YMMV / Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

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

• Abandon Shipping: In general, with fans being relatively unsure about the relationships between characters pre-release causing fans to Gotta Ship 'Em All, a lot of ships significantly decreased in popularity in favor of ships with more chemistry, especially pairings with heavy Ship Tease (Kaede/Shuichi and Kaito/Maki) alongside Miu/Keebo, Himiko/Tenko, and Kokichi/Shuichi. Honorable mentions go to:
  • Kokichi/Himiko was popular pre-release because those two were the youngest-looking characters in the game. Post-release, it has largely since been dropped in favor of the likes of Shuichi/Kokichi and Himiko/Tenko, both of which are at the least heavily implied to have one-sided romantic feelings involved. For an added punch, Himiko actively HATES Kokichi for his actions, though Kokichi does teasingly joke about having a crush on her on a few occasions and it still has a fanbase.
  • Likewise, Kokichi/Keebo was extremely popular after the demo but dropped massively after the release of the actual game when it turned out their relationship was considerably more unpleasant and antagonistic than many first thought. Keebo having stronger chemistry and Ship Tease with Miu and Kokichi being a massive Base-Breaking Character with heavy hints at feelings for Shuichi also contributed to this, though Kokichi/Keebo still has its fans.
  • In the pre-release period, Kaede/Maki was very popular with fans after the discovery of a Les Yay-tastic piece of official art◊, but lost a significant amount of its following when the game out and it turned out they really don't have much of a relationship (not helped by Kaede's early death) and are more heavily teased with Shuichi and Kaito respectively - though their status as arguably the main female characters and contrasting personalities still certainly gives them an audience.
  • Rantaro was heavily featured in promotional materials, and there were a few ships between him and other characters (such as him/Kaede and him/Kokichi). However, given how hugely Out of Focus he was in the game before his death and how he doesn't get many interactions with the other characters, combined with his noticeable lack of romantic inclinations in general, many of his ships lost traction.
  • Just about any ship with Korekiyo or Tsumugi gets abandoned once the truth about them is revealed.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • While certainly not without his fans, Korekiyo Shinguji is an undeniably controversial and unpopular character in many circles. However, with The Reveal he, like everyone else in the cast, had his personality implanted for the sake of the show and how radically it would affect him in particular, some fans find themselves able to look past his apparent heinous actions, even if said reveal's implications themselves are up for debate.
  • The Monokubs. Despite their irritating personalities and entrance and departure catchphrases, it's hard not to feel sorry for them during the final trial, when Monokuma destroys the Monokubs one by one for making bad arguments, culminating in Monotaro and Monophanie crying and begging Shuichi to let them win so they can live. It doesn't work.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Kirumi has a heavily political backstory: she served for and advised the prime minister of Japan, but was so good at her job that over time she became the de facto prime minister. Her motive to kill was that she had an entire nation to protect, and her victim, in contrast, had no reason to live. The way it's played in the game makes sense in Japan where politicians are generally respected, but sounds weird and uninteresting for Western fans, where politicians are widely satirized and treated as joke fodder (likely not helped that they literally had the line "make this country great again" in the English version of her motive video, which ruined an otherwise serious moment). As a result of this Values Dissonance, she started getting some flak and became a Base-Breaking Character.
  • Gonta/Kokichi is popular in the JP fanbase due to their close relationship, Gonta being one of the few characters not to actively avoid Kokichi and not intruding on any other popular ships, but is far more controversial in the Western fandom due to Kokichi's often manipulative and abusive treatment of Gonta.
  • Similarly, Korekiyo and Angie is a popular pairing in Japan but due to the events of Chapter Three and The Reveal, it became a very controversial ship for Western fans.
  • The official Japanese character poll has some extremely notable differences to a Western Reddit poll.
    • While Rantaro was placed in the top six of the Japanese poll, he dropped six places in the Reddit poll causing him to be put in the bottom five.
    • While Miu came in 4th place in the Japanese poll, she dropped 5 places in the Reddit poll.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Mastermind doesn't really put up a fight. After you find the secret passage in the girl's bathroom and if you remember that Tsumugi was there while Rantaro was murdered, you can already piece everything together quite quickly. When the trial comes by, all you need to do is point out the hidden passageway and she poorly attempts to blame everything in the possibly fictional "Kaede's twin sister" plot. She then quickly gives up and reveals herself.
• Arc Fatigue: It's noticeable that the chapters and especially the trials are way longer than previous titles, with chapter 6 (which has been sort of a recurring thing) being the worst example of a trope. The chapter is long, dragged out, and filled with anti-climatic reveals that some players could figure out as early as chapter 4, not to mention having a Guide Dang It! way to get to the True Ending.
• Ass Pull: To some players, Kaede being the first culprit comes off as this. The twist is foreshadowed to a certain extent (albeit in ways that mainly become clear on a second playthrough), but some people found the twist a bit too hard to predict, due to not anticipating that the Player Character plotted and committed a murder right under your nose, while you've been controlling her and reading her thoughts.
• Awesome Art: Between the Art Evolution thanks to the hardware and the more cool/dark style of the game, the game is looking beautiful, particularly the scenery. The Official Art of the game, from its cover to the characters, has also considerably gotten better when compared to that of the first installment of the franchise.
• Awesome Ego: Kaito Momota, space legend/"luminary of the stars".

