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accirax · 9 months

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Attempting to Debunk the Arei Dress Up Theory

(CW: death, a mention of blackface, and discussion of the BMI system. Spoilers through Chapter 2 of Trigger Happy Havoc and through Chapter 2 Part 1 of Danganronpa: Despair Time.)

As most of you are likely aware, it’s a popular theory that, for one reason or another, the killer of Danganronpa Despair Time Chapter 2 dressed up as the victim, Arei, and that you can see them doing so in this conversation.

Because Veronika brings up Teruko’s prosopagnosia (face blindness) later in the episode, because Arei unusually says nothing throughout this conversation, and because the Dress-Up Room was oh-so-conveniently introduced this chapter, at first glance, it seems very plausible that this could be the twist the Class Trial is heading towards. I, too, liked this theory at first, but then I got to thinking. And the more I thought about all the risk factors, the more I became convinced it was nearly impossible that anybody would have chosen to dress up as Arei.

So, that’s what I’m trying to prove today: no possible killer amongst this cast could have been dressing up as Arei at this exact moment. And, my method is the most fair thing I could think of: bringing up a bunch of points of contention that could trip up anybody, and giving each character either an X or a pass based on their own traits and skills.

Given that there are 14 points that I came up with, I think it’s fair to say that if the character in question receives seven Xs or more (AKA 50%), it would be basically impossible for their disguise to have fooled anyone for this long. I will be giving out double Xs (XX) on some occasions where I think that someone would have a particularly bad problem.

That is based on my discretion, but, uh… so is this entire theory. The good news is that, with this one, it’s particularly easy to play along at home! If you disagree with any of my points, you could run this experiment and change the boundaries or participants to your liking. I’d love to see it if you do!

For this theory, I will be tackling any important character that I think could be dressing up as Arei at this moment. However, that isn’t everybody. Here’s who I eliminated and why:

Because we’re looking at this particular conversation, no one who is present in the Cafeteria could be pretending to be Arei at this point. I mean, I guess if Arei was in on it, then the eventual killer could be dressing up as Arei, and Arei could be dressing up as them. But, if Arei is willing to cooperate… why wouldn’t Arei and the killer just act as themselves? So, Teruko, Hu, Ace, Nico, Veronika, and Levi cannot be dressing up as Arei.

Xander and Min are dead, so I’m excluding them from this conversation.

If Arei is dressing up as Arei, she’s just being Arei. That’s nothing unusual, so we’re not talking about it.

If you genuinely think MonoTV dressed up as Arei and is the Chapter 2 killer, I have many concerns for you.

…Please don’t make me speculate even further about Mai, my heart can’t take it. More seriously, I think that the odds of this huge Mai twist resulting in her being the Chapter 2 killer (and thusly getting executed) are low enough that I can excuse her. I guess it could be that Arei was already dead at this time due to someone else’s hand, and then Mai stepped in from who knows where to impersonate Arei for reasons unknown, but… that’s so speculative that, again, I’m not going to bother. It'd really freak out the killer, too; can you imagine?

Cool! So that leaves us with Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, J, Rose, and Whit as people who could theoretically be dressing up as Arei, likely as her killer.

Before we really get started, I just want to clearly state that, for the most part, I’m not relating this to the actual theories of the timing or method of Arei’s murder. I think it makes the most sense if the person dressing up as Arei then became the blackened, but I’m not actually going to tie anyone’s culprit feasibility into how well they could dress up. There’s no category based on “do they have an alibi for Arei’s time of death” or “could they overpower Arei in a fight.” It’s just an objective look at how good everyone would be at impersonating Arei. I'm going to address the hypothetical person dressing up as Arei as the killer for the remainder of the analysis, though, so keep that in mind.

Let’s get started with issue #1!

Issue #1: Arei’s Hair Color

One factor that even Teruko could notice is if the killer didn’t have the same hair color as Arei. The girl is super blue (Arei even claims so herself in the Chapter 2 Part 1 Q&A), so the killer missing her distinctive hue would be a definite misstep. Out of the characters we have left, I think that David or Arturo would be the best at matching her hair color naturally.

Thankfully, though, they don’t have to.

