Hope’s Peak Academy is a prestigious school that accepts only the most talented students. In order to become accepted to the school, a student must excel in an area in order to bear a special title. In one particular year, only fifteen students are accepted. However, upon stepping onto the campus, one such student, Super High School-Level Luck student Makoto Naegi collapses. When he awakens, he finds himself and his classmates sealed in the school and told by resident bear and principal Monokuma that if they want to escape, they must kill a classmate and get away with it.

I’ve been told that Danganronpa doesn’t stack up to the original games, but as someone who never played the games, it was pretty awesome. You want more stylish recommendations like Danganronpa? Give these anime recommendations a try.

For Fans of Survival Games

Future Diary

High school student Yukiteru Amano spends his days writing in his cell phone diary, but not about himself, but everything that goes on around him. His only friends are the imaginary god of space and time, Deus ex Machina, and his assistant, Murmer. However, one day he discovers his friends aren’t so imaginary when they imbue his diary with the power to tell the future. Unfortunately, he is thrown into a survival game with other unique dairy users with godhood on the line.

When you think of survival games, you think of Future Diary, and if you liked the brutal deaths and intriguing mystery in Danganronpa, this is a satisfying anime to follow it up with. Both series features a unique bunch of characters, and each with their own reasons for doing whatever horrible things that they do.

Akuma no Riddle

Tokaku Azuma has just transferred to the elite Myoujou Academy. Alongside her other 11 classmates, she is tasked with trying to kill another sweet-natured classmate. The assassin that succeeds is granted their deepest desire, but each assassin only gets one shot. However, when Tokaku develops feelings for the mark, she finds herself taking a different course of action.

Although not quite as satisfying as Danganronpa, Akuma no Riddle is essentially the same show, but with an all-girl cast of characters. While some characters plot their murders, there are always other characters that are actively trying to foil them. Akuma no Riddle is much less stylish, though.

Btooom!

Ryouta Sakamoto is unemployed and lives with his mother. The only redeeming quality this basement dweller has is that he is Japan’s top player of the Btooom video game. However, one day he wakes up on a foreign island with no memory of how he got there and a crystal embedded in his hand. It seems that someone wants him and other players to play Btooom for real.

Both series follow characters that are trapped and force to play a game. In said game, it is either kill or die. However, with Btooom they are on an island so there is a little more room to move around than the school in Danganronpa.

Magical Girl Raising Project

The social game called The Magical Girl Raising Project allows one in ten thousand to become a magical girl, complete with extraordinary physical capabilities, beauty, and a unique power to set each apart. However, when 16 magical girls are present in one district, it is closed off and the administration announces that a culling is required to solve the magical energy problem. At first, the girls race for magical energy, but it soon turns into a twisted blood bath.

New in 2016, Magical Girl Raising Project has proven to be a pretty interesting watch for survival game fans. Like the Hunger Games, but with magical girls instead of stupid actors. Like in Danganronpa, you watch them struggle, you watch them cry, and you watch them do terrible things to each other.

For Fans of Killer Schools

Assassination Classroom

After a mysterious creature turns the moon into a permanent crescent, the students of 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High are confronted with an enormous task – assassinate the creature before the end of the year. However, as the creature they dub Koro-sensei begins to teach their class, they find that he is not only indomitable, but the best teacher they ever had.

At a glance, you would think Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom would be virtually the same show. While they feature a similar school that is aimed towards killing, Danganronpa is mysterious and often serious while Assassination Classroom is dramatic and humorous. Although it is about training assassins, there is very little death unlike in Danganronpa.

Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace

On an otherwise ordinary day, junior high student Yoshio Kobayashi wakes up in his classroom to find his teacher brutally murdered, and he holding the weapon that did it. After the initial shock wears off, Yoshio is secretly thrilled by the attempt to frame him and drags friend into case. Together, they embark on a brilliant mystery to try and prove Yoshio’s innocence.

If the survival game of Danganrona wasn’t your favorite part, but the mystery was, then Rampo Kitan is the perfect follow up. It has its moments of brutality, but mostly it focuses on the protagonist trying desperately to unravel the mystery.

Another

Since an incident in the school’s past, class 3-3 has always been inflicted by a curse. Each year a dead student is present in their class and other students start dying tragically. To combat this, the students have since started pretending one student does not exist for the year. Unfortunately, they did not count on their countermeasures to be unraveled by a new transfer student that is not in the loop.

Unlike in Danganronpa, in Another the kids aren’t trapped in the school, but are tasked with a school-centric mystery. However, after the mystery is spoiled, Another becomes a little lackluster, but still pretty violent. Danganronpa at least keeps you waiting right to the end.

For Fans of Misfits Brought Together by Circumstance

Kiznaiver

Katsuhira Agata is a quiet teen whose ability to feel pain has vanished. One day, he, his friend Chidori, and four other teenagers are abducted and bound together by the Kizuna System. While not physically connected, their pain is. Now if one party member is injured, they all feel it.

The groups in Danganronpa and Kiznaiver are both placed in an obscure predicament and not exactly sure why. In Kiznaiver, they are challenged to endure and survive, while Danganronpa just wants them to kill each other. However, both shows are dramatic, mysterious, and highly stylized.

Angel Beats!

Otonashi wakes up only to learn that he has died. When a girl named Yuri approaches him to explain the situation, she asks him to join her organization, one that wages a war against an unfair god and his minion, Angel. Unable to believe that such a girl is evil, he approaches Angel only to have her kill him for being too literal. Unwillingly, he joins Yuri’s organization to try and figure this afterlife out for himself.

Both series feature kids that are trapped in a school. While Angel Beats gives their characters more free roam, their school also has a series of mysteries that needs to be solved. However, unlike Danganronpa, there is no brutality in Angel Beats. Characters die, but they just come back. Mostly death is used for comedy.

Bokurano

While enjoying summer camp together, 15 children happen upon a man in a cave filled with technology. The man claims to be a game designer and asks them to beta test. Soon after signing the contracts, the children find that they are actually pilots for a giant robot to defend earth from alien invaders. Unfortunately, the man neglected to tell them that they robot’s power source is… Them.

Like watching kids suffer? Both shows are great for watching kids suffer. While Danganronpa is more about solving murder mysteries, Bokurano has one major mystery, but is otherwise about kids solving their various drama before they die pathetically.

Did we miss your favorite anime recommendation to follow up Danganronpa? Tell us about it in the anime section below.