Uplink 32

Uplink
32
August 2014
The Mobile
Gaming Issue
Danganronpa: the World's
First Smartphone Spectacular
NOTICE
By order of
Monokuma
this edition of
Uplink is
SPOILER FREE!
Introduction
Twenty-first century history neither repeats nor rhymes – it just accelerates. It took
thirteen years for the US plutocracy's evil, monstrous neocolonial Terror War to experience a
complete and shattering defeat. But it took only four months for the Russian petro-plutocracy's
evil, monstrous colonial war on Ukraine to experience a similar total meltdown. We'll have more
to say about the terminal crisis of the Eurasian petro-plutocracies in future issues (a brief,
mysterious hint: goodbye 4-BRICs, hello 5-SEEAS), but this edition of Uplink focuses on a
rather different mode of anti-neoliberal struggle.
This is the cultural struggle against neoliberalism taking place in the field of mobile
videogames. Ever since the mass smartphone market emerged back in 2007, gamers and cultural
critics have debated what new narrative forms would flourish on cellphones, the planet's newest
and most ubiquitous computing platform. Would smartphones simply copy genres already
perfected on consoles and PCs? Or would they generate entirely new aesthetic forms? Could
smartphones possibly be a venue for serious cultural productions, and if so, how? Read on to find
out!
NO SPOILERS: WE MEANT IT.
As stated above, this edition of Uplink will
not contain a single spoiler of any significant
secret, revelation, or plot twist of any iteration of
the Danganronpa franchise.
We urge readers to purchase official copies
of the game to help support the talented
developers at Spike Chunsoft, as well as the
amazing voice-actors they work with.
Happy Reading!
Danganronpa: The World's First Smartphone Classic
One of the paradoxes of the mobile videogame culture is that while handheld gaming
devices have been around for thirty-five years (little-known trivia fact: the first mobile device
with cartridge-based games was not Nintendo's enormously popular Game Boy, which debuted
in 1989, but Milton Bradley's 1979 Microvision),1 the technological limitations of these devices
put drastic limits on the audiences they could reach, and the stories they could tell. For the most
part, mobile games were either children's toys or simple audio-visual distractions.
This did not fundamentally change until the era of truly interactive portable digital
devices (a.k.a. smartphones). In 2007, Apple's iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market with
its touchscreen interface and seamless web integration, helping to drive world smartphone sales
to 122 million that year. Smartphone apps and the open source Android platform expanded the
market further, driving prices down and boosting smartphone sales to 968 million in 2013.2
One of the most important contributors to the nascent field of smartphone gaming was
Sony's Playstation Portable (PSP), a dedicated handheld gaming console first released in 2005.
There were two PSP games, in particular, which hinted at what was possible on mobile systems.
In 2006, Level 5's Jeanne D'Arc delivered one of the best role-playing videogames of its time on
any platform. The game is a high-fantasy version of the classic Joan of Arc tale, and generated
superb story-telling through credible characters, top-notch voice-acting, a memorable soundtrack, and strategic, multifaceted game-play.
Four years later, Ready At Dawn delivered a stellar incarnation of Sony Santa Monica's
God of War mythological action-adventure franchise on the PSP, in the form of God of War:
Ghost of Sparta (2010). The events of this game occur directly following the events of the
original God of War (2005), but just prior to the events of God of War 2 (2007). Although
designed to be a handheld title, the complexity of the storyline, the depth of the characterization,
the quality of the art-design, and the ingenuity of the game-play are the narrative equal of the two
other high points of the series, namely God of War 2 (designed for the Playstation 2 and released
in 2007) and God of War 3 (designed for the Playstation 3 and released in 2010).
Both Jeanne D'Arc and Ghost of Sparta proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that mobile
devices could deliver interactive experiences equal to anything on consoles or PCs. That said, the
relevance of these two games to the emergent field of smartphone gaming was somewhat limited.
The reason is that both games were successful adaptations of existing console genres or
franchises to handhelds, rather than being mobile experiences from the start.
It is worth remembering that smartphones are touchscreen devices, controlled by one or
two fingers or finger-swipes at a time. This interface does not mesh well with the complex
control systems favored by traditional role-playing videogames. It is also difficult to reconcile
with the frenetic button-pressing and epic visual spectacles of the action videogame genre.
