Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Mirai-hen

Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Mirai-hen Review
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I have included a tl;dr near the bottom of this review if the length is too long.

Disclaimer: I have played both the Danganronpa 1 and 2 games to completion and have been following the series for years. (For reference, I would probably give the games about a 6/10) THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THIS SERIES AND MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE GAMES.

If a mystery is a typical "whodunnit" (as DR3 is), it sometimes relies a bit too much on the inevitable twist of the reveal of the culprit. However, it only requires a shift in ... perspective to create a quality story and to not become another entry into the dreaded "mystery box" genre. I have never been the biggest fan of mysteries in general because the mystery alone usually isn't enough to create an engaging narrative, and I feel this is how most genre contemporaries present themselves. Even the ones that don't struggle to make thoroughly enticing mystery-based stories because they usually won't leave much of an impression unless they blow your fucking mind to smithereens. It's a flawed, finicky genre to me because whenever I come across a mystery with decent/good characters, the mysteries always end up lackluster, and vice versa. Basically, the mystery shows I do like have elements that appeal to me other than the feeling of "Oooh, what's gonna happen?? Maybe something interesting in the future!" Historically, Danganronpa is a series that tries not to fall into this trap by having a wide array of characters, cool settings, and exciting court cases. I don't think the games are anything special, but they are competent enough to have some fun with. It's when the adaptation of the first Danganronpa game came out that the problems with the story and characters were enhanced twofold and made incredibly apparent. Plot holes arising from removed dialogue, one-note characters who die without garnering any sympathy and poor characterization for the ones that remain alive, mind-boggling pacing, and it just felt like sitting around waiting for interesting things to happen only to realize that they never will. It really sucked. However, after some time passed, Danganronpa 3 was announced. It was touted as a completely original project designed to end the story of the first two games, meaning they had significantly more creative freedom to work with. Gone are the days of attempting to cram 30+ hours of content into 13 regular-sized episodes. Suffice to say, despite its best efforts, Danganronpa 3 Future Arc fails to impress. It so woefully falls flat in every area that it makes the entire series look like a joke, and if this is how the series is going to end, then I am painfully let down. How this has little in the way of negative reviews at the time of this writing and even held an average score above an 8 on MAL (which is what some of my favorites don't even get) for a long period of time makes no sense to me.

And yeah, this show falls into every possible trap regarding bad mystery stories. It's boring, spins its wheels, has lame characters, and is ridiculously stupid. However, if it were that simple, I wouldn't be writing this review. I'm going to get to the bottom of the mystery within a mystery: what happened to Danganronpa?

Let’s begin with talking about the thing that immediately struck me as terrible - the presentation. The color design is truly abysmal, with the dominant colors being black, gray, brown, and a disgusting shade of red that pervades through certain parts. A show so inundated with lifeless scenes of characters standing around talking is bound to be much more interesting with this lovely palette applied. Unfortunately, the area the characters inhabit while standing in a bunch of dark, empty rooms and hallways may be the main culprit of the horrible visual design. Somewhere along the line, I’m sure a decision was made to make Danganronpa 3 “darker” than previous installments, because it is the conclusion after all. While I believe this only applied in the literal sense with the final product, they did make the blood red, which finally makes Danganronpa the mature series I’ve been waiting for. However, it’s possible that after they spent a hundred painstaking hours using the paint bucket tool on the splashes of blood, they forgot to make the setting something other than a gray mass of boring concrete. While the art design in the Danganronpa games is not exceptional, I at least felt like I “knew” the location I was in, and the scenery was usually quite unique depending on where you were in the school or the island. It's true that this it's easier to evoke this feeling in a game, but it's not unheard of to use directing tricks and good shot composition to communicate the setting through the visuals. but DR3 just doesn't do this. The director, Kishi Seiji, is rather hit-or-miss for me. I don't care for Yuuki Yuuna, Persona 4, Seto no Hanayome, or Carnival Phantasm, and nor did I find the directing in any of those shows particularly standout. But I do like Angel Beats, and Humanity has Declined is one of my favorite shows of all time. Even then, the directing in these shows is one of their weaker elements, especially Humanity has Declined (it's still good, though), which could have benefited from a more unconventional style. Why any of this matters is because I think it proves Seiji alone probably doesn't have the means to salvage a show with a terrible script and weak art direction. The camera angles and constant uses of bland panning shots and character zoom-ins illustrate that Seiji was constricted by the claustrophobic nature of DR3's setting. However, take everything I've said with a grain of salt because I don't believe it's easy to place the blame on anyone involved with an anime's production. To continue a bit further, (this is almost equally the fault of the writing), the sense of space between characters is conveyed so poorly it's practically a non-entity, removing any tension and making the murders that happen unbelievably dull. There's no standout scenery or any kind of important landmarks to help alleviate this, further disengaging me as a viewer. There was a clear lack of creative vision with this show, which is made blindingly obvious through the absence of any cohesiveness or suspense in its presentation.

The animation is not impressive, or fluid in the slightest, even during key moments when characters are fighting or whatever, and I really hate how the lighting is occasionally too dark to clearly see what's going on. I, myself, have never been a huge fan of the DR art style, but even I think that the way it is converted into the anime format looks kind of ugly, especially the characters. I just can't stand their odd face shapes and strangely designed eyes, and this is amplified when they're moving. All of the aforementioned issues with the presentation combine to create a tedious viewing experience that only makes me think about how I could be better using my time. Basically, the idea that anyone can look at this series and get invested even the slightest bit is baffling to me, especially since this atrocious presentation is a pretty big reason that I can barely get through an episode without falling asleep.

The dialogue is laughably horrific. It's truly devoid of any creativity or flair, and is never enjoyable. Characters (though mostly Munakata) are given bafflingly stupid lines that often made me do a double-take and burst out laughing. I would go out of my way to provide some specific examples, but I don't exactly have the time, and it was something that was just apparent to me all throughout the series. All that results from the poor script is the reinforcement of the vacuous, unenjoyable presentation. And, even though I praised it for being unintentionally funny, whenever the show actually attempts comedy, it always comes up painfully flat. Isn't it hilarious that Naegi's sister might have incestuous feelings for him because that's a thing that's popular in anime right now?? Also, Hagakure's character is intended as comedic relief but, surprise, he just fails hard at it, and since this is his only purpose in the show, it quickly gets on my nerves. This might seem like a pedantic complaint, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong to ask for some kind of self-awareness in the writing, which it "attempts" to do, but it comes off as a mere wink and a nod to current trends more so than humor derived from the characters or the situations. Maybe this is because all of the characters are so unimaginably flat that it's hard to write any enjoyable scenes with them? Hmm...no way! Anyway, I always appreciate series that go out of their way to acknowledge their own ridiculousness, but DR3 sucks at doing this, resulting in a never-ending spiral of boredom.

Here's a fun drinking game you can do with the script: take a shot every time a character says "hope" or "despair." Actually, to prevent death by alcohol poisoning, you should just pick one of the words and have your buddy take the other.

Oh, and the soundtrack, at least from what I can remember, is comprised of reused or slightly remixed songs from the games, so who gives a shit about that. I'm not saying I dislike Danganronpa music, quite the opposite in fact, but the lack of originality just makes it all the more tiring to sit through.

So if the series isn't nice to look at and nothing is presented in a compelling way, like, 100% of the time, its characters and plot must make up for it, right?! After all, Welcome to the N.H.K is a series that happens to have notoriously horrible and inconsistent visuals, but it still remains a great show because the other aspects hold it up so well. Now here's a revelation that's as predictable as any plot twist in this anime: this is not the case with DR3.

