thinkin-bout-milgram - Tumblr blog

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

"UNDER" Lines Across UNDERCOVER and Deep Cover

I wanted to take a look at what lines various prisoners have associated with them across UNDERCOVER and Deep Cover. I've seen a couple speculating at them, so I decided to add my thoughts. It was easiest to look at them in a table, so I'll link my Google Doc here:

Let me know what you think!

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Deep Cover: Initial Thoughts

Okay, this one is a lot to look at , especially given how relatively little is actually said. Still, I think I'm starting to make sense of it, so here's my analysis that I've figured out so far.

I'll be using @/oehale on Twitter's translation of Kotoko's voice drama Yonah. As usual, I'll be bolding my general topics/thoughts and moving forwards with that. Let's get started!

Kotoko sees herself as the new warden.

The most obvious comparison here is the mimicking of UNDERCOVER. Kotoko, like the original UNDERCOVER, has lyrics that start with "UNDER" and are followed by talking about the other prisoners. She also basically says as much to Es; they're working together now. They should work together to make the "right" Milgram.

It's pretty obvious that our little innocent deal with Kotoko has gone straight to her head. She now sees herself as part of the authority of the prison, and believes it's her role to give out the proper punishment for guilty verdicts. However...

Kotoko believes everyone in the prison (other than her) should be guilty.

This is pretty obvious based on those previously mentioned "UNDER" lines. They're all very critical. Notably, the ones that most clearly indicate this-- towards the end of the song-- only include the innocent prisoners, but she's made it pretty clear that she agrees the earlier guilties should have also been guilty.

“UNDER” Doltish “001 Parasite” “UNDER” Obscene “002 Slut” “UNDER” Incessant “004 Phony Queen” “UNDER” Doomed “005 Dissection Pawn” “UNDER” Concealing “007 Deceiver” “UNDER” Inept “011 Guard”

Even Es, the "inept guard," gets to face Kotoko's judgment! That line is interesting in conversation with the audio drama, which focuses on Kotoko calling Es weak because they've grown to like and have sympathy for the prisoners. Kotoko has come to view Es, someone who is willing to forgive the guilty (in her perception) prisoners, as being guilty as well for not condemning them.

(Also, 011? Are you implying that something will happen after the tenth? Am I right about a Trial 4 in which we'll vote on Es??)

Notably, for Kotoko, wanting everyone to be voted guilty basically means that she wants everyone else to die. In the intro to the second Trial, Kotoko said that she wouldn't go as easy next time, and Mahiru already nearly died this time around.

So ridiculous, isn’t it ridiculous They’re still here, still here, it grates me

This also definitely seems pretty "get everyone else out of here (kill them)" to me, especially given that it's shown after Kotoko smashes all the pieces representing the innocent prisoners as well.

The guilty ones were already broken earlier into the MV:

Futa's and Mahiru's were broken first; they've already been "broken" in the sense that they've been attacked. The other guilty prisoners go next, as they're Kotoko's next targets. Then, finally, the rest of the originally innocent prisoners, who Kotoko hopes will be voted guilty sooner rather than later.

This is also a small note, but I find it interesting that the line "I want a reason for judgment execution, I want it" was initially translated as "I need a good reason to give justice" in the Trial 2 Song Preview. The specific reference to execution was added/wasn't emphasized in the original version. I don't know what the "correct" direct translation is, but I always stand by the fact that if the translators chose to translate something in a certain way, it's intentional.

(Side note, but I wonder if UNDERCOVER's change in official lyrics to include all of the prisoners' Trial 1 song titles happened when they decided to mimic it in Deep Cover, which also includes the Trial 1 song titles. Could be a reason for the change in translation.)

And, uh... that's all I got. That I'm confident about, anyways. I still have other thoughts, though, so rather than me having bolded claims as section titles, I'm just gonna have, like... categories.

The Girl

You.

We've seen her before, in HARROW:

So, she's the one Kotoko rescued from this guy, right? That's what this seems to be telling us. However, there are a couple of important details to consider.

Where's her hat?

What about the girl in the white dress?

What about the girl in the pink shirt?

I'll get back to 1 in a bit.

