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A Student Out of Time

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Spoilers for all canon Danganronpa games as well as the Another series will be unmarked. You have been warned!


  • Adorkable: Everyone in the Cuddle Puddle has their moments. Yes, even Gundham. Most (if not all) of the Quantum Crew in general can be considered this.
  • Arc Fatigue: The Mod and many readers see The Oncoming Storm as this due to the arc being too long and doing too little to justify its length, along with poor characterisation. As confirmed by the Mod himself, he was struggling to write it during a depressive episode.
  • Author Tract: In the segment where Akane and Chiaki are first teleported to the good future 2030s, some of it comes across as this to some readers. Many megacorps are gone in that future, people are focusing on saving the planet, and technology has advanced in environmentally green ways. May potentially be Zeerust as well, the next gen kids lampshade how things are already far different to what they’ve grown up with.
  • Broken Base: Both In-Universe and out, the decision to mindwipe versus kill Kanade. The Quantum Crew has a distinct no-killing policy, but the idea of erasing Kanade's memories brought up significant moral concerns as well. The decision was made by an anon vote, where mindwiping her won out strongly.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • Anyone that was upset about Kanade getting away with her actions despite beating her in the class trial are happy when everyone finds out about her crimes via an Engineered Public Confession courtesy of Hajime and Chiaki, along with receiving a one-sided beatdown from Sonia.
    • Tsumugi reveals just how monstrous and depraved she really is in Dianthus Memory; hence what makes it all the more satisfying when she’s knocked down many pegs from her carefully thought-out plans falling apart by the Quantum Crew later on. From the discovered existence of the Nanokumas, to all of her science equipment getting destroyed, Tsumugi hilariously doesn’t take it too well.
  • Complete Monster: Tsumugi Shirogane is one of the Despair Pillars, the three most important members of the Ultimate Despair alongside Juu Kinjo and Takahara Mizuta. Having wanted all of her life to become a entertainer despite her Lack of Imagination, she became obsessively infatuated with her own step-brother to the point that she drove him to suicide to escape her obsessive attempts to get him to herself. Having not learnt anything from what he did, she decided to instead blame her parents of his death, killing them before she joined Junko in her quest to spread despair. Using her fame as a pioneering optogenetist to hide her true nature, she secretly infected hundred of people with her brainwashing algae, and started a plan to turn the entire world into a Talent-and-Killing-Game-worshipping Dystopia, in the process killing almost the entirety of the Quantum Crew, and sending their grandchildren into a killing game where their personalities would be rewritten to become walking mockeries of what their ancestors fought for. Once she's made aware of the Quantum Crew's plans to kill her to stop such a Bad Future from being created, she kidnaps Hajime Hinata, Masa Esumi and Umeko Hayase, and tortures both them and the rest of the Quantum Crew with both Awful Truths and physical mutilation for multiple days, all for a plan to both mentally break Hajime and Umeko, and turn the entire Quantum Crew into pariahs in the eyes of the rest of the world. Selfish, unable to accept guilt, and a cruel terrorist, Tsumugi proves herself to be a monster even beyond Junko Enoshima could ever be, her terrible actions haunting the heroes even after her death at Hajime's hands, and endangering the existence of the future they fought so hard to build in the first place.
  • Cry for the Devil: Takahara may be in leagues with Ultimate Despair, but it’s later revealed that he can’t back out since Junko knows all his personal information. His wife, Eiko is aware of what he’s going through but couldn’t help him through it after she died from giving birth to their daughter, Marin. He then decided to give Marin to the Quantum Crew in hopes of her safety being away from Junko.
  • Epileptic Trees: Before their reveal, many asks were full of guesses as to who the remaining two time travelers were.
  • Growing the Beard: While Season 1 had its good arcs, it is generally seen as floundering in trying to find its own identity, shifting from a straight-up Peggy Sue Fix Fic to more of an expanded Alternate Universe tale. The creator has also admitted and even apologized for the poor quality of many of the earlier works, which were a mix of bad ideas, mixed messages and poor plotting, with one arc that was so bad and so hated that he nearly quit writing it altogether. However, the blog has managed to improve considerably with additional help, and a greater overarching storyline involving other time travellers and explorations of the consequences the heroes made in season 1. While it's had its ups and downs, the story is much better overall.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Kanade getting mind wiped was already bad enough, given how it didn't change anything, let alone give the families of her victims any possible closure, yet in Dianthus Memory, 2030 Sunako reveals that this decision leads to other horrible criminals like Junya to also receive Death of Personality, which could easily make their victims uncomfortable upon seeing them. Not only that, but it turns out that Kanade getting mind wiped is an example of how parts of a criminal’s personality won’t fully be gone when rendered harmless.
