About Danganronpa 3 [Ranting Segment]

I'm just going to mention this: I didn't expect Danganronpa 3 to break the mold and do something incredible like how the first two games did. I expected something more along the lines of Ultra Despair Girls: extra lore while still being able to stand on its own as a good product. So then, what do I think about it now?

It's ok.
That's it.
Ok.

Now if this were some other show without any ties to my favorite visual novel, I'd just say something along the lines of "I enjoyed it but it could have been better," and would have moved on. Since this isn't the case, I feel a need to rant about why I didn't like the anime as much as I wanted to, and why I didn't go according to my expectations at all.

Of course there will be spoilers for the entire Danganronpa 3 anime.

Future Arc

The greater of two evils, or at least for me. This felt like the complete antithesis of what Danganronpa is, not to mention that it wasn't even good enough to stand on its own in the first place.

Firstly, the bright psycho punk style is gone; all the colors are dulled and feel washed out. Danganronpa has always been grim, but what made it effective is how devilishly-cheerful it was about all the bloodbaths and cold murders involved. In Future Arc, it takes itself way too seriously, without any of the attitude displayed in the original games.

Secondly, the anime focuses way too much on building up a new cast of characters that in the end didn't get enough time to shine due to the nature of the length of the anime. Plus, half of the screen time did go to the first game's cast, dwindling the time left for the newer players even further. That's not to say that the writing in of itself felt lazy and rushed; all we got was one general idea about each individual before they got axed off.

Honestly, 4chan kept coming up with theories about how the arc would progress, and some of it was actually pretty brilliant. Shame that none of those predictions were true, because it would have actually made Future Arc a lot better. Instead, what we got was uninspired writing and easy solutions. Danganronpa always managed to defy expectations by upping up the ante and providing problems that seemed impossible at first, so to see it sink so low here in Danganronpa 3 is disappointing.

For the more specific stuff, the antagonists are just...embarrassing. Danganronpa has my favorite antagonists in fiction, because of how deviously-insane they were over their own fetishized ideals, and how far their own plans extended to cover all bases. Danganronpa 3 has Tengan and, to some extent, Munakata and Sakakura. While Sakakura was okay, Munakata just felt like a bull-headed idiot that simply ignored all logic, and spouted flawed ideals that even a middle schooler would point out was bullcrap. 2/3 of the series, Munakata was just running around trying to shag everyone with his katana because he felt like it.

And then there's Tengan. Now he comes into play later on due to his role only being revealed around the end, but his logic is just astoundingly dumb. Hey, let's spread hope by killing off the last remaining symbols of hope just to get Mitarai to upload his mind control video instead of, I don't know, fucking asking him outright? Like, you have 15 people who have dedicated their lives to fighting off despair, to restoring mankind, and your own act of gratitude is to force them to commit suicide and kill each other? Jesus Christ, the logic is so backhanded, it could win at a tennis championship.

And the fakeouts, my god those were annoying as all hell. When it happened with Asahina, we assumed it wouldn't happen again (and that's what got the "Asahina is dead and Yukizome is disguised as Asahina" theory starting). Once again with Kyouko, ok, fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, how could you? Then they kill her off a THIRD time and made it seem very genuine that she was dead and....nope. Fool me thrice, you're officially that guy. Plus, I can't even feel bad for when the other new cast members die, because either they had way too little impact to begin with, or were given too little time to develop themselves.

Then again, I suppose there were a few good bits in Future Arc. Some of the fights had a lot of cool action (I mean if we weren't going to get the mysteries Danganronpa was famous for, might as well find something else to enjoy), and the cameo episode for Ultra Despair Girls was a lot of fun (even if it forced most of you to have to watch/play that). Plus, it was fun seeing the first cast survivors one more time, and to see them interact with one another again and see how much they've developed since the first mutual killing game.

Still, overall, Future Arc just felt quite average to me. Some bits were good, but it ended up being a disappointing mystery that actually HAD the potential to be something incredible.

Despair Arc

Slightly better than Future Arc, but still quite the disappointment in itself. I watched this with the expectation that it would dive farther into how the 77th class became the Remnants of Despair, which the anime did do. Sadly, it didn't do anything creative about it, and I guess it would have been preferable to just do nothing instead.

I guess you could say this arc was unevenly split into three portions: the first focused on the Danganronpa 2 cast, the second focused on the new Danganronpa 3 cast, and the third focused on Junko Enoshima and her plans to spread despair.

I went into this expecting it to be a fan-service showcase, as evident by the first two episodes. Still, the bit about the Twilight Murder Case Syndrome was quite well-done, although I would have preferred that it focus more on Mahiru than on Hajime. Speaking of which, I really hoped that Despair Arc would focus more on the second game's cast's secret turmoils, which you could learn about by going through Island mode or gathering the hope fragments for each individual character, because man some of the stuff mentioned was pretty dark as heck (warning: NSFW).

