Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Mirai-hen

Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Mirai-hen Review _______________________________________________________ I have included a tl;dr near the bottom of this review if the length is too long. Disclaimer: I have played both the Danganronpa 1 and 2 games to completion and have been following the series for years. (For reference, I would probably give the games about a 6/10) THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THIS SERIES AND MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE GAMES. If a mystery is a typical "whodunnit" (as DR3 is), it sometimes relies a bit too much on the inevitable twist of the reveal of the culprit. However, it only requires a shift in perspective to create a quality story and to not become another entry into the dreaded "mystery box" genre. I have never been the biggest fan of mysteries in general because the mystery alone usually isn't enough to create an engaging narrative, and I feel this is how most genre contemporaries present themselves. Even the ones that don't struggle to make thoroughly enticing mystery-based stories because they usually won't leave much of an impression unless they blow your fucking mind to smithereens. It's a flawed, finicky genre to me because whenever I come across a mystery with decent/good characters, the mysteries always end up lackluster, and vice versa. Basically, the mystery shows I do like have elements that appeal to me other than the feeling of "Oooh, what's gonna happen?? Maybe something interesting in the future!" Historically, Danganronpa is a series that tries not to fall into this trap by having a wide array of characters, cool settings, and exciting court cases. I don't think the games are anything special, but they are competent enough to have some fun with. It's when the adaptation of the first Danganronpa game came out that the problems with the story and characters were enhanced twofold and made incredibly apparent. Plot holes arising from removed dialogue, one-note characters who die without garnering any sympathy and poor characterization for the ones that remain alive, mind-boggling pacing, and it just felt like sitting around waiting for interesting things to happen only to realize that they never will. It really sucked. However, after some time passed, Danganronpa 3 was announced. It was touted as a completely original project designed to end the story of the first two games, meaning they had significantly more creative freedom to work with. Gone are the days of attempting to cram 30+ hours of content into 13 regular-sized episodes. Suffice to say, despite its best efforts, Danganronpa 3 Future Arc fails to impress. It so woefully falls flat in every area that it makes the entire series look like a joke, and if this is how the series is going to end, then I am painfully let down. How this has little in the way of negative reviews at the time of this writing and even held an average score above an 8 on MAL (which is what some of my favorites don't even get) for a long period of time makes no sense to me. And yeah, this show falls into every possible trap regarding bad mystery stories. It's boring, spins its wheels, has lame characters, and is ridiculously stupid. However, if it were that simple, I wouldn't be writing this review. I'm going to get to the bottom of the mystery within a mystery: what happened to Danganronpa? Let’s begin with talking about the thing that immediately struck me as terrible - the presentation. The color design is truly abysmal, with the dominant colors being black, gray, brown, and a disgusting shade of red that pervades through certain parts. A show so inundated with lifeless scenes of characters standing around talking is bound to be much more interesting with this lovely palette applied. Unfortunately, the area the characters inhabit while standing in a bunch of dark, empty rooms and hallways may be the main culprit of the horrible visual design. Somewhere along the line, I’m sure a decision was made to make Danganronpa 3 “darker” than previous installments, because it is the conclusion after all. While I believe this only applied in the literal sense with the final product, they did make the blood red, which finally makes Danganronpa the mature series I’ve been waiting for. However, it’s possible that after they spent a hundred painstaking hours using the paint bucket tool on the splashes of blood, they forgot to make the setting something other than a gray mass of boring concrete. While the art design in the Danganronpa games is not exceptional, I at least felt like I “knew” the location I was in, and the scenery was usually quite unique depending on where you were in the school or the island. It's true that this it's easier to evoke this feeling in a game, but it's not unheard of to use directing tricks and good shot composition to communicate the setting through the visuals. but DR3 just doesn't do this. The director, Kishi Seiji, is rather hit-or-miss for me. I don't care for Yuuki Yuuna, Persona 4, Seto no Hanayome, or Carnival Phantasm, and nor did I find the directing in any of those shows particularly standout. But I do like Angel Beats, and Humanity has Declined is one of my favorite shows of all time. Even then, the directing in these shows is one of their weaker elements, especially Humanity has Declined (it's still good, though), which could have benefited from a more unconventional style. Why any of this matters is because I think it proves Seiji alone probably doesn't have the means to salvage a show with a terrible script and weak art direction. The camera angles and constant uses of bland panning shots and character zoom-ins illustrate that Seiji was constricted by the claustrophobic nature of DR3's setting. However, take everything I've said with a grain of salt because I don't believe it's easy to place the blame on anyone involved with an anime's production. To continue a bit further, (this is almost equally the fault of the writing), the sense of space between characters is conveyed so poorly it's practically a non-entity, removing any tension and making the murders that happen unbelievably dull. There's no standout scenery or any kind of important landmarks to help alleviate this, further disengaging me as a viewer. There was a clear lack of creative vision with this show, which is made blindingly obvious through the absence of any cohesiveness or suspense in its presentation. The animation is not impressive, or fluid in the slightest, even during key moments when characters are fighting or whatever, and I really hate how the lighting is occasionally too dark to clearly see what's going on. I, myself, have never been a huge fan of the DR art style, but even I think that the way it is converted into the anime format looks kind of ugly, especially the characters. I just can't stand their odd face shapes and strangely designed eyes, and this is amplified when they're moving. All of the aforementioned issues with the presentation combine to create a tedious viewing experience that only makes me think about how I could be better using my time. Basically, the idea that anyone can look at this series and get invested even the slightest bit is baffling to me, especially since this atrocious presentation is a pretty big reason that I can barely get through an episode without falling asleep. The dialogue is laughably horrific. It's truly devoid of any creativity or flair, and is never enjoyable. Characters (though mostly Munakata) are given bafflingly stupid lines that often made me do a double-take and burst out laughing. I would go out of my way to provide some specific examples, but I don't exactly have the time, and it was something that was just apparent to me all throughout the series. All that results from the poor script is the reinforcement of the vacuous, unenjoyable presentation. And, even though I praised it for being unintentionally funny, whenever the show actually attempts comedy, it always comes up painfully flat. Isn't it hil…

If I had to describe Danganronpa 3 in one word, it would be "unnecessary". That's ultimately what it all boils down to. DR3 is not a necessary part of Danganronpa canon, nor is it necessary to watch it. It's completely disposable, and altogether just pretty terrible. It's pretty hard to write an in-depth review of DR3 Future without going into heavy spoiler territory, since exactly where the story goes is a big part of why it's so disappointing, but I'll try my best. Future sets itself up as another killing game, although this time it's more akin to something found in Zero Escape than Danganronpa proper. It remains a murder mystery, albeit one very different to those found in DR1 and 2. The mystery's solution ends up not only being lame, but also massively predictable. The big reveal towards the end was a total non-event since I'd already figured it out several episodes ago. The mastermind behind the incident is also a letdown, since it was so extensively telegraphed that it seemed almost too obvious to be true. The methods used, the characters involved, the narrative weaved between both this and DR3 Despair... everything is weak. But it's not the destination, right? If the journey is enjoyable, then the answers we get at the end don't make and break the whole series, right? Sure, but DR3 Future's journey isn't enjoyable in the slightest. Most of the episodes feel like filler, with pointless characters acting out pointless subplots that don't go anywhere, and they end up pointlessly getting killed. They could've easily told this story in half the number of episodes with how completely unnecessary most of them are. Aside from a select few, most of the characters also only exist to get killed. Not to further the plot at all, but simply just because people will expect a lot of deaths from this series. Both new and returning characters are largely one-note, with only Kyosuke Munakata and Juzo Sakakura showing any kind of depth. None of these other people, including the DR1 survivors, are interesting at all. Even Kirigiri, one of DR1's driving forces, is reduced to a glorified extra. Production value-wise, the animation is slightly better than DR3 Despair's, though not by much. The music and voice acting however are, as always, top notch. Was DR3 Future a completely miserable experience, though? Sorta, but not quite. The most fun I had was discussing theories and just how stupid the show kept getting every week, and if you can't have that experience then I say skip DR3 entirely. Skip if if you've played the games, absolutely skip it if you haven't played the games, just skip it. It's a waste of time.

With the end of Danganronpa 2, fans couldn’t help but be a tad bit disappointed with its conclusion as it didn’t wrap all the problems present in the franchise. And situations were left unsolved and we needed to know more about the “Future Foundation”. With the third Danganronpa being confirmed to be part of a new universe, the despair for the fans only continued. But with the announcement of a anime sequel to the second Danganronpa game, fans regained all hope for a proper conclusion for this universe, which will leave us satisfying. Whether or not Danganronpa 3 manages to succeed in doing so will only be decided once Kibou-hen airs, but for now, Mirai-hen is a satisfying continuation of the Danganronpa series; one that feels home with the franchise despite its differences with the previous entries. ~{Story}~ Do note that this is called Danganronpa 3 for a reason. It’s meant to be watched after playing the first and second game (though you can watch the anime adaptation of the first game instead of playing it). But not doing so will make you not be aware of many plot points that are important in Danganronpa 3. Anyways, Mirai-hen continues off right from where the second game ended. Our protagonist from the first game who is now a member of the Future Foundation, Naegi Makoto, is held under suspicion for treason due to him saving the Remnants of Despair instead of killing them. Just when his punishment was being decided, Monokuma appear… again, and he announced a killing game… again. Now the members of the Future Foundation are trapped in their own headquarters, forced to play what is supposed to be the final killing game. The premise is basically similar to the previous games, but the main goal of the series is to find the traitor within the group. Overall, the story is handled well and there’s some really big twist and turns along the way. Characters that you thought had plot armor may not. But most of the series is just basically watching the “Number of People Alive” counter decreasing one by one. There isn’t a proper conclusion in this series, since that is left for Kibou-hen. And some of the revelations near the end can seem a little messy. So all we can do now is hope that the final episode is just as good as the rest of the franchise. Story: 9/10 ~{Presentation}~ There’s one thing you’ll notice from Mirai-hen, and that is how different it is from the first two games. First of all, gone is all the class trials from this killing game. This is more like “Battle Royale” where people have to be killed off one-by-one and the culprit won’t be judged. That also means that you won’t be hearing “sore wa chigau yo” a lot in the series. Instead of six different cases to handle, now the characters have one large case: Who is the mastermind? If anything, Mirai-hen feels a lot like Zero Escape, which isn’t a bad thing. Secondly, characters now have bracelets with NG codes on them. Each player has an NG code that gives them a restriction. If the restriction is crossed, the bracelet will inject them with lethal chemicals that will kill them. This gives the viewers a sense of mystery as you won’t be able to know what are the characters’ NG codes. But it’s fun to guess and see if you’re right! Thirdly, there are characters outside the game that get focus and you get to know what’s going on outside the game, something which you weren’t aware of in the previous games. Fourthly, humor is very rare in Mirai-hen as things are more darker here. This new tone for the series works well, especially since this is supposed to be the conclusion of this universe. Lastly, and most importantly, red blood is used instead of Danganronpa’s trademark pink blood. Unlike Zetsubou-hen, which sticks with the pink blood, Mirai-hen decided to take a darker and more mature approach to the series, and it works really well. Overall, this is a quite different take on Danganronpa, but it’s still really fun and feels like a proper sequel for the series. Presentation: 9.5/10 ~{Character}~ Mirai-hen mainly focuses on the Future Foundation characters, which consists of most of the survivng characters from the first Danganronpa game, and new characters we get introduced in this series. The protagonist from Mirai-hen is the same as the first game, Naegi Makoto, a survivor of the first killing game, a member of the Future Foundation, and commonly known as the Ultimate Hope. The series focuses on Naegi and how he has to find out who the mastermind of the killing game is, while making sure that him and his friends survive. Accompanied by him is Asahina and Kirigiri from the first game, and many other new characters like Miratai and Munakata. A lot of the new characters are developed using Zetsubou-hen, and it works pretty well. And that’s why both Mirai-hen and Zetsubou-hen should be watched together. Not all the new characters are likable, but that was the point. But many of the new characters do end up being really well done. Yukizome does play a big enough role in Mirai-hen, but her development from Zetsubou-hen carries on here. Munakata might seem a little irritating at first, but he ended up being one of my favorite characters from Danganronpa. Same goes for Sakakura too. Overall, the new characters end up living up to the Danganronpa name and the recurring characters are just as likable as they were in the first game… except Hagakure, ‘cause no one likes Hagakure! What? Monokuma said so! Character: 9.5/10 ~{Art}~, As mentioned in my review for Zetsubou-hen, the art style in that series had a more vivid look to it than the games. Mirai-hen is the complete opposite as it has a darker art style that the first two games. This might have been done because Mirai-hen itself has a darker tone compared to the rest of the franchise. Or the art style is like that to represent Mirai-hen being a story that begins with despair, contrary to how Zetsubou-hen begins with hope. But this art style works well with this series. Most of the series takes place inside the headquarters, so most of the backgrounds will be the inside of buildings. But the backgrounds are pretty well detailed and well done. And the character design for the new characters are really good and well done. The characters from the first game also look more mature due to their age growth and their new designs look great as well. Art: 9/10 ~{Animation}~ The animations are fairly good in the series, but it isn’t anything extraordinary. However, that is to say that the animation quality is fairly consistent throughout. Generally speaking, the animation is fluid enough and there aren’t any noticeable animation quality drops. Character animations are done fairly well. Lighting is very differently that Zetsubou-hen. Everything looks bleaker and the lighting add to that. However, the animation quality is better than Zetsubou-hen’s but that should be necessary since Mirai-hen is more action-heavy than Zetsubou-hen. As mentioned before Lerche did a good job in animating two seasons during the same time, which they aren’t used too. Animation: 8/10 ~{Voice Acting}~ The seiyuu cast is really good in Mirai-hen as most seiyuu return back to do their recurring character, and the seiyuu for the new characters are great too. One notable change is that Tarako is now the new voice of Monokuma instead of Ooyama Nobuyo. The reason so is because Ooyama is currently suffering from dementia, which is very sad to hear and hopefully she gets well soon (even if things don’t look good). Though Tarako isn’t as good as Ooyama, she does a decent job as Monokuma, though the character is barely here in Mirai-hen for an obvious reason. Ogata Megumi does a great job again as Naegi and makes him feel very similar to the first game. Hikasa Yoko does a great job with Kirigiri and Saito Chiwa does a good job with Asahina. We also get some pretty well-known people to voice act the new characters, like live-action actor Hongo Kanata as Mitarai, Morikawa Toshiyuki as Munaka…

Note: Before watching this please play through all three Danganronpa games (1, SDR2, and Another episode). Also you should watch the future arc episode with the despair arc in broadcast order. Watch future arc ep 1 then despair arc ep 1, and so forth and so on. Watching the two series in this order is very important as Despair arc develops some of the characters from the Future arc. Danganronpa 3: Future arc is a sequel and essentially a finale to the Danganronpa series. Whereas the counterpart Despair arc is a prequel to the entire story, Future arc details the story after the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic event in human history. It reintroduces the killing game shown in the DR series prior, except this time, in the real world, without any school rules. There are completely fresh batch of characters, some whom we eventually see fall. Future arc centers around the main survivors of the events in DR1, along with the division leaders of the Future Foundation. The leaders themeselves had thought that they already caught the traitor, but little did they know they had already fallen into the real traitor's trap. To make the matters worse, this time the killings don't end in a class trial as it did in previous games. Instead, they have to find the traitor and kill him to end it once and for all. The story is basically kill or be killed. Unlike Despair arc which starts off with a more light hearted tone that constantly evolves into a more brooding tone, Future arc starts off with a darker tone straight of the bat. The first couple of seconds of ep 1 essentially shows how the world has become since the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic event in human history. And throughout, the episodes are just constantly filled with tension as the characters try to somehow find a way to survive. Future arc also manages to weave in characters from all three Danganronpa series. Whether it is a whole episode dedicated to them or if it's just a couple of moments, it is still fun to watch the rest of the other game's cast after their events. A problem with this kind of a setting though is the pacing, which was noticeable in Future arc. One episode could be filled with new events while the next could be slightly disappointing and rushed. However, the still lingering mysteries about the traitor and the NG codes (the only "rules" in the killing game) kept me hooked throughout. One huge disappointment was the plot twists regarding the DR 1 characters. At first I thought, "this is really happening," but then after a couple of episodes and even in the Hope arc, the plot twist got ruined by playing it safe. The animation is great and the action scenes are fun to watch. The art itself was also a good point from Future arc. Like the tone, the color schemes of Future arc constantly stays on the darker color, unlike Despair arc which slowly transitions from lighter to darker. Also to emphasize the impact of the killing game, the staff even decided to change the blood from pink to red. At first, I didn't know how to feel about this as the pink blood was a unique part of the danganronpa series, but it was understandable considering this was the finale and they had to really highlight the brutality of the final killing game. One interesting aspect, like I mentioned, is that Despair arc events has great meaning in the Future arc. Knowing what happens in Despair arc comes in handy for the Future arc. The opening song is great and the soundtracks are decent. However, being a guy who really pays attention to the OSTs, the ones in Future arc were slightly underwhelming. There is also an awesome cast of new voice actors who did great, alongside the voices we were already accustomed to. Obviously, the most important part of Danganronpa series are its characters. When I was going through each DR series for the first time, I always wondered if I would get attached to the characters. The same was for the Future arc. Unfortunately, It's safe to say I like some of the characters, but not more than I wanted to. Maybe because the anime was just a 12 episode series and not an entire Visual novel, but it was harder for me to get attached to the characters. Some of them died too quickly, granted it was to showcase the brutality of the killing game but still. Some of them started out just plain annoying, although one certain character did get more fleshed out than the most. In the latter episodes, a lot more characters get fleshed out a bit more, which was nice to see. . We got backgrounds and more personalities: whether interesting or annoying. However, it was still minimal, so I honestly did not care for most of them. One of the characters got more depth than most of any other characters in other DR series even. Anyways, although the new characters do show interesting traits and personalities, it was rather hard to get attached to most of them quickly. It was only after a couple more episodes that I got somewhat attached to more characters. After 11 episodes, I have to say that the developments of some characters are pretty awesome to see. For example (SPOILER: Juzo), was one character I thought I would never like, but in the end he became the most developed and also became my favorite from the new cast. As for the original DR1 cast, they were pretty much the same. Kyouko being the smart detective trying to find out the traitor, Hagakure being Hagakure, and Naegi being that typical "not let anyone die" MC. One thing I liked from the original cast was Asahina, whom you could clearly see matured and developed after the killing game in DR1. Although their are clear flaws in both pacing and early characterization wise, Future arc still is a pretty decent watch. As with the DR games, it is always so stressful for the new episode to come out because you don't know who might die. The mystery of the traitor is not obvious and make you think of all the possibilities. One of the biggest downsides, however, is the underwhelming ending. Character wise, although it startes out in a weak manner, gets better as episodes progress, though it is heavily limited. Although both Despair arc and Future arc are disappointing in many aspects, both are still a decent watch for dangaronpa fans.

