#the calculated sympathy part makes me feel like kodaka invested a lit bit too much in akamatsu and not enough in saihara

[kaibutsushidousha]

Artbook Data - Kaede Akamatsu

There was at least one implied chapter 6 spoiler on this one.

Seiyuu’s comment: Sayaka Kanda

I already had the honor of participating in DanganRonpa: The Stage before, but this is my first in a DanganRonpa game, so I was a bit nervous in the first recordings (laughs). Kaede Akamatsu-chan is a character as adorable as she looks, so I’m very, very glad to have voiced her. I played her with as much energy, as much spirit of “I wanna pull everyone closer to me” as I could.

Kodaka’s comment: A girl kind, strong and most of all, dignified

As one of the two protagonists of this game, we developed her design in a way that makes her feel opposite to the other protagonist Saihara. We decided to make her a female protagonist from the start, but we want to make her different from Komaru Naegi, the protagonist of Ultra Despair Girls, much more protagonist-like than her, so we carefully designed her to make her facial expression kinder and stronger. Also, like all the protagonists before her, we cared make reasonably plain, with no huge personality quirks, to facilitate empathy between the protagonist and the player. It didn’t took much longer for us to decide to make her a pianist. The idea came from us thinking we could use a song as the key element for her conversations with Saihara. Her name is positive but also transient... that’s basically the idea I was trying to convey.

Now about her role, in all DanganRonpas so far I always aimed to make it so that “all characters get as much characterization as the protagonist and you never know who the culprit and the victim will be”. In that case we’re still missing the plotline where the protagonist falls victim to the killing, no? That’s how the story started. More than that, we didn’t make it so that she was the victim, we went one step further and made it into the story I’m sure you are all familiar with. But this part of the script was really  the most difficult to write in the entire series.

A protagonist switch requires making the player grow attached to both the old and the new protagonist for it to work. For that reason, we meticulously calculated everything that would made Akamatsu more sympathetic when incorporating it to the script. Another step for the plan is the huge help I got from her seiyuu Sayaka Kanda. Being the protagonist gives you a lot of attention from the media and interviews, so this process can be quite hard without someone I can trust to support me as an “accomplice”. Kanda-san not only has already performed on The Stage, but is also someone I know to deeply understand DanganRonpa, so she was the best choice for this point. This also means you can say I can’t imagine anyone other than Kanda-san playing her.

Design Notes:

Music Note Hairpin: She holds her hair with music note-themed hairpins very popular with music fans. She places them on both sides of her forehead combining style and practicity.

Flat chest: Iruma calls it like that every freaking time, but if you look at the numbers or even at the actual chest, anyone can tell she’s wrong. She’s not even close to a flatboard!

Backpack: Score sheets, CDs, music players. She a lot of things she needs to carry around and it’s super convinient not to need to carry all of this in her hands. It’s a trendy box-shape backpack whose main selling point is its large volume.

Underwear: Pink panties, always popular with girls. The noble design with the modest lace boys dream of is an item we would want to thank god for.

Fingers: Her miraculous fingertips gave life to melodies admired by the world. In other words, these are the tools of her trade. She takes thorough care of them so they won’t get hurt and trims her nails very short to hit the keys with more accuracy.

Skirt: A skirt designed with music notes running through a staff notation score. It’s fairly short but with her amazingly admirable activeness, she climbs and crawls with it without a care, always marching forward in the energetic pace of a Zundoko-bushi.

High Socks: High socks decorated with crest of the Hikariboshi International Academy. Thigh-highs are what’s mainstream nowadays and it’s nice that they show her youthful good-looking kneecaps.

Favorite presents:

High-End Headphones: A pair of high-quality headphones for elitists, specialized in reproducing the fine, delicate sounds from classical, jazz and similars. It satisfies even Akamatsu’s fine ears.

Tattered Music Sheet: Worn-out hand-drawn music sheets. The unfinished work of a highly famed composer, or so it claims itself to be. It’s good enough to make the classical music fangirl Akamatsu drool!

Metronome: A musical tool used to measure the tempo with a fixed reverse pendulum when playing an instrument. Akamatsu is in a long-term relationship with metronomes since she was six.

Hated presents: 

Pigeon Food: Carefully selected fresh seed to feed pigeons with. You can’t just give to wild pigeons thoughtlessly. A horribly unsuitable gift to give to a girl!

Key phrases:

The Piano Freak’s Grand Brilliant Journey: Akamatsu is the Super High School Level Pianist she is now thanks to her natural talent and sensitivity and to her continuous efforts through her entire life. Since she was very little, she was raised with pianos instead of toys and only developed interest in things related to music, almost as if she born just for the sake of becoming a pianist. In the past she has even  performed Chopin’s 3 Grand Brilliant Waltzes (Trois grandes valses brillantes) to an European King travelling incognito. Knowing about her succesful career led to one student offering her an absurd invitation to rule the underworld as his partner, but she can ignore that and keep really looking forward to her future works!

Her Beloved Musics: Like the young celebrated pianist she is, Akamatsu’s favorite song are all state-of-art classical music. She casually namedrops famous songs like Satie’s Gyminopedia, Ravel’s Sonatine, Chopin’s Military Polonaise and Raindrop or Debussy’s Clair de Lune in regular conversation. Her acute sense to find rich emotions was most certainly fostered by her contact with famed songs.

The song she wanted to perform to encourage Saihara was Debussy’s Claire de Lune. It’s a song that moves people closer to her.

The Prologue to the Escape!: “The prisoners of Saishuu Academy will ultimately not manage to escape”. Monokuma said this as nothing but a threat. Even if he really means all the lunacies he says about the Killing Game, she will prove they can escape. With that idea stuck in her mind, Akamatsu encouraged her friends with her characteristic positivity and hot-blooded words, leading them to repeatedly embark on the secret road that looks like a possible secret exit. An underground tunnel with tons of traps and misteries waiting for them. But no matter how dangerous, she could never refuse to give a try as long there’s still a possibility. The 16 keep moving motivated by outstanding indomitable spirit, but for what end?!

The Pianist Loves Automated Mechanisms: A “Rube Goldberg Machine” is a mechanism that operates through multiple intrincately connected part moving in a chain reaction, similar to a karakuri puppet. This weirdly fun device, designed perform unnecessary domino effects and perform simple tasks through excessively complicated methods is named after its creator. Akamatsu is a real fan of this chain/domino setups and karakuris. I wonder if the hidden camera setup she thought up along with Saihara will work just as those?

Main Quotes: 

“Once all of us leave this place, how about we become friends outside?”: The Kiling Game enforced by Monokuma with their escape as the stakes. Strangers would naturally all throw suspicion leading to an unavoidable chain reaction of distrust, but things might be different if they are all trusted friends. But Akamatsu would never give to any to cause tragedy through discord. She declares everyone will overcome all dangers and become friends. If anyone was feeling down, she would use her strong positive words to make them believe in a future shining with the light of hope.

“That’s why... No matter how scary it is, we gotta fight. With the truth“: They must expose the culprit of the murder case among their surviving friends. Realizing how this fact is making Saihara tense, Akamatsu whispers to him: “I know you can do it“. Because they investigated together, she can fully trust and encourage him. For Saihara, who struggles because revealing the truth can make people suffre, her words feels like the biggest support he can get.

Final comment: Annoyingly unable to give up hope! After sheding her tears in secret, she will keep a strong face to encourage everyone one more time. Here starts heart-burning Akamatsu March!