In one of Light Novels (called Super High School Level Friendship) Hinata worries that the moment Komaeda finds out he has a "worthless talent" he'll stop caring about him.
Yet in main gameplay after finding out how Hinata doesn't have talent but also IS Ultimate Despair Komaeda admits he can't stop caring about Hinata. Even after learning everything.
And in alternate universe where they spend time with the knowledge of Hinata being talentless, he actively seeks out Hinata.
Does become friends with him.
And does care about him afterwards!
You cannot convince me that Komaeda would not care about Hinata just because he's talentless or worse hate him. #EndBullyKomaedaNagitoCharacterization
(me, who has only ever written 1 fanfiction ever): the deep desire to write a canon-compliant despair arc rewrite in which Hinata interacts meaningfully with the whole class instead of just one of them
I was going through the Komaeda UTDP scenes again last night, and when the party one came up, I narrowed my eyes because something kind of struck me suddenly about it.
How exactly did they go from this:
... Into a 'handshake'?
There was no reason for them to be shaking hands at that point. They hadn't even come to the agreement about solidifying their friendship yet.
Hinata goes on and on about 'understanding' Komaeda in almost every single setting the two of them appear in. It's a huge theme in the original Danganronpa 2, and 'understanding' is even baked into one of Komaeda's character songs. It's something that means a great deal to Hinata. He, without exaggeration, kind of obsesses over it. Like there's something constantly itching at him about not being able to understand Komaeda - and he says himself in no uncertain terms that it's not just because he considers him to be dangerous (even if he partakes in a little denial and deflection to reach that conclusion sometimes lol).
They speak deeply of Hinata's desire to understand Komaeda, and end up with their hands intertwined before any sort of agreement towards their relationship as friends. That is not a handshake, what the hell!!!
Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
Edit: Check the reply section! It's wild that the translation could be twisted so much, I had never seen it until now. I think it's good that the overall themes of Hinata seeking to understand him are intact, but losing him making the headstrong decision to actually become friends on his own terms is quite sad. It's still mutual in the end, but I don't see why it was translated the way it was at all. Unfortunate...
HET TWIN. I wanted to ask you a question that's a bit... unbearable to think about. Regarding Nagito's CD drama, do you think Hajime rejected him in any way? I was rewatching it and, well, I saw some people commenting on things like that, and I'd really like to know your point of view.
Well, for one I believe people are just making jokes in comment section. Or more like repeating the same joke.
But more so, with the context of the conversation:
1- Komaeda's part isn't a literal love confession. He is confessing his feelings, and there is romantic undertone however it's not a typical love confession scene where you'd expect other person to acknowledge the love and respond to that love by whether they feel similarly. In this conversation Hinata is trying to understand Komaeda and Komaeda is trying to make Hinata understand him.
2- What Komaeda is saying more like "I adore you. I will do anything to assist you. I have been alone all my life and you are the first person to truly attempt to understand me even after knowing what kind of person I am."
3- Hinata IS acknowledging that, the point of the conversation isn't about Komaeda's love (whether it's platonic or romantic), it's about trying to understand Komaeda's character. And Hinata is replying accordingly to it. He's saying that his attempts to understand him isn't motivated by simple reasons like love or hate (unlike him, perhaps), but there's a logic behind it. Which he feels like Komaeda should be given the chance to at least have someone try to understand him, instead of leaving him as he is. Because leaving him alone and not acknowledging him is bound to result in something bad.
In conclusion, this part of the Drama CD as well as FTEs more about Komaeda's character than his love so of course the conversation is focused on that. More so Hinata does acknowledge Komaeda's feelings but the conversation isn't about romance so he neither accepts or rejects him.
Bonus: I knew it before but while I writing this I noticed it better that Hinata is really emotionally mature for his age. He puts his feelings aside (although they blend in whenever he interacts with Komaeda because of course he can't go with this matter with 100 percent logic) to understand him. Because anything Komaeda does isn't just "Komaeda being Komaeda" but actually have some more complex reasons. He knows that if you left him alone without acknowledging the big issue he's bound to make more choices that can lead disaster. For him, for others. Isn't it crazy not even Komaeda's teacher was able to see it? Yet alone any other classmates of his! I will definitely talk about this in a further analysis BECAUSE he does that in UTDP and in game too (aside from the FTEs)
I was Nagito Komaeda's official valentine in 2020. This is an officially created image by Spike Chunsoft.
Story below if you're interested!
So for some context, back in 2020 Spike Chunsoft held a small art 'contest', wherein you could create a Valentine's card for your character of choice (from any of their IPs), and 'might' receive a reply from your chosen character.
And... as far as I know, I'm only one of two people who received the honour of being selected as a winner for this contest. More on the second winner in a moment, but it took ages for them to contact me lol, and it was through Twitter DMs. The prize was this card by the company (And Komaeda...), and a free code for a game of my choice from their site. (I chose AI: The Somnium Files, by the way.)
But of course, it goes a little bit deeper than that, because otherwise it would be a rather unremarkable story. The whole contest was super poorly managed. Once it began, there was almost zero communication, no real indication of when 'winners' would be chosen, and of course the "reply from your Valentine" was rather lackluster.
I was buds with the admin of the Danganronpa Wiki back in the day when they were still active, and we asked around about this... and as far as we were able to discern, there were only two winners (who mentioned it publicly, at least), being myself and a user by the name of Roirence, who made something for a Zankai Zero character.
I don't want to share the art I made for the event because it's highkey incredibly cringe... but maybe among a sea of memes and joke cards, it was in part why I was picked? It was so disgustingly earnest on my part lol.
While it is definitely sad that only two people (apparently) received anything, I can't help but laugh every time I remember it.
I truly was harnessing Ultimate Luck on that day. We're still happily married
Commentary on Hinata's shattered identity, and his following existence challenging and fragmenting Komaeda's values and beliefs. The death portrait frame was used as an allegory for their worlds as they know it having crumbled individually.
I think Hinata spends a large majority of the main story pushing down his conflicting feelings regarding Komaeda. The betrayal he felt mixed with the twisted level of genuine care for his wellbeing leads to some very interesting breakdowns of how Hinata constantly chooses to run away from and circumvent his problems and feelings, and is mirrored by how he chooses to move forward with the Kamukura project. He's a super compelling protagonist and they complement each other in a really unique way that is fun to explore.
At the bottom of the official website created for Danganronpa 2x2, right at the bottom of this page, is a repeated tiled "2" fading in from Monokuma...
I'm reaching HARD here, but what if it's supposed to symbolise a repetition of the simulation or something... I'm thinking it's possible that this new scenario is just one of the many times the simulation could have been run, with the final successful run being the one we play through in the original DR2 scenario. Maybe Komaeda and Hinata could be the only ones to make it through this one. That would be so insane lol...
It kinda blows my mind that we're getting brand new content with the Danganronpa 2 cast... It almost doesn't feel quite real. I wonder if the characters will feel... off at all? Like it's been so long, and having some new people on the team, will the dialogue feel wonky or wrong, do you think?
I personally have very few real expectations. All I really hope is that the characters still feel close to their original counterparts in the new scenario. Brand new Nagito Komaeda dialogue is just such an insane concept, how is this the timeline I'm living in lmao. It's been 8 years since I tore through the entire series, but my love for it never died...
