Sumio Mondo

Sumio Mondo
Also known as	Sumio Kodai
Age	28
Nationality	Japanese
Family	Sundance Shot (Clone)
Occupation	Searcher
Status	Alive (as Sumio Kodai)
Weapon	Catherine
First appearance	Request 00: Welcome to the "Flower,Sun,and Rain"
Played by	Susumi Nihashi

Sumio Mondo is the protagonist of Flower, Sun, and Rain. He is a "searcher" who finds lost objects for people, sent to Lospass Island on a mission for hotel manager Edo Macalister. Apparently unbeknownst to him, he is actually an amnesiac Sumio Kodai suffering from a severe case of psychogenic fugue.

Appearance and Personality

Although Sumio snarks at the various strange events he finds himself confronted with, most of the other characters in the game regard him as a pushover who is too trusting and willing to help. Many characters insult him or find him to be a loser, yet rope him into helping others regardless. As the game goes on, Sumio becomes progressively more jaded with reality. Sumio has an eccentric relationship with his "partner", a briefcase computer known as Catherine. Sumio treats Catherine as if she was a person, which confuses the other characters; it is unclear whether he realizes his behavior is odd or not. Similarly, he also has an obsession with his car, Giggs, but he doesn't seem to find Giggs to be sentient like Catherine. When separated from Catherine, he ignores all else to retrieve it.

Sometimes, particularly annoying individuals incur his anger, most notably Stephan Charbonie, who messes with Sumio in an antagonistic way, and Shoutaro Kai, who criticizes the game itself. Sumio seems to find attacking Flower, Sun, and Rain and lampshading its problems to be the most abhorrent thing imaginable, referring to Shoutaro's actions as "worse than the terrorist" and stopping what he's doing to hunt him down.

Sumio sometimes refers to a lonely past, saying that he can't meet the woman he loves, and that he's "always been alone". These would seem to reflect on the truth behind his identity of Sumio Kodai, a very depressed and lonely individual who has lost many people he loved. It is suggested that Sumio might be remembering more and more as the game goes on, as he at one point brings up the name Kamui without it being stated by anyone else. Sumio Kodai's transformation into Sumio Mondo seems to be a way of repressing his depression and past, and taking on the persona of a more positive person in a significantly lighter and less tragic world.

History

Origins

Sumio Mondo is one of the Eleven Children who grew up under Eleki Island, suggested to be the eleventh child. This presents a bit of a contradiction, as Sumio Kodai already has his own backstory during the same year that the Eleven Children are specified to still be on the island. It is hypothetically possible that Sumio was moved from the island to Kanto that very year, but this seems unlikely due to the close relationship and his friends had with Riru Yukimura. Alternatively, Sumio could have been moved to the island after the events in his hometown, though this means he forgot his past on Lospass but not his prior history before then. Another possibility is that Sumio Kodai is not himself the original Sumio Mondo, but one of his clones. Indeed, it is Mondo and not Kodai who is specified to be one of the Children by the game and by Suda in Famitsu interviews, suggesting that this may be the case; however, this may be due to Sumio's unreliable perspective and Suda wishing to avoid spoilers, respectively. In any case, there are several stock bodies of Mondo that are stationed on the island and facilitate the time loop he experiences, with each one receiving the previous clones' memories.

As for Kodai, the circumstances behind his transformation into Sumio Mondo remain unclear. At some point after his arrest in 1999, he escaped jail through unknown means, presumably in the same event that caused him to become Mondo. He was entrusted Catherine by an unknown person, and took on work as a searcher. He completed every job given to him, until completing a request from "the largest local general contractor", who afterwards gave him the mission from Lospass.

A Job

Sumio arrives on Lospass Island at some point in later 2001, together with Giggs and Catherine. After meeting Peter Bockwinkle who drives him to the Hotel Flower, Sun, and Rain, he meets with his client, Edo Macalister. Edo explains that a terrorist is attempting to plant a bomb on the plane at the Lospass Airport, and that Sumio's mission is to locate the bomb. He also gives him a copy of The Lospass guidebook. Sumio sleeps in his room (402) that night, but the next day gets trapped within the Sealed Space. By the time he's solved the puzzles to escape, the plane carrying the bomb explodes overhead.

