Currently workshopping a theory that one do the reasons for shuichi’s inconsistencies in his interactions with people is he actively mirrors the expectations of who he hangs out with. Subconsciously or even at times consciously focusing and honing in on what the people around him want then following that lead which would explain why in certain situations he asks so different. Why in one free time even he’s frantically bandaging a cut on Kokichi’s finger but simply leaving him to bleed when he falls through the floor. It’s because of who he was with, and thus, who he was mirroring and acting on the expectations of. This interests me because it certainly hints at a home life worse then what he describes and helps explain why he can be so strangely inconsistent in similar situations.
I’m shocked no one ever brings up the ways Kokichi is somewhat a foil to Junko. Two hyper intelligent antagonistic people who hate boredom, however where Junko attempts to resolve this boredom through sheer anarchy and despair, Kokichi actively seems to resist and even despise that method. Junko says the only way to find entertainment is through the unpredictable which is in despair and destruction, and Kokichi says that it’s in confusion and community, the two are so similar but the difference in what they turn to for a fix makes them morally completely opposed. Hell he even opposes Izuru as while Izuru passively wants stimulation from the world Kokichi actively creates stimulation when he finds none. He’s a really intriguing foil for the two!
It’s just so weird to me that Kokichi who always talks about boredom and who even said before his death that he’s glad he wasnt boring never gets compared as a fool to the other characters who are also terminally bored. People should do that more.
Shuichi and Kaito’s friendship analysis a.k.a. a short and sad story about dependency
Look, I’ll always say that in post-game scenarios Kaito and Shuichi’s relationship would be a bit strained due to how Shuichi put Kaito on a pedestal and in a lot of ways became dependant on him while not giving much to this relationship himself. This is something I talked about quite a few times, this problem of Shuichi being dependant on Kaito, continuing to live after Kaede’s death after Kaito took him under his wing and finding strength to move on in Kaito’s support. At its core, it’s a dynamic that isn’t really all that healthy, because it puts a lot of pressure on Kaito, especially when we realize that he’s doing the same thing with Maki, in a way carrying the responsibility for their mental state and development on his shoulders, while not getting the same kind of support from them. In fact, in the game, both Maki and Shuichi know very little about Kaito, they don’t ask him many personal questions and correctly if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure that at some points Maki straight up cuts him off when he tries to share.
This kind of dependency is also unhealthy for Shuichi and it seems to be a personality trait that he really struggles with. People often point out parallels between Kaede and Kaito and that’s because they had similar role in Shuichi’s life, and we, as players, follow him because he’s our protagonist. It’s definitely one of Shuichi’s biggest flaws, this need to find someone who will guide him and encourage him. He’s noticably happier when he has the attention of people who recognize his skills and that is perfectly normal. However, the problem is that while Shuichi really didn’t know that much about Kaede or Kaito, he still trusted them unconditionally. He also never really reached out to them as much as they did to him and while he had some nice bonding scenes with Kaede he knows nearly nothing about Kaito on a more personal level. Even their FTEs fail to give us much information about Kaito and despite spending most of our time at his side post chapter 1, during their time together we don’t really find out more about Kaito, when he dies we know probably as much about him as we did when he first reached out to Shuichi. Which is not much, especially if you compare it to how much we know about Maki, who wasn’t nearly as close to Shuichi as Kaito was. As much as I love Shuichi’s friendship with Kaito, there’s a lot that could be improved to make this relationship healthier for both of them. Shuichi does the same thing with Kaito as what he did with Kaede - putting him on a pedestal. And let me tell you, being put on a pedestal sucks. Take it from someone who’ve been there. It’s not healthy and it puts a lot of pressure on you, even if you feel like you can take it, even if you find it flattering and it boosts your ego.
But, if we’re completely fair, we have to acknowledge that Kaito was in many ways no less dependant on this relationship than Shuichi, which is something that people often overlook. Kaito encouraged Shuichi, when you watch his FTEs it becomes clear that to some extent he’s deflecting when it comes to sharing more personal stuff. In chapter 4 their conflict is partly caused by the fact that Kaito feels inadequate next to Shuichi, he’s jealous of his skills and there is some element of him being afraid that Shuichi might not need him and he needs to be needed, he desperately needs it. He enjoys the attention, he enjoys being seen as this good and caring guy who’s always there to help you. He expects others to show him vulnerability while simultaneously refusing to do the same thing. And as noble as that is - it’s also a major character flaw and in a way he self-sabotages himself and his relationships with others. He asks them to give him something he’s not interested in giving in return. And Shuichi is not the kind of person who would pry, he’s not someone who would recognize this as bad and stop Kaito and make him face that what he’s doing is unhealthy and... well, kind of unfair. For him, it’s just one more reason to idolize Kaito, because from his perspective this selflessness is a positive trait and it directly helps him. It’s hard to blame him for that, because out culture teaches us that selflessness and caring are positive traits, it teaches us that it’s the right thing to be compassionate. Kaito creates the environment in which he doesn’t have to take off his masks, but since he’s just a kid when push comes to shove and he and Shuichi argue in chapter 4 - all of his insecurites start to leak through the cracks in his mask. He lashes out and he takes it out on Shuichi. And it’s only made worse by the fact that even when they eventually talk and things get better between them, they are both quick to go back to the status quo. Shuichi doesn’t give much thought to why Kaito acted the way he did and Kaito is all too happy to act as if nothing happened.
In this relationship they are both dependant and while it’s perfectly understandable given their personalities and the context of the killing game and even though they clearly care about each other - it is quite a tragic friendship.
I re-watched all the DRV3 trials a couple months ago and found a whole bunch of piping hot HCs/theories in my drafts, so buckle up friends, here we go
In a handy Numbered List, for your viewing pleasure:
Number 1: The ending of DRV3 is kind of about our experience as players in relation to the fiction, however the 'audience' in the Chapter 6 trial are not meant to be a literal stand-in for the player or even the fanbase in general.
The ending (at least as far as I can fathom) speaks to an imagined future's cultural relationship with its past. It is a fictional story about the problematic nature viewing history like fiction. Don’t worry, this is all still extremely confusing.
Here’s how I saw it. The audience of DR3 are people of the same universe, but a future well distant from DR1+2, and treat the very real* violence and tragedy of their past as a sort of fiction. They see the people involved in those events as characters, and derive entertainment from re-imagining the horror of said events. Tsumugi, as an individual obsessed with the 'fiction' of Junko and the Tragedy (encompassed by her chosen talent being cosplayer, a fan of actual events) cultivates a cult-like audience who spectate on war-reenactment-like performances of the killing game. She takes on the role of the Ultimate Cosplayer, signifying her perception of herself as a fan - only the story she is a ‘fan’ of happens to be the actual history in the world she lives in, and the darkest, most unpleasant parts of said history at that. As the game presents it, her approach wrongs both the victims of DR1+2, as well as the participants of DRV3, and however many other killing games Tsumugi might have orchestrated previously. The horror of this situation lies in the fact that the 'Danganronpa Company', however many people it actually consists of, be it one, two or a hundred, is kidnapping real teenagers and manipulating them into participating.
*(in context, obviously)
Number 2: The memories of pre-game are fabricated, just like the other fake memories that are restored, quote unquote, via the flashback lights. Otherwise the very beginning of Ch1 doesn't seem to add up. In the moments after waking up and exiting the lockers, they haven’t yet been hit by a flashback light. Why, then, would the students recall their kidnapping, but not the reason they were taken in the first place, being that they signed themselves up for the killing game?
Thematically speaking (as I am so wont to do), the game frequently addresses delusion, including how, if we become obsessed enough over the distant past, we might, ironically, become detached from its reality, and begin to treat it like fiction. It cautions against the wanton romanticising of horrific events which actually happened and their consequences. Hence, this moral the game pushes in Ch6, that the students in the game may have been cultivated into 'characters' for entertainment purposes, but they still experience real emotions, and real trauma which the audience has handily forgotten.
Number 2.5: Keebo is apparently the 'eyes' of the audience, fitted with cameras through which they can witness events as they happen. However, we also experience the story through Kaede and Shuichi’s internal monologues. We, the player, are not limited to the perspective of surveillance footage, nor do we have unfettered access to Keebo’s video feed or his decision-making process, so the audience we see in Ch6 cannot be a facsimile for the player.
