All spoilers will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!
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Main installments:
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
- Sayaka tends to be portrayed as a huge Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who never once cared about Makoto despite the fact that her Japanese voice actress confirmed that she does have feelings for Makoto, as well as the manga confirming that Sayaka wrote the dying clue out of remorse.
- Downplayed with Hifumi. For all of his worst qualities, the fact still remains that he was 1) manipulated into killing Kiyotaka by Celeste and 2) as much a victim of Junko's manipulations as the rest of the students were. The way the fandom talks about him, you'd assume he was the cast's only student who was a complete Jerkass even before the killing game, and that he just randomly murdered Kiyotaka of his own accord (especially notable in that the very same people who tend to hate Hifumi solely for killing Kiyotaka also tend to still like Celeste).
- Byakuya Togami is a fairly interesting case. While there's no denying that he starts out as a massive Jerkass with plenty of Kick the Dog moments, he is shown to grow as a person and takes a level in kindness by the end, by the sequels he's firmly in Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory. Many fics portray him as a violent and abusive Hate Sink who somehow manages to be an even worse bully than his canon counterpart, as well as far more incompetent compared to his intelligent canon self. Several fans also hate him for being cruel to Toko, a Stalker with a Crush, who regularly invades his personal space, constantly makes perverted and objectifying statements about him, and whose Split Personality is a depraved serial killer who openly admits that she wants to murder Byakuya.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
- Mahiru gets a lot of unnecessary stick from the fans, who perceive her as an outright man-hater. Many agree that her character improves on Free Time Events, but as she dies rather early in the game, most people don't end up seeing them unless they play Island Mode. She also gets often criticized for protecting Hiyoko, even when her victims reasonably snap at her, but the only example of her actually protecting Hiyoko in-game was when her classmates ganged up on her and insulted her for something that was both out of her control and completely unrelated to her previous Jerkass behavior. In particular, Akane and a few others pointed out that Hiyoko smelled bad, since she hadn't taken any showers due to her being unable to tie and untie her kimono. In addition many blame her for Fuyuhiko and Peko's actions because she argued with Fuyuhiko, ignoring that Fuyuhiko started the argument and that both Fuyuhiko and Peko accepted full responsibility for what they did to her.
- While Hiyoko is a Jerkass, the fanbase tends to ignore her positive features and overhype her negative features completely. It's true she's a whiny bully who goes after the weakest character in the game(so does Fuyuhiko) but it's also true that she was level-headed to the point of pushing the class to investigate Togami's murder, was the only character in 2 who actually held Fuyuhiko to account for what he did to Mahiru and forgave him once he apologized. Most importantly she had a truly large Hidden Heart of Gold as she genuinely cared about Mahiru and Hajime(in free time) and wanted to protect them. Unlike a lot of more popular bully characters in the series(most notably Miu who died trying to betray everyone and didn't show a hint of improving prior to this) Hiyoko actually tried to grow as a person and her death wasn't a result of her negative features but rather her best feature, that being her love for Mahiru. This is in stark contrast to her portrayal as worse than Junko and contradicts the idea that her death was "karma". Hiyoko at worse is a morally grey brat and at best an eccentric and passionate dancer who had a heart deep down.
- Peko can somewhat fall into this regarding her actions in chapter 2, as many of the fanbase completely blame her for Mahiru's murder, ignoring Fuyuhiko's role in coming up with the plan in the first place, luring Mahiru and Hiyoko there and going for the baseball bat (that he brought) when Mahiru pissed him off, even if Peko wasn't in the beach house Mahiru would have probably died and that Peko wouldn't have killed her if not for her tool mindset or Fuyuhiko trying to kill Mahiru. Fans who outright dislike Peko portray her as a cold-blooded monster who had zero remorse for murdering Mahiru or betraying the class ignoring the frequent subtle signs of remorse throughout the investigation (such as agreeing with Chiaki that Mahiru's murder shouldn't be forgiven) and then outright apologizing for Mahiru's murder and then wishing the class well.
