What Could Have Been / Forest of Despair

Spoilers are no longer marked.

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• Akita's name was originally Akiza Yamamoto and she was the Ultimate Peace Keeper. She was also brunette and wore the outfit that her sister, Mei, has in the sister story. Akita and Mei's personalities were actually changed along with their designs.
• There were originally twenty-five students in the main cast but it was scaled down. Requiem has made it clear that this actually greatly affected everything about the story.
• One outline even had Akita, Akiza, and Aki actually getting along with each other. This has been clearly changed.
  • The school was originally a lot nicer but Requiem decided to take a darker tone in the story. This actually was only changed in the middle of the prologue, with only the old building and the outside of the school building be in bad repair.
• Kazuhiko was originally going on be the first victim with Akita killing him. In the story, this is turned around.
  • One outline had Naoko and Akita be friends and for Akita to find Naoko's dead body. Requiem has not revealed who killed Naoko in this version.
    • It was Takayuki. Takayuki being executed and Akita being forced into the torture chair was the original causes of Akiza and Aki being out more.
  • On Tumblr, Requiem revealed Minato was going to die first for a very short time by accidentally killing themself. This would lead Akita down a pit of despair, and they do not reveal what happens to her, only that Ayano becomes the POV character because of it. Because spoilers.
    • Akita would've gone insane and taken her own life because of remembering the full extent of all of her previous lives, Kotori, and the true horror of the Personality Experiments.
• Another difference is that some of the original outlines did not have Ayano and Kazuhiko being the Official Couple. Some of them they didn't know each other. One of them had them be friends that eventually become canon (and Kazuhiko lives longer as a result). And there are some outlines where they absolutely hate each other. In the evil Ayano outlines, their relationship is either a lot like the one between Kazuhiko and Kotori, Kirigiri and Kira, or Kazuhiko is pretending to like her so he could finally bring her down. Sometimes the two of them even had a rivalry with one of them constantly trying to get the other one down.
• One of the outlines had Ayano as the first victim, with her actually being like Kotori. Because Kazuhiko was in a forced relationship with her in this outline, he snaps and kills her, in which Ayano didn't suspect and the mastermind decided to go on panic mode.
  • Yes, you heard that right. Ayano Kamukura originally had Kotori's role and even Ayano Kirigiri's role. Though Requiem decided to change this when she decided it would be more interesting to make Kamukura the victim of her original selves instead of actually them.
  • One outline had Ayano Kamukura and Kirigiri being twins. With Kamukura taken at birth after the Committee fakes her death for experiments. Kirigiri figures out about this, leading to her going insane and joining the Committee for revenge and destroying the Future Foundation for daring to keep such a secret.
  • Ayano Kamukura's birth parents were more important in previous outlines as well, though all that is told in canon is that they abandoned her which lead to Ayano being adopted by Izuru. Ayano was originally a trap to get the Future Foundation out of hiding and find out where their secret hangout was.
    • Continuing on, Hotaru and Ayano are actually cousins in this version. Hotaru's side of the family rebelled against the Committee while Ayano's remained loyal.
  • The other children of the Future Foundation characters were more important in Forest of Despair as well, with one outline having them working with the two Ayanos and being the masterminds of the killing game. Though now their importance has been given to other stories.
• Another outline for chapter one is that Takayuki was the victim with Mitsuru being the killer. Mitsuru finds out about Takayuki being a Personality Experiment for Hideyoshi, and the involvement the True Despairs have in her past and flips out. Takayuki actually would have downloaded an AI for himself to help during trials with the help of Ayano as well, though he would later by corrupted by Kaneshiro and forced to be deleted. Before her death, Mitsuru would have been punished for attacking Monokuma and trying to escape. Because Mitsuru dies before the execution, they would have executed her dead body.
• In a rare outline where Kazuhiko isn't sympathetic, he gets the wrong idea from overhearing Akita and Naoko's conversation and decides to kill Akita after Naoko leaves with no other evidence. This outline Kazuhiko finds out Kira and Akemi were the traitors with this also being an outline with the two of them working together, along with Satoshi being the mastermind. He blackmails all of them into working with him for this murder scheme. Not to mention he purposefully frames Naoko, Mitsuru, and Takayuki. Though Takayuki and Satoshi team up in a rare situation so Kazuhiko's crimes can come to light. Also, this is one of the outlines where Kazuhiko had no interest in Ayano. Also, Takayuki doesn't really care about Akita, with him being more similar to Hideyoshi.