Spoiler:

My expectations were that the show would focus on those a lot more, because as happy or as colorful as Danganronpa seemed, deep down it was quite dark and its style helped mask a comically-disturbed universe. Sadly, none of that ever happened. What we did get though was more insight into the Ultimate Imposter as well as Mikan to a small extent.

If there's one thing that Despair Arc did wrong is that it made me appreciate Junko Enoshima, Izuru Kamakura and Mukuro Ikusaba even less. Mukuro barely had any involvement in the show, expect for maybe one fight at most that was cut short. Izuru was built up to be this god-like being, and by extension, though to be responsible for so much bloodshed and destruction. In the end, all we saw him do was stand around and stare. The only moments where he did act was when he fought both Junko and Mukuro at once, and when he fought during the first mutual killing in self defense. To some respect, you could say that Izuru was innocent, which is absolutely not what I wanted to see.

I personally imagined Junko to be someone who was so good at analyzing her victims that she could break anyone simply by spending even a little bit of time with them. I expected her to hang out with the DR2 cast and break them all one by one by pulling their strings over their darkest secrets. Nope, a lazy plot device like mass hypnotizing to score all of them at once, and to make Junko seem even less respectable as a supposedly dominating villain.

The bits about the Danganronpa 3 cast felt a bit unnecessary, but I guess it was just to give context for some of the characters in Future Arc. Still, a lot of that time could have been spent on the older cast instead. I didn't need to see Chisa Yukizome talk about how she would die for Munakata for like seven times; we get it already. I mean, Chisa was given so much time to build up, but in all honestly, she just came out as a rather flat character. Hell, why couldn't that time be given to Juzo Sakakura instead, who was made a lot more interesting in much less time than Chisa?

At the very least, Despair Arc didn't abandon the core theme of Danganronpa that we're all familiar with. Goofy and wacky with the occasional morbid parts thrown in. Plus, the parts where they focused on Chiaki and Hajime were fine, even if they were way too short and could have used a lot more work. Plus, now Chiaki's inclusion in Danganronpa 2 now makes a lot more sense, and I welcome that.

And I'm sure some fans enjoyed the piece of Komaedass we got.

Hope Arc


I already talked about the third fakeout death so I won't discuss it again. At the very least, this was a good way to end a rather catastrophic final entry. I'd say it's just fine, but considering how low Danganronpa 3 as a whole sank, I'm glad we even got this ending.

It was a nice fan-servicey reunion between the first and second casts, as well as giving insight to what both casts eventually ended up doing (which I believe is what should supposedly give way to the events of the upcoming Danganronpa V3, but I could be mistaken).

One major downside however was that it made Danganronpa 2 far less impactful. I would have preferred that only the survivors of the second killing game make it out alive, but I guess they didn't want to upset their fanbase so they brought everyone back to life because apparently Hajime is a master surgeon now. Danganronpa 2's ending was already kinda cheesy because of how Hajime came to as Hajime and not as Izuru, and here it's even cheesier.

Also why was sending the video a bad thing? Not to mention that it was a pretty stupid plan since not everyone would have had access to a television considering that this was a near-apocalyptic setting we're dealing with here. Even so, was it really that morally-incorrect to remove fear, misery and hate? I think that would solve most of the world's problems, and I feel that the anime just didn't do that discussion justice.

Imposter posing as Munakata was funny as heck though.

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Anyways, I have nothing else to say about Danganronpa 3. What a disappointing mess it was, even if I did enjoy it a little bit. At the very least, it did give the Hope's Peak Academy arc a closure, and now we can move on to the next arc that V3 should soon kickstart.

At the very least, Danganronpa 3 isn’t the lowest point in the series. That belongs to Danganronpa 0.

Also if you want to rant here as well, then go ahead. I'm sure everyone has something to say about this anime.

Well I'm not really too upset about it, it was ok and I feel ok about it. The brainwashing did really bother me but I'm over it.
Don't really have any comments on despair arc.
Future arc however, personally I liked the change in tone for DR3, I think it's meant to emphasize the post-despair world and contrast the DR games and their fake isolated locations. Also I think, blood-aside, Ultra despair girls was more or less the same color scheme.
I got a lot of joy out of following this as a weekly series built around one mystery, the speculating and clue spotting were really enjoyable even if the final reveal wasn't all we hoped it would be.

Also on Tengan, it wasn't handled well but his plan isn't completely illogical, the finale really made it clear that our main characters were completely against the idea and it's not too far out to assume the other branch leaders would at least mostly feel the same and would really get in the way of this plan. So it really was a 2 birds 1 stone situation, he got rid of those that would stop him, who i guess he was willing to sacrifice for the sake of 'ultimate hope', and this convinced Mitarai who seemed against it until he was pushed. It's still kinda weird but it's ok I guess.

Brainwashing hope should've been discussed more but really controlling people and blocking out their emotions isn't the best of options, sure it can be argued for in certain cases but it's still pretty bad especially just doing it to everyone. I'm with them on that they were right to not do it but I'm unhappy about how it was left without a discussion.


