Trying to figure out how to explain ‘Ouma fits beautifully in a conspiracy angle but also falls flat in a narrative at the same time, yes these ideas can coexist’
Some criticism of Ouma’s writing amounts to him being ‘horribly broken as a character’, while the same person also has said that he is overwritten. Though my angle is that V3 itself is a ‘lore-broken’ piece- as in, there’s a consistency there, but it’s so unbelievably torn in the process of trying to be unique that it’s exhausting to behold, despite the things that do make sense in it
So it’s less that Ouma is broken, and more that V3′s world is broken around him. Which uh, falls in line with Kodaka’s general flaws as a writer just as much as the idea of ‘ambiguous truth’ he wanted to get across, so.
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'There's no way Kaito's development in the hangar can offset the entirety of his issues towards Ouma in the chapters prior, and it doesn't make sense in their characters for them to be more friendly. At best that's wishful thinking and there’s no basis for this in canon.'
This is ruffling my feathers again because some folks out there really just can't leave well enough alone where it comes to ‘possibilities hiding behind the canon’ that they gotta come out here with this ‘no basis’ crap. Thus, I gotta get my ratty hat on because this is ridiculous.
I may be repeating myself from another time but screw it, saying it again. (*small disclaimer that the framing is more biased to my take but I wrote this out in a bit of an impulse flow, take as you will)
Here's the issue: once again, it's the whole chapter where Kaito was behaving suspiciously, not even just for the hangar time period. A particular thing of note was how he pointedly stopped Tsumugi - interrupting her, at that - when she suggested to go find him, instead saying that he's 'been thinking about something' and to 'leave it all to him'. Since it was 'too early' to tell them.
No matter what way you spin it - whether it's just that he hasn't finalised his plan to show the weapons, or he's conspiring with Ouma to stage his own kidnapping as a part of the battle with Monokuma - Kaito is hiding things from the group, ergo hiding things from us. And if he's hiding things connecting to Ouma at an early stage, it stands that he's hiding more things later as well. Especially as Kiibo later spells it out that he’s hiding something about their relationship.
That’s not ‘wishful thinking’, it’s literally right there. Add this to the fact that Kaito had to lie out of necessity for this script to work, and there you have an actual basis for his lie, considering the script was where the two of them came together. Granted that isn’t a clear answer to their relationship one way or another, but it doesn’t need to be in order to be based in the text. I’ll spare the usual rant about the ‘elements of the hangar plot being suspicious’ because that’s not the point right now, it’s about the logic in character. Also why Kaito’s flat denial isn’t itself a cogent argument, because if the plot had more to it than meets the eye, that could mean Ouma having told Kaito of more things pertaining to him as well, especially if the two go hand in hand.
(I really don’t think I need to justify this- the book has a goddamn V3 logo on it, but since we’re effectively going into deeplore there, back to the psychology lol)
Second, the issue with Kaito's development is down to (a lot of the time) unconscious and impulse-driven behaviours that result in overcompensation and poor management. Ouma, on the other hand, is established to be well aware of peoples' foibles and won't hesitate to verbally smack them down to size if the situation called for it and they were behaving stupidly. Kaito's deep-seated grudge of envy towards Shuichi was all but gone by the time they next spoke, suggesting that something went down behind the scenes. What’s more, he had grown enough cognisance of a problem in himself that he spelled it out at the end of the trial.
So at minimum, we know that Kaito had developed a more robust sense of self-awareness, most likely during this time in the hangar. It’s easier to focus on Kaito here since Ouma is a bit of a wildcard in terms of what he’s thinking and feeling at this time (besides obviously a lot of distress and anger at the game), but I digress. The point is, it’s a very crucial step for Kaito’s character, and highly likely one that he wouldn’t have taken without Ouma’s help.
