The benefit of the “was Tsumugi lying or not? you decide” part of drv3’s ending is that it lets me express the idea that I *definitely think Tsumugi was lying.* 1. In ch 1, Tsumugi makes the claim to Kaede that she can’t cosplay as “real people” or else she breaks out in hives called cospox. First of all, this ‘explanation’ sounds completely nonsensical even by danganronpa standards. Second of all, Tsumugi could easily be faking it by using makeup or other effects considering she’s the same girl who can near instantly cosplay as someone completely different in appearance like Sakura Ogami. This means that the previous danganronpa characters could absolutely be real people in-universe, and Tsumugi made up the cospox thing to make her ‘real fiction’ lie seem more credible 2. In the sixth trial, we see supposed ‘evidence’ that’s apparently tapes of the characters auditioning for the danganronpa show. But there’s a big inconsistency and that’s with the names being bleeped out. For example, Kaede’s name gets bleeped out in the ‘audition tape’ even though she already refers to herself as Kaede Akamatsu before any of the flashback light stuff comes into play, right at the beginning after she gets kidnapped. On that note, if Kaede allegedly *willingly* signed up for the danganronpa show, then why did those people come and kidnap her at the beginning?? 3. Again in the sixth trial, Tsumugi also shows ‘evidence’ for the cast being excited to be in danganronpa during the Prologue… dialogue which *never happened* and you can clearly prove never happened by starting a new save and going through the Prologue again or looking up a no commentary walkthrough video of the Prologue. If you don’t want to go back and do that, I’ll save you the time and just tell you the differences. Here’s the dialogue from the actual Prologue: Monokid: Hell yeah! Get ready! Once the seal is broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game! Kaede: K-killing game…? Monotaro: Now then, after the Flashback Light helps you remember your amazing talents… This amazing story will begin for real this time! Vs. what Tsumugi claims happened: Monokid: Hell yeah! Get ready! Once the seal is broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game! Kaede: K-killing game? Shuichi: You mean… we were selected!? From this comparison, we can clearly and plainly see Tsumugi is just being a bigger gaslighter than the guy who invented the gas stove (that’s James Sharp, if you were wondering) There’s other examples to dive into, like the entire… thing… that is the ch 5 trial, but this comment is long enough
As someone who thinks that it’s kind of dumb to just write off the point of the whole metaphor (that the games aren’t real in-universe), I will say that the rebuttal I’ve always viewed for the audition tape thing is that the people’s real names were used for the characters. While they’re the same people in body and have the same name, they’re completely different in personality and backstory.
V3 is very much doing a poor Umineko impression like for a solid 40% of its runtime. It has its own Erika, it’s own “catbox”, it’s own found family, it’s own ending that commentates on the fans, but it does those things without actually knowing WHY they work.
I like to call Danganronpa, "Kazutaka Kodaka puts some Persona 4 (or Persona 5 in V3) Characters in a Situation™" personally, but I've never heard of Umineko XD
Every Peak Fiction has an imitation. Berserk led to mediocre gorey fantasies, Monster and 20th Century Boys led to mediocre psychological mysteries, and the same happened with Umineko and V3 here.
Personally, I take the ending more as commentary on different forms of Media. We don't PLAY as K1-Bo, so we're not the hypothetical "TV audience" the game poses outside of a single sequence where we move in tandem with them. But as a GAME, we'll have far more immediate control over the fate of the game's story than what a TV Audience might have over the fate of a show. Of course, it's contrived meta theming that takes a lot of mental hoops to get that specific conclusion out of V3. Personally, I really agree with your Alternate Universe theory as well, feels like both sides of it are "valid" but V3 is just incredibly hard to talk about by the nature of it's directions.
I bawled my eyes out during the trial, then put the game on hold for like five weeks. Right there, Danganronpa does commit in a sense. But then again it also backs out of committing in that same moment by giving us the most boring and bland protagonist as a replacement for Kaede.
v3 is my favorite ending to a series period. It acknowledges that the formula would get stale if they kept going even if the audience is always asking for the next entry, but it also knows that it has affected people and will influence spiritual successors and fan works. The entire cast are almost literally that, fan works that rose to be as good as the original. It boggles my mind that people think it invalidates the rest of the series or shows the devs hate the audience or hate making the games or something.
but as a story on its own it intentionally ceases to function. The idea that "even if we're fictional we can have an impact on people" narrative forgets that these are still people in the universe of the series since either every single interaction all the way up to the end was scripted which would be awful and assuming half the information we get is just lies, or they fundamentally aren't fictional and are literally just people. When shuichi claims he rejects both hope and despair, what he does is literally just hope, so fundamentally the story becomes just 2 rehashed with all of the characters being brainwashed to forget who they once were and left having to accept that this killing game was one they themselves had set up and to oppose what they once were, just with the added gimmick that the fans are the real villains. plus even the rest of v3 doesn't seem to make sense with the idea of these ultimate talents being fake, because gonta can just see creatures the size of dust mites. also the idea that the characters are fan works despite literally being written in universe by team danganronpa is like saying that a paper mill wrote the great gatsby
@@wyn9693 the characters in the game are real people. It's their identities that are fictional, and have been written by the fictional team danganronpa inside the game. The whole concept of the ending is that it is fucked up to do that to actual people in order to create this kind of entertainment for the masses. Shuichi rejecting both hope and despair isn't him "still choosing hope", it's quite literally him refusing to play his part for the amusement of the masses. The game literally asks you to stop playing itself in order to progress. If the previous people that became the main characters were on board or not with the killing game is actually left up to interpretation, because the start of the prologue is actually slightly different compared to what we're shown during the final trial. If the fictional team danganronpa can alter people's identity, it's plausible they also can fake that thing as well. As for ultimate talents lining up with the phisical characteristics of each character, it could have gone in 2 ways: 1 when in the selection process the fictional team danganronpa chose the people that had the right characteristics, or 2 it was the characteristics of each person in the roster that informed what their character were and weren't capable of doing
I’m trying to remember the video title but someone on here did a rewrite of V3 where Kaede stays the protagonist and Angie becomes the rival and it was amazing
The one thing I would disagree with on this one is how the ending of V3 makes it so that everything that comes before it "doesn't exist" or that none of it matters. Danganronpa 1-3 still happened, and if you wanted a resolution to the story of Hope's Peak... that's how it ends at the end of 3, whether as a story within the V3 world or as a story within ours. Yes, the antagonist of the story WANTS you to think that it's all powerless as fiction (while at the same time being obsessed with it), but that's not how V3 ends. Shuichi is able to win by, as a "fictional" character from within the "show", making a change in the "real" world through the appeal of ideas. If Kodaka's intention for V3 was to negate everything that came before it, I don't think he would be putting phrases like "Fiction Can Change The World!" in the final playable game section. What I think (and yeah, this is my opinion here) is that there was a desire for balance. The level of obsession that the V3 world had with Danganronpa was what was unhealthy, not the existence of the original media itself. Obviously, nobody's going to be so obsessed with it as to start up their own real-life games (although ironically V3 was banned in South Korea in part due to the concern over copycat crimes), but I've been around enough toxic fandoms in the last decade or so to know that there are definitely people who could stand to learn that lesson. Fiction is important in helping us view the world and shape our perception of it, but as with anything else, we have to be careful not to misuse it. If Danganronpa presents from itself a wildly exaggerated narrative to give an underlying point, well, it's not the first time the series has done that :) I think viewing it as an alternate universe to 1-3 is a fine interpretation if that floats your boat, I just don't think it's necessary to validate the series when viewed altogether. Aladdin and Ali Baba are no less relevant as one of the thousand and one nights, and stories within stories have existed for years. And if you don't believe that a story can be powerful even as a complete work of fiction that never happened, just look at the world's religi--[REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE VATICAN]
Also, i think Tsumugi is a grate antagonist. I like to think that she was a obsessed fan who managed to get her self into the DR company, so she wrote herself in. (also explaines why her character reads as a self incert in a fanfic)
As a DR fan, I find it really interesting that one of the biggest things you valued (or I guess, tried to find value in) was the world and overarching story of the series, as for me personally, I always preferred the series to be more small scaled and really only focused on the individual death games rather than the entire world as a whole, especially cuz Kodaka is honestly really bad at worldbuilding and writing overarching large scale narratives, at least when it comes to Danganronpa. Honestly that’s one reason i find it hilarious that the DR3 Anime was even made in the first place. Even if it had been executed really well, or at the very least, actually good, to me, the outside world was never that important to begin with. Honestly, to me, I think the format of Danganronpa works a lot better as an anthology, wherein each installment doesn’t need to be concerned with the last, especially since that way it doesn’t need to be confined to a lot of the series deep rooted ideas. I suppose that’s why I appreciate the fan content for DR as much as I do (the 1% of ones that aren’t made by the large majority of… those kinds of DR fans). Hell, DR has inspired a lot of full on games not even tied to the series, which I think is indicative, at least to me, of how the overarching story and world was never the series main draw to begin with. But that’s just my two cents, idk. Honestly, I found your two videos on the series really interesting. I appreciate the route you took with your critique and analysis. As a fan of this series for years, this is honestly an idea I haven’t seen explored much before. Great video quality. Keep up the good work 👍 (Sorry for the long asf essay I just dropped)
I actually fully agree with you! Like whenever I think about Danganronpa, the first things that comes to mind are the trials, executions, and its characters. The world building and overall plotline is definitely meh with a lot of holes but if you just think about the trials individually, it makes the overall experience much better.
As others have said, DRv3 doesn't really invalidate the previous games' canonically. The alternate universe thing you propose is just THE way to think about it. There are two scenarios. 1) that to the world of DRv3, DR1, sDR2, etc are fictional. BUT you can of course return to those games and their conclusions on their own terms. OR. 2) tsumugi was lying in some way, and the original killing school life and tragedy and stuff did happen to the universe of DRv3. Whether its one or the other is up to interpretation, and this doesn't affect the first games all that much (aside from playing them and maybe thinking "the v3 characters might think this thing about this story" and whatnot. not that you play them thinking "none of this matters to it's own wider universe because in doesnt matter to *v3*") But naturally, that means only the previous games can avoid those drawbacks. DRv3 still has to deal with the potential that all previous danganronpa is fiction. If those being fake to v3 feels completely invalidating to v3's story or premise or stakes or intrigue i dont think anyone can make a good argument against that.
I think can be seen as a standalone, alternate universe scenario, at least that’s how I see it. It seems like Kodaka was pondering how the franchise could be milked dry if it kept going, and his desire for that not to happen. He also recently said he wouldn’t mind returning to it someday so interpret this as you see fit lol. Btw Kodaka also brought up the possibility of Tsumugi lying so I think it holds water.
I feel like you unfairly judged Shuichi because of the spite caused by Kaede's death. Shuichi isn't a bland protag like the others, far from it, he's one of the few characters in the series that goes through a character arc. I love how he starts as this loner anxious boy who gradually grows to be more confident. A lot of the stories, especially anime-y stories tend to handle character grow very rapidly, with an event happening that changes the character almost immediately. That's kinda how Fuyuhiko's character arc happened after Peko's death. Meanwhile, in Shuichi's case, while Kaede's death started his character arc, it didn't immediately change him. The training sessions with Kaito did. Struggling through the web of lies planted by Kokichi did. The friendship with Maki did. He gradually started becoming more confident in speaking the more the game went on, and even the footage shown in this video highlights this to me. Take a look at how he acted in the first case and compare it to the last case. Seeing how he went from this boy that can't meet eyes with people during the class trial to someone that aggressively pushed Monokubs (and Monokuma) into the corner in the last trial felt so good. I remember getting goosebumps when he was shouting that "Kaede's unjustful death DOES matter" (Speaking of all, I love the plot twist of her death being senseless) It's kinda sad for me reading how people defend the ending (which I agree with your take on), but barely anyone defends Shuichi. Was Shuichi less interesting than Kaede? Depends, I can't say because Kaede didn't have a character arc, and that's something that (for me) makes or breaks a character. But was he as bland as Makoto or Hajime? No, definitely not. He was a much better protag than Hajime and MILES ahead of Makoto. Overall DRV3 despite the ending was my favourite entry in the entire series. This comment's already long enough, so I'll skip on arguing that, but what captivated me in DRV3's writing that DR2 didn't have was: - More mature theme (Truth vs Lies) - Better characters and more good characters (DR2's cast had like 1/3rd of characters interesting with the rest being boring. DRV3 on the other hand had almost every character interesting for me, with only a few exceptions) also with more characters having a character growth compared to previous entries. - Going against the killing game, using the rules against the mastermind (This is something that lacked for me in DR2. Characters were pretty much going along with what Monokuma planned right until the very end. In DR1 we had offscreen Kirigiri doing investigation which was okay. In this game we straight up had a trial meant to invalidate the existence of the entire killing game (#5) with preivous attempts of chaotically hijacking it by Kokichi to lead others to stop killing. I got kinda emotional at the end, but I just love DRV3, despite it's ending that I also really dislike. Which is kinda funny, cause another series that I also really love also has an (imo) awful and controversial ending (Attack on Titan).
@kuba4ful I think just because a character has a interesting concept doesn’t make them good, a character like Gonta has a lot of potential but if they don’t do anything with him he’s kind of wasted, I think that’s what made the characters of DR2 so cool, scenes like the blackout in chapter 1 are cool because the dialogue of each character heighten the immersion and showed that they have character other that just repeating the same line over and over like a lot of the V3 characters do, that and some characters in V3 were just boring like Ryoma and Kibo, but I think that just made the good characters of V3 better like Maki and Kokichi, in DR2 all of the characters were pretty solid with V3 having clear standouts, it’s not that DR2 didn’t have its standouts like Nagito and Gundam, but the rest of the DR2 cast could at least stand on their own two feet, where in V3 the second those interesting characters die it feels kinda empty because the rest are pretty shallow
What about the ending do you personally dislike? I think as an alternative-universe type story V3’s ending is pretty good, as it doesn’t retroactively tear apart the entire series and disrespect everything it initially went for, like Attack on Titan did
@@keremwashere3982 What an excellent argument, thank you, you finally convinced me that my feelings and thoughts about Shuichi were false and he was boring all this time, and I just failed to notice it because I really liked his character and his character growth. In all seriousness, we all experience media in different ways, so it's okay if you find him boring, I and many people (per character polls) don't and I can put my finger on why I like him and explain why he's stayed in my memory after 6 years of playing the game. He might be boring to you and that's okay. But he's not to me and to many people (6th place in the Danganronpa trilogy popularity poll, for context Kaede was 14th)
@@kuba4ful not the sarcasm 💀 IN ALL SERIOUSNESS I just think he’s pretty much a nothing character and his type of character development has been done to death in Danganronpa. Kaede could’ve been such a badass protagonist that even could’ve had a reverse character arc where she goes more and more insane as she fails to do her job as a leader and murders keep on happening. Cuz I feel like that’s totally what would’ve happened if she stayed the protag. Just a thought. It’s okay if you ain’t into that though and just want another “insecure boy becomes secure and demure” character arc from the protagonist.
I love V3 but ... the series so much untapped potential. I think that a fourth main game would disappoint me no matter what, since it probably wouldn't be what it COULD be.
The best way I can describe danganronpa, is that it's like a large chocolate easter egg: Chocolaty goodness outside, hollow disappointing emptiness inside.
It's frustrating when people interpret the ending of V3 this way, because that's exactly what I thought the developers meant when I first saw it. V3's ending isn't supposed to be mocking you, saying "Haha, everything is fake. Just suck it up." You're actually right, It's supposed to be an alternative universe that doesn't take place in the Danganronpa universe. (And they're talking about the audience in their world. they don't mean us, the players) NezumiVA's video explains it way better, though. specifically the finale part where she talks about the 6th trial. (Just wanted to clear that up because A LOT of people seem to have misunderstood the ending, including me) Also, Yes. Kaede dying *was* disappointing-
@@VexDeePhilosophs True! And I'm not saying that it's invalid, if someone were to play this game, I'd assume they would think the ending means that THH and SDR2 just didn't matter at all. It just sucks that the developers couldn't/didn't confirm DRV3's separation from the story of Hope's Peak in a way that's better and more obvious to the players somehow.
@@ewe3221THIS also adding the fact that the person saying that "danganronpa is fake" and "your lives are a waste of time bc danganronpa never existed" is Tsumugi, yknow, THE mastermind, THE antogonist of the game. I never understood how people EVER thought that V3 was trying to make fun of you when in reality, theyre not, even Shuichi says that the pain he feels is real and that even if what he says doesnt matter to the outside world, it matters to him which is literally the game telling you, the protagonist, the player are suppose to feel the emotions that V3 gives you.
@@blurrie9688 The theme of the game was about truth and lies. What's a bigger thematic villain then being told it was a lie/fiction. I think it did a good job of its themes though it feels like many would misunderstand that or take it as a 4th wall break against us, the audience
your video on the main timeline was really fun so i'm super excited for your take on v3!! i know its probably really critical just because of the way v3 is but v3 somehow managed to worm its way into my heart as my favorite game and i really love listening to people talk about it!! i think v3 is the most promising game danganropa has to offer even if it fumbles the execution a lot of the time. its twist with who the protagonist actually is was great and its characters are the best in the series but also its last trial takes a lot of time to love because of how it treats the characters as characters. all in all though i think its pros outweigh its cons and i love it despite its flaws. i know this will be a great watch even if i disagree with your takes and i applaud you for making it
Thank you! After taking a good look at it, there is a lot that V3 does well from a fundamental visual novel perspective, and it's really cool to see the improvement that Kodaka and Co. made over the years. Admittedly, I am pretty critical of the game because of its ending, because it--just like this video--makes itself needlessly separate from its predecessors. I am upset that this funky little visual novel series does not get the ending it deserves.
