Follow TV Tropes


Recap / Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Go To

    open/close all folders 

    Prologue - Ultimate Revival 
Our protagonist, Kaede Akamatsu, wakes up wearing a regular school uniform in an empty classroom, along with Shuichi Saihara. They both remember being kidnapped by men with vans but are confused as to why they were inside lockers. Their pondering is cut short by a raging mecha chasing them to the gym where 14 other students are gathering. The students are panicked and confused, with the exception of Amami Rantarou, who seems unusually calm. The five mechas, known as Exisals, turn out to be piloted by five Monokuma Cubs (Monotarou, Monofanny, Monodam, Monosuke and Monokid) who ask whether the students remember their talents. When they say no, the Cubs discuss that the mind-altering procedure is not correctly done and they haven't received their first memories yet, and blame something called the "SHSL hunt". Kaede seems to recognize the term "Monokuma" but is cut off before any details can be revealed. The Monokuma Cubs decide to give the students their signature clothes before using a "remembering light" to make them remember their talents, and the prologue restarts.

The events are then replayed, with no one recalling their initial encounters and with no idea of what a Monokuma is or any knowledge of being kidnapped. This time Kaede is more confident in who she is and goes around introducing herself as the Super High-School Level Pianist to everyone else, who are also wearing new clothes and claiming they are SHSL Students, with the exception of Amami, who cannot remember his talent. Akamatsu leaves the main door of the school only to find that the entire area is trapped under a huge cage. The Cubs gather everyone in the gym, where we are introduced to Monokuma, their so-called father, who claims to be the headmaster of the Gifted Inmate Academy. Monokuma introduces the killing game, where one must commit murder without being found out in a class trial to escape, encourages the students to kill, then leaves them to it.

    Chapter 1 - My Class Trial Our Class Trial 
After Monokuma leaves, the students enter an underground area Gonta found that the students believe could possibly an exit. They find a path called "Deathroad of Despair", a gauntlet that exhausts and hurts those who take it, and after many attempts everyone gives up, most of them blaming Akamatsu for pushing them so hard to get through, although some such as Momota Kaito stand up for her.

The next day everyone gathers in the cafeteria. Oma Kokichi blames the others for bullying Akamatsu, inciting more argument. Depressed and blaming herself, Akamatsu retreats to her room for the rest of the day. Later, Monokuma returns, now with a motive to murder - whoever murders first will be allowed to graduate with no class trial. After giving the motive, Momota snaps at Monokuma, claiming that no-one would be willing to commit murder. Monokuma allows the Monotarou to use his Exisal to make an example of Kaito, but he fails and accidentally crushes Monokuma. Believing that Monokuma is dead, the students celebrate.

Later, Saihara Shuichi comes to find Akamatsu, saying he wants to show her something. He shows her a hidden door he found in the library which is opened by keycard, and proves the card slider has been used with his detective skills. Next breakfast comes fast, and Monokuma reappears, showing that he has as many copies of his body that he needs, and tells them an additional motive: If no murder is committed before 2 days are up, the school will be flooded with Monokumas, killing everybody. Amami mentions the SHSL Hunts, but no-one knows what he's talking about.

Back with Saihara, he suspects that the one who controls Monokuma, the Ringleader, is one of the students. He also notes the wording of the rules means that the Ringleader would need to give the order to create the Monokuma army from somewhere inside the school and tries to build a trap in order to catch the Ringleader while they enter the secret room to do so. He asked Akamatsu to help him, and the pair convince Miu Iruma to build motion activated cameras and an alarm system in her newly opened "Laboratory", which is a workshop.

On the final day of the time limit, Amami claims that he has a plan to capture the mastermind before heading off on his own. Akamatsu and Saihara set up their trap in the library before moving to a room upstairs. Saihara reveals his backstory, where he solved a murder case before the police did and became a SHSL student. However, seeing the hateful eyes of the culrpit scared him so much that wears a hat to avoid eye contact, and learning the culprit's backstory leads him to fear revealing the truth. Akamatsu reassures him that he was only doing what a detective was meant to do.

They see multiple students walking past their room towards the basement. Soon after the alarm rings. When they arrive at the library, they discover the hidden door swinging shut and Amami Rantarou dead. After everyone arrives, Monokuma asks the culprit to step forwards, however no-one claims the kill, so the students progress to a class trial anyway. Akamatsu accuses Shirogane Tsumigi of possibly using her cosplay ability to disguise herself as the other students. She proves to her this is impossible as she is allergic to cosplaying non-fiction, coming out in a rash from wearing Akamatsu's clothes.

