Bless This Mess: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
THE SET UP
CW: mentions of suicide
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is Battle Royale meets Big Brother meets Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
It’s GREAT.
Makoto Naegi is about to begin his first day at Hope’s Peak High, a high school for gifted students. He’s been chosen by a lottery, the “Ultimate Lucky Student.” Except, uh oh, he blacks out, and when he wakes up, he and fourteen other students are locked in the school. Like, doors and windows all bolted shut kind of locked in the school.
A mechanical bear called Monokuma appears (it’s anime, just go with it) and informs them that they’re to participate in a “killing game.” If one of them successfully murders a classmate, and gets away with it, they are free to go. However, after a body is discovered, the other students must hold a trial to determine guilt.
If they pick right, the murderer is executed. If they pick wrong, everyone else is executed, and the murderer (the “blackened”) goes free.
The first game and the anime based on it follow the exact same plot: there are five cases, and Makoto/you the player must solve the cases in order to progress (and not die). Over the course of the game/show, you get to know the students and their quirks, as well as the overarching mystery: who brought them here? For what purpose? And why the hell hasn’t anyone called the cops yet?
Look at this sweet boy who has no idea what’s about to happen to him
THE MESS
All of the students are the best in the world at something, and they are all referred to as the “Ultimate ________”. These range from badass (the Ultimate Martial Artist) to useful (the Ultimate Programmer) to Why The Hell Is This In A School (the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader). Seriously, what is the Ultimate Gambler supposed to learn from class precisely?
Obviously, these ultimate abilities inform the personalities of the people who have them (for example, the “Ultimate Affluent Progeny/Heir” is a the son of an absurdly wealthy businessman, and he’s a stuck-up prick), but I think the game and the show both do a decent job of deepening these characters. None of them are “just” their ultimate talent, nearly everyone gets to have some kind of character development and moments of strength.
The mysteries and the cases are genuinely very fun and have some extremely cool twists and turns. Whether you’re playing the game or watching the anime, there are red herrings everywhere, and the whole story always comes together in a really pleasing way. Is this mess? Maybe not, honestly.
In the video game, part of solving the cases involves completing FUN MINIGAMES in order to progress. These range from genuinely enjoyable to deeply annoying, but they’re also hilarious in context. Sungwon Cho made a skit that really sums up the experience of playing these, and I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ah0CUMbVU.
Furthermore to this point, if you do badly enough in the trial that you lose all your health, the “game over” is that Makoto is found guilty. This can be hysterical if you’re at the end of a trial when you fail. “Well, you laid out all the facts as to why it must be the Ultimate Baseball Player, but you misspelled the word knife ten times in a row so I guess you’re the murderer!” Flawless, no notes.
I’m not 100% sure where to put this, but: once you the player/Makoto figures out the culprit (the “blackened”), they are dragged away for execution. Which you have to watch. These executions are a) themed to the character’s Ultimate Talent and b) ride a really weird line between brutality and over-the-top bizarreness. They are meant to be spectacles. However, I’m not sure if the creators know whether they want the audience to feel terrible about these or entertained by them, or to what extent there is the expectation to feel terrible about the entertainment. Either way, congrats, you just watched a fifteen year old get burned at the stake and then crushed by a firetruck - enjoy.
The second case involves the reveal that one of their number, the Ultimate Fangirl, is also secretly a serial killer — or rather, her alter/other personality is. Their name is Genocide Jack, they’re the Ultimate Murderous Fiend, and they’re unironically a ton of fun. Hilariously, they do not make any attempts to murder anyone during the Killing Game, and they just kind of hang around as another NPC.
During the fourth case, we learn that the Ultimate Martial Artist, Sakura, has been spying on the characters for Monokuma (on threat of something happening to her family). She’s later found dead, with basically everyone being a suspect. We eventually discover that she actually killed herself in order to remove the last “obstacle” keeping the other characters from working together. I freaking love Sakura, and the writing really rides this line between acknowledging the horrific tragedy of this, while also focusing on her agency in making this decision.
Relatedly: Sakura’s best friend (and possible girlfriend, listen, it’s very sapphic but not explicitly), Aoi, pretends that she was the killer during Sakura’s trial. We find out later that this is because she’s so hurt and angry about Sakura’s suicide that she wanted everyone to vote wrong, and to get themselves all killed. Aoi is such a cheerful, bubbly girl (she’s the Ultimate Swimmer) and this represents such a turn for her. Then, of course, when she learns that Sakura made her choice in order to help everyone else, she apologizes and recommits to trying to help the others. I just — gah, I love Aoi so much, and I love the depiction of her rage and grief.
The big reveal at the end of the game/show is twofold: one, we’re actually in a post-apocalyptic setting, and the world has functionally been destroyed; two, the characters have had their memories of the end of the world erased. Turns out Makoto and the rest of them agreed to be locked in the school for their own protection; also, that they all knew each other for at least a year before being forced to murder each other. Tragedy and dramatic irony abounds!!! I love this shit.
We also learn that the Killing Game has been broadcast to the remaining people of the world, in order to demoralize them and inspire them to Despair. You see, the villain of the story is, in truth, a student known as Ultimate Despair, whose goal is to…make the world miserable, I guess. Makoto, however, pushes for Hope, and inspires his remaining classmates, his friends, to Hope as well. He becomes…Ultimate Hope. This is deeply deeply silly but I am all the way here for it.
Oh oh oh, also, there is a legit evil twin reveal in this, and I gotta say, they sell the hell out of it. I have no complaints here, I genuinely think they pull off this clichéd plot twist very well.
All fun mess and no real critique makes Monokuma a vewy angy bear
THE ACTUAL BAD STUFF
This is totally a Your Mileage May Vary issue, but there’s a gender reveal as part of one of the cases; one of the murder victims is revealed to have been a different sex than they were presenting as. They’re not described as trans, and they’re not killed because of this deception (….mostly….it’s kind of complicated), but like, buyer be very very ware of this. Absolutely the biggest thing I would change about this game is how this all shakes out.
One of the characters, as described above, has a split personality/Dissociative Identity Disorder. I don’t think this is handled particularly sensitively, and definitely supports the whole “people with DID/mental illness are serial killers” stereotype, which isn’t cool.
This game/show scores high in every category of Weeb Ass Shit. It’s extremely steeped in Japanese culture (one of the characters is the Ultimate Public Morals Committee Member, which is not a thing in North America), it’s extremely horny, and it’s full of wild bullshit. I don’t mind any of those things but I think it could make it extremely off-putting to many folks!
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the above is that at one point in the game, the player/Makoto gets to choose whether to allow himself to be scapegoated as a killer, thereby saving his friend (who is coincidentally the Ultimate Detective), or to sell her out. If you/he chooses the latter, you end up in a bad end, where the remaining students end up in some kind of sexual quadrangle and Aoi has babies with all of the remaining boys. It’s very troubling and weird.
Also, there’s a bonus mode in the game where you can just hang out with your classmates and get to know them. This is genuinely just fun and joyful, except it’s going in this section because when you max out a character’s friendship, you get to keep a pair of their underwear. Cool. Thanks, Danganronpa.
IN CONCLUSION
Ultimately (heh), Makoto and his friends make the choice to believe in Hope, to leave the safety of the school, to rejoin what’s left of humanity. They decide to believe in life, with all its ups and downs, to honour the deaths of their classmates by choosing to live and fight. And listen, this is cheesy as hell and the story is silly at times and trashy at others, but I’m fully bought in. I eat this shit up. I freaking love Danganronpa.
I give this one 4.5 evil robotic bears/5