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You pause the show just as it cuts away to the break screen.
Danganronpa’s 52nd season is launching off with a blast. The motive has just been revealed, and you’ve been waiting to see just how in-depth the cases go this time. In all truth, you’re a little annoyed that the show has been so reliant on fan service these past few seasons—not that the show has ever been without that fan service, because nothing exists without it—but it’s been so up-in-your-face recently and it drives you mad.
Like, no. You’re not interested in the girl with the occasional just-barely-lewd expression that could reasonably pass off as innocent. It’s weird. It’s offputting, and it takes away from the drama of it all! You’re here to watch these cases go on and on, not… whatever that is.
Similarly, you’re not all that interested in the guy with the green hair that’s been getting a lot of screentime—the guy who’s already needed to take off his shirt to cover the wound of an injured participant to stop the bleeding. At the very least, though, that’s the interesting stuff! Not that Amami Rantaro has a good figure or whatever, but there’s some kind of drama that’s sprinkled in there.
Or maybe you’re biased. You did go to the same junior high. He was a huge hot-shot there too, but in an awkward way. Girls and guys loved him because they couldn’t get enough of his model-esque smile.
Your phone rings as you cross the living room to the whiteboard you have set up. Your parents are… away, as usual, so you have the house to yourself—ergo, you can be a little messy with your theorizing.
“Ouma,” says the voice on the other end—same age as you, but something about his voice training has done wonders to making his voice sound real deep. “Why are you blowing up my phone?”
You toss your phone onto the table by the whiteboard, making sure to leave Hoshi on speaker. “Hoshi-chan!” There’s a laugh that leaves the back of your throat as you reach for the dry erase marker. “Have you caught up with everything yet? You know I need my theorizing buddy.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, are you going to?”
Hoshi could not sound more disinterested. “Probably not.”
You groan. This guy stinks. “What are you even doing, anyway? Since you’re too busy to watch but free enough to call me back.”
There’s a shifting on the other end of the line, probably Hoshi getting up to sound busy now that you’ve mentioned it. “Things.”
You definitely need a better friend to talk about Danganronpa with. You roll your eyes, and you wish the both of you were in the same room so that you could express your frustrations with him visually.
“There’s a character you’re gonna like, whenever you get around to it.”
Your red marker squeaks against the whiteboard as you begin organizing the photos pinned by magnets. There’s sixteen in total, obviously representing all of the participants. You have them organized in pairs for the most part, save for the trio that you think will make up the third murder case. Every season has that trio.
(Of course, nothing is quite as iconic as season twenty-one’s third murder case, with an early fakeout death of the Blackened and the second victim that everyone assumed was guilty until seconds before the trial started—oh, what a ride that was!—but it’s been ages and you figure that they’ll finally have something good this time.)
“She’s real cute. Ultimate Badminton Player,” you coo, adding a dash of “ooh” and “aah” for emphasis.
Hoshi doesn’t take too kindly to your teasing. “I really don’t want to watch it now.”
Which makes you laugh. “Oh, please. One girl dumps you and now you want nothing to do with her?” It’s not exactly funny per se, but a guy so obsessed with seeming cool like Hoshi sure seems to do a lot of lame things. Worst part is he doesn’t even care! What a guy! “She’s a good character, Hoshi-chan. I’d say give her a shot.”
“The season’s just started.”
“So?” You raise an eyebrow at your phone. Obviously, he cannot see you. “I’ve got an eye for good writing. She’s a winner, definitely.”
What you don’t say is how you have her lined up as the fourth trial’s Blackened, in your list of theories. She’s not survivor material, but you’re banking on a revenge kill of some kind. With who, you’re not entirely sure, but you’ve got a good gut feeling.
“I’m not interested in her,” Hoshi insists. “She’s a bit too pushy for my liking.”
Which makes you stop in the middle of drawing a circle. “Aha! So you’ve been watching, then!?”
Caught red-handed! Thing is, you’ve had a sneaking suspicion this whole time. Hoshi is as much of a sucker for Danganronpa as most people are. He feigns this sort of apathy for anything and everything, and you figure some of that apathy is real when he goes off the grid for weeks at a time, but you know about the things he likes. Nice try, Hoshi!
Of course, he never makes anything easy for you. Asshole. “You’re weirdly obsessed with this show again,” he observes, and you can hear the faint click of a lighter on the other end of the call. “I haven’t heard you this excited about anything in a while.”
You suppose that’s what your friendship has become at this point. You guys hang out casually, sometimes you talk for hours and hours endlessly, and then all of a sudden, you know each other like the ins and outs of your favorite fictional murder cases. Hoshi is one of the only people you go to high school with that really knows what you’re like once you find your spark—when you find that confidence to talk and talk and talk and not shut up. You’re good at talking, when you feel like it.
(Otherwise, you prefer keeping to yourself. Naturally, you’re still judging everyone and everything, just to yourself. Your journal keeps most of your personal thoughts about the people you interact in your day-to-day life, since you don’t normally have the guts to say things to people’s face.)
