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A
- 6 Is 9: During the Final Death Room's escape room puzzle, the safe combination requires Nagito to figure out the order to enter the numbers painted in blood on the walls. However, one number rendered as 6 is actually 9 due to the underline drawn above it.
- Absence of Evidence:
- Used to corner the first culprit. Teruteru claims to have been in the dining room with the others, but made no mention of Mikan tripping. This being Teruteru, the fact that he can't recall it is very suspicious indeed, combined with the fact that his voice was heard during the blackout...
- Also used in the fourth trial. The murderer dropped a hammer at the crime scene to make it appear to be the murder weapon, but the fact that it doesn't have any oil on it or any signs of use proves that the murder weapon must have been something else.
- Used in a somewhat roundabout way in the fifth trial, as well, where the cause of death is suspiciously absent from the Monokuma File. An element absent from the Monokuma File was pivotal to the last two cases, so Hajime realizes the case must be more complicated than it first appears — and indeed, it is. Despite a number of visible injuries, Nagito's death was unrelated to any of them; he was actually poisoned, and the other wounds are Red Herrings.
- Abusive Parents:
- Mikan implies that she was beaten at home as well as at school, which is how she became the Ultimate Nurse in the first place.
- Kazuichi rather casually mentions his father beat him for skipping a school field trip. The way he says it implies that it happened a lot growing up.
- Fuyuhiko's parents used to try to kill each other on a regular basis and he sometimes got caught in the crossfire. Well, they are Yakuza, after all.
- Action Girl: Akane and Peko are the standout examples in the game.
- Adaptational Distillation: Just like the first one, the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation cuts out several things for time, including; Twilight Syndrome Murder Case and Peko pretending to be Sparkling Justice in Chapter 2, Nagito catching the despair disease, Wizard of Monomi, and Nekomaru being rebuilt into a robot in Chapter 3, the entirety of Chapter 4, the bomb motive in Chapter 5, and finally Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya showing up in Chapter 6.
- Adaptational Heroism: While his reason to do so was far from villainous, Gundham does not kill Nekomaru in the stage play.
- Adapted Out: In the stage play, Nekomaru never becomes Mechamaru. Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya also do not show up in Chapter 6, with Monomi being the one who tells the students about the shutdown sequence. note
- Added Alliterative Appeal:
- In the official English translation, Gundham's "titles" for the four hamsters has been changed from "Four Dark Gods of Destruction" to "Four Dark Devas of Destruction."
- "Despair Fever" is also called the "Despair Disease" instead.
- Alice Allusion: The game has quite a bit of this motif going on. The most obvious examples being the setting being named Jabberwock Island, and that the class brought there by a white rabbit.
- Ambiguously Gay: At the end of the Chapter 3 trial, Mikan speaks of her "beloved". This person is heavily implied to be Junko. Throughout the game it is also heavily indicated that Nagito has romantic feelings for Hajime. In fact, in one of his free time events, he seems to be about to tell Hajime he loves him, only to ultimately back out and cover it up by claiming he is in love with "the hope that sleeps inside" Hajime rather than Hajime himself.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Between the surviving students' current personalities and their previous identity as Ultimate Despair. Hajime in particular is horrified to learn of his conversion from Hajime Hinata to Izuru Kamukura.
- Amnesiac Hero: Hajime, who's most upset by the fact he can't even remember his talent. It's eventually revealed that he does not have one, since he's one of the reserve course students.
- Amnesiac Protagonist Catalyst: Izuru Kamukura, who is Hajime's true identity under his virtual avatar, is the Ultimate Hope, created by Hope's Peak Academy's Steering Committee in a misguided attempt at a savior, implanting every talent from the academy into his brain and making him the World's Strongest Man. This would turn him into a Broken Ace easily manipulated by Junko, of whom would upload Junko's AI copy into the Neo World Program, starting the Killing School Trip and setting the events of the game in motion.
