Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair

it's because that some people have a somewhat unhealthy relationship of series like DR in that they used it as an emotional crutch, so when V3's grand reveal happened saying that its fiction those people became irate, so that's why there's this outrage of V3 that happens to this day plus how some also got confused about how meta it really is.

So, I did a silly and went all in on beating and completing Danganronpa 2 as much as I had the patience for. All of Hajime's bonds with the other characters maxed out, all Island Mode endings attained, all hidden Monokumas found, all presents obtained, all items in Monomi's little game mode found, all pet types raised, all Trial abilities unlocked. Phew.

My verdict? Respectable improvement from the first game with a MUCH better protagonist and a fun new setting, while still retaining a delightful and (mostly) likeable panoply of goobers you get to see kill, die and be traumatized. But there's still some lingering elements that just didn't age well, namely the excessive horniness throughout. My GOD this game is too fucking horny and you really feel that with Akane and Mikan in particular.

Speaking of Mikan, that 3rd chapter's case, trial and execution is like...Iunno, the Illegal Alien of this game. A pretty crummy, ill-conceived midway point of an otherwise good, sometimes great, experience. Much ado's been made about it over the years I'm sure so I won't expound too much on it other than it did not serve Mikan (or Ibuki for that matter) very well all in all. Between the Despair Disease and the fuckin' catastrophe that is the DR 3 anime, is it too much to ask for these people to have some goddamn agency and pre-existing character flaws??? Thankfully the game was very much uphill from there in my opinion.

Personal favs were Hajime, Chiaki, Fuyuhiko, Sonia, Gundham, and Ibuki. Least favs were Hiyoko and Teruteru (again, too fucking horny).

Oh yeah, Despair Disease is a terrible Motive. The murder should arise from the interpersonal relationships between the characters put under intense pressure by the Motive until one of them pops. But the 2-3 Motive is "One of the characters was abruptly erased and replaced with a different version of the character that would kill someone." That's. What?

Mikan killing the last two surviving members of her social group, one of whom has been endlessly abusing her both before and during the Killing Game, is the sort of thing that should have a lot more gravitas than "Monokuma literally mind-controlled her into doing it."

DR 2 has the best cast in the series but its biggest flaw is that it's overly plot-focused. It's written around the endgame reveal, with most of its developments simply revolving around learning new things about the backstory rather than building on the relationships between the characters.

That's something the series lost sight of after the first. DR 1 had relatively simple motives because the plot wasn't really that important; The purpose of the motives was simply to give the characters a nudge and then let their personalities and relationships take over. Whereas 2 is much more plot-driven than character-driven. Meanwhile V3, I think, did manage to find at least a compromise, so the motives are still big plot-driven events but the murders remain strongly character-driven.

As someone who adores the twist of V3, I understand the disappointment is coming from. It's ultimately a matter of preference and what a person specifically looks for when consuming media.

For example, I'm not all that interested in lore stuff in general. Let's say the lore and the "greater Danganronpa universe" was someone's biggest reason for their love of the series. Compared to stuff like UDG and the anime, V3 really doesn't offer much in that respect, and so someone anticipating that level of world-building would be in for a huge let down. Not helping is how the game portrays said people and appears to ridicule them for being too invested. And so no matter how often you say "your anger proves the ending's point", you cannot sway their opinion; they came for lore expansion, not philosophising or metacommentary. I care a lot more about the mechanics and logistics of the killing game itself, how it works and how many different ways it can be played, as that is a lot more pertinent to the puzzle-solving gameplay I prioritise over the overarching plot. Therefore I much prefer V3 discussing ideas of audience participation via a robot, or the idea of an "Ultimate Survivor" making it to successive killing games, than, say, the current whereabouts of the Future Foundation.

I thought the main complaint about the ending was that people felt like it was the creator shitting on the fanbase because of how the characters call out the in universe audience and their love for the executions/deaths that happen in Danganronpa? At least that was one of the big complaints back when the game first released.

The word "fiction" gets thrown around a lot in all the arguments/debates I've seen, so I wouldn't say it's the main complaint, no. Though it is a complaint nonetheless. But honestly speaking, if the creator was genuinely rebuking his audience over that instead of it all being in good faith, why on earth do it in a game where the deaths/executions are the most striking they've ever been in the franchise?

The central message of V3's ending is that the themes the franchise is built upon are ultimately self-defeating and serve only to fuel one another. Hope and Despair, the two points on the spectrum that the brand is about, just feed into one another. Danganronpa itself has become a shallow Franchise Zombie utterly devoid of artistic integrity or creative intent, and the only way to truly win is to stop fucking making these stupid-ass games.

Notably, right after V3, series creator Kazutaka Kodaka left Spike Chunsoft to form his own company where he could stop making Danganronpa games and do other things instead. Putting his career development where his mouth is.

