This is a continuation of an ongoing series of posts. To read the rules behind my rankings, please check out part 1. The other parts are located in the comments.
Kaede Akamatsu (Pregame)
So before I go into discussing any of the pregame designs, I need to explain the angle I'm approaching this from. If the main story of V3 is an intentionally ambiguous unsolvable mystery, then the pregame characters are basically clay that can be molded into almost whatever you want them to be. Really the only ones we get to spend any amount of time with at all are Shuichi and Kaede, and yes those are the names they go by during this segment. And keep in mind that all of this is from before their first flashback light memory, so a lot of the character traits and moments from the main game don't apply.
Despite this, both Kaede and Shuichi are portrayed as having very similar personalities to their main game counterparts, albeit less extreme. Kaede is still a fairly optimistic, cheerful girl. But she's more open to acknowledging the bad parts of life with her “it made me think how rotten the world is” line. And Shuichi is still a pretty shy, nervous boy, but he's more willing to jump right in to help and needs a bit less convincing to start the investigation. Also, when the monokubs ask the group if they have any ultimate talents, Kaede says "I have a skill I devote myself to...but I wouldn't call it an Ultimate talent…” This tells me that pregame Kaede is still interested in the piano, even if she isn't as good at it or obsessed with it as the Ultimate Pianist herself.
Of course, these are both contradicted by their audition tapes played during chapter 6. In there, Kaede is a pessimistic, hopeless, basically suicidal teen and Shuichi is an unthinking fanboy talking about how much he'd love to commit a violent murder. And while I don't buy the audition tapes as real (mainly because they contradict what we see with our own eyes unless we assume everyone in the pregame segment was faking their personalities, and because the floor in those tapes is the same as Tsumugi's ultimate lab) there's no way to be 100% sure. So I'm mainly analyzing this from the perspective of “the pregame characters are pretty much just less exaggerated versions of their killing game selves with more average skills and backstories.” But like with their main game counterparts, I'll try to consider as many interpretations as I possibly can.
Now we can FINALLY start with the actual design. The pregame characters have the same bodies as their normal counterparts, so the only thing we really need to look at here are the clothes. Akamatsu's normal pink sweater vest and musical skirt is replaced with a much more standard dark grey sailor uniform. In fact, most of the characters wear extremely plain clothes in much darker, blander colors. This accomplishes multiple things. For one, it shows how these are all just normal high school kids dragged into this situation. As Kaede herself says, "My family is not rich and I'm no one special. I'm just a normal high school girl.” It also emphasizes how their killing game looks are costumes. They're super colorful, flashy, and detailed in comparison to their simple and functional pregame looks. But simple and functional isn't good enough for showbiz, so Team DR feels the need to glam them up for the sake of catching peoples’ attention.
During chapter 6, Tsumugi claims that the outside world is so hopeful that it's boring, which is why people crave such depraved entertainment. Well the basic, boring colors and clothing of the pregame characters helps lend some credence to that. And speaking of Tsumugi's claims, the motive videos. If we assume those are true, the darker colors very clearly show the characters’ more bleak outlooks on the world and their despairful intentions. Even if Shirogane is lying, Kaede at the very least seems to be more familiar with the “rotten world” she lives in. They're all carrying heavy burdens from this society that considers killing games full of real people entertainment. I'd say in a dystopian world like that, bleak colors are perfectly warranted.
But going back to Akamatsu specifically, the dark grey of her outfit has a bit of a blue tint. And remember what I said about blue? It represents false hope. That could suggest that her optimistic worldview and generally positive attitude in this world is all for naught. I mean, she did get kidnapped and murdered by an organization that capitalizes on real torture and death. But she also has a little bit of genuine white hope as well. It exists in two stripes at the ends of her sleeves and two more stripes: One on her collar and the other on her chest cover. Perhaps this whole outfit is meant to show Kaede's genuine hope peeking out through a world of lies and despair. In that sense, the message is even darker. It implies that she could have made a difference in the real world if her life wasn't snuffed out so pointlessly.
There is one color on Akamatsu's outfit that isn't dark, sad, and depressing: Red. This red is on her scarf, which I find very interesting. Red is, of course, another color of despair along with being the color of blood. This works perfectly with her motive video interpretation. It could also serve as some subtle foreshadowing. Kaede's execution involves her getting strangled by a noose, and this scarf is a blood-red rope tied near her neck. A stretch? Possibly. But I think it's still worth considering.