Danganronpa 3 for me is a very risky move for me especially due to the fact that it's a 12 episode anime and we know how that turned out to be last time. I reviewed Danganronpa 3 Despair arc and as I said it is a really broken anime.However, Future arc was really well constructed and was much better than despair arc, but it's still not the best thing i could have imagined. Im pretty sure hope arc will wrap things in a great way, otherwise This whole show would go to waste. So let's take a closer look about the anime that follows the events of the NWP. Art 9/10 This anime no longer adapts the bright and energetic colors from the past entries. They decided to go really dark with this anime, even the blood is red now. I have to say that is a very daring decision to tamper with an art style that was iconic for danganronpa but honestly...I LOVED THIS CHANGE. It really works, you see mirai hen is supposed to be a concluding anime and it must have a really strong vibe in it that makes feel as if this anime is the beginning of the end, and thats how the new art style helped in this anime. The gory looked really disturbing and I loved that. It gives a more eerie vibe to the situation. Ofcourse the anime has the same issue as despair hen where i feel the character design lack details in some scenes,however in this anime it's very small. I wont say the art here is perfect but it definitely was amazing, really great great decision to go more darker Sound 10/10 As I mentioned before in the despair arc review, both animes of Danganronpa 3 recycle some old tracks with some new additions. While Despair arc felt lazy in its approach, future arc really did it right. There is simply not a single soundtrack in this anime that didn't make me feel uneasy. It's perfect, and the new additions in future arc were really great. I enjoyed both the recycled tracks and the new ones, not to mention both the op and the ed were MAGNIFICENT!!! Great job on the soundtrack, really eerie, mysterious, and really has the finale vibe in it Story 7/10 OK the story was good, but not a danganronpa level good. I felt like they have held back a little bit in this anime in terms of twist just to focus more on the theme of hope. the story is reeeeeeeaaallly slow paced here, but they use the same danganronpa formula here in which they give a slow story while throwing some cliffhangers and interesting plot points here and there to keep you moving until the end. I was kind of disappointed to see how certain twists in the story were not that shocking in this anime. I felt like this moments could've worked better if it was a video game, because the execution of these twist felt very how do you say relaxed rather than tense. I think that it is kind of hard for them to pull of a strong twist in anime because it's not the same as doing it in a video game. It was a shame also that story had to rely on despair arc to reveal some of the new character's past. Well the idea itself is not bad actually. The problem is this idea made despair so broken and incoherent because they had to fit a lot of stuff there that damaged the quality of despair arc. There is also a certain death scene in the anime that I was confused how it really lacked some impact on it, again you can tell that they struggled here in showing strong plot points here because of the restrictions of making a 12 episode anime. I did feel sad for that death but the execution of that death scene itself felt very relaxed and not dramatic enough. There is also an episode that pissed me the hell of in this anime where they dedicated an entire episode to showing the aftermath of ultra despair girls. Now I didn't play that game but ive seen walkthroughs and I know the story and honestly I did not like it. The episode was veery boring and did not add ANYTHING interesting to the story except for a bummer and a potential spoiler, hell I dont even expect those who liked ultra despair girls to appreciate that episode. It killed the pace. Now The best thing about the story of mirai hen is how they tackled the the themes of hope. Honestly, it was perfectly executed. I won't talk in details here to avoid spoilers, but the way tackled hope in this anime was more mature and much better than the past entries. Also, every moment with new characters especially munakata was really great, except for juzo. Overall the story is good with really strong approach to its themes but lacking a little bit in twists. Character 8/10 Mirai hen did FANTASTIC job with developing it's characters especially the new ones. Well don't expect much of development from the original cast but I gotta tell you: you will LOVE the new characters. Munakata, Chisa, Sakakura, Tengan, Mitarai, and Kizakura were definitely Great!!! Munakata was my favorite. His Ideals, his idea of hope, his determination, his past and how it changed all together made Munakata a really enthralling character. Not to mention the relationship between the trio Munakata, Sakakura, and Chisa was very deep and well constructed. Ofcourse most of this development was aided by the despair arc which is really good except that as i mentioned before it puts a lot of burden on despair arc. I think to conclude my thoughts about Tengan and Ryota, I have to watch Hope arc first and thats why i am not gonna talk about them here. Overall, the anime did great in its delivery on presenting its character except for the main danganronpa which was a bummer but understandable. Enjoyment 7/10 From the first episode of this anime, The tension and expectations never dries away. The plot for me was disappointing at times and then at other times it just captures me again. two things kind of killed my enjoyment here. First of all, the excess of action scenes here. It was okay at the beginning, it makes you feel the tension but later on...I think the anime changed to BlazBlue. The action scenes were really bothersome to watch, yeah the animation was descent but this is not danganronpa anymore. you see these action scenes start to kill all the mysterious vibes and thrills of the anime, it feels really childish, they should have focused more on making a good mystery adventure rather than stupid and annoying action scenes. the other thing that annoyed is that ultra despair girls episode.....YES ITS THAT ANNOYING. Around the end of the anime, everything becomes just right, just the way you wanted it to be and the way it should have been from the beginning, continuous mystery solving and character tension without overuse of actions is what this anime should have done. As a whole, the anime is really entertaining and keeps you guessing while annoying you with stupid action scenes here and there Overall 8/10 Yes Mirai hen wasn't disappointing at all.It is a really good anime, but you can see that spike chunsoft didn't do their best here, I think they should,ve just focused on making a game even if they don't want the same killing game to be repeated a third time. Im just guessing they didn't know how to do it with a game and so they decided to make an anime. The final piece remaining is the hope arc which will determine for sure whether this anime is a masterpiece or a failed conclusion. I put my trust in spike chunsoft

(If you are looking for a complex story, (more) killing games, gore, and some serious plot twists then this is for you. I recommend you read through a synopsis of the other parts of the series or you may be confused on some of the things they mention. You should watch Zetsobou-hen alongside it for some background info.) I like Dangan Ronpa 3 because it wrapped everything up into a nice present. I like Dangan Ronpa 3 because it is split up into two parts (soon three) to not condense any info. If you have been really into the series, you will be satisfied to know a lot of things are covered especially regarding Chiaki and the Remnants of Despair. You also get to see Junko Enoshima behind the scenes as she works her plan to bring the world into despair! ------------------- STORY: The story is great. As I said, it wraps everything up and makes everything clear. If you watched it as it broadcasts, you hungered for new episodes as the cliffhangers were appropriately placed. Of course, a lot of people will be dying and a character you may not expect. A certain cliff hanger in episode 11 is unexpected, but it's never anything I was expecting. ART: The art is very good. The art is not the best, but it's not the worse I have seen (ex. Asako Get You!). The shading is really nice. They have improved certain animation aspects such as gore (mostly in Zetsobou-hen). SOUND: The sound is outstanding. I rate sound by how memorable it was. There are some reuse of songs from the game, but they are remastered(?). The opening to Zetsobou-hen is my favorite versus this OP, it's calm despite what would later happen.. CHARACTER: The character design is good. I don't really like many of the new characters, but they aren't bad or bland. ENJOYMENT: I really, really, really, enjoyed this installment. It's sad to see it end (?) and I cannot wait for the finale. I am really hyped and you will be to even if you simply started watching right now. That's all. Don't give in to DESPAIR!

