“Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc” will no doubt please the fans of the video games or those curious of jumping into the anime series, so they can enjoy the video games. Dark, twisted, violent but consistent with the video games, this anime series on Blu-ray and DVD is recommended!
Image courtesy of © Funimation. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc
DURATION: 300 Minutes
BLU-RAY INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition (16×9), Dolby TrueHD English 5.1, Dolby TrueHD Japanese 2.0
COMPANY: Funimation
RATED: TV MA
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Chief Director: Seiji Kishi
Directed by Daisei Fukuoka
Series Composition: Norimitsu Kaiho
Music by Masafumi Takada
Character Design: Kazuaki Morita
Art Director: Eiji Wakamatsu
Producer: Yoshinori Terasawa
Anime Production: Lerche
Featuring the following voice talent:
Mai Nakahara/Colleen Clinkenbeard as Chisa Yukizome
Minami Takayama/Johnny Yong Bosch as Hajime Hinata/Izuru Kamukura
Ai Kayano/Stephanie Sheh as Mikan Tsumiki
Ami Koshimizu/Brina Palencia as Ibuki Mioda
Daisuke Kishio/Aaron Dismuke as Fuyuhiko Kuzuryū
Hiroki Yasumot/Patrick Seitz o as Nekomaru Nidai
Jun Fukuyama/Todd Haberkorn as Teruteru Hanamura
Kana Hanazawa/Christine Marie Cabanos as Chiaki Nanami
Kanata HongÅ/Justin Briner as RyÅta Mitarai
Kotono Mitsuishi/Clarine Harp as Peko Pekoyama
Megumi Ogata/Bryce Papenbrook as Nagito Komaeda
Miho Arakawa/Natalie Hoover as Sonia Nevermind
Romi Park/Morgan Garrett as Akane Owari
Suzuko Mimori/Kira Buckland as Hiyoko Saionji
Tomokazu Sugita/Scott Frerichs as Tanaka the Forbidden
Yoshimasa Hosoya/Kyle Hebert as Kazuichi SÅda
Yu Kobayashi/Carrie Keranen as Mahiru Koizumi
Hope’s Peak High School is a special school that nurtures those with exceptional talents and abilities. While only top students are a part of the main course, anyone can join the preparatory course, like Hajime Hinata has. Hinata wants nothing more than to be part of the talented elite, but his desires lead him to a fateful encounter that drives the future of the school into despair.
The video game franchise “Danganronpa” was no doubt surprising and entertaining but in its unique way, dark and violent.
Created by Spike Chunsoft and released for the Playstation Portable, Playstation Vita and other platforms, the adventure visual novel video game “Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc” was first released on the PSP in 2010. Followed by “Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair” which followed in 2013 on the PS Vita. And in 2017, “Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony” was released on the Vita.
And in 2016, two concurrent anime series were produced by Lerche was created, and would serve as the conclusion to the “Hope’s Peak Academy” saga.
One is titled “Danganronpa 3: Future Arc” which takes place after the events of the video game “Danganronpa 2”, while “Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc” takes place prior to the events of the first game and what happened to Hajime Hinata and the cast of “Danganronpa 2” prior to the tragedy that changed the world.
And both are available on Blu-ray + DVD courtesy of Funimation.
“Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc” begins with Chisa Yukizome being assigned as an assistant home room teacher of Hope Peak Academy’s 77th class. And she finds it difficult to get her students to attend class and she is often going around the school and bring them back to the classroom. But as Chisa is a teacher, she is also a spy for her friend Kyosuke.
We are introduced to Hajime Hinata, a student from the Hope Peak’s Reserve Course and one of the first people he makes friends with is a gamer named Chiaki Nanami.
Meanwhile, two deaths happened on campus and the higher-ups are covering the deaths up.
As Chisa tries to keep the class together, certain students have other things in mind and as for Hajime, what happens when he goes through a project known as Kamakura Project in which his original personality is removed form his body and is infused with many talents.
Meanwhile, two new students plan to join Hope’s Peak as part of the 78th class, Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba.
