History AssholeVictim / VisualNovels

* The ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games really like this trope, because as it turns out, being a total asshole and screwing people over is a really good motive for them to murder you. [[SarcasmMode Who knew?]]
** In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' (the first game):
*** Most of Redd White's vast fortune comes from blackmailing the hell out of various {{Corrupt Politician}}s, {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s, {{Dirty Cop}}s, and the like. Many of whom eventually opted to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]] rather than have their dirty deeds exposed or keep shelling out the cash to keep them under wraps. For example, Marvin Grossberg leaked information on his client Misty Fey to White for money, and when White leaked this information, Misty had to leave Khurain village out of shame. When the police suspected someone leaked the information, White blackmailed Grossberg. Of course, this doesn't make White any more sympathetic, since [[EvilVersusEvil he's at least as bad as most of the people he blackmails]].
*** The victim in the third case, Jack Hammer, turned out to have been intentionally trying to frame the client, Will Powers, one of the nicest characters in the series, out of jealousy, by drugging him and stealing his costume. The real killer, Dee Vasquez, acted in self-defense, though she wouldn't have needed to if she hadn't been blackmailing Hammer, thus making him want to kill her in the first place. It's also possible that Hammer deliberately murdered another actor five years ago; we never hear his side of the story, but Vasquez strongly suggests the "accident" might have been deliberate, although it's also implied she and the other actor were lovers (and that her blackmailing of Hammer was primarily to make him suffer out of revenge) so she might be a tad biased in her assessment.
*** The fourth case's victim, Robert Hammond, was a defense attorney who, like damn near every non-playable attorney in the series, was an AmoralAttorney who only cared about winning cases by any means necessary. He was killed by a former client, Yanni Yogi, who he got found innocent of murder by [[InsanityDefense pleading insanity]]. Yogi really ''was'' innocent, but Hammond didn't believe him, nor did he care. Having to [[ObfuscatingInsanity keep up the act of insanity]] ruined Yogi's life and drove his fiancée to commit suicide, so he eventually decided to take revenge.
** In ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Justice for All]]'' (the second game):
*** The second case's victim, Turner Grey, was a real DrJerk killed by a former employee who alleged he had drugged her, causing her to crash her car and kill her little sister. Whether he actually ''did'' drug her or she was just exhausted is somewhat unclear, but being one of the few victims met before their demise, his {{jerkass}} persona is well-evident. While Phoenix claims that [[JerkassHasAPoint Grey was right about the former employee being responsible for the malpractice that cost several patients their lives]], Grey not only makes it clear that he only cares about his reputation, but the fact that he brought a revolver (which private citizens can't legally possess in Japan) to the ceremony to channel his employee's spirit makes one wonder how far he was planning to go to force her to confess.
*** Juan Corrida of the fourth case initially seems like a nice guy, but it becomes increasingly evident that the feud between himself and Matt Engarde was an ugly reflection on both of them, and often wound up with other people in the crosshairs: most notably, when Juan found out his fiancee Celeste had once been an item with Matt, he called off their wedding and Celeste committed suicide. Her protege, Adrian Andrews, blamed them both for her mentor's death. Juan himself, on the other hand, forged the suicide note of Celeste to frame only the other culprit, Matt, just to spite him. His rival just was [[EvilerThanThou even more ruthless.]]
** In ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Trials and Tribulations]]'':
*** The first case's victim, Doug Swallow, is a subversion: Although he's Dahlia's ex and Phoenix refers to him as a "stuck-up British wannabe", in truth he was trying to give Phoenix a ''very'' important warning about his girlfriend.
*** Kane Bullard from the second case counts, for being a greedy CorruptCorporateExecutive and blackmailing [[MagnificentBastard Luke Atmey]].
*** In the fourth case, the victim is Valerie Hawthorne, a police officer who helped engineer a fake murder/kidnapping that ended with her and her sister in possession of a small fortune stolen from their father, and their co-conspirator sentenced to death for a crime that had not been committed. The twist is that she was killed [[HeelFaceDoorslam because she had finally decided to come clean about everything, and the murderer stood to lose everything from her attack of conscience]]. Sad case all around.
** In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'':
*** The first case's victim, Shadi Smith, is a bit of a complicated case, as his real identity (and the motive of his murderer) isn't clear until the very end. However, even before that it's made known that he was trying to rig a game of cards against the defendant, and when the plan failed he [[GrievousBottleyHarm clocked his co-conspirator over the head with a bottle of grape juice]].
*** The victim of the second case, [[DrJerk Pal Meraktis]], not only dealt with the criminal underworld and covered up a botched operation on Wocky, but he tried to kill Alita Tiala. He failed quite miserably, and she shot him instead.
