Danganronpa: The Animation – 13 (Fin)

Enoshima Junko exposits at length before the remaining students, revealing that they’ve been at Hope’s Peak Academy for more than two years. A year after they enrolled, a calamity befell the world, which fell into despair. The principal turned the school into a shelter for its students, most of whom died, leaving only the sixteen surviving students, including Junko and her sister, whom she killed out of contempt. Junko announces it’s time to vote: either for her despair or their hope, sweetening the deal by saying they’ll all live if they sacrifice Naegi.

She also says the air in the outside world is contaminated, and if she’s killed, the school’s air purifier will shut down, killing them all. However, armed with “bullets of hope”, Naegi gives uplifting speeches to everyone, and they all end up voting for Junko. She willingly accepts her punishment: a combo of all the previous executions. Naegi uses her controller to open the front door to the school, and everyone steps out into the world. Monokuma reappears in the trial room, still talking and moving despite Junko dying…

Call it hokey if you must, but it turns out this wasn’t a battle between hope and despair, but rather trying to reach a place where both coexist. The high school life of mutual killings was an exercise in despair and despair alone, but Naegi was accepted to the school as almost a fail-safe, in case despair went too far. His hope spread just as readily to his peers (who, as it turns out, were all his friends prior to losing their memories), and the world represents that place where they’ll likely run into both, but that’s life. Unfortunately we don’t see one bit of what becomes of them after stepping outside.

Prior to their escape Junko adopts multiple personas during her long-winded speechifying, but she doesn’t end up saying all much. She paints in very broad strokes that are somewhat dull and unsatisfying, a contrast from the intricate detail the murder trials brought to the table. Maybe she’s being intentionally mysterious…or more likely the series is withholding all the answers for a sequel down the road. But as with Blood Lad, we’re content with just this one season. It was fun, but the lack of a single 8 rating or higher is a sure sign of a series that  never really wowed us.

Rating: 6 (Good)

Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3 – 13 (Fin)

Out of ammo after their last match, the C3 club enters in the 5th Annual “Field Queen Contest” with 16 other hopefuls, to win a year’s supply of BBs. Daishichi gives the play-by-play while Sono gives color commentary. When matches last longer than ten minutes, the winner is chosen by the audience, hence the need for showmanship and flair. Karila makes it to the final after defeating Yura and Aira, while Honoka defeats Rin with psychological warfare. Honoka and Karila’s match goes over ten, and Honoka wins the vote of the people.

With the main story arc all wrapped up last week, this was essentially a bonus episode, with little in the way of lasting impact, but was nevertheless a fun and entertaining end to the show, efficiently utilizing the skills, personalities, and yes, “assets” of both the main and supporting cast. Sure, things got a little corny at times, and we hasten to remark that Yura could easily win with her supernatural powers, but the mood was charmingly chipper and the pace was quick and confident, never bogging down as the pageant bracket filled out.

As an innocuous bonus episode, there was plenty of (very mild) fanservice, a product of the contest being more than just shooting your opponent, but also currying favor with the audience. Rin’s self-introduction in sailor fuku was pretty amusing, as was her ultimate defeat to Honoka after hearing all burdens that will befall her should she win. We were glad Yura and Rin didn’t progress that far, and the spotlight instead fell on her teammates. Honoka was the master strategist right up to the end, keeping Karila at bay while making sure she showed enough skin.

Rating: 6 (Good)

Gatchaman Crowds – 12 (Fin)

O.D. taunts Berg-Katze into coming to the Spiritual Precipice. There, O.D. finally reveals his Gatchaman form and pummels Katze into the ground, retrieving Rui’s note in the process. O.D. returns teh note to Rui. With the increasing chaos, he knows he can’t do anything alone, so he appeals to the world, offering the Crowds ability to anyone who joins the “Tachikawa Crowds Game”, in which good deeds are incentivized. Millions join and have fun helping out in Tachikawa, and the Neo Hundred’s mischief is soon at an end. The Prime Minister decides that everyone should be allowed to keep their Crowds ability.

Rui’s plans to update the world were based on the assumption that mankind is intrinsically good, and that in this age of evolved society, mutual altruism ensures rather than hampers individual survival. But only under certain conditions. In the blaze of fear and distrust Berg-Katze whipped up, a limited number of people with Crowds act for their own interests; they only care about changing the world insofar as they can control it. Berg gave people Crowds believing that if these stupid humans were given too much power, they’d destroy themselves. Rui successfully douses the flames by leveling the playing field in a risky move.

By giving everyone the power of heroes, he risked augmenting the chaos and accelerating the world’s self-destruction as Katze was hoping for. He does so by diffusing the fear and replacing it with hope and fun. Once he gives the initial friendly invitation, mankind essentially sorts everything out, with the now larger mass of balanced, moderate Crowds neutralizing the extremists. Throughout the episode Hajime asked in her singsong way, “what makes a hero?” The positive outcome answered that: once properly motivated and encouraged, heroes make themselves.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Stray Observations:

• Having rallied everyone who needed to be rallied in order to win the day for the good guys, Hajime does very little besides mill around singing; not the usual role of the heroine, but we kinda like it that way.
• Of course, JJ-sama does even less, and doesn’t even seem fazed when Katze crashes in and swipes his scissors.
• It was great seeing Rui cheer up (and return to dressing in drag!) and come out of his shell, charming and entertaining everyone went a long way towards convincing them there was nothing to fear and to participate. 
• Hajime apparently has Katze in her duck backpack and takes him along on a lovely day. He doesn’t seem enthused.

Servant x Service – 13 (Fin)

Hasebe learns that because he had a high fever, his father was preoccupied with him and thus registered Lucy’s ridiculous name. Burdened with this secret and worried Lucy will hate him for his indirect role in her naming, Hasebe and Lucy are awkward all day. Chihaya rubs his nose in it while Ichimiya and Saya try to cheer him up; by the end of the day all of them agree he should tell her the truth as soon as possible. He finally confronts her and tells her, and she doesn’t blame him, and wants him to keep calling her Lucy. She again rejects his call to go out with him, but qualifies it by saying simply “not yet,” and finally gives him her email address.

For thirteen weeks we’ve looked in on the lives of three new civil servants experiencing life in the workplace for the first time, their slightly more experienced supervisor, his not-so-secret girlfriend/co-worker, his irritating but devoted little sister, and the stuffed section chief. When we look back on how we entered their lives and now how we’ve left, it definitely makes the term “slice-of-life”, as this was literally just a thirteen-week slice. But ultimately the focus of these weeks was on the unlikely but burgeoning relationship between the girl with the really long weird hippie name and the guy who falls for her despite himself, and finds out he’s ultimately responsible for that name. Their scenes together have been the highlight of a series that was always consistently pretty good, though never outstanding.

One thing we didn’t like about this series was how much time it devoted to Toko. But when she wasn’t in the picture, we were watching adults taking care of business, but also earnestly (sometimes harshly) reaching out to one another – or at least trying their best to do so. Right up to the end, Lucy proves she’s an adult by shrugging off the truth Hasebe finally reveals to her after much stressing (their awkward exchanges prior to the confession are very well done.) She doesn’t even consider blaming Hasebe for having a fever…because she’s reasonable. We’re also content with her “not yet” answer to Hasebe’s repeated propositioning. It’s just like her to be careful and tentative in an arena in which she’s still very green, but it’s also clear she likes Hasebe, wants to spend time with him, and, after all her bluster about hating her name, likes it when he calls her by it.

Rating:7 (Very Good)