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When will you get around to answering questions from the strawpage again?

When I feel like it lol

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Are you still answering questions from your strawpage or are there simply no questions being asked from there or is strawpage no longer working?

My Strawpage is still accepting questions and stuff, it works perfectly fine, I'm just lazy lol

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Hey, Pengu, do you think that world of the Hope's Peak Saga actually needs Hope's Peak Academy? Because I could have sworn it was an elite, yet secretly corrupt institute that ensures the development of talented students over other untalented students (especially the reserve course students) through any means. Unless that's either fanon interpretation or that they recently became corrupt because of the Steering Committee. It's just that I don't want to assume you as some sort of... Hope's Peak Academy supporter or something, not that there's something wrong with wanting the best for talented students or a hopeful future.

I wrote about a lot of this in my post about Makoto becoming the Headmaster at the end of DR3, so I'll be paraphrasing a lot of what I said there.

No, the world doesn't need Hope's Peak, but to say Hope's Peak has done nothing good isn't really accurate. Because it has done plenty of good, the headmaster going out of his way to protect his remaining students being one of those things, and we know a lot of the students from the school had a great time and either did or could have went on to have successful lives.

This isn't to say Hope's Peak was perfect, of course. While DR1 paints a mostly idealized picture of them, showing off their best aspects, future entries show that the school had a bit of a dark side. This is because the Steering Committee began to get more control of the school, and they began to abuse their and Hope's Peak's power and influence. Their powers began to even exceed the headmaster, and it's clear that a lot of the staff and the Steering Committee didn't see eye to eye or have the same vision for the school.

"They are drawn to a name, and the school took advantage of that to get more money. Thanks to that, the school went through a sudden growth sprout. We suddenly have research buildings that can make any university jealous. No one was prepared for that – in just a year or two Hope‘s Peak Academy became a school of an entirely different scale. The power of the steering committee also grew accordingly." -Yasuke Matsuda in Danganronpa Zero

But we know Hope's Peak wasn't always this way, there was a time where they nurtured young minds without resorting to abusing their power or practically taking over the world, when no Steering Committee existed and the school wasn't a global superpower, which is why people like Chisa, Kyosuke, and eventually Makoto wanted to fix it.

Chisa's teaching and even the Hope Restoration Program show the benefits and good aspects Hope's Peak had, so it would be incorrect to say it had no worth.

I think saying that Hope's Peak Academy was either just "good" or "evil" is a very simple way of looking at it that ignores the bigger picture. The fact is that it's a school that once aimed to nurture young talents that eventually grew too big in a short amount of time and became corrupt with power and influence, which is exactly why the future hope of the world would want to fix it.

And I think the story of Hope's Peak ends perfectly, with the school collapsing under the weight of its own corruption only to be literally rebuilt from the ground up by someone who represents true hope that wouldn't make the same mistakes. Now go read my Makoto post lol

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My favorite part about Danganronpa 3's dub is that due to scheduling conflicts, Izuru's voice actor changes in the middle of it and it's somehow completely unnoticeable unless someone tells you beforehand.

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what exactly does Ryoko remember about Yasuke before she regains her memories and becomes Junko again?

It's never specified just how much she remembers, but I think she mainly remembers her feelings for Yasuke and that's what drives her.

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Any good resources for research on the Japanese Idol industry? Need to know to for ideas on Naezono fanfic and the destruction of the Japanese Idol industry, both on a corporate and broader Japanese culture level.

I'm sure you can find stuff online but I am not the best resource for this 💀

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Personally, as a Junko hater myself, I’d say that Junko DOES love Mukuro in her own sick twisted way, but because of her metric fuckload of problems she expresses it through abuse, which is, to put it lightly, not fucking cool. On the other hand, Mukuro’s situation is really just like what you said.

So, the answer is yes but actually no.

Junko cares for Mukuro, which is why she killed her. The reason she killed Mukuro in the first place was because it would bring her immense despair, and it only brings her despair because she cared for her. So TL;DR if Junko ever kills you, she probably cares about you :D

I also made a short post about this that you can look at if you want idc

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People are saying that Chiaki refers to Chihiro as her Father and Alter ego as her big brother but I have no memory of her ever saying that 😭 did that actually happen or is it bs

Yes, Chiaki in Danganronpa 2 does refer to Chihiro as her father and Alter Ego as her big brother, mostly in her Free Time Events.

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Hi! I must apologize for the intrusion and possible rudeness, but I have a request. Could you please share the source where you are translating the Byakua Togami's novel from? I mean, do you have the original Japanese text in digital format. It would be nice if you could share it. But I don't insist, just an interest, as I was also translating this novel, but into Russian. I looked all over the internet, but found only the first volume of this wonderful novel fully translated into English. The second and third volumes were lost, and I could not find adequate scans of the Japanese text so translate looks sadly weird. So now, it would be nice if you could share the source of the original text in Japanese. It would be a great contribution to the Russian Danganronpa's fandom ngl!

Sorry for responding so late, I barely use Tumblr so I don't see my messages here very often 😭

You can find digital Japanese copies throughout the internet on websites like Z-Library or the Internet Archive, I'd recommend searching using the Japanese title (ンガンロンパ十神).

Hopefully this helps, again I'm really sorry it took so long to respond.

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The Danganronpa V3 cast are not adults please stop being weird 💀

Danganronpa is a series that while I enjoy, isn't immune to criticism. One of the major and most valid criticisms levied against the series is its treatment and sexualizations of its cast of minors.

While you can maybe justify it in the first two games (though I wouldn't because they spend the entire game unaware of their missing memories, not to mention in DR2 their avatars are constructed from their appearance before entering Hope's Peak), one game you can't really do this for is V3 simply because V3 doesn't even attempt to try to make up some excuse for it.

And yet there is still a large group of people who insist that the cast of that game is comprised of adults anyway. This absolutely baffles me because the "evidence" is so shaky and flimsy that it rears its head into sketchy territory, so I kind of wanted to talk about it and explain why this isn't the case.

The Arguments In Favor

Before we go into the evidence against this, let's start by looking at the common points made as evidence for it. All of these arguments I found from all over the internet, so I can assure you these are actual arguments people made. I obviously won't be sourcing them because many of them are laughably stupid and I don't want anyone being harassed, but you can easily find them.

"The first two games had the cast be secretly adults so it makes sense for V3 to be like that as well."

This is a really stupid argument that I hear a lot. Yes, this is the case in the first two games because it is relevant in the first two games. It is a part of those games story and is therefore mentioned. It is not mentioned in V3 because it just isn't the case in that game, this is an assumption with no proof. This is simply just not a plot point that exists in V3.

"The characters' actors could be adults because it's a killing game and you'd have to be an adult to sign up."

Bold of you to assume that the company that kills people on live TV cares about the age of its guests. Anyways, this also falls apart when you consider that we see the actors and they are described as "normal high school students" and are shown wearing high school uniforms. This leads us to the next point people bring up. Even the artbook that goes over the pregame designs makes it abundantly clear they're high schoolers (more on that later).

"What if Tsumugi fabricated them being high schoolers?"

There's once again no proof for this, but even still, so what? The cast are all under the impression that they're high schoolers.

"High schoolers can be adults."

They can also not be. And in this case, there is no proof that they are. When you see a high schooler, do you justify sexualizing them because of the mere possibility of them being an adult? Of course not, because the odds are even higher that they aren't.

This isn't even mentioning how it's the start of a new school year for them, so the odds of everyone being an adult is next to impossible.

"The Ultimate Academy is a college, not a high school."

I think anyone with a working brain can tell you this is obviously not true but I've seen this brought up enough times where I need to mention it. No, it is not a college. It is, in fact, a high school and simply looking at the logo of the school itself says that. They're also all referred to as "Super High School Level" students.

"The Ultimate Academy has a love hotel and a casino."

When has age stopped these writers from sexualizing the cast? Ultra Despair Girls is proof enough that the writers don't care. Also the point of the Gofer Project was that they'd be able to preserve the human race, that's probably why it's there.

