It all started with a twin History repeats, as we’ve seen A new story will begin And the truth lies herein

The first part of this post has to do with the meta of the Dangan Ronpa games- That is, patterns to do with the game that may not be known to the cast in-game. It should go without saying that this post contains spoilers for the entire series.

Point Number 1: Hidden Identities

Take a close look at these images

The true mastermind is never just hiding the fact that they’re the mastermind, and in both mainline games we’ve had the true mastermind has a different talent than what they have listed as their ‘fake self’.

DR1: Fake Junko Enoshima = Mukuro Ikusaba (Ultimate Soldier); Real Junko Enoshima = Ultimate Fashionista = Ultimate Analyst (+Leader of Ultimate Despair)

SDR2: Hajime Hinata = Reserve Course; Izuru Kamukura* = Ultimate Hope (+Result of the Izuru Kamukura Project)

* Bonus: Mukuro was posing as Junko so ‘Junko’ has two names. Izuru shares his name with the Hope’s Peak Founder, so ‘Izuru’ also has two names. The same pattern repeats with Kokichi Ouma as his imposter is using his name.

NDRV3: The only character whose talent can’t be accurately identified is Ouma himself; furthermore…he says that he could be the Ultimate Liar when Kaede brings it up. So here we have a direct link to the previous two games:

Kokichi Ouma = Ultimate Supreme Leader = Ultimate Liar

??? Ouma = ‘Ultimate Supreme Leader’ = Ultimate ???

So, that’s reason number 1 why the mastermind can’t be Tsumugi or TDR: The true mastermind always has ‘two’ images associated with them and the only character in NDRV3 who fits this criteria is Kokichi Ouma.

Point Number 2: Differences in Appearances

I really have no idea how anyone overlooked this, but I was suspicious from the start of Ouma (Henceforth called ‘Checkers’ to distinguish him from Kokichi) because of the way he’s depicted in contrast to the official art. Besides the ones already shown above, take a look at the following:

There are two Oumas in this picture

Report Card version vs. Default sprite

Now, why is this important? I’ll expand further on this in the next part which is the in-game clues, but there’s one thing that needs to be said here: The true mastermind is registered but also outside of the game. So that’s point 2: Tsumugi can’t be the true mastermind because this person only ever shows up in the final chapter - Additionally, while it’s true that Izuru doesn’t show up in-person we have a valid in-universe explanation for that: Someone else is taking his place. You’ll want to remember this because NDRV3 is the only game in which Monokuma not only never vanishes but also participates in the final two chapters, as if he’s either taking the place of another person or he’s claiming the position that had been his all along.

The point is, these two look like they’re both the same person but there’s substantial differences. It’s also repeated in the following:

The point is, this is purely intentional. The one registered as Kokichi Ouma (The malicious-looking one) is different from the one posing as Kokichi Ouma and you can also see it in his motive video:

His expression is much livelier than the one in the official art, and this one has a mask along with the scarf. That means the one here is ‘Checkers’ Ouma and not Kokichi Ouma.

Point Number 3: Imposters

The third bit of meta but also not quite meta evidence is that there’s an imposter of a character who will get killed and so seem to be dead, but the imposter will be busted in chapter 5 and the real deal will show up in chapter 6 as an important character. This is a big deal because people are also mistaken if they think Checkers had been pretending to be the mastermind only around chapter 4 or so, there’s actually a lot of in-game dialogue that shows he had been doing so from the start and he had told Shuichi that he had given them many clues…clues which by the way was lost on the fandom as much as it was lost on the resident Ace Defective. Also, note that Monokuma did deny that Checkers is the mastermind…which is true because Checkers can’t be the mastermind, it has to be Kokichi.

(Did you notice that Checkers has conversations with both Junko and the Ultimate Imposter having an interest with doubles? Yeah.)

Point Number 4: Missing in Action

The person missing from the game’s cover is the most important person of the game (When I say most important, it’s in the sense that the game wouldn’t even have happened if not for them so even though Izuru practically doesn’t show up his hatred of Junko and his actions does make him the most important character as the true engineer of SDR2). Guess who’s missing from the cover of NDRV3? Exactly, Kodaka did a brilliant reversal here by putting Kokichi there instead of Checkers because Checkers is the most important character this time around as you can’t understand the mastermind without understanding him and what’s more is that the missing character is a major walking spoiler towards the entire game.

Checkers in that regard is hilarious because he’s a literal walking and talking spoiler and that’s the true reason why nothing’s ever that straightforward when it comes to him- The game in fact doesn’t truly become fun (Translation: Despair-inducing) until you know exactly who Checkers is.

This should be it for part 1. Part 2 will be up hopefully by next week, so stay tuned.