#yttd 3-1b spoilers

[friskyb1tz]

shunsuke hayasaka is my cringefail normalcore special princess and i want to put him in a hydraulic press

[doonalli]

Mai and Humanity in Autonomy (Mai Character Analysis)

I think Mai Tsurugi is a character who has a lot to her and while I know she is talked about a bit I think she should be talked about more because she is a truly fantastic character and I hope this post gets you to start thinking about how and why!!

To understand Mai’s character I think it's important to talk about a major theme in 3-1. Obviously at its core Chapter 3 Part 1 is about what makes something human, and its shown through each of the dummies, each encompassing a different aspect of humanity, and for Mai this is the humanity of being able to make your own choices.

And this is made extremely clear during one major point in 3-1 where Ranmaru gives a speech about how humanity is about making your own choices after Keiji gets locked in a coffin. 

And throughout the chapter Mai ends up emboding everything that Ranmaru and this scene is trying to say.

In this speech Ranmaru states that being human is about making your own choices, something that's a constant struggle for Mai’s character, but also something she ends up learning throughout the chapter and finally proving her humanity through it.

and Mai is the one who by far encapsulates this the most throughout 3-1, ironic considering how she is also the only one who didn’t get to hear the speech on account of being unconscious.

When we first meet Mai it’s as a doll during the Murderer Game, the subgame in which the survivors must kill Midori in order to proceed however the dolls instead have a different objective. As a doll Mai is told she must kill her partner (in this case being Q-taro) if she wants to survive. Here she starts off as someone unable to make her own choices and that's shown off almost immediately when Mai ends up being the first doll to play into Midori's hands and try to kill their partner, it's a choice that was set up for her, not something she chose herself but rather it's just her playing along with Midori's puppet show. However, after she wakes from being knocked out by Qtaro we see the first signs of her breaking from that.

When she wakes up, we see the aftermath of her choice from her perspective, and she regrets it, not from a regret of her betrayal but because of her failure.

If Sara tells her “you’re awake…” she’ll say

Its only when Qtaro decides to forgive that she finally regrets her actions

And Qtaro tells her that this doesn’t mean anything, as he claims he would have done the same, and the only thing that stopped him was that he was never given the opportunity. The only thing stopping him was the lack of a choice in the matter, mirroring how the only thing pushing Mai is the looming threat that if she doesn’t kill she dies. Both given only having one real choice presented to them. 

Q-taro even said as much right after Mai stabbed him.

Q-taro calls out the lack of choice the dummies have in the matter, and makes it clear that its Midori who has control over them. Forcing them to play along with his puppet show.

Once Mai is awake it's from this point forward where we see more of who she really is, rather than the cutesy persona she put on before, and that's shown through her actions. 

As a first step towards reconciliation Mai steps up to take Qtaro off Yabusame’s hands and let him lean on her instead. (and if Anzu died Gin will tell Mai that they can take turns if she gets tired, to which she thanks Gin)

The next scene I want to talk about is when Hinako asks the dummies how they plan on surviving with both the humans and the dummies intact. If Anzu and Hayasaka both died earlier Mai will step up to fight back against Hinako and Kurumada’s reluctance.

Rather than speaking from a reluctance to kill such kind people like Anzu or Hayasaka, she argues from experience. She can’t say she couldn’t kill them, but she still doesn’t want her allies to feel the same feeling she did, even if she would have to stop them herself

Finally when Maple starts going on a rampage she decides to risk her life to stay behind and protect Qtaro. Interestingly she also is required to beat the Maple fight as she is the one who reads Maple’s instruction manual and figures out what must be done, which leads into the connection Mai and Maple have in their arcs.

Speaking of, during Keiji’s POV section, Mai and Qtaro hide in the coffins to get away from Maple until they’re unlocked and they are able to save Keiji. Qtaro gets the idea to shut off the elevators to stop Maple from being able to get to the 5th floor after the others. Maple then stumbles in and collapses, starting another scene which highlights the connection Mai and Maple have.

And she explains that her goal as an obstructor was to kill Midori, however there was something that stood in the way of that.

Maple regrets the terrible things she did to everyone but Mai tells her it's because the cast took the ID card from her. Maple tells her that it was because she was programmed into loving Midori, that even this love wasn’t her choice and ultimately relegates her to a “gimmick”, robbing her of her autonomy, a similar situation as to what happened with Mai. During the Murderer game Mai alongside the rest of the dummies are reduced to gimmicks, to the point that unlocking the first level of “gimmick security” lets you see information on the dummies and their collars,

and unlocking the second level causes the victim videos of the dummies to play, ending with a video of what happened as they woke up. Its clear that, to Midori and Asunaro at least, the dummies are simply gimmicks for the Murderer Game.

And this is shown again when Maple explains the true meaning of the “Murderer game”, and how they were pushed into thinking that killing the survivors was their only choice, despite that not being the case.

However Mai doubts it at first, saying

She wonders if Asunaro would even charge them if their battery runs out, she then insists Asunaro was planning on disposing of them from the start, and that they were just watching them struggle helplessly.

Until Qtaro speaks up to make a promise to Mai,

Through the Banquet and Qtaro’s promise a new path opens up, one paved through the bonds between the humans and the dolls. A new choice was created, a choice they made themselves, separate from the “the human lives or the doll lives” dichotomy they were fed before. And with Mai’s help, alongside Qtaro and Keiji, this choice became an actual possibility. 

Once Keiji leaves to charge the Midori doll’s head Mai and Qtaro stay behind and they end up enacting their own plan to help everyone during the banquet. Qtaro lays down in Keiji’s coffin, taking his death into his own hands, in a way alleviating the blame from Mai for her actions, and opening up a new possibility for the dummies with the banquet. Mai still cries out that it's her fault. However the death now has a purpose, has a reason past Mai’s mistake, and it changes the death from one done by a lack of choice, to one that opens up new choices from a lot more people.

From here Mai is alone, with Keiji on the 5th floor and Qtaro gone, she is the only one who is left that knows about the plan, and the only one at all who knows about Qtaro. From here she walks her own path, obtains the ID card from Sara and starts to boot up the Qtaro AI into the doll. Soon an announcement from “Keiji” calling for Sara occurs and Mai tries to push everyone to go with her, likely to make sure Keiji isn’t spotted on the way down, but Sara charges on alone regardless, leaving Mai alongside the rest of the others, and with no Keiji in sight.

She then later meets up with Sara alongside the others and a new Q-taro doll in the classroom after Sara awakens from being stunned.

Very quickly I want to call attention to a scene in the Logic route after Ranmaru kills Yabusame.

After Ranmaru claims that this is the only way left to save Sara, Hinako calls him out on wanting to save himself, causing him to retaliate by asking when she decided to side with them. Hinako, shocked, doesn't manage to reply, but Mai steps in to tell Ranmaru that no one would side with him.

In a way Ranmaru in the Logic Route is the exact opposite of what Mai is striving for. Just the same as her, he killed someone to survive, and while she wouldn’t know that Ranmaru was pushed into this choice by Sara’s words, similar to what Midori did to Mai, there is a large difference in the fact that Ranmaru’s goal includes killing everyone to save himself and Sara but even past that he revels in what he did as the right choice, mirroring Mai’s almost immediate regret at her actions. Even the way she specifically kills her partner while Ranmaru's goal is to kill everyone EXCEPT his partner adds to this.

Right afterwards the fight against Maple 2.0 happens, and there are a couple moments I want to discuss on how they pertain to this theme of making your own choices shared between the two. Firstly, Maple’s first attack.

But, despite her own thoughts…

Here Maple is stuck following orders, and Mai understands that, she tries to tell her to be strong. However this doesn’t end up working out and Maple throws her first attack of the fight, regardless of what she truly thinks.

Next, Mai’s early death.

Mai ends up dying due to Maple’s lack of autonomy in her own actions, and Midori mocks her in that, asking her “You fine with that Maple…?” despite knowing he has her wrapped around his finger. The way Mai dies is in a way she personally could relate to, and relates to her final apology to Q-taro.

In both examples Maple is trapped by her programming in the same way Mai was trapped by the knowledge that she must kill to survive, but Maple shows something important with her final moments.

As she is about to die she breaks from Midori’s control on her and uses this chance to die alongside him, thanking everyone and saying she has “finally woken up” if Mai lived or denying Midori’s reward if she died instead. 

When she finally catches up to him Midori in a last ditch effort tells Maple that he loves her, trying to abuse the programming placed into her, and Sara has 3 possible responses she can give. “He’s lying” and “Hurry up and finish him” both leading him to restate the sentiment that he loves her, but this time Maple isn’t led astray and affirms that she won’t believe him. And if Sara says “Don’t kill him” she continues to lead her own decision stating that she will herself.

However despite this her body fails and she isn’t able to kill him. In the Logic Route, if Ranmaru is still alive, this is specifically caused by Ranmaru shocking her with his stun gun finger, adding another layer to my earlier point on how he is the opposite of Mai with him denying Maple’s own final action. Notably Mai sits down next to Maple’s corpse during the pre-banquet.

