If you were to ask me to rank all of the major entries in the Danganronpa canon, few people would put the anime conclusion to the Hope’s Peak Arc, Danganronpa 3, into one of the highest slots.
I would.
Because I seem to often have minority opinions, and because... well, because there’s a lot to love here, as far as I’m concerned.
So below, I give you a list of just a few reasons why it’s so good. I don’t want to just gush all over the thing OR start detailing the things I would’ve liked to see go differently, so for now? Let’s just do eight.
8) Disturbing Content - Most of what I’m going to cite in this essay is positive stuff that’s moving or uplifting or just fun, but that’s never been the whole of the DR experience by any measure. We gotta have our vicious material and our “Psycho Pop,” and you can’t tell me that DR3 doesn’t have some of the harshest, darkest scenes in the franchise.
Yes, it’s incredibly brutal to see Fujisaki strung up like that. And those first two executions in V3? Viciously cruel.
But that crap looks pretty lightweight compared to watching the Student Council Killing Game, witnessing the death of Hacksaw-Kun, or — of course — seeing Chiaki’s execution.
If you just do it, things will turn out okay! nvm
Some of this may have involve people we didn’t know or even some blue-hued background types (ala UDG), but that doesn’t change how well it unnerves and disturbs the viewer in practice. And honestly, thank GOD that we didn’t know these characters better. If we did, then we’d kill one of the biggest points of DR3... but I’ll get to that at Number 2 in this list.
7) Important Mythology Building - One of the things fans wanted to see/frequently theorized about after the first two games is how the 77th and 78th classes interacted while they were just regular Hope’s Peak students prior to Danganronpa 1 & 2.
A question that can be applied to the entire franchise.
This series gives us a chance to extensively see class 77-B in action, which reveals that some of their DR2 behavior was long in place (Kazuichi/Sonia/Gundam’s love triangle mirrors Chapter 4 of DR2, Ibuki is shown to be just as lowkey observant and intelligent while still being the goofball) while simultaneously teaching us some new things (Mahiru comments in DR2 about the cast being incredibly strange translate into a really fun role for her as the group’s ‘Straight Man’) and giving us a lot more insight into how lesser-known players such as Teruteru fit into the class.
We also finally see a lot more about how the Future Foundation works — which is honestly “not very well.” For all of their good intentions, they are mired in politics that have three different factions vying for power within the leadership, some of whom are incredibly nasty.
If Natsumi Kuzuryuu was, as her brother states in DR2, also a student at Hope’s Peak and the “Ultimate Little Sister,” then wound up dead at the hands of some unknown character... how exactly does that work? What class was she in? Who was this girl that did it? And how can Natsumi be both Kuzuryuu’s little sister AND not have been present in the 78th (and final) class at Hope’s Peak? The truth comes out here, and it includes at least one twist I didn’t expect but totally respected.
We finally understand how the “brainwashing video” of the Student Council Killing Game that was revealed in Danganronpa Zero fits into Junko’s scheme overall (as well as where exactly Junko got the heretofore-unexplained talent of brainwashing people via video).
We finally know who was telling the truth of Junko and Makoto’s argument at the end of DR2 RE: why the Remnants turned to Despair. Did they really all get to turn of their own volition over the course of a single year? Or did they get brainwashed as Makoto insisted?
Some things get spelled out more clearly; others get introduced for the first time. This all is gifted to us without even getting into the sense of closure the show gives us on many open-ended topics, but... I’ll save that for later in this list.
Let’s move on.
6) The game has changed - When I first heard the basic plot of the Future Arc, I fully expected a we’d have most of the season dedicated to a DR-style “class trial” with the cast perhaps being punished for making, like, bad arguments or something. Or maybe the trial would occasionally get interrupted by someone among the Future Foundation’s leadership being killed during break periods, and then the group would have to find out who killed the latest version to flip to Naegi’s side of the case. Since the synopsis revolved so heavily around the accusation at Naegi and his subsequent hearing, it seemed like a logical progression.
