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thenewfuture · 8 months

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Ranking the Masterminds of DanganRonpa and Fanganronpas

Hey everyone. During this break, I wanted to do some fun rankings that have been scrambling around in my brain for a while now. And the first one we got is ranking all of the DanganRonpa Masterminds.

The real true culprit behind their respective killing games, the ones forcing everyone to kill and distrust one another. The big final boss!

Quick rules to explain the process here:

-While their core character will be taken into account I will primarily be ranking their status as a mastermind first and foremost obviously. How they handled their killing games, hiding their identity and motivations for doing so.

-Only masterminds from fangans I have seen will be ranked, so if there's any one you don't see here it's most likely because I haven't seen it, so don't bother asking.

-Oh, and one final thing of course...The following will contain massive spoilers for the main DanganRonpa series, and certain fangans, take with your own risk.

#8 Akira Tsuchiya and Narumi Osone

DanganRonpa Rebirth holds a special place in my heart; it was the first fanganronpa I had heard about being a big April Fools joke, but soon I discovered the fanmade rework and dubbing for this project known as Rebirth Voices. Remaking the series in a new way with new twists, new class trials, and of course new-ish masterminds. I say new-ish because Akira was the original mastermind of Rebirth vanilla while Voices added Narumi as an extra mastermind.

And while I do indeed like Rebirth and its cast, the masterminds here leave a lot to be desired... And maybe that's because the series was cancelled before their roles of masterminds could get rolling, but these two aren't much compared to others. While we may never know what could have been, I will instead rank them based on the outline the Rebirth Voices crew provided.

So first Akira is your basic despair-filled mastermind fare. Influenced by his grandma's teachings of despair, made him the next generation of despair, and said grandma was killed by Kego and he wanted revenge, yada yada yada. Like I said, standard fare. And in Rebirth Vanilla, I hear he made it so Ayumu never really had any bad luck which is...a thing I guess.

Compared to him however, Narumi is......interesting... So she was in a rights group for Ultimates but lost her dad due to riots and so....joined Akira to make a killing game for.....f-for the sake of hope and.....and intended for Ultimates to be seen as saviors just like back then-

What the Nagito Komaeda, Hope Bagel Bullshit?!

Like....like why?! What? What for any of this?! I kinda get that in order for them to make this series they couldn't just have Akira be the mastermind, but seriously, what kind of reasoning is that?! And in chapter two, she used a corpse of one of her siblings to save Kego by have him swap places with him; WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?!

Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion because like I said, the series is cancelled and maybe they could have salvaged this storyline, but as it stands; these two don't have going for them and as a result, DanganRonpaRebirth seemingly ends right back where it started; as one big joke no one talks about anymore...

#7 Tsumugi Shirogane

Oh man guys! Are you ready? This is it, a new chapter for the DanganRonpa franchise, a killing game without Junko Enoshima to be a part of us! Sounds spectacular! How could they fuck this up?

Oh, I'll tell you how. Maybe it starts with having a story so gut-punchingly meta it basically hurts any form of theorizing and creation of any fanwork and community building, also pull the rug under the players' feet and into a ice cold pool of water so many times they develop psychological trust issues along with hypothermia, and to cap it all of, have the mastermind be so, FUCKING, BORING!

I'll go into my feelings about V3 as a whole another time, but for now I'll just stick to talking about Tsumugi, and oh my word, is this girl a whole bag of nothing true to her word. Like, I should feel something she's revealed to be the mastermind just like Shuichi was, but I just don't. I should feel some sort of betrayal and anxiety from the sheer thought that it could be someone we spent so much time with over the course of the game, THIS IS WHAT MYSTERY GAMES LIVE FOR, and yet that feeling never comes with her. You know why?

Because Tsumugi has nothing going for her.

Name me something she did over the course of this entire game. Anything, anything at all, anything of note. Go ahead, I'll wait. I'll be right here.

...........................

You can't think of anything can you? Not one single solitary thing Tsumugi has accomplished. Not one character moment. None, hmm?

"Well she was apart of the Bugs Meet and Greet" So were other characters and even Himiko and Tenko had a funny moment in there, next. "She was in Angie's students council group" Again, so were others and that cult accomplished a grand total of nothing as a result, try again. "That...that one cg in her Ultimate lab" You're addicted to porn. "Oh, what about that one time in the NWP with Shuichi" That moments amounts nothing more than establishing an alibi for the two of them and even when it comes into question the lie Shuichi told to get Kokichi to cough up his involvement, Tsumugi sweeps that shit right under the rug. Meaning this whole game, the mastermind has left virtually no impression until the very end. Do you realize how messed up that is!?

For out the entire duration of the killing game, Tsumugi has thing of note, "being so plain" It's her whole schtick.

Plain plain plain. Plain plain plain plain. Plain plain plain plain plain plain. Plain. Plain Plain Plain Plaaaaaaain.

