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oumakokichi · 7 years

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What's your view on Ouma and Saihara's relationship?

Oh my god, thank you so much for asking this. This isactually one of the things I’ve wanted to write about the most lately!

I’m going to reference some of Ouma’s FTEs in my answer, soI’d like to thank @kaibutsushidousha for translating them all to English! ThoseFTEs gave me a lot of insight on things, and were incredibly fun to read, so ifanyone hasn’t checked them out already, I’d say go take a look!

My explanation’s probably gonna get long, and it WILL include spoilers for pretty much every part ofthe game, so anyone who wants to avoid spoilers shouldn’t read past this part!

First, let me start by saying I think Ouma is the smartestcharacter in the entire game. Moreso than the mastermind. Moreso than Saihara. He’snot “the mastermind” himself, but he IS one step ahead of just about every single othercharacter, and he’s clever as hell about guiding the rest of them subtly to theinformation he knows while simultaneously making it seem as if he just wants tomess with them.

Ouma’s title is SHSL Supreme Leader. He has charisma, he hasan adorable, childlike quality, and he has the ability to lie his ass off. Ifhe really, truly got off on making others suffer, or if he enjoyed the killinggame half as much as he pretends to for the first four chapters, he could havewooed them all from the moment he met them, earned their trust, and then soldthem out to Monokuma (for one cornchip, etc. etc.). I honestly believe he’ssmart enough that he could have killed everysingle member of that game if he had actually planned to.

But Ouma’s goal is very specific, and in order to obtainthat goal he needs Saihara. Where Ouma and Kaede disagreed on the basis of howto lead the group on a very fundamental level, I feel as if Saihara’s morehesitant approach both to leadership and to pursuing the truth is exactly whatOuma wants. Someone has to take on the role of leading the group, and whileOuma certainly could, he definitely doesn’t want to. He wants someone else todo it, so that he can continue with his own plans in the shadows. And Saihara, slowly coming out of his shell and beginning to finally,seriously weigh the consequences of pursuing the real truth of a matter versusthe perceived truth of a matter, is just the one he wants.

I think he’s a parallel to Saihara in every way conceivable.I’ve seen people call Ouma the new Komaeda of the fandom, but what I don’tthink people quite get is that he’s intentionally similar to Komaeda on a fewfronts, yes—but he’s also a subversionof everything Komaeda was in sdr2.

I remember people talking about how the conflict betweenHinata and Komaeda was originally supposed to be between Hinata and Akane,given the context of their first and last names (Hajime and Owari, beginningand end). That concept sadly didn’t get implemented in favor of giving the conflict-bringerrole to Komaeda at the time, but I feel as if now it’s finally come back aroundvia Saihara and Ouma (although don’t get me wrong, I would love to see anactual female protagonist or deuteragonist for this trope and not a bait-and-switch).

The theme of ndrv3 is truth versus lies, and the greymorality that stretches between them. Reality, fiction, black, white, all thesethings are heavily emphasized even in Saihara and Ouma’s character designs. And at everyopportunity, these two are shown on opposing sides of class trials and debates.

But I don’t take this to mean the relationship between the two of them ishostile. If anything, I think it’s exactly the opposite. I think Ouma is tryingto guide Saihara into solving things that he already knows the answer to, allthe while acting as if he enjoys antagonizing or wreaking havoc in order tofool Monokuma into thinking he would never, ever present a threat to thekilling game itself. And Saihara is smart enough to realize he’s being led,even if most of Ouma’s thought process remains an enigma to him.

Ouma’s FTEs highlight this perfectly. Throughout all ofthem, Ouma plays games with Saihara, and claims that at the end of a set numberof events, he’s going to “have to kill him” for knowing about the existence ofhis supposed secret, evil organization. And although he could win these gameseasily time and time again, he chooses notto. He teases Saihara and slowly nudges him in whichever direction he wants himto go, and at the end of it all, he loses on purpose, because his objective wasnever to win in the first place.

If that’s not a perfect analogy for how Ouma behaves inevery single one of the trials, I don’t know what is. His resourcefulness andperceptiveness suggests that he knows the answer to just about all of thembefore they even start. In Chapter 2, he even makes an offhanded, amusedcomment about how he “didn’t even read the Monokuma file.” And in hindsight Irealized that of course he didn’t, because he already guessed that Kirumi wasthe culprit by knowing that she had received her own motive video.

At any point in time, he could have chosen to lie blatantlyand condemn the group, and therefore get them all killed, or come clean withthe info and be considered a leader and a savior to all of them. Instead hedoes neither, and teases out the answers in the trial at his own pace. At onepoint when no one, not even Saihara can guess how the culprit climbed up to thegym window, Ouma even goes completely blank-faced before “randomly” taking thediscussion in another direction. And Saihara even asks point-blank if that wasOuma’s way of trying to give him a hint (to which Ouma, being Ouma, respondsthat he has nooo idea what he’s talking about).

Ouma’s not even really what I would call the Komaeda ofndrv3. If anything, he’s the Kirigiri. With an actual detective in theprotagonist role, Ouma instead tails Saihara’s every step when exploring newareas, always acting as if he’s come around to annoy him or the others. But thewhiteboard in his room, the statue of Amami, and his decision to stage a case that not even Monokuma could possibly know the entire “truth” of in Chapter 5,all suggests that he was investigating absolutely everything, running his owntheories and guesses parallel to Saihara’s.

And while I think Saihara is certainly uncomfortable withsome aspects of Ouma’s character and finds him inscrutable, I also think that preciselybecause of his own inability to pinpoint Ouma’s true objectives andpersonality, he’s curious. He’s a detective, so it’s only natural. A characterlike Ouma presents so many mysteries that anyone with a penchant for solvingthose mysteries would be intrigued. Saihara wants to see more of “Ouma’s trueself,” despite Ouma’s consistent efforts to make sure absolutely no one wouldever like him or get close to him.

As Saihara develops and grows throughout the course of thekilling game, again and again he’s led along from trial to trial, given hints,and not-so-gently nudged in the right direction by a perceptive, incrediblyintelligent character with all the patience of a 10-year-old. And just as Kaedeentrusted her will to Saihara and he learned many things from her in Chapter 1,I can’t help but feel as if Ouma’s death in Chapter 5 was meant to mirror that.As Kaede died framed as a culprit but beloved by everyone, her intentions ofsaving them made clear, Ouma dies as a victim but hated by everyone, suspected,doubted, and with his motives unknown to all of them.

Ouma didn’t want to die if he could help it, but he trusted Saiharaenough that he believed he could continue leading the group—without being ledalong anymore—and thus willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of forcing awrench into all of Monokuma’s plans. And Saihara, while still undoubtedlyskeptical as to whether he ever really knew the true Ouma at all, neverthelesssteps into this role, and does catch on to the truth of things in the followingchapter.

This got way longer than I planned for it to, but therelationship between these two is central to the entire story. Regardless ofwhether or not you ship them romantically, I don’t think anyone can deny thattheir dynamic is still extremely important to the plot, or that they’re bothparalleling and observing each other’s actions every step of the way.

Ouma has what I would consider to be pretty canon feelingsfor Saihara. Call him a liar all you want, but without an undeniable interestin Saihara (or a huge crush the size of a brick), there’d be literally noexplanation at all for his actions. Mysteries are meant to be solvable, andthat means Ouma himself is no exception. Rather than pure chaos, his actions arefueled by an interest in Saihara and a desire for pushing him into center stageso that he himself can better undermine Monokuma’s plans.

And Saihara…well, he’s uncomfortable with Ouma’s cold,calculating nature and his tendency to flip-flop from one extreme to the other,make no mistake. But without his interest in Ouma, he would never have come toseriously question the meaning of the word “truth” or the nature of reality versusfiction versus belief. He also probably would have died about ten times over ifhe’d just flat-out doubted Ouma every time instead of trusting on instinct thatOuma was throwing him a bone, rather than hanging him out to dry.

All in all, they’re a very interesting, very fun dynamic,and I do ship them together myself. I just hope the fandom comes to understandtheir relationship a little more and doesn’t immediately assume the worst aboutit.

#ndrv3 #new danganronpa v3 #kokichi ouma #shuuichi saihara #saiouma #my meta #okay to reblog!#this was fun to write up a response to #thank you so much!#ndrv3 spoilers //

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