Danganronpa / Tropes A to D

Danganronpa Trope Examples
A - D | E - M | N - Z

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A

• Absence of Evidence: This crops up multiple times across the main games in regards to the Monokuma Files. Any time the file doesn't mention a particular piece of information that's normally present (usually the time or cause of death), chances are very good that it'll turn out to be integral in solving the case, and the characters quickly figure out that if the file deliberately leaves something out, they should probably take note. Specific cases include:
  • In Chapter 5's case from Trigger Happy Havoc, the time of death isn't mentioned, because the murder is fake and the body has actually been dead for a while, and while the various injuries to the body are described, none are actually listed as the cause of death.
  • In the same chapter from Goodbye Despair, the cause of Nagito's death is absent, despite a number of visible injuries on him, because it was unrelated to any of them; Nagito was actually poisoned, and the other wounds are Red Herrings.
  • In Chapter 2's case from Killing Harmony, the students almost immediately notice that the time of death isn't included, which tips them off that Ryoma died long before it looked like he did.
• The Ace: The only way to be accepted into Hope's Peak Academy or the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles is to be scouted because they are absolutely the best at what they do. Although some talents, like Student Council President and Detective, appear more than once, hinting that talents can be hereditary or not absolutely exclusive to one person.
• Adults Are Useless: Much of the series' conflict can be attributed to the older authorities in Hope's Peak Academy being apathetic towards the well-being of the students, allowing Junko to roam free alongside any of her subordinates (or Izuru, in the case of the second game).
• African Chant: A series of samples called "African Mist" are used in the soundtracks of the games. The most notable of these, "O'She Baba", can be heard in Monokuma's Leitmotifs and during most executions.
• After the End: Unlike most examples, Danganronpa uses this as the earth-shattering reveal (rather than an openly-presented selling point) in the first game. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is set in an environment where students are trapped for a long period of time and forced to kill each other. Why don't the police ever show up? An event, known as the Tragedy, happened that caused a huge worldwide conflict, and there are no police or even people to control what is happening inside the school. Plenty of people tried to rescue them, but were killed by the heavy weaponry installed around the school. Courtesy of the Ultimate Despair and The Tragedy, the world has apparently been caught up in a state of social unrest, war, widespread terrorism, coup d'etats, mass suicides, and general anarchy — at least, for the areas that are not directly controlled by Ultimate Despair — for at least two years. This is the real reason nobody could rescue the students trapped in Hope's Peak, despite their killing game being broadcast worldwide. Of course, this is all revealed by the Unreliable Expositor Big Bad. By the second game, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, we learn that Junko was telling the truth about the Tragedy, but that things are starting to look better thanks to the efforts of the Future Foundation in successfully overthrowing the Ultimate Despair and capturing the Remnants of Despair. Killer Killer even implies that society is recovering fairly quickly, with the idol industry, hospitals, and the manga industry back up and running.
• The Alibi: Being a Murder Mystery franchise centered around a Closed Circle Deadly Game revolving around gifted students gathered by a Fantastic Caste System who have a Complexity Addiction, this is practically omnipresent.
• All for Nothing: This series tries as much as possible to invoke despair in the cast AND the player, and by making sure that the events have no other meaning than giving the characters a lesson by placing them in a situation where their talents go in conflict with one another, the game accomplishes this goal rather well.
  • The first ending of the series involves Junko revealing how pointless it is for everyone to have murdered each other, just to enter a world that most likely doesn't exist anymore.
  • The second ending of the series involves everything being in a virtual world, or a "game", therefore rendering everyone's attempts to survive such a despairing experience moot. The only symbolism each case has is that it replicates the factors of the last game's original four cases, and that's only to lure the previous survivors into a trap.
  • Another Episode's ending has Komaru Naegi nearly become Junko Enoshima's successor, all the will to do that being taken from confidence and accepting herself through the game Monaca and Nagito prepared.