But I honestly love how far removed we are from the conceit of mysterious murder, class trial, wild execution, etc. This is a totally different, much faster kind of game that is clearly designed to work in a fast-paced and intense anime setting, and the NG Code/Forbidden Action armbands are super clever and cool. My only qualm here is that perhaps one or two of them seem virtually impossible to monitor/gauge, but I digress.
5) Introducing New Growth and Depth to Known Characters: Over the course of the two split arcs, we get to learn a lot about the characters we met in the first two games that we would not necessarily know otherwise.
Pants People beware!
Aoi Asahina, once the nervous emotional core at the heart of the first game, quickly leaps into action here to protect Naegi and throughout the “game” shows a new level of wits and determination. Yes, she still gets to have a tearful scene at the end of the second episode when she realizes they’re back in the shit again, but once that’s over, she cowgirls up HARD and proves how much she’s grown.
The moment where she cuts off a conversation mid-sentence and stands perfectly still because she can barely hear footsteps in the distance, then instantly comes up with an evasion plan? That feels like it speaks a lot to how she’s grown to keep her cool while in danger and learned to stay aware of her surroundings. She was never a fool (err, save perhaps that “Pants People” moment), but now she’s much more confident, calmer, quicker on the ball, and faster to throw herself into life-threatening danger to protect Naegi and Kirigiri.
Kyoko Kirigiri’s growth is clearly illustrated through how she is presented with the exact same choice she got in DR1 — let Naegi so that she can see an investigation through to its conclusion, or let herself die to protect someone else who is innocent — and she makes the opposite choice. In DR1, she justifies her decision as one that her grandfather would approve of. Now she’s venturing further and further from the Kirigiri legacy in favor of trusting her own instincts... not to mention clearly valuing Naegi more than herself, which speaks to just how far her feelings about him have come.
Makoto Naegi’s biggest moment comes after Kyoko appears dead. He has no reason to confront Munakata a second time after their first time went so poorly. By all reasonable logic, he should just focus on finding an escape route. But Naegi is both determined to destroy Munakata’s illogical perspective and, despite the previous encounter, he’s convinced that he can shut Munakata down. Even in Chapter 6 of DR1, Makoto is shown sweating with fear and looked agahst when he faces Monokuma again after escaping the garbage chute. Here, we see a calm Naegi confront someone who has already battered him unconscious and whom he knows is utterly convinced he needs to die. We see him use his wits to reveal that party’s NG Code, then manipulate it to his advantage so that he can speak his piece. And he does it all unarmed and at the end of his emotional rope like the little badass he is.
I could go on to cite Togami’s verbal encouragement to Naegi, the tragic way we see Hinata’s self-esteem increasingly crumble towards his downfall, or even how we watch Komaeda try to warn his friends away from facing Junko - only to accept their decision with a combination of appreciation for their courage and resignation that they’re fucked. These are all great bits of building on the people we knew before.
4) Worthy Newcomers - Many of the new characters we’re introduced to don’t get remotely the level of depth and polish that most of the game cast gets, and that’s understandable. After all, we’re dealing with a much shorter time available in the two halves of the show. However, these new characters manage to be distinct from existing ones while also feeling right at home in the same universe. There’s never a sense that “Oh, that doesn’t belong in DR at all,” and by seamlessly sliding them into the history via the Despair Arc, it just feels like these guys were always part of the story. Even a relatively minor player like Bandai manages to have that same common Danganronpa style of “first visual impression is at odds with who he really is as a person; also showcases strange personality quirks.” But among the best- developed are these examples:
“May name is Kyosuke Munakata, but you may refer to me as Lord Douchebag of Fuck-You Mountain.”
Kyosuke Munakata - Munakata is a pretty compelling villain. Perhaps the biggest problem with him is that the show seems to think that he’s more of an anti-hero than actual bad guy, but there isn’t a whole lot of reason to like him. I suppose he has Chisa on his side, and that’s something positive (or so it seems), but aside from that? Well, the construction the ridiculous island compound for the Future Foundation is definitely evidence that he’s good at what he does... and what he does is apparently just boss people around angrily.
