Danganronpa / Tropes N to Z

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

---

N

• Near-Villain Victory: Pretty much every killing game culprit and mastermind comes very close to succeeding at eliminating their opponents, only failing because the protagonist is the Only Sane Man who knows to actually have the instinct to save themselves and their classmates or because the mastermind had a lapse in judgment regarding their schemes and did something to expose themselves.
• Nebulous Criminal Conspiracy: The Ultimate Despair's work is done in secret, with the world not being able to identify the source of all the destruction that occurs throughout the series. To everyone else, said destruction suddenly happened and no particular person is to blame for it; unbeknownst to everyone, Junko Enoshima, Mukuro Ikusaba, Izuru Kamukura, and Class 77-B of Hope's Peak Academy are the ones responsible, with Towa Group serving alongside them as part of another conspiracy to aid the Despairs.
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Ultimate Despair are the ones responsible for the Mutual Killing Games. Initially a small cult founded by popular high school Fashionista Junko Enoshima, they are a group that seeks to spread despair across the world. To this end, they infiltrated Hope’s Peak Academy, killed multiple students and faculty, and recruited the experiment Izuru Kamukura to their cause- with him on their side, they became unstoppable and caused mass rioting, leading to the Tragedy. As of the main story, they have successfully brought down most world governments, and employ tactics like Brainwashing, robot invasions, organized crime, the destruction of entire cities and the titular televised killing game to further spread despair throughout the population.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: A franchise-wide example, possibly. The Steering Committee letting Junko in and letting her kickstart the destruction and death that would span the whole franchise eventually leads to Makoto taking control of Hope's Peak Academy itself and eroding the corruption they had that started the events of the series in the first place.
• No Fourth Wall: The series has loved fourth-wall breaking meta jokes right from the first game's prologue, and this gets taken farther and farther as the series goes on until it's taken to its peak in the ending of Killing Harmony, where the remaining students find out they are fictional characters in a video game and TV series called Danganronpa.
• No Mercy for Murderers: Danganronpa has this trope by default, since characters are forced to participate in Class Trials to vote for the killer in order to save themselves.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Case 2 has Mondo regretting killing Chihiro due to his envy, but was executed due to the rules.
  • Danganronpa 2:
    • Case 4 has Gundam, who killed Nekomaru to save classmates from hunger. Executed.
    • Case 5 has Chiaki unknowingly killing Nagito due to his plan to expose the mastermind. Executed with Monomi.
  • Danganronpa V 3:
    • Case 1 has Kaede killing Rantaro to expose the mastermind. Executed.
    • Case 2 has Kirumi killing Ryoma to save her country. Executed.
    • Case 4 has Gonta killing Miu to keep the secret of outside world from classmates. Executed.
    • Case 5 has Kaito and Kokichi collaborating to end the killing game. Kaito is executed.
• Not Afraid of Hell: In Goodbye Despair, Gundham makes a Badass Boast just before being executed, claiming he will "fill Hell with true hell". After the execution, he is ironically being portrayed as going to heaven instead.

O

• Once an Episode:
  • The main games are laid out with the same pattern: Daily Life, Deadly Life, Class Trial. Each Chapter 6 discards the Daily Life segment.
  • The first execution of each game always goes the same way - the culprit is shown being stared at by the other students before they're grabbed by the neck by a mechanical vise and dragged to the actual execution. After the culprit dies, the other students are shown staring in horror at the freshly deceased.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted in the first game as a plot point with Taeko Yasuhiro and Yasuhiro Hagakure. The spin-offs avert this ruthlessly, with lesser characters often sharing common names with more important ones (though sometimes the writing is different), to the point that there are no less than three unrelated characters with the first name Rei; Rei Mikagami, Rei Naruko and Rei Shimizu.
• The Only One: The Trial Point Getters are often the only ones capable of making any major breakthroughs in the trial, while everyone else follows along. Characters who understand more than most are Kyoko, Byakuya, Nagito, Chiaki, Kokichi, and Maki.
• Only Sane Man: Each game’s protagonist serves as this:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has the average Makoto as the protagonist, and he’s trapped in Hope’s Peak Academy with The Stoic detective Kyoko, sociopathic Rich Bitch Byakuya, cunning pop sensation Sayaka, Casanova Wannabe baseball star Leon, insecure, crossdressing programmer Chihiro, aggressive, yet insecure about masculinity, biker Mondo, by-the-books moral compass Kiyotaka, 2-D female-obsessed manga creator Hifumi, sociopathic, gambling liar Celestia, Gentle Giant warrior Sakura, despair-obsessed mastermind Junko, Junko’s one woman army soldier sister Mukuro, moronic, debt-filled clairvoyant Yasuhiro, bubbly swimmer girl Aoi, anxious writing prodigy Toko, and her boy-obsessed, serial-killer alter Genocide Jack.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair has the talentless Hajime as the protagonist, as he’s stuck on Jabberwock Island with sleepy gamer girl Chiaki, hope-obsessed maniac Nagito, the returning Byakuya who is really an impersonator, perverted, mama’s boy chef Teruteru, motherly, hypocritical photographer Mahiru, swordswoman Peko who believes herself to be just a tool, hyperactive musician Ibuki, Bratty Half-Pint traditonal dancer Hiyoko, severely bullied and brainwashed Shrinking Violet Mikan, aggressive yet friendly team manager Nekomaru, Chuunibyou with a heart of gold breeder Gundham, hotheaded, gluttonous gymnast Akane, dorky, downbad mechanic Kazuichi, Foreign Exchange Student princess interested in the occult Sonia, and swearing Jerk with a Heart of Gold Yakuza Fuyuhiko.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has friendly pianist Kaede as the protagonist, later replaced by shy detective Shuichi, but both are trapped in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles with lazy magical-girl wannabe Himiko, cold, emotional assassin Maki, mysterious Ultimate ??? Rantaro, suicidal criminal tennis player Ryoma, duty before self maid Kirumi, religious fundamentalist artist Angie, aikido master Tenko who Does Not Like Men, incestuous anthropologist Korekiyo, Sir Swears-a-Lot horny inventor Miu, inept Gentle Giant entomologist Gonta, pathological liar supreme leader Kokichi, and hero-wannabe astronaut Kaito.
• Ontological Mystery: Every killing game has its participants’ memories partially wiped out or reconstructed to fit the way the game is designed. When they’re not busy solving cases or trying to relax, the students investigate the place they’re trapped in to figure out why they’re here to begin with.
• Orgy of Evidence: The game's framejobs almost always turn out like this, with the 3rd case in the first game looking so damning that one character starts calling it a setup before the trial has begun. The second case in the second game meanwhile ends up making the patsy an impossibility as far as suspects go because of all the inconsistencies in her characterization with the evidence left behind.
• Overly Long Name: An example in-universe, and existing in both versions released in Japan and in the West, is The Tragedy, or also known as The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History and also known as The Worst, Most Despair-inducing Incident in the History of Mankind. It is so absurd that some characters recognize this and refuse to say the whole name.