- Amusement Park of Doom: The fourth island features an amusement park that is opened up after Chapter 3. Monokuma lures the students to the train ride inside of it so he can knock them unconscious and trap them in the Funhouse.
- An Aesop:
- Being true to yourself is more important than talent. There are also some themes of Screw Destiny, made explicit by Chiaki in the last chapter.
- Case 2 also has a strong theme of perpetual cycles of violent revenge being very destructive and how they can only be broken by forgiveness; "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind" and all. Fuyuhiko, having gone as far as to have Mahiru killed because she he thought that she tried to cover for the murderer of his sister, has to learn this the hard (and literal) way.
- And I Must Scream: Junko reveals that if the students choose to "graduate", the Future Foundation members who uploaded themselves into the program (Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya) would be forced into an "endless cycle of repeating the grade" since you need the teacher's approval to graduate and well... like she's going to let them.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: When the two groups are separated in Chapter 4's investigation, you briefly play as Nagito and participate in an escape-the-room game.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Get all Hope Fragments from someone, and you'll get their underwear. Yes, even the boys, as well as Peko, who likes Hajime only as a friend.
- Angrish: When Teruteru is cornered as the murderer, he undergoes a Sanity Slippage and starts spouting unintelligible gibberish, which Monomi has to translate because nobody can understand his accent.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Fuyuhiko's plea to Peko at the end of Chapter 2's trial, declaring that he needs her to stay by his side, and as a person, rather than as a tool. Whether this is platonic or romantic depends on your personal interpretation.Fuyuhiko: I... I never wanted a tool! I just wanted you! Only you! [...] Wh-Why!? Why couldn’t you understand!? We’ve always been together, ever since we were kids! [...] Please, Peko! Don’t go...! I need you! Don’t leave me!
- Anti Poop-Socking: Each trial has an interval where the player is prompted to save their game. This helps break up the experience as completing a trial plus the aftermath can take well over an hour or more.
- Anti-Villain: To an even higher propensity than the first game. Almost every single murder has a justifiable motive, or the villain otherwise has an understandable reason for committing the crime.
- Teruteru genuinely believed that Nagito was going to kill Byakuya and acted to save him, and only failed to admit it when he realized he could get out of this situation to see his ailing mother before she died.
- Peko only acted on what she thought was Fuyuhiko's implicit orders to kill Mahiru for him, and positioned herself as a "tool for the blackened" rather than the blackened themselves in order to let Fuyuhiko escape the island. Unfortunately, Fuyuhiko doesn't view her as just a tool and Peko dies trying to protect him and he nearly dies interfering in her execution.
- Mikan is driven insane by the Despair Virus and regresses to her Ultimate Despair persona, and her sheer demeanor shift and brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech delivered to the class for failing to stop her being victimized makes it a hard pill to swallow.
- While Gundham plays up his villainy, it's heavily implied that he only killed Nekomaru to prevent the group from starving to death, makes very little resistance when he's accused of being the blackened, and it's also implied that Nekomaru agreed to fight Gundham to the death, making it one of the only murders in the entire series that has the consent of the victim.
- Nagito subverts this by being a troublesome and dangerous individual, but he still had a fairly reasonable motive- kill his fellow Ultimate Despairs to stop them from returning to the world to wreak even more havoc. Chiaki, his "murderer" averts any villainy in that it wasn't murder, but actually a Suicide by Cop, as he used his luck to make it so that she, as the innocent mole would grab the poisoned fire extinguishing grenade so that she would graduate. Which makes her "murder" the only one of its kind in the franchise where she was completely unwitting of it.
- Anyone Can Die: It's more a matter of when, and guessing who the final group of survivors are. There is a glimmer of hope that they can still be revived, though. The Danganronpa 3 anime confirms that Everybody Lives, except Chiaki, sadly.
- Arc Words: "Create our own future". The word "miracle" also shows up several times in the last chapters.