The girl with the white dress in question only appears shortly in HARROW, and as far as I can tell, not at all in Deep Cover:

It could technically be the same girl, I guess, given that we can't see her face. However, then there's the pink shirt girl:

There's also still this thing from HARROW:

In my original HARROW theory, I theorized that the guy abducted Kotoko (the girl in the pink shirt), but the girl in the white dress distracted him/sacrificed herself long enough for Kotoko to get away. The memorial/potentially a police notification?/whatever the sign with the flowers is belongs to the white dress girl. Kotoko then later tracks down the guy who did it, when he's abducting the girl in orange. Kotoko then kills him.

Honestly, I think that this still tracks. We didn't really get anything else about the memorial, the girl in white or the girl in pink in this MV-- or the guy she killed, for that matter-- so there aren't any conflicts. I'll be moving forward assuming that that's true.

So, then, back to the orange girl. She isn't wearing the hat Kotoko gave her when we see her getting dragged off. What does that mean?

Establishing the Timeline

It seems most likely to me that most of Deep Cover happens after HARROW's murder. That's not just because the opening shot of Deep Cover looks like the end of HARROW. There's a lot more going into that.

First off, there's the girl. I initially thought that she might be Kotoko's sister, given the apparent familiarity Kotoko seems to show to her, rubbing her head in the park scene. However, once I remembered my initial theory, there are only really two possible interpretations I can think of for her involvement with the man Kotoko kills.

Either

She isn't at all related to Kotoko, and they "met" when Kotoko rescued her by killing the man, OR

She IS Kotoko's sister, in which case Kotoko probably used her as bait to lure out the guy in order to follow him back to his warehouse and kill him.

The second one was my initial read, but after looking at it longer, I think the first one makes more sense on the whole. If I'm right that the first thing that happens in the Deep Cover MV is the murder, that means that the park scene happens after it.

This isn't hard evidence or anything, but notably, the hat the girl has says "LUCKY" on it. If she's lucky, it probably means that she's lucky that she survived the situation with the man. It wouldn't be luck if she was planted there by Kotoko; it would only be luck if she happened to be the victim who's abduction lined up with Kotoko's rescue mission.

The park scene is still a little confusing to me if they were strangers, though. After all, Kotoko pretty pointedly ignores the girl at 2:06 to 2:19ish, and as far as I can tell, nothing major happened between the park and then.

There are three main explanations I can think of.

The first one is that the girl tried to stop her. Like, maybe she thought it was really cool when Kotoko rescued her, but when she realized Kotoko went to go threaten/possibly kill someone who, like, stole something from a business or something, she thought that was too much. This is pretty much entirely based upon the fact that the "Tell me why you tell me stop" lyric lines up suspiciously well with the change in the girl's expression from happiness to surprise, and then eventually what looks like fear.

The second one is that Kotoko is distracted at that point. In the park, we see Kotoko still looking at her phone, presumably looking for more wrongdoers. She spends time with the girl while simultaneously working, so it's no bother to her to spend time with the girl. However, when the girl tries to greet her later, she's in work mode. After passing the girl, we see Kotoko marching on forward with smoke (?) around her. It's very dramatic and she looks very threatening. It's even possible that she's doing a werewolf transformation type of thing there. If Kotoko has her sights set on a target, she might be more unwilling to waste time talking to the girl. This would signify that the people she rescues are irrelevant to her; her focus is on punishing wrongdoers, not checking in on saved would-be-victims.

The third one is that the park actually happened after the thing on the street, but given that she's already wearing the hat on the street scene, which she first wears in the park, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think the second option makes the most sense, so it's what I'll be going with.

So, the timeline looks like this:

Kotoko, as a child, is abducted by that one guy. She wears a pink shirt in the flashback. The girl in the white dress intercepts and allows Kotoko to escape. Years later, after becoming a vigilante, Kotoko tracks down the same guy and kills him, rescuing the orange outfit girl in the process.

The orange outfit girl finds Kotoko in the park and either receives or shows Kotoko the hat she got. Kotoko, while still looking at information for her next target, entertains her because she isn't actively busy.

The girl tries to approach Kotoko on the street. However, Kotoko is heading after her next target, and there's no time to lose. The expression of intensity and general coldness Kotoko gives off intimidates the girl, and Kotoko proceeds with her plans.

So, that's how Kotoko's murder works, right? There's absolutely nothing else related to time that could drive me insane!

...

