Why Danganronpa 3 Is So Painful 

Hey, this video's getting some revived attention lately, so for the newcomers I'd like to say: We stand by our personal thoughts on the show, and overall I still think I said everything I needed to, but there are certain aspects of the video itself and overall presentation/wording I would do differently, were it being done over again (even if I still enjoy the end-product). Hindsight's 20/20. Critique is, of course, always permitted - feel free to say whatever you'd like, however, do check out my video titled "Future Plans" if you were curious to see any response to some of the more common critiques of the video itself that people have had. I can't reply to every individual comment, of course, but I think that still covers a few things people might want to know. I think a lot of people experienced some tonal whiplash with this video because of the markedly more negative slant, and I understand that. I couldn't offer any false positivity on something that I was truly thoroughly disappointed by, but needless to say - if it weren't an important entry in the franchise I was doing a full retrospective on, I likely wouldn't have bothered with it, because I (like many audience members) do tend to prefer making content which has a more overall positive focus. So, I'd just say to expect this tone to be an outlier in the future of the channel - I wouldn't be looking for it to crop up much if at all, most of the time. Edit 2023: I would also understand if DR3 fans who were frustrated by this one didn't want to stick around, but I'd like to reiterate - please continue liking the show! I don't want to take that away from you, and I apologize if I conveyed that point somewhat poorly in this particular video. If you'd like to give something else I made one more shot, I sort of directly tried to follow up on and change the way I engage with things I dislike in my Shadow the Hedgehog retrospective, which is in many ways a sort of mirror video and response to the problems I have with this one. Don't know if it'd be your cup of tea, but give it a shot, maybe!

I still find it hilarious that the events of danganronpa only happened because someone couldn't come out as gay

Tengen: *leans down to Makoto’s ear* Me. The sixteenth student lying hidden somewhere in the school. The one they call me. Watch out for me.

3:56:27 I feel so sorry for Hajime since that means he had to see Teruteru's ideal world.

I never liked Naegi's new haircut. Sure, it makes him look more mature I guess but it also just makes him look more like a short Hinata which just bugs me

Ok, but Hope Arc is made orders of magnitude better by the fact that bryce papenbrook added a blooper to the dub which was never removed that I'm so happy stayed in As nagito is being pulled away from makoto Nagito: "His hands were so soft...~" Makoto: "... why was he sticky?"

The reason DR2 is my favorite game in the series is the secret depth of the characters... That if you look closely and explore their free-time events and backgrounds, they each have a little seed of something that could have plausibly been nurtured into despair. Mahiru having abandonment issues from her dad, Akane's history of food insecurity and general poverty, Gundham's crippling self-loathing disguised by his Chuuni-ness. 24 episodes of Junko slowly focusing on each of them in turn, luring them to succumb to their existing flaws and temptations, could have been amazing. Instead they all loved Chiaki so much they became despairs after watching an anime. I got so mad I started slowly working on a massive fix-fic.

If you'll forgive me the comparison, Naegi becoming hope's peak principal is a real Harry Potter becoming a magic cop moment. It's a reproduction and continuation of a system that failed that kills the main character's own beliefs in favor of a devotion to a garbage status quo.

i think what killed me about despair arc is that sdr2 itself, whether it be it’s actual main story or through the free times, had very clear cut tellings of the casts’ flaws, whether it be via their actual personalities, or how they were shaped through their backstories. When the game hits its climax you can very easily see how junko exploited those characters and how she could appeal to them. And you can see how despair can be something extremely appealing for them, albeit all for presumably a different personal reason. And then danganronpa3 spits in your face for that.

Another thing beyond what was mentioned about why I hated Chiaki being real was how it cheapened the finale of SDR2. A huge point of the conflict at the end of that game was that they didn't want to lose their memories of what had happened on the island because that would mean the erasure of any record of Chiaki's existence. After everything she'd done for them they couldn't bear to allow her to completely fade from their memories. But if she's real there's kinda no point to that whole emotional stake. If they had backed out and forgotten the events of the island it wouldn't matter because they'd still remember her, because she was real.

I have one note about the Ryota portion of the video: I know they didn't really make it explicit, but I always assumed that Ryota became less outwardly passionate about his interests and opinions after the tragedy during his time with the future foundation DUE to the role he played in the tragedy and the downfall of his classmates, for which he blamed himself and his passion for anime. I don't think it's out of character for Ryota pre-tragedy to get angry at Junko for badmouthing anime, but it would be out of character for him AFTER the tragedy, because that guilt wracks him throughout the Future Arc, and it is part of what leads him to use the brainwashing anime in the end. Ryota was already a passive character, but after his passion had a direct hand in causing the tragedy, he became even more passive and withdrawn, because the one thing that gave him joy and purpose directly caused the worst thing possible to happen. His arc is subtle, but it is there: he began as someone who was withdrawn and apathetic but prepared to open up about the one thing he cared about most of all. After that very thing ruined his life and the world, he became someone who is withdrawn and apathetic but not willing to be open with anyone at all, and still lacking courage or belief in others because of what he experienced, and what he did.

One of the things I didnt like about DR3 was how Junko was portrayed. She didnt feel like an evil mastermind, it felt like she got lucky. I was personally hoping to see her manipulate each of the remnants of despair as students by using their own personal weaknesses. But instead she comissioned the ultimate patreon animator to make a brainwashing video. There wwas this one comic dub I saw on youtube showing Ibuki struggling as an artist and being constantly put down, but Junko comes along and offers her a way to become well known. It felt more in line with her character.

What gets me is that the SDR2 cast was in many ways perfectly poised to fall into despair - as established by their backstories/predilections in the game itself. Many of them lost a friend (or a sibling) in the Twilight Syndrome Murder showdown. Komaeda and Hinata are emo as hell (as is the Impostor). Owari is implied to have had a terrible upbringing (with so many hints at CSA it makes you sick). Ditto with Tsumigi. Tanaka and Sonia are both drawn to a darker side of life. Even Hanamura has a sick mother and a failing restaurant in a town he reviles. In some ways, even the characters who were used as a lazy one-note gag in SDR2 were still given enough of a susceptibility to despair to expoit. To witness Junko take those threads and knot them into true despair could have been a good character study for them all, and an actually worthy (if unnecessary) prequel. The foundation was there. I will never understand why it was then immediately dropped in favor of Magic Miyazaki's Brainwashing Masterclass.

I've always said that Nagito was characterized weirdly in DR3, along with Mikan. I don't think its as bad as Mukuro, but it's definitely bad. Mikan's characterization is mainly bad bc of two things 1. She's been reduced to fanservice with no other depth 2. With her fall to despair being because of the despair video, all her complex depth in SDR2 is stripped away. I could never quite put my finger on why Nagito seemed so off, though, but I think this articulated it well. As I've said before: DR3 does not understand its own characters. I think Mukuro is definitely the worst offense, but oh boy does Mikan's treatment by the narrative piss me off. And Nagito's is just... disappointing. Oh, and how they portray Junko is just atrocious. Also, turns out I have pneumonia! So I guess I have nothing better to do than to watch this all in one sitting. We'll see if my brain will allow me to do that.

This is a really minor thing compared to everything else Danganronpa 3 does badly, but when I played SDR2, I thought Izuru having ridiculously long hair was meant as a way to visually reinforce his characterization and not just to make him look different from Hajime, emphasizing his apathy and detachment from everything by showing that he hasn't bothered to cut his hair even though it's well past the point of being an inconvenience, but in 3 Side Despair it's already ankle-length when he first wakes up, so that neat little detail gets completely lost.

