In the past, I’ve talked about Kodaka’s current (to be extra clear, at the time) body of work and its lack of representation of characters outside the gender binary, or characters who fucked with it.

Kodaka’s relationship with writing gnc characters has been a hot topic for a while due to the inclusion of Chihiro Fujisaki in Danganronpa 1, a character who, according to any straightforward analysis, was simply written without consideration for the sheer existence of gender non-conformity. Not only is this lack of acknowledgement of queer experiences disappointing coming from an adult - yes, even in 2010, though yes, it being 2010 plays a role in the narrative - but many players felt a connection to elements of Chihairo’s experience and felt that their own queer identity/experience had been actively disrespected. Beyond that, there’s the Ultimate Imposter in Danganronpa 2 (and later 3), a character whose identity “and gender” are unknown, but it’s made pretty clear with every part of his representation and writing that he’s really just a guy, who only ever presents himself as a guy, and the inclusion of gender in this description was just to hammer down the fact that he was a complete mystery. (Unlike Genocider Shou from Danganronpa 1, for example, for whom the police had fairly accurate theories concerning her potential profile.)


Later on, after Kodaka left Spike Chunsoft to found Too Kyo Games and started working on multiple new projects, due to having Wiki brain and being a fan from the release of Episode 1, I was in the midst of a small controversy concerning Cutthroat’s gender in Akudama Drive. As Funimation’s subtitles had a character who had never seen Cutthroat’s real face use the neutral pronoun “them” to refer to him, some viewers assumed Cutthroat may have been non-binary. Something else that played a role was the lack of an official translation for the characters’ Japanese profiles, and the fact that a few viewers decided to use Google Translate, which mistakenly prompted up the word “gender”. This was a mistake due to the machine translator not understanding a line break, and this word was in fact not mentioned in his profile at all. The final nail in the coffin: none of the characters’ profiles mentioned their genders. I absolutely do not blame anyone for believing in this theory (and as a headcanon, I definitely respect it,) seeing as there were enough vague elements to make one consider it. Unfortunately, as it turned out, this was another case of not even taking the possibility of gender non-conformity into consideration. This time, the year was 2020. It’s very likely that the characters’ genders weren’t mentioned because you were supposed to look at the characters and think “well obviously, that’s a man” “well obviously, that’s a woman”. (Because Doctor’s whole shtick is more of a mess, I won’t delve into it for the purpose of this post, but as of very recently the manga artist indulged in a little bit of transphobia in how he referred to her and allegedly thought up her backstory himself - in a way that’s honestly just confusing.) As for that aforementioned subtitle, just like the Ultimate Imposter’s gender was unknown, this had to do with Cutthroat’s anonymity.

It was only on February 25, 2023, that an official profile featuring Cutthroat’s gender was released in the manga. No surprise here: he is listed as being male.


So from October 8, 2020, when Episode 1 released, to February 25, 2023, I was left to die on the hill that… no… he’s not non-binary, guys… I’m sorry, it’s a misunderstanding. Because not only did I receive some insults and was subject to rude reactions, but also because believe it or not, I would actually also have been overjoyed had he been non-binary, as time went, I explained why I believed he wasn’t meant to be. This included the explanations above, that factually the idea that he was non-binary stemmed from a misunderstanding, but I also mentioned Kodaka’s current known body of work - at the time.

Kodaka had never created a character who was actually gnc. His creations included characters who had clearly been written without gender non-conformity in mind. It’s not like his only other work since he founded Too Kyo Games at the time (Death Come True) had non-binary characters either. It just wasn’t a thing in his works. Best we had was… Kiibo, the robot from Danganronpa V3…? He has a throwaway line in which he mentions not being for a fact gendered. Because he is a robot. Nothing happens with that, and he is not human, but it did feel a little bit like real life was sort of in the room with us for once.


As such, and because none of us know Kodaka personally, there was no reason to infer that this Japanese man in his forties who had never even tried to imply he cared about trans and gnc identities… cared about trans and gnc identities. I was told it was a bit harsh to claim he didn’t care, but I thought it important to present to young queer people who were at risk of being lied to the possibility that this stranger in his forties isn’t in fact their friend. I thought it a concept important to take into consideration, when you know, queerbaiting exists. When parasocial relationships exist. And when there are also angrier consumers who assume the worst - that he is in fact actively transphobic - I wanted to clarify my stance that we just. Don’t know. And that the information we had pointed towards him probably being an ignorant man who doesn’t care about it. Then comes RAIN CODE. At some point, maybe a few months before the game’s release, official character profiles were written in English for the main cast. Although every other character’s profile included their pronouns, Halara’s, specifically, didn’t, and instead very clearly repeated their name where there would have been a gendered pronoun. Despite my general stance, which I made clear in this post, I did have the belief that this meant Halara would use neutral pronouns.


