Hope’s Peak Academy is an elite high school where those accepted are given special titles that showcase their skills. This year, only fifteen were accepted, and one of them was the completely normal Makoto Naegi who got in on sheer luck. The students are thrilled to be in such a prestigious school. That is, until they are trapped inside the school by principal and bear Monokuma who tasks them with killing one of their peers and not getting caught by the others in order to escape. However, if they are caught and found guilty in a trial, they will be executed instead.
I’ve been told that Danganronpa doesn’t stack up to the original games, but as someone who never played the games, it was pretty awesome. You want more stylish recommendations like Danganronpa? Give these anime recommendations a try.
Anime Like Danganronpa: The Animation
For Fans of Survival Games
Future Diary
High school student Yukiteru Amano spends his days writing in his cell phone diary, but not about himself, but everything that goes on around him. His only friends are the imaginary god of space and time, Deus ex Machina, and his assistant, Murmer. However, one day he discovers his friends aren’t so imaginary when they imbue his diary with the power to tell the future. Unfortunately, he is thrown into a survival game with other unique dairy users with godhood on the line.
When you think of survival games, you think of Future Diary, and if you liked the brutal deaths and intriguing mystery in Danganronpa, this is a satisfying anime to follow it up with. Both series features a unique bunch of characters, and each with their own reasons for doing whatever horrible things that they do.
Akuma no Riddle
Tokaku Azuma has just transferred to the elite Myoujou Academy. Alongside her other 11 classmates, she is tasked with trying to kill another sweet-natured classmate. The assassin that succeeds is granted their deepest desire, but each assassin only gets one shot. However, when Tokaku develops feelings for the mark, she finds herself taking a different course of action.
Although not quite as satisfying as Danganronpa, Akuma no Riddle is essentially the same show, but with an all-girl cast of characters. While some characters plot their murders, there are always other characters that are actively trying to foil them. Akuma no Riddle is much less stylish, though.
Btooom!
Unemployed and living with his mother, Ryouta Sakamoto’s only real achievement is being the top player in Japan of a video game called Btooom! However, one day he wakes up on an island with nothing but a small green crystal embedded in his hand. He soon finds out that someone wants him and others players to play Btooom! for real if they want to live.
Both series follow characters that are trapped and force to play a game. In said game, it is either kill or die. However, with Btooom they are on an island so there is a little more room to move around than the school in Danganronpa.
Magical Girl Raising Project
The social game called The Magical Girl Raising Project allows one in ten thousand to become a magical girl, complete with extraordinary physical capabilities, beauty, and a unique power to set each apart. However, when 16 magical girls are present in one district, it is closed off and the administration announces that a culling is required to solve the magical energy problem. At first, the girls race for magical energy, but it soon turns into a twisted blood bath.
New in 2016, Magical Girl Raising Project has proven to be a pretty interesting watch for survival game fans. Like the Hunger Games, but with magical girls instead of stupid actors. Like in Danganronpa, you watch them struggle, you watch them cry, and you watch them do terrible things to each other.
For Fans of Killer Schools
Assassination Classroom
After the moon is mysteriously turned into a permanent crescent by an unknown calamity, the students of class 3-E at Kunogigaoka Middle School are presented with a daunting task – Assassinate the creature that blew up half the moon before the year’s end or die when the world is destroyed. The creature in question, dubbed Koro-sensei by his class, is super fast, super strong, and by all respects, indestructible. However, while the students try and learn how to destroy him, they also learn that he is the best teacher that they have ever had.
At a glance, you would think Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom would be virtually the same show. While they feature a similar school that is aimed towards killing, Danganronpa is mysterious and often serious while Assassination Classroom is dramatic and humorous. Although it is about training assassins, there is very little death unlike in Danganronpa.
Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace
On an otherwise ordinary day, junior high student Yoshio Kobayashi wakes up in his classroom to find his teacher brutally murdered, and he holding the weapon that did it. After the initial shock wears off, Yoshio is secretly thrilled by the attempt to frame him and drags friend into case. Together, they embark on a brilliant mystery to try and prove Yoshio’s innocence.
If the survival game of Danganrona wasn’t your favorite part, but the mystery was, then Rampo Kitan is the perfect follow up. It has its moments of brutality, but mostly it focuses on the protagonist trying desperately to unravel the mystery.
Another
Since an incident in the school’s past, class 3-3 has always been inflicted by a curse. Each year a dead student is present in their class and other students start dying tragically. To combat this, the students have since started pretending one student does not exist for the year. Unfortunately, they did not count on their countermeasures to be unraveled by a new transfer student that is not in the loop.
Unlike in Danganronpa, in Another the kids aren’t trapped in the school, but are tasked with a school-centric mystery. However, after the mystery is spoiled, Another becomes a little lackluster, but still pretty violent. Danganronpa at least keeps you waiting right to the end.
For Fans of Misfits Brought Together by Circumstance
Kiznaiver
Katsuhira Agata is a quiet teen whose ability to feel pain has vanished. One day, he, his friend Chidori, and four other teenagers are abducted and bound together by the Kizuna System. While not physically connected, their pain is. Now if one party member is injured, they all feel it.
The groups in Danganronpa and Kiznaiver are both placed in an obscure predicament and not exactly sure why. In Kiznaiver, they are challenged to endure and survive, while Danganronpa just wants them to kill each other. However, both shows are dramatic, mysterious, and highly stylized.
Angel Beats!
Otonashi wakes up only to learn that he has died. When a girl named Yuri approaches him to explain the situation, she asks him to join her organization, one that wages a war against an unfair god and his minion, Angel. Unable to believe that such a girl is evil, he approaches Angel only to have her kill him for being too literal. Unwillingly, he joins Yuri’s organization to try and figure this afterlife out for himself.
Both series feature kids that are trapped in a school. While Angel Beats gives their characters more free roam, their school also has a series of mysteries that needs to be solved. However, unlike Danganronpa, there is no brutality in Angel Beats. Characters die, but they just come back. Mostly death is used for comedy.
Bokurano
While enjoying summer camp together, 15 children happen upon a man in a cave filled with technology. The man claims to be a game designer and asks them to beta test. Soon after signing the contracts, the children find that they are actually pilots for a giant robot to defend earth from alien invaders. Unfortunately, the man neglected to tell them that they robot’s power source is… Them.
Like watching kids suffer? Both shows are great for watching kids suffer. While Danganronpa is more about solving murder mysteries, Bokurano has one major mystery, but is otherwise about kids solving their various drama before they die pathetically.
Did we miss your favorite anime recommendation to follow up Danganronpa? Tell us about it in the anime section below.
