Hajime Hinata and the Drive to Understand Others

Out of everyone in the SDR2 cast, Hajime himself is markedly the least tolerant, especially at the beginning. His entire arc is honestly largely about his rigidity and learning to be flexible with the rest of the class. Just based off his wariness in the prologue and how long it took him to click into the idea of just enjoying the trip, he has a long way to go. Even then, though, it wasn't necessarily his other classmates themselves that he was intolerant of. He was just freaked out about the situation and was perplexed that no one else seemed to be. It wasn't that he thought they were wrong, per se. It was more that he couldn't wrap his head around their point of view.

However, moving on through the rest of the game, Hajime goes out of his way to work to understand where the others are coming from, and becomes increasingly more tolerant and willing to work with his classmates the more he gets to know them. Even Nagito, who leads him around trials by the nose in a MUCH more overt and condescending way than Kokichi ever did with Shuichi. Hajime comments as much during many of the trials, how he knows Nagito's pulling some bullshit and it's frustrating him but he still goes along with it because he knows everyone is just trying to survive in their own way. He rolls with Nagito's punches to get to the bottom of things, even if he doesn't understand why Nagito's doing it the way he does in the moment. At the end of the day, Hajime knows that Nagito has some kind of logic set that he subscribes to, and wants to understand it so they don't have to constantly fight and make things harder for themselves (see: Nagito's FTEs).

Actually, the entire THEME of the FTEs in SDR2 is Hajime's desire to get to know his classmates and most importantly, understand their logic and motivations. He wants to know why they are the way that they are, not so he can change them, but so he can better mesh with and comprehend them as they are, to the point most FTEs to my knowledge end with something to the effect of "I think I understand XXX a little more now!" From that approach alone, Hajime is quite famous for ending his FTEs in a very close and friendly relationship with every single one of his classmates.

Shuichi Saihara and the Rigidity of One's Own Beliefs

Shuichi meanwhile is constantly at odds with Kokichi and telling him to stop doing what he's doing because he is intolerant of Kokichi's point of view. He doesn't get Kokichi at all and he doesn't really try to beyond a bewildered exclamation of Why!? for no reason other than to vent his frustration. He doesn't engage with Kokichi's methods in any way, making snap judgements as to whether Kokichi is lying or telling the truth (usually that he is lying) without inquiring further, and honestly spends most of his time trying to compete against them because he inherently believes that those methods are wrong simply because he can't make sense of them.

This even rings true in his FTEs where Kokichi spends the whole time goofing and playing games, and rather than engage with and try to understand the language Kokichi is speaking, Shuichi spends the entire time hung up on the inane concept that Kokichi made a threat on his life in the very first FTE. And it's like, I know, I KNOW about the good ending to Kokichi's Shot Through the Heart event. I know that Shuichi's best outcome with him is to tell him that he could tolerate Kokichi's lies, but that's not understanding, that's not comprehension.

That's a defeated white flag of "you do you, I'm too tired to fight you on this anymore."

Shuichi doesn't really want to understand any point of view that doesn't fit in well with his own. He gets along well with many of his other classmates, but that's primarily because they don't challenge his worldview as heavily as Kokichi does. Then, since the player is intended to engage with the story through Shuichi's perspective and Shuichi carries the driving ideology for the rest of the class, Kokichi suffers greatly for it.

Hajime's Approach to Kokichi

Don't get me wrong, he would be frustrated. He would be so, so frustrated with Kokichi's bullshit. However, I don't think he would be any more frustrated than he already is with Nagito's meandering nonsense during class trials. And above all else, he would not reject the fact that however Kokichi sees the world is real and sensible to Kokichi, and that in itself makes it worthy of understanding.

With all that in mind, I imagine that when faced with Kokichi's lies, he would take a more inquisitive approach: asking lots of questions regarding the details of any given story Kokichi may spin to better understand the narrative Kokichi is going for and thus deducing his intentions. Don't misunderstand—he would not necessarily believe anything Kokichi says. However, he wouldn't automatically accuse Kokichi of lying, either. Rather, he would treat Kokichi's words with the sentiment of Schrodinger's Truth. It is simultaneously true and false until Kokichi's intentions are deduced, thus coloring the reasoning behind the claims themselves.

