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FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:50 pm
by cake
There's also another thing that noone ever talks about, how some of the GHM stuff moved to Spike-Chunsoft to work on Danganronpa after the original No More Heroes. Namely the composer Masafumi Takada & the art director Akihiko Ishizaka (which is why Jabberwock Island from Super Danganronpa 2 looks nearly identical to Lospass Island, to the point of having the airport display a "welcome to paradise" banner LOL!)
This (drunken) post by xed made me redownload Danganronpa 2 and try to look for some similarities between FSR & DR2. Aside from this post, many similarities are very much evident right from the get go like the island setting and such. So far I've only replayed the prologue and here are some things that came to mind -

1. As xed said, both are a paradise in the literal sense of the word i.e a walled garden. You are stuck in the island unless you accomplish your respective goals whether it be curtailing the bomb threat, forging bonds with/murdering your classmates.

2. A lost past - The history and heritage of both Losspass and Jabberwock have been erased by the authorities for a variety of reasons. In case of the former it was primarily to research new technologies while the latter was set up to rehabilitate terrorists. The memory of the cast was also erased in case of DR2, though that's more of a recurring theme throughout the Danganronpa series. Not to mention the protagonists aren't even aware of who they are - Sumio doesn't recall that he was a cop and Hajime can't even recall his talent (not like he had any in the first place lol).

3. Vastly different intros when compared to their prequels. TSC begins with you confronting a Zoroastrian priest and (if memory serves me right) the intro in Danganronpa straight up tells you it's either kill or be killed. Conversely the intros in FSR & DR2 prior to their respective calamities gave off a much more "serene" atmosphere.

4. The protagonists have to come to terms with their respective past at the finale - Mondo being Sumio Kodai and Hinata being Izuru Kamakura. Both of them are also lab experiments (Euro Maspro vs. Izuru Kamakura Project)

5. Re-encountering prequel materials - In FSR as you get closer to the end a bunch of tracks from TSC start playing, specifically Investigation and Morishima's theme. In DR2, most of the OST sound pretty much the same as DR1 to me. You also get to navigate a glitched out Academy from the first game the end.

There are probably many more out there but these are the ones that I could recall from the top of my head. Further discussion on this topic would be fantastic.

On a completely unrelated note the statue at Jabberwock Park and their development into the Monobeasts kinda remind me of Daniel 7.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:01 am
by cake
Got some more things to add now that I've finished going through DR2 -

1. Bomb threats - Very real in FSR, while in DR2 it was a dud.

2. Globalists vs. Terrorists - ELBOW and the Future Foundation seem to be an organisation that's involved in policymaking all around the globe while also having a deep connection with Japan. However this probably has more to do with the creators of the games being Japanese more than anything. As for the "terrorists" they're the remains of the Sundance clan and Ultimate Despair respectively - both seeking to preserve a world that was made in their image. IIRC Shot probably wants to reverse whatever ELBOW had done to Lospass. On the other hand the Future Foundation was literally called "World Ender" because it sought to erase any traces of despair in the world. With that said however the political dynamics of the world of The Silver Case still puzzles me since apparently all 3 parties are part of ELBOW but then again Shot is the big man of the FSO. In any case I bet it's like real life where politicians don't even know what they're doing except for making the average citizen's life more and more miserable.

3. This has more to do with SC/k7 than FSR but in the 6th chapter of DR2 you're observing, conversing with and even being guided by "deleted avatars". This is obviously a common theme in literature and other works, but I cannot help being reminded of the Remnant psyches by this.

4. A woman with strange ties to the island end up saving the protagonists' lives (Toriko & Chiaki).

Bonus - It's quite interesting that there are 16 Sumios in FSR IIRC, considering how each Danganronpa games have 16 students trying to kill off each other.

