#HONESTLY I want to say Tsumugi's the Producer and also the only V3 character present

[allgoodthingsflowintothecity]

Naegiri Week 2018 Day Six - Game

I just replayed The World Ends With You so I read the prompt and of course my mind yelled “Reaper’s Game AU” at me. Enjoy this very specific crossover between two niche fandoms that probably only appeals to me.

“Mission #7:

Come see your headmaster for your final grade! I’m waiting in the principal’s office. No time limit, but don’t take too long~! ʕ ᵔᴥᵔ ʔ

IIIIIIIT’S GAME TIME!!!”

Kyoko grimaced as she read the text, just as falsely saccharine and grating as the last six she’d received. Next to her, there was a yawn as her partner began to awake. Wordlessly, she held her phone out so he could read the mission text as well. Makoto let out a mirthless chuckle as he fumbled for his own phone, hidden in his pants pocket. “I’m really glad we’re not gonna be getting these messages any more,” he said.

His statement made excitement and anxiety both flutter to life in her heart. He was right; this was the last day. Either they’d win, and be given the right to come back to life in the real world, or they’d lose, and never feel anything ever again. “Do you know where the principal’s office is?” she asked, not quite ready to admit that she didn’t, even if he already knew about her amnesia.

Makoto nodded. “It’s on the second floor of the dorms.”

Well, that explained why she’d never seen it before—well, not that she could remember. There was only one stairway to the upperclassmen’s dorms, and it had been blocked by a barrier every day that week. The support Reaper posted outside of it, an absurdly muscular man with a voice like an airhorn and black hair styled like devil’s horns, had waved them away with an amicability unbefitting of a Reaper every time they asked about how to remove the barrier. “It’s not part of the playing field today. Good luck, Players!”

As always, they’d awoken in the entrance hall, meaning it wasn’t a very long walk to their destination at all. And with no time limit today, they were in no hurry.  They discussed strategy as they made their way haltingly to the dorms, keeping an eye out for stray Reapers and Noise. “Our one advantage is that there are two of us, and only one of her,” said Kyoko. “If you go on the offensive first, she should be distracted enough that I’ll be able to use my psych.” She clenched her hands instinctively, feeling the soothing leather texture of her gloves. The gloves had manifested as the source of her powers in the Underground, allowing her to visually identify her enemies’ weak spots from afar. It was her only psych, and not a particularly offensive one at that, but fortunately Kyoko had been trained in self-defense long ago. It wasn’t enough to keep her from dying, apparently, but it might be enough to keep her from staying that way.

Makoto, on the other hand… “Right, the offensive… so you think I should attack from up close?” He was something of a jack of all trades and a master of none. He had a myriad of usable psychs, the power drawn from pins he’d received from the gacha machine in the school store, but his control over them left something to be desired. She’d snapped at him quite a bit for his missteps in the early days of their partnership, though she was making a concentrated effort to be kinder now. Makoto was doing his best for both of them; she knew that.

“It shouldn’t matter, as long as you’re doing enough damage to keep her attention,” reassured Kyoko. “Once I know her vulnerabilities, we can make more informed choices as to how to proceed.”

They had met the week’s Game Master only once, before she had been allowed to attack them directly. As such, they knew very little about her powers as a Reaper, only that she was emotionally volatile and a sadist of the highest degree. She hardly looked older than Kyoko and Makoto, and she’d spoken with the cadence of a clueless valley girl, but the look in her eyes held a mad intelligence that had left Kyoko speechless. She didn’t want to admit it to Makoto—and fortunately, she was skilled enough at withholding her emotions that she didn’t have to—but Kyoko was genuinely afraid of the upcoming battle.

“Hey, Kyoko.” Makoto’s voice made her stop and turn around, but not before giving the hall in front of her another once-over to ensure it was clear of Noise.

“Do you need to stop by the school store again?” she asked, gesturing at the cluster of pins decorating his hoodie.

“Uh, no, I think I’m good, I just…” His eyes darted away from hers for a moment. “Once we get out of here, we’ll still be friends, right?”

Kyoko took a measured breath. “Getting out of here isn’t a sure thing yet,” she reminded him. His face fell a little, but recovered quickly.

“I know, but…” Makoto ran a hand through his messy hair nervously before meeting her eyes again. “I just want you to know that… I’m glad I got into this with you. I mean, obviously I’m not glad that either of us got into this in the first place, but…”

“No, I understand.” Oddly enough, she felt the corners of her mouth turning up. “We make a good team.”