Ignoring how operating casinos and gambling in general is illegal in Japan so they're breaking the law regardless, Hope's Peak has had an Ultimate Gambler so clearly they're not against minors gambling. And before you say that Hope's Peak and the Ultimate Academy are different schools, they operate the same and Tsumugi even retcons the cast to be Hope's Peak students half way through the in universe story.

"Kaito is smoking a pipe in his character art and you had to be 20 at the time of V3's release to do legally smoke in Japan."

This point is so funny to me because, while I'll go into it more, Kaito refers to himself as a teenager very early on in the game. This means that he was, in fact, not 20. (Kaito also illegally took the astronaut exam so I doubt he cares anyway.)

"Kirumi was the prime minister of Japan in order to be the prime minister have to be at least 25."

Sure, if Kirumi was actually the prime minister. She isn't though, she only did the work behind the scenes for the real prime minister, so I htink it's obvious that these terms don't apply to her because she was a made who worked in secret and not the actual prime minister.

"Ryoma was death row and in order to be in death row in Japan you have to be at least 18."

This is probably the best arguement here but it's still very flimsy for a few reasons. For starters, this is the same series where you can work alongside the police as a detective at 12 years old, so the legal system clearly isn't the same here. Furthuremore, the backstories of V3's casts are comically extreme, so Ryoma getting into death row before graduating high school isn't that out of the question. Also, the same character bio that says he's on death row also refers to him as a teenager.

But let's just say that isn't convincing enough for you. Alright, Ryoma specifically is an adult. Teenagers can be 18 and the legal system here being different is an assumption. So what? Does this suddenly mean everyone else is an adult too? Does Yasuhiro being 20 when he got into Hope's Peak mean the rest of his classmates were? At most this proves Ryoma specifically is an adult.

The Arguments Against

Now that we got a lot of the flimsy arguments out of the way, let's actually put this argument to rest.

The cast are unambiguously high schoolers/teenagers. The game, at multiple points, tells you that the cast consists of high school students. The actors are even mentioned to, in fact, be high school students.

Almost everyone in the cast wears some variation of a school uniform, obviously modifed to match their own personalities similarly to the first game. Just like with other games as well, you can see the logos for their previous high schools on their uniforms, meaning they're coming from another high school year.

There is also Kaito, whose whole backstory is that he's too young to be an actual astronaut so he has to be a trainee. He even looks you in the eyes and tells you he is a teenager.

When they are discussing what's in Maki's lab, the possibility of a baby being there is brought up. Tsumugi then says that Maki is in her first year of high school, so at the very least there is no way Maki is an adult.

I already addressed the whole "teenagers/high schoolers can be adults thing before" so it doesn't really need repeating and same thing with Tsumugi potentially making up everything revolving around them being high schoolers.

There's also Kokichi and Himiko, who were both referred to internally as a shota and a loli. (Because of course the developers are weirdos, who would have guessed.)

"The keyword on his initial design was simply “shota”, so we made him look like a cute and personable boy." -Kodaka's comment on Kokichi in the artbook

"For example, in the case of Himiko Yumeno, I put together the character using only keywords that I thought were interesting, such as 'self-proclaimed magician' or 'loli girl.'" -Kodaka explaining the thought process behind creating characters

Speaking of Kokichi, in 2021 Kodaka did one of his yearly birthday celebration things for him and said he turned 20 that year. Since V3 came out in 2017, that would make him 16 in that game.

The artbook in general, again, refers to a lot of the cast as high schoolers. Once again, it couldn't be any more unambiguous. I'd recommend reading it yourself, almost every character is referred to as a high schooler in someway and they even go in depth on some characters on how they were designed with being a high schooler in mind. They even talk about the pregame designs, and once again, emphasize how they were designed to be high schoolers.

They were also written with it in mind as well. When asked on Bluesky why he writes high schoolers, he responds saying that it's in between being a kid and an adult, meaning he writes them from the perspective of them not being adults.

In fact, I'd argue that them being not adults is pretty important to the character writing overall. A huge theme of Danganronpa is the pressure put on young people in high school and having them decide what they're going to do in their life. The cast in general are written to be anime high schooler tropes.

In other words, they are unambiguously high schoolers.

What Now?

