#both scenarios would fuck up kaede quite a bit

[hecksupremechips]

RE danganronpa not having the best writing I was talking to a friend the other day about v3 about how it sucks that they set up Kaede to be the protagonist but then killed her off because while yes, Shuichi is a very good protagonist and he’s the only one that really gets interesting character development, Kaede could have so easily been an insanely interesting protagonist if she got to live because she has plenty of room to grow since she’s very clearly scared shitless and is deeply insecure about her ability to motivate and lead the group, but she smiles through it and lies about her feelings so much that the player doesn’t even know about her creating an elaborate murder scheme. And I realized that the way to keep her as a protagonist is for there to be a way that the first trial ends and someone else is found to be the killer (for example it could be Tsumugi if she weren’t the mastermind, or maybe someone else was in the library and killed Rantaro) and they get executed and thats that. Then at the end of the chapter we get a scene where Kaede is alone in her room and sighs in relief as it’s revealed that she hatched an elaborate plan to kill the mastermind but she wasn’t found guilty, either because she wasn’t the actual killer or because she was being protected by the mastermind. And so we the player have to proceed with the new knowledge that Kaede not only wanted to kill someone, she actually went through with a whole plan to kill someone and we didn’t even know about it and neither did any of the characters. And Kaede is on edge because on one hand she has to live with the fact that she was perfectly okay becoming a killer and that she failed to kill the mastermind so the game is going to continue and someone else was unlucky and got executed instead of her,but on the other hand she’s relieved that she wasn’t the one who died and that she was given another chance to find the true mastermind and no one has to know what she did. And as the game progresses it gets more and more stressful for her because she tries to keep up the positive energy but she’s living with this massive secret and she can’t let anyone find out about what she did and she finds herself still wanting to kill the mastermind so we the player don’t know how much we can trust Kaede anymore since she’s lying to everyone including us and she can very well kill again if she wants to

[thejustmaiden]

So out of nowhere I was tagged and quoted by a SR shipper for a blog of mine posted in August of last year. Talk about throwback but, hey, gotta appreciate that level of snooping. 😉

Back in the day I actually used to encourage discourse amongst Inuyasha fans- both shippers and antis alike- but I've since realized that it's a lost cause. But for you, @feministmetalgreymon , I'll grant this exception. Just 'cause it's been a while so why the hell not. haha

I want to assure you, however, that nothing you say will ever convince me that Sesshomaru and Rin are meant to be together romantically or that the story intended it so. Nor will you find any validation here. You can ship them for all I care, but please for all that is good and holy while I have your attention try- I mean really try- to understand why it is so many of us Inuyasha fans are so against this pairing in the first place (newsflash: it's not about ship wars), and why we believe a romance between the two of them is completely and utterly out of character.

For those of you interested in reading this, the blog of mine in question that the above shipper mentions in their counter-argument is here for reference. It's titled "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'm also making no such promises. After all, I'm not exactly known for my brevity. haha Now let's get crackin'!

Like you, feministmetalgreymon, did for your recent blog here where you took screenshots of mine to address certain parts, I will be doing the same and dissecting yours accordingly.

[Snippet 1]

I worked with kids for many years as a teacher, and many people in my family have too or still do. Two of them happen to be just over 5 feet which is quite short for the average adult woman living here. I've also worked alongside many a women of short stature, and never did I hear any of them complaining of issues with their students having difficulty differentiating them from their own peers just because they were short as well. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous. Kids are quite smart and pick up on a lot more than you seem to give them credit for. Height is not the only characteristic they look at to determine who's an adult and who's not, and it's foolish to suggest otherwise. So unless you're a babysitter who's still in their teens and/or who has very childlike features or behavior then I'm afraid what you're getting at is total hogwash. This is just another example of how you shippers offer nothing of real substance to your reasoning, it's only ever cherry-picking or strawmanning from you guys. Stop deflecting from the real issues please, because this certainly isn't one and only winds up being a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

[Snippet 2]

Okay, calm down now. I wasn't insinuating that relationships between parents and children can't change over time in terms of how they get along. Of course that's possible, as all families experience their fair share of estrangement and abuse. What I was speaking about was in reference to the overall dynamic between the two. Because a bad mother or father can still be viewed as a parental figure to their child even if say they're not in said child's life anymore. Since Sesshomaru and Rin share a healthy bond- and just a friendly reminder that in my blog I even said that he doesn't have to necessarily be labeled her father but that a romantic relationship later would still be inappropriate- I didn't deem it necessary to address what you brought up. Plus, it kinda, umm, misses the point?? Please, let's stay on topic. And it's not captured in the screenshot, but stop acting like there isn't a small part of them that idolizes their parents at some point during childhood. Just like you mention later on how it's normal for kids to have innocent crushes on adults that they eventually grow out of? Well, guess what, the same concept applies here. Kids eventually learn that their parents are far from perfect and make mistakes too. Rin is so damn young in the OG series though that we never even get to see her reach that maturity level.

[Snippet 3]

LOL! Alright, okay, so the "unbreakable bond" bit you're mentioning was actually me quoting you sessrinners. Did you not catch that? I literally spelled it out. *sigh* The whole point I was making is that shippers like yourself make hypocritical and contradictory statements all.the.goddamn.time. One moment you guys claim that Sesshomaru and Rin were essentially strangers and meant very little to each other, only to say in the same breath a few seconds later that they were destined to be together and their bond is like no other. I agree, their bond is special, but why must that mean they're going to fall in love?

That is the root of the matter here. Too many animes/mangas have romanticized this older adult man & young girl growing up falling in love trope that it's become way too normalized and widely accepted across the world- and yes, in some cultures more than others. Sadly, you lack the awareness to recognize how this all works. You know how we know that? When we see that you shippers are so desensitized to sexualized images of girls in the media that you share posts like this one below which *subtly* imply a future romance although one half of that pairing is still just a child in the pic and then try and pass it off as cute. That's like super fucking problematic and it scares me that you can't see that (or deny you do). 🤢

After all that's said and done, Sesshomaru leaving Rin in the village with Kaede is to me the strongest indicator more than pretty much anything else he's done for Rin that proves he is her adoptive father. It's so funny to me how you somehow see the exact opposite though. 🤔 What I think is happening is that you got yourself on some squeaky clean ass shipper goggles fresh out of your little echo chamber. Because I hate to tell you, but what you're fantasizing is what you want to see and not what's actually there on screen or was written into the story. I'm strictly talking about Inuyasha and the manga of course. [For the TL; DR version skip to the last paragraph.]

Parents looking after their kids is what parents are supposed to do. A good parent will do anything to keep their child safe and ensure they are cared for, so what he did for her by leaving her there was in her best interests clearly. Besides, as a babysitter, you more than most people should understand that parents aren't always able to be there for their kids so sometimes others gotta step in to help. Haven't you heard of the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?" Which in Rin's case is literally true! 😂 Sometimes kids are even sent off to stay with grandparents and that's who raises them instead. Or maybe they have to temporarily live with an aunt or uncle because their single parent's job requires they work out of town 4-5 days of the week so they're hardly home. But that doesn't mean that the parents care or love their kids any less, and it's foolish to assume that Sesshomaru must have thought very little of Rin simply due to the fact that he made the decision to leave her in the village. Come on, y'all are acting like he abandoned her there!!

It's just given the circumstances Sesshomaru finally came to learn that Rin traveling with him was no longer safe. I also like to think it's because he wished for her to live a more normal life and to learn how to fully trust humans again. Plus, continuing to travel with him as young as she was would have proven dangerous and unwise. Now for you to know all this and still manage to turn his past actions towards her while she was just a child into a romantic gesture is what boggles my mind. Regardless of how you look at it, from my perspective or your own, Sesshomaru is in the wrong. Either he's a father figure who impregnates his daughter at the young age of approximately 14. OR he's this man she used to travel with who maybe isn't a father to her but who nonetheless basically rapes her since kids her age can't consent to sex with an adult. Idk about you but it sounds to me like nobody here wins with either scenario we're given. In other words, you should be just as mad as we are. If only one side didn't choose to forsake their morals they know we both have in common for the sake of a ship. Welp. 🤷‍♀️

I agree, incest is disgusting but that's not the only problem we have with this pairing. A romantic bond forming between Sesshomaru and Rin would also constitute as grooming.

You realize that over the years he visited her in the village that he brought her gifts too and essentially watched her grow up right before his very eyes, right? I mean, I know you do, but I really shouldn't have to explain further why pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with each other is plain and simple wrong. And before you say it's not because he didn't have any malintent, please understand that considering their history and power dynamic up to then that yes this is still considered grooming even if Rin supposedly "wanted it" or "made the first move." Whether you consider him her father or not, as the adult who took on a role resembling that of a caretaker in her early life- a critical developmental time for a child- Sesshomaru is obligated to turn down any advances by Rin and most definitely should not initiate any himself. As the first close adult figure she's had in her life since her parents died, it's unfathomable to imagine how Sesshomaru could go through with taking advantage of this young girl who was under his care and supervision since they met. To think he could be capable of betraying that trust sickens me to the core.

This. Now THIS is how a parent/guardian or a similar adult caretaker (babysitter, teacher, etc.) talks to a child. And, in turn, this is how some young children talk to adults. You'd be insane and delusional to deny it! We see it in our everyday lives, do we not? From where else do you think our stories draw most of their inspiration? Yes, obviously these fictional universes have aspects of fantasy that don't exist in the real world, but so how then do you suppose we're able to relate to them? The reason for that being is because these stories are written by people for people, so naturally there are going to be real life aspects embedded throughout. Sure, a little escapism doesn't hurt as we don't need to take everything so seriously, but ultimately we all need to recognize that the messages in the stories we tell matter. Most stories possess a combination of both light and dark themes, but when it specifically comes to the latter we gotta be careful with how we tackle this in children's media since kids are far more impressionable.

So if at the center of a story we have two of the main protagonists whose mom is basically their same age and to top it off she knew their dad when she was just a girl and who just so happened to help raise her, wouldn't you say that's beyond fucked up or at the very least so fucking weird? Like why would we think it's even remotely okay for our children to watch this garbage?? Really think about it. Try and be objective for once and think about how it would sound explaining this storyline to an outsider who's never watched IY or HNY. Well, antis have tried this before many times and we always get the same reaction: Ewww!

Like I said earlier, if you wanna ship it then fine, but 1) please stop seeking our approval or trying to change our minds - your ship wish came true didn't it, so why do you need us to validate it? 2) even though it's not canon, respect that we don't support this sequel portraying pedophilia in a positive light. It's harmful af to not only allow but glorify the continuation of sexualized images of young girls everywhere. And I shouldn't have to say this, but just because this trope is popular as you say does not make it right. Lolicon themes in the media have been an issue forever and it needs to stop. Yes, even some people in Japan or "the East" would agree. Shocker!

We're pissed off and rightfully so because Yashahime's TV rating is 14, not to mention it airs at the prime time kids in Japan watch TV after getting home from school. That's Towa and Setsuna's age, true, but if Rin being the mom when she's like only a year older than them (please don't argue w/ me about the math- antis have so far been right every time with it) is straight-up disgusting and not something we should be supporting or endorsing. Rin's a whole ass child!! Please don't start with the "but times were different then so her having kids at 15 is acceptable" argument either, because we've already debunked that and every other single excuse you guys throw at us. Besides, how or why would you expect young viewers to know these historical "facts" anyway, especially if as you suggest fiction doesn't affect reality so what does it matter? Yet here we are, arguing over a fictional show in real life almost a year and a half into the "Sesshomaru fucks?" sequel being announced. My ass, your ass, hell all our asses fiction doesn't affect reality!

Look, I do apologize if the tone of this blog came off as snippy or condescending at times. I do not wish you any ill will, it's just I'm not really sure what you expected to get out of all this besides maybe getting on my nerves perhaps. haha A lot of you shippers have been desperately scrambling to interact with us, lurking in our tags, jumping onto our posts screaming canon and getting so defensive even though you sought us out first. We've been sticking to our tags, so how about you stay in your lane too. By the way since we're on the topic, have you seen Twitter or Reddit?! SR shippers there are the actual worst and many Inuyasha fans (not just antis) have complained of not feeling welcomed to engage in fandom spaces anymore. Shippers swarm them and scare them off simply because fans don't like your ship and refuse to accept it. It's pathetic, really. No one should ever be bullied or harassed just because they don't like something you might. We're all fans of Inuyasha, aren't we? So let's act like it. Yashahime on the other hand, you guys are welcome to that pungent heap of trash. Fans have a right to criticize it too, but if you like it then good for you, so keep on liking it and don't mind us.

I'm almost done, but real quick back to Jaken! Let's not forget about how the official Yashahime website- which came out after my blog, mind you- described Jaken. This translation isn't the best one available but it's the only version a fellow anti friend could track down. They do recall a better one done by a native Japanese speaker who was also an anti, and that member confirmed that Jaken is indeed called Rin's babysitter. So you see, I was right in my interpretation. In the original post I did compare Jaken to a brother, but after talking to others (some comments can be found under said post) I did acknowledge that he's more of a reluctant babysitter who's not related. And if he's not at least a brother to Rin, then he's definitely not her father.

At the end of the day, the creator Rumiko Takahashi has the final word. Which is guess what? Hogosha. 💖 Probably should've just started out with that and saved us all the trouble, huh? Good day/night to you.

Papamaru bids you adieu now. 🤞

[mangleschmidt]

DRV3 Boys playing TF2 Headcanons

(First made long before the F2P mute and bot crisis but I added the bot crisis)

Me and my bro made up many scenarios AND cosmetics for the class (my brother mostly help me with the idea)

I originally have the terminologies explained like market gardening, friendly and such but cut it because it’s getting too long. If you want the terminologies, you can tell me. Btw, I’m not an imagines blog, just doing this one for fun.

Kaito Momota

Main: Soldier

Thrilled to play this game, saying that's very manly and it's one of the coolest games yet

He, along with Kaede (and to an extend, Chiaki), are the ones who introduced the game to the class

Was a scout main at first and likes the scout unironically

A terrible tryhard warpig soldier

Saw a rocket jumping soldier at a High-tower map and wanted to imitate that, almost like he's blasting to space

Watch this guy try to market garden someone and then get fucking rekt by a Medic of all classes

He just dies, a lot, which is frustrating and his team gets mad at him

Kaito gets better at it fortunately, but it's a painfully slow process

You'll be lucky if he decides to go back to Scout in a round lmao

Rages in chat or voice but is the best cheerleader you can have in your team, he never actually shits on you for being shit on the game

There's that one time where Kaito got the Rocket Jumper from a drop, fired it at an enemy, got angry how it didn't worked, realized it doesn't do damage and embarrassed himself

Gets a bit pissy when no one is doing the objective so he avoids the maps Hightower and 2fort most of the time

Capture the flag and payload races mostly pisses him off for the same reason (tho he would go to Hightower for the sick rocket jumps)

So he doesn't like friendlies (but he may or may not, you know, do the conga, rock paper scissors, mannrobics, kazotsky kick-)

Anything that looks cool and manly cosmetics, but mostly you'll see him decked with space cosmetics

Bonus: Avoids Full Moon and Scream Fortress, is obviously afraid but he gives Alien Invasion a shot when it comes up, loves it. Also like Doomsday

Rantaro Amami

Main: Engineer

Everyone seems to be like it so why not give it a shot?

