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- 2½D: The player can pan around the environment, but the characters and props are all represented as paper cutouts. It's even possible to pan around said cutouts.
A
- Abhorrent Admirer: Toko, a lot, to Byakuya.
- Aborted Arc: The epilogue ends with the implication that Monokuma had gained self-awareness (or had been self-aware all along). However,
Word of God related to Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair explains that it was just Alter Ego Junko controlling him. - Absence of Evidence:
- In the first trial, this is how Makoto convinces everyone he's not the one who murdered Sayaka. The murder took place in his room, and the corpse is in his bathroom, which causes everyone to suspect him. However, Kyoko noticed that his floor was cleaned, meaning there's no hair on the floor that can be used as evidence to identify the real killer. Makoto points out that even if he was the killer, there would be no point in cleaning his room of hair, because it's his room, so finding strands of his hair on the floor would be expected. The lack of hair proves someone who didn't live there killed Sayaka and cleaned the floor to get rid of evidence that might implicate them. While this alone isn't enough to expose the real killer, it does get the rest of the cast to stop pointing fingers at Makoto.
- In the third trial, the Monokuma File doesn't mention either Kiyotaka or Hifumi's time of death- because neither of them died when the students thought they had, and pinning down when the murders actually took place is a major part of determining the culprit.
- Cause of Death isn't mentioned in Monokuma File 4- because if the students knew Sakura was poisoned, it would remove most of the red herrings around the death.
- In Chapter 5's case, the time of death isn't mentioned in the Monokuma File, 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.
- Ultimately, the thing that leads to Makoto pinpointing the Mastermind is the one thing the mastermind had gone out of their way to hide - Junko Enoshima's appearance, because if the students had access to clear and accurate images of Junko (or properly examined the corpse identified as Mukuro's and recognized her), they could've figured out that the "Junko" who got executed was Mukuro impersonating her (she'd handwaved their physical differences by saying that her photos were photoshopped - which works as an excuse for magazine covers because digital touchups really are common in the industry, but this wouldn't apply to school pictures), and thus that the real Junko was still alive.
- Absurdly Exclusive Recruiting Standards: Hope's Peak Academy is an elite school whose graduates go on to be the most successful and influential figures in society. To get in, one must be of high school age and be universally regarded to be an "ultimate," the very best in your field or hobby — a difficult task to be sure. Other than that, students can earn enrollment through a lottery to accept an ordinary student as the "ultimate lucky student" as part of a study on luck, or attend an expensive "reserve course" for students determined to be not-quite ultimate but who want the opportunities associated with the Hope's Peak name.
- Academy of Adventure: Not the fun kind of adventure, but Hope's Peak definitely qualifies.
- After the End: According to the mastermind, the world as the students knew it no longer exists due to The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History. Genocide Jill confirms it to be true, but the full extent of the damage done is left ambiguous.
- Alas, Poor Villain:
- At the end of every trial except for the last two. The culprits are treated sympathetically, and only killed because Monokuma's motivations drove them to. The later revelation that the students' memories had been tampered with, and that they all chose to stay inside the school, may or may not add to the sympathy.
- Mukuro Ikusaba is a retroactive example. Sure, she's one of the people behind the killing game, but it's easy to feel bad for her after it's revealed that her own sister, whom she was slavishly devoted to, killed her and gushed about how betrayed she must have felt in her last moments. Even the other students are horrified by the cruel nature of it once they find out.
- Alien Geometries: In a level design sense. Somehow the swimming pool on the second floor occupies the same space as the multi-story gym on the first floor.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: Yasuhiro claims to have witnessed proof of alien life when he went out for a burger one night, only for a flying saucer to beam away most of the burger patty, leaving behind only the parts made of pork. Hilariously, Yasuhiro seems less focused on the fact that extraterrestrials exist and more that the restaurant lied when they said their burgers were 100% beef.
- All Crimes Are Equal: In Hope's Peak, sleeping in class, stepping on the headmaster's face, and murder all carry the same punishment.
- All for Nothing: Everyone who either committed or planned a murder (except for the mastermind) did it for a reason that the final revelations of the game prove to be completely pointless. An example: Mondo snaps in the second chapter in part because of Monokuma's threat to reveal to the world that he caused his brother's death. It comes out anyway in the trial, and then it turns out the whole thing was on national television.
- Alliterative Name: Alliteration is less of a thing in Japanese, but the "biggest, most tragic, most awful event in human history" that kicks off the backstory is called Jinrui shijō saidai saiaku no zetsubō-teki jiken in the Japanese games — it doesn't look alliterative to an English speaker, but each word starts with a kana from the sa line.
- All Your Powers Combined:
- A hilarious yet brutal example — when Junko loses Chapter 6's trial, she receives all the previous executions in a row as punishment.
- Makoto's skill points could be interpreted this way, with him gaining traits from his friends after spending enough time with them to use later in trials.
- Always Check Behind the Chair: Monocoins, used to exchange for gifts at the gift machine, are often hidden behind objects in the background.
- Ambiguous Ending: The ending cuts off just as the students open the door to escape the school, so we can't be sure just how much of what the mastermind told us about the outside world is true. At least, until the sequel.
- Animation Bump: Of a sort. The Trial scenes have more dynamic cameras and full voice acting.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Getting the Bad Ending kicks the player right back to the multiple-choice option that triggers it so that they don't have to sit through the entire trial again to get to that point.
- Anyone Can Die: For the record, counting Toko and Jill as different characters, seven characters survive.
- Apocalypse How: The screens showing the results of the Tragedy imply worldwide unrest and conflict (Class 1).
- Arc Words: "Despair", as Monokuma's goal, is mentioned many times through the game, and to a lesser extent "hope". It even shows up in Junko and Makoto's talents.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In the fourth trial, Makoto asks Aoi (who's claiming to be the culprit) to clarify an important aspect of the case. Her defensive answer makes it clear that despite her claims, she doesn't actually know what happened.Makoto: How did you create the locked room?
- Ask a Stupid Question...: When Makoto searches for Byakuya and finds him reading in the library.Makoto: Hey, uhh...what are you doing?Byakuya: I'm fishing. What does it look like I'm doing?
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Junko's "offer" to Makoto if he joins Ultimate Despair is "honor, status, and some of our home cooking!"
- Art Shift: Bizarrely, in one of the Monokuma Theater segments, the game switches from the static, visual novel style art to a full-out CGI cutscene featuring Sakura fighting Monokuma.
- Asshole Victim: Most of the students who die throughout the Killing Game qualify as this to some degree, although it's downplayed since the story also emphasizes that they all started off as good people until some of them were pushed to do terrible things out of desperation. Still, out of the 10 students to die, only two of them—Chihiro (the victim of Chapter 2) and Kiyotaka (the first victim of Chapter 3)—are completely innocent:
- Sayaka, the victim of Chapter 1, actually kickstarts the entire Killing Game by attempting to murder Leon, only for him to fight back and kill her instead. Meanwhile, Hifumi, the second victim of Chapter 3, murders Taka in cold blood before Celeste betrays and kills him.
- Leon, Mondo, and Celeste are executed by Monokuma for being the culprits of the first, second, and third trials, respectively. Leon had the chance to leave after thwarting Sayaka's murder attempt, but broke into the bathroom and killed her instead; Mondo killed Chihiro in a fit of rage; and Celeste premeditated the deaths of both Taka and Hifumi, manipulating the latter into killing the former before murdering the latter herself.
- The "Junko" who dies in Chapter 1, who is actually Mukuro, was one half of the Despair Sisters along with the the real Junko, and as such, was in on the entire plot to trap the students in the school and force them to kill each other, before being betrayed and murdered herself. The real Junko, the Mastermind, also executes herself at the end of the game.
- Sakura is probably a subversion, though. She's not a completely innocent victim since she is The Mole for the Mastermind for the first four chapters, with the stipulation that she would have to kill someone to kick off the killing game (although Sayaka's murder attempt and subsequent death rendered this unnecessary). However, she's quite a sympathetic example in that she was blackmailed into it and quickly realized she couldn't bring herself to kill any of her new friends, and ends up committing a Heroic Suicide to avoid murdering anyone else and to put an end to the Killing Game.
B
- Babies Ever After:
- A particularly depressing variant in the Bad Ending, with Aoi having children with the rest of the survivors stuck in the school.
- Also Played for Laughs when Toko/Jill suggests this to Byakuya in the epilogue. Needless to say, he's opposed to the idea.
- Bait-and-Switch: At the end of the Class Trial regarding Sakura's suicide, Monokuma suddenly announces that an execution will still take place, much to the horror of the students and implying he'll kill Hina for deliberately manipulating the crime scene, but then he reaffirms that they correctly proved that Sakura was the "blackened" and thus none of the current surviving students will be killed. He's instead going to kill Alter Ego as a "special guest" out of punishment of it invading the school system and he didn't want to waste what he prepared.
- Ball Cannon: The first case ends with the killer (Leon Kuwata) executed by being chained to a post and shot to death by a baseball pitching machine.
- Barbell Beating: In the case of Chapter 2, Mondo killed Chihiro in a fit of jealous rage by beating him in the head with a dumbbell.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Downplayed. Junko and Mukuro set up the Killing School Life in the game's backstory, and Mukuro worked with Junko for the disguise, but Junko ends up being the only Final Boss because she executes Mukuro For the Evulz.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Monokuma has monitors and cameras installed throughout the building, except in certain places such as bathrooms, notably the public bath.
- Big Damn Heroes: Alter Ego at the end of Chapter 5, showing up just in time to stop Makoto from being executed.
- Big "NO!":
- Hifumi makes one during the first trial.
- Leon exclaims one before getting executed.
- Bittersweet Ending: The surviving students put a stop to the mastermind's plans, causing the mastermind to execute herself. However, only six students are left alive, the world outside of the school has turned into a hostile place due to the effects of The Tragedy, and the mastermind enjoyed the self-execution. In counter to the "bitter" part of their escape comes the "sweet". Their Hope has reignited and beat their Despair, meaning there's Hope for their futures.
- Bizarrchitecture: The windows in the student's dorm rooms have plates bolted onto the sides behind the customary bed, despite this basically meaning there were once windows there designed to look into the next person's room.
- If the hatch in her Monokuma control room is Junko's only means of getting meals, the building's layout implies that she would more likely get plopped into the third floor's hallway while being nowhere near the cafeteria.
- Black Blood: Or pink blood, in this case, as a form of censorship due to the Japanese game-rating systems. Dialog indicates that it's actually red in-universe.
- Black Comedy:
- Junko keeps up a cheery attitude during her execution, coupled with her methods of avoiding death, at least until the very end.
- The executions in general. Just because someone's getting brutally and horribly murdered, doesn't mean Monokuma won't try to inject some comedy into it.
- Bland-Name Product: Averted. The localization mentions real products a few times, such as Genocider Syo/Genocide Jill comparing the state of the victim to an Italian restaurant serving Ragu or Chef Boyardee. Hifumi mentions his love for Diet Coke, and Leon in School Mode even mentions that he's a fan of Pepsi.
- Blue with Shock: The art style uses this for the sprites that depict characters in shock, fear, despair, or similar.
- Body of the Week: The only way out of the school is committing a perfect murder — obviously, someone's going to wind up dead in every chapter. This is subverted in Chapter 5, as an older body is used to fake the crime scene.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Monokuma offhandedly mentions that one of the flowers in the school greenhouse, the "Monokuma Flower" that he named after himself, eats "garbage and plastic and human flesh". It's fantastic for the environment!
- Break the Cutie: Sayaka could be seen as an example. She seems to be a sweet, fairly innocent character, but the combination of being forced into the killing game and seeing the motive video revealing something happened to her friends caused her to snap and attempt to kill Leon and frame Makoto for the crime.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Monokuma starts expositing on the backstories of the culprit and victim in Chapter 2, he tells the player what button to hold to skip all this in case they don't want to hear it. Oddly enough, this is the first and only time this ability is mentioned, despite the fact that the tutorials tell the player which button makes you Re:ACT to certain phrases even though the button prompt appears regardless.
- Brick Joke: After the first trial for Sayaka's murder, Makoto, probably as a tribute to his only friend in Hope's Peak, repeats Sayaka's joke.Kyoko: By the way, I have to admit, I'm curious... How did you know I wanted to talk to you about Sayaka?
Makoto: Oh, well... I'm psychic.
Kyoko: Huh...?
Makoto: Kidding... I just have pretty good intuition. - But Thou Must!:
- Makoto runs into this a few times, such as being unable to avoid his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment in Chapter 3 or tell Kyoko about what he saw in Chapter 4.
- You also aren't allowed to investigate Hifumi's body when you first find it, as Makoto has, for some reason, gotten the idea into his head that investigating the "murder weapon" is more important.
- During Chihiro's final Free Time conversation, Makoto is asked (obliquely) which guy would be best for helping him become stronger. Even if the player has played to the end of Chapter 2 and knows what is going to happen, the game still won't allow them to get out of that conversation without recommending Mondo.
- Averted during a choice in Chapter 5. Taking the "wrong" option there leads to the Bad Ending, after which Makoto informs the player that it was probably the wrong thing to do, before the game cuts back to the choice.
- While in the control room in Chapter 6, you aren't allowed to investigate the hatch on the floor and the game will direct you to investigate the control panel for Monokuma instead. After doing so and leaving the room with Aoi, Monokuma locks the two of you out and derides you both for not having checked the hatch, under which the mastermind was hiding while Makoto and Aoi were in the room.
- Chapter 6 plays on the trope — the mastermind, after being revealed, offers for the students to join them. Accepting only leads to them saying they were joking. Later on, the mastermind forces the player to pick one of three identical options, only to immediately declare the player's choice as correct before Makoto even gets the chance to respond in the game, just because they didn't want to bother waiting.
- Bullet Time: How apt. During Nonstop Debates, Makoto can concentrate, which is presented as slow motion. This gives the player more time to aim and fire Truth Bullets at weak points.
C
- Call-Back: If you accuse Hiro of poisoning the victim in Chapter 4, he will swear he's innocent "on my best, broken crystal ball", which is likely the one Kuwata broke in Chapter 1.
- Characters Dropping Like Flies: Per the game rules, 2-3 characters (the killer and up to two victims) must die per chapter. Subverted later on, though.
- Chekhov's Boomerang:
- Alter Ego. Early in Chapter 2, a laptop is found in the library and seems to be inoperable. It quietly disappears, although no one comments on it. Chapter 3 reveals that Chihiro had fixed it and installed his own program, Alter Ego, to analyze the contents of the laptop. In Chapter 4, the files are cracked, Alter Ego is hooked up to the school's network to search for more information and contact the outside world, and he is executed. Chapter 5 has a copy of Alter Ego, planted in the school's network when the original was hooked up, save Makoto from his execution, helping to set the stage for the final confrontation.
- The sixteenth student. There is an empty seat in the trial room: when asked about it, Monokuma says that the room was built with a capacity of sixteen people and that there's no further meaning to it. At the end of Chapter 2, Monokuma admits to The Mole there actually is a sixteenth student, but refuses to elaborate further beyond the fact that they're his "ace in the sleeve". Their identity is only discovered later, at the end of Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 has said student supposedly murdered. And then Chapter 6 reveals that it was an older body used, someone who died all the way in Chapter 1! Come the start of the last trial, and Monokuma takes the sixteenth seat.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The "Blast Off!" execution — the very first thing we see when beginning the game. While we don't get a direct answer for who was executed, it's heavily implied that it was Kyoko's father, the original headmaster.
- In Makoto's introduction, and throughout the game, he notes that if there's one thing that makes him unique, it's that he's slightly more optimistic than most people. At the very end, this makes him "Ultimate Hope", and thus the perfect counter to Ultimate Despair — optimism and hope are basically the same thing.
- A lot of important evidence is introduced in the chapter prior to the investigation, or even in a prior chapter.
- Monokuma pops up into Makoto's room to tell him about the misaligned shower door in his room and mock him for it. Proving that the culprit didn't know this is key evidence exonerating Makoto.
- Mondo and Ishimaru shanghai Makoto into judging a sauna endurance contest. Ishimaru wears just a towel, but Mondo wears his usual outfit. Later, it becomes a plot point that the Blackened knew to use heat to destroy e-handbooks despite never being told- thus pointing to Mondo, because he wore his regular clothes into the sauna and accidentally carried his e-handbook with him. No one else had the opportunity to use the sauna (or was dumb enough to wear street clothes inside), so he was the only one who could've found out prior to the trial.
- The body in chapter 5 is noted to have suffered a lot of small wounds all over their body, but no cause for said injuries is ever suggested. Turns out, these injuries are the real cause of death.
- If Makoto spends time with Chihiro in Chapter 2, the topic of Artificial Intelligence comes up. In Chapter 3, it is discovered that Chihiro installed an AI, known as Alter Ego, on a laptop, to help assist the survivors.
- The locked hatch in the floor of the Garbage Room comes into play in the final chapter, as that's where Makoto and Kyoko exit the garbage dump.
- Averted with the Monokuma Flower in Chapter 5. The player is introduced to a giant flower in the garden that eats, among other things, human flesh, and is specified to be large enough to swallow a person whole. Yet it is never used to commit murder or dispose of a body, and is never even brought up as a Red Herring when the disappearance of a body from the garden and a mismatch in the actual vs expected number of bodies in the morgue becomes crucial in the 6th trial.
- Chekhov's Gag:
- At the end of each chapter, an 8-bit sequence video would pop up where Monokuma walks up to the chapter's culprit and drags them away with "GAME OVER" being displayed on the screen. Come the last trial, where the mastermind is executed, and they go willingly with Monokuma whilst "CONGRATULATIONS!" is being displayed instead. It could be showing how hope has overcome despair, or alternatively, if "GAME OVER" was a message to the culprits, then "CONGRATULATIONS!" is a message to the mastermind, who wanted this execution and succeeded.
- Yasuhiro mentions in his free time events that his predictions have a 30% success rate. Indeed, out of the three predictions he makes over the course of the game, only one of them will ever end up coming true.
- One of the predictions he makes is that that he and Makoto will each have a child by the same mother. If the player gets the Bad Ending, they each father a child with Aoi.
- He also predicts that there will be no more murders from Chapter 3 onwards. This comes true in the Good Ending: Sakura commits suicide, Mukuro was killed back in chapter 1, Makoto gets saved from his execution by Alter Ego, and Junko executes herself.
- Chekhov's Lecture: Some of the "Monokuma Theatre" segments foreshadow future events. One example is his lecture about the difference between "I killed someone" and "I ended up killing someone" — later, somebody is murdered, not out of intention but out of a loss of control on the culprit's part.
- Closed Circle: All of the doors and windows in the academy are covered with steel bulkheads, and the school greenhouse has a painted blue sky over top.
- Clothing-Concealed Injury: Towards the end of the game, it's revealed that the reason that Kyoko wears Conspicuous Gloves all of the time is to hide the fact that her hands were badly burned during a case early in her detective career.
- Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: An accidental example for English-speaking fans in the first chapter. Sayaka's dying message is initially overlooked because the Japanese cast (aside from Kyoko) think it's a number, but to someone used to reading the English alphabet, it's very clearly 'LEON' upside-down and mirrored, leading to Western fans being able to figure out the murderer before any other evidence is gathered.
- Collective Identity: The "Ultimate Despair" identity, or more accurately an ideology or concept, as described by the mastermind.
- Conveniently Seated: The trial room placement has potential to spoil who survives. Like a protagonist, Makoto stares directly across from the empty seat that Junko would eventually take, Aoi and Yasuhiro border the same spot while Kyoko and Byakuya are respectively two spots away from them. Toko spoils the symmetry.
- Conviction by Contradiction: This actually gets subverted in the second trial after Mondo is subjected to a Pulling the Thread plot. He yells out that he's being treated like a criminal without a scrap of evidence, which leads to Kyoko admitting that her reasoning is weak taken on its own.
- The Corpse Stops Here: Most of the students have a tendency to leap to conclusions, since, well, they're high schoolers, not crime scene investigators- though Kyoko, who is a crime scene investigator, never falls for it. The murderers also sometimes do it as an intentional gamble to make students convict the wrong person. Fortunately, Makoto is usually able to spot this and avoid it.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: Overlaps with Dying Clue. In the first murder, Sayaka writes the digits "11037" on the wall next to her with her blood after being stabbed. In reality, the message is upside down, and it should read «Leon». Yasuhiro later fakes this for Sakura in chapter 4, but nobody buys it.
- Crapsack World: The results of the Despairing Incident. Monokuma faces are everywhere, buildings are razed, and people on the streets are beating and killing each other in the name of despair.
- Crime of Passion: In Chapter 2, Mondo ended up killing Chihiro because of this. When Chihiro reveals that he's actually male and wants Mondo to train him because he admires his strength, Mondo actually feels jealous of Chihiro's inner strength whereas he kept running away from accidentally causing his brother's death, and it led him to snap and struck Chihiro's head with a barbell in a fit of rage. When Mondo is exposed as the culprit, he barely puts up any resistance, admitting what he's done and is utterly ashamed of himself for his Moment of Weakness. Because of this, he accepts his execution with dignity.
D
- Dark Reprise: The music for the first two executions, "Blast Off!" and "The 1,000 Blows", feature similar thematic elements to Monokuma's theme. Junko's execution theme seems to remix elements of nearly all the execution themes as well.
- Dark Secret: One of Monokuma's motives has him pass out cards to everyone with one of their biggest secrets written on it. He claims that if someone isn't murdered before 24 hours pass, he'll reveal these to the outside world. Only four of the dark secrets are revealed: Makoto's — because he's the player character — where he used to wet the bed until 5th grade. Chihiro's dark secret comes out during the investigation; Chihiro is actually a boy wearing girl's clothing, in a misguided attempt to avoid being bullied for being weak. After Mondo is revealed as the culprit, Monokuma reveals Mondo's secret for him: Mondo got his own big brother Daiya killed accidentally, and spread a lie saying his big brother got himself killed. Finally, Byakuya reveals during the trial that Toko's secret is her secondary personality: Genocide Jack. While Celeste's secret is not revealed, it's easy to guess that it has to do with her lying about her true name: Taeko Yasuhiro.
- A Day in the Limelight: The first manga series, rather than recount the entire series, basically acted as supplements focusing on specific characters, and was chock-full of
Alternate Character Interpretations for several characters. These interpretations make a lot of sense as they're mostly the game viewed from the POV of these characters, especially some of the murderers, instead of from Makoto's POV. - Deadly Game: The Killing School Life, which sets the formula for each installment in the franchise.
- Deadly Graduation: The final ingredient in the despair the game is meant to inflict.
- Death by Ambulance: At the end of the third trial, the killer is apparently set to be burned at the stake — only for a fire truck to barrel onto the scene, running over the guilty party.
- Death by Irony: Monokuma tailors his executions around this, in addition to Cruel and Unusual Death, and sometimes the murder victims have ironic deaths as well.
- A Death in the Limelight: From Chapters 2 to 4, if someone starts to get more dialogue than usual or plays a big role in one of the chapter's plotlines, there's a good chance they're about to get murdered or executed.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: The only consequences of losing a trial are a score penalty and having to repeat the last bit of text leading up to the minigame you failed. Not a big deal if you aren't actively farming Monocoins for 100% Completion's sake.
- Decoy Protagonist: Or rather, Decoy Deuteragonist. Throughout the prologue and most of Chapter 1 (up until the murder), Sayaka Maizono seems like she's going to be the Deuteragonist and Love Interest to Makoto's protagonist: he obviously has a crush on her, they're Childhood Friends, and she declares that she's going to be his assistant while they try to find a way out of the school. But then, as the twist to Chapter 1, Sayaka turns out to be the first murder victim, and it comes out during the class trial that she was planning to commit murder and frame Makoto for it, only to be killed by her would-be victim. From the trial onward, Kyoko Kirigiri (who, until then, was one of the least prominent students in the group due to being so quiet) gradually becomes a more and more important character; by the end of the game, her status as the true deuteragonist and Makoto's real love interest is solidified.
- Despair Event Horizon: Monokuma's stated objective is to bring despair. If the students don't start killing each other, he'll just keep pressing buttons until someone's pushed to the point where they murder.
- Despair Gambit: Monokuma/Junko's goal extends to the entire world: he broadcasts the footage of the world's best-of-the-best students murdering each other, to tear at the last shreds of hope left in the world after the Tragedy. This is inadvertently what screws Junko over in the end.
- Detectives Follow Footprints: The notion of following footprints was brought up in the fourth case, and it actually gets used to disprove someone's involvement as the culprit.
- Didn't See That Coming: The completely-destroyed Alter Ego saving Makoto's life at the last second during his execution, via a virus he implanted in the network. Kyoko lampshades this, stating that Monokuma could never have foreseen a being coming to their aid even after he'd killed it.
- Died in Ignorance: Invoked by Junko. This happens to pretty much every character who dies. Since all of their memories of the last two years were wiped, all the victims and killers, aside from Mukuro, never found out they were friends, never found out they locked themselves in the school voluntarily, never found out about the Tragedy, and far more.
- Difficulty by Region: Unintentional example with the solution to the first case: The numbers "11037" actually spelling "LEON" is obvious to English viewers with even a little bit of experience in puzzle games, whereas this hint was more obscure in the original Japanese, where characters referred to each other by their last names and wouldn't jump to the Latin alphabet for understanding the meaning behind the numbers.
- Discussed Trope: Tropes are repeatedly discussed (especially towards the end), parodied, and the fourth wall is broken repeatedly. Examples include the use of a Dying Clue in chapter 1 and a digression on the Locked Room Mystery in Chapter 4.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: The footage from the omnipresent security cameras is being broadcast nationwide as propaganda for the mastermind.
- Dramatic Irony: Unlike the viewers, Makoto never actually got a look at the one who attacked him in the secret room at the end of Chapter 3, and so had no way of connecting that incident to the masked assailant who nearly stabbed him in the middle of Chapter 5.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
- In the original script, Monokuma simply told Makoto and Byakuya during the fifth investigation that Kyoko has something on her hands she wants no one to see, while NISA's script has him outright declaring that she's hiding hideous burn scars underneath her gloves. This leads to Byakuya seeming dumber/less observant by the fact that he still believes she's the victim after hearing that and then not comparing it to the corpse, which is free of any burn scars on the hands (while, Makoto's thoughts merely trail off towards the inconsistency of wearing gloves over fake nails).
- Byakuya calls the bloody classroom he finds on the fifth floor "like a battlefield" and the dub has Monokuma telling the two to "soldier on" in solving the room's mystery, as if to imply Mukuro did it. This line wasn't in the original, and Danganronpa Zero reveals that a battle did take place in the location. Years later, in Danganronpa 3, we finally get to see said battle. Though Mukuro actually was present (and did indeed kill someone there), most of the killing was done by the student council themselves.
- Dub Name Change:
- A few minigames in the Class Trial (Machine-Gun Talk Battle became Bullet Time Battle, Flashing Anagrams became Hangman's Gambit, and Climax Inference became Closing Statement with Climax Inference as a subtitle).
- Amusingly, a minor character gets a rather hilariously awesome one. Sakura's boyfriend goes from Kenichirou to... Kenshiro.
- Doubling as Spell My Name With An S, NISA's translation removed the U in Kyouko and Touko's names.
- Dutch Angle: Several times in trial, especially during Non-Stop Debates, the camera will show the characters from an inclined perspective.
- Dwindling Party: The game starts with 15 students, but that number steadily decreases as more students fall for Monokuma's motives. In the end, six students remain: Makoto, Kyoko, Byakuya, Toko, Aoi, and Yasuhiro.
- Dying Clue: Two examples:
- Overlaps with Couldn't Find a Pen in the first case. As Sayaka is bleeding to death from her stab wound, she uses her blood to write "11037" on the wall beside her. It's actually the name of her killer, LEON Kuwata, but she wrote it upside down from the point of view of the investigators (and the crossbar on the N was incomplete).
- Hifumi, the second victim in the third case, tries to speak the name of his killer, but cannot talk clearly as he had been bludgeoned over the head and was near death. His last words are "...a...k... Yasuhiro". The real culprit, Celestia Ludenberg (real name Taeko Yasuhiro), uses this to frame Yasuhiro Hagakure, whom she had intended to take the fall for the murders, but it's pointed out that Hifumi had an idiosyncratic habit of referring to people by their full names (original) or their last names (localization).
- Dynamic Akimbo: Junko Enoshima uses this
for the sprite representing her "queenly" personality.
