Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc, Ep. 4 - "The Melancholy, Surprise, and Disappearance of Nagito Komaeda"

Holy fucking shit, Funimation is garbage. Allow me to share a brief anecdote: when trying to change the audio for this episode back into Japanese, it played a series of ads, naturally, because why wouldn't a good streaming service play an ad every time you changed the audio track? But the Japanese audio suddenly started overlapping over the ad audio in some kind of chaotic mess... and then when the ads were finally over, the audio was in English even though the player definitely said it was on the JP track. Anyone that pays for Funimation's streaming services is getting fucking robbed. This felt like a glitch you run into in some kind of video game, except it was for a fucking video player. ???? Sitting through three rounds of ads just to get what you want... Funimation may be a great company but their fancy simulcast streaming service and player needs a ridiculous amount of patching. It barely functions, let alone feels like a viable alternative to Netflix or Hulu.

"Komaeda" (this is what I'm abbreviating the episode title to - "Melancholy, Surprise, Disappearance of..." is way too fucking long, man) isn't even a good enough episode to warrant all the extra legwork. This episode comes hot off the heels of "A Farewell To All Futures", a jarring departure from the established tone of the first two episodes and the first sign that something is genuinely wrong. Sure, the first episode had a lot of tonal problems, but at least it felt closer to the hyperactive and bombastic nature of Danganronpa than the slow-burning mirthlessness of Episode 3... and at least the first two episodes were willing to show everything they wanted to show. Episode 3 couldn't even summon the effort to show off the show's first murders. Episode 3 tainted the show with a sinking feeling of "DR3 will not be able to get over this episode's problems", and Episode 4 doesn't do much of anything to change your mind. Not by the second half, anyway.

The overall mood of the school has apparently darkened as a result of the deaths of Sato and Natsumi, two Reserve Course students that were constantly at each-other's throats; Chisa tries to cheer up and get her class as hyped as possible for the upcoming Practical Exams, but there's an obvious tension floating through the air that she can't do much to dissuade. This would be effective if Sato and Natsumi were even passably good characters and not cardboard cutouts that died before they could do anything... or if we at least got to see their MURDERS. Or at least their CORPSES. Sorry, some sins you just can't ignore. Danganronpa is The go-to series for lavish murders, you can't just kick things off on a note of absolute nothing and expect it to work.

The focus of this episode is thrown into the lap of Nagito Komaeda, a perpetually-lucky and strangely enthusiastic kid with an obvious hidden dark side to his character that hasn't been given much exploration until now. Komaeda's a pretty popular character, so it should come as no surprise that he'd be given some substantial focus here... but something feels off about him. In retrospect, Komaeda actually doesn't do much at all... this is probably the only episode where it feels like some of the narrative gears are turning for Komaeda. He decides that he wants to cancel the practical exams in order to like boost morale or something, so he tracks down Seiko Kimura, the masked, anxious, submissive pharmacist that helped Teruteru and Hiyoko make the Horny Juice shown in Episode 2... and yet another new character. Seiko is also joined by the cute but manipulative Ruruka Ando and her strong, silent bodyguard Izayoi, who are clearly using Seiko in order to obtain enhancement drugs... at least Ruruka is, anyway, who I think wants to use a specific drug of Seiko's to cheat on her presentation exams. Once again, DR3 keeps introducing more and more characters to an already stuffy cast (for twelve episodes, anyway; it truly doesn't need this many cooks in the kitchen) - and given the poor way it handled the last new characters in Episode 3, you can't help but wonder if Ruruka, Seiko, and Izayoi are doomed to die offscreen.

Well, that's not quite what happens - instead, they're doomed to irrelevance and they're merely expelled offscreen. See, due to Komaeda's amazing luck, he gets the drug that he wanted and the drug that Ruruka wanted mixed up. This is strange... Komaeda apparently just came for some kind of laxative? Was he counting on his luck to get the opposite thing that he wanted?? Was he planning on making his class have to go to the bathroom so badly that they couldn't take the exams?? The reason that Komaeda got introduced to Seiko was because he bribed Teruteru with a magazine full of sexy photos of Sayaka Maizono (a nice reference to DR1, admittedly)... but if a laxative was all he needed, did he really need to go through such a weird loop? This is one of those contrived situations that the show didn't really think about too much... but Komaeda's mixup is a situation that winds up working in Komaeda's favor and ultimately ruining Ruruka's plans, as predictably expected.

Komaeda puts up an anonymous poster, demanding the school cancel the practical exams under the threat of a bomb he placed somewhere in the school. Now there's the Danganronpa I've been expecting... it's a bit tame by DR standards, but at least it feels like we're initially getting somewhere. Komaeda and Seiko run into one another again, and hilarity ensues when they get their bags mixed up. I have to admit, it's impressive how confidently DR3 pulls the exact same trick twice. Ruruka presents her drug-enhanced sweets, expecting to completely clean house on her exams... but since her drugs are stuffed full of Komaeda's laxatives and not what Seiko concocted for her, the judges are stricken by the overwhelming desire to shit. This leads Ruruka to assume that Seiko set her up for failure, and right when Seiko tries to diffuse the situation... she opens "her" medicine bag, revealing the bomb and detonation charges that Komaeda intended to sic on the school. Dunno why this episode was so hot on ruining Seiko's life, man. Surely there were better ways to characterize Komaeda. Ruruka begins bitching at Seiko for being such a terrible friend, and Seiko rightly lambastes Ruruka for being a selfish brat... and then the bomb goes off in the gymnasium.

The baffling part about all of this? Despite the fact that Izayoi, Seiko, and Ruruka were undeniably in the gym when the bomb went off (Seiko and Ruruka were right on top of the detonation switch, no less)... they survive. The school expels them! This entire scenario feels like a stand-up comedy bit. There is absolutely no way in hell that those three could have survived the explosion; they were right in the middle of ground zero. No scientific explanation or Talent is gonna get you out of that... and yet the school's response is to expel them for being responsible for the bomb threat? Even if this was a setup to get these three characters into place for the Future Arc (which is exactly what happened, apparently the vague Future Foundation or whatever recruits them)... I highly doubt the person that makes a bomb threat would put themselves right in the middle of where the bomb was going to go off unless they were completely deranged and unhinged. Only Seiko seems somewhat mentally ill - the other two appear to be completely fine. What a poor excuse on the school's part. Once again, DR3 is contrived - their survival and their expulsion are contrivances that exist solely to get them into place for (literal) future plot elements that have nothing to do with this particular arc.

