Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair

I don't know why, but I like the part where Tsumugi tries to teach Hagakure how to be a live streamer. (I think it's one of his options for the 3 events)

I also like how Tenko told Nekomaru to be gentler with the girls, it's very in character for her and I like how they brought up Gonta because I ship Tenko and Gonta.

It was also fun to see Mondo wanting to be a carpenter referenced (He helped with a stage production of Momotaro. At least I think that's what it's called. That Japanese story about a kid and some animals killing a demon.)

Even though the series creator wasn't involved, it still feels like a lot of care went into the interactions between everyone.

A full blown next game will likely happen after Kodaka's new mystery game is released, as he's actuallty mroe then willing to work on more Dangan Ronpa games and just wanted a break from them.

Even says he'd like to see Kotaro Uchikoshi take the directors chair for a new game.

I agree, Hachimura has a great grasp on a vast majority of the characters. I like especially the work she does on Junko and the Impostor because those are some she couldn't rely too hard on Kodaka's material. Her takes on the characters are very original and fit in very naturally with what they had previously established.

I'd kind of like for a next game to confirm just how much of what Tsumugi Shirogane said was true. Plus, the ending was a lot more disliked in Japan than the West. Maybe it's the translation? But I'd also like for it to remain up in the air, so fans won't get too angry.

From what I've gathered regarding the different receptions, the localization did a bunch of softening to make the ending feel less like an active insult towards the fans, apparently because the original came across as much more mean-spirited than intended. Because of that, if they do explore Tsumugi's claims more, my guess is that they'll show everything to be less nasty and fake than she implies.

It does kind of lead to a funny thing though, where in the West the game's beginning twist is hated because of it replacing an interesting female lead with yet another generic self-insert bro, but in Japan it's the ending that pissed people off because there having a lead you can view as an extension of yourself is valued higher, with a male default being much less questioned.

Holy shit that is fascinating.

Opposing cultural views to the same media is some interesting stuff.

I will admit that I did kind of get the "insulting the fans" impression, at least a little bit. It's not as mean as it could have been, though.

In regards to Team Danganronpa, I've kind of been pondering how I'd present them (assuming that V3's ending was indeed the truth) - and I mean more their nature than their morality. As I see it, I can think of three ways:

• Just make them a faceless company that is never really explored, kind of like how the Steering Committee was in the Hope's Peak arc. I think this is the most boring option, though it's admittedly easy to use if they don't want to go into too much detail.
• Actually develop individual members of them, particularly high ranking executives and such. This is actually a route I've gone down myself, but would require shifting the focus somewhat. I've proposed making them the Killing Game victims for the next game, though how that would work, I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, this is probably the best mixture of interesting and versatile.
• This one's a bit weird, and admittedly a bit fan-ficcy on my part: take a leaf out of Metal Gear Solid 2's book, and make them an inhuman, almost eldritch force. Maybe this means they're actually run by an AI, and in fact, it probably would be - making them something like an actual, formless entity might be too weird even for this series. I'd only recommend this approach if they wanted to do a deep dive into themes of the series and the nature of a society that allows them to exist. I kind of like the idea, though, so this might be fun. I actually think they should do something like this if they decide the whole thing was a lie - if you're going to Retcon out an interesting idea, you might as well give another Mind Screw in its place.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Dec 6th 2021 at 11:17:24 AM

No, the localization didn’t soften anything. The tone is pretty much identical. Your comment about the different ways fandoms in different culture spheres consume media though? That’s very on point.

I'm not sure if "soften" is the right word. It's more that some aspects that made it seem mean-spirited just didn't translate and kind of got glossed over. I know that the very deliberate Goroawase reading of the number 53 as "garbage" was a particular sticking point for Japanese fans.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Dec 6th 2021 at 1:01:47 PM

Ya know I did think it was the west with the more adverse reaction to the ending. Why did Japan dislike it a lot?

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 6th 2021 at 10:12:41 AM

I am only speaking from memory of the drama when it came out, but the perception was that Kodaka was pulling a Torch the Franchise and Run by directly speaking against not only his own games, but their fans as well. In the West, Self-Deprecation and light-hearted jabs toward the audience and their Wish-Fulfillment are much more normalized. By contrast, in Japan, (what is seen as) actively railing against your own company and projects is just not done to nearly the same extent.

Mahiru X Hiyoko has been sunk. Hiyoko only sees Mahiru as a sister figure.

However, I ship Tenko X Hagakure's Mom now.

Edited by Smasher on Dec 8th 2021 at 1:28:45 PM

Yeah, I always preferred to see Mahiru and Hiyoko as close friends/surrogate sisters, personally. I get why people ship them, though.

That's nothing new. Hiyoko always called everyone *thickens Kyoto accent* onee or onii.

By the way, Comun, I'd like to ask a question regarding a reference.