P

• Plot Armor: All the protagonists, with the exception of Kaede. However, Makoto is almost executed on false charges in the first game, and only survives because Alter Ego hacked himself into the system and saved him.
• Power Trio: In all three visual novels, the main protagonist manages for form one with two other classmates who help with the trials.
  • Makoto's consists of him, Kyoko and Byakuya
  • Hajime's consists of him, Nagito and Chiaki
  • Shuichi's consists of him, Kaito and Maki
• Prolonged Video Game Sequel: Danganronpa has this as a tendency among the main games, with each game being considerably bigger and longer than the ones prior. This reaches a peak in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, in which the first trial alone can last up to three hours, not counting the rest of the chapter.
• Proof Dare: Many trials end this way following the Closing Statement/Climax Inference puzzle, where the culprit usually has to be a fought in a Bullet Time Battle with the final Truth Bullet concluding the case by tying them to the crime. Leon Kuwata most famously does in the first game yelling about everything he just heard being stupid theories, before Makoto corners him with the shrink-wrapped tool kits given to all the male students being clearly used in the case they just went through, meaning his should probably be opened up. His only response is Stunned Silence.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Monokuma. He sounds like a young adult, has the values of a young adult, has the sense of humour of a senile man, and has the quirks, and perception of humor of a child... and that's likely the only simplistic way to surmise his personality.

