Memes / Danganronpa

Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme.[[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme.[[/labelnote]]^ExplanationLike this.

WARNING: This page contains unmarked spoilers for the entire series.

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In general:

In General

• "Ultimate ____"/"Super High School Level ____"^ExplanationBased off the titles for all the students.
• NO, THAT'S WRONG!/YOU'VE GOT THAT WRONG!/Sore wa chigau yo!^ExplanationThe protagonists' Catchphrase in trials, used to shoot down other students' arguments.
  • DON'T LOSE HOPE NOW!^ExplanationMakoto changes his catchphrase to this in the final trial of the first game.
  • I KINDA DOUBT THAT!^ExplanationA mock translation of "YOU'VE GOT THAT WRONG!" by slowbeef in the SomethingAwful Let's Play thread.
• "JUNKOS"^ExplanationRiffing off an Ancient Aliens meme and parodying the Something Awful thread's increasingly insane Wild Mass Guessing with a macro showing Yasuhiro offering this as a catch-all explanation. The origin is an Epileptic Tree stating that Junko Enoshima has a Backup Twin due to her sudden death in Chapter 1, despite her character not being very well-established, in contrast to Sayaka's death.
  • In the original form◊:
    Yasuhiro: Now, I'm not saying it was Junko, but it was Junko.
  • Discredited Meme: However, people eventually grew tired of it, since it was used increasingly near the end of the LP, whether seriously or jokingly as it became increasingly likely, and had gotten stale. The LP thread of the sequel banned anyone referencing it. Today, the meme has been used less often, to the point where some of the newer fans of the series never actually heard of the meme before.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The funniest part of the whole thing? Junko did switch places with another student — her twin sister. The JUNKOS theory was right.
  • It gets better: even though the LP of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair banned any references to the meme, the game ends up referencing it instead, since the Big Bad of the game is an AI based on Junko whose goal is to upload herself into the bodies of all the deceased students after the survivors "graduate" and ultimately take over the world by turning everyone into JUNKOS. Yes, even after Junko died (for real this time), they still managed to be behind everything, and making others act as her doppelgangers is still the punch line of this joke. Bonus points since the name of her backup twin means "Corpse", and now she's using literal corpses to perform essentially the same purpose.
  • When Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony were announced, there was a lot of joke speculation about Junko somehow managing to be the secret mastermind yet again, usually as a ghost/cyborg/cardboard cutout/what have you. (Nope, she's fully dead, although both villains are essentially trying to recreate her.)
• "Dangly Rope," "Dongo Bongo," "Diamond Rumpus," "Dangit Grandpa," "Danger Roomba," "Deadly Rump Roast," "Dangling Grandpas," "Doodoo Ricecake," "Donkey Ron Paul"...^ExplanationReferring to the game by roughly equivalent-sounding, nonsensical combinations of English words is a minor meme in the Tumblr segment of the fanbase that spawned as a result of people having trouble remembering the game's title. See Fan Nickname. It has since died down, though.
  • May be an Ascended Meme. In Chapter 4 of Danganronpa 2, Monokuma's "Cute Meaty Diary" in the Monokuma Archive has a story of how he got in Danganronpa, where he mistakes "Game Company S" for that four-sided company that gets bashed online a lot. It contains these golden lines:
    Monokuma: However, even though it was called Company S, it wasn't actually the four-sided one... It was a company that's famous for lots of reasons called Spice Chunsoft! Ah, oops...Spice Chunsoft? Space Chincraft? Oh well.
    (...)
    Monokuma: And that's how I got in DanganRuPaul! Ah, oops...Doggoneronpaul? Oh well.
• Making jokes about Byakuya and his ridiculous amounts of money. He is often depicted in fanon as having a Money Fetish, so often that it makes the fandom seem to forget that Byakuya isn't actually like that in canon.
  • Speaking of Byakuya, some people joke that tampering with crime scenes is a favorite hobby of his, given the events of Chapter 2.
  • "Tell them, Naegi."^ExplanationIt's also a common joke to have Byakuya about to say something to the cast, only to turn to Makoto and say, "Tell them, Naegi," given his tendency to make the player do all the work actually answering questions in the various cases despite very likely having every idea what the answers are.
  • "Togami, you've lost weight."^ExplanationIn certain roleplays/fanfics, the students from Danganronpa 2 react to the original Byakuya Togami this way (like Akane did in the actual game), to his bafflement. In the case that Twogami is alive, however, there's often much competition between the two about who is the real Byakuya Togami.
    • Ascended Meme: Mikan, Chiaki, and Chisa Yukizome react this way to the real Mitarai in Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc.
  • Who's Togami? That's Nigel.^ExplanationFrom a meme where someone on Tumblr had their father react to Danganronpa characters with no context. He nicknamed Byakuya 'Nigel', and claimed that you couldn't trust Nigel (who has a summer home in Prague that he rubs into everyone's faces).
  • Four-eyed lemon^ExplanationAoi's insult towards Byakuya in the Project Zetsubou translation has become very popular, to the point where its practically his Fan Nickname.
  • "My name is Byakuya Togami."^ExplanationByakuya's answer to how he could participate in the stock market despite being underage. Fans expanded it to be a catch-all answer to everything, implying he's arrogant enough to believe his mere identity is enough of an explanation for any question he's asked.
  • Threegami^ExplanationA common joke among the fandom is that after Danganronpa 2 had the Ultimate Imposter impersonating Byakuya (thus earning "Twogami" as a Fan Nickname), some people went to joke that there will be a Threegami in a future installment. Hilarious in Hindsight when the Mastermind of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony cosplays as both Byakuya and the Imposter. Not only there was a Threegami, but a Fourgami.
• The ahoge squad.^ExplanationAll protagonists of Danganronpa games so far (Makoto, Hajime, Komaru, Toko, Kaede, and Shuichi - plus Nagito, who is playable for a stint in DR2) have had ahoges. It's especially egregious for Komaru and Toko, who had no ahoges in Trigger Happy Havoc, but in Ultra Despair Girls — where they serve as the central protagonists — both are sporting the strand. V3 even made this a plot point with Keebo's ahoge.
  • The "Dead Girlfriend Squad".^ExplanationThe three main series protagonists — Makoto, Hajime, and Shuichi — are all noted to have lost at least one Implied Love Interest (Sayaka Maizono for Makoto (also Kyoko if you count just the Future Arc), Chiaki Nanami for Hajime, and Kaede Akamatsu for Shuichi), causing the notion that losing your girlfriend is a sort of required crucible for major Danganronpa protagonists. This also extends to Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu (Peko Pekoyama), Kyosuke Munakata (Chisa Yukizome) and arguably Keebo (Miu Iruma).
• FUCK DA POLICE.^ExplanationFrom a particularly infamous video featuring Danganronpa sprites set to audio from John Mulaney's "The One Thing You Can't Replace," starring Hajime as Mulaney recalling a wild high school party.
  • GET THE PADDY WAGON.^ExplanationSame video as above, although this one references Kiyotaka's role in the video as the police officer.
  • WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?^ExplanationSame as above, although from a different video.
  • Making sprite videos in general is a meme on its own, taking sprites and setting them to either comedy routines, as shown above, songs, music videos, viral videos, and even TV/movie clips (spoilers on the latter two).
• Danganronpa Crack Confessions.^ExplanationIn 2013, there was a blog on tumblr called "dirtydanganronpaconfessions", which as the name implies, had fans post NSFW confessions about the characters. They had a designated day each week where people would instead submit, well, crack confessions. The most famous ones from then being "I really want Ko" and "I want Komaeda to run". Dirtydanganronpaconfessions eventually banned crack, prompting the creation of a blog dedicated to such confessions, which was known as "dangancrackfessions." These confessions spawned countless memes and videos. Dangancrackfessions was very popular, having over 1000 followers at its peak. The original blogs have been lost to time, but similar Danganronpa crack confession blogs have appeared in their wake. The confessions from newer blogs have also been made into some videos.
• "Puhuhu..." / "Upupupu..."^ExplanationMonokuma's trademark laugh.
• You Danganronpa'd in the wrong neighborhood.^ExplanationFollowing the release of this video, it became common to sync quotes from the various characters to the already-memetic song.
• That one Nagito edit. A short edit of various of Nagito's sprites and CGs, set to "Rhinestone Eyes" by Gorillaz with smooth animation of certain poses and facial expressions that quickly rose in popularity. Its name came from multiple edit videos for the other characters based on the original, almost all of which (if not all) dubbed it as "that one Nagito edit."
• Give Mukuro her own sprites!^ExplanationBecause Mukuro didn't get a new sprite for the 10th anniversary prom artwork and in both the "Ultimate Talent Development Plan" and Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, she's in her Junko disguise, many fans have been campaigning for her to finally get sprites for herself and not her Junko self. In early 2024, she finally did get some unique sprites... in the form of a collaborative appearance in the tower defense browser game Shiro Project: RE, and although she's limited to four expressions in the same pose, she does get two outfits - her school uniform with her tactical vest, and a dress in the 10th anniversary style.
• Danganronpa sprite siblings.^ExplanationSome Danganronpa characters have similar sprites and facial expressions, something that didn't go unnoticed by fans.
• Put the girls in pants!^ExplanationA recurring topic in the fandom is questioning why almost all of the female characters wear skirts, regardless of personality or talent, with the only ones wearing pants being Hina, Hiroko, Ruruka and Akane in her 10th anniversary outfit. People are starting to take the creators to task for this and some are even redesigning the girls to give them pants.
  • Boys in skirts. ^ExplainationSome people later did the reverse too, editing/redrawing the boys' sprites so that they're wearing skirts.
• "The Character with a musical talent never survives"^ExplanationBecause both Sayaka (the Ultimate Pop Sensation) and Kaede (the Ultimate Pianist) die in chapter 1 of their respective games whereas Ibuki dies in chapter 3 of Danganronpa 2, saying that characters with a musical talent never make it past the third chapter is a pretty common joke among the fanbase. This sometimes extents to Leon (who dreams of becoming the Ultimate Musician) and Hiyoko (who is the Ultimate Traditional Dancer).
• The Chapter 3 Curse/Chapter 3 Syndrome.^ExplanationIt is universally agreed by fans that the third chapter in any Danganronpa game will always be the weakest of them all, with the reasons including a non-sensical double-murder committed by an unsympathetic killer that falls for a weak motive and most infamously killing off characters in the middle of their character development arcs.
• Danganronpa Characters Saying Their Names Except...^ExplanationA trend on YouTube involving videos of the characters in the series saying their names set to various imagery, such as if each of them was the mastermind, was a specific Ultimate Talent, or other themes. Sometimes this even spread to NSFW art too.
• Danganronpa But A Wheel Decides Their Fate^ExplanationAnother trend on YouTube involves videos of the characters being randomized through the randomizer as Chapter 1 victim, Chapter 1 culprit and so on. In most cases this also extends to determining the protagonist, the supporting character and the antagonist, and sometimes this may lead to Decoy Protagonist getting killed off and replaced with someone else. Sometimes more than once.
• MeanForce1/Sayaka Guy^ExplanationTobyn Jacobs (also known by his online handle of MeanForce1), son of Jim Jacobs, the creator of Grease, has gained a fair bit of Internet fame for his hobby of creating large cardboard cutouts of Sayaka Maizono. This has lead to him often being jokingly labelled as the “most sane Danganronpa fan”, and garnering a lot of fascination for his dedication to a character who’s relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. (He does also do the same with other anime characters and Virtual YouTubers, but Sayaka is the most common character he works with, hence why his fame is mostly focused on her)
• Bitch fuck Danganronpa and its fans I hope they release exactly one more game and Komaeda marries a woman.^ExplanationA tweet from an unknown author◊ which has since been ironically adopted by multiple other fandoms and repurposed to fir their respective fandoms.

