Kumitantei Shows Its Hand in Episode 1

This post will contain full spoilers for Episode 1 of Kumitantei - Old School Slaughter.

 

I will inform everyone here involved, for context, that I have an indirect connection to this game. A friend of mine, who goes by the online handle of lukiauriga, worked on this game as a playtester, an experience he has been quite positive on during our conversations. I'd like to believe myself someone who wouldn't let their heart be swayed by the method in which I became aware of the work which I engage with (after all, there is nothing more insulting to the artist than to be told that people only appreciate their art because of their presence as a person, rather than for the merits of the work itself), but I nevertheless felt the need to clarify my connection as to have full transparency between myself (as an artist, as a critic) and my audience. As well as reminding them of something that should be obvious:

Every work of art you engage with has had one, or more commonly, hundreds of hands that have all touched on it and cared enough to have their name listed in its credits. If you were not present in the same conversations and meetings that the development team was present in, its not likely that you can ever imagine the dedication that the artists involved had in creating something that can be completed in a day's time. Those months of hard work by dozens of people are something which I can only speculate on, a concept in my mind which I can only assess secondhand, like a detective attempting to piece together the steps of the killer's plan. Do not take me as someone who knows more about this game than the people involved in this game do. During this review, I will attempt to only make one claim about my personal knowledge: That I have a reasonable argument as to why a Danganronpa game is designed the way it is, something which I will attempt to prove based on the finished product of your average Danganronpa game. And in turn, I will apply that same knowledge in comparison to Kumitantei, a game that is made to stand in its own merits, despite its status as a love letter to the no-longer-dormant Danganronpa series.

If you are one of the people who worked on the game, stand proud, you have created something that is worth the price of admission. Keep chasing the high you crave, regardless of what anyone may say about your work.

With the introduction out of the way, lets talk about Episode 1 - Apathy Within and Below.

 

Metagaming in Mystery

 

Before the formal start of the prologue, Kumitantei opens on two of its lead characters, our protagonist, Himari Sanada, and her twin brother, Moichiro Sanada, reflecting on events past and of a crisis that they have escaped from years ago, before we cut to Himari Sanada waking up in a classroom. The intention of these scenes is to imply a sense of continuity which communicates that the first scene we see is a flash-forward, while the Prologue, and by extension most of the game, are events which occur before the opening scene chronologically.
Of course, I am well versed in killing game VNs and their breaking of storytelling conventions in order to misdirect the audience. As soon as I watched that scene, I had the suspicion that the game was deliberately misleading me, and that in a twist of fate these two characters had escaped from a different predicament, gotten their memories erased, and had now been put in a replica of the events that had already happened to them once.

What I didn't expect was that the game, too, aknowledged that this facade is something that any veteran in the genre would see past. For that reason, the illusion is shattered as soon as Episode 1.

It does not take longer than the Clinical Trial's conclusion for Moichiro, one of the people whom we thought would make it out of this game alive, to be executed in front of our eyes. Implicitly, this is a signal to the player that yes, the game is aware that most people who come across this title will already be familiar with three games worth of twists and turns of similar level of complexity (for the record, on the off chance that someone has not played the Danganronpa games but has played this one, I will not be spoiling any of them within this review), and as such, they can afford to give a reveal that is this significant in a way that is both explicit, yet completely understated. "You have spotted a contradiction, now figure out what it means". The game uses the same language of mystery solving that its trial segments do, and it was by far the highlight of my playthrough. It is a perfect encapsulation of the confidence in your own writing that you can afford to take a reveal that a more conservative game would try to gate until its last hours, where it would be theoretically most effective, and instead have it be something that belongs in a footnote because the game is simply this confident that what they have in store will blow your expectations even further out of the water.
And that is not the only benefit of these deliberate choices. By creating the fake timeline within the player's heads, the game is able to further obfuscate Moichiro's role as the killer within the mystery of the episode by giving him an alibi which seemingly cannot be disproven: The player's own account of events. Anyone can, theoretically, reach the conclusion that Moichiro is the culprit simply by putting together that; 1 - The bandages found on the nurse's office likely belong to him; and that 2 - He is one of the few people here who would benefit from framing Himari for murder, given how Himari has provoked his anger only a short time before the incident occurred. There is not an overwhelming amount of evidence, befiting of his title as a seasoned prosecutor, only circumstantial clues can be used to pinpoint his crime, but it should be grounds of reasonable suspicion to any player. They weren't for me, however. I expected the reveal that the order of events was a sham, but I thought the game would hold out on this reveal for longer, and as such, I had Moichiro crossed off my suspect list during the investigation. I had been lazy with my sleuthing, and had it not been for the interference of others, I would have joined with the group that began to accuse Okabe based on his imperfect alibi.

