I wasn’t able to type this up before but now I’m home so here we go. This is a slight character analysis for Ryouta Mitarai but mainly pointing out something that I haven’t seen anyone mention on the DR subreddit. Will contain minor spoilers for Mirai Hen episodes 1-3.
NOTE: The most important chunk is Episode Three, feel free to skip One and Two. I mentioned episodes 1+2 as well just in case they can be expanded on in following episodes.
Episode One
When we first meet our animator, he appears quite lost, and is seen here, holding his phone a few inches away from his chest.
He’s tilting it in a way that seems to me as if he’s playing pokemon go looking at the screen. I’d say he’s either reading something or following it for directions - perhaps as he wasn’t expected to be there, he didn’t know where the meeting room was and therefore needed directions.
When Kirigiri confronts him, he seems to hide the screen and hold it closer to his chest.
But the position isn’t entirely important. It’s harder to analyse anime as these things can just be inconsistencies in the animation. What I want to point out is that at this point in the show, we can assume that phones are working. This is proven by Bandai using a tablet to check the security systems during the attack. After he meets Kirigiri, he seems to put the phone away for the rest of the episode, although it’s hard to tell.
Episode two
The phone is not seen for the entire episode. You can just about see both of his hands when he sits next to Tengan, he does not grip with either of them.
Episode three
The phone returns again for episode three. You see him holding it for all of the time that he’s on screen. Attention is brought to it very subtly, it took me a while to pick up on it.
This is the most obvious way that they brought attention to it. Before his slight breakdown, he is shown squeezing the phone in anger.
There’s not much to say about this, it’s just foreshadowing in my opinion. But now we’re getting to the good stuff, so bare with me.
During Mitarai’s rant, his phone hand constantly follows and covers his bracelet. What’s interesting and what piqued my interest is that Kirigiri notices this.
Mitarai followed his bracelet with his phone to cover it up, Kirigiri noticed this and to test her theory, she asks him his NG code. How does Mitarai respond? She doesn’t even need to listen to him to be able to tell.
This last frame is the clearest as this is a very unnatural position and thing to do. Mitarai is clearly hiding his bracelet out of fear that Kirigiri will find it out. Also note that his other hand is clenched protectively. Phones shouldn’t work at this point. Gekkougahara says so. To further show this point, Kirigiri mimics his actions with her hand.
What does all of this mean? Right now I’m not sure, but if twewy taught me anything, it’s that if someone’s holding a phone all the time, it’s definitely purposeful. At the moment, all I can say is that it’s foreshadowing, and that once we do find out, it’ll be painfully obvious when rewatching, as usual with DR.
If you haven’t watched the recent episode of Danganronpa 3 Mirai Hen, well don’t look at this video its ***Spoilers AF*** but I hope you enjoy my freak out