Becoming a Lunatic (The Moon Phases)

Okay, Kotoko's a werewolf, she attacks on the full moon, we all get it. Except... goddamn it, there's more moon than just the full moon.

As far as I can tell, there are three moon phases that are shown across HARROW and Deep Cover. The first one I'm talking about is the full moon.

The Full Moon

The wolf zone occurrence of the full moon in HARROW lines up with when she kills the guy, which makes sense. In Deep Cover, it's preceding the time where she smashes all of the remaining innocent prisoners. That hasn't happened yet.

Because moon cycles happen repeatedly, I think it's okay to say that the full moon happened in the past, when Kotoko killed the guy, and in the future, where Kotoko hopes to kill the other prisoners. It's even possible there's a full moon we didn't see when Kotoko attacked Mahiru and Futa.

Like, that's probably just a spotlight, but it definitely COULD be moonlight. Either way, we don't see the sky, so it at least isn't conclusively NOT a full moon then.

So, full moon = violence. What else?

The Waning Crescent

Disclaimer I know nothing about moons. I am working off of this chart from timeanddate.com. If it's wrong blame them, I can't find a better chart anywhere on the internet.

Notably, the waning crescent is what the moon is for pretty much all of HARROW, except the quick appearance of the full moon at the end. There are clearly visible shots of it around 1 minute and 2 minutes in.

I don't really know what specifically waning crescent is supposed to mean here. Google says that it's about change and reflection, but spoilers, that's what it also told me about the third moon phase that shows up, so I don't know how much stock to really put into that.

I think the most obvious (?) symbolism of it is that it's right before the new moon, when the light isn't shining at all. If I had to take a stab at what the new moon represented, I'd say it's times in which Kotoko is powerless. She's powerless when she's looking for information before the first murder, she's powerless when looking at her crossed out board (more on that later), and she's powerless now-- when we're going to vote. She can't give out justice without our help. This is the last part before we give our verdict on her, so as she's looking around at the other prisoners, innocent and guilty alike, she's preparing to be able to do nothing. She hopes she'll get back to that full moon and exact justice on the other prisoners, but that's only hypothetical for now.

Let's talk about that board really quickly. This is how it looks in the middle of Deep Cover, when the crescent shows up:

This is how it looks at both the beginning and end of HARROW:

This is another reason to believe that Deep Cover happens after the end of HARROW. After all, it'd be hard to un-black out the papers, and given that they're hanging in basically the same positions, it'd be surprising if they were replaced papers. So, that means that Kotoko blacks out her information sometime after she successfully kills the guy.

The scene with the blacked out board is immediately followed by the final moon phase, and then by the girl in orange in the park.

The Third Quarter Moon

The crescent moon on top of the board directly fades into this third quarter moon. This made sense to me until I saw the arrow on the moon phase chart telling me to read it counterclockwise. Then I was confused.

Because the third quarter moon happens immediately before the waning crescent, I think that this moon shift is meant to serve as a time rewind. The scene with the girl in the park (and therefore also, the girl on the street) happens before the scene with the blacked out board. This supports the idea that Kotoko ignored the girl because she was taking out a target; after that scene, all her targets are gone, so Kotoko can cross out the information about them on her wall.

This also checks out with the stuff with the girl in the park and on the street happening after Kotoko kills the guy, given that the third quarter moon comes a little bit after the full moon.

There's no occurrence of the third quarter moon in HARROW. However, it does actually show up one other time in Deep Cover.

At 2:28, the moon shows up in third quarter again, then transitioning to a pink full moon. I'd assume that this shift backwards in the moon cycle, as it did earlier, signifies turning back in time. However, the pink full moon refers to Kotoko killing all of the remaining Milgram prisoners, an event that's already in the future. What happens after the hypothetical future scenario of Kotoko killing everyone?

The answer is, Kotoko collapsing in the wreckage of the destruction she caused. She's in her warden outfit, so it's consistent. The scratch marks probably indicate that this is immediately after she turns back from being a werewolf, in the hypothetical pink full moon.

This indicates that, somewhere in her mind, Kotoko realizes that she might suffer from killing everyone else, collapsing under the weight. It does seem like Kotoko understands that being the one true savior is difficult.

