A Mild Defense of Chapter 3 of SDR2.
So, a lot of people hate chapter 3 of SDR2. I have never fully understood why, as it's actually my favorite chapter in the game (along with chapter 5 and 6). Here, I'm going to try and debunk the common misconceptions about this chapter, and while also articulating what I personally like about it.
A lot of people hate the despair disease, but in my view a lot of that hate comes from fundamentally not understanding the despair disease in the first place. A common misconception is that the despair disease makes you behave the opposite that you normally do; this is untrue. The despair disease isn't an opposite disease at all; the characters mention that Akane and Ibuki are acting opposite to how they normally do, but that's a byproduct of what the disease is actually doing, not an actual symptom of it. Nagito Komaeda proves this with the liar disease; that is not opposite behavior for him, even just in this game alone. Nagito is highly manipulative at points, and we know from the 2.5 OVA that Nagito even lies to himself. Nagito is such a good liar that he's fooled a lot of the audience and himself into thinking he sincerely loves talent; that is how successful of a liar he is.
But if it's not opposites, what is the despair disease? Simple; it's in the name. It's a disease that causes the patient the most despair it can. It's not a personality flipping disease, after all; it's a despair disease.
It gives you the symptom that would make you despair most.
Nagito wants to be understood. He gets the lying disease; no one can understand him.
Akane values being strong and brave and fears being weak. The disease turns her into a coward.
Ibuki values individuality and making her own choices, being herself. The disease makes her unable to do either.
Mikan wants to be forgiven. The disease makes her remember a version of herself unforgivable.
The despair disease is hated because a lot of people felt it was arbitrary. Make people their opposites and see if a murder happens isn’t a good motive, because it doesn’t offer insight— it feels like it’s arbitrary to people. But that’s not what the disease is; it actually offers great insight to what each character who gets it fears and wants. What makes them despair is critical in understanding Ultimate Despair, what they were like as Ultimate Despair. Even outside of that, it offers insight to the core of their characters, their desires.
2. The Remembering Disease/Motive.
Okay, I don’t really understand how anyone who’s finished the game could not love actually seeing Ultimate Despair Mikan here. She’s so fun to me. Look at her self justification, her manipulation, her anger. We are seeing a Remnant of Despair BE a Remnant of Despair, which we only really get with Mikan here and Nagito in Another Episode in depth, and a little bit in DR3. Seriously, I love Mikan’s absolute breakdown here, how she justifies and excuses herself, her complex relationship with Junko, how she tears into Nagito, it’s all great.
I will say, if I have one criticism of this, is that her grievances with the world don’t make sense unless you’ve completed all of her FTEs (or all except one). Mikan is an imperfect victim, but she IS a victim. I’ve seen so many lets players victim blame her because of trial three, which, especially with the end game twist, feels very unfair. But what I’ve noticed is that it’s always the people who DIDN’T play her Free Time Events always react this way, but people who do play them understand where she’s coming from. That is because you cannot fully understand the scope of Mikan’s motive without doing her FTEs.
Mikan’s motive isn’t as simple as the remembering disease; her motive is her whole life leading up to this moment. All the abuse she endured that made her vulnerable to Junko IS her motive at the core; all of her anger is hiding this well of hurt. Without knowing how she was hurt, you cannot understand her motive fully.
Is making Mikan’s motive something you can only understand if you did her FTEs a game design flaw? I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure. I think the fact that you HAVE to get to know her to understand her motive is making a point about how we treat abuse victims through the game mechanics; we assume the worst about them the moment they lash out. But if you actually take the time to get to know them, you will see that them lashing out isn’t just from anger, but pain, and it’s a very reasonable pain. So while I hate so many people dismissing Mikan and her pain because of how the game is structured, I don’t know if I can anymore call it a failing of the writing. Instead, it might be us, the players, who failed the text— failed to learn from what it was telling us.
I do not think Mikan’s murder victims are arbitrary. They are her former friend group very deliberately. Mikan targeted her former friend Ibuki intentionally. She targeted her because she failed to be her friend.
I’m going to disclaim here that A) Ibuki did not deserve to die, and I am no way trying to imply she did. Ibuki means well, and I have no doubt she cared for Mikan. But it’s because she claimed to be her friend that Mikan chose to kill her. Ibuki Mioda never in the game stands up for Mikan. Mahiru gets a lot of crap for not properly standing up for Mikan too, which I think is fair, but she does scold Hiyoko at times when she goes too far, and she helps Mikan up when she trips. Ibuki does not. In fact, she cracks jokes at Mikan’s expense more often than not, including joking to Mahiru to “snap some shots” of Mikan in compromising positions. Ibuki is not comfortable with negativity, so she tries to joke to brighten the mood, but this just comes across as making fun of Mikan to Mikan. Ibuki means no harm; but she does cause harm. Especially given Mikan’s history of abuse, these jokes are especially tasteless.
