Danganronpa V3 and Gender

Ok, so today I want to talk about something a little more… cultural? Dunno exactly what it fall under, but today I want to talk about Danganronpa V3 and gender.

Spoilers for Danganronpa 1, 2, and V3 follow.

No like I’m spoiling a ton seriously get out if you’re not done all 3.

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Danganronpa as a series has historically been, if not brilliant, at least ok with gender roles in plot. Girls in media have a bad habit of being passive, or revolving around another person, or maybe being taken out of the story/killed off to further a guy’s character development. It’s not exactly a good precedent to always follow, y’know?
 

Danganronpa usually gets around this, surprisingly. When the girls of the cast are killed, it’s usually not just like exclusively for the sake of another person, like Ibuki or Celeste. In cases where it does influence another strongly (See: Sayaka to Makoto or Peko to Fuyuhiko) it’s important to note that the characters have a ton of agency, like Sayaka trying to use Makoto as a scapegoat to escape. As well, all the characters are, well, their own characters, never really tied to one person unless that’s important backstory. One final note is that Danganronpa is rather “everyone’s fair game” too; it does this to the guys as well and the entire point of the story is that people are gonna die eventually. You’d be a fool to cry foul simply on the basis of someone dying in a killing game.

This isn’t to say Danganronpa is totally 100% great with gender roles, far from it. There’s plenty of issues (especially with the female cast) in their character designs and the scenarios they’re put into. But by and large, in the actual plot, Danganronpa is actually pretty good about gender!

...And then we get to V3. More specifically, the first case of Danganronpa V3, and the bait and switch we got with Kaede Akamatsu. Now, don’t get me wrong, for the most part I think V3 upholds the fine plot roles of previous games. Characters like Miu, Himiko, and Maki are written well in the plot and while I certainly have issues with their characters like I always have, most of the female cast works well in the plot… except for Kaede. 

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See, the issue with Kaede is that she’s the only character in the game who doesn’t quite feel like a full character - more specifically, she feels like a character made completely and 100% in reference to and for Shuichi at the end of it all. For pretty much the entire end chapter 1 I was thinking: “Holy shit, are they actually doing this”, which was then followed by “I’m… not sure I like this.”

I’d honestly love to live in a world where V3’s twist as is is great as I’d like it to be, because for all intents and purposes, I should love this twist unconditionally. It plays into the central theme of lies, it’s a fantastic way to show nobody is truly safe from death, and, y’know, holy heck a game in 2017 pulled a Metal Gear Solid 2. But there’s a really nasty edge to this, because quite frankly, killing off a female protagonist for a male one to take her place plays into some really uncomfortable tropes.
 

While not a highly researched source or anything, T.V Tropes has a fine page on the subject. Kaede is a textbook case of a sacrificial lamb: a character that only exists to die. If you look a bit closer at her it’s painfully obvious. She’s the one trying to keep the group together, in particular she helps soon-to-be-protagonist Shuichi quite a bit, and she’s overall probably the most pleasant and friendly person there is. So of course she’d get axed off.

This is a twofold issue: there is a very well documented history of women being killed off for the sake of a guy’s character advancement, and also a history of female characters revolving around those men.

To those points: yeah, pretty much. Kaede does nothing for the story except to die. I think they brought her up like less than ten times after chapter 1. Her entire purpose and character is built around being nice for the group (so it’s sad when she dies) and to help Shuichi. That is it. Kaede doesn’t feel like a full character, which is honestly shocking. Even the earliest deaths in the other games gave them specific motivations, and made them feel like real people, independant of the role they’ll need to play. Kaede feels totally hand crafted to fit the group dynamic, and also feels like her purpose in story is Shuichi.

(Note: I am well aware that may have been the point, considering the revelations at the end. However, I’m not to concerned with that, in all honesty. The fact was that a character was written this way in and out of universe.)

Stories cannot exist in a vacuum. I would love for this twist to be amazing, because in all but characters, it absolutely is. The problem is that, no, V3 does not exist in a vacuum, and you’re a fool if you think it can be that way. In playing this occurrence, this trope of the girl who only exists to die, 100% straight, the game plays into cultural norms that aren’t very comfortable. Maybe, in a couple hundred years, if we somehow get past all this, maybe we can then look at V3 without this baggage. 

But not now. Almost certainly unintentionally, it’s still a harsh reminder of these issues. If there even is another game, I hope they put more thought into these roles.