thinking about the difference between 願望(wish) and 希望(hope)... Hope is a painful thing, as Nietzsche has once said, it prolongs pain, it's the greatest of evil. Wish, on the other hand, is something a bit too naive and selfish. There's two different temporality embedded in them... Hope seems a bit further than wish. You wish for something, you probably want it quick. When you encounter a genie, the genie grants you wish the moment after you tell them your wish.
Wish is also quite childish... Hope is very adult. Children are our hope, I've heard this phrase too many times. Only adults say that. Children are our future, too. But Komaeda lost his childhood pretty early. He embraced this hope thing a bit too early. When he should still be making wishes to his parents. You don't hope for something when you're a child, you wish for them — you simply want. There's no price to pay, no pain to endure. You want a pair of new shoes for your birthday, your parents (if they're responsible and loving parents, as all parents ought to be) get them for you.
Komaeda doesn't make wish. He either hopes or makes request. Fortune wrecked his childhood. And now he doesn't wish no more. Even though there might be people around him (yes I mean Hinata) who will listen to his wish. And try to grant it, albeit not perfect? Who knows. But if Hinata loves him, he will do so. Not something far away like hope, just a small small wish...
i haven't been writing too much about my version of hikoma, at least for a while, the thing about that is i think most people do "shipping" differently from me, which is alright, but then... i just find myself very discouraged to talk about my own way of shipping, because i know i will inevitably get misunderstood, i feel weird tagging them as hikoma slash but tagging "&" feels just as weird
and i just can't with some folks trying so hard to convince me that komaeda has this conventional romantic feeling and confesses romantically to hinata, citing some nebulous mistranslation without really explaining how the language was mistranslated; i just can't; especially considering the fact that i have played the games all in its original japanese (if you'd like to know my credentials, i got a literal perfect score in JLPT N1); and have been thinking about hikoma for a decade by now; of course i can see them in a romantic light and would read fanworks portraying them as a couple, but that's just not interesting enough for me to do a deep dive myself; i dont speak this language, i just don't... so that's why i rarely do any hinata/komaeda art that focuses on them being cute together, but i still ship them, you know? i do so very much!
On Kamukura, my very shallow thoughts after reading y'all's thoughtful writings. LONG.
So, as I have said in couple of my previous posts, I think Kamukura is really a young soul that hadn't experienced most of the world, which is the reason why he (as opposed to the things that he'd say) reaches out his senses to actively receive outside information -- actively receive, an oxymoron that somehow makes sense to me in Kamukura's case.
He's like what, idk, 3-5 years old? To me he's a child who complains about not having enough toys to play around with: why is this world so dull and stagnant? Why wouldn't anyone excite me? (this goes back to @/thekamukuraproject's point about being lonely at the top) Except he's born like that, he was born a giant with a child's mind. Natually he seek for excitement but was probably met with only disappointment. His birth is not a miracle, but a plan, a project. He was born to be someone else's copy -- not even his name is his own! If you play the game in original Japanese, his name is written in katakana, meaning he is simultaneously Kamukura Izuru (the concept) yet not Kamukura Izuru (Hope's Peak's founder).
Why did the founder Kamukura wanted a copy of himself? Was it hubris or was it loneliness? Hubris of wanting to create an entire new human specie so that the world can evolve in the image of his own, of wanting to become God? Or the loneliness because no one can truly understand him and his aspiration, hopes and love, so he wanted someone who he can love without being afraid that his own talent would overwhelm the relationship? (Think about Frankenstein's monster, what did he ask his creator? He asked for a companion!)
But I guess the research got twisted in the century that Hope's Peak Academy had too evolved. Founder Kamukura had died and no one can truly know what his intentions behind the project were. So I just believe that the researchers had lost the direction and buried in their own hubris, as we human always do. They "created" the copy Kamukura but had long lost the original. This already makes the entire situation quite bad.
Now, remember what Kamukura called these researchers? "Teachers." A child giant born as the product of the experiment must be overwhelmed by his surroundings, what does he do? He looks around, he bears all the talents yet nothing else. He comes to this world empty-handed like all of us do. Yet he has a gifted mind. He observes and interprets, he knows these adults surrounding him are using him, but he doesn't know (nor care?) that he is being used. Is being used a bad thing? No one taught him that. So he takes them in, like a child stroking his dolls and robots -- you can't amuse me no more, what should I do next? How can I gain pleasure and satisfaction? Teacher tells him: you're *bored* because you are very talented and this world doesn't suit you. Teacher tells him: you can only have fun once this stagnant world has evolved.
A child must be taught how to play (with dolls and robots). Parent must guide them to create their first very own narrative and assign meanings to old toys. But the narrative Kamukura has been presented is the one that : you bear the responsibility to push the world evolve. So he does what he does best, he uses his talent. I guess.
Junko probably comes up at this point and teaches him a thing or two. Junko is probably more interesting humans of the bunch, Kamukura is so hellishly bored of the lab, so he breaks out. Junko probably don't care about Kamukura's own agenda, all that she needs to know is that Kamukura can be a tool for her to achieve her true despair (or something), so she uses him to create chaos -- this is what the world needs, she probably tells him. After all, "using people is a talent too."
At a certain point I honestly don't think he cares no more. This world only had gotten worse because of the majority i.e. the talentless people. They got messed up just as Junko had planned. So he joins Junko's plan of essentially taking over the entire world and make the world Junko (she's at least better than the rest), hence joining in the entire Jabberwock Island business. He probably would perish too.
