Tropes from the Second Experiment Trial Season (Experimenta Trials 11-20) of the r/DanganRoleplay subreddit.
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Experimental Trial 11
Shuichi Saihara is found crushed to death in a moving bookcase. Who killed him and why are the student's memories so contradictory?
Tropes for the Eleventh Experimental Trial
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Kaede turns out to be the killer, brainwashed to believe that she was the Mastermind.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Shuichi is brainwashed into standing in front of a secret passage and letting it close on him.
- The Dog Bites Back: After quite a bit of condescension towards her, Nagito gives Komaru a test where she can a hint by figuring out which hand he's hidden a piece of paper in. Komaru's response is to cheerfully ask Tenko to throw him to the floor and check which hand it's in.
- Nagito makes it clear that he didn't write the hint down and won't give the clue if she has Tenko cheat for her. So Komaru guesses a hand and then asks Tenko to throw him to the floor.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: The Flashback Lights used in the murder are stated to only be capable of giving a single command at a time, giving the killer some much-needed limits as to how it was used.
- Fake Alibi: Kaede tried to create one for herself with her Flashback Light convincing everybody that she'd been cleaning the kitchen with them.
- Fake Memories: After Hagakure confesses to murdering Shuichi and is proven innocent, it is revealed that Flashback Lights have been used to give several players some false memories
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Leon misthrows a baseball and breaks a window. Given that he's the Ultimate Baseball Pro, it becomes a big deal despite being mostly irrelevant to the case. Monokuma even makes it into a truth bullet.
- Red Herring: Many of the weird events made into truth bullets such as the movie that everybody had a different description of and Leon accidently breaking a window, turn out to have mundane explanations and were added to the truth bullets to disguise the real uses of the Flashback Lights.
- Show Within a Show: Several students watch a film and then they all end give completely different descriptions of its plot. While they start to assume that the film was part of a fake memory, it turns out to a Red Herring. The movie was just disjointed and confusing.
- Spanner in the Works: Before Kaede brainwashed the kitchen clean-up crew to believe that she'd always been with them, Nagito accidently trashed the freshly cleaned kitchen. As a result, Kaede's brainwashing fails to account for the fact that they were cleaning up the room for the second time and for the sudden appearance of the hammer that Nagito brought with him.
- Varying Competency Alibi: Hagakure's early confession is promptly ignored as a result of his general incompetence.
Experimental Trial 12
Following the events of their games, various killing game participants find themselves imprisoned in a virtual reality recreation of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles. When they are challenged to either catch the hidden Monokubs or commit a murder before time runs out, the offer of control over the simulation finally leads somebody to murder Makoto Naegi. This trial has received a sequel.
Tropes for the Twelfth Experimental Trial
- Anti-Villain Has A Point: Kirumi confesses and successfully convinces the class to let her win in order to have somebody they can trust take control of the simulation.
- Back from the Dead: The trial is said to take place after the events of the games, with the dead students all having been brought back to life as A.I.s in a simulation.
- Confess to a Lesser Crime: In a strange variation, Kirumi confesses to somebody else's crime by claiming to have been responsible for trapping Sayaka under the floorboard instead of Kokichi to try and steal his alibi for the murder.
- Cruel Mercy: Rather than Mass Executing the students after they let Kirumi win, Monokuma decides to put them back into the killing game without their memories.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Although Kirumi successfully wins the trial and lives up to her promise to bring Makoto and all the executed classmates back, she is revealed to have been put into her own separate simulation by Monokuma, who sends her classmates into another killing game.
- Cutting the Knot: With the trial narrowed down to Kirumi or Kokichi as suspects, Mukuro proposes voting for Kokichi, considering a scenario where Kirumi is the murderer and wins preferable to one where Kokichi is the one who gets to be the administrator. Rantaro is quick to join in.
- Death Is the Only Option: Kokichi argues for this when Kirumi is rallying the students to let her win, suggesting that death is preferable to
- Dwindling Party: The previews feature a game of tag against the Monokub which kills them off whenever they get found.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Kazuichi becomes this, to the point where Kirumi pointedly chooses to resurrect him last when she gets the chance.
- Know When to Fold Them: After Ryoma pieces together that, between Kirumi and Kokichi, Kirumi is the only one who knew where Makoto was, Kirumi decides to confess and switch to pleading for them to let her win.
- Sole Survivor: Monotaro is the Monokub to survive the Previews.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kirumi turns out to be the killer, having sacrificed Makoto to seize control of the simulation with the intent of bringing him back to life and creating a paradise for her classmates.
