samara, sugoi!

geo-litio: I dunno second attempt? ;; Quilavas are hard to...

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:16:06 -0400

geo-litio:

I dunno second attempt? ;;

Quilavas are hard to draw

Photo

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:14:13 -0400

i just think anyone with teeth like this is super fucking hot ok

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:11:57 -0400

i just think anyone with teeth like this

is super fucking hot ok

SDR2 spoilers I was telling alex abour DR1 and SDR2 because he got spoiled already so he dont...

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:08:59 -0400

SDR2 spoilers

I was telling alex abour DR1 and SDR2 because he got spoiled already so he dont care

and like I told him all the SDR2 people were bad and he was liek “wow I knew it”

“like they just look like a badder group of people like if you put the two casts next to each other and asked me what was the evil one I’d pick SDR2”

左右田メイン | アヅマ

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:06:45 -0400

左右田メイン | アヅマ

まとめ | ai@twitter

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:06:06 -0400

まとめ | ai@twitter

alex: his name is literally soda

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:04:47 -0400

alex: his name is literally soda

frickup replied to your post: frickup replied to your post: I’m just pasting… idk I loveu

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:04:09 -0400

frickup replied to your post: frickup replied to your post: I’m just pasting…

idk I loveu

frickup replied to your post: I’m just pasting this essay under a read more… Wtf nope wtf...

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:01:58 -0400

frickup replied to your post: I’m just pasting this essay under a read more…

Wtf nope

wtf do dis mean

my blanket smells like a cat that’s not good

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:13 -0400

my blanket smells like a cat

that’s not good

allis0ns-wonderland reblogged your video: the best fucking vine video ever P how insightful

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:44:17 -0400

allis0ns-wonderland reblogged your video: the best fucking vine video ever

P

how insightful

don’t tell me I’m not supposed to use first person in an academic paper I learned this...

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:42:39 -0400

don’t tell me I’m not supposed to use first person in an academic paper I learned this semester that in long ass papers it is inevitable

I’m just pasting this essay under a read more don’t make fun of me if it’s bad...

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:38:23 -0400

I’m just pasting this essay under a read more don’t make fun of me if it’s bad because I am literally awful

Norris Almare

Dr. Mary Ann Koory

English 480

20 May 2013

ダンガンロンパ希望の学園と絶望の高校生: A Modern Japanese Epic

The epic is ubiquitous. Many cultures around the world have their own epics which they cherish dearly. Classical antiquity had Homer, who created both The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Old English period had Beowulf, the most well-known of the works by the Anglo-Saxon culture. Earlier than even these was the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Two common denominators exist in these works. The first is that they take on a poetic form. Epics, by their strict literary definition, must be long poems. This form’s sheer vastness reflects both the grand themes and vast geographic coverage of the works.

The second denominator is that all these works come from older civilizations. These civilizations formed the backbone of the world as it exists today. Classical antiquity, for example, formed modern Western thought as Europeans looked back toward the ancients for answers during the Renaissance.

These two denominators define the primary epic. These epics existed before (or in the early stages of) writing itself, having been passed down as oral tradition. Secondary epics, such as Virgil’s The Aeneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost, responded to these oral traditions as well as started new traditions themselves. These traditions too, have passed, civilization advances away from the time of the secondary epic.

We are in a new era now: the era of the tertiary epic. Unlike primary or secondary epic, however, obvious, representative works do not exist yet, because we do not have a concrete definition of tertiary epic. What form does this kind of epic take? Is it restricted to the poem? What about theme or geographic vastness? Who are the characters? Are there still gods? Who is the hero and what makes him or her heroic?

To answer all these questions, we will examine a work called Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair. Danganronpa exhibits several epic conventions that, when analyzed, show that it can be seen as an epic work. While exhibiting epic traits and characteristics, however, it also diverges from epic expectation in a few ways. These ways, then, will be the defining point that differentiates primary and secondary epic from the tertiary epic. They include the mode of storytelling and the heroic qualities exemplified, just to name a few. Before we can look at these defining points, however, we must first have an understanding of the Danganronpa universe. We will briefly summarize DR and put it into context before moving on with the analysis.

