Summer gave us not one, but two series of Danganronpa animes.  There was the Future arc (characters above) that focused on the end portion of the overall story line and the Despair arc that focused on how it all began and was more of a prequel to the second Danganronpa game.

Danganronpa started out as a PSP game where you were trapped in a high school and the only way out is to kill another student and not be caught in the class trial.  This was eventually localised and released on the Vita in the west.  Since then, it has also been ported to Steam.  The original anime covered the first games story but didn’t really do it justice.  Not really a surprise when you try and cram a 20 hour game into a 6 hour anime.  Luckily, the Danganronpa 3 anime covers new material.

The Future arc covers another killing game with the cast trying to identify a traitor amongst them while also trying to figure out and end to the wave of Despair.  The Despair arc is centered around the cast of the second game and shows how they got to be friends while Hope’s Peak school slowly turns into chaos and despair.  It’s an interesting approach to try and wrap up all the events of the games, even the characters from Ultra Despair Girls appear but it does falter slightly with the ending.

Danganronpa is all about the story so I’ve not really mentioned it much here.  If you have played the games then its well worth watching to see where it goes.  If you haven’t played the games then chances are you will be rather lost.  Just be ready to hear the word zetsubou over and over again.

New Game is the story of Aoba, who goes to work for a video game company.  Somehow she has landed this job, despite not knowing how to do anything the job requires.  She spends the first few episodes learning from a book.  But as with any cute girls doing cute things series, we are not here for the plot.  Surrounding Aoba is a series of fairly normal people for this kind of show.  Well there is her boss that likes to sleep without her trousers on and one person in the room that prefers to communicate via instant messages.

Its a nice romp through game development with the focus clearly on the personal relationships than any insight into game development.  And because she isn’t in it enough, here is some Hajime.

Also known as Sweetness and Lightning on Crunchyroll.  This is a story of a single parent trying to raise their daughter.  Once realising his daughter Tsumugi (above middle) might not have the best diet, Kohei Inuzuka (above left)tries to vary his cooking skills with the help of one of his students.  Kotori Iida (above left) is the perfect choice as her mother frequently participates in cooking shows on TV.

Together, Kohei and Kotori go through some basic cooking but for me, this wasn’t the strength of the series.  For me, it was all about the relationship between the Dad and the daughter.  In one episode, Tsumugi has a minor tantrum in a shop at the start of an episode and rather than think she’s a bratty kid, I was trying to think to think of a happy solution.  I should point out, this doesn’t happen when I see children normally.

I think this change of focus really helped this series feel fresh to me.  I have watched and will continue to watch shows about giant robots and the like, but a personal story will often stand out.

I’m pretty sure Scott has written about this series before.  Shokugeki no Souma Ni no Sara (Food Wars The Second Plate) carries one where from the first series ended.  More mouth watering meals are made to be judged.  And there is more Nikumi.

If the original series did nothing for you, there is nothing here that will change your mind.  Souma cooks, cooks and cooks some more.  There is an interesting arc towards the end of the series that sends the students to different restaurants so that they will not only get real life experience but they also need to affect the place in a positive way.

How this series doesn’t have a dedicated place in Tokyo to try the food is a surprise.  Probably because its a massive pain to cook gourmet food on that kind of scale.