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[FluxWaveZ]

But reducing Junko's character from a master manipulator to an inteligent girl that got lucky with her circumstances is a shame. It doesn't contradict anything we knew earlier, but it makes for dull writing.

And it removes a lot of the justification as to why Junko has been the major focus of this entire series until now.

I liked Danganronpa 0 because that was a depiction of Junko, as Ryoko, that showed both her cunning and unpredictable nature really well. After DR2, I had been very down on Junko as a character, but reading DR0 made me think I understood what was compelling about her in the context of the DR universe, and how she could have gotten to the point she did.

With DR3, however, there's not really anything Junko does that makes me go, "Oh shit!" She's coasting by on her presence alone, with Mukuro doing everything for her. She's not showcasing any elaborate plans, only talking about how despair's going to rule the world. There's no outsmarting others, only talking a lot and threats (that need Mukuro for the intimidation).

Hell, last episode we had Nagito return after he was absent for several episodes and show far more qualities of a mastermind than Junko has for pretty much all of DR3. It's fine and all, but now I have to wonder what exactly made Junko worthy of being at the core of everything after DR1? She's not that great a villain.

 

[FStubbs]

I don't really have to say anything else, do I? While fun, the show's direction is comically bad. It plays out like bad fanfiction (Hell, at least bad fanfiction would at least try to develop the DR2 kids) Junko is somehow being able to mind control all those Reserve Course Students in such a short amount of time is just... ugh.



It's been really hard for people who are fans of both of those series, I tell you what.

They probably watched her Closing Argument and then read any "check it out! Proof the school hates the Reserve Course!" link. Boom. Brainwashed students.

It makes sense. How would Junko get up in front of thousands of students publicly and sway them to kill themselves and the school not have proof right at that moment about what she's all about?

As far as class 77 goes, while I got the impression from the game that Junko personally seduced (physically even) the entire class to the dark side, it happening this way works too. It reinforces her opinion of them as side character chumps. And if Makoto found out about it from Miaya during class 78's therapy to get their memories back, of course he'd go for NWP as the solution to help them out.

There was a moment I thought Junko could've seduced the class but I'm warming to LOL anime. It works even if it pushes Junko more toward the Joker side of the Joker|Palpatine model she's following. Junko lies? Really? You don't say.

I would admit a perverse side of me doesn't mind seeing Chisa getting all hot and bothered but ... NotLikeThis.png ... which makes the sexual side of Junko's brainwashing I felt from DR2 still in play - sort of.

Chiaki keeps collecting death flags. And I wonder why Mikan threw her down the passage to Despair!Chisa.

Chisa is almost definitely the Monokuma Maid at this point. How she goes from that to a FF head ... we'll have to see.

Despair!Mitarai is just pitiful. And yet I still don't know his angle in the Future Arc.

3 epsidoes of Future and 2 of Despair left. There's a small chance the Mastermind is revealed next week. With how straightforward both arcs have gone ... the good money is on Chisa.

Junko is alive ... as the 2nd AI from DRAE. Controlling the monitors and not really having a lot of presence. I don't think Junko as a character is important in Future Arc - her legacy, the Mastermind, etc is the opponent.

Mukuro - wow Mukuro beat Peko. Pretty handedly given their conditions after the fight. Not to mention Mukuro is nerfed by using her knives instead of guns, bombs, etc. Nagito wasn't kidding about the gap between them. Though I have to give Peko credit for managing to survive at all. As far as her character goes, I still think she'd be harmless if not for Junko, but alas, Mukuro is Despair as well, and she got what was coming to her. DR:IF is just that, an if, and Makoto has 2 much better girls in Kyoko and Aoi

Spoiler

if they're alive

.

EDIT: Izuru.

At this point, it seems most of what anyone's said about Izuru was hearsay. The guy seems bored by anything that's not Chiaki, even if he claims he doesn't recognize her. There's a decent chance he does nothing but hang out the rest of the anime and just go on collecting more talent once the Tragedy happens. I think he'll have a bigger impact in Future, especially if the game is actually happening on Jabberwock Island.

 

[The Bankslammer]

Hell, last episode we had Nagito return after he was absent for several episodes and show far more qualities of a mastermind than Junko has for pretty much all of DR3. It's fine and all, but now I have to wonder what exactly made Junko worthy of being at the core of everything after DR1? She's not that great a villain.

never forget

I also don’t feel that I can create a character that will top Junko. It would be great if I could make an even stronger villain character, but if not what would I do then?

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Junko is literally the fucking Joker. They make too big of an impression and the writer relies on them too much. I don't know how Kodaka will be able to rip himself away from her in V3.

 

[NeonZ]

I think downplaying Junko might work fine if the villain of the Future side isn't one of her followers. We do have all this build up to Hope's Peak itself being incredibly corrupt, and Future Foundation is Hope's Peak direct successor. Although I guess the problem there would be the lack of face for that villain so far. The only possible faces seem like they'd all be despair... although I guess Mitarai could have ended up with some different kind of insanity, like Nagito's, after going through all that.

2. Mastermind/accomplice arranges the body and puts a monokuma dagger into their heart before scurrying away and hiding again.

Kirigiri mentioned the amount of blood loss in Yazoi's body indicated that he had been stabbed after dying, implying that the others really were killed by the stabbing.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Ryota u FUCK

 

[Chase17]

If I set the mark at 100 for amount of times hope or despair is said in the remaining 5 episodes between future/despair, would you say it goes over or under.

 

[FStubbs]

If I set the mark at 100 for amount of times hope or despair is said in the remaining 5 episodes between future/despair, would you say it goes over or under.

Way, way over.

 

[FStubbs]

Junko is literally the fucking Joker. They make too big of an impression and the writer relies on them too much. I don't know how Kodaka will be able to rip himself away from her in V3.

Kodaka was brainwashed by Junko's ... massive plot relevance.

Note: Chisa and Chiaki have massive plot relevance too.

 

[lazyproblems]

If they actually do pull out the brainwashing for the Future side that would be another huge fucking disappointment. That could kill both sides of the anime.

that was kinda dull
gotta say the appeal of the despair side has really worn off while i'm still pretty interested in the mystery part of the future side (though if its just brainwashing monitors that's kinda dull too)

i guess if you just look at despair side providing all the backstory to future, it's not too bad but i guess the whole part about stories about the DR2 gang made it seem appealing when they were basically dropped to the background halfway through

Just about all of them were dropped after episode 2. Outside of Hajime/Izuru, Impostor, Nagito and Chiaki none of the others have really had any big moments. And consider that a ton of Chiaki's screen time has been whinging about "Hinata-Kun".

From the writing this last couple of weeks, it seems that Kodaka is tired of the overarching conflict in Danganronpa.

Didn't he basically want to move on from the whole HPA arc? He admitted to being burnt out on that whole story in the lead up to this anime. He was going to drop it all and start over with V3, but a bunch of people at SC pushed him to at least wrap things up in an anime.

 

[Maebe]

never forget

Did he write Nagito unconsciously
I can't believe he came from the same guy

 

[Debirudog]

Did he write Nagito unconsciously
I can't believe he came from the same guy

an author can make great character and also terrible characters. Writing isn't an innate talent and Kodaka fucked up.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

To far in terms of squicky content?

Partially, but I feel like that could just be a personal thing for me.

the hell? Not sure if you've followed danganronpa at all. have you literally only watched this and the anime adaptation of 1 or something?

Chisa lobotomy is exactly what happened with izuru - we just saw it first hand here. Student suicide out of place? Remind me, didn't 1,220 members of the reserve course commit suicide in gruesome ways due to Junko, or is DR2 not canon anymore? How is that scene any worse than anything we saw in Danganronpa 2 or the tragedy of hope's peak massacre? How it is any worse than this:

Also this is a series where this happens:

rape, necrophila, mass murder, self mutilation

and lets not get into the sheer fuckery of child abuse and rape and the broadcast torture and dismemberment of parents in Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls

watching this episode and coming to your reaction is the equivalent of being shocked and dismayed that my little pony contains a surplus of magic ponies.

I've kept up with everything relevant to the series (1, 2, 0, UDG.) Don't get me wrong, DR has always been full of really fucked up stuff, but I mean that it's out of place in the sense that almost all of that fucked up stuff was built up to, off screen or alluded to. Nobody was ever actively raped on screen and there definitely wasn't anyone who tried to cut their own goddamn head off on screen. I feel like there's a clear difference between "look at how fucked up this thing that happened is" vs "watch that super fucked up thing happen."