- Nagito's biggest haters ignore his good intentions, self-sacrificing nature and legitimate mental illness, describing him as a straight-up irredeemable villain. His troubles with understanding social norms caused by combination of the said illness and extremely lonely life are often precieved as outright cruelty or attempts to mess with people for his own entertainment even if his POV section in Chapter 4 clearly shows it's not the case. Nagito's relationship with Hajime also often get twisted to portray him as an obsessive Yandere while in-game he's never depicted as such and his attachment is used for his humanization, even if it doesn't go without some Kick the Morality Pet moments.
- Many detractors of Mikan Tsumiki outright ignore the fact that she was brainwashed into murdering Ibuki and Hiyoko and contracted the disease while trying to help the sick, although Mikan certainly had a lot of unsettling tendencies she was ultimately a Nice Girl who wouldn't have hurt Ibuki or Hiyoko if it wasn't for the brainwashing, Danganronpa 3 further clears this up as she saves Hiyoko's life even with Hiyoko's past treatment of her. There are also detractors that claim her Nice Girl persona is a complete act, while it's true Mikan does have an unhealthy obsession with control, her desire to help out others is shown to be very genuine.
- Akane Owari's detractors claim she's an arrogant airhead who only really cares about herself and fighting, blatantly ignoring her connection with Nekomaru and her genuine friendliness towards the class. Some take it one step further by claiming that she didn't care about Nekomaru taking a rocket in her place and causing it in the first place, when the game goes out of its way to show that while Akane tried to hide it, she was truly guilt-ridden and horrified by her actions harming Nekomaru.
- A rather unfair criticism of Sonia Nevermind is that she was "mean to Soda", this misses out the context that Sonia was initially nice to Soda until he took his Stalker with a Crush thing too far and that she had every single right to be harsh towards his advances and that Soda not Sonia was the one in the wrong in that situation, that doesn't stop some fans from portraying her as a stuck up bitch who was mean to Soda. There's also the camp that calls her useless blatantly negating the fact that she was active in the trials, The Heart of the group and was generally very helpful. Only in chapter 5 does she put the trial off course, for an understandable reason considering how much she cared about Chiaki.
- Speaking of Soda while he was a creep, not the best friend ever, and at times a Jerkass many detractors portray him as an irredeemable Teruteru-level creep who did nothing useful or positive in his 6 chapters, ignoring his Hidden Heart of Gold, becoming nicer in the final 2 chapters, or the fact that his talent actually helped a lot, particularly in chapter 4.
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School
- While they are various degrees of unpleasant, and Sakakura has no excuse, a lot of fans were quick to throw the entire radical faction under the bus over wanting to execute Makoto. it's implied all of the radicals were victim to He Who Fights Monsters (something made most apparent with Munakata), everyone in the Future Foundation has suffered their own tragedies thanks to the Ultimate Despairs so their hatred of them is quite justified (yes, that includes Sakakura, as much as his asshole attitude eclipses it) and, perhaps most importantly, the "Moderate" faction don't want to save Makoto either, they're merely just more willing to hear him out.
- Juzo's been getting this particularly bad, especially after Episode 3 of Side:Despair. While he is by no means a good human being, fans have started putting a majority of the blame for the Tragedy on him. This is ignoring how he didn't know that his words would make Hajime decide to become Izuru, that he was trying to stop him from prying into the deaths of Natsumi and Sato so that the school didn't kill him, and that Izuru would have never caused the apocalypse if Junko never exploited his boredom in humanity and corrupted him.
- Some fans have taken to blaming Sato for the Twilight Syndrome incident under the accusation of her being an insane Yandere. This conveniently ignores the violent bullying Natsumi had been giving Koizumi. It doesn't help that the whole Twilight Syndrome incident was shown mainly from Hajime's perspective, who clearly had more of a connection with Natsumi than Sato, and that Natsumi's on-screen bullying doesn't go anywhere beyond verbal abuse. Meanwhile, the part about Natsumi using her family connections to make Mahiru's life miserable is never actually shown.
- While the friendship between Andou and Kimura was without a doubt dysfunctional, a lot of fans have taken to accusing Andou of never caring for Kimura. The anime makes it very clear that this wasn't the case. There's also the often-repeated claim that she could have just made sugar-free sweets for Kimura, which scientifically wouldn't workExplanation .