R

• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Aside from Komaru and Towa City's citizens, every game features this. All of the classes count. To wit:
  • Class 78th consists of an Ordinary High-School Student who happens to be somewhat luckier than most, as well as a Hope Bringer, a stoic Great Detective with Daddy Issues, a Jerkass Blue Blood, a donut loving swimmer, a Cloudcuckoolander clairvoyant, an abraisve romance writer with a Serial Killer Split Personality, a Broken Bird idol singer, a Casanova Wannabe baseball player who hates the sport, an Elegant Gothic Lolita gambler who is lying about her entire past, a Brawn Hilda who also happens to be one of the nicest students, an extremely loud moral commitee member, a biker with a serious Hair-Trigger Temper, a Wholesome Crossdresser progammer who looks like a child, a perverted fanfiction creator, an Extreme Doormat soldier and her fashionista sister who ends the world out of boredom.
  • Class 77-B consists of a constantly self deprecating guy driven insane by his luck cycle, a Gamer Chick with problems staying awake, a baby faced Yakuza member, his Master Swordswoman bodyguard/Implied Love Interest, a perverted Supreme Chef, a Chuunibyou animal breeder, a princess with several strange interests, a Shrinking Violet nurse, a traditonal dancer who is nowhere near as sweet as she looks, a gymnast who loves eating, a Team Mom photographer, an Innocently Insensitive mechanic with the Face of a Thug, a Genki Girl rockstar, a team manager who loves talking about his bowel movements, a Master of Disguise pretending to be the Jerkass Blue Blood from the above class and, as the anime revealed, a shut in animator who the Master of Disguise also pretended to be.
  • The Gifted Academy students consist of a detective doubting his talent due to arresting an Sympathetic Murderer, an All-Loving Heroine pianist, a magician who seems to actually believe she has magical powers, a man hating neo aikido master, an underaged astronaut trainee who is Secretly Dying, a Gentle Giant entomologist, a robot who is somehow one of the more normal members of the class, an extremely horny inventor, a Consummate Liar who claims to be the leader of a shadowy organization, a grumpy child care giver who is actually an assassin, a Almighty Maid who is revealed to be the leader of a nation, a baby faced, jaded tennis player who took out the Mafia by himself, an anthropologist who is revealed to be in love with his sister, a highly religious artist, a guy who can't remember his talent and an Otaku who is revealed to be behind everything. Interestingly enough, this trope is heavily implied to have been invoked by the people behind the TV show. After all, what's better TV then a bunch of weirdos all forced to live together and solve each other's murders?
• Rainbow Speak: Danganronpa uses different-colored text like Ace Attorney, but the first game also has the Re:ACT system, wherein you can press Triangle once purple text appears to interrupt and inquire further about purple text. The Non-stop Debates also use orange text for possible contradictions, blue for possible correct claims (from Goodbye Despair onwards) and purple for chatter.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Played straight and likely invoked with the entire series, since the script is written by adults. Everyone involved in the series may be teenagers, but them being intelligent shouldn't allow them to be Sophisticated as Hell so cleanly. However, they have their occasional moments of silence, disgust, anguish or confusion due to their situation and lack of internal knowledge.
• Recurring Element: The franchise is known by having several, and as far as the main series games' casts go, all of them have:
  • A pretty generic protagonist (compared to their classmates) with an ahoge that expresses some insecurity towards their talents and end up with an Implied Love Interest (Makoto, Hajime, Shuichi). The ‘insecurity’ part is especially prominent with Hajime and Shuichi. Kaede could’ve broken that trend, but you know...
  • The Mastermind being exposed in chapter 6 and having started the killing game in the name of despair and/or their own amusement (Junko, Izuru, Tsumugi).
  • A student with a Non-Standard Character Design (Hifumi, Teruteru, Ryoma) that all die in the first half of the story. All of them killed someone else at some point (although Ryoma only did it in his backstory) and died playing different roles in different chapters: Ryoma was a victim in Chapter 2, Teruteru was Chapter 1’s killer, and Hifumi was both a victim and a killer in Chapter 3.
  • A Big Guy that dies in Chapter 4 (Sakura, Nekomaru, Gonta). Nekomaru is a victim, Gonta is a culprit, and Sakura is both due to her committing suicide. Additionally, in the first two games, the character embodying this archetype has an athletic talent (Martial Artist and Team Manager) and befriends the characters representing the recurring element below.
  • Chapter 4 also features a robotic character being killed off as well (Alter Ego in the first game, though he briefly gets better, Mechamaru from the second game and Gonta's A.I. in the third game).
  • Chapter 3 features a particularly unsympathetic culprit who kills two people. Celeste had Hifumi kill Kiyotaka before killing him herself for a dream of escaping with Monokuma's prize money and buying an European castle (though the manga version of Trigger Happy Havoc expands more on her troubled past). Mikan was infected with the Despair Disease, thus remembering her status as a Remnant of Despair and killing Ibuki (and later Hiyoko as she walks in on Mikan killing her) to please her beloved (a.k.a Junko). Korekiyo, meanwhile, had killed almost a hundred girls, including Angie and Tenko, for his deceased sister to befriend, but it is implied that he was Brainwashed and Crazy as well, since his memories were fake. Probably).
  • Chapter 1 cases are all murder attempts Gone Horribly Wrong. Sayaka had planned to kill Leon but ended up killed by the latter instead. Teruteru planned to kill Nagito, who had planned a murder himself, but ended up killing "Byakuya" instead, who in turn had also foiled Nagito's plan. Kaede set up a Rube Goldberg Device to kill the mastermind, but ended up accidentally killing Rantaro instead, which later on was revealed as a Frame-Up as the murder attempt completely missed and did not kill anyone, but the mastermind still used it to kill Rantaro themself.
  • An Ambiguously Brown girl whose first name starts with A (Aoi Asahina, Akane Owari, Angie Yonaga). Hina and Akane share more similarities in that they have an athletic talent (Hina is a swimmer and Akane is a gymnast), befriend the Big Guy of their cast, and survive their respective killing games. In comparison, Angie is the Ultimate Artist, doesn't form a particularly strong bond with Gonta, and is killed off in Chapter 3.
  • A character that has an almost unhealthy obsession with another character (Toko, Kazuichi and Tenko towards Byakuya, Sonia and Himiko, respectively).
  • A student who can't initially remember their talent (Kyoko, Hajime, Rantaro).
  • A particularly smart, but morally gray Jerkass that antagonizes the other students, tends to solve cases quicker than the others but abstains from blatantly spitting out facts, and makes it very far in their killing games (Byakuya, Nagito, Kokichi).
  • A Token Mini-Moe character who looks far younger than someone in their late teens (Chihiro, Hiyoko, Himiko). Coincidentally, they all play an important part in their respective games' second cases.
  • A student whose talent represents their leadership of a criminal organization (Mondo, Fuyuhiko, Kokichi again).
  • A girl whose talent is related to music in some capacity (Sayaka, Ibuki, Kaede). Similarly, none of them make it past the first half of the game (Sayaka and Kaede die in Chapter 1 of their respective games, while Ibuki dies in Chapter 3).
  • A character that serves as the Sir Swears-a-Lot of the group (Mondo, Fuyuhiko, Miu)
  • A character who seems to be getting Character Development during the third chapter, only to suddenly pop up dead as one of the chapter's two victims (Kiyotaka, Hiyoko, Tenko).
  • A Heroic Sacrifice is a key part of the end of the game: Sakura kills herself to unite the survivors, Chiaki confesses to murder to save the other students, and Keebo destroys the entire school, murdering the Mastermind in the process, by exploding himself.
  • A character with a non-Japanese name (Leon, Sonia, Angie). While it's unknown why Leon, who is Japanese, has a western-sounding name, Sonia is explicitly stated to be a foreign exchange student from Europe and Angie is implied to be Indonesian.
  • A girl with a talent based around deadly combat (Mukuro, Peko, Maki).
  • A character with an extremely odd sounding talent (Hifumi, Sonia, Kokichi).
  • The Mastermind, or their despair-inducing assistant, always stands in podium 8 closest to Monokuma (Junko, Mikan, Tsumugi).
  • A character whose talent relates to S.T.E.M. and creates something that plays a role in chapter 4 (Chihiro and his AI Alter Ego, Kazuichi and his Mechamaru toys, Miu and her virtual reality).
  • Non-character element — Discussion -HOPE VS DESPAIR- will always be used in the final confrontation, be it the final Class Trial discussion of most cases, the final boss fight in Absolute Despair Girls, or the final Argument Armament in V3.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: If Monokuma (and most of his fellow mascots) sporting one wasn't a clue, the presence of at least one red-eyed character in every installment of a murder mystery-based series is bound to cause at least one straight example or subversion/aversion of this per installment. As an added bonus, every single red-eyed character seen so far has continued the trend set up by Monokuma by continuing his "dangerous duo persona" motif to varying extents.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Hope's Peak Academy actually exists to avert this, collecting high schoolers with exceptional talents for the decades (the first games cast belonging to the 78th year) and helping guarantee them a successful future. Hajime even says that many leaders of various industries are alumni of the school. The effects this has had on society are noticeable, with things like advanced robotics and AIs being somewhat commonplace.
• Religion of Evil: While merely implied in the first game by the Monokuma masks worn by the rioters, the lines drawn between the Ultimate Despair get more explicitly compared to a cult in the sequel when Monokuma is describing their mantra of having no purpose behind the despair they cause, only spreading despair as an offering to "their god." By Another Episode, someone even outright tells a member of the Warriors of Hope that they were all swayed into joining a cult by Junko's honeyed words delivered in their most vulnerable hour.
• Rewatch Bonus: The entire franchise is full of traits that ensure this trope. Characters' dialogue noticeably becomes more metatheatrical when talking about the way the Killing Game works, Monokuma's suspiciously specific way of describing the actions of said characters makes more sense when reading the story from the villains' side, and the protagonists' basic thought process being described as "plain" and "predictable" makes sense when the player themself isn't paying attention to another character's dialogue and taking all exposition for granted.

