Monokuma proceeded to do in chapter 6 by allowing Shuichi to lead a class trial would’ve actually made sense if Monokuma himself was no longer allowed to because Shuichi, Kaito, and Kokichi outsmarted him in chapter 5 rather than just being another Junko brain fart moment of “okay! I'll agree to your conditions because it's interesting!” Shuichi, Kaito, and Kokichi wouldn’t have come off as dumbasses in chapter 5. What Shuichi kept repeating over and over in chapter 6 about wanting to end the killing game wouldn’t have made me roll my eyes so hard when he’s the one who sabotaged Kaito and Kokichi from ending it sooner. Maki would’ve actually had a chance to show remorse for her major fuck-up in chapter 5 and reflect back on what it means to have the skills of an assassin instead of brushing it off because “it wasn’t actually her who directly killed Kaito” even though it was totally her fault that it happened.

The rest of the class (minus Kokichi) being reluctant to trust Shuichi in the sixth chapter due to his lying in the fifth chapter would’ve made that entire segment in chapter 6 with Shuichi gradually reforming bonds and gaining back their trust one-by-one actually make sense instead of being a mindless mini-game. Kokichi would’ve actually obtained his own unique character arc with a proper payoff in chapter 6 by carrying on Kaito’s wish to trust/believe in Shuichi. Shuichi himself growing out of what Kaede told him in order to become a better person who embodies truth, lying, belief, and distrust would’ve made for a well-rounded ending. The trial and whoever’s death happened in chapter 5 wouldn’t have felt like such a waste of time that purposely went out of its way to bend over backwards in being as inconsequential and illogical as possible.

Why didn’t that happen? Well, I can only guess that the writers were so focused on making Kokichi into another tragic Komaeda troupe and Kaito into another tragic Chiaki troupe that they completely forgot that Kaito and Kokichi are their own characters with different values and actual flaws. Kodaka wanted his standard suicidal tragic bad guy unsolvable murder that would mindfuck the audience. And guess what? He got it in exchange for ruining the three most narratively strong characters in the game. Heaven forbid Kokichi not commit some grand suicide scheme, because he’s not Komaeda and because he’s never shown a single indication that he wanted anything but to live, wouldn’t make him popular enough. Heaven forbid Kaito not become the tragic waifu who was “forced” into killing someone, because he’s not Chiaki and because he was never actually forced into killing Kokichi and has too high of a moral code to do it, wouldn’t make him popular enough. Heaven forbid Shuichi lying in a trial instead of finding the truth behind the chapter 5 murder, because he’s not Hinata and because unlike Hinata he had no good reason to, wouldn’t make him popular enough.

I think what really proves that the writers just got tired of the “truth versus lies” and “belief versus distrust” theme and gave it a lackluster borderline infuriatingly awful conclusion is how the DRV3 game abruptly switches back to “hope versus despair” as its main conflict soon after in chapter 6.

And before you tell me that the end of chapter 6 did in fact tackle the concept of truth and lies by saying neither matter as long as it induces the right feelings, I don’t buy it for one second. It was incredibly tacked on in the last minute of game-play and relied so much on telling rather than showing us. As a player, I don’t believe Shuichi has come to appreciate both because he never did anything in the game to prove it. In fact, his actions in chapter 5 directly contradict that he believes there’s any good in lying. There’s no proof that the whole truth versus lies and belief versus distrust theme actually had any merit aside from lies = bad and hence Kokichi = worse than Monokuma. It’s messy. It’s all over the place. It felt like a waste of time.

And that was officially when chapter 5 broke the entire game for me.

[junkobears]

Here Lies Dreaded V3 Discourse

So I have seemed to cause a huge kerfuffle in the hardcore Ouma conspiracy theorists standom, and a banal (if condescending, but seeing the response to it honestly justifies it more than anything now. “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it”, you better believe I can take it and will now PROPERLY dish it out right back at you) comment about one of Tsumugi’s anime references has led to someone launching a hilariously personal attack at me for Daring To Disagree With A Theory That Was Posted On A Public Website. Someone who I wasn’t even initially responding too, at that. And has now blocked me before even allowing me to respond and clarify my original comments. Don’t want to deal with the consequences of being a repugnant, rude person I guess? Shock and surprise for Tumblr.

The link to the post is here, but I’ve taken the liberty to screenshot it just in case it gets deleted later, in hope that maybe there’ll be some reflection on this person’s part that this really is not an acceptable way to respond to people who have a dissenting opinion? Anyways, I will be responding to the personal attack post and that will be the last time I interact with this group, because clearly it’s not worth it to actually have a discussion about our respective ending theories. I ain’t got time beyond this for tedious insecure fucks these days.

Anyways, my response is under the cut to save my poor followers’ dashes. Sorry to drag drama onto my blog but I can’t really let this slide. I’m also tagging @jacks-plays-drv3 just because I assume the twin comes with the other with these two, and I want my response to have been seen.

Screenshot In This Link - This post is long enough without the image taking up more space, haha.

Let’s start with this mess, shall we? And I will go into painstaking detail.

Paragraph 1: So this already starts off with a whole lot of needless aggression and projection. So I’m not even going to attempt to be nice back. But: maybe I haven’t proven anything because I literally had not typed up a response to clarify my original comments @ Jacks yet before the rabid attack dog was unleashed? Like, there was literally no attempt from you to have a discussion that was a genuine offer from me, I was not out to get you actually. I also honestly just laughed at being called shallow, JUST LIKE THAT HORRIBLE CHARACTER TSUMUGI SHIROGANE right off the bat as well. That’s a compliment really, honey. Weirdly I don’t share the same opinions as you do. Tsumugi is my fave and unlike you I actually think about and HAVE analyzed/discussed her character in detail previously, which I would’ve been happy to share had you not immediately went into Blind Raging Idiot Mode. Guess we can’t have it all, huh?

As for needing proof that she makes the Flashback Lights... nevermind the CG that literally shows her making them during Chapter 6, but do you have proof that Monokuma is the person who makes the Lights instead of just placing them for the students? I doubt it, somehow. Cuz a lot of your theories don’t actually have any concrete proof. Quelle surprise. Probably why anyone not immediately on board with your headcanon gets you so goddamn angry, huh? Cuz it’s completely baseless and you know it at heart.

As for the Ouma comments, actually I have read the assorted creator comments regarding his character even if you like to believe I’m a slobbering moron who turned my brain off as soon as I finished V3, so yes I already know that his name was chosen to sound mastermind-like. Maybe this was to emphasize and make his fake mastermind reveal appear more legit on first read? JUST A THOUGHT, SWEETIE. You know the entire fucking point of Chapter 5? You’re so slavishly devoted to your theory that you actually are incapable of reading the basic fucking text from the actual game, but again. Not a surprise. Considering what I’ve read from your blog (really, who are you again? I only knew Jacks’ blog from before all this, so you taking such a personal offense at my comments is honestly hilarious but baffling at the same time. It ain’t all about you, babe.)

