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Danganronpa 3 The End of Hope's Peak Academy |OT| Nagito Komaeda's Wild Ride Part Two

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K I B O U
 

Maebe

Member
1) Izuru almost certainly used the broadcast of the mutual killing game in DR1 to create AI Chiaki. he used his ultimate analyst ability to copy Chihiros work which kind of makes Izuru and Chihiro both the creator.


This sub plot is really muddled with dr3. I have no idea who made her considering she died before meeting any of the creators of the neo world program.
However, in the game, Chiaki(NPC) stated Chihiro is her father. If Izuru created her as well, why wouldn't her 2nd dad be mentioned? Also none of these people were close enough to Chiaki to properly create her character.
As far as I recall Izuru has zero connection with the neo world program aside from inserting Junko's AI which is stated in SDR2 and so far still makes sense.

But even though it's established Chihiro made her, how and why would Chihiro/Alter ego have made her and modified her when they never met? Originally Chiaki was a fictional NPC character who acts as an agent/observer for the future foundation in this rehabilitation program. The neo world program was not made solely for her class to get therapy so it wouldn't make sense to use a random gamer girl from Hope's Peak for this despair therapy that would be intended for many different people.
 
This sub plot is really muddled with dr3. I have no idea who made her considering she died before meeting any of the creators of the neo world program.
However, in the game, Chiaki(NPC) stated Chihiro is her father. If Izuru created her as well, why wouldn't her 2nd dad be mentioned? Also none of these people were close enough to Chiaki to properly create her character.
As far as I recall Izuru has zero connection with the neo world program aside from inserting Junko's AI which is stated in SDR2 and so far still makes sense.

But even though it's established Chihiro made her, how and why would Chihiro/Alter ego have made her and modified her when they never met? Originally Chiaki was a fictional NPC character who acts as an agent/observer for the future foundation in this rehabilitation program. The neo world program was not made solely for her class to get therapy so it wouldn't make sense to use a random gamer girl from Hope's Peak for this despair therapy that would be intended for many different people.

AI Chiaki states that Chihiro made her. But, it's not Chihiro says that he made her.
Izuru could have made it so that Chiaki states whoever was involved with the nwp to have created her to not arise suspicions with the participants or observers
 
Hmmm....
K I B O U
Niiiice. Finally Hajime is here to solve the problem.
Stop. I can't.

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lmao Nagito would die from excitement just from watching this huge hope
This sub plot is really muddled with dr3. I have no idea who made her considering she died before meeting any of the creators of the neo world program.
However, in the game, Chiaki(NPC) stated Chihiro is her father. If Izuru created her as well, why wouldn't her 2nd dad be mentioned? Also none of these people were close enough to Chiaki to properly create her character.
As far as I recall Izuru has zero connection with the neo world program aside from inserting Junko's AI which is stated in SDR2 and so far still makes sense.

But even though it's established Chihiro made her, how and why would Chihiro/Alter ego have made her and modified her when they never met? Originally Chiaki was a fictional NPC character who acts as an agent/observer for the future foundation in this rehabilitation program. The neo world program was not made solely for her class to get therapy so it wouldn't make sense to use a random gamer girl from Hope's Peak for this despair therapy that would be intended for many different people.
Yeah it's pretty weird. From the way Izuru talks about his plan to see which (hope or despair) is more unpredictable, it makes it seems like he's responsible for inserting both the Junko AI (which we know about from DR2) and the Chiaki AI. But as you said, they give clues in DR2 that Chiaki AI was the work of Chihiro, but we never saw them meet in the anime. Since Izuru seems to already know about the NWP by saying he will forget about the others, maybe Chihiro-Matsuda-Miaya worked on the NWP during the timeskip in the episode, Izuru got to knew about it, modified it so that one of the observers was modeled after Chiaki and then waited until he had the opportunity to get the Junko AI. But I still don't understand his 'hate' for Junko in AE and 2.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I think DR3:D works best if you don't think about it too hard or just ignore it. When you look at it closer, it sort of brings up more issues than it solved (Junko's time line makes no sense)
 
But I still don't understand his 'hate' for Junko in AE and 2.
This. From what we saw of him in Despair, he could care less about Junko and her plans. He is more interested on which extreme would result more entertaining, so this is a big plot hole. And considering that Izuru in the final episode is probably going to have a changed personality, I expect nothing explaining the resentment he had shown in the boat scene and when he ripped the motherboards containing the AI.

