The attempted mass slaughter was to avenge a dead friend. The desecration of a corpse (which had a high risk of also mass slaughtering the entire class) was done for shits and giggles.
this girl is in misery
No, it wasn't. It was also done to reveal Genocide Jack to everyone. Wrong? Yes, but he had a reason.
A tactical reason, because until Chapter 4 proved the rules were bullshit, he took the game seriously as a game. His end goal was to be the only survivor of the class. Since we are condemning Asahina for that, we need to condemn him harder for doing the same thing without requiring the same emotional distress to prompt him.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Oh, I fully agree that we need to condemn Byakuya harder for that than the fandom ever does. He didn't even do it to reveal Genocide Jack to the group; It was literally just for shits and giggles. She confided Jack's secret in Byakuya and he decided to spill the tea to the entire group in the most horrific way possible.
By his own admission, he just wanted to make the trial more fun for himself. Both the public outing of Toko's deepest, darkest secret and the tampering with Chihiro's body were done purely for his own entertainment. Byakuya's a dumpster fire of a human being.
...
But on a heinousness scale, that nonetheless pales in comparison to trying to mass-murder five people. Hina tries to kill more people in this game than Genocide Jack does.
Byakuya has a pretty despicable personality. And as much as people like to say he comes around, he never truly does. He quits the Killing Game for purely logistical reasons, spends the rest of the game continuing to be a domineering, uncaring, empathy-free asshole (but now on our side), and his only investment in defeating Junko is to soothe his own ego. This guy sucks.
But when tampering with a crime scene for lulz (while fully intending to reveal the truth once you've had said lulz) is the worst thing you've ever done, you're nonetheless still ahead of a lot of people in Danganronpa.
Byakuya comes in dead last on the "Would I Have A Beer With Him?" scale but if we're here to make moral judgments of their actions, there's a lot worse here than him.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 29th 2023 at 9:50:30 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Guys, remember, School Mode characterizations are taken into account, which portrays all of the characters in a setting that isn't designed to break them mentally.
Edited by Smasher on Sep 29th 2023 at 4:45:04 AM
King of Anime
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
x2
I mean. At the point that Byakuya tampered with the crime scene there were 12 players left, not counting the real Junko. Him tampering with the crime scene is arguably worse than Aoi trying to avenge Sakura because if nobody figured out the truth he would've gotten everyone except for Mondo killed. And, like, even if he had confessed to tampering in the event people failed to figure it out he had no gurantee they'd believe he only tampered with the scene. Dude not only toyed with everyone for shits and giggles but he also put 11 lives at risk for it as wellas opposed to Aoi only endangering 5 people (not including herself). I'd say that definitely makes him worse than Aoi.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
I didn't. I put him in his own category of undecided. I just messed up the formatting at the end.
Edited by Chariot on Sep 29th 2023 at 6:07:48 AM
Why did you rank Taka as evil in your list at the top of the page?
Edited by Smasher on Sep 29th 2023 at 4:51:40 AM
this girl is in misery
I mean, by that logic, we should include DR 2/3 where Togami grows as a person, right?
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Thread hopping because of something I just realized.
The manga version of Leon is technically only guilty of Manslaughter, by virtue of not actually intending to kill Sayaka.
Which makes Monkuma deliberately cutting him off before he can even defend himself worse, as he dies with everyone thinking he's a murderer.
One Strip! One Strip!
Barb / Temporary Kylo
I kind of loved the first game's Togami precisely because of how much of a sadistic jackass he is. His more traditional Jerk with a Heart of Gold portrayel in the later games is also good. But I kind of liked how in DR 1 I expected him to just be a bratty snob and was astounded by how borderline evil he actually was. It made the fact he never becomes a killer a bit funnier.
The First man
I think Leon's motive in the original game could have been explained much better. Now I'm not sure about the Japanese translation but in the English localisation he gives the excuse of "none of [the other students being] any different", as in, if someone else was in his shoes they would have done the same action. Celeste is quick to point out that he can't say he acted in self-defence as he could have stopped himself at many points, but didn't, showing a strong degree of pre-meditation.