*** In the final case, the victim in the present day, Drew Misham, runs a forging business in which his daughter Vera fabricates evidence for various clients, including the diary page that cost Phoenix his badge. Granted, he does this to provide for Vera, but it ends up endangering Vera's life when one of his clients sends her a poisoned stamp and nail polish to silence her. The stamp ends up killing Drew when he uses it to send a letter, while Vera ends up being poisoned after biting her polished nails while on the witness stand (and dies in the bad ending). It's lampshaded when, after Vera ingests the same poison that killed her father, Spark Brushel remarks that, "Forgery is a serious crime, and they paid the price."
** In ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth'':
*** The third case initially appears to play this straight; [[SignificantAnagram Oliver Deacon]]/Colin Devorae is thought to have been an escaped felon who betrayed his accomplices in Lance Amano's kidnapping for the money, but it turns out that Lance threatened his daughter's safety to force him to falsely kidnap him, and that his previous "crimes" were TakingTheHeat for Ernest Amano.
*** One of the victims in the fourth case is Mack Rell, who murdered Deid Mann to keep him from testifying about the smuggling ring, and collaborated with the real killer to kill the other victim. After he's done his part, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness the killer kills him and sets it up to look like he and the other victim killed each other]].
*** One of the victims of the fifth case, Manny Coachen, was a man who was heavily involved in an international smuggling ring and counterfeiting operation that almost destroyed another country's economy, and had gotten away with at least one murder in his lifetime (Cece Yew). He ends up being murdered by the head of the smuggling ring when he tries to take over.
** In ''Investigations 2'':
*** The victim of the second case is Horace Knightley, the ''culprit'' from the first case -- even if later revelations make his death sort of tragic in retrospect, he was still a guy that murdered his innocent co-worker out of [[GreenEyedMonster envy]] and ambition (plus he had a terrible personality on top of it all, having no problem casually harping on the faults he saw in his victim even though the person was already dead).
*** The victim of the third case, Isaac Dover, was an infamously greedy sculptor apparently OnlyInItForTheMoney, who forced his own son to kidnap the son of his partner Dane Gustavia so that he could have an easier time betraying and blackmailing him. Gustavia responded to this betrayal by killing Dover on the spot. Meanwhile, Gustavia, who becomes a poisoning victim in the present-day segment, was ''also'' an asshole who only valued his son as a taste-tester and fled the country the first chance he got after the murder, not particularly caring that his son was, as far as he knew, still kidnapped (both his and Dover's sons had been rescued from near-death by [[HitmanWithAHeart Sirhan Dogen]] and taken to an orphanage).
*** In the final case, the victim is the [[SleazyPolitician President of Zheng Fa, Di-Jun Huang]], who turns out to have been ''much'' more of an asshole than had been initially suspected when we first met him in Case 1 (and he was already a pretty big asshole who staged a fake assassination attempt on himself just so he could look cool when he thwarted it) -- he was in fact not the real Di-Jun Huang, but a BodyDouble who secretly had the real Huang assassinated over a decade ago [[KillAndReplace and took his place]], fabricated his own kidnapping in order to defraud the country of millions, and either killed or tried to kill anyone who could have exposed his real identity, including the assassin he hired to kill the real Huang. By comparison, the game's actual BigBad, who arranged his murder, comes off as downright sympathetic, and possibly would have been seen as justified if he hadn't tried to pin the murder on a thirteen-year-old boy.
** ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]'' is notable among the games for having ''absolutely no Asshole Victims whatsoever''. Every murder victim in the game, whether during the game itself or in the backstory, was a genuinely decent person (although Bobby Fulbright can only be inferred from the assumption that [[BigBad the phantom's]] impersonation was accurate).
*** Subverted with Metis Cykes, when the prosecution tries to establish a motive for Athena to want to kill her mother, claiming she was very neglectful and used Athena as a science guinea pig. In reality she was doing this because she cared about her daughter and wanted to help her with her condition, and Simon tells Athena that while she had trouble expressing it, her mother truly did love her.
** In ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice Spirit of Justice]]'':
*** The third case's victim, Puhray Zeh'lot/Rheel Neh'mu is a member of the SecretPolice, who is hunting members of the rebel group the Defiant Dragons. He is killed in self-defense while trying to kill the pregnant Beh'leeb Inmee, who saw him as her surrogate son, merely for being a member of the rebel group.
*** The victim of the fourth case, Taifu Toneido, is an interesting case. While not a egregious JerkAss like other examples and more of a GrumpyOldMan, he still snubbed his beloved senior disciple Geiru, who was the daughter of the previous Uendo Toneido, giving the name Uendo to his junior disciple instead; and apparently stole the deed to Bucky Whet's noodle shop. Truth is, he had an ulterior motive for both. He stole the deed so he could make sure it was entitled to the right person (Bucky) and snubbed Geiru so he could ask her to find her own calling in life away from rakugo over a bowl of udon noodles which he had the tools to make (Geiru was allergic to soba noodles). Ultimately, it's this that makes Geiru regret what she's done and genuinely feel bad. Pretty sad case in hindsight.
