Character Analysis: Akane Owari

In recent years, the Internet has fallen in love with the concept of “hebo”. The term represents a handsome male character, usually endowed with great physical strength, but hopelessly stupid. “Himbo” is a mix of “he” and “bimbo”, another term that defines an attractive but also goofy female character. Akane Owari, from Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Spike Chunsoft / Abstract Game, 2012), is basically described as a female “hebo”, but not exactly a “bimbo”.

Overview

Let us explain this logic: Owari, the ultimate gymnast, or “ultimate gymnast,” is athletic and powerful, with a fighting spirit to be the most competitive it has produced issues that we will talk about below. Her skills are undeniable, but her intelligence (at least on an academic level, since the character is quite resourceful) is questionable. She is slow to understand concepts explained in “beautiful words”, and is sometimes naive, easily believing the lies of her colleagues (a somewhat contradictory trait, in terms of her past – more on this below). So she has the personality of a “hebo”, even though gender doesn’t fit the definition.

In addition, Akane is extremely passionate about food: in a certain scene, she even tries to enter an eating contest with Byakuya Togami, the Ultimate Wealthy Lineage, or “supreme heir” , another character loves to eat. However, the gymnast’s invitation was quickly turned down by him, who said ordinary people like her shouldn’t be trying to get their feet. Several other scenes in Danganronpa show Owari eating nonstop.

The three basic traits that define Akane Owari are already established: she’s argumentative, stupid, and hungry. And she never left any of them. Therefore, it is considered by the vast majority of fans as “shallow” or “undeveloped”. However, all three traits hide the truth about it: the truth is visual in the main story, but that’s made more explicit in the Free Time Event, or simply FTE, in the game.

These events are the mechanism presented by Danganronpa to develop the friendship between the main character, Hajime Hinata, and his fifteen other classmates. In it, the characters have intimate conversations with Hinata, revealing her past, fears, and ideals. To Akane, it’s no different (and as a curiosity: “Hajime” means “beginning”, while “Owari” means “end”, representing the original intention, which never came to fruition. reality, that the two are rivals). When the player chooses to talk to her, she will talk about her past, her family, and the teachings her environment has provided for her.

Past

Details: Akane is the older sister of seven children, whom she often refers to as “the kids”. She spent her childhood in the slums. Her parents are both unemployed, her mother has dozens of boyfriends – in chapter 2 of the game, Owari says “they used to get drunk and give me full body massages”. This phrase alludes to sexual harassment on the part of the mother’s lovers, but, having lived in an environment where such behaviors are so pervasive that they have even been normalized, she does not can confirm the truth. So much so that she talks about this dark past so casually, in addition to having a distorted notion of modesty, which leaves her colleagues shocked and confused.

Still pinned down in this world of harassment, she tells Hinata, in her first FTE, who, during her childhood, learned parkour to escape sexual predators. That’s when her relationship with gymnastics began. Her father, recognizing the girl’s agility, encouraged her to participate in competitions, which she always won. Despite his immense talent, Akane feels no love for the practice, unlike most of her peers in Ultimates: she’s only doing it for the money, devoting himself to supporting the kids.

(Brackets: this is why the author personally believes that Akane is portrayed as “stupid and naive” in Danganronpa 2’s main story is contradictory. a person providing for her family, she will be blackmailed, the victim of severe violence, or even dead. racist is to describe their only black character as an “inhuman,” despite Akane’s ingenuity and hard work.)

With a mindset of “small children”, Owari ended up exposing himself to more harassment. She started working as a waitress in a coffee shop, on the recommendation of one of her mother’s boyfriends, and there she came into contact with a regular customer: an elderly coach, who once touched Akane and complimented her body. He harassed her so much and insisted that she train with him, so much so that she eventually gave in, becoming a professional gymnast just for the money – money that allowed her to move to a gym. better home, along with his brothers and sisters.

In this waitress job, Akane reports that she “borrowed” leftover coffee, when she could. In addition, she also searches for food in trash and trees, constantly having to fight with others to survive. After several beatings, she sought more physical strength, and was no longer threatened. Violence is so common in the slums where she lives, that Akane is used to seeing corpses on the street “every morning”. This keeps her from looking for friends, and from trying to learn the names of others. This last trait is humorously reflected in FTEs with Hinata: she calls him “Hank”, “Hector”, and “Harvey”, until finally remembering that the young man’s first name is “Hajime”.

It also made her to suppress her emotions to the maximum. She fears being seen as weak, and this stems from the notion that, in the urban jungle where she grew up, showing weakness is like death. In the fourth FTE, Hinata reveals that Owari is afraid of ghosts, a fact that embarrassed her to the point of anger. Enraged, she demands it be kept secret.

Presents

After all the trauma of her character, she finally got the depth. Akane’s controversial obsession with the idea of ​​strength and crippling fear of weakness; she is “stupid” because she is used to talking with her fists; and eaten away by the pain of having nothing to eat in childhood. Regarding the lack of friends she reports above, she becomes close friends with Ultimate Team Manager, or “supreme coach”, Nekomaru Nidai.

