#kurumada

The doll of the day today is the boxer himself, Naomichi Kurumada, and in specific I want to talk about his arc in learning to trust in his allies, and how he is changed by his allies and how his allies are changed by him. Kurumada's arc is such an important one to the themes of the entire game, much like all the Dummies from 3-1, and hopefully I'll be able to show that as we go through this analysis. Kurumada is the type of character who wears who he is on his sleeve, at least at first, even from just our first meeting with him we can clearly see how he thinks especially in regard to his thoughts on allies

if sara tells him she only made it this far thanks to her allies he will question it before claiming that it must have been the right call if she made it this far, and if she instead talks about the sacrifices she made along the way Kurumada responds in a pretty cut throat manner,

Its pretty clear kurumada isn't the type to buddy up and ally with people at this point, even when talking about defeating the "monsters" on the floor he seems surprised when sara says

Kurumada's thoughts on "allyship" is shown again when after finding the blue book Kanna realises it's about Sou, and she then asks if she can see it because

this moment of Kanna claiming Sou sacrificed himself for her sake prompts Kurumada to jump in with his considerably bleaker outlook

to kurumada there isn't any nuance to death, at this point he doesn't get that someone would willingly sacrifice their lives for the sake of someone else, and he assumes that its just them "making it out as some heartwarming story", Q-taro steps in to tell him to stop but Kanna tells him its fine, that even after thinking it would be better if she just died, Sou taught her that she "shouldn't lose" to that urge leading to a very important line from Kurumada,

"Not losing" and "winning" are completely different things. Its good advice to Kanna but also to Kurumada himself, even if now he thinks he has it all figured out, that couldn't be further from the truth and it's going to be shown to him in full force,

after the fight with Maple Kurumada rushes in and is heavily injured, marking a huge turning point to his character,

Here Qtaro essentially sacrifices himself to get Kurumada out safely, as said before Kurumada doesn't get why he would do this but is forced along anyway. When he reaches the 5th floor security office he tells everyone to leave him behind as there isn't much he can do anymore and depending on who survived the 2nd main game they have different reactions. If Sou survived, he will agree that they should leave him behind as there is no point trying to help, when we come back later Kurumada will tell us to leave because he doesn't want everyone to see him before he then assumes he is in the way, as though he is a burden on the others.

If instead Kanna survives she insists on staying behind, if that happens Kurumada attempts to try and get back down to Maple and sacrifice himself. He tries to go down the elevator and despite everyone's pleas he denies any help and insists that he "isn't going to stand for being a loser" and finally says that he is free to do what he wants. This causes Kanna to slap him and tell him to cut it out and she brings up the similarities between Kurumada now and Sou's sacrifice, the very same sacrifice Kurumada disregarded earlier, she claims that Kurumada is just trying to die to stop Maple's rampage and help the Dummies, to which Kurumada just tells her to not make wild assumptions. Whether or not he is doing it consciously that is what he ended up trying to do. Kanna then finally tells him

and that's what finally gets Kurumada to stop, it was Kanna telling him that he shouldn't think it's better to just die, and she makes it clear that there are people who want him to live.

When we finally get him to the charger Kurumada in a last ditch effort still tries to make it clear he would be better off dead. He says that the charger would be better used to extend the lives of the other dolls but Anzu (or Hayasaka) tells him that they don't need that and specifically saying that they are all allies, and then all the Dummies help Kurumada by attaching him to the charger.

It's here Kurumada is forced to rely on the Dummies, on his allies, in his lowest moment, and still not getting it, he tells sara his hidden information, in his eyes removing the last of his value, and Sara instead asks him if he wants them to protect the Dummies, and here the 2 of them make an unspoken promise to "protect everybody, Dummies included". Here we get the first instances of Kurumada learning to trust in his allies, he starts off assuming he would be better off dead, as though he is a burden, and we see how shocked he is when Qtaro risks his life to make sure he can get out, or when Kanna tells him outright that he should try to live, or when Anzu/Hayasaka/Hinako denies the charger and tells him to use it on himself and it's the first step to Kurumada understanding dying with a purpose, dying to win, rather than dying just for the sake of "not losing". When earlier he claims that Kanna "forsook that Sou guy" and that's all there is, that there is no sense in trying to make a heartwarming story by claiming he was trying to protect her, in his mind it doesn't make sense that anyone would sacrifice so much for their "allies" for essentially nothing in return and we saw that when we first met him, but now it's happening directly to him, and he can't deny it anymore, time and time again people show they don't want something from him, all they want to do is protect their allies, and the effects of that are present going forward. When the tag game starts again and Ranmaru is "it" he goes to Kurumada and thinks about tagging him, and it's here where Kurumada yet again tells tries to get himself killed for the others.

