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

I was worried about this going in as anyone who knows the games knows that this arc is going to be lacking sunshine and rainbows. I mean it's called the despair arc and it isn't kidding. The way Crunchyroll presents the two arcs takes the pressure off this, however. Splitting the episodes up really helps take the edge off while not breaking the flow. If you're a fan of the games, watch this. If not, skip it. The rest will be written assuming knowledge of at least the mainline games.

This addresses the gaps in the timeline so far, while also feeding into the Future arc. ... You know these characters by now, and even the new ones aren't that new if you've already watched Ep1 of the future arc. It fully expects you to know and remember these people from the games, so those with a vaguer memory better have Google at the ready.

The writing here is peak Danganronpa, people doing things in the way no human would, characters randomly appearing/having access to stuff that makes no sense. Rationale, tone and logic are completely foreign concepts here. As usual though, it works, it all ties together and actually works as an anime rather well.

One major caveat, neither arc features the courtroom stuff that is the main feature of the games. It wouldn't have worked anyway, but if you love that stuff you'll be disappointed. Other than that, this arc really surprised me. It even backloads the plot so basically everything happens in the last couple of episodes in a true assault on your senses. True Danganronpa stuff.

[SPOILERS for Danganronpa...kinda]

Look, I'm a HUGE Danganronpa fan just like most people who watched this show, and I DID enjoy SOME PARTS of this show. Like...for what it is, it's not as bad as I think others make it out to be BUUUUT...never mind let's just get into this:

Story: 4/10

Ok sooo...this story is ALL OVER the place. It's connects in some ways to the Danganronpa games and other ways it just...doesn't. They tried to shoehorn in some the stuff from Danganronpa 1 & 2, but all of it just feels like it's kind of out of a place and towards the very end...I was completely ... lost. This story really just...isn't great. Granted, the parts where the show is just being itself and not trying to latch itself onto the games themselves, it's fine for what it is...maybe could've focused more on the class rather than the characters that look like Deviantart Danganronpa OCs. The characters act...sort of like they do in the games, certain things are changed though *cough* Hiyo *cough*, but they're still themselves mostly.

Visuals: 7/10

Ok, now for the stuff I DID like. The art itself looks alright for what it is, basically just the cutscenes from Ultra Despair Girls but it's 23 minutes(ish) instead of like...3-5 minutes. The characters are well animated and nothing really looks...bad. Like I said with in the story section though, most of the original characters are more or less bland or just...OCs.

Sound: 8/10

Sound is just fine. The characters (at least in the sub) all sound like they did in the game and the original characters have alright voices too. There's some good music here and there (especially the opening, seriously a bop.) Other than that, there's some songs from the soundtracks used along with some good original pieces...I think.

Overall: 7/10

This was...not as terrible as some people are making it out to be like I said before but this is DEFINITELY for Danganronpa fans only. In fact, the only reason I've been watching this show was because it's canon to the overall story of the franchise...wish me luck on V3. But yeah, this one's not great, not terrible either though, could've DEFINITELY been better with the story. Definitely for fans only.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak High School – Despair Arc is an anime meant to serve as the prequel to the Hope’s Peak series of Danganronpa games, which excludes Danganronpa V3. It is set two years before the first game, even more before the second game, and probably the same amount of time before Ultra Despair Girls. Although it was nice to know the full story of what exactly happened to plunge the world into despair, what we got was rather ridiculous, nonsensical, and downright hard to believe; yet I still found this to be an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

Firstly, let me start with ... some aspects that I liked. As with the Future Arc, the music was amazing, although I didn’t find the OP and ED as memorable as Future Arc’s. There are so many catchy, stand-out tracks such as Junko’s Theme that you’ll be remembering for a while. Some scenes use music incredibly well to their advantage, such as contrasting bloody tragedies and extreme violence with a beautiful, happy melody sung by a light voice; this serves to freak out the watcher a bit more than they would be normally. The art-style and animation of the show are also pretty good. The character designs change the designs from Danganronpa 2 just enough to fit with Danganronpa 3 but not detract from their distinct features.

