3ET: Danganronpa - The Animation

I count zero interesting characters in this image.

Studio: Lerche

Director: Kishi Seiji (Angel Beats, Persona 4)

Main Cast: Ogata Megumi as Naegi Makoto, Ooyama Nobuyo as Monokuma

Writer: Uezu Makoto (Uchuu Kyoudai, Katanagatari)

Music: Takada Masufumi (Debut)



I am a sucker for survival game anime. I like watching characters get put in horrible situations and forced to kill each other. I like it even more when characters actually do kill each other. Maybe this is because I think it gives us a glimpse inside the depths of humanity that we rarely get to see in other sub-genres. Maybe I'm a sociopath. Either way, I'll usually pass these anime just out of curiosity to see if the characters I like survive and the ones I hate die. So, why did I fail Danganronpa? Well, that would be because it's a nonsensical mess that misses the mark in nearly every conceivable fashion.

Let's start with the premise, which if it had been presented correctly (which it wasn't) could be decent. Fifteen high school geniuses get trapped in a school. To escape, they have to get away with a murder. It's the game mafia, but for reals, yo. Somehow, the show screws up that simple explanation by doing it in the most convuluted way possible. First, the principal, Monokuma (the plush bear), tells them that they just have to kill someone. Only after the first person has died does he reveal that they have to get away with it. Sure, that detail is in the school handbook, but it would have been nice to know that before the middle of the second episode. I honestly don't see why that detail isn't revealed. It was exposition dump that failed at exposition!

Next, the characters suck. Everyone has some sort of thing that they are great at. There's an idol, a hacker, a model, a swimmer, etc. The main character (Makoto) is good with luck, because how could there possibly a main character who actually has a personality? Not that anyone else has one either. They all fall into very rigid archetypes and made it impossible for me to root for any of them. Nor did it make me care when they died. Except for the childhood friend, I'm glad she died first. And yes, I'm spoiling that. I'm also going to spoil who killed her because it makes no fucking sense and is central to why this show pissed me off so much.

Why is your blood pink?!? You should get that checked out. Also, get the knife
in your gut checked out while you're at it.

For a mystery show to work, which this is because it's all about solving murders, the actions have to make sense. Now, the childhood friend (Sayaka) tries to frame Makoto by switching rooms and luring someone into his room to kill. Now, she isn't any great physical specimen by any means. So, who does she decide to lure in? The baseball player. Yeah, lure the athlete in and try to kill him, great fucking idea sweetheart. Don't go for one of the girls or a weaker guy, that would make too much sense. Of course, he overpowers her and kills her in self-defense, and when this is discovered in the Class Trial scene he tries to claim that. And in the one decent moment of this show, he is executed anyways in a sadistic manner by Monokuma. This kind of works to establish Monokuma as a villain, albeit one of the one-note, mustache twirling variety.

But, the biggest failure of Danganronpa is its tone. If I'm supposed to care about these characters, feel for them, cry for them, or root for them, there needs to be a certain amount of seriousness with which the show takes itself. I'm not saying there can't be comedy; there can and should be lighter moments. I'm talking about character designs looking so absurd that I can't take them seriously. I'm talking about slapstick sound effects when the fat guy or Monokuma talk. These visual and audio cues defuse any tension in the situation, leaving me to just not care about anyone or anything. And that is the worst place to be when watching a show, and why I just couldn't stand one more second of this garbage.

"My... my show is shit?"

One more thing before I close this out. Kishi Seiji and Uezu Makoto are among the more talented directors and writers respectively working in anime today. Kishi probably should stop directing videogame adaptations after Persona 4 and Devil Survivor 2 were mediocre efforts, but he has otherwise been solid. And Uezu has plenty of solid credits under his belt, like Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and Katanagatari, both of which rely on intelligent, comical dialogue. The guy can write. So, I have to conclude that the source material is the problem. Now, I say this without playing the game, but I can make a generalization, and I'll even be kind. This game needed major changes to its plot to be made into an anime; changes that the studio were unwilling to make. Whether these changes are due to the game being unadaptable or because the game is shit is for others with more information to decide. As for me, I'm done with it.