"The ocean... is a beautiful grave."
Danganronpa: The Wonderful Abyss was an online roleplay which ran from April to October 2021, conducted through the Danganronpa Online chat client (used to run roleplays in a graphical, visual novel-like format). Its setting is based on the Danganronpa franchise, but it is set in its own universe.
The RP is set in a world where people with extraordinary talents are given the title of "Ultimate". The Ultimates are famous and revered the world over, but there is also a dark secret associated with them: The Ultimate Prison, an inescapable facility located 2000 feet underwater. Whenever an Ultimate commits a crime, no matter how minor, they are transported to this abyssal jail and incarcerated indefinitely.
The players take on the role of Ultimate Prisoners, locked up for a variety of crimes small or large. As the RP begins, a disaster occurs and the Ultimate Prison starts to sink into the ocean. As the doomed facility descends ever further down, the prisoners have scarcely a few weeks' time to find an escape route, all while the supplies dwindle ever more. And the only hope of escape may be a deranged, murderous game...
Video recordings of the roleplay are available at YouTube
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See also The Wonderful Abyss's predecessor, Danganronpa The Beautiful Underground, and successor, Danganronpa The Graceful Stratos. Both these roleplays are run by the same GM, though are set in different universes.
Danganronpa: The Wonderful Abyss provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Blood: As typical in Danganronpa roleplays, the characters' blood is depicted as pink. Once the prisoners realize (in Trial 5) that human blood in the outside world is red, this tips them off that something's fishy about their nature.
- All Crimes Are Equal: A life sentence in the Ultimate Prison is the punishment for any crime committed by an Ultimate — no matter how minor.
- Child Prodigy: While there are Ultimates, usually regarded as Teen Geniuses, there also appears to be a younger subset of Ultimates called Junior Ultimates. Pandora and Indigo both fit into this category.
- Deadly Environment Prison: The roleplay is set in a prison located deep under the ocean. Even if you can escape your cell and somehow breach the walls, good luck surviving underwater.
- Disability Alibi: Shortly before the second murder, Godfrey gets grievously injured, to the point where he can barely leave his bed. He is considered a highly unlikely suspect for the murder... except it turns out that he has the ability to ignore pain, and it's implied he wounded himself deliberately to avoid suspicion.
- Drowning Pit: Less than two hours into the roleplay, a breach in the prison causes every prisoner's cell to slowly get filled with water while the entire facility is shaking.
- Eldritch Location: The Terminal Megiddo Zone, hidden at the very bottom of the prison. An expanse of pink blood, filled with countless naked corpses and some giant mutated... thing, it is utterly different from the rest of the prison.
- Foreshadowing: The existence of the sixteenth prisoner is hinted at early:
- The first X1-File contains a section for the prisoners' alibis. The table has sixteen rows, the final row depicting a garbled glitchy mess instead of a portrait. What's more, the row is labelled as "no alibi submitted", confirming that it refers to a 16th person.
- The splash screens that appear before the first trial depict the portraits of all 15 prisoners... and an empty section with star symbols, given as much prominence and space as any other prisoner's portrait.
- Gorn: The description of the first killer's execution goes into very gory details. Thankfully it's just text and no actual graphics are shown.
- Gratuitous German: The Prison's three levels are named Dritte, Zweite and Erste, respectively "third", "second" and "first" in German. There seems to be no particular reason for naming them in German.
- Hope Spot: After Indigo is sentenced in Trial 4, the subsequent execution is interrupted halfway through by Pandora pulling a heroic rescue, and actually managing to get her into the Black Rocket... But Indigo gently stops Pandora from starting the rocket, and then dies from her wounds.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every chapter is named along the lines of "The [X] Abyss".
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Every prisoner of the Ultimate Prison has had their real names (and nothing else) wiped from their memories by a strange device.
- Leitmotif: Each of the player characters has a specific leitmotif. They are played at particularly dramatic moments concerning said characters, and are named along the lines of "[Name]'s X", with both words being alliterated.
- Lights Off, Somebody Dies: Near the end of the first chapter, there is a sudden blackout. Naturally, soon after the lights come back on, a corpse is discovered.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: At the very end of the Trial 5 execution, Pandora's parents are revealed to be none other than Mixer and Summer.
- Playing Card Motifs: Sabrina/Tsukiyomi plays with this trope during her magic show, stating that the 15 prisoners are represented by 15 cards (Aces and face cards). She lists a number of cards corresponding to specific prisoners: Queen of Spades (herself), Queen of Hearts (Mima, the Ultimate Idol), King of Spades (Oni) and the Jack of Clubs (Mixer, the Ultimate Bartender... get it?)
- Running Gag: Pandora being treated as evidence during the trials, much to her protest.
- Sadistic Choice: In the final trial, Apollyon gives one to the prisoners: either vote to execute Apollyon, but whoever votes first becomes the blackened and escapes with Pandora at the cost of the other prisoners' lives; or allow all the prisoners to escape via the submarine, but at the cost of leaving Pandora behind with Apollyon. Naturally, the prisoners Take a Third Option by figuring out Apollyon's weakness and taking her down.
- This Is Not a Drill: In the opening session, the prisoners hear a series of warning announcements about several structural breaches around the prison, complete with "This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill."
- Title Drop: Chapter 6: The Wonderful Abyss.
- Tomato in the Mirror: In the sixth chapter the prisoners discover just what they are: not entirely human, but homunculi, artificially created human clones (with electronic orbs in their brains which can be overwritten with any personality, to boot.)
- Tomato Surprise: The fifth body discovery reveals that human blood in-universe, as far as the characters know, is pink (until then, it was easy to assume it was just an artistic choice typical for Danganronpa.) The realization that the victim has red blood is one of the most baffling aspects of the murder.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In the final trial, after Apollyon gives the prisoners a Sadistic Choice and leaves, Pandora reveals that she knows something interesting about Apollyon that might help (later revealed as Apollyon being a hologram-disguised robot)... and then she tells the prisoners... offscreen. Cut to the prisoners reacting to Pandora's words with surprise and hope, without telling outright what they heard. Of course, this guarantees that later on, Pandora manages to flawlessly execute the plan that relies on taking the Apollyon robot by surprise and deactivating it.
- Wham Line:
- In the first chapter, the characters learn that there is a serial killer among them. That would be bad enough, but after the first trial, Pandora's thoughts are shown:
Pandora: "With two serial killers... a- am I really gonna be okay...?!"- In trial 4, the characters discuss how could the killer have left the aquarium despite the door being blocked. Then Noire realizes something...
"The gap Pandora mentioned was exactly 15 centimeters wide.... [...] Only Indigo could have left from the door."- The fifth body discovery scene has two equally shocking lines:
Narration: "...THE EVISCERATED CORPSE OF NONE OTHER THAN... .....................................CAPTAIN?!"Narration: "THEIR BLOOD... WAS NOT PINK."
