#when himiko herself expresses this sentiment and the game tells you that that's wrong

[neodiekido]

it really steams me when people act like himiko got no development. even if you somehow missed the whole ending of chapter 3 where she finally stops repressing her feelings and sobs and swears that she'll make it out alive even though she's so lonely without angie and tenko, there's still a visible contrast between the apathetic, passively suicidal girl you first meet and later game himiko trying her best to keep going and keeping her chin up even though it's hard and scary

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.14

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, as trial 4 (trial 4!!!!) kicked into high gear upon Gonta being accused, Kaito unflinchingly believed in Gonta’s innocence until he suddenly didn’t and then immediately started running away from the truth, Shuichi did not run away from the truth and continued to heroically try and face it, Kokichi completely dropped the ball on emotionally tormenting Kaito over this kind of thing because he was too busy making everything about himself, and Kaito started making arguments he knew weren’t true in an attempt to sound like he’s just being logical and not running away from anything and most definitely isn’t weaker than Shuichi.

We just finished the Debate Scrum, meaning that everyone has (supposedly) acknowledged the possibility that Gonta could have done it.

Gonta: ��“But… Gonta telling truth… Gonta… r-really not culprit…”

Himiko:  “I… s-still don’t think Gonta’s lying…”

Himiko also apparently has a decent intuition for this! You’d think Kaito would be the first one to keep stressing this point and not her, but it seems Kaito is too busy hurting over the fact that Shuichi is clearly stronger than him to want to say something that’ll continue to make him look bad at facing the truth.

Kokichi:  “But… didn’t I tell you guys already? If you’re planning to expose a liar, then you have to corner then psychologically… Only then will they reveal their true self as a liar – hiding beneath a layer of deceit!”

Kokichi says “didn’t I tell you already” here because this is him quoting word-for-word something he originally said during trial 2 when he was trying to turn Kaito against Maki, which is a neat callback to that. This trial has a lot of thematic similarities with that one; there’s probably going to be a small bonus ramble about this.

Kokichi:  “That’s why it hurts my heart to persecute Gonta like this!”

I’m probably going to sound very unlike my usual self here, but… I think this sentiment of Kokichi’s might be genuine? I believe this moment is supposed to be a sign of the vague semblance of a decent person deep inside Kokichi clawing its way to the surface for a brief second and expressing the fact that he actually does hate that he’s doing this to Gonta.

I have specific reasons for thinking this that will come up in time, and I feel like I have to mention that to justify this interpretation, because without those reasons, this moment alone really wouldn’t do much to make me think that Kokichi actually means this. He says this literally straight after the previous part that I quoted. Kokichi has not really started to truly persecute Gonta and try to psychologically corner him yet, so if there was ever a moment in which the vaguely decent person inside Kokichi would be forced out of him for just a second, then it feels to me like it would take something more extreme and stressful than this. For the longest time, I did assume that this had to be just another lie, because of the way it’s presented.

Kokichi:  “Gonta! If you understand, then do it right! Make logical arguments for the truth!”

Either way, I said it was “briefly”, because in the very next sentence, Kokichi proceeds to… persecute Gonta, aka do the exact thing that he just claimed it was hurting him to do. Good job shoving that vague decency of yours right back down deep inside you and ignoring it like you’ve been doing this whole time, Kokichi.

From the perspective of the majority of Kokichi that’s just a dick and doesn’t care about Gonta, it makes sense why he’s getting so frustrated now – because he still doesn’t realise Gonta has forgotten everything, and he was hoping this would be a more “fun” battle of Gonta trying to defend himself than simply him repeating that he didn’t do it over and over again. Maybe he’s even kind of unnerved at the way Gonta is still apparently managing to keep up his “lie” of not knowing anything at all even now.

Kokichi:  “I’m sick of hearing you say you don’t know! God, why are you so dumb!?”

Gonta:  “Gonta just wanna help everyone! Like true gentleman!”

Kokichi:  “You’re a true gentleman!? More like a true nincompoop!”

