Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc | Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair | Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School | Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
All spoilers are unmarked!
- In Dangonronpa: The Animation's English dub, when Junko is about to subject herself to the Ultimate Punishment, she says "Come on baby, big money, no whammies!"
- When Monokuma first breaks out the bear puns, Celeste notes that it's been done already.
- Sayaka's claims to be psychic and her eagerness to act as Makoto's "assistant" reference Maya Fey from Ace Attorney, a franchise with notable similarities to Danganronpa that was already five games in by 2010 (and therefore likely a point of reference, if not a direct inspiration). Of course, setting her up as an Expy will have only helped to throw Genre Savvy fans off of the real twist to Sayaka's character, since Maya actually is the protagonist's loyal assistant for several games before departing non-fatally to pursue her own vocation. Meanwhile Sayaka, of course, is the Decoy Deuteragonist who attempts to double-cross Makoto and the rest of the group before falling victim to a Plot-Triggering Death — all before the halfway point of Chapter 1.
- The Ace Attorney series gets a second, even more direct shout out in Danganronpa 2, just for the avoidance of any doubt.
- Yasuhiro, while praying to numerous deities for help, invokes King Kai.
- And if Hifumi can get a manga/anime/video game reference in somewhere, he'll probably do it. On that note, his name is written as 1-2-3, just like Miyo's adoptive father. Also, he mentions three characters from a manga and refers to them as the Elite Four. He says it sounds cooler that way, even though there's only three characters mentioned.
- Not quite anime, manga, or video games, but still worth mentioning: In the official English version, Hifumi cries out "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!" prior to encountering Alter Ego. One of his Free Time Events mentions author J.G. Ballard. His last words also include him asking if winter is coming.
- Similarly, during the first murder investigation the barred off garbage disposal room makes him launch into an extended reference to The Shawshank Redemption.Hifumi: They said he killed his wife. He learned how to get by on the inside, but he never stopped dreaming. Get busy livin' or get busy dyin', he said. So him and Rita, they found themselves a way out...
- In the incinerator room while investigating the first murder, he makes a couple references regarding the broken crystal ball, comparing it to the seven magic balls that summon a dragon and the fortune-teller Meena who was searching for that one guy.
- Genocide Jack at one point uses the phrase "blacker than a moonless night".
- Which in itself is a reference to "black as midnight on a moonless night".
- In the Anime, when attempting to take off the mask hiding the final victim's identity, she exclaims "HELLO, NURSE!"
- While discussing a dying message left by Sayaka, Kyoko references Ellery Queen.
- Sakura's corpse is found in the exact same pose as the ending of Tomorrow's Joe, and one of the presents is "Tomorrow's Boxing Gloves".
- Several presents, including the voice-changing bowtie from Case Closed, Mac's Gloves (the English dub name for "Tomorrow's Boxing Gloves"), Rations, several gadgets from Doraemon, the Chin Drill, the Golden Gun, and the Berserker Armor.
- Another present, the Millenium Prize Problems
, are an actual set of seven mathematics problems, six of which still remain unsolved.
- Another present, the Millenium Prize Problems
- The voting screen in the trials bears a significant resemblance to the Monopoly logo.
- Upon waking up from his near-murder, Hifumi claims that the culprit was Yasu. What he really meant to say was that the culprit was Taeko Yasuhiro, aka Celestia Ludenberg.
- In the official English version, Yasuhiro refers to Aoi's plan to fry up some fish and donuts for breakfast and eat till everyone drops as a "Deep Impact style, meteor impact, extinction level event combination of foods."
- The Big Bad, after being revealed, promptly makes a reference to Dragon Quest.
- Furthermore, they wear King Slime's crown while doing so.
- One of the Big Bad's poses is a dead ringer for Dio Brando.
- Mondo is trapped in a tiger-themed cage and swirled into butter (or pancake batter); in The Story of Little Black Sambo, a bunch of tigers chase each other around a rock until they're turned into butter, which is made into pancakes. Taken to another level in the new School Mode, which reveals his underwear has a tiger print.
- Mondo's biker gang is called Crazy Diamond, and during Makoto's introduction he mentions that he doesn't have a Stand.
- In the Project Zetsubou translation, Makoto wonders if the "thing" the Puppetmaster did to their bodies was to plant a bomb in their stomachs. He dismisses the idea because they're not on a boat.
