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- Base Breaker: Hooo boy... one of the biggest examples is Sayaka Maizono.
- Broken Base: Chihiro's gender! On one hand, you had people who call Chihiro a guy as intended and get upset at people who called them by any other pronouns since the game explicitly explains why he was pretending to be a girl. Then there's the ones that see them as a trans girl for a multitude of reasons: Misaimed Fandom, Values Dissonance (with some thinking it would better if they were a trans girl, since his arc arguably doesn't translate well into Western viewpoints), some trans viewers really did see themselves in them, etc. There does exist a subcategory of the second one: that think the arc reeks of transphobia, seeing as Chihiro's gender reveal is written as unsettling. To say this topic is divisive among the fanbase is an understatement. Some have decided to use they/them pronouns for Chihiro, either to try and avoid conflict with either side or because they're conflicted on which side to be on.
- Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The "Monokuma Theater" segments at the end of each ordinary day. It's Monokuma giving speeches about topics that are seemingly irrelevant.
- Common Knowledge: No, Chihiro isn't a trans girl, they're a guy. In some dub only fan's defense though, Chihiro's english voice is done by a woman, unlike in Japanese dub, where he has a male VA and thus him being a boy has some foreshadowing.
- Complete Monster: Teen Idol Junko Enoshima turns out to be the mastermind behind the Big Bad Monokuma, a sadistic robotic teddy bear who's trapped Hope's Peak Accadamey in a deadly game designed to create Sanity Slippage that makes the students turn on each other and commit murder. When a murderer is found guilty, Monokuma gives him or her a twisted, torturous execution of his choosing, and throughout the game he relishes in twisting the knife in the cruelest ways possible For the Evulz. It turns out that not only is Monokuma just one of Junko's multiple personalities, but Junko caused the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident In The History Of Mankind which has turned the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland that she rules with an iron fist. A masochist and a sadist with a fetish for despair, Junko's goal is to not only bring despair to every student in the school, but to send the world into ultimate despair by broadcasting "the game" live for the rest of the world to see, forcing everyone to abandon all hope of overcoming despair. To make this happen, she murdered Chiaki Nanami, twisting the minds of her classmates into becoming Junko's loyal minions, before murdering the previous headmaster of the school, and also murdered her own twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba so she could pull a Twin Switch with her. And this is after she had abused Mukuro all her life, the sickest part being that she was unable to comprehend how Mukuro could not enjoy such despair-inducing treatment. Even after her demise, her influence lives on as an AI who cruelly sabotages the attempt to rehabilitate her minions, almost killing them to repeat the killing game. While Laughably Evil and able to change her persona at the drop of a hat (some of which don't even seem too evil and are capable of Pet the Dog behavior), the severity of Junko's actions are shown to be quite serious, and she feels no remorse for any of it. Her "true self" is a blank, empty person unable to feel anything but all-consuming malice and despair. How much of Junko's Complete Monster status is a result of a dementia that's beyond her control or how much of it was her own choosing and creation due to being a bad seed is left ambiguous. What's clear is that she's definitely bordering on this trope's territory since in all her appearances, she is focused only on making things go From Bad to Worse.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: Pretty much every track qualifies, as the music was done by Masafumi Takada (of No More Heroes and God Hand), but Monokuma's theme is consistently a fan favorite.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: If the Let's Play polls are anything to go by, Genocider Syo is very popular with fans. Sakura, too.
- Gundham Tanaka is very memorable with his chuunibyou mannerisms and how his aesthetic is hilariously at odds with his talent.
- Despite not having much of a role before he's killed off, Rantaro Amami was popular enough to get a spin-off manga about him. Miu and Kokichi are also quite popular.
- Fan Nickname: The people at Something Awful like to call Hifumi "goon", "supergoon", "ultragoon", and so-forth.
- The Masked Man has gained the nickname "Monoluchador".
