Like Persona, it deals with themes of individual desire vs. societal pressure, and it STRIVES to be very honest and imaginative about its’ characters relationships with themselves, the world around them, and each other. This usually gives us a cast that feels a lot more like people than your typical anime shlock, and they tend to leave memorable impressions on me.

It helps that the games are honest in dealing with themes like abuse of all kinds, lust, escapism (including religious/cultish escapism which is fascinating), and apocalyptic, suicidal ideation, it all just…it speaks to me a lot, and its cool? Junko is such a cool fucking concept, and also a muse of doom, and i dig everything the games are about CONCEPTUALLY.

In EXECUTION, Dangur Ranpo is ALSO like Persona in that it’s CONSTANTLY undercutting its extremely powerful themes and writing to pander to what i’ll call Shit Anime Tropes–objectifying its female characters (poor fucking mikan in dangan ronpa 2, GOD), maintaining the “humor” value of the Lecherous Dudes (why the fuck is Souda not dead, thanks?), and skimping out on the LGBT rep it flirts with (everything with Chihiro, lgbt themes being either relatively scarce or usually linked to “fucked up” characters like Mikan or Komaeda).

In sum total, both end up being works I feel profoundly frustrated by because thematically and artistically they speak to me like little else, but their messages are constantly muddled by the regurgiation of fucked up gender essentialism/heteronormativity/male gaze that pervades so many lazy Shit Anime Tropes, which is profoundly alienating to me as a queer dude.

bla bla different cultures yeah, i don’t really think culture is above criticism any more than art is, and anyway i interacted with these properties primarily through the work of professional localization teams meant to transfer their themes to something resonant with the audience i originate from. as far as i’m concerned, the reproduction of those shitty habits constitutes an automatic betrayal of artistic integrity, so both franchises would be massively improved by distance from That Bullshit. 

This isn’t even like, a political thing? It’s mostly just that I want more honest, less lazy writing. Stories about the inherent personhood of all and rising to find yourself through the unfair pressure of The System shouldn’t default to like, mocking overweight people, you know? I know what these writers are capable of because they routinely brought me to tears with euphoria with their storytelling. They can do better.