S

• Schmuck Bait: Every single one of Monokuma's motives. And every student who falls directly or indirectly for them seems to be caught right into Monokuma's execution procedure. Celeste plays right into the money in Trigger Happy Havoc, and Kaede defies the mastermind by attempting to kill them in Killing Harmony, not out of stress from being killed by a time limit ending but strong will.
• School Forced Us Together:
  • Invoked. Most games involve classes of students being forced to participate in a mutual killing game with a school setting.
  • Heavily exploited by the masterminds in V3. None of the students knew each other prior to waking up in the school, and all have drastically different personalities and backgrounds. Nonetheless, they form relationships with each other during their stay. At the point of The Reveal, it turns out the students were originally fans who auditioned to be on the Danganronpa reality show, , and had their personalities and memories fabricated to satisfy the audience.
• School for Scheming: Hope's Peak Academy is outed as a rather realistic example, being horrifically corrupt and damaging to everyone involved, though its depiction only shifted progressively to this with each installment.
  • In 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 Goodbye Despair, Hope's Peak Academy is shown to have actively defrauding hundreds of average-joe students of their parents' money through the Reserve Course 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 and high tuition to create the infinitely talented but soulless transhuman nihilist Ultimate Hope, Izuru Kamukura. Junko only had to give it the least push to get it all to come crumbling down.
  • Ultra Despair Girls more-or-less reveals that huge sections of the school, including the "Elementary" branch, were 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.
  • Danganronpa 3 shows that the main course students don't even have to attend class, and are there to be studied rather than get an education.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Junko in Trigger Happy Havoc and Tsumugi in Killing Harmony both pull this in their respective games by ordering an execution of the protagonist for their murders on false charges, since they're the mastermind of their games. Junko attempts to get away with Mukuro's murder in Chapter 5 until Makoto sees through her ruse and attempts to execute him to silence him, something Kyoko turns back on Junko; Tsumugi successfully gets away with killing Rantaro in Chapter 1 when executing Kaede under false charges due to her meticulous Frame-Up scenario, while the other cast members are none the wiser... until she gets exposed in Chapter 6's investigation. In an odd way, this also applies to Junko in Goodbye Despair due to Loophole Abuse, as even if she literally can't "make" new rules as an observer of the Neo World Program, she sure as hell makes attempts to work around the current ones via the Killing School Trip.
• Seeking the Intangible: Nagito's main goal in life is to find a 'strong hope'; he acts like it's something he's actually capable witnessing rather than an abstract concept. He's even willing to go to extremes for this obsession. It's not pretty.
• Self-Deprecation: Throughout the series, the script slowly becomes more prone to mocking its use of 'convenience' tropes, almost as if to mock its feeble first attempt.
  • After Sakura's suicide in Trigger Happy Havoc, no other killing game features someone independently committing suicide as a victim for other people's cause. Instead, it's used to trick the player.
    • In Goodbye Despair, Mikan strangled Ibuki in the music venue and then hung her corpse on the stage bar, Gundham and Nekomaru planned to duel each other and have only one winner despite Monokuma's rules, and Nagito inhaled poison that caused him to release a spear into his abdomen.
    • In Killing Harmony, Ryoma didn't insert himself into the piranha tank because of its height, and Tenko was propelled upward into the weapon via a loose floorboard.
  • Ultra Despair Girls is an entire game made to deprecate the idea of the characters having convenience, and how their only justification is inherited luck. Makoto is the establishing protagonist of the series, and so it can be assumed that his legacy post-the first game is other characters being lucky with their survival.
  • Killing Harmony mocks the entire concept of the Killing Game by giving the characters snide comments to make about their ambiguous situation, and one of its bonus modes involves an alternate universe where the characters from Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair never had to experience Junko's despair addiction apocalypse and interact with the ones in Killing Harmony (despite being supposedly fictional according to the main game's story).
• Series Mascot: Monokuma for the franchise and the first game in particular. Each game also has its own specific 'mascot' character.
• Shouting Free-for-All: This is an actual game mechanic in the Nonstop Debates. During these sequences, characters talk and yell over each other as the protagonist/player tries to find relevant statements to either contradict or prove with Truth Bullets, while simultaneously shooting down the unhelpful white noise. This is especially true of the Mass Panic Debates in Killing Harmony, where the screen will be crowded with people's overlapping arguments, making it harder to pick out weak points.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The main antagonists of the series who are the leading cause of The Tragedy that plays a part in the overarching story are the sisters Faux Affably Evil Girly Girl Junko Enoshima and Affably Evil Tomboy Mukuro Ikusaba. Junko loathes Mukuro's decision to become a soldier, which is part of the reason for Junko's murder of Mukuro in Chapter 1 of the first game.
• Signature Style: The fusion of bright colors, wild and wacky character designs inside uncanny environments with realistic and brutal imagery, or as the creators call it, "Psycho Pop." However, for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony the style becomes a variation of it called "Psycho Cool".
• Slashers Prefer Blondes: Serial killer Genocide Jack (also known as Toko Fukawa) is attracted to blonde young capitalist Byakuya Togami, swordswoman pseudo-serial killer Peko Pekoyama has a relationship between herself and blonde yakuza Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, and anthropologist-serial killer Korekiyo Shinguji decided to kill Angie Yonaga (who has white hair but outside of their own universe that would more plausibly be considered light blonde) out of the fear that she would tell the others about his construction of a seesaw trap.
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: Every character bar the mastermind metaphorically does this by having their memories of it first happening being removed. Komaru, despite not adhering to the trope, still knew too little about the Tragedy because she was imprisoned.
• Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: In a series involving students who kill each other for various reasons (most of them being unsympathetic and others being completely tragic), a group that spreads despair for the sake of it, a soldier who assists a proud sociopath with the good intention of only making her villainous sister proud of her, a Hate Sink Enfant Terrible with a Big Brother Bully, and a Loony Fan who wants to keep up the franchise for the sake of the killing games (representing the audience of the series), Junko Enoshima still stands out as the worst of them all as the instigator of everything, of whom has no excuse for what she does and even declares her willingness to commit her crimes for no reason at all beyond being a self-centered sadistic bully.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The series as a whole slides back and forth between both sides, though how much depends on the installment. Things like murders, class trials, and executions are counterbalanced by funny dialogue, cartoonish sound effects, and the sheer absurdity of some of the situations. Not to mention the main villain is a robot teddy bear.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Played with in regards to Mukuro Ikusaba, The Dragon to Junko Enoshima and the Ultimate Soldier. While she willingly assists her twin sister in her plot to spread despair and cause the apocalypse, kickstarting the whole franchise, she is more focused on pleasing her eviler twin sister's despair fetish than she is about spreading despair itself. Regardless, she doesn't care about the moral implications of Junko's twisted desires, which still makes her sociopathic.