Kokichi’s starting to sound really angry and frustrated here, which is in part him genuinely being frustrated at Gonta not giving the right reactions, but also could partly be a sign that being this awful to Gonta is stressing him out because of the vaguely decent part of him that doesn’t want to be doing this. Which is why I feel that now, after he’s begun to persecute Gonta and do something so stressful that’s hurting him deep down, would be the right time for him to have that moment of sudden stark honesty about his feelings, not beforehand.

Kokichi feeling like this when he’s bullying Gonta but not when he’s been bullying anyone else is perhaps partly down to the fact that Gonta is so open and honest about the distress this is causing him, making it much harder for Kokichi to tell himself he’s not being a terrible person, whereas the other people he’s been jabbing at mostly try to hide how much it gets to them (hi, Kaito). Then there’s the fact that he knows he’s getting Gonta killed by doing this, which is far worse than any of his usual low-level dickery. But it’s also probably in part just because it’s Gonta. Again, more on that later.

Himiko:  “Hey! Now that’s just bullying!”

Kokichi:  “…Bullying? Yeah, so what? That’s what you do in this game, right?”

It really doesn’t have to be. The only person who ever talked about it being necessary to psychologically corner people and persecute them until they slip up in order to reach the truth was… oh, right. You, Kokichi.

Kokichi essentially expressing the sentiment of “so long as everyone else is a bully, that makes it okay for me to be a bully too” sure explains a lot of things about him, by the way.

(Also remember how it was once hinted at that Himiko has been a victim of bullying herself. That might be why she’s the one to speak up to protest about Kokichi doing so to Gonta.)

Kokichi:  “You guys blame and gang up on me, but now you’re going to pretend to be good people?”

That’s one hell of a victim complex you’ve got there, dude.

I can believe that maybe once upon a time in Kokichi’s past (the past that we’re never going to learn anything concrete about because psh, who needs to properly understand why Kokichi acts this way), he was genuinely victimised and ganged upon in a way that he didn’t deserve. That would explain why he’s so quick to play the victim here and act like that’s what everyone else is doing to him now. But no – in this instance, he very much does deserve it. People are blaming him because he told lies that were only going to get in the way of reaching the truth and having everyone survive, and because, even if Gonta did do it, that is very clearly still partly Kokichi’s fault for manipulating him into it somehow (he’s already basically admitted as much). Blaming someone for doing bad things that they very clearly did does not make the person doing the blaming a bad person, especially not in this killing game where doing so is necessary to survive. Kokichi’s just trying to deflect all guilt from his conscience so he can keep telling himself he’s done nothing wrong, despite the fact that he has essentially killed two people and the second of those murders is currently in progress right now.

But no, you brought this upon yourself, Kokichi. If you really hate being blamed and “ganged up on” so much (which here is really just multiple people happening to have the same opinion of him; no-one is making deliberate use of their strength in numbers to oppress him), then maybe you should have acted in a way which doesn’t blatantly warrant it.

Himiko:  “N-No… I never ganged up—”

Kokichi:  “Gonta, argue back already!”

Also note how as soon as Himiko tries to point out that no ganging up has been happening (and if she’s been bullied herself, she should know quite well what real ganging up looks like just as much as Kokichi should), Kokichi immediately shifts back to persecuting Gonta rather than admit that he might be wrong.

Kokichi:  “Just make an excuse or… whatever!”

Kaito:  “Stop it!!! That’s enough!”

Kaito is Done with Kokichi’s bullshit and cannot bear to listen to him continually trying to hurt Gonta like this. I love the way he blurts this out out of nowhere, not to make any kind of argument but just because he wants this awfulness to stop.

Kaito:  “I don’t want to survive if it means I have to stoop to your level.”

Kaito means every single word of this. If the only way for him to survive would be to compromise everything he believes in and become someone like Kokichi who constantly hides their true intentions and is willing to hurt other people just to protect themselves, Kaito would rather die as himself than live as that person.

This is a very important line, and very similar to the time Kaede said, “Do you really think I’d kill someone just to get out?”. Kaede never actually broke those words of hers, and Kaito isn’t going to break these.

(In case you wondered just how relevant to Kaito’s overall story this line is, Heartless Journey, aka chapter 5’s theme aka the closest thing this game has to a theme for Kaito, is playing right now.)