Tldr, bad writing, unlikable characters, and animation errors make this a truely unenjoyable experience from start to finish, with EXTRA bad parts thrown in for good measure. I've played every Danganronpa game, and read every story and relevant side plot. Starting from the first moments of this anime you'll notice a surprising lack of budget. The art is barely passable for a series of this size, the sound direction is forgettable at best, and the writing is awful. The character's are where danganronpa has always shined, but don't expect them to save the story this time. They are completely unlikable, and have no real set motivations or goals. The only time you'll learn anything new, interesting, or plot relevant about a character is in flashbacks seconds before they die. Skipping the art and sound, which are both merely low budget, we'll talk about the writing and story. As mentioned, the new characters have no real set motivations or personalities. They exist merely to bump heads with characters you know from DR1, and have no lives beyond that. You never get the feeling one of these characters will be missed by someone, you never get the feeling that they were someones loved one or partner, these characters ONLY exist in the vacuum of this anime plot to chase Naegi and Aoi around for 20 minutes an episode. This may lead you to believe that Naegi and Aoi are central figures to the plot, that they are relevantly unraveling the mysteries and being developed as characters. You'd be wrong though. They have nearly no plot relevance, they are only there along with the rest of the living Dr1 cast to pretend to die at the end of episodes so viewers will watch the next episode. It never sticks though, and some of the fakeouts get pretty insulting by the end of it. Episode seven in particular is just filler, and can be completely skipped. Episode 9 is when the anime really hits it's lowest points however. Everything after episode 9 will leave you scratching your head, wondering why this anime was made in the first place. The anime ends where it starts, a status quo were nearly nothing new has been introduced to the DR canon, and the UTMOST "Care" was taken to make sure that NOTHING about the old characters has changed in any way. On pure enjoyment factor alone, I'd recommend fans of the games, and fans of anime in any form to avoid this series. Scenes will drive you crazy with constant continuity errors, animation errors, and forgotten plot threads. The premise is stupid, and is never justified. Unlikable characters are made up on the spot just to die. Deathflags are so obvious that you'll never be surprised or caught off guard. Characters walk on screen and announce their time to die, then die, and none of the other characters really seem to care. Several times characters are found dead, or murdered directly in front of everyone, and nobody bats an eye or cares. Ends on Status Quo restoration, the entire anime can be removed without losing anything from the series. I'll finish this review on a somewhat positive note. The characters Ruruka and Seiko have their own subplot that spans for almost the entire series filling up whatever time isn't taken by Naegi and Aoi doing basically nothing. The sub plot has some obvious flaws but is interesting and keeps the episodes moving, and these two characters actually end up being developed because of it, you may accidentally end up even caring for them. However just as their character arcs come to a close the story reminds you how stupid you were for liking any of the new characters. Then replaces them with even more Aoi and naegi, just running around and not really accomplishing anything.

It's been three years since I looked at the first Danganronpa anime. While it wasn't one of the best anime I've seen, I did rather like it. Now we're skipping ahead to Danganronpa 3, because there wasn't a Danganronpa 2 anime. Maybe they thought the game wouldn't translate well. Maybe they didn't consider it good enough. Maybe they got distracted reading Voyages of the Cerberus and missed their window of opportunity. The first two are more likely by far but a man can daydream. The odd thing about Danganronpa 3 is that it's split into two settings, both of which were running at roughly the same time. This week, we'll be looking at the Mirai-hen & Kibou-hen setting this week. Although I may take a look at the Zetsubou-hen setting later this month. So, let's take a look and see how it holds up compared to the first series. Story: We open with our protagonist from the first series, Naegi Makoto, being taken to the headquarters of the Future Foundation to answer charges of being a traitor. Supposedly, he safeguarded a bunch of remnants of despair. Maybe that's what happened in the second game. While attending the meeting with all the foundation's higher ups, along with Kirigiri & Asahina, the building gets attacked. They wake up to a Monokuma video telling them that they've been brought into a game of despair. He claims that one of them is a traitor and, in order to end the game, they have to either kill the traitor or wake up with all of them alive. To put them to sleep at regular intervals, they're also given wristbands that inject them with sleeping drugs after a set amount of time. The wristbands are also programmed with forbidden actions. Should any of them do their forbidden action, they'll be injected with a lethal amount of poison. Naturally, Naegi is instantly viewed as the most suspicious by several people. Can he survive their attacks and solve the mystery around him? There are two major flaws with the series. The first is that it spends a lot of time following the characters who are outside of the game. A lot of the stuff they do is really over the top action fare and it hugely undermines any suspense or horror atmosphere that's happening on the inside. Not only that, but the events on the outside don't do that much. They reveal some information that the audience could have gotten from the characters on the inside and it would have worked better. The other big problem with the series are the speeches. In the first Danganronpa anime, the ending had a big speech and it was cheesy and kind of stupid, but it didn't hurt the series over-much since the bulk of it focused on the mysteries, which were pretty solid. In this series, there are a lot of really cheesy speeches about hope and despair. A lot of the discussion is less about the mystery and more about hope. These are speeches that could kind of work, if they were in a Precure series or something else for small children, but that are really absurd and ridiculous in this context. By the way, the Kibou-hen special is mostly cheesy speeches to wrap everything up and the series retconning what could have been a strong tragic moment thereby ruining it. That being said, this was a solid premise. The idea of all these characters being trapped in a claustrophobic setting and uncertain of who they can trust is a compelling one. If they'd focused more on that facet and less on over the top action and speeches, this series could have been really good. I also do like the ultimate reveal. The twist is also genuinely clever. Characters: In the first series, the characters were largely kind of shallow archetypes, but passable for what the series was doing. In this one, not so much. While the characters are still shallow, they're also a bit annoying. Particularly Naegi and Munakata with their long speeches. We get it, you guys have a serious hope fetish, leave it in the bedroom. The only character who gets to keep their dignity is Kirigiri. She's the only character who actually seems interested in solving the mystery. The rest spend their time chasing after each other, hiding, or following her lead. On the outside, we have our action squad, Naegi's sister & Touko from the first series doing the bulk of it. We also have Tagami who gives some exposition and orders people around. We also get to see Hagakure hang about outside the Future Foundation building being completely ineffectual. I seriously have no idea why he's here. He contributes nothing to the story. They just cut to him doing random things on occasion. In one scene he's fortune telling. In another he's fishing and, in another he's fleeing a helicopter. None of which affects the plot in the slightest. You could seriously replace him with a black Labrador and nothing would change. Except that the Labrador wouldn't be as annoying and would be cute. Art: I've mentioned the overblown action scenes already. They aren't good. The absurd, overblown character designs continue to be a weakness for the series. I'm sorry, but it's distracting when your horror mystery has characters who look like they should be challenging children to a trading card game in order to steal Egyptian artefacts. The unique, game aesthetic the first game had with its visual style aren't present in this one. Which is kind of a shame since those did give the series a unique identity. Which is something this one could use. We've got dark visuals mixed with goofy character designs. Neither of which is really unique. Sound: Hikasa Yoko is really good in this. I'll also give credit to Ogata Megumi, in spite of Naegi's annoying qualities, she does give a strong performance as him. Saito Chiwa and Ishida Akira are also quite good. As are Suwabe Junichi & Morikawa Toshiyuki. Most of these performances, in all fairness, are perfectly passable. There are a few exceptions. Minase Inori doesn't do well when her character gets in any kind of emotional moment. Neither does Eguchi Takuya. I don't know if it's the direction or just that they aren't good at serious moments. I've heard them both give strong performances in comedic works, but never in anything serious. Hirano Aya's character is just an annoyance. Ho-yay: There's a bit. Naegi's sister and Touko seem to get really close in their scenes together. Which culminates in a really homo-erotic speech from the sister while they're clinging to a rocket. Although, it does seem to be one-sided with all indications being that Touko still has a thing for Tagami. Final Thoughts: This was a series with a promising premise. Unfortunately, it's held back by a lacklustre execution that largely fails to take advantage of it. Instead, we're given cheesy hope speeches, ridiculous action scenes and characters who mostly can't be bothered with the mystery. In the end, it's a weak follow up. My final rating is going to be a 4/10. Next week I'll continue horror anime month with a look at 91 Days.

