Danganronpa Gaiden: Killer Killer

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What Danganronpa Gaiden: Killer Killer suffers most from is being a Danganronpa Gaiden. It's garnered a harsh reception in its time and if you ask me, that is largely because it is tied to the Danganronpa name and thus wasn't what people were expecting it to be. It's not Danganronpa enough for them.

But set aside Danganronpa for a minute, and what do you have?

You have a pretty standard mystery/detective series about an antisocial, eccentric detective who, in spite of his weirdness, is great at his job, and his easily excited amateur assistant who isn't as good as him but is just as excited to solve ... mysteries and is learning along with the audience. Also, because the leads are male and female, there's some fun romantic tension (although they don't have to be the opposite sex for that; look at the trope codifier). It's a very traditional setup for a detective story but it's traditional because it works. However, it works especially well here because at the end of chapter one, we learn more about our oddball detective and it takes a very dark turn.

This dark turn is largely what the story focuses on and in works in tandem with the detective work. It makes for an engaging story as it is unexpected of this standard setup of the detective genre and gives you something to really be interested in. It's effective in getting you invested in these characters (which are easily the most interesting part; the relationship and parallels between our detective and another character introduced about halfway through are simply fascinating, although you also have to give credit to the relationship between our male and female leads. It's so fun to dig into the minds at motivations of these characters. It deserves that psychological tag.). The mysteries themselves aren't the most in-depth cases ever, which is definitely something that could be improved upon as a detective story, but they're fun for what they are.

I am of the opinion that it's better for the detective to serve the mystery rather than the other way around, but hey, the other way around isn't so bad either if you know what you're doing and what the story you really aim to tell is.

The detective aspect takes a back seat in the latter half of the story as it starts getting really intense and, in true Danganronpa fashion, the stakes shoot through the roof, but it feels very natural both as Danganronpa and in general. It always was a characters-first story, and that's fine, even if it isn't the best for a detective story. Because really, it's not a detective story, it's a story about a detective, and that's fine too, so long as you know how to balance it well and don't try to be what you're not (looking at you, BBC).

That being said, I also think people are exaggerating about it being missed potential for the Danganronpa franchise. It's a gaiden series for a reason. It's supposed to be different from the main plot. Expecting it to be just more of the main plot is a fool's errand. While it could be doing more to utilize it's setting in the world of Danganronpa, it's still a pretty damn good expansion of the franchise's world and its building. In particular, it does a lot to explore what the rest of the world is like in the aftermath of the killing game, as it slowly heals. It's getting better, but it's not there yet. Society is once again functioning, but it's still a crapsack. It's an interesting part of the storyline that the main entries never had time to explore. It also weaves the Danganronpa worldbuilding in with the original characters and mysteries seamlessly. Characters from the main series show up, but only just as much as they need to. They don't feel intrusive, or take time away from the main characters. It is just enough to tell a Danganronpa side-story.

It could have been a few chapters longer, because it resolves a few things just a bit too quickly and could have expanded some more on a few others, but that's a nitpick. I do wish they hadn't pushed the female lead aside for the men, but what else is new? It also has some BL undertones (or, overtones honestly) if you're into that but you're a Danganronpa fan, which should answer that question. Personally, I can appreciate it. Oh, also the way the main conflict is resolved is ah...uncharacteristically silly? Even for Danganronpa, which did knock off a few points, but is nowhere near enough to ruin how interesting the rest was.

It isn't the world's best detective story nor is it a perfect expansion of Danganronpa, but when you set that aside and accept what you've been given, it's a fun and intriguing read for Danganronpa fans.

in all honesty, the story here isn't that deep and the problems are resolved too quickly.

though, i have to say that the main characters really make this manga for me. hijirihara is an absolute delight and made me laugh out loud more than he should have. his character is more comedic than threatening, mostly because he's ridiculously overpowered. he's one of my favorite characters just because of how hilarious his existence is. the other main and side characters are okay... not much notable, though. hijirihara is really the star of the show.

the art in this manga was absolutely gorgeous, though. sasako mitomo's art contributes ... so much to the overall story. he has an incredibly distinct style that fits really well into the danganronpa universe; just look at his other danganronpa sketches (saihara, ouma, amami, otonashi and matsuda). the art is also considerably gorier than what we see in danganronpa games, and mostly dr3, but i think this manga needed something else good to separate it from the other danganronpa properties.

this was an entertaining read if nothing else. honestly, it's danganronpa; you shouldn't be expecting the best writing ever.

