Danganronpa - Episode 11 Discussion / Poll

[Dengar]

Spoiler for what happened in the game:

She DID get the chance to investigate though. That's why she was late to the trial. She didn't have more than a few minutes but she DID get to sweep the scene. Since her abilities are hax that's all she needed to know about the crime scene anyway.

[Parchevich]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

That was arguably not the case. Kyouko actually had to push forward so they wouldn't be stuck with Monokuma's trap. Unfortunately, the anime made so she tried to put all the blame on him, whereas she had to buy time by questioning his alibi in order to break through the case, but they were cut short by Monokuma's forced time out. The major problem for her was that, she wasn't supposed to be with them during the investigation so she doesn't have all the clues at her disposal.

Remember also that she had no clear idea if Monokuma would execute all of them or not if they fail to really pinpoint the culprit, although it would be certain that if she dies there, nobody would benefit from it because she has the critical information and tools to expose the truth behind the academy mysteries. That's why she has to fight back during the trial in order to have another shot against Monokuma, although there was no evidence they could snuff out the real culprit at all.

In general sense, Makoto cannot blame Kyouko for what she has done because it would be everyone's loss if she were to stay passive in this trial, which was specifically designed to kill her.

I'm an anime only viewer, and this is an anime thread. Kirigiri's motives and actions in the game don't matter one bit here. Whatever she did in the game, in the anime Kirigiri clearly decided to push Naegi under the bus to save herself.

Initially Monokuma wanted Kirigiri dead with that trial, if anything he was more likely to execute them for not deciding Kirigiri was guilty. So Kirigiri was taking a gamble with all the students' lives on the off chance she'd save her own. Naegi further screwed himself by actually trying to help her by pointing out what a sham the trial was, which made him an acceptable target to Monokuma and let Kirigiri set him up more easily.

Hell yeah he can blame her. She had no plan but for him to die in her place; it definitely wouldn't have been "his loss" to live. He would have been dead whether she later solved the mystery or not. At the very least he had to keep in mind he couldn't trust her from then on, instead of immediately forgiving & forgetting like the gullible moron he is.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Parchevich

I'm an anime only viewer, and this is an anime thread. Kirigiri's motives and actions in the game don't matter one bit here. Whatever she did in the game, in the anime Kirigiri clearly decided to push Naegi under the bus to save herself.

Initially Monokuma wanted Kirigiri dead with that trial, if anything he was more likely to execute them for not deciding Kirigiri was guilty. So Kirigiri was taking a gamble with all the students' lives on the off chance she'd save her own. Naegi further screwed himself by actually trying to help her by pointing out what a sham the trial was, which made him an acceptable target to Monokuma and let Kirigiri set him up more easily.

Hell yeah he can blame her. She had no plan but for him to die in her place; it definitely wouldn't have been "his loss" to live. He would have been dead whether she later solved the mystery or not. At the very least he had to keep in mind he couldn't trust her from then on, instead of immediately forgiving & forgetting like the gullible moron he is.

He could tell the others about the master key though, but he himself decided not to.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Parchevich

I'm an anime only viewer, and this is an anime thread. Kirigiri's motives and actions in the game don't matter one bit here. Whatever she did in the game, in the anime Kirigiri clearly decided to push Naegi under the bus to save herself.

I'm not sure about that. Even going only by the anime, there's space to say that maybe Kirigiri was just trying to keep the discussion going in order to prevent voting going ahead so quickly. Also, if she deliberately shoved him under the bus, that should only work if Kirigiri is the culprit. As long as the trial is being run fair and square, getting an innocent person executed will only get the others instantly killed as well. There's no gain for an innocent Kirigiri in that. Of course, that point is moot if she actually is guilty.

Though...no, I suppose going by what Kirigiri said, if she was sure the trial was a sham and that Monobear would have pretended whichever one out of her or Naegi was voted for was the culprit, there was a potential benefit there for her in having him executed. But I don't think it's clear that that was what she intended. The trial was moving very quickly. If she wanted to keep the trial from progressing to the voting stage she more or less had to say something then to try to stop that and gain more time, even if it implicated Naegi, but Monobear just didn't allow the discussion to continue.

