LogFAQs > #950863728

#33: Fuyuhiko Kuzuyru
Main Cast (Male) Ranking: 13/16
Survivor Ranking: 10/11
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Yakuza
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Boss Baby Stunt Double

This probably isnt all that much of a surprise if you were reading along. I was going through my thoughts earlier today and I had forgotten I had given Fuyuhiko his own tier for most of the game in terms of who I wanted to see die. What I do remember, however, was every chapter dreading who was going to die and hoping it was just Fuyuhiko so I wasnt going to be emotionally traumatized. This is the second straight game where the character I was hoping would die made it all the way to the end, so I may just be cursed. When I play V3, I will be sure to pretend that whoever my least favorite character is actually my favorite as that seems to be the only hope I have for killing off all the bad characters I secretly want dead.

Fuyuhiko has two distinct personalities here, one before and after Peko dies. If we were dealing solely with the one before Peko dies, he would probably be a bottom three character for me. Fuyuhiko comes off as a fake tough guy, a petulant child trying his hardest to act like an adult and failing. He is the embodiment of that scene in The Lonely Islands Threw It On The Ground song where Andy Samberg is screaming IM AN ADULT and it is somehow even less believable here. It is kind of strange that he is the Ultimate Yakuza, because he comes off as one of the least threatening characters in either game. A big talker, sure, but he never comes across as doing anything tough. There is a reason to be intimidated by Byakuya or Nagito or Mondo or Sakura, but Fuyuhiko never gives us a similar reason. He never seems to do anything tough. He is the Ultimate Yakuza and all he does is murder one high school girl before the game starts and try to murder another while the game is going on. He doesnt come across as a threat early on in the game. He comes across as a joke. An annoyance. A seven year old who googled murder and now is trying to convince you that hes totally going to do it.

Fuyuhiko isnt a fun threat like Nagito is, because you never really think Fuyuhiko is going to do anything. He just comes off as obnoxious and every time he was saying something I was wishing he would be the next one to die so I wouldnt have to deal with his bullshit any longer. Oh yeah Im TOTALLY gonna murder comes off the same way as that one kid from your high school who TOTALLY had sex with his Canadian girlfriend who goes to a different school. It felt like some middle schooler was trying to bully me now, and he has neither the presence of design or personality to feel like a genuine threat. He is instead just a yippy dog where his bark is much bigger than his bite, so much so that the actual threat to him is the full-time bodyguard that follows him around at all times and is like ten times more badass than he can ever hope to be.

Really what winds up saving him from the lower tiers is one phenomenal scene, and that is the ending of case two and Pekos execution. The whole ending to that scene I thought was very powerful, and I loved the back and forth between Peko and him where they are both struggling to get out their emotions as Pekos time runs up. I loved Fuyuhiko running to be by Pekos side, trying to do anything he can to save her. The ending was great and sad and brutal, and it is actually pretty amazing all things considered because the game was making me feel things for a character who up to that point I absolutely despised. And it isnt as if his character doesnt have the potential to be interesting, and I at least understood the design here. You can very clearly see he has an inferiority complex because of his size and how he looks and is trying to overcompensate for these things as much as he can. But, again, knowing this didnt make my time with him early on in the game any more enjoyable. Every single thing he said annoyed me up until the end of chapter 2 and I was genuinely excited for a moment when I thought he wound up accidentally executed.

There were actually two times where I thought Fuyuhiko might die, and I think I wouldve liked his character arc a lot more if he did die at either of these spots. First was the chapter 2 execution where he gets swept up with Peko. He does technically harbor some of the guilt here for the murder as Peko only kills Mahiru to save Fuyuhiko from himself. And he sets the entire thing up and is seconds away from doing it himself, so I wouldnt have been mad if him running headfirst into the fight got him killed as well. It really wouldve wrapped up Peko and Fuyuhiko almost perfectly, especially considering the emotional scene we had previously. I actually would have really like that and a capstone for that case. Like, make two small changes there and that ending is even better. Remove the weirdness with Monokuma pulling Pekos strings and just have Fuyuhiko die. Then they finally confess their feelings for each other, fight to get to each other, only for Peko to accidentally kill Fuyuhiko in the chaos. Then, overcome by what shes done, she allows herself to be killed by the Monokuma soldiers. SO MUCH DESPAIR.

Alternatively, he was also my secondary suspect for case 3, which I thought wouldve been interesting as well. If he had orchestrated injuring himself to get into the hospital at first to scope things out and then volunteered later to guard the hospital just so he could pull off his murder, I think that wouldve been a much more satisfying conclusion to his character than the whimper he sort of went out with. He clearly loves Peko and she was the one thing tying him to this place. If they needed someone to go crazy and remember stuff, I wish it wouldve been Fuyuhiko as I think that wouldve been a much more fun twist to that case than what we actually got. That wouldve been a much more fun misdirect than Mikan gets killed because Monokuma rolled the who goes crazy wheel and thats who it landed on.

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