Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair

Outsider observer here: I don't get the appeal of Junko Enoshima. Despite all the diverse characters she's all but a Flat Character who has no reason to have a boner for despair, even her own (which is hypocritical since if you enjoy your own despair how the hell does it count as despair) and despite being just some random teenager she somehow destroyed world civilization.

well theres a plethora of reasons:

• since she controls Monokuma, fans of him are by proxy fans of her.
• She is incredibly manipulative and frightfully determined to see her goals through; as convoluted and fucked up the end result is, shell do whatever it takes to make everyone her plaything.
• Correction, she herself didnt desteoy the world, but was responsible for the push. The games only let her appear at the very end, but the anime of Danganronpa 3 is whers her character really took off.

Danganronpa Zero has been translated for longer than the games have been localized. You have no excuse not to read it.

Speaking of fan translation, it took me a few years more than it should, but I'm finally done translating the creator comments for all characters in 1, 2, and V3.

Edited by Comun on Feb 21st 2022 at 4:52:05 AM

Sado-masochism or just plain masochism. You can enjoy pain even when it pains you.

Also, "some random teenager" is not the most accurate description for any member of the student body of Hope Peak's Academy. Isn't that right, Ultimate Soldier that never got injured in any of the hundred battles she participated, Mukro Ikusaba?

The closest to that descriptor are people who get in through the lottery i.e. the "Ultimate Lucky Students" but even they are not entirely normal: their "luckiness" is not only cyclical, going from good to bad then back, but seems to be pretty consistent.

Makoto gets into Hope's Peak Academy through the lottery...only to be part of The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History and ending up stuck in the place for a year, becoming part of the Killing Game. He gets a bad door that doesn't lock...which helps him find out the first murderer. He gets the shaft in Monokuma's trial for the "death" of Mukro Ikusaba but Chihiro's A.I comes in right in the nick of time to save him from the execution.

Nagito embodies the limit of the feast and famine lucky breaks that come with it: his parents die in a plane crash but he gets a great inheritance!

The Reserve Department might be the closest to that designation. They are just random teenagers.

Mazel Tov!

How do you know enough Japanese to do all that?

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 19th 2022 at 1:52:31 AM

And reminder, Mukuro was Junko's sister and right-hand-woman. On top of that, she didn't destroy the world herself - she used her resources in order to do as much, and mainly profited off of manipulation to make other people fall into her ideology. Junko by herself isn't super powerful - what's powerful is how she uses her analytical prowess to cow others to help her efforts. Hell, probably the main reason she was able to destroy the world was due to her breaking Class 77, which also happens to have a world leader, a leader of one of the biggest criminal gangs in the world and his bodyguard, the person who can impersonate anyone, and Nagito, who's luck is basically an ace in the hole for her. Not to mention Izuru or the Monokumas...

Random question: did Junko's plan in Danganronpa 2 depend on any of the students surviving all the trials? Would it throw, and how large, a wrench if any of the murderers actually won the class trial?

Forced Shutdown required 8 voters, but retention and graduation could be done with just one.

Just recapping: retention is the survivor(s) choosing to stay in the happy simulation forever. Graduation is the survivor(s) choosing to return to the real world with their new pack of memories, but the dead students become Junkos, so if anyone won a trial, that's 15 Junkos released in the real world.

So the culprit getting away with it would indeed by the most desirable outcome for her. Makes sense.

I've been wondering something about that, actually. For a while I, and I think other people I saw as well, assumed Nagito's plan being successful in DR2 would've been the best outcome for her since all the students with bodies would be dead and she'd get the maximum amount of Junkos from that... But considering Chiaki's an AI and doesn't have a physical body, she can't exactly graduate and I doubt she would even if she had the option, so wouldn't it likely just lead to her staying stuck in the simulation instead? Still wouldn't be nearly as much of a defeat as the canon outcome but I don't know if it's actually a best-case scenario for her.

Anybody else thinks it's kinda weird how quickly Fuyuhiko gets reintegrated solidly into the group despite the events of the second trial where:

A. It's revealed that in the past, he is a cold-blooded murderer.

B. He actually tried to kill Mahiru and the only reason he ain't is that he got beaten to the punch by Peko.

C. He tried to pin the crime on Hiyoko and was the most stalwart defender of Peko, meaning he was also trying to get the whole class killed in order to save Peko.

Meanwhile, Nagito tries to kill one guy and everybody holds it against him forever! There's no fairness in the world.

Well, A was already obvious from his title, B was proven false in the trial, and he tried to apologize with his life at the first opportunity.

Also, there's a difference between trying to kill someone who helped cover up your sister's murder because she's your little sister snd killing someome because hope. Fuyuhiko.also didnt want to kill Mahiru, thats kinda the whole point.

A. Hmm? I remember Kazuichi bringing it up the first trial as making him suspicious, along with the fact that he refused to divulge an alibi and Fuyuhiko trying to posture about how he's totally willing to kill to escape during one of the breakfast meetings.