Sumio finds himself waking up at the beginning of the day again, with Edo urging him to hurry and find the bomb. He finds that, no matter what he wastes time doing during the day, he will wake up at the beginning of the day when the plane explodes, but he initially dismisses this as a dream, despite Edo's earlier warnings that time is looping due to a "crazy magnetic field". He slowly makes more and more progress on leaving the hotel, always being distracted by having to help various characters with their problems. When he finally makes it outside, fellow guest Stephan Charbonie refuses to let him pass, instead tricking Sumio into believing that he has poisoned other fellow guest Yayoi Hanayama. When Sumio solves Charbonie's puzzle, he points out to Sumio that when Sumio alerted Edo to the poisoning, he promised to call an ambulance which never arrived. Charbonie warns Sumio not to trust Edo.

Sumio continues to trek across the island more loop by loop in hopes of reaching the airport, meeting several eccentric characters and taking a small trip to Eleki Island. All this changes when one day he awakens in the middle of the night. He finally notices that hotel maid Sue Sding has been sleeping under his bed, and she asks him to find something for her, but is unable to specify what. Sumio crosses the island at night and views the moon from the Business Tower lighthouse. Returning to his room with no answers, he speaks with Sue again, who asks Sumio to reveal the secret of the island, which is linked to her own secret. She also tells him that time on the island has stopped, berating him for believing it to be a dream. After solving a puzzle, he receives a call from Sue asking him to head to the roof of the hotel. When he arrives up there, though, she disappears, and Sumio is shot by Sundance Shot, falling off the roof and dying.

Secrets of the Island

Sumio is later "revived" through a deal between Toriko Kusabi and Sundance Shot (in actuality, his memories are transferred into the next body). Catherine was stolen from him by Step Sding while he was asleep, so he must first retrieve her before continuing to make progress. He is also confronted by fellow member of the Eleven Children, Remy Fawzil, who attempts to remind Sumio of their shared past, but he brushes her off. The next day, he accuses Edo of keeping secrets from him, pointing out the many suspicious points about his time on the island. Edo admits to manipulating him and even being the terrorist, but immediately faints. Sumio continues exploring the secrets of the island (in the opposite direction from the airport), soon meeting Sundance Ritz and her nurse Hana Kaburagi.

The next day, Sumio is confronted in his room by Sundance Shot, who asks Sumio to find him and release him "from the toilet", urging him to get to the airport. Sundance says that time is not looping on the island, and that Sumio is merely "releasing the program". He also claims to be the bomb himself. Leaving behind a die, Sumio solves a puzzle with it and is transported to the ruins where he met Ritz, where she tells him of the Eleven Children. As the story goes on, Ritz and Hana try to tell him about the history of the island and the Sundance Tribe. He also manages to blow open a hole to a cave on Eleki Island. Through that cave, Sumio meets Tokio Morishima, who tells him about the hyenas and the silver eyes, and mentions Sumio Kodai. By jacking Catherine in to Tokio's eye, time is restored to normal and the path to the airport opens.

The Truth

Edo explains his true intentions to Sumio, that he is indeed the terrorist, attempting to blow up the island, and that Sundance has been moving it onto the plane. Sumio is given his car Giggs back for his drive to the airport, but when he gets there, Stephan Charbonie steals it. Sumio visits the restroom. When he exits, he finds another stock Sumio - Sundance Shot in particular - being held up by two agents. When he unmasks him as Sundance, the truth about the time loop being the memories of his various previous bodies is revealed to him, as all the other Sumio Mondos appear. Each Mondo lived through a previous day, and their memories have been given back to the Kodai Mondo. Sundance tells him to take their memories and impart them to Step. Sumio escapes on the plane, with the island implied to be blowing up shortly as Edo intended.

On the plane, Mondo meets Peter Bockwinkle, and they speak about their experience. Peter claims to have obtained a photo taken earlier by Sister Phantom that has to do with Mondo's birth. Peter then says that he's been looking for Mondo this whole time. Mondo doesn't understand what's going on, but as Peter continues to drop more and more hints, Mondo finally realizes that he was Sumio Kodai, and sees who Peter truly is: his old partner, Tetsugoro Kusabi. Afterwards, Sumio Kodai returns to his identity and work at the Heinous Crimes Unit.

Official profiles

A good natured guy. Tends to get caught up in things around him. Occupation: Searcher Place of Birth: Far East

Trivia

Mondo in the Playstation 2 version of Flower Sun and Rain

• According to a Famitsu interview, Mondo owns two cats named Jam and Stycoun, referencing The Jam and The Style Council, two English bands both fronted by Paul Welker.
• Mondo's hobby is reading poetry, and he is said to have experience playing badminton.
• Mondo's ingame model does not seem to resemble his character portrait or artwork at all. It is that his ingame model does in fact seem to resemble Sumio Kodai much more than his portrait.

Gallery

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  Mondo's profile in the DS version
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  Music Clips DVD Art