hi do you have the meme from b99 where rosa is holding the puppy and she's like "if anything happened to him i will kill everyone in this room and then me"
Hi! Here it is:
(I wanted to find it better colorized but couldn’t, sorry)
So KLK’s ended and I know we’re all just super hyped ( While, I am at least) but can we just take a moment to appreciate Satsuki as a big sister for a second?
Warning! Is rather long, and includes spoilers up to the finale! Read at your own discretion!
nah australians instantly switched over to leather fetish gear, frankenstein trucks, and machine guns the minute shit went south. the UN aid workers got there and saw this
something truly fascinating about just learning that, two years ago, neil gaiman reblogged a post of mine that i sincerely do not even fucking remember making
Toph Beifong doesn’t hold up as disability representation - Disability in the Media
[ID: A screenshot of Toph, a twelve-year-old girl with black hair in a loose, green and tan short-sleeve shirt and shorts, cheering in an arena. Next to text written in a rough, blocky font: "Disability in Media - Toph Beifong Doesn't hold up as disability representation" /End ID]
Avatar the Last Airbender is one of my all-time favourite TV-shows, and Toph is still easily one of my favourite members of Team Avatar. I was a few years younger than Toph when the show first started airing, and being a disabled kid who was into martial arts, constantly being dismissed by my able-bodied opponents and teachers, meant that I connected very strongly with her right from the get-go.
But upon my last couple of rewatches of the series, I began to come to the realisation that my opinions on Toph as a shining example of good disability representation were... well, pretty heavily influenced by my nostalgia for the show and that many aspects of Toph's character just don't hold up today. Which, honestly is fair, the show is nearly 19 years old (if it were a person in my country, it would be old enough to drink) and I think it's pretty ridiculous to expect every part of every character from an 19 year old show to age well. So today I wanted to talk about the things I think Avatar the original Last Airbender did right with Toph, where I think they missed the mark, and what changes I think would need to be made to Toph to make her work for a modern audience.
So let's start with why I think Toph doesn't really hold up as "good disability representation" today, and the elements of her character that just haven't aged as well.
For me, one of the biggest issues I noticed upon rewatching the show, is how often we are told (often by Toph herself) that she is blind, but how infrequently we are actually shown it's impact on her life beyond her bending or outside of jokey contexts. Outside of her bending, we only ever see her blindness impacting her ability to do things like read or write, otherwise, she functionally has full vision -so far as the audience is informed - with the only exceptions being when she's in the air or water (e.g. on Appa or in the submarines) or in loose soil (e.g. the desert). Having places and circumstances where she doesn't have access to her power that allows her to "see" was a step in the right direction, but I do think it would have been better if her seismic sense wasn't quite as accurate, even in the most ideal of circumstances.
But why? Well, I think Suki explains it really well, long before Toph is even introduced. when Sokka says "I should have seen you as a warrior instead of a girl" Suki stops him and says "I am a warrior, but I'm also a girl". Being a warrior and a woman are both important parts of Suki's character, and only recognising her as one or the other means ignoring a big part of who she is, and the same is true for Toph. Being blind is a big part of toph's character that has informed a lot of her life, but so is being a warrior and bending master. Many people see Toph as a warrior or fighter, but ignore her disability, but both are important. She's disabled, and a warrior, and those things don't cancel each other out, the same way being a warrior doesn't diminish Suki's status as a woman.
When the show was still airing though (and even still today) it was very common to see non-disabled fans of the show exclaiming that they honestly forget that Toph is even blind sometimes, with many people going so far as to say that she's not even disabled (and that this was a good thing). While I do think some of that comes from the fact they weren't used to seeing a disabled character as both disabled and an active participant in these kinds of stories, I do think this mostly happened because of the show's lack of, well, showing the impact of her blindness on her daily life and allowing her earthbending and seismic sense to erase the effects of her disability to some extent. It's much harder to forget a character is blind when it impacts their daily life in ways that are shown to the audience. This doesn't have to be in big, showy ways mind you, showing things subtly but consistently works way better than one "very special episode" type setup.
In the show as it is though, the seismic sense functionally gives Toph a perfect image of her surroundings until it's just not available anymore for *plot reasons*.
[ID: A black and white shot of Toph and how she sees the oponent she's fighting, with shockwaves radiating from him towards her to indicate how she's interpreting the scene. Her foe has jumped into the air and now has his hand dug into the ground of an arena, about to launch rocks towards her. /End ID]
In many ways, her picture of the world is better and clearer than what the non-disabled characters can see, leading to this feeling of her disability being erased. It may have been better though if the seismic sense could give her a general idea of big things in her immediate vicinity but she still missed the finer details, functioning at least a little bit more like a tactile/earthy-vibration version of the limited sight some legally-blind people have in real life. Things like a person's position, movement and overall pose would still be "visible" to her in a general sense, as well as big things in the environment (including things underground, since there are a few plot-points that require that), but smaller things like details about objects and creatures, people's facial expressions or what they're doing with parts of their body that have no direct contact with the ground (like their hands) is less clear.
On top of this, she may struggle to detect smaller, lighter objects or creatures that realistically wouldn't cause much of a vibration at all. creatures as small and as light as Momo and Hawky for example might be detectable, but "fuzzy" to her, and anything smaller might make enough of a vibration to tell her it's there when it moves, but not enough for her to be able to tell what specifically it is without some other cue (such as sound). There are a few moments in the show that seem to imply this is what they were initially going for, but it's not really consistent, and is directly contradicted in her debut episode, "the blind bandit" when she explains that she can even "see" something as small as the ants off in the distance.
[ID: A shot of Aang, a twelve-year-old bald boy with an arrow tattoo on his head, dressed in a yellow and orange outfit, standing with Toph at night. In the foreground is an anthill will a trail of ants, which Aang is looking for. /End ID]
With an adjustment like what I'm suggesting though, she still serves her narrative purpose of teaching Aang the importance of being able to wait and listen - possibly even more so, as her needing to wait and collect more information in order to get a clearer image before striking, would back-up what Bumi tells Aang that he needs in an earth bending master. It would also still help to illustrate the connectedness of the world, a theme Toph continues to embody heavily in The Legend of Korra, while still showing the ways her disability impacts her more frequently.