He got invested and also found the trading system

Rantaro usually plays engineer but is willing to change classes if the team needs a class

Is at least good at every other class

Rarely does turtling or battle engie but enjoys doing it with the other engies for laughs, and is very good at battle engie

Some people confused him with Uncle Dane

Hc that Rantaro looks up to Uncle Dane

Imagine Rantaro and Uncle Dane having a collab, that would be sick as fuck

Casual and competitive but more casual, often plays in community servers

That type of person who voice chats

Rantaro is one of the ones who would help his classmates play, along with Kaito. Imagine him like in a server with Kaito and Gonta, helping Gonta how to play and Avocado and Space boy act as a translator while Bug boy plays cutely

Doesn't mind friendlies, he chills with them a lot and he is easily well liked by the community

Some even suggested him to make a tf2 youtube channel

Has an unusual hat, making him look like a pro, has a lot of medic girlfriends because of this

One of the two reasons why the whole class have a wide array of cosmetics

Gonta Gokuhara

Main: Medic

At first he doesn't like how violent the game is

But since this violence is just for fun and in game and no one is actually getting hurt and dead so he's at least convinced

Still wants to play passively so Gonta goes with Medic, healing and helping his team seems to be a fitting choice!

The game is not too complex so he learns easily... i-in a way

Best boy learns fast, he should be fine

He's definitely that type of Medic who would go to someone when they press the E key and whoever is near him

Doesn't know where to look most of the time, gets lost easily to big maps like the control points

Gonta still has a firm grasp on what to do, like if he noticed that someone is in low health, he'll heal them immediately without needing the 'e', build up uber, spy check the patient, and never heal spies when they're disguised

Can't aim for shit, though he supposedly gets better at it with the crusader's crossbow

He sometimes would accidentally forget to pop when it's necessary and then die

"Danke!" Says that a lot

He doesn't play a lot despite having fun, he's an outdoor type of guy

Absolutely LOVES friendlies and just loves it when someone just stops, does the conga taunt and everyone follows, creating a conga line (until someone kills them all but it's all in good fun!) He loves silly servers

Is honestly surprised that there’s even such thing as silly servers and friendlies, thought it’s all blood and gore (he sometimes switch to pyro vision googles to avoid gore)

Sometimes plays as Heavy for the protecting part and the friendly Hoovy part for this reason

Anything fancy for the cosmetics, especially for hats the Gentleman's Gabsy or the Vintage Tyrolean (a good cosmetic for a good gentleman!)

Has a lot of cosmetics like Rantaro and trades them with the class

Bonus: Isn't fond of Banana Bay and the Second Banana... because banana

Kokichi Ouma

Main: None (most played: Scout)

Bold of you to assumed he never played this game before

... or is it a lie?

Needless to say he likes it for the cartoony and chaotic vibe of the game

Switches between the 9 classes, even if there's 5 spies he'll be the 6th one

He'd be that Medic who would leave the others to die, Scout that steals sandwiches from Heavy that's meant for the dying Medic and so forth

He might as well pretend to be a sniper bot

Chaos incarnate

This is the fucker who spams E and X+5 (Place the dispenser)

Also taunts in every kill

When he's on a losing team, he would try to bind kill right before the time is up or taunt kill in humiliation, sometimes works

Actually really good at the game, he's one of the very few people who picked up very quickly

Though he fooled Gonta once as a disguised enemy spy. He got rekt when they both noticed the achievement

Also dominated someone so badly that they immediately rage quit, another achievement

Another "you'll be lucky if he plays seriously" which is rare

Is definitely on a 30+ killstreak

People would sometimes thought he’s a squeaker (a kid who rages in voice chat) so he just fucks around with them and then just pulls a no u card

Neutral opinion on friendlies though he gets bored when no one is doing the objective or any action happening so he burns them all and watches them get mad in the chat

Obnoxious combos of cosmetics that you can easily recognize that purple neon Scunt from afar even if he's under an alias

Korekiyo Shinguuji

Main: Spy/Sniper

Not interested at first but is interested when others play and hovers over their shoulders to watch

While watching Gonta and Kiibo playing with the friendlies, he got interested

You don't see that in a lot of fps games

Korekiyo looks like an edgy sniper/spy main who just watches the chaos enveloping from the distance and getting headshots/backstabs out of nowhere

He's very calm and collective despite the crazy amount of chaos and all the deafening sounds of the vc

It's amusing to him, he even find the Administrator interesting and would sometimes go into many modes to hear her voice tone changes and a lot of behaviors of many players too

He even noticed the voice lines of the mercs and got invested in the lore of Team Fortress 2

Korekiyo still does his job in the game but can sometimes be interpreted as him in afk, almost got him kicked

Though he does get kicked for the being good at sniper, people getting butt hurt and called him a hacker

Also an amazing spy checker

Is interested about friendlies, he would come up to them close and observe them and he plays along with the taunts

He got really interested to see this "culture", like how most of the players collectively decides to play silly, serious or both, resulting him trying out almost every game mode and map there is

Unironically loves 2fort, Hightower, Suijin and Degroot Keep

Often joins community servers and silly servers but will do casual/pub servers whenever he feels like it

Something that resembles him irl, he looks edgy with the mask tbh

Other than that, his cosmetics changes depending on what mood or observation he wants to do

Ryoma Hoshi

Main: None (most played: Demoman)

Convinced by Kaito into playing

Not that much actually

Mediocre at best, he’s just doing his own thing

Definitely would stick around even if there’s one person in the server

Imagine getting killed by a Medic as a Demoknight in a melee fight with a shit weapon Do No Harm, couldn’t be me... or Ryoma

Likely plays Passtime

He will never admit it but he finds the ragdolls in the game funny

Also unironically likes the Scout

Demoknight tf2

God, imagine Ryoma has demonknight speed, combine it with his own speed and Solarlight skills, he’d be infinitely flying across all maps and go beyond the skybox

Ryoma too strong pls nerf

Doesn't play it often, not really his thing

Doesn’t mind friendlies, honestly surprised that there’s even such thing as one

Doesn't customize himself, though he likes the animal cosmetics

I apologize to the Ryoma fans out there for this being short

Shuichi Saihara

Main: None (most played: Spy)

Also doesn't see the appeal, but convinced by Kaito into playing

When he played the game for the first time, every time he dies, he switch to a class just to test them out

It’s too much for him, please hold him

Probably fell off a cliff several times-

Imagine the sheer amount of panic he feels when playing any class, especially Medic since Medic is a death magnet

Rockets, explosives, bullets, fire, blood and ragdolls everywhere! ... oh hey why is that guy just crouching with a melee?

He gets the hang of it over time

One of the best spy checker there is as well, not only as Pyro, though he feels sorry for the new spies (or newbies in general) so he tries to teach them the best way he can

The server kicked him for using hacks to find spies but for him, it’s obvious???

He usually plays the class whatever the team needs at the moment

Hard reads are strong in this one

Sushi likes the friendlies, chills with them a lot :>

Doesn’t customized himself, Kaito’s the one who helped him with it

K1-B0

Main: None (most played: Heavy)

Tries it out

It's ok I guess

He also doesn't have a main because he'll try to accommodate in which class is needed

If the whole team is like a full house of cards (in a 4 snipers, 5 engies type of way, you get the idea), he'll mostly go for the Medic since he knows it's vital for a team to have a Medic

There's rarely any Medics or Heavies in the start of the round, are they an endangered species??

He might start an event or something dedicating to the two classes

It never goes well despite Keebo's efforts in those, let's be honest

Though sometimes the team has like three Medics, the poor boy is confused

He's actually doing alright with all the class

The bot problem, oh god the bot problem

So there's that one time where the Myg0t bot joined, the enemy team said in the chat about kicking the bot

Well... obviously this made Keebo upset, as he thought they were referring to him

The server thought Keebo was trolling when he said something about him being a robot and saying that they're being robophobic... and sending them to court-

By some kind of miracle, the server liked Keebo because of this so he wasn't kicked out but he's incredibly salty throughout the match

"The server is robophobic" "Keebo, they were referring to the aimbots, they weren't robophobic" "... What Aimbots?"

His classmates were able to explain with videos and experiences, and also told him about several other types of bots that ruins the fun, which made Keebo embarrassed for having the wrong assumption

Though he still gets offended whenever it happens-

Like Kaito, he also doesn't like friendlies, insisting that that it's not how really play the game, though is guilty in pre-game conga lines, mannrobics and kazotski taunts, he likes the mannrobics

Bonus: Does NOT like the bot deco and is conflicted with the Mann vs Machine game mode

[thegospelofnagisa]

Magia Record Anime: Final Episode and Overall Thoughts of the Final Arc.

Ok… Sorry for the delay but I really really needed to fully structure my thoughts regarding the final episode of Magia Record and this whole final arch as a whole because...I am gonna be straight to the bullshit...I did not like this ending very much, as the episode itself I have to say it is my least favorite in the anime and I personally consider it the worst in the entire anime, right from the start I want you to know that, and with that being said, lets get into the reasons why.

First of all, while it is not a defining factor, it’s not the fault of SHAFT or bothers me a lot, it has to be said simply for the sake of completion, the quality of the episodes has been reduced dramatically, and that can be bothersome to some people, I understand that given the situation with the Coroner, this was expected, everyone knew it was going to happen, and again let me say, it doesn’t bother me, I can stand an anime that looks like blurry blob of shit, AS LONG AS THE STORY IS good, unfortunately for Magia Record I cannot shake the feeling in my head that the lack of resources might have had a hand in how things played out beyond a graphical downgrade...what things? That’s our next point.

Second, I have a big problem with this massive cliffhanger ending,I feel it was widely open, we are left with an ending that does not follow the story of the game in the slightest so NO ONE has any idea what the hell is going to happen and the story of this final arc is left inconclusive, we don’t know what will happen with Momoko and Rena, we don’t know if Iroha is going to be ok, we don’t know what happened to Mami...there is so much we aren’t aware of.

This is in itself is not a big issue because we know that there is going to be a second season, they’ve confirmed it….but here’s the thing, even so, you can’t just play with fire like that, leaving a massive cliffhanger like that is basically just begging the audience to continue to watch the series in the hopes that they’ll want to come and see what will happen, I feel that weights on the story because it doesn’t allow you to fully closure a story and like I said, a lot of things can change from here to then, sure Magia Record is popular, sure the anime is getting good ratings and it is selling well despite the pandemic, but that can change very quickly, what if the game messes something up and it puts a massive negative mark on the game that will affect its popularity? What if something happens with SHAFT and the anime gets delayed or worst, canceled? What if things get worst from here and now (I am very optimistic they won’t and we will all pull through with it but, it would be naive to discard a bad case scenario) you will ultimately disappoint your audiences when said continuation never comes, and it will be a huge disservice to the story you worked so much in.

G.R Martin can get away with it because that is the tone he has set for A Song of Ice and Fire, one of absolute uncertainty where you don’t know what will happen and things can change in an instant, so the audience is used to that dynamic, Magia Record IS NOT A Song of Ice and Fire, doing this is not good.

They should have finished episode 6 properly and then follow on with episode 7 and beyond in the second season...that is what I think.

The story itself is not that good because even in the game, it’s not very well written, it relies too much on backstory telling and trippy psychedelic antics, to the anime’s credit they summarized it very well, but still, it was not a good place to end the anime on, let alone finish it up with a fucking cliffhanger, so there is that.

And let’s not even get into what I perceive as contradictions with the original anime, for starters Kyubey saying in episode 12 that the witches are beneficial for humanity, I am sorry...I am sorry but...the Incubators don’t give two shits about humanity, Kyubey says it so in the original anime, he doesn’t care if we die or survive, he sees us meerly as resources and once our usefulness expires, he doesn’t care about us, they have the energy they want to stop entropy, it makes the implication that it isn’t just humans but other species across the universe that get milked by Incubators, but in Magia Record this is overly simplified by both Kyubey and Touka through the final arc, it’s not just about humans, that’s what gives magnificence to the story and to Madoka’s wish, for the people who wonder why we glorify Gen Urobuchi so much, is because of this, he crafted a truly expansive concept with Madoka Magica, and then this dumb brat comes and bawls for the plight of Puella Magi….girl….NO ONE KNOWS PUELLA MAGI EXISTS! OF COURSE NO ONE IS GOING TO CARE ABOUT YOU! OMG for someone who harbors the superiority of Puella Magi, you sure make them look stupid Touka.

Then again, for those who played the game and know its story, they know the Magius ideology is bullshit and hypocritical anyway, but I won’t get much into that due to spoilers, for further in the story, needless to say, there is a bit of irony in Touka’s speech about resources management.

And finally my fourth negative point, which are mostly nitpicks but I’ll mention them, if you want me to address them individually I gladly will, but to summarize as much as possible, I do not like the way they handled Mami’s working with the Magius in the anime and the fact that they made Kaede join the fucking Magius...these two share the same problem for me and I’ll explain why, I feel the anime people don’t understand the basics of Mami and Kaede, see, joining the Magius is an act of weakness, because while the Magius system cleanses the soul gems of dispair, it doesn’t solve the problem, Puella Magia always get despair, so releasing a doppel becomes a necesity for them, a drug to put it in more comprehensible terms, one they grow dependant on, one they take they take it for relief at first, but later they’ll take it because they don’t want to feel bad. Really Momoko, Yachiyo, Yuma, Madokami’s approach is the correct one here, instead of worrying about the coming despair, you grow strong and don’t let it destroy you, that way you overcome it and grow stronger as a Puella Magi.

But then there are weak willed Puella Magi who form the Magius (Mifuyu for example, she might not be a “clingy jealous ex girlfriend” but she is a complete weakling and a coward, the perfect candidate for the Magius cult), that being said, the fact that you tell me Kaede is going to join the Magius, an organization she knows very well what it is, bugs me, Kaede is very fragile, introvert and easy to push around, but she is not a weakling, her main problem is that she is on a team with Rena, anyone is going to be a nervous wreck on a team with Rena, now replace Rena with...Kanagi, Oriko, or even the Pleiades Saints, now Kaede will grow, and even on the team she is, she grows quite a lot, so I feel making her go the Magius route is an insult to her character, cimenting her as a “Weakling” (Granted there is the possibility this is temporary and she will be snappend out of her stuppers by the other 2 and the three will perform an audacious escape from the Magius Rally at the beginning of the second season, but until then, I am going to take it as as I explained it.).

The same thing applies to Mami, and this bugs me because there is a lot of people who don’t understand Mami DOESN’T BREAK DOWN BECAUSE SHE IS WEAK, she breaks down because she realizes her fight it’s POINTLESS, HOWEVER, if Mami has the support of a team with her, she can usually survive the shock, as Oriko Magica and The Different Story show, I am tired of people perpetuating the idea of Mami being a crazy nut job about to explode, that is a gross misunderstanding of her character.

But well….those are all my negatives, I’ll go back to the positives of the episodes, I like how they’ve developed the relationship between Iroha and Yachiyo, I still don’t fee the love tonight but, I do feel they’re really close together in a way Yachiyo has never had, so the anime did a good job with that.

I did like the Naziesque imagery with Touka’s speech, sure it can hit a nerve on some people, I completely understand it, but then again...she IS the villain, of course you expect her to hit you bad, and Touka is an excellent villain like Alina, she really really makes you hate her guts, and the Magius ARE a cult so they’re supposed to evoke this inhuman and fascist vibe on people because that’s what they are, they believe in the supremacy of a group over the other, isn’t that what a Nazi is? Assholes who think their misconceptions of how race works grant them a superiority over the rest of humanity, that’s what the Magius are, two fart sniffing brats who think their erroneous misconceptions of their status as a Puella Magi grants them the right over the rest of humanity.