Examining the entire scenario shows that this was more about a betrayal of trust than anything else. When taking a gander at his Free Time Events, Leon actually shows interest in Sayaka and bears no ill-will towards her until the incident. The game tries to portray this as him seeking revenge, but when a person who you thought was sound (pun not intended), sound enough to have feelings for, attempts this sort of thing, your perspective can change in a split-second.
Adding dialogue lines like "If I didn't do this, who's to say she wouldn't have tried to take my life again, especially now that I could rat her out" and "I thought she was decent, but now I know better. And I don't want to learn this the hard way with another one of you. I had to escape" of course wouldn't justify anything but I do feel it would make it a more sympathetic post-trial and a harder-hitting first execution
Edited by Neoshi on Dec 19th 2023 at 11:55:34 AM
Queen of Good Things, Honest
If they wanted Leon to be sympathetic then they would have kept it at self-defense. "I was just defending myself; Why should I have to die for it?" is the most sympathetic interpretation that could have been made for Leon.
That's why the game goes to the trouble of taking that defense away from him. Because he's not supposed to be sympathetic. He not only had the chance to escape the situation, he did actively escape the situation. Sayaka locked herself in the bathroom and Leon left. He was no longer in any peril.
The point at which it became murder was the point where he, of his own volition, went back to the room to break in and murder her because her honeypot/murder attempt wounded his masculine pride. He liked her and she took advantage of that to try and kill him. He didn't want to escape. He wanted revenge. He went out of his way to get it.
What was going through his head wasn't, "This person is a danger to everyone. I will do what I must to protect my beloved friends and ensure that no harm ever comes to anyone else."
What was going through his head was, "I'm going to show this FUCKING BITCH not to mess with me!"
What makes 1-1 interesting is that there is no good guy here. Both Sayaka and Leon are in the wrong. Sayaka cracked under intense trauma and attacked Leon, and Leon - who was already kind of a red-flaggy douchebag - became homicidally vindictive over it.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 19th 2023 at 3:28:47 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Fair point, and I suppose that making neither the first victim nor the first culprit a good guy reaffirms their Creator's Pest status. The character designers didn't like them after using them as templates for so long, so why not make the players dislike them either?
However I'm still of the opinion that it wasn't maybe the best direction to go in for the first trial, which is meant to set the despair-filled tone for the rest of the game. Showing a bad student's true colours ramps up the tension for sure, as you never know who else might fall from grace during the killing game and have a dangerous breakdown, but that should only have been done for Sayaka. As for the first blackened, Monokuma is the one who's established as a force to be reckoned with: an executioner with no mercy. Making Leon a jerk as you described undermines the emotional impact of his demise in the hands of the mastermind. The impact's still there, but it's dampened. Making it more like the manga would've been ideal.
Maizono is not written as unsympathetic to any extent. She's not justified to any extent, no (attempted) murderer in the series is, but the game goes out of this to portray the tragedy of her not having anything else in her life, and the protagonist willingly choosing the more positive interpretation of her actions.
Ordinary Corrupt Android Love
Giving this thread a prod to say I finally got around to playing and beating the first game after years of it just lying in my Steam library. It's definitely flawed and aged in some regards and I can't find the drive to grind out Monocoins for 100% Completion, but I liked it! Very enjoyable and good with tension, at least from my experience. Definitely gonna look into the sequels soon.
Self-serious autistic metalhead who goes by any pronouns. (avvie template source)
Long time lurker
How do you guys feel about Danganronpa 3 as of today? Did you feeling change or stayed the same?
After 10 year plus years I have the confidence to be here. Let's give it EVERYTHING we've got! It's...PUNISHMENT TIME
Queen of Good Things, Honest
I think it's a rushed and unsatisfying ending, scrambling to try and put all of Kodaka's toys back in the box as quickly as humanly possible so they can stamp "THE END" on the franchise and never look back. It cuts a lot of corners and simply doesn't have enough time to satisfactorily explore the conflicts left open by the games it's trying to close out. What time it does have is used incredibly poorly, focusing on just doing wacky skits on one side and meandering around dark hallways doing nothing on the other.