The school merely suspends Komaeda, which is a fucking stupid move. Even if his talent is "too great to let go", they have a wide list of reasons to believe that he was the culprit behind the explosion (key among them being his presence at the scene of the crime). Komaeda is a danger to the school as a result of his actions. Kick him out, man. This entire situation makes the adults look like complete fucking clowns. Chisa is kicked out of 1-B and transferred to the Reserve Course as a result of negligence, a move that I think came way too early. We're just now getting used to her as the teacher of her talented class, and now she has to spend precious screentime away from her students? This entire situation just feels off, man - none of the consequences actually feel right, practically or narratively. It makes "Komaeda" come off as a somewhat unfocused, uneven experience that was more concerned with where it wanted to end up than the quality of the events leading up to that end. It's a "big picture" obsession gone wrong.

I will say this - at least Episode 4 feels more like Danganronpa than the last episode did. There aren't any stupid bouts of tonal disparity, there's some actual violence for once (albeit strange violence that doesn't end in murder for some unfathomable, illogical reason), and it feels like the story is actually trying to go somewhere bigger for once instead of being stuck in the moment. Episode 4 is still unsatisfying in many ways - Izayoi, Ruruka, and Seiko are completely written out of the plot of the Despair Arc after this, and Komaeda's motivations in this episode come off as petty and aimless, which is at odds with what both the show and games want me to believe about him. Komaeda gives a speech this episode about how humanity is divided into two different groups at birth, but I feel like his words have no place in an episode where he was largely focused on making his classmates have to shit so badly they couldn't take their practical exams (I think).

Ruruka and Izayoi are pretty whatever characters - they ride the coattails of this episode's conflict and have no merit or value outside of it this season, but at least their strong designs and larger-than-life personalities fit far better than Sato and Natsumi's unfocused and shallow bitchiness. Seiko is almost a decent character, suffering from the same problem that her friends do (being shunted into irrelevance) - we're actually given a decent amount of time to care for her thanks to her interactions with both Komaeda and Ruruka, which made me a lot more invested in her than I did Sato or Natsumi. And they were the ones that died. Her nervous, shrinking-violet nature is familiar yet distinctive enough that it separates her from other, similar archetypes like Mikan - Mikan is more hyperactive and clumsy whereas Seiko is more fidgety and fragile. She's likable enough in the moment that it feels disappointing when the show decides it has no further use for her.

"Komaeda" is such a strange episode. It's so flimsy around the edges that you honestly start to wonder if there's a center to the action at all. Komaeda's actions throughout the episode lack a strong center - you feel like he's actually scheming for something deeper than just "I want to brighten my class's morale", but we're given no followup to this whatsoever. If the show is trying to establish him as a major player, it's not doing a particularly great job - he's too prone to the whims of fate around him. He's not truly independent enough to really define him as a 'big deal'. The climax to the bomb threat is all sorts of fucking messy - it feels like nobody responds how they should, and the fact that a school facility literally got blown up is pushed under the table. But then again, I guess by this point almost everyone had forgotten about Sato and Natsumi's deaths, so...

I don't know if I like "Komaeda" more than I do "A Farewell To All Futures" - it's more enjoyable and more true to Danganronpa's nature, but it has just as many major overarching problems and ends on a worse note. Couple that in with Chisa's leavetaking and 1-B's increasing irrelevance to the major narrative, and the feeling that DR3 is going nowhere fast starts to really sink in. We haven't quite hit the nadir of the show... but we creep closer and closer to it with every passing moment.

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Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc, Ep. 3 - "A Farewell To All Futures"

What's Danganronpa best known for? Wacky character designs? Sure, that's certainly been a massive aspect of its success, but I don't think it's what keeps so many people coming back. Flexible visual novel style? It's nice, but that's really only good for the many, many people that like to make fangames, and not very relevant to this anime adaptation anyway. Deep, intricate themes and complex character interaction? Lmao, no, it'll never aspire to those levels. Danganronpa's presentation is an important ingredient to the overall experience, but what exactly is it that hooks so many about Danganronpa from the get-go?

Murder. Raw, imaginative, hilarious, unreal and unpredictable murder. There's many a compilation on YouTube if you want to see for yourself. The series has class trials and suspects for a good reason - the games and overarching series are, by and large, murder mysteries with a high-school anime edge for marketing value. Even if all else fails (and Danganronpa certainly fails in many categories - its worldbuilding, characters, design philosophy, and narrative structure are about as solid as a pool full of lube), Danganronpa can always rely on good old-fashioned, stylish murder to keep people hooked - if it ain't making you horny, it's tapping into that edgy teen mindset you never fully grew out of and exploiting it for all it's worth. Murder keeps Danganronpa afloat.

Keep that in mind as we progress through the next few episodes.

So DR3 decided an entire class and two brand-new teachers weren't enough characters for a twelve-episode series, and decided to switch gears and focus on the Reserve Course, the class where all of the students that apply to Hope's Peak but aren't worth a damn get shafted to. We're introduced to Natsumi Kuzuryu, the younger sister of Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, the straight-laced mafiosi kid from Class 1-B. She's a rude, arrogant slut that's waiting for her chance to slip into the Main Course, armed with a mega-hollow rivalry with some random green-haired skank named Sato (isn't even given a last name... unless that is her last name), who gets uppity with Natsumi for threatening to pull something against Mahiru, the collected and polite, redheaded photographer from Class 1-B.

The redhead herself steps in to break up the fight, which Hajime witnesses with the emotional variety of a fucking sack. Despite "Farewell" seemingly being an episode that focuses on the Reserve Course, the main focal point and lead insight into the Reserve Course himself remains awfully distant from the events that kick off this episode, which only further removes Hajime from the audience as a passable human being. All the drama in this episode happens between two girls that have been suddenly thrust upon us without warning and Mahiru, who hasn't done anything of note in the last two episodes... and this lack of intimacy makes it hard to give a damn about what they're fighting about. "You haven't changed," says Mahiru to Natsumi after the latter threatens to murder Sato. Like... sure? I guess I have no reason to disagree with you since I have no idea what she's like, and I'm not going to get another chance to after this episode's over.

Did I spoil that ahead of time? Natsumi is killed after having another fight with Sato that feels like a nerfed rehash of the first fight they already had not five minutes ago - once again, they fight over Mahiru. It begs the question - why does Mahiru matter so much to these girls? Why does Mahiru matter so much to the narrative all of a sudden? Mahiru barely appears again after this episode, so it just feels like a conflict for the sake of it - it comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. But I'm getting ahead of myself - Natsumi is the first murder of DR3. She's murdered in the music room offscreen.

