#drv3 analysis

[chickensoup1025]

I like the idea that Kaito isn't actually a genius or smart in an iq book way. He's an astronaut trainee through sheer determination. He got to where he is not because he was naturally gifted like Kaede was at the piano or Leon for baseball, but because he worked hard every single day to get to the level geniuses normally put only some effort into. Gives hope for the dumb dumbs.

[hopeiskindacool]

The circumstances of Rantaro's Motive Video is strange. I'd assume that it was made before the game even started, but looking more into it that doesn't make sense.

In the prolouge, Rantaro wears a more casual like outfit like everyone else up until they get their Ultimate. The clothes worn in the motive video is the ultimate clothes.

If he was just wearing the same clothes as he did in his previous game, then why would they waste their time taking him in, out, and back into his clothes?

Another thing in the prologue is that the Monokubs also accidentally didn't wipe or give any of the students their memories yet. So, Rantaro should've still have the memories of making the motive video. Although Rantaro seems to recognize the situation to some degree, he doesn't seem to expect it.

There's also more thoughts about this but I'm not sure how to organize it

[fit-artichoke8738]

It’s so weird to me that even in the demo, Rantaro did not participate in the trial.

It was a pretty big indicator to many who played it that he was probably going to die first, so why did they do it this way?

At first, I thought maybe they didn’t want to make the extra art for him, but Makoto and Hajime got their own art, so that can’t be the reason.

Even in the DR1 demo, both Mukuro (as Junko) and Sayaka participated in the demo trial—two characters who, like Rantaro, died in the first chapter.

Sure, the whole gimmick in the demo was that there were ‘too few seats,’ and two people had to sit out, but why was Rantaro chosen as one of them? Kiibo being chosen makes sense, as his exclusion from things happens multiple times in the actual game, but why avocado boy? They writers could’ve chosen anyone.

So is there some reason his character absolutely cannot participate in a trial?

(Ik this observation is a bit meta-game-ey but I still thought it was worth acknowledging. You can watch a play through of the demo here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2JX5gCM-DwY)

[tenkangie]

So, I'm a pretty big Miu enthusiast. I've noticed she's pretty popular in the fandom, but a lot of people seem to just... not really understand why she acts the way she does? I've seen her grouped in with Hifumi and Teruteru a lot as the "perverted character" of V3 (and I think that is a complete misunderstanding of Hifumi's character as well, but I digress), but I've found that when you view Miu through a specific lens, she makes... a lot more sense. Specifically when you view her as autistic and... clearly traumatized in more ways than one pre-killing game. I also think it's interesting to explore both the parallels between Miu and other characters in the series, as well as her motives throughout the game, since digging into those can add some further context to her character.

Also, content warning for discussions of a lot of canon-typical sensitive topics, including sexual abuse. Also, beware of heavy V3 spoilers.

Also, thanks to my bestie @moodorbs​ for listening to my thoughts and helping out with some of this.

ANYWAY. Miu Iruma is autistic! Her special interests are sex, robots, and... sex robots. You can see that she frequently tries to relate to people through her special interests, since that's the thing she knows how to navigate the best. This is pretty clear throughout the main game, as well as her freetime events. She is known for frequently making sexual comments towards pretty much everyone. I think it's interesting to note how the things she says can have positive or negative connotations. When she's trying to insult someone, she'll usually either insult their appearance or call them a perv or something similar. When she's trying to compliment them, she'll often compliment their appearance or infer that they find her attractive, usually if they've done something nice for her. This last part also connects to a complicated relationship with Miu sexualizing herself, which I'll touch on later. But regardless. Sexual comments aren't strictly positive or negative with Miu- they're how she navigates a lot of social situations, since, again, sex is a special interest of hers, so she knows a lot about it. Unfortunately, these sexual comments can often be offputting to others, which leads to her being further alienated from her peers, aka the same people she's trying to connect with. I think this also shows in how she’s genuinely hurt and surprised when her peers seem upset with her, since she’s literally just trying to connect with them.