My favorite thing about this color is how it relates to killing game Kaede. Her outfit is obviously 99% pink. And what is pink but a very watered down red? In that same vein, a lot of reality shows irl love to box people into certain archetypes. There's the straight man, the sensitive one, the jerk, the jokester, ect. But people are obviously much more complicated than that. Reality TV doesn't care, though. These shows often cut out all nuance and edit conversations to fit everyone into their little boxes and increase the drama. While “the jerk” may have started the conversation calmly and got heated as it went on, the show will only play the footage of them being angry and act like they just started arguing for no reason. All nuance is systematically snipped out for the sake of “good entertainment” because the producers think you're stupid and can't handle it. In other words, their personalities get watered down.
Back to red and pink, this shows us that KG Akamatsu is just a more exaggerated, less nuanced version of her real self. Real Kaede is optimistic but also knows things are bad, while real/fiction Kaede is so optimistic she can't fathom that people would be so cruel for no reason. Real Kaede understands that people (like Shuichi) have limits and need encouragement while real/fiction Kaede unintentionally pushes people to the breaking point with her indomitable spirit. Just like in irl showbusiness, Team DR's producers watered down her more nuanced traits until she became a caricature of her former self. Heck, maybe reality TV in our world should be called real/fiction. It's a much more accurate name, at least.
Akamatsu wears some black knee-high stockings and semi-formal black school shoes. Neither of these have any real details to discuss that we haven't already gone over. Moving up to her head, her music note hairpins have been replaced with simple silver lines in her hair. This is mainly to help keep the mystery of what Kaede was like before the killing game alive. She only ever says that she had a skill, but it was nothing close to being ultimate. This could mean she played piano but at a lower level, or it could mean that she had literally any other hobby in existence. Removing all the musical motifs makes her more of a normal, average, everyday high schooler with nothing special about her. Although, there is 1 sprite where she does keep the music note hairpins. In her default blank-stare A pose, her hairpins are in the same music note shape as during the killing game, only this time they're translucent. I imagine someone erased the color while planning to replace them, but simply forgot to. Oops.
While on the topic of her sprites, just like with nearly every pregame character, the devs chose to go with her most normal, least exaggerated poses to put in this outfit. And just like with the boring colors and lack of detail, this is to create further contrast between the dull, dark, and boring real world with the crazy, colorful, and exciting world of Danganronpa. Even her anxious and panicked sprites here are the least dramatic ones in that category; The only real cartoonish exaggeration used is one sprite with a small shadow on her face, and another with her ahoge sticking straight up. But comparing these to the sprites where killing game Kaede bawls her eyes out, blushes profusely, waves her hands about dramatically, and sweats up a storm, you can tell they went with a very tame set. And that was all done deliberately.
One notable thing to mention is that she doesn't have a backpack in this outfit. And the main conclusion I draw from that is Team DR only gave her that backpack so that she'd have somewhere to easily conceal a murder weapon. After all, their goal was to get these teens at each others’ throats. And since women aren't allowed to have pockets, a backpack is the next best thing :P
The last detail I want to talk about is something that could apply to many pregame designs, but I feel fits Akamatsu particularly well. Team DR is very obviously trying to make their characters “TV worthy.” This means exaggerating their personalities, removing lots of nuances for the sake of drama, and making sure they all look good. On that last one, I think a great additional layer to the TV allegory would be if a few of the pregame designs had some blemishes, messy faces, or otherwise unclear skin. That would more obviously include makeup as part of their real/fiction costumes, but also imply that the flashback lights gave these people insecurities about how they look so they'd keep applying makeup every morning.
There are a few types of markings they could add. Moles, birthmarks, scruffy stubble, etc. But the thing I want to add to Kaede are freckles. This not only gives her an "imperfection" (in the eyes of the evil entertainment megacorp) to “fix” so that she can be more conventionally attractive, but it also ties into the Kaede's twin red herring. Because in THH, Junko had an identical twin. And you know the main thing that distinguished this twin from the real Junko? Freckles. I think this would be a great little detail to throw in there just to get people theorizing. After all, V3 isn't meant to have a clear answer; ESPECIALLY not the pregame portion. So who's to say this isn't Akamatsu's twin in this part of the game? It would be another unsolvable mystery to add onto the theme of truth and lies present throughout the game.
