25 | she/her | general death CW for my account because of the series i talk about | commissions are coming soon, requests are closed | the title is from drdt and is intended to be read with sarcasm
hi there! i'm accirax, an artist and analyst for series like drdt, project: eden's garden, disventure camp, and a bunch of other stuff. also, i'm a storyboard artist on reality resort and fangan co-author over at @av-multifangan! my specialties include drawing characters in silly situations, diving way too deep into why stories are written in the ways that they are, and using lots of emoticons. i hope you enjoy :D
In preparation for 2x2, I’ve been watching a SDR2 playthrough. And while I’m still dedicated to my “the developers have the chance to do the funniest thing ever by having Kazuichi be a survivor twice” idea…I’m really starting to come around on the culprit!Kazuichi agenda.
Because as time has passed, I think I accidentally made Kazuichi way more pathetic in my brain than he was in the game. If that’s even possible, lol. I knew he was cowardly, but I forgot that Kazuichi’s usual response to his fright isn’t immediately backing down and crying like Mikan. When Kazuichi feels threatened, he’s more prone to doing the exact opposite and getting aggressive. We see this early on in the game when he willingly helps Nekomaru tie up Nagito.
Not only that, but he admits he’s the one who knocked Nagito out, not Nekomaru.
(And he probably did it with his emotional support wrench, too. Funny how he complained about it being confiscated by Byakuya and then did this, lol).
Kazuichi may not totally look it, especially with how twig-like his arms are drawn sometimes, but he actually is decently strong, definitely strong enough to kill.
However, there’s also intellect to worry about. Even if he’s strong enough to commit murder, do I actually think Kazuichi would be smart enough to pull off a murder? And my answer is: I mean…Sure, he’s not the brightest, but I don’t think the writers have completely written themselves into a corner with him. His social skills are atrocious, but Kazuichi isn’t a complete idiot, especially if the writers find a way to incorporate his talent into the murder in an inconspicuous way.
I mean, sure, Kazuichi is shown to be a bad liar when it’s funny, but when it’s for something serious he seems decently competent at making things go his way.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it pointed out, but Kazuichi definitely says this to Hajime in order to make sure there’s the least possible chance Monomi can tell anyone about Nagito, and Hajime doesn’t even question it. And even if Kazuichi actually distrusts Monomi at that point in the game, which I’m pretty sure he does, he’s smart enough to not say it to Monomi’s face and he instead claims she’s the only one he can rely on, in order to convince her to guard Nagito for him. Like I said, the writers haven’t completely written themselves into a corner here, I think Kazuichi could carry a trial if they really needed him to.
Especially a trial in the first half of the game, meaning chapters one to three. If I had to pick one chapter in particular…I honestly think chapter three makes the most sense for him. First of all, there’s the Mikan and Kazuichi parallels.
These lines are the easiest way I feel like I can give “proof” that the parallels were intentional. But even if they weren’t, you really can’t ignore the two’s similarities. The most obvious of which is that they’re Hiyoko’s main targets, but there’s also how Kazuichi’s past self sounds a whole lot like Mikan, timid and wanting friends and having trouble standing up for himself (+being bullied). In that way, Kazuichi and Mikan are actually opposites in the game, Kazuichi putting on a tough, aggressive front whenever he feels threatened so he can cover up his timid side, and Mikan hiding behind her scaredycat reputation when she’s accused of murder in chapter three.
So I think having Kazuichi be the chapter three killer could be a very interesting spin on things, a subversion that fills the chapter three formula while still being unique. Sure, he’s not unemotional like Korekiyo or Celeste, and he’s not not prone to anger like Mikan, so his breakdown might not hit like their’s…But I think he could actually be quite haunting if he suddenly got really quiet instead, kind of like how Mikan is during parts of her breakdown. I think it could work if his breakdown was a sort of quiet, understated, but still extremely ominous rage. For once he’s not completely panicking at slight inconveniences, and it feels wrong…He acts more calm and collected now than he ever has. And then much further along he starts losing composure again, getting desperate as he pleads with Hajime that he thought they were friends.