However, she does seem to enjoy a bit of the back-and-forth that comes from pissing people off a bit. There are, of course, her many moments with Ouma, which she seems to enjoy somewhat. But I think the best example of this, where this behavior is specifically called out, is during her freetime events with Kaede.

Above is the end of her first freetime event with Kaede, and below is the majority of her second.

I also think it's interesting to note how Miu pretty much bribes Shuichi into friendship, since she clearly really wants to be close with him. This is most apparent during their second freetime event, where she gives him a box of her own inventions. Not only that, but they are inventions that sexualize Miu specifically, including sunglasses that play erotic animations, where she's included one of herself, and a recording of her own moans. She's trying to connect with Shuichi SO hard by giving her what she views as her greatest assets- the products of her mind and body combined. And Shuichi is... really dismissive of it at first. And Miu is clearly upset by this.

You can see that Miu’s first instinct when Shuichi chooses to hang out with her is to show him her inventions. The next two screenshots are from their first freetime event, where you can see that he’s… not really responding to them the way she’s hoping for.

Then, during the second freetime event, she offers him the aforementioned inventions that are specifically portraying herself in sexual ways.

She goes on to encourage him to be happy because she made these specifically for him. And then she promises to tell him “her secret”. These are clearly acts of genuine friendship on Miu’s part. She trusts Shuichi at this point! This is Miu showing that affection and that trust!

All of this combined is to say... Miu is trying SO hard to connect with her peers. It's also pretty much explicitly stated during her second freetime event with Kaede that Miu doesn't have any friends. Miu is probably extremely lonely, and that's why she's so desperate in connecting with Kaede and Shuichi during their freetime events. These are people who are willingly and repeatedly spending time with her, and they're not actively malicious in the way I imagine a lot of people in her past were, so she's trying to connect with them as much as she can. Or, at the very least, she tries to engage them in conversation so that they keep coming back and interacting with her. Miu's well intentioned, but she presents herself in a way that pushes people away inadvertently. And yet, she doesn't know how else she COULD present herself. She's showing her best assets first, she's navigating social situations the way she knows how. But the people around her just see her as self centered and obnoxious for the most part, since she's always either talking about sex, how great she is, or both. But this is the only way Miu knows how to be.

Further evidence that Miu attempts to connect with the people she wants to be closer with through her inventions can be found in her Harmonious Heart segment. (I’m aware that Salmon Team and Love Hotel aren’t canon, but I do think that they can offer interesting insight into some of the characters).

She wants to connect with Shuichi by sharing an idea she’s had that she’s proud of with him. She’s concerned about what he thinks, but there’s an emphasis on understanding. She wants to understand and be understood, which is something she hasn’t experienced before, because, again, she hasn’t had friends before!

Miu most likely has some past sexual experiences that color her view of sex and romance during the killing game. Alongside her intelligence, she is often trying to get people to like her for her body, or through sexual gifts and favors. She introduces herself as "the gorgeous girl genius whose good looks and golden brain will go down in history!", showing that she values her looks on the same level as her mind (or potentially slightly more, since the "gorgeous" and "good looks" come before the "genius" and "golden brain", but that's more speculation). She frequently offers to take her clothes off when people are friendly towards her or do her a favor (something she has in common with Mikan and Akane from SDR2, both of whom explicitly have some form of sexual trauma. I also think that none of these characters have fully processed this trauma, but where Mikan and Akane casually overshare, Miu doesn’t share at all because she doesn’t think it’s anything of note. She’s trying to market herself as a product in a sense, showing her best assets and her greatest highlights, so why would she draw attention to something that isn’t any of that?). She also gives Shuichi the aforementioned sexual gifts during their third freetime event. I think it's pretty clear that she's had some sort of unhealthy sexual experiences in her past, and she views sex and herself as a gift she can give someone in return for their kindness, friendship, or just... seemingly good intentions. She almost always assumes they have ulterior motives, which pretty heavily implies some bad past experiences.

(Couldn’t find an example for Akane from her freetime events, but I was able to grab this from the wiki).