*** The victim of the first half of the final case, is another interesting spin on this. While he did love his daughter and quit his profitable job at Ivy U to move to Kurain to protect her from the world, he unknowingly caused her agoraphobia similar to Drew Misham from ''Apollo Justice''. Plus, he even stole ancient relics, even if he just wanted to study them before returning them. So while he was good to his daughter, he was still a thief, and unlike the victim of the first case, was doing it ForScience.
*** The victim of the second half of the fifth case, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, is the man responsible for the secret police, along with the theft of the Founder's Orb. One of his sprites has him casually signing stacks of execution papers by stamping them with his {{Personal Seal|s}}. He's also extremely abrasive, doesn't have loyalties to anybody, was planning a coup against his own wife ([[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen not that she doesn't deserve it]]), kidnapped Maya, shot Apollo's foster father dead without remorse, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and uses Je Suis L'Belle hair products]].
*** The victim of the DLC case, Dumas Gloomsbury, tried to kill Ellen Wyatt in order to get back at Sorin Sprocket, her fiancé, for making him TheScapegoat of the car crash that killed Sorin's older sister, Selena.
** In ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney'' duology:
*** The first game may, like Dual Destinies above, seem to not have one at first, but the second makes a retcon to John H Watson. Firstly, he’s not actually the games’ equivalent of John H Watson.[[note]]Iris was told that her father was the partner of Sherlock, who was also a medical doctor who worked on autopsy reports. Looking through some documents, she found Klint van Zieks’s autopsy report. In it, she found the signature of John H Watson. She assumed that John was the one who worked on the autopsy, and assumed he was Sherlock’s partner, and therefore her father. In reality, it was his student Yūjin Mikotoba who wrote, he was Sherlock’s partner, but not Iris’s father. Iris’s father was not associated with Sherlock at all, he just lied about that.[[/note]] Secondly, and more relevantly, he did fake the autopsy of Klimt van Zieks to frame Genshin. Though, it is worth mentioning he did genuinely believe Genshin was the professor, the serial killer who killed Klimt (he wasn’t the professor, but he did kill Klint, who was the actual Professor, in duel, but John didn’t know this), so as far as he knew he was FramingTheGuiltyParty (and Mael Stronghart was the one that came up with the idea) and he was reportedly a good teacher, so much so he murder is used as a supposed motive in the second games’s first case, so it’s clear that, while he was factor in Genshin’s death, he didn’t deserve to die. Speaking of his murder...
*** The first victim of the second game is Jezail Brett, who, similar Horace Knightley above, was the first murderer of the first game. In addition to being, well, ''a murderer,'' she was also extremely racist, so much so it’s what lead to her death, and tried to frame Naruhodō for the murder of John H Watson.
*** It’s later learned; in the last two cases of the second game; that, one, her real name is Ana Shinn, and two, [[PunnyName as her name suggests]], she is an assassin. Specifically, the main assassin behind the Reaper killings, which killed every defendant Barok van Zieks prosecuted that got a Not Guilty verdict. While we know for a fact that some of them were definitely guilty, we don’t if all of them were, so it’s likely that she murdered innocent people who had the bad luck of simply being ''prosecuted'' by van Zieks. And unlike Gregson, we don’t know her reasons for doing this, so she ''may'' have had the same motivations as Gregson, or she may not of.
*** Throughout Case 3 of ''Adventures'', you slowly learn that your client Magnus [=McGilded=] is probably the most detestable one since Matt Engarde, as his true nature as a ruthless LoanShark who tampers with evidence and public trust to get himself a Not Guilty verdict is revealed even as it becomes clear he's the killer. Just as he's about to get away with the Not Guilty verdict however, he ends up burning to death inside the very carriage he tampered with, and nobody mourning his passing.
*** Well, William Shamspeare isn’t ''dead,'' but he was the victim of attempted murder, so he still counts. In order to get his hands of an expensive treasure, he killed Duncan Ross and attempted to kill Sōseki. While the first one was accidental, as you can by the “attempted” part of “attempted to kill,” the second was certainly not.
*** Odie Asman was a leader of a crime syndicate. He also ruined Enoch’s life by publishing the fact that he was the one who saw the Professor rise from the grave when he was robbing graves. He was also blackmailing Courtney Sithe for years.
*** Inspector Gregson was an interesting case of this. The first reason is the same reason John H Watson is listed here, he helped forge the autopsy of Klint van Zieks. And like John H Watson, he thought he was FramingTheGuiltyParty, though he was incorrect in that belief. He helped orchestrate the Reaper killings, detailed above in Jezail Brett’s entry. But, unlike her, we know why he did it, he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing and crime did go down because of it. Later he came to regret his actions, and hoped that, after killing Jigoku, he would go to France and never have a part in killing anyone ever again. He also help Gina Lestrande become an inspector in training.