Tropes for ET 12- 2
The participants of the Killing Game have forgotten their own names and about most of their pasts. While they try to adjust, it isn't too long before the boy known to them as Leaf, Rantaro Amami, is found dead in a secret room.
- Accidental Pervert: Confronting Hiyoko over his belief that she was lying about practicing how to tie a kimono in the Prison Shower, Ryoma dares her to prove that she's actually learned to do so. He finds himself very ashamed of himself when she does so.
- Decided by One Vote: Ryoma suggests that Chiaki probably only received a vote or two more than any of the other students when she is elected as the most likely mastermind as justification for how she should not accept Monokuma's offer to prove her innocence.
- Forced Sleep: The epilogue features the cast discovering Chiaki in a stasis pod, rendered unconscious until she has been proven innocent of masterminding the killing game.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Literally in Makoto's case as they find his body and only Sayaka has even vague memories of who he was, recognizing him as a middle school classmate.
- Honor Before Reason: After winning a vote to determine who everybody else thought was the Mastermind, Chiaki is offered a chance by Monokuma to prove that she isn't the mastermind by taking a mysterious test. Chiaki decides to take the test and Monokuma quickly makes her vanished.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The survivors of the previous trial have found their memories heavily tampered with, only remembering vague details about their pasts.
- Ryoma ends up suffering from it again when he is poisoned with a drug that makes him forget the last 24 hours.
- Lazy Alias: With the students having forgotten their names, they all come up with new aliases to be able to refer to each other by.
- Note to Self: One is found from Rantaro Amami on an eHandbook that the amnesiac Ryoma finds on his person.
- Odd Friendship: Ryoma seems to bond somewhat with Nagito over their shared Death Seeker tendencies.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Mahiru turns out to have killed Rantaro in a panic when he suddenly appeared while she was searching a secret room with Hiyoko.
- Undying Loyalty: Hiyoko was with Mahiru when she killed Rantaro, yet still tried to cover up her crime and get her to escape.
Experimental Trial 13
Stuck in a killing game hosted by the Warriors of Hope, the students find themselves forced to investigate the murder of Jataro Kemuri when he suddenly disappears.
Tropes for the Thirteenth Experimental Trial
- Bluffing the Murderer: Attempted Once Leon becomes one of the remaining student suspects, Nagito admits that he was watching him before he fled to his room at around the time of the potential murder and claims to have seen what he was doing before then. When Leon's story doesn't change, Nagito admits that he wasn't particularly suspicious of him but just wanted to try it and see what Leon said.
- The GM Is a Cheating Bastard: Monaca acts as one, faking Jataro's death, framing Masaru, and trying to go through with a mass execution until Jataro shows up alive.
- Nagisa eventually forces an early vote as it becomes clearer that Monaca was responsible for Jataro's disappearance
- Kangaroo Court: The Warriors of Hope prove to be responsible for every strange incident throughout the day, with Monaca performing an extensive Frame Job against Angie.
- Never Found the Body: A slightly bloodied mask is all that's found of Jataro.
- Uncertain Doom: Many of the students refuse to believe that Jataro is actually dead, given the lack of a body and Monaca's blatant untrustworthiness. They are proven right.
- Useless Security Camera: Prior to the murder, Monaca spreads the word to a few of the students that the cameras are down. She turns out to be lying.
Experimental Trial 14
After regaining their memories of every class trial to have ever taken place, the students decide to reject Monokuma's killing games once and for all and accept a quiet, peaceful life on Jabberwock Island. After two years of peace, a pool party ends with the death of Makoto Naegi.
Tropes for the Fourteenth Experimental Trial
- Accident, Not Murder: Makoto turns out to have been killed by a simulation glitch while Kazuichi's murder attempt was failing.
- Artificial Human: The characters from Danganronpa 1 and 2 are suggested to be A.I.s that exist in a simulation that the V3 cast has been put into during a long trip into space. Since nobody from V3 was selected for the trial, this reveal gave the trial an entire cast full of A.I.s.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Many reoccurring plotlines and old trials are brought up throughout the case.
- Death Is the Only Option: Some participants, most prominently Mukuro, argue for this when Monomis offers to end the simulations once and for all, considering their current situation of killing each other over and over in various killing games to be an absolute nightmare.
- Depending on the Author: Mukuro lampshades how inconsistent her characterization is throughout the previous trials.