To do so, we will rely on a translation done by Something Awful Forums user Orenronen. Orenronen writes that “The publisher calls it a “High-speed Mystery Action Adventure”. In reality it’s mostly a Japanese-style adventure game, but there’s some shooting in it” (Orenronen 2011). Because the game proceeds via text for a majority of the time, players call these adventure games “visual novels.” (Other visual novels include the legal procedural Phoenix Wright and the mystery drama 999.) The creators of DR, Spike, have divided the game into a prologue and six chapters. In the prologue, we learn more about protagonist Makoto Naegi and his admission into Hope’s Peak Academy, a school for prodigies. Naegi researches the incoming class, and learns of their success in various fields, ranging from gambling, writing, and swimming. Naegi has no prodigious talent, however, except for his “exceptional luck.” Hope’s Peak admits him after a nationwide lottery. In Chapter 1, Naegi and his 14 new classmates wake up after passing out, realizing they’ve been locked in the school. The main antagonist, Monobear, then appears and tells them that in order leave the school, one of them must murder another and get through a school trial without being caught as the culprit. Subsequent chapters show this “school life of mutual killing” take place, until six students are left. In the last trial, they defeat Monobear (who was the first to commit a murder but hadn’t been caught for five chapters) and are released from the school. During this final trial, the surviving six characters solve the overarching mysteries of the school, namely who masterminded the “game” and for what reason.

Now that we have a basic overview of the DR universe, we can go in-depth and analyze its use of epic convention. Using a list of epic conventions provided by Utah Valley University, we can look for instances of each convention and analyze their usages within the context of the work, before finally seeing how these all add up to a working definition of “tertiary epic.”

UVU notes that starting in medias res is one epic convention. DR also starts in medias res. In the prologue, the game shows us Naegi just entering Hope’s Peak Academy on the first day of school. Throughout the game, we are led to believe that the events of DR happen on the first day of school. Up until the final trial of the game, the readers have no idea that the events of DR actually happen two years after their admission into the school. According to the mastermind, Junko Enoshima, “Aren’t you listening?! That fuckin’ world itself is over! And it happened a year ago” (Orenronen 125). The students, then, actually had two years of regular school life before DR. Memories of this life, however, were taken away by Enoshima. That is why the students did not recognize each other in the prologue, even though they had known each other for two years. In the middle of their two year school life, the world ended in what split-personality Genocider Syo remembers as “The Worst, Most Despair-inducing Incident in the History of Mankind…” (125). Much like the Odyssey, which begins ten years after the Trojan War, so too does DR begin a long while after a violent, world-changing incident. This convention, starting in medias res, is not only present in DR, but its discovery actually helps defeat Enoshima.

Two more epic convention present in DR are the use of gods who interfere with mortal affairs, along with the use of epithets to characterize these gods. These characters are not “gods” in the sense of supernatural, all-powerful beings. However, each student is essentially a “god” in their respective field. We can use the paradigm of Greek Gods to prove that these characters also form a pantheon. Their “Super High School Level” epithet will also be useful in characterizing these people as gods.

The list of characters starts with Super High School Level Good Luck – Makoto Naegi, the protagonist, and only character who does not represent a god. Rather, he represents the typical epic hero, with his “talent” being nothing but good luck and optimism. SHSL Heir – Byakuya Togami is very forceful and authoritative. He seems to be the Zeus in this pantheon, as he exerts the most power. His status as heir to the Togami Conglomerate cements his place at the top of the class. After all, an “heir” assumes a “throne,” and that is just what he does. Though at times he can be abrasive or standoffish, he still favors our hero, much like Zeus favors Odysseus.

As we know, however, the one goddess who favors Odysseus more than any other is Athena. If Naegi is Odysseus, then SHSL Detective – Kyouko Kirigiri is Athena. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. Well, the battles in DR are trials, and as a SHSL Detective Kirigiri is always well equipped for battle. For most of the trials, her insights and evidence prove to be what Naegi needs to crack the case. For example, in Chapter 2, the group realizes that the murder victim, SHSL Hacker – Chihiro Fujisaki, was murdered in a room that only male students could enter. Because Fujisaki dressed as a girl, however, they all thought he was one. Kirigiri, the only one with the intuition to investigate the body, reveals that she found a penis on Fujisaki. She brings Chapter 2’s trial to a halt, saying that “…Why are you so sure she couldn’t enter the boys’ changing room? There is still another possibility that allows her to enter, isn’t there?” (41) before asking to stop the trial and examine the body one more time. She proves to everyone that Fujisaki is actually a boy, which allows them to finally figure out who murdered him. Because of her special ability, Kirigiri is able to aid Naegi just as Athena aids Odysseus.