The voice acting in the English dub was not too terrible save for a Junko here and there. I understand that her whole valley girl shtick really fits with the type of character she is, but it gets obnoxious with “Kamakura, Kamakura, yaas queen!” If you’ve played the previous games in dub, just know that none of the characters keep their game voices except Chiaki, Hajime/Kamakura, Nekomaru, Nagito, Sonia, Kazuichi, Teruteru, Mikan, and a few others, meaning that some voices will take a while getting used to. However, I’d say that, overall, the voice acting in dub really fit the characters, even if they weren’t using the voices I was used to.

The story takes place before any of the Danganronpa games in order to tell the story of how Class 77-B (the cast of DR2) all met and enjoyed their school life, the various happenings surrounding Hajime Hinata, as well as how the world ultimately fell into despair at the hands of Junko Enoshima. The only one of these focuses I take an issue with is the latter; not because of the mere idea of it, but rather how it was executed. Let us pretend, for a moment, that it is not impossible for a single edgy high-school girl to cause a disaster so great that humanity falls to its knees: are you seriously telling me she managed this through the power of anime? Fucking anime was enough to bring despair worldwide? Also, why would Izuru ever agree to cooperate with Junko? He’s literally the Ultimate Hope. There are just so many details that are ridiculous or make zero sense that it is hard to ignore, and these can culminate into the smallest things that seem to be the causes of The Tragedy. If one guy just stayed at home, there wouldn’t be a despair. If one guy just came out of the closet, there wouldn’t be a despair. So much rubbish to unpack. Nevertheless, I will admit that it was nice to see how it began regardless.

I found the characters to be all right for the most part with a few exceptions. The characters from outside of Class 77-B and the Reserve Department—that is to say, the anime-only characters—are in this weird situation where they rely on Despair Arc to make sense in Future Arc. For this reason, I would say that Despair Arc is like the answer arcs in Higurashi, making sense of why something happens in Future Arc. Only watching one of these arcs, however, will make these characters far less compelling than they would be normally. Then again, I found Ruruka, Izayoi, and Kimura dumb even when watching both arcs. Shifting away from these characters, Junko, Mukuro, and Mitarai were all really annoying throughout the whole show. Junko never becomes any deeper than just “DESPAIR!” Mukuro blindly follows whatever Junko says for reasons unknown even though she treats her like trash, and Ryota Mitarai was such a pussy that it got infuriating. If he had the tiniest balls, The Tragedy wouldn’t have happened. Aside from those characters, I mostly enjoyed what everyone had to offer, even if development was exclusively focused on Chisa, Chiaki, Hajime, and a few others.

Danganronpa 3 – Despair Arc was a nice addition to the series that provided a fitting answer as to how Junko Enoshima plunged the world into despair before Makoto and the remaining members of Class 78-B defeated her. I feel as though the mere fact that it is a prequel made me slightly more forgiving of serious faults in the plot, which are not fully remedied even when watching Future Arc simultaneously. If you liked the previous games, I highly recommend watching this and Future Arc.

<Spoilers>
Despite the opinions of others, I thoroughly enjoyed this anime.

Not having played Danganronpa 2 at the time of watching this anime, seeing a new class of characters and new story aspects felt refreshing and intrigued me to watch the show. The anime focused on this new cast of characters as well as, new aspects of the Hopes peak academy that I never imagined, as someone who was yet to play the games.

The anime portrayed the reserves course and "The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History" effectively, the light-hearted high school moments paired with the darker events that occur in the anime ... are paired together accordingly. The art style works and does a good job at reflecting the game's art style. Many of the characters were missing their iconic character designs from the video games. While they are in a school setting and have a uniform code, it would've been nice to see their iconic character designs. There was nothing special about the sound design, it's something that works. However, the op reflecting the calming aesthetics of the intro supports the sound design of the anime itself. Junko had a lot of attention placed on her and we gain more insight into what she was like prior to "The Tragedy" other characters like Hajime, Nagito even Sakakura. In summary, this anime is a refreshing viewing and an interesting look at the events prior to "The Tragedy.

Overall, I rank this a 7/10.