But I don't think anybody really treats him as already a murderer or very dangerous before they found out about the events of "Twilight Syndrome Case"?

B. Which part of this series of events is wrong or missing?

1. Fuyuhiko and Pekoyama lured Mahiru over to the changing room to confront her about the death of Fuyuhiko's sister and how Mahiru hid the killer's identity.

2. Mahiru turned it back on Fuyuhiko for being the guy who found out the killer's identity and killed her himself, telling him off for taking revenge through cold-blooded murder.

3. This pissed off Fuyuhiko and he reached for the baseball bat in rage-

4. Only for Pekoyama to grab it first and bash Mahiru's head in, to the shock of Fuyuhiko. Pekoyama tells Fuyuhiko to run off and get away from here so he wouldn't be caught while she begins her work on the crime scene to clean herself and frame Hiyoko.

C. Well, that dramatic gesture was just unnecessary and gave Mikan more work! How rude of him to become a burden like that. As if Mikan needs MORE stress in her life, especially when she did her best to make sure the jackass didn't die for Leeroy-Jenkinsing into somebody else's execution!

To look at the other hand, he does prove that he's willing to change his behavior, trying to be far more cooperative and helpful to the gang afterwards, so that's also probably a factor.

(Is there a trope for this sort of thing? Losing an eye or any other body part is the start of gaining wisdom or maturity? "What I have lost in depth perception, I have gained in perspective.")

...The blue text was a joke. I was being facetious, I wasn't really complaining about a double standard with Nagito and Fuyuhiko. It was just something I came up to act funny about because, hey, there's also this guy that everybody hates for being an attempted murderer and class trial saboteur.

Edited by fredhot16 on Jun 22nd 2022 at 4:28:37 AM

3. Kuzuryuu knew the consequences of killing within the game and that's literally the first thing he tells Peko about.

Is the problem that Fuyuhiko did not reach for the bat at all or should I try to clarify that I'm not saying it was a planned murder, just an uncontrolled fit of rage at a very emotional situation involving somebody he cared deeply about? That is one of Fuyuhiko's consistent flaws: a vicious and violent temper.

I think the legal term for it would be (or close to it, anyway) would be "crime of passion"?

DRS is on PC, and it seems to be a Porting Disaster.

Is it as unplayable as the V3 port?

Apparently it shows nothing instead of a map when you play. To fix it, you have to set your computer region to English (United States).

@RJ

Its mainly just that she is fun, and sometimes, hell, IMO, often; Pure evil villains can be just as good as others.

I have seen some interesting interpretations on what motivates her, one was basically tied to her super-analyst thing. The idea they said was basically that Junko would be stuck constantly overthinking every little thing as she grew up, which left her unable to actually enjoy them. So she taught herself to enjoy the despair she felt instead, and then she began to grow addicted to it.

Edited by Snoketrope on Jul 31st 2022 at 6:46:40 AM

Weird realization I had two minutes ago: Saihara’s strongest relationships are with people whose name has a “K” in them.

Kaede Akamatsu.

Kaito Momota.

Kokichi Ouma.

I don’t know what to do with this epiphany.

Some people just like certain letters. Clark Kent has a fetish for the initials L.L. "Lois Lane". "Lana Lang". "Lex Luthor". "Lori Lemaris". Everyone he's ever banged has followed the same naming pattern.

Shuichi probably has a thing for the letter K.

Meanwhile, Hinata has Nanami, Nagito, and Natsumi.

Well, as long as this thread's been recently revived, I have a question for y'all. Who is everyone's favorite character and how did you feel when they died? Or didn't, if you won that dice roll!

My family has a habit where everyone tries to pick out a particular character and goes, "That one. That's me. That's my character who represents me. I declare ownership of this character." I recently discovered Danganronpa and we started binging the series, and I found my character minutes into the first game.

After meeting and greeting everyone, I was like, "Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista, looks like EXACTLY the kind of character I latch onto. I pick her!" There's a particular mold that I tend to glom onto, which she seemed primed to fit into.

I kinda expected her to die because my characters are usually the worst. Not the ABSOLUTE worst, mind you. They're never, like, the ultimate villain of a thing. But they're asshole troublemakers who make life harder for the protagonist. Your Isabela Madrigals and Cordelia Chases and the like. And she seemed. Like she would fit that mold.

So, y'know, I was extremely distraught when she died before the Killing Game even really started. I'd barely had a chance to get to know Junko before she was abruptly taken away. That sucked.

...and then I played the rest of the game. And it turns out. That my character. Is the ABSOLUTE worst. I was not prepared for that.

Don't worry, though. While they didn't find their character until the second game, my roommate had way better luck in selecting their character than I did.

...

...

...

They chose Nagito Komaeda!

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 12th 2022 at 6:16:43 AM

My favorites across each game are Mukuro, Mikan, ans Ryoma.

I dont have great luck.

Junko, Komaeda, and Ouma are too obvious of a set, so I’ll go with my second places, Maizono, Peko, and Shirogane.