I recommend all Hajime enjoyers to occasionally review Gundham's free time events because I sure do and Hajime is so cute in them and Gundham is so cute in them and they are both so cute in there HAJIME IS SO CUTE IN THEREEEEEEE
I really like that it's Makoto who wonders what the difference is between Alter Ego and everyone else. It's technically not necessary that it's him making assertions, but the assertions he makes throughout Danganronpa 1 are always humanising in nature, not just in understanding the people involved in the killing game and that they were driven by circumstance created by Monokuma, but also in seeing Alter Ego as just as much an ally as everybody else because it's a presence just as helpful. Aoi is actually the first person to express empathy at Alter Ego in Chapter 4 when it seems like it won't serve a purpose anymore, saying that she feels bad because it was trying its best, and Makoto endorses that statement, expanding it into an inquiry about the difference between man and machine. Makoto sees that its actions generate the same effects and finds that he can understand Aoi, and that Alter Ego could be seen similarly to someone else. I think it speaks to Makoto's empathetic character that is pretty important for Chapter 4 considering he's thinking about Sakura's feelings at this point and also understands Aoi's pain in the class trial, making him more assertive than usual.
It also makes me think that though he isn't imminently perceptive about how people feel about him (Toko's free time events pop to mind), he is generally observant and whenever he starts thinking, he thinks with nuance particularly when emotional intelligencd is involved. He finds himself understanding people's feelings and deriving meaning from their actions to a degree that isn't guaranteed for just any person, and can get deep in thought for problem solving. I think that Makoto being the person to deem Alter Ego as an ally and giving reasoning as to why makes sense between all remaining people in the cast in that sense because he has the appropriate combination between emotional intelligence and the logical thinking.
There is no purpose here I'm just tldr compiling chapter 4 rewatch Makoto observations it's just me yapping 👉👈
Watching a Danganronpa 1 let's play while at work (can't write fanfiction while working woe is me) but it's funky to look at Sayaka in hindsight because she talks about how she dreamed about being an idol because she herself looked up to the idols on screen that cheered her up while she was alone at home, and she describes that they were pretty and good at dancing and singing... But puts emphasis on their smiles in the end. Sayaka shows weakness in this moment of the game, venting her fear of being forgotten by the world thus undoing all her effort but I think it puts to perspective how her smile was described in the way it was by Makoto like how reassuring Sayaka was because Sayaka worked hard to come off that reassuring to other people, being able to make people feel better through her attitude is part of what she wants to be. And it worked out because she motivated Makoto but also through that was keeping herself afloat through her situation.
This part is also interesting because Sayaka reveals her fears and why she accepted going into Hope's Peak Academy and Makoto finds himself frustrated that he can't empathise because he feels so ordinary in comparison. He wants to be helpful to Sayaka, but he concludes from that moment that he's fundamentally different from her as the burdens she carries are completely different from his. Which is something occurring after Sayaka before said that Makoto was more reassuring to her than any Ultimate, where this time, Sayaka showed weakness and it in that sense made Makoto feel somewhat powerless. Overall very food for thought, as Makoto regardless of that frustration still wants to do his best for Sayaka
One instance I think about a lot when it comes to Nagito's attitude is when he's entered the Final Dead Room in Chapter 4. At this time, he hadn't learned any dark truths and was as usual, but Monomi isn't a subject of his respect, so the way he speaks to her is different from the way he speaks to his classmates. This difference is personally intriguing also because Nagito here isn't in any particular terrible mood but is being more or less dismissive of Monomi as he speaks to her:
(yes I had to whip out the Japanese script I'm so sorry)
(also I love Usami and her cutesy lil uwu speech pattern but I'm not being paid to do this thus minimal effort was placed I'm so sorry)
(Nagito: "Well, that's okay and all, but... Just make sure you don't get in my way.")
(Monomi: "In your way...?")
(Nagito: "The "Life-Threatening Game" is about to start, right? So it would be a pain if you got in my way.")
(Monomi: "A-are you actually... going to twy it?")
(Nagito: "I mean... If I don't, I can't leave now, can I?")
("Besides... If there's any way trash like me could be put to use, it would be by risking my life for everyone's sake, after all.")
(Monomi: "Th-that's not true! You're not twash at all!")
("There isn't a single person in this world who doesn't deserve to live!")
("But even though I said something cool, I'm so scawed my heart is pounding!")
(Nagito: "... Aren't you actually excited instead?")
("Look, doesn't it get you excited when you think you'll be useful to those bearing hope?!")