You could definitely have everyone in the class start vouching for him like they did Mikan, too. Not because they like and respect him, but because they don’t. Gundham doubts Kazuichi is smart enough to pull it off or keep up the lie, which most of the class probably agrees with, and someone else brings up how he would never let Sonia die if she’s alive at this point, since he’s so pathetically devoted to her. Then someone else could say he’s too cowardly to actually kill anyone. If Nekomaru’s still alive, he’d probably actually vouch for Souda, since they actually did seem to at the very least respect each other. The only reason Kazuichi even invites Hajime to the beach party instead of Nekomaru in chapter two is because Nekomaru’s a bad liar, not because he likes Hajime better. So that aspect of the trial is another thing you could easily make work for him like it did Mikan.
I also think chapter three fits him because a murder that’s super convoluted for the sake of it, like the culprit was trying to do as much as possible and just threw a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what would stick…That kinda sounds like Kazuichi to me. He wouldn’t be a chapter three killer because he’s smart, he’d be a chapter three killer because he’s stupid, haha.
Also, part of me thinks it would be very funny to have Sonia only act even remotely interested in Kazuichi after he starts acting like one of her serial killers. Like he has the entire chapter three killer breakdown, Hiyoko calls him a psycho or something else equally rude, and Sonia is just like “Hm. Perhaps I judged him too harshly.” And everyone else is like “WHAT D:>”
I wouldn’t want that to actually happen after all the shit Kazuichi put her through, but the idea is still very funny to me. She doesn’t even like him romantically, she just wants to study him under a microscope now, but that’s good enough for him.
So anyways yeah, that’s why I think culprit!Kazuichi actually does make a good amount of sense. The writers making him a victim is too easy, the other characters literally make fun of him for acting like an easy first victim in the original game. Him just actually being an early victim this time would feel like a step back for his character’s complexity to me, not a step forward. At least not in most scenarios. So my updated personal ranking for the ideal Kazuichi outcome goes Survivor -> Culprit -> Victim.
How are we feeling about deltarune chapter 5 AND drdt bonus episodes. Spoiled over here. I am way too into total drama now but when ch 3 of drdt releases i'll probably watch it even though there's been like four lore updates since I last seriously thought about this series
Feeling great!!! About both :)
I kinda forgot that I never said anything about my Deltarune ch5 opinions on this account, but I really enjoyed it! The difficulty spike was REALLY bad for me (the game suddenly became half platformer and I have zero platformer experience), but after I got over the “mad because bad” phase I really enjoyed all of the story content. Flowery and Aqua are the GOATs (compliment) and Ralsei is the GOAT (literal). But also compliment; Ralsei fans (me) were eating deliciously this chapter.
The DRDT bonus episode was also really lovely! I’m thinking I’ll probably combine my thoughts on it with whatever Ace’s episode has in store next week in a longer post. I do kinda want to draw some fanart though, starring Wes and/or the really adorable CG.
I hope to see you back in the DRDT mines someday, but I hope you’re enjoying total drama! :D
Here's a, maybe fun, idea to ponder on. How viable do you think trying to predict who lives or dies using the seating order of a trial room is? With both canon and fangan examples on hand, perhaps there's something there? For example, I notice how often the one seated two spots to the right of the Protagonist reaches the final trial, even in Project: EG before they made that one single death order change that prevented it.
Danganronpa and Fanganronpa Class Trial Seating Analysis
You have come to exactly the right place! My eyes lit up when I saw this ask come in, and I’ve been thinking about it off and on since receiving it. Or, I mean, as much as I could, when I don’t have any of the Class Trial layouts memorized. I’m not that insane (yet. I’ll probably remember them better after writing this post).