*** The victim of the second half of the fifth case, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, is the man responsible for the secret police, along with the theft of the Founder's Orb. One of his sprites has him casually signing stacks of execution papers by stamping them with his {{Personal Seal|s}}. He's also extremely abrasive, doesn't have loyalties to anybody, was planning a coup against his own wife ([[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen not that she doesn't deserve it]]), kidnapped Maya, shot Apollo's foster father dead without remorse, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and uses Je Suis L'Belle hair products]]. His only redeeming quality is that [[DaddysGirl his love for his daughter Rayfa is genuine]].

*** The first game may, like Dual Destinies above, seem to not have one at first, but the second makes a retcon to John H Watson. Firstly, he’s not actually the games’ equivalent of John H Watson.[[note]]Iris was told that her father was the partner of Sherlock, who was also a medical doctor who worked on autopsy reports. Looking through some documents, she found Klimt van Zieks’s autopsy report. In it, she found the signature of John H Watson. She assumed that John was the one who worked on the autopsy, and assumed he was Sherlock’s partner, and therefore her father. In reality, it was his student Yūjin Mikotoba who wrote, he was Sherlock’s partner, but not Iris’s father. Iris’s father was not associated with Sherlock at all, he just lied about that.[[/note]] Secondly, and more relevantly, he did fake the autopsy of Klimt van Zieks to frame Genshin. Though, it is worth mentioning he did genuinely believe Genshin was the professor, the serial killer who killed Klimt (he wasn’t the professor, but he did kill Klimt, who was the actual Professor, in duel, but John didn’t know this), so as far as he knew he was FramingTheGuiltyParty (and Hart Vortex was the one that came up with the idea) and he was reportedly a good teacher, so much so he murder is used as a supposed motive in the second games’s first case, so it’s clear that, while he was factor in Genshin’s death, he didn’t deserve to die. Speaking of his murder...

*** It’s later learned; in the last two cases of the second game; that, one, her real name is Ann Sasha, and two, [[PunnyName as her name suggests]], she is an assassin. Specifically, the main assassin behind the Reaper killings, which killed every defendant Barok van Zieks prosecuted that got a Not Guilty verdict. While we know for a fact that some of them were definitely guilty, we don’t if all of them were, so it’s likely that she murdered innocent people who had the bad luck of simply being ''prosecuted'' by van Zieks. And unlike Gregson, we don’t know her reasons for doing this, so she ''may'' have had the same motivations as Gregson, or she may not of.
*** Well, William Pretency isn’t ''dead,'' but he was the victim of attempted murder, so he still counts. In order to get his hands of an expensive treasure, he killed Duncan Ross and attempted to kill Sōseki. While the first one was accidental, as you can by the “attempted” part of “attempted to kill,” the second was certainly not.
*** Elyder Meningen was a leader of a crime syndicate. He also ruined Enoch’s life by publishing the fact that he was the one who saw the Professor rise from the grave when he was robbing graves. He was also blackmailing Courtney Sithe for years.
*** Inspector Gregson was an interesting case of this. The first reason is the same reason John H Watson is listed here, he helped forge the autopsy of Klimt van Zieks. And like John H Watson, he thought he was FramingTheGuiltyParty, though he was incorrect in that belief. He helped orchestrate the Reaper killings, detailed above in Jezail Brett’s entry. But, unlike her, we know why he did it, he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing and crime did go down because of it. Later he came to regret his actions, and hoped that, after killing Jigoku, he would go to France and never have a part in killing anyone ever again. He also help Gina Lestrande become an inspector in training.

*** Juan Corrida of the fourth case initially seems like a nice guy, but it becomes increasingly evident that the feud between himself and Matt Engarde was an ugly reflection on both of them, and often wound up with other people in the crosshairs: most notably, when Juan found out his fiancee Celeste had once been an item with Matt, he called off their wedding and Celeste committed suicide. Her protege, Adrian Andrews, blamed them both for her mentor's death.

*** Most of Redd White's vast fortune comes from blackmailing the hell out of various {{Corrupt Politician}}s, {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s, {{Dirty Cop}}s, and the like. Many of whom eventually opted to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]] rather than have their dirty deeds exposed or keep shelling out the cash to keep them under wraps. Of course, this doesn't make White any more sympathetic, since [[EvilVersusEvil he's at least as bad as most of the people he blackmails]].

*** In the final case, the victim in the present day, Drew Misham, runs a forging business in which his daughter Vera fabricates evidence for various clients, including the diary page that cost Phoenix his badge. Granted, he does this to provide for Vera, but it ends up endangering Vera's life when one of his clients sends her a poisoned stamp and nail polish to silence her. The stamp ends up killing Drew when he uses it to send a letter, while Vera ends up being poisoned after biting her polished nails while on the witness stand (and dies in the bad ending).

** And if you wanted his anime counterpart dead too, don't worry. That happens too.

** YMMV in regards to Tokiomi Tohsaka in the prequel, ''Anime/FateZero''. His decision is what sends Sakura and is thus responsible for all the hell she is put through. At best, he is a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter, but if he knew...

** In ''[[VisualNovel/DaiGyakutenSaiban Dai Gyakuten Saiban]]''

* The ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games like this trope. At least one victim in each game was pretty explicitly Not A Nice Person--many of them are criminals themselves.

