We’re going to try and stay away from spoiling much of it, although I’m sure we’ll have to spoil a few things here and there in order to discuss much.
I don’t think either of us will be 100% through by the time we do the cast, so we won’t be able to spoil the ending! Maybe we’ll have to do a second part where we spoil everything.
Speak for yourself. I finished the main game and went through the extra School Mode once too 
Not sure if you will see this before we record, but did you play the original PSP (or perhaps a Japanese or European Vita) version? There are a couple of things you mention that were different from what I encountered. You also refer to the names different than the game represents them when people are talking. Just curious if that is why?
I’m playing an English Translated Rom of the game. The localization isn’t official, but most of the translation should be pretty spot on. I don’t think they could have changed much of the already made graphics, I suppose some of the dialogue could be changed around here and there but I dont see it making much of a difference. Of the changes I have heard of and been informed about -
I believe in the Vita version the title of most of the students is ‘Ultimate’, such as ‘Ultimate High School Luckster’, or 'Ultimate Swimming Pro". In my version they are called Super High School Luckster or Swimming Pro, or sometimes Super Duper High School Luckster.
The names I use to refer to the characters are their full names I guess. The Vita version introduces their names and then uses some nicknames for some characters from what I can gather. Asahina is known as Hina, Hagakure is Hiro because his first name is Yasuhiro. Genocider Shou is known as Genocide Jack(Jill). Oowaru’s name is Mondo? Which is a pretty cool name for Oowaru.
Can’t really track down any differences in the story though.
Ah, okay. That explains it. The anagram thing is called Hangman’s Gambit in the US Vita version. The specific one you referred to does not use the same word either. It uses a slang term that is both a slur and does not refer to the same thing that the character has. I talk about that particular one in the podcast.
Thank you to everyone that submitted posts and emails about the game. Peter and I had a fun time recording yesterday, and included your thoughts throughout. It should be posted in the next couple days.
I listened through it last night while editing it, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. I just need to edit in a little bit more music, and I’ll have it up Tuesday morning for you guys. I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks!
There’s a STAGE PLAY!?!?!!! Sometimes I just really love the world.
The episode is live!!!
Give it a listen and let us know what you think.
I put this on its own feed since it’s definitely its own show. You can subscribe here with the RSS: http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1313/rss and it’ll be up on iTunes hopefully within the week.
Just finished listening. Great discussion! I did want to comment on one thing that you said, though.
I’m definitely one of the people that you mentioned that doesn’t notice or care about the social things that you took issue with, but there was one aspect that I was just confused about. You both were bothered by how Toko wanted to kill Chihiro after she found out Chihiro was male. It’s been quite a while since I’ve played the game, so I might be misremembering this, but I thought that it was pretty clearly established that Genocide Jill, like most serial killers, only has a certain type of victim that they are interested in, and for her it was adorable males. So, when she thought Chihiro was a girl, she was just completely off Toko’s radar. Once she found out that Chihiro was male, that then made her a viable target because she/he was so cute. I thought that was why she said that she should have killed Chihiro, not because of any kind of transsexual hatred or anything like that. Is that how you guys interpreted it?
Again, maybe I’m just not remembering some of the details about it, but that observation seemed odd to me. I suppose one could argue that the fact that Toko now does see her as a potential victim (by not accepting Chihiro’s presented gender as her true sex) could be socially insensitive, but that seems to me to be asking for an unreasonable and unbelievable amount of social sensitivity for someone who is a serial killer.
Anyway, great podcast. Now I’m all pumped up to play Ultra Despair Girls in a couple of weeks. I’m really excited to see what game you pick next for the podcast!
A great podcast! I gotta agree that I don’t really see the similarities between Dangan Ronpa and Persona 4 beyond a superficial level.
The creator interview reminded me of a neat fact about the Japanese voice acting. Apparently, the lady that does Monokuma’s voice in the Japanese version is a famous celebrity. She was the main character in a beloved children’s show for somewhere around 30 to 40 years. And she didn’t change her mannerisms from that character to Monokuma at all.
I mean, imagine if Mr. Rogers played a serial killer on True Detective and didn’t change his character one bit!
I think you are correct in why Toko said what she said. My problem was not with just that particular line, it was with the entire way the scene and the characters played out. The fact that all the characters immediately switched the gender pronouns they were using was bothersome. The discovery of the true “gender” felt like a cheap plot device and ignored the complexities of those within the cross dressing and transgender communities (both very different things). It felt inauthentic, and the way everyone treated gender in relation to the character’s genitals was insensitive and incorrect. At least that is the way it came off to me.
