I dedicate this lengthy blog post to Queen Hiruko Shizuhara I. Buckle up folks, I’m about to get nerdier than usual with it. It’s time for another blog about Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy; not super long after I wrote about a song off the game’s soundtrack. What can I say? This game has left a deep impression on me. To a degree very few other works have managed. Let’s be real it’s too damn big to write one blog post analyzing the whole thing. Well, maybe I could, but the word count would probably go insane. And if you know my blogs you know they can be pretty damn long already. So instead I’m picking a specific part of the game to analyze and there may be another LDA blog analyzing some other part of it later. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll get hit by a car tomorrow and you’ll never hear from me again! Who knows right? Either way this particular blog post focuses on one of my favorite parts of this game: the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc.

Now, I don’t think it’s actually called that, at least, not as far as I know. But I’m coining the term now and I think the fanbase should roll with it. What the fuck else are you going to call it? If you already know what part I’m talking about, this blog is for you. If you haven’t the slightest clue, maybe not so much. Also if you’re deep enough in the game to guess what I mean by the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc, but not deep enough in the game to know what happened to Sirei, this blog post probably isn’t for you just yet either. We’re looking at the events that transpire during Hiruko Shizuhara’s reign as leader with the power of hindsight and spoiler-y information. There’s your warning. Now for all those still interested let’s proceed.

Before we talk about the events of this arc in depth let’s establish some background. I consider the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc to last from Day 8 to Day 15, relatively early on in the game. Of course we can’t just talk about this range of days in a vacuum. We need to see what built up to this situation. And to do that, we gotta talk about Sirei.

Ah yes, the peculiar fascist-adjacent blob. He seemingly dragged all of the cast into Last Defense Academy, a strange school in a desolate location surrounded by pink fire. There’s these bizarre creatures called invaders that try to break in for reasons unknown at this point in the story. Sirei’s job is to lead the students as they fight off the mysterious invaders. He’s a questionable guy, you can tell he’s hiding something from early on. I’m also skeptical of that cheap DLC he’s always pushing. Ah man, that certain Spartan’s performance of Sirei is a national treasure but that’s beside the point. The deal is Sirei runs the place, he told us that winning the war at Last Defense Academy will save humanity somehow, he’s clearly got some information he’s withholding, and he ended up chopped up in a garbage can before he could tell us the deets. Wild.

Man having Sirei die first was such a great twist. If you’re coming into this game with Danganronpa experience such a thing is almost unthinkable. Apparently Sirei doesn’t have an infinite supply of robot clones around to keep things going. What a dreadful design oversight! We had so much we needed to hear from him too! The day before he disappeared he told everyone he’d consult with the higher ups to decide if he’d give our class the full story. That’s not quite how it worked out obviously. Why? Well… at this point in the story nobody knows. The leading theory is the invaders snuck in somehow and got his ass, but nobody has proved anything definitive.

One could say the students that choose not to fight are being cowardly. I don’t dispute that assessment, but I think it’s a fairly realistic response. As we see later in the story all the non-fighters have their specific reasons to refrain from fighting, and they’re understandable to an extent. I find it hard to imagine myself being instantly willing to stab a knife in my chest, activate mysterious blood powers, and fight off these peculiar creatures. It’s quite a leap for young people with no fighting experience to do that. Their hesitancy reminds me of the hesitancy many people (myself included) have to get heavily involved in current affairs. Admittedly, our real world situation is not quite as immediately dire as what the Last Defense Academy cast has to deal with. At the moment. But man things are looking dark here in America. We’re certainly not the only ones with issues, but as an American blogger I pay special attention to the fuck shit afoot on my soil. I’m never forgetting what happened to Reneé Good, Alex Pretti, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero. That’s far from an exhaustive list of the regime’s victims, but they’re the ones I’ve seen haunting videos for. I’m sure there will be more names to add to that list after this blog’s published.

Back to LDA, with Sirei gone here’s the situation. We’ve got a modest sized group of high school seniors, and at least a couple people younger than that, stranded in a strange school in an unknown location. They do not know how to get home, and there’s a high risk of death for anybody who tries it. They can stay at the school and hope Sirei was right that it would all be over in 100 days, but with him gone is there any assurance that deal will still work out? We didn’t get the full story from Sirei so it’s hard to tell what we’re actually accomplishing by staying to fight in the school. Regardless of whether or not we have a strong motivation to fight, the invaders sure do. They’ll keep coming to fuck shit up in the school, and they’ll definitely kill the students if given the chance. So it seems like they kinda have to fight the invaders whether they want to or not. You can fight and risk death, run away and probably die, or stay put and probably die. What a great set of choices! Sirei may not have been entirely trustworthy, but the situation sure seems extra precarious without him.

In spite of how tenuous their position is, Sirei’s death doesn’t seem to change people’s behavior much. At least not immediately. The same four students that were willing to fight before Sirei dipped are still fighting. Eito went outside for a while, almost died, and then Takumi and co. saved his ass. Thanks to that turn of events Eito decided to join the fight as well. As for the rest… well… whatever hang ups they had about fighting before Sirei dipped from existence still remain. They don’t want to fight, but they’re too afraid to try their luck searching for home outside Last Defense Academy either. Their approach to this perilous situation is to ride it out and do nothing in the hopes the situation will improve on its own. Cool.

As lame as that approach is I can’t help but think about the countless number of people doing the same shit in reality. Look at where we stand. As I type this American democracy and its constitution continue to erode in real time. A lot of the administration’s brutality is directed at immigrants, but pretty much any opponent of the administration or person of the wrong complexion is a potential target. Ever heard of NSPM-7? If not, I’d recommend learning about it. It basically means left wing views make you a terrorist in the eyes of the regime. Lovely right? I wonder how the midterms will play out. Will Trump and his allies successfully find a way to tip the scales? The ballot box is highly unlikely to be favorable to him, but he’s clearly gonna try some shit. He’s been trying some shit already. How nice of him to send his feds over to watch select blue counties. I’m sure it’s totally all above board and his choice of counties to target is a complete innocent coincidence! To be fair, Maricopa’s a swing county not blue exactly, but still. Will any of the shit he tries actually work out? And even if Republicans do take an L at the ballot box, that’s not going to automatically fix everything overnight. Our problems go a lot deeper than one particular president.

I could go all day about all the things I think are wrong about our current moment. Perhaps you already agree, perhaps you think things are fucked up for a different reason, perhaps you’re a zen master and you think everything’s chill. Whatever. The important part for this blog’s purpose is this: I believe our country is in deep shit if things just keep on going how they’re going. What have I done about that fact? Well, perhaps it’s in my best interest to not get too in-depth about my activities online, but if I’m being real, it’s not that much. I certainly wouldn’t say I’m on the front lines. One could say my current actions put me closer to the non-fighters camp in LDA. The strong majority of the US population is closer to the non-fighters camp as well. Most people are just trying to live their lives. In the face of worsening material conditions they just struggle harder to live. Some people hardly pay any attention to what’s going on around them at all. They don’t care for politics so they just tune it out unless it directly affects them. And even when it does directly affect them, they don’t always give the politics of the situation much thought. Others see the situation and actively support what’s happening. Some people don’t like what’s happening, but feel powerless to stop it and are too afraid to stick their neck out. Can’t get shot by an ICE agent if you don’t go outside y’know. Well, you can if they come to you specifically, but keeping your head down certainly reduces the chance of that happening.

See, the problem with the ‘keep your head down’ approach is that you’re not doing anything to push back. If every single person responded to fascist crackdowns by meekly complying then the fascist crackdown wins no trouble. Nobody would be there to protect you if you get dragged out of your house and sent to a camp. After all, everybody else is keeping their head down too. It’s less risky than taking action in the short term, but it’s a guaranteed failure if too many people do it long term right? Kinda like how if everybody decided to play it safe and not fight in Last Defense Academy, the invaders would barge in unopposed and then everybody would get massacred soon after. Basically, being a deliberate bystander only protects you by sheer luck or if there’s enough other people getting active to save your ass.

So then what about the people who do get active in pushing back against the regime? Those people out on the streets, in the courtrooms, and anywhere else applicable doing what they can to impede the rising fascism. These are the people most likely to get arrested, brutalized, or worse. The most conspicuous targets for the regime. Those most active in resisting assume the largest risks, but it is a necessary role. If you don’t want to just go along with wherever we’re being taken, someone has to stick their necks out. Those who stand up ultimately make things safer for those who do not participate. Also worth noting the risk active folk take is reduced when more people join their cause. After all, more people means a lower chance of being individually targeted, and more people watching your back. Though larger sizes also increase the chance some hostile actors blend into the ranks. Plenty of nuances and complications to go around. Still I hope you get the general idea. There’s an interplay and fluidity between those who actively participate in a struggle and those who don’t. It’s an important dynamic in real life and Last Defense Academy alike. In the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc, the tension of this dynamic takes the forefront.

Enter Hiruko Shizuhara

Real world politics aside, let’s get back to the smaller scale fictional politics of this game… which does reflect on real world politics in major ways but whatever. As I’ve laid out earlier the situation at Last Defense Academy is rather severe at this point in the story. Nobody seems to know what to do. It’s not like their situation would get any easier just riding it out. They need a sense of direction. And so Hiruko Shizuhara steps in.