LA is gonna change up the format for this review as well as Zetsubou-hen by making it a sorta of 3-parter due to the nature of how Danganronpa 3's animes were presented so if you wanted to see LA's take on Zetsubou-hen and Kibou-hen then this review won't be in it. Before LA talks about Zetsubou-hen, LA will say that both Mirai-hen and Zetsubou-hen anime are something of a companion piece with each other giving off clues or events that transpired that lead it to how or when it happened. The obvious companion piece both these anime have is "trying to find the traitor" and why some of the founders are butting heads with each other in Mirai-hen and "how Danganronpa's franchise started" as well as some backstory on some of the newer characters in Mirai-hen for Zetsubou-hen and both arcs gives and feeds information to each other. For anime-episode order, you should/MUST watch by starting with Mirai-hen's episode then Zetsubou-hen episode then back and forth after that for "clarity". Once both Mirai-hen and Zetsubou-hen have finished finishing with Mirai-hen's final episode go to Kibou-hen for the finale With that out of the way Mirai-hen's "ultimate death game" by in large vastly different from the the original series' one, where there are NO trials, as well as forbidden actions you'll not allowed to do in the death game otherwise you'll die instantly and having the find the traitor within the Future Foundation, before the traitor picks hope out one by one, if not the Future Foundation are already going after each other already due to the previous backstories and lingering grudges that the newer characters has. (See Zetsubou-hen review). This as a precedent makes the game far more complicated and all the more bloody with clash of beliefs of the same thing, just differing ways in which the Future Foundation members especially Kyousuke Munakata voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa. Due to the nature of the death game, it's expected that some of the Future Foundation members' screentime is rather limited from the Great Gozu voiced by Kenta Miyake and Daisaku Bandai voiced by Rie Kugimiya being more obvious ones, the only exception to this is Chisa Yukizome voiced by Mai Nakahara as her backstory goes full circle in Zetsubou-hen. Aside the from that, many of the other Future Foundation members do get some form of development such as the quarreling between Ruruka Andou voiced by Inori Minase and Seiko Kimura voiced by Saki Fujita with Sounosuke Izayoi voiced by Takuya Eguchi in the crossfire of it as well as Kazuo Tengan voiced by Hidekatsu Shibata the chairman of the Future Foundation believing in Makoto. With that, the rest of the Future Foundation (omitting the characters from the original like Kyouko and Aoi) all have their backstory in Zetsubou-hen. If there was much to say about the focus of the character development, it squarely likes to focus on the more immediate (as well as important least developed) characters and "dispose" of them once their done, just hopefully you've got invested in right characters before their untimely deaths because Mirai-hen does not care who dies here...very much like the death game itself. BUT just because character die doesn't mean that's it as sure they might have their time in Zetsubou-hen (maybe), BUT...this is Danganronpa after all...really what LA is trying to say is, even in this death game even beware of those who are already dead. For what this ultimate death game gave LA, was a sense of paranoia to the point LA was both analyzing and being paranoia as to who's gonna die next as well as finding out who the "pawn" (if there even is one!), "traitor" (who's killing the future Foundation members) and "mastermind" (Junko died TWICE right...so who's controlling this Monokuma?) are in this complicated personal grudges and hope vs. hope death game and Mirai-hen is chock to the brim with red herring deaths or unexpected ones...it keeps you on your toes to the point your being suspicious of characters who might already be dead, yes even LA was suspicious of even the dead characters especially of Chisa considering she has a bigger role in Zetsubou-hen. If there was something that Mirai-hen did right was to bring in the atmosphere of despair and paranoia. Despair from the unexpected deaths, paranoia from who's gonna die next and speculating who the mastermind, traitor and pawn are. Which will also bring up the unexpected plot twists concerning the ultimate death game, from the characters who will die PERMANENTLY to who the mastermind, traitor and pawns are and this is where the paranoia and despair ramps up the tension even further ohh and add in the expected unexpected red herrings and this death game has no mercy on their characters and none our your speculations. Another words...the plot twists are both amazing, confusing and paranoid-levels of "HOW IN THE HELL WHY!??!?!?!" Ohh right...favourite character?...LA had two. Chisa Yukizome and Kyouko Kirigiri. In terms of animation done once again by Lerche like from the original series, Lerche brought out the dull gray tones depicting rather bleak tones right for the death game and guess what those pink blood are GONE in Mirai-hen showing red blood this time, so it's telling their serious for this one. The color palette aside from the colorful cast are green and red tinge to gray and black backgrounds (this is considering the setting is in a massive tower...the color palette is acceptable). The action scenes were pretty decent overall going from decent tactical battles to wholesale crazy ones. Where the animation kind of went down was that it for the most part has more "talking than battles"...ironic since it is a death game, but the atmosphere and mood of the anime was a helpful disguise to mask it and really did it quite well so LA won't criticize it too much because of it. In terms of voice acting, well we got an exceptional list of voice actors here and listing them would take soo long, overall LA would just say that the voice acting was top notch with some special mention to Aya Hirano as Monaka Touwa, Toshiyuki Morikawa as Munakata and probably the best playing against the type role of Saki Fujita as the mad chemist Seiko. Ohh right LA forgot about the change up in voice actors for Monokuma, due to Nobuyo Ooyama's dementia, they had gotten Tarako for Mirai-hen and really...Tarako did an ok job as Monokuma, LA couldn't say much about Monokuma considering that Monokuma HARDLY appears in Mirai-hen, nonetheless Tarako was "ok" for the most part as Monokuma. If LA had to really pick best voice actor in Mirai-hen...it goes to Toshiyuki Morikawa...without a doubt. The ending if anything brought about a rather anti-climax, but will be hopefully taken up by Kibou-hen. But for Mirai-hen's ending, yes the "mastermind" was found out as well as the "traitor" and "pawns" in this death game, in terms of themes, it's kinda ironic how it leads, pitting despair and hope together, where throughout the anime despair formed into hope, but by the end, it seems that hope will morph into despair, there is ALWAYS despair and hope, one can't live without the other and eliminating either of them will cause unintentional or intentional chaos. If anything even when LA found out who the culprit was and a meta-textual Junko and Chisa outright how the events of Mirai-hen occurred to make all this happen...LA IS STILL SKEPTICAL that "that's it", it's not like Danganronpa to outright tell us information like this soo easily without hiding some red herrings to double dupe us. Well if this ending IS TRUE really LA calls it an anti-climax because LA thinks that the TRUE finale is in the finale of finale's Kibou-hen, this ending is just a taste of what's to come. LA is SOO HOPEFUL right now. Mirai-hen being the finale of the entire series of Danganronpa does what it's meant to do, pit hope against hope to see which one will go on to the future and watching both Mirai-hen and Zetsubou-hen in conjunction …

So, Danganronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen - Mirai-hen ends, what used to be a game, ends, so what can I say about this sequel?????????? Storywise, I gave it an outstanding 10 over 10, since the genre really did played out, as indicated, the plot was basically a hope vs despair theme as the first "Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation" ( don't include the prequel pls). And just like the frist sequel the story also played us audience as well, where one might think that the anime was more of a repeat of the first sequel , but was not........it really almost fooled us, kudos to the creator: Spike Chunsoft, whoever he or she is. FU, FU, FU, FU! Art, well I don't have much to say about it since the only thing that have change was the character's attire, I'm referring to Kirigiri, Aoi and Negai, the rest......well, except for Munakata, Tenga, Juzo and Chisa, who all wore the appropriate attires, were just too damned silly, and I can never understand as what up with Seiko wearing a dorky surgical mask, Miaya, being in a wheelchair, even thought she's an android, and,Gozu with that bull mask. However I'm giving a 6 over 10 for Komaru's fanservice, FU, FU, FU, FUUUU!!!! Sound, it's a 5 over 10, since the seiyuu's who did the character's voice were still the same.....for the major character's that is. FU, FU, FU, FUUUU!!!!! Character, ok, this is the part were a mensa member would wanna give the original creator Spike Chunsoft and director Kishi, Seiji a lotta lambasting for insulting talented people for using the term "super level", in fact they would see that the character's represent the kind of foolishness of not being able to tell apart as to what is , talent, virtue, slot, vanity, oddity and the bizarre, so let's group them: Negai Makoto and Junko Enoshima: one is a specified as a Super High School Level Luck/ hope and the other is Super High School Level Fashion Girl/ despair/ psychopath weren't to be consider as such since their other title despair and hope are virtues not talent, also Junko is a loca, so she should be having the title super level psychopath. Negai, being this super level luck. should just be consider as "The Protagonist" without any of the super level bullshit. Bandai, Daisaku and Yasuhiro Hagakure, whatever super level bullshit they are, are just a bunch of super level dorksters with no function at all........I can't say the same in the videogames, since I don't have such luxury of having it. Munakata Kyouske and Juzo Sakakura, were nothing more than a bunch of super level bullies, whom themselves were against the others and eventually begun being against with each other. Kizakura, Kouichi and Tenga Kazu, were just a couple of old geezers, that were meant for retirement....to their grave. Izayoi Sonosuke and Andou Ruruka, one is a treacherous manipulative bitch and the other is a protective ass, who is just as stupid for allowing himself to be killed by his manipulative bitch. Yukizome, Chisa, MItarai and Seiko Kimura , I meant, really, these guys are super level at something one is a super level pharmacist and the other is a super level Housekeeper? Can it get more odd than this , since both of them were super level suckers? And that's what they are. Seiko Kimura would ask as to where did her friendship with Andou went wrong? Well, it went wrong the moment she met her, dang stupid character. Yukizone as aSuper Level House keeper???????Man, I can do the same jobs as she does, and really, a mensa member has all the right to criticize the creator, Spike Chunsoft . Mitarai....is pretty much a super level pussy. And lest's not forget Komaru and Toko, can be considers as the ultimate lesbian lovers. The rest like Kirigiri, Aoi, Gekokgahara and Monaca and Gozu, were the protagonist's support, I also give this category a low score since they killed off Kirigiri instead of the ultimate bimbo Aoi. Kirigiri has more substance than Aoi, so why should she be killed off , that is the question. And I hate that she's being killed off. So the character assignment was just soo poor and it's a 3 over 10, FU, FU, FU! Btw, nice to see Togami again. Enjoyment, well it was a good 7 over 10, since it was enjoyable, but not that good cu'z why???????????Oh yeah , cu'z they killed off Kirigiri and this anime was left with an open ending for the other sequel...the hope arc that is. So overall it's a fair 6, on to the hope arc....... Fu, Fu, Fu........

I'm going to kind of melt in Future and Despair side, as they are intended to be watched at the same time, but I'm mostly directing my attention to Future. I used to be a big Danganronpa fan. I got the VITA for the sole purpose of playing the games, when SDR2 was only getting translated by some random people on the internet and the first game had just gotten localized. I've spent a lot of my time on Danganronpa, analyzing it, doing fanarts, discussing theories with other people, reading the fan-translated novels, playing Ultra Despair Girls, and although it had some flaws, I really the Danganronpa series overall. But when I knew that they announced an anime, I just had this bad feeling. Danganronpa: The Animation wasn't really good, as the quantity of episodes was just not enough for the hole plot and it tried to fit like 20+ hours of gameplay in 13 episodes of approximately 25 minutes. 20+ of gameplay, details, plot, characters, into less than 6 hours approximately of an animation. And obviously, the adaptation wasn't really the best. But I thought, "Hey, they won't make the same mistake twice. Besides, two arcs? That's a total of 24 episodes, so maybe it will be different!" Oh, how wrong I was. Both despair and future side just tried to throw in a bowl and mix a lot of characters, random plot ideas, deaths with no meaning, and terrible death flags that screamed "hey lol i'm gonna die now". One of the major things about Danganronpa that I liked was how ridiculous, yet interesting the plot twists were. Even if you expected some of them, it was interesting to see how the dots connected, the contradictions, the solutions, and the characters going through that trip to the truth. And sometimes the twist would make you go "holy shit", because you didn't really get to see them coming. Danganronpa 3 didn't include any of those. Instead, the supposedly "plot twists" were so predictable, they basically screamed to your face "enjoy this characters because we are going to kill it". All the raising of death flags was painful to see, it felt like watching a Blue's Clues episode of how obvious everything was. A lot of cheap and mediocre tactics to get the ratings up, including unnecessary weird fanservice (although I kind of can let that pass because almost all animes do that), fake deaths of loved characters to keep the "cliffhanger up", and most of the "cliffhangesr" were basically thrown out to hell next episodes as they killed the hype. The new cast was basically introduced to just fill the background. There was almost no major development except for a few things, but most of them were just to basically boost up the stage for survivors of DR1, specially Naegi, who doesn't really change a lot and gets very repetitive. And there was almost no development on characters, mostly just good designs but empty shells. They just tried to throw plot ideas that ended up contradicting the canon stuff, forgot about some of the novels, and a lot of other pointless stuff. And the ending was literally out of Danganronpa's character. No bittersweet, no guilt, no sadness to see. Only a rainbow colored happy world, contradicting so much stuff, done for only fanservice and to end the "kibougamine arc" (which will be probably be brought back again anyways, as there's even an OVA coming with the new game). The anime just killed the essence of Danganronpa itself. No surprises, no cliffhangers, no plot twists, no character development. Just a terrible ripoff of Dora the Explorer with murder and some crappy hope vs despair plot.

the story so far has been more enjoyable and less childish than the first season and i must say, the art and the music have improved as well. The plot is pretty likable and as always, no one is safe from dying in Danganronpa. i have just watched episode 9, and i think all of this will change in the last 3 episodes*NO spoilers ahead*: if Kodaka brings the dead back to life, He will be ruining the whole idea of danganronpa. it will just turn out the same as sword art online, maybe he can make it interesting, so i will wait and see ----------------^_^---------------- Rating -Story : 8/10 *so far* this might change according to the ending -Art: 10/10 the characters to be exact look cooler and more mature than season 1 -sound: 8/10 the opening and ending are one of my favorite of this season but the BGM in the first season made things more alive in my opinion -character: unlike season 1, i felt sorry for people dying in this season, tho we still didn't get enough details about their personalities, we got hints that were enough to boost the story -Enjoyment: 9/10 the best part of danganronpa is the number of plot twists you encounter every week that leaves you speechless and more eager to see how it all ends -overall 8/10 i believe this season is going to increase the number of newcomers to the danganronpa world this is my first review *i'm just pissed off by the thought of how kodaka will end the whole thing or how i think he is gonna do * Edit: the review was deleted but anyways the ending is what we all expected and that's the point

I need to play the games to watch this anime? Well, you can go forward from the first Danganronpa anime, that's ok, but if you wanna enjoy the 2 arcs of this last story it's recommended at least, Super Danganronpa 2 to be played. Another recommendation if you gonna start the anime, it's see a chapter of this arc and 1 of the despair one, and repeat the process for better understanding. Let's start, we got to the point to at last see a end of the situations involving hope and despair with its roots at Kibougamine Gakuen painting an end... This anime gonna start at the end of Super Danganronpa 2 (They gonna fill you up in some details needed in this story, if you don't play the game) with our very proud and powerful lucky student, Naegi Makoto being putting in scene in a new mutual killing game with less time and more ferocious Ultimate Students, former ones, the Future Foundation itself, and the usual, but maybe less powerful Monokuma. First, the characters, as always, very rare talents attached to very rare people again, they are cool in a sense, but well, they gonna end dead at the very end, but belive me, they all are ultimates, so they are special, you don't gonna be bored with their actions. Second, the story, this maybe could get very tedious, because, after hear hope, hope, hope, hope, in a game, and an anime before, you think it's enough, but this is the end, so, bear it again, please... the flow, it's more like a premises of the future with the need of a connection of the past to still keep forward (Zetsubou-hen), even so, the flow of the characters, the situations, the revelations that get connections at this very point to get an end, that is the real flavor of this story, its very meaning, a very cool one, because the new mystery of the killings it's easy but you are here for answers, of course. And third, the music and CG, have very much connection with the first story, so you gonna still hear the usual BGMs and sounds, with the Psycho Pop style of Danganronpa with more elegance and technology, well, Psycho-Technology, rare, but that make it great. At the end you need this and the despair one, to end this at the Kibou-Hen, so it's a good anime, a good story, necessary to fill us up with its answers altogether with the other arc, maybe we expect something different, but when you reach the end of each arc, you see the meaning and good synergy of this last track of the path. If you reach this part of the review, feeling this useful or maybe nothing at all... anyway, thank you so much for your time, and happy anime, may the hope protect you from the despair, pupupupu.