I want to address my most hated plot device before delving into the characters and overarching story: Forbidden Actions. Here's the rundown: all the characters trapped inside the remains of the Future Foundation building have a cuff around their arms that dictates what actions they cannot see or do, and if they perform or witness said action, they die (almost) instantly. If you fail to comprehend why I believe this is so retarded, then let me explain: this is the writers blatantly including deus ex machinas as a functioning component of the story. By the way, the audience is NOT made aware of every characters' Forbidden Actions, and in fact, viewers are intentionally left in the dark on this. Why? If this was an attempt to add tension, it actually has the opposite effect. There's nothing gratifying whatsoever in learning that someone's Forbidden Action happens to correlate to a scene that that character is a part of. They exist as nothing more than a device to conveniently kill characters whenever the writers think it's "best" to do so, which is one of the most obnoxious methods of stringing along that I've ever seen in a mystery story, and it only hurts the anime's endeavor to make me care about what's going on. Surprisingly, even though DR3 is going for a more serious tone, every single time Forbidden Actions are important or even mentioned at all, it results in unintentionally hilarious scenes. Like, holy shit, Naegi's Forbidden Action is that he can't run in the hallway, and he has to piggyback on one of the characters if there's anywhere he wants to go. Hahahaha, what the fuck? One character is killed off early on in order to showcase how deadly these Forbidden Actions can be, but his requirement came off as incredibly forced as a result of this. The chances of said Action not occurring were so low that his death was practically unavoidable. In contrast, I was certain, from the second Naegi's was revealed, that it would never become a problem at any point in the story. Enthralling.

Danganronpa 3's characters were doomed to be fucking awful as soon as it was announced the run time for the series would be 12 episodes. Yeah, good luck developing those 15-20 relevant characters and/or making the audience even remotely care about them when they inevitably die. I guess for a lot of people, the fact that characters die is enough to make them tear up, but I hate any kind of story that hinges on this because it feels manipulative, like the story can't get me naturally endeared to its cast without resorting to sob stories and the constant threat of death. As it stands, DR3's cardboard cutouts masquerading as characters fail to interest or compel me to care. All of them can be boiled down to a single (less than compelling) personality trait, and whenever they try(emphasis on try) to show depth beyond that, they die without accomplishing anything. You know so little about them that whenever the show tries to "subvert" your expectations with regards to their actions, it's never surprising because you're given no reason to believe they couldn't do that. It's a very boring and lame way of handling characters because it just involves way too much stringing along, which is already highly prevalent in most mystery shows. I would slot every character into either "obnoxious fuck-face" or "literally nothing" anyway, and this, in addition to the overbearing grimdark tone, results in no scene ever being fun. All of this just makes the telegraphed deaths that much more annoying.

Audience: Hmm, I wonder...this character is getting more lines of dialogue and screen time than normal...haha, I'm sure it's just a coincidence!

To add to my frustration even further, I just hate and can't make sense of most of the character's actions. To give an example, in episode 1, I found it insurmountably frustrating that Naegi wouldn't tell the Future Foundation why he held the Despairs captive and that he ran an experiment on them. How convenient that there's an overly angry guy there so that Naegi could be punched and have an excuse not to talk! Even worse than this, Munakata is a character that I just cannot understand no matter how hard I try. He seems to kill people at complete random and for no discernible reason, and screams really loudly about hope and despair because of his dead girlfriend (By the way, it's not just Munakata - none of the characters' motivations makes any sense). However, the scene that's the worst offender of complete and utter stupidity, and embodies all of my problems with the way characters act in this anime is the one in which (Spoiler) Ruruka kills Izayoi. The leaps in logic and sheer ridiculousness of this scene combined with the fact that it is taking itself 100% seriously makes me laugh so hard. It has absolutely no impact as an emotional scene, and both of the characters' attitudes and lines of thinking verge on complete insanity, resulting in a strange feeling where I not only feel no sympathy whatsoever, but I CANNOT bring myself to care no matter what. None of this is helped by the fact that not a single character feels like he/she has a life outside of the idiotic lines that they spew, making them painfully shallow and even harder to care for on closer inspection. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that there is no characterization in this show, because every characters' actions are hand-waved with DESPAIR. What can they do? They're in DESPAIR MODE after all.

The returning main characters remain stagnant throughout the episodes, making the experience even more dull than it needs to be. Yep, Naegi is still screaming about hope and people around him are still getting killed despite this. I would love to get behind his ideals, (that are practically a repeat of what they were in DR1) but the writers only make Naegi look like more of a dumbass since there are very few limitations to the death game. In DR1, Naegi's ideals of hope had significance since the "death game" actually had RULES and CONSEQUENCES. The characters don't actually want to kill each other, but it is promised that if they do, then they would be able to escape their despairing situation. This, in combination with some blackmailing by Monokuma makes it more believable that they might kill to achieve freedom, thereby creating a scenario where Naegi's "hope" has thematic relevance. In DR3 Future, everyone can just kill without any repercussions, and in fact, the whole event is treated like a free-for-all. Too bad every character is either a fucking insane person who doesn't mind killing people for the flimsiest of reasons, and/or a person who has a horrible gripe with someone else. If this wasn't the case, everyone would have to be human beings with relatable emotions and Naegi's morals might actually help the situation! What a shame. Now look, I'm not advocating for DR3 to have the exact same message that the original game does, but since they just copy-pasted the plot setup and general feel of the game, it only invites this kind of criticism. What the hell kind of message is it even going for if not this? As far as Kirigiri goes, she's basically worthless and gets completely relegated to the sidelines. Possible wasted potential? Eh, I don't care anyway.



So, the only logical conclusion that one can draw from what I've said is that DR3 is not character driven, right? Maybe the characters were only made to serve a narrative purpose in order to create a more compelling mystery plot. This is obviously totally wrong and there's no redeeming this piece of shit at this point, but let's perform an examination anyway....

I think it should be noted that class trials have been removed entirely. The gimmick created to "compensate" for this is as follows: at a certain time, every character except ONE "culprit" is forcefully put to sleep. Aside from making the whole series really boring, I believe this gimmick is even more idiotic than at first glance. How the fuck is anyone supposed to figure out who did these murders? You can argue that the same thing would happen without this gimmick because a culprit would typically make his move after everyone is asleep, but I beg to differ. Every character's sleep is controlled, so I'm assuming that they cannot be woke as well. This removes certain variables that make mysteries interesting. Maybe one character doesn't sleep well, so he overhears something strange in the middle of the night. Maybe a character intentionally stays awake in order to observe whether or not someone does something suspicious. Call these things overly convenient, but they're still possibilities that can shake up a normal mystery and allow the audience to soak in fucking CLUES so they can solve it themselves. In DR3, the murderer and his victims come off as a half-assed attempt at adding some air of intrigue and mystery in the background, instead of being front-and-center like they SHOULD BE. The characters, including Kirigiri, the supposed "Ultimate Detective," just sort of look at the victims and say "Yeah, they're dead all right!" and move on without dwelling on each murder. That's because there's nothing to analyze about them whatsoever. There is one point in episode 8 where Kirigiri actually conducts an investigation that yields results, but this was for the sole purpose of a "riveting" plot twist (involving Forbidden Actions LOL) where the killer was someone besides the "actual" culprit. So, as far as the culprit to each murder goes, no one could have possibly observed who did the murders, and unless the killer is completely stupid, no one will be able to figure it out. Why did they even make this mechanic a thing? It's like they intentionally didn't want there to be interesting investigations or cases. What's stopping the culprit from killing everyone? The rules are so un-specific when they really need to be otherwise plot holes like this will come up. I have honestly hurt my fucking brain trying to think of the logic behind this plot device, so I'll stop here.

By the way, I am aware of the plot twist at the end of the series, but my issue is how this controlled sleep thing weakens the mystery the show builds up by having numerous apparent flaws and just making everything boring. I already hate trying to figure out "whodunnit," so I doubt I would like the story even without this plot device. My beef with it is how it forces obligatory murders to happen throughout the show and how solving the mystery is impossible, so why even include the plot device at all when it actively makes your death game show have no tension or intrigue.

Speaking of that plot twist, Despair Video anyone? How about a Hope Video? How about the worst idea ever? Oh wait, I repeated myself three times. Honestly, do I need to say why this is so stupid? I didn't care about anything by the time the Videos were revealed, so I was just laughing along at the practical joke that was the conclusion of Danganronpa 3. Do you even understand the implications of videos that instantly cause hope and despair? It's world-altering to the point that I'm sure this is going to be the only major source of conflict the Danganronpa series will use from now on. The hope and despair thing has already gotten out of hand, and they just promoted it to a world-class meme. Congrats, I had a few laughs, but in retrospect, it's not that funny. It severely cheapens Junko's character because it proves that she was not an influential, persuasive figure, but instead that she just used god powers to make everyone feel despair!!!! Lame. You know what the best Despair Video is? An episode of Danganronpa 3.

Well, that's it. You should have a clear idea of what I hate about the show by now if you even bothered to read this far, so I'll just complain about minor plot details until the end of the review.

In order to drag you into my next point, let's just imagine a world where Munakata (the Future Foundation guy with a katana) is the culprit in one of the murders. Since law and order has been completely disposed of, there is no conceivable way anyone would be able to stop that guy from fucking killing everyone. He, along with a few other characters, seem to have incredible super strength the likes of which have never been seen in Danganronpa. No, actually, Sakura from DR1 had a crazy, over-the-top fight with Monokuma, but this could be justified since it was a one time occurrence and could be passed off as some sort of joke, and the fact that Sakura is the ULTIMATE WRESTLER. (Not to mention that this somewhat fits with the tone of the games. Just watch any execution to understand that DR has a bit of craziness to it) Munakata is the Ultimate STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT. Wow, I didn't know that student council presidents were flame katana wielding badasses that have superhuman fighting prowess. These ridiculous fights that happen pretty frequently in DR3 have no real justification for why each character is so damn powerful. There's a character that can demolish a wall with his bare hands, and to justify this, they slapped Sakura's title of wrestler onto him. Wow, good thing he was killed off early or else he would have been a problem! According to the creators, this is supposed to be a "darker" take on Danganronpa, so why are there so many tension-less, over-the-top fights? I dunno, I guess it would be too boring if they all had to be rational, normal human beings, and this is an anime after all! LOL amirite??!!!

All I can say about the narrative of DR3 is that it is dumb. There's no real way to infer that this is going to be the finale of the entire series other than the fact that Monokuma himself says so. Why is this the final killing game? On that note, why did it even need to be a killing game? It's not like the people that are trapped are the only non-Despairs left; there are other branches of the Future Foundation out there with many people working in each of them. The anime does not attempt at setting any kind of stakes, yet the series is making this out like this is the biggest and most epic incident to ever happen to humanity. What about Togami's special military force and access to high-end technology and military weapons? I can't imagine any despairs accomplishing much with those in the way, even if the other Future Foundation branches somehow cease functions. Not to mention, there's a very high chance that multiple people are going to walk away from the death game alive and be able to resume leading the work of their branch of the Future Foundation, so this killing game seems like it has a 100% chance to accomplish....pretty much nothing. Viewers can only assume that the new person controlling Monokuma is a legitimate retard.

The series doesn't even bother having a real ending, either. The last few episodes are just a clusterfuck of random plot contrivances strung together in such a way that barely resembles a story topped off with massive plot holes that contradict the entire series (Junko mind control). There's little to say about the last couple episodes that I haven't already mentioned in this review other than they were incredibly boring and stupid and I hated every second of them (oh wait you could've guessed that). My brain was hazing over during the viewing of these episodes, so I apologize for the lack of an in-depth analysis on how the resolution actually makes no sense whatsoever. I honestly didn't give a fuck at this point.

So...what was the point of this anime? It has horrible characters, a mess of a plot, and is generally boring to watch thanks in part to the garbage presentation. As far as thematic elements go, it's incredibly weak as well. Although I don't particularly care all that much for the games' themes, they at least have purpose in furthering the story as well as giving it a sub-textual point, which is better than not having one. In DR3, the words "hope" and "despair" are spouted off with such reckless abandon that the whole project seems more so an effort to make the anime "feel" like Danganronpa than actually trying to integrate this theme into the story or add anything new to the mix. I got nothing meaningful out of any of the characters or their actions, or any underlying themes that aren't already present in the first two games.

Maybe they just didn't know where to go with the series and decided to quickly shit out a conclusion. This is actually really accurate the more I think about it, especially after watching the ending of the series, Kibou-hen. It's the dream ending that every Danganronpa fan wanted. It ties everything together in such a perfectly neat little bow that many people probably thought it was the best thing ever. However, I believe it is wholly unsatisfying and only served to re-emphasize the weaknesses of the series. Nothing that happens in Kibou-hen feels like a natural course-of-progress. Everything is being pushed toward this one goal point that MUST be reached for some reason. It has no time to stop for a breather and let its audience care about what is going on. Characters are magically resurrected from the dead with a stupid, hand-waved explanation, making me wonder why they died in the first place. Scenes that are made out to be emotionally charged are nothing more than a joke due to the lack of focus and development. Characters do their one "thing" that they're known for, and show no depth beyond that. It all feels so hollow and decidedly not genuine. If this is the ending everyone wanted, then I hope you're all happy, but I personally would've liked some more thought put into how they would reach this point.

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I've said most of what I wanted to say about DR3. So here is where I'll place my exceedingly minor, miscellaneous complaints about the series that I couldn't fit into the review and end it off afterwords.

I severely dislike that Monokuma is given barely any lines in this anime. To me, he was one of the best parts of the games, and to a much smaller extent, the original anime. His dialogue was usually entertaining, and his attempts to stir up despair in each of the characters was neat. The fact that Monokuma barely says anything in DR3 illustrates that the writers were probably very lazy and didn't want to think up any creative things for him to say. Or maybe they felt he wasn't needed because the tone is darker...yeah....that's it.

Why is Hagakure even in this shit? He does literally nothing and is incredibly extraneous(actually I could say this about most characters, SHIT). It could have been interesting to handle a character who wasn't trapped within the building, especially since he was one of my favorites in the game, but they just seem to treat him as a joke since he just shits around doing nothing the whole series. What a masterful use of all available resources, DR3 writers!

I almost completely forgot about Asahina, but I think it should be mentioned that her only role in DR3 is to act as Naegi's legs whenever he needs to run in a hallway. While this is funny, it also makes me believe that she didn't even need to stay alive because she's actually a super boring character. This could either be a fault of the writers generally being incompetent, or her character being too reliant on Sakura for any intrigue, or both. At least she wasn't a fanservice vehicle I guess?

I don't really care about the subplot with Monaka. I didn't play Ultra Despair Girls because I think it looks like a shitty game, but I think her character was entirely unnecessary in the context of this anime. It doesn't help that the episode where she is the focus, episode 7, is probably one of the worst in the series due to the amount of unnecessary fanservice and general pointlessness of its plot. I guess her purpose was to be a misdirect by making you think she was the one who trapped everyone in the building, but this kind of fails to be convincing since they reveal her identity relatively early on. All she manages to do is take up an unneeded amount of screen time that all ends up being for naught in the end. However, I'll admit she is involved with what is probably the most entertaining scene in the whole show, if only for its absurdity.

The bullshit at the end of episode 8 LOL. The writers realized that Togami could just rescue them all so they ass-pulled super hard and made it so this couldn't happen. This made me burst out laughing.

I hate how DR3 Future Arc relies on its companion series "Despair Arc" to develop its dead characters. Not only is it hard to care about them because you know they're dead, but they usually aren't given enough screen time to make an impact, which is somewhat due to their rushed portrayal, but also because there are so many characters to focus on. It's the same problem that Akame ga Kill has, where the increasing number of character deaths is proportional to the amount of not giving a fuck. To be honest, Despair Arc suffers from many of the same problems that Future Arc does. The only edge it has over Future Arc is that my pre-knowledge of the characters from my play-through of DR2 allows me to enjoy it a tiny bit more. However, this is also a reason why I find it boring since I've already been over these characters once before, and it doesn't seem too keen on adding more to them. I will probably never watch more than the first episode of this series.

I think that this show's most damning sin, though, is how cheap it all feels. I could chalk this up to any aspect that I have criticized so far, but for the perfect example, you need look no further than the ending of each episode. They're ALL cliffhangers in one way or the other. Oh no! What if Asahina is dead?! I don't actually care because she's been given zero meaningful scenes so far, but oh the humanity!!! You probably get the point, but I still believe the worst offender of this is the faked death of Kirigiri, who is the most beloved character in DR (for some reason). She was so fucking worthless before then that I was applauding at how much they made me not care at the prospect of her dying. I'm actually not bashing cliffhangers as a concept necessarily (though I do dislike them) because I can understand the need to occasionally incite some hype on the part of the audience, and I don't really watch shows weekly, so I don't care as much. But is DR3 that desperate for views? I'd even say that including cliffhangers at the frequency that this show does is downright detrimental to its quality. It makes the pacing feel really off, since the inclusion of these cliffhangers is at the expense of entire episodes being total snooze fests. It almost seems like the writers were forcing themselves to construct episodes like this, and this could either be because the content they had to work with is legitimately not that interesting or because they were under a preconceived notion that Danganronpa was ONLY about characters dying, and they wanted to play it up as much as possible. Could also be both, or neither. Needless to say, it's annoying. It's funny because all of this is practically an emulation of those excellent episodes of Humanity has Declined (sup Seiji), but instead of becoming self-aware of their wrongdoings like the great characters in that show, the DR3 writers charge ahead without any shred of guilt regarding the manipulation of their own audience. Despicable, and definitely not an example to be followed.

By the way, I have been filled in on some of what happens in Despair Arc, so I can confirm that the way the stories intertwine is horribly done and (surprisingly) makes me hate it more. Hurray for hand-waving the entire plot with the most ridiculously boring plot device imaginable!
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REVIEW TL;DR: Incredibly weak presentation on all fronts, fails at being visually interesting, has dull and idiotic dialogue, lack of attention to detail (especially in the setting), stupid plot devices that make little sense, unrelentingly boring, poorly done characters that fail at being engaging, mystery falls flat no matter if you watch this series alone or with its companion show, lacks thematic depth, plot holes that contradict the series' lore, overall disappointment in every major plot point, and has so many more details that annoy me to no end.

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All in all, what a disappointment. Actually, to be honest, I had low expectations to begin with. Especially when given a 12 episode run time, it's plain to see that the Danganronpa formula has no merit when converted into animated format. They could've gone in many different directions to compensate for this (such as not making it another killing game maybe??), but instead they only opted to do something VERY slightly different while simultaneous stripping the DR formula of its necessary parts, and failed spectacularly as a result.

Is it possible that I've just gotten tired of Danganronpa over the years? Maybe this is true. After all, the games suffer from a few of the problems I've listed in this review and have their fair share of other annoyances. This anime certainly didn't help, with it essentially shitting all over both of the games' stories. I've also grown quite tired of the "death game" format of story, as most of the common plot elements in it bore me to tears now.

Even still, I fondly remember playing Danganronpa on the Vita the day it came out. It was the same for its sequel, too. I remember absolutely loving these games and obsessing over them with my friends. Over time, after playing better games and watching better anime, my enthusiasm towards the series died down. When DR3 was announced, I thought maybe my interest in the series could be re-invigorated. I'm not one to get "hyped" for anything new, but I was ready to hop on board and have a great time. Yeah, I can be optimistic. I would've even been somewhat forgiving if the show was fun to watch.

But it wasn't. Did I possibly miss the sign hanging overhead that read "Fun and wacky times ahead, haha!" before walking through the doorway? Could I possibly hate fun?

Obviously, no. You would be hard-pressed to find someone out there that doesn't love fun, and I would have been having it while watching this show if not for the fact that I don't believe that sign ever existed. I'm not someone that requires all shows to appeal to my higher senses in order for me to like them. Nevertheless, I would prefer my story-driven anime such as this to be BOTH super enjoyable to watch and to make me think about it, but I can still respect the sensation of pure fun that can be elicited out of shows I would never consider putting among my favorites (Little Witch Academia is a perfect example of this). DR3 just sucks at fun. It was a chore to watch, and I honestly salvaged no enjoyment whatsoever out of anything in it. If, while watching a show, I zone out the events that are happening to think about my favorite shows, and I have to rewind because of it, then there might be a problem somewhere. Sorry, but I don't enjoy "turning my brain off" while watching a show.

I also want to make it clear that I have never thought about why a show bothered me with such painstaking detail before. To be honest, I don't even like writing these kinds of long-form reviews because there's usually an opinion out there that echoes my own (this review was enjoyable to write, though). And, typically, I drop a show when I feel that I won't like it anyway, so I haven't had many opportunities to do this.

Call me overly pessimistic for despising this show so much to give it a 1/10 (a rating I have only given to 4 other shows and always hesitate to use), but I still seriously believe Danganronpa did not deserve this. It did not deserve to get so thoroughly embarrassed by this god-awful excuse of an anime. It has no merits whatsoever, as a standalone anime or a conclusion to the series. It's not nice to look at, it has a bland soundtrack, it's unsatisfying, it's boring, it's annoying, it's stupid.

I wish it didn't exist.



....is what I would say, if I cared enough.

If I had to describe Danganronpa 3 in one word, it would be "unnecessary". That's ultimately what it all boils down to. DR3 is not a necessary part of Danganronpa canon, nor is it necessary to watch it. It's completely disposable, and altogether just pretty terrible.

It's pretty hard to write an in-depth review of DR3 Future without going into heavy spoiler territory, since exactly where the story goes is a big part of why it's so disappointing, but I'll try my best. Future sets itself up as another killing game, although this time it's more akin to something found in Zero Escape than Danganronpa proper. ... It remains a murder mystery, albeit one very different to those found in DR1 and 2. The mystery's solution ends up not only being lame, but also massively predictable. The big reveal towards the end was a total non-event since I'd already figured it out several episodes ago. The mastermind behind the incident is also a letdown, since it was so extensively telegraphed that it seemed almost too obvious to be true. The methods used, the characters involved, the narrative weaved between both this and DR3 Despair... everything is weak.

But it's not the destination, right? If the journey is enjoyable, then the answers we get at the end don't make and break the whole series, right? Sure, but DR3 Future's journey isn't enjoyable in the slightest. Most of the episodes feel like filler, with pointless characters acting out pointless subplots that don't go anywhere, and they end up pointlessly getting killed. They could've easily told this story in half the number of episodes with how completely unnecessary most of them are. Aside from a select few, most of the characters also only exist to get killed. Not to further the plot at all, but simply just because people will expect a lot of deaths from this series. Both new and returning characters are largely one-note, with only Kyosuke Munakata and Juzo Sakakura showing any kind of depth. None of these other people, including the DR1 survivors, are interesting at all. Even Kirigiri, one of DR1's driving forces, is reduced to a glorified extra.

Production value-wise, the animation is slightly better than DR3 Despair's, though not by much. The music and voice acting however are, as always, top notch.

Was DR3 Future a completely miserable experience, though? Sorta, but not quite. The most fun I had was discussing theories and just how stupid the show kept getting every week, and if you can't have that experience then I say skip DR3 entirely. Skip if if you've played the games, absolutely skip it if you haven't played the games, just skip it. It's a waste of time.

Tldr, bad writing, unlikable characters, and animation errors make this a truely unenjoyable experience from start to finish, with EXTRA bad parts thrown in for good measure.

I've played every Danganronpa game, and read every story and relevant side plot.

Starting from the first moments of this anime you'll notice a surprising lack of budget. The art is barely passable for a series of this size, the sound direction is forgettable at best, and the writing is awful. The character's are where danganronpa has always shined, but don't expect them to save the story this time. They are completely unlikable, and have no real set motivations or ... goals. The only time you'll learn anything new, interesting, or plot relevant about a character is in flashbacks seconds before they die.

