Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei - The Animation

[Doppleganger]

Woop, I was about to post this in the wrong topic.

Episode 9!

Spoiler: show

It sucks that Alter Ego "died" but I'm skeptical he's really dead. As a program, he could have uploaded a copy of himself to the school computer system and dodged his lap-top body biting the dust. That said, I'm getting a tad bit bored/annoyed with all the Rube Goldberg-esque ways Monokuma executes characters.

A lot of new evidence came into the trial but it confirmed what I figured earlier...Sakura killed herself. What I didn't expect was that Hagakure and Syo tried to kill her but failed. :/ This leaves them very un-trustworthy and good targets for murder in the next trial. That's just so disappointing, that those two only got off on a technicality of actually not killing Sakura personally despite the intent. They're no better than the first killer, the baseball player. I'm shocked nobody except Asahina reacted badly to their behaviour.

Plot-hole, I guess? Syo and Fukawa don't share the same memory, but Fukawa saw Hagakure try to kill Sakura by bashing her head with a snow-globe...which was the same method Syo used. I dunno about other people, but I wouldn't imagine a snow-globe, even in a pin-point area, to be much good as a weapon.

We also have a name for the 16th student - Ikusaka Mukurou. I'm not sure if the student we saw in the first execution during the prologue was female though...might have been a male or at least in disguise. Recall that the luchador mask character who tried to kill Naegi didn't have any distinguishing features either, suggesting a woman (for those who know the other VN twist I'm referencing). I guess that character then could be Mukurou, who must be prowling the school at night. But why? If she's in league with Monokuma like Sakura was, most likely moreso, what is her role? She hasn't done anything thus far in the story and the whole school's already wired for surveillance.

[Talon87]

Episode 09: Over far too quickly.

Spoiler: show

So, the episode basically gives us Talon's theory -- Aoi did it, with or without Sakura's help -- and then reveals that it was really Doppel's theory -- Sakura acted all on her own. I'm fine with this since (like I wrote last week) Doppel's theory and my theory were like 80% identical anyway (given I assumed Sakura was complicit in her death; I never once doubted that she was responsible herself for barring the door), but like I wrote last week:

Originally Posted by Talon87

5. When Sakura went missing, this is what happened:

1. Naegi had absolutely no clue she had gone missing.
2. Kirigiri suddenly shows up out of breath.
3. She escorts Naegi to the door. Aoi is standing in front of it.
4. One assumes that Aoi reported to Kirigiri that she had found Sakura behind the door.

Why wasn't this the natural order instead, were Sakura's death 100% unassisted suicide?

1. Sakura leaves a farewell letter for Aoi on Aoi's desk.
2. Sakura holes herself away in the room and kills herself.
3. Aoi finds the letter and rushes to try and stop Sakura but is too late.
4. She reports to Kirigiri what she's found.
5. Kirigiri gathers Naegi (and possibly others) and when they enter the room they expect to find that Sakura is already dead.

Why indeed, Past Talon. Why indeed. That's my one complaint with this plot arc: Aoi's actions seem incredibly strange in hindsight. It's clear why the writers had her do it: because having her act as one would expect a best friend to act upon finding to their horror that their friend just killed themselves would have given away that Aoi wasn't the culprit, and of course they wanted us to suspect that. But it feels like cheating. I have a hard time believing that, in real life, Aoi would not have shown Kyouko the letter (before Kyouko even went to fetch Naegi). Or that she wouldn't have tried to break into the room herself (the way Naegi did). But these complaints aside, I'm fine with the culprit having been 100% Sakura 0% Aoi. Let's move on.

Sadly, there's not much to move on to. ^^; The episode ends with only ~3 or 4 minutes of additional plot content. Basically it's divided into two parts. The first of these is the death of Alter Ego. The second is the revelation that there is in fact a sixteenth student in here and Kyouko knows his name.

Alter Ego's death was sad, sure, but of all the characters to die so far, that was the one I felt the least sad for since a) I'm more sad that the actual Fujisaki died, b) Alter Ego seemed like a sort of simple A.I. (like, she wasn't like Data on Star Trek), and c) I'd like to think that she's still alive thanks to the magic of digital data. Alive on the network, alive in some other computer, alive somewhere, somehow. I think the death of Alter Ego was more important for what it revealed about Monokuma, even though we all figured this from the beginning: he knew about Alter Ego and the secret room in the boy's bathroom on the 2nd Floor. (Or if he didn't before, then he sure found out thanks to them connecting Alter Ego to the school's network!)

The sixteenth student, Ikusaba Mukuro, is a bigger deal but there's not much we can say beyond pure speculation. Personally, my biggest suspicion is that he's Monokuma himself. (It's possible that Ikusaba has become a robot bear. It's also possible that Ikusaba is still a living human being and that he's controlling Monokuma remotely.) Beyond that, what can we speculate but that he's some hidden figure we've yet to see? Nah, my money's definitely on Monokuma. And if Ikusaba is in fact still alive in his human body (and if Monokuma is just something he controls remotely), $10 says he's hiding in the Data Processing Room that Kyouko and Naegi headed to at the end of the episode.

