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heroicspectre · 4 months ago

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I know this is about Makoto, but I want to say a few things in defense of Kyoko surviving DR3.

You are 100 percent correct that a core theme of DR3 is that we must not erase bad memories, no matter how painful. We must hold on to them to move forward and grow. Makoto holds on to the memories of all his fallen friends, and Kyoko would have been no exception.

However, just because we can survive losing our loved ones doesn't mean we wouldn't rather save them if we can. We would much, much, much, rather keep a loved one alive than remember them in death. Kyoko surviving should serve to remind us of that simple fact. We can move forward no matter who dies, but only when necessary. Saving lives is always better than accepting death whenever possible.

So I strongly disagree with the notion that Kyoko surviving cheapens her sacrifice or Makoto's resolve in any way. Both of them still committed. Kyoko proved that she would die for Makoto, and Makoto proved he could carry on without her. Kyoko surviving doesn't take that away. At all.

Why is Kyoko alive? It's simple. She cares about Makoto and doesn't want him to suffer. She knows what it's like to carry on the memory of a fallen loved one. She deliberately chose to keep her hands scarred and disfigured, in memory of her close friend Yui Samidare. She knows how painful it is, and she wants to spare Makoto from that pain if at all possible. Kyoko could have simply accepted her fate and died for Makoto, but she did better than that. She held on to her hope and found a way to live for Makoto. That doesn't weaken her love for him. It strengthens it.

Honestly, I'm sick of people writing it off as "stupid," "fanservice," "cheap," or a "cop out." There's so much more we could say about it, but most would rather have Makoto prove he can power through suffering rather than find a way to prevent suffering in the first place. Which is valid. I don't mean to say that Kyoko dying is a narrative mistake, but Kyoko surviving is also valid. Whether she lives or dies is subjective. Her death and her survival are both valid.

In my opinion, Danganronpa is already filled with enough tragedy. Like this post points out, Makoto has always suffered personally for the good of the world, and Kyoko has also faced more than her share of suffering. Makoto still has the memories of Sayaka and the others to carry, and Kyoko is carrying Yui and the rest of her family. Makoto can move forward even when someone he loves is lost, but he would much rather save them if he can. Makoto and Kyoko both deserve a reward for their hard work. So why not just give these two a break for once and Let. Them. Be. Happy.

Full complete analysis on Makoto Naegi - Last Part - Ultimate Hope

In this last part, we will see that despite symbolizing Jesus, he isn’t perfect, he never was perfect even morally. When confronting the outside world, a world outside a close world defined by rules, his limits are shown to us and illustrate his humanity. I will use some points made in the first part, but these points will be more detailed and analyzed. All sources are used in this last analysis.

Behind the ultimate hope

The killing forced him to become what he already was, but it was not without consequences :

he’s still feel the burden of the loss that the killing game has put him through

And his desire to feel normal or the desire of not wanting people to put him too much in high esteem are disregarded. When he feels himself that he didn’t changed, others do, especially his sister.

Though those consequences aren’t felt in killing game because it was sustainable for Makoto, the reality is often more brutal than games and that’s when we see that he falls, that we see that he is still human at heart, that despite symbolizing light, hope and genuine love, something darker exist inside of him. We see that part of him after his first initial appearance in his short novel, dr2 or dr3.

Normalcy vs extraordinariness

But there is more behind that mask. There is an existing conflict between normalcy and extraordinariness in the character of Makoto. It’s present throughout THH subtly. It isn’t put or shown to us explicitly except in the prologue and the first chapter of the game. Like I said previously, we know that Makoto wasn’t normal from the beginning, even before THH. I already gave these proofs in the third part by taking quotes from two novels (Dr Zero)

and (Makoto’s secret file)

But Makoto himself doesn’t see that abnormality and only views himself as an ordinary person. He doesn’t see the strength that he has inside of him because of that warped sense of normalcy. Though, people find him strong, he dismisses it immediately. It shows that he doesn’t know himself fully, that his strength is an inner strength. We saw that in Chihiro FTE. To go further, when asked by Chihiro to think of someone stronger, he thinks of people who are physically strong like Sakura or Mondo which amplify what I already explained.

But he has accepted his normalcy and tries to live with it and is pride of it. Which is something I have already said in the first part but here, I’ll add more elements and will go deeper.

