Experience Tumblr Like Never Before
It's weird how the characters that we and the game constantly call stupid are actually some of the smartest.
Well, a lot of characters fit this bill, but seeing as I am a DR rant blog, I'm talking specifically about Tenko Chabashira, Kaito Momota, and Gonta Gokuhara.
Now these characters are now referred to as dumb by the game and particularly the fandom for pretty similar reasons.
Gonta because of his speech pattern particularly is portrayed as Tarzan's speech, and his understanding of normal things we find simple like technology and most famously in chapter 4 where he was manipulated by Kokichi, but the localization, NIS America did change his character a lot they changed his backstory and how the whole killing game buster thing happened in chapter 4.
Which is funny because all three of the characters I'm talking about in this rant were changed pretty heavily by NIS America.
In the Japanese characterization, Gonta's backstory is more ambiguous, being raised by a forest family and developing an extensive knowledge of insect species, his speech pattern is more polite and formal, and the third-person way of speech is culturally associated with child-like innocence and a cute endearing or 'quirky' personality-not dumb.
And in chapter 4 he had more of an idea what was going on in Kokichi's plan from the beginning and acted upon his own decisions rather than just being a blindly lead victim till the end.
But in general, Gonta has a deep knowledge of insects and astrology (for this analysis we are ignoring the ending) and good observational skills that are helpful in class trials like how he noticed that he must be far away from home because the constellations looked different in chapter two and his knowledge about the state of the floorboards and the way the seesaw trick was carried out in chapter three which span both the Japanese and English translations.
Kaito is portrayed as being dumb due to his struggles in trials and his refusal to acknowledge certain truths because they go against his ideals.
But Kaito's intelligence while being shown in some ways on paper by passing the astronaut entrance exams excels in more ways than academically he has emotional intelligence and leadership shown by how he interacts with everyone particularly him supporting Shuichi and pushing him to grow his confidence and seeing past Maki cold exterior and helping her open up emotionally and also in chapter 5 acting out Kokichi's plan which shows strategy and trust.
He also possesses a good amount of street smarts that people overlook.
Tenko is often seen as dumb because of her loud over emotional nature and mannerisms. Some people also don't take her seriously because of her 'man-hating' and her relationship with Himiko.
Tenko also has the same problem as Gonta with localization. In the original Japanese her speech patterns are more elegant and refined, and her male hating is turned back exponentially.
Tenko is however extremely emotionally intelligent her flipping ability which allows her to read people's emotions contributes to this as well as her encouraging Shuichi to build his confidence and Himiko to express her emotions more.
It spans beyond this however in chapter 3 Tenko infiltrates Angie's cult to protect Himiko and avoids brainwashing as well as making it her mission to help Himiko grow from her emotional suppression.
Finally, Tenko allows herself to be the medium for Angie (whom she had a rivarly with) in the seance for Himiko showing her deep empathy self-awareness and willingness to prioritize someone else's emotional healing over her own safety. Is a clear demonstration of her emotional intelligence and wisdom.
In conclusion, whether a character is intelligent or not really depends on how the piece of media portrays the character and how the viewers define intelligence.
I think school systems have definitely skewed our perceptions of intelligence making us think intelligence is just test scores and book smarts rather than street smarts and emotional intelligence.
Gonta Kaito and Tenko- while not in the same as Shuichi or Kokichi- are smart. And I don't think our skewed perception and bad localization should determine how we view them.
Some characters are written to be dumb, and that's fine but Gonta Kaito and Tenko? They aren't.
They're loud, naive, and emotional but they aren't complete idiots.
And I hope this rant helped you realize that.