Remember, Hajime values the idea that everyone has a reason for their actions and that reason follows a logic set and intention that can be examined and understood. Peko is very cold and distant due to a very strong sense of duty and justice. Gundam is very fantastical in his language because he feels more comfortable engaging with the world through fantasy. Akane is always laser-focused on food because of a poor childhood. They have reasons behind acting the way that they do, whether Hajime knows those reason or not, and those reasons and the behaviors attached to them should be respected.

So while Kokichi's lies may be frustrating and confusing at first, Hajime would not disregard the fact that they hold some sort of meaning to Kokichi, and so it would be better and more productive to engage with those lies on Kokichi's level. That would mean poking and prodding to get to the bottom of things. Needling around to feel out the truth. In Kokichi's infamous words, cornering psychologically.

So no, he would not believe everything Kokichi says at face value, but he wouldn't not believe it, either. He would recognize that Kokichi is very deliberate in the way he words things—little breadcrumbs to follow to whatever Kokichi thinks is important—and would very directly play his game and pry into those words to find whatever Kokichi is trying to show him. The claims themselves are not the important part, it's the greater topic and the implications such a claim entails. Just like Nagito does, Kokichi is trying to point at a particular detail without outright saying so, for one reason or another, and Hajime would recognize the value of that.

Putting this Approach into Practice

As an example, I want to examine the nature of Kokichi's FTEs and how Hajime might approach them. I dunno if I might want to write an actual fic of it at some point—it honestly sounds like a fun exercise—so I won't go into too much detail, but the way I think it would start is like this:

The instigation and overall behavior from Kokichi would be relatively the same. Hajime would come asking about his organization, so Kokichi would divulge a lot of (frankly ridiculous) information about it in a grandstanding lie, only to end the conversation threatening to kill Hajime for knowing too much. The only things I think might change are what specifically Hajime would focus on in this interaction.

From the very beginning, there is one thing that Kokichi always consistently does when talking about his organization that I think Hajime would take an interest in:

Kokichi always, always follows this format when introducing his organization:

He is the leader of a secret evil organization.

It has 10,000 members.

He is a liar.

Him being the leader of an organization is the truth.

It's like clockwork and I think Hajime would find that very interesting. It isn't really about the organization at this point, it's about the wording itself. Kokichi always introduces himself this way, so beyond the literal claims, what could the intention behind this format possibly be?

And Hajime might conclude that it's a tutorial.

Through this one scripted introduction, Kokichi conveys two very crucial things:

He lies, but he doesn't lie about everything.

He often lies about specific details of things that otherwise are true, either to embellish or for some other purpose.

So what does this mean for Hajime? That means this is a precedent that he is going to have to get accustomed to and figure out how to work with. Kokichi treats himself like a puzzle and he wants Hajime to figure him out. From this, he can finally start to think about what Kokichi is telling him:

He is the leader of a secret(?) evil(? probably not) organization.

It does NOT have 10,000 members.

He lies a lot, so don't take every detail of every thing he says at face value.

But at the end of the day there is always a grain of truth somewhere to be found.

From that point on, I imagine the way Hajime approaches the interaction and the details he decides to focus on would be very different. He would still be frustrated over the fact he has to do it at all, but he will do it anyway because at the end of the day he wants to understand Kokichi as he is.

And to understand Kokichi, he has to engage with him on his own terms.

Conclusion

A Quick Sidebar on Terminology

So, before going into this, I want to first define some terms I'm going to be using because I want to avoid misunderstandings.

First, this analysis is purely from a Doylist perspective, exploring the author's intent and general themes. In that sense, I especially want to define what "narrative" means in the context I'm going to be using it, because I feel like it is something that can be misrepresented when we're talking about a story.

To me, "narrative" is less about the actual events and timeline and characters, and more about the exact themes and discussion the writer is intending to have with the reader. The characters are essentially sockpuppets to create an example of the type of thing the writer wishes to discuss and the themes they want to explore and for the reader to consider. It's a question of craft and figuring out what the author's intention was behind the choices they made in how the story played out.

What's all this about metanarrative, then?

