Hi :].

Hope your week has been good. Mine has been good too, but in all honesty not cooking at home still feels like its been bleeding my wallet dry and I wont really know how bad the damage is till the end of the month comes around :’).

Thankfully though, ive been finding things much easier than I did before. Ive killed a lot more spiders, so I feel like ive been getting used to having them around (even if its by just a smidge, I still hate having them around).

The bathroom is still a problem too but ive been managing, and it should be cleaned and fixed up by this week too. Happy things have calmed down, and that my prediction had been wrong. Id assumed it would get worse before it got better, but that was the worst it ever got :p.

SO, im sure youve all heard that silksong came it, dear old hollow knight silksong. Everyone’s bought it, everyones got an opinion on it. So, whats my take on the game?

I didnt buy it :).

Look dont get me wrong, I WILL buy it, if not now then soon, but id rather see how my moneys gonna fluctuate and all since I still havent fully accustomed to the move. Once I start cooking again, and probably once I get my allowance next month, ill buy it, both it and danganronpa V3, and enjoy them for myself (hopefully spoiler free).

SPEAKING OF, how about talking about danganronpa? I mean, ive been mentioning it on and off for god knows how long now, so might as well get to it.

Obviously, wont be mentioning V3 since I havent played it though, so were keeping that out of the picture.

Lets start with the first game (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR DANGANRONPA)

Easily my favorite of the two (and ignoring the ungodly horrible anime), danganronpa THH (trigger happy havoc) is the first of the 3 in the mixed media series where we get to meet a lovely cast of 16 students (usually), and watch them brutually murder each other in whatever murder mystery-esque setting they happen to end up in. It was two or three months ago from now, but I still remember a lot of the first game quite vividly (at least, I remember how fun it was).

The first two murders were AWESOME. I genuinely didnt expect sayaka to just throw you under the bus and try to KILL YOU SO FAST, I mean goddamn. That, and the way she did it was pretty clever, though anybody knowing the positions of their rooms beforehand, even if they remember it faintly, sort of ruins her whole plan.

Then there’s chihiro, which from a purely mystery perspective was even more fun and sent me for one HELL of a loop (though the way they handled chihiro being a boy couldve been better, that part was poor).

The tie into genocide jack and toko’s split personality, using it as a diversion, then digging with kyoko to find out it was actually MONDO, despite byakuya’s meddline (that goober x)), was really cool.

The third murder was sort of mediocre but its followed up by a sick case with sakura’s death, then found to be suicide, and a DEVASTATING realization of what the outside world has become, piecing apart your links with the other classmates obfuscated by memory loss, junko’s return (which was a fucking AWESOME twist btw), kyoko and her father, and then that final trial to defeat despair, which in essence is just doomerism, which I hate, made the game something really worthwhile to me.

The aesthetics are on point too. The sorta futuristic, abandoned but also super cool building your stuck in makes for such an awesome experience. Exploring each floor, bit by bit, trapped from the outside, learning what you can, tearing apart layer by layer of the events of the story in that oddly haunting school building, was such a big highlight.

And that atmosphere permeates throughout the whole game. The characters and their designs, the godly music, the murders, the “psychopop” vibe they were going for was so cool. I loved it.

Of course, this IS ignoring a lot of negatives of the game, like the character writing being off sometimes, and the incessant and honestly really annoying fanservice (which unfortunately follows into the second game) coupled with the at times annoying minigames (which GET WORSE TOO).

But honestly? They dont put a dent in it for me, the game overall is just such a fun experience, and I had a blast with it the whole way through. That, and honestly…

its WAY BETTER THAN DANGANRONPA 2.

SERIOUSLY,

I dont know what you guys were smoking, because every, EVERY discussion on the series ALWAYS puts 2 on top of THH.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND????

Im getting ahead of myself.

The second game is similar, 16 students, killing game murder mystery, except instead of an awesome atmosphere,stuck in a building riddled with grounded mystery and a punchy aesthetic, its just an island. Dont get me wrong, I didnt HATE it, but it was always a clear downgrade for me honestly.

The characters are pretty fun though. Design wise I prefer the old cast, and even just a lot of the old characters as a whole I like more than the new cast, but the writing is without fail much better, barring A COUPLE OF EXCEPTIONS >:(.

