Dekapari: Paripariume's reclamation of the (meta)narrative

Warning! This page will have MAJOR spoilers for the games Towelket 2 and Dekapari. General spoilers for all the games.

Dekapari is one of Towelket's most fascinating works. It is a fairly recent game, released just last year as of writing this. Ever since I've played it, it's managed to stick in my brain as something so infinitely intriguing and enigmatic. It's an incredibly unique story that could have only been accomplished within the Towelket series. And I can't help but wonder, why aren't more people talking about this? It's a game I feel has been sort of overlooked within the vast catalog of games this series has to offer, despite how important it is to the Towelket series as a whole.

On the surface, Dekapari might just come off as one of the more bizarre games in the series. Of course, surreal storylines are sort of par for the course when it comes to Towelket. But despite how wacky these games can get, there's always some sort of reasoning behind it. Whether it's a central theme or that final bit of information that suddenly fills in all the previously empty gaps, there's always something that ultimately makes everything click together. As a result, the nonsensical nature of the storylines very rarely feel like random events that just happen for the sake of it. There's always this cohesive glue that grounds its story back to some version of reality.

But after I completed Dekapari for the first time, I couldn't quite grasp what it was trying to convey. It wasn't due to something the game was lacking, far from it. Rather, everytime I felt like I had found some sort of overarching message or meaning, it felt insufficient. I knew there was something more at play here but I was only grasping little bits and pieces of what this game was trying to present to me. I had to zoom out. There was something much bigger at play here.

That's when I felt like I was finally seeing the bigger picture.

Dekapari is about Paripariume. Not just the titular character in-game, but Paripariume as a whole. Her entire existence as a character within the Towelket series. This game essentially serves as the "conclusion” to her 14 year long character arc.

So, what do I mean by this?

Well, Paripariume has always been sort of an anomaly. She's an interesting character, but it's not so much for the reasons one might think. While she does indeed play a pretty memorable role in her debut game, Towelket 2, it's really everything that came after that really makes her stand out from the rest of Towelket's extensive cast of characters.

In order for me to really make my point, we first need to delve into a bit of Towelket history.

On May 1st 2008, the game Towelket One More Time 2 was released to the public. Though Towelket 3 (the first game) came out a couple months prior, this was essentially the game that really brought people's attention to the series. Though this game unfortunately didn't get any real recognition in the west, mostly attributed to lack of translations at the time, it did gain a moderate amount of success in Japan.

As we all know, the story of Towelket 2 follows the protagonist (unnamed in the original Japanese version, later referred to as "Mocchi" in a blogpost) and his best friend Paripariume. Two kids from the countryside that are suddenly split apart after the protagonist is abducted by aliens. The game initially presents itself as your typical cutesy and comedic adventure type RPG. Sort of reminiscent of something you'd find in a manga or movie aimed towards children.

But then the tone suddenly shifts when Paripariume decides to venture out into the city to look for her friend. It's a fruitless search and as she's ready to give up and go home, Paripariume finds herself in a very unfortunate situation instead.

Several years pass since then, the protagonist eventually manages to return to Earth but trouble follows him as the very aliens that abducted him are now targeting the rest of the planet. The rest of the story follows our main characters trying to survive the situation while we, the audience, hold onto the hope that the two childhood friends will eventually reunite with each other...

...And eventually they do. But by the time it happens, it's already far too late.

The story ends with antagonists successfully taking over and the world for humanity essentially ending. Our main characters are left to die within each other's arms, sharing one final memory together and being able to return to their former selves for just a brief moment before passing on. Then, everything is silent.

A tragic ending.

Of course, by today's standards, an RPGmaker game that starts off cutesy and ends in tragedy is nothing special. In fact many would probably argue that this kind of setup is just flat out overdone by this point. But Towelket 2 was released in 2008 and while it was by no means the first of its kind, it certainly managed to stand out. After all, it's not a game that lures you in with a light-hearted atmosphere purely for the sake of shocking the viewer with its darker content. It's a smooth blend of these seemingly conflicting themes that keeps the viewer invested in the story and characters throughout the game's runtime.

So, Towelket 2 managed to gain sort of a cult following with many fondly remembering it as one of the many classic RPGmaker games of that era. And of course as I mentioned before, this was many people's introduction to the Towelket series as a whole. Even now, I feel like it wouldn't be too far off to say that Towelket 2 is still the most popular game in the entire series.

But as anyone would expect, with anything on the internet that gains any sort of popularity, there are bound to be some detractors. However in this case this game's biggest critic was actually the developer themself of all people.

For whatever reason, Kanao has never been too fond of this game. Whether it was believing other games deserved more recognition or rejecting the "Utsuge" ("depressing game") label some fans would place on the game, whenever Towelket 2 was mentioned a certain level of disdain would follow it.