Well, metanarrative in general is to speak to a narrative within an existing narrative, and I feel like that is a very important thing that lots of people overlook when engaging in V3's narrative. Metanarrative is an inescapable part of V3's entire story, because there are effectively TWO writing teams and viewer relationships to consider:

Kodaka and the devs who made the Danganronpa V3 video game, played by us, the player

Team Danganronpa as the team that made the Danganronpa TV show, viewed by the audience within the world the game takes place in, and the mask that Kodaka wears to tell this story

And with that in mind, it becomes a lot more difficult to detangle V3 in particular from an analytical standpoint.

What does this have to do with Kokichi?

Kokichi is, understandably, a very divisive character. No one in the fandom can seem to agree what his Deal is, and in a way that's kind of the Point to him and his arc as a character. Within the universe, it is left ambiguous at best, and as Shuichi says, the "truth is in the eye of the beholder."

... Is it, though?

So, from a narrative perspective, what is Kokichi's story REALLY about? It's about a lot of things. How lies aren't inherently evil, how sometimes people who just want what's best end up doing bad things to achieve something better, how quickly paranoia can change someone for for the worse. All of these things are true, I think. There is no one singular answer.

But today, in the context of metanarrative, I want to talk about Kokichi's narrative commentary on prejudice.

The Book Report Part

At the core of things, Kokichi's arc as a narrative, to me, is the exploration of the pervasive and predatory nature of prejudice and the disempowerment of the disenfranchised, and how prejudice can force people to feel like they have no choice but to become what is expected of them. It's a commentary on how a discrepancy in beliefs, ways of seeing and approaching the world, can be a matter of life and death when everyone arbitrarily decides that your way of thinking is inherently Wrong.

Note that I didn't mention any actual events or characters in that explanation, because narrative is a discussion the writer is trying to have with the reader.

And the reason I approach this from a Doylist narrative perspective is because I feel like a lot of people get very emotionally charged over Kokichi because of his discrimination. The characters are overly cruel to him, even when he does nothing inherently wrong, like in Chapter 1 where he primarily takes a backseat for the entirety of the chapter, including the investigation and the trial.

People who dislike Ouma laugh at his expense and claim that he deserved it. People like Ouma become outraged by this treatment and feel it is excessive and unnecessary. And when you approach it from the Watsonian context of looking purely at what it is he is doing and whether it makes sense for a random person to be treated in such a way for such behaviors, it is excessive and unnecessary.

But if that's the case, then why did Kodaka make it that way?

Many people feel like Kodaka must hate Kokichi as a character and is deliberately punishing him for existing, and... I feel like that's a bit shortsighted. Kodaka and the rest of the dev team are professionals after all. Kodaka is known for very nuanced approaches to social commentary through his work, especially Danganronpa, with its themes of restorative justice, critique of punitive justice, and exploration of the nebulous hierarchy of Talent.

So then why?

It's because the excessive and unnecessary prejudice is the point.

In the context of Kokichi's story through the lens of a narrative about prejudice and how arbitrary it is, a lot of the narrative choices made to create this atmosphere that Kokichi is being forced into the box of being an antagonistic person despite starting out as a goof and a bit of a weirdo with a heart of gold is exactly the kind of feeling that Kodaka is trying to instill in the reader. He is deliberately trying to make you uncomfortable and outraged by making it feel like Kokichi is being wrongly accused.

It permeates the entire story, it's in every nook and cranny of every character's dialogue, every thought Shuichi has, that there is some nebulous level of distrust around Kokichi and only Kokichi, which turns into a self-fulfilled prophecy as Kokichi begins to feel trapped by these preconceptions and starts acting accordingly. A very beautifully crafted simulation of confirmation bias that I feel like is a big part of what those who dislike Kokichi get caught up in, but that's not really what I want to get into in this post.

What I'm truly fascinated by with this is the way this prejudice is so pervasive that it seems to infiltrate even the narrative itself.

Where the Metanarrative Comes In

One of the things we discussed in the server was whether this aspect of the prejudice against Kokichi bleeding into non-character text is a narrative flaw, an issue of Kodaka's own prejudices bleeding into the story he was trying to tell. I feel like this was a bit of a misnomer for a few reasons.

