YMMV / Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Danganronpa Main YMMV Page
Main installments: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc | Danganronpa Zero | Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair | Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School | Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
Spin-offs: Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls | Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp | Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF | Danganronpa Kirigiri | Danganronpa Togami | Killer Killer

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Warning! All spoilers below are unmarked.

It's virtually impossible to list tropes for this game without spoiling everything or creating Self-Fulfilling Spoilers because of the large amount of twists and Murder Mystery-related tropes it contains.

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General examples:

A-G

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Monokuma's "Grab your lever and give it a yank" sounded far dirtier than he probably intended.
  • "I'll use my own hope to plant seeds of hope inside everyone else!" Makoto could definitely have phrased that better.
  • "Yeah, Makoto totally seduced us to his side man!", said by Yasuhiro Hagakure in the sixth chapter. He was talking about the side of Hope.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: To those who don't consider it a Take That, Scrappy! moment, Hifumi's death and especially his last words qualify. Harsher in Hindsight too, since we learn later that the two years of memories he lost came back during his death.
• Americans Hate Tingle: In an official Japanese poll, Byakuya was ranked as the most popular character. On the Western side, he has received a less warm reception due to his Smug Snake attitude and him tampering with Chihiro's corpse in Chapter Two.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • In Chapter 3, other than the initial shock of finding his dead body, nobody seems to care much about the fact that Kiyotaka was murdered, and the trial is overall more focused on Hifumi's death than his (though that may be because Hifumi's death has more clues leading to the killer). Word of God has stated that any reaction to Kiyotaka's death had to be cut because of the sheer amount of things going on during the investigation.
  • The cast doesn't seem all that bothered at the prospect of having to seal themselves in the school, potentially for the rest of their lives, and likely never seeing their families or friends outside the school again. It's especially odd in Sayaka's case, as fear of what happened to her fellow idols drives her to murder. Then again, this was all after the entire world fell into Despair, and they were doing it for their own safety and completely unaware that Junko had something in mind for all of them, so it's arguably justified.
• Awesome Ego: Celestia, Byakuya and Junko have a veritable godlike level of arrogance.
• Base-Breaking Character: Sayaka, Leon, Celeste and Byakuya. More information can be found here.
• Best Level Ever: Chapter 4's trial is widely considered the best in the game due to the many twists and turns it takes, the mystery behind the locked room murder being intriguing, and the most emotional conclusion.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • One of the Monokuma Theater segments has a full 3D animation of Sakura battling an army with two massive clubs, before preparing to face off against a giant Monokuma, only for the game to tell you that Sakura's Revenge has been cancelled. The original PSP version of this segment instead has a trailer for Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen, which comes equally out of nowhere.
  • Yasuhiro's impassioned speech about how fortune-telling is different from the occult, which derails itself into a rant about cattle mutilation and how having his hamburger abducted by aliens made him realize it wasn't 100% beef. Makoto isn't sure what to make of it, either.
• Breather Boss: Celeste from Chapter 3, due to her behavior in the trial, which comes off as odd given that the culprit is apparently a good liar — in particular, unlike every other murderer in the game, she's incredibly aggressive about pushing the blame on someone else and challenging every single deduction that goes against her script, no matter what, which is very suspicious, even before you get to the point where you can actually accuse her.
• Complete Monster: Junko Enoshima; see the franchise page for details.
• Crossover Ship: Celeste and Dora the Explorer is quite popular on Tumblr, although mostly as a joke. So is, also as a joke, pairing her with Kinzo Ushiromiya, thanks to both of them dying bursting into flame.
• Cry for the Devil: Celeste's four manga chapters expend a lot of effort to show the level of her insecurity about her past, such as the shot of her younger self perched on a Trauma Swing when Makoto asks what her real name is. The final scene punches this one home where she's narrating that she has to die as Celeste while she's giving her Motive Rant; it says a lot that the first thought on her mind is staying in-character instead of the fact that she's about to die.
• Evil Is Cool: Sure, Junko may be an insane, psychotic monster, but damn if she doesn't own it.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: A common one for this game in particular are Alternate Universe Fics where it turns out that the Tragedy never actually happened and Junko was lying to further break the main heroes' spirits if they escape. What follows is usually everyone having to deal with the fallout and Survivor's Guilt, as well as the struggle to return to a normal life after dealing with so much trauma.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite Sakura being in love with Kenshiro outside the killing game, fans more often ship her with Aoi due to the two's strong bond and friendship that they develop in the story.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: Some fans, especially trans fans, don't like the posthumous backstory for Chihiro explaining that he's a boy who dressed as a girl to better conform to social norms, and prefer to see Chihiro as an actual trans girl.
• Fountain of Memes: Kiyotaka is an endless source of memes for the fandom in a lot of ways, whether that be because of his relationship with Mondo or his overall dorky personality.

