Hooh boy, where to begin.
Danganronpa the Animation is an anime adaptation of "Danganronpa: Kibō no Gakuen to Zetsubō no Kōkōsei", a 2010 PSP adventure game published by Spike Chunsoft, and later released in the west for PS Vita and Steam as "Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc".
As with most game adaptations, you're encouraged to stray away from this one and play the much better game version instead. This is for a multitude of reasons which I'll try to get into here without spoiling too much of the actual story.
Danganronpa, in its original form, is somewhat of a point and click adventure game and visual novel hybrid. Environments
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are interactive and trial portions require you to solve mysteries by providing evidence and contradicting testimonies (think Ace Attorney, for reference). As a result, though it has a great plot and interesting characters, it really takes its sweet time building things up. It's positively drenched in a unique and palpably uneasy, yet over the top atmosphere from the very beginning of the player's entry into the academy along with the protagonist, Makoto Naegi, whom they play as throughout. Although the pace can be somewhat slow-going, what mitigates what otherwise might stand out as bland patches are several key factors.
1.) The player can go at their own pace. Their place in the story can be saved at any point after the prologue is completed, and can be picked back up just as easily. You never have to put more time into it than you're willing for any given session.
2.) Periods of time between plot beats give designated free time, where players can choose to hang out with and learn more about any of the many characters they choose. This adds an element of uniqueness and customization to the experience, which puts you in Makoto's shoes more convincingly and helps you connect with the extended cast.
3.) Because of the nature of the game, the investigations and subsequent mysteries are yours to solve. Though some of these cases may be a bit easy, it's inherently more engaging to provide the explanations yourself and win the case. It's just what is naturally the bulk of Danganronpa's gameplay experience, and it feels good.
Now where does the anime get all of this wrong? Well, let's start with the pacing.
The pacing is dreadful. 13 episodes is hardly enough time to fit a story experience that takes most players an average of 24 and 1/2 hours to complete. Though I see a lot of people argue the anime could have fixed this by being another cour longer, I'm not convinced. The problem isn't the lack of episodes, though that certainly doesn't help much, it's in the way that Danganronpa is made in the first place. You see, Danganronpa doesn't translate well to television. Given that the television three act structure demands constant hooks to keep your audience engaged? Nobody would want several episodes of uneventful character interactions before anything of substance happens again in the plot. In the game? It's forgivable and even enjoyable, because you can take it at your own pace and you're given the opportunity to spice your experience up by deciding who to talk to. Without that to lean on though? The show has to do what any show would do. Skip past the fluff to get to the good stuff. This is where it all falls apart however.
Skipping past the fluff also manages to complete suck nearly all of the character development out of the extended cast, leaving them as one-dimensional husks who barely get any screentime before they start getting picked off. And when you see these tragic scenes in the anime? They're a lot less tragic. The drama that shuttled the game's plot along so easily fails to stick a landing in its television counterpart because unlike in the game, you can't really get enough of a sense about these people to care about them before something bad happens to them.
Furthermore, the endless missing of key details and high-key incredibly stupid blundering about by the extended cast during trials REALLY sticks out here in animated form. In the game, they're more or less excusable, if a bit annoying, because without them there would be no gameplay. But here, they simply exist as needless padding, because without the gameplay these trials go by incredibly too fast. Hardly any time is given to fully elaborate upon investigations, much less allow viewers the chance to pick out key details and try to deduce the killer for themselves. It basically fails where most video game adaptations fail, losing what made them interesting in the first place.
Danganronpa the game was always a clever visual novel with excellent story, memorable characters and pretty fun mystery adventure gameplay. Danganronpa the Animation is the SparkNotes version of the story, barebones and hurriedly rambled out, with no real character to speak of, and no gameplay. It's the entirely inferior experience, that doesn't try to adapt, or even stray for the sake of capturing its source material's essence in a different format, and for that it suffers greatly as a product of entertainment. Buy the game instead. It's more worth your time and certainly more worth your money.
Jul 26, 2019
Hooh boy, where to begin.
Danganronpa the Animation is an anime adaptation of "Danganronpa: Kibō no Gakuen to Zetsubō no Kōkōsei", a 2010 PSP adventure game published by Spike Chunsoft, and later released in the west for PS Vita and Steam as "Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc". As with most game adaptations, you're encouraged to stray away from this one and play the much better game version instead. This is for a multitude of reasons which I'll try to get into here without spoiling too much of the actual story. Danganronpa, in its original form, is somewhat of a point and click adventure game and visual novel hybrid. Environments ... |
