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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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DR3 does make me worried that V3 isn't as much of a soft reboot as we think. I don't know if Kodaka can let go of these plotlines and characters he leans on.
 
I dunno why this would kill your excitement for V3. This is so we can wrap shit up and move on in V3. Hopefully.

They're a part of the same property, and right now, I feel like I'm seeing just how boring that property can be. Seeing Danganronpa at what I feel is its worst is more than enough to kill my excitement, new setting or not.

This anime has made me remember that the most interesting things about Danganronpa are killing games, murders and class trials, so I actually can't wait until the game releases. The writing seems to struggle when moving outside that format.

The Class Trials are one of my favorite aspects of the series, also. They add real consequence to the murders and shed a bit of light on why the killers feel they have to take action. I never realized how much I appreciated them until watching DR3.
 

Red Frost

Banned
My hope for V3 is that Kodaka legitimately felt held back with the HPA saga and was effectively forced to do the anime. It's much easier to believe he was phoning it in when he's shown he's very capable before.

Alternqtively, he isn't as involved as we think as I believe he isn't in charge of series composition.
 
I mean

I think you people have rose-tinted glasses about DR1/2's writing. :p DR is more about twists and characters, less about the story and writing.
Nah. I replayed Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc recently and the quality of writing was even better than I remember. Case 4 completely reshaped characters, Makoto, Hina, and Byakuya specifically, in surprisingly subtle ways for how silly the game is. Case 5 is pure fuckery, but Danganronpa 1 had it all.
 
I mean

I think you people have rose-tinted glasses about DR1/2's writing. :p DR is more about twists and characters, less about the story and writing.

DR1 and 2 are still pretty solidly written, and I replayed both of them around the time DR3 started airing. DR2 in particular uses not just the medium but also its status as a sequel in really clever ways, be it comedic or dramatic or twisty. They might not be masterpieces, but the difference in quality between them and DR3 should be obvious.
 

PK Gaming

Member
DR1 and 2 are still pretty solidly written, and I replayed both of them around the time DR3 started airing. DR2 in particular uses not just the medium but also its status as a sequel in really clever ways, be it comedic or dramatic or twisty. They might not be masterpieces, but the difference in quality between them and DR3 should be obvious.

Super High School Level This

Let's not downplay DR1 & DR2's writing just to try and justify DR3's mediocre writing
 
Danganronpa 1 is still a great game in terms of story, characters and twists. The only game that's negatively impacted by this anime is DR2. However, if you ignore this anime completely (or at least consider the game prior to the anime) DR2 and the other stuff still has some excellent writing. I think that 1, 0 and 2 are all very strong stories that work well together and make for a fun and interesting plot.

I'm still looking forward to DRV3. Kodaka is actually excited about V3 which also makes me excited about it too. Also, despite some issues, I have enjoyed Future side. Having another killing game with more structure that Kodaka is actually enthusiastic about writing will be good.
 

PsionBolt

Member
Super High School Level This

Let's not downplay DR1 & DR2's writing just to try and justify DR3's mediocre writing

If anything, I'd say the opposite is happening. Because DR3 is dull, folks are overselling the quality of writing in 1 and 2 in comparison.

In reality, the quality of writing is minimally different and most characters are being handled very similarly. It's just that without the series's stellar gameplay to capture interest, people are paying more attention to the nonsensical fluff of the plot, characters, and setting. DR3 has nothing else, so it suffers more for its faults -- but they're the same faults.
 
stellar gameplay? da fuck? the gameplay is annoying shit I have to get through to get back to the story.

except logic dive, that one is fun.
 
honestly i wonder if the despair side would have been better received if it wasn't sold as a see the DR2 kids fall into despair but instead as way too frequent flashbacks for the future side which it might as well be
 
Enjoying the shows more as dumb entertainment as opposed to taking them fully seriously- the full DR meta never really had me since the bullshit "girl brings the end of the world" twist way back from Case 1-6 so I'm *really* interested in how NDRV3 does things- a darker vibe would be especially welcome.

I also love the gameplay and practically everything about the Class Trials.
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
honestly i wonder if the despair side would have been better received if it wasn't sold as a see the DR2 kids fall into despair but instead as way too frequent flashbacks for the future side which it might as well be

An emphasis on how it's mainly meant to be context for Future would have been good for marketing purposes and for the content in the anime itself.

