Please shut me up

Introduction

Kaede

Shuichi

Kokichi

Kaito

Maki

Tenko

Kiibo

Himiko

Gonta

Rantaro

Angie

Kirumi

Ryoma

Miu

Korekiyo

Tsumugi (Summary)

Despite her comments Tenko’s pure heroism and extreme empathy she shows towards everyone including the men shines through much like Kaito who deeply cares about his sidekicks and tries to protect everyone despite his flaws.

But it's crazy to call the reasoning weird or not acceptable when that's a pretty common reason for people to develop beliefs through people they spend time around the most especially if they’re isolated from other viewpoints like Tenko was.

But anyway Tenko deserves better.

Maki’s character development isn’t just Kaito Maki’s character arc is not her getting a boyfriend and the result of Maki’s character development isn’t not becoming a saint overnight.

And saying so is a hit to Maki’s character and past

Don’t hit me don’t hit me

Disclaimer this is not to say that Kaimaki sucks you can’t ship Kaimaki Kaito isn’t an important person to Maki etc This is to say putting up blinders isn’t wrong in a sense but hurts the characters involved.

But first:

Shuichi Saihara starts as unsure and anxious he knows the answer but he’s waiting for others to take the lead he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in himself and his abilities and is afraid of finding the truth and its consequences Kaede helps him along with encouraging words and trying to build him up but after she dies he’s kind of thrust into this leadership role thankfully he has Kaito on his side who also helps build up his confidence encourages him to find the truth without worrying about consequences and become a leader throughout the game now if you said Shuichi’s character development is being more confident in himself and his abilities you would be right (to an extent) but missing a core part of the story and if you go back and you look at his relationship with Kaito and Kokichi it reframes itself as Shuichi being the bridge between to two extremes learning from both taking the good and bad to form his own beliefs about truth vs lies and logic and emotion which then along with his newly found confidence and leadership is what gives him the power to end the killing game. Now you could say something like well after everything Shuichi was still scared and unsure and that doesn’t take away from his development he still grew as a person from chapter one to chapter six.

Now if you were to ask what Maki’s character arc is some might say that it’s Kaito softening Maki’s tough assassin exterior or Kaito teaching her how to love or getting a boyfriend but like saying Shuichi’s arc is just getting confidence I feel this misses a lot of Maki’s character and backstory.

To analyze Maki’s character arc you can’t start from the killing game with Kaito you have to start from the orphanage with Maki’s childhood friend.

I believe Maki’s character arc is about learning to be loved and love again in return. It starts with her childhood friend is reawakened by Kaito and is ultimately defined by her own choices.

We don’t get a lot about Maki’s childhood friend when she was alive but we know they were very close and about the same age. They had fun together wearing matching outfits baking sweets talking late into the night and playing house with the friend as the mom and Maki as the dad and Maki describes this part of her life as like a dream.

Then Maki took her friends place when the holy salvation society came because she knew the assassin life would destroy her friend and after going through all the torture she comes back and her childhood friend has died saving someone in a car crash but Maki believed her childhood friend died happy and decides to continue being an assassin being motivated by the memories of her childhood friend and to keep the orphanage funded.

And the finally point of reference we have about the child hood friend is during the love hotel (where whoever is the participant gets to live out their ideal fantasy) Shuichi plays the role of Maki’s childhood friend as they build their life together much like when they were playing house at the orphanage (yes I know the love hotels aren’t canon)

All this to say Maki’s childhood friend is someone very important to her you can’t separate the two and I believe whoever Maki would be in a future “relationship” with in the killing game her friend would still have an important place in her mind and heart. Now whether you believe Maki’s relationship with her childhood friend was platonic or something more I would say the experiences at the orphanage encapsulated Maki’s first deep connection or “love” we know there had to be something there for her to sacrifice herself for her not once but twice and for her to be the main motivator throughout her assassin journey.

But after assassin training and actual assassinations Maki was trained to be numb emotionless to not get too attached to shove her wants and her feelings deep down for the sake of getting the mission done and in the killing game we see the result of that Maki is closed off not making any attempt to get close to anyone being very stoic and cold but everything changes after her talent is revealed in chapter 2 the whole group knows she’s an assassin a person trained to kill in a game about killing Maki’s ready to close everyone off to just lock herself in her lab and wait the game out she expects everyone to be angry fearful disgusted even what she doesn’t expect is Kaito Momota.

Someone who meets her where she is someone who looks at her scars and all and just asks if she wants to train someone who just brushes off her assassin talent like it was revealed Maki doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies he trusts and he cares and he stays and it’s like a blazing wildfire burning her walls down.

And so for the first time since her childhood friend died Maki feels a semblance of that feeling in her chest again maybe less maybe different depending on her relationship with her childhood friend and Kaito platonic or romantic for either regardless Maki feels that deep connection that emotion but just like her friend of the past Maki again Maki loses Kaito (to the killing game).