• Spoiled Brat: Downplayed. Not everyone who is an Ultimate student acts in an entitled way, as most are actually genuine Nice Guys/Girls and act with courtesy regardless of their status, but pretty much all of the main characters at least partially show a sign of entitlement or ingratitude to something or something. Most notably ingratitude, however, as despite the killing games the characters end up in, they at least get plenty of high-class amenities and privileges that a normal person wouldn't be allowed thanks to their status, even if it's in bittersweet circumstances. Along with this, they usually have a demanding attitude where they expect something better from other people regardless of whether or not they've earned it. Most of the murder cases are also the result of characters refusing to get to know one another and keeping secrets due to having ego issues.
• Starter Villain Stays: Junko starts out as the Big Bad of the first game, in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Mukuro, and she remains the series Big Bad from then on.
• Strictly Formula:
  • As the franchise goes on, a lot of patterns keep popping up per chapter:
    • Chapter 1: A heavily advertised character, one presented as important to the plot or who seems to have ties to previous casts, is killed/executed (Sayaka, the Imposter, Kaede, Yuta). The first attempt at murder doesn't kill the intended target (Sayaka was trying to kill Leon but got killed herself, Teruteru was aiming for Nagito, Kaede tried to kill the mastermind). The first execution is usually one of the most brutal to set the tone. The first culprit falls under Monokuma's provocations, causing a rift between the group and a promise to never murder again in order to halt a potential trial.
    • Chapter 2: A murder occurs because someone flew off the handle due to something in their past (Mondo/Chihiro, Peko/Mahiru, Kirumi/Ryoma). Usually a tragic reasoning. The victim has an opposing connection to the culprit, which results in a more complicated murder case than the first. First cases are established as tutorials for the players and the cast while the second cases are established as unforgivable, usually leading to no one further wanting to continue with Monokuma's game's internal laws.
    • Chapter 3: Double murder (Kiyotaka/Hifumi, Hiyoko/Ibuki, Angie/Tenko), with one of the victims being a comic relief character getting shooed out (Hifumi, Ibuki, Tenko). The murderer also does it for a completely unsympathetic reason (Money, "love", transporting a surfeit of females to a deceased sibling, also female). Additionally, the secondary murder victim being a comic relief character is the circumstance that causes the next murder case to be for a noble reason. The culprit having an unsympathetic motive most likely is a result of Monokuma not being fair over the last two culprits, attempting to reconcile with him by working according to his own unsympathetic motives for creating a torturous game.
    • Chapter 4: Big Guy Fatality Syndrome is in full effect (Sakura, Nekomaru, Gonta). The trial ends in a Tear Jerker and the death was committed for a noble cause (Mitigate the internal conflict of the group and motivate them to unite, release the group from the captivation of the Funhouse, attempt a mercy kill so no one can gain witness to the apocalyptic outside world). After finding out that submitting to Monokuma the first time when he gets the satisfaction only, the second time when Monokuma's atrocious adamant idea to have everyone participate is highlighted, or third time when someone decides to be as unsympathetic, doesn't allow anyone's survival to be pertained as they themselves desire, the culprit allows someone to die for the sake of the rest of the group's survival in order to remove the rift participating has caused.
    • Chapter 5: One of the main characters is in danger, pretty much sought out by the mastermind (Kyoko and Makoto, Nagito and Chiaki, Maki and Kokichi). The murder is part of a trap/larger plan rather than an end in itself (stop Kyoko's investigation, kill the Despair members, fool the mastermind). The class trial is blatantly unfair (Monokuma himself is the culprit, and he forces a premature voting time; the Blackened "culprit" is randomized and unidentifiable; the victim is unidentifiable and the primary suspect is allowed to remain anonymous in the class trial). The last death is especially brutal, but it sets the stage for the Killing Game ending once and for all (Mukuro is stabbed by multiple spears, her corpse is then combusted. The identity of the mastermind is found out through this act, however, and is defeated at the end of the game; Nagito mutilates himself to have his prompted murder appear as a torture act, is forced to inhale poison and is stabbed in the abdomen with a spear, accidentally done by the traitor assigned by the Future Foundation, Chiaki Nanami; Kokichi has a duo of poisonous arrows shot at him for Maki's interrogation as she wants a clear explanation for 'his role' as a 'Remnant of Despair' to be his dying words, and has to crush himself under a hydraulic press before the poison infects the flow of his blood entirely as to save Maki from execution). The trial ends in the execution for a character among the main group (Makoto (though he survives), Chiaki (despite being an AI), Kaito) and the last victim is always an antagonistic character (Mukuro, Nagito, Kokichi). For the player, this case is a demonstrative battle of hope and despair, preparing them for what the mastermind is capable of when they attempt to participate in the game themselves anonymously.
    • Chapter 6: The Mastermind is revealed. It's usually a person that no one expected (Junko, Izuru Kamukura and Junko again, Monaca, Kazuo, Tsumugi). The truth of the Killing Game and the world comes out, and is always an earth-shattering reveal that completely changes everything; it is entirely possible no murders would have occurred if everyone knew the truth beforehand. After the fifth case's demonstration of the mastermind's ability to form a second rift in the group after the one already existing is removed in the fourth case, the entire sixth trial is dedicated to the true battle between hope and despair where the cast locate who the mastermind is and make sure the ones who have survived extremely complicated, appropriately prodigal murder cases that would result in mass execution if one person never found any condemning evidence themselves survive as a remainder.
  • Danganronpa 3 - Side:Future doesn't have Chapters like its parent games did, but it still follows the formula: Chisa is killed off early, Bandai is killed because of Juzo furiously hitting someone, Gozu dies, Ruruka gets one of the gorier deaths, Kyoko's rule is rigged in the Mastermind's favor either way and almost dies, Juzo's death sets the endgame in motion (and in some fashion succumbs to Big Guy Fatality Syndrome as well) and the Mastermind wasn't exactly expected.
  • In a grimly amusing example, even the very first killing game runs through the above plot points in the 5 minutes that it lasted. Ikuta, the most outspoken member, gets shot point blank by Mukuro to get the other kids to play along. Karen goes off the handle once when she figures out her mom's been kidnapped. Tsubasa and Taro get killed by a very bitter Kurosaki. Hino actively antagonized Kamukura, and had the grimmest death out of the cast through getting his head torn up by falling on his own chainsaw. The mastermind was Junko, a girl who wasn't involved with the student council at all, and it's revealed afterward to Kamukura that the whole thing was being used to brainwash people into despair through an altered video of their deaths. They even have a missing member; when it was all over, Murasame managed to escape without anyone noticing.