- The Artifact: The addition of the Consent system has made the notion of memorizing statements largely obsolete. The mechanic still shows up in situations where the debate is structured so that you absolutely have to shoot down an argument instead of agreeing with it, and the terms required to do that usually involve a concept so vague (such as "killer's mistake") that no Truth Bullet could reasonably be constructed for it.
- Artificial Intelligence: Monokuma and Usami/Monomi are actually this. Also the case with Chiaki, Alter Ego, and Junko Enoshima.
- Asshole Victim: In Twilight Syndrome Murder Case, both murderers view their victims this way. More specifically, F-suke/Fuyuhiko's sister was seen as a selfish Spoiled Brat who used her parents' connections to avoid any punishment for her cruelty to D-ko/Mahiru, and F-suke wanted to make certain her murderer/Sato was punished.
- Though she was trying to improve herself, Hiyoko was not a pleasant person to be around (although this isn't why Mikan killed her and died because of her positive features unlike everyone else here).
- Fuyuhiko is a surviving version of this trope as he survives a truly horrific situation that would have killed most people if not for Peko protecting him. The thing is he put himself in by cruelly setting up Mahiru and acting like an abusive dick for two chapters.
- Teruteru was a creepy pervert who spent his time gleefully creeping out the girls and drugging people's food, while his motive is sympathetic his death wasn't exactly the biggest loss and his actions led to the death of Togami
- While Peko is mostly a nice girl and was a victim of her tool mindset, ultimately she died because she beat Mahiru to death and framed Hiyoko for it without hesitating for a second.
- Throughout the game, Nagito had been surprisingly helpful to his fellow students...but he'd also attempted a murder, been generally cruel and confusing in his conversations with them, and was also threatening them with bombs in an attempt to weed out the traitor. By the time Hajime and co. find his body, they're not actually that upset to see him dead, despite acknowledging that his death was too horrible for any of them to really conceive of.
- Assimilation Plot: AI Junko's goal. If the survivors "graduate" the simulation, then she'll be able to download herself into the bodies of the deceased students. From there she can steal the technology from the Future Foundation and use it to infect the rest of the world.
- Ass Shove: Hiyoko makes reference to this trope during the second trial, though with clear disdain:Hiyoko: ...And if you say [Peko] hid it in her special place, I'll stab you in yours!
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Monokuma's Zoid-ish underlings that guard the gates to other island segments, as well as the representation of Junko's alter ego.
- Ax-Crazy: The entire cast (sans Chiaki, who's an AI) used to be this, thanks to previously belonging to Ultimate Despair before they were put in rehabilitation. Mikan eventually turns back into this when she reverts to her Ultimate Despair self.
B
- Bait-and-Switch: The game loves to pull this and play on people's expectations from the first game.
- Usami reassures everyone that they've been invited to an island to make friends with each other, complete with a peppy J-pop opening song... then Monokuma shows up and immediately reverts everything to the "murder" format.
- In Chapter 1, Nagito confesses in court to a murder plot... but his plan actually failed.
- The execution of Chapter 1 is a callback to the first execution in the original game... except Teruteru doesn't get bludgeoned to death, he gets deep-fried in a volcano.
- In the previous game, anyone who was seriously accused of murder would end up surviving the killing game. Here, Nagito and Hiyoko are the prime suspects of Chapters 1 and 2 respectively, so you might expect the same for them. Nope, Hiyoko gets her throat slashed in Chapter 3 while Nagito sets up an elaborate Thanatos Gambit to create an unsolvable murder in a bid to get everyone but The Mole killed.
- It is revealed in Chapter 5 that in Chapter 1, the victim is not Byakuya, as the player is led to believe, but the Ultimate Imposter pretending to be him.
- Nagito spends the majority of the first chapter appearing to be a Makoto expy, but after he reveals his true nature in the middle of the first trial, he delivers
a spine-chilling Callback line that tells the audience just how much they were terrifyingly mistaken.Nagito: You've got that wrong.
- Barefoot Suicide: Averted with Ibuki's death as she is found hanged with her slippers on. However, this is because she was actually murdered.