She also has some VERY clear abandonment issues. This is shown during her final freetime event with Shuichi, where she bakes him a pie with her hair in it, as well as making other baked goods with... parts of her in them. Which is... something, I will say that. There's also her love suite, where she literally tells Shuichi she wants to have a baby with him so that he won't leave her, which, again. Abandonment issues.

And here’s the bit from her Love Hotel scene.

I would also say that her abandonment issues tie into her motivations as an inventor. Miu frequently talks about how "the world" needs her, or her inventions. I see this as an extension of those same abandonment issues- she needs to feel special, like she can't be replaced. Whether it's having a baby with someone to guarantee that they won't leave her, or inventing something that benefits the world as a whole, she needs to feel not only needed but irreplaceable. She needs assurance that people won't turn their back on her. This need to fill a spot that nobody else can seeps into her entire life. It's why she emphasizes her "gorgeous girl genius" title, her ability as a genius, how much better than everyone else she is. Because if she's special, then she won't be forgotten. She can't be replaced. She genuinely wants to help the world with her inventions, but she also wants to be appreciated for that help. Or, at the very least, she's terrified of the world turning their back on her.

Additionally, Miu is EXTREMELY smart. I think a lot of people have brought up how she correctly figures out the culprit at the beginning of each trial, as well as how she figured out the mastermind on trial one. While her reasoning isn't always correct, the fact that she's consistently getting the right answers is impressive. It's also... never appreciated by the cast. At all. In fact, they're quick to dismiss her and call her an idiot, something she has in common with two other V3 characters I really like- Kaito and Gonta. And... all three of these characters are EXTREMELY smart. Not only does Miu consistently figure out the blackened, but she's an inventor. The "gorgeous girl genius" title isn't something she pulled out of her ass. Her inventions were INTEGRAL to ending the game, as well as to Kokichi's plans. Not to mention, her plan to murder Kokichi was extremely well thought out, and would've worked if she hadn't been so hesitant to actually kill him.

This is a Miu analysis, so I'm not gonna get TOO into Kaito or Gonta, but Kaito's a literal astronaut who knows 3 languages and has completed astronaut training. And Gonta is EXTREMELY knowledgeable about bugs, and not only that, but he has a desire to CONTINUE to learn about a range of different things. They're both extremely emotionally intelligent as well.

All three of these characters have the other characters downplaying their intelligence- Miu's called stupid a LOT, including when she's actually right about things. Not only is there a whole scene that's played for laughs where everyone calls Kaito an idiot despite his protests that it hurts his feelings (which is surprisingly vulnerable for Kaito), but his "sidekicks", ESPECIALLY Maki, will regularly call him stupid and an idiot. And then Gonta's written off as some lovable idiot, to a degree that he's not even considered as a culprit in trial 4 until Kokichi spells it out, since he's seen as too sweet and too dumb to do something like that.

However, where Gonta agrees with the sentiment that he's an idiot, and Kaito protests, as it's clearly an insecurity of his, Miu genuinely knows she's smart and proclaims it frequently. And loudly. And, while I think it is also partially a reassurance (since she's constantly being told that she's not actually that smart), she's much more secure in her intelligence than... most other things about herself. After all, she views her intelligence as one of her biggest "selling points" in a sense.

There's also something to be said about her beliefs that she's an "augmented human". She genuinely doesn't believe that she's fully human, to the point that she's willing to actually cut herself open to prove it. That's... clearly something to unpack. Her reasoning is that she used to be a "boring, unremarkable girl with no talent at all" before getting into a car crash and ending up in a coma. Once she woke up, she suddenly had a bunch of ideas for inventions, as well as the skills and ability to make them a reality. Now, it's pretty clear from my perspective that this is just Team Danganronpa's cool backstory idea for her- they don't have to be completely realistic, after all. But it's clear that the illogical nature of it all is something that Miu's thought about... a lot.  I think that the fact that she's put so much thought into this discrepancy is a further testament to her intelligence, but I digress. Coupled with the self deprecating way she talks about herself pre-coma, as well as the emphasis on her intelligence when she talks about herself, PLUS her abandonment issues and how they link to her inventions... her insecurities clearly aren't about her intelligence itself, like Momota and Gokuhara's, but about how and why, exactly, she is that intelligent.Because things don't add up to her, and that leaves room for insecurities about whether that intelligence could be taken away, or her ideas could disappear someday. There's also something to be said for how Miu doesn't view herself as fully human, especially in relation to her constant sexualization of herself, as well as the way she seems to view herself as a commodity to "the world". So long as she's needed, it doesn't matter if they view her as a person or an object or an asset (except it really, really does).