Kokichi:  “Ooh, that’s a low blow right there…”

Yeah, it is. Kaito was simply stating the truth and not actively trying to make it a low blow, because he’s not Kokichi, but given how desperately Kaito wants to live, this is definitely a measure of just how disgusted he is by everything Kokichi stands for.

Kokichi:  “Then just die in a hole for all I care! We wanna live, so stop getting in our way!”

…Do you want to live, Kokichi? I thought your master plan that you’re working towards involves getting yourself killed. If you wanted to live, co-operating with everyone in escaping this place would have been the best way to do that, you know. You’re the one who’s been getting in the way of everybody else’s survival.

(Turns out Kaito is in fact going to die in a hole – one that’s even deeper than the diameter of the Earth. SPACE.)

Maki:  “Quit it. If you don’t shut your mouth, then I’ll shut it for you… permanently.”

Technically, Maki could actually do this right now with no repercussions. Gonta is currently the blackened, so if anyone else was murdered before his execution took place then it would come under the “if there are two murders at once, only the first one to be discovered will count” rule.

Gonta:  “Sorry… It Gonta’s fault everyone so upset…”

No, it’s not, Gonta! Just because they’re arguing over you doesn’t mean that the argument happening is your fault. It’s Kokichi’s.

(And okay, it is partially Gonta’s fault in terms of the Gonta who murdered Miu and gave Kokichi a reason to do this, but that’s not the Gonta who’s standing here.)

Gonta:  “Cuz Gonta not know anything! Really!”

Kokichi:  “Cut it out already! That’s all you’ve been saying this whole time!”

Yeah, Kokichi, maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe you should have noticed this forever ago, since you’re the one person who knows how he should have been acting, instead of assuming that he’s somehow been an amazing liar (because obviously everyone’s good at lying) until just now when he suddenly became terrible at it.

Shuichi:  “Did… Gonta get into an accident in the Virtual World?”

It’s also interesting to note that literally everyone has been participating in this big argument just now in at least some way (even though Keebo’s only contribution was to tell Maki to calm down, and Tsumugi also only had one line) – except for Shuichi. He was silent throughout the whole thing and speaks up now to present a concrete theory and move the actual logic along. He is very much coming across like the only person here who has their shit together.

Kaito:  “He doesn’t… remember?”

I like how Kaito is the one to most vocally react to this theory, because this would turn everything on its head for him if it were true.

I mentioned this last post when Kaito confidently asserted that Gonta isn’t lying: Kaito’s way of seeing the truth is through his intuition of people rather than through empirical evidence. He believes in people he wants to believe in because him “wanting to believe” happens when his intuition is telling him they’re a good person, and he has enough faith in that intuition that he can basically accept it as fact, even if he has no idea how to explain why he feels that way.

Kaito’s principles about believing in people also make a point that if he gets betrayed, that’s his fault for misjudging someone. But for him to acknowledge that he made a mistake in his original judgement, he needs to see something new in that person’s behaviour that makes him realise what their true colours are – because that instinctive judgement is still how he perceives things.

Both previous times that someone he believed in has been the culprit, that’s exactly what happened. In trial 1, Kaito was one of the first people other than Shuichi to notice Kaede acting in a way that suggested she did it. The only reason he still struggled to accept her guilt was because she was otherwise still acting like the same person who always cared about them, and he didn’t realise at the time that she could have done it for selfless reasons. Plus, crucially, he did manage to accept that she’d done it before her motive was explained, because he could still see that from the way she was acting. And in trial 2, while I’m sure Kaito wanted to believe in Kirumi as someone who’d always been helping everyone, he picked up on the fact that she was determined to protect an “everyone” who wasn’t everyone in here, and from that he could presumably accept that she was desperate enough to kill over it. Not only that, but she was acting considerably more forceful and desperate once she was the main suspect in a way that made it clear it really was her, and while Kaito wasn’t explicitly shown reacting to that, that’s definitely something that would have shifted his judgement of her.

