why the FUCK is Nekomaru never called out for not sharing soda while everyone is starving
That’s my entire cut Science, you’re welcome.
Just kidding. Unfortunately.
AND WE WERE ALL SURPRISED BY THIS SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT.
Yeah, so I’m cutting Nekomaru. Not gonna lie, it’s difficult for me to muster up enthusiasm for this cut, because Mumbo’s going to be reviving him anyways (spoiler alert) and Nekomaru is such a fucking pointless tasteless, wet salmon of a character that my fingers are falling asleep right now. Like, legitimately, it’s an actually reasonable hour to be writing a cut, I’m on a computer which is at least faster than two one legged kids doing a sack hop (read: my phone), I have food set up, I’m lying in the scientifically most determined comfortable position in my bed… and yet I’m having a much harder time writing this than the Hajime cut, which was finished at 1:54 am on my phone in a dorm room with a roommate who talked in her sleep. To be fair though, not all of this is on Nekomaru. I’ve been having a rough time lately in terms of mustering up the enthusiasm to write, or really do anything I like on a good day that requires a modicum of effort, so Nekomaru can’t be blamed for my shitty mood and feelings of inadequacy with my own writing ability. But I’m gonna do my best despite the absolute futility of it, because god dammit if I’m not going to live up to my own expectations for myself.
Nekomaru Nidai is a big, boisterous, buff hyperenthusiastic who falls very much in line with the wacky and off the wall cast of his game, Super Danganronpa 2. Our first introduction to him establishes a fair bit about his character, and we can see he doesn’t really differentiate from this mold of hyperactive bizarrity. He’s ear-busting and gut-busting both, in the sense that he both breaks the sound barrier and every toilet in a five mile radius. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Nekomaru shits. He takes gigantic dumps on the regular, and wants everyone to know it. And I want you all to know it too, as repulsed as you may be, so dammit if I’m not gonna talk about Nekomaru Nidai’s bowel movements.
I don’t know who came up with the genius fucking idea for Nekomaru to be obsessed with the sloshing of his own feces in his colon, but I sincerely hope they’re EATING SHIT right now, because they’re the reason why I’ve had twenty consecutive dinners foiled. And not just because the subject manner was disgusting. Look, gross humor isn’t inherently bad. It can be utilized in effective ways and actually coaxe a laugh out of me if it’s clever. But there’s nothing clever, or sublime, or enticing about Nekomaru’s absurdist fascination with his own chunky fecal matter. It’s repetitive and needless, and is continuously pushed into conversations where it absolutely isn’t important. Look, I’m okay with characters being obnoxious for hours on end. Himiko is my third favorite character, for fuck’s sake. But the irritation they provide must be relevant to the current issue at hand (often the trial), it must have a deeper meaning to the character in question, such as being a symptom of their emotional repression or regressive and miserable upbringing, and it must make me not want to hurl my cookies. Nekomaru’s crappy (haha I’m so funny) interjections are absolutely irrelevant to the mystery. Like, dude, how necessary is it, exactly, for you to tell us all that Peko’s been taking a big fucking shit on the porcelain throne? It is on zero levels of relevant, my guy. Wait, but, isn’t it unfair for me to criticize Nekomaru for this? He’s the character who makes mind-numbingly idiotic comments on turds whenever they happen to become the topic of conversation, ergo, it would be out of character for him to not let everyone know he loves the feeling of his dung nuggets.
That is, on the most technical level possible, true. This is what Nekomaru’s character is at least partially about: telling everyone he has a one in the oven, the oven of course being his asshole. Nekomaru would be in fact not in character if he didn’t screech about his I’m running out of synonyms for shit dammit all the time. Here’s the million dollar question, though, folks- why the fuck is this part of his character in the first place? Nekomaru being into shit has absolutely no bearing on his overall character and what we’re supposed to think of him. I suppose you can make an argument for it being a symptom of him simply being far more exuberant with his thoughts than other people, uncaring of the social ramifications of his actions, or that his intoxication with his own excrement is directly related to his poor health and him being out of his mind delighted whenever his body functions normally, such as pushing out a phat one. Except it literally isn’t normal, he’s got horrible and obvious dyspepsia! Like, I’m doing my goddamn best here to conjure up a reason in my failing brain for how exactly Nekomaru’s utterly miserable gag could shed some light on his character and personal struggle, and I’m failing so hard, guys. And the reason I’m not doing so hot in regards to this is because there literally isn’t one.