This set of lines in particular are juicy to me because when Monomi is expressing being rightfully scared of a life-threatening situation, Nagito corrects her own feelings. Aren't you actually excited? Isn't that why your heart is pounding right now? And he speaks of his own experience as if she could relate, that the fact he can be useful gets him excited. This Final Dead Room segment speaks volumes about how little Nagito values his own life, and it's interesting to me not only how Nagito is focusing on how he'd want his death to be one that can contribute something to others but that he would seek to be that sacrifice in the name of that contribution... And also that he would believe that Monomi would actually relate to or understand this feeling, since she isn't one of them. Or that, even if she doesn't get it, that she might actually feel it deep down, and she just doesn't know it.
Isn't that kind of intriguing? You can take different roads with this, such as how maybe this is what Nagito also has to say to himself, subduing his own fear by putting the excitement in first place, or it can speak to the general lack of awareness that's been present when his POV was concerned, where he didn't really understand Fuyuhiko's grief for Peko as he dismissed the possibility that he could be reminiscing about her, or it could indicate that towards people more at his level, that he expects them all to feel as worthless as he does, to the point that they would carry a similar inferiority complex about their existence. Or all of them, or none of them. If there are more that pop to mind, feel free to let me know <333
The reason I had to whip out the Japanese script is because the translation makes the statement be as if an aside from Nagito:
This makes it seem like Nagito is either thinking that she's excited, only for him to talk about the separate different thing that he's excited about, or that he believes Monomi is excited that Nagito is about to be useful for the sake of hope. However, the original sentence is seeking agreement about this feeling of excitement from the other party, this being Monomi, and considering he's saying that her dokidoki was actually wakuwaku this whole time, it would seem to me that the two sentences are connected, where he's seeking her agreement in how being useful for the sake of hope is exciting. No subject is in that sentence, so the focus point is about the feeling of excitement, thus it didn't pop to mind that it would be about how it's exciting that HE gets to be useful, rather than it being a general statement. I used second person as a general statement, you as in the general you...
Like "Look, just thinking about this gets you excited, right?" that vibe? I welcome fellow weebs chipping in but my honest and immediate impression was that it was funny Nagito just mansplaining over Monomi's feelings. Monomi is also in the Final Dead Room and so technically if she clears it, she would be in the same position as Nagito. And since I feel like if it was about him, that Nagito would refer to himself in the sentence but yeah! I think about this from time to time because it's another facet of Nagito and also implies a lot about his behaviour as he's not facing an Ultimate. If it could serve as food for thought too, that would be nice! Now, it's time for me to hide in a hole woooooooooooo--
Nagito Komaeda and All These Files He Found in the Final Dead Room
Hiiii so are you interested in some nerdery of all time? :3
Because I had a draft for a text wall which had like, all of the text pertaining to the details on the things that Nagito found through the files in the Final Dead Room so if anyone wants to use as reference... Here you are?
In Chapter 4, Nagito chooses to go into the Final Dead Room for the investigation of Nekomaru's murder because he figures that the killer must have cleared it in order to commit the crime, and that he would be the suitable sacrifice to go through the Final Dead Room in the Ultimates' place. There, he gets to the Russian Roulette segment, where he takes the hardest difficulty in the game, 5 bullets out of 6, and because of that gets the biggest prize. Part of this prize is in the form of the files Monokuma hands him once he's in the Octagon:
The Future Foundation file that Nagito is referring to is the one the cast receives after riding the roller coaster, which talks about the Killing School Life and is where Byakuya is introduced as a survivor. Monokuma refers to the file he gives in the Final Dead Room as an extension of that, and the Hope's Peak Academy files as student profiles. Nagito corroborates this information when he reunites with Hajime:
Truth is, though, this corroboration has a touch of lying attached to it, as Nagito's doing a lil trolling in the name of monopolizing the information advantage. Because of this, his testimony here takes more value by combining it with other instances like when he's by himself, with Monokuma, or his final message, where he makes multiple implications about the nature of the files he's received:
So, the deets we have on the nature of these files is that the Hope's Peak Academy side has 16 student profiles. Nagito hid this truth from everyone just to say that Hajime's Reserve Course student status is all he knows, but maybe the same way Mukuro Ikusaba's profile from Danganronpa 1 was how Kyoko knew that Mukuro was part of Ultimate Despair, these student profiles contained information pointing to the cast being Ultimate Despair. Meanwhile, the Future Foundation files talk about the Killing School Life to the point Nagito knows about the murders that occur there and is able to draw parallels between them and it's through these parallels probably that Nagito takes another conclusion that he reveals at the end of Chapter 4, but with more detail at the start of Chapter 5:
Nagito believes that Monokuma orchestrated this killing game for the purpose of drawing out a (I'd say or multiple but translation is assuming one) survivor from the Killing School Life, since this killing game is a parallel of it and is meant to show the despair of the cast who are being led on with the expectation of finding the mystery out. Additionally, our fake Makoto Naegi from Chapter 6 supplies the Ultimate Despair side of the matter:
Basically, this information can lead us to conclude Nagito knows about everyone being Remnants of Despair, the fact that his plan was to kill everyone except the traitor, as well as that he knew intimately about what happened in the Killing School Life, and that he figured Monokuma was waiting for someone to arrive based on the huge despair taunt that was his current killing game, this deduction having been correct from the onset as we finding out in Chapter 6, Junko's plan having been to draw out Makoto from the start. Now, there's nuance here, since fake Makoto Naegi isn't necessarily the most trustworthy source, but there's also no particular reason Makoto has to lie about what's meant to be one of the key plot twists of Chapter 5: the fact that Nagito was aiming to single out the traitor, and for the traitor to win as the killer. In other words, it wouldn't be that intuitive to shut out what this Makoto says as a lie, either. It boils down to how you want to take the game information about the files.