Despite this However Maple’s attack showed us cracks in Midori’s facade, cracks that will eventually break him. Maple’s actions here are the first step to breaking Midori and truly winning.

And this is shown in full force during the banquet with Mai’s decision, but before that I want to talk about a scene that occurs beforehand.

When the possibility of a human being a part of the dummies is brought into question, the realisation that Mai isn’t the exact same as her doll comes to light. Eventually this leads to the horrible truth that Mai’s hands aren’t actually her hands at all, but rather Midori’s human hands. In a way this is the physical manifestation that Mai’s actions weren’t by her own hands, but rather she was a tool for Midori, playing along with his puppet show. (and yet another mirror to Ranmaru who also had a scene focusing on his hands earlier in the chapter.)

Upon this reveal Mai swears she’ll kill Midori, something missing from Qtaro’s words if she died, instead his resolve is shaken, wondering if they’ll even be able to beat a guy like him. And this leads to the epitome of her arc, the third hint.

When Sara is forced to pick a red coffin she is afraid to make the choice in fear that her logic isn’t even correct. This is where Mai steps in to tell her to pick a red coffin so she can win.

Mai encompasses Ranmaru’s words from the start of the chapter, no longer too scared to die that she can’t even resist Midori’s hold on her, but proving her humanity by taking her life into her own hands to stand up against Midori, to claim her autonomy, because that's what separates a human from a tool. She quite literally made her own choice with the Banquet, allowing both the humans and the dolls an opportunity to make it through together, a possibility opened through the bonds between the humans and dolls, Qtaro and Mai being at the forefront of that.

Now Mai is willingly telling Sara to choose a coffin, even if its at the cost of her life. She isn’t going to allow Midori control over anyone again. The Mai we see before us here is so different from the at the start of the chapter, one who was too afraid to fight back and make and descision for herself. And even as far back as her victim video where she couldn’t even make a choice between which gun she needs to pick,and died as a result of her panicked state, where she shot the wrong gun. The through line of guns being present in both scenarios also adds to this aspect.

Mai proves humanity through actions, because being human means being able to make your own choices, something both Mai and Maple struggled with at first, but also something they ended up demonstrating over the chapter. They proved their humanity by not letting their actions be decided by another, to not be treated like a tool. Because being human means being able to have autonomy in your actions and Mai proved without a doubt that she is human, despite the physical aspect of being a doll. Because while a doll can’t move, talk or feel without someone forcing it, it's nothing but expected for a human.

==================================================================================================

WOOO MAI ANALYSIS DONE!!! only one dummie left!!! hopefully soon???

Also kinda a Maple analysis by mistake LOL hopefully that's okay lmao, the characters are majorly linked to each other so it didn't feel right to just omit her

But yeah hopefully you enjoyed this and it got you to think about Mai and Maple a bit more as characters, if you liked this and its the first one you've seen then I've got more analyses like these on my blog

and of course its not lost on me the fact that its the 2 women dolls that have an arc about their autonomy, and I love how it falls into YTTD's themes of gendered power as a whole

And as of the day I'm releasing this HAPPY ANNIVERSARY 3-1B!!! The best chapter! I hope this counts as a good enough anniversary post lol, the dummies are a major part of 3-1 after all! I'm happy to give more 3-1 content to the world!

As for now though, I hope you enjoyed and see you next time for my Hinako analysis!!!

[rookeryyy]

Struck with a vision.

[mrfangirlapocalypse]

HELP

[ariapmdeol]

sent this at the speed of light. ranmaru kageyama from yttd bela lugosi is dead

We're gonna win, aren't we...?

[miztrixx]

Potential (and underutilized) dynamics between the Dummies and the participants in 3-1 (part 1, I may do more of these in the future)

(SPOILERS UP TO 3-1B)

The Dummies are pretty much the most underutilized part of YTTD, at least in my opinion. During the actual game, we only ever got to see their dynamics with each other, Sara or with their partners (in some cases they never really even interacted with their partner like with Anzu) Which is really sad because there are a lot of great dynamics I could see forming between certain Dummies and participants.

Kurumada and Q-Taro: We get to see a bit of their dynamic in the game, what with their banter about Q-Taro being an old-timer and stuff like that. Kurumada's scene in the Emotion Route where he tells Kanna and Q-Taro about the difference between "winning" and "not losing" is also really interesting to me, considering Q-Taro brings it up later and Kurumada's backstory. If they were paired up, I do think Kurumada would try to kill Q-Taro given his whole philosophy about first-rates and second-rates and it'd be really interesting to see how Q-Taro would handle it/forgive him like he did with Mai in the actual game.