This builds even further upon the theme of detachment. The audience tuning in to watch Tsumugi’s game are only capable of spectating events from outside, through live-streamed video. This means they are unable to experience the internal thoughts and emotions of any of the participants. Combine this with their warped perception, and they are disconnected from the humans behind their characters in a way we the player are not.
Number 3: The pre-game versions of the students shown are parodies of their role in the game; Kaede is a cruel nihilist, exaggerated from the fact she was the first student willing to kill another; Shuichi is a child-like fanboy who dreams of emulating past greats, mocking his lack of self-confidence, constant need for outside validation and failure to meet expectations.
Number 4.1: DeluUuUsions! This thematic thread fits much better with the Big Duality of the game - truth vs. lies. All of the murderers, Tsumugi included, if not the entire cast, are deluding themselves in some way. Kaede is horrified when the shot put she threw blindly in an air vent hit the innocent Rantaro and not the unidentified mastermind. She seems to fail to realise that she has fallen into Monokuma’s logical trap, being persuaded to ‘stop’ the killing game by committing a murder. The cycle of death had not started yet; she commits the first crime. Rather than stop the cycle, she sets it into motion. She is painted a heroic, almost saintly figure after the trial, but her persistent concern over what the others will think of her leads me to wonder if her motivation was purely misguided altruism as she appears to believe. Although she managed to set them on the right track eventually and prevent the executions of her other classmates, she did ultimately put them at risk by participating in the trial. Her original plan was so complicated (needlessly so) in order to deceive them, Shuichi in particular, because ‘no-one would want to be friends with a murderer’. If her setup had succeeded, Kaede believed she could get away with a murder carried out under the detective’s nose. Her end is tragic, and one of the game’s more deft twists, so I feel rather mean right now. But some form of self-delusion or another is at play in Kaede’s trial.
Number 4.2: Kirumi is the best case study of delusion in V3. I love it because it works both ways, whether you assume the students’ talents, and therefore the motive videos, are genuine or not. Here’s my theory. Although working for the prime minister, Kirumi was not actually lined up to take his position of authority should he die. Rather, she knew that her job was important to the running of office, she knew she was darn good at it, and that the man very much appreciated that. And she filled in the gaps herself from there, warped by her overwhelming sense of self-importance. To her mind, the world revolves around Kirumi. That, or we could assume the motive videos can be pretty freely fabricated, and Kirumi simply weaved the entire backstory from the ground up in order to frame her selfish behaviour as selfless.
I find the language used in the motive video quite suspect, with only a few direct quotes from the prime minister. "Only Kirumi could save the country from impending doom"...the "secretary secretly running the country"..."the future of the country rests entirely on her capable shoulders". Extremely high praise, and a heavy weight of responsibility, but at no point does the prime minister actually state that Kirumi has been made next in line to take over as prime minister. In fact, these lines read more like slightly humorous hyperbole to me, the sort of thing dropped in casual conservation. And yet she claims, "everything you just saw is true, though I only remembered it upon watching that video." A flimsy explanation in itself. Then to meddle with our brains even further, Monokuma comes out with this line: "If you can't believe it...then you're terrified for no reason. Why do humans lie?"
Number 4.3: Korekiyo’s identical twin ghost sister seems to be entirely a figment of his mind. The presence of her spirit is one delusion, and the idea that murdering young women is achieving anything for her is another, as she relishes in finishing him off at the end of his execution. As an extra twist of the knife, even if his version of an afterlife was real, his evil actions denied him access to such a place. Whether or not he ever had a sister in the past is a different matter. Their disturbing relationship could have been a source of terrible trauma, and the cause of the spirit ‘sister’ that appears to posses Kiyo at the height of his delusions. Though she is deceased, her presence in her brother’s mind is a vice-grip. This could somewhat explain why he speaks of her both in the past and present tense, as both dead and alive..."I was so distraught, I nearly went mad." ‘Nearly’, huh. Alternately, a mind so delusional so as to believe in a sister he never had, could also perform the mental pole vault to justify a romance with her. I think I favour the former theory, but to be honest I think my feelings on this chapter will never be anything less than murky.
