I take the honor of writing the last post of the year! It’s mine MWAHAHA!
Danganronpa is an anime adapted from a video game of the same name, for those who, like me, are not familiar with the franchise let me explain. High schoolers are enrolled in a school that is supposed to house some of the best students of the country. Except that one day their strange new principal Monokuma explains to them that they cannot get out and back to the world, unless they kill one of their classmate and get away with it. However if they are found out, they are the ones who will die.
For once, if I have to say something positive about Danganronpa it is that it is rather easy for people not familiar with the game to get into it. It does take a few episodes but the result is there. It does help that the number of characters to remember gets down at every episode.
Seriously, the only thing I found a bit off-putting as a non familiar with the game, is the number of characters, I never managed to remember everyone.
Second thing I have found a bit off-putting is the art style. It is not bad, far from it, but it is weird and a bit hurtful for the eyes.
Besides, I found it quite sad that, while they manage to put on some very graphic shows of violence and killing, the blood is a nice neon color. It seriously is laughable, or at least it made me laugh.
From the summary I wrote of the story the focus of Danganronpa seems to be on the survival game part of the story but it not. We do follow people trying to get out of the school but the focus is more on the detective part. I think most of the episodes are spent trying to find out who the culprit of each murder is. Then we have a little focus on the death they are subjected to.
I am pretty glad it happened that way.
Survival games anime are tricky, maybe even more so when they are adapted from games. Unless you have great characters to follow or a very imaginative setting or both, it is hard to succeed in the genre. So I was pretty happy that the focus was more on the mystery genre.
Because I will be honest, the characters of Danganronpa were not too great.
I even find it hard to say who I liked best. My obvious answer would be the great mastermind, but the great mastermind is not a very great character. It is just very smart and not very well, psychologically speaking. In all honesty, its craziness is the only thing that I found redeeming in this character. I also liked killer girl for reasons I will not name because it would be spoilerish.
Naegi was not too great either, yet the story was told through his eyes, they could have made an effort. Actually, same goes for everyone, they barely get any development and when they do it is overdone and short-lived.
I would hesitate recommending this, I am not saying it is bad, I did enjoy myself at times, but I think your time would be better spent by watching something else.