(And when Maki reverts back to her assassin instincts in chapter five it’s not her being a villain or regressing it’s the result of trying to be a protector again after years of only being a weapon Maki’s arc isn’t about her hands magically becoming clean overnight it’s about choosing to lead with her heart to protect event when her hands are itching to kill.)

But unlike after the loss of her friend she doesn’t clam back up she doesn’t become emotionless her childhood friend and Kaito already taught her a valuable lesson how to be loved what that deep connection means and how to get that feeling in your chest her childhood friend was the catalyst and Kaito reinvoked the feeling and the memories after the assassin arc.

And so we see after losing Kaito after losing her childhood friend Maki builds a new path she becomes the lover the protector a title of which she already was in her past one that was just torn and scratched and broken by her years of assassin work and she uses this “new” side to give the same to Himiko and Shuichi and the three form a tight knit protective bond.

So what does all this mean Maki Harukawa is a protector she is a person who cares for others and her child caregiver talent being stripped away to reveal her assassin one isn’t just a cool twist but a cruel representation of Maki’s life Maki’s childhood friend taught her love and that she was a protector by nature and Kaito reminded her of that after her assassin work and allowed her to love and be loved again culminating in her relationship with Himiko and Shuichi.

So no Maki’s arc is not about getting a boyfriend and no I’m not saying Kaito didn’t matter to maki’s arc. Both Kaito and her childhood friend were very important figures that allowed Maki to have this arc to come full circle after her trauma and to finally reveal who she actually is who she started at as the beginning (not fully though) Maki Harukawa the ultimate protector.

Remember when I said I was an artist

Yeah me neither

…

Anyways saw this and new I had to do it with my favorite friend group aka the characters I can draw + Tsumugi (sorry)

Og under cut

And somehow that contradiction is exactly the point.

Danganronpa a game featuring fictional characters killing each other to escape is about the human experience everyone goes through regardless of who they are and what they came from living.

And who said fiction didn’t have the power to change reality.

It’s strangely poetic in a way a death game that came out 15 years ago tries to tackle the scariest and most existential topic.

What does it mean to live at all?

This one might be a bit more of a stretch than my identity one.

Setting

Let’s start with setting at first the absurdity of the main backdrop being hopes peak academy and the main focus being teenagers is odd of course you could say Hopes Peak and ultimate talents are an interesting concept by nature that sets Danganronpa apart and there’s something more traumatizing about watching kids snap and kill each other sure but there’s something else.

School you uh you probably hate/hated it but it’s a formative experience in a lot of people’s life especially highschool which is what our main characters are in.

High school what people will constantly repeat to you you can’t miss out on because it’s the best years of your life all the while you just want to die and can’t wait for it to be over so you can leave and do…. Um do… Something?

The nature of ultimate talents are interesting because while in highschool 16 year olds are constantly asked what they want to do for the rest of their life the ultimates already have that decided for them highschool is not a place to help decide but a point of finality once they exit it’s just their career they are the best of the best the future of humanity and once they exit they are going to be valuable to society.

They are all different people with different personalities and backstories yet they are all slapped with the same your name here sticker with their talent written on it and told they’re special.

Most of them being forced into their talent by birth or inconvenience and end up completely hating it but they do it anyway.

What are you going to do not have a talent that’s what most of your worth is derived from and you see how the reserve course students are treated so you endure and graduate and get out to the real world and hate it.

This talent you were forced into is nothing but a golden cage.

If you couldn’t tell I love talking about the double sided nature of talents and i will never stop talking about it but while very stylized and over exaggerated it’s familiar.

High schools churning out some students into careers they hate because what am I going to do everyone’s pressuring me to know I have to know and if I do something I like that won’t be as successful…

Talent is this “meaningless” concept in a sense though the people who come out of the elite school are praised as the future of humanity and expected to carry the future of mankind.

and in the killing game section the point is survival survival by any means necessary. (the survival in Danganronpa is coined graduation for a reason)

And when the structure of a school starts to mimic Danganronpa in which there are unquestionable rules you will get punished for not adhering to and graduation by any means necessary to come out alive as a winner it starts to become more like the game about winning or losing rather than a place of growth.

Much like the academy not the shining place of hope that builds up students on the outside but a research facility dedicated to maximizing the perceived hope of talent at any cost.

Okay so what does all this have to do with the killing game and life that leads us to our next point

The structure of the killing game (daily life )

You are trapped in a school where the only way to escape is killing and getting away with it and if you don’t kill you will eventually die just slower and probably more torturous.

It’s a situation where you could die at any moment where the people you get close to could die at anytime so the question is what’s the point?

What’s the point in getting out of bed to meet everyone in the dining hall what’s to point in letting a Kaito or Kaede pull you into the light when they could be dead tomorrow what’s the point of forming a “manly” bond a relationship romantic or not what’s the point of any of it at all?

Well because you can.

Credits roll

In all seriousness the point in the killing game is not rotting in your bed it’s taking the agency that even if you’re trapped in this impossible situation you’re going to live and love despite.