To those who might be discovering my blog through this post, I must make clear (if the rest of the website has not done the job) that I consider myself, first and foremost, a fan of murder mysteries. And as someone who has read my own bit of stories, who studies game design well enough to judge mysteries for the ways in which they construct their puzzles, I am proud to say that I believe Kumitantei's first trial is an excellent showcase of how to organically mislead its players into the rabbit holes that will make the conclusion all the more shocking. Dare I say, I personally found it a better executed misdirection than any of the first trials in the official Danganronpa games.

But I suppose in saying that, I should address a point that I have been informed is quite controversial in regards to this game.

Metagaming, according to wikipedia, can be defined as "having an in-game character act on knowledge that the player has access to, but the character should not". Within discussion in mystery novel circles, this is applied in the framework of attempting to solve a mystery based not just on the clues provided within the text, but with the player's own expertise in the genre's structure and writing conventions. For instance, readers who are familiar with a closed circle mystery (mysteries in which all characters are locked in one location and cannot get help from the outside world, such as And Then There Were None) will recognize that a common strategy employed by the culprits of these stories is to fake their death early in the story so that they can commit the murders without constant supervision from the other characters. As such, readers will be particularly careful with the verification of any body as to determine wether or not a character is truly dead at any point in time, given the trope's recurring use through the years.
Now, Kumitantei accounts for metagaming, as I described earlier in this section. And, in what I imagine to be a further effort to appeal to the metagaming tendencies of Danganronpa fans, it also models its first case to be... Very similar to a certain case in Danganronpa. Indeed, everything surrounding its victim and his murder-attempt-turned-murder have been described as being "basically a rip-off" of another case in the series, something that is paired with Kumitantei's own supposed lack of originality in lifting plot elements and aesthetics from Danganronpa wholesale.

To those critics, I would like to inform all of you of a certain novel.

 

JOKER: Detective Myth as the Old Testament (as it is localized in the author's official website) is a mystery novel released in 1997, though written much earlier, as it was originally presented to the Kyoto University Mystery Club, where it was deemed too controversial of a text. It would only be published as the second installment of the Japan's Detective Club series (or JDC for short), a series about a group of detectives with weirdly specific gimmicks their personality is centered on that they use to solve the reality-challenging wide-spanning cases of each novel.

In this novel, we are introduced to a detective known as Kirigirisu Tarou. He is an amnesiac detective who is naturally aloof to others and whose unknown past is speculated to be tied to the history of the key location of the novel, the Castle of Illusions. A giant manor in which all of the murders are occurring one after the other.

 

Now, my apologies, but it is my personal belief that if we are to criticize Kumitantei in its lack of originality, we should do the same in chastising Kazutaka Kodaka for the multiple characters and plot points that he "stole" from the JDC series in the same metric. As, trust me, there are plenty of examples that could be listed (particularly in the CARNIVAL trilogy, which although unconfirmed, are speculated to be major inspirations for Danganronpa V3) not just for this series, but for most of Kodaka's subsequent work. Not only has he been open about being inspired by these novels, just as the Kumitantei devteam have been, but that in of itself ties into the same use of homage and metagaming which I have described earlier in this post. By deliberately evoking the imagery and setups of works that the audience may be familiar with, it influences their expectations in such a way that they are led by the mystery just as they would with any official clue. As it stands, I do not see anything inherently wrong with Kumitantei's use of homage. Or at the very least, its not a type of scrutiny that the mainline Danganronpa games, or Rain Code, or Hundred Line, shouldn't also be subject to.