As a disclaimer, I do think that canon and fanon are two different issues entirely, and additionally that any fangan not made by the same person/team is also kind of a different ballgame than any other fangan. At the end of the day, the Class Trial seating comes down to each creative team and what they want to accomplish, and different teams will have different goals for their stories. However, there’s still definitely something to be said for patterns that multiple teams may have opted into without realizing it, and how those patterns could be used to analyze other fangans.
I’ll be covering six games in this post– Trigger Happy Havoc, Goodbye Despair, Killing Harmony, Danganronpa Another, Super Danganronpa Another 2, and Project: Eden’s Garden. If you wish to avoid spoilers for any of these games, you may want to opt out of reading this post. However, if you’re caught up or cool with spoilers for all of these titles, let’s jump in!
CANON KODAKA
To save myself some work, I’ll be borrowing the graphics made by Creepercraftguy on Reddit for the canon games’ layouts, and adding my own tweaks! Consider giving their post support if you have a Reddit account.
Trigger Happy Havoc
Of note, in Creepercraftguy’s diagrams, the seat in front of Monokuma is at the bottom. If I need to refer to a seat in particular, I will be calling the seat in front of the mascot “seat 1” throughout all iterations, and proceeding clockwise from there. For THH, Hiro is in seat 2, Chihiro is in seat 3, etc.
So, within one game, what sorts of relationships are we looking for? Beyond things like spacing, I want to take a look at who winds up sitting adjacent to each other, who’s on opposite ends of the circle, and whose seats are mirrored across the circle. To clarify these terms, in THH, Sayaka is adjacent to Makoto and Taka, opposite Hiro, and mirrored by Hifumi. The characters in the 1 and 9 seats (Junko and Makoto, here) don’t have a mirror because they’re the axis on which the mirror is happening. I’m analyzing this axis and not the other one because it’s the axis the mascot (and in each of these examples, the protag) is on, and therefore feels more important. If there are any game-specific things I notice, I’ll list them below as well.
Without further ado, here are the strong connections I noticed:
Makoto and Sayaka are adjacent to each other (friends/betrayal)
Makoto and Junko are opposite each other (protag and mastermind)
Taka and Chihiro are opposite each other (Mondo’s closest relationships; Mondo is directly in the middle of them)
Leon and Mukuro mirror each other (killed by Junko in Chapter 1)
Kyoko and Byakuya mirror each other (Makoto’s spouses support and antag; Makoto is directly in the middle of them)
Mondo and Chihiro mirror each other (killer and victim)
Hiro and Hina mirror each other (survivors; second instance of mirrored survivors)
THH also has some weaker/secondary ones:
Sayaka and Hiro are opposite each other (canon 1st victim and original 1st victim)
Leon and Kyoko are opposite each other (1st killer and support)
Toko and Taka mirror each other (characters with alters)
I find it very interesting that the survivors are so symmetrical other than Toko. It makes me wonder if she wasn’t originally a survivor, and was instead added last minute. I’ve never heard any word of that being the case, though, so it’s probably just a coincidence.
Goodbye Despair
One thing I noticed while analyzing SDR2 is that this class’ seating order (if you consider Imposter a boy), is entirely boy/girl alternated.
Connections:
Hajime and Imposter are opposite each other (protag and 1st victim/”former survivor”)
Gundham and Nekomaru are opposite each other (killer and victim, rivals (sorta))
Hiyoko and Mahiru mirror each other (close friends)
Kazuichi and Gundham mirror each other (rivals)
In general, SDR2 had very few connections that I noticed. It’s possible that the boy/girl seating got in the way of making too many parallels.
SDR2 is the only canon game with two survivors sitting next to each other, those being Akane and Fuyuhiko. This would actually still be true in the case of the famous Hiyoko/Fuyuhiko swapout, with the adjacent survivors instead being Hajime and Hiyoko.
Also, in Trial 6, the fake Makoto takes over Nagito’s chair. All of the survivors move once the giant phone Junko appears, which makes it sorta pointless to track where the real Future Foundation members sit.