As for the lab door, here’s an simpler explanation (Occam’s Razor, look it up): The star sign constellation pattern was there as a hint for the player to connect Ouma’s messages from his dorm room to the vault in Amami’s lab once its opened and you can see the star signs in there. Or perhaps it was designed like that by TDR to make the students make that connection as well in the original script and think that Ouma was the mastermind cuz of the connection to Amami’s lab? Literally, there are a lot of possibilities, cuz it’s a NOTHING DETAIL THAT DOESN’T ACTUALLY MATTER IN THE BIG PICTURE. Considering Kodaka’s track record with writing these games I don’t actually believe it’s anything major, personally. He doesn’t really strike me as the type to hide this completely separate story underneath the actual story we got, and with such vague nothing “”””””””””””clues””””””””””””. You and Jacks do yourselves (well you already do cuz you love to jack yourselves off with how CLEVER AND BETTER you are than the rest of us plebs), sure, in believing otherwise (You have way too much faith in him as a writer. Or you’re desperately trying to pretend V3 wasn’t poorly written cuz you don’t like the Ch. 6 twist) but also realize that its nothing more than extrapolation on your part that it actually means anything beyond the.... SHALLOW (horror scream) connection given in-game.

And really, who the fuck cares if it doesn’t match the title of ‘Supreme Leader’? It’s already a ridiculous talent as it stands already. The entire point of his character is that everything about him, his motives and his talent is contradictory and weird. That’s why I like him, actually. He isn’t an abused martyr who never lies like you goons believe and he also isn’t the evil monstrous chessmaster some of the fandom thinks. It’s Complex Motives™ .

Anyways moving on. Pointing out an anime reference =/= DISREGARDING PEOPLE’S ANALYSIS. Pointing out that most of the plot leads up to and supports the fiction twist =/= uncritically agreeing with everything Tsumugi says. Actually, after examining the game’s story for myself I came to the conclusion that all the clues in it really only support her version of the story, really. There are a few things I think she lied about, but it is not CONCLUSIVELY proven she lied in my opinion and so I don’t really give a fucking toss until new canon comes out and reveals more of the V3 story. Oumatwin don’t real, gurl. If there was actually anything in-game beyond one obvious joke line in the NON-CANON!!!!!!! bonus mode supporting that he existed, maybe I’d respect your theory more. Even though you don’t deserve respect after your little tantrum. 

Paragraph 2: Jesus I already am investing way too much time into this response at people who don’t actually deserve it, oh well. But laughing hard at the attempt to try and act as if you weren’t being a snobby asshole with your comments. Again, HUGE AMOUNTS OF PROJECTION at me about things I literally have never done and said. I have never interacted with you or Jacks prior to my initial comment. No fucking clue why you brought up the SaiOuma shit, cuz I don’t even LIKE Saihara as a character and don’t like that fujobait ship in the slightest? But I guess it’s easier to assume that all your critics are the exact same fucking person with the same opinions, so you can feel more persecuted, huh? You literally did not even wait for me to respond or check my blog that would’ve easily disproven these dumb-as-fuck assumptions. And get off the fucking high horse (pun completely intended), you lot are not the only people in this fandom who are capable of critical thought. How completely self-obsessed can you be? 

For someone who claims to have a lot of critical thinking skills compared to this nasty fandom, you really are terrible at parsing other people’s words. You fucking know when I said “group of anime fans” that I was referring to Team Danganronpa, the organization literally mentioned in game as running the game. The group Tsumugi is part of. She literally has a company badge FFS. THEY ARE ANIME FANS. THEY ALL STARTED KILLING GAMES CUZ THEY ALL LOVE THIS SHITTY SERIES. I can’t believe this had to be explained. And the rest of this paragraph word salad is the most pedantic argument. It’s really not hard to believe an organization in this series would have access to all this tech. And yes, it’s a popular TV show in-universe, of course it’ll have funding. And the whole damn point of the ending is that the V3 world is consuming fiction the wrong way by having real-life killing games, missing the entire point of the DR series and fiction in general? What’s your actual point?

Paragraph 3: Again more assumptions, I wasn’t ‘crying’ about being called gullible. I was just pointing it out as part of your extremely unnecessary smug dismissal of my post. That you really haven’t disproved at all, btw. Honestly the childish response you both had to me just makes me laugh out of pity more than anything. And if I was really upset I wouldn’t have offered to have a discussion with you or even continued to reply after Jacks initial (vague) post about what I said. So don’t put words in my mouth. And yes my analysis was not completed in my initial comments. It’s Tumblr fucking replies, I can’t fit the entire fucking dissertation of Tsumugi opinions in there for you to jeer at in there. Again, I offered to share my opinions and got this as a response, so lol. You are your own worst enemy when it comes to trying to get people to take you and your theories seriously. 

Paragraph 4: Especially since you immediately jump to PULLING THINGS OUT OF YOUR ASS (seriously, fucking snorted at this part. I want this whole diatribe on my fucking gravestone. It’s by far the most hilariously petty thing ever said about me on this site.) instead of letting me explain my position. If you just want to be in the creepy cult Oumatwin echo chamber you should’ve just said and blocked me ASAP instead of word salading vague bullshit justifications for why actually people who disagree with you are just stupid crybabies who can never hope to understand your genius. Again, my initial comments didn’t whine about not being taken seriously at all, I was pointing out the hypocrisy/rudeness is all. And again, get off the high horse about critical thinking. I have thought about Tsumugi’s character and how she relates to the over-arching plot and how truthful it is, and the overall ‘mystery’ of V3 (spoiler: there is none. it was all solved by chapter 6). I have thought about this game. In fact I dedicate too much time to critical analysis of this series that doesn’t actually deserve it cuz lately I find Kodaka to be a hack writer. Your assumptions are flat-out wrong, dear. And AGAIN. I WOULD’VE. SHARED AND DISCUSSED IN MORE DETAIL HAD I BEEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY. But rude fucks gonna vomit shit out of their mouth cuz they have literally no self-control and have meltdowns at the slightest difference of opinion, I guess. 

Your extreme hatred for Tsumugi as a character truly shines through. Clearly no thought has been put into her from your end, even though you and Jacks rage about people not taking Ouma seriously as a character. Double standards as always with fujos. Nothing I’m not used too, she is incredibly unpopular in this fandom. And everyone is entitled to their own opinions. So I’m not even mad at that. I have never said otherwise. Even you and Jacks are valid in having your own theories and thoughts. The ending of V3 is designed entirely so everyone can analyze the game for themselves and draw their own conclusions about the story and themes. That’s the whole point. Even though I personally dislike that as a writing decision on Kodaka’s part because I would prefer the story to be conclusively ended and the epilogue is a giant turd that misses the entire point of Chapter 6 and enables shit (anal pun intended, dumbass) like this to start spreading as “Analysis”. But hey, to each their own.

However I will not be interacting with either of you again after this post though, even though I was willing to discuss beforehand, because you both have shown yourselves to be incredibly vile with the way you approach other people in this fandom, and especially those who don’t share your conspiracy theory. Despite the absolutely ironic comments I’ve seen from Oumanous in their later, also terrible posts about how you need to understand your opponent before engaging, which they literally failed entirely to do before engaging the firing squad at me and other commentators who responded. So much for the sanctity of discussion, huh? Enjoy your circlejerk. Everyone else who follows me in this fandom though? Please consider blocking these two if you are also a sane human being who is capable of polite discussion/disagreements. They are not worth your time otherwise. They were really not worth my time writing this post, but I felt I had to say something.

In conclusion: Out with the both of you.

