Danganronpa V 3 Killing Harmony / Tropes I to O

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Trope Examples
A - D | E - H | I - O | P - Z

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I

• Idiot Ball:
  • Firmly grasped by the culprit in chapter 2. If Kirumi had simply left Ryoma's lab after drowning him, she very likely would've gotten away with it as there was nothing tying her to the crime. It wasn't until she came up with the plan to leave his body in Himiko's shark tank that she left a bevy of evidence.
  • Surgically implanted into Shuichi during the chapter 5 trial. Once Monokuma admitted to not knowing who the culprit was, the culprit's goal of ending the killing game by stumping Monokuma was clear. Shuichi fails to pick up on this and tells Monokuma who the culprit is anyway.
• Imagined Innuendo:
  • In Chapter 1, Kokichi asks Kaede how far she has gone with Shuichi. Kaede takes offense to that, but Kokichi just wanted to know how far they have gone in exploring the school.
  • Prone to happen with Miu, as she tends to misinterpret clearly innocuous remarks as something sexual.
• Inconsistent Dub: In the NISA English localization, the same trial minigame is called "Mind Mine" in-game but "Imagination Excavation" in skill descriptions.
• Indirect Serial Killer: In addition to Monokuma's usual modus operandi, Kokichi Ouma also becomes one during the killing game, starting in Chapter 2 by telling Ryoma Hoshi which student has his motive video, seeing which becomes the final nail in the coffin that drives Ryoma to commit Suicide by Cop. Then in Chapter 4 he drives Gonta Gokuhara over the Despair Event Horizon using a Flashback Light that shows the outside world being completely dead in order to suggest him to Mercy Kill everyone to save them from this Awful Truth via killing Miu Iruma and winning a class trial, only to betray Gonta during the trial and reveal him as the killer, taking sadistic glee in his grief and subsequent execution. Finally, in Chapter 5 he blackmails Kaito Momota into killing him in order to create an unsolvable murder, which would inevitably lead to Kaito's death by execution.
• Insists on Being Suspected:
  • In case 1, Maki reminds Kaede that everyone—including her—should be considered possible suspects for the murder.
    Maki: ...Am I a suspect?
    Kaede: Oh, no! That's not what I meant—
    Maki: You should suspect me. In fact, you should be suspicious of everyone.
    Kaede: Huh?
    Maki: Someone got killed right after we all gathered here. The timing is too perfect. [...] So trust no one, Kaede... Or you'll lose, got it?
  • In the same chapter, Kaito calls out Shuichi (the insecure Ultimate Detective) for excluding him from the list of suspects without a good reason.
    Shuichi: Ah, don't worry... you're not a likely suspect...
    Kaito: Hey, that's not something a detective should say!
    Shuichi: What?
    Kaito: If you suspect me, you better pursue it to the end. Investigate until you're satisfied. If you don't do that, you'll never reach the truth. Rantaro will have died for no reason. This is where you need to let your Ultimate talent shine!
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: Many examples were made in regards to the fake memory of the cast being Hope's Peak Academy students, such as Junko Enoshima being the only thing to be referred to as the Ultimate Despair, Junko trapping them all of the Class 78 students inside Hope's Peak Academy for their killing game as opposed to Class 78 actually trapping themselves inside Hope's Peak Academy, and Hope's Peak Academy actually accepting applications for the school (when in actuality, students could only get in by being scouted). These examples were part of the reason why the cast figures out the flashback lights only gave fake memories.
• Ironic Echo: The series' Signature Song, "Danganronpa" is usually reserved for the final confrontation when the mastermind is taken down. Here, it's played when the characters are learning the Awful Truth about why they're participating in the killing game. Also counts as Soundtrack Dissonance.

J

• Japanese Ranguage:
  • The cover of the file about the Gofer Project reads "The Gophel Plan" in the Japanese version.
  • In both languages, the doors to the Casino and Love Hotel's area have the Latin words "Avaritia" (Greed) and "Luxulia" (Lust) written on them, though the latter should be "Luxuria".
• Jerkass Ball: In Chapter 2, the students begin demanding Kirumi to do things for them solely because they're too lazy to do it themselves or need her expertise in assisting them on it, which is mostly to justify Kirumi's murder of Ryoma to escape the academy later on because of them taking advantage of her. The issue is they don't do this to her in Chapter 1, making them hold the ball solely for Chapter 2's arc.
• Justified Title: The "V3" in Danganronpa V3 is meant to distinguish it from the anime Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, and indicate that it's the start of a new Story Arc. According to Word of God, the "V" stands for "Victory". However, the final chapter reveals that it's the 53rd season of the Danganronpa reality show, with "V" being the Roman numeral for 5. The Japanese subtitle, "Everyone's New Killing School Semester", refers to Audience Participation in which viewers can influence K1-B0's actions through polls.

K

• Karma Houdini: Subverted too fast for it to even really be a Karma Houdini Warranty with Korekiyo. You've managed to get him to confess to Tenko's murder, but with a laugh, he reminds everyone of Monokuma's rule stating that if two different people commit murder at the same time, only the first body discovered counts for the trial, and the second one is a wasted kill with no blackened. He says he didn't kill Angie, whose body was discovered first and uses the fact that Monokuma didn't come up with that rule until after both bodies were discovered as proof that he didn't factor it into his murder plan. You then spend a little while refusing to let him be prematurely voted as Angie's killer, setting him up for this. It turns out he actually did kill both girls, and by admitting to killing Tenko, he ended up unwittingly providing evidence that links him to Angie's murder.
• Kaizo Trap: After a grueling fight with the true final boss of the Despair Dungeon, Monokuma V3, you gain access to the final chest trove with the Ultimate Lucky Student Proof. However, by this point in the dungeon, you are probably at the money cap of 999,999 gold. You cannot open chests with gold if their contents put you over the cap. Five chests with 99,999 gold surround the Proof, so if you didn't dump gold on the card, pulls before killing Monokuma, tough luck. You'll have to re-enter the dungeon, spend gold, then rematch Monokuma.
• The Killer Was Left-Handed: It may not affect the fact that Gonta was the culprit in Chapter 4, but it did affect the trial because he couldn't remember anything about it. That is because, when he had to connect the cords to the VR set, he followed Himiko's nervous instruction, which indicated that the red cord goes on the "hand you hold your chopstick in", referring to her right hand. No one knew Gonta was left-handed until he said it... almost at the end of the trial. It was a surprise.

L

• Lighter and Softer: While most of the executions are much more brutal this time, Kaito's execution was this, as it actually averted the Cruel and Unusual Death trope.
• Light Is Not Good: Hope. In the finale, Shuichi Saihara rejects K1-B0's hope, as a hope-filled ending for this season of Danganronpa would stimulate the audience and lead to future killing games. Just as much as an ending filled with despair. The ending Shuichi goes for instead is an ending full of disappointment, where everyone threatens to commit suicide together to piss off the audience so much that they never want to watch the show again, resulting in its cancellation.
• Lights Off, Somebody Dies: When Shuichi, Kokichi, Himiko, Korekiyo and Tenko perform a ritual in the dark, Tenko- who is inside a cage, under a sheet, weighed down by a statue - is killed in the time it takes to say the incantation once the candles are put out, without piercing or removing the statue, sheet or cage.
• Locked Room Mystery: A body is found inside a room that could only be bolted from inside. The killer used a katana to push the bolt shut after they had left the room by stabbing it into a hanging sculpture, and twisting the sculpture's rope so it would spin when released.
• Long Runner: In-universe. There have been 52 iterations of Danganronpa, with this game being the 53rd.
• Love Hotels: If you buy the "Key of Love" item, the player can visit one and will meet up with any currently living student at random during the main game. If you have one during the Love Across the Universe mode this naturally means you can meet up with potentially any student, but you still can't control whose scene you get.
• Love Hurts: In grand Danganronpa tradition:
  • Shuichi and Kaede get some pretty cute Ship Tease in Chapter 1. Turns out Kaede was the (framed) culprit for Rantaro's murder, and is executed while a tearful Shuichi watches. At the end of the chapter, he's shown hallucinating her ghost and thinking back over their time together in a truly depressing fashion.
  • Kaito and Maki are pretty teased. In Chapter 5 Maki confesses to having "fallen for" Kaito before his execution, but he directs the conversation back to his and Kokichi's plan after telling her that if she fell in love with him, she can learn to love herself.
  • Tenko is clearly infatuated with Himiko, but due to their vastly differing personalities, Himiko usually responds with mild annoyance or indifference and starts to prefer the company of Angie. Just as it seems like the two of them have bridged the growing distance between them, Tenko is killed in the séance - and for added injury, Himiko would have died if Tenko hadn't volunteered to take her place.

