Fanfic / Danganronpa: Darkened Hope

Danganronpa: Darkened Hope is a ''Danganronpa'' fanfiction, colloquially known as a "Fanganronpa," written by DragonRoar87 on Wattpad and AO3. The prologue was completed on April 30th, 2021, while the epilogue was published on January 11th, 2024.

It follows the Danganronpa formula, in which sixteen Ultimate students are trapped in a place and forced to kill one another to have a chance of escaping.

The protagonist of this crazy mess is Mizuki Kokatsu, the Ultimate Intellectual Prodigy. Stuck with her are students with talents such as Ultimate Pilot, Ultimate Archer, Ultimate Philosopher, and more.

Due to the nature of the plot and the sheer number of spoilers stemming from it, this page is Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

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Danganronpa: Darkened Hope contains examples of:

• Absurdly Exclusive Recruiting Standards: Hope's Peak Academy is an elite school whose graduates go on to be the most successful and influential figures in society. To get in, one must be of high school age and be universally regarded to be an "Ultimate," the very best in your field or hobby — a difficult task, to be sure. The exception to this rule is Emiko, who was scouted as the Ultimate Lucky Student and is thus a completely ordinary person.
• Accidental Murder: Serena intended to kill herself, but was followed by Namika. A short tussle over the knife Serena was planning to use ended with Namika being accidentally stabbed in the stomach and dying shortly after.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Every single culprit (excluding Aiko) is treated like this to some degree. Haruko is the least sympathetic, given he absolutely had the intent to kill and his motive was mostly selfish, but even he was seen in at least a slightly empathetic light before and after his death.
• Alien Geometries: In a level design sense. Somehow the swimming pool on the second floor of Hope's Peak occupies the same space as the multi-story gym on the first floor. Mizuki questions how such a floor plan would work, but the question is never answered.
• all lowercase letters: isoshi types like this, as compared to mizuki and kat's proper capitalization.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Daichi's death in Chapter 1 shakes Kat to her core, permanently altering her character and paving the way for most of her character development. The trope name is a bit misleading, though, as Daichi and Kat aren't twins. (Daichi is roughly a year older.)
• All Crimes Are Equal: In Hope's Peak, sleeping in class, stepping on the headmaster's face, and murder all carry the same punishment.
• Anyone Can Die: Par for the course in a Danganronpa fanfic. Characters drop like flies after the first drop of blood is shed.
• Apocalypse Not: A huge plot point. Society has rebuilt itself so well after The Tragedy, in fact, that the students didn't know The Tragedy even happened until being told about it.
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed. The vast majority of the students who died were good people, but half of the deaths did come about as punishment for the deceased killing someone themselves. Baiko, although he didn't kill anyone, attempted to kill Kat before being killed himself. Baiko was being a major dick to Kat ever since the first murder, but his motive for attempting to kill her was noble— he believed that Kat had killed Namika, and wanted to stop someone he believed to be a killer.
• Artificial Intelligence: Arisakuma is an advanced AI replica of Arisa Ryuzaki. Alter Ego, a character from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and an AI replica of Chihiro Fujisaki, makes a major appearance in Chapter 6.
• Author Catchphrase: Each execution ends with the phrase "[Killer's full name], the Ultimate [killer's talent], had been executed."
• Barbell Beating: How Kyoji dies in Chapter 2. It's awfully similar to Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc's own Chapter 2 with the death of Chihiro.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Monokuma has monitors and cameras installed throughout the building, except in certain places such as bathrooms, notably the public bath.
• Big Damn Heroes: The arrival of Siren and Silence at the end of the Chapter 6 trial. Aiko had just locked the other five students in the trial room with her, declaring her intent to keep them stuck there until someone sacrificed Kat or they all died. Then Siren and Silence show up and give the students the key to escape before Siren kills Aiko with a knife (though that last bit is only implied).
• Big "NO!": Aiko lets one out in the fourth Class Trial when Monokuma begins messing with her.