When I talked about the "super-crip" trope a while back, I mentioned that one way to avoid the more harmful elements of the trope (where the character's disability is erased by their powers) is to use the ability in question more like a mobility or disability aid than a straight-up cure. The power should help them, but shouldn't make their disability redundant. People are creative and we would find ways to use a superpower or magic to help with our disabilities if it were available in real life, but what's the point of including a disabled character if you're just going to functionally erase their disability? For a character like Toph, I think this is the kind of approach that should be taken with her. Her seismic sense still helps her, but it's not a perfect replacement. (Ironically, I did use Toph as a "good" example of that trope, but I do think after this last rewatch, for the reasons I'm discussing here, I might have to backtrack that a bit).
I considered giving an alternative approach here, to keep the sensitivity of toph's seismic sense as it is in the show as is, but giving it draw-backs such as making her susceptible to sensory overload similar to what autistic people experience. However, while replacing one disability with another can work for some characters and stories, I don't think it's the best adjustment to make for Toph or any blind character, largely thanks to this also being a trope. The "blind (or d/Deaf) person who's other senses become super-human to make up for it" trope is very common in fantasy, sci-fi as well as older martial arts films, and while I'm not really the best person to cover it, I do know that members of both the blind and deaf communities have expressed a lot of frustration with it. Toph already falls into this trope quite a bit, and any suggestions I could make would have just dialled that element up to 11, and fixing one problem with another is never a good idea.
Another thing that actually did bug me for a while, even before my most recent rewatch of the show, is how Toph is treated on the rare occasions she does point out something won't working for her. There are a number of times where Toph advocates for herself and points out that something The Gaang is doing isn't accessible to her or sets a boundary to do with her disability, and she's either left behind, her concerns are brushed off or she's ignored entirely. The three most noticeable examples of this are in the Episodes "The Ember Island Players," "The Library," and Toph and Katara's segment of "Tales of Ba Sing Se."
In the Ember Island Players, Toph complains that the seats they have for the play are too high up and too far away, and she's unable to "see" what's happening on stage. Her friends don't really take any notice of her though except for Katara who tells her not to worry, "I'll tell your feet what's happening."
[ID: A shot of Katara, a fourteen-year-old girl with long brown hair and blue eyes, sitting with Toph, who is sitting with her arms crossed, annoying in a theatre seat. Both Toph and Katara are wearing red and gold, fire-themed outfits. Katara is looking at something off-screen. /End ID]
My problem here is that this particular kind of situation is something that is familiar to a lot of disabled people. Even the least independent disabled people I know get annoyed when their access needs or requests for accommodations, even among friends, are ignored and their pushback is brushed off with "don't worry, I'll just help you!" It's one of the first things that many disabled people tell non-disabled folks wishing to be better allies to us: you offering help instead of actually accommodating us isn't a good thing. We don't want to rely on others if we can avoid it, because honestly, non-disabled people often aren't very good at actually helping or in this case, relaying information to us without training and more often than not, it just results in us being left out. I find it very hard to believe a character as independent as Toph would accept that without any protest, especially considering that is pretty much exactly what ends up happening (even if the show didn't really acknowledge it). Katara never actually conveys anything about the play to Toph, except when she's attempting to throw Toph's words back in her face when she asks for clarification about the actor playing her - which ends up backfiring on her.
[ID: A shot from the same location as before, this time Toph has a huge smile on her face and is leaning on the balcony excitedly while Katara is leaning towards her, annoyed by her reaction. /End ID]
While it would have been better if Toph was actually listened to, it would have been…fine? if a justification was given for why they had to sit there (e.g. to avoid being recognised), if Katara had actually described the play for her. This wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have been better at least. In real life, many movies, TV shows (including this show's sequel series, The Legend of Korra) and other forms of visual media have an Audio Description track that does exactly that. If they weren't going to move for Toph to be able to see better, having Katara describe the play could have introduced kids to the fact this is an option. but instead it's brushed off, and I'll admit, it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, even back in 2006.
The Library is a bit more forgivable in my opinion, since Toph is still new to the group, but in this episode, she states that she doesn't want to go inside the spirit library because she isn't able to read and therefor there wouldn't be anything for her to do. However, it still would have been nice to see her friends consider this at all before they actually arrived. They could have (and should have) still gone, but some acknowledgement that they at least thought about the inclusion of their disabled friend would have been nice.
[ID: A shot of Aang, Katara, Sokka and another man are talking while looking down at a map on the table. Meanwhile, Toph is sitting on the other side of the table, completely disinterested as she sips from a large ice cup with her feet up on another chair. /End ID]
Alternatively, I do feel like Wan Shi Tong, a self-proclaimed all-knowing-spirit or his assistants would have been able to point her in the direction of something to interest her, since he does imply books aren't the only form of knowledge he collects.
The reason I mention this though is two-fold.
In real life, disabled people are very often left out of "fun" group activities, whether that be in formal settings or in casual ones, like hanging out with friends. If the episode had been framed as "the Gaang learns about the library and decides to track it down," I might have been less critical, but it's specifically framed as something that at least starts out as a kind of break for the team where they all take turns picking out fun things to do so they can rest, and Toph's access needs not being considered at all until they're already there hits a bit close to home, especially since they just end up leaving her outside. Secondly, there's also a stereotype that disabled people (and especially blind people) don't belong in academia and places of learning, such as in this case, libraries. This stereotype is about as old as the concept of organised institutions of learning, and definitely isn't unique to AtLA, but the assumption is often that disabled people wouldn't be interested in more formal methods of learning, so it's not worth accommodating us. With blind people in particular, when I've seen this in media, the premise is often "well I can't read anyway so why bother?" which Toph definitely falls into here with no push-back against the trope.
[ID: A close up of Toph and the rest of the group, Katara, Sokka and Aang standing in a desert. Toph shrugs, looking bored, while the others looks confused and surprised with the exception of Katara, who looks mildly annoyed, standing with her hands on her hips. /End ID]
It does make sense that she would have been resistant to going in, and I'm not saying this episode should have turned Toph into a bookwork akin to Wings of Fire's Starflight (another blind character) or anything. But there was a chance in this episode to push back against some of these assumptions, and I think it's a shame they missed it. How cool would it have been if Toph had mentioned not feeling welcomed in more formal learning spaces because of her disability, which was just reinforced by the way her old earthbending instructor and her parents treated her. She decides to go inside the library anyway as "backup" in case something goes wrong, grumbling about it the whole way down. Wan She Tong starts his introduction mostly the same way, saying humans aren't welcome and Toph makes a snarky comment about it. Wan She Tong, equally offended that this human thinks he, the all-knowing-spirit, wouldn't have considered something, shoots back with an annoyed comment about humans being so self-centred. He explains that spirits come in all shapes and sizes, and not all of them have eyes, but they can still access his library. She's not the first sightless being in his study, and he-who-knows-ten-thousand-things knows this too. Once everyone is permitted entry, one of the knowledge seekers shows her to a series of slates about a lost earthbending form that she can actually read (or at least, "see" the pictures on) because it's carved. Or instead of a slate, it's a series of statues outlining the form, similar to what Aang and Zuko find in the episode "The Firebending Masters". Perhaps this form is something that helps her develop metal bending later on, and lays the groundwork for Toph becoming interested in teaching in the comics.
