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kaibutsushidousha · 5 years

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Artbook Data - Writer Team Interview

I really saved the best for last with this one. This interview was a wild ride, with at least two big pieces of fandom common knowledge being proven wrong.

Interviewees:

Yoshinori Terasawa: The producer for the Danganronpa series. Tasked with the challange of organizing this ragtag band of weirdoes while fighting schedule and budget. This time his title on the credits changed.

Kazutaka Kodaka: The writer, and one of the series’ creators. He created this game in paralell with writing scripts for the anime. Also experienced in writing novels and manga.

Takayuki Sugawara: Involved with the series’ development since the first game. For V3, aside from giving the order for the game to happen and offering many ideas, he also wrote all the secret lie routes for the Class Trial.

Shun Sasaki: This game’s director. Kodaka’s right-hand man, with the important role of transmitting Kodaka’s thoughts to the staff. The many bonus modes were all made at Sasaki’s idea.

The inital theme was going to be Psychoamerican, with the game being set on a desert!?

Interviewer: It has been a month since the game was released (interview recorded in February 23, 2017), so how much have your thoughts changed since the game’s release?

Kazutaka Kodaka: Not much.

I: Then it must mean everything, including the fan reactions, was just as expected.

KK: Yeah. I was wishing for an unexpected reaction, but everything went just as expected, for better or for worse.

I: How about you, Terasawa?

YT: Kodaka says “just as expected”, but I was thinking the game would be a little bit more well received. You know, when I look at the timeline, I see more critical opinions than I imagined I would.

I: That said, I’m getting the impression that we’re getting more and more positive reviews, compared to how it was immediately after launch.

YT: We’re feeling this too. I’m very thankful that one month after launch, the positive opinion have been getting gradually more vocal.

I: How about you, Sasaki?

SS: Same as Kodaka, no big changes. I'm just still stunned that it’s over.

TS: I’m the opposite of Sasaki. We’ve always finished Danganronpa on the edge of the deadline, but this one we were REALLY improving everywhere we could until the very last second. I feel like the production is still not over even now. Maybe we’re all lying when we said we made it in time (laughs).

I: Was V3 really this hard? When did the project start?

KK: It was late into Ultra Despair Girls’ production. Sugawara called me about a new project and ...

I: So it was Sugawara, not Terasawa.

KK: For some reason, he never calls me directly. Always has someone relaying his message to me. Then me and Sugawara started coming up with some content and wrote the project pitch. It was completely different from what’s now.

YT: It was going to be set in a desert.

I: A desert!? Do deserts have schools?

KK: The design theme at the time was Psychoamerican, so we thought it should be in a desert.

YT: If I recall right, it was going to be a desert where a Future Foundation was stranded...

KK: And so we made the project pitch with loads of American-ish stuff, like Vegas neon lights. I can’t remember much of the details.

YT: But even back then, Kodaka already had the game’s direction and that ending in mind.

I: So the ending idea stayed the same through the how development cycle. Was it Terasawa or Sugawara who asked you to make the V3 project?

KK: It was more the company itself than Terasawa.

YT: Yeah. I was the one who directly asked for it, but the very company was pointing out that it was about time for a new number Danganronpa sequel. At the time, the DR:AE development cycle was approaching its climax, so everyone was at the mood of “What are making next?” and the next cycle started very naturally.

I: I see. Then, was moving away from the Kibougamine series also decide from the beginning?

KK: Yes. No one ever considered continuing the Kibougamine series with V3.

TS: The Future Foundation ship I mentioned earlier would be set up as the ship from the DR2 ending for a twist of “haha, it was a different ship all along”. It was a red herring planned to draw the fans’ interest.

I: And why did you change settings?

KK: We all know DR1 and 2 follow each other chronologically as the Kibougamine series, but at first I never said they did. When I say from the start that it’s a sequel, the fans start expecting characters from the previous games. But personally I’m not a fan of having a previous survivor in the killing game, having to experience the murders, investigations and Class Trials all over again. I thought that when I made the next numbered title I should reboot the setting and characters.

I: Let me get this right, all you had defined back at the project pitch stage was doing a reboot and the story’s ending. Yes?

TS: Yeah. We didn’t have a concrete idea of how we would present the ending, but it we were settled on the direction that it was something that would make the player part of the plot.

I: And how exactly did lies, one of the game’s main themes, entered the stage?

TS: We had decided from the start that we would have the lie mechanic. Lying was actually a gimmick I came up with for DR2 and I really wanted the chance to include it for real in a next game.

I: Any other elements decided from the start?

KK: I think we decided the true meaning of “V3” in our first discussion. Did we? I vaguely recall we see saying it would be clever if V3 actually meant 53.

I: I agree, I was impressed when I played it!

KK: It’s just the part that the first game were also fictional in-universe and that V3 was the 53rd Danganronpa game that we came up with later. At the time we just though of the initial clever curveball. This was back before we had the idea to make the DR3 anime. We went with the name V3 just for this joke, then later we thought “If this is DRV3, the anime should be DR3”.

I: The game was decided first, huh. And how exactly did the “New” and the “Everyone’s Killing Game New Semester” came about?

KK: When we had to present the game for the Sony Press Conference (September 15th, 2015), we thought we should add something before the title, like the Super in Super Danganronpa 2. So we went with “New”.

YT: But for the first logo we wrote “NEW” in English letters.

I: And you already had the subtitle back then.

KK: The subtitle was also put together on a rush for the Sony Press Conference. We basically just added the “Everyone’s” there because the ending was pretty much completely planned at that point.

YT: We need to have these big presentations like the Sony Press Conference, because otherwise we never settle on a title (pained laughter).

The design theme changes to Psychocool! The production finally starts for real.

I: Now I have several questions about the contents of the game. We know you have the decided on the title, then presented the game under the final design theme of “Psychocool”. For what reason did you decide against the “Psychoamerican” theme?

KK: To be honest with you, Psychoamerican was never a design theme I was really serious about...

TS: We just needed something to pitch a project with.

YT: Every good project pitch has a few bluffs on it.

KK: At the time I was busy with Ultra Despair Girls, so I decided to leave the theme decisions for later. But after watching Sugawara’s presentation at the project meeting, I may have regretted neglecting the subject (pained laughter).

TS: That’s because my project file on the meeting as a blank piece of paper (laughs).

I: (laughs) Suguwara, did you really explain the entire project with a blank paper?

TS: No, each page had a head title. “Scrum Debate” was one, for example. And did the explanations with just that. Judging by the participants’ reaction, the overall tone of the meeting was “What the heck is going on here...?” (pained laughter).

I: And after all these hardships, you settled on the Psychocool theme. What was the deciding factor here?

KK: We started putting some actual thought into it, notice how hard it would be to deal with a desert setting, and decided the American part wouldn’t work. At the time I was considering given a more adult image to it, so we decided on Psychostylish. But we didn’t go very far with this theme, did we?

SS: I don’t think we did.

KK: So, the players who experienced DR1′s Psychopop in their teens grew into adulthood with DR2′s Psychotropical, and now cooled down after their growth... That’s why V3′s theme became Psychocool.

I: So it had a more mature image.

YT: But us changing themes 2 or 3 times before made things hell for the graphics team, since we wouldn’t settle on a direction already.

SS: Because before we decided on the Psychocool theme, the designers had already started working with no design concept. Kodaka already some ideas in mind for a ruined school with growing vegetation and some machines in it, but without any concrete direction, they had to redo their work multiple times.

I: I’ll ask about the design concept in more detail in the designer team interview. The next question is about the story. Is “what could be a lie” something you think about in the earlier plot planning stages?

KK: Include some lie elements back in the plot planning, but there’s nothing that was always meant to be interpreted as a lie. It all started in a project meeting where Sugawara said “I want to use lies”, but without any concrete idea of would that be implemented into gameplay. Later, when I started planning the plot, I was looking back at the project file and the discussion notes, scavenging for content I could use and found that I could use lies to fill the gaps in my plot. And so was born my liar character, Kokichi Ouma.