Enter Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa, the world's first smartphone spectacular. The first
two games of the series, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010) (hereafter referred to as
Danganronpa 1) and Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Academy (2012) (hereafter
referred to as Danganronpa 2) were originally released for the Sony PSP and PS Vita platforms,
and later published as Japanese-only iOS and Android games (official English-language text
versions of the game for smartphones are not yet available, unfortunately). In February 2014, the
English-language version of Danganronpa 1 was released on the PS Vita, while the Englishlanguage version of Danganronpa 2 is coming this fall.
Danganronpa 1 begins, like so many other Japanese relationship-building videogames,
with a gaggle of sixteen young people arriving for their first day at an elite post-secondary
school, the world-renowned Kabougamine Academy. At first glance, the new students seem to
have walked straight out of the pages of a Tokyo teen fashion magazine. There is the familiar
otaku (comics nerd), the athlete, the biker, the singer, ad infini-J-pop-itum. The stereotyping
seems to deepen when we learn that most of these students were admitted to Kabougamine
because they had some unique talent or skill which distinguished them from thousands of other
applicants, i.e. they seem embody a series of positive stereotypes.
But suddenly, everything changes. With a shock, players learn that what seemed to be a
benevolent institution of higher learning is, in reality, a high-tech prison (note that what follows
are not spoilers, since the game's basic scenario has been heavily advertised by Spike Chunsoft).
A strange animatronic teddy bear which calls itself Monokuma (the name literally means,
“Monobear”) appears. It proclaims that it is the headmaster of the school, and that there is only
one way students can ever leave the academy: students must kill at least one (but no more than
two) of their fellow classmates. After each killing, the remaining students must investigate the
murder and conduct a trial. If they correctly identify the perpetrator in the course of the
investigation and trial, the killer is executed, and everyone else survives. If they accuse the
wrong person, everyone is executed except the real killer, who gets off scot-free and is permitted
to leave the academy. Needless to say, the subsequent storyline revolves around whether the
students can find a way to band together to resist this insanity, or whether they fall prey to
internal squabbling and mutual killing.
Connoisseurs of Japanese pop culture will know that this story outline had its Ur-model
in Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000), the morbidly satiric action film adapted from Koushun
Takami's best-selling 1999 novel by the same name (incidentally, Battle Royale also helped
inspire Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games novels and films, a franchise launched in 2008). In
Battle Royale, a repressive government forces a group of randomly selected high school students
to wage war against each other, the premise being that only the final survivor is allowed to
escape.
However, Danganronpa made some key alterations to Takami's original storyline.
Whereas Battle Royale was a protest against the viciousness of Japan's business culture and the
specifically Japanese phenomenon of cram schooling, Danganronpa targets something much
bigger target than any national elite or even nation-state. More importantly, the true appeal of
Danganronpa is not its action scenes, although these are compelling enough, but its character
development.
Instead of cardboard heros or cookie-cutter villains, the Kabougamine students turn out to
be complex and fully-rounded human individuals. They have their share of realistic strengths,
and they also have realistic (and mostly endearing) flaws. Special mention should be made of
Kazutaka Kodaka's superb script and storyline, which delivers crackerjack dialogue and excellent
pacing, while maintaining an overall trajectory of ever-increasing tension. The dialogue is
complemented by Rui Komatsuzaki's top-notch character designs, which feature subtle and
detailed facial expressions for each character. The bulk of the story is narrated through comicstrip panels, featuring static shots of characters and appropriate voice-acting or text dialogue.
Two sample screenshots of these panels are shown below. Note the clean, simple
interface, perfect for smartphones and handhelds, the sophisticated character designs, and the
complex facial expressions:
Table 1. Mobile-friendly visual design.
Kirigiri in Danganronpa 1.
Mioda in Danganronpa 2.
The result combines the concision of a cinematic storyboard with the narrative depth of a seasonlong TV series, and can easily run on even the least powerful smartphone.
The mobile design of Danganronpa is also apparent in its game-play, which consists of
two main activities. The first activity is relationship-building, wherein players visit and interact
with other characters to acquire information, stories and skill points. These open-ended
sequences are important for character development, and for replayability. Since not every
character will survive until the end of the story, certain conversations require replaying earlier
sequences.
The second, more linear activity consists of the investigations and subsequent trials.
