History TearJerker / Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool

** Since Tengan wanted ''all'' the branch leaders dead, you have to wonder about the one person unaccounted for: the 13th Branch Head, the person who sent Asahina as their proxy. What is a worse fate for them: killed offscreen (a la Miaya), or carrying the workload of ''all the other branch heads'' (assuming Munakata doesn't bounce back)? This assumes they can even cope with the news of their co-workers, all because they sent Asahina in their place...

** Since Tengan wanted ''all'' the branch leaders dead, you have to wonder about the one person unaccounted for: the 13th Branch Head, the person who sent Asahina as their proxy. What is a worse fate for them: killed offscreen (a la Miaya), or being the only remaining branch head to pick up the pieces (assuming Munakata doesn't bounce back)? Either way, it's a RiddleForTheAges.

** Since Tengan wanted ''all'' the branch leaders dead, you have to wonder about the one person unaccounted for: the 13th Branch Head, the person who sent Asahina as their proxy. What is a worse fate for them: killed offscreen (a la Miaya), or being the only other remaining branch head alongside Munakata (if he even comes back in the end) to pick up the pieces? Either way, it's a RiddleForTheAges.

* Everyone hates Komaeda. There's certainly justification here -- he's been suspended for most of the class's bonding time, and everyone found him weird even ''before'' his foray into terrorism that cost them their beloved teacher. That said, even sadistic bully Hiyoko and pervert Teruteru have people who will go up to bat for them ([[IncrediblyLamePun sorry, Leon]]). Komaeda's idolization of his classmates has only caused them to despise him, and here he doesn't demonstrate the brilliant (and amoral) mind that gives him the upper hand in ''Danganronpa 2''. He seems more pathetic than dangerous, even if the viewer knows that he's downright lethal. Factor in the fact that he's living on borrowed time, and Yukizome's platitudes about "enjoying your youth" look extremely unlikely, even if Junko hadn't happened along.

** What's particularly sad about this is that we know that these same students would bond extremely well with Hajime, if they were given the chance to...in fact, many of the personal issues that Junko played on may not have been such weak points if they had had someone like Hajime to talk them through things.

** It's especially jarring when Juzo was clearly affected by all the deaths he knew about. This is at the same time that Munakata has fully embraced his KillEmAll attitude. Juzo was partially upset by the death of Tengan shortly before he himself got stabbed. In fact, he had a look of utter shock and horror on his face in response to Munakata's casual, deadpan reply that he already knows because he himself was the old man's killer. One slowly gaining sympathy, one proving less worthy of it.

--> ''Cherry Blossoms, as if to fight back against the [[IllBoy oncoming winter]]''

!Per wiki policy, Administrivia/SpoilersOff applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.

* The final fate of the Reserve Course. Junko sends another brainwashing video that makes them commit mass suicide, deciding YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness. The staff can do nothing but watch in horror as these children jump from the windows and roof, stab and shoot each other and set themselves on fire.

** Also take into account that homosexuality is sort of frowned upon and sometimes even dangerous in Japan. If Junko had revealed to everyone that Juzo is a closet homosexual in love with Munakata, he would be socially outcasted and possibly even killed. No wonder he was terrified when Junko showed him the evidence.

* The final fate of the Reserve Course. Junko sends another brainwashing video that makes them commit mass suicide, deciding YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness. The teachers can do nothing but watch in horror as these children jump from the windows and roof, stab and shoot each other and set themselves on fire.

** Also take into account that homosexuality is sort of frowned upon and sometimes even dangerous in Japan. If Junko had revealed to everyone that Juzo is a closet homosexual in love with Munakata, he would be socially outcasted. No wonder he was terrified when Junko showed him the evidence.

*** Don't forget how this is the first time in the entire series we have seen [[ThePollyanna Naegi cry.]]

** The opening starts off going through slides of the characters who would soon become the Remnants of Despair with them all being their usual, quirky selfs. Along with a lot of them smiling and acting goofy, the music at the beginning of the song is more upbeat. This is pretty sad because it shows that these people, who are currently the worst terrorists and evil psychopaths in the history of the world, were initially normal kids at Hopes Peak High school.