"They don't have to take responsibility for any of their actions because they were brainwashed" And that right there will always be my BIGGEST complaint about DR3. When this series was first announced I was really looking forward to seeing exactly how Junko managed to take all of these, mostly good, people and sway them over to her side. I was downright excited to see how they they all fell into despair. Lord knows all of their backstories provided Junko with enough ammo to use. Hell, in Mahiru's case, I just KNEW her fall would have something to do with the Twilight Syndrome murders. But nope. The whole time they were just...brainwashed into being evil after watching a classmate die. A classmate whose importance to everyone was established off-screen. That's it. None of them actively chose despair. None of them were actually in control of their actions. None of them have anything to atone for. They were all just...more of Junko's victims. And that sucks...Like...SO much. I'd even go as far as to say it kinda ruins the big revelation at the end of SDR2.

Little did you know the only reason Nezumi decided to start these Danganronpa retrospectives and do a crossover with Austinado was all because of Tengan. Seriously, this was a great video that perfectly explained stuff I didn't like about the anime and even some things I hadn't considered before.

Also yeah, the way Mikan was treated in this show makes me personally sick. She was my favourite character in the series before DR3 took the worst part of her SDR2 portrayal and made that her entire character. (You know what i'm referring to.) The way they took a character that perfectly portrays the dark depths different types of trauma can take you to, and reduced her to a sick fanservice joke is deeply frustrating.

Makoto becoming the principal of Hopes Peak, is just like Harry Potter becoming an Auror at the end of his series. It betrays *EVERYTHING* the character should stand for, and makes them another villainous adult in their fucked up world

The part in no danganronpa zero with the script being read out loud is chilling ,because noone has to show you a thing,your imagination does everything , that fact alone makes this 10x stronger emotionally

I enjoy the slice of life In the despair arc, as well as the feeling you know it’s all coming down. I hate the brainwashing stuff. Especially the lobotomy scene, it makes my skin crawl when I see it

Ways Junko could have actually used the weaknesses of each character to turn them over to despair: *Imposter:* two ideas. One is she could exploit their weakness of not having an identity, and say she’d be the only one who accepts them as they are. This would already establish a deep relationship, and then she could take them down from the inside, offering them their own individual significance if they switched over to despair. Two, she could find a way to have them adopt *her* identity, then slowly reveal the evil side of herself and force the Imposter to continue mimicking it. *Teruteru:* Junko could enter Teruteru’s life by making him lust for her, and by dangling the idea of a possible relationship in front of his face. This would make manipulating him very easy, and then later allow for her to find out the things most important to him (like his mother) and find ways to exploit that, turning his raw emotions into weaknesses. *Mahiru:* Junko would make her feel like what happened to Natsumi and Sato was her fault. She’d consistently trigger her trauma by bringing up reminders of the incident again and again. By turning Fuyuhiko first, she could use him as a way to induce despair in Mahiru as well. *Peko:* Fuyuhiko would definitely need to be despairified first, and then things could go like this: Fuyuhiko commands Peko to join him, stating that her only use is to follow his demands and that he’ll abandon her if she doesn’t, thus giving her entire life no purpose in her eyes. *Hiyoko:* Junko would manipulate Hiyoko into believing that everyone around her was lying to her, since Hiyoko is most afraid of being betrayed and deceived. Junko could first reveal the truth about Mahiru covering up Natsumi’s ally, immediately destroying Hiyoko’s trust in her closest friend. Once Hiyoko was turned into a Remnant of Despair, she could also help destroy Mahiru’s morale along with Fuyuhiko. *Ibuki:* Ibuki would be one of the last ones remaining, because she highly valued not only her friends but also her ability to entertain, inspire, and energize people. Surrounding by despair on all sides, Ibuki would attempt to cheer everyone up, only to find that her words and her talent had no effect on them. She’d believe herself to be useless, and then eventually adapt the mindset of everyone around her. *Mikan:* Mikan would probably still be the first to become Junko’s ally. Milan’s an extremely easy target, because she has *so* much trauma and so many insecurities Junko could exploit. She also becomes attached to people very easily. I don’t think I really have to elaborate on this one much. *Nekomaru:* His could be pretty similar to Ibuki, but I imagine he’d be harder to sway since his whole thing is raising others’ spirits and his own. I imagine he’d be one of the hardest, because seeing the others around him fall into despair would make him even more determined not to, as he’d feel responsible for helping everyone else. Because of this, I think Nekomaru would have to be one of the first to be converted, and Junko could do this by destroying his relations and showing it to him. If she killed off the teams he managed, or better yet, recorded them killing each other… *Gundham:* I see this going two ways. Junko convinces Gundham to join the despair cult by appealing to his love for darkness and his evil persona. Or she could do the opposite, breaking down his delusions and showing him he’s just another normal guy, causing him to fall into despair. Maybe a combination of the two. “Hey, wanna join me and my friends who are super dark and edgy and dramatic? Whoops, you’re actually not legit enough for us. You’re just an average Joe. Oh, but if you were super depressed, we might consider you.” *Nagito:* See, this one’s weird because even in Ultra Despair Girls, Nagito doesn’t seem to be all that attached to despair. I think Junko would have to twist Nagito’s views, which are already super twisted as is. She’d have to convince him that despair was actually hope. In his head, he’d believe that his interpretation of things had gotten stronger but hadn’t changed, where in reality, he’d just be supporting despair. This doesn’t quite feel right to me, though. Maybe Nagito never gets fully converted and just believes that covering the world in utter despair will lead to a greater hope eventually? Just expanded on the stuff he says in dr2. I feel like Nagito is so screwed up that I can’t imagine him ever being inconsistent or responding to normal manipulation. *Chiaki:* I like the idea of her never falling into despair, and I also think her being executed is pretty chilling and great. The idea of Junko getting pissed off at Chiaki’s willpower and just straight up killing her is kinda great, and it’s beautifully tragic that Chiaki gets what are technically both the first and last executions in the series. However, I think her execution should be used as a final push for everyone else falling into despair, rather than it being the only cause. (On that note, Junko could still convince Ryota it was all his fault, meaning Ryota’s reverse character arc could stay the same.) *Akane:* Akane is both very competitive and afraid of intimacy and weakness. We also know she’s scared of the dark. If Junko made her feel extremely weak and vulnerable, as well as accessed Akane’s trauma that she appears to have blocked out mentally, Akane would feel not only terrified but also a deep hatred for herself. She’d turn to fighting as her only outlet. Here’s a possible starting scenario: Akane is lost in a dark alley. She’s paranoid and afraid. She hears something rustling behind her, and sees a shadow. This terrifies her, throwing her into an even worse state. She then sees that the source of the noise is an adorable baby rabbit. (Probably Gundham’s) She becomes enraged and deeply embarrassed by the fact that something so cute and tiny could have scared her so badly. In a fit of passion and fury, she feels the need to prove her strength by the only way she knows how- violence. She rips the bunny apart with her hands. Feeling the first surge of power in a long time, she then goes on a rampage, killing much worse than bunnies. (Shoot, this is just Mondo’s story.) *Kazuichi:* Kazuichi has trust issues as well as a fear of rejection, and insecurities about feeling like a fake. Junko could make use of a despairified Sonia to start breaking him. Kazuichi would fall into paranoia, and Junko could plant this seed in different ways, by making him believe that others are hiding things from him. In order to gain validation, Kazuichi would slowly start to put on a tougher persona, and quickly fall into a trap. (This is something I relate to personally, on a smaller level of course. It’s extremely easy to fall into a persona you can’t get out of, simply because it’s well-received by others. You then feel a pressure to build on this persona, making it worse and worse to the point where you don’t even recognize yourself anymore.) *Fuyuhiko:* Junko could weaken him with two things: one, the death of his sister, and his murdering Sato. She’d trigger his trauma over his sister’s murder, then “comfort” him by telling him that he did the right thing in seeking revenge, and that a kill or be killed mentality is the only way to live. This is something already drilled into him because of his background, which leads into his other weakness: fear that he’s not good enough, that he can’t live up to his name. Junko would force him to prove his competence by committing increasingly worse crimes. *Sonia:* Sonia would be swayed very quickly, because she could then be an extremely powerful tool in spreading despair thanks to her leadership skills. She could be brought into despair via the fall of Novoselic, causing her to feel useless and a failure to her people. She’d adopt illegal methods in an attempt to restore her country, bringing her further and further in a downward spiral. And there you have it. A poorly cobbled together list of ideas. Whether these are better than the anime or not, I don’t really know. But I had fun speculating nonetheless :D

its funny how the dub became miles better than the sub just by virtue of not taking itself seriously. which leaves some form of enjoyment to be derived from this anime