Mikan is replicating her abuse onto the world as punishment for that abuse, and that is why she chose Ibuki as a victim; she’s punishing her for failing her. For not helping her. For claiming to be a friend, and then doing nothing to prove it.
Mikan could have easily killed Nagito instead. He was weak, he was defenseless, and he was depending on her. But instead, she targeted people she felt hurt her.
As for Hiyoko… I go back and forth on her. Why didn’t Mikan target her from the start? Why was she an incidental killing? I think it’s because Hiyoko didn’t matter as much to Mikan. She was doing this to punish them, yes, punish the world that hurt and abandon her, but that wasn’t her primary motive: Junko was. Hiyoko was at the hotel; Mikan couldn’t get to her without raising alarm, and her primary goal was to successfully kill for Junko. I also think in many ways, Hiyoko wasn’t special to Mikan; she was another bully in a life of them. Ibuki was different, because she gave Mikan hope, hope of having a friend, and then betrayed that hope. But Hiyoko was transparent from the start about how she felt about Mikan.
Yes, it would have been poetic if Mikan intentionally killed Hiyoko. If she sought her out as an act of revenge. But isn’t there even more poetry, in a way, that Hiyoko didn’t even matter enough to her victim for her to do so?
…Of course, there’s also the argument that Hiyoko dying cuts off her character development. Which is true. But I think we see enough of her development to be able to conclude she’s capable of that change, in my opinion, and the fault for not seeing this arc through does not land of SDR2, but instead on DR3. We should have gotten more insight into all of the Remnants recovery, and Hiyoko’s redemption is included in that. The point of Hiyoko, the tragedy of chapter 3, IS the fact that she’s cut short just when she’s starting to change. I think that’s fine, that that is a good arc for her, as we see enough for me to conclude she was capable of that change. But I think DR3 should have capitalized on it, and shown her redemption completed in more depth.
So to me, this isn’t the fault of SDR2, but of DR3.
Now, I actually think a lot of this case is very clever. I agree that Mikan should have gaslight everyone harder by making it seem like Hajime was trying to frame her, and I agree that the time frame is narrow, and I agree we should have gotten Hiyoko’s murder weapon, but none of that really detracts from the trial for me. I’ve never actually been that personally invested in the actual crimes of the case unless they were really good (such as V3’s trial 5 and SDR2’s trial 5); a lot of them are pretty goofy, unrealistic, and overcomplicated, and so I don’t really get why we hold trial 3 to a higher standard than some of the other cases. I think the biggest outright flaw is simply not knowing the murder weapon for Hiyoko; everything else is small potatoes, at least to me. Mikan is so fantastic as a Remnant the whole trial that I tend to personally overlook the actual flaws of the case; and I do think her plan was fairly clever in a lot of ways by DR standards.
5. Seriously, is Remnant Mikan not enough for you?
Yeah, in conclusion, I think chapter 3 gets a bad rap when it’s actually very good in a lot of ways. It illustrates a lot of ideas DR has on imperfect victims, shows us what Remnants are like before we even know what Remnants are, foreshadows SDR2’s twist, and makes Mikan a more complex character. The despair disease gives insight into the core of the characters it affects, and Junko and Mikan’s relationship is depicted pretty nuancedly, making it interesting to consider while still undeniably toxic (something that I think DR3 fails to accomplish). Seeing Junko through Mikan’s eyes is fascinating, and the trial makes Nagito, Ibuki, Hiyoko, and Hajime’s relationship to her more complex and fascinating; Hiyoko and Ibuki I touched on already, but Hajime and Nagito I haven’t yet. I think you can read a lot into her words to Nagito, and speculate a ton on that relationship just from them. Hajime is interesting because of Mikan’s FTEs with him; using him as an alibi is at once a show of trust and a betrayal. Chapter 3 gives so many new layers and dimensions to consider each character from, and I think a lot of people miss it’s charm.
I will agree that Mikan’s execution was trash, however. I get she doesn’t like oversized things, but how is that in any way clever or insightful to her character? And I don’t think I need to touch on how uncomfortable the sexualization is. In this case, I do think the intent is supposed to be uncomfortable, but weren’t there better ways to illustrate this? What does being launched into space by a giant fist say about Mikan? Aside from her sexualization being a final insult to her, what does her execution say about her? Peko’s at least said stuff about her (she is strongest when she can think of herself as a tool and disavow responsibility but the moment she is released from this mindset she has to deal with the consequences of this mindset; represented with her being free after harming Fuyuhiko and dying right after; also indicative of how this "I am a tool” coping mechanism has always hurt him in truth), but I struggle to think of the same strong narrative for Mikan. Maybe the point is that it’s pointless? Just like every other time someone has hurt her in her life? I’m just not too sure.
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