I: Usually the characters make the plot, but sometimes the plot can make a character.

KK: They are just robots instead of characters, but the same goes for the Exisals. They came from a joke idea told in the project meeting.

TS: We mentioned the Exisal as a mascot replacement for Monokuma. “Next mascot should be a monkey” (laughs).

KK: But not having Monokuma as the mascot feels wrong to me. Yeah, we were rebooting the characters and the setting, but I think changing too much does more harm than good, so I decided to keep Monokuma as the mascot without a second thought.

I: About what you just mentioned about Ouma, did you create all the characters as you were planning the plot?

KK: Yes. I thought 16 was the perfect number of students, as it was in DR2. Before I had any plot, I asked Komatsuzaki for some designs based on his impressions. I was planning the plot as I was receiving the designs and came up with the details along the way, I think.

I: At what point did you decide on the dual protagonist scheme with Kaede Akamatsu and Shuuichi Saihara?

KK: I can’t remember when exactly I decided that it was doable, but I’ve been wanting to do it from very early on. I was thinking that if I could do it, it would make for an awesome chapter 1.

I: The Ikebukuro Namjatown had a poll to guess who would survive. Harukawa was first, Saihara was second and Akamatsu was third, so I thought the fans saw it coming.

KK: I was also weirded out by how high Saihara was, but then I heard about the unfortunate hatless Saihara sprite visible in the PV. Since the ahoge is the symbol of the Danganronpa protagonist, I’m pretty sure this spoiled the twist.

YT: You didn’t notice it when the PV came out?

KK: I didn’t. Sasaki told me about it later and I was like “Oh no, really...?” (laughs).

YT: I see, because it very early on in the video.

SS: It was. What a shame...

KK: That said, a lot of characters were predicted wrong. Our survivor Himiko Yumeno got the very last place.

YT: She reestablished balance.

I: Yeah. Just look at our presented protagonist Akamatsu. While there were a lot of people thinking she was safe because she’s the protagonist, there were also a lot suspecting even the protagonist could die.

KK: I think the majority was predicting Akamatsu would die. But I think that as they watched the PVs and play the demo, a lot of them noticed how we made all the Class Trial assets for her and started thinking “Yeah, of course she wouldn’t die”. At very least, I think not many people predicted she would be executed as the culprit in the Class Trial.

This is how the 16 students watching the new Class Trial were born

I: In this interview for Danganronpa 2, you mentioned that Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu was supposed to die along the way, but as you were finishing your plot he became a survivor. Did V3 also have a character like Kuzuryuu?

SS: I’m pretty sure no character was changed. Though I vaguely recall we changing the order in which they died as the murder tricks demanded.

TS: When Kodaka was thinking of the murder trick for chapter 1, he asked me “What SHSL should we kill off?”. I answered “Killing the detective would be a shocker”.

KK: For context, I wasn’t too sure if it was ok for Saihara to be the Super High School Level Detective. Because Detective Saihara would mean a protagonist title ripping off Kyouko Kirigiri’s. But I ultimately accepted the idea of him being a detective.

I: I see. So this didn’t have any big changes like DR2 had. Was there any student talent or character trait that you decided on based on their murder tricks?

KK: I always plan the characters and the tricks at the same time. And this time I planned part of the tricks along with Kitayama. Whenever we discussed, I just told him “This is the culprit, this is the victim and this is the type of case I want” and he would come up with the details for me. Otherwise none of us would know what to do with his murder tricks.

I: If any other character had their characterization changed along the way, like you said Ouma did, tell us about it.

KK: I changed Harukawa’s title after seeing the finished desing. I kept her title as Super High School Level Child Caregiver, but made her actually an assassin.

SS: I remember you going with Bounty Hunter Harukawa before you changed it to Assassin.

KK: You’re right. She looked so out of the ordinary in that illustration that I thought she would work out as assassin and changed it, if I recall right. I tend to change my plot points a lot, so that’s why it’s always better to do all part of my work at the same time.

I: Is Kodaka always this nonchalant when talking about major plot changes?

SS: Yeah, he just comes out of nowhere and “I made Harukawa an assassin”.

TS: The script still wasn’t finished at the time, so even I didn’t know the reason for the change, I could say is “Really?” (laughs).

SS: Though I like her a little better as an assassin than as a bounty hunter.

I: Yeah, that’s not a situation where you can say “no” for no reason (pained laughter). By the way, Ouma and Harukawa are super popular. Did you expect them to this many fans?

KK: Sure, Harukawa got a lot of attention on the first teaser visual, and she’s a tsundere character very easy to understand, so I thought she would be popular. And Ouma is remarkably “Danganronpa”. When he is doing so much work to get things his way and getting many big scenes in the process, it’s no surprise he would get popular.

I: I think Kaito Momota got even more big scenes than he did. Not to mention his story role was pretty important.

KK: Momota was a character I was much more unoptimistically hoping to be popular. Because in the previous games I never had any characters as super friendly as him and Gonta Gokuhara. When I was writing the script, Sugawara or Sasaki told “This cast is our tightest group of friends so far”. Now that I think about it, I guess this strongly influenced my decision to put Momota as the leader. Byakuya Togami from DR1 would be constantly on the edge if he was there.

I: He sure would (laughs). Opposite question now, what character did you think was less popular than you thought they would be?

YT: Less than expected? I guess Ryouma Hoshi? Just my personal opinion though, I understand it’s because he died too soon.

KK: A lot of people I know love Hoshi.

TS: I know lot of Hoshi fans too.

KK: To me, the most unexpectedly unpopular character was Korekiyo Shinguuji, not Hoshi. I mean, his uniform is awesome and his unstable relationship with his sister feels like a classic underground movie. Shinguuji is one of my personal favorites and I thought he would be popular. But the people playing the game called him “gross” (pained laughter).

I: Shinguuji, one-of-a-kind as he is, he’s really not for everyone.

KK: Meh, whatever, I don’t wriite characters trying to make them popular. Be it for Momota or for Shinguuji, I was thinking I would personally love if they became popular but that was not the goal. In fact, the only character I wrote with the popularity polls in mind was Miu Iruma, and the goal there was to get her the last place! I think this gave her strong character quirks, not mention that trying to make everyone popular makes the cast weird and lacking in variety.

I: I see. Speaking of Shinguuji, I felt that while his motive was quite unrelatable, most of the other students had sympathetic motives. Was that on purpose?

KK: For the motives, I was just trying to avoid a repeat of what happened with Mikan Tsumiki. Yeah, I know Shinguuji’s was close. But this time most of the motives were based on their murder tricks. The first thing I did was give a definite theme for each murder trick: chapter 1 is the protagonist being the culprit, chapter 2 was a fusion of murder trick and magic trick, chapter 3 was a new death during the investigation, chapter 4 was the culprit not knowing that he is the culprit, and chapter 5 was the culprit and the victim working together. That makes chapter 2 the only outlier. I just really wanted to use the twist that Kirumi Toujou was the Prime Minister. I also absolutely wanted to have piranhas in my story (laughs).

I: (laughs) Another big difference I notice is that I couldn’t predict the culprits based on the murder tricks.

KK: That part was very intentional. I really didn’t want any moments of “I don’t know the trick, but the culprit is this guy” the best I could. Chapter 3 was easy to figure out, but I think chapter 2′s clever hooks did a lot better.

Kodaka is Barack Obama!? The personality felt by Megumi Hayashibara.

I: Sayaka Kanda voicing Akamatsu was a highly discussed topic. How exactly did you decide that?

KK: The initial was to have (non-voice) actors playing the role of the two protagonists. After many twists and tuns, we had only Kanda voicing Akamatsu.

YT: She had a great performance as Junko Enoshima in Danganronpa THE STAGE. I invited her to the Akamatsu with high expectations, not only because she obviously a very talented actress, but also because she is so associated with Junko Enoshima that it would give the fans a lot to speculate about.

