WARNING!
This contains MAJOR spoilers for the series, so if you're watching the Animation series that's being aired right now and do not wished to be spoiled then please read no further.
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And so, let's begin.
On first look at its anime adaptation, I was pretty interested in it's genre and the way they choose their plot setting. It wasn't exactly like Battle Royale, but it adds more of a detective element inside this, making the series definitely worthwhile to watch. Normally I wouldn't go as far to actually attempt to spoil myself with the series, but seeing how the first murder and investigation went, it all felt too rushed in terms of discovery of the murder and the investigation and then finally the truth. Thus I went off to complete the game itself, where it was adapted from and in 62 saves, I finished the game and I can assure that this series is worth its time.
Just a little background information, this series revolves around a group of 15 high school students who are being trapped in a school called Hope's Peak Academy where each of them excel in certain qualities. The Monokuma, a literally 2-sided bear, takes charge of the Academy and tells the students that in order for anyone to graduate and leave the school, the one student must murder another student and not be found guilty. Which means that the individual must commit a perfect crime. After every murder, there will be a class trial where everyone will put forth their investigation evidence and try to pinpoint who the murderer is. If the murderer is found, the murderer will be executed whereas if the murderer is not found, or some one who is not guilty is voted to be, then everyone except the murderer will be executed, and the murderer will graduate and successfully leave the school.
On the game aspects, this is something like a visual novel, not much action / fighting scenes but more of selecting areas here and there and progress through the story. Not so sure about Phoenix Wright, but this investigation game does have some pretty interesting mechanics. As murders are slowly being carried out, the game progresses into a so-called "Investigation" phase, where you would have to comb the academy to find evidence about the murder in order to attempt to pinpoint the true murderer during the Class Trials. Other than the "Investigation" phase, we have the normal story progression phase where you just read through the text as the story goes along, and "Free Time" phase, where you can catch up with other students, give them gifts and obtain skills or skill points to enable you to have special abilities during Class Trials. For the Class Trials, it isn't simply a matter of clicking through the text, but you actually have to think about the process of the murder and how to use your evidence against the claims made by the others. In the Class Trials, the students will each start to state a statement regarding the murder and special words or phrases will be highlighted. These highlighted words could be the weak points of the person who's claiming it and you would have to shoot it down with the evidence that you have collected. And yes, you have a crosshair to aim and fire the bullet which will contain the evidence that you have loaded. The evidence that you load must be chosen as well so that the correct evidence will be used against the correct weak points and sometimes you even have to use someone's claim as your evidence against another person's weak points. This is the most frustrating stage in Class Trials. Other than that, you have a mini like "guess-the-word" segment which is relatively easy, a tempo-based aiming and shooting which is easy as well, and finally a mini interactive comic strip with missing frames where you would have to choose from a long list of available frames, to fix the comic strip and to show the exact process of the murder. This gaming mechanics definitely took me in and it's really something new to experience.
Well, moving on, here are the respective characters and their "Abilities" when you first start the game, there would be some changes further on as the story progresses.
1. Makoto Naegi - Super High School Luckster
2. Sayaka Maizono - Super High School Idol
3. Leon Kuwata - Super High School Baseball Star
4. Kyouko Kirigiri - Super High School ???
5. Byakuya Togami - Super High School Heir
6. Aoi Asahina - Super High School Swimmer
7. Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Super High School Prefect
8. Touko Fukawa - Super High School Writer / Bookworm
9. Mondo Oowada - Super High School Gangster
10. Sakura Oogami - Super High School Martial Artist
11. Hifumi Yamada - Super High School Otaku
12. Celestia Ludenberck - Super High School Gambler
13. Yasuhiro Hagakure - Super High School Shaman
14. Junko Enoshima - Super High School Model
15. Chihiro Fujisaki - Super High School Programmer
And with 15 students alive, let the story begin:
Prologue:
Victim: Junko Enoshima
As everyone step into the Academy, each of them were knocked out unknowingly and woke up in a classroom where the windows were all nailed with metal plates to prevent anyone from escaping. The students later meet up with one another before being summoned by Monokuma and be told the truth about the Academy. Murder to graduate and not be found as the murderer. Yet even before the murders start to occur, the first to fall victim to despair was Junko Enoshima, after she attempted to rebel against Monokuma, their so called Headmaster, and to show his determination to make sure the game carry on, Monokuma stabbed Enoshima with multiple "sticks", killing off the 1st students and giving the game a proper start.
