Danganronpa and Games Turned Into Anime

Danganronpa is an anime based on a game of the same name. The game is a murder mystery visual novel. It is like the Phoenix Wright series and there are similaries between the two. Danganronpa unfortunately has not chosen to get rid of some elements of the game for the show.

Danganronpa the game has mini games that they have taken parts of and put in the anime. For instance at times there are bullets during the debate on the screen, letters spelling things, and other things that are out of place and obviously from the game. Those do not need to be in the anime. The anime should be to portray the story without all those distracting games. They should use the time wasted with bullets making a better debate that reveals things without spelling them out. Adding things straight out of the game also ruins the immersion. How is the viewer going to get involved with the story when the show still thinks it is a game? A frustrating game where you can not actually play it.

The only time when adding things from a game to an anime works is when the anime is trying to portray a game. Sword Art Online was supposed to have a game inside the anime, so adding details like menus coming up and random things that would be seen in a game made it feel more real.

The time when the group is supposed to be gathering clues feels way too curtailed. The device the kids have has way too much information on it. The students barely had to get any clues for the first case and the second still had a lot of things handed to them. The pace is too fast. One part of a game of this nature they should have kept is the time for finding clues. One episode for finding clues feels pretty jumbled and they add in students looking for things without giving any motivation for it. In fact a lot of the investigating would normally be questioning people about whereabouts and who they were with for alibis. They do not even ask for alibis. Instead they cut that out and throw accusations around at the debate.

In general more time should have been spent changing the game into an anime. Just because things are in the game does not mean they will cross over well into anime. This show has even been accused of just lifting the cutscenes to make the show. That says something about the effort put into making Danganronpa.