Danganronpa: The Animated Series

Based on a popular narrative-driven video game (with various cross-media spin-offs, including comic books and music CDs), this ultra-fast-moving whodunit fantasy anime series is set at Hope's Peak High School, an elite institution where 16 teens from various cliques and demographics (including gender-benders and sexy fan-service types) have just been admitted. But the place turns out to be a high-tech fortress of terror, whose "principal" is embodied by a malevolent robot teddy bear, who explains that the students will be trapped as prisoners for all of their lives. The only way that a pupil will be released is to murder another one and get away with it—leaving the survivors tasked with playing detective to unmask the guilty party, or else. Homicides commence almost immediately—although the violence is rendered in non-realistic fashion (corpses bleed bright lavender rather than red)—and the denouement veers from amped Agatha Christie to apocalypse-tinged sci-fi (think: Hunger Games) with a tongue-in-cheek, sardonic soul. Presenting all 13 episodes from 2014 in a dual-language Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, rated TV-MA, extras include an audio commentary with the English-dub cast. Recommended. (C. Cassady)