One of the most common debates you will hear is whether the book or the movie was better. In this case though, it’s whether you should play the game or save some time and watch the anime. Danganronpa is a series that fast-tracked it’s way to fame by introducing interesting concepts and unique character designs. It was only a matter of time before the series got it’s very own anime show, but just how good is it. Sadly, while the show itself is great for those who don’t have time to sit through the full visual novel, it is lacking in a lot of areas. Below we have compiled a list of ten ways that the game is better than the anime series.
10 Fleshed out Characters
One of the biggest things you will notice when watching the anime is the focus on Naegi and Kirigiri. While Naegi is the protagonist and Kirigiri is one of the most important characters in the series, this leaves the rest of the cast feeling bare bones. Much of the other classmate’s dialogue was cut out, and you will spend very little time getting to know these other ultimates.
Even the other four survivors have a lot less development making you wonder why they are the ones left at the end of the killing game.
9 Interactive Class Trials
It’s apparent that you can’t interact with a TV show, but one of the biggest parts of Danganronpa’s story is participating in class trials. The trials force you to use your critical thinking skills to shuffle your way through the suspects and help uncover the murderer. In the show, the class trials are quicker and not nearly as complex as they are within the game itself.
While this was likely done for time restrictions, the trials in the anime lose much of the magic that helped make the games popular.
8 More Mystery
Many fans have criticized the anime’s layout of the murder mysteries. In the game, you have to gather evidence slowly and sift through your findings to find the culprit. In the anime, the evidence presented makes it very easy to figure out who killed who just with a bit of critical thinking. While this does help shorten the length of the show to fit into the one season formula, it kills the mystery,
In the Danganaronpa game, many players found themselves guessing about the murderer up until the end of the trial.
7 The Game’s Longer
While this may seem like an obvious answer to how the game’s better, we wanted to take a look at the difference in completion time. Excluding the credits, you can binge the anime in around 5 hours. To finish the game with no extras, your looking at around 25 hours total. If you’re playing normally and not rushing through the story, most players spend around 33 hours in the game.
Even the rushed playthrough has five times the content of the anime. That’s a lot of content that has been cut out of the show.
6 Lackluster Executions
The executions in the show and the game are the exact same except for the Kirigiri bad ending. With that being said, the executions feel more rushed as the murders aren’t fleshed out, and the scene has a lot less of an impact in the anime. When playing the game, you can see the murderer slowly starts to fall apart and breakdown as they realize that they are probably going to be killed.
While there is a small portion of this in the show, it doesn’t hit nearly as hard as it does in the game.
5 Skipped Events
A lot of smaller events have been skipped that show the personality of the characters. These events generally show the classmates interacting with each other and can give a bit of humanity to the culprits. They also help to flesh out the victims as they are actually given screen time doing something else other than being a cog in the stories progression.
Even the events that are included, like Naegi talking to Junko’s imposter, feel a bit less important than they do in the game. Some scenes are even shortened so that the important hints are more obvious.
4 School Mode
The bonus mode for completing Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is School Mode. School Mode provides you with an alternate reality where your classmates aren’t getting murdered. This allows Naegi to get to know each classmate close and fill out their report cards to learn bonus info about each character. The game also features a side-story where you must construct Monokumas.
The side story adds a few more hours of gameplay and a lot more development for characters like Leon, who are killed early on.
3 More Drama
Danganronpa is very dramatic, but the game takes the cake when it comes to dramatizing scenes. The story scenes, trials, and investigations are a lot more drawn out. The game features more arguing between characters and even more development between classmates like Sakura, who ends up being the group’s spy. Even Monokuma gets his own little shorts to show off his dark personality better.
The show feels more like a linear path that goes straight from point a to point b after every single class trial. This makes character issues a lot less surprising.
2 Daily Life
Daily life is completely cut out of the anime, but an important part of the core game. In Daily life segments, you go around and choose the classmates you want to spend time with. By spending time with them, you learn more about their lives, passions, and dreams. You can spend time with every single cast member other than Monokuma and Junko, who are nowhere to be found during these peaceful periods.
Each chapter will give you several chances to participate in daily life as the game drags on for weeks before coming to its conclusion.
1 Mini-Games
One of the most frustrating and fun parts of class trials are the mini-games. These mini-games test your skills and often answer you to solve puzzles quickly to uncover the final clues that reveal the culprit. While these are, of course, not included in the show, the mind games played inside of Naegi’s head are an important part of solving the crimes that are just thrown to the void in the anime.
This is another huge reason the class trials feel so rushed and that the anime had to find a way to make the culprits more obvious.
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