So, You Survived The First World War, Flew Over Forests In A Hot Air Balloon, Swam Across The English

So, you survived the First World War, flew over forests in a hot air balloon, swam across the English Channel, and this is not the whole list of your achievements? Commendable, Mr. Frank. But we have one question.

Are you really sure that all of the above is not a figment of your mind?

"I love komahina" which one, dude.

Hear me out 🫢

into the pit coraline au

Headmaster Naegi makes perfect sense (+ DR3 Makoto Analysis)

There's a lot of misunderstandings about the Danganronpa series, and if I had to pick an entry that's "the most misunderstood," I would easily say it's Danganronpa 3.

I went into the anime completely blind and I loved it, only to be shocked by the amount of hate it gets, most of which I think is undeserved. I've written plenty of posts about the anime so far clearing up a lot of misconceptions with it, but there's one I really wanted to talk about. That would of course be the ending.

The amount of backlash I've seen towards Makoto becoming the headmaster of Hope's Peak and rebuilding it was always so strange to me, because to me I couldn't think of a more perfect conclusion to his character. So I wanted to write about it and explain why I feel like this is a perfectly in character and satisfying conclusion.

What went wrong with Hope's Peak?

The usual reason give for why this ending is bad is something along the lines of "Hope's Peak is evil, why would you bring it back?"

This is a fair assessment, at least on the surface level. Starting with Danganronpa Zero and Danganronpa 2, Hope's Peak began to be portrayed in a more negative light by doing things like human experimentation, practically extorting kids by weaponizing their dreams, or covering up murders. However, this take lacks any nuance.

In the original Danganronpa, Hope's Peak is painted in a pretty positive light. The class is seen having fun in all of their pictures, enjoying themselves. When the tragedy hits, Jin, the current headmaster, takes responsibility and helps protect the students.

This paints a very different picture of Hope's Peak than what we'd see later. So what happened? What changed?

If you look back at those things I mentioned, the human experimentation, extorting kids, and covering up murders, all of that ties back to the Steering Committee.

"Not only that, it was the intent of the new Steering Committee members as well to strictlyconceal the incident and keep it under wraps." -Danganronpa Zero

Once Hope's Peak grew in size and the Steering Committee began to gain more power, more bad things started to happen. They introduced the Reserve Course to gather more funds for the experiments they just started doing and there was now an effort was to conceal their crimes.

Danganronpa 3 expanded on this by making it pretty clear that the people running Hope's Peak and the Steering Committee don't always see eye to eye. Jin gets pretty angry when he discovers the Steering Committee plans to sweep the most recent incident under the rug.

(Forgive the awful image quality LOL)

Hope's Peak wasn't always like this, it became this. This is a point that's even pretty consistently brought up in Danganronpa 3, with the main motivation of the Class 74 trio being to fix it.

There was a time when it nurtured true hope. People made friends and memories in Hope's Peak, to act like it was some pure evil entity kind of misses the point. In the end, what tainted Hope's Peak was their flawed view of Hope seeping into it and corrupting it until it became unrecognizable.

Kyosuke wanted to fix Hope's Peak, but eventually his view of Hope became warped as well. Kyosuke would never get to accomplish his dreams of fixing the school and becoming the headmaster, instead choosing to carry the burden of his crimes and pass down his dreams to someone else, someone whose views of Hope were strong and untainted...

Why Makoto?

I can't think of a better person to carry on Kyosuke's wishes than the Ultimate Hope himself. I would argue Makoto rebuilding Hope's Peak couldn't be any more in character.

Right off of the bat, Makoto is known to understand Hope better than anyone else. He's given the title of the Ultimate Hope, a title so fitting that even those at the Future Foundation acknowledge it. The entire series shows that Makoto understands "true hope" better than anyone else.

Makoto also has a history of wanting to help those he sees the good in. In Danganronpa IF, he sees good in Mukuro despite the horrible things she's done because he knew about the good in her. In Danganronpa 2, Makoto attempts to rehabilitate the Remnants of Despair because he knew they weren't always that way.

The obvious natural next step would be for Makoto to fix Hope's Peak, a school that used to embody his ideals, a school that brought him many memories and helped him meet many great people. Of course lots of bad came from Hope's Peak, but bad came from Mukuro and the Remnants of Despair, but that didn't stop Makoto from trying with them.

Makoto running Hope's Peak isn't even out of character. In Danganronpa 2, Makoto is behind the School Trip inside of the Neo World Program, already taking on a "teacher-like" role. Makoto's vision of the school trip is that they spend their time getting closer to each other and building true hope, which is exactly what Hope's Peak should be.

Heck, if I wanted to go even earlier than that, in the original Danganronpa during Kiyotaka's free time events, he comments on about how he "doesn't totally hate" being called a professor. And considering how the writers played the games before writing the anime to catch themselves up, I wouldn't even be surprised if this was intentional.

While not a branch head, Makoto even gets a job at Future Foundation in the branch of public relations. Makoto has pretty much every single qualification to be the headmaster of Hope's Peak and it's not something that comes out of nowhere.

Makoto's arc

While I'm at it, I should also go into Makoto's arc. At the start of the anime, Makoto acts confident. Makoto rejects Monokuma's game, not wanting to give in again and believing that nobody will kill each other this time.

However, as more people begin to die, Makoto's resolve begins to shake. He's reminded how his words were unable to save his classmates, and now he's unable to save the Future Foundation. He's the Ultimate Hope, so why can't he do it? Are his words truly hollow? Are they just worthless platitudes?

But over the course of the anime, Makoto is reminded that his words did have power. He's changed the lives of many and his hope is real. When he sees his friends fighting to protect him, or Komaru eagerly awaiting for him to rescue her, he begins to realize that his hope truly did inspire those around him

Kyoko's sacrifice and her trust in him to carry her hope to the end and end the killing game is the final push he needed. All doubts he had were gone, even despite the constant torment they faced, Makoto had all the proof he needed to know that his hope was true and he gained the confidence to finally face Kyosuke.

I've seen people say that Makoto's conflict with Kyosuke is never properly resolved or that Makoto's point of view on hope is never proven right, but this here is that proof. By carrying the hope people have placed in him, the hope created by his "platitudes," he was able to prove to Kyosuke that his hope was the true hope in the end.

Why does this matter?

Ultimately, Makoto's understanding of hope is what makes him worthy of continuing Hope's Peak. Makoto's values are what Hope's Peak needed, and with a his grasp on true hope, only Makoto could save Hope's Peak. This is what the entire series was building up to.

From a person who saved people with words to finding the good in otherwise horrible people, Makoto carrying the burden of hope and attempting to restore Hope's Peak's image is the perfect conclusion for his character.

Some may say "what if things go wrong in the future," and while there's that possibility, there's always going to be that possibility. There was a chance him trying to save Mukuro would fail, there was a chance him trying to save Class 77 would fail, but in the end he had hope and kept going anyways.

The reason I never understood why people didn't like this ending is because I always felt that this was the most natural continuation of his arc. Why wouldn't Makoto try to restore the symbol of hope, a former titan that brought many people together and once motivated the world? As headmaster, Makoto would be in the perfect position to continue to help the world and spread hope to future generations, even as a "normal" person.

So that's why Headmaster Naegi makes sense.

In the past.

Me, watching UDG: yeah, probably, I'll ship tokomaru... Togafuka will leave my otp's list.

Monaca and Komaru: /They interact with each other./

Me, catching flashbacks from THH: ...oh. I guess, I ship them...

My OTPs be like.