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Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999)

999 has a wonderful 2D style and I enjoy the expressiveness and color of the character designs. I adore their bright personalities and how they argue, conflict, and generally interact with one another. Their caution and mistrust feels desperately clever and humanly hopeful and well, like they are trying to survive a death game.

The build-up to this absolute avalanche of events happening one after another was magnificent. When the atmosphere is ripe with tension ahh - and Clover, sweetheart, who’s loyal loyal loyal and a little too smart in some of the wrong ways (for us). Wow is she a terror. That was the standout scene to me months after the game.

VLR

On the other hand, the 2D graphics for VLR feel rather unsettling to me. Though I do adore Luna’s cute little hand motion above her eyes. I just wasn’t as invested in these characters- they felt more one-noted to me than the characters in 999, even with a repeat character or two.

Going through every path to choose both “Ally” and “Betray” was tedious, and I was losing interest and losing track of what happened in what timeline. Also why are the door and map animations so long, istg please just let me speed through sections I’ve already been through haha. Oh, and one puzzle was missing information or something (missing the second screen from the original DS game). 

Badger Primary

Kokichi’s extraordinarily empathetic, much as he deliberately masks it at the start. He upholds two major principles - “Don’t kill” from his DICE backstory, and “Lies can be good/kind” from the Salmon Dream Team. His overall goal is to end the killing game, and he’s willing to do it at the expense of a few lives if necessary. He stirs up trouble, but the biggest trouble is aimed to air out potentially dangerous secrets (ex. accusing Kaede of dangerous optimism with the escape game, or revealing Maki’s Ultimate talent) or with the end goal of stopping the killing game (cooperating with Monokuma to find out more about the outside world). He’s extremely pragmatic that way, if a touch too cynical and distrustful of everyone else. Kokichi’s hella people-oriented for someone who distrusts so much - his talent *is* Ultimate Supreme Leader, and well. He cares, a lot. (The pranks and the constant lying? It’s infuriating but astonishingly not really malicious in such a dangerous killing game.)

Kokichi feels too people-oriented to be an External Primary. He has such strong ideals that he doesn’t feel like a Snake to me. Even loving Shuichi doesn’t mean he trusts or relies on or prioritizes him. 

Bird Secondary - Rapid-fire/Actor, Snake performance

Kokichi’s been shown to be very very good at predicting players, and seems to rely most on planning ahead. That understanding of what will happen allows him to take preemptive action (a teetering balance in a reactionary death game). He collects information - exploring the school, snatching key items, and generally investigating on his own. His room is such a Bird thing - the scribbling and clues organized everywhere.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Kokichi is so skilled at understanding what will happen and how players will act/react to such minute detail that it feels like a Rapid-fire Bird skill (how fitting that he fell in love (”stole the heart”) of Shuichi Saihara, someone a bit more unpredictable). But yeah, I think his lies can be seen through with a bit of logic and understanding- part of his skill comes from the whiplash of switching masks/emotions so quickly, and another part is grand, grand lies with grains of truth. He exaggerates/overreacts quite extremely in important, more emotional moments, and that feels a bit telling.

Antihero-ish characters who can initially appear antagonistic to the MC bc they’re methods differ, but whose deeper motives are broadly in line with the MC... That kind of complexity takes good, interesting writing to pull off. And so these characters are often deuteragonist with lots of screen time, who interact and come to conflict with the MC.

So first: Kaede Akamatsu, who’s bright and peppy and startlingly morally grey. She’s refreshingly blunt! To the point of being a bit rude hehe, if earnestly sincere. Kaede’s straightforward about what she wants, (*cough* last lines of Love Hotel scene lol). What a sweet gal, and making her a protag and then... not, is a great twisty writing decision. She cares for everyone so much and her conviction is so strong that she is literally willing to murder for it. That situational irony is heartbreaking. (Also darn, I was looking forward to seeing Rantaro Amami’s dialogue, which was annoyingly cryptic but smart and initiative-taking.)

And Kokichi Oma. Ah, Kokichi. This chaos gremlin loves to lie. so. damn. much.  Some of Kokichi’s lies are big and dismissable, albeit often with a grain of truth. And some of his lies are... *squints suspiciously* For manipulating the group, which is one hell of an angle to come at. Deliberately ostracizing himself and using that for his plans. That sounds so lonely. And I haven’t even witnessed the full extent of his plans, since I’m only up to Ch.4. The lies are a great juxtaposition with Shuichi’s truth-searching though.

Tfw the meet-cute is seeing a grungy homeless person clothed in rags lounging on the bridge in the middle of a marketplace who your daughter picks a fight with and going “Imma romance him”. Lmao funny ways to meet your soulmate.

Then proceeding to “stalk” him (I mean it’s mostly supervising the murdering spree but aNyWAys) and yelling dramatically about being fated to meet again and whatnot. And then proceeding to give the homeless person your first-class room and he shuts you out lakjdkf,c amazing. I love that. There’s love in having that power to make a decision and having it respected, in not crossing a line and not being too pushy. And similarly with the stalking, since ZZS didn’t seem to put any effort into shaking WKX off, and he’s a spymaster (tho WKX probs could’ve seen thru and followed anyways).

And yeah they have a lot of problems and trauma and murder on their hands- and well, they understand each other and are soulmates. The respect to let them make decisions, and to support them even if you don’t really like it. It’s okay to be devastated by the choices but for love to override that anyways- it’s a strong personal loyalty and devotion. 

Healthy progress towards accepting the past! Learning to live in the present!  But even the remoteness of their home won’t prevent the plot from knocking on their doors. After all, he’s Wen “well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” Kexing. But EYYY WKX’s mom is a SAVAGE. 

Ahhhh the gaslighting and the situational irony of the Scorpion King expecting loyalty while helping Zhao Jing betray others. So much screentime for villainous planning rather than actually enacting those plans. Since we see so much of Zhao Jing’s scheming, all the people he manipulates feel extraordinarily gullible.

His takedown is the opposite, with the retroactive explaining of events. Production was rushed for the last 4 episodes and it shows in how cheated of the satisfaction we were. Like eps. 35 is. a mess. the character deaths are cheapened by the rush, esp. since WKX just faked his death.

The symbolism of WKX seeing the light past ZZS’s shoulder aww, the growth from “I’m a ghost and so have forsaken the light,” to “you are my light.” (and ZZS as the Window of Heaven). However messy the plot is, WKX and ZZS’s relationship is so, so lovely.

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