During investigations, players systematically comb the crime scene for evidence to present in the
trial. During the trials, players perform a variety of mini-games. These mini-games include word
association puzzles, rhythm games, logical puzzles, and a few simple movement-based and
point-and-click games. In keeping with its core focus on character development, the physical
dexterity required to solve these mini-games is kept to a minimum, and the game-play controls
are simple and intuitive for touchscreen users. The true challenge of these mini-games is not
physical dexterity, but the mental effort involved in solving logical puzzles. Players must piece
together clues and logically deduce what happened at the crime scene, while a real-time clock or
timer ticks down (at normal difficulty levels, players are given adequate time to solve these
puzzles, and have the additional option of saving their progress).
This mobile-centric game-play is supported by an excellent sound-track, created by
veteran videogame composer Masafumi Takada. Takada is most famous for his solid work on
Shinji Mikami's brawler God Hand (2006), as well as on Suda51's (Goichi Suda) offbeat,
satirical action-thriller No More Heroes (2007). That said, Takada's work on Danganronpa is in a
class all its own (for audiophiles, fans have uploaded a playlist of the sound-tracks for
Danganronpa 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeitvjGdgI&list=PLU4ktq2pWONtJ7o5pLZyWJc88nttIzMKx and a similar playlist for Danganronpa
2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PQ2NiMSXA&list=PLU4ktq2pWONvsyBd_LrTVX8Et-gp0th4a). Takada's sound-tracks generate a
wealth of emotional affect, ranging from morbid anxiety to comic reassurance, and from
moments of nonstop terror to passages of calm redemption. They also generate thrilling tension
during the trial sequences, especially during the rhythm mini-games.
In addition to this fantastic sound-track, the Japanese-language voice actors deliver a
stellar performance, comparable in its power and subtlety to those previous high-water marks of
videogame voice-acting, Final Fantasy 12 (2006) and Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008). Every single
character is voiced with verve and personality, and when bad things happen to characters we
have come to care about, we feel the crushing weight of the tragedy in our very bones. (One
word of caution: the English-language voice-acting does not do justice to the Japanese original.3
For the true Danganronpa experience, we recommend listening to the Japanese-language track
with the English subtitles turned on.)
While every single one of the Japanese-language performers are excellent, special
mention should be made of the voice of Monokuma. While serving as the main antagonist of the
storyline, Monokuma is nevertheless a complex character, whose palpable villainy is leavened by
layers of deep ambivalence and bouts of occasional whimsy. Some of the most ingenious
sequences in Danganronpa are dream-sequences which occur when the protagonists (Naegi in
Danganronpa 1 and Hinata in Danganronpa 2) fall asleep and have a series of recurrent dreams
called “Monokuma Theater”. In these dream-sequences, Monokuma is cast as a vaudeville
entertainer on a theatrical stage, performing skits which range from the occasionally allegorical
to the completely ludicrous.4
Monokuma is thus that rarest of all things in videogame culture, a credible and genuinely
charismatic anti-hero. One of the keys to its charisma is the performance of veteran voice actress
Nobuo Noyama. For twenty-six years, Noyama was the iconic voice of the sweetly benevolent
robotic cat Doraemon in the long-running Doraemon anime TV series (1979-2005). Under
Noyama's deft direction, Monokuma's voice combines irresistible charm with terrifying
malevolence.
Not to be outdone, the voice of the main protagonist of Danganronpa 1, a young student
named Naegi, is superbly voiced by Megumi Ogata. This is Ogata's second performance of a
lifetime, the first being her voice-over as Shinji Ikari, the young boy who is the main character of
Hidaeki Anno's epochal anime TV series Neon Genesis: Evangelion (1995). (Ogata also delivers
an outstanding performance as Komaeda in Danganronpa 2). In like manner, Danganronpa 2's
main protagonist, Hinata, is voiced by Minami Takayama, in a tour de force which equals the
standard set in her previous role as the voices of Kiki and Ursula in Hayao Miyazaki's classic
anime film Kiki's Delivery Service (1989).
To give you a sense of the depth and sophistication of the Japanese voice-actors, here are
selected excerpts of their backgrounds and prominent roles:
Table 2. Selected Characters and Voice Performers In Danganronpa.