B-D

• Base-Breaking Character: Kokichi, Tenko, Kaito, Kirumi, Maki, Angie and Miu. More Information can be found here.
• Best Boss Ever: As controversial as the final chapter is, some people enjoy the final Argument Armament for being a challenging Final Battle to the game.
• Best Level Ever:
  • Broken Base notwithstanding, the Chapter 1 Class Trial has been lauded by many for being a brilliantly written and emotional Player Punch.
  • Chapter 4 is quite popular for the Player Punch and Tear Jerker regarding the culprit's identity. Along with Chapter Five, it tops many people's lists for "best chapter" from this game.
  • Chapter 5. First of all, you do not have an idea of who the victim was coming into the trial so not only do you have to figure out the culprit but the victim as well. There is one of the most emotional aftermaths of the trial with the killer sacrificing himself to save Maki from getting executed (despite her plead to have him stop) with the victim's permission to kill him. Also, while the victim was a bit antagonistic to the other students, he ended up having a Death Equals Redemption moment.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The bulk of Chapter 5's mystery is figuring out whether Kokichi or Kaito is the murder victim, since whoever isn't the victim is the killer. However, most players could easily deduce that Kokichi was the victim long before the trial even starts due to Kaito's sleeve being way-too-obviously stuck out of the compactor while Kokichi's clothes were hastily disposed of in the toilet, something that wouldn't need to be done had Kaito been the victim.
• Catharsis Factor: After you go through the frustrating Death Road of Despair in Chapter 1, most likely losing all the students before getting very far, it's very pleasing to go through with the Electrohammmers, which disarm all the traps and make for smooth sailing.
• Character Perception Evolution: When the game first came out, Tsumugi Shirogane was one of, if not the most unpopular student introduced, owing to bland characterization and lack of relevancy until the endgame chapter, which revealed them as the mastermind. Since Tsumugi was the only character that had no relevancy right up until the reveal, it was an obvious reveal in practice, and then being the mastermind tied into the game's most infamous and contentious twist: the previous installments were in-universe fiction, the new students were part of a real-life version, and their lives were fiction. As time went on, the character gained more fans overtime who claim that for all their flaws, they were a new antagonist who finally replaced the series's main Big Bad Junko Enoshima (who at that point had one too many Hijacked by Ganon moments in the franchise), and was (slightly) more complex as a character with more realistic motivations than just spreading despair: keeping the show going for her own enjoyment and the art she felt behind it, making her a (cartoonishly deranged) Loony Fan. People finding their persona to be adorable didn't hurt their reputation either, as did better understanding of the game's twist (namely hints that the previous games weren't as fictional as thought).
• Character Rerailment: After Monokuma was Demoted to Extra after Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair with him appearing as a Mook in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and his role in Danganronpa 3 has him only explaining the rules of the new killing game and giving recaps, he returns as the front and center Big Bad of this game.
• The Chris Carter Effect: A criticism of the story is how certain plot points remained unresolved by the end of the game such as the state of the outside world, in which the only explanation we got from it was from Kokichi (who isn't exactly the most trustworthy source of information), and even then said explanation proved to be a little too vague to fully understand, as well as how many of the reveals Tsumugi brought up were true. However, this ambiguity is likely a parallel to that of the first game's ending back when Trigger Happy Havoc was the first and only entry in the series, where no one knew what the state of the outside world really was.
• Contested Sequel: While the game received praise for its upgrades to the gameplay, extras, and Bonus Modes, the plot itself has come under a considerable amount of fire. The general reception of the first five chapters is largely positive, but common complaints against the game include a variety of controversial plot twists, a backstory many found utterly nonsensical even compared to previous installments, the Monokuma Kubs coming off as an unnecessary nuisance, and a general inability to break away or subvert the traditions set by the first two games. And that's not getting into the ending and backlash the game got hit by given the twists that show up in Chapter Six.
• Creepy Awesome: Both Korekiyo and Kokichi. Kiyo for his design full with Cool Mask and official art portraying him with yet another even creepier mask, rose thorns, and a thick rope behind him. Kokichi for being a Tiny School Boy dictator.
• Die for Our Ship: A lot of fans have this reaction towards Angie for getting in the way of Himiko/Tenko unless they Took a Third Option turn Himiko/Angie/Tenko into an One True Threesome.
• Creepy Cute: Again, Kokichi, exactly because while he is scary as a dictator, he is still an adorable-looking teenage boy. Though he is not so cute when he shows his true nature.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The fourth execution. There's something ridiculously over-the-top about Monokuma pulling a massive flamethrower out of nowhere and incinerating Gonta after he's already been shot several times by a robotic bee tommygun and impaled through the stomach by a massive bug monster.
  • The Reveal and pretty much everything about the sixth trial. Danganronpa's strong points as a Black Comedy have never been in fuller effect.
  • Ryoma's drowned body being eaten by piranhas? Not funny. Ryoma's skull landing on the floor of the tank, then falling sideways with a little clink noise? Hilarious.
• Disappointing Last Level: Regardless of your opinion on the plot twist, Chapter 6 is one of the worst cases in the entire series due to its many issues: the addition of a time limit during the investigation phase, the return of the much disliked Monokubs, the padding during the Class Trial (including the segments where you have to lose every minigame on purpose) and a weak mastermind who easily give up and is replaced by a hacked Keebo as the Final Boss.
• Don't Shoot the Message: While it is generally agreed that nobody should indulge in entertainment at the expense of people's lives like the final trial points out, the delivery of said message makes it come across as the developers putting every Danganronpa fan (and not just the toxic and entitled fringes of the fanbase) on blast for supposedly enjoying watching a bunch of emotionally vulnerable teenagers kill each other over and over again.