Though this distaste has always been most prevalent within the games themselves, often manifesting itself in the treatment of the character Paripariume, Towelket 2's heroine.

After Towelket 2's release and success, Paripariume essentially becomes a character who exists for two reasons. To be completely ignored or to be killed off as fast as possible, often for the sake of moving the plot along. Whenever she appears as a party member, she is typically given the "Air" title which basically refers to characters who fade into the background due to how irrelevant they are, despite being present or technically a "main character".

At first, it's easy to mistake these strange decisions for her character to just be perhaps, very poor taste attempts at calling back to her tragedy in Towelket 2. However as you go through each game in order it soon becomes very apparent that it's just an outright mockery of Towelket 2 and of course Paripariume herself.

With each game released, Paripariume becomes less and less of an actual character and more of something akin to a running gag. She dies within the first hour, she dies in the opening cutscene, she dies before the game even starts. But in an almost ironic twist, the attempts to make this character as irrelevant as possible, has made Paripariume stand out even more. Her very existence really represents the darker and messier side of Towelket. The very poison the series is known for. When she doesn't exist to suffer, she's just made to fade into the background, to become like air.

And so, on March 24th 2023, the game Dekapari was released. A game where Paripariume is dead and she quite literally becomes part of the background.

Looking back to when I first played this game, it's sort of funny how I managed to miss the obvious implications of this when it was staring right at me throughout the entire game. Characters in the Towelket series are functionally more like actors than actual characters with consistent roles and traits. They're often made to fit whatever role the narrative calls for. Paripariume being chosen as the main focus of this game was without a doubt, a very deliberate choice. After all, any character could have fit this role just fine in theory. But it had to be Paripariume, a character whose existence has been pushed aside for the past decade.

In this game, you play as Moochasu who is grieving the sudden death of his childhood sweetheart, Paripariume. As he visits her grave, he turns around and begins to see a giant version of her blocking out the entire sky, staring at him. It's an image only he can see, nobody else in his life acknowledges it nor seems to believe it's really there. Almost like a ghost. But despite this, life goes on and Moochasu is forced to live out his daily life as if nothing happened.

There are no alien invasions of evil robots planning to take over the world in Dekapari. The setting we're introduced to in this game is rather grounded which is quite a rarity in this series where surrealism and humorous setting/situations are very prominent. And yet, I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia as I played this game.

Thinking about it however, it does make sense why I felt this way. Dekapari takes place in Kanata Town, the same village the main characters live in Towelket 2. And in this setting we're introduced to Moochasu, Conchelle, Lasagna and of course, the deceased Paripariume, a cast taken directly from Towelket 1, the only difference here being that PPU is the same age as the trio.

Of course, this is not the first time Kanao has gone on to reuse these characters or even this setting. However when it comes to reusing a specific cast entirely is something we've only seen in games that are meant to work as a pseudo-remake or re-imagining of a previous game (i.e. Towelket 6 to Laughing Warawau + Towelket 4 to Night Sea). The characters themselves don't initially present themselves the exact same way as they do to their previous counterparts. But at the same time it also doesn't quite feel like the same old actors taking on a new role. Rather, there's sort of this natural progression of their counterparts from Towelket 2 and Towelket 1. To me it felt like meeting an old friend after a long time and seeing that they've changed, but deep down at their core, they're still the same person you once knew.

As I immersed myself in this world, there were times where I even found myself forgetting about Paripariume. As if my brain just sort of accepted her existence as something that's just there. Similar to what Moochasu experiences, as the days go by he finds himself no longer cowering within the safety of his own home in fear of this mysterious giant girl. He's still curious about her existence, but when no real answers turn up, he has no choice but to go on with his life.

That is until Paripariume forces the attention back onto her.

She rejects the very notion of allowing Moochasu to move on. Outright refusing to be pushed aside and forgotten. For the first time within the Towelket series, It's Paripariume who gets to control the narrative.

When looking at her actions within this game, it feels almost too easy to label Paripariume as the definitive antagonist of the story. When any other character causes this much destruction in a story, they're very clearly meant to be the villain. But with Paripariume, she isn't quite presented in that way despite all of her actions.

Her sole motivation in this game is to be with Moochasu. But is it really worth the destruction of the very world she was once part of? With any other character, this would be unreasonable. But with Paripariume, it's only when you consider her character, not just within this game but as a whole, that you realize that this is the very thing she's wanted for the longest time.