Skipping the art and sound, which are both merely low budget, we'll talk about the writing and story. As mentioned, the new characters have no real set motivations or personalities. They exist merely to bump heads with characters you know from DR1, and have no lives beyond that. You never get the feeling one of these characters will be missed by someone, you never get the feeling that they were someones loved one or partner, these characters ONLY exist in the vacuum of this anime plot to chase Naegi and Aoi around for 20 minutes an episode. This may lead you to believe that Naegi and Aoi are central figures to the plot, that they are relevantly unraveling the mysteries and being developed as characters. You'd be wrong though. They have nearly no plot relevance, they are only there along with the rest of the living Dr1 cast to pretend to die at the end of episodes so viewers will watch the next episode. It never sticks though, and some of the fakeouts get pretty insulting by the end of it. Episode seven in particular is just filler, and can be completely skipped. Episode 9 is when the anime really hits it's lowest points however. Everything after episode 9 will leave you scratching your head, wondering why this anime was made in the first place. The anime ends where it starts, a status quo were nearly nothing new has been introduced to the DR canon, and the UTMOST "Care" was taken to make sure that NOTHING about the old characters has changed in any way.

On pure enjoyment factor alone, I'd recommend fans of the games, and fans of anime in any form to avoid this series. Scenes will drive you crazy with constant continuity errors, animation errors, and forgotten plot threads. The premise is stupid, and is never justified. Unlikable characters are made up on the spot just to die. Deathflags are so obvious that you'll never be surprised or caught off guard. Characters walk on screen and announce their time to die, then die, and none of the other characters really seem to care. Several times characters are found dead, or murdered directly in front of everyone, and nobody bats an eye or cares. Ends on Status Quo restoration, the entire anime can be removed without losing anything from the series.

I'll finish this review on a somewhat positive note. The characters Ruruka and Seiko have their own subplot that spans for almost the entire series filling up whatever time isn't taken by Naegi and Aoi doing basically nothing. The sub plot has some obvious flaws but is interesting and keeps the episodes moving, and these two characters actually end up being developed because of it, you may accidentally end up even caring for them. However just as their character arcs come to a close the story reminds you how stupid you were for liking any of the new characters. Then replaces them with even more Aoi and naegi, just running around and not really accomplishing anything.

It's been three years since I looked at the first Danganronpa anime. While it wasn't one of the best anime I've seen, I did rather like it. Now we're skipping ahead to Danganronpa 3, because there wasn't a Danganronpa 2 anime. Maybe they thought the game wouldn't translate well. Maybe they didn't consider it good enough. Maybe they got distracted reading Voyages of the Cerberus and missed their window of opportunity. The first two are more likely by far but a man can daydream. The odd thing about Danganronpa 3 is that it's split into two settings, both of which were running at roughly ... the same time. This week, we'll be looking at the Mirai-hen & Kibou-hen setting this week. Although I may take a look at the Zetsubou-hen setting later this month. So, let's take a look and see how it holds up compared to the first series.

Story:

We open with our protagonist from the first series, Naegi Makoto, being taken to the headquarters of the Future Foundation to answer charges of being a traitor. Supposedly, he safeguarded a bunch of remnants of despair. Maybe that's what happened in the second game. While attending the meeting with all the foundation's higher ups, along with Kirigiri & Asahina, the building gets attacked. They wake up to a Monokuma video telling them that they've been brought into a game of despair. He claims that one of them is a traitor and, in order to end the game, they have to either kill the traitor or wake up with all of them alive. To put them to sleep at regular intervals, they're also given wristbands that inject them with sleeping drugs after a set amount of time. The wristbands are also programmed with forbidden actions. Should any of them do their forbidden action, they'll be injected with a lethal amount of poison. Naturally, Naegi is instantly viewed as the most suspicious by several people. Can he survive their attacks and solve the mystery around him?

There are two major flaws with the series. The first is that it spends a lot of time following the characters who are outside of the game. A lot of the stuff they do is really over the top action fare and it hugely undermines any suspense or horror atmosphere that's happening on the inside. Not only that, but the events on the outside don't do that much. They reveal some information that the audience could have gotten from the characters on the inside and it would have worked better. The other big problem with the series are the speeches. In the first Danganronpa anime, the ending had a big speech and it was cheesy and kind of stupid, but it didn't hurt the series over-much since the bulk of it focused on the mysteries, which were pretty solid. In this series, there are a lot of really cheesy speeches about hope and despair. A lot of the discussion is less about the mystery and more about hope. These are speeches that could kind of work, if they were in a Precure series or something else for small children, but that are really absurd and ridiculous in this context. By the way, the Kibou-hen special is mostly cheesy speeches to wrap everything up and the series retconning what could have been a strong tragic moment thereby ruining it.

That being said, this was a solid premise. The idea of all these characters being trapped in a claustrophobic setting and uncertain of who they can trust is a compelling one. If they'd focused more on that facet and less on over the top action and speeches, this series could have been really good. I also do like the ultimate reveal. The twist is also genuinely clever.

Characters:

In the first series, the characters were largely kind of shallow archetypes, but passable for what the series was doing. In this one, not so much. While the characters are still shallow, they're also a bit annoying. Particularly Naegi and Munakata with their long speeches. We get it, you guys have a serious hope fetish, leave it in the bedroom. The only character who gets to keep their dignity is Kirigiri. She's the only character who actually seems interested in solving the mystery. The rest spend their time chasing after each other, hiding, or following her lead.

On the outside, we have our action squad, Naegi's sister & Touko from the first series doing the bulk of it. We also have Tagami who gives some exposition and orders people around. We also get to see Hagakure hang about outside the Future Foundation building being completely ineffectual. I seriously have no idea why he's here. He contributes nothing to the story. They just cut to him doing random things on occasion. In one scene he's fortune telling. In another he's fishing and, in another he's fleeing a helicopter. None of which affects the plot in the slightest. You could seriously replace him with a black Labrador and nothing would change. Except that the Labrador wouldn't be as annoying and would be cute.

Art:

I've mentioned the overblown action scenes already. They aren't good. The absurd, overblown character designs continue to be a weakness for the series. I'm sorry, but it's distracting when your horror mystery has characters who look like they should be challenging children to a trading card game in order to steal Egyptian artefacts. The unique, game aesthetic the first game had with its visual style aren't present in this one. Which is kind of a shame since those did give the series a unique identity. Which is something this one could use. We've got dark visuals mixed with goofy character designs. Neither of which is really unique.

Sound:

Hikasa Yoko is really good in this. I'll also give credit to Ogata Megumi, in spite of Naegi's annoying qualities, she does give a strong performance as him. Saito Chiwa and Ishida Akira are also quite good. As are Suwabe Junichi & Morikawa Toshiyuki. Most of these performances, in all fairness, are perfectly passable. There are a few exceptions. Minase Inori doesn't do well when her character gets in any kind of emotional moment. Neither does Eguchi Takuya. I don't know if it's the direction or just that they aren't good at serious moments. I've heard them both give strong performances in comedic works, but never in anything serious. Hirano Aya's character is just an annoyance.

Ho-yay:

There's a bit. Naegi's sister and Touko seem to get really close in their scenes together. Which culminates in a really homo-erotic speech from the sister while they're clinging to a rocket. Although, it does seem to be one-sided with all indications being that Touko still has a thing for Tagami.

Final Thoughts:

This was a series with a promising premise. Unfortunately, it's held back by a lacklustre execution that largely fails to take advantage of it. Instead, we're given cheesy hope speeches, ridiculous action scenes and characters who mostly can't be bothered with the mystery. In the end, it's a weak follow up. My final rating is going to be a 4/10. Next week I'll continue horror anime month with a look at 91 Days.

I'm going to kind of melt in Future and Despair side, as they are intended to be watched at the same time, but I'm mostly directing my attention to Future.

I used to be a big Danganronpa fan. I got the VITA for the sole purpose of playing the games, when SDR2 was only getting translated by some random people on the internet and the first game had just gotten localized. I've spent a lot of my time on Danganronpa, analyzing it, doing fanarts, discussing theories with other people, reading the fan-translated novels, playing Ultra Despair Girls, and although it had some flaws, I really the ... Danganronpa series overall.

