Danganronpa The Animation First Impression

Danganronpa The Animation (Danganronpa Kibo no Gakuen to Zetsubo no Kokosei The Animation)         

Director: Seiji Kishi, Series Composition:Makoto Uezu, Character Designer: Kazuaki Morita

Voice Actors: Chiwa Saito (Aoi), Yoko Hikasa (Kyoko), Megumi Ogata (Makoto), Takahiro Sakurai (Reon), Akira Ishida (Byakuya)

Studio: Lerche

Hope’s Peak Academy brings together the top students in fields like sports, fashion and art, being an overzealous hall monitor and an elite yankee.

The main protagonist is Makoto Naegi, a normal guy who was admitted to the school through a lottery. Standing at the gates he looks on in confidence. “My high school life starts now. The very first step I take is supposed to be full of hope…”

Sounds great but as soon as he steps through the door he is plunged into darkness. When he wakes up he is in a classroom with a camera monitoring him and steel plates on the walls with no exit in sight.

“What’s with this room?” he wonders. Makoto is in the school but less as a student and more as a prisoner and he’s not alone as a group of fifteen other students are with him, each with a peculiar trait and ability that makes them elite.

As the students try and figure out just what is going on and why they are imprisoned in the school a twisted looking black-and-white bear appears. Amidst all of his incessant cackling and laughter he introduces itself, “I’m Monobear, the principal of this school…” He soon explains the rules:

The only way out is to kill another student without getting caught. After a murder, the remaining students must hold a trial and figure out the guilty party. If the students fail they die and the murderer walks to freedom!

This is getting a bit overwhelming for Makoto but he is not alone because he knows one of the girls. She is named Sayaka and she attended the same middle school as him. What’s her special ability? She is an idol singer. She decides to work alongside Makoto. With the fridge refilled daily and the students allowed their own rooms, they could theoretically live in the school forever unless they follow the rules.

As Monobear says, “It is not the strong or the smart who survive, but the ones who can bring about change.”

The only questions left are who will be the one to bring the change and how?