CW: topics discussed include abuse, SA and horrible things being done to small twerps - read between the lines.
A certain game of the video variety just so happened to have a whopping 90% discount on Steam, which compelled my sporadic yet inevitable purchase. A certain controversial entry in a popular yet extremely polarizing franchise. You might even say it’s… ultra-divisive.
Danganronpa is a series that definitely has existed. Something something killing game, something something talented students, something something Hope, something something Despair, and all that jazz. It had its diehard fans and it left an undeniable footprint within a very specific niche of popular culture. I am somewhat of a franchise veteran, myself. With several caveats and asterisks, of course.
…
Look, there is no need to fret over my mental wellbeing, for I am not plunging into the vast abyss in a fit of blind madness.
I am informed about this title. I am well and truly aware of its infamy, its reception, its common criticisms. I was prepared for it.
I am a Despair conoisseur, a purveyor of strong opinions and a V3 defender - if you know, you know. I am very familiar with series creator Kazutaka Kodaka’s “quirks” as a writer. On that front, I completed The Hundred Line and wrote the definitive thread about it.
I do not love this franchise and I do not hate it. I am fascinated by it, much in the vein of a coroner dissecting a corpse to figure out what snuffed the life out of it. I am not in the business of dismissing art because of “conventional wisdom”, either. I wish to experience it for myself.
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is the one piece of related media I skipped, way back in the day, when it released on the Playstation Vita. I was not in the correct state of mind to give it a fair shot - most people weren’t, to be honest. My skin is significantly thicker nowadays and my mind is less narrow. Hence, here I stand with my figurative pen to the paper.
That said, it would be a perfunctory exercise, and too much of a hassle, to contextualize this title’s role within the overall narrative. On account of the franchise dying a thousand deaths after that abhorrent anime sequel and Kodaka himself setting its body on fire with V3 - again, if you know, you know.
My interest in reviving or even acknowledging ancient discourse is nill.
This series had its funeral dirge almost a decade ago regardless of how much you, Spike Chunsoft or anyone else refused to let it go. Yes, I might be part of the problem.
As such, I shan’t bother with the expected prep work. There won’t be any prefacing, broader anecdotes or basic explanations on my end. I decided to play this title at my own pace, to completely ignore the continuity and judge it exclusively on its own merits. I endeavour to keep it simple, casual and disorganized. The lede won’t just be buried, it will be royally entombed!
Anyway, I paid two bucks for it so let’s play a Goddamn videogame!
Part 1: Not-Quite-Despair Girls
Speaking of whom, Toko Fukawa is a complete disaster of a girl, riddled with self-esteem issues, misplaced horniness and trauma. She has DID. Her one headmate is a serial killer by the unfortunate moniker of Genocide Jack - Genocider Sho in the Japanese version. The Fukawa alters are survivors from the first game, which I’m only bothering to disclose because it directly informs their characterization here. That is to say, it’s good now.
Toko has to act as Komaru’s emotional pillar because she understands what the other girl is going through, having lived through a similar experience. At the same time, she projects a lot of her own insecurities onto her.
She is a lot more realized, with her flaws and idiosyncrasies, beyond her obvious running gags.
By the way, this game is lousy with cutscenes, most of which feature the girls’ banter; your enjoyment of it may be predicated on whether or not you find them charming. I, for one, was onboard with this pair from the start.
As for the game itself, it’s a Resident Evil 4 style third-person shooter with a couple of neat gimmicks and puzzles. You play as Komaru wielding a funky gun that kills robots and you can switch places with Genocide Jack for a limited-time invincibility mode. It’s eminently okay in terms of gameplay. There isn’t that much more to say on that front.
Kodaka and his team tend to wear their inspirations on their sleeves: Pop Punk aesthetics, Suda51’s games, the occasional dose of Twin Peaks, the thematic baseline of Battle Royale, the works of Ryukishi07, etcetera. If anything, Ultra Despair Girl, with its emphasis on environmental exploration, has given them an excuse to lean even more on their favoured visual style.
The result is a fun looking presentation, colourful, trippy and varied even at its most monochromatic. The character designs by Rui Komatsuzaki and the music by Masafumi Takada complete an immaculately defined picture of sheer vibes - a staple of the whole series, by the way.
‘Sheer vibes’ sure is an interesting way to describe it, considering this game is about murdering children. And by that I mean both children who do murder and might get murdered later.
I told you that lede was getting absolutely interred, right?
Part 1.5: Ultra Despair Brats
To keep everything as vague as possible: a bunch of (obviously traumatized) brats take over a corporate-owned city-state with an army of killer bear robots. They plan to murderize all the adults and create a paradise just for children. Komaru has been caught in the middle of all of this. Think of this scenario as Battle Royale but with the generational hierarchy flipped on its head: instead of adults in a position of institutional power forcing kids to kill each other as a means to reinforce a societal status, it’s the kids who have been given all the power. Kids who have been abused by the adults in their lives, and by the system at large, who suddenly can get away with Infinity Death and lashed out against the world. It’s a violent, large-scale response to trauma from scared little babies who don’t know how to process it.
