Main installments: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc | 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
Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- Each time Makoto figures out the culprit and how the crime occurred, right down to every last minute detail.
- Especially when Makoto finally figures out, in Chapter 6, who the mastermind behind this whole fiasco is. Made even better in that Makoto's chain of reasoning began because he noticed something as small as there being only 9 indicator lights in the morgue instead of 10!
- And even though it was in the middle of a rigged trial, Chapter 5's trial showcases Makoto's intelligence: when Kyoko begins refuting his evidence, he argues right back, and manages to keep up with her. That's right: an Ordinary High-School Student is able to keep up in logical deductions and refutations with the Ultimate Detective!
- A while after Chihiro is dead, the audience learns a huge CMOA that he pulled before kicking it. Instead of very understandably freaking out at Monokuma's Educational DVD and the threat of having him reveal Chihiro's gender to his new-found companions... Chihiro softly and politely tells Monokuma that no, he won't play his game, that he won't bend over to his wishes, and that he will tell the others he's a boy when he feels ready for it. Cute little Chihiro has discovered that yes, he DOES have what it takes to be strong, and this will lead to the creation of an AI that will protect his friends even after he is gone.
- Mondo and Chihiro symbolically lending their aid from beyond the grave. Mondo's spirit fuses with Kiyotaka, and Chihiro leaves behind Alter Ego, a program that can help connect with the outside world.
- Mondo's reaction to his execution, being tied to a motorcycle and sent into a "death cage". Unlike Leon, he doesn't struggle or attempt to escape the motorcycle in any way, accepting his punishment for killing Chihiro.
- Aoi slapping Byakuya across the face for being such a Jerkass.
- Even if it was part of a plan to murder Kiyotaka, Hifumi making an incredibly detailed Justice Robo suit in a single night using only materials found in the school is pretty impressive.
- Sure, Byakuya can be a Jerkass, but it feels good having him in our side (sorta) helping to solve the crime, like in the third case, where he, alongside with Naegi, directly confonted Celeste.
- In the fourth trial, Kyoko and Makoto's deductions drive Smug Snake Byakuya to a borderline Villainous Breakdown.Byakuya: Oh come on! How can you know what I don't know?
- After the fourth trial, everyone (even Byakuya and Toko, in their own way) stand up and tell Monokuma they're done playing his game, and that they'll be working together to take down him and the mastermind.
- Honestly, Byakuya's scene deserves more credit, if for no other reason than how startling the moment is both to Monokuma and quite possibly the audience. Monokuma, seemingly concerned by the students uniting, attempts to break them apart again by appealing to Byakuya; at first it seems to work, with Togami giving one of his typical speeches about the game...only to reveal that he has no intention of playing a game that everyone else has rejected, and is now focusing all his energy on hunting down and destroying the mastermind. The use of "New World Order" definitely helps.Byakuya: This is a life-or-death elimination match. The only way to survive...is to win. There can be no doubt that these are the rules of the game. Which is why...I am bowing out of the game.
- Honestly, Byakuya's scene deserves more credit, if for no other reason than how startling the moment is both to Monokuma and quite possibly the audience. Monokuma, seemingly concerned by the students uniting, attempts to break them apart again by appealing to Byakuya; at first it seems to work, with Togami giving one of his typical speeches about the game...only to reveal that he has no intention of playing a game that everyone else has rejected, and is now focusing all his energy on hunting down and destroying the mastermind. The use of "New World Order" definitely helps.
- Sakura Ogami gets a post-mortem crowning moment of awesome when it's revealed what her "first shot" against Monokuma was: Sakura broke the lock to an important door Monokuma was guarding so Kyouko Kirigiri could break in and see what was inside. Her death was pretty awesome too, since it simultaneously broke Monokuma's game and caused the students to unify, just as she intended.
- The true ending of Chapter 5. Makoto's about to be crushed to death for a murder he didn't commit, when...surprise! Alter Ego turns out to have uploaded a virus to the school's network! The virus stops the machine and opens a trapdoor under Makoto's feet, robbing the piston of its intended victim, just in time, much to everyone else's shock!
- Makoto mirroring Kyoko's reaction to it is impressive, when you think about it. The player's first assumption would probably be that he'd freak out.
- The best part of the whole scene? Monokuma's little Villainous Breakdown right after Alter Ego's rescue. After spending so much time looking down at the students, laughing at and blaming them for descending into despair, he's finally getting a taste of his own medicine. And you can just tell that it tastes bitter. So. Very. Bitter.
- Bonus: Chihiro wanted to be strong. Alter Ego, essentially a digital copy of Chihiro's personality, has become strong enough to hold back a killing machine.
- Chapter 6. Makoto helping everyone overcome despair and earning the title of Ultimate Hope, and then using that hope to deliver the final blow to the mastermind.
- The final Non-Stop Debate takes an element reviled in the other trials — Memory Bullets — and uses it to its best effect: you literally take the "hope" from Makoto's statement and fire it into the other's hesitation, one-by-one inspiring them to move forward again. It's primarily this act that Makoto gains the (now-well-earned) title of "Ultimate Hope".