So even his classmates have remarked that he is indeed not normal and see that he stands out.

What’s more interesting here are the lines that Togami said here. « But I must say, I just don’t understand you. You don’t want to fight, and yet you don’t flee from the battle, either. ». It resumes perfectly that duality he has with normalcy and extraordinariness. Starting from the line « you don’t want to fight » put in evidence his normalcy but also his submissive nature and his tendency to hide his sassy or mean comments about someone behind his thoughts but the line « you don’t flee from the battle either » also illustrates his unshakable will, his grandiosity and especially his weirdness. Those two lines said by Togami define Makoto Naegi: an apparent ordinary person but beneath the surface, an anormal person. But also, someone who doesn’t fight as he doesn’t attack or use force but who stand against adversity.

However, Makoto doesn’t like to be viewed as the ultimate hope, as that exceptional person. He has a low esteem of himself as shown in chapter 1, or in Chihiro FTE, because he compared himself to the ultimate students and him not having one makes him feel that he doesn’t deserve to be here. But his inferiority complex doesn’t mean that he wants to be a hero or that he wants to disregard his normalcy.

I have already talked about this point in the first part but I will give again more proofs that adds to this! In his short novel, Makoto’s secret file, we see that shows us that when put in an alarming situation which requires his help, he snap it and claimed clearly that he isn’t a hero at all and doesn’t want to be one.

« That was the perfectly normal conclusion his abnormally average high-school mind reached. He was no hero, just a regular high-school boy—or at least he was in that moment.

Makoto Naegi wanted nothing more than for the entire incident to tie itself up somewhere he wasn’t. Which is why he just stood there as Jutarou sped away.

« It’s all over, he thought, letting out a heavy sigh. Things can go back to normal now. My boring, peaceful everyday life. » »

Suprise, suprise ! Makoto Naegi, the ultimate hope, not wanting to catch the threat? Yes, indeed! It’s Makoto Naegi. You would think that Naegi would be a hero instinctively even before the story due to him having the same characteristics of the shonen hero, right ? But, no, what’s shown to us is that he clearly does not want to get involved anymore. While he admired talent, he isn’t as obsessed as Hajime who refused to accept his normalcy whereas Makoto accepted and is proud of it like we’ve seen with Togami. In fact, being in a heroic situation isn’t something that he wants and will take 100 times his « boring, peaceful everyday life ». Like he said, he isn’t a hero but just a regular high-school boy.

But that’s when another talent or power comes into fruition: His ultimate luck. I already said that his luck can symbolize many things in part 2 but his luck can also symbolize the will of the world itself. The world itself won’t let him wear his mask of normalcy and want to tear that mask apart while he just wants to live his boring and peaceful ordinary days without trouble. I repeat, the world is relentlessly trying to destroy his wish so as he realizes what he is predestined to be. Thus, him having bad luck is good luck for the world and everyone else but not for him. Once again, just like how Jesus was destined to suffer, Makoto seems to have the same fate as him: He is earth’s punching bag in a way (lol).

So, we’ve seen how this duality exists in his character. But we must see how this duality led him to, right? In the beginning of THH, Makoto didn’t know himself fully and so disregarded his main quality as being optimistic. In the prologue, he uses these words:

« But if I have any kind of "strong point," so to speak... I'd say I'm a little more gung-ho than other people. »

See? In describing his optimism, he uses quotations marks with words strong point to speak of his quality. The use of quotation marks here is pejorative, denigratory and illustrates how for Makoto, it isn’t a strong point at all, it’s insignificant and just a normal thing that he has. As he lacks confidence in himself, he even uses the adjective « little » to describe his optimism as still something trivial. For him this optimism is unexceptional and doesn’t seem to be special. But as we know, he undermines any actions he makes because of his skewed mindset. But as we know Makoto grows and his inner strength is revealed and explored more and more during THH until he recognizes that quality

But why is recognizing his quality important? It’s important because it shows again the growth of Makoto, his acceptance and pride in affirming that his optimism is his only redeeming quality. His description is a positive one. But that acceptance also means that he understands now his strength and actually how strong he is. He finally accepts his extraordinariness and embrace it. However, to do that, he had to grow or more so that the killing game tear his mask apart completely to reveal his true nature that he has from the beginning. And he did. Also, he doesn’t view his talent as the ultimate hope as a talent but rather as a « state of mind », showing again that he understood who he is truly and where his inner strength comes: From within.

