- Sayaka is planning to murder someone in order to escape and save her idol friends. She swaps rooms with Makoto, intending to lead someone into "her" room, kill them, and pin it on Makoto. You'd Expect: For her to go after someone who wouldn't put up much of a fight. Even with a knife, it's not impossible for someone to A) Overpower her and kill her. B) Bring a weapon themselves and kill her. C) Survive the encounter, run away and then tell everyone what she tried to do. As such, you'd expect her to go for someone smaller and/or weaker, like Hifumi, Chihiro, Toko, or Junko.note Instead: She goes after Leon, an athlete is who is likely one of the physically strongest of the class. As a Result: Leon overpowers and kills her.
- Leon is in the process of disposing of the evidence that connects him to Sayaka's death. After taking his bloody shirt to the garbage disposal room, he finds that the incinerator is thirty feet behind a giant gate that he's incapable of opening. You'd Expect: Leon would come up with a different way of hiding or destroying the evidence. Instead: Not only does Leon rely on an incinerator he couldn't even reach, leaving him with only one shot at flinging the evidence in the fire and no chance to retrieve anything that misses, but he hits the ON switch by chucking something at it from behind the gate, a feat that requires major skill and links the crime to his baseball stardom. Even Worse: Instead of using a projectile that could be mistaken for trash and ignored, he uses Hiro's crystal ball, which would draw attention to his methods even if the thing didn't shatter on impact.
I'm not sure about the Sayaka entry. On one hand, the fact that she was able to pre-meditate a murder with the room switching gambit suggests that she had the presence of mind that she should have been capable of thinking her choice of target through. This wasn't a spur of the moment killing like, say, Mondo. On the other, the fact that it takes a matter of hours (at most) between her seeing her motive video (and subsequent breakdown) and putting her plan in motion also suggests a crime of passion, which excuses how poorly thought out it is. So... I dunno.
But as far as the second example goes:
- There were ways for Leon to at least hide the evidence if not destroy it; the first that comes to mind would have been hiding it in his room, which was not only locked but, like all of the student's rooms minus the crime scene, was never searched. While not a perfect plan it would have been less likely to have been sniffed out than using a method that only he could feasibly use.
- The glass debris was really obvious, if for no other reason than it was almost certainly the remains of an item that belonged to Hiro and was now missing. There was also nothing else that feasibly have left that much glass behind.
- The main things to take away from the entry are that Leon's method a) left him with only one shot and no way to recover if he screwed it up (which it did, with the sleeve that fell out), b) left the fact that it was used to destroy the evidence obvious since he couldn't turn it back off, c) was something only he could feasibly accomplish (the other times in the series an Ultimate talent plays a direct role in the murder/cleanup there's attempts to obscure it), and d) was so likely to backfire that pretty much anything he could have come up with would have been less likely to blow up in his face.
I feel like his attempt to dispose of the evidence is so inherently flawed that it belongs here, and since the way he killed Sayaka was explicitly called out in-universe for being at least slightly pre-meditated because of him going back to get his toolkit I don't think we can or should give him the same benefit of the doubt as Sayaka.
Edited by TravisTouchdown
You're kinda falling into a hindsight bias here. Leon's room wasn't searched, but that's no reason to assume it wouldn't be. From the get-go, almost everyone assumed Makoto did it because Sayaka died in his room, but Leon thought it was her room at the time. If Sayaka died in her own room, there would be no suspect and saying "everyone, open your rooms, we'll search them for evidence" would be sensible. And if someone found a bloody shirt in his own room, he'd be screwed. The incinerator leaves at least some room for debate. "You don't know for sure that the glass is from Hiro's ball, he's an idiot, he could've lost it anywhere" "You don't know that the incinerator wasn't on, Hifumi might've just forgotten". Glass isn't as obvious as you make it to be, because in order to connect the dots someone would've had to know both that Hiro's ball was lost (Hiro knew, but, again, he's an idiot, he wouldn't have guessed it's connected to the murder) and that there were the glass shards there (Hifumi was in charge and he's not very social, he wouldn't be talking with Hiro about his ball). Keep in mind that only Makoto thought about searching the dumpster and he's the only other person who knew Hiro lost his ball. And keep in mind that if the shirt was burned completely just like Leon wanted, it's extremely unlikely someone would've connected the incinerator to the murder and even if they did, they'd have no proof.
The proposed solution is impossible for two reasons. First is that he had no means of destroying the bottle without leaving traces and he couldn't just throw it away without breaking the "no littering rule" (enforced by Monokuma with a machine gun). The second is that he didn't use up all of the poison and it couldn't be stored outside of the fridge as it was extremely volatile and even the vapors were deadly. If he hid it somewhere on the island, it would've been found when the students were frantically searching for the bomb and the vapors might've killed someone before Komaeda's suicide in which case he'd become the blackened and his plan would've gone out of the window. He had no choice but to keep the leftovers in the fridge. Getting rid of the label is also an issue, as someone might've opened the bottle to check the content and he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't be the FF agent. (Remember that Nanami was the agent, and she had taste-tested a glue once)
It would be stupid for anyone else, but it's Komaeda we're talking about. For him being lucky isn't a chance, it's a constant. Heck, his whole Gambit Roulette back in DR 2 relied on him being lucky. And it worked, he did postpone the exams, probably better than he'd be able otherwise and without getting himself expelled.
The first option is impossible because the Exisal hangar wasn't open until after her death. The only Exisals outside were the ones used by the cubs, who definitely wouldn't let her use them. The second option is doable but risky. Just one student not willing to go in, or logging out before she's done with the bloodbath and the plan goes out of the window. Miu's plan was much better and the only flaw was that Kokichi saw through it, which would most likely be the case in case of the alternative.
The entry assumes that the mastermind being beaten isn't what she wanted. As it's pointed out, the show is meant to be interesting, and The Bad Guy Wins generally isn't a satisfying ending, meaning the mastermind expected to lose at some point. This is pointed out in-game, the audience wants the hope to win, which is why Tsugumi wanted to give them what they wanted and lose in a spectacular fashion, which is why Shuichi chose to throw away the entire hope vs despair conflict alltogether.