Another character who seems to parallel a Greek mythological figure is SHSL Idol – Sayaka Maizono. In Chapter 1, Maizono forms a friendship with Naegi, pretending to really like him. However, she was just using him in order to frame him for a murder she was planning. SHSL Gambler – Celestia Ludenberg notes that “Maybe the reason she wanted to exchange rooms was… to push the blame for the murder into Naegi-kun… that’s probably what it was” (22.1). At this moment, we realize that Maizono used her power as a celebrity idol to seduce Naegi, much like the siren seduces Odysseus. Both these characters, deceptive songstresses, aim for the destruction of the hero by using their feminine wiles.

Of course, characters are not the only epic conventions in this work. The descent to the underworld, a clear indication of the epic, also makes an appearance in DR. In Chapter 5, Monobear brings the trial to an abrupt. Before solving the murder of SHSL Soldier – Mukuro Ikusaba, the students prematurely and erroneously vote Naegi the culprit, even though it was Monobear’s operator who committed the deed. Naegi’s execution, however, does not follow through. A virus in the network implanted by Fujisaki saves Naegi at the last moment. This moment marks the descent into the underworld. Monobears responds to this hacking by stating that “He’s just going to die slowly in a sealed basement full of nothing but garbage… In a certain sense, that’s a much better punishment!” (110). Here, at the geographic nadir of the school, Naegi receives his katabasis from Kirigiri, who selflessly follows him into the garbage. In Orenronen’s Update #112, Kirigiri informs Naegi of her secret investigations. She tells him that she has discovered the identity of the mastermind, a member of the terrorist group “Super High School Level Despair.” Kirigiri states “An organization acting only for the sake of despair. They’re the worst. The lowest of the low…” (112). At this moment, Naegi has that underworld realization so characteristic of epic works. He realizes that none of the remaining six students are the bad guys. Because of this katabasis, Naegi has a new goal of uniting those left alive, rather than having to suspect any of them. At the end of this update, Naegi thinks to himself, “That’s who Super High-school Level Despair are… Our true enemies.” This represents a breakthrough in the mysteries of the overarching story, and a clear move towards the final confrontation.

One epic convention related to this katabasis is the arming of the hero. According to Chapter 1’s Non-Stop Debate tutorial, “Your duty is to find lies and contradictions hidden in the testimonies… and use ‘Evidence Bullets’ to win the debate. For now, we will load only the Evidence Bullet you need into the Evidence Bullet Cylinder” (19). The Non-Stop Debate represents the typical battle within Hope’s Peak Academy, with evidence being the weapon. In fact, “Dangan Ronpa” literally translates into English as “Bullet Refutation.” The title itself references the battles that Naegi must win in order to escape the school and get home. These “evidence bullets” come from his own investigation, as well as testimony collected from the other students. Throughout each trial, Naegi must gather his bullets and use them to shoot down arguments. By doing this, he will, along with Kirigiri and Togami’s help, eventually out the murderer of the chapter.

These bullets are serve double duty in terms of epic convention, as they are not only weapons, but also epic catalogs. The bullets within the game menu form an epic catalog, with an in-depth description of each item. These lists get larger and larger as the game goes on, making it harder to choose the correct bullet to strike down a particular argument. For example, in Chapter 6, a battle starts between Monobear and Naegi, with Monobear posing the question “I tried to hide Enoshima-san’s image? Where’s your proof?!” (123). Naegi’s choices are “Evidence bullets: Photo of Kirigiri and the headmaster / The headmaster’s Electronic Student ID Card /Group photograph/ Emergency Interviews DVD / Mukuro Ikusaba’s profile,” with “Group photograph” being the correct bullet. In order to know which bullet is correct, however, Naegi needs to have intricate knowledge of each item on this list. If, for example, Naegi did not know realize that the group photographs do not have Enoshima’s face in them, then he would have lost this battle with Monobear. In this way, the epic catalog plays a bigger role in DR than in other epics.

One other epic convention is the geographic scope of an epic. According to UVU, the scope of the epic must cover an entire nation, or even the world. At first, DR seems to exemplify neither of those. After all, they students are locked in a school. It is just one building. How could DR be considered an epic when it does not have an epic scope?

As strange as it seems, this school is the whole world. It accomplishes this feat, of being both one building and the entire world, in two different ways. First, we find out in Chapter 6 that the students actually agreed to be locked in the school. In the chapter, Naegi comes to the realization that “The headmaster tried to protect us by turning the school into a shelter. He wanted to protect us from the despair-inducing incident outside… That’s why he said we may live the rest of our lives inside the school…” (126). When the students made the decision to lock themselves inside the school, the school became their entire world. Through their own free will, they formed their own world within the school. The fact that the school gets bigger each chapter furthers this notion. In Chapter 1, the students can only access the first floor. After each murder and school trial, however, successive floors become available to the students. Rooms such as an arcade, biology lab, garden, and art room appear on the upper floors. By using this mechanic, Hope’s Peak Academy feels larger than it actually is. The area that the students traverse becomes greater as the story moves on, just as it does in an epic journey.