For better or for worse, SDR2 has a lot of characters that seem centered around the comedy they provide, as if the game longs to fulfill a hilarious niche with every single character, to the extent where the gimmicks feel much, much more pronounced than they do in any other game. Because in the other games, these gimmicks are kind of directly related to the flaws characters possess. DR1 isn’t really a good example of this because it’s relatively down to earth in comparison to the games that followed it, so I’ll use V3 instead. Himiko? Obsessed with magic and the unshakable truth in said magic, which manifests as a fairly stupid gag. This is directly connected to her character, traumas, and conflict, as Himiko deals with repression and hiding from her feelings, which gels well with her insistence on and overenthusiastic belief in magic, a slight of hand, a lie. Miu? Reliant on uncouth sex jokes with the same kind of dirty humour an overenthusiastic 7th grader who plays Overwatch maintains, and reacts with mixed cowardly blubbering and arousal to being called out for it, which is frankly uncomfortable and unsettling to witness. Also directly connected to her deeper problems such as her lack of social prowess leading her to view her unsavory behavior as genuinely pleasant comedy and a knee-slapper at parties, and her equally unsavory responses being insight into her complete and utter need to be loved and appreciated and regarded by other people. Kaito? His absurd infatuation with space and his empathetic naivete, which can get incredibly irritating from a player perspective, is a direct result of his hero complex and extreme internal turmoil and issues with his own desire to be in the spotlight while simultaneously provide emotional support for others. I could go on, and I’m somewhat tempted to, given what my other option is.
The point is, all of the corny, cliche, or insipid humor they may possess, it’s integrated into their character in a believable and understandable way, and when acknowledging this it also becomes at least somewhat clear that the usage of this humor isn’t inherently pointless, because it gives us organic insight into the things that actually need to be balanced and weighed about their characters through a medium that doesn’t keep the story floundering in angst, that being comic relief. But SDR2 has this omnipresent issue where so many characters are walking, talking, joke generators in a way that doesn’t seem intrinsically linked with their deeper issues and temperamental problems. They are comic relief, walking joke bastions with an actual character beneath, but said character is utterly unrelated to the constant barrage of giggles they spew. It all feels floundering, disconnected, improperly tied up and thus clumsy. Ibuki? Ridiculously haha random XD who’s jokes exist purely to indulge the audience for a minute and go utterly acknowledged and uncommented on, and apparently her deeper character is that she’s emotionally intelligent and surrounded by people who care less about their work, which is pretty blatantly opposed to both her utterly careless and often callous nature, and the own lightness she treats her profession and calling with. Teruteru? Lecherous, slimy skeeze who just drips sexual assault from his every miserable pore, attempts to trick women into having sex with him multiple times, just in general a gross frat rat pillsbury doughboy who wants to forcefully inject everyone on Jabberwock Island with his charming and diverse array of STDs. This is supposed to be excusable because you see, beneath these greasy and morally reprehensible layers of perverted shitwipe, he has the deeper character of loving his mom and actually being a hick. This of course has no relation to his disgusting “humor” and this shallow attempt to make you empathize with a four foot sex offender being described as genuine and acceptable character depth maybe makes me want to retch moreso than his said sexual offenses, and that’s a high goddamn bar.
Nekomaru, in my humble opinion, is probably the peak example of this, potentially even moreso than fucking Teruteru, the oozing fetishizing pisshat of the century. He’s got the groundwork for a character there. He’s got the emotional drive and passion, he’s got the heart wrenching backstory, he’s got the frankly quite admirable self-expression plot, and god I can think of a million ways Nekomaru could be a funny character and how this hilarity could be shared with the actual things about him that the game wants you to care about. But instead we get this. Instead we get Nekomaru’s chunky feces as the cherry on top to my parfait of vomit, mixed one part disgust at horrible character writing and one part just plain disgust.
