#sdr2 has such a fantastic cast that could make for so many interesting stories beyond what we got in the game

[goshdangronpa]

This is super old and has been in my drafts for who knows how long, but let's break these down one by one

Teruteru: Well, this would definitely be a change of pace for DR's rather sexless protags (we love to hc Hajime as irresistible and Kaede as ladykiller, but based on in-game portrayals alone, these guys ain't fuckin). Imagine that each time he likes someone, that person immediately dies, like THH Ch. 1 repeated across an entire game, until he likes someone who turns out to be the killer? Also imagine his reaction to Giant Junko. Okay, I've talked myself into supporting this just for the funny

Mahiru: Did you know she was originally considered for the protagonist role? I guess a lot of you did, or yall just really like her, and/or yall have read Danganronpa MK2. I'm not personally convinced that she'd be all that interesting a change, seeing that she plays just as much of a "serious person surrounded by kooks" role as Hajime. That said, she's much more of a take-charge type, which could take the story into intriguing new places.

Peko: Underratedly spicy. For one, she actually has someone from her own life to protect, upping the stakes of the killing game. For another, her obsessive protectiveness lends itself naturally to a leading role in investigations and trials ... and a lot of angst over each new death. Plus, shit like the Shining Justice gambit show that she's creative in a pinch and terribly persuasive. She could commit to something crazy like that in every trial. Like Kokichi if he wasn't an asshole. Whoa, did I really just compare those two?

Ibuki: I think it's a great idea!

Hiyoko: Honestly, who is better suited for a coming-of-age narrative than Hiyoko Saionji? She hasn't even had her growth spurt yet. There are good reasons why quite a few fans think she should've survived. Starting off as a far less friendly protag than Makoto, she could gradually grow into the hero they all need. As for trials, she may make up for her lacking investigative brains with her sheer intolerance for bullshit (what horrible things would she say instead of "No, that's wrong!" ...). Plus, imagine her in the last trial, coming back from the brink of despair, memories regained, WITH HER GROWTH SPURT. The symbolism!!

Mikan: It's funny: besides Hajime, the real hero of the first trial is arguably Mikan. Her testimony as the medical expert saves everyone from falsely voting Nagito, and Teruteru's inability to recall her indecent tumble seals the killer's fate. With Hajime dead, she could easily emerge as the go-to girl for solving murder mysteries. That said, it's hard to believe the Ultimate Nurse would go through the Despair Disease crisis without getting infected as well ... but what if she IS, and someone else commits murder before she can, and we spend the rest of SDR2 with a protag in Junko's thrall? Mikan might be the next-best MC for illustrating the story's theme of finding hope even in despair's greatest worshippers.

Nekomaru: The first chad protag AND the first IBS protag? Representation! But really: Nekomaru's a smarter guy than he lets on, he knows people well, he cares deeply about everyone in his group, and he would sacrifice himself to save them all - a killer combo for a DR main character. Plus, the dude's all about supporting other people from the bench. It might be nice for him to get the spotlight for a change.

Gundham: Well, he already thinks he's the main character of the universe ... I complain sometimes that when creators have more fun with a side character than the main character, they should just make that side character the main character. That said, and as much as I love the guy, it may be better to get Gundham's giant personality in trickles than through a fire hose, you know? He's a fun dude, but maybe only in moderation.

Fuyuhiko: The survivors have an advantage over the victims in this thought exercise just from having a complete character arc. Of course, there's a whole lotta game before that, and you barely see Fuyuhiko in Chapter 1. Hey, wouldn't it be fun if you play as him, don't even get the option to do FTEs, miss the party altogether, then become the lead investigator when things go murdery? You'd have to piece everything together without having even been present. There's potential in this Protag Fuyuhiko concept.

Sonia: It must be said: a Westerner going to Japan and becoming the leader and hero of her group may be, perhaps could only be, white savior-y. Humble origins are also important for making DR protags relatable, so her royal status would clash with that, too. Those are my only objections, really - Sonia's smart, tough, caring, a true leader, more fun than some would credit, just a good darn character - but they're big. This isn't an attack on the voters who drove her to 3rd place (!), just something worth considering ...

Akane: Fun fact: early in development, she was supposed to be the rival for Hajime, her reliance on gut feeling rubbing against his deductive reasoning. She's literally designed to be the opposite of a DR protag: quick to act on emotion, reckless and combative, not the brightest candle in the menorah. That may make her the coolest and most interesting choice in the whole bunch! I love the idea of Akane as Junko's nemesis, an analytical genius ultimately losing to a girl who knows it's better to be kind than smart.

Kazuichi: He was happy for once. Scared of girls, scared of his dad, scared of the world ... and now he's on an island resort with a bunch of hotties his age! I'm greatly amused by the idea that he'd fight not for hope or the world or anything grand but for his chance to enjoy a sweet vacation. It'd prove futile soon enough as he learns to be scared of his friends, then himself ... which would make it all the more beautiful if he, the cowardly creep, can find it in himself to become the Ultimate Hope. Just saying, don't dismiss his potential as an interesting protag just because you find him a little cringe!

[oumakokichi]

So what do you think of Kaede and Kokichi's relationship? And if Kaede remained the protagonist how do you think it would change?

Considering it’s Kaede’s birthday today I think this is a really fun question to come back to!

Kaede is an absolutely amazing character, and I love how different her relationships with the rest of the cast feel from Saihara’s. She and Ouma have an especially interesting friendship in their FTEs together (one of Kaede’s FTEs with Ouma might be one of my favorite FTEs ever, really), so I don’t mind going a little more in-depth on my thoughts about their dynamic, as well as about how that dynamic and the story itself might’ve changed if Kaede had remained the protagonist!

Warning for spoilers as always, though I’m pretty sure most people know about the chapter 1 twist by now.

I think one of my absolute favorite things about Kaede is just how easy it is to get attached to her in such a short amount of time. She’s only around for the prologue and a single chapter, but despite that (or rather, because of the sheer length of the chapters in ndrv3, which tend to be much longer than dr1 or sdr2’s chapters), we still get to see so many different sides of her and just how complex of a character she really is. And I think that’s largely the reason for her continued popularity to this day: Kaede might not stay around for long, but we still really feel like we know her by the end of it.

And really, I think that’s pretty similar to how the actual characters feel about Kaede themselves. Despite how short her time is with all of them, she leaves such a powerful, lasting impression, even after her death. This is a pretty big change from previous DR games, where the chapter 1 culprits especially tend to suffer a pretty big lack of relevance or relationship to other characters in later chapters. Often times the victims are at least somewhat memorable (Maizono and the Impostor both at least come up a few times in their respective games), but characters like Leon or Teruteru just don’t feel like they have much of an impact on the other characters or the plot itself after their trials are finished.

This is totally different from Kaede, whose positive outlook and outgoing attitude already makes her fairly likable to most of the others, but who also openly invites the others to rely on her once she establishes herself as a leader figure fairly quickly in chapter 1. Most of the other characters latch onto her almost immediately, either because she seems so reliable and helpful (Saihara and Tenko in particular seem to like this about her), or because they can’t help but respect her and what she’s trying to do for the group (characters like Momota, who really values group cooperation, come to mind).

Personally, I think Ouma fell into the latter category. He and Kaede have something of a complicated relationship almost right from the get-go in chapter 1, but it’s still pretty clear that Ouma did respect Kaede a lot and recognized that she had the group’s best interests at heart, even if he didn’t always agree with her methods.

