Dawnleaf Watches Danganronpa: Episode 1 – Evil Has Never Been This Fluffy, Cuddly, and Soft

 So… that means she sucks, right?

Dear lord, FUNimation, why do you only have one ad on your video player?  I had to watch the same damn thing over and over and over again.  If Devious Maids is ever playing on television, now, I will attempt to destroy the screen with a BB gun.

Okay, on with the actual anime.  So, fourteen colorful characters and the main character get locked up in a high school.

An evil teddy bear tells them that, in order to get out, they have to kill someone.  Seems legit.

I kind of enjoy this.  This show is practically just telling me, “I just want to have some good, wholesome violence, you know?  None of that boring political stuff like The Hunger Games, none of that god of the universe BS like Future Diary.”  Our villain is an exploding teddy bear.  Which is totally ridiculous and wacky.  And it’s supposed to be.

And, up to a point, I love ridiculous and wacky.   That’s part of the reason I have an insane love for even the slower, less plot-relevant parts of Princess Tutu.  On that note, look at those character designs.  Umm…

Up to a point.  There’s a definite point at which your design goes from ‘creative/colorful/fun’ to ‘silly’.  And a lot of them do.

Not for the girls, though.  I like all of them.  Gothic maid gambler?  Cool.  Swimmer with gravity-defying hair and shiny breasts?  Fine with me. 

But the guys (well, most of them) kind of overstep that boundary for me.  Oh, well, at least their outfits aren’t as silly as the ones in Amnesia…

I’m calling it.  This one is totally a dude.  Don’t make fun of me, my judgment is flawless.  Chihiro Fujisani there sounds like a guy.  I’ve heard many cases of anime guys sounding like girls, but never the other way around unless there’s some crossdressing involved.  And they have a flat chest, too.

I love how the one who looks like a meek schoolgirl is the one who freaks out the most and gets really angry. 

Isn’t it illegal for high-schoolers to gamble?  Huh.

The beginning of this episode only contained about thirty seconds of everything being all right.   Then, bam!  Insanity!  He’s locked in a high school with fourteen people with haircuts of wildly varying  quality.  He’s not all that exciting, however.  I can say that everyone else is interesting enough (in addition to colorful designs, they all have colorful personalities, too!), but he’s just sort of there.

And there’s a giant musclebound guy with red skin who wears a schoolgirl outfit.  I do admit, that’s awesome.  And there’s a fat one, too.  But there isn’t a black guy.  Why isn’t there a black guy?!  I’m disappointed. 

Evil teddy bear watches you while you sleep.

I like how everyone reacted to their predicament, though.  Initially, everyone in the group work together, explores their surroundings, and tries to figure things out instead of it immediately becoming anarchy.  It already feels like some intelligence was actually put into this instead of it just being dumb fun.  It also goes towards making me care about the characters.  Especially the gothic maid gambler.  I like her.

The MC even gets a love interest, an idol!  They promise to work together.  For all of you thinking about Future Diary right now, I can promise you: she’s not Yuno.  Her voice is nowhere near as annoying as Yuno’s, so she’s 1000% better already.    However, evil teddy bear (Monokuma) is bored with everything being structured, so he basically threatens them that he’ll harm their family members (or he’s already harmed them, I’m not quite sure yet) if they don’t start stirring shit up.  The idol doesn’t take it very well:

I hope that she goes crazy first.  It’ll make her more interesting, as she’s just kind of nice as of right now.

Another thing I enjoy: the potential that their families are hurt makes everyone freak out, which also goes towards making me like them more.  It also shows that Danganronpa is willing to tackle some serious drama, which is always a plus, as this could just be a fun killy-kill-kill romp about with no substance whatsoever.  I’m not saying that it couldn’t become that in the future, but it seems like, again, they are trying to inject some legitimate thought into this.

I’m hoping for some exciting horror-thriller action in the next episode!  Don’t let me down, Danganronpa!