And finally, Toph and Katara's segment of Tales of Ba Sing Se. Katara convinces Toph to go get a makeover with her as part of a girl's day. Overall, this segment of the episode is pretty nice, and I liked that they showed that a person's gender expression (in this case, being a tom-boy) doesn't mean they can't like things outside of what we usually associate with that. Tom-boys can like girly things on occasion, and vice-versa, and I think this is an example of an episode that would seem a bit ham-fisted today, but honestly, was needed in 2006. However, there's a throw away joke where Toph says "as long as they don't touch my feet," and it immediately cuts to show spa workers filing down the calluses on her feet in a way so painful several staff are required to hold her down.
[ID: An image of Toph in a bath robe being held down in a chair by two spa workers while a third scrubs at her feet so hard that she is sweating. Meanwhile Toph is fighting against the two holding her down and has a facial expression like she is in a great deal of pain. /End ID]
this might be a minor thing in the grand scheme of the show, but it's still another example of Toph's boundaries about her disability and her access needs being disrespected by her friends, which the show just doesn't acknowledge it at all. People ignoring Toph's wishes about a part of her body she depends on in a much more direct way that others do is played off like a joke in a montage of otherwise enjoyable and goofy activities and this is a very, very common experience in disability circles.
There are a number of other, much more minor issues that show up with Toph as well, such as the fact she's the only one of the main cast who never has an on-screen (or on-page) relationship. not in the original show, not in any of the comics and not in The Legend of Korra. Again, it's not a big issue on it's own, especially because in AtLA, she's young enough where it's possible that she was just not interested yet, and she does have kids in The Legend of Korra where she mentions a relationship with a man named Kanto (Lin's father). So it is implied she does have some form of relationship eventually, but the issue is that it's never shown on screen or on the page. This feeds into a wider pattern in media of disabled characters being the only ones in their respective cast not given on-screen romantic relationships in stories, and so I still think it's worth pointing out, especially since the creators have had a lot of opportunities to correct that by now.
Toph is also portrayed, pretty much undeniably, as the best earthbener in a way that, at times, comes across almost like the creators felt like they need to compensate for her being on the team "despite" her being blind. This trope is one that I think Toph, at least partially, helped to popularise with the current generation of story tellers: The Disabled Savant. In this trope, disabled characters aren't really given the same room for growth as other characters; they aren't permitted to be average or still learning, they start good and get better. If they do progress, they often become the best, which is the case for Toph. To be fair, everyone in the The Gaang is the best at their respective skill by the end of the first series, which is why I say this is a minor point. She dose, however, have the least amount of on-screen growth in skill out of the whole team. Katara starts out barely able to lift any water at all, let alone actually bend it. Sokka is skilled with weapons from the start but does get his butt handed to him a number of times by others with more experience than him whom he learns from throughout his story arc. Zuko spends most of the early-to-middle of the show having things "blow up in his face" (to use his own words) and being belittled by his family of prodigies. While Aang is an airbending and, to a lesser extent, waterbending prodigy, he fails at pretty much everything else for a while before he starts to find his confidence - especially earth and firebending, not to mention the entire situation with locking himself out of the Avatar state. Toph is the only one who doesn't seem to fail or struggle all that much from a combat perspective. She does grow and improve in her bending (she invents metal bending after all) but she never has any moments where she really messes up or even struggles in combat all that much compared to the others.
All of these points and criticisms I've mentioned are not necessarily big in and of themselves, but when looked at together, they build up to create some issues with how Toph is depicted and how the people around her treat her disability
So that's it then? Toph is bad disability rep and Avatar should be "cancelled"?
God no. Like I said at the start, I still adore Toph and Avatar as a whole, but the show is a year away from being two decades old, it's bound to have some elements that don't hold up and I think it's worthwhile discussing them, specifically because I love the show and it's characters. Despite all the negativity I've brought up, I do think there are a lot of things AtLA did well with Toph too.
I've mentioned a few times that we rarely see how Toph's blindness impacts her life outside of her bending and combat abilities, and there's a reason I made that specification. Unsurprisingly, if you know much about the show's development, the ways in which Toph’s blindness and seismic sense impacts her bending and fighting style is one area where the show really does shine, and I still think that is worth a mention. The various types of bending are based on different styles of martial arts, specifically, different types of Kung Fu. Most earthbending in the show takes heavy inspiration specifically from Hung Ga, but Toph is different. Her bending heavily references Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, something unique to her within this world.
The reason for this (outside of simply wanting her to be visually distinct) was because the show’s creators made sure to consider what limitations Toph might have and what parts of the more common earthbending styles wouldn't work for her. Since her connection to the earth was critical in order for her seismic sense to work, they decided on a style that would keep her feet on the ground more, prioritised strong stances with minimal jumping and put more focus on attacking with her upper body. While not an intentional choice, the style they went with for Toph, according to the show's head martial arts consultant, Sifu Kisu, was supposedly developed by a blind woman in real life, at least according to legend. The creators also made further adjustments to the style with the help of martial arts consultants and just watching Toph fight is evident that a lot of love and care was put into the decisions made on that front.
I also appreciate that Toph's disability wasn't off-limits to joke about.
[ID: A picture of Toph waving her hand in front of her face with an exaggerated smile to remind the others she's blind. /End ID]
As I already mentioned, they didn't land 100% of the time, but lot of shows are afraid to use disability as a source of jokes, which would have felt weird and out of place in a show like Avatar. I see this hesitance in real-life too; people get extremely uncomfortable when I joke about my own disabilities and I've heard several people and even disabled comedians talk about the same observation. My last video on Tik Tok that got outside my usual audience was a joke about my prosthetic leg, and every single stictch and duet I received was people saying some variation of "I'm such a bad person for laughing!" "I'm going to hell!" or just straight up asking if they're aloud to laugh. If I didn't want you to laugh, I wouldn't have posted the joke! But joking about disability does make it more approachable.