The trial soon begins soon after. Saihara is quiet and nervous throughout the trial, and eventually everyone gangs up against Saihara because all of the evidence points to him. Too quiet to defend himself, Saihara is defended by Akamatsu via her lying. After Akamatsu successfully manages to clear Saihara’s name with the assistance of Kiibo, Momota, Gonta Gokuhara, and Toujou Kirumi, everyone begins to panic due to not knowing who could’ve committed the crime. Surprisingly, Kaede then claims she’s known the culprit all along and reveals herself as an Unreliable Narrator, after which Shuichi, who had been silent due to knowing who the true culprit is and being too afraid to say it, takes over the case to reveal the true killer - Akamatsu Kaede herself, the only one who could have set up the trap used to kill Amami. She decided to not come forwards as the culprit because she wanted to atone for killing a friend, and didn't want to leave the others behind. Additionally, she wanted to help Saihara with his fear, as well as attempt to find the Ringleader in the class trial.

Kaede is found as the culprit and Kaito, Gonta and Tenko Chabashira, refusing to believe she wanted to really murder, try to defend her against Monokuma only for her to be executed willingly, entrusting her hope to the rest of the cast. Monodam uses Akamatsu's execution to murder Monokid. After the execution, Momota starts yelling at Saihara for breaking down as he is the one Akamatsu entrusted her will to, and punches him before asking him to come to Akamatsu's Laboratory and grieve properly. Here, he sees her piano and remembers that she told him to not fear the truth.


    Chapter 2 - A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell 
In the outside world, we see a memorial taking place for Akamatsu, with people saying she died in an accident while running away from "those guys". We also see Gonta discovering random letters written on the ground.

Saihara, the new player character, is woken up by Momota who takes him to the cafeteria. Saihara has stopped wearing his hat. In the cafeteria the Monokuma kids give the students a collection of items which must be used to open up new areas, including several student Laboratories. Harukawa Maki refuses to let the others inside hers. The students find another Remembering Light and activate it in the gym, recalling memories of themselves running from the SHSL Hunt. In order to save themselves, each one of them erased their memories of their talents. However, no one can remember any more details. Saihara tries to force himself to remember, and recalls a cryptic memory of himself with the memory erasing device, saying "I... don't really want to live. I want to die... like everyone else". Everyone laments about not asking Amami about the SHSL Hunt.

The Monokuma cubs drop off the next motive in everyone's room - a video for each student as an incentive for the murder, but Monotarou misplaces them and most of the students are each given another student's video. Saihara is given Momota's video, revealing that Monokuma has his grandparents. They decide that if no-one returns the motive videos, there is no motive for murder - however Iruma, Ryoma Hoshi and Ouma want everyone to exchange videos to the correct owners. Hoshi's reason is that he wants someone to kill him because as he is on death row he has nothing to live for. Ouma reveals that the reason he tries to stop people from cooperating is that behaving optimistic makes Monokuma far more likely to mess with everyone. Kirumi reprimands him for causing chaos and uses her talent to help the other students, acting as a maid for everyone. Ouma leaves, but asks Gonta to come with him.

This evening, Momota summons Saihara and insists on doing astronaut training with him, and talks to him about Akamatsu. Seeing as Akamatsu entrusted her will to Saihara, Momota decides to take him under his wing and guide Saihara into becoming a man worthy of her will. The evening training becomes a regular thing.

The next day, Angie has managed to convert Himiko to her religion, prompting Tenko, who is protective of Himiko, to call her a brainwasher. Angie has decided to show everyone that living in the school forever is the best choice, and to show them how great their lives can be, has teamed up with Himiko to put on a magic show. Later, Gonta starts rounding everyone up for an unknown reason, although Hoshi evades him. Gonta brings everyone to his lab, where we find out that Ouma lied to Gonta that everyone hated insects, so he would capture everyone and Ouma could steal their motive videos. Toujou is permitted to leave as she is too busy, and Gonta fails to capture Iruma and Maki. Ki-bo is able to use his reccording features to convince Gonta that Ouma was lying, and the motive videos are retrived, but not before Ouma watches them.

