Even putting aside all that
Why would Maki specifically want to kill Kaito of all people? Given their relationship, it is odd to say the least. Plus, as you said, if she brought the Exisal into the hangar, you would think she would just use that instead. Unless, of course, she totally planned to and something unexpected happned was when she was inside.
Well, I never thought that Maki wanted to kill Kaito specifically. I figured that she wanted to create a murder that would be difficult to solve, and the situation with Kokichi and Kaito gave her the opportunity to do so. If Kokichi had taken someone else captive, she’d have killed that person and Kokichi instead.
Sure, Kaito and Maki had a relationship in which one would not expect Maki to murder him, but since chapters 2 and 3 pulled very extreme motivations out of nowhere, I figured that could be the case here as well. After all, Maki used a flashback light, who knows what she actually saw, and what kind of motivation that could give her to commit murder.
Regarding the Exisal thing, I thought that Kokichi could use an Electrobomb to disable the Exisals if someone attacked him with one. However, the Electrobomb only affects sensors and communications, so it would not actually prevent someone from piloting an Exisal from the inside. Still, not using the Exisal can be explained. Killing someone with an Exisal would be very messy, and if she wanted to do her double murder with both corpses crushed in the hydraulic press, she’d want to kill Kokichi in a way that wouldn’t leave obvious traces behind.
Well, it’s time for the final class trial. The investigation confirmed or heavily suggested a number of things I was already suspecting, so there isn’t that much to elaborate on. Still, some quick and lazy final thoughts before I proceed to the trial.
The flashback light memories are fake. One might think this extends only to the truth about the outside world (which is probably nowhere near as destroyed as it would seem - the whole meteorite thing might be false. The kid at the beginning of the chapter was probably watching this very killing game, or a previous iteration), but I suspect it goes beyond that. The identities of the participants themselves are not what they remember. In the very beginning of the game, they were “normal high-school students” who awakened to their Ultimate talent with a flashback light. It will turn out that they really were just normal students whose minds were overwritten with memories of the Ultimate students. This is how the killing game is eternal - the lives of the participants are recycled through new hosts for their memories. This was foreshadowed by the reappearance of the Monokubs at the end of chapter 5, and Monokuma musing about how amazing it is to be able to recycle life, though the new Monokubs were “returned to factory settings”, much like new host for an Ultimate’s identity would not remember the specifics of a particular class trial. This was how the resurrection with the Necronomicon would have worked.
The mastermind is tied to Kaede Akamatsu, either being Kaede herself or her sister. Nothing would be more despair-inducing than Kaede being the mastermind, so I’ve been entertaining the thought for a while. With a twin sister existing, Kaede could have pulled off a twin-switch for her execution, and still be alive. I also suspect Tsumugi is her accomplice. She has had much less spotlight than anyone else in the surviving cast, Shuichi responded with suspicious ellipses when Maki said that this class trial would be better since they can all definitely work together against Monokuma. Some of Tsumugi’s behaviour feels a bit unsettling. Something about her just feels off.
After the first trial, I briefly wondered if the murder would be revisited, since Rantaro is obviously a super-shady plot-relevant character. And here we are. However, I can’t really make much out of the new evidence. Why would there be a second shot-put ball? Ah. Twin-switch. Now I understand. I literally just thought of that as I wrote those words. Yes, the second shot-put ball proves that a twin-switch happened. And it happened between Kaede grabbing the ball and the end of the stakeout. When exactly did it happen, and what does this imply for the first murder? Nothing major that I can think of right now. I can’t think of a scenario in which anything meaningful would change about how the murder happened, though the evidence about the secret door implies that there should be some trick. If only there was a way to prove that the one who actually murdered Rantaro is not the one who was executed.
I went to grab my laundry from the washing machine, and one detail to Rantaro’s death suddenly became clear. Rantaro was holding the Survivor Perk Monopad, but the one discovered was a normal Monopad. This means that one of the twins was waiting inside the hidden room, opened the door from the inside, switched the monopad for a normal monopad, and retreated back to the hidden room while the door was still open. What does this tell us? At least this makes it clear that the murder or Rantaro was a calculated plan involving both sisters moving in sync, instead of just one sister acting on their own. Though I suppose the twin-switch already more or less confirmed that. I feel like there’s more to discover by pondering exactly why a twin-switch was even necessary and other assorted details, but once again, if I want to get the class trial done today, I can’t spend time pondering this anymore.
I suppose that’s what I will be going with for the last trial. There will undoubtedly be a lot more to everything than what I wrote there, but I’ll leave that for the class trial.
Is shitposting allowed?
So I just finished chapter 1 yesterday and Oh yay another makato-esque main character. I was really liking Kaede as a main character as well…
I finished it. I have a lot to say.
But that’s all I’ll say.
For now.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Without looking at any other replies to this topic, I’m gonna share some deductions here before I enter the first class trial.
Gonta is the obvious suspect, which leads me to conclude he was framed.
It’s possible that Kiibo was hiding inside the room for a long period of time and got in through the vents before Kaeda and Shuichi entered that classroom. He then made it look like he entered with the other classmates. Note his position in the photo: He’s standing by the wall. Might be looking into it too much but it’s very possible he did it.
However, this case gets blown open if we assume that Shuichi tampered with the sensors BEFORE arriving with Kaeda, specifically when he left on his own to investigate the others. The fact that he was never mentioned by anyone else’s testimony is very suspicious and leads me to believe he left for the library. But… The photos don’t really allow for that. Is it possible he somehow tampered with the cameras and removed an incriminating photo where he entered the room? I won’t deny the possibility. If so, this case gets a lot more complicated.
