13 Things Wrong With Danganronpa: The Animation.

Hello everyone. As I have suggested before, I am not a big fan of Danganronpa: The Animation. I have multiple reasons for disliking it. I initially wanted to recap the series in 2015, but because of the incident in Roseburg; I delayed my initial plans. However, as I watched it, I realized there were more issues with it than I could explain in just one episode. I am also well aware of the risk involved, since while not everybody likes Alain either; this series does have a rather infamous fanbase that I've dealt with before. Still, if I just bent to the will of everyone that tried to deter me with petty comments; I'd be writing for Anime News Network. So, after some delay, I present my 13 Things Wrong With Danganronpa: The Animation.

1. Flawed execution of a decent premise

First, I thought I would make clear that I don't have a problem with the premise of the series by any means. The concept is essentially for the students at the fictional "Hope's Peak Academy" is essentially to kill their classmates without getting caught. The last one standing wins, and the losers are sentenced to death. I admit that while it's not the most original idea as YA series go, it has been done well in works such as the Hunger Games saga, The Running Man and another Japanese franchise with a similar premise; Battle Royale. Unfortunately, I found the execution to be very flawed even if the setup was decent. Even if Monokuma wouldn't be that bad a villain on paper, the schemes the character comes up with are so ludicrous that it neuters a lot of the tension. Oyama Nobuyo also puts on a good performance regardless, but unfortunately; she had to retire from voice acting after she was diagnosed with dementia in 2015. I know the medium is great at taking concepts that seem crazy at first glance and making them work; but I still expect some form of internal logic. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart like one of those shoddy "Pop-Station" games, which brings me to my next point.

2. Lack of accessibility to those who haven't played the games

Second, will be how the anime isn't entirely accessible to those who haven't played the video game series of the same name. It's actually a point of contention with how closely the anime follows the game, even if video game adaptations have been a mixed bag to say the least. Whether it's a game with an intricate plot like these or a lack thereof like Rampage (by the way, not looking forward to that movie, probably going to Super Troopers 2 instead); it's considerably tougher than with other mediums to make something that can not only be enjoyed on its own, but please the built-in audience of its fanbase. I submit that one doesn't have to have seen all the source material in order to enjoy the adaptations of it. Each version can have its own identity and things to enjoy from it. This is not one of those cases, since I didn't really understand much of the story and didn't feel all that compelled to play the games or look at the other material to find out more. Granted, it's not the worst thing I've covered here (I at least find it better than Future Diary or Code Geass R2), but without any familiarity with the source material, I'm more lost than Makoto Naegi and his red shoe.

3. The digital notebook system

This is one way for Monokuma to try and make everyone in the school play along, apparently; since as the students arrive, their cell phones are stolen so they can't tell anyone what's happened. Not only is this a blatant stand-in for the collars in Battle Royale (which would have been more effective), but the idea that removing cell phones will automatically make the conflict easier to write is honestly something that needs to die. Even toddlers can watch Yo Gabba Gabba on those overpriced Samsung phones these days, and I honestly think we need to find something else to replace mobile devices as a go-to item to stigmatize. I nominate panda hats. All joking aside, however, it's just another version of one of the least necessary narrative elements since putting rubber nipples on Batman.

4. Needless fanservice

On that note, this brings me to a similar issue I have with Code Geass R2: while fanservice can be used well under the right circumstances; but when you're just tossing in T&A because you can, it becomes less sexy and more distracting. The way that it suffers the same double standard of giving almost all of it to the female cast members but almost nothing to the male ones doesn't help either, and I don't feel comfortable risking any issues with Google right now; especially not after certain events. There's a reason why I just used my image of Doraemon in lieu of showing this; and there are many more issues to address in the rest of this list.

5. Luck? More like leaps in logic.

This is one of the more notable problems I have with this anime and this 'verse. I know the genre can often lend itself to some absurdity, even in series that are more grounded. Heck, my favorite anime is Gurren Lagann, whose whole modus operandi was to "kick logic to the curb and do the impossible."

Still, out of universe, a fictional work should still have some degree of internal logic to it; especially when it's trying to handle subject matter like this. It's a big reason why I have such an admiration for the original Death Note, and why I was so hard on the Netflix remake.