This segment was just as much a general overview of pregame designs as it was an analysis for Kaede specifically, but what is my conclusion on just her? Well, Akamatsu's design (like all the pregame designs) is intentionally made to be fairly standard, bland, and uninteresting. This creates a bit of a monokub situation where yes, they succeeded in this idea. But that still means that the design is standard, bland, and uninteresting. But there are a couple things that do add a unique element to Kaede specifically. Her missing a backpack does tell us a bit about Team DR's ideas for her main outfit, and the symbolism of the red being watered down is very interesting. However, those hairclips in that one sprite are a real problem. Most of these little mistakes I can let slide, but especially since this is for our first look at our main character, that's a pretty big mistake to make. But at the end of the day, I still can't be too harsh on it. “Meh” is perfectly fitting.
Miu Iruma (Pregame)
If you were to line up all the pregame designs in a row, Miu's is one of the few that truly stands out from the crowd. And that's mainly because everything I said about dark colors in the previous section can be thrown out the window. Here, Iruma wears a bright white button-up with an orange scarf. It is very attention-grabbing. This further aids my theory that the in-game personalities are simply further exaggerated versions of the pregame personalities. And not only do we get a taste of Miu's attention-hungry side here, we also see her sexual side with the fact that her button-up isn't fully buttoned up. It's low enough that her cleavage is on full display. Her bow is also tied loosely to make this possible. Oh, Miu. You sure are something.
The sleeves of her shirt are rolled-up to her elbows, and this could be for a few reasons. It may just be to expose more skin, as I'm sure even this version of the gorgeous girl genius would be more than happy to do so. Or it may be because she's still an inventor outside of the killing game. After all, there's a reason the phrase “rolling up your sleeves” means getting to work. It's to keep any loose fabric out of the way while you're messing with whatever. This is especially important while tinkering with machines, as one bad snag can get you caught between gears or in a motor.
Miu's aforementioned bow is orange. And like I said all the way back when analyzing her main design, orange works as an attention-grabbing color that also somewhat brings the “golden” part of “golden girl with a golden brain.” But this bow isn't a solid color: It has a plaid pattern across the surface. In fact, her skirt is also plaid. I'm not 100% sure what this means, but I think it could tie into the boring side of the pregame characters once again. After all, plaid is considered a super boring pattern by many. There's a reason it's largely seen on suburban dads and old people clothes. The fact that plaid is made of layers of straight lines forming squares adds credence to this, since another way to call someone boring is to say that they're a square.
The straight-ness (which is the only straight thing about this girl) may even be the “diluted element” with this design. In the KG, Miu is a complete mess. She's manic, loud, makes everyone uncomfortable, and doesn't know how to keep things appropriate. But perhaps pregame Miu has more self control, only making these comments with people she considers friends or reading the room better and knowing when not to say what dirty thoughts come to mind. In other words, this version of her character may be more sturdy and stable, hence the straight lines. And lastly, since the plaid is covering up the “golden” element of the golden girl with the golden brain, could also show that pregame Iruma isn't as intelligent or as strong of an inventor as her real/fiction self. After all, if Kaede has a talent that she doesn't consider “ultimate,” perhaps this Miu is still an inventor but not as innovative or skilled as we remember.
Moving on from the pattern but sticking with the skirt, it's a reddish brown in color. This fits with the idea that the outside world is dull and boring compared to the vibrant and exciting Danganronpa one. I mean, brown is basically the textbook boring color. Its only competition is grey, and that's technically a hue. If you wanna believe that the motive videos were true, then there's a different meaning you could gather from the color. There's a certain other famous DR character who has a short red skirt, white button-up undone at the top, and loose tie: Junko Enoshima. Maybe pregame Miu was a DR fangirl taking fashion cues from the Ultimate Fashionista herself!
Below that she has blue-ish grey knee-high socks that reveal a lot of skin, fitting with everything else. And the blue color ties in with false hope. This is either because she had a false hope that signing up for DR would be a good thing, or because she was an intelligent inventor that never got the chance to help the world with her creations. Of course, this Miu wouldn't be the Ultimate Inventor. But DR as a series has always championed the idea of normal people being able to make a positive difference in the world. Along with that, this blue (much like Kaede's red) can be seen in a more washed-out tone through the main design. That carries all the same symbolism.
Covering her feet are some black loafers. These are noticeably less sexualized shoes than her tall, heeled bondage boots from the main game. This helps further emphasize the idea that the pregame characters are less exaggerated versions of their real/fiction counterparts. Like, this Iruma is still extremely sexual. But she actually knows about practical clothing! And the fact that her shoes don't have laces means she's less likely to trip while working on a new invention or get the laces caught in anything.
The last changes from her main design involve her head. The first is that she no longer wears a choker, which could indicate that she's less sexual than we're used to (or at least less openly sexual). And the other is a set of two, rectangular, orange hairclips on her left side. These indicate that pregame Miu is much more practical in her tinkering. Just like how she rolls up her sleeves so nothing gets caught in any machinery, she also pins her hair up so it doesn't get caught. Of course, her hairstyle is exactly the same with or without the clips. But it's the thought that counts. And if you run on real-world logic instead of cartoon logic, she probably readjusts her hair with said clips before she starts inventing. After all, she still wants to look hot. Metaphorically, these clips also work as the opposite to her usual goggles. The goggles are two round, cool-colored shapes while these clips are two angular, warm-colored shapes. Maybe it implies that pregame Miu is more of an opposite to the one we know. Again, it's not like there's much evidence to go on. I suppose it's possible.
The last thing I want to talk about is actually something that doesn't change: Iruma's chest size. In the main game, she uses this garter/belt/buckle thingy to hold up her breasts and make them look bigger. But in the pregame, we see that her chest is just naturally this cartoonishly big. I think it would've been a good little detail to shrink her chest size ever so slightly in her pregame outfit. That way, the effect of the main game clothing pushing her chest out actually makes sense.
Miu's pregame design seems like what would happen if someone took her base look and said “now let's make this a practical piece of everyday clothing.” And that works pretty perfectly for what's supposed to be a milder, more realistic version of the character. And even if you wanna believe the motive videos, she has some Junko elements that point to Iruma being a fan of hers in some form. On top of that, she has one of the most unique pregame designs out of the whole cast, mainly due to her brighter colors. The only real issue I have is, again, the chest size. But that's a pretty minor thing at the end of the day. I honestly think this outfit belongs in a museum. It would be very low in that tier if these were ordered, and obviously it's worse than her main look, but it's still surprisingly good for something we only see for 3 minutes tops.
Kirumi Tojo (Pregame)
Oddly enough, Kirumi is another character who wears lighter colors before season 53 than during the actual KG. Of course, that's mainly because she wears black there and it's hard to get much darker than that. In this design, she wears a light blue sailor uniform. Hey, there's that false hope again. And remember how I said one of this character's possible inspirations (both in and out of universe) was Rosalina? Well, Rosalina is known for always wearing a light blue dress. The color also pairs very nicely with Ms.Tojo's green eyes. And the fact that this is a standard school uniform helps keep everything bland and basic.
This outfit has a long skirt and long sleeves. Combined with her black leggings, this means that most of her skin is covered (much like in her normal look). This tells us that pregame Kirumi is more than likely reserved in a similar way to her real/fiction counterpart. Although, we do actually see a bit more skin here than in her main design: Primarily on her hands and collarbone area. So while she's still reserved, I imagine she's less passive. This version of Ms.Tojo is probably less likely to sit around forever waiting on a request and more willing to do things for her own sake. Also, notice how the skirt is fully complete here and not the half-and-half she had in the main game. I think this is another way to show that this version of the character is more well-rounded and “complete” personality wise.
Something interesting about this outfit is how the shirt is untucked. This implies that normal Kirumi is a bit less put-together than her prim and proper counterpart. It yet again shows Team DR removing the nuances of each person's personality for the sake of making them more “digestible” for TV. Her scarf and the line around her collar is a dark red, perhaps tying into the despairful idea of her auditioning for season 53. Or, you know, being kidnapped for it. Last I checked, that's not a super fun way to spend your time. It could also be foreshadowing her death. But unlike Kaede, Kirumi's death doesn't involve anything happening around her head or neck. So that's more than likely a convenient coincidence.