** Chisa is seen in her teacher's outfit, basically floating upside down in the wind, looking unconscious and sad. Similar to her students falling, this symbolises how Chisa, a formally sweet and upbeat woman, eventually fell into despair and ended up aiding in her students also becoming Remnants of Despair like her. The fact that she's all alone and sad looking in the opening foreshadows the fact that she is one of the first people for Hopes Peak to fall into despair and, unlike her students, who all had each other and fell into despair as a group, Chisa went through an extremely invasive and torturous ordeal to become a Remnant of despair, and she was all alone in her suffering. Not only that, once once her status as a Remanent is revealed in Side:Future, it ends up totally pushing Munakata over the edge, but he never finds out that it wasn't her choice or that she did genuinely love him and want to help him before Junko brainwashed her, and the implication is that no one knows how or why Chisa became a remnant of despair; like in the opening, she's alone because no one will know her story or the truth of the hell that she went through. Her sad and lifeless expression also can be seen as showing how the original Chisa has been long gone since being tortured into a Remnant; in fact, ''Despair Arc'' kicks off with the spirit of the original Chisa watching a movie of her life on a screen in her mind and saying that she died, but she guesses that she should share the story of how she ended up at this point.

** During the first few episodes, the final scene is of a shadowed young girl walking towards Hopes Peak Academy and then turning back to look at the viewers. This girl is actually Chiaki Nanami; her face is actually shown later on. By hiding her, the opening is alluding to the fact that, unbenounced to the viewers and the main cast of the Future arc, she was more or less what finally set off the the rampage of the Remnants of Despair and the School life of mutual killing. Junko Enoshima brutally killed her in front of her classmates, who subsequently became the Remnants and sent the whole world into total hell. Chiaki is basically the secret trigger of everything that happened in the whole Danganronpa Hopes Peak saga but, like in the first few runs of the opening, she's been more or less forgotten because the only people who remembered her and her death were driven into insanity because of it and forgot her.

** During the first few episodes, the final scene is of a shadowed young girl walking towards Hopes Peak Academy and then turning back to look at the viewers. This girl is actually Chaika Nanami; her face is actually shown later on. By hiding her, the opening is alluding to the fact that, unbenounced to the viewers and the main cast of the Future arc, she was more or less what finally set off the the rampage of the Remnants of Despair and the School life of mutual killing. Junko Enoshima brutally killed her in front of her classmates, who subsequently became the Remnants and sent the whole world into total hell. Chaika is basically the secret trigger of everything that happened in the whole Danganronpa Hopes Peak saga but, like in the first few runs of the opening, she's been more or less forgotten because the only people who remembered her and her death were driven into insanity because of it and forgot her.
* The ending sequence of the Future Arc is also pretty sad once you get into the symbolism. The ending sequence is basically a shadow boy holding a flower before crumpling to the ground in sadness, interspersed with shots of a large flower with dozens of petals. The flower petals beging falling off of the flower and shriveling up, as if the were burned; they turn giant and burry the boy alive as the fall. The last shot is off the boy being able to emerge from the pile and a close up of his flower, which only has eight petals left on it. Just the overall tone of the song and the purple and black coloring shows how sad, depressed, and damaged that a lot of the characters are after fighting Despair. While it also does seems to be trying to encourage hope as well, you just get the sense of how sad and dark the world has become at the start of this series. The is also the fact that the eight petals left on the flower at the very end can be symbolic of the fact that only eight people; Makoto, Kyoto, Aoi, Toko, Bayuka, Yashuhiro, Mitarai, and Munakata; are left alive after the final killing game. The only people to survive, regardless of how they were involved in the final killing game, were the six survivors from the first Danganronpa and two of the most broken characters in the whole series.

