Naga's avatar


  • The Moon
  • Joined Feb 15, 2012
  • 23 / M

When I started to watch Danganronpa I had a mindset that it would be so bad that it would actually be good. I was wrong… it was way worse than I expected. Thing about this anime is that it’s supposed to be some sort of parody (I guess)… but it just happens that it had the worst presentation and director that can't handle it. But seriously, I’m in this anime business for…  I dunno, and I have no idea what this is supposed to mock. Archetypes? Common roles/personalities? Wha?

Story was bad and pacing was horrid. First thing we can notice about the story is that it’s structured in a way that there’s obvious 3 characters that will actually do something constructive, while others will most likely die in most peculiar ways, and let’s not even mention that MC is plot armored to infinity, so there’s not much suspense… at all. There’s no empathy for any character because pacing just doesn’t allow any proper flashing, development… or anything to that matter. Most of characters are one-trait-only nobodies, so you just don’t take it as anything dramatic. You just enjoy watching them die and that’s pretty much it. They could literally kill a cactus instead of a character and my emotional response would be the same.  No emotional investment whatsoever.

Most of the “drama” around here is overblown to the point of stupid, and while it is part of the style, it still sucks. And yeah, plot twists suck as well. Sometimes characters themselves say that something is a cliché. But guess what, saying it’s a cliché doesn’t excuse it or make it any better; it just says that you’re quite conscious about making this as atrocious as possible, and if you’re not using them in a good, fresh way, then I just can’t consider it as anything good.

It was bad even as a mystery, because there’s no room to guess or process, you’re just watching things unfold and that’s about it. And it’s so damn predictable… except for the ending, but that’s because it made no sense whatsoever and was mostly just cheesy turd. There’s no foreshadowing or anything; things just happen randomly and that’s about it. It’s even sad that it’s too easy to determine who’s the killer… up to the point where they begin to ass pull whatever comes to their mind (and you just see characters looking at books or what not) and there’s no way to guess anything.

Animation was nice, and I’ll give them some props for “unique” character design. Most of the scenes that stood out were taken from the game… but I won’t take that into account. I really don’t care, tbh. OP and ED were not my thing, and nothing really stood out or was particularly memorable, but the general music was fine. And I did enjoy Monokuma and his soothing voice, but that’s about it from pros department.

All in all; NO. Avoid this. Go play the game or something… I heard it’s 10 times better…  but there’s a good chance that I would dislike it as well.

Best girl: Monokuma

2/10 story
6.5/10 animation
6/10 sound
2/10 characters
3/10 overall


CaptainPancakes says...

You'd probably like the game if you played it first, since your main problems with the anime were the story and the trials which are done much better in the game. Since trials usually last like an hour and a half you get to put two and two together; not to mention that there's an actual Ace Attorney style investigation, which doesn't hurt as well.  

You probably won't like it now though that you basically know everything and after you watched the anime I'm sure as hell you won't want to play the second game (which isn't even out anyways in English, teehee.) 

Oct 17, 2013