Unless Chiaki is important to Future somehow, I think it might have also been a mistake to turn her into a real person and have a lot of Despair arc revolve around her, as well.
 
honestly i wonder if the despair side would have been better received if it wasn't sold as a see the DR2 kids fall into despair but instead as way too frequent flashbacks for the future side which it might as well be
should've just been 24 episodes of Future with flashbacks to the past here and there, then we could also have more time to focus on Jabberwock island.

Leave the specifics of the DR2 cast falling to despair a mystery, just hint at it being horrific.
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
Leave the specifics of the DR2 cast falling to despair a mystery, just hint at it being horrific.

Yeah. I actually never really cared for the speculation about what the DR2 cast supposedly did when they had turned to Despair, and how they were compelled to join Junko. Didn't really think about it; I just accepted that it was.

But, naturally, with the advent of DR3 Despair Arc, I thought "Hey, they might have a compelling reason to focus on this part of the story." That has not paid off, and it might have been better for it to have been left a mystery.
 

PsionBolt

Member
I think the dumbest point that comes from this version of the 77th class is that it means erasing all of their school memories in the VR machine was entirely counterproductive. Erase a year less instead, and you set 'em up with a huge head start towards being happy hope people.
 

A.J.

Banned
I think the brainwashing could work if you worked it as a "deal with the devil" sort of thing. Junko could have offered something to each of the main cast that they would accept in a moment of weakness. And Junko's side of the deal would be taking control of them as her followers.

That way the class still made the big bad decision that ruined their life of their own volition while also keeping how they ended up being so evil reasonable.
 

Burbeting

Banned
I think the dumbest point that comes from this version of the 77th class is that it means erasing all of their school memories in the VR machine was entirely counterproductive. Erase a year less instead, and you set 'em up with a huge head start towards being happy hope people.

In general I agree with this, but I think the plot will have explanation that Makoto & Co. didn't have any idea how and when they had been converted to despair, so it was easier to go back to time where they were 100% hope for sure.
 

PK Gaming

Member
If anything, I'd say the opposite is happening. Because DR3 is dull, folks are overselling the quality of writing in 1 and 2 in comparison.

In reality, the quality of writing is minimally different and most characters are being handled very similarly. It's just that without the series's stellar gameplay to capture interest, people are paying more attention to the nonsensical fluff of the plot, characters, and setting. DR3 has nothing else, so it suffers more for its faults -- but they're the same faults.

Either you haven't played DR1 & 2 in a long time or you're being willfully ignorant because there is no way in hell that this hastily put togethermess of an anime is even remotely comparable to DR1 & DR2's writing. I've already gone how the anime managed to bungle up very basic plot point, but in the end, the games were about something. 1 and especially 2 were metaphors for graduating. DR3 is about nothing. Literally all flash no substance.

EDIT: Stellar gameplay...?
 

PsionBolt

Member
In general I agree with this, but I think the plot will have explanation that Makoto & Co. didn't have any idea how and when they had been converted to despair, so it was easier to go back to time where they were 100% hope for sure.

That does sound like the kind of explanation they would use, but it falls pretty flat knowing that they A) know when Junko came to the school, B) have two of the best information gatherers in the whole post-apocalyptic world on their side, and C) could always just memory-wipe them again if it didn't work the first time.
 
DR2 I would say is pretty well written for a game, at least on the same level as something like Ace Attorney 3. It may not have the scope of something like Witcher 3 or New Vegas but it has more meat to it then most games bother with.
 
An emphasis on how it's mainly meant to be context for Future would have been good for marketing purposes and for the content in the anime itself.

Unless Chiaki is important to Future somehow, I think it might have also been a mistake to turn her into a real person and have a lot of Despair arc revolve around her, as well.

Yeah, that's my thinking too. Honestly, a DR2 prequel, if there were to be one, would be much better suited for a visual novel; you simply can't luxuriate on fifteen students in a 12 episode anime.