If Gonta remembered committing the murder and was trying to cover it up, there would absolutely have been something noticeably off about his behaviour that hinted at that, something nervous and agitated and painfully desperate that Kaito would definitely have picked up on by now. He wouldn’t have attributed it to Gonta being the murderer until Kokichi mentioned it, but upon hearing that, it would make sense to him. This would still have been a struggle for Kaito to accept, but no more of one than it was in Kaede’s case, where he managed it in the end.

However, as things stand, Kaito hasn’t picked up on any such behaviour that might hint that Gonta is the culprit, which until just now he could tell himself means that Gonta surely can’t have done it, because he’s that confident in his intuition. But now that memory loss has been suggested, suddenly there’s another explanation for why he can’t see any hint of guilt in Gonta’s behaviour that still makes that guilt quite possible from Kaito’s point of view.

Kaito:  “What do you mean he doesn’t remember!? He’s just confused!”

And so Kaito almost immediately goes on to insist that that’s definitely not what’s happening, because Gonta being the culprit would be so agonisingly painful that he just can’t allow it to be possible.

Gonta:  “Memory or no memory… Gonta never hurt anyone!”

Meanwhile, of course Gonta couldn’t possibly conceive of any circumstance in which he would hurt anyone, even having accepted that he might have forgotten about something that happened.

Tsumugi:  “Gonta’s definitely not the culprit!”

Gonta:  “Gonta not culprit!”

Kaito:  “No way Gonta’s the culprit!”

This is also quite clearly the best Mass Panic Debate in the game! All the others just have three different suspects all going “I’m not the culprit!”, saying the same words but meaning three different things with them, but this one delightfully turns that on its head and has all three people saying and meaning exactly the same thing.

The point of a Mass Panic Debate is supposed to be to illustrate how things have gotten so heated that people are shouting over each other, but honestly in every other instance it feels kind of forced that people would get so worked up over being one of at least three potential suspects that they’d scramble to defend themselves so desperately. But in this case it works much better, since there is only one possible suspect right now, and things have already reached boiling point over it. If ever there was actually a time for a trial mechanic based around characters being incredibly worked up, it’s now.

This trial has both of my favourite Rebuttal Showdowns, my favourite Debate Scrum, my favourite Mass Panic Debate, and, as I’m sure you can already imagine, my favourite Argument Armament coming up. Trial 4 is by far the best trial at utilising the full potential of the narrative-driven trial minigames to enhance the drama and character dynamics going on.

Gonta:  “Gonta is gentleman! Gentlemen protect friends!”

How on earth could you put a weak spot on this as if it could possibly be untrue, game. That is just cruel.

Kokichi:  “Your lies aren’t protecting anyone, you know.”

Stop being a dick, Kokichi. You’ve finally accepted that he doesn’t remember; you know he isn’t lying. And if he did still remember and was still lying, then he would be doing so in an attempt to protect everyone. Fuck you.

Tsumugi’s whole argument is also just insisting that Gonta would never hurt anyone, and, again, credit to her for actually being committed to this bit, because it sounds genuine. Everything else about the “character” she’s been playing has been very vaguely defined, leading to her doing stuff like saying she thinks that someone is innocent for no particular reason since she secretly knows who the real culprit is, and flip-flopping over whether a resurrected Rantaro did it in case 3 just to mess with Kaito. But there has been a consistent thread of her being on Gonta’s side this whole time. Maybe he’s her favourite character.

It’s also noteworthy that this would be the first case in which Tsumugi probably didn’t know who the culprit was going into the trial, because this case isn’t her story – it’s Kokichi’s. Still, I think that with her detachment from this whole thing, she probably has accepted that Gonta did it now, especially since it would make the best possible story if he did (and because she’s the only one who currently knows what his motive would be). So she’s just deliberately contributing to the heartwrenching nature of that story by continuing to pretend to be someone who believes in him and can’t bear to think he could kill anyone.

That said, I feel like it would have had more of an impact if the third most adamant person here was Himiko instead of Tsumugi. Gonta helped her quite a bit through her issues at the end of last chapter and the beginning of this one, even outside of the optional bonus scene, so it’d make her character arc still feel relevant if that resulted in her being noticeably one of the most passionate people about this. Himiko does believe in Gonta as things stand, but it’s not really emphasised very much.