It’s the human connections that make you try even in a situation where death seems inevitable.

And that’s why daily life is given as much importance as deadly life not just to meet the characters yes the characters are awesome and amazing and really cool and I love all of them.

But because in this situation the only thing to do is to live to make bonds to form connections to love and lose and grow and love again.

“The unexamined life is not worth living” -Socrates

A life devoid of doing anything meaningful or examining one’s actions is pointless.

We are going to take a detour and talk about:

Themes

The themes of all three mainline games are the backbone of their respective story tethering everyone to a certain meaning but they also emulate this idea.

THH (hope vs despair) finding the will to move on even when the world is ending and the walls are closing in.

Sdr2 (past vs future) choosing who you want to be regardless of the mistakes and existence of your past.

V3 (truth vs lies) acknowledging that even when your life is fictional and you’re told and even made to believe it’s meaningless the emotions you felt were real and that’s what matters that’s what makes it real despite.

Hope and despair are not these ideas in the sky but forces.

Despair as this crushing dread that your classmates are all dying the world is ending and your probably going to die and hope as the will to get out of bed despite and face that feeling head on.

Of course it gets more nuanced with despair giving rise to hope and hope giving rise to despair and both being bad in too much amounts but important nonetheless.

Which leads us back to

The structure of the killing game (deadly life.)

In the killing game there are no rules when it comes to murder technically.

Yes there are rules but I mean like the we all wag our finger at murder and it’s bad to kill someone.

Without society breathing down our necks we would probably all succumb to the same pressure as these highschoolers.

But there’s a reason why the games are put into this class trial format yes to invoke more despair but to make people question morality.

Murder is encouraged and constantly being displayed.

So when someone kills it should be fine.

They are actively leaning in to the barbaric nature being developed for an appealing motive we would probably all do the same.

But it’s the strings attached if you don’t condemn them you die instead.

It actively forces you to confront the right or wrongness of the situation it if was just kill or be killed battle royale there would be no question after a certain point.

But the structured setting forces us to grapple with oh one of us killed our own it forces processing and determining motive and placing guilt rather than death move on.

Then comes the other side of that coin.

Why do we care when we point our fingers and condemn someone to death.

A murderer murdered and is getting punished.

But it’s more deep than that.

It’s staring a human in the face even if they’re fictional they look like a person so you get a sense of empathy of relatability because you can see yourself it’s a tactic used by lawyers when they’re defending a client humanize them as much as possible.

And most killers in Danganronpa aren’t evil they’re kids pushed to their limits by a motive.

But they still killed.

There’s a reason motive is gone over in a trial it’s to frame that morality is not so black and white.

Yes they killed but it’s harder to condemn someone to a worse fate when they are just like you a victim warped by the situation.

At the end of the day they’re all just kids pushed by terrible situations who cling to their talents as a semblance of identity.

Gundham and Nekomaru fighting for life instead of wasting away believing giving up on life was a mockery to the concept itself.

Peko killing because she believed her life was to complete one purpose

Mondo killing out of jealousy and deep seated insecurity.

The fact of condemning someone to death is weighing lives and the absurdity of execution isn’t just for spectacle nor to make it despair inducing for the killer but in my opinion to make you question whether that person deserved to die.

As dark as it is if a character killed someone and was just shot in the head there would be less of a damn did they really deserve that it would probably still be there but it’s the torture of it all that really tugs at your heart strings .

It’s crazy but a death game wants you the grapple with your morality shining symbols of hope forced into shells of themselves when faced with their past their insecurities or greed but at end of the day they’re still human. just kids.

And the value of a life. When talking about killing and condemning this obviously comes up and Danganronpa does something weird it doesn’t really answer yes or no to whether lives have different values.

The mastermind argues that life can be weighed forcing the characters to kill each other.

The fourth trial in all the games grappling with the idea of the willingness to sacrifice one life for many.

While hope argues that life can’t be measured and that all people’s lives are equal regardless of the despair surrounding them.

Makoto arguing the remnants deserved a change to rehabilitate even after their crimes against humanity.

Instead it asserts that someone’s life is defined by connections and the future one chooses not talent or utility.

Hajime’s life is not determined by whether he has all talent or no talent but the choice he made at the end of the killing game to accept his existence as both and face and uncertain future rather than maintaining in the past and succumbing to despair.

And Shuichi’s life is not defined by his existence as a fictional character but the bonds he made over the course of the game and the emotions he and the other survivors felt.

Is it over?

So in conclusion Danganronpa for all its killings execution and death game plot points is actually about life itself.

Which makes sense when you consider its legacy of course pieces of media can just give people brain worms and latch on to them and never let go.

But Danganronpa is a franchise that can grow up with you in a sense.

As a player around the same age as the characters you may agree with the satire on the education system and as an older fan you may resonate with the existential themes and critique of media and fan culture as a whole.

Or it’s just the characters and I’m insane.