Yes, you heard me. Offscreen. DR3's first murder is offscreen. For a series that prides itself on stylish and inventive executions... doesn't that seem a bit disingenuous? We're not even treated to a shot of the corpses. Sato and Natsumi were lifeless, trite characters with nothing to their name, so their deaths were already bound to be disappointing... but fuck, man, they couldn't even bother to make them bombastic? To make them visually striking? To make them ANYTHING? Would you really watch a murder mystery series where the murders never happen and the mystery of "who did it" has already been solved? If you would, then... damn, have I got a show for you. It's got a funny bear in it.

And yes, you read that right. Sato winds up dead as well. We never see her death, and we never see her body. What the fuck is this shit? Even if this wasn't a Danganronpa series and didn't have a legacy of maniacal executions to live up to, this is pretty miserable for standard thriller BS. We're barely even told how Sato died (I had to go onto the Wikia to learn that Fuyuhiko apparently killed Sato out of vengeance for his sister), which gives this entire episode a weightless feeling of pure and utter pointlessness. Character deaths are important, man, especially the first major ones - they should be impactful, they should really hit you with that distinctive feeling of "the die has been cast, there's no turning back from this". But the universe pretty much completely shrugs the events of this episode off of its shoulders after the fact - we're barely treated to Fuyuhiko and Mahiru's reactions to losing his sister and her best friend respectively, and they both just kinda move on from the murders as if nothing happened at all. Episode 4 will pull this same trick again, no less!

I'll give Hajime some credit. Even though he starts this episode off as weak as always, he actually starts doing something and actually starts emoting afterwards - he tries to dissuade Natsumi from acting like a bitch, he talks to Chiaki some more, he confronts Sato about her obvious role in Natsumi's death, and he tries to storm the Main Course grounds in order to confront Mahiru about everything before getting into a fight with Juzo, a new character and a cynical, harsh security officer that kicks Hajime's ass before unveiling his quasi-Darwinist philosophy about the talented and the talentless. Hajime demonstrates the kind of initiative and fire I wanted him to have from the get-go... a pity this side of him never comes up again. It also kinda sucks that the exact moment Hajime works is during a conflict that ultimately means nothing in the larger narrative, but I'll let that slide - he's the only character in this entire episode that doesn't annoy me to some degree, minus Chiaki.

Hajime leaves to make the "decision" hinted to in Episode 2, officially ending his forward momentum as a character in the process... ironically enough. There's a scene between Juzo and Chisa where they talk about their findings from digging into Hope's Peak and express their distaste for the school covering up Sato and Natsumi... which is pretty retroactively ironic, because that's almost exactly what the show itself is going to do in no time at all. This episode might as well be filler compared to the others - and that's my biggest problem with DR3's beginning beyond its tonal instability. The first three episodes feel like they don't matter once you land in the middle of the show - I feel like the only thing you really need to take away from the first 3 episodes is that there's this kid named Hajime, and he decides to make a vague decision of unknown gravitas that will presumably change his life and make him "everyone's hope". Everything else is, comparatively, filler bullshit. It's hard to escape the feeling that an hour or so of your time was wasted watching these first three episodes.

"A Farewell to All Futures" feels like a completely different show compared to the first two episodes. Whereas the first two episodes of DR3 had a lot of cartoonish slapstick and broad, vibrant personalities on display, Episode 3 is grimmer - sometimes altogether humorless - and much slower-paced, trying and failing to tell a story about bullying, spite, murder, and conspiracy. The victims of this conspiracy are hard to care about, and the conspirators themselves are even harder to give a damn about, shadowy figures that do little more than gather in offices and talk about what other characters have done. Episode 3 commits many narrative sins, key among them being introducing two prominent characters only to have them murdered without fanfare... and if 'murdered without fanfare' isn't the biggest neon sign that this is not a good Danganronpa product whatsoever, then perhaps future events might be enough to sway you. It's all downhill from here.

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Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc, Ep. 2 - "My Impurest Heart For You"

Because any episode that starts on this fucker's ugly mug is a special one.

DR3's Despair Arc had a few places that it could go after its manic, deranged first episode, "Hello Again, Hope's Peak High School". It could have chosen to double down on the erratic pacing and fully commit to being an insane spectacle of slapstick and hentai humor (the honest-to-god best option given that most of the first episode was committed to this), it could have chosen to instead focus on its more surreal and pensive moments that, while more emotionally engaging, would have felt like a slap in the face given how juvenile "Hello Again" was, or it could have just said 'fuck it' and become an entirely different show altogether (the most baffling of the three options).

Luckily for us, DR3 will actually do all of these things over the course of its 11-episode run... but we haven't hit the part where it becomes a completely different show just yet. Instead, "My Impurest Heart" is basically jokes and high-school hijinks from start to finish... which actually makes it probably the most consistent episode in the entire show. At least it commits to a fucking mood, man.

(Another miserable thing I learned about Funimation's website - sometimes, if you click on the audio player to change the volume, it won't disappear if you click anything else, you'll have to click on it directly to make it go away. Fuck man, Funimation's website is made by monkeys bro)

There isn't much to say in the way of 'plot' for Episode 2. Stuff happens, and the only connecting elements between "stuff that happens here" and "stuff that happens there" are the episode's timestamps. The episode starts with a duel between brawler-gymnasts Nidai and Akane, duking it out to prove who's the strongest. Why? Well... why not, man? Even the other students don't seem to understand why this is happening, which is why Chiaki steps out to take a breather, musing over the possibility that her gaming talent won't let her make any friends - however, Chisa acts like a good teacher and encourages her to seek friends through gaming as a social experience.

And Chiaki decides to do just that - Chisa leaves to attend to school business, and she returns to Chiaki having set up a virtual gaming club inside of Class 1-B, with everyone playing a stellar knockoff of Smash 64, a surprisingly apt carbon copy of Bomberman 64, a strangely linear clone of Mario Kart (it feels like the directors have never played Mario Kart... strangely enough), and a disturbing parody of Mario Party featuring some fatass pink fairy I think Danganronpa tried to sell as another mascot and failed miserably. Sorry, but her design kinda highkey sucks, especially compared to the timeless and endlessly-applicable Monokuma.

The wind-up toy is fucking busted, possible SS tier. He can infinitely chaingrab.

This is probably the best scene in the episode. DR3 is quick to reel you back in and remind you what you're really watching it for, though - the silly pervert chef Teruteru and the bratty loli Hiyoko arrive with some beef stew for the class (there's a great gag where Gundam Tanaka - my personal favorite male student - mistakes the quake-like rumbling of Akane's stomach for the second coming of Satan), and while Teruteru actually seemed to have genuinely good intentions in mind and just wanted to feed the class, Hiyoko secretly slipped in some Horny Juice into the beef stew, and it makes literally everyone as horny as fucking possible.

And the show plays it up for all it's worth - pink sparkles and rosey tints, beads of sweat, thick blush stickers, visible breath, thick and sexy hip-hop soul lingering in the background, the provocative removal of shirt buttons, Mikan stroking Peko Pekoyama's sword like a fucking dick... -sigh- Y'know, Danganronpa could've been a decent hentai if it wanted to. Hiyoko making the already uber-horny Teruteru consume aphrodisiacs was a monumentally stupid move that almost gets her comically raped, but luckily Chiaki steps in and punches Teruteru (causing him to say "Taylor Swift" as he's punched) before she and several others pass out from... idk, being too horny for their own good?

Chiaki is ultimately selected by Chisa as 1-B's Class Representative, to unanimous approval from the rest of the class. And that's where the episode ends... and let me tell you, it's a breath of fresh air. "My Impurest Heart" is fucking stupid, let's not kid ourselves here - this isn't brilliant writing by any stretch of the imagination. But Episode 2 is not only consistent, but there's something very sentimental and personal about it all beneath its core - a big point in Episode 2's favor is its decision to focus predominantly on Chiaki. It keeps the episode grounded, and it helps unveil the hidden friendly and cute aspects about Chiaki beyond her superficially appealing and precious qualities. It genuinely feels like she has an arc of sorts in this episode, and that's probably the best thing about it beyond the episode's strong sense of comedic timing and that great montage of the class playing games together. And I guess the horny scene was pretty good, too.

There's a couple things happening besides these vignettes of on-and-off importance - Chisa and her shockingly-bland-as-always love interest, Munakata, are looking the underbelly of Hope's Peak Academy, starting with pursuing the possibility that the school is taking the incredible amounts of money that Reserve Course students (like Hajime Hinata) pay for their classes and using it to fund the Main Course (Chisa's class). Potentially interesting, but I don't remember this going anywhere, so we'll see what happens. There's yet another scene of Hajime... sitting around and doing nothing. Chisa even calls him out for doing nothing, so the showrunners are at least subconsciously aware of how useless Hajime's been thus far... and yet they're doing nothing to change that. Even though some old guy approaches him and asks him if he's made his "final decision" on something cryptic, it doesn't feel like anything is happening due to Hajime's absolute lack of input on... fucking anything, man. Like, could he be more of a cardboard box if he tried?? Could he try? Hajime is interesting solely for sounding a lot like the immeasurably more interesting Shinji Ikari, even though he apparently isn't. This kid is a blank fucking slate otherwise.

Bold of you to assume that Hajime fears. Or feels in the first place.

But there really isn't much to judge about the episode beyond the supposed protagonist's lack of relevance to the ongoing events... once again. It's like I said - at least it commits to a consistent tone throughout, unlike the previous episode. Even when "My Impurest Heart" paused to be serious for a few moments, it did so in a way that it didn't detract from the lighthearted affairs that dominate the episode. It's an experience full of simple and shallow pleasures, but it's pleasurable nonetheless, and we have to admire that about DR3... because we won't have another chance to do so. The show is straight-up not going to be as good as this from this point on. Episode 2 is the calm before the storm, and this is an episode that has a pervy chef scream "Taylor Swift" as he's physically dissuaded from the attempted rape of a blonde Loli that made his friends horny with juice.

Danganronpa 3.

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Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc, Ep. 1 - "Hello Again, Hope's Peak High School"

I’ll give Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak High School (fucking hate that title, too easy to confuse it with Danganronpa V3, aka the THIRD GAME, what were they thinking) credit where credit is due - it has a strong opening moment. A woman we have no context or information about muses about the fact that she died, while watching her death on a silver screen, eating popcorn in a movie theater and contemplating on her life while the frames roll by, complete with film grain and the humming, familiar spin of old projectors. It’s a strong start, immediately setting DR3 up as a strange and almost otherworldly experience before the just-as-contemplative, mysterious, and effective OP hits, a splash of strong yet subdued colors set atop a breathy, ethereal and synth-driven track that strikes you as equal parts wistful, energetic, and dreary, all in one fascinating and undefinable mix…

…And then the actual episode hits and it becomes a breakneck blend of childish madness and absurdist 2010’s humor, more reminiscent of Cartoon Network-style mania with just enough Adult Swim bite and edge to solidify it as “mature content”. DR3’s first episode, “Hello Again, Hope’s Peak High School” (let’s just call it “Hello Again”), has the impossible task of comfortably yet briskly establishing all of its quirky, eccentric cast of characters in under 20 minutes… indeed, it can only afford to do so within this timeframe of this episode, and we’ve only got about eleven to work with. Not a lot of time to tell a story with this many characters, so DR3 has hit the ground running in the most optimal way possible. So how does DR3 decide to go about establishing its characters?

By making the first episode stupidly fucking fast, that’s how. The moment the ebullient, eager and girlish Chisa Yukizome (the woman in the opening theater, as it turns out) steps into Class 1-B to begin her new career as 1-B’s Homeroom Teacher, the episode completely throws its delusions of being a “contemplative and wistful” show into the trash and decides to go fucking psychotic.

Here’s a highlight reel.

-sigh-

A clumsy bitch by the name of Mikan Tsumiki stumbles into class and then trips a second later, which lands her in a ridiculously revealing and provocative position, her backpack just *barely* covering her panties (pictured above). Chisa flamboyantly dons a housemaid’s apron before calling the five students in attendance rotten oranges (followed by a hentai-like shot of a censored, filthy orange) and throwing a knife down on the desk of Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, a young, flippant mafiosi. A big-ass werewolf-looking motherfucker, Nidai, takes a shit so enormous that he destroys the back of the school, causing Mikan to shout “Jurassic Park!” when she hears the tremors. An insane, earnest athlete by the name of Akane decides to jump off the roof of the fucking school the moment she gets a whiff of meat, and Chisa decides the best way to cushion the fall is to have Nidai shit so hard that he destroys the school courtyards (this works); Akane winds up being tied to a cross the moment she lands, and she remains tied to said cross for a good chunk of the episode. There’s a rockstar, Ibuki, with a guitar-flamethrower that she uses to cook meat, an incel simp loser named Soda (who is nowhere near as cool as his name) gets hit by a truck, the impact sending both and the truck itself on top of an actual soda machine at just the right angle to make a shit ton of (actual) soda to fall out, allowing the endlessly-lucky Komaeda Nagito to quench his thirst… and they have time for yet another shot of Mikan covered in…

… -sigh- Fucking cum, man.