An interesting thing I've come to realise is how Monokuma and Junko resemble the Islamic figure of the Antichrist in many respects. But since this has nothing to do with KTP I'll just leave it at that for now.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:24 am
by CENSORED
This (drunken)
I resent this accusation
post by xed
I was drunk
made me redownload Danganronpa 2 and try to look for some similarities between FSR & DR2.
I ran out of wine but the weather is awful so I'll have to brave a thunderstorm or brave sobriety. Either way, unideal
1. As xed said, both are a paradise in the literal sense of the word i.e a walled garden. You are stuck in the island unless you accomplish your respective goals whether it be curtailing the bomb threat, forging bonds with/murdering your classmates.
I haven't gotten around to writing my flower sun and rain analysis since I'm going in order and I'm busy with Moonlight Syndrome, but in general my opinion is that Flower Sun and Rain takes place within a memory of lospass. So in both cases the island is a paradise because it isn't real.
The theme actually goes all the way back to Moonlight Syndrome, where Paradise is portrayed as "a shared memory that becomes a place".
http://fftranslations.atspace.co.uk/syn/dgqanda.html
In a way chasing after paradise is the same as being trapped in the past
2. A lost past - The history and heritage of both Losspass and Jabberwock have been erased by the authorities for a variety of reasons. In case of the former it was primarily to research new technologies while the latter was set up to rehabilitate terrorists. The memory of the cast was also erased in case of DR2, though that's more of a recurring theme throughout the Danganronpa series. Not to mention the protagonists aren't even aware of who they are - Sumio doesn't recall that he was a cop and Hajime can't even recall his talent (not like he had any in the first place lol).
I think I said this on the old forum but Danganronpa is basically KTP/Silver Case without the politics. Even the line about the ultimate despair having no other goal than to cause despair is very similar to the line in the Killer7 intro where they describe the heaven smiles as doing terrorism for terrorism's sake. I'm actually surprised they don't have any writers in common, but then again I think a lot of these themes and motifs were cemented at HUMAN entertainment in general. (Suda, Ishizaka, Takada, Kimura, Kono, all came from Human. Spike, Grasshopper, Sandlot and Nudemaker were all made up of former Human staff.) Even Yuuyami Doori Tankentai ended up threading over some of the same motifs as Moonlight Syndrome with the post-bubble urbanization, economic recession and degeneration of cosmopolitan life despite it being in part a response to the negative reception of MS. Mizzurna Falls has heavy twin peaks and general lynch influences despite having nothing to do with Suda. I can only guess that the general work environment fostered these similar points of view.
3. Vastly different intros when compared to their prequels. TSC begins with you confronting a Zoroastrian priest and (if memory serves me right) the intro in Danganronpa straight up tells you it's either kill or be killed.
That's very interesting, can you expand on this. I saw Ryo's incestuous tendencies as an "overreaction" to the modernization of Japan breaking up the traditional family structure. So in a way he clings to his sister in order to keep his family intact, but brought to an extreme. I never really connected it to the zoroastrian practice of interfamily marriage. Of course I will pretend that I came up with it all by myself
An interesting thing I've come to realise is how Monokuma and Junko resemble the Islamic figure of the Antichrist in many respects. But since this has nothing to do with KTP I'll just leave it at that for now.
I'm interested in this as well. Does islam depict the antichrist as one entity? In original christianity being "antichrist" was meant to indicate an entity representing the opposite of christian values, so it wasn't necessarily one person/daemon, but in evangelical christianity the antichrist is depicted like an MCU villain or something.

Does that include Junko's characterization as a super genious? I know that's very contentious with Danganronpa fans (especially when it comes to the anime) but I guess it never bothered me since I went in order and read the Zero novel between 1 and 2, where it's established that Junko is actually the super highschool level analyst and is constantly addressing every possibility in the back of her head, which is what ultimately drives her to her despair persona.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2022 4:53 pm
by cake
Before I begin, I'd like to first say that I am in no way an expert on Islamic theology or its scriptural sciences like Ilmul Hadith, which this post will mainly be concerned with. I'm simply a layman who has access to a variety of texts and a basic understanding of Islamic theology.
I'm interested in this as well. Does islam depict the antichrist as one entity? In original christianity being "antichrist" was meant to indicate an entity representing the opposite of christian values, so it wasn't necessarily one person/daemon, but in evangelical christianity the antichrist is depicted like an MCU villain or something.
Muslims refer to the Antichrist as Al-Masih Ad-Dajjal (The Deceiver/Impostor Messiah). There are several reports of Muhammad (S.) which say that there will be 30 Dajjal i.e deceivers to come. (1) It's implied from further reports that the last of the deceivers is the Antichrist. We believe that the warnings regarding tribulations of the Antichrist are nothing new, rather mankind has been warned about him since the days of Noah. (2)

