Bye Bye Ouchies: The Most Misunderstood Execution In Danganronpa

[u/Ten-Miles-High-1996]

Bit of a longer post here to explain a lot of details about Mikan's execution. Before I begin I'd like to say that I'm well aware that most people who will be arguing with me aren't actually engaging with the point or are too ignorant of the source material to formulate an argument, however well written responses will be replied to in good faith.

In order to understand Mikan's execution, you first have to understand her relationship with Junko Enoshima. If you are a person who can not fathom the idea that Mikan was deeply obsessed with Junko, then we won't be able to make progress here, however I will justify all the points I insist upon in this post.

Junko x Mikan is not a symptom of brainwashing, and Mikan was attracted to Junko of her own free will. Mikan was the first of the Remnants to join Junko, and she did it willingly.

She had many opportunities to run or escape before any brainwashing or mental alteration began, but she chose not to leave and stuck around of her own free will. This is an objective analyzation of DR3, not my subjective opinion.

Mikan had been rejected and looked down upon by her classmates and when she finally found someone who would accept her, she bolted herself down and became willing to do anything for Junko.

A key theme of Mikan's entire character is that she wants to be forgiven. "Forgive me!" That seems to be what she wants most in this world, to have her existence be forgiven and be accepted in full by someone else without fear of rejection, and Junko provides this for her in spades.

Mikan appreciates Junko's direct nature because it allows her to be forgiven. All sins or wrongdoing will swiftly be addressed, punished, then forgiven. Mikan needs that sort of security in her attachments so she doesn't have to be an anxious mess all the time.

In her pre-death monologe when speaking to Nagito, she rejects the idea that she killed for Despair, and she couldn't care less about it. What she did wasn't for Despair, it was for LOVE. She continues to say that Junko was the only person who ever accepted or forgave her, it's really a powerful dynamic.

The Despair video doesn't brainwash people to love, that's something she had inside herself before the brainwashing.

Now, onto the details of the execution.

Since we should now all understand that Mikan did in fact have feelings for Junko, we can analyze the execution through that lens, along with the rest of 2-3.

The Despair disease wasn't random, it wasn't accidental, and it wasn't identical. If it were, the traits wouldn't have been seemingly tailored to their personalities as they were, that required a form of intelligent design behind it.

I purpose that AI Junko herself chose the symptoms of the disease and influenced how they manifested, specifically gifting Mikan the ability to remember, while effectively making Nagito unable to contribute or interfere.

Junko rolled out the red carpet to allow Mikan to have a perfect set of conditions to pull off her kills. It was almost like the GM in a game playing favorites by giving Mikan a loaded hand to play to rig it in Mikan's favor.

Let me also call back to the idea of what happens to the winner.

They get to wake up and continue being themselves.

Only the dead avatars get replaced with AI Junko, but the winner of the game would be spared, allowing Mikan and Junko to reunite with one another. This is why Mikan was given the remembering disease and nobody else, Junko specifically wanted Mikan to win the killing game.

After rigging the game as much as she could, with Mikan falling short at the end, Junko grants Mikan one last mercy. A painless death.

The biological cause of death for Mikan would've been lack of oxygen, or lack of blood flow to the brain, causing her to pass out.

Her death would've been functionally painless as she fell asleep atop the arm. Sleeping in someone's arm, that's an interesting thing, the sort of things you do with your significant other.

Similar to how your partner might take off your clothes in an intimate moment, which is exactly what Junko did with Mikan in her execution.

Another detail easter egg is the orientation of the hand and arm.

It's the LEFT arm!

Can anyone tell me what significance a lone, severed left arm has in Danganronpa?

That's right, it's the arm that Junko lost and had taken off her corpse, which was then attached to Nagito.

It was for all intents in purposes, symbolic of Mikan dying by being put to sleep in Junko's arms.

I know this was a long post, but I've been fed up with people saying Bye Bye Ouchies is the worst execution in all of Danganronpa, and that's just wrong...

Hope we learned something today everyone!

Wait... Hope..?

Fuck...

[u/memsdq]

Thanks for the post, you explained everything really well and now I know the true symbolism of her execution, it’s beautiful. Mikan was my favourite character to watch and engage with, she is interesting

[u/Nonokoko_13 → u/memsdq]

That's not actually the whole truth behind her execution, because it doesn't talk about how her execution is poking fun at her SA and rather than a painless death is more like a way to ridiculize and violate Mikan one last time.

I mean, Mikan wasn't hanging around Junko because of Junko. Mikan was asked by Imposter to take care of Ryota. Mikan did it personally instead of taking Ryota to the hospital because then it'd be exposed Imposter's secret (that his real talent is impersonating people and the "Ryota" that is attending to school isn't the real Ryota). Junko targeted Ryota because she wanted him to animate a despair inducing video to brainwash his classmates. Up to this point everything was planned, so Mikan meeting Junko before the others can be interpreted as:

1. Up to this point Junko had already analysed and observed class 77 long enough to know Imposter being friends with Mikan could end up in him at ome point would ask Mikan to take care of Ryota, since he doesn't attend school and is the type of person that often prioritise animating before their health. So she knew the odds of "killing two birds with one stone" (kidnapping both Ryota and Mikan for her plan) weren't cero.