Perfect casting I’d say.

And finally, Sayaka! Omg Sayaka really shined this episode, and this is a version of Sayaka we don’t often see, a mature baddass Sayaka, sure she’s still a rookie compared to Mami, but she performs with a lot more confidence and skill than she ever did in the main anime, you can tell she knows how to use her skills and she’s not afraid to use them, allowing her arm to get blown off to save Iroha and Yachiyo and later healing herself ring on the spots she was hurt, all through visual details, Inu Curry’s expertise, really if you’re a fan of Sayaka, THIS is the brightest moment in her life, this episode will make you love Sayaka Miki a lot.

Overall...I have to say, despite all my complains up there, I generally enjoyed Magia Record a lot and I am anxious for the next season, here’s hoping all will go well, and the Coroner won’t stop anyone, sure the world will change, but in some ways, I feel it will be a change for the best, and I hope these changes don’t halt the production of Magia Record, the franchise has managed to resurect from the grave Shinbo buried it with Rebellion many years ago, it would be a tragedy if it were to die here, but just like humanity, I am sure this new team heading the franchise can overcome all those odds….sorry that was fucking cheese XD

I give this final arch a 7, originally I was going to give it 6 but Sayaka was so fantastic that it pushed it to a 7 for sure...as to the entire series, I give it an 9, very good series, and a must if you watched Madoka Magica, skip Rebellion, let it rot on the ground and embrace the new path of the franchise with Magia Record.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 2 - Demo

This is a commentary of the demo of DRV3 from the perspective of someone who is coming back to it after seeing the entire main game. There will be significant spoilers for the main story.

Welp, turns out that covering the demo is going to be more of a pain than I anticipated, because I didn’t already have it, and it’s no longer available in the UK store. So I’m going to have to use a Youtube video of it, which is a lot more annoying than you might think, because you have no idea how useful the game’s backlog function has been for this commentary.

I suppose I should preface this by mentioning that I did see the demo of this game before experiencing the game proper, but it was a fan translation of the Japanese demo something like a year or two earlier, so my memory of it by the time I saw the main game was pretty fuzzy. I only remembered a few things: that Kaede was the protagonist and the Ultimate Pianist, thinking it neat that we had a protagonist who was female, and who had a talent rather than being ordinary. I vaguely remembered Tenko, Himiko and Ryoma’s character quirks – I suppose thse were the ones that stuck in my mind. I remembered Kokichi being kind of a dick who kept trying to make the trial about himself and was therefore clearly this game’s answer to Nagito, because of course Kokichi had to try and be the centre of attention even in the demo and so that stuck in my mind.

And I remembered an astronaut dude who at least superficially seemed to have the kind of personality I generally like in a character – but I very firmly told myself not to get too excited about this, because this is Danganronpa and there is every chance that the narrative won’t give a fuck about how likeable he is and he’ll just get randomly, gratuitously killed off and I would regret ever getting attached to him. This, uh, may have partly influenced my belief during the main game that the narrative considered Kaito expendable and was totally going to kill him off at the slightest provocation, even after he started being very clearly important to the story.

It also very obviously did not stop me getting attached to him as the actual story progressed. I remember desperately trying to rein myself in throughout the first half of chapter 2 as Kaito became more and more adorable and good and Exactly My Kind of Character in his support of Shuichi. Then I got to the part during the investigation in which Kaito gave his speech about believing in people just because he wants to while acknowledging that there’s a risk to it that he’s simply choosing not to worry about so that he can believe wholeheartedly. This was so perfectly applicable to what had been going on in my own head with regards to getting attached to Kaito himself – I so desperately wanted to believe in him and care about him and get invested in his story, yet I was so afraid of what might happen if I did. But thanks to Kaito’s own words, I decided right then and there to not let that fear hold me back any more.

…That’s a first-time-me story that I really should have told at the time during chapter 2 but didn’t, so you’re getting it here instead. Anyway! The demo.

“Daily Life”

Kaede:  (My last name roughly means “passionate red maple tree”. It doesn’t really fit me, but… I still like my last name.)

Kaede starts us off with an introduction of herself, probably trying to make this reminiscent of the DR1 opening. They can’t exactly do that in this game’s real opening, what with the whole pregame-and-reset thing. It’s pretty awkward here that she’s telling us about her last name when nobody’s going to be calling her that in English, so it’s probably for the best that didn’t stay. I think “passionate red maple tree” suits her at least a little, though – she is very passionate!

Kaede:  (Huh? Wait, who am I even talking to?)

That’s a good question! There’s going to be quite a bit of sort-of fourth wall breaking in this demo. But… this is Danganronpa V3, in which a lot of what seemed like fourth wall breaking wasn’t really doing that at all. So maybe this is actually Kaede just being pushed into being all self-introductory in her inner monologue by the Flashback Light that created her, and here she’s having a brief moment of realising that makes no sense.

She finds herself waking up at a desk – again, like the original DR1 opening and less like the actual DRV3 opening. There’s no falling out of a locker and no Shuichi (not here, anyway).

“Makoto”:  “Oh, are you awake? Good morning, Kaede.”

Instead, there’s… Makoto.

So here’s the thing about this demo. Makoto, and later Hajime, are randomly in it. Going into the demo with the assumption that DRV3 is in a different universe from the Hope’s Peak story makes this just seem like a silly fourth-wall-breaking thing. It also wouldn’t work to imagine this is set in the Hope’s Peak universe, because then Makoto and Hajime should both be much older than high school age, not to mention whatever shenanigans should be going on with Hajime. So it’s easiest to assume that, oh, this is just some silly uncanonical nonsense because it’s a demo and it doesn’t need to make sense.

But! Having finished DRV3 and gone back to this demo knowing the truth of the V3 story, this actually can make some kind of sense within the V3 universe. Because this is a universe where Makoto and Hajime exist as fictional characters. This whole demo could in fact be some show set up by Team Danganronpa to build hype for their new series before it properly starts, including pandering to those genwunners and twoers in the audience by featuring Makoto and Hajime – which is to say, people cosplaying as them. Hence me using inverted commas for his name in the quotes here like I did for everyone Tsumugi cosplayed in trial 6. It’s not really Makoto Naegi at all.

(This still doesn’t totally work in the canon DRV3 universe, because, given the reset and the fact that they were accidentally their pregame selves at first, it seems unlikely that Team Danganronpa would really have done this “demo” in between the reset at all. This isn’t quite something that actually happened in canon before the story we saw began – it’s more just an AU scenario that could have hypothetically happened before the main killing game started, if things had gone a little differently.)

Makoto introduces himself as the Ultimate Lucky Student and even gets a proper Ultimate title card for it.

Kaede:  “Only one student in the entire country!? That’s amazing! You must be really lucky!”

No, Kaede, it doesn’t mean he’s always really lucky; that is not how luck works. He just got incredibly lucky this one time but is otherwise entirely ordinary. Luck as an actual goddamn superpower like it supposedly was for Nagito still grates on me (and there’s no convincing proof to me that Makoto also had that superpower).

Makoto mysteriously already knows Kaede’s name and talent. He explains that it’s because information about the students here is on public record – that is how the real Makoto learned about everyone in DR1, after all – but that’s probably not really the truth here, is it.

There’s a very genuinely-fourth-wall-breaky letter on the desk telling Kaede that to progress the story she just needs to come to the gym, but she can wander around and have the other students introduce themselves to her first if she wants. Obviously anyone doing this demo for the first time would want to do that – the whole point is getting to know the characters!

The layout of the school has been changed a bit in the demo to make things simpler and keep some locations a surprise. Kaede was in not Classroom B on the second floor, but Classroom A, aka the lookout classroom. Or what would function as a lookout classroom if only there was a basement, but the stairs to the basement have instead been replaced by a big red door that will lead to the trialgrounds. The stairs to the second floor are completely blocked off with an opaque shutter, so that all you can access is the first floor, and they moved the gym closer than usual to cut out the part of the corridor containing the locked things leading to Himiko and Kaito’s labs. Apparently they didn’t want to give any kind of tantalising promise of further areas that you’ll get to fully explore in the main game. Meanwhile, the front door that would lead out into the courtyard instead connects directly to the dorms, so that the demo never even shows us that they’re trapped inside a dome.

Everyone’s introductions are more or less the same as they will be in the main game, with Makoto filling in the part in the conversation that Shuichi would have played, if need be. Certain parts are left out if they were less about the character and more specifically about the main story in a way that isn’t relevant in the demo.

Rantaro is the first person we meet. Makoto says he doesn’t know Rantaro’s talent because it wasn’t on public record, but is still insistent that he definitely has a talent. This is totally because he’s just being good old hopeful Makoto and definitely not that he knows exactly what Rantaro’s talent is and why it’s being kept a secret right now, right.

Hajime is also hanging around in the corridors as if he’s a regular student. He gets “Ultimate ???” as well in his title card, even though he goes on to admit that he doesn’t have a talent. He doesn’t mention the Reserve Course, though. I guess the Ultimate Academy isn’t supposed to have one of those.

“Makoto”:  “Well, Hajime, we have seniority, but… She’s the protagonist this time around.”

Ahaha, here we go. One of the things the demo very gleefully does is make a big deal of how Kaede is the protagonist. Did you know Kaede is the protagonist of this game, guys? Because she is very definitely the protagonist of this game.

This would also sort of work with the whole fiction thing, except not so much, because the in-universe protagonist is supposed to be Keebo. So this is a thing that really is just out-universely here for the sake of the demo and doesn’t quite make sense in-universe with what Team Danganronpa are doing here.

Kaede:  (And also… what did they mean by ‘protagonist’?)

At least, for her part, Kaede is very confused by all this.

Shuichi is also just hanging around in the corridor like a totally regular student and not the actual protagonist of this game. I didn’t remember him from the demo at all until seeing him in the main game jogged my memory, because without him being Kaede’s investigation partner, he kinda just blends into the background like the introvert he is.

Shuichi:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy. But it seems I did…”

Bonus dialogue you get from talking to him again after his main introduction shows that he’s very much thinking about the important questions, though. In the main game, while nobody remembered being kidnapped, everyone’s general assumption was that they were brought here against their will and forgot how. However, in the demo, it seems most people are assuming they somehow got enrolled in this academy and are just having a slightly odd version of a school introduction. Only a few people are questioning this idea.

(Kaede actually mentioned at the very beginning that she remembered being kidnapped, but then the writing apparently forgets about that, because she never mentions it to anybody else. Nor does anyone else mention remembering something similar.)

Since there’s no outside in the demo and therefore no wall to be thinking about trying to get over, Kaito is just in the dining hall here. Everyone whose introduction in the main game is in a location that doesn’t exist in the demo just gets put somewhere random instead. Kaito’s lines about getting over the wall are therefore also removed from his introduction, which means that we sadly don’t get as much of a sense of his unshakeable determination and philosophy about not complaining when you could be trying to make things better.

Kaito:  “But now that I’m thinking about it, why am I at this academy? I wanna blast off into space ASAP! Weird situations like this are only gonna slow me down…”

Kaito is also asking the important questions. Why is he doing this thing that isn’t working towards going to space? That doesn’t make any sense as something that he’d choose to do! He should be in astronaut training, not enrolling in some weird academy!

Maki immediately introduces herself and her cover-story talent rather than not wanting to do so at first. She also doesn’t have any of her lines about how she doubts they’ll be able to escape this and they shouldn’t be working together with strangers, so a lot of the hints towards her interestingness are gone from the demo, boo.

Maki:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy, but… Do you know what’s going on?”

At least she’s asking the important questions, too! I wonder if that “but” is a hint at her thinking “but at least this isn’t as bad as having to kill people”. Or so she thinks.

As Kaede finishes meeting everyone and is about to head into the gym…

“Makoto”:  “Sorry, but this is where we part ways. I can’t go past this point. …Because you’re the protagonist now, Kaede.”

Kaede:  “What?”

“Makoto”:  “From here on, you’re the one who’s going to learn about this situation we’re in. You might feel despair… but I don’t want you to throw away hope!”

Oh man, the buzzwords. I’m pretty sure that even post-DR1-ending, despite literally being declared the Ultimate Hope, Makoto did not throw around these buzzwords as meaninglessly as this. This really is just someone desperately trying to sound like him, isn’t it.

It’s also very strange that apparently Makoto can’t be with her for the explanation of the killing game. You’d think, even if he already knew what was happening (which, fair enough, Makoto has done this before), he’d want to be there with Kaede to reassure her through the bad news. But he has to leave for no particular reason.

(Also, reminder, Kaede is the protagonist, you guys.)

Kaede:  (Protagonist? Hope? Despair? What does any of that mean?)

Heh, I like how she’s also bewildered by the sudden buzzwords and not just the protagonist part.

For some reason it’s only Kaede and not all the other students here getting this announcement about the killing game. I guess, since this is not remotely how it happens in canon, writing sixteen characters having new reactions to this would be too much of a pain for what’s only here to justify the demo having a trial.

It does also mean that most people – including Kaede herself, since Monokuma alone doesn’t count as a witness – don’t have alibis for the “murder” that’s about to happen.

Monokuma:  “While you live together, you’re all responsible for maintaining the harmony of the academy. But if someone was to disrupt that harmony…”

Geez, is this the game scrambling to justify the Killing Harmony subtitle again? I wonder what this was in Japanese. (But I’m not quite curious enough to actually check, because this is only the demo.)

Kaede:  “D-Don’t mess around with us! I would never… murder anyone!”

Hee, that’s also there even though this is the demo.

Monokuma:  “Don’t you see, Kaede? This is how your story begins.”

Kaede:  “‘My story’? What does that even mean?”

They really are dropping hints to the whole fiction thing even in the demo. Although, again, this doesn’t work so well in an in-universe sense because Keebo is the in-universe protagonist (and because Tsumugi was definitely planning to have Kaede get herself killed in the first chapter, probably largely for the sake of Shuichi’s story.)

Monokuma then tells Kaede to go and check out her room in the dormitory. It seems he already knows that she’s going to find someone dead in there.

Kaede’s door awkwardly has Makoto and Hajime’s portraits slapped onto it as well. Monokuma shows up to explain to her that this is the “Protagonists’ Room”, for all three of them! (Did you know Kaede is the protagonist.)

Once she goes inside, everything’s a mess, with slash marks all over the furniture and walls, kind of like in the first case in DR1.

And Yasuhiro Hagakure is dead in the shower with a kitchen knife in his stomach.

“Deadly Life”

Monokuma:  “Geez, this is like the second time he’s died already… Eh, you guys can just ignore that.”

As Monokuma cheekily alludes to here, this is an amusing little nod to the original demo of DR1. Apparently, to keep Sayaka’s death a surprise for the main game, they instead made Hiro the victim there. Looks like they decided to make him the victim again here!

Given the reality of the situation, this cannot really be Hiro, because he doesn’t exist. Which means that most likely, nobody is actually dead at all – this is just a Hiro cosplayer doing their best impression of a corpse.

Hajime is here to help investigate the dorm room. Kaito, Miu, Kirumi and Ryoma also show up in the room to investigate. (But apparently nobody else thought that confirming if a murder has really taken place and trying to figure out the culprit so they don’t get punished was important? Not even Shuichi?)

It’s also relevant to note that nobody looks very closely at Hiro’s “corpse” to confirm whether he’s actually dead.

Kaito:  “So does this mean someone believed that the only way to get out of here… was by killing someone?”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… The dead body is proof of that. There’s no way a body would end up quite like this by accident.”

Kaito:  “Damn it… why’d they kill him? Why didn’t they just talk things over with us?”

Kaede:  “Yeah, we haven’t searched the whole school yet. There could still be a way out of here.”

Kaito:  “Yeah, that’s exactly right! And they resorted to this, right off the bat… When we find the culprit, I’m gonna punch some sense back into them!”

I love how Kaito this is. He can’t get his head around the fact that anyone would give up so quickly. He realises that they most likely just did it because they were scared and wanted to escape and therefore it’s somewhat understandable, but even then, he can’t see why they would resort to it so soon without having tried every other possible option first, including talking to everyone else and trying to co-operate. He’s not angry at the culprit for being a cold-blooded killer, but rather for being so weak, in the sense that they didn’t even want to try and get stronger, and so they did something this awful out of cowardice.

And also look at him and Kaede clearly being on the same wavelength about working together to escape and not giving up!

Kaito doesn’t contribute any Truth Bullets to this investigation, but I’m delighted that he’s here in this room anyway so we could have this little insight into the way he thinks about things like this. This is nuanced enough that people playing this demo before the main game just to get a basic sense of the characters probably aren’t really going to think much of it – but it’s here anyway, because Kaito is this nuanced and complex of a character and he would react like this in this situation, regardless of how unnecessary him doing so is to the purpose of this demo. I love Kaito so much.

Ryoma:  “Going straight to an investigation? That’s pretty forward-thinking of you. Even if you’re used to seeing dead bodies, it’d be stupid not to feel anything.”

Meanwhile, Ryoma is already being perceptive and making observations about Kaede’s character, which is a very him thing to be doing.

Kaede:  “But we have to do this. I don’t want everyone else to die…”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… You’re rather motivated to stay alive. I wish I had… No, never mind.”

There’s also a little hint at Ryoma’s lack of motivation to live and desire to find one, which is neat!

(It’s a shame that, even though Kaito is also here and presumably overhearing this, he doesn’t comment. I’d have liked that a lot.)

The lack of any hair in the room was a clue in this case in DR1, but this time, there’s a single short brown hair here, about the colour and length of Makoto or Hajime’s. This is despite the fact that Hajime claims he’s never been in the room before now and that Kirumi cleaned all of the dorms shortly before the murder was discovered. Kaede also notes during this conversation that it’s odd she hasn’t seen Makoto since she went into the gym. Hmmm.

Just as Makoto finally shows up and is about to help Kaede investigate everywhere else, the Monokubs appear. They have not been in the demo until now. Why did they need to be in the demo at all. It would be a more favourable advertisement of the game to pretend they don’t exist, you know, demo writers! They literally do not contribute anything of value to the narrative by showing up here.

Kaito:  “Buncha cowards… Trying to interrupt my investigation with their stupid crap.”

Oh, Kaito. This is basically chapter 1 Kaito, who has no sidekicks yet and is instead desperately trying to feel like he can make a difference by doing something. Hence him making a point that this is his investigation. He leans towards this kind of attitude a couple of times in the main story, too, particularly in chapter 1 when he has no sidekicks, and in chapter 4 when he’s feeling like his support of his sidekicks isn’t enough and wants to be more of an action-oriented hero. This is bound to be the reason he’s here in this room at all despite not contributing anything to the player’s investigation – because he’s trying to do something about this, even though he doesn’t really know how!

Kaito:  “Whatever… If I get serious, I can solve this case in no time flat!”

I don’t like this, though. It implies that he’s currently not being serious and would ever willingly slack off from something this important. That’s not in character. Kaito is always trying his hardest and always wants people to know he’s trying his hardest; he’d never use “oh but I just wasn’t really trying” as an excuse for the gap between how much he wants to make a difference and how much he actually can. It reads like some writer is superficially trying to get across the fact that Kaito talks big without backing it up, without truly understanding why he’s that way and keeping it in line with that. It’s odd, since the conversation just earlier showed quite a nuanced understanding of Kaito’s character, as opposed to this.

(If I were playing this demo myself, I would immediately talk to Kaito again after this to see if he has anything else to say on this matter, but because I’m forced to use Youtube, I can’t see if he does. There are words that Kaito said that could have been interesting that I’m unaware of dammit this is why I’m mad I had to use Youtube for this. Admittedly it’s most likely just him repeating those lines, or continuing to be written badly… but what if it isn’t.)

Kaede asks Makoto where he went off to, and he claims he was wandering around the school trying to find a way out or at least a map to help Kaede out. That does not properly explain why he insisted he couldn’t come into the gym with her in the first place, but okay.

Hajime stays behind to guard the crime scene while Makoto accompanies Kaede out of the dorm to investigate elsewhere. Makoto is getting a lot more screentime than Hajime in this demo. Still more genwunners than twoers in this audience, apparently.

Maki:  “The crime occurred in the Protagonists’ Room. Stupid name aside, that’s your room, isn’t it?”

Aha, good old Maki, always Done™ with everyone’s nonsense.

Maki:  “I don’t intend to just go with the easiest answer… But at the same time… I have no reason to trust you guys either.”

This is very Maki, not wanting to trust people without a good reason but also not being so stupid and hasty as to jump to any conclusions just because she doesn’t trust anyone.

Himiko:  “Kaede, is it true? Did a murder really happen?”

Apparently some of these people really didn’t actually go and check out the body for themselves. You’d think they’d want to confirm it… but to be fair, it is very believable that Himiko in particular wouldn’t.

Kokichi:  “Why’d ya kill him, Kaede? Did you really wanna escape that badly?”

Of course this is Kokichi’s immediate greeting to Kaede upon seeing her during the investigation. Of course.

Kaede:  “N-No! I didn’t do anything!”

Kokichi:  “So you’re saying the culprit has to be either Makoto or Hajime… Because if you didn’t do it, then that’s what you’re getting at, right?”

And of course he’d also think that she’d happily turn on the two people apparently closest to her and throw them under the bus to protect herself.

He really does (most likely, not that you can ever be sure with him) seem to believe it’s one of the three of them simply because it was their room. Look who is jumping to conclusions because he doesn’t trust anyone.

(I should point out that the room was unlocked the entire time and so there is literally no concrete reason to suspect the room’s owners above anybody else.)

“Makoto”:  “Did you see Hiro?”

Tsumugi:  “No, I didn’t. I think I’d definitely remember seeing hair like his.”

If the students who aren’t in the room right now didn’t see the body, how does Tsumugi know what Hiro’s hair looks like? This might be a very subtle clue as to the mastermind’s identity, because of course Tsumugi would know what Hiro’s hair looks like anyway.

(I’d say that actually she could have seen him from the Monokuma File, but based on Himiko’s comment earlier, I’m not sure if everyone necessarily has a Monokuma File to even know for sure that someone’s dead?)

Shuichi:  “One of us killed Hiro… That’s what Monokuma said… But… I don’t think that’s the only possibility.”

Indeed it isn’t. There’s also the possibility that nobody killed anyone.

…I still don’t know why Shuichi isn’t in the dorm room to actually confirm whether or not Hiro is dead and do a proper investigation himself. Then again, if he did, we’d immediately know this class trial is bogus, so.

Kaede:  “Shuichi, do you suspect me, too?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, you don’t seem like the kind of person who would kill somebody… But… until I find evidence that proves you innocent…”

Kaede:  “That’s true…”

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry, it’s not that I *want* to suspect you, I just…”

Kaede:  “No, it’s fine… That’s what the Ultimate Detective is supposed to do…”

Aww, Shuichi. He’s caught between the part of him that hates suspecting and accusing people (even when he has no particularly strong reason to trust Kaede in this universe) and the detective side of him that knows it’s the right way to deal with this situation. I complained about him not investigating, but maybe it’s simply because he’s afraid to thanks to his issues, and without the bond with Kaede that he has in canon, he can’t overcome that fear and manage to investigate anyway. Shuichi really does only manage to be a hero with others’ help.

Kaede:  “Don’t worry about me, just do your best to investigate. That’s what’s going to save us.”

Shuichi:  “… …Okay.”

Kaede:  (Huh? That was a dull response… What happened?)

Kaede is noticing that he doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of investigating to save them! A tiny, tiny little hint at his issues, since for the most part this demo really doesn’t want to focus on Shuichi at all. (Kaede is the protagonist, after all.)

During a conversation with Kiyo, he notices something about the way Makoto is talking about the investigation and trial.

Kiyo:  “…You speak as if you are familiar with the process, yes?

“Makoto”:  “That’s… also something that we can talk about later.”

…

Kaede:  (Does Makoto know something…? I can trust him… can’t I?)

Of course, this reads perfectly innocently to anyone who knows Makoto is the protagonist from a previous Danganronpa game, but it genuinely must look pretty suspicious to Kaede. It’s a big testament to her general optimism and belief in people that she does still trust him even after all this.

One of the knives in the kitchen went missing while Tenko and Himiko were having tea in the dining hall. This is still really brazenly ripping off the first case of the first game.

And that’s the whole investigation, so everyone abruptly assembles in the trialgrounds which are right behind the red door, no elevator or Shrine of Judgement or anything.

“Hajime”:  “Monokuma… I don’t know what you’re scheming, but… I won’t let you do whatever you want!”

Monokuma:  “You’re an upperclassman protagonist… I think you can come up with a better line than that.”

“Makoto”:  “Hajime’s right! You can’t just do whatever you want with their lives!”

Monokuma:  “Geez, that’s basically what Hajime just said! You two need punch-up writers or something! Whether this demo is exciting or not depends entirely on you!”

Bahaha, this is such a deliberate attempt at pandering on the parts of Makoto and Hajime’s cosplayers, and is also so blatantly Monokuma calling them out for being kind of bad at this.

They have an awkward situation with this trial, given that there’s eighteen students here and only sixteen podiums. Obviously the game devs didn’t want to remodel the trialgrounds to have two extra podiums just for the demo.

Monosuke:  “I know! Let’s just pick two people at random and rip ‘em apart with the Exisals!”

The Exisals have not been shown or otherwise mentioned in this demo. This line must rather confuse people seeing this before the main game.

Obviously there is no actual Exisal-murdering and two people simply have to sit out. Kokichi decides out of nowhere that Keebo should sit out because of course he does, lol Keebo’s not a person or anything, and then it conveniently turns out that Rantaro was with Keebo the whole time so they can vouch for each other not being the blackened and both safely not take part. Rantaro not being part of the demo trial is probably because he’s not a part of any trials in the main game either. Keebo sitting out is… just because Kokichi is a robophobic dick, apparently. (In an in-universe sense, you’d think Monokuma would have more of an issue with this, because isn’t Keebo supposed to be the audience’s camera? More indication that he really isn’t the only camera they have, then.)

Rantaro demands that at least he and Keebo are each allowed to ask one question at the end if they don’t agree with everybody else on who the blackened is, and that in doing so they could potentially restart the discussion. This doesn’t ever matter because the demo’s going to end before the trial reaches a conclusion, but it does show that Rantaro is a very smart and cautious person.

Kaito:  “I’ll be carrying your lives, too! I’ll definitely do something about all this!”

But don’t worry, Rantaro and Keebo, Kaito is going to do something about this! You know, about this whole trial. Of course he is. Definitely. Even though it’s just the demo and it doesn’t really matter, his tendency to insist this out of his desperation to be able to make a difference is still here and it’s great. I also love the way he says he’ll be carrying their lives. Like he’s bearing that burden for them.

Kaito:  “And don’t worry! We’ve got the Ultimate Detective on our side!”

Also this!!! Kaito doesn’t seem to have interacted with Shuichi at all this whole demo, but that’s not going to stop him from believing in him, because with a talent like that he’s bound to be awesome, right? It is very delightfully reminiscent of the main story that Kaito says this immediately after his own bold declarations. Despite his big words and how much he genuinely intends to do his best to fulfil them (because Kaito is always trying), he knows that Shuichi’s really the one most able to save them in this situation. Kaito’s relying on and believing in Shuichi’s ability to be the real hero here. I love this tiny tiny nod to their delightful friendship dynamic in canon.

Shuichi:  “Huh?”

Shuichi is not used to people believing in his detective skills. Kaito really does mean it even though he’s only just met you, Shuichi!

Class Trial

In the trial, Makoto has Rantaro’s podium and Hajime has Keebo’s. I’m quite surprised that they didn’t do it the other way around – Keebo is after all basically meant to be Robot Makoto, and that would have been one reasonable excuse for leaving him in particular out.

Things start with people throwing out some baseless ideas. Tenko of course decides someone male must have done it.

Shuichi:  “We can’t rule out suspects that way… We need to look at all the possibilities.”

Shuichi, at least, is being rational about this. He doesn’t say much in this demo, but what he does say is always quite sensible.

Tenko:  “Kiyo looks creepy! That’s suspicious enough for me!”

Aaaaagh coming from Tenko in particular that’s just painful. Demo why would you do this.

By the way, fun fact: the English voicework for this demo was almost certainly recorded after that for the main game. How do I know? Because of Kaito’s voice. For the earlier trials in the main game, Kaito’s voice sounds a lot rougher and growlier, which becomes less of a thing as the game goes on. It’s gradual enough that you don’t notice it while it’s happening, but going from trial 4 Kaito back to trial 1 Kaito gives quite a noticeable difference. I assume this is because his voice actor started out consciously trying to emulate his Japanese voice, which is indeed quite gruff, but then as things went along he got more into the character and developed his own instinctive feel for Kaito’s voice, one which wasn’t as growly as it started out. And here in the demo, Kaito’s voice isn’t growly at all; it sounds like his lines from trial 4, not trial 1.

(The voice actor getting more into the role has to be the only reason for the gradual shift, because really, in-universe, Kaito’s voice should have been subtly getting more rough and growly as time went by, thanks to his illness getting worse. It’d have been really fun if that had been a thing. Alas.)

Kaito:  “He didn’t even have a chance to resist!”

Like in the main game, Kaito is the first person to be refuted. In trials where Shuichi is his sidekick, Kaito doesn’t tend to make any arguments at all and just sits back and lets Shuichi handle it (with the exception of trial 4, for chapter 4 reasons). But in trial 1 he didn’t have a sidekick and was instead trying to feel useful by actually contributing to the discussion despite knowing he might be wrong, kind of like in trial 4.

In the actual trial 1 in the main commentary, I explained why Kaito wasn’t being stupid even though he was wrong, but in this instance, he has simply been very rudely handed the idiot ball. Kaito was one of the people who investigated the dorm room! He saw the signs of a struggle!

Obviously, this argument is also mirroring the very first argument you refute in this case in DR1. But then they should have given this line to someone who actually wasn’t in the room and didn’t see the state of it, of which there are plenty of options. In DR1, the person who makes this argument is Chihiro, who didn’t investigate the room out of fear – and in fact, him making this assumption despite not knowing the facts was likely a sign of his issues about feeling weak, because of course he’d have been afraid of being killed by someone stronger without even being able to fight back, so he projected that onto Sayaka.

