"I hate danganronpa"

KIRUMI TOJO

C: wanderer2691 on the Danganronpa subreddit

I'm gonna lose my karma for this, aren't I? (Kirumi Rant, unmarked spoilers for 3-1 and 3-2!)

Honestly, my karma's probably gonna drop faster than she did...

Anyway, I figure it's worth making clear that I simply do not like Kirumi all that much. Actually, that may be an understatement; she's arguably my least favorite character in the entire franchise, obviously discounting the likes of DR3's cast because I haven't gotten the opportunity to watch that anime yet. But I still really, genuinely cannot help but hate her guts for several personally-fueled reasons.

Now I know that's a controversial claim to make: when I prefer friggin' Hiyoko over her on my tier list, you know I hate a character's guts. But as it stands, Kirumi and Hiyoko both have the same English voice actress, Kira Buckland. Coincidence? I think NOT! Really though, if you like Kirumi for one reason or another, you're not wrong for thinking she's a great character. We're all entitled to our opinions, even if my own opinion is that she's both a terrible human being and walking mess of a character.

Alright, to be fair, she wasn't always my least favorite in the series. She was actually pretty damn affable and polite in Chapter 1 of V3, and I did find her gimmick as the Ultimate Womanservant(TM) a very interesting concept. She wasn't a particularly memorable character given Peko does the shtick better than her IMO, but she got the job done and was a solid character in her own right.

Then Chapter 2 came along and promptly tossed all that likability in the fucking garbage.

For one, she's the killer of Chapter 2: her murder victim was Ryoma Hoshi, who was up to that point one of my favorites in V3 for being the first weird-looking DR character to be legitimately likable and interesting. Obviously, that wouldn't make me actually hate her - by that logic, I should be hating Kaito for killing Kokichi, and Kokichi's in my Top 3 in the series. No, I think what really bugs me is her downright nonsensical motivation: that she happens to be hyper-competent enough to be the prime minister of Japan. Okay, to be fair, this isn't a bad idea in theory, but the way the game handles it simply saps any degree of likability I had for her. Suffice to say, it gets worse.

So fun fact, but Ryoma had depression and little reason to live. When he was given his real motive video by Maki (the one that said that nobody in the world was too important for him), he promptly lost all reason to live: Kirumi noticed this, and had him murdered because he was a particularly easy target. Okay, yeah, Maki was the one who gave the video, but Kirumi capitalized it as far as my knowledge go - shamelessly I might add - and as somebody who has had friends with suicidal depression in the past, this level of manipulation disgusts me. But I'd forgive it if it gave way to some interesting character development on her end.

So yeah, I can see why people defend the prime minister motive. I can see why Kirumi killed Ryoma for an easy win. But you have to defy me to say what she does next is anything close to acceptable.

So after being caught and (correctly) voted for, she almost immediately spins her status as a leader of Japan to her advantage by manipulating Japanese values in an attempt to get one of them to step up and die for them. And the worst part is that it was working, until Kaito promptly shut her the fuck up. And then she promptly tries to run away from her execution like a little bitch, all while everyone roots for her and says she was justified. I mean, what the fuck, are you actually rooting for the person who manipulated somebody with depression into death and tried to manipulate you in a goad to survive? I mean, what the fuck?

That isn't what solidifies my undying hatred for her. It's her fucking hypocrisy that pisses me off: she outright says that the needs of the many outweigh the few in this instance, and for a great deal of her time she preaches how important it is to be selfless and devote yourself to the cause and the like. This is total bullshit, and as somebody who's partially subscribed to the theory of moderate utilitarianism, she's completely full of crap. She would've been selfless if she didn't try to take advantage and kill somebody with mental issues in order to escape. She would've been selfless if she didn't vote for Shuichi out of spite. She would've been selfless if she didn't try to goad her classmates into taking the fall in her stead, and she would've been selfless if she took her death with grace. But apparently, because you're the leader of a nation you're somehow more important than anybody else despite going on and on about how important it is to help your fellow man?

Of course, she dies in a freak-out that makes Leon and Teruteru's death look tame. Unlike them, however, they were scared and didn't try to pull this wishy-washy philosophy crap in order to escape, much less while doing every dirty trick to off her classmates in order to live, because her dick's apparently way too big to actually wilt. The reason why I utterly hate her guts is the game goes out of its way to portray her as this sympathetic villain who had a good reason for doing what she did, with nobody truly calling her out for it, when the practice shows just how much of a callous and borderline-sociopathic person she is to prioritize herself to such a degree over everybody else. Say what you will about Kiyo (one of my favorite V3 characters), at least he doesn't try to justify his awfulness!

Seriously, just fuck Kirumi Tojo. I hold utter contempt for her not just because I had friends with suicidal tendencies, but as somebody who's an egalitarian and utilitarian, it utterly disgusts me that she's willing to take advantage of the concept just to survive at the expense of everyone else while having the fucking gall to call herself a paragon of selflessness. There isn't a single character I hate more in V3 so far, and Hiyoko's genuinely looking pretty good right now.

Anyway, that's what I wanted to rant about. If you love Kirumi, know that you're perfectly entitled to like her. I just cannot for the life of me, as everything she does rubs me wrongly enough that I have nothing but contempt for her. And it's telling she's the only Execution victim I was glad died.