Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony’s Ending Guilts You for Playing the Game
By: Paul Lombardo
Tags: Gaming, Anime, Features, Creativity, Culture

One of the characters in the story, Tsumigi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer, reveals to the surviving cast that everything they’ve seen and experienced is fictional. While the Danganronpa series has lightly brushed up against the fourth wall, this abrupt destruction of the barrier between fantasy and reality comes harshly.

When the player looks back on the story, this notion of a pseudo-reality begins to be more plausible. One of the giveaway moments for me as a player was coming across a book discussing the plots of the first and second games. At first, it seemed like a tool for the mastermind (who seemed to be committing a copycat killing of the first two games) to slowly reveal the story. Instead, it was a loosely thrown safety net by the developers to prepare us for the incoming blow. Another attempt to warn the player of this revelation came from the existence of Rantaro Amami. This character’s “Ultimate Survivor” talent wasn’t revealed until the player neared the ending of the game, which alludes to him being a survivor of a past killing game.

Danganronpa V3 does not stand for “version 3,” as many assumed. Instead, Tsumigi reveals to both the player and cast of characters that the game they are playing is the fifty-third iteration of Danganronpa, cleverly disguising the title with a roman numeral.

The killing game occurring in Danganronpa V3 was, in the story, orchestrated by the real-world game development company Team Danganronpa. The students that participated, such as protagonists Kaede Akamatsu and Shuichi Saihara, volunteered themselves to be contestants on the fifty-third season of Danganronpa. This resulted in their memories being wiped. Students are also granted their own “ultimate” talents, such as Kaede being the “Ultimate Pianist.”

While every trial in Danganronpa involves an investigation into the murder of a fellow student, the final trial becomes a fight between the surviving characters and Team Danganronpa. Tsumigi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer, shapeshifts into different characters from the past few games, mocking Shuichi and the rest of the surviving characters. Both Monokuma and Tsumigi mock the cast, saying things like “Yelling for help is useless for fictional characters anyway.” Tsumigi also tells Shuichi that the strand of hair sticking up is an antenna for the player to control him. A horrifying declaration.

Source: Spike Chunsoft.

It’s at this point that Monokuma turns an eye to the player themselves, claiming that the depression the characters are put through is the appeal of Danganronpa. This is all occurring while the leftover cast is being thrown through a depressive state, “despair,” as the game puts it. This whole scene is heart-shattering, especially as Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” graces the atmosphere. The game then begins to shut down as Shuichi reflects upon everything that occurred throughout the story, including his feelings for the late protagonist Kaede, realizing they were all just lies.

Yet, the show goes on. The audience demands a different ending through K1-B0, the Ultimate Robot, and the game boots up again. He fights for “Hope,” while Tsumigi fights for “Despair”, two concurrent themes battling throughout the series of Danganronpa. Shuichi declares that, instead of choosing hope or despair, he is going to neglect both, discontinuing the killing game.

This final trial in Danganronpa V3 feeds off of the excitement you, as the player, feel while playing the game. It utilizes that hype and turns it into a weapon against the player. Shuichi exclaims that even if the world around him is fictional, the sadness and pain he feels is real. He claims to reject the world (the player). There’s a constant back and forth between the protagonist and Tsumigi.

At this point in the story, the audience is being played through K1-B0, fighting Shuichi for hope. This entire trial develops into a fight between the player and the characters within the game. The characters want to end the game because of the depression it instills in them, and by continuing to play, the player is feeding into the tragedy of the story.

“We will reject Danganronpa.” — Shuichi Saihara

The characters all abstain from voting, taking power for themselves, and ending the killing game. The voices of the audience cross the bridge into Danganronpa and back to the player through the game.

“This isn’t my Danganronpa”, “I’m gonna be pissed if there isn’t a happy ending”, “I’m not here for a damn lecture”, and “No way fiction can change the world, lol”

These statements are pushed through the screen by the audience to Shuichi, who is fighting with his entire being for his volition. As the player, you are once again controlling Shuichi, struggling with him to end the game as the rest of the world pushes for it to continue.

This egregious entitlement isn’t far-fetched, either. Some of the statements being said by the fictional Danganronpa audience resonated with my original thoughts as I played through this ending, but being forced to see my behavior allowed me to shift my perception to be more empathetic towards Shuichi. This trial was nothing short of a roller-coaster for the audience. The trial ends with K1-B0 and the rest of the characters refusing to vote and destroying the school as the audience tunes out of Danganronpa, giving the characters the power to end the game once and for all. The characters convince the player and the audience to destroy Danganronpa and end the killing game.

By making this choice, the characters assumed their lives were forfeit. But Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko grow comfortable dying, knowing they were able to change the world through fiction.

This sudden dissonance between the fake Danganronpa and the real-world makes sense as a narrative tool when taking an objective look at the history of the series.

Source: Spike Chunsoft.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc arguably hosts the most realistic killing game. The students of Hope’s Peak Academy in Trigger Happy Havoc look, speak, and feel more like real people. Even their ultimate talents are more grounded in reality, providing a sensible and genuinely scary atmosphere. The big secret of the story also hasn’t been revealed to the audience yet, which makes the first game’s mystery more rewarding and enticing to uncover.

Source: Spike Chunsoft.

In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the tone of the story is very different. The characters take a step towards being more whimsical and exuberant. Even the setting, a tropical island getaway, is much less intimidating and believable. By the end of the story, it is revealed that the entire killing game was part of an artificial program and that the characters are actually simulating the murders. This simulation is taking place within the world of the original Danganronpa.

The next iteration of Danganronpa is Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, which sets out as a side-story. It plays as a third-person shooter and tells the tale of the main protagonist’s sister, Komaru Naegi. The writers of Danganronpa had to shift genres to flesh out another story within the Danganronpa universe.

Finally, the Danganronpa team decided to wrap up the story of these games with not one, but two anime series that detail the events before and after the second game. This granted the upmost flexibility for storytelling, foregoing gameplay mechanics. Danganronpa’s story was able to finish cleanly through these anime seasons. Attempting to detail more of Danganronpa’s world through the same genre of visual novel killing game wouldn’t bear great results, considering the second game stretched the world thin through a virtual program.

When fan demand didn’t die down for more of the killing game, Team Danganronpa answered with Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. The commentary on the series’ oversaturation suddenly makes much more sense.