Likewise, I think Kaede was somewhat curious about Ouma and really wanted to get along with him, despite how difficult he could be. We see in Ouma’s introduction, both in the demo and the actual game, that Kaede clearly recognizes on some level that part of his annoying attitude is really just his way of teasing others, and that he doesn’t seem particularly malicious. More specifically, she describes him as “having a childish streak that makes him hard to hate,” which is a pretty spot-on description of Ouma in a nutshell. In short, she knew he was annoying and childish (on purpose, most of the time) but she definitely didn’t think of him as evil or cruel. This may in part also be because she didn’t live long enough to see him embrace the fake villain routine by the end of chapter 4, of course.

Ouma has a few teasing remarks throughout most of the game, but it’s not really until the death road of despair is discovered that he and Kaede butt heads for the very first time. This is because of a big, fundamental difference between their ideologies: while both of them very much have the group’s best interests at heart, they completely disagree when it comes to whether it’s worth it to cooperate as a team or not.

By the end of the game, Ouma is extremely paranoid, refusing to cooperate with absolutely anyone unless it’s out of some mixture of chance and necessity (such as working with Momota in chapter 5). He keeps all his cards close to the chest, and refuses to confide in or trust any of his remaining classmates, believing it’s fully possible any of them could be the ringleader.

But before the events of chapter 4, we see that he’s actually not opposed to the idea of selective cooperation. He strikes up a tentative collaboration with Miu early on, commissioning her to create some extremely useful inventions with the intent of using them to try and end the killing game. He also extends an invitation of cooperation to both Kaede (in one of her FTEs) and Saihara (in chapter 4, in the parlor of the VR world), though he goes about this in such a sly, underhanded, and off-putting way that both of them shoot his offer down flat. Even he’s not beyond the idea of teaming up with people he perceives as “useful” or “smart,” as long as it’s a much smaller, one-on-one effort rather than trusting or working with the entire group.

By contrast, Kaede is someone who believes that group unity is almost a necessity if they want to escape the killing game. This is very much in line with the role she establishes for herself as a leader. Unlike characters like Momota, who has always sort of longed to embrace a “hero” role, or Saihara, who is considerably more awkward and unwilling to be a leader because of how guilty he feels, Kaede’s role is much more about boosting and maintaining the group’s morale.

This is lampshaded several times by the classical music pieces that she references, often in an attempt to either clam the others down or fire them up at the idea of working together and escaping. It’s also a fantastic little clue that her own positive outlook is something a bit more crafted than it seems on the surface; she always tries to be optimistic about things and face her problems head-on, but that’s in large part because she tries to energize herself and present that reliable, dependable persona to the rest of the group. In short, she believes that if she reveals her own uncertainty or lack of faith in her plans, the rest of the group’s trust and morale will fall too.

Like I mentioned, this difference in their outlook is really what begins to cause problems for them once they discover the death road of despair in chapter 1. Kaede sees the tunnel as their one opportunity to escape without having to rely on the killing game itself; even if it’s extremely difficult and damn near impossible to get through it, the chance of injury is a risk she’s willing to take, no matter how many times they have to start over. But Ouma disagrees with this mindset and criticizes her in front of the entire group, pointing out how everyone else is already exhausted and even injured, and saying that she has no right to make that decision for the rest of them.

He even goes a step further and accuses her of strong-arming the rest of them by “denying them the right to give up in an impossible situation.” He claims that by positing herself as an inspirational figure, she has the “moral high-ground” no matter what the rest of them do or say, and clearly doesn’t think it’s possible for them to continue down the death road without someone getting seriously injured, or worse.

These harsh words really take Kaede aback, especially since most of the rest of the group seems to more or less agree with Ouma. She’s extremely hurt—not just by the fact that no one seems to really want to keep going with her plan, but also, I think, because she felt as if Ouma was right on some level. In my opinion, this is why she cries once she’s alone in her room later: because she did feel as though she’d forced everyone else to go along with an unreasonable plan. It’s the first time that we really see the cracks in her leader persona beginning to show, as well as the self-doubt that she carries.

