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Pain is one of the strongest forms of human connection. A person who cannot feel pain can not connect to those around them. DRAMAtical murder (DMMD) is a visual novel from the 2010s following the story of Aoba. Noiz, one of Aoba's love interests, can not feel pain. Noiz’s entire route is about the search for connection when there were always barriers, physically and mentally stopping him from truly understanding the people around him.
Noiz was born to a rich family in Germany. They discovered early on that Noiz was “different” from other kids his age. He couldn't understand other kids, and eventually, he made one of them upset, which got him in trouble with his parents. They would tell him what a disappointment he was. “Eventually, they locked me up in my room and told me to stay away from other people.” His parents decided to isolate him from an early age, disconnecting him from the outside world. They chose to shut him out, claiming it was better for him to be away from people. This room would become somewhat of a void to him, and he was just static.
Later in the game, when Aoba enters Noiz’s mind, it is trapped in an empty room where Noiz is covered in static and chained to the floor. Masked figures swayed around him, preventing Aoba from reaching him. These figures could represent his parents shutting him out from the world, or also the fact that he shut himself out from the world, believing his parents were right. The room in his mind had no colour, but his tongue was bright red, as it is the only place he can feel pain. The absence of colour mirrors the absence of senses. His tongue, being bright red, is also a metaphor for human blood; he does bleed but doesn't feel the pain, but with this small part of him, he is connected to people, by blood.
This isolation only continues as we see how Noiz views himself. The world from his eyes was much different than how others saw it; in his eyes, he is nothing like the others, and when visiting his memories, he appears as a dark, glitchy figure. His inability to feel pain not only removed his ability to feel pain but also to connect. He was isolated because of it, and even when surrounded by people, he still feels different. He wasn't born without the ability to connect with people; it was put into him. “In the beginning, I was so lonely I'd cry myself to sleep, but then I got used to being alone.” It wasn't just his condition; it was the isolation his parents enforced on him that made him lose any sort of connection.
Throughout the game, Noiz seems to have an obsession with Rhyme, a popular video game that links one's mind to the battlefield. For Noiz, Rhyme isn't just a game; it's the only place he can feel truly human through pain. “In rhyme, you feel the damage in your mind, not your body. So even someone like me can feel it-the pain, that is.” Rhyme gave him an experience he could never get in the real world, so he spent his time playing that game. When he got locked in his room, he'd tell himself, "The first step was to stop depending on others. I mastered the skills I needed to survive. I learned to manage on my own." He sets his own standard for his isolation, but that is his own cry for connection, even if he doesn't admit that. “I'd never known pain before.. But when I took damage in rhyme, I felt I could finally understand.” His love for rhyme shows that he still wants that human connection he was denied as a child.
Noiz believes his inability to feel pain makes him less human, but it is more clear to others that he just doesn't understand, doesn't connect fully with others. We see this perfectly with what Aoba says after finding out about Noiz’s inability to feel pain. “Hurting others.. Being hurt in turn.. Through pain, through reflecting on what causes pain, we learn how to better interact, how better to solve our problems.” This is how Rhyme becomes a main part of his identity. Noiz could never understand a concept like that without rhyme; it has already been engraved into him that he was “different”. Rhyme helped him feel more like a person, and that was his own way of connecting.“It was only in those moments that I really felt alive. Like I wasn't some kind of monster, some reject.” We see him form connections through Rhyme, like the fact that he got to join Ruff Rabbits and how he met Aoba.
Someone who has trouble connecting with others, understanding others will never understand someone's intentions, “But I didn't ask for your help. I don't get it. Why would you do that?” When faced with kindness, Noiz doesn't understand it because he doesn't see the need to do it. Noiz doesn't have the experience with pain he needs to be able to empathize with others. This inability to understand kindness makes it clear that Noiz has only had people show him kindness when they need something from him. “People always either keep their distance, or try to use me for my body or my money.” This suggests that people have used Noiz for various purposes to the point where he assumes they only want his body or money. He might even be willing to give it to them if it makes him feel like he's connecting with them. We see this early on when Noiz immediately jumps to the conclusion that Aoba wants to have sex with him because of a small gesture. But he willingly offers it to him because it gives him a small feeling that he is human too. Even if it's not as big as him connecting through Rhyme, it shows that he does want real-world connections, and Aoba is exactly that opportunity.
The game beautifully shows Noiz's need for connection in both its bad endings. Noiz asks himself, “Do you just want it to end?” with no other option but yes. He asks himself over and over if it's time to give up, potentially referring to suicide as giving up, accepting that he’ll never feel the things other people feel. But this mental baggage that he is carrying is the thing that connects him with the pain others feel, just not in a physical way. His pain is the same as other people's pain, but people talk more about physical pain rather than mental. Aoba tells him he can't give up because it's wrong. Noiz asks why it's wrong, but Aoba doesn't give him an answer. Noiz fails to understand how giving up is wrong and simply says, “I'm too tired to go on.” At his lowest, he chooses not to face reality; the game switches to an old RPG style, as in Noiz’s mind, games provide comfort and connection. In this world, Aoba and Noiz fight Akushima, and when they win, they level up their “powers”
While Aoba's power is revered as “magic voice,” Noiz’s power is referred to as “selfishness.” Selfishness can refer to his desire to connect, which still shows in this world when Noiz asks Aoba to join his team for “Rhyme” over and over, despite Aoba saying no. He views his own desire to connect with the people he cares about as selfish. In this world, Noiz makes the realization that nothing would change in a world like this. His life becomes no better or worse; it doesn't matter if he gives up or not. “That's right.. Our lives will go on like normal. Forever.” The game ends with the song “Feel Your Noise,” which can be a play on words for “feel, You're Noiz.” It becomes more of a message of acceptance, telling him it's okay for him to feel because ultimately, he is human too.
The first ending shows Noiz’s desire to escape into fantasy while the second reveals his desire to feel real as a person. The second bad ending, when Noiz asks himself why he can't give up, he is met with a simple because we can't. He is given one last question: “What do you want?” “A real World.” To Noiz, a real world is one where he can feel the things that others do, through pain. He creates a sensation in his mind to help him feel real when facing his own self-hatred. Both he and Aoba are trapped together, skin peeling off at every touch. It's from his own mind that this idea of a real world is where he can connect to another person through pain and intimacy at the same time. He's fine with his own suffering as long as he feels he's not alone anymore, as long as he feels he has a connection. “I was alone… but now we'll always be together. You'll be with me.” “I want to stay like this. As long as I have this pain and you… I'm happy.” He thinks of pain as a way of connection so much that he starts to also desire pain, he desires both.
Rhyme has been the sole place Noiz felt remotely human, but Aoba was the sole person who could beat him at Rhyme. While Rhyme was something that made Noiz feel connected, it wasn't lasting. Aoba was the representation of the possibility of a long real-world connection. “But then you beat me. I want to fight you again, and win. You're the person who intruded on my solitude.” Aoba becomes this grounding character that, when around, makes Noiz one step closer to feeling human. “If I could teach you just one thing, it’d be this: that maybe… just maybe, the world isn't quite as awful as you think it is.” Noiz sees the world as awful, not because it is, but because he could never connect to those in it.
It's interesting that when his parents supposedly wished upon his death he was so sure that he wanted to live."I'm sure they hoped I would hurry and die. But that's why I was determined to live." He wanted to live to prove his family wrong, his family pushed him away because he couldn't connect to people but this only made him want to prove he's worthy of that connection more. This becomes a perfect mirror to real people. People who have some sort of disability or mental disorder are more likely to feel disconnected from their peers. Humans have the tendency to shut out anything that doesn't appear perfectly “normal”. This leads to isolation of people who have disabilities or mental disorders, they are treated like they feel differently, when they don't at all. They still feel emotions and yearn for connection like we all do.
Everything Noiz does is a secret yearn for a connection with a human being. He was locked away because of his inability to feel but he would never just become “normal”. In fact locking him away made it worse. He actively searches for pain through rhyme to make him feel more human. In every one of his bad endings it communicates how he feels and views the world. His longing for connection would never stop, he would just grow more tired and tired of trying. Noiz lives in a world where he can't understand anyone and no one can understand him but since Aoba can enter Noiz’s mind. Aoba can break that barrier. Seeing someone not how others, not how they see themselves, but as they truly are is the deepest form of connection. Noiz found the connection he wanted without even asking for it but even then he still pushes away. It is in his search for connection despite not feeling like a “normal” person that makes him a wonderful characterization of real people who can't connect.