Board 8 > Suprak plays DANGANRONPA 2 (but for real this time)

(+) Yeah! (+)

A reboot? That's super interesting actually. I'm completely blind to things and have somehow managed to avoid information on anything, so that's good to know.

I checked the cover of V3 last night, and I want to say like 2/3 of the cast looks absolutely insane compared to the fairly normal casts of these two games, Mechamaru excluded. So I'm definitely interested in where it might go.

Are there any hopes for more Danganronpa material coming up at any point? I dunno if this is now a dormant series or if there might be more games coming out at some time in the future.

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In reality I just want the V3 topic to hit because I need your Miu Iruma takes.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

Are there any hopes for more Danganronpa material coming up at any point? I dunno if this is now a dormant series or if there might be more games coming out at some time in the future.

They supposedly staffed up for a new DR late in 2019. It would likely not be Kodaka directed, since he's no longer at the studio. Technically he could have been contracted in though, it's not like he left on bad terms.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

Are there any hopes for more Danganronpa material coming up at any point? I dunno if this is now a dormant series or if there might be more games coming out at some time in the future.

It's a mystery, unfortunately. The devs proclaimed that since 2020 was the anniversary it would have some special events but all that happened were some phone ports because COVID. Here's hoping more comes out, though!

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Oh, and don't forget the most important entry in the franchise: Danganronpa for Playstation VR. Critical for the overall narrative, of course.

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Don't read up on anything about V3 before playing it.

UDG is bad and trashy, but it has its charms, while the DR3 anime is only good for laughing at how horrible it is.

I'm not gonna say UDG is a skip. Vita version has the control issues but it's playable. I also really like Toko and the other lead in it, and how they play if if eachother. The rest of the cast....is what it is. There's still value there.

I have nothing good to say about DR3. Really excited early on for it, but really just not about it at all.

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To clarify, I would say the retrospective whiplash of DR3 follows the exact opposite trajectory of DR2.

"Oh hey this is pretty good!...oh wait, no I guess it wasn't."

But hey, less than 10 hours to finish, not an insane investment.

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DR3 is...yeesh. It certainly can influence your thoughts on DR2 to some extent.

Nevertheless, this has been a great topic. 2-6 is bonkers but very fun. Seeing DR1 guys again didn't really hype me up though because I just didn't like them all that much in the first place.

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Before I start posting character rankings, do people usually count Chianti/Alter Ego as one person or nah? Does Monokuna typically get ranked or is he viewed as an extension of Junko?

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Alter Ego and Chihiro are the same to me, but Monokuma and Junko are different characters.

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I tend to see Monokuma and Junko treated as separate and Alter Ego forgotten (or same as Chihiro)

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I usually see Alter Ego as Chihiro, Monokuma his own separate entity, and Junko her own.

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I've never done a proper ranking of the DR characters but I would be inclined to agree that Alter Ego is just Chihiro with Monokuma and Junko being separate entities. While we wait for rankings though...

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Speaking of designs, since you're here Anagram and we're in the small lull between the investigation and trial, you and anyone else who hasn't should check out Akudama Drive which is a show that aired last year. No actual DR story connection, but still made by Kodaka and with designs that are also by Komatsuzaki. One of the best shows that aired last year and def something any DR fan should check out.

Just finished this and can confirm.

Hecka yeah, kyodai.

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oh, yeah, Akudama Drive is Kodaka as fuck.

congrats on finishing! everyone here seems to be higher on 2-6 than i was - to me the final case of DR1 and DR2 felt like 1-2 cool twists, one cool villain, and then unbearable tedium wrapping it.

but yeah, glad you liked the game and that you agree it's better than DR1!
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I have one character's free time left (Chiaki) and then I apparently need to replay through island mode a handful more times to get character endings for uber friendship? So it'll be another couple of days probably before I can give character rankings. I might do case rankings first as I doubt those will change all that much!

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Did you do that for DR1 as well?

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I did!

I have the platinum for that game and did essentially everything I could back when I played it. I wish I could find my old play through topic but it apparently wasnt archived on the site that shall not be named for whatever reason.