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' Haiji Towa and the rioting adults in the end for being the child abusive, sexist, murderous bastards they are.

*** Kokichi Oma in general. For persecuting Kaede, making class trials a living hell, being racist, and xenophobic to Keebo, and manipulating Gonta via flashback light, and tricking Maki in chater 5 nermerous times, leading her aggressively ganging up on Shuichi continuously in the fifth trial.
*** In Shuichi's backstory, he earned the title of Ultimate Detective by solving a murder case nobody else could figure out. When the culprit was arrested, he gave Shuichi a scowling look of abusive hatred that was permanently seared into his mind. He later learned that the culprit had killed the victim to avenge a relative who had been DrivenToSuicide because of the victim's abusive behavior. This caused Shuichi to feel a tremendous amount of guilt for "siding with" the victim by exposing the truth, and he gained a fear of exposing the truth, considering himself a pathetic detective, and started to wear a hat at all times because he couldn't look people in the eye anymore.

*** In Shuichi's backstory, he earned the title of Ultimate Detective by solving a murder case nobody else could figure out. When the culprit was arrested, he gave Shuichi a [[DeathGlare look of pure hatred]] that was permanently seared into his mind. He later learned that the culprit had killed the victim to avenge a relative who had been DrivenToSuicide because of the victim's abusive behavior. This caused Shuichi to feel a tremendous amount of guilt for "siding with" the victim by exposing the truth, and he gained a fear of exposing the truth, considering himself a pathetic detective, and started to wear a hat at all times because he couldn't look people in the eye anymore.

*** The victim in the third case, Jack Hammer, turned out to have been intentionally trying to frame the client, Will Powers, one of the nicest characters in the series, out of jealousy, by drugging him and stealing his costume. The real killer, Dee Vasquez, acted in self-defense, though she wouldn't have needed to if she hadn't been blackmailing Hammer in the first place. It's also possible that Hammer deliberately murdered another actor five years ago; we never hear his side of the story, but Vasquez strongly suggests the "accident" might have been deliberate, although it's also implied she and the other actor were lovers (and that her blackmailing of Hammer was primarily to make him suffer out of revenge) so she might be a tad biased in her assessment.

* ''{{Franchise/Danganronpa}}'':

** ''VisualNovel/NewDanganRonpaV3'' has a couple of these

** The victim in the present day, Drew Misham, runs a forging business in which his daughter Vera fabricates evidence for various clients, including the diary page that cost Phoenix his badge. Granted, he does this to provide for Vera, but it ends up endangering Vera's life when one of his clients sends her a poisoned stamp and nail polish to silence her. The stamp ends up killing Drew when he uses it to send a letter, while Vera ends up being poisoned after biting her polished nails while on the witness stand (and dies in the bad ending).

*** The victim of the second half of the fifth case, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, is the man responsible for the secret police, along with the theft of the Founder's Orb, one of his sprites has him casually signing stacks of execution papers by stamping them with his {{Personal Seal|s}}, he's extremely abrasive, doesn't have loyalties to anybody, was planning a coup against his own wife ([[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen not that she doesn't deserve it]]), kidnapped Maya, shot Apollo's foster father dead without remorse, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and uses Je Suis L'Belle hair products]]. His only redeeming quality is that [[DaddysGirl his love for his daughter Rayfa is genuine]].

* Shinji Matou in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. Considering that this is the guy who has been abusing and [[BrotherSisterIncest raping his sister Sakura]] for years, [[VillainousDemotivator treats his Servant Rider like a dog]] [[UngratefulBastard even when she remains unflinchingly loyal to him]], and tried to [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rape Rin when she was tied up and unable to resist]], no one is exactly shedding any tears for him when he's killed by Illya in the Fate route. Or when Gilgamesh [[FateWorseThanDeath turns him into the Holy Grail]] in the UBW route. Or in Heaven’s Feel when he’s stabbed through the chest [[TheDogBitesBack by the very sister he was again attempting to rape]], even if this proves to be her StartOfDarkness.

*** Miu Iruma is TheFriendNobodyLikes where several students admitted to the fact that they probably wouldn't have been friends with her even if they hadn't met in a killing game. In addition, had she not been the victim of Chapter Four, she would have killed Kokichi and framed Kaito for the murder, possibly leading the other students to their deaths, though she did have [[TheNeedsOfTheMany altruistic reasons]] for attempting to murder Kokichi.

*** In the fourth case, the victim is Valerie Hawthorne, a police officer who helped engineer a fake murder/kidnapping that ended with her and her sister in possession of a small fortune stolen from their father, and their co-conspirator sentenced to death for a crime that had not been committed. The twist is that she was killed because she had finally decided to come clean about everything, and the murderer stood to lose everything from her attack of conscience. Sad case all around.