E-F

• Ending Fatigue: In addition to many of the other issues people have with the ending, it also suffers from just dragging on and on after the Mastermind is exposed. Being even longer than Danganronpa 2's ending doesn't exactly help (the final trial of Danganronpa V3 clocks in at around three hours and fifty minutes, and that's without counting the additional ten-minute epilogue, making the ending last a grand total of four hours, which is the longest ending of ANY Danganronpa game to date!). Even when the narrative relents and gameplay finally decide to turn up, it's mostly restricted to only using one Truth Bullet, and even then you aren't really doing a whole lot of sleuthing. But the most infamous example of this - and arguably where the fatigue really begins to set in - is during the segments of gameplay where you must lose most of the trial minigames to progress, and during the point where you start playing as every character who has survived (which is nice to be able to do after two games, but it quickly wears out its welcome when they don't control any different that Shuichi).
• Epileptic Trees: Various, among them, the most common:
  • Kaede alone has been a target of speculation. Her past and why she is there, particularly, something about her voice actor having played Junko in the stage play and her similar overall appearance has made fans raise eyebrows at her, the latest parallel between her and Junko, namely that they both have twin sisters has sparked even more theories.
  • Several people ended up talking about the personalities of the students before the killing game.
  • Similarly, several people began to talk about how much the reveals Tsumugi dropped were actually true.
  • Kokichi Oma is filled with a bunch of these due to him being a Consummate Liar with there being a bunch of theories about his real personality and his actions in the killing game.
  • Towards the end of the game, it's mentioned that Kaede has a twin sister. Who is that sister, where she is, what she is doing and her role in the plot for this saga of the DR games are all points fans can question themselves about. It's even worse since this adds to the already convoluted amount of parallels between Kaede and the previous Saga's Big Bad Junko. Particularly, several fans started speculating the possibility that said sister will be the next game's protagonist and that this mention was actually Foreshadowing hinting of what is to come next. Although it's ultimately left ambiguous whether that sister actually exists or it was bait planted by Tsumugi to throw Shuichi off.
    • Some fans have, due to the similarities, started believing that said twin sister is actually Miu Iruma. To a lesser degree, some think that it's actually Maki.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The ending is subject to a lot of different symbolic interpretations, one of them being that Kodaka genuinely thought that Danganronpa was going for too long. The ending can be interpreted as not only him declaring that Danganronpa is over, but essentially forcing the player to pull the plug on the series.
• Evil Is Cool: Korekiyo is undeniably a vile murderer who killed Tenko and Angie in cold blood but he's undeniably charming and his murder plans were very inventive (if dumb in Tenko's case), his attractive design only helps.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • A bunch of fans was expecting a tragic backstory for why Tenko Does Not Like Men. Instead, the reason why Tenko Does Not Like Men comes from a misunderstanding from her mentor (a person who jokes around a lot, but Tenko manages to take his jokes literally due to her being Super Gullible). While Tenko was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for some during the game, a lot of fans felt disappointed by this explanation. Others feel that not every character needs a tragic backstory, and think that there are enough of those in the current and previous cast of characters already.
  • For some fans of Korekiyo who were okay with the reveal he was a Serial Killer and how it tied into his double murder in chapter three, the reasoning behind it can be this. Even the "making friends for his beloved dead sister" motive is more accepted than the Villainous Incest element, since at least the former renders a significant amount of his quotes (such as in his Free Time Events with Kaede) Fridge Horror and a uniquely sinister quality even among other characters in the franchise, whereas some feel the latter adds little beyond Squick. Giving him a not-really-Split Personality in the form of "Sister" can also be seen as making him too similar to Genocide Jack to a few, since it only comes up during that trial, and some feel the "foreshadowing" for it was rather clumsy since even when his "femininity" came up it sounded like he was in control, and there were already enough parallels between the two.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Shuichi's fans and Kaede's fans have started a minor one in terms of whether Kaede would have been a better protagonist than Shuichi.
  • Similarly, Kokichi's fans and Maki's fans also have a minor one as well since a lot of Kokichi's fans love to give Maki the Ron the Death Eater treatment.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • The fake spoilers, which still have a lot of support, have been subjected to this, with people starting to write stories based on them.
  • Fans have written Alternate History stories about the V3 cast being students in Hope's Peak Academy either as members of 'Class 79' or as Reserve Course Students (in relation to the "Truman Show" Plot reveal).
  • Prior to the game's release, some fans theorized that time travel would be involved, which had led to several writers applying an "Ultimate Time Traveler" talent to Rantaro and writing around how such a talent could be used in a killing game.
  • Fanfiction authors would also create a fanfic involving the characters being in a virtual simulation of the game all along and the characters who were dead in the game and still got their pre-game memories intact were actually alive. It would also give more tackling about the topic of Team Danganronpa and its so-called "reality shows".
  • Due to Kaede not really being Rantaro's killer, some writers have taken it upon themselves to write a few scenarios where Kaede survives to the end of the game, often with Shuichi dying in her stead in the first chapter.
  • In stories where Kaede survives past the first trial, she is often depicted as wearing Shuichi's hat, especially in stories where he dies in her place.
• Fanon:
  • Among the also sizable chunk of fans that refuses to ignore the thing stated below in Fanon Discontinuity, there's a lot of speculation over what the cast was like without their implanted memories. While we get a good idea that Kaito was a Jerkass, and Shuichi wanted to be a detective in order to pull off a cool murder, all we see of Kaede's true personality is her admitting that she doesn't trust people, which has been interpreted as by fans as being a full Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. While we don't see his interview, it's assumed that Shinguji really did have an older sister, but a living one with whom he had a non-incestuous relationship... who proceeded to watch the broadcast killing game. Expanding on it a bit, quite a few fans depict pre-game Shinguji outright hating his sister (usually for abusing him) and humanity on the whole as an extension of that—he either requested the "Ultimate Anthropologist" title so he can understand why humanity would be so cruel or had the title thrust upon him by Team Danganronpa For the Evulz.
  • Unrelated, after chapter 3 a lot of fans assume that as a serial killer, part of Kiyo's MO is to kill the girls he wants to make his sister's "friends" with a stab to the back of the neck. This comes up because while he had no given reason to indicate the two girls had the same killer, he still went out of his way to kill Angie in a way that would mimic his plans for the would-be séance victim.
  • Fans have commonly assumed that Miu is a virgin who tries to conceal it by acting like a massive slut. This is heavily implied in the game, even though it is not stated outright. She gets mad at Kiyo for "bragging about [his] perfect love life," implying that her own is unlucky; and she gets defensive whenever she is subjected to Virgin-Shaming. Her Love Suite Event also shows her quickly dropping her loudmouthed front and nervously giving Shuichi permission to have his way with her, suggesting that Miu had never been in a serious opportunity to be physically intimate with anyone before.
  • Shuichi having an anxiety disorder is a common one. Probably helped by his Socially Awkward Hero status early in the game and the fact that the reason he wore his hat was that he was so shy he couldn't even make eye contact with people.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Some fans want to ignore that the reality television plot and the fake personalities/talents/backstories were ever plot points.
  • Some fans dislike Korekiyo's actions and backstory to the point of trying to ignore Chapter 3's reveals.
• Foe Yay Shipping: The modus operandi for any pairing involving Kokichi:
  • Himiko stated she hated Kokichi, only for Kokichi to respond by stating he "loves" her, which Himiko ended up blushing afterward.
  • In Kokichi's Love Hotel Event, Kokichi pretty much milks the Foe Romance Subtext as he was a Phantom Thief and Shuichi was the detective trying to get him.
  • Kokichi and Miu's interactions as the trials go on, especially with Kokichi insulting and Slut-Shaming Miu near-constantly and Miu really enjoying it, and there's no way an intelligent character like Kokichi wouldn't notice the reaction she has to his insults. Plus there's the fact that many of the items Kokichi uses to pull off his plan in Chapter 5 were built for him by Miu, leading you to wonder just how he managed to persuade her to do that for him, especially considering she was terrified of defying Monokuma. Miu's death also plays a significant part in Kokichi's downfall, as even though she tried to kill him first and he seems to feel worse about Gonta, being responsible for killing Miu clearly did not sit right with Kokichi at all.
  • Maki and Kokichi positively drip with this, especially with Kokichi outing Maki as an assassin in front of everyone and her almost strangling him, to him teasing her and adopting Kaito's "Maki Roll" nickname to mock her and Maki obsessing over killing Kokichi from the end of Chapter 4 onwards. There's also the fact Kokichi willingly lets Kaito kill him by crushing him to death partly to save Maki from being executed as the blackened, which is especially significant considering Kokichi hates murderers.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Ever since Kokichi's talent was revealed, he immediately became one. Many fans started calling him "SHSL Memelord" because of it.
  • Everything regarding Korekiyo and his role in Chapter Three has become quite memetic. Especially the seesaw effect.
• Friendly Fandoms: Eerily enough, also with Exile Election. While several fans do agree that the game is taking a lot of inspiration from Danganronpa, they don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, since Danganronpa itself borrowed a lot from games like Zero Escape and Ace Attorney. When it was revealed the game will also use mechanics of the original prototype of the franchise, Distrust, some fans that knew about the prototype were instantly attracted by the game, since they would be capable of choosing and influencing the death order and that would affect the characters and their relationships.