I really appreciate the feedback. I know that is a pointed topic to begin with, but I think these are the kinds of things worth having conversations over. I’m glad you liked the podcast overall. It was excellent to have your feedback for the show. I forgot to mention your line about Mondo’s hair. It was great.
Definitely let us know how you like Ultra Despair Girls. Sounds like you will be playing it before we get a chance to.
Oh, that does make it extra creepy.
There was a point in the interview that slipped my mind while we were recording. The creator mentions that he came up with the general concept of Monokuma in about ten minutes. I think that character is super memorable, and I imagine that they ended up polishing the character a lot more over time. Some of the parts of the story at the end that felt thin to me kept bringing me back to that quote though. I wondered if some of that had been conceptualized just as quickly. I felt like some of the bigger story was very generalized and they didn’t give a lot of specifics. Maybe that gets fleshed out more in the other games.
I’m with @headrollsoff, it was the switching of the pronoun that bothered me a little bit. I have a transgender friend, and she wants to be identified as a she, so that’s what I call her. I also didn’t like that Toko called her a crossdresser, but she is a serial killer character, so what would you expect? Other than that, Toko’s lines didn’t really bother me because it fit the character. I think that Chihiro would fit the profile of “adorable man” in the eyes of Toko. I wouldn’t expect a serial killer to be socially sensitive, so her lines were perfectly valid as a character. It was everyone else just instantly calling her a he. I definitely didn’t think about it too much as it was happening, it was only after I thought about it later how messed up the whole thing seemed. I don’t really think it affects my thoughts on the game overall though.
I love the feedback. I think we’re picking the next game here in the next day or so, and we’ll let you guys all know.
Just gave it a full listen. Pretty great! I think the breakpoints where the music clipped in was a bit sudden.
I think maybe you guys should have full on spoiled it and talked about the game and its ending, at least for the last part of it maybe as long as 10 minutes. There were some parts of the game I really wanted to know what you guys thought about. But I guess since Peter hadn’t finished the game yet that wasn’t a possibility. :V
And as for the game itself :
They used SKITSO for the Hangman’s Gambit ? That is terrible!
Also, very observant catch noticing that Sakura’s hands were not suppose to be covered in blood for Trial 4’s Climax Logic mode.
In the version of the game that I played (It was a PSP fan translation done by Project Zetsubou), while Fukawa (Genocider Shou) did make a lot of comments about the character Chihiro crossdressing, I think everyone else handled it pretty well. Not a lot of flipping in my version, the majority of them were just sad that he died. The use of the pronoun HE I think is appropriate as well, as in my version Chihiro isn’t someone who wholy identifies as female. His explanation to Mondo is that he is actually a male. He uses his female mask as a guise to call less attention to himself and as an excuse for being more mild-mannered. Mondo keeping his promise not to let anyone else know was pretty noble, even though he ended up killing him. I think this might be closer to what the original japanese version portrays because from what I can tell, most fan translations that I have played through rarely ever change the subject matter of their translated works, but I do always see official translating localizations changing aspects of the story to make the games more suitable for release in America.
Can’t wait to hear the next one.
Yeah the way Saturn’s describing it is how I remembered it too (and I played the same Vita version you guys did). It didn’t seem to me like Chihiro was actually presented as a transgender person, so that’s why the reaction confused me. No worries, though.
If you are thinking about Danganronpa 2, I would definitely recommend setting that one on easy. They ramp up the trial minigame stuff quite a bit, to the point where I found it really annoying (and I actually liked them in the first game). It’s a shame because the story is great in that one too, and it does help flesh out more of the overall story, but man the trials are a slog.
I did a video review of the second one that’s posted here on Grouvee, if anyone wants to know more.
Yikes… You are scaring me away from the second one! Is your video review spoiler free?
As for the gender pronoun usage. I agree that in the end the character identified as male, so HE was proper. However, all the characters switched to HE immediately before the reasoning was even revealed. They were equating gender to genitalia. The fact that the story eventually led to that usage being correct doesn’t change the way it was handled. It also mostly felt like a cheap plot device, and it didn’t really need to be there at all. I’ve seen some similar remarks in other reviews of the game that I have read since recording this, so I know we were not the only ones to feel this way. I can see the points being made though. I definitely appreciate the discussion.
Yup, totally spoiler free!
Cool. I just listened to it while I was doing some work on the computer. I think it made me more hesitant to try out the second. I will definitely play it, but it may go a little further down on the backlog list. Sounds like my problems with the first will be amplified here. I definitely still think games like this deserve to be made and I would rather see more of it than the bigger blockbuster titles.