A point frequently brought up is that we’ve seen these wigs in the Dress-Up Room already. If the killer simply put this on as part of their Arei disguise, it doesn’t matter what their original hair color is. Now, this wig is a lighter color than Arei’s hair, and it’s a little curly, and you’d have to style it, and the white wig being so similar to Sora from SDRA2’s hair makes me think that this wig is meant to parody an existing fangan character… but I’m willing to ignore all that for the sake of theorizing. Plus on that last point, just because the wig may be referencing somebody else doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been used by the killer.

So, no Xs given out this time! A round of applause for all our contestants.

Issue #2: Arei’s Eyes

Similarly, if you showed up dressed as Arei without her beautiful cerulean orbs, a lot of people would probably notice that something was up. J, Whit, and debatably Arturo pass this one for having blue eyes themselves.

The frequent counterpoint to this is similar to the wigs– the Dress-Up Room could easily contain colored contacts which could allow anybody to make their eyes blue. So, let’s talk about the Dress-Up Room.

This is what it looks like in full. As you can see, it’s mostly clothes. Teruko calls it “a boutique,” and Whit and Hu only mention getting “new clothes,” implying that there’s mostly only clothes in this room. However, it’s not only clothes, because Teruko has this to say:

Teruko mentions things besides clothes in this room, but has nothing to say about contacts or makeup. If they do exist, I think it would have to be in this dresser area, either in the drawers or in the pink box.

Now, I don’t think it’s impossible that there could be contacts in either of these places, which is why I’m giving people who don’t have blue eyes a pass here. I’m also ignoring the specific iris/pupil designs that people have here (such as David’s stars or Whit’s heart-shaped pupils) for the sake of the benefit of the doubt. Nobody has patterns on their irises or heart shaped pupils in real life (even after eye surgery), so that could just be a fun design quirk the creator ignored.

However, I will be giving our first X of the game to Eden, because of her glasses. If Eden was dressing up as Arei, she couldn’t wear her usual glasses, which she presumably needs to see. She could remedy her vision impairment with contacts, except that she would have to be wearing colored contacts to have blue eyes.

I did look it up, and it is possible to make colored contacts with a prescription. However, they would have to be customly made for Eden, which would mean that either A) she had to already have them on her at the start of the game (highly unlikely) or B) whoever created this killing game’s set specifically made colored contacts with Eden’s prescription on the off chance that Eden both decided to kill someone AND decided to dress up as someone to do it. They’d have to do it in several colors, too, because they would have no idea who Eden was planning to kill/dress up as. That seems implausible enough to me to discredit her on this one count.

You could also argue that Eden decided to chance just not wearing her glasses here. However, that would raise the obvious problem that she wouldn’t be able to see either what’s in front of her or who’s far away from her, which are both bad for someone trying to go undercover. It would be really hard for her to get through the day without accidentally scrunching her eyes trying to see something, which would start giving her away. Additionally, if Eden’s vision requires a double prescription (such as needing bifocals), you cannot make contacts for that kind of vision impairment.

So, yeah. TL;DR, it’s still an X for Eden only here.

Issue #3: Arei’s Skin Color

Arei has light skin, which you can see on her face and other various body parts in her typical clothing. Thus, anybody with dark skin would struggle impersonating Arei, because they would need to put paint/makeup on their face, neck, arms, hands, and thighs to avoid suspicion.

My point about the Dress-Up Room also comes back here. We haven’t seen any evidence that there is makeup in the Dress-Up Room, and other than potentially in Storage, I don’t think there’s a great alternate place to get it. I would believe that both Whit and Hu might wear makeup, so it would have been easy for one of them to comment about the cosmetics present in this room if they existed, and particularly if they would later be murder relevant.

However again, for the sake of theorizing, I’ll say that there is light skin paint/makeup in one of the drawers that a darker skinned person could use to cover themselves up. It would still be a time consuming plan with a high chance of failure, though, so I’m giving Charles, Eden, and Rose an X for impracticality here.

Issue #4: Arei’s Ethnicity

(This section has been edited since its original posting. Thank you to @another-danganronpa-fan and @xmicrophonyx for drawing my attention to the August 6th Q&A and more importantly the March 6th Q&A!)

