Fanfic / Dangan-Pinguino

Dangan-Pinguino is a multi-crossover fanfic between Danganronpa, The Penguins of Madagascar, and Steins;Gate, among many, many, many other works involved within as well. It was written by LooseGazpacho.

The story begins when Chiaki Nanami goes for her first day at Hope’s Peak Academy, meeting up with the rest of her classmates, their teacher, and overall, awaiting a new, exciting school life for them all!

However, things take for a stranger turn when the Penguins of Madagascar show up in the school grounds. Then, because of certain circumstances, including the alarming appearance of gangsters called Daft Capo, they build an alliance with Gundham Tanaka and the rest of students of Class 77-B and Class 78, forming what would be known as the Fellowship of Darkness.

This story is also a part of a bigger series called Seekers of Wisdom. While reading the other stories would help give further context on the background Worldbuilding, it can still be enjoyed on its own without that.

May contain unmarked spoilers for the works mentioned above, so be warned!

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Dangan-Pinguino contains examples of:

• Ace Pilot: Coyote is revealed to have been one, having flown on a McDonnell Douglas F-4G Wild Weasel during his time of service at Operation Desert Storm.
• Adapted Out: Despite being such prominent antagonistic characters in the franchise they came from, Junko and Mukuro have yet to physically appear, much less be mentioned at all.
• All of the Other Reindeer: While not much has been mentioned so far, it’s all but mentioned that Chiaki was this prior to attending Hope’s Peak Academy, as she mentions that Chihiro is the first friend to ever visit her. A flashback at Chapter 12 even mentions that her peers, and even other adults, considered her as a “freak” since she was young. The fact that she has a bruise under her eye when Mayuri encountered her at that time, doesn’t help matters at all.
  • Chisa is heavily implied to be this as well, as it’s mentioned that her only friends are Kyosuke and Juzo. Aside from them and recently, her own students from Class 77-B, she didn’t have much luck anywhere else.
• Amazon Chaser: Fritz is shown to be this, having become thoroughly impressed with Chisa after she delivers one hell of an Ass Kicks You to him.
  Fritz: [excited] WOOOOOOOOO! Now that is a woman I love! Man, I’d love her as my wife, but that would unfortunately contradict with our plan.
• Amazonian Beauty: Chisa is already described as a beautiful woman, but at Chapter 37, she is revealed to be surprisingly toned and athletic underneath her uniform. Her well-sculpted physique is proudly, and delightfully, given further emphasis as she lists off and admires the results from her exercises and housekeeping duty, with special mention on how her legs are perfectly fit and her stomach is at the right shape, but also soft enough to be cuddly. This is shortly before she goes to take a shower. Fritz gets attracted to her exactly because of that.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Downplayed example. In contrast with how Class 77-B reacted to having Nagito expelled, everyone in Class 69 are downright 'ecstatic' when the Ultimate Scammer got expelled. They even went as far as playing loud music in their classroom while breakdancing like there’s no tomorrow, and even drew up a caricature of their former classmate (labeled with scathing remarks like “THE SCAM ASSHOLE IS GONE” and “gib mone pls”) on the blackboard to further mock them.
• Berserk Button: Anime serves as this to Herman, with the octopus going out of his way to rant against the medium as soon as he sees or even hears about it. This is also his primary motive for attacking Faris’ cat girl maid café, with it being the representation of everything he loathes about the medium.
  • For some time, Chiaki herself served as a personal one too after she humiliated him with a Heaven Slaying Dragon Fist to his face, which caused him to amp up his game and bring in the rest of the Elite Bois to attack Hope’s Peak Academy.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Chiaki does NOT take it well when Nagito indirectly insults all of her non-Ultimate friends by dismissing them as “worthless trash not even worth looking at”. It takes Hajime having to physically hold her back with a Cooldown Hug to keep her from lunging at that person.
• Blood Knight: Fritz shows traces of this during his official introduction as well as during his fight with Chiaki and the Ultimate Imposter., with him gleefully jumping straight into a fight whenever he can and relishing every moment of it. Even being at the receiving end of punches and other blows doesn’t do much to him morale-wise, other than impressing him and making him even more excited.
• Breather Episode: After getting chased down by some Daft Capo goons (as well as every other conflict they’ve been prior to that), Chapter 23 allows Chiaki, Hajime, Ibuki, and Chihiro to relax for a bit. Chisa even serves pancakes for everyone during breakfast, and then to top it all off, they all have fun playing games together.