First, an author's prejudices bleeding into a story is not inherently a flaw. In fact, I feel like that does a disservice to what art is. A story and a narrative is about what the creator wants to talk about. It's up to the reader to respond to that discussion in kind. That's just what art is. You as the reader cannot impose your own beliefs onto a work in conflict with that of the creator simply because you feel like they are wrong and then call that a flaw. You need to take the work and what it's saying for what it is, the creator's words and beliefs. It is not the creator's job to be politically or culturally correct for their audience at the detriment of whatever it is they are trying to say.

Second, and much more on-topic, it didn't really take into account what the "non-character text" in V3 actually is. There was a lot of conflating the prejudices seen in this text as Kodaka's own beliefs, because there was no character associated with them. I felt like part of the discussion was hanging heavily on this misconception that Kodaka's narrative intent was for Kokichi to be seen as evil, because that's what the "non-character text" pushes, and I just do not think that is true.

I feel like a common pitfall with V3 analysis is that a lot of the general "non-character" things in the game (physical descriptors, visual storytelling, basically anything that doesn't come directly out of a character's mouth or Shuichi's thoughs) are being mistakenly attributed to Kodaka, and as a result people are assuming that the prejudice against Kokichi is coming from Kodaka himself because he does not like Kokichi. I already said before that I don't feel like that's the case, but then if that's not the case, what is the prejudice in the non-character narrative doing there?

This is where I want to remind you that Kodaka isn't the only writer here. The non-character narrative is not really "non-character" at all. It is itself a character that Kodaka is playing.

It's Team Danganronpa talking the audience, trying their best to make you agree with them.

This is the metanarrative.

In that sense, I think that the concept of "Kokichi being evil" was Team Danganronpa's metanarrative intent, but not Kodaka's narrative intent.

And that turns into an extra layer to the narrative Kodaka is trying to tell about how pervasive and influential prejudice is in the world we live in, in the greater context of society. The fact that at the end of the day, people in power are the ones who choose who is Good and who is Bad, and Team Danganronpa? They wanted Kokichi to be Bad, for their own metanarrative of their TV show.

Do I think Kodaka hates Kokichi? No, not in the slightest. I think he loves Kokichi with all his heart, and that shows to me in how bad the story is at trying to convince the reader that he's bad. Because it's Team Danganronpa that doesn't like Kokichi. It's Team Danganronpa that got in over their heads and are scrambling to keep Kokichi under control.

And Team Danganronpa is the real villain here.

If you're not convinced that Kokichi is evil, that's the Point. You're not supposed to be convinced.

From that perspective, all of the excessive prejudice and discrimination against Kokichi from the very beginning makes perfect sense, because he was Team Danganronpa's chosen martyr as the rival, and if the audience didn't believe that he was evil? Well, they'd make them believe it. You as the player outside of this story, meanwhile, are having a completely different conversation with Kodaka, because Kodaka made Team Danganronpa the villain of this story, and in doing so has put heavy critique on what they are saying to their audience and, more importantly, the prejudices they have with regard to typecasting.

@sw33tl1es in the server summed it up very succinctly: "You are have to consider what Team Danganronpa is trying to say to the in-game audience Vs what Kodaka is trying to say to you."

That's why I feel like it's a bit shortsighted personally, to assume that non-character writing is inherently the writer's genuine beliefs, especially in a metanarrative like V3 where there is an entire second ghost writing team haunting it. Everything the writer puts into their work has a purpose, and while maybe that could be a sign of their own prejudice shining through, I do think it's important to consider the context from all angles. You need to assess the deeper intentions and meaning of the narrative the writer is trying to discuss with you, the reader.

Kokichi's Draw to the Disenfranchised

Now, one of the biggest things about Kokichi to me is that he seems to gravitate toward the disenfranchised not matter what. In V3, as the cast begins to split off into groups, Kokichi often times ends up joining whoever is left on their own. The typical stragglers in V3 are Gonta, Miu, and Kiibo, and it's pretty common that Kokichi sticks by any one of the three and interacts with them the most.

Sidebar: You could argue that Maki is an outlier here, as he steers clear of her despite also being left out, but I would argue that's because he can tell that she's isolating by choice rather than by the force of the larger group. If she wants to be left alone, he'll leave her to her devices (that is, until she starts acting suspicious by guarding her Ultimate Lab and preventing people from seeing what's inside). Similarly, Tsumugi isolates herself by choice, often citing how plain she is without much distress over it. Kokichi isn't about to butt in if she doesn't seem to care one way or the other who she ends up hanging out with. Moreover, she doesn't seem to like Kokichi much anyway in the first place.

