Are you ready to dive into the world of murderous robot bears, hope vs despair and high school kids with so much luck it’s almost unbelievable? Well, it’s time for your integration into the world of Danganronpa. The killing game awaits you.
Of course, Danganronpa is a pretty extensive series, spanning games, anime, manga and more. For this reason, it can often be somewhat challenging to know where to start with this fantastic, yet somewhat complicated series.
Thankfully, we’re experts here, and we will show you the way. For this guide, we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of Danganronpa and the correct viewing order to follow so that you can get the best experience out of this Spike Chunsoft classic.
What Is Danganronpa?
In case you’re not sure what Danganronpa is, let us enlighten you. Danganronpa follows 15 high school students as they begin their education in the illustrious Hope’s Peak Academy, a school for gifted students known as ‘Ultimates’ or ‘Super High School Level.’
Here there are students with a wide range of different talents, including the Ultimate Gambler, the Ultimate Gymnast, The Ultimate Clairvoyant and more. It also features the Ultimate Lucky Student, Makoto Naegi - the protagonist of the first game and series of the anime.
These high school students are shocked when they’re met with a robotic teddy bear (who declares he is NOT a teddy bear) by the name of Monokuma who tells them that their only way of getting out of the school is to kill their fellow classmates - the Killing Game has begun.
This is the basic premise, though the anime often deviates into other events that border on spoiler territory, so we won’t go into that! Instead, we’re going to dive into the contents of this series, and our recommended viewing order.
The Entire Danganronpa Canon
The Danganronpa Canon is a pretty large one. For the sake of this article, we’re going to talk about the Danganronpa Canon in isolation from the manga - this list would simply be too long otherwise.
We will indicate which ones are the games and which ones are the anime too, for your convenience.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Game)
Danganronpa: The Animation
Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Game)
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Game)
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Future Arc
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Despair Arc
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Hope Arc
Super Danganronpa 2.5: Nagito Komaeda and the Destroyer of the World
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Game)
The Games
So now that you know about everything in the series, what else do you need to know before you get started?
Well, the series consists of 4 main games
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Game)
Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Game)
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Game)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Game)
Danganronpa: The Animation follows the events of THH, the first game.
If you want to watch that instead of playing the game then you’ll get a general idea of the plot, though you’ll be missing certain things in regards to character development since it’s a 50+ hour game being condensed into a significantly shorter anime.
Honestly? If you’re going to go through the Danganronpa series, we highly recommend playing it along with the games. This is because there will be certain things in parts of the anime that simply will not make sense if you watch only the anime.
Not only that, but if you start the Danganronpa 3 anime before you dive into the entire series of games, you’ll find that Danganronpa 2 and Ultra Despair Girls are majorly spoiled for you, which may take away from some of the enjoyment.
The series is best experienced alongside the games - there are always Steam sales for the games too, so you should have no problem getting it for an affordable price! Alternatively, there are plenty of Let’s Plays on YouTube, so you can just watch the play throughs for free.
If you simply do not want to play all of the games - which does make sense, since there is a lot to go through - you can watch Danganronpa: The Animation and then skip ahead to Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair instead of playing the first game.
This is arguably the game that has the single biggest impact on the plot of Danganronpa 3, and you won’t have a clue what’s happening in the anime if you don’t watch it.
The final game on the list, V3, technically has no relation to any of the previous Danganronpa canon. It’s a fun game, but if you don’t want to play it then you aren’t missing out on anything related to the main plot.
Viewing Order: Anime Only
Danganronpa: The Animation
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Future Arc
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Despair Arc
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak - Hope Arc
Super Danganronpa 2.5: Nagito Komaeda and the Destroyer of the World
It’s worth mentioning that there’s a bit of debate about how you should watch the Danganronpa 3 anime. In theory, you could just watch it in the order of Future, Despair, and Hope arc.
Of course, the episodes weren’t actually released in this order initially, and it is believed by some fans that you will get a better experience by watching the episodes in order of release.
In this case, it would be Future Arc - Episode 1, Despair Arc - Episode 1, and so on until you reach the end of the series. The Hope Arc will always be the final episode that you need to watch, however.
Viewing Order: Games And Anime - The Recommended Route
So, what do we suggest? Well, the chronological order listing of the entire canon above is the best order to experience this series in.
Theoretically you could skip the first anime if you play Trigger Happy Havoc - that one is just for fun if you’ve played the games! Otherwise, it’s best to enjoy the series with all of the media - games and anime.
Conclusion
Danganronpa is a great series to watch that has intrigue, suspense and heartfelt moments - along with some comedy! By experiencing the series in the order recommended above, you are sure to get the most out of it.