Plain, plain plain plaaaaaain

Plain!

PlANE!

PLAINE!

PLAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

And it wouldn't even be that bothersome, if we were SHOWED how she was plain. I think this video goes into detail why Tsumugi just saying she's plain doesn't work too well. Because all she's doing is saying it. No examples whatsoever about this phenomenon. In Fire Emblem Awakening, there's this character Kellam, who has many supports dedicated to how he doesn't stick out and how others easily don't see him, Tsumugi doesn't have that. In Blowback, Akeru is so good at being a silent and invisible ninja, that hardly anyone sees or hears her, Tsumugi doesn't have that. Even Makoto, Komaru and Hajime, admit to themselves and others that they are so ordinary to others based on the things they like; Tsumugi gets none of that!

Why can't Tsumugi be shown being plain and forgotten? Be shown taling and being ignored by others, being shown that she heard or witnessed an event or conversation and wasn't noticed because she's so plain and inactive. Or be shown wearing something ridiculous and no notices her at all. Show, not tell, people, show, not tell!

Another thing I want to address real fast is how many think that Tsumugi is dangerous because she helped the killing game go on for like....53 seasons. And like.......no. At least I don't think so. Tsumugi kinda gives off the vibes that she was just an intern at TeamDR and was given the chance to participate in a few killing games, and mastermind the V3 one. But apparently fucked up so much that she ended the series in its entirety. Oops. In the pregame world that V3 is trying to tell, I just get the vibes that Tsumugi is just a massive DanganRonpa fan and nothing more.

We could had great things coming from having a brand new mastermind this game, but if we were just gonna get stuck with this bluenette plain Mary Jane here, I'd rather have it be Junko for the 53rd time honestly. At least then it'd be consistent.

#6 Kazou Tengan

Hey guys, DR3 sucks.

*Wooing and clapping ensues from the audience*

Thank you, thank you. Good, now that I've gotten the easy bait out of the way. Onto Tengan.

I will give props to the DanganRonpa 3 team, it's not Junko Enoshima again; let alone a young girl this time. But an old man. Okay....okay...it's different at least. Why did he become a mastermind in the place?

"He became brainwashed by watching a despair video given to him y Chisa" ......Huh....? O-Okay, I guess... H-His motivation for the game at least...?

"He wanted Ryota to use his talent to brainwash the world into hope" ..................huh.....? What...what....what the fu-

This seems like a last minute decision, like they just chose a random name out of a hat or flung a dart towards a spinning wheel. Of all characters they could have chosen to be the mastermind of the final killing game, all the Future Foundation Heads, and all past characters leading up to this point. They choose...Tengan... Why, exactly? Up until this point, Tengan has been a side character, his only moment of note is kicking Juzo's ass(to the praise of many), and fighting with Kyosuke. Again, none of this sets him up to be swayed towards despair. Even after his death he's rarely talked about, suppossedly left a dying message in his blood, but again, even then, Tengan leaves little to no impact on this story.

He shows up so few times in Despair Arc for him to matter, and like I said, does very little in Future Arc. So it really is like they just chose him randomly. And so unlike my huge rantings about Narumi and Tsumugi at their roles of being the mastermind, Tengan doesn't even warrant enough to invoke any emotion out of me. He's just mastermind simply cuz...that's all. It says a lot about this series when even Kodaka doesn't like that the anime made Tengan the mastermind. But in any case, if we can take away one thing from this dissapointing mess; it's that NicoB was right once again with his crazy bullshit predicting powers.

#5 Izuru Kamukura

Top five baby, woo!

Now Izuru is interesting because, even though he techinally counts as a mastermind, he really......isn't in the grand scheme of things. Let me explain...

He is the one to plant the virus into the Neo World Program, that much is true, but in DR2 we're simply told about his actions and technically don't even get to meet the guy face to face. So one could make the argument that is really was just Junko, again. It wasn't until Despair Arc of DanganRonpa 3 that we truly get to see Izuru's character and what he's like. And I do like Izuru as a character, I think he's incredibly interesting. But as a mastermind....eh...

Izuru is neutral, let's just get right to the chase, Izuru is true neutral. He could care less about any ideals of hope or despair, he just lacks any empathy or any human emotions for that matter and just wants to go with whatever doesn't bore him. He's not overly edgy, evil, dark story, Shadow the Hedgehog person that most portray him as. He really is.....just neutral about everything. He only goes with Junko because she proved to him how unpredictable despair can be, which is why if literally anyone else got to him first, like Chiaki or Chisa, maybe the Tragedy wouldn't have occurred!

Wow guys, could you imagine that. What if we treated Izuru as an actual person, and not some lab experiment. Fascinating!

