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the whole “Don’t-romanticize-killing-games” concept may just be the general fandom’s interpretation of the ending. I say this because, judging from what I’ve gathered, I think it’s more apt to say that Kodaka’s intentions for the ending was to make player/audience think that the Ultimate Real Fiction twist was the real truth to the whole story. But when you get right down to it, a lot of Tsumugi’s actions and claims seem to contradict with what’s been established previously.

I mean, I didn’t think too heavily on it at first either, but when you really think about it, Tsumugi’s way of getting her point across was to constantly hammer in the fact that it was ALLLL a lie and to make the survivors and the player give into the circumstances and not question it further than that. Because for Saihara and the rest, they don’t have much information to disprove what Tsumugi was spelling out for them. And if the protagonist gives up and accepts it, the player themselves will most likely do the same.

“IT WAS ALL FICTION. IT WAS ALL FICTION. IT WAS ALL FICTION- ....”

Say it enough times and you’d be more inclined to go along with it when you have nothing else to counter it. Though you always do have the option to… NOT believe everything the villain is saying and wait until you can actually see the outside world for yourself before falling into despair, like what Makoto did in the first game. >_>

Anyway, it does also bug me how Maki’s actions were completely overlooked and forgotten when everything she did was way *worse* than what Ouma was trying to accomplish. Her actions were worse,… and yet she gets a slap on the wrist in comparison to how everyone treated Ouma for what they think he did. SURE GAME, SURE.

Also, since you brought up the topic about people respecting Saihara, that may just be them being overly dependent on him because he’s the Ultimate Detective. No matter how insecure he seems, all the people rely on him and his skills as a detective to pull them through. And just like that, their dependence will gradually turn into respect with how many cases he has solved. It just made me think back to what Rantaro was trying to say to Kaede in one of their FTEs together.

“like… pfft I don’t know, a killing game where finding the right culprit is how you play to win perhaps?”

Yeah, he didn’t get to finish his thought, but it shouldn’t take more than that to know where he’s going with it. If you play the first freetime event with him, Rantaro appears to be quite skeptical of Saihara. We just took it as him being overly cautious of everyone because yeah, yeah, doesn’t remember his talent, blah blah blah. But putting that aside, what makes a guy, who can’t even remember what he does for a living, feel the need to cautious around a “detective” of all people? Or make him believe Saihara was hiding his *real* personality? You can’t just make these sorts of claims without having something in your mind to back up that doubt.

I’ve actually finished watching an Ultra Despair Girls playthrough and noticed something similar was mentioned in the game…

This was when they were finding DR1 cast’s loved ones being targeted and were talking about Kyoko’s family. She comes from a long line of detectives, but Toko then expresses her distaste for such people. Though, I don’t know how “real detectives” and “actual detectives” were meant to be explained here in the JP script, I guess they were establishing that in the DR world, there are authoritative figures who uses their position for good and bad things. 

So even before V3, Kodaka has mentioned quite a bit about detectives that were sketchy, no good and just corrupted law people in general. Let’s not forget that even Ouma doesn’t really have that much of a high opinion on Saihara’s talent either. Despite in one Salmon Mode date where he says “Oh yeah! I totally respect these people” in the A/V room, he would talk to Saihara when on a different date in the library and says this….

Ouma can be confusing a lot of the time, but seeing how he has only made ONE seemingly positive remark about the police, but then make numerous other weird observations about Saihara and his talent with a big ol smile on his face, I think it’s fair to say that he doesn’t hold him in the highest regard.

So yes, most of what you said was accurate. Although, I think the intent behind Saihara’s portrayal was to deceive people into thinking Saihara’s a good person. Unfortunately, I think that’s the closest thing we are going to get for the time being… 

Hajime clearly had a hard time understanding Gundham's bizarre personality, even seemed downright annoyed a lot of the time. But in the end, despite him not  fully understanding Gundham Tanaka, Hajime has shown to be quite mature and compassionate towards him because he wanted to be friends with him. To want to genuinely become friends with someone, you wouldn't think of changing them to your liking.

