Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Danganronpa 2 is built almost entirely on a subversion of the original game. Its twists and turns are plays on established tropes and plot beats from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and each case in its murder mystery plays on established knowledge. But Danganronpa 2’s ending is one of its greatest achievements because it throws the entire thematic foundations of its predecessor on their head to a more profound end.
Danganronpa is about hope and despair, and how those concepts can look very different for different people. Hope can take the form of a foothold into one’s chosen career path, or it can be in an institution that helps cultivate talented youth that can lead society into a greater future. But where Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc had an almost blind belief in hope and moving forward, Danganronpa 2 is all about how hope and despair intermingle and are not as black-and-white as its monochrome bear mascot. You learn that the high school students you’ve watched take part in the murder mystery death game were merely pawns in a larger conflict, and when the truth is revealed, you’re repeatedly told that it actually has very little to do with you, your hopes, or your despair.
Danganronpa 2’s ending completely tears down any vision of a hopeful future for its characters, but asks them to keep going. It positions hope and despair as universal truths you should simply be able to support on principle, all while ignoring just how terrifying moving forward can be. If doing what’s right for the world means losing yourself, is that actually hope? For who? If unleashing something evil onto the world allows you to live your authentic self, is that really despair? Or is there a third option that exists between the two?
The Danganronpa series is at its best in explosions of emotion, desperation, and hope, and Danganronpa 2’s ending embodies these ideas in a glorious, bittersweet fashion. Even as the series has riffed on these same ideas, the sequel’s framing of them is Danganronpa at its most profound. — Kenneth Shepard
