korekiyo shinguji

It sounds silly, but Korekiyo was crucial to my development as a person. Specifically he was an important figure in a really tough time in my younger years. Unrestricted internet access and personal upbringing left me holding onto things that were not the healthiest, but it's not like me to lament my actions. Though things have since changed and I have not heavily fixated on him ever since, I still treasure this character for the memories I have associated with him.

humanity is beautiful.

It's through him that I learned that love doesn't concern itself with the concept of beauty. Beautiful and ugly mean nothing; like organic matter, they don't last. The only things that truly matter, really, is what feels good. And lastly, our existence is wholly dependent on others. You cannot be without another. We live to be bound to each other (lol).

Those are huge simplifications of the core values I walked away with from Korekiyo. Despite what it sounds like, I'm not blindly affirming Kiyo's traumatized outlook on life, nor do I think that he was right to become a serial killer for his dead sister.

people are fucking stupid.

Fandom culture during my early teens (and specifically the circles I used to be in, which likely still exists until now) is important to the discussion of Korekiyo Shinguji as a character. He is very controversial for a plot point in his character, where he is in love with his sister. Many in the fandom gave him only a surface-level reading, and he was heavily disliked as a result. Regardless of how viable the theory of Kiyo being a victim of grooming, they deem that the existence of character having anything to do at all with incest was going too far for a franchise that kills and tortures teenagers for fun.

It's ridiculous and fandom feels too stupid to take seriously, but I won't skip this discussion because shame is the very thing that enables harm. To make it clear, fiction mirrors reality; to some extent fiction is reality, yet they're completely different things. Fiction isn't what gets us hurt. It's fear, and the submission to ignorance because of it that does.

I saw firsthand how true this is. And perhaps, through all the nightmares and sleepless nights, Korekiyo is what got me out of it. It was bad; bad things happened to me and I've done bad things too. I shouldn't share it, but I'm a pervert and an exhibitionist, a voyeur to my self and I should confess regardless, and live my truest life. Hahaha.

All of these are related to Korekiyo in ways I will not detail.

I had gory and violent nightmares.
I lived in fear.
One time I was extremely paranoid that someone was stalking me. I obsessively stalked them in hopes of affirming my delusions. Thankfully this only happened online and my target of interest never realized. Still, it's fucked up how I did it anyway, and would habitually continue to do so to others later on. I don't do this anymore.
I had no sense of boundaries, or any understanding of 'fantasies' as a concept. I engaged in kink without knowing what any of that meant. For my age at that time, it really was not my fault.
I felt wrong and broken a lot of the time for what I liked.

Most of all, Kiyo taught me a lot about compassion. This is probably not what should my takeaway be from his character, but I really do think that "humanity is beautiful", regardless of everything, or maybe because of everything that it entails. What's ugly or beautiful, what feels right, and what I live for. I am, because you are.

Come on now, apologize.

The world is deserving of another Korekiyo Shinguji character analysis. There can never be enough.

Korekiyo is the Ultimate Anthropologist, an expert in culture, folklore, myths and customs. It is said that he has traveled the world in accordance to his studies, experiencing the traditions from various places and types of communities.

Having terrible health, Korekiyo's sister was bedridden, and had no one to accompany her aside from her younger brother, Korekiyo. He gained his interest in anthropology through reading a book with his sister, who encouraged him to pursue the field. The two were also in an incestuous relationship, of which Korekiyo was convinced was true love.

Eventually, Korekiyo's sister succumbed to her frail health and died. The deep-seated grief within Korekiyo manifested through his ambition to kill at least 100 victims during his travels, so as to give her older sister "friends" in the afterlife.

His obsession with his sister became an integral part of his identity, as during one of his trips abroad, he was attacked by local natives who tortured him to near-death. That is when Korekiyo saw an image of his sister, and consequently developed a tulpa of her.

Korekiyo manifests this tulpa, which he refers to as "Sister", through wearing bright red lipstick which he hides under his mask, and speaking to himself as though he was Sister. He speaks to her during times of distress as he sees her as a figure of comfort and guidance in his life.

The paradoxical nature and the tragic story of Korekiyo Shinguji is nothing short of beautiful. Alongside his mysterious, mystical design and morbid personality, I would say Korekiyo has one of the most thematically interesting and terrifying character narratives in all of Danganronpa.

The beauty is in the irony of how the Ultimate Anthropologist had become trapped in his own mind for what his sister was to him. An Anthropologist, who, by nature of his job, must uphold an open mind and be welcoming of all ideas. Yet he was stuck. No matter where he looked, combed through all the rituals and mores of countless cultures all over the world, he would come to the same single answer every time. For years believed the ultimate End was Sister, his home—but he was wrong. For all of us, always: simply, it was death.

And yet, perhaps, Kiyo was the embodiment of hope. He held on, to the same patterns in every religion there was. The same inclinations that persisted despite the sorrows of life, that gave humanity its light.

It was love.

Of course it's love. In everything, there is love. Why do we do anything at all? It may be hard to believe but you just need to look harder, be more perverted. Don't be fooled by the common image of love. Even in the sludge of decay, it can be found. I found it first right here.

Korekiyo is a huge influence to my own original story, The Love Story of Isis and Orys.

In terms of the narrative of New Danganronpa V3, Chapter 3, I don't know, I didn't play the game.