WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Tribe Nine Episode 8, now streaming on Funimation.
In the world of Tribe Nine, disputes are resolved with games of “Extreme Baseball.” The official purpose of this was to reduce violence, but certain players such as Chiyoda Tribe’s terrifying Ojiro Otori have proved that XB can still be a violent game. Episode 7 introduced Ota Tribe, an XB team that bombed another tribe’s headquarters and whose members fight among each other for the top position in the squad. In Episode 8, Ota Tribe challenged the protagonists' Minato Tribe, and their underhanded methods would reveal a side to the heroic team that has never been seen before.
When Ota Tribe started throwing grenades through Minato Tribe’s window, one of Neo-Tokyo’s referee judge robots descended to remind them they had to settle the issue via XB. If Minato Tribe won, Ota would fix the diner. If Ota won, Minato would hand one of their players over to them -- the mysterious Kazuki Aoyama. Kazuki has always looked down on the other Minato members, but his surprising backstory revealed an even darker side to his personality.
At the start of the game, Ota Tribe surprised Minato as they didn't score a single point. This was reminiscent of their performance in the batting contest in Episode 7, in which Setagaya Tribe’s Ikejiri didn’t even need to use her cheating technology to beat their batter. Enoki Yukigaya emptied a vending machine of snacks in the middle of her run, and Roku Saigo didn't even try to tackle Minato's Santaro Mita as he reached base. It initially seemed as though Ota didn’t know what they were doing, but perhaps their odd behavior foreshadowed the fact that they weren’t trying to win through conventional means.
When their leader Fucho Sonoda started attacking Mita and Minato leader Saori Arisugawa with a scythe-like bat after his ball was already caught, it finally became clear that Ota didn’t care about the rules. Enoki activated a device that jammed judge robot operations. Arisugawa had outlined in Episode 2 that any equipment modifications were acceptable as long as judge robots allowed it. Ota Tribe deactivating the judge robots exploited a comically dangerous loophole: if there were no robots to overrule their behavior, anything could go. They quickly used this to undermine XB's entire purpose of reducing violence.
Ota’s extremely violent methods, characterized by Sonoda’s self-proclaimed desire for chaos, resulted in many Minato members being severely injured. These included the quadruplets who serve as Minato’s fielders. One player who remained on his feet was Manami Daimon, who was running with the ball. Previous episodes have established Daimon’s kindness, encouraging attitude and cooking skills, but his righteous fury at Ota’s attack on his teammates rendered him almost unrecognizable.
The way Daimon's face was drawn revealed the extreme nature of his feelings, to the extent that his body had physically changed because of them. Daimon's eyes are usually dot-like, which gives him an especially cartoonish appearance; they make him look like more of a comic relief character, belying his somewhat more nuanced role in the series. In contrast, Daimon's eyes and eyebrows were suddenly drawn in great detail in Episode 8, with additional shading to convey the deep intensity in his expression. His usually round-looking teeth also became more detailed, with the slight impression of a threatening fang showing that he was prepared to do whatever it took to tag Sonoda.
Daimon's completely revamped appearance in this scene showed how different his behavior was from his usually gentle demeanor, but even this anger was shown to have come from a typical love for his teammates as he yelled "How dare you hurt my friends!" Ota's challenge forced another Minato player to reveal a darker side to his personality, but this character's motivations were apparently not so noble. Kazuki Aoyama cryptically told Sonoda that he saw Minato Tribe as nothing more than pawns. Sonoda then performed a puppet show for Minato's Haru Shirokane explaining Kazuki's backstory -- an example of the contrast between serious and silly that DanganRonpa fans have come to expect from series co-creator Kazutaka Kodaka.
Sonoda explained that Kazuki once worked with Ojiro Otori and now wanted to defeat him, seeing Minato as mere pawns for this goal. Kazuki has never been the most approachable character, constantly criticizing Minato members if they fall short of his standards, but is it true that he sees them as expendable tools? Episode 7 revealed that Kazuki was capable of making sincere connections with his teammates and going out of his way to investigate when they were targeted by thieves. It's possible that Kazuki may have initially seen his relationship with Minato as just a means for revenge on Otori, but he may have found his façade becoming the truth as he got to know the tribe members personally over time.
Daimon may have shown his fangs and Kazuki may have disappointed Haru with his apparent apathy, but Ota’s careless violence reemphasized Minato’s dedication to its members in comparison. After Arisugawa and Mita were attacked, Arisugawa sent Haru to help the others by reminding him that “Minato Tribe is all about helping comrades in need.” In contrast, Ota Tribe was frequently shown to completely disregard its own members’ lives, such as Sonoda carelessly toppling a billboard on his fellow players. Minato members may have their demons, but at least they aren't motivated by something as nebulous and dangerous as Sonoda's obsession with chaos.
