🔥 for the dr3 anime. Have at it. (Before I forget I just wanna say I agree 110% about your opinion on Ko's sexuality. Single-target sexuality, I think it's called?)
Thanks for the ask, Hyun :) Sorry I took so long, but I have a lot of feelings when I write about this subject ^^; I accidentally... wrote you an essay ;;;;;;;
(And also, thank you so much!!! I never knew that existed, but it sounds very much like how I headcanon Ko!)
Unpopular Opinion on DR3, huh? I feel like I am generally... aligned with how most of the fandom view DR3? DR3 was written poorly, DR3 ruined some characters (specifically a certain girl I love), DR3 had a bad mastermind/main antagonist, DR3 retconned things poorly, etc. Like, honestly, the only thing I can do is actually tell you something I like about DR3, lol.
I guess one unpopular opinion would be that DR3Z Episode 3 is still my favorite out of all of DR3 (Hope Side included)!
I think when someone refers to their favorite episode in DR3, it would be something like Hope Arc, maybe an episode of Future Arc (like in Episode 6 when we were super hype about possibly Kamukura being there instead of Hinata and all these boats coming on their way). While I was also super hype about that, and I may have watched Hope Arc 20x times that day because my boy Hajime Hinata is safe and Happy, I have to say, I just like DR3Z Episode 3 more. It wasn’t completely satisfying (I don’t know if any episode of DR3 can be said to be completely satisfying, especially once you’ve finished the series), but it made more of a lasting impact on me.
First of all, I think one of the things that made me attached to it is that this is a much more Hajime-centric episode. We start with Hinata’s POV, and it shifts only a few times to other perspectives (Like Fuyuhiko’s, or Sato’s). WHen I finally got to know and love th DR2 cast, I was prepared to be excited for DR3 and getting to know their pasts. I first saw the DR3 trailer not knowing what they were talking about until they released the game on team, so when I rewatched it in anticipation, I got excited! One of the things I definitely wanted was more of Hinata! He was, and remains, the best DR Protagonist! I kinda figured that we would get more of Izuru than of Hajime, but I wanted to at least get more out of his motivations, and, yeah, we kinda did! It wasn’t what I thought we would get, what with a few mentions of his parents, but not so much of what they were like, but parts of Episode two, and all of Episode three were made to explain it a bit. SOme stuff, we already know, or could guess, such as that Hinata was desperate for a talent, and that be acquiring a talent, he would get Hope (Or a meaning to his life).
However, we get some additional info. Firstly, in Episode two, it is mentioned that HPA is paying for his tuition, should he enter the Hope Cultivation Plan, implying his parents are not as rich as we thought (DR2 made it seem like they were, since his parents were mentioned in that sort of flashback sequence). That puts a lot of pressure on him... not to mention they give him some time to decide. By the start of Episode three, he mentions he only has a week left. Within that one week he has left, he is acquainted with both sides of the decision, represented by Chiaki, representing the Ideal solution, where he wouldn’t need the project to have Hope, and Natsumi, representing the, I guess you could say, “Logical” solution, as in that no one alive cares about anyone unless they have talent, and HPA is giving it to him with no monetary cost to him, or his parents.
Now, we know that Chiaki is technically right, that even without a talent, you can have hope, but the problem is that she doesn’t have that same perspective. She does have a talent, and those words she learned from Yukizome can only help her because they were meant to say that Talent shouldn’t restrict Chiaki from doing what she wants, just for the fun of it. Hinata, meanwhile, has much less freedom in this Talent-driven society he is stuck in. No one will acknowledge his existence without talent, and because of that, he can’t do anything even if he wanted to. By the end of this episode, he sees this flaw because unlike Nanami, Natsumi has the same perspective he does. She dies and it looks like as if no one cares at all about her death.