At BEST the age of the cast is vague. But as I said earlier, are you really okay with sexualizing someone on the mere possibility of them being an adult? Even when there's no proof of them being one and that's only a random baseless assumption you made to justify it? Personally, I think it's weird. And even then, this is ignoring how the entire cast is under the impression that they are just starting another year of high school. As dumb as it sounds, they are all mentally high schoolers.

And if you're one of those people who just don't care if they're adults or not, then I can't really do anything. You're a lost cause anyway lol

I've been wanting to talk about this for a while because it's something that really bugs me. And before you accuse me of just trying to start up age discourse or whatever, I think it's stupid. This discourse shouldn't exist because simply paying attention tells you everything you need to know. The discourse ultimately comes down to those who paid attention, those who didn't, and those who don't care. I don't care how controversial this stance may be, but I'll die on this hill lol.

In the end, I think this fandom has gotten a little too comfy with the stuff they say about the characters. Especially this cast in particular. I don't really care about headcanons that they're older because those are typically harmless, I just find the game and fandom's sexualization of these characters to be weird.

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"Kodaka was barely involved with Danganronpa 3"

This is a narrative I've seen a lot online. Most of the time, this is used as an explanation for why the writing is the way it is. People often say the reason why a lot of the characters seem out of character or why the quality of the writing is poor is because the original mind behind the series had little involvement with the project. This seems to be spread around the fandom as fact, even that one like 5 hour long NezumiVA video says "nowhere is that directive presence missed more in Danganronpa 3 Zetsubouhen."

However, like a lot of claims made by the fandom, this is just blatantly untrue. I can only imagine the reason this gets spread around so much is that people can use the other writers as a scapegoat for why they think the anime is bad, because god forbid Kodaka write anything less than peak fiction.

The main source behind this claim seems to be how a lot of episodes in Danganronpa 3 are credited to different writers, and this somehow means that each writer was behind the story for their respective episode.

To this I have to ask, do you think that's how writing works? Because it isn't. Yes, multiple writers wrote the individual scripts for the episodes, but that doesn't mean they wrote the story. They simply just adapted the scenario that was already written into a script. This is common for media, especially anime.

This is no different from any of the games either. Kodaka is simply credited as being the story planner and scenario writer. Kodaka did not write every single line in every game, there is a whole list of people who are credited for helping write the script.

Danganronpa 3 is a very similar boat. According to an interview with Kodaka, the way the story was written is that he wrote the initial story, it was adapted into an anime, and then he supervised it and made alterations until it was to his liking. Here he even specifies that one of the things he adjusts after the script is written is the dialogue.

This is no different from how any of the games were written. I think it's pretty obvious with how much of the series lore that Danganronpa 3 incorporates into its story that Kodaka was very involved with the project. There are also other interviews where he goes into the decisions he made while working on it.

Kodaka's job in the series is to come up with the story and make sure each entry plays out to his vision (at least with the projects he's involved with). Danganronpa is no different. In both the games and the anime, Kodaka wrote an outline for the story and worked with a team of a lot of people to make sure the final project resembled his outline.

Danganronpa 3 wasn't some afterthought or side project he put together while working on V3, he was clearly just as passionate about it as he was with any of his other projects. Setting aside your own personal thoughts on the anime for a minute, I think it's wrong to dismiss a piece of art like that and even worse to make up reasons to say that the original creator's vision was somehow absent.

Another problem with this claim is that it dismisses the work of the the other writers who worked on Danganronpa, either painting them as irrelevant or using them as a scapegoat when it's convenient. The way these people phrase this makes it sound like they think the other writers who wrote for the games had basically no role in the story while the other writers for the anime are somehow singlehandedly responsible for making the story bad.

Anyways TL;DR know what you're talking about before you talk about something lol

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I'm currently working on a Danganronpa fanfic. Should I care about views or likes?

I won't say views or likes don't matter because I understand that it can be discouraging to not get any. But ultimately I think you should write something because you're passionate about it, not for the sake of getting views or likes. I'm sure if you just keep doing that then you can build an audience.