But a question remains. Did Makoto fully embrace his true nature and put away his false nature away, him being an ordinary person? Well not really and he stands firm. He views himself still as a normal person.

Even after THH, he denied the words said by his sister in Udg.

He doesn’t see himself as exceptional or anything else and disregard any people saying that he did change. For him, he is still the same Makoto but a Makoto who has accepted his qualities. However, he can’t be normal anymore, not with the world destroyed and in despair, not when he is the ultimate hope

So finally, Makoto doesn’t embrace one or the other but rather tries to embrace both his normalcy and extraordinariness. But as I said it’s impossible. The title of the ultimate hope exists for a reason and has its consequences. By becoming hope, he has already given up any chances of a normal life but that’s something that he is willingly accepting and the pain that comes with it. But with that hope come suffering and pain.

Survivor’s guilt

Finally, that pain that comes with the responsibility of the ultimate hope is big. But what is that pain? It’s his survivor’s guilt. While explaining that dichotomy that exists between the mask of his title, one thing also exists which is his survivor’s guilt. It’s an important piece of his character that is often highlighted but we’re going to see how this survivor’s guilt became his shadow and how it humanizes him and therefore contrasting him with Jesus.

Indeed, Makoto suffers from a hard survivor’s guilt after the events of THH. But that guilt as I have explained in the first part existed within the killing game itself. Though there is a clear symbolism that I have made about him and Jesus, they are still different.

The big difference is how they feel when beating their respective burden. Jesus, though bearing the sins of Man didn’t feel guilty at all. However, Makoto feels like he is guilty and like I said from the beginning.

But why Jesus doesn’t feel guilty? It’s because he is perfect and so perfect morally too. So, when I’ve made the comparison between them I implicitly said that Makoto himself was designed to be perfect in his morals and behavior which he isn’t veritably.

We know that he isn’t and the fact that when bearing the memories is hard and difficult for him. But especially for one: Sayaka Maizono. She was an important friend for him even if she betrayed her and is the first person that he decided to put his trust in her after the first trial by putting the trust of her good will before her death. So, when thinking about her, he has a lot of regret, guilt and nostalgia as I have said many times in other parts. She also represents her first love so it’s normal that he is hurt the most by remembering her. And so even in the others game, we see how important Sayaka is still for him.

For instance, in Goodbye Despair, the reset password used by Makoto was 11037 for the neo world program. Naegi used Maizono’s dying message as a reset password to New World program. In Japanese version, Naegi refers to her as 'some person(ある人)’ while in English version Naegi refers to her as 'someone close to me’. It shows that he still holds his oath, to don’t forget about his classmates but also shows that the guilt is still there and will continue to be there. As long as he doesn’t forget about them, the emotions he had towards his classmates won’t disappear too. Like said before in this post, Makoto makes them lives through him. In addition, the fact that he got the memories of his past two years when he was at Hope speak academy worsens his guilt even more.

But still Makoto Naegi cannot forget them even after the events of THH. In UDG, when talking about the killing game, we see how hurtful and painful it is for Makoto to remember it but he still chose to do it which shows his commitment to keep his promises no matter the cost.

And in Danganronpa 3, with one of its best scenes of the franchise for me with how well executed it’s handled. It manifests his survivor’s guilt very well and even though it was amplified by the video, it doesn’t undermine the actual survivor’s guilt that he has. We see that the two most important people in his life are the people who tells him to die for his sins, to join them. Those two people are incarnate the people that he loved romantically: Kyoko and Sayaka.

There are interesting words said by Sayaka. She said that he couldn’t hold his oath and so to save her. Those words are surely what Makoto felt and still feels.

He couldn’t save Sayaka even with his words. Though she symbolizes his first love, she also symbolizes his first failure. She is the first person that couldn’t save her from her fate. So, he feels guilty and put the fault on him. Kyoko being here is due to fresh trauma as well.

Indeed, before dying, Kyoko put all her hopes in Makoto and encouraged her to keep hoping no matter what happened. Then she dies because of her forbidden action which was “passing the 4th time limit with Makoto Naegi alive” She deliberately hided as she knows what Makoto could have done. After the 4th time limit, Makoto sees that Kyoko is dead and almost shut down in grief. The words of Munakata coming to almost to the same time he discovered her death, almost causes a critical hit.