- The Project Zetsubou translation also includes a nod to, of all things, this internet-infamous album cover◊ on the first night when Monokuma says "This big bear has some thangs to do."
- In the anime, when Genocider Syo appears for the first time, they say a variation of Soul Eater's opening quote: "A healthy murderer dwells in a healthy body and mind!"
- Monokuma's pots of honey he snacks on have to be some kind of reference to Winnie the Pooh.
- According to the Something Awful LP, Celeste is a walking reference to series like Akagi and Liar Game that deal heavily with extremely high-stakes gambling and competitions. In fact, she apparently won the "Liar's Game" and some of her gambling anecdotes are taken straight out of series like that.
- When discussing an incident in middle school during which Makoto helped get a lost crane back into the wild, Sayaka invokes a folktale about a man who helps an injured crane, casting herself as the crane who returns as a young woman to repay her benefactor. Her birthday, July 7, also falls on the first day of Tanabata, a festival centered on a story of star-crossed lovers.
- While Makoto is watching a DVD in the AV room, the whole system turns off suddenly. In the Project Zetsubou translation, when asked why it had to happen then of all times, Monokuma replies with "Technical difficulties are never late, nor are they early. They occur precisely when they mean to."
- In the official localization, after Kyoko steals Monokuma's special key, he proclaims "Myyy PRECIOUSSS! They stole it!" ala Gollum.
- Possibly in Trial 6 when Byakuya asks if Yasuhiro is suggesting that Mukuro arrived at the school already dead.
- In the Project Zetsubou translation, when Makoto is investigating the burnt sleeve next to the incinerator, Yamada asks if he has a thing for burn victims and that he had just the game for him.
- Some of the chapter titles are references:
- Chapter 1 in the Project Zetsubou translation is titled "Kill Free or Live Hard".
- Chapter 3's title is full of references and can be translated in many different ways, but Project Zetsubou preserves the most by translating it as, "Neon Genesis Super Vortex Redux: Rise, Armored Hero!"
- Chapter 5 is titled "Despair Junk Food for a Dashing Youth", a reference to the Light Novel series Shissou suru Shishunki no Parabellum, meaning "Parabellum of Dashing Youth."
- Chapter 4 is titled "All All Apologies", which was changed to "All•Star•Apologies" in the official English translation.
- Chapter 6 in the Project Zetsubou translation is titled "The Super Duper High School Unluckster, or: How I Learned to Stop Despairing and Embrace the End".
- In the official English translation, early in Chapter 1, Toko yells something about not wanting to be dragged further into a "meat dimension."
- In the official English translation, Yasuhiro thinks that a Tyrant may be in the bio lab.
- Would-be punk rock star Leon wears a padlock on a chain around his neck like the one worn by Sid Vicious. Also, in the original game he's mentioned to have previously attended a prestigious school with a top-ranked baseball team, which in supplementary information for Reload is revealed to be named "LL Gakuen"; PL Gakuen is a Real Life high school in Osaka with just this reputation (and speaking of Meaningful Names, it's also the Real Life Masumi Kuwata's alma mater). Similarly, Kiyotaka attended a prominent school called "Kaiseinada," a combination of two Real Life high schools named Kaisei and Nada.
- Speaking of the Sex Pistols, one of the best presents the player can give Leon is the Jimmy Decay T-shirt. Jimmy Decay is mostly likely an Expy of Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten.
- In the official English translation, Yasuhiro says: "It's totally a man-eating plant! I'm pretty sure it's different from the one that lives in the pipe, though."
- The gas mask pattern on Makoto's hoodie is a reference to Zero Escape's masked mastermind Zero, and in the dub, he describes the fourth investigation's Locked Room Mystery as "Zero Escape" for the culprit. Furthering this, two of the English trophies are named "Nine Coins, Nine Purses, Nine Bears" and "Despair's Last Reward."
- The English trophies for destroying white noise lines ("The Color of Television" and "Tuned to a Dead Channel") are references to the opening line of Neuromancer.
- All the English trophies for completing report cards are references to books and films, many of which are thematically appropriate for the character in question or the greater plot:
- Byakuya: The Game Hungers
- Mondo: Rebel Without a High School Degree
- Celestia: The French Disconnection
- Kyoko: Hope's Peak Confidential
- Chihiro: GoodFellows
- Hifumi: Lost in Scanslation
- Sakura: Lovesport
- Leon: Almost Almost Famous
- Junko: Memoirs of a Fashionista
- Aoi: Mystic Donut
- Yasuhiro: The Sixth Nonsense
- Toko: Strangers in a Brain
- Kiyotaka: The Devil Wears a High School Uniform
- Sayaka: Psychic
- The English trophy for earning over 30 SP is a clear reference to rapper Ghostface Killah.
- School Mode is chock full of these.
- One of the Monokumas you need to build is Cooking Mamakuma.
- When you send characters to gather materials to craft Monokumas, they mine it with pickaxes.
- One of the possible chalkboard drawings is a drawing of a gigantic version of Monokuma peering over a gigantic wall into a village where Makoto stands, holding dual swords.
- Veers right into Hilarious in Hindsight territory, considering that Makoto and Eren are both voiced by Bryce Papenbrook in English.
- Everything regarding the Monokuma Entertainment System. Not only is it referred to as the MES, it looks like some unholy fusion between Monokuma and a Furby, and when Monokuma blows it up out of anger, the game says "Looks like the MES is blasting off... again?".
- One certain chalkboard drawing looks like it was ripped straight out of Terraria, but with Monokuma instead. Bonus points for Monokuma being playable in the Japanese version of Terraria.
- The MoeMoekuma is, quite disturbingly, Monokuma in a Tinker Bell outfit.
- The consumable items which restore consciousness and grant hyper energy for the next task are called "Nonsenzu Bean" and "Spirit Bomb" respectively.
- The English trophies for clearing School Mode once and for viewing all possible School Mode endings both refer to a certain Alice Cooper song...
- Two of Monokuma's Oh, Crap! declarations in the final trial are "Xanadu!" and (in the original Japanese) "Faxanadu!"
- Calling the fact that Sakura Ogami is called "the Ogre", along with the fact that she is a "Ultimate Martial Artist" a shout-out for Baki the Grappler would not qualify alone, as "Ogre" is too general a title for a fighter, but this along with the fact that in the peeking scene you get to see her back, which looks so much like Hanma Yujiro's (actually, the whole Hanma family's) back, sells it.
- The official English translation changed the name of Sakura's boyfriend from Kenichiro to Kenshiro, thus naming him after the main character of Fist of the North Star. It's highly likely that Kenichiro was always meant to be a reference to Kenshiro due to how similar they look.
- Kiyotaka's design makes him almost identical to Kakugo of Apocalypse Zero. His personality and elements of his backstory are also rather similar to Kakugo's.
- In the official translation, Celeste quotes Alice in Wonderland when describing their situation as "curiouser and curiouser."
- Before opening the trash room shutters, Hifumi says it reminds him of the first episode of Fist of the North Star. The official translation turns this into a The Shawshank Redemption reference.
- Nearly all of Monokuma's nicknames in the dubbed anime contain a reference, such as calling Kyoko "Jessica Fletcher Junior."
- Heck, about 80% of Monokuma's lines in the anime's dub contain a reference.
- In the dub of the anime, the "Forget It Beam" is re-named the "Kamehame-Forget-About-It!" After Kiyotaka shouts it, Mondo (voiced by Chris Sabat) jokingly says, “YOU’RE OVER 9000!”
- Some have noted that the T in the "Monokuma Theater" segments is basically the Tumblr logo. In the Project Zetsubou translation, the "ea" in "Theater" is the Electronic Arts logo.
- One of the magazines Junko is featured on in the intro is "RedRibon", which even sports a modified Red Ribbon Army logo on the cover.
- It's also a reference to the popular Japanese girls' magazine Ribon.
- At one point in the official English translation, Jack is referred to as a "super sadist".
- In Chapter 1, Hifumi says that "our little grey cells are really getting excited now".
- During the first trial, Kiyotaka instructs everyone to close their eyes while the killer raises their hand. He's probably thinking of the game of Werewolf (1997).
- Leon's execution, "1000 Blows", has him being killed by being hit by a thousand baseballs. This is the same way Jolyne defeated Miraschon in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.
- One of the items you can win from the Mono Mono Machine are tour tickets for "Mu with the Ancients".
