Why did I not listen to the other negative reviews? I'm going to skip the generic information, Danganronpa is about a death game played by a number of students of a prestigious high school. Yadda Yadda. If you don't know that, I'd probably just stop here and tell you to skip the manga, go play the game, or look for something else. It's just not very good for a variety of reasons that I'll get into with out spoilers, but ultimately the subject isn't really the problem, it's all about the delivery and content. There's two approaches to the manga itself thatdepends on the reader.

The first is by a fan of the original game. I could say that I liked the original game enough. I had complaints but nothing game breakingly bad, and I gave the game a 7/10. The puzzles were mostly good, the gameplay was good, there's an interesting dating sim mechanic, and my only real complaints were there is a character at the end that was very annoying, a few puzzles were annoying, and the summary of each case is completely repetitive in a way that just repeated everything you just did.

Well the good news is that the manga solves all those problems. But also tears down everything GOOD about the games. The obvious change is there's very little if any dating games, and the manga overall is rushed. Actually a big problem is the story is almost the same in the manga and the game...

Which kind of leads us to the other side. The second type of reader who hasn't played the games. In that case, how is the manga if you don't already know the game it's based on.

I already said the Manga is the same as the game, and that's really the problem. Naegi is the main character of both. In the game, everything is focused on him because he's the main character and thus he has to solve all the puzzles, figure out all the clues, and lead the investigations in to the murders.

In the manga it's done in the same way and that means EVERYONE turns to Naegi, even... well a certain spoiler character... because that's how the game did it. In the game this approach works because if Naegi isn't in the room, the player can't see what happens, but in the manga... honestly in the manga, about half the interactions with Naegi should have been split up to other characters because it would have been a better story telling device, and it would be interesting to see each character work out problems on their own.

Instead it's all done EXACTLY The same as Naegi, and as the books proceed it even throws in references to the mini-games of the manga, not "someone says something like that" but "here's a screen just like their version of hangman." It's like they could have seen the problem and ignored it.

The game also helps develop the characters with the "Dating sim" type of gameplay. The manga has none of that so nothing about the characters is illuminated or developed, and the entire manga is sped through in four volumes, the final volume just whipping through case after case.

The thing is, this could have been a chance for a young mangaka to really evolve the story, and art and tell something new that shows his ability to adapt a video game, but instead the manga is the same as a game, either due to the lack of skill of the writer, or requirements by the video game company. Either way the final product really lacks a purpose. If you didn't play the game, play the game. If you did play the game, you already read this story, and if you don't want to play the game... Watch a full playthrough, it'll at least be more entertaining than this because in the game format the main character IS supposed to be driving the story, instead of awkwardly doing it in a manga.