But from this point onward, he tried to end the killing game by himself and he’s doing a lot of reckless actions to the point it’s almost killed him, with him seeing the suicide video. He is justifying by saying that’s what he must do as Kyoko would do the same, but this action itself is too self-destructive as it could lead to his death. What really pushed him was the hopes that Kyoko gave him but also the guilt that he has, which is pushing him to move forward without worrying about himself.

But his survivor’s guilt isn’t shown only in that episode but also in episode 6, 'No Man Is An Island', where Makoto has a vivid nightmare of Kyoko's death, with Munakata blaming Makoto for her death. Specifically, saying that Makoto was at fault for thinking he would be able to go through the entirety of this game without sacrificing someone close to him. Intense and vivid nightmares that harken back to whatever traumatic event happened or is currently happening, are one of the main symptoms of survivor's guilt.

While those two are prominent figures of his life, his other classmates are in his hallucinations showing that he also cares and feels guilty over their death. But it also shows that he wants illogicality to take the blame for their wrongdoings or not, even if it’s not his fault at all.

Having highlighted his survivor’s guilt negatively, I also have to say that his survivor’s guilt proves that he cares, that he didn’t erase the despair he confronted by rather always trying to fight it as he always accepted to suffer so as to come back even stronger. He accepted that despair and hope is a part of life, and that despair naturally comes but he always chooses the hard path as said by Kyoko at the end of chapter 1.

Therefore, Makoto Naegi while seeming like Jesus is still human being, a flawed human who cannot help but feel guilty for all the horrors he’s been through even though it’s not his fault. All of that has taken a toll on him. But that weight is something that he desired to bear, even if it hurts him in the end.

Bearing the talent of the ultimate hope

So, we’ve seen that being the ultimate hope is not an easy task to do, and it comes with a lot of problems too. Especially when the burden of being one came from Kyoko and not totally from yourself. The outside world is in shambles and despair still exists and causes damage to the world. But being the ultimate hope isn’t something that Makoto doesn’t want to be associated but it isn’t something that he sings like he is proud of it. But being associated with this title is a gift for him gaining what he complained about: talent. After all, he was happy that he could bring hope to the world or at least try to encourage the world to follow hope, at least that’s what he thought to himself at the epilogue of the game.

(1 and 2)

Even though the outside world is a uncertain, he is optimistic as he gained hope to move forward even when there is despair. It’s not for nothing that the ending of the game is sung by the VA of Makoto and that the name of that song is “rebuild”. It amplifies the words said by Naegi « the world can…move ahead ». Since the world can move ahead, it’s time for the outside world to be rebuilt again. To be rebuilt by Makoto’s own effort and hope as he wants to show courage to the world too.

But the remaining questions are how he will interact with the world he has to face to but also how the world will see him.

Idealized by the world

First and foremost, Makoto Naegi became the ultimate hope and so became the symbol of hope for the world itself. He is the antonym to the despair of Junko Enoshima and is therefore idealized by the world. Everyone saw the brilliant and unshakable will of his.

They’ve seen him as a person who will never succumb to despair and will always move forward. But why do people view him that way?

Because he didn't show his emotions or feelings and kept them to himself. Those regrets, grief, guilt aren’t shown to the people and even his friends as he tries to show a strong face to his classmates. We see that in many instances but also know why he doesn’t show it as well: He has an objective now and that objective is prioritized over his negative emotions. How do I know that? It’s thanks to Chihiro last FTE.

We know that surpassing his inferiority complex that he has toward the ultimate students, he throws himself into something hard enough just to forget about it. So just like he did with his inferiority complex, he also did that with his load of negative emotions. He tends to contain them to show a strong face.

For instance, when he investigated the corpse of Sayaka, it’s said that he wanted to cry, to give up and collapse but he stood still. The greatest example of that is when Kyoko died. He didn’t cry in front of Hina or Aoi but cry after, he is alone.

While we can see how much he is hurt through the optional dialogues, it’s not something that the others can find about him. He keeps to himself and isn’t pressed to talk about it to anybody but why is he doing that ?