For another thing, there's also the fact that Naegi could have spoken up about the key at any time in order to save himself and make it certain that Kirigiri would be voted for. He had both options at hand, his death and hers, and both he and Kirigiri must have known that. He basically chose to be executed instead of her, and she left him with that choice. I can't say that she shoved him under the bus when he absolutely had an out available to him. I suppose if he was thinking they were both innocent and that would mean everyone's death but the culprit's, it wouldn't make a big difference which of them was killed, but Kirigiri had also hinted that it was vitally important for her to not be executed here, which suggests that maybe it wouldn't all be over as long as she wasn't executed. Naegi clearly chose to trust her and die.

[Triple_R]

I'm surprised that people seem to have a hard time accepting that, yes, Kirigiri threw Makoto under the bus. To put it bluntly.

I mean, it's certainly no worse than what Aoi did in the previous trial, and I don't recall Aoi's actions getting people worked up the same way.

Kirigiri had to survive for her research work to have any value at all. Kirigiri and Makoto were the only two people who even knew about the 16th student, so it's highly unlikely Kirigiri could have successfully pinned the murder charge on somebody else. It was either her or him. If he dies, but she survives, she may well be able to save herself and everybody else. If she dies, but he survives, then the likelihood of ultimately defeating Monobear goes way down.

Kirigiri made a very tough call in a very tough situation (her and her research, or her only real friend in this school - which was she going to sacrifice?). But it was the right call. Let's not cheapen this by pretending it was something other than what it was. Yes, she threw him under the bus because the alternative would have been even worse.

Granted, she could perhaps have shown a bit more emotion and contriteness over this, but that's just not her personality. She's fairly unemotional by nature.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I'm surprised that people seem to have a hard time accepting that, yes, Kirigiri threw Makoto under the bus. To put it bluntly.

I mean, it's certainly no worse than what Aoi did in the previous trial, and I don't recall Aoi's actions getting people worked up the same way.

I disagree with that in several ways. Firstly, Kirigiri really could have just been trying a delaying tactic to make Monobear back away from the voting, albeit risking a bad outcome for Naegi. If she believed, as she claimed, that the trial was designed to frame her specifically and get her safely executed and out of the way so she couldn't disrupt the mastermind's plans, then Monobear might well have let the class talk for longer rather than execute someone else, if it looked as if Kirigiri would escape being voted for. A delaying tactic like that would not be stupid in those circumstances. It just happened to be that Monobear decided in the trial that Naegi was also too dangerous to have around as well, so he pressed on with the vote anyway with no delay.

Secondly, she also knew that Naegi could instantly have her executed if he told the truth about the key. What she did, in practical effect, was to give him the option to decide which of the two of them died if the worst came to the worst and Monobear didn't give them the time to find the real culprit. If innocent, she must have known even when she was investigating the scene that this case was planned in order to put the blame on her, and yet she still told Naegi that she had the master key (of course, she didn't know about the wooden locker key thing at the time, but a super high school level detective like her should already have known that the mastermind planting things in her room was a distinct possibility). What she did was enough that she had something to seriously apologise to him about, and to say that she abandoned him in order to keep on with her aims, but it's not as if she took the options out of his hands. He had the final say there.

What Kirigiri did this episode was totally different from what Asahina did, and doesn't make for a good comparison at all. Asahina was trying hard to maximise damage whereas Kirigiri tried to minimise it.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Firstly, Kirigiri really could have just been trying a delaying tactic to make Monobear back away from the voting,

No, she couldn't have.

"What about you, aren't you planning something yourself? Don't they say the culprit never keeps his mouth shut?" - Monokuma to Makoto, ends at 9:21

"Ok, time's up. You're out of time. The Classroom Trial is now over. So you don't need to talk any more. ... It's voting time. Use the switches provided to vote." - Monokua, ends at 9:38

"Naegi-kun was the one who found the key to the locker with the murder weapon, right? That means he could have put it there to frame me. ... Since I couldn't have entered my room, that's the only plausible explanation." - Kirigiri, ends at 10:00

Kirigiri knew exactly what she was doing here.

