#ill write a cleaner versioj later but heres some reason why dr3 sucks ass

[autistickomaeda]

I'm just gonna ramble incoherently for a second about how despair arc failed don't mind me

part of why despair arc was so horrendously bad, besides its other obvious issues, was that it failed in establishing its own tone. it attempted to be a subversion of your typical slice of life, but failed in choosing the correct protagonist and in introducing the darker themes. it stretches the happy fun time section out for far too long, and fails to even vaguely introduce the darker concepts and hint at the tragedy to come within the first few episodes, which is where they fucked up

just generally from what I've seen, most give an anime three episodes before they decide to drop it, and that's because those three episodes are the ones that introduce the characters, set up the plot, and then establish the themes. if they don't like what they see, they drop it and move on. despair arc fucked up from the get-go because they spend those first three episodes introducing characters and relationships but not really setting up the overarching plot or themes. there is nothing that occurs that suggests at the darker themes or anything to do with their descent into despair; there's no contrast of happy, quirky characters against a darker aesthetic or thematic undercurrent or any juxtaposition of our protagonist, chiaki, and her go-with-the-flow, optimistic attitude against, say, the horrible actions of hopes peak and the terrifying true nature of the academy. even hajime, a character who should have been used for this purpose, instead loses the darker aspects of his character as he also slips into the role of typical slice of life character. his insecurities are shown sloppily through the use of words on the screen, breaking the well-known rule of "show, don't tell", and then never really brought up again until it's time for him to go through the project, and the melancholic atmosphere of the reserve course is barely shown enough to justify to the viewer why the reserve course students are like that. relating all of this back to the three episodes rule and pacing problem, despair arc is boring as shit because nothing fucking happens until kamukura shows up around episode seven. the project is barely mentioned until a few episodes before that, and the only reason why I didn't get sick of it after the fucking sexy soup scene and drop it was because it was danganronpa and I'm a fan of the franchise

I'd like you to compare this to pmmm, a subversion of typical magical girl anime, which uses every aspect of its universe to do this, from its aesthetic to its characters to its music to its own lore. pmmm spends the first two episodes establishing the main characters, their relationships, and what you think the plot will be and how the world works, and then in episode three it builds off of all of that to establish its thematic undercurrents. it doesn't waste time on sexy soup, it cuts to the chase and makes use of its twelve episodes to tell the story it wants to tell and tells it well. it is successful in every way despair arc is not. there are plenty of criticisms to be had about pmmm, but at the very least it has a basic understanding of subversion of expectations and pacing. despair arc wants to be pmmm very very badly. it will never be pmmm because it lacks a very fundamental understanding of how pmmm succeeds and how the basics of a story work

a story has five parts: the exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. a story must have all of these in order to functional successfully as a story. despair arc does not have these, and this is where the episode three problem and kamukura coming in at around episode seven come into play: there is no arc in despair. the first five or so episodes are dedicated to exposition, although I use that term loosely, and rising action doesn't begin until kamukura is introduced, towards the end of the fucking series. you can try and argue that twilight syndrome was the rising action, but the truth is that whatever tension there was from that went fucking nowhere because the piss poor writing meant that everyone forgot about that after it happened and it contributed nothing to anything. having everything start at episode seven was the worst move you could make because there's no time for anything besides the climax, which shows in how horribly rushed everything is. and because everything happens so late, barely any tension builds and no action really happens besides the council killings and whatever else happened, I can't even fucking remember because none of the interactions between the characters were even remotely memorable or defining, everyone just kinda waited until kamukura happened and the plot kicked in. the climax of the brainwashing scene and the execution are so disatisfying, not only because it's the fucking brainwashing and execution scene, but also because there was zero meaningful buildup to that point. even then, that event happens too late, and there's no time for things to fall and then resolve -- everything just happens and its disappointing. it's all worsened by the fact that none of the characters are actual likeable characters, they're just cardboard cutouts who do the things the script says and have about as much substance as a vacuum. they've got zero depth or personality, they're just There and they Do Things. in sdr2, every character feels intertwined, each bouncing off of each other and each international is full of life, with their own relationships and mannerisms and ways of thinking that define them. theyre exaggerated to all hell, sure, but theyre exaggerations of real people, and its what makes them likeable. every member of class 77 could be a black blob called John and nothing would change. it's all horribly written and bad and whoever wrote and directed this shit should feel bad because it shits on everything stories are made out of and stand for

tl;dr whoever wrote and directed despair arc has never written a story in their life, the pacing is shit and contributes to the huge problems w the show, and the entire thing is an insult to every piece of fiction ever written

#long post #dr3 #discourse #future.txt #its 3 am and i cant think straight so i just vomited words #ill write a cleaner versioj later but heres some reason why dr3 sucks ass #i had more to say bur my pgone is glitching so im done