Now, that aside, do I believe the use of metagaming is particularly rewarding in the case of Kumitantei? Frankly, not really. Aside from its existence, I do believe that you can reasonably guess most of the events of the case thanks to your familiriaty with the original case once you pick up on what are, I imagine to be, very easy parallels. I would argue that while the diversion with the culprit's identity is very well done, everything surrounding the actual murder and the victim's plan is rather predictable thanks to the same familiarity that allows it to lower your guard. Do I think the mystery could have been much stronger if the case took a different direction and angle outside of the initial setup? Yes. As it is, I believe Reiji's plan is a fakeout that pays off with exactly what it was faking out. The result being a fairly lopsided case. But frankly, as the first case of the game, it is something that I am willing to forgive under the assumption that later cases use it as a springboard to deliver in mysteries that rely less on single, well crafted twists, and more so on the intricate web of puzzles that fans of the genre usually expect from these kinds of games. You can't survive on making a mystery visual novel where all cases rely on the same trick, after all.

Well, that about covers my analysis in regards to the structure of the mystery in this game. Now, what else could I have to comment in regards to this game?

Kumitantei Wears Its Heart on Its Sleeve 

I Will Survive is a fancomic of the Disney animated film Zootopia written and drawn by William Borba. Following the events of the original movie, it depicts the characters Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde (a rabbit and a fox in a world of anthropomorphic animals in a society that is meant to mirror the prejudices of real life) having a heated argument after Judy aborts their baby, in fear that it might grow into a freak of nature who resents its own complicated birth. As a result of the argument, Nick leaves Judy telling her that despite the heartbreak, he will survive. This is a comic that has become a cultural touchstone of the community, and debatably one of the most wide-reaching pieces of fan-fiction ever put on the digital age.

Of course, that adoration is largely ironic.

 

The I Will Survive Arby's Edit is, as far as I have been able to track, a variation of the comic that was originally posted in 2017 in the now defunct account of tumblr user "@gamerphobic". This altered version of the comic takes the text of the original material and alters it so that the heavy discussions on the topic of abortion are replaced by Judy telling Nick that the Arby's down the street closed, leading to Nick's desperate attempts to convince his wife that the food at the restaurant had always been good. The change in context makes it appear as if the panels that once depicted an emotional argument are now ridiculous because of their banal subject matter in contrast to the exagerated reactions. But the argument this edit makes is that, rather than changing the meaning of the comic, it exposes the flaw that the comic always had.
The Zootopia characters are anthropomorphic cartoon animals. They are characters in a movie from a studio that centes on making child-friendly content. That is something immediately apparent to anyone who looks at them. And the original comic, in its acceptance of these anthropomorphized animals as if they were serious characters, proceeds to portray them in a conflict that is deemed taboo and socially tense for most discussion in regular society. Which is, in turn, paired with artwork which takes these cartoon characters and frames them in a stylized, harsh black-and-white manga style. Put plainly, it looks ridiculous. It is a comic that, regardless on wether or not it attempted to be serious, creates a narrative so incongruent in its tone and writing compared to the setting of its source material, and is so unashamed of doing so, that the result is seen as inherently comedic in of itself. People had been making fun of the comic long before the Arby's edit, and the only thing the edit did was further expose the critical element of its design. By taking the once serious text and replacing it with something banal, what is highlighted is the irreality of its visual narrative style being so incongruent with its source material. The comedy now operating on three levels of irreality, as the cartoony characters, dramatic artwork and mundane writing create an experience that is sound on a narrative level, but that appears to be incongruent with any aspect of conventional storytelling.

In Kumitantei Episode 1, before the murder occurs, there is a scene in which Moichiro confronts Himari about the abuse that he endured in his household from his father, who saw him as a delinquent and continuously tore down on him while his sister idly watched. His sister, in turn, reveals that she was the one who suggested to their father that their family's cafe be sold, something which led their mother down an ambiguous fate, which is largely implied to be taking her own life. Upon this revelation, Moichiro cracks, his face turning dark before he screams at Himari to leave the room.
And, to be honest? I was thinking of the Arby's Edit.