It's hard to objectively look at the series you invested hours and hours into. This anime will not be for everyone. Even if you decide to play through all the visual novels and a spin-off game (which is rather crucial to the story as well), there is a chance you'll find it "unnecessary", "poor" or just horrible and not deserving to be part of the series. I got a lot more out of the anime than I was originally expected, being told by everyone, how bad this show is. If you played through all the games, I dont see a reason why you wouldn't atleast try this. I will keep this review as spoiler-free as I can. I'll start with praising the Opening, as it really deserved it. Visuals are beautiful, it doesn't shove any important plot points into your face, and, of course, the song itself is amazing. This is only half of the show, and I recommend alternating between Future Arc and Despair arc episode by episode (starting with future) as that will save some interesting surprises for both serieses. You should also alternate between this review and one on Despair arc. Which is an obvious joke and you shouldn't bother, but the idea of having to watch two shows at the same time is rather interesting and works surprisingly well for this one. One of the most apparent reasons to watch this anime is for the characters, and this one really delivers. Some characters weren't fully explored, due to the nature of the killing game, some are more fleshed out in the despair arc, some get maybe a bit too much screentime, but the original gang is back and it was really nice to see them again. New characters were really hit or miss, and I wish some of them survived for longer, but thats part of the fun I guess. I dont think this would work as any game, same as the original visual novel didn't work as anime, this story is not "Danganronpa 3, but the anime for some reason", it is a way to tie all loose ends which in theory works much better than a VN would. If it suceeds in practice, is another question. There are many pretty obvious plot holes in this story, some things happen just because, it isn't clear how some stuff works, characters sometimes act irrationally, some long awaited questions aren't satisfying enough or not given at all, etc. But you shouldn't expect any serious realism from this anime. Original VN had many silly moments as well. Many plot holes can be explained if you think about the situation the characters have to face and overall pressure on them (and also the ridiculous setting of the series of actual superhumans existing here, wiping out armies with ease). I dont think it makes the anime much worse, but some moments did sting a little, esspecially near the end. Danganronpa always had some problems with satisfying and logical endings, and this one is not really an exception. The overall plot is really a 7 because of it, it isn't horrible, and it has some good moments, but I dont think it is on par with the games. And despite that, there were enough moments to keep me invested in it, making it hard to wait through an episode of Despair arc to find out what happens next here (which, honestly, was the case for Despair arc too, and was the weirdest thing I've experienced while watching an anime). Did I mention that art is pretty good yet? The colour scheme and shots convey the atmosphere very well, action scenes, while not being super detailed, are well animated and it is clear that a lot of work went into them. There is some repetition in shots, but there aren't too many to get in your eyes. Overall, Lerche did a really good job with this one. I expected to be always disturbed by the blood not being trademark pink, as it was in VNs, but it surprisingly fitted more to the story it was trying to tell. I suppose what matters the most, is if it does well as the continuation and partly conclusion of the series. And I think that the answer is yes. It doesn't ruin any already established characters or concepts, it evolves them, it really feels like those characters indeed have suffered through a lot of despair, esspecially the characters from the first game. It is worthy to be in the series, as I see it. I really loved playing through the games, and I loved watching this anime, no matter how silly it was at times. If compared to Despair arc, I'd say that this one is worse of a final product, but thats mostly because I enjoyed the second game so much. If you just want more danganronpa, this is for you, there is not much more like this, in both anime or videogames. It isn't flawless, but it really isn't as bad as some say. I give this show a subjective 9 and an objective 7, which rounds up to an 8, cus I make the rules here. Now, go watch it if you haven't already and let the game begin! Also, ED is good, but I skipped it maybe a bit too much.

Danganronpa 3 Future has become a mixed bag for fans for the franchise. Even when it was announced that it would be a anime instead of a game, there were doubts that this could be done well. What didn't help is that it would only have 12 episodes for this side alone. After watching it, indeed certain things in the overall narrative didn't quite click well. Before watching this, playing DR: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super DR2: Goodbye Island of Despair and DR Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is required. Also, alongside Side Future is DR Side Despair, which viewers are meant to watch side by side. First off, most of the criticisms stem from the format. This franchise started as a series of games that average at least 20 hours of gameplay. The conclusion of the series being one 12 episode series, an 11 episode series that ties into it, and a sequel special that will tie up both series and overall would only take up atleast 10 hours brought up some concerns. With at least 16 characters, even with at least 4 already known, the limited time along with the usual content of the series gave doubts whether the characters would be given a decent amount of screentime and characterization. Despair side picked up some slack in that regard by relegating time to give further exposition for the new characters, which also opened up problems as well for that series. It also didn't help that at the beginning, the new characters come off as unlikable right from the start. The story starts off after the events of Super Danganronpa 2, in which Makoto Naegi, the protagonist of the first game and taking up the protagonist role again here, is being tried for his actions in trying to save the Remnants of Despair from being executed by the Future Foundation, and undo the influence Junko Enoshima has done to them. Now, Makoto, as a member of Future Foundation, it is reasonable for him to be held accountable for his actions that were out of his own sense of morality but were against the organization's as a whole. What was not is that the heads of Future Foundation holding him on trial weren't being reasonable in the slightest and are outright antagonistic towards him from the start. It's reasonable that one or two would make claims that he's a traitor, but it's the opposite in that only a few aren't immediately jumping to conclusions, and the majority already made their decisions about it, hinting that the trial would have been against Makoto from the start, if things didn't go to hell before it properly started. It's stupid. The audience knows Makoto was acting on good intentions. To have the new characters from the start be against him would already make them less receptive. However even after they get trapped and put into a killing game, many of them still act unreasonable as they automatically assume Makoto is the one responsible for this and start trying to kill him right off the bat. Also, the actually likeable characters or the ones that didn't automatically come across as jerks from the new cast are the ones that start getting killed off. It's easy to determine who's going to die because it's always the one that's given focus the same episode. You, the viewer, start to find this character interesting only for them to be killed off abruptly before the episode's end, leaving the unlikable ones around to create conflict. This was intended so they could redeem themselves in some way near the end, but it's divided whether the payoff was worth it. I actually grew to like Munakata even though he was the one mainly responsible for the string of irrational decisions that started most of the conflict in the series. Sakakura was still a mixed bag for me though he did become a more fleshed out character. Episode 7 was a episode that could have been better used to focus on other things. The main story is replaced by a related but separate incident that would have been better left as a "leave to your imagination" only getting the critical parts of it. The plot focuses on the plotline from Ultra Despair Girls and I really liked some of the fanservice in that episode. Still, from a narrative perspective, it's only slightly related to the main plot. All it really does is drop a death flag for a DR1 character. The cost wasn't worth it. The character that was the main antagonist in that game and was revealed to be participating in the current killing game via robot masquerading as one of the FF branch heads turns out to be red herring, and she gives up right in the middle of the episode. She literally self-destructs all her robots herself for no reason. That it was a troll in the end did not sit well, and personally was disappointing for me, since I really like Ultra Despair Girls and didn't like the episode making one big joke out of it. And precious time that could have been used on something more relevant was instead used for this kind of fake out. What turns out to be critical for Future's plot is certain characters, and if they aren't done well, they will damage the series as a whole. First is Chisa Yukizome, whose importance is affected by her role in Side Despair, and what happens to her. She was the teacher of the 77th class that became Super High School Level Despair, and she in turn was brainwashed like them by association. Once this is revealed in Side Despair, the truth becomes she was still brainwashed in Future arc, and was the reason the vice-chairman had become so irrational by her doing heinous crimes, then showing them to him while hiding the fact she did it, and influencing him to be more extreme in his beliefs. She also turns out to be the one to have given this series' mastermind the means to do the killing game. The way this was handled was less well done. She literally just gives the mastermind the Macguffin without any more context whether or not the situation at the time fit or not, especially when who the mastermind turns out to be. That moment sums up her fatal flaw, in that she's less of a character but a plot device to railroad the plot when needed or in this case, explain how the mastermind got a certain thing. It's not even hidden; during one moment in both series, she exclaims because of her talent, she's lead to important moments. Anything the viewer may have liked about her is gone once she's brainwashed making her role in the story more apparent. Next is the mastermind, who turns out be a character who died during the events of the series. This person turns out to be the chairman of Future Foundation, Kazuo Tengan. And the reasons why he set up this killing game relates to another character, who I will mention next. His motives turn out to be to get this person to use something he had. The problem is that the person was also part of the killing game, meaning that person was in danger of dying. Questions are raised why he didn't guarantee that person's safety. Why of all things he set up killing game to influence that person to use the Macguffin. And if that person wasn't supposed to be there originally for the events, then how and why did he end up being there. It's left to interpretation so far, maybe to be clarified in the special. Lastly is Ryota Mitarai. He is key to this entire anime, both sides of it, leaving him a very divisive character, and one that really needed to be done right. His talent is as an animator. His dream was making an anime to inspire hope in others just as he had been. It all goes wrong once he turns to using subliminal messaging and other brainwashing techniques in his work and he encounters Junko Enoshima, who twists his work for her purposes, used it to brainwash Chisa and the 77th class to spread despair, and the reserve course students to commit suicide, setting off the end of world. This leaves him very guilt ridden that carries over to the Future arc. After these events were presented in Despair arc, he becomes a sympathetic character. However, this somewhat diminishes after it turns out he made another video to…

I've only gotten into the Danganronpa series this past month, but the action packed in this season really brought back all the good parts of the original and made it much more fast-paced and dynamic. Its the perfect blend of action and psychological action. If only it didn't emphasize on hope and despair so much. We get it, Naegi is "Ultimate Hope" and so forth, but it just forces those two words around and around and around. It goes from trying to but despair as the overlapping theme to just full out "despair, 絶望. despair, 絶望, despair, 希望, hope , despair, and so on. It just made the anime a bit less entertaining. Overall, this anime was one of my top 10 anime of the season, maybe even number 1. I strongly suggest this anime to a lot of fans out there who are looking for good and action-packed anime.