  • One franchise staple is an Advertised Extra who gets promoted as a main character and then wasted in the first chapter:
    • On the first game pre-release, Sayaka Maizono is presented as Makoto's love interest. She is the first victim, and the real Deuteragonist ends up being Kyoko Kirigiri.^note Sayaka got hit a little extra hard with this since she and Leon were advertised as the main characters when the game was in its beta state, and by the time the final product rolled around, the pair essentially killed each other.
    • In Danganronpa 2, both Nagito and Byakuya are played up as important during the pre-release stage, especially since Byakuya is one of the characters from Danganronpa 1. The fat Byakuya is an imposter who got killed in Chapter 1, while you are playing as Hajime with Nagito as his foil...although the player temporarily controls Nagito in Chapter 4's investigation sequence.
    • In Danganronpa 3, Chisa Yukizome is presented as one of the few reasonable Future Foundation members and is the narrator in the trailer. She dies in the first episode of Side:Future; she is still important in Side:Despair, but as we found out eventually she is an Ultimate Despair.
    • In Danganronpa V3's early advertisement, it was hinted that the protagonist would be the robotic Makoto Expy that was later named Keebo. The second PV reveals that the protagonist would actually be Kaede Akamatsu, a character not revealed in the early material, and she became heavily promoted. Then it turns out she is a Decoy Protagonist, being the culprit in Chapter 1 and thus executed, leading to Shuichi becoming the real protagonist. However it was followed by Keebo temporarily, when Shuichi suffers a Heroic BSoD in Chapter 6.
  • Something related to the medium an installment is done in will play an important role.
    Games/Programming: Chihiro's self-learning AI in 1, the Neo World Program in 2, Komaru and Touko being railroaded right where the Warriors of Hope want them in Absolute Despair Girls.
    Books: Otonashi's journal in Zero, the Despair Book in the Togami novels.
    Manga: The Mad Artist author in Killer Killer.
    Anime: Ryota's "hope anime" in 3.
    Series-wide: Monokuma's constant gestures to the audience in all the installments he appears, and the very concept of a successful killing game franchise in V3.
  • By the time V3 was announced this trope had been played so common that there are quite enough fans to guess the above points, although V3 made a habit of playing with the formula while still sticking to it, creating a mind game effect.
• Speech-Centric Work: Another Episode aside. Even the "action" segments largely involve talking aggressively in dramatic debates.
• Stylistic Suck: The game completely fails to hide that the vast majority of the world is largely flat planes, even the characters. Part of this joke even extends to the occasional Monokuma Copy you find in the game, which, more often than not, are basically a flat cut-out of Monokuma.
• Sudden Contest Format Change:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Near the end of the first game, Monokuma uses a rigged trial to get rid of Kyoko, only for Makoto to take the fall, leading to him being executed, despite the rules saying only the person who killed the victim being valid as the correct person to be executed. Thankfully for Makoto, his talent for being Born Lucky allows him to survive the execution, giving him the opportunity to confront Monokuma about this. Monokuma initially plans to declare Screw the Rules, I Make Them!, only for Makoto and Kyoko to remind him about the killing game being broadcast, and further cheating would heavily undermine his intended message. Monokuma then decides to challenge the six surviving students to a final trial. Instead of the standard ?figure out the killer? goal, this last trial requires them to solve the Ontological Mystery and work out who is the mastermind controlling Monokuma. Winning this trial will allow them to leave alive, while failure will lead to them all being executed. The rules change again during the trial, after the reveal that Junko Enoshima was Faking the Dead through a Twin Switch, and as such, is the mastermind. Junko decides to try and force the students past the Despair Event Horizon, and changes it so that the vote is now between letting hope or despair win. If anyone votes for despair, Junko wins, Makoto will be executed, and everyone stays in the school. Should hope win through a unanimous vote, Junko is executed, and the remaining six will leave. Makoto successfully rouses hope in the others, allowing for hope to win, and Junko to be defeated.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: In the final chapter, Shuichi finds some evidence that suggests the first trial was rigged, and Kaede was falsely executed, leading to him calling for a retrial. While this is seemingly unprecedented, Monokuma shows amusement in the idea and agrees to it. In the trial, Shuichi reveals the truth, exposing Tsumugi as the one who actually killed Rantaro and got away with it, undermining the rules of the game. At this point, Tsumugi reveals herself to be the mastermind, having used her position to subvert the rules and continue the killing game, which again, is an Immoral Reality Show, but this time, instead of hijacking the airwaves, the killing game is fully legal and backed by a studio, the result of a "Truman Show" Plot. Tsumugi then changes things up, so again, the vote is between hope and despair, but as a full on Sadistic Choice. Hope will have Tsumugi and two of the survivors move onto the next season of Danganronpa and partake in that killing game (it?s implied Rantaro took a similar deal in the previous season), while despair will lead to K1-B0, the Ultimate Hope Robot, being executed and the killing game?s continuation. Shuichi instead decides to Take a Third Option, where everyone abstains from voting, even knowing that doing so will lead to their execution, in order to give the show the most disappointing ending possible and drive the viewing audience away from the show. It takes a lot of effort, but Shuichi eventually convinces the others to abstain, even with K1-B0 being hijacked by said audience in the studio?s last ditch effort to foil his plan. Despite the intent for everyone to be executed, K1-B0 performs the execution, only killing Tsumugi and then proceeding to self destruct to destroy the set, allowing the remaining three to escape alive.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: A successful contradiction is punctuated with the protagonist cutting in shouting "That's wrong!" In the second and third game, other characters can perform this on you as they start a Rebuttal Showdown.
• Symbolic Cast Fadeout: Very common in the series, as a Deadly Game is the main premise of the main entires. In all three main games, during the class trials, the students each stand at a court-esque podium, with the podiums for the dead students being filled in with a grey-scale portrait of said student that's been crossed out. The second and third games add another example, where before the trial starts, the protagonist recaps the situation as a set of collages of the students appear. In said collages, the students who are alive have a blue tinted picture, while the dead students are tinted with red. The second game also has Evolving Credits, where when the game is started, it checks the most recent save file for where it is in the story, and the students who are dead at that point have their picture in the opening given a red filter and occasionally blood splatters.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Nearly every killer in the series is this due to legitimately having a duress defense for their actions or having their moral agency compromised in some other way. The only clear-cut aversion is series Big Bad Junko Enoshima.

