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a-student-out-of-time · 3 years

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April Fools Special Review: Part 1

I had some ideas regarding this day. I initially was going to do a spoof review of a hypothetical Session 3 arc, but given that its looking that the Puppetmaster is gonna be a big wham arc, I think I’ll hold off because if I write say how Kana manages to deduce where Iroha’s family hideout is located and then she freaking dies, that kinda kills the joke. Then I was going to do a spoof review on why Oncoming Storm is the best arc ever, but then it would be too obvious that this was a joke. So instead, because I said I was going to do a new ‘style’ of reviewing, how about a test drive of that? After all reviews aren’t just about the Arcs overall, you can also do reviews on various characters.

So, this is going to be a non-jokey review on an individual character. This is just a test run to see what general reception of these character reviews are. If you guys like them, I have a few characters lined up for this to sprinkle in if the Mod feels like they want a break at some point. If not well…you just get a one-shot character review and that’s that. With that out of the way who is going to get the honours of getting the character review treatment?

Let’s start things off with a strong one. It’s widely accepted that the best Arc overall is the Concert Arc, so naturally the focus should be on one of the Otonokoji Twins and because Kanade looks like she is still got more to bring to the table, lets focus on who’s had the best character development by far, the would have been Ultimate Vocalist, and Death herself; Hibiki Otonokoji!

Important Note: This review is factually accurate up to Connections. As Puppetmaster, the current Arc is still in progress I’m not counting that so if something big relating to Hibiki occurs there it won’t be included in this.

Shattering the Bird Cage

Out of all the SDRA2 characters, the character who got robbed the most in terms of development was Hibiki. I’m not happy with Nikei’s ultimate fate or the fact that Iroha got zero character development but overall, I do feel satisfied with their character arcs, and can see what LINUJ was trying to do. Hibiki never got that chance as she died in Chapter 3, y’know that one chapter which has a notorious reputation for robbing characters of their character developments? *Taka, Hiyoko and Tenko coughs* I already had bad feelings that something was gonna happen to the twins because I seriously thought LINUJ was going to kill one off, and then the other would be a survivor. And it could have worked both ways, Hibiki being offed and Kanade learns to be more assertive of herself, or Kanade dies and Hibiki realises she needs to mature as an individual. As the game progresses though, you get the sense there’s something wrong with the twins. Kanade seemed too calm and too useful and as I mentioned in a previous arc review, I thought that Kanade was lying about her talent as that’s a common occurrence in Danganronpa. But Chapter 3 changed all that. After realising the previous two murders were indirectly caused by her immaturity and that she needs to take responsibility for her actions, Hibiki starts to go through some character development and becomes more useful to the group overall. But then the motive videos and her bitch of a sister slam-dunked that.

Point is, Hibiki couldn’t break away from her sister even if she tried. Heck, the Otonokoji Twins share their FTEs so you CANNOT do Hibiki and Kanade individually. As I pointed out to the Mod, I understood from a lore perspective why this was done, but I still found it very frustrating. But one of the main goals of ASOOT is that characters who got little to no character development or were done dirty, got their redeeming chance. And by heck did we get it. Nikei may have been the first Another character to make an appearance, but he wasn’t the first Another character mentioned, heck he was only the 4th character, as the Twins and Kanata came before him! When Hajime was searching information on people who would get caught up in the Tragedy during the Practical Exams arc when recovering from his ankle injury, he came across information that the Otonokoji Twins as part of their nationwide tour, were planning to visit Tokyo on July 5th. After hearing from the Anons how much of a bitch Kanade was, he made notes to do something about it but nothing much came from it. But as we know the Practical Exams had a heck of a fallout as Hajime revealed his superhero persona Kasugano for the first time to the general public, and the fallout of his exposing the teachers’ abuse meant that a third of the facility staff got fired, including the school’s guidance councillor. This meant Hope’s Peak brought in more people, mainly alumni from previous classes, and among them was Yoruko Kabuga, the former Ultimate Hostess. She requested to see Hajime which seemed very unusual. Sure, Hajime had a bit of a reputation in Hope’s Peak at that point as his preventing of Natsumi and Sato from killing themselves was extremely well known in the school and he has a few friends from the Main Course, but a newcomer like Yoruko wouldn’t have known that, it’s got to be more than that. And when talking to Yoruko, she accidently slipped and called Hajime ‘Kamakura’, but she shouldn’t have known about Hajime and Izuru being linked. Firstly, knowledge on the Project shouldn’t be known to her, and secondly Hajime cancelled his participation in said project. The only way that Yoruko could have known is if she is like Hajime and came from the future. A quick trip to the Physics building and a scan from Umeko confirmed that yes, Hajime isn’t the only time traveller around and Yoruko is another fellow resident from the OG Timeline.

