On the other hand, censoring his name makes it ambiguous as to whether or not the identity of "Shuichi Saihara" was fake. It goes both ways. Even if you subscribe to the notion that Tsumugi wasn't lying about how they willingly signed up for the killing game, and that them being excited about being "chosen" for it actually happened, the prologue where Shuichi and Kaede introduce themselves by name is still something that happened. It would've made no sense to hit them with a flashback light, have them go through all that confusion of waking up in the school to normal memories, and then "reset" them with new personalities to do the exact same thing but now in Ultimate personalities. Even if you want to make the case that the Monokubs did screw up the memory implant, Tsumugi's account directly contradicts that, as she says that once they got their Ultimate attire, they immediately respond with joy of being selected.
I feel that, if you read into Tsumugi's entire master stroke being piling lie on top of a lie with complete disregard, which was essentially what the flashback lights did throughout the game, most of the contradictions that start cropping up are the ones she reveals to us. It's a ten pound bullshit serving that keeps hiding the truth, when in reality you gotta consider the occam's razor. After all, she's an obsessed fangirl; she wants to "cosplay the world", while the one opening we can trust through our own experience is just way much more down to earth featuring regular highschoolers reacting in regular ways.
I've speculated once before but I'm thinking the entire business of having those audition tapes, and having them do the business of running through the school, before gaining their identities, is Team Danganronpa's "insurance policy". If we suppose that there is a massive audience out there that enjoys watching the killing games, we have to assume that to maintain the audience's moral right to enjoy it, everyone needs to be a willing participant ready to die or kill. But like Shuichi said, even though these are people who might enjoy the show or have heard of it (Rantaro and Kaede's dialogue in the prologue implies they have a good idea what's about to happen, meaning that they're aware of Danganronpa), it's hard to believe that the cast willingly signed up for it. They would rather enjoy the show as voyeurs but never want to be embroiled in the notion of putting their life on the line (something the game highlights the hypocrisy of), and as such I wouldn't be surprised that, even if Danganronpa might have some willing signups, most of the participants are taken against their will. They're then forced to go through a short initiation process in order to create a fake scenario that they can manipulate for the audience, hence the audition tapes, hence Tsumugi revealing that they were all of a sudden overjoyed after the Ultimate selection. It's all there so that, in the off chance that the game goes south - which it did in the case of V3 - they have something to fall back on to regain audience's trust. Because if it ever got out that these kids were forcibly drafted, people would likely outrage over Team DR essentially fostering a glorified serial killing enterprise.