*** The victim of the second case, Pal Meraktis, not only dealt with the criminal underworld and covered up a botched operation on Wocky, but he tried to kill Alita Tiala. He failed quite miserably, and she shot him instead.
*** The victim of the {{Flashback}} [[ThatOneCase case]] during the fourth case, Magnifi Gramarye, was eventually revealed to have been blackmailing both of his disciples with the information that one of them accidentally killed their partner. In the second case of ''Spirit of Justice'', it was also revealed that he had prohibited Mr. Reus from performing because he injured himself during practice, then kicked him out of the Troupe for disobeying him and performing anyway. While it's true that [[JerkassHasAPoint he did have a point]] in not wanting an injured man to perform extremely dangerous tricks in front of a large crowd until he is fully recovered, he also went the extra mile and pretty much [[UnPerson Unpersoned]] Mr. Reus from magic entirely, which was a tad overkill.

*** The victim of the second case is Horace Knightley, the ''culprit'' from the first case -- and if later revelations make his death sort of tragic in retrospect, he was still a guy that murdered his innocent co-worker out of [[GreenEyedMonster envy]] and ambition (plus he had a terrible personality on top of it all, having no problem casually harping on the faults he saw in his victim even though the person was already dead).
*** The victim of the third case, Isaac Dover, was an infamously greedy sculptor apparently OnlyInItForTheMoney, who forced his own son to kidnap the son of his partner Dane Gustavia so that he could have an easier time betraying and blackmailing him. Gustavia responded to this betrayal by killing Dover on the spot. Meanwhile, Gustavia was ''also'' an asshole who only valued his son as a taste-tester and fled the country the first chance he got after the murder, not particularly caring that his son was, as far as he knew, still kidnapped (both his and Dover's sons had been rescued from near-death by [[HitmanWithAHeart Sirhan Dogen]] and taken to an orphanage).
*** In the final case, the victim is the President of Zheng Fa, Di-Jun Huang, who turns out to have been ''much'' more of an asshole than had been initially suspected when we first met him in Case 1 (and he was already a pretty big asshole who staged a fake assassination attempt on himself just so he could look cool when he thwarted it) -- he was in fact not the real Di-Jun Huang, but a BodyDouble who secretly had the real Huang assassinated over a decade ago [[KillAndReplace and took his place]], fabricated his own kidnapping in order to defraud the country of millions, and either killed or tried to kill anyone who could have exposed his real identity, including the assassin he hired to kill the real Huang. By comparison, the game's actual BigBad, who arranged his murder, comes off as downright sympathetic, and possibly would have been seen as justified if he hadn't tried to pin the murder on a thirteen-year-old boy.

*** Nagito Komaeda in Chapter 5. Any amount of goodwill anyone had for him pretty much instantly evaporated as early as Chapter 1, where he manipulates Teruteru into committing murder and openly declares that he will side with any future killers if he feels the killer's hope is stronger than everyone else's, even volunteering himself as a willing ''victim'' if need be. In Chapter 4, he learns that the entire class, including himself but except for the Future Foundation [[TheMole mole]], are actually [[TomatoInTheMirror Remnants of Despair]] who worked for [[BigBad Junko]], so in Chapter 5 he engineers his own murder in which the mole would accidentally kill him without realizing it, feeling that the mole is the only one out of all of them who deserves to live. Both the characters and the fanbase pretty much unanimously consider him to be the true culprit of Chapter 5, and the mole, Chiaki, to be the true victim.

*** Korekiyo Shinguji pretty much committed the most unsympathetic murder within the franchise by killing Angie and Tenko just so that he could send his deceased sister "admirable friends" in the afterlife. Even ''[[BigBad Mono]][[HopeCrusher kuma]]'' was [[EvenEvilHasStandards was disgusted by his motive]]. He freely admits to being a SerialKiller whose goal is to send a total of 100 "friends" to his dear sister, meaning Angie and Tenko are almost certainly far from the first people he's killed. It is extremely noteworthy that he is the only culprit in the game where nobody makes any attempt whatsoever to save him during his execution.
*** Miu Iruma is TheFriendNobodyLikes where several students admitted to the the fact that they probably wouldn't have been friends with her even if they hadn't met in a killing game. In addition, had she not been the victim of Chapter Four, she would have killed Kokichi and framed Kaito for the murder, possibly leading the other students to their deaths, though she did have [[TheNeedsOfTheMany altruistic reasons]] for attempting to murder Kokichi.
*** Kokichi Oma is antagonistic to the other students where a lot of people thought he was the mastermind, especially as he constantly bragged about how he was going to "win" the killing game and he was directly responsible for the deaths of both Miu and Gonta. However, as it turns out, he was an AntiHero who was GoodAllAlong and he wanted to save Maki from being executed once she ended up shooting a poisonous arrow at him.