Crucially, I think it paints the picture on Nagito's deduction about how there's a survivor from the previous killing game meant to arrive in the island. The files from the Future Foundation had detail on the murders that occured and their specific going-ons with enough detail that Nagito was drawing parallels between them and the murders taking place in the island, and it's after he takes the files from the Final Dead Room that Nagito uses the term Ultimate Hope, which is also something that was mentioned in the Killing School Life.
Regarding the truth about this world Nagito mentions in his final message, there's no confirmation on where exactly this comes from that I'm aware of except that the fact the traitor must know this was the lightbulb for it, and there's also the matter of whether Hajime's student profile would contain something mentioning the Izuru Kamukura project, since these files are prepared by Monokuma. It's all up in the air! This is itself the topic of another post, so I'll have to recommend that one instead. Either which way, this is as far as I know practically all the information I could condense on the matter of what exactly Nagito finds out in the Final Dead Room (maybe I could have added the bits of how Monokuma messed with the Hope's Peak files regarding the traitor but that's what it would boil down to in the end too), which I think can be liable to get mixed up since it's relatively minute stuff. These logistics alone fill up a lot of image count though so here you gooo have fun thank you for your timeeeee
It'll be a big while before I address this in a text wall, but from recent rewatch of Danganronpa 2 Chapter 5, I feel like it serves to make the themes of belief introduced by Chiaki in Chapter 3 go full circle. Chiaki talks about why casting doubt on Mikan is an attempt to believe in her, because this doubt comes from the desire to want the suspicions not to be true. Here, there's a symbiotic necessary yet seemingly contradictory emotional dichotomy being set here, like for hope and despair, but about belief and doubt, and this is brought up in Chapter 5 about both Nagito and Chiaki.
Hajime casts doubt on the conclusions taken about Nagito's plan throughout the class trial, with the reasoning that Nagito's malice can't end at that. Hajime's doubt is translated by Monokuma as a belief in that malice, that essentially Hajime's doubt on Nagito's intentions translates to a trust in the fact that Nagito can do worse, therefore Hajime having to clarify that he means it in a bad way. However, this negative connotation is something Hajime believes in, and this guides Hajime in the class trial, so that doubt and the belief that comes packaged with it becomes a valuable judge of character.
Hajime also has to face this concept of belief with Chiaki being the traitor. A chunk of the trial relies on Hajime having to believe in Chiaki's deduction of Nagito's motivations, and in the process casting doubt on her, dissecting the hints that exist to conclude she's the traitor. The rest of the cast have to be convinced to believe in Chiaki, ending with Hajime's speech that it's because he believes in Chiaki that he's pursuing this angle of her as the traitor, and that no one would be saved by denying Chiaki's wish. The cast have to acknowledge Chiaki's conclusion, trusting in her through having to face points of doubt, and Hajime is a guiding force in projecting this because he answers to Chiaki's plea no matter how it hurts, and believes in her.
It's also worth noting that faith is a strong component for Nagito's murder plan in general. I may leave this as food for thought, since I think that my point does stand on belief and Chapter 5, and how it could be worth consideration.
Chapter 1 of Danganronpa has Makoto, even before Leon's death and even before Kyoko tells him her deduction on why Sayaka left her dying message, snap at Monokuma that it's his fault that everything happened. At that time, Makoto was still under the impression that Sayaka only used him, so it's interesting because it ends up meaning that it doesn't matter to him whether Sayaka or Leon jumped to questionable actions. These were all influenced by the mastermind, and wouldn't have happened normally. Thus, it implies that Makoto sees Sayaka and Leon as good people, choosing to instead of despairing at the types of things people can do for their own agendas, to instead advance with blaming the source of the problem.
This is something I'm thinking about because there seems to be some degree of discourse over the nature of Sayaka's plan, as well as what that implies about Sayaka, which I guess is kind of ironic to me because the perspective taken by Makoto himself is that it doesn't matter at all. There's no way to verify the exact truth from Sayaka, because she's dead. However, instead of making that be a source of continuous uncertainty, Makoto tackles the matter from what he knows, which is that it wouldn't have happened if not for Monokuma. The sense of ambiguity from Sayaka's specific feelings and circumstances I think is part of why in the end it's more powerful that Makoto chooses to not blame anyone in the killing game. He doesn't have to have all the answers. He still believes Sayaka is a good person.
Though regarding this whole ambiguity thing, the way the game frames it, Kyoko can only expose this as her deduction, but I'd be inclined to agree with her deduction. Kyoko posits that Sayaka's murder failed due to Sayaka's own hesitation, which is plausible as when Sayaka attacks Leon, we don't really know exactly what happened, how Leon managed to dodge without knowing it was coming, etc. It implied to me that Kyoko had the belief that without this hesitation, Sayaka would have been able to stab Leon cleanly, as there was no other apparent factor that would have affected the crime. Because of this, we have the narrative that Sayaka wanted to make sure Makoto wouldn't be pinned for this murder as she died, which is why she bothered to write the dying message. It's a likely narrative and what the game pushes to highlight the complexity in Sayaka's character, where the game doesn't want to end this chapter with the player thinking that Sayaka was just a manipulator. Otherwise, the game itself would have ended just with the idea that Sayaka used Makoto.
Also Kyoko says that she wanted to give her deduction about Sayaka because he's "the type of person who can overcome this" as in to move past the deaths of others and keep pressing forward. Makoto denies this, saying he'll never just overcome it and instead drag these deaths forever while moving forward. That in other words, he doesn't want to forget about them even if it hurts. To me it would imply that he wants to make sure that each death matters so that deaths are never a light affair to him, or something that should be repeated, a will not to forget?
From my Komaeda doctorate perspective this is one of those parallels that I didn't develop on in my text wall but is particularly interesting because Nagito's approach solely talks precisely about "overcoming" despair. Nagito talks about moving on from death after it happens (immediately becoming cheerful after an execution, the complete opposite of Makoto's posited philosophy of dragging these deaths), and can look forward to another instance of adversity to occur so that worthy people can become stronger. When Nagito says that it's all the fault of the despair that is the killing game brought on by the mastermind, it's just the argument made to distract the cast from the fact that Teruteru did it, so when Nagito actually talks about his own beliefs, he takes the murders to be acts of hope that dictate each person's personal motives and because of that sees that all have merit. Basically, even though both characters here don't judge the murderers or victims negatively for their questionable actions, seeing the people as good, the reasoning is completely different, because Makoto finds them to be a product of circumstance, and Nagito finds them to be personally motivated. So, Makoto blames the mastermind for the people involved having been led to doing reprehensible things, while Nagito finds the killing game just the stage set for people to overcome the obstacles in the way of their objectives. So it follows this principle where Nagito and Makoto are very similar but also opposing each other I think potentially?
Why does Sayaka have like two utter banger conversations with Hajime in V3's Ultimate Talent Development Plan and
Why was I not told?
????????? who wrote this and can they write more please
"Then you need to think about the next thing" Sayaka???? Excuse me???????????
There's cute aggression and then there's quality aggression I call my feelings QUALITY AGGRESSION--
Nah but I think this is such a cool exchange because Sayaka is characterized in Danganronpa 1 by the extent of the effort she put in to realize her dream. She fueled herself solely on the dream she had to the point I'd also find it hard to believe she was working for it because she believed she had the talent to become an idol. It makes sense that she truly just wanted to be an idol so bad that she did whatever it took to reach the position of the people she admired, so she can do what they did. And so positioning her as someone who is admirable in her effort besides just her talent so that it can be seen from the perspective of Hajime that she puts her all into what she's doing, making him wonder if what motivates her is knowing from the onset that she is more than a nobody--
Only for him to get the answer that she does it for the love of it, and it's true. It's not because she was good at it that she works for it, but because she wants to continue living that dream, and so she gains strength through that ideal. Hajime connects it to his own admiration of an ideal ?? But is comparatively despondent about it because he didn't become that, and Sayaka just goes like Anyway dream harder Hajime like ??? I think having Sayaka say this can have a lot of implications some of which pretty cool in the sense of the future that Sayaka would have to inevitably think of since she can't be an idol forever but also in how to me it translates into a mindset that continues to work in function of something to strive for, which isn't something addressed in Danganronpa 2 because Hajime's aspirations were turned against him, so Sayaka here as a positive light on that concept?? do you see my vision??? And Sayaka being psychic and guessing who Hajime is meeting IT'S SHE IT'S HER
AND IT'S HIM AND THEY MY GRATITUDE TO THE INVENTION OF THIS DYNAMIC