VIDEO:
“Fate/Grand Order First Order” is presented in 1080p High Definition (16 x 9). Colors are vibrant and backgrounds are well-done, characters are well-shaded and for the most part, the anime series looks fantastic in HD! I didn’t notice any major banding issues or artifacts.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Fate/Grand Order First Order” is presented in Linear PCM English and Japanese 2.0. The anime is well-acted both in Japanese and English. Dialogue and music is crystal clear through the front channels.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc” comes with the following special features:
- Episode 7 Audio Commentary – An audio commentary featuring Christian Lamont (ADR Director) with Christine Marie Cabanos.
- Episode 10 Video Commentary – (23:52) An video commentary featuring Christopher Bevins (co-ADR Director), Christian Lamont (co-ADR Director) and Natalie Hoover.
- Textless Opening and Closing songs
When I first played a “Danganronpa” game, I thought it was fascinating and fun as it incorporated characters with different personalities. That is until we saw a killer bear named Monokuma with it’s half divide image of white and evil black and big belly button.
But what hits you is the savage deaths of each individual and how people end up getting killed.
It was revealed in “Danganronpa 3” that the person responsible for the deaths is Junko Enoshima, the founder of the terrorist organization, Ultimate Despair and is the True Ultimate Despair.
And here we are now with two anime series from Lerche, “Future Arc” and “Despair”.
With “Despair”, it’s a bit different from the video games in which people were stuck in rooms and were limited to areas they had to live in and everyone being suspicious of each other, as each person had a motive to kill.
But with “Despair Arc”, it seems like a normal school setting at Hope Peak Academy. You have a cool and caring teacher named Chisa Yukizome and students who are different but many who are just normal students. But this is just appearances as things changes and people start to die. And for student Hajime Hinata, he wants to seek the truth.
By episode 5, things change when Junko Enoshima and her sister Mukuro Ikusaba enroll at Hope’s Peak for the new school year and Hajime undergoes testing for the Kamakura Project. His personality removed and his body infused with every know talent and now goes under the persona, Izuru Kamakura.
As Junko starts to see animator Ryota working on an anime that can utilize subliminal messaging to prompt emotions with viewers, she starts to leak information about experiments and murders to the Reserve Course students and then, leading Ryota to watch a grizzly video of student’s killing each other. And then Juno telling him that she will be combining his anime with the video to brainwash people and sending them into despair and will subject his classmates to another killing game if he refuses to cooperate.
The series no doubt sets up a chain of events but seeing how far Junko will go to spread despair among everyone in the world and cause self-destructive anarchy. And watching the events that would lead to “The Tragedy”.
For the most part, “Danganronpa” fans will enjoy the storyline as people gain more insight to how devious, cold and calculating Junko Enoshima is. From the first game, many thought she would be just a tragic statistic but the anime series helps put the storyline into perspective. She’s no doubt a person of true evil and while I would like to say “Danganronpa” is a series that may have hope similar to a story like “Battle Royale” where violence and students dying became common place. But at least “Battle Royale” provided viewers/readers with a glimmer of hope.
“Danganronpa” video games and even the anime series may have given some semblance in hope but in truth, with the popularity of the video games and there is money to be made, I don’t see any end for Ultimate Despair, nor do I see Junko Enoshima going anywhere anytime soon. She’s no doubt one of the more memorable female antagonists in an anime series and who is any close to defeating her and her terrorist organization? That remains to be seen.
As for the anime series, the series is absolutely vibrant for a TV series and the character designs very much respects the original character design and art direction of the video games. Lossless audio features crystal clear dialogue, music and also sound effects through the surround channel. English soundtrack gets a slight nod for its 5.1 soundtrack, as opposed to the Japanese stereo lossless soundtrack. But with that being said, both are well-acted and fans of the video games should be thrilled with this anime series. And as for special features, you get an audio and video commentary.
Overall, “Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc” will no doubt please the fans of the video games or those curious of jumping into the anime series, so they can enjoy the video games. Dark, twisted, violent but consistent with the video games, this anime series on Blu-ray and DVD is recommended!