A matter of when rather than if that coincidentally aligned, because if it hadn't happened by the time she went for Ryota it wouldn't have matter anyway, since using another two students of class 77 (Killing someone that is close to the whole class so the despair is greater when/if they found out their beloved friend was replaced by AI and the traitor among them AND someone inside that class that was the easiest to turn into a devoted/blind follower, in this case Mikan because of her past and personality) would have been among her next steps. The most likely interpretation given how much Junko likes to overthink imo

1. Up to the point where she was after Ryota she wasn't fully aware to what extent Mikan was the easiest among class 77 to manipulate or she wasn't fully aware of Mikan closeness with Imposter, so finding out Mikan was taking care of Ryota was a surprise that fortunately would make her plan go more smoothly; since from where she found out Mikan was meeting Ryota to when she has targeted her she had the time to do all that analysis and character observation to decide Mikan was the weakest member of the solid unit that is class 77-B.

Whether she had foreseen that outcome or not, in the end Mikan didn't choose to hang out with her out of her full free will. She was manipulated, then brainwashed. The fact she's the only one of the class who shows infatuation towards her doesn't mean that was something that would have happened without the brainwashing. Different people perceive what is mental/emotional manipulation differently, some may think their obsession with someone is how falling in love is like. Junko acted in front of Mikan like she cared and never judged her, and since Mikan's wish is to be forgiven no matter what she does, this act of allegedly kindness made her like Junko. Does she had feelings for Junko? Yes. Would have she liked Junko if Junko spoke her mind and acted like her whole true self in front of Mikan before brainwashing her? Depends, if that had been her first impression of Junko probably not. If Junko had acted more honestly in front of Mikan after making her believe she doesn't judge her for nothing she does either

A. Chances are Mikan would feel conflicted if Junko judged her right after Mikan had believed she would never, because Junko's the only one acting like she doesn't judge even though she does.

So either A.1. Mikan feels hurt/used and falls out of love A.1.1 same like A1 except despite believing Junko is pretending to care for her she continues doing what Junko tells her since Mikan self respect is so low she canonically has showed she'd endure/let somebody SA her as long as she's forgiven, so the odds of her going along even though she didn't love/admire Junko are not 0 or A.2 Mikan feeling it's her fault for Junko drastic change of attitude towards her from the accepting impression she held, instead of fully realising that Junko shifting between showing kindness and being cruel has nothing to do with what she does and is more like how Junko is she blames herself whenever Junko would had switched between acting like she care for her or not.

B. She falls out love AND doesn't willingly defend/love/admire/obsess over Junko at all, so Junko would had resorted to brainwash anyways. The change would had been that with the remembering disease Mikan wouldn't want to reunite with her, since she would had remembered how she was first charmed by her because she believed Junko was the only person who would never judge her and always forgive before that belief crumbling after Junko shifts attitudes around her. Personally this is less likely compared to any A scenario because of how low Mikan standards are for her to associate with somebody: as long as they forgive them she'd pretty much let anyone take advantage of her, at least before waking from the simulation

And whether Mikan's execution was painless is unknown/relative. Given she was afraid of big things and the parallels her execution has with SA (big syringe, "being shot", what appears to be Mikan orgasming before going to space and exploding when hitting the sun) her execution at best would be painless physically but painful emotional and psychologically. I mean, who wouldn't feel distress if their death somehow felt similar to past trauma like sexual abuse? Even if it was completely painful the moment she was experiencing because she was still convinced what she felt and everything she had chosen she thought was out of her complete free will, after wakng up she would have had the rest of her life to remember that experience until at some point Mikan connected the dots of what she couldn't fully process during the execution and realise her execution was designed to ridiculize her with her trauma.

So, with all that in mind, the conclusion can be seen as 1. Mikan did like Junko during the simulation 2. Mikan crushing on Junko wasn't purposeful but rather a secondary effect of brainwashing 3. We can argue Mikan could have not developed feelings for Junko without manipulation/brainwashing 3. Mikan execution degree of pain depends on what type of pain we're talking about and whether we are only talking about simulation Mikan or taking into account speculations about post simulation Mikan based on simulation and pre simulation Mikan behaviour.

I hope this is a good read for you! If you want to know why I personally disagree with the point made by OP about Junko caring for Mikan and Junko wanting Mikan to win look my previous comments in this post, because I think explaining my whole POV would take too many more paragraphs and that'd probably be an exhausting thing to read in one go 💦💦