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The cruelest thing in Danganronpa is the fact that Makoto gets Mondo’s coat after the second trial and is NOT ALLOWED TO GIVE IT TO TAKA!!!

Uhhh…. Afterlife Mondo, fix it!

Makoto is so sleepy and so done (like me fr fr)

Maybe he's jealous?? idk

Mondo just swoops Taka and swirls him around! That's so cute! I just wasn't able to draw poses correctly...

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And oh my God??? More then 1000 followers?! Hello!? 😭 You're so nice to me, thank you very much 💕

This is one of Mondo’s possible reactions when you ask to hang out with him during free time:

For someone not to be afraid of Mondo is weird to him. Anyone wanting to spend quiet one-on-one time with him is unusual.

Mondo probably spends plenty of time hanging out with his gang as a group, but in those moments, he still has a reputation to maintain, an image to keep up. He has to be the intimidating leader, the scariest and strongest man in the room.

Mondo is used to people finding him frightening. That's his normal. But he obviously likes it when people aren't afraid of him for once. How good it must feel, to have someone look past the image he protects and see the actual person inside.

As for Taka - Taka is a delight, imo, but I do think he’s intended to be off-putting before the player has a chance to get to know him. He has those red eyes with that intense ring inside them - a very similar design to Peko in SDR2. You know, Peko, who comes across as so intimidating that animals are instinctively frightened of her.

Taka is introduced yelling at Makoto for being late, and some of the others are visibly put off and weirded out by it. Taka has zero chill; his emotions are very intense and always at the surface. His sprites are very exaggerated.  And we know he has immense social struggles:

Not to mention how he can come across as blunt and inappropriate without meaning to - telling Makoto ‘I imagine it would be hard to sleep near a decaying corpse’ comes to mind.

How often do you think Taka has heard that he’s too much? That he comes on too strong? That he weirds people out? 

The popular read of Taka as autistic is so important to me, because all of this is so relatable. The autistic thing of just trying to exist as your natural self and being told that you’re too much (too blunt, too weird, too excited about your special interests) or not enough (not good enough at conversation, not normal enough). 

But then Taka and Mondo meet each other. And even before they become friends, they are not daunted by each other. They’re not afraid of each other. Taka stands up to Mondo, refuses to be intimidated by him. Mondo pushes back furiously against Taka’s criticism, but he doesn’t avoid him or get weirded out. He’s mad, not uncomfortable. 

I think they became obsessed with each other so early on because… it’s so unusual for either of them to meet someone who will just speak honestly to them. Who doesn’t find them intimidating and doesn’t back away. 

i was reading a book ab birds, and i realized that i totally forgot to post my THH bird associations here, even tho i posted them on my tiktok in, like, February

so here they are!

Aoi Asahina - Pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)

Byakuya Togami - Barn owl (Tyto sp.)

Celestia Ludenberg - Silver pheasant (Lophura nycthemera)

Chihiro Fujisaki - Pine siskin (Spinus pinus)

Hifumi Yamada - Mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus)

Junko Enoshima - Major Mitchell's cockatoo (Cacatua leadbeateri)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus)

Kyoko Kirigiri - Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius)

Leon Kuwata - Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus)

Makoto Naegi - Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)

Mondo Owada - Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

Mukuro Ikusaba - American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

Sakura Ogami - Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)

Sayaka Maizono - Indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea)

Toko Fukawa - Black vulture (Coragyps atratus)

Yasuhiro Hagakure - Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)

And the one headcanon I held to my chest with everything I had was that I truly believed he was kind of ugly. Not in terms of his nose or his chin or any of his facial features. But specifically the fact that he scowled and cried so intensely it left his face so scrunched and tense and always slightly puffy.

Any piece of art or writing I made about him I spent so long detailing his long, knobbly fingers from clutching his pencils too hard, and his cuticles which were picked bloody down to the flesh, and how his teeth are yellowing, crooked and chipped because he can’t afford a damn dentist.

I was so obsessed with the idea that he was immediately off-putting to everyone he met. His GIANT staring target eyes making unblinking eye contact and constantly being on the verge of tears, and glaring to the point where you know he gets the most insane headaches.

Every piece of fanart I saw with the glistening, uke eyes and the soft fluffy hair and the tiny mouth made me SICK. I would be in maths class seething about it. He has a close-cropped buzzcut, and an eight pack, and is terrible conversation in a way that isn’t even charming.

That is a BUTCH, UGLY MAN!!! AND I LOVE HIM!!

and, of course, some ishimondo slop because i can't help myself

he's studying, while I'm here though here's a Daiya sketch I never posted

Taka’s immediate attachment to Mondo post-sauna makes sense given 1) this is literally the first friend he’s ever made, and 2) every single thing he has ever done has been with 100% intensity, obviously his friendships are no different.

But Mondo? I talked before about how so much of his life is taken up by the gang, and how he trying so hard to please actively keeps a wall in-between forming real friendships. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say he doesn’t have many close friends.

But the idea that he would open up so fast to Taka; being emotionally vulnerable with him after spending years hiding behind a veneer of coldness is insane to me.

I know the tie-in manga where they discuss their feelings isn’t canon, but it makes more sense than the idea that they just boned and nothing else. If anything given how toxically masculine Mondo is, he’d would rather die than have anyone know he was with a man. He’d probably never speak to Taka again after that.

But Taka represents everything Mondo has ever wanted to be, even if he doesn’t realise it; Taka is so open and honest about everything he’s ever felt and thought it is literally impossible for Mondo to spiral into doubt about whether Taka actually respects him. Mondo is so scared that the rest of the gang is judging him behind his back, but Taka? He literally tells Mondo straight to his face; “You *are* a coward! That's why you turn to violence to solve your problems! That's why you can't do what society asks of you, why you walk around dressed like that! You've already lost to yourself, but you're such a coward you don't even realize it!".

Ironically for someone who seemingly flies off the handle at any minor insult, what Mondo really can’t handle is the idea of someone hiding their judgement through subtext. He thought Chihiro was making fun of him when they said they wanted to become like him (just like how Mondo tried to emulate Daiya, just like how the gang defines themselves around Mondo) that the weight of it all made him spiral.

The fact that after only a few hours of knowing each other Mondo was already calling Taka ‘kyoudai’, when its established he views his actual brother with an almost religious admiration.

Taka understands sculpting your life and values around following in a dead relatives footsteps and reaching their impossible standards. Taka knows the pressure of being a leader and the expectations they carry. And Taka understands not being born into privilege and needing to work for what you have.

I don’t think Mondo is literally using Taka as a stand in for his brother, but Daiya was probably the last person Mondo could listen to and take criticism from without spiralling out of control. And Taka is removed enough from the gang lifestyle that Mondo knows he doesn’t actually have to conform to every judgement Taka made about him. He’s a safe space for him outside of the crushing lifestyle he’d curated.