G-I

• Game-Breaker:
  • Himiko's skill Abracadabra shows which truth bullet/truth blade is right after one rotation of the debate. Removing the need to suss out the right clues to progress in class trials is very overpowering in a murder mystery game, even if said skill costs an exorbitant 24 skill points. The only drawback is that, due to plot reasons, Himiko's fourth and final Free Time Events are inaccessible before Chapter 4, so you can't make a beeline to this skill before then.
  • Maki's skill, Fundraising, doubles the amount of Monocoins you receive after a Trial (as opposed to +10% from the previous two games). Since Trials yield loads more Monocoins in this game, this skill can easily raise the yield to 600-800 Monocoins from a well-performed Trial, thus cutting down on a lot of the legwork to acquire all the collectibles and powerful skills from the casino. The drawbacks that offset this are that it costs a whopping 32 skill points, and that Maki doesn't open up to Shuichi until Chapter 3.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Kokichi Oma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader, is shown holding a bottle of Fanta (looking closely, the bottle is labeled "Panta") in his official character artwork. Amusing, since Fanta was invented in Nazi Germany.
  • In the English dub, Angie's god is referred to as Atua (in which that word means a Polynesian supernatural being or spirit).
  • Kirumi's execution thematically seems out of place for the Ultimate Maid compared to the other talents, but those familiar with Japanese literature would realize it's an entire reference to The Spider's Thread — a story about a cold-hearted criminal whose one good deed in life moved Buddha enough to give him a golden string to climb up on to salvation. Keep in mind what Kirumi's "good deed" is and how the execution ends. Monokuma was basically mocking Kirumi's desire to save the nation at the expense of the group.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The difference between the Reddit Western and official eastern popularity pools will show that there was a very different reception to certain characters.
  • Kaito is by far the biggest one, scoring a measly 11th place in Japan among the students, he skyrocketed to fourth place in the west due to his Awesome Ego and playing as the team's emotional center. This may be partially due to how the localization also removed some of the more politically incorrect comments he made in the Japanese version.
  • Ryoma isn't very popular with the Japanese fandom, scoring 15th place, losing even to Korekiyo and Angie. In the West, he got a better reception for being a character with a Non-Standard Character Design that is not a pervert unlike Teruteru and Hifumi and not entirely written Out of Focus in comparison to Daisaku Bandai. Fans also like him for his tear-jerking story arc and his surprising badassery.
  • Gonta is also more popular in the west, where he is known as an Ensemble Dark Horse. He went from 12th place to 7th. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that the top six ended up including all of the "protagonist" characters (aka Kaede, Shuichi, and Keebo) and all of "deuteragonist" characters (aka Kokichi, Maki, and Kaito) making him the highest ranking non-main character of the Reddit poll.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Kaede's body at the end of Chapter 1's execution is left hanging from a noose — a common method of suicide. In December 2021, her Japanese voice actress, Sayaka Kanda, killed herself.
• He Really Can Act: People were skeptical about the dub's cast due to nearly every voice having already been in previous games of the series. While this is noticeable with some (Kaito, Miu, and Kokichi), others manage to show their range and make their voices nearly unrecognizable (such as Kaede, Keebo, Kirumi, and Himiko).
• He's Just Hiding: Between the Fake Kill Scare and characters being Not Quite Dead in previous installments, it's understandable why several fans would believe that some of their favorite characters aren't truly dead and will make a return. Notable examples include:
  • Many fans have theorized that Miu Iruma might make a return in a future installment despite being the victim of Chapter 4. It helps that she was killed off in the virtual world, much like the majority of the cast of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, who were able to come Back from the Dead in Danganronpa 3, so a possible revival would be believable. It also helps that the character is one of the biggest Ensemble Dark Horses among the Japanese fan base, so a case of Saved by the Fans is looking pretty likely.
  • At the end of the game, Keebo self-destructed to destroy the school. However, being a robot, there is a possibility that he could be rebuilt. The implication that Keebo was already "executed" once before the killing game only further supports the theory.
  • Due to the fake spoilers during the pre-release, many believed that this would be the case for either, or even both, Rantaro and Kaede. Even after their fate was largely spoiled, fans believed that they somehow survived their murder and execution, and would return at the end of the game. However, after the game came out it was proven this wasn't the case. There are still some stubborn fans that are not willing to believe that they actually died (despite Kaede being literally crushed under a giant, spiked piano cover), and believe the two will somehow return in a sequel.
  • Due to the game being a show in-universe, Angie's theory that the "revival" motive indicated that no students in the game ever actually died (given how "Atua's" insights have turned out accurate in other cases), and the amount of wasted potential with this cast such as anything with Rantaro or to confirm or deny the implications of the "audition" videos some fans have taken to suspect that, much like how DR2's cast turned out and the way the Monokubs all briefly came back despite Monokuma's supposed disdain for the Death Is Cheap trope, this may end up applying for the entire cast here too barring maybe the mastermind.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Kokichi continuously causes discord between the other characters. It becomes hilarious if you have played Project × Zone, where an antagonist is part of an organization whose objective is to spread chaos. And the name of that organization is Ouma.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Catbug for Ryoma/Gonta, since Gonta is the Ultimate Entomologist and Ryoma is a Kindhearted Cat Lover.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • After Chapter Four, the narrative seems to push as if Shuichi had as much fault as Kaito for their feud. However, during that chapter, Shuichi was just fulfilling his duties as a detective and they would have all died if Shuichi just sided with Kaito and ignored the truth. Maki seems to believe that both Shuichi and Kaito should stop being stubborn, even if she doesn't dispute Shuichi insisting that they had to convict Gonta(while she did take Kaito's side in the Scrum debate, she only asks a single question).
  • The game portrays Himiko giving Tenko the cold shoulder as Himiko being needlessly harsh, While Tenko is far from a bad person her loud behaviour and occasionally weird comments were never going to endear Himiko to her, notably Tenko finally gets through to Himiko when she stops being so obnoxious and loud and drops the comments. Yet the game still acts like Himiko should have just befriended Tenko instantly when she was within her rights to feel uncomfortable with Tenko's behaviour.
  • To an extent Angie's actions in chapter 3, there's no excuse for acting like a dictator sure but Angie wasn't wrong for destroying the flashback lights and motives considering what Kaede and Kirumi did, in fact, chapter 6 outright vindicates this and had Angie not ran into Korekiyo its likely chapter 4 would have never happened in the first place.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Just look at the game's Franchise Original Sin entries in the franchise's page and you'll see that almost no Recurring Element of the franchise was welcomed by the fans. The worst offender is the fact that having Kaede as the protagonist even if just a decoy, sparked in fans the belief that this installment would be the start of new things for the franchise. When fans were met with more of the same, to say it was disappointing would be a huge understatement.

J-M

• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Pre-release of the game, many fans would ship the V3 characters to anyone they seem to speculate a possible chemistry for them. By the time the game was released and being played, people still ship some characters beyond the most popular pairings.
  • Shuichi Saihara was known for being the controversial protagonist ever since the game. And because of the Love Hotel event, fans have been shipping Shuichi aside from Kaede Akamatsu and Kokichi Oma. The common characters were Korekiyo Shinguji, Ryoma Hoshi, Kaito Momota, Maki Harukawa, Rantaro Amami, Keebo, and increasingly with Himiko.
  • Kokichi Oma, due to being one of the most popular characters in the game, was also shipped with many of his classmates other characters, despite most of them either hating his guts, having their deaths orchestrated by him, or both. In addition to Rantaro Amami, Keebo, and Shuichi Saihara, he has been also shipped with Himiko Yumeno, Kaito Momota, Kaede Akamatsu, Tenko Chabashira, Miu Iruma, Kirumi Tojo, and Gonta Gokuhara.
  • Keebo could also fall for this because of his personality, his interaction, and his Ambiguous Gender would make shipping more possible for any characters outside from being shipped mostly from Kokichi Oma and Miu Iruma. He's been commonly shipped with Kaede Akamatsu, Rantaro Amami, Gonta Gokuhara, Tenko Chabashira, Angie Yonaga, Korekiyo Shinguji, surprisingly to Tsumugi Shirogane who is the Mastermind of the New Killing Game and is being shipped because of their Evil Duo status, and to Shuichi Saihara in which their Love Hotel scenes and Chapter 6 Rebuttal Showdown increasingly influenced their shipping together.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • Tenko's characterization and developing feelings towards Himiko have made her beloved by lesbian fans.
  • Gonta quickly gathered Bara fans due to his build and being an Adorkable counterpart to the already loved by the bara fans Nekomaru.
  • Less common, but new information about Kokichi's attraction to Shuichi and how it influenced his actions is being fairly well received.
  • Rantaro has the sole platonic Love Hotel scene, instead seeing Shuichi as a younger brother figure who he tutors. In the main game, he also has shown no attraction to any of the other students, male, female or otherwise. This has caused a large portion of the fandom to believe him to be aromantic/asexual.
  • Lastly, with most of the major characters in this game being guys along with three of those men (Kokichi, Keebo, and Shuichi) being implied to be either gay or bisexual, there has been a bunch of Ho Yay shipping in the fandom to the point where many sprite videos of the cast singing Gay or European? were made.
• Love to Hate: Korekiyo is this to much of the side of the fandom that doesn't hate him. This is largely due to his Fountain of Memes status, and partly due to his interesting design and enjoyable Free Time Events.
• Memetic Loser: Shuichi Saihara thanks to him being a bit wishy-washy in the class trials and not being as "badass" as Kyoko (aka his predecessor in his title). Turns out to even be an In-Universe example.
• Moe: Himiko has that "Cute Little Sister" aura to her, not to mention sharing some similar quirks (and Christine Marie Cabanos's voice in the dub, which also helps) with fellow franchise Moe, Chiaki Nanami.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The mastermind of the killing game, Tsumugi Shirogane, crosses it when she frames Kaede for killing Rantaro and has her executed on false charges, while she was Rantaro’s real killer. This action ended up proving that the killing game is illegitimate, thanks to her breaking the rules for her own selfish gain.
  • Korekiyo Shinguuji has multiple such moments, to the point where it's like his field of study is in unrepentant villainy.
    • The non-canon Love Hotel event is the earliest possible, and it shows that Korekiyo's BDSM fantasies go so far as implicit rape, as he stops Shuichi from running away.
    • His murder of Tenko is quite possibly the only kill (well, by someone who isn't the Mastermind) done entirely For the Evulz. In previous third chapters, the second victim was killed out of necessity- Celeste killed Hifumi because it was actually Hifumi who killed Kiyotaka (thus she couldn't graduate without this murder), and Mikan had to kill Hiyoko because Hiyoko witnessed her killing Ibuki. In Korekiyo's case, since the witness was killed first, he didn't have to do anything to Tenko as he already had the required murder. He just went ahead with it anyway because he thought the trap was cool.
  • Kokichi's manipulation of Gonta into murdering Miu is interesting in that although it doesn't fit the trope from a viewer's perspective (as it's pretty clear Kokichi heavily regrets it and has a Death Equals Redemption moment later) Kokichi himself seems to take it as crossing his own moral event horizon. His breakdown and subsequent reckless acts in chapter 5 (claiming to be the Mastermind is a great way to get killed, especially with Maki still alive) point to Kokichi having decided that he is no longer worthy to escape because he broke D.I.C.E.'s Thou Shalt Not Kill rule and must die himself in order to make up for it.