Monobear made a comment to strongly imply that Makoto was guilty, causing Togami, Fukawa, Asahina, and Hagakure to seriously suspect him. However, the four were visibly distraught, and divided over whether to vote for Kirigiri or Makoto.

Monobear had clearly run out of patience, and was repeatedly insisting on everyone voting. Kirigiri slipped in one strong, final argument to settle the doubts and questions flying about the minds of Togami, Fukawa, Asahina, and Hagakure.

Secondly, she also knew that Naegi could instantly have her executed if he told the truth about the key.

True, but Naegi could have played that card at any point during the trial. She gambled that he wouldn't, and thankfully, he didn't.

What Kirigiri did this episode was totally different from what Asahina did, and doesn't make for a good comparison at all.

You missed the point of my comparison. My comparison was to point out something that you yourself made clear - That Asahina's actions were worse than Kirigiri's. And viewers just accepted it. They accepted that she did something very morally wrong in the heat of the moment. They accepted it without hating Asahina for it, because they recognized the tough and very emotionally distraught position Asahina was put in.

So why can't people here just accept that Kirigiri took a merely morally questionable action in a very tough situation of her own?

She turned on Makoto for the greater good.

[Anh_Minh]

Except that by condemning the wrong culprit, she should have expected to get everyone (except the murderer) killed. Unless she really did kill Mukuro, in which case she'd have graduated?

And if she'd been declared guilty, she'd have ended in the basement, but without Naegi. it would have saved some time. Though of course she didn't know that, I'm just saying, it didn't actually matter who got fingered as the culprit.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Except that by condemning the wrong culprit, she should have expected to get everyone (except the murderer) killed.

Well, Kirigiri knew that she herself was not the killer (as you say, if she was, this episode should have ended with her graduation). She knew that Makoto and her were the only two of the six students that even knew about the 16th student. So, logically, the killer is either her, Makoto, or Monobear himself. And good luck successfully pinning it on Monobear (who probably is the real killer by sheer process of elimination).

The trial was a sham, and I think Kirigiri knew that. If Monobear wants to get everyone killed through a sham trial, then that can't be stopped in this particular circumstance. Kirigiri can only hope that's not the aim. So she took the position that Monobear was strictly targeting her, which means that she still has a chance of victory. The key is shifting blame to someone else.

And if she'd been declared guilty, she'd have ended in the basement, but without Naegi. it would have saved some time. Though of course she didn't know that, I'm just saying, it didn't actually matter who got fingered as the culprit.

True, good point. Anti-Ego would presumably have saved either her or Makoto.

[Solitaired]

Yes. The trial was a sham, and Naegi was supposed to be killed and Kirigiri to take the blame of murder. So the other 4 will not be executed regardless. Kirigiri took the master key from Monokuma, came too close to him at many times; and Naegi is just the hope of the group. With the amount of students being so few, plus Sakura's suicide bringing them all together with more hope, Monokuma is cornered. Hence the trial.

In the game, you can sense something really wrong with the trial, also another fact that we never get to know whether the corpse is really Ikusaba Mukuro. So the trial in the game goes back and forth between putting the blame on Kirigiri and helping her get out of it. And just like the anime, Naegi suddenly got thrown into the gunfire and we are seeing his execution before we can catch our bearings.

Alter Ego will not save Kirigiri if she is being executed as that route leads to the bad ending

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

The key is shifting blame to someone else.

Not exactly. What she needed is to buy time in order to find out the loophole in Monokuma's sham. The problem is that they didn't have enough information regarding the case, and Monokuma cut the chase immediately.

Originally Posted by Solitaired

o another fact that we never get to know whether the corpse is really Ikusaba Mukuro.

Actually no, unlike in the anime, the game hammer down the fact the corpse is Mukuro's, with enough evidence to confirm that.