Guys hear me out, what if we took a character in Junko, who we saw actually manipulate secondhand in UDG via the Warriors of Hope and Monaca. And just have her manipulate ONE member of the 77th class then hypnotize the rest of them. You know, the 77th class, who all had issues of some sort that could’ve driven them to despair.

Props to Austinado for pointing out that "they have trauma" isn't an excuse for poor characterization or an arc that makes no sense. It's become one of those concepts like "it's supposed to be a metaphor" that's used wave away flaws with something the speaker enjoys than actually, say, address trauma or use a metaphor in a meaningful & interesting way. Taking something good and turning it into a "get out of criticism free" magic word devoid of its meaning.

Pinned comment question: What is your favorite and least favorite thing about Danganronpa 3?

I could maybe, MAYBE have excused the retcon of Nanami being real in the anime if the story had been a commentary on the dangers of putting a person on a pedestal and hinging your mental health on one person who is obviously not going to live up to that standard but they completely flushed that down the toilet because I guess they were terrified of people not liking their gamer waifu anymore. She exists to be perfect and then die in the most miserable way possible to jerk the audience around emotionally and it makes me so cynical to watch. It's so blatantly manipulative and gross by the writers because nothing significant about the narrative would change if human!Nanami was a particularly valuable statue that got broken. She adds nothing. She is nothing but an object that the class desires and is sad when they lose. It is downright sickening that her execution sequence focuses more on how the class feels about losing her than about HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT BEING TORTURED TO DEATH.

I love when a franchise decides to give me all the answers that I REALLY didn't wanted or needed and devolve into generic mush while trying to inflate the Canon and trying to make sense of elements that weren't supposed to be taken seriously

Mitarai having his forbidden action being "Using his talent," means he can't just show the "Eh," video to mind-whammy everyone right at the start to stop the killing game.

A funny thing I’m surprised you didn’t mention was that the anime writers completely missed the implication of Kamakura’s long hair(him not caring enough to cut it) and decided it just came with the lobotomy

Small thing, but in 2.5, when hinata offers komaeda his hand to help him up, somehow komaeda grabs hinata's arm with the junko hand, which makes no sense due to the fact that he's not supposed to be able to move it, as per chapter 0 of sdr2

There are MANY retcons DR3 created, but one that doesn't get discussed, pretty much at all, is the 77-B retcon. There was no B there, originally. In the original SDR2 timeline, Chiaki isn't real, and Mitarai doesn't exist. Hajime also isn't a class member, though the Impostor was. That leaves us with only 14 students, despite Hope's Peak Classes being 16 people strong. What was the original explanation for this? The two missing students are Yuto the Ultimate Spy and Yatsude the Ultimate Neurologist, both killed during the events of DR0. Both directly confirmed in that book to be part of that class. (And DR0 was pretty much the basis for half of DR2s plot). In order to make Chiaki real and add in animator boi, they had to shove those two aside into Class 77-A, and then proceed to do nothing with them.

All of the flaws from this anime can be traced down to one motive - marketability. As much as I love Danganronpa, I have to admit that, at its core, it was conceived just to be sold. A kiIIing game set in high school filled with lots of colorful/kinable/attractive characters is screaming to be sold to teenagers. I feel like the higher ups just handed this concept to Kodaka and told him to do whatever he wanted with it. So stuff like the lore have a lot of inconsistencies and take the back seat compared to characters and mystery And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, games are made by studios to make money and that doesn't mean the creators can't find the balance and make them be both creative and profitable. But then they made an anime where the focus is the lore and went overboard with the marketability, creating this complete trainwreck The only reason Chiaki is there is because she was the fandom waif. The reason Mukuro is creepy towards her sister is also because of fanservice. The séxy soup scene - also fanservice. The anime does a lot of things that vaguely gesture towards what they THINK the fans like, without understanding why they like them. Komaeda's luck makes no sence because they didn't think it through. Junko is a ~quirky girlboss~ who doesn't plan anything and just stumbles upon the solutions to her plans. The sdr2 cast came back to life cause the fans liked them and that's it. They didn't need to think anything through because they saw their audience as mindless consumers. The fact that the f-ing MASTERMIND was just some guy with no motivation shows that they held no respect for their audiences' intelligence. It was clearly there just to be shocking and it's pointless to analyse honestly. If the creators themselves didn't care, then why should we? This was just a pointless cashgrab that shouldn't be taken seriously

A lot of people are convinced that others lie about their diet restrictions. It's an interesting idea to warp that concept Danganronpa style. I do wish they gave Ruruka a bit more of a kinder side to drive home her insecurities about Seiko declining her sweets. Like what if Ruruka was trying various nonsugar recipes for Seiko, and Seiko needed to keep declining? I think the anime was saying that Ruruka stopped saying thank you to Seiko as revenge for Seiko declining Ruruka's sweets, but it was kind of underwhelming as an interpersonal relationship spanning two shows.

I just realised why I hate the ending to DR3 so much and it's because it's the same as the ending to Harry Potter, it's the coward's way out. Because in both cases the central message is that the systems that are in place are broken and only exist to cultivate strife and tyrrany. And yet in both cases instead of doing the thing that would solve the problem in the long term (in HP that would be to revamp the government system entirely and in DR it would be to abolish Hope's Peak) they both take the approach of "the problem wasn't the fact that the system we created and upheld was a breeding grounds for exploitation, it was that we didnt have the right person in charge" but that approach fails to recognise that that's only a temporary solution, a bandaid trying to cover a stab wound. Because eventually Naegi/Hermione are going to step down and there's no guarantee their successor will share the same values and ideals. It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch. It's even more egregious that nobody makes that observation at all, I can understand Naegi being a bit too blinded by ambition to not think of the long term consequences, but Kirigiri is much too cautious and perceptive not to have considered the possibility, and at that point if she did she's just straight up a bad friend for not saying anything. Or the more likely answer which is that DR3 spits in the face of internal consistency and calls it slurs to its face

Great job on the video you guys! You pointed out a lot of problems I had with Dr3, while adding others that I haven't thought about. Although, I would argue that Nagito in 2.5D subconsciously wanting a world where he doesn't have a talent does make sense due to his 5th free time event where he says "I guess I would live a peaceful life... A boring, normal life with no despair and no hope" after Hajime asks what he would do without his ultimate luck.

