#dr discussion

[junkobears]

So since we're complaining about V3 again, one thing that kills me that I never see brought up is that the ending (the epilogue in particular) tries to be like "fiction and lies can have a real impact on people, isn't that wonderful!" But like... lies and fiction were what got everybody killed? If everything was fake then the motives were obviously all bullshit, and they succeeded at getting people to murder so... what the fuck.

That’s why I think the fiction theme would be so much better delivered had the message been entirely about critiquing stagnating long-running franchises, with both creators who refuse to innovate their writing and audiences that thoughtlessly consume these franchises refusing any form of change, with the V3 characters struggling to break free from their fictional scripted roles throughout the entire game to better set-up the entire climax.

iunno, aside from being a really boring message in general, I just don’t think the “Fiction can change the world” theme really meshes remotely well with any other aspect of Chapter 6? I wasn’t remotely convinced by Saihara’s tearful rant about how the deaths of their friends changed the survivors and how they’ll always carry that fictional memory to the real world? Like barely anyone in this fucking game interacted with each other outside of their forced one-two person pairings. Or remembered shit about dead characters after the chapter they died in. It’s kind of a huge unnatural leap from their earlier attitudes about the fiction twist TBH.

I really find the raw hatred and anger the characters had towards their creators and the audience for making them suffer for pure entertainment and wanting to just flat-out end the series much more fun as a form of self-referential and actually controversial commentary on the nature of creating media. I enjoy self-deprecating humour and biting the hand humour, haha.

Tangentially related but god the truth and lies theme is just so badly incorporated into the ending. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be taking away from Saihara’s whole epilogue speech about how “Lies are just another form of the truth… it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not just what the result is!” or w/e BS it was? Fiction does not 100% have the same definition as lies. It’s just. So hamfisted and poorly thought out!

[junkobears]

I feel like you misunderstand Kotoko. Yeah she’s sexualized, but a) it’s a buildup to her past so you feel guilty about seeing her in a sexual way and b) sexual abuse victims are often very sexual around others. So yeah, I think doing stuff like showing her underwear actually makes a poignant point about how children react to sexual abuse and how we don’t realize the ease with which we can hurt a child by sexualizing them.

Well, this came out of nowhere.

I feel like you’ve misunderstood me. Whether here or on the subreddit, I have said before that I like Kotoko’s character overall because I think she’s actually a pretty good depiction of a CSA survivor and how all her actions, talent and general traits tie into her past and how deeply it affected her, and how that fits the game’s general themes of the cycle of abuse/how adults routinely fail to protect kids, etc. So I don’t generally disagree? I think stuff like Kotoko talking about sex often, her Motivation Machine, etc, makes perfect sense for her character. 

Here’s the issue though: you can get across these themes in a tasteful manner. Guess what, DR:AE didn’t do that when it comes to Kotoko. I don’t think the camera actually needed to give us close-up panty shots of Kotoko numerous times throughout the game when she’s speaking, especially when it’s about plot entirely unrelated to Kotoko, i.e the part in Chapter 5. I don’t think we needed a specific boss fight where the player is forced to strip down this 10 year child to her underwear whilst she yells about how she’s totally 18 so it’s fine!! I don’t think we actually needed the Motivation Machine as a minigame you must play, where the tutorial text assumes you’ve been fapping off to it and apologizing for interrupting you. Surely you can see what the problem is here? What exactly, does all of this add to the game that wasn’t already there? None of them were necessary.

I just think it’s massively hypocritical and ends up detracting from the message they want to send with Kotoko’s character. You can’t both try and write about how horrific child sexual abuse is and be calling out your creepy lolicon fans, whilst also including a ton of fanservice moments that panders to them and gives them the exact content your game is supposedly critiquing. They literally contradict each other. Having your cake and eating it too. A thing Kodaka is a master at doing in this series. He’s constantly wishy-washy like this lol. Especially when it comes to the life-or-death matter of including fanservice of the girls. What a surprise!

I’m sure you’re gonna get back to me like “but it’s meant to be black comedy like the rest of the series!”, and while I would wager that was part of the intention (it just failed horribly and is ridiculously tone-deaf/detrimental to both the story and audience investment lol), it doesn’t automatically make it Free From Criticism. At the end of the day I think all the outright fanservice moments could’ve been removed and it wouldn’t have changed the impression of Kotoko’s character at all. They do more harm than they add.

[junkobears]

serahne replied to your post “aniceworld replied to your post: It’s surprising...”

DR1 is less ambitious but it succeed in pretty much everything it tries to do, whereas sdr2 and ndrv3 have a lot of stuff that are all over the place in a 'let's throw everything at the wall and sees what sticks' way.

I wouldn’t say it’s less ambitious, just because it introduced and set the base for the killing game format we all know and love dearly in the first place, but I get what you mean. DR1 keeps its themes, characters, etc simple and to the point which means less things for the narrative to get distracted by. 

