[Reposting this because I'm dumb stupid and don't know how reblogs work! This was supposed to be a reblog of this post by @g0nta-g0kuhara, a multi-part analysis of Kokichi Oma in Chapter 4]
Ooh a meta post! Sends me back to when I was first researching the DRV3 fandom before playing the game (I'm a little backwards, I know...). I only read the one part, but I wanted to chime in with some additions on top of the existing analysis.
Interestingly, the "neutral Kokichi face" that's highlighted in this post is one of two "neutral faces" that Kokichi makes throughout the game. That would be stand_005_037, or Kokichi's 37th sprite.
The other "neutral face" is the next sprite over, stand_005_038, which appears in a different context from the previous sprite. The difference between the two is really not terribly noticeable at a glance, so here's a visual.
Up to now, I've considered sprite 37 to be Kokichi's "unserious neutral", as his expression appears more relaxed than that of sprite 38, what I've thought to be his "serious neutral".
You know he's not serious when he's agreeing with Maki.
With the information from this analysis, though, it might be more accurate to call it his "masking neutral". Kokichi will use sprite 38 in low-emotion situations when he has a point to get across, like here in the Chapter 3 post-trial.
However, in high-emotion situations, as said in the initial analysis post, Kokichi is likely trying to hold himself back. That's when sprite 37 comes in.
Bro is either stifling a laugh or seething with anger in there
Regarding Kokichi's sprite 38, there's some stuff I've come across which loosely implies that it initially had a different design. When Kaito recaps his conversation with Kokichi in the hangar in the Chapter 5 post-trial, the conversation is portrayed with a sepia tone. The sprites for this conversation aren't really "sprites", per-se -- the entire scenario is actually stored as a series of background images in the game files.
One image that caught my attention, however, was bg_201_11:
On my first playthrough of the game, I dubbed this sprite "Kokichi angy"
This image stands out at a glance because of the Kokichi sprite, which isn't seen anywhere else in the entire game. Compared to the other images in the set, this image actually seems to be from an older build of the game, as the shadows in the background, shading on the sprites, and position of Kokichi's arm-belt-things are different.
bg_201_11 vs bg_201_01
My guess is that this unused sprite was an older version of sprite 38, especially since the current sprite 38 has similar errors as the older sprite.
Personally, I'm glad "Kokichi angy" wasn't actually used in the final game. He looks a little too much like a wet cat.
On another topic, also related to the linked analysis: let's talk about the ever controversial whiteboard note written by Kokichi under Shuichi's photo which, in the English localization, reads "trustworthy?"
As many people have pointed out, both now and in the past, this note was translated oddly and the original text was 「油断ならない?」 (yudan naranai?).
Though it's often translated by fans as “sneaky or cunning”, the literal translation is actually “don't be careless”, with “yudan” meaning “careless” and “naranai” meaning “must not (be)”. This is translateable in most situations as “dangerous”, hence that being the stock translation supplied by Jisho.org.
After all, "don't be careless" has essentially the same meaning as "this is dangerous", in most situations at least (think mountain climbing, or traveling through a dark alley; you wouldn't want to be careless because it is dangerous, you don't know what to expect so it's treacherous and sneaky).
When translating a note regarding a person, though, I would think "don't be careless" would be more appropriate, especially considering Shuichi isn't particularly dangerous compared to some other people in the academy whose dangers are well known (*cough cough* Maki)
You can find the independent translated meanings of yudan and naranai on Jisho as well as on Wikitionary (yudan, naranai).
So, Kokichi is essentially telling himself to stay on his guard around Shuichi, since he doesn't know what to expect from him. His attempt to team up with Shuichi in Chapter 4 was probably his confirmation that Shuichi wanted nothing to do with him, and that he should formulate his plans accordingly. It would probably have been ideal for him to have Shuichi on his side, as he saw Shuichi as a wild card (rather ironically; I'd imagine the group perceives Kokichi as the wild card of the group). So despite the translation error, the points made by the linked analysis still hold decent ground.
All in all, despite my belief that Chapter 4 is absolutely ridiculous, the linked analysis is quite good when one assumes Chapter 4 is logically sound (it's not), and still holds up even to someone like me who really dislikes Chapter 4 for its severe logical fallacies (my suspension of disbelief was absolutely thrown out the window when I played it... but maybe that's a matter for another day)
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