I'm super sick but seeing this premiere coming up just brightened my day! As for your question, my favorite part was Natsumi! I thought having her be reserve course gave a lot to her character, made more sense than a character actually being the Ultimate Little Sister, made Fuyuhiko's FTEs where he calls her the Ultimate Little Sister sweeter in retrospect, AND made her a much more sympathic character vs a bully stereotype. However, I didn't like the rushed pace of it and how it didn't last that long and we hardly got any time with her, or the retcon that Mahiru didn't know about Sato murdering her and actively covered it up (as I thought Mahiru doing that was really interesting for her character). I also think they made Sato come off a little bit too aggresive; obviously she had anger issues in the game as she describes blacking out from anger and choking Natsumi out, but I think in the anime they had her come off as more of an aggressor in the situation than she needed to be. Natsumi was the one who was supposed to be starting shit, not Sato; Sato was protecting Mahiru, so while it's definitely not okay she killed Natsumi, I think having her take on a more aggressive role in the anime made her seem unlikable vs understandable in her motives. I think some aggression is realistic, I just think they leaned too much into it. But over all, I did like what they did to Natsumi's character and her (brief) friendship with Hajime. I also really liked the Future Arc over all and especially what they did to further Kyouko and Makoto's arcs! I thought Kyouko choosing Makoto over her and almost dying for it was really cool after in DR1 she did the opposite (choose herself over Makoto and he almost died for it). They both almost died for each other because they love and/or trust the other and that's... so sweet to me. Idk, maybe my sense of romance is skewed. The thing I disliked most is... honestly it's a toss up between how Mukuro was characterized/treated and the brainwashing video. But probably the brainwashing video. I really liked Ryota as a character, but I was really looking forward to seeing multiple characters fall into despair, not just his. I think they should have only stuck with him making the hope and suicide videos or had the brainwashing video only be used on the reserve course. In the second option, it would parallel Monaka, too; she manipulated her closest followers, the warriors of hope, and brainwashed the rest, the monokuma kids. I just thought that Junko's ideology twisting people like it was said she did in SDR2 made her really scary, and without that, with the explanation of it just being brainwashing, she's just... less scary and interesting. Also, I really liked SDR2's message of restorative justice. That even the Ultimate Despairs deserve kindness. I thought that was really radical and was one of my favorite parts of SDR2. Like you said, they were the outcasts, the dropouts, just like me. And it was very impactful when the game said they deserve a chance, a future. But... with the brainwashing video, isn't that message muddled? Isn't that idea that even criminals deserve redemption-isn't that idea diluted? They could have even still kept Chiaki's death without the brainwashing video. Just have it so that the class is unsure about following Junko because of her, so Junko proposes they test her hope against her despair and let that decide if they should follow them. Wouldn't Chiaki being betrayed-truly betrayed, by choice-by her friends be super impactful and even more despairing than her actual death in the anime? That, even despite being betrayed by them, she works so hard to save them from both Junko and themselves? And then, that makes the cast missing Chiaki so much that she appears as an AI mean even more, doesn't it? If you wanted to keep real Chiaki and her death, this is an option you could take with that! (Though, speaking of that, I also hated how the anime acted like human Chiaki was retroactively more important than AI Chiaki at points. They should have been equally as important, because they were both people, regardless if one was code.) Honestly, I have mixed feelings on Human Chiaki in general, because I do think it was possible to pull off, but... I'm honestly not sure if they did it. I think they just didn't have enough time to really develop her, which is a shame, because I did like what little we got. Like the idea that she saw talent as some kind of shackle and talentless people as lucky because they can choose what they want to do-that was really interesting, they should have done more with that! And it contrasted with Hajime really interestingly. Over all, I think DR3 was overly ambitious in a way. It tried to do too much, and ended up not doing most of what they set out to do satisfactorily. And while I liked some of the retcons (Natsumi being in the reserve course) others (the brainwashing video) I really disliked.

Damn, that segment from Danganronpa 0 was amazing! I mean, you are not wrong when it's hard to visualize but the way you narrate it was amazing

Currently at 3:30:20 while I, at this point, have accepted chiaki being „a real person“ for DR3… THIS SPEAKS FROM MY SOUL SO MUCH!!! I like chiaki, I really do! But the fact that she was an AI *CREATED TO AIDE THE SUBJECTS* made her characterization fine. Heck before DR3 came out I was sure she was created specifically by chihiro (or rather, alter ego), judging by the fact their birthdays match and that „chiaki“ literally could be an abbrivation of *Chi*hiro Fujis*aki…* granted, the latter was before I learned more about japanese and how it’s writing works, so it doesn‘t hold up (the chis in both names are the same kanji at least tho!) but it was at least a cool idea! (Plus let‘s not forget the whole „brother and father“ line implying alter ego is her creator. Yeah. This resurfaced my salt about it. I still cried during *that* Episode, but it’s still one of my biggest grievances with the anime. 3:31:25 that lists cracks me up btw, because fuck, teruteru’d love that tier simply cuz it’s degrading LMAO

On the Twilight Syndrome bit: When playing Danganronpa 2 I always assumed both Kuzuryu's sister and Mahiru's BFF were themselves SHL somethings and that they were part of Class 77-A (or at least that Mahiru's BFF was). After all, the DR2 cast are Class 77-*B*, which would imply the existance of a Class 77-A, and from Danganronpa Zere we know that there is a Class 77-A, but we only ever learn about like 4 of them.

Chiaki would have been so much better if she was the opposite of her DR2 persona, it would have made the V3 Twist so much more heart-rending. Cuz let's be real the Ultimate Gamer wouldn't even look at the screen to play Galaga.

Sorry for White Knighting for Ryota, but I always assumed that he didn't immediately air the Hope video because of the leftover trauma he had about sharing his work in general. It wouldn't be a logical reaction, but an emotional one - logically, he knows the Hope video could be a solution, but viscerally, knowing what his work has done in the past, he doesn't want to show his work to anyone ever again, let alone a piece of his work that packs a brainwashing punch. After what his work did during the tragedy, he probably instinctively doesn't want to show anything he made to everyone, as a result of subconsciously trying to protect himself and others from something like that happening again. Sure, he can still make anime, but showing it to people is completely different. He's always been a perfectionist, and even though he loved anime and making it, he was never overly eager to show it to people unless they showed an interest in it, not wanting anyone to see his work until it was perfect. He's probably thrown away his dreams of making the perfect anime completely by the time the Future Arc rolls around, but I think he'd still probably want to know for sure that his work is perfect and that there isn't a better solution before airing the Hope anime, after all the pain that his previous work caused when it was shown

As someone who hates Danganronpa 3 with burning passion, I was so happy when this video appeared in my recommendation lol About Nanami Chiaki... I think the main problem with her is that she isn't a character. She is a plot device. She is there to answer every question the story has. She is a solution to every problem writers can stumble upon. I know some people have called her a Mary Sue but that's something different. Mary Sue is when a story centers around a charater. In Nanami's case, it's not plot centered around her, she is the plot

Now that this video exists, I have the sudden urge to talk about SO many things that irked me about DR3 that I had barely seen anyone in the fandom talk about. In contrast to this, as a heads up, I actually genuinely like DR3, especially Despair Arc, even though later on, I found so many flaws and glaring issues that really made me disappointed when I realized how the anime could’ve been SO much more than the mess that it turned out to be (still a mess that I love, regardless). Ngl, the most issues that I’ve found were from Despair Arc, because Future Arc was sort of forgettable, so I don’t have much to say about the latter. Okay, first of all, what happened to the characterization of so much of the cast? It kind of felt like along with the art style, their entire personalities changed and they turned into a barely-passable fanfic version (hell, this might even be an insult to fanfiction) of their former selves. In SDR2, Mahiru had a bossy personality that was quick to judge and scold the boys in her class but completely ignored any wrongdoings that the girls might do. In Despair Arc, we see absolutely none of that. WHERE THE HELL DID IT GO? Even if it’s not a fairly likeable trait, that was a key part of her personality and her entire character in general, so I guess it was just completely forgotten? Now she’s just really passive with situations, awkwardly watching and politely laughing off the weird shenanigans her class pulls all the time because she’s the only normal person in the group and that’s the only character trait that the writers remembered to include. Next up, Natsumi! Even though she wasn’t technically in SDR2, she’s mentioned in Fuyuhiko’s FTEs and, guess what? According to Fuyuhiko, she’s actually really capable and was actually supposed to be the next leader of the Kuzuryu clan if it wasn’t for the fact that she decided to step down to let Fuyuhiko be the next leader instead. Yes, it’s said that she respected her brother a lot, but what was done in the Despair Arc felt like that was ALL they took from the dialogue of Fuyuhiko’s FTEs. In the anime, she just comes off as a pathetic, hot-tempered individual who hides behind her clan’s name without any capability of her own and chases to catch up with her brother to the point where it basically seems like the brother complex trope that’s known in anime (and honestly, you could just say that it IS a brother complex). The reality is that she IS capable and is in fact better than her brother, but do we see any of that in the anime? No. That’s why she just comes off as lame. The last character I’m going to talk about is Nagito. He is by far my favourite character, and still will be and I enjoyed every moment he was on-screen (even in the anime). However, looking back, so much was done wrong with his personality. He just doesn’t seem like SDR2 Nagito, no matter how you looked at it. A lot of people try to justify that he acts differently and is not absolutely psychotic, like how we saw him for the majority of SDR2 because they weren’t in a killing game environment. That would obviously mean he wouldn’t go to such extreme lengths to accomplish things he did in SDR2 because murder isn’t a constant, looming threat of despair in his school life. This seems like a sound argument, but hey, guess what? Pre-Revealing-That-He’s-Crazy-Because-Of-The-Killing-Game-Setting Nagito existed in SDR2! Did the writers of the anime completely forget how Nagito acted before SDR2’s 1st trial? Originally, he came off as a nice, chill guy that was pretty optimistic like Makoto (though kind of pessimistic in certain ways), slightly socially awkward at times and a bit self-deprecating. The class seemed to actually like him or was at least okay with him. They certainly didn’t hate him any more than any other classmate. We even get to see more of how he acts in Island Mode, and even though Island Mode isn’t canon, this is still official and would be how they would act in a hypothetical, non-killing game situation. Guess who completely ignored or just didn’t acknowledge this? The anime. His personality there doesn’t match up with his SDR2 personality pre-Trial 1 or post-Trial 1. He just gets hated at the start for being “weird” and that’s kind of it and this was even before him blowing up the gym in episode 4. What’s going on with his character? I don’t really know anymore. He gets turned into “Oh no, look at me, I’m so unlucky, but oh, look! Something happened to correct my unluckiness. I was actually lucky all along!” Like the video said, his luck just happens to cause things to work for him while he sits there when in SDR2, he manipulates his luck so he can make things work for him, exactly how he wants it to work because he knows fully well that bad luck will come after good luck (and vice versa). This characterizes him as a smart and pretty darn crafty character in SDR2 while in Despair Arc, it just characterizes him as, well, not that. He just lets things happen around him without really knowing how it’s going to transpire and this butchering of his character can be downright frustrating. Now, some character design and plot retcon issues that really bothered me. Some were already covered by the video, but I’m going to elaborate more on some of my personal grudges against them. In the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case of SDR2, the REAL photos received after being the first to fully clear the game show that Natsumi and Sato’s uniforms have brown skirts, aka the Main Course uniforms. Along with the fact that Natsumi was supposed to have been killed in the MAIN COURSE building’s music room for Mikan, Hiyoko, Ibuki, Mahiru and Sato to have discovered her body, this further proves that Natsumi and Sato were never originally supposed to have been in the Reserve Course and that this plot point was just ham-fisted in last second. I did like the messages they presented that finally pushed Hajime to accept the Kamukura Project, but with what I’ve seen Danganronpa accomplish with their writing in the past (and even later on with V3), they definitely could’ve found a better way to do it without creating all these plot holes and inconsistencies. ALSO also (this is a smaller nit-pick), in the photo portraying Mikan, Hiyoko and Ibuki, why didn’t DR3 use Mikan and Hiyoko’s designs here? Sure, maybe they were too plain, but I can’t really find that as a good enough excuse, but most of the cast are already wearing Hope’s Peak uniforms, so why bother making new designs? They clearly used Ibuki’s design here (slightly altered to be long-sleeved), which meant that they acknowledged this photo’s existence, so why? You can’t even say that “Oh, Mikan actually just doesn’t have her blazer in this picture, but everything else is the same”, because first of all, she has her summer uniform on, as seen with the short sleeves and second of all, her ribbon is green (for some reason but that’s the least of my gripes rn). We never see her with a summer uniform, even during episode 3, so they really just ignored the fact that Mikan and Hiyoko were wearing these uniforms during that time. There are so many more issues that I have with the DR3 anime, but I’ll just end it here because I already wrote an entire essay. If you read my entire comment, thanks! I’m just here to vent some frustrations that I’ve had for a while now, so I hope you got something out of it (or not, and if so, I’m sorry that I wasted your time ;-;).

8:53 "...killing them by spreading it to half of their body and making one of their eyes bleed, Monokuma-style, in the process, which is admittedly pretty sick, aesthetically speaking." How come I never noticed that before? How?!

The thing that always drove me crazy about dr3 is how it totally butchers the end of dr2, like why should the remnants have to atone for their sins with isolation and struggle if they were literally mindjacked by an irresistible force? It goes from them having to accept their own actions as members of a cult to having been puppets of an angry god.

this whole anime feels like you're reading someone's awful au fanfiction of danganronpa. you know the ones where they have 20% of the original cast, all of them reduced to one characteristic, and they sit in the background while the time is taken up by a slew of ocs to the point where you wonder "why didn't you just write your own story completely separate from this universe. why." the ones that are read by people who are in the fandom but paradoxically refuse to engage with the original media, only fan content, who read this and think "ah. perfect. this is even better than the thing i have not even played/watched/read/etc. screw the original material it's shit anyway!" and yet they are getting the most mangled, most unrepresentative version of that original media through the lens of this SHITTY GODAWFUL THING.

JUSTICE FOR GREAT GOZU! HE DESERVED BETTER!

I find it really unfortunate that the Ultimate Therapist was killed Lord fucking knows the entire gods damned cast could've used her💀💀💀

I'm so happy to see Marcy and her friend Austin to tear into this anime so deeply! I'm only halfway in the video and already I've seen so much this anime has done wrong!

I'll give a slight argument that Kodaka actually once said that during Chiaki's final speech to Hinata in DR2 in that odd void, Kodaka had a bit of a spur of the moment inspiration and said that "That Chiaki was a different Chiaki than the AI one.", kind of like a ghost in the machine. So it's not like she was wholly decided to be real during DR3, but it is kind of a spur of the moment retcon inspired by a moment late in the game. This fact probably doesn't affect your argument too much, I just felt I should say it.

I would have liked if danganronpa 3 was 16 episodes long, one for each despair student, showing how junko manipulated all of them individually

Know what? I'd enjoy DR3 alot more ןf it really was just Tengan admitting that he was everything. No, not responsible for everything, literally he was everything.

I love that the Devil's Advocate Akuma segments, with the Dangan music, start to sound like class trials of their own. All that's left is for Marcy and Austin to be saying "sore wa chigau yo" etc.

As a huge fan of Teruteru, I approve of your theory that he just somehow popped up out of nowhere, and nobody knows how or why. He just is now. And forever will be.

Honestly, I feel like a headcanon I have that since Chihiro made ai Chiaki is based on someone close to Chihiro works better than what’s in DR3.

BLESS. It's been years but this video reminded me just how angry this anime made me as a teenager and it's wonderful to feel so validated after so many years, lmfao. Props to your hard work and fantastic takes. Thank fucking god I'm not the only one who not only despises Nanami in this anime, but also just found her kinda meh in SDR2. Like, she's fine, but I always got the sense that she was designed to be waifubait first and a character second. Which is forgivable in SDR2 where she has a purpose outside of that, but not in DR3. As much as the term "mary sue" has lost all meaning due to bad faith sexist arguments, characters like DR3 Nanami are the reason I believe it still has some merit. She is not a character, she is a narrative black hole. I could have bought her being based on a real person, but not like this. As for Komaeda, while I agree with most of your points, I feel some need to defend my teenage self by saying I and all my other Komahina-inclined friends hated what this anime did to him too, lol. Aside from that, one thing I'd like to point out is that his feelings towards the SDR2 cast after learning the truth were a bit more complicated than you imply. He acknowledges the possibility that they might have solved his mystery in his final video message, and is content to accept defeat and give them the information necessary to overcome the true enemy. There's a strong case to be made that he intentionally left enough clues strewn around his cabin for the case to be solvable in the first place, which is backed up by some of Hinata's internal monologue during the trial itself, that he feels like Komaeda left it for him as a message. In other words, he hasn't given up on them entirely--he's subjecting them to all to one last chance to prove their hope can prevail. It's subtle, but it's something people overlook enough when analyzing him that it's become a pet peeve of mine. Not that this makes him any less OOC in DR3 whatsoever though, since the writers have proven they don't understand the most basic things about him. He was a fantastic villain and seeing him reduced to a cardboard cutout was painful. Also, on the subject of DR0, in complete fairness they've been retconning that since SDR2. During the Izuru Kamukura investigation that takes place in 0, it's specifically stated that they can't find anything connecting the name "Izuru Kamukura" to HPA. Then in SDR2 it's revealed that the project took its name from the very founder of the academy. Yeah. Sorry for the lengthy comment. I, too, was in the fucking trenches and this video apparently unearthed some old trauma.

Ultimately, this ends up feeling like a fanfiction, a first draft of a script that wasn’t even looked over once after it was written before being put to production. Maybe there are a few ideas that could’ve been expanded upon to become something pretty cool, but it was all left to be botched by a rushed production.

I really like this video and it was as well put together as always. Nice job to both of you. Even as someone who hasn’t watched the series, you two did a good rob of explaining it to someone not familiar with the material. However one thing I think the video could have done without, and this is of course only my opinion, was the devil’s advocate character. I feel like the points brought up in response to his lines could have easily been made without him. Plus it feels a bit like bad faith to address contrary points through an annoying side character. That might just be me, and it’s a minor nitpick. I don’t disagree with any of the points made with him necessarily. Otherwise it was still an enjoyable video.

Tengan: "You see Makoto, you know that plane that the Komaeda was in, it had a pilot, and that pilot was flying that plane because of his sick cat, and his cat only got sick because after peeing on a bush, it got too close to the neighbour's dog... that right Makoto. It was me. I was that bush."

Danganronpa 3 was so strange to me. The Future arc consisted of characters I wasn't really attached to, aside from the DR1 cast. We didn't really get time to get attached to them before they started dropping like flies. And then they did a bunch of fake out deaths when it came to the DR 1 characters. Then, when they introduced Monaca back into the series, I was so happy they included DR UDG so the game would actually mean something, only to instead blast her and her arc off into space and never touch on it again. The Despair arc was far more enjoyable to me because I love the DR 2 cast. But then they didn't delve into any of the characters. They just made Chiaki into a real person but took away most of her personality, then made Junko into a less interesting villain by having her just brainwash people. Her talent is being an analyst. Manipulating people is her forte. It would've been so amazing to see her actually use said talent to break the DR2 cast. But no. Cheap brainwashing. The anime had some enjoyment for me. But a lot of it was bogged down by all the wasted potential.

One of the biggest narrative bullets in the otherwise strongly built fabric of Danganronpas story telling was making Nanami a real character. Not in the sense that she has good motivation or a well rounded arc but in the sense that she was a student in class 77. She was meant to be nothing but a security protocol in fhe neo world program and nothing more. Making her real was an insult to the connection that not only Hinata but the audience as a whole created with her in SDR2.

fun fact there is a german dub for the danganronpa 1 anime and Monokuma is litterly voiced by spongebob

very late to this video but holy shit the izuru massacre part that austin wrote was genuinely chilling, what a writer

As someone who's favorites are Junko and Naegi, i was quite disappointed with how their characters were handled in dr3. They were portrayed as the absolute antithesis to each other. So i find it disappointing how it was revealed that Junko brainwashed class 77 using Mitarai's talent when Naegi had to actually inspire hope within his peers in dr1. Junko should be able to do the same. Exploit people's weaknesses to bring them to despair just like how Naegi uses trust and exemplifies the bright side to spread hope. About Naegi, my disappointment with him lies with him virtually doing nothing to resolve the conflict at the end. The sdr2 cast came and solved the Mitarai problem while Naegi watched and did nothing. He doesn't really drive the story that much since it's mostly Munakata and Tengan driving the plot while Naegi and the other dr1 cast were just caught up in it. Your whole section about how Munakata's argument actually makes sense, how everyone putting their trust into one person can be dangerous and lead to exploitation made me think that it would be such an interesting conflict for Naegi. Him grappling with his influence on the world as the symbol of hope and how the responsibilities of it weigh him down. Would've been interesting.

Favorite: Ultimate Despair designs Least Favorite: Brainwashing video instead of Junko's manipulations.

I'm gonna be honest, by mirroring the structure of DR3 with passing the mic back and forth, you kind of copied one of the issues I had with it wholesale: just when I was settling back into listening to you talk about Future, there was an abrupt stop and suddenly we were back to Despair and vice versa. Of course I understand that, among other things, this was probably a time saving strategy to avoid having to record all 5 hours of this on your own, but for me personally the constant switching left me just as confused as it did in DR3. Also A-kuma, while a GENIUS pun, was kind of unnecessary and came across as mostly mean spirited. Anyways, I commend you for the absolute insanity of making a 5 hour video, even if I didn't enjoy it as much as the others, and I'll continue being excited for the video on V3 (and apparently potentially Zero!!!) and any others that youll put out in the future! Edit: Oh i forgot to mention but the Tengan bit at the end is fucking hilarious I'm crying

Very excited for the v3 video, it's my personal favourite entry in the series standing high well above the rest and I love seeing discussion about it, its one of the few things that I like which is super divisive which makes talking about it all the more interesting

Personal qualms with Austin dissing on Monster Musume and Goodbye Despair Chiaki aside, this is a really good and cathartic video for the most part!! But seriously the main character in Monster Musume fuckin punches a racist into another racist thats raw as fuck

"Paying animators on Fivrr to do animation memes over my snuff film collection" Junko Enoshimas best preforming RU-vid video yet

3:15:00 "There is nothing satisfying about watching people became broken for the sake of being broken..." This is honestly the best way to explain the main problem with brainwashing on this scenario, its just boring.