But when I knew that they announced an anime, I just had this bad feeling. Danganronpa: The Animation wasn't really good, as the quantity of episodes was just not enough for the hole plot and it tried to fit like 20+ hours of gameplay in 13 episodes of approximately 25 minutes. 20+ of gameplay, details, plot, characters, into less than 6 hours approximately of an animation. And obviously, the adaptation wasn't really the best. But I thought, "Hey, they won't make the same mistake twice. Besides, two arcs? That's a total of 24 episodes, so maybe it will be different!"

Oh, how wrong I was.

Both despair and future side just tried to throw in a bowl and mix a lot of characters, random plot ideas, deaths with no meaning, and terrible death flags that screamed "hey lol i'm gonna die now". One of the major things about Danganronpa that I liked was how ridiculous, yet interesting the plot twists were. Even if you expected some of them, it was interesting to see how the dots connected, the contradictions, the solutions, and the characters going through that trip to the truth. And sometimes the twist would make you go "holy shit", because you didn't really get to see them coming.

Danganronpa 3 didn't include any of those. Instead, the supposedly "plot twists" were so predictable, they basically screamed to your face "enjoy this characters because we are going to kill it". All the raising of death flags was painful to see, it felt like watching a Blue's Clues episode of how obvious everything was. A lot of cheap and mediocre tactics to get the ratings up, including unnecessary weird fanservice (although I kind of can let that pass because almost all animes do that), fake deaths of loved characters to keep the "cliffhanger up", and most of the "cliffhangesr" were basically thrown out to hell next episodes as they killed the hype.

The new cast was basically introduced to just fill the background. There was almost no major development except for a few things, but most of them were just to basically boost up the stage for survivors of DR1, specially Naegi, who doesn't really change a lot and gets very repetitive. And there was almost no development on characters, mostly just good designs but empty shells. They just tried to throw plot ideas that ended up contradicting the canon stuff, forgot about some of the novels, and a lot of other pointless stuff. And the ending was literally out of Danganronpa's character. No bittersweet, no guilt, no sadness to see. Only a rainbow colored happy world, contradicting so much stuff, done for only fanservice and to end the "kibougamine arc" (which will be probably be brought back again anyways, as there's even an OVA coming with the new game).

The anime just killed the essence of Danganronpa itself. No surprises, no cliffhangers, no plot twists, no character development. Just a terrible ripoff of Dora the Explorer with murder and some crappy hope vs despair plot.

YOU NEED TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL DANGANRONPA TO UNDERSTAND THIS


This anime was a pitiful way to continue the original Danganronpa series.
When I hear future arc I think ADVANCEMENT not stating in place.

They tried to recreate the original series in the future which was pointless. I felt that they lack the creativity to add something different to the series. I felt that I was rewatching the first original Danganronpa over again. There was a little advancement to the overall story which only happened at the very end.

It did not add any depth to the original plot of the story and left viewers confused ... about its overall purpose. This series did not further any character development.

Overall I did not enjoy the future arc. It lacks so many qualities that a continuation to a series needs. This was basically a retelling of the original series. VERY DISAPPOINTED!!!!!

So its been a few days since I finished this anime and oh boy it was just a mess. Basically long story short, way to much stuff in it.

The characters are really eh, like they are just unlikable who cares about them really. I would love to learn more but you can't learn about them all in an anime. Monokuma is never in this, the most likable part of the games/show like come on. The only good characters are the despair guys (cause I have played the second game and freaking love them) and the 6 who survived in the first game and anime. ...

Art was fine really, its just everything seemed dull and gray not much to look at. Like in the other games and animes you have different areas.

Sound was fine it gets better as it goes along. Not half bad honestly.

Now the big one... the story. This one is easy to follow like the other games/anime. 16 people stuck somewhere and are forced to kill each other. This time, its different, its a death match kind of thing and the killer needs to kill everyone before they are found it. Its not a bad concept. But in a 12 episode anime, nope its not good here. Like I said with characters I could care less about half of them or even all of them. I went into it thinking it was gonna be bad or meh, because the third game isnt even out and oh boy do I hate when they skip stuff. I thought the ending would get better, nope it really doesn't. It just leaves a big "WHAT WAS THAT?!?" kind of moment. Unlike the other kind of endings that were perfect.


So yeah, I honestly that this anime was gonna be meh or bad. Turns out I was right. I have seen way to many people giving it a 10 or 9. I really hope to see other people giving it a lower score because its just to much packed in 12 episodes. Now the other thing is people say you need to watch both animes to understand everything. I really don't care I don't want them to ruin my favorite characters, so I dropped the other anime. If they just made the second game then wait for the third game to come out. It would of been better and it might of made them more money because now its over. Cool so its like now what.We know there will be no third anime of the third game.

So yeah thats my review, a little rant at the end there but whatever. 4/10 for me. I will be sticking to the games for now on and will be careful with game to anime adaptations.

The concluding part of Danganronpa story turns out to be an utter garbage that surprisingly manages to butcher the original series' spirit by presenting criminally uninteresting setting, boring and flat characters, downright ridiculous storyline with ton of plotholes, and loads of stupid out-of-place fanservice on top of that.

A scene where newly-added "your ordinary schoolgirl" character casually fights hundreds of mechanical Monocumas with laser-shooting megaphone (showing off her panties in the process) describes this anime as none better.

Story — as said above, horrible. The only reason the plot is not predictable is that it is illogical as hell. 1/10
Art — the visual style lost some of ... the first season's charm, but at least it still provides dark atmosphere and is ok to look at. Ah, and I liked mature Kirigiri's design. 6/10
Sound — can't say much in particular, but OP was definitely nowhere near first season. 5/10
Characters — a mess. Show does not present any interesting characters (with a couple of exceptions maybe) and just uses already developed heroes from previous seasons without adding much to their personalities. One would expect much more from a Danganronpa anime. 4/10
Enjoyment — basically, I just cringed and skipped through last episodes just to find out whether some people really die when they are killed. Again, definitely not what I expected when started to watch. 3/10

Overall — 3/10.

Note: This review contains LOTS of spoilers. It may also be noteworthy that this is the only anime I've ever seen, and it was mostly ruined for me by spoilers anyway, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

That said, this anime annoyed me enough to force me to create a MAL account for the sole purpose of letting me get off my chest why I found this thoroughly unenjoyable. I originally picked up watching this anime as a fan of the games. I greatly enjoyed the tense story and engaging mystery of the original games, and wanted to finally see the conclusion of ... the story. So, I watched fair-use-loopholed episodes on YouTube. However, I found it completely unentertaining. The only reason I watched it to completion was to finally bring the series I once enjoyed to a close. I honestly entered into the series with hopeful attitude (excuse the joke), and I genuinely wanted it to be good, but it didn't have any of the same charm that the games did. To get to the heart of my issue with this anime, I'm going to break this down part by part.

Story

Narrative stakes are nonexistent. First of all, the show gives you no good reason to care about the new characters, and any reason it does give is ham-fisted and cliche. The Ruruka and Seiko spat felt meaningless because the show did it so heavy-handedly, yet it barely qualified as drama to me when most of the dispute centered around candy. Second of all, the story shatters any notion that the characters you DO care about from the original games will ever be in danger by episode 3. If it hadn't already been spoiled for me, I probably would have been intrigued by Aoi's "death" and been curious as to where they would go with it. But, I imagine that the creators suddenly thought "Wait, people might care about this character! Better retcon her back in!" So, Aoi's fake death ends up feeling like nothing more than a shock value cash-in. I almost laughed when they used the "ketchup as blood" excuse. Seriously, I would have preferred a handwave instead of a trite explanation like that. Kirigiri's is even worse, because her return is predictable at that point. If they don't even have the guts to kill off Aoi, of all people, why would we believe for a second that they would actually kill off the character that is ostensibly the most beloved character of the series? Of course, it gets even worse when they undermine all the consequences of DR2 by bringing everyone back that died in that game. All the tension of the original games was based on the idea that anyone could die, especially the characters you like. If they had actually killed the characters they pretended to kill, and didn't render the events of DR2 virtually meaningless, this would have easily made the series at least a 5/10 for me, because there would at least be some tension and reason to see if the characters would make it out alive.