- Beach Episode:
- During the Prologue, Hajime doesn't fully relax until Usami gives everyone school swimsuits and encourages them to play on the beach.
- A more traditional type happens in Chapter 2. Naturally, it gets derailed by the discovery of a body before things can get into full swing.
- Bedmate Reveal: In Chapter 3, following the outbreak of the Despair Disease, Hajime wakes up in the hospital to find that Mikan has fallen asleep next to him. It also happens again just before the chapter's murder.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: During the second trial, Monokuma theorizes with no prompting that Prince Shōtoku was a time-traveller from the future.
- Belated Happy Ending: The original Bittersweet Ending (see below) has only Hajime, Fuyuhiko, Akane, Kazuichi, and Sonia escape the Neo World Program. Their friends are alive but comatose and the surviving five choose to care for them with the knowledge that it is unlikely their friends will ever wake up but the hope that they one day will. However, in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School it is revealed that all the comatose students were eventually woken up and prevented from reverting into their Ultimate Despair personas. They then leave Jabberwock Island to help save the day. This means the Goodbye Despair killing game in fact has a whopping fifteen survivors out of the original sixteen. Although, it is made clear that Chiaki (both the real girl and the AI) and Usami are really dead and only appear as a Spirit Advisor to Hajime.
- Beneath Suspicion: Mikan, a girl with abysmal self-esteem, turns out to be the murderer of the third case. The rest of the cast comments on this after Hajime accuses her of it.Gundham: Hmmm... to think there are people killed by a woman as thickheaded as she... it's beyond difficult to believe.
Sonia: We could do without the "thickheaded" part... - Benevolent A.I.: Usami/Monomi and Chiaki, who were included in the Neo World Program to watch over the students. Usami was to act as a direct guide in the teacher role, while Chiaki was disguised as a fellow student whom the others would trust so she could help everyone get along. The fact that the students spend most of the game distrusting Usami/Monomi and the "traitor" goes to show how good Monokuma is at sowing suspicion and twisting the facts.
- Berserk Button: Not that it's exactly hard to set him off anyway, but Fuyuhiko claims he going to call off the hit on Mahiru, only to almost kill her himself when she tells him that he had no right to murder Sato in an argument he started.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Monokuma. Even more so than the first game.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Makoto shows up during the final trial to save the remaining students. Subverted when it turns out to be a fake created by Monokuma to convince the students to Graduate (which would allow AI Junko to escape and possess their dead friends). Double Subverted when the REAL Makoto shows up in time to stop them from pressing the Graduate button.
- Then later during the same trial, Makoto needs two more people to initiate a forced shutdown and stop AI Junko. Cue the arrival of Kyoko and Byakuya.
- Then Chiaki Nanami manages to get one in the very very last trial. She abruptly inserts herself into a pair of otherwise impossible non-stop debates, before giving Hajime a literal magic bullet.
- Bittersweet Ending: The five survivors (Hajime, Sonia, Fuyuhiko, Akane, and Kazuichi) escape the killing game simulation, stop A.I. Junko from entering the real world, and, miraculously, retain their memories of the island and don't revert back to Ultimate Despair. Through this, they stay on the Jabberwock Islands to tend to their comatose friends and have vowed to create a new future of hope for themselves. Also, despite the belief that Hajime would be "reset" to Izuru Kamukura and lost forever, he retains some measure of control and sanity, possibly via a Split-Personality Merge. However, the chances of any of the dead students waking up are close to zero, much of the world is still in post-apocalyptic ruins (although according to Kyoko many places have significantly recovered), and Chiaki and Usami have likely been completely erased from existence.
- Bizarrchitecture: The Funhouse. Naturally, figuring out how the area is constructed proves crucial for the murder that takes place there.
- Black Blood: As in the previous game, the murder scenes are plastered in Pepto-Bismol pink, though the characters still see it as red. Also, when Mechamaru is killed, he bleeds oil, which is colored light blue.