Alter Ego will not save Kirigiri if she is being executed as that route leads to the bad ending

No, that's just Makoto's imagination. The very fact you are thrown back to the choice after the bad end occurs without the need to reload the save state pretty much implies it could never happen. Heck, the bad end result is also a glaring joke to what Yasuhiro told to Makoto before.

[frodonk]

hmm..

I didn't know that kirigiri's ability was a crucial plot point, but it was too obvious, even when people who knew didn't answer me back in ep01.

and yes, get over it, kirigiri said it herself, if she gets caught, they won't be able to solve the mystery, so she sent naegi to his death, and she didn't know about alter ego either.

naegi went with it because he thought kirigiri had a plan, so he said nothing about the key. byakuya drove kirigiri to a corner and that's when she forced everyone to vote naegi as the culprit. at least the anime reinforced naegi's ability as the SDHS luckster.

mukuro was killed by kirigiri, how exactly was that carried out? so she isn't the mastermind? can we also solve all these mysteries just by going through the anime only scenes? do all those corpses also end up in that basement? are they still there, given that nobody cleans up inside the school because only 16 living persons had set foot inside the school? we can also include why mukuro was called as SDHS mercenary instead of despair as kirigiri said, soo many questions..

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No, she couldn't have.

No, she could. The timing examples you gave don't exclude that. Monobear's comment to Naegi could just as easily be taken as him trying to get Naegi to shut up so that he could get Kirigiri executed as planned. It would be a logical decision for Kirigiri to try to buy time that way, given the circumstance she believed she was in, which is one where Monobear was specifically trying to kill her. It's not as if she knew for certain that everyone wouldn't be killed for selecting a false culprit, either. Buying time was the most sensible thing anyone could have tried to do there. Naegi tried to buy time too.

I think we're going to around in circles here, though. She could have! She couldn't possibly have! Etcetera.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So why can't people here just accept that Kirigiri took a merely morally questionable action in a very tough situation of her own?

She turned on Makoto for the greater good.

It is already a morally questionable, tough decision for a person in a rushed trial to turn the investigation towards someone they believe to be innocent, even if the aim is to buy time. I already said that I don't think the option of her just buying time is fully excluded in the anime version in the way you believe. But also, if she had really turned on him the way you seem to be proposing, she wouldn't have put him in a position where he had the choice to pick which of them died. That's not the same thing as throwing somebody under a bus. You're not throwing someone under a bus if you're giving them an easy out that'll put you there instead if they decide they like that option better.

You should probably also bear in mind that people have seen the points made in Klashikari's post at #10 about how the anime gives a worse impression of Kirigiri's actions than the original game. If people know that Kirigiri's intention really was just to buy time, of course many people will look at her intentions in the anime in light of that (just as they'd see things in a worse light if they heard that in the game she was actually straight out gunning for Naegi but the edit made her look better). That shouldn't come as a surprise.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

No, she could.

She may have been buying for time earlier on in the trial. But the final comment she made came after Monobear made it clear that his patience had run out, and it also came after Monobear implied that Makoto was the culprit. That final comment she made was not an attempt to buy time. It was an attempt to have the voters find Makoto guilty instead of her.

Monobear's comment to Naegi could just as easily be taken as him trying to get Naegi to shut up so that he could get Kirigiri executed as planned.

No, it definitely couldn't have. Not the way that piece of dialogue was presented, and not the way the scene was directed. Consider the way Monobear's comment was said, and the angry glow in Monobear's red eye. It was a carefully calculated attack on Naegi, designed to make the students think he might be the culprit.

Besides, if Monobear was still strictly focused on getting Kirigiri executed as planned, it would be extremely stupid of him to make a comment that could easily be taken as an implication that Naegi is the culprit. I have enough respect for Monobear to think he's not that stupid. Monobear decided he would be just as happy with Naegi getting executed as he would be with Kirigiri being executed.

It is already a morally questionable, tough decision for a person in a rushed trial to turn the investigation towards someone they believe to be innocent, even if the aim is to buy time.