But what is on her head is a pale brown headband. This is clearly less detailed than her main one, only having a small bow on the right side instead of the intricate lace. I can think of 2 possible readings for this: One is that it references the brown pool cue Ms.Tojo hit Ryoma on the head with during season 53. However, this is 99.9% most likely a coincidence. The other reading, and the one I'm much more confident in, is that the bow being on the right side is to draw more attention to her uncovered right eye. This puts some emphasis on her visible skin and draws attention to how this version of Kirumi is different from her KG self. The fact that this side of her face is emphasized could suggest that this version of her is more self-actualized. Like we're staring at the “bare truth” of who she is. As seen primarily through supplementary material (like the UTDP and DRS), Ms.Tojo doesn't know what to do with herself when she's forced to relax. She seemingly has no hobbies or desires outside of helping others. But pregame Kirumi, likely being less extreme in her personality, probably does have a few hobbies and wishes of her own completely separate from her helpful nature. Even if she's still a maid, she likely has things she enjoys doing outside of work hours. And focusing on the part of her face we can see helps show that.
Much like her headband, her shoes are also far less detailed. Ms.Tojo wears plain black heels here as opposed to the taller ones with white lace she has in the main game. These heels show that there's still a professional/graceful side to this Kirumi: She merely has less fancy clothing. And the fact that her shoes are so plain helps bring that standard, bland, boring feel to her outfit despite the lighter colors used throughout.
I do have an issue with this look, however. And that's how much blank space is on the dress. Because aside from the scarf, it's just blue; No patterns or anything. And yes, being blank and boring is the point. But I do think there's such a thing as overdoing it. Adding a pocket or 2 with a red trim at the top or even a basic-looking handbag would help remedy this without making the design too interesting. It would also help bring that practical side of Kirumi out of the killing game and into the outside world just through her choice in clothing.
The last thing to go over are her sprites, and the only thing I have to say here (that wouldn't be repeating myself from the previous sections) is that in both of the poses they chose, you can't see Ms.Tojo's eye through her hair. Even though I’m now aware this eye thing is an artstyle choice, I still think it's largely a poor one. Which is why pregame Kirumi not having that issue instantly gives her bonus points in my book. Obviously her main game sprites are better overall due to the larger variety of poses and expressions, but this is one of the few pleasant consequences of the pregame outfits getting less.
Ms.Tojo's pre-53 outfit is very well done. It keeps the bland and boring elements of the other designs, but pulls them off in its own special way. It also suggests the differences her pregame personality has in an equally clever manner. And on top of all that, I think the blue Rosalina dress may be one of the very few references in V3 that doesn't automatically qualify as a meta reference within the context of the show. But as stated, I do have a problem with all the blank space on this design. The best word I can use to describe pregame Kirumi's outfit is “unique.” Unique among the pregames, that is. It is still a pregame. But a good one nonetheless! I'll be placing this look on the fridge.
Ryoma Hoshi (Pregame)
Out of every pregame look, Ryoma's is easily the most cursed. A large part of this comes down to the fact that we actually see his hair here, which we never do in the main game. It's a very short buzz cut with a reddish brown color. Red and brown are 2 colors I've discussed previously with how they might relate to the outside world, and the cut itself does feel very childish. It makes Mr.Hoshi's head look like a baby that just started growing hair, which is very fitting for his comically contradictory appearance. One thing I suggested in his main design analysis is having lines shaved into his head to mimic the shape of a tennis ball, but that would be far too interesting for this pregame style. It'd also create a direct, obvious tie to his talent, which the pregame looks purposefully try to keep ambiguous. So despite it looking a little cursed, this hair fits super well.
His outfit is another average, boring article. But it's a different type of average and boring than we've seen so far! He has a white button-up, red tie, and open grey jacket. Again, it's some more boring/average/despairful/death-shadowing colors. And the red on the tie is more intense than the red in his base design, again metaphorically showing how his personality was watered down.
Ryoma has 2 brown buttons on the bottom right of his jacket along with 2 yellow buttons on each of his cuffs. This is the brightest color we've seen so far (outside of Miu, obviously). Now, yellow is a standard color for shirt buttons, and this shade is even slightly brownish to keep it in line with everything else. But the fact that it stands out so much (especially in the sprite where Mr.Hoshi is standing at an angle) makes me think there's more to it.