But Kaito making this argument here? Doesn’t make any sense or have any good reason for it. They’re apparently trying to have Kaito be the first person to be refuted like he is in the main game (and perhaps for similar reasons), while also having the first refuted argument in this case be the same as it was in the DR1 case. Either callback (or call-forward) alone would be fine, but doing both of them at once does not work and ends up very uncharitable towards Kaito.

Kaito:  “Okay, so that room wasn’t such a mess to begin with, then.”

They try and justify this by having it so that apparently Kaito thought the room was always that messy, but no, that doesn’t justify anything. Sure, I can potentially imagine Kaito as someone with a messy room himself (though if so it’s probably the “organised chaos” type in which he knows where everything is even if nobody else would have a clue), but this was more than just a messy room here. There were slash marks everywhere! Things were outright broken! Kaito is not stupid, and it is very rude of the demo to twist him out of character in order to give people a first impression of him that makes him seem like he is.

Kaede:  (The two people who fought in that room were…)

-      Kaede and Shuichi

It’s ridiculous that the demo is making us do a multiple choice to figure out that Hiro fought with the culprit, what the hell, that’s a Psyche Taxi level of stupidly obvious question there… but it’s interesting that this is one of the obviously-wrong answers. There’s been absolutely no indication of any kind of connection between Kaede and Shuichi in the demo, except for this.

Kaede:  “Of course, it was Hiro and the culprit.”

Kaito:  “Huh!? Really!?”

No! Stop it! Stop making Kaito seem like an idiot! He is not stupid! This one doesn’t even have any kind of excuse of trying to be a call-forward to the main game! There is no reason for this!

Kaito, I am so sorry you got handed this idiot ball, please just throw it away and pretend you never saw it, you don’t deserve this.

Miu: “Who else would it be, dumbass!?”

If that was supposed to be setup to give someone an excuse to call Kaito an idiot for the further bad writing that’s about to ensue, then, this is still uncalled for. When people call Kaito an idiot, they are not meant to be actually literally right about it!

Kaito:  “Who you callin’ a dumbass!? I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

…

Kokichi:  “Hey, you two idiots over there… Stop chit-chatting and keep this discussion moving.”

Miu:  “Hey! Don’t lump me in with that idiot! You’re talkin’ to the gorgeous girl genius, Miu Iruma!”

Kokichi:  “Yup, you two should be lumped together. Your statements are on the same level.”

No, they really, really shouldn’t be, and this is still doing a horrible disservice to Kaito. Kaito usually reacts strongly to being called an idiot, sure, but he does not do so by talking himself up, because he is not actually insecure enough to need to “prove” he isn’t one (unlike Miu, whose boasts always reek of insecurity). Comparing him to Miu like this is making it look like Kaito only talks himself up to save face for himself and protect his own ego when it’s being battered, like she does, and that he actually is just a useless idiot beneath these empty words, especially when he really just was one thanks to that undeserved idiot ball. That is so incredibly not even remotely the point of Kaito’s character, oh my god. Please stop, demo. How can you get some of the Kaito parts so right but others so horrendously wrong.

(It makes me feel better to imagine that Kaito’s actual main writers, the ones who created a very carefully-crafted character arc full of all of his delightful issues and principles and complexities, were just, I dunno, on lunch break or something, and some clueless intern with only a very superficial knowledge of Kaito as “an idiot who talks big” got to write some of his lines here while they were out. That clueless intern is probably also the one responsible for the tiny handful of Misogyny Bullets that hit Kaito and briefly forced him out of character for one line each throughout the main story, right?)

Moving on, Kokichi begins making a big point of how he suspects everyone whom the room belonged to, because of course he does. (Look at him acting all high and mighty and more intelligent than the two supposed “idiots” and then immediately turning around and jumping to unfounded conclusions. Clearly the smartest way to handle a class trial there.)

“Makoto”:  “The discussion won’t move forward if we all just point fingers. Like Shuichi said, we need to talk about all the possibilities.”

He may just be an actor pretending to be Makoto, but he’s got a goddamn point. Kokichi’s accusation flinging is never actually helpful.

Kaito:  “Yeah, what he said! No way Kaede’s the culprit!”

Welcome back, Kaito, it’s good to see you again! This is a very Kaito thing for him to do. He’s barely spoken to Kaede or seen much of her in the demo, but he did have that conversation with her at the crime scene where she agreed that the culprit should have tried to work together to escape before giving up and resorting to murder. His instincts are telling him that she really meant that and really is this kind of person! He has a hunch, and he’s right, because his hunches always are!

Kokichi:  “Kaito! This trial won’t go anywhere if you don’t suspect anyone!”

And this is a character dynamic involving Kaito that’s actually correct and relevant in the main game such that it makes sense to hint at it in the demo, thank you.

Shuichi:  “What we have to determine now… is the murder weapon.”

And of course Shuichi is the one who’s focusing on the actual logic and getting the trial back on track instead of arguing. This was a very trial 4 exchange we just had here.

Despite Shuichi’s attempt at being sensible, everyone else then starts arguing over whether certain people could have killed him with their bare hands, because it seems that nobody who saw the body feels the need to tell them it was a goddamn knife and also apparently no-one read the Monokuma File. I guess at least Kaito smashed his idiot ball into several smaller pieces and shared it around the group.

Shuichi:  “There was no indication the body was punched. I don’t believe fists were the murder weapon.”

Shuichi I know you’re hesitant about doing this detective thing and you maybe didn’t go to the scene but you clearly read the Monokuma File just tell them it was a knife please.

Ryoma:  “Then our murder weapon is… the knife stabbed into his gut?”

THANK YOU RYOMA I don’t know why you didn’t say this sooner but.

Kaede:  (I wonder… Was the murder weapon lodged in Hiro’s abdomen really a knife?)

Yes, Kaede, it was a fucking knife! But apparently the game wants us to be more specific about the fact that it was a kitchen knife. I don’t know if this works better in Japanese in that the word for kitchen knife doesn’t include the word “knife”, but even if so, it is still a type of knife! This is something else that was an argument made in the original DR1 case – someone says the culprit used “some random knife they had on them”, and Makoto counters that it was a kitchen knife because the more relevant point is where it came from. So really, to make this be even remotely sensible here, that should also be the question Kaede is asking herself. Not was it even a knife. What the hell.

This is specifically an excuse to demonstrate the Mind Mine minigame, which is a pretty bad example of it because the other two images that are options in it aren’t even knives. Not that Mind Mine is ever really a super justified minigame that doesn’t point out something rather obvious, but.

Another thing I remember about the fan translation of this demo that I originally watched was that this part apparently made the translator flip tables, because they broke immersion to have Kaede’s line announcing her answer also include something to the effect of “oh my god Kaede I can’t believe you had to do a whole minigame just to figure out it was a kitchen knife what the hell”. Same, though, random fan translator from years ago. Same.

Kaito:  “Yeah, I caught a glimpse of it too… That was definitely a kitchen knife.”

Oh hey, look who’s capable of observing and understanding basic facts! Yes, hello, we would like to apologise for our previous misinformation and inform everyone that Kaito is, in fact, not stupid, please disregard everything you may have heard in the past few minutes implying that he is, thank you.

Shuichi:  “A knife… I do remember seeing a knife in the kitchen. That could be it.”

Angie:  “I see, I see… An excellent deduction from the Ultimate Detective. Well done.”

Yes, clearly, Shuichi is the only person in this room capable of realising that kitchen knives come from the kitchen. I know I said Kaito isn’t stupid, but he still obviously pales in comparison to this detective genius right here.

Shuichi:  “Ah, it’s not because I’m a detective… I’m still in training…”

Shuichi is also apparently the only person sensible enough to realise that it wasn’t even a clever deduction. This is supposed to be a hint at his insecurity, but also he’s just making a very valid point.

Maki:  “You really don’t need to be a detective to know that the knife came from the kitchen.”

Thank you, Maki, for being one of the only other sensible people here. God, Maki is always such a breath of fresh air.

Kokichi:  “Geez, who cares about the murder weapon?”

Kaito:  “What do you mean, ‘who cares’!?”

Kokichi:  “We can already guess who the culprit is. There’s a super-duper huge hint already.”

Yeah, who cares about actual concrete evidence when we can randomly sling accusations around based on completely circumstantial stuff! This is so very Kokichi. I also appreciate that Kaito’s the one to question him.

After some discussion in which the three protagonists insist it wasn’t them, led largely by Maki, who of course has no qualms about suspecting them even though she’s not going to conclude it definitely was them yet…

Kokichi:  “Ugh, I already told you it’s not Kaede. Suspecting her right off the bat is so mean!”

Of course, the demo’s got to also have some of Kokichi’s transparent two-faced insincerity in an attempt to make everyone else’s belief in and defense of each other sound hollow and empty. Wouldn’t be Kokichi without that.

Kaito:  “Hey! You’re the one who brought it up!”

And Kaito’s the one to call him out on that, because of course he should be!

“Makoto”:  “We need to talk this over more to uncover the truth. This is a test.”

Kaede:  “Huh?” (This is a test…?)

The way it lingers on that comment makes it seem relevant. Maybe this is just another nod to this being a demo, which is meant to “test” players’ skills in preparation for the main game. Which could also potentially be the idea in-universe, if this is indeed being done as a test-run before they wipe everyone’s memories of this and put them in the real killing game (though as I said before, this still can’t have been quite what happened in real canon given the whole pregame reset thing).

Gonta:  “Gonta not good at tough subjects… but Gonta will work hard for everyone’s sake!”

Kaede:  “That’s right! We need to work together so we can overcome this class trial!”

Yaaaay, Gonta. He hasn’t really done much of note in this demo but he’s still here and doing his best! And also here’s some Kaede being very herself.

“Makoto”:  “Everything’s gone smoothly so far, but…”

Kaede:  “Huh? Did you say something, Makoto?”

“Makoto”:  “No… it’s nothing.”

Hah, Makoto really is acting quite suspiciously now, isn’t he.

Ryoma:  “Either way, we’ve got three main suspects now…”

No, we haven’t, we only ended up on this topic because of Kokichi’s random accusation slinging, can we get back to talking about the knife, please. Ryoma, you are meant to be smarter than this.

Kaito:  “It’s not any of them! I believe in these guys!”

Oh, Kaito. I’m a little more surprised that his intuition is giving him a fully positive read on “Makoto” and “Hajime”, but he hasn’t interacted with them that much either and their acting has been fine so far and made them seem superficially heroic, so, eh, fair enough.

Shuichi:  “If we can determine who took the murder weapon from the kitchen… that would clear Kaede of suspicion.”

Yes, thank you, let’s talk about the evidence. Shuichi’s is always the most sensible voice in the room. I also like how he’s thinking of it as clearing Kaede of suspicion – he really doesn’t want to think she did it.

Kirumi:  “First, we should listen to Kaede and the others’ testimonies.”

This whole thing of awkwardly veering the topic onto these three suspects in particular (thanks to our convenient Kokichi in the room just wanting to be overly suspicious of everyone) is actually an excuse to demonstrate a Mass Panic Debate. Which is a horrendously bad example of one of these. They’re supposed to happen when people get so riled up at being suspected that they all talk over each other, but Kaede, Makoto and Hajime have been quite calm and level-headed about this, and each happily agree to Kirumi’s suggestion to let them testify. So they shouldn’t need to talk over each other!

And then, to make things even more confusing and distract even more from what’s supposed to be the point of a Mass Panic Debate, Monokuma and his cubs awkwardly interrupt to declare that Kaede can’t participate and they’re arbitrarily going to make someone else testify about their alibi instead of her. This is of course because Kaede is the protagonist and so can’t participate in a playable debate, and it’s also because the person they’re having testify instead is someone who actually has testimony about who took the knife and is therefore the relevant thing to shoot at. But my god, does this end up giving a completely unclear and misleading impression of what a Mass Panic Debate is even supposed to be for. When I first saw this demo, I remember being confused as hell and thinking it was pointlessly gimmicky to have three Nonstop Debates at once for no apparent reason. It completely fails to communicate the idea that these are supposed to be less about the gameplay and more about narrative tension (even if only one of the Mass Panic Debates in the main game really pulls that off to its full potential).

The third testimony in question is from Himiko, who was having tea with Tenko when somebody took the knife. Specifically, she was lecturing Tenko about the difference between real magic and a magic trick, because of course she was. It’s cute that Tenko was happy to listen to her.

Tenko doesn’t know who it was who came in, because it was a dude, and so, being Tenko, she didn’t pay him any attention beyond that. This jogs Himiko’s memory, though…

Himiko:  “Nyeh… now that I think about it, someone was in the kitchen. Someone who’s no longer with us…”

…and then she decides to tell us all who it was in the vaguest possible way instead of just saying “it was Hiro” or “it was the victim”. Which is in fact a very transparent way to shoehorn in, drumroll please, the actual stupidest Psyche Taxi segment in the game, for real this time! At least if you count the demo as part of this game.

Credit to them, they actually did put Kaede in the car and not Shuichi. I think  her car might be a little different, too? The idea of driving through Vegas to pick up sex workers is… basically just as out-of-character for Kaede as it was for Shuichi, given that she’s a huge piano nerd without many friends, not that that part of her character has been illustrated at all in the demo. (She’s still picking up women, but then there are a few comments Kaede makes that strongly hint she’s bi, so hey.)

The two (at least it’s only two; even they couldn’t stretch this out into three or four) questions asked here are: “Who is not here?” [Victim/Culprit] and then “Who is the victim of this case?” [Hajime/Hiro/Makoto]. Yup, they actually thought those were questions that anyone ever would have to think about at all.

…I mean, they probably didn’t really. And to be fair, this is pretty similar to how stupid actual Psyche Taxis are, so, uhh, representative demo gameplay???

Kaede:  “Are you saying Hiro’s the one who went into the kitchen?”

Because obviously Kaede had to drive a taxi through her mind to figure this out, and nobody else in the room figured it out in less time than it took her to do that. And she also couldn’t possibly have just asked Himiko to clarify who she meant in the first place.

But hey, the one who took the knife from the kitchen was in fact the victim. More references to the DR1 case! I wonder if we’re supposed to think that Hiro was secretly planning murder and not just taking it for self-defence. Honestly I wouldn’t entirely put that past him; if anyone would be the kind of coward looking for an easy way out that Kaito was denouncing back in the investigation, he seems a reasonable candidate for it.

Having realised that the one who took the knife isn’t the culprit after all, suspicion falls back on the three protagonists, particularly Kaede as she discovered the body.

“Makoto”:  “No, that’s wrong!”

“Hajime”:  “Yeah! You’ve got that wrong!”

Monokuma:  “Oh? The two leads just said their catchphrases! Finally, this is getting exciting!”

Man, this is apparently some genwunner-audience-shallowness worthy of trial 6 if they’re supposed to think that a couple of people just yelling “no, that’s wrong!” somehow makes things the height of entertainment. Admittedly the rest of the trial has not exactly been riveting, but still.

“Makoto”:  “Kaede… don’t give up hope. Keep going and you’ll be able to reach the truth!”

He can’t just tell her to not give up – he has to throw in that buzzword and make sure everyone knows that this is about hope. Look, guys, he’s totally Makoto.

Kaede:  “But, how do I prove my innocence?”

“Hajime”:  “That’s…”

…But neither of them actually know how to do this and are just spouting meaningless protagonisty lines.

Kokichi:  “Fine! I guess my decisive testimony will help us find our culprit!”