It is agreed upon that he will be blind in one eye, but there are differences in opinion regarding which eye it is. Ref. 2 stated that it was his right eye, but there are some reports like this one which state that his left eye is blind. So which one could it be? God knows best, however there's also an interesting narration where it is said, "His eyes sleep but his heart does not sleep." Another unanimously agreed upon fact about him is that the letters Kaf, Fa & Ra (spelling out the word Kafir i.e non-believer) will be written on his forehead and that only people with faith in God can see this. (3)

His activities are very much similar to the real Christ(A.), in that he will feed myriads, heal the sick, revive the dead etc. However they are nothing but a parody or inversion of Jesus' works, for Jesus inspired faith in others whereas the Antichrist will nullify faith as he would firstly claim to be a Messenger of God only to later claim divinity for himself. Of particular interest to me was that people revived by the Antichrist would urge others to accept his divine claims. Ultimately, he will be killed once the Parousia takes place. (4)

These paragraphs should give some context to the points which I'll be discussing now.

For Monokuma, the resemblances are cosmetic. One of his eyes are disfigured just like the Antichrist, however it is the left eye as opposed to the right. Interestingly in DR2 he referred to his right eye as being a "black bean", however this was probably said to scare Monomi more than anything. I wouldn't be surprised if that really were to be the case though.

Now for Junko the resemblances are behavioural. Simply conversing with her causes one to forsake hope. To those who are knee deep in despair, she is very much like a goddess and that only by doing her will can they attain salvation. Even when she is dead, her will is being carried on - the eyes remain asleep yet the heart does not. In DR2 she is very much eager to revive the comatose classmates only for them to become an image of her, losing their individual essence. Even AI Junko's execution reminds me of the Antichrist's demise. Just like how the Antichrist gets disintegrated only by the sight of Jesus (A.), the program breaks the AI into pieces. Finally, did we ever get the chance to see Junko's forehead? I bet there will be some surprises there. :^)

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:49 pm
by AngelheadedHipster
I've recently finished the first Danganronpa and this thread is as good as an to get my thoughts out. Actually, while we're at it, how are you actually meant to play this series to get the full picture? As I understand, there's a light novel prequel to the first game you're meant to read before the second, the third mainline installment is actually an anime, and the third game is actually the fourth mainline installment, but also a reboot or something? Did I get that right? Anyways, considering I've only finished the first game I might be off the mark with a lot of what I'm gonna write, but bear with me:

Xed51 wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:24 am I think I said this on the old forum but Danganronpa is basically KTP/Silver Case without the politics. Even the line about the ultimate despair having no other goal than to cause despair is very similar to the line in the Killer7 intro where they describe the heaven smiles as doing terrorism for terrorism's sake.
I saw these as coming from pretty different places. The Heaven Smiles seem in that way mostly inspired by islamist terrorism and the paranoia thereof after 9/11, described as "terror for terror's sake" because the thought process behind religiously motivated violence feel incomprehensible to someone who doesn't share the perpetrators religion, or isn't religious at all. Violence that's based on a thought process that's impossible to understand might as well be completely arbitrary, and hence perfectly suited to inspire a general atmosphere of fear.

DR, at least on a surface level, treats Junko's ideology of despair as mostly an exaggerated depiction of teenage angst and rebellion evolving into full blown nihilism. It's of course not as simple as that, and I'll get back to that, but on face value, Junko is a spoiled teenage brat who commits acts of violence simply out of boredom. Her entire demeanour, not being able to have a conversation without playing up different over the top personas all the time, she seems more than anything like a caricature of dissafected youth adapting a cynical and nihilistic worldview. Hell, she calls people "lame" and "unhip" for rejecting that worldview.