I like that those cameos from the Zero cast had no payoff at all

A spoken role for Matsuda would have been nice considering his relevance to Junko's story, but it was not meant to be.
 

Eumi

Member
See, I always just assumed that Chiaki was made from the extracted memories of the DR2 cast. It's obvious that the observer can access them, as Monokuma shows them the murder of fuyuhikos little sister, even though there's no reason for Junko to know about that.
 

Christhor

Member
See, I always just assumed that Chiaki was made from the extracted memories of the DR2 cast. It's obvious that the observer can access them, as Monokuma shows them the murder of fuyuhikos little sister, even though there's no reason for Junko to know about that.

That actually does make a lot of sense. The only way for Junko to have known about that whole deal would be if Fuyuhiko had told her about it, but it still wouldn't explain how she knew all the details. And since she was able to restore Mikan's memories inside the simulation it should be possible to access anything, right?

It was also fucked up how they glossed over Fuyuhiko murdering that one girl in the anime, lol. That should have been a pretty despair inducing moment, it would have been really neat if they used that as the beginning of the classes' downfall.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
That actually does make a lot of sense. The only way for Junko to have known about that whole deal would be if Fuyuhiko had told her about it, but it still wouldn't explain how she knew all the details. And since she was able to restore Mikan's memories inside the simulation it should be possible to access anything, right?

It was also fucked up how they glossed over Fuyuhiko murdering that one girl in the anime, lol. That should have been a pretty despair inducing moment, it would have been really neat if they used that as the beginning of the classes' downfall.

Didn't the anime imply that Peko did it?
 

NEO0MJ

Member
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?
 

Eumi

Member
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?
ZTD had very little negative impact on the past, it was more that the answers to questions posed at the end of VLR were kind of meh or even outright not answered, whilst DR3 is actively changing back stories to make them worse. So I think DR3 is winning by a country mile.
 
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?

ZTD had very little negative impact on the past, it was more that the answers to questions posed at the end of VLR were kind of meh or even outright not answered, whilst DR3 is actively changing back stories to make them worse. So I think DR3 is winning by a country mile.

Yeah, inclined to agree with that. Still, ZTD disappointed me more since I was expecting much, much more out of it than I had expected from DR3.
 
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?

ZTD retroactively lowered my opinion of the whole series, it either ignored or dumbed down every major plot point that had been built up. It's a burning dumpster fire that makes the red/green/blue ending of ME3 look like a masterpiece. By comparison DR3 has so many contradictions with DR2 that it won't be hard to forget that it is even canon.
 
ZTD retroactively lowered my opinion of the whole series, it either ignored or dumbed down every major plot point that had been built up. It's a burning dumpster fire that makes the red/green/blue ending of ME3 look like a masterpiece. By comparison DR3 has so many contradictions with DR2 that it won't be hard to forget that it is even canon.

eh, ZTD felt more self contained to me, yeah it had a different problem in that it brushed some big mysteries/plot point under the rug and generally felt too far removed from the former games. It was a big disappointment but I didn't find that it changed anything of how I viewed 999 and VLR.


unlike DR3 Despair which reached back in time and messed up a lot of what made the DR2 cast compelling to me.
 

PsionBolt

Member
How was the DR2 cast even captured and put in simulation? This is the only question i had and wanted answered

Might be covered in Hope this week, maybe with a quick montage. I think the generally safe assumption at this point is that Super Saiyan Hajime nabbed them all single-handedly while yawning about how dull they all are.
 