Right away, we have a dichotomy… and right away, we have a problem. DR3 is a tonally confused mess. Is Home Again funny? Absolutely - the rapid-fire nature of the shotgun humor works really well in its favor, and there’s an over-the-top silliness associated with every character that sells their ultimately-flat characters much more than it should. If this wants to be a comedy series, then it’s off to a rolling start, with a colorful cast and a simple, flexible school environment… but nothing, absolutely nothing about this, matches pace with the initial tone set by the introduction and the OP. Chisa was contemplating the circumstances surrounding her death mere minutes before deciding to have her students crucify the gymnast girl, a bit that followed at least two (surprisingly decent) shit jokes in a row. Tonal disparity this obvious and this jarring… it has to be a joke, right? It has to be an intentional joke. But it becomes clear the further you advance into DR3 that, no, this is actually what the staff decided was the best course of action for a serious, honest dramedy.

And don’t give me that excuse of “well, dramedy is a mix of drama and comedy, so no shit it’ll be dark and then wacky”. You wouldn’t put raw fucking eggs and a gallon of milk into a bowl and expect a good cake out of it… and if you do, then you should never be a baker. It’s all about blending, mixing, an adequate and tasteful synthesis the various ingredients you need to make a good dish. If DR3 was a dish, it’d be a fucking Hot Pocket - hot and scalding one minute, then weirdly cold and uncooked the next. They either needed to commit to one particular genre, or needed to boil down a more mature blend of comedy and tragedy.

But that ain’t what we got. What I just described was most of the episode - all that’s left is for Chisa to collect the remaining two classmates (because apparently attendance isn’t mandatory, insane logic for a literal High School). She comically nabs this animator kid, Mitarai, which leaves her to collect… Chiaki Nanami, a quiet, demure, but wide-eyed and earnest gamer girl that owns a cat hoodie and often gets lost in her games. But it’s not Chisa that runs into him first… it’s Hajime Hinata, a regular “Reserve Course” student that seemingly doesn’t have a Talent necessary to get into the Super Special 1-B class that Chisa teaches. You can think of the Reserve Course like… a general studies class set aside in a tech or private school.

*crickets*

-sigh- I have a lot to say about this kid, but his first interaction with Chiaki is honestly good. Hajime recognizes the archaic game she’s playing, which surprises and delights her greatly; they bond over it for a bit before Hajime muses over his lack of a talent… but Chiaki tells him that talent isn’t the end-all be-all for a good life. She even points out that he has a lot of possibilities ahead of him, whereas she will always be defined by games. Chisa finally arrives to drag her away; they say their goodbyes. This is about the only time the episode finds time to shut up and just let the scene speak for itself - it’s the closest it gets to matching the tone of the beginning. In that sense, Hajime and Chiaki’s scene is good… but it’s been such a considerable stretch of time since the beginning that this quieter scene feels jarring compared to the ten-fifteen solid minutes of anarchy beforehand. DR3 can’t really win. This is why structure is crucial to the emotional coherency of any narrative, no matter what. There needs to be a flow to what's going on, otherwise it's just noise.

With the class finally collected and established, Chisa calls her shockingly-bland love interest and fellow graduate Kyosuke Munakata to inform him about her day while he’s overseas on school business… and then it’s over. The episode moves fast, not really allotting the viewer with a moment to breathe or think - and while there’s a certain fun, bombastic rush to the hilarious and shallow pleasures of seeing stupid teenagers act like braindead morons, it makes the show’s attempted dips into more serious territory feel disingenuous. Did I enjoy the more quiet and contemplative aspects of the episode? Yes. Did I enjoy the wacky shit? Yes. So, theoretically, this should be a perfect beginning, since I liked both of its separate identities… but the problem is that these identities don’t connect. They belong on separate planes of existence. Zany High-School Danganronpa 3 and Moody, Sentimental Danganronpa 3 are not the same show - you cannot convince me otherwise. And it’s a problem the show will never move past.

(As you can see from these screencaps, I watched this on Funimation. Bro, fuck Funimation's streaming service. It's the fucking worst. The ads will pause if you open a new tab, it's a whole sack of fucking trash. If you swap the audio track from JP to ENG, ads will play again. The ads repeat, frequently, sometimes the exact same ad three times in a row with differing audio quality. Funimation makes Crunchyroll look appealing... and if your streaming service makes fucking Crunchyroll look solid by comparison, that's when you know you have fucked up, bro. Diatribe over.)

The only two characters I really felt a strong pull towards in this episode were Chisa and Chiaki. Chisa is a wild, eccentric addition to the cast… but for an anime-exclusive character, she acquits herself into the cast with a shocking amount of ease and naturalism. Her cute and spunky energy matches her students’ perfectly - couple that with an insanely pretty design and it almost feels like she was always meant to be their teacher. And Chiaki is almost the perfect blend of serious and silly - she has her obvious quirks and she gushes over old games, but neither of these are excessive enough that they subtract from her sweet, quiet personality. She almost feels like a complete package in the little time we get to know her - Chiaki could possibly have two dimensions compared to her lively-yet-clearly-flat classmates.

Also - Game Girl Advance? Cute as fuck.

Nobody else works quite as well beyond their capacity for making you laugh. For a supposed protagonist, Hajime is quite forgettable - and even if that’s the point, the fact remains that I had completely forgotten he was even in the opening episode before rewatching it for this review. Being forgettable is a major enough problem for any main character… but being forgettable in fucking Danganronpa?? That’s a cardinal sin. He needs more than what he has now if he wants to make an impact of any kind. The adults, besides Chisa and one slightly-appealing alcoholic teacher, made no impact on me whatsoever - Munakata and Principal Kirigiri feel like they share identical personalities, and Munakata’s work overseas doesn’t feel interesting enough to warrant dedicating a scene around it (it’s clearly just setup for the Future Arc, anyway).

Soda's lame as fuck. I got a sadistic kick out of watching everyone roast this simp.

Inconsistency has already begun to plague DR3 to its very core… and yet, it’s so weirdly spastic and enjoyable that it’s hard to judge it too harshly. In the heat of the moment, with your brain turned off, it’s a lightning-quick and entertaining twenty or so minutes out of your day, with some strong character designs (probably the series’ best-looking cast is here on display, minus a few losers like Soda… and even his blue jumpsuit works a lot better than the piss-yellow rendition of it in the games) and an undeniable amount of energy and passion. That’s almost enough to forgive it… but not quite. DR3 isn't strong or sentimental enough to overcome its numerous shortcomings.

We’re just getting started.

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Code Geass: Lelouch of the Resurrection - A One-Year Retrospective Review

Spoilers for the Code Geass TV series (none that would surprise anyone, though, not in this day and age) and the entirety of the movie. Akito the Exiled is mentioned, but not spoiled per se.

It’s not a third season of Code Geass. It’s been a year since Re;surrection released, so that shouldn’t come as a surprise now… but at the time, it was. When everyone heard that Code Geass was set to rise from the dead like Lelouch himself, the stage seemed set for “R3”, the hypothetical (and frankly highly anticipated), elusive third season of Code Geass that honestly deserves to happen, all things considered… and hasn’t, because R3 turned out to be ‘Resurrection’, and Resurrection turned out to be an anime spinoff movie. A perfectly fine subgenre of animation, and a perfectly fine way to begin a proposed “ten-year plan” for Code Geass (which has everyone fascinated to no end)… but it’s not a third season as expected.

We were misled in the marketing leading up to this movie, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and what we got was a fascinatingly strange product that feels like both an extension of Code Geass' dramatic identity and also a complete subversion of what we've come to expect. Resurrection is equal parts strange and standard - right when you think it’s about to get too strange and off-kilter for Code Geass, it reels you back into a comfortable, colorful display of spectacle, brains, and flashy style that made Code so much fun to watch back in the day. So if the worst thing about Re;surrection is that it’s not a third season and Sunrise didn’t do a damn thing to dissuade those notions, the best thing about Re;surrection is that it just feels like another Code Geass episode, with just enough dramatic and visual flair to let you know that Lelouch vi Britannia is back.

The simplicity of the plot keeps Re;surrection anchored throughout. In a vague alternate timeline (depending on your point of view, it may or may not be canonical; this is good, it allows your personal view on Lelouch's ambiguous fate to remain unscathed), one year has passed since the events of Season 2 - more specifically, a year has passed since the much-beloved “Zero Requiem”, a global conspiracy that ended with the intentionally-orchestrated death of Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia, ruler of the world and the original identity behind the masked vigilante “Zero” before Suzaku Kururugi, Lelouch’s knight and troubled best friend, took over the mantle for him. The world is at peace after Lelouch’s self-orchestrated death, and the former Emperor sleeps comfortably in his grave…

…Except not quite. The titular resurrection of Lelouch occurred sometime before the movie’s opening due to some strange circumstances surrounding his Geass, a supernatural power bestowed unto Lelouch by C.C., his pizza-loving, immortal witch girlfriend and confidant. Lelouch’s resurrection has left him in an addled, vulnerable, almost zombie-like state, and C.C. has to hurry and repair Lelouch’s mind if they want a shot at rescuing Suzaku and the current Empress, Lelouch’s kindly sister Nunnally, who were attacked by a mysterious band of desert warriors led by the cryptic, unhinged King Shalio and his dramatic, elitist sister, Queen Shamna of Zilkhstan, a Middle Eastern nation known for its incredible strength and deeply-rooted religious reverence.

Lelouch eventually does regain his memories, and it’s at this point that the film starts to lapse into a steady, familiar okayness that it never really breaks out of. The plot becomes focused on his nation-wide, Geass-charged battle against Shamna, Shalio, and their collective of poorly-named weirdos (Shesthaal, Bolvona, Swaile, Belq - no, you’re not having a stroke, those are their actual names that the director that sounded human and naturalistic) that represent Zilkhstan. Lelouch is aided by a few familiar faces - his ace and on-and-off love interest Kallen Kozuki, the silly and beloved scientist Lloyd, and Lelouch’s loyal yet idiosyncratic ninja maid Sayoko, among a few other fan favorites and a vast amount of cameos. No signs of V.V., unfortunately.

Resurrection’s first half is better than its second half - the film peaks pretty early on, in fact. Seeing Lelouch in an almost hypnotic state, trance-like and delusional as C.C. tries her best to take care of him and protect him from mysterious criminals is striking and unexpected. It brings to mind the more fragile interpretation of him in Akito the Exiled. The film gets off to a rolling start with two brief yet riveting and well-paced, atmospheric fights that communicate the danger of Lelouch’s new enemies well (the hotel battle in particular is great), and Zilkhstan itself is just a terrific location, a unique blend of Middle Eastern and cyberpunk stylings I can’t compare to anything else. There's a religious undercurrent to the location that sharply defines the country's personality and role in the overarching mythos - it feels like it was always there, rather than just being tacked on (and it’s a damn better country than Code Geass’ interpretation of fucking China).

Fantastic designs. It feels like they personally know God.

I wish the inhabitants of Zilkhstan were as strong as their home. None of the film’s six new characters are bad, but so many of them start out great, only to wind up in an underwhelming place. Swaile Qujappat (-sigh-) really kicks the movie into high gear by wielding a fancy Geass power and a team of tough, masked assassins, but his initial rivalry with C.C. and Kallen is never followed up on - he’s murdered by a side character, in fact. The rough-and-tumble Belq Batoum Bitool has an incredibly strong design, a fascinating blend of hulking musculature and catlike agility that works surprisingly well, but much like Swaile, he’s not allowed to do much after his first fight. Shesthaal Forgnar is particularly disappointing - he’s not even allowed the chance to fight in his new Knightmare Frame before he gets utterly destroyed by Lelouch (it makes you wonder why they even made a new design in the first place; merch?). Shesthaal’s death is apparently supposed to be a massive instigator for his well-renowned father, Bolvona Forgnar, but Shesthaal barely had any time to make an impact before he was killed, so the impact is lost on the audience somewhat.

King Shalio and Queen Shamna are unique beasts. Shalio is probably the standout new character made for this film. Shalio has the coolest Knightmare, the coolest gimmick (a crippled yet deadly Knightmare pilot), and especially the coolest look - his design is mystical and eerie. Shalio constantly looks and feels like he’s drenched in sunlight, likewise for his exotic and icy sister Shamna. Shalio also has an amazing death scene, a nightmarish and red-dominated explosion of pencil drawings and whirlwinds that works incredibly well - had Shalio had a couple more unique scenes, he really could have been something special. Instead, he has to settle for being pretty damn good. Shamna comes close - her dynamic with Shalio is an evil parallel to Lelouch and Nunnally, and her authority and grandiose sense of self-importance is felt every moment she’s on screen. But Shamna’s plan is confusing (quite confusing, in fact), and her time travel-oriented Geass power breaks the movie's logic and breaks the rules and consistency of the Geass power system as a whole; she is a pretty good villain otherwise, exactly as strange, elitist, and flamboyant as she needs to be (which pits her as the theoretical perfect rival against Lelouch), but she’s unable to overcome that gaffe due to the film’s last third being dominated by the specs and usage of her power.