K: I know it well. It's so hard to hold the responsibility of a guard all alone. I've also felt this way. You are such a kind person. You can't stand the prison changing with the power of your choices. So you need someone to be with. Leave all of the dirty work to me.

Even if she wants to present herself as someone who's crushed her own weakness, she still has to worry. The lyrics of the chorus are begging Es to give her her next target. If she doesn't have people to target, she doesn't have purpose. Her board is all blacked out; the guilty prisoners will be crushed. Once all that's said and done... what else is she going to do?

Conclusion

Anyways, that's my best shot at understanding this MV. It is... confusing. The main things I still don't understand across the two MVs are the many wolves with purple glowing eyes in HARROW and what the hell the pieces that represent the other prisoners in Deep Cover are. If they're not chess, then what are they???

oh wait lmao i forgot

VERDICT: GUILTY

We already knew this one.

I can't tell Kotoko that it's right to kill the rest of the prisoners, and she really needs to be restrained. I don't know exactly what the damage is gonna be to Kotoko's mental state, but for the safety of everyone else, I kinda have to. She makes fair points about us verbally torturing prisoners not being that different from physically harming them, but... we're at the very least not shooting to kill?? Like, if you kill them, there's no hope at redeeming them. That's what we're trying to do, even if the tactics Milgram gives us are less than ideal.

Anyways, tell me your thoughts and if any of this made sense! Happy end of Trial 2!

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

tbh I'm surprised how innocent Kotoko is?

Like, she's still guilty, but not by that much? She's already more innocent than Mu T2. What gives?

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Kotoko in her alpha wolf era

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

I just noticed one of the remarks on the cover notes....about how the guilty look away from the door while the innocent are facing it. What do you think the door symbolizes? Redemption doesn't feel like the right term considering some of the paths they are on, so do you think it means something?

I really love the door symbolism, I think it's really interesting. On the whole, though, I think the door symbolism is pretty up front.

I think that the door most clearly symbolizes escape. Like, everyone's assuming you need an innocent verdict at the end to leave, right? So, the prisoners who have been voted innocent the first time around are turning their sights to the idea of escape. They're aware that they've got a good shot at getting out of here.

Meanwhile, the guilty prisoners turn away from escape and towards us. They realize that the door is closed, and the only way that they can reopen that door is by convincing us to vote them innocent this time around. Thus, facing us is their hypothetical best shot at escape.

It could also be something about the fact that we're potentially seen as examining the guilty prisoners more closely. We get a closer look at their expressions, their posture, etc. The innocent prisoners, meanwhile, get to get away a bit more free, letting us only see their backs and their faces that are turned towards us.

Either way, I think that's the most straightforward explanation for the door. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of viable interpretations, though; Milgram symbolism is just like that.

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Ep 48: Communication Skills

Disclaimer: Translated by me! However, I don’t speak Japanese so I can’t guarantee the accuracy of everything. Please lemme know if I got anything wrong~

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

“That’s why I became your fangs.”

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

will u ever record the prisoners singing ranges for trial 2? it was soooo fun reading the ones from trial 1 and im curious if milgram made them do any higher or lower notes in the newer songs!

ngl I completely forgot I did that LOL

But yea I'll fs do it soon-ish and put it up on our master list tab!

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Episode 44: Curry Udon

Disclaimer: I don’t take credit for the translations. These are from the official Milgram account and put on the comic for a more friendly viewing experience.

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Episode 46: 2nd Anniversary

Disclaimer: I don’t take credit for the translations. These are from the official Milgram account and put on the comic for a more friendly viewing experience.

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

hi! hope you guys are doing well :] if it isnt too much trouble, i was just wondering if there are any english translations/summaries out there for any of the milgram live broadcasts (like the anniversary livestreams)?

I'm not currently aware of any. If there are, I'd love to know too!

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Episode 45: Girl Talk

Disclaimer: Translation based on the ones done by @/bluesword9112 and @/jl8417 on YT.

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Episode 44: Pest

Disclaimer: Translated by me! However, I don't speak Japanese so I can't guarantee the accuracy of everything. Please lemme know if I got anything wrong~

Updated TL slightly thanks to @/cedar-ai on YT. THANK YOU!