- Designated Villain: An in-universe example. Kazuichi's attempt to kill Makoto actually failed, meaning that he's really no more of a culprit than any of the other failed killers. He's still designated as the official Blackened though and has to be executed in the end.
- Fate Worse than Death: Mukuro argues that the memory wipe is one as it condemns them to an existence of constant betrayal and murder.
- Feed It a Bomb: Kazuichi tries to kill Makoto this way, but accidently swapped the mini-umbrellas meant to be used as detonators.
- Gambit Pile Up: Celeste, Sayaka, Hagakure, and Kazuichi all made murder plots.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Two years trapped on Jabberwock Island with the same people turns out to be enough to drive several students to commit murder in desperation.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The cast's fate at the end as they are sent back into the endless cycle of killing games.
- Metaplot: Not only does the trial feature a cast who remembers the previous class trials, but the ending is essentially a choice over whether to keep participating in Class Trials.
- Motive Misidentification: Sayaka resorts to attempted murder out of a belief that Makoto had crossed the Despair Event Horizon, but Kazuichi admits that he just slipped Makoto alcohol.
- Only Sane Man: Byakuya may qualify as this, having refused to attend the party out of a belief that they always lead to murder and being the only absentee who wasn't involved in a murder plot
- Phlebotinum Overload: Monomi reveals that the simulation can't handle operating a single killing game for too long, with Makoto's death being a result of it glitching. The survivors are then forced to choose between being deleted or having their memories reset for another killing game
Experimental Trial 15
Abducted by Shirokuma and brought to an abandoned Jabberwock Island that has fallen into disrepair, the students of Hope's Peak Academy discover it to be haunted. Realizing that the ghosts are of students that Hope's Peak Academy allegedly transferred into an overseas academy, the students explore the island until the Ultimate Imposter is suddenly murdered and a new Class Trial begins.
Tropes for the Fifteenth Experimental Trial
- Accidental Murder: The Imposter's murder turns out to have been the result of Kaito accidently stabbing him in a panic over the various ghosts that he'd encountered.
- Bittersweet Ending: Although the survivors of the trial are sent back home by Shirokuma after the class trial to be able to share what happened to the previous victims, the ghosts continue to haunt Jabberwock Island with Kaito and the Imposter's spirits now trapped as well.
- Broken Masquerade: The students whose ghosts now haunt the island were believed to have transferred to an overseas school until a new batch of students were abducted and brought there by Shirokuma
- Demonic Possession: Sonia and Kaede both end up having been victims of this, having been possessed by Celeste and Hajime respectively at some point during the day.
- Face Death with Dignity: Kaito tries to face what he believes will be his execution with grace. Subverted as he ends up showing a lot more terror at the sight of the Imposter's ghost showing up to kill him instead.
- Fiery Cover Up: Natsumi chooses to burn down the Beach House after finding her brother's corpse and spirit inside and not wanting anybody else to know.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Kaito tries very hard to be one, despite having nearly been killed by a ghost earlier in the day.
- Hell Is That Noise: The Music Venue and the Fourth Island are said to be haunted by the spirits of Ibuki and Sayaka, who keep singing the same distorted song over and over.
- Hope Spot: When Shirokuma reveals that he never had any intention of executing anybody after the end of the trial, it briefly looks as though Kaito will at least get to keep his life until the Imposter's spirit appears to kill him anyway.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Mondo is exposed as having accidently knocked out Komaru when he lets slip that she was knocked out by a Flashlight without anybody having ever suggested it to have been the weapon.
- Literal Split Personality: Toko and Genocide Jack both haunt Jabberwock Island as separate entities
- Mundane Solution: Despite the abundance of spirits around, they turn out to be uninvolved with any of the incidents that happened throughout the day, with the burning of the Beach House, Komaru's assault in the Music Venue, and the Ultimate Imposter's murder having all been committed by living people.
- Sanity Slippage: The various ghosts are shown to have suffered this in death, barely able to string together sentences.
- Self-Inflicted Hell: Letters from the spirit of Kazuichi suggest that the victims of a previous mass execution are suffering in one, having tormented themselves with their own regrets. The Ulitmate Imposter and Kaito end up joining them in the end.
- Stealth Sequel: It is ultimately discovered that the trial is set months after the Killing Game depicted in Class Trial 9.
- Unholy Ground: Jabberwock Island
- Vengeful Ghost: The Imposter becomes one in the end and murders Kaito.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Shirokuma acts as one, having abducted the various students at Monomi's request so that they could explore the dangerous haunted island and learn the truth about their classmates' deaths.
