one of my favourite things to do in any artwork of mine is add tiny, subtle details. in bait and switch, you can see that ouma’s eye highlight is in the shape of a heart as he drags saihara’s chin upwards (as the lyrics say “bait”). saihara’s blush slowly grows at this moment, but disappears the moment a knife is drawn on him. during the line “full of shit,” it’s ouma’s turn to blush and you can see as his manic grin grows, so does the pink on his face. additionally, saihara’s gaze is full blown and wide during “bait,” not daring to blink lest he miss a beat; his attention is fully on ouma. when the knife is drawn, however, he blinks back into reality, shattering the illusion (but is ouma’s advances really an illusion? 🤔)

ouma kokichi. god what a complex character. some might argue otherwise, but i think his character and his arc throughout the game is not only hard to crack/understand, but integral to the v3 plot and overarching themes presented. we’ll never truly know what he was thinking, and so many have already fought tooth and nail to defend or oppose him. in my humble opinion, however, the way i see it is this: ouma’s overall goal was to unite everyone against an active, obvious threat in the killing game. the mastermind was hidden amongst them, as they decidedly found out early on, and by outing himself as the mastermind, making himself a clear and obvious target, it encouraged the remaining survivors to build trust within one another and fight together. kokichi realized very early on that no one was going to trust anyone as long as there was a hidden mastermind posing as a student within their group. he knew they weren’t going to get anywhere if they kept doubting each other — so in a very unorthodox way, he united them together. they didn’t need a friend, he realized, they needed an enemy. and by default, he sort of becomes shuichi’s nemesis as most antagonists in the games do.

i was on tiktok the other day and found this comment that i thought made a good point, regarding kokichi’s character and why people hate him.

though i am biased, i think it’s fair to say that in a world without the killing game, kokichi would want to be friends with shuichi. or at the very least, he’d be intrigued by him and push shuichi’s buttons to figure him out. i think it’s funny and such a nice detail to notice, but just as shuichi (and us, by proxy) are confused about kokichi and his actions, shuichi himself is actually a mystery to ouma as well. in the eng version, kokichi had shuichi labeled “trustworthy?” on his whiteboard meanwhile in the jp version, it’s “tricky/can’t figure him out.” in both versions regardless of translation, i think it’s fair to say that kokichi is intrigued and wants to understand shuichi better. one part of their dynamic i really love is the whole “i’m gonna annoy because it’s so fun and you react to said annoyances in ways i thoroughly enjoy.” and it’s fun, and silly, but i think it’s also kokichi’s way of figuring shuichi out. shuichi is… an anomaly. he’s an ultimate detective who’s supposed to search for the truth, yet he is ironically afraid of what he’ll find out. he has a knack for discovering and unearthing mysteries (he can’t help but connect two dots together) and yet he simultaneously is hesitant to discover more. he wants to find the truth, but is willing to tell lies in the classroom trials. he doubts himself continuously, and many could argue he’s his own worst enemy, yet also has the conviction to accuse a suspect so fervently when enough evidence is provided. this is a really fun juxtaposition with kokichi, who is notorious for telling lies and skirting around the truth like it’s the plague. and yet, they both want the same thing: to find out the reality of the situation and be done with this killing game. one is searching for the liars within their group, the other is searching for the truths.

this is one reason why i really enjoy saiou. one of the biggest themes for drv3 is the relationship between truths and lies. there’s the overarching “truth” of their world which is that it’s gone to hellfire and everyone but them are dead. the world ended. except, nope! that’s a lie! the real truth is that they’re in a killing game show. kokichi is known for telling lies, and so when he reveals the fire destroyed world outside and says that this is the truth out of the outside world, it’s ironic. kokichi knows there’s something else up, but he reveals the truth of the outside world to them (this, from what i understand and theorize, is ultimately to further everyone’s hatred towards ouma and help them form a close and trusting bond together, but the symbolism behind it is really interesting to me). “here is your truth,” he says, and they can’t dispute it as a lie because it’s right there in front of them. they see it with their own eyes, just like how they couldn’t dispute gonta in the fourth trial.

except… what really defines truth? kokichi must’ve known the outside world was a lie, or that there was something more to it, otherwise why did he go through with his suicide in chapter 5? to beat a dead horse (haha, horse, ouma, iykyk): kokichi tells a lie about the “truth” that is the outside world. we circle back to this lie vs truth theme in chapter six when shuichi starts questioning his sense of self. what is really true if he used to be someone else? if his memories and experiences are fake, does that make himself a fake human? a fake person? ultimately we come to know that it doesn’t matter — he gets to choose his own truth, even if there are lies buried beneath them. his memories may be fake, but his emotions and feelings aren’t. you cant fake the beating of your own heart or the pain you feel at knowing it’s all unreal, that it’s all a lie.