It’s because, in his class, he is the sole person that acts as that person that reminds everyone to trust each other, to try to make the group united against the mastermind. He is that person. In others cast, there are many people who do this such as Kaede, Kaito in drV3 or Chiaki, Sonia or Twogami in GD.

But Makoto? There was only him. There are two people who don’t care about anyone else (Togami and Celeste), Kyoko who doesn’t want to take the stage and let Makoto be in the light and Taka that tried to this, but he was too rigid and was lacking in charisma. Moreover, there wasn’t one person to suck all the negativity like there are in the two other games like Kokichi (after the chapter 3) or Nagito and the cast of these two games was much warmer than the first one. The only one that succeeded to do this, is Sakura in her death. She was the only one with Naegi, to try to beat the mastermind truly and to trust everyone even though they acted against her.

Naturally, the world has seen this version of him, this version that seems to be invincible to despair. The rest of the world who saw him defeat Enoshima, Naegi is strong and invincible in the face of despair, it's as if "it was easy" for him.

This explains why Munakata thinks he hasn't experienced real despair, and why his words have no weight or force. What he saw was only an idealized version of Makoto. He didn’t see his pain or discomfort because Makoto hid it.

But fortunately for him, he has his friends to support him all along. They are the ones who followed him and still follow him. They care about him, even Toko, which was often dismissive of him in THH, has grown attached to him. We can see it in Danganronpa 3 when Toko and Komaru talked with Monaca or in UDG when Komaru was able to contact him. Those friends and everyone who supports him are…his hope.

Seeing beyond the dichotomy of hope and despair

We have seen that hope in the world of Danganronpa can be seen as being talented. For some reaching true hope is only possible through despair but then it becomes a perpetual cycle or hope as the thing that confront despair and kill it every time until it doesn’t exist. Each of these definitions are based essentially on power.

The definition of hope and how to achieve it varies from one and another

Hope’s Speak Academy: Hope = Talent. It’s their ideology that they tried to push to its upper limits until creating the artificial ultimate hope, Izuru Kamakura. A parallel can be made between Makoto and Izuru. Both are ultimate hope but one is an artificial one with every talent possible inside of him and the other is an innate one with a single talent within him and actually succeeds at becoming a true ultimate hope. But the other didn’t. But it’s normal, the hope that was given to Izuru was never from within but from the exterior. It was not his hope but the hopes of the committee of HPA so it’s not surprising that Izuru failed to become what he was destined to be.

Nagito Komaeda: he seems to follow the same ideology as HPA but with different as he views hope a purpose and so as something that keeps advancing. Only hope and talent matter but not people. Talent is the incarnation of hope and so dying is only a process to reach an even greater hope. But in more so, his hope is linked to his luck. It’s through his luck that he defines hope. His ideology is his coping mechanism that tries to hold to a desperate hope.

Kyosuke Munakata: The sole purpose of hope is to be that force who eliminated all sources of despair. Weaknesses are not permitted and only an unshakable strength would be the one to be able to eliminate all despair within this world. For him hope is for the strong and only those who have seen the terrors of despair can struggle against it. His hope only exists when despair does.

All those ideologies are based on power or at least in accordance with something that can be relied on.

However, Naegi’s hope is based on belief and trust. Its definition is close to what we see nowadays. It isn’t based on despair but belief. Which is weak and also hard, difficult as we have seen in the game with Sayaka, Mondo, Celeste that couldn’t trust their classmates and it’s normal believing is hard, difficult in the situation that they were in, especially when the mastermind’s incentives caused distrust between the cast. Sayaka is after all, the biggest failure of Makoto as she symbolizes his first defeat as she couldn’t believe in him anymore, as she said in the school mode ending.

It highlights the lack of power he has. He has nothing except himself and his optimism. He can falter sometimes as seen in chapter 3, where doubts started to arise on whether his optimism of his should be held in that situation. And his expressions on the different climax reasoning subtly show how hard and difficult it’s for him. It’s not an easy task to be optimistic all the time and Makoto showed us that in various ways, in his dialogues, especially the optional ones or like I said the climax reasoning panels.

But that belief can be strong if multiples people believe in it. It works not as a unilateral power but as a bilateral power. The effects are shown, I’d say at the end of chapter 4 all the way to the epilogue. But it cost the lives of so many people.

However, Makoto doesn’t forget that cost. By memorizing the dead, Makoto gives them a second live. They lived through him and their ambition and will to get out remain still in Makoto Naegi as well their pain and sins. Also, for him forgetting about the pain and suffering of the dead would be insulting to them. Forgetting them as if they were statistics would be as if they didn’t matter, as if they were nothing. But remembering the goods and the bad of the dead, though the choice of doing so is difficult, is much more respectful and pay tribute to them. It’s through suffering and pain that Makoto finds his way to his hope.

He is not erasing or ignoring the pain but accepting it and tries to overcome it.

He isn’t someone who can’t accept reality, we’ve seen in THH where he accepts the betrayal of Sayaka and move on compared to Taka who couldn’t move on from Mondo’s death and ended up dying.

Failure and success

He may be naive but not an idealist. He is a realistic optimist that no matter the problems, will always try to search for the best solution even in dire situations. But preaching hope is difficult and isn’t without obstacles and failures.

GD shows us that example. He made the choice to save the remnants of despair from the future foundation which is morally questionable but shows a clear difference between Makoto’s hope and the future foundation’s hope led by Munakata.

But it’s not him who saved them in the end but themselves. Hajime has decided for himself what solution to choose and convince his friends to choose that solution and to go forward not Makoto. So, his intervention didn’t work.

But in his last confrontation, it worked. It was when he confronted Munakata. Firstly, he tried to establish trust very rapidly by showing his forbidden action and let everyone the ability to kill him. He knows with experience (with events of GD and THH) that his hope works better with trust established right from the beginning. It didn’t work. But it worked later, during their confrontation.

Their confrontation is the confrontation of their ideology but beyond that lies a conflict of power and trust. It is illustrated from how they act and how they cared about the people around them. While both have tendencies to take the burden for themselves, Makoto does take into account his friends and view his hope as not something that comes from his own but from everyone. And in a way it’s true, it’s because people trust him that his hope works. Like I said Makoto’s hope exists when trust exists in both parties.

Makoto is accompanied and refuses to make sacrifices while Munakata’s Hope is based on power. As I said before this is an ideology whose existence is only reactive and exist only because of despair so sacrifices can be made which would only result at him being alone.

Moreover the symbolism within the anime shows that distinction with Makoto’s blooded hand which blood came from Kyoko, symbolizes the his will to keep the memories of Kyoko within himself even if it’s hurt him, while Munakata cutting Chisa even when she is already dead means that he wants to erase Chisa from her memories and shows his will to erase despair at all cost. Though I understand him as Chisa was a remnant of despair and betrayed him, even though it’s not her fault as she was brainwashed.

All that shows that Munakata is trapped in the cycle of hope and despair. His ideology can’t exist outside of despair. It’s reactionary while Makoto isn’t as he can see beyond that dichotomy and tries to move forward and that’s exactly what he does when confronting Munakata in their last battle. He doesn’t go against Munakata’s ideology but against Munakata’s attempts to erase his suffering. It works because both went the same thing, both lost their close companions so there is a level of sympathy, trust that can be created between them.

Though the comparison between Kyoko and Chisa isn’t adapted to the situation, this comparison is more made to convey that one mustn’t erase memories of a dear one, even the bad one, because it’s that pain that will allow you to move forward. And that’s exactly what Makoto does in dr3 or in the game with Sayaka. And in doing so he can be free from being trapped in the cycle of despair and hope.

Final Conclusion

So what? Who is Makoto Naegi and what story does he bring to Danganronpa ? What is the main purpose in the story of Hope’s Speak Academy ?

If taking his character only from THH, it relates the story of a seemingly ordinary boy who has some self-esteem issues who comes to understand and accept his qualities with assurance. But his character also shows us that both despair and hope exist but even in the dire situations, hope exists and to move forward in the future is to have hope.

But if taking his character in its entirety, he is someone caught up between the duality of normalcy and extraordinariness. He comes to accept his extraordinariness but doesn’t want to give up his normalcy as it’s something that he has pride in and doesn’t shy from it. However, his duties as the ultimate hope erase his dream of normalcy.