-mercury

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

No English TL for Minigram

Hey kids, it's Mercury~

Minigram EP 44 dropped today, but the only issue is, there's no English TL and I don't speak Japanese 🥲

I'm TLing it the best I can, but it's fs still gonna be rough

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

just found this blog, my Milgram brainrot is constant! I think this blog is very cool

Thank you, that's so sweet!

This blog is the product of several years of Milgram brainrot, so it's fun to see other people joining the fandom :)

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Hello I just found your blog and its amazing- I love all the art work and theories. I did have a question I wanted to hear from one of the admins here. Jackalope mentioned there being a right and wrong answer to how we voted in the first trial. I've been grappling with this idea and trying to decide who we got right and who were wrong about with out votes. I was wondering if your team had any thoughts on this or theories about who was voted right or wrong the first time?

Hi! This is a super interesting concept, I didn't actually remember that Jackalope confirmed there were "right" answers.

That being said, I've always kind of thought that there was a path to a "good" ending for every individual character. I think each prisoner has or had a way to reenter society with an innocent verdict in the third round while having changed for the better. I've definitely voted (or reacted to votes that predated me being in the fandom) under this assumption.

If you want the short answer, the votes that I've disagreed with are Mu's first Trial innocent, Kotoko's first Trial innocent and Mahiru's second Trial innocent. Other than that, I more or less agree with all verdicts, including the pending Trial 2 statuses of Kazui and Amane innocent.

However, if you want the long answer (along with some predictions), I think that it's a lot more complicated than just getting the vote right for the individual characters, and it's also hypothetically possible that there are multiple possible right answers per prisoner-- or that we can be "wrong" within a correct verdict, if the messages we send to the prisoners are wrong.

T/W: Death/murder, suicide

(By the way, for the sake of argument, I've been assuming that in Trial 3, an innocent verdict means they're released back into society and a guilty verdict will execute them. There's some vague press stuff that supports it that I don't feel like tracking down right now, but know that when I'm predicting the "correct" voting plans, I'm working under that assumption. All "successful" paths would end in an innocent verdict without returning to society being extremely harmful. This post also assumes that that's the ideal outcome; if you want to vote people guilty because you simply don't forgive them, that's perfectly fine too, but not what I'm looking at here.)

For example, I think that Futa's "correct" path was Guilty/Innocent/Innocent. He already doubted himself, even if it was on a level he couldn't recognize in the first Trial, so the initial guilty very clearly helped him realize he was wrong. In Backdraft, we see the effects of that, and so we can switch him to innocent, cementing the fact that he's right now that he's repenting. Hopefully, that'll set him up for a successful return to society with a Trial 3 innocent verdict.

However, there's a complicating factor. As we see in Futa's second audio drama, Futa doesn't understand why he was voted guilty and Kotoko wasn't. They have the same sort of crime after all; they believed they saw injustice, so they persecuted it. Now we're here.

I hope that in Futa's case, at least, voting Kotoko guilty hasn't skewed his sense of justice too much and everything will go okay. There are definitely some prisoners, though, who I think might be on the wrong path, not because of their verdicts, but because of others'.

That's gonna lead into the next part of this post: I'm going to give my summarized thoughts on each prisoner, in order. (I'm excluding Es from this). I'd like to note going into this next part that I think that not every good ending was possible to be achieved simultaneously. Thus, when speculating, it's important to know that there might be a time when, even knowing everything, people will want to prioritize their favorite characters, and I think that's fine. I'll try to keep this as unbiased as possible, but obviously, I have my characters I like more and less as well.

With all that preamble over, let's get into it!

Haruka Sakurai: Found Innocent, then Guilty

I agree with Haruka's verdicts individually thus far. In Weakness, we were shown a Haruka who was struggling and desperately needed any sort of confirmation that he wasn't wrong as a person. We voted innocent, thus attempting to affirm that.

However, I think a different mistake was made in Trial 1: voting Mu innocent.

As Haruka and Mu were both voted innocent, they ended up bonding and forming a weird, codependent relationship where Haruka follows everything Mu says. I think that this is a bad influence on him and has pushed him in the wrong direction. Obviously the whole "threatening suicide if Mu is voted guilty" throws a wrench in any Haruka-related plans, but beyond that, I think Mu has been a bad influence on how he received his innocent verdict.

Haruka seemed to have picked up a little bit of Mu's "it's completely not my fault," which is probably bad. We're trying to correct now with a guilty verdict, as well as with the hope that restraining him may prevent him from following through on his suicide threat. To be honest, though, I don't really think it's going to work.