M

• Megamix Game: Characters from the previous two games appear in the last trial, and each murder case is more thematic and exclusive compared to the other games.
• Metal Slime: In Despair Dungeon: Monokuma's Test, copper, silver, gold and platinum version of the Monokumamels (the generic Mooks of the mode) will occasionally appear which are strong as hell by comparison. The higher the floor number, the higher the version will show up. They have really high defense and attack stats and can run away. However, they drop loads of gold and can drop rare materials for crafting high-level weaponry.
• Meta Sequel: It's revealed in the final trial that V3 isn't a direct continuation of the story told in the previous Danganronpa works, but a different story set in a world where those are famous works of fiction that inspired the creation of a reality show. Thus, the game has room to play with and comment on the familiar aspects of the franchise.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: The morality of the cast is very diverse to say the least. Of the entire class, only a handful are outright good, and two (Korekiyo and Tsumugi) are outright evil.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: In Despair Dungeon, the true final boss, Monokuma V3, is simply Monokuma with a ridiculous amount of his arms in the background.
• Multiple Endings: This game has four endings.
  • Good ending: The kids make it to the end of the Death Road of Despair during the first chapter and everyone gets to leave without a single person dying.
  • Bad ending: Tsumugi succeeds at destroying everyone's hope verbally, they learned about their past lives and the fact they auditioned for the killing game... But it's actually a Fission Mailed.
  • True ending: (picking up where the false bad ending left off) Everyone gets their moment of glory and together they decide to end the killing game. Though K1-B0 sacrifices himself by killing Tsumugi and destroying the school.
  • Another bad ending that's more like a Non-Standard Game Over: Shuichi ran out of time during the final investigation, and K1-B0 decided to destroy the entire school because of that.
  • The Dangan Salmon Team has three endings. You see the bad one if you haven't maxed out anyone's Relationship Values, and are told to try again. If you get to the evening of Day 10 with at least one classmate's values maxed out, you can view their endings. If you max out your relationships with everyone, you see the true ending, and can view all of your classmates' endings.

N

• N-Word Privileges: Miu is one of the students who does not consider robots as "people", but Keebo lets her remark slide.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Ultimate Tennis Player Ryouma Hoshi is obviously named after Ryoma Echizen.
• The Needs of the Many: A recurring theme: Kaede, Kirumi, and Miu all attempt murders at least partially out of a desire to prevent an even greater amount of deaths.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Promo material seems to build up Kaede as the protagonist. She isn't, and she gets offed early in the game.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A lot of cases of this.
  • In Chapter 1, Shuichi guides Kaede to the bookcase the mastermind could have used to hide in, with only speculation. Unintentionally, this provokes Kaede to take action by trying to murder said mastermind, though she failed to do this in reality as her rube-goldberg setup was ineffectual and the actual mastermind killed the real victim instead. Shuichi blames himself for this at the end of her trial.
  • In Chapter 2, Maki gives Ryoma his motive video because he was curious about it, not caring for its contents. This leads Ryoma to give up on his life and submit to Kurumi's role as the de facto prime minister of Japan, allowing her to kill him, effectively setting the main murder case in motion. Granted, part of the reason Ryoma confronted Maki was due to information he got from Kokichi.
  • A lot of Miu's motive for murder in Chapter 4 can be attributed to her inability to trust her classmates. Must be because she gets constantly abused and no one tries to help her out on a personal level. Of course, what aided in this even further was them keeping up this abuse while Miu had the system in place to kill everyone and get away with it via the Virtual World. She was pretty much led to die because no one else wanted to understand her.
  • Chapter 5 has Shuichi deconstruct Kokichi's plan to trick the mastermind into incorrectly judging the case's culprit as the case's victim because he helps Monokuma solve the case for him, nullifying the gambit and forcing the trial's outcome to be the same as always. He only realizes at the last second and attempts to backpedal on his constant curiosity.
• No Mercy for Murderers:
  • Case 1 has Kaede killing Rantaro to expose the mastermind. Executed, and for a bonus kick in the teeth, it wasn't even actually Kaede that did him in, but rather Tsumugi, the actual mastermind.
  • Case 2 has Kirumi killing Ryoma to escape and save her country. Executed.
  • Case 4 has Gonta killing Miu to keep (what he thinks is) the secret of the outside world from the classmates. Executed.
  • Case 5 has Kaito and Kokichi collaborating to end the killing game. Kaito is executed, though he dies of his terminal illness just before the execution finishes.
• Not What It Looks Like: Thanks to Himiko, Shuichi finds a hidden passage from the Mastermind's lair to the girls' bathroom. When he emerges from the bathroom, he runs into Maki, who is none too pleased about what she just witnessed. And then Himiko comes out shortly after... Maki very briefly slips into killer mode before she realizes that Shuichi probably had a good reason for being in there.

O

• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: V3 as the numeric is...odd, to say the least. Word of God states that the "V" stands for "Victory". Turns out it's an almost literal meaning. There were 53 killing games including the current one. V can also stand for 5. There are also three survivors, or in other words, 3 people were victorious. This is also to differentiate it from the anime which completes the Hope's Peak Academy's saga — it should in theory limit confusion by not having the main games jump to the number 4.
• One-Woman Wail: The track that plays when a corpse is discovered, as usual. The fact that the woman isn't wailing when his body is found in Chapter 3 is Five-Second Foreshadowing that Kokichi is trolling Shuichi.
• Outside-Context Problem: No one considered the possibility of someone being killed during a murder investigation. It stops everyone cold and forces the Monokuma to make a new rule up on the spot.

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