What Could Have Been / Danganronpa

All spoilers for the final products will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!

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Main installments:

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

• The original concept for what we know as Danganronpa was a game known as "Distrust". While the characters and setting were mostly the same as in the first game (the students trapped in a school of mutual killings by a sadistic overseer), there were a few key differences. Overall, Distrust was incredibly dark compared to what was released, and that's certainly saying something.
  • First off, what would later become Monokuma was a sentient anatomy model named "Phantom", and unlike the somewhat pristine environment of the school we got, Distrust's academy was a bloodstained nightmare, implying that many people had already been killed in the school.
  • While there were still trials, the game worked somewhat like the Zero Escape series, utilizing a "Trust System": Your choices would also influence the main character's general attitude, as well as determine whether or not certain characters were actually trustworthy. This meant that player actions could determine who dies next and change the course of the story.
  • The body discoveries were far darker that what we got in the Danganronpa games (one death is discovered by the group finding a classmate's severed head on the floor, another, by their severed hands in a box on a table covered in fresh blood), and a group killing could even occur.
  • The game took place over 7 days, as opposed to the unlimited time frame we got in Trigger Happy Havoc.
  • In this build, Kyoko, who survives the entire game and is the deuteragonist of the story, was in fact the very first victim, with Sayaka as the possible deuteragonist instead of the first victim in the final game^note The creators did so since, as the first female character designed, she's used as the base of the female characters, but the creators grew sick of her, hence why she's the first victim in the final game.
  • Furthermore, another scenario in the proposal and an early build of the final game (which has an unused Closing Argument in the latter version) indicate that the first victim was to be Junko. Humorously, this means that, in a way, all three of Makoto's canon love interests (assuming that the latter was actually Mukuro) were going to be the first victim at one point or another.
• A later version had a more serious vibe reminiscent of Saw, with a Deliberately Monochrome artstyle. Instead of a courtroom, the equivalent of the class trials was set in a warehouse. The cast is mostly recognizable; however, their designs were less outlandish overall. An animatic of "The 1,000 Blows" (which is essentially the same as the final game, with Leon's equivalent from this version) can be found here. Everyone's also named differently; for instance, Kazuo Matsuzaki is pretty much a prototype design of Leon Kuwata, and their executions are identical in premise (and, in some moments) even use the exact same animation.
• The creators also wanted to give Kyoko an Important Haircut, but were unable to fit it into the story, so it was scrapped.
• At one point, an ending was considered where all characters survived, but lost their talents.
  • Sayaka would've willingly given up her title to reunite with her friends.
  • Leon wouldn't have minded since he didn't like his talent in the first place, and now he has a good excuse not to play baseball.
  • Byakuya would've declared he'd succeed even if he isn't the Togami heir and would travel the world after leaving.
  • Aoi would've decided to open a donut shop.
  • Ishimaru would've decided to become a farmer.
  • Celestia would've become a gothic lolita fashion designer.
  • Sakura would decide to fight spiritual battles instead of physical ones.
  • Mondo would've decided to retire and become a carpenter, like he expresses interest in during his free time events.
  • Chihiro would've taken the opportunity to train his body more.
  • Toko would've expressed a desire to settle down as a housewife.
  • Hifumi says he'll be a magic thief.
  • Kyoko has no idea what she'll do with her life if she isn't a detective but looks forward to finding out.
  • Mukuro would also feel lost, but would decide that it was her chance to break away from her sister. She then expresses a desire to become a hairstylist.
• The Visual Fanbook has a section that contains drafts for all of the other students' executions. A quick summary of each of them:
  • "Sayaka Maizono's Final Performance": If Sayaka had been a culprit (e.g. if she successfully killed Leon), Monokuma would've placed her on-stage promising a perfect idol singing performance, complete with a meter to "score" her. But just as the meter's about to be full, Monokuma would've destroyed the meter, triggering the "failure" condition and causing a giant mantrap to slam shut and kill Sayaka.
  • "Super Fujisaki Brothers": If Chihiro had been a culprit (in the unlikely scenario that he kills Mondo in self-defense), he would've been sentenced to run forward in a side-scrolling 8-bit platformer game, but a huge group of pixel sprite Monokumas would've caught up to him, and Chihiro's "sprite" would've eventually "popped" out of existence.
  • "Prime Minister Kiyotaka Ishimaru's Inaugural Parade": If Kiyotaka had been a culprit (e.g. if he killed Hifumi when he attacked him during Chapter 3), he would've been sitting on a vehicle in a gorgeous parade with everyone cheering his election to Prime Minister. But then Monokuma would've appeared dressed as Golgo 13 with a sniper rifle and killed him in a single shot.
  • "Watch Out, Piggles! The Great Monster Invasion": If Hifumi had been a culprit (e.g. if Celeste hadn't killed him during Chapter 3), Monokuma would've placed him between Monokuma and "Princess Piggles", the Magical Girl star of Hifumi's favorite show Demon Angel☆Pretty Pudgy Princess, and he would've been killed by being caught in the crossfire of two "death beams" at once in a parody of an anime duel. Unlike the other scrapped executions, though, this one did make into official Danganronpa media, the manga based on the demo of the game.
  • "Deciding Match for the Whole Galaxy": If Sakura had been a culprit (and had killed someone besides herself), she would've been standing in wilderness with multiple space aliens and soldiers appearing for her to fight. She would've successfully kicked them all away at first, but they would've kept appearing until finally Sakura wouldn't have been able to keep up the pace, until finally so many appear that they would've just crushed her to death-by-dogpile-and-sheer-amount. This was later retooled as Peko's execution in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
  • "The First Prank Kiss": If Toko had been a culprit (e.g. if she actually killed anyone as Genocide Jack/Jill or if her attack on Sakura in Chapter 4 had been a fatal one), Monokuma would have thrown her into complete darkness except for Byakuya standing there. Toko would've run towards Byakuya for a kiss, only for a steamroller to appear and crush her into a thin paper.
  • "Water Illusion Show": If Aoi had been a culprit (for instance, if she failed to recover herself in Chapter 4), she would've been placed in a water tank with Monokuma dressed as a magician. No, Aoi would not have been sentenced to a slow-and-agonizing-death-by-drowning in front of everyone, but what would've happened isn't much better: Monokuma would've placed a curtain over the water tank, lifted it back up to reveal Aoi surrounded by sharks, covered the water tank again, and lifted the curtain again only to reveal Aoi completely gone, eaten alive by the sharks. This execution was likely referenced by Ryoma's body discovery in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
  • "No Longer Human": If Byakuya had been a culprit (for instance, when framing up Genocide Jack in Chapter 2 and Chihiro somehow regains conciousness, he has no other choice but to kill him to maintain the frame-up), Monokuma would've dropped him into a garbage can in a place that looks like Hell, and Monokuma would've dressed like an elementary school student and repeatedly thrown stones at Byakuya for supposedly being a dirty hobo. Byakuya would've managed to escape, but would have come out in a cold and snowy place and eventually would've died from a combination of his wounds and exposure to the cold. He's an asshole, yeah, but that's still harsh.
  • "The 30% Chance Quiz!": If Yasuhiro had been a culprit (for instance, if he did kill someone while in the robot disguise during Chapter 3 or if his attack on Sakura in Chapter 4 had been a fatal blow), he would've been placed on a game show where he had to choose from three doors. Door A would've grown hands and feet and fled from him, and Door B would've done the same. That would've left Yasuhiro with no choice but Door C, which would have grown a mouth and eaten him.
• This concept art◊ implies that at one point of development, Sayaka was going to successfully kill Leon.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

• Several of the characters' concept designs were released with the artbook:
  • Nagito originally had glasses and a hoodie with bat ears that eventually became Chiaki's.
  • Chiaki greatly resembled Chihiro, the person who made her.
    • Images from an early build of the game showed Chiaki with another design◊ that was even used in early promotional material◊. Chiaki's beta haircut would later be used for Himiko (who, coincidentally enough, shares Chiaki's dub voice actress).
  • Fuyuhiko's prototype, of a big, muscular man, eventually became Nekomaru's design proper. Nekomaru's original was much more standard, with no crazy muscles.
  • Teruteru was a standard tall and slender Pretty Boy for two of his early designs.
  • One of Nekomaru's early designs was a Long-Haired Pretty Boy. Another was done in the more cartoonish style that was ultimately used for Teruteru, depicting him as a rail-thin teenager with a shaved bald head, oval eyes and buck teeth. Yet another one was a small and childish-looking boy, which was later used for the basis of Kuzuryuu's design.
  • One of Mikan's beta outfits had pants. Assless pants. Well, entirely missing a backside except for straps, but the exposed legs are less special.
• Akane was in early development being toyed with as something of an antagonist character, her concept was bounced around considerably with a variety of talents (with ideas such a Criminal and Thief being considered and never used) until it eventually become Nagito.
• A promotional screenshot◊ shows a final strike for a Panic Talk Action against Kazuichi, who never had a PTA in the final game. However, this may have just been a placeholder.
• Also according to the artbook, Hiyoko was originally going to be one of the survivors, with Nekomaru dying in Chapter 3 instead. In his place, Fuyuhiko was going to be the one turned into a robot after defending Peko during her execution, and die later in the game. However, the developers felt that Fuyuhiko turning into a robot would undercut the emotion from the end of Chapter 2, so Nekomaru became a robot instead and his death was moved to Chapter 4, which led to Hiyoko replacing him as the other Chapter 3 victim and Fuyuhiko becoming a survivor.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School

• Originally, the plan was for the anime to be an adaptation of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and that the game's storyline would continue in another VN. This fell through (the scenario for Goodbye Despair proved too difficult to adapt, and the staff didn't want to subject the survivors from previous games to another Mutual Killing Game), so the format with the anime and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony was made instead.
• A post-series interview with Kodaka has him saying that Munakata's original character arc was going to end with him dying to protect Naegi. He decided to change this because he wanted him to parallel Naegi and Hinata, in that he would have to move forward while carrying a burden—in Munakata's case, the burden of his dead friends and his sins.
• The crew really wanted to have more scenes of Class 78, including more scenes that would make Mukuro more sympathetic, but they were cut due to time and budget problems.

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

• Sugawara said the game's artstyle should be Psychoamerican, but Kodaka went with Psychocool instead.
• Sugawara created (and named) the Exisals as new mascots, but Kodaka turned them into high-performance humanoid murder machines instead.
• As this is a game where you can lie at the Trials, Sugawara wanted to make the protagonist (presumably Shuichi) more villanous, but Kodaka completely rejected that idea.
• A lot of things were changed during the fifth trial. The only thing that remained constant is that the victim and the killer ended up working together.
• Maki was originally going to actually be the Ultimate Child Caregiver, instead of that being a lie to hide that she's the Ultimate Assassin.
• The early character designs:
  • One of Oma's designs has a more gothic appeal to it and in another one of his designs, he was shown to have heterochromia.
  • One of Gonta's designs had a more Tarzan-ish feel to it.
  • Maki was shown to have pants in one of her designs.
  • K1-B0 actually had a Non-Standard Character Design in one of his early designs.
  • One of Tenko's designs showed her wearing cat ears.
  • Miu actually wore overalls for one of her early designs.
• The murder weapon for the first murder was going to be a crystal ball, but it was changed because, according to Word of God, the developers believed that wouldn't be an effective murder weapon.
• The art book depicts an alternate design for Kaede's Argument Armament sprite, featuring a piano with rockets on it, alongside a violin and drum set.

Spin-offs:

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

• Originally, in early drafts, the main characters were going to be Kanon (actually still Komaru, just with Kanon's design instead) and Haiji, whose cast would've broken apart when he entered "killer" mode. The game would also have taken place in the outside world instead of Towa City, with the enemies being normal members of Ultimate Despair. Haiji would've also had a rival character, whose name would eventually be used for his father.
• Sayaka's rescue was originally going to be her little sister◊, but in the final product she was discarded in favor of her band mate Ayaka, presumably because she said in the first game that she got into singing because she was lonely, so it wouldn't make sense for her to have a sister. Likewise, Taichi was at one point going to be Chihiro's mother◊.
• Kotoko's Denture Laucher◊ was originally going to be a character◊ named Reiko Kamitsuki ("reiko" means "excitation", while "kamitsuku" means "to bite off").
• The Megaphone Hacking Gun originally had a more compact, gun-like design when not in use◊.
• The successor to Junko Enoshima was originally going be a separate character, either a ganguro◊ or a young girl◊.
• There's concept art of an adult wearing a Monokuma Helmet◊.
• Robots apparently built by Kazuichi◊ would have appeared in the game, with one resembling Robo Justice from the first game and another piloted by someone resembling Gundham.

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