Together, the two shine. At first, Nidai likes Owari because he sees potential in the young girl, in a much friendlier and less predatory way than her old trainer (he also gives her massages, but really, doesn’t. trouble); Owari likes Nidai because he never turns down a good fight, and thinks the coach, with all his physical strength, is an equal opponent. The two often train in combat, usually at the invitation of Akane, who always loses, but has a lot of fun.

Nekomaru is also often seen to calm the impulsive Akane. This comes to a climax: in chapter 3, the gymnast’s anger at director Monokuma, a teddy bear traps Danganronpa’s characters in a situation that imprisons them in an environment for until they decide to kill each other, taking her completely recklessly and even killing herself. to challenge you to fight, seemingly to the death.

Owari had no chance against the bear, the bear was highly armed to thwart such an attack. After a few minutes of confrontation, Monokuma finally decided that he was going to kill her, and fired a bazooka at her… but hit Nidai, who threw himself in front of her friend, saying “don’t be” die, Akane” earlier. go out. (After a series of events, he returns; more on this below.)

The event of his first friend’s sacrifice, a few whose names he remembered, clearly bound Akane’s heart. To others, however, it seemed like they had absolutely no idea what was going on. This is not to the end of the class is help it life in the slums. But her suffering is exposed to everyone when, creating yet another reason to kill her, Monokuma introduces the Despair Disease (“sickness of despair”) on the island. Italy. The person’s best kept secrets.

In another character number three, the disease attacks Akane. The specific symptom to her means “cowardly” – yes, that’s exactly the weakness she loathes, but in the end it’s still present in her, as in every human being. Essentially, Desperate Sickness opened the franchise for Nekomaru. She couldn’t stop crying, which she never allowed herself to do before, and said many times that she considered herself weak. At the end of the show, she discovers that her treating colleague, Mikan Tsumiki, the Supreme Nurse or “supreme nurse”, has harmed others, and actually brought her to tears – which she considers, to be a “persistent .disease effect”.

But it was true that the disease had awakened something in her. Her friend Nekomaru returns from the dead, as a high-tech machine, and, despite the initial shock of her appearance, she wants to attack Monokuma one more time (this time, the new) type of the skill of the skill packa.

They say that all good things are short-lived. And this certainly proves the worth for Nidai’s return: is not being half program when back to, he dies again, these times irreparably, falling off the floor and beheaded in this process. And Owari cried. He cries in the presence of everyone, not ugly and not sick, holding his robot head and dirtying the machine (in the game, depicted as a blue substance). She is so upset that what has happened to her can’t even get out of your metal body, whom she is often referred to as “trainer Nekomaru”, and she is ejected. . backed up by the idea of ​​dismantling him for an autopsy, albeit convinced later.

Once the sadness is over, the anger also comes. Akane Owari is extremely dangerous and angry. She makes many threats to whoever killed Nekomaru, saying “she will beat that person so much that he/she will never walk again”, but all this falls apart. after discovering the killer’s motives. Gundham Tanaka, Ultimate Breeder (“supreme breeder”), killed Nekomaru in a fight. Purpose? Killing them one by one will eventually free the gang from the new confinement created by Monokuma, where everyone will starve to death if they refuse to kill. Both Nekomaru and Gundham agree to sacrifice themselves for their friends (the latter refuses to admit it, hiding behind his “supervillain” personality).

Akane understands sacrifice. Forgive Gundham.

On a lower level, she also meets a good friend in Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, Ultimate Yakuza. Like Owari, he also suffered the loss of a loved one, a participant in the game of death arranged by Monokuma: his subordinate Peko Pekoyama, the ultimate swordsman, or “dark swordsman.” high”. She did the dirty work of the “young master”, killing someone who was an accomplice in the murder of Kuzuryu’s sister, while claiming to be just a tool. Crying, the yakuza proclaimed his love for her, but it was too late: she was executed as a murderer, in a scene using the boy himself, and accidentally caused him to lose his right eye.

Understanding what it feels like to be haunted by the pain of a friend’s sacrifice, Fuyuhiko gives her full support to Akane, meeting with her to talk about the people they’ve lost. At first, she doesn’t quite understand, and ignores his assertion that it’s okay to cry, but in the end, she lets herself fall in front of her colleagues, which impresses them. The two are close, Akane nicknamed Fuyuhiko “Baby Gangsta”, to his anger.

She is also assisted by Ultimate Mechanic, the supreme mechanic, Kazuichi Soda. The two weren’t close, but he helped Akane deal with her pain: as a gift for her, he used Nekomaru’s body parts and created a small robot, “Minimaru”, retains the original personality and can massage – Kazuichi recalls the gymnast’s love for these. She carries the robot everywhere she goes, with great affection.

Conclude

Akane Owari, who grew up in solitude, is afraid to form connections in a neighborhood where bodies appear daily, in the end, helped by all the connections he makes in the game. death. She matures and tries to let go of ideas that in the past allowed her to exist, but now, they are no longer an effective way to continue living. She never forcibly quits eating or builds up anger, but she understands that sometimes, yes, she can show weakness.
After all, Akane truly deserves to be called Ultimate, in more ways than she ever imagined.