Oh boy this has gotten really long. I just wanna add this one bit: On bluesky Kodaka answered a question about Kamukura's execution. Kodaka said: he will be shown the boring daily life of Hinata Hajime again and again and again... And that's his death. Isn't this so so so interesting? Like perhaps to him this Hinata Hajime boy is his end and his birth. He was the product of this utter belief in talent can change him into someone better. But what does Kamukura thinks of himself? Probably someone boring too. I don't believe that he would willingly take the role of messiah and bring a new genesis. Perhaps he will. But he is no selfless god. He is... well, at least I hope he is still human. There's no morally good and bad, not even hope or despair. It's boredom and pleasure for him. People would electrocute themselves to be rid of boredom, and that's the miasma that's plaguing him. How horrible is that life. Ugh.
Another Kodaka ask from Bluesky relating to the cast's age:
Characters from Danganronpa and Rain Code don't seem to have a specific age assigned to them, is there a reason for that?
Kodaka: because age makes a useless filter.
I guess filter here is probably pointing at two things, 1) probably the rating system, if their ages aren't specific then it can probably bypass some rating restriction/requirement, though I'm not very knowledgeable about this; 2) it makes so people can make up their own headcannons about these characters and easier for immersion(?).
I feel like Kamukura is a very very passive person... He's also very young, meaning he possesses a mind that's not fully developed yet emotionally. It's hard to imagine what it feels like to have all the talents, I guess he had never been the true hope that Hope's Peak wanted him to be, the project probably gone a bit twisted because some researchers losing themselves in their hubris. After all they're trying to create a perfect human, and we all know how that kinda thing goes in fiction (insert Frankenstein, Flowers for Algernon, etc.).
He listens to the ocean wave, he calls his birth parents (the researchers) his mentor and believes them, believes that people without talents are utterly inferior than those who are gifted, and that talentless people drag the world down so he must push the world to evolve... That's why he attempted to use AE Junko as his means to essentially create a new world with only talented people, I guess.
I'm just listing chapter 0 facts here. The impression I have of him is just, an emotionally immature genius stuck in boredom. And his mentors imprinted that evolution project onto him. I don't even know if that's what he actually thinks — that might just be a false promise that he chose to believe. What is he anyway. He's a flawed copy of an actually gifted person from a century ago. That's the saddest part I think.
What are y'all's thoughts about Komaeda? Just one word is fine — tell me! I want to know!
Writings about Komaeda are all under the #komaedump tag; less relevant asks under #komaedasks. Feel free to read or to block, my takes are hot but Komaeda is hotter.
SPOILERS AHEAD, you’ve been warned. I don’t tag my spoilers, so please follow at your discretion.
One of the most impressionable scenes where Hinata and Komaeda interact (not player choice but as a part of plot) is the scene in the Hospital Lobby at the beginning of chapter three:
I think Komaeda and Hinata are very alike. They both are twisted and strive to achieve Hope in their own way. But the difference lies in their confidence and self-esteem: Hinata had excessive self-esteem and turned into self-loath that pushed him to agree to be the subject of Kamukura Project (to regain the confidence), whereas Komaeda is so lack of any confident and self-esteem to start with that he can’t even allow himself to be a part of the school.
However, at the start of Chapter 6, you see Komaeda’s change of heart: because he witnessed how Hinata is able to fit into the Ultimates even without revealing his talent — without any real talent — he realized that he, too, has the chance to be Hope. I think that psyche is similar to Hinata as a prep student. I can talk about this a bit more, but I’ll stop for now :D!
P.S. the sprite in the first image is my favorite Komaeda Sprite, what’s your favorite Komaeda sprite?
I can understand your interpretation of Komaeda and where you're coming from, but something I actually want to point out is that during Komaeda's final free time event, when he says that he is in love with the hope that sleeps inside of Hinata it's actually a mistranslation.
While I agree with you that "I am truly in love with the hope that sleeps inside you." Is not at all a romantic statement on its own, (especially when coming from someone like Nagito, who seems to be more in love with the concept of hope itself than actual people) apparently in Japanese, the subject of the sentence was Hinata, but Nagito abruptly changed the subject to hope in the middle of the sentence. So in the original Japanese version of the game, what he said was actually more along the lines of:
"From the bottom of my heart, I am truly in love with y-...the hope that sleeps inside you."
Now I could go on and on about all of Danganronpa's terrible mistranslation errors and the widely debated topic of whether or not Komaeda was in love with Hinata but I just wanted to point this out in case you were unaware of it.
I also want to make it abundantly clear that I am not trying to refute your opinions or start discourse! I'm just sharing my thoughts.
I am unaware of the mistranslation issue, so thanks for informing me! But it's because I've only played the game in Japanese and have never played its English version, so I apologize for my flimsy translation on my last post. But do note that I put "I love you" first in my own translation xD! I'm making my point while being fully aware of the original linguistic context, but it's interesting to see the discrepancy in the localizations. I appreciate your information.
And feel free to refute my opinions with reasonable claims! I'm all for a dialectical understanding of Komaeda; after he is, in the word of Kodaka, built around the concept of Contradiction, and the premise of Danganronpa is to find out the flaw in other's logic! So no pressure and shoot them bullets at me! xD
