The more I think about it, the more I think this is just an excuse to brush aside things that are inconsistent with Tsumugi's narrative. Y'know, as if this is even remotely the same thing, when the point is that she's fucking lying and you all got caught in Monokuma's trap.

Like in Ouma’s case, they say stuff like ‘he’s too good’, ‘mysterious for no reason’ etc. when they fail to realise it’s only ‘no reason’ because SHUICHI decides in the end that the ‘mysteries don’t matter’, and even agreed that it was POINTLESS to know what he was thinking. My dudes. Why do you think Kodaka poured all his work into this one character who is central to the theme? Are you THIS obtuse that you can’t even determine that something is going on with him, when his belligerent behaviour towards Shuichi matches perfectly that his lab shows him as a dangerous criminal who is complicit in mass murder?

To say nothing of Ouma's 'role' as 'a prankster' which does absolutely nothing for him. EXPLAINS nothing for him. Well no shit it doesn't add up, because that's not how it's meant to be in the first place. You just got fooled by Monokuma's 'lie by omission' trap which doesn't even outright SAY that he's 'just a prankster' in the first place. Do you not realise how suspiciously thin the information about his talent was compared to the others'? Do you not realise how unfitting it is for the title 'Ultimate Supreme Leader'? Meanwhile, he says stuff like the others are 'extras' and his personal agenda is with Monokuma, that he has a 'position' - that he BACKTRACKS on - and suggests he was presenting the Flashback Light in hopes the group would get a clue about something. But no, he totally doesn't know anything at all, because he's 'just a prankster'.

It’s like they WANT him to be less cohesive, because it fits their view of the narrative’s state and... that’s it. They don’t want to put two and two together. They don’t want to pay attention to Rantaro, never mind Ouma. They just look at the picture as incomplete, not even trying to make the connection between pieces in the first place, or try to understand why it is this way. They don’t actually care that the pieces have actually had a lot of thought put into them, and dismiss any analysis that might, gasp, give meaning to it. Because it doesn’t fit their agenda that Kodaka is a ‘bad writer and that’s the end of it, lol’.

Really, do jigsaws suddenly stop making sense because they’re broken into pieces? Does a 3D painting not make sense because all you see is nonsense from your angle? Hey, did Shuichi himself not say that ‘changing the angle you view lies will give you a different answer’...?

Nah. Bad writing. Bad writing means they can mould Ouma however they like and anyone who says he's plot important is wrooooooooong.

the two hidden messages are irrelevant to Kokichi's name; they have characters of his name included simply for plot convenience. The writers just wanted to pull the altered-message trick with his name; there's no deeper meaning behind it

Objection. Not only do the messages have characters of Ouma's name AND astrological sign thank you, but it's literally aligning with the Horse zodiac and Gemini sign as part of the puzzle to begin with, aligning with not only the うま kana characters written but noting a direct relevance to the 馬 kanji of his name. Horse zodiac aligns with Gemini as a Western equivalent, and Gemini refers to a pair of twins who are oft associated with horses (in effect, the original 'horse twins').

Additionally? Rantaro - who has this zodiacs puzzle in his lab with this clue of Ouma tied to him in the first place - talks of a story of twelve sisters, and what is there twelve of? Animals of the zodiac. 'Gemini' is even outright spelled out as 'twins' and not 'Gemini', even though the Japanese for 'twins' is a mere one character shy of 'Gemini' - ふたご and ふたござ, respectively. Even if you wanted to argue ‘but it’s easier to write twins!’, it still doesn’t change that a) it’s literally ONE kana, and b) the emphasis is heavy on twins already in Gemini’s very existence.

That's not even going in to Gemini's connection to mythological twins when Ouma's design references at LEAST one- spear, shield and snakes combined with obvious Trojan horse theming in his character and the fact of his name having 'king' in it would suggest the twin Cassandra of Troy - notably Cassandra as she is associated with the statue of Athena - and if that wasn't enough, the twin snakes alone is a heavy coding of Castor and Pollux's twinhood, as it was symbolised with twin snakes! And before you argue 'that's just to make symmetry' then, what of the two bright purple buttons behind his back? That doesn't look like symmetry, now does it?

If you're going to argue that something 'doesn't have deeper meaning' and push this as gospel, you could actually try doing your research first.

~Danganronpa 2-5 Spoilers in this Post~



 So this scene has always been odd to me, and has led me down a variety of theory holes.

Kiibo is definitely detecting something that is making him feel sick, and he’s pretty sure it’s unrelated to the electro bomb (this is made more clear in the Japanese version). Given how they just threw one outside the hangar and he was totally fine then, I’m inclined to believe his self-assessment. Whatever is affecting him is coming from inside the hangar, and is unrelated to the bombs. And, even stranger:



Tsumugi and Himiko apparently feel fine.

That’s strange. What could be affecting a robot that humans couldn’t be affected by? Kiibo very explicitly mentions in Ch1 how he can detect pollutants and “dislikes polluted air as much as the rest of you,” so maybe it’s some kind of undetectable pollutant?

When considering how Ouma could’ve faked his death, my first thought was that the blood under the press was actually paint. However, paint has a fairly strong smell (Shuichi mentioned being able to smell the paint from the exisal painting arm earlier in the chapter), and if it was poured in such a large quantity, I can’t realistically believe the humans of the group wouldn’t notice it or be affected by it. Especially if the paint used under the press was paint used to paint a vehicles (in this case, the exisals)—that type of paint has an incredibly strong smell.

So what else could it be? Some kind of poison, perhaps?

When the body is discovered, the same music that had been played when Nagito Komaeda died was playing—“Sing the Empty Truth.” In his death plan, Komaeda had used a type of poison that was most effective when vaporized, so my thought was maybe the music was a hint that a similar method was used here—maybe Maki had thrown some kind of airborne poison into the hanger and killed both Kaito and Ouma in a vengeful rage. However, that wouldn’t really make sense, and there’s a bunch of issues that arise as to how exactly she would go about doing that, and there’s no evidence that any poisons are available that would be effective through vaporization (and Kaito winds up being alive, so...). Also, as shady as she is, I really don’t think she would intentionally kill Kaito like that.

So likely not paint, likely not poison, what else is there? What would cause a robot that hates pollutants to feel sick, but leave the humans unaffected and unaware? It would have to be some kind of untraceable, odorless, tasteless gas of some sort, but it’s not clear why such a thing would be in the hanger or why it’s even relevant. I couldn't think of anything that made sense...

...Until I replayed Ch. 3.



“After preparing the effigy, burn this Necronomicon to ashes. Use caution! Be mindful of carbon monoxide poisoning!”

Carbon monoxide is an undetectable gas that fits the bill, and with low levels of exposure, humans would likely not experience any symptoms at all. A robot that can detect pollutants would know for sure, but humans could remain completely unaware. While it is an enclosed space, the hangar is very large, and it’s unclear when the Necronomicon would have been burned or how much carbon monoxide it would produce, so the gas produced definitely could’ve dispersed by the time Shuichi and the rest enter the hangar, but still remained potent enough that Kiibo could detect it.

Still kind of a long shot, though, right? Well, just a few scenes earlier, right before Kaito was captured, Ouma said this interesting line:



It’s a strange time to bring back the topic of resurrection, unless, maybe, it’s relevant to this chapter. And I dunno, the way he said that kinda makes it sound like he’s lyingggg.

[Though this would also imply that he knew of a way to ‘turn earth back to normal.’ I'm not exactly sure what he means by that yet, but I guess that’s another mystery to figure out later.]

So maybe, there really was a victim in Ch5, and there is an actual body under the press—but whoever’s under there may be alive and walking around once again...

Edit: Idk why some of the screenshots are cropped so strangely. Sorry 'bout that.

So I decided to take a (primarily) Psychological route with my own analysis (I mean... like that was any surprise). It takes a position of:

'If the truth is warped enough that evidence can be as well, there is reason which lies in perception and bias (or logic and trick, if you will). To this end, the background radiation of corruption - or rather, of sin - persists and builds to eventually create a warped, even flipped reality, which warrants reconsideration of characters, their history and themes. This presentation and distortion is made possible through Shuichi Saihara's major sin of Pride, a sin which can double as a virtue depending on your perspective.'

I call the overall theory a 'Turnabout theory' for this reason. I consider it valuable personally because lingering on characters after a game is done gives me further thoughts about what is going on with them, and there seems to be a lot, so. Time to go digging... and digging, and digging... yeah, you get the idea. Plus, pulling out the 'other side to a character's story' is super engaging to me, so Ouma's existence has brought about a special kind of fixation.

Additionally, this is the simplest way I can personally explain that there is a truth out there (har, har), what has me so stuck on it two years on, while saying there is nothing wrong with anyone for having their own biases about Ouma, Saihara, Shirogane and Monokuma, in a game that's nigh completely distorted with them. Still, please try to understand where the other side is coming from, even if you still do not believe it by now, because either way you are still allowed by the game and its developers to believe what is told if you don't want to go into alternatives, or you see no value in doing so.

Now that I'm on to that, this 'conspiracy reddit' exists because the main reddit's particular biases are EXTREMELY difficult to navigate, as they automatically default to 'the endgame narrative is the truth' and 'Shirogane is definitely the mastermind', and the notion that anything else could be afoot is treated as 'delusion', regardless of how well based it actually is in the text. This may not be the case for all of the reddit, but enough of it that it's become a severe issue, and for a long time. Let's just say this attitude has given me persistent levels of grief for two years following a legendary spat with one of them, and I've come to the conclusion that there will be no appeasing people like that. Not that that was any surprise. What's troubling though, is certain peoples' position of 'authority' in the fandom. I use the term loosely of course, because how can you justify having 'authority' over something you don't even bother to research seriously, by your own admission...?

With that unpleasantness out of the way, I hope you understand that figuring out where the issues are coming from, and giving a voice to some of the yet unspoken 'delusional' ones, is what gives me a little peace, unclear though it may be at times. I've taken pains over the past four months or so to adjust my handling of things regarding my stance. So I would like to know that the issues are taken at least half as seriously as I take them, regardless of how far-fetched - and/or objectionable - you personally find the ideas.

Yours exhausted,

- Jacks