The anime adaption of DR1 is actually garbage and no-one likes it.
If you want to get into it, play the games (assuming you think you can still get enjoyment out of DR1 while knowing the culprits)
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Seriously, I gave up on the anime after one episode but am almost done with the first game now. It just works so much better as a game. If you like Phoenix Wright style games I highly encourage at least giving it a shot in that form.
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Agreed, what people loved about Dangan Ronpa as a game was not translated to the anime (seriously, they spent THREE whole episodes on the first trial but the last and most important trial, even with a DVD release of extended stuff, got only two episodes.) Not to mention that the art got notoriously bad during the middle part of the story in the anime whereas you have a bunch of sprites and some CGs. You actually have a chance to know the characters beyond trials and investigations.
Still, I feel bad for all the people who bought the DVDs hoping for an anime for the second game if they supported the animation.
Iâm hopeful for New DR V3, though. The first female class trial protagonist (with Komaru being first playable female and Ryouko briber g first female protagonist in the series), the characters look great, the VA lineup is SUPERB (I canât wait to see which character gets to share a VA with NICO NICO NII and the one who gets Donald Duckâs VA.)
Personally I prefer the first game, mostly because I feel like they throw less curveball surprises at you in the trial than they do in DR2. I should probably watch teh DR3 anime, though Im not quite sure if I want to.
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No. It was amazing. Fight me discord on Saturday
I unfortunately donât have a discord (since all the stuff I do is on skype as it is).
From like a creative standpoint, I feel that Hope Arc and all the stuff led up to it could have been better rather than just relying on wish fulfillment. Why do all the SDR2 kids get to live happily without consequence, even though they helped end the world? Why donât the DR1 kids or the DR3 cast get the same treatment of being allowed to come back for the finale except for the survivors of DR1, and the two DR3 survivors, and the survivor who lost the most got punished while the other one who did nothing until the end got rewarded? What even was the point of introducing all these new characters if theyâre not going to be ever properly developed like the DR1 and SDR2 kids and even the AE kids? The closest theyâre getting to it is brief cameos in DR Gaiden: Killer Killer. Like, I like happy ends when theyâre earned, like in Persona 4, where everybody unites to defeat the evil plaguing their town, or Higurashi, which could be summed up just the same. But DR has always operated on bittersweet ends (which seems appropriate for a series and high schoolers having to be be the judge and jury for the murders of their classmates), and itâs just poor writing when the series operates on pandering to fans and contradicting a lot of the series. They made such a big deal out of having to read DR Zero, but anything important from it was explained in the anime, and Matsuda and Kamishiro were literal five second cameos at best. Then Hope Arc and Despair Arc cancel out anything SDR2 had built, like, it was a big deal that the kids might not come out of their comas, and itâs stated that Junko had personally used their weaknesses to get them to follow her. Owariâs big appetite is relegated to just a joke rather than it being âoh⌠that isnât funny anymoreâ foreshadowing about the fact she probably starved herself to skin and bone to feel despair. Fujisaki, Gekkouhara, and Matsudaâs involvement in the New World Program was retconned for some HinaNami pandering (and makes it rather squicky since AI Nanami considers her creator her FATHER). And letâs be real, Nanamiâs execution in Despair Arc was unnecessary torture porn when Nanamiâs death could have been short and sweet like Yukizome stabbing her in front of the class to give them despair and make her more formidable, and if the kids cared about her THAT much, they could have easily all murdered Junko in that moment. And I will never forgive the series for doing a complete 180 on how it treated Tsumiki, like, at least the game had the decency to not relentlessly use Tsumikiâs history of being bullied as a joke and tried to turn her clumsy girl thing as a âhey, this girl really needs some helpâ. Not to mention that there were far better fan theories as to how the kids fell to despair.
Donât get me wrong. Iâm not saying that people are bad or fools or whatever if they liked the ending of DR3, more power to those people to finding good in what I couldnât. I just expected more out of the story since even with its faults, it was still a great series with compelling characters, and unlike with PMMMâs Rebellion, I actually look forward to the majority of the things coming for DR like NDRV3 (though I really donât think we need a Kirigiri VN when she already has a novel series fleshing her out, whereâs my Sakura Oogami VN?)
Alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight rime to break this down.
Arrrrgggghhhhh I canât highlight any of the spoilers to quote them! This is the WORST!
Um @WitchOfGames, coould you PM me the post wihtout the spoiler tags? Just press edit, use CTRL A CTRL C cancel, paste it into a PM and delte the spoiler tags.