I honestly think many people who dislike Ouma on their first playthrough of the game may have started here, right at this moment. Because so much of this seems to be fairly black-or-white initially—Kaede is presented as the unequivocally good heroine, trying to get everyone to work together and escape, and Ouma by contrast seems mean and unreasonable for arguing with her in front of everyone. We’re not supposed to linger on the fact that he makes several good points about everyone else’s safety and exhaustion because how he goes about it is off-putting and unlikable.

Not only that, but we as first-time players aren’t supposed to know about all the similarities that Ouma and Kaede actually have in common, despite their differences on the matter of group cooperation. We’re not supposed to know just yet that they both want to save the group, no matter what it takes, or that both of them are willing to go to extreme, sometimes morally grey measures in order to try and stop the killing game. We’re not supposed to know right away that Ouma can be every bit as self-sacrificing as Kaede, despite the selfish things that he says in front of the others, or that when push comes to shove, Kaede is willing to lie almost as much as he is.

We don’t know any of that, initially—which is why that scene hits so hard and sets Ouma up to be so unpleasant. But I think going back on a replay and evaluating it again is pretty interesting specifically because of all these similarities that I’ve listed. The fact that they clash here is especially interesting, given the sort of roles they embody to the rest of the group, with Kaede deliberately choosing to be someone that the entire group relies on and finds trustworthy, while Ouma later sets himself up to become a villain who’s hated by everyone. And despite this, their goals are largely one and the same: expose the ringleader and end the killing game.

I think it’s specifically because Kaede realized she couldn’t continue pushing everyone to do the things she wanted them to, no matter how badly she wanted everyone to cooperate and escape together, and that’s ultimately why she turns to Plan B when she hears from Saihara about the bookshelf hiding the ringleader’s lair in the library. And for all that she does want to trust and cooperate with everyone else, she actually goes about this plan in the most Ouma-like way possible: by doing everything herself and without telling anyone her real intentions, not even Saihara.

Something I especially like about Kaede as a character is just how nuanced she is. Because she is simultaneously the brave, trustworthy, outgoing protagonist that we see her as, but she’s also so, so much more than that. She’s fiercely determined and cares about everyone else, yes, but it’s also because she cares so much that she’s willing to do things like lie and attempt murder behind everyone else’s back.

If we look at the audition videos as any sort of clue as to what the characters might’ve been like before the start of the game, I do think there was a somewhat more skeptical, cynical side of Kaede deep down that didn’t quite trust other people—and that’s all the more reason she wanted to trust them and work together with all of them, because she knew exactly how hard it was to do so. It’s such an interesting contrast from Ouma, who could easily have used all his lies and charm to cooperate with people if he wanted to, but who instead continually pushes people away because of his skepticism, all the while pretending to act completely arrogant and self-assured in his plans. Deep down, I think both of them were much more vulnerable than they were ever willing to show in front of other people.

And I think by the end of chapter 1, Ouma became more or less aware of that side of Kaede, once she confesses everything she tried to do to end the killing game. Prior to this, I personally think Ouma still very much liked and respected her guts and her attempts at leading the group, but that he ultimately thought she was doomed by her reliance on trust and cooperation when they didn’t even know who the ringleader was within their group. But I think that after hearing just how far she was willing to go to stop the killing game, including but not limited to lying to everyone else and going behind their backs with her own plan, he couldn’t help but respect her even more. Despite his accusations that she was too soft or naïve for trusting everyone else, her actual attempted solution was far closer to his own outlook than he initially gave her credit for.

This is why, just before Kaede is about to be executed, Ouma drops all of his usual acts and facades with her and gives her a sincere goodbye, telling her that she “wasn’t boring.” And this is really the highest compliment someone like Ouma can give: she did take him by surprise and surpass all his expectations from her, and I do believe he was genuinely sad to see her go when she attempted such a huge sacrifice for everyone else’s sakes.