• Broken Pedestal: Hajime starts off admiring Hope’s Peak Academy and talent as he usually does, but after watching Tom plow over just about every single Ultimate like it wasn’t a big deal, he starts questioning what even is the point of talent at all if a cartoon cat could easily beat them.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Gundham Tanaka is shown to be up to his usual Supreme Overlord of Ice persona as usual, and yet in spite of that, he has also shown himself to be a surprisingly competent leader and strategist for the Fellowship of Darkness. Chapter 34 also hints that there’s more to him, as seen conversing with a mysterious figure only known as “The Ancestor”, who is also heavily hinted to be one of the characters involved in Phantom’s Symphony.
• Cool Plane: Chapter 30 is chock-full with them, as Chiaki plays a flight simulator game. This is also the chapter that makes uses of pictures the most, showing the mentioned plane (F-14A Tomcat) in its full glory. Matter of fact, the whole chapter is practically dedicated to showing off the plane’s capabilities and Chiaki praising it, albeit in a video game.
  • Other references to planes are actually spread throughout the whole story, most likely as part of Author Appeal.
• Creepy Good: The Ancestor is an enigmatic figure who’s completely clad in a hood, and his true identity isn’t even known at this point. The only concrete fact about him so far is that he has some kind of connection to Gundham. Despite that, it’s clear he’s on the side of good.
  • And then when he gets brought in by Gundham as an ally for the Fellowship when Chisa got kidnapped by Daft Capo, his appearance makes the class get weirded out by him at first, with Hiyoko even calling him a cultist.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: A reserve course student, after getting hired as a security guard, is mercilessly electrocuted to death by N. Tropy. It’s heavily implied that similarly brutal fates have occurred to the other missing security guards as well.
• Cultural Posturing: Despite being a literal walking, talking octopus, Herman takes immense pride in being an Italian, including driving around a Ferrari, proclaiming Carbonara as the meaning of life, and dissing on anything non-Italian. That said, it’s revealed that, despite his utter hatred of anime, his favorite movie happens to be Porco Rosso, which, amusingly enough, takes place in Post World War I Italy.
  • Rando proudly wears his half-Bosnian nationality right on his sleeve, to the point he mentions wanting the entirety of Serbia wiped off the planet. At the same time, he denounces his half-Japanese heritage, calling it ‘cringe’.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Tom’s attack against the entirety of Hope’s Peak Academy amounts to this.
• Defiant Captive: Despite her situation, Chisa refuses to be cowed into submission. At some point when one of the punksters throws a piece of stale toast at her face, she throws it back at him with enough force to move his hat a bit. That was more than enough to startle him. The narration even compares Chisa to a trapped lioness.
• Dehumanization: Implied to be the case with Chisa. Not only is she kept underfed by Daft Capo, is tortured by N. Tropy whenever he feels like, and threatened to get deported to Albania, she is also treated as referred to as nothing more than a bargain chip. It’s to the point that when Figottoni nearly slips up and calls her by name, he had to refer to her as a ‘bargain chip’ as well.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The Trope Namer himself is shown committing this during his official introduction. Played with, however, as it’s shown that he’s become a respected champion, and that while he could easily win his current race without cheating, he proceeds to do so anyway because that’s how he rolls as a villain, sabotaging the rest of the racers long after he receives his award.
• Electric Torture: Poor Chisa gets subjected to this during her captivity, courtesy of N. Tropy and his tuning fork. Thankfully, the greater details have been spared, but based on what little has been seen, it...wasn’t pretty at all.
• Even Evil Has Standards: A wrench gets thrown in Daft Capo’s plan to acquire Hope’s Peak Academy once it’s revealed that the school is building an artificial island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. N. Tropy in particular is mortified when he discovers it. He may be shamelessly sadistic, but even he wouldn’t dare to mess with the potential geopolitical issues that’d arise with Jabberwock Island. It’s to the point that when he discusses this discovery with the rest of the Elite Bois, he makes it a big priority to discontinue it once they acquire ownership of the school.
• Everyone Has Standards: Rando loudly shouts an unspecified word (heavily implied to be a slur), and shortly after that, everyone at HPA comes to kick his ass.
• The Gadfly: Herman served as personal one to the students of Hope’s Peak Academy, taking delight in trolling them by spraying ink in their faces and throwing eggs at them. This is especially emphasized with Chiaki, as she couldn’t stand him the most.
