Danganronpa (video game)



Danganronpa : The Academy of Hope and the High School Students of Despair, localized as Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, is a "high-speed mystery action adventure" released in Japan for the PSP back in 2010, the first installment in the Danganronpa series. The game was ported to the PS Vita in October 2013, and this version was localized in English in February 2014. This translation was released on Steam in 2016. It combines mystery-solving with elements of shooting and even rhythm gameplay.

The story takes place at Hope's Peak Academy, an illustrious private school that only accepts "super" students: the best of the best of the best. The criteria extends to any niche, so in addition to super-geniuses and super-athletes, they take super-idols, gang leaders, and geeks. Makoto Naegi, the protagonist, is still baffled as to how he got in, as his only outstanding trait seems to be his super "good" luck - and that's only because he was randomly chosen to be accepted by the school. In fact, he hasn't even started his first day of school when he suddenly loses consciousness and wakes up in a creepy alternate version of the academy.

It's soon revealed that Naegi and fourteen other new students have all been abducted by a sadistic teddy bear named Monokuma, who refuses to let them leave. The only way out of the locked-down dark school is to graduate...by killing another student. Once a murder is committed, Monokuma holds a trial so that the class can try to figure out which one of them is the culprit, culminating in a vote. If they make the right choice, the murderer will be messily executed. Make the wrong choice, and not only does the murderer escape, but the rest of them will take the punishment in their place...

As Monokuma, hungry for a spectacle, introduces "motives" for them to kill, tension builds in the school, and it isn't long until the students begin to snap. It's up to Naegi to make sure that the culprit of each murder is found so that the rest of them can try to escape.

""...This is where my flashback ends." "Who are you talking to?" "You wouldn't understand...""
 * 2½D: The player can pan around the environment, but the characters and props are all paper cutouts. It is even possible to pan around said paper cutouts.
 * Academy of Adventure: Not the fun kind of adventure, but Hope's Peak definitely qualifies.
 * Added Alliterative Appeal: Alliteration is less of a thing in Japanese, but the "biggest, most tragic, most awful event in human history" that kicks off the backstory is called Jinrui shijō saidai saiaku no zetsubō-teki jiken in the Japanese games — it doesn't look alliterative to an English speaker, but each word starts with a kana from the sa line. Project Zetsubou's fan translation keeps it up by translating it as "Mankind’s Most Despairingly Maleficent and Monstrous Malefaction".
 * After the End: According to the mastermind, the world as the students knew it no longer exists due to "the Worst, Most Despairing Event in the History of Mankind." Genocide Jill confirms it to be true, but the full extent of the damage done is left ambiguous.
 * Alas, Poor Villain: At the end of every trial except for the last two. The culprits are treated sympathetically, and only killed because Monokuma's motivations drove them to. The later revelation that the students' memories had been tampered with, and that they all chose to stay inside the school, may or may not add to the sympathy.
 * Mukuro Ikusaba is a retroactive example. Sure, she's one of the people behind the killing game, but it's easy to feel bad for her after it's revealed that her own sister, whom she was slavishly devoted to, killed her and gushed about how betrayed she must have felt in her last moments. Even the other students are horrified by the cruel nature of it once they find out.
 * Alien Geometries: In a level design sense. Somehow the swimming pool on the second floor occupies the same space as the multi-story gym on the first floor.
 * All Crimes Are Equal: In Hope's Peak, sleeping in class, stepping on the headmaster's face and murder all carry the same punishment.
 * All for Nothing: Everyone who either committed or planned a murder (except for the mastermind) did it for a reason that the final revelations of the game prove to be completely pointless.
 * An example: Mondo snaps in the second chapter in part because of Monokuma's threat to reveal to the world that he caused his brother's death. It comes out anyway in the trial, and then it turns out the whole thing was on national television.
 * All Your Powers Combined: A hilarious yet brutal example — when Junko loses Chapter 6's trial, she receives all the previous executions in a row as punishment.
