Oompa Loompa, doom-pa-dee-do~
The summary of Danganronpa is going to be quite short. Basically, elite students are gathered together in an elite school. On their first day they’re all happily going to the entrance ceremony and then discover their principal is a very strange plush (He’s Monobear!) who tells them they are going to have to slaughter each other if they want to ever go out of this school. Great curriculum.
I find myself a bit annoyed because this has been adapted from a game that I have not played and thus it feels like I am missing on a lot of important things. I cannot really judge the quality of the adaptation either and for that I’m sorry but you’ll have to trust the words of a friend of mine who said “Oh this is exactly like the game” and then later “Oh, but the end of this episode is not like in the game at all.” (not her true words but it was said more or less like that so you get the idea.)
Anyway, my first impression on this is that the animation is not pretty at all. My second impression has been that the character designs were silly. Putting it nicely, this is not my style of character design at all. It might work in the game but it is difficult to animate and they did not pull it off so it bothers me. The character design of the main character bothers me as well, he is so plain compared to the others.
Talking about the main character, Naegi, he really does seem like the weakest of them all. Main problem is that I can totally see where this is going. Seeing as he is the weakest and nicest of them all, he definitely is going to win. (If there is a winner at all). At the very least he seemed like he was manning up a bit at the end of the episode, so I’ll see where this is going. His mandatory crush, Maizono, does not seem like anything special either, she’s an idol, how she’ll fare when things start heating up is something I’m a bit curious about.
Now I talked about the characters, let’s finish up by talking about the plot, and sadly I have nothing interesting to say. I mean, it is a survival game anime, is there anything new in that? I do not have anything against this sub-genre, I’m just complaining about the absence of something that could look like a new take on it. I might be wrong but the first episode did not indicate anything like that. Worse? It is adapted from a game. I have a bad history with game adaptations, they can either be awesome or completely awful.
I thus suspend my judgment on whether or not I’m dropping Danganronpa.