I think Haruka is the most likely prisoner to die between trials. I say this within the context of everything we've heard and everything we've voted; while Mahiru was definitely in the most precarious situation going into the trial, I think Haruka has the most working against him coming out of it. (I'm strongly assuming Kotoko gets a guilty here, as well as assuming Amane and Mikoto maintain their innocent verdicts.)

Haruka is, theoretically, going to be attempting suicide. It's possible the guilty restraints will prevent him, but I'm honestly not sold on it. Earlier in the trial, I had thought that it was possible Kazui would save him, but based on how things are going, I'm predicting that Kazui is going to save Shidou between Trials, which means Haruka is fair game to die.

Even if he does survive the trial, I don't have a lot of optimism. I think a guilty verdict at this point is kinda just going to make him spiral. To be clear, I think an innocent verdict would be worse, as it would be confirming that he did nothing wrong. He very much did something wrong.

I think Haruka's best shot at a good ending was being voted innocent in Trial 1, along with an innocent Futa and a guilty Mu. In Trial 1, Futa and Haruka were closer, and I think that Futa could've helped give Haruka the confidence he needed while still encouraging him to maintain his individuality and maybe even accept his crime. From there, we could vote either innocent or guilty based on how he seemed to be taking things.

Given how things have gone, though, I personally believe that a "good ending" for Haruka may be off the table. :/

Yuno Kashiki: Found Innocent, then Innocent

I agree with both of Yuno's verdicts. Hers is a little tricky, though.

I think Yuno's best path forwards is triple innocent verdicts, and I believe it always has been. However, following this banger of a post by @2amtechnicolor, I'm definitely worried that we're sending Yuno the wrong messages.

The thing is, Yuno blames herself, but we believe she's completely innocent. I've always believed that to be true. However, I'm worried that we're sending her the wrong messages, and we're just going to alienate her rather than encourage her to believe that she actually acted in a valid way given her situation.

Either way, I think Yuno's case is simpler because, after she was innocent the first trial, she kinda separated herself from the other prisoners. Thus, I think her path is less complicated by other people; the only concern I'd have would be if we'd voted Kazui guilty, given that Yuno believes they're similar, but we voted Kazui innocent, so everything should be fine.

I think we've voted correctly for Yuno, it's just a matter of whether or not we can convince her of that.

Futa Kajiyama: Found Guilty, then Innocent

This is going to be shorter because I already talked about him above. I agree with the verdicts he's been given.

I think Futa's best bet was Guilty (along with Kotoko guilty), followed by two innocent verdicts. He needed us to tell him directly that what he did was wrong. Then, once the message was received, he needed to be voted innocent to assure him he was moving in the right direction.

I'm hopeful that he'll progress in an okay way despite our fumble with Kotoko, especially if we switch and vote her guilty now. We'll have to see what Futa's stance is at the beginning of the third trial, though.

Mu Kusunoki: Found Innocent, then Guilty

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Mu's first round innocent is one of the few verdicts that I actively disagree with. Then again, it was an INSANELY close margin, so I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of people feel that way.

Though it was far less explicit than in It's Not My Fault, After Pain definitely hinted at Mu having been a bully in the first place. I wanted to be a bit harsher in pointing that out through a guilty verdict so that she understood it was a complicated scenario where both parties were in the wrong, then switch to voting her innocent in the second and third rounds.

I'm not sure if there was any other prisoners' verdicts that would especially help her, but I think the most relevant ones are Haruka and Futa. I think that the relationship dynamic she has with Haruka is bad for her too, so I guess Haruka guilty in Trial 1 might've lessened the damage of Mu's own innocent verdict? I also think that it would have been really bad if we'd voted Mu guilty/Futa innocent in the first trial, given that she'd then say that we're siding with the bully over the bullied. So, I think we'd have been best off with Mu guilty along with Futa guilty, then double innocent.

I don't know how to expect Mu to react in Trial 3. A lot of it, in my opinion, depends on if Haruka actually dies or not. I could really see her going either way at this point, so I'll be waiting for that Trial 3 update.

Shidou Kirisaki: Found Innocent, then Innocent

I think Shidou is the prisoner I'm most confident we're succeeding at right now, actually.