…But I’ll do it anyway just in case. Here’s the end-of-game seating orientation: Hajime stays in his seat, while Junko takes over Imposter’s (basically Monokuma’s). Akane, Fuyuhiko, Sonia, and Kazuichi take over Hiyoko, Gundham, Akane, and Fuyuhiko’s seats respectively. Real Makoto is in Nekomaru’s seat, Kyoko is in Teruteru’s seat, and Byakuya is in Kazuichi’s seat.
Killing Harmony
It’s interesting that Shuichi was in the typical protag seat from the beginning, as opposed to Kaede standing there and Shuichi getting promoted from a different seat. I imagine it’s meant to factor into the story of v3, that being that, if Tsumugi scripted the story, she would know that Shuichi was destined to become the protagonist. I wonder if keener eyes sharpened by 9 years of hiatus would notice something like that if a fully new title was released.
Connections:
Shuichi and Kaito are adjacent to each other (close friends; sidekick and hero :D)
Kirumi and Ryoma are adjacent to each other (killer and victim)
Angie and Kiyo are adjacent to each other (victim and killer)
Tsumugi and Rantaro are adjacent to each other (killer and victim, shh)
Himiko and Kokichi are adjacent to each other (bullying)
Kiibo and Miu are adjacent to each other (friends…?)
Shuichi and Rantaro mirror each other (protag and 1st victim; characters close to Kaede)
Kokichi and Maki mirror each other (enemies)
Angie and Tenko mirror each other (enemies)
v3, I think, has the strongest connections, though that’s probably just a facet of the daily life in v3 being much stronger and focusing much more on the students’ bonds.
Also, I imagine that they didn’t want to have Kaito and Kokichi next to each other such that the Exisal jumping from seat to seat would be more dramatic. Not too hard to accomplish with most combinations of seats, but it is relevant.
Overall
So, what can we say about Kodaka’s seating schema overall? Adjacent seating choices seem to highlight friendships, until v3 where there are suddenly three killers and victims sitting next to each other. Perhaps someone had noticed that, up until v3, killers and victims never sat next to each other, so they decided to mix it up such that that couldn’t be used to “eliminate” blackened candidates anymore.
Opposite relationships seem to either be negative (such as protag and mastermind) or characters in contrast to one another (such as two of someone’s friends). This makes sense, as those concepts are both very tied to the concept of opposites in general: opposite ideologies, or opposite results of the same thing.
Mirrored relationships are kind of a mixed bag. In THH, all of the mirrored relationships feature characters who die in (or survive to) the same chapter (other than Toko and Taka, if you count them). It’s possible that was a byproduct of trying to space dead people out. However, in later games, we get besties, enemies, and parallels all under the same umbrella.
Despite all these connections, I find it prudent to point out that overall, the majority of adjacent, opposite, and mirrored relationships mean basically nothing. Just because the important opposite relationships are mostly enemies or parallels doesn’t mean that I can suddenly extrapolate that Peko and Ibuki are enemies or that Kiibo and Kiyo have deep thematic throughlines. Not to mention, we’ve proven that killers and victims and pairs of survivors can sit next to each other, meaning we can’t adopt those as hard and fast rules either.
I don’t want to call the seating choices random, because I’m sure they weren’t, but overall I don’t think there’s too much we can say for certain about the death order based on Class Trial seating. Quite frankly, I think that fangans may hide more hints about death order and relationships than the canon games do, but we’ll get to those in a second.
For now, I’m hitting you with the “just kidding!” (/ref) There are a couple of things I do still think we should take a closer look at.
The first being, as you said, the fact that the character in the 4th seat (Byakuya/Sonia/Himiko) AND the 7th seat (Toko/Kazuichi/Kiibo) makes it to Chapter 6 alive in all three games, even if it’s kinda tough to call Kiibo a survivor proper. I honestly have no clue why this is the case. For the 7th seat, maybe they decided that they didn’t want to have any survivors directly next to the protag, but decided that one space away was okay? For the 4th seat, could it be a joke/subversion of 4 (“shi”) meaning death? Is 74 or 47 an important number to the Danganronpa developers? I remember there being an easter egg to Kodaka’s birthday in Hundred Line, but that was for ‘78, so it’s not that.
