Her wishes in life of how to refer to her are utterly ignored, and we’re all told that this is how things actually were, we promise, ignore what she wanted and her wishes. But… none of this is told to us by Chihiro. We’re told all this, and everyone just accepts it. We’re told that “he” dressed as a girl to deal with feelings of not being strong enough. The fact that Danganronpa thinks that it’s an acceptable “twist” is absolutely awful, not made better by its insistence on removing every ounce of self-identification Chihiro could possibly have.Īfter her death, we’re told that Chihiro was really a boy. Their assigned gender at birth isn’t some shocking reveal to make you distrust them, and to think otherwise is a disgusting insult to the person’s very sense of self.
When someone tells you “I’m a girl”, “I’m a boy”, “I’m non-binary”, they are not “lying” to you about their gender, full stop.
Oh my god! Mondo killed Chihiro! Oh my god! Chihiro was a boy! Oh my god! All this lying!Įxcept, you know, gender identity isn’t lies. All this is used as just a way to shock and “trick” the audience.
Mondo is overcome by rage and jealousy at Chihiro’s strength and courage in revealing this, feeling humiliated and “unmanly”, and as a result, strikes her over the head with a dumbbell, killing her. The secret being, that she was born a boy, and expresses herself femininely and presents as a girl. As a result of this, Chihiro attempts to build trust and courage by outing her secret to a friend she trusts, one Mondo Owada. Monokuma threatens to out a “secret” that every classmate has. She’s here as the “ultimate programmer”, and while we don’t get to see much of her doing that, we generally get a sense of her being a well-meaning and good person.Ĭhapter 2 is where the issues begin.
She’s exceedingly shy, but seems pleasant enough and kind. There will be spoilers for up to the end of the 2nd chapter of Danganronpa.Ĭhihiro arrives at the school like the rest of the cast, and for most of the first chapter she isn’t too relevant to the main story, most of it spent on establishing her character. Before I do anything, I think I want to lay out exactly what happens on the table and lay out what happens in the story as relating to her. The question of Chihiro and gender is something that deserves examination, but this isn’t one of those happy examinations, it’s a “what went wrong” examination. It’s not a pleasant topic, I’m aware, but it’s something that I don’t want to go unremarked upon. I love this game, but there is one part I do not love, and that part is Chihiro Fujisaki. A pebble in the shoe that is Danganronpa, so to speak. And yet… there’s always been an issue with it. It showed me engaging and interesting mystery stories, enthralled me with a unique setting, and gave me characters I still love to this very day. Danganronpa is one of my favourite games that I have ever played.