End of Prologue:
1. Makoto Naegi
2. Sayaka Maizono
3. Leon Kuwata
4. Kyouko Kirigiri
5. Byakuya Togami
6. Aoi Asahina
7. Kiyotaka Ishimaru
8. Touko Fukawa
9. Mondo Oowada
10. Sakura Oogami
11. Hifumi Yamada
12. Celestia Ludenberck
13. Yasuhiro Hagakure
15. Chihiro Fujisaki
Chapter 1:
Victim: Sayaka Maizono
Even after playing the game, she honestly didn't seem to be the first one to die, after all it all seemed like she was a potential love interest for Naegi. In this first chapter, Monokuma felt rather bored with no one taking action and thus decided to give an incentive, which were a couple of DVDs that show something which Monokuma hopes, will incite someone to commit a murder. For Naegi's case, it was a video showing him family talking to him and in the next instant, it all seemed that his house were under attacked and his family members had disappeared. It did incite a little urge to escape this academy, but to Maizono, it all seemed to be a must to live. In the later part of the chapter, it is revealed that her DVD had shown her Idol Group being left alone after her mysterious disappearance and it portrayed the destruction of her lifelong dream. This urge was so much that she decided to be the first murderer, only to be reversed and became the victim herself.
On the night before she fell victim, she had asked Naegi to swap rooms with her, with room plates included, and in the next morning, Maizono is discovered dead in Naegi's bathroom floor. What actually gave the murderer away was mainly 4 things: a note that Maizono had wrote, the broken bathroom door, the situation in the incinerator room and finally the dying message that Maizono left behind. Note all these aren't in any order and basically just supports the claim of who is the murderer.
1. Note
According to the note which Maizono had wrote, it had asked for the recipient to find her in her room and asking the recipient to take note of the room when entering, making sure that the room the person enters is Naegi's who had their room plate swapped. The aim of this was that Naegi could be framed for the murder as it occured in his room and with that, Maizono would be able to graduate.
2. Broken bathroom door
Only Naegi and Maizono knows that the door knob has a problem and that it would appear to be locked for any other people who try and open this door. Furthermore, only female bathrooms can be locked. As a result of the door knob being broken, it would mean that it wasn't Naegi who had committed the murder since Naegi would know the trick on opening his own door and wouldn't need to take the door apart. Thus, by checking the toolkit's usage on opening the door, the murderer will be revealed.
3. Incinerator room
This basically confirms the murderer's identity as a Super High School Baseball Star, Leon Kuwata. In the room, it is seen that there is a blood-stained shirt being burnt which wasn't completely burnt and it obviously belongs to the murderer. However as the incinerator room is always locked and there is this broken crystal ball at the side, it was concluded that someone had threw this ball towards the switch to turn on the incinerator without having to break the lock. And that accuracy can only be made possible if the person has an aptitude in baseball and hence Leon Kuwata was confirmed as the culprit.
4. Dying message
On first look, it all seems like "11037" but when taken in Maizono's perspective where she is struggling to right while slumped onto the floor, the word would have to be read upside down which forms the word "LEON" and this was where the culprit was pinpointed.
It appears that it was Maizono who wanted to murder Leon but on self defence, Leon manage to avoid her attacks and then his mind took the better of him and he decided to murder Maizono instead. While being attacked by the sword in Naegi's room, Maizono had her hand wounded and went on to hide in Naegi's bathroom. Without knowledge on the spoiled door lock, Leon uses his toolkit to open the lock and land the final stab on Maizono. Perhaps thinking to let the truth out, she decides to use her remaining strength to write out the word "LEON" on the wall.
With the murderer being correctly found, Leon is executed and the story continues...
Chapter 1 was relatively easy to go along, most of the clues were on the 1st floor and it was pretty obvious after seeing what Maizono wrote on the wall in her blood. Pretty straightforward chapter here and we're done with chapter 1.
End of Chapter 1:
1. Makoto Naegi
4. Kyouko Kirigiri
5. Byakuya Togami
6. Aoi Asahina
7. Kiyotaka Ishimaru
8. Touko Fukawa
9. Mondo Oowada
10. Sakura Oogami
11. Hifumi Yamada
12. Celestia Ludenberck
13. Yasuhiro Hagakure
15. Chihiro Fujisaki
Chapter 2:
Victim: Chihiro Fujisaki
From then on, everyone did seem to be plausible to die, not much death flags being raised yet, or that I am aware of, until the next incentive given by Monokuma. This time round, the incentive given was that everyone was handed a piece of envelope containing some dark secret of their past which they might not be willing to share with everyone. Monokuma insists that if no one commits a murder, then everyone's secret will e revealed to everyone. In the first place, looking at the incentive, this was by far the least intimidating incentive. Although it was some dark secret, it wouldn't actually become a spark to induce a murder, or so I thought, when Fujisaki was found dead, "crucified" in the female changing room.
Investigation began and a couple of evidence was found:
1. How the murder was carried out
After a new floor of the Academy was opened after the end of the first class trial, there was a library on the 2nd floor which highly interests Togami to spend most of his time there, reading his book. And there was this infatuation by Fukawa on Togami where she stalks Togami in the library. After the murder was carried out, Togami brought Naegi to the library, where he shows him this secret room containing secret reports of the world, and in one of such files, a murderer called Genocider Shou showed up, who kills his victim by crucifying them and later adding a bloody message behind. This thus lead Naegi to presume that it could have been Genocider Shou who had caused the murder and he is one of the 15 students here.
2. The changing room
Couple of things in the changing room that seemed to be different, where there is a female model picture in the female changing room that has bloodstains on it and in the male changing room, there was a boy band picture that is clean. Furthermore, the male changing room has the exact stains that Sakura had caused but it was in the male changing room and Sakura is a girl. The changing rooms are locked in such a way that only the user's ElectroID can be used to open the door, and a girl's can open a girl's and vice versa. And ElectroID cannot be lent or borrowed. Thus this make Naegi conclude that perhaps Fujisaki was murdered in the male's changing room. After further investigation, it seems that Fujisaki was indeed a crossdresser and was a guy, making him possible to enter the male changing room and thus died there before being carried over to the female changing room. Additionally, Genocider Shou's victims were all male and thus makes him a suspect.
3. The electric cord
The object that held Fujisaki up to that position was a normal electric cord that Naegi has seen Togami use before for his desk lamp and from there, Togami became the suspect of this murder. However, his actions and claims didn't seem like that of a murderer and the idea was scrapped.
4. Genocider Shou
It was later revealed that Fukawa was actually Genocider Shou, and has 2 personalities that switch when either or sneezes. Shou claims that it wasn't her job as she would always kill with her scissors and not simply just hang them using some electric cord. This was the reason why the possibility of Shou murdering Fujisaki was eliminated.
5. Tracksuit
The claim that pinpointed the murderer. Only Oowada seems to be very sure of Fujisaki's tracksuit colour as only Celes had seen her scrambling off to "train herself stronger" and she has told no one about it. Thus it became weird that Oowada would know about the colour of Fujisaki tracksuit if he didn't see it with his own eyes.
6. ElectroID
The final piece of the puzzle. Apparently by Monokuma, the ElectroIDs has a weakness, and it was extreme heat. Under such circumstances, the ElectroID would break and render useless to the user. Naegi claims that Oowada's ID was broken after a heated battle with Ishimaru in the suana room where only him didn't take off his clothes. Which meant that his ElectroID was still with him in the suana room. And in the lobby of the Academy, students who were dead have their IDs stored there and among the 3, there was one which was broken. Thus Naegi stated that the broken one must have been Oowada's and the one with Oowada now is Maizono's or Enoshima's.