The other thing is much easier to explain: although Junko (the real one, not Mukuro) isn’t a first victim, the truth remains that she isn’t in the Class Trials until Chapter 6, at which point she takes over Monokuma’s job. Therefore, every character in the 1st seat spends the majority of the game dead. This is almost certainly to make it so Monokuma basically gets his own seat, with no characters blocking his sprite. It’s a clever trick with basically no downsides, as you already know who the first victim is at the time of the Class Trial, so it’s not like you’re being spoiled anyways.
…The Monokubs were blocked by Gonta and Tsumugi for basically their entire existences, but honestly, who gives a damn about them?
FAN GAMES
And now, on to the fan games! I’ll be starting with the Another series, both because they go together and because they’re older than P:EG. Fangans will be a point of discussion in this post from this point onwards, so if you’re only here for the canon games, farewell, and I hope you enjoyed! But for fangan freaks like me, we’ll soldier on.
Danganronpa Another ~Another Despair Academy~
My diagram now displays Seat 1 by who is sitting directly in front of the mascot, hooray!
Also, I’ve never personally played DRA, and the only time I watched a playthrough was three years ago. Due to this, I’m a little worried that I will forget or overestimate people’s relationships. I’ll do my best, but if I’ve misconstrued anything, you can let me know in the comments!
Connections:
Kakeru and Kinji are adjacent to each other (victim and killer)
Haruhiko and Satsuki are adjacent to each other (victim and killer; lovers)
Yuki and Mitch are opposite each other (protag and 1st killer)
Kinjo and Yamato are opposite each other (friends)
Kizuna and Ayame are opposite/mirror each other (victim and killer)
Kakeru and Kanata mirror each other (friends; third victims)
Kinji and Akane mirror each other (traitors; Utsuro is directly in the middle of them)
I also feel like Mikako being both adjacent to Rei and opposite Akane is relevant, with them being the three main female characters of the story. Perhaps due to my faulty memory, however, I can’t figure out what label to put on these relationships. Are they really “friends” or “rivals”? I don’t think so, but they are notable.
Although, speaking of Mikako being adjacent to Rei, we finally have (I believe) our first instance of something I’ve been watching out for this whole time–
–characters next to each other because an event during the Trial necessitates them being next to each other!!
Because Linuj wanted Mikako (before her execution) to be able to fall on Rei’s shoulder and whisper in her ear, he needed to plan ahead to have the two of them sit next to each other. This option is basically useless when it comes to predictions, because there’s no way of knowing to whom these events might happen, but it is something that was certainly on the developers’ minds!
Super Danganronpa Another 2 ~The Moon of Hope and the Sun of Despair~
(I just wanted to write out the full title because it’s so long it’s kinda funny)
Connections:
Nikei and Shinji are adjacent to each other (Chapter 4 deaths)
Shinji and Yuki are adjacent to each other (bros)
Yuki and Emma are adjacent to each other (celebrity crush)
Emma and Hajime are adjacent to each other (VOID)
Kanade and Hibiki are adjacent to each other (twins; 3rd killers)
Mikado and Teruya are adjacent to each other (killer and victim)
Teruya and Iroha are adjacent to each other (friends)
Yuki and Teruya mirror each other (Class 79 students (kinda))
SDRA2 also has the yet-to-be-seen sandwich lineup, AKA when there’s a story to be told by three relevant characters all being adjacent to each other. Here, we see that Shinji is sandwiched by Yuki and Nikei (two of the lead suspects in Shinji’s murder, with Sora also nearby), as well as Teruya being sandwiched by Mikado and Iroha (the two lead suspects in his murder)!
Hibki also becomes relevant as the only kinda irrelevant character to get the esteemed seat across from the protagonist. Even including P:EG, which we’ll get to in a second, the chair opposite the protagonist has always featured either a Chapter 1 death or the mastermind. Hibiki is a truly random character to fill this seat, which I appreciate for mixing it up.
