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

Episode 5

After four episodes of solid pacing, episode 5 of the Despair Arc has to fudge around with some transparent padding to get us where we need to be for the rapidly approaching Tragedy. In fact, the show almost seems to be embarrassed by its need to cheat time, as Chisa's experience in the Reserve Course is literally fast-forwarded with uncomfortably rushed footnote narration that writes the whole thing off as personally traumatic, but not important. You can easily tack on a "lol sry" in your mind, as Kodaka rushes through the back half of Class 77-B's first year to get Class 78 (the OG Danganronpa cast) into the school and more importantly, the Ultimate Despair Girls. (Not to be confused with the ULTRA Despair Girls! He's saving those two troublemakers for the Future Arc.)

Speak of the devil, Junko Enoshima wastes no time in making her entrance, and in true Junko fashion, taking on the mantle of narrator to joke about all the viewers dying to see her finally show up. Still, Junko's cartoony antics are totally expected at this point, so the episode's real treat comes from seeing her interact with Mukuro Ikusaba for the first time. Now yes, there are prequel novels and side stories that explore their relationship, but this is the first time we've actually seen these twisted sisters go at it face-to-face. (Also, I haven't read any of those. My knowledge is limited to the three main games.)

Mukuro's dynamic with Junko is pretty loony toons, but it also makes perfect sense in context with what we know will happen between them. Poor Mukuro's understanding of despair is limited to a sort of masochistic self-hatred, making her unambitious by necessity as she seems to get off on her own inferiority complex to Junko, which her sister is happy to indulge with frequent assassination attempts and casual insults. I know there's a canon reason these two turned out this way, but I can't help but prefer a simpler reality where Junko was just born as the avatar of human Despair, and her slightly more complex (but also slightly less entertaining) sister just got caught up in her cult of insanity.

Fun and wacky as their rapport can be, it's mostly just protracted fanservice in an episode already rife with protracted fanservice. (Chisa is welcomed back to Class 77-B by a slough of Danganronpa 2 in-jokes. All aboard that Gundham/Sonia ship!) The main meat of the episode comes from the Ultimate Animator Mitarai and his desperate mission to create the perfect anime. The poor guy's been locked up in his room animating without food or sleep for months upon months, and even the Ultimate Imposter who took his place (aborting his plan to impersonate Byakuya when the Ultimate Affluent Progeny himself was accepted to Hope's Peak the following year) is worried that Mitarai's going to work himself to death trying to realize his dream. It's pretty easy for the otaku watching at home to sympathize with Mitarai, who was bullied at school, misunderstood by his parents, and only found happiness in the pure and beautiful worlds of animation. At the same time, his decision to shut himself away from his class will leave him weak and vulnerable in the future, having never learned the lessons of unity and hope that brought them together alongside their teacher Chisa. On the other hand, he also won't be around to get turned into a Remnant of Despair, so it's sort of damned-if-he-does and damned-if-he-doesn't. What unbearable despair!

Of course, because this is the lighthearted Despair Arc, all this info is conveyed in the episode's funniest scene, as the Ultimate Imposter tries to forge a bond of trust with Mikan so she can nurse Mitarai back to health without spilling the beans about his true nature. Meek little Mikan is (probably) trustworthy, but she's also a few pills short of a full dose, so she constantly misinterprets Imposter-kun's heartfelt confessions as something infinitely more sexual. You've gotta hand it to Danganronpa for taking one of the most uncomfortable anime comedy tropes (busty airhead humiliation) and managing to turn it into something funny again. Nobody's putting Mikan in compromising situations but Mikan herself, and you just can't help but think she's showing her ass all the time (literally and figuratively) on purpose.

The episode ends with Hajime's fateful transformation into Izuru Kamukura, which gives us a nice solid timeline for how the little tragedy he causes will intersect with Junko's grander plans. It seems like she hadn't really factored the Hope Cultivation Plan into her original plan for world domination, which means the problems brewing under the surface of Hope's Peak Academy just happened to play into her quest for despair. It'll be interesting to see just how far Izuru goes to destroy the school on his own before Junko figures out how to integrate him into her own schemes, and I can't wait to see the two of them interact.

Unfortunately, this episode mostly stood out for being the first one in Danganronpa 3 to retread material we already knew about. The series has been careful about avoiding this problem, but the closer we get to the events of the first two games, it's no surprise that it had to happen eventually. At least all this padding, foreshadowing, and fanservice went down in a mildly entertaining fashion. Even at its slowest and most indulgent, Danganronpa's finale has been a biweekly blast.

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.