[oumakokichi]

I love how unlike Kaede and Kiibo who give hope Saihara is the only protagonist who receives hope it's a nice change

This is a really good way to put it anon, and I agreewholeheartedly! In a series that’s centered around the idea of “hope” and “despair”and having to pick one or the other for so long, having a protagonist whoultimately rejected both, and even the cycle of “hope vs. despair” itself, wasso nice.

Saihara’s strengths don’t lie in his ability to motivate orspur others on to greatness. He’s not the motivating sort of protagonist at all. He’s anxious, depressed, andsuicidal for pretty much the whole game. Everything about Saihara, evenpre-game Saihara who was willing to throw himself into the killing gamewillingly, centers around the fact that he’s an extremely depressed person whodoes not want to take the spotlight or take charge of the situation in anyshape, form, or fashion.

He finds himself feeling lethargic or depressed often, can’tbounce back from traumatic experiences easily, and needs a lot of support andencouragement from others in order to find his footing. And this is encouragingto see in my opinion because it’s entirely different from the usual take onthings, and a definite refreshing change from most of the protagonists we’veseen so far. Naegi certainly has his own charms of course, and Hinata is stillone of my overall favorite DR characters in the series, but I love Saiharaquite a lot because he’s so drastically different from what a protagonist “should”be doing.

Despite the fact that Saihara has his own established roleas a detective and that he’s clearly not intended to be a “relatableself-insert protagonist,” he’s extremely relatable in a lot of his insecurities,in my opinion. Perhaps it’s just the fact that I myself don’t know what I woulddo if confronted with this sort of situation, but I honestly can’t see myselfbeing capable of just “believing in hope” or bouncing back from the situationeasily, even with someone inspirational trying to motivate me.

The fact that Saihara just honest-to-god gives up in Chapter6 is still extremely interesting to me, and a very powerful moment, because itreally does show just how deeply suicidal he is (and has been all along), aswell as the fact that he’s not going to be the inspirational motivator figureno matter how long the player waits for this to happen. Saihara’s role is aboutfinding the truth, about deciding what the truth means to him personally, aboutmaking “his own truth” even, but it is not about spreading hope to others orfighting despair.

To assume that ndrv3 is about “defeating despair” at all theway that dr1 and, to some extent, sdr2 were about, is kind of missing thepoint, really. Saihara breaks the cycle completely by proposing the mostseemingly outrageous idea which actually winds up being true: if the killinggame audience, and even Tsumugi herself, clearly want and are encouraging the “hope”outcome in the game, then it would actually be better to pick despair.

It would be better to reject the “hope” that they allsuffered for so much and experienced so many horrible things in order to reach,because that kind of hope is meaningless, false, and empty. Even the “despair”outcome of the killing game would be better, because at least relatively fewerpeople in the audience want it. And the best outcome of all is to reject both,to not even play the game at all because that’s the best possible way to send ahuge “fuck you” to both Team Danganronpa and all the people who took so muchpleasure in watching them suffer.

Saihara’s depression and inability to pick himself up whenthe worst happens is something integral to his entire character, and alsosomething I love about him. It’s not as though he ever stops being anxious ordepressed; those things are definitely still a part of him, and it’s true thateven he thinks of himself as someone “weaker than anyone,” just like he wasintended to be by Tsumugi and the Team DR producers. But in spite of all that,he moves forward. He keeps taking things one step at a time, keeps learning andgrowing and developing in order to honor the memories of all the people whohave helped him along the way, and that’s incredibly admirable in my opinion.

Saihara’s ability to change himself and constantly developeven when he doesn’t think of himself as a particularly interesting or excitingperson is exactly what makes him enjoyable as a protagonist in my opinion. Ican understand why he wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and I can certainlyunderstand people being upset about the bait-and-switch decision in Chapter 1—butthe bait-and-switch was Kodaka’s doing as a writer, rather than any sort ofactual reflection onto Saihara’s character, and I really hope that more peoplewill give him a fair chance when they play the game for themselves.

Saihara is a really, really good character, and I enjoy thathe was so intentionally different from “the way a protagonist should behave.”Thank you again, anon!

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.1

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time…

…Kaito went to space. That’s all. He was in space, and he was happy.

Now to start chapter 6, which I am not quite as excited to get into – can’t possibly imagine why. There’s still definitely a lot I want to talk about, though.

We open the chapter with… Makoto. Not the Makoto we knew (he doesn’t exist), but a kid who’s called Makoto nonetheless. That’s almost certainly the most popular thing to name your kid in this universe, even probably for cultures that aren’t Japanese.

We also have some bizarrely cheerful music. Originally my feelings about this was just that it gave a very weird mood whiplash from everything else that had been going on. But now all it makes me think of is this game’s bonus board game/RPG mode that this music is actually taken from, which I may have got rather addicted to played an inordinate amount of one point. Hearing this now just makes me want to roll some dice and optimise my characters’ stat spreads, dammit! (And by “my characters”, obviously I mean Kaede, Shuichi, Kaito and Maki, who else.)

Makoto:  “I don’t have any talents or anything. I’m just a regular teenager…”

…

Makoto:  “Getting into an elite school like this was just the start of my bad luck.”

The writers (entirely out-universe here, of course) really just wanted to drop all these similarities to Makoto Naegi here just to mess with us and make us wonder if this kid really is him despite looking different, didn’t they.

Makoto:  “I want to run away from my daily life… I want to run away and just forget all this…”

This is considerably less like Makoto Naegi, though. He may have been ordinary, and a little daunted at getting into an elite school, but he was ultimately pretty chill with it and didn’t really want anything to change.

Makoto:  “But I’m okay! I have a reason to live!”

Remember the Monokuma Theater last chapter where Monokuma said he’d be thrilled if Danganronpa was people’s reason to live? Apparently it really is, for probably way more people than just Makoto here.

Makoto:  “I’ve got something to look forward to! That’s why I’m gonna be okay! Thanks for the courage! Thanks for giving me something to get totally obsessed with! Thanks for the strength to keep going!”

This is extremely relatable to me! This is what genuinely loving and caring about a work of fiction looks like! I can’t tell you how many times in my own life I’ve felt like things are going great for me almost entirely because there’s a work of fiction that I absolutely love that makes me happy just to think about.

Makoto:  “I’ll keep on rooting for you, so please keep trying your best!”

And look, he cares about the characters! Obviously, somewhere inside him he is hoping to see bad things happen to them, but that’s because he wants to see them overcome those trials! On the level on which he is actually engaging with the characters as if they’re people, by cheering them on like this, he just wants them to succeed.

It’s kind of like the way I’ve been doing this commentary. On the one hand I’ve been very unabashedly appreciating all the horrible suffering everyone’s gone through and the ways in which it’s been emphasised because that’s what makes this fiction so enjoyable. But when I talk about that, I take the more detached, third-person-pronouns approach, like they’re elements in a well-crafted work of art. Whenever I use second-person pronouns as if I’m engaging with the characters myself, imaging that they’re real people I could talk to, I almost never say anything about how I appreciate their suffering. I’m not engaging with them because I want them to suffer. I want them to suffer so that I’ll end up caring about them even more and therefore will want to engage with them more. Which would all still be thoroughly fucked-up if they really were real, but this is how engaging with fiction works.

(I am making a big point to stress all of this about Makoto here because, oh boy, the next time we see the in-universe audience, things are not going to be remotely this way and that is my biggest issue with this chapter.)

Makoto:  “And—! One day, I’ll also—!”

…audition for Danganronpa and hopefully probably get myself killed in one, is what he’s about to say.

No, Makoto. You were doing great at being a healthy, wholesome appreciater of fiction (aside from the part where it’s not really fiction and you’re watching real people die) until now. Genuinely wanting to be a part of your favourite works of fiction is usually quite an understandable sentiment… but not when it’s Danganronpa, what the actual hell.

We have suddenly jumped from Makoto being a reasonable example of someone enjoying a work of “fiction”, into him being an example of how utterly fucked-up this outside world actually is. People – specifically, teenagers – will apparently willingly throw their lives away to be on Danganronpa if they don’t think their life has much else going for them. That’s why this Makoto hates his life, to make him someone who’d want to do this. If Danganronpa really is his only reason to live, then it does make some kind of twisted sense that it’d also give him a reason to die.

Something important to note about this scene is simply the fact that we’re seeing it. This is in a context entirely removed from anything happening right now in the Academy and is for our eyes, the out-universe audience, only. So there is no reason to doubt that what we’re seeing here is the truth. This Makoto kid really is watching “Danganronpa V3” unfold like it’s basically a work of fiction and having a great time.

I’ve seen some people propose the idea that sure, the killing game was put on as a “fiction” for people’s entertainment, but only for a shady illegal underground audience of people who should know they’re being shitty, probably hidden away somewhere in the deepest darkest corners of the internet. On some level, I might like to believe that, because it’s nicer and easier to buy than thinking the entire world is this obliviously twisted. But Makoto here is a completely ordinary teenager who would be very unlikely to have any idea how to access something like that, and he doesn’t seem to have any conception of the fact that what he’s watching and enjoying so much is illegal and frowned upon and he needs to keep it secret. So I don’t think that can reasonably be the truth here.

Anyway, back at the Academy, Keebo is busy destroying everything. He’d better leave the training spot alone, though – that place contains precious memories of Kaito and deserves to remain undamaged.

Also bear in mind that this is still the same evening after Kaito’s trial. They are not getting any time to rest here.

Keebo:  “Did you call for me? Please keep it brief. I have other matters I must attend to.”

Geez, Keebo. “Keep it brief, because I’m busy getting all of us killed”? Yeah, maybe that’s why they won’t want to keep this brief.

Maki:  “What’s with that weapon and the jet pack?”

Keebo:  “I obtained this equipment from my lab.”

Maki:  “You had equipment like that… in your lab?”

Implicit in Maki’s words here is the sentiment of: then why the fuck didn’t you use it *sooner*? Which, yes. Very much.

Keebo:  “I made some modifications to drastically improve their power output and functionality.”

Tsumugi:  “Since when have you been able to do that? You didn’t level up or anything, right? Did… something happen?”

The fact that it’s Tsumugi asking him this suggests that he really wasn’t supposed to be able to do that at all. It would be pretty stupid of Team Danganronpa to have someone that potentially dangerous here. Obviously they figured he’d never do anything drastic because his inner voice had him on a leash, but the suggestion from Tsumugi’s words here is that he shouldn’t even have been able to make those modifications, inner voice or not, and he just figured it out himself somehow by being a smarter person than she’d written him to be. Maybe he learned a thing or two from his time with Miu?

Keebo:  “I wanted to be treated like a real human. A creature of flesh and blood like you all. But I no longer have the luxury of clinging to that wish anymore!”

You never had that luxury, not while abandoning that wish (and only temporarily, mind you) would have saved your friends’ lives!

The writing is trying to present this like it’s some kind of character development, but there’s been absolutely no build-up to Keebo realising something like this. And there’s no reason that the seven people who’d died before his lab opened up wouldn’t have been enough, such that he somehow needed to see four more deaths before finally making this decision. The only actual change now is the lack of his inner voice – but that never had anything to do with the part of his character that felt awkward about not being human and shouldn’t be making a difference to this supposed character development.

Tsumugi:  “If you do something like that… we’ll all die too, y’know!? There’s no oxygen in the outside world… There are no living things…”

Tsumugi would like to remind us all that there is definitely 100% not anyone alive out there, even though Kaito's efforts just proved that there almost certainly somehow is.

Shuichi:  “Our hope is… everyone here. Our friends who are still alive.”

Shuichi is good. He’s not going to forget the last thing Kaito said to him!

Keebo:  “We simply do not have the power to change the outside world on our own.”

Well that’s very foreshadowy of you, Keebo. He’s only talking about making it less uninhabitable, but.

Keebo:  “All we can do now is refuse to submit to despair!”

Shuichi:  “And you would be willing to let all of us die to accomplish that?”

Yeah, doesn’t sound very not-despairing, does it, Shuichi? Keebo’s just gunning for a different type of despair right now.

Keebo:  “Kaito and Kokichi gave their lives to end this killing game… We should follow their example! We should be willing to give our lives to end this killing game!”

Okay, so to be fair, this might sort of count as following Kokichi’s example, since he wanted to ruin the audience’s experience (even though he went about it in literally the worst way possible by giving them two incredibly entertaining trials). Killing ourselves to give them a boring ending is actually along the lines of what Kokichi at least should have been trying to do, and is in fact what everyone will attempt in the end once they realise what’s going on.

But fuck off with your implication that Kaito would have wanted this, Keebo. Kaito gave his life so that everyone else could survive and escape, not so that they’d all do the same as him! Kaito’s sacrifice was only ever about “ending” the killing game so long as doing so would save everyone!

Maki:  “…Is that what your inner voice is telling you to do?”

It’s interesting that Maki considers this possibility. I wonder what she thinks his inner voice is, since she’s pragmatic enough to not believe in hearing voices, especially not for a robot.

Keebo:  “We can never submit to despair! Because we are students of Hope’s Peak Academy!”

Keebo may have lost his inner voice, but he’s clearly still very much a thrall to the other kind of brainwashing that’s been going on here.

Shuichi:  “Because there might still be hope. There might still be a place to call home.”

Keebo:  “And what are you basing that claim on?”

Shuichi:  “…Nothing. I just have a feeling.”

Shuichi just has a hunch! He’s doing a Kaito and he knows it and it’s so lovely that he’s able to say that with a smile!

Maki:  “Just a feeling…? You sound like that idiot right now.”

Maki knows it just as well, of course. She’s smiling, too! I love how her calling him an idiot has become a thing of affection now. They really are his sidekicks.

(I am going to bring up and be delighted by every single moment in this chapter of them fondly remembering Kaito like this and you can’t stop me.)

Shuichi:  “…Kaito said so. […] There can be no killing game without an audience.”

…So actually, Shuichi was basing his claim on something after all and just wanted to act very Kaito about it anyway, and that is adorable. Well, maybe he felt like it was appropriate because this still isn’t very concrete evidence, but.

Look at him being really sure of this argument, though! Kaito gave everything to prove that and he succeeded, and Shuichi is not going to let his efforts go to waste.

Shuichi:  “There’s still a possibility!”

Keebo:  “True, we cannot say there is absolutely no possibility. But even a mere possibility—”

Shuichi:  “That possibility is our hope!”