The returning cast is decently well-used but some characters needed more - Suzaku felt pretty irrelevant to both the conflict and the characters around him after he gets rescued, both Jeremiah Gottwald and Anya Alstreim (fan-favorites) felt like they were tacked on, there to press a button and nothing more (if Jeremiah's Geass canceler was used against Shamna and Swaile somehow... food for thought), and the otherwise-great Kallen needed one more scene with Lelouch to tie up loose ends. Lelouch and C.C. are the clear-cut standout characters in this movie - C.C. is emotional and arguably way better here than she was at the end of the second season, and it's fun to see Lelouch acting like his expressive, charismatic self all over again. These two have the best scenes in the movie. The ending scene between these two is terrific, as is the cryptic, vague post-credits scene.

Superficially, the film is a mixed bag, but it ends up being good more often than not. The color palette is stronger and bolder here than Code’s sometimes bleached-out 2000’s look (chalk it up to age at the end of the day), and the character animation is perfectly decent, and sometimes pretty great during the hand-to-hand fight scenes, or a particularly amazing and evocative bit of facial animation with C.C. right at the end of the movie (the "When She Smiles" trope in full effect - I think it's just as strong as Rei Ayanami's smile). On the other hand, the CG effects are… not that great. Practically all of the Knightmares run on CG animation, and while Sunrise has definitely improved since the dreadful Akito days, the reliance on CG for the now-iconic Lancelot and Guren feels disingenuous and artificial. Some Knightmares look good in motion (Shalio’s) while some look and feel fucking pathetic (Belq’s weird Scorpion robot, which visibly looks like it operates on a lower frame rate than anything else) - the mecha quality fluctuates depending on the scene, and it makes one yearn for the easy proficiency and consistent quality of the robot animation in Code Geass itself.

Like, you've gotta be fuckin kidding me right?

There are small grace notes of fantastic things here and there. The film’s pacing is rock solid - it rarely slows down to take a break, but it never becomes too hard to follow. Resurrection’s score is wonderful - it maintains all the dramatic and wistful nature of Code’s original score and throws in some fantastic new tracks, like a wicked, guitar-dominated stinger track for Shalio and tense, restless electronics for the moment when Lelouch takes up the mantle of Zero once again (“Revive” is also an amazing, swelling ED). There’s a terrific scene where Lelouch and C.C. bounce ideas back and forth as they strategize and try to determine a strategy against Shamna that harkens back to the R1 days, and C.C. is referred to as “Pizza Girl” by Kallen in their first meeting.

But the film is also pockmarked by problems here and there that drag it back down to earth. The mythos of Re;surrection are hazy and unclear - it’s never particularly clear why Shamna needed Nunnally for her plan, or what this plan would even lead to in the long run. Magic has never been Taniguchi's strong suit. In some ways, the battles lack the intelligence and nuance of R1 and (to a lesser extent) R2 - Suzaku and Kallen pressed a singular button and annihilated dozens of mooks at one point. And I don’t like the weird Frame Coating thing they’ve given the Lancelot and the Guren (pictured above for Lancelot) - it gives the sleek, slim mechs a bulky, overcomplicated, and shapeless look that flies in the face of the design philosophy of Code’s Knightmare Frames.

Equal highs and equal lows - Resurrection averages out to being perfectly fine, even though it could have been great. Resurrection does not feel like a revival so much as it does a rough draft - I hope this film leads to more, that its very nature is used as a springboard for future Code Geass material. There’s room for improvement to be had here - in some ways, it feels like Code didn’t really learn from its narrative mistakes. But it’s nice to see some more Code Geass material, and the film's strongest moments are striking, memorable, and ensnaring enough to make you remember what got you into the series in the first place. At the very least, it can resurrect some great memories.

6.5/10.

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Redemption and Circumstance: The Issue with Catra

Very gentle spoilers for characters in Season 3 and Season 4. Plot descriptions kept vague. The surprises contained in both seasons will likely not be ruined for you if you haven't seen them.

Let's make the exposition brief, get the scene-setting out of the way. Catra is one of the primary antagonists from Netflix's promising-but-rushed She-Ra and the Princesses of Power - and yes, she's called that because she's a cat. Why? Don't actually matter. Catra was the best friend of Adora (the main protagonist and the true identity of the titular She-Ra; lot of Ra's here), and the two of them grew up together serving as child soldiers for the Horde, a bunch of techno-industrial evil douchebags led by professional bastard Hordak and his wicked vizier Shadow Weaver, the mother figure to both Catra and Adora. True to the staples of the "Prodigal Sons" trope, Adora and Catra were separated by fate - Catra remained with the Horde, and Adora went on to fight for the freedom of the planet that the Horde was trying to conquer.

Up to speed? Cool. That's Catra in a nutshell - the dark side of the same coin that Adora belongs to. The literal Tails to her Heads. Now the important question - what's wrong with Catra as a character? What happened?? Catra started off so well - Season 1 and Season 2 Catra was a fantastic antagonist. She made strong, dynamic choices, and was full of enough ambition and insecurity that we really got to see a glimpse of the person underneath her smug, embittered shell. She wasn't anywhere near 'forgivable' or even 'redeemable', but she was sympathetic at least. It felt like she had good reason to act the way she did.

But then, at some point, the showrunners decided that Catra needed to have a redemption arc... even though Season 3 and 4 Catra (which is where we left off with her, no less) has shown signs of getting progressively nastier, crazier, and somehow far more unlikable and isolated.

And this is the problem with Catra. The showrunners are attempting to redeem a character that has done nothing to deserve a redemption arc.

What makes a redemption arc really click is if you feel that the redeemed character in question... is worthy of the narrative's grace or not. If you want a strong example of a tried-and-true redemption arc... well, look no further than what many people consider to be the best of the best: Avatar's Prince Zuko. Zuko needs no introduction. He's the GOAT - that's all there is to it. The neat thing is, there are many similarities between Prince Zuko and Catra - they both start off as evil-oriented characters with abusive caretakers, a lack of friends beyond a single, reliable and positive-minded confidant (Uncle Iroh for Zuko, and Scorpia for Catra), and an incredible drive to prove themselves and live up to the overwhelming expectations placed on them by their shitty superiors.