  • Danganronpa V3's ending is establishing everything to the highest level of a Meta Fiction Despair Gambit possible by making everyone's personalities and memories completely fictional.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: For a Recurring Element. Ambiguously Brown girls whose names starts with A (Aoi, Akane, Angie).
• Always Murder: Most of the deaths in the series are murders, although there are a few stray subversions and aversions.^note Technically speaking, all of the subversions are also double subversions, since the Mastermind of each game would be charged with murder for deliberately placing them in the situations that led to their deaths.
  • The manga interpretation of the first game's first case turns out to be a manslaughter in self-defense, and the biggest crime committed by the killer was covering it up.
  • The first game's fourth case turns out to be a suicide.
  • The second game's fifth case was set up entirely by the victim to the point where the killer was duped into delivering the finishing blow. No one in their right mind (i.e. Monokuma) would hold the killer criminally liable for the victim's death in this case.
  • In the Future Arc of Danganronpa 3, all of the serial murders that occur turn out to be suicides.
• Ambiguous Time Period: When first beginning a game or animation adaption, this is played straight. The longer the recipient progresses through the story, this trope gradually becomes averted and it's blunt how the installments of the series are ordered.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The cast, locations, cases, and a new Ontological Mystery, different every time the series gets updated with a new version of a Deadly Game.
• Anti-Villain: The majority of the culprits and instigators turn out to be anti-villains, as they're trying to escape for the sake of others, or became villains due to circumstances.
  • In the first game, Sayaka tries to escape so she can get back to her friends in her idol group; Mondo committed manslaughter on Chihiro (Monokuma calls it murder) due to the heat of passion; Aoi, as the technical antagonist of Chapter 4, tries to sacrifice herself and the other students for the suicidal Sakura's sake; Mukuro, the mastermind Junko's assistant, turns out to be a pawn in her scheme who had no idea Junko was going to betray her despite assisting Junko in her plan to cause the apocalypse and set up the Killing School Life.
  • In the second game, Teruteru kills "Byakuya" because he was trying to target Nagito, but in reality, was trying to escape the island to check on his mother; Peko kills Mahiru because of her loyalty to her master Fuyuhiko and the misguided belief she's doing it under his orders so she could offer him the opening to escape by himself; Mikan is driven to murder because the Despair Disease causes her to remember her true self as a member of Ultimate Despair, but her usual self is a kind nurse willing to help her patients, and her change is forced; Gundham is implied to have killed Nekomaru for a Suicide Pact to release his friends from the Funhouse, but couldn't give the answer straight due to his belief in life being worth living; Nagito, in a twisted fashion, sets up his whole scheme to kill the other students because he knows they're Ultimate Despair, and believes he's trying to eradicate despair itself in the process.
  • Kotoko Utsugi and Nagisa Shingetsu of the Warriors of Hope in Ultra Despair Girls turn out to be anti-villains due to having conscience. Nagisa is Monaca's prime target for manipulation because he has a crush on her, and has lived his whole life being expected to work at a high standard due to his parents treating him like a lab rat. As for Kotoko, she undergoes an unambiguous Heel–Face Turn when Monaca tries to kill her, and upon seeing the full extent of Monaca's cruelty, sides with Komaru and Toko to defeat her.
  • In the third game, Kaede tries to kill the mastermind, only to fail and target Rantaro instead... only for the mastermind to turn out to have been the real culprit the whole time; Kirumi's reason for murdering Ryoma and manipulating the cast to vouch for her is that she's trying as desperately as possible to escape under the belief that she's the de facto Prime Minister of Japan, and that she's trying to save her citizens from an ambiguous disaster; since Gonta doesn't remember his murder and was actually used to counter the actual main antagonist, the anti-villain role goes to Miu, who instigates the chapter's plot as whole by planning a kill herself so she could escape the academy and offer her inventions to the world; oddly, Kokichi turns out to be one (barely), as he was actually defying the true mastermind the whole game, and he plans to ruin the killing game by tricking Monokuma when Maki tries to kill him with a slow-acting poison under the belief he's the mastermind instead. Downplayed, however, in that said true mastermind reveals everyone's personality is fake In-Universe.