  Chiaki: That octopus is driving me freaking mental.
• Groin Attack: Rico delivers a maliciously vindictive one against Tom. Kazuichi is rather terrified by it at first, but considering their circumstances and the fact that Tom is an enemy, he allows it.
  • Chisa threatens to deliver one to one of the punksters during her escape attempt. Unfortunately, N. Tropy happens to show up, and is far too happy to rein her in once again.
• Hate Sink: The Steering Committee of Hope’s Peak Academy are shown to be slimy and corrupt when they finally appear onscreen. Not only that, they also show absolutely no regards whatsoever after one of their own staff is kidnapped by a mafia. They even go as far as callously suggesting that they can always cover it up and make it feel like it never happened, showing exactly where their priorities are. It doesn’t help that it’s heavily implied that one reason why they don’t even bother with that is because that person who was kidnapped happens to be someone they personally dislike, which only makes them even pettier.
• Heroic BSoD: Chiaki ends up falling into a very severe one after Chisa gets captured by Daft Capo. It’s so bad, it lasts for at least three chapters, and it took a big heart-to-heart talk with Mayuri to help her snap out from it for a bit.
• Imaginary Friend: Heavily implied that Usami served as this to Chiaki prior to her attending Hope’s Peak Academy, due to her rather lonely background. And even after becoming an Ultimate student there, Chiaki still converses with Usami whenever she’s alone.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: This trope weaponized by the Koichi and Suzuha for their role in Operation Loki, knowing that Daft Capo’s philosophy is all about being the complete opposite of humility. It’s a bit downplayed with Koichi for the most part, as he just slaps glitter on top of his usual outfit.
  • Suzuha, on the other hand, takes this to a whole new level, as she barges in with an even more ridiculous outfit, consisting of a rose-tinted heart shaped glasses, a flower crown, a black tank top with a grill drawn on it, golden chains all over her, denim shorts and skeleton leggings at once. Even Toko is utterly horrified at the sight of it.
  Toko: T-this isn’t even a fashion disaster, it’s the fashion apocalypse!
• Improvised Weapon: Fritz, the absolute madman that he is, lights up four blunts and proceeds to use them as freaking brass knuckles.
  • The Ultimate Imposter, in return, uses a fire extinguisher and throws it at his face to finally knock him out.
  • Sonia amps this example up, using a moped and turning it into a “modern chariot”, complete with Peko using her wooden sword to serve as the chariot’s “spear” as they both run over the gangsters.
• It's Personal: The primary reason why Herman goes after Chiaki in particular. Not only because of how she humiliated him, but also because of how her viewpoint clashes against his own, and the fact that she scored a victory against him rubs further salt in that wound.
  Figottoni: Pardon me for assumption, but she represents the very thing you oppose, is that correct?
  Herman: That is correct, yes. On a personal level, my opinion has not changed. A sheltered womanchild that thinks she’s a hero of her story, yet can’t even put any effort in taking care of herself. Her coping mechanism is to make others happy, at the cost of herself, since she knows she’s a waste without a future. However, I hate what she represents. This rigid and impractical moral compass of hers should never score a victory against beneficial pragmatism, but it did, a symbolic one at least.
• It Was a Gift: The origin of Usami turns out to be this, as it’s revealed in Chapter 12 that Rintaro won her as a prize for Mayuri. But at that moment, Mayuri has seen a terrified and distressed Chiaki, and gives Usami to her in order to cheer her up. Chiaki has never forgotten about her since, and has vowed to meet her once again.
• Knight of Cerebus: N. Tropy is shaping up to be one over the course of the story. Whenever he appears, it’s easy to tell that things are about to go down hard, as best seen when he commits the first onscreen death and captures Chisa for ransom, with the latter breaking Chiaki’s spirit so much, she’s reduced to broken tears after he sadistically taunts her about it.
• Mama Bear: Chisa can get feral and protective over her students (especially Chiaki in particular), to the point she’d fight off against an insanely strong intruder who with zero hesitation whatsoever.
• Money Fetish: What the overall goal of almost every member in Daft Capo seems to be, as they all nonchalantly commit their crimes all for the sake of acquiring even more money (or “dosh”, as they call them) and flexing so much more material property whenever they can.