There's the Student Council killing, but that was built up as the king of fucked shit. Today's scene comes out of nowhere and literally starts with some random guy killing himself and ends up adding nothing.

Like I said, this is probably just a personal thing. Part of it might just be me projecting the stuff I hated in the episode on to the entire thing, but idk.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Did he write Nagito unconsciously
I can't believe he came from the same guy

an author can make great character and also terrible characters. Writing isn't an innate talent and Kodaka fucked up.

Well, the issue is whether Kodaka realizes that Nagito is great (he at least knows the character has a substantial fanbase), and why he is, so that new characters of that caliber can be created in the future of the series and that it wasn't just a crazy fluke.

 

[Shizuka]

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever that they'd carry an unconcious Nagito with them to save Yukizome. In a story that's making less and less sense with each episode (while still entertaining), that's the one thing that made no sense in this episode.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever that they'd carry an unconcious Nagito with them to save Yukizome. In a story that's making less and less sense with each episode (while still entertaining), that's the one thing that made no sense in this episode.

Secretly, they're all thinking "Shit, this guy has Ultimate Luck and I'm scared of getting killed. Let's bring him with us as our good luck charm."

 

[kewlmyc]

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever that they'd carry an unconcious Nagito with them to save Yukizome. In a story that's making less and less sense with each episode (while still entertaining), that's the one thing that made no sense in this episode.

Camaraderie I guess, despite only Chaiki really liking him.

 

[Sky Interloper]

I liked Danganronpa 0 because that was a depiction of Junko, as Ryoko, that showed both her cunning and unpredictable nature really well. After DR2, I had been very down on Junko as a character, but reading DR0 made me think I understood what was compelling about her in the context of the DR universe, and how she could have gotten to the point she did.

With DR3, however, there's not really anything Junko does that makes me go, "Oh shit!" She's coasting by on her presence alone, with Mukuro doing everything for her.

That's what makes it worse. In DR0 it was explicitely clear that Junko was a force of nature, a character that knew perfectly what made people tick and used that knowledge to further her plans and her despair. The relationships that were expanded in that story gave her humanity, but not redemption; she was presented as a screwed up girl, even when she lacked what made her her - the memories that formed the construct that is Junko Enoshima.

Seeing all of that thrown aside for a lucky find in Mitarai's techniques caricatures the entire conflict.

Didn't he basically want to move on from the whole HPA arc? He admitted to being burnt out on that whole story in the lead up to this anime. He was going to drop it all and start over with V3, but a bunch of people at SC pushed him to at least wrap things up in an anime.

To be honest, I don't remember that - but it makes sense considering DR exists since 2010. It's just that the story would be more enjoyable if the tiredness wasn't as notorious as it is.

 

[Debirudog]

making a great character that is Komaeda doesn't come from dumb luck, his character was deliberately planned very solidly from the start (as a corrupt foil to Naegi) and undergoing several character redesigns. That comes from serious hard-driven effort.

I don't know, sometimes the best ideas come from group efforts and knowing how to direct a story. There's some serious disappointing shit in DR3 but I think fans are being a little harsh towards Kodaka, though watching a crappy episode can make you feel as if you're cheated out or feeling lull on the writer.

I just chalk it up to the fact that Kodaka is more of a visual novel/novel writer and he isn't actually used to writing for anime. Totally a guess on my part though.

 

[Maebe]

an author can make great character and also terrible characters. Writing isn't an innate talent and Kodaka fucked up.

True

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever that they'd carry an unconcious Nagito with them to save Yukizome. In a story that's making less and less sense with each episode (while still entertaining), that's the one thing that made no sense in this episode.

For the sake of the plot needing him there, there is no logical reason to take him back to the place he just got shot in to save Chisa when he can barely remain conscious. Surely Hope's Peak has a school nurse.

 

[Opto]

Torture and brainwashing sets the right mood for crotch and boob shots

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Torture and brainwashing sets the right mood for crotch and boob shots

To be fair, the torture did require the visual emphasis that Mukuro was messing with Chisa's pleasure centers while she's forced to watch this horrible violence, and that's how their brainwashing functions. It's a callback to the scene where Junko was talking about brainwashing in Mitarai's place with the same kind of shots.

 

[PK Gaming]

Junko is literally the fucking Joker. They make too big of an impression and the writer relies on them too much. I don't know how Kodaka will be able to rip himself away from her in V3.

I told you fam!

