All spoilers will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!
In a franchise about murders with a rich and colorful cast, Leather Pantsing is inevitable for many characters.
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In general:
In General
- If one searches fanart of Junko, there will be a rather huge chunk of these that have most of her more unpleasant or vile qualities outright removed or downplayed. Distracted by the Sexy might have played a major factor here. She's also so ball-bustingly entertaining and evil at the same time, that she's often played around by the fandom for memes.
Main installments:
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
- Mukuro Ikusaba is often portrayed as an Anti-Villain or sometimes even an unscrupulous hero, overlooking the fact that she has canonically commit several heinous acts of her own. It mostly stems from the fact that it was all at the request of her beloved twin sister, Junko Enoshima, who later betrayed and brutally killed her for selfish purposes. Being made the protagonist of a "What If?" story where she did finally choose to side against her sister and revealed her to have a crush on Makoto Naegi also helped.
- Fans tend to forget that regardless of the situation pushed by Monokuma, Celeste still is responsible for two premeditated murders - manipulating Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka, then killing him herself (unlike Leon, who killed Sayaka in response to her own attempt to kill him, and Mondo, who killed Chihiro in a fit of rage), making her one of the most depraved characters in the game; but she carries herself in such an elegant, amusing manner that even her Freak Out is often considered a plus point instead of showing how psychotic she is. Even aside from her actions in Chapter 3, fans also generally overlook the fact that she callously victim-blamed Chihiro for being murdered simply because he broke the unofficial nighttime rule that the group had previously agreed to since she was the one who suggested said rule.
- Genocide Jack/Jill, who's unabashed in her status as a Serial Killer. Her reason for not killing anyone in the game is solely for Pragmatic Villainy instead of Even Evil Has Standards (though that trope does come up when she discusses the mastermind's actions), making her someone you would not want to meet in an alley alone, especially if you're a hot guy. Of course, when you're under the grip of Junko, it's easy to get fans to tone down your depravity, and fandoms being obsessed with fictional serial killers simply on the logic that being a serial killer is hot is far from new.
- Much of Toko's behaviour is ignored because of her woobie tendencies, Toko is undeniably a tragic girl with a tragic past, but it doesn't justify treating everyone around her horribly, at one point she verbally sexually harasses Aoi which gets so bad Sakura has to step in.
- More than one Leon fan completely excuses his murder of Sayaka. Truth is, while he's not evil, in the original VN and the anime he could have just left her inside the bathroom that had its door jammed in, and then gone to denounce her, but he chose to kill her instead. The manga interpretation kinda helps this camp though, by re-interpreting the death such that Sayaka still had the knife when she went into the bathroom and Leon went in in a poorly thought-out attempt to calm her down. Ultra Despair Girls saved him further when he showed his genuine tender side on Kanon in spite of constantly rejecting her and cemented some of the personality traits introduced in the manga.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
- Downplayed in the case of Gundham. Fans tend to gloss over the fact that he murdered Nekomaru largely in cold blood. Of course, everyone would have starved to death otherwise, and both he and Nekomaru declared to one another's faces that they would fight each other to the death (with Gundham being the winner), so the Sympathetic Murderer angle is definitely present in canon. However, fans who act as though Gundham was a saint willing to sacrifice his life to save the others ignore the facts that he specifically set up the murder to where everyone else would falsely believe he had a rock-solid alibi for the entire day (which was only ruined by Fuyuhiko randomly deciding to go on a walk and spotting him) and that he didn't confess to the crime until the end of the trial when the others had already figured everything out, meaning while he may have committed the murder for noble reasons, he was still planning on becoming a successful blackened and killing all the other students in the process since doing otherwise would be contradictory to his "never give up on life" philosophy.
- To some extent Mikan has her more toxic elements such as her desire to control her patients and genuinely wanting to cripple Hajime so he could stay with her forever downplayed or outright justified with her backstory or the fact that Mikan for the most part is a genuinely sweet girl. However she also suffers from Ron the Death Eater treatment from those who blame her for 2-3s events completely ignoring that it was all Junko's fault.
- Though she does have a sympathetic backstory and a Freudian Excuse in that she grew up being told that her job was to protect Fuyuhiko at all costs and was his tool, Peko was still willing to murder Mahiru in cold blood and use her corpse as a prop to frame Hiyoko and send everyone else down with her. Her plan only fell through because Fuyuhiko couldn't condemn his innocent people to be killed in his place. Peko even tells everyone else she never really felt anything towards anything to the group and only acted like their friend under Fuyuhiko's orders. This is somewhat downplayed by the fact that she did at least end up apologizing for it in her final moments. She also asks the group to prevent any more killings from happening, implying that she cared enough about the others to not want anyone else to die and was remorseful enough about Mahiru to apologize over her murder. But make no mistake, she was still ruthless enough to beat her to death in the first place yet many of the fanbase present her as an outright Woobie who was the real victim of 2-2, not Mahiru or Hiyoko.