• The Nicknamer: Rintaro is still this, just as he is in Steins;Gate, bestowing the nickname of “Springy Rabbit” to Chiaki after she hops to him in excitement. After much consideration (mainly seeing how much she’s into video games), he then later upgrades that nickname into “Springy Ultra Gamer Rabbit”.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: After spending a good chunk of doing nothing much but troll the students of Hope’s Peak Academy and otherwise amusing hijinks, Daft Capo as a whole turns out to be this, becoming a genuine threat to the protagonists as the story progresses.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: It’s clear that Tom’s attack on Hope’s Peak Academy has shaken up the Status Quo for the protagonists. Additionally, it also shows just how outclassed they are compared to Daft Capo, as despite their talents, they are still a group of high schoolers going up against ruthless gangsters who not only have terrifying connection, but are powerful in their own right, especially now that they have fully registered them as a threat.
• Only Sane Man: Compared to literally every other member of the Elite Bois, Dastardly appears to be the sanest of them, being the only one who objects to most of Rando’s questionable beliefs and N. Tropy’s opinion of nuking the entirety of Australia to get rid of marsupials as well as expressing disgust with how the latter cruelly taunts Chiaki after capturing Chisa. Played with, however, as despite that, he is still very much a petty villain in his own right, albeit with lines he won’t personally cross.
• Parental Substitute: Chisa winds up serving as this to Chiaki, with their interactions feeling much closer to a mother-daughter relationship, rather than of a teacher and a student. Lampshaded by Dastardly, who practically pukes from seeing them together like that.
• Pesky Pigeons: The pigeons of Zona Daft Capo are heavily implied to be utter menaces. So much so, Tom himself is sent in to make deals with them and placate them via providing hardbass Gopnik disks in exchange for certain favors.
  • Later on, those same pigeons are used to spy on the students of Hope’s Peak Academy, and they are shown to be rather...uncanny and intimidating the whole time.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Tom, of all people, turns out to be this, as shown during his official introduction, with him utterly annihilating the bank’s security. Additionally, he also single-handedly beats the flack out of nearly everyone in Hope’s Peak Academy, including their strongest members like Sakura, Mondo, and even Chisa.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Ibuki plays this role as usual. Along with her usual hyperactivity, she also does all sorts of shenanigans, ranging from crawling back to her desk for no reason during her introduction, to her acting like a cat while searching for someone.
  • Aside from Ibuki herself, the entirety of Class 69 takes this example up a notch. Aside from their class number, almost everyone’s talents in there are purely nonsensical ones like Ultimate Telemarketer, Ultimate Procrastinator, Ultimate Scammer, and even Ultimate Bootlegger.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Aside from his Bosnian Nationalism, Rando also takes glee in being ‘based’ as much as possible, and by that, it means quote-unquote “the higher the chance was for you to end up in Hague on a trial for crimes against humanity, the cooler you are (unless your crimes were directed towards Bosnia)”
  • N. Tropy takes this to an extra level. Aside from wanting to bomb Australia off the map to get rid of marsupials, he also starts off in taunting Chiaki by saying she should have been aborted and then compares her intelligence to that of an unguided bomb, reducing the poor girl to quiet, broken tears in doing so.
  • Adding to above, it says a lot that Rando gleefully approves of that sadistically cruel action.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Sonia flat-out says she served in the military and can quote-unquote “break more bones than you can imagine”. Makoto reacts as any regular person would in his position. It’s then taken up further when Sonia proceeds to use a moped as a “modern day chariot”, with Peko assisting her by using her sword as a makeshift chariot spear, while they both run over the Daft Capo gangsters.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Nagito gets disillusioned with the conflict of Hope's Peak Academy against Daft Capo, seeing that it wasn't the "Hope Vs Despair" conflict he was looking for, and desserts his classmates. He then proceeds to remorselessly sell them out the same enemy they're up against with, feeling that their eventual victory would feel "more satisfying" if there were obstacles on the way. After getting confronted (and admitting it with zero remorse or shame), he is then logically expelled from the school and hasn't been seen again since. Because he didn't have any meaningful connections before attending Hope's Peak (and, thanks to his last stunt, ended up severing all of the potential ones with his peers), it's highly likely he doesn't do well by himself after that.