With that, Oowada is listed as the murderer. Fujisaki had wanted to meet up with Oowada as he seemed like a true man and wanting to become strong, Fujisaki seeked his advice. But what Oowada kept as a secret was that he and his brother had once led a bike gang together but he was always 2nd in rank to his brother. Wanting to surpass him, he challenged his brother to a race and in his recklessness, he almost died in an accident, until his brother knocked him away and lost his life protecting him. Unknown to the truth, the other members of the gang now look up to Oowada as their boss. Oowada is afraid that if the secret gets revealed, then the gang that his brother nurtured would be destroyed in his hands and thus he decided to kill Fujisaki to keep his secret to himself. After killing Fujisaki in the male changing room, he switched the items in both rooms, using one of the dead girl's ID to open their changing room (note: this doesn't count as borrowing since the user is already dead) and left Fujisaki's body there, in an attempt to protect his secret of being a guy. Togami then spots the corpse and decides to add more challenge to it and decided to make it more like a murder committed by Genocider Shou.
And of course, Oowada is executed...
One of the more confusing chapters throughout the game. For a moment I actually did believe that Togami was the murder since so many evidence point towards him. The knowledge of Genocider Shou and the electric cord. It all seemed so obvious until the ElectroID part came in. It was a nice addition to the mystery, lots of loops and twists in this chapter and a challenging one to boot as well.
End of Chapter 2:
1. Makoto Naegi
4. Kyouko Kirigiri
5. Byakuya Togami
6. Aoi Asahina
7. Kiyotaka Ishimaru
8. Touko Fukawa/Genocider Shou
10. Sakura Oogami
11. Hifumi Yamada
12. Celestia Ludenberck
13. Yasuhiro Hagakure
Chapter 3:
Victim: Hifumi Yamada and Kiyotaka Ishimaru
Our first double murder has landed. According to the rules, any murderer is only allowed to commit a maximum of 2 murders. Leaving that point aside first, some plot driving details were added in before the incentive for this chapter began. First of all, Asahina says that she spotted a ghostly figure of Fujisaki in the locker room and after some investigation, it turns out to be an intelligent computer program wrote by Fujisaki. The program was given the name of "Alter Ego" and it was decoding some of the files that belongs to this academy, hoping to reveal more of the academy's secrets. Naegi also picks up a photograph of Fujisaki, Oowada and Leon smiling together which isn't quite possible unless the 3 of them knew each other. But on the first day with everyone's introduction, the 3 of the didn't see to be familiar with each other. Monokuma asserts that the photograph is real and leaves Naegi at a lost.
This chapter's incentive was a huge load of money which yet again, doesn't seem to interest anyone unless the person is in huge debt or somethng, but Naegi believes that no one would kill each other just for the money and boy he was wrong. What's more, Alter Ego later disappears and seems to have been taken away by someone resulting in the students feeling a little uneasy that there might be someone behind the scenes helping Monokuma.
And here come some of the evidences:
1. The robot suit
A photograph was seen on a camera that shows Yamada being dragged away by a man in a robot suit and Celes who screams for help, tells the others that Yamada has been taken away. While in an attempt to look for man in the robot suit, they discover blueprints for the robot suit in Hagakure's room and some parts of the robot suit as well. Suspecting that it might be Hagakure who is the murderer, they discover him sleeping while wearing the robot suit and the suit was designed in such a way that the user cannot remove the suit by himself. Additionally, the suit has a special design that makes the individual stand upright even if they try not to. Even though the robot suit fits Hagakure perfectly, the suspect of him being the murderer wanes, after all it was impossible to wear the suit by himself and let along bend down.
2. Justice Hammers
The weapon this time being used in the murders were hammers that were found in the art room store. These hammers vary in sizes and the ones used in the murders were labelled as Justice Hammer No. 1,2,3,4 depending on the size of the hammer. Firstly Yamada was found to be taken away in the recreation room with Justice Hammer 1 on the floor. Later he was found to be hurt in the library with Justice Hammer 2 and was later brought to the infirmary. Celes that called that there was suspicious activity elsewhere and everyone left Yamada in the infirmary. Later on, Yamada let out a scream and while some of the group return to the infirmary, he was found covered in blood with Justice Hammer 3 lying on the ground. The others discover Ishimaru's corpse in the physics prep room, with Justice Hammer 4. After they all went to check on Ishimaru and returning to see Yamada later on, Yamada's corpse had disappeared and later Ishimaru's as well. Both corpse were later found in the arts storage room.
3. Last words
Before Yamada breathed his last, he managed to utter out the words that sounded like "Yasuhiro" making it all seem like Hagakure was the murderer which isn't possible due to the feature of the robot suit itself. Thus it must have been another person who has such a name. Due to the fact that Yamada always calles a person by his or her full name, it must have been the name of the culprit. Leaving Hagakure aside, the only suspect left is Celes, who has concealed her real name. And that was the pinpointed suspect of this murder.
4. Spectacles
A rather small clue but seemed to be pretty important. It was that the spectacles that Yamada was wearing was covered in blood when he was first discovered and was clean when he was found again. No murderer would bother to wipe off the blood from a victim's spectacles and the only one who could have done it is Yamada himself, which means that he might not have died yet when he was first discovered covered in blood.
5. Corpse Discovery Announcement
This announcement is only made when 3 or more people discover a corpse and this would play a rather important role in this case, which will be explained below
Note: This murder case was extremely confusing for me with so many twists and loops that took me the most number of tries to clear this stage. The evidences were all pretty hard to lay out to fault the individual's claims and weak points and in short, this was the most challenging chapters among the others. I will try and explain the course of the murder which can be rather confusing :X
In this special case, there wasn't just the special double murder but also in the appearance of the first accomplice in murder. Normally an accomplice would not appear as only the murderer will graduate from the school and the accomplice would be executed even though he or she had helped in the murder. And this time, the accomplice turns out to be one of the victim, Yamada. Celes had hidden away Alter Ego and told Yamada that Ishimaru had taken it away. Being infatuated with Alter Ego, Yamada begins to harbour ill feelings for Ishimaru and Celes took advantage of it and Yamada became her ally in crime. They summon Hagakure to the recreation room at 1am and drugged him, put him in the robot suit and acted like it was the robot who is taking Yamada away. After the photo was taken, they left Hagakure by the poolside and went on with their first murder on Ishimaru at 6am in the physics prep room. They left a Justice Hammer 4 beside Ishimaru to attempt to confuse the rest on the sequence of murders. Yamada then acted like he was attacked with Justice Hammer 2 in the library and was taken to the infirmary. There, Celes gave the distraction and Yamada took the chance, while being alone in the infirmary, faked his death with the blood bags and laid Justice Hammer 3 beside him. When Yamada faked a scream, some returned to the infirmary, and they find a "dead" Yamada and at the same time, the others discover Ishimaru's corpse in the physics prep room, leading to the first dead corpse announcement. This makes everyone believe that both Ishimaru and Yamada are dead from the announcement. As everyone head to see Ishimaru, Yamada makes his move and disappear from the infirmary, wiping his spectacles clean of blood. Learning about Yamada's disappearance, everyone head back to the infirmary again and using this chance, Yamada headed to the physics prep room and wrap Ishimaru's corpse in Vinyl Sheet before transporting his body on a trolley to the art storage room. This wouldn't be possible for Hagakure as the robot suit cannot allow the body of the wearer to bend. At the art storage room, Yamada who is oblivious, was then killed by Celes using another hammer in the storage room which was later washed and was discovered later on as a clue since it was the only hammer still wet hanging in the room. Before Yamada dies, he manage to whisper out something that sounded like Yasuhiro and another corpse discovery announcement was made. This made Naegi sure that the first time round, Yamada wasn't dead and the announcement was for Ishimaru's, not Yamada. Since it wasn't Hagakure who had committed the murder, the only possible person left is someone else with the name containing Yasuhiro. After threatening to check her ElectroID, Celes gave in and admitted that she was the murderer and her real name was Taeko Yasuhiro.
And of course, she was executed and the chapter concludes itself.
End of Chapter 3:
1. Makoto Naegi
4. Kyouko Kirigiri
5. Byakuya Togami
6. Aoi Asahina
8. Touko Fukawa/Genocider Shou
10. Sakura Oogami
13. Yasuhiro Hagakure
To be continued next week with the rest of the chapters :)
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