Still, this ties into how flawed I found the execution of this series' premise. It somehow manages to take something as simple as "kill someone and don't get caught" and fill it with more holes than swiss cheese. The trial system makes it so not only are those that do get caught executed, but also those who incorrectly guess are killed as well. Fair enough, but the circumstances of the first two deaths are very convoluted, and it only gets worse from there. Sayaka Maizono may seem simple enough at first, but when Junko Enoshima gets killed, it leads to something very bad later on. Don't worry, I have something prepared for then. For now, there are more leaps in logic here than in Batman V Superman; and I'm one of the people who liked it. Honestly, Monokuma, Lex Luthor called: he says you're even more hammy and maniacal than him.

6. Unsuccessful attempts at black comedy

Another element of the series that I feel doesn't work for me is the black comedy. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy other entries in the genre; having been raised on the likes of South Park and the MacFarlane-verse, as well as newer examples such as Rick and Morty and Robot Chicken. Heck, my favorite comedy is Monty Python's The Meaning of Life! It's just that given the concept, I feel that the dark humor should be a lot funnier if the principal of the school is essentially a psychotic, mangled Care Bear knockoff. If the whole thing was more like Heathers in how it approaches the plot thread of "high schoolers trying to kill each other," it might have been more enjoyable. Still, this ties into the above issue of how convoluted the story is. It's why I usually don't do that many comedic anime; including ones I like. In most cases, I can't even tell what the joke is in this one. Even as someone who loves how Osumatsu-san has taken a classic anime and given it a raunchy modernization (suggesting the cute kids in the original Osumatsu-kun would grow into very dysfunctional adults, even keeping the same art style, no less); I don't even smile most of the time. Somehow, I don't really get the idea of having an even more murderous Lotso-Huggin-Bear spout faux social commentary like that on its own is the joke.

7. Little reason to be invested in the story or characters

This is one of the more obvious reasons why I'm not a big fan of this 'verse; but I find very little reason to be invested in the story or characters. By the time Chihiro Fujisaki was killed; I realized that watching these kids kill each other tended to provoke nihilism rather than attachment. Generally, even in other series with similar concepts; there is usually something to give me reason to keep watching. Not here: the series seems to go out of its way to quite literally and figuratively murder anything that would make the characters' deaths leave something of an impact. Even Ohwada Mondo is no different than any other John Doe that I see in the newspaper's obituary column or on the news. That's part of the reason it's taken me longer than I thought to address this: I feel like I'm getting numb to all the stuff going on around me, and that's not a good thing.

8. Inconsistent tone

A recurring problem of some of the things I've talked about on this blog is this: whenever I have no idea what attitude I'm supposed to adopt for a work of fiction. This is no exception, where the people mourning Mondo's death (As well as his tragic backstory) is juxtaposed with him being turned into butter and eaten on top of a stack of pancakes by Monokuma. That takes place in the span of roughly the last few minutes of episode 5; so there's very little room for me to absorb the impact of what just happened or for me to determine what emotion I should feel. When I'm so disconnected from a scene and the other characters that I can't muster anything at all; you know something's gone wrong. I know it's possible to do this well: Detective Conan and Lupin III are both series that have often outlandish adventures, but can do dark moments well when they have to. Evangelion and Madoka Magica have an emotionally-fragile teenager piloting a giant robot and a Kyubey that wants to create magical girls; and they're some of the darkest things I've ever seen the despite how absurd the concepts sound. The one constant between them is that they know how to keep a consistent tone between stories.

9. Pacing problems

Despite Monokuma's claims otherwise, the pacing is quite erratic in the show. Normally, I like it when some series have fast pacing and can have slow scenes to take everything in. While the investigation and courtroom scenes are somewhat more slow-paced than the actual deaths; it still gives off the aura of a video game I'm not playing, and don't plan to. If I may paraphrase the late Roger Ebert, I know how it feels not to play the game, because I've seen this anime: it's like someone came over, is using your Playstation and won't let you play. If the anime was longer than just 12 episodes, there would be a bit more time to absorb the impact of the student deaths. When I have to just rely on other students to experience emotions I should be feeling as a viewer, it's not a good thing. When they're inevitably picked off as well, it's the same problem as it happening to real people: I just get numb to it all, and that's not a good thing.

10. Incoherent storytelling

On a similar note, this is a major problem that I have with the story. Given how the series is structured, the "despair" is more like a hot mess of anime and YA clichés. A story that basically amounts to "kill someone without getting caught" should not be this hard to follow without prior knowledge. Also, the balance of black comedy and dark social commentary is a tricky recipe to get right. If the elements don't mix well and aren't in the right balance, it's often a yeoman's effort to understand the story. That's a big reason why I don't see myself getting into Assassination Classroom anytime soon, and why I didn't enjoy this series as much as others.