FStubbs

Member
zero wouldn't work animated though, way too obvious who ryouko actually is that way

Would it be that obvious? I mean, anime same face. Sure, Ryoko would have that ridiculous T&A going on, but someone who didn't know the plot twist (though it's probably "It was his Sled" at this point) wouldn't necessarily take one look at Ryoko and say "LOL I know who she really is."

eVmiUPkg.png
 

Eumi

Member
Would it be that obvious? I mean, anime same face. Sure, Ryoko would have that ridiculous T&A going on, but someone who didn't know the plot twist (though it's probably "It was his Sled" at this point) wouldn't necessarily take one look at Ryoko and say "LOL I know who she really is."

eVmiUPkg.png
I dunno, they did a terrible job of hiding it in Zero and that had the benifit of being mostly text.
 

BTA

Member
Today in Den-Den Town I accidentally wandered in front of the DR3 store? I didn't know that existed? It's just a tiny little thing with some art from the anime (and the first game's anime) along with promotional/concept art on the walls; it was funny because there were a lot of signs saying that photos were OK except... not on the concept art, hah. I bought a shirt and was gonna buy one or two more since there's some pretty nice designs, but they were out of XLs. I'm gonna try to stop by another day before I leave Japan to see if I can buy them; sucks that the rad individual student designs didn't come in XL to being with, though.

Anyway, Despair 11.
That wasn't as... frustrating as the last few episodes? But it sure was boring, and even with it spending so much time on very little it still didn't cover any of 0 or the New World stuff. The former is whatever but... are they really just gonna try to skip past explaining how the AI happened? That feels like a thing you need to have a solid plan for explaining if you're going to suddenly make Chiaki a real person!

I was amused by "memes" but I actually read Genocidal Organ a month or so back, so it being used in a very similar way here wasn't very surprising.
 
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?

Zero Time Dilemma doesn't destroy motives of characters as much as Despair does for Danganronpa 2. You could make that argument for a couple of people but it's ambiguous, and not a straight up retcon like DR3.
 
I'm just looking forward for this to end so we can finally put this all behind us. For those that played ZTD which had a more negative impact on past games?
I think it's pretty close. They're both pretty damn terrible and make me wonder if I'll ever replay the games at all because of how much they retroactively fuck stuff up. I guess they're both really stupid on their own too, though.
 

BTA

Member
ZTD was a mess and it effectively left VLR worse off for it- either it was leading to that shit all along, or it's still the second game in a trilogy that has no third game (except now it's never happening) given how much it set up that wasn't paid off.

DR3's just been kinda meh. You can play both original games and love them without issue. I feel disappointed but it's not a thing I needed or even really expected after 2? With ZTD I waited fricking years to get bizarre nonsense that casually ruined characters I loved. Here, it's... just kinda boring? There's nothing approaching
barely having Phi, the best character, around only to make her important via the super forced romance that led to her being born
in DR3 like ZTD had (and that's just one of many examples). The only real "negative impact" for me was
Kirigri (maybe? I guess there's still a possibility she's alive?) dying
and I feel like even that could have been worse. And there's stuff like
the completely unnecessary time spent on Chiaki slowly dying and how it was all brainwashing all along
annoyed me but I'd say I see that as a flaw of DR3 itself rather than rippling back to the prior work?

Besides, UDG was waaaaaay more of a shitshow in that it made me actively angry with how badly it fucked up handling the
abuse, and particularly rape, storylines with any amount of consistent seriousness
. I will say that I enjoyed both main characters a lot (and the music was still great), but... ugh, everything else about that game.

My ranking of what's canon is DR2 > DR1 > Despair > Future > UDG. Maybe it's different because I watched everything from like... Despair 1 to Future 9 (I think?) in a week rather than weekly but Future was sooooo worthless at times and Despair at least had some charm when it was boring. I enjoyed the returning characters a lot more than the unnecessary new ones. I can sorta understand why people like Future more, but I'll easily take wasting time with characters I enjoy than wasting time watching nobodies fight over bullshit.

EDIT:

Zero Time Dilemma doesn't destroy motives of characters as much as Despair does for Danganronpa 2. You could make that argument for a couple of people but it's ambiguous, and not a straight up retcon like DR3.