It's pretty unambiguously a Torch the Franchise and Run Deconstruction.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 29th 2024 at 3:22:30 AM

Random but I finished DR 1 and I just started playing DR 2 and noticing that gender roles and expectations keep getting brought up in dialogue. I know it's minor but it's kinda noticeable to me.

I can't really agree with that as to me on what it did made it look like a 4th wall brake but in reality all the taking points are in-universe to V3, the ending is just the end as Kodaka just wanted to put the series to bed rather then continuing it but not in touch the franchise and runs manner but just letting it end with in the style of the series.

Edited by The-Azure-Star-Of-Orion on Mar 29th 2024 at 3:41:11 AM

He already put the series to bed with DR 3 - and hastily, I might add, as DR 3 slapdashedly scrambles to tie off everything and slam the book shut. V3 is an out-of-continuity addendum to the ending he'd already written.

DR 3 exists to close out the series. V3 exists to tell the audience that there's not going to be any more Danganronpa games; This series is dead you can stop asking.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 29th 2024 at 5:01:42 AM

you forget that DR 3 and V3 where being made at the same time with DR 3 being the end of hope's peaks saga and V3 being the end of the series overall as V3 needs DR 3 to work.

I know it's not mainline so it "doesn't count" per se, but I can infer from your post that Ultimate Summer Camp is best left forgotten. Understandably so, I guess.

Anyway, yes, I find V3's last trial to be genius as it really is, as far as I'm concerned, the only true way to end a series. Obviously not saying that every franchise needs to do this, far from it, but you can see what I'm saying. Which is what makes all the ambiguities sprinkled into the ending (e.g. the audition tapes contradicting the prologue) rather annoying. I always specifically say I like V3's "twist" or "final trial" instead of the ending, because the ending seems to self-sabotage its intent, opening up the possibility for a new game if Tsumugi truly lied.

I forget no such thing. DR3 provides an extremely rushed and unsatisfying ending that serves the sole purpose of simply having an ending despite failing to adequately address anything. Then V3 ties it off by saying we must vanquish Danganronpa itself by never making any more of these games. That's two parts of a complete creative burnout. And then the creator left.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 29th 2024 at 7:07:40 AM

Idk, I kind of question that perspective. Seems to contradict the statements and attitudes in interviews. And even if you assume those were lies, why bother even making another game? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall hearing that there was any contractual obligation to make a third game. I could at least understand the obligation to make DR 3 for the sake of just tying off the main story. But V3? There was no reason to have to make it.

there's is no creator's burnout, V3 was made to finish the series with no obligations to do such a project alongside DR 3 in tandem just so he can end the series, there's both a tweet and interview saying that he makes games that he likes to make even if they don't sell and that he's ok with making another DR game meaning if he was having burnout he would say it. https://twitter.com/kazkodaka/status/1737287759579279771 the tweet https://twinfinite.net/news/kazutaka-kodaka-master-detective-archives-rain-code-not-danganronpa-why/ the interview

I suppose outrage over perceived retconning would make a bit more sense if, say, they tried to claim that the first two games actually were a reality show like V3 the whole time, and the revelations at the end were merely fabrications like what we see in V3. Of course, V3 does *not* do this, since it seems fairly clear in context that the Hope's Peak arc was probably in the same form that it was in our reality: video games, anime, and so on. And even then, that wouldn't change the fact that the fictional story of Hope's Peak that we followed would still exist, even if we were told that it was all a scam from the word "Go"—stuff like the D3 anime, which depicts the world outside of the Killing Game, means that its world and continuity are firmly established.

As for V3's intended moral, I don't think I necessarily fell into the "I love seeing teenagers murdered!" crowd—I just enjoy murder mysteries and the suspense that comes with knowing that death is fast approaching. I never enjoyed seeing a character I liked die (though I, um, did not miss Hifumi or Teruteru...).

I do have to say, if Kodaka did indeed want to Torch the Franchise and Run, I think it's backfired for me—whether Tsumugi and Monokuma were telling the truth or something even stranger was going on, I'm very interested in seeing it explored further.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 30th 2024 at 9:49:26 AM

Kodaka’s April Fools tweets for this year. Roleplaying as Kokichi Ouma as usual, but this time at a different age from what he appears as in the game.

I just finished DR 2 chapter 2 last night/morning and I don't know how I feel about it? It was fun until the class trial hit the climax. Maybe I am a little biased towards Peko because she was my favorite (I wanted to know more about her...but I don't think she or Mahiru deserved that case. The leaps of logic to make the case work just doesn't resonate even though I know the nature of the game. The Sparkling Justice stunt almost made me tune out but at least the case didn't end that way. The actual ending did move me and I teared up so there's that.

On another note, I think I am having more trouble following the flow of logic and the weak debate points in class trials than the first game but I think it's just me and not the game.