To be clear, they are still very much babies. Their horrible, grotesque actions are the result of a childlike mentality twisted by whatever monstrous treatment the adults have imparted on them. The 'Demon Hunting’ game is representative of that.
The Warriors of Hope, the ones leading the insurrection, see themselves as a fantasy RPG hero party and the adults are the “demons” they have to exterminate for sweet experience points. Thusly, anyone over an arbitrary age number is demonized and dehumanized, the cruelty becomes entirely justified.
The setting itself, the brazen and bizarre cityscape, colourful yet corrupted, serves as a reflection for that sadistic playfulness. 'Tis an innocence mired by despair, both felt and inflicted.
In short, the premise had solid legs. It is important to keep this in mind as a very difficult discussion slowly approaches.
Part 2: Ultra Inappropriate Girls
Kodaka is a writer with many vices and a few qualities. That has always been the case from the start. The entirety of the Danganronpa franchise could be used to map out his many flaws, from an overabundance of derivative references to weirdly inconsistent characterizations, to blatantly recycling his preferred archetypes and twists all throughout his works - that includes his post Spike Chunsoft curriculum, as well. He has the sort of vision that tends to manifest into grossly lopsided art and, as such, it would be easy to dismiss his writing as hackneyed or thoughtless.
For reasons that may become apparent later on, I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with that superficial read. However, I am not here to formulate a moderately defensive argument in his favour. I am here to tell each and every one of you that all the aforementioned flaws pail in comparison to his actual, greatest weakness as a writer: his inability to grasp Tone.
Tone, in most of Kodaka’s stories, is akin to a double-edged sword he wields with the grace of a drunken dad, and I’m being generous here.
Kodaka wants his games to have Big Themes and Big Drama but he can’t help injecting as much bizarre whimsy into his text at every chance he gets, often clashing with the alleged seriousness of a given scene. In a way, it does make sense as Danganronpa was basically sold on people for its strange direction. Besides, it can be greatly effective when the intent is to convey to a potential audience how absurd the premise of, say, a zany cartoon mascot telling high-schoolers to kill each other would be - to make a tOtAlLy random example. It only becomes a problem when he can’t tone it down for the moments that do require a certain level of sobriety.
Ultra Despair Girls is a primary example of that failure. It’s a game that tackles Big Themes. One such Big Theme is child abuse, one such abused child’s backstory is revealed to be sexual assault and prostitution. The subject is not implied, hinted or otherwise sugarcoated. It is tackled firmly, directly, unambiguously… within the same breath as an annoying comic relief bear making groan-worthy jokes and a guy getting pie to the face.
The character of Kotoko Utsugi, third member of The Warriors of Hope, encapsulates everything that’s bewildering about Kodaka’s approach to tone and characterization. She’s simultaneously what helps contextualize the kids’ more-than-justified fear and hatred for adult society, and a prop for jokes.
She was so hurt that the mere mention of the word 'gentle’ would trigger traumatic memories of all the times men have been “gentle” with her, which is horrendous and heartrending. Yet, at the same time, she gets into comedy pratfalls that reveal her bloomers. She gets into boss fights where she loses articles of clothing. Her mouth constantly spouts sexual innuendos every time she’s onscreen.
Setting aside how inappropriate this choice of “humour” might seem to anyone outside of a very specific crowd, the biggest issue remains her contradictory framing. You cannot take her plight seriously because of her comedy fanservice status and you can’t really laugh at her gags because of all the displayed trauma.
Conventionally speaking, you cannot have a barrage of (subjectively low-grade) jokes quickly followed by a sudden injection of Gravitas, Tension and then go right back to wackiness, all in the span of a five minutes long cutscene. Nailing that sort of mood would require a level of nuance that Kodaka did not, emphatically, possess at this particular junction. Sadly, that’s how Ultra Despair Girls rolls.
Which brings us to That Moment.
Kotoko, warped by her horrific backstory, kidnaps our protagonist, Komaru, and subjects her to the “SFW” version of the same torture she had to endure. This, unfortunately, results in an actual, real, Honest-to-God Tentacle Groping Mini-Game you have to beat in order to progress.
Naturally, I knew beforehand this was coming. As I said, I was prepared. Still, let us not pretend this isn’t a stupid inclusion. It’s a “meta-textual comedy” segment that undercuts the gravity of the situation, not to mention how it damages the credibility of the game’s Big Themes.
It’s gamified sexual assault reframed as “funny/horny” occurring in what should have been a serious chapter about a sexually traumatized girl. I played several porn games that were better at handling their (explicit) non-con content than this!
So yes, I find it pretty gross. I definitely have played worse in that specific regard but any reasonable form of outrage would be justified here. It’s not merely a bad scene, it’s a scene made worse by fully grasping its context. Once again, the lack of a commitment to a proper tone is at fault. If UDG was merely a dumb, madcap, fan-service joyride, I would not be batting an eye over it. Alas, it’s a game with Themes and Ideas that struggle to reconcile with all the wHiMsY.
Hey, why don’t we add insult to injury?