I guess one last bit of plot advancement we got was Sakura confirming that something has been done to their bodies. Whether they've been injected with some sort of magical serum that makes them immortal, whether they've been injected with something that makes them go back in time, whether they've been turned into cyborgs, whatever it is, I don't know. Them being robots seems sort of unlikely since we actually witness them dying from physical trauma (like Sayaka, like Leon, like Junko), but then again, it'd sort of fit with Monokuma's iconic red eye, with the look of the ending credits, and with how they could've been reliving this experience again and again and again. Anyway, whatever it is that's been done to their bodies, I'm sure we'll get a bit closer to solving that mystery next week.

[Doppleganger]

Oh yeah, that part I forgot to comment on!

Spoiler: show

Given how Naegi's in the credits, perhaps all the characters have indeed died before, and were brought back to life by Monokuma? That would explain the memory loss they've had. Perhaps they were all friends in life, died during the nuclear holocaust, and were brought back by Monokuma just to be terrorized and suffer for his own amusement.

There seems to be something special about Monokuma's eye too, as Talon noted. The luchador with the mask had it on his face, and Alter Ego's wrecking ball had that insignia as well. It must have special meaning or relevance to the story in some way.

[Talon87]

There's something that bugged me when I saw it and now as I look back over the scene it bugs me 10x more. Gotta comment on it as it could be minor but it could also be very, very big.

(Episode 09 spoilers)

Spoiler: show

Just how the hell did Kirigiri get into Naegi's bedroom anyway?

1. Unless Naegi is a perpetual idiot and/or naive sap, he has to have learned to start locking his door at night.
2. We were expressly told in the first episode that the doors don't seem to be pickable.
3. Naegi was clearly roused from his sleep while still flat on his back in bed. He was not roused by a knock on his door that he got up to answer. One minute he's asleep and the next minute there's our purple-haired mystery beauty standing right at his bedside.

So if Kyouko couldn't pick Naegi's door lock, and if Naegi didn't get up to answer the door, then the only possibilities are either:

1. you give Naegi too much credit, Talon. He is, in fact, a trusting naive fool who leaves his door unlocked at night.
2. Kyouko has some sort of special privilege or power.

It's gotta be either A or B. And if it's not A, then that leaves us with just B: Kyouko's either got some privilege from the game master to enter people's bedrooms without their permission or else she has some sort of power that enables her to do so even without his permission.

While I really really really doubt Kyouko is a ghost (as Dangan Ronpa has given us absolutely zero indication that this is a ghost story), I do sort of have to wonder: can she phase through walls? Because:

• she entered Naegi's bedroom, no sweat
• she found Alter Ego who was hidden inside of a locked shoe locker
• she found the hidden room in the boy's bathroom
• she presumably gained access to a room where she could ascertain the sixteenth student's name and presence

I dunno. Not really sure what to think any more on her. Like I said, this could just be a plot hole in the story and we're not meant to overanalyze it. But if it's not a plot hole, then I think it's a serious problem we have to address, this problem of Kyouko getting inside Naegi's bedroom even though it should have been locked.

[kaisap112]

Just for the heck of it: there's a café in Japan that's serving Dangan Ronpa food and drinks for a limited time. Orders come with coasters and stuff!

Originally found this on an English site, but that thing's comment section was littered with spoilers. u.u But basically those foods are stuff like squid ink curry, strawberry milk, blueberry pie with yoghurt ice cream (Kirigiri Cake Plate <3) and so on. Monobear's drink is sesame seeds and milk - no idea if that'd taste very good.

[Ex-Admiral Insane]

My thoughts and absurd theories on Dangaronpa:

Spoiler: show

I'm not sure if any of these have been posted before and if I'm merely copying others so feel free to ignore if I am.

I think the Amnesia Theory sounds most solid, possibly that's what Monobear has done to their bodies.

They either did know each other before and that's what's been swiped from their minds - Naegi and Maizone knew each other already beforehand. Or (as someone else here has said before - I think it was Talon) is that they entered the school, met each other, got along, took a few pictures and then got their memory swiped.

As for my last EA-Insane Theory. They might possibly all have killed someone (or have dealt with death before in their lives) before they went to this school and this is a weird competition of "Who's the best killer?" There's serial killer Genocider (Monobear seems to know the background of each of them and he stuck a serial killer in a murder game?), Kirigiri who in episode 8 said "I must have dealt with dead bodies before" or something like that (perhaps her amnesia went wrong and more of her memory got swiped than was meant to), Oowada who 'killed' his brother, Maizono's girlband which got disbanded with no reason given (as far as I can remember), Togami has knowledge on police profiles and is surprisingly lax about a known serial killer stalking him (minor one but worth adding) and Chihiro of which you could say he killed off his old persona by becoming a girl.
1. It could be because they were caught with the murder that they get another chance to perform a murder but this time they're not supposed to get caught (who else is best to figure out a whodunnit than others that have dunnit before as well).
2. It could also be because they're minors, death penalty isn't an exact option so they just put them all together; Live peacefully or kill each other off. Very Battle Royale and unlikely since Monobear has very few qualms about executing them.
3. Or the school was close to shutting down so they create a niche for themselves by being the only school that 'trains professional killers'.
4. Possibly any weird combination of the 3 above.

