Yeah he’s way too late. Kokichi could never ever Ever work in today’s meme economy.
For starters, danganronpa v3 was not that popular. The name of danganronpa on tumblr alone was already tarnished by years of discourse and overwhelming negative appeal. That and the fact that tumblr already HAD a danganronpa phase in 2011-2013 and is not gonna go back and relive what’s already been done. The name “danganronpa” cannot be mentioned nowadays without a sigh or a sign of disapproval.
Next comes the fact that, comparatively, Kokichi is not as physically attractive to a tumblr user as Komaeda. Kokichi is small and looks like a child which plays well to his comic design as a playful antagonist but does no favors in terms of sexual appeal. Meanwhile Komaeda had Megumi’s Ogata’s watery voice and he physically looked more feminine and appealed to the parts of tumblr who search for evil prettyboys. The closest character in V3 that could have a chance at rivaling komaeda in that position would be Rantaro who, pre-release, was already branded as a Komaeda 2.0 but… uh… we all know how well He went in the game so… that clearly didn’t happen.
It’s practically impossible for Kokichi to reach the same level as Komaeda. Especially because no one has attempted to push Kokichi AWAY from his danganronpa origins. Every joke, meme, and comment about Kokichi usually comes right back to something he did within Danganronpa. Meanwhile, I could say “Komaeda is a clown and he has a family of horses that he gallops with every day with Sans” and no one would bat an eye. Kokichi does not have a single joke characteristic that makes him Unique meanwhile Komaeda has his numerous MMDs and powerpoints and even holidays now. Not to mention, Kokichi shares Too Similar of a role to Komaeda to ever succeed him. Kokichi doesn’t do enough to branch himself away from maeda and that’s to his own demise.
He’s popular within the danganronpa community but outside of it? They have no idea who he is and they probably never will.