This manga might just be the worst I have ever read. If it is not the worst, then it is by far the most entertainingly bad. This spin off of the Danganronpa series of video games is obscure in the fandom and doesn't seem to get talked about very much. Which is a shame, because this shit is funny as fuck.

First off, the main characters are Misaki Asano, a new recruit to a special crimes unit, and Takumi Hijirihara, the older officer who does most of the actual work. This seems like the set-up to a standard buddy cop effort, but the spin is that ... Hijirihara is a serial killer who targets other serial killers and also gives them scores based on their crimes (See that's why it's called Killer Killer, because he's a KILLER who kills other KILLERS). This is an admittedly interesting set-up that is promptly wasted by skipping over any actual investigative work that you would expect from a cop show. This is especially odd considering that the entire main gameplay of the Danganronpa series is investigating crime scenes and trying to determine who dunnit. It’s not like they even have Hijirihara notice some small normally imperceptible clue because of his experience as a serial killer. Anytime they ask why Hijirihara knows who the killer is, he just says “nah bruh i’m a serial killer so i know that u killed him lol”.

They shove in random cameos of characters from Danganronpa 3, because that anime was airing at the time and they wanted to advertise it, but they don’t really do anything of too much note. This manga doesn’t really contribute much to the series’ overall canon and I think that’s why it’s so obscure.

It takes this manga until chapter 7, a little under half it’s run, to get to introducing what I would consider it’s main antagonist, Shuji Fujigawa. The big twist of this manga is that there are apparently 2 people using the moniker Killer Killer. Basically, Fujigawa was Hijirihara’s mate in middle school, but one day Mukuro Ikusaba broke into their school and murdered a fuck ton of kids. This event caused both of them to take up the identity of Killer Killer, Hijirihara because he loved the bloodshed he witnessed and wanted to share his love with others and Fujigawa because he was disgusted by the bloodshed and wanted to spare people from the despair of seeing people die. Again, I find this dichotomy to be interesting, but then the writer promptly drives it off a fucking cliff.

So next, Hijirihara, Asano, and Fujigawa go to a Future Foundation Facility and find that, for SOME REASON, the Future Foundation was cloning an army of MUKURO IKUSABA! This is probably the dumbest thing in this entire manga. The idea that FUTURE FOUNDATION, an organization devoted to spreading Hope throughout the entire world, would clone an army of easily one the most dangerous adversaries they’ve ever faced is inconceivably stupid. Yes, we see in Danganronpa 3 that the Future Foundation and its members will go to shady lengths for the sake of spreading hope throughout the world, but there is no reason why they would ever clone an army Mukuro Ikusaba and even if they did have a reason, no one would ever think it worth the risk that such an undertaking would have.

So Hijirihara kills the entire Ikusaba army and Fujigawa grabs Asano and threatens to kill her. He does this A. because he wants his bro to stop murdering people and B. because he’s gay and wants Hijirihara’s fat dick and is angry that he seems to want Asano over him. Future Foundation members manage to stop him, but he gets away and leaves a device on Asano’s neck. This device is a bomb. So Fujigawa’s plan is that he wants people to stop feeling despair and people can’t feel despair if they’re dead, so he placed a detonator around Asano’s throat and if people don’t kill Asano and get the device off of her throat, then bombs he somehow placed all over the world will detonate and everyone will die!

Hijirihara and Asano go to kick Fujigawa’s ass and they kill him, but not before he cries about how he just wanted to suck Hijirihara’s ahoge. But the bomb is still on Asano’s neck right? Yeah. So to fix that, Hijirihara CUTS OFF ASANO’S HEAD, LAUNCHES IT INTO THE FUCKING AIR, YANKS THE DETONATOR OFF HER NECK SO IT THINKS SHE’S DEAD, AND THEN HER HEAD FALLS ON HER SHOULDERS AND REATACHES LIKE IT’S NO BIG DEAL!

Everything’s back to normal, but despite what happened before, Asano seems to be having a hard time keeping her head on her shoulders because Hijirihara disappeared. Then, she finds Hijirihara chilling in his old spot, they confess their love, then they promise to kill themselves together (Oh yeah, Hijirihara promised that he’d kill her, I didn’t mention that because it wasn’t important until now.) Wikis and stuff say that it is left up to interpretation as to whether or not they actually killed themselves, but I can’t think of a single reason why not.

This manga is awful and you should read it. The writing is terrible, but in a really fun sort of way. It’s only 15 chapters long, so it’s not that long of a read. So I recommend giving it a shot if you’re into funny bad stories. Although make sure you read the translated version of the tankoubon, because it’s got these cool full-color illustration pages and a better translation. Overall this manga gets the most emphatic 1 out of 10 I can give it!