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but I really like the transition between inspecting something in the music room and Natsumi's body at 1:12:21

1. Oh god youre so right about the hope arc. It's so saccharine with everybody coming back to life and completely throws hinata's ENTIRE character completely out the window. So so so...out of character for the series. Sometimes you don't get to atone for your actions, that's the cruel part of their fate in the game. You'd think if he cared about what nanami thinks, he wouldn't of fused with izuru. No matter what happened, he got his cake and ate it too, that's what a lot of this anime feels like actually for the dr2 cast. He's got his original self back With Every Possible Talent In the World. It also renders sdr2 useless in every sense. I kinda thought that the Future Arc would be about Naegi and Co. seeing what's happening in the simulation and following them as they try to stop it, not ANOTHER killing game format but something that lets us see what's happening on the other side. 2. I honestly believe they made komaeda softboy in this anime because he was a fan favorite and they knew it. You gave a really great point in saying he did all that unhinged shit in sdr2 AFTER getting his memory wiped and having his pre-hope's peak personality. 3. Why was the entire despair arc so...brown and tan on top of a dreamy instagram filter?? Why did they remove all the visual interest??? They did have some supper cool colors going on in the student council scene. Wish Nanami's execution had been more visually interesting (this goes for her in-game one, too.) 4. OOF, as Chief Chiaki Nanami Fan (tm) , I do see the where the criticisms are coming from, ESPECIALLY in this anime. I just wanted her to be more, part of why ive basically rewritten her in my head since she basically had nothing to begin with, whoops. It's a shame, because they did the "AI caring for the characters so much that they challenges the protag's ideas of personhood make a lasting impression on the audience" so well with Alter Ego, I really wanted them to elaborate on that when they made one a support role. I hate that she doesn't have a larger presence and is basically reduced to "pretty gamer girl heterosexual love interest that dies (TWICE) so the main character has something to feel sad about." I wanted her reaction to the killings to escalate in personal responsibility and fight her programming a bit more, to have a complicated relationship with the characters knowing what they did and not having her mask be perfect. I think they actually could have had her be a real person, if it wasn't a retcon to fridge her and an actual plot point in the game. I personally think it would be interesting if she was a real person that died and got something akin to ghost in a shell'd (or something like that) where her real body was so damaged that she could only be alive in the NWP, knowing about what her friends did and having an arc about how you can't recreate the fun times of the past and the future has to come. Gamer girl? No, make her Gamer Ghoul. HATE HATE HATE how they explained her becoming an AI in the series. I also believe she shouldn't of been the protag of the despair arc, she should have been a side character. I feel like her reluctance to make friends should have lasted longer than 2 seconds and been a lot stronger, making her antisocial with them. Maybe it has to do with her disregard of talent. I just a lot more for her then love interest and think she has a lot of potential. Okay hyperfixation talk over. 5. Cannot believe one of the most important story beats in this arc (Hajime going through with the Izuru Kamukura project) was do in part to a character wholly original to this anime only (Juzo) who has a marginal amount of screen time. Same goes with Mitari being so important. 6. No matter how many times I've tried to understand it, I cannot for the life of me understand anything they tried to do with Tengan. At All. Not the motivation, not his character purpose, nothin. 7. Thank god somebody brought up how Naegi being the headmaster of a new school is a terrible decision, he's only bound to part of other problems. He may be the SHSL hope but that doesn't mean he can cure the school system of its flaws. 8. Why does Chisa look the same age as the students? I know she's young but still. Why are her boobs so huge? Why is God's name does she run like that? This was such a massive behemoth to take on, so thank y'all so so much for it!! It's incredibly written and I loved sitting in for the premiere, I wish you the best of naps. I discovered your videos very recently and I love your commentary style. Finding the balance between criticism and giving it credit is so hard with this series, but you do it so well and are super funny and engaging in the process. Can't wait to see more stuff in the future.

I truly appreciate how you are able to critique a work without involving the fans of said work. This is the right way to engage with this kind of art and I love you for it.

I'm half an hour in and A-Kuma is so absurdly grating as a gimmick. It's fine if you want to make a video about why Danganronpa 3 sucks, there's a lot to pick it apart over, the video really isn't served by having someone who supposedly likes it coming in with half-baked strawman statements that only make it sound worse because of the clear lack of anything genuinely positive to say. I love your Danganronpa videos and was looking forward to this one, and even if there are parts of 3 I enjoy I wouldn't mind watching you just shit on it for a few hours. But the disingenuous devil's advocate routine really doesn't add anything in the way of balance and seems only there to make people who like it sound even dumber.

4:20:00 Holy moly, that description of the student council killing was chilling! The anime was nothing compared to this😓

I feel like the Seiko / Ando conflict would have worked better is Seiko just refused to eat the sweets because she just...doesn't like sugary stuff. It would be a small thing for her, but a huge thing for Ando. It could represent a singular tiny personal boundary Seiko sets for herself against Ando, while Ando would obsess over it having some deeper meaning about why Seiko secretly hates her or doesn't trust her, or feels she is "too good" for sweets- especially having an Ultimate talent that's more useful (lifesaving medicine vs yummy candy). It would make more sense why Ando resents her so much. As it is, Ando comes across near sociopathic for not only using Seiko their entire friendship and giving nothing in return, but actively resenting her for not wanting to _kill herself_ just to validate Ando's poor fee fees. All the while not being able to see how she is in the wrong. She even kills her own boyfriend, who did nothing but worship her (their entire lives it seems). She needed a single redeeming quality and they gave her nothing but negatives. I seriously don't know why anyone likes her or sees her as just a mean girl. She is a straight up villain. Edit: this occurred to me way later but why didn’t Ando just make something sugar free.

Now I'm rather curious about your thoughts on v3. It's such a polarizing entry that it's interesting to see what people latch onto and what they're willing to go along with or refuse to accept.

I’ve gotta point out how clever it is for the Devil’s Advocate to be named “Akuma” Akuma is another word for devil in Japanese, while Kuma is bear (ofc). His name is basically the Devil Bear, because he’s always playing Devil’s advocate

I can already tell this retrospective is gonna be amazing!, thanks for all your hard work Nezumi your videos bring me copious amounts of joy

You hit every possible nail on the head with this one you two. I've had bitter feelings about this anime too since it first aired six years ago (yes, I am still butthurt about something that happened in 2016) and this put everything about it into words for me, so I sincerely thank you for that. I never gave Naegi much thought in this anime but what you said about what his ending meant actually made me more infuriated. I also appreciate that this was done with still the acknowledgement of all the hard work and crunch the people who worked on this anime were under. I am nervous for how you'll cover V3 as it's personally what saved the franchise for me and has a lot of value to me, and i'll probably take a lot of what I expect you to say about it personally. ...Maayybeee I should sit the next one out.

48:22 (slams head into desk) God damn it, just because someone voices a character who antagonizes a character, doesn't mean the voice actor them self is like that. The fact that Kodaka had to apologize for that is downright ridiculous.

This retrospective series has been one of few things keeping me sane this year.. Providing me a lot of newfound love for one of my favorite series. Thank you so, SO much for all the passion you've put into these videos!!

I'm only an hour into the review,, and I just already want to say you did an excellent job with this. I'll admit, I'm slightly biased because I hold an almost comparable level of spite for DR3 as Austinado (albeit I don't think I can truly compare, heh), but this is fantastically written and assesses everything very well, bringing new issues to light that I didn't even realize before. I...I don't know how the hell they fucked this up so bad, especially since Kodaka had some involvement, and therefor some blame to take for this. But by all accounts, to me, its an atrocity, and as somebody who vehemently loves and advocates for every other entry in the series - regardless of even its worst flaws - this feels like a kick in the gut (putting it lightly) to anybody that wanted a satisfying ending to this beloved series. Godspeed you two, godspeed. And great work on this, seriously - I'd imagine it took a lot of time. (P.S. HEY KOMAEDA IT'S ME TENGAN) (P.S. 2 My favorite thing of DR3 was probably Ryota, before the ending royally fucked him over. I liked his character even if it needed a lot of help, and as an animation major myself I sort of resonated with some of his internal struggles involving his talent. My least favorite thing is basically everything else that isn't the Great Gozu, who I also think is the only non-terrible character introduced by this mistake of an anime.)

