#presenting safety info is my favorite part of the job honestly. it’s so cool to take a bunch of info and figure out how to distill it…

[birdpal]

four different coworkers came up after safety training to compliment my presentation :’)

[horrorbutgay]

NDRV3 Demo Analysis w/ Full Game Spoilers!

(My friend Elfi/Apri made this and jesus fuck shes a fucking genius please love her)

First off, let me mention that I immediately went into sleuthing mode while I was playing the demo for about 4h (both English and Japanese), because I'm aware that even DR demos have a decent difficulty level to its case writing (judging by suspicion not necessarily incriminating Hifumi The Harmless in the demo until the manga came into the picture with the full story) and this demo seemed too easy if you don't give it some proper thought like most of the unspoiled fandom is still not used to doing. From what I managed to piece together with the clues shattered throughout the demo and based on the knowledge of the full game's content, I'm convinced Naegi is the correct culprit vote like we all thought, BUT (huge but) paying attention and giving it some thought grant you the speculation that he could've actually had an accomplice outside of the protagonist room. And that accomplice is no less than the scheming mastermind of the game: Shirogane Shirogane Tsumukweeeen. (Yes, that Despair Arc dub meme never gets old) Let me start my explanation with the clarification that this demo is clearly another in-universe promotional method for V3 like the Maki, Kaito and Ki-Bo poster. It's like a popular show treating its fanbase with the kind of sneak peek preview to let them know what to expect. I also want to clarify that people were indeed able to enter the protagonist room before the gym announcement, because how else would you explain Tojo being able to clean the whole dormitory? This leads me to the conclusion that Tojo likely got her hands onto a master key from Monokuma with Tsumugi's aid and she locked the doors of all the rooms after cleaning them. Yes, Hoshi was there too, but so was Yumeno for a bit and that still doesn't mean they entered the dormitory later. Considering how Ultimate Dedication Kirumi is able to afford wasting time on introducing herself if she was supposedly in the middle of cleaning when you just arrive at the dorm, it's quite safe to assume the job was already done at that point and that is why the protag room is already locked if you do try to open it before going to the gym. In fact, all the rooms are locked. Kaede clearly was the last student to wake up, and Tsumugi being the only one with the ability to confirm Kirumi's alibi - despite Hoshi and Yumeno presumably being at the dorm as well - is a major hint that the clean-up was pretty much done waaay before you awoke, got past all the other students from the AV Room onwards to the dorm, and finally listened to the introduction of those three. I say three because I honestly think Yumeno was in the kitchen at first and only appeared in the dorms once the body discovery announcement was made. Anyway, Kirumi obviously locked the doors for safety and privacy measures once the clean-up was done. I believe Hagakure's "corpse" was already in Kaede's bathroom at this point, and here's why Tojo probably neglected to inspect and clean ALL of the bathrooms: As someone who comes off on the surface as a trustworthy and supportive person, not to mention that she acts as a huge fan of a maid's work, Kirumi is inclined to believe her if Tsumugi simply insists for example that Monokuma told her that all the bathrooms were taken extra care of to be spotless. As I've established, there is no breathing room for the player after the gym announcement, so Tsumugi had to be the only character present while Kirumi was cleaning the dormitory. Because she simply admires Kirumi's work as a maid due to how much of a geek she is, so she had to keep watching and this doesn't seem suspicious to you at all without fullgame spoilers because they always made Tsumugi out to be a bland motherly "heart on her sleeve" nerd type of girl. It is entirely understandable that Tsumugi - as the MM getting her lifetime dream of a writer debut on TDR come true - wants the killing game to start as fast as possible, and this is emphasized in the full game by how she gives them a two days time limit right off the bat to commit a murder or else they'll all be mass murdered. In the full game, this doesn't work out so well and she doesn't like how Kaede gets so well along with Amami in that bonus scene (explaining why Kaede believes in his innocence to be the MM in Case 1) without even knowing about his impressive SHSL Survivor status as the only survivor of V2. And Rantarou also turns out to be better at nail painting than the Ultimate Cosplayer thanks to living with twelve sisters at home, making her outraged with jealousy. To push her over the edge, time is running out and a mass execution would be a boring and way too quick end for the season, which would affect the ratings. She can't allow that, so she goes with the two characters she passionately dislikes so far to get them out of the picture and continue the show. Arguably, she would've even been fine with any vote that wasn't her because the MM being executed would also end the show too early. Kaede and Saihara were the prime suspects, so even though she framed Kaede for also trying her hardest to expose her due to the same reasoning and she conveniently set a death trap with a similar method to how she decided to kill Rantarou (remember, the heavy iron balls were in the warehouse available for anyone to grab), Saihara would have been fine too. Kaede works better though, because she is legitimately convinced of her guilt. Shadowing her as the demo first culprit is a nice nod to the full version and it makes perfect sense in context, and I'll explain why right now. No, sadly enough, there are no chances of that but that info is (preferably?) not spread through the fandom and only on the wiki. Turns out that when you enter Amami's research faculty, you discover a recording of himself before the memory manipulation process (there's a vast difference with that and brainwashing :')) in which he reveals that he is from the previous killing game and he was the only survivor there. That likely makes him more worthy of the SHSL Survivor status in the fanbase's eyes. Especially Tsumugi lmao She's a full-on critic Anyway, I liked clearing that up for the people here, but now onwards. I'm almost 100% sure that Kirumi would vaguely hint towards this exchange of words happening between her and Tsumugi if the player voluntarily approaches her after she decides to stay behind with Hajime, but that's something I'd have to check with a replay. Hajime and Makoto actually being in the demo/in-universe preview episode is also a great treat to hardcore fan Tsumugi. Especially Makoto, the protagonist of her favorite cast. We already established before that Tsumugi is going back to the original and she wanted to recreate the DR1 cast & killing game whilst simultaneously criticizing the flaws of her favorite game/season (the reality tv killing game started with reboots of the original fictional material with real actors, as evidenced by the collage sequence if you manage to read through all of them.)(edited) I initially thought of them possibly being Tsumugi's cosplays, but that ended up being too far-fetched for my taste and some of the 53 seasons do involve aforementioned reboots of originally fictional source material. It's just a little too fastly skipped on in the collage for the most part after the first ten entries.(edited) And just who from the cast do you think even Tsumugi would detest despite being a DR1 stan? That's right: Yasuhiro Hagakure. This passionate hatred is even further emphasized by there not being a Hagakure parallel in her fanfiction. She likes her casts well-rounded. But that doesn't explain the revealed fake death at the end, so let me continue my theory. Tsumugi invited Hajime, Makoto and Hagakure along to the live preview of her writing and acting debut on Team Danganronpa. Because she arranged the perfect protagonist who's like no other and ideal to keep milking the series, on top of that that person is also female, the actors for the OC leads (who obviously also survived in their portion of a reality tv killing game to stay faithful to the omnipresent motto of keeping the MCs alive, despite the vast differences in the rest of the  survivor sets for DR1 and 2 which I'll tackle in a bit) are brought back to their roles to guide Kaede and introduce the nostalgia Tsumugi is going to include in the upcoming season. Ah, and before anyone comes up with a "Rantarou" rebuttal for the sake of completing the DR1 parallel, keep in mind that his personality mainly stems from the previous season and there are some characters (like Gonta) that even Kodaka admitted he has never written before because Tsumugi managed to give a sense of uniqueness to the cast.(edited) And the remaining students also managed to drift apart from the character arcs she so thoroughly planned for them, but that's meta for another day. Remember the "fake" AU leaks that I eventually explained to be V3's version of the (either tv or game) outcome for the events for 1 and 2 in their universe? Well, Hagakure dies in that. Probably also the first victim, explaining Monokuma's fourth wall breaking comment that this is actually his second time dying. It's a double-sided statement that you won't catch up on if you haven't practically finished the game. His character was basically recycled with a look-alike actor in order to fool the audience with that pretense of Danganronpa just being a cool TV show (more on that in that ending meta I plan to discuss here some time) - I assume they do this with all previews of new seasons once the audience started doing some digging on the real people behind their beloved characters or perhaps the real names were initially not even included in the credits (like when they did the reboots) until they started with new storylines to not run out of ideas, keep profiting and take the thrill a step further) - and because he therefore wouldn't have experience with acting like Hagakure, Tsumugi left him out of the preview until it was time for his body discovery. Being the comic relief character he is supposed to be, Hagakure's actor was fortunate to be able to be used as a fake death with the plot convenience of Ultimate Detective not entering the crime scene in the demo. All this clearly explains the black screen ending scenario where the returning characters all wonder if their acting was good, and Hagakure suddenly rushing in to reveal it was a fake death. TDR is teasing and deceiving you, the unspoiled viewer anticipating their announced renewal for another season, because deception is what it's all about with V3's Truth vs Lies theme. A neat manner to let the world know what to expect. TDR probably also uses these previews to test the results of the memory manipulation used on the cast and the audience's reaction on seeing this cast in action. The company wants to know if Tsumugi's adjustments are sufficient or if there's anything left to mold their personalities for in order to appeal the whole cast to the audience, explaining the pleasant surprises like Tenko initially being hyped up as the discourse character yet actually being the most morally good female of the cast. Seriously, the best part about V3 is that it all (even the promotion) comes full-circle if you give it some proper thought. The entry is filled with a never-ending cycle of full-circle moments which are able to blow your mind when you finally connect that cycle. Spoiling, fourth-wall-breaking game promotion before the game is even out. It's incredible how far they planned ahead, honestly Anyway, let's