Despairland is a tumblr/Skype roleplay based on the game Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. It features a group of super high school level talented high school students trapped in a Monobear-themed amusement park and told that they're to either live their entire lives there or escape by killing another student and getting away with it.
The sequel, Super Dangan Despairland 2, takes place in the same park, an unspecified amount of time after the first game. It is still in progress.
Despairland contains examples of:
- A House Divided
- All Your Powers Combined: As akin to the original game, the mastermind, Aiko Fujioka had an execution that was all previous combined, plus her own.
- Amusement Park of Doom
- After the End
- Alas, Poor Villain: Two out of the three murders were out of self-defense. Ouch.
- Big Bad: Monobear and the person behind them, Aiko Fujioka.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Monobear has cameras set up everywhere. Except in the mastermind's personal room.
- Bittersweet Ending: On one hand, the mastermind died and the students finally got an escape switch to leave the park. On the other hand, over three fourths of them died.
- Body of the Week: Literally, with body discoveries each Wednesday followed by trials every Saturday.
- Chekhov's Gun: Aiko Fujioka, the mastermind, wore a hoodie with the initials "AI," her father's company. This company would then come up later, during the mastermind investigation.
- Clear My Name: Pretty much every trial where somebody is framed.
- Collective Identity: SHSL Despair, which everyone ended up being a part of.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Executions.
- Death by Irony: The executions were all tailored to the killers' talents.
- Dwindling Party: The game started with 16 students. It ended with four.
- Everyone Went to School Together
- Fission Mailed: Upon voting for the wrong culprit, time is reset until the students get it right.
- Foreshadowing: The embroiderer on Aiko's jacket, of course.
- I Have Your Wife: The first motive, like in the game the roleplay was based on. Everyone received DVDs of their loved ones, except Kengo whose loved ones are already dead.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Gian might be an asshole, but he also pieced together most of the mastermind trial.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Of course.
- Meaningful Name: The mastermind, Aiko Fujioka's, first name is translated to "Child of grief" rather than the normal "child of love".
- Noodle Incident: Sumire skips over a large chunk of what made her become a patissier.Sumire: Mother, Father, and Ichiro all assured me that my chocolates were delicious, as well, so I sent them.Sumire: ………….Sumire: And then I went to France!
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Sumire, of course, being the rich girl she is. Of course, she didn't at the time, because most of her money was spent buying the park.
- Ship Tease: Between Sumire and Kengo
- Shout-Out: To the original Dangan Ronpa game in the Lost and Found room
- Two Dun It More like everyone done it, since they were all SHSL Despair being punnished by their own game.
- Undignified Death: The executions are not pretty.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Everyone was part of SHSL Despair prior to the memory wipe. The mastermind trapped them in the park as punishment.
- Warmup Boss: The first trial wasn't too difficult considering the killer's name was literally written at the scene.
- Wham Episode: The mastermind trial, of course.
Despairland 2 contains examples of:
- Amusement Park of Doom: Again, of course
- Deadly Game
- Mind Screw: Five of the characters are returning from previously in the continuity. Four of them are supposed to be dead. With the reveal that Sumire is not actually Sumire, that makes four out of four characters supposed to be dead.
- Mutually Assured Destruction: Tsukiko and Darren enter an agreement like this prior to the first trial. They're forced to reveal each other to prove the true murderer.