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Torture and brainwashing sets the right mood for crotch and boob shots

I'm VERY sure what Mukuro was doing was to make her feel some kind of pleasure. So the brain goes Despair=Pleasure. Considering Mikan, I believe what I'm saying it is the truth.

 

[R_thanatos]

Man just watched the episode .

That first half was brutal, i still hope chiaki will survive.

I disagree to the discussion that junko or the class77 characters were ruined by this turn of events.

Yes the truth can be dull , but i'd rather see the truth than seeing something else.
The idea that junko could manage that entire plan of turning the world into despair , without help , without a plot device always felt hollow to me. Honnestly that part were junko recruited them all , was something that i really never managed to imagine because humans are rationnal beings first.

The brainwashing put the cast of DR2 back to what they were in DR2 , humans . I'd rather see them fall while trying to do good , than being unable to see the irrationality of junko enoshima and being shallowed by it. Heck if junko had managed to push them to the despair side without that plot device , it would be so contrary to what she was in DR1

I'm ok with this turn of events , it's not like going from despair to hope wasn't already established in DR2 as possible , so i can accept another plot device that does the opposite.

 

[Drago]

Wishing they would've just made a 24 episode future arc now after that last despair episode.

If this is how things played out we were better off not knowing

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Me when my friends convince me to watch this show:

 

[FluxWaveZ]

I disagree to the discussion that junko or the class77 characters were ruined by this turn of events.

The brainwashing put the cast of DR2 back to what they were in DR2 , humans . I'd rather see them fall while trying to do good , than being unable to see the irrationality of junko enoshima and being shallowed by it.

We're watching the same anime, right? It's not even about ruining the DR2 cast anymore; Danganronpa 3 has done a good enough job on its own of doing that without taking the brainwashing into account.

 

[The Silver]

I told you fam!

Joker never needed any magic brainwashing to get tons of henchmen to do horrible things for him, and he literally dresses up like a clown.


Joker > Junko

 

[Rich!]

Me when my friends convince me to watch this show:

please tell me you've actually played the games too

 

[Debirudog]

Wishing they would've just made a 24 episode future arc now after that last despair episode.

If this is how things played out we were better off not knowing

Yeah, that would be preferable if it meant more time to develop the new characters instead of just killing 'em off whenever their backstory develops them...

 

[Crazy Diamond]

please tell me you've actually played the games too

Yes. I'm also a fan of the original anime.

 

[Jigorath]

My real problem with Despair right now is that it's boring. There's stuff going on but there's no tension. There haven't been any real stakes up until the last episode or two but even then, it's so late in the run and it doesn't feel like anything has happened with the characters we're supposed to be following. Despite problems with Future, at least there's stuff actually happening.

Yeah, shit is finally hitting the fan and yet there's no tension or excitement. It's all so drab and mundane. I don't know whether to chalk this up to poor writing or poor direction or both but something is very clearly not working with this series.

 

[DNAbro]

never forget

Apparently the way to make a better villain is to retroactively make Junko a worse villain.

 

[NeonZ]

The main issue is that the "main cast" of the Despair side hasn't really been the main cast ever since the Nagito episode. The show just jumps from one plot point to another in order to cover the time period or fill in backstory for the Future side, without actually focusing like an actual story.

Like mentioned above, Danganronpa 3 would have ended up better if they just had focused on the Future side with some flashbacks to the past when relevant for the new characters. The old characters and backstory events shown in Despair seem to be mostly pointless attempts at fanservice. Despair doesn't really work as a standalone story.

 

[Red Frost]

Another thing is how does this realistically fit in the timeline? This seems like the endgame for Hope's Peak, and yet Zero hasn't even happened yet. Are we to assume that the remnants will just bide their time, pretending to be good people and going to class for another half year or so before everything goes to shit? And what about Junko? Despite everything she's done and the TONS of evidence against her, she'll still be able to attend HPA? Do the Steering Committee care THAT much about her analytical talent that they'll sacrifice both a large chunk of their funding (by letting reserve course students die) and the lives of students that do have official talents? Only way to justify that is if they are indeed the true villains and want the world to fall into despair even before Junko's influence.

I'm ok with this turn of events , it's not like going from despair to hope wasn't already established in DR2 as possible , so i can accept another plot device that does the opposite.

The thing is the plot device in DR2 was a rollback machine. It didn't change who they fundamentally were, it just erased their memory from a 2-3 year period.

And that's also what DR2 was about, that no matter how hopeful one may be, they have the potential to fall to despair. It was an extreme take on how one's surroundings can affect them and was done really well. That's now a moot point because brainwashing. They haven't been shaped by anything but a dumb video. It's just not interesting.

I don't know, sometimes the best ideas come from group efforts and knowing how to direct a story. There's some serious disappointing shit in DR3 but I think fans are being a little harsh towards Kodaka, though watching a crappy episode can make you feel as if you're cheated out or feeling lull on the writer.

It's just starting to seem like the guy flat out didn't want to do it and just move onto a new universe with V3. If this was a standalone product, there'd be less to be harsh about, but for a bunch of people it's retroactively making a series with a very passionate fanbase worse.


Speaking of which, does anyone know how Japan has been reacting to these developments? 2ch also disappointed in Junko's badass decay, or is mostly just the west?

 

[R_thanatos]

We're watching the same anime, right? It's not even about ruining the DR2 cast anymore; Danganronpa 3 has done a good enough job on its own of doing that without taking the brainwashing into account.

But that was what made them great in DR2 , they acted like humans , fueled by their desires !

When you give me a twist that there were remnants of despair , i can't accept that junko alone with their mad haxxor analyst skills managed to do that alone.

I disagree with the opinion that them being brainwashed is a bad thing.
i disagree with the opinion that was stated in this thread multiple times that some characters were ruined by this ( namely mikan ).

I disagree that junko using this method make her out of her character , considering that the only reason why the DR1 killings happenned were because she used , yet ( unknow at the time ) plot device to magically remove their memories .. As far as i'm concerned , this stuff is part of junko enoshima methods

 

[NeonZ]

I saw some numbers showing that the pre-orders actually fell a bit after last week's despair episode, which is a pretty rare event.

 

[Sapientas]

I wouldn't mind the (possible) brainwash if it climaxed at this horrible moment after the show actively showed their time and development in school and how their hopefulness and bonds are destroyed by Junko.
So far it feels like the anime has just carried the plot along, tying knots as they come along and focusing on uninteresting details.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

But that was what made them great in DR2 , they acted like humans , fueled by their desires !

No, no, I said ignore everything about any brainwashing going on, and the DR2 cast are already made worse in DR3 than they were in their original games. If you can't see that, then I guess... more power to you? But I think it's obvious to many people that they have been reduced to surface level caricatures of their former selves with little depth and little complexity. What made them compelling in DR2 is not present in DR3.

 

[mugurumakensei]

The thing is the plot device in DR2 was a rollback machine. It didn't change who they fundamentally were, it just erased their memory from a 2-3 year period.

And that's also what DR2 was about, that no matter how hopeful one may be, they have the potential to fall to despair. It was an extreme take on how one's surroundings can affect them and was done really well. That's now a moot point because brainwashing. They haven't been shaped by anything but a dumb video. It's just not interesting.

actually, DR2 showed us it would have been next to impossible to turn certain remnants to despair without shenanigans. Fuyuhiko has best friend and confidante killed. he overcame his sadness and pushed through. nekomaru didn't budge once from being hopeful no matter what happened. akane overcame nekomaru's multiple deaths and pushed forward. despite what happened with Tanaka, Sonya moved on. all the remaining pushed forward despite Nagito's shenanigans. they would have been impossible to turn outside of some Junko fuckery.!

Mikan is about the only one with a fragile enough will that Junko could have broken without brainwashing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the brainwashing was just to push her to slave status and not really needed for despair.

 

[Red Frost]

When you give me a twist that there were remnants of despair , i can't accept that junko alone with their mad haxxor analyst skills managed to do that alone.

That's the thing though, it still wouldn't all have been on her.

The DR2 cast consisted entirely of stepford smilers. Each one had a HIGHLY exploitable insecurity that, with careful manipulation, could have easily turned them to the side of despair. This is the kind of thing that happens in reality (obviously not to the extent of destroying the world, but real people don't have super powers).

Not enough time to manipulate legions of people like the reserve course? Great, use the brainwashing anime on them. It's an easy out that shouldn't piss people off because there would be no realistic way for Junko to do that even with haxxor analyst skills. But the cast that allegedly hadn't been absolved of personal responsibility based on the developments in DR2 and the great message that accompanies it? Yeah, that's lame as shit.

 

[R_thanatos]

No, no, I said ignore everything about any brainwashing going on, and the DR2 cast are already made worse in DR3 than they were in their original games. If you can't see that, then I guess... more power to you? But I think it's obvious to many people that they have been reduced to surface level caricatures of their former selves with little depth and little complexity. What made them compelling in DR2 is not present in DR3.

There isn't nearly enough time to know them more in this anime given the time frame , the time leap in the middle and the focus on other characters ( chiaki , yukizome , hinata ).
They aren't the focus , they aren't caricatures since the focus isn't on them.

DR3 despair started roughly with the same structure as DR2 and the difference is that you spend time in DR2 with them to get past their initial selves.
Since the focus isn't on them , What depth do you want ? We already know about them in DR2 , despair arc focuses on everyone that wasn't the cast of DR2 with only 3 exceptions only.

 

[DNAbro]

actually, DR2 showed us it would have been next to impossible to turn certain remnants to despair without shenanigans. Fuyuhiko has best friend and confidante killed. he overcame his sadness and pushed through. nekomaru didn't budge once from being hopeful no matter what happened. akane overcame nekomaru's multiple deaths and pushed forward. despite what happened with Tanaka, Sonya moved on. all the remaining pushed forward despite Nagito's shenanigans. they would have been impossible to turn outside of some Junko fuckery.!

Mikan is about the only one with a fragile enough will that Junko could have broken without brainwashing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the brainwashing was just to push her to slave status and not really needed for despair.

I mean that's the thing. Junko was supposed to be cunning and manipulative enough to get these people to turn towards despair. Now she will be showing them a video and that's about it. I don't understand how anybody can find that compelling or interesting in the slightest. I would honestly rather have it be a mystery and the current explanation.

 

[Red Frost]

actually, DR2 showed us it would have been next to impossible to turn certain remnants to despair without shenanigans. Fuyuhiko has best friend and confidante killed. he overcame his sadness and pushed through. nekomaru didn't budge once from being hopeful no matter what happened. akane overcame nekomaru's multiple deaths and pushed forward. despite what happened with Tanaka, Sonya moved on. all the remaining pushed forward despite Nagito's shenanigans. they would have been impossible to turn outside of some Junko fuckery.!

Mikan is about the only one with a fragile enough will that Junko could have broken without brainwashing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the brainwashing was just to push her to slave status and not really needed for despair.

They remained hopeful through other external factors, like relying on the people around them. But what if those factors are taken away? Kept in isolation, torture, hostages, etc. All stuff we've seen Junko is capable of. And I mean, there's other methods too. Everyone has something that gets to them and a master manipulator sociopath would know just how to take advantage of that to wrap them around their fingers.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

There isn't nearly enough time to know them more in this anime given the time frame , the time leap in the middle and the focus on other characters ( chiaki , yukizome , hinata ).
They aren't the focus , they aren't caricatures since the focus isn't on them.

DR3 despair started roughly with the same structure as DR2 and the difference is that you spend time in DR2 with them to get past their initial selves.
Since the focus isn't on them , What depth do you want ? We already know about them in DR2 , despair arc focuses on everyone that wasn't the cast of DR2 with only 3 exceptions only.

In a show where the focus supposedly isn't the DR2 cast, they sure have been hogging the majority of the spotlight. The problem is, the DR2 cast is the focus of DR3. Look at the key art that is meant to represent the show:

It's not even a question. Junko's here doing her thing, but a lot of what she's doing here TIES directly into the DR2 cast. There are some interesting ties to Future and many things that are simply Junko setting up the greater DR universe, but the majority of it is watching the bland DR2 characters talking about friendship or whatever.

They're the focal point of the Despair arc, yet they're not strong enough to be. It's why everything feels aimless, why everything is lacking tension or any real progression. They're just... there. A big culmination point right now is how the heroes are going to face the Final Boss in her dungeon but... so what? Who cares? The heroes haven't been nearly interesting enough for it to really matter and, when it's a story where the audience already knows what's going to happen next, the methods need to be far more compelling than whatever's even going on right now. It's not hitting that.

A big focus on Despair has been Hajime and Izuru so far and... it actually hasn't been that great. Hajime was lacking, and Izuru had one cool scene where he beat up the Despair Sisters. After, he's just been staring at nothing for hours for the rest of it, sometimes doing magic tricks with guns and chainsaws that weren't necessarily as cool as that should sound.