Also I disagree about Kirigiri, I think it would've been weird to leave her dead, she knew what was coming and had a ton of time to try anything really, and we saw Sakakura had cut off his own arm, it would make her seem like an idiot if she didn't even try to get around it and just let herself die. Especially after the reveal that the secret room she completely ignored had the switches to end the game

However in a situation where she wouldn't have looked stupid for just letting it happen then yes she should've stayed dead.

Finished watching Hope just now. Eh, it was alright. Could've been much worse overall. Will address later.

Futarc, I also disagree on its darker color palette being bad. Sure, earlier Dangan games have been vividly colorful but those were for the games. Futarc didn't need that, it would've looked really awkward in animation. The washed-out colors and the character designs generally having more black in them as well as having less weird-looking quirks worked out well here. Hell, I like the changes they made to the usual formula just because this time the story was being delivered as an anime. There were no individual murders, it was very clear that all the deaths(aside from the NG code ones) were caused by a single traitor straight off the bat. The crime scenes had less evidence because unlike a game there wasn't space for a watcher to explore and that's fine. That's why the only really relevant evidence(the TVs) were brightly visible. And the NG codes themselves gave us another thing to speculate about, that allowed the writers another way to arbitrary restrict characters from acting in certain ways without feeling unfair.

There's minor stuff here and there in Futarc that bothers me but mainly it is it's inclusion of UDG into its story that I felt made it suffer the most. I clearly remember all of us(not a lot of people) being quite excited every few days as episodes came out. Then episode 5 or so revealed Monaca and that put discussion on hold for a while, since it took time to go consume UDG in some way. Then it turned out Monaca/UDG was mostly irrelevant anyway so all that time went to waste, and I'm fairly positive none of us were ever as hyped for a Dangan episode ever since. Other than that Futarc was fine aside from the big stuff that was relevant to both.

Desparc in the end did have more problems. But my biggest complaint in here is still the existence of a real-life counterpart to Chiaki. It ruins the idea of Nanami Chiaki in DR2 not being an actual person. I never liked the idea ever since it was announced, I wasn't convinced she was necessary, and even now I don't believe she was needed. The justification Hope gave for why she exists in VR makes sense but it just plain out wasn't needed in the first place. Yukizome could've sufficed as the lone character that unites Class 77 together. It would've made Yukizome more relevant too because by the end she sure didn't really feel so. She's relevant to Munakata and I guess Nanami trusting her was sorta necessary to push her into that elevator? And the students kinda liked her? The arc was messy between trying to make us feel for Chiaki and trying to make us feel for Yukizome and to me at least, outside of the drawn-out Chiaki death scene it just wasn't enough for either.

There's also Desparc having to balance between featuring the SDR2 cast, showing backstories for relevant DR3 characters, and setting up things for the climax of DR3 proper. And it just doesn't do that well enough. And I'm not sure what else they could've done. They don't have enough time to show Junko breaking everyone individually without feeling like the pacing's fallen and they have to make Desparc relevant to Futarc in some way too. It was a bit of a mess and perhaps having an anime about Class 77 pre-despair was just plain out not needed, I don't know.

The worst part of DR3 was the part that was relevant to both. #mindhacking.

No seriously, brainwashing is shit. I think we're all equally unsatisfied with it, there's really not much else to say that hasn't been said already, but at least I like that they took the idea to its logical conclusion, that being Mitarai making a hope brainwashing video.

Now Hope itself, I liked it but I feel it suffered the most from being an anime. For a final arc that seemed to be the meeting point between Future and Despair, it was mostly Hinata who was relevant here. All Naegi did was run to where Mitarai was, hide when he saw his senpais were getting things done, and walked away. There was no grand conflict that really tied both parts together eloquently that gave us a truly satisfying conclusion. Maybe it's because Futarc's killing game(and thus story) already ended last ep, but effectively Hope is just cleaning up after Mitarai skipping class all this time.

Hope deserved a lot more than just a regular episode, it could've been an actual VN. I wanted to see Hajime's thoughts on the entire thing as it happened. I wanted to see a scene that actually confronts the truth that Hajime wasn't a member of Class 77 and have them accept him despite that(not saying they have to but if they don't that's just kinda meaningless conflict that drags at this point). I wanted to see an extended version of Komaeda idolizing Naegi. Or well, people from Class 77 interacting with Class 78 overall. Seriously a VN would've given Hope more space and time to do things. It was still fine regardless but it could've been amazing and that's a real shame.

Also Class 77 being all up is okay but iirc didn't SDR2 end with Hajime+co having hope waiting for their friends to wake up? It just seems so sudden to have them all up already. Maybe it's just me but yeah.

And Kirigiri being alive is fine. They should've set up a little more for that but I can buy it. It would've been too stupid for her to actually have died then.

And the ED song is great. But the singer killed himself so you know, it's a little awkward.

Kimo Force wrote:

Spoiler:

......huh? no she's not? is she?

random:

>boobs

o yes