Regardless Danganronpa is a story with something to important to tell and while some may argue it’s hidden under the more questionable inclusions it’s still there waiting to give you existential dread and question your existence for years to come.

So whether you’re trapped in a killing game or sitting at home staring at your phone just live because there’s air in your lungs because you woke up another day because you’re here make connections and feel things and love and lose and grieve and then do it all over again not because there’s a big reason waiting for you.

For the same reason as in the killing games

Because the fact we can.

And that’s what Danganronpa is trying to say.

Like someone’s like hey guys I did a tier list on what type of cheese the v3 cast would like

And you’re like that’s weird but then you look at it.

And you’re like you know what yeah I fucking agree with that.

Kokichi would unironically love spray cheese

Himiko would like string cheese

Introduction

Third cases in Danganronpa have a bit of a reputation in a bad way so much so a phrase has been coined to describe it third case syndrome where the other chapters can be great, but something just happens to that darn third chapter and ruins it for everyone.

Now I bring up third cases and chapters in general for a reason for I would say most to all of my time as a member of this fandom I have claimed to love The Transfer Student from Beyond the Grave now I’ve realized I don’t love it as much as I believed so I wanted to do a full essay on chapter three again for a long time using my new beliefs.

Danganronpa V3 in my opinion is a heartbreaking case study about what happens when a chapter has such good ideas but doesn’t have a true thematic focus so instead of complimenting each other the ideas trample over one another chapter three isn’t an example of poor individual ideas but rather bloat and lack of focus which just caused its best ideas to be hindered and buried rather than shine. Of course, the ideas I present in this argument won’t one hundred percent save the chapter and make it this amazing ten out of ten masterpiece, nor do I think that my ideas are the best good or achievable so take what I say with a grain of salt.

This is not to prove that the writers are dumb or that everyone who is pounding this chapter into the dirt is right or even that the chapter is perfect and without flaws but rather to prove the chapter had so much potential that wasn’t realized analyzing it through a lens of what could have been not complaining about what happened.

So this is:

Why The Transfer Student from Beyond the Grave had really really good potential and all the pieces to make a great chapter focused on rich character arcs grief and morality or belief and religion and could have been cool and interesting but lacked thematic focus (and instead ended up being known for memes.)

Obligatory secondary antagonist appreciation post.

I think Angie Yonaga should have had more of a role or at least a better role as a secondary antagonist in V3.

In Danganronpa I believe antagonists are often the foils to the protags Byakuya highlights Makoto’s kindness and humility by being arrogant and dismissive Both Hajime and Nagito are obsessed with Hopes Peak and talents but Nagito takes it to the next extreme highlighting Hajime’s insecurities and talentless self by showing a dark twisted version of what happens when someone values talent over humanity.

When Kaede was the protagonist Kokichi was the antagonist which made sense he was one of the people to oppose her toxic optimism and stubbornness that was hurting the group especially in the death road of despair and he definitely acted as an antithesis to her and her beliefs.

But when we get to Shuichi this pattern recieves a twist as Shuichi’s antagonist wouldn’t just be someone that highlights his strengths and flaws but also challenges his personal approach to truth itself as Shuichi’s arc is about developing his own understanding of truth vs lies.

Kokichi is obvious in this regard: he represents lies and believes lies are better than the truth because they can lead you to the true answer. He also weaponizes truth to dismantle the game itself.

However Angie is also a candidate as she is religious in a sense which commonly conflicts with the empirical truth Shuichi believes in at the beginning of the game rather than the subjective and dependent on context truth he develops at the end that’s especially important during the 6th trial. And she also uses truth to replace people’s reality with her divine order.

They are both on the opposite sides of the spectrum with Shuichi in the middle.

And this stays the same whether you believe Angie is a true prophet or an expert manipulator.

Kokichi acts like a major antagonist to not only both the two protags but also the group while Angie is the lesser focused on secondary antagonist. (To Shuichi specifically I think Maki would be the secondary antagonist to Kaede)

And she’s very similar to Kokichi in both role and character and I’m going to cheat and use my analysis comparing and contrasting the v3 cast here:

Both characters function as antagonists, using manipulation and deceit to further their goals.

They both want to stop the killing game even though their methods are questionable.

They are both cunning and intelligent, using logic over emotion.

They both have deceptive personas. Angie is acting seemingly innocent, while Kokichi has his villainous façade.

Both characters find themselves at odds with their classmates being perceived as weird or threats.

They are both leaders in some sense, Angie with the student council and Kokichi with Dice.

Finally both resort to extreme measures to achieve their goals.

But the thing I think is interesting about Angie is while she has strong beliefs like Kaito’s in his friends unlike Kaito she’s still a logic first thinker using her beliefs to manipulate and deceive so that she can lead the group instead of Kaito who uses it to not condemn his classmates to certain death.

And because of this mix Angie’s arc in chapter three while small was very dangerous.

She blocked off the manhole and destroyed the flashback lights which you can argue were ultimately traps so it was a good thing however this also blocked off the other students ways of discovering another truth.

She targeted the students that were outcasts or had insecurities bringing them into Atua’s protection effectively “brainwashing” them.

By making all decisions come from Atua (herself) it removed the members of the council’s need to think for themselves shown in extreme cases like Himiko.

And the student council ultimately made a us vs them mentality that further isolated and divided the group rather than unifying them.

This highlights how Angie’s control actively limits critically thinking making her role thematically significant.

Not searching for or recognizing truth because you believe there is only one source is particularly dangerous in a killing game especially in the structure Danganronpa relies on.

And while I do like chapter three I do think they could have done so many cool things.

The three people who died all had strong beliefs or faiths in something there was heavy religious subtext all the way through and it fits perfectly into the main theme of truth vs lies.

But that’s not what I’m talking about today.

I will constantly talk about this but I wish more people played a bigger role in this plot so the cult’s arc wouldn’t just be it was created Angie died it ended

Three people specifically:

Maki- because her past with the Holy Salvation Society and experience in what Angie is recreating in the killing game— a life where identity and personal thought is erased for divine purpose.

Kokichi- because of his beliefs that truth comes from lies doubt and questioning and that blind belief leads to complacency directly clashes with Angie’s student council inhibiting doubt and individual freedom.

Shuichi- because the type of truth he peruses at this point in the game exposes Angie’s words as subjective but could also easily lead to more conflict instead of breaking her social control over the group leading to Shuichi having to use/ learn a different approach.

And this isn’t to say they don’t play a role within the cult arc we almost get something in a favorite interaction of mine when maki Shuichi and Tenko talk in chapter three showing the potential of what could have been dynamic wise and teaming up against the council.

So just in one arc alone Angie could act as an antagonistic force to three of the main characters one of whom is the game’s main antagonist.

She bends the themes using her lens of divine truth which would allow Shuichi to develop new beliefs such as the weight between doubt and certainty the idea that subjective truth can be real and that lies can sometimes lead to good outcomes.

People oftentimes talk about the dynamic between Kaito Kokichi and Shuichi:

Shuichi’s support character and friend Kaito who means well but whose strong beliefs hurt the group.

Meanwhile Shuichi’s antagonist Kokichi seems to be trying to harm the group but his beliefs are ultimately good in some sense.

Shuichi having to learning from them both using their good and bad to form his own beliefs.

But it would be interesting to have to antagonists be in that dynamic where Shuichi potentially has to work with the enemy to take down the bigger enemy.

And if she had a bigger role as an antagonist like Kokichi she could have acted as an obstacle Shuichi has to overcome on his journey to create his understanding of truth and lies and to accomplish Kaede’s wish instead of a short arc that left us wanting more.

German philosopher Nietzsche argued "convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

Someone who believes they are right and believes they have a good reason to change others is more dangerous than a liar as they are unswayed by evidence and feel justified in their actions

They don’t just form a false reality but actively destroy the mechanisms needed for recognizing the truth such as critical inquiry doubt and evidence based reasoning. The opposite of this being skepticism which is necessary to find the truth.

So we go back to our spectrum Angie and Kokichi at complete opposite ends despite ultimately having the same goal while Shuichi’s stuck in the middle not wanting to lean too far in either way.

So I guess in that sense Angie isn’t really a secondary antagonist at all more better described as complementary being not only an antagonist to Shuichi but a foil to Kokichi together the two of them being two sides of the same coin for Shuichi Angie showing the danger of truth as control and Kokichi showing the power of lies as a tool for liberation.

Some people genuinely believe that if Tenko were a guy everyone would hate him and the entire franchise would be hated too.

Why? Because he’d be a misogynist.

Which is crazy coming from this fandom.

But these people were saying Kodaka would have to make Komahina canon to keep the fandom that male Tenko would threaten to beat up women that no one would like him and that Tenko fans only like her antics because she’s a woman and she’s pretty.

To which I say: yes.

She is pretty.

But that’s not why I love Tenko.

Nevertheless at the end of the day this is about more than a hypothetical male Tenko.

This argument while not only being a terrible point of criticism that makes no sense also ironically says more about how fandom treats characters than about Tenko herself

So this is I don’t get the if Tenko was a guy everyone would hate him because he wouldn’t hate women argument— one year later.

First addressing the obvious point.

This argument doesn’t come from a place of insight (I think that’s obvious).

But to fully understand why I don’t like it we have to look at how this argument is normally used.

Typically this is used when there is a female character who does something wrong I.e sexual harassment of a male character but the fans brush it off or even encourage it and a critic will say well if the roles were switched you guys would hate it in order to make the fans confront their hypocrisy and bias/ favoritism towards said female character.

In contrast this argument against Tenko was probably just made to make people confront that one trait about Tenko in a different more inflammatory lens to make you say oh no I do actually hate that and it only makes sense if you believe man hating is Tenko’s only trait.