Danganronpa
Voice Performer
Background/Previous Roles (list not
Character
exhaustive)
Aoi Asahina
Chiwa Saito
Singer, anime
Junko Enoshima
Megumi Toyoguchi
Voice of Yukari Takeba in Atlus' Persona 3
(2006)
Chihiro Fujisaki
Koki Miyata
Anime, film dubbing, videogame voice-over
Toko Fukawa
Miyuki Sawashiro
Voice of Elizabeth and Chidori in Persona 3
(2006), Japanese version of Elizabeth in Ken
Levine's Bioshock Infinite (2013), voice of
Fukawa in forthcoming Danganronpa:
Another Episode (2014 or 2015)
Yasuhiro Hagakure
Masaya Matsukaze
Voice of Ryo Hazuki, protagonist of Yu
Suzuki's pioneering open world action game
Shenmue (1999)
SPOILER
OMITTED
SPOILER
OMITTED
SPOILER
OMITTED
“Nope, no spoilers.
Class dismissed.”
“I said, no spoilers.
Buy the game already,
you cheapskates!”
“Still bugging this bear? How about this:
support the digital artists at Spike Chunsoft,
or taste these flying claws of fury!”
Kiyotaka Ishimaru
Kosuke Toriumi
Voice of Junpei Iori in Atlus' Persona 3
(2006)
Kyoko Kirigiri
Yoko Hikasa
Japanese voice of Juliet Starling in
Grasshopper's Lollipop Chainsaw (2012)
Leon Kuwata
Takahiro Sakurai
Voice of Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy 7:
Dirge of Cerberus (2006), Final Fantasy 7:
Crisis Core (2007), Dissidia: Final Fantasy
(2008), and The Kingdom Hearts franchise
Celestia Ludenberg
Hekiru Shiina
Singer, anime
Sayaka Maizono
Makiko Ōmoto
Anime, videogame voice-over
Monokuma
Nobuyo Ōyama
Voice of Doraemon in 1979-2005 Doraemon
anime TV series
Makoto Naegi
Megumi Ogata
Voice of Shinji Ikari, the protagonist of
Hidaeki Anno's anime TV series Neon
Genesis: Evangelion (1995)
Mondo Owada
Kazuya Nakai
Voice of Wakka in Square Enix's blockbuster
Final Fantasy 10 (2001)
Sakura Ogami
Kujira (a.k.a. Wakako Anime
Matsumoto)
Byakuya Togami
Akira Ishida
Voice of Ryoji Mochizuki and Pharos in Atlus'
Persona 3 (2006)
Hifumi Yamada
Kappei Yamaguchi
Voice of Teddie in Atlus' Persona 4 (2008)
Table 3. Selected Characters and Voice Performers In Super Danganronpa 2.
Selected
Voice Performer
Background/Previous Roles (list not
Danganronpa 2
exhaustive)
Characters
Teruteru Hanamura Jun Fukuyama
Japanese versions of Null in Kojima's Metal
Gear Solid: Portable Ops (2006) and Johnny
Sasaki in Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008)
Hajime Hinata
Minami Takayama
Voices of Kiki and Ursula in Hayao Miyazaki's
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Mahiru Koizumi
Yu Kobayashi
Japanese version of Cecile in Kojima's Metal
Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)
Nagito Komaeda
Megumi Ogata
Voice of Shinji Ikari, the protagonist of Hidaeki
Anno's anime TV series Neon Genesis:
Evangelion (1995)
Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu
Daisuke Kishio
Voice of Hotsuma, the protagonist of Sega's
popular action game Shinobi (2002).
Ibuki Mioda
Ami Koshimizu
Voice of Yukiko Amagi in Atlus' Persona 4
Monokuma
Nobuyo Ōyama
Voice of Doraemon in 1979-2005 Doraemon
anime TV series
Chiaki Nanami
Kana Hanazawa
Singer, anime, videogame voice-over
Sonia Nevermind
Miho Arakawa
Anime
Nekomaru Nidai
Hiroki Yasumoto
Japanese version of Adam Jensen in Eidos' Deus
Ex: Human Revolution (2011)
Akane Owari
Romi Park
Japanese versions of Raine Bouchard in
Insomniac's Resistance: Retribution (2009),
Amanda in Kojima's Metal Gear Solid: Peace
Walker (2010), and Mistral in Platinum's Metal
Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013)
Peko Pekoyama
Kotono Mitsuishi
Voice of Misato Katsuragi in Hideaki Anno's
Neon Genesis: Evangelion (1995)
Hiyoko Saionji
Suzuko Mimori
Singer, anime
Gundam Tanaka
Tomokazu Sugita
Voice of Kazuhira (Kaz) Miller in Kojima's
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear
Solid 5: Ground Zeroes (2014), and in the
forthcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom
Pain (2015)
Byakuya Togami
Akira Ishida
Voice of Kaworu Nagisa in Anno's Neon Genesis
Evangelion (1995)
Mikan Tsumiki
Ai Kayano
Singer, anime
Usami (Monomi)
Takako Sasuga
Anime, television
In addition to its superb storyline and superlative voice-acting, sound-track, scriptwriting,
dialogue, and mobile-friendly interface, there is one other aspect of game design which marks
Danganronpa as a classic of mobile transnational media. This is its capacity to create a credible
game-world.
