Who Won the Hide and Seek Game in Tomodachi Game?

One of the best anime series in terms of its psychological impact is Tomodachi Game, which basically tells the story of a group of five friends that found themselves in a game where they are made to pay their accumulated debt while testing the limits of their friendship and how well they know one another. It’s a brutal game that allowed only two of the five friends to get to the third round, which was a hide and seek game against a different team. So, won the hide and seek game in Tomodachi Game?

Group C, which is composed of Yuichi Katagiri, Tenji Mikasa, and Maria Mizuse, won the hide and seek game. They won when Yuichi called Juzo and threatened to break Hyakutaro’s fingers to force him to push the give-up button. Juzo pushed the button before Kei and the others found Tenji.

One of the best things about Tomodachi Game is the fact that this anime series was able to portray how far someone like Yuichi would go just so he could win. He went as far as using other people and even breaking his own finger to claim victory. As such, he isn’t only smart but is quite devious as well. With that said, let’s look at how Group C won the hide and seek game.

Who Won The Hide And Seek Game In Tomodachi Game?

Tomodachi Game is an anime that continues to become quite engaging and intriguing because of the fact that it was able to make use of the psychological genre to full effect in telling its story. It’s basically a story that is able to allow us to see the darkness in everyone and how far the characters are willing to go so that they can win. In a sense, we saw how manipulative some of the characters could be just so they could reach their own goals.

The first two games of Tomodachi Game involving the original Group C, composed of Yuichi Katagiri, Tenji Mikasa, Shiho Sawaragi, Yutori Kokorogi, and Makoto Shibe, showcased some of the deceitful tactics that the characters were willing to use to pull others down. It came to a showdown of tactics and wits between Yuichi, who was trying to snuff out the traitor, and Tenji, who betrayed the team so that he could manipulate Shiho and take revenge for his father’s death.

While Yuichi was able to defeat Tenji in a battle of wits, his dark side came out when he was able to get to the next round by revealing that he had murdered people in the past. And even though Tenji’s strategy was defeated, he had one final card up his sleeve that allowed him to get to the next round with Yuichi, all while the other three characters were left.

Tenji, who followed Yuichi, tried to convince him that he betrayed the group so that he could pry the truth regarding his father’s death out of Shiho. In that case, he wasn’t all that bad because, as he believed, he was just simply trying to hunt down the “true evil” of the group, which he believed was Shiho (although that remains to be seen). 

After three days with only water and no food, both Yuichi and Tenji were allowed to get to the next round, which was a hide and seek game against Group K, which is composed of five members of a basketball team. However, Group C was augmented with the addition of Maria Mizuse, who Yuichi allowed to join because she was a girl. In truth, Maria was from the management of the Tomodachi Game as she was secretly planted there so that she could keep an eye on Yuichi.

The rules of the game were simple. Both teams had one hider that the opposing teams’ seekers were supposed to find. Only the hider had a give-up button that they could use in case of emergency. Meanwhile, only the seekers could move around, as they were the ones tasked with bringing food and water over to the hider.

Tenji was the designated hider for Group C, while the team captain named Juzo was the hider for Group K. Because Group C only had two seekers while Group K had four, Yuichi, Tenji, and Maria were at a disadvantage. So, given the disadvantage on the part of Group C, does that mean that Group K won?

Not exactly. While Group K did have the advantage over Group C because they were complete and had teamwork on their side, Group C still ended up winning the hide and seek game. Group K did come close to winning it, but in the end, Group C narrowly won this round due to some of the best tactics on the part of their resident monster—Yuichi Katagiri.

How Did Group C Win The Third Game?

As mentioned, Group C won the third game, which was a hide and seek game. It all boiled down to some of the most underhanded tactics that Yuichi Katagiri thought of. In fact, he was actually the only one who decided on the strategy that his group would take in that game.

Tenji was left dying of thirst and starvation for four days inside the cave he was hiding in. He was nearly about to push the give-up button, but he relented because he trusted in Yuichi’s plans from the very start. And it was his trust in Yuichi that allowed the plan to proceed without a lot of trouble.

From the very start, Yuichi was already cooking up a strategy that allowed him to manipulate Group K’s moves. It started when he took Maria in as a teammate because he believed that a girl could be the focal point of his plan. For three days, he observed the personalities of Group K, as he saw their weak links and the people who were most easy to manipulate. That was when he decided to use Hyakutaro to his advantage because he was the nicest person in the group yet had the hottest head.

Yuichi, while he and Maria were running away from Group K, pushed his teammate off a cliff. That was when Hyakutaro came to her rescue as this was, in fact, a “honey trap” that Yuichi planted to convince Hyakutaro to switch over to Group C and give food and water to Tenji. Thinking that he needed to move to the other group to protect Maria, Hyakutaro did so, and that was when Yuichi thought of using Maria to convince him to reveal Juzo’s location.

Then again, Group K had a genius with them the entire time. Kei, the youngest and smallest of the group, was actually the mastermind behind all of their moves and was merely using their team captain Juzo as a front. He had already planned for Hyakutaro, who didn’t know Juzo’s location, to switch sides because he was a ticking time bomb that they could use to win. Any sort of violence by one member of a group against the other group would award the aggrieved group the victory.

Yuichi failed to account for Kei being the mastermind, and his plan of ruining the relationship of Group K and tying up and forcing Hyakutaro to tell Juzo’s location was ruined. Kei, thinking that he had the upper hand, convinced Maria to betray Yuichi. She asked Yuichi to tell them Tenji’s location, and that was when she told Kei what Yuichi told her. Yuichi looked devastated upon seeing that, as Group K thought that they had already won when they left Yuichi all alone with a tied-up Hyakutaro.

As Kei found Tenji’s hiding spot, all of the players were asked to return to camp, all while Group K was seemingly the winner of the hide and seek game. But that was all part of Yuichi’s plan all along.

Yuichi, who merely acted out his devastation upon learning that Maria “betrayed” him, put his final plan into motion because he was now alone with Hyakutaro. He called Juzo using his phone to push the give-up button while using Hyakutaro’s physical well-being as a bargaining chip. 

It came down to the fact that he had to convince Juzo that he was going to break Hyakutaro’s fingers, which were important to a basketball player, for the team captain to finally push the give up button before Kei found Tenji. It was revealed, however, that Yuichi never broke Hyakutaro’s fingers but broke his own instead.

In the end, Group K was surprised when they found out how far Yuichi was willing to go just so he could win. He knew that Maria would “betray” him because he always knew that she was a member of the Tomodachi Game’s management group. It was her betrayal that ultimately allowed him to put the final piece of his plan into motion when he went as far as breaking his own finger to convince Juzo to give up. The strategy was a display of how dark Yuichi was, as not even a genius like Kei, who is arguably smarter, could account for how far Yuichi would go to win.