Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School

"Every story has an end! This'll be ours!"

- Monokuma

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School is a mystery horror anime television series produced by Lerche, directed by Daiki Fukuoka, and supervised by Seiji Kishi. The anime is the second animated series based on Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa video game franchise, and serves as the finale to the "Hope's Peak Academy" saga established in the previously released games Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. The series is divided into three parts. "Future Arc" focuses on Makoto Naegi and his friends as they become involved in a "Final Killing Game" with the Future Foundation, while "Despair Arc" focuses on Hajime Hinata, Junko Enoshima and the beginning of "The Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind". The first two story arcs aired between July and September 2016. They were followed by "Hope Arc", the conclusion to both previous arcs, which aired on September 29, 2016.

Future Arc
After defeating Junko Enoshima and escaping the killing game, Makoto Naegi and the other survivors have now joined the Future Foundation and are working to rebuild the world. However, Makoto has been charged with the crime of treason for protecting the Remnants of Despair from the rest of the organization. Everyone who gathered for Makoto's trial has now been captured and thrust into the "Final Killing Game" by a familiar foe; Monokuma. Everyone is fitted with a strange bracelet that releases a sleeping serum at a fixed time. While asleep, the traitor in their midst kills a Future Foundation member. To survive, they'll have to find the traitor and stop the killing.

Despair Arc
A prequel to mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the story of "Despair Arc" serves as a "prologue" to the series, as it tells the backstory of Hope's Peak Academy's Class 77-B life at the school and how they became the Remnants of Despair.

Hope Arc
To find out the plot of the Hope Arc, click here for more details

Overall

 * 1) Despite this show not being like the games, it still keeps the charm that the Danganronpa games had.
 * 2) Wonderful animation and voice acting, for most of the series (yes, even in the bad episodes).
 * 3) *Speaking of the voice acting, shout-outs have to go to Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese)/Ricco Fajardo (English) as Kyosuke Munakata, Junichi Suwabe (Japanese)/Ian Sinclair (English) as Juzo Sakakura, Saki Fujita (Japanese)/Erin Fitzgerald (English) as Seiko Kimura, Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese)/Kaiji Tang (English) as Koichi Kizakura, Yōko Hikasa (Japanese)/Caitlin Glass (English) as Kyoko Kirigiri, Akira Ishida (Japanese)/Josh Grelle (English) as Byakuya Togami, Megumi Ogata/Bryce Papenbrook as Nagito Komaeda, Megumi Toyoguchi/Jamie Marchi as Junko Enoshima, Daisuke Kishio/Aaron Dismuke as Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, Kotono Mitsuishi/Clarine Harp as Peko Pekoyama, Tomokazu Sugita/Scott Frerichs as Gundham Tanaka, and Ami Koshimizu/Brina Palencia as Ibuki Mioda. (with many of the voice actors from the games reprising their roles as the returning characters from them here).
 * 4) The intros for this show are very interesting and compelling, with a different one for all 3 arcs (each one reflecting the overall tone of their respective arcs). The visuals are also incredible as well as the music accompanying said visuals themselves.
 * 5) *The Future Arc's intro, DEAD OR LIE, is performed by the Japanese musical group TRUSTRICK with some of it's most recurring visuals being images of the characters dying (most of which not being how they actually do die in the actual series, for the ones who do end up not surviving the anime) and one of the final ones being the entire cast falling into an unknown source. It's ending theme ,Recall THE END, is also very symbolic in it's imagery (as the main shot during it's sequence is a flower with it's petals constantly falling one by one, symbolizing how the Future Foundation members will fall one by one during the Final Killing Game).
 * 6) *The Despair Arc's opening, Kami-iro Awase, is performed by the Japanese group binaria and features a large amount of bright colors and even a shot of all the students, and the entire city, in Junko's hands (as well as a split screen of Hajime and Izuru). It's ending theme, Zettai Kibō Birthday is also very good and it's visuals consist of cute images of Class 77-B together during different events such as holiday parties.
 * 7) Interesting and creative plots with most of these episodes. Hell, one episode even straight up has Class 77-B fighting a brainwashed Future Foundation Elite Task Force in a downright epic battle.
 * 8) While Danganronpa is known for it's gore and disturbing content, the ones from the games don't hold a candle to the ones here. Fromt he student council killing game to the reserve course students slaughtering a plethora of other students to pretty much every single death that occurs during the Final Killing Game (which include, but are certainly not limited to, Seiko being crucified and stabbed by myraid syringes and Ruruka being impaled through the stomach, slashed in the legs, and forced to choke on her own candy all the while bleeding out onto the floor), this series holds absolutely no punches when it comes to showcasing truly shocking and disturbing imagery. And most of it is executed well and the series more often than not manages to use said mature content properly, despite the fact that while this doesn't apply to certain instances of this.

