Michael

Sometimes I feel like there’s no winning when it comes to being a Ryota Mitarai fan cause what do you mean there’s barely any attention on him even though he’s super important lore wise to Danganronpa. Yes, I understand that that’s partially because he’s from an anime that wasn’t that well received and interacted by fans compared to the mainline games, but that’s what I mean by not catching a break here. 

Also the very few fans of his I have interacted with I have enjoyed a lot!.. but I’ve definitely have been met with people who over infantilize him and his character which is really annoying, especially after I view and believe him to be a very interesting morally-grey, complex character. Yes, of course he is a victim and there are horrible things that happened to him that shape him and push him to the conclusion he comes to in hope arc, but he also doesn’t always do the right things. He is a coward, he runs away from his problems and he was more than willing to lobotomize everyone for a false sense of hope (and I’d argue in that moment that hope didn’t come off as genuine and more of something he wanted to do to feel better about himself for what he felt he caused versus wanting to fully fix it out of purity) and I find that fact about him so interesting, with that moral complexity making him feel more human like and a real person in that situation than a cardboard cutout. 

So for him to then be stripped down to either a completely innocent victim who couldn’t have done anything wrong ever or some lazy villain who deserved nothing good and was useless to the plot by fans gets exhausting quick and is something I see with Nagito Komaeda too. It’s just really annoying cause I like seeing gray characters and I like seeing complex gray characters where you can recognize both the good and the bad side of them which makes them feel more 3-D. So to then witness Ryota be dumbed down to either be some cinnamon roll or some idiot by fans is pretty upsetting and shows a lack of understanding of his character on both ends.

"Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday.

There's no light Today

There wasn’t any yesterday 

Who’s to say tomorrow is another day.

Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday.

Tomorrow will be today

Today will be Yesterday

Yet scars don’t fade away

“you’re not a man, you’re something weak

you’re not a man when you yell and scream 

you’re not a man when you grab my arm 

I really dislike and am disappointed with how the series and the fandom treats the one uncomfortable scene with Mikan and Ryota. The series and fandom often ignores that it even happened or even still ship them.

I can see the appeal of the ship coming from the dynamics that they had BEFORE the scene happened. With them both being characters that are very shaped by their trauma and more timid/ introverted behaviors, with Mikan being the only 1 of the 2 students in the 77th class that got to meet the real Mitarai and know him and of course just story dynamics with “ill person x nurse” but for me personally that concept gets completely tainted by the assault scene so to see people still ship it just kinda personally rubs me the wrong way and comes off as ignoring the issue.

From a series standpoint, it’s really annoying because the scene exists for no reason other than fan service or shock value. It added nothing to Mitarai’s character, It added nothing to Mikan‘s character(if anything took away from her character). It just happens and ends. It’s never brought up again, It’s never even shown or talked about how either of them were impacted by it, instead, something serious like that was just played off for very questionable reasons with no real purpose or repercussions.

For some things that I’ve seen said online with this that have been also real disappointing to see and I want to talk about were: (yes, these are real comments I’ve seen sadly) “why didn’t he just push her off” “I wish I could be in his place” “she was brainwashed so it’s not like she had control”

Munakata = White tiger

Juzo = Doberman

This is random but HEAR ME OUT! I headcanon that Mitarai’s parent were either teens or young adults when they had him being around 18-20s. I think this because his parents seem irresponsible and neglectful towards their kid and seem to also have a failing relationship in the only scene they're in. In the one frame we get of his parents they're both blued out and don’t have faces like other background characters(this has nothing to do with anything), with his dads back facing us but from the details we do get, Mitarai seems to takes more after his mom with similar hair, which makes sense after he seems closer to her, being bullied for being a "mama's boy" at school and the fact that out of the two only his mom seemed concerned about the situation with his dad brushing it off leaving it on her shoulders:

“They bullied him again so he came home. What if he stops going to school altogether?”

“Look, I leave the school stuff up to you”

"You're like a broken record, you know that. Whenever there's a problem, you just check out. He's as much your son as he is mine."

That lack of real care Ryota’s dad has for either him or the pressure he dumps on ryota's mom comes off as a high school relationship that fell apart a soon as a kid was introduced, with their relation not existing anymore. His dad would be more purposefully neglectful and distant while I think his mom would be more accidental neglectful because of the stress of raising a kid pretty much alone and being a devolving relationship.

can’t sleep so here’s sum 4am kiibo doodles