H-P

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Junko Enoshima executing herself at the very end of the game becomes a lot harder to swallow after the untimely death of Sayaka Kanda, the actress who played her in the stage productions, by suicide.
  • Generally the pink blood in the first game was originally used as a “psychopop” aesthetic, although the characters still call the blood “red”. This can take a darker turn in Master Detective Archives: Rain Code another game by Kazutaka Kodaka where the pink blood actually gets acknowledged IN Universe…albeit with a different outcome.
• Hype Backlash: The game went memetic long before it was available in English. It's inevitable that people who were never going to like the game would go in with unrealistic expectations and be underwhelmed.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: "Eww, there are ROLEPLAYERS?" Though mentioning that anyone roleplays anything is something of a Berserk Button for Something Awful.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Makoto is shippable with everybody; he is most commonly shipped with Kyoko and Byakuya, however.
  • Kiyotaka has been paired with Mondo, Chihiro, Celeste, Leon, Makoto, Daiya, Mukuro, Kiyondo, and more.
• Memetic Hair: Mondo's bosozoku pomp tends to be his most striking physical trait, to say the least.
• Moe:
  • Makoto Naegi is the kind of awkward that is very endearing. He is the shortest one of the protagonists of the series (even shorter than his sister), baby-faced and all, and is often the nicest of the 4. He's really modest, doesn't hold any grudges towards anyone, and just wants everyone to overcome their own grudges. No wonder he's considered something of a Messiah in his setting.
  • Chihiro Fujisaki is a Wholesome Crossdresser, who's nothing short of sweet. The poor boy can't harm a mosquito that is biting him due to him thinking that it might have a family to feed, and is often the one that the rest of the survivors need to comfort, but he is actually very decided on overcoming his own weaknesses. Even after death, he still manages to help the group with Alter Ego, and it itself has a cute personality of wanting to help people, even as a machine.
  • Aoi Asahina is a bundle of fun who really cares for her friends. She often forgets the name of people, so she writes them on her hand, and really likes to eat anything off the kitchen, especially donuts. She also flusters rather easily, especially when it comes to wanting to be a good girlfriend.
  • When you get past her creepier qualities, Toko is pretty adorable too. Even Genocide Jack can sometimes be this too. Exhibit A◊.
  • Sakura Ogami may not look like a conventional moe character, but her Gentle Giant nature has won over fans to the point where she's earned the memetic title of "pretty princess".
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Though Monokuma was pretty much dancing on the MEH line, some fans loved him for it — until Chapter 4, where he publicly ordered Sakura to kill one of her friends, leading to her suicide, and then stole the suicide note, leaving a fake one for Aoi so she'd try to take the blame. Topping the trial off with the execution of Alter Ego just rubs salt in the wound.
  • The Mastermind, Junko Enoshima, ruined the lives of many people and for what reason? She flat out admits that she doesn't have one.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The metallic-sounding "Danganronpa" that plays upon beginning an investigation and completing each chapter, which gets higher pitched and louder each chapter.
• One-Scene Wonder: The real Junko Enoshima only appears for a brief time, but is utterly unforgettable.
• One True Threesome: Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya and Chihiro, Kiyotaka, and Mondo are prime examples.
• Padding:
  • A common complaint aimed at the class trials. Part of the problem is that there's a lot of evidence that could get the mystery solved much faster than it ends up being, and about half of the students' main role is to say things that just waste time. The infamous conversation at the start of the fifth trial where you have to convince Yasuhiro that Kyoko isn't a ghost is a prime example.
  • 90% of the second trial turns out to be this, and it was actually invoked in-universe. Byakuya witnessed the killer leaving the scene of the crime and knew who the culprit was all along, but he didn't come out and say it because he wanted to see who was smart enough to be a threat to him if he committed a murder of his own. Instead, he tampered with the crime scene, resulting in two Red Herring plot threads.
• Player Punch:
  • If you got all of Chihiro's Free Time conversations, you'll tell him that Mondo is the strongest. Now skip to Chapter 2's trial and feel like an asshole.
  • Every murder/execution can easily become this depending on how much you liked the victim.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • "Chishimondo" is often used to describe Chihiro, Kiyotaka, and Mondo together (Japan calls it 大和田サンド/"Owada Sandwich" instead), while just Kiyotaka and Mondo tends to be "Ishimondo".
  • "Naegiri" for Makoto/Kyoko.
  • "Naegami" for Makoto/Byakuya.
  • "Leosaya" for Leon/Sayaka.
  • "Sakuhina" or "Sakuraoi" is used for Sakura/Aoi.
  • "Togafuka", or "Tofu" for Byakuya/Toko.

Q-Z

• Sacred Cow: Be prepared to be constantly attacked for saying you don't like this game. While the second game is undeniably a strong title, Trigger Happy Havoc firmly set the baseline for everything that has come after it, and it's a general consensus that this game's atmosphere and Big Bad have never really been surpassed.
• Self-Fanservice: Fan artists commonly draw Sakura with a face far more feminine than how it actually looks. At least it's generally rare for her muscles to be toned down. Though curiously, official art like this one◊ shows Sakura used to look VERY feminine before her rather dramatic change into "The Ogre".
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Surprisingly averted most of the time. Despite the frequent instances of Broken Base and the fandom's penchant for Shipping, major fights over who should end up with who are relatively uncommon. This may be either because romance isn't a big focus of the game, or because most characters die anyway.
• Signature Scene:
  • Sayaka's body being found. It sets the scene that no one is safe from dying.
  • Leon's execution. Not only is it the first, but it's also one of the most brutal, which makes it the one people remember the most.
  • Mondo's execution where he's melted into butter is also remembered for the Nightmare Fuel it provides.
  • The Reveal about Junko being the Mastermind.
• Signature Line:
  • "No, that's wrong!"/"Sore wa chigau yo!"
  • Leon's rapid-fire yelling "Aho"/"Stupid!"
• Special Effect Failure: The last shot in Leon's execution shows the other students' silhouettes looking at Leon's corpse in horror. However, the silhouettes of the students standing closest to Leon's body aren't properly darkened, and if you look closely you can tell that their silhouettes are just flipped versions of their neutral sprites that are looking away from Leon's body. This is most noticeable with Kyoko and Taka (due to the clear colors in their designs), but also happens with Sakura, Mondo and Makoto. Corrected for the anime's re-animation of the execution, which shows all silhouettes properly darkened.
• Squick:
  • Judging by Kyoko's insistence that the students search Chihiro's corpse "thoroughly", it's heavily implied that she (and later Sakura) discovered that he was actually a boy by feeling his genitals.
    • Again in the next chapter, in which Kyoko searches through a dead Hifumi's underpants and finds a note that he was trying to hide.
    Kyoko: "It's not like I touched his socks."
  • Monokuma eating the "Mondo butter". The anime makes this even worse.
• Strawman Has a Point: Byakuya Togami may be an asshole, but he can also be an asshole with a point.
  • He makes it clear to the group that even though Makoto claims no one would kill someone else to graduate, they can't be sure of it, and letting their guard down would be a disastrously bad thing to do. As much as Makoto's optimism is admirable, it wouldn't be a murder mystery without several murderers in the class.
  • His main instance of this is in regard to the dark secrets motive. When Makoto (whose secret is quite mundane) and Aoi downplay the secrets' severity and insist no one would kill just to avoid being embarrassed, he points out that this is an extremely flawed line of reasoning, since they don't know how bad the others' secrets are; sure, they might have nothing important to hide, but that doesn't mean the others don't. Sure enough, it turns out that the consequences of Mondo's dark secret (the circumstances of his brother's death, which Mondo fears will cause the Crazy Diamonds to break up and break his final promise to Daiya) are stressful enough to drive him to kill in a fit of rage.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Hifumi's dead body being found in chapter 3. Hard to have any sympathy for him as he was a disgusting pervert and is pretty much a combination of all of the negative stereotypes the otaku community hates being associated with. Double it once more when it's revealed that he killed Kiyotaka, and one of the main reasons for doing so was because of his feelings for a literal A.I., and was willing to let everyone else but Celeste get executed by Monokuma for the sake of his "revenge".
