[This review may contain spoilers]
In my honest opinion, if it weren't for the simultaneous weekly release along with Future Arc, I think this anime would've felt way weaker. That was the purpose, after all. While it still felt a bit weak to me, I did enjoy it. I do think this anime greatly surpassed the first installment in the anime adaptations for the series.
As for the story, we mostly knew the basics. We knew how it would go down. Starting from a slice of life, sliding into a despairful mess of chaos. What I definitely mostly enjoyed was the change into the actual title of the series - DESPAIR. However, it escalated rather quickly which made it feel less realistic, but since they had to tuck in a lot of content in such a small amount of episodes, I won't pay that much attention to that detail.
In the end, the strong point from Danganronpa are its characters. It managed to get me attatched to the new characters. The introduction of the trio investigating (Munakata, Sakakura, Chisa - being her the narrator) Hope's Academy was a good thing and created a refreshing contrast between their point of view and the students'. Also, it painted the academy in a whole new light. However this also was the cause of how apart and plain the main cast from SDR2 felt. They barely got focused (with some exceptions) on and almost felt like supporting characters.
About the characters, what mostly bugged me was how Nanami was created as a real person for the anime. While at the start it was well handled, it all went down and became a bit disappointing when she just literally became a tool for Junko. Coming from SDR2, I was expecting Junko to act like Junko and destroy every characters individually, or at least more slowly than how it went down on the anime. This both made Junko's and Nanami's character feel more lazy than they actually are.
The music was okay and I specially enjoyed the remakes of the original tracks from the games. It made it feel more like Danganronpa. Both OP&ED were really great and really well handled in the smallest details. The original tracks from the anime weren't specially outstanding or memorable, so I wouldn't say the music was one of the strongest points of the anime.
As for the animation: I am really picky and critical about this point. While they did a good job with the colors (contrasting with the dark palette of Future Arc) - something that gradually changed along with the tone of the anime-, the animation could've been way better. The movement was really not fluid and most of the time it felt kind of awkward. This is completely a biased opinion but I feel that the animes never really imitated Rui Komatsuzaki's art that well.
Anyways, as a whole I really enjoyed the anime. I'm still a fan and did get emotional with my favorite characters and even the new characters. It's better than the first anime and even if it has some weak points it's definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the games.