Before we go any further, it is worth taking a moment to explain why this credibility
matters, especially for readers unfamiliar with the peculiar aesthetic nature of videogames.
Establishing the credibility of the game-world is an enormous challenge for digital artists, for the
simple reason that there is a vast gulf between games and game-worlds. Games are the rule-sets
governing play, but game-worlds are what make that play meaningful. Kicking an inflated rubber
ball past a line on the ground is play, but not necessarily meaningful. Kick a soccer ball past the
goal-line during the World Cup, and the same act of play becomes profoundly meaningful.
This basic contradiction is intensified a thousandfold by videogames, because the
foundation of interactive media is playability, a.k.a. mass participatory immersion. When you
play a videogame, you aren't watching or listening to someone else play the game. You are the
one who must perform whatever actions are required to succeed in – and progress through – the
game-world. In consequence, no matter how talented the digital artists may be, it is up to the
players to determine whether the game-world is credible or not. In point of fact, the single most
common reason that top-tier videogames with enormous production budgets and extensive playtesting fail as aesthetic experiences is that dsyfunctional or unbalanced game-play, non-credible
plot twists, failed characterization, or some other flaw fatally disrupts the player's sense of mass
participatory immersion.5
The flip side of this vulnerability is that game-worlds which establish and sustain
credibility with their audiences are rendered bulletproof against flaws which would obliterate a
less credible game. Techland's hugely popular horror-survival videogame Dead Island (2011) is a
case in point. At its release, the game was afflicted with vast numbers of glitches, broken quests,
an inchoate save system, and occasionally frustrating controls. It also lacked some of the most
basic features of open world games, e.g. swimming and free-climbing. Dead Island nonetheless
won the hearts of fans, sold millions of copies, and revolutionized its genre, precisely because it
was the first game to portray a horror-survival game-world which millions of players found
credible.
What makes Danganronpa a credible game-world is the fact that its fundamental
narrative pleasure – the solving of narrative puzzles – is also the core principle of its gameworld. On the simplest level, this means that Danganronpa's game-world follows rules which
even Monokuma, the most powerful single agent inside that world, must follow. As a corollary to
this, key parts of the storyline involve the characters trying to decode and comprehend the logic
of the game-world they are trapped in. This credibility also means that the occasional violence
which breaks out during the story can never be written off as Monokuma's personal malevolence.
The evil lies not in a bad individual, but in a system which somehow brings out the worst in
human beings.
What still needs to be explained, however, is why a game-world comprised entirely of
logical puzzles should generate such a powerful sense of credibility. At the beginning of
Danganronpa 1, most players will assume that this credibility has something to do with the
educational setting of Kabougamine Academy. On this provisional reading, the storyline works
because it invokes the intense social pressures of schooling on adolescents and young adults.
As the story unfolds, however, this initial hypothesis becomes untenable due to a series of
events which we will not spoil here (suffice to say that Kabougamine is not a high school, but a
post-secondary institution). This hypothesis is also disproved by the setting of Danganronpa 2,
which takes place on a seemingly abandoned Pacific resort named Jabberwock Island. Despite
the substitution of a paradisaical island for a school, Danganronpa 2 follows much the same
scenario as its predecessor: a group of young people are unexpectedly thrown into a desperate
war of all against all, and must discover who the perpetrator of various murders is, or else face
collective execution.