- Black Comedy: Most of the executions fit this trope well.
- Bloodier and Gorier: In comparison to the first game, which was already far from being gore-free despite all the blood being colored pink. The deaths of Nekomaru and Nagito in particular qualify for this trope: the former is smashed to pieces after falling from a great height, while the latter suffers a self-inflicted, borderline Rasputinian Death. Furthermore, Fuyuhiko has one of his eyes gouged out with a sword (albeit accidentally), and the final trial doesn't shy away from some of the horrors committed by the students as members of Ultimate Despair - including mass murder, Cold-Blooded Torture, self-mutilation, and possible necrophilia.
- Body of the Week: It is a murder mystery game, after all.
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Monokuma puts on one of these acts with Monomi during Chapter 1.
- Boss Corridor: Just before the Graduation Exam in Chapter 6, you go through a long, wireframe corridor with swirling binary surrounding it.
- Boss Rush: The secret stage of the Magical Girl Miracle Monomi side mode pits Monomi against all five Monobeasts from the stages before, each one coming every second wave, before it culminates in a showdown with Monokuma.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: All of the cast members (except Chiaki), as part of the Ultimate Despair.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Chapter 6 onwards don't just break the fourth wall, they rip it into shreds.
- Chiaki Nanami's talent as the Ultimate Gamer even, apparently, extends to Danganronpa 2 itself...
- Broken Bridge: The Monobeasts serve this purpose, blocking off access to the other islands. After each chapter, Monomi clears away one of the beasts, allowing access to another island.
C
- Cartoon Meat: One of the food items featured at the party in Chapter 1 is a huge piece of meat on the bone. It proves important, as Teruteru had hid the murder weapon inside it.
- Casting Gag: In the English dub. Bryce Papenbrook playing a constantly-cheerful yet simultaneously entirely unnerving white haired boy? Now where have I seen that before?
- There's also the additional gag of the voice actor for Makoto and Nagito being the same in both languages.
- Central Theme: What do people define as "hope?" What are people willing to fight for?
- Cheat Code:
- In Chapter 2, Chiaki reveals that the cryptic message at the end of Twilight Syndrome ("Down five") is actually a hint to a cheat code that can be entered at the title screen, prompting the player to press Down 5 times. It's required to beat the game and reveal the "motive".
- The garbled message on Chiaki's front door after the Chapter 5 trial (which may or may not have been her dying thoughts as she was executed) has her trying to recite the Konami Code.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Final Dead Room and Nagito's prize of the student profiles are this. They're used to ignite the events of the fifth chapter, and those events are mentioned by Hajime and Fake!Makoto again in the sixth chapter.
- Chewbacca Defense: Gundham's initial Rebuttal Showdown argument in the Chapter 4 trial.Gundham: Even if the turbid box does not exist...you could travel through multiple planes...provided you use a spacious wormhole...however how frail, frail, I say! Your decayed illusion...shall I feed you to the progeny of vile deities!?
- Chick Magnet: All the girls are shown to be attracted to Hajime during Free Time Events. The only exception to this is Peko.
- Class Trip: The reason why the class has ended up on the island. At least, until Monokuma showed up.
- Clock Tampering: This is done in the 4th case by Gundham Tanaka to initiate his murder plot 3 days after the students were nearly starved by Monokuma. On the second day the students are trapped in the Funhouse, they are required to attend Monokuma's Tai-Chi lessons in the tower at 7:30 AM sharp, lest they be punished. When they show their will to live deteriorating after the very first assignment, Gundham sets all the clocks in the Funhouse back 2 hours to 5:30 AM sharp while everyone is sleeping, making everyone believe that they still had more time to sleep (they were close to starvation and dehydration, so they wouldn't try to exert themselves). Because of this, the only one to go to the tower was "Mechamaru" who had a built-in clock tuned to the proper time. There, Gundham intercepted him alone and enacted his murder.