Hiruko’s one of those characters I just had one look at and instantly knew I fucked with them. She looks tough as nails but still pretty because she’s just that stylish. That leather jacket over the long dress with the slit. Mostly black clothing with a hint of white on her chest. I think that may be comment on her character. She’s got good tastes in accessories. Those pyramid earrings communicate an orderly manner and a sturdy foundation. Her neatly kept long dark purple hair and red eyes add a dash of color to the mix. Conveying mystery and a bit of danger from her. The glasses are a plus. She’s got her manly side. She’s kinda goth but not too flashy with it. Also kinda librarian-y. It’s a whole ass vibe. Gotta give the character designer props for this one. Thank you Rui Komatsuzaki!

There are times where the character design’s incredible work but the writing doesn’t live up to it. Fortunately that’s not the case this time. To me any way. Hiruko’s not exactly someone everybody’s going to like. Considering how she basically tells you to fuck off when you first meet her, maybe it’s weirder if you do like her initially. You could say a lot of things about Hiruko, but nice isn’t one of them. Though at this point I’m well accustomed to the ice queen. So when I see her multiple dickish lines early on I know there’s going to be more to her. Honestly I like her even when she’s being a dick sometimes. She usually has a strong point to what she’s saying even when she’s being harsh. Is this one of those cases where me liking someone’s looks makes me give them more leeway? Shit probably, but I think she’s worth it. Besides, if you just write her off as a self-absorbed asshole you’ll miss the full picture with her.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to plug the playthrough I’m a part of. You can check out the Ian’s Mind Last Defense Academy playthrough. You can hear me and a certain Spartan you may be familiar with making erm, distinctive attempts at voice acting. Especially with Spartan’s characters, where else will you get Richard Nixon Takemaru? You also get Ian, who hasn’t written for this blog and probably never will. He’s a swell guy and a great entertainer. Our LDA streams are rather periodic due to scheduling constraints among other things, so who knows if we’ll actually finish the game or come anywhere close any time soon. But every stream we do is a treasure in my eyes. Even with all the audio troubles (particularly early on), all my pet parrot’s vocal interjections, all the chaotic diversions, it’s all part of the charm to me.

I mention this not just for the shameless plug, but because our most recent LDA episodes cover the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc. And suffice to say, my homeboy Ian’s take on Hiruko differs significantly from my own. Simply put, he doesn’t fuck with her. Some choice words from him about her include, “You can tell she bougie, she thinks she’s better than everybody” and “arguably a narcissist.” Now I don’t agree with those assessments, but the strongest case I could make for why they’re wrong involve spoiler-y information from way later in the game. And trying to spell out her intentions during this early part of the game kinda defeats the point. The ambiguity and difficulty reading her is part of that early LDA experience. Who am I to take the mystique away just to convince my homeboy to not dislike one of my favorite anime ladies? Well, I do try to explain her a little bit, but I hold a lot back. Get why I’m bringing up this playthrough now? I’m putting all the stuff I want to say about her and this arc here because I need some outlet to get this off my chest. And realistically it’ll take a year or more before the Ian’s Mind LDA playthrough gets far enough for me to say all this to my homeboys directly. Might happen faster if it gets more views 😉 Whatever you probably get the point. Let’s proceed.

To be clear this is not an analysis of Hiruko overall, but an attempt to make sense of the Hiruko we see early on. The one who seemingly thinks everyone around her sucks but decides to lead the group anyway. She’s always got that hard ass side to her, but in this part of the game that hard ass side seems like her only mode. To be fair, we can catch a few glimpses of her other sides even early on. Talk to her during free time and you can see how she’s a lover of the arts, albeit with unconventional tastes. I may not fully agree with her aesthetic sensibilities, but I appreciate a gal that can appreciate unconventional art. We also see her affinity for the leisure lounge. Hiruko may be a strong believer in discipline, in all sorts of ways, but she still sees value in the lighter moments of life. Shit I’d probably think the leisure lounge is the best room in the whole facility if I was there too. I love swimming… and swimsuits. I’m not so sure Hiruko would agree with me on that last part though… or maybe she would? She’s got some freakiness to her. Any ways, Hiruko is multi-faceted even early on, but there’s one facet that reigns supreme at this point. That being her dedication to the war.

Hiruko was ready to fight when she got to the academy. In fact, she was ready to fight before she even set foot inside. Look at how readily she accepted Sirei’s order to fight on Day 1 at LDA. She was quite literally the first person to agree. Didn’t show much of any hesitation either.

She accepts Sirei’s terms at face value and makes her decision. One would think with Hiruko might share some of Eito’s skepticism towards Sirei. She’s the cold rational type and this situation seems downright nonsensical. We see later on that she does have doubts to an extent, grilling Sirei with some hard questions after the battle is over. Even so she doesn’t have even a hint of hesitation or skepticism when it comes to the battle itself. Rather unlike the rest of her classmates, sans Darumi. (Takemaru and Takumi also join the fight Day 1, but they express some misgivings while doing it.) In Darumi’s case she’s basically just in it for the thrill. Hiruko’s not entirely different; she gets a kick out of fighting the invaders and seeing their colorful entrails. We also see early on she has great confidence in her abilities. She knows she’s strong and she flaunts it. The rush of combat and feeling like she’s hot shit on the battlefield certainly contributes to her willingness to fight. But as we see later on her dedication to the war runs deeper than that.

Hiruko’s rather evasive about her motivations and past experience, particularly early on. Even so, we start to get pieces of the puzzle leading up to her eventual dictatorship. She reveals she has prior experience fighting the invaders, though she’s vague on the details. This certainly explains how she accepts the call to fight so easily. It’s basically just a continuation of what she’s already been doing. Considering how she was locked in from the jump, it may have thrown her off seeing everyone else act so lost at the start. She was probably hoping she’d link up with some experienced fighters like her. She sees how confused everyone else is and realizes that’s not the case. She probably got annoyed by that, feeling like she’s fighting with a group of lost puppies. Hence why she called everyone incompetent on Day 1. From her perspective, she was among noobs. She’s not entirely wrong about that, though I’ll admit she didn’t need to be so mean about it. The line between ice queen and asshole can be rather blurry at times…

Another moment I find relevant in the buildup to the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc is the first execution. The team defeats a commander and then he pleads for his life in… whatever the hell their language is. Most of the team hesitates when faced with his pleas. Hiruko not so much. You can see the short for the Ian’s Mind rendition of this scene below for reference. Alternatively, you can click this link here if the embed isn’t working. Alternatively, you can skip it entirely because I can’t force you to do anything.

Regardless if you do or not here’s some choice quotes from her.

“We are at war. This is one of our enemies. That’s all we need to know.”

“Trying to sympathize or understand it is just a waste of time.”

Yeesh. She’s cold and practical to the extreme here. To be clear, when I say I love Hiruko that doesn’t mean I agree with her every word and action. I don’t think I’d be this callous towards any living being in any situation. Maybe if I was really tilted and the person I was facing down was literally Hitler 2.0 that was directly responsible for killing my family or some extreme scenario like that. Even then I probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable killing them. Clearly Hiruko doesn’t view the commanders as human or anything comparable. The way Hiruko engages in violence with ease is unsettling. I’d probably be scared of her if I met her in real life. But that’s part of the fun in fictional characters. You can enjoy them, dark sides and all without having to deal with the real world consequences that kind of behavior leads to. Kinda like how I dig Ubel from Frieren in spite of her murderous tendencies. Ubel’s hot, she’s got a cool vibe to her, and nobody actually got killed by her, so it’s all good. It’s a similar phenomenon to how a bunch of ladies and assorted queer folk are into Michael Meyers and other horror villains. To be clear, I think Hiruko’s a better person than Ubel or Michael Meyers or any crazy killers like that. I’m sure Hiruko has seen some shit the invaders have done to people. She doesn’t kill without reason. She kills because she’s locked in on the war… and just so happens to get a sadistic kick out of it. Now there’s a lot to unpack there, and I certainly will later in the blog. But suffice to say, there’s a difference in psychology and morality between a zealous soldier with multiple kills and a serial killer. Many would consider the zealous soldier a good person if their cause is just. Is Hiruko’s cause just? Well… let’s put a pin in that. Point is, homegirl may be brutal at times; let’s be honest, many times. Still there are nuances to her actions. She’s fucked up but there’s something substantial to her.

While we’re looking at telling moments in the buildup to the arc, how about the time when Eito left the school? Hiruko wasn’t on board with sending out a rescue mission because of the heavy risk involved. It’s dangerous out there and losing even more people would be a huge detriment. If Last Defense Academy got targeted while they were out she’d be kinda fucked defending the school alone. Still Takumi and co. got her to concede, but not without some verbal fighting. The part I find important to note here isn’t that she wanted to leave Eito to die. I mean, if you consider the matter practically it was pretty risky to try and save him, especially with all the uncertainty surrounding Sirei’s disappearance at the time. And it was Eito’s own decision to head out there. It’s not the nice thing to do but it is the safer bet. What I’m more interested in is how Hiruko went in on Gaku during this conversation.

Hiruko is not particularly nice to the non-fighters in general, clearly, but I find it noteworthy she goes in on Gaku specifically. Perhaps you could say she said shit to Gaku that she wanted the rest of the non-fighters to hear. But why start shit with Gaku specifically? Tsubasa was chirping in with something similar right before Gaku said his piece. Hiruko could’ve jumped on her. Does she just find Gaku especially annoying? I mean, probably, a lot of people do. But I also think she honed in on him because she considered him the most pliable. Can’t exactly challenge Tsubasa’s masculinity the same way.

Perhaps I’m overthinking it, maybe she’s just talking shit to talk shit. Perhaps when Gaku says Hiruko has it out for him a bit later on in the story, that’s just his victim complex speaking. Rather than Hiruko actually going after Gaku in particular. Takemaru interjects to defend Gaku soon after the screenshots above, so we don’t know how far she’d go in on him otherwise. We also don’t know what their off-screen interactions are like. As such, my hypothesis that Hiruko was trying her own version of persuasion on Gaku isn’t 100% proven. Regardless it’s fair to say Hiruko is keenly aware of the people who aren’t fighting in their group. We can see the signs that she’d target them before the Hiruko Dictatorship begins.

Now that’s some foreshadowing. While she may have some extra smoke for Gaku she sure isn’t letting anyone else on the sidelines off the hook. For context this is from the point after they discover Sirei in the trash can and the school gets jumped soon after. It is a remarkably precarious situation. And yet none of the non-fighters feel compelled to help out. Although I don’t agree with everything Hiruko says, I sure can’t blame her for being pissed at this point. To Hiruko’s eyes there’s a direct line between the non-fighter’s inaction and the deaths of everyone. Unfortunately for her the stubbornness of the non-fighters goes deep. So what’s she going to do about it? This is a rather blatant build up for the events of the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc, but there’s one other scene that foreshadows it even more blatantly. And it’s all the way back in Day 2.

So this is Day 2, before Sirei gets trashed. Almost a week before Hiruko officially takes charge. And we can see here Hiruko is already thinking about what to do with the non-fighters. She’s vague about her fears. What’s this worst possible scenario exactly? How is she so locked in she considers herself a soldier on Day 2? These are questions we never get a direct answer to. However, there’s enough information later on to give us a good idea. But that’s a topic for later in the blog. Suffice to say it’s a strong hint that Hiruko has some additional knowledge she’s not sharing. Would she have been vague posting so hard if she was only basing her comments off of belief in Sirei’s claims? Probably not, right? Sirei already said humanity’s fate was on the line; she wouldn’t need to be vague about something the whole group already heard. Must be more to it than that. Perhaps if Takumi gave this conversation more thought things would’ve played out differently. You could say that about a lot of stuff that happens in this game honestly. I like the dude but he’s not exactly brilliant.

We can see in Takumi’s internal monologue that he picked up on Hiruko’s authoritarian streak. He correctly predicts that Hiruko would take a hardline approach to dissent. Doesn’t take too long for that imagination to become reality. But it seems like he pretty much forgot about this conversation once the Hiruko Dictatorship started. She claimed it’s in everyone’s best interest to get everyone on the battlefield, by any means necessary. Perhaps if he remembered that he’d be less surprised by the moves Hiruko makes during her reign. He wouldn’t need Eito’s help to figure out Hiruko’s intentions. After all, she basically broadcasted her intentions to him ahead of time. And he broadcasted to her that he has no plans of pushing the non-fighters himself. But there, she said it, she wants to get everyone on the battlefield ‘by any means necessary.’ She likely had some ideas in mind at the time, and she got some time to refine that plan. Soon enough we get to see what she had in mind.

The Reign of Queen Hiruko Shizuhara, Day 8 to Day 15

First off one could argue that her reign actually began on Day 7, where she essentially appointed herself temporary leader for the invader attack. She was also doing leader-adjacent things before that, like taking initiative with the commander execution. But if you’re talking about the point she became leader with no caveats, Day 8 is the day. The day she appointed herself the official new leader and nobody stopped her. A successful authoritarian power grab.

Part of why I find this part of the story intriguing is how it’s a small-scale microcosm of real world societal phenomena. As much as I’m fond of Hiruko, I’m not fond of dictatorships. Yet there sure are quite a few of them around the world, both past and present. Here in America we’re seeing the president attempting to be a dictator, though his power has not gone uncontested. Plenty of other countries where democracy is already forfeit. Point is, the way authoritarian leaders gain power, the reasons people go along with it, the way leaders fall out of power, the various dynamics at play, all of this is interesting to me. I won’t say Hiruko’s literally like Assad or whatever, but I think there are some important lessons we can learn from how her reign plays out.

So first of all, why did Hiruko’s self-appointment work in the first place? It’s not like she was universally loved and respected by the Special Defense Unit (SDU) or anything like that. Quite the opposite. Pretty much the only person who has a positive opinion of Hiruko at this point is Darumi… and some portion of the onlooking audience (like me). Beyond that most SDU members have neutral to negative opinions on her at this time. So how the hell did she become leader with minimal pushback? Well, since the scene’s a bit too long to cover with screenshots let’s do a play by play.

In the morning of Day 8 Takumi goes to the cafeteria, and the whole SDU is there. Things start out simple enough. The twins go on about all the weird ass foods they can indulge in now that Sirei isn’t stopping them. There’s some conversation around that, nothing too dramatic. But that changes when Hiruko loudly clears her throat. She halts the conversation in its tracks because she has ‘an important announcement to make.’ When Takumi asks her what it is, she starts by opening things up for discussion.

By Hiruko standards she’s being rather nice about it. Knowing the title of this blog I think you can guess where this is going, but she has a few steps before she gets there. So here we see her ask the whole SDU if they have any ideas about what to do moving forward. As Hiruko correctly predicts nobody has a strong idea. The most we get is ‘maybe we should just hang out or do a killing game’ from Darumi and a vague ‘gotta stay around and fight’ from Takemaru. There’s still a lot of uncertainty regarding whether they can make it back home, or what the hell actually happens if they lose. They raise some valid points during their discussion, but nothing you could call a concrete plan. After letting the discussion play out a bit Hiruko reveals her announcement: she’ll be taking charge of the school.

The whole SDU is caught off guard by this. It seems like most of them are just too dumbfounded to speak. Takemaru’s not too enthusiastic about the idea. He’s been butting heads with her a lot, so that’s understandable. He prompts her to explain why she thinks she should be the leader. And thus Hiruko gives the crew something akin to a campaign speech. (By the way I’d usually put these images in a slideshow block, but it’s come to my attention there are significant accessibility issues doing that.)

So essentially Hiruko became dictator by saying she’s the leader, giving a speech, and then being accepted by default because nobody said shit to challenge her. Even Takemaru was at a loss for words. You can see him looking frustrated in the background. Like he wants to say something but he can’t really think of any shit to say. Seems like the rest are in a similar boat, though the emotions vary. Hiruko projects strong confidence and that she’s given this matter a lot of thought. This makes it difficult to counter her speech on the spot. As we see later she’ll have some trouble getting everyone to do as she says, but nobody wants to directly challenge her. And that’s enough for her to take the position. Take notes folks. Authoritarian leaders don’t necessarily need strong endorsements from the people to rise to power (though that certainly makes it easier). Strong arming yourself into the position and passive acceptance from the populace can work just as well. If the people there decided to go “fuck no” in unison Hiruko wouldn’t have much she could do. But clearly that didn’t happen.

Part of why Hiruko could gain power so easily is that the people least enthusiastic about the idea are the worst positioned to do anything about it. Takemaru’s refusal to hit girls limits his options against her, and he’s not the thinker type that’ll have a good response to her speech on the spot. The other three that could feasibly fight her: Eito, Darumi, and Takumi, don’t seem strongly opposed. The remaining people aren’t happy about the development, but they lack a solid counter-proposal or the will to directly fight her. After all, they’re avoiding fighting in general. Hiruko can use her hemoanima, which gives her superhuman fighting abilities if need be. If it came to a direct conflict all the non-fighters would be at a clear disadvantage. For all practical purposes Hiruko only needs approval or complacency from the people who are willing to use their hemoanima. And she accomplished that just fine. Hiruko’s speech is done in a way that the fighters are more likely to agree with. Because if you’re agreeing to fight and use hemoanima you’re ostensibly agreeing with the underlying premise that it’s a battle worth fighting. If you agree with that premise, you won’t have a huge problem with most of what she’s saying. Besides maybe the “don’t think just do what I say” type of stuff. But if none of the fighters want to step up as leader themselves… well, they just let it happen.

This is all a long way of saying Hiruko got the position because she has the conviction and nobody else really does at this point. Before we move on I’d like to take a closer look at some of the content of her speech. I think it’s worth noting that Hiruko toned down her shit talking side quite a bit. She’s not trying to be insulting and she’s not focusing on talking herself up. She’s trying to be persuasive. The basic gist of her message is ‘shit’s going to get rough if we don’t get organized, but if you just do as I say we’ll be fine.” Part of this message is directed at the non-fighters. She believes their reason for staying on the sidelines is fear, which is partially true but doesn’t tell the full story. Hiruko’s message attempts to address their fear. She’s essentially saying everybody has to take a risk to even have a chance at survival. She tells them that not fighting is actually riskier than fighting. She’s also trying to convince them that she’s reliable. She’ll do all the thinking and worrying so you don’t have to. If the non-fighter’s issues were purely about fear this approach might’ve worked. With Hiruko projecting so much confidence just leaving it to her might feel like an emotional relief of sorts. Just like how so many weak willed people support authoritarian strongmen in real life. The problem is the non-fighters’ reasons for not fighting are more complicated than just fear. Also they don’t trust Hiruko. Hiruko’s speech may have been enough to get her the leadership position unchallenged, but it was not enough to get the non-fighters onto the battlefield. As we see later on, Hiruko thinks that’s a major problem. A problem she has particular ways of dealing with.

