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Before beginning this review I would like to begin with three warnings, to help you appreciate the integrity of the Danganronpa media franchise should you decide to pick up this book:
1. While this review will only cover aspects featured in the first game, the book itself covers both current games which were recently released in Japan under the title Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload. Therefore, picking up this book and reading past the first chapter may result in some spoilers. Just giving you fair warning.
2. Reiterating a point I made in my review of the game itself, the anime in my opinion does not constitute an adequate replacement to playing the video game itself. Pick up Trigger Happy Havoc (Game #1 from NIS America today!) for the full experience.
3. I tried to find the most commonly used title for this book in English… and came up with everything from Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload: Official Book to Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload Cho Koko Kyu no Official Setting Guide to Chou Koukoukyuu no Koushiki Settei Shiryoushuu -Sai Souten-. For your reference the original Japanese title however is ダンガンロンパ1・2 Reload 超高校級の公式設定資料集 -再装填-.
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Danganronpa is a media franchise currently in development by Spike Chunsoft and entails a wide variety of formats, the most prominent being the the video game duo which in Japan recently received a PlayStation Vita port as part of a HD collection. After several years of waiting, international fans finally managed to turn towards Nippon Ichi Software America for an official release.
While only consisting of the first title “Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair“, the game managed to hit store shelves with relatively strong acclaim. In my own review, the first “Platinum” review on The Otaku’s Study, it walked away with an A- grade where I described it as “one of the stronger PS Vita games I have had the pleasure of playing“.
With some shared concepts between both games, 2.5D visuals and an overall visual novel style of delivering dialogue… you might not be expecting much to come out of the series’ official artbook. I was too until the opportunity arose for me to pick up this monstrosity of a design compendium which comes in at a whopping 512 pages (A fact they happy boast on the book’s obi). It has been a while since I have been so excited to receive a video game artbook…. and to date it remains one of the best books in my collection.
Content
Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload: Official Book is split up into a total of four chapters, one being an “artwork” chapter, two dedicated to each of the two games currently released (Trigger Happy Havoc / Goodbye Despair) and another featuring extra content. For the sake of this article I will be ignoring the third chapter, however its general layout and contents are more or less replicated from the second chapter.
The artwork chapter spans approximately 35 pages with a bonus index at the end detailing where each of the artwork has featured. Some of the content is viewable through the in-game gallery and can be unlocked through coins, however presented on these pages are also designs that crossover characters and given a bit more room to shine than the PS Vita screen. While the images may at times be smaller than they could have been (If the producers decided to push the page limits of the book even further), you do get quite a lot of artwork across these pages, including a few double-page spreads.
The most impressive element of this book was the time they spent detailing each of the characters and including all the little titbits you wouldn’t usually expect to see in a book like this. Each character is at the very least dedicated six pages to themselves which includes a double-page spread set out to provide an introduction to the character and concept artwork behind their finalized design, another double-page spread featuring a range of half-body and full-body character portraits used in the game (Showcasing apparel, stance and emotion) and finally another two pages dedicated to “profiling” the character, including annotated “checkpoints” of the characters appearance, annotations of their personal room and more details on the characters themselves.
Do note that all of this is in Japanese, and those who don’t have fluent translation skills may take a while to get through the book. The six-page limit is extended for those who for whatever reason may be considered as more than one person.
In terms of character designs, they also include an additional “Character Design” process that looks into the concept designs for each character initially. Personally in the case of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, I would have been interested to see how the game would have fared with the original details… some looking actually better in my opinion than what ended up in the final product.
Moving on to page 170, readers then enter the “Materials” section of the chapter which is filled to the brim with everything from every piece of CG artwork included in the game, information on alternate executions for each of the characters that were not killed off during the main game, storyboards for particular scenes in the game, full climax scene comics (Major gameplay and storyline spoiler warning attached to them), concept artwork for the different school environment, and more. No page was spared in an attempt to bring as much content as one could imagine into this book… and aside from a few issues that will be discussed in the “Design” section should appeal to most fans.
Despite there being a potential language barrier for international readers (Like most Japanese design compendiums) and a few issues to be mentioned in the “Design” section of this review, there is little negative I can personally say about this chapter. Everything I wanted to know and most likely could possibly want to know about each of the characters and the design process has been included across these two chapters. The biggest positive? Almost everything was well annotated!
The short “Extras” chapter also includes content such as an eight-page interview with the Danganronpa production team, comparisons between characters in terms of height, weight, BMI, chest size, star sign etc. and a mediocre three pages dedicated to the light novel prequel Danganronpa / Zero.
Design
Overall, Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload Official Book turned out to be very well designed for the amount of content they attempted to cram into just 512 pages. Nothing felt that cluttered on the page, layout was generally consistent and the print quality was high and in full-colour.
While mostly positive, there were a few nagging issues that kept the layout of this book from being perfect. Aside from some of the text potentially being too small for the liking of some, with the number of artwork pieces that they have thrown into this one book, the content could have possibly been spread over two books of the same size. That being said, there are already smaller books available for both games on the market, although I do not have them for the sake of comparison.
Final Words
I strongly advise NOT reading half of the book until NIS America manage to publish Danganronpa: Goodbye Despair on the PlayStation Vita later this year to save the full experience for the game. However it is hard not to love this book. Filled from start to finish with artwork, character profiles, annotated concept art and more… Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload Official Book is a fantastic example of what I am looking for in an A-grade design compendium.
Looking to pick yourself up a copy? One of the places that have it in stock (As of this post) is Play-Asia which you can check out HERE.