Truly, the only part of her plan that I think he disagreed with was the act of (attempted) murder in and of itself. He felt that despite her good intentions, she had “crossed a line” that shouldn’t be crossed, and that she fell into the ringleader’s trap the moment the idea of murder crossed her mind. Considering how much DICE’s “no murder” taboo guided Ouma throughout the game, it’s not surprising at all that this is where he disagreed with Kaede. Though ironically, he himself crosses the same line in chapter 4 when he decides the only possible solution to Miu’s attempt on his life is to kill her himself, and therefore winds up getting his hands dirty without ever directly committing murder, much like Kaede herself.

Questioning how they might’ve gotten along if Kaede had actually lived past chapter 1 and continued being the game’s protagonist is interesting, mainly because so many factors would change as a result. Kaede and Saihara are so fundamentally different as protagonists, and Kaede herself is much more in line with what we would expect from a Hope’s Peak protagonist instead. Kodaka himself has described her in an interview as being extremely similar to Asahina, and I personally think she’s something of a combination between Asahina’s outgoing attitude and Maizono’s carefully crafted façade (not to mention moral ambiguity). So it stands to reason that the game and its themes wouldn’t quite be the same if Kaede were still the protagonist.

On the one hand, I do think there would be interesting potential for a possible alliance between her and Ouma, especially given how similar they could both be. Ouma himself proposes such an alliance to her in one of his FTEs, though she does get angry and shoots him down, as I mentioned earlier. But it’s interesting to consider if Kaede might’ve been more willing to cooperate in smaller, one-on-one alliances if she had attempted her plan in chapter 1 and failed without getting executed for it.

There’s also the fact that Ouma claims to remember her and everyone else adamantly in his FTEs with her, even going so far as to claim that she and everyone else forgot about him, even though he never forgot about them. It’s unclear whether he’s referring to his memories from before the game still being intact (which is likely, since he’s pretty skeptical of the flashback lights right away), or if there’s some other explanation for it, but personally, I don’t think it can be dismissed as a complete lie. Even if Kaede herself accuses him of lying and making it all up, he goes uncharacteristically blank and claims that “even he’s not that good at lying.”

This adds huge potential to Kaede sticking around, as there could easily be an underlying mystery element. In addition to the trials themselves and the mystery of the outside world, it’d be very possible to explore their dynamic further, as well as why Ouma said the things he did and if he was actually telling the truth about knowing her and everyone else from before. Kaede is absolutely persistent enough that I feel like she would’ve pressed him for details about this, especially once it became clear in the main plot that their memories were unreliable.

On the other hand, it’s really unclear if Ouma would’ve still been willing to offer that alliance to Kaede once she had attempted to commit murder. Assuming the events of chapter 1 stay more or less the same and the only difference is that Kaede survives instead of getting executed, this raises some potential problems with Ouma actually working together with her or trusting her. She did, as he puts it, “cross the line”—even if her murder attempt wasn’t successful, Ouma claims that she was already too far gone the moment she even considered murder as a possible solution. This could definitely cause another clash of opinions between them, especially as Ouma is much too paranoid to work directly with anyone who he thinks might kill him.

Another potential source of conflict in my opinion is the Hope’s Peak flashback light in chapter 5. Unlike Saihara, who deals primarily with questions of “truth or lies” and is ultimately able to see through Tsumugi’s false ultimatum in chapter 6 with the choice of either the “hope ending” or “despair ending,” Kaede is, as I mentioned, much more in line with what you’d expect from a Hope’s Peak protagonist. She’s extremely smart of course, but she has a bit of a reckless, headstrong streak where she tends to act based on emotion rather than reason, and this could get her into quite a lot of trouble once Tsumugi started rewriting everyone’s memories in chapter 5.

Saihara was able to see that both of the choices Tsumugi presented in the final trial were bullshit and would ultimately keep the cycle of Danganronpa ongoing, but I’m not entirely sure if Kaede would realize the same thing, or even if she did eventually realize it, I’m not sure it would’ve been in time to stop it. Because of her self-sacrificing nature, I personally think she would’ve chosen to be one of the sacrifices for the sake of “hope,” much like Amami presumably did in season 52. This ultimately means that Kaede sticking around might have ultimately led to a “bad end” of sorts, where even if the rest of the group went free aside from her and one other sacrifice, Danganronpa itself never gets dismantled and lives to see another season.