Shin and (Fake) Hinako: These two definitely share a lot of parallels with each other, what with them having the lowest percentage rates and them both being impersonating little identity-stealers. Beyond that, I think Shin and Hinako would be a very interesting pair thematically because whereas Shin is a very emotionally-driven character, Fake Hinako is a much more logically/self-preservationally-driven one. But the interesting part is how they both come to the same conclusion: distrust. Seeing as how Hinako was paired up with Sara's biggest ally in the real game, I wonder how she would react to being paired up with Sara's worst enemy. Hell I could see Shin and Hinako teaming up and working against Sara in 3-2, if Hinako were to survive the Banquet.

Ranmaru and Kanna: This one I mostly just find a bit funny but there is some good potential to it: If Ranmaru was paired up with anyone other then Sara he would definitely try to kill him, his will to live is really strong and without a huge crush in the way, I'd say he has enough motivation to go through with it. And when he tries to kill Kanna, Kanna would of course forgive him being the little bean she is and I'd think she'd see a lot of Shin in him and try to resonate with him through a little speech, sort of how she did with Kurumada in canon.

Anzu and Keiji: Pairing up Keiji, someone who is extremely depressed, very reclusive and self-deprecative, with Anzu, someone who is always very light-hearted and tries her best to empathize/connect, would definitely be a sight for the eyes. Would it balance out? Would Anzu absorb some of Keiji's pessimistic attitude? Would Keiji lighten up for a change? When Keiji gets trapped in the coffin, I think Anzu would be just as motivated as Sara to save him if they were partners. She just can't bring herself to kill him, at all.

Mai and Gin/Kanna: I'm grouping this one together because although I think there would be differences based on whether or not it would be Gin or Kanna paired up with Mai, I'm mainly just going to focus on the quality both of them have that would impact Mai: being a kid. I think Mai would still put on her innocent bubbly persona on, maybe even acting quite motherly to Kanna/Gin, but would she actually go through with trying to kill/harm them? Maybe she would try to find some painless way to kill them or should we put her faith in the group as a whole. If they were to survive her murder attempt, Kanna would most likely just act like Q-Taro in canon whereas Gin might be way more scared of her and such.

Kanna and (Fake) Hinako: These two are often paired together as friends or as a ship and there's a lot of fan content where these two interact. But what I see basically never discussed is the thematic potential their pairing has, it's basically a mirror to the Shin and Hinako parallels I talked about earlier but inverted. Shin and Hinako have different motivations but reach the same conclusion whereas Kanna and Hinako are both quite logical characters (Kanna begs for you to choose the logical option in 2-2) and have the same viewpoints but come to differing conclusions: trust and distrust. Hinako would try to kill Kanna in my opinion because the way I see it, the only reason she didn't try to kill Keiji was because of strength and later on, sympathy. Would Kanna survive/overpower her? Who knows, but Kanna would definitely try to empathize/connect with Hinako, especially since they're around the same age.

That's it for now, but I might do more in the future!

[m0th-misruled]

some angsty gin art i did!!!

song lyrics are from This Night Has Opened My Eyes by The Smiths bc that specific lyric fits his lost memory scene a little.... TOO much./j

the blue glove past gin is wearing is a weighted glove, relating to a few headcanons i have about his backstory, meant to restrict him from stimming. i might make a more formal post about that soon, and also some writing relating to it 👀

[thatonegaybastard]

if u like yttd and i am not following you trust me it is an honest mistake just consider us mutuals

YIipppeeeeeeeeee!!!

[kasterarts]

Moving Forward. (Spoilers for YTTD up through 3-1b)

[redpeng]

He does this in the game

this specific genre of vn gif

[avatarofthetired]

YTTD 3-1b Spoilers

Maple saying “WE’LL DIE TOGETHER HIYORI” and midori being scared shitless and saying “you can die by yourself, I’m good” never fails to make me CACKLE he’s such a LOSER trying to be all strong and nonchalant but under threat of death he can’t keep himself composed

I find it very interesting how he did everything he could to abandon humanity and weakness while keeping his “human” mental state (no coding I believe just new body parts), but has something as human as a fear of death

Ranger, known as the “most human of the dolls” did not seem to feel much of a desire to live, which is why he found the real Hinako pathetic when she thanked him for killing her and didn’t put up a fight

But Midori is punished with something so natural, so vulnerable, so painfully human that he can’t get rid of no matter how hard he tries

