Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School)

IMPORTANT NOTE: This article will ONLY focus on her version from Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. Not her incarnations from Trigger Happy Havoc or Goodbye Despair.

Junko Enoshima is the main antagonist of the Danganronpa franchise, but this doesn't save her from being entirely flanderized in some parts of the series.

As of Danganronpa 3, her character has become a bland, one-dimensional villain.

Why She Sucks Now

 * 1) In this series, she's changed from a complex and cunning, yet entertaining antagonist with a detailed motivation to an incompetent, one-note "I'm going to destroy civilization because I'm evil!" Generic doomsday villain. Some examples include:
 * 2) * Brainwashing people such as Mikan Tsumiki and Chisa Yukizome into becoming her minions.
 * 3) * Using her older sister Mukuro Ikusaba as part of her plans for world domination.
 * 4) * Torturing Chiaki Nanami to death in order to turn Class 77-B into Ultimate Despairs (see WSSN #6.1).
 * 5) She has been completely flanderized, her personality having changed from a cynical teenager who wants to "corrupt" the world because she's bored and sees despair as the only exciting thing in life to a one-dimensional villain whose plans only succeed through sheer luck and the heroes' incompetence with none of the original hammyness, threatening presence, or other attributes she had in the first two games and and anime adaptation that made her such a memorable antagonist.
 * 6) Junko Enoshima's voice can get irritating after a while, to the point where you'll want to cut off your ears rather than listen to her talking for another second, especially in the English dub due to the fact that it gives her an extremely obnoxious and stereotypical Valley Girl voice. It isn't helped by the fact that she '''never shuts up!
 * 7) Speaking of the English dub, some of her dialogue in it ranges from cringeworthy, like when she tells Chiaki "Now there's the hope I wanna crush!" (after Chiaki tells her in a hopeful tone that her classmates will both rescue her from her punishment and defeat Junko), to downright laughable, like her infamous "KAMUKURA KAMUKURA YAS QUEEN!" (when she  meets Izuru Kamukura for the first time and gets very excited to have met him), although the latter of which can be considered a redeeming quality due to arguably being so nonsensical it comes off as hilarious and its meme status.
 * 8) She's also abusive towards Mukuro and Mikan, often slapping and verbally degrading them. What makes it truly unsettling is that they both seem to enjoy it, the former even taking pleasure in Junko trying to kill her.
 * 9) Idiot Move: It's shown that she realized mh:greatcharacters:Makoto Naegi was a threat before the Killing Game even started, but instead of killing him, she kept him alive because of her despair fetish, even after Mukuro told her to have Makoto killed first.
 * 10) In some episodes, she is incredibly unlikable and intolerable to the extent that it makes Professor Pester look like the Joker in comparison.
 * 11) * She solidifies herself as a "complete monster" in episode 10 of the Despair Arc, where she, Mikan and Chisa lure Chiaki Nanami into a maze filled with booby traps where she is slowly tortured to death, with Junko personally delivering the killing blow by impaling Chiaki with a bunch of spears (as mentioned in WSSN #1.3), all the while the rest of her classmates are forced to watch the entire thing through monitors that don't allow them to move or look away. And by the end, the brainwashing effects combined with the despair of watching their friend and beloved class rep being brutally tortured to death turns the rest of Class 77-B into the Remnants of Despair. To add insult to injury, Chiaki's execution goes on for almost the whole episode and is shown in graphic detail.
 * 12) ** Speaking of her brainwashing, it has 2 implications for how it works. The first one is that those who are brainwashed into despair have no idea that they're actually committing atrocities and believe they're bringing people happiness. And if it really is the case, it shows how much Class 77-B wanted to make the world a better place, only for Junko to corrupt them into her lackeys and force them to do the opposites, using their good intentions against them. The second one is that they actually are aware of what they're doing, but are unable to do anything to stop it, and that they're in despair knowing that they're not making people happier like they desired, all the while they're completely helpless to stop themselves from doing the opposites of what they truly want to do. Needless to say, both interpretations are absolutely terrifying, and nothing short of psychological horror, and only succeed in painting Junko as even more of a horrific psychopath since she's the one who did this to these kids. And to add icing to unfortunate pile, ever since Class 77-B got out of the Neo World Program in Hope Arc, they've all had to now live with the knowledge that they were responsible for the Tragedy and the worldwide spread of despair ever since, and all because of Junko. ''Ouch.
 * 13) She's also homophobic, as she publicly humiliated Juzo Sakakura in front of the Reserve Students because he was in love with Kyosuke Munakata and uses it to blackmail him into telling Munakata that she's innocent, in the exact same episode as the one previously mentioned. And to add salt to the wound, she claims that she "isn't devoid of compassion" as she threatens to kill Munakata if Juzo doesn't lie to him. And after he and Chisa tell him that Junko's innocent in the following episode, Juzo ends up going into the bathroom and punching the wall until his fist bled, making it obvious how torn up he was over what he did.
 * 14) * It's also worth noting that this incident is what drove Juzo to despise Junko to the point that he grew to also hate Makoto for being the one to defeat her, something he was determined to do after what she did to him.
 * 15) She blackmails people into doing what she wants, pretty much knows what her opponents' weak spots are and uses them to her advantage (as shown with Sakakura as mentioned above), which is rather uncanny and makes her look like a joke in general.
 * 16) * Speaking of blackmail, her worst and most prominent example was when she forced Ryota Mitarai to create the "Despair Video" to brainwash Chisa and Class 77-B into Ultimate Despairs against their (as well as Ryota's own) will. After breaking him during her final conversation with him, she lets him escape Hope's Peak Academy so that he will live with the knowledge that his anime was responsible for causing "The Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind". The series makes it abundantly clear how badly he was affected by being forced to take part in this and that it ultimately led to him going along with Kazuo Tengan's evil plan of brainwashing everyone on Earth into an eternal state of hope, unaware that it would allow the remaining members of Ultimate Despair to take over the world.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Her character design in this series is rather nice to look at.
 * 2) Her appearance in Danganronpa: The Animation and the other previous installments are far better, as her original personality is intact.
 * 3) At least she isn't as bad as some of the other characters in the Danganronpa franchise (e.g., Hifumi Yamada, Hiyoko Saionji, Yuto Kamishiro, Kazuo Tengan, Ryota Mitarai, Angie Yonaga and Tsumugi Shirogane).

Comments
