Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation

Makoto Naegi, a teenager with no remarkable talent, is surprised to learn that he has been accepted into Hope's Peak Private Academy: an elite school that gathers the best students from various fields. Despite believing his admission was just a fluke, Naegi is delighted to attend an institution known for ensuring success to those who graduate. Determined, he enters the front doors of the prestigious academy.

However, after losing consciousness inside, Naegi wakes up in a seemingly abandoned classroom. Failing to comprehend how he got there, Naegi begins to explore, and to his surprise, finds his classmates assembled in the gym. While everyone is trying to figure out what happened, they are confronted by the school principal—Monokuma, a robotic teddy bear. The mysterious toy explains that the freshmen are trapped inside the school with only one means of escape—kill a classmate without being discovered.

Tension fills the air as Naegi and his classmates realize that they are faced with two choices: participate in Monokuma's killing game, or reside together in the school for the rest of their lives.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kirigiri, Kyouko Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Monokuma Main

Ooyama, Nobuyo Japanese

Naegi, Makoto Main

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Enoshima, Junko Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Ludenberg, Celestia Supporting

Shiina, Hekiru Japanese

Fukawa, Touko Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Togami, Byakuya Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Fujisaki, Chihiro Supporting

Miyata, Kouki Japanese

Ishimaru, Kiyotaka Supporting

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Asahina, Aoi Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Maeda, Toshihiro Producer

Fukura, Kei Producer

Kishi, Seiji Director

Reviews

Oct 5, 2013

MidnightsLament

Recommended

"You've got that wrong!"

First off, if you detest/abhor/dislike this anime, read no further. I've just seen many overly-negative reviews and wanted to have an alternate opinion available for anyone who needs one. This is also a very naive review, as I've never played the game, nor have heard of its popularity, so expectations were average.

Oh god, what am I getting myself into?

The setting of Danganronpa has to be one of the strangest. A despair-filled high school where you have to butcher your classmates to "graduate?" Not going to lie, I thought this probably wasn't going to be the greatest of shows...

"You've got that wrong!"

But how ... so, Naegi?

"The people around me and the events that occur are very peculiar, but interesting!"

Character: 10/10. Ahh, I see now. So the characters are extremely unique (and contrast each other perfectly), I mean, a Super Duper High School Level Wrestler that looks like a body-building man but is really a girl?! My brain was surprised and I'd imagine it started seeping out of my nose. But nonetheless, the characters (obviously) really made the show for me. Not a single character in the show can be labeled, by me, a bad character. Hell, I might just start a new list for Most Hated Characters just because of Monokuna. So I think it's safe to say that you'll enjoy the characters.

Consistency: 7/10. Alright, this is the one thing that got on my nerves. The series did tend to be quite episodic at times and left important information out as well. That was a big downer for me as well, because to me, the series could've been almost nearly perfect if it didn't just drop information. However, I do understand that this was a seasonal anime, a Summer seasonal to be exact, so there really wasn't a way to break out of 12-13 episodes. Long story short, this anime would've been awesome if it was a few episodes longer to include all the information.

"But remember, there's always some other great things that we have as well. Trust me, I'm a fortune-teller.*wink*"

Thank you for the information and for creeping me out, Yasuhiro. But this holds true as well. For example: Mystery! The mystery in this series is absolutely top-notch and very invigorating (and this is coming from a HUGE Higurashi no Naku Koro ni fan), and almost always kept me anxious and nervous until they were solved. The prime example of this was the Classroom Trials, which was the highlight of the series for me. Sure, some of them were rushed, but quite honestly, who cares?! It was so exciting when I saw the elevator descending to the Classroom Trials room. The folowing debate would be very interesting, and was extremely interesting to see how each student used evidence to support themselves and to attack others. I must say, it was a bunch of fun.

"You've got that wrong! Those trials were always difficult and were almost always put on my shoulders!"

True, Naegi, but that bullet thing you did was always really cool.

"Uhhh, thanks....I guess..."

Okay, stop interrupting me, I'm trying to write a review.

There is one more complaint I have of this series. The constant 'yadda yadda Despair blah Despair-filled bluh bluh Despair' dialogue was WAY overused, and it's very evident near the end. I mean, my god, I understand this is about despair, it's in the freaking title! The show just crammed that down my throat until I felt that was the only word I knew anymore. However, I did feel like I was reading a well-drafted essay, because I noticed a sequential tone structure, with a very strong tonal shift. Although this might not be very useful for anyone nor will you care,but I thought it was worth mentioning in case others noticed it as well.

There's one more thing I'd like to cover: Sound: 9/10
VA's 10/10: The voice actors in this series seemed like they were MOLDED to be perfect for each character. I couldn't see any character any other way. Even at first, I couldn't stand Monokuna's voice, but it grew on me fairly quickly. You could play any character's voices and I could deduce them almost immediately, they are THAT distinct.

OST: 9/10: I can't believe I'd ever love a rap song, but TKDz2b hit the tone of Danganronpa write on with "Never Say Never." I will admit, I did NOT expect an English rap song to come on when I started it (and there were no accents, even a bigger surprise), and I immediately fell in love with it. Takada Masafumi
also created a great soundtrack for this anime (I mean, he DID get chosen to do music composition for Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and the mood was always enhanced when the music started up. The ED (Episode 13's was great), however, didn't really do it for me. It contrasted with the feel of the series (somewhat like "Torch" from Clannad: After Story), so it was a slight mood killer, but it wasn't too bad, because it was still a great song.

"You've got that right!"

Wow, you feeling okay Naegi? That's the first time I've heard you agree!

"I just express my emotions enthusiastically and raw."

...that gave me a weird image.

Enjoyment: 9/10. Yes, I loved this series. I had a great time and an exciting time watching it. If it was slightly longer and didn't try to implant the word "Despair" on me and shove it down my esophagus, I would've loved it just that much more.

Yet again, this is completely my opinion, so please don't take any of my ramblings too hard. I also won't go over the story because everyone will have contrasting beliefs on it, so there really is no point.

Thank you Naegi and Yasuhiro for the commentary on my review. Now get out of here and live on in despair.

"Uncool, man. Uncool."

Whatever Yasuhiro.

Personal Note: I watched the last 7 episodes while having a high fever and it made me feel a lot better by just watching it, so this may have a slightly higher score than it would've, but, I digress.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 2, 2013

Aria_Wright

Mixed Feelings

This is the perfect example of a video game adaptation done wrong. Trying to fit in about 25 hours of material into 13 episodes is NOT a good idea, unless you want an extremely rushed show with very flat characters. It is horrible.

The story was actually pretty decently adapted. While it was rushed, nothing very important was omitted. However, I have some issues with the investigations. How do you expect anime watchers to identify the culprit if the most important part in mystery solving is rushed in about 3 minutes? Rushed investigations also made it seem like Kirigiri and Naegi were pulling things out of ... their asses during trials.

That is another thing : class trials. There were 13 people in the first class trial. Everyone had to speak at least once, right? So, once again, the actual mystery solving part was rushed. Though, as the show went on, there were fewer students, so the trials did not feel as rushed (chapter 4 and chapter 5's trials are the best examples.) Still, this just proves 13 episodes only was not enough.

Next is the art. The character design is very odd, but it makes the characters look colorful and very different from one another! You could pretty much tell who had what talent just by looking at their appearance. Komatsuzaki Rui really has not dropped the ball design-wise.

However, the animation quality was quite subpar. Some episodes had okay animation, some terrible. The amount of stills also hurts, but it is acceptable. Generally, class trials had good animation, but the rest (investigation and the pre-investigation segments) took a huge hit.

I like how they kept Monokuma's small quirks in the background, though. Like eating pancakes after a particular execution.

Another good thing is the soundtrack. Composed by Takada Masafumi, the music is very catchy and really sets in the mood in most scenes. A prime example is the song named "DISTRUST" playing during big revelations, absolutely perfect! I don't dislike the OP theme, but the game's is way better. The ED, however, is pretty awesome. Personally, I love the 8-bit part at the beginning.

The voice acting is very well done, as expected of big name seiyuus. Monokuma's especially is perfect for the role.

Now here comes the bad part of the anime, and the main reason why I did not enjoy the show as many as I thought I would : character. In the game, characters are mainly developed by hanging out with them. As you hang out with them, you learn more about them. That is where they get development, and since the anime completely skips hanging out, there is nearly no character development for the whole cast, with the exception of Kirigiri, Togami and, to some degree, Naegi. This is a bad thing because when a character dies, it is hard to feel anything because you could not get attached to them. And that makes some twists feel pretty underwhelming.

In the end, the Danganronpa anime had a few good things about it, but it was severely crippled by a lack of character development and a very limited number of episodes. And that is why I did not enjoy the anime very much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 21, 2015

literaturenerd

Not Recommended

Here is a very basic rule of thumb that all animation studios should have learned by 2015: "Just because something worked as a video game, doesn't necessarily mean it will work as a show!"

Danganronpa was a successful video game because it had goofy characters, decent comedy, and allowed the player to think and solve mysteries. The story and characters weren't very deep or well developed, but it didn't matter because the entire point was for the player to actively solve the puzzle. A TV show is largely a passive form of entertainment in which the viewer is not controlling the events and using skills to ... solve a puzzle. That is why the quality of characters and writing needs to be higher in order to make a good show vs. a good game. Tetris is a great game without having any plot or characters to speak of, but it would SUCK as a TV show!

The basic premise is that a bunch of students are trapped in a highschool and manipulated into killing each other off. The students need to figure out who trapped them there and who is killing everyone. Basically they just lifted the plot and premise from an old Agatha Christie novel. Although this worked well for "And Then There Were None", it doesn't work out NEARLY as well here. One of the reasons is that the same "trick" used by Christie to throw off readers on who the true killer was actually was shocking and original in 1939, but really NOT in 2014. I don't want to completely spoil it, but if you have read the original novel you are not going to be surprised when the killer is revealed. The other reason Danganronpa fails is that the characters are all ANNOYING AS FUCK! I am dead serious when I say that MonoKuma is one of the single most annoying characters in anime history! In a videogame, a character can be REALLY annoying and players simply tolerate it. This goes all the way back to 1985 and that damned Duckhunt Dog! However, in a TV show it really isn't acceptable to have so many annoying characters with so much screen time!

It hardly helps matters that the animation in this show is dreadful and the CGI death sequences are so shitty looking you would rather die the death onscreen than have to watch it! I think Oregon Trail had better death cinematics than this piece of shit!

Overall:

Popular videogames being made into unbearably shitty anime is a trend that really should stop for the good of the anime industry. The ONLY positive thing I will say about Danganronpa is that it is better than another recent cell phone game adaptation: Vampire Holmes!

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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