Izuru was quite literally a means to an end for Junko Enoshima, and I've feel like we've just scratched the surface of his potential. But as it stands, Izuru isn't really evil just misunderstood.

#4 Utsuro and Akane Taira

There is quite a lot to talk about with both Utusor and Akane, so I'm just going to break them up first.

-4a. Utsuro.

Utsuro is....fascinating to me. There are time where I like him more than Izuru; a much more interesting and relatable backstory, a proper hand in the story he derives from, and we do see him emerge at the final trial of DRA rather than just others talking about him. And then there are times....when I don't like him as much as Izuru. It's no surprise that DRA is literally just DanganRonpa 0.5, with A LOT of characters and trials mimicking the first game and even pulling from UDG and DR2. "A somewhat demigod bored of the world helps out Junko Enoshima just to see what despair is like and helps her achieve her goal" Golly, where have I heard that before?

And to make matters worse comes his innate ability, what he's known for; Divine Luck. Unlike Izuru who has multiple talents and therefore has many abilities at his disposal to take care of any and all threats that could come his way, Utsuro just has luck. And not just any luck, mind you. Luck so strong it nearly bends reality itself like the Netflix's Live Action Death Note movie to make whatever Utsuro wants, when he wants it. And therein lies the problem.

Utsuro's Divine Luck is so great, you can ask literally how he did anything and the answer is simply: Divine Luck did it.

"How did Junko's plan go so smoothly?" Divine Luck did it.

"How did Utsuro swap places with Yuki so easily?" Divine Luck did it.

"How did Utsuro get so much food and money when he was alone and starving?" Divine Luck did it.

"How did Tsurugi survive getting shot point blank at his temple?" Divine Luck did it.

"How did Akane survive with her wound and nearly drowning in the ocean?" Divine Luck did it!

"HOW DOES THE DAMN SUN AND MOON RISE?!"

WHO CARES?! ANAKOS DID IT! DIVINE LUCK DID IT!

It really gets worse in SDRA2 when basically all of Void, Mikado especially, are just sucking his dick dry essentially because emo demigod boys are just that damn hot. It really is a coin flip on whether I like Utsuro or not.

-4b. Akane Taira

Now onto the hyper energetic and emotional side to our blank and emotionless trouble maker.

Akane Taira I can say is much more fleshed out and interesting compared to her master. First off, her story of being lonely and on the streets forced to make ends meets by doing jobs as a maid is honestly really sad and compelling. She's Yuki/Utsuro's main support throughout the killing game and helps him on many occasions. So to ultimately reveal her true nature by the end of chapter five is such a gut-punch to my emotions. (Take notes, Tsumugi!)

That being said; there isn't really that much different compared to what we've seen of Akane previously and her despair persona. Just that she's really acrobatic and horny, I suppose... Which isn't really bad thing I'd say, she gets the jobs done well.

Her legacy spreads and haunts the Kisaragi Foundation in SDRA2, Akane has left a lasting impression on the surviving trio that the mere thought of her coming back sends them into shivers and willing to do anything to prevent that from happening, and you can mainly see it from how they treat Sora when they finally come together. But Akane is mainly following orders and whatever Utsuro wants, so like Izuru if Utsuro was just found by literally someone good, I'm sure Akane would've turned out fine as well.

And the interesting thing about Akane is much like how others are hurt by Akane's betryal, Akane has come to grow close with her classmates as well. She wants Master Utsuro back but at the same time she doesn't want them to die either. She has a heart, she's compassionate, she understands, she empathizes.

These two are really quite something, and I do like them. But there are things about these two that hold them back for me and just shy away from making the top three.

#3 Junko Enoshima

Here she is everybody! Junko-MotherFuckin'-Enoshima! The bitch that just keeps on coming back! The one that started it all!

Junko has a rep for coming back so many damn and being ludicrously tied to DanganRonpa's man lore and literally every other's story. Started the Tragedy, blackmailed Juzo, basically groomed the Warriors of Hope and leaned demigods like Izuru and Utsuro to her cause, all so flawlessly that one would call her a "Mary-Sue" in any other sense. So with all this in mind, why is she so high on the list?

Well, one of the reasons is that most of the other candidates SUCK! And the other is that......she just works.

Junko Enoshima is shallow, incredibly so. She causes Despair, just for the fun of it. She has no sad or tragic backstory, no reason to this other than cause she can. She is despair incarnate, causes Despair for Despair's sake, and there's nothing more to it than that.....and that works.

Sometimes, you don't need a relatable villian for your story. Sometimes, a bitch just evil. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.And because she works so well it good explain why she keeps coming back. She's the Bowser to our Mario, the Dr. Eggman to our Sonic the hedgehog, the Ridley to our Samus Aran, the Xehanort to our Sora. We've peaked with her and there can hardly be any other villian to replace her. And with a story as wacky sounding as DanganRonpa, a hammy and almost cartoony villian such as her can only live in this strange world.