• Pyrrhic Victory: How the Tompocalypse ends for the students of Hope’s Peak Academy. While they were able to put down Tom after the severe beating he gave them, it still didn’t change the fact that a large amount of their members had been put out of commission during that, and it took lots of careful planning and some luck for them to pull the victory off. Meanwhile, it all but barely made a dent to Daft Capo as a whole. As a matter of fact, that only motivates the gangsters to resort to capturing Chisa for ransom instead.
• The Quiet One: Tom and Coyote noticeably the only members of the Elite Bois who don’t talk, with the former only using sounds like laughing or screaming (and even then, he stays quiet most of the time), and the latter communicating via signs.
• Sadistic Choice: N. Tropy forces Chiaki with one: either she convinces Hope’s Peak Academy to give up one hundred billion dollars and ownership of the school to him, or Chisa gets shipped off on a one-way trip to Tirana, where the local populace would quote-unquote “make her life like hell”.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Fritz is mentioned to be one. This also applies to any other non-named member within Daft Capo as well.
• Shout-Out: Pinkie Boye is clearly meant to be an Expy of Kirby. It then gets cranked up at Chapter 23, where Chiaki, Hajime, Ibuki, Chihiro, and Chisa not only play games based off the pink puffball’s, but also watch a meta animation episode that’s a very obvious reference to a very similar episode in Kirby: Right Back at Ya!.
  • Tom is shown to wield the ability of DIVINE CYCLONES.
  • The title of Chapter 44, Change of Tide, is a reference to the fic with the same name.
• Shrinking Violet: The flashback at the beginning of Chapter 39 shows Chiaki as this. Not only is much, much more withdrawn and quiet than how she is now, she also frequently pelts so much Self-Deprecation at herself to a level that’s scarily close to how Mikan would do it. She also shrinks back from fear after Chisa tried to scold her for doing that, which immediately fills her up with so much guilt after seeing how frightened she was by that. Thankfully, she gets better since, but it’s clear that those issues that caused her to be like that still eat her up.
• Smoking Is Cool: Exaggerated to hell and back with Fritz, as he's mentioned hitting twelve blunts in a day, and it still wasn't enough for it to kick him in. He also weaponizes four lit blunts and turns them into makeshift brass knuckles, which only adds to his ridiculous gangster image.
• Stepford Smiler: Where to even begin with Chiaki. There are numerous hints throughout the story that her life prior to attending Hope’s Peak Academy wasn’t so great. Not only that, the conflict with Daft Capo is slowly taking its toll on her, but because she doesn’t want her friends to worry about her, she keeps it to herself for the most part.
  • It takes its depressing conclusion during Chapter 40, as she not only has been so sleep-deprived to the point that eyebags are highly visible on her face, she also sluggishly lags behind everyone when they suggested playing a game together to cheer her up. That alerts everyone that something is truly wrong because as the Ultimate Gamer, it was meant to be her main passion. Yet despite that, she still continues to insist she’s okay.
• Unperson: Played with, in that this is weaponized by the same entity whose records are being erased from further access, with it being Daft Capo in this case. For reasons still unexplained, Daft Capo can erase any records of themselves from the Internet, preventing their identities from getting leaked out and therefore, allowing them to keep doing their criminal activities for as much as they could.
• With Us or Against Us: Subtly brought up by Dastardly with Suifta and Zappatta after overhearing them talking about how they missed hanging out with the other classes back at Hope’s Peak Academy. He reminds them that N. Tropy does not tolerate any praise for Hope’s Peak Academy. And to further drive that point in, he also reminds them that Figottoni has already told them about what happens to members who think about defecting.
• Womanchild: Chiaki is often implied to be, if not directly called as one by Dastardly and Herman, with the former feeling disgust at her “holding hands with her teacher (Chisa) like she’s her mother” despite being nearly an adult.
  • That being said, Chiaki does show some signs of it, as there are moments where she talks to Usami like she's actually alive, and then replies back to herself as Usami.
• Would Hit a Girl: Herman had Faris beaten up simply because he hated her cat girl maid café
  • Fritz had no qualms punching Chiaki in the stomach while using lit blunts as brass knuckles.
  • The same thing could be said for almost every Elite Boi when it was time to capture Chisa by force, from breaking up into her apartment, to ganging up on her for a surprise attack, and finally, N. Tropy finishing it off by electrocuting her at the back with his tuning fork to subdue her.
• Younger Than They Look: Played for Laughs with Kurisu, as she clarifies to everyone at Hope’s Peak Academy that despite her profession and the overall mature vibes she gives off, she’s actually around the same age as them.