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

Danganronpa 3 Future has become a mixed bag for fans for the franchise. Even when it was announced that it would be a anime instead of a game, there were doubts that this could be done well. What didn't help is that it would only have 12 episodes for this side alone. After watching it, indeed certain things in the overall narrative didn't quite click well. Before watching this, playing DR: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super DR2: Goodbye Island of Despair and DR Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is required. Also, alongside Side Future is DR Side Despair, which viewers are meantto watch side by side.

First off, most of the criticisms stem from the format. This franchise started as a series of games that average at least 20 hours of gameplay. The conclusion of the series being one 12 episode series, an 11 episode series that ties into it, and a sequel special that will tie up both series and overall would only take up atleast 10 hours brought up some concerns. With at least 16 characters, even with at least 4 already known, the limited time along with the usual content of the series gave doubts whether the characters would be given a decent amount of screentime and characterization. Despair side picked up some slack in that regard by relegating time to give further exposition for the new characters, which also opened up problems as well for that series.

It also didn't help that at the beginning, the new characters come off as unlikable right from the start. The story starts off after the events of Super Danganronpa 2, in which Makoto Naegi, the protagonist of the first game and taking up the protagonist role again here, is being tried for his actions in trying to save the Remnants of Despair from being executed by the Future Foundation, and undo the influence Junko Enoshima has done to them. Now, Makoto, as a member of Future Foundation, it is reasonable for him to be held accountable for his actions that were out of his own sense of morality but were against the organization's as a whole. What was not is that the heads of Future Foundation holding him on trial weren't being reasonable in the slightest and are outright antagonistic towards him from the start.

It's reasonable that one or two would make claims that he's a traitor, but it's the opposite in that only a few aren't immediately jumping to conclusions, and the majority already made their decisions about it, hinting that the trial would have been against Makoto from the start, if things didn't go to hell before it properly started. It's stupid. The audience knows Makoto was acting on good intentions. To have the new characters from the start be against him would already make them less receptive. However even after they get trapped and put into a killing game, many of them still act unreasonable as they automatically assume Makoto is the one responsible for this and start trying to kill him right off the bat.

Also, the actually likeable characters or the ones that didn't automatically come across as jerks from the new cast are the ones that start getting killed off. It's easy to determine who's going to die because it's always the one that's given focus the same episode. You, the viewer, start to find this character interesting only for them to be killed off abruptly before the episode's end, leaving the unlikable ones around to create conflict. This was intended so they could redeem themselves in some way near the end, but it's divided whether the payoff was worth it. I actually grew to like Munakata even though he was the one mainly responsible for the string of irrational decisions that started most of the conflict in the series. Sakakura was still a mixed bag for me though he did become a more fleshed out character.

Episode 7 was a episode that could have been better used to focus on other things. The main story is replaced by a related but separate incident that would have been better left as a "leave to your imagination" only getting the critical parts of it. The plot focuses on the plotline from Ultra Despair Girls and I really liked some of the fanservice in that episode. Still, from a narrative perspective, it's only slightly related to the main plot. All it really does is drop a death flag for a DR1 character. The cost wasn't worth it. The character that was the main antagonist in that game and was revealed to be participating in the current killing game via robot masquerading as one of the FF branch heads turns out to be red herring, and she gives up right in the middle of the episode. She literally self-destructs all her robots herself for no reason. That it was a troll in the end did not sit well, and personally was disappointing for me, since I really like Ultra Despair Girls and didn't like the episode making one big joke out of it. And precious time that could have been used on something more relevant was instead used for this kind of fake out.

What turns out to be critical for Future's plot is certain characters, and if they aren't done well, they will damage the series as a whole. First is Chisa Yukizome, whose importance is affected by her role in Side Despair, and what happens to her. She was the teacher of the 77th class that became Super High School Level Despair, and she in turn was brainwashed like them by association. Once this is revealed in Side Despair, the truth becomes she was still brainwashed in Future arc, and was the reason the vice-chairman had become so irrational by her doing heinous crimes, then showing them to him while hiding the fact she did it, and influencing him to be more extreme in his beliefs.

She also turns out to be the one to have given this series' mastermind the means to do the killing game. The way this was handled was less well done. She literally just gives the mastermind the Macguffin without any more context whether or not the situation at the time fit or not, especially when who the mastermind turns out to be. That moment sums up her fatal flaw, in that she's less of a character but a plot device to railroad the plot when needed or in this case, explain how the mastermind got a certain thing. It's not even hidden; during one moment in both series, she exclaims because of her talent, she's lead to important moments. Anything the viewer may have liked about her is gone once she's brainwashed making her role in the story more apparent.

Next is the mastermind, who turns out be a character who died during the events of the series. This person turns out to be the chairman of Future Foundation, Kazuo Tengan. And the reasons why he set up this killing game relates to another character, who I will mention next. His motives turn out to be to get this person to use something he had. The problem is that the person was also part of the killing game, meaning that person was in danger of dying. Questions are raised why he didn't guarantee that person's safety. Why of all things he set up killing game to influence that person to use the Macguffin. And if that person wasn't supposed to be there originally for the events, then how and why did he end up being there. It's left to interpretation so far, maybe to be clarified in the special.

Lastly is Ryota Mitarai. He is key to this entire anime, both sides of it, leaving him a very divisive character, and one that really needed to be done right. His talent is as an animator. His dream was making an anime to inspire hope in others just as he had been. It all goes wrong once he turns to using subliminal messaging and other brainwashing techniques in his work and he encounters Junko Enoshima, who twists his work for her purposes, used it to brainwash Chisa and the 77th class to spread despair, and the reserve course students to commit suicide, setting off the end of world. This leaves him very guilt ridden that carries over to the Future arc. After these events were presented in Despair arc, he becomes a sympathetic character. However, this somewhat diminishes after it turns out he made another video to brainwash people to spread hope, what Tengan wanted to push him to use and now after all this, he's now resolved to use it by uploading it to all communication devices. Even though Tengan was the mastermind, Ryota is now the true final boss. Not to be resolved in Future arc though, but in the Hope arc. Yes, the finale of this series ends on a cliffhanger to resolve all the plotlines in a special.

The fact all the events so far lead up to this is underwhelming. In the end, it's more brainwashing from the Despair arc, that was divisive from the start. Also, more importantly, Ryota turns out to not learn anything, and now, he needs to be stopped. What's worse is that from the start of Future arc, he is just there. No reason exists for him being in this side of the story until this moment. You'd hope his first major act to be aligned with the protagonist and not against him, making all this build up to be a waste, because Ryota isn't even a true antagonist. He's just misguided, engulfed by his guilt and weakness, and projecting it onto the world. Making the final confrontation to be convincing him to not to follow through because it would be a mistake. That's just disappointing and wasn't worth being the climax of the series. If it turned out Tengan stole the Hope video, did broadcast the killing game, and set up for the video to be broadcasted afterwards, requiring Ryota to stop it, with previous episodes giving him character development, that would be easier to accept.

Overall, I did enjoy this, in fact I enjoyed this more than Despair arc. I do understand why Spike Chunsoft wanted to end this storyline in an anime. Makoto and the rest of the DR1 characters shouldn't have been in anymore class trials; they're past that. Now, would it have been better instead of an anime, Spike Chunsoft make a game with different gameplay elements to compensate that? Probably, but I'd imagine that would be difficult. Also despite my criticisms, I'm looking forward to see how it all ends in the Side Hope special.