He tells Ranmaru to tag him, specifically stating that he wants to live, claiming that while he doesn't see a future for himself, he can see one for Ranmaru. Again, Kurumada is in the position to sacrifice his life for another's, but Ranmaru denies it, claiming that he knows this is wrong before Hinako comes in with another solution. Its just driving home the point that Kurumada is willing to die for the sake of his allies, but like before with Maple he is doing it for the wrong reasons. Kurumada tells Ranmaru that even if he kills Midori they'll just die anyways, and that's the problem, it's from not seeing a future in himself and not from seeing a way to defeat Midori, just like before where he wanted to fight Maple because he "didn't want to lose", here its a sacrifice that does nothing but help Ranmaru "not lose".

The next time we see him is when we play as Keiji and go up to the 5th floor to charge the Midori head. When Kurumada talks one of the first things he is worried about is Mai's wellbeing, and he is glad to hear she is safe, then when Keiji explains the banquet to Kurumada he says

showing his priorities in this moment which causes Keiji to ask when he became so considerate, or to claim that he has gotten kind, and we can see this in how he left half the charge still in the charger, however all this good faith between them disappears when Keiji attempts to charge the Midori head. Kurumada seeing the doll head getting charged by the battery he left for the other dolls, comes to the conclusion that Keiji must be trying to kill Midori through the doppelganger rule, and considering the last time he saw Keiji was during his fight with Midori where he disregarded the dolls lives for his own goal and its entirely understandable that he would come to this conclusion, and one line he specifically says is

its the same wording we saw him use when he claimed everyone forsook Sou earlier, and we see it again in his "final" words,

Kurumada in this moment is afraid Keiji is about to forsake the Dummies more than anything, and all he asks is that he doesn't do so, with tears in his eyes. To him, what Keiji is doing is exactly the same as what he thought happened with Kanna and Sou before, someone forsaking the goodwill of their allies for themselves, and it's what he expects from "allyship" before his experiences with the cast, something that holds you back, something that exists for some selfish reason, and where this goes depends on the route you chose.

Starting with the Logic route, Kurumada wakes up to hear Ranmaru kill Alice/Reko with the locker room trap and tries to find him, this is when Sara wakes up and when Ranmaru claims Kurumada has died, which causes him to enter and punch Ranmaru in a fury, exclaiming that everyone should get to the locker room on the lower floor as fast as they can, after everyone sees Reko/Alice's corpse Kurumada claims that Ranmaru did this. Out of everyone here Kurumada is the most furious at Ranmaru for his actions, and its shown clearly in the prebanquet.

Depending on the dialogue chosen Kurumada will either claim his own body isn't the problem, show his surprise that Ranmaru of all people was the one to do it, or shows his anger at him breaking the promise between himself and Sara. In that final discussion Sara will claim that

acting as though the Dummies and Humans are separate, to which Kurumada reinforces the fact they are still one group with his reply,

making it clear he still saw Alice (or Reko) as an ally, therefore breaking the promise between him and Sara, and he ends the discussion by wondering if he'll get to off Ranmaru himself. If Ranmaru instead died earlier due to not being able to remove the tag function from his collar Kurumada's discussions go slightly different, he doesn't call Ranmaru a weakling, but he also is angry that he had to kill someone and go and die anyways, and he ends the conversion on the note that

Then when the Dummies enter the coffins he claims that he doesn't want his pride to sink any lower if ranmaru is dead

or outright threatening him into the coffin if he is still alive.

Its clear that if Ranmaru dies, Kurumada is lacking a sense of closure, it all comes as a shock and he is mad but there isn't anyone he can directly be mad at, not being as mad at the corpse as he would have been at the person. But we can also see how spiteful he is if Ranmaru is still alive, after all Ranmaru broke that trust between allies, he forsook the others for his own goal, the same as what he thought Keiji was going to do, and the same as what he thought happened to Sou, except here it's one of the Dummies betraying the humans, one of the people he was trying to protect ended up being the one to do it, and its clear just how much it affects him. The Kanna route instead goes in the complete other direction, whereas before he felt betrayed by his own ally, here he is possibly able to make it with everyone intact. If this does happen Kurumada tells Sara,

and asks to listen to a song in order to soak in this moment of peace while he can. This song ends up as a moment of unity between everybody in the room, and it's the moment where everyone can safely say they are true allies, and it's shown when Sara asks Kurumada what he thinks of it, and he replies,

Here is the moment where Kurumada sees the value in others as allies, where we see how Kurumada has grown from "Don't go makin' allies, dumbass." to the "dumbass" who makes allies, and it's a nice feeling, it's not something that has strings attached, not a ploy to get something from you, and not a fake story made up to feel better about forsaking anyone, but a simple happiness gotten from feeling as though you belong and the want to protect the people around you and for them to feel the same way too.

In just the same way Kurumada is affected by his allies, his allies are shown to be affected by him as well. If the cast wasn't able to reconcile with Maple in time Kurumada will take more damage than otherwise, which results in him dying later in the chapter. If this was done while all the other Dummies survived, it will result in him dying during Yabusame's song instead of dying after all the Dummies have already entered the coffins, when this happens Kanna will wonder if he was enduring until this moment while Anzu will run up to him to try and get him to wake up despite Hayasaka telling her that his collar might explode, (playing into her concern for her allies I talked about in her analysis,) which incites Ranmaru to say

From here we can talk to everyone to get their thoughts on his death, Anzu will hide her face saying it's a mess while Hayasaka says "How strange... I feel like he was moving entirely by force of will...", if Alice survived, he will remark that Kurumada was "Wearing an expression as if he accomplished all he set out to do..." and Mai and Hinako will simply stay in silence. Of all the reactions, to me Ranmaru's is the most interesting, he says

and this is shown through his actions. Whether or not Kurumada died, if all the other Dummies were able to make it in the emotion route Ranmaru will be the one to take Kurumada's place in volunteering the Dummies for the banquet,

however if Kurumada died Ranmaru, instead of saying "yeah" will say

before getting into the coffin himself. All these scenes go to show just how much Kurumada has affected his allies, and in particular the Dummies, Ranmaru being the prime example. It in a way reflects how Sou's death affected Kanna, yet again showing how Kurumada fell into the very thing he dismissed earlier.

When during the banquet Sara is forced to choose a glowing coffin with a red hint to defeat Midori, she gets scared that she might be making the wrong choice, and is worried about why Midori isn't afraid to die. In this moment Mai tells Sara to pick it, and if Kurumada is still alive he will pitch in telling her

and if Mai is dead due to the Maple 2.0 fight, he will take the helm of boosting Sara's confidence by telling her

Its Kurumada finally understanding what Sou felt during the second main game, Its death with a purpose behind it, and this time its isn't coming from a place of "not losing" like when he tried to go back down to Maple, or when he doubted there was any way for Ranmaru to get out of his situation safely, but from a place of "winning" of finally being able to defeat Midori, and of being able to save the Dummies, even if it's just one. Here he understands that dying doesn't mean being forsaken because in this moment Kurumada trusts his allies so deeply that he is willing to give up his life for it.

This is something I haven’t seen discussed much despite having a lot of potential— what’s your opinion on the surviving dummy (Kurumada, Mai, Hayasaka) at the end of the banquet?

It’s easy to miss it, I’d assume in no small part to to the fact it’s not an active choice but based entirely on which coffins you randomly select.

The dummies but they're all younger and a big friend group!! So like, a Kid!AU yk??

Anzu and kurumadas hair is black bc thats their real hair colour, they dye it in the future (hinakos hair is a mystery).

some images of my progress on recreating the naomichi pixel sprite!

first is the original coloration, second is with muted hair and bandages, third is just bandages, and fourth is final

i like the bandages bc the color i picked makes them look kinda like gin’s gloves