Meanwhile with V3, which Kodaka has proven true for me with his little comment about doing everything he wanted to do in V3! lmfao, like you say there’s a million plot threads introduced and thrown at the wall that most never gets really properly followed up on, leading to everything just feeling half-baked and unsatisfying.

[junkobears]

It’s surprising that Danganronpa games section doesn’t have any Dethroning moment of Suck on TV Tropes. DR has a fuck ton of them and no troper has posted anything. While the anime page has plenty of deserved moments.

DR2 and V3 are perfect games Don’t You Dare Criticize or We’ll Riot in the fandom’s eyes after all so that isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that DR1 isn’t included because the fandom thinks its horribly written and a terrible game that the sequels only improved on in every aspect apparently lmfao.

[junkobears]

( I seriously hate the epilogue for encouraging all the constant “IT’S A LIE!!!” theories cuz it would just cause so many MORE writing issues for V3 if that was the case. Why do people want that to be the case?) because... there are questions that are unanswered? quite a lot of them, that can't just be coincidence or a mistake? writing issues aside, it doesn't mean that literally EVERYTHING is a writing issue, that's not how it works. we don't 'want more writing issues', don't make assumptions

It’s literally a visual novel game, a fictional story. We’re discussing the epilogue here, it’s implications and why those don’t actually pan out or make much sense once you compare it to Chapter 6/the rest of the narrative/earlier games. So yes, ‘writing issues’ is the entire crux of my beef with the epilogue. I think it’s the poorly-written contradictory capper to a poorly-written game in general. I don’t know what to tell you otherwise?

I get that V3 has a lot of contradictions and unanswered questions due to the deliberately ambiguous/meta ending. I get that some people are naturally curious and like to theorize about how to resolve the contradictions and questions. That isn’t my cup of tea for how I approach and critically consume fiction, but sure. I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to do that. I’m just asking to try and read things from the other perspective as well. And not condescend and dismiss me constantly when I write about why I dislike the epilogue and give detailed explanations for why I’d argue it’s actually bad writing and contradicts the whole theme they’ve spent the last 40 hours building up too. 

And also to stop pushing the narrative across that the “It’s a lie” theory is absolutely 100% confirmed truth, because you can easily just come up with explanations that support the fiction twist. That’s the whole damn point of the ending? That’s literally what Kodaka wants? For people to take away differing interpretations? I don’t agree with him at all that it was a remotely good writing decision because I prefer the story set-up to actually, you know, pay off? And the alternative to me hugely reduces the few things I liked about the game/ending. So that’s why I’m extremely harsh about the idea.

[junkobears]

I was looking at Danganronpa Rebirth to see a female protagonist, but only to face disappointed. It's another male character forced to dress as girl by his female relatives. Something done to death yet if never done with a female character forced to dress as a boy because her sexist dad wants a son.

Tangentially related but that last part just reminded me that I need to read the Wasp Factory at some point, although it’s really technically not exactly that scenario... but still. There’s another reminder for me, haha.

I’m not too bothered by ReBirth doing that trope cuz at least we know from the beginning what the situation is surrounding Fujimori. Like it’s only hidden from the in-universe cast. It isn’t my favourite trope in the world for sure but at least it doesn’t seem to be written in a tacky, kinda sketchy way from what I’ve seen of it so far? Plus it’s a fangame so they get a lot more leeway from me compared to the official games, haha.

On the topic of ReBirth I do hope they eventually finish writing the first trial at some point, at least. Cuz we still on a cliffhanger and I wanna know if my theories about the killer are accurate already! 😔😔

[junkobears]

jinjojess replied to your post “The V3 ending is way too unrealistic for my taste. Unless if Tsumugi...”

This is why imo the worldbuilding is the strongest in the first game--because it's so minimal. The ridiculous school concept works, as does the concept of kids with essentially superpowers, but when things zoom out more mundane things becomes less believable and the thing falls apart. There's a rule for magical realism: you may only have one or two fantastical elements while everything else MUST be grounded in reality.

Absolutely agreed with all of this. To tie into your first point - another reason DR1′s worldbuilding is the strongest is that it always exists in relation to the main character cast. Characters that exist outside the killing game and only serve as background information never actually become directly involved in the plot and climax. Ridiculous elite school for superpowered teens works because its the reason for why the cast end up gathered at this school and therefore killing game. The apocalyptic world in DR1 serves as only a backdrop and another piece of both Junko’s plan and the dilemma for the survivors at the end whether to accept falling into despair or deciding to leave the school for the sake of hope. And that’s all it exists for. It’s always related to the characters and their growth throughout the story. V3 meanwhile it just feels so detached from the actual character stories and both super prominent in the narrative /barely relevant to the narrative at the same time? It’s a mess.

I don’t mind ridiculous and over-the-top worldbuilding, it’s kinda what I expect from DR honestly, but I never want it to overshadow the actual characters at the end of the day, cuz they’re the main attraction of the series for me, and like you say there’s needs to be a limit on the fantastical and focus. Otherwise you end up with DR3 and NDRV3. Just trying to expand on a million different things at once and forgetting about the character set-up in the process