@@SojournerKai I mean the hopes peak saga already ended with dr3 so it's not surprising NDRV3 is seperate from it. It's even called "New" Danganronpa in the japanese name to give a little hint to it and I think it ended the series in a good way with a great message too
I honestly love the first chapter of V3, I was disappointed that Kaede was killed, however I loved the trial since there were so many hints in the dialogue and gameplay that I figured it out before the twist happened and I experienced what you said you wished the trial was! The writing was so specific that it was like an unreliable narrator (which is a personal nitpick in writing for me, but done correctly, I'm okay with it). The ending is alright, not perfect and heavily controversial, but I'm glad that this game is technically in an alternate universe. That allows the first two games to be it's own thing and then a 'spin-off' V3 game which I enjoyed the characters and thought they were able to carry in my opinion. I loved the video and hope to watch more!
Kinda a strange game to compare artistically cuz genshin is a fantasy rpg which has more range? In terms of that. And dr is a light novel game and you could only see what you read.
I'm curious to know what you'd think of the Zero Escape trilogy, now! Also from Spike Chunsoft and it's creator/director, Uchikoshi, is now Kodaka's partner at Tookyo Games. (The "final dead room" in DR2's FunHouse is a huge nod to ZE) Storytime : I remember when I streamed V3 and Kaede died, I made a joke that that night, Shuichi would go to his room, and remove his hat, revealing a secret ahoge (all previous protags had the craziest ahoges, so it was the definitive Protagonist Sign for me)... ONLY FOR IT TO BE EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.
I think some of your critiques are fair but you also fundamentally misunderstand a lot of what v3 is going for. like yea twists like kaede dying or the killing game just being a tv show in universe (as well as a lot of the anime bullshit) can be a deterrent but it doesnt seem to me like you really worked with what the game actually gave you like Shuichis character arc or the whole commentary on media as a whole that the final trial offered and it makes me wonder why you even put so much time into the game or your video on it
In the final trial the game gives you a finale to the series as we know it by ending itself before it Could become oversaturated with tons of entries like many other popular media franchises, where the main characters compell the audience to the point where they, through K1B0, save them and invite them into their world, and shuichi even gives a whole spiel about how even if they were fictional, their stories had meaning, yet you came away like the ending ruined the previous entries, and when you cant even remember a handful of names for characters you see for hours upon hours because youre so unwilling to work with the game over one plot twist, why even bother trying to make a point about it
@@rem7019honestly yeah, I was surprised cuz even after years of playing the game I remember all the characters from v3, like how do you forget a character like kokichi omua😭 like not even find him annoying or hating him, or his whole thing about lies and that being similar to the ending, wheaten it’s a lie or not. And his whole thing about shuichi being another stale protag (even tho kaede is my favorite out of the games I still won’t disregard the entire game cuz of the first trial dawg💀)
9:35 small correction, cmiiw, but... They did it because of the fact that the timer was going to run out. Yea, ultimately, this would have been inconsequential, since they ciuld have made another attempt (in theory), but my point here is that Kaede's kill-correction happened because A) the shot-put had barely missed Kaede, and B) because of Tsmugi's desire for the show to go on (As if DR was a fucked up version of Doctor Who), which creates characterization beyond Junko's "Dis bear's Dispair 🤪🤪🤪"
the most frustrating thing when people criticise this game is the constant “you missed the point!!” from its diehard fans. No, I didn’t actually! It’s just not very good
Ikr it’s so frustrating when people defend things they like with “you just didn’t get it!” cuz like… I did. It’s just that it’s not good or interesting, hope this helps!❤ The way people defend Shuichi and say that he has an amazing character arc when in reality we’ve seen this “insecure boy becomes confident” character arc PLENTY OF TIMES in Danganronpa… it’s annoying. Kaede had the potential to be an extremely engaging and interesting protagonist who would’ve maybe had a negative character arc but noo we had to play as another insecure guy
@@keremwashere3982 right!!! Another gripe of mine is when story flaws are pointed out fans will defend it as being “a meta commentary” of the series? or that “it’s flawed because Tsumugi isn’t a good writer” like okay? But Tsumugi isn’t real, and even if the flaws in the story are self aware about being bad….it doesn’t make them less bad. Meta elements of the game are just used as a convenient excuse to hand wave all the tired tropes and bad character writing away
He does know that v3 IS in a separate universe than DR1 and DR2... right? That would make the ending less bad than what it is, seeing how that's the point.
My personal hc is that 1-3 DID happen, but just in the distant distant past. So the world overcorrected to become comepletely and utterly devoid of conflict, to the point where people became bored and started the show danganronpa. I also think its VR but thats more self indulgent
You do make some decent points, however I feel like you were needlessly harsh against the game at points. I understand that you were disappointed about how the Kaede twist turned out (I think to some extent everyone who played the game was) but as you express in this video, you didn't give the rest of the game a fair shot because of that early frustration. Shuichi is a much more compelling protagonist than Makoto and Hajime, at least in my opinion. Yes he does take up the role of "normal person" in the class like the guys before him, but he's still an ultimate. His deductive skills allow him to suspect the true killer or the true means of death rather quickly, it's just that his arc revolves around him being able to break out of his shell and not be afraid to expose the truth. I also believe you took the wrong moral out of the ending. The point Shuichi makes by the end of the final trial isn't "Look at you, the players! You're awful for making this series of killing games go on for this long!" Instead, his biggest point and the overall moral of V3 is that even if the rest of the series was fictional in-universe, fiction can leave a substantial impact on the real world through the people who experience those stories. That's why I disagree on your point on Kaede's murder plot and trial near the beginning of your video. As you state, it gives Kaede more character and autonomy in the story, which lends into the big lesson V3 tries to teach at the end. And to be fair, none of the killing games have been all that fair. Case 5 of the first game shows that when the students declared that they wouldn't kill anyone, Junko had to fake a murder just to get rid of her two biggest threats, Makoto or Kyoko. I don't think V3 is a perfect game, none of the games in this series are, and I can agree that Danganronpa's adherence to formula can hamper its potential in a lot of ways. I respect a lot of your opinions, but I feel like you could've been a lot more fair to V3 instead of just checking out after the first case.
I think what really got people disappointed was that Kaede was the first protagonist not only to be the first female of the main series, but also the first one that needed no development to show what she was capable of. She managed to take charge, give people hope, and actually try to take on the mastermind from the start, something it took Makoto an entire game to do while he had his hand held by Kyoko. When she died and Shuchi came in as the real protagonist, some players felt like they lost someone who had everything they expected from a main character in exchange for a blank slate and paid for another game where they play as another male protagonist they had to develop though a minimum of 20 hours of gameplay. CinnamonToastKen had a very similar feeling to SojournerKai throughout his playthough. I have nothing against Shuichi being the real protagonist, but it would have been much more interesting seeing Kaede develop backwards and go on a slow downward spiral seeing her efforts to save everyone be useless after each murder and trial only for the final reveal to show that everything she fought for harder than anyone was pointless and even being mocked and discouraged by the world. The ugly truth and shift in resolve to find a new solution would have been much more impactful on her character than Shuichi's.
@@AGJ117While it sounds interesting keeping Kaede around, I’m not sure that it would be for the better in the long run. While she’s not entirely static, she isn’t that complex either. It’s doubtful that you’d create more development for her with more screen time. You’d probably just draw out the same conclusion, and then that hurts Suichi’s development pacing. And remember that a pivotal point of Suichi’s development is what happens with Kaito and Maki. More so than the other games, the protagonist of V3 has a greater impact on the character development of other characters, and I don’t think it would work as well with Kaede Kaede was made the way she was very purposely. If she was the protagonist then she would need to be a completely different character. The way that she is serves as inspiration to Suichi and contrasts with her audition tape at the end of the game
I've never been a fan or even truly understood the "it's all not real therefore it's pointless" argument. If Danganronpa is said to be, within it's own continuity, Danganronpa then that means it's fiction inside of fiction which can still be analyzed as fiction. Fake memories or not the V3 cast are at the end of the day written characters with backstories and personalities that can be taken seriously, even within a world that calls itself fiction. This is even entertained with Tsumugi's explanation of how these characters got into their situation. They WERE real people who applied as contestants of the next Danganronpa and were then remade into blank slates that a character could be written into, meaning they are in fact, real but their identities are not. Another big point is when the class trial nears it's end and it's obvious that both Tsumugi and Monokuma are surprised and on the backfoot by what the remaining characters are doing. If everything is a lie and they truly wrote every last thing that's going on, then these characters should be unable to act out of turn and yet they do. They defy expectations and their motives and even purpose in Keebo's case. If this is all a work of fiction and everything was written from the start, why was Keebo's rampage framed as such a serious problem for Tsumugi? If this is truly all written fiction with predetermined plotlines then Keebo shouldn't be able to go haywire and ruin the show. Taking V3's ending as "It's all pointless none of it ever mattered" to me just seems like people saw the ending, got mad, and refused to think any further. Which is beautiful because the entire point of the ending is to end the killing game by making the audience dissatisfied with it, which also happened IRL. My hot take is that V3's ending is one of few perfect ways to send off the series. By fully committing to the meta bit to such a ridiculous extent that all the events we see in this universe are just Danganronpa as we know it, it sticks by a theme of breaking the 4th wall and expanding in universe. Other games like to use 4th wall breaks such as the save text changing, winning the game by not playing, etc. as simple magic tricks but V3 utilized them to their fullest extent to bring home an insane theme.
That’s why I love that the whole cast of every game gets hit with amnesia at the start. They are all reset to zero and have to grapple with the situation they are in and each other despite previously having that context and being content with it. Amnesia as a trope is usually reserved for onboarding the audience, but Danganronpa uses it as a tool for character development
the only way i can see V3 working with the original 2 games is through the concept of fictionalization, Specifically that part of their plan to return the world to normal and undo the apocalypse Junko created was to make the entire event "fictional" in the sense of it did happen but No one Thinks it did and is just a story.
Has to be Kai making me watch not one, but two video's about a game I never played or cared about and still watch the full just under 2h content. Good stuff waht can I say
I enjoy your breakdowns of this series a lot because I have a lot of my own gripes about the series and seeing you word it out and place it down and ESPECIALLY with v3 in the pure nightmare that is the treatment of Kaede and the way the game chooses to throw everything through a woodchipper in the ending,,, It's very nice seeing there be that agreement. See it get placed and worded out. To have those genuine and understandable frustrations about these writing issues and lack of commitment to anything genuinely interesting. It's very nice to see and listen to and to be able to agree on parts and consider stuff and povs i haven't considered. Your exhaustion and frustration with it is understandable and explanations are nice especially with issues such as "not seeing into Kaede's murder plans" and whatnot. It's also really nice seeing your passion still for the series in how you wish it could be better and you even note ways it could have handled things better and just,,, been better. You have a lot of thoughts and feelings and it makes it more interesting than just needless bashing and hate when theres still stuff you like or wish was better. (as i also would wish) If you were to ever try to look at anything DR again, I would recommend the Another series, a couple of korean fangames that have both been fan-translated into playability. While the first game is a bit rough around the edges in gameplay, both have fun messing with expectations and taking things the mainline games squandered on and doing it so much better or taking good things and doing even better than before. The 2nd game is noticeably more popular and has been played fine before on its own but the first game makes a lot more moments of the second more meaningful. But this is only silly recommendation and otherwise I still enjoy these a lot and your thoughts on the series
Thanks so much! I'm honestly glad that I came across as wishing that the series had a better resolution because I know that I sound pretty negative to some people. The negativity, while partially directed at the misused format, was definitely more for the story. I will watch paint dry if the paint has an interesting and cohesive narrative. I'll have to put a pause on Danganronpa related content for a while so that I can work on other videos I have in mind, but I appreciate the suggestion. Fans of this series seem to be even more passionate than I am (and more positive), so knowing that someone went out of their way to make an alternate version is fascinating. Thanks again!
I look forward to the stuff you put out in the future for sure!! You have a lot of interesting thoughts and format your stuff nice to watch and listen to and really make good to put on when trying to do things!! Excited for what you're working on next and currently have in mind
@@SojournerKaiIf you do intend on coming back to daganronpa, is there a chance you would do a video on your wishlist for a hypothetical DR4? Or at least how you would write dr4?
Hey Kai! Letting you know, since the desktop UA-cam client doesn't allow adblockers, until an adblocker comes around that circumvents their security measures, you are the last video I ever watched on desktop UA-cam. I couldn't have chose a better video.
22:56 yeah. This. Exactly this. This is how you’re supposed to view the storyline. V3 isn’t a direct sequel; yeah it’s based off the same ol DR principles but it isn’t set in the same universe, which Kodaka has readily clarified. I guess he’d abused his trust with this audience too much though 🤷 half the fandom seems not to believe him
Imma fight you on the Shuichi thing he’s actually a really great protagonist whag the hell he might not be as outwardly as Kaede but he has a personality that shines through just like her he just is more reserved about it. Instead of just protagonist fodder he was a character thrusted into the protagonist spot.
Right!! I love kaede with all my heart but to say he wasn’t as good a protagonist is kinda crazy. It was fitting that he was the one to deliver the message, he finds the truth in a world of lies basically. It’s very fitting. Same with hajime, even though I don’t like him as much, he also had a character arc and a really good one if I remember. Like the video didn’t even mention kokichi as he is kinds the person to put into the idea of what is truth and what is a lie??
23:27 This is actually explained in the manga because Danganronpa has books. The manga dives into Junko's background why she's so despair happy. Why her sister has the hots for her and what not but to cover the mysterious passing out plot hole. Spoilers for the manga but Junko got amnesia at some point and her boyfriend who was the ultimate neurologist tried to brainwash the despair out of her to make her not totally hellbent on screwing the world Junko regains her memories finds out her man doesn't love her for her and kills him to feel the despair of killing someone she loves and then uses his work to wipe the memories of her classmates for the game. I also wanted to touch on some points you technically got wrong in this and the last video not because the information was laid out in the games or even the anime but because its stuff you havw to be a superfan to find but basically Junko is technically also a genius analyst i think it rivals or is ultimate level and its why she got so bored with everything because she is able to accurately predict virtually any outcome for everything but despair which is an unpredictable feeling and like a drug for her and her ultimate talent as fasionista is more than likely just a cover she used to apply and get into hopes peak for her plan. Lastly i believe this fills the hole in her plan because despair is the one thing she cant predict she was more than likely just planning on getting in digging up dirt on hopes peak and trying to take down the biggest hope icon in verse. She likely just started planning for bigger and bigger things as she found out more like the ult animator and Izuru being in verse God and what not. Realized that she could go for the game end but this contradicts the idea that she planned all of this a while in advance given her manga exploits and the brainwashing she learned from her ex so i dunno ronpa is flawed.
Dangling Grandpa..........!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?! i've fallen back into my danganronpa phase as of recent courtesy of writing nagito komaeda i am not proud of it but anywho kaede did not deserve to get shafted like she did and V3's ending kinda weird
Juding by the fact that I didnt hear anything about Danganronpa when v3 came out. i imagined it was mid. BUT HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THAT ENDING IS SOMETHING ELSE.
So here is my interpretation of V3. Specifically with the breakdown of the final trial. To me, it was if Kodaka was speaking through the characters as to why the game as a series should end. You can write an amazing story and have everything end in a nice pretty bow and say “That’s that, there’s no more story left to tell.” But fans always demand more of what it is. We as an audience and as fans always want to know what happens next, more of the IP, and studios see these demand and know they can make a ton of money from it. So to give the fans what they want, sometimes the writers are forced to break the stories they have written. To form new things that hurt the original story that was told. The best example I can think of as of now is fnaf. If you don’t know, fnafs original story was stretched a crossed 6 games, with that 6th game being a free to play game with the sole purpose of ending things. If you haven’t listened to it, highly recommend the whole ending speech to Pizzeria Sim as it beautifully closes the game. But then because fans always want more, we got newer games. First a VR release and then the one that destroyed the story. Danganronpa wrapped up it story wonderfully with the anime, though there was a few strings left open ended. And sometimes, that happens. But you have to know when to end your story. Good things don’t last forever, and an ending is something that will happen to all stories. It’s inevitable. You keep a story going so long, and it ruins what made those original stories so well made. This somewhat ties with the original idea of Danganronpa. Death is a permanent thing. It’s something that will happen to everyone. Stories are very much the same. You have to know when to end it before it slowly rots away like a corpse left out. That’s at least my interpretation of it. Kodaka saying stories end and that it’s natural. The more you demand for more, the worse it will be
All this talk about Danganronpa 53 sounds so weird to me. Your perspective on 53 speaks as if you thought 53 was connected to 1 and 2, which is just wrong.
it's always so nice to be vindicated in my feelings of "kaede was the infinitely more interesting and subversive protagonist and fridging her to give the milquetoast male detective the spotlight was the worst possible way to go"
Although I rlly love shuichi, even tho yeah he’s another detective and another male protag, I still rlly wished they didn’t go that route bc kaede had a lot of potential with a character arc or more importantly, a deconstruction arc. I guess taking her optimism and belief that everything will be ok and turning it somehow. I’m not sure how that would go but yeah.
@@2triedforthis830 yes!! you are absolutely right!!! i would've LOVED to see how her persona of unshakeable optimism and unconditional belief in her classmates would be challenged over the course of the story. i would've loved to have seen how, for example, shuichi's death might have impacted HER instead. i think shuichi is a fine character with a fine arc of his own, but kaede had genuinely GREAT potential and i truly think it was wasted by cutting her out after one chapter in the spotlight not to mention the fact that having your first mainline female protag with a talent totally unsuited to the role she has to take be killed off for the sake of the predictable protagonist choice is super lame imo. at least make kiibo the protag has to be a boy!! he's literally the audience surrogate!!
@@calliepancakes no because her strong belief in people, and the fact so many characters in the game deceive each other, like the whole thing with kokichi and all about his lies, and he would a been a really great antagonist for her. Unlike where they barely do anything with this role to benefit shuichi. Kokichi is more of a foil to kaito😭. Or the tsumugi thing, I feel like they could expand on their relationship as well since she’s kinda the one who kills her literally for no reason in the actual game. Idk man there’s just something. I think for the downside of this is kinda the fact killing off shuichi who starts the game off as thinking he’s a fraud and undeserving as his skill of being a detective would be lost if he’s the one who dies in the first game. Like that’s why he has 0 confidence and then grew to be more sure of himself and pursuing the truth. Another thing would be the fact kaito and kaede would be way too similar personally wise. They both share a lot of traits and that’s why they got along the best in the first class trial. You would have to kill him off early pretty much. Or maybe while they start our similar in the beginning kaede slowly starts losing her mentally of everyone getting along, and becomes less sure of herself, and kaito like he did with shuichi helps out, along with maki and stuff. Yeah there’s probably more a lot more but I don’t wanna think about it too much
Ah it seems Dangonronpa has fallen into the Arthur Conan Doyle trap. But in this case it's endless. Chunsoft can't just kill their Sherlock because Dangonronpa is based on the killings. It's part of the formula.