Kaito:  “If there was a glitch… it should have affected all of us! But because we’re all okay… that means there was no glitch!”

Meanwhile, Kaito is the only person making a logical argument. He’s not joining in with the insistence that Gonta would simply never hurt anyone even though I’m sure he wants to, because he knows that logical arguments are necessary in order to not sound like he’s running away from the truth.

Gonta and even Tsumugi aren’t bothering to address the memory loss angle, because that doesn’t really change anything about the fact that they believe Gonta would never kill anyone. It doesn’t change anything about the objective evidence which points to Gonta being the culprit either, since the evidence has nothing to do with how the Gonta standing in front of us is behaving. But this means everything to Kaito. If Gonta doesn’t remember, then despite how very definitely he isn’t lying, suddenly his guilt wouldn’t seem so impossible to Kaito at all.

Shuichi:  (I know it sounds crazy, it’s no wonder it’s hard to believe… But… this is the truth…)

Shuichi is still keeping the fact that he’s finding this difficult to accept restricted to his inner monologue. On the surface, he’s just looking like he can face the truth without any struggle at all.

Oh, and – Kaito Refutations: 6!

Kokichi:  “If he mixed the consciousness and memory cords, then there’d be an error with memory. Like… an error that won’t let you bring your avatar’s memories to the real world…”

Kaito:  “Wh-What!?”

I adore that they chose to use this sprite for Kaito’s reaction here. I’m pretty sure he only ever looks this utterly horrified at two other points in the story – after Gonta’s execution, and upon seeing the “outside world”. Kaito has very good reason to look equally horrified here upon realising that Gonta really did lose his memory. Not only does this make it suddenly possible in Kaito’s eyes that Gonta could have done it, it also conversely means that actually accepting Gonta did it is going to be almost impossible for him. Kaito’s way of perceiving and understanding the truth is through his instinctive judgement of people – but if Gonta forgot everything, then the Gonta who actually participated in the events of the case and may or may not have killed Miu isn’t here. If Gonta really did do it, Kaito would never be able to “see” that. He’s just going to have to believe that Gonta did something awful with no “proof” – not what he instinctively uses as proof, that is – and there’s no way Kaito could ever do that.

The out-universe writers didn’t only choose to have Gonta lose his memory because it’s heartbreaking from Gonta’s point of view (and therefore for everyone else in their sympathy towards Gonta) in that he’s technically still innocent – it’s also a crucial part of why Kaito in particular has such a big problem with facing this truth. If it wasn’t for this, Kaito might have been able to accept it.

Himiko:  “I said it over and over!” [gesturing with her right hand] “Right is the hand you hold your chopsticks in!”

Gonta:  [raising his left hand] “Oh, but Gonta hold chopsticks with this hand…”

And here we have the most unique and clever use of a character’s left-handedness in a murder mystery ever.

This isn’t about Gonta being stupid. This is a problem of language. He was raised for most of his childhood speaking his forest family’s language such that he apparently doesn’t know which directions the human words “left” and “right” refer to. When they were talking about where to put the cords, Gonta must have been hesitant to speak up to ask what those words meant because he assumed it was something he was supposed to know and didn’t want to sound stupid and get in everybody’s way. Then Himiko helpfully told him which hand “right” is, so he didn’t have to!

(It’s actually possible that his forest language doesn’t even have direct equivalents to those words. I gather that there are some aboriginal languages that refer to direction in absolute terms rather than relative, meaning that people will always talk about things using compass directions regardless of which direction they’re personally facing. Your right hand could for example be “your north hand” or “your south hand” depending on which way you’re facing, even though it’s the same hand, and there is no concept of “right”. Maybe Gonta’s forest language was like that too.)

Apparently Gonta is also unaware of the fact that his left-handedness is uncommon, otherwise he would have realised that Himiko might not be talking about the hand he uses and made sure to clarify it. Either his forest culture never really made a big deal of handedness in general, or Reptites are predominantly left-handed, so that Gonta never realised he was unusual for humans. There you go, I figured out some Chrono Trigger lore which is totally canon, right.

