The series primarily surrounds various groups of apparent high-school students who are forced into murdering each other by a robotic teddy bear named Monokuma.

The cast is trapped for the rest of their lives in an establishment and the only way to return home is by killing another person and avoiding being found guilty during the class trials.

[4] The first game was ported to iOS and Android in August 2012, with new features such as retina display support, touch screen controls, and a new image gallery.

Daily Life follows a standard visual novel style as players explore the school grounds, converse with characters, and progress the story.

During designated "Free Time" sections, players can interact with a character of their choice, learning more about them through intimacy events and earning new skills that can help them in the Class Trial.

These sections are broken up by assorted minigames including spelling out clues, rhythmically fighting against suspects, and piecing together comic books depicting the case.

The former is a third-person shooter in which the protagonist, Komaru Naegi, uses a megaphone to issue commands at most of the electronic objects in-game, including Monokuma Robots and switches.

[19] The concept was similar to that of Danganronpa, a battle royale style death game in a closed environment between high school students, but the idea was too gruesome and was consequently scrapped.

[21] The first game in the series, titled Danganronpa: Kibō no Gakuen to Zetsubō no Kōkōsei, was produced by Yoshinori Terasawa, who was inspired by movies such as Saw and Cube.

In February 2014, Kodaka revealed on his Twitter account that the story of Danganronpa was inspired by the Sega Dreamcast game Illbleed, as he loved how "crazy" it was.

[36] With Killing Harmony completed, Kodaka claimed that he would take a break from the franchise in a similar fashion to the Back to the Future film series, which consists of three installments.

Although the game shares traits with Koushun Takami's 1999 novel Battle Royale, Kodaka aimed to provide different ideas when writing the script.

The characters experience despair while they are trapped in the school and Makoto provides more emotional support to the cast across the story, giving the actress a far more optimistic message that the students are going to survive.

In contrast to Makoto's heroic ideals of obtaining hope, Nagito instead embraces the idea of despair, believing that from any corrupted work the cast can find salvation.

This mostly manifested in the new gameplay elements in Killing Harmony as the player can enter hidden routes throughout the class trial by lying at a specific juncture.

Due to the poor popularity of outsourced games by the Western studio-like DmC: Devil May Cry or Dead Rising, Spike wanted the Danganronpa to remain true to its Japanese release, with Spike Chunsoft CEO Mitsutoshi Sakurai saying that Western fans seemed to embrace Japanese games like the Final Fantasy series.

Due to the premise involving mystery, NIS America was keeping clues and at the same making the Class Trials as challenging as the original ones from Japan.

The first adaptation, illustrated by Saku Toutani, was published in Enterbrain's Famitsu Comic Clear web magazine between June 24, 2011, and October 18, 2013, and is told from the perspective of the other students.

[54] The second, illustrated by Samurai Takashi and based on Danganronpa: The Animation, began serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace magazine from July 2013.

[56] The prequel, Danganronpa Zero, takes place in Hope's Peak Academy shortly before the events of "The Tragedy", following an anterograde amnesiac protagonist, Ryoko Otonashi, while detective Kyoko Kirigiri searches for its perpetrator, the mysterious Izuru Kamukura.

[citation needed] Monokuma appears in some downloadable content for Spike Chunsoft's role-playing game, Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars.

[77] The roguelike rhythm game Crypt of the Necrodancer features remixed music from the Danganronpa series, as well as character skins of Makoto Naegi, Monokuma, Monomi, Hajime Hinata, Junko Enoshima, Chiaki Nanami, Ibuki Mioda and Sayaka Maizono.

A stage play based on the anime Future Arc was made with InnocentSphere's Hideyuki Nishimori directing and writing the scripts.

[97] In Europe and the United States, combined sales of the first two games on PlayStation Vita, Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair, have surpassed 200,000 copies sold as of April 2015.

[104][105][106][107][108] A major praise in regards to the narrative are the twists revealed through class trial like Nagito Komaeda's true character in Goodbye Despair or Kaede Akamatsu's last action in Killing Harmony.

[112][107] The latest game, Killing Harmony, attracted divisive comments from fans due to its ending which involves the characters being aware of their fictional nature and the emotional catharisis they have suffered as a result of the series' popularity.

[113][114][115] The cast in general was well received with several of them often being the subject of cosplay based on their distinctive designs, with multiple favoriting Junko Enoshima and series' mascot Monokuma.

[116][117] The reveal in the first game of one characters' gender, who had been cross-dressing, received mixed reception from some critics, who called the discovery "a cheap plot device".

[126] In 2017, Famitsu readers voted Danganronpa among the top four adventure games of all time, along with Steins;Gate, 428: Shibuya Scramble and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

The survey also included the fact that Danganronpa is mostly popular within young adults despite the magazine claiming the game were created to appeal to older gamers.