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Would you say that Junko is abusive towards Mukuro becus I’ve seen people argue about this topic 😭 I mean,,, Maybe I’m just projecting as someone who is an victim of incest but it is very clearly (shit it’s like right in your face) abuse.

It’s so annoying that the fandom is like “Erm Korekiyo was groomed by his sister don’t be insensitive >:(“ then turn around and say shit like Mukuro is in love with Junko.

Yes, I don't know how anyone can say otherwise 😭

Junko literally verbally abuses her on the regular and manipulates her, but even more there's multiple scenes in Danganronpa 3 where she physically abuses her. She straight up kicks her to the ground.

I wrote about it in my big Mukuro analysis, but Mukuro is not "in love" with Junko nor is she a masochist who enjoys abuse. She just lets Junko abuse her because she thinks it's the only way to keep Junko caring about her. She has attachment issues and doesn't want to lose the person who, at that point, was the only person to ever care about her. I'd recommend reading that analysis as I go a bit more in depth there.

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Would Yasuke Matsuda be homophobic?

No, I don't see why he would be or why one would want him to be.

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**Spoilers for Danganronpa V3, Kirigiri, and Togami**

It's strange how two of Danganronpa V3's main themes, those being "the suffering of others being used for entertainment" and "truth vs. lies" were originally tackled (and handled much better) in Kirigiri and Togami.

Even Danganronpa V3's first major twist happens in Kirigiri as well, like beat for beat. The detective finds out their best friend was the killer all along and their death is used for their development. While V3 technically came out before Volume 7 of Kirigiri, Kirigiri's ending was planned out from the start years before V3 so it feels like Kitayama reused his ideas. Which would make sense because Kitayama was writing Kirigiri before getting invited to work on V3 for a bit, having to put Kirigiri on pause.

But even Togami seems baked into V3's DNA as the entire ending seems lifted from it. At the end of Togami, Shinobu finds out her and several other's existence along with the story around her were fabricated, nothing but fiction. But in spite of that, she finds that how she felt was real anyway even if it was a lie.

If this sounds familiar, it's because this is exactly how Chapter 6 of V3 goes. Shuichi finds out his and several other's existence along with the story around him was fabricated, nothing but fiction. But in spite of that, he finds that how he felt was real anyway even if it was a lie.

That also ties us back to one of V3's other things, the suffering of people for the entertainment of others. In V3, Team Danganronpa makes their own killing games for entertainment. But wait a minute, that happens in Kirigiri too. In Kirigiri, the Victim's Catharsis Committee creates killing games for entertainment as well.

V3 is a game so derivative of previous entries that it really makes me thing if it has a single original bone in its body. Almost every major plot point seems to be lifted from a prior entry, and while they try to spin it as "the point" (being a critique of overdone sequels), doing the thing you are critiquing doesn't make you immune to that criticism. You're still just doing the thing you're critiquing, no matter how self aware you are.

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One thing I really like about Junko is that if you took any part of her plan out, she would have just found a different way to get things done. She didn't need Ryota, Juzo, Chisa, Mukuro, Class 77, her classmates, etc. She would have found a way to cause the tragedy some other way, it was inevitable. That's the power of the SHSL Analytical Prowess for you lol, she always thought on the spot.

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Begging someone on the wiki to change this because this is just not true 😭

I can't blame people for thinking that Danganronpa Togami isn't canon because I thought this too and barely anyone has read the novels, not to mention there's just so much misinformation or just weird interpretations of it due to circumstances around it that people just assume make it noncanon, but it's not. It has absolutely been referenced and confirmed in canonical material in the Hope's Peak Series as you can see above.

Felt like posting it here but casual reminder that Danganronpa 3 confirms that Danganronpa Togami is, in fact, canon.

In episode 11 of Despair Arc, we see a glimpse of a location that is very clearly supposed to be Prague, the primary setting of Danganronpa Togami.

If that's not enough evidence, we also see that Sonia is the one orchestrating the attack on Prague, which is what happens in Danganronpa Togami.

Also on the screen in the top right, you can see a satellite, obviously referencing the Togami Corporation satellite that is dropped Danganronpa Togami.

So yeah it's canon lol.