Finally, someone gets it! The actual meaning of the damn word! They don’t know for sure that it’s true, but so long as they can keep believing that it’s possible there’s a home for them out there, that is hope.

Monokuma finally shows up with his Exisals in tow. (I wonder what Monotaro makes of the small mountain of screwed-up bloodstained toilet paper in the recesses of his cockpit.)

Monokuma:  “Huh? Is the robot malfunctioning? He must be – why else would he try to defy me?”

Haha, yeah, Keebo is very much meant to be part of the workings of this killing game and not someone who should try and fight against that, isn’t he?

Goodbye Danganronpa

Wow, geez, that was late for a title card. I forgot we hadn’t even had that yet. Of course, this title is pretty straightforward, yet a lot more literal than anyone would be expecting it to be on their first time through.

Maki:  “But why did Monokuma leave a weapon like that in the research lab? He’s… pretty careless, isn’t he?”

Good question! The way Maki’s actively asking this suggests it’s something that actually has an answer, but I’m still not convinced it’s anything but lazy writing.

Maki:  “If the outside world is destroyed, then the mastermind must be in this school, right?”

Makiii, Kaito proved to you guys that the outside world probably isn’t as destroyed as it seems! Don’t you believe that too? (I mean, yes, the mastermind is in fact in this school, but there’s no reason to necessarily think that right now.)

…Actually, Maki still buying the lie about the outside world despite Kaito’s efforts to discredit it might be down to her in particular being very subsceptible to the Flashback Light’s manipulation. There’ll be some more indications of that in this chapter.

Tsumugi:  “Someone… You mean a Remnant of Despair, right?”

Tsumugi is very quick to keep things on-script and remind everyone that this is definitely about Remnants of Despair.

Maki:  “If we can find them and kill them, then this killing game should end.”

Shuichi:  “Ah, I don’t know about *killing* them…”

Yes, Maki, listen to Shuichi! Remember that the last time you tried to kill the “mastermind”, you nearly got Kaito killed instead! Kaito risked his life because he didn’t want you to kill anyone else, even if it was the mastermind!

Maki:  “…Hope?”

Shuichi:  “Our home. Where we’re going to live after this killing game ends. I know there is hope out there. We have to find it before we leave.”

This is what Kaito was talking about when he said Shuichi could find “something beyond the truth” – something beyond that destroyed world they saw at the end of the tunnel. Kaito sacrificed everything for the plan to give them this hope!

(And again since I must nitpick: they wouldn’t be finding the “hope”. The fact that they’re even looking means they already have hope, thanks to Kaito.)

Himiko:  “This isn’t some fictional story, so I don’t think things’ll work out that well…”

Hoo boy. We’re in chapter 6 now, all gloves are off, hints are being dropped left and right and they do not care about being subtle.

Shuichi:  “But if we look for it, we just might find it. If we don’t try… we’ll never find anything.”

This is also quite Kaito of him! Kaito never specifically said anything with this wording, but he was always advocating the idea that you’ve got to put in the effort to be able to get anywhere.

Maki:  “No matter how impossible it seems, we’ll accomplish it.”

Speaking of Kaito! This… is awkward localisation. Maki’s phrasing here is a close match to the Japanese phrasing of Kaito’s “The impossible is possible, all you gotta do is make it so” catchphrase. Evidently, Maki’s localiser is a different one to Kaito’s, and they never got the memo about what Kaito’s catchphrase was changed to in English and just translated this directly.

This is still clearly reminiscent enough of Kaito to get across the point that she’s thinking of him anyway, but Maki is meant to have straight-up said that the impossible is possible, and, awwww! That’s adorable.

Shuichi:  (Maki…) “…Yes… that’s right!”

Shuichi agrees! He’s happy for the reminder! They are such good sidekicks.

Hope Searching time, again! This is still an appropriate title, because, like Shuichi just said, they are searching for proof that they have somewhere to return to, and that is hope.

A sudden tremor causes part of the entrance hall’s floor to collapse and reveal a staircase downwards that leads to Kokichi’s lab. Shuichi guesses that this was meant to open with a mysterious item, presumably if things had been proceeding as normal and Monokuma had happily given them their “presents” like at the beginning of any other chapter. But, awkwardly, there was never any mysterious object around here that looked like something that could have opened this. Yet again, anything which is not directly meant for the player to interact with simply doesn’t exist in the game world, even if it’s something that should exist as part of the story.

“Now it is time to test your bonds with your friends!”

DID YOU KNOW THIS DANGANRONPA GAME IS ABOUT FRIENDSHIP.

…Okay, this whole Friendship Power mechanic for this investigation is actually a very thinly-veiled way to force you to investigate places in a completely linear order by restricting where you have access to until you’ve reached a certain point in the story. But since they were going to have to do that one way or another, I love that they flavoured it to be about this.

“So work hard to end this killing game before dawn breaks!”

Oh, boy, this, though. This whole time limit mechanic is really badly-implemented.

The first thing is that it’s not a real-time time limit at all. I’m leaving my game running as I type this and it’s not going to make a difference. The timer just ticks forwards a small amount every time you examine something or talk to someone, as is appropriate for what is after all a visual novel and not an action game. I’ve seen several blind LPers assume it was a real-time time limit (because the game is very vague about it) and get instilled with a sense of urgency because of that, so I guess that was meant to be the point.

What the real, ahem, “challenge” of this time limit is is that you’re supposed to try not to examine anything nonessential. Which is really not an okay way for a mystery visual novel to be! Half the fun of these sorts of games is seeing what kind of silly bonus dialogue you get for checking things that don’t matter, to the point that many people’s approach when investigating a room is to figure out what object will progress the plot when they examine it and then examine that one last. But here, the developers are telling us we’re “failing” at playing the game properly… when we’re trying to play the game as much as possible. That’s quite frankly rude. They went to the trouble of writing a bunch of bonus dialogue for this investigation, and yet they apparently don’t want anyone to see it.

There’s also the fact that, from my experiments, there is extremely little leeway. You can examine at most two or three nonessential things while still remaining within the time limit, and anything more than that causes you to run out of time before the end. Even if someone is actually trying to examine only the essential objects, on a first run through they’re not going to know exactly what’s important, because sometimes the relevant thing is not that intuitive, and they’re almost certainly going to make more than just a few “mistakes”!

And the punishment for “failing”? I’m sure literally everybody has already seen this themselves, but all you get is Shuichi briefly going “Oh no, I took too long!”, a brief cutscene of the Academy exploding… and then it puts you back at the beginning of whatever room you were in with the timer wound back far enough that you can hypothetically finish from here. It’s the most petty of slaps on the wrist, but of course it shouldn’t be any more than that, because having to replay the entire chapter for the crime of not knowing exactly what was important, or, gasp, wanting to see more dialogue, would be incredibly obnoxious. So what’s the point in even having it be possible to fail in the first place?

What they should really do is have the timer tick forward only when you examine something plot-relevant. That way you’d get the illusion of being in a hurry to anyone who’s on a first time and hasn’t realised how it works, but none of the annoyance of meaninglessly “failing” or of it being incredibly inconvenient to actively go looking for bonus dialogue.