** This song is particularly sad not just because of the tone of the music, but how the lyrics fit the story and actually tell parts of it. "Amid applause that celebrates our escape from this cage, shackles are upon us again" is obviously an illusion to the fact that, after being lucky enough to make it out of The School Life of Mutual Killing, Makoto, Kyoto, and Aoi have been forced into the Hell of yet another killing game. As if the first time wasn't traumatic enough, they have to go through it all again and, from Makoto and Aoi's perspectives, this time is even worse as everyone knows whats going on and what happened during the School Life of Mutual Killing, yet decides to engage in murder and distrust anyway.

** The "silly pawn of despair" and "Loss is your only true teacher" refers to Miratai's role in the Final Killing Game. The whole killing game was organized by Tengan for the explicit purpose of totally breaking Miratai and making him think that his brainwashing anime was the only logical option left to create hope and end despair. In a sense, the point was to use loss to teach miratai that taking extreme measures to produce hope to counter extreme despair were the only logical choice. Miratai also was very clearly Tengan's pawn in this game and he was taken advantage of by one of the people who he trusted the most.
** You could also argue that the "pawn of despair" was Chisa, since it is eventually revealed that she was a Remnant of Despair all along and was long gone mentally and personality-wise by then. Munakata was more explicitly an unknowing pawn of the Remnants of Despair because it turns out that Chisa had been discreetly corrupting him and driving him towards despair since before the "Most Tragic Event is Human History" even happened. sakakura was also manipulated by Junko into covering up her activities, and therefore could also count as a pawn of despair. It's likely that either none or most of the events in the Danganronpa franchise would have happened if Junko had been stopped before she could enact her plan to throw the whole world into despair; Sakakura being blackmailed into lying directly led to the events of "The biggest, Most Despair-Causing Tragedy Ever" by ensuring that Junko wasn't discovered until it was far too late.

[[quoteright:300:[[Recap/SmileAtDespairInTheNameOfHope https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kamukuras_tears.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Even the "Ultimate Hope" can shed tears...]]

** The parts about injustice, oppression, and prejudice and the part about "Screaming out: My justice is the right way!" accurately describe the Final Killing Game because it's a clash between at least three different versions of hope; Makoto's actual hope; Munakata's hope of annihilating despair by any means possible, regardless of the cost or collateral damage; and Tegan's ideology of actual hope being as ineffective as violence and humans being unable to create hope or beat despair on their own. There is also quite a lot of back-stabbing, hypocrisy, and insanity going on between the Foundation members during the game, despite the fact that they are supposed to be the good guys and the hope of humanity.
** The "silly pawn of despair" and "Loss is your only true teacher" refers to Miratai's role in the Final Killing Game. The whole killing game was organized by Tegan for the explicit purpose of totally breaking Miratai and making him think that his brainwashing anime was the only logical option left to create hope and end despair. In a sense, the point was to use loss to teach miratai that taking extreme measures to produce hope to counter extreme despair were the only logical choice. Miratai also was very clearly Tegan's pawn in this game and he was taken advantage of by one of the people who he trusted the most.

* Kizakura doesn't make Kimura's death any better by removing his hat and commenting that that it's sad and unfair because she was so young. It gets worse when you realize that, baring Tegan and Kizakura, all the branch heads an many of the Future Foundation members are in the 20-30 year age zone.All those people should have had long lives, but they all died brutal and rather unfair deaths because of the actions of various crazed psychopaths. And that's not even going into the years of utter hell that they've undoubtedly have suffered during the Tragedy and the ensuing fight against the despairs.

** It's especially jarring when Juzo was clearly affected by all the deaths he knew about. This is at the same time that Munakata has fully embraced his KillEmAll attitude. Juzo was partially upset by the death of Tegan shortly before he himself got stabbed. In fact, he had a look of utter shock and horror on his face in response to Munakata's casual, deadpan reply that he already knows because he himself was the old man's killer. One slowly gaining sympathy, one proving less worthy of it.

* Here, we finally get a full understanding of what's happened to Munakata. Tengan revealed to him that Chisa had been corrupted by despair. We see a flashback of Munakata with her at a playground during the tragedy as she cries over the bodies of several children, asking him why this happened. And during the final killing game, he received a picture that reveals ''she'' was the one who killed them. He wasn't kidding about despair stealing everything from him. But as betrayed as he feels, he just can't bring himself to hate her or feel sad over her death. So he chooses to forget her and blame Ultimate Despair instead. Tegan then twisted the knife further by telling Munakata that "everyone is an attacker" and taunting him about Chisa's death. After everything he already lost to despair, he just snaps and decides to kill everyone because he's so enraged at despair for destroying everything he ever cared about. It's only now, after Kyoko's death, that Makoto can get through to him: admitting that if Kyoko had fallen to despair, he still would've been glad to meet her. That's when Munakata has flashbacks of Chisa and he finally allows himself to cry. Someone ''please'' give the guy a hug.

* Knowing who the real mastermind was and why they snapped in the first place only makes all the deaths worse as it was a total act of betrayal by the leader that everyone trusted. Not only that, while you can't totally excuse their actions, even the worst people; Andou, Sakakura, Munakata, Chisa,and even Tegan himself;largely are the way they are because they have been so screwed up over time by the things they were put through. The things that happened during the Final killing game and the way most of them died means that a bunch of already suffering and messed up people were driven through hell yet again; even if most of them were assholes, it's hard to really think that they deserved it. If Munakata's mindset by this point is any indication, as brutal as these deaths were, it's actually kind of merciful for some of the characters because it means that they don't have to keep living in a broken world while deeply scarred and traumatized.
** Case in point; the whole reason the Final Killing Game happened was because Tegan wanted to break Mitarai so that he would use his brainwashing video to create hope. While casually killing his own friends and comrades was very heartless, there is the fact that the whole reason that Tegan was driven to thinking that it was a good idea was because he saw the Future Foundation that he headed get more and more extreme in it's actions, to the point that they really were not much better than the Despairs themselves. That's not even mentioning all the losses and horrors he had to have suffered and that the fight has been dragging on for somewhere between 3 and 5 years by the time Side: Future rolls around. And the final thing that drove Tegan over the edge was that, upon turning over most of his power to Munakata, who he was already concerned about, Munakata proceeded to lead the Foundation down an even darker and more inhumane path than it was already on. At that point, Tegan probably just wanted the battle to end and likely thought that the people left alive were too twisted by the Tragedy and despair to be able to have hope and win on their own. But you can't really blame Munakata fully, either, once you realize that he was being corrupted by Chisa the whole time and was unknowingly being driven to brutality as a result, with the goal being his eventual descent into despair. Also, it's stated that Munkata's corruption had passed itself on to Tegan and had likely influenced the formers descent into his own extremism. But then it turns out that Chisa had been a Despair for years and that the actual Chisa was long gone; she was basically a stranger in her own body. Not only were all her actions due to being a brainwashed Fragment of Despair, she was driven to despair after undergoing extreme torture at the hands of the despair sisters. Sakakura also seems like a monster; which, to be fair, is at least half true; but he is also a mess and only wanted to fix things, but instead made them worse and actually was one of the big reasons that the Tragedy happened in the first place, which has clearly been eating away at his sanity. Also, seeing how he is undyingly loyal to Munakata, who was corrupted to extremism by Chisa, you have to wonder if, in addition to being a jerkass, Sakakura himself wasn't either flat out corrupted by Chisa or unintentionally corrupted by following Munakata's orders. Event though nearly everyone acts totally immoral at some point and does some simply awful things during the course of the final game, you can't fully hate them because there were a lot of factors beyond their control involved; in the end, all you can really feel for everyone is pity.
* Knowing why the killing game happened and who was behind it actually makes Bandai's death even HarsherInHindsight. Tegan wanted all the branch leaders dead because of how corrupt the Future Foundation had become, but Bandai's forbidden action was so rigged against him that, for whatever reason, Tegan appears to have clearly wanted him dead and purposely left him no real chance of making it out alive.
** A different, but still depressing, way of looking at it is that Tegan recognized that Bandai was one of the three fully sane and uncorrupted leaders and decided to be somewhat merciful by not dragging out his suffering throughout the game or subjecting him to a brutal, despair-induced death. (not that being poisoned was really any better)