Despite how often Toph and the others made blind jokes though, outside of the one instance I mentioned earlier, they never felt mean-spirited or like they were punching down. Even when a very sleep-deprived Katara was intentionally trying to be.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind the context of the media landscape when Avatar The Last Airbender was airing. Today, characters like Toph are very common, so much so there's a whole trope about them (super-crips) but at the time, having a character with a major disability be a main character in an action-orientated kids show like Avatar was really rare. She wasn't the first of course, but a lot of the time, if they were included, they were almost certainly sad and depressed, wishing for a cure or they were designated to the roles of "Guy in the chair" (which is a character, usually a tech person, who helps from the background), inspiration, scary villain fake-out (or other variations of "creepy" character) or the actual villain. Having a character that was not only comfortable in her skin as a disabled person, who didn't want or need to be "fixed" or "cured" to be directly involved in the story, and who's main obstacle (at least in season 2) were how the people around her treated her, was pretty ground-breaking at the time (pun not intended) and went against the most prevalent stereotypes of it's day.
And I really want to emphasise that. For many Millennials and older Gen Zers, myself included, Toph was the first character that didn't tell us we were broken and needed to be fixed in order to be part of the group (even if they slipped up with that messaging occasionally). Prior to seeing Avatar, I honestly thought there was something deeply wrong with me for being happy with my life (a reminder, I was 10 years old when this show first started airing), because every other disabled person in the media only ever talked about how much worse their life was because of their disability, how much they hated it and how much they hated themselves. Many outright said that they wished they had died rather than become like me. Toph wasn't the first to go against those tropes, but she was the first example of a disabled character who wasn't like that many people my age saw. Did she do it perfectly? Hell no, but personally, back then, I was happy to have a character who maybe over-corrected and took things a bit too far than another sad character talking about how lives like mine weren't worth living.
I also deeply appreciated that Toph did struggle with her independence, at least initially, and where to draw the line with accepting help. Because of how much she'd been coddled and overprotected as a little kid, she saw any attempt at people being helpful and working as a team as them trying to baby her. It was very on the nose, but I liked that the show gave her an episode just dedicated to realising that it's ok to accept help. Again, this is a bit of a story telling trope today, but having the disabled character realise that it's ok to accept help, and to do it without talking down to them or saying that them wanting independence was bad, was a refreshing change compared to what was around at the time.
[ID: a zoomed out image of Toph, standing before her parents with Aang, Katara and Sokka standing behind her. /End ID]
While I think the show's creators could have benefited from consulting with disabled people and specifically blind people the same way they brought in consultants for the martial arts featured in the show, it's very clear to me that the intention behind Toph's character was good, and that actual effort was put in to make sure they depicted her well, even if some of it was a bit misplaced. It's also worth noting that the groundwork for a lot of my suggestions is already in place, they just didn't follow it all the way through.
Overall, I'd say Toph was good for her time, and she's what was needed in the 2000's, even if she doesn't hold up as well today. I also think it speaks to how far we've come in terms of disability representation. When I first started engaging with the online fandom directly, almost no one, even other disabled people, argued that Toph wasn't good representation, because honestly, the bar was on the floor and we were just happy to have something different. But now there are options, and the standards are higher, and that's so, so good. It means that people, even in the media, are starting to listen and be more thoughtful about their depictions of disability than we were in 2006.
And finally, I want to really quickly mention The Netflix adaptation of Avatar. A few people have asked me now what I think they should do with Toph when they get to her, and what my predictions about the show are. I'm not going to talk about my predictions here, because this post is already way too long and that's not what this is about, but I don't think the suggestions I made today would necessarily work in this particular remake, primarily because of the tonal differences. Some adjustments definitely could, such the other characters doing a better job at listening to Toph when she points out inaccessibility and them actually considering her in the first place, but others might be harder to balance. The original show could get quite dark and serious at times, but it was primarily a light-hearted adventure story for kids. From what I've seen of the live action remake though, they're more heavily leaning into those serious elements - for better or for worse, and as such, trying to tone Toph down in the specific ways I mentioned might not balance out as well as it would in the original show. At the very least, the specifics would need to be different. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what approach they should take, that's not really the point of this post, but I did want to quickly address it to avoid confusion. My suggestions today were specifically on how to approach the cartoon version of Toph for a modern audience, and were not meant to be read as suggestions on how her live-action counterpart should be depicted.
The musical nerd here to give you another crossover :)
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐀𝐳𝐮𝐥𝐚
I had this idea swirling in my head for a long time and well, here it is at last!
I don't know why but I thought fitting for her..?
What is the Ballad of Sara Berry?
"The Ballad of Sara Berry" is a song from the 35MM musical exhibition and is among the most known songs from that musical. The story focuses on typical popular high school girl Sara Berry, the song describing her with "that girl had everything til hiccup and hitch". Her classmate Julie lost a leg in a wreck and while Sara wanted to be crowned Prom Queen, there were rumors that the student body would name Julie as Prom Queen.
Sara's father pushes Sara into the need of becoming Prom Queen to not disappoint him and mom. It is unclear what is of Sara's mother since this is the only time she is mentioned and there is no further explanation. Sara becomes so obsessed in winning the vote that she drastically changes, shoving her friends and boyfriend behind and being proclaimed socially dead by them. She was slowly losing her sanity when Sara's boyfriend texts her that he is taking Julie to the Senior Prom. That was the last straw for Sara and she "totally lost it", her father telling her that "there's just no future for a princess at Prom" not helping.
There's seven more nominations for Prom Queen and in a desperate attempt to get what she and her father wants, Sara murders them off one by one on Prom night in various ways. Only Julie is able to survive and inform the police. Sara crowns herself Prom Queen before being arrested and put "into a tight straitjacket, small padded cell" where "at least in [her] head [she's] Queen of High School Land".
Not directly Seiko related, but something about Ruruka finding and recognising the candy next to Seiko's body as the one she gave her?
A/N I forgot to post this earlier!
Bittersweet Candy - Ruruka finding Seiko’s body
In the end, Seiko never ate Ruruka’s candy.
But even so she held on to it all this time. Even when she couldn’t eat it, even when they were wavering as friends, even when they were fighting at each other’s throats– even after all that, Seiko still kept the candy Ruruka gave her ever since the day they first met.