The concluding part of Danganronpa story turns out to be an utter garbage that surprisingly manages to butcher the original series' spirit by presenting criminally uninteresting setting, boring and flat characters, downright ridiculous storyline with ton of plotholes, and loads of stupid out-of-place fanservice on top of that. A scene where newly-added "your ordinary schoolgirl" character casually fights hundreds of mechanical Monocumas with laser-shooting megaphone (showing off her panties in the process) describes this anime as none better. Story — as said above, horrible. The only reason the plot is not predictable is that it is illogical as hell. 1/10 Art — the visual style lost some of the first season's charm, but at least it still provides dark atmosphere and is ok to look at. Ah, and I liked mature Kirigiri's design. 6/10 Sound — can't say much in particular, but OP was definitely nowhere near first season. 5/10 Characters — a mess. Show does not present any interesting characters (with a couple of exceptions maybe) and just uses already developed heroes from previous seasons without adding much to their personalities. One would expect much more from a Danganronpa anime. 4/10 Enjoyment — basically, I just cringed and skipped through last episodes just to find out whether some people really die when they are killed. Again, definitely not what I expected when started to watch. 3/10 Overall — 3/10.

YOU NEED TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL DANGANRONPA TO UNDERSTAND THIS This anime was a pitiful way to continue the original Danganronpa series. When I hear future arc I think ADVANCEMENT not stating in place. They tried to recreate the original series in the future which was pointless. I felt that they lack the creativity to add something different to the series. I felt that I was rewatching the first original Danganronpa over again. There was a little advancement to the overall story which only happened at the very end. It did not add any depth to the original plot of the story and left viewers confused about its overall purpose. This series did not further any character development. Overall I did not enjoy the future arc. It lacks so many qualities that a continuation to a series needs. This was basically a retelling of the original series. VERY DISAPPOINTED!!!!!

Note: This review contains LOTS of spoilers. It may also be noteworthy that this is the only anime I've ever seen, and it was mostly ruined for me by spoilers anyway, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. That said, this anime annoyed me enough to force me to create a MAL account for the sole purpose of letting me get off my chest why I found this thoroughly unenjoyable. I originally picked up watching this anime as a fan of the games. I greatly enjoyed the tense story and engaging mystery of the original games, and wanted to finally see the conclusion of the story. So, I watched fair-use-loopholed episodes on YouTube. However, I found it completely unentertaining. The only reason I watched it to completion was to finally bring the series I once enjoyed to a close. I honestly entered into the series with hopeful attitude (excuse the joke), and I genuinely wanted it to be good, but it didn't have any of the same charm that the games did. To get to the heart of my issue with this anime, I'm going to break this down part by part. Story Narrative stakes are nonexistent. First of all, the show gives you no good reason to care about the new characters, and any reason it does give is ham-fisted and cliche. The Ruruka and Seiko spat felt meaningless because the show did it so heavy-handedly, yet it barely qualified as drama to me when most of the dispute centered around candy. Second of all, the story shatters any notion that the characters you DO care about from the original games will ever be in danger by episode 3. If it hadn't already been spoiled for me, I probably would have been intrigued by Aoi's "death" and been curious as to where they would go with it. But, I imagine that the creators suddenly thought "Wait, people might care about this character! Better retcon her back in!" So, Aoi's fake death ends up feeling like nothing more than a shock value cash-in. I almost laughed when they used the "ketchup as blood" excuse. Seriously, I would have preferred a handwave instead of a trite explanation like that. Kirigiri's is even worse, because her return is predictable at that point. If they don't even have the guts to kill off Aoi, of all people, why would we believe for a second that they would actually kill off the character that is ostensibly the most beloved character of the series? Of course, it gets even worse when they undermine all the consequences of DR2 by bringing everyone back that died in that game. All the tension of the original games was based on the idea that anyone could die, especially the characters you like. If they had actually killed the characters they pretended to kill, and didn't render the events of DR2 virtually meaningless, this would have easily made the series at least a 5/10 for me, because there would at least be some tension and reason to see if the characters would make it out alive. Sound and Art I can't say much on the sound and art departments since I have no basis for comparison. All I can really say in this regard is that it didn't make my eyes and ears bleed, so it is at least acceptable in my opinion. Characters One of the things that made me like the games was that the characters were interesting enough to be memorable. Trigger Happy Havoc's characters all had memorable quirks and designs, and, while the characters in Danganronpa 2 were a little less memorable, their character design was still unique. My problem could be best summarized by this statement: If you asked me to list the entire cast from both games in 3 minutes, I'd do it with plenty of time to spare. However, all the time in the world wouldn't be enough for me to list half of the names in the cast of DR3 without looking them up. I actually had to look up Seiko and Ruruka's names for this review, because I actually couldn't remember them despite remembering their conflict. I only remembered Yukizome and Munakata's names because the show hammers the characters into your skull as important characters. Yukizome was kind of fun to watch in the other arc, but that is the OTHER arc, so it's pretty much irrelevant here. As for any other characters, the best I would probably be able to come up with is 'bull guy', 'black stereotype farmer', 'wheelchair girl', 'boxer guy', and 'asshole blacksmith'. Kazuo Tengan was interesting at first, but lost all appeal when they essentially portrayed him as an absolute crazy with no concept of consequences. Seriously, the aged leader, who should have been the wise voice of reason in the story, ends up having less wisdom than the former-brainwashed, former-braindead cast of DR2. Enjoyment I enjoyed the games for them actually having interesting and understandable mysteries. The murders were engaging to put together, and the clues got you thinking about the mystery as you went along the investigation. It always made sense in the end, and, even when the mysteries had their occasional asspulls *cough*celestesrealname*cough*, it wasn't like it completely came out of nowhere. The anime has none of that. If you watched the arcs one at a time like me, there was nothing to suggest what might be happening. The Despair arc did set it up, but it wasn't enough to make it feel like a meaningful plot point. I won't spoil the ending (since I've already spoiled enough), but I could only respond to the reveal with a "lolwut". It comes completely out of nowhere, as if the buildup and investigation up to the point fulfilled no point but to drive the plot forward. It didn't give you a chance to piece things together on your own like the games, it just says "here's what's been happening, deal with it". In conclusion, I guess most of my problem is that it has none of the aspects that made the games good. No tension, no engaging mystery, no memorable characters, nothing. It wasn't even darker than the games in any sense beyond aesthetic, because the horror actually stuck with you in the games. Characters the game had been building up for several acts were dying, and it was clear that anyone could die (with the exception of the main character, but at this point I'm numb to main character plot armor anyways). In the anime, it was clear nobody that anyone cared about was going to die, effectively ending anything resembling tension. The reveal was completely out of left field, with nothing to suggest what was going on. The characters were forgettable, the story was bland, the mystery was terrible, and the retconning of character deaths completely undermined the point of the series. For these reasons, I found DR3 to be a completely lackluster conclusion to an otherwise great story.

So its been a few days since I finished this anime and oh boy it was just a mess. Basically long story short, way to much stuff in it. The characters are really eh, like they are just unlikable who cares about them really. I would love to learn more but you can't learn about them all in an anime. Monokuma is never in this, the most likable part of the games/show like come on. The only good characters are the despair guys (cause I have played the second game and freaking love them) and the 6 who survived in the first game and anime. Art was fine really, its just everything seemed dull and gray not much to look at. Like in the other games and animes you have different areas. Sound was fine it gets better as it goes along. Not half bad honestly. Now the big one... the story. This one is easy to follow like the other games/anime. 16 people stuck somewhere and are forced to kill each other. This time, its different, its a death match kind of thing and the killer needs to kill everyone before they are found it. Its not a bad concept. But in a 12 episode anime, nope its not good here. Like I said with characters I could care less about half of them or even all of them. I went into it thinking it was gonna be bad or meh, because the third game isnt even out and oh boy do I hate when they skip stuff. I thought the ending would get better, nope it really doesn't. It just leaves a big "WHAT WAS THAT?!?" kind of moment. Unlike the other kind of endings that were perfect. So yeah, I honestly that this anime was gonna be meh or bad. Turns out I was right. I have seen way to many people giving it a 10 or 9. I really hope to see other people giving it a lower score because its just to much packed in 12 episodes. Now the other thing is people say you need to watch both animes to understand everything. I really don't care I don't want them to ruin my favorite characters, so I dropped the other anime. If they just made the second game then wait for the third game to come out. It would of been better and it might of made them more money because now its over. Cool so its like now what.We know there will be no third anime of the third game. So yeah thats my review, a little rant at the end there but whatever. 4/10 for me. I will be sticking to the games for now on and will be careful with game to anime adaptations.