Last night, I uploaded a review for Danganronpa 3: Zetsubou-hen. I hold that review as less a review and more a stream of consciousness I had immediately after finishing the anime, for I knew there would never be a better time to write my feelings, my despair, about the anime down. This Mirai-Hen review is supplemental to that one, while also being my actual review of the anime. Now that that's cleared up, time to talk about this anime.

I find myself more forgiving on Mirai-Hen than Zetsubou-hen, which is odd in this community, as most people seem to hold the latter in some form of high regard. While Zetsubou-hen just made me feel bored at best and annoyed to the point of brain aneurysm at worst, Mirai-hen at its best did manage to make me go "Oh that's neat". It does have a lot of interesting ideas, and occasionally, some of those ideas do receive good follow-throughs.

Munakata's limitation being unable to open doors and how that ties in thematically to the rest of the arc and his rivalry with both Tengan and Naegi, Tengan's last conversation with Munakata is also a highlight for me as it's probably one of the few well composed scenes in the anime. Occasionally, we'll even get glimpses of deeper characterization among a mostly two-dimensional cast, Ruruka is probably the only character among her little group with a real character. While she has actual struggles and reactions to the environment around her and forces herself to do depraved and inhumane things to survive, the characters she drags along feel more like ways for her to express her character than actual characters themselves.

Seiko is nothing, she is just a ripoff of Tokou Fukawa from the first Danganronpa game. A stuttering geek who also goes completely insane at the drop of a hat, and I'm left in disbelief that she has a cult following. Her entire character is her relationship with Ruruka, that's what informs almost all of her actions, and while that itself can be good, we never see it fully elaborated on. She likes Ruruka, then she doesn't, then she dies. Should I care? No. Should you care? No.

The other character connected to Ruruka is Izayoi, who is just her fuckbuddy. Izayoi mainly seems to exist to excuse why Ruruka is able to survive at all, and his character is "Me like Ruruka, me eat candy". He is used to further Ruruka, and there is no issue with characters that exist solely to further another character, that's a very useful and underrated writing device. But, when you put so much focus on such a character, it does become an issue, because at that point you need to give them a character, so I won't be completely bored by what is going on. Cool designs can only carry you so far, and I'm not taking the bait on this one.

But, that's not the only trio among the main cast. While I do enjoy Munakata, his allies, Chisa and Juzo, I don't like that much (if you couldn't tell from my Zetsubou-hen review). To keep it brief, Chisa and Juzo are moral blackholes, both paired with Munakata's supreme idiocy. While Chisa has real reasons to be a moral blackhole in everything post-Zetsubou-hen (if you don't know what I mean, maybe you should watch the anime), Jzuo is just a terrible person. Yes, it's hard to come out as gay, please don't make gay people look like fucking assholes. I don't care about your sexual orientation when you willingly choose to not tell ANYONE about the child murderer who is currently locked in a school with OTHER CHILDREN. This has to be the flimsiest justification for Juzo knowing Enoshima is behind everything and not telling anyone. The insane and over the top world of Danganronpa doesn't befit a twist like this.

On the topic of twists though, let's put the spotlight on the biggest twist of all- who is the mastermind? On that note, this has to be one of the worst mystery stories, I have ever consumed. Just constantly throwing out red herrings, red herrings that will go on to completely destroy any logic surrounding character backstories and actions, creating many improbable coincidences in the process, all for a twist that isn't even that good. Tengan is the mastermind, and is another moral blackhole, as him being the mastermind is completely absurd and makes him look as bad as Junko Enoshima at times.

You really get the feeling that Tengan hated most of his subordinates, what with rules like "Nobody can step on your shadows" or "Can't witness a fight". Somehow he managed to construct a second building underneath the building that Munakata was heading the construction of. Not just make it by the way, but make a complete copy, right down to presumably the books in the library. Normally, I would discount talking about this as a nitpick, but everything just keeps piling up, how did Munakata not notice? Simply put, the writers didn't care and just wanted to create a red herring to misdirect the audience. Red herrings are the backbone and also the greatest failing of this mystery.

Why was Monaca there? She just happened to be there by coincidence and has nothing to do with it. How did Munakata not notice the second building? Who fucking knows, they don't really explain it. All these insane murders where people are pinned into walls or strung up in chandeliers must be committed by another person, right? Nope, they all pulled a Nagito and managed to kill themselves and made it look like a murder. I hate all of this and wish the writers could do anything without falling back on another goddamn red herring.

Back to the point, Tengan is not a great character. He wants to use this killing game to inspire Mitarai to spread his hope anime, but he just comes off as absurdly evil. Perhaps it was the despair video, but that is a flimsy as hell justification with no set up at all, and we don't even know if he actually watched it. If he did, then he has a weird asspull to justify him being a terrible person, if he didn't, then he's still a terrible person without the asspull. All for a killing game that barely works.

The Future Foundation Killing Game would be an interesting concept if in a multi volume LN series, or a 20 hour long visual novel, and not a 12 episode anime. Because it's in the anime medium, it adheres to a specific length, and as such must rush through concepts and characters to reach the grand point of it all, which leaves this killing game feeling incredibly flaccid. The suicide reveal would be a good if not for ~~how utterly retarded the hypnosis videos are~~ the fact that anyone could figure it out merely by smashing one of the monitors. Tengan, the big bad mastermind, got his group of hotblooded Future Foundation members, all of whom immediately start fighting each other before the killing game even starts, and hopes that none of them will break one of the monitors. I guess it worked in the end, but I'm just in disbelief that this even happened. I was going to say "Why didn't he just have the knife drop from the ceiling, but that led me to realize he must've had this plan ever since the building was originally under construction, which is another layer of absurdity to this anime.

For the last character I'll put the spot light on, let me clarify something. Outside the few I've talked about, there are no real characters. There's the DR1 cast, these guys, and then the filler, and in a series like Danganronpa, having filler characters who exist just to die is a bad thing. But, anyone can figure that one out, so let's get to the point. Mitarai is okay. He doesn't really do anything here or in Zetsubou-hen beyond feel sorry for himself, there's not much of a character to talk about, he's in Mirai-hen purely for the ending. Hangs around with Kyoko, barely says anything, then acts as the antagonist for the final episode and Kibou-hen. I guess he was funny in Zetsubou-hen, for all the "Just because I liked stupid anime" screenshots, but he really does leave thinking there was a small chance this anime was bad on purpose, simply because the whole twist is that his despair anime is the one everyone got to see, while his hope anime remains unreleased, and that just feels very on the nose. I doubt this idea, but it salvages some of this anime for me.

In conclusion, I guess out of the whole Danganronpa 3 trilogy, I like this one more than the others. Like may be too strong a word, but it's definitely a word. I don't wholly detest this one. It's the far more interesting one out of the group, with actual themes and occasionally actual characters. If you expected me to say something about the returning characters here, all I can really say is Makoto is too tall. He should be like 5'3" like he was at the end of Danganronpa 2, and not as tall as Kyoko, and it really looks weird. Beyond that, I prefer not thinking about them.

Oh, what about the Danganronpa 2 cast? I guess all I can say is-

Spoiler, click to view