I: Another big surprise was the other protagonist Saihara being Megumi Hayashibara. Hayashibara is not someone most people would imagine voicing a boy...

KK: Hayashibara was my personal request. It looked difficult at first, but ultimately she accepted it. She might have been initially wary but then felt it was okay because she shares a lot of history with Ogata and Takayama, who voiced the previous protagonist.

I: I see. Not that you mention it, in a previous interview Hayashibara made a comment about you: “He’s like President Obama”. She didn’t elaborate on that, so please tell us why!

KK: When we were recording chapter 6, Hayashibara asked me “Does Danganronpa always ends like this?”. I answered “It’s not always like this.” and the conversation continued from there. After I created Danganronpa, many other stories with death games started appearing. I know death games are exciting and easy to employ, but so many of them didn’t think their endings through or were just the using the game as a sadistic system to kill characters. Then, as I was analyzing what it means to “truly escape the death game”, I reached the conclusion that it’s the characters upsetting the death game itself. As I explained to her how I made that ending because I had to take responsibility for creating Danganronpa, Hayashibara said “Wonderful!”...

I: And where does President Obama come in?

KK: Hayashibara talked about one time when President Obama dismantle bomb facilities in the US to say “It’s important to take responsibility for what you make”, so I answered “Then I’m Obama?” (laughs).

I: (laughs) What a conversation.

KK: Hayashibara seemed to be very convinced by this explation, seeing how she put even more power into her chapter 6 performance.

I: Saihara’s chapter 6 voice acting was indeed on fire. Speaking of chapter 6, I was really surprised by the twist of having the DR1 and 2 characters there. Was that decided from the start?

KK: I didn’t even considered it when I was planning the plot. The idea came to me only when I started writting chapter 6′s script.

YT: That’s pretty late into the process.

KK: I was thinking that just Tsumugi Shirogane’s cosplays would be too weak to express the mastermind’s threat level. As I was thinking on how could I make her a character on par with Enoshima, since the ending was going to be that, I had my epiphany: “She should cosplay every character before her!”. And if I want a perfect cosplay, I would need the real voices. When I talked to Terasawa about how awesome she would be if she could cosplay even voices, and how much of a visual punch it would be to have all previous characters, his reaction was “Wait a minute...”.

I: I can see how he wouldn’t be ready for that.

KK: I was doing the recordings for the DR3 anime at the time, so I was naive enough to believe asking for just a couple additional lines would be enough.

YT: Life is not that easy (laughs).

I: (laughs) But everything worked at the end.

KK: I have to admit, I did some emotional blackmail there. Saying “I already started the script, I can’t go with any other twist now”. I had already resigned to the fact that we couldn’t have everyone, but in the end, the entire cast came to the recordings.

I: Impressive work, Terasawa.

YT: After Kodaka’s blackmail, I had to do my part, too. The result was splendid and very meaningful to the game, but we can’t use that in promotional material, so, from a cost efficiency standpoint, it was really bad (pained laughter).

KK: But one problem I would want to fix if I had a chance is how this made her total dialogue really long. I could have made it all a lot more concise, but you know, leaving one character with only two lines who be such a waste.

I: That said, I think the result was splendid. Just as you wanted, it made Shirogane a lot more awesome, in my opinion. On the topic of Shirogane, was making Super High School Level Cosplayer the mastermind talent decided from the start?

KK: Yes. The mastermind being a cosplayer came first from that ending punchline where she asserts that their entire world is part of her cosplay. Also because I really wanted to have a cosplayer character somewhere.

The Love Hotel was born from a cancelled game mechanic!?

I: Our next topic will be the setting and the special scenes. Starting from how the Kibougamine Academy was rebooted into the Saishuu Academy. Tell us how the academy was created.

KK: I think didn’t put any school name on the project pitch. The thing is, V3 is a project initiated under the idea of being something of a culmination of the series, of putting an end into everything, so we went with the name Saishuu, which carries the nuances of both “final” and “talents being locked up”. Another neat detail I only noticed now is that it’s kanji form is pretty easy to write (才囚).

I: You’re praising yourself too much (laughs).

KK: I love Saishuu Academy’s name, but I like its emblem just as much. The design includes a subtle prisoner aesthetic and a Monokuma. Though I wonder, how will the localization handle this? (pained laughter).

I: That’s a good question (laughs). Then, how was the academy’s design decided?

KK: I only asked them to make the wall. The wall was my utmost priority.

TS: I remember that this wall got its birdcage style because I suggested to include a jail or birdcage motif. V3′s school has a prison atmosphere, but prisons still have sports grounds and whatnot, you know? Because of this, we decided to make the Saishuu Academy with explorable areas outside the school building.

I: The Saishuu Academy has a lot of strange areas. A casino is already bad enough, but it has even a love hotel...

KK: Whose idea was the love hotel again?

SS: It was based on Sugawara’s idea of nighttime raids, from the project pitch.

TS: Oh yeah, at the time we had a set rule where you could only solve the academy’s mysteries at nighttime. The idea was to explore the academy at night and investigate the mysteries, but you could also peek into the students’ rooms.

YT: Yeah, I was thinking of making an investigation game like this.

KK: The problem was that this was going to make the game too lenghty, so we left the parts where you enter the students’ for dialogue as the Love Hotel.

SS: Yeah, and since we thought it would be nice to have an element where you can flirt with the characters, they became those erotic scenes...

I: I see (laughs). Did you write the Love Hotel scenes, Kodaka?

KK: I gave the Love Hotel scenes to a substitute writer. Except their version were really not acceptable, so I had to rewrite them myself (pained laughter).

I: What an interaction to have. Enough about character scenes. We also had many new secret routes in the Class Trials.How exactly were these secret routes created?

SS: The secret routes exist because we wanted to incorporate the Lie Bullet into the story, not only the gameplay. But lying is something we kind of needed to convince most players to do. You know, we needed to add moments where the player would want to lie. And all thanks to Sugawara, we could do it.

I: You wrote the secret routes, didn’t you, Sugawara?

KK: I was too busy with everything else. Since already had semi-done scripts for the proper route, I let Sugawara have his ideas based on that.

TS: That said, I was also piled up with other jobs, so I had other developers do some bits, like pointing me out where I could lie. Some pointers I followed straight, while others I had to rethink. I tried to include as many secret routes as I could, but this was a work I couldn’t get done in time for the voice recordings.

I: I think making secret routes is hard even when the proper route script is complete...

TS: It was relatively easy to make the new content for the secret routes. The difficult is how to get back to the original route.

KK: I tried not to touch on Sugawara’s scripts too much, but I did edit some character word choices or some parts where the topic got too long.

I: How did the fans react to the secret routes?

KK: I didn’t hear much about it.

YT: I often check Twitter for fan opinions, but that’s never really tweeted about.

TS: I think a lot of people don’t notice where they can lie to get a secret route. I did make them change the song for the Debate where you can do Perjury, but that’s not listed or hinted in any tutorial, so...

KK: Not to mention it’s a really minor change, so I find it pretty difficult to notice on your first go.

The mystery novelist Kitayama adds even more well polished murder tricks

I: Since we are talking about Class Trials, I would like to ask about the murder tricks. First, tell me how Kitayama joined the party.

KK: Once I knew I would have to work on this and the DR3 anime at the same time, I thought I would have to ask someone for help, since the time I would have on the scripts would shorten. I thought that if I could smoothly get all the murder tricks decided, I could handle both scripts just fine, but unfortunately the discussion went for much longer than I expected. In the end I didn’t gain any time from all this, but thanks to Kitayama joining me, we boast higher quality.

I: How was your work?

KK: I told Kitayama the trick themes for each chapter and had him come up with the howdunnit. With that, Sugawara and Sasaki’s developer team can plot out the trick, then I check it all and put it together as the script.

I: Was there anything big you had to fix?