Meanwhile, its new contributions to the Danganronpa canon are pretty much just straight trash. It's a complete dumpster fire of an anime.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 1st 2024 at 3:32:46 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Long time lurker
I would like to known why you feel that way because for me it did what it supposed to do of being a victory lap.
Ordinary Corrupt Android Love
Yeah I heard the anime was pretty bad. Sounds like a really badly-implemented happy ending. Think I'll give that a skip.
Self-serious autistic metalhead who goes by any pronouns. (avvie template source)
Long time lurker
I would like for you to reconsider.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
DR 3 is holistically bad. It doesn't have a single redeeming quality of any kind.
It's not even fun to watch, because the psychopop element is completely absent. The whole thing takes place in a bunch of dimly-lit stone corridors while angsty men monologue about how angry they are and how much they just hate despair oh so much.
To make sure you're in any way invested in what's happening here, they bring not just Makoto but Hina, Yasuhiro, and Kyoko back - Though Yasuhiro spends the entire thing just being a recurring cutaway joke as he gets chased around, dodging gunfire from helicopters for some reason.
Meanwhile, Hina gets reduced to literally just being a mode of transportation. Everyone has a weird "rule" that they aren't allowed to share to try and complicate the "Someone gets murdered every few hours, wonder who's doing it?" thing and Makoto's is that he can't run, so Hina literally gets used as his bicycle for the entire show. That is her entire role. Oh, and one time she's the one who gets murdered during a blackout but don't worry, they unkill her immediately and she's fine.
Kyoko gets to do a bit more, up until the point where she dies because her rule says she has to kill Makoto and she won't do it. So she's poisoned to death by the Zero Escape bracelet and drops dead on the spot. But don't worry, they unkill her so she's fine. The show is way too precious about the returning stars to actually let anything bad happen to them, even though it desperately wants you to think it might.
Meanwhile, the true killer? It's nobody! Actually, people are being made to commit suicide via Junko Enoshima's Mind Control Video that enslaves people to do whatever she wants them to do. Which, by the way, is a thing that she's had THIS ENTIRE TIME.
Yeah, all that stuff about wanting to make the world fall to despair in DR 1? She had a mind control video she can just show people instead of the Killing Game that would just make them her servants. And all that psychological manipulation of the students? Yeah, for some reason she was doing that instead of just showing them her Mind Control video that would make them kill each other.
This Mind Control video is solely responsible for the Tragedy. She just mind controlled everyone into carrying out all the events that led to it and then mind controlled the world into despair. Even the Remnants are pure, innocent snowflakes who did nothing wrong; She just showed them their Mind Control video one day and they were like, "Oh no, now I'm evil!"
"But the Mind Control video doesn't work like that. It's more precise than—" OH HO HO HO Yes it fucking does. It works on anyone, anywhere, with no limitations. We know that because the final conflict is predicated on its limitless application.
The "Final Killing Game" is happening because one Future Foundation leader found out about the Mind Control video and hired a guy who made a Mind Control counter-video. The goal is to pressure him into freaking out so much that he agrees to broadcast the Mind Control counter-video to the entire world and make every single person on Earth into mind controlled slaves of Hope instead of Despair. That is absolutely a thing he can do. So, y'know, we gotta stop him from doing that.
Meanwhile, Despair Arc is a prequel about how the Tragedy came about and how the Remnants fell into despair and all that. But it's not actually that because it is aggressively disinterested in that. Key moments of backstory are quickly glanced over. Like, they barely touch on Fuyuhiko murdering Sato because that might paint him in a bad light and they want you to know that the Remnants did nothing wrong.
Prequel Junko is presented in the least interesting light possible. She's a deranged serial killer full-time, walking around murdering people out in the open because "LOL I'm so crazy!" but she gets away with it because... nobody cares, I guess. Well, one person cares, but he keeps his mouth shut and agrees to let Danganronpa happen because she threatens to reveal that he's gay.