…Also. Uh. Turns out I was partially wrong about it not being a real time limit. I assumed that because the timer doesn’t seem to visibly move when you’re standing around, yet you can notice it tick forwards a small chunk whenever you finish examining something. Buuuut, as I left it running while typing this, with Shuichi just standing in the hallway, the timer has progressed a bunch. Some quick science, namely staring at the screen for a while, confirms that it does actually move in incredibly small pixel-by-pixel increments that are hard to notice unless you’re looking for it. So I guess also don’t go leaving your game running during this part either! Geez. …And, turns out it also ticks forward outside of dialogue if you’ve had the Monopad open for a while. It doesn’t even let you pause the game to pause the timer! Rude.

The timer does however completely vanish during actual dialogue, meaning that it is presumably actually paused then. …Yes; I did some more science to confirm this, this time sitting on a dialogue box for probably something like half an hour and seeing the timer still only tick forwards a little bit once I finally clicked through the dialogue. Talking (or thinking) is a free action, apparently, even though standing around without talking or thinking isn’t.

Anyway, here’s the method I used last time I played this chapter to be able to see all optional dialogue anyway while still technically not “failing” because fuck you too, game: Save as soon as you enter a new place. Go nuts examining everything you want to, while noting which ones seem to be necessary to progress and which ones aren’t. Before leaving for the next place, reset back to your save and this time go through the room while only examining the correct things (fastforwarding the dialogue if you want, not that it matters), so that the game thinks you did so in the minimum amount of “time”. Then head to the next place (as quickly as you can, apparently), save as soon as you enter it, and repeat. Doing this last time I played was how I learned that there was so ridiculously little leeway for “mistakes”, because even then I only just barely made it.

And of course I’m going to be doing that again on this playthrough to get all the optional dialogue, because that’s what this commentary is here for, dammit.

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[Next post]

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 3.3

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, in what is probably my favourite segment of chapter 3 in that it makes the most of Kaito before he becomes non-functional for the rest of it, we hung out with him and established his very unique definition of the word “sidekick”, then he promptly made Maki into one of said sidekicks by dragging her to training and convincing her to begin to change, even if she isn’t quite admitting that to anyone yet.

We start off the day with everyone being called to the gym for what is going to be the presentation of the next, uh, “motive”.

Kaito:  “Nah, I’m going. I just gotta take care of something first, then I’ll meet you there.”

Shuichi:  (Kaito pointed at the door to Maki’s room. I suppose he’s going to take her.)

Kaito is still constantly thinking of Maki, assuming that she still won’t want to take part in anything that involves the whole group and making a point of persuading her to do so. Partly this time it’s because she might get in trouble with Monokuma (or, well, the kubs) if she doesn’t come, but also it’s because he’s still trying to get her to feel included.

Kiyo:  “I usually wake up at 6:00 a.m., since it takes me so long to get ready each morning.”

Shuichi:  (Why does it take so long? Isn’t that even longer than what a girl takes?)

While this is obviously meant to be taken as a hint at Kiyo’s true nature of being “possessed” by his sister, I should also point out that this is an example of Shuichi being vaguely misogynistic, with the way he’s assuming that obviously girls always take longer than boys to get ready in the morning. Just goes to show that these kinds of lines really shouldn’t be taken as anything particularly telling about the character who says them unless they’re clearly connected to something that’s been strongly established about that character, and should instead just be considered a scattered background noise of Danganronpa’s awkward writing.

(This game’s writers should be perfectly aware of the fact that some guys can take a while to get ready in the morning too, given Kaito, who probably takes forever to get his hair like that.)

…Oh boy. I’m about to talk to Himiko, on this particular morning, while carrying at least one Gun of Man’s Passion. Here we fucking go. Welcome to another one of the many stupid things in this chapter that contribute to it being the worst one.

Shuichi:  (Suddenly, a thought flashed into my mind! A… man’s… fantasy… Wh-Where is this thought coming from?)

You know where I think this thought is coming from? A Flashback Light. The half-balding Monokuma shows up out of nowhere to stare intently at Shuichi before he suddenly has this thought. It’s already been established that Flashback Light properties can be in other things, such as the Kubs Pads. Why not Monokuma’s eyes?

It should be obvious that peeking on the girls is so ridiculously out of character for Shuichi that he would never even remotely consider it under normal circumstances. Him not being that kind of person is literally a vital plot point – if Shuichi were someone who’d happily peek on girls, then he also wouldn’t have had a problem with going into the girls’ bathroom to check it for hidden passages for the sake of detective thoroughness, and this whole killing game would have ended without anyone (except maybe Rantaro) dying.

So there should be a very good reason that Shuichi would suddenly have this thought that isn’t just the game’s terrible writing for the sake of fanservice. I appreciate that the game hints at the true reason with the way Shuichi wonders where this thought came from. He even specifically uses the word “flashed” to describe it appearing.

…It’s still not great, because even if the game tries to hint towards this being in-universe terrible writing for the sake of fanservice, that… doesn’t actually make any sense. The in-universe audience are “playing” as Keebo, not Shuichi. And maybe they also have access to some of the Nanokumas’ feeds for if they get bored of watching Keebo, but then they’d be able to peep on the girls themselves without Shuichi needing to get involved.

Anyway, I declined the decision to actually go and do so, because Shuichi is better than that (and I have precisely zero things to say about the fanservice part itself). Resist the Flashback Light, Shuichi! Don’t let yourself become a badly-written vehicle for fanservice!

Shuichi:  (No… I shouldn’t be peeking. I can’t let Monokuma manipulate me…)

This is also pretty telling. That’s exactly what Monokuma was trying to do.

Even though she came to the gym, Maki is still standing at the outskirts, apart from everybody else.

Kokichi:  “Hey guys, am I sleepwalking or something? What’s she doing here?”

There’d been a little bit of conversation in the gym before Kokichi said this, and nobody else cared that Maki was here. Even if they’re scared of her, they accept that she should be at compulsory gatherings. Only Kokichi is still being a dick and trying to insist that she’s the awfulest terriblest person who shouldn’t be allowed near anyone for any reason.

Kaito:  “Don’t say something so stupid. You’ll never get to know her better if you never talk to her!”

Kaito is so damn right. Communication is important! If you don’t understand someone, then make an effort to learn instead of automatically assuming the worst of them! Kaito himself is always trying to understand the people around him, but he sees it as important enough that he believes everyone else should do so too.

Kokichi:  “Maybe everyone would prefer that this dangerous killer stays far away from us!”

But of course Kokichi is convinced that even if they did get to know her better it’d only confirm that she’s a horrible person who should stay away from them, because he can’t ever not automatically assume the worst of everyone.

Kokichi:  “Of course, I wouldn’t prefer that at all!”

…Yeah, right, when you’re the only person who even complained that she’s here today and have been the most unshakably convinced that she’s dangerous out of anyone.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, Kokichi’s really just a gigantic coward.

Angie:  “Nyahaha! It doesn’t matter what the motive is, we will not do the killing game anymore.”

Tenko:  “Th-That’s right! We aren’t afraid of anything anymore!”

Heh, look at Tenko stuttering a little as she agrees with Angie, because she’s not really on her side. She does agree that they shouldn’t do the killing game, of course, but she’s really not okay with Angie’s methods.

Monophanie:  “This motive will inspire fear like never before.”