KK: Depends on the chapter. For chapter 1 I pretty much used Kitayama’s idea exactly as it was. Even the “I tossed away what I was holding” descriptor was left exactly as Kitayama wrote it. On the other hand, chapter 2 was very different from the initial draft.

SS: The chapter 2 trick was the water slider instead of the ropeway using the floating tube, right?

KK: Yeah, that one. Lining up a lot of floating tube to make the corpse slide on them. Then she would only have to cut the rope connecting them and that would leave just countless floating tubes on the pool. I fought finding the tubes during the investigation would be a fun idea, but when it came the time to script it, I got a lot questions. “Is this really enough water pressure to make a corpse silde?”. “Won’t she get wet from the water on the gaps between tubes?”. “Are sure the corpse can enter the fish tank?”.

YT: I’m a physics major, so this bothers me a lot. One little detail like this can ruin the whole case for me, so I made sure to comment everything I noticed.

KK: Yeah, so I had to change to the whole water slider trick into a ropeway trick. Sasaki, you’re the one who argued the most against this, weren’t you?

SS: I was (laughs). I had to plot the trick for chapter 2. So when Kodaka told me “The water slide won’t work”, I was like “Really...?”.

I: The script is where you start to notice the problems.

KK: More exactly, the plotting stage doesn’t put all that attention to detail. Because the workload for plotting a trick as a lot bigger than it sounds. And we’re definitely not gaining any time if I happen to see plans before they’re ready...So, the issues only start showing up when I’m doing the script.

SS: In chapter 2, even my idea to gather all the students together, the Insect Meet-and-Greet, caused some back-and-forth.

KK: Yes, I let the developer come up with the finer details, like for example the reason why all students gathered together. So, for this one I was like “What’s an Insect Meet-and-Greet even supposed to be?”. Then he explained to me that the group would be assembled to look at Gonta’s insects, but I still had no idea why they would do that. I still wanted to do it, it was a fun idea, so I implemented Gonta’s Insect Meet-and-Greet on the form of Gonta kidnapping the students under Ouma’s orders.

I: Do you have any other case of struggles to connect a trick’s dots?

KK: Chapter 3, handled by Sugawara, also took a lot of time.

TS: I used Kitayama’s idea for the main trick using the seesaw, but we needed to change all the steps that lead to the crime, and that was the time consuming part.

KK: Oh yeah, we changed the seance ritual.

TS: At first, the trick was that the students would all hold hands and sing Kagome Kagome together, while the culprit would stomp the floorboard. But if that were the case, when the culprit stomped the floorboard, the people holding his hands would feel the movement, you see...

I: And that’s why you had to edit. Next is chapter 4, how was it?

KK: Chapter 4 also had a murder trick by Kitayama, but it was a trick using a rope. Since we changed chapter 2 into the ropeway, that would make chapter 4′s a repeat. While we were thinking of how to make a ropeless trick, one the developers gave the looping world idea, so I created the trick using the loop.

I: Chapter 4′s trick was an idea that made a really good use out of the game world. Was there any reason to change the characters’ visual into the chibi models?

KK: I was born because we wanted to make a game inside a game. At first, we wanted to make a fully 3D world.

YT: You were calling it “VR”, weren’t you?

TS: But then its main gimmick became the loop trick, so we had to give up because a loop would be too hard and far too costly to portray in 3D.

SS: We also considered using the bonus modes’ 8-bit sprites, but the consesus what that those were too visually unimpressive, so we made new ones, if I recall correctly.

KK: Also because to make the trick work we need to make the game in 2.5D, not 2D. Most of us thought it would be difficult to use the 8-bit sprites under that circumstances.

I: And for the chapter 5 trick, the twist where the victim and the culprit were in cahoots was very original, and I honestly couldn’t tell which of them was the culprit until the very end.

YT: That one is the hardest to figure out.

KK: I’m glad I could put the Exisal to good use in the 5th trick, with the victim and the culprit switching places. Also, I loaded chapter 5 with a large amount of information to distract you from the truth, so you being confused about it is exactly what we wanted.

The feelings imbued in the shocking finale. And an intriguing plan for the future!?

I: From this part on, I will be asking about the controversial chapter 6 and your plans for the future. I was told that when you were writting the chapter 6 script you added many extra animations and cutscenes of the school being destroyed.

KK: At the plot planning stage, the only thing I had planned for chapter 6 was the endgame. Only when I actually reached that part in the script that I saw I didn’t know how lead the path to that. In DR2 I prepared some surprises to thrill the fans, like Kibougamine Academy appearing and whatnot. I wanted this game to have an element like this. And that’s when I arranged a meeting with all of Sasaki’s developers. I said “I put Kibougamine in DR2′s finale, so now I want V3 to have a set up as good as that”.

SS: Everyone agreed we should have one, of course.

KK: And that’s where I suggested we should explode Saishuu Academy. With Ki-bo appearing to help us around at the tightest moments, fighting the Exisals and all that. I talked with Sasaki’s team to ask if they could do it, they said “I think we can” and I answered “Nice” (laughs).

I: (laughs) That said, I think that was hard on who was managing the budget and schedule...

YT: You get me. There was suddenly a lot more to make.

KK: But we weren’t behind on the deadlines, were we?

SS: That’s right, we weren’t.

YT: That’s not how it works! (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

I: Chapter 6 had a lot more animated cutscenes too, hadn’t it?

KK: I wasn’t expecting that. You know that scene where Ki-bo first appears, flying to the glass? I was think that was going to be just some CG, not a fully animated cutscene. So it was a good surprise, like “Are you really making him this cool? Thank you!”.

YT: And his cutscene was quite a long one, at that.

SS: A CG would be too weak and unconvicing for this. We decided we should have this animated to give it the impact it deserved.

I: And I assume the same goes for all the add cutscene. Was the idea of slapping away the block-pathing debris conceived and added for the same reason?

SS: It was. Honestly, there was so much more we wanted to do but didn’t have time to...

KK: To be completely honest, I was thinking chapter 6 was going to be a lot more visually simplistic than that. But once we started we didn’t want to stop. I’m glad the finished version is this much better than I imagined.

I: Speaking of chapter 6, can I ask Kodaka to explain the ending?

KK: I went with that ending because I wanted to change where the player stands in V3. In 1 and 2 the player was an outside observer to the killing game. But in V3 I wanted the player to experience the same shock as Saihara and take part in the debate from the same position as him. Then, as Saihara is shocked to learn “This world was fictional. The Akamatsu and Momota I believed in were all fiction”, the player would also be hit with the fact “Everything I played so far is fictional”. But it’s a fact that everything you played so far still resonated with you and you gained a lot from it, so I was hoping you could synchro yourself with Saihara and take his side in the argument after he gets back in his feet. I was thinking that it if the player and the characters could outgrow this fiction, it could even create a new relationship between player and game.

I: I see. So that’s what you were thinking.

KK: I prepared a lot of tricks to make it easier for the player to sync up with Saihara, like Ki-bo’s “Do you want to save?”. Just empathizing with the characters was not enough for chapter 6, I want to share their point of view. That why, to make it harder to insert and emphatize in one specific person, I shuffled the POV with everyone.

I: I think the finale intentionally avoids stating what’s the truth and what is a lie. Do all of you in the production staff share the same answer to this mystery?

YT: Kodaka might have the answer on his mind, but I think we don’t need to know. We don’t even know if we can take everything Kodaka says as correct. See, the real right answer is the answer you came up with yourself.

I: You mean you just want everyone to think of the answer with their own personal interpretations?

YT: Also, I want to take this moments to tell all the fans that we never had the slightest intent to tarnish or insult the past games. We still think of Danganronpa 1 and 2 as our very beloved children. We love all 3 games from the bottom of our hearts.

I: Kodaka said before that V3 is a culmination and an end to everything, but will the Danganronpa series continue?

