Danganronpa 3: Mirai Hen – 11-12 [END]

Anime was a mistake

Finally the end of the mystery! …I have mixed feelings about the reveal though.

It’s kind of nice to know that the solutions behind the deaths was something that people could have figured out beforehand. While the monitor brainwashing theory made a lot of sense, I still kind of had reservations about the theory just in case the Danganronpa team decided to throw in some crazy explanation that no one could have guessed at. In the end though, this explanation makes a lot of sense, and while putting a knife at every monitor was probably tedious, it certainly explains how everyone ended up with one. This sucks for everyone who died because of brainwashing though, since suicide is a pretty sad way of dying. I feel really bad for Andou now, since she had the death of Izayoi right on her conscience right before she died, which probably explains why her body was in worse conditions compared to everyone else. There’s always the question as to what would happen if no one was by a monitor (say, where Asahina and others were when Naegi was trying out his theory), but I guess whoever woke up might have wandered around until one activated.

This is what happens when you force someone to choose between girlfriends

What pushed Naegi to Despair was pretty sad though. He obviously still feels a ton of regret over not being able to save his waifu friends from the first killing game, and maybe this was even made worse with Kirigiri’s recent death. Though Mondo turning into a pile of butter was kind of funny. Naegi’s luck seems to have saved him again though, with Sakakura saving him at the last moment. …Which is kind of ironic, since Naegi’s luck got him out of the ropes meant to restrain him, just like what Sakakura accused him of being capable of in the beginning of this anime.

Sakakura kind of redeemed himself. It’s a shame that he was the 6th person alive, since that means that Kirigiri is probably dead for real, but at least him turning off the power for Munakata kind of gave closure for his character after the whole “he’s actually gay” thing that was revealed in Zetsubou shortly before this. He had no idea that Munakata had calmed down after stabbing him, so Sakakura still being devoted and trying to save Munakata by turning off the power was touching. Plus it was pretty smart of him to think of removing the bracelet that way. …It definitely wasn’t the cleanest or most efficient way, but it got the job done.

The culprit was the old man all along! Apparently. I have some major questions about Tengan though. It’s fine that he set himself to be the exposition guy (via his NG Code) to answer various questions about the situation. This also might explain why his knowledge of the traitor was given to Munakata so confusingly, because maybe having Munakata go on a rampage was part of the plan. I double checked and Tengan answers that he’s not the Remnant of Despair that Munakata was looking for, so he’s… probably not part of Despair? Even Naegi seems to think so. Maybe he set up his own bracelet to not poison him, or maybe there was truth telling within the lie to make the NG Code not count.

But if Tengan set this whole thing up, then there’s a big mystery as to why he would restrict Mitarai from using his talent via the NG code if he wanted Mitari to use his talent. Reverse psychology? Were the characters supposed to figure out how to remove the bracelets sooner or something? Or did Tengan just figure that Mitarai wouldn’t die and everyone else could just kill each other off until someone figured things out enough for Mitarai to do his thing? But I guess apparently Mitarai wasn’t supposed to be part of the game (since the characters pointed out that Tengan seemed surprised that Mitarai was there), so who exactly put on the bracelets? The bracelets had really specific orders to, so someone seems to have put Mitarai’s on and programmed it with him specifically in mind.

Also, if it was Tengan (who may or may not have somehow accidentally put a bracelet on Mitarai), then was he just going to let Monaka run around as Mechagahara the whole time and just trust that she wasn’t going to screw everything up? Even if he didn’t know that she was Monaka’s, I feel like the fact that she was a robot would have been fairly obvious if anyone had bothered looking closely (or noticing that she didn’t actually fall asleep with everyone else). …I’m just hoping that there’s another party to this extremely convoluted plan, or at least a good explanation as to why everything about this had to be so complicated and why everyone had to die. …I’m also curious about the whole point of the NG Codes. Sure, they made the stakes higher, and I can see why Yukizome should be restricted from trying to kill Munakata. But what was the point of not being able to open a hand or not being able to witness violence?

I feel like on some levels, Tengan’s plan was pretty effective though. In using Mitarai’s stolen techniques to have the participants kill themselves and knowing how Mitarai already blamed himself for helping Junko, it was a good way to push Mitarai into using his Hope video. Plus I guess if the plan was to guilt Mitarai further, having Kirigiri die from her NG Code was probably effective. Tengan specifically told Mitarai to follow her after all.

It was surprisingly helpful to have Junko recap the events of the anime at the end. Plus having her sit with Yukizome in the theatre is kind of reassuring, since it probably means that she’s really dead. I mean, Danganronpa has resurrected her through unlikely means before (AI Junko, and trying to turn Monaka into her too). I’m sure that they could pull off a twist that she didn’t actually die. I’m just kind of glad that it seems like that’s not in their plans through this scene.

Mitarai himself is definitely taking things too far. Like Naegi said, people have been finding Hope without needing brainwashing, but I guess Mitarai has been pushed too far. …And really, there’s no point in trying to kill everyone trying to stop him (please don’t bleed to death Asahina!) when his brainwashed army could probably just as easily restrain everyone. I’m sure Naegi will get through to him though, provided they have a good sit down to talk about things. Naegi is pretty good at ruining everyone’s (generally nefarious) plans.

On the plus side though, Munakata finally has a chance to show off his sword skills and not have the majority of the audience hate him for a change. He finally refers to Yukizome as Chisa too, which seems like a good indicator that all of his issues have been sorted out. He’s actually kind of likeable now, and his whole complex about Despair was all pretty much Yukizome’s fault in the first place. I’m glad that they bothered to explain that, since it really helped in his character redemption. They could have probably left it as “he’s just an asshat with a complex”, but now there’s a reasonable explanation.

And Hagakure finally did something useful! Now the anime just has to have Naegi save the day again, and somehow make the whole Tengan thing make more sense. …Maybe.

Make it so!

Like I said, I have mixed feelings about the true culprit’s reveal. But hey, good on Danganronpa 3 for making the antagonist hard to guess. Plus the whole situation, while kind of confusing, was something new since everything is apparently for Hope instead of the usual Despair reasons. …Maybe I’m just overthinking things regarding Tengan’s plans. This series was really interesting though as a whole, with everyone ignoring the game for the most part and instead just kind of exploring what Hope and Despair actually mean.

Plus between Mirai and Zetsubou, the way the two anime played off of each other was something I can’t remember ever seeing in an anime series before (since normally they don’t air two parts of an anime during the same season). It really helped develop some of the ideas behind the characters, like Sakakura liking Munakata, or the Kimura, Andou, and Izayoi trio’s backstory. If the anime was restrained to the Mirai arc alone, there wouldn’t have been enough time for reveals or character development like that. Plus, it also managed to make cliffhangers somehow even worse. Like that one in Zetsubou where it was ambiguous if Yukizome was part of Despair or not. There was what it meant in the context of that arc, but at the same time, it also created questions about what went on in the Mirai arc. It was really entertaining to follow both anime all season and I would definitely recommend watching the two shows simultaneously like this to get the full enjoyment out of Danganronpa 3.

Hopefully everything comes together in the Hope side though now. And I really do hope that the characters get some kind of a happy ending. I mean, this season has been pretty rough in both arcs, and it would be really nice if the characters could come out of this having gained something at least.

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.