Based entirely on the two Mikoto MVs, I'm convinced Mikoto is the personality that killed all the people and John was the one doing the cleanup afterwards. John says "I learned how to clean a crime scene for you. Please jsut say thank you once please"
See I , when I found out that John could attack Es but Mikoto can't, also thought that Mikoto is the one who did the actual murders. Because if MILGRAM can differentiate between the two, you'd think it can differentiate correctly. Unless they just had to encode Mikoto in there somehow before they knew about John... but I can't think of how something like that would be able to tell the difference. Maybe brainwave patterns? the whole "prisoners can't attack the warden" and the 09 situation is really interesting too. MILGRAM is either supernatural (...they do have a telepathic rabbit) or extremely futuristically high-tech ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - arthur c clarke). And if it was that level... you'd hope its accurate.
Sorry. long winded way of saying I agree that Mikoto is the one who actually did the murder.
This was definitely what I thought before Double came out, and i only listened to the 09 t2 voice drama recently. I don't remember much of it besides John being scared that if he's fronting too often, Mikoto will disappear, and he doesn't want that to happen because he did all this to protect him, so he (John) should be the one to disappear. But I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) but when a system forms due to some traumatic event, usually the system forms after the event itself, so it would make sense if Mikoto did that, then John formed and cleaned it up, and Mikoto simply blocked out the memories. But Mikoto on his own repressing the memories seems more complicated than him simply not remembering it because he didn't do it, since amnesia is one of the diagnostic symptoms of DID; at least, it would make more sense as per Occam's razor.
[dramatic pause while i go rewatch MeMe and Double. putting this under the cut because it got super long]
MeMe
"I'd play dead even though I'm alive" (subtitle translation, bear with me) is a really interesting line. It could be referencing this facade that Mikoto is putting up about not knowing anything, or possibly his attitude during the murder detaching himself ("playing dead") even though he's the one actually doing it, leading to repressing the memory/pretending it was just a dream.
"'I' will save 'me'" as a line coming *after* the actual murder is interesting. I do think the general view of MeMe is that the more angry/harsher voice is John, while the milder one is Mikoto, but maybe it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple with MILGRAM...
"I won't forgive you if this is happening to me even though I'm right" is also interesting in that he turns the forgiven/unforgiven thing back on Es. But what is he "right" about? That he didn't do anything? The phrasing and use of "if" implies that he isn't certain.
The second murder/verse shows Mikoto in the Hanged Man t-shirt (the hanged man signifies sacrifice or indecision/waiting), which is also what he wears in the chorus where his voice is softer, supposed to be Mikoto and not John... earlier at the line of "I will save me" he takes the shirt off and puts on a plain white shirt and talks about shaking it up/switch up that brain, which only John seems to be aware of being a system, so if the plain shirt/shirtless is John and the tarot shirt is Mikoto... then that would indeed be Mikoto murdering someone.
In the mirror scene after the shower, when it sort of zooms out, the Mikoto closer to the camera is wearing his jacket (you can see it on his arm at 1:44) ... interesting. and then the "Take a good look at me until you find me, the truth will come to reveal itself" in the chorus... right after the mirror thing.... very interesting. veeerrrry interesting.
And then he gets the Devil card. Meaning (according to various sources) obsession, addiction, powerlessness, excess; violence and fatality; your "inner demons"/"shadow self"; and in the Fool's Journey, economic materialism. Hmm. like a job. That connects to how John says the stress of his job is what drove them to murder people as stress relief. Another observation: Most iterations of the Devil card have the Devil perched on some kind of pedestal which has two people chained to it, a man and a woman; Mikoto's version of the deck has neither of those people, but some strange objects instead, and the Devil's body is a mannequin, like the ones on the train in Double.
...
And then we see both of them in the same outfit, so maybe just ignore what I said about the shirts...
The security footage after the line "I'm already the fake one" implies that Mikoto doesn't remember those moments directly, but maybe is aware of them due to evidence/the actual security footage
In the very last chorus he flips the Fool card at the viewer, signifying that he's the one that the Fool's Journey is applying to here... and then does a whole tarot spread that i do NOT know enough to interpret. and then the last card he flips over is Death. Meaning transformation, release, change. Essentially, letting go of the past to embrace the future. Hmm. That makes me think John could entirely replace Mikoto by the end of MILGRAM. But who knows...
Double
Right off the bat we get John talking about all these recurring themes, that Mikoto is overstressed and work and too much of a people pleaser, but he needs to stop taking on so much, and John will help him deal with all the pressure and protect him from the consequences.
All this language about John "saving" Mikoto definitely could be implying that he cleans up the scene afterwards. While he does acknowledge that the murder was for stress relief, I don't think he'd go so far as to say randomly killing people is "saving" Mikoto; but if Mikoto was killing people, and John was cleaning up the evidence, that could definitely be it.
Based on the cues to tell the difference between John and Mikoto, the bridge of Double seems to be Mikoto on the phone with his mom, and John killing indiscriminate people... But tbh every single person in this series in as unreliable narrator. just to keep that in mind.
The ending frames of Double go so hard. I think it is Mikoto saying "I'm so sorry" which could be him apologizing for the trouble he's caused with all this damn murder! or just like.... everything. in general. Idk.
TLDR I'm not certain on the specifics of Mikoto and John's whole situation, but I can absolutely believe that Mikoto is the one who committed the murders, and the structure of Milgram itself supports this. The MVs complicate things but people are complicated. I 🩵 unreliable narrators