Sound and Art

I can't say much on the sound and art departments since I have no basis for comparison. All I can really say in this regard is that it didn't make my eyes and ears bleed, so it is at least acceptable in my opinion.

Characters

One of the things that made me like the games was that the characters were interesting enough to be memorable. Trigger Happy Havoc's characters all had memorable quirks and designs, and, while the characters in Danganronpa 2 were a little less memorable, their character design was still unique. My problem could be best summarized by this statement: If you asked me to list the entire cast from both games in 3 minutes, I'd do it with plenty of time to spare. However, all the time in the world wouldn't be enough for me to list half of the names in the cast of DR3 without looking them up. I actually had to look up Seiko and Ruruka's names for this review, because I actually couldn't remember them despite remembering their conflict. I only remembered Yukizome and Munakata's names because the show hammers the characters into your skull as important characters. Yukizome was kind of fun to watch in the other arc, but that is the OTHER arc, so it's pretty much irrelevant here. As for any other characters, the best I would probably be able to come up with is 'bull guy', 'black stereotype farmer', 'wheelchair girl', 'boxer guy', and 'asshole blacksmith'. Kazuo Tengan was interesting at first, but lost all appeal when they essentially portrayed him as an absolute crazy with no concept of consequences. Seriously, the aged leader, who should have been the wise voice of reason in the story, ends up having less wisdom than the former-brainwashed, former-braindead cast of DR2.

Enjoyment

I enjoyed the games for them actually having interesting and understandable mysteries. The murders were engaging to put together, and the clues got you thinking about the mystery as you went along the investigation. It always made sense in the end, and, even when the mysteries had their occasional asspulls *cough*celestesrealname*cough*, it wasn't like it completely came out of nowhere. The anime has none of that. If you watched the arcs one at a time like me, there was nothing to suggest what might be happening. The Despair arc did set it up, but it wasn't enough to make it feel like a meaningful plot point. I won't spoil the ending (since I've already spoiled enough), but I could only respond to the reveal with a "lolwut". It comes completely out of nowhere, as if the buildup and investigation up to the point fulfilled no point but to drive the plot forward. It didn't give you a chance to piece things together on your own like the games, it just says "here's what's been happening, deal with it".

In conclusion, I guess most of my problem is that it has none of the aspects that made the games good. No tension, no engaging mystery, no memorable characters, nothing. It wasn't even darker than the games in any sense beyond aesthetic, because the horror actually stuck with you in the games. Characters the game had been building up for several acts were dying, and it was clear that anyone could die (with the exception of the main character, but at this point I'm numb to main character plot armor anyways). In the anime, it was clear nobody that anyone cared about was going to die, effectively ending anything resembling tension. The reveal was completely out of left field, with nothing to suggest what was going on. The characters were forgettable, the story was bland, the mystery was terrible, and the retconning of character deaths completely undermined the point of the series. For these reasons, I found DR3 to be a completely lackluster conclusion to an otherwise great story.

There is just too much wrong with this half of the show. So much, that I’m going to extensively break everything into pieces.

Characters:
This was the part that was in absolute shambles. We’ve got the survivors of class 78, and so we should see more of them. That’s point 1. Second, the only actual strong characters of class 78 were Kirigiri and Byakuya. Kyoko was never once given a major development scene, nor was she ever shown to be the fantastic detective and quick thinker that she is. She was left in the background, with a finger to her chin the whole time. Byakuya, meanwhile, had ... five minutes screentime the whole season, tops.

All we’re shown is Naegi, who can do nothing but shower everyone with his rays of kindness and hope. He did nothing whatsoever to advance the plot, never once did he change course or affect the story in any way, and yet all we are shown is him.
The ‘lead trio’ of DR3 are the only ones worthy of mention, of them, even their potential is thrown askew. At the drop of a hat their personalities change, the grow violent for no reason at all, kill for no reason at all, are convinced for no reason at all. And of course, one chat with Naegi has them suddenly back on the good-guy bandwagon.

And I never understood the Chisa-Munakata thing. Okay, they care for each other, but why? Oh, she’s going in for a hug again… okay, but why- oh, oh, another hug. Maybe he’s annoyed of it? No, no, he’s smiling. So why- oh, another hug, okay, but w- oh kill me now, another hug. By the end of the show, the fruit of their development has been reduced to her simply gushing his name. That does not an attachment to characters make.

The story:
The reasoning for the killing game is absolute drivel as well. Without spoiling anything, honestly, everything in the show, the reasoning for it all, is so over-the-top, badly communicated and downright just not possible. The point of danganronpa, at least in the games, is the actual characters. The hadn’t focused on the details leading to the killing games for a reason, in that once we knew the details, they simply wouldn’t add up. All we need to know was that these set of teens are thrown in this position, and now they have to fix it. Very cleanly, you have rid yourself of the impinging loopholes and opened yourself up to plot twists and character developments arising from pure development.

It is an honest waste of time. Characters die without the viewers feeling a thing. They talk continuously about solving the mystery, but never actually do anything about it. The only one who does (Kirigiri) is simply ignored.

Instead we are distracted with pointless plot developments that end up having no influence on the outcome. Because one person said one thing to someone else, that person kills some other person. Honestly, it’s just a mind-numbing, dizzying, pointless merry-go-round. And some of the plot choices were just downright bad.

In my opinion, the point of Mirai-hen should have been not another killing game (which turned out to be the most useless desperate attempt at keeping an audience involved) but understanding why there is still despair and chaos in the world, and why the Remnants of Despair are claiming to not being involved. Because come on, the only things we as viewers want, especially coming from Zetsubou-hen, is to see the characters of class 77. The potential that held, and the time they could have taken to actually develop characters that way…

The Art/Sound:
Not much to complain about here. The art was pretty consistent actually. The sound was of course, used from the game, as most visual novel adaptations do, and most tracks are great. Some don’t quite fit, and while that would add the freaky factor in the games, in the anime, it just seems rather misplaced.

So to start off, I have not played any of the games/read any of the manga, I have only seen the anime adaptation so this is my view of the anime as a newcomer to Danganronpa.

I will cover some spoilers so you have been warned(although by the time I've seen the anime is already long past the hype and relevance so lol).

I also like to start ratings at 5/10 and either increase or decrease from there.

Story: 2/10

So I watched the first episode of this after completing the first season of the anime(Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation) and I was totally ... lost. I recognized Naegi, Kirigiri, Asahini and the fortune telling guy who's name I don't remember or care about, and that was it. I also starting watching the "Side: Despair" arc as soon as I finished the first episode of the Future arc.

I looked up the wiki and did some reading and found out you're supposed to play the second game to bridge the gap, but dang was that unexpected for me. I was then able to understand the BARE BASICS, like Naegi and his surviving classmates joined the "Future Foundation" and are all fighting Despair and whatnot, and Naegi is now under accusation of not killing the...Remnants of Despair?? I had no clue what that meant although I did recognize a couple characters(specifically Nagito Komaeda and Ibuki Mioda from seeing some friends being obsessed with them back in like....2014 and I recognized their designs) which meant nothing as I knew nothing about them.

I found it hard to be interested in much going on until I was far enough in the Despair arc to know who a lot of the characters that were present actually were, and know any of their motives.

I wanted to at least be able to follow along with a reasonable amount of interest, but I found the story to be lacklustre, boring, extremely reliant on you having played the game or you having done your research and I found that a main reason as to why I disliked this so much.

Also using the same trope as the previous season felt like an obvious gimmick, and felt poorly executed (haha, there also were no "executions").

I understand the concept of adaptations and how they differ from the source material but I wanted to be able to watch this entirely on its own, and this did a really poor job.

Art: 3/10

Extremely dark colours and what felt like just average animation. I think the choice to make the blood red instead of pink was a poor choice other then making it seem more serious, which the mood was already plenty serious enough with all the characters already neck deep in hidden backstory and "motives".