- While Fuyuhiko does become a better person after chapter 2 and is genuinely remorseful not only over Peko but Mahiru, it should be noted 2-2s events happened because he maliciously planned Mahiru's murder even bringing a baseball bat when she was just trying to make amends and coldly went for a bat out of rage when she called him out, initially he seemed unremorseful over what happened to Mahiru calling her a bitch even after her death in post trial and framing her best friend to save Peko(who he tried to save at the expense of the rest of the class). His actions were out of dumb revenge that didn't even make sense since the game showed that he murdered Sato the girl who actually killed Natsumi. However as mentioned before he's extremely remorseful over Mahiru's fate after the fact even attempting suicide out of shame for his actions and telling Hajime he wants to hold a funeral for her and Peko and wanting to live on otherwise their deaths will be for nothing. That being said many fans use his arc to outright excuse or absolve his past crimes when it goes against the point of his development that nothing he does can really fully make up for that and he knows it. Fuyuhiko's arc was never meant to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for his crimes.
- In addition much of his abusive tendencies prior to his Heel–Face Turn tend to be highly negated despite lesser behaviour being condemned in Hiyoko, at one point he threatens to send Mikan to a whorehouse reducing the poor nurse to tears, granted he probably didn't mean it but it doesn't make it any better. The entire point of Fuyuhiko prior to chapter 3 is that he isn't remotely nice yet much of the fandom portrays him as a bit of a prick at worse. Finally his role in Hiyoko's death is often ignored compared to Sonia's role in telling Hiyoko about the mirror, if Fuyuhiko didn't lead Mahiru to her death, Hiyoko would have never been at the venue, and for some reason, he never acknowledged this even though he spent most of chapter 3 trying to gain her forgiveness.
- Nagito manages to be this and Ron the Death Eater. Some of his most ardent fans downplay the danger his Blue-and-Orange Morality poses to the other students and can go too far in trying to excuse his actions, despite the fact that he consistently antagonizes the rest of the cast, has several nasty Kick the Dog moments, is indirectly responsible for the Ultimate Imposter and Teruteru's deaths, and tried to kill five other people.
- While Kazuichi is a Base-Breaking Character, there's still a large part of the fanbase that massively downplays how creepy his behaviour towards Soda is portraying these comments as harmless despite Sonia clearly being uncomfortable with them, instead this section portrays Sonia as some sort of Ungrateful Bitch for not wanting to be constantly hit on by someone she didn't like.
- Bizarrely enough, Izuru Kamukura gets this from people who see him as yet another one of Junko's victims. This is despite much of the information about him coming from unreliable sources, with what we do know painting him as a nihilistic mass murderer who worked with Junko out of apathy for others. He also caused the island killing game to happen in the first place by smuggling Junko's AI into the Neo World Program, yet the fandom largely gives him a free pass for this. Ironically, those people ended up being right when later material revealed that everything Junko said about him was false and that he wasn't ever evil at all.
- The Remnants of Despair as a whole. While a great deal of the information on them is of somewhat questionable veracity (as it's information that Junko herself tells them, through Monokuma or the fake Makoto for the purpose of getting them to select Graduate and enable her to escape to the outside world), the indication that they've done many terrible things in the past is more accurate, and some fans tend to gloss over it. It doesn't help that Junko manipulated all of them, and that some characters seem far too nice and/or optimistic to be part of Ultimate Despair. As with Izuru, Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School ended up proving this segment correct in that the Remnants were not evil by choice, but by being forced to do Junko's dirty work.
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
- Because they are A: minors and B: victims of horrific abuse at the hands of their parents, it's not uncommon to find a fan that excuses the outright genocide committed by the Warriors of Hope. Some even go so far as to treat Monaca, who is portrayed as especially morally reprehensible within the game itself, with the same level of sympathy.
- The biggest example of them would have to be Kotoko Utsugi. The girl is as murderous as the other kids, and to top it off, says she loves to capture teenagers because she finds them cute, and puts them in what is essentially a sexual torture device as we see with Komaru. However, the girl has had it probably the worst out of her group, as her family sold her out to prostitution at a young age to producers that worked with her talent, and has developed a very serious Trauma Button with the word "gentle". Even Komaru, who was victim of her torture, seems to sympathize with her situation. Also helps that she's the earliest one of the kids to give up on killing adults, and tries to convince Komaru to not go through with Monaca's plan.