T

• Team Mercy vs. Team Murder: The premise of the entire series. None of these teenagers are interested in murdering eachother, but the killers in each case are acting off their preservation instincts to escape the killing game because they see no other option.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: Certainly invoked with the executions. After all, why just kill the Ultimate Baseball Star when you can make a pitching machine shoot baseballs at him like a Gatling gun and from every angle? Why just kill the Ultimate Chef when you can cover him in batter and fry him alive in a volcano? Why just kill the Ultimate Pianist when you can slowly hang her while making her badly play a piano piece, then obliterate her corpse with said piano's spiked lid?
• Total Party Kill: Very nearly accomplished on the authority of the mastermind by adding an even more trepidatious dilemma on top of "kill or be killed" in Danganronpa 2's fourth and fifth case, and Danganronpa V3's first case. In the former two, Monokuma uses hunger as a way to kill the remaining cast after his previous attempts at executing everyone didn't work, and Nagito becomes an Unwitting Pawn by having his obsession with hope manipulated into Monokuma's grasp by getting the remaining cast bar Chiaki executed so Junko's Egopolis plan can be somewhat purused. In the latter, Monokuma tells everyone that if they don't kill within a two day time period with the additional advantage of a perk that allows them to leave the conflicting situation themselves, all of the cast would be killed by multiple Monokuma units with the assistance of Motherkuma.
• Troperiffic: Danganronpa can be most appropriately summarised as an 'experimental parody', since its concept is based on omnipresent clichés in fictional works, an amalgam with the fourth wall seemingly not existing to the viewer. Self-aware is what it is.
• Two Dun It: The series does this a lot; aside from the fact that Monokuma is the Big Bad responsible for every murder as the host of the Mutual Killing Games, nearly every case has at least two culprits, though usually with one being the central planner and murderer.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
    • Chapter 1: Leon was the one who killed Sayaka, but Sayaka herself was trying to kill Leon first- Leon fought back and killed her in the heat of the moment. The manga also has it be an Accidental Murder on Leon's part.
    • Chapter 2: Mondo murdered Chihiro, but Byakuya tampered with the evidence to blame it on and draw out Genocide Jack, the Serial Killer hiding among them.
    • Chapter 3: Celeste tricked Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka, then killed Hifumi herself to keep him from talking.
    • Chapter 4: Sakura was Driven to Suicide, but Aoi was manipulated by Monokuma into trying to get everyone else killed as well.
    • Chapter 5 and 6: Eventually, it's revealed that there are two masterminds behind Monokuma, collectively known as the Ultimate Despair. However the mastermind who was manually controlling the bear, Junko Enoshima, murdered her accomplice Mukuro Ikusaba early in the story by baiting her into breaking the rules. This was done to hide the fact that they had swapped identities.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
    • Chapter 1: Teruteru killed the Ultimate Imposter, but Nagito goaded him into it in the first place. Teruteru was actually aiming for Nagito.
    • Chapter 2: Subverted. Peko killed Mahiru, but it seems that Fuyuhiko ordered her to do it. Turns out Peko did it of her own accord.
    • Chapter 3: Also subverted. It seems that Hiyoko may have been an accomplice to the murder of Ibuki, but she was not; Mikan killed both of them on her own.
    • Chapter 4: Gundham killed Nekomaru, but they fought in a duel to the death- had Nekomaru won, he would have killed Gundham.
    • Chapter 5: Chiaki was the direct killer of Nagito, but Nagito himself set things up so she would accidentally kill him.
    • Chapter 6: There are in fact two-to-three masterminds: Nagito, who manipulated the other students and set up much of the conflict; Monokuma/Junko, the host of the killing game; and Izuru Kamukura, Hajime Hinata's Superpowered Evil Side who put the Junko AI into the Neo World Program.
  • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: The war between kids and adults in Towa City was set up by Monaca Towa and AI Junko Enoshima, the latter disguised as Shirokuma and Kurokuma.
  • Danganronpa 3 Side:Future: The spy who set up the Final Killing Game is actually three people. Monaca, disguised as Miaya Gekkogahara; Kazuo Tengan, the Future Foundation Chairman and primary mastermind; and Chisa Yukizome, who brought Tengan to despair in the first place.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
    • Chapter 1: Kaede set up the trap to kill the mastermind, but said mastermind, Tsumugi, saw it coming and killed Rantaro to frame her.
    • Chapter 2: Actally averted; Kirumi is the sole culprit behind Ryoma's murder this time.
    • Chapter 3: Subverted; while it seems like Angie and Tenko may have been killed by two different people, Korekiyo murdered both of them.
    • Chapter 4: Miu, the victim, was trying to kill Kokichi, only for him to manipulate Gonta into killing her.
    • Chapter 5: Kaito killed Kokichi, but at his request as part of a Thanatos Gambit.
    • Chapter 6: Monokuma masterminded the game with the help of Tsumugi and Team Danganronpa.
• Two Guys and a Girl: So far, it has been some sort of trend with tritagonists, Another Episode excluded, i.e. Makoto, Byakuya, Kyoko in the first game, Hajime, Nagito and Chiaki in the second, and Shuichi, Kaito, and Maki in the third. In Danganronpa 3 the dynamic belongs to Kyosuke, Juzo, and Chisa though they're not exactly the main characters, and the dynamic is inverted with Makoto, Kyoko, and Aoi. V3 has an inversion as well, given that the sole survivors of the game are Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko.

U

• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • In Trigger Happy Havoc, the class trials' minigames are broken down into the following:
    • Multiple Choice: Choosing the correct answer out of three for a question.
    • Choose Truth Bullet: The same deal as Multiple Choice, only choosing one of the truth bullets the player has in hand instead.
    • Non-Stop Debate: Literally shooting down contradictions with the aforementioned truth bullets during an argument between the students.
    • Hangman's Gambit: Filling in blanks to complete a word. Each main game has a different version of this minigame with a different playstyle, but otherwise with the same goal.
    • Bullet Time Battle: Breaking through a student's Ad Hominem arguments in a Rhythm Game.
    • Identify the Person: Choosing one of the students as the culprit behind the murder.
    • Closing Argument: Assembling how the murder went down by placing events on manga-style strips.
  • Goodbye Despair adds the following to the roster:
    • Spot Selection: Choosing a specific object or location within an image.
    • Rebuttal Showdown: A one-on-one debate against another student in which the player has to slash the opponent's statements until they get to a contradiction to use a truth bullet (called "truth blade" here) on.
    • Logic Dive: A minigame that plays similarly to Endless Running games, but with limited runs and questions that the player has to answer on the way.
    • Panic Talk Action: Replaces the first game's Bullet Time Battle, with the same concept but a few gameplay differences.
    • Non-Stop Debate is also given "correct statements", which the player can shoot to agree with instead of shooting contradictions.
  • Meanwhile, Killing Harmony adds these:
    • Mass Panic Debate: A version of Non-Stop Debate in which three arguments take place at the same time, with different slots for the player to choose which one they want to hear with a louder sound. At times, the player also has to deal with shouting statements in one argument that make the others unhearable.
    • Mind Mine: A minigame based on Match-Three games in which the player has to erase blocks of different colors in order to see and choose one of various hidden images.
    • Debate Scrum: The students are split between two opinions, and the player has to match statements from students in the opposing side to ones in their side with a same word, then repeatedly press different keys to fight against the opposing side.
    • Psyche Taxi: The game's equivalent of Logic Dive from the previous game.
    • Argument Armament: The game's equivalent of Bullet Time Battle and Panic Talk Action, with more drastic differences in terms of both aesthetic and gameplay.
    • In Non-Stop Debate, the player can now convert truth bullets to lie bullets in order to get a correct answer by lying.