• Bittersweet Ending: The surviving students manage to figure out who the mastermind is and escape, unveiling a major cover-up of The Tragedy in the process. However, ten students have died (twelve, counting Kat and Aiko), Alter Ego and Arisakuma have been destroyed, hostages are still being held... y'know, hostage, and there's likely another killing game to stop on top of all that. The epilogue blends together the bitter and the sweet, showing Mizuki's feeling about the whole situation.
• Bizarrchitecture: The windows in the student dorm rooms have plates bolted onto the sides behind the customary bed, despite this basically meaning there were once windows there designed to look into the next person's room. There is also a deep indoor swimming pool on the second floor.
• Black Blood: As in the canon Danganronpa artstyle, the blood is neon pink.
• Blood from the Mouth:
  • Mizuki choked on her own blood when she was impaled by Monokuma's Spears of Gungnir.
  • Yosai was found dead bleeding from the mouth due to the wound in his abdomen.
  • Although it isn't described in the execution itself, Mizuki's flashback to Emiko's death in Chapter 6 reveals that blood trickled from her mouth after she was shot.
• Body of the Week: The only way out of the school is committing a perfect murder — obviously, someone's going to wind up dead in every chapter.
• Bury Your Gays: As a large majority of the cast are LGBTQ+, this is inevitable. The first three killers are either explicitly queer or heavily implied/coded to be.
• But Not Too Foreign: Serena is implied to be half-Italian, considering her non-Japanese first name, the fact that she can speak Italian fluently, is mentioned to have a subtle Italian accent, and uses the term "cornetto" (an Italian term) for croissants. However, she near-exclusively speaks Japanese and doesn't have any Funny Foreigner traits that could point to her having foreign ancestry.
• Characterization Marches On; In earlier chapters, Aiko had the prominent character trait of daydreaming often, becoming distant and distracted whenever she did so, much to the annoyance of her classmates. However, by Chapter 2, this trait was almost entirely discarded in favor of a more bubbly, energetic Aiko.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: Per the game rules, 1-3 characters (the killer and up to two victims, though the killer and their victim can be one and the same in the case of Yosai) must die per chapter.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Isoshi's photographic memory. It is mentioned once in the prologue, and once more in Chapter 3, but then has a major role in the Chapter 6 trial, proving that Mizuki didn't forge evidence, that The Tragedy actually happened, and that the mastermind isn't Kat.
  • Arisa hacking Monokuma. It gets a few mentions across the chapters, but never gets any real focus. Then Chapter 6 happens, and it is revealed that Arisa actually succeeded in her goal in the form of Arisakuma.
• Closed Circle: All of the doors and windows in the academy are covered with steel bulkheads, and the school greenhouse has a painted blue sky over top.
• Co-Dragons: Subverted with Siren and Silence. Previously known as the "Mastermind's Left Hand" and "Mastermind's Right Hand" respectively, they were explicitly mentioned to be the ones with the most authority aside from Aiko and the ones that she trusted the most in the Neo Remnants of Despair. However, they were also seen plotting against her and the killing game until their plan eventually culminated in them revealing themselves to Mizuki and becoming two of her greatest allies in taking the killing game down.
• Connected All Along:
  • Serena and Mizuki were once close friends who went to the same school, White Moon Academy. Their memories of that time were erased as they went into Hope's Peak, but Mizuki still felt drawn to Serena as a side effect of their old friendship.
  • In the sixth Class Trial, it is revealed that Silence is an old friend of Kat. It unclear how they know each other, but hearing Silence's voice was enough to drive Kat to tears.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The executions. Yikes, the executions.
  • Daichi is forced to run for his life in a collapsing rock tunnel. He is battered by falling rocks, but he nearly makes it to the end... only to be impaled by crystal spikes and die in front of his horrified sister.
  • Haruko becomes the Black king in a game of chess between two giant Monokumas. The Monokuma playing Black ends up being swiftly defeated by the Black variation of the Fool's Mate as Haruko is crushed beneath White's queen.
  • Serena is forced to play in an orchestra while roses with sharp thorns are thrown at her. She ends up being forced to play so fast that her violin strings snap from the friction. She then is blown up point-blank by the Monokuma animatronics around her.
  • Emiko has her fate decided by a wheel that one would see on a game show. She is clawed, has her clothes set on fire, is nearly drowned, and is strangled by a noose before finally being shot to death.