Junko works when you just stop thinking about her. Her motivations, her character, her personality, they all answer for the simple sake of despair. Like I said, incredibly shallow like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. But they're typically the best and most impressionable villains around.

#2 Monaca Towa

Pickle Satan!

I said we've peaked with Junko and none can really compete with her as a mastermind of a villian for this series, and I do mean that. But Monaca Towa here just may come close.

She's like Junko in almost every possible way. Sociopathic nature, manipulates people psychologically, and uses others like tools with no remorse for her actions. Saying Monaca here is FUCKED UP, would be a huge understatement of the century. But on the other hand, unlike Junko; you can kinda understand where Monaca is coming from. Abandoned by her birth mother to live with her abusive father and step-brother who obviously don't give two craps about her and make her know it. And apparently the treatment is so bad, when Monaca shows up one day with a wheelchair, they don't question why. Telling, isn't it?

While she's immensely smart of her age, she still is just a kid. Throwing temper tantrums when things can't go her way and using her cute looks and status as a child to trick others into working for her. She is vile, Chapter 4 will make you know this with what she did to Nagisa. And was already showed signs of being heartless when she nearly got the WOH to jump off the school rooftop, remember, this was BEFORE Junko showed up.

Monaca was perfect to be a complete mastermind, Ultra Despair Girls set her up to be the next Junko Enoshima, and when she finally comes back in DR3....they just throw it away anticlimactically and send Monaca into space.....sure I guess... Though it is kind of funny in a way, like she did not DR3 so much she yeeted herself out of the plot. I respect it.

I do like Monaca being as unsympathetically as Junko, but there are times when I do want her to be better, she is still just a kid after all. It's not her fault that she grew up in a shit environment. But then again, that's what makes Monaca so fascinating. There are many sides and many layers to dissect her, to pick a part bit by bit, it's intriguing to me.

It's with these reasons why I think Monaca is an amazing mastermind going by the main series timeline. .....Buuuuuutttt....if we were to include fangans into the mix. I think one does beat her.

#1....Mikado Sannoji

Behold, ladies and gentlemen! The master of dimensions the pleaser of crowds, Mikado Sannoji; Charming Magician!~

Mikado checks every box for me. Cool design? Check! Great personality? Check! Hammy? Check! Unrentlessly eeeevil? Checkity check check!

I do believe it was a stroke of PURE, GENUIS to unviel Mikado as the mastermind in the early prologue. Like, HOLY SHIT! The mastermind's right there! Oh my god! What a fucking twist to start off with!

Mikado is so charming with his eccentric personality and unhinged abilities as a magician, that for like two chapters you kind of forget he's the mastermind!

Like look at him! Look at this silly dude!

So funny, so witty, so goofy!

So, waitwaitwait, go back-

Waitwaitwait, this isn't right. Go back, go back!

OHMYGODGOBACK!!!

...ahem....like I was saying. even though Mikado is silly, I don't think he's so silly he ruins the narrative. It's a perfect balance if you ask me.

The mysteries surrounding him and his power of the other Void members are not to be trifled with. He's the boss for a reason folks, don't forget it. But because he was revealed so suddenly there are at times a lot of humorous moments with the cast where they either ignore him, kick him out of activities, or just straight up tell him to die.

And what I like most about is....finally...FINALLY GUYS....it's a mastermind....WITH NO RELATION TO JUNKO ENOSHIMA WHATSOEVER!

WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WE DID IT! WE CAN HAVE A GAME WITHOUT HER! FUCK JUNKO ENOSHIMA! HE DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT BITCH! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

...I mean he does kind of copy her plan to use the Neo World Program, but Mikado could not literally give a fuck about Junko. He's all about that Divine D as I said before.

If there's one thing I can say I don't like about Mikado, its that once chapter 6 rolls around he just becomes another typical, "human are inferior to my AI genuis. Gwahahaha" stereotype that kind of kills his whole magician he vibe he had going. And his plan literally factored on him not even thinking that Akane would be the one to have Divine Luck when she emerged from the ocean. My man has linear thinking. If you pointed this out to him I'm pretty sure he'd explode.

But despite all that, Mikado is clearly set on his goal and will stop at nothing to achieve it, and DAMN NEAR SUCCEEDS I WILL ADD! He won the chapter 5 trial and everyone would have died had the Kisaragi Foundation not intervened, by all accounts, Mikado won. That is INSANE! And I love SDRA2 for breaking the molds of past DanganRonpas! With all that said, I tip my hat to the AI magician.

Mikado Sannoji is my favorite mastermind, personally.

-Mod

#the new future #mod freeze #ranking #danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 #danganronpa 3 #danganronpa ultra despair girls #danganronpa another despair academy #super danganronpa another 2 #danganronpa rebirth

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