The next day Hiruko makes her first decree. The cafeteria seems less crowded than usual and it turns out that’s her doing. She banned all non-fighters from the cafeteria and all other Last Defense Academy facilities. She doesn’t think they will ever change their minds of their own volition, so this is her first way of putting pressure on them. Rather brutal considering how they run the risk of starving to death without access to the caf. Though considering the presence of the Revive-O-Matic it’s not a 100% lethal move. It certainly is misery inducing though. Hiruko’s putting pressure on the non-fighters to change things up. I think her hope is that by making non-fighting as uncomfortable as possible they’ll see fighting as the more appealing option. If the non-fighters were normal cowards this tactic might just work. But we see in this case the new policy doesn’t make any of them budge. Perhaps if Hiruko just left things there and let the starvation continue for a longer period you could maybe get Gaku on board eventually. But after a couple days with no movement, it’s clear that this policy alone isn’t enough to quickly change minds. The problem is that the cafeteria restriction is already a rather harsh rule. How are you supposed to escalate further when you do such a drastic move right out the gate? Hiruko Shizuhara finds a way.

The image above is illustrated by yours truly, initially used as the thumbnail design for Episode 7 of our LDA playthrough. I drew this knowing what Hiruko was about to do in this episode. So I made her look cold, hard to read, and draped in darkness. With only a faint light illuminating her. I think it’s a rather suitable representation of Hiruko’s decision. Let’s get into it.

On Day 11 Hiruko summons everyone, non-fighters included, to the cafeteria. To invite them to a lovely meal of grilled chopsticks of course! Or a slice of dry bread after Eito pressed her. But no, the real reason she called them up isn’t anything so amusing. Hiruko says she wants Gaku, Kako, Ima, Shouma, and Tsubasa out of the school. Considering the inhospitable conditions and abundant danger outside this exile might as well be a death sentence. It’s quite the escalation to say the least. Her stated reason for doing this is that the non-fighters are freeloaders. If they stay in the school contributing nothing to the war effort that makes them liabilities. They’d be more useful trying to survive outside distracting the invaders for some time. There’s a line of cold logic to this reasoning; rather on brand for Hiruko. But it’s also a bit strange. She has been leader for less than a week at this point. She’s tried guilting them into the fight prior to her ascension. She tried a bit of persuasion during her speech. She tried pressuring the non-fighters by banning them from the facilities. Now she’s giving up entirely on persuasion after what, 3 days as leader? Hmmm…

Unsurprisingly Hiruko’s announcement gets some pushback. Takumi asks Hiruko to give them more time, and she concedes shortly thereafter. She says the non-fighters have 5 days to change their minds about non-fighting, and they’ll get a test at the end to prove their mettle. It’s certainly strange that she granted this five day extension and said she’d have some sort of test at the end with so little argument. This isn’t some grand revelation on my part. When the fighters discuss the situation afterwards they have similar ideas. Hiruko may be quickwitted, but I’m hard pressed to imagine she’d easily decide on a 5 day extension and the test at the end if that wasn’t part of the plan at the start. She didn’t even argue back or spend any time thinking about it before she offered those specific terms.

As Eito points out here, that five day extension was part of her plan. It’s worth considering why she didn’t just give the five day timeline immediately. I think part of the plan is to up the fear factor. By showing her willingness to kick them out immediately it raises the shock value. Makes her more intimidating. Would her announcement be as impactful if she offered the deadline upfront? Probably not. Furthermore, this way it looks like Takumi is the one that convinced Hiruko to give them an extension rather than it being initially her idea. As a result the non-fighters are more endeared to him. After all, they just saw him try to defend them. These extra brownie points makes it easier for Takumi to do male manipulation- I mean, persuasion later.

Hiruko essentially set up a form of good cop-bad cop dynamic to move the non-fighters. She plays the role of the crazy scary bitch trying to kick them out, which sets up the other fighters to look like a lifeline. The fighters aren’t exactly happy about this situation, but they understand the assignment well enough. So they set out to start convincing their passive teammates to join the cause. Takumi being the protagonist and also the most socially competent member of the fighters has to handle the persuasion himself. The rest of the fighters take on a consulting and logistical support role. As for Hiruko, she hangs back and lets things play out.

Over the course of the next few days Takumi puts his male manipulation skills to work. He decides to approach this by focusing on one of the non-fighters to persuade at a time. First he talks to them to get a general sense of why they don’t want to fight, and then he works with the rest of the fighters to prepare a more effective second strike. This preparation involves background information gathering and exploring to find the necessary resources for an effective gift. They run this playbook on Tsubasa and it seems to work pretty well. Then they move on to working through Gaku’s hangups and it seems to work on him too. There’s just one major problem with this approach: it takes up a lot of time. Once Takumi finished working his magic on Gaku and Tsubasa they already hit Day 15. That’s one day before the deadline. And there’s 3 people left. Welp.

Before I get into the events of the ever consequential Day 15, I’d like to comment on a detail that emerged during the male manipulation sessions. While Takumi is gathering information on Gaku he talks to Hiruko in the War Room. Here we get a taste of what she’s up to during this time. In this scene she’s diligently reviewing footage of their past battles and documenting how many invaders they’ve killed so far. According to Hiruko, the invaders have significant bounties. So by accurately tracking what they’ve accomplished they can ensure they get rewarded properly after it’s over. This information is relevant for persuading Gaku because he wants money and apparently fighting the invaders will help him get some. Beyond the immediate Gaku angle I think this tells us something important about Hiruko. First of all, Hiruko says she got the bounty information from Sirei, though I’m not so sure that’s true. We know Hiruko spent some time fighting invaders before setting foot in Last Defense Academy, isn’t it possible she learned about the bounties there? And the Sirei thing is just a cover story to avoid discussing her past experience? Seems plausible to me, though there’s no hard evidence either way so I’ll just leave that hypothesis there. It’s also possible she thought to ask Sirei about it privately because she got bounties during her time at the TRC.

This scene also underscores how seriously Hiruko takes the war effort. While all the persuasion stuff is going on Hiruko essentially has a lot of free time. If she were Takumi she might spend that time sleeping the day away, exploring the ruins, or shooting the shit with one of the SDU members. Hiruko’s considerably more intentional with her time. She’s forward thinking, considering strategies for future battles and extensively documenting their previous bouts. This isn’t something she’s doing for entertainment or just to ensure she gets rewarded personally. This data entry is for the sake of the whole group getting their due. Nobody asked her to do this. She proactively identifies work that needs doing and then does it. Perhaps in more peaceful times she’d excel in an administrative role. Only problem is her people skills could use a lot of work.

The main thing I want to underscore from that scene is that Hiruko considers the benefit of the entire group when she decided to do this task. You can get into the weeds and point to specific instances where that’s not the case, but there are also plenty of instances where it is. Even in situations where it isn’t immediately obvious that’s what she’s doing. With that in mind, let’s look at the final day of the Hiruko Dictatorship, Day 15.

On the morning of Day 15 Darumi shows up in Takumi’s room to deliver a message from ‘Mistress Hiruko’ in her eccentric Darumi way. Apparently Hiruko wants all the non-non-fighters to meet up in the cafeteria. I could comment on the whole ‘Mistress Hiruko’ kinky thing Darumi has going on, but I’ll leave that to their shippers. Suffice to say Darumi is Hiruko’s most loyal soldier and Hiruko doesn’t mind petplay. Any ways, when all invited parties go to the cafeteria Hiruko asks for a status update. She wants to know how their recruitment efforts are going. Naturally this confirms Eito’s idea that she wants the fighters to spend the 5 days converting the non-fighters. When Takumi tells her that he’s made headway on Tsubasa and Gaku we get a genuine smile out of her. She may not directly admit it but she must be relieved to hear that they made some progress. For all of Hiruko’s confidence and belief in her own plans she must’ve been nervous that this would actually work. After all, it requires the efforts of others to succeed, and she has very little control over that.

Still the problem remains that three of the five non-fighters haven’t budged. Hiruko doesn’t seem to mind too much. Apparently she never expected everyone to be converted before her deadline. So what’s the plan for the rest of them? Well… she still plans on kicking them out apparently. She says she can’t go back on her word, and Takumi and co.’s objections don’t change her mind. Hiruko says she’s locked in on victory, and supposedly kicking the remaining non-fighters out will help accomplish that. According to her they could serve as a distraction, and the experience might just jolt them into action. She makes her resolve clear and leaves the cafeteria with these parting words.

This is Hiruko’s conviction. There are certain points in this arc where Hiruko plays a role and lies about her intentions. I believe there’s a bit of that at play here too, but she’s not lying about her resolve. She’s prepared to do anything it takes to win the war, up to and including giving her own life. And she invites the others to do the same. She believes they have an incredibly tough road ahead of them, hence why she’s taking drastic measures.

Hiruko leaves the fighters to their own devices after this, and they have a brief discussion. To my eyes the most important points from this discussion are that Eito is bothered by something Hiruko said but doesn’t elaborate, Takumi plans on a last-ditch effort to persuade the remaining non-fighters, and Takemaru plans on protecting the non-fighters himself if Takumi’s rizz doesn’t work. And of course, as we see shortly thereafter, Takumi’s rizz doesn’t work. Shouma’s still wallowing in self-loathing and it’ll take more than a day to fix that. Kako’s still deferential to Ima, and Ima’s still set on his 500 IQ plan to avoid getting kicked out. Welp. At this point the situation seems fairly hopeless. Hiruko seems dead set on kicking the non-fighters out, and the remaining non-fighters seem dead set on non-fighting. Still there’s one last wildcard that can turn this situation around, and his name is Eito Aotsuki.

Eito shows up at Takumi’s door to discuss that certain something Hiruko said that bothered him. He said it was probably nothing at the time, but supposedly he dropped it to keep the peace. Eito’s convinced that Hiruko’s hiding something from the group, mainly because of a particular line in her parting words. Namely, the part where she said “the enemy commanders are far stronger than us.” At this point they only fought one and had no particular reason to confidently know that there would be more of them. Or confidently know that the rest would be far stronger than them too for that matter. It’s not exactly impossible to guess there would be more of them, but the way Hiruko said it so confidently indicates something deeper. That she knows something they don’t. At this point we already know she has experience fighting the invaders prior to LDA. It’s not exactly a huge stretch to imagine she’d get some special knowledge from it. Something that explains her conviction. Eito wants to press her about it.

If you’ve played enough of Last Defense Academy you know damn well not to take what Eito says at face value. Still I got to admire how convincing he sounds here. He’s correct to think that Hiruko’s likely hiding something, and his reasons for consulting with Takumi privately seem reasonable. Making a big stink about this with all parties present would probably make the situation get out of hand. As for why Eito can’t just talk to Hiruko privately about it, he says Hiruko scares her. He doesn’t have great social skills so using Takumi as the more socially competent intermediary makes sense. She’s more likely to let her guard down with Takumi present. So Eito gets him in on his plan. They’re going to confront Hiruko, who Eito believes to be in the Leisure Lounge. How did he come to that conclusion? He doesn’t elaborate, but I figure he did some recon to prepare for this conversation. Any ways, if Hiruko doesn’t fess up Eito plans on telling the other SDU members about his suspicions, putting the pressure on her further. No matter what kind of leader you are you only have power if there are people willing to do what you say. If nobody respects your authority then you don’t have any authority at all. Hiruko may be the strongest member of the SDU at this point, but she’s not so overwhelmingly strong that she could beat everyone into submission simultaneously. Even if she could, the team would be a far less cohesive fighting force afterwards. This is all to say Eito’s plan seems solid. Of course Eito’s plan doesn’t come without risks. It’s well established that Hiruko doesn’t back down easily. So what happens when they try to confront someone so headstrong? Well… we get a sexy pool swimsuit scene of course!

I’m not going to dwell on the swimsuit part too much because… honestly it’s not that important from a pure story perspective. Though it is worth noting there’s some foreshadowing in this segment. But let’s be real, this part exists more for fanservice than anything else. I guess they wanted to make damn sure Hiruko left an impression on us. And uhhh… well, I can’t say it didn’t work on me. Though I guess I’m problematic for saying that because of her ambiguous age. She could be 17 maybe! I’ve never seen a 17 year old look or act like Hiruko, but given the context of the story she might be somehow possibly!!!! They’re vague about the ages of these characters, presumably because they don’t want us worrying about it too hard. But I’ve done the rounds on ex-Twitter, and I’ve learned that I’m supposed to be really neurotic about the ages of anime characters lest I commit a thought crime. But I think she’s probably 18, and going off of how she’s written and designed she’s more akin to someone in their 20s, so let’s just roll with that. Thought crime averted! Yeah. That being said, if this were a real person and you couldn’t tell for sure it’d be better to shut down any untoward thoughts. But is it really that important when it comes to an anime character? Man I could go back and forth on this shit all day. Welp. Sorry to all those who feel uncomfortable even dwelling on this topic, but she just looks so damn cunty in that bikini I can’t help but comment. Okay, moving on.

Hiruko changes into her regular clothing, giving Takumi and Eito ample time to regain their composure. And so they get into it. When Takumi asks Hiruko if she knows anything she swiftly goes on the defensive. She’s suspicious of how they came to this conclusion so suddenly. In retrospect I think she was right to have doubts about the timing, but Takumi’s earnest answer defuses that point. He doesn’t think there’s anything unusual about it, they just figured stuff out from some things she said. He has nothing to hide. And he conveniently words it in a way that makes it sound like they figured this out together. It’s one of those points that seems entirely innocuous at first, but it’s pretty damn important in hindsight.

After Takumi opens up the conversation Eito steps in to fill in some of the details. He elaborates on why he thinks she has special knowledge. He says that it could explain her locked in attitude towards the war. He then goes on to put the pressure on her way he said he would. Eito claims he can’t follow her if she’s hiding shit, and that he suspects the others would feel similarly if they heard about it. He packages it in a nice guy way. All ‘I don’t want to do this and hurt the team but she might leave him no choice.’ And then Takumi lays it on thick in his nice guy way too, but she clearly looks perturbed nevertheless. No we don’t want to cause trouble, we just want the truth! … and we’ll lead your deposition if you don’t, but we just want to be chill about it!

Regardless of the friendly-ish packaging Hiruko feels the pressure behind the words. Given how she’s been up until this point you’d think she might try to stay stubborn or even duke it out with them. But no, she folds without much pushback. All that ‘my way or the highway’ type stuff you see from her earlier in this arc? Nowhere to be seen here.

Y’know, there’s not much indication of the Hiruko x Takumi ship being viable at this point in the story, but if early LDA has anything pointing to that potential, it’s this scene. Of course the merciless grilling wasn’t Takumi’s work alone, but it’s still an inkling that she sees them both a bit differently at this point. And I imagine the sight Takumi saw a bit earlier got him looking at her a bit differently too. But that arguably flirty line is far from the most important thing to note here.

Hiruko spent most of the game so far being difficult, so her relatively quick concession here seems notable. To be fair, this isn’t the first time Hiruko has ever conceded a point. Like when she grilled Sirei for answers and Sirei said he wouldn’t tell them until everyone agreed to fight. Hiruko backed off there. She also backed off when Takumi and co. set out to find Eito’s ass after he dipped from the school. She still wasn’t happy about it in either case, but she didn’t press the issue too hard when the opposing party seemed dead set. It’s worth noting both of those examples happened before the Hiruko Dictatorship was instituted. I’ll get into this more later, but I think she was being more of a hard ass on purpose during her reign. Otherwise she is headstrong but she’s not unwilling to listen to reason. She’s well aware that losing the respect of her team will fuck up her position as leader and their war effort writ large. If her goal is to win this war she doesn’t have much choice but to capitulate. So she admits that she does have some pertinent information.

Of course, before she actually says what the information is Eito tells her to hold it. He wants the whole crew to hear it at once, it’d be better that way right? That does seem sensible, though the problem is it’s pretty damn late at this point. Personally I had my doubts about Eito’s suggestion when I played through it originally. Considering how Sirei disappeared the day after he said he’d reveal the truth, waiting to hear from her seems risky. But nevertheless that’s what they go with. Can’t exactly hold that meeting so late at night, so they’ll save it for tomorrow purportedly.

Still it’s worth noting we get a few important comments before they go back to their rooms for the night. Hiruko explains that her reason for hiding the information was to spare everyone from a ‘harrowing truth.’ Eito reassures her that whatever she’s got to say the team can handle it. He wants her to trust them, and she agrees to trust them. How agreeable of her! She also says she didn’t expect things to go this way but she’s relieved she’ll be able to get her truth off her chest. She smiles as she says this, and Hiruko’s not the type to smile when she doesn’t mean it. She really does see this development as a weight off her shoulders. How much has she been holding in? Guess we’ll find out tomorrow right? Righttttttt?

Of course Takumi wants to hear one last thing from her before he totally sees her tomorrow:

It is difficult to square her last statement with all the things she’s been saying up until this point in the arc. Kicking all the non-fighters out and leaving them to their demise doesn’t exactly mesh well with her stated goal of having everyone make it out alive. Is she stupid or was she lying at some point? And if so what point is it? Much to ponder over, but we’ll know for sure tomorrow right? RIGHT?

So yeah, the next day Hiruko played one of my favorite Radiohead songs, How to Disappear Completely. Golly gee she said she was going to drop some truth bombs and then she’s gone? Wowzers. They search the school far and wide and fail to find a trace of her anywhere. They throw out some theories about what might’ve happened to her, but with no solid evidence they’re left to guesswork. They soon get caught up in another invader attack, which proves a rather strong diversion. It seems like they probably would’ve been fucked if Tsubasa and Gaku didn’t decide to join the fray and clutch it up. After the fight they’re too exhausted the next day to do anything. And after that, they pretty much give up on even trying to figure out where she is. We won’t see her again for a while. Thus concludes the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc. For all the gravitas, intensity, and potential reveals we get… one fighter missing, two new fighters to take her place, and a whole lot of question marks. A rather anticlimactic end if we’re being real. The audience has to wait until much later on to get any solid conclusions on what the hell happened here. Of course, by this point I’m well aware of what actually happened to her, and if you’ve read this far I’d hope you know what happened with Hiruko too. Otherwise you’re going to get spoiled pretty damn hard.