There was no certainty, and I was extremely ready to be disappointed. That being said, there were multiple elements which made it a reasonable assumption; not only did this profile clearly stand out in this way, but I had other reasons to believe it a possibility - notably, Spike Chunsoft’s involvement, and the promotional content that made it clear RAIN CODE was being made by the team behind Danganronpa. At this point in time (being 2023), with knowledge of Danganronpa’s fanbase and a specific intent to cater to it, it was extremely reasonable to believe that Spike Chunsoft was going to want - or possibly accept, if the idea was Kodaka’s in the first place, which I don’t know - a token non-binary character. It’s yet again a pretty crude way to put it, but by being so deeply involved in the Danganronpa fandom and by having dealt with Spike Chunsoft directly for a while, the time felt right. On top of that, Kodaka’s work partner and fellow game creator, Uchikoshi, has demonstrated himself as a proper trans ally. With Uchikoshi having defended gnc identities, and his close relationship to Kodaka, there is a fair assumption to be made that Kodaka may have been influenced somewhat.

And not too long later, Halara’s official profile was published on the official site, where one line was added - and this line used the neutral pronoun “they”. At this point, it was clear that regardless of what their identity would turn out to be, Halara was going to be presented as a gnc character.


This post is already very long and I’m only now getting to what I wanted to say: I’m glad. I’m not sure I’ve said it before, but I’m glad.

I haven’t played RAIN CODE, so I can’t speak to how Halara’s identity was presented, if it was good or not, but it’s been confirmed to me that they are in fact neither a man or a woman. When I was in Wiki brain mode and taking note of the promotional content for the game, it was genuinely exciting, as someone who has had to look at a lot of Komatsuzaki’s designs, to look at Halara as his first non-binary design. To consider the thought that was put into designing and presenting them the way they are. Finally!

This doesn’t change the way Kodaka’s previous works were written, but it is extremely reassuring to see that things are moving in the right direction. That gnc identities are being taken into account by someone who famously didn’t before. That there is good will being extended to people with those identities, who want to see themselves on-screen. Now, here’s to hoping that Halara won’t be an outlier. That in Kodaka’s future works, more gnc/non-binary/trans representation will be found, be it in main or surrounding casts, as a normal option for how a character can be.

That’s all I wanted to say.



Like I said, I haven't played RAIN CODE, and I certainly haven't kept up with it either. This is why I only encountered posts that mentioned something Kodaka said about Halara in an interview after publishing my post.

That being said, I'll be honest and say that to me, it's such a nothing quote that it literally doesn't change anything.

The main post I saw about this included a translation on DeepL, which is a good tool for translation, though imperfect, as are many things in life. The translation they showed on screen was: "I didn't specifically intend to put a deep social message here." I checked through DeepL too, and they're being truthful, no issue here; DeepL offers possible different phrasing, and here's another example it gave me: "I didn't particularly try to put a deep social message here."

Okay, and?

This is actually an interesting discussion to be had - should any and all current queer characters in media be queer with the intent of spreading a specific social message?

It's not that black and white. One could easily say that yes, in the current climate, and being that this game is supposed to be set in a contemporary setting, it would be the proper way to go to acknowledge that it is difficult to be non-binary without having a social debate attached to your very existence. However, one could also easily say that… including queer identities just because they exist, without always trying to politicise their existence, is actually pretty positive and fine.

If I think about my own writing of different gnc and trans characters, I know for a fact that I have some characters I wrote with the intent of having their experience in my story depict a specific social message, but also some that I wrote like that for… a bunch of different reasons. "It fit." "It impacted the plot." "As I was figuring out how to present this character I realised that it made the most sense realistically for them to have this experience." etc. Buncha people in real life are gnc, so if I'm going to create a lot of characters, some of them should be too, not necessarily because they have something to say about it. Some characters will have their backstory and emotions explored, in which case it should be done realistically and respectfully, and some are just going to stay mysterious, or side characters, and you'll just have to accept that their identity is the way that it is. Kinda realistic.

In fact, do we really want Kodaka's take on a social message on gender non-conformity? This is someone who, like I explained thoroughly in my previous post, can be assumed to be ignorant on the matter - maybe it's better if he lets other people talk about it?

The reason I think this doesn't impact my conclusion whatsoever is that in that post, I celebrated the fact that a character with neutral pronouns, who is neither man or woman, was included. I didn't celebrate Kodaka's sudden allyship - because that's not something I know for sure exists. I celebrated that right now, a gnc character has been included in one of his stories for the first time. Finally. Gender non-conformity was taken into consideration - something, which again was at the heart of what I explained, that he did not do before.

This is a step in the right direction. This is proof that gnc characters, representative of gnc individuals, can be included for neutral or positive reasons.

I am not going to give this nothing quote a bad faith reading (though I don't mean to blame anyone for viewing it in a negative light - there's Kodaka's history, and there's how little the quote gives us to infer an objective message). Not only can neutral, silent, normal inclusion of all different types of gender non-conformity be seen as a positive, but his quote can easily be read as. Halara is the way they are because they are the way they are.

If you're looking for works that spread social messages concerning LGBTQ issues... don't go for Kodaka's works. He doesn't claim to do that. Other people do, though. His inclusion of a character who is neither man or woman is simply a reflection of the fact that he has finally acknowledged such people exist. That's a win, however small.

But hey, I'm not interested in that game personally, partly because whatever messaging he's aiming for right now doesn't particularly interest me. Because I'm not that impressed by such small wins, and I think other creators do better. So I didn't play it.

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