For one, theres a bit of a hot take, and thats gundham.

Yea, I didnt really like him that much. I sort of just found him to be really abnoxious. His murder case was pretty cool, but was sort of pushed down by his motive, that being to “not let everyone stand around and die”. Right. And the way you do that is by killing a returned and dearly beloved friend, what a dumb move :/.

Then you got a less egregious but still annoying case with someone like soda, and his constant simping. I mean seriously, get a grip :,). Everytime he talks tech I get really excited, he has SO MUCH POTENTIAL it seems, but its interrupted every 3rd line with him GUSHING over sonia, I mean for fucks sake could you talk about literally ANYTHING ELSE, PLEASE?

And mikan is a whole can of worms, but my god is she particularly painful in terms of how cool she couldve been too. A nurse with an inferiority complex, pushed down by everyone around her (or at least, thats what she feels is going on). On the surface, it seems simple, but its an idea that could be explored so much, especially given how much hiyoko hates on her and how she literally KILLS hiyoko in the third trial.

But nah, she just killed hiyoko because she happened to pass by, and her motivations werent explored any more than that shed gotten her memories of her being evil back. Past that the whole game shes just used for fanservice, falling at weird angles and exposing herself, what a fucking pathetic excuse for writing what couldve been a really cool character, but just making her gooner bait >:/.

Of course, no discussion of how bad some of these character can be is complete without the worst most egregious danganronpa character in history though, the one still making ears bleed. teruteru.

TERUTERU, MY FUCKING GOD.

He has to be the PINNACLE of everything I HATE about danganronpa 2. Obnoxious, annoying, HORNY FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

I promise you had he not been executed first I might have thrown my legion go out thewindow, because he made me want to grind my brain onto and through a box grater.

But he died almost immediately so we’re good :D.

And look, I know ive been bashing danganronpa 2’s characters but other than them, I really enjoyed the rest of the characters. Hajime is really fun as an mc compared to makoto, chiaki was pretty cool as the surrogate kyoko, but had much more to her than just that, and even served as a really important tipping point as the traitor to how the rest of the students would act moving forward (though sakura did it better imo), and I LOVED fuyuhiko’s arc and learning to be better to those around him, it was quite endearing and I grew to like him more than I thought I would :).

O, and NAGITO, GODDAMN do I wish hed stayed alive longer. He was such a loose cannon with a really interesting philosophy. I get why he didnt make it to the end of the game, it wouldve been obvious given how much of the spotlight he took as is, but MY GOD would game not be even HALF as interesting if it werent for his insane, psychotic MANIC inclusion, and we’re all the better for it <3.

Anyways, mysteries were as usual, pretty fun, and so were the trials, but the new mini games didnt get the same treatment. They added a cool simulation one where you glide through spice, that ones fun, but the mini game where you piece letters together was horrible now, as if it was ever even that fun to begin with, and the final mini game you play against the killer is just worse now. Oh well.

Making it to nagito’s suicide and the unsolvable case, things were honestly looking up though. Nagito had created a pretty ingenious plan to make someone his murderer WITHOUT THEM EVEN KNOWING, implicating them in the process, so now we HAD to find an unfortunate murderer, no matter what. Still though, its right after this trial that things go south with the ending…

A simulation, really?

I mean, the first game was grounded in an air of mystery, but even if the greatest most tragic fall of mankind was orchestrated by what was initially just a class of students, it was still believable. But now, your just gonna everything we experienced was a simulation everyone was in, and that we were all actually EVVVIIILLL (so spooky~) in real life, and that we were ALL made evil JUST by junko?

Honestly, if my attitude isnt making it clear enough, I didnt like it. I DID like the message it was trying to promote though.

Venturing into the unknown and trusting yourself, YOUR judgement, creating your own path regardless of what others tell you, when the only other options are despair inducing, was the natural conclusion to a sequel that taught us hope, and for that I really enjoyed it. To be confident in your ability to create the future YOU want, and work on it regardless of what others push onto you, is a compelling message.

Seeing chiaki again was really nice too, that force that pushed as forward at our lowest, a friend who pushed her limits despite her programming, it was great.

… but still, the execution of these ideas fell flat for me. I get that im biased here, of course I am, but MAN was making the whole thing a simulation not the way to do this. Making it all fake, even if the deaths still had some sort of weight, really just invalidated the experience for me. That, and the fact that chiaki WAS just programming, just sucks the joy out of the experiences you get to have with her for me, especially because I thought it would be way more impactful at first.

When chiaki died, and the world started glitching, I got excited. I mean, REALLY excited. I thought it was gonna explore grief, that the sheer WEIGHT of ALL the death and suffering that had been thrust on us was finally setting in, and that was showing in the form of corruption. That hajime’s psyche was breaking.

But nah. Turns out it was ALL a simulation, and we’re evil or whatever. Boohoo.

Danganronpa THH wins, and by a mile.

Finally, there’s the anime. To be blunt, I dropped it.

It was boring, and all the filler with the new characters wasnt helping. The writing for both the past and future arcs were horrible, the writing went from cringe but fun danganronpa style to just straight up bad, and by the time I got to the halfway mark I knew that the future arc wasnt gonna be the exciting murder mystery that I thought itd be, and that the past arc wouldnt actually show us how each of the danganronpa 2 students was thoughtfully swayed into being evil doers by junko.

And yea, sad to say I was write on that front. Like I said last post, I DID watch a nearly 5 hour video breaking down danganronpa 3’s faults after id ditched the anime, which is here if youd like to see it for yourself https://youtu.be/K8BDPRyoCbU?si=V6H2sRNv5l-_TyIs, but to make a long story short, it turns out junko just used mind control to make the students evil (lame as fuck) and the future arc just butchers the characters and makes the murder mystery worse.

So, yea, thats danganronpa so far, not including V3. As much as I dogged on it, and other than danganronpa 3, I really enjoyed my time with it. I know ive definitely been quite harsh to the series as a whole this post, but I only do so both because I just came off of danganronpa 3’s disappointment X), but also because I loved so much of it.

Even the second game, despite all of the things that ive mentioned, was really fun.

There was a real passion put into both games. The art is stunning, the story itself is cool as hell and piecing together your surroundings, and solving murder cases in both games is so rewarding. The art is amazing, the artists really deserve raises like holy shit, it elevates the game so much, alongside the music, which matches the psychopop vibe so well. Seriously, I still listen to a lot of it even after the fact.

On top of that, all the characters that hit the mark, HIT THE FUCKING MARK. The final students of the first game still hold a special place in my heart, ESPECIALLY byakuya, kyoko and to a lesser extent makoto, but also hajime, chiako, FUYUHIKO and NAGITO are all such amazing characters, and the way they spiced up the story was crazy fun. Their respective games would not have been NEARLY as good without them.

I loved it, I loved both games, and ESPECIALLY the first for its genuinely grounded mystery, but its for that reason that I do need to acknowledge that it misses the mark on so many other aspects.

That being said, I would recommend it, but only if you can handle its writing (and just visual novels in general, theyre not for everyone), though youll understand what I mean if you watch or play the first chapter. It can be a a bit off kilter from time to time, a bit wackomole :p, but in the end theyre still really enjoyable murder mysteries, with a fucking SICK psychopop aesthetic, CRAZY good music and some crazy cool characters.

Though now that I think about it, given you read this you probably just got spoiled on a lot of it anyways, sorry :p.

Now that ive finished most of danganronpa though, I wanna find something new to sink my teeth into this vacation. Not sure what itll be honestly. Feel free to give any suggestions you might have in mind, right now for shows im thinking of watching panty and stocking since that seems pretty cool, and for movies I never got around to finishing 500 days of summer :p. That, and “I saw the tv glow” seems pretty neat.

Well, thats all for now. For the next post im gonna try doing things a little differently, I think itd be fun to experiment with the way I make these posts, so I wanna try writing the post over the course of several days.

In all fairness, this blog HAS always primarily been me brain dumping for all those to see, but who knows? Maybe a more concentrated brain dump over a longer time span would be cool :v.

Not just thinking about it for several days on end and just brain dumping on sunday, but building on the post day by day. No idea what thatd even end up making different about the post, its just a vague thought so far, but ill try it out, and you let me know if you guys feel any differently about the upcoming few posts.

Anyways, have a great week everyone. I love you all, bye for now <3.