Top 10 Best Students from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Danganronpa is a very good game, and a big part of this is thanks to the colourful assortment of characters that are all unique and mostly entertaining to hang around. This list won't include Monokuma simply because I find him to be very difficult to rank. Obvious spoilers below.This guy is extremely divisive among the fanbase, and I can see why. That said, I found most of his actions to be highly justified (chapter 2 not included for extremely obvious reasons). His overly cautious, distrustful nature comes off as being a jerk, but I also see it as highly logical.
He is one of the few characters that act as if plot armor doesn't exist and never does anything rash. I also love him for his gradual increase in warmth in the final chapters.
Byakuya was a lot more interesting than the rest of the cast. At the time, he really, really pissed me off, but now that I look back, he was such an exciting character. He really swayed the whole game and all of the trials by being just plain annoying. Sure, he's not as bad as Oma, but I loved him for the first game.
Okay, this guy is one of my favorite characters. The fact that he was so useful, even after dying, made him my favorite. Also, I absolutely love Sakura but couldn't vote for two people. The friendship she shared with Asahina was just so adorable, and just knowing she sacrificed herself for her friends...
I really love the pure innocence of Chihiro. It's a nice contrast from basically everything else in the game. His reason for cross-dressing is also one that I find interesting, yet sad.
My favorite thing about him, however, is how useful he was, even after death.
I like Celeste a fair bit for the simple reason that she was one of the few characters in the game who felt genuinely evil, or at least highly devious. While everyone else had their reasons for the killing, Celeste's was out of pure greed and nothing else. This was a nice change of pace compared to the normal characters who all greatly attempted to stop killing from happening.
I also love how she loses her accent through the 3rd trial.
Celeste was my favorite because her accent kept changing throughout the third trial. She had a poker face on the whole time, so no one would have guessed that out of everyone, she would be the one to snap. So I guess I like how unpredictable her character was.
To me, Hina is the sweetest of the group. While she doesn't do much, she keeps the morale of the group high.
Plus, I just love her personality, and the fact that she became friends with Sakura only makes her better.
While she doesn't do anything majorly significant, she provides the morale that the group needs to keep moving forward. She is always a highly trusting, kind person and always a joy to be around.
Hina, I feel like, needed a bit more development, but I still love her. Her relationship with Sakura was beautiful.
I personally never found Kyoko to be as amazing as everyone else seems to think. She's a great character for sure, but I don't find that she opened up enough to be considered interesting compared to some of the other people. That said, I do appreciate how intelligent she is and how she shows some weakness by the end of the game.
My main issue is regarding plot armor. The number of times she risked her life without care annoyed me because other people kept dying while doing little wrong. Junko targeted her for a great deal of time, and nothing bad ended up happening. Also, the ultimate detective thing was extremely easy to guess.
Taka was one of the first characters in media I saw that was autistic or autistic-coded and felt real - not overdone to genius levels or just called weird and quirky. As a high-functioning autistic person, I could understand and relate to him from the get-go. He also felt more real than any other character. From his expressions to his reactions to the others' deaths, his response to Mondo's death was extremely realistic.
While the rest of the characters just solved the case and moved on afterward, Taka went into a catatonic state after losing his first and only friend. That felt more real because you can't move on from death that quickly. His hatred of geniuses feels like a nice aversion to the autistic stereotype that we're all geniuses. Taka got to his level of smarts from hard work alone.
The only things that need improvement are that he should have lived, he shouldn't have been ignored by his class because, come on guys, Hifumi is not the only dead one here, and he's not the true victim. Lastly, some clarification on what Kiyondo Ishida is supposed to be would be helpful.
The major plot twist involving her was nothing short of mind-blowing, especially considering that she was one of the last people I would expect to be insane. She is unbelievably entertaining in the final chapter and takes insanity to a new level. Her change in personality every 5 seconds is also extremely unnerving in my opinion, and there is no doubt that she is extremely twisted in her actions, personality, and ideologies.
Let's pretend she wasn't in the second game, and then we can agree she's a good character.
Genocide Jill is one of my favorite comedic relief characters. When she revealed herself, it was so hilarious to think that someone like Toko could have such a crazy split personality.
She made the storyline less boring at the start because I would have never suspected that Genocide Jill would have been Toko, and I wouldn't have guessed that Byakuya knew too.
Mondo is an extremely underrated character who should get much more credit than he does. Sure, he killed one of the fan-favorite characters, but his reason was incredibly tragic. Spending any amount of time with him shows you just how nice this guy is.
Doing free time with him reveals what a good friend he is to people he likes. He was one of the few people to warm up to you from the start during FTEs rather than hiding things from you like the others usually did.
In the first chapter, there was no doubt in my mind that Toko was my least favorite character. Then Genocide Jack/Jill happened, and she instantly became amazing. Her split personality was a consistently funny occurrence throughout the entire game, and she honestly became more bearable after falling for Byakuya.
Her other personality, Genocide Jill, is also never anything short of amazing, as her insanity and full-on nature are really fun to watch.
I spent most of my free time events with two characters: Kyoko and Toko. She deserves more love. She is just so precious, and I love her.
The Newcomers
There are many reasons why I love Sakura. A big part of it comes from the fact that she is a very down-to-earth, caring person despite how scary she looks. She is happy to listen to others yet will be very intense and serious when needed.
My biggest reason for loving her is because of the 4th trial and the impact she made on the rest of the game. By sacrificing herself, she brought hope to everyone and stopped future distrust among everyone else.
I don't know why she's ranked this low. She's so interesting, and her free time events are great. When she sacrificed herself so everyone else could live, that was heartbreaking but so kind of her.
I like Makoto a lot and don't understand why people don't like him. He is kind and sweet and basically does everything during the class trials.
Even smarter characters like Byakuya don't do anything.
Why is he #16? He's the first ever protagonist in Danganronpa to say, "No! That's wrong!" every 3 seconds in a class trial (in a good way). He is also the most innocent character ever. He should be #1!
Makoto is great and underappreciated.
Despite the fact that she barely appeared at all, the imposter Junko was decent, and the backstory that we were given fleshes her out a bit more.
I just can't rank her higher due to the fact that you don't interact with her as her true self.
People need to give her more credit. I swear half the people who say Junko is their favorite character say so because of Mukuro Ikusaba being her.
I love Mukuro Ikusaba, and I can't believe that Junko killed her. She would be awesome if she was actually in Danganronpa.
Leon has the number 18 and his last name on his jersey when he plays baseball with his cousin Kanon.
He has the reaction we would all actually have if we were found guilty.
First off, he's unbelievably stupid. As well as this, he is one of the two characters that I liked less after the free time events. Before them, you simply see him as the world's biggest idiot, but after, you realize how greedy he is. That said, as a comic relief, I find him consistently funny, so props to him for making me laugh even when murder is occurring.
Stop giving him hate. I know he is stupid, but that's why I love him.
In her short time in the game, Sayaka left a surprising impact. I personally expected her to survive and be the one to do one of the final killings, but the result ended up being much more surprising because of my assumption. Her desperation as she screams to be let out is really disturbing.
Despite the fact that she tried framing Makoto, I still find that she was a well-made character. The only reason she isn't higher on my list is because she died extremely quickly.
This guy is fairly annoying. He feels stereotypical in basically every way. To top this off, he doesn't even develop as a character overall.
That said, his antics with both Celeste and Alter Ego were funny enough to keep me from strongly disliking him.
UNDERRATED! I know he was a stereotypical "weeb," but he was literally so adorable, and I loved him so much. I cried when he died.
He is the best. You can try to ignore it, but chances are it won't work.