#whatever post

The first clue that Kokichi is suffering from this phenomenon appears in the very first chapter, before the first murder. This scene has many, many clues actually, but we’ll get to that.

And yes, I’m talking about when Kaede pushes the others too far when trying to escape.

Kaede is clearly pushing everyone too hard. Everyone is tired, it’s night time by the time they finally give up, but Kaede can’t see that.

Despite the rest of the cast being thoroughly tired, in pain, and distraught, Kaede keeps trying to push them to continue. This is actually an excellent twist on the “Never giving up” trope because there is a serious danger to that mentality. That you just gotta keep trying until you get it–except that’s not how the real world works. People have limitations and feelings that need to be considered. Kaede was not being considerate of everyone else, and she was failing as a leader of the group.

Which is why Kokichi, the Ultimate Supreme Leader, steps up to knock her down a peg.

And he’s not wrong. It is a form of torture to force people to do something they just physically or mentally can’t accomplish. And this is actually a brilliant start for Kokichi’s character. He flips that “You can do it if you just believe!” trope on it’s head and steps up as a leader. While others might disagree, I believe Kokichi’s ultimate talent really is what he says it is: Being a leader. His actual “organization” might not be impressive, but later on we see Kokichi’s leadership skills shine, though right here it shines the brightest. Because unlike Kaede, he’s got everyone else’s limitations in mind. When he sees his peers suffering, he knows it’s enough. Unlike Kaede, who is too focused on the goal, Kokichi’s focused on everyone else. That’s what makes him such a good leader to be recognized as an “ultimate” leader.

Later on, we’ll see that his talent for leadership continues to be a huge part of his characterization, though quite subtle. However, this is where things immediately start to fall apart for Kokichi as he suffers from DCS, and how the writers write his peers in regards to his character. And yes, Kokichi himself is a well written character–what makes him a victim of DCS specifically, is all other characters cannot begin to understand him, get along with him, or even tolerate his existence. And that’s the problem.

When Kokichi calls Kaede out for pushing the rest of the cast too hard to complete an impossible situation…

He’s called selfish. Granted Tenko’s aggression towards male characters has been well established so this goes under the radar, but it’s a horrible sign for Kokichi’s character. That his character is the subject of the biased morality of his creators. It seems like at first, the writers are going for “Kokichi is right!” and has multiple students admit that they’re suffering. There are characters who fight this mentality, of course, as it’s natural for a high-stress situation for there to be strong opinions.

But then this happens.

Again, considering what we learn about Rantaro’s paranoia later, this can easily be an instance of characters clashing, but it isn’t. It’s the unfortunate start of a downward spiral for the writers and Kokichi’s character verses his peers. Kokichi may have made a mischievous expression when saying they should look for another option, but he never once implied that was what he meant. That they should “kill each other” instead. He even seems surprised that Rantaro immediately jumped to that conclusion. Then Tenko jumps on board with Rantaro’s statement immediately assuming the worst from Kokichi without any reason to believe Kokichi meant “We should kill each other.”

Even if he had meant to imply as such, it is obviously a manipulative lie. To see who he has to worry about. Who is paranoid, who is scared, and who is most likely to kill. Whether he meant it as Rantaro interpreted it or not, this is a huge red flag that Kokichi’s character is doomed from a writer’s standpoint.

The writers can’t see his kind of character being likeable in the real world–so no person would ever be able to get along with him, right?

And it just gets worse from here. And we’re not even out of the first scene yet.

Kokichi is being nice here. He’s offering bubble gum. Is it condescending? Maybe a little. We can’t tell without hearing Kokichi’s voice, and all we get to hear is his little “Neeheehee” laugh. A hint of mischief, perhaps, but he might as well be genuinely offering bubble gum as a peace offering to calm Tenko down, and considering he claims to be a pacifist later and prefers to solve disputes in his gang with games, this seems pretty genuine–and she threatens him instead of once considering it.

Again, Tenko is just being aggressive because he’s a guy, right? That’s what you probably assume at first, especially since they’re in such a stressful situation. It’s only natural that Kokichi butts heads with some characters.

But when it’s all characters, you know something’s just not right here.

Immediately, Kaito steps up to tell Kaede it’s not her fault–well, to be blunt, it is her fault. She’s playing the trope of the “ideal” leader, but leaders like her are more harmful than productive. Again, while this isn’t directed at Kokichi, this is still a part of the spiral downwards. Where the writers could have suggested Kokichi is an actual, capable leader, they immediately flip it on it’s head to suggest that Kaede was not wrong in her carelessness and that anyone who “complained” and blamed her was at fault. It goes under the radar since Kaito is talking about more than just Kokichi, but the writers are very clearly setting it up that Kokichi is going to be considered antagonistic for being a much better leader than Kaede and standing up to her when he realizes that she’s being careless of her followers.

Remember, Kokichi is the Ultimate Supreme Leader, and already, his leadership skills are being dismissed and questioned. Instead of letting Kaede realize she actually was being a terrible leader, the writers are pushing her to dismiss Kokichi’s words as just antagonistic nonsense. Unfortunately, everything Kokichi does will forever be seen this way, as well, by all members of the cast.

And then Shuichi reinforces this idea.

