So what about the good stuff? Well the music is great at least, Masafumi never disappoints with his compositions. You still have the excellent bops you have in other games he’s worked on, but the OST is definitely closest to Danganronpa’s. The character designs by Rui are also still real unique and have that edgy, rebellious style that works great with this series. Also sometimes, the animation genuinely is good and there’s one big twist around ep 3 that I did not expect.
However past that, the writing for this show just does not quite know what it wants to be. It constantly switches from a sports show to incredibly generic shonen. Characters survive lethal blows for no reason, and some scenes just felt nonsensical. I’m actually half surprised it didn’t bring back alive a certain char that dies, considering the way the writing was going.
The story of Tribe Nine is mainly just a general story of one time rising to the top. You have several eccentric and quirky characters you’ll forget by tomorrow make up the other teams the protags fight. They of course beat them, and then have one final battle against Ojiro and his dudes. That’s about it really, there’s hardly any nuance and feels like the worst bits of Kodaka’s previous works, where it’s just constantly escalating even if it’s nonsensical.
So what about the characters? Well most of the cast is fairly bland tbh. Haru and Taiga do grow as characters, but it’s very standard stuff. Shun is cool I guess, Kazuki joins later, and without spoiling has an alright dynamic with Ojiro. As for Ojiro, he’s kind of just a very typical “only the strong shall thrive” villain. The overall conflict of this show is standard stuff where “guy with power of friendship fights villain with no friends and shows him power of friendship”. I actually like this trope, it’s just very mediocrely done here. Perhaps the most notable thing about Ojiro I can say is that Corpse Father plays him in the dub.
If it sounds like I’m repeating myself, it’s probably because I am. There’s really just not much to say about this series, it’s incredibly average in most everything. The animation is fine most of the time, sometimes getting good but not to the point it would really affect my score. The voice performances are good in sub like usual. This anime mostly just sort of exists to promote the game like most anime of its type.
Overall, I’d give it a 5 maaaaybe 5.5/10. Peep the soundtrack when it comes out, but I wouldn’t really rec watching it, unless you’re a Danganronpa fan just absolutely starving for more stuff similar to it. Even then though, all you’re gonna get is a few crumbs.