Now, what the extent of that ‘something that went down’ was is up to you, since we never see what went down with Kaito and Ouma (besides *checks notes* a single flashback at the 11th hour after a whole bunch of stuff had already gone down), but if you're out here saying that 'no development can offset Kaito's issues with Ouma' - never mind at least two days of being isolated with him and out of our POV - then the same needs to hold true for his issue with Shuichi, because up until the kidnapping Kaito was barely even looking at Shuichi at all, much less talking to him. By all rights if Kaito was so stubborn that he ‘couldn’t overcome biases’, he would still be like that and would not have changed at all.
tl;dr: I have no problem with people criticising Kaito, as the guy does have some rather troubling issues that seemingly get brushed under the rug a bunch. But this insistence that Kaito is ‘forever stuck in his ways’ and as such, ‘would never truly come to understand Ouma’, is not as ‘based in canon’ as you think. All that speaks for is an inability to accept ambiguity and to self-assess for bias, and has little bearing on the other having a ‘less cogent argument’ just because the situation is (as a par for the course) riddled with ambiguities. Chill.
I thought that wrathful Maki's hands do look weird but then I've noticed Akane's in sdr2 when she's getting "pumped up" sprite look similiar so maybe it's just some stylistic choice? The main difference is that on Akane's both hands it's nails that are growing while Maki have her left hand fingers messed up.
Yeah I mean, that's fair enough- it's more combined with her superpower speed which is noted via Shuichi's internal commentary to be like a shadow thus demonic-looking in itself (not like when Junko gets her literal magic mushrooms in DR1 and no one bats an eyelid since it's just a metaphor for Gloomy(tm) ). Besides that, she's not the only one to have some weird quality to her physical capability that wasn't just, visual stylisation exaggerating the talents a bit. Not that that leads anywhere particularly useful other than 'possibly was a subject of experimentation' (since Miu definitely was, if her brain function changed that drastically) but you get the idea
Not sure if you noticed it or not (there's a lot of stuff on this blog you have a very good eye for details and all but it will take time to get through everything hehe) but did you compare the "Killing Game busters" cg from 4th trial with the DICE logo?
Oooh I didn't until you mentioned it actually, thank you for raising that tidbit, Anon! This is a bit interesting come to think of it-
-because of the framing of the split here, with the evil-looking tight smirk and the dark red (or the 'Monokuma black') on the left side of the line, and the crying part of the face (even though Gonta's sweating here) on the right side, is very closely matched (plus, Ouma's mouth tends to look Monokuma-esc in those devilish smirks)
I mean it's not to say that 'Gonta is evidently a part of DICE' or anything - let alone playing this exact role in it - but it's more that, considering that DICE could be a group of intrepid confidence tricksters more than merely pranksters, it does make me wonder if this imagery was intentional to point to an underlying tone of DICE's nature: like they're a bunch of Killing Game Busters themselves even!
It makes sense that monokichi is the god/Atua and sends messages to Angie. And during the first trial Angie dropped hints that Amami's killer was "behind the hidden door" meaning monokichi wanted to have actual killer executed though he did settle on Kaede later as we know. But, when Saihara was accused Angie annouced it was Atua's naptime and didn't provide more info tho she did defend him in scrum debate. But ultimately do you think monokichi would be fine with executing Saihara instead?
I see I see, well considering Saihara's useful role in the killing game - as well as Kaede’s own usefulness as an ‘example to be made’ - I would say no. That is, Monokichi (according to the most ideal plan, as opposed to a potential ‘fuckup branch’ of which there’s a few) would want to use him for the whole thing from beginning to end, thus 'rigging it to his favour' (as per Ouma's FTE hint-athon). To make best use of the influence Saihara would have
This would mean, he's intending that Saihara would be 'behind-the-scenes' of the Chapter 1 murder setup in more ways than one. Since he likely uh, expects that this is something he would do doubly if Saihara’s done something similarly treacherous to him before huurr. So rather than have Saihara thrown down at the beginning, he would like to wring him out as long as he could up to the critical point of the game, of the fictioning of everything. The latter?
Is something that would likely be Saihara’s agenda as his full-memories, second-mastermind self! (This leaves me vexed as to how much of an agenda the sealed memories Saihara has, mind you. It could be anything from ‘simple desire that became twisted’, to... something more devious)
With that in mind, I don’t think using Angie to give divine intuition meant that Monokichi was throwing the true killer under the bus. If anything, Angie was a mouthpiece for the truth but, when she was ‘disproven’ at this point in time, ultimately this fact would come back to bite them in the butt. Similarly, the whole bit where Saihara was noting that ‘his logic was wrong and there could be no ringleader among the group’, which of course, we know is wrong.
That is some interesting timing for the ‘nap’ though. I had never noticed that before, just checked back to see where that was, thank you for pointing that out to me! Additionally, it seems he switched back to Monokuma mode immediately after that- like he can’t be ‘God’ and do Monokuma-things at the same time, similar to how Junko couldn’t look at the cameras and control Monokuma simultaneously, due to the fact of where she was at the time of each, hm...
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jorrynoftheroundtable replied to your photoset “Cut for Shuichi’s remarks but, reminder that Shuichi is very much…”
Of course, acting is only half the story. The ease of which he slips from reliance on truth to lies makes me think he’s forced to lie often in his home life, if briefly.
Yeah, I think the one thing that’s bothering me about Saihara is that I can’t... quite... pin down exactly how much of his behaviour in the killing game is an act- that is, of deceiving others (as Rantaro points out, his personality itself may be a deception) as much as himself (as Tenko would point out in the story, he has an issue of self-delusion and may go astray). I can only guess, but yeah, it’s plain that his background is not exactly normal
Though as an aside, it’s funny to me there’s a lot of theories as to why Ouma lies but as for Saihara, I’m unsure? At least, I don’t know of any- odd considering how practiced he is at it, for someone who’s apparently sheltered
I figured three factors that inform why Ouma lies, on a more core level:
Psychological: responses to trauma, or other brain things
Social: how he deals with people and situations naturally
Institutional: rooted in society and structures
Naturally, these all blend together and are nigh impossible to pick apart, so you kind of mix and match depending on how you read the evidence in front of you.
My take is heavily slanted towards Institutional (with Psychological running a close second because of ‘innate talent and experimentation past’), which is important I make known because, besides the weird shit in his lab that match up too well with DR’s past, his experience of society - should the HPA history turn out to be real - has the potential to be exceptionally warped.
Because if the history exists, then by extension, so would the evil organisation. That could change everything as we know it, including the academy’s role.
This right here is what I mean by an active ringleader (Ouma) vs a passive ‘sleeper agent’ (Tsumugi)
Ill Nam is showing knowledge of how to play each of the games, explaining his methods and staging himself as a normie player when he calls for the special game to stop- thus addressing the masterminds ‘tacitly’ without making himself suspicious to any onlookers.
The reason why stuff like this flies under the radar, is that the games are common childrens’ games in South Korea, and thus showing knowledge of how to beat them isn’t exactly... standout material. But it’s still worth noting nonetheless, because the old guy did in fact model each of the games after kids games. Having that crucial knowledge makes those little clues stand out more in hindsight. Oh and he went offscreen when he was ‘killed’ during the marbles game- you never saw his body, thus he still remained...
Similarly Ouma is absurdly well practiced at the trials in terms of its psychology, at one point addressed Monokuma in order to place a motive, and... his body was very much a ??? point because you never got to examine it much less determine if he was actually crushed in the first place. There’s also a good bit of crucial knowledge we’re plain missing about Ouma- his background and circumstances. Which, if it means innocuous or otherwise ignorable things from before completely flipping on its head, is concerning.
Another funny thought is that Ill Nam and Ouma both appear to hate being bored. Of course, two completely different characters and agendas- because a part of Ouma’s whole thing is that he has to pretend he’s having fun to deal with his situation, Ill Nam on the other hand wants the excitement from the game so he can have satisfaction before he dies rather pathetic old man
...Not getting to Tsumugi this time actually, I just felt like doing a little comparison across series to show that a little double-bluffing is viable, lol
