Review of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School - Future Arc

[MINOR SPOILERS if you care; also covering bits of Hope Arc] Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak High School – Future Arc is an anime meant to serve as the conclusion to the Hope’s Peak series of Danganronpa games, which excludes Danganronpa V3. It is set years after the first game, possibly directly after the second game and somewhat after Ultra Despair Girls. The Future Arc, however, was one that I found to be ultimately unnecessary to the plot yet enjoyable nonetheless. Before I make the same complaints about the story that everyone else has already made, I’d like to appreciate some of the aspects Iliked. The music was a master class, particularly the OP and ED. All tracks fit their situations well and carried over the vibes that were present in previous Danganronpa games. I also really like the art-style and animation of the show. Albeit slightly unconventional and differing to a great extent from the games, it is still very nice to look at. The character designs are, as expected of Danganronpa, all very distinct to the point where it is very easy to distinguish each character’s personality simply by looking at an image of them.

Shifting to more of a nitpick, the voice acting in the English dub was rather disorienting. None of the voice actors from the games reprise their roles in this anime save for Makoto, meaning that Kyoko, Hina, Byakuya, Yasuhiro, Monokuma, Toko, and Komaru’s voices will all take a while getting used to if you played the games in dub. Monokuma’s voice is probably the most unbearable out of all of them (it’s upupu not nyeh nyeh nyeh are you fucking papyrus). From what I have heard, this is not the case in the Japanese version, where all of the original voice actors reprise their roles in the anime. However, many of the voice actors for anime-only characters fit their respective characters rather well and do not sound out of place.

Now the story is rather interesting. It starts with a connection to Danganronpa 2, in which it was mentioned that Makoto Naegi committed an act of treason to the Future Foundation, which he and the other survivors of the killing game joined after escaping. He is brought in for trial along with a few of his friends from the first killing game to a meeting of members of the foundation. However, another killing game begins there; slightly different from the others. Although I am not entirely opposed to this approach, the entire story seems rather unnecessary. I understand that many loose ends were left by Danganronpa 2 and Ultra Despair Girls and so some sort of conclusion was needed by the fans, but I just can’t help saying, “What’s the point of all this?” while watching. This feeling was only intensified by the end of the series, as certain important events (such as deaths) were just dismissed with “lmaoooo jk they’re gud bro.” It makes this entire thing practically meaningless. However, I still enjoyed it as it made a great effort to conclude Danganronpa and there were many really well-done scenes.

I also didn’t find a lot of the characters very good. Some obvious exceptions are Makoto, Kyoko, Kazuo Tengen, Kyosuke Munakata, Juzo Sakakura, and a couple others, but for the most part, many characters were either unnecessary or completely nonsensical. They were only there for the ride. Their motivations seem to come out of nowhere—if you’re just watching the Future Arc and not simultaneously watching the Despair Arc in what is a really unorthodox watch order—and the actions they take are so ridiculously far from the best thing they could have done that it’s infuriating. For instance, everything about Ruruka, Izayoi, and Kimura was dumb. Petty grudges drove them to do stupid things. Meanwhile, you have characters such as Makoto and Munakata with actual character development as a result of the events that occur that doesn’t completely destroy what they stand for. I found the [SPOILERS BEGIN] scene with Makoto and the brainwashing TV really good. It shows that he still carries survivor’s guilt from the previous killing game and is a nice addition to him. [SPOILERS END]

Danganronpa 3 – Future Arc did not start off terrible, yet by the end, I was left with a feeling that what I had just watched was meaningless. I was not entirely opposed to the concept, however. In fact, I rather enjoyed Future Arc as a conclusion to the Hope’s Peak series of Danganronpa stories. It had plently of action and drama to keep me entertained throughout, which was enough to distract me from the somewhat disappointing plot. If you liked the previous games, I highly recommend watching this and Despair Arc.