The real issue is thus neither school systems nor the tourism industry per se, but the
relationship between logical puzzles on the one hand, and the overarching narrative theme of the
war of all against all, a.k.a. Monokuma's battle royale. One of the important clues we are given is
the title of the series, “Danganronpa”, a neologism which combines the Japanese word for
"bullet" (ダンガン or “dangan”) with the word for "refutation” (ロンパ or “ronpa”).6 The term
literally refers to certain game-play sequences where the player must select the correct response
to leading questions, before an onscreen timer runs down. Misleading or false statements can be
targeted and “shot down” with a trigger mechanism, assuming players have selected the correct
counter-argument. Choosing the correct refutation in time is not always simple, and does require
a bit of practice.
The title and game-play elements suggest that the battle royale is not a test of physical
dexterity, so much as a test of the player's critical thinking skills. There is a similar clue provided
by the names of the settings of the two games. The word “Kabougamine” literally means “Hope's
Peak.” This is an oblique reference to David Lynch's surreal Twin Peaks TV series, but it also
underlines one of the core themes of the entire Danganronpa franchise, namely the struggle
between the young students' shining hopes for the future, and the crushing reality of multiple
murders and subsequent investigations.
The setting of Jabberwock Island is a slightly more convoluted clue. The immediate
reference is to Lewis Carroll's famous Jabberwocky poem – a tale nominally about a hero who is
warned by his father not to tangle with the dreaded Jabberwocky, but who ends up slaying the
fell beast. However, connoisseurs of science-fiction will know that the famous opening and
closing verse of the Jabberwocky contains the whimsical phrase “all mimsy were the
borogoves”. This is the title of one of the greatest science fiction stories ever written, Lewis
Padgett's 1943 Mimsy Were The Borogoves (Lewis Padgett was the pseudonym of writing duo
Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). We will not spoil the contents of the story, but suffice to say
that its key theme is the extraordinary power of children's toys.
A moment's reflection will show that the children's toy in question, a toy which inspires
equal parts utopian hope and dystopian despair, can be nothing other than Monokuma itself. But
what connection does a bipolar animatronic teddy bear have with logical puzzles and the battle
royale? We will suggest that Monokuma is not quite the main villain of the story, so much as its
primary antihero. In the field of cultural studies, the antihero is defined as the necessary
accessory of the villain, who must be defeated by the protagonists, generally by turning the
antihero's own power against themselves. For example, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the
ultimate villain is Sauron, but the everyday antihero Frodo must battle is the Ring, which
constantly tries to corrupt and deceive everyone around it. (Later in the trilogy, Gollum serves as
a second, and more human, incarnation of the figure of the antihero.)
It is no accident that Monokuma follows closely in the footsteps of two of the most
famous anti-heroes of recent transnational media. The first and most obvious antecedent is
Mellow Maromi, the mascot in Satoshi Kon's dazzling anime TV series, Paranoia Agent (2004).
Without revealing any plot points, Maromi at first seems to be an innocent toy mascot, but turns
out to harbor some of the most deep-seated contradictions of 21st century consumerism (among
other things, the tendency of consumers to fall prey to what they consume). The second and
perhaps less obvious antecedent is Liquid Ocelot in Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008).
Anyone who has played through (or viewed footage of) Metal Gear Solid 3 or Metal Gear Solid
4 knows that while Ocelot does commit villainous acts, he is not, strictly speaking, the ultimate
villain of either story. Arguably, if Ocelot's brain was transplanted into Maromi's body, the result
would be Monokuma:
Table 4. Monokuma's Forebears.
Paranoia Agent's wide-eyed
Mellow Maromi (2004)
MGS4's Liquid Ocelot (2008)
Danganronpa's
Monokuma (2010-12)
Similar to Mellow Maromi, Monokuma is not the answer of Danganronpa, but rather its central
question. Similar to Liquid Ocelot, Monokuma is not the villain of the game-world, but rather its
primary antihero, the narrative agent which ties together the game-world (logical puzzles) with
its central narrative theme (the battle royale).
This is a long and complicated way of saying that the ultimate villain of Danganronpa is
not a who, but a what. This will begin to make more sense if we remember the very first clue the
game gives us: this is Monokuma's visually and symbolically bifurcated persona, evenly divided
between benevolent arbiter and malevolent executioner. It is no accident that this bifurcation is
expressed everywhere in Danganronpa, from murders which are half ruthless killings and half
justifiable self-defense, to investigations which are half impartial fact-finding missions and half
self-exculpations, all the way to executions which are half criminal acts of violence and half
spectacles of richly-deserved retribution. Pushed to its logical limit, the theme of bifurcation
suggests that the paradoxical essence of Danganronpa's game-world is that it portrays a game
which is not a game at all. If Danganronpa's crucial game is its battle royale, then this gamewhich-is-not-a-game must be the battle royale's ultimate social referent: this referent is the
principle of winner-take-all, zero-sum competition, raised to a social universal.
Putting all the pieces together, the ultimate villain responsible for the mayhem of the
story is nothing less than the entire system of neoliberalism. Kabougamine and Jabberwock
Island are simply two exemplars of neoliberalism's lunatic utopia of completely unrestricted
markets, laboratory case studies of the catastrophes unleashed by unrestricted competition.
Conversely, the struggles of the characters in both Danganronpa games to unite and resist that
competition – stories which we will not spoil here – are more than just local rebellions. They
give narrative voice to the real world revolutions, uprisings and cultural resistances against
neoliberalism.
This narration of the open resistance to neoliberalism marks a watershed in videogame
history. While the greatest videogames of the 1998-2008 period were universally critical of
neoliberalism, they did not always portray the social forces which resisted the latter's rule.7 One
of the reasons for this lack of narrative voice was the sheer internal complexity of neoliberalism,
which was an economic doctrine, a complex set of political beliefs, and a sophisticated cultural
agenda, all at once.
Neoliberalism's core economic doctrine, to be sure, was the enrichment of a few
plutocrats at everyone else's expense. However, its political ideology was intensely contradictory.
Neoliberal ideologues espoused a utopia of maximum personal freedom, including political
freedom – but defined this freedom solely in terms of allowing plutocrats to purchase political
favors through campaign donations, lobbying, and privately-owned mass media outlets.8
Neoliberalism's cultural agenda was similarly contradictory. Neoliberalism argued for the
principle of maximum freedom of consumer choice, but its definition of choice was restricted to
the purchase or sale of commodities. It had no place for non-commercial cultural values such as
solidarity, democracy, or the commons. The culture of neoliberalism was thus the reduction of
human beings to mere vessels of untrammeled greed and selfish consumerism.
Danganronpa's key contribution is that its game-world provides an interactive critique of
neoliberalism's cultural agenda. This critique operates by setting the neoliberal principle of
unrestricted competition – the battle royale – in motion towards the space of the digital commons
– the transnational audiences who must unite to resist neoliberalism. The revolution will not be
televised, but the Ur-forms of its mass mobilizations have their real-time auditions in
Danganronpa's playable game-worlds.
To see the immense power of this strategy, consider the musical lesson contained in
Monokuma's signature theme song, played whenever Monokuma appears onscreen (the tune is
available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SdPZ9yJvsM). At first, the theme might
seem to be little more than a satirical version of a circus tune. However, readers with sharp ears
will discern the riveting sonic juxtaposition of hip hop scratches, samples of 1980s videogame
beeps, and West African vocals in the background. These complex musical motifs are concealed
in the body of a seemingly artless children's song, in much the same way advanced circuitry is
hidden inside a children's animatronic toy. What the song suggests is that while Monokuma may
be a toy, the children's toys called videogames can be some of the most powerful agents of
neoliberalism imaginable.
The sound-track does more, however, than just diagnose the presence of the neoliberal
culture-industry. It also transforms the superstructures of that culture-industry back into agents of
play. Danganronpa 2 offers the following signature sound-track for the character of Usami, a.k.a.
Monomi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUxRPfzUAqg. While Monomi's theme song has
similarities to Monokuma's, it has one major difference. The mocking, satirical tone of the latter
has been replaced by a genuine vocal celebration (the heavily-distorted lyrics suggest something
like “Come on and make me dance” and “Make a [congo] line”). This musical celebration is
reconfirmed by a flute solo, and then by a classical guitar solo – instances of performative
individuality which exist in harmony with the musical collectivity.9 Towards the end of the track
(from 2:12 to 2:26), there is also a brief series of electronic tones which may seem slightly out of
place. In fact, these electronic tones refer to
the electronic dance music deployed during
some of the most frenzied and anxietyinducing moments of the investigative trials.
During the trials, they symbolized antagonism
and impending doom. Here, they symbolize
the possibility of a reconciled and humane
collectivity.
If Monokuma's theme signifies the
hollowness of a neoliberal speculation which
has outrun its transnational content, then
Bunnybears and Music-kuma FTW.
Monomi's theme signifies a transnational
solidarity which has transcended its speculative form – the solidarity of a society which would
no longer wage constant war against itself, but would finally allow its members the freedom to
play. Perhaps the deepest and most mysterious achievement of Danganronpa is that by
showcasing the violence of neoliberalism at its worst, it allows us to glimpse the possibility of
what we human beings could be at our very best. To paraphrase a magnificent line by Hideo
Kojima, if 21st century history is the digital storm made flesh, then our greatest videogames are
the lightning in that storm. Danganronpa is the lightning-flash which opens our eyes, our hearts,
and our minds to the horizon-line of the future.
1. Tom East (2011). “History Of Nintendo: Game Boy.” Nintendo Magazine. November 11, 2009.
http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/13153/features/history-of-nintendo-game-boy/
2. According to the IDC, global smartphone sales grew 23.1% year-on-year during the second quarter
of 2013. This pace suggests total sales for 2014 will reach somewhere between 1.21 and 1.25 billion
units. IDC. “Chinese Vendors Outpace the Market as Smartphone Shipments Grow 23.1% Year over
Year in the Second Quarter, According to IDC.” July 29, 2014. http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?
containerId=prUS25015114
3. The English-language voices are especially disappointing given the existence of high-quality fanmade dubs of the series, e.g. Paul Ferrero's uproarious and high-quality satirical abridged versions of
the anime spin-offs of the videogames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEEfqzKDCs.
4. Monokuma's antics capture one of the deepest contradictions of the transnational culture-industry,
which Adorno might have explained in the following manner. Deep in the dreams of the art-work, lies
the buried truth that the culture-industry always lies. Yet it is only by telling lies – that is to say, by
constructing fictions – that the art-work can change the world. Only that which is fictive has the power
to break the baleful spell of the existent, by enabling us to glimpse another, better world.
5. The paradigmatic case of broken credibility is the catastrophic meltdown of the Mass Effect
franchise in Mass Effect 3, analyzed at length in Uplink 25:
http://monkeybear.info/Uplink/Uplink25.html. In fairness to Bioware, the studio does have one last
chance to make amends, in the form of its upcoming Mass Effect 4. We hope Bioware listens to its fans,
and provides the thoughtful reboot the series needs and deserves.
6. The connotation of the two terms suggests an explosive but definitive legal argument or courtroom
judgement, which makes a direct English transliteration of the title almost impossible. The closest
would be something like “BulletRetort”, “RapidfireRebuttal” or maybe “TriggerTakedown”.
7. For example, Remedy's Max Payne (2001) critiqued the rule of Wall Street, but did not ground the
allegorical figure of Max Payne, the lone undercover police hero, in the anti-neoliberal social
movements of that era. Square Enix's Final Fantasy 12 (2006) featured a character-system which
depicted the rise of the multipolar or post-Cold War world-system, but linked only two out of the six
playable characters with an identifiable anti-neoliberal politics. These two characters are Balthier and
Fran. They are sky-pirates whose in-game anti-neoliberal referent is the free pirate city of Balfonheim,
a city autonomous from the empires which dominate the game-world of Ivalice. Out of all previous
videogames, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008) has come the closest, by portraying a symbolic
global uprising against neoliberalism (a.k.a. the mysterious, shadowy Patriots). However, the most fully
realized anti-neoliberal character of the storyline was a non-player character, Sunny, a child prodigyprogrammer who plays a key role in helping to defeat the Patriots. Significantly, Sunny is identified in
an extended cut-scene as the owner and user of a Sony PSP, Kojima's prescient nod towards the world
of mobile videogames.
8. For readers unfamiliar with the concept of neoliberalism, some of the best critiques of neoliberal
politics have been written by citizen journalists Matt Taibbi and Nomi Prins
(http://www.nomiprins.com), while some of the best critiques of neoliberal economics have been
written by Joseph Stiglitz and Yanis Varoufakis. See: Nomi Prins. It Takes A Pillage: An Epic Tale of
Power, Deceit, and Untold Trillions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2009. Joseph Stiglitz. Free Fall:
America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2010. Yanis Varoufakis. The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy.
London: Zed Books, 2013.
9. It is possible this guitar theme is a musical nod towards the guitar theme of the “Old Snake” soundtrack in Metal Gear Solid 4, another striking musical allegory of collective reconciliation, available
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k3n5me4Rns (the guitar theme begins at 0:51).