Gonta:  “Gonta not even go to this ‘Ver-chew-ul World’ place…”

Tsumugi:  “What…?”

Gonta:  “Gonta fall asleep when he put helmet on… When Gonta wake up… Miu dead… Gonta not know what happened…”

And finally everyone listens to Gonta for long enough and Gonta explains himself well enough for them to realise that, oh shit, he literally meant this the whole time. We could have had everyone figure this out earlier if they hadn’t written Gonta off as stupid or if Gonta had been more assertive about things, and it wouldn’t actually have changed that much about how this trial went – everyone would have just been all, “oh, well that’s awkward, guess you can’t be much help here, Gonta,” and continued on regardless. But having it be revealed only now when the fact that Gonta forgot everything suddenly makes it more believable that he’s the culprit (especially to Kaito) is the perfect way to do it.

Gonta:  “But Gonta try his best to understand. Gonta imagine real hard—”

I know you did, Gonta! You’ve been trying so hard to picture everything everyone’s been talking about and still be helpful!

Gonta:  “W-Wait a minute! That lie! Gonta not kill Miu! Cuz… why would Gonta do that!?”

Kaito:  “Yeah, it’s a lie! I’ll never accept this! And besides! Gonta’s got no motive to kill Miu!”

That’s exactly why this is so goddamn hard for both of them – there is no conceivable reason Gonta would ever have done it based on what they know, and so long as Gonta doesn’t remember (and Kokichi doesn’t tell them), they’re never going to think otherwise.

Kokichi:  “…I already gave you my testimony on how I came up with the murder plan.”

Kaito:  “And I’m saying I don’t believe you!”

Shuichi:  “Kokichi, if what you’re saying is true, why did you plan it this way?”

Hah, I like the way it immediately shifts from Kaito’s overemotional anger to Shuichi’s calm and reasoned logic, showing even more the contrast between the two and that Kaito’s way of going about things is not the right way to do this at all.

Monokuma:  “Only the person who actually commits the murder becomes the blackened!”

Keebo:  “Then there’s no incentive to just plan the murder…”

That’s only if the goal is escaping. If someone wanted something other than escape, such as, I don’t know, to kill two people without any repercussions to themselves at all, then there is absolutely incentive to just plan and instigate a murder without personally carrying it out.

Shuichi:  “But Gonta’s such a gentle soul. Why would he agree to this?”

Kaito:  “Hold on! That hasn’t been decided yet!”

Oh, Kaito. Shuichi’s asking basically the same question Kaito just was – questioning what Gonta’s motive would be – but he’s wording it in a way that implies he’s already assuming Gonta did it, and Kaito’s having none of that.

Kokichi:  “Who cares about the motive? Let’s vote for the culprit already.”

I wonder if Kokichi’s trying to skip ahead to the vote now because he knows he’s convinced enough people already. Himself, Shuichi, Keebo and probably Maki by this point are pretty sure Gonta did it. Gonta, Kaito and probably Tsumugi (as far as she’s pretending) aren’t, and I’m not sure about Himiko, but even if Himiko also isn’t, that’d put it at an even split – which is exactly what Kokichi asked Monokuma about at the beginning and learned would still count as a win for the spotless. (Maybe. That bit was more awkward than I originally thought, actually.)

Tsumugi:  “I care about the motive!”

Kokichi:  “Well, I don’t care. Finding the culprit is more important in this class trial. Talking about the motive is meaningless. It’s not necessary for this specific case.”

It wasn’t necessary for any of the other cases either, but that didn’t mean we didn’t talk about it anyway to put everyone’s minds at ease (or not, in Kiyo’s case). I could go on about how much of a dick Kokichi’s being here, but obviously that’s the idea: he knows that not knowing Gonta’s motive makes this more painful for everyone and he’s trying to make a point of how evil he is. That and if they don’t know Gonta’s motive then it’s totally just that this person everyone trusted was actually a horrible backstabber all along and couldn’t possibly have done it for a reason that meant he still deserved their trust, right? – although admittedly he’s not actively trying to get across that point here, because, again, I don’t think doing so by making Gonta a murderer was ever him consciously thinking about that.