- Closed Circle:
- An isolated chain of islands, where there's no boats and the only planes in the airport are missing their engines.
- The Funhouse. Monokuma describes the situation as "a closed circle within a closed circle".
- Clothing-Concealed Injury: At the start of the third chapter, Fuyuhiko apologizes to the other students for his part in the previous chapter's murder. What they don't know (until he starts bleeding everywhere), is that under his clothes, he's already slashed open his stomach as an act of penance fitting of a Yakuza leader. He ultimately survives, however.
- Comically Missing the Point: Kazuichi somehow manages to comically miss one of his own points during Trial #4.Kazuichi: It appears it's just as Miss Sonia said...I'm just a pest...no, I'm not just a pest...I'm a total fucking pig...
Kazuichi: ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MISS SONIA?! IF I'M A FUCKING PIG, YOU CAN SAY SO!
Sonia: No, I believe you gave your all.
Kazuichi: HEY! WHY AREN'T YOU TEASING ME ANYMORE?!
Fuyuhiko: This guy...HE GETS OFF ON THIS! - Comical Overreacting: Kazuichi, a lot of the time, handles all the weird things thrown at him by screaming.
- Company Cross References: In Chapter 2, Monokuma presents a new motive in the form of a low-quality arcade game called Twilight Syndrome, which is a real game series owned by Spike Chunsoft themselves. The game featured here even has similar side-scrolling effects as the series, the horizontal heartbeat monitor from the first game, usage of low-poly 3D character models akin to Saikai and the characters are referred to "Girl" and "Guy" followed by a letter, similar to how some minor characters in the second game were referred to as. Hiyoko's abrasive personality in general and as depicted in the game is also very reminiscent of Mika.
- Connected All Along: Danganronpa 2's cast and the protagonist's different identity exploits the viewer's suspension of disbelief by showing three red herring-type characters with irrefutable similarities to the previous cast (Nagito as Makoto, Akane as Aoi, Ultimate Imposter as Byakuya) that have them debate whether the two games are connected or the sequel is set in an alternative reality. By Chapter 6 and the mention of previous occurrences that are of Junko's responsibility, along with the appearance of Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya from Trigger Happy Havoc, at that point the player can successfully confirm that the two games are connected.
- Continuity Nod:
- There's quite a few references to Danganronpa Zero sprinkled throughout. Not just in plot points from the novel coming into play at the end (The Reserve Course and Izuru Kamukura), but also in two of Nagito's favourite gifts, which both are references to the book.
- The Theater in the third island has a poster depicting a high school girl aiming a megaphone at a Monokuma, referencing the protagonist of Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls that takes place between the events of this game and its prequel.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Hajime to Makoto. Both initially seem to lack a talent, but realize they are actually the Ultimate Hope during their game's climax. However, Makoto is simply naturally idealistic. Hajime's version of Ultimate Hope is a designation handed to him by the Academy—he is their great hope due to being brainwashed and modified to have every possible talent. They fit this personality-wise as well; while Hajime proves to be a good person, he is much more outspoken and sarcastic than Makoto, and is not afraid of confronting and arguing with the other students when he needs to.
- Cooked to Death: Chapter 1's execution, "Deep Fried Teruteru", doesn't involve any actual cooking devices, but is essentially based on cooking, matching the culprit Teruteru's talent. Teruteru is first blasted with eggs and breadcrumbs that cover his body, then dropped into a lava lake.
- Corpse Temperature Tampering: In the third case, the killer raised the heat at the murder scene. Mikan, a nurse who performs autopsies on the bodies, is unable to figure out when the victim was killed this time because of it. Mikan herself is actually the culprit in this case, and she changed the temperature so she can claim she can't tell the time of death.
- Country Matters: When Girl C from the video game is brought up during the second trial, Ibuki jokes that she'll "'C' you next Tuesday".
- Cult of Personality: The Ultimate Despair group worships the original Ultimate Despair, Junko Enoshima, going so far as to carve up her dead body and surgically replace their own body parts with hers.