• The Darkness Before Death: Inverted. Instead of complaining of darkness, Arisa complains about how bright everything is when she's dying.
• Deadly Game: The killing game is a game, as the name implies. A murder-mystery game, to be precise.
• Deadly Graduation: Escaping is consistently referred to by Monokuma as "graduating." Wanna graduate? Kill someone and get away with it.
• Death by Irony: The executions of the blackeneds are a staple of Danganronpa fanworks, and often include a heap of irony. To simplify Darkened Hope's executions to an extreme, geologist Daichi is killed by rocks, chess master Haruko is crushed to death by a giant chess piece, violinist Serena plays in an orchestra before faltering and getting killed as punishment, and lucky student Emiko has her fate decided via roulette.
• Death Wail: Mizuki screams in grief when Serena is executed, then again after Arisa dies in her arms. She also screams at Hayato's death, but it's more like a scream of terror.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Arisa passes away in Mizuki's arms after being fatally poisoned by Monokuma's "backup plan."
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: When Mizuki stares at herself in the mirror in Chapter 5, her eyes lack highlights and she has eyebags stemming from her current depressive state. The small change has a big effect in conveying her emotions in a single drawing.
• Dwindling Party: Although sixteen people enter, that number steadily decreases until only six make it out. The number drops down to four if you believe Kat and Aiko are truly dead.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Mizuki denies Keina and Isoshi's assertion that she fell asleep in the dining hall (she did), explaining that the motive Monokuma put in place (melatonin-suppressing gas) would have prevented her from doing so. She realizes halfway through that Monokuma would've stopped the motive if somebody was killed.
  Mizuki: We all know that the motive suppressed the production of melatonin, so the only way I could've fallen asleep was if Monokuma stopped the motive, and the only way that could've happened is if... somebody died.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: After Daichi's death, Kat lets her hair out of its Tomboyish Ponytail and allows it to fall around her shoulders, symbolizing her grief for her lost brother.
• Fan Disservice: Yosai dies in a white kimono. When his body is discovered, the top part of it is open, exposing his collarbone, pectoral muscles, and stomach. His hair is also seen not tied in a ponytail for the first time ever. It would be attractive if it weren't for the fact that he had a gash across his abdomen and had just died ten minutes prior to being discovered.
• Forgot to Mind Their Head: After the third floor is unlocked, Mizuki finds Isoshi checking each of the desks in one of the classrooms. As soon as she calls his name to get his attention, he tries to stand up, only to hit his head on the desk he is currently under.
• Freudian Trio: Mizuki, Serena, and Arisa form the trio, with Arisa being the Id, Mizuki being the Ego, and Serena being the Superego.
• Go Out with a Smile: Arisa laughs softly before her death. Her corpse still has a smile, even after she passes.
• Hero of Another Story: Kimiko Takahashi, Masahiro Ebisawa, and Rei Nakatomi. They are friends of Mizuki and were briefly seen in Chapter One as three of Mizuki's six Motive Video hostages, but later get cameos in late Chapter Five and early Chapter Six, revealing they've been doing quite a bit of work outside of the killing game. Exactly what they're doing is left ambiguous, though, the only hints being that they've been working together with Siren and Silence, as well as someone named Megumi, to execute something called Project Freedom.
• I'll Kill You!: Kat snaps and she snaps hard once Aiko reveals herself as the mastermind and taunts Kat over Daichi's death. Kat screams this phrase until threatened at gunpoint to stop.
  Kat: I'M GONNA KILL YOU!! THE PERSON I LOVED MOST IN THIS WORLD IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!
  [the sound of a gun cocking is heard]
  Aiko: Go ahead and try. I'm not gonna stop you. Those guns might, though.
  Kat: I'M GONNA KILL YOU!! I'LL KILL YOU!
  Aiko: Alright, I get it, you're gonna kill me! Take a chill pill, sheesh!
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • Daichi is executed by being stabbed straight through his body with thin crystal spikes akin to spears.
  • Mizuki becomes a temporary pincushion in Chapter 2, being stabbed by Monokuma's Spears of Gungnir due to commiting violence against him. She miraculously survives.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Hayato was killed via a stab to the throat. The Monokuma File makes it clear his throat was stabbed, not slit.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Emiko lets a very important detail slip when breaking down after Mizuki defeats her during her Argument Armament.
