Part 3: Extra - DR1 Recap

Alright, since it's been asked multiple times now, let's have a bit of a more detailed recap of DR1 and DR2. Not all of this information will be pertinent for UDG, of course. This will include the general premise, the involved characters and their fates, and the big twists of the games. Let's start with DR1. DR2 should follow in a couple days.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - Recap

Basic Premise:

A whole bunch of high school students are locked inside Hope's Peak Academy, a school for people gifted with extraordinary talents called "Ultimates". They are told by a black and white bear called Monokuma that in order to get out, you have to kill somebody else and get through an investigation and class trial without everybody else figuring out that you are the killer. If you succeed in this, everybody else is executed and you get to leave. If you fail, you are executed and the game continues. Murders ensue.

Characters:

- Makoto Naegi: Ultimate Lucky Student and our protagonist. Brother to Komaru. Got picked by a lottery to enroll at Hope's Peak Academy despite a lack of any talent. Optimistic to a fault and constantly believes in the power of hope over despair. Survives. Side note: At one point, he is given a motive video tape from Monokuma that shows that something happened to Komaru and his parents, and that he would need to win the killing game to find out.

- Kiyotaka Ishimaru: Ultimate Moral Compass. Total stickler for rules. Finds himself in a manly friendship-rivalry with Mondo that couldn't be more hot-blooded if it tried. Ends up being infused with Mondo's soul after speaking to Alter Ego emulating Mondo. I don't quite get this part myself. Gets killed by Hifumi, who got manipulated into doing it by Celes.

- Byakuya Togami: Ultimate Affluent Progeny. Prick. Sort of rival to Makoto. Starts out not giving a damn about this "friendship" bullshit and intends to win the game, but ends up getting ticked off at the Mastermind's behavior and shifts gears into wanting to break out of the game as well. Never really manages to not be a prick, though. Survives.

- Mondo Oowada: Ultimate Biker Gang Leader. Very aggressive, but with principles. Has the aforementioned friendship-rivalry with Kiyotaka. He has a secret - he ended up accidentally causing his brother's death out of an obsession to proving his strength. Ends up executed for killing Chihiro after Chihiro revealing his secret to Mondo confronts him with how weak he really is, causing him to snap and beat Chihiro to death.

- Leon Kuwata: Ultimate Baseball Star. Has an extraordinary talent for baseball, but really doesn't want to play the sport and instead play music. Doesn't really get a lot of time to develop character traits or anything because he dies early and isn't given a focus. Ends up executed for killing Sayaka, who tried to kill him first. After fighting Sayaka off, he sees an opportunity to kill her and escape, and takes it. Alas, it doesn't work out.

- Hifumi Yamada: Ultimate Fanfic Creator. Otaku as fuck. Spends a lot of time creeping people out with his general behavior. Insists he's only attracted to 2D women. Ends up killing Kiyotaka after Celes manipulates him into doing it by claiming that Kiyotaka stole Alter Ego and sexually assaulted Celes. Then ends up being killed by Celes right after killing Kiyotaka.

- Yasuhiro Hagakure: Ultimate Clairvoyant. Claims his predictions are accurate 20% of the time. The punchline character that basically doesn't add anything to the story except being played for laughs. Survives on account of being a joke character that you constantly assume to either be the next victim or the next murderer.

- Chihiro Fujisaki: Ultimate Programmer. One would probably think that Chihiro is a girl from looking at him, but no. He crossdresses because he was bullied for being weak, ended up developing a massive insecurity about his weakness and wants to hide that by crossdressing and appearing feminine to the everybody else. Ends up killed by Mondo after he told Mondo about his crossdressing, causing Mondo to realize that even the incredibly frail looking Chihiro is stronger than him on account of being able to actually confide such a secret in somebody, causing Mondo to snap.

- Alter Ego: An AI created by Chihiro that tries to help the students survive after Chihiro dies. Ends up being discovered and destroyed by Monokuma, but not before being able to flee into the school network and continue its support, bailing out Makoto from being executed.

- Sayaka Maizono: Ultimate Pop Sensation. Used to be classmates with Makoto, and makes overtures at being his sidekick in getting out of the killing game. Overly friendly and cheerful, plays the "childhood friend" part to a T. Ends up killed by Leon after her plan to kill Leon and frame Makoto for it failed.