• Anyone Can Die: The first game plays this very straight. Afterwards this trope is played with quite heavily, as in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair almost all of the "dead" characters are revealed to be comatose and eventually wake up in Danganronpa 3 - Hope Arc and in Ultra Despair Girls all but two minor characters' deaths are revealed as fakeouts. However, Danganronpa 3 and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony play this straight again, with the former ending with only two newly introduced characters alive and the latter ending with three survivors, the lowest amount in the main-series games. Sayaka Maizono, the apparent deuteragonist of Danganronpa 1, Byakuya Togami, a survivor from the previous game (but an imposter) returning in Danganronpa 2, and the apparent protagonist themself in Danganronpa V3 also become victims in the series.
• Appeal to Inherent Nature: Series main antagonist Junko Enoshima justifies her actions with the idea that despair is natural within all humans. The protagonists never take this argument seriously due to its absurdity and hypocrisy and pretty much always fight back against her because of it.
• Arc Number: 11037. It appears as the first victim's dying message in the first game, as a password in the second, and as part of a very long password in the third.
• Arc Words: "Hope", "despair", "talent", "killing", "traitor", and "Ultimate" are singular words that frequently crop up in Danganronpa.
• Artifact Title: Due to the series title relating to the class trials (literally translating as "bullet rebuttal"), any installment that doesn't have them falls under this. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is averted for this, however, as Komaru uses Truth Bullets shot from the Hacking Gun provided by Byakuya in the prologue.
• Artistic Age: Most of the students in the first two games are supposed to be virtually the same age, but sure don't look it. Adults, however, have it much, much worse whenever they appear.
• Asshole Victim: If anyone is villainous or the unsympathetic, unrepentant type of murderer in this series, especially if they're the Big Bad, expect them to die or suffer a Fate Worse than Death. Haiji, Monaca, and Munakata all especially suffer the latter case, where Haiji stops caring, Monaca has to deal with her plans having failed and becoming a NEET for the rest of her life, and Munakata has to suffer knowing Chisa, one of his dearest friends, was a brainwashed Ultimate Despair member and was forced to commit suicide by Tengan, whom he thought was an honorable leader of the Future Foundation but was actually the Mole in Charge.
• Author Appeal: The creators are admitted fans of punk rock, which would explain why there's a character who's an open fan in both the first and second games.

B

• Badass Normal: As average humans with only one talent at their disposal, none of the Ultimates have any supernatural powers of their own, though Nagito's uncontrollable luck borders on it. Instead, they show their abilities through their intellect and willpower, this including Junko, who, despite lacking actual supernatural abilities, is able to make the whole world fall victim to her through her scheming and manipulation of others.
• Bag of Holding: The protagonist, and, therefore, the player, collects items, post-chapter presents, and post-trial Monocoins in the hundreds. They can be gifted to the gifted students in a Free Time sequence when restarting the games.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: The entire series is based around lampshading tropes, whether they be anime tropes, action tropes, or coincidence tropes. It simply doesn't hesitate to debate and debunk its own logic to get an answer from itself.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: While the intent behind them is just as gruesome, the female executions can usually be counted on to pull the camera away (Peko), darken the screen (Kyoko), happen quickly enough that nothing explicit is seen (Chiaki), or keep the eventual state of the victim's body ambiguous or hidden from view (Celestia, Mikan). By comparison, the male executions will almost always show the executed as they're dying or show the gory results of their death. This makes it all the more shocking when female characters are graphically killed on-screen, such as Mukuro and her sister. This is mostly averted in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, where Kaede's and Kirumi's executions can be considered even more brutal than Leon's execution.
• Being the Hero Sucks: In-Universe? Yes, definitely. But for the one playing as them? We're on the entertainment partitioning of the horror that is Danganronpa.
• Beneath Suspicion:
  • In Goodbye Despair, Mikan, a girl with abysmal self-esteem, turns out to be the murderer of the third case. The rest of the cast comments on this after Hajime accuses her of it.