continue. There's some necessary details left to make the full picture. So basically, Tsumugi arranged this whole scenario with the three of them, and considering how safe it is to assume how passionately Tsumugi despises Hagakure, they might as well have even had to resort to a compromise to give Hagakure's nobody actor a planned fake death as long as Tsumugi makes sure nobody enters the protagonist room. The fake crime scene they set up must not be exposed. There's obviously frozen blood bags in TDR's various morgues from all the reality tv killing games, so they used the dead Hagakure's blood to shroud the new actor in. This is all done to make the timing so fresh and in case they cannot prevent the Ultimate Detective from investigating the crime scene. Saihara would definitely catch up on fake blood, after all. You can supply blood in a fresh manner by sustaining them in frozen blood bags. Common scientific knowledge. And it makes sense to supply their blood because TDR started these behind-the-scenes kidnappings and schemes up with running out of ideas and the reality TV reboots of their original source material. No way would the ratings - which are so important to them because they're making a good living off of this show and it can't end in their eyes - stay unaffected by a simple reboot, hence the new survivor sets that I will headcanon as being part of the TV reboot from now on. This indicates that they kept the strengths of the original entries, but they twisted the story of the games like we already were informed of by Tsumugi. They're greedy and huge perfectionists, so those previously fictional characters really had to be brought to life. That's where the development of the futuristic technology comes in. More on TDR specifically in my ending meta though! :P Well then, let's further detail how this off-screen plan worked so well in case the realization is not hitting someone yet. The knife is actually just twisted in a gaping hole from his shirt being stabbed in his abdomen non-fatally, so I suppose it makes sense that it looks so real once he plays dead and they add real blood on him. Implying that the fandom or the in-universe audience will spend that much doubt to it with how legit it looks, but Saihara definitely would inspect the corpse more as it's his duty. It's a huge plot convenience that Saihara does not bother to do so, likely because he's already made up his mind on who the culprit is like all of us did from the start: Naegi Makoto. And while he is not exactly wrong, he's dense to the major foreshadowing of an accomplice due to a lack of evidence. A nice mirror to the real first case. Tsumugi truly is a master puppeteer, and I still view her as a controlfreak because the term means that she is obsessed with maintaining her control of something. And that is emphasized in the game multiple times once Monodam, Angie and Korekiyo turn the planned pattern for the killing game around in chapter 3 and so onwards. Back to the demo: after the preparation process is done, Hagakure is left alone in the bathroom waiting for his scene to act like a corpse, not allowed to make a noise.(edited) Tsumugi and Makoto split up; former approaches Kirumi to start cleaning as soon as possible (probably convincing Monokuma to give the SHSL Maid a master key) in order to avoid anyone meeting Hagakure; the latter goes to check on Kaede in the AV Room in order to continue the plan "smoothly" as he mentions later in the class trial. Wanna know why he had to part ways with Kaede when all the students are demanded to go to the gym? It's simple when you've gotten this far. Since Tsumugi cannot possibly ignore this order from Monokuma and come out of the shadows with her real personality, Makoto is the one who needs to proceed with the last phase of the plan: splashing the actor playing dead in freshly kept blood from the frozen blood bag for his original predecessor. Hagakura is the one who got the kitchen knife and might as well have been the one to non-fatally stab himself, but that's just a small detail and it makes sense that the cast without the detective (thus inexperienced with murder cases) would legitimately assume his death to be for real just upon the sight of a drenched murder weapon and the excessive amount of fresh blood.(edited) And this is exactly why the blood confirms the time of death being a few minutes ago when they were all at the gym. Lastly, this also explains Makoto's hair dropping at the crime scene. Stuff like that commonly happens, especially when you're in a rush and they probably had to fake a convincing struggle in the short period of time they had. He was obviously able to access the room because he was the first one to receive the keys due to likely being the only person not to be infected with sleeping gas alongside Hagakure.(edited) I can't connect where Hajime's part comes in though, so maybe he wasn't involved - which I can understand cuz a fangirl prefers cooperating and interacting with her favorites - or perhaps his only contribution was (unknowingly of Tsumugi's elaborate scheme) aiding Tsumugi and Kirumi with his confidence and experience in order to convince Monokuma to hand over that master key for the maid to do her job. I really believe Hajime's actor was kept in the dark because unlike a personified Naegi, the personified Hajime wouldn't be lured to a route as corrupt as the former took by being willing to do anything to keep living off of TDR's unquestionably high salary if you survive AND return to the show. No, this actor only thought he was hired again for nostalgia's sake, because that's what we all assumed as well. And Hajime was the most intended as a returning lead to guide Kaede on the road of leading her group and passing the leadership onto her, despite not being her instructor like Naegi but that's all according to plan, of course. This is my demo headcanon. This is my conclusive interpretation of the demo