- Kyoko Kirigiri: Ultimate Detective. Cold and calculated. Kind of takes on the sidekick role for Makoto - though given her competency, one could kind of consider Makoto her sidekick. Also ends up in the position of being the love interest for Makoto. Has amnesia to cover up things like her detective talent and the fact that her father was the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy. Survives.

- Aoi Asahina: Ultimate Swimming Pro. Plucky and bubbly, she has a love for donuts so strong it could be considered a primary character trait. Ends up taking the deaths of the other students much harder than the others, to the point that when Sakura commited suicide and Monokuma produced a fake suicide note claiming she did it because she had fallen into despair, Aoi tries to set herself up as the killer in order to take everybody else down with her. She got better, though. Survives.

- Toko Fukawa: Ultimate Writing Prodigy. Personification of a persecution complex, she always assumes the worst of everybody, with the exception of Byakuya, whom she is madly in love with (though Byakuya couldn't be sharing that love less). Has a split personality that switches whenever she either sees blood or sneezes and that she doesn't share memories with. Survives.

- Genocide Jack / Genocide Jill / Genocider Syo / whatever: Toko's split personality. She is far more upbeat and energetic than Toko. She's also a serial killer, which you might have assumed from her having "genocide" in her name. Takes great pride in her work and is completely unrepentant. The one thing she shares with Toko, personality wise? An obsession with Byakuya. Turns out to not kill anybody in the game.

- Sakura Ogami: Ultimate Martial Artist. An absolute beast of a woman as far as stature is concerned, she's actually very calm and friendly if you don't really piss her off. Monokuma is holding her dojo hostage and is forcing her to act as a spy of sorts with the idea being that if everybody else manages to band together and no murders happen, Sakura is to break the group apart by killing somebody. Ends up fulfilling the terms of the deal with Monokuma by killing somebody - namely, herself, to protect the others.

- Celestia Ludenberg: Ultimate Gambler. Might appear friendly at first, but is a total ice queen with a penchant for lying constantly. Rejected her old life as an unremarkable girl called Taeko Yasuhiro and put on a persona of an extravagant gambling master with desires of grandeur. Becomes very heavily abrasive when her facade breaks. Orchestrates Hifumi killing Kiyotaka, then kills Hifumi herself and ends up executed for it.

- Junko Enoshima: Ultimate Fashionista. Kind of a valley girl type. Much like Leon, she doesn't get a lot of screen time to develop her character. Ends up getting speared to death after attacking Monokuma and therefore breaking the school rules, which means death as a punishment.

The Twists:

- It is established that the killing game is being broadcast worldwide in order to throw the world into despair. However, it turns out that the world has already been thrown into despair through "The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event In Human History" (or something like that, people usually just call it The Event, I call it The Incident because maybe the fan translation I originally played called it that, whatever, just call it That Thing That Happened, people will know what you mean) and is basically fucked, including air pollution that has made a large amount of the world uninhabitable, with the school building having an air purifier to counteract that.

- The students being locked into Hope's Peak Academy was not in fact the work of the mastermind, but rather, they were locked in voluntarily because of the aforementioned world fucking as part of a plan by the headmaster to ride things out and rebuild afterwards. However, they did not account for...

- ...two of the students to be locked up in the school - Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista, and Mukuro Ikusaba, the Ultimate Soldier, who are sisters - were actually the ones behind The Event. Not only that, but...

- ...the Junko Enoshima you see in the game isn't the real Junko, but rather Mukuro wearing a disguise.

- The real Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Despair, has extreme analytical capabilities that have left her basically able to predict practically everything. As a result, she has become bored with basically everything, to the point where she got bored with her own personality and developed several split personalities between which she switches at the drop of a hat. The only thing she still gets enjoyment from is despair, which makes people act in a much more unpredictable way. This has warped her perception to the point where she has gone basically insane and seems to get sexual gratification from feeling despair. While she would be able to craft a plan which has no chance of failing, she actually works a way for her plan to fail into it just so she can feel the despair when her plan does fail.

The End:

Ultimately, Junko's plan does fail as Makoto rallies everybody around the power of hope, and she ends up executed herself. After Junko is executed, the surviving students - Makoto, Byakuya, Toko, Aoi, Kyoko and Yasuhiro - leave the school and head into an unsure future, knowing that while they don't know what will come, they have the hope to proceed.

So, that's what I would consider a basic rundown of DR1. If I forgot something or made an error, please let me know. I of course still recognize that I am an eternal fuckup.