Now to Natsumi, she is the character struggling with society’s rules that you have to have a Talent to mean something. Both of them actually believe in these rules, and they are both desperate to get into the Main Course, but for Natsumi, the need is greater. She has a brother and his bodyguard who are both acknowledged as Ultimates, yet though she probably spends time with them both, Natsumi was left out. She was deemed, by society’s leaders in HPA, that she wasn’t enough for them, so how could she be enough for her brother? She would do anything for the same opportunity Hinata got. Hinata, who had been stuck with Reserve Course students that were all trying to accept they were nothing more than Reserve Course students and would never move on to the Main Course, now has come across someone similar to him, who has also refused to give up on their dream of being acknowledged as something special.
Hajime feels like the Hope Cultivation Plan is his only chance to finally be happy and proud of himself, but at the same time, he is, by nature, skeptical that such a plan would. It’s too good to be true (and it was, of course). The episode starts off with him looking up the school’s website, which doesn’t give him any real results. He’s only got a week to decide left, and he’s not completely sure yet if this is the right way to go even if, in his head, he desperately wants this to be the solution. It would be easy, and would benefit him and his family. But, with that doubt he still has, he latches on to Nanami’s words that he won’t need talent to be happy. THese words sound right. They sound like this is something that exists. But, it isn’t proven. In fact, it is disproven by Natsumi, first by her denial of his words that Talent isn’t everything (because it is something to enough people for it to matter), and secondly, when Natsumi dies despite coming from an influential family, and when she dies, her death is covered up with lies and unsatisfactory answers. This girl who he only just came to know and kind of befriend is dead, and he could do nothing about her death. He even pieces together that Sato killed her by chance, and that there was something clearly wrong with Sato to begin with, but then she is dead. Two classmates, now dead, and both of them had their deaths covered up. Hajime is not dumb, he can put pieces together (He didn’t need as much help in the trials unless someone was withholding information (usually Komaeda)). He knows exactly who to ask, and would have investigated it, but is stopped by Juzo.
He of course doesn’t know Juzo is trying to make sure he doesn’t dig too deep and gets targeted by HPA for revealing too much, but Juzo really doesn’t know how to talk with anything other than physical language. As in beat up a 15-16-year-old kid into submission, but you know. Juzo is just one more reason on top of Natsumi’s death that he accepts the plan. Juzo validated his thoughts that he, nor anyone that lacks talent, matters.
It’s really heartbreaking to see Hinata like that, however I suppose, in his own way, he thought of the project as his way of breaking the mould of normality he was stuck in. You know that he needs to become Izuru Kamukura, you know it has to happen, but it does crush me how he had to come to the “realization” he is worthless otherwise to do it, through two deaths and his own degradation by Juzo. (and being saved by Chisa... probably not what he wanted.)
I find it interesting that the person that represents accepting the Hope Cultivation Plan is Natsumi, because we know if Fuyuhiko had ever heard her speak the words she did to Hinata, he’d have denied it. He’d have said she deserved to be in his place, that she would have been the better clan leader, that even though she didn’t accept his role, he would always introduce her as is Ultimate Little Sister, and no old men and drunk scout can change that.
If Hinata could have known that by being such a supportive friend, his friends would value him more than just as someone who has an Ultimate Talent, or EVERY Ultimate Talent, and that he provides all the difference just by being himself, I don’t think he would have turned to the Hope Cultivation Project.
But that isn’t how things went. Hinata, had no proof that Talent was truly meaningless. Society kept on validating that Talent meant much more than someone not acknowledged to have any.
Oh... I got.... way off topic ^^;
Well, overall, this was an emotional episode. I get why people don’t like it much: They really rushed the Twilight Syndrome MurderCase, to the point of not even showing the events in the minigame. I also wished for more Natsumi and Hinata interaction, or have this episode split in two (and take place instead of Love SOup incident, please). I found Satos’ character to be ver much lacking as well, since they reduced her to some kind of yandere-like personality (although thinking back, was she like that in the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case?) However, for what we got? It’s still something that I really love! It gave us an insight into Hinata, and an awesome character to boot!
(I also kinda skipped over the Hinam bits, but the Fountain scene was pretty sad, even if I’m really ehh about the way Nanami sees he’s hurt and still offers him to play, and other weird things like that involving those two... Like I swear Nanami would be way more concerned about his wellbeing in DR2 and pick up on the obvious bad signs and act on them more)
