#and i played udg dubbed so

[aparticularbandit]

...in the Japanese, are the Warriors of Hope just referring to Junko as Junko Oneesan (or Oneechan)?

And that's why it gets translated as Big Sis Junko?

[eggs-can-draw]

tell me more about the izuru kokichi family au im so curious about it !!

hee hee hah hah tee-hee this got a bit long whoopsie. listen to Never Love An Anchor by the crane wives for full effect.

OK GAMER BEFORE I GET INTO THIS CAN OF WORMS I GOTTA ESTABLISH SOMETHING. This takes place in a larger au that I usually either call "The AU" or in select cases, "The Naegamigiri Au". The concept is pretty simple (v3 kids are the kids of the thh survivors and sdr2 cast) but I ended up playing with a few elements as well. (like v3 plot integration) The big important detail for Kokichi and Kamukura: The tragedy (specifically the gap of time between udg and sdr2) is longer by a few years. This is because of one simple single thing. A little guy. Kokichi. BACKSTORY through a convoluted course of events that are honestly as Up To Interpretation as I'm legally allowed, Kamukura and the trans woman of all time (and cowgirl), lovingly dubbed Kokichi MoM (who only exists because I wanted her to be a mysterious 3rd party entity, who she is is completely up to interpretation but the cowgirl part is important) did that thing consenting adults do and suddenly Kamukura has a child. So it's the lovely dynamic of "oh god I actually have something I CARE about can I really go through with this" and "hi I am five years old". Kid who has spent his entire life on the run and loves his dad very very much. He believes its selfish because he loves kokichi but doesn't really understand that he loves kokichi, so he sees his own attachment as irrational and therefore bad for both himself and Kokichi. Every childcare talent he has is telling him he can't provide a good life for this kid in their current situation but despite that he stalls because fuck he loves this kid he wants to keep this kid. He's so conflicted but decides maybe fixing the lobotomy could put this kid in better hands. and then we have hajime who has only been out of the nwp for maybe a week or two and suddenly there's a child on his doorstep who is supposedly his. (but a part of him already knew that) so yeah. it makes me a little insane.

[tobiasdrake]

Alright, I'm gonna whine about DR3 some more.

I've complained a lot about Danganronpa 3 having red blood. Like. I realize that it's a pretty minor thing to be upset about. Big deal, the blood is correctly colored.

But the red blood is a microcosm of a larger problem, which is that DR3's Final Killing Game is creatively uninspired. That comes through in a lot of ways, but one of them is its visual aesthetic. Danganronpa is a series where even walking through a sewer looks like this.

It's so pretty!

Danganronpa has a unique aesthetic, dubbed "psychopop" by series creator Kazutaka Kodaka. It's gruesome, macabre, and gritty... but with a splash of color and fun! This is the whole reason why the blood is pink; It's often mistakenly credited as an attempt to get past censorship, but it's not. It's like that by choice.

The blood is pink so that when you find a body, it looks like this.

This is psychopop. The juxtaposition of gruesome and macabre but also pretty and fun.

Danganronpa 3's Future Arc has some fun character designs. But it doesn't have the imagery. The psychopop is missing.

Now, that's obviously a deliberate choice. As much as I hate the way Despair Arc handles the whole concept of "Real Chiaki", they still went all-out with the psychopop in Despair Arc.

Its exclusion from Future Arc isn't an accident. It's a choice, made on purpose. Why leave it out?

Well, the obvious reason is because Future Arc's "Final Killing Game" is the only big murder plot in the series that Junko isn't involved in. DR1 was Junko, DR2 was Junko 2.0, UDG was Junko's aspiring protégé, and DRV3 is Junko as a fictional concept.

Future Arc was the only time when Junko genuinely wasn't a part of it. Tengan co-opted her imagery to fabricate a false-flag attack on the Future Foundation. (Which would be a really interesting concept if the conclusion of it wasn't, "So he could use the Magic Mind Control Video to magically mind control the world." But that's a whole other thing.)

That's why the blood isn't red. Because the wacky fun macabre villain isn't here. The aesthetic is bland because this is a fake Danganronpa. It's this guy trying to be as cool as a bloodthirsty supermodel ultra-genius with an army of hilariously deranged teddy bear robots who plays complex psychological torture games for funsies.

That was never going to happen. He was screwed from the get-go.

The drab visual aesthetic is ultimately minor next to the larger problem with V3's various choices surrounding its characters, rules, reveals, and story direction. But it speaks to a larger issue of creative philosophy that affects many of the problems the show has.

That is: Danganronpa 3 removes a lot of the elements that make Danganronpa fun and interesting to engage with. But it has nothing fun or interesting to replace those things with, so the result feels like a much lesser product.

We lose the psychopop aesthetic and we replace it with drab hallways. We lose the wacky and personable teddy bear villain and replace him with an angry fascist who wants to hit everyone with a sword. We lose the compelling Whodunit mysteries and replace them with "Periodically a character just dies at random for no reason." We lose the large, interesting cast of complex characters any one of whom could be a killer or victim, and replace them with three obvious (and obviously immortal) main characters and a bunch of dead bodies waiting to happen.

The problem is, and this will also be a talking point for parts of V3: If a story is bad, disappointing, or underwhelming on purpose, you've still delivered a story that is bad, disappointing, or underwhelming. There is a reason why Future Arc is a long, boring, obnoxious slog. But that does little to mitigate the fact that Future Arc is a long, boring, obnoxious slog.

[hugepolecat3298]

dude my fucking science teacher just put on cells at work

[spiralhigh]

Oh, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has issues with Komaedas eng voice. I know some people like it, but Bryce's performance is like 70% responsible for most mischaracterizations of Ko's character imo? It's almost like he's trying to voice a completely different character with a completely different personality, and that personality basically just boils down to "haha I'm trying to be annoying and crazey by coming across as the weird guy™ (by which I mean the weird neurodivergent kind of guy), while also playing up the sarcasm so that every genuine comment sounds like I'm actually insincere and intentionally rude!" and yeah I do not like that for... multiple reasons adghkl

Anyway I hope it's alright to send you this, I genuinely apologize if it comes across as too vent-ish! If so, please feel free to ignore this!

YES YES YES EXACTLY bryce injects komaeda's voice with a lot of sarcasm and bite that just isn't there in the original dub. bryce makes him sound like a fuckboy surfer sometimes and like an overacted ~insane~ guy others... while he does a lot better of a job in udg, his voice for komaeda in sdr2 is WAY off-base and leads to a lot of really awful mischaracterization in the fandom.

komaeda as originally written is genuine! off-kilter, sometimes catty, often playful and coy, but fundamentally honest! that's why his despair disease was the liar's disease!! he's not sarcastic or condescending :(

thank you for sending this!!!!

[arcflam-arcanum787-blog]

Let’s Talk! Danganronpa: Can Monaca Be Redeemed? (Analysis of Monaca Towa, as well as plot elements of UDG and DR3).

      The last article I posted on this blog was about the NG codes. I was mostly satisfied with it, but then decided that for my next article I’d like to talk more about a character rather than a simple, terrible plot device, as well as it being more positive and less of a rant. As I thought about it, there is ONE character in the Danganronpa series I really wanted to discuss. She has been dubbed as “Green Satan” or “Pickle Satan” by the fan-base and is generally seen as a completely despicable and unlikable character. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s talk about Monaca Towa. (WARNING! Spoilers for Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy - Future Arc are included in this article).

Okay, seriously. WHY does her hair look so much like pickles?

      Monaca Towa was first introduced to us in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls as one of the main antagonists of the game alongside the Warriors of Hope. However, as the story progresses she is revealed to simply be manipulating the other Warriors of Hope to further her own schemes of continuing Junko’s legacy, all while pretending it to be for a “Kid only paradise”. Throughout the first two chapters of the game, she comes off as an annoying, manipulative brat who gets whatever she wants by crying and screaming. From Chapter 3 and onward however, her character gets significantly more dark and cruel. After triggering Kotoko Utsugi’s PTSD on purpose, she physically assaults her in order to instill her authority. In Chapter 4 she sexually assaults Nagisa Shingetsu after she told him her true goals and plan, triggering his PTSD by placing an expectation on him.

      Once the final chapter rolls around Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa, the protagonists, finally confront her in Towa Hills. After she is defeated she offers Komaru the controller which she used to brainwash all the other kids in Towa City, then plays mind games with her by constantly alternating between “Break the controller” and “Don’t break the controller”. If the player chooses to break the controller, a bad ending ensues. Choosing to not break the controller constantly reveals Monaca’s true goal: To turn Komaru Naegi into the second Junko Enoshima, which she can only accomplish if Komaru breaks the controller. Breaking the controller would cause the brainwashing helmets that the kids were wearing to explode, the footage of which Monaca would then send to Future Foundation. This would ensure a war taking place between Towa and Future Foundation where Komaru is played out to be the perpetrator of the whole incident. This scenario is avoided in the good ending and Monaca, who was revealed to be faking her disability in order to come off as a pitiful figure, gets her legs crushed under some rumble in an ironic twist of fate. Would it not have been for Nagito Komaeda saving her life, she would have perished.

A face only a mother could love…

      Monaca Towa returns in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy – Future Arc, as an antagonist for the first seven episodes. She murdered Miaya Gekkogahara, who was the head of the 7th branch in the Future Foundation, the former Ultimate Therapist, and one of the creators of the Neo World Program. Monaca later created a robotic doppelgänger of the real Miaya and took her place in Future Foundation, acting as a “lurker” since all she wanted to do was see Makoto Naegi up close. Apart from that, she played no real major role in the story of Danganronpa 3 and by the end of episode 7, she had grown bored of both hope and despair. Nagito’s constant psychopathic ramblings about despair and hope to try and get her to be the second Junko Enoshima ended up having the opposite effect on her, viewing both as far too complicated for her to understand. She leaves Earth and went to live in space as a NEET, abandoning everything that she had worked up to prior to this point and essentially “leaving the series”.

Monaca – “Later losers, I’m gonna head into space before episode 9 airs and the fan-base riots.”

      I find this to be not only an incredible waste of a perfectly good antagonist, but just a character in general. After everything that happened, THIS is how the Ultra Despair Girls side story ends? This is Komaru and Toko’s grand finale? Monaca just launching herself into space for no other reason other than because she’s bored? Wow. Now look, the “because I’m bored” excuse, may have worked for Junko in most cases, but it does not work here. This was just lazy, lazy writing to try and write Monaca out of the story so the writers could focus on their Future Foundation massacre game. In the end, Danganronpa 3 not only made Danganronpa 2 feel hollow, but it also made Ultra Despair Girls feel like a completely unnecessary side-plot that ultimately doesn’t affect the outcome of the series in any remotely meaningful way. The writer’s choice to eject Monaca from the plot? They effectively ejected Ultra Despair Girls form the time-line.

      Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way let’s move on to the real, main topic that I wanted to discuss in this article. Can Monaca be redeemed? While she has done some incredibly horrible things I feel there is one point people need to remember: She’s still a kid. Now I do not mean that Monaca’s actions in UDG and DR3 should be excused just because she’s a child. What I mean is that as she gets older both physically and mentally, she’s going to realize that there’s more to life than hope and despair. If I’m being completely honest with you I really don’t think it’s going to take long for her to realize that. Monaca is a genius, being named the chief executive of the Towa Group Robotics Branch at such a young age and inventing countless combat mechs and robots. As Komaru said after Monaca launched herself into space in episode 7, doing nothing is a form of despair in itself and Monaca is sick of both Hope and Despair. She’s eventually going to realize the error in her judgement and come back down to Earth.

      Though how she actually plans to get down from space is anyone’s guess…

Nope. That’s not Monaca’s hideout. That’s Monaka’s hideout. Big difference.

      Alright, so let’s say that Ultra Despair Girls got a sequel. Let’s say Monaca did realize where she went wrong and wanted to atone. Well, she’s going to have a lot of apologizing ahead of her, specifically to her fellow Warriors of Hope. Nagisa honestly, I don’t think would be as angry with her. In episode 7 of Future Arc, despite everything Monaca has done he still considers her a friend or perhaps even more than a friend. Why else would he, and the other former Warriors of Hope choose to remain in Towa City after everything that has happened? Nagisa still cares about her. Kotoko on the other hand, is probably going to take some time to warm up to her. She was furious with Monaca at the end of UDG, rightfully so after all. As for Masaru and Jataro, I don’t see either as the type to really hold a grudge. However, I also don’t see them warming up to Monaca that quickly either. Nagisa would be there for her (Especially considering that her actually being paralyzed now is incredibly likely), Masaru and Jataro would feel odd or conflicted about it, while Kotoko just straight up will not approve of her at all at first.

      Then we have Haiji… Yeah. Good luck. It’s clearly shown at the end of Ultra Despair Girls that he’s straight up fallen into despair and lost his mind, seemingly becoming apathetic towards everything. In order for him to forgive her, he’s going to have to go through some sort of therapy to help get him sane again. After that, he can work on building a gradual re-connection to his little half-sister. It sounds crazy I know, but considering Haji’s story never did reach proper conclusion his character arc is still open. Now while I did say that Monaca will have to apologize to Haiji, he’s also going to have to apologize to her. Haji along with his father were abusive to Monaca in the past for no reason whatsoever. He considered her an “alien” and a “mistake”. The fact that it took her to fake getting paralyzed is honestly pretty sad and really shows just how much they did not care about her in the slightest. A gradual re-connection between family members would be sweet to see. If Monaca does decide to atone for what she’s done, I really don’t think she’s going to hold a grudge against her brother.

      Aside from Komaru and Toko obviously, another person she’s going to have to apologize is Hina. It is very obvious in episode 8 that Hina showed some sort of spite or jealousy when Makoto interacted with Komaru, hinting that she knows about her brother’s fate in Towa City and was likely hit pretty hard at his unfortunate death. Monaca was indirectly the one responsible for Yuta’s death and as such, will have to apologize to Hina. Makoto will be another person she would have to apologize to if his and Komaru’s parents really are deceased (which honestly, I think they are).

Monaca – “I have the key to your porn stash. Do what I say or I leak it all over social media~”

      In conclusion, I realize that a lot of what I brought up in this article may be trivial considering that the Hope’s Peak Academy Saga has “officially ended” (though who knows how honest they really are about that). However, I and many others were disappointed to see Ultra Despair Girls, Komaru and Toko’s story, receive such an anti-climactic and unsatisfying conclusion. Even if the Hope’s Peak Academy Saga is over I still hope that one day they go back and touch on some minor plot holes and nitpicks that Danganronpa 3 left untouched. I want to see a true conclusion to Komaru and Toko’s, Monaca’s, Haiji’s, and the other Warriors of Hope’s character arcs. Honestly, I think it’s very likely that Monaca, Nagisa, Kotoko, Jataro and Masaru could all end up attending the new Hope’s Peak once it’s rebuilt since they obviously won’t be staying in Towa for the rest of their lives and never received a proper education past elementary level (Aside from maybe Nagisa). I really do think that Ultra Despair Girls deserved better than this, no, FANS deserved better than this.

      That concludes this little character analysis of Monaca Towa. This one was a bit less ranty than my previous article, but this was still something I really wanted to talk about. What do you think about Monaca? Do you like her? Hate her? (Probably most people). Did you agree or disagree with what I said? Feel free to let me know and have a good day!

                                                                                                                ~Arcanum