Hellen

Man, if I had a wife, I wish she would be someone similar to her. I absolutely love her. And she changed…she changed a lot. I still think the fundamental things that made her human, what made her likable is still there. In volume 1 she was the first to comfort Marian, called out Fushichin on his bullshit, physically got in between the cops and Mew and Hori. And even in this volume she was the one who comforted Nina. Truly love does guide her way. This time around she is just less dogmatic and more understanding and open than she was before. And as she said herself, in the past she was just drugged by other people’s praise and compliments and because of that she didn’t see the problems with reality, tried to ignore the problems in the justice system. She is starting to see her errors.

But I also think it became a new reason to suffer for her. Back in the day she suffered because of her anger towards criminals, now she suffers because of her anger towards the cops and the justice system. Things changed but…not by much. But hopefully her discussion with Kioku made her realize how she was being too cruel to herself with her anger and guilt.

This is also the paradox of love. We see heroes and martyrs like her as extremely loving and extremely righteous. But when in fact, it's really just that they were suffering from guilt than anything. I truly feel that there is a part of Hellen that genuinely cares. But she is not perfect. I’m not perfect. But from the main characters in the story, I truly think she is the closest to love and truth.

Granted, Hellen was also willing to scheme and go against the detective's way to break into the prison to save Hori. We’ll just have to see where it leads in the future volumes.

Fushichin

Best boy continues his speeches and jokes into volume 2. Fushichin was great as always. In volume 1 in the Visual novel version, I checked the data and saw that Fushichin had the most amount of lines in volume 1 out of every other character. And I think it’s the same here in volume 2. I was unsure of that before I wrote the confrontation scene with Salim. But when Fushichin started his grand speech about religion and rules I knew that he was gonna repeat his record. He is a fun guy. The story was super bleak for the most part and he did try his best to lighten the mood. And I also love his discussion when Hellen criticized him for being a coward in Tenma’s(I guess it's Succi’s now?) mansion. He still trusts that his words will change the world thus he keeps on talking.

His relationship with Shunyazen was definitely planned. Even in volume 1, he talks about meditation and witnessing. And certain things he talked about doing something wholly and not planning out the future is a very zen / Buddhist mindset and teaching. He clearly was and always meant to be a zen practitioner. So, him breaking down the problems with religious beliefs is pretty appropriate. And the way Kioku explained what love is, is very different from how Hinokaiser believers would explain it.

But Fushichin isn’t Kioku. He couldn’t really help Hellen despite having way more opportunities to say something to Hellen than Kioku. And there is always the inkling that he is saying all this to feel good about himself more than helping others. Or maybe it’s the fact that he can easily identify the problems people like Klancy and Salim are having but Hellen’s mistakes and flaws are hard to identify because it’s a lot more subtle.

And of course, Fushichin has his issues too. I didn’t fully explain what it was in this volume but there were some sections where it’s pretty apparent that Fushichin’s a bit scared or a bit bloodthirsty. More on that in the future volumes I suppose.

Klancy

Klancy’s backstory was teased in this volume. This will get elaborated in the future volumes. Klancy didn’t do a whole lot in this volume, it really was focused on Fushichin, Hellen and later on Salim. But he is good at solving crimes as always. Him admitting to watching a cartoon at the cinema is hella cute. I always think about what an average experienced detective would say when writing Klancy. Then again, I’m not a cop, so I don’t know everything. Tho, I’m sure many people share his beliefs too.

Kyong

From all the new characters, easily my favorite. He is such a badass and dubious bastard. And I love some of things crazy lines where he threatens Herald. Fushichin talks about breaking the law and being truthful to himself all the time but doesn’t really do anything. He kinda barks a lot but no bite. This bastard bites like a donkey but when others look he tries to act all innocent. But his heart is way more corrupted than Fushichin. There is really not much desire for love or righteousness in him. He is pretty much a prime example of a corrupted cop. Abuses his powers to get what he wants and completely lies and hides the truth.

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But strangely enough, he is not a villain, far from that. He is just a human…like the rest of us. And his character also asks a very interesting question regarding punishments being too harsh. When people go to jail for relatively small reason like illegal weapon selling and buying there is bound to be some cops who would profit from hiding the illegal transaction and making a deal with the gun traders. And is what Kyong doing truly wrong? Yeah, it’s illegal as fuck but you gotta question everything to reach the truth, right? And these laws will never change if nobody questions them.