The VOIDs are pretty well-spaced around the circle, especially if you count Syobai (Mikado’s hitman) as an honorary member. Then again, if you include Yuki (turning into Utsuro) and Sora (programmed to protect Utsuro at any cost) as honorary members as well, things start to clump up a little. Though, at that point, the VOIDs would be literally half of the cast, so it’s kinda inevitable.
…Over half, if you count Kokoro (helped to develop AI Mikado)--
Another Series Checkpoint
Before we get into P:EG, let’s take a moment to see if there are any rules that apply to Linuj’s work only.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Mikado was particularly trying to recreate the DRA Trial seating order in SDRA2, even if he was trying to more or less recreate their class. No Kokoro in Mikako’s seat, no Yoruko in Kizuna’s seat, no Shinji in Kanata’s seat… jeez, was he even trying?!
I guess he did manage to keep Teruya in his same spot, at least.
Somehow, the 4th seat is still survivors only, with Kinjo and Yuki (SDRA2) standing there in each of their titles. I mean, calling SDRA2 Yuki a survivor is kinda generous, but… he makes it to Chapter 6, which counts in my book. The 7th seat is also not bad, given that Mikako is lowkey a fakeout survivor for a lot of the story, and Yoruko straight up lives. We also see here that Linuj has turned the 15th seat into a survivor one, with both Akane and Iroha in that spot.
I also noticed that Hajime and Emma, the 1st and 2nd killers of SDRA2, are sitting in the same spots as the 1st and 2nd victims of DRA? Maybe this is symbolic of how, after Iroha didn’t manage to become the blackened as per the plan, it fell off the rails. Still, if that was the case, you’d think that all of the VOIDs would be in the matching seat to their DRA victim. So, maybe it’s just a coincidence.
Project: Eden’s Garden
Obviously, because P:EG was never completed as intended, we’ll never know the full scope of which dynamics may have occurred outside of killer-and-victim-type pairings. Still, though, we have some notes about future Daily Lives to work with, as well as a whole Prologue and Chapter 1 that likely established many of the important ones. So, let’s see what we’ve got.
Connections:
Damon and Wenona are adjacent to each other (protag and support; survivors)
Jett and Toshiko are adjacent to each other (bullying)
Damon and Wolfgang are opposite each other (rivals; protag and first victim)
Wenona and Cassidy are opposite each other (rivals; support and mastermind)
Eva and Diana are opposite each other (friends, roommates)
Grace and Toshiko are opposite each other (bullying)
Boy/girl seating is so back!! And, just as it was in SDR2, I think it creates for fewer overall combos, lol. Interestingly, despite all of the opposite pairs being of the same gender, only one pair of roommates (Diana and Eva) managed to be put together.
P:EG definitely seems to put the most stock in opposites, with that being the most frequent and, in my opinion, most relevant type of connection.
Also, we’ve lost our survivor seats! Although many may have believed that Eva (and to a lesser extent, Ulysses) were going to survive, in reality both actually died tragically early. We even lost our 15th seat survivor, as alluded to in the initial ask, with the choice to change Kai from a survivor to the Chapter 3 victim.
Overall
As foretold by my opening paragraphs, I don’t think there’s too much we can gain by comparing P:EG to the Another series. Like, the person in the 4th seat is an important character (Kinjo/Yuki/Eva)? The person in the 9th seat is kinda silly (Haru/Yuri/Cassidy)? Those aren’t real connections. There isn’t anything super clear, like, “oh, the 4th killer always goes here!” or “looks like the 3rd victims were always mirrored.” SDRA2 and P:EG don’t even have two 3rd victims!
The one thing that I do think applies to a bunch of fangans, all of these included, but not the canon games is a… retcon, of sorts.
