Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-25084221-20160903081409/@comment-26404599-20160904154458

No I actually prefer your analogy better, the smile is reassuring us as the viewer, and since everyone presumed Chiaki would die in Despair Arc, I can see the opposite happening. When you think about the way Kodaka likes to twist things, he puts in AI Chiaki to make us think, the real Chiaki is most certainly dead and everyone just accepts that conclusion until he flips it on its head later.

I think because it was specified the fact they had died in the virtual world, they would believe they were dead and would hence become vegetative but the point was also expressed that if the other survivors of the virtual killing game believed strong enough, they could revive their comatose friend. I might be wrong however, I thought that's how it went anyway but feel free to correct me. That's why I think, the fact we have only seen Hajime/Izuru alive, we can deduce the survivors made it out alive, the fact we haven't seen the virtually dead ones means their survival can go either way, I don't see why they wouldn't wake up though. Also since Makoto believes they are alright now, it could have two meanings, just the class members that survived, or all.