Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Despair Arc

Episode 11

Since it was recently announced that next week's Despair Arc episode will be replaced with an epilogue called the "Hope Arc," episode 11 unexpectedly became the end of this quirky prequel, as the Future Arc's conclusion will extend beyond its regular timeslot. While I wish I could say that we were leaving the past behind on a high note, the Despair Arc ultimately succumbed to the hiccups of Danganronpa 3's (insanely ambitious) structure, leaving us with a glut of events either redundant to the overall story or perhaps just best left to the imagination. There was just enough emotional resonance left to squeeze from the story that it wasn't a complete dud, but this is definitely the worst episode of the Despair Arc's run.

Unsurprisingly, the best moments in this little exclamation point to the arc come from the ever-scene-stealing Junko Enoshima. While we definitely didn't need to see Hope's Peak undergoing lockdown again, as various characters reiterate the circumstances that led to the Tragedy and exposit on their various new plans that we already know are doomed to failure, Junko manages to spice up the first-game-plot-redux by cementing a long-held fan theory about the obvious holes in her evil plan. When she remarks to Mukuro that Makoto could easily throw a wrench into her plans for total Despair (after she tests his weird broken luck by throwing her own wrench at him), Mukuro suggests the obvious; they could just kill the guy, if all these schmucks are going to have their memories erased anyway. Junko refuses because, somewhere not so deep down, she knows that true despair just might come from having her plan for Despair fall through, since even that would introduce an element of Order to the catastrophe that could make it boring, and that's the last thing she wants, even if it comes at the cost of her own life. Junko is so freakishly committed to her ethos that it makes her an unforgettable villain. If that weren't enough, the teen queen of pointless references and random impressions also gets to cackle about how she ended the world...with memes.

The idea of memetic pressure changing the social atmosphere of Japan in extreme ways has come up in plenty of colorful sci fi from Gatchaman Crowds to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. So while it's certainly not anything new, Junko's gleeful explanation of how the psychology that propagates memes will be responsible for the apocalypse is both ridiculous and easy to embrace in a story as cartoonishly high-concept as Danganronpa. After all, if we're already taking "despair" to the cosmic level, redefining it as "chaos," what could be more chaotic than pouring passion and effort and id and meaning into something fundamentally meaningless? That's memetics: the often unpredictable evolution of information across minds and cultures that results in objectively meaningless concepts being given new meaning. Thanks to Junko, the dominant meme is now Despair itself, and the more her brainwashed victims devote themselves to self-destruction in search of meaning and pleasure, the more people will join in without even needing to be brainwashed. Could something like that really happen? Probably not, but it certainly could in a world of Ultimates and Extremes and hero worship so ludicrous that it resulted in Hope's Peak Academy, so there you have it.

Unfortunately, that's where the episode's plusses largely end, and the whole brainwashing twist somehow gets worse from the already awkward place it started out. While Danganronpa 2 seemed to suggest that the Remnants of Despair were in some sort of fugue state revolving around passionate love and hatred for Junko Enoshima, Danganronpa 3 directly suggests the complete opposite, and it's definitely not a positive changeup. Even though it was a cheap twist, I understand how Chiaki's deadly brainwashing video could result in the Remnants as we saw them in Danganronpa 2, but I have no idea how Chisa and the kids ended up like we see them here, both fully aware of the Despairful reality happening around them while somehow being trapped in a delusional fantasy of achieving all their wildest dreams. While it's cool to hear the deepest desires of all these lovable characters (Imposter-kun wanted to be president!), I have no idea how they reconcile the fluffy dreams they think they're living with the real-world mutilation of their own bodies and slaughter of thousands. This is especially boggling in the case of Peko, whose greatest wish was to never have to kill anyone with her sword again. On a story level, it just doesn't make any sense at all, no matter how tremendously funny it is that Nagito's ultimate dream was to make the world such a perfect hopeful place that he could punish himself by becoming Despair. That makes so much sense, it's scary! But it just doesn't square with the character we saw in Danganronpa, eternally chasing the ghost of Junko and sewing her arm to his body.

By the time the Reserve Course students inevitably received their own brainwashing video and started plummeting from the sky in a scene way too reminiscent of The Happening, the incongruity between the Tragedy fans have long been imagining and the silly simplicity Danganronpa 3 chose to fall back on had become pretty cringey. It's like all the pieces of the puzzle are together, but just a few have been forcefully smushed into the wrong spots in the jigsaw, resulting in a distorted and distracting picture. While I still believe that Chisa is probably the mastermind, I'm much less interested in the psychology behind her actions, because this episode has turned her into something that doesn't make much sense. I guess she's expressing her love for Munakata by driving him into horrible despair? Is it really so simple as Chisa trying to drag her beloved down to hell with her, thinking that she's doing the right thing only because she's completely insane? That would be disappointing.

However, this episode did open up one new possibility for the mastermind's identity, even if it's one I'm not crazy about. For the first time ever, Izuru Kamukura has started to display some signs of independent agency, as the ghost of Hajime buried somewhere deep inside him cries out for Chiaki and causes him to wonder if Hope is more unpredictable than Despair. After all, Despair could never drive a soul who should be completely gone to fight his way to the surface and struggle to communicate his feelings of love. Izuru asks to have his memories of all this erased, also erasing the Remnants' memories (and a big plothole), just so he can bet his future on this struggle between Hope and Despair with fresh eyes. Junko thinks this gamble is a waste of Izuru's time, because despair (chaos) is obviously more unpredictable and exciting than hope (harmony) every time, but maybe she's thinking about all this too much in black and white. (Upupupu!) It may not seem like much, but this is the first indication we've ever gotten that Izuru was acting on his own will in Danganronpa 2, not as a puppet of Junko, and unlike a lot of this finale's other retcons, it does make perfect sense. After all, how can an unhosted AI lying dormant at Hope's Peak command a wandering demi-god like Izuru to do anything? He must have wanted to go back for her after Makoto gave him the therapy offer, and he may have been responsible for developing her in the first place.

It's a good twist on its own, but I don't really like the idea of Izuru being the mastermind of the Final Killing Game for two reasons. First, his ultimate battle between Hope and Despair has already been fought and won. That was the entire plot of Danganronpa 2. Making that the motivation for another battle in the real world just seems superfluous. Secondly, Izuru doesn't have any personal stock in the combatants of this final killing game, so it's hard to imagine wringing much emotion out of a faceoff between him, Makoto, and Munakata. In fact, Izuru doesn't have personal relationships with anyone except Chisa and Chiaki, through Hajime. So if Izuru's going to come back in Future Arc's finale (and he almost certainly is), it would make more sense to see him join Makoto and Munakata against someone they all share a relationship with: Chisa. At the end of the day, while this was a slightly sour note to send the Despair Arc out on, not even the most disappointing story choices in this prequel are enough to derail the potential Future Arc still has to go out with a bang. I'm eager to be surprised by whatever happens next!

Rating: B-

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Despair Arc is currently streaming on Funimation.

Jake has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.