I don't agree with this, but this isn't a positive for ZTD to begin with. Either their motives were leading up to this ridiculous
alien technology etc. etc. I did all this to save the world who's my brother I founded a cult because of again etc. etc.
bullshit all along or they were heavily forced into a new story that follows a game that really needed a sequel to finish what it set up. Either the games you liked were always destined to end in bullshit or you got bullshit instead of the things they promised. To me it's kinda worse if stuff in ZTD isn't a retcon.
 

PsionBolt

Member
There are two things that make the troubles with ZTD and DR3 very, very different.

First and foremost, ZTD is an adventure game with room escape puzzles. If DR3 was an adventure game with class trials, it would be a hundred times closer to the quality of previous entries automatically, in my eyes at least.

But story-wise, the big difference is that Zero Escape is much more self-contained than Danganronpa. People dislike how ZTD left points from VLR hanging and/or changed the setting too much, but at least it told a complete story of its own. It has a narrative arc that sets things up, develops them, twists them, and concludes them. If, for whatever reason, someone played ZTD before 999 or VLR, they really would not miss out on the plot or arc of ZTD itself. They would miss context early on, but by the end, they would have no difficulty understanding who the people are, why they act how they do, and what they aim to achieve. (Now, most of those things are dumb in their own ways, but that's a different issue -- I'm only talking about the construction, not the content.)

Danganronpa 3 does none of those things. 100% of anyone's enjoyment of DR3 comes from plot points, characters, and settings established in 1 and 2. The elements added (such as Charlie and the Investigation Team) do not have their own stories; they are elements added on to stories we already cared about (the Malefaction, the corruption of Hope's Peak, the Future Foundation's role in the post-apocalyptic world). If someone watched DR3 before playing 1 and 2 (and to a smaller degree AE), they would be dumbfounded by the paper-thin personalities of the characters, the absurdity of the setting, and the abrupt plot developments out of left field. To the established viewer, all of these things have to be filled in by our memories and extrapolations... But even for us, the extra mental hoops to jump through are taxing, and the pacing suffers. The result is a lack of cohesion that makes the story fell dull, like it's missing something.

(On a side note, this is part of why DR2 is weaker than 1. For the first three-fourths of the game, it plays by ZTD rules, where advance knowledge is just a bonus -- but then at the end, it lands in the DR3 pitfall by tossing out its own weight and leaning on the first game extremely heavily. VLR avoids this issue throughout, because like ZTD, it really only makes reference to the previous game in passing as it tells its own new story.)


tl;dr: ZTD feels like a standalone sequel, DR3 feels like add-on fanfiction.
 
(On a side note, this is part of why DR2 is weaker than 1. For the first three-fourths of the game, it plays by ZTD rules, where advance knowledge is just a bonus -- but then at the end, it lands in the DR3 pitfall by tossing out its own weight and leaning on the first game extremely heavily. VLR avoids this issue throughout, because like ZTD, it really only makes reference to the previous game in passing as it tells its own new story.)


tl;dr: ZTD feels like a standalone sequel, DR3 feels like add-on fanfiction.

I'd agree with your TL;DR, though I found DR3's incoherent mess more entertaining than ZTD's structured narrative. However, I would not say that "a work is made better by only references the prequel in passing" is not broadly applicable. Especially in DR2, it added meaning and a whole level tone and dilemma to the story in retrospect. Of course a balance between the two extremes would be the best, but I'd say that DR2 doesn't fail to do that at all- it establishes a compelling narrative, makes substantial and meaningful contributions to the DR lore (Future Foundation and the identity of the Remnants of Despair, mainly), and doesn't really decenter the role of the surviving DR2 cast when the first game does start to matter.
 
I just assumed since Mechogahara was controlled by Monaca, and you know the stuff Monaca has access to because of the ending of AE, it just kind of spoke for itself.

Yeah, but why did it have a mode designed to target Future Foundation members? That seems like a feature implemented by someone who cares more. And the Usami AI

I was just hoping that they would do something more interesting, like having Miaya be one of the people who set up the killing game and maybe even the person who infected the NWP, but by chance, she was murdered by Monaca.
 

