Danganronpa: The Animation
Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to bring you a new anime review. So out of all the anime that was released this year it would seem that the weirdest one out the all of the shows is pretty much this one today. This is an adaptation to a popular PS Vita game that goes by the same name as the anime. It's a bit of an odd one mainly because the game itself is odd and very shot out, so making an anime out of it was a surprised to most. I know what you're thinking it's on the lines of "yeah that's all cool but is the anime any good?". Well I guess that's why we're here right? Without further or due I present to you my review for, Danganronpa: The Animation.
The set up here is pretty simple really. We follow our kind hearted and very fucking bland hero, Naegi Makoto. Naegi has been accepted into a high school simply known as Hope's Peak Academy. A high school that he really has no knowledge of but he's just happy that any high school accepted him. He soon realizes that he's trapped in this place with 14 other students and even worse then that this is no ordinary school. We end up meeting the school principle, a robotic bear known as Monokuma. This little black and white bear tells all the students that the only way to escape the school is easy. The students just have to kill each other off without being caught at all. That's one hell of a graduation ceremony huh? So with such a crazy plot like that just how does the show hold up? Just barely really. You not only have this kids killing each other all Battle Royal style but you also have another part of the show where they hold a class trial to see if they can find out who the killer is. Now saying all that I can see how this would work really well in a game but as an anime it doesn't so much. One of the rules of the trials is that if the students convict the wrong person the the criminal will go free while everyone else gets killed. In a game that put's a lot of pressure on you as you're playing detective all the way and you get to interact with the crime scene and take part of the trial. But in the anime it's all very predicable and not very engaging. In the game you can mess up and convict the wrong person but in the show you know that they're gonna convict the right person so it ends up loosing a lot of the suspense. the one thing I can say is that the show was a little funny at times and I enjoyed myself. Until the really stupid ending that kinda killed everything for me. That really hurt the already not so hot story.
Animation:
Well this is another area where the show isn't so hot either. The animation in the show is very stylized to the point that it can turn some people off. Also character designs just look really weird. Some of them didn't look to good but then again they're designed right off of their game designs so it's a case of one look not translating into a different media. I will say that the animation did increase in quality during the execution scenes. During these parts the show the art style changes drastically and the show has a bit of a unclean and gritty look to it that I personally liked a lot. That being said the rest of the show's animation is just okay and was nothing special.
Music:
Okay here's a spot that I can complement the show greatly in. The music in the show is really fun and pretty catchy. You already have the God awful but amazingly cheesy opening for the show that I freaking love and the ending theme has a very 8-bit tune to it that fits really well. Other tracks do tend to help some of the trial scenes and can really up the ante in the more do or die situations of the anime. A side from that I can't complain about the music at all and I had no problem with it at all so I feel as though it was pretty good.
Characters:
This is a really easy department to pick at in just one sentence. Characters are pretty pointless. With the exception of the two lead roles, all the characters are not very well characterized and fall flat into stereotypes. Now while I will say that some of them where fun to watch I really felt no connection to any of them seeing as how most of them where killed off really quick. The ones that did survive just stayed as the simple character trait they were given and didn't really develop into anything other then the trait that was placed among them. I guess I can say that the villain Monokuma was kinda fun to watch but he too was just a cookie cutter villain with no real reason as to why he doing what it is that he's doing. Well they do explain it but it was a really stupid motivation. You also have the main character Neagi who is generic a fuck. He the good guy that just want's everyone to get along and be friends, yeah he's just full of complex character motivations isn't he? I'll give him credit in that he actually developed though the show and even stopped being a whining wimp at the end. Other than that he was still bland as hell just like the rest of the cast.
Nitpicks:
Seeing as how I just picked the show apart you must be thinking that I can't possibly have a nitpick right? Well I do and it's a big one. The ending. The ending to the anime sucked, plan and simple. The villain's motivation were retarded and they beat the bad guy with hope and friendship. No I'm not kidding. I mean when you have a set up like this you'd think that the end would be this big monster of a climax or at least a dark ending but nope. It's like I finished watching an episode off the Disney channel. They just needed friendship to beat the bad guy. Like seriously what the hell?
Overall:
So as much as I've bad mouth the show I have to say, I don't hate this anime. Now don't get me wrong it's not very good and it has a lot of problems but I never got angry. I never just wanted to stop watching because I was bored or annoyed. I had some sense of fun watching this show and I can say that maybe some people will like it. But would I flat out recommended it? Hell no. If you feel like watching this then by all means go a head but I'd say to just skip this one. You're not missing anything here.
Arcane Reviews give Danganronpa: The Animation a 6 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment