Shinrai's Kotoba: When the Worst Character is Still Necessary to the Narrative

Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair Spoilers

Most of us can think of a few characters we dislike for various reasons, and often, we believe the stories they're in would be better off without them. But sometimes, it's difficult to remove characters the audience dislikes without adversely affecting the narrative. Kotoba Gaikoku from Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair is one example, as while he seems like an unfunny perverted comic relief character(and to some degree, he is), he plays a crucial role in the story.

Who Kotoba Is

First, let's explain who Kotoba is and why he's so unlikable.

Kotoba is the best friend of Taiko Kikai. He's a notorious pervert who has a thing for both guys and girls, but has especially strong feelings for Momoko Mori, and dislikes her boyfriend Hiro Shiratake for reasons that are not entirely related to romantic jealousy.

The first problem is evident- the fact that he's a pervert. It's difficult to write perverts well, since perversion tends to be a major character flaw that's treated like a minor one. While his perverted antics often result in Mika Tamashii beating him up or Taiko telling him off, no one thinks to get the police or authorities involved.

At this point, it should be obvious why people have a problem with Kotoba, but now we're getting into spoilers, so if you don't want to read about endgame plot details, now is the time to back out.

It later turns out that he's guilty of worse than being a pervert- in fact, he was stalking Momoko for some time, until Momoko's best friend Kamen Eiga threatened to call the police on him. Despite backing out, he remained fixated on Momoko, resulting in her convincing him to join in her prank. All the while, Kotoba was unaware that Momoko was planning to kill him, having chosen him because he was easy to manipulate and she didn't mind killing him to tie up loose ends.

Kotoba's in a bit of an odd place when it comes to how much sympathy the narrative gives him. On the one hand, he's not an over-the-top jerk like Hiro, and the story never claims that he deserved to be burned to death for stalking Momoko. In fact, Taiko fondly remembers him if he dies, indicating that Kotoba does have redeeming qualities in spite of his many flaws. However, an update to the game changed some of Taiko's lines in the ending in which he lives; instead of asking the dead Momoko for forgiveness on Kotoba's behalf, Taiko calls Kotoba's behavior unforgivable and apologizes to Momoko for not doing anything about it.

So there you have it. Kotoba's a rather obnoxious and unfunny character who's guilty of disturbing behavior, but nevertheless retains some narrative sympathy.

Why Kotoba Is Necessary

Now for the other half of this message. As unlikable as Kotoba is, the plot wouldn't be the same without him.

Momoko's revenge plan involves pretending to hang herself, killing Hiro and then actually killing herself, with the goal of getting revenge on Hiro and Kamen for supposedly betraying her. Unfortunately, as Raiko points out, she needs an additional accomplice to trigger a power outage as part of her plan, and Kotoba, who's easily manipulated, fits the bill.

Unfortunately, including Kotoba ends up unraveling her plan, since in the two bad endings in which Raiko accuses the wrong person of the murder, her theory has the least evidence to support why the killer murdered Kotoba.

In the scenario in which Hiro murdered Momoko, Raiko proposes that Kamen killed him in revenge(a possibility she seriously considered ever since Hiro was found dead), then killed Kotoba for being his accomplice. However, it's rather difficult to swallow Kotoba working with Hiro, given their intense mutual dislike, since Momoko was the one person able to recruit Kamen, Hiro and Kotoba.

In the scenario in which Runa Hikari murdered Momoko and Hiro, the motive is obvious- romantic jealousy. After all, Runa was once in love with Hiro, and it's not hard to doubt her claims that she's "over" Hiro, especially since she admits to some conflict between her and Momoko. However, Runa has no real motive to kill Kotoba, since while he made tasteless comments about her, she was never the subject of his fixation the same way Momoko was.

One thing I will concede, however, is that it barely matters whether Kotoba lives or dies. If he lives, he's able to testify about the prank and corroborate Raiko's story, but this is after Raiko has decided who to accuse of the crime. Even if he dies, the police are able to, at minimum, determine whether the chosen suspect(Kamen or Runa) is innocent, since they have more training, experience and resources than a group of middle schoolers. One could argue that Raiko's detective work is less about solving the crime than it is a way of proving to Kamen that she's still the same girl Kamen knows from four years ago, back when Kamen was falsely accused of shoplifting and Raiko saved her. Despite this, the murder plot couldn't have happened without Kotoba, so while his fate does not impact the story, his actions before the fire help shape the outcome of the case.

Conclusion

Kotoba is by no means a likeable character, but he's still important to Shinrai's narrative, since he plays an important role in the plot. His actions both enable the killer to carry out her plan, but also lead to the murder plot being unraveled, like a loose thread that is part of an elaborate tapestry. In this way, while Kotoba is unlikable and arguably poorly written, he is still an important part of the story, and shows that disliked characters are not always superfluous.