And saying it in the first place is the same thing as me saying oh you guys only like Kaito because of his bromance with Shuichi and his implied ship with Maki so if he was a girl everyone would hate her or you only like Kokichi because you guys think he’s hot and like the yaoi ship with Shuichi so if he was a girl you guys would hate her.

Obviously I don’t believe that and saying that just boils down these characters to something that doesn’t define their personality and says the fans of those characters only like them for a thing they would lose if they were the opposite sex.

But this argument isn’t used with Kaito and Kokichi and when people gender-bend the two they just transfer major traits over instead of swapping them based on gender and this could be due to the fact that Kaito and Kokichi are well understood as more complex characters within the fandom but it could also be due to the fact fans don’t want to confront that what if and of course this isn’t all fans just ones choosing to ignore certain things.

But let’s pretend for a second their idealized gender-bend of Tenko exists.

Hypothetically If male Tenko was a misogynist (which I guess isn’t fair because Tenko isn’t a misandrist but I have to keep their argument to prove my point so we’re just going to say he has traditional or outdated views but isn’t a misogynist) and was treated with the same nuance as the rest of the v3 cast ex. we adapted Tenko’s original backstory so that it still said something plausible mixing word of mouth with lived experience just twisted to fit the scenario then we still gave him a semblance of Tenko’s original likable personality I don’t think he wouldn’t be hated by the whole fandom.

(You may say well that’s cheating they said explicitly he would be a misogynist yes but the way they were portraying him a guy who threatens to beat up women and hates women no/ not many characters are really ever just a terrible person who does terrible things without some nuance so I don’t think there would ever be just someone spewing misogyny without something else balancing it and I’m making him closer to how Tenko is in game not necessarily their OC.)

Just take a look at Kokichi and Kaito.

Kaito says stuff that could be construed as sexist or more harmful than good for his sidekicks and people will still love him sometimes painting over ignoring or denying his words and actions that point to this while magnifying Tenko’s ignoring the parts of her character that are good interesting and very similar to Kaito in both flaws and strengths.

Kokichi is kind of a jerk and he committed several bad or morally wrong acts during the game still some people will claim that Kokichi did nothing wrong because of his ultimate goal and reframe all his actions in a positive light while ripping apart Maki’s poor choices leaving no room for nuance then say maki’s worse because she got no punishment from the other characters when the biggest punishment comes from her consequences and her biggest criticisms stem internally.

This isn’t to say these characters aren’t good and it’s not the fact they committed these acts more or less that their counterparts are more commonly condemned by the fandom or the same people.

I believe based on the fandom’s tendency to forgive male flaws and give them more grace than the female characters if Tenko as a guy was this white night/ benevolent sexist/ hyper responsive traditionalist he might not actually be as hated nor receive the overwhelming criticism and scrutiny the original Tenko receives of course he would have some people who wouldn’t like him but I don’t think the whole fandom would hate him some people even liking him.

Of course this cannot be proven and could very well be wrong but it’s ironic that the Tenko they created as a parallel that Tenko’s “hatred” of men was annoying bad and a reason we should hate her could very well be a tell of the fandoms double standards.

And you could say they were in some ways aware of this some people saying that they might like this Tenko more than the original and found this concept funny.

So while I believe their argument makes no sense and is a bad point of contention I ultimately believe that it’s a useful lens to see how we treat characters differently depending on their gender.

So in conclusion this argument not only:

Doesn’t make sense

Is a terrible point of criticism

Says more about the people who believe this rather than Tenko and her fans

But is also probably wrong

And ultimately if Tenko was a guy he would transition to be a woman (joke not really tho)

Bonus recreation of the fanart.

There’s the you before the game the you that you barely remember that hangs onto you by a thread and that only truly exists in an audition tape a you that you don’t connect with anymore a you that feels like a different person a you that decided to sign your life away for whatever reason a completely different life that you can’t associate anymore people you don’t know places you don’t remember

And then there’s the you in the killing game the fictional character for all you know if Tsumugi was fully telling the truth is completely written everything about you your past your family your personality your connections even the way you look possibly all fake.

Yet you remember your persona in the killing game like it’s your real identity you can recall it better than your past self the real you the person you were before the killing game.

As some people cling to the memories and facts in the killing game as a sense of comfort something similar something concrete despite the fact that it’s fiction clutching at straws for identity for meaning.

But your not the person you were before the killing game nor the person you were in it you’re some amalgamation of both and neither at the same time.

A completely different person entirely built from barely stitched together memories traumas and personality traits

Either trying to hold onto who you used to be or trying to distance yourself from them completely-the pre game you or the in game you.

But neither one fits anymore.

Because that person no longer exists.

And by toxic affection I mean unhealthy coping through intimacy.

Give me two characters going at it to try to feel something again.

Give me sloppy desperate kisses because for a moment they pretend the person they used to love is in front of them; mouths clinging to memory instead of reality.

Give me them dating the person they liked in the killing game because it tethers them to your past self even though they’re different people and the relationship just hurts them both more than helps but neither wants to admit it.