Even as her corpse hang on the wall, the candy was still there beside her.
It was mocking Ruruka.
Although Seiko couldn’t eat it, she still had kept it all this years and brought it with her all this time. Seiko truly believed in her, she trusted in her, and she was earnestly trying hard as her friend. And Ruruka knew that. She knew that which was why she took advantage of that. It was because she knew that Seiko would always do anything Ruruka told her to so she ended up relying on her more than often.
Then somewhere in the middle, everything went downhill.
Where did she go wrong?
They were just fighting some years ago then they were literally fighting just a few minutes ago. And now Ruruka was just staring in disbelief at Seiko’s corpse. And at the candy beside her corpse. The symbol of their friendship. Even in her last moments, Seiko had cherished their broken friendship and here was Ruruka who had been thinking about no one else but herself.
Seiko truly was a hero.
But Ruruka would never get to tell her that. Not anymore. All she could do was cry and mourn over all the missed opportunities they had, over all the things left unsaid between them, over all the regrets that just kept piling up. Ruruka cried and cried as if she believed that if she cried hard enough, Seiko would wake up and give her some medicine to soothe her.
It never happens. No one was going to help her this time like always. Now she has to face the irrevocable truth of her situation. With one less person on her side.
She lost a friend.
In the end, Seiko never ate Ruruka’s candy. And she never will.
ruruka and seiko talking out the problems of their broken friendship and maybe hugging and tears
A/N more like i need hugs and i’m in tears
A lot of the dialogue is taken from the episode because let’s face it, it’s a high quality inner monologue that if they just said it out loud, they could have talked it out and fixed things. i dunno. i’m still dead inside.
If only Friendship - Seiko/Ruruka
If only they had just talked it out.
“You were my hero, Seiko. You could do anything and you did anything I wanted.” Ruruka said as she cowered behind the glass.
I trusted you.
I wanted a friend.
Seiko pounded on the glass as she yelled at her. “Because you said I was your friend, I trusted you and I loved you.”
I don’t want to betray you because you trust me.
I want to help you because you trust me.
Ruruka stepped back but her gaze didn’t waver as she admitted, “I asked for your help because I trusted you.”
“I helped you because I trusted you.” Seiko wailed as she pounded harder, her fists were already bleeding.
At first, we were really friends.
“I asked Seiko for so much because she trusted me.” Ruruka weakly defended herself.
“Ruruka said she trusted me but she was only using me.” Seiko angrily retorted.
When did everything go wrong?
And finally, just like a reflection of their bond, the glass separating them shattered into pieces.
“So this is it, huh?” Ruruka said as she frowned bitterly. “You’re going to kill me.”
“I… I won’t do that.” Seiko breathed heavily as she towered over her menacingly. “I can’t kill you.”
“Ha? But you were chasing us this whole time with killing intent!” Ruruka pointed out.
“I know! I-I panicked okay!” Seiko said exasperatedly as she held her head. “And then one thing led to another and we were fighting. I just want this stupid game to be over so that no one else will die.” Then she softly muttered, “Especially not you, Ruruka.”
Ruruka chuckled bitterly. “You were always a softie, weren’t you, Seiko?”
“That’s why I was such an easy pushover.” Seiko wistfully added.
“You’re wrong. You’re not a pushover!” Ruruka corrected her without even thinking as the words just came pouring out of her mouth. “You’re a really good person and I…” She bit her lip and forced the words she should have said a long time ago. “Took advantage of that. Sorry.”
A tense silence passed between them.
“I just wanted a friend.”
“And I trusted you.”
Another wave of tension filled the room.
Seiko took a deep breath and calmed herself. Despite her hulking figure, she looked so timid and hesitant as she asked, “Can we… still be friends?”
Ruruka’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why would you ask that? After everything I did to you? And have you forgotten that we could get killed any moment?”
“It’s precisely because we’re in this kind of situation that makes me ask this question.” She explained as she held her determined gaze. “Even if I can’t save anyone, at the very least, I don’t want to lose my friend before anything else happens.”
“Seiko…”
“So this time, I want us to be proper friends.” She bowed deeply, almost desperately as she pleaded. “Please, forgive me.”
There was a tense moment between them, neither accepting or rejecting each other. Just both of them stuck in the moment, in between.
Until Ruruka charged at Seiko and embraced her.
“Idiot! I’m the one who should be apologizing!” Ruruka scolded her as she cried. “Of course! We’ve always been friends! And we’re still be friends. We just had a really long fight all this time.”
It took them years and a heated confrontation to get to this moment but all of that seemed nothing in comparison to how relieved they were to have each other again.
“You’re my precious friend, Seiko.”
“You’re my dearest friend, Ruruka.”
If only they just talked it out then maybe, things would have turned out differently.
A/N I’ll edit this maybe when I get up. It’s 3am here. I can’t think as well.
This interview is very long. I tried to make sense out of most sentences, but since it was really long, I couldn’t look at most of them for a long time. I have never felt limit in my Japanese skills more before. If I did all of them accurately, this interview alone would take more than several weeks XD
For the parts I couldn’t really word into English or isn’t that accurate, I put Japanese sentences together. If you’re a fluent speaker of Japanese, I advise you to read the original text which you can find here
If there’s a part you can’t understand well, please tell me. For the parts unrelated to V3, I just summarized it.
Contains complete spoilers to V3. Proceed with caution.
MyNavi News did a character popularity poll campaign as a part of collaboration with Playstation® Vita exclusive software “New-Danganronpa V3 Everyone’s Mutual Killing New Semester”. Today, we deliver you the Super Highschool Level interview experience, an interview with “Danganronpa” creators!
This interview contains full of important “spoilers” about the game plot. We recommend you to read this after beating the game.
Mr. F(20s?/man) who won the A prize is actually a game planner. He entered this lottery with a passion for “Danganronpa” which had made him aim for the game industry. Scenario writer Kodaka Kazutaka-san, Producer Terasawa Yoshinori-san, Director Sasaki Hayao-san attended the interview. As another game creator, many deep questions in a “Danganronpa” freak’s point of view came out one by one.
– I’m a game planner, but I’d like to hear from three of you as a fan representative today. Firstly, please introduce us what your roles are.
Terasawa: Producer and director differ depending on the depth they participate in the project, but we’re no different from other game companies. In our case, Producer’s job is to oversee everything. Not just games, but promotions and license business too. We sparkle our eyes on everything, and take responsibility on the rest. To be more precise, all the works are trifling(laughs). Producer’s job is to listen to everyone’s various opinions and say “I got it, I’ll fixt that”.