While it’s true that Layla’s family was killed because of the illegal gun trade, punishing Herald or Ragdan because of their indirect involvement is unjust. It’s not like Layla’s gonna revive after they go to prison. And from Herald’s perspective, being thrown in jail due to illegally selling your gun is way worse than allowing Kyong to have his way with his girl. Of course, if Kyong was a good person he could have hid the illegal transaction out of the kindness of his heart. But that’s the thing, he is not Hellen. His help and support always come with a price.

But Kyong definitely would have less power if the law was looser and it didn’t constantly punish others for petty reason. Due to the laws being so heavy and harsh, Kyong almost seems like a good person relatively because he offers these people an alternative to going to jail.

And I also love how much he uses lies to threaten criminals and liars to tell the truth too. He is a…layered individual.

Salim

Ahh, the man, the legend himself. I love Danganronpa. And what I love about Danganronpa the most is that it tests your ability to think straight logically without getting the feeling of attachment involved. So this case being amongst the detectives and characters we got to know and get attached to being suspected makes it really interesting and a lot harder to find the culprit imo. If you reread the scenes with Salim, he barely does anything to further the investigation. And he is accusatory towards his colleagues like always but maybe more so than usual. Thank god he didn’t find Nina first because likely he would have just killed the girl and pretended to find her.

He definitely should have burned the mansion if he absolutely didn’t want to be found out but he also wanted to frame Juniper with the case shellings. And it might have also taken a bit of time to start a fire that would spread without dying. They were probably panicking and wanted to leave the scene as fast as possible.

I guess what makes it kind of easy to predict this twist may be the fact that Salim was always an asshole. He did call Mew a sinner and people probably interpreted that scene as Salim criticizing the incest but it’s pretty much confirmed that he was criticizing both the incest and the gayness.

Yeah, he is a strong religious believer. But humans are more emotional than one might think. Even our so called logic and beliefs are very emotional. I think it’s the same with Salim. He became religious because in his life the people who saved him were all religious. And in the case of Fareed he was very malicious with how he raised Salim. Showed kindness and compassion in his youth only to use him as a tool to kill his enemies. Salim probably didn’t want to doubt his words and his love. But that’s perhaps the issue with belief. It is merely a repression of doubt and thoughts. Detective work is based around observation and doubt. But Salim was biased in the way he investigated and biased in the way he lived.

Just because he survived because of religion, doesn’t mean it’s the same for others. And he didn’t trust his true nature when deciding his actions. He trusted his mind which was brainwashed by Fareed and the Hinokaiser religion. That is his great flaw.

I think it’s the same with many real-life religions. Nobody cares about the truth. They only care about their desire and what they want truth to be. Hence why Galileo Galilei was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church because he said that the earth orbits around the sun and not the other way around. Their egos probably couldn’t admit that their religious text was wrong and that the universe doesn’t revolve around the earth.

And the concept of god watching you over, god punishing evil people by sending them to hell and reward good people go to heaven is also an illusion created by people’s own fears. They probably didn’t want to admit that they know nothing of the universe and that they are all alone and fundamentally there is no good and bad and there is not a whole lot of punishments for bad actions. An existence with inbuilt morality is far better than the freedom filled wild west in their eyes.

But then again, I don’t think its scientifically accurate to say that bad people go unpunished. Its just that punishments that scientists and meditators talk about is a lot different than what religious people talk about. Hatred, fear, anger, lust, desire is punishment in itself. You’ve been possessed by these negative emotions, so much so that you’re hurting yourself and others. Yes, it is entirely possible for an innocent person to be beaten, killed by people with negative emotions. But physical pain is far less damaging and painful than spiritual pain. Even if you have a healthy body and a live in a palace and a world with no conflict, so long as you’re burning with desire, lust, anger, hatred, fear…peace is impossible, happiness is impossible.

All the crime in the world is just a by product of suffering. People who are suffering emotionally want to inflict physical suffering to others.

So instead of cursing the world for being flawed and corrupted, its better to turn your eyes inward and see your inner world. Your beliefs, thoughts and emotions color the world. If you’re suffering, the world is suffering, if you’re happy, the world is happy too.