What makes him so great as a villain/antagonist, though, is that he’s not some Despair-crazed mastermind who just wants to see the world burn. If anything, he’s the opposite. It helps a ton that you can see so many people just like him in real life. Before you accuse him of having thin motivations and personality, well... real-life politicians and public speakers exhibit the exact same radical belief in destroying everything they dislike at the expense of absolutely anything else, and they do it every singtle day. You see “ends justify the means” attitudes in Congressional/Parliamentary debates all the time. I’ve watched it for decades. No wonder Munakata was in student government. It makes his radicalism perfectly comprehensible, and that’s... kind of scary, really. He may not be the “mastermind,” but there’s little doubt that he’s the Big Bad.
And because he has theoretically good intentions overall, he has a perfect vulnerability to the skills of one Makoto Naegi.
Ryota Mitarai - This poor sadsack is basically what you’d get if you combined a workaholic otaku like Yamada with a nervous self-flagellating wreck like Tsumiki and tossed in a dash of cinnamon-roll tendencies and desire to make the world better like Nanami. Maybe it’s because we’ve seen these traits before in other characters (but never in this combination) that he seems like such a natural fit for the universe.
He gets a lot of screen time in both arcs and ultimately becomes the big “threat” of the final episode - a “threat” that is worthy of debate and pretty fascinating, because you could pretty easily argue that his plan in the Hope Side finale would’ve been worth seeing through to its conclusion.
Seiko Kimura and Ruraka Andou - These two are surprisingly well-defined for characters that only get two or three episodes of focus time. Their relationship to each other really helps to define them both; you quickly understand exactly who they each are. Seiko makes drugs that are so intense and fast-acting that they can even make you Hulk Out (and she’s not afraid of abusing them terribly). However, she’s insecure and a bit of a hyphondriac. She shows a lot of compassion for others, getting angry at herself when she can’t help someone and even being eager to care for animals free of charge. Perhaps due to her sensitivity and compassion, however, she doesn’t deal well with having her feelings abused. Ruruka, on the other hand, is an outwardly cocky character who is nursing deep insecurities about both her “useless” talent and her value to her friends. She’s a tragic character turned minor villain, and ultimately she reveals that in spite of her outer viciousness and haughty attitude, she may have hated herself more than anybody else did.
3) Fleshing Out Some Mysterious Players - Let’s take a moment to talk about a few little-known characters that this anime granted us a chance to actually know - or at least to know far better than we ever had before this point.
You have no idea how much money he spent sculpting that physique.
The Ultimate Impostor - This guy is roughly one sentence away from being a complete and utter mystery in Danganronpa 2. He basically exists to serve as a “fat joke” (*sigh*) and to confuse the existing fanbase by pretending to be someone we already know, only much more likable. The anime had to do something to elevate him, and it sure as hell did. We actually get to see how he looks and acts without any phony persona in place, and we plainly see how the kinder version of Togami we got to know in 2 was clearly drawn from within his own moral compass, even as he takes on other roles. He is inherently protective of others, and we see more of his talent on display as people who encounter the real Mitarai continue immediately believe it’s the same person as the Impostor’s incarnation. A perfect expansion.
Mukuro Ikusaba - Aside from a brief appearance in Danganronpa Zero and her lead role in the completely uncanonical Danganronpa IF, we’d known next to nothing of Mukuro Ikusaba before this anime. (Which basically means that, until this anime, we’ve seen almost nothing of her in the actual canon.) She doesn’t get a ton of new detail here, but at least we see her in action, hear her speak, and learn a little bit about how she reacts to Junko’s plans. It’s certainly more than we’ve seen in canon ever before. Only IF really tops this in terms of her exposure, and again: not canon. So this is the majority of the existing Mukuro content.
