[Spoilers] Danganronpa Kirigiri - Volume 2 Discussion

This is a lot more exciting and Danganronpa-like than the first volume, but it's far from perfect.

The means used by Yozuru to murder Chage and Toyanoo are absurd, and the author abused Sherlock Holmes statement that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" as an excuse for bad writing.

It's hard to believe that Yozuru was able to strangle both Chage and Toyanoo after also successfully throwing a rope around their neck, when they weren't even taken by surprise, but were directly facing her as she did all that, and in a situation in which Yozuru clearly seemed very suspicious, since she was outside at a time when only the 'detective' and the 'serial killer' were supposed to be able to leave their room on their own.

It's not impossible for a woman to strangle a man, but in reality Chage and Toyanoo were a lot more likely to be able to stop her and even strangle her first if they weren't gentlemanly enough not to want to hurt a woman regardless of the circumstances.

And another big problem of Kirigiri's theory is her surmise that Yozuru was able to open the window of her own room even though there was no hint that Yozuru's window could be opened. And to make things worse Kirigiri even went to check afterwards if the window in Yozuru's room could be opened and she said it couldn't, and just satisfied herself with the surmise that Yozuru locked the window so that it couldn't be opened anymore, though no explanation was given about how Yozuru did it.

The story would make more sense if at least it was related that when Kirigiri went to investigate the window in the room used by Yozuru she found a way to open the window that couldn't be used to open the other windows. But instead the reader is just expected to blindly believe in Kirigiri's surmise about the window in Yozuru's room because her surmise needs to be correct in order for her whole conjecture about the means of murder to be correct.

Even Samidare's theory that Nanamura murdered Chage makes more sense than Kirigiri's theory, since it's not really true that it takes ten minutes to strangle a man; It depends on the strength of the person strangling the other. A man strangling another to death in two or three minutes makes more sense than a woman succeeding in strangling a man to death in ten. The only real problem of this theory about Chage's death then would be the reason for Nanamura to strangle Chage while one of the two had to be upside down for the finger marks on Chage's throat to be upside down like Kirigiri said that they were.

But this could turn out to be a means used by Nanamura to mislead Kirigiri, making her think that the serial killer used some complicated means through the opening of the window to strangle the victim when in reality he really just turned the body of the victim upside down to strangle him.

And Nanamura could also be Toyanoo's killer, since he could take off his shoes before entering in Toyanoo's room to avoid leaving his footprints in the room, and then after murdering Toyanoo and leaving the room he just had to throw water once again on the floor to wash off his footprints until he reached the door of his own room, where once again he just had to take off his shoes so there would be no evidence that he returned to his room after walking through the corridor at night.

Another problem is the way how Kirigiri used the maid's money in the last auction although there was no hint that she stole the maid's money before it was all burned. This is unfair writing for the readers.

And the ending would be a lot more satisfactory if at least Mifune had survived along with Samidare and Kirigiri, besides Mikado. The fact that only the two main characters and the main villain survived while all the other characters died made the whole resolution of the case seem meaningless, since they weren't able to save anyone by solving the case. Especially considering that what decided Yozuru's defeat in the game was the success in protecting Mifune's life, it would have made more sense if Mifune had survived in the end as well.

But leaving all those points aside, this volume was very enjoyable to read. It was really fun to craft theories about who was the murderer and how the characters could have sabotaged the plans of the murderer, and then to see the characters reaching the same conclusions as myself and then arguing about it.

It was especially satisfying when Toyanoo pointed out that they could just put an end to the auction, not participating in it anymore, and then just staying all together during the night so that one could protect the other from the 'serial killer', though it's silly how no one pointed out that it was necessary not to allow anyone to approach the machine to deposit money, considering the possibility of someone cheating, which is what ended up happening.