(1/4) Hey, I really liked what you were saying about Mikan, and it got me thinking, if the anime were better treated, how would Mikan have been turned to despair? I thought it would have been really compelling for Mikan becoming a nurse for Junko after she got injured or something, and Junko manipulating her as a patient.
This isn’t out of the blue at all, don’t worry! I completelyagree with you. There are good ways to handle topics like brainwashing andcoercion in a story—but dr3 didn’t do this at all. Focusing so emphatically onthe characters’ obligation to take responsibility for and atone for their ownactions in sdr2 makes absolutely no sense in light of the “it was allbrainwashing” twist. It simply isn’t practical to spend half of a story arcleading up to messages and themes about personal choice and becoming your ownperson while atoning for past mistakes, and then spend the other halfcompletely undermining any semblance of free will in the narrative.
I understand the time constraints that were probablyinvolved with dr3. Explaining everything in anime format is extremely difficult,and factors like animation costs have to be taken into account along with thefact that there are only a limited number of episodes which average about 20 orso minutes each. But in that case, I feel dr3 was never a story that should’vebeen put into anime format in the first place. If finishing up the Hope’s Peakarc wasn’t feasible in anime format, then it should’ve been avoided from thestart. DR light novels and manga are fairly popular after all, even if theyhaven’t yet achieved localization status the same way as the games. Telling the“End of Hope’s Peak Academy” in one of those formats instead would’ve workedfar better, in my opinion.
The brainwashing twist not only undermined all the autonomyand potential the sdr2 characters had by refusing to focus on any of them, butalso did its best to undermine how effective and enjoyable more establishedcharacters were, like Junko. Junko is an incredible antagonist and a wonderfulcharacter—but the brainwashing twist does absolutely nothing for her characterin and of itself. The entire twist hinges on Mitarai’s talent and a lazy,inconsistent explanation where the same video doesn’t even affect people in thesame way.
While still maintaining that “no one has a choice in thebrainwashing” and “the brainwashing makes people do things no matter how muchthey want to or don’t want to,” we’re given very contradictory views of it. Thesame video that brainwashed the entire Reserve Course and an unnamed man intokilling himself while screaming that he didn’t want to do so failed tosuccessfully brainwash Chisa at all, suggesting that perhaps people can resistthrough sheer force of will. Brainwashing was then replaced with a lobotomy inChisa’s case.
Then we have the rest of the sdr2 characters shiftimmediately from wonderful, sweet classmates who all love each other and don’tseem to have any conflict with each other (despite the obvious room forconflict, such as the incident with Satou and Natsumi) into brainwashed pawnswho do Junko’s bidding with absolutely no say-so on the matter. If thebrainwashing can be resisted to some degree, or if even a single punch canapparently startle a person out of its effects (since Juzo was able tosuccessfully punch Naegi out of hisbrainwashing), then it makes very little sense from a story perspective to havethe people who should have theoretically cared about Nanami the most beconverted to Junko’s underlings so easily.
I feel like your version of events is exactly the kind ofthing people most wanted to see with the sdr2 characters’ backstories. Sdr2very much suggested that while, yes, the characters were themselves brainwashedby Junko and tricked into becoming the Remnants of Despair, there was stillsome amount of autonomy and personal choice in the matter. Having each characterfall into one of Junko’s insidious pitfalls and become converted to despair dueto very human reasons like jealousy, resentment, loneliness, or desperation wouldhave made for a much better story and resolution to their character arcs thanthe brainwashing twist did.
Mikan is the perfect example of this. Sdr2 featured so muchpotential to explore her backstory. The twist with Junko being her “beloved”was chilling, because it was commentary on the fact that abuse victims oftenbecome dependent on anyone who will show them even the slightest sign ofappreciation or understanding—even if those people are themselves abusers andjust using and manipulating them for their own purposes.
Mikan’s fixation with Junko would make so much more sense incanon if it had been an exploration of her desire to have people weaker or morehelpless than herself depend on her. If she had thought Junko loved andappreciated her, then the blow of realizing that she was only being abused andmanipulated once again would have hit much harder and been a much more likelyreason for her to eventually snap. But instead, the brainwashing fails toexplain much at all about why Mikan becameso dependent on Junko, why it had to be her specifically other than “she was inthe wrong place at the wrong time when Mukuro saw her go into Mitarai’s room.”
What could have been a story that stood as a warning aboutthe dangers of becoming enamored with and dependent on a person who’s only outto use and abuse you instead became… well, fanservice pandering. Junkomistreated Mikan, Mikan got aroused from it, and that’s pretty much all oftheir dynamic that was ever shown or explored in dr3. It was a very biglet-down, honestly.
Junko is supposed to be a master manipulator, someone withextremely high intelligence who is an expert at predicting what people are likeand how they’ll react. The best advice when it comes to storytelling is always “showand don’t tell.” Showing how Junkotook each and every one of the characters, hell, even the entire ReserveCourse, and pitted them against the Future Foundation and the rest of Hope’sPeak, would’ve been much better than simply telling us “oh yeah, Junko’s reallysmart and has SHSL Analysis by the way” while she did the wacky eye-rollingthing. The brainwashing twist did very little to actually explore why Junko isso incredibly terrifying as an antagonist and was, all in all, a huge flop.
Thank you so much for sending these asks! I think this sortof thing is exactly where fanfiction can make up for the let-downs or gaps incanon material. Even if it’s a shame that we never did get to see these kindsof concepts explored to the fullest in dr3, there are still quite a few reallygood fan-writers out there who have tried their best to explore them instead.Thanks again, and I’m glad other people agree about the brainwashing twist!
This game looks so beautiful. I can't even tell you how excited I am to see the final product. I already really like Nori's character. I, too, am a big fan of cats so this character really appeals to make and I can see why Miki'd fall for him. Keep up the good work!!!
Oh wow thank you so much wishmelxck ! That’s very nice of you, thank you so much again for the support we’re truly glad you like Nori and his liking for cats- Fatcat dev
"Nach meinen Unterlagen, so alt, sollten Sie tot sind Sie jetzt ... Sie einen Vertrag haben? Nicht mit einem Dämon," Sascha said, in German. She raised an eyebrow. Oh! This man probably didn't speak German. "Sorry. Dis language is confusing for me. You are 102?"
German? Interesting. “Ich bin sicher, Sie irren sich. Ich bin 37. Wo di erhalten Sie 102 aus?” He then grinned at her.