“Can’t a guy just be excited?” you chirp innocently.
“Two weeks ago, you were ranting about how boring this was going to be.” Hoshi sighs. “What made you change your tune?”
As the both of you have been talking, you’ve been making some final adjustments to your theory board for the time being. You’re still very early on, but you’ve mapped out the particulars of at least three potential character arcs—two of them for an interesting guy that sticks out to you among the rest.
(You know that you’re biased when you admit to yourself that he’s your favorite character. Like, you went to junior high with him. That’s not fair, you already know who he is—his character is more of an exaggeration to the Amami Rantaro you knew in real life, but it’s close enough. The guy’s not the most creative, anyway.)
“Our protagonist this time around may be forced to spill some blood himself,” you say with as much dramatic effect as possible. You walk over to the table and pick up your phone. “I’m turning on my camera! Make sure you’re looking, okay?”
“Do I even have a choice?” Hoshi asks, though he does know the answer already. You’ve hung out enough so that he knows how you operate. You already hear him picking his phone back up too.
You flip the camera so it’s facing the whiteboard, grimacing as you catch a glimpse of your own forehead—ew, gross, you have to figure out your acne situation soon—but a smile crosses your features as you fit most of the thing into frame. (You also expertly cover up the bit on your theory board where your later case victims and Blackeneds lie, so Hoshi doesn’t get caught up in the fact you’re trying to get him hooked on a character that you think will die.)
Hoshi is quiet on the other end for a few moments. Then, he says, “What am I looking at?”
You groan. Hoshi never catches onto anything he doesn’t care about—and, well, he doesn’t care about a lot of things.
“You really need to quit being such a casual fan. You’d understand a lot quicker if you stopped pretending you don’t care about Danganronpa,” you chide, approaching the whiteboard to show him a closer look. “For the very first motive, they sure are putting a lot of stakes on the line! It kind of reminds me of the charm with the first season, y’know? Except way better.”
Hoshi hums, though you know he’s not fully catching on. “What’s the motive again?”
You’re pretty sure he’s only seen like, ten minutes of the new season at max. One of these days, you ought to drag him out of his room and to your house so you can catch him up.
“Handcuffs of death!” You make sure to make it sound really cool, because it is really cool, and Hoshi cares a lot about things that are cool. “Everyone’s paired up with one other person. Our dear protagonist, Amami Rantaro, is already hooked up with the guy who recognized his brother’s murderer—you at least know that part, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” Finally, Hoshi sounds a little more intrigued. “I thought that was a cool twist. They don’t usually have people reveal connections outside of the Killing Game right away, so that was a surprise.”
“Yup!” You prop your phone back on the table, angling it so you can still somewhat see the board. “And trust me, Amami-chan is trying real hard to talk him out of it, but he’s totally gonna murder her first chance he gets! And he’s gonna have to make a big decision about whether or not he’s gonna help clean it up.”
“But why would he do that?” Hoshi asks. “If he misleads the others, he’ll just die too.”
“They’ve done something interesting, my dear Hoshi-chan.” You quietly snicker when you hear the small grumble on the other end, because you know he hates when you call him that. Not hate as in despise, but you know. The friendly-esque hate. That kind of hate. “Amami-chan was knocked out during the explanation of the rules because of that one girl who sucker punched him! So, he totally missed it, is my guess.”
“Oh.” Hoshi sounds a bit surprised at that. “And you think the other guy knows?”
“Everyone knows about the class trials. Everyone except dear Amami-chan.”
You plop yourself down on the couch, eyeing your masterful work on theorizing. Of course, lots of things will be changed as the season edges on, but this current theory you have working for the first murder—oh, you’re thrilled to see it in action. You know you’re right. You usually are with these kinds of things.
Hoshi is quiet a few moments longer, and you think he’s trying to read your various notes scribbled in red and black and green.
“Are you thinking of signing up for next season?” he asks—and it’s the first time you’ve heard him express interest in your actual opinions in a few weeks.
But you shrug. “Dunno. Can’t say it’s really my thing.”
“Think you’d be good for it, Ouma.” The lighter clicks again. “You’d make a good mastermind with all your ideas.”
You don’t pay much attention to what he’s saying, though. Instead, you break out into a whine you know will get on his nerves. “Hoshi-chaaan, you know you shouldn’t be smoking!”
And that makes Hoshi go quiet again, going back to ignoring you and pretending that he doesn’t care. It’s funny how easy it is to understand this guy.
Which gives you the space to think about his words. Of course, you have considered joining the show, but you have too many ideas. Too many ideas and not enough time to work it all out to hit every plot point—and you’d make a fantastic mastermind, you know that, but you’re kind of bored of that approach because you’ve plotted it out in your mind so many times.
Nah, you’d rather be a Blackened. Capital B and all. They’re the ones who run the real show, given they take their role seriously.
And Ouma Kokichi? As a Blackened?
Oh, you’ll be all about the entertainment.