Oh boy, it’s Kokichi Making Everything About Himself time.

Gonta:  “You know who culprit is? That means everyone not have to get punished!”

Aww, Gonta. Look at him naively believing everything Kokichi says, this is totally not foreshadowing for anything important and tragic in the main game, not at all.

A couple of the other slower characters also go welp, great, this means the trial can be over soon.

Shuichi:  “Kokichi… if you had information like that, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

Kokichi:  “Well, if I said something that important right away, that wouldn’t be much fun.”

But at least Shuichi is still being the most sensible and realising exactly what is so fishy about this. (This is also the question he has to worry about himself with regards to his own lies that he tells in canon.)

Kokichi’s response is “lol, for fun”, though, because of course it is, and that is exactly what he would do if this testimony he’s about to give weren’t a lie. Especially considering that that’s the usual reason why he really does frequently withhold important information from everyone else in canon.

Kokichi:  “Anyway… the culprit is Makoto.”

From just the text alone, this could seem like it’s deliberately being reminiscent of Kokichi’s “Well, then… the culprit is Gonta” line in canon. But alas, the delivery is completely different – which I guess is fair enough, since here he’s just lying.

Kaede:  “Huh? Wh-What are you saying?”

“Makoto”:  “…”

Interestingly, Makoto doesn’t immediately try to deny this.

Regardless, Kaede decides she’s going to believe in Makoto, and so she’s going to lie for him. Finally, a mechanic introduced in this demo that, A, is an actually interesting new mechanic and not a pointless minigame, and, B, is represented properly!

(There’s no Debate Scrum in this demo, sadly. I’d say it’s because they couldn’t come up with a proper excuse for one, but honestly they could probably have scraped together a short one about whether or not Makoto did it, similar to the one about Shuichi in canon.)

Kokichi:  “I saw Makoto leave that room by himself! I swear!”

Wow, that totally doesn’t sound like a lie at all.

“Makoto”:  “I didn’t go into that room even once… so Kokichi must be mistaken.”

“Kokichi is lying.”

There’s eight different white noise lines for this last statement, most of which are quite easily identifiable. Even though this one is less obviously so, I bet it’s Maki. It sounds like her.

So Kaede lies that she was with Makoto the entire time until the body discovery.

Kokichi:  “Hmmm… Kaede, you’d rather choose a lie than the truth, just to protect Makoto?”

Kaede:  “Do you have any proof to show that I’m lying, Kokichi?”

Kokichi:  “Nope, none at all. I lied about seeing Makoto.”

Welp, that didn’t last long at all.

Kaito:  “Why you…? Don’t mess with us!”

Again I love that Kaito is the one to call him out on this! He hates that someone would be this insincere and selfishly mess with their lives just for his own petty entertainment.

Kokichi:  “I just wanted Makoto to talk, so I simply tricked him into speaking.”

Kaito:  “Why beat around the bush like that?”

This is so Kaito – he’s not using the word here, but this is his concept of manliness! Don’t beat around the bush, just come straight out and tell people what you want from them! If he wanted Makoto to testify, he should have just asked him instead of being insincere and indirect and manipulating him into it.

Kokichi:  “Cuz it’s still not clear where Makoto was before and after the indicent, right? Aw maaaan… I totally thought Makoto would talk if we started accusing him.”

And your lie didn’t help us clear anything up any more than just asking him directly would have done, so good fucking job, as usual. It almost seems like Kokichi’s actually acknowledging here that his lie didn’t work, but really he’s probably telling himself it totally would have worked if Kaede hadn’t jumped in with her own lie, because Kokichi can never be wrong about anything.

Some of the others point out that Kaede is also lying because she was on her own shortly after the body discovery and it’s weird that she and Makoto would split up after finding a body. Since Kaede’s lie is so provably false, it’s surprising to me that Kokichi backed down so soon on his own lie rather than just trying to disprove Kaede’s. Maybe his actual intent was that he thought Kaede was the culprit and expected her to throw Makoto under the bus to protect herself, and then when she didn’t, he realised she’s probably innocent and backed off? Maybe? But then again, Kokichi expects people to throw others under the bus to protect themselves even when they are innocent, like he was trying to get Kaito to do to Maki in trial 2, so, eh, I kinda doubt he’d see anyone not doing that as actual proof of anything. There’s too much selflessness and trust involved in that idea.

Gonta:  “Huh? Kaede… tell lie?”

Aww, Gonta.

Kaede:  (I need to be more convincing if I want them to believe me. I’ll remember that next time I need to lie… Of course, I hope that time never comes.)

Heh, that sure is a rather transparently this-is-just-a-demo thing for her to be thinking.

Kaito:  “We just got dragged around by Kokichi’s lies… We didn’t clear a single thing up!”

Exactly! God I love like 80% of the Kaito in this demo. All of the bits that aren’t horrendously out of character are so wonderfully him.

Everyone awkwardly laments that they still don’t have any more of a clue who did it other than maybe the three owners of the room and maybe in particular Kaede for no good reason. (Come on, guys, the rooms weren’t locked, literally anybody could have seen Hiro wandering into that room and taken their chance to kill someone.)

“Makoto”:  “It can’t end like this. No one wants an ending like that.”

Wow, that is so hilariously trial 6 of him. I am very sure the demo writers are doing this on purpose at this point.

Hajime decides he can prove it wasn’t Kaede, so he starts talking in very vague terms about “it” that was on the floor in the dorm, and something off about the crime scene. I’m not sure what the latter thing he’s supposed to be referring to is – Kaede’s comments in the investigation suggested there was supposedly something suspicious about the blood on the knife handle, so it might be that, but I couldn’t tell myself what was off about it. (There might not even be anything off about it, because this is about to go precisely nowhere. Then again, maybe it was the fact that it’s actually a prop knife because “Hiro” wasn’t really dead? Although “Hajime” probably wouldn’t want that to be known, would he.) The former thing is clearly the short brown hair found on the floor after Kirumi had cleaned, which suggests it is not Kaede but is instead either Makoto or Hajime.

But before Kaede can actually properly mention either of these things Hajime is vaguely alluding to, Monokuma interrupts and declares that the demo is over, and the trial abruptly ends.

So we never actually find out who supposedly killed Hiro – but I think the clues make it pretty clear that it was supposed to be Makoto.

On my first time seeing the demo, I was certain it couldn’t be Makoto because I already implicitly trusted that he’d never kill anyone. But that’s only if it was the real Makoto. Since this is just a cosplayer, and this is just a show being put on by Team Danganronpa for some very superficial demo entertainment, anything goes. I can totally see them pulling out the shocking twist that Makoto murdered someone, just for the hell of it.

All the clues point to Makoto – the hair that’s either his or Hajime’s, his extremely unexplained disappearance, plus a couple of moments in which he acted quite suspiciously, such as the way he didn’t immediately fervently plead his innocence when Kokichi claimed he had proof. And even if it had actually been a real murder, none of the people here who are real people and not cosplayers just acting would snap and give up that quickly on getting out of here without resorting to such drastic measures, just like Kaito said.

Then, right at the end of the demo, over a blank screen, there’s this.

“Makoto”:  “Hey, how was… our acting?”

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu, it wasn’t too shabby! I especially liked how convincingly you wasted everyone’s time!”

“Hajime”:  “I was a little worried about the end there… Hope it was exciting enough. Welp, since we got through it smoothly, that’s it for today!”

Monokuma:  “Smell ya later!”

“Makoto”:  “Good job, everyone!”

“Hajime”:  “Good job! See ya!”

…………

“Hiro”:  “Heeey! Wait for meee!”

This sure is a thing. I’d actually forgotten this bit was here while coming up with my theory that the Makoto, Hajime and Hiro we see in this demo are just cosplayers and nobody died – and this basically completely proves that this idea really was what the out-universe writers were going for here.

On a first viewing of this demo without having seen the main game, Makoto asking about their acting would potentially just seem like him referring to how he and Hajime hid the fact that they’d already been in another killing game – and, perhaps, the fact that they knew Hiro wasn’t really dead and this was all staged. But even then, it’s kind of odd that they’re asking this to Monokuma, like they’re in league with him, which doesn’t seem right for them at all.

But it makes every single bit of sense after finishing the main game if you assume that they really were cosplayers just putting on this demo as a teaser for the in-universe audience. When “Makoto” asks about their acting, he’s asking if they were convincing enough as Makoto and Hajime in the first place. They work for Team Danganronpa, so of course they’re in league with Monokuma and having a casual conversation with him. And everything about the way they’re talking comes across like actors or directors being all “welp, that’s a wrap, good job out there on set today, guys, we sure made an entertaining show!”

This bit didn’t need to be in the demo at all, but it’s really fun that they put it here anyway. It’s a very subtle, cheeky little hint to the real truth of everything that nobody’s going to be able to piece together without already knowing the truth and is just going to assume is meaningless demo shenanigans until then.

Also, while obviously nobody actually died, Team Danganronpa was still presenting a fiction in which Hiro totally did die, and within that fiction they apparently still totally had it in mind that Makoto killed him. They didn’t really have to hint towards anyone having done it at all, but they still had Makoto’s actor go out of his way to put in deliberate hints that it was him. I wonder how many of the audience picked up on the hints, and how shocked they were if they did. Gasp, their precious Makoto did a murder!! How could he fall to despair like this!?

[ryouverua]

Love Key #5 - Kaito Momota

Well SHIT it took way too long to start that Saimota train! I'm ready to hop in for the ride though too so CHOO CHOO GET OUT THE WAY

Wow it really didn’t get long for those Saimota vibes to get going!

Of course Kaito charges into this with his voice raised. Of course.

Have we... gone full shounen sports anime???

Shuichi is just thinking oh god what the hell am I about to compete in - if it’s wrestling I swear -

“I am nothing if not fully committed to whatever role I have thrust upon me! potentiallypunintended”

But man, Shuichi is determined to get his bearings ASAP. To what end, Shuichi? To what end? 

“Because I’m totally okay with it if you are. In fact, I think the genre we’ve shifted into requires a half-to-full episode of reminiscing about all the hardships we’ve overcome to get to this moment! Preferably via montage with our OP song playing in the background!”

“Kaito this is already an incredibly weird situation - please don’t get too meta on me, my poor bi heart can’t handle it.”

A fellow astronaut?

I think we actually were talking about the position Kaito would take as an astronaut, and pilot was mentioned as a strong possibility - so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see it up here! Yeah... hotshot pilot really does go well with Kaito’s character, doesn’t it...

“Kaito what the fuck are you talking about and who am I and -”

“Hold up fellow rival I’m totally monologuing right now ANYWAY AS I WAS SAYING -”

Honestly though does anyone else find it hilarious that Shuichi’s absolute confusion didn’t break Kaito’s immersion in the fantasy in the slightest?

I do love the word ‘eccentric’ for Kaito, because it honestly wouldn’t have been the first thing to come to mind for me - but I guess to Shuichi, who is so withdrawn in himself and anxious all the time, an aggressively positive extrovert who chases his ambitions and believes in himself/everyone around him so strongly would be a completely alien concept to him! I actually think that it’s the fact that Kaito believes in Shuichi so strongly, and not just in himself, that throws Shuichi off the most, too!

So, um, did you guys have judges giving you scores? Was this done in private or via actual accredited competition? It’s clearly not a traditional race based on speed, so...

Assuming this fantasy is one that’s being judged by other people (because once again I’m thinking about the fantasy scenarios way too seriously), I can sort of see this taking place in the hangar before they go into their planes. So Kaito spots his rival pilot and confronts him, because this will be their last time competing together and chances are he’s just realizing how significant the ‘rival’ pilot has been in his life.... hm ~ 

Oh! He’s getting serious!

It is their way of connecting. What else will they have once the competition is put to rest?

Kaito is going to have to confront the fact that all of the people he’s trying to nurture and help grow will be left behind once he goes into space, though. I... suppose this is hinting at that, just a little bit. He dreams big, but big dreams come with sacrifices.

But, of course, then he wouldn’t be able to ever achieve his dream of going to space.

S... Shuichi, you do remember that you aren’t actually the pilot he’s ‘talking’ to, right? It does seem significant that Shuichi is losing himself to the role, though. Has he done that in any of the other events? Minus Kokichi’s of course, considering the fact that Shuichi was himself in that one, I haven’t noticed anything on this level from the ones I’ve done so far. And with that said, you could easily read into it as Shuichi commenting on their training nights together. They do seem like the only times Shuichi has been legitimately happy - outside of his time with Kaede, of course.

Ah, that stings a bit. 8′D This is a pretty good reminder that, despite me loving the ship so much, Kaito’s perfect fantasy is not Shuichi - or at least, not Shuichi as he is now. Actually, I know the game is pushing for potential Maki!endgame but I think Kaede might fit the bill better. I remember noticing it a lot in the first chapter (and... uh, low-key shipping them tbh), but Kaito always seemed really impressed by Kaede, and whenever Kaito was about to chip in with what I imagined to be a big friendship/supportive-type speech about ‘never giving up!’ and ‘believe in your friends!’, Kaede would always beat him to the punch... and yet Kaito never seemed to feel threatened by her. They’re both pretty headstrong, and Kaede did strike me as being competitive in her own way - honestly, as a rarepair ship they would work really well together!

With that said, I can imagine Shuichi’s fantasy involving someone supporting them through all his worries (COUGHKAITOCOUGHKAEDE) so... you know. It almost feels like Shuichi is getting to live out a bit of his own fantasy situation right here - being in a position where he can hold his own against Kaito, and where Kaito recognizes him as an equal while still being his supportive self, with his eyes only on him...

also I feel like I should note, just because Shuichi isn’t Kaito’s ultimate ideal doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t be up there. In fact, I’d argue that Kaito’s big thing is raising people up to the level where they can be as confident in themselves as he is in them, and in himself. Maybe in the future when Shuichi reaches that level Kaito could see something more in him? okay maybe not in the game canon but post-game fan material wink wink nudge nudge guys plz

Ah, so he is able to move on. Whelp, Kaito is officially in a better mental state than me, hoarder of physical items, internet tabs and memories lmao

All jokes aside, it is pretty impressive to be able to work towards your goal with such determination. I can understand why Kaito could probably grate on a few people playing this, but I really find that sort of attitude impressive.

.... Quick question. Is Kaito saying ‘man’ as general slang or is he acknowledging Shuichi as a man? As in, Kaito is confirmed to be at least bi under the right (shounen) circumstances? I’M JUST ASKING... FOR SCIENCE...

Shuichi just remembered that he isn’t an actual pilot, huh. 8′D Just pilot with your mind, sweet cheeks! You already drive brain cars; surely a plan can’t be that big of a jump, right?

OH MY GOD I THOUGHT THE SCENE WAS NEARLY OVER BUT APPARENTLY NOT

I AM OKAY WITH THIS

Kaito really likes someone that can keep up with him energy-wise, huh?

Oooooomfg this is so shounen-genre it hurts

“My... ahoge... is so.... confused right now....!”

DID YOU REALLY ONLY JUST REMEMBER

I... I think this is the first time Shuichi acknowledged the bed itself as a tool of the room before actually interacting with it in any way lmao

Whoa Shuichi whOA

Oh yeah, this is definitely Kaito trying to provoke a reaction from someone he thinks will fight back, not an attempt at intimidation.