The only possible way I see for Kaede to avoid falling into this trap and making this choice is if enough of her classmates rubbed off on her or helped her see things in less black-or-white terms like “hope” or “despair,” and in more nuanced shades of grey instead. But considering how completely fooled almost everyone was in the actual events of the game, it’s difficult to say if this would happen. She would definitely need to talk and debate with someone who viewed the flashback lights a lot more skeptically, whether it was Saihara or Ouma (or maybe even Angie), before she could reach the truth about what Tsumugi and Team Danganronpa were really after.

This analysis has gotten pretty long by this point, so I’ll just wrap things up by saying that I really do love Kaede and Ouma’s friendship, and I think they had more potential of getting along than either of them might’ve realized in canon. Despite their fundamental differences, both of them were two characters who went farther than almost anyone else in trying to stop the killing game, and both of them weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty if necessary. I think the fact that Ouma claims to remember Kaede and everyone else from before the killing game is super interesting, and I would’ve absolutely loved to see it touched on more if Ouma had lived longer.

All in all, Kaede is such an amazing, morally grey character who really helps to establish what we can expect from the rest of the game, and I think that’s part of what makes her so memorable. Maybe one day we’ll get some sort of DR:IF equivalent where we get a semi-canon look into a scenario where everyone lives, and hopefully there we could see not only more of Kaede being a protagonist figure, but also more of her interactions with Ouma and everyone else.

[oumakokichi]

ok, you may have already answered these two questions, but here goes: thoughts on kaede??? about the twist, about her role in the story, etc. and secondly, ouma's response to her execution: do you think that was authentic or just another lie?

I’ve talked a little bit on my feelings about Kaede before,but I don’t mind going into more detail!

I really, really love her, and I think she was a fantasticprotagonist and character and I honestly wish we’d gotten to see more of her. Iunderstand why the twist was done, and the thematic reasons for it in the game—andoverall, the idea of a protagonist bait-and-switch doesn’t really bother me somuch, because I think it’s usually a really fun subversion of “plot armor”tropes if well-done. It can really get the players or viewers questioning theirpreconceptions and why they assume certain characters are going to be safe ornot.

Of course, the fact that this was a trope done with a femaleprotagonist specifically is what bothers me the most, moreso since it couldeasily have been swapped around. There’s literally no reason why Saihara orKiibo couldn’t have been our baited protagonists (and many people assumed Kiibowas going to be the protagonist from the first promotional material we got,given the obvious fact that he looked so much like Naegi), and then Kaede couldhave been switched in halfway through.

The whole point of a protagonist bait-and-switch should befor some kind of commentary or fun, interesting subversion of a plot twist thatthe audience or readers thought they already saw coming. Hyping up a characteras being “THE first female protagonist in the main series” (because no, Komarudoesn’t really count when we’re talking the main installments) only to thensnatch her away was clearly just a move to make players angry. And I understandwhy Kodaka wanted to intentionally make players angry with this, and why it wassupposed to be a taste of what to come. But it was still such a shitty move.

I’m at least glad though that her role in the story isundeniably important, and that she left such a noticeable, lasting impact onthe group. Like Nanami, Kaede is someone who takes to being a leader and wantsto encourage as much trust and friendship among the group as possible. Butunlike Nanami, whose undoing was mostly by external circumstances beyond hercontrol (see Komaeda in sdr2, see Junko in dr3), Kaede’s own undoing very muchhas to do with her own internal issues of trust vs. doubt.

It is fascinating that Kaede was specifically someone whowanted to go into the game being instantly able to trust people. The fact thatshe asked to be a well-liked leader figure who could open up to and trustpeople highlights how much she valued these things—and also makes itfascinating that even during the game, post-brainwashing, she really couldn’tmanage this all the way. There was always some small part of her that, despitewanting to trust others implicitly, could never really manage it, and this wasultimately why she told absolutely no one, not even Saihara, about her plan tokill the mastermind.