 * Makoto's skill points could be interpreted this way, with him gaining traits from his friends after spending enough time with them to use later in trials.
 * Always Check Behind the Chair: Monokuma Coins, which can be exchanged for gifts for the other students, are often hidden behind objects in the background.
 * Animation Bump: Of a sort. The Trial scenes have more dynamic cameras and full voice acting.
 * Anti-Frustration Features: Getting the Bad Ending kicks the player right back to the multiple choice option that triggers it so that they don't have to sit through the entire trial again to get to that point.
 * Anyone Can Die: For the record, counting Toko and Jill as different characters, seven characters survive.
 * Arc Words: "Despair", as Monokuma's goal, is mentioned many times through the game, and to a lesser extent "hope". It even shows up in Junko and Makoto's talents.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Junko's "offer" to Makoto if he joins Ultimate Despair is "honor, status, and some of our home cooking!"
 * Big Brother Is Watching: Monokuma has monitors and cameras installed throughout the building, except in certain places such as bathrooms, notably the public bath.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Alter Ego at the end of Chapter 5, showing up just in time to stop Makoto from being executed.
 * Bizarrchitecture: The windows in the student's dorm rooms have plates bolted onto the sides behind the customary bed, despite this basically meaning there were once windows there designed to look into the next person's room.
 * If the hatch in her Monokuma control room is Junko's only means of getting meals, the building's layout implies that she would more likely get plopped into the third floor's hallway while being nowhere near the cafeteria.
 * Black Blood: Or pink blood, in this case, as a form of censorship due to the Japanese game-rating systems. Dialog indicates that it's actually red in-universe.
 * Black Comedy:
 * Junko keeps up a cheery attitude during her execution, coupled with her methods of avoiding death, at least until the very end.
 * The executions in general. Just because someone's getting brutally and horribly murdered, doesn't mean Monokuma won't try to inject some comedy into it.
 * Bland-Name Product: Averted. The localization mentions real products a few times, such as Genocider Syo/Genocide Jill comparing the state of the victim to an Italian restaurant serving Ragu or Chef Boyardee. Leon in School Mode even mentions that he's a fan of Pepsi.
 * Blue with Shock: The art style uses this for the sprites that depict characters in shock, fear, despair or similar.
 * Body of the Week: The only way out of the school is committing a perfect murder — obviously, someone's going to wind up dead in every chapter. This is subverted in Chapter 5, as an older body is used to fake the crime scene.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Monokuma offhandedly mentions that one of the flowers in the school greenhouse, the "Monokuma Flower" that he named after himself, eats "garbage and plastic and human flesh." It's fantastic for the environment!
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Monokuma starts expositing on the backstories of the culprit and victim in Chapter 2, he says to hold O (or Ctrl in the PC version) to skip in case the player doesn't want to hear all this. Oddly enough, this is the first and only time this ability is mentioned, despite the fact that the tutorials tell the player to press triangle to Re:ACT to certain phrases, even though the button prompt appears regardless.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: Monokuma abandons the stick for the third "motive" and instead gives a carrot of ten billion yen to any student who "graduates".
 * Chekhov's Gun: If you spend time with Chihiro, the topic of Artificial Intelligence comes up.
 * Most cases have important evidence that's introduced well before the murder actually takes place, or may still seem irrelevant until the trial is underway. An example of this is.
 * There is an empty seat in the trial room. When asked about it, Monobear says that the room was built with a capacity of sixteen people and that there's no further meaning to it.
 * Chekhov's Lecture: Some of the "Monokuma Theatre" segments foreshadow future events. One example is his lecture about the difference between "I killed someone" and "I ended up killing someone" — later, somebody is murdered, not out of intention, but out of a loss of control on the culprit's part.
 * Closed Circle: All of the doors and windows in the academy are covered with steel bulkheads, and the school greenhouse has a painted blue sky over top.