Kodaka: He’s the face of Spike&Chunsoft after all. He has the most experience too. He’s one of the older guys within the company now.
Terasawa: That’s right. I think it’s been about 18 years now?
Kodaka: How long have you been in game industry?
Terasawa: I think I’ve been in game industry for twenty something years.
Kodaka: You were from the 'Super famicom’ era then. Then, yes! Director!
Sasaki: I used to be the Planner, so thinking up of ideas is my main work but I take care of everything’s schedule or work on each section, and for the rest I take care of equipments and run a lot of errands…
Kodaka: Everyone does trivial chores(laughs).
Terasawa: If the Director does trivial chores related to the game development, the Producer does trivial chores for larger field for everything.
– I think that depending on the game, directors can write scenarios for it, but for “Danganronpa” you have Kodaka-san, so how do you split your works in that area?
Sasaki: I’m just a director who is a decoration so… (laughs) It’s Kodaka’s job to make draft of the plans and directions for the game, so the final decision is up to him and I receive that as main director. I make sure that those elements are in good condition before they go into the actual production stage.
Terasawa: Director Sasaki does the work of a planner and, takes care of everyone’s progress like an agency manager so Kodaka does what he pleases as a director(laughs). That’s our team’s style.
Kodaka: I think it’s different for directors at other companies, but for us we should be able to manage finances and schedule well so that’s why. I can’t do that well so I’m not becoming a director(laughs). I say “I don’t know” to that kind of part.
Terasawa: If we leave the money and time up to him, he will use them lavishly (laughs).
Kodaka: I will say something like ‘let’s start by playing first!’.
– Then basically, does Kodaka-san do everything in his head?
Kodaka: There are times I only provide opportunies. But I give my own thoughts about everything. But conversely, ideas can come from the workplace, especially for “New Danganronpa V3(V3 for short)”, we were doing that together with animation so there were parts that I didn’t participate a lot, so there were things like “Hey when did you guys put mode like this in!”.
So although I say “I really don’t want this!”, since it has become a series, recently, everyone was thinking about their own characteristics of “Danganronpa” and gave their opinions. In that aspect, V3 was reassuring.
– Just a moment ago, you said “when did you guys put modes like this”. In V3, there were mini games or “Scrum Debate” that led to nonstop debates, but does that mean you didn’t conceive them?
Kodaka: That, we do from beginning.
Sasaki: That’s right. In the beginning of the beginning, we have plots too, but in the meeting for planning, the planners suggest ideas about what system to put into the game and Kodaka is there too, and everyone decides together.
Kodaka: But I didn’t oversee the omake game bit at all so, there came ‘let’s do “dice game”’ thing without me realizing it. At first, it was some sort of baseball raising game mode…
– Baseball raising game mode!?
Kodaka: But many problems ocurred…
Terasawa: Copyright-wise(laughs)
Sasaki: They were hard on this matter……
(TN: They had an issue with Konami.)
How was “Danganronpa” born?
– Next is what I want to hear the most; how the game named “Danganronpa” was born.
1. At first, Kodaka wanted to do an original project. He chose 'adventure game’ field because he could make it with low cost. But no good idea for it came up. At one point, he thought highschoolers killing each other and having trials could be really fun.
2. Kodaka, Komatsuzaki, and Sugiwara workd on the game planning for DR1.
3. Adventure games were easy to make, but they used to be low in popularity so Kodaka and others thought about how to make the game different from the others.
4. Nonstop debate was conceived from Nico Nico Douga’s flying comments. It used to be a minor system of the game. However, game planner Sugiwara suggested that it should be the main system.
5. They wanted to make the game at low cost so they chose 2D for images.
6. The system and the theme of highschoolers killing each other existed from the beginning. Kodaka worked on the scenario after.
7. Rui didn’t know what kind of world the game was set in when he was making the game back in DR1.
8. Kodaka tried to explain about the concept of 'Psycho-Pop’ but people couldn’t understand him. So he showed them the scenario, and the staffs understood what kind of story this was when Genocider Jack popped up at chapter 2.
9. Kodaka was finished with the whole plot for DR1 when he was working on chapter 1 and 2 but he had only written plot for the whole scenario, so it was hard to know what the details were at that time. So other staffs looked at the scenario in advance while making the game.
10. Character design took the longest time when making DR1. Monokuma took 5 minutes to make.
11. Kodaka makes the plot first. He doesn’t stop until the ending is decided. While making the plot, he thinks of what characters he wants to put in. Themes for each chapter are decided this time around. Then he places the characters in every chapter depending on their characteristics. Kaede was decided to be killed from this planning stage.
12. Scenario for V3 came out pretty late, but since most of the staffs within the team did 1 and 2 too, they already knew what kind of stage the new game will have and Sasaki was giving out directions without Kodaka.
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The true meaning within “V3”
– Actually, weren’t you scared of the user responses about V3? For the guys who were fans up until now, the story was shocking.
Sasaki: Rather than being scared, we were looking forward to it. For me, I already knew that there’d be mixed opinions and me and my team thought this was interesting, that it’d be okay to have negative opinions about it…
Kodaka: How about you, Terasawa-san? You were against “2”’s 'game world’ concept. I remember that clearly.
Terasawa: That’s right. At that time, I was against it a little bit but I had almost no opinions against V3. Thinking “he thought up a good ending.”. I thought that “He sure did think up of a good ending”
Kodaka: About the plot twist, I received a review from one worker, and thinking about how everything turned out, I think that was the most correct response. On the day I first showed him, he said “I don’t know about this. Honestly, players will be disappointed.” but on the day after he came back “I thought about it for a day, and I think it’s unexpectedly interesting.”. I thought the players’ response would be similar overall.
Terasawa: If you write (the review) straight after finishing the game, we will have low scores… (laughs)
Kodaka: I guess we could say about “spoilery stuffs”?
– Fans want to hear about “spoilery stuffs”!
Kodaka: I wanted to set players playing V3 up in a different stage than the ones up till now. In the end, players in 1 or 2 are mere bystanders, saying things like “Cheer up Naegi-kun”, “Cheer up Hinata-kun”. Until now, they were bystanders saying “It’s a very sad despair for Naegi-kun, but it’s not related to me in any way.” and since V3 is a third installment, I wanted to put the players on the different position that isn’t like that. If the current position changes, I thought that the feels that you get when you play will become different, and it will not feel like the game has fallen into mannerism. I wanted to make players stand closer to Saihara&co’s perspective.
Saihara and others were like “All the things we believed up till now were all fictions, it’s a pity.” and they fall into despair. Still, even if it’s fiction, I wanted him to refute the enemies by “The ones which made my heart move and made me grow are truths.”, and grasping hope from despair by refuting enemies so I made the end like that.
I wanted him to sync with the players at the end, but I guess there were parts where he went too far. But thinking that it’s the same despair as the one Saihara and Naegi&co. and Hinata&co. had experienced made me want the players to feel the same.
– You wanted us to sync with them. I thought I was being told off by the game.
Kodaka: Is that so. I think there could be people feeling that way, but I didn’t intend to at all. They’re(the viewers in NDRV3) from completely different world. That world’s viewers aren’t our players. It’s really popular in the world over there. In the world over here it’s not… (laughs) I wanted to do that kind of thing mainly due to that plot device.
When that was connected up with the theme “Fiction and Reality are swapped” and thought of it, I really wanted to do that ending. I had that kind of belief so even it became something hard and the players can’t take it, I couldn’t do much about it. I somehow thought will be a really great game to the players who understood it well, so I wasn’t really scared. I was ready for it a bit too.
– “Danganronpa” gives an impression that it is “a life-changingly touching game for some users” rather than a game loved by everyone.
Kodaka: Of course, the best-case scenario would be “Danganronpa” becoming a magical game that is life-changing and “agreeable” for everyone, but it’s a sharp game to begin with. We aim for something that doesn’t exist out there, and we believe that there will be fans for that stuff no matter what. We believed that those kind of fans will cheer for us this time too. Saying that we’re ready for this, we had false hope believing that the fans of “Danganronpa” will agree with us this time too… but as expected they didn’t.
Terasawa: That expectation was betrayed (laughs).
Kodaka: I had thought maybe miracles could happen, but it went as we expected.
– How was the reception for “2”?
Kodaka: Rather, we took the common road for 2 so we heard a good amount of praise. “1” ended with somewhat buoyant ending that has despair and hope at the same time, and “2” ended with a happy end so I guess the gap inbetween was a factor too? “2”’s way of ending is one of Danganronpa too, but “1” and “V3” ’s ways of ending are “Danganronpa” within me too, so I’m thinking whether I have achieved the intention of enjoying various tastes like that.
Something like you play the game several years later and you find that the game tastes different. If the game tastes still the same, you’re just repeating the series. I want to change that part as a creator no matter what. (何年後かにまたやり直してみたらまた違う味がするみたいな。同じ味がしちゃったら、ただシリーズを重ねるだけになっちゃうので。それは作り手として絶対に変えたいなと思っていました。)
Thoughts for the next work?
– There are undecided parts too, but what do you think about the plot onward. If I take examples from fans, there are voices saying “We want to see “V2” where Amami Rantarou is the protagonist.“.
Terasawa: Indeed, there were people asking for something like "What was Amami’s previous killing game like”, saying that they don’t mind seeing it in novels or comics.
– Finally, there were people asking for something like animation 'Despair-arc”.
Terasawa: I suppose he(Kodaka) will write it if he feels like it, right?
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13. Kodaka doesn’t just reveal a fact within a story because Danganronpa’s core genre is mystery.
14. If you look at Kodaka’s way of writing stories, you can add as many ideas as possible whenever you like, but it doesn’t consider budgets at all.
15. Kodaka always thinks about how to break everyone’s expectations when writing a story. It was same when writing tricks for “V3”’s 5th chapter.
————–
Sasaki: For that, only a theme was delivered at first…
Sasaki: As theme of the trick, he said “a trick that works out because the culprit and the victim cooperates together” so three other planners gathered and produced ideas repeatedly for about a month and it was finished.
Kodaka: It was completely different trick at first.
Sasaki: At first, it was a trick where both of the guys pull the bow and the arrow together. With a fatal wound that enables them to use only one hand, one of them aims and the other grabs bowstring, and the culprit pulls the string to plunge it.
Kodaka: That was hard direction-wise, and we concluded that it was bit insufficient for chapter 5. It lacked drama too, so we fixed it again and it turned out like that.
Sasaki: We didn’t think about using Ekisal that way at first as well, so it was good that we coincidentally made a good use of it.
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16. Kodaka compromised many things to fit the cost and schedule when he was making “1”.
17. But Kodaka said they shouldn’t compromise a lot for the first installment of a series. For the first series, they normally have a lot of ideas, so if they throw them out one by one, there will be not many ideas left in the future series. So you will lose to “We only have this pattern left!” and the story will end up being costly to make yet trash-like. At some point, making something new out of big budget will become really hard.
18. So he chose themes that costs differently when making “1”, “2”, “V3”. He thinks 1 is pretty great in that perspective because it didn’t expand too much in terms of ideas, but was sharp on its own.
19. If there is something that Kodaka would like to add in “1”, he puts it in future installments. If he was given the chance to remake 1, he would like to change it so that the culprits are less obvious. Many people pointed out that “1” was really simple. That’s why he made it harder to guess culprits for 2 and V3.
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– Thinking about it, nothing was obvious when playing through first.
Kodaka: One of the easier one is Shinguji(Korekiyo) I think. But that too, we had a magic show as a stage in chapter 2 yet Yumeno wasn’t the culprit so our intention was that even if the occult was the main theme, people won’t be able to guess if Shinguji is the culprit or not so we just made it like that.
– I thought Yumeno was going to die for sure. I don’t remember a lot of cute characters in the past series surviving until the end, but is there a reason why you made her survive?
Kodaka: It’s the same reason as Kuzuryu(Fuyuhiko)from 2, but killing the character who has just overcame her friends’ deaths and grew up is a bit… well it’d be betraying the expectation as well, but I don’t want to betray like that. It’s alright if she dies after completing her growth, but I thought killing her when she’s about to grow up was bit meaninglessly bad. So you might think she’s going to survive after playing V3 up till 3rd chapter thanks to Kuzuryu’s case.
Terasawa: Although he says he doesn’t like it, he might try to kill someone that way if there is a next installment. (laughs)
Kodaka: Might… (laughs)
– Next, about the protagonist, it’s the spoilery bit but I wanted to ask you about Saihara Shuichi being the protagonist. All the protagonists up till now had the impression that they were easy to empathize with. Saihara is clearly different from past two so, what did you have in mind when you conceived him?
Kodaka: “Growth”. I was thinking that he was a growing protagonist. In “1”, Naegi was weak and cute when he first appeared, but he had this characteristic that he’s cute, and he somehow was cute from the beginning. But Saihara wasn’t sure of himself, so I wanted him to be the character that players can think he’s on the even level as them or someone whom the players worry about. Looking at the character, I thought of the story where he lets the others think even though he had the baton passed from Kaede and he became close to Momota, so I thought I must make him continue growing. That’s the part I minded the most about Saihara. Hayashibara(Megumi)-san, who voiced him, minded that a lot too, he was very weak back in chapter 1 right?
Sasaki: Indeed. He’s the character whose impression changed the most from the first to the last.
Kodaka: When staffs heard only about the first chapter, some were like “Is he okay to be that weak?”, so I gave them the impression that “he will be the real man!” when we reach 6th chapter. Considering that, he picks up girls in his head in “Brain Drive”, and there’s this pervert side of him too so, it’s like “hey what is this guy thinking in his head?”.
(TN: I think he’s referring to “Man’s Greatest Ambition” event)
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20. When making the character, Kodaka thinks as much as he can about the character and gives them to Komatsuzaki. Komatsuzaki then gives him the design back and Kodaka refines the character. They usually go through seven versions before finalizing. 2 or 3 if it went smoothly. Only about 4 people are involved in this process. Everyone discussed together for “1”, but they thought it’d be better this way rather than having everyone’s opinions.
—————————-
– For this installment, which character was revamped the most?
Kodaka: I think it’s Ouma(Kokichi). And I think Amami took a long time too. But overall, it went more smoothly than “2” right?
– You had a lot of hardships for “2”?
Kodaka: They were expecting the next one to succeed like “1” did, and the weird request like 'put in a character like Oogami(Sakura)’ came in. If that kind of 'unique’ kind of character is once created, it’s good for “2” too. It’s really hard, and we had the frame for it too, but we couldn’t do it and it felt like 'hey you’re aiming for that again?’ so we just gave up.
For “V3”, we didn’t aim for that from the beginning. I didn’t put Hoshi(Ryoma) in as comedy relief, but as a cute but hard-boiled character. On the other hand, characters that lack characteristics but have good looks took rather longer time. I don’t want add more to that. Especially, if voices of many people are applied, the character design becomes 'added(足し算)’, so that’s why I don’t put many people when making the character. I don’t quite like character design with many added(足し算) parts. So I do whatever I wish, stuffs like making Saihara dark and wearing his cap.
Sasaki: There were lots of revamps for Saihara. No matter how we tried he became a lot like Hinata or Naegi, so we minded that a lot when making him.
Receiving the result for popularity poll
– Continuing on with characters, how was the result for this popularity poll?
Kodaka: I say, Harukawa(Maki) ranked low! So this result, must be a lie. (laughs)
Sasaki: Right. She was high in the survival ranks though.
Kodaka: As I expected, it’s because she stuck around with Momota. And it’s a shock that Shinguji ranked low! I can’t stand how this character must be feeling. I like him a lot design-wise too. But everyone is good too. The one who grew up the most through Danganronpa must be Komatsuzaki.
Back then in “1”, along with Terasawa, I said my opinions a lot too. But Komatsuzaki made theory within himself as time went on so, if we had a meeting now, we just throw ideas to him. It’s more fun to receive ideas from him too so. So for characters being this popular, I think it’s power of Komatsuzaki.
Terasawa: Well, the rankng for this is not only about pictures but also the contents too so.
Kodaka: Do you mean, (Yonaga)Angie was popular for her looks but I didn’t try hard enough? (laughs). I wonder if you mean… Komatsuzaki did good. Well, I couldn’t do much about Shirogane.
Terasawa: I thought Harukawa and Momota would end up higher. Harukawa ends up higher in other rankings, but Momota is generally low. I thought Momota would be more popular back then when the game wasn’t out.
Kodaka: What do you think, do you think he was too heated? I like third characters like Momota because he’s like Kuwabara from 'Yuyuhakusho’. I guess Amami ranked 6th thanks to his looks….
Sasaki: Even though he didn’t do anything…
Kodaka: Erm, isn’t it because he gives off good vibes? He somehow survived the previous survival. Still, I didn’t make any character with intention of making him/her popular. If choose some factors to please people, I choose characteristics that will lead to positive effects rather than similar things.
– You said before that you give ideas to Komatsuzaki-san, but what are written there?
Kodaka: I write everything that comes to my mind as hints. Something like “This lass believes in god” or for K1-B0, “He’s a cute dopey robot”, or for Iruma(Miu), “She goes S and M.” and gives him their lines. Komatsuzaki keeps that in mind and gives ideas too, like for Momota, he didn’t have goatee at first. But we decided that he should have goatee to look more like a third character, and his suit’s color was black and more gorgeous at first too, but it was said that it might be better off with some color washed off so color of his clothes ended up weird. (laughs)
– K1-B0 is a dopey character with great key visual. I suppose that bit was decided from the beginning?
Kodaka: His personality was decided, but it was like 'let’s make his key visual really gorgeous!’. But in chapter 6, he was really awesome. That movie was created without me knowing it too.
(TN: He’s talking about 3D movie where Kiibo destroys the whole school)
Sasaki: It was when Varin was broken (バリーンって壊れてくるところですね). In the scenario, it was clearly written that K1-B0 will come out rigorously, but I wonder if it was the designer’s heart that carried him to do that far.
(TN: I wonder if 'バリーン’ is typo for barrier)
Kodaka: I didn’t expect him to show this much passion and I was surprised.
– So it’s like Kodaka-san makes basic things and you spread it out to staffs.
Kodaka: So in other way, “Danganronpa” team members don’t do just what they’re told to do. I do more than what I was asked to do.
Sasaki: Right. But somehow within everyone else, they know what is allowed in “Danganronpa” and what is not, so they add what they think are fun to the team. Everything’s over though… (laughs).
————
They talk about Japan’s game industry afterwards. Nothing much related to Danganronpa. Kodaka does mention that he always makes game as if he’s making the last, thus V3 ended that way too.
I didn’t know that that 3D footage of Kiibo destroying the school was something that designers did on their own lol. By the sound of it, DR team sounds like passionate pranksters.