N-R

• Narm Charm: As a gameplay mechanic, the "reaction voice" mechanic is largely pointless and doesn't really affect the story. That being said, it's still fun to use, allows you to immerse yourself in the new setting a lot more, give a little more life to the protagonist, and can even be pretty funny with the right scene and choice of dialogue.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans:
  • A common compliant towards Tsumugi is that she isn't as "badass" as past masterminds like Junko and Izuru, as she lacks their analytical skills and is a puppet to the true main villains of the game. Tsumugi fans argue that she more than makes up for it by being a lot less honest than her predecessors.
  • Shuichi has received this treatment, especially when being compared to Kyoko from the first game. While Shuichi is far more hesitant to do stuff for investigations such as revealing the truth of a culprit, sticking his hand into a toilet, and going into the opposite-sex' bathroom, Kyoko would have been far less hesitant to do these things thus Shuichi has earned a slight Memetic Loser reputation. Turns out to be both invoked and lampshaded in the final trial, as Shuichi's "character" was made to be the "weakest Ultimate Detective ever" to itself invoke Character Development. Tsumugi even berates Shuichi during his Despair Event Horizon by saying he's gone back to being "weak", and several In-Universe fans of Danganronpa saying he "should have died instead of Kaede".
• Obvious Judas: Several people have suspected Tsumugi Shirogane of being the mastermind, because her characterization is uniquely normal (and quite plain, at that), she gets zero character development, and she barely contributes during the class trials. Tsumugi always goes with the flow. She never slows down the class trials by questioning or arguing with Shuichi, nor does she provide powerful insights or evidence that progress the discussion. A notable example is that despite her being vocally aware of the Wrap Around trope that shows up in video games, Shuichi is the one who realizes that the VR world of Chapter 4 has these properties.
• Older Than They Think: Downplayed. People have said that Kaede is the first playable female character in Danganronpa, excluding Komaru (and Toko/Genocider) in the spinoff. What most people forget is that Mikan from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair was playable in the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case minigame as Girl B. Ultimately, though, Kaede is the first female main character in the mainstream games... For one chapter.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • While the final trial was very controversial, Tsumugi's cosplay impersonations of the past games' characters during it had a positive reception.
  • The Exisal that represents "the culprit" in Chapter 5's trial, for pretty much being one of the most hilarious and over-the-top moments in the game.
  • The outfits the characters wore at the start of the game and their possible appearances before the killing game have received a bunch of fanart from fans.
• One True Threesome:
  • Maki, Kaito, and Shuichi seem to be going in this direction. They always seem to be hanging out together performing push-ups. Both Kaito and Shuichi tend to be Heterosexual Life-Partners, and there was numerous Ship Tease between Kaito and Maki to the point where Maki was begging Kaito to stop right before he could get executed in Chapter Five.
  • Alternatively, some people switched Maki out of that threesome and put Kokichi in instead thanks to Kaito, Kokichi, and Shuichi representing a huge Freudian Trio in the game.
  • There is also Angie, Tenko, and Himiko, in the sense that those three girls are rarely seen apart despite their wildly different interests.
  • Surprisingly, Kokichi, Keebo, and Miu are a pretty popular threesome. Keebo and Miu have become a popular ship due to their strong chemistry and many Ship Tease moments in-game. However, despite (or possibly because of) Kokichi's antagonizing relationship with Keebo and Miu in the game, there is still plenty of post-release fan art that still ships him with both of them. So naturally, there are fans that ship the three of them together.
  • And finally, some people ship the final survivor trio consisting of Shuichi, Himiko, and Maki. It helps there are some interesting dynamics at work and huge potential for angst/comfort.
• Padding:
  • Although the Scrum Debates are very well-liked, some of them can be viewed as this. The ones of Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 deserve special mentions, as the opposing side was actually correct all along, but Shuichi doesn't believe they have the evidence to prove their case. In addition, some Fridge Logic happens with the Chapter 5 Scrum Debate, as literally nobody believed Kaito was alive before it.
  • 25% of Chapter 4's class trial can be viewed as figuring out the fact that the virtual world loops. A lot of fans believe that it took way longer than it should have, particularly since Tsumugi and Himiko sounded rather familiar with these style of games up until this point.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The Flashback Lights in truth don't make the characters remember their past. Instead, they apparently implant fake memories in their minds. If this kind of technology falls into more evil-minded groups, then there's no telling how much damage they can do.
  • Tsumugi Shirogane has the ability to "cosplay" as anyone perfectly. That means that she can mimic any character's appearance and voice (regardless of limitations like size or gender) all in a matter of seconds, which makes her much better at impersonation than the Ultimate Imposter. The one drawback is that she can disguise herself only as a fictional character because of her cospox (which is the reason that she uses to make Shuichi and company believe that the people she pretends to be are fictional). Of course, because of her untruthfulness, it's not certain whether she's lying about it; if it's the case that her "cosplays" are in truth impersonations of actual people (and either her cospox is a lie, or there's a loophole around it), then she has an incredibly dangerous talent.
  • The Caged Child ritual and especially its rituals are extremely creepy. During the entire setup, some players may be speculating that the whole thing will go horribly wrong or the person summoned will wreak havoc. The fact that it ends in Tenko's death means some of their fears are realized.
• Player Punch: Just like all of the past games, a character's death can be this depending on how much you liked them, but two really come to mind.
  • Kaede's death for generally wanting to protect everybody and have everybody escape the academy. And that is not getting into The Reveal at the final chapter which made this death Harsher in Hindsight.
  • Gonta's trial and execution can come across as this. Not just because of him being Too Good for This Sinful Earth, but because of the fact that he has zero memory of committing the murder in the first place and Kokichi is responsible for driving him to killing Miu. If any trial were to teach you that the truth is not entirely a good thing, it would be this trial, and Chapter 6 was the biggest example.
• Porting Disaster: The PC port has a few big issues.
  • The keyboard keys S and A were originally reversed during trial minigames, meaning when prompted to press A you had to mash S, and vice versa. There was a workaround for this if one went into the configuration files, but that was an awful lot of work for an issue of that magnitude. Thankfully, the issue has since been patched.
  • On some graphics cards, cutscene visuals will lag while the audio plays normally and desyncs, which can severely break the mood during executions. Oddly, the cutscenes would play fine in the Movie Gallery.
  • The game will randomly decide to just not accept mouse and keyboard input for a few seconds. Most of the time it's just a nuisance, but if it decides to happen, say, during the final Argument Armament on Mean difficulty, it might cause you to fling your keyboard out the window in a rage. Worse still is that the problem tends to hit in waves, i.e. your controls stop working for a few seconds, then start working again long enough for you to get one or two button presses/mouse clicks in, then stop working again, and so on until the game decides it's done trolling you. Some people have reported fixes for this, but they don't work for everyone, and the only guaranteed way to avoid this problem is to use a controller instead of a keyboard.
• Preemptive Shipping: Before the game was properly released, fans had a field day with shipping characters together, with very little to go on aside from their names, looks, and Ultimate Talents. Kokichi/Himiko was popular because those two were the youngest-looking characters in the game, and Kaede and Maki were paired based on a shippy piece of official art◊. While Kokichi/Himiko and Kaede/Maki still have a following, it's dwarfed by Kokichi/Shuichi and Kaito/Maki.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • The Monokuma Kubs for Usami/Monomi as the second-fiddle mascots to Monokuma (as described in their entry at the franchise's page for The Scrappy). Mainly because Monomi was a highly sympathetic yet humourous character who had plenty of loveable features and was an ally to the class, the Monokubs however were obnoxious and their jokes tend not to land with the fanbase.
  • Shuichi Saihara became far less popular when it was confirmed that he took over protagonist duties for the deceased Kaede from Chapter 2 onward. While few people outright hate him, on the whole, it's hard to find someone who would have honestly preferred him over a full game where Kaede was the main playable protagonist. Even in-universe, the Danganronpa audience wishes he had died instead of Kaede. which is pretty cruel considering Tsumugi's Awful Truth.
  • Kirumi is considered this to Peko. Both girls are badass stoic girls, and essentially fill the same roles in their respective games — they're both the Chapter 2 killer in their games, and they both obsessively see themselves as needing to serve others. Unlike Peko, Kirumi has none of the Hidden Depths that made the former so loved by the fans, such as her love for Fuyuhiko, her genuine remorse over Mahiru and her troubles attempting to befriend small animals. Kirumi simply has a heavily political background that barely gets touched upon. But on the other hand, those who saw the relationship between Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu as a Romantic Plot Tumor or disliked the "stoic girl with a secret soft side" trope see Kirumi's levelheadedness and pure devotion to her talent as what makes her likable and cool. As such, Kirumi ended up as a Base-Breaking Character due to how often she was compared to Peko.
  • Some people view Maki as one towards Kyoko. While both Maki and Kyoko are Stoic female Deuteragonists of their proper games, Maki's Jerkass tendecies and being blamed for indirectly causing Kaito, Kokichi, and Ryoma to die made some people compare her unfavorably to Kyoko. It doesn't help that Kyoko was the true Deuteragonist from the get-go, whereas Maki only ascended to the role once its previous holder, Kaito, was taken out of the story.
  • Shuichi is sometimes considered one for Kyoko as the second person with a Detective talent, since some people find his backstory and personality less interesting than hers. That said, some find him to be a more realistic take on detective work, think he's different enough from Kyoko that their characters aren't very similar beyond being detectives, and it turned out that he was willing to become the Ultimate Detective in his audition.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • While he's not completely saved from Replacement Scrappy status due to just how much people loved Kaede, many of those who can bring themselves to give Shuichi a chance as main character do at least admit that he has a good character arc as protagonist in his own right and, unlike other main characters of the series, isn't the driving force in motivating everyone in the ending, needing to be brought back from the Despair Event Horizon by his friends, proving that he wasn't as complete of a rehash as everything about him implied. The official character poll for the game even has him as the most popular character in that game. It certainly helps that his voice actress is none other than Megumi Hayashibara, a legend amongst seiyuus that no one would dare to diss her characters.
  • To a lesser extent, Sayaka Maizono from the original game was redeemed for some of her detractors after getting a chance to show off her more admirable traits in the Ultimate Talent Development Plan, such as being able to calmly reason with Hiyoko even after overhearing her attempt to put thumbtacks in her shoes and inspiring Hajime to find his future by discussing it with Chiaki.
  • While he's still mostly unpopular, Hifumi Yamada also gained a bit more favor from the fans in Ultimate Talent Development Plan, especially with focus being placed on his strong passion for his work and his Odd Friendships with Chihiro, Gundham and Tsumugi.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: A lot of fans had this reaction towards Kaito and Maki, as they believed Maki's character arc entirely revolves around Kaito. Even those who like Maki will admit to this trope. This turns out to have been invoked by Team Danganronpa; they purposely implanted romantic feelings among classmates to help boost the show's ratings.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • When you know what their real goal is it's not hard to root for the culprit in Case 5's trial because the whole thing is one big plan to screw over Monokuma. After all Kokichi and Kaito orchestrated the crime hoping that if Monokuma genuinely doesn't know who the culprit is he couldn't execute anyone and this would ruin, and by extension end, his game. While there are some obvious holes in that logic, particularly with the assumption that Monokuma has to follow his own rules even though for players on a second play through they know Kaede's execution proved that's completely untrue, the sentiment's easy to get behind. Shuichi even realizes this right at the end and tries to save things with a last minute Blatant Lie, but by that point it's already too late: Monokuma only found out who the culprit was because his deductions were so airtight, so Monokuma doesn't even need to cheat to keep the game going again like he did before once already by not acknowledging Tsumugi as Rantaro's true killer.
  • In a more conventional case some players were genuinely hoping Korekiyo was telling the truth when he said he didn't kill Angie after confessing to Tenko's murder. Part of this is because they were hoping to see what the cast would do if someone in the killing game managed to pull a Karma Houdini, as we've only had cases of failed attempted murders before and the games never pull a double murder twice so this rule would likely not come up again, and were interested in seeing where things would go with his character or Himiko's given how he openly killed at least one of her best friends for no good reason. With the alternative theory that Tenko killed Angie only to die at Kiyo's hands later there was also the chance of seeing what would happen if there wasn't anyone for Monokuma to execute, as he doesn't have an Alter Ego to lash out at like Sakura's had, and again deal with Himiko needing to come to terms with one of the two people closest to her killing the other largely out of concern for Himiko's wellbeing. But no, his scrum debate was just a waste of time and he was Angie's real killer after all, making the point moot.