Yoruko now being a fellow time traveller, obviously meant she threw her lot in with Hajime and joined the Quantum Crew. With that Hajime was able to get more details about the Void Killing Game from her, trying to persuade her that Void CAN be redeemed, and said they are no different from him and his friends, who did more fucked up shit then they did. Yoruko was relucent but she did relent in the end. And with Yoruko, Hajime was able to get precise details and after hearing how deprived Kanade truly was and that Hibiki was the biggest victim in all of this, he decided to go to the concert for two reasons. Firstly, to expose to the world Kanade’s true nature and get her arrested, and secondly to rescue Hibiki.

Naturally things didn’t go to plan at first as Kanade showed precisely WHY she gotten away from killing for so long as she tricked Hajime and Chiaki into eating poisoned chocolate and they died slowly and painfully. But little did Kanade or Hajime know is that he had a special power. When bathing with his girlfriends, yes plural, they noticed that Hajime had 9 glowing dots on his back and they are emitting concentrated Tachyonic energy that Umeko couldn’t figure out why this was going on. But when Kanade killed Hajime, he suddenly found himself outside of the hotel with Chiaki and the twins a few hours earlier. He hastily changed his plans and once back at the hotel he looked in the mirror and saw that his once 9 dots are now 8, implying he has up to nine lives, and he used one up. It’s a cool mechanic and it makes sense because whatever power bestowed Hajime with this ability also knows that Junko is a very tough opponent to defeat. It also gives Hajime a bit of a safety net so if things go really wrong, he can just reset and try again.

But eventually Hajime and co succeeded in nailing Kanade and getting her arrested, and Hibiki’s worldview just shatters. Imagine if you are Hibiki for a second. Throughout your entire life your parents have neglected you and all you had was your twin little sister. You did a lot of activities together and eventually discovered you two are really good at music, and thus decide to put a band together, and it became so good and popular that you decided to hit the idol industry. Your band, Melody Rhythm, topped the charts and your nationwide tour is a huge success. Sure, there is that annoying ‘curse’ rumours about how everyone close to you disappeared or committed suicide, but those are dumb rumours by haters, you don’t let that bother you. Then in Tokyo, you meet up with some students from Hope’s Peak Academy and they are looking to scout you and your sister for the prestigious school that graduation guarantees success for life. Hajime, the Ultimate Detective, said that those ‘curse rumours’ aren’t mere rumours, there is in fact a stalker that is after you and your sister and they are responsible for all the disappearances and suicides that have plagued your life. That’s…worrying but surely with the Ultimate Detective on the case, the stalker will be caught, those nasty curse rumours will disappear and you have new friends in Hope’s Peak Academy, right? And you get along really well with him and his girlfriend Chiaki, the Ultimate Gamer. Then one day you and Chiaki are shopping and meet up with some of Chiaki’s friends, who also seem like nice people. You are a bit worried where Kanade is but Chiaki said she’s with Hajime so they will join up with you two shortly. And then Chiaki goes to the bathroom and suddenly, the speakers in the shopping mall come to life. A conversation between Hajime and Kanade is broadcasted across the entire mall, and the truth comes out. All those disappearances…all those suicides…all those accidents…all of them were caused by the one person you trusted above all else, and worst of all, she did it because she had an incestuous lust over you and would kill anyone who gets close to you in order to degrade your mind into a subservient ‘puppet state’ where you do EVERYTHING she asks for. And just like that life as you knew it was OVER.

Unsurprisely Hibiki does not take the news well, so badly she takes it she immediately turns into the ‘puppet state’ where in her catatonic state, Chiaki and Mikan had to carry her to Yoruko’s car, thankfully, Hibiki is a short and light girl so this task is a lot easier than it could have been. I mean if Iroha of all people was able to carry Kanade back to the Monocruise in SDRA2, then I’m sure the combined efforts of Chiaki and Mikan could cope. After Kanade is tied up having been beaten to near unconscious by Sonia, clearing up all evidence that Hajime was there, and Gundham having finished leaving the evidence behind for the police, everyone then heads back to Hope’s Peak, where Hibiki is brought before the psychologists of the school, Koroko and Miaya. Neither of them could make heads or tails of the ‘puppet state’ and for the first few days, Hibiki was stuck in the Puppet State, being fed IV drips to keep her alive. Despite all the best efforts of Koroko and Miaya, they couldn’t snap her out of it, or even figure out what it was. Yoruko though had an idea to restore Hibiki. According to Kanade, the Puppet State does wear off after a while but we don’t know what the time limit is at the moment, or if the shock of finding out her sister’s true nature regressed to into a permanent Puppet State. Yoruko then over the course of the next few days, went through various interviews that the Otonokoji Twins had and got some voice clips of Kanade together in order to digitally construct a command for Hibiki to wake up. Once she got it together, it worked and Hibiki was now awake, having been in the Puppet State for 3 days.

//And so it begins!

#mod talks #a student out of time #submission

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