To begin with, Junkoâs reappearance in Goodbye Despair is completely unnecessary. While there are many in-jokes & meta humor referencing the first game, the game mostly stood on its own. Once you reach the final chapter, nothing would make sense unless you had played the previous game, which, just to make it clear, I have. But even then, the terminology of each organization, not to mention the fact that some organizations have multiple names, is incredibly confusing even to a veteran player. Junko wasnât played up at all until two minutes before her arrival, & honestly, though at first I was on board, eventually it became a âplease, donât do this again, sequelâ, but not in the dread-filled, paranoid way the game intended. I just felt her presence was simply added on to the end to cut loose any potential plot twists that would have made much more sense. Sheâs suddenly mentioned, albeit declared dead, & all of a sudden sheâs a virus & can do whatever she wants. Spike Chunsoft, is this your Mary Sue fanfiction draft of the actual script? Anyway, weâll get into better plots twists not just for a villain, but a better reveal than the information diarrhea that we have to endure regarding every single alliance, group, & program they could throw at us.
Next, Iâd like to be a little more general with her character, the first point being her effectiveness without Monokuma. Weâve spent our time with that damn bear, & heâs surprisingly threatening at times. One scene that comes to mind is the plushie factory that endlessly creates an unstoppable army. The curveball reveal & his dialogue all send chills or at least murderous feelings down your spine. Heâs infuriating, heâs a psychopath, & heâs a threat. & even so, he can be fun to watch.
Ignoring the fact that Junko is supposed to be controlling Monokuma, sheâs not threatening, sheâs not insane except by the most superficial of standards, & her motives are one dimensional. She barely seems to behave like him, & even when she does, it seems to lack a lot of weight that that omnipotent bear has. & while they share the same motivation, despair, Monokumaâs pursuit toward that goal is a believable one, as he is programmed to pursue it. It makes sense that heâs single-minded towards creating despair. Junko could at least use any other words besides despair in her dialogue. Every time I read her lines I plead that someone grab her a thesaurus, because she only name-drops the term despair & explains nothing of how she finds it enjoyable, seeks despair, or even has any way to describe it outside of using the word over & over again. She is, in the truest sense of the words, badly written.
Letâs explore that a little more. Junko is NOT crazy. She isnât insane, she isnât even mentally unstable. In order for her to properly be called any of these, she would have to be written well. & she is not. The sudden jumps between her âpersonasâ might seem jarring & typical of how an insane person might behave, until you realize they have no real point between one another. Even characters who shift in mood chaotically like she is supposed to are often tethered by a unique personality with underlying thoughts, habits & motivations. None of these âpersonalitiesâ are actually Junko, because no one bothered to write an actual Junko underneath it all, who was really the madwoman all along. Iâd like to contrast her to an actually effective anime-inspired video game villain, Yuki Terumi, aka Hazama, from BlazBlue. He roars in fury, he talks down to others in a cutesy singsong tone, he even loses his shit completely & cusses them out. Sound familiar? A lot of this is what Junko does. But unlike Hazama, she doesnât have a point to it. Hazama is continually driven to push the rest of the BlazBlue cast intoâŠguess what? Despair. But unlike Junko, heâs got the word choice to properly convey it. Even for a guy, heâs not bulky & impressive physically, but heâs still very much a threat & even his most fucked up actions make sense. Junkoâs do not make sense. She only repeats the word âdespairâ as if it might describe itself & never moves on from that. Itâs not scary, itâs nonsensical, & it isnât crazy. The rest of her dialogue, despite its attempts to be shocking as she suddenly switches personalities, has no other effort put into it, which can be evident in that she doesnât respond to anything specific said. Often, itâs a monologue that slightly progresses the conversation forward, but mostly profession comes from the other charactersâ questions & assumptions. She doesnât even make a strong ending statement. Itâs so generic, I want to laugh. âYou wonât be able to do anything!â Yeah, because that is a compelling threat. Even for someone who is clinically diagnosed as depressed & has trouble finding the motivation to do things, I could not find this enlightening in regards to her character, or her motive.