    Gundham: Hmmm... to think there are people killed by a woman as thickheaded as she... it's beyond difficult to believe.
    Sonia: We could do without the "thickheaded" part...
  • In the fourth case of Killing Harmony, the murderer turns out to be Gonta, who's a kind-hearted and caring person, doesn't do well in social terms or technology (or things aside from his talent), and is certainly not cunning enough to come up with a murder plan or cover it up. Adding the fact that he doesn't remember a thing of what happened during the case, he's such an unlikely murderer that Shuichi never even considers him as a culprit, until Kokichi, who manipulated Gonta into the murder, outright reveals who it is.
• Big Bad: Monokuma, true name Junko Enoshima as the end of the first game reveals, is the host of the Deadly Game in each main installment (with exception of V3, where, while Monokuma is still present, he's controlled by Team Danganronpa instead Junko), and every other villain in the series has at least a connection to them.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The series features multiple main antagonists, though the prime antagonist is Monokuma/Junko.
  • In the first game, she's accompanied by Mukuro;
  • In the second game, Nagito is a Well-Intentioned Extremist serving as the physical threat to the killing game participants, while the mastermind Junko is accompanied by Izuru, having uploaded her into the Neo World Program;
  • In the spinoff game, Ultra Despair Girls, Monaca is the one who manipulates the Warriors of Hope into creating the Demon Hunting game so she can drive Komaru to despair and make her the next Junko, all while Junko assists the war between children and adults;
  • In the Side:Future anime, the Future Foundation's leader, Kazuo Tengan, serves the one who created the Final Killing Game in his attempt to brainwash the world into hope with the help of Ryota after driving him beyond the Despair Event Horizon, believing his own foundation is no longer capable of creating hope for the world on their own, while Chisa Yukizome is The Mole who gave him the means to create that killing game;
  • In Killing Harmony, which is set in the real world rather than the Danganronpa universe, Tsumugi and Team Danganronpa both serve as the game's antagonists, with Junko being completely irrelevant.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome:
  • In every main game, the obligatory Big Guy always dies in Chapter 4, their death is always for a noble reason, and they always play a part in the murder itself beyond simply being the victim or culprit.
    • Trigger Happy Havoc: Sakura commits suicide to both atone for being The Mole and fulfill her end of the deal she made with Monokuma (he threatened to demolish her family's dojo unless she agreed to both be his mole and kill someone if no murder had happened in a while, but he never specified it had to be someone else).
    • Goodbye Despair: Nekomaru fought and lost against Gundham in a Duel to the Death as part of a Suicide Pact (the cast were trapped in a funhouse with no food until a murder occurred, and they both decided to sacrifice themselves to save everyone else).
    • Killing Harmony: Gonta commits murder after learning about the (albeit fictional) state of the outside world, and was convinced by Kokichi that killing everyone before they could learn that horrible truth would be a an act of mercy (in reality, Kokichi had learned that Miu was planning to kill him, so he manipulated Gonta into killing her first in order to save his own ass).
  • Double subverted during the final killing game in Danganronpa 3. Despite the abundance of Big Guys in the game, Chisa Yukizome was the first to die. However, once the rules of the game are properly explained by Monokuma and they start "playing", the trope comes in full effect with Daisaku Bandai dying of NG Code poisoning and Great Gozu getting murdered by the culprit, almost back to back. Interestingly enough, Juzo Sakakura managed to survive until after the game was shut down despite being a complete beefcake, and is thus not considered a casualty (even though he did pass away from his wounds afterwards).
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The ongoing battle of Hope vs. Despair. Despair, represented by Monokuma and the Ultimate Despair, is completely dedicated to bringing chaos, death, and destruction to the world For the Evulz, while Hope, represented by Makoto and the Future Foundation, is the better side — to a certain extent. Makoto is a Messianic Archetype and Incorruptible Pure Pureness, but is often shown as naive, and his allies are good people but have their own share of problems. Meanwhile, the Future Foundation wants to restore hope to the world, but it often has people of questionable moralities doing what they feel is best to stop despair and make the world a better place, no matter how many people die in the process. From Nagito Komaeda inflicting despair in the belief that it will build a greater hope, to Haiji Towa, Kyousuke Munakata, and Shuji Fujigawa wanting to kill everyone associated with despair even if they are children brainwashed against their will, friends of those in despair, or everyone in the world respectively, and especially Chairman Kazuo Tengan, who wants to brainwash the entire world into feeling nothing but hope 24/7, creating his own killing game to make that happen. And they all spend as much time fighting each other as they do fighting despair.
• Black Blood: The blood in the series is pink, used as a stylistic choice. This is however not the case in Danganronpa 3: Future Arc and text descriptions in-story make it clear the blood is red In-Universe.
• Blamed for Being Railroaded: In all of the mainline games, the protagonist has to send the culprits to execution due to the killing game situation forcing them into doing so, as well as the fact that Monokuma physically won't let the students progress through the school and defeat the Final Boss without surviving through the class trials. Despite this, unless they're the Big Bad, the game will make you feel bad for doing it.
• Book Ends:
  • The Hope's Peak saga both begins and ends the same way: Makoto Naegi, alone in a classroom in Hope's Peak itself. The first time, he's there as a captive in the Killing School Life, the second he's headmaster of the newly remade school.
  • The first person to be executed by the mastermind in the timeline was Chiaki Nanami, as depicted in Danganronpa 3's Despair Arc. The last person in the timeline to be executed by the mastermind was the Chiaki Nanami AI, as seen in Goodbye Despair.
  • Junko's second killing game, the Killing School Life, is an Immoral Reality Show where Anyone Can Die set in the utopian building of Hope's Peak Academy to influence despair outside. Team Danganronpa's last killing game, the Killing School Semester, is also an Immoral Reality Show where Anyone Can Die set to invoke despair entertainment in the peaceful utopian world outside.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Finding every Hidden Monokuma within the respective games grants the player the ability to look at Monokuma flaunt all of his expressions, trophies and a collection of all the Monokuma cutouts and figures found throughout Jabberwock Island and the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles.

C

• Canon Welding: Due to the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot, connecting the sequel to the first game solely because of Byakuya Togami's presence and then finding him as the first murder victim of Monokuma's dilemma can lead to a collective debate on when and where the game is. Members of the original cast combined with the notion of the Tragedy being present can undeniably confirm that the timeline is the same.
• Cast of Snowflakes: In all three main-series games, the students participating in the killing games all physically stand out from one another in some way, despite the casts in general following certain traditions. It's stated by the creators that they envision the characters as coming from different series and genres (such as Sakura from a Martial Arts Manga and Aoi and Leon from a Sports Manga) to make them so different.
• Chekhov's Gun: As a murder-mystery franchise, there are an incalculable number of situations where something that is innocuous at first turns out to be important later on. The games and finale anime confirms the importance of said thing usually by a Flashback Cut of some sort.
• The Chessmaster: Junko Enoshima is no doubt a psychotic, hedonistic madwoman who is only focused on causing senseless death and destruction for its own sake, but she plans everything out to work in her favor down to the very last detail due to being an Evil Genius, in turn making her responsible for literally everything that happens in the series, including any instalments where she's only a background influence for any other mastermind who continues her work on her behalf (like Izuru who uploads her AI self into the Neo World Program, Monaca, Tengan/Yukizome, and Tsumugi). What helps her in this is that she knows that hope will fight back against her, so she prepares in advance... on many counts. The exception to this is the anime brainwashing in itself using Ryota Mitarai's talent of Ultimate Animator, where she is purely an Opportunistic Bastard.
  • It's not clearly stated, but she has Mukuro as her assistant due to knowing herself to be weak, and Mukuro being a ruthless soldier, she has someone to do the physical work for her while she's unable to. As shown in the prequels, this works out for her, in many, many ways.
