Recap: The group debates the death of Maizono, and catches the culprit. Their punishment is a lesson for all present: As long as Monobear reigns, the only true escape is death.

I’m sorry guys, but this is the end of the line. I know this is an early point to cut off, but if this first case is any indication, then Danganronpa is just going to be another one of those games that failed to make a good anime. This is not saying that the anime is bad. Some occasional bad art assets aside, it’s done a good job of telling the games story. Unfortunately, that’s its exact problem. With a game like this, very little of it is divorced from the story. The only way to make it fresh, make the anime its own product, is to utilize the things that make visual and interactive media different. We call things like this adaptations, but what this studio has done here is less adaptation and more translation.

The main reason I say that is that it keeps so many visual elements from the game in the story. This is a problem I find with a lot of game to anime shows I’ve seen in the past few years. There’s no reason to have Naegi “load bullets” to shoot down arguments because, hey, in this anime, we are not Naegi. We should be seeing this conversation flow naturally with the benefit of an animated process, but instead all we get is the game with the limited frames getting some inbetweens to make them more active.

I also will say that the machine gun talk section sounds really stupid animated. Having Leon just stand there and shout “retard” over and over again did not make for a gripping end to the case of Maizono’s death. This is once again something that they could have changed for a better scripted scene instead of wrote copying what the game does. I’ll admit, part of my impatience is due to the fact that I knew Leon was the culprit the whole time, but I think my arguments are still valid.

Nowhere did I have problems more than with the execution animation. These were by far the best visual treats of the game, and instead of taking them and making them their own, the studio in charge basically decided to wrote copy the original, put some inbetweens to give it some more motion, and polish the art. If I wanted to watch the game, I’d play it, and guess what, now I can. This all just combines to give me no reason to watch the show any more. If you want to know this story, I would wait to figure it out for yourself. I already spoiled myself with Orenronen’s Lets Play(now on the LPArchives), but with the full release of both games coming to the West, I see no reason for you guys to have to do the same.