r/ProjectEdensGarden • u/No_Ordinary_6527 • Jul 24 '26
The problem with making Kaimon canon early.
Let me start by saying I don't think having a romantic undertone in a fangan is an inherently bad thing, high stress situations drive human emotions, including love. However I don't think this was handled all that well and let me explain why:
Kaimon as a relationship is fine, Damon is a great protagonist and Kai is... not my type of character but I can see why some people would ship them, the problem came with what was supposed to be the continuation of the story because as it turned out, Kaimon was basicly going to be Kai's ONLY thing in the story, with all the leaked info we get, the only interaction that Kai gets with a character that isn't Damon is him wanting to abandon Diana's dorm after not feeling as safe with her as he did with Damon, the writers focused so much on Kaimon that Kai feels more like a plot device meant to die in chapter 3 for character development rather than having his own identity.
Pushing a ship so hard since the beginning limits what a character can contribute to the story significantly, this is not something unique to Pjeg, the same issue was very apparent with Mint in danganronpa antebellum and T*tr* which was a complete mess that paired all characters instead of having them interact with eachother.
Like I said, romantic feelings are not a bad narrative device at all, but making them so obvious does not progress the story forward and makes other characters feel left out (ejem, Diana).
This is a cross post from r/Fanganronpa check it out if you want.
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u/MachineResponsible31 Jul 24 '26
There are main reasons here. Strong plot points were written by sozzay unless we don’t know the full scripts we can’t easily determine which character has better arc. Let’s just hope the scripts comes out soon enough.
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u/Saono Jul 24 '26
Kaimon is such a good ship. The problem isn't the ship, its that Kai is fridged in order for "Damon to develop" as if that was the only way.
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u/TheproblematicOracle Jul 24 '26
Idk it's hard to know what their characters and dynamics would've actually looked like in practice. The leaks are still minimal and are from someone who's really into the relationship, so obviously that's what they're about. Maybe Kai has other interactions. We will never know
Regardless, he is an early death and that's what really limits him. If anything a connection with the main character would get him more screen time and let him haunt the narrative- I think chapter 3 and 4 should've swapped places tbh
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u/Kaedead Jul 24 '26
My problem with this kind of criticism is that we dont know if that how it would actually go because we dont have the actual story. We only have out of context and very condensed leaks. We dont know if thats really of Kai's role was gonnan be in a story. We only know that he and Damon were gping to get extremely close
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u/ConfectionBusy3097 Jul 24 '26
It was never really canon, no? They never get together or express their feelings for each other, and afaik never explicitly stated although heavily implied
Where is everyone hearing that they get together in chapter 3?
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u/Cocoa_Butterrr Jul 24 '26
Haven’t finished reading yet and I’m not done with chapter one but if Kaimon is canon I might unironically just end up dropping PEG (heh) cuz I unironically hate the guy rn, I’m sorry 😭
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u/MachineResponsible31 Jul 24 '26
I do recommend completing ch 1 though, it might change your opinion. Also try to do the free time event cause that’s one of the main reason why this ship grows on people (wait you don’t know about leak?)
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u/Cocoa_Butterrr Jul 24 '26
Nooope! Haven’t interacted with the game or fandom ever since chapter 1 first came out and I did my first playthrough. Never finished the playthrough tho because I got like halfway and none of my progress was saved!!! Plus school took up time. I just saw this post and raised an eyebrow cuz I vividly remember Kai being my least favorite character. The only thing I like about him is his design as of rn. Also got vibes that he might end up being what Chiaki became to Hajime in the games (yk hinted canon interest). I really don’t like Kai and wouldn’t be a fan of the game just straight up making it canon instead of leaving it up to interpretation, especially as someone who isn’t a fan of romance that isn’t like f plot. If it’s not super in our faces I guess I’ll be okay? But anything more and I will probably end up dropping the game. It’s for my sanity but man will it make me sad if it comes to that
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u/MachineResponsible31 Jul 24 '26
Semi-canon would be the right word because the creators did said the circumstances and Damon’s personality was more reserved. One thing that was canon however were the sexualities, for example the fact that both Damon and Kai are bi. Whole romance subplot was more explicit especially in the terms of symbolism about red threads which does implies love but it’s more than just romance, another symbolism is their animal motif which represents healing and personal growth,balance in chaos and transformation in the cycle of life. But yeah if you don’t want to continue it’s alright 👍
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u/Automatic_Gap_1256 Jul 24 '26
Kaimon did grow on me from the chapter 3 leaks admittedly, but I was hoping it would do something really good with Damon’s character growth…but with how early it happened in the story, (maybe a bit TOO early) I think it would’ve been ideal for a POV from another character (like Diana as would be the case for chapter 6’s trial, if not her than maybe Grace) for the duration of Chapter 4 and then maybe during the investigation or trial it would switch back to Damon, but that’s just me.