- Extra awesome:
- Yasuhiro is a ditz and the first to fully break down into despair due to Junko's Breaking Speech. He's the first in the line-up, meaning you can potentially sway him before anyone else, and it's the first time in the game he speaks fully confidently, and gives an awesome rebuttal, to boot.
- Makoto's hope even sways Genocide Jill in one of the better Even Evil Has Standards moments in the game. You can also sway her before Byakuya; while her statement implies she'll do it if Byakuya does, you can convince her to hope even before Byakuya is persuaded.
- The final Bullet Time Battle deserves special mention. The mastermind, Junko Enoshima, starts flipping between all her personas rapidly as she completely breaks down, simply from the fact that Makoto refuses to give in to despair. The way she slowly goes from confident threats to screaming "No, no, no, no, NO!" and "What ARE you!?" is incredibly satisfying. She even uses a long-lasting Negative Time right out the gate to make things tough on you, even on Kind difficulty — something that most of the other Bullet Time Battles don't normally do — so you're in for a suitably tense shootout for the final confrontation. Notably, her final statement, while it sounds like a Badass Boast, is actually delivered in her "bored" persona, implying she's just given up.
- The Japanese version, however, is a more standardized Villainous Breakdown. The anime takes it up a notch:Junko Enoshima: What the hell?! Seriously, WHAT THE HEEEEEEEELL?!?
- The Japanese version, however, is a more standardized Villainous Breakdown. The anime takes it up a notch:
- There are quite a few of these in Dangan Ronpa IF, including Mukuro Ikusaba being able to match fists with Sakura Ogami, Mukuro fending off hundreds of Monokuma units, Mondo and Sakura saving Mukuro from said units (including Mondo riding the motorcycle used in his execution), and Mukuro's gambit to get through the Final Graduation Exam.
- For the anime: The Reveal of the Mastermind's identity. Not being limited by sprites limitations is a good thing.
- Also, Makoto going more than "You must not lose hope!" to instill hope in his friends, he frigging tailored A LOT of Rousing Speech to raise their spirits and it works!
- After all this, in lieu of the Bullet Time Battle, Makoto finishes off Junko by loading "The Ultimate Hope" bullet and firing it along with giving her the pointer finger, with the bullet flying toward her being intercut with the Guilty slot machine rolling to Junko. It's far more elaborate than in the game and it is a joy to see.
- Celeste's English VA, Marieve Herington, gets one during her Villainous Breakdown; she's had a subtle French accent throughout the game, but as she loses her composure, she perfectly nails it falling apart, from growing hilariously extreme to suddenly going to a more American one like the other characters when she's screaming at people.
- The same can be said for her Japanese VA, Hekiru Shiina. Her list of roles shows that she's mostly onto good girls, sometimes full of energy, best exemplified with Hikaru Shidou. Celeste is a grand case of Playing Against Type, and she pretty much nailed every parts of them, starting from the creepy Elegant Gothic Lolita style girl into her completely pissed off and screaming Villainous Breakdown as a sociopathic girl. There's a good reason she's one of the three seiyuus that caused the 90's seiyuu boom.
- Usami's Early-Bird Cameo in Dangan Ronpa's School Mode, beating down Monokuma when he is about to execute Makoto and forcing him to give up the escape switch to let them escape the school. In a way, it is also a big proof that if Usami did not let her guard down and keep her staff together from Monokuma's sneak attack, she COULD beat him.
- The Anime has a good moments for the others putting things together, making it that they seem to understand the idea of detective work instead of letting Naegi just explain everything to them.
- The Stage Play has one, if you think Junko gets away with everything too much, even in her defeat. She wants to execute herself, but the surviving cast vetoed against that. Ooh no, she's not getting her kink of experiencing her own despair of defeat. She's going to be kept alive and face justice for her crimes in the way the default world works, not how her despair-filled world works (it's possible that the Stage Play is in its own verse, so the global incident didn't happen), instead of escaping that by execution. A most fitting punishment for someone like her.
- Sayaka having the smarts to leave a dying message and managing to hide it from her killer, all while being in a considerable amount of pain and terror. It turns out to be the main piece of evidence that identifies her killer.
- The fact that Genocide Jill proves her innocence... by showing that she couldn't have done the murder with three simple steps: A) no-one used her trusty scissors to do the murder because they didn't know they were in the school, B) setting the murder up like her usual murders would make her the obvious target so she certainly wouldn't do it and, lastly, C) the victim is, at least as far as anyone knew, a girl - and she only kills boys. So, no matter what Byakuya says, it couldn't have been her. And she relishes in her explaining her murders, comparing it on several occasions to Italian cooking - she has her ways and she's set in them. There are too many differences, so it wasn't her.
- Kyoko manages to figure out Chihiro's real gender and Mondo being behind his death just by picking up how the latter talked about the former and basing it off his normal way of talking to people.
