LogFAQs > #952075331

#28: Leon Kuwata
Main Cast (Male) Ranking: 11/16
Killer Ranking: 9/11
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Baseball Star
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Literally Who

I know I've said this before, but I liked looking through other peoples Danganraonpa lists just because of how different theyre guaranteed to be. You see characters all over the place because certain things resonate with certain people and dont with others. But I feel like Leon almost always has to be at the bottom. People who have Leon in the top half of their character rankings are really just saying I hated the cast of Danganronpa so this guy who wasnt really in it is one of my favorites because at least he wasnt around long enough to annoy me. I mean, that is part of the reason he ranks above a good chunk of characters for me, too. This is the Leon line. It would be like if I was ranking my favorite movies, and one of them was the loading screen on Netflix. You would know anything below that was something I didnt like, and the same is true here for Leon.

Leon doesnt really get to do much in the game and I can almost guarantee that almost no one remembers anything he says or does other than his meltdown at the end of the trial. From my recollection he introduces himself, gets tricked by Sayaka, then dies. He shows up at Sayakas room, probably assuming he is going to get some booty, and then winds up getting attacked instead. Not a good night. Leon makes this night even worse by deciding the best thing to do here is to go back to his room, get the tools he needs to take down the door, and murder Sayaka. I know he gets attacked first but he pretty easily fights Sayaka off because shes incompetent, but Im not giving Leon any credit for acting in defense. He actually might have one of the worst motives for murder in either game, now that I think about it. Sayaka wanted to reunite with her band and Mondo needed his secret to not get out and Celeste wanted a castle of vampire servents. Leon just seems like he got mad and decided to kill an already wounded Sayaka because hehad a chance to get out? He didnt seem all that desperate to get out before, but hey maybe getting almost stabbed was enough to convince him to change his mind. It wouldnt be the weirdest logic in the game, I suppose.

The thing isI dont have a lot to say about Leon and I feel like I should take this time to remind you I wrote like seven paragraphs on Teruterus mom. Thats how boring Leon is. He is kind of this big ball of nothing that they dont really bother to give a personality to. Im trying to think back through both casts, and other than the Ultimate Imposter, I dont think there is any other character that is developed as poorly as Leon. If I was going to describe most of the other characters, I would start with their personality. Byakuya is arrogant and stuck up and thinks little of other people and Mikan is hesitant and scared and apologetic and so on and so on. I would do that for almost every character. With Leon I think I would go oh we was the one who killed Sayaka and had his name written on the wall. That is pretty much the extent of his character for me. Hes the guy so dumb he didnt notice Sayaka writing her name on the wall as he was stabbing her. Or maybe he left a bit early and she was clinging to life and then she wrote what she did on the wall. I choose that, actually, because at least then Leon isnt a complete and utter moron.

I also feel like if I was going to list all characters from most impactful to least impactful, Leon would be all the way at the very bottom. Sure, he kills Sayaka but that was entirely reactionary. I know he went back to his room to get the stuff to kill her, but it wasnt like he came up with some great plan. His entire plan was I will stab her because she tried to stab me and it was really Sayaka who set all that in motion. Im trying to think of anyone who had less of an impact on the plot than Leon. Teruteru, maybe? Except he at least set him own plan into motion as a way to stop Nagito, even if things went wrong. There are maybe one or two others you could argue for that I havent ranked yet, but I feel like it is pretty clearly Leon. He just serves as like the tutorial villain and doesnt even really do all that good of a job at that.

And this isnt just a when he died sort of thing, either. I mean, part of the issue here is he dies case one and yeah thats going to mean he gets less screen time that everyone else. It is hard to endear yourself to other people when you are currently rotting in the morgue because you got baseballd to death. But, still, Leon just does nothing with the time hes given. Sayaka dies long before Leon does and has ten times the development. Even fake Junko gets a lot more characterization than Leon, and she probably has around the same amount of lines. The first game early exit-ers in Fake Byakuya and Teruteru also get way more characterization than Leon. I mean, I hate Teruteru but you have a really firm grasp of his personality almost instantly and he even gets a MOMMA backstory to help round him out. Leon doesnt get any of these things. He dies really early, but his personality was dead when the game started. I think of all the main cast, Leon is the character the writers put the absolute least effort into making. Leon seems to have been included solely for evidence related reasons. Hes the ultimate baseball player because they needed a baseball player to throw evidence into the incinerator so thats pretty much all he gets to do. He is more a talent than a character, and they shoo him off the stage once hes served his purpose.

There isnt too much I actually about when it comes to Leon, but I have to say his interaction with his ultimate ability is actually really interesting to me. At least to my knowledge, he is the only character that straight up hates his ultimate ability. He doesnt care about being good at baseball, and in fact doesnt seem to want anything to do with baseball. He doesnt have much dialogue at all in this game, and most of what he does is either him freaking out about getting caught for murdering Sayaka or complaining about how much baseball sucks. I just thought that was kind of a fun dynamic, especially considering how everyone else in the game is. You have people dedicating their lives to martial arts or fanfiction or swimming or whatever and it is like this big part of who they are and how they act. And Leon, just sort of, like, doesnt care, man. It is something I wouldve liked to see a little more about, honestly, and it was sort of interesting watch Leon try to figure out what he wanted to do with his life outside of baseball. That is the kind of struggle no one else in the games has, and it helps give Leon the slightest sliver of a personality that hed otherwise be lacking.

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Moops?
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