YT: Like with the first two games, we are completely burned out after finishing it, so, honestly, we don’t have any solid plans for a next game yet. However, as a producer, I want to answer to the fans’ support and expectations. I need to think long and hard about the future of Danganronpa.

I: What could this future be holding for us...?

YT: Who knows. DR1-2 Reload and Ultra Despair Girls will be ported to the PS4 this year, so I think we’ll get many new fans. If something in this trend incites Kodaka’s desire to write, we could be having a new game. Or at least that’s what I expect. I hope our fans expect the same.

I: I’ll be looking forward to it. Now, one message from all of you to the fans.

KK: Thank you for buying this artbook. How about replaying once more now that you know the game better? Or even better, buy another copy of the game and the book!

TS: I think there’s always something of value, be it good or bad, in someone playing a videogame for the first time. So the words I want to say here are the same words of gratitude said since the old days: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.

SS: I saw a lot of intense critical commentary both for and against this game, so I’m very happy that this game managed to make this many people feel something about it. I believe leaving you wanting to talk about of you felt is one of the more characteristic traits of Danganronpa, so I love that you can enjoy exchanging your opinions.

#artbook translations #kazutaka kodaka #Yoshinori Terasawa #shun sasaki #takayuki sugawara #'blank project file' sugawara is truly the chiyomaru of spike #kodaka completely forgot sakura in that comment about momota and gonta #why is hayashibara like this?#a lot of dramatic irony in context of too kyo existing

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rirururu · 6 years

Text

Danganronpa V3 Thoughts + Chapter 5 Rant

Okay so I’m super late seeing as the game released two years ago but after the disaster that was the DR3 anime, it took a while for me to build up the motivation to play DRV3. I just finished it recently. And what do I think of it?

It was... not as bad as the anime. Actually, it’s not bad at all. Far from it.

But there were still so many nonsensical and dumb decisions made. Just like in DR3. I know for most people, it was chapter 6 and the ending that broke the game and made it horrible for them. But those didn’t particularly bug me. It was actually chapter 5.

(Warning: spoilers for the entire DRV3 game below cut)

(Warning: here’s to be to the return of my salty Hajime rants)

Before you ask, no. It’s not because Kaito and Kokichi died.

We can get that whole “who is best boi/gurl” stuff out of here right off the bat. That has nothing to do with it. If it fits the characters’ arcs and gives the game a proper conclusion or progression, then it’s perfectly fine to kill characters off no matter how much you like them.

That being said, I think it’s safe to conclude that most of the running theme of DRV3 is the idea of “lies versus truth” and “belief versus distrust” as opposed to “hope versus despair.” I have no complaints about that. Actually, it’s a much more impactful and relevant conflict to use in a game where finding the truth and being suspicious of friends is such a paramount part of class trials in the first place.

I can see where the writers were going with Kokichi and Kaito’s characters. Kokichi was meant to be the embodiment of lies and distrust, Kaito was the embodiment of belief, while Shuichi himself was the pursuer of truth. Seeing these three characters in particular be able to play off of each other was one of the highlights of V3, possibly one of the most well-written dynamics in the entire Danganronpa franchise. Why?

It’s because despite Shuich being the seeker of truth, we’ve seen him lie in trials before (a nifty and sometimes necessary new mechanic). Despite Kokichi being a perpetual liar, we’ve seen him tell the truth with how he some times encourages the others in previous cases. Despite Kaito yelling poetry about believing in his friends all the time, we’ve seen Kaito lose belief in Shuichi after what happened in chapter 4. We’ve seen how Kokichi’s distrust in Maki backfired in chapter 2′s trial and led to him being incorrect while Kaito’s belief in Gonta backfired in chapter 4′s trial and led to him being incorrect. The whole message here is that people are multi-layered and can never live with only one or the other. There is no wrong side; you need all four. It was honestly a really good narrative theme.

That is, until chapter 5. The dreaded chapter that officially broke the game for me.

The lesson I got out of chapter 5 after the two most narratively driven characters were killed off was simply “lying is bad.” Really, game? You’re taking such a complex and morally ambiguous conflict as finding the truth and lying to oversimplify it so much? I'm baffled to see the game use such a strong topic just to flub it up so spectacularly for no reason. It put a metaphorical coffin on what was four and a half chapters of buildup. If the whole overlap of “truth versus lies” and “belief versus logic” weren’t going to go anywhere, then why introduce them in the first place?

Let me explain a bit more. Chapter 5 portrayed Shuichi’s pursuit of the truth and unwavering borderline psychotic focus on finding the truth due to what Kaede said (which also led to him helping Monokuma in chapter 5 like wtf) as the right thing to do all along. Screw Kokichi. Shuichi will help Monokuma as long as the black-and-white terrorist is trying to find the truth too. ‘Because truth good and lies bad.’ While we’re at it, screw Kaito and Maki and everyone else who ever challenged Shuichi and questioned whether sometimes lying is the better choice. Screw all the previous trials where Shuichi was shown acknowledging that lying was sometimes necessary. Shuichi’s always right, baby. And he gets absolutely zero repercussion for it. He’s canonically portrayed as having done the right thing even though his pursuit of the truth actually led to the killing game ending in chapter 6 instead of chapter 5 like the super-big-baddy-evil-villain-just-because-he-lies Kokichi was trying to do.

While we’re at, I guess the second morale of the story was that Kokichi could never learn to accept the importance of belief and truth until the very end. Kaito continued believing in people and could never learn to accept the importance of distrust and logic until the very end. “Whoever lies stays a liar.” “Whoever has belief in people don’t ever have to be suspicious.” Really, game? You’re taking the idea of humans being multi-layered and growing from that and turning them into one-dimensional personifications of the themes who can’t change?

Chapter 5′s outcome is a direct contradiction to where Kokichi, Kaito, and Shuichi as well as the entire game’s themes of truth, lies, belief, and distrust were foreshadowed as heading for over four chapters. I feel like 50% of the reason people think Kokichi is a well-written character is based off of Kodaka purposely making him ambiguous rather than actually giving him a proper character arc. I mean, yeah, why give him a proper character arc if the fans can do it for us? The only hint of a change I’d seen from him was in that he trusted his plan to Kaito, and even then that wasn’t real belief because he blackmailed Kaito into it. Then of course, he died a death that no one in the game seemed to care about because he’s the super-big-baddy-evil-villain-just-because-he-lies and Kodaka seemed so gungho about making him into another tragic Komaeda troupe.

Let’s not forget the other dumbass decisions made by the writers that contradict earlier events or conveniently plot convenient but actually totally impossible but let’s forget that because it’s convenient twists made in the murder itself. Sure, I totally believe that the Exisals had a voice changer that Kaito magically knew how to use. I totally believe that Kokichi would take off his shirt instead of just pulling his sleeve up while he was in the crusher just to give evidence for Shuichi to find. I totally believe that Kaito and Maki could drive an Exisal when it was clearly stated several times that only the Monokubs and Kokichi could do it to prevent anyone from hijacking one. I totally believe Kaito magically transformed into the Ultimate Imposter to impersonate Kokichi and Kokichi wasted his time writing an encyclopedia of a script that would’ve taken weeks to do when the entire DRV3 took place over a few days. I totally believe that Kokichi stupidly kept the remote control for the Exisals on him when he was crushed by the machine instead of giving it to Kaito just to make chapter 6 more unnecessarily difficult.

I totally believe that Maki was actually dumb enough to think that killing the supposed mastermind was the best way to end the killing game when Kaede already proved it wouldn’t. I totally believe that Kokichi would go on a suicide mission that was doomed to fail when nothing about his character before indicated that he wanted anything but to live. I totally believe that the class thought the best course of action at Kokichi actually trying to stop the killing game is to team up with Monokuma to stop Kokichi from stopping the killing game. I totally believe that Kokichi, already established as arguably the most intelligent character in the entire verse bar Junko or Izuru, would make an unsolvable case just to hand over the exact evidence that let Shuichi solve the case. I totally believe that something as trivial as a one-second pause in a video was enough for Shuichi to change the victim’s identity simply based off a combination of something almost resembling circumstantial evidence and his imagination and with no proof at all.