 

[R_thanatos]

They remained hopeful through other external factors, like relying on the people around them. But what if those factors are taken away? Kept in isolation, torture, hostages, etc. All stuff we've seen Junko is capable of. And I mean, there's other methods too. Everyone has something that gets to them and a master manipulator sociopath would know just how to take advantage of that to wrap them around their fingers.

They were forced to be part of a killing game , watch their classmates be executed , in a place they couldn't escape from ,forced to suspect each another multiple times and they even were being kept in a place without food for days and being devoured by hunger .. i disagree that they weren't under pressure.

 

[R_thanatos]

In a show where the focus supposedly isn't the DR2 cast, they sure have been hogging the majority of the spotlight. The problem is, the DR2 cast is the focus of DR3. Look at the key art that is meant to represent the show:

It's not even a question. Junko's here doing her thing, but a lot of what she's doing here TIES directly into the DR2 cast. There are some interesting ties to Future and many things that are simply Junko setting up the greater DR universe, but the majority of it is watching the bland DR2 characters talking about friendship or whatever.

They're the focal point of the Despair arc, yet they're not strong enough to be. It's why everything feels aimless, why everything is lacking tension or any real progression. They're just... there. A big culmination point right now is how the heroes are going to face the Final Boss in her dungeon but... so what? Who cares? The heroes haven't been nearly interesting enough for it to really matter and, when it's a story where the audience already knows what's going to happen next, the methods need to be far more compelling than whatever's even going on right now. It's not hitting that.

A big focus on Despair has been Hajime and Izuru so far and... it actually hasn't been that great. Hajime was lacking, and Izuru had one cool scene where he beat up the Despair Sisters. After, he's just been staring at nothing for hours for the rest of it, sometimes doing magic tricks with guns and chainsaws that weren't necessarily as cool as that should sound.

Isn't that a piece of artwork on the website that changed to show the change of focus of the show ?

It's a show about how the class77 went to the despair side and i agree that the focus isn't on them ALL. Actually the focus was on some of them , since we've got a full episode showing how chiaki became the center of the class, one full episode showing nagito extreme bullshit luck, one episode showing the catalyst for hinata to make his decision, one more episode showing mitarai and the ultimate impostor , one more episode showing mahiru and her ties to "that" event ..
and then the focus changed once junko arrived.

Considering that they took their time to show the class , tie in characters involved in the future side , i still think it's normal that they couldn't focus on the group as a whole.

I don't understand the lack of tension , here .. we know how it ends , what tension do you seek , when you already know that they became despairs, the only reason why there is no tension is because we already know how it ends and that's why when things happens that doesn't follow the established script ( like when junko met mitarai for exemple ) , we all go with our theories to guess how it all fits.

Despair arc is not spotless, but when you say it feels aimless i just have to disagree with you here . Same with the lacking progression argument you're saying . i don't see it ..

 

[Red Frost]

They were forced to be part of a killing game , watch their classmates be executed , in a place they couldn't escape from ,forced to suspect each another multiple times and they even were being kept in a place without food for days and being devoured by hunger .. i disagree that they weren't under pressure.

Oh, they were absolutely under pressure, which is why some of them actually did resort to murder or attempted murder.

But it was still a contained environment with other people in the same situation, and not to mention motives came one at a time. Look at the first killing game, where a full game's worth of motives were provided and how quickly that got the ball rolling.

Junko's methods in both games were flat out kind compared to what she's capable of, or at least what we thought she was capable of. And even then, there's no telling what would have happened if her games continued the way she intended. It took some bullshit in the second game to put a stop to it (mainly Nagito) and a few characters actively fighting back in the first game. What if Junko got to use her "family members killing each other" motive? What if she just said fuck it and adopted something closer to the first killing game?

And going back to breaking the DR2 cast, it's assumed whatever it could have been would have been a thousand times worse than what she's shown as a killing game host (minus the first one).

 

[Opto]

To be fair, the torture did require the visual emphasis that Mukuro was messing with Chisa's pleasure centers while she's forced to watch this horrible violence, and that's how their brainwashing functions. It's a callback to the scene where Junko was talking about brainwashing in Mitarai's place with the same kind of shots.

Sure but you can totally show how one gets pleasure from despair without doing that.