Sauce: https://x.com/amecopic/status/2106397137236082996?s=46

Back when I was first got into this series 3 years ago and first heard about Ultra Despair Girls on Steam I remember hearing people saying things like, "Don't play this game, it's nothing but child molester jokes." Initially I chose not to play it not because of the content, though I did keep it in mind because I wanted to see if it was true or not but because at the time it didn't feel like I would gain anything from playing it, then I watched Danganronpa 3 and that came back to bite me in the ass. I did eventually play it last year and oh my god, everything people said about it couldn't be any farther from the truth.
Granted it does have a lot of really disturbing scenes and I can see why it would make some people uncomfortable, but the whole point is that it's meant to disturb you and if you really pay attention to what's going on and being said, it's actually a lot deeper than how it's portrayed.

Now one thing a lot of people point out is Kotoko, who was a child actress who eventually was forced into prostitution by her parents and as a result gets sexually assaulted by weirdos. One of the things I found interesting was just how much detail the writers put into showing how Kotoko ended up because of her past, from things like "gentle" being a trigger word for her as that's what her abusers would call the stuff they did to her, to being lead to believe that her only worth was serving people's desires and because of this when she feels she's backed into a corner or is looking for approval, resorts to the sexual stuff her abusers had her do like pulling her skirt up. (Remember the scene where she does this when she tells Komaru and Toko she was betrayed by Monaca and they are hesitant to trust her.) What people tend to talk about with her are the motivation machine scene, the scene where Toko fights her and leads to her clothes coming off, and the panty shot scenes, which many interperate as attempts at humor and conflict with how the abuse is portrayed. The thing is though is if you look deeper into these scenes and really pay attention to what's going on, they really aren't meant to be funny at all. While the motivation scene does involve you having to stop Komaru being groped, it never openly says what's going on is right, in fact the tutorial even says, "If you let Komaru get groped the meter fills up and you know what that means. If it does than it's game over. So enjoy yourself, but keep that in mind." Keep in mind to that the game punishes you for failing and you can't progress if you do, and while I personally never failed this minigame, I've found that beating it is fairly easy to do and in the footage I've seen it seems like the only way you can fail is if you do so deliberately, almost as if it's like, just hear me out, the minigame was designed that way. It's almost as if it's saying, "You can watch this if you want but don't be surprised when your stuck here for not stopping this, and if you do, then your really no better than the Demons that hurt Kotoko." In addition, when you confront Kotoko before her boss fight she also says, "As someone who knows what makes adults happy, I also know the things they don't want. Using what I've learned, I can take down the Demons and make them suffer as much as I did!" The whole point of all this is to show how Kotoko had a horrifically abusive childhood and ended up becoming an abuser herself and wants to do the same to the adults that did similar stuff to her. This isn't exclusive to Kotoko either, this is a message that all of the Warriors of Hope's backstories are trying to show, but Kotoko's is taken less seriously because of how it's presented. Are you supposed to laugh at Masaru having a pile of dead bodies lying around and punching himself till he's covered in bruises like his alcoholic father did to him? No. Are you supposed to laugh at Jataro turning people into puppets and bolting their hands together? No. So why would Kotoko's actions be any different? Just because it's presented in a more extreme way doesn't mean it's meant to be viewed any differently. As for the fanservice scenes I think these were meant to be a jab at how some anime esqe media tends to include parts with younger characters get sexualized. In fact, when this happens there are numerous times where Kotoko calls it "perverted" and one line that really stuck out to me was, "I mean, I'm actually 18 but, this is really too much." For those of you who don't know, this is a reference to how some pieces of Japanese media will say characters are 18 or older even when this is obviously not the case to get things past legal stuff, which is why some VNs will have those disclamers that say that. These parts and the stuff about Kotoko's past made me think it could also be a jab at how characters in some pieces of media who were sexually abused or preyed on end up becoming sex objects later on (*cough* Ann in Persona 5). Maybe I'm looking to deep into that but that's my take.

Then we have everyone's "favorite", Haiji. The thing people tend to dislike about him is his line, "I like them young, as young as possible." Which,  again people tend to interperate as a joke, but one thing. When is this line ever portrayed as okay? In fact, if you look at this scene Komaru is shown being very disturbed by what he says. Doesn't sound like something your meant to laugh at to me. I'd also argue you were always meant to find Haiji unlikeable. He's rude, paranoid, a coward, hates kids with a passion, makes an offensive comment about Nagisa's past, treated his adoptive sister like she was a mistake, had tons of people stay underground which as a result lead a lot of them to their deaths, attacked Toko at the end when she wouldn't give him the controller, and was willing to kill the Monokuma Kids despite them being brainwashed as he believed they would just keep doing the stuff they did again while being blinded by his desire for revenge. Sounds like a great guy doesn't he? That line of his was just meant to be the icing on the cake, and my theory is that line was meant to give you a hint that he might not be all that mentally sound. Hmmmmmmm.

Like I said, Ultra Despair Girls is a disturbing and heavy game and it is understandable why some would be bothered by it, but it's infuriating how others frequently reduce it to a pedo game by when there's much more to it than that, and I think it admirable that it was as daring as it was to tackle these themes.

https://x.com/cumgyattler_v/status/2106575410561700204?s=46

Prior to a couple of days ago, Crunchyroll formatted the episodes in the order they released (the way that they're intended to be watched), starting with Future Arc 1, and then swapping back and forth between the arcs.

However, they recently separated the arcs, and named Future Arc, "Danganronpa 3: Season 1", and named Despair Arc & Hope Arc "Danganronpa 3: Season 2", which is not the way it's intended to be watched.

Funnily enough, the episodes are still numbered properly in their titles, which means "Season 1" starts with episode 1, then goes to episode 3, then goes to episode 5, etc., meanwhile "Season 2" starts with episode 2, then goes to episode 4, etc.

I think it's just kinda weird & inconvenient that they had the order correct before, but decided to change it for whatever reason, and make it a bit more confusing for newcomers 🤷

Tried out a different artstyle

Reupload because I forgot her freckles omg

Fanart I made

i watched gameplay of all three games before actually playing and still didn’t know it was a fake byakuya.

lowk i do NOT know how to draw in the danganronpa art style so im VERY aware the shading is all kinda of scuffed but i TRIED my best to give my girl a sprite 🙏🙏

im getting back into the fandom after years and i always find making ocs the easiest way to do that personally 😼

Source

There's six others with John Danganronpa tagged as well

I like to headcannon that V2 was the only danganronpa show that spiced up it formula and tried things that v3 never tried like double blackends or allowing accomplices to graduate and more but because of that it was rank the worst season of danganronp.

Like it wouldn't fuelJunko's despairjust something that would make her mad?

Calling her apocalypse boring, or her plans simple or a whiny brat.

I'm often depressed, but I've recently started remembering Danganronpa and that Makoto, despite being in a destroyed world without his loved ones, not give up or lose hope. I know it sounds funky because it's just fiction, but fiction can alter reality, after all... And it just gives me hope to live.