Give me shared I love yous because that’s just what you say right?

And the question is also posed do we want those rewrites

I know a v3 rewrite probably isn’t coming but I’m not sure if I would want it anyway don’t get me wrong I love the v3 cast and I’m not one of those people like put this game I love to rest before it gets tainted anymore but I just wouldn’t want a rewrite maybe I’ll change my mind once 2x2 comes out but as a person who loves the v3 cast and has a terrible memory but can recite facts and lines off the top of my head I just want more content with these characters like v3 was definitely handed the short end of the stick on content and I don’t know…

Of course a rewrite would be nice I mean we’ll probably get the Kaede protagonist Maki and Kokichi antagonists and Tenko and Kaito supports where Kaede represents the line between the two groups and we get to see more of her toxic traits seep through her leadership and taint the whole group but it just feels weird I mean we’ll all know sdr2 was picked because it’s the fan favorite by a landslide and it’s the mostly likely to do the least amount of harm to the timeline and if needed to easily be slid in to the already existing universe and realistically if we say v3 is its own timeline it won’t do anything unless we’re establishing a whole new storyline line separate from the hopes peak saga into its own series (which I think would be cool)

If we put all that aside and assume a v3 is in the works they just announced it I don’t know if I would want it if you asked me when I had just got into the fandom I would have said yes hell if you asked me when 2x2 was just announced I would have said yes but now I’ve been thinking about it too much and I just want what’s best for the characters.

People already hate and misunderstand the v3 cast so much and I think adding more nuance on top isn’t going to help.

And I know I say what’s best for the characters like the characters themselves are adults now and they have the put back on their old uniforms and do the game again with fake smiles on their faces but I’m conflicted because on one hand I think they could do so many cool things but on the other hand my perception is skewed by fanfics and what makes those so good isn’t just oh this motive is sick this execution is sick it’s dynamics and characterization but they have the ability to explore that better.

I will reiterate that I fucking love the v3 cast I’m probably overthinking this and no one else is racking their heads over this and if a rewrite is the only choice to see the characters again then I’ll take it I’m not saying ban it it can’t happen I’m fine with it but I would kill for just full one character info and dynamics and I know the killing game if the pressure cooker to get that out so I don’t know why I’m so conflicted

Maybe I’m just a stupid nerd who just wants a series (as in one thing multiple parts) of just the v3 cast hanging out cause no matter what anyone says about their dynamics sucking I think without the killing game they would be the bestest of friends and is learning more about the characters as people but that’s just me and that’s just what I care about out of the V3 at this point in my hyper fixation.

Is that selfish? Maybe I know that’s not how most people engage with franchise and the killing game is the main thing but idk man that’s how I engage and that’s what important to me right now.

It’s really not about the rewrite at all it’s even if the v3 story could keep going (which it could) and it’s like everyone wants it after 2x2 I just don’t want other stuff to distract from the cast.

Which is fucking stupid to say because I know a main part of the Danganronpa killing game is the characters so either way they’re going to be focused on and it brings out the worst in everyone and forces them to connect and brings out those interesting traits and personalities and this is probably just me being an idiot and a downer but part of me just wants more content of the characters another part wants a rewrite and the other part wants a v3 series focusing on the outside world shown in the ending and they’re all fighting for dominance and none are winning at the moment

And it’s so frustrating. Cause I feel like I’m wrong not in an objective sense but like I don’t know how to get what I want and my stupid idea isn’t the right way.

A take that is common among people who dislike the V3 ending is that they don’t like what it says about them as players they say that they’ve been in the fandom from the very beginning engaged with all the content only to have Kodaka spit in their faces and tell them they’re sadists who only want to see violence and death but is that true.

I don’t think so.

I believe the V3 ending is a critique of the entertainment culture a look into the audience as enablers a look into the power of fiction for both sides a question what truly is entertainment and ultimately a plead for the audience to ponder their relationship with media.

V3 is a commentary on what happens when franchises are stretched to their limit absurd plot exaggerated characters shock for the sake of shock not because there’s something new to say or a new story to tell but because the audience will keep watching as long as there’s more content.

Crazy plot lines character arcs and twists that make no sense except to add shock value.

Choosing not to let a franchise go in some cases is an active decision choosing profit over thematic integrity and love for the craft a shift to money over meaning we see this a lot now with big corporations such as Disney which started as an animation studio focused on the magic of creation and telling innovative heart felt stories to pumping out soulless remakes and allowing people to use ai to create content on Disney +.

V3 however does also acknowledge the viewers role in this mass consumption of these franchises especially when they have wearing beloved franchises thin or straying away from their original meaning only enables them to keep mass producing more content.

This responsibility between fan and creator is shared.

the ending explicitly shows that when the viewers listen to Shuichi and stop watching Team DR looses their power and the game ends this is not a story about condemning the audience it’s about exposing a feedback loop between creator and consumer.