I've never played the Danganronpa games, but I enjoyed the original Danganronpa anime that came out a lot. This one was much darker than the first, and in a way a lot more terrifying. The graphic amounts were still on the smaller side of the R-rated ones, but the violence itself and the drive behind it is much darker. Danganronpa really has a message to convey, and the message honestly chilled me to the bone. How people can be driven to do awful things, not to people they hate or strangers, but friends. There is a lot of truth in here, and in the midsts ... of the world's chaos currently, it's rather frightening to think that we, also, could be close to, 'The Most Despair Inducing Event in the History of Mankind.' Close to all the violence against one another, and all the distrust. Close to the end of the world. There were times watching this I was so frightened by this message I wanted to slam my laptop screen shut. It's really such a deep thought, and I respect it. It's really a lot scarier than the last one, so viewers be warned. Danganronpa ended fairly well, right? Hope won over despair. No such happy endings lie with this anime. That is all I can say.

*Some spoilers but only understandable after watching*
This arc is by far my favourite arc of the trilogy. Although it may be because the Danganronpa 2 cast was my favourite among all of the games. My full review of Danganronpa as a whole will be on the Danganronpa: The Animation page but I just wanted to say that this arc was my favourite since I got to see my favourite characters.

All the Dr2 characters were written so perfectly. First lets talk about Hajime Hinata, our main protagonist of this arc (kind of). His character represents how people would act just to reach their goals through unstopping ... determination, to the point of losing himself.

Nagito is another character that plays an important role in the story. If you played Dr2, it probably felt like Nagito was the smartest character in the entire Danganronpa franchise. His brain was so big that even the other characters had a hard time comprehending him because of the way his character was written. In the anime, he plots some stuff and somehow gets away with it. Why? Because he's the Ultimate Lucky Student and he manages to keep that title till the very end.

Chiaki Nanami probably had the most "realistic" character development in this show. It showed us that just because you are entitled to your own Ultimate talent, doesn't mean you can't do other things as well. She was like the breakthrough of Danganronpa (as well as Makoto, ig) and I came to really appreciate her by the end of the show. She went from being an introverted gamer head to a class prez who lead the class well all because she kept an open-mind and caring heart.

More Danganronpa reviews will be on other pages.

When compared to the Future side, this is definitely the more interesting, and superior arc.

I quite believe that the studios put more work into this arc than the Future arc not only because the stories here are directly connected to SDR2, but it's also evident from its presentation here. The OP and ED themes are excellent. It is more enjoyable to watch, it has more depth, lots of stuffs can be said. Also, the other additional details and references just make me watching this series even more.

Despair arc is essentially a tale of two halves. Started out as a happy-go-lucky slice of life anime before ... the inevitable bad creeped in. We get to see more from the characters from SDR2 when they're not in a killing game. It was all fluff, sure, but how can you not want to this cast of characters having a good time? It also includes other characters featured in the Despair arc killing game, fully enhancing our investment in those characters. All these things will later culminate in a real tearjerker scene at the end, one of the few times I cried at a scene.

To be quite honest, this anime would've been panned by people who are used to watching standard animes. But, when applied to the Danganronpa environment, this is definitely a stellar anime.

I dislike how the future arc handled things, but that doesn't carry any weight in this review.

The switching back and forth between hope and despair was pretty odd, and it felt pretty unnecessary for the most part. They could have structured the story differently so that wouldn't be needed. Still, I didn't mind that too much.

This side of the story was actually pretty good. I enjoyed seeing how class 77 came to be, and it served as a nice prologue to the series as a whole. I enjoyed the story of the first two games, and I feel like this side of the ... story mostly served to flesh out the events that we had already learned about previously in Danganronpa 1 and 2.

Part 1 English
Part 2 Bahasa Indonesia

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Well, well, well, if it isn't Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Zetsubou-hen. Let me tell you folks, this anime is a real hootenanny! I mean, it's got everything you could want in an anime - drama, suspense, mystery, and of course, adorable characters with deadly secrets.

Let's start with the story. It's like a rollercoaster ride, folks. You're up, you're down, you're left wondering what the heck just happened. But that's the beauty of it. It keeps you on your toes and never gets boring.