But of course, I’d be neglecting my biggest issue with Nekomaru if I implied the largest problem with him was his humor, that everything else about him was good. I did say groundwork for a reason. The game has the bricks in place, the mortar ready, and yet it can’t extend the foundation into a legitimately functioning house, with like walls and plumbing and ventilation and shit. Nekomaru isn’t a fine and well-rounded character with his only glaring defect being his piss-poor (or shall I say shit-poor) comedy. Nekomaru’s hugest and realest issue is that literally nothing he does in the story has any weight to it, and he comes across as insanely underwhelming because of it.
Let’s talk about Nekomaru and Akane for a minute.
I’ve seen Nekomaru’s various nodus’s being referred to as Akane’s fault before. That Nekomaru has no say in whether or not Akane grows from the wise words of wisdom he departs. Nekomaru as a person certainly doesn’t. He can’t account for Akane’s lack to take his parting wishes to heart. But Nekomaru as a character can be blamed, not because he wasn’t simply delivering his lines potently enough, but because the decision to have Akane simply refuse to develop and actually change from both of his passings was an intentional decision made by the writers, and the lack of actual importance is a detriment to Nekomaru proper. To explain how, I’m probably gonna have to delve further into his parting and his relationship with Akane, though.
Nekomaru and Akane have their first significant interaction in chapter two, where the two spar furiously on the beach, sparks flying, unique art flashing by. It’s cool, it’s dynamic, it’s more than vaguely intimidating. It’s two extremely hot people kicking the shit out of each other, what could be more admirable and provocative? This establishes a baseline for how their relationship will function. The two have a sort of camaraderie formed from vigor and passion in their athletic selves, and compete with each other in a joking, cheerful sort of way that emphasizes more than anything that Nekomaru is determined to see Akane grow in her explicit strength and Akane in turn wants to beat him at his game. Akane wants to best him and learn from him, and Nekomaru wants to see her learn, but he’s not gonna be beaten without a fight. It’s a serviceable relationship. Certainly not a very complex one, but it works. The point is, Akane is intentionally set up to have to learn something from Nekomaru, to have to grow and be taught by him. The story establishes their relationship as such, with one being the teacher and one being the pupil. There’s also some weird romantic undertones but those are basically irrelevant and I don’t really understand why they were factored in. Regardless, you want to see Akane flourish from this interaction, and you expect to see Nekomaru help her even from the very beginning. But it isn’t one-sided, at least not from a writing perspective. Nekomaru himself doesn’t have to develop from Akane’s actions, her rashness, her vigor, her arrogance, her ungrounded and unfounded confidence. However, that doesn’t stop the purpose of his character from being the one that causes Akane to mature, and the success of this endeavor is important to his character, important to improving it and codifying it, especially given Nekomaru’s lack of other relationships- like, seriously, he has a fucking pow-wow beat em up rendezvous of growth with Akane every once in a while and his dynamic with the rest of the cast is solely confined to him dropping them sick shit jokes on their unprepared minds- and his failure is a reminder to all of us that no man is an island, no character exists in a void untouched, no character is uninfluenced by the decision of others, because characters don’t have a thought process. Characters don’t make the conscious decision to go out and defy something another character put effort into. The cast of SDR2 wasn’t written by sixteen different combative people, all of whom only cared about their character with no regard for outside push. The characters aren’t sentient, and if Akane fails to grow from Nekomaru’s doctrine, the problem isn’t that Akane was just uppity and refused to take said doctrine to heart, the problem is that the writer of these two (notably incapable of making decisions for themselves because they aren’t real goddamn people) decided that Nekomaru’s words would have little to no influence on Akane, and that’s an inherent failing in his construction, which is literally what we’re judging here, the construction and execution of each and every character. But possibly the biggest strike out with this course of action is that it just cements the perfectly understandable notion someone may have about Nekomaru- that he doesn’t fucking matter and everything he does is either irrelevant or goes absolutely unacknowledged.