But what we learn from him is that suffering is inevitable, that suffering from despair isn’t something that we must erase or try to eliminate from. Without those hardships, without those hopeless moments we cannot grow. It’s something that Naegi understands very well and has put into practice when he made his oath at the end of the first trial. He continuously kept the memories of his dead classmates/friends show his will to confront and face the despair face to face and not try to disregard because it’s too difficult. It’s in a way his force but also his weakness.

Naegi also shows that for advancing, we must accept weakness, suffering, vulnerability in order to surpass despair. Again, that’s what he showed us with his battle with Munakata which is the core of their battle. Their battle is a battle between acceptance and erasure.

His hope isn’t made from nothing but made from the suffering that he has to undergo which allows him to empathize with those who suffer with him.

But Naegi’s hope is hard and difficult because it’s based on belief, but it also demands people to accept weakness and despair while hoping for better which is still an hard task to do. But people who have seen him go through hell, are inspired by him and decided to help him in his quest

Therefore, Naegi’s main role in the story of Danganronpa is to be the bed, the backup, the shield. There is no other backup because HE IS THAT BACKUP, THAT SHIELD. The world itself, through his luck, forces him to be that shield, that bed that allows the ones who follow him to stand up, to stay strong. He is like I said the word’s punching bag and so despair’s punching bag. But it’s something that he wants to be after all he is the one that shows the world « courage » to confront despair. He has after all taken the burden of hope just like Hajime has taken the burden of despair.

But that doesn’t make him the danganronpa’s Jesus as he isn’t perfect nor morally or physically and is still human at his core which is what his survivor’s guilt shows to us. Despite him having luck, he draws his strength from within.

Opinion

I love him! He is my favorite character in Danganronpa and though I know that he isn’t the best character of Danganronpa in term of writing, a lot people come to pass a lot of his writing. I’m sure that 3/4 of the fandom never read his optional monologue which is also important to his character. His short novel or danganronpa zero adds depth to his character and shows that he has more layers than he seemingly has. He isn’t as simple as he looks to be and his dynamics or parallels with a lot of characters are great and should be more talked about.

Another thing that I like about him is that duality with his talent and normalcy that he tries to accept both even if it’s ultimately impossible. He cannot reject both as he has pride in its normalcy, but he doesn’t and can’t give up the title as the ultimate hope as even though it’s a curse, it’s a curse that he wants and is ready to bear.

But I have some negative points to say, especially in Dr3. There are things I like about Makoto in dr3 and things I like less. I’ll start with what Iiked. The fact that his survivor’s guilt is shown to us is great and illustrates how difficult it was for him to go through the killing game. Despite some flaws in his confrontation with Munakata, I liked it. People are saying why Munakata compliments him while he hates him. But I don’t have the impression that he hates him at least in the first episodes. It’s Juzo who displays his hatred for Naegi but not Munakata in the first episodes. And the fact that he was willing to argue with Makoto is a sign that he has some respect for Makoto and his belief at the beginning.

But what I disliked is how reliant he is on Aoi as he can’t walk which hurts his screen time and how Aoi does nothing except carrying Makoto. Also why is Kyoko alive? She should be dead; that’s pure fan service and diminish her actions and the words said by Makoto during his fight against Munakata. Also, the comparison made between Chisa and Kyoko works but not totally.

It works because they are the close companion of Makoto and Chisa and are dead, but it doesn’t work completely because Kyoko died by giving her life to him and Chisa died because she was brainwashed. But the essential of their conversation is more about keeping memories of close people even if it hurts you, so Sayaka would have been better to compare with Chisa, but the essence is still there.

But dr3 wanted the ship Naegiri to be made. Not that I don’t like Naegiri, it’s a great ship but the comparison used by Naegi to convince Munakata is ankward like I have said before. Finally, the plot being too focused-on Naegi and the fact that Juzo is used as a plot device and saves Naegi in episode 11. The less I talk about the ending, the better I will feel good. Overall, I’m pretty mixed on his appearance in dr3 has good highs appeared for him but there are some lows, so yeah mixed.

Getting that out of the way, I want to finish by saying that Makoto is in a way a laudation to humanity through his journey and suffering. He is a reminder to me that we mustn’t erase our heads, bad memories or moments just because it affects us. We must keep those bad experiences with us to keep moving forward and to grow. We can always do better.

#makoto naegi #danganronpa #danganronpa 3 #kyoko kirigiri #rant

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