Ah, the obligatory "why nobody else" section. The aftercare of getting mad about anime videogames. Does it ruin the pacing of a writeup? Yeah. I'm still gonna do it, though.
From most likely for me to cut them to least likely:
Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu. Yeah. Dunno if this is a surprise to spectators since I only vaguely alluded to it once in an early round, but I think he's legit the worst character left that isn't Junko. He goes through the motions of an uninspired Jerk With Heart Of Gold arc in a way that's completely disconnected from everything else and focused on with such pinpoint unsubtlety that the writers seem really proud of this concept they stole from fucking Ancient Greece. He's never actively bad though, which means I don't think I could justify putting Junko below him. Also, being boring makes you harder to write about. I probably would've just went "fuyuhiko has an arc about fridging his woman and then becoming a good guy and then doing nothing while being worse than himiko". Thank you Junko, for being interesting and also really bad. Still, it was really tempting to cut Fuyuhiko with JH, given he lost the poll by some miracle. Hopefully the miracle wasn't a one-time thing? Also I just promised to cut a character Anal liked and while I wasn't actually gonna do that Junko is actually higher on his list than Fuyuhiko so sure. Also this rankdown is weird enough that Junko actually probably has a higher chance of slipping than Fuyuhiko. Also I already wrote this whole big writeup and I don't want to start over
Gonta Gokuhara is a lad who should be out like, now. He's fine. He's funny. He has some cool subtext about cinnamon roll type characters in general. It's not very much, though.
Chihiro Fujisaki was my favorite character when I first played DR1, and the soft spot I have for him never entirely faded. I'll freely admit he's not a masterpiece or anything, but a lot of what his arc is about resonated with me a lot because of circumstances around the time I played DR1. I'll gracefully accept him getting cut now, so long as the cut isn't really stupid.
Ryoma Hoshi should leave like... soon, if we had a rankdown based solely on my opinion. I love the bait and switch with his appearance and his entire demeanor. I don't think anything else about him is particularly good. But there's a lot of political nonsense surrounding Ryoma, and me cutting him at all let alone now would be a very very bad idea. If he dies, it won't be by my hand.
Sakura Ogami is like so cool and a badass and epic and her FTEs are really good, some of the best in DR1. She serves her role well but there's not all that much to her. Prime 20-11 material, pretty much.
I don't have much of an opinion on Tenko Chabashira's writing quality but she is funny and makes lame people mad so I will let her be. rock on you funky lesbian
Aoi Asahina is well written, I guess. Don't personally care all that much about her. Respectable Top 10 candidate.
Kaito Momota is an annoying self-important fucker who never shuts up. That is why he is so good, aside from neat parallels with another very cool character.
Kyoko Kirigiri is cold and disconnected until she isn't she is neat she reminds me of maki but good
ruruka ando top 20 lmao
Kotoko Utsugi is like Mikan but a funny small child so objectively better
Sayaka Maizono is real good. like... real good
Nagisa Shingetsu is the villainous UDG child substitute I have accepted now that my main girl is gone. Also he's extremely well written and compelling
It's really cool that Toko Fukawa wasn't nominated this round, and I refuse to acknowledge any evidence to the contrary.
I guess I could talk about the people immune to me. It may not be relevant for justifying my choice, but I do love to listen to myself talk.
Gundham Tanaka is kinda dumb. I had a higher opinion of him back when I accepted more of the popular consensus and failed to realize facts like "Hiro and Hiyoko good". Then I met onnie on a discord server and she was like "gundham tanaka dumb and cringe" and I looked back and thought yeah I guess so I kinda agree love or hate onnie she spitting straight facts here. I still have an overall positive opinion of him for how damn funny he is but I would describe attempts to do anything other than humor with him as "flawed" if I were being polite and "incoherent" if I weren't.
Shuichi Saihara is... servicable. That's basically all I can say. He "Has An Arc" much like Fuyuhiko. I've spent effort defending him before but that's more due to considering common complaints about him really stupid than actually giving a shit about him. I hope he goes out around now less because of any disdain for him and more because him surviving this long off of the poll with no ranker particularly liking him would be dumb.
And just recently made immune from me: Mikan Tsumiki. What can be said about Mikan Tsumiki? A lot of things, probably. I won't be the one to say any of them in this rankdown, though.
Kaede Akamatsu is so fucking cool as well as good. While I wouldn't rank her #1 myself or even at the top of the top 10 we got in RD1, she's certainly a deserving candidate. And once we reached the top 3 of that rankdown (rip komaru 😔) you can be sure she was who I was rooting for.
In this rankdown, from the very beginning, even before that when I sent out my application, and before that, when I started frequenting the sub to become a user with some presence and some established analysis posts, I had two goals. Two characters were cut in Rankdown 1, back to back, on the very same day, both for very questionable reasons. I vowed I would join the successor to the Rankdown. And I would ensure both of them got higher.
I failed. I did not improve the position of one of these characters who I was dedicated to support. I was hesitant, unwilling to negotiate enough, and incapable of foreseeing the specific nature of threats. She's gone already. If you're perceptive, I think you can take a wild guess who this character is. The other character is Kokichi Oma. I failed once. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴏᴛ ꜰᴀɪʟ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. I'm a human being with a variety of opinions and attributes. But he has been and will continue to be priority number one. purple clown top 10 babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy