Danganronpa – 08

Keeping things classy.

Next episode. The next episode I’ll definitely show the picture of non-buff Sakura for those of you who haven’t seen it already. As for this episode, there’s more mystery, but I really miss the character development that this show had before. You’d think that with less than half of the characters remaining, they could do that.

I’m not sure how much I should talk about this because I’m afraid I’m going to give something away, but the mystery of the school gets more and more… mysterious. First there was the room’s files disappearing, and now there’s another picture with Maizono, Celes and Yamada all hanging out together. It’s a shame that they didn’t find it before Celes and Yamada died, since it would have been interesting to hear what they would have said and Alter Ego probably could have shown everyone the picture with them around if Celes had held off on her murder plans for (maybe) a day or so. And now there’s also the fact that this students in lockdown thing has been in plan for a long time despite Naegi and Kirigiri never hearing about it. Though maybe that was a given seeing how well effectively the students have been locked in there. Things like that don’t happen overnight. It’s also suspicious that they never heard of The World’s Most Despair-Inducing Event (or whatever title you want to call it). You’d think that they would have heard about something that big.

Well, everyone else seems to be kind of shafted, but at least we’re getting a better look at Kirigiri’s character now. Obviously she’s pretty abnormal (even among these students) since she said straight out this episode that she’s seen a lot of corpses. She also has trust issues, though her issues with Naegi withholding information here didn’t seem as bad as they were in the game. That was probably a time constraint more than anything though. Anyways, Naegi probably should have told someone about Sakura regardless, since that might have saved Sakura’s life. …Or at least made people a bit less suspicious. Er, Togami and Fukawa were probably a lost cause, but Haragakure might have listened. Just wait until the trial reveals everything. How Sakura spent her last moments is pretty heartbreaking.

…Well, that was kind of anti climactic. Yes, Sakura was the mole. However, she was still a victim here since like Naegi overheard, Monokuma was holding hostages against her. They’ll probably go into that the next episode. Other than that reason, Sakura would have never agreed with Monokuma, since she was the stereotypical honourable marital artist-type. Kind of like how she got angry over Fukawa attacking Asahina instead of her directly, Sakura hated underhanded tactics. Er, maybe that’s not the best example, but Sakura was a straightforward and honest person. I don’t know how well the anime portrayed that to people who haven’t played the games, and I really wish they had given her more lines or something (though maybe that would have seemed forced, since Sakura wasn’t really the talkative type in the first place). She also had the most adorable friendship ever with Asahina that the anime seems to have shafted (though it did show them hanging out together as far back as Maizono’s attempted murder). At least Togami is acting like the asshat I remember him being in the games. So, who killed Sakura?

Hmm, this seemed kind of slow compared to the last couple “in-between” episodes, but seeing how much they uncovered for the overall plot, maybe this is just me. Plus after all of the confusion that happened with the moving bodies from the last murder, of course this felt slow. In any case, it’s sad seeing Sakura go. I was always fond of her character (though not as much as Fukawa and Mastermind-san of course) since she looked the most threatening, but was the least likely to actually murder anyone (if not for the mole thing). Plus the image gap between her appearance and name was just brilliant. Monokuma did well in picking her of all people to be a potential killer though. If she was serious about it, she could have taken out any of the characters there by her muscles alone. Obviously if she was just killing to get the murders started, there would be no need for subtlety (plus I don’t think Sakura would have killed to win). So the next mystery to solve is a closed room murder… which I guess is just as exciting as a double murder in a way. I remember this trial being a bit different from the others for multiple reasons. …Though really, all of the trials from Celes-onward are a bit different than the first ones were.

This is just getting depressing.

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.