The Magic show is here, and Himiko's trick is escaping from a tank of water before piranhas are dropped in with her. The trick seemingly fails and the other students panic for Himiko's safety. The piranhas are dropped, the curtain is pulled, and Ryoma is found dead inside the tank before he's devoured by the piranhas. Afterward, Himiko reappears, making her one of the primary suspects.

The students start investigating, questioning how Ryoma could have gotten in the water tank. Himiko refuses to reveal how she did her trick, insisting that it was real magic. Inside his research room, within the door that he claimed was a shower room, there's a second research room for his secondary title, the Ultimate Prisoner. Determining that Ryoma was drowned in the cellblock's sink, Shuichi is still blanking on the real culprit.

The trial begins with Shuichi still doubting his investigation. In the trial Himiko is initially suspected and Ouma goes after her to remove her as an obvious suspect, prompting Tenko to defend her. Tenko declares that she will always trust Himiko, even when Angie suspects her, causing Himiko to warm up to Tenko. Saihara is able to defend her by revealing the trick to her magic.

The trial moves into a debate between the only suspects Maki and Momota, where Momota declares he trusts Maki and doesn't believe either of them did it. Maki then reveals crucial information she was hiding to avoid suspicion - that Hoshi was killed at a different time frame everyone than everyone expected. After a long and tough battle, Shuichi begrudgingly accuses Kirumi of the murder as she was the only one able to set up the mechanism that moved the body. Kirumi gives her backstory and explains that she was the only one given her original motive video. She turns out to be the prime minister of Japan, despite officially being the personal assistant to a fake one, who fights against a calamity rampaging around the world. Believing the contents of the video and pushed by her love for the people, she was determined to escape no matter what. She approached Hoshi about the plan, and in a moment of weakness Hoshi allowed her to kill him by turning his back to her because in his video, which Maki recived and told him about, he was shown that he had no-one to live for.

Multiple students ask to be executed in her place. Saihara is once again horrified that exposing the truth had caused tragedy. Toujou riles up everyone to revolt against Monokuma for her sake while she escapes. However, Ouma points her out, and she runs away with no cover. She refuses to give up on her will of living and tries to run away from the courtroom, but that doesn’t stop Monokuma, who executes her painfully anyway. Monodam uses this execution to murder Monosuke.

The loss of the reliable maid shatters the students morale, but Ouma is still suspicious of Maki's involvement in the case. He prods Maki that he had seen her video and she, no longer able to control her rage, strangles Kokichi in front of everyone. Kokichi accuses Maki of arranging Ryoma's death for finding out what he himself had found out within the video; that Maki is actually the Ultimate Assassin.

    Chapter 3 - Transfer Student From Beyond the Grave 
The introduction screen to the chapter is a news show in the outside world. It shows images of a huge meteor shower.

Pressured by everyone, Maki begrudgingly reveals her research lab and confirms Kokichi's accusations. Everyone is frightened by the fact that a confirmed murderer is among them, but there's still a more important issue. Kirumi's recollection about the situation in the outside world and their own returning memories make the students question just what is going on outside the Gifted Prisoners Academy. In the meantime, a new floor opens up, revealing Shinguuji's and Angie's laboratories, and Iruma decides to make modifications to Ki-bo. They also find a computer room, which contains a device that runs the Neo World Program. Another remebering light is found, and everyone besides Maki uses it to see an image of a group funeral for the 16 characters. Momota begins bringing Maki to evening training.

Angie comforts the despairing students with the conformity of her religion and decides that they should just live inside the school in harmony. Angie forms a Student Council consisting of Himiko, Tenko, Gonta, Shinguuji, and Ki-bo. Those who agree and disagree with her argue about the right thing to do and the tension is very high among the students.

Monodam appears and presents the new motive - one of the 4 dead students will be revived and added as a transfer student using the curse book from Shinguuji's lab. Shinguuji insists that reviving the dead is impossible, but Angie and her cult decide to try it out. Using her skills as both an artist and religious fanatic, Angie manages to make sculptures of everyone who had died and plans on reviving Rantarou Amami with the ritual provided. She chose Amami to be ressurected because he was the only to never murder in the past and therefore the most likely to keep the school's harmony. Fearing for the worst and for Himiko's sanity, Tenko pleads Shuichi to talk sense to Angie. It fails and they instead plan to disturb the ritual stealthily, only to find Angie had died inside her locked research room.

Panicking that another murder has happened, the students accept Korekiyo's idea to go through with a spirit communication ritual to ask Angie's spirit who had murdered her. Himiko volunteers to be the medium, but Tenko convinces her to take her place so that Himiko can talk to her dead friend. Tenko then tells Himiko that she doesn't have to contain her feelings, and that if she wants to cry, she should cry as hard as she can. Tenko then puts herself inside the cage as the ritual demands, with Korekiyo, Himiko, Kokichi, and Shuichi surrounding the cage and singing the ritual's chant in darkness. A loud sound is heard in the middle of the ritual and Tenko is found dead inside the cage, with Himiko collapsing in shock when they find her.

With two murders happening and no clue who committed them, Monokuma announces that if there are two murders with different culprits, only the first body to be discovered is counted. The trial begins but the discussion is stuck after solving Angie's locked room trick. Kokichi mocks Himiko, who is upset that no one is talking about Tenko's case. He tells her it is not only irrelevant towards capturing the culprit, it is also set up to look like a suicide. Encouraged to prove him wrong, Himiko then turns the discussion into the method of Tenko's death, and the debate is concluded with Korekiyo's guilt not only for Tenko's death but also Angie's death, who had caught him setting up the trap that killed Tenko.

Korekiyo breaks under the pressure, and his sister comes to his aid as his split personality. He admits that he had never believed the ritual would work and only did it for his own motive independent from Monokuma's; that he wants to send 100 'admirable friends' to be with his dead sister. Emotionally exhausted from the loss of her two friends, Himiko cries herself to sleep in the middle of the courtroom. Meanwhile, Kaito hides from everyone the fact that his sickness is not because of his fear of ghosts but because he's already dying, muttering over and over that he's not going to die inside the academy.

    Chapter 4 - Live and Let The Languid World Live 
The chapter starts with a video of Rantarou speaking to an unknown audience. He speaks of the most important rule of the killing game; that the game will only end when there’s only two survivors left. He also says to the audience that they had wished for this killing game. Meanwhile, Kokichi is talking with Monokuma about making the game more interesting by asking the mascot’s favor. Monokuma agrees with his plan.

At the morning meeting, the memory given to them by Monokuma is about the calamity that have fallen on Earth; asteroid rain and general chaos have damaged the society. There was an operation to save humanity called the Gopher Plan, but for some reason it failed and as the result the students were locked inside the Gifted Inmates. Gonta gathers everyone so he can inform them of his plan. He wants to fight the remaining Exisals so the students can escape the school. Everyone dissuade him and Miu claims she already had plan for escaping. They decide to let her show her plan. She plans on fleeing with everyone to a world without Monokuma and the killing game. It turns out, Miu had modified the virtual world into a world where there’s nothing that can cause violence. Those who disgree with her plan are enticed by the possibility of finding a clue about the outside world.

The world turns out very small and limited, so they just focusing on finding the clue. The group is separated after Miu is knocking off the plank they used to cross the river. Baffled by her strange behavior, they try to find a way to regroup. They succeed and find Miu’s avatar lied in snow and stop moving. The students log out of the program and find Miu has died clutching at her neck. Not only that, they also find a poison vial in Kokichi’s seat and Kaito had log out first long before the murder. With that, it is assumpted that Kaito killed Miu and tried to pin the murder to Kokichi.

The trial discussion is concluded with the reveal that Miu had modified the virtual world to murder Kokichi and pin it on Kaito. Knowing that Miu had requested to meet Kokichi, the students demand Kokichi to recount what was happening in that meeting. He agrees and blatantly points at Gonta as the culprit. Unable to believe him, Kaito and Tsumugi denounces Kokichi as a liar and a murderer. But Shuichi, who notices descrepancies in their logic and Gonta’s inability to defend his case, clashes with everyone and affirms Kokichi’s testominy as the truth. Gonta is voted the culprit without knowing his reason of committing the murder.

The trial ends without satisfaction, so Monokuma brings Gonta’s Alter Ego avatar as a witness. He admits of killing Miu because of the sight of the outside world from the Remembering Light Monokuma left inside the program had made him despaired. He and Kokichi then planned to kill everyone from a wrong vote as a Mercy Kill to save them from the fate of living in either the school or the outside world. Listening to the Alter Ego, Gonta willingy gets executed and rejects Kokichi's proposal of being executed along with him.