Both times Nekomaru dies, someone overshadows him. The first time, after being shot by a giant fucking bazooka and falling over comically, the entire ordeal is notably undercut by the fact that Mikan goes crazy goes stupid immediately afterwards and is revealed to know a lot of plot important shit. But it’s alright, right, because he’s back as a funky, kinda quirky doe, robot! Who shoots soda from his eyes and shit! Exceeeept he only really exists now so he can die again. Here, let us all picture that business office meme that ends with a guy being thrown out the window, except with a handy modification from your depressed friend Onnie. Guy 1 says “we should bring Nekomaru back so Gundham can look cool lol”, Guy 2 says “we should bring Nekomaru back so Gundham can look cool lol”, and Guy 3 says “How about we don’t do that because it’s fucking stupid and shits on his sacrifice as well as gives the impression that everything he ever does means exactly jack given that he’s died twice without impact both to service another character that didn’t really want said servicing also as long as we’re airing ougrievances here can I just say that killing Hiyoko last trial was super fucking stupid, and can you give Fuyuhiko more relationships with other people, and-“ That cutoff is representative of his entire body being flung violently out the window.
Literally what fucking reason is there for Nekomaru to be a robot? You have the potential euphoria of him finally outgrowing a leaky, malfunctioning human body, but that’s overshadowed by the fact that Nekomaru seems to take pleasure in his leaky and malfunctioning human body and is very attuned with his various bodily functions. There’s no fucking growth from this development, it stunts Akane further in a way that is undeniably at least partially his fault, and he’s there just to die. It’s not like a Miu situation, where Miu really deserves to have to live and grow, but physically couldn’t because Maki, Kaito, and Kokichi were all needed for chapter 5, Tsumugi and Kiibo were needed for chapter 6, Shuichi protag Shuichi protag, and Himiko honking that character development horn. There were other options in Nekomaru’s case rather than bringing back a dead character and tarnishing their already spotty memory further and just adding to the conga line of nothing Nekomaru does ever having a long-lasting impact. You could have killed Sonia! You could have killed Kazuichi! And if you’re going to go out of your way to prevent Akane from growing, you could have just fucking killed Akane!
And Nekomaru dies again.
This time it’s for permanent, except for when it isn’t in DR3, but I’ll give that a pass because everyone was revived in a miserable and nonelegant way in DR3. And yet it still has the unimpressive impact that it did the first time around, because his entire sacrifice is just dwarfed by Gundham’s. Now, this isn’t a problem unique to Nekomaru. A lot of Danganronpa culprits massively overshadow their victims out of a desire to make the culprits sympathetic and thoroughly explain their actions, which ends in shit like 2-2 and V3-1, where literally fucking everyone forgets that Mahiru and Rantaro have kicked the bucket upon seeing Peko and Fuyuhiko’s romantic dramady and Kaede fucking off from her role in the protagonist’s seat. But with Nekomaru it’s just another nail in the coffin that nothing he does will have relevance, will cast any kind of shadow, because Gundham did an epic don’t you know he did an epic and actually wasn’t a posturing kid he was so brave and strong and willing to give up his life so everyone else would work on improving their own? I didn’t think you did, now let’s all forget about Nekomaru again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. A n d
A g a i n . . .
Haha just kidding I need to talk about his free time events.
Or more accurately I need to say that his free time events give him actual depth and color that explain some of his actions in the main story, but said depth and color is such a transparently hamfisted attempted to stuff a tragic backstory in his mouth like it’s an apple and he’s a dead pig about to be served to a coven of witches or rich people that I am physically incapable of caring about it. And none of it fucking matters anyways, it’s an empty story crafted from nothing, it’s just following lock-step with the SDR2 tradition of desperately attempting to make their characters deep and complex with optional free time events, no matter how dull they might seem if you don’t view them, no matter how fake and shallow it feels to the viewer.
IN CONCLUSION
Nekomaru has bad humor, a bad role in the story, and a bad habit of constantly being overshadowed by everyone when attempting to do literally anything. I wish I could have phrased all of this in a more eloquent way, because I’m overall not very impressed by this cut I’ve written and just in general my self image is not tip toppity as of currently. I’d also like you all to know that the last quarter of this was written at 7 am on my phone while pacing around my kitchen dressed up as Lydia from Beetlejuice, so my unfortunate tendency of writing my cuts during an inconvenient time in an inconvenient way still holds true.
Why not anyone else?
