A few months ago I wrote a review. Not just any review, but a sequel to another review. That review was of Danganronpa 3: Mirai-hen, and at the end I promised to return to the Hope Side, and lay out all my remaining issues with Danganronpa 3. In all honesty, I hadn't even thought about that and wrote it moreso as a joke than anything else, but due to recent events, I have come upon inspiration that will allow me to write what will be something that will get me tons of annoying messages.

Danganronpa 3 sucks. Just flat out going to say it, it sucks. At its best, it's a 3/10 in Mirai-hen, and at its worst it's needless fanservice for characters that aren't even remotely like their original incarnations beyond the most superficial and surface level. Despite all that, not only do these anime receive stark amounts of love, but Kibou-Hen itself receives quite a bit of good will, when really it's just a continuation of many of the flaws present across Danganronpa 3 in general.

I think fan service is a fascinating topic, as I have had or seen plenty of discussions surrounding the idea, of varying intellectual quality. The reason I bring this up is because, ultimately, the vast majority of Danganronpa 3 is just fanservice, unrelenting, annoying, fucking horrible fan service at that. What point does the Ultra Despair Girls episode serve beyond tying up a red herring in Monaca and showing off characters from said game? Why do most of the Zetsubou-hen episodes exist if not for fans of the Danganronpa 2 cast? And, to come back to a general idea, why does Kibou-hen exist if not to service Danganronpa fans? You may ask what I mean by that, and what I mean is...

Kibou-hen essentially removes any and all consequences from both Danganronpa 2 and 3. Kirigiri is dead! Oh, wait, she's alive because she got a cure in the most asinine way possible. The Danganronpa 2 cast is a bunch of vegetables! No they aren't, they fine, they're all walking around dressed up like they were three years ago in universe despite 2 stating that many of them had done horrific things to their bodies. Oh, but surely Hajime's decision at the end of 2 mattered and he has chosen a life devoid of talent because he realized it's not the most important thing, right? Right? You can see where this is going.

Now, why does all this walk backing and removal of any complex ideas actually do? It creates this safe and sterile conclusion where everyone is happy, nothing bad happened, there was no tough decisions and no consequences to follow. Hajime gets to keep all his talents and be himself, Nagito isn't dying anymore, Kirigiri came back to life, the DR2 cast have nothing to worry about since their bodies were perfectly fine! It's so... bland. It almost feels like hope is being forced upon you, like it's some attempt at a meta commentary, that this is the in universe hope video, except for the viewers. But, there's no subversion at the end of the day, no grand "Gotcha!", nothing. The DR2 cast gets on a boat and leaves, Mirai-hen crew just moves on, and now Naegi is the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy. Oh, but I guess Gundham has more hamsters now and that's so cute and so kawaii, this anime is perfect.

I felt very drained the first time I saw this back when it aired, and I felt even more drained when I went to rewatch it just a few months ago. I don't get how someone can watch this and accept this conclusion. This isn't an ending, this isn't some grand culmination of all the series events, the second game is pretty much a non factor now. There were no consequences, it was all just manufactured despair that went nowhere.

I guess the thesis statement of Danganronpa 3 could be summed up in this ending. They did not care for the prior entries, and so instead they indulge in references and showing off the characters with none of their major flaws. I originally wanted to go through each and every character from Danganronpa 2 and discuss how 3 mishandles them, but I can show no better proof of that than this singular episode. None of the characters are handled well in just these 24 minutes of subpar animation.

It's such a shame that the Hope's Peak Academy Arc had to end this way honestly. I don't want to hate Danganronpa, I love this series, but I can't in good faith say anything about this anime other than, "What a waste of my time".