And nevertheless, her willingness to take such a huge riskfor the sake of the group, and the fact that even if she couldn’t quite trustall of them, she was still willing to take on such a huge burden and sin fortheir sake, is exactly what hit everyone else in the group so hard. Kaede wasnot the perfect person or protagonist that she wanted to be or that shepretended to be, but her core values and her selflessness was genuine andauthentic, even from before she was brainwashed, and people could recognizethat.

I love that her influence on the group was still tangibleeven after her death. While it’s a shame that it does feel as if she was usedmostly to further Saihara’s development in many ways, I appreciate that herdeath left quite an impact on many of the characters, and that many of themmentioned or continued to think about her all the way through, so that it wasn’tjust Saihara who felt affected by her.

Where most first culprits in the series are ratherunforgettable, Kaede was the first character to be a culprit in Chapter 1 andundeniably leave a lasting impact the whole way through. First victims haveoften been more memorable than their culprit counterparts—Maizono had much morerelevance to the plot than Leon by virtue of having known Naegi from before,the SHSL Impostor was deeply secretive and had many more things discoveredabout him later on in sdr2 than Teruteru, etc.

But Kaede’s role as a “first culprit” figure who wasactually deeply involved by virtue of having been so used and manipulated bythe mastermind, and whose execution itself was a blatant violation of the rulesand a “lie” of sorts, is really, really memorable.

When it comes to Ouma’s reaction to her execution, as withGonta, I think yes, he was absolutely being authentic. Not with the crocodiletears per se—whenever he does the super exaggerated crying sprite with all thetears and snot coming out, that’s definitely meant to be an exaggeration. Herarely uses those sprites anyway, and when he does it’s very clearly for thesake of an act or routine that he doesn’t expect the others to take seriouslyanyway (which is why he so often gets really ridiculously loud or carried awaywhen he does it, because he’s just putting on an act anyway).

However, as I’ve said many a time, Ouma’s blank spritesoffer quite a lot more insight into what he’s really thinking, and are perhapssome of the only times he’s either letting his guard drop slightly or elsereassessing the situation and trying to figure out where to go from there. WithKaede, he very clearly went blank just before she was sent off to be executed.His last words to her (“You weren’t boring at all”) are the highest complimenthe can offer to any of the cast, as he frequently does to other importantcharacters who we know he doesn’t hate, such as Saihara and Momota.

Given how even when going to his own death in Chapter 5,this is something Ouma references (by telling Momota, “At least I wasn’tboring, right?”), it’s clear to see that this is really, honestly something hevalues. When he says these kinds of things, he’s being sincere. Ouma is acharacter who lives his life by playing things out like a game of chess andmaking cold, calculated decisions—but at heart, he never wants to forget thefun in things. He’s a prankster, and it shows: his own lab is full of prank andgag materials, like glasses with fake moustaches, clown masks, wigs, and walkietalkies. There’s no way to look at him, look at all of these facts, and say “no,he was just lying, he doesn’t really care about that kind of stuff.”

Ouma tries so hard to fight against the inevitability ofboredom from being able to know and analyze so much, and he does this usingpranks, jokes, fun. Saying to Kaede that she wasn’t boring is the equivalent ofnodding his head to her, sending her off with a final degree of respect,because even if he couldn’t agree with her methods or her claims of trusting ineveryone when she so clearly wasn’t taking her own advice, he did understandwhat she was trying to do. As one leader to another (because he is a leader,from the shadows), I think he did mean that compliment with the utmostsincerity.

I hope I was able to answer both questions to the best of myability! I really do love Kaede, and while I wish she’d had more time to shineas a protagonist in her own right, I still love the impression that she leftregardless. I don’t think any of the group could truly bring themselves todislike her, and that certainly includes Ouma.