Shidou's first trial verdict, paired with voting Kotoko innocent, allowed him to find purpose in healing the other prisoners. That's very important in his healing process; he's stopped asking for a guilty verdict. From here, I think we need to continue to vote him innocent, so that he doesn't lose the progress he's made and can continue to see that his life still has worth.

It makes it easier to feel this way considering I don't think Shidou would ever repeat his crimes going back to the real world. Aside from the fact that his family is dead, he definitely seems regretful and learned his lesson.

The biggest obstacle to Shidou's path at this point, imo, is risk of death.

I'm cautiously optimistic that Kazui will be able to protect Shidou, but Amane has made direct threats on his life. If he turns up dead in Trial 3, after voting Amane innocent in Trial 2, we can't really be THAT surprised. I really hope that him being double innocent, along with Kazui being double innocent, will allow him to survive though. Pray for my boy.

Mahiru Shiina: Found Guilty, then Innocent

I'm not going to dwell on this one that long because I know the majority of the fandom has a different take on Mahiru's Trial 2 MV. Personally, I'm baffled as to how people came out of that thing saying "see! Mahiru ISN'T delusional!", but that's just me. However, I'm the one writing this post, so... whoops.

I think Mahiru needed to be found guilty in Trial 2. Going into Trial 2, I was fully on board with her getting innocent-ed so that she could understand that our verdict has depth (she very immediately took guilty as "you are wrong and your love is wrong), but I kinda think voting her innocent here is just going to... I don't know, confuse the situation? We still haven't actually gotten her to acknowledge her crime itself (which I still firmly believe to be stalking/abduction), so I personally believe she needed another guilty verdict to see that.

So, I think she needed Guilty/Guilty/Innocent, with it only really mattering about other people in terms of her staying alive.

Importantly, I understand the innocent verdicts for Mahiru if out of nothing but desire to keep her alive. She's on the brink of death, and according to Shidou, her mental health isn't going super well either (shocker), so she's a lot more likely to survive if we switch gears to innocent. I think she'll probably survive as long as Shidou does at this point, so we'll hopefully at least get to see how she handles the innocent vote next Trial and hear another banger.

Kazui Mukuhara: Found Innocent, then Innocent

I agree with Kazui's verdicts! I think we're doing this correctly.

The first trial he said we didn't figure out his sin, though, so I think if we don't figure it out this trial we're kinda screwed, 'cause this is our last chance to talk to him about it. I'm fairly certain it's just that he's gay though, so... win?

I think that Kazui struggles a lot with accepting himself and his actions. I personally don't believe that he pushed his wife or anything, and while I understand that cheating (emotional or physical or in any sense) is bad, I simply don't believe it's on the same level as murder. I don't think he can be blamed for his wife's death, assuming it's a suicide. So, I think going triple innocent is the best way to convince him that he's actually innocent.

It's sort of a similar path to Yuno, so similarly, I don't think it super matters what we voted other people, but triple inno on Yuno isn't hurting anything.

Amane Momose: Found Guilty, Currently Innocent

I'm gonna cold open this one by saying that I think Amane's voting is the hardest to predict, so I don't feel super strongly about any of my takes here.

I think that guilty in Trial 1 was probably right, because what we were shown was basically "the cult is correct." That's wrong, and we needed to say so.

However, Trial 2 makes it a lot more complicated, and I've gone on the record saying I think both options are kinda bad. If both options are bad in Trial 2, does that mean we voted wrong in Trial 1?

I mean, maybe. My problem is that I don't really see the good path with Amane. Here's basically what I think any combo of early verdicts would do:

Innocent/Innocent: Amane believes she's completely justified and that the cult is 100% right. Bad.

Innocent/Guilty: Amane takes this as us accepting that Milgram should become like her cult and imposes her beliefs, similar to how Kotoko did in Trial 1. We pivot, and she takes this as a declaration of war. Her beliefs are too ingrained at this point, so any future guilty verdicts just make her mad rather than changing her mind at all. Bad.

Guilty/Innocent: the most likely one. We tell Amane things are wrong, and she responds by doubling down. Rather than doubling down ourselves, we say, "hey, it seems like your crime was actually fine." Amane takes this as us bowing down to her direct threats (because our verdict no longer means what we want it to, now that she's set terms for it), and believes that we just saw the cult as inevitable and correct. Bad.