- Cute and Psycho: Mikan. Good lord, Mikan.
D
- The Dead Guy Did It: The Big Bad of this game is Junko Enoshima once again, who died in the first game, but as an Artificial Intelligence as the game is literally set in a game, AKA a virtual world, replacing her deceased physical self.
- Deadly Deferred Conversation: Byakuya talks about "things" in his past he can't tell anyone about, yet defers the question when Hajime asks him to elaborate, saying only that he can (and indeed may have to) explain later. Unfortunately for interested players, Danganronpa is a murder mystery series, and Byakuya ends up being the first victim.
- Death by Irony: Not to as great an extent as the first game, but some of the executions still count. See the Fridge Brilliance page for details.
- Death Is Cheap: Discussed and ultimately subverted in regards to the dead students. Fuyuhiko suggests that, since all the events went down in a VR simulator, the death of their classmates will not affect them in Real Life — however, since Your Mind Makes It Real, those students who felt they were dying have become braindead. The Ambiguous Ending leaves the survivors tending for the dead students in hope that they will awaken one day. The OVA Super Danganronpa 2.5: Nagito Komaeda and the World Destroyer and Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School reveal that all the students finally awoke, despite Junko's prediction.
- Death of Personality: A few big examples in the story. The Ultimate Despairs are placed inside a machine in an attempt to 'rewind' their personalities back two years before they became completely obsessed with death and despair. Meanwhile, Junko as the Monokuma virus attempted to hijack the program and upload herself into the comatose bodies of the murder victims. Finally, there's poor Hajime Hinata, who had his mind essentially surgically altered and replaced with the personality of Izuru, a sociopathic genius who was Junko's right hand. How effective the death of personality is by the end is left uncertain, since the game does not definitively state how much of the original personalities vs how much of the killing island trip personalities have been restored. All that can be said definitively is that Hajime seems to retain his Killing Trip personality and some (all of?) Izuru's memories.
- Debate and Switch: The outcome of the second case initially seems to hinge on the dilemma as to whether Just Following Orders is a legitimate justification/defence or not: Peko killed Mahiru, but after being voted as the culprit, she claims that she only did it because Fuyuhiko ordered her, and he should be counted as the culprit instead of her, as she's just his "tool". This would effectively make Fuyuhiko the winner of the killing game, so he would be allowed to escape while the rest of the group would die. The others argue that, regardless of the circumstances of her actions, she's a person, not a tool, so she's responsible and therefore the correct culprit. However, it then turns out that she was not, in fact, acting under orders in the first place, effectively rendering the moral dilemma moot. Not that Monokuma was going to let that happen anyway, because he's, of course, a total asshole.
- Deconstructor Fleet: The entire game seems designed to play the similarities with the first game, only to ultimately subvert them. The ending also calls many things stated about the academy and hope itself into question.
- Denser and Wackier: The setting is far more outlandish than that of the previous game, exchanging the sealed-off Academy for an entire series of tropical islands guarded by Humongous Mecha and including amusement parks and military bases with guns and rocket launchers just lying around everywhere. The executions are even more over-the-top, and one character is even turned into a robot at one point. It all makes more sense, though, once you figure out that everything is a VR simulation.
- Deserted Island: The Jabberwock Islands. Subverted in that the islands aren't entirely devoid of civilization - there's a hotel and other buildings built there. However, other than the students, there are no other people around. This is mostly because of what it turns out they actually are.
- Designated Girl Fight: With the exception of the fifth trial, all victims have same-sex culprits. Subverted with Akane and Nekomaru, who would fight each other regularly. Double subverted with Fuyuhiko, who was about to take out Mahiru until Peko did it herself.
- Despair Event Horizon: All of the survivors experience this in the climax of the 6th Trial, with having to choose between returning to their former Despair Crazy selves and risk being killed by Future Foundation (and Hajime basically being erased), or retaining their memories but releasing AI Junko into the world to restart the tragedy.