 * Collective Identity: The "Ultimate Despair" identity, or more accurately an ideology or concept, as described by the mastermind.
 * Conveniently Seated: The trial room placement has potential to spoil who survives. Like a protagonist, Makoto stares directly across from the empty seat that Junko would eventually take, Aoi and Yasuhiro border the same spot while Kyoko and Byakuya are respectively two spots away from them. Toko spoils the symmetry.
 * The Corpse Stops Here: Most of the students have a tendency to leap to conclusions. The murderers may do it as an intentional gamble to make students convict the wrong person. Fortunately, Makoto is usually able to spot this and avoid it.
 * Crapsack World: The results of the Despairing Incident. Monokuma faces are everywhere, buildings are razed, and people on the streets are beating and killing each other in the name of despair.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death
 * Dark Reprise/Reprise Medley: The music for the first two executions, "Space Journey" and Leon's, feature similar thematic elements to Monokuma's theme. Junko's execution theme seems to remix elements of nearly all the execution themes as well.
 * Dark Secret: One of Monokuma's motives has him pass out cards to everyone with one of their biggest secrets written on it. He claims that if someone isn't murdered before 24 hours pass, he'll reveal these to the outside world. Only four of the dark secrets are revealed: Makoto's — because he's the player character — where he used to wet the bed until 5th grade. Chihiro's dark secret comes out during the investigation; Chihiro is actually a boy wearing girl's clothing, in a misguided event to not be seen as weak. After Mondo is revealed as the culprit, Monokuma reveals Mondo's secret for him: Mondo got his own big brother Daiya killed accidentally, and spread a lie saying his big brother got himself killed. Finally, Byakuya reveals during the trial that Toko's secret is her secondary personality: Genocide Jack.
 * Deadly Game: The School Life of Mutual Killing, which sets the formula for each installment in the franchise.
 * Deadly Graduation: The final ingredient in the despair the game is meant to inflict.
 * Involuntary Battle to the Death
 * Win Your Freedom
 * Death by Ambulance: At the end of the third trial, the killer is apparently set to be burned at the stake — only for a fire truck to barrel onto the scene, running over the guilty party.
 * Despair Event Horizon: Monokuma's stated objective is to bring despair. If the students don't start killing each other, he'll just keep pressing buttons until someone's pushed to the point where they murder.
 * Despair Gambit: Monokuma/Junko's goal extends to the entire world: he broadcasts the footage of the world's best-of-the-best students murdering each other, to tear at the last shreds of hope left in the world after the Despairing Incident. This is inadvertently what screws Junko over in the end.
 * Detectives Follow Footprints: The notion of following footprints was brought up in the fourth case, and it actually gets used to disprove someone's involvement as the culprit.
 * Didn't See That Coming: The completely-destroyed Alter Ego saving Makoto's life at the last second during his execution, via a virus he implanted in the network. Kyoko lampshades this, stating that Monokuma could never have foreseen a being coming to their aid even after he'd killed it.
 * Do Not Adjust Your Set: The footage from the omnipresent security cameras is being broadcast nationwide as propaganda for the mastermind.
 * Dramatic Irony: Unlike the viewers, Makoto never actually got a look at the one who attacked him in the secret room at the end of Chapter 3, and so had no way of connecting that incident to the masked assailant who nearly stabbed him in the middle of Chapter 5.
 * Dutch Angle: Several times in trial, especially during Non-Stop Debates, the camera will show the characters from an inclined perspective.
 * Easter Egg: The last gift the player receives for finishing the game — a literal "Easter Egg", styled like Monokuma. If the player has Makoto use it on the gift machine, it nets another item, an "Escape Switch", which unlocks a bonus movie clip of everyone escaping from the school. The Escape Switch is later used in IF as an important plot point, as Makoto obtaining it is what sets off the major change in events.
 * Elaborate University High: Implied with regards to the Academy, as shown by the top-secret documents hidden in the library.
 * Empty Chair Memorial: The court room has a seat for every student — plus one, due to the court room being built for sixteen — and whenever a student dies, Monokuma puts up a portrait in their place.
 * Everyone Is a Suspect: Everyone except for Makoto and Kyoko is suspected of killing Sakura in Chapter 4. There were multiple attempts on her life, and at least three people confessed to having done it.
 * Evidence Scavenger Hunt: Before each trial, Makoto needs to gather evidence in the form of "evidence bullets" in order to find the true culprit.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Electronic Student ID Card.
 * Exact Words: Monokuma's rules all have loopholes in the wording. For instance, students aren't allowed to sleep anywhere but the dorm rooms - but they also don't have to sleep in their room specifically, and.
 * Fiery Coverup: Chapter 5's murderer plants a bomb on the corpse in order to conceal the identity of the victim.
 * Fission Mailed: Get the Bad Ending in Chapter 5, and the player gets thrown back to the key decision before the execution is performed. However, if the player makes the right choice, Monokuma will cut the trial short and pin the crime on Makoto. Fortunately, he survives due to Alter Ego's intervention.
 * Foe Yay: In-universe, Jill seems to see this between Aoi and Byakuya.
 * Mukuro Ikusaba — one of the masterminds of the killing game, and member of the Ultimate Despair — is one of Makoto's potential love interests in School Mode.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: One of the gifts is a doll... that vibrates. Funnily enough, no one but Genocide Jack likes it.
 * Gilded Cage:
 * Hope's Peak Academy isn't half-bad. Unfortunately, nobody's allowed to leave unless they commit murder and get away with it.
 * There are hints prior to the final chapter, which outright confirms it, that the students agreed to stay in the school, possibly for the rest of their lives, until a certain calamity had passed.
 * The Bad Ending: the remaining students (Makoto, Byakuya, Yasuhiro, Aoi, and a recently deceased Toko) have grown into adults, and they're still locked inside the school, alongside their children, who will never leave either.
 * Gratuitous English: In the original version of the game, the title card for each execution is labeled with a Japanese title and an English subtitle. The translation isn't always exact; for example, "Thousand Knocks" becomes "Million Fungous."
 * Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Chapter 5's trial is deliberately set up to frame someone, and due to the lack of enough information as well as Monokuma's meddling, cannot be properly solved until Chapter 6. The only way to "win" it is by choosing not to expose the intended frame, Kyoko, at a critical juncture, because of which Makoto ends up taking the fall for the murder. However, Alter Ego saves him from being executed. In the Bad Ending, where Makoto does expose Kyoko, she isn't so lucky.
 * Hidden in Plain Sight: Alter Ego's disappearance from the locker room kicks off the murders in Chapter 3. It turns out that Celeste simply shut him in a different locker and told him to keep quiet.
 * High-Pressure Emotion: Red is often used for angry poses.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: Whenever the player maxes friendship with another student, they obtain a special skill from them somehow related to their talent. If the student turns out to be a murderer later on in the story, the player can use the skills they acquired in the trial to help him expose them as the killer.
 * Hope Springs Eternal: Pretty much the game's theme.
 * Idiot Ball: Makoto and Kyoko leave Alter Ego — their most important weapon, which they needed to keep secret to the mastermind at all costs — out in the open in a place where Makoto was previously attacked.
 * Idiot Hair: Makoto, Yasuhiro and Hifumi.
 * I Have Your Wife: Monokuma's first motive — he gives everyone a DVD that implies horrible things will happen to the friends/family they care about the most, such as Makoto's family supposedly being attacked and killed. Given what we learn in the final trial, it's implied to be true.
 * I Never Said It Was Poison:
 * Mondo mentions the color of Chihiro's sports clothing, in a situation where only the murderer would be able to view it.
 * In chapter 3, Celeste says that "We are going to die just like those guys" before the second murder victim was found.
 * Byakuya, though not a culprit, also gets a chomp from this in Chapter 2, as once a murder is announced, he makes a beeline for Chihiro's body, where he posed it in the girls' changing room.
