History YMMV / DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc

* UnintentionallySympathetic: In Chapter 4, everyone sans [[NiceGuy Makoto]], [[BestFriend Hina]] and possibly [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Kyoko]] grow fearful of Sakura when Monokuma outs her as TheMole as the new Motive, causing everyone to steer clear of her and treat her unfairly in the eyes of an increasingly irate Hina. That being said, it's kind of hard to blame them for being so frightened; while it's kind of obvious that [[{{Jerkass}} Byakuya's doing it more to be an asshole]], Yasuhiro and Toko are fairly {{Justified}} in their paranoia since Sakura is, at the time, the strongest person in the school and is shown to be one of the smarter students during the Class Trials, meaning she'd probably be able to kill any of them easily enough. And while she has characterized herself as a GentleGiant throughout the game, the others are unlikely to completely believe it seeing as the first victim, Sayaka Maizono, made herself look like a BitchInSheepsClothing with her attempt at murdering Leon and framing Makoto for the crime, which may have made everyone rather cynical of each other, especially the already distrustful Toko and fearful Hiro. This is especially the case with Hiro. Whereas Byakuya and Toko/Genocide Jill are definitely the most antagonistic, with Byakuya being... [[{{Jerkass}} Byakuya]] and Toko/Jill actively picking fights with Hina over it, the worst Hiro really does is panic when Sakura is outed and constantly refer to her as "Ogre", yet spends most of his time acting as something of neutral party in regards to her being TheMole as opposed to Byakuya and Toko's constant antagonism, even helping Makoto take Hina to the nurse's office when she gets attacked by Jill. In fact, the times he is antagonistic are largely the result of him being frightened and panicking, such as Sakura unintentionally threatening him after Hina gets attacked by Jill, and him hitting her over the head with a bottle later on could be attributed to him panicking due to PoorCommunicationKills over any genuine malice. He's [[GracefulLoser even quick to admit his role in his supposed crime when he think he's cornered, even guiltily relenting when Toko tries re-directing the blame back to him when the contradiction with the dying message gets brought up]], while Toko persistently denies her involvement until Byakuya outright orders her to spill it.

Hifumi. The end of the third Class Trial attempts to give him sympathy for being easily [[ManipulativeBitch manipulated by Celeste into killing Kiyotaka]], when Kiyotaka had done nothing to deserve it. But this ignores the fact that he killed Kiyotaka without even asking him about Celeste's accusations first. Also, he was plotting to escape with Alter Ego and [[Characters/DanganronpaCelestiaLudenberg Celeste]] (who even told him that she was going to commit a murder), leaving his innocent classmates to be executed by [[Characters/DanganronpaMonokuma Monokuma]]. The fact that the lie Celeste told him is [[BlatantLies rather obvious to see through]] doesn't help Hifumi's case very much, with Celeste herself even all but saying she chose him as an accomplice because [[TooDumbToLive nobody else would be stupid enough to believe that lie]].

** Kyoko in Chapter 5 - when the trial for who murdered Mukuro begins, she goes out of her way to implicate Makoto, then relies on him not to expose an obvious lie she told so that no one will suspect her. Her motivation was likely to keep the trial going until she could expose the Mastermind, but when Monokuma declares the trial over it comes across as though she was willing to throw Makoto under the bus, knowing he wouldn't do it to her in return, because she believed only she was capable of unveiling the mysteries of the school. If it hadn't been for Alter Ego's intervention, her actions would have led directly to Makoto's death at the hands of the mastermind, making her actions a more sympathetic mirror to Sayaka counting on Makoto to take the fall for her in chapter 1.

** Sayaka in the manga adaptation. While the game made her motive behind exposing Leon ambiguous to keep her from being this trope, the manga makes it clear that she did it out of remorse. Yes, she cared about Makoto. Just not enough to not attempt to frame him for murder. The manga makes this worse by revealing that she chose to target Leon specifically for a [[DisproportionateRetribution very petty reason]]: his naive belief that he could easily break into the music industry because he's already a famous athlete.

* HarsherInHindsight: Junko Enoshima executing herself at the very end of the game becomes a lot harder to swallow after the untimely death of Sayaka Kanda, the actress who played her in [[Theatre/{{Danganronpa}} the stage productions]], by suicide.

* NeverLiveItDown: Sayaka's attempt to frame Makoto for Leon's murder and Leon's murder of Sayaka has never, ''ever'' been forgotten. Actually, despite Sayaka being manipulated in the end, the fans still choose to condemn one of the two.