This is clearly Miu trying to rationalize something that is completely irrational. Because it’s a fictional backstory that doesn’t have to make sense. But… it’s clearly a backstory that’s had unintended consequences to her character on the part of the in-universe writers (a situation that isn’t exclusive to Miu, actually, and is present both subtly and… extremely blatantly throughout the game, but I digress).

Her coma backstory most likely also ties into her desire to only make inventions that can be used while sleeping. There's not much else to say about this, and it's pretty common knowledge, but I still wanted to point it out, since this is a Miu analysis and I think it’s an interesting part of her character.

Next, I'm going to dive into her attempt at murdering Ouma. It was very well thought out. She created her own playing field, and because of this, she had control over pretty much every aspect. She figured out how to get everyone where she wanted them, created and defined the rules so that it would seem impossible for herself to be the blackened, and manipulated things so that Ouma wouldn't be able to fight back. She planned to frame Momota as well, which shows an attention to detail. She clearly thought her plan out. However. Despite all the thought that went into her plan, when she got Kokichi alone on the roof, Miu stalled. She apologized to him. She rationalized her motives. This allowed Gonta to get the jump on her and kill her instead. Miu failed because, at her core, she wants to help people. Her entire motivation for planning to kill Kokichi was to save the world with her inventions. But in spite of that, when it came down to it... she delayed taking another human life as much as possible.

Contrast that with Kirumi, whose motives were honestly the most similar to Miu's. Kirumi felt an obligation to escape the school to serve the country as Prime Minister, and Miu felt an obligation to escape to save the world with her inventions. When Kirumi got the chance to kill Ryoma, she didn't hesitate. When Miu got the chance to kill Kokichi, she did.

And while I was looking for screencaps to show Miu’s hesitance, I noticed some familiar wording, which made me remember some MORE familiar wording, and I drew a few parallels.

Not only do Miu’s final moments show both how hesitant she was to actually kill Kokichi, and how her motivations really were to return to the world and save it, but… it furthers the parallels I had already noticed between her and Kirumi, and brings up some new ones between her and Kaito. The extremely similar wording between the three of them is extremely important to note, since there’s a common thread running between all three of them. They all have to save the world. Kirumi has to fulfill her duty, Kaito has to be the hero that everyone looks up to (and fulfill his goal of going to space), and Miu has to invent something that’ll solve the world’s problems and make her irreplaceable. They all view themselves as a potential savior. They each have a goal they have to complete. Just an interesting parallel that caught my attention when I saw the similar wording.

I’m also going to dedicate a section specifically to her final freetime event, since I think it’s… really interesting, and there’s a LOT of Miu’s character packed in there.

Okay, so first of all- this is the freetime event directly following the one where Miu confessed that she believed she was an augmented human, and attempted to disembowel herself, only to be stopped by Shuichi. When Shuichi goes to check up on her, which is the rational thing to do after something like that, she immediately starts to assume his intentions based on past experiences. At first, she assumes he’s talking down to her (a result of her intelligence being downplayed frequently by the people around her, as well as an assumption that he finds her weird because of her own belief that she’s an augmented human). However, when he tells her that he isn’t talking down to her, her next immediate assumption is that he wants to have sex with her. This ties into the earlier point that Miu’s immediate reaction when someone’s nice to her is to offer them sexual favors. She also assumes that he’s worried about her because he’s in love with her. A lot of these assumptions that she makes here are signs of her attempting to read the social cues of the people around her, but reading them incorrectly, since Miu Iruma is autistic, and I highly doubt that she had any sort of diagnosis or the support necessary to develop a social toolkit. Hence why she’s working with what she knows (her brain and her body).

Also- Miu stims <3

Finally, I think this bit from the Love Hotel is... interesting.

Miu outright confirms that she’s putting on an “act”, aka masking to try and make herself more appealing. Also notable is that her deepest fantasy involves someone sticking by her since childhood... which, coupled with the fact that she doesn’t have any friends as well as how eager she was to befriend Shuichi and Kaede when they showed interest in her... is kinda sad.

Anyway, all of that is to say- Miu is an autistic, traumatized, scared teenage girl in a killing game. She explicitly says that she has no friends. Miu’s a people pleaser who can’t please people. She has abandonment issues that manifest in every area of her life. Her intelligence is constantly mocked and downplayed because she doesn't present herself in an "intellectual" way. She tries to win people over by sharing what she thinks are her best assets with them, by engaging them in conversation about things she finds interesting (again, sex, robots, and sex robots), or by figuring out some way to make herself someone they need to stick around, because she's so desperate to find people who actually enjoy her company, and when she finds them, she wants to make sure they won't leave her. Her sexual comments aren't made with creepy or bad intentions- that's literally just how she navigates social situations. She's ultimately a selfless person who wants to help the world with her inventions, but when it actually came down to it, she wasn't able to kill someone for that goal, which is extremely notable in a series like Danganronpa that has the message that ANYONE can be a killer under the right circumstances. Anyway, I love Miu a lot and have thought about her way too much.

[dangan-meme-palace]

Analysis – Shuichi's Perjury

Context

During the 4th trial Kokichi is trying to "prove" he didn't go to the rooftop (he's doing the opposite actually, but I've already done that analysis) and eventually Shuichi comes to the decision that he needs to make Kokichi stop lying, and to do this Shuichi decides to fight fire with fire and says:

That's a big problem.

Why?

Problem 1

Shuichi's "testimony" means that:

He didn't have an alibi for the time he spent in the salon, the same timeframe he implies that Kokichi used to murder Miu. Tsumugi -his only alibi during this trial- even says that she hadn't known he had gone somewhere else.

His alibi implies that the rooftop door was unlocked. He was trying to prove Kokichi had gone to the rooftop, afterall.

The stairs to the rooftop were right next to the salon.

By Shuichi's own "testimony", he was in the correct timeframe to be the one who murdered Miu and he could have been in the correct location as well, and absolutely no one would've been able to say he didn't because Kokichi "wasn't there" to see him and Tsumugi admits that she didn't see him just moments prior meaning that, for all anyone knew, Shuichi could have lied about where he went and killed Miu on the roof.

The problem is that no one noticed or even pointed this out even though they all said that they believed Shuichi's statement over Kokichi's, despite the fact that it was proven that Kokichi couldn't have killed Miu. They were all too busy trying to pin Kokichi as the culprit to even consider that it could be anyone but him, and since when has anyone ever thought of Shuichi as a prime suspect since Chapter 1? They haven't.

If Shuichi's "testimony" wasn't a lie he could have murdered Miu and no one would have suspected a thing because they blindly believed in Shuichi and hated Kokichi.

Problem 2

My other (slightly less important) problem is that Shuichi had gotten so caught up in trying to find the truth, that he forgot to look for the actual culprit.

Kokichi's avatar settings were already brought up and discussed before Shuichi lied, but Shuichi is still suspecting Kokichi of being the murderer despite knowing he couldn't have done it. He even lied to try and make him "confess" to what he did, even though Kokichi couldn't do anything.

Even if it was only for a moment, Shuichi still tried to fit the suspect to the crime instead of letting the evidence lead him to the culprit, and that's incredibly stupid and dangerous when everyone's lives are on the line. Not that anyone -including Shuichi himself- noticed what Shuichi was doing, because they were all doing the same thing.

Bias Rant

Chapter 4 revealed everyone's harmful biases, including Shuichi's, but they were never really discussed or mentioned again despite the glaring danger.

Kaito was the most obvious and harmful example of this. He fought facts and logic with pure hatred towards Kokichi but the cast didn't even fault him for it, Maki (and Shuichi) even blamed Shuichi for Kaito's attitude towards Shuichi after the trial instead of blaming Kaito for being stubborn, bullheaded, and unwilling to admit to or apologize for his faults after that trial.

However, while Kaito might have been the biggest example, the others aren't off the hook either. They also didn't find fault within themselves despite trying to suspect someone who was innocent just because they didn't like him, even though they all could have literally died for not realizing their bias.

Chapter 4 should have been the best moment for them to realize "hey, I almost died today because I didn't try and find the truth and instead tried to make the truth fit what I wanted it to" and learned better than to do that and grow past their flawed thinking in order to survive, but no, they didn't even think about it.

I'm so frustrated.

I really wish the narrative would talk more about how the cast alienated Kokichi (sometimes understandably, sometimes taking it way too far) and how even Shuichi has been shown time and time again to be biased during trials while everyone else puts their faith in him and their lives in his hands. It would be an interesting plot point to have everyone go from blindly following his deductions to doubting and suspecting him after realizing he's also flawed in the same way they are.

It would also mean that Shuichi would have to develop past his biases and become a better detective to earn everyone's trust back, if he even could earn it back after being so unknowingly flippant with their lives. I think it would have been more relevant and true to the theme of the game than what his character arc actually was. Maybe they wouldn't have dragged their heels with it either–

[fauxrest]

I’ve said this before & am not the first to say this, but

Himiko Yumeno has Asperger’s (at least).

She has trouble expressing emotions; she is very obsessive over one specific topic (magic tricks) to the point of denying them being tricks even at the expense of endangering herself and the group (in the second class trial)—which also demonstrates a lack of awareness/conscious prioritization of danger. She tends to speak slowly and mechanically, whilst frequently not making facial expressions or making understated ones, even though she clearly has emotional reactions to plenty of things even before the start of her character arc; she, at first, gets (understandably) very overwhelmed by people approaching her with the enthusiasm people like Tenko and Angie display; her social skills leave a lot to be desired, although this gradually improves (in the most interesting way possible! <3), and she really doesn’t pick up on social cues very well (even later on).

Also, her sprites include a lot of fidgeting with her fingers and moving her hat around, throwing it up into the air to express emotion, etc. This is a set of specific things she does with her hat repeatedly, in the same ways.

A lot of her most frequent sprites have her facing at an angle from the screen or looking down. On this last one, I’m not entirely sure how this compares to other characters’ sprites, and I know that she also has some sprites that do face the screen directly, so... this point is iffy.

Actually, a lot of the points are iffy on their own—at least the way I worded them bc I’m not being eloquent lol—but I think the fact that they’re all shown simultaneously bolsters the argument.

I’m sure I’m missing some things, and I don’t feel like I’m articulating my points very well, but w/e.

[fit-artichoke8738]

I’m confused.

So I always thought the names in the dialogue box were based on Shuichi’s perspective. In other words, if Shuichi knows who’s talking, then the name is specified, but if he doesn’t know, then it shows up as “???”

But if that’s the case, then why wouldn’t the name be specified here?

This whole scene in Kaede’s lab is supposed to be Shuichi revisiting her in his memories. If this ‘ghost girl’ is a projection of his memories, then he should have no problem recognizing it as Kaede.

Hell, even if this ‘ghost girl’ is a real ghost, he should still recognize it as Kaede’s ghost, right?

So why doesn’t he?

Is that not Kaede?

And along the same lines...

Why is Shuichi’s name the only one obscured here?

Is it because Shuichi has difficulty thinking that he himself would say those kinds of things, but has less of a problem imagining the other two doing so? Considering Shuichi’s relationship with Kaede and Kaito, I kinda have a hard time believing that...

There’s also the possibility that the “???” names aren’t based on Shuichi’s perspective, but on our perspective as the audience. So if the character isn’t clear or is unknown to the audience, their name would be read as “???”

This would then imply that the “ghost girl” is not Kaede, and the boy in the audition tape is not Shuichi... But then, it would also suggest that the audition tape Kaito and Kaede are the real ones...

Hm.

[fit-artichoke8738]

Tsumugi “Shirogane” and Kaede “Akamatsu” May Have Coded Names...

[Long post & lots of cipher stuff. It’s a bit complicated but I tried to explain everything the best I could]

In my time investigating ciphers for my analysis of Rantaro’s lab, I came across this interesting cipher key that had been historically used by ninja:

So the reason this caught my interest is because the names Kaede “Akamatsu” and Tsumugi “Shirogane” fit this cipher key really well. And since I concluded in another post that Rantaro’s lab, a lab filled with ciphers, had more connections to Kaede and Tsumugi than anyone else, I figured this was worth looking into.

The top row of the cipher key represents colors: 紫 (purple) 黒 (black) 白 (white) 赤 (red) 黄 (yellow) 青(blue) 色 (color), and the side column are radicalized forms of the kanji 木 (tree) 火 (fire) 土 (earth) 金 (metal) 水 (water) 人 (person) 身 (body).

[A radical is a kanji component—multiple can be put together to create a new kanji. When a kanji character is radicalized, it’s made smaller and sometimes changes forms, so that it may be used as a component in another kanji].

As shown in this chart, the cipher works by combining a color kanji character and one of the radicals to create a new kanji character, and the created character is associated with its own hiragana character. Using this method, the ninja created a coded language.

For example, with this chart, the word ねこ (neko; meaning cat) would be written in code using these characters:

So now that we know how it works, let’s go back to Kaede Akamatsu and Tsumugi Shirogane...

赤松 (Akamatsu; lit. “red pine tree”) and 白銀 (Shirogane; lit. “white silver/metal”) are both names that could be derived from this chart. And along with the matching meaning, their names even have the proper radical/kanji components that would fit the chart:

And, of course, we can actually plug these components into the chart to get the hiragana character that correlates with it:

白銀 Shirogane; 白 white + 金 metal:

赤松 Akamatsu; 赤 red + 木 tree:

And it looks like the hiragana characters associated with their names are ふ (fu) for Tsumugi and ら (ra) for Kaede.

Now unfortunately, these characters don’t really mean anything. No matter how they’re arranged, they don’t form any Japanese word that would have any sort of significance.

But... There’s an interesting correlation between the two if we reference the kanji used in the iroha poem.

I mentioned it in my analysis of the vault doors in Rantaro’s lab, but basically, the いろは (iroha) poem is an ancient, famous poem that’s often used as a way to order hiragana characters; with one of its most common uses being within ciphers. It’s even used in the cipher we’re talking about in this post—the hiragana characters in the chart are following the exact order of the iroha poem.

The poem is most commonly written in hiragana, but originally, the poem itself was written entirely in kanji, with each kanji representing one hiragana sound, i.e. each hiragana character has an accompanying kanji character.

So for fun, I looked to see what the accompanying kanji character for Tsumugi Shirogane ふ and Kaede Akamatsu ら :

And the result is the kanji 不 for Tsumugi, and the kanji 良 for Kaede. I found this result to be prettyyy interesting because the meanings of these kanji are polar opposite; if they were words, they would be almost perfect antonyms.

不 (ふ) : bad, negative

良 (ら) : good, pleasing

So Tsumugi’s associated with “bad/negative” and Kaede’s associated with “good.”

So what can we make of all of this?

Well, feel free to make your own conclusions, but here is where my mind immediately went...

Kaede Akamatsu: the color red and good, pleasant, things—these associations could be represented by a red smiling face.

Tsumugi Shirogane: the color white and bad, negative things—these associations could be represented by a white crying face.

Kinda like...