Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (spoilers)

Everything about the Final Killing Game is clearly made with the full expectation that people would start killing each other. Not only that, but Mitarai's Forbidden Action forces him to rely on others to defend him (and it's entirely possible that he could have, say, sacrificed himself using his talent anyway to save someone's life).

Yeah, it was pretty much down to Makoto there.

I'm not saying that Junko could have one conversation with you, and then you'd be in despair - she was relying pretty heavily on having worn down Class 78 overtime, then presenting them with an Awful Truth. But I do think being able to subtly manipulate people over time, picking at the things they don't like about themselves or the world around them would be pretty scarily effective. She is canonically the Ultimate Analyst - this sort of thing is not outside the realm of possibility for her.

edited 4th Mar '18 3:55:38 PM by KarkatTheDalek

I guess I'm just more skeptical of the overall design of the game as being what we're told it is. We have no real knowledge of what-if any-countermeasures there were to avoid such a situation.

As for Junko "winning" the first Killing Game, she didn't nearly "win" it because she had no wincon. Everyone could have died, but that wasn't winning. She held all the chips from the start because she had an overwhelming advantage due to the Monokumas, and yet she still lost. Granted, that's because she WANTED to.

Bottom line is, Junko had a ridiculous number of advantages; the real MVP was her sister.

"Win" might not be the best word for it - it might be more accurate to say that she was going to make sure everyone else lost.

As for the Final Killing Game, I can't agree. There are times where we can extrapolate details that weren't given to us based on the context of events, but I don't think we can do that here.

If Mitarai wasn't supposed to die, then it would have been much better storytelling to show the Killing Game making an effort to keep him alive somehow. Instead, he just survives because...well, luck, really.

edited 4th Mar '18 4:01:06 PM by KarkatTheDalek

I'm pretty sure Junko's best weapon was her charisma.

Its pretty much the go-to tool for sociopaths & going by her persona shifts she's a pretty good actress to go with it.

Yup sounds like a stupid-ass plan.

edited 4th Mar '18 4:08:01 PM by slimcoder

I agree that the main point of the plan of motivating Mitarai was makes little sense. However, I think he also goes through with that plan since he also wanted to get rid of the people who would betray the future foundation, like Ruruka.

edited 4th Mar '18 4:25:04 PM by Palkia62

I will concede it would have been nice if it had been more overt as to how Mitarai survived, sure.

...everytime I look into Junko's pantheon profile, I can't help but groan in disappointment thanks to the fact that in canon, she could and never will match up to Terumi, Izaya or Nui's manipulation skills when it comes to bringing people over the edge.

No wonder why she didn't make it into Trollkaiger - the brainwashing anime completely neutered her mystique, after all.

edited 4th Mar '18 4:42:47 PM by SundownLiterati

Honestly, I would’ve been happy if exactly how Class 77 fell into despair was never shown, and fanfic writers were free to come up with their own interpretations on how Junko managed to break them (especially the friendlier characters with healthier upbringings, like Sonia and Ibuki). Seeing that in the anime would’ve been satisfying too, but 1. it’d take too long and 2. as pointed out on the previous page, no matter what they showed, it’d still fail to make sense in some way.

That said, you know lots of people are unhappy with the brainwashing thing when plenty of fanfics pretend it never happened and instead have Junko breaking each student by talking. I’m actually going to be doing that for my fanfiction as well. I like to imagine that Junko left some kind of domino effect on Class 77, where one student’s despair would contribute to another’s, and that would contribute to another student’s, and... you get the idea.

I can't remember for sure Zero or 2 mentioned explictly (they probably do), but her Another Episode characterization is entirely about that.

Her fight with Madarai in Zero and how she managed to learn Matsuda and Mitarai's talents and finish their work after just watching what they once say otherwise. She didn't get the Super High School Level Analisys pseudo-talent for no reason.

If you say so. My take from Another was completely different.

Also, it seems really weird to me for people to be like "No brainwashing!" when memory rewrites have been at the core of the series since day one.

I think there's a difference between what I believe as the work of the Ultimate Neurologist and...well, evil anime.

I'm not sure anyone is saying no brainwashing whatsoever, just that Junko's methods as told by Danganronpa 3 are very lame.

Evil anime does sound stupid as fuck.

Was it some Clockwork Orange type shit?

Considering that it included a video depiction of Chiaki's torture and following death, yes. Yes it was some Clockwork Orange shit.

I mean, the brainwashing anime is clearly supernatural, but Danganronpa has always had supernatural stuff in it. After all, there's the incredible power of Hagakure's divinations, with their amazing 30% accuracy!

Also, anyone who complains about despair inducing anime really needs to reject the entire notion of the Flashback Light as it works in V3. And unlike the anime, V3 is "real" canon, as opposed to the story told by Team Danganronpa (assuming Tsumugi isn't just full of shit)

edited 4th Mar '18 9:07:43 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Well, despite my earlier mockery, I don't really have a problem with the despair anime as a concept - I just think that making it how Junko turned Class 77 to despair is kind of lame.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:13:14 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Well, to each their own. I quite enjoyed Despair side, though I would also like to see a Danganronpa slice of life anime without any killing games and despair.

It is very anti-climactic.

It takes away the students.... whats the word voluntary something like that & pretty much absolves them of all blame.

Its like when Optimus was brainwashed in Last Knight so they could "play" him as the bad guy & easily turn him back into a good guy after he fought a little.

Its just very weak storytelling & lacks well fucking balls.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:17:44 PM by slimcoder

It's not the concept of brainwashing itself that I and a lot of people disliked - it's how it was done.

For them to be stripped of their free will is honestly an uninteresting way to go around with it, and since Junko's goal is to prove that anyone can fall to despair of their own free will.

That said, tell me when another Danganronpa game is announced set in the HPA, so at least that Pantheon profile of hers can be updated

I thought that was kind of lame too.

People, it wasn't just the anime that brainwashed Class 77, it was Chiaki's slow and painful death combined with it, so "Joker shows Harvey Dent Tom and Jerry" isn't a good analogy.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:28:20 PM by Smasher

It was the fact that any brainwashing went on at all at that point that was lame. It cheapens both Junko and Mukuro as villains, it cheapens DR 2's main twist and subsequent resolution, and it cheapens the backstory of the whole series.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:30:28 PM by LordVatek

Those were all already cheap though...

I mean, here's the thing: We've known from Danganronpa 1 that Junko's "anyone can fall to despair!" schtick was ... pretty much bullshit. People certainly do nasty things in certain situations, and they can "lose hope" but that's not the same thing as the sort of "fall into despair" schtick that Junko was talking about. The problem with Junko is that her MO has been vacuous from the start; the reason why I like DG 3 is because it just reinforces that. It proves that, no, she doesn't have some kind of super Nihlist position that oh if people just thought about it they'd fall into despair too, no, it's "brute force applied in a specific scenario arrives at disaster."

People may not like DG 3, but it's definitely internally consistent with the rest of the series.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:41:21 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Honestly it seems like we disagree about this on a fundamental level.

Except brainwashing was mentioned in DR 2. Naegi says that the NWP would undo the brainwashing.

edited 4th Mar '18 9:44:30 PM by Smasher

Honestly, Junko has been flanderized ever since DG 2. She made a joke about it being tacky if she was the villain again and that's why Izuru was introduced (though, as shown in DG 3, Izuru's plan wasn't to play along with Junko so much as to prove a point and fix shit)