In V3's Talent Plan, Izuru, Sakura, and Monokuma have an event together. Monokuma says this:

"What do you think this is? The disappointing finale to a bleachy battle manga or something? This is supposed to be about the daily lives of Hope's Peak boys! And girls, too! Like, falling for the new girl in class, or falling for your childhood friend, that sorta thing...

Don't you want a convoluted love dodecahedron that works out for everyone in the end!?"

Were these references (to Bleach and Daily Lives of High School Boys) in the original?

Edited by Smasher on Dec 9th 2021 at 7:48:56 AM

No, the references there were more generic, using only genre/trope names and a nod to Jump's cancellation system.

Looks like I found a fault in DRS.

In the Monotaro segment, Monotaro summons all the characters with siblings. He forgot to summon Kaede. Her twin was so irrelevant even the new authors forgot about her or him.

It figures that her twin was never part of her received backstory. We can take this as confirmation it was a posthumous addition because Shirogane was desperate.

Also, I find it amusing that Hagakure and Rantaro are friends. Especially in the scene where Hagakure tries to hire Komaeda to help his accuracy go up. Although, knowing Komaeda's luck, wouldn't that hurt Hagakure's accuracy too?

Edit: Also, Chihiro comes out as male in his playthrough! Mondo knew beforehand (again showing that the events of the original games happened in broad strokes) and Kyoko figured it out herself, but it happened!

Akane refers to Kaito as Kyle. Since Kaito is voiced by Kyle Herbert, is this a variation on The Danza?

Edited by Smasher on Dec 15th 2021 at 4:32:43 AM

Rest In Peace, Sayaka Kanda. My sincerest condolences to the people close to her. Kanda is was important and dear to Danganronpa and us fans, and a true inspiration to me as an Ascended Fan to the franchise made me a translator, so it hurts a lot that her passing was so abrupt and tragic.

Sayaka Kanda, the Japanese VA for Kaede Akamatsu and stage actress for The Ultimate Despair, has been found dead.

Here's the source from another post but it's in Japanese.

May she rest in peace.

And Comun already beat me to the punch.

Edited by fredhot16 on Dec 18th 2021 at 7:51:54 AM

The Tsumugi/Hifumi/Mahiru scene reads different now. (Basically, they convince Hifumi that he should lose weight so he can live to see sequels, remakes, and manga going off hiatus. The "think about your fans" line in particular stands out.)

Really Hiyoko, why do you want to squish ants all over Mikan's (possibly naked) body? And Tenko, why are you considering a pervert like Leon one of the better ones? Are you straight after all and falling for his bad boy charms? It was nice to see him and Ryoma play catch, though. Speaking which, Leon said he likes someone, but who could it be? And if Teruteru was threatened with a lawsuit at the beach, I guess he should work in more limited spaces.

And it looks like Rantaro might not be asexual. He did claim to be a little interested in the girls. Not as much as Leon though.

Chihiro may be brave, but he's not stupid, so good for him to bring Sakura along before coming out to Genocide Jack. She probably should marry Togami just to keep Chihiro safe.

I didn't expect Kazuichi and Jataro to form a bond, but they did. Unfortunately, Chiaki doesn't want to be friends with Hifumi. Granted, the console wars aren't the best subject manner to start a conversation with.

Edited by Smasher on Jan 6th 2022 at 10:49:30 AM

Weirdly enough, Danganronpa is trending on Twitter today.

And it seems to be...Valentine's Day art.

You may proceed, internet.

I've gotten pretty far into Danganronpa 2 (currently at Chapter 5 atm) and during the Chapter 3 class trial, there were two logic kerfuffles that particularly stuck out to me:

• Firstly, everyone was operating under the pretense that it was an imitation murder, right? So you'd think that determining who watched The Wizard of Monomi before the murder happened could easily narrow down the pool of suspects and clear Hajime of any suspicion.
• Also, you'd think that the AC in the music venue would play a huge part in figuring out who the killer is, too. In order for their plan to work, The killer would have to had known that tampering with the heat of a dead body would make it harder to tell when a person died. The killer would need to have some degree of experience with dead bodies or medical expertise in order to know that, which would immediately implicate Mikan since she couldn't perform an accurate autopsy because of the heat.

Overall, I'm liking Danganronpa 2 so far. My biggest problem with the game's writing is how vague things can get sometimes, especially with tutorials. Without any sort of visual guide, it's hard to tell how new gameplay mechanics are supposed to work. Even after reading the instructions for how to play Rebuttal Showdown for the first time, I still had barely any clue as to what I was supposed to be doing. For some mechanics, text just isn't enough to explain how they work!

Also, I might just not have the proper timing down, but I think the timing window for the Panic Talk Action segments might be a little off-beat? I'm playing the Nintendo Switch version of DR2 and it's the only version of the game I've played, so I'm not sure if this is a problem in any of the other versions of the game.