Then it begins to make sense. Or at least, you get why she would go to such lengths. Of course Paripariume would have no love for a world that has been nothing but cruel to her. Maybe not in this life, but the one before. In Dekapari, Paripariume comes to understand her very role in the world before the game even starts. She was born to die. Her suffering and death is often what moves the story into motion, kick-starting the cycle of suffering that will haunt the characters for the rest of the story. It's a fate that she's been at the mercy of for years, but only in this game is she able to recognize it and only in this game does she use it to her advantage. Paripariume acknowledges her existence as the "cycle”.

The callbacks to this classic series are very prevalent and very intentional. However, it's not quite like Towelket 4 where the game explicitly attempts to integrate the stories of previous games into its lore to serve as one big expanded universe. Instead, Dekapari utilizes familiar imagery and dialogue to draw the connections to the games that came before it.

If you've played both Towelket 2 and Dekapari, there's a chance you'll begin to recognize the parallels the game draws between the two. Yes, maybe Towelket games reference each other, especially Towelket 2. Whether it be in a mocking sense or simply to remind the player that it is in fact a game that happened. Obviously, when looking at these moments individually, there's no real proof that Kanao was actually attempting to build some sort of grand narrative across the years. It's very easy to just make a quick reference to the series' most iconic and tragic moments purely for the sake of exploiting the player's attachment to those games.

Which is why I find it especially interesting that despite all the parallels Dekapari has to Towelket 2, the infamous "Blonde Harlot” imagery is never referenced. What is undoubtedly the most tragic moment of Towelket 2 and what went on to define Paripariume's character for so long is seemingly missing from this game entirely. It's curious.

In the context of Dekapari, though Paripariume is deceased before the game even starts, the details of her death are left a mystery for the most part. We're not explicitly told how she died. There's no depressing backstory associated with her demise. The memories Moochasu has of her prior to her death are mundane but precious. Paripariume wasn't a "harlot”, she's not someone who suffered in silent misery. The trauma typically associated with Paripariume's character is nowhere to be seen in this story.

And yet later on in the story, Paripariume's image is exploited in a similar fashion. No longer is Paripariume solely remembered for the girl she was in life. Instead, her image is paraded around and exploited. She's insulted in the same breath that she's worshipped. To everyone else, she's not the dear friend that Moochasu lost, but instead she's made out to be some sort of symbol, a convenient existence to those who never knew her, nor cared to know her.

While presented as opposing sides, both of the organizations similarly abuse Paripariume's existence. Tartcheffe uses her as front for their beliefs, while the 695-17 quite literally desecrates her grave for the sake of their cause. The irony is that their beliefs are both technically "correct” but they both fail to consider the most important aspect of it all, which is Paripariume herself. Not as a God or a savior, but as a human girl.

Though the "Blonde Harlot” is not present in this game, the idea is the same. I often think about the many times that design has been casually referenced in previous games, not to say something of substance but rather to represent something. Paripariume's suffering, Towelket's "poison”. Even beyond the games, in fanart, in reviews, the "Utsuge” label that Kanao disliked so much. How much of it portrays Paripariume at her lowest? How often do the fans use Towelket 2's darkest moments to advertise the games? Is there nothing more to Paripariume beyond what happens to her? Note that this is not me criticizing the games or the fans.

Still, this is a world where Paripariume is in control. She is no longer a victim of the narrative, even as control of where the story goes is wrested from her hand. Her image is disgraced by those who want to use her, but by seeing her nothing more as a mere object, they fail to recognize that Paripariume has her own desire, which is to reunite with Moochasu. As a result, both organizations are deceived by a being they assumed had no motives of her own.

From the start, Paripariume was born to die. She was brought into the world for the sole purpose of fulfilling a role. Though she was born as a human, she partially understood that something was "off” about herself and later came to understand the reason for her existence. To simply submit to this fate would make her nothing more than an object. Paripariume firmly rejects this notion and instead uses this opportunity to ensure she's with the one she loves the most.

The story of Dekapari concludes with the world ending. This time not by the hand of evil outside forces that separate the main characters, but by Paripariume herself. All for the sake of reuniting with Moochasu after 14 long years, forever. At last, Paripariume is able to have her happy ending. Everything is silent.

An indescribable ending.

The story of Dekapari is one that could have only been told within the Towelket series. Even after a year, I still find myself unnerved by its conclusion. I can't help but wonder, was this truly the only way for Paripariume to find happiness? Initially, I want to feel disgust towards her actions. But knowing that this is a world that will do anything in its power to put her down, I also understand why she went to these lengths, all to secure the thing that has been pulled away from her for so long.

Dekapari is a game with plenty of layers and with this, I feel that I've only stripped away one piece. I encourage players to look beyond this and draw their own conclusions after completing the game as it would be impossible for me to cover everything in a single piece.