Everyone demand Kokichi to tell them about the outside world. But he refuse and instead rants about how they are fooled by his fake crying and insults Gonta for believing the liar’s plan. The students condemn Kokichi as a villain and Kaito attacks him, but he easily counters. The strain causes Kaito to cough out blood, worrying the others and allowing Kokichi to flee the scene. Kaito brushes off their concern and leave on his own. Meanwhile, Kokichi mutters to himself that he will end the killing game soon as the school’s stone tablet shows its full massage, “This world is Kokichi Ouma’s”

    Chapter 5 - Voyage Without Passion or Purpose 
The chapter starts with Kaito claiming that he’s healthy. The students talk about how they want to get a doctor to check on him, but it instead makes them remember about Gonta’s despair. The memory of the class trial also reminds them of Kokichi, who they haven’t seen since then. Monokuma drops by and opens up the next floor. The students decide to check it.

They find Kaito’s research lab within the floor. Inside, they find a document detailing about the Gopher Plan. As the world has faced its complete destruction from the meteor shower, an operation to save humanity was enacted. The government would collect the Ultimates and send them to space so they would survive Earth’s destruction and make new start of the humanity on other habitable planets. This document gives an evidence of Gonta’s vision from the Remembering Light.

Monokuma’s Exisal hangar is filled with his weaponries but little else. With no Monokuma Cubs to pilot them, the Exisals are just laying around to waste. In another door inside the garage, there’s a bathroom which is a strange addition if the one who get inside the garage are Monokuma and his Cubs. Shuichi takes it as a sign of the existence of a human mastermind behind Monokuma. Meanwhile, in another part of the floor, Shuichi finds Rantaro’s research lab but Monokuma says the door is locked because the owner is dead before he can find it. The students do not find any Remembering Light in that floor.

At the nighttime, Maki calls on Shuichi, saying that Kaito has find certain fascination to her weapons. He claims that he has a plan to save them all. At breakfast, Kaito announces his plan; fight against Monokuma by arming themselves with Maki’s weapons as there’s no longer Exisals to enforce the rules. With Monokuma weakened, Kaito is confident that they can win. They gather in the gym to prepare for their assault but Kokichi is there carrying his own weapons.

Immediately noticing hostility, Kokichi threatens everyone with a bomb he carries. He decides that he will play the killing game until there’s only two survivors, claims that he will use the bomb on everyone except for one other person who wishes to follow him. When no one steps forward, he applauds their determination and says that the plan is just a lie. The bomb is actually an EMP bomb that will simply deactivating electronic devices for a certain amount of time. Instead, he gives the other students hammers, also capable of emitting EMP waves, as weapon to fight against Monokuma. He says that the bomb and the hammers are made by Miu on his suggestion.

Maki suspects Kokichi’s intention and strangles him, but Kaito stops her for murdering him. As a sign of his goodwill, Kokichi leaves the weapons so he will not cause any further suspicion and exiles himself. The students decides to use the weapon to disable Despair Deathroad’s many traps and obstacles. Passing through the gauntlet, the students find the supposed exit. The door opens and they see the glimpse of the hellish outside world. They forced to retreat because of the extremely polluted air.

Kokichi comes to their side and explain the state of the world. The world’s destruction was causing the government to enact the Gopher Plan, while a doomsday cult claimed the calamity was a punishment from God and they hunted the Ultimates for their priviledge of surviving the calamity. Meanwhile, the students were disagreeing with the notion of leaving their friends and family behind and mindwiped themselves out of their talents so they can no longer be considered Ultimates. The government disagreed with the students and executed the plan anyway by capturing them and undoing the mindwipe except for the knowledge of the Gopher Plan. But the cult leader smuggled himself amids of the students and flew the Gopher back to the destroyed Earth. Kokichi then boldly claims that he’s said cult leader.

Kaito attempts to attack Kokichi, but he’s protected by the Exisals. He says that seeing the despair the sight of the outside world had gave the students is enough of an entertainment. He abducts Kaito and locks him inside Monokuma’s garage before leaving.