Junko is also not threatening. It was obvious Iâd bring this up sooner or later. Even as a gigantic manifestation of herself that can supposedly do everything & anything, she isnât frightening. Sheâs just a teenage fashionista. & whatâs more, her actual desire isnât despair. Her ultimate goal in the second game is to take over the bodies of the entire population. Sheâs very narcissistic about it too, which, coupled with her âfashionistaâ flair, really only makes it seem like sheâs upset for being jilted by the public & wants to retaliate by making the world in her own image. Thatâs not really scary, even if there is no choice but to let her. Thatâs just idiotic. & even if her unmentioned backstory was awful & tragic, it wouldnât matter, because the rest of the game & the events that take place in the outside world are so violent & disgusting itâd really be oversaturation. Pointless. Besides, I donât think anyone could feel any more despair from anything other than the realization that your followers are RAPING YOUR DEAD BODY TO TRY & HAVE YOUR CHILDREN & DISMEMBERING YOU TO FEEL CLOSER TO YOU. Yuck.
Moreover, the final action scene in Two is only impactful because of the suspense driven by the other characters & the situation, which would have been identical were the main villain anyone else. Anyone in the cast from either game could have forced these heroes to try & make a painful decision to leave or to stay & Iâd be willing to say it would make even more sense if theyâd just picked a random character & said âitâs them, theyâre the bad guy.â & the funny thing is, they acknowledge those possibilities. The, sad thing is, itâs so subtle at first that they really could have gone with any of those shut down possibilities. Itâs as if later on during production, the coffee boy remarked that they could have chosen literally anyone else to be the big bad, & the higher ups insisted out of spite that it had to be Junko. & even as a device of âmisdirectionâ, if the culprit is going to be Junko again then why bother making us wonder between the new or the old cast? I had a personal theory that Byakuya had sent a double to be killed so suspicion wouldnât be raised, after which he approached the island himself to exact the pain he went through in the events of the first game which had caused him to snap, both from the violent trauma & the arrogance that he had survived, not to mention that he was possibly the most influential out of the surviving six. A real Harry Osbourne deal, ya know? It could have been amazing, & unexpected, even with the inclusion of the âotherâ Byakuya. After all, again in the name of subtlety, you donât realize itâs not Byakuya unless you either choose to talk to the fake Byakuya up until he dies, or until the story progresses to the part late in the game where you learn that he was actually the Ultimate Impostor.
Fuyuhiko would have been interesting, too. His character development was so smooth & satisfying that if he suddenly turned around & announced that his cultivated friendship with everyone, including his former childhood friend, whom he sacrificed, was a lie. Sure, it would be jarring, but understandable. Hajime, with his actual identity, & the fact that he was responsible for Junko actually interfering at all, would also be a better antagonist, just without Junko. Hell, in the last nonstop debate with all of his doubles spewing hopeless things, even I felt a chill.
Or, in another case, what if the future foundation, made up of the surviving original cast, was really just trying to instigate those killings? Anything makes more sense than giant virus Junko. Use your imagination. Write a better conclusion.
Speaking of conclusions, hereâs mine. Junko Enoshima is a waste of a character, especially in her reprisal in Danganronpa Two. To put it bluntly, she is unentertaining. Sheâs painful to watch, her dialogue is awful, & I canât take her seriously as a threat, even in a game that dances between jokey happy anime slice-of-life & horrible gore. Unless you are really into anime tropes & superficially âcrazyâ girls in anime, she will make you cringe. From an objective storytelling perspective, sheâs an ineffective villain. She doesnât mesh with the other main threat, Monokuma, her motives are non-existent & non-threatening, her existence in Two makes no sense, & anyone from either game, out of a total of THIRTY people could do better than her in the villainâs role. Truly, the only despair I feel is that she gets so much attention from the fans. Not another Haruhi SuzumiyaâŠ
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