V

• Varying Competency Alibi:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: During the trial for the murder of Chihiro, Byakuya proposes that Toko is the murderer due to her split personality in the form of Genocide Jack on account of the fact that Chihiro's body was mounted up hanging. However, Makoto is able to figure out that Genocide Jack is innocent in this due to how precise and specific she is with her killings as she kills with specially-made scissors and hangs her victims with said scissors while Chihiro was bludgeoned to death and hung using a power cord, along with the fact that Genocide Jack only kills men. Chihiro turns out to be a boy, but Genocide Jack didn't know that.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: One of the pieces of evidence that points to Mikan's guilt is the fact that her assessment of Ibuki's cause of death was hanging, to hide the fact that she had strangled the victim to death. However, when it becomes apparent the victim wasn't hanged, Mikan tries defending herself by explaining she just made a mistake, only for Nagito to point out that she's the Ultimate Nurse and even a drunk med student would have been able to tell the difference.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: No one believes Gonta could be Miu's killer as he's both a Nice Guy and not very intelligent, while the scheme to kill Miu required careful planning while accounting for the bizarre elements of the Neo World Program. It turns out that Gonta is indeed the killer, but the scheme was devised by Kokichi, who had manipulated Gonta into carrying it out.
• Viewers Are Goldfish:
  • In Trigger Happy Havoc, flashbacks to not even a full scene ago happen fairly often, with one flashback showing something that happened roughly thirty seconds beforehand. In particular, flashbacks to the scene where Kyoko first informs Makoto of Mukuro's existence happen on a near-constant basis during Chapter 5.
  • During the second trial of Goodbye Despair, the game once flashes back to something Fuyuhiko said earlier in the trial. It's a fairly significant line, but it seems that the game has no faith in the players' ability to remember something Fuyuhiko said less than an hour ago.
• Viewers Are Morons: The franchise features a lot of philosophical speech involving slow pacing and long reaction times. As such, it has long explanations for things like how something works and what "the killer did" in complete detail.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Zig-Zagged. Within the killing game settings, the "saccharine" part only applies outside of the murder trials and during daily life events, and without the presence of the Big Bad, the characters are generally more well-acquainted with one another and usually joke around. However, when Monokuma/Junko gets involved, expect the tone of the story to immediately darken and for a murder case to follow it up, and if not a murder case, then something just as chaotic.
• Villain-Based Franchise: Monokuma is a very murderous bear.
• Villain of the Week: The instigators of the murders (or general conflict) or the independent culprits for each chapter for each game are the main antagonists the player has to defeat, including the mastermind in Chapter 6, and each one is punished by execution (Junko twice, Tsumugi once) or losing their entire purpose (like Monaca). In order:
  • Sayaka, Nagito, and Tsumugi in Chapter 1.
  • Mondo, Fuyuhiko, and Kirumi in Chapter 2.
  • Celestia, Mikan, and Korekiyo in Chapter 3.
  • Aoi, Gundham, and Kokichi in Chapter 4.
  • Junko, Nagito, and Kokichi in Chapter 5.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: At first it may seem like the complete opposite of this type of story, since Makoto Naegi is an innocent Hope Bringer protagonist who is ecstatic about participating in Hope's Peak Academy's student body. But by the end of the story of each game, it turns out the villains plan everything for the cast of presumed heroes to react to; the less discrete examples being the motives and the executions, where Monokuma tests every student's will with the motives and their ability to witness a crueler form of dying than the original case in the executions.
• Visible Silence: This occurs too frequently between members of the cast.
• Voice Grunting: The series uses the "voice clips" approach for most of the games, save for some key lines and all dialogue in the Class Trial sequences, which are fully voiced.

W

• Walking Spoiler: The franchise's plots are mostly comprised of typical events/twists that would normally give out major spoilers in other works, but are very standard here, such as murder mysteries. Even with a lighter take on said events, it's almost impossible to talk about the franchise without spoiling anything, as almost everything can be associated with a twist or reveal; this includes the characters' fates, the truth behind many murders, the origins of the killing games, and even character secrets such as their own talents. A fair amount of characters are even impossible to talk about without spoiling most (if not all) of the plot of the work they debuted in, with the biggest examples being Junko, Nagito, and Kaede.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: There are plenty of scenes where the characters wear swimsuits throughout the series.
  • In the first game, there is a class photo of every character except for Celestia and Toko in a school swimsuit, with Byakuya being absent as the one taking the photo.
  • In the second game, the main cast except for Hajime, Akane, Hiyoko, Fuyuhiko, Chiaki, and “Byakuya” are shown wearing school swimsuits in the prologue. In Chapter 2, Chiaki, Peko, and Akane are shown in bikinis and Sonia is shown in a wetsuit, with Peko and Akane serving to prove the identity of Mahiru’s murderer in the trial.
  • In the third game, in an optional event in Chapter 2, Tenko, Angie, and Himiko are shown wearing swimsuits as they lounge around for a ‘celebrity-like vacation’.
  • The featured cast in Ultimate Summer Camp all wear swimsuits during their swimsuit events. The swimsuits featured on the cover never appear in-game.
• We ARE Struggling Together: In every game in the series, the attempts by each protagonist to get the trapped students to work together and fight against the Killing Game is inevitably undercut by the students giving in to personal grudges and feelings. This also extends to the Future Foundation itself- despite being the symbol of Hope in a world run by the Ultimate Despair, the organization turns out to have crippling infighting issues:
  • Nagito Komaeda, while not a Foundation member, is trying to secretly help them, but sows despair believing that despair builds character.
  • Haiji Towa from Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, the Adult Resistance leader, refuses to work with the Foundation because he believes them to be the real mastermind behind the Ultimate Despair, and is fully willing to go to war with the Foundation.
  • Shuji Fujigawa from Killer Killer wants to eliminate despair by killing everyone, putting him at odds with the Foundation members.
  • In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, the factionalism comes to the forefront:
    • The Foundation council actually splits up into two factions; one faction supports the efforts of Makoto Naegi to reform the Remnants of Despair enemy agents, while the other faction believes that the enemy agents should be executed. The leader of the latter faction, Kyousuke Munakata, is not as extreme as Shuji, but still thinks that everyone even associated with despair or trying to help people in despair should die.
    • The prime example of this is when it is revealed that there is a spy among the council dedicated to subverting them, and has trapped them all in a final killing game. The council members readily turn on each other out of paranoia, while Ruruka Andou becomes more concerned with saving herself than aiding her friends. The spies are Monaca Towa (disguised as Miaya Gekkogahara), Chisa Yukizome, and Chairman Kazuo Tengan. Chisa wants to further Junko Enoshima's agenda, Monaca wants to toy with everyone one last time, and Tengan is opposed to the extremism of the others- because he wants to brainwash everyone into feeling hope, not kill them.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The original game’s setting is established to be Towa City, which can be pretty much anywhere in Japan.
• With Friends Like These...: Invoked. Monokuma always insists that the participants aren't friends because they don't know one another, and are instead each other's enemies, even though most of them are usually amiable people and are only driven to kill because of him. Despite them not naturally being inclined to kill one another, their willingness to do so regardless is quite telling that whatever friendship they could've had out of the circumstances of the killing games is questionable.

---