KAITO YOU HAVE TO BE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE

is it close enough for Shuichi to feel those scraggly goatee bits I don’t know why but his goatee will never not be funny to me

:O !!!!

This is basically the closest Kaito can get to a confession, huh?

It’s interesting to get it at this point, after the reveal of the disease he has. It’s another clear indicator that Kaito has trouble being honest with other people about vulnerabilities despite him doing his best to encourage other people to rely on him. And it’s strange, because he’s fully honest and eager about his own ambitions and passions! And love itself is a passion of sorts, but this is the type of thing that requires a certain level of vulnerability, and it’s also something where he doesn’t have full control over his destiny the way he does over his other goals - if the person doesn’t love you back, then there’s very little you can do about it. I hesitate to go so far as to say that he has a fear of rejection, but he definitely doesn’t want to be the one to say ‘I’m in love with you’ before the other person does, as far as I can tell...

“Quite literally, actually. See, look!”

But man, Shuichi is literally acknowledging the situation he’s in (dubious as it is lmao) and knows that there’s a 99% chance that Kaito wants to confess to his feelings to ‘him’. Shuichi, you do realize what a powerful position you have right now, right?

So I guess the question is whether Shuichi is hesitating because he doesn’t feel the same way, he just doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation... or whether Shuichi wants to earn that confession as ‘himself’, and not just as some fictional ideal manufactured by the power of the room they’re in. I suppose that depends on the viewer!

I’ve made it pretty clear that I’ve been shipping them for a while so, uh, you all probably know how I want to read it, but there is plenty of room for other interpretations too ~ they do have a fantastic bro-ship going on too!

Aaaah, Kaito :( I have a feeling that while he’d be willing to pursue a gay relationship with pilot!Shuichi, he understands how unusual that would be in ‘that world’. I wonder if that means he would be that open and understanding with his own sexuality if it ever came up in-game? He doesn’t seem to be struggling with his own feelings in the sense of ‘oooh ~ forbidden love ~’, but rather the idea of his rival’s own feelings being returned.

Between Kokichi’s love key and this one, Shuichi is a mess.

Ooh, maybe I was wrong? He’s psyching himself up to do a proper confession after all!

Well, adrenaline does have a way of ramping up all of your emotions! Aaaw, Kaito looks so excited! Rain or shine, rejection or no, he’s officially decided to come clean after all!

NO SHUICHI TAKE SOME INITIATIVE

This is the one issue they have in the game too - Shuichi is relying on Kaito to do all the emotional and communication-based heavy-lifting, and it means that Shuichi won’t press Kaito on the issues that need to be pressed in his attempt to stay in Kaito’s good graces. Aaah, I’m so worried about my boys...

“BE THE SHOUNEN RIVAL YOU WERE MEANT TO BE, SHUICHI!”

“I’m already being a stand-in for the original protagonist, what else do you want from me?!”

“It’s how I get turned on, okay?”

“It’s what - ?!”

“I-I mean fired up! Yeah, I totally meant fired up...!”

This is the gayest competition-based ship I’ve seen since Yowamushi Pedal’s Toumaki

You would like it to be that way, huh? Man, I do wish we could see some of the consequences of these nights in the interactions during the game, but I guess what would be super tricky to program and, uh, game-breaking... but I suppose that’s what fanfiction is for, right? 8′D

I really didn’t expect this to be so enlightening on the two of them as characters though, and their platonic relationship as well as their shipping potential! This may be up with Kokichi’s as one of my favourites ~

[dothewrite]

(cont) isn't. and it kinda just frustrates me to see the media portray it in that way because i would hate to know someone or even BE someone with that disorder and see such a portrayal of who i am as a person. SO due to this frustration i was wondering if you could od a scenario with tsukishima and bokuto where their fem s/o has DID and just how the boys would help them or something (you can let your mind wander) or maybe their s/o sees the trailer and gets really upset about it

Hey there! I’m sorry it’s been such a long time, but I’m really thankful for your patience. Here’s your request, and I hope you like it. For all those who didn’t see the first part of the ask, this request is about DID, and the movie trailer for ‘Split’ with James McAvoy.

Just as a quick disclaimer- I have no experience with DID. I have never had it, never interacted with someone with it, so I do not claim to represent this illness accurately. However, this was my major (and hopefully my future career), and I have dug up old notes and several textbooks to get my facts as straight as possible. Because this is fic, there will be several things that I do not explain directly. If there are any questions or concerns about DID (in this scenario or otherwise), I will do my best to answer questions through asks.

“You know,” Tsukishima hears you snarl before the mug smashes against the wallin fifteen different pieces, “I wish I could twist my body like some fuckingwendigo when Hana takes over. Be the monster they think we really are.”

He pads out of the kitchen,turning off the stove before he does, and hands you an oven mitten. You slip iton, reluctantly, and make your way towards the mess that you’ve left next tothe hanging bookshelf. When you glance up angrily at your supposed boyfriend’sface, there isn’t much emotion except for focus. It’s one thing you’ve alwayshated about him, and if you cared less than you did about your host, you don’tthink you’d have given him the time of day.

“Be careful,” he tells yousternly, “I don’t want you to cut yourself.”

You stick your middle finger upat him from underneath the glove. A small smile starts to crack his thinlypressed lips. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you pick it up then? Is it funwatching me on my knees, you sick fuck?”

As if on cue, he pulls out hisalready gloved hand from behind his back and waves it at you, deadpan. “I’m notinto sharp object play.” Very slowly, he gets to his knees beside you andbegins to pick out the smaller shards from the plush carpeting. “But,” he adds,“you know Kaede won’t like it when she finds out that you’ve broken somethingagainst the wall. That was her favourite mug.”

“Yeah? She’ll only know if yourat me out to her,” you spit. But your hand is already moving, reluctantly,untangling large shards of porcelain from dark green fibres.

Tsukishima’s expression hasn’tchanged in the slightest. Sometimes you really, really hate how nothing evergets to him like you want it to. Like he’d expected all of this to begin with,and plotted a course of potential comebacks to put you in your place.

It’s never very fun anymore whenit’s your turn.

“Tell me at least you agree withme, Tsukishima.” He hums to let you know he’s listening. “I’m angry for a goodreason, dammit.”

“It’s a good reason,” he agrees.He holds out the plastic bag for you to drop the last big piece in. “It makesfor a good movie, but it’s not good for representation.”

“I’m not a fucking murderouspsychopath.”

“You’re not,” he agrees again.“You’re a bit murderous, but not a psychopath.”

“I’m only murderous when peoplepiss me off. If they want me to be a nicer person, then they should stoppissing me off. Sound logic.”

To this, he doesn’t reply. Heonly laughs, a bit brightly with his twisted sense of humour, and motions foryou to get up with him. “Grab the vacuum, will you?”

You do. You don’t mind vacuumingso much; it makes such a wonderfully raucous noise that you can easily imagineit’s the sound of a building crashing down a block over. Tsukishima gives you alook as you plug it into the socket, and claps on his pair of noise cancellingheadphones. You switch the machine on with pleasure.

It’s a good catharsis, as analternative to breaking more things. You’d shattered the television once out ofrage, and the pleasure that had coursed through you had been unreal- so muchthat it had become an addiction, a contagion that kept you up for longer andlonger as the fury liquidized anything else inside you and pooled into a wellof happy anger. Kaede, your host, had given Tsukishima a stern talking to afterthat, and you’d been under wraps ever since. No more breaking household itemswithout cleaning it up. Needless to say, you stopped breaking so many things.

With a click, quiet swam backinto the lilac living room, and you drag the vacuum behind you back to thestorage cupboard.

Tsukishima is there waiting foryou. He holds out a mug, identical to the one that you had broken, and at yoursurprised gape, a gentler crease to his eyes begins to crinkle and he takes astep forwards, pressing the cup into your open hand.

You wrap your fingers around it,feeling the same grooves again.

“You’re not going to rat me out.”

“Nope.”

“How many spares do you have inthere?” You demand accusingly, but Tsukishima’s smile doesn’t falter.

“Enough,” he answers. Slowly, andobviously, his palms curls around the small of your back and tugs you closer,keeping you at a distance comfortable still. You weren’t as close to him asyour other alters were, and he knew your boundaries.

“You have the most beautifulanger out of them all, did you know that?”

“I-” your tongue sticks to thesides of your mouth, and words become hard to find. “You mean that?”

“Yeah,” he breathes lowly, andsomething behind his eyes melt and swirl in messages that you’re not used toreading. It’s the first time those messages are addressed to you. “But don’ttell the others.” He smirks at you slyly. “Don’t rat me out.”

“I won’t,” you promise. And then,“who the hell do you take me for, anyway? Some fucking tattle tale?”

Laughing, Tsukishima motions foryou to get on with the storage closet, popping back into the living room to putthe mug where it had originally been.

An alien warmth flushes throughyou; your cheeks, your fingers, your toes, and your chest feels irritatinglytight against your ribs. You take several deep breaths, lean the vacuumcarefully against the side of the closet, and shut it behind you. You stand alittle straighter, edges of your lips a little softer, and the room seems atleast four times brighter than it had been before.

“Kei?” You call. He’s rarelyanywhere out of sight, unless it’s just been Iishi, who needs his space to beangry. “Are you here?”

Tsukishima strolls back intoview, hanging out of the doorway into the kitchen. He’s looking softer thanusual, and somehow your cheeks mirror his mood, and you walk up to him with awarm gaze.

“I’m here, Kaede,” he murmurs.“I’ve bought groceries. Want to start dinner?”

On the small stretch of wall thatmarks the distance between the bedrooms and the living room, four calendarscover it. One is larger than the rest, with lots of spare space and small multicolouredscribbles in each square. Thursday has marked two movies and one shoppingexcursion and on Friday, a double anniversary date with Kuroo and his fiancée.

Two smaller calendars frame thelargest one in the centre. One the left, Bokutohas his two and a half practices jotted down for Monday, and to the right, youhave one hair appointment and one doggy day care pickup for Tuesday. They’reboth in different colours, and different handwriting scrawled all over them.

The smallest and last one sitsfurthest down the corridor. It’s hung neatly right beside the master bedroom’sdoorframe, and each month, the pages are filled in assorted colours. Therearen’t many jottings on it, only small multicoloured circles in a countdown.Circles mark special days, and straight crosses count the days passed. Bothtypes of writing are dotted along the frames. There’s a small smiley face and acat face that decorates the header of this month. It’s October, going ontoNovember. The days are getting shorter, and the air is getting chillier.

There’s a big circle aroundtoday’s date. It’s in lime green, autumn’s favourite colour.

“Hey.” You feel Bokuto’s firmarms wrap themselves like garden vines around your hunched shoulders. “You’rethinking that again, aren’t you?”

“When don’t I?” You joke weakly,but it’s true. He’s right. You twist your head around, and straighten your backthe way you know he prefers you to sit. It makes you look prouder, happier, andBokuto’s favourite time of day is when you’re both.

“I got this, you know? I’m goodat taking care of people!” Without his hands at his disposal, he thumps hischest against your back to make the manly ‘umph’ sound. It makes you smile. Fornow, everything still makes you smile quite easily. “I know,” you reassure him.“I’m just anxious, like always.”

“It’s been four years,” Bokutomumbles into the crook of your neck. You lean backwards into his firm body andlet yourself reassemble in his shape. “I’ve got the hang of this. You don’thave to feel bad anymore.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stopfeeling bad,” you shrug, and he shifts along with the motion. “But it’s a lotmore comforting now that we’ve planned well for it.”

“Mhmm.” The vibrations sendshivers up your spine. Bokuto runs wiry fingers over your gooseflesh. “I’m goodat keeping you cheerful.”

He’s good at keeping everyonecheerful, always. Even when he’s down, Bokuto never misses the chance to pickhimself up just in time to bring someone back up to spirits, and his sadhooting is one of the most heartbreakingly adorable sounds you’ve ever heard.You’ve got it recorded on your phone.

“Let’s run over the game planagain,” you suggest with a small smile. “It’ll make me less nervous.”

“Okay.” He plops down next to youwith his legs crossed. “So, lots of blankets. Lots of hot drinks. Don’t wakeyou up too early, and don’t get mad when you’re crying about dumb things.” Hefrowns at that point. “I think it’s horrible that anyone could get mad at youcrying. And nothing you cry about is ever dumb.”

“Last year I sobbed for two daysstraight because I lost a penguin keychain.”

“Imagine what the penguinkeychain must feel!” Bokuto looks scandalized. “That’s not dumb!”

You love him so. It’s at the tip of your tongue, pushing at your lips to escape in ahushed whisper, but it’s not something Aki would say. Haru and Natsu, mostdefinitely. Aki- autumn- you- settle for pressing against him with your side.“I hope we find the penguin again someday,” you muse. “What an adventure.”

Bokuto looks thrilled at theprospect of sharing adventures with a small plastic charm, but he clears histhroat and keeps his fingers held out. “Let Kuroo and Akaashi know beforehand.I’ll keep noises to a minimum, and let our landlord know that quiet hours areearly for the first month. Your workplace should’ve got the memo pretty earlyon. They’re nice.”

“They are,” you nod dazedly. It’sa cocoon of warmth around Bokuto at all times, and with the small snuggiepooled at your feet, it’s the right gradient of temperature that lulls you tointo a dream. “If worst comes to worst, my therapist has open hours through theday for any emergencies.”

“Gotcha. I hope there aren’t anyemergencies.”

“They’re hard on you, I’m sorry,Kou.”

“Don’t mind me! I was mostlyworried for you-” as if proving his point, he runs his fingers along the trailof your scalp, back and forth. “I didn’t know that our neighbours wouldcelebrate a birthday with fireworks.”

He pauses then, and leans down tohover closely by your face. You can feel the warmth radiating of his sun-kissedbronze. “I think you’ve already come so far. You used to hate having men aroundyou. That broke my heart.”

You’re not sure if you’ll everstop feeling guilty about that, and Bokuto’s face still shows old hurt that hasscarred his heart and left him stronger. You know the guilt will amplify soon.Soon, you will fear Bokuto, yet love him intensely, hate yourself and want tocarve out a small cave to live by your lonesome.

You will hate the days, miss thenights, love your father, and despise the sound of deep laughter.

It’s four thirty in theafternoon, and the sky is white from snow. The whirring of relentless windsoutside and the memory of deep, angry grunting stirs sleeping fears from insideyou.

Bokuto waits, silently, and holdsyou close to him.

He listens as your breathingspeeds up, coming in short bursts, and your grip on your own legs tense. Theshoulder you have resting against him crushes against him in a desperate bidfor his pain, and his comfort combined. He waits for you to settle down, andget your bearings.

“Here,” he shuffles further awayand swirls a massive blanket around your frame before you can make a sound. Thefear in your eyes subside in small bursts, and holding back his urge to touchyour cheek, Bokuto lifts up a mug of hot cocoa in front of your face. You takeit in both hands, without saying a word, and sip at it.

“Fuyu.” Your eyes flicker up atthe sound of your name. Bokuto is smiling at you with aching affection, and asmall heat rises to your cheeks. You don’t mind so much when it’s his lips yournames are falling from. “Hello, again.”

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 17 [Chapter 5 - Trial]

Aaaaahhhhhhhh.

Thoughts under the cut.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. There were like . . . a thousand things that happened that I could talk about first. Wow. This goddamn trial sure took me for a spin and left me completely dazed and overwhelmed and depressed by the end.