Part 2.5: Ultra Allegations
No more lede-burial shall occur. There’s a character who’s later revealed to be a pederast. That guy is the rich successor to the corporation that used to own the city and the leader of the “demon” resistance. He symbolizes everything the children justifiably hate. Inexplicably, that revelation is presented as an off-handed joke that bears no relevancy to the plot… The same plot that features victims of pedophilia. The same plot that centres on kids who have been abused by both the adults in their lives and the institutions that benefit off them. It’s information that fails to stir a meaningful reaction out of our main characters, who had just been through a major life-altering experience because of a sexually abused girl. It’s but a mere gag.
What are we even doing here!?
I would argue this complete lack of self-awareness in the writing is far more offensive than anything I described thus far. Irksomely, the dumb joke happens minutes after a major shift in Komaru’s character arc, tainting it by association; more sacrifices at the altar of tonal bedlam.
Let me be clear here: in spite of everything, I still enjoyed this game. I have come to like Komaru, Toko (and Jack) even more over the course of it. Whilst the full depth of the diegesis built around them is, to put it euphemistically, uneven, their overall journey and budding friendship are genuinely nice. On that note, here is a subtle yet significant detail about Komaru’s 3D model that happens after a certain point, between cutscenes: her posture changes from slouched to straight, as a visual representation of her growth.
Our “normal” girl is confident now! I’m sure she’s going to be just fine!
Part 3: Ultra Despair Girls
Another one of the many recurring crutches in Kodaka’s writing style is his penchant for taking elements we give for granted (such as the Hero’s Journey, story progression or specific media conventions) and weaponize them against both his characters and, by proxy, the player.
This course often results with either a tampering or a full-blown obliteration of the fiction itself - he’s a Umineko fan, you see. It happens in basically every game he has ever written with varying degrees of escalation. He’s done it so many times, in fact, that it lost its luster.
UDG is no exception to the rule. However, I will say that it works well here even if the setup was blatant.
Our protagonist is a (self-professed) perfectly 'normal girl who cannot do anything.’ She has to go through an arc, she has to change and grow into the role of the heroine as it is expected of her character’s journey. Predictably, the mastermind planned the “story” in advance. All her progress is slapped across her face, having been revealed as nothing but damaging trauma.
This does lead to what I would consider the best final sequence in all Danganronpa games - if I cared to compare them, that is.
Now, admittedly, there is a lot I purposefully glossed over or downright ignored. As a reminder, that was my intention from the start.
I neglected to mention any meaningful ties to the larger franchise, I even denied you the courtesy of properly describing what Danganronpa entails as a series. I didn’t do any of the prefacing legwork that would typically accompany an essay. You could say, I defied your expectations just as much as Komaru defied the expectations forced upon her.
Actually, that sounded a little bit pretentious. Let me reformulate: UDG is a game that can stand on its own legs. I mean, sure, playing it without the foreknowledge of Danganronpa 1 and 2 will be an extremely confusing experience but that’s not my point.
At its core, this is a parable about overcoming the societal pressures that dictate the way we live and even the way we perceive ourselves. A society what values pre-ordained roles based on age, gender, mental wellbeing and talent. Everyone is a cog in the machine, whether they’re a child, a teenager or an adult. The remnants of that hierarchy survives in this world as an inverted, grotesque parody of itself when the kids took over the city with killer robots - I promise it makes sense.
The real villain is Modern Capitalist Society and we needed for it to be literally destroyed to finally recognize its despair-inducing foundations, the very same issues that led to The Tragedy.
Mind you, I am not saying the game did an impeccable job with its theming. What I am saying is that UDG managed, against all odds (against itself, really) to succeed in the one aspect that needed to succeed the most, the core recipient of its message: the titular girls! Let me gush about them some more!
It all comes down to Komaru and Toko - and Jack, on occasion. The surprisingly effective finale, the mutual support that allowed them to grow as people independently from what was “expected” of them, my entire ability to care about anything before me, are thanks to these adorable goobers.
There were, admittedly, several moments that threatened to ruin my enjoyment, and I provided examples aplenty. I didn’t even bring up the fact Toko uses electrocution as a means to quickly switch to her alter. I shouldn’t have to explain why that is highly inappropriate.
It is only a testament to the strength of their ongoing dynamic that the heroines could overcome such baffling obstacles. In the end, whatever definitely-not-gay chemistry the disaster failgirl and the normie girlfailure happen to share absolutely did it for me!
Komaru is liberated from the shackles of “normalcy” thanks to her friendship with Toko and Toko is happier, more self-assured as a person after meeting her, being accepted for who she is. Even Jack gets character validation and agency.
'Reject Normalcy, become the Change you want to see in the world with the Power of Girlfriends, magic guns and invincible murder fiends’ is one hell of an empowering statement! So, to circle back on my original point: UDG stands on its own two feet not for its role within an ongoing (doomed) narrative but for being a piece of art worth engaging at its own terms. It’s a solid videogame starring characters I liked that was fun to play. I simply cared. I cared so much that I even bothered to complete it.
Appropriately, something that was much easier to accomplish after I unburdened myself from the knowledge of its reception, the broader franchise and its ultimate fate, from the curse of Expectation.
In conclusion, I have this to say.
Reject Discourse. Engage with Art.
Signed: a V3 and UDG defender.
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