Everyone who was saved by the poll is good. Miu is dead, obviously, so I couldn’t kill her even if I wanted to and rest assured I don’t want to. Mikan is literally my favorite SDR2 character and the only one I can comfortably say is worth a damn from a writing perspective, and if she doesn’t get at least top twenty I will fillet you fools with a polyester model of my teeth. Kokichi is also excellent and should crack the top twenty too- I’m not as intensely passionate about him as I am about Mikan but I swear to god I will pout like a scorned puppy if he doesn’t make that milestone.
Angie Yonaga is too good for this sinful round, and perhaps you all are chanting to me that I prove it by cutting her and letting her be with her Atua in heaven. But Angie would be revived anyways, and if I’m gonna cut a character who’ll be immediately brought back to life then it’s gonna be one I dislike! I feel like Angie deserves a little more than this tiny, more than slightly sarcastic statement from me, so I’ll just state that she was fucking robbed last rankdown and deserves if not top ten than at least to be in the running.
Gonta Gokuhara is my nomination, but cutting him was a possibility given that it’s entirely likely he’ll slip into a higher spot than I believe he deserves and justice hammer is so unbelievably useless that it couldn’t be called a waste, but he’s certainly better than Nekomaru.
Korekiyo Shinguuji is a character I don’t like, for a number of reasons, but I’m aware that my dislike of him doesn’t really have as much weight as my dislike of Nekomaru, and is motivated by some notably unobjective opinions, such as me really just not liking him and the aim of his character in general. I think given the competition that’s more than enough reason to warrant him going out now, even if my own perspective would rather have him be out by early round six, but given my own bias and the fact that I’m less viscerally and mortally offended on every level by Korekiyo going far than I am by Nekomaru going far have led me to cut Nekomaru rather than him. You live another day, tulpaguy. Another day…
Kotoko Utsugi is a character I don’t have a lot of personal affection for, and she’s certainly flawed, but she’s well-written enough to deserve round eight at least, and I wouldn’t turn up my nose at her making it to rounds nine or ten either. Go go adorable ranger!
Makoto Naegi can’t be cut in this round given Bokkun’s revive, but if he was available it’s entirely possible I’d spring for him. Depends on how willing I am to risk being found chopped up into a dozen pieces in an abandoned Miami freezer, but Makoto’s continued existence in the Rankdown is quite frankly reprehensible and next round I just might spring for it.
Monokuma I also very heavily considered. He’s a character intentionally crafted with zero depth whatsoever, he’s great for a spot of black comedy but that black comedy decreases in black quality as the games progress, and he would be an utterly noncontroversial cut, which would probably be a lifesaver for me given that I have, over the course of the past two rounds, cut and immediately revived a character in the process breaking up an extensive plan to kill her for good and just generally making people go “lol wtf”, and I have cut and arranged for the excavation of the much, much beloved protagonist of SDR2 who got THIRD last time, just barely cucking him out of the top fifty. I think I could stand to lay low after that. And you know, justice hammer is fucking useless, so using it wouldn’t matter. But here’s the thing, ladies and gents and extremely disturbed, non gender specific onlookers observing the rankdown as one would observe a car crash in slow motion: I have not been having a good brain week, and by the time someone helpfully reminded me Monokuma was an option, I was 1500 words deep into my Nekomaru cut and my own unenthusiastic, depressive brain told me under no uncertain terms was I to start a whole other cut and feel like cold shit in a tin for abandoning this one, am I crazy?
(none of this is a mildly smarmy joke weaseling out of cutting Monokuma, I am being one hundred percent serious here. I do not have the mental fortitude to cut anyone else, and I don’t like Nekomaru anyways. So.)
Mukuro Ikusaba has a GUN. In all seriousness, she’s absolutely flawed as all hell, but I think her portrayal in IF is good enough to warrant her getting to the next round. Only next round tho, because DR3 absolutely fucked her over bad.
Ruruka Ando I also considered, because she’s made it as far as I think she deserves to given the cards stacked against her such as, like, being in DR3 and having to deal with Seiko and Izayoi weighing her down, but in the end I decided against it because like I said, Nekomaru’s continued existence in the rankdown is disgusting to me.
This has been a cut from Onnie. See you next time, and hopefully I’ll have more pep in my fucking step when I do. And I’m also sorry if this sucked super badly. Feel free to criticize me, but also know that I’m already aware that it’s bad and am slamming my head into the fucking table because of it on the regular.
