Danganronpa

There have been a lot of attempts at capturing the surprise success of the series Battle Royale from Japan, a story set in a (somewhat) dystopian future where students are selected to battle each other to the death for the "entertainment" of the masses.  It's actually a cautionary tale about overpopulation, and the lengths a government might need to go to in order to keep the population from growing too quickly.

There have been a lot of similar stories that have emerged in the last few years, not the least of which is The Hunger Games.  Now, I can't say for sure whether or not the person who wrote this series ever heard of Battle Royale (and Steven King seems convinced it's actually a The Running Man knock off), but I can say that The Hunger Games has inspired his own massive flood of knock-offs and imitations.  Everything from The Maze Runner, the Divergent series, Slashers, and- wait, hold on, I think my timeline got messed up in there somehow.

But while you can shift the world setting and mix up some of the characters and genders, in the end it always feels like you have a bunch of young people being killed off for the amusement of older people, and I still maintain that The Cabin In The Woods messed around with that idea the best.

At least when it comes to movies.

Enter Dangan Ronpa (also known as Trigger Happy Havoc), a game so amazingly good that several months later I finished the sequel and I'm still thinking about the original.