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'':
*** Sayaka Maizono is this trope, as she invited Leon to her room as an attempt to murder him, which backfired. She had also set up the protagonist to take the fall for her. Leon doesn't come out of this smelling like roses either, as he picked up Sayaka's framejob from there, even though wrongly accusing Makoto of murder meant that everyone but Leon would be killed. At the end, one character points out that he ''did'' have time to stop and think when the victim (who was having second thoughts) retreated, meaning that it wasn't entirely done in self-defense - but pursued and killed them anyway. The manga makes both of them more sympathetic however- Sayaka genuinely cared about Makoto and left her dying clue as penance for what she had tried to do to him, and Leon himself actually murdered her by accident. Even in the game, Makoto forgives both of them for their actions, and rightly points out that the ''real'' asshole is Monokuma, the sadistic bear who's been trying to manipulate everyone into becoming murderers to begin with.
*** While Hifumi Yamada's murder of Kiyotaka Ishimaru is because Celeste manipulated him into thinking that Kiyotaka sexually assaulted her, he also does so in the hopes of graduating alongside Celeste, which would doom everyone else, and so that he can have a computer AI that he's in love with all to himself. It's thus difficult to feel bad for him when Celeste betrays and murders him once [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's no longer useful]].
*** As far as killers who get executed, it's hard to feel sorry for Celes/Celestia Ludenburg as she had Hifumi kill Kiyotaka, a fan favorite character, and claim he raped her, and then did away with Hifumi once his purpose was served. It doesn't help that she claims her motive was just {{Greed}} and that she feels zero remorse for both of the murders, although [[ConsummateLiar given her character]] there is at least room for doubt there, Makoto is conflicted about it in-universe by saying he can't pity Celes' fate given the facts of the case but still [[WeUsedToBeFriends remembers her as once having been a friend]] and blames Monokuma for [[TheCorrupter corrupting her]].
*** Final case victim Mukuro Ikusaba is an interesting case. While she did work as the mastermind's willing accomplice especially prior to the game, the way she dies is so unbelievably cruel that you can't help but feel for her.
*** [[spoiler: Junko Enoshima]] the mastermind in Case 6 executes themselves if you beat them and let's just say, after all the crap they put you through, it's extremely cathartic.

* ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' has Yosuke Suzumi as a [[PlayedWithTrope Played With]] example. [[spoiler:Before Saya altered his brain to give him the [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness same condition as Fuminori]], he seemed to be a nice and normal family man, showing concern for Fuminori and offering to clean his house[[note]]Though Fuminori thinks this is only because he fears it will affect his perfect image of his house[[/note]]. You might even feel sorry for him when his condition causes him to unknowingly kill his wife and child under the belief they were hostile aliens. However, whatever kindness he had once is completely gone by the time the insane Yosuke meets Saya personally, being willing to rape what he thinks is a defenseless human girl, thus leaving the reader unlikely to sympathize with him when Fuminori kills him.]]

* ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' has Yosuke Suzumi as a Played With example. [[spoiler:Before Saya altered his brain to give him the same condition as Fuminori, he seemed to be a nice and normal family man, showing concern for Fuminori and offering to clean his house, though Fuminori thinks this is only because he fears it will affect his perfect image of his house. However, whatever kindness he had once is completely gone by the time the insane Yosuke meets Saya personally, being willing to rape what he thinks is a defenseless human girl, thus leaving the reader unlikely to sympathize with him when Fuminori kills him.]]

** Kotoba, who can die if the right choices aren't made, also counts. His perverted antics don't win him many friends, but what really puts him into this category was that [[StalkerWithACrush he was stalking Momoko]]. Momoko chose him as the third accomplice in her murder plan(which she'd claimed was a prank), alongside her primary targets, Hiro and Kamen (whom she intended to kill and frame for murder, respectively), because he'd be easy to manipulate. It's also suggested that since [[HeKnowsTooMuch Kotoba have to be disposed of]] in order to prevent anyone from corroborating Kamen's story, Momoko chose him because she wouldn't feel bad about killing him. Even Kotoba's best friend Taiko admits that he deserves much of what he gets, and after learning the full extent of his stalking, he stops trying to defend Kotoba.

*** Nagito Komoaeda from Case 5. After finding out his so called friends were soldiers of Despair working for the mastermind, he snaps and tries to have someone killed in the first case and when that fails, masterminds his own murder to get the Future spy executed. Any semblance of goodwill the cast had toward him evaporates after they learn of his plans; by the end, they consider him the true culprit, and his accidental murderer, Chiaki, to be the victim.

*** Korekiyo Shinguji pretty much committed the most unsympathetic murder within the franchise by killing Angie and Tenko so that he could bring his sister 'admirable friends' in the afterlife to the point where even ''[[BigBad Mono]][[HopeCrusher kuma]]'' was [[EvenEvilHasStandards was disgusted in his motives]]. It is extremely noteworthy that he is the sole person in this game to receive an official execution and not have people attempt to save him.
*** Miu Iruma is TheFriendNobodyLikes where several students admitted to the the fact that they probably wouldn't have been friends with her even if they hadn't met in a killing game. In addition, had she not been the victim of Chapter Four, she would have killed Kokichi and frame Kaito for the murder, possibly leading the other students to their deaths, though she did have [[TheNeedsOfTheMany altruistic reasons]] for attempting to murder Kokichi.