Every thriving relationship is about “give-and-take”. Just because you stick around with that person, doesn't mean they owe you an explanation as to why they are who they are, nor should they do you any favors by behaving how you want them to. If you truly care, you make an effort to understand and think of ways to work with them, not against them. And it's fine if you don't know much about them right away, so long as you don' t expect them to change who they are for the sake of your convenience.

Now compare Gundham and Hajime's relationship with Ouma and Saihara's ...

See, Saihara says that he was reaching out to Ouma, but if I recall their FTEs together, ... he hasn't done anything of the sort. All throughout their bonding time, Ouma was evading from having to reveal too much about himself and just pulled Saihara into all these little games. What did Saihara have to show for it? As far as I know, he only asked one question about his secret organization and just said that he hasn't heard of any organization like that . Which is, let's be real here, pretty stupid considering how Ouma had repeatedly claimed it was a SECRET organization. Oh really Ultimate Detective? You haven't heard of this secret organization before ?? Gee I wonder why that is ... 

In the end, Saihara just gave up on him. Aside from that one discussion they had, he did not put in any more effort to understand him beyond that. And yet,  clearly it was Saihara that was putting in the most effort into being friends with Ouma, right?

(Cripes, this is just painful ...)

Another moment I would like to mention is from Salmon Mode ...

During Harmonious Heart, you have four options to please Ouma as he was quietly lamenting about whether he should stop lying to become better friends with Saihara or he should get Saihara to love lying. If you were to select “ Affirm ” when Ouma says “ Maybe I should quit lying altogether ”, this would be his response to that. He's clearly not liking what you were intending ...

Which is strange, isn't it? He was supposedly getting depressed just a second ago and looked as if he was willing to change himself for a moment, and yet when Saihara agreed with his thoughts, he quickly shut him down and talked as if he wasn't considering that to begin with... And that may just be because Ouma wasn't truly planning on changing himself for him from the start.

That whole thing with him being troubled could've just been him fishing an answer from Saihara on the subject of “changing for friends” and was testing him to see where he stands on the matter. Well, it should be obvious as to why affirming to the idea would make him unhappy. It's no better than telling someone that they are not fit to be your friend with how they are now. 

The way Saihara phrased his words is basically a sugarcoated way of him saying “ Yes, I agree. You should stop lying to make things more convenient for me. ” In order for him to say this at all was for Saihara to actually agree on the idea that Ouma should change for his sake. Which, when you get right down to it, is exactly as Ouma had said before. Saihara is surprisingly an  arrogant person.  No one is obligated to change for others, unless they themselves are not happy with who they are now. And since Ouma was quick to backpedal on his own notion and was clearly not serious about it at all, you should know already where he stands on the matter.

Then again, this alone wouldn't be enough to claim Saihara as an arrogant person. That doesn't fit with his general timid and humble demeanor he displayed in the overall story! So Ouma was obviously just being defensive and overly dramatic, right? This is also the second worst answer of Harmonius Heart after all and some wouldn't even consider Salmon Mode as canon anyway, so no big deal. Well normally I would agree with at least that much, but eventually I came across a piece of inner dialogue from Saihara at the start of the 4th investigation ...

And there it is. Even in the main story, Saihara was genuinely thinking of doing the exact opposite of what Hajime would be doing in his situation. Sure, when it came to Nagito, Hajime was highly displeased and confused over his actions. But at least Hajime was making legit efforts into understanding his crazy philosophy in his FTEs, much to his chagrin.

And yet, despite the fact that Saihara behaves all humble-like about how he wasn't an actual detective and how he was just an apprentice, he certainly is making bold efforts into getting someone to do what he personally thinks is right. As I was saying before, relationships, no matter how brief, are all about “give and take”. To expect people to reach back to you, you have to make an effort for them to prove you are worth trusting, not the other way around. And since Saihara was not putting more effort into understanding Ouma than he already had in-game, it's no wonder that they could never be on the same wave-length. And it's also no wonder why Ouma would question Saihara's trustworthiness to begin with.