The other way that the school is the whole world is the fact that the events within the school are a microcosm of the “Despair-Inducing Event” (essentially World War III) happening outside. In Chapter 6, Enoshima admits to broadcasting the events of the school throughout the entire world. At this moment, the story’s scope literally reaches the entire world. She says that “I wanted to show the world how Hope’s Peak Academy’s students, the symbols of Hope, kill each other” (126). The war happening outside then, between hope and despair, happens within the school as well. Those who become overcome with despair kill. Unlike the outside, however, the battles in the school are not between a terrorist group and the population. Rather, each chapter’s murderer embodies the traits that the terrorist group exemplifies. Hope Peak’s Academy, then, serves as a miniature stage to portray the goings-on of the entire world war happening around it. In this way, it is the whole world, and therefore worthy to be called an epic setting.

With these handful of epic conventions in place and analyzed, we can now move on to discussing the implications of them. In the history of popular visual novels, Danganronpa seems to be the only one to take on an epic scope. Let us recall the other works exemplary of this genre: the legal procedural Phoenix Wright and the mystery-drama 999. These works are the most popular visual novels, yet neither are epic. The lack of epic qualities used to be what made a visual novel accessible to its target audience. People who play these games are not looking for epic themes. They do not expect grand-scale battles between the ideals of hope and the disasters of despair. Both the PW and 999 series (as enjoyable as they are) are nothing more than a series of dramas. They do not embody the cultural ideal of hope that we value in today’s society. Naegi, however, does. His lack of a talent allows him to “grow the seeds of hope” (127) inside the readers as well. He says:

I’m a person who runs away at the mention of “the king’s road”. An average person among average people. That’s me. Even this orthodox introduction reflects this, doesn’t it? Well, if I’m forced to give one redeeming trait, I guess I’d say I’m a little more optimistic than most people. (1)

In the end, Naegi is all of us. Naegi, by being utterly ordinary in ever sense of the word, becomes a character with whom we can easily identify. That is why, when Kirigiri says “I guess we should call you ‘Super High-school Level Hope’… Shouldn’t we?” (127), she is really talking to every player and reader of the game. No visual novel before DR attempts to talk to its audience with this kind of scale before. Sure, Phoenix is a great defense attorney. He has never, however, been the embodiment of hope that a world plunged in despair needs. By attempting this epic theme, Danganronpa elevates the status of the visual novel. Thanks to DR, visual novels can begin to be taken just as seriously as other epic works. After a player experiences Danganronpa, he or she realizes that this medium can hold its own, even against the epic novel, film, and poem. Hopefully, the success of DR leads to a string of other epic visual novels, which lend themselves perfectly to the level of intertextual commentary found in other media.

who wants to read my dumbo essay about dangan ronpa

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:35:49 -0400

who wants to read my dumbo essay about dangan ronpa

megaman2: romeo and juliet is probably my favourite shakespeare play that i studied (we studied...

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:34:46 -0400

megaman2:

romeo and juliet is probably my favourite shakespeare play that i studied (we studied macbeth, hamlet and romeo and juliet) and i think

the best part about romeo and juliet is i hate every single character

because they seem like real people and act like real people who definitely pretty much exist in reality

real people who i would hate

I FINISHED MY ESSAY HAHAHAHHA

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:33:14 -0400

I FINISHED MY ESSAY HAHAHAHHA

laughingstation: people that have trouble gaining weight

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:35:44 -0400

laughingstation:

people that have trouble gaining weight

5.5 pages of dangan ronpa essay done

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:07:01 -0400

5.5 pages of dangan ronpa essay done

gothlolita: im Sorry but you two cant get the marriage. the bible said Adam and Eve not matthew and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 05:47:38 -0400

gothlolita:

im Sorry but you two cant get the marriage. the bible said Adam and Eve not matthew and ashley. come back when youve legally changed your names

so like (SDR2 spoilers to the end promise) Junko started SHSL Despair and that became like a cult...

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:49:04 -0400

so like

(SDR2 spoilers to the end promise)

Junko started SHSL Despair and that became like a cult and like she recruited people at the school, and I think after she had the Togami Conglomerate killed, she had SHSL Impersonator pretend to be Togami? and also she recruited Sonia and Kuzu for their political power and like???? that’s how she started WW3??? is this right??