one thing i just thought was so so clever and genuinely helped me understand kokichi more was his friendship reward. for every friendship star completion thingy you complete, you get their underwear (💀) and a special skill to use in the trials. kokichi’s friendship reward is “kind lie.” he has a multitude of lies under his belt — real ones, hurtful ones, white ones, and ofc kind ones. you could argue his plan to deceive everyone as the mastermind was both a hurtful lie and a kind lie — but i believe he was ultimately lying for the greater good. shuichi, despite being afraid of the truth, has no problem lying for the greater good either. i was so confused about the whole “perjury” aspect added to this game. i thought it was just another lame addition that didn’t make sense as a means of attempting to change it up a little in comparison to the last two games. but now i understand it’s greater purpose. lying is ultimately not a bad thing. not always, anyway. lying, as we find out, can help us pursue the truth. and i think kokichi knows this to be true in some ways, which is why he’s always acting so oblivious and naive at some times — or outright lying when he knows the truth is the opposite of what he’s saying. what kokichi realized early on was that everyone in the academy was running on emotions rather than logic, fearful of accepting the truth that may be unearthed. knowing this, he forced everyone to think about things a little differently via lying, even if it pissed everyone off. without a doubt, kokichi seriously helped move debates along during the trials. pretty sure whether you hate him or love him, people could agree to that. even if he appeared to be spouting nonsense or derailing the conversation, shuichi being the detective he is was able to slowly but surely understand (if only somewhat minimally) kokichi’s methods and thinking process. which is why chapter 5 was so wild because it quite literally was all up to shuichi. kokichi single handedly put his trust into kaito to follow through with the plan, and shuichi to figure it out; NO ONE ELSE would’ve been able to figure it out except shuichi (except maybe maki but she was too stubborn to see through to the truth). and that is like. holy shit??? that’s crazy to me and i think it shows that despite not trusting anyone and not knowing how it was going to turn out, kokichi took that gamble anyway. and it worked! except yknow. it also didn’t, in a way. all in all, the lying aspect of the trail grounds ties into the bigger overarching theme of choosing your own truth to live, and choosing what lies to believe in — good or bad.

side note: i think it’s so funny how mad kokichi gets when shuichi lies about seeing him in the virtual world in chapter four. had shuichi not lied, we wouldn’t have figured out it was gonta (or more likely, kokichi would’ve spoon fed the answer to everyone a bit more). gonta wasn’t supposed to have memory loss, and i have to wonder if shuichi not lying about kokichi would’ve made the trial go along if gonta still had his memories from the virtual world. in any case, when shuichi pulled the “yeah i actually did see you walk up the stairs” — the fact he LIED, mr “i’m searching for the truth so we can live and find the culprit” detective, to notorious king of liars ouma kokichi was so funny to me. like girl. ofc kokichi’s gonna realize you lied. and he did and he got so fucking mad over it and kokichi being petty like that and just saying “yeah okay gonta’s the culprit” is so funny to me. bro was LIVID he decided to just up and say the truth to be petty 😭 aaah, but of course, i do think there’s more to it than being petty. but perhaps that’s a conversation for another time.

moving on, i think the big three characters juxtaposed with shuichi is something to note. those three being kaede, kaito, and kokichi. mayyyybe i’m looking a bit too much into this but i want to mention their relationship with shuichi and their character designs because it feels very intentional to me. a while back i made the realization shuichi and kokichi have inverted color palettes — black with light accents vs white with dark accents. grey-ish yellow vs purple eyes. but the eye color inversion also actually applies to kaito and kaede, who, just like kokichi, have purple eyes. here is my argument: purple is an important color to the story, as it overall conveys a symbolism for trust and truth. if you look at those three’s color palettes, purple is a notable hue. for kaito, it’s dominating. kaede, she’s a bit more desaturated, and kokichi it’s like his accent color. barely there, but noticeable nonetheless.

kaede is our first culprit (except she isn’t since her plan failed). she is trusting and sweet and kind and encouraging. shuichi clings to her like glue because she is everything he wishes he could be: confident and strong and good. oh, but she is desperate, desperate to find the mastermind first thing because she is heavily determined to help everyone escape. her color palette is a mix of purple and pink, with pink being more prominent and her purple being a more lavender shade. she’s desaturated in color, especially in her eyes, and i want to say this is likely symbolic of her desire to find the truth, yet her willingness to deceive others simultaneously. she’s not a bad person, far from it, but when she “kills” rantarou, she doesn’t own up to it immediately. she owns up to it eventually, but she also doesn’t take advantage of the first blood perk as a means of further trying to find the mastermind. she is willing to lie about her plan to shuichi (even if it’s lie by deception/not telling) and willing to take a risk to find and kill the mastermind. this, i believe, is why her eyes are so desaturated in purple; she is telling the truth, but it’s watered down. she is not an evil, untrustworthy person, but rather the evil and lies were thrust upon her, leaking into her kindness and purity to stain her.

kaito is almost the complete opposite of kokichi, but also not exactly the same as kaede. out of the three, he has the brightest purple eyes and the most purple on his body. he is a living, breathing, walking example of trust and truth. he wants to find the truth so badly and would never even think to tell a lie. would never even consider murder, even if it was to annihilate the mastermind. his hair is purple, his jacket is purple, and his eyes are purple as all hell. kaito is truth and trust. he trusts maki just because he wants to. he trusts shuichi just because he wants to. he wants to believe in them because he wants to find the good in everyone. his trust in them help bolster shuichi into a better mindset, especially after kaede, and encourages him to keep going. kaito might not be the brightest, nor the most helpful in the trials, but emotionally he is vital to shuichi. because he trusts shuichi.

kokichi has the least amount of purple in his color palette, but i think his purple accents are the most important out of all of the purple trio. if purple is the color of truth and trust, then having that color reflected on kokichi almost seems ironic and misinforming. except it isn’t. ouma kokichi, the notorious king of lies, is actually quite good at leading everyone towards the truth. the only purple on him is in the dyed tips if his hair and his eyes— almost like the truth his bleeding out of him, or rather just barely visible that you can’t make it out unless you focus hard enough. after all, at first glance i imagine everyone would take in the checkered scarf and the fact black and white is so prominent on him. i think it’s symbolic to have purple as his eye color. it’s a nice character design aspect in my opinion, but it also is a call back to that one saying that “the eyes are the window to the soul.” despite what kokichi might say or do, the truth is in his eyes (literally). it’s silent and unassuming, but it’s there. his eyes are actually a brighter and darker purple than kaede’s. not as bright as kaito’s, but still something i imagine harkens back to the knowledge he carries; ouma kokichi is well aware of the awful strings being pulled in this wicked killing game, but he isn’t willing to blindly share everything quite yet. he has his own suspicions about everyone, after all.

with all this being said, shuichi gets a different sense of truth and trust from each of them. kaede provides him an equal dose of truths and lies, kaito gives him absolute truth, and kokichi gives him almost absolute lies that ultimately leads to the truth.

and i really, really love the dynamic between shuichi and kokichi with this whole truth vs lie theme. kokichi, as we learn in his free time events, loves to play games. he’s a bit childish but still extremely mature. his way of having fun is messing with people (though not necessarily in a mean way). after all, he makes the stakes extremely high and concerning, like killing yourself if you lose — but he still purposefully rigs each game so they end in a tie, or with shuichi winning. hell, he himself, hurts himself, in the knife game that is in the final and fifth FTE and holy shit if that isn’t foreshadowing for the fifth trial idk what is. he is willing to hurt himself to avoid others getting hurt. yes, he masquerades as an evil leader who’s despicable, and his words often have a bite to them that can really sting, but his actions speak louder.

obviously this can get more complicated when it comes to chapter 4. you could argue he hurt miu and gonta terribly and he should’ve died if what i said was true, but i would counter argue by saying the killing game would’ve gone on and on, just like tsumugi wanted, without his intervention there… still a heart wrenching trial nonetheless and gonta and miu both deserved better, in my humble opinion. but what would danganronpa be without unfair trials and bullshit like that?