** Sayaka's body being found.

** Makoto Naegi is the kind of awkward that is very endearing. He is the shortest one of the protagonists of the series (even shorter than his sister), and is often the nicest of the 4. He's really modest, doesn't hold any grudges towards anyone, and just wants everyone to overcome their own grudges. No wonder he's considered something of a Messiah in his setting.

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, although [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters still call the blood “red”]] this can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, although [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters still call the blood “red”]] can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, although [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters sill call the blood “red”]] can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, although [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters sill call the blood “red”.]] Can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, albeit [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters sill call the blood “red”.]] Can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

** Generally the [[BlackBlood pink blood]] in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, albeit [[StylizedForTheViewer the characters sill call the blood “red”.]] Can take a darker turn in VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode another game by Creator/KazutakaKodaka where [[spoiler: the bink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent with a different outcome.]]]]

* HarsherInHindsight: Junko Enoshima executing herself at the very end of the game becomes a lot harder to swallow after the untimely death of Sayaka Kanda, the actress who played her in [[Theatre/Danganronpa the stage productions]], by suicide.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: The biggest criticism surrounding the anime is that it zooms by the game's story, cramming around 25 hours of visual novel into approximately 5 hours of animated content. A 4-hour chapter in the game is covered in around 40 minutes, with investigations being the most trimmed-down part. Only the final episode really has some room to breathe, being 10 minutes longer.

* SoBadItsGood: Creator/{{Funimation}}'s English dub of the anime is full of HamAndCheese, bizarre lines, and occasional [[BlindIdiotTranslation "Blind Idiot" Translations]], to the point of making their infamous ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'' dub look serious, but least it makes the rather mediocre CompressedAdaptation more enjoyable.

* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Kiyotaka. Most of the other students find him irritating, it's made very clear that Mondo is his OnlyFriend, [[AngstWhatAngst and barely anyone reacts when he's killed]]. Even the writers admit he was supposed to come out as unlikable in the main story provided one didn't complete his Free Time Events. And yet, he's well loved by the fandom and scores highly in polls. Many appreciate his earnest attempts to uphold the group dynamic and keep people working together towards a common goal, while yaoi artists in particular like the copious amount of HoYay he has with Mondo.

* SacredCow: Be prepared to be constantly attacked for saying you don't like this game.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Sayaka Maizono becomes this because of her actions in chapter 1. Some fans believe she’s a manipulative snake who doesn’t care about Makoto because she tried to frame him for her attempted murder on Leon. However, other fans sympathize with her because she just wanted to see her pop idol group again and make sure they’re okay. Alongside that, Sayaka didn’t know that framing Makoto would get him, and everyone else, killed.

'''''Spin-offs:''''' ''YMMV/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' | ''YMMV/DanganronpaSUltimateSummerCamp'' | ''YMMV/DanganronpaKirigiri'' | ''YMMV/DanganronpaTogami'' | ''YMMV/KillerKiller''-]]]]]

* DiagnosedByTheAudience:
** Aside from her split personality, Toko displays symptoms of anxiety (her paranoia and tendency to expect the worst from people) and autism (her lack of social skills, the fact that she HatesBeingTouched, and her tendency to say offensive things regardless of whether or not they're intentional).
** Junko claims that [[BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad she has never felt a desire to feel anything but despair]] (although this is possibly shown to be false in that with her relationship with Matsuda, she felt genuine love and felt extreme despair when killing him), has an extremely hard time staying interested in anything (even maintaining a personality, causing her to shift personas constantly), has no regard for rules or standards of society, and is very charming and manipulative. It's implied that her true talent as the Ultimate Analyst made her predict every little thing that was going to happen, which made her grow incredibly bored and apathetic, the reason why she chose despair as the only thing that was unpredictable in life.

* AccidentalInnuendo: "I'll use my own hope to plant seeds of hope inside everyone else!" Makoto could definitely have phrased that better.

** Chihiro Fujisaki is a WholesomeCrossdreser, who's nothing short of sweet. The poor boy can't harm a mosquito that is biting him due to him thinking that it might have a family to feed, and is often the one that the rest of the survivors need to comfort, but he is actually very decided on overcoming his own weaknesses. Even after death, he still manages to help the group with Alter Ego, and it itself has a cute personality of wanting to help people, even as a machine.
** Aoi is a bundle of fun who really cares for her friends. She often forgets the name of people, so she writes them on her hand, and really likes to eat anything off the kitchen, especially donuts. She also flusters rather easily, especially when it comes to wanting to be a good girlfriend.

** Makoto is an extremely cute boy. [[WholesomeCrossdresser And so is Chihiro]].
** Aoi also qualifies, due to her pep and her woobieness.

* DiagnosedByTheFandom: