60 Fun Facts About Danganronpa

Which company develops and owns the Danganronpa series?

Creator Kazutaka Kodaka wrote the original scenario, aiming for what he called a twisted adventure game.

On which platform was the first Danganronpa game originally released in 2010?

The Vita version reached North America in February 2014, and both early games later came to Steam and PS4.

The word Danganronpa combines the Japanese words for what?

That is why you fire Truth Bullets at contradictions during class trials.

What kind of creature is Monokuma?

He is half white and half black, with a red left eye that carries the Hope's Peak Academy logo.

Monokuma's name is a mash-up of the Japanese word for bear and which English word?

It refers to his black-and-white colour scheme; his English game voice is Brian Beacock.

Monokuma's original Japanese voice actress, Nobuyo Oyama, was famous for voicing which beloved character?

Japanese audiences were shocked to hear the robot cat's voice coming from a sadistic bear; Tarako took over the role later.

What is the name of the elite school at the centre of the series?

It scouts students who are the best in the world at something and calls them Ultimates, or Super High School Level in Japanese.

What is the Japanese term that Western localisations render as 'Ultimate'?

The Japanese is chō-kōkō-kyū; NIS America handled the Western localisations from 2013.

Which company localised the Danganronpa games for the West starting in 2013?

The first two games sold more than 200,000 copies combined on Vita in Europe and the US by April 2015.

What colour is the blood in the Danganronpa games?

The fluorescent pink is part of the deliberate pop-art look, and it also helped with age ratings.

Which filmmaker does Kazutaka Kodaka cite as a major inspiration for the games?

Producer Yoshinori Terasawa was thinking more of Saw and Cube; the original concept was rejected as too gruesome before a retool.

Who composed the music for the Danganronpa games and anime?

Rui Komatsuzaki designed the characters, whose look helped the first game stand out on shelves.

Who is the protagonist of the first game, Trigger Happy Havoc?

He is picked in a raffle and enrolled as the Ultimate Lucky Student alongside fourteen genuine prodigies.

How many other Ultimate students does Makoto meet when he wakes up inside the academy?

Fifteen students in total, though one of them is not who she claims to be.

According to Monokuma's rules, what is the only way to leave the academy?

If the class picks the wrong culprit at trial, everyone except the real killer is executed.

Who is the first murder victim in Trigger Happy Havoc?

The pop idol is killed by baseball star Leon Kuwata after her own murder plan goes wrong.

Which student kills programmer Chihiro Fujisaki in the first game?

The biker gang leader acts in a jealous rage; his execution involves a motorcycle cage of death.

Which gambler manipulates Hifumi Yamada into killing Kiyotaka Ishimaru?

She then kills Hifumi too, hoping to walk out with the promised prize money.

Which martial artist takes her own life after being exposed as Monokuma's spy?

Her death is the fourth case, and the trial is unusual because there is no murderer to catch.

Who is the true mastermind behind the first killing game?

The 'Junko' killed early on was her twin sister, mercenary Mukuro Ikusaba, wearing her identity.

What is the name of the mastermind's fraternal twin sister who impersonated her?

She is the Ultimate Soldier, and dies when the bear she is standing beside decides she has broken a rule.

How long had the students actually been living inside the academy before their memories were wiped?

They all knew each other already; the mastermind executed the headmaster and erased their memories.

How many students survive to leave the academy at the end of Trigger Happy Havoc?

They walk out uncertain what state the world is in, a question the sequel answers.

Which class-trial mode has you shooting down specific letters to spell a word?

The other three original modes are the Nonstop Debate, the rhythm-based Bullet Time Battle and the comic-strip Closing Argument.

In which trial mode do you assemble a comic strip showing how the crime happened?

It ends every trial; the sequel added the snowboarding Logic Dive and sword-swinging Rebuttal Showdowns.

How many copies did the first Danganronpa sell in its first week in Japan?

It passed 85,000 in three months, and by 2021 the PC version alone had sold over a million.

Where is Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair set?

The tropical island turns out to exist only inside a virtual-reality program.

Who is the amnesiac protagonist of Danganronpa 2?

He eventually learns he was Izuru Kamukura, the leader of Ultimate Despair.

Which rabbit mascot greets the students in Danganronpa 2 before Monokuma takes over?

Monokuma hijacks the 'field trip' and reduces her to a powerless mascot renamed Monomi.

Which Danganronpa 2 character shares Makoto's Ultimate Lucky Student talent?

He is described as calm but mentally unstable, and his obsession with hope drives much of the plot.

The 'Byakuya Togami' who turns up in Danganronpa 2 is later revealed to hold which talent?

He is inadvertently killed by chef Teruteru Hanamura in the game's first case.

Which chef is the culprit in the first case on the island in Danganronpa 2?

He was trying to kill Nagito and hit the wrong person in the dark.

Which nurse kills both Ibuki Mioda and Hiyoko Saionji in Danganronpa 2?

She has relapsed into her old despair-infected personality by that point in the game.

Which animal breeder kills team manager Nekomaru Nidai in Danganronpa 2?

The two agree to fight to the death so the starving group trapped in the Funhouse can be released.

The students trapped on the tropical island in Danganronpa 2 are revealed to be surviving members of what?

The whole island is a rehabilitation simulation, the Neo World Program, meant to undo their brainwashing.

What genre is Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls?

Komaru Naegi fires Truth Bullets from a megaphone-shaped Hacking Gun at Monokuma robots.

Where is Ultra Despair Girls set?

It is an artificial island run by the Towa Group, and Monaca Towa wants to make Komaru into Junko's successor.

Toko Fukawa, Komaru's partner in Ultra Despair Girls, has a scissor-wielding alternate personality called what?

The Warriors of Hope, five abused children who want a world without adults, are their opponents.

Which apparent protagonist of Danganronpa V3 is executed in the first chapter?

The Ultimate Pianist hands over to Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, after her trial.

Who is the first victim in Danganronpa V3?

He is killed accidentally by Kaede's trap meant for the mastermind, or so the class is led to believe.

How many Monokubs assist Monokuma in Danganronpa V3?

The smaller bears squabble constantly and get destroyed one by one over the course of the game.

Who is revealed as the mastermind of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony?

The Ultimate Cosplayer reveals that the students are contestants on the 53rd season of a lethal reality show.

According to V3's ending twist, the killing game is which season of the Danganronpa television show?

K1-B0, the robot student, has been serving as the audience's camera, steered by viewer votes.

On what date was Danganronpa V3 released in Japan?

NIS America brought it West on 26 September 2017, and an Anniversary Edition hit Switch and mobile in 2022.

Which studio animated Danganronpa: The Animation in 2013?

Seiji Kishi directed it, and the same team returned for Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School in 2016.

By 2025, how many copies had the series sold worldwide according to its publisher?

Japan alone had passed 930,000 by late 2018 before the Switch compilation Danganronpa Decadence arrived in 2021.

Which board-game spin-off subtitled 'Ultimate Summer Camp' launched alongside the 2021 Decadence compilation?

It grew out of the board-game mode bundled with V3 and reunites the casts of all three main games.

What was the working title of Kodaka's original, too-gruesome pitch that became Danganronpa?

Producer Yoshinori Terasawa drew on films such as Saw and Cube, and Kodaka has cited the Dreamcast game Illbleed as an inspiration.

Which cult Sega Dreamcast game did Kodaka reveal in 2014 had inspired Danganronpa's story?

He said he loved how 'crazy' it was; the game began as a plain visual novel before extra gameplay was added.

Which roguelike rhythm game features remixed Danganronpa music and skins of Makoto and Junko?

Monokuma has also popped up in Terraria's Japanese console versions and in NetEase's Identity V.

Who is the anterograde-amnesiac protagonist of the prequel novel Danganronpa Zero?

Kodaka wrote Zero alongside Goodbye Despair and recommends reading it before playing the sequel.

In the light novel trilogy Danganronpa: Togami, where is Byakuya stranded naked with his biographer?

Meanwhile the Ultimate Impostor seizes the Togami Conglomerate and threatens to 'end the world' unless the real Byakuya is killed within 24 hours.

The manga Danganronpa Gaiden: Killer Killer follows a Future Foundation agent who secretly kills whom?

Takumi Hijirihara's vigilante alter ego is obsessed with Mukuro Ikusaba; the manga was later revealed as a side-story of Danganronpa 3.

Which author wrote the unlockable mini light novel Danganronpa IF, found in Goodbye Despair?

Its alternate-universe story has Makoto finding an alleged escape switch in the academy.

Which director helmed both Danganronpa: The Animation and Danganronpa 3 at studio Lerche?

Danganronpa 3 aired as two interleaved arcs, Side: Future and Side: Despair, in the summer of 2016.

Why did the team make an anime, rather than a game, to conclude the Hope's Peak storyline?

An anime of Danganronpa 2 had been planned, but Kodaka felt those characters' story had already ended.

Which voice actress performs the first game's ending theme 'Playback -rebuild-'?

The song was reused as the anime's final ending theme; Ogata has said budget cuts left some important lines unvoiced.

How many copies did Trigger Happy Havoc sell on PSP in Japan, making it the series' best seller there?

By November 2018 the whole series had passed 930,000 units in Japan, and 10 million worldwide by 2025.

A 2019 controversy erupted when a drag queen in a Monokuma costume was refused entry to which chain?

Erika Klash had performed as the character at Austin's drag festival for five years and later received an apology.

Kodaka likened his pause on the series after Killing Harmony to which three-part film saga?

The 'V3' in the game's title was chosen to set it apart from the Danganronpa 3 anime made at the same time.