- Detectives Follow Footprints: Invoked by Peko, attempting to make Hiyoko leave a trail of footprints implicating her in the second murder.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- In the stage play based off this game, case 4 is skipped to save time, leading to Gundham and Nekomaru deciding to team up with Akane to attack Monokuma, only to end up killed by him.
- In addition, with the exception of Peko’s, all the executions have also been altered. Teruteru and Chiaki’s executions are changed to them being impaled with spears while Mikan’s is changed to her dying from a lethal injection. Speaking of Mikan, she fatally injects Ibuki with poison rather than strangle her to death, adding extra irony to her execution.
- Drawing Straws: Nagito suggests this as a way to determine who gets to clean up the lodge. He ends up with the short straw. Of course, this later turns out to be part of his murder scheme.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted with the Chapter 5 murder victim (Nagito Komaeda). He sets up the crime scene and self-inflicts most of his wounds in order to make it look like this is the case. But he only died when he inhaled the poison that he had earlier put in one of the fire grenades that the other characters used to put out the fire at the crime scene. Thus, the incident was a Thanatos Gambit on Nagito's part to make one of the others unknowingly kill him. To most people this would still count as Suicide by Cop, but Monokuma has a vested interest in interpreting every death possible as murder and therefore punishable.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The English localization is noticeably sloppier than that of the first game due to being rushed for release, with more than a handful of line breaks that make things difficult to read and typos. For the most part this doesn't affect understanding of the game with the exception of one present item: the memory notebook from Danganronpa Zero. The notebook belongs to a character named "Ryouko Otonashi", but the localization mis-renders the smudged-out text as "Ky...ko...Oto...", running the risk of anyone unfamiliar with the novel to mistake it for Kyoko from the first game.
- The message at the end of Twilight Syndrome (in Japanese, "Gokai shita") is actually a hint to a cheat code that can be entered at the title screen. "Gokai shita" can be translated both as "You misunderstood" or as "Five times down". Hajime mistakenly falls for the former interpretation at first, only for Chiaki to point out the alternate meaning. There's no simple way to make this pun work in English, so only the latter translation appears, with Hajime needing a hint simply because he doesn't know what "five down" is supposed to mean. Luckily this didn't break any real puzzles, since in both languages Chiaki simply gives you the answer immediately anyway.
- Sonia's comment about not being a virgin may be this, as the words for "young girl" and "virgin" sound almost the same when spoken aloud, and she may have misunderstood (perhaps because she's a foreigner) and thought Gundham was saying she was a young girl. But given a similar scene in Danganronpa 3, probably not.
- It's stated at one point that one of Junko's followers had sex with her corpse, hoping to have her child. If that makes no sense to you (a pregnant corpse?), just know that the Japanese version actually states that a follower had Junko's uterus transplanted into her own body so that any children she bore would be Junko's.
- The English localization can't seem to decide what language the characters are using. There are several moments where the fact that text is written in Japanese is explicitly mentioned, implying that it is out of the ordinary and the students aren't otherwise speaking/reading Japanese. In other instances, however, only Sonia as the resident foreigner is able to easily read English words, leading to a strange situation where the characters seem to be speaking neither the language of the original source material or the language of the dub.
- In the first class trial, a major point is made of Byakuya's reasoning behind saying a particular line during the blackout. The actual translation of the line is more along the lines of "What are you doing?", implying that he could see someone in the dark (which he indeed could). The official translation went with "What the hell? This is...", which doesn't actually indicate that he could see anything.
- In Chapter Four, one location relevant to the trial has the name "The Octagon". One of the puzzles Hajime must solve during that chapter's class trial is meaning of "octagon", with the solution being "an eight-sided shape". This makes Hajime seem clueless in the English dub for not knowing what an octagon is. In the original Japanese dub, "The Octagon" was romanized, rather than translated. The equivalent would be like calling the name of the location "Hachikakukei" in the English dub.