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School
- While Juzo does eventually redeem and sacrifice himself in episode 11 of Side:Future, a portion of his fans use that to completely excuse his earlier violence and Jerkass-ery to Makoto, Hajime and others. The fact that he's voiced by Jun'ichi Suwabe probably helps.
- Like Juzo, Kyosuke did commit an about-face and work to redeem himself. Also like Juzo, some of his fans therefore ignore his earlier Knight Templar behavior and multiple Kick the Dog moments.
- Fans of Natsumi Kuzuryu were quick to call Sato a Yandere and unsympathetic for killing her, stating that she had no real reason to do so. This is all ignoring the fact that not only did Natsumi intimidate Mahiru for years for no good reason, but she also showed herself to be quite willing to physically assault people (as Sato can testify from the scars she bears); plus, she's part of a family of criminals, so Sato probably couldn't tell the difference between a bluff and a real threat from Natsumi to kill her and get away with it (as Natsumi's brother Fuyuhiko does later).
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
- Due to his pre-release fan favoritism and his cute appearance, Kokichi has gotten this treatment for some fans though some other fans like to give him Ron the Death Eater treatment. By the end of the game, some people completely excused his actions due to him having a good goal and lots of his fans started to give Maki Ron the Death Eater treatment after she attempted to kill him. While he was Good All Along, he did some morally bad things and him being confused over Maki bringing up him being a Remnant of Despair is unlikely to change Maki's mind about him not being the mastermind.
- Some fans of Miu Iruma completely overlooked the fact that she was attempting to kill Kokichi and escape by herself. Some of her fans outright believe Kokichi had zero reason to kill Miu when in actuality, he was acting in what he honestly thought was a good Mercy Kill for the group. This was initially thought to be largely caused by mistranslated information about the 4th trial, however even when more reliable translations became widely available, Miu still got this treatment from a couple of fans, focusing on how guilt-ridden she was when making her attempt to kill Kokichi rather than how she was explicitly aiming to graduate by framing Kaito. Some fans still solely blame Kokichi for her death and point out that while he did act to outgambit Miu, he could have thought of a non-lethal method of subduing her. Miu's bullying is also often downplayed as a harmless joke or excused as just her acting tactlessly without knowing it, but even with that taken into consideration, she did things like grabbing Kaede's breasts without her consent, joking about the dead, and using slurs like "tard" constantly; at one point she refers to Shuichi as "Sherlock Homo".
- Some fans of Miu Iruma completely overlooked the fact that she was attempting to kill Kokichi and escape by herself. Some of her fans outright believe Kokichi had zero reason to kill Miu when in actuality, he was attempting to use her death in order to fuel his Zero-Approval Gambit. This was initially thought to be largely caused by mistranslated information about the 4th trial, however even when more reliable translations became widely available, Miu still got this treatment from a couple of fans, focusing on how guilt-ridden she was when making her attempt to kill Kokichi rather than how she was explicitly aiming to graduate by framing Kaito. Some fans still solely blame Kokichi for her death and point out that while he did act to outgambit Miu, he could have thought of a non-lethal method of subduing her. Miu's bullying is also often downplayed as a harmless joke or excused for her inability to make friends, but even with that taken into consideration, she did things like grabbing Kaede's breasts without her consent, joking about the dead, and using terms like "tard" constantly, at one point she refers to Shuichi as "sherlock homo".
- Similarly, due to a mistranslation of events Gonta was thought to only commit an Accidental Murder thanks to a bug in his VR avatar, and he had zero free will in the murder of Miu. However, even after more accurate translations revealed he did willingly commit a murder (though in context he's still clearly a Sympathetic Murderer) some people still state that Gonta did nothing wrong despite the fact in game it's stressed that Gonta chose to go through with Kokichi's plan to kill Miu and due to circumstances was initially trying to Mercy Kill everyone else too. While delivering his Closing Argument, Shuichi briefly wonders if the avatar error also had some impact on Gonta's personality, but that's soon proven to be wrong when Alter Ego Gonta is brought up.
- A few of Tsumugi's fans have attempted to justify her actions under the logic that she was brainwashed into it. This conveniently ignores that the game is unclear if she actually was brainwashed or not, and that she herself says it doesn't matter since she would've done it either way. To be fair, if she was really was brainwashed, she would likely state that if she wouldn't have done the killing game. However, judging by the audition tapes, it is very likely that she ended up choosing the role of the mastermind for herself.
- Similarly, people tend to give Korekiyo this treatment either due to The Reveal at the end despite the credibility of that reveal being unknown or by deferring blame for his actions to his older sister to varying extents under the belief she manipulated/groomed him into their "relationship", is responsible for his murders (directly as his claimed "possession" is plausible in-universe or indirectly given the personality that is based on her), or both even though that person was either dead or never existed in the first place and has no direct connections to the killing game.