(this plotline is still dumb, creepy, and should have been dropped for a more interesting conflict surrounding religion, spiritualism and belief, angie and kiyo had so much potential and kodaka flopped at the first hurdle my god i’m so mad)
Number 4.4: Gonta...oh, Gonta. His form of self-delusion is probably the most benevolent of all that we see, and the cruellest for himself to experience. Gonta is manipulated, and taken advantage of by Kokichi. But he does ultimately agree, and acts upon the delusion that the best, kindest action he can take is to ensure none of the remaining students ever learn the truth of their situation. He cannot forgive himself for killing Miu, despite her own plans to commit a murder, and apologises endlessly for what he knows he is doing. And yet he believes this is the kindest thing he can do for the friends he has left, and he sticks by this assertion to the end. Interestingly, Gonta only appears ignorant to the immorality of his choice because his memory of committing the crime has literally been erased from his mind. For once, when he behaves confused and says he does not understand what he is being accused of, he means it. He is twice-deluded. And when confronted with the truth - by another version of himself, no less - he fully admits to his own guilt. Gonta, they did you so dirty...Tarzan voice included.
Number 4.5: "People can lie about how malicious their secrets really are. [...] It's impossible to know for sure what others are thinking. ... If you get betrayed, it's not their fault! It's your fault for believing in them!" Whoa nelly, Chapter 5, nah nah nah, I can’t do this today. Maybe on another post, this one’s too much. You get delusion, and you delusion, and YOU get a delusion, and YOU--
Number 5: "Well, we come from different backgrounds." DICE, if they existed at all, were a juvenile group of petty criminals, most likely kids from disadvantaged backgrounds banding together. Maki notes that Kokichi's lockpicking skill is more suited to your common thief than a ‘supreme leader’. This fits with Kokichi's whole attitude of 'pretending the game is fun in order to survive' and clown motif. It’s all pretence; he and his allies really do live in a lie, but it is the only way for them to live in a world that probably wouldn’t mind much either way. This attitude carries over to the killing game, naturally. Kokichi’s smart, really smart, but the only way he sees that anyone is getting out alive is to dress himself up as a sacrificial lamb, but super twisted, like. And that’s why I hate that this plot tells him he’s right; I feel like he lived his life hated, and dies hated, just as he thought he would have to, and that sucks ass, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Number 6: Kaito had a genuine underlying health condition, possibly terminal, possibly exacerbated by training for spaceflight, or the stress of the killing game itself. His sudden decline genuinely threw off the course of the game in an unprecedented way, leaving Tsumugi to improvise. Kaito at least seemed to be aware of it, and that it was slowly killing him - "No way am I gonna die here. I haven't even gone to space yet.”
Number 7: Tsumugi not only perceives the previous victims of DR1+2 as fictional characters, but the students she has kidnapped too. This is why she hates Kokichi so badly by trial 5; imagine a writer presenting a series of 6 books, and snatching away the 5th one so you can never read it in its entirety. "Living people shouldn't have to suffer because of the dead! The living are more precious than the dead! No matter what.” This is what Tsumugi simply cannot understand. In this way, Keebo presents a sort of ideal since conversely - regardless of whom - he "works really hard to understand".
For the students of V3, their past equals death; it is practically built upon the death of the first killing games. The need to face up to the reality of death also recurs consistently*, whether on an individual character level (Shuichi struggling to accept that he is alive, and Kaede was the one executed; the Necronomicon and seance; Himiko’s guilt and anger over Tenko; the constant switching back and forth between who is dead in chapter 5, be it with the poison arrows and antidote-drinking, or the Exisal voice-changer) or the need for this world’s society to accept the reality of their past and stop treating it as merely a gruesome fairytale. Tsumugi’s strategy of fictionalisation may be a means to process the horrific reality of her story’s terrible, tragic beginnings, but the game concludes that it prevents recovery at best, and causes exact repetition at worst.
*(a message almost entirely undermined by the DR3 anime, whoopsie)
Number 8 (last one, I promise): The Neo World Program (in its V3 state) is a cutesy misunderstanding of what the SDR2 Program was actually like. If Miu's Neo World Program is, as Maki suggests, an experiment to see how a killing game might work if Ultimates didn't have access to their physical talents, Tsumugi's killing game is the opposite, in a way. It is, to her mind, an experiment to see how people react when told they do have a special talent. It is extremely mind-bendy to try and work out how the Neo World simulation changes the students’ abilities; it cannot simply be an equaliser in terms of physical strength, as the programme seems to selectively negate abilities depending on the Ultimate in question, including fine motor tasks. For example, although he still knows perfectly well how to do it, Kokichi claims, "I couldn't pick locks with my avatar body." Assuming, of course, that this is the truth, what are the limits to Miu’s programme?