But what separates Zuko from Catra is Zuko's gradual rise from villainy. Zuko absolutely did not start out as a character worthy of redemption - he was tragic, misunderstood, and sympathetic, sure, but none of that wiped the blood off of his hands. He was a selfish and impulsive murderer hell-bent on chasing something that practically everyone around him agreed wasn't worth it. Even with his moments of genuine kindness beneath his veil of wounded arrogance, Zuko would often relapse and fall back on his goal, because it was all he had beyond his Uncle Iroh. As the show neared its middle section, however, the kindness of the series protagonists (in particular Aaag) and the wisdom of Iroh slowly started to reach Zuko. Even when Zuko achieved exactly what he wanted... he wasn't happy. And it was only then that the road to redemption started - right in the middle of the show, and right when Zuko was starting to grow into a better and more mature person. There isn't a soul on Planet Earth that denies the inherent 10/10 writing of Zuko's arc. He's magnificent - and a big reason Zuko's arc worked was because of pacing and focus. Zuko had ample time to be set up a villain, had ample time to realize his shortcomings, and had plenty of time to work past his flaws and turn into the lovable badass he is today. Godspeed, Zuko.

Compare Catra. After Season 2, it feels like Catra begins to descend further into villainy. Catra becomes a lot more selfish and underhanded than before, the already-enormous gap between her and Adora deepening even further as Adora desperately tries to sway Catra from doing something irreversibly bad (much like an actual cat). Catra begins working against and betraying her superiors to get what she wants. She practically turns into an omnicidal maniac by Season 3, ranting that murdering everyone would be just fine if it meant that her better-written rival wouldn't win. And the further that Catra descends into hedonism and villainy, the further she alienates her boss (Hordak), her childhood friends (Lonnie), and the only people that even give her the time of day anymore (Entrapta and especially Scorpia), all because of her vacuous, toxic, ritualistic habits that stem from cycles of abuse (institutionalized and personal) and self-inflicted loneliness.

Good qualities for a rising villain? Absolutely.
Good qualities for a character the showrunners clearly want to redeem? Not a fucking chance.

And therein lies the problem. Catra has done practically nothing to deserve forgiveness, and yet the showrunners desperately want her to have it. Even the moments of levity that Catra has are always seen under the pretense of her doing something terrible and self-serving, like conquering a desert nation just to fuel her ego. She still does terrible things, still orders her troops to do terrible things, still consistently refuses the call to goodness, and still abuses those closest to her - especially Scorpia. And while the showrunners were wise enough to realize that Scorpia would, realistically, get fed up and hurt by Catra's personality... they weren't wise enough to have Catra make up for her behavior even though they want us to believe she's worthy of salvation (they also weren't wise enough to realize that Glimmer is absolutely using Scorpia even though Scorpia dislikes Catra for the very same reasons... it makes me concerned for the state of She-Ra's initially-good themes about abuse, but that's another essay for another time). By the end of Season 4 (which is exactly where we are now), Catra is at an all-time low... and there hasn't been a single, noticeable all-time high outside of what flashes we've seen of Catra when she was a happier child. And that's not the Catra they want to change. That's not the Catra they want us to see.

I'm sorry, but a "Reason You Suck" speech should not be delivered from one piece of shit to another piece of shit of equal value, lmao. Double Trouble (bad name) is also a hedonistic, selfish diva who's even more shallow and directionless than Catra... and much like Catra, the showrunners never bothered to give them a chance for redemption. So using Double Trouble as the means to try and force an atoner's clarity out of Catra... yeah, bad move. It's like Stalin telling Hitler "dude, you are bad for killing people." A much better eye-opener character would have been Hordak, who is actually a decent example of a villain that's been given humanity and understanding in spite of his malicious, snarling demeanor, unlike Catra, who... hasn't.

Catra's backstory and harsh circumstances also aren't enough to redeem her. It makes her easier to understand, yes - it's undeniable that the Horde and Shadow Weaver's emotional abuse fucked her up, and was partially responsible for putting Catra in the broken mindset that leads her to make bad decisions. But she'll get no sympathy from me. Why? Because of Adora. Adora was in the exact same boat as Catra - sure, Adora was favored by Shadow Weaver, but Shadow Weaver still definitely abused her, albeit in a far subtler, more manipulative way. Adora was just as indoctrinated by the Horde as Catra... but Adora made a conscious decision to join the Princesses and fight for what is objectively good (because at least the Princesses don't conquer planets). This implies that the same thing happened to Catra... Catra is making a conscious decision to stick with the plainly-evil Horde and making a conscious choice to continue making bad decisions. Adora even points this out in Season 3, stating that Catra made her choice... so she has to live with the consequences.

And Adora's right. Catra's making the choice to be an asshole, and that's that. Assholes are, typically, unforgivable, unless they make a point to not be an asshole. Like Zuko. Sure, it's fucking sad that Catra was abused and mistreated and groomed to only be a killing machine, but it doesn't excuse anything she's done up until this point. Like, it's possible to relate to the loneliness and anger that often drives school shooters or terrorists... but they don't deserve forgiveness for murdering children. They never do. And neither does Catra. The showrunners need to realize that, too.

With Season 5 on the horizon (and it's looking to be the finale), we're running out of time... and Catra, as of this point, has not met the requirements of a character that deserves a redemption arc. She isn't worthy of our grace. She's become nastier and altogether more grim and chaotic than before, snarling and slinking around the Horde's headquarters and sulking in her growing loneliness. Truly a character worthy of being forgiven. It really sucks because there have been plenty of moments before this that the showrunners could have used to develop Catra and possibly steer her in the direction of a person that wants to improve themselves... but that didn't happen. Instead, they doubled down on making her a slimy, smug snake with an inferiority complex and a massive temper. That's not to say that any of these traits are bad for a villain/anti-hero (not at all), or bad for a redemptive character per se... but if you want to make someone terrible make a noticeable transition into someone good, at some point you have to make them not want to murder kids, kick puppies, and abuse their closest friend. We're in the endgame now, and Catra's morally (and narratively) worse than where she started.

"I don't care what happens to this character." The eight deadly words to hear if you're a writer/creator. And it's true. Given the intended direction Catra's going down... I don't care what happens to her. For all the screentime Catra's allotted, it feels like she's heading nowhere satisfying very quickly (unless they wind up not giving her a redemption arc after all... in which case, this'll all just feel like a cocktease). It's a shame to see such a promising character wasted on deteriorating writing quality and ruined by the all-too-pressing need to make 'something special'.

Let this be a lesson - if you want a devil to look like an angel, at some point or another... they need to start making a strong step towards the road to heaven.

For Zuko, that was standing against his father.

For Catra...

Well. She had her chance to stand up.

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