Future Arc

 * 1) mh:greatcharacters:Makoto Naegi returns in this anime, and he is still as likable as ever, along with mh:greatcharacters:Kyoko Kirigiri, Aoi Asahina and even Byakuya Togami.
 * 2) It explores the events that occur after mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and how Makoto's decision to protect the Remnants of Despair by hiding them from the rest of the Future Foundation (who wanted them exterminated) angered many of the organization's Branch Leaders and led to him being accused of treason against them.
 * 3) *What's interesting about that situation is that, both sides are evenly in the right, and in the wrong. While Makoto was right that the Remnants of Despair were once people who desired hope as much as he and the Future Foundation did and that they didn't start the Tragedy out of their free will, his decision to put them in the Neo World Program in order to undo Junko's influence on them resulted in Izuru Kamukura inserting the A.I. Junko into said program in order to sabotage it. This led to a Killing Game happening in the virtual world, and more problems to both him and his peers at the Future Foundation. While things did turn out alright in the end, one could still argue that Makoto was still careless and should've been more prepared for a situation like this. The Branch Leaders on the other hand, while most of them aren't the nicest of people, their goal was to restore hope to the world and end the Tragedy no matter the cost. And they didn't see the Remnants of Despair in the same way Makoto did. And it's never outright stated which is side is right and which one is wrong, because they both have motives for their actions that can be perceived as understandable, so no one can really say which side is more right or wrong in the end.
 * 4) Episode 7 of this arc is one big call-back to mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. As it shows that the former Warriors of Hope (Nagisa Shingetsu, Masaru Daimon, Kotoko Utsugi, and Jataro Kemuri) have now allied with Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa and help them find Monaca Towa. Who, to the girls' surprise, has given up on despair due to the Servant (Nagito Komaeda)'s ramblings about hope and despair making her bored of both of them, and by the end, she becomes a NEET by launching herself into space.
 * 5) Some of the new characters are likable and interesting, such as Kyosuke Munakata, Juzo Sakakura, Chisa Yukizome (despite only having a small role in this arc, and a bigger role in the "Despair Arc"), etc. Even some of the characters who don't get as much focus like Seiko Kimura, Koichi Kizakura, the Great Gozu, Daisaku Bandai, and Sonosuke Izayoi are still likable new additions to the cast (no matter how long some of them might actually last, which are often very short amounts of time, before they're killed off).
 * 6) *Speaking of the new characters, we learn a lot more about the Future Foundation in this arc. They were only mentioned in DR2 as an organization dedicated to pulling the world out of despair brought upon it by Ultimate Despair. Here however, we get to see them in action, learn about who works there, and the nature of the organization in general. And this series reveals that in spite of their good intentions, they're far from a bunch of perfect cinnamon rolls. As they're mired in politics that have three different factions vying for power within the leadership, some of which are extremely unpleasant.
 * 7) Makoto Naegi's love for Kyoko is really shown here. While they've already had a large amount of chemistry in Trigger Happy Havoc (with Kyoko teaching Makoto how to solve the murders that occurred among the students) the moment that truly shows how strong they're bond has gotten is when Makoto believes that Kyoko has been murdered because of him, and despite the fact that she never actually died, it still showed how much he cared about her. And it was all executed well, unlike Sonosuke Izayoi's relationship with Ruruka Ando (which ends with Ruruka's paranoia of Sonosuke betraying her getting the best of her and leading to her killing him by triggering his forbidden action, despite the fact that she genuinely cared about him. And even then, Izayoi spends his final moments kissing Ruruka and telling her that he loves her after reassuring her that she didn't betray him. It also isn't helped by the fact that Izayoi likely ended up dying believing that his death would keep his girlfriend safe, something which unfortunately was untrue as she became the next victim of the attacker).
 * 8) *On the subject of character development, Aoi also gets a large douse of it. Here, she's much more independent and courageous than she was in the game and first anime series. Heck, episode 5, proves that she's become strong enough to be able to actually fight Juzo (aka, the Ultimate Boxer) to a standstill (albeit not at the latter's full power), and she would likely have won had the fight not had been interrupted.
 * 9) Both Munakata and Sakakura arguably start off as unlikable due to their hostility towards the other characters, particularly Makoto (though to be fair, many of the Future Foundation members have this problem due to Makoto's decision to hide the Remnants of Despair from them in order to redeem them causing them to accuse him of treason, as previously mentioned), but they both undergo huge redemption arcs over the 12 episodes of the "Future Arc".
 * 10) *Episode 10 reveals that Munakata was driven mad because of his lover, Chisa Yukizome, deliberately pushing him over the edge without him ever realizing she was brainwashed and a member of Ultimate Despair. Makoto's speech about how he would still stay optimistic had the same thing happened to him and Kyoko, while reminding him of the good times with the good Yukizome, allowed Munakata to finally be honest with himself and cry, burying the hatchet towards Makoto and dispelling his self-inflicted madness.
 * 11) *While the introductions of/focus on characters like Monaca, Junko and Ruruka may have already done something to reduce the amount of dislike Sakakura received from the fanbase, his unrequited feelings for Munakata and humanizing fear of how he'd react to them, as well as his love for him being portrayed sympathetically, the genuinely sad scene of him being stabbed by Munakata, the way he was able to admit his previous mistakes, and him rescuing Makoto before ending the killing game by sacrificing himself certainly redeemed him in the eyes of many fans.

Despair Arc

 * 1) It’s nice to see the characters from mh:awesomegames:Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair get the anime treatment, just like how Trigger Happy Havoc did with Danganronpa: The Animation.
 * 2) *Some of the characters' new designs that were recycled from their beta designs are arguably pretty good as well (Gundham Tanaka, Hiyoko Saionji, Akane Owari, Sonia Nevermind, etc).
 * 3) Although the characters from Class 77-B don't get enough screen time (except for Hajime Hinata and Chiaki Nanami), they are as likable as ever, just like in Danganronpa 2. They also provide many hilarious moments.
 * 4) Speaking of hilarious moments, they first few episodes are jam packed with them (a few examples including Yukizome confidently telling Principal Jin Kirigiri that she can handle her first teaching job and hitting her chest a bit too hard in doing so, Chiaki along with Nagito, and "Ryota" remaining in their seats and acting unfazed by Nekomaru and Akane's fight which was quite literally destroying their classroom, and Nagito giving away a little too much information as to why he needs the laxatives to Seiko when asking her for them by claiming he's been constipated all week with the same cheerful smile for the entirety of it) as their mainly wholesome slice-of-life stories, which feels like a nice change of pace and break from the dark atmosphere and all the death and violence from the previous games and Future Arc. As it helps let the audience take a breather from said events before Junko shows up, and the series doesn't just morph into a horrific thriller like it's sister arc, but it's so much so at being so that it makes most of the events from the previous games look relatively tame in comparison.
 * 5) Here, we learn that the Chiaki Nanami AI we see in Goodbye Despair that served as the observer of the Remnants of Despair was actually based on a real person with the same name, despite it unfortunately not being used to expand on her character (see BQ Despair Arc #2).
 * 6) We get to see how Hajime Hinata became Izuru Kamukura. It's also revealed why he agreed to become the test subject for the project in the first place (his insecurity over not having a talent and feeling inferior to the Ultimates already led to him considering, but what really pushed him to make the decision to go through with it was his confrontation with Juzo in Episode 3. The experiment had extensive surgeries being performed on him in order to give him every talent Hope's Peak Academy had researched, as well as his memories, personality, and other emotional functions that could interfere with acquiring talent being removed. The end result was him being turned into the talented, but stoic and sociopathic Izuru Kamukura who sees life and everything in it as "boring", something Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba later took advantage of in order to turn him to their side, along with by painting despair as the only exciting thing in life to him in order to get him on board with their plan).
 * 7) *It's also revealed here that Junko lied a lot about Izuru in Goodbye Despair to the survivors. As she stated that he was a major contributor to the world falling into despair and was also the killer responsible for Hope Peak's Academy's "Biggest, Most Awful Event" (or, the Student Council Killing Game). But here, it's revealed that Junko was actually the one responsible for the Student Council Killing Game (and Izuru only killed one of the members of said game out of self-defense) and he actually didn't contribute much (if at all) to the Tragedy. As instead, he simply oversaw the Remnants of Despair committing terrorist activities during that time, curious to see which side would really win; hope or despair.
 * 8) One of the things fans frequently theorized about after the first two games is how the 77th and 78th classes interacted while they were just regular Hope’s Peak students prior to the events of the games. And those events are explored here. It also gives us a chance to extensively see Class 77-B's personalities in action, which reveals that some of their DR2 behavior was long in place before the events of said game (i.e., Kazuichi's obsessive crush on Sonia, Nekomaru and Akane/Gundham and Sonia's/Mahiru and Hiyoko's close friendships, Hiyoko acting mean-spirited towards Mikan, Ibuki's energetic and goofy nature, Teruteru's perverted tendencies, Nagito's obsession with hope, etc.).

Hope Arc

 * 1) To find out why the Hope Arc rocks, click here for more details

Overall

 * 1) Junko Enoshima has been flanderized in this show, changing from a complex and cunning, yet entertaining antagonist with a detailed motivation to an incompetent, one-note "I'm going to destroy civilization because I'm evil!" Generic doomsday villain with none of the humor, complexity, or craftiness she had in the previous games, anime series, and mangas/novels.
 * 2) Even if there are some good episodes, there are episodes that are considered bad, weak, forgettable and even straight up abusive, with Episode 10 of the Despair Arc being the worst offender of them all.
 * 3) Rather than the original run of the series in Japan where they aired together, Funimation marketed them separately, which can get confusing for Danganronpa fans. It also isn't helped by the fact that the episodes were released in a pattern between the Future Arc and Despair Arc.
 * 4) There is a total of 3 instances where the anime tricks the audience into thinking that any of the main/major characters have died, which feels like it somewhat lowers the tension of the situations and makes the audience' feel sad upon seeing the death of a character they care about, only for it to end up being for nothing in the end. The one involving Kyoko felt like its only purpose was so that Makoto could reconcile with Kyosuke after they've both experienced the loss of someone they cared about and can therefore become more capable of sympathizing with one another.
 * 5) Some parts of this show can feel very rushed. Most notably, Chiaki Nanami’s character arc in "Despair Arc" and the ending scene of the "Hope Arc."

Future Arc

 * 1) The scene where Makoto Naegi ends up watching "Monokuma's Gloomy Sunday", which causes him to hallucinate about his deceased classmates (which now includes Kyoko), can get way, way too disturbing and mean-spirited - especially the scene where Makoto tries to slit his own throat with a box cutter, only being stopped by Sakakura's interference. However, it's not as bad as Chiaki Nanami getting tortured to death in Episode 10 of the Despair Arc
 * 2) The blood in this anime is red instead of pink, which can feel out of place for the Danganronpa franchise, since the blood is usually pink in the Danganronpa games.
 * 3) Kazuo Tengan, the new leader of Ultimate Despair and the final "Big Bad" of the "Hope's Peak Academy" saga, is an incredibly unlikable antagonist due to his inconsistent characterization, nonsensical motivations and absolutely terrible "plan". The fact that he used to be one of the most popular characters introduced in this series before these revelations doesn't help matters.
 * 4) *A tie-in novel attempts to explain Tengan's sudden turn to villainy by revealing that he was brainwashed by Chisa Yukizome using the "Despair Video", thus making him a member of Ultimate Despair from the very beginning. Whether or not it works is up to you.
 * 5) **On the subject of the cast introduced here, while they're still likable, they're still arguably the weakest in the Danganronpa series.

Despair Arc

 * 1) The infamous Episode 10 is considered to be the worst episode in not just this arc, but this entire show altogether, due to it taking the horror genre way, way too far, being a Chiaki Nanami torture episode where the punching bag trope is being taken to the extreme, and even Junko Enoshima being the one to torture Chiaki to death. We kid you not. Also.. does that sound familiar?
 * 2) *And even before then, there were still some mean-spirited scenes such as Hiyoko Saionji bullying Gundham Tanaka's rabbit (although she does get her comeuppance for it)
 * 3) This arc feels like wasted potential for Chiaki Nanami, as not only does she still not get a backstory, but her only character arc felt very rushed and simple. As she almost immediately goes from being a loner to being adored by everyone in her class after playing video games with them (to the point where they all immediately agree with Chisa that she should be elected as the class rep the next day). And her chemistry with Hajime, while not as forced as it was in the game, can still feel underdeveloped. Hell, Episode 10 of this arc gave her an even worse role in this series, as she became a punching bag in that episode with said trope being cranked up to eleven.
 * 4) This arc immediately went downhill after Episode 10, up until "Hope Arc". Therefore, Episode 9 of this arc was truly the final good episode of "Despair Arc".

Hope Arc

 * 1) For the bad qualities, go to the BQ section of this page.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

 * Chisa Yukizome Doesn't Smile

Reception
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School widely received positive reception, especially from Danganronpa fans. Who praised the anime for it's high stakes, explanation of events that were only stated to have happened in the games, complex storylines, faithfulness to the games, appropriate narrative, and progressive growth and development of Makoto and Kyoko, as well as their relationship. Pollsters Charapedia ranked it as the ninth most anticipated anime of 2016. According to Polygon, Western fans voted it as the tenth best new anime series from 2016. Polygon noted that the character of Junko Enoshima became more popular thanks to the anime, especially her interaction with Ryota Mitarai about the importance of anime to Japanese culture. Although the English dub changed lines from the original series, the site said it still appealed to the audience. HobbyConsolas listed it as one of the best anime series released in 2016. In a Manga.Tokyo poll in 2016, Future Arc was the 21st most popular anime of the year, while Despair Arc was 33rd. In a Goo Ranking poll, the entire series was voted the 19th best anime of 2016. In a Biggest in Japan poll, Future Arc was voted the 6th best anime of 2016 while Despair Arc was 8th.

Videos
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