  • She uses Hope's Peak Academy to start the apocalypse from because she knows that they'll cover up her schemes, in turn allowing her to do her evil deeds and get away with it in the process; that, and it's an insult to her despair ideology, of course, being a Fantastic Caste System centered around hope.
  • She uses the Ultimate Psychologist as a means to erase her classmates' memories so they remain blind to the truth of the Killing School Life, and then after causing the apocalypse, allows Kyoko to discover the truth of the Tragedy she caused in order to inflict despair on Class 78th, the only thing stopping the plan from succeeding being Makoto's refusal to believe that hope will always be overcome by despair. She also tries to frame Kyoko as Mukuro's killer long after executing Mukuro in Chapter 1 by impersonating Mukuro and trying to kill Makoto, the success of which was entirely reliant on Makoto accidentally falling into said trap by revealing her possession of the master key. Had her hedonism not allowed for Makoto to be kept alive beforehand, she would have won the students' despair in the Killing School Life in the final trial.
  • Brainwashing Class 77-B allows them to act as her Co-Dragons and use their Ultimate talents to send most of the world into despair on her behalf, with the Future Foundation being forced to capture them to prevent them from causing any further damage.
  • It works temporarily, but her other intent behind conducting the Killing School Trip in the second game was to lure Makoto, Byakuya, and Kyoko into the Neo World Program to save the Remnants of Despair from her grasp as part of a possible Heroic Sacrifice on the trio's part so she can trap them there and eternally torture them, which while a very petty and hypocritical revenge plot is very much a case of her knowledge of how hope (her enemies) will always fight back against despair (herself), at any cost, including one's own life.
  • She states many times over that she has data on every student (and staff member) that she makes into one of her victims, which only contributes to her abilities as a skilled psychological manipulator as she already knows everything about everyone in advance.
  • Brainwashing Chisa Yukizome to be on her side beforehand allows Chisa to infiltrate the Future Foundation as The Mole, working for Junko posthumously and allowing Junko to posthumously destroy it from within with the Final Killing Game, as it's Chisa who causes Kazuo Tengan, the Big Bad of Side:Future, to become an Ultimate Despair himself. Chisa also brainwashes Kyosuke Munakata into becoming a severe Knight Templar and be willing to sacrifice anything that he considers despair under his sense of Insane Troll Logic. Similarly, the AI copy of herself was made in the event of her death, of which she highly anticipated, due to being a Death Seeker. Getting Izuru on her side beforehand would allow him to get Junko into the Neo World Program and start the Killing School Trip so her AI copy can then create an egopolis posthumously.
  • A more minor detail, luring the Warriors of Hope onto her side causes everything in Ultra Despair Girls, including the Future Foundation's inability to interfere with the ongoing events at Towa City, as Monaca Towa is also an Unwitting Pawn for her, which is especially clear in Monaca's plan to, y'know, make Komaru continue Junko's legacy. She also influences the war between children and adults to occur in the first place through her AI copy, Playing Both Sides as both Shirokuma and Kurokuma.
  • While it likely wasn't intended, in the sense of her being a fictional character in the universe of the Killing School Semester, she technically influences Team Danganronpa and Tsumugi to create the various killing games in the real world, in turn leading to the events of Killing Harmony as well.
• Children Forced to Kill: "Young Adults Forced to Kill", more specifically. The Mutual Killing Game scenario in the main three games centers around school students being forced to kill each other in order to escape, and the scenario appropriately terrifies everyone involved. The other instalments like Ultra Despair Girls and Side:Future are exceptions, as the children willingly kill in the former and the characters are older by three years and are no longer students in the latter.
• Clue from Ed.: Whenever one of the main games mentions something that otherwise only appeared in a non-game side story, it usually mentions the title of the story in question, even if it involves Breaking the Fourth Wall.
• Complexity Addiction: The downfall of most murderers: coming up with insanely complicated and borderline nonsensical killing methods, which end up leaving plenty of evidence behind.
• Contemplate Our Navels: In Monokuma's intermission known as "Monokuma Theater", temporarily named "Monodam Theater" in V3, Monokuma tends to act philosophically about a particular topic or necessity and casually turns it into something sociopathic, with a completely different definition. Players are usually prompted to say that his ideology isn't incorrect, per se, but they don't actually tend to agree with him either.