I probably should have seen Kaito being the culprit coming. I just assumed that it would be ‘too easy’, since it was the second most obvious answer after Kokichi. But I can definitely say that even if the ‘who’ wasn’t too inherently difficult, the ‘how’ sure as fuck was.

It’s slightly lame that a good amount of the mystery of this trial revolved around stuff that only happens during the trial itself, but it’s fine. The shit that went down in this trial was oh so worth it.

Funnily enough, the thing I thought was a spoiler about Kaito being a culprit probably wasn’t actually intended as a spoiler for it, but it still lead me to the right conclusion. I saw a spoiler-free review that talked about how some of the motives in this game are lame, and I vaguely remember them mentioning the idea of someone killing because they had a terminal illness, which immediately made me think of Kaito once that whole plot point started up, but since his motive for murder had nothing to do with his illness, I think that person was just throwing out a generic example of a cliche motive, but it just so happened to still point at someone who ended up being a culprit anyway. They probably should have chosen a different example, lol.

Anyway, this trial was just sorta . . . insane. Wow. I wasn’t even able to definitively guess that the person in the Exisal was Kaito because his entire demeanor, especially when he switched over to ‘being Kaito’, felt too uncharacteristic of him to be true. But it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t actually Kokichi. Though even then, I still wasn’t sure if that meant Kaito was actually the killer.

Especially with the mid-trial swerve of Maki seeming to be the culprit, and genuinely believing herself to be the culprit. I was skeptical about the idea of the killer being spelled out before the intermission phase happened, but her whole story seemed too good not to be true.

I really, really liked this whole trial’s set-up of having both a mystery victim and a mystery killer. That was a really interesting idea. Especially with the additional layer of it being intended as ‘a mystery that even Monokuma can’t solve’. It made things feel incredibly baffling. In a good way.

The most negative thing I can say about the mystery itself was probably that, in the end, it ended up being almost exactly the same sort of scenario as case five in DR2, with a character setting up an insane murder mystery with themselves as the victim, set up in a way to expose and destroy the mastermind. They definitely played out in different ways, but the similarity was a bit too hard to ignore.

As a whole, though, it was great. It at least felt more satisfying than chapter four, even though I get in hindsight that chapter four’s trial was ‘unsatisfying’ for very intentional reasons.

It even made me warm up to Kokichi a lot as a character, which I wasn’t expecting. Now that his motives and feelings are more or less clear, it’s easier for me to understand him and appreciate his choices. I still can’t help but see him as a version of Komaeda that has a more off-putting personality, though. He’s definitely a fun character, but his personality just irritates me a lot of the time.

The first half or so of the trial wasn’t super hard in terms of the logic and the minigames, but it definitely picked up in the latter half once things got more and more weird and complicated. That was good. Sometimes the exact logic behind certain things still bugs me, though. I think I mentioned it before, but the ‘pick one of your truth bullets from the full list’ parts can sometimes feel a bit non-intuitive. Like when you have to point out that the crossbow was used, but you have to specifically pick the crossbow itself, because picking the arrows makes the other person be like ‘what, are you saying that they just stabbed someone with the arrows?’. That felt a bit dumb. It should have been immediately obvious what I meant by that. But it’s a minor point.

On a similar topic, a lot of the mini-games still feel kinda unnecessary, but that’s always been an issue with this franchise. There’s not really much to say about it at this point. Though I should say that it threw me off so fucking hard when I got a hidden Monokuma inside one of the Psyche Taxi segments. I had no idea that was possible. And on THAT note, I’ve had no real luck at getting those. This one was literally the second one I’ve found in the entire game. I know I missed one because I only noticed it in the background right before I started a free time event with someone, though. Maybe it would have been there if I went back for it later, but I didn’t bother.

I’m also getting better at the Argument Armament sections, somehow. They’re still stressful as heck, but I’m slowly improving. [And on the note of this chapter’s one, I guess I was right in assuming that if Kaito was this chapter’s killer, someone else would try and defend him]

I feel almost silly for suspecting Keebo so heavily, but both Kokichi and Kaito felt a bit too easy at the time. Oh well. I have . . . things to say about Keebo, but I’ll leave that for later, I guess.

Back on the topic of the murder itself, the whole set-up of it really was kinda ingenious, and really could have been an unsolvable mystery if things had gone differently. Especially with the whole element of there being no real proof as to whether the victim died via Maki’s poison arrow, or the hydraulic press. In the end, it basically came down to personal feelings and belief, rather than cold hard evidence.

Which reminds me, I also really liked the whole theme of Shuichi’s intuition as a device vs his feelings of belief as an individual. That was neat. Especially when it got to the point where, even after using evidence and deduction to figure out that Kaito was the culprit, he decided to lie in an attempt to stand for what Kaito believed in, and was risking his life for. Which, sadly, ended up being the final push that got Kaito to give up.

I actually tried like three times to vote for Kokichi even after that scene, since I still wanted to support Kaito, but the game didn’t let me. Oh well.

Before I forget, I may as well get back to my whole [apparently ongoing] rant for a little while.

As I’ve said before, I still personally interpret Shuichi as having a crush on Kaito that he’s trying to deny. I also said it before, but I’ve been aware from the start that this probably isn’t ‘canon’, especially after this whole trial happened and it didn’t get mentioned, but it’s still something I believe in. Especially with how heavily Shuichi and Maki were getting paralleled in this trial. Either way, at this point it feels safe to say that whatever Shuichi feels for Kaito is equal to or stronger than whatever he felt for Kaede [and had much longer to develop], and the game’s obviously already framing her as his love interest, so yeah.

I guess it goes without saying, but with how this whole game is about the nature of truth and lies, and about criticizing the idea that exposing and living with the truth is always necessary and good, it feels rather fitting that I’m choosing to treat this as my personal truth, even if it might just be a lie.

And for the record I still find Maki’s crush on Kaito to be really adorable and also heart-wrenching in this trial. If anything that’s just part of the reason why I’m seeing Shuichi’s feelings as basically being the same sort of thing.

Rant time over [for now], lol.

I guess there’s not much more to say about the mystery itself, so I should start talking more about the aftermath of the trial.

To start with, I figured in advance that Kokichi probably wasn’t the mastermind, since it felt too ‘obvious’ and happened way too early. I think I also commented on how it was a bit odd how the Exisals and stuff were treating Monokuma, but I didn’t quite guess what the full situation with that one was. 

I’ll talk about the concept of the ‘true mastermind’ in a minute. Before that, I wanna say that it was really fitting and amusing that Kaito’s execution was a spin on Jin’s from DR1. I really should have seen that coming. It was a nice little throwback. I also really, really liked the detail of Kaito dying from his injuries rather than the execution itself. It may not have been a complete victory, but it was a moral victory.

Though on the flip-side we have the whole reveal that Kaito probably had the plague that killed off most of humanity, which in itself wouldn’t change anything, but it carries the really uncomfortable implication that maybe everyone in the cast had the same plague, and he just had his symptoms show up first. Which would just make this entire scenario even MORE depressing than it was before.

This whole chapter’s just making me more and more unsure what the deal is meant to be with Rantarou and the Monokubs. I still feel like they have to be related to the overall story somehow, but I’m getting less and less sure about what their purpose could be. I’m still assuming that the Monokubs have AIs that are based on the personalities of other people in the last killing game Rantarou was a part of. Maybe the other survivors of said killing game. Which makes me wonder if we’d ever get any idea who they were as actual people. 

With the reveal that Kokichi ISN’T the mastermind, and might not have had anything to do with setting up the killing game, now I can’t help but wonder if it was Rantarou who set things up. Obviously SOMEONE had to, and I assume it’s one of the main cast members. It’d also explain why he knew about the killing game in advance, and why he seemed intent on winning it. It certainly hints at him being kinda . . . malicious, but that was already clear enough. This would also explain what he meant about how this is a killing game that he wanted to have happen.

Presumably he’s genuinely dead, though, so that pokes some holes in the idea of him being the mastermind, assuming that ‘the mastermind’ is a currently living person. If we limit it just to the main cast, then Keebo seems like the most suspicious person, since he’s a robot who could be running some sort of sub-program to control Monokuma, in a way that might not even be conscious on his part. But, again, I’ll talk more about him in a moment.

First, I should talk about the plot point that I’ve been holding off on mentioning for this entire post, and that’s Junko. I’m laughing so hard at the implication that she’s the goddamn mastermind for the third game in a row. It’s such a brilliantly polarizing writing choice. Part of me had been genuinely hoping it would happen. I have a soft spot for Junko as a villain, if only because I love seeing people get so angry over her. The ways that she causes despair and frustration in the fandom just by existing kinda validates her status as the main villain of the series.

I’ve mentioned before that it feels like they’re setting up some sort of a twist about the events of this game being fictional, even in the context of the DR universe, and this is making me even more certain of that. Especially with the focus on the topic of ‘the people who this killing game are being shown to’. The main thing that always bugged me about the apocalypse idea was that broadcasting the killing game had always been the top priority, and so it felt weird to imagine a killing game happening in this sort of scenario. I kinda assumed it was to do with there being a new mastermind with new priorities, but the idea of Monokuma still abiding by his own rules is definitely too strange, even if we make that kind of assumption. So it makes sense that he’s broadcasting this to SOMEONE. The question is who.

And honestly my best guess is that this is setting up some abstract meta-twist about us, as the players, being the people who the game is broadcast to. I’d been idly considering that for a while, but seeing Junko show up, and seeing the references to how the characters are all ‘easily replaceable’ and that ‘the killing game can happen again and again’ makes me think that, in-universe, V3 is literally some kind of story that Junko’s writing. Maybe not in a literal sense of her writing a book or something, but maybe the game takes place in a DR2-esque simulation, and she can just restart it again and again to create an unending killing game of unending despair. It seems like the sort of thing she’d do. And obviously it’d work pretty well on a meta level as commentary about the franchise itself. Which to me got pretty definitively confirmed when Junko mentioned ‘supply and demand’. V3, and it’s killing game, only exists because we, the fans, financially supported this series enough, and wanted to see more killing games happen enough, that this game got made. It seems like the natural end point of how this series likes to comment on the almost voyeuristic nature of murder. This game only exists because there was an active demand for it. Because we like seeing people kill each other in video games. Because experiencing intense emotions through media is a cathartic experience that people want to go through again and again. I’m not trying to be like ‘violent video games are bad!’ or whatever, I just mean that if this game is going to end with the big bad villain literally being the people playing the game, then it’s certainly justified.

Though on the same level it also makes it feel like this is the furthest the series could ever go, and that any more games being made would just feel uncomfortable and weird. But even if this game ends in that sort of way, there’s still going to be demand for more games. We’ll still want to get another killing game, and another, and another, even if we complain about how discomfiting it is to have a game turn around and criticize us for our enjoyment of it.

If we assume that this is where it’s going, I wonder how chapter six will go, and how the game will end. Will it be like DR2, where we get to argue against a digital version of Junko? That’d be a bit . . . odd, and probably kinda depressing, since if this is all just a story being written/programmed/etc by Junko, then no matter what the characters can to do her, it probably won’t kill her. She’ll still be alive in the real world.

On that note, if we’re meant to assume that Junko is alive ‘in the real world’, it makes me wonder what point in the timeline we’re working with, since her physical body got pretty definitively destroyed at one point, unless the person we saw in that one CG near the end was her in a robot body made to look like her. Who even knows.

Also, this whole Junko thing makes me even MORE unsure how the hell Rantarou and the Monokubs fit into the story. Is their backstory all part of a fictional setting she made up for this game? I have no idea.

I really can’t help but wonder if Kodaka will try and continue the series after this. I guess it wouldn’t be impossible for him to do so, but I just . . . don’t know how it’d work, really.

I still find it incredibly fascinating how utterly depressing and miserable and filled with despair this entire game is, especially as we understand how it connects to the entire franchise, compared to the far more hopeful ending that DR3 gave us. Though it’d be a lot less depressing if the entire apocalypse scenario was also made up by Junko and didn’t actually happen. But to be honest I kinda love the sheer audacity of Kodaka writing such a hopeful direction for the story and it’s universe, only to completely tear it apart by literally putting it through a fiery apocalypse, so either option works for me.

Anyway, I wonder if we’ll get any more deaths, or if it’ll be like the last games where nobody in the main cast dies in chapter six, ignoring the mastermind. The game is REALLY hammering in the concept of ‘the killing game will end when two people are left’. So it just makes me wonder if that might really happen. Though since only two people died in this chapter, we’d need to get a scenario of two victims and one culprit in the next chapter, to create a scenario where we’re then left with two people. Or maybe three people will just die normally. It just depends on whether or not we get another trial, really. I’m not really sure what I expect to happen, but the most important thing is probably that, if this really is all fictional, to some degree or another, then the concept of someone surviving becomes a bit meaningless, so on some level it kinda doesn’t matter. But it’s still interesting to speculate about.

I really would not be surprised at this point if the next chapter involves Himiko and Tsumugi dying, and us getting one last trial between Shuichi, Maki, and Keebo, who all definitely feel like the most major and plot-important characters right now. That might be interesting.

But it also makes me wonder if we’d then get ANOTHER chapter after that, or if we just might not get a trial where we face off against Junko specifically. Who knows.

Either way, Himiko and Tsumugi definitely feel a little expendable right about now, and I’m incredibly suspicious of Keebo and his plans right now.

I wasn’t really expecting his inner voice to just . . . malfunction and stop working after he gets hit with a rock. That kinda came out of nowhere. And now we have this bizarre scenario of him powering up and flying around while apparently bombarding the school with missiles. I wonder if his plan is just to burn everything to the ground so that the killing game will forcibly come to an end. It’s kinda hard to imagine Keebo doing something so violent, though.

I did really like seeing the remaining survivors, aside from Keebo, start training together. That was really sweet. I really love the sense of friendship and companionship between them. Well, mostly between Shuichi and Maki, but you get what I mean.

I have no goddamn clue where the next chapter is going to go, at this point. The end of this chapter raised so many questions and cliffhangers that I feel like things can just go in any direction they want now.

But as a bottom line, I can only imagine this game having a depressing, or at least bittersweet, ending. Especially if everything is some sort of fictional story. But even if it’s not, the characters have no real future left. No matter how much hope they have, they’re stuck in the academy. So I just can’t see this ending happily.

Also, as a final note, I tend to be pretty bad at expressing the exact extent of my emotional reactions to stuff in this game since I’m having to talk about so much in these posts and I try and keep them at least relatively concise and orderly and whatnot, even if this isn’t meant to be any kind of a professional review or anything, but this whole trial and it’s conclusion was depressing as fuck. It tore me apart. I knew something like this was gonna happen, since I was already bracing for this ending with Kaito dying in some way or another, but actually seeing it happen really hurt. I’m not kidding when I talk about how much I love the entire Kaito-Shuichi-Maki trio. I honestly think that they’ve become some of my all-time favourite DR characters. I get why a lot of people might think they’re a bit boring and plain [other than maybe Maki], but I absolutely adore them. Out of all of the ‘main trios’, they’re far and away my favourites at the moment, although there’s a lot of recency bias going on there, since I still have a huge soft spot for the main characters of DR2. Mostly Hinata and Komaeda, though. The fact that I like Maki a LOT more than Nanami is probably what weigh things out in V3′s favour. I don’t really wanna pit any of the characters against each other.

Anyway yeah, this chapter put me through an entire rollercoaster of emotions.