Shuichi who has lost his will wakes up to Maki calling out for him. She had found a Remembering Light and it gives them a glimpse of the battle between the government (Future Foundation) and the cult (Remnants of Despair). The organizer of the Gopher Plan was the Hope’s Peak Academy and the sight of hope entrusted to them is giving the students a motivation to fight against despair and save Kaito. They busted the hangar door with Miu’s hammer, only to find someone had died squished under the hydraulic press inside the garage. The identity of the victim is unknown, and with Kaito and Kokichi cannot be found, the remaining students enter the class trial even more clueless than previous cases.

The class trial starts and an Exisal enters the courtroom speaking like both Kaito and Kokichi, adding the confusion over who the victim was. In the entire trial, Maki keeps pushing vote toward Kokichi with Kaito as the victim but Shuichi convinces her to believe in the truth beyond lie as the only hope. She admits of attacking Kokichi with poisonous arrow because of the memory of Kokichi as the leader of the Remnants of Despair convinced her to sacrifice herself killing the mastermind. But when she came to the hangar, Kaito had already shot Kokichi with an arrow of his own. Using this opportunity, Maki shot him with torture poison to interrogate him about the Remnants of Despair, but Kokichi’s insistent of ignorance made her giving up of knowing the truth and she shot him with the lethal poison. Kaito blocks the arrow and Maki run off to get him the antidote. Kokichi stole the antidote and drank it himself, thus Maki is the culprit of Kaito’s murder.

Shuichi refuses to vote because he thinks there’s still more to truth to uncover. Monokuma interrupts the proceeding because he himself doesn’t know who the culprit is, thus it confirms one suspicion about the case; why Monokuma doesn’t know Kokichi’s position in the trial if he controls Monokuma? By this logic, there’s no way Kokichi is the ringleader, and his true intention is render the game null and void via a wrong verdict. Under that assumption, the deception is that Kokichi is the victim destroyed under the press and Kaito is the culprit.

Maki refuses to believe that Kaito is the culprit but rebuked by Shuichi. Shuichi attempts to play Kokichi’s game by trapping Monokuma to choose the wrong culprit and execute himself, but Monokuma is stubbornly staunch so Kaito has no choice but to reveal himself. Kaito reveals that Kokichi has already predicted that Maki will attempt to kill him because the ringleaser had pulled some string to convince her of a possible motive, in this the Remembering Light. Kaito had to kill Kokichi because he had already been poisoned and that would make Maki the culprit. He also supports Kokichi’s plan because he believes the plan will bring the survivors closer to the real truth.

Kaito willingly walks to his execution but the others are ready to fight against Monokuma to prevent it. Monokuma turns out had already revived his Cubs and they again pilot the Exisals now that Kokichi is no longer there to control them. Kaito prevents them from throwing their lives and gets executed, but he dies from his disease before the execution kills him, leaving Monokuma seething that his game is ruined. Shuichi declares that the killing game is over but Monokuma disagree and flashes them with the Remembering Light. They see the glimpse of Junko Enoshima taunting that despair will always exist.

Ki-bo, who lost his ahoge from protecting the other of Kaito’s execution, ponders about hope and despair. With his ahoge gone, so does the voice that always advicing him within his head. No longer have anyone to turn to, he makes his own conclusion; that despair will indeed always exist but it doesn’t mean that they will lose to it. He concludes that he will destroy the very symbol of despair itself, the killing game, and he goes rampaging around the Gifted Inmate Academy as it is the setting of the killing game that has to be destroyed.

    Chapter 6 - Goodbye Danganronpa 
Ki-bo, Tsumugi Shirogane, Maki Harukawa, Himiko Yumeno and Shuichi Saihara are the only remaining students. After a long series of investigation, they discovered that Rantarou Amami was not killed by Kaede, but by the ringleader, and that they took advantage of Kaede’s ignorance of the true sequence of events to convict her of murder despite the fact Kaede miscalculated, which means Chapter 1 was a mistrial. It’s then revealed that Rantarou is the Ultimate Survivor, acquired his title by winning at least one previous mutual killing games.

