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

Episode 3

Just like that, in the span of one episode, the Twilight Syndrome murder case has come and gone. Episode 3 of the Despair Arc is finally getting into the spirit of true despair, but what it doesn't show is just as interesting as what it does.

D3 boldly opts not to show anything from the Twilight Syndrome murder case that the audience already saw in the 2nd game: not even the bodies! It's funny, because the deliberately vague retelling we get here is not unlike the two incomplete halves of the case we got in Danganronpa 2. But this time, both of those halves, detailing how Girls A-F and Guy F came to their sad fate, form their own unspoken half of the story for Danganronpa 3. Instead of dwelling on the whodunnit behind Girl E and Girl F's deaths, this episode switches to Hajime's perspective to explore Sato and Natsumi's lives in their final days. If your memory of this tragic double-murder is a little rusty, this episode might feel a little rushed and ambiguous, but frankly, Danganronpa 3 has been relying on its viewers to remember a lot of details from that second game with no memory-jogging. (Despair Arc hasn't yet spilled the beans on the Hope Cultivation Plan, but already knowing about it is essential to appreciating this episode's emotional resolution.) While fans may have been excited to see this case play out in its entirety, I definitely appreciated its refusal to waste even a second of runtime on old information. We've got limited time to enjoy this prequel, let's make 100% of the content brand spanking new.

Come to think of it, the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case was one of the weakest parts of Danganronpa 2 at first blush, because players had no context at the time for what it was supposed to mean. We barely knew Fuyuhiko or the Teen Girl Squad as characters then, so revealing the case as a shocking but ultimately unresolved backstory for them in the middle of a mildly related murder case in the present felt more distracting than anything. By the end of the game, it was pretty easy to forget that the Twilight Syndrome murders had ever happened at all, and players could only vaguely wonder if they had something to do with how all those kids became the Remnants of Despair. Well, now we finally know its true significance: Twilight Syndrome wasn't the origin story for the Remnants of Despair, it was the origin story for Izuru Kamukura.

Hajime spends this whole episode teetering on the edge between two devastating choices: remain his normal self and never accomplish his dream, or submit to experiments that might make him "special" at a great cost. Once again, it's to the episode's credit that he never makes this struggle explicit; we're just expected to remember, making it easier to sympathize with all the people in Hajime's life (Chiaki, Chisa, even Natsumi) who have no idea what's on his mind. If it wasn't for the Twilight Syndrome murders, poor Hajime might have decided to remain himself, but his final conversations with Natsumi and Sato before their deaths change everything in a devastatingly clever way.

Chiaki has started to convince Hajime that he doesn't need talent to feel fulfilled in life. He just needs to make meaningful connections with other people, and his life will be much richer for it than if he possessed all the talents in the world. When he brings this attitude to Natsumi, who is trying to use her yakuza connections to sabotage Mahiru and take her place in the Main Course, she shoots him down with her own heartbreaking issues. She already has a meaningful connection with her older brother, but she doesn't want to just be his loving sister. She wants to be respected by him, in a position where she can stand as an equal by his side. From her perspective, someone else has already taken her place there (Peko), and if she doesn't graduate from Hope's Peak with an Ultimate Talent, their relationship will never be the same. Right after she drops this emotional bombshell on Hajime, Natsumi ends up murdered by Mahiru's best friend Sato, who has a complex on the equally dangerous opposite end of the spectrum. Sato isn't afraid to sacrifice herself for the future of her more talented friend, and she isn't afraid to sacrifice other "unworthy" people like Natsumi either. But hatred begets more hatred, and when Fuyuhiko, a Main Course student protected by the power of his talents, kills Sato in revenge, Hope's Peak Academy is happy to sweep both Reserve Course students under the rug like the disposable dust bunnies they are.

Hajime's tragic turn is all the more painful because, contrary to popular belief before this series, he wasn't tricked into it. He not only knew the risks going into the procedure, he also knew that he could have a fulfilling life without the promise of talent. But after seeing two girls in his class fight to pursue their own talent and protect the talented respectively, only to be shuffled off and forgotten like they never mattered at all, Hajime ultimately decides that living as a "normal" person will never be good enough. He can't help but associate a relationship with Chiaki, either reaching out to her level or supporting her from below, as a pathway to death. Before you start accusing him of jumping to conclusions, it's not just the murders that force Hajime down this path. When he does try to defend his fallen friends to Sakakura (who is currently investigating Hope's Peak undercover as a security guard), he gets physically assaulted and told that his pointless death would be easy to cover up. If Hajime wants to bask in the glow of the talented and powerful in this world, he'll either have to reach their level himself or die trying. It might not be the full truth, but he's running out of time to choose, and he can't make himself believe in any other option. He can't see a future for himself without talent, and until he's recreated as an avatar in Danganronpa 2, he never will. But this version of Hajime Hinata will be gone forever, all because of his desire to stay by Chiaki's side.

This episode did a fantastic job of fleshing out Natsumi, Sato, and Hajime in a very short timespan, making me fully understand and appreciate their tragic perspectives. I can't wait to see what happens once Izuru Kamukura is unleashed on Hope's Peak Academy, and even though seeing Class 77-B suffer will be upsetting, I hope at least a few of those monsters in the administration responsible for all this tragedy will get what's coming to them.

On a (literal) lighter note, human blood is bright pink again in the Despair Arc. So it's only dark red in the Future Arc? That's pretty weird. I'm not sure I get the creative choice, but at least it's just a nitpick in what has been a wonderfully ambitious Danganronpa finale.

Rating: A-

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.