As you play on after Day 16 it seems like the characters largely forget about Hiruko. She’s given passing mention at times, but she’s just kinda gone. Still I never forgot about her. Even as dozens of days passed by I still sometimes wondered aloud, “WHERE THE FUCK IS HIRUKO?” Was she going to show up as one of the commanders? I sure found it suspicious when one of the commanders got their mask damaged and we saw a red eye peek out. Was that Hiruko? Turns out it wasn’t, but I’m almost certain the creators wanted us to consider that possibility. Of course, if you’ve played through 2nd Scenario you’d know the real significance of the eye colors matching, but that’s not really important for this discussion. Point is Hiruko’s mysterious absence adds a layer of intrigue to the time after her disappearance. We didn’t get a full sense of what her intentions really were. What was she trying to accomplish? Is her disappearance part of that plan? Was she a hero or a villain or somewhere in between? When the cast eventually discovers her mummified corpse dozens of days later it raises more questions than it answers. For someone who was only alive for 15/100 days of the first route she sure left her mark. On me at least.

So What Was Hiruko’s Deal?

So I’ve done a whole lot of summarizing what happened and pointing out notable scenes. I’d hope at this point you have a partial understanding of what Hiruko was trying to do, but let’s try and synthesize it all.

First off, why did Hiruko become the SDU leader? The answer’s not as clear cut as it appears. Of course if you just go off of what Hiruko said in this arc, it’s because she thinks she’s the most qualified for the job. But I think the matter goes deeper than that. The Hiruko of route 0 dies before she gets a chance to elaborate too deeply on her motivations. However, when Takumi goes back in time and (in certain routes) tells the whole class what he experienced, Hiruko has an interesting response. Apparently she finds it hard to believe her alternate timeline version became the team leader. She thinks of herself as more of the solo player type. So she didn’t just become leader to feed her power hungry ambitions? Waow. This info indicates that Hiruko didn’t step up as leader because she wanted to. It’s because she felt she had to.

Honestly given the situation at the time it makes sense why she would. Sirei was gone for reasons unknown, and it’s not like anybody else was stepping up to the plate. Takumi didn’t have the kind of drive he has in later routes, and who else was there among the fighters? Eito? He’s not a big people person to say the least, and he’s not super committed to the war in the first place. Darumi? Yeah obviously not. Takemaru seems like a plausible leader, but he wasn’t putting himself out there in that way. Hiruko had the most experience fighting the invaders. Her extra experience told her they’d be pretty fucked if they just kept things how they were: dawdling around with half the team on the sidelines. Fundamentally, her choice to start the Hiruko Dictatorship was for survival. Survival for herself, the rest of the crew, her family, and humanity writ large. She wouldn’t have taken the role if she thought there was any other way.

The next question that follows from this is what the hell was she trying to do? I think back to her discussion with Takumi on Day 2. You know, the one where she said, “it’s in everyone’s best interest to get the others onto the battlefield with the rest of us. By any means necessary.” During the Hiruko Dictatorship arc she put those words into action. By putting as much psychological pressure on the non-fighters as possible. She started by banning them from using the facilities, which limited the non-fighter’s access to food and entertainment. Given the Revive-O-Matic’s functionality that’s not a death sentence, but it is certainly a way to make the non-fighter’s life at LDA maximally miserable. This idea has potency because the non-fighters weren’t abstaining out of a sense of morality or anything like that. There’s some idiosyncrasies in their reasoning, but to Hiruko’s eyes they probably just looked like they were avoiding combat for the sake of personal comfort. By making the sidelines as uncomfortable as possible she could invert that paradigm for them. You can say this mirrors a real life phenomenon in a way. Resistance grows stronger when conditions worsen and people feel like they have less to lose by not fighting back. Of course going by that logic Hiruko runs the risk of starting a mutiny against herself, though the fighters and non-fighters being fairly balanced in number limits that possibility’s effectiveness. Glory to the Shouma Rebellion! Wouldn’t that be a funny alternate timeline?

As we’ve covered Hiruko doesn’t stop with just making the non-fighters have a bad time. Her most consequential decree was her threat to kick them out. To my eyes this plan had two main goals to it: putting more psychological pressure on the non-fighters, and getting the fighter’s off their asses to guide things along.

This seems like a good time to look at the second thumbnail I designed for the Ian’s Mind LDA series. This one was for our 8th episode. It was inspired by his male manipulation bit. You may think I’m just doing a shameless plug, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But I think my drawing illustrates the dynamic at play in this part of the story quite well. Because Hiruko’s essentially manipulating Takumi and co. into manipulating the non-fighters. Manipulation-ception if you will. I’d also argue Hiruko herself has been manipulated during this arc. If I really wanted to make this image show the full scope of manipulation-ception I’d have Sirei behind her and Eito somewhere off to the side. However, I try to avoid major spoilers in the thumbnails and doing that would make an already busy thumbnail even busier so y’know. Still this is a big part of why I think this arc is so incredible in hindsight. Not only does it put my favorite gal at the forefront, but there’s so many layers and hidden agendas at play.

Though before we look at those hidden layers let’s look at the more obvious manipulation Hiruko’s doing. The part where she’s pushing her fellow combatants into the negotiator role. I find it interesting that she forced a situation where her teammates do the persuasion instead of attempting to do it herself. As I mentioned earlier in this blog there are multiple points where I think Hiruko was attempting persuasion beforehand. Albeit, in her own heavy handed Hiruko way. Much of her shit talking, guilting, and threats towards the non-fighters can be viewed as unsuccessful persuasion attempts. Though you could also say she’s just airing out her frustration with them in a lot of those cases. But either way, she’s already said some shit to them on multiple occasions, and none of it moved the needle. You could say she just hasn’t come up with the right combination of words or whatever, but it would be hard for Hiruko specifically to pull that off. She’s already said what she’s said. The non-fighters are already scared of her and/or think she’s an asshole. Are they really going to hear her out earnestly after that? It’s not like she has some natural people person orator talent either. For both of those reasons it’s rather unlikely that Hiruko could move them just by her own persuasion skills.

I think Hiruko has enough self-awareness to realize the limits of her persuasion herself. As such, while she may have a hard time trusting her teammates; she didn’t see much choice but to entrust this part of the job to them. So Hiruko played a role to facilitate the persuasion. She leaned into her hard ass attitude, playing up how cold she could be. It’s a believable act because her peers already had that perception of her. She’s just leaning into it more than usual. And so she simultaneously does psychological warfare on the non-fighters and manipulates the fighters into a more active role. Up until this point the non-Hiruko fighters weren’t doing much of anything to convince the non-fighters. Darumi’s not too pressed about it. If they all died in dramatic fashion she’d be cool with it. At least, she’ll think she’s cool with it until it happens. Takemaru’s annoyed with them but doesn’t really do much besides make some choice comments. Eito probably thinks the non-fighters staying on the sidelines is a good thing. He doesn’t actually want humanity to win the war after all. Takumi has a more passive ‘they gotta decide to fight on their own’ attitude to it. However, they have a better rapport with the non-fighters than Hiruko does, and some of them (namely Takumi) are a lot more socially competent than Hiruko. So lighting a fire under their asses to get them to do the persuading seems plausible. It was a risky bet, but it paid off. They got some of the non-fighters to budge.

Though a big open question remains, even with all the hindsight information I have: what was Hiruko planning to do once the time was up? On Day 15 she said she planned to kick the remaining non-fighters out, but then later that night she said something to complicate that notion. She believes that victory means everyone surviving. How can these two notions coexist? Was Hiruko lying about kicking them out? This isn’t something we’ll ever know with absolute certainty unless Kodaka gives away the answer in an interview or whatever, but I have my own theories. Hiruko wanted to put maximum psychological pressure on the non-fighters up until the very end of the deadline. If she said she’d back out of her word ahead of time that would deflate all the suspense she’s been building up. She may have been lying about not caring if they died out there, but she also didn’t want to break character. So what could she do to keep the heat on them without actually getting them killed? Hmmm…

One detail that comes to my mind is that Takemaru said he’d step in to defend the remaining non-fighters if necessary. He never made good on that promise because Hiruko got disappeared before he ever had the chance. So why did the writers put that line in at all? Is it just to show Takemaru’s chivalry? That it seemed like the kind of thing he’d do in that situation? Maybe. But I think this is a key hint for Hiruko’s plan. We see at multiple points throughout this arc that Hiruko was anticipating her fellow SDU member’s actions. She was planning on giving the non-fighters a 5 day deadline all along, but only mentioned it after Takumi pushed back. Why? Because she expected her fighting teammates to push back. She wanted to make it look like Takumi or whoever else objected was the one who made it happen. She anticipated the fighters would pick up what she’s putting down and work to persuade the non-fighters. She directly said she never expected all 5 non-fighters to get converted within her deadline. This was a plan that required close observation of her peers and strong understanding of their behavior to pull off. And up until a certain point when Eito threw a curveball, things seemed to be going as she planned. Isn’t it possible that Hiruko expected someone to step in to protect the non-fighters from getting kicked out?

Basically, I think Hiruko was planning to make it look like she’s about to kick them out, but concede when the fighters try to stop her. That way, it doesn’t look like she’s going back on her word, but instead looks like the other fighters swooped in to be the saviors. And then she’d hope that emotional rollercoaster has a persuasive effect on the stubborn bystanders. Perhaps she’d be like, “fineeee you got 5 more days to convince the rest BUT THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!” Alternatively, perhaps she wouldn’t let anyone stop her from kicking them out, but she doesn’t stop the fighters from swooping in to save them when they’re outside. That way the non-fighters get to experience the brink of death firsthand and feel especially grateful to the fighters for saving them from it. And then she’d offer some sort of extension when the non-fighters returned to campus. I think either of these two options are plausible. There might be other possibilities I’m not considering. If you’ve got some thoughts of your own on this matter I’d love to see them in the comments! To my eyes this is the biggest unanswered mystery from this arc. She had some sort of plan for her next steps on Day 16, but we never got to see what it was.

So when all is said and done, how do I feel about Hiruko’s run as dictator? I had a lot of skepticism of it when I first played this game. I liked her from the start but her approach still seemed pretty crazy to me. Too one-sided, brutal, and forceful for my tastes. I thought she was making a mistake. Honestly, I still don’t fully agree with her approach, but I’ve got a lot more respect for it now. First of all, she was taking a huge gamble with this approach. Her plan required people to act in ways she expected after only knowing them for… what, less than two weeks when she started? This could’ve easily backfired on her completely if she read her peers wrong. Her approach cornered the non-fighters, but it also put herself in a corner. What would’ve happened if she didn’t get the progress she wanted before the deadline? She didn’t actually want the non-fighters to leave the school and die, but if the plan played out wrong she might’ve had to. In that case she’d either be forced to look weak by backing out on her word, or maintain her image and actually kick them out. Leaving a small fighting force remaining and no chance to bolster their numbers. Of course Second-to-Last Defense Academy could come in clutch in this scenario, but she had no way of knowing they even existed. I can’t help but think there must’ve been a better way. Perhaps she could’ve openly collaborated with the other fighters to convert the non-fighters. Put all their heads together to find the best solution. Doesn’t seem likely…

Unfortunately at this point in the story Hiruko had her walls up. She had enough consideration of others to anticipate how they’d respond to her tyrant act. She trusted them enough to leave the persuasion in the other fighters’ hands. But she didn’t trust them enough to actually let them in on her plan directly. In addition to her lone wolf disposition she may have had lingering doubts about what happened to Sirei. According to Hiruko the invaders sneaking in and taking Sirei out was the most likely explanation. I do think she genuinely believed that, but I also think she had lingering doubts. Enough doubts to keep the others at an arm’s length. Another possible reason is that she didn’t think they’d want to help her convince them without getting their hands forced. They’ve been pretty damn passive about it up until she made that announcement. We also need to consider that she was trying to hide the “harrowing truth” behind the war. Doing that requires maintaining some distance from her peers. Not letting them in on all the things she’s thinking and feeling. That created a vulnerability that Eito exploited.

With all the information I have now I have mixed feelings about her actions here. As I said above I don’t agree with her methods. Given what we learn in 2nd Scenario I don’t even agree with the premise that converting the non-fighters is the right move. It’s a fucked up genocidal war and Hiruko’s dedication to seeing it through doesn’t sit right with me. As much as I’m fond of Hiruko I wouldn’t extend that fondness to a real world analogue. I can accept a hell of a lot of immorality in a fictional character and still like them overall. Her moral failings would be a much bigger problem to me if she were a real person. Even so, there’s part of me that admires what Hiruko did in this arc. It’s not entirely fair to judge her plan with all this hindsight information. However, it is fair to say that Hiruko deliberately avoided thinking too hard about information that could’ve and should’ve swayed her resolve. Even so, given the context of the situation and the information Hiruko was working with I can see a noble light in her actions.

I mentioned earlier that I considered her plan for Day 16 the arc’s biggest outstanding mystery, but some readers may disagree. After all, we never got to hear what Hiruko meant by a “harrowing truth.” However, I think we know enough to have a general idea. When Takumi goes back in time and then directly asks her about it, she says there’s not much he doesn’t know already. As such, it’s fair to assume her ‘harrowing truth’ likely had to do with the World Death cover story. To recap, that basically means Mother Earth has grown tired of humanity’s constant extraction, and the invaders are a manifestation of her will to kill herself. If this story were true that means humanity’s fight against the invaders is a battle against extinction and the complete destruction of the planet. If we assume that’s the ‘harrowing truth’ Hiruko’s referring to it would certainly explain a lot about her behavior. It’s a very distressing story, so I can’t blame Hiruko for wanting to spare her peers from knowing about it. If it were true it would justify Hiruko’s callous attitude towards the invaders. If they really were just an embodiment of the planet’s self-destruction you could argue killing them is the righteous move. Their continued existence is a threat to the whole planet’s survival after all (supposedly). If World Death was the truth her fervent dedication to seeing the war through would be a totally justified position.

Of course, as we learn later World Death is just a half-true cover story cooked up to convince the SDU to fight. A remarkably effective lie. And considering Hiruko’s backstory I can’t blame her too much for getting duped by it. I own the Limited Edition copy of this game, and one of the things you get with it is a mini-novel focused on Hiruko’s time in the Tokyo Residential Complex. More specifically, it shows how Hiruko started fighting the invaders. Hiruko questioned the way people operated in the TRC. She questioned why people went to the shelters when the sirens blared without ever wondering what the danger actually was. She participated in the seedy nightlife at the edge of society because she craved something more than her everyday normal student life could provide. And for all that skepticism and exploration along the edge she discovered the invaders. We don’t see her discovering the ‘harrowing truth’ in this mini-novel, but we do see how she started fighting the invaders. She discovered something most people in the TRC didn’t know about. She went against the grain and found a ‘truth’ the rest of the population wasn’t privy to. Of course, as we know from 2nd Scenario her whole experience was a simulated fabrication. The answer she found at the edge of the TRC was just another fabrication.

Essentially, Hiruko was convinced she was the most enlightened person in the SDU. She thought she knew something that gave her a deeper understanding of the situation than everyone else. It gave her a deep conviction to fight. Unfortunately, in all fictional actuality, that fake truth just made her deeply indoctrinated. Being one of the smartest people on the team she got caught in a particularly clever and insidious trap. The people that designed the SDU’s simulations are some brilliant motherfuckers. Knowing this makes Hiruko’s Route 0 run particularly tragic. She fought like hell for her cause and died for it. In this route she never realized how she was being manipulated. She never realized how her indoctrination let Sirei’s dark mission continue after he was destroyed. She was manipulated into manipulating her peers into manipulating her other peers. And then she got manipulated by Eito on top of that too. Damn my girl got hoe’d.

Even so I don’t see Route 0 Hiruko as a purely tragic character. As I mentioned before, I see something noble in her actions. How exactly? First let’s set aside all that 2nd Scenario knowledge. We’ll temporarily accept the World Death premise as correct. At the very least, accept that Hiruko genuinely believes in World Death. She believes they are in an incredibly high stakes situation that they cannot afford to lose. She has special knowledge the others aren’t privy to, and she doesn’t want to freak everyone out by sharing it. This means that Hiruko spends her entire dictatorship shouldering an incredible amount of stress. She is uniquely aware of how dangerous their opponents are and the implications of an invader victory. She clearly sees that the whole SDU is cooked beyond cooked if the status quo continues unabated. When faced with such an overwhelming situation some would let their stress and fear overwhelm and paralyze them. Not Hiruko though. She steps up and fucking does something about it. She meticulously thinks things through and does everything she can to remedy the situation. She does it while shouldering her burden and accepting all the negative feelings of her peers.

While I don’t agree with her approach or how much she tries to bear on her own, I still gotta respect it. She’s a woman of action and her methods reflect her desperation. Say what you want about her, but you can’t say she didn’t try her best. She worked hard for everyone’s sake. I gotta respect that. Especially at a time like this. Things are getting pretty spooky in America and I feel like most people around me don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. Our environment is in crisis, our democracy’s in crisis, and Trump’s goons are gunning down people in the streets. Things are not OK right now and I can’t help but think we’re fucked long term if we let things keep going how they’re going. I won’t say I’ve done nothing to help remedy this situation, but can I honestly look at the mirror and say I’ve done every possible thing I could think of? Up to and including things that go well beyond my personal comfort zone? Nope, I can’t. Hiruko on the other hand totally could say that. She never wanted to be leader. I don’t think she really wanted to do anything she did during the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc. But it was the most effective method she could think of, so she did all she could to see it through. She put herself out there and she died for it. That conviction, bravery, and unconventional care for others is something I admire. In that regard, I think we could all stand to be a little more like Hiruko.

The Hidden Agenda

Before I conclude this blog I’d like to spend some time focusing on another key player in this arc: Eito Aotsuki. The clever son of a bitch himself. The man who deposed a dictator without anyone finding out. We’re not doing a whole ass Eito analysis here, that’s a deep rabbit hole that goes well beyond the scope of this blog post. However, I find his actions during this arc interesting. How the hell did he pull this off?

For most of this arc Eito wasn’t doing anything too crazy. He pushed back against Hiruko at multiple points, saying she’s being too cruel to the non-fighters and such. Did he actually give a shit what happened to them? No of course not. But playing the nice guy helped keep suspicion away from him, and undermined what Hiruko was trying to do. The thing is, Eito knew damn well what Hiruko was going for. We can see this in the discussion the fighters have after Hiruko’s 5 day deadline announcement. He’s the one who pointed out that she wants them to convince the non-fighters. It is quite possible he was clocking her before that point too. But he went on his “noo this isn’t right we’re supposed to be friends ” type shit any way. He wanted to encourage the non-fighters’ non-compliance. He only talked about Hiruko’s intentions after all the non-fighters left the room. After Darumi and Takemaru mentioned how odd it was that Hiruko gave the extension so easily. Would he have brought up this idea at all if nobody else considered it? I’m not so sure.