    • Speaking of which, Kanade promising Kyoji that she won’t let her jealousy over people getting close to the latter get the better of her, along with Monaca growing concerned over those feelings, comes to a head in Dianthus Memory where it’s later revealed after Eito and Tomoe uploaded a video confirming that she’s alive, that Kanade had a cassette tape and a sedative ready in a misguided attempt to kidnap Kyoji and to get the two of them out of Japan.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: Hajime, Chiaki and Mikan (and later Sonia and Gundham too) having saved Hibiki and successfully having Kanade arrested in The Concert becomes this when Hibiki later becomes apart of the Cuddle Puddle with them.
  • I Knew It!: Due to Akane's behavior upon seeing Yoruko, as well as the various hints, many people quickly guessed that the third time traveler, as well as Akane's AI accomplice, was Sora.
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
    • The Cuddle Puddle for both their current status (Hajime x Chiaki x Mikan x Sonia x Gundham x Hibiki x Hiyoko) and its Tragedy status (Hajime x Mikan x Sonianote  x Hiyoko x Mahiru).
    • Hotel Akane for Akane Taira x Nikei x Ayame, with the addition of Yuki and Kizuna (who are already currently dating) in 2030.
    • Hope Brigade for Makoto x Iroha x Sayaka x Tamami.
    • As part of their Ship Tease, there’s also Pet Cemetery for Gundham x Kikue.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Admit it, seeing the characters from Danganronpa Another and its sequel managed to pique your interest.
  • Love to Hate: Tsumugi Shirogane is often hit with this by the Anons even before Dianthus Memory revealed her cruel intentions with Hajime, Masa, Umeko and the rest of the Quantum Crew.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Audience Laugh Tracknote 
    • Give him the Saionji Specialnote 
    • "Your X is Hot"note 
    • "I feel a chill/scared all the sudden"note 
    • Enforced Therapynote 
    • The Basilisk trying to stop the mod from finishing the storynote 
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Kanade already crossed it way back when she first killed her sister’s pet dog and she soon gets worse from there.
    • Even after Kanade suffered Death of Personality, she still had hints of jealousy and possessiveness whenever anyone got close to her caretaker Kyoji. The moment she crosses the line (again) is after her murderous feelings resurfaced in Dianthus Memory, with the reveal that she was planning to kidnap Kyoji and take him with her away from Japan. Had Tomoe and Eito not been there before she was about to do it, this would’ve caused the Quantum Crew more problems.
    • If Storm didn’t cross it when he brainwashed many citizens of Japan into coming over to his Island or when he tried to break Chiaki by blaming her for everything bad that happened, he most definitely crossed it when he shot Kana in the abdomen, which led to her death later on.
    • Even though by the time this was revealed, it was already known that Tsumugi Shirogane would turn the world into a Dystopia, kill everyone who is part of the Quantum Crew and their allies, be the mastermind of an untold amount of killing games, and brainwash, and kill, the grandkids of the Quantum Crew in a killing game as a last "fuck you" to them if she's not stopped in 2013, the moment they truly crosses the line for everyone is when she reveals in Dianthus Memory that she kidnapped Kana and Misako, killed the latter's husband (and former's father), brainwashed them into believing that Kana was Kana Ise and that she was Tenmei Nanami's illegitimate daughter, and brainwashed the Nanami parents to believe the fake story she made for Kana and Misako, all to send Chiaki past the Despair Event Horizon with the Awful Truth.
  • One True Threesome: Hinanamiki (Hajime x Chiaki x Mikan), especially during the first few arcs of Season 1.
  • Paranoia Fuel: One of the plot twists in Dianthus Memory reveals that Tsumugi used her Nanokumas to spy on the Quantum Crew and their allies for months.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • Hinabiki (Hajime x Hibiki).
    • Nanabiki (Chiaki x Hibiki).
    • Gunbiki (Gundham x Hibiki).
    • Mibiki (Hibiki x Mikan).
    • Soniabiki (Hibiki x Sonia).
    • Naejiue (Makoto x Iroha).
    • Nijizono (Iroha x Sayaka).
    • Makotamami (Makoto x Tamami).
    • Setsumeko (Setsuka x Umeko).
    • Kazuhiro (Chihiro x Kazuichi).
    • Kazuyumi (Ayumi x Kazuichi).
    • Kanagito (Kanata x Nagito).
  • Realism-Induced Horror:
    • The heavy implication that Kanade took advantage of Hibiki’s catatonic state to violate her is similar to people like the former doing so to their victims.
    • The Copycat Killer murdering unsuspecting victims and disguising as them before moving onto another person to continue this routine on can be quite realistic. Not just in the case of some serial killers easily covering their tracks under the public’s noses, but the fact that they don’t get caught until either years later, or just never at all.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: One of the best things to come out of this story was the mod taking better care of the characters by fleshing out their character arcs and making them more likable.
  • Squick:
    • Kanade lusting after Hibiki, her twin sister.note 
    • The unilateral response from every single asker (and character when they get the context) when it’s revealed that Tsumugi is an nonagenarian body snatcher (with a penchant for teens) by the time V3 rolls around…and the fact that she made the Love Hotel and could sleep with Shuichi.
      • This also applies to when Tsumugi told the characters and anons that she fell in love with her own step-brother and constantly tried to woo him, but her actions, combined with the depression of losing his mother at such a young age, only led to him committing suicide.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The choice to kill Kanade over mind-wiping her during the Twisted Sister Aftermath could’ve been an opportunity to add on to Hibiki’s arc of growing away from her sister, yet still caring for her deep down. As most of the Quantum Crew were hellbent on the Thou Shalt Not Kill rule at the time, it could be a harsh lesson to them that they can’t always spare their enemies had it been brought up earlier. Furthermore, there’s also the fact that the Copycat Killer in Let the Dogs Out was discovered with a mind-wiped Kanade’s help, meaning that there would be a lot more stakes raised for the Quantum Crew to stop them without her help in tracking them down.
  • The Woobie: Where to even begin?
    • Hajime Hinata is sent back to the past and has to deal with knowledge that only he and a few other people are aware of the Bad Future and he's also the only one who can stop it, while haunted by guilt and trauma over his time as Izuru Kamukura and their involvement in the Tragedy. In addition, he outrights dies several times, and even though it's reset, he still remembers both dying and all the pain that comes with it.
    • Kotoko's backstory is arguably even worse then what was revealed in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. Not only does her father force her into child prostitution, he actively treats her awfully and when she complains about the harsh treatment, he outright calls her selfish and tells her that it would be her fault if they ended up in poverty. Even when she runs away to Mikan, she is later dragged back to her father and almost sold by Human Traffickers. Even once she gets her father arrested, she also learned that she got HIV.
    • Emma suffers from chronic pain thanks to her own abusive father's abuse towards her and struggles with being addicted to painkillers. In addition, she is also stuck with the knowledge that Master Utsuro was just using her and her friends and that, in the future, she becomes a murderer and dies a horrific death herself.
    • Hibiki will black out under extreme stress and enter into a state that causes her to obey her sisters commands without question, with said sister proceeds to gleefully exploit and make worse by killing at least 60 different people who were close to Hibiki at some point. In addition, she realizes that her sister may have sexually violated her while in that state, leaving her with a fear of being touched and a fear of making friends out of fear that Kanade will hurt or kill them. Even once Kanade is rendered non-threatening, Hibiki is still afraid of her and even tries to kill herself at one point.
    • Takahara’s entire story is this. He was once a normal banker but then when the Lost Decade hit, he lost everything and was deep in despair...until a certain Ultimate Fashionista came along and gave him an offer he cannot refuse, and once he was in a position to help her, he has to process all the Plunder Mukuro gives him to turn into cash and then send back to Junko. If he refuses, Junko will just kill him and find someone with much less morals and more desperation than him. Despite this, he was able to give himself a decent life and saw someone who he fell in love with. Even after warning Eiko what kind of a mess he was in, she was willing to help him out...unfortunately, complications during her pregnancy meant she didn't survive, and now he only has her baby left. He cannot escape from Junko as she has all of his personal information and thus it’s impossible to hide from her no matter how much he tries. As such when the Quantum Crew finds him, the only way they can stop his money from being used in the Bad Future is to help him disappear long enough for Junko to not realise something is up. Overall Takahara is a sad case of someone who was in a truly despairing situation.

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