11. Exploitative depiction of teenager deaths

I mentioned that my initial plans for this anime as well as this list were significantly altered because of many current events; but I found the show very exploitative in its depiction of teenager deaths. It doesn't help the premise and the show itself acknowledge this. I know it's nothing new, given reactions to series such as School Days and the When They Cry franchise; but these are the lines that made me rework my intended recap into this list: "If there failed to be any murders during our time here and we reached a standstill, I was to kill someone."-Sakura Ohgami ... Do you understand why I don't want to recap this anymore? Seeing lines like that delivered by a muscle-bound female that resembles Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star just makes me wish I was watching Project A-Ko; which was a much funnier and more insightful take on high school anime tropes. It works in any situation, really.

12. Trying way too hard to be dark for the sake of being dark.

By the time of Ohgami declaring "mutual demise" to her peers, it became clear that this anime suffers for trying way too hard to be dark for the sake of being dark. Without any real reason for it, it's all a major case of darkness-induced audience apathy. My favorite film may be The Dark Knight, but I love it for how it has an idealistic message that still resonates with me after almost a decade. With a bunch of characters I know almost nothing about in a high school that makes the one from Pink Floyd's The Wall seem downright cheery; I just don't care what happens to these people.

13. The "twist" ending

Now comes the most ideal way to cap off this list and this series: an unnecessary twist ending. Think less of "Unbreakable" Shyamalan and more "The Happening" Shyamalan. So, after the events of the remaining episodes put the students through increasingly horrible fates; it all comes crashing down.

I mean, striking the remaining students with amnesia is bad enough (not helped by the anime acknowledging that), but it gets even dumber! Not only were the memories of all the students stolen, but it turns out Monokuma wasn't even the real mastermind! I am still astonished at how badly-executed this twist was, and I haven't even gotten to the real juicy parts either.

Now comes the part that makes the finale the biggest cop-out since "These Are the Voyages:" I mentioned earlier that Junko Enoshima died fairly early on, but it turns out she's behind everything; and she was in league with Monokuma!

It's here that I officially became disappointed with the show for taking all the potential it had and taking a big dump all over it. The entire 35 minutes of the finale just compounded everything I saw beforehand, and it took what would have been an interesting look at a killer with an unconventional motive (kind of like Se7en or Memento) and chucked it out the window in favor of something that has more wasted potential than The Maze Runner. It has all the same problems I previously cataloged on this list, not helped by the anime seemingly admitting this as well! At this point, I honestly have very little I want from this anime except the following: I want to look this lady straight in the eye and tell her what a cheap, lying, no good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, hopeless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-eyed, worm-headed sack of monkey shit she is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?!

I mean, the way she says "dying and killing don't mean shit" honestly makes me the angriest I've been at an anime since the Endless 8; but one advantage this has is that at least there were unique things I could talk about. However, one advantage that series had was that there was only one character pulling this crap, while this one is a nonstop black hole of unlikable characters and those that do have redeeming qualities are constantly treated like dirt. If they had tried to do more with Hope's Peak as a social experiment and made the characters and narrative more self-aware of the tropes and conventions of the genre; that would have worked as way of subverting the audience's expectations of high school/YA fiction with this concept. Something similar to what The Cabin in the Woods did with horror films, for example. Instead, the rug is basically pulled out from the viewer and it treats the events of the finale like they are making some kind of statement. It may not be the worst example of the concept I've seen, but it is one of the most disappointing. It's somewhat easier for me to tolerate than Future Diary, but it's every bit as insufferable because of the potential it has.

Moreover, I feel that Enoshima is wrong about despair being contagious. I used to feel that way when I was younger, but there was something I wished I could have told my younger self: if you believe there is no light in the darkness, you will never find it, or make your own light. That's why I don't share the fans' praise of the series, or its bleak worldview. However, I can at least give Naegi credit for persisting. Despite his awful luck, no matter how far they try to push him, he wouldn't yield to the despair. So, much like him continually picking himself up by the shoestrings of his red sneakers; I want to move past this and enjoy the rest of my Christmas season. After I go see Star Wars Episode VIII, you'll see me do some anime that I like far more than this one. That will be all for now, and regardless of what anyone reading this thinks; I'm personally glad I was finally able to get this off my chest. Later.