it’s this push and this pull, this dance, if you will, between shuichi and kokichi. kokichi is a trickster pulling various stunts and never revealing his hand, and shuichi is a detective trying to uncover his secrets. i think kokichi gets thrilled at the prospect of being uncovered like that — he lies and he lies and he wants someone to catch him, wants someone to understand him. spoon feeding everyone answers is ridiculous, shouldn’t these people be able to think for themselves? after all, in the love suite hotel his entire thing is phantom thief being captured by detective shuichi…… the fact he still says “because i love you shuichi” is fucking insane, but that’s actually not the most important part here. during the love suite, he brings up playing games again, just like in the FTEs. “you weren’t bored playing with me, were you?” kokichi asks. and then “are you mad because i toyed with you? don’t worry. i’m always thinking about you!—“ (bombastic side eye 🤨🏳️‍🌈) “—you’re always trying your best to catch me. i really have to give it my all to win .” and then shuichi points out directly after that he seems to be enjoying himself, despite being a “cornered criminal.” and that’s when kokichi admits that he wants shuichi to catch him. ….. oh boy the connotations here are kinda crazy but…. it gets even crazier. i cant believe this part is voice acted but here i’ll just link the video so people can watch. (from 4:32 to 5:10) a lot of this, especially towards the end, is likely for the whole romantic love suite hotel roleplaying thing going on to appease the audience playing the v3 (and to satisfy kodaka’s desire for weirdly homoerotic tension between every protag and antag in his games), but even still it’s such a fun dynamic. again, the push and the pull. it almost feels like a game of tag, the thing going on between shuichi and kokichi. except it’s hard sometimes to figure out who’s running after who. overall, kokichi is a liar and it’s hard to tell what he says is true, and shuichi is a detective hungry for truths.

side note 2.0: i think a lot of people hate saiou because it feels toxic and i can sorta see where they’re coming from: from a very bare bones glossing over their character dynamic, i could potentially see how they got to that conclusion, but i don’t think that conclusion did any real deep diving into their dynamic and characters. so no, saiou is not toxic. and also, it should be mentioned the moment shuichi shows signs of unease in the love suite hotel after kokichi shoved him over the bed, bro was up and out. kokichi respect boundaries and understands a no when he hears one 😁👍

however, i have since changed my mind. if i’m being so fr, coming to understand ousai/saiou has honestly helped me understand v3 as a whole a bit more. that, on top of also just sitting with my feelings for a couple of months now.

i genuinely don’t mind the v3 ending, for more reasons that one. it’s not a perfect masterpiece, but deserves kudos. firstly, it’s a nice commentary imo on the concept of violence being used as entertainment. here we are, players and audiences to a game about students — children, really — killing themselves. there’s this sick fascination we as society have had towards media like that, whether it be via books, tv/movies, or video games. we are confronted with how sick and twisted it really is when saihara and gang realize the truth. people are watching them. and it’s not us, granted, but fictional people within the dr universe, but the point still stands. we are watching people kill and be killed. and we enjoy it.

this is why i don’t think there will ever be another danganronpa game. i love those games dearly — they’re so ass and so peak at the same time. but the message for v3 was clear: we’re putting an end to danganronpa. which is both sad (no dr4 ☹️) but also it’s waving in your face “hey, hey, pay attention! violence shouldn’t be glorified like this!!!”

but back to what i was saying about saiou helping me determine my feelings on the ending. if you’ve read my saiou analysis, then you know i really enjoy the whole truths vs lies theme for v3. it not only serves as a fun dynamic between saihara and ouma (and also just saihara and the game in general) but also engages the audience to think about truths and lies. in chap. 6, saihara, harukawa, and yumeno all have a mental breakdown over the fact nothing of what they knew was real to begin with — not their memories, not their personalities, not their characters. but… you can’t really fake your emotions. sure, maybe maki was written to fall in love with kaito, but does that really invalidate her feelings? she felt something, didn’t she? she cared, didn’t she? yeah, it’s sick and twisted to think someone manipulated her to feel that way, but the fact she felt such a strong emotion nonetheless doesn’t make her emotions and feelings unreal. at least, i don’t think so. and the creators of v3 agree. their message, as far as i’ve deduced, is that no matter what’s real and what’s fake, you ultimately choose your own truth to live by. shuichi’s past was overwritten by his new personality that was horrified at learning what danganronpa truly was. but he took this, despite the pain and horror, and claimed it as his own. despite everything, he is still saihara shuichi. there are lies sprinkled in there, but there are also truths.

if everyone agrees that the sky is blue, that is a universal truth. the same logic can be applied to lies. so, if everyone universally agrees the sky is green, that is also a truth. except — the sky is not green. not unless we want it to be. we as a society mold and bend truths and lies to make our reality clearer to ourselves. to help us understand the world we live in. but how do we know for sure what is real and what isn’t? is the sky really blue, just because everyone says so? perhaps we have been lying to ourselves the entire time.