Main installments:

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Spin-offs:

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

• 'X has a sibling" has become popular due to a large amount of the new characters being relatives of characters from the first game (many of whom were never explicitly mentioned before).
• Making jokes about the game being in the Yuri Genre, often supplied with a screencap of Ibuki talking about girls love.
• Calling Monaca trash and/or expressing a desire to throw her down a flight of stairs. Fans later settled on referring to her as Satan.
• Izuru punching through Shirokuma and Kurokuma in the epilogue. Fans proceeded to run with his now canon Super-Strength, labeling him a Memetic Badass.
• Nagisa Shingetsu did nothing wrong.^ExplanationMonaca's actions led to people ignoring the actions of the other, far more sympathetic, kids. Nagisa, who became extremely popular over the game's initial Twitch stream, is the one most frequently given this label.
• DID YOU JUST SAY THE G-WORD?!^ExplanationSimply hearing the word "gentle" causes Kotoko to remember her very traumatic past, which lead to a lot of jokes about "gentle" being considered a taboo word.
• Ball Monokuma^ExplanationOne of the many Monokuma enemies is Ball Monokuma, which, as its name suggests, is an spheric Monokuma that can turn into a ball and attack by rolling. The fandom quickly started making jokes about it being an almighty god and/or "the sexiest thing alive" simply because of how hilarious the concept of Ball Monokuma itself really is.

Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp

• Kokichi's Abs^ExplanationSome of the art for the title screen for Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp shows Kokichi with a noticeably defined midsection. Many fans can’t fathom the possibility of Kokichi having visible abs and some even refuse to acknowledge their existence, as well as pointing out how silly it is that he has them whereas characters like Maki do not. It was revealed later with the official acrylic stands released as a reward for those preordering the Switch bundle that Kokichi doesn't have them after all, which resulted in another wave of memes about him faking them, commonly either by wearing a muscle suit or simply drawing them on with a marker.
• Abs are for boys only.^ExplanationMany fans took notice that, in spite of the fact Kokichi was drawn with abs, only Sakura was depicted with them in spite of there being several girls who arguably would have abs (namely Aoi, Mukuro, Peko, Akane, Maki, and Tenko). This had lead to several fans joking that abs were for boys only.
• Nagito Komaeda on the Nintendo Switch is canon!^ExplanationAs previously stated in the Danganronpa 2 section, the already existing "Nagito Komaeda on the Nintendo DS" meme had spawned further mutations on its own, among which "Nagito Komaeda on the Nintendo Switch" was included. When Danganronpa Decadence was announced for the Nintendo Switch during E3 2021, many fans began to claim how "Nagito Komaeda on the Nintendo Switch" was actually canon now. In addition, Nagito's swimsuit sprite for Danganronpa S is often called "Nagito Komaeda on the Nintendo Switch" by fans.

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