• Chapter two is actually the chapter that went through the most amount of changes. Since the school was originally in better shape, the victim was poisoned with bleach.
  • Since the school was in better condition, there was a pool scene at the beginning with all the characters. This was the fanservice scene with most the characters being in revealing clothing.
    • By the way, in the version where Akita lived to see this chapter, and was still the Akita we know, she wore a one piece, black swimming suit with sunglasses and a black sun hat. She would get jealous of Ayano's sexy body in a bikini and push her into the swimming pool. Good times.
  • The murder always happened in the cafeteria, but not during Kyoto's birthday party. The original had the cast celebrate his birthday after he died...which is really sad.
  • Requiem actually revealed that MIRABILIS was the original victim. Strangely enough, the only thing that does not change is that Cassius is the killer.
  • In one of the outlines where Cassius kills Mirabilis, a lot of things have changed. Cassius is a lot colder and knows that he isn't the Ultimate Jeweler but the Ultimate Smuggler. Originally, Cassius targeted Kira because he wanted the jeweler talent for himself, but Mirabilis notices his plan and drinks the poison for Kira so the other won't have to die. Why didn't Mirabilis just throw away the poison? It is not known but the Idiot Ball is the main reason why Requiem threw out this idea.
    • The motive this time was called Panic. Though that's not really the best name for it. Monokuma revealed the existence of a special video that can change the world and a person has to kill to see it. The video is the Despair Video. But seriously, what does panic have anything to do with this?
  • Then, after that, Takara was the victim. Requiem felt like the story did not give Takara enough time for the audience to be invested in him so she changed the victim to...Kyoto. And then she finally decided on Shinichi.
  • Hotaru and Takara had a greater presence in the original script. They are both tricked into helping Cassius, who actually had a selfish motive at first and didn't murder by accident. Kira had nothing to do with the case either. This is changed to Ayano, Namita, and Kira being the ones used by the mastermind.
• Next to the second chapter, the third chapter is the one that has the most amount of rewrites. The original version even only had one chapter of daily life but Requiem decided that this was too short.
  • Once again, Takara was supposed to be the victim instead of Kyoto. This is done because Requiem felt like the killer targeting Kyoto made a lot more sense.
  • Naoko was always made to die in this chapter after being moved from the first chapter. However, the original death she had was a lot crueler. One had her body only being recognized because of her hair tie.
  • One of the deaths was actually supposed to happen in front of Ayano and some other of the cast members, but Requiem could not find a way for the original setup to work without making the killer way too obvious.
  • There were originally only two murders, but then Requiem decided to make it three...to emotionally destroy the audience a bit more.
  • Chapter three, in general, was supposed to be a lot darker, yet Requiem felt it went too over the edge and that some of her fans wouldn't be able to handle it. Considering how people react to canon, she seems to be right.
  • Shinichi and Mirabilis switched deaths. From what we know, Shinichi would have been egged on by Monokuma to attack him while the others were too focused on trying to get Hayato not to kill himself, and Shinichi snaps and attacks Monokuma. He had a death much like Mukuro's in this version.
    • Mirabilis was originally supposed to be slowly torn apart...yeah.
  • Takayuki has A LOT of alternate executions
• In one of the many chapter three ideas, Takayuki still kills Naoko first but Hayato kills Takara. The motive was called Desire, where Monokuma would give the killer anything they wanted as long as it was possible. Takayuki saved Naoko from despair only to succumb to it himself and kill her. Meanwhile, Hayato kills Takara by burying him alive...for the fame. Akemi was originally planning a murder himself but stopped once he realized so many people were already doing so. Hayato actually planned to target Minato but Takara fell into his trap instead.
  • Kaneshiro was legit collecting slaves by using the despair video in this version as well, for anybody who succumbed had to obey his every order. This lead to this outline having FIVE traitors. Akemi and Kira were the only two at the start, but Takayuki, Miyuki, and Hotaru joined their ranks later.