• That One Boss: The Bullet Time Battle against Hina in the fourth trial. Not because of the BTB itself, but because you already had two Bullet Time Battles against Yasuhiro and Toko. Unless you are very skilled or have unlocked the proper skills, it's likely you aren't going into the BTB against Hina with much health left, leaving very little margin for error.
• Theme Pairing:
  • It is not uncommon for fans to pair characters together that have similar ultimate talents or personalities.
    • Kaede, Ibuki, and/or Sayaka (All three have music-related ultimate talents).
    • Tsumugi and Hifumi (Both have ultimate talents relating to anime/manga and are both obsessed with it).
  • The Batter from OFF, the Scout from Team Fortress 2, and Leon Kuwata are shipped because the three use baseball bats as weapons.
• Tough Act to Follow: No Big Bad in the franchise (not even her other incarnations) has been able to reach the same level of memorability that Junko commands in this game. She's often regarded as being a perfect mix of threateningly crazy and gut-bustingly hilarious while still coming off as genuinely intimidating when she finally makes her grand entrance. What helped her status as the Big Bad here is that a lot of her world-ending actions were left to the imagination, creating a lot of speculation that the second game only exacerbated (ironically, when Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School finally decided to reveal the full extent of her cruelty, some fans started turning against her). Regardless of her appearances in later entries in the franchise, it's quite clear that her first incarnation has left a huge, looming shadow over the rest of the series, as most of the villains after Junko haven't been able to reach the same level of popularity—of them, only Monaca and Izuru receive any acclaim, the former for being just as memorable for entirely different reasons and the latter for his characterization, but Monaca is crippled by her arc's conclusion in Danganronpa 3, which many fans found unsatisfying, and Izuru isn't really considered evil enough to be a true villain. Meanwhile, Tengan, Mitarai and Tsumugi are outright hated for a laundry list of characterization issues that damage their credibility as antagonists.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: It is very common for some western fans to interpret or headcanon Chihiro as a transgender girl due to the circumstances surrounding him and why he crossdresses, namely to escape bullying for not being stereotypically masculine enough. However, this is a case of Misaimed Fandom (as well as frustration over crossdresser narratives that ignore the existence of transgender people) as Alter Ego (a being created by Chihiro who never interacted with anyone other than Chihiro before his death) refers to him as male, and he also refers to himself as male when he outs himself to Makoto in his School Mode ending and even corrects Makoto when he accidentally continues to refer to him as female.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: In Chapter 4, everyone sans Makoto, Hina and possibly Kyoko grow fearful of Sakura when Monokuma outs her as The Mole as the new Motive, causing everyone to steer clear of her and treat her unfairly in the eyes of an increasingly irate Hina. That being said, it's kind of hard to blame them for being so frightened; while it's kind of obvious that Byakuya's doing it more to be an asshole, Yasuhiro and Toko are fairly justified in their paranoia since Sakura is, at the time, the strongest person in the school and is shown to be one of the smarter students during the Class Trials, meaning she'd probably be able to kill any of them easily enough. And while she has characterized herself as a Gentle Giant throughout the game, the others are unlikely to completely believe it seeing as the first victim, Sayaka Maizono, made herself look like a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with