And the art style? It's like a Picasso painting come to life. It's so ... unique and mesmerizing that you can't help but stare in awe.
Now, let's talk about the main characters. There are not one, not two, not three, but four main characters. That's right, folks, four times the fun! Each character is well-developed with their own unique quirks and personalities that will make you fall in love with them... or suspect them of murder.

The voice over and music are top-notch. It's like butter on toast, folks. Smooth and delicious. The voice actors really bring the characters to life and the music sets the tone perfectly.

As for the experience of watching this anime, it's like being on a wild ride. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll scream at the screen. It's an emotional rollercoaster that you won't want to get off of.

So, with all that being said, I give a score of 7,888/10. Yes, you read that right. It's just that good. So what are you waiting for? Grab some popcorn and get ready for the ride of your life!

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Baiklah, kalau bukan Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Zetsubou-hen. Biarkan saya memberi tahu, anime ini sungguh menyenangkan! Ini punya segala yang bisa kamu inginkan di dalam anime - drama, ketegangan, misteri, dan tentu saja, karakter yang lucu dengan rahasia yang mematikan.

Mari kita mulai dengan ceritanya. Seperti rollercoaster, teman-teman. Kamu naik, turun, dan tersesat dalam kebingungan apa yang terjadi. Tetapi itu yang indah. Ini membuatmu tetap waspada dan tidak pernah membosankan.
Dan gaya seninya? Ini seperti lukisan Picasso yang hidup. Sangat unik dan mempesona sehingga kamu tidak bisa tidak menatapnya dengan kagum.

Sekarang, mari kita bicara tentang karakter utamanya. Ada bukan satu, bukan dua, bukan tiga, tetapi empat karakter utama. Ya, teman-teman, empat kali keceriaan! Setiap karakter dikembangkan dengan baik dengan kepribadian dan keunikan mereka sendiri sehingga kamu jatuh cinta pada mereka... atau mencurigai mereka sebagai pembunuh.

Suara dan musiknya sangat bagus. Seperti mentega di atas roti panggang, teman-teman. Lembut dan lezat. Pengisi suara benar-benar membuat karakter hidup dan musik mengatur nada dengan sempurna.

Sedangkan untuk pengalaman menonton anime ini, itu seperti naik wahana yang liar. Kamu akan tertawa, menangis, dan berteriak pada layar. Ini rollercoaster emosional yang tidak akan kamu ingin turunkan.

Jadi, dengan semua itu dikatakan, saya memberikan skor 7,888/10. Ya, kamu membacanya dengan benar. Ini sangat bagus. Jadi, apa yang kamu tunggu-tunggu? Ambil popcorn dan bersiaplah untuk naik wahana paling seru dalam hidupmu!

As a enthusiastic Danganronpa fan, I had to visit this anime again after replaying some of the main games. And I must say, watching the series for the first time while being completely hyped for the series clouds one's judgement for the series. From my first time watching I remember the series being really fresh and a good way to explore Danganronpa stories and lore. Unfortunately, it really isn't any of those.

Story: 6
Danganronpa 3: Zetsubou-hen goes back to the past, before any of the happenings of the main games/anime adaptation. We follow the future-to-be main cast of the Super Danganronpa 2 game [SDR2 SPOILERS] turned ... into the Remnants of Despair, which is revealed in the final chapter of the game [SPOILER END]. Generally the anime is to be watched after beating SDR2, since the anime would be even more confusing without the original experience, so to say. All characters are generally introduced in the beginning, but all the totally wack first episode probably turned off any watchers who aren't familiar with the SDR2 cast. But really all the series is, is over-explaining plot points from the SDR2 game and giving fanservice to SDR2 fans, who were desperate to see the game get an adaptation like the first one did. After re-watching the series, I realized that that's all it can give. On top of that, the series also introduces unnecessary characters, plotpoints and -twists to give the series more depth and a longer runtime in total. In conclusion, the story isn't very good, but that doesn't mean that it isn't entertaining to watch. I will address some of the plotlines and reasons a bit later.