• Cooked to Death:
  • Goodbye Despair: Chapter 1's execution, "Deep Fried Teruteru", doesn't involve any actual cooking devices, but is essentially based on cooking, matching the culprit Teruteru's talent. Teruteru is first blasted with eggs and breadcrumbs that cover his body, then dropped into a lava lake.
  • Killing Harmony: Chapter 3's execution, "Cultural Melting Pot", has Korekiyo executed via being tied up, spun around, dropped down a pit, and promptly boiled alive in a cauldron. The cauldron claims a second life when Monodam sacrifices himself to fan the flames, sealing Korekiyo's doom.
• Covers Always Lie: Not here, though. The covers of the games actually manage to represent the complicated behavior of each talented character and Monokuma counterpart.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Hope's Peak Academy accepts students for one talent and one talent only, and "talents" can range from actual occupations, to hobbies, to crimes, to simply being born into certain conditions. Naturally, this is deconstructed throughout the series in many ways:
  • The talents do play a role in the games’ plots, but the killing game setting seldom allows the students to use their skills at their full potential.
  • The characters have other interests and skills beyond the reasons why they became Hope’s Peak students. For example, although her Ultimate Talent is swimming, Hina is sporty in general and is on several sports teams. Children are drawn to Maki despite her disdain for them, which allows her to masquerade as a child caregiver before Kokichi outs her as an assassin. Leon is so good at baseball he remains the best player on his team without going to practice, but dislikes the sport and would rather become a musician.
  • The talent-based hierarchy normalized by Hope’s Peak convinces some characters that they are worthless without their status as Ultimates. This is especially the case in Danganronpa 2, with Hajime and Nagito having severe inferiority complexes over their talents, or lack thereof in Hajime’s case, that clash with their worship of Hope’s Peak and the idea of talent in general.
  • Some of the students' talents force them to associate themselves with the darker parts of their lives on a daily basis, such as Nagito's supernatural luck cursing him with diseases and dead parents, Mikan’s nursing skills originating from her being forced to fix her wounds when no one else would, Maki’s role as an assassin being something she was coerced into, Ryoma’s tennis skills getting him involved with the mafia that killed his loved ones, and Shuichi being guilt ridden by his crime solving skills convicting a Sympathetic Murderer, which he is forced to do again throughout the killing game, including to his closest friends in the cast.

D

• Dangerously Garish Environment: The game is known for its signature 'psycho pop' style, using flashy colors, hot pink blood and clashing patterns to contrast the morbid, psychological nature of the Killing Games. The Funhouse in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair accentuates this, having bright red and green walls covered with the images of strawberries and grapes, with a trial ground full of obnoxious patterns and colors.
• Darker and Edgier: In regards to the portrayal of Hope's Peak Academy and later the setting in general.
  • In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Hope's Peak Academy was portrayed as a good and noble institution, where students lived together in harmony and got a quality education, before being perverted into something horrible by the machinations of Junko Enoshima.
  • By Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the school was a corrupt place actively defrauding hundreds of average-joe students of their parents' money just to keep financially afloat, was riddled with bullying and dysfunction that they swept under the rug to keep up their reputation, and used mad science to create the horrifically transhuman nihilist that was Izuru Kamukura. Junko only had to give it the least push to get it all to come crumbling down.
  • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls takes it further, having huge sections of the school, including the "Elementary" branch, be horribly abusive towards their students, with one kid's parents who were also teachers at the school treating him more like a lab rat than a son with the institution's apparent approval.
  • The finale anime, Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, shows that the main course students don't even have to attend class, and are there to be studied rather than get an education.
  • The retool, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, first outright puts the whole human race into a Fantastic Caste System, renders the Earth uninhabitable; then cuts out the middle man and turns the whole thing into a sick lie and an In-Universe Excuse Plot for a popular Blood Sport television program in which volunteers are implanted with false "backstories", then let loose to kill each other.
• Deadly Game: The Mutual Killing Game, which is the franchise's, especially the main series, bread and butter. Teenagers are trapped and forced to live together under strict rules established by "headmaster" Monokuma. If they want to escape, they have to kill a fellow classmate and get away with it, and not just by killing someone when no one else is watching. Culprits have to wait for other people to find their victim's body. Once a corpse is found by at least three people, the surviving students have to investigate and figure out who the killer is in a class trial. If the culprit is successfully outed, then they will be executed in front of their classmates. If the students fail to solve the mystery, then the culprit will get to "graduate", aka escape with their life, and everyone else will be executed instead. Each of the killing games also have individual rules depending on the installment.
• Death Is Cheap: Monokuma says the name of this trope verbatim in V3 after he notes that his children are expendable.
• Death Is the Only Option: Due to the dilemmic nature of Monokuma's games, bar Danganronpa 3, the cast is capable of deducing their only options through the fact that they're involved in a "kill or be killed" predicament. The trope is most relevant in Chapter 2 of Danganronpa V3, where the culprit kills a weak character who has no reason to live due to having to serve and protect the entire nation of Japan.
• Detective Patsy: Absolutely every single character for every instalment based on a mutual killing game per each chapter that isn't the culprit is this, bar Chapter 4 and 5 in the first game due to the former being a suicide, and the culprit in the latter being Junko from behind the scenes. Since the culprit is amongst the cast, they are actively trying to lead the surviving cast to the wrong verdict by misleading the protagonist, Chapter 5 in the second game because the culprit was manipulated into the kill by the victim and is unaware they killed someone, and Chapter 4 in the third game because the culprit forgets their murder.
• Deus ex Machina: Everyone who is a protagonist has this justified by having inherited luck, giving the protagonist their luck as a result of it being universal, or being related to someone who is lucky.
• Deuteragonist: Every entry in the franchise has more than one "protagonist" besides the Player Character. The protagonist trios for the first and second games even have a nickname used in official material, the "Trial Point Getters".
• Difficulty by Region: The Hangman's Gambit minigame tends to be harder in English than Japanese, since English words tend to be longer than their equivalent Japanese character original.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Chapter 5 in each of the main games, as the last murder in the game is committed, Monokuma claims the last trial will be held, and the investigation theme even receives a remix to heighten the effect. However, each main game has six chapters, with the true last chapter being about the characters solving the Ontological Mystery behind their imprisonment.
• Disguised Horror Story: Both Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair start off with the protagonist arriving at the entrance to Hope's Peak Academy and monologuing about how they always looked up to the academy, thinking that they, as normal people who don't stand a chance against the Ultimates, will be inferior by comparison. Then, of course, they are immediately thrown into the real horror: being isolated from the outside world and trapped in a killing game conducted by Monokuma.
• Dramatic Irony: Intertwines with Right for the Wrong Reasons and Cassandra Truth. On occasion, more than once in some trials, characters have the correct suspicions for a certain character's relevance in a murder case.
  • Hiyoko accused Fuyuhiko of killing Mahiru in revenge for Mahiru covering up the killing of his little sister. She turned out to be correct, but not in the way she anticipated. He instigated the meeting with her, along with being the one who planned to finally kill her in an ironc revenge, but the person who killed Mahiru finally was Peko.
  • Himiko was correct in suspecting Maki had shot Kaito with a crossbow, purely out of desperate accusation and conviction. She knew that Maki could make her own crossbow and use it.
• Dysfunction Junction: No matter which installment it is the majority of the cast will have Hidden Depths and a Dark and Troubled Past, giving most of the "villain"s a sympathetic motive or backstory, bar Junko Enoshima herself. Monokuma will do anything he can to try and drive them to their Despair Event Horizon and as a result anyone who survives a killing game will be forced to endure a Trauma Conga Line as they watch those around them be forced to kill or be killed in return, with the characters who aren't forced into playing rarely being any better off with the murders mysteries that still surround them.

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