#Goodbye despair

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

You've woken up inside of Danganronpa, you have received a letter inviting you to Hope's Peak, find out what talent you were scouted for from the canon talents, you will be expected to perform this talent on a regular basis from now on, and even if you attempt to avoid it, your life will naturally gravitate towards on some level

[etchif]

usami!

[chxrrie-bxmb]

my favorite genre of post-game komahina is hajime being borderline unhealthily obsessed with nagitos health and trying to make sure he doesnt suffer and/or die in the next sixth months meanwhile nagito watches from the sidelines thinking "he could be doing so many better things with his time... but he wont listen to me... sigh"

[trilliumszz]

I'm gonna homicide him

Time: 5h 46m

Made in Procreate

Reference^

[adam-trademark]

Double Goodbye

(September 11, 2019)

[aeymii]

She was BRUTAL 🗣️🗣️

[adzowski]

A more recent Danganronpa fanart ~

[barack-fa]

they're so embarrassing

[plum-pudding-everywhere]

more pinterest shirts <3 with hinata because i like him a normal amount

[edgy-senju]

It's hard to be Izuru Kamukura

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

Nagito gets to spend his birthday with the two most important things in his life 🥰

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Got a tag on my post about how Makoto becoming principal in dr3 is in character that argues that while it is in character, it’s not in character for the themes of the franchise as a whole and is a rather surface read of the ideas. This rubs me the wrong way as first of all Kodaka was involved, he was the supervisor of the project, Makoto becoming principal would have fallen under his decision. As well as the fact it carries onto v3 so dismissing it as a failure to understand the themes is just incorrect. Kodaka knows his themes for his own series.

Danganronpa always has had a theme of circular violence, trauma repeats when one doesn’t take the time to truly heal for it. Whether it be Mondo killing Chihiro, the Warriors of Hope’s everything, the constant use of amnesia as a plot point, the final chapter twist of v3. The circular nature of unhealed trauma and despair is very much a theme. Not repeating cycles is something portrayed as not easy and taking a lot of strength even back in the first game, it’s not easy to end the killing game, to finally truly bow away from the game and it’s sadism and find a new path.

The recreation of Hope’s Peak falls fully in line with the themes of abuse, manipulation, and dependency around Hope’s Peak we see time and time again in the story, the fact that it isn’t so easily stamped out, was always present. Future Foundation’s focus on talent is even shown in goodbye despair emails we see and how they treated the remnants before they realized they were remnants. The lack of respect for Makoto is also shown in said emails. Nothing about future foundation we really learn in dr3 goes against this.

If anything Hope’s Peak staying gone would have been a bigger betrayal of the themes of how structural injustice is a constant problem. See everything about Ishimaru’s FTEs and his hatred of the word genius and the idea of talent. While some of Hope’s Peaks actions get criticized, the characters struggle to see the full picture of the school itself being an issue because everyone trusted and loved the school.

Things get shoved onto Junko, or dismissed as a personal issue of one group or person and not an inborn issue because Hope’s Peak has always kept at least the image of perfection and privilege to the world, and after another killing game, where he almost lost Kirigiri, almost killed himself, and had to witness nearly everyone else in future foundation die, raw and guilty snd unhealed, it makes full sense for the themes of the story that he gravitates back towards Hope’s Peak, the source of it all, and rebuilds it, starting the cycle up again because he was never allowed to heal from it and thus familiar and stable.

In DR3 we learn fully well just how unhealed Makoto is, he’s a very haunted person constantly being pushed to extremes for survival and constantly as all times being reminded of how he’s supposed to be the Hope. Him recreating the school of his trauma is extremely in line with how the circular violence is shown to us. Especially if we take in v3s story and show how it resulted in yet another killing game farther down the line, with Makoto being placed in the same position Jin was in the videos, asking his students to leave everyone and everything they ever knew forever for the chance of survival and hope for everyone through the arc, with them too going through the same kind of memory erasure as Makoto did when they find out it was never that simple and death was already inside. I am aware the it’s all fiction makes this kinda confusing but I’m focusing more on the story tsumugi was telling before it fully broke down and how it relates into danganronpa’s themes

Makoto’s optimism is a point of contrast to the darkness that both shows why he could become Hope but why he also fails to grasp how fucked up everything was from the start. It’s to be taken side by side with the truth of the school from the audience, purposeful contrast, not a denial of the darkness. He is the innocent bystander, the fool card, he simply does not see, and in turn, cannot call out what is hiding in plain sight

Dr3 just has more focus on Hope’s Peak to the audience. The cruelty of the system and the fact Makoto rebuilds it are taken side by side in DR3, but whenever Makoto is in scenes or Hope’s Peak, he’s sheltered, his eyes turned away from the darkness. Even when others attempt to force him to see, his luck or someone else swoops in to protect him from it. Makoto is actively protected by the plot from being allowed to see the themes of cruelty and hate that permeates the system. He is very much kept purposefully blind by the story, because his thematic role is as an embodiment of Hope’s Peak, not an opponent of it.

He’s the golden boy, the shining example, the propaganda piece. His role in the narrative is to not challenge Hope’s Peak, but be the representative of everything Hope’s Peak is supposed to be but never really is. He is the onlooker who sees the gold and sparkle and shine and doesn’t see the bodies behind the curtain, the average joe success story of the lucky draw. He is what’s good about the system, because there is some good in it. The talent system can uplift those in poverty, it can give resources and respect to those who genuinely can use those to do good in the world. Everything good about the talent system is reflected in Makoto to some degree. He uplifts, he gives resources, he protects, he speaks of a better world, he wants to use talent and hope as a force to give people strength and something they can stabilize on /rally around. Makoto is the good of Hope’s Peak.

Makoto recreating the school was practically destined to happen for Makoto with how heavily his Hope talent gets tied up in the school. Makoto never has a reason to question Talent outside of thinking Luck is kinda lame, he has no reason to not try and bring Hope back through what he sees as the symbol of hope.

While Izuru talks to Komaeda about how he was taught and the audience learns that, it’s not information Makoto gets, I’m pretty sure Makoto doesn’t even know the extent of Izuru’s everything until Junko tells him. Makoto simply is in too privileged a position with an inability to be allowed to process his trauma healthily or seek outside voices to his echo chamber, something likely intentional to the themes of the corruption of the idea of Hope, Makoto is pretty intentionally never ever put into a position where he rejects Hope’s Peak or is allowed to actually examine what Hope means because people keep trying to use or kill him, often at the same time.

It’s thematic irony, not a failure to understand the themes. Hope’s Peak cannot be uprooted by someone who was kept away from its darkness. Makoto drinks the kool aid too hard to be the destruction of talent. To him, it simply is how the world works, and he never has a reason to doubt that. Again, how he interacts with Ishimaru in his FTEs. Especially with how Makoto’s response to insecurity and trauma is deeply avoidant, looking Hope’s Peak in the eye and calling it out for what it’s done simply isn’t in his nature. If he has a problem, he will simply throw himself into a project to not think about it.

Makoto and his group of survivors never could have been the ones to challenge Hope’s Peak, too ingrained, too benefited by the status quo, too martyred and traumatized, too sheltered from the darkness, too lacking perspective and options, too deep to question if talent is truly an inherent thing. It would break the story if someone like Togami suddenly was like “actually talent bad.” It’s just not a group built for that part of the story

Calling out an ingrained structural issue with society is very very different then calling out a blackened in a class trial. As one takes deep contemplation and reflection to understand how you and everyone around you is subtly impacted and influenced, the other is a situation where you can ignore yourself and throw yourself into it without letting yourself remember the stakes.

Shuichi was a much better fit for rejecting hopes peak by the end of v3. He was someone burned by his talent so heavily, who seemed to genuinely view his talent as making his life worse. Who watched as talent was never fully a positive thing for anyone around him. Like just Maki’s existence with such a fucked up talent of forced cult assassin makes his group be prime to point out the flaws of the system and reject it. Shuichi was never sheltered, even when he really should have been. Shuichi was primed to see nothing but the darkness destroying him, with his character arc being about finding his ability to still keep moving despite that darkness and fight against the idea that the darkness was his fault or inherent, and instead fight for the right for no one to ever go through it again.

[kidcosky]

It's already April 28th in Japan!

Happy birthday Komaeda Nagito!!

Art made by Akeri, the artist of Komaeda's manga.

[mousec1ub]

goodbye, despair ☁️

[adam-trademark]

Enter Nagito Komaeda

(September 6, 2019)