Personally, I think that it does need to be an actual show, if only because if it's not, then the points that the game is trying to make about fiction kind of fall flat. So when push comes to shove, I'd probably choose to keep the V3 setting separate from the Hope's Peak setting, at least in terms of it being directly involved.
I mean, I'm pretty sure the stuff of them being hooked up to that machine were implanted memories from the Flashback Light at the start of the game - it was meant to be Foreshadowing of the big twist.
edited 16th Oct '17 9:03:05 PM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!Debatable. Depending on the reality behind the Killing Game, even if some things that Tsumugi said were lies, the points being made could still be valid.
Or maybe they're still valid regardless of what the truth is?
edited 16th Oct '17 9:05:57 PM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!Incidentally, there's a throwaway line that if Kokichi solved the first case when he first claims "I know who the culprit is!" it would be the fastest ever. I like the idea that in a previous game, they had the Super High School Level Time Traveler, and one of the killing games ended prematurely because of it. You can't go 52 iterations and not have any time travel, amirite?
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I can I definitely see it, although I think there could be ways you could do it without it having it complete derail the plot - certainly, it would have been in Team DR's best interest to make sure it couldn't do that.
As for the message...I think I'd boil it down to "people need both truth and lies to live", although I think there's also something to be said for Franchise Zombies losing their original meanings over time and how fiction can be exploited to cause great harm, although I might be projecting a bit there. I'm kind of tired right now - I can't do a full analysis.
edited 16th Oct '17 9:21:06 PM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!
Well considering the game's heavy which I think is a more fitting term now is a cosplaying otaku I think the message is somewhere along those lines.
A good example of how fictions meaning can be lost & drive people to destruction is the insane Rick and Morty fans going fucking bonkers for the sauce.
edited 16th Oct '17 9:26:57 PM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I can't help but think the message was "You know that hope and despair theme? That was really dumb and we repudiate it entirely." Even DG 3 was kind of like that-the end boss was too much hope, though hope was not hope, or something. The metaphysics of hope and despair in the Danganronpa universe is just weird.
Woke up to 2 pages of discussion about how the canons fit together... My take is the basic one that V3 is it's own separate canon for the reasons already mentioned that any other interpretation would botch the message of the game. It's clear from Kodaka's interviews, tweets and the pre-release blog that the message was his central priority for everything here.
The message I got from it is that the fiction you consume can have a very tangible effect in shaping who you are, and for that very reason, stories produced/consumed without critical thinking are very dangerous.
Honestly my interpretation of things is that Tsumugi wasn't lying but at the same time everything happened in a virtual reality. We do get those shots of Kaede and Shuichi wearing helmets a few times after all. The way I see it everything happens in a virtual reality but it all feels real in order to make things more immersive. Now that does bring up the question of why the survivors don't exit the virtual world at the end and to be honest I don't really know how to explain that but the virtual reality angle is what makes the most sense to me if you take the helmet CGs into consideration. The "I want to die with everyone." line is a bit weird as well and I'm still not sure how to fit that into my headcanon though maybe that line could be a fake memory overlaid on top of a real memory of them wearing the helmets?
If I recall, this particular memory isn't something they just remember suddenly - rather, it's s vague recollection that they only remember if they try really hard.
Personally, I think it was folded in with the stuff about their talents.
Oh God! Natural light!

I dunno, with the book now, there's a whole lot of evidence for either side of the issue; whether V3 was a Real Fiction killing game or a legitimate one. For the former, you have Rantaro's video to himself and the people at the end watching it, for the latter there's the fact that the book on Hope's Peak exists at all and that one memory both Shuichi and Kaede had with them hooked up to some machine, which didn't seem like anything that was implanted in them.
Shit's weird yo.