• Chapter four didn't even exist in the original script! There were only five trials! But Miyuki and Namita still died because chapter five was originally a bloodbath.
  • Requiem kept going back and forth on whether or not to reveal Namita and Miyuki as a couple secretly dating during the daily life or after Miyuki died. It's clear what she picked.
  • In the hospital scene, Ayano was supposed to be attacked by somebody else but Requiem felt this version gave away too much hints to the plot. The Kazuhiko scene was supposed to be much more graphic as well but Requiem felt it went too far and toned it down.
    • The scene that builds upon this, the rape scene with Kaneshiro and Ayano, was also toned down. There was supposed to be a lot more physical and mental torture, but Requiem felt like Ayano had already went through enough.
• The original fifth trial case went something along the lines of this...Kira was supposed to be talking to everybody else except for Tsukiko and Akemi outside the school grounds. Then, before Kira can reveal she was Kirigiri's traitor, Tsukiko would kill her by shooting an arrow through her heart from the third-floor window (that she got access to thanks to Kaneshiro viewing her as on their side)(this was also the art room). Akemi gets wind of the plan from Kaneshiro but arrives too late, deciding to fight Tsukiko. The two of them battle it out and kill each other. Right as both of them are dying, the rest of the students find their way there and see them die right in front of them.
  • The original bloodbath idea. With Kaneshiro having no use for them anymore, and them always trying to escape, he decides to screw the killing game and kill them all. This causes them all to plan to run to the edge of the island since that was where Ayano was rescued from the program before. However, Kaneshiro is still after them, so first Miyuki stays behind to try to slow him down, only for him to take advantage of her illness to get the upper hand and kill her. Next is Namita, who does not want to live in a world without her girlfriend but still wants her friends to survive. Namita is actually able to subdue Kaneshiro for a long time because she plans a trap, allowing everybody else to escape. Because of the combined hacking skills of Yasu and Ayano, they're able to escape the game and then the rest of the chapter is them escaping the headquarters while learning all the secrets of the killing game along the way.
• In one of the outlines for chapter four, Namita and Miyuki were not girlfriends but still ending up with Namita killing Miyuki. Namita finds out that Miyuki is one of Kaneshiro's brainwashed traitors and Miyuki knows that Namita figured it out, so they constantly try to kill each other (Namita found out because the motive was learning the secret of somebody else in the group). Eventually, Namita somehow created a trap in the Hospital, which not even Kaneshiro found out about, and killed Miyuki by using poisonous gas and spears. Don't break the rules of the Mom Squad it will not end well for you.
• Akemi and Kira were originally supposed to be working together under Kaneshiro, with Kaneshiro convincing Kira to go against Kirigiri and work for him instead. Requiem felt that this was out of character for Kira so decided to keep her loyal to Kirigiri instead.
• When Kyoto was planned to live until chapter five, he was planned to have a short-lived romance with Ayano before being killed by Hotaru. Hotaru was made a lot less unsympathetic in the first drafts, with her being completely driven mad by the events of the killing game. She decides to kill Kyoto because her dive into insanity turned her into a Yandere for Ayano.
• Madoka was only added to the script after Requiem received all the characters of Murder on the Despair Express. Yasu was originally supposed to save themselves but Requiem thought this plan would make the fans question why Yasu didn't do so earlier.
• Hayato was originally supposed to die in Takara's place, with him trying to help Ayano get revenge on Kaneshiro to try to write the wrongs of him killing Kyoto and Mirabilis. But Requiem felt Hayato had a much more interesting character arc than Takara so decided that he should live.
  • Even after this, Hayato was supposed to sacrifice himself so Hotaru and Yasu could escape. But Requiem felt that this death felt cheap, especially with the inclusion of Madoka, so decided against it.
• Mitsuru was originally supposed to live until the sixth trial. She would then be killed by Kaneshiro because she was too much of a threat to their plans.
• Requiem revealed that one of the past drafts had everybody except Mochi die. The story would end with Mochi all alone in the Neo World Program, trying to find his friend Yasu. Its implied that Mochi stops eating because of the despair of being alone and dies.
• Hayato's fate during the final chapter changed a billion times. He sacrificed himself, got everybody killed, killed everybody, killed one of the survivors, killed himself, got executed for breaking rules by attacking Kaneshiro, got executed for killing Ayano, etc.
  • The Future Foundation was originally trying to kill the survivors in a misunderstanding that all of them were behind the Danganronpa TV show. Requiem felt like this was bullshit.
• There was one outline in which Mitsuru was the mastermind. Mitsuru would have been brainwashed by Kaneshiro before the events of the game, with him acting as the first mastermind. She would later kill him and dump his body into the ocean so nobody can ever find it. With Kaneshiro gone, Mitsuru would take over his role and force the killing game to become even more sadistic. And the students spend way too much time looking for 'Satoshi' for her liking.
  • Continuing the mastermind differences, one outline has Takayuki being the mastermind. This is actually a bait and switch since Takayuki convinces the cast that Hideyoshi is the mastermind. Hideyoshi, however, is innocent and surprisingly a cinnamon roll in this version of the outline, with Takayuki forcing him to do evil deeds thanks to their shared body. Takayuki became obsessed with being a private investigator, and wanted to create a perfect crime for him to solve, pinning the blame on his fellow experiment Akita. His father had more of an importance since Takayuki had a Freudian Excuse of his father brainwashing him, leading to Takayuki killing him and later becoming the Ultimate Brainwasher. Kaneshiro Kazuma was an alter ego Takayuki created online as the ultimate foe so people will praise him since that was what Takayuki truly wanted.
  • Kyoto was once the mastermind, with him pretending to be harmless to hide others from his true evil self. He wanted the world to be his plaything, which he only thought could truly be done by brainwashing the world with the Danganronpa TV series. In this outline, Kyoto is playing Ayano and Akemi, since Akita is still the protagonist thanks to this being the same one in which Mitsuru kills Takayuki first, and the both of them are the traitors. Though the end would reveal that Kyoto was being played the entire time by Kaneshiro, who then becomes the big bad for the next part of the series.
  • In the Hayato mastermind path, Hayato is a sociopathic businessman who only cares about his family, which is why he decides to brainwash the entire world to serve their needs. Of course, Hayato kills them and plans to have people serve their needs while they're in the afterlife as they become the gods of the killing games. Yeah, this was a weird outline. Oh, and also Cassius is the traitor.
  • Akemi wants to destroy all despair in the world by using the original plan of the Danganronpa anime and adding his own spin on it. He wants a world in which his dead family can be proud of and everybody can finally live in peace. At the end of the story, Akemi would admit defeat and what he did was wrong, killing himself through the means of execution among with destroying all of his assets. Of course, one Monokuma survives thanks to the help of Kaneshiro, who was also manipulating Akemi in this outline and once again becomes the Big Bad of the next story.
  • Hotaru wants revenge against the Committee for what they have done to the world and especially Sakura Circus. In this version, all the cast is either purposefully or accidentally helping the Committee, and there are no other factions.
  • Mirabilis was forced to become the mastermind by her family, who blackmail her by injecting all the orphans in America with a virus in which they have the only cure. She becomes a Death Seeker and wants people to have their justice against her but is constantly stopped by her family.
• The first version ever of this book was that all the characters were stuck in a book and all of the submitters were co-writers, with Requiem being the main writer.
• Another interesting path is the outline in which the world gets destroyed after the events of canon and only survives on a computer. Though an AI controls this computer, and, because of Junko's involvement, the AI becomes obsessed with killing games and forces humanity to do killing games one after another. And then the story would be about breaking free from this AI and rebuilding the world.
  • Another version of this outline is that the Committee, Future Foundation, and True Despairs cause the second Tragedy and killed all of humanity. The only thing on Earth to survive was a computer. And then literally all of humanity dies when the computer dies because they only exist as AI.
    • This computer recreates the world but makes it Hell because it was the only reality the computer ever knew. Because the computer knows of killing games, it makes the population worship them. V3 destroys the world by taking away their source of worship, causing the end of all of humanity and existence. Yeah, things were pretty weird.
• Some of the outlines have either five or seven cases instead of the usual six.