One might at first glance think of this as him just taking what he can get, but I think it's a lot more purposeful than that because he's able to bounce around from person to person at any given time instead of sticking where he is. This is most evident in Chapter 3, where Himiko, who was very close with both Angie AND Tenko, is very suddenly singled out and left alone.

For the investigation of that chapter onward, Kokichi very subtly detaches from Gonta and attaches to Himiko instead, all the way up until after the trial, where he calls her out for not being honest with her feelings. Once she has her breakdown, though, and the rest of the cast join in to support her, Kokichi quietly dips back to Gonta's side the next morning at the beginning of Chapter 4.

Overall, this behavior to me leans more towards a deliberate choice Kokichi is making to align himself with those who otherwise have no support to uplift them in his own way. It honestly makes a lot of sense, given his otherwise unacknowledged Talent, that he would feel compelled to help others. Another instance where Kokichi speaks up for the suffering minority include the Death Road of Despair, where he's the first to voice his complaints about Kaede running them ragged and tanks the fallout for the others who wanted to stop but were too afraid to say so.

Mikan Tsumiki and Passive Prejudice

Now, I've said before that class 77B is overall much more accepting and inclusive of the group. That has not changed. Mikan does not undergo any overt othering from the class like the disenfranchised characters of V3 do (see: Gonta's infantilization due to his social inexperience and Miu's dismissal due to her sexual eccentricities despite both of them displaying very clear and intelligence when it counts). The only true prejudice she receives is from Hiyoko's unprompted bullying, which has no clear reason behind it.

However, it cannot be denied that they don't do anything to STOP Hiyoko, either. This is a rare instance of the class at large being a bit too permissive of everyone, by simply allowing Hiyoko to do as she pleases because it's just "Hiyoko being Hiyoko." Moreover, everyone in the class seems to clearly understand that Mikan is intelligent and capable in her skills as the Ultimate Nurse, but this is just taken as the expectation. As a result, no one really praises her for her efforts despite consistently being the source of very important information for every trial, and even very nearly leads to the downfall of the rest of the class when she lied about the autopsy in Chapter 3 because they all take the validity of her information for granted.

All this to say, Mikan isn't inherently excluded, but there is a passive sort of othering that goes on with her. They do not judge her for being meek and clumsy, and yet simultaneously accept her as "the bullied one" and don't read too much into her true potential to make space for herself and do... literally anything else.

If I were to liken it to any character in the V3 cast, I would imagine it would most parallel the passive infantilization of Gonta, although with Gonta this is much more overt and harmful. Class 77B at least acknowledges on some level that Mikan is intelligent and capable, but in V3, the cast mostly writes Gonta off as socially unaware at best and outright stupid at worst despite his intelligence as the Ultimate Entomologist. In V3, this leads to a similar issue later on when the cast just can't seem to fathom the idea that sweet, innocent Gonta could kill another person, let alone conceptualize a reason as complex as a mercy kill.

Kokichi and Mikan as an Inseparable Duo

With all that being said, I imagine Mikan and Kokichi would largely be joined at the hip a lot like he is with Gonta through most of V3, and would behave a lot like how you described he does in UTDP. He would follow her around and pester her with questions, making up stories about some crazy life-threatening thing he survived, only to laugh when she tells him that's not physically possible and praise her for being so knowledgeable about the human body. He'd be in her corner the same way Mahiru often is for Hiyoko—quick to parry Hiyoko's bullying, and making sure he was always around to do so. Overall, he would be very vocal about his appreciation of her contributions to the group, something that the rest of the class does not often do because as an Ultimate it's just expected of her.

Like I said before, I'm not quite as familiar with Mikan, so I'm not entirely confident on how she would respond to this treatment, but I imagine she would be appreciative of his efforts because she's not used to people going out of their way to be with her all the time. I read through her FTEs to get a better feel for her, and I can imagine that since she fears not being cared about at all more than even being hated, she might argue in Hiyoko's defense at first, because at least Hiyoko cares enough about her existence to bully her in the first place. However, Kokichi would likely naturally combat that simply by being there for her at all times and arguing on her behalf, caring about her and appreciating her in a kinder way no one has before.

