Danganronpa 3: Despair & Future Arc

I must say I do so enjoy how Ruruka met her end. A fitting end for a terrible person.

The killer really hated her too since her death is the most brutal.

Calling it now, Kirigiri's death is a fake-out. The camera lingers on something hidden under her body for some reason.

edited 5th Sep '16 2:05:39 PM by Gninnekrad

Having three fake outs two with the same person in a row is too much. More believable that she dead.

Monaca said someone Naegi knows would die cause of him afterall. She never said how.

edited 5th Sep '16 2:18:24 PM by OmegaRadiance

Probably the most relevant time to post this picture.

There's a vial of Cure-W in the corner of the screen when they find Kyouko dead. Make of that what you will.

Yeah, that bottle of Cure-W is the clincher here. I had a feeling that when Seiko was holding that bottle, that it would prove to be important later.

It might have been wishful thinking before, but now I'm convinced that Kyoko has to be alive. There's just too many coincidental hints, plus she's smart enough to try to find a way around her NG Code since it's so crippling.

So, I suppose I should give my thoughts on all of the new Future characters, since they've changed over the span of the episodes.

Chisa: She's okay, I guess. Doesn't really stand out to me.

Juzo: At first I hated him, but then I hated him ironically, and now I find him great due to 4chan memes. So of course he gets stabbed in the gut because Kodaka hates my joy.

Munakata: The most entertaining character in the show just for how 'pants on head' crazy he is. The fact that he's not being voiced by Quinton Flynn in the dub is the worst thing ever.

Tengan: I'm not sure if I'm supposed to think he's evil or not. He's definitely skirting sketchy territory as far as I'm concerned.

Kizakura: Started out unmemorable, then he turned into Raymond Shields. That was neat.

Ryouta: Probably evil. Otherwise mostly unmemorable to me so far.

Seiko: Obvious waifu-bait character, but she's decent enough. I feel bad for her.

Ruruka: Needs a SHSL Therapist like nobody's business. Pretty terrible, though I felt bad seeing her go out huddling against the floor in fear and being killed in a savage way.

Izayoi, Bandai, and Gozu: Didn't get enough screentime and/or characterization.

Miaya: What a waste of a good character design. Even the robot replacement was killed off without fanfare.

I don't feel bad for Ruruka at all. While she did have the most savage death of them all, she deserved it to due to the crap she did. In fact, I looked at the image, and started eating baked beans.

Ryouta is obviously the mastermind or a massive red herring.

For the speculations about the final death in the episode, I'm torn between liking Kirigiri and not wanting to see her die and my general dislike of fake deaths that aren't justified by the plot, especially those done for cheap shock value. I had to stop watching the series for over a week in annoyance after the Asahina fake out, not because I wanted her to die but because stunts like that are shitty writing IMO.

In general, I haven't been impressed with the quality of writing in the series:

-As Hobgoblin showed, the new characters aren't all that good, and mostly seem to be there to take up running space. I commented earlier on how pointless the Ruruka/Izayoi/Seiko plot was, and this episode suggests that it wouldn't have affected a thing if they hadn't been included, period. For that matter, Kizakura could have had all his development in Side: Despair and been left out of Future, while Bandai and Gozu only served to illustrate the rules of the game.

-Over in Despair, the fact that Junko revealing the Killing Game wouldn't result in the school being shut down overnight makes all the blather (with Jin, Tengan, Kizakura, and so on) about keeping things under wraps utterly idiotic, and raises huge questions about how the academy went on for several more years.

-It's been said before, but I'll do it again. While Junko needing a mechanism to brainwash masses of people is understandable, the idea that a freaking anime would do it takes a series that ideally would be a Mind Screwdriver (how did the Tragedy happen) and turns it into a Voodoo Shark (things make even less sense than before). Actually, that's an increasingly accurate description of my opinion of the anime. I'm beginning to sympathize with one individual who said they enjoyed the murder mysteries of the first two games but didn't give a hoot about the overlying plot. I wouldn't go as far as he did in suggesting the games would have been as fun if they ended after Trial 4 in DR 1 and Trial 5 in SDR 2, but I'm seeing where he's coming from now. As another person said, I'm now really, really, really hoping that the creators aren't doing yet more trolling about DR 3 having nothing to do with the previous story beyond the basic setup.

edited 5th Sep '16 4:14:07 PM by Bionicman

I wouldn't entirely say that. Seiko's death has made Juuzo pause for a brief second so they still viewed her as an ally. He even brought her up to Munakata.

Also her drugs being used quite a bit in the plot. Munakata is doped up on her str steroid too.

I agree about Izayoi and Ruruka though unless the point was to have someone way shittier than Juzo so when we feel for him as she goes unredeemable.

edited 5th Sep '16 4:47:17 PM by OmegaRadiance

Well, we don't know if anime is involved at all. Mitarai is just Junko's source for the brainwashing techniques, and none of the techniques that he mentioned are specific to anime. It seems like she wants to incorporate them into her snuff films, not cartoons.

There's also the bit where the attacker went completely ballistic on Ruruka, breaking their usual 'stab-to-the-heart and crucify' MO. That's definitely hinting at something.