In the canon games, the protagonist is always in the seat opposite the mascot. Even Hajime, who’s also the mastermind, is in the 9th seat, not the 1st seat. But for some reason, it seems like the fangan community as a whole has collectively forgotten that fact, and put the protagonist in the seat directly in front of the mascot instead???
I truly have no idea how this happened. I’m not trying to blame anyone, because, honestly, I might have gotten my mind mixed up too. But it’s an extremely common “error.” Yuki, Sora, and Damon are all in the seat directly in front of the mascot, as is Teruko, protagonist of DRDT. Like, it’s not actually an “error,” because there’s nothing wrong with putting your protagonist right in front of the mascot, but it is an inconsistency for anyone trying to replicate the canon games’ pattern.
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
Both a lot and not very much, I’d say. Given how many relevant adjacent, opposite, mirrored, and even sandwiched pairings there are out there, it’s hard to believe that there’s no meaning to Class Trial seating, and that all of it was just determined randomly. However, there are also enough irrelevant pairings out there that you can’t look at any potential duo and be guaranteed that they’ll have some sort of important connection. Nor can you look at any specific seat in the room and be guaranteed to make it to any particular chapter.
That being said, these are some rules that popped up frequently across all six examples:
The seats on the mascot axis (1 and 9) are almost always important. The protag was in one of these seats in 6/6 examples, and in 4/6 the other seat had someone who died in Chapter 1.
Survivors were most commonly found in the 4th (5/6) and 7th (4/6) seats. There was very frequently a survivor two seats away from the protagonist (5/6), and rarely a survivor directly adjacent to the protagonist (1/6).
Results were split 50:50 on whether people who died in the same case (whether two victims or a victim and a killer) would appear next to each other. However, as would be mathematically expected, all games which featured one pair of same-case adjacency also featured a second or third instance as well.
Results were also split 50:50 on whether survivors would appear next to one another. However, 0 examples presented multiple pairs of adjacent survivors. Also worth mentioning, two of the games that had adjacent “survivors” featured one of said “survivors” more-or-less dying at the end (Akane taking Monokuma’s slashes for Rei; Damon being poisoned by his perk). The only true pair of adjacent survivors was Akane and Fuyuhiko… and Fuyuhiko wasn’t even initially intended to survive.
In terms of the relationships I found important enough to write down, adjacent came up 18 times, mirror 13 times, and opposite 11 times. However, for the canon games, the order is mirror (9), adjacent (7), and opposite (4); the fangans had adjacent (11), opposite (7), and mirror (4).
But, finally… I do have one last deduction to share with you all. One “rule” that applies to all six games, covert enough that it can sneak by an initial look-over…
Killers of Trial x are never adjacent to victims of Trial x+1!!!
…Not rocking with the math? What I mean is, across all six examples, the 1st killer was never adjacent to the 2nd victim, the 2nd killer was never next to the 3rd victim(s), etc. While it seems less relevant than victims and killers of the same chapter, it actually makes more of an impact when it comes to the Class Trial seating.
When you show up to, say, Trial 4, the 4th victim is already gone. The 4th killer will only be replaced by a portrait at the 5th Class Trial, the same at which the 5th victim will then disappear. It’s hard to explain, but it makes sense to me, at least, that developers of whichever project wouldn’t want to “combine” those two periods of mourning, so to speak. Like, I could see the desire to display either the last blackened or the recent victim during the Trial, but having them in eyeshot of each other could be… confusing? Again, I’m finding it a bit hard to explain, so hopefully this argument makes as much innate sense to you as it does to me.
So, yeah. Next time you see a blackened accused, look to those standing next to them and know that they’re marked safe from death at the next Class Trial. Or, go find an example from one of the many fangans I didn’t cover in this post and know that I am full of shit. But don’t spoil me on them, please!
I hope this answered your question ^_^ Thanks for asking!
And, y'know... if you want more Class Trial layouts to analyze... you could go check out my fangan, Disasterronpa: Producing Hell, which will be headed to its first Class Trial in a few weeks from now... if you wanna :)