They finally explain what happened in that one bloody room from DR 1! Yeah, the student council proto-Killing Game thing, where Izuru Kamukura butchered the student council and kicked off the Tragedy? Yeah, Junko just carted some weapons into a student council meeting and went, "You should use these to kill each other," and for no apparent reason, they all agreed to do it. No reason. They just started killing each other. Kamukura wasn't even involved, except to take down the very last survivor who went gunning for him. He was just. Nearby. Watching.
The show doesn't actually want to examine the events leading into Danganronpa, so it rushes through the big canon moments as quick as it can to make time for funny skits like Nekomaru pooping so hard he destroys a building and Teruteru using aphrodisiacs to drug the entire class into an (attempted) sex-crazed orgy. That's what it actually wants to talk about.
But they gotta Mind Control Video them all into being the Remnants of Despair 'cause, y'know, there's no time to actually explore Junko recruiting and manipulating them into her belief system. Why would she ever psychologically manipulate people when she has this cool Mind Control Video? She's a crazy woman with a baseball bat who throws hand grenades at people in public, not some kind of clever mastermind!
Oh, but we do get to see her Mind Control Video Mikan earlier than everyone else, so we can watch a sex-crazed Mikan try to hump her leg. There's time for that, to be sure. Not even a new character so we can explore what another Remnant's personality is; Just repeating the bit from DR2. The anime is thoroughly disinterested in doing anything new with the DR2 cast.
The human Chiaki Nanami is here for exactly two things: First, to have cute shippable moments with Hajime because "Isn't my ship SO PRECIOUS!?" These add nothing to the story and are just there for fluff. Second, to be the most pure and innocent snowflake who ever lived and be beloved by everyone ever, so that when Junko fridges her, it will be so sad, you guys. The most saddest thing ever!
And yes, I do mean "Junko fridges her". Doesn't even trick someone else into doing it or coerce somebody or even use the Mind Control Video to make someone do it. Junko just dumps her in a deathtrap room that she somehow constructed on school property without anyone noticing, and makes everyone watch the deathtraps murder her. Then Mind Control Videos everyone else and now they're the Remnants.
Human Chiaki is so poorly utilized that it almost makes you forget that she's not supposed to exist at all. DR 2 explicitly established that Chiaki Nanami is a fake person that the Future Foundation made up. But if they went with that then they couldn't have cute shipping moments with Hajime so she's real now, and she dies just because it's really sad when purehearted cinnamon rolls die.
But this isn't just a bad prequel or a boring sequel. It also has to provide endings. First, it has to end Ultra Despair Girls decisively. UDG ended on a cliffhanger, with the adults and children of Towa City at all-out war with one another, the Warriors of Hope imprisoned and facing a cruel fate, and Monaca preparing to embrace her new role as Junko 2.0.
The show doesn't have time to explore any of this. The adults basically all fuck off offscreen. Boastful admitted pedophile Haiji, leader of the adults with a bloodthirst to butcher the children, fucks off offscreen and is never so much as spoken of. The Warriors of Hope are all fine; They're in an apartment and now they're best friends with Komaru and Toko and eagerly help them, and it's fine. And Monaca... literally just gets bored of being Junko 2.0 and quits. She's just. Over it. Doesn't care anymore. So that's all wrapped up in a neat bow, I guess.
Danganronpa 2 ended with the Remnants in a sticky state; Most are braindead but there's some hope to bring them out of their comas, but also what they will be is unsure... The program never finished, so there's some risk involved in bringing them out.
Well, actually, no risk at all. Everyone wakes up and they're exactly like they were in the game, and it's fine. There's not even any hard feelings. Peko beat Mahiru to death with a baseball bat but it's fine, everyone's best friends and everyone forgives and it's fine. Nagito literally tried to murder every single person here but now he's cool and part of the group and he loves everyone, and it's fine. Everyone is perfectly healed and perfectly identical to their game personalities, and they all love each other and there are no consequences of any kind.