I disagree. I think that interpretation really cheapens things. It would be mildly morally questionable at most. It's certainly not at all comparable to choosing to sacrifice your only real friend in the entire school in order to have a chance of saving everybody else, including yourself. I find such a choice to be a very powerful and dramatic one, carrying much more depth than lobbing false accusations purely to buy time.

Buying time was the most sensible thing anyone could have tried to do there.

It's sensible if it was possible. Monobear made it clear that it was not possible here.

But also, if she had really turned on him the way you seem to be proposing, she wouldn't have put him in a position where he had the choice to pick which of them died.

I don't think she went into the trial intending to turn on him, which is why she told him about the master key before the trial began. But after Togami aggressively went after her, and after Monobear's patience had ran out, she was left with only two options - Minimize the risk of her getting executed by turning on Makoto, or take a higher risk of getting executed and having all of her recent research be for naught. And so she chose to turn on Makoto.


Finally, the anime should be able to stand on its own two feet, and it and its characters should be evaluated by what is actually shown in the anime. Besides, the anime had already diverged substantially from the game in ways that make it clear that you can't just assume that what's true in the game is the same as what's true in the anime.

[White Manju Bun]

I know this epi got a lot of flack from gamers but I loved it. Didn't see Kirigiri setting up Naegi like that. Didnt at all expect to see his "execution" game sequence. I'm glad someone already brought up that everyone should have died since Naegi was innocent. I was surprised at PsychoBear being surprised it wasnt him. It makes me wonder how (if in other instances) the wrong person was convicted, how he would know 100% that the person was guilty. Also makes the Mastermind look desperate since he's willing to break his own rules, ie frame Kirigiri for Naegi's murder when Mukuro did it.

Dangit! After Kirigiri's reaction to the principal in that one epi I started thinking they might be related but didnt say anything....should have

I definitely am going to watch the game walk thru for this one.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Finally, the anime should be able to stand on its own two feet, and it and its characters should be evaluated by what is actually shown in the anime. Besides, the anime had already diverged substantially from the game in ways that make it clear that you can't just assume that what's true in the game is the same as what's true in the anime.

I would agree if the anime was done with a different storytelling or chain of events, but that's not the case.
The directing basically went for a very digest version with awkward changes to drive points in a "easier fashion", which changes quite a lot in term of characters development.
But past that, the crimes, victims, murderers, arguments (even if they were rearranged for different characters), general plot are the very same. You definitely can point out how the series will conclude with the game / spoilers, although there is nothing that can attest what will be missing.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

I would agree if the anime was done with a different storytelling or chain of events, but that's not the case.

So you don't think that this anime should be evaluated on its own merits? So is it your position that anime-only viewers (like myself) can't evaluate the plot and characters based on what's actually shown in the anime?

That seems like a bit of an exclusionary approach to me. And one very much contrary to the ideas that have helped shape Anime Suki. This site goes to tremendous lengths to accommodate anime-only viewers, after all.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So you don't think that this anime should be evaluated on its own merits? So is it your position that anime-only viewers (like myself) can't evaluate the plot and characters based on what's actually shown in the anime?

That seems like a bit of an exclusionary approach to me. And one very much contrary to the ideas that have helped shape Anime Suki. This site goes to tremendous lengths to accommodate anime-only viewers, after all.

That was not my intent at all.
The anime should be evaluated based on what it offered thus far on its own, although considering how it is lacking in various area, I hardly can consider this adaptation as self sufficient (which any adaptation should be, in a perfect world that is).

I was answering regarding your assertion that "since it is different from the game, what's true in the game doesn't mean it is in the anime", which I strongly disagree considering it is an adaptation, not a spin off (the likes of Negima could fall in such assertion, but not danganronpa).

[Triple_R]

Ok, I see what you're saying. I probably overstated my argument a bit.

Yes, this anime will likely end the same way as the game did, based on the arguments you made.

[AC-Phoenix]

Well they cut a lot of red herings and actual clues out.
Some of that made things harder, others made it it easier.

They also cut out a very macabre joke Monokuma made, but we might see it next episode.