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I used this topic as a walkthrough because I just got to the swimsuit full of gravel bit and couldn't work it out and I knew there shouldn't be spoilers. I owe you one and pray this topic doesn't fill before I finish

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Whoever suggested I watch Akudama Drive: I just finished it, and it wasn't that good. Sorry! Honestly, I found it to be a little lame, though I'm not normally an anime watcher in general.

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:/

-1 Kyoudai

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I've decided to rank Monokuma and Alter Ego separately, for reasons I'll cover when I get to them. Be prepared for some CONTROVERSIAL TAKES because apparently characters I like are universally despised and vice versa. We are about to enter the bottom tier. The good news is that this is a short tier. The bad news is I absolutely hate the characters in this tier, currently dubbed the "M&M In A Bowl Full Of Skittles" Tier a.k.a. the "Makes Surrounding Things Worse Just By Existing" Tier.

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Hyyyyyype


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aka the Teruteru and Monomi tier

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Suprak the Stud posted...

. Be prepared for some CONTROVERSIAL TAKES because apparently characters I like are universally despised and vice versa.

Chiaki and Sonia at the bottom. Teruteru and Monomi at the very top.

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puh hu hu~

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We are about to enter the bottom tier. The good news is that this is a short tier.

are you sure you're ranking danganronpa characters

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I added a couple minor characters I want to talk about to get to an even 40.

#40: Toko Fukawa
Main Cast (Female) Ranking: 16/16
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Writing Prodigy
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Weird Kid In Class That You Got Partnered Up With That One Time And They Spent The Whole Assignment Muttering Under Their Breath About Chads And Stacys And Telling You Not To Come To School On Monday

It has been a while since I have played the first Danganronpa game, and although I am in the process of watching someone else play it just for fun, I haven't finished it yet. So, I admit, some of my write ups for first game characters might not be as detailed as the sequel just because I fully remember my gut reaction to characters in the second game much better. And for the first game, I am sort of using a combination of vague recollections of certain events combined with recent impressions from this watch through (which is biased by how I remember feeling about certain characters going into it).

But I FUCKING hate Toko. I know people say she is more entertaining in Ultra Despair Girls, but I haven't played Ultra Despair Girls so this is just a Toko from Danganronpa 1 ranking. This is one thing that is clear to me now as it was when I originally played the game. Part of it is just her design, and I hate the way she looks both as Toko and as Genocide Jack. I know the fact they made her so plain and boring is meant to contrast with her serial killer persona, but I don't like the way that persona looks either. That weird long stupid lizard tongue that just kinda hangs out of the side of her mouth in some animations has to be a bottom three pose for me in the entire series.

Her personality is also at the absolute bottom of the cast list, with only one or two real possible exceptions. She's unnecessarily mean to the cast, and in ways that aren't really fun or interesting or seem to have a point other than to highlight how shitty she is on a day to day basis. She calls other female characters whores multiple times because they have the audacity to not dress like a 18th century Puritan corpse. There's nothing fun or lively about her character when she's Toko. Even in Danganronpa 1, which is clearly the lesser of the two casts, she sticks out as being particularly dull. These other characters have these big personalities, and her whole schtick is that sex is scary and people are out to get her and WHAT THE HECK IS YOUR PROBLEM. She is the kid at school that sat at the table by themselves, and you think is kinda sad so you go over to talk to them, only to immediately realize why they were at that table by themselves and all the other kids were right to bully them.

Genocide Jack certainly has more personality, but unfortunately that personality can be best summarized as "dumb". You would think that an actual serial killer would add some actual suspense to things, like the role that Nagito plays in the second game. But unlike Nagito, the rest of the cast doesn't seem to really give Genocide Jack the apprehension she deserves. In fact, Genocide Jack is almost entirely treated as this weird comic relief character but I just never really found them all that funny. Either I am annoyed with this character as Genocide Jack, or I'm really annoyed at them with Toko, and the whole character is a mess from design to characterization to personality.

But more than this, more than her annoying personality and her general shittiness to those around her, is the fact that I hate the role she plays in the game. I hate the serial killer reveal and I hate how they keep her around for the entire game after that. We're supposed to believe this little child somehow has murdered countless men to the point that she has become the most famous serial killer of all time? I know I'm talking about a game that requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief, but the fact that the Ultimate Writing Prodigy is also the Ultimate Serial Killer is just a coincidence that is so dumb that it is now like six years after I played the first game and I'm still clearly complaining about it.

It also complicates the morality in this game. Ok so Junko is bad because she is causing the sort of cataclysmic event, but Toko is one of the heroes because...what? She didn't kill anyone for the two weeks she was trapped at the school? You nkow what is the second saddest, most terrible, most awful event to ever transpire in this universe? The hundreds of men that have been murdered by Toko along the eastern seaboard of Japan in the years leading up to these games. She is absolutely no better than Junko, and the game seems to write her into the story almost solely for a stupid misdirect in the second case but then just allows her to stick around, annoying you for the rest of the game. She is an incel, an angry, pathetic incel, and I don't even mean this as in exaggeration. She exclusively kills men that she's attracted to because she had been hanging around the 4chan board for too long and took all their LARPing for a manifesto. So not only is it not at all believable she is the (second) greatest killer ever to live in Japan, the game just sort of skirts past all the murky moral complications for the sake of making the same joke over and over again about how she is obsessed with Byakuya. And, again, the only reason this is done for the story is for a terrible misdirect near the beginning of the game.

I fully understand that the Danganronpa series operates on its own sort of zany logic, and I get that. In fact, that's one of the things I love about the series. Sure, a high school girl caused the almost end of the world by being a lunatic. Love it and I'm on board. Sure, there is a computer system that allows you to upload personalities, and download new personalities from it back on to people. Sounds great. There are crazy murderous teddy bears and people getting fired out of rockets and I'm on board for all of this. But just because a series or work of fiction is outlandish, it doesn't mean it gets a pass for every outlandish thing it does. I want it to make sense within the context of the universe and I want the character to feel like they belong within the set of rules that universe defines. And I feel like no one really treats Toko the way they should treat Toko. The cast of Danganronpa is more afraid of Sakura than they are of Toko, a literal SERIAL KILLER who HAS MURDERED BEFORE AND WILL MURDER AGAIN.

Toko is a serial killer that everyone treats like she is a woman trying to recruit you to her MLM business on Facebook. It is all eye rolls and mild annoyance. At the end of Danganronpa 2, Kyoko reminds Byakuya that Toko is waiting for him when he returns and he lets out an exasperated "don't remind me." Byakuya, you should be fucking terrified. This is a girl that has murdered exclusively men she has had a crush on and she is so good at it that literally everyone knows her. She should be a villain, not comic relief. I feel this is one step away from Byakuya going "Oh, Toko!" while she mugs to the camera and the laugh track from the Big Bang Theory plays in the background.

There is just nothing I like about Toko. I hate her design. I hate Genocide Jack's design. I hate the fact we're supposed to believe she's murdered an entire city's worth of handsome men. I hate that she is a female incel. I hate how useless she is in all the cases. I hate that she muddles the morality of this universe simply by existing. I hate how she treats everyone as Toko. I hate her weird repressed sexuality that is somehow creepier than the two actual perverts that exist within these games. Most of all, I hate the fact that apparently we're not supposed to hate her.

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SSBM_Guy posted...

are you sure you're ranking danganronpa characters

The next to bottom tier is sadly a bit larger.

There is only one more character in this tier and I'll try to write them up tomorrow! My Toko hate got a bit out of control there and I was just rambling for a while. Oops!

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Oh and I also hate how T-t-t-t-t-oko t-t-t-t-takes forever to s-s-s-s-s-s-ay things. I somehow forgot to include that in my rant.

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What I like about Toko is how pointless she is to the surviving cast of DR1. Everyone else has a clear purpose in the game, where Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya do all of the work, Hiro is a constant red herring, and Hina is the heart, and they all have to band together to overcome their enemy... and then Toko is just also there, being as important as Akane is in the second game.