Izuru Kamukura - Up until now, he’s nothing more than a mysterious name in Zero, a cameo in the final seconds of Ultra Despair Girls and a briefly glimpsed (but mostly just talked-about) piece of backstory/persona in Danganronpa 2. From DR2, we learned that he spoke rather like Spock and had a tendency to say things were “Boring,” but that’s about it.
Almost everything we know about him as an actual fleshed-out character is thanks to the Despair Side of Danganronpa 3. Sure, his hair is longer here than in the glimpse of his sprites we got in 2. But was he a full-fledged sociopath? Was there a trace of Hinata left within? Did he really murder the entire Student Council, as Zero suggested? And if so, why would he do that? Why did he ever take time to side with Junko in the first place?
When you think of Kamukura, Danganronpa 3 is almost entirely where you get his character from. This is it: His grand coming-out party. Up until this anime, he was an unseen boogeyman with a few sparse lines in DR2. Now he had an actual presence. Now he has a character. Now he EXISTS.
Chiaki Nanami - It’s hard to say whether this fits here or under Number 4, but the reveal that there was a flesh-and-blood Chiaki was kept a surprise until the first episode of the Despair Arc aired. It was a pleasure to learn and also a despair-inducing reality when you realize that welp she’s obviously not around in DR2 and is just an A.I. creation so that can’t be good.
Frankly, if you don’t love the idea that Chiaki was a real flesh-and-blood being as a concept, I don’t honestly think we’re gonna see eye-to-eye. Now that she’s a real person, she suddenly has an established relationship with Hajime that dates back to before her A.I.’s bond with him during DR2, and that makes the A.I.’s connection with him carry so much more emotional weight. Her relationship to the entire class is so sweet, watching her go from the shy wallflower to more of a soft-spoken leader is endearing, and ultimately...
...it’s all so utterly heartbreaking, and through her we get to see Junko’s first, most brutal execution. Honestly, it’s such a foregone conclusion that she probably won’t survive the series... and yet, somehow, they still made me fucking cry over it. “I don’t want to go” is devastating.
2) A well-deserved happy ending - As much as I love the DR1 survivors and DR2 cast and always want to see more of [most of] them, they’ve suffered enough. Especially the DR1 survivors, who actually lost tons of friends and loved ones and have, by the end of Future Arc, even been through more than one killing game. (Sure, Togami wasn’t really included... but he was already abducted and threatened with death throughout UDG, so I think he qualifies).
Maybe you’re bitter that more misery and death isn’t brought upon the 1 and 2 crews throughout DR3 (although the DR2 class sure gets more in the Despair Arc), but I for one am not. After a series of uncertain-yet-hopeful endings, I was ready to see them get something more final — and happy, to boot. After all, Hope always wins in Danganronpa, right? That’s why telling me “the once-’dead’ DR2 cast is comatose and Hina-kura, who has all possible talents, is working on reviving them” at the end of Danganronpa 2 is exactly like telling me “Yeah, they’re gonna be fine.” Because I knew that Hope is always going to win; that’s how this franchise works, so the recovery of at least the majority of them was basically inevitable.
“I’ll be right there.”
Danganronpa 3 leaves the known casts from all of the games in a pretty good place: They’re stepping into a more positive future, they have control of their own destinies, and whatever ship you like has plenty of room to develop and grow in the aftermath.
Unless you hate Naegiri. In which case, you probably don’t appreciate where things wound up.
1) “You Are My Reason to Die” - If this episode didn’t drop-kick you right in the feels, I don’t think we’ve got much common ground.
The pain of seeking Juzo finally ready to own up to his sexuality, only to get murdered by the object of his affection is topped by the horror of what Ruraka did to her beloved Izayoi and then does to herself in turn - and amazingly, these two events are only the froth atop the heartwrenching, emotional smoothie that this episodes serves up.