S-T

• Ship Mates: Thanks to the pairs' respective prominence in the narrative and Shuichi's and Kaito's powerful friendship, Shuichi/Kaede and Kaito/Maki shippers are closely unified.
• Signature Scene:
  • The first trial where it was revealed that Kaede was a Decoy Protagonist as well as Rantaro's "killer". The execution counts as well since it was shown to be far more brutal and cruel than the previous executions.
  • The first trial's aftermath, with Shuichi standing next to Kaede's piano as her spirit sits at it while Clair de Lune plays.
  • The reveal of Chapter 2's victim, where Ryoma's body is devoured by piranhas with only his bones remaining as horrifying Nightmare Fuel.
  • In Chapter 4's trial, the game's Gentle Giant Gonta is accused of and proven to be the killer, causing a massive Tear Jerker for everyone both in-universe and out-of-universe.
  • In the fifth trial, Monokuma not knowing who the culprit was could count as well.
  • For better or for worse, the ending of the game especially with Tsumugi cosplaying as past characters and the final Argument Armament against the Danganronpa audience.
• Spell My Name With An S: Kokichi Oma's last name was spelled "Ouma" (a direct romanization) in the E3 2017 English demo. NIS America officially acknowledged this as an error.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • Because he reveals this in Chapter 5 of the game and the game has six chapters, we know Kokichi is lying about being the Mastermind, but the characters don't.
  • Like with the second game, it's easy to guess who will die in the next chapter based on who engages in a Rebuttal Showdown in the trial — Ryoma has the first with Kaede in Chapter 1, so he's the victim of Chapter 2 (similarly to how Mahiru, the second victim of the second game, had the first Rebuttal Showdown with Hajime), Tenko starts one with Shuichi in Chapter 2 and she dies in Chapter 3, and so on.
  • Unlocking a new set of Ultimate Research labs provides the player with a strong indication that at least one of the associated characters will be dead by the end of the chapter. The only chapter where this isn't the case is Chapter Four.
• Squick:
  • Korekiyo had his popularity go into a rapid freefall after Chapter 3 reveals he had a sexual relationship with his sister.
  • In her second Free Time Event with Shuichi, Angie implies that her island's coming-of-age ceremony and wedding ceremony both involve a public orgy. Shuichi is left dumbfounded by this revelation.
• Strangled by the Red String: Invoked in-universe - Kaito and Maki don't really seem to have much of a solid reasoning behind starting their whirlwind romance. As it turns out, Team Danganronpa hooked them up together without any care for the reasons, they just knew that the couple would boost their ratings.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • The Monokuma Kubs received this treatment several times.
    • First of all, for many fans, seeing the Monokubs get executed along with the killers is very satisfying.
    • In Chapter Three, Kokichi Oma stated that he finds the Monokubs to be annoying and he prefers Monokuma instead of them. He also calls them "knock-off products" and states that he doesn't want to be friends with them. Also, in Kokichi's white board in Chapter Six, he labels the Monokubs as "annoying".
    • Also, in the final class trial, Shuichi ended up stating he has enough with their nonsense. In addition to that, Monokuma ended up blowing them up one by one throughout that trial. Also, right before Monokuma ended up blowing Monosuke, they then begged for their lives to be spared and asked Shuichi to stop trying to figure out who the mastermind is. In response, Shuichi coldly calls them out on how many people died in the killing game.
  • In Chapter 6, "Junko Enoshima the 53rd" accidentally lampshades Tsumugi's unpopularity by apologizing to all of her fans...if any even exist. The line was intended to be about how plain and unremarkable Tsumugi is and thus she wouldn't have fans, but it rings differently given real-life fan reception to Tsumugi as the Mastermind.
    • She also almost backhandedly does this to Junko herself, pointing out how "boring and repetitive" it is to have her as the mastermind yet again, almost agreeing in a way that she's become staler and staler as time went on.
  • The Talent Plan actually provides some towards Teruteru. For example, in an event between Kirumi, Celestia, and Teruteru, Celestia pretty much insults Teruteru stating he is not worthy of being a servant of hers, saying that while his cooking is A-rank, his overall rating is E, just barely above F(as she points out in the first game, she considers F ranked people so loathsome she'd pay to have them killed). In addition to that, he tries to feed Maki some drugged food if the player does one of the latter's events during the second year. However, Maki does not have any of that as she forces Teruteru to cook some new food as well as asking him if he wants to die or not. Hiyoko and Byakuya both also get some insults hurled their way by Miu, and when they try to argue back, Miu enjoys it.
  • Another for Teruteru is that he knows not to do anything perverted to Asahina as that will bring the wrath of Sakura down on his head.
  • While Miu is more divisive than outright hated, some of her detractors enjoy the part in which Kaede hits Miu for groping her breasts if you choose "My boobs are pretty big, too" in Miu's first Free Time event with her. Many also enjoy Kokichi's various insults directed at Miu (though he might just be indulging her masochism kink).
• That One Achievement:
  • One of the game's achievements requires completing Talent Development Plan with all 53 characters- all 16 characters from each game, Monokuma, Genocide Jack, Monomi, Usami and Izuru. Not only does this require completing the game 53 times, but you also need to collect all the cards.
  • The achievement of getting an S rank on Treasure Hunter! Monolith, one of the Casino minigames, on the hardest mode (which has four colors, like late-game Mind Mine sequences). The game itself is Mind Mine, but without the ability to destroy one block by itself. It sounds simple at first, but you will get frustrated very quickly since not only are the blocks randomized each time, but the Monokubs and the fossils are also placed at different places each time. There is almost no room for error, since even a bad play can make one of the Monokubs or a fossil be blocked by a lone block. In Mind Mine, this isn't a serious problem, since certain skills can make removing single blocks easier, but here, if that happens to one of the Monokubs or a fossil you need to get, you can do nothing about it, and so will have to start all over again. Oh, and you have ten minutes to go through each game, so you have a limited amount of time to think about each move carefully. There are some strategies to beating it, but most of it comes down to being lucky that you've gotten a good board. It is by far the most frustrating Casino achievement to get.
• That One Attack: The Final Boss of the Despair Dungeon has a move that inflicts confusion to all members of your party unless they have a very high fortitude. Chances are that if you don't have a character with a high fortitude that has a Cure Cognition move as well as having fast enough agility for them to go first, you are very likely for your party to be KO'd thanks to that attack.
• That One Boss: The final Armament Argument. While the previous two games' final segments were quite easy, this one features many quick and difficult button press prompts, multiple Final Strikes and a very long life bar.
• That One Puzzle:
  • The Hangman's Gambit in Chapter 2's trial involves spelling the word "Ropeway". This was a large Guide Dang It! moment, what with many people having never heard that word before.
  • The Hangman's Gambit in Chapter 3's trial involves spelling "Seesaw Effect", a rarely-used term that is very difficult to intuit.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Invoked with the Death Road of Despair minigame in the first chapter. It was made so intentionally hard that Kokichi suggested for everybody to not play that minigame.
  • Finding the Hidden Monokumas is harder than in Goodbye Despair, since now they also show up during certain Class Trial minigames.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Complaints about the English dub can lead to this. Some fans don't like the changes the dub makes, and here's a list of some notable examples:
  • Changing Ki-bo's name to K1-B0/Keebo.
  • Changing Kokichi's laugh from Nishishi to "Nee-hee-hee", in order to preserve the fact it's based on the sound a horse makes.
  • Having Gonta go from speaking in third person with normal grammar in the Japanese version to him outright speaking in Hulk Speak in the English dub.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • Oh boy! If you thought the Danganronpa franchise was already a little too dark, this game's climactic reveals are something else. Its Proscenium Reveal depicts the events of the past installments of the series as works of fiction, and the events of V3 are actually the 53rd entry of the series^note The 'V' in 'V3' being the roman numeral for 5., which turned into a reality show at some unknown point. The students were brainwashed into "real fictional characters" for the show, and have no way of reclaiming their original identities. On top of that, only three students survive the game, and now have to somehow reintegrate into a world that was enthralled with 53 iterations of a killing game between teenagers. On top of that, all of that might not even be true. One of the game's central themes is lies, which by this point in the game mainly manifests as Tsumugi constantly contradicting herself—presumably, this is to create ambiguity, but quickly just becomes irritating. This was too much of a dark twist for a lot of the fanbase, who argue that it makes the entire franchise pointless. Ironically, this might have been intentional, since the story's climax hinges on the main characters ending the in-universe Danganronpa franchise by making the audience apathetic towards it so that they no longer care if hope or despair triumphs in the end.
  • On a milder scale, it can be difficult to become invested in or care much about Ryoma, since he volunteers to die during the first chapter, is stated to be clinically depressed and keeps telling Shuichi not to get close to a killer like him. The fact that his motive video is empty and he allowed Kirumi to kill him is sad, but it's almost like the game agrees that he doesn't have much to live for anyway.
• Too Cool to Live: While the franchise has had its share of students who fans wish had lived for a variety of reasons, this particular entry has a ton of characters many fans lament the loss of. Of particular note:
  • Kaede Akamatsu. Not only was she a leader to the group, but fans loved her for her outgoing personality and design, which differentiated her from previous protagonists. Rather than simply reacting to the murder game's events, she took an active role and set up a gambit to take care of the mastermind. Unfortunately, her plan failed and it took out Rantaro instead, leading to her demise.
  • Ryoma Hoshi. A surprisingly Badass Adorable tennis player who murdered yakuza members with a custom-made steel tennis ball all by himself as well being a gentle Kindhearted Cat Lover.
  • Tenko Chabashira. A Genki Girl who is very protective over Himiko, and she ended up causing the Ultimate Magician's Character Development after Himiko remembered her advice about not being ashamed to hide your emotions during the end of her class trial.
  • Angie Yonaga. She may be very manipulative, but she was still a very intelligent and adorable young woman who tried her best to undermine Monokuma and put a stop to the killing game, her method of destroying the flashback lights was downright correct in hindsight.
  • Miu Iruma, a loudmouthed, perverted girl with a surprising amount of Hidden Depths, a very useful Ultimate talent that helps out the party numerous times, and generally fairly hilarious dialogue throughout the game.
  • Gonta Gokuhara. A Gentle Giant who was Raised By Dinosaurmen and Speaks Fluent Animal. He is also one of the nicest students in the game which makes his death all the more saddening.
  • Kokichi Oma. A Card-Carrying Villain who is a huge Troll that can be funny. He is also a huge Magnificent Bastard who attempts to set himself up as a murder victim in hopes that the killing game can finally end.
  • Kaito Momota. An astronaut with an Awesome Ego and he manages to be The Heart of the group. He was so awesome that he was actually Secretly Dying all throughout the killing game.
  • Keebo. An Adorkable robot with No Social Skills as well as Miu's Only Friend. He also manages to destroy the entire school and end the killing game once for all in a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Shuichi being a transgender man is a popular headcanon. To a slightly lesser degree, Rantaro and Kokichi also get this interpretation. For Shuichi, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp only added to this by depicting him wearing a hoodie over his swimsuit in a way that noticeably covers up his chest.