As for Kirigiri: I strongly suspect that this is another fake-out, but a rather more elaborate and significant one this time. As in, this is Kirigiri faking her own death to make the Attacker think she's off the board, or something along those lines. It's there for more than just shock value, is what I'm getting at.

Whoever the killer is, they did a great job on Ruruka.

Jesus christ, shut up about Ruruka.

I really don't want Kirigiri to be alive. It'd just show that the writers don't have any guts to kill off legacy characters.

The main reason I think she'll be fine is because Kizukura sacrificed his life to save her just last week. That's super pointless if she was just to die now.

Well, that, and there being a bunch of out-of-place details about the whole thing that make it suspicious, but that's supporting evidence to the conclusion I reached because of that first thing.

I find it hilarious that the most empathetic person to Seiko out of the whole cast isn't Makoto or Aoi.

It's the guy who basically went "Eh." to every other death up to this point. Even the one he caused himself.

Kirigiri can't be alive. Her death was too good to be wasted. Taking what I already said in my Twitter thread: The peak of her character arc was when Chapter 5 had her choosing her competition against over Naegi's life. In that execution, she fully understood the regret caused by the risk she chose to take. Her choice of not making the same mistake again has so much weight and fixes one of the problems I had with her character arc. Namely, how that scene is resolved just with a lazy "I'm sorry" after Kirigiri's trip to the trash.

It also helps that she didn't ignore Kizakura's lesson of being honest with her feelings. She made sure to say just everything she wanted to say to Naegi before passing away. The anime made a great job of having this feel like a resolute decision and a regretless sacrifice. I'm seeing some theories here that she is still alive, but I'm firmly sure Kodaka wouldn't be dumb enough to waste such a beautifully written moment.

Something I didn't add there, but it worth mentioned is how this was laid out an way Kizakura's sacrifice was not pointless. Kirigiri died on her own terms after saying everything she wanted to say instead of being randomly killed before that. Thanks to Kizakura, she had all the time she needed to get everything she wanted done before her timed death. It's because of that she died without regrets.

edited 6th Sep '16 7:43:33 AM by Comun

I mean, that parallel exists, yeah, but Naegi didn't die there, so there's no particular need for Kirigiri to die for the parallel to work. It's enough that she chose to put herself in danger rather than turn on him.

And forgive me if I think 'it prompted her to say some stuff to Naegi that didn't even affect him that deeply' isn't really enough to make a sacrifice meaningful. Like, it was great moment for her character arc, but Naegi's still pretty much in the same place he always was, so we can't really say it had much of an impact if we're done with her, y'know?

While I don't disagree with your assessment on fake-outs, it's important to always keep in mind that Monaca isn't a psychic, nor was she reading ahead in the script. She only said that because she had access to information that no one else did, which we now know was the the list of NG codes. So she reasonable assumed that Kirigiri would die because of him, but that doesn't mean she is dead. She might have found some way to avoid the poison or something.

edited 5th Sep '16 11:36:22 PM by Clarste

I wouldn't necessarily say it does nothing for Naegi's character arc. You can see in the final moments of the episode that he's overcoming his feelings of grief and despair, presumably inspired by Kirigiri's final words.

In the context of the anime, it's a potential turning point for him to no longer be conflicted between his and Munakata's ideas of hope. In broader terms, he seems to have regained his composure much more fully and quickly than he did with, for instance, Sayaka's murder.

With no immediate threats left except for Munakata, I predict we'll have a chunk of an episode for Makoto to conduct his own investigation/finish Kirigiri's, and generally reestablish Makoto's competence.

edited 6th Sep '16 12:13:41 AM by illegalcheese

Me watching the episode:

"Okay Kirigiri is setting off a bunch of death flags shitshitshit"

"Timeout happens"

[[spoiler: "Oh shit yes it's Ruruka! Hot damn dodged a bullet"]

Then Naegi wakes up. Then Ryota. Then Asahina.

...

"FUUUUUUUUUUU—"

No wonder she was being so sweet

Funnily enough all three people who triggered death flags end up dying. And that episode title fits so well...

Oh look, NG codes. Chisa's is twisted, Gozu's is hilarious

Ryota being the mastermind is too obvious. My guess is that his NG Code is that he isn't allowed to reveal the mastermind's identity.

edited 6th Sep '16 3:20:59 AM by fillerdude

After thinking on it some more, I'm blown away at how unfair Yukizome's Forbidden Action is. It's the only one that prevents the player from winning Monokuma Hunter under any circumstances. That's Amanda Young level nonsense.

edited 6th Sep '16 10:29:19 AM by VeryMelon

Care to elaborate? Because I'm not really getting it.

Yukizome's Forbidden Action is "Munakata Kyousuke's Death". She can't win the game because him dying would kill her as well.

That doesn't make it unwinnable. The only way that could make it unwinnable is if Munakata was the attacker (which he isn't) and if lethal force was the only way to stop the attacker (which it isn't).

Though if Chisa is the attacker, it does make the game technically unwindable, but 'winning' probably isn't the attacker's real goal anyway.

edited 6th Sep '16 11:03:36 AM by Gilphon