That way I can actually respond to what you said.
I guess my BIGGEST problem with your post is this:
I guess itâs two points:
and
first things firstâŚ
[in SDR2] it was a big deal that the kids might not come out of their comas,
DID YOU PLAY THE SAME ENDING I PLAYED???
Do I need to give a further counterargument?
Alright, second up.
[in SDR2] itâs stated that Junko had personally used their weaknesses to get them to follow her
That was in spiiiiiiinoffs⌠Narrated by Juuuuuuuunko⌠Who has a reason to liiiiiiiiiiiie⌠Not in SDRtwooooooooooooâŚ
Oh shit there are other things fundamentally wrong with your post:
Okay, in my opinion what determines whether something is a sad ending, a happy ending or whatever is how the work itself handles the ending. By this metric, I think I could mathematically prove to you that DR1 has a happy uplifting ending. Like, if weâre going by that metric, I think it becomes objective fact.
It was always just a joke. The kids had no way to remember their Despair times at the start of SDR2. She displays this trait so much and so often early on in SDR2 that it would be inconsistent characterisation if it wasnât shown a lot in DR3. Need I remind you that in SDR2, the revert to their state just before entering Hopeâs Peak at the start of the game?
A VN could not do Sakura justice. She needs the manliest of all manga with the most detailed panels youâve ever seen.
What part of gradual death to lead classmates to despair did you fail to understand?
What part of hypnotic video that stops you from moving did you fail to understand?
Sources please? I never heard ANYTHING like that.
Okay, literally when was that a theme of SDR2?
Oh shit, the PM version of this post had extra content! OK, give me a secâŚ
Fuck the Sakakura gay twist was so good, and I feel so dumb for not noticing that THATâS what they were talking about in those earlier scenes.
Gasp! Dangan stealing the themes of Umineko and Higurashi!! I kid, I kid (though PMMM definitely stole Dangans themes of hope versus despair versus love and did worse with it, Urobuchi, what the hell).
One thing that was always prevalent is that Naegi is naive and believes that EVERYBODY in the the world (except for Junko after the fact) is fundamentally good at their core and he is ridiculously stubborn about it. He legitimately believes that if it werenât for Junko, the SDR2 kids would have been perfectly fine and thatâs frankly not the case, Tsumiki was still bullied heavily by her classmates, there was the Twilight Syndrome case, Hinata chose to become Izuru long before Junko arrived, and the whole Hopeâs Peak system of treating the reserve class horribly to where even the teachers hated the reserve class and Jin Kirigiriâs terrible character judgment, the kids would have done some drastic stuff. Maybe not on the Junko level, but given Hopeâs Peak, there would have been one manipulative asshole who would have taken advantage of them. And it was stated in SDR2 in one of the things prior to the final trial that Junko personally groomed the kids and took advantage of their weaknesses (plus it really cheapens Junko as a character in my opinion. Sheâs like Kyuubey in the fact that they know peopleâs weaknesses and manipulate them to create despair, Kyuubey for entropy and Junko because sheâs literally despair.)
The one scene during the final trial all but outright stated that the joke was rooted in something serious.
(I hope that the file name I gave it doesnât show. Also, I found out that while looking for that particular pic, SDR2 has two CGs that are JoJo references and all involved Monokuma beating up Monomi. Oneâs a Heavenâs Door reference and another has Monokuma going âORAORAORAORAORAâ.) We knew that Kuzuryuu took Junkoâs eye, that was canon, and Komaeda became the new Yoshikage Kira. Given what we knew about Owari, it seemed fair to guess that Owariâs big appetite was due to not eating during her time as a despair and due to her memories being pre-Hopeâs Peak, she didnât question it. Like, similarly, Imposter didnât take on being Togami until long after he had posed as Mitarai, though honestly, I like one fanficâs suggestion that Togami has suggested to model Imposter after him during the putting them in the program.
A VN could not do Sakura justice. She needs the manliest of all manga with the most detailed panels youâve ever seen.
I rescind my statement, she really does deserve her own manga. I forgot that VNs have so many limitations whereas a manga could capture all the nuances. Please, Kodaka, appreciate the beauty that is Sakura Oogami!
But it didnât need to be something even the director of Saw would cringe at, even with the darn pink blood. Mukuroâs death was ultimately the same kind of death and it wasnât unnecessarily creepy gorn. Wouldnât it have been better for both Yukizomeâs characterization as a despair and for less people to have grown less numb to the violence if something like this happened: Yukizome has been secretly exploiting the secrets of her students to Junko so Junko can exploit them properly, since the kids love their teacher and Yukizome hides the fact sheâs despair. The kids are enticed to come to despair but really only holding onto their sanity because they want to be there for Nanami. Come graduation day, all the kids but Nanami are tied to the seats since weâve shown that Yukizome knows how to capture and restrain them, and Yukizome calls Nanami up to the front of the class. She asks the class to give praise to their class rep, and praises Nanami herself. She makes gentle eye contact with Nanami before stabbing her in the stomach once and pulling the knife out and she goes to the class, âBut sometimes, bad things happen to good people, you know?â It would have been far more effective than Yukizome murdering two unnamed kids off screen. Granted, I think the series would have been better if it was just focused on the kids rather than telling five different narratives in Despair Arc and gave everybody a reason to like Nanami other than she played video games with the class once, but thatâs the fault of cramming a big story in twelve episodes.
The theme of the kids having to own up to their faults was in the last trial, where they either faced reality with the chance they might wake up as their Despair selves (thus having to own up to what they did but have a chance to better themselves) or live in ignorant bliss in the program,never acknowledging what they did ever again.
But youâre not alone in not noticing that twist! The way they had spun it, Sakurakura could have been in love with Yukizome or Munakata in the Despair Arc flashbacks, and Iâm really glad that Sakakura did turn out to love Munakata. It added a lot of depth to his loyalty to Munakata âI AM IN LOVE WITH YOU AND YOU ARE ALSO MY BEST FRIEND SO I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOUâ. I loved that adults love triangle and feel it was handled so much better than most love triangles.
Also, not related to DR3, but god, I hate that Ouma kid in NDRV3. Like, can people NOT portray him as some of the worldâs worst leaders (and they do it without a shred of irony)? Can we NOT?
Chiakiâs thing was also to get footage for the Improved Despair Video. A lot needed to happen to her. [quote=âWitchOfGames, post:29, topic:531â]
The theme of the kids having to own up to their faults was in the last trial, where they either faced reality with the chance they might wake up as their Despair selves (thus having to own up to what they did but have a chance to better themselves) or live in ignorant bliss in the program,never acknowledging what they did ever again.
[/quote]
Thatâs reading into things⌠Never EXPLICITLY stated. The reason they shutdown is not to face their crimes, but because if you have unlimited self belief then itâs the obvious option to choose.
If youâre complaining about torture porn, what about the student council scene?
Owari things
That literally makes no sense. With how things are shown SHE WOULD NOT REMEMBER THAT, itâs far more likely that she starved herself due to how much she liked food prior to becoming despair.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
No.
He does not.
He believes that if everyone has hope and believes in a better future, then they will be able to reach that.
He is LITERALLY correct about the Despair being A OK before meeting Junko, itâs possible that he had heard that a good number of the remnants had been brainwashed.
EDIT:
Didnât mean to post yet⌠Yare yareâŚ
Hinata choosing the project is bad
Okay, with the info HE had, Iâm gonna say it wasnât a bad decision. I mean, he should have realised he was being decieved but aside from that, it was not a mistake. If Junko had not come along, Izuru would have likely been a really big force for good in the world.
Oh god, stated prior? I literally donât have the time to check. Iâm almost certain it was a spin off so this point is a stalemate until someone posts a screenshot.
Oh god, Iâm feeling tired. My blood is made of tea right now. Iâll counter your other points later, mmmkay?
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So DRV3 is out now. Anybody picked/picking it up yet?
In moonrune
Thats a rather short reply. Did you end up forgetting that you needed more words to properly convey meaning?
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Could you elaborate on this? This is the first time Iâve heard of Urobuchi stealing DRâs themes or Kodaka doing the same with WtC.
I donât recall what I was trying to do, but it does bother me that Meguca outright has some of the same themes Dangan proposed literally a year before The whole hope can beat despair idea and in the second game, Hope? Despair? Who cares about that? Itâs LOVE. Stealing probably wasnât the right word to use, but it is pretty uncanny to me.
I was going to get NDRV3, but honestly, as good as the overall theme is, and the fact that Kodaka went back to murdering fan faves permanently became a thing again, I donât really feel the desire to get it, and I enjoy spoilers. Iâd rather have Persona 5, Disgaea 5, the upcoming Umineko games, and so forth, you know.
And frankly, I give up on arguing why I didnât like DR3. It was a massive disappointment to me, and Iâve stated why I donât like it, so Iâll concede and just quit at this. You all are welcome to enjoy it as you want to, and I donât want to stop you, and my not enjoying it shouldnât even affect your enjoyment of it (if it did, well, as Ryouko says, it has nothing to do with me). More power to you for enjoying it.
Itâs okay, WitchofGames, Iâm 100% with you down to similar criticisms regarding DR3. My big thing with it was how Despair arc managed to single-handedly ruin the entire Atonement theme of SDR2 by removing all the agency from the characters. Even if you want to deny that that was a primary-text theme of SDR2(which it was, Hajimeâs final outburst at the end explicitly was about moving beyond despair & hope and just fucking living with the knowledge of what was done), itâs totally a subtextual theme(the free times/island mode discussions make sure to outline motives for the various kids to turn to despair), from a simple storytelling level the whole ad-hoc mind control plot point was awful.
You donât remove your characterâs agency unless you know what youâre doing. You definitely donât remove charactersâ agency when itâs retconning away a different, better on every level background motive. When it invalidates large portions of a previous workâs game with no thematic value. As it stood, the brainwashing plot served to be a lazy way for the writers to clean up the Ultimate Despairsâ storyline in DR3 because Zetsubou-hen was already packed enough trying to get us to like all the new characters except all it did was make me kinda hate them for acting like oc donut steels(cept Juuza and maybe Seiko) and taking away all the screentime from the SDR2 cast(which is why everyone was watching Zetsubou-hen for anyway!).
Not to mention Zetsubou-hen had the issue of trying to flesh out the events leading up to the collapse while carefully weaving together all the canon from the various LNs, games, manga, and whatnot. It was not an easy task in the first placeâhell, I think it was actually impossible to do correctly because we already knew all the details we needed to know, the specific events of Hopeâs Peakâs downfall were unnecessary given all the stuff weâd already seen. The only reason for Zetsubou-hen to exist at all was fanservice for the SDR2 cast which failed. DR3 would have been much better suited to be 24 episodes with the Mirai-hen cast, give some depth to characters like Gozu, Bandai, or Izayoi who were woefully underutilized.
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Finished the first game, kinda chiming in here not reading any of the topic due to avoiding spoilers. Spoilers (but mostly impressions) for the first game follow.
I was wondering how the rest of the series holds up to DR1.
a) quality of mystery cases: It was fine overall, although it was a bit too easy for the first three cases; which isnât bad on its own but I enjoy it so much more to go into a class trial not really knowing what to think, toying with various different theories [= fond memories reading Umineko resurfacing]. Canât really judge the last case due to having been subjected to spoilers that a certain character is important.
b) characters: I can ⌠BEAR (sorry) ⌠a few walking memes but Toko and Yasuhiro were plain wastes of space, quite a few other characters never really went anywhere or were overall disappointing [Taka after Mondoâs execution, Celesteâs case being nowhere near as impressive as I hoped it would be; for the ultimate liar/gamler she is horrible at acting to the point that I wasnât sure whether the writing had just taking a major shit or whether this is a legit case; bad part is, the bad writing/acting was as contagious as hope and despair, encompassing all the other characters too]. Some of course never really had a chance to do much, but that comes with the genre (letâs shed a single tear for poor Leon). Although I have neither filled out all the reports nor finished the happy cooperative school life side-game, so opinions might change.
c) minigames: was pleasantly surprised at a few gimmicks; I especially enjoyed the climax reasoning purely for the atmosphere the comic-style and music give off. A really nice way to wrap up a case, even if it doesnât add anything from a pure mystery perspective. Do they add more (and if so, are they good)?
d) music: the music was good in-game, outside the game it doesnât capture my interest. Especially the various different debate themes feel interchangeable. Climax Reasoning and the New World Order are cool tho.Only realised after finishing DR1 and listening to them in close succession on youtube that they share the basic melody too.
On another note, did anyone else half-expect that the guns would shoot them all down at the end, upon pressing the switch (overwrite could also mean overwriting security protocols, right?)? I sure did. Guess that wouldâve been too much despair for the reader. Gotta keep some for the other games.
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IMO Danganronpa 2 is like Danganronpa 1 except with a better cast, essentially =P
And sillier twists~
DR2 is like DR1 with better characters and less BS twists. Better cases all around.