It’s worth mentioning that the latter is tragically beautiful in how Izayoi completely understands the girl he loves and doesn’t even hate her for her betrayal as he’s dying. He gives her another kiss instead, and tells her it’s okay. He still only sees someone he loves. Ruraka is a pretty nasty piece of work in 95% of the anime, but ultimately her own internal self-loathing causes her to kill herself in a particularly vicious fashion that gives me a sick feeling that swells some actual pity for me.
Although Danganronpa is infamous for capping each chapter in the games with a grim, tantalizing twist - none of the games have a single chapter finale that compares to the last scenes of this episode, and it’s partly because we’ve been through so much with these characters that it works so potently. When Hina is bawling her eyes out and Naegi is left in brutal shock and disbelief, I feel it. Animation, music and voice performances combine to make this one of the most emotionally affecting scenes in the entire franchise.
However, even before we get to the twist ending that chokes me up every time, we get a scene between Naegi and Kirigiri that really serves to put the exclamation point on just how much Makoto has come to mean to her. Ultimately, it was this moment that made Naegiri the once-in-a-lifetime ride-or-die OTP it is for me today.
If Kirigiri had actually died in this episode, it’d be far more painful. Of course, she didn’t, and her using a dose of “Cure W” is effectively setup in three scenes before her death, plus another shot afterwards. So it’s not like it feels like a cop-out - it’s another twist, sure, but the evidence was always there, so it’s not like it was an ass-pull. In fact, it winds up serving as an intelligent way to mirror Naegi’s “death” in Kiri’s place at around the same point in the story in DR1, except now it’s Kyoko who chooses to “die” rather than sacrifice someone else - and who similarly is saved through the posthumous help of a lost ally.
In Conclusion: I never understood why the fandom as a whole seems to have a negative opinion of DR3, but it’s pretty telling that the arguments I read online never seem to agree with each other. “There wasn’t enough death and consequence” vs. “The characters shouldn’t have had to suffer any more.” “There wasn’t enough time spent on the new characters I liked” vs. “The new characters shouldn’t have existed.” “The whole thing should’ve been the Despair Arc” vs. “The whole thing should’ve been the Future Arc.”
Danganronpa 3 isn’t perfect - but then, nothing really is. Yet without it, think of all the things we’d never have:
We’d never know what happened to Naegi, Kirigiri and Togami after they rebelled against the Foundation.
We’d never know for sure what happened to the DR2 cast that was left in an uncertain place with most of them comatose.
We’d never have any idea what happened after the wide-open ending of Ultra Despair Girls (Did Monaca turn into Komaeda’s Lil’ Junko? Did she live to wreak more havoc? Did the other Warriors of Hope survive or die against the threats of Monaca’s robots and the vengeance-crazed adults? etc etc).
We’d never have met the human Chiaki Nanami - hell, she wouldn’t have existed!
And that just scratches the surface. We’d never have gotten so, so much without this show.
Maybe that’s obvious, but I see so many people who prefer to pretend it didn’t exist. It’s not that they wanted a different version with those same things answered in some other way: It’s that they didn’t want this to exist at all. And I can’t comprehend that.
I could go on and on about more things I like: the excellent soundtrack (Junko’s theme is a killer), how I’m definitely happier to have known Kizakura than to have never even had that dude in the canon, how I’m happy to see the positives of a man like Jin for the first time... I could probably even list my favorite lines, for god’s sake.
I could criticize almost anything in the DR canon, and certainly, there are some elements I wish were handled differently here (I wish they hadn’t changed the details of the Twilight Syndrome case from what Monokuma gave us in DR2′s second case, and I also would’ve liked more details on the Future Arc “mastermind”’s driving logic and plan). But none of these things are enough to really take away from something I find so deeply satisfying.
Honestly, I loved the games, but it was Danganronpa 3 that made me realize I had to get involved in this fandom and had to start doing Naegiri stuff. It was watching this that made me say “Holy crap, I even love this thing in another medium. I am all the way in now.”
#x men 97
#f1