Kodaka isn’t berating the viewer he’s asking a much more uncomfortable question.

Because even though not to the same extent as the audience we still engage with suffering as entertainment we still crave for more we love tension we love despair arcs and even when we’re critical we still have love for the series and V3 asks us to pause and consider something deeper:

Why is suffering even fictional entertainment?

Characters like Maki Tenko and Shuichi aren’t real but the emotions they experience grief desperation fear are fiction packages pain into something consumable that makes us feel deeply while still creating distance and that distance creates safety and that safety is what causes the suffering to be entertainment rather than questioned and confronted.

V3 isn’t saying this makes us bad people or sadists it’s just pointing it out as a structural feature of entertainment.

Conflict drives narrative stakes keep us watching despair makes hope feel earned we’re not evil for liking the suffering of characters we love seeing our favorite characters suffer because it makes their stories deeper, more emotional, and more relatable. Their pain makes them feel more real, their growth makes them more compelling, and their happiness—when they finally get it—feels earned.

We engage with suffering from a place of love.

But V3 asks what happened when that dynamic gets pushed too far what happens when escalation replaces intent and when suffering stops serving the story and instead serves consumption.

This is where Shuichi and Tsumugi come in two sides of the same coin.

Shuichi uses fiction to break away from reality regain his humanity and end the killing game while tsumugi uses fiction to escape from her boring reality and life and this obbession has become so bad she sees danganronpa as an extension of herself.

That’s the real meaning.

Kodaka is not calling his viewers evil for liking the games or saying they’re like the audience now it’s a caution against using escapism so much that it leads to self erasure and emotional numbness and consuming anything as long as it distracts us and stops the bad thoughts in our head even for a moment.

Shuichi doesn’t reject fiction he actually uses it to end the game he rejects this system the endless continuation the exploitation of suffering the refusal to let a story end.

And that’s the question v3 leaves us with.

Not whether we’re like the audience in the game but what we want from the pieces of media we love and if we’re willing to let them end when and maybe before meaning is replaced with consumption.

Pt. 2: Execution, Ambition, and Balance

Now this isn’t to say that everything in V3 is obvious on first watch or that casual fans should immediately pick up on all of this I don’t fault anyone for that but I do want to play devil’s advocate a bit and not just treat this analysis like the V3 ending is brilliant and if you hate it you’re stupid and wrong.

V3 works as a show that’s been going on too long they can’t just say V3 is one and expect you to suspend disbelief without anything feeling weird or odd but that same idea is also what makes some people feel its quality is hindered in universe V3 isn’t supposed to be “high quality” It’s just more Danganronpa serotonin in the real world though we still hold Danganronpa to a certain standard.

Digging deeper Kodaka and his team do a decent job of balancing this the plot is absurdist but we can suspend our disbelief enough to follow it the characters might seem like repeated archetypes with one-liners but there’s more depth there than it first appears.

The issue stems from over ambition and v3 trying to play both sides at once.

On the ambitious side I think the idea of the v3 outside world is interesting a society that craves for stimulation so much they have to get it out of watching teenagers kill each other on tv and if they did sign up what compelled these teenagers to throw their lives away and if they were kidnapped there had to be something special about them and the idea of v3 survivors having to carve out their little safe haven in this world that foamed at the mouth at the sight of their and their friend’s suffering knowing they aren’t the same people before or during the killing game.

But it’s hard to implement in the last few hours along with the other bombshells dropped and I think there definitely could have been an alternative universe where it’s hopes peak arc then new separate storyline of (v3 —> v2 —> epilogue of v3). Or at least if there was a continuation after V3 that’s what I would have wanted.

V3 is trying to do two things at once: act as an in universe reality show and as a game for us the real-world audience it’s not just the fact that V3 is a reality show criticizing the practice that’s been done before it’s the fact V3 keeps trying to balance both and that balance isn’t always smooth.

Infodumping the whole series lore and how we got to 53 games makes sense for us but the fans already know this they’re apart of it right now but at the same time dumping the lore about how the characters and their friends are fictional makes sense for the in game audience breaking down the characters moral to get them to continue the games running but it’s weird for us.

Tsumugi cheating the game to keep it going is interesting for the game but weird for the tv show.

An ending with the previous casts coming back to tell the v3 cast that they’re fictional and nothing they went through matters is an amazing call back for the outside audience but just seems like they’re dangling characters we know in front of our face in the real world (and you know trying to prove that they’re fictional because Tsumugi can cosplay them but I digress.)

Some people like the idea that the ending might have been better if the connections they made in the game their friends try to convince them to stay in the game with them/ just manipulate them (the outside world cold harsh friends warm and soft.) but that would probably make less sense for the reality tv show and crazy fans aspect of it.

I would add stuff like Kokichi and Kaito going against the script but still being int the script but I don’t believe Tsumugi was telling the truth about writing absolutely everything herself.

Which is also why I think fan-fictions of the ending are better because they either balance this better or don’t try to balance this at all.