It technically will, but… only to Kaito, not to anybody else.

So, uh, let’s talk about this supposed resurrection right now. The Monokubs insist that it is possible to do so, even though we never confirm or deny this because Angie never finishes the ritual. First time around, this claim was yet another thing that made me think of the virtual reality angle, but I was still sceptical that they’d pull that again when it wouldn’t be a surprise this time. However, knowing the full truth of the situation, even though it’s not a virtual reality, it still… might be possible to resurrect people? Sort of.

What it comes down to is how good cloning technology is in this universe and whether Team Danganronpa have the ability to clone someone and then speed-grow that clone to match the original’s physical age. If they could do that, they could have pre-made clones of everyone, then take the relevant person’s clone and flash them with a Flashback Light of their backstory, plus memories of everything that happened in the killing game until their death. That would accurately recreate that character and make it look like they’d come back from the dead.

If they don’t have this cloning technology, it’d still be technically possible, but the “resurrected” person would have an entirely different physical appearance to before, because Team Danganronpa would have to use some volunteer who’s willing to die and give up their body to be on Danganronpa (which we know there’s more than enough people wanting to do). But they’d still be the same character, if they were shown the same Flashback Light as the original character was.

However, it’s much less obvious how this is in any way supposed to be a motive for murder. (Yes, Monodam is claiming it’s actually a motive to “get along”, but we all know Monokuma is still really calling the shots and would have presented the same motive if he’d been here.) The real motive for this chapter already exists, in Kiyo’s lab, because the writers were lazy and decided it’s time to have a murder be caused by the fact that one of the cast is already a serial killer anyway. The only way in which the Necronomicon could be related to that motive is if it isn’t going to successfully resurrect anyone, and the writers are assuming that after it fails, Kiyo will use that as an excuse to offer a seance to at least talk to the person they were trying to resurrect.

Kaito:  “D-Don’t say such a stupid thing! There’s no way resurrecting the dead is possible! I-It just can’t happen…”

Oh, Kaito. This is the point at which we lose him – in terms of his ability to be his usual self – for most of the rest of this chapter. Which also might be one of the reasons I’m not as personally fond of this chapter. Less Kaito is always going to be less fun than more Kaito.

Shuichi:  “What’s wrong, Kaito? You don’t look well…”

Kaito:  “N-No… it’s nothing. I’m just… not feeling so good.”

Shuichi:  (All of a sudden?)

Aww, Shuichi already noticing something’s wrong and being worried. He’s also perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that it happened oddly suddenly. Kaito is of course trying to just play it off as not a big deal and just him feeling a bit unwell – but really, that’s not such an inaccurate way of describing it.

Angie claims the resurrection ritual might actually mean that all the dead bodies so far have been fake.

Tenko:  “They were imitations? I-I see… I never would have thought of that!”

Tenko clearly does not actually think that at all and kind of hates having to pretend to mindlessly agree with Angie.

The writing in the courtyard has had more added to it. So I suppose at this point, Kokichi has begun his plan to try and gradually drop hints that he’s the mastermind.

We witness Gonta getting brainwashed by Angie in like two minutes flat in front of everyone. It’s not surprising that it’d be so quick for him, because he’s so naïve and easily manipulated.

Angie:  “Nyahahaha! See how much everyone needs you, Gonta? You should definitely join.”

Gonta:  “…You need Gonta? Okay! Gonta join student council too!”

Poor Gonta – he just desperately wants to be able to protect everyone and to be useful, but he has no idea how to do that on his own. So the moment anyone tells him that him doing a certain thing will be helpful to everyone, he immediately jumps at the chance to do so without questioning it. It happened last chapter thanks to Kokichi, and now it’s happening again.

Angie apparently already brainwashed Keebo, Tsumugi and Tenko at some point yesterday. Out of these three, Tenko and Tsumugi are both only pretending to be brainwashed (for very different reasons), so only Keebo actually needed brainwashing, but still, Angie would have had to at least go through the motions at Tenko and Tsumugi before they could believably start acting that way.

Kokichi:  “But… I’m surprised Tenko decided to join the student council.”

Kokichi has clearly figured out that Tenko never would and she’s just pretending. He’s probably trying to call her out on her lie, but she manages to handwave it for now.

Shuichi:  (It’s true that they’re probably not going to listen, but you could at least help too, Kaito…)

Kaito:  “…”

Shuichi:  (What’s wrong with him? He’s been quiet this whole time.)

Shuichi knows Kaito more than well enough to know that he would usually be objecting to this! The general message of this student council is that nobody should think for themselves except Angie, which is exactly the kind of thing that Kaito would have some very pointed thoughts about if he were functional right now. It’s kind of a shame that we have to miss out on those.

As everyone disperses from the gym, Kaito is feeling bad enough that he holes himself up in his room and is going to be there for the rest of this chapter’s free time. That said, it turns out you can actually hang out with him during this one first slot today, although not the rest of them. I guess he at least tries to make the effort at first but then gives up because his phobia starts getting to him too much for him to want to spend any significant amount of time in front of Shuichi and risk him noticing.

This is also the first point at which you can hang out with Maki! The thing she needed for her to finally be willing to open up was Kaito getting through to her last night.

Maki:  “…Sure.”

Shuichi:  “Really!?”

Maki:  “…What’s with your reaction? You’re the one who invited me.”

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry, I was just surprised. I honestly thought you’d reject me.”

Maki:  “…All this time, I assumed I was just going to train with two idiots, you and Kaito… And I thought it’d be faster to give in to Kaito’s demands…”

Nope, Maki, you’re not just going to train with them, you’re going to be friends with them now! I like that there’s this whole exchange between them here, properly addressing the fact that Maki hasn’t been willing to hang out before but is now, and that Shuichi still wasn’t even sure if she’d be up for it. It’s by far the longest pre-FTE invitation dialogue in the game (this isn’t even all of it), but it deserves that.

However, as much as I would really like to because this exchange definitely makes this feel like the most appropriate time for Shuichi to start hanging out with Maki, I’m… not going to just yet. I’m still trying to make the FTEs I do line up with canon as much as possible, and if I do this now, I won’t be able to get that to work, for reasons I’ll explain later.

So instead, we’re hanging out with Gonta again. Partly this is just because since I’ve started his events I intend to finish them, but also we can pretend that Shuichi is once again worried about Gonta and trying to drag him away from being brainwashed by someone. He has become a one-man Protect Gonta From Manipulation Squad. (Just not a very successful one.)

Gonta:  “Shuichi, you should join student council! Work hard with Gonta to help everyone!”

Shuichi:  (Should I hang out with Gonta for a while?) [Yes]

Gonta:  “Hehe… Gonta so happy that Angie and others need Gonta’s help.”

Guuuhhhh. Gonta just sees the student council as an automatic force for good because its members say so while being completely incapable of noticing how sinister it all is. He’s not even particularly into the Atua part of it – he just wants to be useful.

(Since Gonta’s in the A/V room right now, he and Shuichi end up watching a bug documentary together to help Gonta fill up on fight. Not sure how much Shuichi appreciated that, but at least he was polite enough not to complain.)

Shuichi:  “What do you think a ‘gentleman’ is, Gonta?”

Gonta:  “Gentleman excellent man! Best man, even!”

Gonta’s not very good at articulating it, but this really is the core of what it means to him. It’s not about doing specific things so much as it’s about being the best kind of person you can possibly be.

Gonta:  “Gentleman behave like a gentleman! Kind, earnest, refined, polite…”

Gonta already is all of these things! Except maybe refined. These are things that are more in line with the traditional view of a gentleman than Gonta’s vague “the best person ever” description, but this is still a part of that. They’re the traits that Gonta values the most in people, both in himself and others (which is why he already has most of them in spades), so they’re the traits that he believes the best possible kind of person, aka a gentleman, would have.

It’s really very similar to Kaito’s concept of being a “man”. Kaito’s has a bit of a different focus to Gonta’s, being more about being true to yourself and sticking to your convictions, but then that makes sense, because those are the things Kaito values the most. His concept of manliness is, just like Gonta’s idea of being a gentleman, really all about simply striving to be the best kind of person you can be. And neither concept is inherently gendered, despite the words they each use for it.

Gonta:  “Oh, and gentleman always treat lady with respect. That very important.”

…This part of Gonta’s is gendered, mind you.

Gonta:  “And drink tea all the time! And say clever jokes!”

Shuichi:  “…What?”

Gonta:  “And solve mysteries with young sidekick!”

Shuichi:  “Solve… mysteries?”

Gonta:  “Gonta hear gentlemen go on adventures to find stone mask. And wear fancy tuxedos! And save ladies from danger!”

Now he’s getting off the main point, though. If Gonta just sticks to the basic principles involving being a good person, then he already is a gentleman. But if he goes assuming that he needs to be able to do all these things, then, uh, not so much.

Shuichi:  “None of those people are gentlemen…”

Gonta:  “Huh? Unpossible! Gonta do lots of gentleman research!”

Gonta couldn’t just stick to what he instinctively believes are traits that make you the best possible person you can be and felt like he had to go and look up exactly what being a gentleman entails, resulting in lots of conflicting ideas. That’s Gonta for you, never sure of himself.

Shuichi:  “Perhaps your research was a bit misguided… All of those people are fictional, you see.”

Gonta:  “Fictional?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, as in, it was made up. Like a character from a fairy tale.”

Gonta:  “I see… Gonta not know…”

It’s pretty interesting that Gonta doesn’t have a very good grasp of the concept of fiction! His forest family probably did tell fictional stories sometimes, because he seems to get it once Shuichi explains, but it probably wasn’t as prevalent in the forest as it is in human society, leading to him assuming all these fictional gentlemen were real.

I wonder how Gonta would have reacted to the chapter 6 reveal if he’d survived until then.

Gonta:  “You know a lot about gentlemen, Shuichi…”

Shuichi:  “What? Ah, not really…”

Gonta:  “Yes, you do! Maybe you teach Gonta how to be gentleman!”

Yeah, not really; all Shuichi knew that Gonta didn’t was that those gentlemen he’d looked up were fictional. Gonta’s the one who’s done all this gentleman research and has been thinking constantly about what being a gentleman entails! He definitely knows plenty about what it means to be a gentleman – at least for himself – and shouldn’t need anyone else to tell him. If only he’d believe in his own convictions more.

Kaito:  “Oh, it’s you, Shuichi. Sorry, it’s just… I’m pretty busy right now. Can you come by later?”

Busy doing what exactly, Kaito? Alone, in your room? Yeah, that’s a pretty transparent excuse. He just doesn’t want Shuichi to know that he’s not feeling well enough to hang out. Can’t have Shuichi worrying about him, not if he can avoid it.

Kaito:  “Sorry, man. See ya later.”

Shuichi:  (Kaito didn’t look very good… is he okay?)

…But Shuichi noticed that he doesn’t look well anyway, so Kaito’s excuse didn’t really work.

Keebo:  “Angie is right. We should let go of our desire to escape. Then we can live here in peace…”

Keebo is standing right by the manhole leading to the escape tunnel as he says this. Makes me wonder if covering that up again like they do between now and tomorrow morning is actually Keebo’s idea, despite the claim that Angie’s the only one on the council allowed to have ideas.

Maki:  “…If people see you talking to me, they’ll mistake you as a friend of an assassin.”

Maybe Shuichi wants to be a friend of this particular assassin, Maki! It’s heartbreaking how she’s still convinced she doesn’t deserve friends and Shuichi is better off staying away from her, even as she has actually started to accept his and Kaito’s company.

(Still not actually hanging out with her yet for the same reasons.)

Tsumugi:  “Speaking of student councils… Fictional student councils usually have a huge amount of authority.”

Look who’s happy she’s managed to become part of her very own fictional student council.

Tenko:  “If the writing in the courtyard is a message from the people who died… then why didn’t they write a more obvious message like ‘Help!’ or something?”

A very good point. Something Tenko couldn’t really voice while in front of the student council because she’s not supposed to be thinking for herself there.

Gonta:  “If everyone dead is really alive… we gotta save them! No matter what!”

Shuichi:  (Should I hang out with Gonta for a while?) [Yes]

Gonta:  “Gonta be shield! Gonta be spear! Gonta be what everyone need!”

Awww, Gonta. He’s so desperate to be useful that he’s become willing to think of himself as an object for other people to use if that’s what they need him to be.

The conversation continues where the last one left off, with Gonta asking Shuichi to teach him how to be a gentleman. Shuichi somehow manages to convince him that that’s not a thing he’s capable of.

Gonta:  “Oh… Even Shuichi no can teach Gonta…”

Shuichi:  “Y-Yeah…” (I feel awful… I can’t let him stay down like this.)

Aww, Shuichi feels bad! He knows just how important it is to Gonta that he figures out how to be a gentleman somehow!

Shuichi asks why Gonta is so determined to become a gentleman in the first place, and Gonta explains that it’s for the sake of his forest family.

Gonta:  “All Gonta know is, Gonta’s human family very famous, very respected.”

Shuichi:  “Really!? Is that so…?”

Gonta:  “So they get mad at Gonta. Say Gonta not worthy of family name. They blame Gonta’s forest family. Say it all their fault.”

Shuichi:  (That’s awful… they should have been grateful for them taking care of you for a decade…)

Shuichi’s right; dick move, Gonta’s human family!

Gonta:  “And Gonta love human family too. Gonta love human mother who birth him.”

Gonta, of course, is far too sweet and precious to be resentful of his human family for treating his forest family this way.

Gonta:  “So Gonta think, become true gentleman! Then human family accept forest family! And… forest family also be proud of Gonta! See Gonta become such great gentleman!”

He’s so good! And it also explains more why last time, despite him having his own strong sense of what being a “gentleman” entails, he’d still done all sorts of research into what other people think a “gentleman” is – because he specifically wants to be the kind of gentleman that his human family would approve of, not just the kind of gentleman that is best for himself.

Shuichi:  (But… even if Gonta does become a gentleman, his forest family would still… No, I shouldn’t put doubts in his head. He wants to do this so bad…)

Yeah, don’t go making him doubt himself. Especially since he’s never actually going to be able to do this anyway, partly because he’s not going to get out of here alive, but also partly because both of his families don’t actually exist. I’d say “maybe it’s for the best he never learns that”, but since he instead ends up learning that both his families apparently died in the apocalypse, actually, no, that’s even worse. Poor Gonta.

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