I think I read that Toko survived only because she was the director's favorite character.

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She is a very popular character in Japan in general. She co-stars a game for a reason!

But in the west, yeah, she seems to be mostly disliked in DR1, and since not a ton of people played UDG by comparison that still remains to this day outside of the deeper parts of the fandom.

There are still a few super nothing characters in DR1 I would absolutely rank lower than her, but I can't say it's an upsetting last place at this time in the series.

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Toko is pretty much an igniter in terms of the surviving cast. You know that she has a split personality that is a serial killer, and she doesn't get along with Hina at all, so her presence was always a source of tension, and you never knew if or when it would spark something. It turns out that she is able to put aside her differences with Hina and the others long enough to survive the killing game, but I always felt like that added tension of having a known killer enclosed in the school with the surviving students is why she survives the whole game.

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I'd argue Toko only survived because Genocide Jack, with the different memories, could confirm or deny Junko's account of the outside world.

I also like the Genocide Jack persona. Toko herself sucks.

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toko was my fav character of DR1. i mostly thought the cast sucked so toko's rejection of everyone was the most enjoyable part of it.

genocide jack was ridiculous and slightly less enjoyable than the incel persona.
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Earthshaker posted...

I'd argue Toko only survived because Genocide Jack, with the different memories, could confirm or deny Junko's account of the outside world.

Man, there are a thousand ways you could confirm it besides Genocide Jack.

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Anagaram posted...

What I like about Toko is how pointless she is to the surviving cast of DR1. Everyone else has a clear purpose in the game, where Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya do all of the work, Hiro is a constant red herring, and Hina is the heart, and they all have to band together to overcome their enemy... and then Toko is just also there, being as important as Akane is in the second game.

I think I read that Toko survived only because she was the director's favorite character.

I had seen she had some popularity some places, particularly in Japan, and I just don't get it. I don't know what her appeal is, and I could see almost any other character having some sort of fan base other than her. I'm fine with characters that don't have a particularly defined role getting to the end because no reason to kill off all the fun side characters, but she isn't fun and I would take literally anyone over her just because it would make things less dumb.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

She is a very popular character in Japan in general. She co-stars a game for a reason!

But in the west, yeah, she seems to be mostly disliked in DR1, and since not a ton of people played UDG by comparison that still remains to this day outside of the deeper parts of the fandom.

There are still a few super nothing characters in DR1 I would absolutely rank lower than her, but I can't say it's an upsetting last place at this time in the series.

I have some super nothing characters in the list as well, but for me she is negative utility. Like she makes the game worse just be her being around. I'd take characters I feel nothing about over that!

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Toko is pretty much an igniter in terms of the surviving cast. You know that she has a split personality that is a serial killer, and she doesn't get along with Hina at all, so her presence was always a source of tension, and you never knew if or when it would spark something. It turns out that she is able to put aside her differences with Hina and the others long enough to survive the killing game, but I always felt like that added tension of having a known killer enclosed in the school with the surviving students is why she survives the whole game.

That might be more interesting, but I would say (and again, my memory isn't great on some points and I re-watched the first game much more recently than I played it, so I might not have been tuned in to everything as closely) that she is more of a secondary comic relief than anything, which is weird considering her character. She isn't treated like Nagito, where the entire cast is afraid of her and is trying to figure out ways to lock her up or keep her from hurting others. Like I said it is more of a mild annoyance. So I never really got any sort of underlying tension that you would think should come from an active serial killer being locked in an enclosed space with you.

SeabassDebeste posted...

toko was my fav character of DR1. i mostly thought the cast sucked so toko's rejection of everyone was the most enjoyable part of it.

genocide jack was ridiculous and slightly less enjoyable than the incel persona.

RUDE

I don't think it was the best cast, but I wouldn't say they sucked as a whole and there were some characters I did like.

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Toko is lame.

#39: ???
Main Cast (Male?) Ranking: 16/16
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Imposter
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon That Made A Wish To Be A Real Boy

I have a lot of things to say about some upcoming characters, and there are going to be quite a few that I either do not like or I am perfectly ambivalent about. There are also some really interesting characters in these first two games and some that really left a mark on me long after I was done playing the game. You get attached to these characters in one way or another, and you don't want to see them die. And then there are some that you are sort of hoping die because it means the characters you like will get to live to see another chapter. So for all of the good things and bad things I am about to say about the other 38 characters on this list, they have one distinct advantage over ??? And that is that they are all characters, and ??? is a gimmick.

I don't have anything to say about ??? because there is nothing to say about ??? He or she or this escaped pile of hamsters that snuck their way into a human suit is given exactly zero actual personality or sense of character or anything of the sort. ??? is meant to be a funhouse mirror reflection of how he sees Byakuya, literally and figuratively in this sense. He has no personality of his own because he is mimicking another character who you may or may not even like. So he doesn't get actual characterization or growth or an arc or anything interesting like that, and only exists in this game to give it another shocking twist near the end. The things you like or hate about ??? are solely because they are things you like or hate about Byakuya. Almost all of the students here are a reflection of their ultimate ability in some way, but ??? is the only one where he is his ultimate ability, and nothing else.

You can go through his entire free time events and his entire Island Mode character arc, and you get a couple of little glimmers of what might be unique, distinct personality outside of him pretending to be Byakuya. There is the one line of dialogue in Hajime's nightmare delusion before Chiaki shows up where ??? says something along the lines of "now can I introduce myself" in the world's worst southern (?) accent, and then a couple of lines at the very end of Island Mode where he basically acknowledges he is an imposter and might not want to be an imposter any longer. That's it. Those are the very few times where he is doing something other than just imitating Byakuya, and even in these scenes his mannerisms and inflections are those that Byakuya could use. There are a lot of ways you could describe Byakuya, but the only way you can describe ??? is "trying to be Byakuya and failing."

You might want to give him points because he heroically sacrifices himself for Nagito, but again that isn't ??? That is him playing the role of Byakuya. It would like if you gave Chris Evans humanitarian awards for all of the people he saved as Captain America because you thought those were historical documentaries. He isn't trying to save Nagito as ??? He is saving Nagito because that's what he thinks Byakuya would do. Also, it is HIS fault he dies and HIS fault Nagito's plan almost works because he is an idiot. He gets a note saying "I will kill tonight" and doesn't tell anyone because he thinks that might cause distrust to foment. Hey. Moron. DISTRUST SHOULD FOMENT. It is like if an arsonist shows up in your neighborhood with a box of matches and a can of gasoline and you decide not to tell your neighbors because they might be worried about the arsonist. You should be worried about the arsonist, and everyone should be taking preventative measures to stop the arsonist from arson-ing their house.

Instead, ??? doesn't tell anyone, gets everyone together in a small room, and somehow doesn't check 1) the kitchen or 2) the fucking lunatic setting up the event for weapons before letting everyone else in. ??? checks the kitchen mid-party, which is too late, and doesn't ever check Nagito at all. His gross idiocy set his murder in motion because he's pretending to be Byakuya but can't do it because Byakuya isn't a drooling moron. So I refuse to give him credit for doing anything this case when he was only doing it as part of his act and he messed up like eight different things that lead to him getting murdered.

But all of this is only enough to put him in the next to last tier. What lands ??? in the very bottom tier is he only exists as a gimmick to trick you into thinking Danganronpa 2 had the balls to kill off a popular character right away. That's the only reason the "Ultimate Imposter" exists. That's what I mean when I say ??? is a gimmick. He's put in the game as way for the developers to have their cake and eat it too. Now they get the shock of killing Byakuya off without actually killing Byakuya off. It is cheap and a little cowardly, and it makes me look back at the first case in this game less fondly because of it. I was shocked when they killed off Byakuya. And somewhat annoyed when in case 5 they go "lol just kidding it was just a fat guy".

This is also totally not related to him getting ranked at 39, but ??? is also a terrible imposter. I brought this up multiple times in the playthrough, but he isn't even the best imposter in this game. Mikan does a better job impersonating Ibuki because she at least knows how silhouettes work. Mikan can pass for Ibuki with a bag on her head. ??? cannot pass for Byakuya unless he has an industrial sized bag meant for carrying small tractors. He puts all this effort into becoming these other people, learning their history and getting their mannerisms down perfectly, but then he eats the entire buffet Teruteru cooks as a means of "searching for evidence". I imagine some scene that got deleted from the final game where Kyoko and Makoto are watching the first case play out in horror while Byakuya is cursing under his breath about how this dude looks nothing like him and he's going to pull the plug on his chamber himself.

Another thing I thought of is both Byakuya and ??? attended Hope's Peak at the same time. That means, maybe Byakuya's sophomore year, there was a day when he was walking down the hallway and saw a mirrored image of himself, but now gigantically fat. How fucking confused would you be if you were just walking somewhere and all of a sudden there was a dude that looked exactly like you except it looked like he was having an extremely bad reaction to being stung by a swarm of bees? It makes the fact this dude is the Ultimate Imposter all the more bizarre, because he's impersonating someone who is going to the same school as him. How many times did Byakuya have to deal with the joke where one of his friends were like "hey which one of you is the real Byakuya hahaha" while looking back and forth between Byakuya and ??? in fake confusion. How annoying were classes? The professor would ask Byakuya a question and then ??? would start speaking up and Byakuya would have to tell him to shut the hell up. Where there ever any screaming matches in the hallways where Byakuya told him to cut this shit out its been going on for two years and is ruining his life while ??? stood there dumbfounded still pretending to be Byakuya?

These are the kind of scenes I want to see. Instead all we get is ??? idiotically bungling his attempt to protect everyone and getting himself murdered instead. His entire highlight is confusing me into thinking I had witnessed the much more interesting death of a much more interesting character. RIP Ultimate Imposter, whoever the hell you are.

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Suprak, which fan version of his name do you like the most? The Imposter or Twogami?

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Suprak the Stud posted...

There are a lot of ways you could describe Byakuya, but the only way you can describe ??? is "trying to be Byakuya and failing."

And thus he is better than Byakuya <_<

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Also, I don't agree that he was imitating Byakuya when he tried to stop Nagito. He was imitating Byakuya to a point, but it's clear that he was doing what he thought was right rather than doing exactly what he thought Byakuya would do. Hajime even highlights how he seems to care more than you'd expect.

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Anagaram posted...

Suprak, which fan version of his name do you like the most? The Imposter or Twogami?

Oh man Twogami and it isnt even close. I wish I knew that before writing up that blurb!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

And thus he is better than Byakuya <_<

For all the faults of all the other characters, they are at least characters and not just plot twists.

Except for Toko. Id rather if her character just ended with the plot twist.

Anagaram posted...

Also, I don't agree that he was imitating Byakuya when he tried to stop Nagito. He was imitating Byakuya to a point, but it's clear that he was doing what he thought was right rather than doing exactly what he thought Byakuya would do. Hajime even highlights how he seems to care more than you'd expect.

I dont mind if you interpret it that way, but at least from the way I was thinking about things this wouldnt be possible. This is a person so dedicated to becoming other people that the academy did not even know their name or sex. To them, they had no self. They were merely a reflection of the person they were imposter-ing. If they cant even give themselves a name, I dont want to give them credit for giving themselves their own morality.

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Yeah this is just a different and unusual perspective/take. I like Twogami much better than Byakuya.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

I don't think it was the best cast, but I wouldn't say they sucked as a whole and there were some characters I did like.

DR1's cast looks alright until you try to put them up next to DR2's really.

Like, not to say DR2 doesn't have a fair few flaws in its cast and a couple characters that are more gimmicks than anything, but it really makes DR1 look bad by comparison outside of like, maybe four characters off the top of my head

Pretty much what Reg said. Heck even while playing DR1 I was not really feeling most of the cast.

I like DR2s individual characters more, but the cast cohesion favors DR1. Most of the characters have some kind of interaction or opinion of each other, whereas I cant think of any time Akane speaks to Fuyuhiko or Kazuichi, and shes an endgame character.

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