Which, I guess, is fine since none of them ever did anything wrong to begin with. They were just under the influence of Junko's Mind Control Video so it's not like there was ever really any problems with these people. They were just being Mind Controlled. Now they're not, so they're back to normal and are 100% Good Guys who all love and cherish each other perfectly. It's fine.
So the Remnants team up with the DR 1 survivors and they take down the evil Hope-version Mind Control Video, and that's that. Future Foundation has utterly self-destructed, with all of its leadership dying in the Final Killing Game. And, y'know, the toxic atmosphere makes the world uninhabitable, that was a pretty significant plot point that never so much as comes up.
But it's fine. We cut straight to Hope's Peak reopening, because that's a thing we're supposed to be rooting for, I guess? Even though Hope's Peak is a pretty horrific place that did awful things to people and that's a consistent theme throughout the series? But it's fine. They reopen and they're good now, 'cause Makoto's the Headmaster! For, uh, some reason? I don't know why he'd be the Headmaster when Kyoko is right there and unkilled, but it's fine. The ending assures us that she's, like, his secretary now or some shit.
So, it's fine. Future Foundation was publicly destroyed in its entirety, which the Remnants of Despair took credit for because somehow that's supposed to preserve Hope and prevent people from thinking Despair is winning. And the atmosphere's still toxic last anyone heard. But then it all just got better of its own accord and now everything's fine. The end.
It sucks. It's boring, makes poor use of established characters, and utterly wastes what its predecessors set up in the name of tying everything off as neat as it can. It features no interesting ideas of any kind and is too precious about not letting the DR 1 or DR 2 cast get tarnished in any way, even by things they explicitly did in the fucking games.
Future Arc is ugly to watch and boring to sit through. Despair Arc is charged with exploring the events leading into Danganronpa but is aggressively disinterested in doing that. And the endings for UDG, DR 2, and DR 3 are all an unsatisfying mess. It feels very much like someone trying to slam the book shut on Danganronpa so people will leave him the fuck alone and let him go write other things.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 1st 2024 at 5:10:06 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
I'd be a lot more interested in you elaborating since your opinion is the rare one. Tobias's arguments are probably the same "human Nanami has nothing of what made her digital counterpart work, the brainwashing arrangement whitewashes the 77th class and devalues Junko as a socially-savvy manipulator, Tengen is a nothing villain" topics that dominated DR3 discussions for 8 years now.
EDIT: Yeah, pretty much what was expected.
Edited by Comun on Feb 1st 2024 at 5:15:38 AM
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Pretty much, yeah. "DR3 sucks and is bad" is far from a controversial opinion. I'm pretty sure it's the standard.
V3 is a lot more divisive and a complicated topic to talk about. But 3 is pretty widely hated.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 1st 2024 at 5:20:21 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Only thing I'll correct you on is that Junko brings up a bunch of blackmail material on the student council to help kickstart the massacre so I wouldn't quite say the conflict starts for no reason. But eh, yeah, even then, the conflict escalates pretty fast.
Though at the same time, I dunno if I'd say it's unanimously hated. I feel like I've seen more positive opinions of it over time to the point I'd say it's moreso divisive. Maybe the later backlash against V3 had something to do with it or some people just happy there was a happy ending, who's to say.
"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."
I haven't watched the video, only read the lists, so maybe the video explains the reasoning but Aoi and Saya should definitely go in Gray since Good seems to be mostly non-murders and they're the only attempted murderers this person ranked as Good. And if the only reason Jack is on the Bad to Evil list is that she's a serial killer then why aren't Leon, Mondo, Hifumi, and Celestia also there? Feels kind of weird to put them in the Gray area with the likes of Toko and Byakyua who aren't nice but never killed anyone (Since we're treating Toko and Jack as seperate people.) and Hiro who did attempt murder but was ultimately a decent person. And, yeah, Monokuma and Junko are the same person so shouldn't be seperated.
Honestly I'd need to rewatch a playthrough of the game or rewatch the anime but if I'm splitting it:
Edited by Chariot on Sep 29th 2023 at 6:06:56 AM