Komahina and the significance of hand-holding - The symbol of hope of the HPA story.
“Holding hands is probably my own personal symbol of hope…” are Hinata’s exact words at the end of Akane’s Island Mode ending. Now, speaking of hand-holding, which character did Hinata hold hands with at the end of every timeline/mode they were both present in, who also happens to be the most thematically important to him (alongside Chiaki) in DR2? Without a doubt it is none other than Komaeda! They always form a deep connection with one another and it also always concludes with hand-holding, which is not for naught.
The timelines/modes I am going to talk about are Island Mode, UTDP, and the 2.5 OVA (aka the original timeline) so if you have not gone through any of those before and do not want to be spoiled on them I recommend you leave this post now.
In Island Mode, the time Ko spent with Hinata taught him that hope was inside him from the very beginning, when he was clinging to the “false hope” of dying in order to finally be released from the cycle of good and bad luck prior to that point. It is someone who has always thought he was so hopeless, someone who has only ever looked for hope everywhere but inside his heart, this someone is finally able to think that there is hope hidden deep within him, because someone showcased that they care for him.
Then Ko proceeded to make circular arguments to convince himself that this ending is such “bad luck”, so he can bring himself to take initiative and formally ask Hinata to be his friend. This still makes me cry a whole lot everytime I re-visit and serves as a reminder that, if someone like Ko, with all the tragedies and loneliness he has had to endure up until this point, can find hope inside himself, because someone spent time with him and profoundly cared for him, then I feel like I can, too. It’s simply so powerful and meaningful, as Ko is able to transform from his self-destructive mindset and think that he does deserve to have something like friendship. Ko outstretched his hand and Hinata happily took it. This handshake symbolizes the hope that was born from their deep bond and thus it is a symbol of hope.
Ko’s and Hinata’s Christmas event is my favorite in UTDP due to the sheer fact that it encapsulates similar themes. When Ko was lamenting the fact that they are all graduating and how he will no longer be able to witness the successes of his classmates, Hinata went out of his way to make him remember that Chiaki will definitely not forget about him when she invites his classmates to anything in the future. Hinata did that because he wants him to accept her invitations and be present at those gathering, as he deeply cares for him and enjoys being around him after having spent three years talking about all sorts of things, including his ultimate luck.
Hinata admits that he still does not understand Ko as much as he wishes he did, but he does not want things to end here, and even when Ko told him that some things are simply not meant to be comprehensible, Hinata was adamant to not leave things be on that note, showing how much he wants to know what ticks Ko. He would not go that far if he did not care about him so much.
This time the opposite of what happened in Island Mode occurs. Hinata is the one who takes the initiative and asks Ko for his hand (I’m making it sound like he is proposing which may or may not be intentional =w=). He also asks him whether he wants to be friends or not, which Ko accepts after being assured by Hinata that there is indeed meaning in being friends with him, that it can change things, no matter how simple it may seem. Once again, they held each other’s hand at the end and their handshake is a symbol of hope. I really think it is intentional that they chose Hinata of all characters to be the crux of Ko’s “mini-arc” of sorts in this mode.
This is arguably the most important of three, hence why I wanted to talk about it last. It’s the main timeline after all, and Hinata and Ko went through so much more there due to the circumstances of the killing game they were both thrown into.
With that being said, we have two scenes of hand-holding in the OVA. The first one is right after Ko woke up and Hinata stayed by his side just like how Komaeda did for him in the prologue of DR2 (I dig such callbacks and parallels so there is no way I could miss an opportunity to mention this and I do not care if people think it is just “fanservice”). Hinata had no problem taking Ko by his mutilated Junko hand, even though it represents the awful things he did in the past, as he now understands Ko more and realizes how similar they both are and lengths they went to in order to become misguided ideas of “ultimate hope”, something he denied and disagreed with in the past. Ko also willingly took Hinata’s hand despite the fact that he’s both ultimate despair and a reserve course student, something he acknowledged himself when asked which of the two he is, because Ko knows that someone lacking in an inherent talent can embody hope and overcome Junko, the ultimate despair. This handshake, this symbol of hope, it is all symbolic of their acceptance of one another for who they are. They found an inseparable bond within each other with all their hope and despair and can move forward together towards the future.
The second hand-holding scene is quite literally the last thing we see of the HPA-verse, making it a story that ends on a symbol of hope. This symbol of hope being Komahina and their profound connection.
In fact, hand-holding with its relation to the theme of hope can be observed elsewhere, such as that one Naegiri moment in Future Arc. When Makoto was being rather mopey and thought he was useless, Kyoko took off her gloves and held his hand while reminding him of his most redeeming qualities, his optimism, how “hope is infectious”, and the fact that those words didn’t just become everyone’s hope, but specifically became her own as well, and thus restored his hope in himself.