I think the only indication in the previous games of this ever being a show is the brief image we are shown of the death of Fuyuhiko's sister in the second game. I was replaying the game at the time and when I saw her I immediately went "omg that's Kaede" because she looked identical.
had a love-hate relationship with this game definitely wish Shuichi died instead of Kaede, just think that narrative is a lot more interesting, especially given the whole "the killer wasn't actually the killer" twist Kaede's potential for smth akin to survivor's guilt in him taking the fall for something she "did", them losing the "Detective" of the group would've been cool for the whole atmosphere of a bunch of under-qualified kids being stuck in a death game, all but Kaede would never get to see he's actually pretty incompetent in his "role" yadda yadda the ending i think was fine for what is likely it's actual message, but not delivered as well as it should be, so it was lost on a lot of people or confused them
i didnt know this was the same creator or even a video from around the same time so i got spooked when i heard a familiar voice with a completely different face lmao, none of this is meant as an insult i was just a bit shocked
This really doesn't feel like a good video. This is a lot of you being upset at the game and not a lot of anything that isn't your pure, reactionary emotional outburst. Like, what reviewer admits that they checked out and didn't give a fuck after the first mystery?
"We start off as Kaede Akamatsu, quite possibly my favourite protagonist of all of the games." Kaede is my favourite character in the series. And then they kill her off, and as you said, it's terribly frustrating. I set aside playing V3 for about 5 weeks after I completed chapter 1 because I was so upset. It's the one time that Danganronpa actually does commit, and it pays off incredibly in that regard. But in the very same breath, as you state clearly in the video, this is a meta-twist on you because it reveals that they DIDN'T commit to making an interesting protagonist and give you Shuichi. And Shuchi is fine in a vacuum, no more offensive than Makoto. But I've grown to kinda loathe him simply because he's bland, boring nothing of a character when we had Kaede right there. I, along with my circle of friends, were incredibly into this series for a while, but I've also arrived at a point where I don't care all that much anymore. I liked my time with this franchise, but that's basically it. I've had enough. Didn't bother with Rain Code, either.
You talked about and still missed the point that, by breaking the rules at chapter 1 (which you can deduce if you aren't daft), all narative tension, already low, is simply destroyed because it makes it impossible to know for certain that you actually point the murderer. Because the rules were ignored once, at the very start, so why not more ?
Opinion, liked the first video, this one, yeahhhh, this one, youre reaching, its like trying to find mistakes in a 2nd dish because you didnt like the first dish. Everyone was upset during Kaede's trial but this video feels like you summed everything very hastily, in my perspective, you just got tired after the firsr chapter, the game has more to offer than how you described it, you talk as if these characters were made wacky and the whole game made zero sense when it does, the game is honestly more down to earth than any of the previous installments. Chapter 1, Kaede, the fake protagonist, is the only protagonist in every game that spoke up and actually becoming the leader for the group but she fails trying to do so, you mention that Kaede's reason and motive wasnt there but in my opinion, it was there from the beginning, she trusts the people shes with, she truly believes that the characters there could change for the better and that they would all live in *harmony* (pun intended) and honestly, its even more heartbreaking knowing that V3 has the lowest amount of survivors compared to all the previous installments and thats how you make a good narrative, make you believe, break that belief and find new ways to believe because even though Kaede's wish of them all leaving together was never fulfilled, all the survivors past chapter t have a special and friendship that no other game in the series has. Chapter 2, this chapter connects the least with the characters because this chapter honestly just focuses on 3 characters but its still nonetheless a great storyline. Ryoma has no reason to live and Kirumi had too many reasons to live and it impacted Shuichi a lot when Kirumi insults him for not being able to save anyone, Shuichi doesnt back down and Kirumi even tries till the very end to escape her fate even to go as far as trying to manipulate the others to protect her like as they did with Kaede. Chapter 3, Tenko and Angie were not the best people but to Himiko, they were her best friends and both of them being taken away from her and her being blamed for their deaths by some of the characters, Himiko then continues to lives on in the name of Angie and Tenko, thanking them for how much theyve helped her even if their methods werent the best (Angie brainwashing Himiko lol) and oh, Kiyo was there. Chapter 4, Miu, an inventor who just wants to escape to the outside world bc she thinks her inventions are too important and Gonta who knew the truth, Kockroach and Kaito, one who fights using facts and one who fights using emotions. Chapter 5, Maki, a girl who fought to kill, for the first time (actually second but her free times just not do her justice) fights to protect someone, Kaito who doesnt want anyone else to get hurt and Kokichi, a guy who breathes as he lies even until his death, no one knows the truth. It makes me kinda somewhat upset knowing ALL the stories actually develops every single character (except Kiyo, he was just there for an incest plot) and the fact that you basically glossed over it and compared them to D1 and D2 when clearly V3 is its own game just doesnt sit right with me, I get V3's stories are really heavy like a lot to unpack but you fail to mention a single one just baffles me, in all honesty, V3's story is the most interesting part of the plot but the fact youre most focused on the ending (even getting the message of the ending wrong) just kinda irritated me in the sense that V3 offers more than every single past Danagnronpa game because they actually focus on the story and chatacters more than just expanding the Danagnronpa universe more like thats why the D3 anime is so bad, they only focused on the plot and leaving 0 screentime for any of the characters to do anything aside from the important ones. Edit: My comment is poorly written but still, how can you not like the characters stories just bc you dont like the ending, it just doesnt make sense to brush off the characters just bc you didnt understand the ending. I understand you were like bothered with it but to dedicate 20 mins to just basically say you missed the point and youre upset that you did bc it made you not like the rest of the story is just, mind baffling
as a fan of danganronpa, I see V3 as an altertive universe / timeline, where it's more simular to our world. Also Spoilers for my favorite survivors below & some :> also my favorite survivors from each game entry are DR THH - Aoi Asahina SDR 2 GB - Kazuichi Soda / DR IF - Mukuro Ibusaba (DR IF was a novel included as apart of GB & is a what if verison of THH) DR:AE UDG - Hiroko Hagakure NDR V3 - Maki Harukawa / DR 52 - Rantaro Amami (Mentioned in V3 :> )
@@sky8ash i know, but like I said it is really reaching to say this is foreshadowing. The way I interpret it is that it's to make Kaede despair by not playing the right Notes of à simple song
@@Chaki21 The name of the song/exucution didn't get a english translation (Which is a first time for the Danganronpa Series to not translate an exucution to english), They made it impossible to see Tsumugi's full face (they only show us her mouth & body, which is too calm for that situlation).
I don’t see why people think Shuichi is such a bad MC, like yeah, he isn’t as good as Hajime, but of the main 3, he has the most unique design without a doubt and he feels needed throughout the game with characters actually acknowledging his importance in the trials and Maki even saying he should be careful as he could become a target for it, I also feel Kaede gets way too much credit for being “the best” MC as her character just isn’t as interesting or strong as Hajime’s or Makoto’s imo, V3 is a fine game if you look past some of its characters being on the weaker side like Kibo and Ryoma but at the end of the day it’s just opinions so there really is no right or wrong view on V3
@@keremwashere3982 I don’t know what to tell you, Makoto is in every danganronpa game in some way they wouldn’t keep bringing him back if he wasn’t liked, and Hajime is literally both the protagonist and antagonist of his game, that’s just a lot more imo interesting than someone who doesn’t even get more than two chapters in their own game lol
Kaede does nothing of note in her game, all she really does is be positive and more confidence than the other protagonists at the beginning of their games, but every protagonist has her level of confidence by the end of their game, and yes, more screen time usually means the character gets more of an arc lmao, the only thing that really separates Kaede from the others overall is her willingness to kill, and she doesn’t even kill anybody in her game so it’s wasted, Hajime is a pretty outspoken guy in his game, Makoto becomes an icon of hope in his game, and even Shuichi is treated as a valuable guy by all the others, to the point that in Chapter 5 Monokuma literally relies on him to solve an unsolvable case, Kaede is a one note character
21:41 As the dedicated Danganronpa V3 lover (It's my favorite game in the franchise, and it's not even close), I would love for you to at the very least, If you ever run back and play through the game again, to view the game at a different angle, because I feel like the core message is the exact opposite of what you state for the game. I feel like sometimes, and I definitely can see how people read it like this, that people take this game in a very nihilistic way, but the thesis statement of V3 was never "Everything isn't real, so nothing matters." Tsumugi says this, and while technically true, it's a very relevant plot point that destroys the character's outlooks of their own lives, of course, it's not what I'd call the main takeaway to look at the game as a whole, and if that really was the way the game was meant to be seen as, I wouldn't be so fond of the game. The ending, and the main surviving characters push towards this idea that fiction matters, and I think that's what everything around the game had been building up to. The idea that even though something isn't real, doesn't mean it can't effect the world. Fiction has the power to change that world, and even though they're not real, they can be just as real as life itself, and change people for the better, or for worse. And I don't think you even need to read deep into subtext, it's something the characters do blatantly. The pain and suffering that was put onto the characters was very real to them, and caused the whole Danganronpa show to shut down because of it. V3 takes the idea of fiction effecting the real world in the most literal way that you can for the series, and makes those fictional characters real life people. To Schuichi, every character in this killing game, every death that he had to experience, as well as Himiko and Maki, is all real to them. It's something that they've experienced as people, and that's fundamentally changed them as people. Kokichi's whole life is a literal lie, but it didn't stop him from being a nuisance to literally every character in the game, and his actions to find his way to take control over the game himself. Paralleling that idea, with Kaito's whole personality of the impossible being possible, it really does ring out the idea that all of this has a point, like most good fiction does. And I think it's meant to wrap around and go back to the player too. It validates the idea that just because the character isn't real, doesn't mean it didn't have real life effects on people. I mean, I know games like Halo, the Legend of Zelda, or Mario aren't real, and never will be, buf that doesn't stop me from resonating with those characters, and just because I realize "Oh, they're not real people", doesn't mean those characters aren't real to me, and have effected me as the person I am today, and my outlook on life. I don't know, I feel like looking at the game with the idea that it doesn't matter, really misses the point of what the game's message was in the first place, and it makes me really sad.
I don't necessarily resent what they did with Kaede, but something I do think was a massive missed opportunity is that Shuichi survived the whole game. Kokichi was completely wasted, and if the game weren't hyper-fixated on having the ending that it does I think it would've been genius to make it so that instead of the entire plot point with Kokichi "confessing" to being the Mastermind and the Exisal Hangar, things take a turn for the worst when Shuichi himself is suddenly murdered and it falls onto Kokichi's shoulders to try his absolute best to corral a mob of people who are too stupid, pissed, or freaked out to stop and think. A bit of personal taste here, but I'd also personally keep the same basic theme of Chapter 4 except substituting Gonta for Himiko because I think Himiko is a useless character and it'd provide room for Gonta to bear witness to Kokichi doing something that absolutely shatters his faith in him, leaving him to be the only person he truly sees no redemption for and giving Kokichi another obstacle in trying to get everyone to actually listen to him and convince them all that his goal, first and foremost, is to find the killer and save everyone who is innocent. The cherry on the cake here? When the trial comes around, *you now have to contend with Lie Bullets being your default and Truth Bullets being the ones you have to spend Influence to fire* in addition to needing to use both of them at about the same rate instead of Lie Bullets being once-per-trial with heavy telegraphing other than an optional backdoor. God, Kokichi was so wasted, and the final trial would've been way better even with the theme it chose if Kokichi had been there to actually engage against Tsumugi instead of that worthless do-nothing moron Himiko.
This video feels refreshing. I mean, of course I feel like a lot of people are upset with Kaede’s death, but some other fans are arguing “waaaa that’s the point!” And trying to tell me I’m the problem. I have my own nitpickings with the ending as well just because it was too meta for my liking. But nobody hates Danganronpa more than a Danganronpa fan lol. I think this video made me more sympathetic to Kodaka. Of course I still like him, but lately I’ve been like “he’s trying to make Danganronpa again” especially with the new game he’s putting out, the hundred line: last defense academy. I mean 16 students trapped in school 😒. But also he’s been writing Danganronpa-like stuff from 2010 to 2017 (ofc prob earlier than 2010). He’s probably tired of writing stuff within that box. He likes mystery like with rain code and he likes his “this is the end of the world” stuff with world end club. But he doesn’t want to be placed in a box and I can respect that as a fellow creative.
instead of trying to entertain the wholly unique idea of something becoming fiction inside of fiction, dude isnt able to comprehend that danganronpa was always fictional its ok to dislike the ending, but this "criticism" is nothing more than irrational emotional response masquerading as logical at least you understood what happened in the story unlike 99% of ending compaints
is this what you call an "unique idea"? for me that was such a cheap ending, easy way out. i liked how it mirrored us, real players (with even keebo first wanting to continue, but as shuichi goes on with explaining, keebo changes - just like our opinions), but that's about it. i get that its hard to create a well-written ending, but v3 one was just... weak.
@@julia-qc1wt On a character level, DRV3 asks questions in what ways can fiction impact lives, particularly through main character's world-shattering realization about his and his friends' implanted fake memories overwriting real memories - Are fake memories any less valuable if they created genuine emotions and friendships afterwards? It also parallels players own experience by making the first games "fictional"(even tho they were fictional in the first place) so that the player can also ask himself the same questions, the way video games can affect our real lives and memories. This part on its own is probably one of a kind story beat MC overcomes despair by realizing everything he is feeling right now is real and all the friends he made are real, regardless of the past. Usually such themes are hard to depict as high stakes, but here it works because of context Also the game emphasizes the importance of interpreting words beyond their face value and to understand what they actually mean in current context, as seen in MC's dismissal of "hope.". Maybe you can argue that individually nothing here is "special" and that it's a "gimmick", but all of these themes I mentioned also tie neatly with core principles of DRV3 being about truths vs lies that has been the cornerstone since the beginning of the story - The entire last portion of the game is layered, nuanced and packed with themes. It is neither cheap easy way out or bland
I do understand most of this but mixing the meta jokes with the fact that… they aren’t making fun of their community. The whole point has been talked about (while not exactly portrayed the best) is that this is a different world where people are excited about watching REAL people die. While yes some of it is meta that can be applied to real life fans that wasn’t the creators intention. This video seems like you played it and got stuck in this thinking and based a critique around it. There’s so many small details that are just wrong here that as someone who hasn’t even dug into this series too much I’m still able to tell are wrong so it just makes this seem kinda not researched to a point? I still respect the effort into a video like this and I get it’s tiring too but this seems like this video doesn’t really go into it’s material as it should as a video on danganronpa.
(Spoilers, duh:) Weirdly enough, I (unlike a majority) understood the intent of v3's conclusion, back when I saw content for it the first time, despite not knowing nearly as much about narrative & media: that it was a show *in universe,* and that they're going to move foward from the "lie" they were stuck in. Not defending spike chunsoft for coveying this poorly, but just a bit weird to think about on my end
I'm not the fan of DRV3 ending tbh... it downed all the struggle of the previous characters gone thru...? Like did they all signed up for the show because they LIKE killing? That's it? Hear me out: Junko's followers found a way to get hand in the virtual world that DR2 used and has been running a show for 53 seasons. The characters who signed up are either Junko's follower or captives (idk black market). And they go thru reset and given abilities to be the "ultimate student" for credible reaction". The series isn't international per se but the DR world is still recovering from the despair era and therefore areas where "despair" still looms are active. It was only at V3 that Shuichi, Maki and Himiko "broke" he cycle and questioned "despair&hope" matter. With their previous life memory erased they had existential crisis because IT WAS THEM who signed up for it. In the end they started working with previous characters, now grown up... or even new characters that are descendants of old ones, to take down the killing game. Idk, probably as an after-story bonus for proper conclusion. Y'aint going to tell me that all the characters cast signed up for it and the whole world just agreed despite 100% of not making it alive without consequences and everything we've seen so far and the tears we shed are pointless 😭
Honestly, this video said nothing original or worthwhile. You played a 100+ hour story game and somehow don't know the characters names. You make factually incorrect statements like "everyone's bad at their talents". this only applies to Kaito and maybe Keebo. You don't discuss any character arcs in this game (which are much better than anything in the series previous) You don't even engage with V3's actual message and instead spin the game's twists to fit the same false narrative everyone else who hates the end twist also do. And the end the video basically going "Like the creator, IDGAF anymore!", which isn't even the full story of what Kodaka's intentions were I expected better
Kaito not even, he's still really smart knowing several languages and stuff, astronaut training is no joke haha Tenko is the only one I'd argue is bad at her talent, and that's because from what we know of it, neo-akiedo is very different to akiedo.
The characters design are sometimes interesting and sometimes can incorporate cultural elements to the design. I said sometimes cuz it’s clearly not the case with new regions or they downright sexualize them.
So... you are only supposed to hear the "heroes" of a story and completely disregard everyone else? The fact that you could send that message and think you know how media analysis works is impressive ngl.
@@hazamax2139 generally in a typical narrative, you would like to think that the thesis of the game would not come from the villain of the game, when the villains perspective is directly countered by the protagonists perspective. You say that I am completely invalidating that the villain can sometimes hold the thesis, which yes, and some stories is true, but if that is the case, then the story would end on that being the prevailing theme. but instead V3 ends with the heroes prevailing and their ideology being the final one heard. In a narrative sense that is pretty blatant on what the theme and idea the game is trying to get across is.