Danganronpa is trash. That is not a flaw, its the core of its design. Danganronpa is a series about teenagers at the height of their youth with explosive personalities who are all made to face larger-than-life scenarios as a metaphorical representation of the struggles that come with being a teenager within japanese society. The sense of reality is heightened and the taste is lowered, because that is the way which the game communicates to you "this is a teenager's view of the world". Its loud, colorful, shameful, unapologetic. It is, as the series' creator describes it, psychopop. Its creator, Kazutaka Kodaka, is among other things, a huge Tarantino fan. And as such, he shows a lot of the same stylistic preferences for art that Tarantino has shown. The taste for hyperviolence and hypersexuality, the inherently referential nature of the text, the disregard for most conventions on high-brow storytelling. Its trash, or as someone more well-versed in trash would call it, Pulp Fiction. Its not a lower view of the writing, its an appreciation for the technicalities and intricacies of fiction that can only come from analyzing it under the context of fiction, by forcing the reality of the text to represent something more abstract than any equivalent conflict in the real world could. Danganronpa is a work that speaks in the language of pulp fiction.

When family conflict occurs in Danganronpa, it comes in the form of biker gangs, or mafia bosses. The times in which Danganronpa chooses to offer naturalistic and rational depictions of its subject matter are few and deliberate, such as the Warriors of Hope in Ultra Despair Girls, kids whose narrative revolves around how their suffering is treated as lesser thanks to their status as children, and in turn are given gravitas to their storyline that directly contrasts the bombastic manner in which they are employed in the narrative as bosses riding giant robots themed after JRPG classes as they play the roles of fictional "heroes" who set out to purge the world from evil adults. In that case, by highlighting the difference between the serious reality at the core of the issue and the bombastic presentation of the setting, Ultra Despair Girls grounds its reality and allows both to coexist by presenting the narrative of the game the escapism from its backstory. It makes the metatextual role of Danganronpa into a literal thematic decision.

With those examples in mind setting in mind the tone of Danganronpa works, it begs the question on why any of this should apply to Kumitantei. A game that I have argued, and still argue, is a game that should be judged on its own regardless of its connection to Danganronpa. Well, Kumitantei is still Danganronpa. Not in a lot of areas I would describe, the setting is that of a retro alternate-history imperial japan (bringing to mind way more immediate and overt fascistic undertones compared to Danganronpa's modern setting), the game utilizes retro presentation inspired by the analog horror wave of the early 2020s (evoking the thematic idea of the past being maligned in ways that are so horrific to the subject that they appear supernatural), it is a game that I will openly argue has its own identity. However, there are aspects of its identity that are lifted from Danganronpa. The use of overwhelming "talent" as a plot point that highlights the ways in which all characters have their excellence made into symbols of the system, the fast-paced debates with intense music with gameplay inspired by arcade shooters, the out-there concepts for characters (such as a corpse possessed by an ancient spirit, a student who acts as a knight of legend, or a conspiracy theorist so paranoid he sees everyone around him as a potential unidentified cryptied). All the right elements are lifted from Danganronpa that, as a result, when the story tried to create an intense narrative about the domestic abuse these characters faced, I couldn't help but laugh because the gravitas given to these characters whom I havent gotten accostumed to felt just as unfitting as it did for Nick and Judy back in I Will Survive.