Guilty/Guilty: Most likely to actually break Amane's beliefs down. If we match her doubling down by doubling down, it'd be most likely to actually shake her faith in her religion. However, that's also somewhat cruel to her, means we're also indoctrinating her through violence in a way, and might just send her into a full-on mental breakdown. Bad.

So, basically, I think Amane's situation is precarious and I personally don't see what the good ending would be. I'm hesitantly voting her innocent this Trial because I think it's better, but I don't love it. If anyone has thoughts on what Amane's happy ending is/should have been (while acknowledging the threat she poses to the world if she were released at the moment), please let me know!

Mikoto Kayano: Found Guilty, Currently Innocent

Mikoto being found guilty in the First Trial was, I think, probably the right move. It allowed us to learn more about... John..., and he luckily wasn't physically harmed because of his ability to dodge restraints. So, that's good, I think.

And I think the innocent verdict this Trial is right, too. He definitely can't mentally take another guilty, and I think that the guilty -> innocent is our best bet at him both acknowledging the crime that resulted from his stress and being able to do something about it. I don't have a lot of hard evidence for this, it's just the distinct impression I got coming out of the second audio drama.

So... I think we're doing Mikoto's right. Hopefully.

Kotoko Yuzuriha: Found Innocent, Will be Guilty

She technically could go innocent, but like... she's not going to. Everyone's upset with her, and no one wants her to go around beating up Haruka and Mu (the guilty prisoners) and maybe even killing them, which she absolutely will if we vote her innocent. For meta reasons alone, I have basically no idea how I'd justify an innocent verdict here. I think it's more likely Amane will flip to guilty than that Kotoko will get an innocent verdict.

I wish we'd voted Kotoko guilty the first time, though. Encouraging her and teaming up with her sounded nice surface level, but it had huge potential to backfire like it did. Kotoko is still in here for murder, as everyone else is, and I didn't want to team up with her in the first place because I didn't trust her enough. I stand by that.

I think that Kotoko probably needed Guilty/Innocent/Innocent, but it's hard to say considering how incredibly different things would be if she was voted guilty the first trial. Without the introduction of violence into the Milgram prison, it's hard to say how different everyone else's arcs would be. This is all just speculation.

The only thing I'm confident about with Kotoko is that I don't like her initial innocent, and that I believe we have to vote her guilty this round to make up for it. I don't really expect her to get a good ending at this point, though; there's too little time to show her that violence isn't the answer.

Anyways, if you made it to the end, thank you so much for reading! This is largely speculation on my part, but thus far, the prisoners have responded about how I expected them to, so I'm hopefully not too far off base. In summary, I think the prisoners we're currently doing better with are Yuno, Shidou, Kazui and Mikoto, and to a lesser extent, Futa. I think we're doing the worst with Haruka, Mu and Kotoko. I don't know what to make of Mahiru and Amane, but I'm not super optimistic about either of them.

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

some thoughts about guilty yuno…

ok so yuno’s crime is obvious. she had an abortion.

the fandom seems to see her choices as “is abortion good or bad” but i think that may be…over-simplifying things a bit?

let me preface this by saying i am pro-choice, it’s not my decision what someone else does with their body, they need to do what’s best for them.

that being said…being pro-choice also means accepting the choice not to have an abortion.

i feel like yuno’s story is the most oversimplified simply because the majority doesn’t see abortion as something morally wrong. but we’re missing the fact that yuno does.

“I have no intent to say abortion isn’t murder. I’m a respectable murderer.”

“But if you refer to the law, regardless, I can’t be accused of murder.”

Yuno wanted to be voted guilty. But why?

“Kotoko is someone I would never want to make my friend, though. She’s the type who picks a conclusion from the very beginning and won’t actually talk with you.”

“[The audience] Arbitrarily deciding that I’m pitiable. Arbitrarily making up a backstory for me. Creating a personally idealized version of me. Creating an acceptable version of me.”

In Yuno’s first MV, most people picked up on the fact that she’s doing compensated dating and that it resulted in an abortion. She outright confirms it in her second VD. But then we the audience decided what her reasons were because the majority of people who get abortions don’t regret them.

I don’t think Yuno wanted to get an abortion.

Keep reading