Where’s Admiral Ackbar when you need him?

It’s taking me longer than usual to decide what shows are going to stick around this season – there are just too damn many that are right around my usual cutoff zone, this one included.  In the end I think this will most likely be it for me on the blogging side with Danganronpa, though I do enjoy it to a moderate extent.  But it isn’t anything spectacular, and it isn’t a show that lends itself to easy blogging.  The cycle is already repeating itself and it’s going to do so a good many more times, and you can only describe basically the same event so many times without repeating yourself.

There are the mysteries themselves to discuss, of course, but that’s pretty thin gruel for a weekly blog post.  This week at least I can talk about Fujisaki, a character who struck an off note from the very beginning.  It isn’t often in anime we see girls played by men (Miyata Kouki here) unless we’re looking at a comedy like Shirokuma Cafe (where he played Mama Red Squirrel).  I thought it might just be weird for weirdness’ sake – this show does do that – but filed it away as something to keep an eye on.  The first clue something was up this week was when Fujisaki hesitated when Asahina suggested she (heh) join the girls in the locker room to get ready for a swim.

Pretty much any doubt I had was removed in the investigation after – sadly – Fujisaki is Monokuma’s next victim.  Oh, of course there was a human killer, but they’re all Monokuma’s victims – though if Togami is right and the serial killer “Genocider Syo” is indeed among the students, there’s some pre-fab guilt to go around there, too.  This murder is set up because Monokuma is bored at the students getting along so well (read: not killing each other) and sets them up with some motives – he’ll reveal their most embarrassing secret if someone isn’t offed in 24 hours.  I suspect most of the kids have darker secrets than Naegi’s bedwetting – and in fact if one of them is a serial killer, I’d think that would be a hard secret to top.  The reversed posters in the locker rooms were another clue, but the clincher as far as poor Fujisaki is concerned is when Togami reveals that Genocider Syo’s victims are “always male”.  Presumably when Fujisaki’s body is investigated closely someone is going to be in for a big (or who knows, perhaps not so big) surprise.

My thoughts on the mystery?  Well, I suspect the serial killer thing is probably real, and it’s most likely Fukawa, as her behavior was the most conspicuously suspicious of anyone’s.  But the M.O. of Danganronpa leads me to believe that someone else killed Fujisaki and staged the crime scene so as to make it look like a Genocider Syo murder – which would imply that someone knows the details of Genocider’s crimes.  The only one we know for sure knows those details is Togami, and he certainly seemed anxious to cast the blame on the serial killer – but his being the murderer seems a little too obvious.  I guess it’s sort of a tribute to this series that I even care enough to wonder, given how silly it is and how grossed out I get by the sheer sadism of the premise sometimes – but then, it is an artfully simple premise, and Kishi Seiji is showing some nice stylish touches in adapting it.