Maebe

Member
AI Chiaki states that Chihiro made her. But, it's not Chihiro says that he made her.
Izuru could have made it so that Chiaki states whoever was involved with the nwp to have created her to not arise suspicions with the participants or observers

If Chiaki were an intruder like monokuma I'm pretty sure it would be mentioned at least once. Especially by monomi who is definitely from the FF. It's more like a dr3 exclusive retcon. Her being made by Chihiro was never up for debate until this after all. I don't think it was even considered a plot hole before.

How was the DR2 cast even captured and put in simulation? This is the only question i had and wanted answered
I assumed the flashback in the first future episode meant they were captured forcefully and perhaps Makoto rounded them up after the fact by having Kirigiri/Togami pull some strings.
 
Well, hold on

What if Izuru didn't create the 16th student, but instead overwrote the data to make her into Chiaki? Usami may not have been able to tell that there was something different about her sister, and the Future Foundation members would have had no way to indicate their response since they have no communicative abilities (and when they do, the observers are gone).

As for their capture, I'm convinced that Izuru manipulated it so that all of them would be gathered together in the NWP. After all, if he didn't get them all together, how could he effectively test hope versus despair if the entire surviving class wasn't involved?

What is interesting to me is that when all is said and done, both lost.
 

Eumi

Member
Honestly Izuru probably just realised that they'll probably be a 16 student/ observer in the NWP and that thanks to his ultimate luck it'd be modelled on Chiaki.
 
Conspiracy theory time

Assuming that Tengan is actually the mastermind, what if the phone in Miayabot is Tengan's and Monaca just stole it when everyone was asleep so that she would know everyone's FA, but now that Munakata has the phone, he is the one who texted Mitarai and is ANOTHER mastermind with a plan independent from Tengan's.

I don't know if I'm typing this as a joke or not, but hey, there's been far dumber things in this show already.
 

PsionBolt

Member
I'd agree with your TL;DR, though I found DR3's incoherent mess more entertaining than ZTD's structured narrative. However, I would not say that "a work is made better by only references the prequel in passing" is not broadly applicable. Especially in DR2, it added meaning and a whole level tone and dilemma to the story in retrospect. Of course a balance between the two extremes would be the best, but I'd say that DR2 doesn't fail to do that at all- it establishes a compelling narrative, makes substantial and meaningful contributions to the DR lore (Future Foundation and the identity of the Remnants of Despair, mainly), and doesn't really decenter the role of the surviving DR2 cast when the first game does start to matter.

You're right, of course, that literature is not so simple a thing that it can be narrowed down to universally-applied rules. I think it's often the case that works are made worse when they rely on others and don't establish their own identity, but I won't say it's true of everything. (And I'd definitely say it that way, that a work is weakened by relying on another, rather than say passing references are a strength.)

I do maintain that it's a weak point in DR2, though. The Remnants twist, while flaky, is close enough to being part of the DR2 story thanks to Mikan, so that's not the problem. The weak part is the DR1 cast, who really have no business being there other than to say "hey remember the last game". There's no scene where Togami lectures Kuzuryu on what it means to have pride in one's family; at no point does Naegi's shared experience of failing to keep a promise to a love interest and having them die become a pillar for Akane; never does Kirigiri use logical reasoning to explain, well, anything at all to anyone at all. Even Junko's human appearance (rather than staying Monokuma) doesn't contribute anything other than cool sprites and VA.

The only reason the DR1 characters had any kind of pull at all on the player was because the player knew them from DR1. To a player that for whatever reason didn't, they are literally just three total strangers who show up, act important, and tell you what to do -- and more importantly, that's what they are to the survivors, too. The DR1 cast tears down what should be a moment of triumph for the DR2 cast and turns it into a farce, where their agency is taken away and their decision thereby stripped of meaning. Hajime alone manages to retain some amount of agency, but he does so not by listening to Naegi prattle about hope, but by taking Goku's advice to Use the pain of loss!! to go Super Saiyan. His resolve being entirely unrelated to the DR1 cast further underlines how pointless they were for anything beyond fanservice.