her attempt at murdering Leon and framing Makoto for the crime, which may have made everyone rather cynical of each other, especially the already distrustful Toko and fearful Hiro. This is especially the case with Hiro. Whereas Byakuya and Toko/Genocide Jill are definitely the most antagonistic, with Byakuya being... Byakuya and Toko/Jill actively picking fights with Hina over it, the worst Hiro really does is panic when Sakura is outed and constantly refer to her as "Ogre", yet spends most of his time acting as something of neutral party in regards to her being The Mole as opposed to Byakuya and Toko's constant antagonism, even helping Makoto take Hina to the nurse's office when she gets attacked by Jill. In fact, the times he is antagonistic are largely the result of him being frightened and panicking, such as Sakura unintentionally threatening him after Hina gets attacked by Jill, and him hitting her over the head with a bottle later on could be attributed to him panicking due to Poor Communication Kills over any genuine malice. He's even quick to admit his role in his supposed crime when he think he's cornered, even guiltily relenting when Toko tries re-directing the blame back to him when the contradiction with the dying message gets brought up, while Toko persistently denies her involvement until Byakuya outright orders her to spill it.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Sayaka in the manga adaptation comes off this way through the revelation that she chose to target Leon for murder specifically for a very petty reason: his naive belief that he could easily break into the music industry because he's already a famous athlete.
  • Hifumi. The end of the third Class Trial attempts to give him sympathy for being easily manipulated by Celeste into killing Kiyotaka, when Kiyotaka had done nothing to deserve it. But this ignores the fact that he killed Kiyotaka without even asking him about Celeste's accusations first. Also, he was plotting to escape with Alter Ego and Celeste (who even told him that she was going to commit a murder), leaving his innocent classmates to be executed by Monokuma. The fact that the lie Celeste told him is rather obvious to see through doesn't help Hifumi's case very much, with Celeste herself even all but saying she chose him as an accomplice because nobody else would be stupid enough to believe that lie.
  • Kyoko in Chapter 5 - when the trial for who murdered Mukuro begins, she goes out of her way to implicate Makoto, then relies on him not to expose an obvious lie she told so that no one will suspect her. Her motivation was likely to keep the trial going until she could expose the Mastermind, but when Monokuma declares the trial over it comes across as though she was willing to throw Makoto under the bus, knowing he wouldn't do it to her in return, because she believed only she was capable of unveiling the mysteries of the school. If it hadn't been for Alter Ego's intervention, her actions would have led directly to Makoto's death at the hands of the mastermind, making her actions a more sympathetic mirror to Sayaka counting on Makoto to take the fall for her in chapter 1. This is far worse in the anime adaptation, where an alteration made causes Kyoko to look completely callous, whereas she was at least visibly distraught and remorseful in the game.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Kiyotaka. Most of the other students find him irritating, it's made very clear that Mondo is his Only Friend, and barely anyone reacts when he's killed. Even the writers admit he was supposed to come off as unlikable in the main story provided one didn't complete his Free Time Events. And yet, he's well loved by the fandom and scores highly in polls. Many appreciate his earnest attempts to uphold the group dynamic and keep people working together towards a common goal, while yaoi artists in particular like the copious amount of Ho Yay he has with Mondo.

YMMV tropes with their own pages:

• Memetic Mutation

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