In terms of Mikan's treatment of Kokichi, I feel given her ability to read people's faces and in particular their health as the Ultimate Nurse she would be one to notice things about Kokichi that often slips under the radar for most people due to his outgoing personality. Especially considering he would be around her at all times, she would notice the stress of the killing game slowly taking its toll on him in the same way she noticed that Hajime wasn't sleeping well in her FTEs.

It would likely create an interesting back and forth between them regarding Kokichi's health. While Kokichi is, on the surface, more on the sickly side and definitely one to succumb to paranoia and stress, he exhibits strength in continuing onward in spite of it and even becomes more persistent the weaker he gets. This would pose to challenge Mikan's view that she has power over those who are weak and ill. I can imagine that he would even spin lies to prove as much to her, casually letting her fuss over him but also not allowing her to push him around. He would know that she knows he's lying when he tells the others that he's fine, but the point of the lie isn't for her to believe it, it's to show her that even those she perceives as weak can stand up for themselves and she is no different. She doesn't have to rely on others' weaknesses to elevate herself into a position of power.

This Dynamic in Practice

In the realm of the killing game in SDR2, this would honestly change the course of Chapter 3 a lot, without necessarily changing the outcome. I can imagine he would be one of the first to volunteer to help Mikan with the ill along with Hajime and Fuyuhiko, perhaps citing his ability to translate for Nagito with the Liar's Disease. However, when it comes to the hospital notice requiring visitors who are not actively caring for the ill to leave at night, Kokichi would likely spin a lie and pretend that he's also contracted the Despair Disease an excuse to be allowed to stay as one of the ill. Why would he do this? Simple: to make sure he's around to snoop and so Mikan isn't entirely alone and overwhelmed at night. He's small and sickly-looking enough already that he'd honestly be able to fly under the radar of anyone but Mikan herself after a thorough checking, but he's forceful and dramatic enough mimicking the erratic behavioral symptoms that she probably would not argue. Besides, Kokichi has been so independent and outspoken up until now; she might even jump at the chance of having some kind of power over him as his nurse even if he's been nice to her this entire time.

From this vantage point, Kokichi would likely be the first to notice her change in demeanor when she contracts the Remembering Disease just from his prior experience being around her all the time. However, I don't think he would necessarily be in a position to stop her. He would be stuck in his room most of the time, so the others—and more importantly Monokuma—won't catch on to his lie and get him kicked out. Moreover, as an interesting play into his arc in this context, he might have gotten comfortable as Mikan's one confidant and begun to trust her a bit too much. No, he probably wouldn't have thought to put much scrutiny on her in the moment even after she started acting strangely, because his focus would mostly be on the other ill patients and wanting to be helpful to Mikan.

If anything, being the only other healthy person at the hospital at the time Mikan starts executing her plan, and masquerading as ill at that, would likely put him in a very vulnerable position that she might even be able to use to her advantage to implicate him by revealing that he might not have been sick at all. It'd be his word against hers, and I've already spoken on class 77B's tendency to passively accept that Mikan is little more than a meek klutz.

In this situation, I imagine Kokichi would probably be one of the first to piece things together, and his approach during the trial would be to deconstruct 77B's perception of Mikan by drawing attention to the fact that she could lie about any information regarding the autopsy she wanted and nobody would be able to question it. Nagito already does something similar during the trial, but I feel like Kokichi would be a lot more overt and frantic about it. All the pieces point to Mikan, but he doesn't have the context to put together a feasible reason why Mikan would want to do what she did. After the clear-cut cases of Chapters 1 and 2, he's expecting there to be some kind of clear reason behind things. He would have to reconcile that the person he spent all his time with, supporting and uplifting, had become a Blackened. It's something that he definitely would have known to be a possibility, being as paranoid as he is, but it's a lot different when you're suddenly faced with that outcome.

It would hit a lot different than his situation in Chapter 4 of V3 with Gonta, because for all intents and purposes Kokichi views Gonta's situation as a proxy murder—that Kokichi himself is truly the one at fault and Gonta's status as Blackened is entirely dependent on the fact Kokichi was involved. However, Kokichi had nothing to do with Mikan's decision to become a Blackened. He has no need for that in this context, considering he's not being vilified like he is in V3. He and Mikan had a normal, friendly relationship, and he liked and trusted her as she was.