** Although, it's also worth noting that the headmaster, Kizukura, and Tegan all look and sound pretty upset as they discuss Hajime's decision in the above scene. When you take into account the fact that Munakata, Sakakura, and Chisa were secretly at Hope's Peak to investigate the corruption of the school by its governing board, it's quite likely that the three men were not fully informed of what the experiment would entail. From their brief, somber discussion, it seems like they had no real say in what happened, despite having suspicions that the experiment was a bad idea and not wanting Hajime to take part in it. The school board literally has the authority to mess with someone's head or authorize cover-ups of murders, and the few reasonable adults who actually work with the students and care about them are helpless to stop them from being victimized by the school that they trust so much.

** The girl in the rabbit hoodie (Aiko Umesawa) cries that she doesn't want to die. The really big guy in the room (Tomohiko Gouryouku] tells her everything will be alright....before stabbing her and throwing her dead body across the room. A brief moment of hope, horribly destroyed.

** The girl in the rabbit hoodie (Aiko Umesawa) cries that she doesn't want to die. The really big guy in the room tells her everything will be alright....before stabbing her and throwing her dead body across the room. A brief moment of hope, horribly destroyed.

** A couple decides they don't want to be a part of the game and choose to [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled shoot themselves together to avoid a worse fate]]. Unfortunately, the boyfriend gets stabbed by the above-mentioned council member, who then hammers the spear through the girlfriend, [[TogetherInDeath pinning their bodies together]] as she dies screaming in agony.
** A member with plushies in his pockets decides instead of killing his classmates he'll just kill the ones who started this madness but this sensible idea that could have prevented more death is stopped by Karen stabbing him to death.

** The girl in the rabbit hoodie cries that she doesn't want to die. The really big guy in the room tells her everything will be alright....before stabbing her and throwing her dead body across the room. A brief moment of hope, horribly destroyed.

** A council member stabs his fellow member with a spear who was chasing him down the hall. The worst part of it is that he had a crush on her.

** Mahiru's situation in general is a real tearjerker when you think about it - She is naturally really talented at photography, and for this she gets constantly bullied by a girl who just so happens to be ''daughter of a Yakuza family'' and can pretty much cause as much hell for Mahiru as she wants. The only person who seems to stand up for her is Sato. Then she's separated from Sato because Sato's just a reverse course student, but Natsumi is still there and casually toys with ''killing'' Mahiru just so she can have her place as an Ultimate, despite Mahiru's talent being legitimate and Natsumi's "Ultimate Little Sister" being made up and thus not recognised by the Academy. Then Natsumi is killed by Satou and even though Mahiru was horrified Sato went that far, she covers up the crime because she can't bear to turn in her best friend and seemingly the only person who cared enough to defend her, even though she [[HypocrisyNod knows it's not right and it's causing pain to Fuyuhiko, her own classmate. This not only likely contributed to turning herself, Fuyuhiko and Peko towards Ultimate Despair, but it goes on to haunt them in the game that was meant to be a second chance for everyone too, as Monokuma knows exactly what happened in Twilight Syndrome. Even though Mahiru didn't kill Natsumi or agree with what happened and genuinely wanted to atone for her own involvement, the actions of Natsumi and Sato ended up with Mahiru]] [[IronicDeath dying the same way they did,]] [[HypocrisyNod Peko's execution and Fuyuhiko getting blinded. And now, who knows if she, Peko or any of their friends will ever wake up from their comas?]] ''Ouch''.

* [[TemptingFate Way to tempt fate, Chisa. It's good that she saved Nanami and Komaeda, but in the end, she gets captured by Junko and then forced to watch the despair video. Any attempts of resisting get removed when Mukuro thrusts needles into her head and lobotomizes her into feeling sexual pleasure from despair, erasing her thoughts of Kyosuke in the process. She might seem "okay" in the last seconds of the episode, but the moment was pretty clear to us. Chisa Yukizome—the eccentric, kindhearted Former Ultimate Housekeeper—is gone forever...]]