The first game in the Danganronpa series is all about a group of students who are forced to kill each other by a Mastermind in the form of a talking bear named Monokuma. Only the student who is able to kill someone and avoid detection during a class trial will "graduate" from Hope's Peak Academy. Players take on the role of one of these students, Mokoto Naegi who is the Ultimate Lucky Student after winning a lottery to gain the ability to enroll in this prestigious Academy.

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Because death is the name of the game, Danganronpa games are loaded with death. The original Danganronpa game, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, quickly sets the tone for what's to come. For this list, we will only be focusing on who dies in Trigger Happy Havoc in chronological order. Major spoiler warning ahead for who dies in Trigger Happy Havoc.

Updated on March 18, 2022 by Michael Colwander: True to the nature of a mutual killing game, there have been a lot of deaths in the Danganronpa series. Sometimes, who dies in Danganronpa can be left a mystery to be revealed far later in the narrative. With Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc being the original game in the Danganronpa series, there's no shortage of deaths that occurred even before Makoto Naegi wakes up in Hope's Peak Academy. Two new entries were added to this list to reflect these noteworthy deaths.

12 The Tragedy At Hope's Peak Academy Was The Moment That Started It All

The event that kicked off the apocalyptic infestation of despair took place in a fifth-floor classroom at Hope's Peak Academy. Here, Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba enacted the Danganronpa series' first iteration of the mutual killing game. Junko sought to create a despair-inducing video in hopes to inspire rioting.

Provided with a motive, this class of former friends savagely murdered each other in a Battle Royale-like fashion until only one student remained. While "The Tragedy" itself isn't depicted in Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa fans were able to witness who dies in the anime Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy, and in what order these students die in. Players are able to visit this fateful classroom late in Trigger Happy Havoc.

11 Jin Kirigiri Is The First Death Players See

Jin Kirigiri before, during, and after his execution

At the start of Trigger Happy Havoc, we see an unknown man being executed by Monokuma. This man is tied up and blindfolded before becoming enclosed in a spaceship. The spaceship is launched into space before landing back on Earth. The spaceship opens to reveal the unknown man has perished and is nothing more than a pile of bones.

It is later revealed in Trigger Happy Havoc that this man is Jin Kirigiri, the Headmaster at Hope's Peak Academy. Jin is also the father of the Ultimate Detective Kyoko Kirigiri. Toward the end of Trigger Happy Havoc, Makoto and Kyoko would find Jin's bones in a gift box located in a hidden room.

10 Sayaka Maizono Is The First Member of Class 78th To Be Murdered

Sayaka Maizono from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Unfortunately, one of the first students who seemed like a friend to Mokoto was also the first one to die of Class 78th, but Sayaka had actually tried to set up Mokoto to take the blame for a murder that she was going to commit. After seeing videos of dark events happening outside of Hope's Peak Academy, Sayaka was motivated to leave the school, meaning she'd have to murder someone.

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To put her plan in action, Sayaka switched rooms with Mokoto, lured Leon to Mokoto's room, and planned to kill him so that she could escape and Makoto would take the fall. Leon suspected that an attack was coming though, so he killed Sayaka in the bathroom of Makoto's room, but Sayaka was still able to write her killer's name in blood on the wall before she died.

9 Mukuro Ikusaba, Disguised As Junko Enoshima, Is Killed For Breaking The Rules

Mukuro Ikusaba and her Junko disguise in Danganronpa

At the beginning of the game, Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista, isn't really Junko. In reality, the person that Makoto meets is actually Mukuro Ikusaba, who was Junko's older sister. Mukuro was known as the Ultimate Soldier and Junko frequently belittled Mukuro as they grew up together while Junko sought out despair.

To use her as an example for other students to not go against Monokuma, Junko had told Mukuro that she'd disguise herself as Junko and that Mukuro would pretend to disobey Monokuma. Then, Monokuma was supposed to keep Mukuro in a dungeon to scare the other students into obeying him. However, Junko took this opportunity to betray Mukuro by having Monokuma kill her by impaling her with spears.

8 Leon Kuwata Is Class 78th First Punished Killer

Leon Kuwata from Danganronpa

While Leon didn't seem like he planned on killing anyone at Hope's Peak, he still couldn't escape punishment after killing Sayaka. When Sayaka asked Leon to come to her room, she tried to kill him with a knife so that she could escape the school. After sensing danger and then seeing Sayaka come at him, Leon grabbed a sword in Mokoto's room and broke Sayaka's wrist with it.

This attack was clearly for self-defense, and he didn't kill Sayaka with the sword. However, when Sayaka escaped to the bathroom, Leon broke in and used her knife to stab and kill her. When it was revealed that he was Sayaka's killer at the class trial, Monokuma killed Leon by being hit with baseballs that flew out of a pitching machine to relate to his title as the Ultimate Baseball Star.