Then, after all that, she chose to kill entirely of her own volition, independent of his relationship with her. On top of that, the reasoning behind her murder is completely lost on everyone—some nebulous Thing that happened in their past that no one else remembers. He would want to know why more than anything else, so he can reconcile what parts of Mikan were true and what parts were lies. The problem there, though, is that all of Mikan is true, there are no lies to be found. Beyond having to reconcile that he just lost his closest buddy in the worst way possible? This revelation would drive Kokichi up the wall. What happened? What did they forget? Whatever it was, it changed Mikan's behavior enough to suddenly choose to kill not one, but two people, and be happy about it.

Thus marks Kokichi's decent into paranoia over the truth of their lost memories, something that I think would be the crux of how his spiral would play out in SDR2 in contrast to his isolation breaking him into the role of faux "Mastermind" in V3.

Conclusion

One of your underclassmen was absent from school for a few months, and when they returned, they were missing an eye. A date gone awry, they’d told you. An occupational hazard when going on dates with the Ultimate Luckster of Class 77-B. That makes sense. What a harrowing thing. You wondered what happened to the manhole cover. Did they still use it? Or was it thrown away for its crimes? You wondered if it still had a stain on it—an artifact of what transpired that day. You wish you could find it.

You loved artifacts.

Little bits of memory, little bits of life. You liked to collect them. Anything that spoke to the testament of humanity, be it information, or hobbies, or random little knick knacks that might have meant something to someone once, you would collect them. Your room was full of half-read books and half-finished projects, and half-baked arrangements. It was odd, you knew. The Ultimate Hoarder, they called you.

One of the first years in the hall was scolding another student for their untucked shirt. Against school policy, he’d said. Not so. Technically speaking, school policy is that all base components of the uniform must be present, but Main Course students are free to customize to the specifications of their Talent as they desire. You walked by without comment. You didn't want to stir up even more of an argument.

You had an approximate knowledge of many things.

Misunderstandings led to disagreement, and so you tucked information away to understand what the truth was. One person might cite a source, but misremember it in favor of aligning it with what they would like to think to be true. It was another little bit of humanity, the way information warped, and so you kept track of it. People got tired of you butting in to correct them, though. The Ultimate “Um, Actually,” they called you.

Another underclassman started talking about a friend from the Reserve Course going missing. No one else really mentioned it much besides her. They played video games together sometimes, but just stopped showing up one day, she’d told you. That he was talking about Talent and wanting to be something more.

You wondered what he was like. What it felt like to not be Talented. You weren’t sure if it would be much different than how you felt now. What did he like? What hobbies did he have? Did anyone besides your underclassman miss him?

What was it like to be missed? Was there even a way to know how something like that felt?

Then one of the first years went missing one day. He was a major cultural icon even outside of Talent—or rather, his Talent was because he was a cultural icon. Or was that just how his Talent worked? You weren’t sure. It was another one of those things you wondered about—the chicken or egg of Talent.

You digress.

The point was that he was an icon, and so it was a very big deal when he disappeared. Everyone was talking about it—what the family would do, if there was a ransom, all the juiciest gossip. You wondered about it, too, but differently.

You wondered where he was, what he was doing. His classmates all seemed very distraught, so the likelihood it was a willing disappearance was slim to none. You wondered if he was scared. You wondered what being kidnapped felt like—another one of those experiences that will always sit just out of your reach of full understanding. People found that odd, too. The Ultimate Morbidly Curious, they called you.

Then there was an incident, and suddenly your class was half the size that it was before. You weren’t in the Student Council, so you didn’t really have any idea what happened. You wanted to know. You wanted to know so badly. It was an unfortunate accident, the school had said. That didn’t make sense at all.

You wondered about the Reserve Course boy who disappeared.

You wondered about the first year boy who also disappeared.

You wondered just how much was going unknown to you. Undocumented. Lost.

It itched at you.

The year came and went like this, watching all these things unfold in your periphery. Picking them up along the way. Carrying them with you. You want to know. You want to understand. You don’t know why. It just felt necessary. Someone had to record it all. Someone had to remember. You wanted to remember everything. Be everything. Collect it all and—