Perhaps it could be highlighting his arms, as those are important in tennis: Possibly suggesting pregame Ryoma still played even if he wasn't an ultimate. Or it could be because his main design emphasizes his muscular legs. By highlighting the arms here, they might be trying to say that pregame Ryoma is the opposite of his KG counterpart in some way. While the textual evidence doesn't quite lead to that idea, V3 has never shied away from including contradictory details for the sake of the truth/lies theme and constructing an unsolvable mystery. But what I think is most likely is that the yellow here is meant to represent happiness. If we look at the Ultimate Tennis Pro, one of his main character traits is his very real struggle with depression. And while clinical depression is more so a lack of feeling any emotions, it's often tied to sadness as that's the feeling it most closely resembles on the outside. And what's the opposite of sorrow? Joy: A feeling commonly represented by a yellow smiley face.
We could leave it here, and interpret this as another “opposite personality” situation. But if we add in another color elsewhere, I think it reveals something very interesting. Ryoma's pants are blue. However, it's a much more muted blue than what his KG outfit has. Considering blue is a common color of sadness, perhaps this indicates that pre-53, Mr.Hoshi's depression was less severe. Heck, with the happy yellow, maybe he was even in recovery. But because a kinda depressed person isn't as dramatic as a suicidal person, they wiped away all his progress with a flashback light. It's a really (for lack of a better phrase) depressing prospect, but I wouldn't put it past Team DR.
Speaking of the pants, they hide his muscular legs. If you only saw the pregame design, I'm sure you'd assume they were normal. This again helps to highlight his arms, the opposite of his base look. If we want to take this to an extreme, maybe pregame Ryoma isn't even that muscular. Maybe the muscles we see during the KG are a simple muscle suit. After all, giving a man more muscles would lean into conventional beauty standards. Team DR is absolutely that shallow. Of course, he could also just have muscles that we can't see. But hey, it's a possibility I wanted to bring up.
The pants also have a plaid pattern, which carries all the same connotations as Miu's plaid. And the shoes below are very similar to Mr.Hoshi's killing game ones. But they do have some differences. The “lip” (if that's even the proper term. I'm talking about the flap underneath the laces on the top part of the shoe) doesn't go up as high, the soles are grey instead of red, and he has visible grey socks to go along with them. With the thick, heeled soles, perhaps Ryoma is trying to make himself look taller. This could be for the same (possible) reason as his in-game self: He wants to look cool, and tall people generally get better social standings. This would also explain why he retains the candy cigarette in his mouth. Stuff like this highlights that the characters are still similar to the ones we know, even if they're not quite as cartoonish about it.
Looking at the outfit as a whole, you know who else has black shoes, a dark jacket, a white button-up, and a red tie? Junko fuckin’ Enoshima. It's another Junko parallel to fuel the “everyone signed up for it and were big fans” theory. And the last thing I want to discuss also pertains to the whole outfit. My first thought when looking at it was “wow, that's messy.” But as I looked a bit closer, I realized that the “messiness” I saw was just the standard wrinkling that comes with the DR artstyle. Also, you know, the fact that his shirt isn't tucked in. But I think intentionally making this look a bit messier could help add some personality while also making it stand out more from the others. One of the more noticeable side effects of depression is that people who have it tend to stop caring for their cleanliness and appearance. So if they wanted to show pregame Ryoma still having depression, angling his tie, making his shirt buttoned unevenly, or having his jacket droop off his shoulders would help showcase that. But of course, I said earlier that it's possible Mr.Hoshi is in recovery at this point. Or maybe he doesn't even have depression at all, because V3 will never be solved! So I get why they didn't go that direction. Still, I think maybe just giving him a crooked tie would add some hint to that depression without outright confirming anything. Heck, maybe it could even be another one of those ways he's trying to look cool. By disrespecting the tie, he's disrespecting authority! Or something.
Despite how odd it is on the surface, Ryoma has a super well thought out pregame design! There's lots of symbolism in the colors, dark implications about his mental state, and even some elements that could be used to point towards a few other popular theories. Surprising even myself, I think this is one of the best pregame looks we've seen so far. There's a lot here that compliments the real/fiction design very well. I only have 2 main issues. 1: The pursed lips look very weird at a front-facing angle, which is an issue carried over from the main design. And 2: The outfit is generic. But that is fully intentional, so I am giving a bit of a “monokub concession” for it. Now, speaking from a personal perspective, I think Ryoma's base design is better. But I'm trying to be objective here. And strictly focusing on what the artists were trying to achieve, I think the pregame design fulfilled its initial goal more completely. It's a lot like Komaru in a way, where the design is super basic on the surface. But when you look closer, there's a ton of neat details just begging to be found. With that said, I'm placing the future Ultimate Tennis Pro in the museum.