But I guess at the end of the day, plot holes are abundant in Danganronpa. That’s never been the game-changer for me. Normally, I can overlook logical and emotional plot holes if they serve a purpose. What shouldn’t be abundant is throwing away entire themes and character arcs built up for over four chapters just for the sake of making a case as dramatic and mind-fucking as possible.

What would’ve been a more consistent outcome and a better payoff? Let me go over each character.

I think it would’ve been better if Shuichi’s entire final argument segment in the fifth trial was actually an intentional lie on his part to trick Monokuma and the player. It would’ve been a nice extension to the new Lying during Non Stop Debate mechanic. Kaito should have been the victim and the pause in the video should have been a trap set up by Kokichi for Monokuma and one that Shuichi purposely used. Kokichi being the one in the Exisal makes more sense no matter how you dice it since the game wouldn’t have to try to explain all the bullshit with the script and imposter act that made no sense. This would cause a mis-trial because Monokuma was wrong, and subsequently lose the rights to hold anymore trials. The pursuer of truth, Shuichi, would learn to lie in order to save his friends.

I think it would’ve been better if Kokichi’s entire plan depended on (correctly) believing that Shuichi would catch on to the lies within the murder and analyze the meaning of the pause in the video. Kokichi has no control over what Shuichi does in the trial since he doesn’t want to give the impression of wanting Shuichi to analyze the pause for fear of being discovered by Monokuma. It would be true belief in someone, not the blackmail shit he pulled with Kaito in the canon trial. The real blackened should have been Maki, who ends up not being executed because Monokuma has no idea that she’s the blackened due to not knowing what killed Kaito first. The trial should’ve been deemed invalid after Kokichi was proven to be alive in the Exisal after the verdict is already declared and everyone voted for Kaito because not even Monokuma knows if it was Kaito, Kokichi, or Maki who killed Kaito. The whole setup he did wouldn’t have been a waste. The embodiment of lies and distrust, Kokichi, would learn to believe in someone in order to stop the killing game.

I think it would’ve been better if Kaito sacrificed himself since he knew that he was ill and was going to die anyway. While we’re at this topic, can I just point towards the stupidity behind Kaito jumping in front of Maki’s arrow to save Kokichi’s life just to turn around and agree to kill him like 5 minutes later? And for what? Because Maki’s life is somehow more valuable than Kokichi’s? Oh go off, Kaito. It makes him come off as a jackass who can’t act on what he’s been preaching about for over 4 chapters. To me, Kaito choosing to not trust in Kokichi’s plan out of desperation to save Maki's life is way more in character than Kaito choosing to kill Kokichi out of desperation to save Maki's life. Him not trusting Kokichi would be a direct result of what happened in trial 4 where his belief made him mess up. The subversion of what his character was capable of would've been less out-of-nowhere and more related to the narrative theme. Kaito forcing the antidote on Kokichi, convincing him not to commit suicide, then killing himself before the poison did to prevent as many deaths as possible all while using his life to end the killing game would’ve made much more sense. Because Kaito knew he was going to die from his disease anyway and would want to save both Maki and Kokichi. Having him be so selfish and only value Maki's life, once again, makes him come off as a jackass in my eyes. He’s right for not trusting Kokichi since in the end, it convinces Kokichi to continue living rather than committing suicide. This would’ve been a way better “fuck you” to Monokuma than relying on luck to use his disease to kill him before the execution did. The symbol of belief, Kaito, would decide not to trust someone in his last moment of living in exchange for sparing Maki’s life and helping Kokichi grow.

All three characters and their continual struggle with truth, lies, belief, and distrust would’ve actually gotten the closure that they deserve. They would’ve all grown past their troupes to learn that all four are necessary in order to become better people. And there’s no way you can convince me that this is a worse lesson than “lying is bad.” And I say it one more time: really, game?

This also fixes a lot of continuity problems I had with the other chapters as well. What Kokichi said in chapter 4 about Shuichi being useful to him would’ve actually made sense. What Kokichi did in chapter 4 with purposely encouraging everyone to blindly trust Shuichi despite Shuichi’s lies during the trial would’ve actually made sense. What Monokuma proceeded to do in chapter 6 by allowing Shuichi to lead a class trial would’ve actually made sense if Monokuma himself was no longer allowed to because Shuichi, Kaito, and Kokichi outsmarted him in chapter 5 rather than just being another Junko brain fart moment of “okay! I'll agree to your conditions because it's interesting!” Shuichi, Kaito, and Kokichi wouldn’t have come off as dumbasses in chapter 5. What Shuichi kept repeating over and over in chapter 6 about wanting to end the killing game wouldn’t have made me roll my eyes so hard when he’s the one who sabotaged Kaito and Kokichi from ending it sooner. Maki would’ve actually had a chance to show remorse for her major fuck-up in chapter 5 and reflect back on what it means to have the skills of an assassin instead of brushing it off because “it wasn’t actually her who directly killed Kaito” even though it was totally her fault that it happened.

The rest of the class (minus Kokichi) being reluctant to trust Shuichi in the sixth chapter due to his lying in the fifth chapter would’ve made that entire segment in chapter 6 with Shuichi gradually reforming bonds and gaining back their trust one-by-one actually make sense instead of being a mindless mini-game. Kokichi would’ve actually obtained his own unique character arc with a proper payoff in chapter 6 by carrying on Kaito’s wish to trust/believe in Shuichi. Shuichi himself growing out of what Kaede told him in order to become a better person who embodies truth, lying, belief, and distrust would’ve made for a well-rounded ending. The trial and whoever’s death happened in chapter 5 wouldn’t have felt like such a waste of time that purposely went out of its way to bend over backwards in being as inconsequential and illogical as possible.

Why didn’t that happen? Well, I can only guess that the writers were so focused on making Kokichi into another tragic Komaeda troupe and Kaito into another tragic Chiaki troupe that they completely forgot that Kaito and Kokichi are their own characters with different values and actual flaws. Kodaka wanted his standard suicidal tragic bad guy unsolvable murder that would mindfuck the audience. And guess what? He got it in exchange for ruining the three most narratively strong characters in the game. Heaven forbid Kokichi not commit some grand suicide scheme, because he’s not Komaeda and because he’s never shown a single indication that he wanted anything but to live, wouldn’t make him popular enough. Heaven forbid Kaito not become the tragic waifu who was “forced” into killing someone, because he’s not Chiaki and because he was never actually forced into killing Kokichi and has too high of a moral code to do it, wouldn’t make him popular enough. Heaven forbid Shuichi lying in a trial instead of finding the truth behind the chapter 5 murder, because he’s not Hinata and because unlike Hinata he had no good reason to, wouldn’t make him popular enough.

I think what really proves that the writers just got tired of the “truth versus lies” and “belief versus distrust” theme and gave it a lackluster borderline infuriatingly awful conclusion is how the DRV3 game abruptly switches back to “hope versus despair” as its main conflict soon after in chapter 6.

And before you tell me that the end of chapter 6 did in fact tackle the concept of truth and lies by saying neither matter as long as it induces the right feelings, I don’t buy it for one second. It was incredibly tacked on in the last minute of game-play and relied so much on telling rather than showing us. As a player, I don’t believe Shuichi has come to appreciate both because he never did anything in the game to prove it. In fact, his actions in chapter 5 directly contradict that he believes there’s any good in lying. There’s no proof that the whole truth versus lies and belief versus distrust theme actually had any merit aside from lies = bad and hence Kokichi = worse than Monokuma. It’s messy. It’s all over the place. It felt like a waste of time.

And that was officially when chapter 5 broke the entire game for me.

#drv3 #ndrv3 #danganronpa #ouma kokichi #shuichi saihara #kaito momota #rant #discourse #meta #bringing out the salty hajime again #there are still good things about drv3 #but chapter 5 was #dumb enough to break the game for me #from a great or phenomenal one #to an okay one #i'm baffled at how #lackluster the payoff #of the deaths were

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ryouverua · 6 years

Text

Trial 6 - ”hello, world!” (6)

Time to pick up the fallen torch.

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

K.... K1-b0? This - this must be you, right?

I’ve been waiting for this moment since the beginning of the chapter 3 trial! Finally, the explanation I’ve been craving! If - if the inner voice is coming into play now - it might actually be a benevolent force, right? Maybe? At this point we just need something to keep us moving forward...

Yes!!!

..... Oops.

“And please choose the right answer this time.”

Okay okay, jeez -

K1... K1-b0? W-Why not - ?

...... remedy the situation. Not save... but fix...???

Voices??? It’s plural now? Does that include me, the player?

K1-b0! Your moment has finally come, with no more lasers or explosions required! hopefully

WAIT

WE’RE OFFICIALLY IN HIS POV NOW???

This is incredibly late game for a protagonist switch b-but okay! also oh god what does that say about Sweetcheeks’s condition -

I’m glad we haven’t completely lost Shuichi. ): He really does look like he’s not with us, though. How can we help him? I joke about how much I love this sprite, but it’s awful seeing him like this.

But apparently Shuichi’s been relegated to the sidelines entirely now, because K1-b0 is entirely focused on Jun - Tsumugi. Oh boy, I almost started thinking of her as Junko. I will not let her hide behind her characters, damn it!

Yes! Yes, exactly! She can’t have it both ways!

YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE ANNOYED YOU APPARENTLY WROTE HIM TO BE THIS WAY!!!

Ooh? Yeah, the text is changing at the bottom...

U U H I’M SORRY YOU CAN’T JUST DROP A BOMB LIKE THAT SO ABRUPTLY -

TSUMUGI LET HIM HAVE HIS COOL MOMENT

HE LITERALLY JUST GOT HIS MOMENT IN THE SUN DON’T JUST UNDERCUT HIM OUT OF NOWHERE

no seriously she didn’t even give him a chance to build up momentum

The way she’s able to just dismiss him so casually like that, just completely trivializing him, is absolutely brutal. also what plotline lol -

I-I mean I’m joking, he has had a ‘coming to terms with his status as a robot amongst humans and accepting himself’ plotline! Sorta! It’s just been pretty.... well, behind the scenes. I just wished we got to see more of you and Miu together at the very least.

Wait -

He’s been the actual audience’s surrogate? That.... that means his ahoge....... really is the connection to the outside... but also, the only thing holding him back from going kamikaze??? It’s basically an outside force that’s been suppressing his free will?

Oh shit... is that why the game switched us to this POV, for that reveal? Well-damn-played, DRV3!

.....

wow this is getting worse and worse, huh

ALSO OH NO WAY TO SMASH HIS FRAGILE SELF-ESTEEM INTO PIECES

“You know all those hi~lar~ious asides everyone had at your expense about you being no more important than your average kitchen appliance? Guess what - ! They were r i g h t!”

Somehow I wonder if it would have been better if it was the mastermind’s will. At least it would assign him some sense of importance, even if that stinging feeling of betraying his friends would be there. At least he wouldn’t literally just be the subject of some nameless audiences’ whims - as it is, he’s basically been relegated to the status of ‘plaything’.

From Chapter 3 onward, when I was thinking about it, I wasn’t sure originally if I should consider it a force for good or evil - it seemed to be generally benevolent and since he didn’t take any actions against anyone, it was generally okay for me to discard it as an extension of ‘a mastermind whose goal was for everyone to be at odds with each other/kill each other’. He was always one of the most willing to cooperate with the others, too! I even considered if any of his actions had indirectly caused tension or murder, and I couldn’t find any instances where he did. But if he’s been at the beck and call of a third party, who’s been directing him for the sake of entertainment? Well, that’s a completely different story. In that context... everything makes... a lot more sense...

.... Except for his Chapter 5 actions??? He nearly got Shuichi to take him out twice??

Wait, actually - oh, this does change how I might look at him from this point on. How often would he consult the voice? Do the decisions override his own every time? Does that mean he can only make a move at the behest of the audience????

THE WAY HE PUT IT IS EVEN MORE DEMEANING

fhgh I guess that answers one of my questions

THE GIMMICK....

every production buzzword thrown in makes my stomach drop more

S-Shit the last time he had his ‘short-circuiting’ sprite was when Kokichi did his mastermind reveal in tandem with the ‘outside world’ reveal - D:

A.... Are you trying to make them feel bad for you, because I don’t think it’s working -

omg I just realized there would totally be twitter threads and reddit posts and stuff dedicated to this, and I’m trying to imagine the rage!posts that would swarm them as users ran to the internet to bitch about how ‘the robot totally isn’t responding to us anymore!’ and ‘I bet they’re rigging it so the ending goes the way they want! What a cop out ending!’ and hell, one of those more topical ‘let 👏 us 👏 control 👏 the 👏 robot 👏 you 👏 cowards 👏’

K1-B0 WAS THE CAMERA?!?!

..................................

glances at my computer monitor, then back here

ahahaha I am officially part of the outside world!mastermind tomfoolery oh god I’m so sorry everyone

Wait.... wait. Wait! So the Nanokumas’ footage is for the mastermind’s exclusive use? Really?

I... I was under the impression that if this audience was watching everyone, they’d have access to everything....

Then how different would this all look from only K1-b0′s eyes?! Did he know about Kaito’s training, for example? About Kaede and Shuichi’s practical inseparability in the first chapter? Wow, how different would this entire thing look from K1-b0′s exclusive POV?

I’m sorry what?

okay okay she’s going off on a despair rant which is - y’know, great, you do you and whatever - but I think it just turned my brain off a little bit. Like I just got catapulted back to DR1.

A-Are we really turning back to the whole ‘Junko persona’ idea? That she took on that role specifically, and by taking on the role as ‘Junko Enoshima’ she feels obligated to follow it through to the end? B-But...... but??? For a show??? That’s... no, that can’t be right, that’s weird, that’s stupid, that can’t be right....

You gotta admire her dedication to the craft I-I MEAN NO

WHAT THE HELL TSUMUGI

THAT IS NOT A GOOD ENOUGH MOTIVE

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT KIND OF REASON

SHUT THE FUCK UP KOMAEDA AND DON’T LOOK SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS oh that actually felt pretty good

i say this as someone whose previous favourite was komaeda it was very love/hate don’t @ me

Oh hey, the opening music is on! Is this the big turnabout we’ve been waiting for? It’s.... so.... weird that it’s coming from K1b0 now? Also wasn’t this sort of the plot of the DR3 anime via the Ultimate Animator or -

I??? I guess??? Weren’t they all just screaming DESPAIR at Shuichi a minute ago??? Isn’t it their comments on the screen???

Inspirational and all but -

I’m GoINg to cHOkE anD DiE

ULTIMATE HOPE ROBOT

FJKGHSDKLFJ

WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME

oh shit well there’s text saying Hope now so I guess something has changed out there

I believe it’s called déjà vu.

No seriously, am I hallucinating? Is this not what led to the whole final vote in DR1 or am I going crazy? Is this... what is.... happening........???? And Shuichi has just completely BSoDed in the corner??? Like, is he disassociating right now? Where is he?

It’s interesting that she looks happy here compared to angry Junko. She looked excited earlier when K1-b0 challenged her too (her new jazz-hands!sprite, lol) too, and her voice is on the brink of. Uh. I’m just going to say it’s getting very.... passionate. Is she just that confident or...?

Oh hey their sprites mirror each other. Parallels. :D

I like how Tsumugi is having Makoto say this part ~

But this brings up a good question... how exactly is this so-called final battle going to work? If they can’t fight for the right to leave, then what can they do?

alksdfj Himiko and Maki have also been so quiet this so time - I almost forgot they were there. K1-b0 and Tsumugi are basically the only ones doing the talking and between all the cosplays it feels like there are way more people here than there actually are - which is the point, I think? It really adds to that oppressive, ‘everyone is against you four’ atmosphere.

“- DETAILS DETAILS anyway it’s happening I don’t really care, now about that special vote ~”

This -

This is literally DR1?!?!

This.... this is strange. There has to be incentive to vote one way or the other. Is she going to tie ‘vote for K1-b0’ and ‘you’ll be forced into a world where you can’t/shouldn’t exist’ together vs ‘Vote for Tsumugi′ and ‘stay inside forever’? That’s.... what happened in the others, right?

Shuichi, mentally clocked out but occasionally checking back in so he doesn’t miss anything important: Wow this is absolute bullshit

Yeah... there’s no way they weren’t going to find a way to tempt you to vote for K1-b0. Okay, lay it on us.

YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE THEM KEEP GOING?!?!

“Ugh why did I let myself get lured back into the conversation by my bitchin’ ‘Lazy Parallel World’ theme song I’m going to mentally check out again because everything hurts and I want to die -”

There.... there aren’t....??

THAT’S NOT ENCOURAGING omg I missed that catchphrase it always made me laugh

I??? I don’t know if I can trust that??? If you can literally make flashback lights to override their old memories - if you can force it on them, whether they’re willing or not - if you can delete the last 24 hours, you could make them do something again??? T-Though if Tsumugi is gone... but then again, there’s a whole team of people behind this apparently! Her being gone means nothing!

“So you cannot leave this place.” Is it? Is it literally, physically impossible to leave this place? That’s the real question. the impossible is possible all you gotta do is make it so... s o b

HOW EVIL CAN YOU GET

HOW COULD YOU NOT EVEN GIVE THEM A POSSIBILITY OF RETURNING TO THEIR ORIGINAL SELVES

WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHY WOULD THAT BE OKAY FOR A PUBLICLY TELEVISED TV SHOW

For that matter this whole damn series sounds like a snuff film, if actually people are involved. Dear lord, even if they are actually adults - and I desperately hope that if this is true, that the outside world is actually like this, and watches this for fun, then they have a ‘18+’ rule for auditions (actually considering the love hotel exists they must be at least 18 ggh) - even the survivors.... have been killed, in a sense. Their previous selves have been killed. They were dead the moment they entered the world...

So either 16 people consented to ‘dying’ in an existential sense as well as possibly a physical sense, or 16 people were kidnapped and ‘killed’ for the entertainment of the world. I.... I actually... do at least believe, no matter what, that there is a depraved audience viewing this from somewhere. There’s no way there isn’t - this feedback via comments, the scene with that kid Makoto watching this at the beginning of this chapter - those are true. And they were more than okay with the idea of these people dying for their entertainment, even the so-called winners.

You can only create new identities, not recover them... I, I dunno. Somehow that’s so much more soul-crushing than a lot of the other things that have come up this trial.

t-the way his voice is breaking skdlfjgh -

W HA T!?

WHAT THE FU -

WHY?! WHY?! WHY MUST IT ONLY BE TWO, EVERY TIME?! WHY HAVE YOU BEEN SO DETERMINED TO ONLY HAVE TWO PEOPLE SURVIVE TO THE END?!

H.... How the hell.... are they supposed to do that?! Is that how you’re doing it?! Putting the burden of the decision on them, in order to break them?!

H-HE LITERALLY SOUNDS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BREAK DOWN SOBBING ANY SECOND I CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS

She is really trying to push that point, huh... but there it is. They can escape to the ‘outside world’. That is a cold comfort at this point, but...

They...... I don’t. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to do this - look my classmates in the eyes and condemn them. I guess this somehow managed to be worse than DR1.

K1-B0 NO

fml of course the only potential option would be students choosing self-sacrifice

I... I’m glad Shuichi is showing concern. I’ve noticed it a few times, how finally in the last chapter or so that he’s been observant of K1-b0′s well-being where the others haven’t been.

But I’m getting distracted - that’s not the point! FML I know he’s been shown those extremist tendencies towards the vague ideal of hope and destroying the despair, I - between this and the ‘destroying the school’ rampage he went on - what is he aiming for? You’re saying that you’re trying to defeat despair, but what is that? Is hope just the opposite of despair? Is despair just whatever Tsumugi says it is, so we’re immediately opposed to it, as the representatives of hope? Are you fighting for them to escape? Why is everyone surviving together ‘living despairful lives’ if Tsumugi is gone and they aren’t trying to kill each other anymore? What makes it that way? Why is this considered ‘defeating despair’? What does that even mean?

I... I guess K1-b0 would be punished anyway if they voted for him, but.... still....

Ugh, I get it. I get that kibou is hope, and that K1-b0 is therefore hope, and that we’re fighting for him to win or... something.... uhghghgh

DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE SHUICHI

This was such an uncomfortable parade of ~ideal waifus~ sdlkfjsdf especially when we were getting into the ‘super tiny/cute’ territory because I have absolutely no interest in that whatsoever also I accidentally deleted Mahiru’s cameo sorry -

.... I wonder if this would’ve been more effective if I was the target audience for this? Either way, ending on Junko was still an offsetting choice, right? Right??

..........

Wait for that matter, who was this aimed for? Who out of Maki, Himiko or Shuichi would have fallen for that? Even if you believe that Maki or Himiko have an interest in women, nothing about the types they showed or may have shown interest in the game (Maki @ Kaito, Himiko @ Angie, Tenko and hell, even Kokichi) would lend them to the girls Tsumugi just cosplayed as? And even Shuichi’s strongest interest were in Kaede and Kaito - so who is Tsumugi trying to appeal to here?!

Oh shit we’re going into a mass panic debate! Okay, okay okay - !

.... Oh. Oh boy, I have to shoot down every mention of despair. Uh, okay -

OMFG I missed the screenshot but Monokuma started shilling their merch and their website I cannot even deal with how they’ll occasionally devolve into corporate shilling it’s so good -

But!!! We’ve got better things to do than get caught up in Monokuma’s commercializing of the class trial!

MAKI

NO MAKI WHY

ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR LAST CHAPTER IS THAT WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

omg

are you telling me

you’re not even doing this out of guilt

it’s spite

you’re doing this out of spite

you’re sacrificing yourself purely ou t of spite

MAKI HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE

“FOR FUCK��S SAKE MAKI, AGAIN??? AGAIN?!?!?!”

“LET ME KILL SOMEONE SAIHARA IT’S MY DAMN TALENT FFS -”

DOES THIS SCREENSHOT SAY ‘SHUICHI LOOKS YUMMY <3′ YOU’RE RUINING THE MOMENT

okay I’m not going to feel right until I write down the new set of comments

Makiiii

my darling assassin T_T

Hope lives on!

Shuichi looks yummy <3

Well said!

Another hope loop?

Hope is contagious!

Two steps forward...

Don’t lose to despair!

Don’t tempt Maki’s fate...

That’s my Maki.

Hope must go on!

Maki, darling...

;_; I’m gonna cry...

Hope vs despair!

one vote for Keebo!

tfw you’re in despair

ALL OF THESE TEARS

Assassiiiiiiiin

I am living for these comments and I would have killed to see the comments for the Chapter 5 trial - hell, the Chapter 4 trial. that’s what let’s plays and YT comments are for I suppose -

tbh I think if that one that keeps lusting after Shuichi comes to help we’re going to need a restraining order

o-oh?!

AAAAAAH

NO DON’T

MAKE ME FIGHT HIM

MY ACTUAL SOUL BRO

is............... Is that -

Clair de Lune playing......?!

#Ryou plays drv3 #Kiibo #Shuichi Saihara #Keebo #Tsumugi Shirogane #Himiko Yumeno #Maki Harukawa #spoilers #drv3 spoilers #K1-b0

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