Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Future Arc

Episode 10

Perhaps with the knowledge that it doesn't quite have three full episodes of secrets left to unravel, Danganronpa's Future Arc put its mystery bits aside this week to focus on a carnal showdown between Makoto and Munakata. Despite not really getting any closer to learning the truth behind the Final Killing Game, episode 10 delivered the most emotionally resonant content from Future Arc yet, as these two wildly different symbols of Hope resolved their differences by outsmarting each other turn after turn before coming together in mourning for their own mistakes by the end. If the mastermind's plan was to have them destroy each other, they've probably failed. Then again, if that mastermind really is Chisa Yukizome, perhaps she didn't want to destroy Munakata and Makoto after all.

It's impossible to know one way or the other just yet, so all we have to go on are the conclusions that both combatants reach at the end of their deadly duel. Makoto's own emotional resolution is still being formed, but at the very least, he seems not to have regretted his decision to try and save everyone. While he now understands that simple platitudes and morally absolute solutions can't solve complex problems in a world that doesn't work on such simple rules, it hasn't changed his resolve to either bring Munakata to his senses or die trying. I get the feeling that whatever Makoto has learned from Kyoko's sacrifice, it will come into play in the final episodes rather than this fight, where his optimistic idea of hope ultimately wins out over Munakata's pragmatic one by proving to Munakata that his decision to compromise and sacrifice has actually made him more powerless instead of more in control.

Munakata's forbidden action is opening doors, forcing him to constantly choose between trusting others with his fatal secret and relying on his own power to break down walls and leave himself more and more exposed. From the game's beginning, he's defaulted to the latter option, even pushing away Sakakura in favor of relying on his own strength. Together, the two of them could have made up for each other's weaknesses with Sakakura on defense and Munakata on offense, but Munakata's belief that the world's future can only be ensured if he makes the hard decisions that the softer good guys can't bear convinced him to keep even his best friend at arm's length. (Even Sir Punchalot is more sensitive and hesitant than his pure-white counterpart.) In Munakata's mind, all the "good" people would remain safe as long as they could rely on him to bear the burden of taking out the bad people for them.

But then Tengan's "reveal" of the killer's identity sent Munakata's despair-tinged paranoia into overdrive. "Everyone" is Ultimate Despair, which means Munakata cannot even trust himself. (Of course, we know what this really means because we know about Mitarai's "talents," but Munakata has no reason to believe that it means anything other than that they're all brainwashed and don't know it.) More than anything, Munakata blames himself for not noticing Chisa's transformation to Despair during the Tragedy. He was in love with the enemy this entire time, and he can never forgive himself for not saving or destroying her, so the best thing he can do for the world's Hope (and Future) is never make the same mistake again. He resolves to "save" Makoto by destroying him, follow suit with all the other survivors, and then probably take himself out. The sacrifices he's made for a brighter future have only pushed him further and further into a darker corner, where the only way out is to kill and die. Monokuma didn't need to despairify Munakata; he's done a bang-up job all by himself.

After pulling some Hunger Games shenanigans on each other, Munakata and Makoto end up at an impasse, where Munakata can't kill Makoto without being trapped. Enraged, he tries to choke Makoto into repenting for his foolish optimism, but Makoto can tell now that he's projecting. No matter how superior and pragmatic Munakata thinks he is, he still grieves for his blindness to Chisa's pain, which caused countless other lost lives and left her dying in despair. But unlike Munakata, Makoto isn't interested in forcing his foe to acknowledge his own mistakes. Instead, Makoto wants Munakata to forgive himself and acknowledge that the happiness Chisa weakened his heart with was worth it. In this moment, we finally get to the core of the reason that Munakata's compromises can't build a stronger future. He thinks that being ruthless in the pursuit of good leaves him no room for doubt, but it's really left him no room for faith. Because he did everything to keep Chisa safe, he couldn't see the corruption inside her right in front of him, and no amount of being more ruthless would have changed that. Nobody's perfect. But his choices have cut him off from the strength that comes from trusting other imperfect people, who can see through your own mistakes and hold you up, even when your beliefs and values are very different. Just like Makoto relied on Aoi to literally carry him through the game, and even depended on Monaka to save him despite their completely different goals, Munakata didn't have to let go of his ruthless pragmatism to leave room for the gentler versions of hope around him.

This seems to be the final evolution of Danganronpa's ruminations on Hope vs. Despair. There is an autonomous kind of unity in the empty void of Despair, but the good guys on the side of Hope will often have wildly different ideas on what their Hope means to them and how it can lead to a better Future, which is why chaos and doubt can rush in so quickly while order and trust take a long time to build. We've seen this theme of potentially powerful bonds crumbling under the weight of painful differences over and over throughout Danganronpa 3, from Kimura and Ando to Hajime and Chiaki. Thankfully, Makoto and Munakata are still alive, so maybe they will be able to learn the lesson that so many other strong personalities before them could not: true compromise comes not from changing yourself but embracing others, trusting that the change your differences will bring to the world will be a good one, even if it's not exactly what you expected.

After the boys have both had a good cry over their waifus, Aoi and Mitarai rush in to save the day with Kyoko's last gift to the team: a notebook full of twists! Aoi finally knows the truth, but we won't find out what she's deciphered until next week, so that means it's time for another round of speculation! Assuming that Mitarai's brainwashing videos are the murder/suicide weapon in all cases, we're left with three possible mastermind culprits, who may or may not be using Junko's AI program. (Wouldn't it be interesting to see a finale where Junko isn't involved at all? It's certainly possible, thanks to the Despair Arc keeping her irreplaceable presence alive and well in the past instead.)

1. Mitarai himself, unlikely considering his recent behavior, but plausible.
2. Chisa, whose weighty significance to the plot and themes of the show so far make her the most likely suspect. My guess is that her despairification process went bonkers compared to everyone else's, and she may have a split personality or something similar acting contrary to her character. Needless to say, this twist could go very well or very poorly depending on how it's developed.
3. The "13th Division Head" of the Future Foundation, a left field option that's impossible to predict with evidence but simply suspicious because of their absence from the tribunal when it was turned into a Killing Game. So who is this 13th Division Head? Well, there's only one significant character yet to re-enter the story: Chiaki Nanami. Making Chiaki the evil mastermind would definitely be a head-spinner, but there's no evidence either for or against it in the story so far, making it the greatest wild card possibility for good or for ill. It all depends on how Kodaka spins the reveal.

All we know for now is that six people are still alive, and thanks to the reveal of the Killing Game's grounds in some kind of underwater facility far away from the rescue team, we can say for sure that Hiro has not been included in that running tally. (In fact, Hiro's entire presence in the show was probably to skew the survivor numbers in early episodes to make sense without making us question why there was one extra person unaccounted for.) Four we know for sure: Makoto, Aoi, Mitarai, and Munakata. The two remaining survivors could be Kyoko, Sakakura, Chisa, or...someone else?

Whatever the case, the episode's final shot of a boat heading away from Jabberwock Island suggests that the Remnants of Despair may have survived their attempted execution and hijacked a ship to the final battle as well, unless someone entirely different is aboard. I still get the feeling that the Future Foundation is being held relatively close to the island, so hopefully this mystery ship won't have far to travel before we get those juicy answers.

Rating: A-

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Future Arc is currently streaming on Funimation.

Jake has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.