  Emiko: I didn't do it! Arisa didn't tell me about Monokuma's backup poison and I didn't make a plan with her and I didn't poison her and I didn't put her body into that position and I didn't! Murder! Arisa!
  Mizuki: Plan? We didn't mention anything about a plan.
  Emiko: ...Oh dear.
• Killing in Self-Defense: Baiko nearly killed Kat out of rage, believing her to be the one who killed Namika. The tables were turned when Kat overpowered him and became enraged herself, stabbing him five times in the chest.
• Madness Mantra: Kat begins chanting "no choice" after she is revealed to be (one of) the Chapter 3 killers.
  Kat: No.... no choice.... no choice.... no choice.... No choice no choice no choice no choice no choice no choice no choice no choice!!!!
• More Senior Subordinate: Downplayed with Siren and Silence. Even though Siren and Silence apparently have equal authority, Silence often acts as though Siren has a higher rank than him, such as taking orders from her and giving none himself.
• The Nicknamer: Takayuki gives diminutive nicknames to nearly everyone. This leads to a bit of an awkward moment when Mizuki, having lost her memories, believes his nickname for her to be indicative of a previous romantic relationship.
• No Punctuation Period: Downplayed with Isoshi and the way he types. Only the last sentence he types will lack a punctuation mark, and only if it is not a question.
• Obfuscating Postmortem Wounds: Serena hanged Namika from a ceiling light to connect herself to the crime scene. Unfortunately, this also had the side effect of abrading the skin around her neck. Monokuma decided to play it up by being vague about what truly killed her.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Aiko threatened Mizuki's life when Serena refused to kill anyone to become a true Neo Remnant of Despair. This drove Serena to attempt suicide to protect Mizuki.
• Off with His Head!: Aiko tears off Arisakuma's before the climax of the sixth Class Trial.
• Ominous Adversarial Amusement: In Chapter 6, when all five of the survivors declare their intent to vote for despair, Mizuki firmly tells Aiko that she's lost. Aiko briefly freaks out, but then begins to laugh maniacally, revealing that she never said ''when'" the vote had to be commenced, and thus she will keep the survivors in the trial room forever until one of them decides to sacrifice Kat.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Katsumi calls herself and asks others to call her "Kat." Everyone gladly obliges, except for when things get serious.
• PG Explosives: Even though Serena was killed via point-blank explosion, she still has a recognizable body, and if there were any horrific mutilations that resulted from the explosion, they weren't mentioned.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Daichi and Kat. Daichi is soft-spoken, acts by his emotions, and is quite pale with his outfit being mostly browns and beiges. Meanwhile, Kat is loud passionate yet quite logical in most of her actions, and is rather tan with her color scheme combining oranges, pinks, greens, and blues. The only things they have in common are their last name and their love for one another.
• Rage Against the Reflection: Mizuki punches her bathroom mirror after hallucinating an "echo of herself" in it. This cuts her hand and leaves blood on the shattered mirror.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Mizuki lets out a long string of "no"s when she is suffering from a panic attack in Chapter 6.
  Mizuki: No..... no, no, no, no, no.....
• Sensitive Artist: Isoshi, the Ultimate Painter, is the Sensitive Guy of the group. He's not overly emotional, but he makes no effort to hide it when he's feeling depressed or scared.
• Sequel Hook: The epilogue reveals that Kat somehow died after the events of the main story. However, Makoto Naegi from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc makes an appearance and tells Mizuki that "her friend," implied to be Kat, may not actually be dead, leaving several unanswered questions. How did Kat apparently die? Is she actually alive, or is Makoto wrong? What's up with that mansion he showed Mizuki? The author's notes make it explicitly clear that this was meant to be a hook for future installments of the series.
• Ship Tease: There are several teases indicating a possible romantic relationship between Serena and Mizuki throughout the chapters, including some after Serena's death.
  • In Chapter 1, Serena shows uncharacteristic concern for Mizuki and her mental state after Mizuki stays up all night watching the Motive Video. She then plays it off as a "fluke." Later, after Daichi's death, Serena comforts Mizuki and assures her that his death wasn't her fault.