Although Google says that the last name “Nageishi” is most common in Brazil (???), given that it’s Japanese in origin (as are Arei, Fuyuko, and Natusko’s names), I’m pretty sure that Arei is Japanese. And many of the other students… are not.

Look, I don’t want to bring real world politics into silly anime murder theory, but I really, really doubt that the creator would want to have a person of one race dress up as someone of another race, especially for characters who would have to change their skin tone. It’s not as obviously bad as a character straight up doing blackface, but it’s close enough that I think the creator would know to avoid putting that beat into their story. I’m tempted to give characters that fail here a double X, but since it’s technically only my opinion, I’ll leave it at one.

Now, I am assuming characters’ ethnicities here based on last names, which isn’t a foolproof plan. It doesn’t account for characters who are adopted, or who have a mixed race lineage. Still, I think that, combined with their designs, it’s the best we have to go off of.

Therefore, I’m giving an X to Arturo (likely caucasian), Charles (confirmed Hispanic), J (confirmed Hispanic), and Rose (French last name, but given that she is obviously black I would say likely Afro-French/potentially Creole?). Because David (likely Vietnamese) is still East Asian, I’m letting him slide; same with Whit (confirmed caucasian/asian). Although Eden's skin tone still troubles me, I try not to penalize or benefit characters multiple times for the same trait. Thus, because Eden is canonically half black and half Japanese, she will also not get an X.

I truly hope that I did not offend anybody with this section. If I said something incorrect, please let me know so that I can apologize and either correct it or remove this section as quickly as possible.

Issue #5: Arei’s Height

Arei is 5’7” (170 cm), so for the killer to impersonate her, they’d have to be somewhere around her height. I know that the Arei we saw was probably sitting down, but like… the killer would still have to walk to and away from the table to get there, which means people could have seen them standing. Not to mention, your height still shows when you’re sitting down if it’s off enough.

I think that being one inch (2.5 cm) off in either direction would be enough to bypass most people (we’ll get to that), so anyone in the 5’6”-5’8” (167-173 cm) range could pull it off. Therefore, J passes at a perfect 5’7” (170 cm), and so does Whit (5’6”/167 cm). Arturo (6’3”/190 cm) gets our first XX here for being literally over half a foot (15 cm) off. Eden just barely avoids being half a foot off at 5’2” (157 cm), so she gets an X. So do Charles (5’9”/175 cm), David (5’9”/175 cm), and Rose (5’4”/162 cm).

Issue #6: Arei’s Weight

I bring in this point mostly to communicate how likely it is that the killer could properly fit into Arei’s clothes. If the killer weighed too much more than Arei, then the clothes would be too tight, and if they weighed too much less than Arei, the clothes would be super baggy.

The best way I figured I could analyze this is to use a Body Mass Index (BMI) chart, which, if you didn’t know, is a ratio doctors use to compare people’s heights to their weights to determine whether or not they may be over- or underweight. Now, there have been several critiques of the BMI system, particularly regarding athletes– muscle is more dense than fat, so some of the fittest people in the world classify as morbidly obese under the system. It also wasn’t designed for anime characters with unrealistic weight expectations (seriously how tf was Mukuro 5’7”/169 cm and 97 lbs/44 kg she should've been DEAD long before the Spears of Gungir).

Because of how unreliable this method is, I won’t be giving any characters XX on this one no matter how far off they are. However, I will be giving one X to anybody who is more than two points off of Arei’s BMI. Because Arei clocks in at 19.5, that means anyone in the range of 17.5-21.5 would be safe.

Weirdly enough, with that range, the only two people who get an X in the weight category are the same people who passed the height category, J (22) and Whit (22). Arturo (21.5), Charles (21), David (21), Eden (20), and Rose (20) all have fairly similar proportions to Arei.

Issue #7: Arei’s Build

Speaking of muscles, Arei’s the Ultimate Bowler, dammit! She’s a professional athlete, and Rose even points out her strength during the arm wrestling contest.

Although I don’t think that the killer would need to expect to demonstrate Arei’s strength (or especially her bowling skills) when in disguise, you can still gauge how muscular someone is just from looking at them. For example, were Levi an option, he would be way too muscular to pass off as Arei.

This point becomes a lot easier to score with the official strength chart that the creator released in the Chapter 2 Part 1 Q&A!

I know that the creator warned us to not take this diagram too seriously, but for the sake of fun speculation, I think that this semi-canon material is the best we have to go off of. Not to mention, each section is only one point out of fourteen overall. If we're a little off here, it'll be okay.

Besides, I suspect that they put in that warning more so for people who do intense math about crime theories (like people who calculate that anyone who lifted Arei’s body using a single pulley system would have to be able to lift approximately 64 lbs/29 kg what who said that). It's understandable if they didn’t complete a physics thesis paper on exactly how a drop of blood would fall on a cashmere sweater when it’s a humid July day and the victim ate sauerkraut ice cream earlier.

Jokes aside, I’ll say that anyone in the fit to average range would be able to pass as Arei at a glance. That means that David and J are a-okay. Arturo, Charles, Rose, and Whit all get one X for being out of shape. Eden gets XX for being even more out of shape than the out of shape people.

Issue #8: Arei’s Voice

Out of all the voices in the cast, I think that Arei has one of the highest pitches. Thus, if the killer was suddenly called upon to speak as Arei, they would need to possess the ability to speak in a high pitched voice to even have a chance of mimicking Arei.

You could argue that the killer would go in with the intention of not ever speaking as Arei, but you have to remember that this killer was intentionally going out and being around people so that their disguise could be seen. A simple “how are you this morning?” or “did you get enough to eat?” could ruin your plans. You could choose to not respond, but part of the reason why people suspect that the Arei in this conversation isn’t Arei is because she doesn’t speak. AKA, Arei being quiet is out of character for her, and not speaking would immediately raise suspicion!

I’m giving David a XX because his voice is deep enough that I think he would seriously struggle to reach Arei’s pitch. Arturo, Charles, and Whit have deep enough voices that I think that they could easily be caught, but it wouldn't be so unreasonable that they couldn't give it a try. So, they get a regular X. Eden and Rose pass this test with flying colors. J has a lower voice among the girls, but I think she could speak in a higher pitch if she wasn’t so concerned with sounding girly, and her experience with actors might give her an edge.

Issue #9: Arei’s Wit

If “Arei” is forced to talk, then “she” also needs to sound like Arei when she does. Therefore, the killer needs to be someone who could mimic Arei’s personality to a certain degree– AKA, they need to bring the savage energy that Arei brings to her bullying roasts. After all, responding rudely is probably the best way to make sure that your interrogator shuts up and leaves you alone.

I’m just gonna run through this one in alphabetical order. Arturo insults people on the reg, so other than the fact that “Arei’s” insults might be a little more appearance-based than normal, he’d be fine. Charles has been seen trading verbal blows with Teruko, so I believe he could pull it off. David radiates so much theater kid energy that I’m sure he could pull Arei off as if it were the role of his life. Eden… is the first character here that I think might get an X. Her general personality is super nice, and even when she does oppose someone, it’s either out of sad desperation (like when she defends Arei in the second Class Trial) or in a silly way (like when she blackmails Teruko). Even if she decided to be mean for the sake of her murder scheme, I just don’t know if she has the killer instinct to come up with ruthless burns as quickly Arei does. While not as much as Arei, J is pretty blunt and rude, plus she’s had plenty of target practice with Arturo. Although Rose is very good at replicating paintings, I don’t think she’d have the energy or present-mindedness to replicate Arei’s personality, so she gets an X too. Whit has made jokes that come off as rude to others in the past (like Xander in the prologue, or Charles in the laundry scene), and he’s hung out with Arei a couple of times, so I think he could do it.

Issue #10: Arei’s Relationships

We’ve discussed somebody talking to Arei in the abstract, but now I want to get more specific. Right before the Class Trial occurred, Arei made some very notable relationships with people that were not made public knowledge– namely, her emotional reliance on David, her unwavering loyalty to Eden, and her defensive feud with Arturo.

The Arturo one isn’t really a problem, as just being normally mean to Arturo would probably suffice. But what if David came up to her at lunch, put a hand on her shoulder, and asked her how she was doing? If “Arei” started insulting him or manipulating him, he would immediately suspect something was up.

Considering that, as the evidence stands, I’m pretty sure no one character (other than Arei) definitely knew about all three of these relationships prior to the Class Trial, I could give everyone an X. However, there is a way you can bypass this– if the killer was confident that they knew about the way Arei felt about everyone, even if they were actually wrong.

I was already going to give Eden, David, and Arturo a pass for knowing about at least some of the relationships, but under this lens, it’s even more believable. Eden is in the best position, given that she knows about herself and Arturo, and at least saw David there when she ran away. Given that Arei thought of her as a friend, it’s also possible that Arei would have mentioned to Eden that David was the one who motivated her to defend Eden. David knew about Arei’s relationship with himself, and knew that she planned to patch things up with Eden. He didn’t have any reason to suspect anything weird with Arturo, but again, the relationship didn’t change all that much. Arturo would have struggled with David, but he at least knew about himself and Eden. I believe he could have been overly confident in assuming that Arei hated everyone other than Eden, so I’ll let him slide.

However, I think Charles, Whit, Rose, and J would all get an X. Charles is a smart guy who I can’t remember ever talking to Arei one on one, so I find it hard to believe that he believed he knew everything there was to know about Arei’s relationships. Whit spent more time with Arei, but he’s also more emotionally aware– he knows how complex people are, and therefore probably wouldn’t bank on nailing how Arei feels when he’s spent so much time off with Charles. Rose is often asleep and therefore misses out on a lot of the daily life. She sometimes can’t even remember who people are period, so I doubt she’d have the confidence to believe she understood Arei’s relationships. J is definitely the closest on this point, given that she’s interacted with Arei a decent amount and is pretty confident in herself. However, she’s pretty practical (just like her effects), so it’s still enough of a stretch that I’d give her the X.

Issue #11: The Killer’s Skill

This category asks, “how much does this plan rely on the talents included in the killer’s own Ultimate ability?” Don’t get me wrong– not every case, canon or fanon, needs to utilize part of the killer’s Ultimate talent. For instance, Mondo didn’t use any skills involved in being the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader when he killed Chihiro, unless you count his overall strength and attitude.

I’m actually asking this because I think that the disguise plan makes a lot of sense with J’s talent, the Ultimate Effects Artist. As I’ve explained before, J specializes in practical theater effects, which would make her far and away the best at pulling off the visual magic needed to make herself look like Arei. So, what of everyone else?

Think about it this way: imagine if you were playing the first case of Trigger Happy Havoc, and you learn that the blackened threw Hiro’s crystal ball at the buttons to make the Trash Room open. Then, you deduce, aha! Taka must be the culprit! In this universe, you’re right, and Taka is executed. But, wouldn’t it be weird if Taka committed the crime doing something that lined up exactly with Leon’s skill, and there was no focus given to it at all?

If someone was killing Arei and using J’s talent to do it, I would expect that they would be doing it with the intention of framing J. And I don’t think that anything else in this case purposefully makes it look like J did it, even if J actually did do it. Thus, I feel justified in giving Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, Rose, and Whit Xs for this category.

Issue #12: The Killer’s Absence

In my mind, the theoretical point of dressing up as Arei is so that, if you killed or otherwise incapacitated Arei earlier in the murder process, nobody would find it suspicious that she was gone. That, of course, raises another question– what if people find it suspicious that you are gone? Because of that, I think that the killer is someone who would have to be able to slip away from the group relatively unnoticed.

Charles and Whit are giving each other Xs here. Since the beginning of Chapter 2, it seems like these two hang out with each other pretty much 24/7. If one of them was gone, the other would certainly notice. (I’m excluding the possibility of one of them being an accomplice for the other because I find it incredibly implausible for actual murder- and character-related reasons.) Not to mention the incredibly gay funny sequence of events in the second Class Trial where David questions if anybody could really have a solid alibi for the entire day, then Charles says that he was with Whit for the entire day, and David doesn’t even bat an eye. In theory, this also means that Charles and Whit were actually together for the entire day, which means that it probably should be impossible for either of them to have been Arei during the scene at lunch. ...Oops?. Speaking of spending the day together, though…

J and Arturo are also exchanging Xs. If J was busy dressing up as Arei all day, Arturo would have been roaming the halls calling her name. And even if J would enjoy Arturo being gone for a day, she would certainly remember it. She even says as much in the Class Trial:

Given that the “that time period” J is talking about is around 7:30 PM, it’s not fully impossible that either of them could have been Arei at lunch. However, they would still both generally notice the absence of the other, so they get an X.

I think Eden, David, and Rose all get passes, though. Eden is a generally sociable person who likes to talk to others, but she doesn’t have one particular person she’s attached to as much as Charles and Whit/J and Arturo are. The person who would probably be most likely to notice would either be Arei, but she would be dead/incapacitated, or Hu, who was dealing with Nico and Ace at the time. Plus, if she was absent from one conversation, people would probably just assume she was talking to someone else somewhere else. David also generally seemed to get along with people, but also seemed to spend a lot of time alone. Rose… really doesn’t have a lot of close friends, and also isn’t much of a talker. If she was gone, people would probably just assume she was off sleeping somewhere.

Issue #13: The Arturo Pass

Arturo is a plastic surgeon, a profession which looks at the smallest details of a person’s face and tweaks them, even in slight ways, to make them look their conventional best. Or, essentially, if something is even the slightest bit off about Arei’s face, Arturo could probably pick it up from a mile away.

Now, I know that Arturo did not appear in the specific conversation in which Teruko saw “Arei” being quiet. However, there’s no reason that the killer would have to believe that they couldn’t run into Arturo unless they were Arturo, right? Anybody could come into the Cafeteria, so unless the killer did something to stop him, Arturo could have come, too. Since we can’t prove that Arturo and the killer meeting did or didn’t happen, I think we have to assume it was a possibility.

Therefore, I think that all candidates except Arturo fail here because it’s unlikely that they could stand up to Arturo’s scrutiny. Additionally, I would say that J doubly fails because Arturo has spent so much time staring at her face specifically. It’s possible that he could have forgotten what the rest of the casts’ ugly mugs look like, throwing them all into the pile of disgusting rejection. But there’s no way that he wouldn’t be able to recognize Julia’s glowing beauty under the makeup and clothing that makes her look horrifying.

To summarize, Arturo passes his own check because he would have no reason to call himself out, J gets a XX because of how tuned in Arturo is to how she looks, and everybody else (Charles, David, Eden, Rose, Whit) gets a regular X for being ugly in their own unique ways.

Issue #14: The Rose Pass

Same as before, except even worse. Remember when I said we were coming back to the “one inch in either direction could fool most people” thing? We know that Rose can canonically notice 1/16th in (0.16 cm) growths in people, so having literally anything off here could spell death.

I am aware that Rose is sleepy, forgets what people look like sometimes, and is somewhat absent minded. So, let me address those concerns as best I can.

For the first, recall that this is the day where Teruko wakes up four hours late. Therefore, when she enters the Cafeteria, it’s actually closer to noon than it is to morning. Even if the killer was only dressed up as Arei around the time of that meal, we already know that she was awake at that time– Teruko leaves the Cafeteria and runs into Rose around the Gym directly afterward.

For the second and third, we only know that she only forgot about who J was before the first Class Trial. I would expect that after a murder actually occurred, she would be much more aware of her surroundings, and more likely to remember what people look like. She has nightmares about the trial and execution, which every student (except Xander) attended. With her photographic memory, I would expect that she would remember exactly what they looked like at that time. Not to mention that, under my system, everybody has at least one unrelated X. Those are all things that would stick out, which Rose is much more likely to notice than something that’s normal.

That’s my longwinded way to explain that pretty much everyone (Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, J, Whit) is getting an X here. Rose doesn’t because she, again, would not have to worry about running into herself.

The Grand Summary!

So, in the end, we see that (drumroll please…)

DAVID COULD FUCKING PASS AS AREI ARE YOU KIDDING ME–

Ahem. Well, with my analysis today, we have proven that nobody in the cast could have been dressing up as Arei at the time of that lunch conversation… other than David fucking Chiem, apparently. Now, keep in mind that he is just barely hitting under fifty percent here, and that he double failed on the voice.

But, uh, there you go, swap theorists. If anybody was going to swap with Arei, it would have been David. I look forward to seeing everybody’s theories about how David is the true killer of Chapter 2 via crossdressing.

Tip: I am so fucking mad. See ya, everybody– thanks for reading!

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