I also can't say I really feel Junko's motivation; which is ironic because my interpretation of Junko is actually closer to the Joker. But my reading has been, since DR2, that she sees hope, being an Ultimate Analyst who can perceive the outcome of anything, as a complete farce and that reveling in despair, in the incapability of human depravity, is the only way to, for lack of a better word, 'sincerely' live your life (Again sort of a corruption of the Camus quote 'The only way to live honestly is to live without hope'). And the corruption of Hope's Peak nicely played into that. Here, Junko just seems existentially bored and sadistic, and the fact that Hope's Peak is doing awful shit is just convenient to her nihilistic goals, not a sort of justification for her outlook. I mean, DR has always had a bit of style over substance, but I think most of the DR stories had some kind of heart. DR3 Despair is just kinda... things happening.
 

Red Frost

Banned
The overarching plot writing in the games is fine for one reason; brevity. Kodaka kept things intentionally vague while giving us enough information to strongly infer stuff. "Junko broke class 77 one by one". That was all we needed, as we could connect that to other stuff we learned such as the group's insecurities revealed in their FTEs.

Kodaka fell into the trap of the mystery being far more compelling than the reality, and one that didn't need to be expanded on at that. And that's before we get into the broken message and fundamental changes made to the series it leaves us with.
 
I catched up. Kirigiri dying was super lame... It felt really cheap but whatever. The whole brainwash thing is also really, really dumb too. Did Sakakura kill Yukizome or whoever that person actually is?

I have to say, I'm glad Ruruka is dead. That very last attempt at making her look like she's not the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth was not believable but I'm glad the writers at least recognized that and killed her off.
 
She's gone man. Asahina won.

Edit: actually you know what that death was fucking stupid. Like what even is that NG code? Most of the others made some sense like "don't punch" when you're a boxer or "don't run in hallways" when a psychotic fuck is out to get you, or in the case of being said psychotic fuck "Don't open doors" works too. It at least felt like those codes were made to create interesting scenarios for the characters that pushed them to think outside the box but a NG code like "If the main character survives you're gone henny :)" is so stupid. It's obvious that it was only there for that specific scene, that was Kyoko's whole purpose in the anime. It's even more bullshit than Bandai's "you're going to fucking die lol" code.

Sigh.
 

sjay1994

Member
DR3 does make me worried that V3 isn't as much of a soft reboot as we think. I don't know if Kodaka can let go of these plotlines and characters he leans on.

I fucking hope to god it is. If there is anything about DR I am sick of, its Junko. She isn't this DIO like character who you love to hate, and when plot lines come up that are still his fault, you get pretty excited.

However, everytime post DR1, where I learn Junko is responsible, I groan.
 

Alec

Member
I'm starting to feel like the Despair Arc is mainly going to be used as a vessel for the "psyche, that wasn't the real Chisa who died in Future Ep 1" and "psyche, Chiaki is actually still alive" plot twists.
 

NeonZ

Member
She's gone man. Asahina won.

Edit: actually you know what that death was fucking stupid. Like what even is that NG code? Most of the others made some sense like "don't punch" when you're a boxer or "don't run in hallways" when a psychotic fuck is out to get you, or in the case of being said psychotic fuck "Don't open doors" works too. It at least felt like those codes were made to create interesting scenarios for the characters that pushed them to think outside the box but a NG code like "If the main character survives you're gone henny :)" is so stupid. It's obvious that it was only there for that specific scene, that was Kyoko's whole purpose in the anime. It's even more bullshit than Bandai's "you're going to fucking die lol" code.

Sigh.

Her NG code could be seen as a "if you aren't a good enough detective to stop the game by that point, then you're no Ultimate Detective. But you can still live if you kill Naegi."

I catched up. Kirigiri dying was super lame... It felt really cheap but whatever. The whole brainwash thing is also really, really dumb too. Did Sakakura kill Yukizome or whoever that person actually is?
I'd guess he knew that she had become part of despair but hid it from Munakata and that's what Tengan told him. It's likely why Munakata made sure Yukizome was dead before going after Naegi again.
 

Red Frost

Banned
Chiaki being mastermind is a "burn it all down" development. I refuse to believe Kodaka would legitimately think that's a good way to end the series.
 

Breads

Banned
I'm still in shock at how flaccid the impetus to despair was. I knew it would be dumb but at the very least I expected them to try to set it up. After five or so years and multiple bodies of work shipped the events that were referenced but never explicitly described was nothing more than the end result of subliminal messages? This is what turned the entire world to shit? Really? This is the best you could have come up with? Might as well have had a light switch that Junko flipped that said despair on it.

If this was the end goal and you had 22, or 12, or 11, or whatever episodes of anime to tell the story then holy shit is this a mess. Instead of a 10th-assed attempt to prop up characters you wanted us to care about before you instantly broke them you should have focused on drawing out the process of these characters becoming the despair club so that we at least believe what we're seeing and how it lead up to the games. If this was indeed the goal of the story then there are so many scenes that should have been cut entirely to tell the story proper because they didn't add anything to it at all. Entire episodes in fact. We still don't have the Ultimate Despairs, DR0, or how the Towa company factors into this and Despair is almost over and although the Despair Arc did show a few things I never expected we'd get to see (rip Pikachu girl) it could understand the people that feels like it was a waste of time in hindsight. After Body double and AI Junko I learned to temper my expectations and even then it's still let down. Fun I guess but wasted potential for sure. There are so many things I wanted to see in this setting of pre-despair DR world and I don't think we're getting another chance.

The most interesting thing about this whole deal was the fact that two series aired side by side telling different parts of the story that were related to each other. That's still neat. And don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it up to this point. But if this is where the story is heading then yeah, there is reason to be disappointed. Insert true despair of the anime joke here.
 
It was looking like it could pull it off for a bit, there. That Future 1 to Despair 1 transition was really cool.

I think it did a good job until like the middle. Probably the part where we realized with the remaining amount of episodes left, we wouldn't get anything on the DR2 kids.
 
No matter what, 3 is at least better than Another Episode

I dunno about that. If you use the important metrics like which one had more Komaru and Toko there's a winner

Wasn't the point of the anime so he could get this shit out of his system?

HOPEFULLY. I just need more info about V3 since theres not much to go on. Like I'mma be upset if the prison is called HOPE'S PEAK PENITENTIARY. I kinda hope most of the characters are bit older and that they drop the Ultimates thing. Unless they are the Ultimate of what crime they committed, that could be cool. Naturally Ultimate Murderer would die first.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I think it's a reference to Junko calling HPHS as you would call someone on the phone "Hi, is this Mr. X?"

And it the question was dropped once the Steering Committee approved her admission and got in the 78th class.

Ah, so one implies someone is calling the school, the other implies someone is answering for the school. Ok, that makes since.
 
Danganronpa is not far away from Junko being the genesis of every single plot thread in the entire series, like Aizen in Bleach

Turns out Junko crashed the Hindenburg when she wasn't even born yet! DAMN YOU ENOSHIMA!
 

Red Frost

Banned
No matter what, 3 is at least better than Another Episode

Disagree. UDG's problems were self-contained. Wonky portrayals of morality, unrealistic developments in a war setting (no child casualties? come on!), and meh gameplay. It didn't contradict anything already established, it was just a subpar game despite some good lore-furthering.

DR3 despair side has the potential to ruin the entire franchise.
 
Danganronpa is not far away from Junko being the genesis of every single plot thread in the entire series, like Aizen in Bleach

Turns out Junko crashed the Hindenburg when she wasn't even born yet! DAMN YOU ENOSHIMA!

i look forward to them saying junko is responsible for everyone's problems

mondo accidentally killing his brother? junko sent that truck there
ishimaru's family being disgraced? junko did something
twilight syndrome murder case? junko told sato to kill imouto
ibuki's falling out with her band? junko introduced her to metal music
teruteru's mom being ill? junko did it

junko did everything!
 

Dekutulla

Member
i look forward to them saying junko is responsible for everyone's problems

mondo accidentally killing his brother? junko sent that truck there
ishimaru's family being disgraced? junko did something
twilight syndrome murder case? junko told sato to kill imouto
ibuki's falling out with her band? junko introduced her to metal music
teruteru's mom being ill? junko did it

junko did everything!
"That can you tripped on? It was me, Makoto! Me!!"
 

jello44

Chie is the worst waifu
Oh god what if Chiaki is the mastermind?

Nah, Chisa is gonna be revealed as the mastermind. Chiaki is gonna end up being one of the branch leaders.

I can imagine that Chisa is taking Chiaki away for safety, only to later betray the FF as a sleeper agent later on.
 
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