Again, what a LOSER (him/sou parallels are very interesting tho) (as well as maple/sou but that’s not relevant to this)

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

i miss my YTTD era so much i am so ready to go back

playing 3-1B the MINUTE the translation was released even though it was eleven o'clock at night in my timezone because i felt the need to play through it ALL immediately to avoid waking up to spoilers, eventually finishing Shin's route at four in the morning is SUCH an important memory for me

[lattedecoffee]

SPOILERS BELOW FOR YTTD 2-1 AS WELL AS KAI’S MINISODE

Been replaying YTTD on the Steam release and I of course had to choose Reko lives route because I’m very gay (I was still very sad to kill Feko and Alice though). However, while Ranger is taunting Reko about her now dead brother, we get this little line. Previously, it just seemed like Ranger’s usual shenanigans. But given the context of Kai’s mini episode...

Does Ranger know that he is a doll of Sei? Given his lack of reaction to Kai in the recap between 2-1 and 2-2, it seems that he’s unaware of the memories of the human he’s based on (unlike other dolls we meet like Feko, whose AIs have as recent of memories as possible). So maybe he thinks he’s a completely original creation of Gashu’s? Or maybe knows he’s based off of someone but has no clue who that might specifically be?

But if he does know of Sei’s relationship to Kai, it makes that bit about a sibling bond hit like a truck. Just like Reko now, Kai’s brother (even if not biological) was killed right in front of him. Sei was the Alice of the past. And yet here’s Ranger, a doll of Sei, mocking sibling bonds.

I don’t have the analysis skills to continue with this but I’d love someone better at this than me to look into Ranger on a macro level given what we know from Kai’s minisode. We don’t have 3-2 yet so maybe we’ll learn more about Ranger and/or Sei there, but even if we don’t there’s probably a lot we all missed the first time around given we didn’t know about Sei at all.

THE BELOW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR YTTD 3-1B AS WELL AS ANZU’S MINISODE

And speaking of the minisodes and completely unrelated to this post: Ryuu is definitely related to fake Hinako right? The hair is the same shade of pink. And since fake Hinako was associated with ASUNARO, would that make Ryuu (and potentially the circus he was a part of) associated with ASUNARO as well?

[sylkiescoat]

Yttd 3-1b spoilers

Girlfie informed me that Mai can get killed at the end of Maple’s 2.0 battle

It’s. Because of the hands. It’s because she had Midori’s hands. Aauughhh

Sorry just thinking about them a lot I’m not rlly a yttd shipper at all but Maiple is an exception perchance bc of how soul crushing it would be

[purepari]

So, I've been thinking about YTTD recently...

(Spoilers in Images used; up to Chapter 3-1B)

Going through this game while it's being made has honestly been a very unique experience for me. I don't typically interact with media till it's finished or near completion. But playing YTTD early has made me go back and see a lot of cool things that I don't think I would've acknowledged before. And in this sense, I think one of the most unique (and in turn, cool) aspects of it is how the art has improved over the years this game's been in the works.

Usually, Visual Novels have a really consistent art style. Look at Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, games like that, and it's very uniform, very polished in its art. And while Your Turn to Die's art was *never* bad, there's been a lot of progression in Nankidai's art and how he works with it. While some parts (such as character sprites) have hit a pretty consistent point, there's more visible improvement in other areas.

Of course, there's the obvious; the general improvements, like knowledge of space and stronger shading. Those are fairly apparent as the game is played. (I mean just look at the backgrounds in Chapter 1 vs. the backgrounds in Chapter 3)

But the one I don't see talked about enough; the direction is pushed! There's a lot more exaggeration in the CGs! Better conveyed emotions, a lot more unique artistic expression! (Again, Chapter 1 vs. Chapter 3 below). The player can really see Nankidai start to break free from the fundamentals and find his style throughout the game, and that's just... really cool to me!

The player isn't just seeing the story and characters progress as the game goes along, but they also see how this artist evolves throughout making the game! It just has a lot of soul to it, and it's really inspiring to me as an artist. Again, you wouldn't see this in a more mainstream, big-budget game, and I think this works to Your Turn to Die's benefit! It makes me eager to see not just how this project of his wraps up, but also how the art evolves, and what he ends up making in the future.

(also explains why it's taken longer and longer to gets parts done but tbh I'm fine with waiting if we keep getting these top-notch improvements)

[ariapmdeol]

https://youtu.be/ppuVF7yx4qo yttd spoilers for 3-1b

ASLKLJSADK CRYING keiji,,, he dodged death so many times, it's rly funny tbh. NEVER punished JSDKLJDAS