Of course once the 5 days started playing out Eito seemingly did his best to support the conversion efforts. He offered solid consultation and was genuinely helpful getting Tsubasa and Gaku on board. He was the one that suggested getting Tsubasa a high-quality sick bag for instance, and that gift really did help Takumi get his foot in the door. It’s worth noting Eito’s suggestion required spending time exploring. Perhaps he deliberately used a suggestion that slowed down the conversion process, ensuring they wouldn’t be able to get all five on board by the deadline. Honestly I wouldn’t put that past him. He clearly wasn’t pushing for maximum efficiency any way. But that might be reading a bit too deep into it. It is possible that was genuinely the best solution he could think of, and it did help Takumi get results. A big part of why Eito was able to be such a successful saboteur undetected is because he engaged in helpful cooperation on the front end. Sometimes he acted helpful while actually being unhelpful, but sometimes he was legitimately being helpful to keep appearances up. It’s not always so clear cut which one is which.

Regardless of how you interpret his assistance persuading Gaku and Tsubasa, it’s fair to say he was playing along. Biding his time. I doubt his decision to kill Hiruko the night of Day 15 was a spur of the moment thing. He must’ve been thinking about how to do it before then. I’m not sure when exactly he got the idea. While they were trying to convert the non-fighters? Before then? The morning of Day 15? Technically speaking he wanted to kill Hiruko well before that. He wanted to kill everyone on the team and humanity writ large from the jump. But as we learn from his villain reveal monologue he couldn’t kill everyone at once. There was a risk humanity would just send in reinforcements if he did that. Even so, he decided to target Hiruko specifically.

We may not know when he got the idea to target her, but I can say why he did it. Simply put, she was too effective for her own good. Eito was closely involved with Takumi’s persuasion attempts, which Hiruko prompted. He saw that it was working. That was a problem. A united SDU force makes his goal to ruin the mission that much harder to accomplish. Perhaps in that sense you could say Eito believed in the effectiveness of her methods more than anyone else on the team. If he thought Hiruko was about to kick the remaining non-fighters out would he have made his move on Day 15? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let them die and let her hinder the team’s future prospects that way? If he genuinely thought Hiruko’s approach was counter-productive he probably would’ve just left her to it. No, I think he was worried that whatever she had cooking up on Day 16 would work. Hence why he made his move the night before.

Another way of looking at it is that Eito simply saw Hiruko as a threat. She’s an experienced and powerful fighter. A major boon for humanity’s side in the war. She’s also one of the most intelligent people in the SDU. Nobody sniffed Eito out before his open heel-turn, but I think Hiruko could’ve. He may have had her fooled up to Day 15, but would he really be able to fool her the entire time? When she became leader she was constantly on high alert. It’s not hard to imagine her noticing something off about him eventually. Eito couldn’t risk keeping her around. He noticed her comment about the commanders on the morning of Day 15 and that got the gears turning. He finally found something over her he could make use of.

So that brings us to when Eito finally makes his play. He was probably plotting out how to kill her all day, but he waited until rather late to make his move. His plan involved getting Takumi in as an unwitting accomplice. Why Takumi? Because he’s the main character of course! But seriously, Eito knows he’s a good talker if nothing else. Eito knew confronting Hiruko alone was risky. I don’t think he was lying when he told Takumi he was scared of her.

Gotta include some elements of truth to really sell a lie y’know. Of course Eito doesn’t actually care about getting the truth out of Hiruko. He’d much prefer the team get left in the dark. Whatever information Hiruko had clearly strengthened her resolve. It would be a big problem if the rest of the team had their conviction to fight bolstered in a similar manner. However, he needed some way to get her guard down, and Takumi was the useful idiot he needed to accomplish that. Hiruko would’ve been way more suspicious if Eito confronted her alone. We can see how defensive she got when Takumi first broached the subject. But Eito could hide behind Takumi’s innocent intentions to veil his own killing intent. So that’s exactly what he did.

By the way, as an aside I find that bikini scene pretty funny in hindsight. You’d think it was a pure 100% fanservice and nothing else scene, but that’s not quite the case now is it? She asked, “Why are you both so flustered? Is my body that unsettling?” Eito stammered in response. In Takumi’s case it was because Hiruko got him feeling some type of way. He liked what he was seeing a bit too much for him to handle. Not so with Eito. Turns out this scene was a hint at his underlying condition. Thanks to his cognitive defect humans look downright monstrous to him. When Hiruko’s wearing less clothes than usual that means she looks more hideous than usual to him. See, the swimsuit scene was super plot relevant all along! That’s funny to me I don’t know about you guys.

Any ways, when Hiruko was about to reveal her ‘certain information’ Eito stopped her. He claimed it was because he wanted the whole team to hear it firsthand, but the actual reason was because he wanted to kill her before she could reveal it. I’ll be real, the moment he stopped her from speaking her truth was the moment I started getting suspicious of him. Unfortunately for me I got Eito’s villain turn spoiled for me before his reveal on Day 95. I was a bit too enthusiastic browsing that Last Defense Academy subreddit y’know. The guy who spoiled it put it in spoilers properly and said it would be a spoiler if I clicked it and I still clicked it. Honestly not really sure why I did that. Guess the curiosity got the better of me. But let it be known I had my doubts about him before I got myself spoiled, and that specific moment was when I picked up on it. He was the one who stopped her from revealing her secret and he was the only one present at the time besides Takumi. It’s a fairly simple deduction. Perhaps if Takumi was thinking about things a little harder he could’ve come to the same conclusion. Takumi was pretty damn friendly and close to Eito and that blinded him.

One of the sad things about this situation is that Hiruko was finally starting to loosen up that night. She was tightly wound the whole game up until this point basically. Not letting anyone close, being an asshole frequently, all that. But when she got the chance to let something important off her chest that put her at ease like nothing else. Takumi was starting to see more of her good side too. Who knows how close they would’ve gotten during the remainder of the war? Who knows how much she’d open up to the rest of the class. We’ll never know because that loosening up gave Eito the chance to kill her. She slept peacefully that night, up until Eito snuck into her room and jabbed a scythe into her heart. And the rest was history. And he would’ve gotten away with it too if he didn’t self-report. Eito’s one of my top 3 characters in this game right along with Hiruko, but he’s a motherfucker for that one. (Darumi’s my other top 3 LDA character for the record).

Conclusion

So yeah, that’s the Hiruko Dictatorship Arc. Her reign was so short it makes William Henry Harrison’s tenure look lengthy. Nevertheless, her time as leader was very consequential. She played the villain for the sake of saving the team, and I doubt anyone would’ve made it out alive without her. The SDU would not survive without the non-fighters joining the fray, and it’s unlikely any of them would’ve flipped without Hiruko’s heavy handed intervention. To be fair she got killed off before Shouma, Ima, or Kako got converted. However, I don’t think those three would’ve flipped without Gaku and Tsubasa flipping first. Furthermore, who’s to say they would’ve even survived those first few battles without Hiruko on their team? Game mechanic wise it’s technically possible I’m sure, but it would’ve been rough. If you know how Route 0 ends you know her efforts didn’t result in the victory she hoped for, but it could’ve easily been a total wipeout without her. Gotta hand it to Hiruko for that.

As much as I spent the remaining 85 days of Route 0 missing the fuck out of Hiruko, I understand why it had to go like this. She was a bit too good at her job to stick around. The reason Takumi decides to go back in time at the end of Route 0 is because things went to shit. I’m not saying Hiruko staying alive would’ve solved everything. After all, we see things go to shit plenty of times while she’s still around in later routes. But I’m confident things would’ve gone less poorly with Hiruko still alive to the end. As I mentioned earlier she might’ve been able to snuff out Eito eventually. Even if she couldn’t do that she could prevent the circumstances that led to Nozomi’s demise. Or make Eito’s sabotage less effective. Perhaps they would’ve fire bombed the planet by the end without ever realizing what they’ve done. Point is she was a bit too effective and a bit too centralizing to keep around in Route 0. Unfortunate as it is, I don’t blame the writers for that decision. All the great Hiruko moments we see in the later routes more than make up for her early departure from Route 0.

Perhaps I’ll talk about some of her later route moments another day, but I gotta give Queen Hiruko Shizuhara I her due. A lot of people don’t like her during this part and I can’t blame them too much. We mainly see her icy side and little else. Of course given the power of hindsight I understand why she was like that, and I still enjoyed her time any way, but not everyone’s going to appreciate her going boss bitch. I know my homeboy Ian isn’t a fan, and I know he’s not alone. Perhaps you were like him too when you first played through it. Though I hope you empathize with her more now after reading all this. If not uhhh… well, I guess that means this blog failed to reach you. I was a bit frustrated hearing all the Hiruko slander from him when we were playing this part, but at this point I’ve come to accept it. She was being an asshole a lot of the time in Route 0. An asshole for a cause.

Man it’s nice to get all this off my chest. This must be similar to how Hiruko felt before she went to bed on Day 15. At the time I’m writing this I’m deathly tired and staying up way later than I should be. This piece took a long time to make so now that I’m close to the end I don’t mind fucking my sleep more than usual to see it through. I’m about to schedule this blog to release while I’m sleeping in. Hopefully I don’t wake up with a scythe in my chest. But yeah, that’s all I’ve got to say on this topic. If you read this whole ass thing, thank you. I hope you found the experience worthwhile. If I do another LDA blog it won’t be for a while. However, the next blog I’ve got cooking up isn’t entirely unrelated. It’s about a game from a series I’m almost positive the developers took inspiration from to make Last Defense Academy. Stay tuned for that if you like. Or don’t. Unlike Hiruko I have no intentions of forcing you to do anything. Peace out.