LogFAQs > #950405623

#38: Teruteru Hanamura
Main Cast (Male) Ranking: 15/16
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Cook
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate HR Liability

There are a lot of characters I don't like in the Danganronpa games that I could at least see having some sort of fanbase. I've got some coming up where, while I don't personally like the characters, I can at least see their appeal. Even characters I've already talked about, I know at least one has a sizable fanbase and the other seems to be at least tolerated by the majority of people that play the game. However, I can't imagine anyone liking Teruteru. There just isn't a market for "short fat annoying perverts that can only say something categorically gross everytime they open their fat short annoying mouths". I feel like the general consensus to Teruteru being ranked low is going to be a "yeah fuck that guy" and that's about it.

Teruteru is so damn unlikable that I have to think that was the point. Like, thinking about him I can pretty clearly see what kind of character I think they were going here and what they were actually trying to say about him. And I think they did a good job with this. But there is a difference between a character I think is well executed and a character I actually like. Teruteru isn't even in a class of "love to hate" type of characters. His personality is so grating and his character is so unappealing in every single facet that it is impossible to like him, or even be impressed with what the writers were trying to pull off.

The biggest problem is he is a comic relief character that is not funny, and is instead incredibly off-putting in everything he says. This game is a HORNY game with a capital penis, and there are like eight different characters here that either want to have sex with Hajime or each other. But even in this sea of hormones, Teruteru seems out of place. His horniness seems weird. Almost like he's an alien familiar with the concept that humans like sex but didn't get to the chapter in their book to show what appropriate flirting was. Obvious these characters have exaggerated personalities or quirks that tend to get highlighted, but Teruteru almost only has a single personality trait. He'll talk about cooking or he'll talk about sex, and that's it. It is unfunny line after unfunny line, and it is amazing that Teruteru gets as grating as he does considering he dies at the very beginning of the game. His whole schtick is tried and overplayed almost immediately. It isn't fun not only because it is weird, but because it feels lazy. These aren't hilarious jokes, but the most bottom of the barrel obvious sort of things that any 10 year old hyped up on caffeine and a Dane Cook stand up set from 2005 can make. These are barely jokes. Sonia will say something and Teruteru will go "PENIS PENIS BONER VAGINA" and that's about it.

I'm also not entirely sure what Teruteru's sexuality is. He appears to be bisexual, which could be interesting because I can't really name too many characters in any game that are written as bisexual, and not bisexual through the result of player choice. Teruteru at various times indicates he wants to fuck Sonia, Hajime, Peko, and probably the bone in the meat, too. He comes off as less bisexual, and more hornysexual, where he just wants to hump whatever is closest to him. It makes him extra gross because it feels like he is less a character and more a dog looking for a leg hump. I feel like it was intentional, as it really fits into his underlying persona of trying so hard to make himself look more adult and mature that he is. Like is has this insane view of what sexuality is and how he connects it with maturity, so rather than expressing himself naturally every single thing he says has to be some form of sexual harassment or sexual innuendo. Unfortunately, even if it "fits" with his character, it doesn't make him any more pleasant to talk to and almost every conversation with him is exhausting.

I feel like his sole redeeming character feature is that he likes his mom, but that says a lot more about his mom than him. Most people like their mom, unless their mom was terrible to them, so loving your mom is sort of like scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to trying to cram in some character traits that make your characters less hateable. But I don't think they even do that right. If there is anything that Teruteru is desperate to do in this game, even more so than getting back to momma, is convincing everyone that he doesn't come from where he comes from. He is embarrassed of his upbringing, his culture, and by extent his family. They can say he loves his mom, but I think he comes off as more confused. He's hiding where he comes from the entire game because he doesn't want people to know he is some bumpkin kid from a little town and his mom is some small town cook that doesn't have the prestige he thinks is important to becoming a chef.

Teruteru is the kind of guy that has a hard time admitting things to himself. He views himself as this sexual dynamo, a mature and erudite adult who's specialty are these sophisticated dishes, but none of this is really true. In his free time segments, Hajime even comments all the dishes he makes are these common, homestyle type cooking (which is amazing) but Teruteru keeps coming up with these elaborate names for them to disguise the fact that he's just cooking the kind of stuff he learned from home. He even lies to himself at the trial, claiming he killed Nagito because he was going to kill Byakuya and a sort of defense of the group, unable to admit he just wanted to get home until the very, very end. Obviously, killing Byakuya or Nagito means everyone else in the group would die, and instead of informing the others of Nagito's plan when told he tries to kill him because he is desperate to get home. Him putting on this noble act is just yet another lie Teruteru tells, and we only get a glimpse at the real Teruteru at the very end. Crying for momma with his real accent. That's who Teruteru is. Everything else is just an act.

I think Teruteru best sums up how he sees himself in his brief time with us. After saying something gross, he goes, "I may be a pervert, but I'm the kind of pervert everyone likes!" Just as a heads up Teruteru, there is no pervert that people like. But, at least, I believe that he believes this. He thinks him being a pervert endears him to other people. He views that as a fun character trait as it, so he highlights it as often as he can. By making 95% of his dialogue related to this in some way. Everything is him trying to get women to look at his loins or attempting to trick Sonia into sucking poison out of his penis, and it is a constant, non-stop deluge of gross things that, more than anything, makes it feel like he is trying too hard. He is a momma's boy, country bumpkin that at some point confused sexual harassment with being a mature grown up man, and doesn't know how to prove to everyone else that he isn't a immature, unsophisticated little kid anymore.

So while I think he is a well executed character, and I get the choices they made, he is so unlikable, so awkward, so gross and annoying and one note that I simply do not care. One of the best things Danganronpa 2 did was killing this guy off immediately, so we weren't subjected to ten more hours of unfunny sexual innuendos.

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Moops?
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