7 Chihiro Fujisaki Was Killed Because Of His Strength

Chihiro Fujisaki from Danganronpa

After facing harsh bullying and being told he was weak, Chihiro struggled with his own self-image as a young boy. He decided to start dressing like a girl so people wouldn't insult him anymore, but this led to Chihiro facing anxiety about what might happen if people learned about his past.

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Monokuma's strategy of motivating the students by threatening to reveal their secrets to the outside world actually motivated Chihiro to get stronger. He asked Mondo to help him train, and after revealing his secret, Mondo became angry and jealous about how easily Chihiro could reveal his secret and use it to motivate himself. Mondo's rage built until he eventually killed Chihiro with a dumbbell.

6 Mondo Owada Was Punished For Chihiro's Murder

Mondo Owada from Danganronpa

Mondo's look and reputation as the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader might make him seem pretty intimidating, but while he's at Hope's Peak, he's actually pretty easy to get along with. He came to the defense of other students often, which might be part of the reason why the reveal that he killed Chihiro might've shocked other students and some fans.

While he killed Chihiro out of jealousy and guilt about the secret Mondo was hiding about his brother's death, he still tried to keep Chihiro's secret safe by moving Chihiro's body to the girl's locker room. Ultimately, he couldn't hide his guilt about killing Chihiro during the class trial, and he was executed on a motorcycle in an electrocuted cage that turned him into "Mondo Butter."

5 Kiyotaka Ishimaru Was Killed During A Bizzare Sequence Of Events

Kiotaka Ishimaru from Danganronpa

As the Ultimate Moral Compass, Taka was very emotional about the reveal that Mondo had killed Chihiro and the execution that followed since Taka and Mondo were pretty close. Even after he became more lively again when his personality changed into a mix of himself and Mondo, naming himself "Kiyondo," he still couldn't escape from Celestia's plan to kill him and Hifumi.

Celestia convinced Hifumi to help her kill Taka. They lured Taka to a storage room with the promise of escaping the school and then hit him in the head with a large hammer labeled as "Justice Hammer #4." His body was later moved to the Repository, which added more confusion to the investigation.

4 Hifumi Yamada Was Likewise Manipulated And Ultimately Betrayed

Hifumi Yamada from Danganronpa

Despite being an accomplice for Taka's murder, Hifumi shouldn't have trusted Celestia, as she killed him with another hammer, following the "Justice Hammer" trend that pointed to "Robo Justice" being a killer. Before his death, Celestia convinced Hifumi to help her kill Taka and blame it on Hiro.

They knocked out Hiro and put him in the "Robo Justice" suit, took a picture with the suit to make it look like Hifumi had been captured, and then used fake blood to fake both Hifumi's attack in the library and his murder in the Nurse's Office. When everyone thought he was dead, he secretly moved Taka's body to the Repository, then Celestia hit him with a hammer. He initially seemed to be dead, but Hifumi held on long enough to speak to the other students about his death a little before he died.

3 Celestia Ludenberg Orchestrated The Killing Of Taka And Hifumi

Celestia Ludenberg from Danganronpa

Being the Ultimate Gambler, Celestia was always trying to make her dream of being wealthy a reality. So, when Monokuma offered the students 10 million dollars if they graduated after becoming the "blackened," she put her plans into action.

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She was able to convince Hifumi to kill Taka for her after telling him that Taka had harmed her and stolen the AI program Alter Ego, and that Taka would go after Hifumi too. After Hifumi did the majority of the legwork in murdering Taka, Celestia repaid Hifumi with a hammer to the head. She couldn't keep her poker face up forever during the class trial though, and her execution showed her standing on burning wood before being run over by a fire truck.

2 Sakura Ogami Committed Danganonpa's First Suicide

Sakura Ogami and Monokuma from Danganronpa

Sakura had been working for Monokuma as a spy at the beginning of the game, but as all the students got closer to each other, Sakura eventually fought Monokuma and refused to work with him anymore to protect her friends. Before she could tell them herself, Monokuma decided to tell the other students that Sakura had been a spy, making some students distrust her.

These reactions got more extreme to the point where Toko, as Genocide Jack, attacked Hina for defending Sakura. Feeling guilty about the attack on Hina and not wanting anyone else to see her friends get murdered, Sakura drank poison. She hoped that Monokuma would be satisfied that someone had died and that the investigation about her death would stall any more murders.

1 Junko Enoshima Finally Got A Taste Of Her Own Medicine

Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa

During the last trial, it's revealed that Junko has been the Mastermind since the beginning of the game and that the person who everyone thought was Junko before was actually her sister. After this reveal is shown, Junko loses a vote against the students about between ideas of hope and despair, as she had hoped she would break them all and make them only feel despair.

For losing the vote, Junko went through every punishment that other students had to go through when they were executed, ending with her and Monokuma being crushed and leaving behind a button that would unlock the school.

NEXT: Danganronpa: Who Created Monokuma? & 9 Other Questions About The Anime, Answered