I would have to be foolish to say this kind of plotline cannot be tackled within the series. There is a trilogy of novels which, among other things, have at its center the relationship between a brother who endured the implicit abuse at home and, as a result, lashes out at his sister in such a manner that their relationship becomes irreparable. It is done with Danganronpa-styled exagerated characters and both of the characters involved are both of my favorite characters in the entire series. It knows the intricacies of Danganronpa's language (partly because their author, Satou Yuuya, was himself one of Kodaka's two favorite authors long before he was invited to write these novels, and is someone who is undoubtedly an influence in Danganronpa's writing style). That trilogy can develop this relationship within the jumping timeframe of a novel in which you are allowed to learn the ins and outs of every character involved across their lives and, in turn, learn through naturalistic methods why these very exagerated people act the way they do. It does not conform to Danganronpa's pulp, formulaic writing style. Their structure is action-packed and heavy in its reverence to otaku fiction, but its tone and writing are deliberately highlighting the absurdity of its scenario. Danganronpa Togami is the Arby's Edit, it is the sham that exposes the farce. A work laced in irony and irreverence for its source material in a deliberately deconstructive light, the same way most Satou novels can be described as a deconstruction of their own premises. Kumitantei is not that. Kumitantei is trying to be pulp, but by adding elements so heavy in content into the narrative, what it creates is a dissonance in which the character replies with the revelation that his sister caused the implicit suicide of their mother with a shadow-over-eyes sprite which you would see when a teenager on twitter finds out that their favorite roblox developer has been outed as a predator. This is why I cannot take this plotline seriously, despite the game's valiant attempts at doing so.

Hell, there are moments in which this plotline genuinely works for me. After the, frankly, equally ridiculous scene in which Okabe steps up during Moichiro's confession so that he can tell to Moichiro all the flaws in his behavior until that point in order to allow Moichiro to confront these issues, we get a scene in which Moichiro removes the prosecutor pin from his lapel, looks at it, and asks himself if he was ever someone who should feel pride in wearing that badge. It is an amazing sequence that, in pure visuals and in two lines, tells you everything you need to know about his character.

 

And the game proceeds to undermine this sequence by having Moichiro go on to explain, in no uncertain terms, the ways in which he failed his sister up until this point. It is a moment so hamfisted that it almost immediately removed me from how much I deeply enjoyed what came right before it, which had come right after another scene which I couldn't stand. It confirms to me what I have argued tooth and nail on the first section, that the Kumitantei developers not only know how to write a game like this, but that there are plenty of moments in this game that are written well enough that I can prove my point simply by posting them, the same way there are plenty of moments which prove that there is still room for improvement in their handling of a unique take on a franchise that is so bizarre in its structure that it baffles almost anyone else that tries to tackle it.

The final example I will list today is that of Moichiro's punishment.

In Danganronpa games, an execution is, above all else, the ultimate humiliation. It is taking everything that a character stands for, and forcing not just them, but everyone else watching it, to witness as the core of their being is made into a joke by the mastermind. Their skills are ridiculed, their personal history is mocked, they are tortured in the most gratuitous, most violent, most bombastic, tarantino-esque way possible until all that remains is their corpse. It is the encapsulation of what Danganronpa means by Despair. Not just nihilism, but pop nihilism. The ultimate irony. To turn these characters into an exageration of their flaws and leave their dead body behind. As anyone who has gone through the whole series could argue, it is far from being "a shallow worldview". It is the response to the chaos of the world, defining the chaos by a new order, an order that lives on personal enjoyment from the reaffirmation of personal power at the expense of all those victims to your rule.

In Moichiro's punishment, something that is lifted almost straight out of Danganronpa, he is put in an electric chair. Where as everyone else gets increasing escalations on the mockery of their history, lives and decisions, Moichiro is put in an electric chair in a plain room, from which he escapes from his confines after being shocked over and over again as he makes his way towards the exit. It is a Moichiro hype moments and aura compilation, up until the point where, predictably, the exit turns out to be a fake. After which, we immediately skip to the final phase of the execution, with the giant electric pilons rising from the ground and burning him to a crisp.

 

In the end, all that remains as the light closes, in that monochrome world, are the destroyed tools of his execution, and a bloodied corpse. It almost seems to laugh, curious, as Moichiro never expressed happiness in any of his sprites. Maybe, in the end, he found the futility of all he did funny. Wouldn't be out of character, given the way he saw himself. Maybe Moichiro reached the same conclusion I did. In his last moments, he found the gravitas which he carried during the whole game to be ridiculous under the obvious context that he was in a story in which a Talking Janus Cat forces people to commit murders until they lose all their emotions. Maybe that level of being desensythized is the absolute irony, the proof that Nyanus accomplished what he was after. No one can tell, the doors have already closed.

This is a perfect ending to an awful execution.

Kumitantei did not disappoint me. I will continue to play each of the Episodes as they come out.