#drta

Barn and I reached the body discovery announcement of chapter 3😭

One of the finniest Chapter 3 moments for me was Hatami being genuinely surprised at Koin bring mad at him. "Can't get the readon him", he says! My brother in Monokuma, you nearly ruined his show, having stormed off over the trivialest thing possible, and now you're wondering why he's suddenly giving you a cold shoulder?!

Of course, Koin isn't blameless either. He'd been chasing Hatami right until the day of the festival and even forced him to participate by claiming to have enerered his name. No wonder Hatami's patience finally ran dry.

...But that's not the actual reason why Hatami quit. What actually tipped him over the edge was Koin stealing his tie. Until then, he accepted his fate and was willing to go along with this circus. And yet, this is the point where Hatami went "fuck this shit, I'm out". So what's with the tie? Was it just a final straw that broke the camel's back or does that tie hold some sort of significance to Hatami?

I've decided to compare Hatami's current design with his old one. And overall there aren't many changes. The only major differences are in Hatami's attitude, hairstyle, and the tie. For some reason, younger Hatami has a green tie instead of his current yellow one. So what is it that made Hatami make such a small outfit change?

I had a thought that maybe Hatami's tie used to belong to someone from Adagura Film Club, so I've checked over their sprites. None of them wore such a tie or even such colour. So I'm back at square one.

First is, of course, Koin ending up being Hatami's personal doxxer. Every shady info we find out about him comes from Koin: his talent, the slaughter, his name situation...

Second is the fact that Koin is indirectly responsible for Miharu's death. He's the one who reveals Hatami's talent to everyone which makes Seki connect the dots about the latter's involvement in the slaughter of Adagura film club. That leads Seki to uttering some unpleasant words about Hatami, which ends up being recorded in the Hate Box. Miharu hears that recording, assumes it to be Hatami's, and goes to, ironically, Seki for a plan to neutralise such a threat. Which kickstarts Seki's whole plan of having Hatami kill Miharu. I'm sure Seki would have started scheming something even without the Hate Box, but the reason he realised Hatami's identity in the first place was because of Koin.

Speaking of the Hate Box... Hadn't everyone originally decided not to press it? You know, becasue they were aware that thing was meant to have them kill each other? So how did it end up being pressed? The answer is Hatoyama, who for no reason whatsoever activated the Hate Box. Now, with my favourites, I'm usually ready to stand by all their rights and wrongs. This shit, however, I've got nothing to defend with! He was fully aware that the Box was a motive! And we know he is not as dumb as he pretends to be. If even Arumada could figure out that activating the motive was a bad idea, then Koin definetely can! So if you want to add a fourth (or would it be fifth?) "culprit" to Miharu's murder, it would be Koin.

Of course, putting the blame solely on Hatoyama is wrong. Miharu and Seki are reaponsible for their own actions, and anyone else might have pressed the button out of curiosity if Koin hadn't. ...Or they might have not. The fact remains that it was Koin who activated the Box despite his classmates telling him not to.

There seems to be an ongoing theme with Koin not hearing "no" as an answer. The most evident it is in chapter 3 with an ongoing gag of Koin terrorising Hatami to become his assistant. While I did find it a bit funny, I had an weird feeling about it. I did touch a bit on it in my Matsuoka post, thinking it had cleared up yhings for me. And yet, the feeling persisted. If you think about it, why *was* Koin chasing Hatami all this time, despite Hatami refusing each time? Koin, I believe, is quite emotionally intelligent, and while he has this mischievous air about him, unlike, for example, Kokichi from Danganronpa V3, he is not malicious about it. So why would he keep harassing Hatami, when it's clear as day that he has no desire in participating? Was he that desperate for an assisting student? I'm sure Hishimeki would have eventually given up and agreed. Which is kinda what she did in the end, volunteering to be an assistant after Hatami stormed off mid-show. Koin's behaviour doesn't make much sense to me. It seems as if he *needed* Hatami on stage for whatever reason. Especially considering how he basically forced Hatami to participate, claiming to have entered his name without his consent.

We still can't be sure that Coco was the one to kill Momori. This conclusion was reached based on a suspicious piece of evidence that may very well have been planted. Hatami himself admitted as much. So we can't even be sure about the killing method.