- Magnificent Bastard:
- Junko Enoshima, known also as the Ultimate Despair, Ultimate Analyst, and Ultimate Fashionista, is a dangerously cunning and sadistic teenage girl who was the mastermind behind the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Disaster in Human History and the deadly "killing game" at Hopes Peak Academy, where she deceived and killed the headmaster in order to take over the school herself, wiping the memories of 15 Ultimate Students who had been her beloved classmates. Hoping to kill the very concept of hope and send the world into an eternal state of despair by broadcasting "the game" live, Junko controls the mechanical bear Monokuma in overseeing the game, providing any possible motive to drive a student to murder, twisting the knife in deeper by controlling how information is taken in during investigations and subtly needling the students into distrusting one another, and whenever a murderer is found guilty by his or her peers in a Class Trial, executing them in very inventive and often Black Comedy-filled ways. She'd also enjoyed a sado-masochistic relationship with her twin sister Mukuro, was a charming and appreciative lover to Mikan Tsumiki, and even won Hopes Peak's prized experimental Ultimate, Izuru Kamukura, over to her side as together they founded a secret network of Ultimate Despair that instigated the end of civilization and has been working to keep the world in its state of ruin. When it seems like the Ultimate Students are on the verge of triumph, Junko takes great glee in divulging the entire truth of their situation to them and showing them the apocalyptic state of the world in order to break their spirits and crush their hope, which she comes very close to succeeding at, and when hope prevails instead, Junko still gets a win by getting off on the despair she feels over having all her hard work and plans come tumbling down before dying on her own terms in the nastiest execution she could devise. Even after her own death, Junko left behind a failsafe in an AI duplicate of her own consciousness who schemed to copy itself into a Hive Mind and Take Over the World so that it may be forever filled with despair. Despite being an utter psychopath, Junko's Laughably Evil demeanor, magnetic charisma and ingenious intellect hiding beneath her Valley Girl diva exterior, and twisted yet sincere and empathetic love for her sister and friends to the point where she considers wanting to give them the cruelest despair possible to be a kindness to them makes her a character that many greatly admire and Love to Hate rather than flat out hate.
- Nagito Komaeda is the Ultimate Lucky Student, and a very cunning young man in addition to being Affably Evil and a Love Freak for the cause of hope. He believes that all bad luck is immediately followed by good luck, and that Hope will always triumph over Despair. A fan of using explosives to demolish buildings, as shown by the Despair Arc where he gets Ruruka, Sonosuke, and Seiko expelled from Hope's Peak Academy, Nagito is brainwashed by Junko Enoshima into being a member of the cult Ultimate Despair. His plans begin by setting up a clever murder plot, and abets the true killer of Byakuya Togami, so he can see whose hope shines brightest. Afterwards his fellow students see him as dangerous, and tie him up, but most like him to some degree. Throughout the game he becomes a great ally to Hajime Hinata, who although is wary of him, can't help but respect his intellect, with him having solved the murders long before Hajime. After finding out his friends are members of the Ultimate Despair, he starts to distrust and not like them, despite telling Hajime he likes and respects him as a friend. Setting up his own murder so only the traitor can survive, Nagito successfully weeds out the Future Foundation traitor amongst the class, Chiaki Nanami, who he takes a successful gamble on being the one to trigger his own self-orchestrated demise. Chiaki is subsequently executed in the Class Trial as a self-sacrifice, but this ends up having an effect of Hajime that ultimately allows him to finally overcome the despair within himself and thwart the Junko AI's ambitions, meaning that Nagito played a key role in the triumph of hope over despair after all. In the end, while Hajime doesn't quite understand Nagito, he agrees he's a useful ally and his death hits hard on everyone in spite of their shared personal dislike of him.
- Moe: In-universe, Chihiro, who has a sizable fanbase due to looking like a "small, frightened animal". Aoi and Sayaka are pretty huggable too. Only Aoi survives.
- Mikan, with her constantly apologising and being on the verge of bursting into tears all the time.
- If you don't find her annoying, Himiko can classify as this as well, being tiny, cute and not particularly bright.
- Nightmare Fuel: Monokuma's executions, while over-the-top and cartoonish, are also incredibly brutal. And it's implied that he ate Mondo's remains. They get more and more brutal as the series goes on.
- The Masked Man. My God, the Masked Man. Especially the fact that he practically appeared out of nowhere. And then there's her true identity...
- Speaking of The Masked Man's true identity, the real Junko is as hot as she is horrifying. Remember, this one woman brought the entire world into despair so she could lord over it
- Player Punch: If you got all of Chihiro's Free Time conversations, you'll tell him that Mondo is the strongest. Now skip to the second trial and feel like an asshole.
- Tear Jerker: The last part of the second trial. How bad is it when Kiyotaka, of all people, breaks down crying?
- Unpopular Popular Character: In the first game, the other characters find Ishimaru very annoying with his No Indoor Voice and obsession with rules and schedules and barely react when he's found dead., but in the fanbase he's very popular. Then in the second game you have Mikan, whom most of the other characters usually ignore, bully or talk down to (the exceptions being Ibuki and Hajime), but she's generally well-liked amongst fans who just want to give her a hug. And then in the third game, Miu was so popular she ended up being in fourth place in the popularity polls, right behind Shuichi, Kaede and Kokichi, but in-game Ki-bo is her Only Friend and her lack of social skills and constantly talking about sex annoys everyone else.
- The Scrappy: Plenty! For example a lot of people don't like Hifumi and Yasuhiro in the first game, Hiyoko, Teruteru, and Akane in the second, and Tenko, Angie, The Monokubs, Korekiyo, Tsumugi, and Shuichi in the third (though the latter's hatedom died down over time. But the award for the most despised character (not counting the anime [1]) easily goes to Haiji Towa from Ultra Despair Girls
- Alas, Poor Scrappy: People still felt bad when he died, though.
- Makoto also gets some flak for being a standard ordinary protagonist.