There's been a fairly popular movie called Everything, Everywhere, All at Once early this year. If you haven't seen it, don't bother, it's sappy and unfunny. But that movies antagonist had a very similar "angsty teenage girl who became evil because she feels misunderstood". Now, that movie was effectively a soapy melodrama about a family who needs to reconnect, so obviously it didn't follow that premise through in any meaningful way. The girl in that movie (For a moment I thought her name might have been Hope, which would have been funny, but no, it's Joy) had some scheme about ending the multiverse by... baking a black hole bagel. It's a stupid non sequitur, never mind that. Where I'm going is, even though that movie is allegedly an action comedy, it used its action, i.e. violence, purely for the purposes of spectacle and slapstick. It had no interest in the actual ideology of violence, which DR clearly does and which obviously Suda does.

Suda's games, the Silver Case series specifically, is obviously mostly interested in how violence and terror are used to maintain control over a society, but what it shares with DR in regards to that is its interest in the metaphysics of it, in how violence and cruelty spread between people in a practically viral way. Mukuro's a character with very limited screentime and all the actual lines she has is when she's pretending to be her sister, but there's some pretty telling stuff in her backstory. In how she became radicalized as a teenager, went off to join a vaguely fascist coded militia only to adapt Junko's ideology of Ultimate Despair after she came home disillusioned. The whole believe system based on spreading despair through violence as a way to salvation with Junko as its prophet definitely reflects the role the idea of Kamui eventually takes on in Silver Case and its sequels.

The way it invokes collective trauma as a means to spread despair also somewhat mirrors many elements in the Silver Case games. It's kind of clever, because for a lot of the game I was second guessing myself whether it was intentional or whether I was just projecting something onto the game, but with the way it calls back to a nebulous past tragedy that seems to have occured at Hope's Peak I was wondering whether the game was intentionally trying to invoke a high school murder spree, until the blood soaked classroom on the top floor basically made it clear that that's what it was trying to invoke. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure in universe the great tragedy that the first game keeps vague refers to a specific event which is clarified in the later games, but in a way the spectre of Columbine hangs over DR the way the spectre of 9/11 hangs over Killer7, as a great tragic event that shattered the spirit of a nation and marked the beginning for all subsequent murder rituals in high schools. Much like Hopes Peak general fortified architecture, the steel plated windows, the mounted machine guns and safety doors, all bring to mind the prison-like feeling footage of american high schools with their armed security guards and metal detectors.

Emphasised, of course, by how Junko/Monokuma outright tell you that the events of the game are a globally televised event with the purpose of bringing despair to its audience. Media in general and television in particular being one of the main transmitters of the ideology of violence is of course something else that comes up a lot in Suda's games, Killer 7 in particular. It's something I've been thinking about recently, actually, in the sense that television is a medium that's treated with justified suspicion by both the people alive before and after it became the dominant medium and only blindly accepted by those who grew up taking it for granted. In the sense of being a medium made for purely one sided, passive consumption of a stream of information determined by a third party that the viewer has no impact on. Despite being made in the early 80's David Cronenberg's Videodrome is still one of the best productions on the subject. The way it shows television waves warping the body and the mind of its protagonist, played by real life brainwashing victim James Woods, to turn him into an assassin for two allegedly warring secret societies with equally nebulous goals is still probably the most to the point, much less most stylish, version of that story.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:33 pm
by CENSORED
AngelheadedHipster wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:49 pm I've recently finished the first Danganronpa and this thread is as good as an to get my thoughts out. Actually, while we're at it, how are you actually meant to play this series to get the full picture? As I understand, there's a light novel prequel to the first game you're meant to read before the second, the third mainline installment is actually an anime, and the third game is actually the fourth mainline installment, but also a reboot or something? Did I get that right?
I would recommend playing and watching everything in order of release to get the full picture, yes. Some of the plot twists come out of nowhere otherwise.

Danganronpa 1
Danganronpa Zero (novel)
Super Danganronpa 2
Danganronpa Gaiden Ultra Despair Girls
Danganronpa 3 the animation (you're meant to alternate future arc episodes and despair arc episodes, so future 1, despair 1, future 2 etc., the final episode is called Hope Arc and there's an OVA called 2.5 iirc meant to be watched after the show)
Danganronpa Gaiden Killer Killer (this isn't really needed but you might as well read it if you're into it)
New Danganronpa V3

There's a whole bunch of other novels and mangas but they're not canon, I haven't really looked into them. There's also a spiritual sequel called Rain Code coming out next year. Also keep in mind that everything after SDR2 is universally hated by everyone (I liked it).

The english translation is unfortunately kind of shitty but it gets the story across, the irritating part is the americanization of all terminology and the insertion of modern day 4chan/reddit memes because god forbid someone is exposed to a different culture. V3 even has baneposting lol.

I'll respond to the rest of your post later

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:22 am
by cake
Xed51 wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:33 pm I would recommend playing and watching everything in order of release to get the full picture, yes. Some of the plot twists come out of nowhere otherwise.

Danganronpa 1
Danganronpa Zero (novel)
Super Danganronpa 2
Danganronpa Gaiden Ultra Despair Girls
Danganronpa 3 the animation (you're meant to alternate future arc episodes and despair arc episodes, so future 1, despair 1, future 2 etc., the final episode is called Hope Arc and there's an OVA called 2.5 iirc meant to be watched after the show)
Danganronpa Gaiden Killer Killer (this isn't really needed but you might as well read it if you're into it)
New Danganronpa V3

There's a whole bunch of other novels and mangas but they're not canon, I haven't really looked into them. There's also a spiritual sequel called Rain Code coming out next year. Also keep in mind that everything after SDR2 is universally hated by everyone (I liked it).

The english translation is unfortunately kind of shitty but it gets the story across, the irritating part is the americanization of all terminology and the insertion of modern day 4chan/reddit memes because god forbid someone is exposed to a different culture. V3 even has baneposting lol.

I'll respond to the rest of your post later
Is the DR3 anime worth watching? I never really cared about it since my friend told me the DR1 anime was horrible and I just stayed away from the animes ever since.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:49 pm
by CENSORED
The DR1 anime is an adaptation of the game and yeah it's pretty awful, the DR3 anime is an original story that was written by kodaka to wrap up the storyline from DR1, 2 and Ultra Despair Girls.

Your mileage my vary, it's not badly made at all but the plot seems to be universally hated. I get the feeling that a lot of people had their own story in mind when it came out and were disappointed that the resolution was something different than what they envisioned. (Danganronpa for some reason attracted the homestuck parasocial types which view fictional characters as real people they interact with and had endless debates on whether certain people were "mistreated" by the writers and shit like that)

Future Arc is set after DR2 and UDG and Despair Arc is a flashback before the events of Danganronpa Zero following the original class 77 (the guys from DR2) while they were at hope's peak academy. The episode order is kind of weird since you're meant to alternate between the two as I said earlier. Watching them out of that order actually spoils things, since some reveals in the flashback affect the present day narrative and vice versa.

V3 comes after, it has a completely different story, they're not the same thing at all.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2023 1:46 am
by cj_iwakura
I really enjoyed the DR3 anime, way more than V3. I thought it told a more interesting story, and I especially liked seeing the background of the Ultimate Despair(s), and Junko being peak... well, Junko, who really is the highlight of all the games. Little wonder she keeps coming back.

I may also be livid about how DRV3 treats Kaede, who's the best thing in V3.

Re: FSR and Danganronpa 2

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2023 3:48 am
by 水銀鬼神
A very interesting fact about Danganronpa's director, Kazutaka Kodaka, is that his favorite game of all time is... Killer7. Indeed, he is one of us.
This video has a lot of interesting facts on him. He also enjoys David Lynch films and I do remember that he mentioned enjoying Shin Megami Tensei once. He was quite hyped for Shin Megami Tensei Deep Strange Journey.



As someone who played a lot of Danganronpa 2 but dropped it (I know all the spoilers though), I feel the FSR nods are all over the plot concept and execution. The mere idea of contrasting the peacefulness of a paradise with the horrors of death to explore specific themes is pretty much lifted from Flower Sun and Rain. Also, it should be noted that while we can establish a lot of connections to KTP in terms of writing, I feel the main influence Suda games had was the aesthetics. Danganronpa's creative usage of typography and heavily animated motion graphics SCREAM The Silver Case.