- Andou gets a fair amount of hatred for causing Izayoi and Kizakura's deaths, even though none of it would have happened had her own life not been in danger.
- Fans tend to conveniently forget that Chisa was brainwashed against her will and her more nefarious actions were because of the brainwashing. Because of her participation in fan favorite Chiaki's death and manipulating Kyosuke while in despair state (when it was made clear that her fondness of Kyosuke was forcefully erased from her), fans tend to think that she'd been that much of a horrible bitch from the beginning and that her old friendships with Kyosuke and Juzo looked like a complete sham, despite this being demonstrably not the case.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
- While Angie is very flawed, the fanbase tends to portray her as a straight-up evil person who controlled the class out of malice and that she deserved to die brutally, this is ignoring the fact that while she went about it in the wrong way Angie tried to stop the murders and was proven right about the flashback lights. In addition, while morally grey, Angie is far from a bad person and most of the time is a genuinely sweet girl who didn't want anyone to die. Similar features are praised in more malicious characters but condemned with Angie despite her manipulation not killing anyone, unlike Nagito's, Kokichi's or even Fuyuhiko's.
- Maki has gotten this in some circles with many people stating she ended the lives of Ryoma, Kokichi, and Kaito with many fans calling her a huge Karma Houdini that should have been dead a while back. This is despite how Maki stated that she didn't watch Ryoma's video, with the interpretation of Maki giving Ryoma his empty video just because of how he knows Maki's true talent coming from Kokichi while Kokichi himself has played a far bigger role in Ryoma's death (which the fandom conveniently chooses to ignore) and how Kaito willingly sacrificed himself to save Maki, with Maki even pleading Kaito to stop and not be executed.
- Her attempted murder of Kokichi deserves special mention here. Kokichi's fans tend to cite his confused reaction towards Maki telling him that he was a Remnant of Despair as a reason why Maki's murder attempt is inexcusable though he did admit that he was the mastermind and him being confused over what a Remnant of Despair isn't likely to change Maki's mind into thinking that he was not the mastermind. Given that Kokichi lies about everything, why would she believe that this time he's telling the truth? Even though Kokichi was lying about being the Mastermind, he still had some legitimately heinous actions on his hands, like manipulating Gonta into killing Miu on a pretence of performing a Mercy Kill on their classmates, driving his classmates to suicidal depression via showing them the (supposed) truth of the outside world, and kidnapping Kaito. You can't really fault Maki for her actions when she, along with everybody else, legitimately believed she was dealing with a murderous sociopath.
- Many of her detractors also fault her for trying to get everyone executed during the fifth trial, not taking into account that she was trying to kill the literal mastermind (or someone assumed to be one) who, in addition to being the person behind the killing game, has now indirectly killed the first person who showed her a trace of love since she became an assassin. But Kokichi appeared in the trial inside an Exisal, which wouldn't allow her to kill him personally. The only way left to kill him would be to sacrifice the others by making everyone vote wrongly and get Kokichi killed due to the the trial rules, since at that point in time Maki still believed she was the true blackened and she would simply not accept a death where Kokichi, the mastermind who orchestrated the death and suffering of everyone, who indirectly killed Kaito, would laugh and mock her during her execution like he did with every blackened before.
- Some fans (particularly the ones that tend to put Kokichi in leather pants) tend to paint Kaito in a far worse light than he actually is, accusing him of being a creep or an incel due to how he persistently tried to get Maki to socialise with others and ramping up his Politically Incorrect Hero traits. In particular, he is accused of being abusive due to punching Shuichi while overwhelmed by emotion after Kaede's death (which, while a genuinely bad action, got interpreted as him punching Shuichi for being weak).
- Miu Iruma receives this treatment among some Kokichi fans, who claim that she was nothing more than a Generic Doomsday Villain who only attempted to kill him just so that he can act in self-defense. This basically ignores how the game stated she wanted to get out to save the world with her inventions. Many of them also ignore the abuse that Kokichi constantly inflicted on her or downplay it as friendly bickering.
- Towards western audiences, Kirumi can be this due to the Values Dissonance involved in her motive to murder Ryoma.