Kaito:  “No matter what you say… I’ll never believe your lies.”

Kokichi’s being an inconsiderate dick right now, but he’s not actually lying, because these are the kind of statements that can’t even be lies. Kaito just can’t deal with this and is lashing out at Kokichi, not even for the well-deserved reason that he’s being a terrible fucking person, but for the incorrect notion that he’s lying about all this, because if he is then that means Gonta’s not guilty and that has to be the truth.

Kokichi:  “Shuichi! You’ll be my partner, right!?”

Shuichi:  (…Me?)

Kokichi:  “Because if you don’t face the truth then we’ll all die, riiiiight? And you don’t want that, do you?”

Oh, finally, Kokichi’s actually mentioning the meaningful point that the real reason Shuichi is doing this is to save everyone. Took him long enough.

Kokichi:  “O-kaaay! Let’s begin!”

Kaito:  “Quit screwing around! I’m done putting up with your selfish bullshit!”

Kaito does not want any of this to happen. He knows deep down that Gonta really must have done it and that if this process of elimination that Kokichi’s about to begin happens then it’ll just become even more obviously undeniable – and therefore even more clear that Kaito just isn’t strong enough to face the truth.

Keebo:  “Kaito, we should listen to his explanation. Our lives depend on it.”

Kaito:  “Grh…”

And then not even Kokichi or Shuichi but Keebo points out that Kaito’s inability to face the truth is just going to put everyone’s lives in danger if anyone else decides to go along with it. Kaito’s not happy about having that mentioned.

Kokichi:  “Shuichi, would you care to explain? I doubt they’ll believe it if it came from me.”

I mean, they should believe it no matter who it comes from, because again, it’d be the kind of statement that’s just a statement of facts about the case and cannot be a lie. But Kaito at least would almost certainly refuse to believe it anyway, using the fact that Kokichi said it as an excuse to run away from the part where it’s still objectively true regardless. However, if Shuichi explains it, even Kaito couldn’t deny it, because Kaito knows Shuichi’s always right about everything, and Kokichi of course knows full well that Kaito sees him that way.

Shuichi:  “They couldn’t get to the crime scene, could they?”

Kokichi:  “The bridge from the chapel to the mansion was gone, and only Miu could pass through the wall. The three at the chapel had no way to get to the mansion, so they couldn’t have done it.”

That said, Kokichi still explains most of this himself, and will do this same thing for all of the elimination steps. All he’s doing is getting Shuichi to essentially endorse his statements so that no-one (not even Kaito) can argue. It would have been more painfully jabbing at Kaito’s jealousy if Kokichi had forced Shuichi to explain the whole thing. Come on, Kokichi, you’ve been slipping on this for the entire second half of the trial.

Shuichi:  (The reason why Kaito isn’t a suspect is…)

-      He wouldn’t kill anybody

I like how this is one of the possible answers to write off Kaito. It’s very true! But… it’s also true about Gonta, and yet here we are.

Look at Kaito turning away like this even though it’s currently being explained why he’s innocent – he can’t be happy about that, not now. Perhaps Shuichi looked in Kaito’s direction while saying his part and Kaito couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

I would also like to point out that this is not the sprite Kaito had the last time he had a text box, and Kokichi is the one speaking here, so Kaito shouldn’t have changed sprites. They put in another exception to the game’s usual coding on this so that Kaito would be painfully facing away from Shuichi as the camera focused on him here!

(Okay, they actually changed everyone’s sprites in this bit while Kokichi is explaining how each of them couldn’t have done it. But shush, it definitely has the most impact with Kaito.)

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh… Kokichi’s completely running the show now.”

Kaito:  “…”

This is the first time this trial that the camera has panned to Kaito saying nothing and it hasn’t been about Shuichi, and I’m disappointed. Shuichi could be the one running the show right now if Kokichi really wanted him to be! That would hurt Kaito more!

Kokichi:  “My synergy with Shuichi is super on point now, so let’s move onto the remaining suspects.”

Yeah, no, that’s not what synergy means. None of this is the two of you working together to figure out something you couldn’t have done alone. This is just you forcing Shuichi to join in with stating facts that you both figured out completely separately.

Side note: what was Kokichi planning to do here if Shuichi and Tsumugi didn’t completely coincidentally happen to be together at the time the crashing sound happened? …Then again, I suppose Shuichi would immediately have run to the dining room and found Tsumugi there anyway so that’d have been good enough.

Kokichi:  “That leaves only Gonta and me as the remaining suspects…”

Kaito:  “Then you’re the culprit!”

Oh, Kaito. You know that’s not true.

Kokichi:  “So then, it’s down to one person. And who was that again?”

Gonta:  “Uh… Uhhh…”

Gontaaaaaaaa. He hasn’t had attention drawn to him at all throughout this whole process of elimination, but apparently what he was doing during it was slowly breaking down sobbing. Even though he doesn’t want to believe he did it, Shuichi says it couldn’t be anyone but him, and Shuichi is always right, isn’t he…?

Kokichi:  “Weeeell? Who is it?”

Kaito:  “Don’t answer, Shuichi! You don’t need to answer that!”

This whole time, while Shuichi has been unflinchingly acknowledging the possibility that Gonta could have done it, he still hasn’t actually stated for certain that he did. Kaito doesn’t want him to answer because if he does, that’ll make it the truth – after all, Shuichi is always right, isn’t he? Not only that, but it’ll be Shuichi very explicitly and directly facing that truth, which is exactly what Kaito can’t do.

Kaito:  “This is all Kokichi’s trap!”

And this is the only thing Kaito can think of that would justify why Shuichi shouldn’t answer that, even though that possibility doesn’t change the fact that this is what the evidence points towards. This is Kokichi’s trap, but it’s a trap that uses the truth.

It is absolutely evil (in a good way) that the game’s creators make you go into the accusation screen and officially accuse a helplessly sobbing Gonta. Every other time they’ve used that screen, it’s been because identifying the culprit was the player figuring out a new fact that hadn’t been established yet. But we’ve been talking about it being Gonta for a while now. This isn’t necessary at all, yet the writers force you to feel just as awful as Shuichi does by making you do this anyway.

(They also force you to face the truth even though it hurts to do, just like Shuichi is doing. Kaito would have stayed on the accusation screen until the time limit ran out and failed the trial. Or repeatedly tried to accuse Kokichi until he ran out of health.)

Shuichi:  “I-It’s… it’s… Gonta.”

Kaito:  “Sh-Shuichi!?”

Sorry, Kaito. Shuichi really is a lot stronger than you are right now.

The last two times Shuichi accused someone he wanted to believe in (by which I mean not Kiyo, why is case 3 even a thing), he had difficulty doing so and needed encouragement to manage it, from Kaede herself in the first case and from Kaito in the second. But now he can do it not only without Kaito’s encouragement but while Kaito is actively trying to discourage him.

Still, Shuichi clearly had some trouble saying that, so it’s not that he’s doing it without struggling over it! But it doesn’t look like Kaito can see past the fact that he did it at all to recognise that.

Kokichi:  “You get it now, right? That’s the truth we were all reaching for. The thing you guys wanted so badly! A truth without any lies!”

Geez, Kokichi, stop sounding so goddamn victimised over this. The only reason everyone wants nothing but the truth right now is because Monokuma decided that we all die if we don’t find it. They’re not doing it to spite you in particular.

Kokichi:  “Miu Iruma’s killer is… Gonta Gokuhara!”

Shuichi:  “…Ah!”

Shuichi is still struggling a little bit with this! He can entertain possibilities and follow the logic wherever it goes, but his issues still make directly accusing people the most difficult part for him.

This is the one time so far that Shuichi has visibly shown difficulty in facing this truth, something that hasn’t just been in his inner monologue. Ideally Kaito would notice this and it might help him just a little… but I don’t think he does. I think he’s too caught up in the fact that Shuichi can face this impossibly painful truth at all while he can’t. All Kaito’s seen this whole trial is Shuichi being an invincible hero who very clearly doesn’t need his help, to the point that that’s the image he’s projecting onto Shuichi even now that it’s not quite the image Shuichi’s giving off.

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