These are the words that were spoken in the very beginning of this entry. A tale about the bright and talented students of Hopes Peak Academy's 77th Class. This entry explains what happened to SDR2's cast and everything about the Biggest, Most Atrocious Despair-Inducing Incident in Human History. A great prequel to the Danganronpa series.
If you're interested in watching this, you have to go back to the start of this series as this is the third entry from this series and watching this without knowledge of prior entries will confuse you and you wont get the full enjoyment out of this entry, not to mention it will also spoil the events of SDR1 and 2. If you have knowledge then the watch order would be episode 1 of Side:Future, then episode 1 of Side:Despair and continue that pattern with the finale being Side:Hope. Remember, this review will contain minor and major spoilers of SDR1 and 2, you have been warned.
The story starts off with the 77th Class of Hopes Peak Academy and re-introduces them to us, it starts off fairly light and there's lots of comedic moments you can enjoy with your favorite characters from SDR2 while it foreshadows future events that you already know of. The story elegantly ties in with Side:Future as it gives us backstories of the cast from Side:Future as well. I thought every detail was explained well and even if certain things weren't explained at all, it still happened without visual presentation. I wont call it a plot hole as this is not the case. Unfortunately the show loves to go either with a slow pace or a very fast pace which is a minor setback. There were lots of controversies on how the 77th Class (and reserve course) fell into despair but I found it was the only reasonable explanation. So in conclusion I thought it explained the Biggest, Most Atrocious Despair-Inducing Incident in Human History quite well and we saw how everything happened, the first killing game was handled brilliantly, the events leading up to the major ones was done great. All in all the story tied in every entry in this series.
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Story - 9
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From the first episode we are introduced to a certain likable character from SDR2 and many were surprised about it because of the events of SDR2. This character is Chiaki Nanami and she's a bit different from SDR2, certain traits were kept but a few things were different about this character which makes sense if you know the whole story about her. Here this character is more perfect than the game version, but more human than in the game which is ironic since she was an AI. All the other characters are the same but the designs are slightly different, but they are all still excellent. We also get to see how Junko plays with Hopes Peak Academy and how she did everything, it's quite nice to see her in action as it really gives me more feeling to her character. Mukuro and Izuru are also present and you can see the love the former has for Junko and despair while the latter is a great written character who is quite tragic in my eyes. I will cover Side:Future's characters in Side:Future's review.
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Characters: 8
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The art isn't anything amazing or mind-blowing nor is the animation, it's well done, but nothing overly bad or overly good, there were some scenes which were really well done in the animation and art department but other than that it wasn't anything special.
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Art & Animation: 6
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The sound is simply amazing, as per usual in the Danganronpa franchise, they played the right tracks at the right time and it was just amazing. The voice acting was high tier as well, how can the voice acting go wrong when you have that many talented actors for the characters? (Ah ultimate students get ultimate actors)
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Sound: 10
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Being a Danganronpa fan, this has obviously been a blast to me, there were one or two boring parts but other than that it was one hell of a ride and I wouldn't mind re-watching this in the years to come, it showed me scenes that I really wanted to see ever since the games told me about them and I'm very satisfied about this series.
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Enjoyment: 10
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While this show does have a few faults, I still think it was really good, a great anime that I recommend to any fan of the Danganronpa franchise, it's a must watch and I'll remember this one for a while just like the previous entries in this franchise.
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Overall: 9
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