Or, all of this could be an essay-length attempt to string together bad, mean-spirited writing deflecting the author's own creative ennui onto his audience (only to pathetically back step at the last second) into something more thematically coherent. But if you’ve made it this far, that means you’ve humoured me anyways, so cheers for that.
Nico got to the end of trial 4 and I have *words* and the comment I typed is a mcfreakin essay so i’m putting it on here too because I care way too much about this
Alright, I'm gonna start this off with 1) an apology, because I have no idea how long this is gonna get, and 2) by saying that Hating Kokichi is entirely valid. He's my favorite character in this game, yes, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that probably makes me more than a little biased. However, his actions are entirely inexcusable - understandable (in an "I see why you decided to do this" way), but inexcusable. (In short: Cool motive, still murder.) But this situation is not entirely his fault, nor is it entirely Gonta's, nor is it entirely Miu's. All three of them should be held accountable for their actions.
Miu decided to kill Kokichi and sacrifice everyone else in order to escape.
Gonta willing killed Miu, and planned to get everyone killed in the trial.
Kokichi led both of them to their deaths because he didn't trust that the group would be able to stop Miu from killing someone- she was set on sacrificing them *all* in the end, after all.
If Kokichi didn't go to the virtual world, or at least the roof, she could switch targets. If he stopped them from entering the Virtual World in the first place, she could make a new plan. And that's if everyone believed him about Miu being willing to murder in the first place. Worse case scenario, Miu's plan works, he dies, and she has free reign over the entirety of the Virtual World and can delete or create evidence on a whim. The poison might not match up, but if everyone but Kaito had an alibi for the murder and they had nothing else to go on, it's very likely they wouldn't have been able to peg Miu as the culprit. *This does not excuse Kokichi or Gonta.* Both of them could have, at any time, decided to not kill Miu and figure something else out.
Post-Trial, Kokichi asks to be EXECUTED. There is NO REASON, from ANY ANGLE, that this would benefit him. Monokuma doesn't reply to Kokichi at all, and honestly there's a chance Monokuma might've gone for it to make the game "more interesting". He clearly isn't doing it for pity points from the group, either, considering what he says later. His "fake tears" sprite doesn't come up once - only his more serious looking expressions. After the execution, he doesn't even RESPOND to anyone for a textbox or two. And speaking OF after the execution -
Alter Ego Gonta spent like..5 minutes refusing to tell them the secret because it would, in his perspective, make them all SUICIDAL. Point blank says that knowing the secret made him want to die, and that he's afraid that telling them would make them all despair as he did. Then Gonta tells everyone to stop and just... forgive each other, don't blame Kokichi, because Gonta himself clearly chose to go through with this plan. Kokichi made the plan, set it up, and manipulated the pieces, but ultimately Gonta himself chose to kill Miu, and he believes he should be held accountable for that. Kokichi clearly didn't expect forgiveness, or any sort of kindness in the slightest. And then Gonta asks Kokichi/the group to promise him they'll be *friends* after this. Kokichi agreed, and yeah it's pretty debatable and there's no real way to prove it wasn't a lie, but I'm just stating that it happened here for timeline sake/later points. Then Gonta dies. Not even, what, 20 seconds after his death? Everyone's demanding Kokichi tell them the secret again. Y'know, the one Alter Ego Gonta refused to tell them for their own safety and wellbeing?
And they just... expect Kokichi to tell them?
If Kokichi doesn't care about them or the promise he (debatably) just made with Gonta, he wouldn't care if it made them all crazy or suicidal - heck, he'd probably think it might make things more exciting if everyone went ballistic!
If Kokichi wants to be antagonistic or, as Shuichi said, malicious, he wouldn't tell them because it would piss them off (as evidenced in... what actually happened.)
If Kokichi does care about them and/or Gonta, he wouldn't tell them, because *he saw the outside world too*. If it made *Gonta* decide that murder was ok, what would it do to the rest of them? Plus, all Gonta ever wanted to do was *protect everyone*. If Kokichi cares about them at all, why would he reveal something that could make them all go crazy?