And this is when those red flags becomes evidence. I know Shuichi is trying to comfort Kaede, but he’s also being genuine. He thinks Kokichi’s words were nonsense, despite the fact that several others in the group were hurting, mentally and physically.

And he’s supposed to be the Ultimate Detective. He should have seen the pain the others were going through immediately. Even before Kokichi stood up to Kaede. This is crucial because Shuichi later on picks up on emotional changes rather quickly, aside from special instances that so happen to deal with Kokichi.

In short, Shuichi only notices emotional changes in others when Kokichi is not somehow involved. Unless it’s Kokichi causing the emotional shift in someone, and even then, Shuichi just so happens to miss positive impacts Kokichi has. He only calls out the times Kokichi negatively steers someone’s emotions and completely ignores it or dismisses it when Kokichi actually does something that positively affects someone’s character. And yes, I’m talking about Himiko’s character development at the end of the third chapter. But honestly, if I combed through every chapter to find these inconsistencies, I think tumblr would eat me. So I think I’ll just get a move on and get my point across. I feel as if this one scene alone pretty much has, but there are still more things I want to nail into this coffin before I am satisfied.

Finally, we can move on from this scene, at any rate.

But this continues to the next day in chapter 1, so we’re still not even out of the first chapter yet, and the writers are already dooming Kokichi’s character to DCS.

Kokichi’s first lines of the following day are, seemingly, words of concern for Kaede. Whether it be genuine, or more likely, a ruse to get on the topic of Kaede’s epic fail of being a leader, it still leads on to the others immediately blaming Kokichi for the events of the night prior.

If you look back to when Kokichi actually stood up to Kaede, you’ll see he’s frustrated, yes–but I’d say he never outright admits that he blamed Kaede for not noticing she was pushing them too hard. (Unlike Maki who bluntly says she blamed Kaede.) Being a real leader is hard, after all–so if his concern is genuine, then this shift to blame Kokichi and put all of the blame on Kokichi is especially heinous from a writer’s perspective.

If Kokichi’s concern isn’t genuine, then he’s calling attention to the frustrated feelings from everyone the night prior–maybe including himself as well–and saying that outright blaming Kaede was wrong of them. If his concern wasn’t genuine, it at least was a call out to the event because unresolved feelings among the group are there. Unresolved feelings can and will divide the group, and the only logical explanation that Kokichi would even bring up how mean everyone was to Kaede is to get the group to discuss their feelings openly.

It doesn’t make sense that he would draw attention to it just to mock everyone and Kaede or cause a break in the group. Especially when he knows he’s the one who stood up to her. He’s definitely one of the smartest characters in this cast, and if it was only in his interest to screw around with the rest of the cast, he knew it would immediately backfire onto him.

… Though, maybe he wanted that, to prove a point. That this group of people are willing to push the blame onto someone else rather than take responsibility for it. This does lead into a discussion where Kaede admits that she was in the wrong and apologizes for it, and Kokichi’s first reaction to this, is…

It was clear his goal was to get these feelings among the group resolved, regardless if he actually cares for the well being of Kaede and the others as a whole. Again, a shining example of his subtle but powerful skill as a leader. He knew exactly what to do and say to get the group back on the same page.

And even though he’s blamed again…

It only solidifies his skills and intentions further. Again, those emotions from the night prior couldn’t stay unresolved, and he made sure that they weren’t. He even admits that here–except yet again, he is dismissed as just lying. The cast around Kokichi is already showing signs of distrust and resentment towards Kokichi and really, there’s no real good reason for it other than he lies a lot.

And from here on out, that’s how the cookie crumbles–none of the characters come to understand or even remotely like Kokichi, and immediately assume the worst of him. Even in Kokichi’s free time events, the protagonist is left annoyed and confused by Kokichi rather than getting a full understanding for his character and personality.

That speaks volumes about this issue. Where other free time events end with the protagonist actually feeling closer to the other character, Kokichi is a character they barely change perspective on. There are a few exceptions, however any character that is seen with a decent relationship with Kokichi are seen as naive, stupid, or vulgar.

Kokichi isn’t the “Komaeda” of the bunch like players might immediately assume, and thus a lot of the mistreatment, dismissal, and negligent behaviors the rest of the characters display for Kokichi gets brushed off like it doesn’t matter because he’s “the Komaeda” of the V3 cast. The writers think he deserves the mistreatment because he is a person they themselves wouldn’t ever get along with. Because of that, he must be an unlikable person/character who needs to be choked (twice), hit, ignored, had serious head injuries neglected, and turned against in order to be redeemable/liked as a character. After all, it’d be super frustrating for a lot of people if the “bad character” didn’t get their punishments, right?

That’s the point of this huge rant, though.

Kokichi, because the writers can’t understand why anyone would like or get along with a person like him, suffers from the biased morality of his creators, and why fans of him like myself are so frustrated. It’s frustrating to see a relatively harmless person/character get so harshly abused by the cast and the writers when Komaeda, the actual antagonistic character of the DR2 cast, is treated better and he tried to kill people.

So yeah. I think the creators definitely liked Kokichi as a character–but because they didn’t like him as a human, he needlessly suffers as a person and as a character.