Basically, it boils down to this: I don't feel that the DR1 cast pulled their weight or earned their place. Their inclusion was unnecessary and detracted from the focus of the scenes in which they appeared.

DR2 is still the second-best thing with Danganronpa in the title, mind, but the ending was definitely a low point. (Other than the part where you shoot HOPE bullets at everything everyone is saying, which is great. Gameplay wins again!)
 
I mean, RE:Despair 11, i ended about as well as you'd've expected from everything that's happened before, or at least since Junko's been introduced. I wasn't disappointed mainly because my expectations have been lowered so much by this point. I liked Izuru questioning whether Despair is more unpredictable than Hope, for instance.

But yeah it's clear Kodaka is phoning this shit in. I hope V3 has nothing to do with Hope's Peak arc because he clearly does not give a fuck anymore. This whole enterprise would've been so much better if Despair had been excised because he has always chosen the laziest option for filling in details on the past.
 

Eumi

Member
You're right, of course, that literature is not so simple a thing that it can be narrowed down to universally-applied rules. I think it's often the case that works are made worse when they rely on others and don't establish their own identity, but I won't say it's true of everything. (And I'd definitely say it that way, that a work is weakened by relying on another, rather than say passing references are a strength.)

I do maintain that it's a weak point in DR2, though. The Remnants twist, while flaky, is close enough to being part of the DR2 story thanks to Mikan, so that's not the problem. The weak part is the DR1 cast, who really have no business being there other than to say "hey remember the last game". There's no scene where Togami lectures Kuzuryu on what it means to have pride in one's family; at no point does Naegi's shared experience of failing to keep a promise to a love interest and having them die become a pillar for Akane; never does Kirigiri use logical reasoning to explain, well, anything at all to anyone at all. Even Junko's human appearance (rather than staying Monokuma) doesn't contribute anything other than cool sprites and VA.

The only reason the DR1 characters had any kind of pull at all on the player was because the player knew them from DR1. To a player that for whatever reason didn't, they are literally just three total strangers who show up, act important, and tell you what to do -- and more importantly, that's what they are to the survivors, too. The DR1 cast tears down what should be a moment of triumph for the DR2 cast and turns it into a farce, where their agency is taken away and their decision thereby stripped of meaning. Hajime alone manages to retain some amount of agency, but he does so not by listening to Naegi prattle about hope, but by taking Goku's advice to Use the pain of loss!! to go Super Saiyan. His resolve being entirely unrelated to the DR1 cast further underlines how pointless they were for anything beyond fanservice.

Basically, it boils down to this: I don't feel that the DR1 cast pulled their weight or earned their place. Their inclusion was unnecessary and detracted from the focus of the scenes in which they appeared.

DR2 is still the second-best thing with Danganronpa in the title, mind, but the ending was definitely a low point. (Other than the part where you shoot HOPE bullets at everything everyone is saying, which is great. Gameplay wins again!)
You do realise that the whole point of the DR1 cast showing up is to highlight how unimportant the DR2 cast is, right?

Like, Junko calls the DR2 cast 'side characters', and calls the DR1 characters 'the main cast'. The point they're trying to make is that the whole game in DR2 was literally just something to kill time whilst Junko hacked the system. DR2 isn't supposed to be its own story, it is explicitly designed for people who played DR1. That's why the cast look like a twisted version of the DR1 cast at first glance, and why stuff like serial killers show up in the exact same case they showed up in the first game. If anybody at all picked up DR2 without playing 1 then they actually played the game wrong, which is something you can't say about a lot of things. DR2 was never supposed to be standalone even in the slightest.

I mean you obviously don't like that and that's actually completely fine, especially since they're addressing that issue in V3 (whinch is one of the most exciting things about it), but calling stuff like the DR1 ties 'unnecessary' is completely backwards as that's what the game's actually about. The unnecessary fluff was all the development the DR2 cast go through, and that was by design.

Until of course Hajime goes Super Hope and saves the day, proving that everything they went through was in fact all for a reason, despite Junko not intending that. The DR1 cast aren't stealing the show from the 2 cast, the 2 cast are stealing it from the 1 cast.
 
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