...All of that, of course, is assuming they'd believe a word of what he said if he told the truth. Considering their reactions to him telling a truth they didn't want to hear in the trial, if it really is something so utterly despair inducing or unbelievable, the odds they'd just insist he's lying about it are...fairly high, in my opinion. If he "really cared for Gonta", stealing Kaito's words, then Kokichi would just keep his mouth shut.
Of course, they're not gonna accept him staying silent. He's gotta say *something*. And as Kokichi said - everyone hates him, so the role of villain is perfect for him. He wants them to stop asking, but he can't tell the truth; so he lashes out. He pushes them away and redirects the situation. They expect him to play the villain, and he uses that to the fullest potential.
One last thing: I can probably refute over half of Kokichi's speech at the end, but I'm gonna focus on one part. Kokichi says he lied to Gonta in order to make him calm down so that he wouldn't like, fight back and ruin the trial/game or some such thing. No matter how you look at that it..doesn't make sense. For one, if he really wanted to hurt everyone as much as he could, revealing himself as a villain who planned to betray Gonta from the start and sacrifice him for nothing more than amusement would've hurt a lot more if Gonta himself was there to see it. Two, wouldn't Gonta attempting to fight his execution make things more interesting? If his goal is to make an exciting situation, isn't that perfect? The normally kind and gentle Gonta straight up RAMPAGING? And three, when Kirumi in trial 2 attempted to escape her execution and manipulate everyone... Kokichi let her. He called her out before everyone got too riled up, but he let her try. If he did *that* to make the game more exciting/for his own amusement... why not do the same here? It just doesn't add up, no matter how you view Kokichi.
I'm not an annoying person, but how can someone create a ship just by posters and without any real basis to discuss?
I mean, I understand that Momoharu exists because Maki fell in love with him during the game and they have a relationship, there is evidence and more. I also understand why they ship Shuichi with Kaito or, mainly, Ouma.
But I do not understand that a ship is born by images without real correlation in the final product (like Kaemaki or Oumami). They are clearly children of the fanon and not a part of the canon or close to it.
I always find it weird how much people take at face value the love suites. Like there’s definitely a lot of strong characterization to be found but you gotta remember the character that’s being visited is also kinda under a bit of a spell of seeing their absolute most ideal? I promise you most absolute ideals are going to get a bit unrealistic, especially because we’re told if they illusion breaks the consequences can be pretty nasty.
Of course for the most part people in the love hotel are going to be more pushy and more unrealistic in their desires then they ever would be irl, it’s an ideal fantasy that can’t be safely broken in essentially a dream state. An ideal fantasy is always going to have some degree of impossibility that you will acknowledge, but they’re still tantalizing. Who wouldn’t want to at least imagine a partner who can basically read you mind because they know you so well? A partner who will chase after you? A partner forever bound to your side? The excuse of a dare or other outside force to do something you find taboo? You can admit to yourself that a fantasy is impossible or that it would actually be unhealthy in real life and still enjoy the fantasy. You can’t just assume someone’s ideal fantasy is what they genuinely actually demand from a partner, that’s just not how fantasies work.
Heya,in my decade long dedication to a certain infamous needlemouse fandom, a certain rivalshipping's aspect that I found really fascinating is the "underlying dread to end up/become like them" (mostly one-sided from the more heroic character's end). As you're one who seems to be really literally and analytically knowledgeable, do you think that aspect can be found in the Oumota ship?
Oh, that’s an interesting question! I honestly have rather mixed feelings on this one, so excuse me if this answer will feel rather incoherent, it’s basically me rambling out loud in a stream of consciousness kind of way trying to sort my thoughts out and give you a - hopefully - satisfactory answer.
I think with Oumota this is kind of tricky, because they are both liars manipulating their perception of themselves in other characters’ eyes. So I don’t think it’s them really dreading that they could become like the other one, it’s more about how they both understand and NOT understand the each other due to being blindsided by those lies in one way or another. So what I mean is that I think there is something to it for sure, but it’s kind of... surface level? If that makes sense?
I think out of everyone in the game Oumota are both most likely to uncover each other’s lies and also canon-wise come about as close to it as possible. I think it’s obvious that they both feel some kind of resentment to each other but I think it’s more over those masks they both wear than anything else. A lot of what I’m saying here is based entirely on my own interpretations of these characters, so keep in mind that I am biased and I am relying less on canon (as canon gave us a pretty limited perspective here, both because of Shuichi’s POV and because of the nature of the game) and more on how I interpret these characters after over 2 years of analyzing them and writing about them. So what I mean to say is that they both dislike each other’s masks, they both dislike that persona that the other one tries to be, which is funny because in the end it boils down to the fact that what they really have a problem with is each other’s dishonesty. I think I made it quite clear many times that I truly believe that Kaito was as much of a liar as Kokichi if not more. I think Kokichi dislikes this mask that Kaito builds for himself, especially since he isn’t willing to admit that it’s all a lie (Kokichi himself is very upfront about his lies, as a contrast) and just continues to lie more and more as the game continues. I think Kokichi doesn’t trust him and honestly, for a good reason. Kaito is... pretty transparent, most of the time, and I like to think that Kokichi is good at reading people. He recognizes that this is just a persona of a brave hero who talks bullshit about how everything’s gonna be fine, while - from Kokichi’s perspective - not really doing anything and certainly nothing actually productive. And in turn, we see at points that Kaito calls bullshit on Kokichi’s lies and even genuinely seems to want to break through this facade - calling him pure, constantly arguing with him, chasing him in his free time, challenging him and his words, etc. I think that in a way in chapter 5 they kind of have to let go of any resentment they might feel towards each other and in turn they get a better look at who the person beneath the mask actually is.
I think what they really don’t want to be is to be like the mask the other one is wearing. It’s less about who they are at their core and more about those personas they both hide behind and it is frustrating for both of them.
Like, for Kaito the idea of being untrustworthy would be unbearable, you know? This is his whole thing. He gains people’s trust. He makes them rely on him. So becoming like Kokichi, isolated, always lying, being hated by everyone? This is everything Kaito would never want for himself, this is literally his worst nightmare when you think about it. Kaito is all about making this kind of connection and wanting to feel like he is needed. He would never want to be like Kokichi which I think on some level is why he’s so persistent about making him drop that mask, like, he is so frustrated with Kokichi most of the time because he refuses to believe that anyone would be like that.
And Kokichi, in turn, most likely sees Kaito’s fake honesty and the way he makes people rely on him as... Well, kinda dangerous? And considering what Maki does in ch5 then, well, for a good reason. Kaito is dangerous because he’s both predictable and not. He’s quick to jump into action, he has people who depend on him and have feelings to him, he is able to motivate people with his words and I think in many ways Kokichi sees it as something he would never be able to be and in the context of the killing game also as something that might be potentially a big problem because Kaito doesn’t think about the big picture. Meanwhile, Kokichi is constantly agonizing about the killing game, trying to solve it. I feel like he sees Kaito as irresponsible, especially with how Maki (who is dangerous due to her talent and poor temper) and Shuichi (the one who solves the trials, the only real asset they have) are so dependent on him. Kokichi sees his lies as useful, while Kaito from his perspective uses his simply to gain admiration and delude himself.
In a lot of ways this dread comes simply from who they are as people and not necessarily because they have something personal against each other, you know? The killing game just really doesn’t help here, because it probably 1. makes Kokichi’s paranoia worse and having someone as unpredictable and well, kind of influential (his relationship with Maki and Shuichi) as Kaito in a situation like this one is a formula for a disaster and 2. Kaito’s hero complex is likely to be a bigger issue in a killing game than it would be normally, because he really wants to be this person that others rely on, he wants to be the hero, he wants to prove himself and not only is not difficult but he’s also running out of time. He feels the pressure of time and so he becomes even more unpredictable and prone to lashing out, as we can see looking at his fight with Shuichi. So there’s this very apparent clash, because they both have their own ways of going around things and these methods are completely contradictory and stand in the way of achieving their goals.
I don’t think that would be that much of an issue outside of the game? It is a special kind of situation and I it certainly makes things worse, I feel like in a different scenario it would be more about silly banter and teasing and childish rivalry that is ultimately enjoyable for both of them, like Kokichi pranking Kaito and him chasing Kokichi everywhere. As it is, it’s a conflict of interests.