 * Infinite Supplies: Monokuma explains at the start of the game that the students' needs will all be taken care of during their stay and later explains to Maizono (Fujisaki in the anime) that the cafeteria's refrigerator gets restocked every single day.
 * Informed Ability: Most of the students don't get to use their talents because of the situation they're in.
 * Ironic Echo: Sayuka likes to say exactly what Makoto is thinking, then claim she can read minds, giving him time to react before saying it's just "good intuition". Later, makes the exact same joke.
 * Logical Fallacies: The "Machine-Gun Talk Battle" sections of a trial occur when a student starts using ad-hominem attacks instead of logical arguments.
 * Medium Awareness: This conversation between  during a Flash Back in Chapter 3:
 * Medium Awareness: This conversation between  during a Flash Back in Chapter 3:

"Monokuma: The murder we just had occured because you bastards want to get out, wasn't it!? It's you bastards, who can't let go of the outside world, who are the bad eyes here!!* Relationship Values: Makoto can hang out with the other students and give them presents. They'll reward him with skills to be used during trial scenes."
 * Medium Blending: The Climax Inferences are manga panels.
 * Mundane Made Awesome: The school trials are some of the flashiest debates you'll ever see-- you literally shoot down your opponents' arguments as they fly across the screen in text form.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: Promotional material showed  in trial scenes, and heavily implied that the latter would be Naegi's Love Interest (even appearing beside him in the start menu).
 * The demo
 * New Game+: You can replay chapters after completing them, letting you keep any skills you've gotten from the other characters. This is required to view all the scenes for certain characters who don't make it past the first chapter.
 * Ontological Mystery: None of the characters have any idea how the school was locked down (or even if they're still in the school). However, Monokuma explicitly permits the students to investigate what's going on, as long as they abide by his other rules.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Monokuma loves to insist that the students are the real villains: according to his logic, if they just quietly lived out the rest of their lives in their Gilded Cage and didn't try to 'graduate', then nobody would get hurt. And when they solve the trials, aren't they only doing so to protect their own measly lives...?

"Monokuma: We aren't living in a Shounen manga story. There is no such thing as dying without dying. This is reality!!"
 * Sadistic Choice: Kill one of your classmates, or spend the rest of your life in captivity - and when it comes down to the trial, fess up and receive a gruesome punishment, or escape with the blood of everyone else on your hands.
 * Sailor Earth: Pick any skill or occupation, add either "Super High School Level" or "Ultimate" in front of it, and you got yourself an OC.
 * Shout-Out: When Monokuma first breaks out the bear puns, Celes notes that it's been done already.
 * Hagakure, while praying to numerous deities for help, invokes King Kai.
 * And if Hifumi can get a manga/anime/video game reference in somewhere, he'll probably do it. On that note, his name is written as 1-2-3.
 * at one point uses the phrase "blacker than a moonless night".
 * While discussing a dying message left by, Kyouko references Ellery Queen.
 * Signature Line:
 * "No, that's wrong!"
 * Leon's rapid-fire yelling "Aho"/"Stupid!".
 * The Mole:
 * This Is Reality: Spoken in Chapter 3. Monokuma also states this during Chapter 1:


 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: School trials can be broken down into Non-Stop Debates (literally shooting down contradictions), Machine-Gun Talk Battles (breaking through ad-hominem arguments in a Rhythm Game), Flashing Anagrams (filling in blanks), and Climax Inferences (assembling how the murder went down by placing events on a comic-style timeline).
 * Wham! Episode:
 * Let's start with Chapter 1 where, and shortly after that.
 * Then at the end of Chapter 2 it's revealed
 * The end of Chapter 3.
 * Wimpification: Oh dear Kiyotaka. In the West and Japan, it's common to find works that have him as submissive, weak, and not being able to hold his own against another.
 * You All Meet in a Cell