@@mastersword648 No, it doesn't hold any point. The thesis of ANY good story, be it game, movie, book, etc is a sum of both protagonist and antagonist. If the narrative weight is carried by one single part, the other one becomes completely unnecessary. Even in your response, you are recognizing it. What are the "heroes" prevailing over? There's no space for an ideal prevailing when there wasn't another one to go up against. And you know, in typical narratives, that usually evolves and develops those ideals into something more. FFS the metal gear rising meme was everywhere and that's literally the whole point of the fight.
@@hazamax2139 of course both come into effect, I think that goes without saying that the heroes wouldn’t have anything to be prevailing over if the villain didn’t have a idea that needed to be prevailed upon. But in the video he corroborates the villains opinion saying that’s what the game directors were feeling what they wanted to express, and that opinion is one you can only have by not counting the heroes rebuttal to that. That’s my main issue! Plus this whole idea of both sides of a conflict creating the theme and message is kind of ridiculous unless you mean in a very literal manner. The theme of Star Wars is one of Hope and rebellion against oppression. If you took into account the villains perspective then you would have to say in some small way the film was endorsing oppression, and tyranny. so unless you in a very literal manner that the actions of the villain in the plot is what typically pushes the narrative to continue and the heroes act out what the theme is, but that’s just literal storytelling. My issue in this video isn’t that he is including the villains message in his analysis. It’s that he doesn’t include the heroes and takes the villains as the final word. He says the game was saying that DR doesn’t matter and the messenger the game was an F you the fans, saying that the stories have no meaning, quite literally the theme of the game is that is spelled out at the very end is that it doesn’t matter if the story isn’t “real” or not it’s that it makes an impact on the world and can change peoples lives, thus creating a reason for its existence. If anything this game message is a thank you to fans for giving this work a deeper meaning than intended, not an “F U we don’t wanna make it anymore” This video portrays it the theme of the game completely inaccurately in my opinion.
@@mastersword648 And yey that main dev left the studio. Can you really not see the meta commentary of an audience constantly asking for more and him leaving the DR studio connect? It's not deep. It's not the first dev to be tired of making a franchise and it's not gonna be the last. Even THE smash creator said multiple times that he didn't want to make more but was forced by their bosses. THAT is the reality. DRV3 is not a one man passion project. Devs don't really have weight when it comes to decisions. And no. Your example makes no sense. The film is saying oppression is indeed very fucking real SO REAL that it's the main struggle the protagonist go up against to make something better. You really don't have to go out of your way to see someone say something along the lines of "Good villains are the ones that while you cannot support, you can understand them." Everyone understands how oppression furthers ones own goal. That doesn't make it good but the fact is it makes logical sense. If you want to see from an obvious perspective just switch it to a good guy. P5R. Actual good dude with good intention wants to oppress everyone to make the world one where people don't suffer. Is it good? No, taking away people's freedom ain't good but you can definetely understand where he's coming from. And furthermore, THE VIDEO'S POINT AIN'T ABOUT THE MESSAGE. He is, during the whole video, talking about a storytelling perspective of how V3's ending saying, as you've addressed "It doesn't matter that everything was fake because yada yada" makes DR1 and 2 stakes and tension worse in retrospective because it invalidates the weight behind it. "Haha the 3 games are just reality games of idiots who signed up to kill each other on camera BUT good ending, we leave that behind." YES it's a message of people deciding their own future and to break the cycle of madness but again, along the way it invalidates the established feelings of people towards the first two games. It does it SO MUCH that the guy making the video specifically says "I TAKE THIS AS ANOTHER TIMELINE TO NOT INVALIDATE THE OTHERS." That's the point of the video. That's how DRV3 Killed its fantasy.
I know it is! I refer to Aikido as a "watered down form of jiu-jitsu" because from my research, it seems to be a much more artistic, almost dance-like martial art that is derived from jiu-jitsu. Add in the fact that Chabashira is stated to be a master of _Neo_-aikido, and you can see why I can't take her talent seriously. She is the master of a martial art that doesn't exist, derived from an already derivative martial art form.
Welp my good sir you have done it I have never in my life rage quit watching a review of a video game, congratulations you were the first and probably will be the last to accomplish that Where do I even begin? The fact that you reviewed a murder mystery game without talking about the murder mystery part? The fact you only talked about 1/6th of the game? The fact you never talked about any of the characters or their character arcs apart from that one time were you said that they are for some reason bad at their talents or most of them are useless talents which is factually wrong ? This is just a subjective rant from someone who got salty about 2 things. Kaede’s death and the 6th chapter. Killing off Kaede was objectively the best choice there from a writing standpoint. Not only are there no wasted characters this way like there were in previous games with characters like Leon and Teruteru since you spend all the first chapter with Kaede and Rantaro is explored later but it delivers a powerful emotional moment and a crazy and UNIQUE twist that I am sure no one saw coming without getting spoiled. Shuichi also had a LOT more room for growth than Kaede did having one of the best character developments in the series and turning out by far its best protagonist. As for the chapter 6 ending you just did not understand the message and have a pretty stereotypical reaction like most people who hated the ending do which basically boils down to “Kodaka just didn’t care anymore” which is not true in the slightest Overall we’ll need you to stay away from that stove sir cause you did not cook man, you burned down the freaking building
Its good to know that it wasn't just me feeling this way about the video, all he really did was talk about the things he didn't like about the story, I honestly feel like he was just playing games for the sake of playing them, the moment he said he didn't like shuichi or that he "had no personality" just really annoyed me and I knew this review was gonna be good 😂
Danganronpa S isn't a gacha game... or at least it doesn't have microtransactions. like DR1+2+V3 aren't gacha games even though you get random rewards with the monocoins and why do people that hate the ending of V3 only agree with the villain, saying the creators hate the series and the audience when the entire point is the opposite.
Im pretty sure Kodaka didnt want to make a third game. He thought it was perfect with the second game and the anime. But he was essentially forced into making the third one by fan demand and his contract with Spike Chunsoft. So he made it out of spite. At least, thats what I've heard as someone in the fandom for at least 5 years.
Kodaka has said several times that he wasn't being spiteful when writing v3s ending and that the outside world isn't intended to be the irl danganronpa fans
@@theretherebearbears7631 Source is .. I literally don't know. It's basically word of mouth through the fandom. Being in it for years you hear a bunch of things. Don't take my words as factual.
I've played (and essentially completed) Danganronpa S and to be honest? I only really have 3 issues with the game. 1. The gacha aspect. I wish it was easier to get characters without needing to grind battles or complete increasingly hard achievements to get monocoins. I was almost done with the game by the time I got the last U-Rank card and some hype cards (the ones that break stat caps) for my party. 2. The game would freeze every now and then which made me have to quit (usually at the end of a development for a card). Thankfully it saved my progress but man could it be annoying. 3. I really miss the dungeon crawling aspect that Monokuma's Test had in V3, even though it felt very rudimentary. I liked the feeling of progression it gave as well as the chests you'd come across along the way (yes, even the 1g chest, that thing was hilarious). If I could have any Danganronpa spin-off game be made, I'd want a full-blown fantasy RPG. Bonus: The difficulty curve with the actual fights in the game was VERY bumpy. Sometimes my party could breeze through several floors then get absolutely roadblocked by a single wave of enemies that could wipe my party in one turn. Not to mention the fact there was a boss that took AN HOUR for my party to beat to death (I had to set the battle mode to automatic because I didn't want to get carpel tunnel that day).
I get that v3's ending has many interpretations, but i think there's a "most valid" one Dg1, 2 and 3 are fiction both for us and for the v3 universe. The v3 audience its not us, the dg team wanted to make a funny joke that they were so sucessful they made the hunger games real. We are made empathize with the despair the characters feel even if they have no relation to us. I really liked this ending, its kind of perfect but i get why is hated or disliked
I had a visceral hatred for this game. Like I hated the monokubs, i hated Monokuma's interactions with them, and I hated the background art. I actually liked the characters. The ending is what caused my main hatred. I felt like it didn't make sense to the story and i just hated it so much. Someone pointed out that when the game came out, it was marketed as an alternate universe, which i didn't know since i played the games like 5 years ago (late to the game if you will). Now that i calmed the heck down, I don't hate it as much. Still don't like it but i like to imagine that V3 takes place after the world healed from Junko's actions. Like the world had gotten so used to peace that they decided to do what Junko did but in a controlled environment for entertainment.
I don't understand the idea that V3 makes the previous games pointless. DR1 and DR2 were fiction to begin with. You don't like to be reminded of that? That's fine, but you also have to realize that the emotions you felt while playing DR1 and DR2 were real even though the characters were not. That's the whole point of V3's ending - fiction matters.
the issue i have with this ending is that everything makes it seem like Kodaka wanted to be done with this series and was sick of it... so he went of to make Raincode. a murder mystery taking place in an enclosed space where you solve murders and the bloods pink. it's just another danganronpa game infact a BETTER one than v3 but instead of it being a danganronpa game it isn't and instead it's part of this new thing which also needs to be compaired to danganronpa because it's a murder mystery series made by Kodaka. at the end of the day my guy left spike chunsoft and killed danganronpa so he could make his own game company and make danganronpa
I thought i was the only one for a long time that felt terrible about the ending 😢 but also, i think they didnt quite foreshadow that ending...They really wanted a big plot twist, or is that just my impression? I felt like it was extremely out of nowhere
I hate the "they got bored" excuse Junko likes despair because she got bored Monaca refuses to be an actual character because she's bored have these people never heard of hobbies? Maybe reading a book???
Junko at least has somewhat of an excuse because her real talent of analyzing has her bored because she can predict everything. While I love Monica’s character she seemed to be rushed to be Junko 2.0 then they cast her aside anyway.
Haven't fully watched the video yet, any may even edit it after I see his opinion but with that being said: Kokichi is my favorite character because he doesn't have one, he is cunning and unknownable which means there is more to him and that is for you to guess because unless it's fresh zesty bullshit, he's not going to give you anything. Which means we get to decide what his backstory and true nature is. Is he a machiavallian? Maybe he's like a male version of monaca? Was he actually genuine when he was with kaito? And most importantly, IS THIS MAN GAY 🤨? (which is yes, because I am pan and Kokichi is literally me for realz 💯/hj) And because of that some theories on Kokichi just sound like headcanons and vice versa
i dislike your second video too, but keep going tho. [i just feel like you misunderstand a lot, misread something or you're just uninformed sometimes cause you didnt play ultra despair girls for example and you misunderstood basically everything about that game by reading the wiki.] i hate how you do your videos, keep in mind i dont hate you as a person and you should continue to do what you like to do. [tho i will never politely shake your hand if i ever meet you somehow.]
Idk why people think V3 was so controversial or unsatisfying. The ending that trolled the internet I personally found very satisfying. Because I think it's mostly the people who took this fictional series too seriously who were bothered by it. It's like slam poetry, when you set up for a rhyme then proceed with a very unfitting line for the awkward cringe affect. I love how absolutely bonkers danganronpa is and I don't understand how people could be mad at it. I personally chose to have a good time with it. I feel bad for people who didn't have a whacky fun time like I did. I personally don't like to keep the company of people so outwardly destructive either. 😕 it's not good for my depression. But I hope people find their joy elsewhere if they didn't with this series. Good pair a videos guy. 👍 also I watched that ori one, and I don't really see why people were thinking you didn't like the game. You literally called it ur favorite of all time. 🤷♂️
i really dislike the argument that trial 6s message was that everything didnt matter. Because 1 its highly likely tsumugi was just lying more and the first 2 games being real and the motivation for the "tv franchise". 2nd i think most people just ignore the end message, the point we are supposed to take away: Fiction is real because it influences us, its real because we went through something. tsumugi is the villain here because she is trying to take away our experience for a shock factor. But in the end we are told that even if it is fiction, its part of reality.
this is really interesting (and lowkey a lil rough) to watch as someone who used to hate v3 and think it was the worst of the series for similar reasons, yet upon giving it another go and actually engaging with it again years later i legitimately think it is my favorite of the series. not to say it’s flawless, but it sucks that it is so heavily misinterpreted, particularly with the ending being interpreted as v3 being for sure in the same universe as dr 1 & 2, and people emotionally reacting to the v3 universe’s audience as if it is actually meant to be *us* as an audience
@ROCKO-g7p this is an opinion I formed on my own upon replaying the games. And an opinion I solidified when playing Rain Code, s game that is definitely better than danganronpa, but still has a lot of the same issues I found in danganronpa, even if rain code sticks the landing a whole lot better in my opinion. I think some of the chapter by chapter mysteries in DR are fun and good, and I like a lot of individual cases for their character writing, but DR consistently disappoints me when I look at it through a more critical lens
Im not going to lie i was shocked by kaede's death and thought it was brilliant. Also shuiichi is a pretty nice down to earth protag. I thought he was a great choice as her replacement ; ). P.S. You missed the Danganronpa game with a female protagonist like a game ago. Most people dont bother to play it, but i kinda liked its Arcade-y Feel. It is pretty unnecessary though pftttt
Thank You. the fact that fans had been clamouring for years for A. a female protag in a mainline game and B. a twist where the protag is the culprit, only for spike to apparently listen and decide to incorporate BOTH into the one game, resulting in the new female protag we'd wanted for so long (and who had VASTLY more personality than either previous protag as much as i loved them too) immediately being killed off, AND replaced with AN EVEN MORE BORING BOY THAN USUAL, was the first massively foul taste in my mouth for this game. i was so excited to play until i found this out, that i just went ahead and spoiled myself on the rest of the game. the final ending twist was the second foul taste. kodaka didn't need to end the series like this. as much as the anime sucked, it could have ended with that and been fine. but he felt that he needed to do this for some reason, just to what? to chastise his own fans??? for enjoying the series he created????? and then he said he didn't want to make dangan ronpa games anymore, and has since gone on to essentially make nothing but dangan ronpa-esque games anyway. killing game shit. murder mystery shit. whatever this new "academy defense" shit is. i would have been *marginally* less upset with V3 if kaede's death had put us in control of another female character. but instead we were stuck with fucking Shuichi. SHUICHI. they gave us our first proper female protag and then fridged her for the sake of manpain and character development for pathetic hat boy. and then none of THAT "character development" ended up mattering either anyway because none of it mattered. none of this shit mattered. dangan ronpa doesn't matter. the games and stories you enjoy experiencing Don't Matter. here's a whole series about finding hope and willpower and strength to go on in the face of absolute despair and tragedy, full of intriguing mysteries and countless lovable characters. Fuck You for enjoying it.
You should stop reviewing genres of media you can't fully appreciate. It is clear all your gripes with Danganronpa stem from a misunderstanding of either characters, tropes, or just the medium in general. It's amazing you were able to find any enjoyment in it with this much confusion clouding your brain honestly.
I’m glad I played Danganronpa when I was 17, I feel like I’ve grown up and watched/played better things. Still nostalgic for it, though idk most of Danganronpa is pretty dumb.
A lot of things in V3 don't really make sense if you scrutinize it hard enough. For instance Kaede's plan to kill the mastermind just so happen to line up with Shuichi's plan doesn't make any sense! Kaede choosing the shotput ball as her murder weapon also doesn't make sense unless she knew exactly what Shuichi's plan was! I could keep going, but I'm worried about spoilers.
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUBmYqs1jZ0/mqdefault.jpg)
The benefit of the “was Tsumugi lying or not? you decide” part of drv3’s ending is that it lets me express the idea that I *definitely think Tsumugi was lying.*
1. In ch 1, Tsumugi makes the claim to Kaede that she can’t cosplay as “real people” or else she breaks out in hives called cospox. First of all, this ‘explanation’ sounds completely nonsensical even by danganronpa standards. Second of all, Tsumugi could easily be faking it by using makeup or other effects considering she’s the same girl who can near instantly cosplay as someone completely different in appearance like Sakura Ogami. This means that the previous danganronpa characters could absolutely be real people in-universe, and Tsumugi made up the cospox thing to make her ‘real fiction’ lie seem more credible
2. In the sixth trial, we see supposed ‘evidence’ that’s apparently tapes of the characters auditioning for the danganronpa show. But there’s a big inconsistency and that’s with the names being bleeped out. For example, Kaede’s name gets bleeped out in the ‘audition tape’ even though she already refers to herself as Kaede Akamatsu before any of the flashback light stuff comes into play, right at the beginning after she gets kidnapped. On that note, if Kaede allegedly *willingly* signed up for the danganronpa show, then why did those people come and kidnap her at the beginning??
3. Again in the sixth trial, Tsumugi also shows ‘evidence’ for the cast being excited to be in danganronpa during the Prologue… dialogue which *never happened* and you can clearly prove never happened by starting a new save and going through the Prologue again or looking up a no commentary walkthrough video of the Prologue. If you don’t want to go back and do that, I’ll save you the time and just tell you the differences. Here’s the dialogue from the actual Prologue:
Monokid: Hell yeah! Get ready! Once the seal is broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game!
Kaede: K-killing game…?
Monotaro: Now then, after the Flashback Light helps you remember your amazing talents… This amazing story will begin for real this time!
Vs. what Tsumugi claims happened:
Monokid: Hell yeah! Get ready! Once the seal is broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game!
Kaede: K-killing game?
Shuichi: You mean… we were selected!?
From this comparison, we can clearly and plainly see Tsumugi is just being a bigger gaslighter than the guy who invented the gas stove (that’s James Sharp, if you were wondering)
There’s other examples to dive into, like the entire… thing… that is the ch 5 trial, but this comment is long enough
this is a much better alternative to it all being fake, love your bullet points
@@lexirosereese6951One might even call it a “bullet rebuttal” against Tsumugi.
As someone who thinks that it’s kind of dumb to just write off the point of the whole metaphor (that the games aren’t real in-universe), I will say that the rebuttal I’ve always viewed for the audition tape thing is that the people’s real names were used for the characters.
While they’re the same people in body and have the same name, they’re completely different in personality and backstory.
The only thing I don't like is that we really can't find out the truth after discerning her lies.
@@johnsmovies287 But the audition tape also looks like the gymnasium which Tsumugi had access to in her lab
God, when I say Danganronpa is Umineko but gone wrong, I mean it... With that said, I still love it lol
V3 is very much doing a poor Umineko impression like for a solid 40% of its runtime. It has its own Erika, it’s own “catbox”, it’s own found family, it’s own ending that commentates on the fans, but it does those things without actually knowing WHY they work.
I like to call Danganronpa, "Kazutaka Kodaka puts some Persona 4 (or Persona 5 in V3) Characters in a Situation™" personally, but I've never heard of Umineko XD
They say your fans are your biggest haters
@@morningbell3690Kokichi wishes he was as good as Erika
Every Peak Fiction has an imitation. Berserk led to mediocre gorey fantasies, Monster and 20th Century Boys led to mediocre psychological mysteries, and the same happened with Umineko and V3 here.
Personally, I take the ending more as commentary on different forms of Media. We don't PLAY as K1-Bo, so we're not the hypothetical "TV audience" the game poses outside of a single sequence where we move in tandem with them. But as a GAME, we'll have far more immediate control over the fate of the game's story than what a TV Audience might have over the fate of a show. Of course, it's contrived meta theming that takes a lot of mental hoops to get that specific conclusion out of V3. Personally, I really agree with your Alternate Universe theory as well, feels like both sides of it are "valid" but V3 is just incredibly hard to talk about by the nature of it's directions.
It's been almost six years and I still remember basically going through the five stages of grief when Kaede died.
I got white hair because of that TwT
I bawled my eyes out during the trial, then put the game on hold for like five weeks. Right there, Danganronpa does commit in a sense. But then again it also backs out of committing in that same moment by giving us the most boring and bland protagonist as a replacement for Kaede.
v3 is my favorite ending to a series period. It acknowledges that the formula would get stale if they kept going even if the audience is always asking for the next entry, but it also knows that it has affected people and will influence spiritual successors and fan works. The entire cast are almost literally that, fan works that rose to be as good as the original. It boggles my mind that people think it invalidates the rest of the series or shows the devs hate the audience or hate making the games or something.
but as a story on its own it intentionally ceases to function. The idea that "even if we're fictional we can have an impact on people" narrative forgets that these are still people in the universe of the series since either every single interaction all the way up to the end was scripted which would be awful and assuming half the information we get is just lies, or they fundamentally aren't fictional and are literally just people. When shuichi claims he rejects both hope and despair, what he does is literally just hope, so fundamentally the story becomes just 2 rehashed with all of the characters being brainwashed to forget who they once were and left having to accept that this killing game was one they themselves had set up and to oppose what they once were, just with the added gimmick that the fans are the real villains. plus even the rest of v3 doesn't seem to make sense with the idea of these ultimate talents being fake, because gonta can just see creatures the size of dust mites.
also the idea that the characters are fan works despite literally being written in universe by team danganronpa is like saying that a paper mill wrote the great gatsby
@@wyn9693 the characters in the game are real people. It's their identities that are fictional, and have been written by the fictional team danganronpa inside the game. The whole concept of the ending is that it is fucked up to do that to actual people in order to create this kind of entertainment for the masses.
Shuichi rejecting both hope and despair isn't him "still choosing hope", it's quite literally him refusing to play his part for the amusement of the masses. The game literally asks you to stop playing itself in order to progress.
If the previous people that became the main characters were on board or not with the killing game is actually left up to interpretation, because the start of the prologue is actually slightly different compared to what we're shown during the final trial. If the fictional team danganronpa can alter people's identity, it's plausible they also can fake that thing as well.
As for ultimate talents lining up with the phisical characteristics of each character, it could have gone in 2 ways: 1 when in the selection process the fictional team danganronpa chose the people that had the right characteristics, or 2 it was the characteristics of each person in the roster that informed what their character were and weren't capable of doing
I’m trying to remember the video title but someone on here did a rewrite of V3 where Kaede stays the protagonist and Angie becomes the rival and it was amazing
I read one that had Kaede as the protagonist but Angie still dies, maybe there's a couple fan-fictions like that out there
@@MrFusion yeah there probably is, I found mine in a UA-cam essay but I don’t remember the title or the user
“I’d trade my life for yours” by grayimperia is an amazingr Kaede-protagonist fic
The one thing I would disagree with on this one is how the ending of V3 makes it so that everything that comes before it "doesn't exist" or that none of it matters. Danganronpa 1-3 still happened, and if you wanted a resolution to the story of Hope's Peak... that's how it ends at the end of 3, whether as a story within the V3 world or as a story within ours. Yes, the antagonist of the story WANTS you to think that it's all powerless as fiction (while at the same time being obsessed with it), but that's not how V3 ends. Shuichi is able to win by, as a "fictional" character from within the "show", making a change in the "real" world through the appeal of ideas. If Kodaka's intention for V3 was to negate everything that came before it, I don't think he would be putting phrases like "Fiction Can Change The World!" in the final playable game section.
What I think (and yeah, this is my opinion here) is that there was a desire for balance. The level of obsession that the V3 world had with Danganronpa was what was unhealthy, not the existence of the original media itself. Obviously, nobody's going to be so obsessed with it as to start up their own real-life games (although ironically V3 was banned in South Korea in part due to the concern over copycat crimes), but I've been around enough toxic fandoms in the last decade or so to know that there are definitely people who could stand to learn that lesson. Fiction is important in helping us view the world and shape our perception of it, but as with anything else, we have to be careful not to misuse it. If Danganronpa presents from itself a wildly exaggerated narrative to give an underlying point, well, it's not the first time the series has done that :)
I think viewing it as an alternate universe to 1-3 is a fine interpretation if that floats your boat, I just don't think it's necessary to validate the series when viewed altogether. Aladdin and Ali Baba are no less relevant as one of the thousand and one nights, and stories within stories have existed for years. And if you don't believe that a story can be powerful even as a complete work of fiction that never happened, just look at the world's religi--[REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE VATICAN]
Also, i think Tsumugi is a grate antagonist. I like to think that she was a obsessed fan who managed to get her self into the DR company, so she wrote herself in. (also explaines why her character reads as a self incert in a fanfic)
As a DR fan, I find it really interesting that one of the biggest things you valued (or I guess, tried to find value in) was the world and overarching story of the series, as for me personally, I always preferred the series to be more small scaled and really only focused on the individual death games rather than the entire world as a whole, especially cuz Kodaka is honestly really bad at worldbuilding and writing overarching large scale narratives, at least when it comes to Danganronpa. Honestly that’s one reason i find it hilarious that the DR3 Anime was even made in the first place. Even if it had been executed really well, or at the very least, actually good, to me, the outside world was never that important to begin with.
Honestly, to me, I think the format of Danganronpa works a lot better as an anthology, wherein each installment doesn’t need to be concerned with the last, especially since that way it doesn’t need to be confined to a lot of the series deep rooted ideas.
I suppose that’s why I appreciate the fan content for DR as much as I do (the 1% of ones that aren’t made by the large majority of… those kinds of DR fans). Hell, DR has inspired a lot of full on games not even tied to the series, which I think is indicative, at least to me, of how the overarching story and world was never the series main draw to begin with.
But that’s just my two cents, idk.
Honestly, I found your two videos on the series really interesting. I appreciate the route you took with your critique and analysis. As a fan of this series for years, this is honestly an idea I haven’t seen explored much before.
Great video quality. Keep up the good work 👍
(Sorry for the long asf essay I just dropped)
I actually fully agree with you! Like whenever I think about Danganronpa, the first things that comes to mind are the trials, executions, and its characters. The world building and overall plotline is definitely meh with a lot of holes but if you just think about the trials individually, it makes the overall experience much better.
As others have said, DRv3 doesn't really invalidate the previous games' canonically. The alternate universe thing you propose is just THE way to think about it. There are two scenarios. 1) that to the world of DRv3, DR1, sDR2, etc are fictional. BUT you can of course return to those games and their conclusions on their own terms. OR. 2) tsumugi was lying in some way, and the original killing school life and tragedy and stuff did happen to the universe of DRv3. Whether its one or the other is up to interpretation, and this doesn't affect the first games all that much (aside from playing them and maybe thinking "the v3 characters might think this thing about this story" and whatnot. not that you play them thinking "none of this matters to it's own wider universe because in doesnt matter to *v3*")
But naturally, that means only the previous games can avoid those drawbacks. DRv3 still has to deal with the potential that all previous danganronpa is fiction. If those being fake to v3 feels completely invalidating to v3's story or premise or stakes or intrigue i dont think anyone can make a good argument against that.
"i know this video is significantly shorter than the last video"
the video in question being a full half-hour. love you kai.
I think can be seen as a standalone, alternate universe scenario, at least that’s how I see it. It seems like Kodaka was pondering how the franchise could be milked dry if it kept going, and his desire for that not to happen.
He also recently said he wouldn’t mind returning to it someday so interpret this as you see fit lol.
Btw Kodaka also brought up the possibility of Tsumugi lying so I think it holds water.
I feel like you unfairly judged Shuichi because of the spite caused by Kaede's death.
Shuichi isn't a bland protag like the others, far from it, he's one of the few characters in the series that goes through a character arc.
I love how he starts as this loner anxious boy who gradually grows to be more confident. A lot of the stories, especially anime-y stories tend to handle character grow very rapidly, with an event happening that changes the character almost immediately. That's kinda how Fuyuhiko's character arc happened after Peko's death.
Meanwhile, in Shuichi's case, while Kaede's death started his character arc, it didn't immediately change him. The training sessions with Kaito did. Struggling through the web of lies planted by Kokichi did. The friendship with Maki did. He gradually started becoming more confident in speaking the more the game went on, and even the footage shown in this video highlights this to me.
Take a look at how he acted in the first case and compare it to the last case. Seeing how he went from this boy that can't meet eyes with people during the class trial to someone that aggressively pushed Monokubs (and Monokuma) into the corner in the last trial felt so good. I remember getting goosebumps when he was shouting that "Kaede's unjustful death DOES matter" (Speaking of all, I love the plot twist of her death being senseless)
It's kinda sad for me reading how people defend the ending (which I agree with your take on), but barely anyone defends Shuichi.
Was Shuichi less interesting than Kaede? Depends, I can't say because Kaede didn't have a character arc, and that's something that (for me) makes or breaks a character.
But was he as bland as Makoto or Hajime? No, definitely not. He was a much better protag than Hajime and MILES ahead of Makoto.
Overall DRV3 despite the ending was my favourite entry in the entire series. This comment's already long enough, so I'll skip on arguing that, but what captivated me in DRV3's writing that DR2 didn't have was:
- More mature theme (Truth vs Lies)
- Better characters and more good characters (DR2's cast had like 1/3rd of characters interesting with the rest being boring. DRV3 on the other hand had almost every character interesting for me, with only a few exceptions) also with more characters having a character growth compared to previous entries.
- Going against the killing game, using the rules against the mastermind (This is something that lacked for me in DR2. Characters were pretty much going along with what Monokuma planned right until the very end. In DR1 we had offscreen Kirigiri doing investigation which was okay. In this game we straight up had a trial meant to invalidate the existence of the entire killing game (#5) with preivous attempts of chaotically hijacking it by Kokichi to lead others to stop killing.
I got kinda emotional at the end, but I just love DRV3, despite it's ending that I also really dislike. Which is kinda funny, cause another series that I also really love also has an (imo) awful and controversial ending (Attack on Titan).
@kuba4ful I think just because a character has a interesting concept doesn’t make them good, a character like Gonta has a lot of potential but if they don’t do anything with him he’s kind of wasted, I think that’s what made the characters of DR2 so cool, scenes like the blackout in chapter 1 are cool because the dialogue of each character heighten the immersion and showed that they have character other that just repeating the same line over and over like a lot of the V3 characters do, that and some characters in V3 were just boring like Ryoma and Kibo, but I think that just made the good characters of V3 better like Maki and Kokichi, in DR2 all of the characters were pretty solid with V3 having clear standouts, it’s not that DR2 didn’t have its standouts like Nagito and Gundam, but the rest of the DR2 cast could at least stand on their own two feet, where in V3 the second those interesting characters die it feels kinda empty because the rest are pretty shallow
What about the ending do you personally dislike? I think as an alternative-universe type story V3’s ending is pretty good, as it doesn’t retroactively tear apart the entire series and disrespect everything it initially went for, like Attack on Titan did
Nah Shuichi’s boringg
@@keremwashere3982 What an excellent argument, thank you, you finally convinced me that my feelings and thoughts about Shuichi were false and he was boring all this time, and I just failed to notice it because I really liked his character and his character growth.
In all seriousness, we all experience media in different ways, so it's okay if you find him boring, I and many people (per character polls) don't and I can put my finger on why I like him and explain why he's stayed in my memory after 6 years of playing the game.
He might be boring to you and that's okay. But he's not to me and to many people (6th place in the Danganronpa trilogy popularity poll, for context Kaede was 14th)
@@kuba4ful not the sarcasm 💀
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS I just think he’s pretty much a nothing character and his type of character development has been done to death in Danganronpa. Kaede could’ve been such a badass protagonist that even could’ve had a reverse character arc where she goes more and more insane as she fails to do her job as a leader and murders keep on happening. Cuz I feel like that’s totally what would’ve happened if she stayed the protag. Just a thought. It’s okay if you ain’t into that though and just want another “insecure boy becomes secure and demure” character arc from the protagonist.
I love V3 but ... the series so much untapped potential. I think that a fourth main game would disappoint me no matter what, since it probably wouldn't be what it COULD be.
what do you mean by "untapped potential"?
i think during development they were crunching the employees hard which is why theres inconsistent cgs
@@irisblink not sure about that since v3 has the longest dev time I think but they were little some cgs looking inconsistent compared to others
You should check out Eden’s Garden
@@Agent_Cobalt I have played the prologue and kept up with Kill/Cure too
The best way I can describe danganronpa, is that it's like a large chocolate easter egg:
Chocolaty goodness outside, hollow disappointing emptiness inside.
It's frustrating when people interpret the ending of V3 this way, because that's exactly what I thought the developers meant when I first saw it. V3's ending isn't supposed to be mocking you, saying "Haha, everything is fake. Just suck it up." You're actually right, It's supposed to be an alternative universe that doesn't take place in the Danganronpa universe. (And they're talking about the audience in their world. they don't mean us, the players) NezumiVA's video explains it way better, though. specifically the finale part where she talks about the 6th trial. (Just wanted to clear that up because A LOT of people seem to have misunderstood the ending, including me)
Also, Yes. Kaede dying *was* disappointing-
That's very enlightening, but if not many people understood that, and felt the way they did about the ending, it's pretty valid.
@@VexDeePhilosophs True! And I'm not saying that it's invalid, if someone were to play this game, I'd assume they would think the ending means that THH and SDR2 just didn't matter at all. It just sucks that the developers couldn't/didn't confirm DRV3's separation from the story of Hope's Peak in a way that's better and more obvious to the players somehow.
@@ewe3221THIS also adding the fact that the person saying that "danganronpa is fake" and "your lives are a waste of time bc danganronpa never existed" is Tsumugi, yknow, THE mastermind, THE antogonist of the game. I never understood how people EVER thought that V3 was trying to make fun of you when in reality, theyre not, even Shuichi says that the pain he feels is real and that even if what he says doesnt matter to the outside world, it matters to him which is literally the game telling you, the protagonist, the player are suppose to feel the emotions that V3 gives you.
@@blurrie9688 The theme of the game was about truth and lies. What's a bigger thematic villain then being told it was a lie/fiction. I think it did a good job of its themes though it feels like many would misunderstand that or take it as a 4th wall break against us, the audience
your video on the main timeline was really fun so i'm super excited for your take on v3!! i know its probably really critical just because of the way v3 is but v3 somehow managed to worm its way into my heart as my favorite game and i really love listening to people talk about it!!
i think v3 is the most promising game danganropa has to offer even if it fumbles the execution a lot of the time. its twist with who the protagonist actually is was great and its characters are the best in the series but also its last trial takes a lot of time to love because of how it treats the characters as characters. all in all though i think its pros outweigh its cons and i love it despite its flaws.
i know this will be a great watch even if i disagree with your takes and i applaud you for making it
Thank you! After taking a good look at it, there is a lot that V3 does well from a fundamental visual novel perspective, and it's really cool to see the improvement that Kodaka and Co. made over the years. Admittedly, I am pretty critical of the game because of its ending, because it--just like this video--makes itself needlessly separate from its predecessors. I am upset that this funky little visual novel series does not get the ending it deserves.
@@SojournerKai I mean the hopes peak saga already ended with dr3 so it's not surprising NDRV3 is seperate from it. It's even called "New" Danganronpa in the japanese name to give a little hint to it and I think it ended the series in a good way with a great message too
I honestly love the first chapter of V3, I was disappointed that Kaede was killed, however I loved the trial since there were so many hints in the dialogue and gameplay that I figured it out before the twist happened and I experienced what you said you wished the trial was! The writing was so specific that it was like an unreliable narrator (which is a personal nitpick in writing for me, but done correctly, I'm okay with it). The ending is alright, not perfect and heavily controversial, but I'm glad that this game is technically in an alternate universe. That allows the first two games to be it's own thing and then a 'spin-off' V3 game which I enjoyed the characters and thought they were able to carry in my opinion. I loved the video and hope to watch more!
I think anyone taking the ending as a sort of way to mock the players is severely missing the point.
honestly i kinda understand why v3 story feels so rushed or werid kodaka was working on the story v3 AND the amine at the same time
"danganronpa didn't stick out artistically unlike... genshin impact" LOL??????
Kinda a strange game to compare artistically cuz genshin is a fantasy rpg which has more range? In terms of that. And dr is a light novel game and you could only see what you read.
I'm curious to know what you'd think of the Zero Escape trilogy, now!
Also from Spike Chunsoft and it's creator/director, Uchikoshi, is now Kodaka's partner at Tookyo Games. (The "final dead room" in DR2's FunHouse is a huge nod to ZE)
Storytime : I remember when I streamed V3 and Kaede died, I made a joke that that night, Shuichi would go to his room, and remove his hat, revealing a secret ahoge (all previous protags had the craziest ahoges, so it was the definitive Protagonist Sign for me)...
ONLY FOR IT TO BE EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.
I think some of your critiques are fair but you also fundamentally misunderstand a lot of what v3 is going for. like yea twists like kaede dying or the killing game just being a tv show in universe (as well as a lot of the anime bullshit) can be a deterrent but it doesnt seem to me like you really worked with what the game actually gave you like Shuichis character arc or the whole commentary on media as a whole that the final trial offered and it makes me wonder why you even put so much time into the game or your video on it
In the final trial the game gives you a finale to the series as we know it by ending itself before it Could become oversaturated with tons of entries like many other popular media franchises, where the main characters compell the audience to the point where they, through K1B0, save them and invite them into their world, and shuichi even gives a whole spiel about how even if they were fictional, their stories had meaning, yet you came away like the ending ruined the previous entries, and when you cant even remember a handful of names for characters you see for hours upon hours because youre so unwilling to work with the game over one plot twist, why even bother trying to make a point about it
@@rem7019honestly yeah, I was surprised cuz even after years of playing the game I remember all the characters from v3, like how do you forget a character like kokichi omua😭 like not even find him annoying or hating him, or his whole thing about lies and that being similar to the ending, wheaten it’s a lie or not. And his whole thing about shuichi being another stale protag (even tho kaede is my favorite out of the games I still won’t disregard the entire game cuz of the first trial dawg💀)
9:35 small correction, cmiiw, but...
They did it because of the fact that the timer was going to run out. Yea, ultimately, this would have been inconsequential, since they ciuld have made another attempt (in theory), but my point here is that Kaede's kill-correction happened because A) the shot-put had barely missed Kaede, and B) because of Tsmugi's desire for the show to go on (As if DR was a fucked up version of Doctor Who), which creates characterization beyond Junko's "Dis bear's Dispair 🤪🤪🤪"
the most frustrating thing when people criticise this game is the constant “you missed the point!!” from its diehard fans. No, I didn’t actually! It’s just not very good
Ikr it’s so frustrating when people defend things they like with “you just didn’t get it!” cuz like… I did. It’s just that it’s not good or interesting, hope this helps!❤
The way people defend Shuichi and say that he has an amazing character arc when in reality we’ve seen this “insecure boy becomes confident” character arc PLENTY OF TIMES in Danganronpa… it’s annoying. Kaede had the potential to be an extremely engaging and interesting protagonist who would’ve maybe had a negative character arc but noo we had to play as another insecure guy
@@keremwashere3982 right!!! Another gripe of mine is when story flaws are pointed out fans will defend it as being “a meta commentary” of the series? or that “it’s flawed because Tsumugi isn’t a good writer” like okay? But Tsumugi isn’t real, and even if the flaws in the story are self aware about being bad….it doesn’t make them less bad. Meta elements of the game are just used as a convenient excuse to hand wave all the tired tropes and bad character writing away
He does know that v3 IS in a separate universe than DR1 and DR2... right? That would make the ending less bad than what it is, seeing how that's the point.
My personal hc is that 1-3 DID happen, but just in the distant distant past. So the world overcorrected to become comepletely and utterly devoid of conflict, to the point where people became bored and started the show danganronpa. I also think its VR but thats more self indulgent
You do make some decent points, however I feel like you were needlessly harsh against the game at points. I understand that you were disappointed about how the Kaede twist turned out (I think to some extent everyone who played the game was) but as you express in this video, you didn't give the rest of the game a fair shot because of that early frustration. Shuichi is a much more compelling protagonist than Makoto and Hajime, at least in my opinion. Yes he does take up the role of "normal person" in the class like the guys before him, but he's still an ultimate. His deductive skills allow him to suspect the true killer or the true means of death rather quickly, it's just that his arc revolves around him being able to break out of his shell and not be afraid to expose the truth. I also believe you took the wrong moral out of the ending. The point Shuichi makes by the end of the final trial isn't "Look at you, the players! You're awful for making this series of killing games go on for this long!" Instead, his biggest point and the overall moral of V3 is that even if the rest of the series was fictional in-universe, fiction can leave a substantial impact on the real world through the people who experience those stories. That's why I disagree on your point on Kaede's murder plot and trial near the beginning of your video. As you state, it gives Kaede more character and autonomy in the story, which lends into the big lesson V3 tries to teach at the end. And to be fair, none of the killing games have been all that fair. Case 5 of the first game shows that when the students declared that they wouldn't kill anyone, Junko had to fake a murder just to get rid of her two biggest threats, Makoto or Kyoko. I don't think V3 is a perfect game, none of the games in this series are, and I can agree that Danganronpa's adherence to formula can hamper its potential in a lot of ways. I respect a lot of your opinions, but I feel like you could've been a lot more fair to V3 instead of just checking out after the first case.
I agree with a lot of what you said my gosh
I think what really got people disappointed was that Kaede was the first protagonist not only to be the first female of the main series, but also the first one that needed no development to show what she was capable of. She managed to take charge, give people hope, and actually try to take on the mastermind from the start, something it took Makoto an entire game to do while he had his hand held by Kyoko. When she died and Shuchi came in as the real protagonist, some players felt like they lost someone who had everything they expected from a main character in exchange for a blank slate and paid for another game where they play as another male protagonist they had to develop though a minimum of 20 hours of gameplay. CinnamonToastKen had a very similar feeling to SojournerKai throughout his playthough. I have nothing against Shuichi being the real protagonist, but it would have been much more interesting seeing Kaede develop backwards and go on a slow downward spiral seeing her efforts to save everyone be useless after each murder and trial only for the final reveal to show that everything she fought for harder than anyone was pointless and even being mocked and discouraged by the world. The ugly truth and shift in resolve to find a new solution would have been much more impactful on her character than Shuichi's.
@@AGJ117While it sounds interesting keeping Kaede around, I’m not sure that it would be for the better in the long run. While she’s not entirely static, she isn’t that complex either. It’s doubtful that you’d create more development for her with more screen time. You’d probably just draw out the same conclusion, and then that hurts Suichi’s development pacing. And remember that a pivotal point of Suichi’s development is what happens with Kaito and Maki. More so than the other games, the protagonist of V3 has a greater impact on the character development of other characters, and I don’t think it would work as well with Kaede
Kaede was made the way she was very purposely. If she was the protagonist then she would need to be a completely different character. The way that she is serves as inspiration to Suichi and contrasts with her audition tape at the end of the game
I've never been a fan or even truly understood the "it's all not real therefore it's pointless" argument. If Danganronpa is said to be, within it's own continuity, Danganronpa then that means it's fiction inside of fiction which can still be analyzed as fiction. Fake memories or not the V3 cast are at the end of the day written characters with backstories and personalities that can be taken seriously, even within a world that calls itself fiction. This is even entertained with Tsumugi's explanation of how these characters got into their situation. They WERE real people who applied as contestants of the next Danganronpa and were then remade into blank slates that a character could be written into, meaning they are in fact, real but their identities are not.
Another big point is when the class trial nears it's end and it's obvious that both Tsumugi and Monokuma are surprised and on the backfoot by what the remaining characters are doing. If everything is a lie and they truly wrote every last thing that's going on, then these characters should be unable to act out of turn and yet they do. They defy expectations and their motives and even purpose in Keebo's case. If this is all a work of fiction and everything was written from the start, why was Keebo's rampage framed as such a serious problem for Tsumugi? If this is truly all written fiction with predetermined plotlines then Keebo shouldn't be able to go haywire and ruin the show. Taking V3's ending as "It's all pointless none of it ever mattered" to me just seems like people saw the ending, got mad, and refused to think any further. Which is beautiful because the entire point of the ending is to end the killing game by making the audience dissatisfied with it, which also happened IRL. My hot take is that V3's ending is one of few perfect ways to send off the series. By fully committing to the meta bit to such a ridiculous extent that all the events we see in this universe are just Danganronpa as we know it, it sticks by a theme of breaking the 4th wall and expanding in universe. Other games like to use 4th wall breaks such as the save text changing, winning the game by not playing, etc. as simple magic tricks but V3 utilized them to their fullest extent to bring home an insane theme.
That’s why I love that the whole cast of every game gets hit with amnesia at the start. They are all reset to zero and have to grapple with the situation they are in and each other despite previously having that context and being content with it. Amnesia as a trope is usually reserved for onboarding the audience, but Danganronpa uses it as a tool for character development
THIS. Literally this. I don't even have anything to add because of the way you put it.
the only way i can see V3 working with the original 2 games is through the concept of fictionalization, Specifically that part of their plan to return the world to normal and undo the apocalypse Junko created was to make the entire event "fictional" in the sense of it did happen but No one Thinks it did and is just a story.
Has to be Kai making me watch not one, but two video's about a game I never played or cared about and still watch the full just under 2h content. Good stuff waht can I say
Cheers, Hyper!
I enjoy your breakdowns of this series a lot because I have a lot of my own gripes about the series and seeing you word it out and place it down and ESPECIALLY with v3 in the pure nightmare that is the treatment of Kaede and the way the game chooses to throw everything through a woodchipper in the ending,,,
It's very nice seeing there be that agreement. See it get placed and worded out. To have those genuine and understandable frustrations about these writing issues and lack of commitment to anything genuinely interesting. It's very nice to see and listen to and to be able to agree on parts and consider stuff and povs i haven't considered. Your exhaustion and frustration with it is understandable and explanations are nice especially with issues such as "not seeing into Kaede's murder plans" and whatnot.
It's also really nice seeing your passion still for the series in how you wish it could be better and you even note ways it could have handled things better and just,,, been better. You have a lot of thoughts and feelings and it makes it more interesting than just needless bashing and hate when theres still stuff you like or wish was better. (as i also would wish)
If you were to ever try to look at anything DR again, I would recommend the Another series, a couple of korean fangames that have both been fan-translated into playability. While the first game is a bit rough around the edges in gameplay, both have fun messing with expectations and taking things the mainline games squandered on and doing it so much better or taking good things and doing even better than before. The 2nd game is noticeably more popular and has been played fine before on its own but the first game makes a lot more moments of the second more meaningful.
But this is only silly recommendation and otherwise I still enjoy these a lot and your thoughts on the series
Thanks so much! I'm honestly glad that I came across as wishing that the series had a better resolution because I know that I sound pretty negative to some people. The negativity, while partially directed at the misused format, was definitely more for the story. I will watch paint dry if the paint has an interesting and cohesive narrative.
I'll have to put a pause on Danganronpa related content for a while so that I can work on other videos I have in mind, but I appreciate the suggestion. Fans of this series seem to be even more passionate than I am (and more positive), so knowing that someone went out of their way to make an alternate version is fascinating. Thanks again!
I look forward to the stuff you put out in the future for sure!! You have a lot of interesting thoughts and format your stuff nice to watch and listen to and really make good to put on when trying to do things!! Excited for what you're working on next and currently have in mind
@@SojournerKaiIf you do intend on coming back to daganronpa, is there a chance you would do a video on your wishlist for a hypothetical DR4? Or at least how you would write dr4?
Hey Kai! Letting you know, since the desktop UA-cam client doesn't allow adblockers, until an adblocker comes around that circumvents their security measures, you are the last video I ever watched on desktop UA-cam. I couldn't have chose a better video.
The highest honour I could ever receive.
use ublock origin + a non chromium browser (it doesnt matter which one). it should work then
22:56 yeah. This. Exactly this. This is how you’re supposed to view the storyline. V3 isn’t a direct sequel; yeah it’s based off the same ol DR principles but it isn’t set in the same universe, which Kodaka has readily clarified. I guess he’d abused his trust with this audience too much though 🤷 half the fandom seems not to believe him
thanks for the brain food my man
enjoyed every second of it
Imma fight you on the Shuichi thing he’s actually a really great protagonist whag the hell he might not be as outwardly as Kaede but he has a personality that shines through just like her he just is more reserved about it. Instead of just protagonist fodder he was a character thrusted into the protagonist spot.
Right!! I love kaede with all my heart but to say he wasn’t as good a protagonist is kinda crazy. It was fitting that he was the one to deliver the message, he finds the truth in a world of lies basically. It’s very fitting. Same with hajime, even though I don’t like him as much, he also had a character arc and a really good one if I remember. Like the video didn’t even mention kokichi as he is kinds the person to put into the idea of what is truth and what is a lie??
23:27 This is actually explained in the manga because Danganronpa has books. The manga dives into Junko's background why she's so despair happy. Why her sister has the hots for her and what not but to cover the mysterious passing out plot hole. Spoilers for the manga but Junko got amnesia at some point and her boyfriend who was the ultimate neurologist tried to brainwash the despair out of her to make her not totally hellbent on screwing the world Junko regains her memories finds out her man doesn't love her for her and kills him to feel the despair of killing someone she loves and then uses his work to wipe the memories of her classmates for the game. I also wanted to touch on some points you technically got wrong in this and the last video not because the information was laid out in the games or even the anime but because its stuff you havw to be a superfan to find but basically Junko is technically also a genius analyst i think it rivals or is ultimate level and its why she got so bored with everything because she is able to accurately predict virtually any outcome for everything but despair which is an unpredictable feeling and like a drug for her and her ultimate talent as fasionista is more than likely just a cover she used to apply and get into hopes peak for her plan. Lastly i believe this fills the hole in her plan because despair is the one thing she cant predict she was more than likely just planning on getting in digging up dirt on hopes peak and trying to take down the biggest hope icon in verse. She likely just started planning for bigger and bigger things as she found out more like the ult animator and Izuru being in verse God and what not. Realized that she could go for the game end but this contradicts the idea that she planned all of this a while in advance given her manga exploits and the brainwashing she learned from her ex so i dunno ronpa is flawed.
Dangling Grandpa..........!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!
i've fallen back into my danganronpa phase as of recent courtesy of writing nagito komaeda i am not proud of it but anywho kaede did not deserve to get shafted like she did and V3's ending kinda weird
flangodumpa
Juding by the fact that I didnt hear anything about Danganronpa when v3 came out. i imagined it was mid. BUT HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THAT ENDING IS SOMETHING ELSE.
So here is my interpretation of V3. Specifically with the breakdown of the final trial. To me, it was if Kodaka was speaking through the characters as to why the game as a series should end. You can write an amazing story and have everything end in a nice pretty bow and say “That’s that, there’s no more story left to tell.” But fans always demand more of what it is. We as an audience and as fans always want to know what happens next, more of the IP, and studios see these demand and know they can make a ton of money from it. So to give the fans what they want, sometimes the writers are forced to break the stories they have written. To form new things that hurt the original story that was told.
The best example I can think of as of now is fnaf. If you don’t know, fnafs original story was stretched a crossed 6 games, with that 6th game being a free to play game with the sole purpose of ending things. If you haven’t listened to it, highly recommend the whole ending speech to Pizzeria Sim as it beautifully closes the game. But then because fans always want more, we got newer games. First a VR release and then the one that destroyed the story.
Danganronpa wrapped up it story wonderfully with the anime, though there was a few strings left open ended. And sometimes, that happens. But you have to know when to end your story. Good things don’t last forever, and an ending is something that will happen to all stories. It’s inevitable. You keep a story going so long, and it ruins what made those original stories so well made.
This somewhat ties with the original idea of Danganronpa. Death is a permanent thing. It’s something that will happen to everyone. Stories are very much the same. You have to know when to end it before it slowly rots away like a corpse left out.
That’s at least my interpretation of it. Kodaka saying stories end and that it’s natural. The more you demand for more, the worse it will be
All this talk about Danganronpa 53 sounds so weird to me. Your perspective on 53 speaks as if you thought 53 was connected to 1 and 2, which is just wrong.
it's always so nice to be vindicated in my feelings of "kaede was the infinitely more interesting and subversive protagonist and fridging her to give the milquetoast male detective the spotlight was the worst possible way to go"
Although I rlly love shuichi, even tho yeah he’s another detective and another male protag, I still rlly wished they didn’t go that route bc kaede had a lot of potential with a character arc or more importantly, a deconstruction arc. I guess taking her optimism and belief that everything will be ok and turning it somehow. I’m not sure how that would go but yeah.
@@2triedforthis830 yes!! you are absolutely right!!! i would've LOVED to see how her persona of unshakeable optimism and unconditional belief in her classmates would be challenged over the course of the story. i would've loved to have seen how, for example, shuichi's death might have impacted HER instead. i think shuichi is a fine character with a fine arc of his own, but kaede had genuinely GREAT potential and i truly think it was wasted by cutting her out after one chapter in the spotlight
not to mention the fact that having your first mainline female protag with a talent totally unsuited to the role she has to take be killed off for the sake of the predictable protagonist choice is super lame imo. at least make kiibo the protag has to be a boy!! he's literally the audience surrogate!!
@@calliepancakes no because her strong belief in people, and the fact so many characters in the game deceive each other, like the whole thing with kokichi and all about his lies, and he would a been a really great antagonist for her. Unlike where they barely do anything with this role to benefit shuichi. Kokichi is more of a foil to kaito😭. Or the tsumugi thing, I feel like they could expand on their relationship as well since she’s kinda the one who kills her literally for no reason in the actual game. Idk man there’s just something.
I think for the downside of this is kinda the fact killing off shuichi who starts the game off as thinking he’s a fraud and undeserving as his skill of being a detective would be lost if he’s the one who dies in the first game. Like that’s why he has 0 confidence and then grew to be more sure of himself and pursuing the truth.
Another thing would be the fact kaito and kaede would be way too similar personally wise. They both share a lot of traits and that’s why they got along the best in the first class trial. You would have to kill him off early pretty much. Or maybe while they start our similar in the beginning kaede slowly starts losing her mentally of everyone getting along, and becomes less sure of herself, and kaito like he did with shuichi helps out, along with maki and stuff.
Yeah there’s probably more a lot more but I don’t wanna think about it too much
@@calliepancakes nah shuichi ain't just fine he best boy with the best arc
@@rolo9115 fair take, no arguments here! i just would've loved to have seen kaede get her own arc in the protag role personally
Ah it seems Dangonronpa has fallen into the Arthur Conan Doyle trap. But in this case it's endless. Chunsoft can't just kill their Sherlock because Dangonronpa is based on the killings. It's part of the formula.
I think the only indication in the previous games of this ever being a show is the brief image we are shown of the death of Fuyuhiko's sister in the second game. I was replaying the game at the time and when I saw her I immediately went "omg that's Kaede" because she looked identical.
had a love-hate relationship with this game
definitely wish Shuichi died instead of Kaede, just think that narrative is a lot more interesting, especially given the whole "the killer wasn't actually the killer" twist
Kaede's potential for smth akin to survivor's guilt in him taking the fall for something she "did", them losing the "Detective" of the group would've been cool for the whole atmosphere of a bunch of under-qualified kids being stuck in a death game, all but Kaede would never get to see he's actually pretty incompetent in his "role" yadda yadda
the ending i think was fine for what is likely it's actual message, but not delivered as well as it should be, so it was lost on a lot of people or confused them
Also, Kodaka himself decided to tone down Distrust.
i didnt know this was the same creator or even a video from around the same time so i got spooked when i heard a familiar voice with a completely different face lmao, none of this is meant as an insult i was just a bit shocked
Danganronpa, to me, is one of those things you enjoyed as a kid and look back with cringe.
@ROCKO-g7p You know people form their own opinion, right? It's something I've thought YEARS ago after I actually experienced good mystery writing.
Baby's first killing game
This really doesn't feel like a good video.
This is a lot of you being upset at the game and not a lot of anything that isn't your pure, reactionary emotional outburst.
Like, what reviewer admits that they checked out and didn't give a fuck after the first mystery?
"We start off as Kaede Akamatsu, quite possibly my favourite protagonist of all of the games." Kaede is my favourite character in the series. And then they kill her off, and as you said, it's terribly frustrating. I set aside playing V3 for about 5 weeks after I completed chapter 1 because I was so upset. It's the one time that Danganronpa actually does commit, and it pays off incredibly in that regard.
But in the very same breath, as you state clearly in the video, this is a meta-twist on you because it reveals that they DIDN'T commit to making an interesting protagonist and give you Shuichi. And Shuchi is fine in a vacuum, no more offensive than Makoto. But I've grown to kinda loathe him simply because he's bland, boring nothing of a character when we had Kaede right there.
I, along with my circle of friends, were incredibly into this series for a while, but I've also arrived at a point where I don't care all that much anymore. I liked my time with this franchise, but that's basically it. I've had enough. Didn't bother with Rain Code, either.
You talked about and still missed the point that, by breaking the rules at chapter 1 (which you can deduce if you aren't daft), all narative tension, already low, is simply destroyed because it makes it impossible to know for certain that you actually point the murderer. Because the rules were ignored once, at the very start, so why not more ?
Opinion, liked the first video, this one, yeahhhh, this one, youre reaching, its like trying to find mistakes in a 2nd dish because you didnt like the first dish. Everyone was upset during Kaede's trial but this video feels like you summed everything very hastily, in my perspective, you just got tired after the firsr chapter, the game has more to offer than how you described it, you talk as if these characters were made wacky and the whole game made zero sense when it does, the game is honestly more down to earth than any of the previous installments. Chapter 1, Kaede, the fake protagonist, is the only protagonist in every game that spoke up and actually becoming the leader for the group but she fails trying to do so, you mention that Kaede's reason and motive wasnt there but in my opinion, it was there from the beginning, she trusts the people shes with, she truly believes that the characters there could change for the better and that they would all live in *harmony* (pun intended) and honestly, its even more heartbreaking knowing that V3 has the lowest amount of survivors compared to all the previous installments and thats how you make a good narrative, make you believe, break that belief and find new ways to believe because even though Kaede's wish of them all leaving together was never fulfilled, all the survivors past chapter t have a special and friendship that no other game in the series has. Chapter 2, this chapter connects the least with the characters because this chapter honestly just focuses on 3 characters but its still nonetheless a great storyline. Ryoma has no reason to live and Kirumi had too many reasons to live and it impacted Shuichi a lot when Kirumi insults him for not being able to save anyone, Shuichi doesnt back down and Kirumi even tries till the very end to escape her fate even to go as far as trying to manipulate the others to protect her like as they did with Kaede. Chapter 3, Tenko and Angie were not the best people but to Himiko, they were her best friends and both of them being taken away from her and her being blamed for their deaths by some of the characters, Himiko then continues to lives on in the name of Angie and Tenko, thanking them for how much theyve helped her even if their methods werent the best (Angie brainwashing Himiko lol) and oh, Kiyo was there. Chapter 4, Miu, an inventor who just wants to escape to the outside world bc she thinks her inventions are too important and Gonta who knew the truth, Kockroach and Kaito, one who fights using facts and one who fights using emotions. Chapter 5, Maki, a girl who fought to kill, for the first time (actually second but her free times just not do her justice) fights to protect someone, Kaito who doesnt want anyone else to get hurt and Kokichi, a guy who breathes as he lies even until his death, no one knows the truth. It makes me kinda somewhat upset knowing ALL the stories actually develops every single character (except Kiyo, he was just there for an incest plot) and the fact that you basically glossed over it and compared them to D1 and D2 when clearly V3 is its own game just doesnt sit right with me, I get V3's stories are really heavy like a lot to unpack but you fail to mention a single one just baffles me, in all honesty, V3's story is the most interesting part of the plot but the fact youre most focused on the ending (even getting the message of the ending wrong) just kinda irritated me in the sense that V3 offers more than every single past Danagnronpa game because they actually focus on the story and chatacters more than just expanding the Danagnronpa universe more like thats why the D3 anime is so bad, they only focused on the plot and leaving 0 screentime for any of the characters to do anything aside from the important ones.
Edit: My comment is poorly written but still, how can you not like the characters stories just bc you dont like the ending, it just doesnt make sense to brush off the characters just bc you didnt understand the ending. I understand you were like bothered with it but to dedicate 20 mins to just basically say you missed the point and youre upset that you did bc it made you not like the rest of the story is just, mind baffling
v3 needed better writing, is all.
@@warpspeedscpIt has better writing than the other two games
@@Agent_Cobalt i meant in terms of the character interactions. Sometimes, things felt really cheap and overdone.
CELESTE SOUNDTRACK
as a fan of danganronpa, I see V3 as an altertive universe / timeline, where it's more simular to our world.
Also Spoilers for my favorite survivors below & some :>
also my favorite survivors from each game entry are
DR THH - Aoi Asahina
SDR 2 GB - Kazuichi Soda / DR IF - Mukuro Ibusaba (DR IF was a novel included as apart of GB & is a what if verison of THH)
DR:AE UDG - Hiroko Hagakure
NDR V3 - Maki Harukawa / DR 52 - Rantaro Amami (Mentioned in V3 :> )
Also, with Kaede's death it secretively points to the truth via the keys she presses compared to the song playing
@@sky8ash It's such a reaching foreshadowing, though. Nobody is gonna see the execution and be like "Hmm, I feel like this may be an important clue"
@@Chaki21 The song that plays only uses Black keys, Kaede only stepping on White keys -_- It's being played inncorrectly on purposely
@@sky8ash i know, but like I said it is really reaching to say this is foreshadowing. The way I interpret it is that it's to make Kaede despair by not playing the right Notes of à simple song
@@Chaki21 The name of the song/exucution didn't get a english translation (Which is a first time for the Danganronpa Series to not translate an exucution to english), They made it impossible to see Tsumugi's full face (they only show us her mouth & body, which is too calm for that situlation).
I don’t see why people think Shuichi is such a bad MC, like yeah, he isn’t as good as Hajime, but of the main 3, he has the most unique design without a doubt and he feels needed throughout the game with characters actually acknowledging his importance in the trials and Maki even saying he should be careful as he could become a target for it, I also feel Kaede gets way too much credit for being “the best” MC as her character just isn’t as interesting or strong as Hajime’s or Makoto’s imo, V3 is a fine game if you look past some of its characters being on the weaker side like Kibo and Ryoma but at the end of the day it’s just opinions so there really is no right or wrong view on V3
Saying that Kaede is less interesting than Makoto and Hajime was certainly a choice 😭
@@keremwashere3982 I don’t know what to tell you, Makoto is in every danganronpa game in some way they wouldn’t keep bringing him back if he wasn’t liked, and Hajime is literally both the protagonist and antagonist of his game, that’s just a lot more imo interesting than someone who doesn’t even get more than two chapters in their own game lol
@@Bonsaiiiiiiiiiii so more screen time = more interesting? Certainly a statement.
Kaede does nothing of note in her game, all she really does is be positive and more confidence than the other protagonists at the beginning of their games, but every protagonist has her level of confidence by the end of their game, and yes, more screen time usually means the character gets more of an arc lmao, the only thing that really separates Kaede from the others overall is her willingness to kill, and she doesn’t even kill anybody in her game so it’s wasted, Hajime is a pretty outspoken guy in his game, Makoto becomes an icon of hope in his game, and even Shuichi is treated as a valuable guy by all the others, to the point that in Chapter 5 Monokuma literally relies on him to solve an unsolvable case, Kaede is a one note character
@@Bonsaiiiiiiiiiii she’s not, hope this helps! ❤️
I love the ending of v3 though.
this is entirely off topic but your monokuma impression is VERY good
21:41 As the dedicated Danganronpa V3 lover (It's my favorite game in the franchise, and it's not even close), I would love for you to at the very least, If you ever run back and play through the game again, to view the game at a different angle, because I feel like the core message is the exact opposite of what you state for the game.
I feel like sometimes, and I definitely can see how people read it like this, that people take this game in a very nihilistic way, but the thesis statement of V3 was never "Everything isn't real, so nothing matters." Tsumugi says this, and while technically true, it's a very relevant plot point that destroys the character's outlooks of their own lives, of course, it's not what I'd call the main takeaway to look at the game as a whole, and if that really was the way the game was meant to be seen as, I wouldn't be so fond of the game.
The ending, and the main surviving characters push towards this idea that fiction matters, and I think that's what everything around the game had been building up to.
The idea that even though something isn't real, doesn't mean it can't effect the world. Fiction has the power to change that world, and even though they're not real, they can be just as real as life itself, and change people for the better, or for worse.
And I don't think you even need to read deep into subtext, it's something the characters do blatantly. The pain and suffering that was put onto the characters was very real to them, and caused the whole Danganronpa show to shut down because of it.
V3 takes the idea of fiction effecting the real world in the most literal way that you can for the series, and makes those fictional characters real life people.
To Schuichi, every character in this killing game, every death that he had to experience, as well as Himiko and Maki, is all real to them. It's something that they've experienced as people, and that's fundamentally changed them as people.
Kokichi's whole life is a literal lie, but it didn't stop him from being a nuisance to literally every character in the game, and his actions to find his way to take control over the game himself. Paralleling that idea, with Kaito's whole personality of the impossible being possible, it really does ring out the idea that all of this has a point, like most good fiction does.
And I think it's meant to wrap around and go back to the player too. It validates the idea that just because the character isn't real, doesn't mean it didn't have real life effects on people. I mean, I know games like Halo, the Legend of Zelda, or Mario aren't real, and never will be, buf that doesn't stop me from resonating with those characters, and just because I realize "Oh, they're not real people", doesn't mean those characters aren't real to me, and have effected me as the person I am today, and my outlook on life.
I don't know, I feel like looking at the game with the idea that it doesn't matter, really misses the point of what the game's message was in the first place, and it makes me really sad.
You reaaaaaaally missed the point of V3 ending
Apparently disagreeing with something means that you don’t understand it lol
@@Understandthishandle In some cases, for sure
@@toesmeller6243clearly this isn’t, so not sure why’d you bring it up? 🙂
He loves mystey and science fiction? I wonder if he's played 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim yet?
I don't necessarily resent what they did with Kaede, but something I do think was a massive missed opportunity is that Shuichi survived the whole game. Kokichi was completely wasted, and if the game weren't hyper-fixated on having the ending that it does I think it would've been genius to make it so that instead of the entire plot point with Kokichi "confessing" to being the Mastermind and the Exisal Hangar, things take a turn for the worst when Shuichi himself is suddenly murdered and it falls onto Kokichi's shoulders to try his absolute best to corral a mob of people who are too stupid, pissed, or freaked out to stop and think. A bit of personal taste here, but I'd also personally keep the same basic theme of Chapter 4 except substituting Gonta for Himiko because I think Himiko is a useless character and it'd provide room for Gonta to bear witness to Kokichi doing something that absolutely shatters his faith in him, leaving him to be the only person he truly sees no redemption for and giving Kokichi another obstacle in trying to get everyone to actually listen to him and convince them all that his goal, first and foremost, is to find the killer and save everyone who is innocent. The cherry on the cake here? When the trial comes around, *you now have to contend with Lie Bullets being your default and Truth Bullets being the ones you have to spend Influence to fire* in addition to needing to use both of them at about the same rate instead of Lie Bullets being once-per-trial with heavy telegraphing other than an optional backdoor. God, Kokichi was so wasted, and the final trial would've been way better even with the theme it chose if Kokichi had been there to actually engage against Tsumugi instead of that worthless do-nothing moron Himiko.
This video feels refreshing. I mean, of course I feel like a lot of people are upset with Kaede’s death, but some other fans are arguing “waaaa that’s the point!” And trying to tell me I’m the problem. I have my own nitpickings with the ending as well just because it was too meta for my liking. But nobody hates Danganronpa more than a Danganronpa fan lol.
I think this video made me more sympathetic to Kodaka. Of course I still like him, but lately I’ve been like “he’s trying to make Danganronpa again” especially with the new game he’s putting out, the hundred line: last defense academy. I mean 16 students trapped in school 😒. But also he’s been writing Danganronpa-like stuff from 2010 to 2017 (ofc prob earlier than 2010). He’s probably tired of writing stuff within that box. He likes mystery like with rain code and he likes his “this is the end of the world” stuff with world end club. But he doesn’t want to be placed in a box and I can respect that as a fellow creative.
Lore of Danganronpa: Killing A Fantasy momentum 100
instead of trying to entertain the wholly unique idea of something becoming fiction inside of fiction, dude isnt able to comprehend that danganronpa was always fictional
its ok to dislike the ending, but this "criticism" is nothing more than irrational emotional response masquerading as logical
at least you understood what happened in the story unlike 99% of ending compaints
is this what you call an "unique idea"? for me that was such a cheap ending, easy way out. i liked how it mirrored us, real players (with even keebo first wanting to continue, but as shuichi goes on with explaining, keebo changes - just like our opinions), but that's about it. i get that its hard to create a well-written ending, but v3 one was just... weak.
@@julia-qc1wt On a character level, DRV3 asks questions in what ways can fiction impact lives, particularly through main character's world-shattering realization about his and his friends' implanted fake memories overwriting real memories - Are fake memories any less valuable if they created genuine emotions and friendships afterwards?
It also parallels players own experience by making the first games "fictional"(even tho they were fictional in the first place) so that the player can also ask himself the same questions, the way video games can affect our real lives and memories. This part on its own is probably one of a kind story beat
MC overcomes despair by realizing everything he is feeling right now is real and all the friends he made are real, regardless of the past. Usually such themes are hard to depict as high stakes, but here it works because of context
Also the game emphasizes the importance of interpreting words beyond their face value and to understand what they actually mean in current context, as seen in MC's dismissal of "hope.".
Maybe you can argue that individually nothing here is "special" and that it's a "gimmick", but all of these themes I mentioned also tie neatly with core principles of DRV3 being about truths vs lies that has been the cornerstone since the beginning of the story - The entire last portion of the game is layered, nuanced and packed with themes. It is neither cheap easy way out or bland
I do understand most of this but mixing the meta jokes with the fact that…
they aren’t making fun of their community. The whole point has been talked about (while not exactly portrayed the best) is that this is a different world where people are excited about watching REAL people die. While yes some of it is meta that can be applied to real life fans that wasn’t the creators intention. This video seems like you played it and got stuck in this thinking and based a critique around it. There’s so many small details that are just wrong here that as someone who hasn’t even dug into this series too much I’m still able to tell are wrong so it just makes this seem kinda not researched to a point? I still respect the effort into a video like this and I get it’s tiring too but this seems like this video doesn’t really go into it’s material as it should as a video on danganronpa.
(Spoilers, duh:)
Weirdly enough, I (unlike a majority) understood the intent of v3's conclusion, back when I saw content for it the first time, despite not knowing nearly as much about narrative & media: that it was a show *in universe,* and that they're going to move foward from the "lie" they were stuck in.
Not defending spike chunsoft for coveying this poorly, but just a bit weird to think about on my end
Monophanie isn't abused? That's Monodam.
Monotaro beings to abuse her in chapter 4 after Monodam's death when she is pregnant with the wasp that kills Gonta.
I'm not the fan of DRV3 ending tbh...
it downed all the struggle of the previous characters gone thru...? Like did they all signed up for the show because they LIKE killing? That's it?
Hear me out: Junko's followers found a way to get hand in the virtual world that DR2 used and has been running a show for 53 seasons. The characters who signed up are either Junko's follower or captives (idk black market). And they go thru reset and given abilities to be the "ultimate student" for credible reaction".
The series isn't international per se but the DR world is still recovering from the despair era and therefore areas where "despair" still looms are active.
It was only at V3 that Shuichi, Maki and Himiko "broke" he cycle and questioned "despair&hope" matter. With their previous life memory erased they had existential crisis because IT WAS THEM who signed up for it. In the end they started working with previous characters, now grown up... or even new characters that are descendants of old ones, to take down the killing game.
Idk, probably as an after-story bonus for proper conclusion. Y'aint going to tell me that all the characters cast signed up for it and the whole world just agreed despite 100% of not making it alive without consequences and everything we've seen so far and the tears we shed are pointless 😭
Honestly, this video said nothing original or worthwhile.
You played a 100+ hour story game and somehow don't know the characters names.
You make factually incorrect statements like "everyone's bad at their talents". this only applies to Kaito and maybe Keebo.
You don't discuss any character arcs in this game (which are much better than anything in the series previous)
You don't even engage with V3's actual message and instead spin the game's twists to fit the same false narrative everyone else who hates the end twist also do.
And the end the video basically going "Like the creator, IDGAF anymore!", which isn't even the full story of what Kodaka's intentions were
I expected better
Kaito not even, he's still really smart knowing several languages and stuff, astronaut training is no joke haha
Tenko is the only one I'd argue is bad at her talent, and that's because from what we know of it, neo-akiedo is very different to akiedo.
you lost me with the genshin comment. In what world is Genshin distinct or interesting with it's character design? lol
The characters design are sometimes interesting and sometimes can incorporate cultural elements to the design. I said sometimes cuz it’s clearly not the case with new regions or they downright sexualize them.
You took the villains words as the moral of the story, and disregarded the heroes words entirely.
Not sure that’s how media analysis works my guy
So... you are only supposed to hear the "heroes" of a story and completely disregard everyone else? The fact that you could send that message and think you know how media analysis works is impressive ngl.
@@hazamax2139 generally in a typical narrative, you would like to think that the thesis of the game would not come from the villain of the game, when the villains perspective is directly countered by the protagonists perspective. You say that I am completely invalidating that the villain can sometimes hold the thesis, which yes, and some stories is true, but if that is the case, then the story would end on that being the prevailing theme. but instead V3 ends with the heroes prevailing and their ideology being the final one heard. In a narrative sense that is pretty blatant on what the theme and idea the game is trying to get across is.
@@mastersword648 No, it doesn't hold any point. The thesis of ANY good story, be it game, movie, book, etc is a sum of both protagonist and antagonist. If the narrative weight is carried by one single part, the other one becomes completely unnecessary.
Even in your response, you are recognizing it. What are the "heroes" prevailing over? There's no space for an ideal prevailing when there wasn't another one to go up against. And you know, in typical narratives, that usually evolves and develops those ideals into something more.
FFS the metal gear rising meme was everywhere and that's literally the whole point of the fight.
@@hazamax2139 of course both come into effect, I think that goes without saying that the heroes wouldn’t have anything to be prevailing over if the villain didn’t have a idea that needed to be prevailed upon. But in the video he corroborates the villains opinion saying that’s what the game directors were feeling what they wanted to express, and that opinion is one you can only have by not counting the heroes rebuttal to that. That’s my main issue! Plus this whole idea of both sides of a conflict creating the theme and message is kind of ridiculous unless you mean in a very literal manner. The theme of Star Wars is one of Hope and rebellion against oppression. If you took into account the villains perspective then you would have to say in some small way the film was endorsing oppression, and tyranny. so unless you in a very literal manner that the actions of the villain in the plot is what typically pushes the narrative to continue and the heroes act out what the theme is, but that’s just literal storytelling.
My issue in this video isn’t that he is including the villains message in his analysis. It’s that he doesn’t include the heroes and takes the villains as the final word. He says the game was saying that DR doesn’t matter and the messenger the game was an F you the fans, saying that the stories have no meaning, quite literally the theme of the game is that is spelled out at the very end is that it doesn’t matter if the story isn’t “real” or not it’s that it makes an impact on the world and can change peoples lives, thus creating a reason for its existence. If anything this game message is a thank you to fans for giving this work a deeper meaning than intended, not an “F U we don’t wanna make it anymore” This video portrays it the theme of the game completely inaccurately in my opinion.
@@mastersword648 And yey that main dev left the studio. Can you really not see the meta commentary of an audience constantly asking for more and him leaving the DR studio connect? It's not deep. It's not the first dev to be tired of making a franchise and it's not gonna be the last. Even THE smash creator said multiple times that he didn't want to make more but was forced by their bosses. THAT is the reality. DRV3 is not a one man passion project. Devs don't really have weight when it comes to decisions.
And no. Your example makes no sense. The film is saying oppression is indeed very fucking real SO REAL that it's the main struggle the protagonist go up against to make something better. You really don't have to go out of your way to see someone say something along the lines of "Good villains are the ones that while you cannot support, you can understand them." Everyone understands how oppression furthers ones own goal. That doesn't make it good but the fact is it makes logical sense. If you want to see from an obvious perspective just switch it to a good guy. P5R. Actual good dude with good intention wants to oppress everyone to make the world one where people don't suffer. Is it good? No, taking away people's freedom ain't good but you can definetely understand where he's coming from.
And furthermore, THE VIDEO'S POINT AIN'T ABOUT THE MESSAGE. He is, during the whole video, talking about a storytelling perspective of how V3's ending saying, as you've addressed "It doesn't matter that everything was fake because yada yada" makes DR1 and 2 stakes and tension worse in retrospective because it invalidates the weight behind it. "Haha the 3 games are just reality games of idiots who signed up to kill each other on camera BUT good ending, we leave that behind."
YES it's a message of people deciding their own future and to break the cycle of madness but again, along the way it invalidates the established feelings of people towards the first two games. It does it SO MUCH that the guy making the video specifically says "I TAKE THIS AS ANOTHER TIMELINE TO NOT INVALIDATE THE OTHERS." That's the point of the video. That's how DRV3 Killed its fantasy.
21:12 do you not realize that aikido is a real sport?
I know it is! I refer to Aikido as a "watered down form of jiu-jitsu" because from my research, it seems to be a much more artistic, almost dance-like martial art that is derived from jiu-jitsu. Add in the fact that Chabashira is stated to be a master of _Neo_-aikido, and you can see why I can't take her talent seriously.
She is the master of a martial art that doesn't exist, derived from an already derivative martial art form.
@@SojournerKaibut as you said, it does exist?? Like it’s a practiced art and is its own thing💀
@@2triedforthis830 Aikido is, NEO-Aikido isn't.
Welp my good sir you have done it
I have never in my life rage quit watching a review of a video game, congratulations you were the first and probably will be the last to accomplish that
Where do I even begin? The fact that you reviewed a murder mystery game without talking about the murder mystery part?
The fact you only talked about 1/6th of the game? The fact you never talked about any of the characters or their character arcs apart from that one time were you said that they are for some reason bad at their talents or most of them are useless talents which is factually wrong ?
This is just a subjective rant from someone who got salty about 2 things. Kaede’s death and the 6th chapter.
Killing off Kaede was objectively the best choice there from a writing standpoint. Not only are there no wasted characters this way like there were in previous games with characters like Leon and Teruteru since you spend all the first chapter with Kaede and Rantaro is explored later but it delivers a powerful emotional moment and a crazy and UNIQUE twist that I am sure no one saw coming without getting spoiled. Shuichi also had a LOT more room for growth than Kaede did having one of the best character developments in the series and turning out by far its best protagonist.
As for the chapter 6 ending you just did not understand the message and have a pretty stereotypical reaction like most people who hated the ending do which basically boils down to “Kodaka just didn’t care anymore” which is not true in the slightest
Overall we’ll need you to stay away from that stove sir cause you did not cook man, you burned down the freaking building
Wholeheartedly agree with you on this one. v3’s ending and shuichi’s character arc is some of my favorite things to come out of the ENTIRE SERIES !!!
Its good to know that it wasn't just me feeling this way about the video, all he really did was talk about the things he didn't like about the story, I honestly feel like he was just playing games for the sake of playing them, the moment he said he didn't like shuichi or that he "had no personality" just really annoyed me and I knew this review was gonna be good 😂
Still mad he didn’t talk about omua like come on😭😭
Did you ever see the nagito ova and the anime adaptation o the first game?
Danganronpa S isn't a gacha game... or at least it doesn't have microtransactions. like DR1+2+V3 aren't gacha games even though you get random rewards with the monocoins
and why do people that hate the ending of V3 only agree with the villain, saying the creators hate the series and the audience when the entire point is the opposite.
Im pretty sure Kodaka didnt want to make a third game. He thought it was perfect with the second game and the anime. But he was essentially forced into making the third one by fan demand and his contract with Spike Chunsoft. So he made it out of spite. At least, thats what I've heard as someone in the fandom for at least 5 years.
Kodaka has said several times that he wasn't being spiteful when writing v3s ending and that the outside world isn't intended to be the irl danganronpa fans
And I have never heard of this before. Gonna need some source for that.
@@theretherebearbears7631 Source is .. I literally don't know. It's basically word of mouth through the fandom. Being in it for years you hear a bunch of things. Don't take my words as factual.
I've played (and essentially completed) Danganronpa S and to be honest? I only really have 3 issues with the game.
1. The gacha aspect. I wish it was easier to get characters without needing to grind battles or complete increasingly hard achievements to get monocoins. I was almost done with the game by the time I got the last U-Rank card and some hype cards (the ones that break stat caps) for my party.
2. The game would freeze every now and then which made me have to quit (usually at the end of a development for a card). Thankfully it saved my progress but man could it be annoying.
3. I really miss the dungeon crawling aspect that Monokuma's Test had in V3, even though it felt very rudimentary. I liked the feeling of progression it gave as well as the chests you'd come across along the way (yes, even the 1g chest, that thing was hilarious). If I could have any Danganronpa spin-off game be made, I'd want a full-blown fantasy RPG.
Bonus: The difficulty curve with the actual fights in the game was VERY bumpy. Sometimes my party could breeze through several floors then get absolutely roadblocked by a single wave of enemies that could wipe my party in one turn. Not to mention the fact there was a boss that took AN HOUR for my party to beat to death (I had to set the battle mode to automatic because I didn't want to get carpel tunnel that day).
I get that v3's ending has many interpretations, but i think there's a "most valid" one
Dg1, 2 and 3 are fiction both for us and for the v3 universe. The v3 audience its not us, the dg team wanted to make a funny joke that they were so sucessful they made the hunger games real.
We are made empathize with the despair the characters feel even if they have no relation to us. I really liked this ending, its kind of perfect but i get why is hated or disliked
21:26 Grimoire Noir jumpscare lmao
I had a visceral hatred for this game. Like I hated the monokubs, i hated Monokuma's interactions with them, and I hated the background art. I actually liked the characters. The ending is what caused my main hatred. I felt like it didn't make sense to the story and i just hated it so much. Someone pointed out that when the game came out, it was marketed as an alternate universe, which i didn't know since i played the games like 5 years ago (late to the game if you will). Now that i calmed the heck down, I don't hate it as much. Still don't like it but i like to imagine that V3 takes place after the world healed from Junko's actions. Like the world had gotten so used to peace that they decided to do what Junko did but in a controlled environment for entertainment.
I'm glad that everyone agrees the Monokubz are horrible.
I don't understand the idea that V3 makes the previous games pointless. DR1 and DR2 were fiction to begin with. You don't like to be reminded of that? That's fine, but you also have to realize that the emotions you felt while playing DR1 and DR2 were real even though the characters were not. That's the whole point of V3's ending - fiction matters.
the issue i have with this ending is that everything makes it seem like Kodaka wanted to be done with this series and was sick of it... so he went of to make Raincode. a murder mystery taking place in an enclosed space where you solve murders and the bloods pink. it's just another danganronpa game infact a BETTER one than v3 but instead of it being a danganronpa game it isn't and instead it's part of this new thing which also needs to be compaired to danganronpa because it's a murder mystery series made by Kodaka.
at the end of the day my guy left spike chunsoft and killed danganronpa so he could make his own game company and make danganronpa
Do you blame him tho? What? you wanted to have Danganronpa 5?
🤣🤣🤣 This is so true!
I thought i was the only one for a long time that felt terrible about the ending 😢 but also, i think they didnt quite foreshadow that ending...They really wanted a big plot twist, or is that just my impression? I felt like it was extremely out of nowhere
18:22 that game is free my dude. It’s also PG and just an idle clicker. …Unless it updated majorly since I last opened it.
I hate the "they got bored" excuse
Junko likes despair because she got bored Monaca refuses to be an actual character because she's bored have these people never heard of hobbies? Maybe reading a book???
Junko at least has somewhat of an excuse because her real talent of analyzing has her bored because she can predict everything. While I love Monica’s character she seemed to be rushed to be Junko 2.0 then they cast her aside anyway.
Monaca being bored is kinda a lie, she was suicidal lmao (she was lying when she said it was a prank, her diary makes no sense otherwise)
Haven't fully watched the video yet, any may even edit it after I see his opinion but with that being said: Kokichi is my favorite character because he doesn't have one, he is cunning and unknownable which means there is more to him and that is for you to guess because unless it's fresh zesty bullshit, he's not going to give you anything. Which means we get to decide what his backstory and true nature is. Is he a machiavallian? Maybe he's like a male version of monaca? Was he actually genuine when he was with kaito? And most importantly, IS THIS MAN GAY 🤨? (which is yes, because I am pan and Kokichi is literally me for realz 💯/hj)
And because of that some theories on Kokichi just sound like headcanons and vice versa
i dislike your second video too, but keep going tho. [i just feel like you misunderstand a lot, misread something or you're just uninformed sometimes cause you didnt play ultra despair girls for example and you misunderstood basically everything about that game by reading the wiki.] i hate how you do your videos, keep in mind i dont hate you as a person and you should continue to do what you like to do. [tho i will never politely shake your hand if i ever meet you somehow.]
Idk why people think V3 was so controversial or unsatisfying. The ending that trolled the internet I personally found very satisfying. Because I think it's mostly the people who took this fictional series too seriously who were bothered by it. It's like slam poetry, when you set up for a rhyme then proceed with a very unfitting line for the awkward cringe affect. I love how absolutely bonkers danganronpa is and I don't understand how people could be mad at it. I personally chose to have a good time with it. I feel bad for people who didn't have a whacky fun time like I did. I personally don't like to keep the company of people so outwardly destructive either. 😕 it's not good for my depression. But I hope people find their joy elsewhere if they didn't with this series. Good pair a videos guy. 👍 also I watched that ori one, and I don't really see why people were thinking you didn't like the game. You literally called it ur favorite of all time. 🤷♂️
I feel like there’s more people complaining about people saying it’s controversial rather than people actually saying it’s controversial lol
i really dislike the argument that trial 6s message was that everything didnt matter. Because 1 its highly likely tsumugi was just lying more and the first 2 games being real and the motivation for the "tv franchise". 2nd i think most people just ignore the end message, the point we are supposed to take away: Fiction is real because it influences us, its real because we went through something. tsumugi is the villain here because she is trying to take away our experience for a shock factor. But in the end we are told that even if it is fiction, its part of reality.
No novel and manga covers of the franchise?
this is really interesting (and lowkey a lil rough) to watch as someone who used to hate v3 and think it was the worst of the series for similar reasons, yet upon giving it another go and actually engaging with it again years later i legitimately think it is my favorite of the series.
not to say it’s flawless, but it sucks that it is so heavily misinterpreted, particularly with the ending being interpreted as v3 being for sure in the same universe as dr 1 & 2, and people emotionally reacting to the v3 universe’s audience as if it is actually meant to be *us* as an audience
I enjoyed this series when I played it, but GOD do I hate this series's writing.
Play zero escape. It's just fucking better
@ROCKO-g7p this is an opinion I formed on my own upon replaying the games. And an opinion I solidified when playing Rain Code, s game that is definitely better than danganronpa, but still has a lot of the same issues I found in danganronpa, even if rain code sticks the landing a whole lot better in my opinion. I think some of the chapter by chapter mysteries in DR are fun and good, and I like a lot of individual cases for their character writing, but DR consistently disappoints me when I look at it through a more critical lens
I want a UDG video
Im not going to lie i was shocked by kaede's death and thought it was brilliant. Also shuiichi is a pretty nice down to earth protag. I thought he was a great choice as her replacement ; ).
P.S. You missed the Danganronpa game with a female protagonist like a game ago. Most people dont bother to play it, but i kinda liked its Arcade-y Feel. It is pretty unnecessary though pftttt
You should really play Umineko
Thank You.
the fact that fans had been clamouring for years for A. a female protag in a mainline game and B. a twist where the protag is the culprit, only for spike to apparently listen and decide to incorporate BOTH into the one game, resulting in the new female protag we'd wanted for so long (and who had VASTLY more personality than either previous protag as much as i loved them too) immediately being killed off, AND replaced with AN EVEN MORE BORING BOY THAN USUAL, was the first massively foul taste in my mouth for this game. i was so excited to play until i found this out, that i just went ahead and spoiled myself on the rest of the game. the final ending twist was the second foul taste.
kodaka didn't need to end the series like this. as much as the anime sucked, it could have ended with that and been fine. but he felt that he needed to do this for some reason, just to what? to chastise his own fans??? for enjoying the series he created????? and then he said he didn't want to make dangan ronpa games anymore, and has since gone on to essentially make nothing but dangan ronpa-esque games anyway. killing game shit. murder mystery shit. whatever this new "academy defense" shit is.
i would have been *marginally* less upset with V3 if kaede's death had put us in control of another female character.
but instead we were stuck with fucking Shuichi. SHUICHI.
they gave us our first proper female protag and then fridged her for the sake of manpain and character development for pathetic hat boy.
and then none of THAT "character development" ended up mattering either anyway because none of it mattered. none of this shit mattered. dangan ronpa doesn't matter. the games and stories you enjoy experiencing Don't Matter. here's a whole series about finding hope and willpower and strength to go on in the face of absolute despair and tragedy, full of intriguing mysteries and countless lovable characters. Fuck You for enjoying it.
You should stop reviewing genres of media you can't fully appreciate. It is clear all your gripes with Danganronpa stem from a misunderstanding of either characters, tropes, or just the medium in general. It's amazing you were able to find any enjoyment in it with this much confusion clouding your brain honestly.
The amount of condescension on this comment… damm XD
@@Understandthishandle Thank you.
Hi sir are you looking for thumbnail designer?
BOT SPOTTED, CURSE OF RA UPON YE 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀮 𓀯 𓀰 𓀱 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁌 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏 𓁐 𓁑 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆
@@SojournerKaiXD
I’m glad I played Danganronpa when I was 17, I feel like I’ve grown up and watched/played better things. Still nostalgic for it, though idk most of Danganronpa is pretty dumb.
A lot of things in V3 don't really make sense if you scrutinize it hard enough. For instance Kaede's plan to kill the mastermind just so happen to line up with Shuichi's plan doesn't make any sense! Kaede choosing the shotput ball as her murder weapon also doesn't make sense unless she knew exactly what Shuichi's plan was!
I could keep going, but I'm worried about spoilers.