Were they killed from inside or outside the room? Both are possible, but there’s too many variables to accurately determine a killer from just this info. Were the cameras and sensors tampered with?
My gut is telling me the killer is Kiibo, but it’s also possible Ouma or Shuichi did it, or maybe even Tsumugi. The time of death could’ve been much earlier than we think, but then we’d need someone else to open the door, as we see it closing when Kaede is arriving. Hmm…
Guess we’ll see how this turns out…
If we assume the cameras and sensors weren’t tampered with, then it’s also possible someone was hiding in the vent the whole time, and from atop the bookcase, threw the shot put ball so it landed on Rantaro’s death, retreating back into the vent and entering the room along with everyone else. Suspects for this are Kiibo, Ouma, maybe Tsumugi…
Update: Okay fuck I never expected that. I kept thinking it would be interesting if the player character ever committed a crime, but I dismissed it as an inviolable rule of the DR series that it couldn’t happen.
What I love is that the narration was STILL reliable, despite my character committing the murder. That’s amazing writing. It all clicked when I realised the possibility, but wow…
I think the contrary actually, the fact that the narration is reliable whereas the character had murderous intent was kind of weird in my opinion. It gives the impression that this twist was only here to surprises us and serves the story, but in term of gameplay mechanic, it was just impossible to find that Kaede was the murderer ( the only hints that Shuichi explains later are way too subtile ). The best way to handle this imo would have been to also control Shuichi who would notice some things, but here maybe it would have been too easy to understand that Kaede was the culpirt. Anyways I liked the idea to turn our character into a murderer, but the execution gave me the impression that the game " cheated ". I don’t mind crimes impossible to solve ( CF Chapter 5 of DR2 ) but here I think it wasn’t handle too well.
Actually, when you think about it, the parallels were there. You’ve seen all instruments that were a part of the murder before (the ball bearing, the camera). It was easy to figure out that the murder was committed from outside by dropping the ball on Rantaro’s head. From there the only damning connection left to make is that if the ball was dropped from the vent, it could’ve rolled along the top of the bookcases (which Kaede organized!). The only people who could reasonably have dropped the ball down there were Kaede or Shuichi and Shuichi was innocent (although I can give you that you could’ve pinned Shuichi down and gotten stuck).
This is true for a lot of Danganronpa cases, but it’s usually impossible given pre-trial information to prove someone’s a culprit; you can usually come up with the correct theory, but it’d be one among many viable ones. Actually proving it is usually not possible until the trial itself begins and you get more information you didn’t have (such as the ‘camera intervals’ in DRV3 trial 1).
That twist at the end was genius.
V3 is probably the best Dangan title thus far. They really escalated the meta way past the franchise’s standards.
Dangan Ronpa is near and dear to my heart, almost as much as Umineko. After Umineko’s popularity was dwindling (least on Steam), I stumbled on the SA LP and have been enthralled with it ever since. I feel like its themes and some of the character arcs resonated well with Umineko’s, and myself as well.
I’m way excited to get my hands on V3, but Mario Odyssey took precedence on a sixty dollar purchase, and now I’m rereading Umineko so it’ll have to wait- Bug man is probably my favorite character just from design alone though!
Not really, I 100 percent suspected Kaeda as a possible culprit going in blind. My main suspects were her and Suichi simply b/c of what they had access to /where they were in the library. In fact, it became more obvious to me when Kaeda was sure that Suichi wasn’t the culprt and there were little things in the class trial that made me suspect her more. It was a completely fair mystery.
I actually ended up catching onto it being her around when the investigation started. But then again, that could’ve just been me recognizing unreliable narration when I see it. There were a lot of points while they were setting up those cameras where you could tell something was up. By the time she’s giving Shuichi that speech in the elevator, my suspicions were pretty much confirmed.
In any case, switching to Shuichi at points before the reveal would’ve given it away too soon and I feel like it wouldn’t have really worked for most people. Even if one had trouble seeing through the entire trick because of the unreliable narration, I found the twist to be fun. And honestly, that’s something I personally appreciate far more than complete fair play.
I’m at case 3 so this isn’t an issue for me, but maybe lay some spoiler tags here? Like, y’know, the same way we don’t talk about Kinzo and episode 4 just in case, the same thing kinda applies here…
Did anybody else think the whole ambiguity about whether Tsumugi was lying to the cast or not was kind of pointless? It felt like a cheap way to “inject” speculation discussion into something that a strong story wouldn’t bother leaving ambiguous. That was probably my biggest gripe with the ending really.
V3 Finale Spoilers.
I have never felt so conflicted about ending to a video-game/anime in my life. I understood the message that Kodaka was trying to convey but man how I feel disappointed, especially as this will be the final Danganronpa at least for a few years. It’s like he tried to recreate the insanity and greatness of Danganronpa 2’s final chapter but completely fell short
Ooo came up with a better explanation for V3: (Full Umi,Dr and Lost spoilers)
If Danganronpa 2, Umineko’s and Lost’s ending tried to have a 3 parent baby but something went horribly wrong
I think we all know what the best ost in danganronpa history is everyone:
(Jokes aside I love this song)
It kinda made the whole thing pointless to me. It felt like they were going “Ahah, we were just kidding. Your waifu Kirigiri is still canon. Maybe. Don’t worry guys.” Ultimately, I don’t think there is one truth and I don’t care much for DR’s main story, but meh.
Absolutely. I think sticking to one of the two ideas would’ve been a much stronger, albeit still controversial ending. It just feels so wishy-washy. I guess that’s true though, the appeal of DR for me has always been the fun cases, the overarching mystery/plot/twists just disregard all the rules of what make a good mystery story anyway.