I‘m at 2:50:40 now and really like the video so far. Granted, I disagree with some stuff and I find other nitpicky at best, but I get most arguments very well. What annoys me is A-Kuma (great pun tho) that represents counter opinions, because fuck, these points made feel so pointless and useless, solely there to be easily refuted, instead of an actual reasonable counter argument. It feels either like a pat on the back of „my opinion is so great and anyone arguing against it is dumb“ or is a testiment to how bad many people in the DR community *are* at arguing… if it‘s the latter, I feel sorry, cuz god it‘s obnoxious xD

Ironically despite dr3 being my least favorite of the entries you’ve covered, this is probably my favorite of the retrospectives. Not to say any are bad I love them all but this one is a lot of fun for me unlike dr3

It's hilarious to me that near the end, when they're talking about the direction that Naegi's character should have taken - giving up hope and despair entirely and choosing to trust in himself and the people he cares about instead - it's practically identical to what Shuichi believes in by the end of V3. Wouldn't be shocked if Kodaka saw the anime and decided he was so sick of despair and hope from it to make the ending of Killing Harmony reiterate that idea

Man that was great. I sure can't wait for you to talk about V3, my favorite Danganronpa game, next time. I'm sure you have many great things to say about that one right... right?...

I never put together that Danganronpa 3 kills the black character first AND burries their gay(s). oh wow, I knew about both of these individually but hearing them back to back made me really put together how fucked that is.

i don't have time to watch the whole thing, but i really loved the portions i looked at. i remember being so hyped for the anime but it really is like, one of, if not the worst thing i've ever watched. the only thing i really disagree with is the komaeda section, though this could be because i have a more sympathetic interpretation of him. on top of the fact that he's basically lost all of his intelligence in dr3, i think him blowing up the school was actually way too *extreme* for him when these aren't under killing game circumstances. komaeda did all that shit in chapter 5 because he just found out that he and all but one of his peers were terrorists that ended the world for the sake of despair, his brain would be like a molotov cocktail. now he's just blowing shit up for stuff he wouldn't care about (and as you said, would actively encourage) in the first place??? it's made worse with the fact that his personality has just been dumbed down to smiling and commenting about the wacky hijinks his luck brings instead of actually like. what his character was actually like.

The thing about Junko that terrifies me which we see from DR2 and UDG is that she is an expert at grooming. She is basically a cult leader. She can find vulnerabilities in people and exploit them to bring them over to her side. In both the first and second games she nearly breaks everyone except for the protagonist in the final trial, and she almost succeeded in breaking Hajime. In UDG she finds abused kids and begins to groom them for her own means. We know Mikan is an abuse victim and it's implied thay everyone from DR2 has their own traumas which would make them vulnerable. Victims of abuse are more susceptible to becoming targeted by abusers again. DR3 handwaves this and makes her less scary by making her brainwashing less realistic. As for Nagito, he is ideologically a Fascist. He literally has a rant about how you're either born with success in your blood or you're worthless trash, and also a conspiracy that talentless elites are oppressing the talented. He idolizes Izuru because Izuru is the Ubermensch. On that note Hajime embodies the common man with nothing to exploit but his body. Sorry for the random class analysis, but just wait until V3 where I blame most everything wrong with the game on the IN UNIVERSE profit seeking capitalistic Team Danganronpa.

One last thing, is there a source for Megumi Ogata saying that DR3 was too gratuitous and that she didn't like them killing off the heroines? I'd love to read/hear that from my queen

As much as I dislike Nanami in danganronpa 3, specially compared to SD2, I think is not specially surprising that she was based off a real student of Hope Speak Academy. If anything, knowing Chiaki was such a mary sue amongst the students of the 77 might be the very reason why they modeled an observer AI after her. But I agree that the execution was definitely lacking.

3:21:57 "Hello? Can I please get some damn consistency in this story for once? Is that too much to ask?! The thing make even little bit sense. PLEASE?!!" I swear, you brought this video with enthusiasm and very funny, I really enjoyed it. A plus for A-Kuma personality. I managed to watch this for the same 3 hours, and most of the segments were replayed. It's true that this anime has a lot of problems, but I can still watch it when I'm stuck. Especially Tengan and Chiaki.

such fantastic and comprehensive commentary from both of you as another long time danganronpa fan whose intense disdain for dr3 has festered for many, many years😭 while i agree with a lot of your points about SDR2.5 (especially concerned the logistics of the like... trauma removal part of it???) i think the exploration of komaeda's psyche is a little more nuanced than you discussed, especially bc my interpretation of komaeda edges more on the sympathetic side (whether for better or worse💔). you said that komaeda's desire to be talentless didn't have a basis in the text, but (even though i admit it's on the obscure and dubiously canon side) it is alluded to in the lyrics of one of his character songs, the B-side of the despair arc ending theme: zansakura zanka. i'd also argue that this belief as its explored in SDR2.5 is definitely seeded in the more subconscious part of komaeda, especially since his obsession with hope, despair, talent etc is all likely greatly exacerbated by his mental illness (which was onset in the later years of his life) and obviously isn't healthy. if i could dip my toes into some character analysis, perhaps being talentless was something he used to wish for before the cruel cycle of his luck totally disillusioned him (and thus his rejection of it later in the program). anyway, apologies for the paragraph, both of your work is incredible and has really inspired me to hopefully begin some longform video essay content of my own someday❤️much love and best of luck for the future! (sorry if this posts more than once, youtube weirdness T__T)

To me I still think the whole brain washing plot device is the worse thing about danaronpa 3, not only is it a cop out but its' the worse retcon for the franchise. It destroys every interesting plot point, lore, and status the series ever had. To me it weakens Junko's character and the dynamic with her and Makoto, The Tragedy, the impact of the remnants of despair and the story badly. Every single details about the series is just shitted on because of it. And at this point its like you can forget Dangaronpa Zero, cause not only did the anime piss on it and just burnt the novel with acid because of it.

DR3 straight up ruined Ikusaba for me, like who tf made the executive decision for her to become that? Probably one of the UDG writers lmao

As someone who chose to skip this becaue I didn't have lingering questions from Danganronpa 2, I cannot state how mind blown I am that it ends with them rebuilding Hope's Peak. What?!?

I agree with a lot of the points in the video and liked it a lot, but I 100% think it’s only gonna be enjoyable for people who hate DR3. Not because of the points against it, but because of how the points for it were portrayed. You literally called him a strawman, a logical fallacy. It’s ironic that you crapped on the idea of them purposefully making the anime bad when you purposely made some of your arguments in this video bad. Those sections weren’t critiques or any sort of genuine attempt to see the other side of the issue. It just came across as you making fun of people who do like it. You outright said that you can only like DR3 of you turn your brain off but “don’t worry! I don’t think that people who like it are idiots.” I can’t help but come out of this thinking you actually do think people who like DR3 are stupid, or at best only consume media thoughtlessly. You said otherwise but everything else in the video only serves to make that disclaimer look like you trying to stop people from getting upset with you in the comments. It’s the video essayist’s version of “No offense, but…”

finally a video that convey my feelings on this show.... i've gone on for ages about every character being mistreated and im so glad theres a concise video highlighting the many MANY issues in this show. thanks so much for you and austin's hard work making this!