Art: 7
Lerche is actually one of my favorite animation studios, but the animation in Danganronpa 3 is average compared to some of their other works like Assassination Classroom or the more recent Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun. Both series had high-quality, smooth and interesting animations that Danganronpa unfortunately doesn't really have. The designs are mostly faithful to the original game, only a couple of things like appearance or clothes have been matched to the correct time (where the series sits in the DR timeline). The new characters the series introduces are mostly a bit boring with a few exceptions like Ruruka and the other new students that the series gets more into in Mirai-hen. The animation is mostly smooth, if you don't look at the background characters too much, which is enough to make it enjoyable.

Sound: 9
One thing that Danganronpa and Studio Lerche both usually nail is voice acting and soundtracks, and this series is no exception. Most of the voice actors from the original SDR2 game are back to voice their characters, and all the voice performances are really solid. If I had to point one specific voice performance out, it'd be the amazing Megumi Ogata who came back to do Komaeda and Naegi's voices. Her performance is the most notable in the series, and she continues to nail both the determined, optimistic Makoto Naegi and the more calm, cool but crazy Nagito Komaeda. The soundtrack is a solid one combining some new tracks but also some older ones that were used in thew original games and the first anime adaptation. Both the opening and ending are fresh and unique, especially the opening, which I didn't skip even once while watching.

Character: 9
What really keeps me from giving the characters of this anime a 10 are mostly two reasons:
1. The new characters
Most of the new characters added don't give anything fresh into the series to the point where every time the series tries to focus into these new characters and make them go through character development, I am not interested in any way. The new characters, especially the Ultimate Animator, are unnecessary for the experience of the most Danganronpa fans. We don't necessarily need a plot line explaining how Junko ended up making the Despair videos, since most people accepted it as a fact when it was first introduced in the games. Second of all, the whole plot line involving Chiaki. [SPOILERS] the purpose of bringing Chiaki back was mostly, again, probably fanservice and filling plot holes. When it was first revealed in the game that Chiaki was the traitor of the Future Foundation and a computer AI, it was presented as a fact, not necessarily needing a detailed explanation, at least for me personally. Still, even though I'm not too fond of this whole plotline and how it linked into Hinata and the teacher, I understand the series' reason to address this plotline-slash-plothole and make Chiaki even more of a lovable character. Her death is one of the most despairful of the series, and definetly bittersweet when you watch it for the first time. [SPOILER END]

2. The amount of stereotypia and lack of character development the older characters are given
I would assume that most of us watched this series because of the fact, that it would let us see our favorite SDR2 character on screen and to know the full story of how they became the Remnants of Despair. And yes, the series gives us mostly what it promises. But what it had given to the unnecessary development of the new characters, it lacks in the development of the older characters. Since most of the characters does "die" during the SDR2 game, it would've been awesome to see the characters that maybe had a little less development in the game to go through some development in the anime series. Personally would've liked to explore Fuyuhiko and Peko's relationship more, since I felt like it had more potential that it was given. Also Mikan's plotline made sense for her character, but was in a weird way, disappointing and unsatisfying. Chiaki is one of the only SDR2 characters to go through very solid character development and a good arc that manages to give everything it needed and had. Even Hinata's whole plotline was addressed in a lackluster way compared to the influence it ended up having in the end. Also, to address the fangirl in the room, one of the other most popular characters is absent for around half the series, and existed solely to give more content and fanservice. It literally goes like boom, the character is gone, and six episodes later, boom, he comes back. It made no sense at any point , and probably was one of the reasons the creators gave the character a special later.

Enjoyment: 9
Even with all its flaws, the series is still a fun watch and especially when you watch it for the first time, very satisfying. Even when watching for the second time, I enjoyed the experience and even laughed out loud a couple of times. Sadly, while watching, I had this thought in the back of my head that I couldn't brush off the whole time I was watching it. It went somewhere along the lines of "why am I enjoying this so much when it clearly isn't very good in actuality", and I feel like it sums my feelings pretty well. The series is worse than what you think while watching, which can really either be a good or a bad thing. The series manages to pull the heartstrings and fangirl/boy heart of every Danganronpa fan, even though in conclusion the series is rather lackluster. And in all honesty, what else do you need? If one enjoys the series even though it has a lot of wasted potential, that means that the series managed to use its best qualities to the fullest.

Overall: 8