Dangan Ronpa Episode 5

Touko what are you ears

It’s basically impossible to write a synopsis for the trial without spoiling the whole case, but seriously, if you’re reading this and havent played/read the game it’s your own fault unless you don’t care. Anyway, it’s already time for the trial part of the murder of Chihiro Fujsaki the Super High School Level Cutie. Things aren’t looking good for the neurotic Touko as it comes to everyone’s attention that the state of Chihiro’s body is almost identical to the MO of the famous serial killer Genocider Syo. And what does this have to do with Touko? She is Genocider Syo, or at least her second personality is, and the only reason she let Togami know this information was because he promised not to tell. The moral of this story is Togami is a jerk.
However, despite the evidence, Syo is nice enough to manifest herself and let everyone know that she isn’t the killer, because she only kills hot guys, and Chihiro isn’t even a guy. ….except actually he is, and that’s the one detail the entire case hinges on, due to gendered changing-room trickery and the location of the body. Well, the important thing is that Syo didn’t know that; she definitely didnt rig up Chihiro’s body to make it look like he was crucified…that was Togami. To make things ‘more interesting’. But he isn’t the killer either.
Luckily for everyone who has to vote on the killer, though, Mondo slips up ridiculously and reveals himself as the culprit. But what exactly drove him to it?

Syo has best expressions, best voice, best everything.

Monobear…

…was there a canon design for little Chihiro? In any case dwaaaaa.

…I still don’t know where this uniform is supposed to be from, but Chihiro’s cute, so whatever.

I need to start by saying that episode 4 irritated me a lot. Chihiro is my favourite character, and chapter 2 is probably my favourite case, but the anime just didn’t do it justice at all. You can’t just cram the whole thing into two episodes and call it a day. Pretty much everything about the characters it involves is glossed over, removing almost all emotional impact. And no one gets screwed over harder than Chihiro, who barely even gets any screen time before he gets killed. Now, the whole circumstances behind his murder revolve around ‘strength’ vs ‘weakness’, which is foreshadowed a lot in a conversation he has with Mondo early in the chapter. (This is where he also mentions wanting to be stronger and work out.) The anime removed this conversation entirely, which means not only was there no interaction between Mondo and Chihiro, there’s no establishment that Chihiro wanted to work out and become stronger. It made the whole case a lot sadder and more emotional when the character Chihiro is shown to look up to is the one to accidentally murder him. Mondo also mentions his brother early in the case, and the importance of a ‘man’s promise’, but this was also removed, so his brother is mentioned for the first time when Monobear says Mondo is the reason said brother died. Which…kind of destroys any of the impact that secret even had if we didn’t even know he had a damn brother until then. I could rant a whole lot more about everything episode 4 did wrong but this is the episode 5 review so I’ll talk about that instead.
Like the last trial episode this one was mostly more of the same – there’s still the ridiculous game mechanics, but this time it goes the extra mile and includes the FLASHING ANAGRAM mini game which is potentially the dumbest thing the anime has done so far. (It’s a short mini game that happens in the trials where you unjumble a key phrase about new evidence in a case. It’s basically just a slightly more innovative way of the ‘select the right answer’ thing that happens frequently in Phoenix Wright (and in Dangan Ronpa too) so to see it happen in the anime was ludicrous. There was literally no reason why Naegi couldn’t have just said ‘Oh, Touko has multiple personalities?’ but no we had to have Naegi unscramble the word in his head first.
The evidence in the trial is also glossed over way too quickly, as is the reveal on Chihiro’s gender. (It’s literally ‘Chihiro is male.’ ‘wwWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!  ok continue’) The whole thing seemed to end far too abruptly, and as dumb as Mondo’s slip-up was in the game, the anime made it seem almost deliberate.
The explanation for Chihiro’s cross-dressing was at least handled decently and not glossed over too much, and they even included some pictures that aren’t in the game of young-Chihiro and sailor fuku-Chihiro, but it kind of falls apart a little when Chihiro saying ‘I want to get stronger and change myself’ is supposed to tie in with the whole thing about working out, given that his entire motivation for working out was to become the ‘strong man’ he was never able to be.
So basically this arc pretty much fudged up the (potentially) touching relationship between Chihiro and Mondo, but I was glad that they included a few things to indicate Mondo actually cared about Chihiro. For example, Togami matter-of-factly explaining that it was him that tampered with the murder scene and ‘crucified’ Chihrio’s body caused Mondo to get really angry to the point of yelling at him. Suffering slightly less in anime transition is the relationship between Ishimaru and Mondo, although shortening the duration of their bond pre-trial really did lessen the impact. But when Ishimaru starts screaming and crying over Mondo as he prepares to go to his death…damn. That really hurt. At least some of the emotion in this case was preserved – and I really like that they actually made Ishimaru run around to Mondo and Monobear.
I’m glad that, despite everything, the vocal cast is still amazing. And speaking of which, Syo’s entire scene is so damn good it almost, almost makes up for everything else.
I kind of hope the next case doesn’t have the same pace as this one did, not just because there’s more details I don’t want to be just glossed over again but also because I hope I don’t have to review another damn trial episode. I’m not going to end up with all the trial episodes am I?

Let’s just include as many Chihiros as possible.

‘Look, Oowada-kun! If I can make my head this big, imagine how big I can make my muscles!’

Ishimaruuu :c

Farewell, aniki…

Out of 5,
1/2