U-W

• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Lying in trials. Despite being built up in promotional material as a "back route" for trials to take and tying into the game's overarching themes, aside from a couple mandatory uses all you can ever do with it is get a bunch of hard to intuit alternate "contradictions" that don't really change the pace of the trial at all.
  • Playing as Kaede has been considered this. While Shuichi was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, the fact that there's no way to play as Kaede at any other point of the game (including Love Across the Universe) has upset fans. Many fans wished to be able to choose whether to play Love Across the Universe as Kaede or Shuichi, especially since both have their own unique Friendship Fragments to collect and Kaede's opportunities to do so are much more limited than his are, and some even wanted to be able to choose whether to play the entire game as Kaede or as Shuichi.
  • A more minor example is how players found out they can "react" to things that are said in the game's general conversions, with a gauge between positive and negative responses and if this is meant in a friendly or aggressive manner, which is a mechanic that is never used for any character interactions; so it's both easily missable and leads fans to wonder if there was meant to be any reason for it other than Rule of Funny.
  • The Voting Time could have been an innovative feature if your vote could influence the outcome of the trial (as in a tie-breaker) or, at the very least, it could have been used to get some extra dialogue, like a reaction from one of the innocent students (or from the mastermind) if you vote for them. However, your vote doesn't actually matter (except when you have to abstain from voting), because everyone else (except Kirumi and Kaito on two occasions) will vote correctly and the outcome won't change.
• Unexpected Character: Many fans were surprised about Monokuma's return, as Word of God said he didn't have plans for the character and his seiyuu, Nobuyo Oyama, had came down with dementia earlier in 2015.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Both Miu Iruma and Kokichi Oma are The Friend Nobody Likes in the story. However, they are still popular among the fan base due to their colorful nature, unique designs, and having some redeeming traits among their flawed personalities. The official character poll for the game has Kokichi and Miu being ranked #2 and #4 respectively out of all 16 students.
• The Un-Twist: Given how official promotional material never drew attention to it and in the actual game it's only revealed after Kaede's death, the fact that Shuichi is sporting an Idiot Hair under his hat was probably meant to be a surprise. Unfortunately, such a "surprise" was defused by the fact that trailers and a few magazine promotions had already shown the hatless version of his sprite in full view.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Both Kaede and Shuichi can be viewed as this, as both are pretty ordinary people in comparison to the other cast members. Among those who consider both of them as such, one of the biggest debates is which one is more ordinary.
• Wangst:
  • A minor case with Shuichi. Whenever he answers incorrectly in a class trial, he'll briefly lament that everyone thinks of him as a "fraud" now. While incorrect answers damage the class's trust in the Player Character, with the loss of influence resulting in no one listening to your character, it's a relatively overblown reaction to his mistake.
  • Somewhat more seriously, Shuichi wangsts about the consequences of finding the truth, particularly people who committed murder for relatively sympathetic reasons, from the murderer he arrested to Kaede^note At the time, he didn't realize she didn't actually kill Rantaro having to pay the price for their crimes. By comparison, Makoto and Hajime were never fully happy about the outcomes of the trials, and neither were the non-Jerkass members of their respective classes, but they never took their role in finding the blackened and saving the spotless so personally.

YMMV tropes with their own pages:

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Broken Base
• Memetic Mutation
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot

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