  • In Chapter 2, Serena stands over Mizuki as she regains consciousness after being impaled by Monokuma's Spears of Gungnir and smiles while reassuring her that she'll be okay. Later, the two spend the night together in Serena's room. One version of this scene in the published chapter has Mizuki describe Serena as a "tsundere," but this was later changed to "tsun-tsun." Mizuki wakes up the next morning to Serena braiding her hair. While riding the elevator down to the Class Trial, the two hold hands. Takayuki's Free Time Event in this chapter revolves around Takayuki asking Mizuki about her "type," then coming to the conclusion that Mizuki has a crush on Serena, despite Mizuki's protests.
  • In Chapter 3, Monokuma explicitly calls the pair "lovebirds." Serena doesn't react at all to the comment, but Mizuki blushes and reacts with embarrassed shock. After losing her memories, Mizuki says that they must have been lovers in a past life because she feels drawn to Serena somehow. Serena later attempts suicide to protect Mizuki from Aiko, and freely admits to doing so after Arisa deduces Serena's guilt in Namika's death.
  • In Chapter 6, Alter Ego comments, embarrassed, that the two were "quite close" after viewing security footage from Chapter 2. When Mizuki calls Alter Ego out on it, they ask if their relationship was supposed to be a secret and apologizes. Monokuma says that he hates the forbidden love cliche and Aiko eagerly asks if the two ever kissed. Isoshi cuts in to come to Mizuki's rescue, saying their relationship isn't relevant to the case at hand.
• Sickening "Crunch!": Kat narrates an audible crack as she fractures Baiko's wrist in Chapter 3.
• Starving Artist: In the Chapter 6 trial, it is revealed that Isoshi lived in extreme poverty until he became the Ultimate Painter and began to make lots of money off of his works.
• Stay with Me Until I Die: Arisa physically prevents Mizuki from leaving the room they're in while she slowly dies from NG poison. Mizuki not only stays with her, but holds Arisa in her arms as she passes.
• Tap on the Head:
  • Hayato is knocked out via his head being slammed into a wall before his death. It was apparently so forceful that it left a bloodied dent in the wall and made his head bleed.
  • A large rock falls on Daichi's head during his execution. It doesn't kill him, or even knock him out, but Mizuki comments that it probably gave him a concussion.
  • Kyoji is whacked on the head with a dumbbell. It kills him instantly.
• Tears of Blood: One of the symptoms of NG poisoning is blood leaking from the victim's left eye. Arisa, being killed by the same poison, displays this before her death.
• Tragic Keepsake: Kat is given Daichi's crystal necklace by him before his execution. She wears it for the rest of the story.
• Translation Convention: The characters are all speaking Japanese, but the entire work is in English, so their speech is rendered as such. It is mentioned multiple times that yes, they are speaking Japanese, and that yes, some of the characters don't even know English.
• Unmoving Plaid: No matter the angle Isoshi's scarf is viewed at, the plaid on it will always appear as perfectly straight, parallel horizontal and vertical lines.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Everyone faints outside of Hope's Peak at the beginning of the story, then wakes up inside.
• White Shirt of Death:
  • Namika dies wearing her standard white t-shirt. Serena narrates that it was stained red as she was stabbed.
  • Yosai committed suicide wearing a white kimono, as traditional for a samurai committing seppuku.
• Year X: When Alter Ego asks what year it is in Chapter 6, Mizuki responds with "20XX." Averted, however, for any other year mentioned. Mizuki says that she was born in 2015, Kat deduces that The Tragedy ended in the 2010s, and Makoto mentions that the class that was put into the killing game was set to graduate in 2032. Taking all this into account, including the organization of Japanese school years, it can be assumed that the killing game takes place one year before the class' intended graduation: 2031.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Katsumi goes by Kat most of the time. Whenever the narration of the fic or another character uses her full name, you can tell that things are getting serious.
• You're Insane!: Aiko Hekima, Junko Enoshima, and Monokuma all get called insane, crazy, psychopathic, or the like several times, especially Aiko once she shows her true colors.