“Right. I mean, even if…” he trailed off and shrugged. “We’ve made it this far. And I’m glad I met you. I, uh, I really like you, Kyoko.”

Her cheeks burned faintly. After a moment of silence, she admitted, “I’m glad too.” She could have ended it there, but instead Kyoko felt compelled to continue. “When we’re alive again… let’s meet up. We can spend time together doing something other than fighting, for a change.”

It was an irresponsible thing to promise when the prospect of living again was so close yet still so far off, not yet a surety but a rapidly-coalescing possibility. But the smile on Makoto’s face was worth the niggle of guilt in the back of her brain. They might not win, but they would fight. For each other, as well as themselves.

Despite the fact that she was still facing away from their destination, Kyoko took a step forward, towards Makoto. His smile only brightened as he took his own step forward, hand reaching out to hold hers. Abruptly the thought of skin-to-skin contact, without the barrier of her gloves, appealed to Kyoko, though she didn’t think she was quite ready to take them off in front of Makoto yet. Of course, there were other ways to satisfy that urge… her head leaned in closer and so did his, cheeks rosy and eyes wide with something like awe. “Kyoko…” he started, breath teasing her lips.

“Go, my Dark Devas! Show these foolish mortals the folly of love!”

Kyoko spun around with a curse, both at herself for failing to notice the Reaper sneaking up on them and at the Reaper himself for ruining the moment—not to mention his downright embarrassing choice of words. A tiny rodent-like Noise sprang up in front of her and she kicked it away before it could attack, prompting an appalled and dismayed gasp from the overdressed Reaper. Behind her, she heard a squeak as Makoto fended off another with a well-placed psychic bullet.

“One more warm-up fight, then,” he said with a labored chuckle.

Kyoko smiled. “We won’t need it.”

They were going to win. And once they won, there would be no Reapers around to interrupt their moment.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 0.1

This is the beginning of what is essentially something like a text-based, very-not-blind Let’s Play of Danganronpa V3? I have a lot to say about this game’s story and characters, and this gives me an excuse to talk about any and every part of it that I feel is worth mentioning as I go along.

Be aware that this will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

All characters appearing in this game are fictional.

Yup, they sure throw that right in your face at the very first moment. And every single time you turn on the game after that. No other Danganronpa game does this during its startup.

This opening movie showing Danganronpa 1, 2, 3 and UDG is supposed to be an in-universe advertisement for season 53, right? But why are they acting like this season is going to be connected to the Hope’s Peak arc? That definitely was not part of the original plan.

“No knowledge of who I am. …Who I am? Who am I? I extend a hand. A hand that belongs to no-one. To take hold of my existence—”

Pregame Kaede:  “This is me. My name is Kaede Akamatsu. I just remembered who I am. Nice to meet… me.”

Uhh. I would say this part is a significant sign of what’s going on here. It sure sounds like it’s written as though the character we’re meeting here is literally coming into existence as we watch. But, this is pregame Kaede, not our Kaede. Our Kaede literally does come into existence moments before we meet her. If these lines had been used for her introduction, they’d have been a really neat hint at what was going on! But it really doesn’t make sense for pregame Kaede, who already existed as a person before this moment and is simply waking up from being unconscious.

Pregame Kaede:  “I’m the protagonist of this crazy story.”

Again, would be nice foreshadowing (especially because Kaede’s not really the protagonist), except it doesn’t really make sense here because the “story” hasn’t started yet. It’s a pretty weird thing for pregame Kaede to be saying about herself.

Ultimate Revival

Hm, the original Japanese prologue title, “Rise of the Ultimates”, is actually a better hint to what’s really going on. The localised title makes it sound like they genuinely did lose their memories of being Ultimates and are going to regain them, but “Rise” implies they’re becoming Ultimates for the first time, which they are.

Pregame Kaede:  “…A classroom?” (Yeah, this is a classroom alright. But… I don’t recognize it.) “Where am I…? What am I doing here…?” 

Pregame Kaede, you have just woken up to find yourself in a strange classroom with barbed wire on the windows. Surely you have seen enough seasons of Danganronpa to have an inkling of where this might be going.

For some reason, pregame Shuichi’s hat is the same hat that our Shuichi will continue to wear. I guess the producers had the idea for incorporating that hat into his backstory and issues when they saw his audition. Obviously, there needs to be a different in-universe reason for the writers to give him the hat than the out-universe reason that he’s the real protagonist and they had to hide his Protagonist Hair until the reveal. In-universe, the protagonist is Keebo.

The pregame characters – at least Shuichi and Kaede; we don’t hear anyone else’s name except Rantaro, who isn’t “pregame” – have the same names as the Ultimate characters. Seems a little surprising that the writers wouldn’t have picked new names for them, but I guess this isn’t Ace Attorney where everyone’s name has to be a pun. (Also, obviously, out-universely we’d have been a bit suspicious if the characters in the first half of the prologue had completely different names).

Pregame Kaede:  “Now listen to me, Shuichi… Shut up! You’re not the only one who’s confused right now!”

Pregame Shuichi:  “Ah, sorry…”

Pregame Kaede:  (After making him shut up, I retraced my steps again.) 

Pregame Kaede sure sounds a lot more selfish and less encouraging than our Kaede, doesn’t she.

So they were kidnapped and brought here. Which, uh… isn’t exactly the most logical way to bring in your successful auditionees. I could try to argue that Team Danganronpa told everyone their audition failed to try and avoid them blabbing to the general public and then went about it this way or something, but… honestly I’m just going to put this down to the rather flimsy out-universe writing for everything relating to how the outside world works. There’s going to be a lot of this in this part of the prologue. The out-universe writers didn’t want to make it too obvious what was going on, so they had to have some method of coming here that seemed plausibly like they were unwillingly being dragged into a killing game.

I’m putting it down to bad writing and not to a deliberate hint that actually the whole fiction thing was all a lie and they really were kidnapped by the Gofer Project or whatever because…

Pregame Kaede:  “Everyone pretended like nothing happened… It made me think how rotten the world is…”

…this is a very clear indication that this is not our Kaede. Pregame Kaede said in her audition tape that she had no faith in humanity, and this matches that perfectly. Even if you could argue that having wiped all of Ultimate Pianist Kaede’s memories of playing the piano would have made her less of an optimistic person (since all of her optimism is based in the reasons she plays piano), it wouldn’t have made her actively more cynical like this.

Pregame Kaede:  “But… why me? My family’s not rich and I’m no one special.”

I don’t know, Kaede, maybe because you auditioned to be in Danganronpa? This is another of the main problems I have with the way the outside world is portrayed in this game – and by “outside world” I’m including the pregame versions of the characters that we’re seeing here. It should be obvious to all of them that they’ve just wound up in the opening of a Danganronpa story! They should be celebrating!

Partly I can see that the out-universe writers are doing this to bring up the fact that right now these kids are perfectly normal non-Ultimates, but. Still.

Hello, giant humanoid mecha! Did you know this is Danganronpa, Gurren Lagann edition. Or it will be once our equivalents of Simon and Kamina actually exist.

Huh. I’m messing around letting pregame Kaede get thrown around by the Exisal, and there’s this flashing red effect on the edges of the screen, as if indicating she’s in pain, that keeps intensifying each time it happens. It stops intensifying after about four times, though; obviously you can’t actually die. That’d have cut the killing game short, heh. Although they’d probably have just picked another auditionee to take her place.

Oh man, look at pregame Kaito’s expression. He just looks so disgusted and contemptuous. That is so definitely not our Luminary of the Stars right now. Kirumi also looks uncharacteristically nervous, and maybe Kokichi does too? But our Kokichi pretends to be nervous often enough that maybe that’s not such a huge clue in his case.

Pregame Kokichi: “Do you want me to check on what’s happening?”

This, though, is pretty telling. He’s genuinely offering to do something to help out! That is not the Kokichi we know.

Pregame Tenko: “You can’t! It’s too dangerous out there!”

I also have to wonder if our Tenko would have said this given that the person who offered to take that risk is male. It’s possible that her worry about the danger would have overridden her misandry for a moment, though.

Rantaro:  “There are 16 of us – all high schoolers. What do you think that means?”

Yeah, guys, what do you think that means? Rantaro should not be the only one here who knows what is going on. The out-universe writers probably had everyone else not also show signs of this since they wanted to hint that Rantaro in particular knows more than he’s letting on, but, still. Right now, everyone should know what this means. Except maybe Keebo.

I’m assuming that this is a Rantaro who still has his memories and identity from season 52 and is fully aware that he’s been thrown into a new killing game. That seems to make the most sense – if they forgot to give all the new characters their memories, they might have forgotten to wipe his, too. And he’s a lot more obvious about being familiar with this situation than he’s going to be after the reset.

One thing to note is that everyone’s superficial personalities – speech patterns and such – seem more or less the same as they’re going to be. Guess that’s something that’s harder to rewrite by implanting fake memories, even if you can change the actual person behind that personality?

You know, I’m not sure why Tsumugi is here in a non-Ultimate outfit if this was supposed to be the real beginning and everyone else being in non-Ultimate clothes wasn’t planned. Keebo too, for that matter. But again, the out-universe writers don’t want to give stuff away.

Also, Keebo’s wearing a hat to hide his Protagonist Hair, aka antenna. Does that mean his antenna just isn’t there right now? Is he connected to the audience yet? Are they seeing this through his eyes and being very confused?

Monokid:  “I told ya we shoulda read the script!”

Hah. That’s pretty telling. I mean, on a first watch it probably seems like they just had a script for how they were supposed to present themselves as gamemasters for the killing game, but no, it’s literally the script for this entire story.

There’s a lot of little hints like this, particularly from Monokuma and his cubs, and I’m going to have fun pointing them all out.

(However, other than that I will be ignoring most everything the Monokubs say, because all of their bits are almost entirely annoying and extraneous.)

Pregame Maki:  “Moving stuffed animals…”

Pregame Ryoma:  “On top of that, it seems like they’re calling themselves the ‘Monokubs’.”

Pregame Kaede: (Moving stuffed animals? Monokubs?) “Wait! You guys call yourselves… the Monokubs? 

On a first watch, this’d just sound like everyone’s bewildered (with good reason), but in reality, this at least is a hint that everyone knows what’s really going on here and is finally starting to piece it together. Took them long enough, though.

However, given that they’ve finally figured it out, someone should really just get it over with and blurt out, “Oh my god we’re in Danganronpa!”. They’re all thinking it now.

Rantaro:  “This is exactly what I thought it was. 

Yep, Rantaro, but you’re really not the only one who’s thinking that anymore.

Rantaro:  “Why the ridiculous theatrics—” 

Oh dear, did your previous season not have the Monokubs or anything else equally annoying and extraneous, Rantaro? Man, you got lucky.

Monosuke:  “Ya think maybe they haven’t been given their first memory yet?”

Ha. “Given” their memory. Yeah, that’s totally how memories work, right.

Pregame Kaede:  “Hey, answer my question! If you guys are the Monokubs, then—”

Oh my god, Kaede, if you’ve figured it out then just blurt it out, stop letting them cut you off.

Pregame Kaede: “I have a skill that I devote myself to… but I wouldn’t call it an Ultimate talent… 

I wonder this is actually playing the piano or something else. She could have chosen her talent because of that, but also the writers could have just given her a different talent to what she asked for.

Pregame Shuichi:  “M-Me either… I-I don’t… have anything like that…”

Meanwhile pregame Shuichi literally has nothing. He only wanted to be a detective because he thought they were cool.

Pregame Kaito:  “Y-Yeah… same here.”

Neither does pregame Kaito; like hell this asshole would have the communication and teamwork skills necessary to be an astronaut at all, let alone earlier than usual.

Kaede is still trying to butt in and ask if this is Danganronpa and still getting cut off before she says the spoilery part of that sentence.

Monotaro:  “See, according to the backstory, there’s this Ultimate Hunt goin’ on.” 

Haha, yep, that’s really all it is: a backstory.

Tsumugi:  “Umm… what are you talking about?”

Heh, and Tsumugi’s the one to act confused about that. She’s probably worried that he just said too much. In fact, for someone so apparently-not-that-important, she has a lot more lines in this scene than most other characters, which I imagine is deliberate.

This magical girl clothes-changing sequence can’t be how things really happened. On my first time I was sure this had to be meaningful and took it as a hint they were doing the simulation thing again, but I was also sceptical that they’d do the same twist twice. But yeah – it just… can’t be how this happened? I’m not sure what really did happen here. Unless they have some really weird technology in this universe.

Monokid:  “Once the seal has been broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game!”

Pregame Kaede:  (K-Killing game?)

And from this moment, what we’re seeing here omits a few parts to avoid spoiling us. This is finally the point at which everyone reacts to being in Danganronpa. Again, took you guys long enough, geez.

Monotaro:  “This amazing story will begin for real this time! 

Yup. It’s a story all right.

Some of the words in the background during the Flashback Light sequence are pretty telling – not only does it have a bunch of stuff relating to the piano, there’s also things like “Chatty” and “Friends”, showing that her entire personality and history are being shown to her right now, including parts that shouldn’t ever have been erased if all she erased was her talent.

There’s also “Moonlight”, which I believe is a mistranslation that should say “Clair de Lune” – it’s French for moonlight, and in Japanese the piece’s title isn’t the French name but is just the Japanese term for moonlight, so it seems someone on the localisation team missed the memo that this was referring to the piece of music and translated it into English rather than French.

I would note that Gonta was one of the characters who never spoke at all during this section, which is clearly deliberate because if he had we’d have noticed him speaking with correct grammar… except then I remembered that he uses correct grammar in the original Japanese anyway. So that’s just a coincidence. I wonder what the localisers would have done with that if he had been one of the ones to speak up.

Keebo also doesn’t say a word, which has to be deliberate. I’m not sure exactly what would be going on with him here – surely he must already have been given his “character”, because he doesn’t have a pregame identity at all.

 After the reset, our Kaede starts out reacting word-for-word the same way as pregame Kaede did – as I said, it seems that the superficial personalities weren’t really rewritten. However, everything else about the kind of people they are has very significantly changed.

Kaede:  “How rude! Don’t freak out at me like I’m some sort of monster!”

Shuichi:  “Ah, sorry…”

Kaede:  “I’m sorry too, okay? I just have no idea what’s going on…”

Tellingly, the point at which this starts to diverge from what originally happened is when Kaede and Shuichi apologise to each other for freaking out, rather than getting into an argument. Because these are both good people, and their pregame selves weren’t.

Kaede:  “Oh! ‘Gymnopédie No. 1’ by Erik Satie. Try to imagine that sorrowful melody filling your head and soothing your heart— 

Also Kaede is now a huge piano geek. Too much of a geek to realise that Shuichi probably doesn’t know the piece she’s talking about, but, she was trying to help him calm down! Kaede is good.

Heh, during the Monokubs’ exposition about Ultimates, they mention they have eligibility to run for elected office. I think you’ll find a certain Ultimate is already technically the prime minister (albeit without having been elected).

Okay, but, question. Shuichi and Kaede started out shut in these two lockers in this classroom. But this and the Flashback Light classroom are the only classrooms with lockers. That is not enough lockers for everyone. Where did everyone else start out?

Kaede:  “You’re a detective? That’s amazing!”

Shuichi:  “Ah, no… I don’t have the credentials to call myself a detective yet… I just… happened to solve a case that I came across and… now people call me that.”

Kaede:  “Not many people can ‘just happen’ to solve a case. You should be more proud of that.”

Aww, Shuichi’s lack of confidence in his title and Kaede already encouraging him.

This series of images of Kaede growing as a pianist is really cute. Warmed me to her straight away the first time around.

Shuichi:  “That’s how you got your Ultimate title? That’s way more impressive than me…”

Kaede:  “No. That’s all I’m good for, really.”

And she seems really self-conscious about the “Piano Freak” thing, the fact that she’s so obsessed with it that she thinks she doesn’t have anything else going for her. That’s not true, Kaede! You’re an amazing person, all because of how hard you work and how much you want to make others smile 

So already Kaede and Shuichi both have a reason to admire the other for their talent – Kaede admires Shuichi’s talent because it’s much cooler and more useful than hers, and Shuichi admires Kaede’s because she worked really hard for it and didn’t just get her title by chance.

Kaede:  “But this is my first time meeting another Ultimate student.” 

Kaede seems enthusiastic to meet other Ultimates, too. I bet she’s hoping she can bond over the shared feeling of being really passionate about something, even if that something is different for each of them. No-one’s going to call her Piano Freak if they’re equally obsessed with something else themselves.

Shuichi:  “When I woke up, I was in that locker. I… don’t know how I got there… It’s like… that memory just fell out of my head—”

Not really – it got overwritten. The only one who would have had memories erased just now would have been Rantaro 

Kaede:  “We’re confused. We just need to relax, is all. Oh! Let’s imagine Maurice Ravel’s ‘Sonatine’…”

Playing music is all about influencing people to feel certain emotions, and Kaede cares so much about trying to do that to help out even when she doesn’t have a piano!

Kaede:  “When we get outta here, I’ll share it with you…”

oh no it’s not even Clair de Lune but ouch

I really like how the fragments in this game are Friendship Fragments, not Hope Fragments. Almost like friendship is one of the main themes of this game or something! It’s also neat design-wise how the first fragment is much smaller than the main petal-like fragments, because just being introduced to someone is only the small foundation for the much more meaningful friendship that might come.

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