Shuichi then points out that there was a way to kill Rantarou without being detected by the cameras, and soon is able to signal out Tsumugi as the true culprit and mastermind who orchestrated everything about the killing game. Tsumugi is easily-cornered and reveals herself to be the 53rd Junko and that the ‘V’ of ‘V3′ stands for 53rd. She then goes on to explain the metaplot of NDRV3: In the world of NDRV3, the three Danganronpa are nothing but works of fiction in a peaceful society, but the world grew obsessed for the concept of seeing various teenagers with incredible skills in one specific area murder each other for the sake of freedom, all to satisfy their boredom. Thus Team Danganronpa was formed to make a reality TV series of mutual killing game, and they were sponsored by wealthy private parties; the series's approval rating is nearly 100% due to the fact the audience has morally-grey standards and wants to see teenagers kill each other.

She then explains Rantarou’s title was awarded to him for surviving the 52nd installment of the series, but was forced to do so due to the final "execution" turning out to be "re-doing the killing game again" . Tsumugi then explains that everyone signed-up for the show willingly for their own selfish reasons, mostly their love for the Dangan Ronpa franchise. Shuichi, Kaede and Kaito’s audition tapes then play out, revealing Shuichi wanted to join Danganronpa to be first Super High School Level Detective to get away with committing murder with his detective skills; Kaede reveals she's actually not the all-trusting optimist she was in the game and Kaito reveals he wants to actually just win the game for fame and fortune.

Tsumugi then explains that the producers reassuring the participant it’s all fake, before wiping out all of their memories, inserting fake ones, essentially giving the talentless participants ‘Talent’ by pumping them full of fake memories, a fake background, and a fake Talent. The four of them then begin to freak out at the fact they were people turned into characters for entertainment. Tsumugi then explains that their entire reason for living is entirely fictional. They are fictional and living in the fictional world of Danganronpa. Tsumugi then shows a panel containing images of actual real people from the outside world, and claim those are real people, whose entertainment depends on whether the NDRV3 mutual killing game continues or not. Tsumugi goes on to claims that literally everything about the game was fake and scripted, even the death order and essentially revealing she had directly interfered with the entire cast, forcing them to kill sooner or later.

The three plans interfered with one another and Kaede dropped the metal ball through the vent, but it fell away from Rantarou after he had walked over to the camera to remove it, and since Kaede had ran out of the room, Tsumugi decided to use the opening to murder Rantarou with another metallic ball. Since Kaede had ran away, she genuinely believed she did indeed murder Rantarou, accepted her ‘Punishment’ without any regrets despite the fact she was completely innocent of the crime. After all that, she forces the remaining students to vote for either her (which ends the current game but stuck in the academy) or Ki-bo to end the game (with Ki-bo and Harukawa suffering the same fate as Amami while the game continues anew in another season). If there is no vote, everyone will die. No matter what they choose, Danganronpa will continue. They are unable to react, and give up hope. This becomes the bad end.

If the player keeps going, they now take control of Ki-bo under the guidance of the "audience." Ki-bo refuses to give up hope and after a long argument with Shuichi, Shuichi and everyone else ceases to give in to the world’s demand of more ‘Danganronpa’ and stops playing along, refusing to play the minigames and claiming that if the world wants a fight between ‘hope’ and ‘despair’ then he would give them neutrality, giving up their lives to do it. Ki-bo is then hacked by the wrathful audience and tries to force the remaining surviving cast to choose a side between hope and despair.

Tsumugi continue to try to press them, explains to Maki that she shouldn’t even feel feelings for Kaito because her romantic feelings for him were rigged from the very start, and heavily implies that all the romantic feelings between the cast members and dislike were implanted since the very beginning to make the show more entertaining. Lastly, even those that survive unable to turn back into their real selves, because overwritten memories can't be retrieved.

Eventually, after a long series of Theory Armaments between Shuichi and the Audience (through Ki-bo), there was no vote. Thanks to Shuichi's efforts, the audience and Ki-bo decide to put the Danganronpa franchise to an end. Ki-bo decided to blow up the the entire set the show took place in, and murdered Tsumugi by firing a building over her and letting a massive rock fall over her and crush her. However, the other three survived by either luck or Ki-bo's calculated destruction. With a smile, he then self-destructed, blowing a massive hole in the glass dome they were trapped in, allowing the three survivors to leave.

As the three survivors watch the light coming in from outside world, Shuichi stated that even though they were told that the entire Danganronpa 1 and Super Danganronpa 2 games were fiction in this world, he believes it is possible Tsumugi may have lied, as the fact they had the technology to brainwash them and give everyone fake memories and Talents to align with what they know of the Danganronpa. Regardless, he plans to see the truth for himself.



Example of: