Danganronpa Case Files: Killing Harmony Chapter 1

Welcome to the first installment of a series of Case Files about the Danganronpa series, in which I will offer my opinion on certain trials in the Danganronpa series- their role in the story, the mystery itself and the gameplay. I may not do all the trials, but will mainly focus on the ones that stood out in my mind the most.

As you can imagine, there will be spoilers.

Introduction

For the most part, I enjoyed Danganronpa V3. The game's characters are as colorful and interesting as those of the previous two entries, even if not all of them are likeable. Most of the murder mysteries are complex and engaging, with surprising twists in store. The class trials are also more fun to play, with newer and improved minigames. There's also a wealth of post-game content, particularly the Talent Development Plan, which has enjoyable interactions between all three games' characters. The two weakest aspects of the game, however, are the first and final cases, and I will discuss the first case here.

Initially, nothing seems too out of place about the first case in Danganronpa V3, which serves as a tutorial case. Most of the Nonstop Debates, which are cleared by shooting a truth bullet that represents a piece of evidence into the "weak point" that is false(for example, if someone says that the victim didn't fight back, you shoot that statement with a truth bullet showing signs of a struggle), are relatively straightforward, as are the multiple choice questions. Solving murders in the killing games is never an easy or pleasant process, but there seems to be little doubt that Kaede, the player character in this installment, will succeed.

Of course, as easy as the trial is, the suspect isn't immediately obvious. All of the surviving students seemed to have an alibi for the time of the murder, and the few who did not were too far away from the crime scene to be possible suspects. Miu, Gonta and Shuichi are briefly named as suspects, but it isn't too difficult to prove their innocence, even if the latter case serves as the series' tutorial for lying in trials.

Apart from some reworked trial minigames, lying is the most significant addition to V3's trials. While it is largely underutilized- most trials have one point in which you have to lie and one or two points in which you can choose to lie for an alternative way to get through the Nonstop Debate- it can make things more interesting. For example, Kaede knows that Shuichi is innocent, but doesn't have the evidence to prove it, so she instead lies to disprove the group's mistaken belief in Shuichi's guilt.

The Culprit

If you've read this far without having played the game(in which case this is your last chance to back out if you don't want to see spoilers), you may be wondering why Kaede is so sure of that Shuichi is innocent. The obvious answer is because she was with him the whole time, and they can confirm each other's alibis. Even if Shuichi briefly left the classroom, he didn't do so long enough to commit the murder.

Of course, that isn't the actual answer. Kaede knows that Shuichi didn't kill Rantaro... because Kaede herself did. Kaede rolled the shot put ball through the vent into the classroom, across a ramp made out of books and onto Rantaro's head. The rest of the trial consists of Shuichi, the new player character, trying to prove how Kaede committed the murder.

I will admit that there is some foreshadowing as to Kaede's role as the culprit, with mixed success.

First, I will start with Kaede's actions during the story.

• Kaede mainly seems to be shocked that Rantaro was the one who was killed, rather than that someone is dead.
• Kaede never actually says that she's looking for Rantaro's killer during the trial, merely that she wants to expose the mastermind.
• When Kaede examines the shot put balls in the warehouse (which is required to advance the story), she wonders if Shuichi's plan will work, then puts whatever she's holding into the bag- the shot puts and the cameras she came for. Unfortunately, since the scene is in the first person perspective, you can't see what's in her hands.
• Kaede stacks the books rather oddly while tidying up the library. Of course, it would be rather difficult to construct a ramp out of books while keeping Shuichi in the dark about it, which makes the entire setup for her murder implausible.
• Just before Kaede leaves the classroom, she "drop(s) what (she) was holding," then runs to rejoin Shuichi. One would assume that this means the backpack, since there isn't any proof that she got out the shot put and rolled it into the vent.
• Kaede's reaction to Shuichi's story could hint that he'd be forced to once again reveal the truth in spite of how painful the consequences might be. However, it's worth pointing out that apart from his Free Time Events, this is the only backstory Shuichi gets that doesn't apply to the cast as a whole, so it's easy to assume that he'll be killed off fairly soon. His role is similar to that of Sayaka in the first game, who'd revealed her backstory shortly before being killed, so this is hardly an unreasonable assumption.

Next, I will examine some gameplay and "meta" aspects. These are less 

• Kaede only has two Free Time Events with each of her classmates, compared with Shuichi's five, and can't unlock any unique skills by completing her classmates' report cards. Of course, the game doesn't tell you when you're finished with a Free Time Event chain as Kaede, or let you know in advance that you won't get a new report card entry(whether because you haven't impressed the classmate enough with your gifts, or because the event is gated off until later in the story. As such, on my first playthrouugh, I spent all four Free Time periods with Himiko, and ended up wasting the latter two, since I assumed that my gifts weren't good enough to get a new Report card entry.
• Some gifts that you can get for the capsule machine, such as a musical score, are obviously a better gift for Kaede than they are for Shuichi, while some rare items, like the Gun of Man's Passion, make more sense if Shuichi is the player character. Of course, these are only a handful of items out of dozens of possible gifts.
• Kaede doesn't have a shelf for the Hidden Monokumas in her room, even though there are several that can only be obtained in Chapter 1. All Hidden Monokumas show up in Shuichi's room.
• Kaede's Japanese voice actress, Sayaka Kanda, is relatively unknown, while Shuichi's VA, Megumi Hayash played Lina Inverse in Slayers. Of course, this is lost on the American fanbase; Erika Harlacher, who plays Kaede, also played Kyoko in the first Danganronpa, while Grant George, Shuichi's VA, played Leon, so they're neither superstars nor unknown.

As you can see, while there is foreshadowing, a fair amount of it relies on the player making inferences based on what they know about the series. The rest of it involves carefully obfuscating what the player sees about Kaede's thoughts and actions, which largely succeeds by virtue of the medium not having to show certain things.

In most murder mystery games, the player character knows as much as the player does, but not this time. Both player characters knew all along that Kaede was the murderer, and simply chose not to tell the player. Perhaps some players were able to guess the truth, but it still seems like a twist for the sake of a twist, rather than for the sake of creating a compelling mystery.

The unfortunate part about this twist, is that, like many surprises, it only works once. If the creators make another game and try it again, people will likely see the signs coming and expect it, thus causing it to lose its impact. This may ultimately be for the best, though, since teasing the players with a protagonist like Kaede and performing a bait and switch to replace her with Shuichi was a poor decision.

Why Killing Off Kaede Doesn't Work

In the end, the outcome was determined the moment Kaede threw the shot put. Kaede is convicted of Rantaro's murder and executed, resulting in you playing as Shuichi for the rest of the game. To put it bluntly, this isn't a trade worth making.

Kaede is a refreshing protagonist in some ways, particularly how she differs from Makoto from the first game and Hajime from the second game. She has an actual talent, albeit something that doesn't relate to mystery solving, and is more than another average person in a class of talented but eccentric Ultimates. Rather than simply play the straight man to her classmates, she has quirks of her own, hence her nickname, "Piano Freak." Her talent does nothing to prepare her for the killing game, but it does help give her an identity of her own, both compared to her classmates and the previous protagonists.

Unlike the other protagonists, Kaede is very proactive, taking charge of the group, trying to find a way out, then searching for the mastermind. Her actions don't always yield good results, but it's commendable that she tries to do something in this seemingly hopeless situation. Her stubbornness and tendency to stick with her plans regardless of what everyone else is thinking lead her to persist in trying to make her way through the Death Road of Despair, and not question whether the mastermind is one of them(the latter is true), thus resulting in her murder attempt, so Kaede is reasonably flawed while still being sympathetic. While not everyone gets a second chance to learn from their mistakes, it might have been nice to see Kaede gradually learn to achieve a happy medium, being confident in what she knows is right without being overconfident. There isn't any guarantee that the writers would have handled this well, or whether it would have fit the story of the game, but I personally think it would have been better than what we got.

It also helps that Kaede would have been the first female protagonist in the main series. While the Danganronpa franchise has an equal number of female and male students, most of the main players in the trials are male(Makoto, Byakuya, Hajime, Nagito, Shuichi, Kaito, Kokichi), with fewer being female (Kyoko, Chiaki, Maki). Komaru, the protagonist of Ultra Despair Girls, is a generally well-liked female protagonist, but her game is a spinoff. Ultimately, however, Kaede's death serves as the main force motivating Shuichi to step up and find the truth, meaning that Kaede accomplishes more dead than alive. That, combined with the fact that the Free Time Events that Shuichi spends with her focuses on their burgeoning romance(the same is not true when she spends time with him during her brief tenure as player character), makes her come off as another Disposable Woman when she had the potential to be a strong protagonist, a move that comes off as borderline sexist.

Perhaps Kaede's fatal mistake was inevitable given her personality and the circumstances, but the outcome still feels contrived. The "First Blood Perk" and resulting time limit seem to be designed to force her hand, and make killing someone the only way to prevent the group from being massacred. While the second motive in the first game also had a time limit, no one was forced to do anything; in fact, the motive simply drove Mondo to the breaking point, and Chihiro unwittingly caused him to snap. Mondo's two most significant flaws- his insecurity and his poor temper- contributed to the tragic outcome of the chapter, and if he was a stronger person, the chapter might have ended without anyone dying. In both cases, the killers' personal flaws ended up driving them to kill, but the outcome of Mondo's case seemed like a more natural one than Kaede's case.

As unfortunate as Kaede's death was, Danganronpa wouldn't be Danganronpa if it didn't kill off interesting and likeable characters, so I can't fault the creators for making the "decoy protagonist" such a memorable and engaging character. What I can fault them for, however, is not doing nearly as good of a job with Shuichi. When I first played, I found him less interesting than many of his peers, especially after hearing his backstory, and concluding that there wouldn't be anything more to him as a character. I will admit that this negative first impression of him may have tainted my perception of him, but nothing I saw of him later went on to disprove it.

Shuichi does develop over time, and gradually becomes willing to fight for the truth even if it has consequences... which isn't any different from the other protagonists. Makoto had to come to terms with the fact that Sayaka had betrayed him, while Hajime had to realize that Chiaki was the "traitor" who'd accidentally murdered Nagito. Perhaps truth and lies are more of a theme in this game than they were in the previous installments, but this is hardly a compelling character arc. Kaede serves as little more than Shuichi's motivation, a crutch he uses as he gains the strength to stand on his own, which is a disservice to her as a character.

It doesn't help that Shuichi's Ultimate Detective talent isn't anything special in a series in which the protagonists become crime solvers by necessity. While Makoto showed that he had strong points even without an Ultimate talent, and Hajime's desperation to be special led him to become Izuru Kamukura, Shuichi seems bland and generic for no particular reason. In the end, he admits that there isn't anything special about him, but it doesn't help support the themes of the story in the same way that Makoto or Hajime's ordinary nature did for theirs.

Essentially, the twist provides little apart from shock value, and the protagonist swap ends up ultimately being detrimental to the story. Kaede's relevance to the story doesn't end with her death, though, even though what happens next doesn't make the events of the first chapter any more palatable.

The Real Culprit

Before you read any further, please keep in mind that while the preceding sections spoiled the first chapter, this will spoil the endgame.

In the sixth chapter, long after Kaede's death, the remaining survivors investigate the school and, among other things, find proof that Kaede didn't actually commit the murder. Their proof is an identical shot put with a pink fiber from Kaede's vest, hidden on the other side of the hidden door. This reveals that while Kaede rolled a shot put into the vent, it didn't actually hit Rantaro; the mastermind took advantage of an extremely narrow window of opportunity to bash him on the head with another shot put and frame Kaede. The fact that Rantaro's true killer could carry out this murder in roughly 30 seconds without leaving any evidence behind or attracting suspicion until the end of the game is rather hard to believe, which is part of the reason why I did not suspect this twist at first.

Of course, it's far too late to save Kaede, and instead, this evidence is used to expose the true mastermind and lead into the game's final act. The final trial and related revelations are a topic for another time, but in short, it's proof that the game's ultimate goal was treating Kaede as a cheap sacrificial lamb when she deserved to be so much more.

The trial has one last revelation about Kaede- that the person that Shuichi loved was an artificial construct imposed upon her by the "flashback lights," and the real Kaede was deeply cynical and misanthropic. Like with everything else about the ending, it's unclear whether this is true or false, but this revelation mainly serves to shake Shuichi's belief in his friends, just like the audition tape for the more recently deceased Kaito. As always, Kaede plays more of a role dead than alive, and sadly, the ending of the game only further drives that home

Conclusion

Whether Chapter 1 was meant to set up the protagonist swap, or the fact that you were playing as the killer, it wasn't worth what it ultimately sacrificed. One of this game's chief flaws is that, when it doesn't adhere to series-wide tropes, it often goes for shocking twists regardless of their impact on the story. For better or worse, the first trial of a Danganronpa game tends to establish what the rest of the game will be like, and V3's first case happens to highlight some of its weakest aspects.

That being said, I do have some hope. V3 may not be the last Danganronpa game, so if another is made, I hope that the creators will have the initiative to break from series tradition and the wisdom to not repeat V3's mistakes. I personally hope that they create a new, engaging protagonist (preferably female, for a change), who will solve the mysteries of the killing game she and her classmates are trapped in, and that the first chapter will both test her and set the tone for what comes next.