It seriously annoys me when theres multiple scenes that are so dark that result in me squinting at the screen and being able to make virtually nothing out yet at the same time missing nothing interesting.

Nothing memorable about the art, especially with the pink blood gone.

Sound: 7/10

The opening was actually one of the better things about the anime, I liked it, although the visuals felt kind of random to me, and the whole "Kirigiri and Naegi grasping for each other's hands" felt super cliche.

The ending was decent as well, I don't remember much about it.

Characters: 3/10

Without the Despair arc I would have NO idea who anyone despite the high school survivors were, and so by the time I felt any sort of connection with them and their backstory was explained in the Despair arc (if they had one at all) they were most likely dead or three stages past their previous motive/whatever.

Also I thought this was set in a relatively "realistic" world setting like all humans/no crazy superpowers but a few of the characters (aside from basically everyone being able to live after massive blood loss or injuries that would really HURT like gunshots...or stab wound...or cutting off our hand for goodness sake/stay alive way longer then they should be able to) two in particular bugged me for being so "super human". Seiko Kimura, the "Super Pharmacist" was able to create and consume crazy drugs, fine, but since when does taking bunch of pills realistically make you into a pretty well invulnerable snake lady??

It doesn't. (I can already hear haters jkjk)

And lets not forget the god-like sword fighting skills of the vice-leader of Future Foundation's Kyosuke Munakata.

Kyosuke, who is able to make a sword for no given reason heat up and slice through a robot and later being able to charge at a group of soldiers all firing at him simultaneously yet not get hit by a single bullet. Sigh.
I honestly thought he would die at that point and it was going to be him sacrificing himself so Naegi could keep going at the climax but that would have been to simple.

Just...I understand how characters can have plot shields and be OP but that felt a bit much. And why did Kyosuke's eye turn all black when he went all crazy?? Must have been angst...I also felt the cop out of his friend the Super Boxer being secretly gay for him to be real cheap, like it wasn't needed but I guess it filled a plot hole for what no one would ever guess it was Junko while also not adding anything other then a gimmick to a character and nothing meaningful...

Enjoyment: 3/10

While I disliked most of what this anime was, I did find it a BIT more enjoyable then I first expected. I was actually interested in them finding out who the killer was for a few episodes although as soon as the green-haired girl was introduced it felt like a quick lazy answer, and from there the plot twisted a couple more times but it felt forced...and just not interesting by that point. I finished watching this anime just to finish it.

Overall: 3/10

I finished watching this not out of enjoyment or interest, but to say that I finished it. A confusing premise that made little to no sense, characters that felt flat and forced until you got their exposited(and separately explained, in the Despair Arc) backstories to explain their seemingly random motives and a dull appearance, this anime was a waste of time.

(side note, now I'm thinking how one plot twist was how they were in an identical building to the Future Foundation's headquarters but I don't think they ever explained WHERE it was or WHO built it/the reason?? I'm just gonna assume thats another plot hole haha)

The only good scene was Chisa Yukizome hanging from the chandelier fight me




Okay seriously, this anime is possibly one of the worst experiences that I've had with Danganronpa, rivaled only by the Trigger Happy Havoc anime. The only good characters are the already established ones from the games (Makoto, Hina, Kyoko, ect.). The new Future Foundation members all have 1 to 2 personality traits and feel extremely flat. The new style of the killing game was also convoluted and frankly stupid. However, I'll defend the art and music, because I actually enjoyed the art style to a degree. In addition, the soundtrack is actually very ... solid, as Danganronpa music usually is. Old World Order in particular is one that stands out to me personally.

Pretty disappointing entry to the series. The main driving force being the initial two detective mystery games is followed up with a weird action focused tragic future anime. While this genre can work, it feels out of place with the main games, which are about solving the individual murder cases and the overall case of the story.

The original appeal of the series feels like it was cut out, and all we're left with is a watered down action anime that never really ties up or reconciles its overarching narrative of the world coming to an end. If everyone is still filled with despair how ... does hope win in the end? I know the main theme of the series is reaching for hope despite an uncertain and scary future, but that doesn't excuse not writing a proper conclusion to your story.

Well, this wasn't the worst season but also not the best after all.


To understand the content of this season you have to see season 1 and the season "Zetsubou-hen". Knowing the non-animated game would be of the "ADVANTAGE" is not necessary to be able to follow the plot, because the anime explains well and the ova also contributes to it. This part is also the end of the series.



After the disappointing result of "Zetsubou-hen", I was unfortunately skeptical about how the series would continue, but the season "Mirai-hen" saved it a little bit. In the end, it was nothing impressive and this season couldn't ... create any tension, let alone be convincing.

Another problem is that the characters were too unsteady. On the one hand, you could see that they were trying to develop their personality. On the other hand, it took off again.
Fan service was not forgotten here either.



Story:


The story of "Mirai-hen" happened a few years after the events of season 1. The "Future Foundation" members were captured by Monokuma and forced to play a new killing game. Each member received a bracelet that added an interesting additional factor to the game. And from there began the search for the traitor, the blossoming of intrigue and the story of despair in which hope killed hope.

A very interesting concept. The true identity of the Traitor wasn't this awful. Besides, the cliffhangers came at the end of almost every episode, which stimulated the tension even more. The interesting dialogues, monologues, the relationships between characters, the conflicts that arose, and the confusion and distrust that moved this Title.

In the end, this season tried the same thing as Season 1 did but failed.

Animation / pictures:


The animations really positively changed this season and that. The actual drawing style of the series has been retained, but the caliber of animations has undoubtedly evolved. And the atmosphere was hit well enough.

I was also surprised that the blood turned red. The actual biggest twist here.

Characters:

The characters and the story impressed me the most in this season.

There were survivors from season 1, who continued to play their own roles and had done well. In particular, the focus was on the protagonist.

But it wasn't just with them, there were also characters from Zetsubou-hen who would also have their own roles. Along with background stories, dialogues, and monologues, a satisfactory game between the characters was delivered.
However, if the characters only had some depth of character, it would have improved the whole thing significantly.


Music:


As expected, the opening was a success, both in terms of design and music. Especially as it has not spoiled as always and did not give any important information to the outside. I also found the ending quite pleasant, as were the vocals. The soundtracks were sometimes mild as in the predecessors, but were also quite pleasant and matched the style of the series.


In conclusion, the series had its strengths and was somehow able to hold on. In the sense that it was character relationships with one another. How which character reacts and how they react to each other in certain situations. This was by far the only strong point of this anime.

In the end, the first season was the only one that could actually still be convincing.

this review is about every arc. no spoilers.

- - -

i loved the danganronpa games when i was a preteen/young teenager. the second one is by far my favorite, so when i heard that the characters first introduced in it were going to be the center of a brand new anime i was BEYOND ecstatic. i remember quite literally shaking with excitement seeing the first promo images, and the first trailer.

i waited patiently until it aired all the way through like i always do. i avoided spoilers like the plague, unlike what i had done for the games. i was so pumped, until i ... actually sat down to watch it.

it hurt to look at anything other than the subtitles (the dub is horrendous by the way). the way certain characters were deformed to look nothing like they used to completely takes away from the experience if you're a series veteran. my favorite character, nekomaru, is one of the most egregious examples of this; his head looks like someone squished it inwards and his once-characteristic color palette is muddy and ugly. his proportions are also even more exaggerated than they previously were, somehow managing to make him look less like a high school student than the in game sprites did.

actually, the muddy and ugly color palette can be seen everywhere, not just on the characters. what made the second game in the original danganronpa series so great was how vibrant it always was regardless of the situations the characters got into. the intro movie has upbeat, catchy music and very cliché-yet-cute camera angles and visual effects. seeing the characters from such a visually pleasing series be reduced to depressing shells of their former selves is jarring to say the least.

i can't say much about the story without spoiling anything. just know that, in my opinion, the pacing isn't the greatest and the "new" characters (new to the setting, not the series) that stick around until the end range from being mediocre to hatebait.

if you've played the second danganronpa game and enjoyed everything about it as much as i did, steer clear. this is a major disappointment.