*** In Shuichi's backstory, the culprit of his first murder case had killed the victim to avenge a relative who had been DrivenToSuicide because of the victim's abusive behavior. It became deconstructed in that case as Shuichi felt guilty for "siding with" the victim by exposing the truth, and he gained a fear of exposing the truth, considering himself a pathetic detective, and he began to wear a hat because he couldn't look at other people's eyes anymore.

*** Most of Redd White's vast fortune comes from blackmailing the hell out of various {{Corrupt Politician}}s, {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s, {{Dirty Cop}}s, and the like. Many of whom eventually opted to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]] rather than have their dirty deeds exposed or keep shelling out the cash to keep them under wraps.

*** The second case's victim, Turner Grey, was a real DrJerk killed by a former employee who alleged he had drugged her, causing her to crash her car and kill her little sister. Whether he actually ''did'' drug her or she was just exhausted is somewhat unclear, but being one of the few victims met before their demise, his {{jerkass}} persona is well-evident.

*** One of the victims of the fifth case, Manny Coachen, was a man who was heavily involved in an international smuggling ring and counterfeiting operation that almost destroyed another country's economy, and had gotten away with at least one murder in his lifetime.

*** In Shuichi's backstory, the culprit of his first murder case had killed the victim to avenge his family and the victim was a horrible person who had tricked the culprit's family and driven them to suicide. It became deconstructed in that case as Shuichi felt guilty for "siding with" the victim by exposing the truth, and he gained a fear of exposing the truth, considering himself a pathetic detective, and he began to wear a hat because he couldn't look at other people's eyes anymore.

** Kotoba, who can die if the right choices aren't made, also counts. His perverted antics don't win him many friends, but what really puts him into this category was that [[StalkerWithACrush he was stalking Momoko]]. Momoko chose him to become the third accomplice in her murder plan(which she'd claimed was a prank), alongside her targets Hiro and Kamen, because he'd be easy to manipulate. It's also suggested that since [[HeKnowsTooMuch Kotoba have to be disposed of]] in order to prevent anyone from corroborating Kamen's story, Momoko chose him because she wouldn't feel bad about killing him. Even Kotoba's best friend Taiko admits that he deserves much of what he gets, and after learning the full extent of his stalking, he stops trying to defend Kotoba.

*** Final case victim Mukuro Ikusaba is an interesting case. While she did work as the mastermind's willing accomplice especially prior to the game, the way she dies is so unbelievably cruel that you can't help but feel for her. That, and she genuinely loved Makoto only looking at the camera when he used it.

*** While Hifumi Yamada's murder of Kiyotaka Ishimaru is because Celeste manipulated him into thinking that Kiyotaka sexually assaulted her, he also does so in the hopes of graduating alongside Celeste, which would doom everyone else. It's thus difficult to feel bad for him when Celeste betrays and murders him once [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's no longer useful]].
*** As far as killers who get executed, it's hard to feel sorry for Celes/Celestia Ludenburg as she had Hifumi kill Kiyotaka, a fan favorite character, and claim he raped her. And her motive for doing all this, was simply pecuniary {{Greed}}. Not only that but she feels zero remorse for both of the murders.

*** The victim of the {{Flashback}} [[ThatOneCase case]] during the fourth case, Magnifi Gramarye, was eventually revealed to have been blackmailing both of his disciples with the information that one of them accidentally killed their partner. In the second case of ''Spirit of Justice'', it was also revealed that he had prohibited Mr. Reus from performing because he injured himself during practice, then kicked him out of the Troupe for performing while injured. While you could consider that last bit a case of JerkassHasAPoint, he also had Mr. Reus practically [[UnPerson Unpersoned]] from magic entirely, which was a tad overkill.

*** In the final case, the victim is the President of Zheng Fa, Di-Jun Huang, who turns out to have been ''much'' more of an asshole than had been initially suspected when we first met him in Case 1 (and he was already a pretty big asshole who staged a fake assassination attempt on himself just so he could look cool when he thwarted it) -- he was in fact not the real Di-Jun Huang, but a BodyDouble who secretly had the real Huang assassinated over a decade ago [[KillAndReplace and took his place]], fabricated his own kidnapping to defraud the country of millions, and killed or tried to kill anyone who could have exposed his real identity. By comparison, the game's actual BigBad, who arranged his murder, comes off as downright sympathetic, and possibly would have been seen as justified if he hadn't tried to pin the murder on a thirteen-year-old boy.

*** The victim of the second half of the fifth case, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, is the man responsible for the secret police, along with the theft of the Founder's Orb, one of his sprites is him casually stamping execution papers with his {{Personal Seal|s}}, he's extremely abrasive, doesn't have loyalties to anybody, was planning a coup against his own wife ([[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen not that she doesn't deserve it]]), kidnapped Maya, shot Apollo's foster father dead without remorse, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and uses Je Suis L'Belle hair products]]. His only redeeming quality is that [[DaddysGirl his love for his daughter Rayfa is genuine]].