Mere thoughts that I thought I might share.

[deoxys]

Uh...

[Talon87]

That's pretty crazy to see Mondo's hairstyle in real life. But then again, your find reminds me of this:

[kaisap112]

Mondo Hair: I'm pretty sure the "biker gang" culture is what Mondo's hair is supposed to remind us of to begin with. (Note: for all I've learned, the Japanese biker gangs are super noisy teenagers trying hard to be badass - not exactly hardboiled criminals, but I may possibly be wrong here. Hence all the quote marks.)

Think I've also seen hair-gel made specifically to support those...lord, does that hairstyle have a name?

[Talon87]

The one that I posted is called a pompadour. Not sure if Mondo's has a specific name or not, though I wouldn't be surprised if it does.

[Doppleganger]

I got spoiled for this episode. I don't want to watch it anymore. I saw this week's ending card...

Spoiler: show

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!



Whyy??? ;_;

EVERYONE DIES? Is this going to be Higurashi or something?

Man that sucks. Sucks so bad!

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I got spoiled for this episode. I don't want to watch it anymore. I saw this week's ending card...

Spoiler: show

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!



Whyy??? ;_;

EVERYONE DIES? Is this going to be Higurashi or something?

Man that sucks. Sucks so bad!

That picture confuses me, for a number of reasons.

Aside: I learned that the ending is sung by Soraru, another nico nico singer I've heard of previously like Choucho. Funny how I'm becoming familiar with all these names now, and neat how they're breaking out into mainstream and producing original work. (I'm a nano fan now too after hearing her rendition of Just Be Friends; she sang the OP for BTOOOM! btw.) Apparently he even got famous through his Kagerou Days cover. (Though it's not that good IMO... Guy really does need autotune. ^^; )

[Doppleganger]

Spoiler: show

To be perfectly honest, I only saw Kirigiri the first time and feared she was murdered, and that's what all the boo-hoo was about. But then I noticed everyone else and had to collect myself. I might watch the episode now that there's some doubt that I'm not headed to http://everyonedies.tomino

[Talon87]

Episode 10:

Spoiler: show

Decent enough episode.

The mystery of Kyouko's ability to easily enter Naegi's bedroom in the middle of the night returns this week. Ikusaba Mukuro was also able to enter Naegi's bedroom no sweat. What's the deal? The fact that Kyouko can enter Naegi's bedroom with ease, frequently wanders off alone, and didn't seem too phased by Togami's request for the key to her bedroom all seem to suggest that she is either one of the game's organizers, possibly the principal himself/herself, or else enjoys a special privileged role in this game.

Why didn't Mukuro stab Naegi when he/she had the chance?

If we're playing number games with our sixteenth student ...

• Mukuro = 696 from muttsu 6 + ku 9 + roku 6
• Ikusaba = 5938 from itsutsu 5 + ku 9 + san 3 + voiced hachi 8

Not sure what this tells us, if anything, but it did jump out at me that his/her name might be intended as a number cipher given that his/her given name was provided in neither kanji (normal) nor katakana (common with fictional characters not given kanji name spellings).

If we're playing word games with his/her name instead, then ...

• 戦 ikusa means war or battle
• 刃 ba means blade, sword, or edge
• the connection between 刃 and 霧切響子 Miss Kirigiri Kyouko is somewhat unresistable
• ikusaba could also be a pun off of 戦場 "war place"
• mukuro itself means "a dead body; a corpse".

Again, not really sure if that's what's going on here or what, but I figured I'd point it out just in case. (I mean, I think it's clear that Kyouko and Mukuro have got to have at least some connection.)

I could've sworn that we were told in Episode 01 that this school's goings on were being broadcast to the nation. No? Did someone speculate it then maybe? Because I swear that the national TV thing didn't seem like new information at all, even though it clearly was given how much Monobear talked about it.

Monobear's "it's been two years" comment was clearly a clue, but I'm not certain about what.

The class photo at the end, showing everyone there, seems like another clue, but once again I'm not sure about what. It does seem to confirm, however, that 1) Mukuro was not included in the original class of fifteen, and 2) Kyouko was.

Too sleepy to remember or comment on anything else. Maybe tomorrow.

[kaisap112]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Episode 10:

Spoiler: show

If we're playing number games with our sixteenth student ...

• Mukuro = 696 from muttsu 6 + ku 9 + roku 6
• Ikusaba = 5938 from itsutsu 5 + ku 9 + san 3 + voiced hachi 8

Not sure what this tells us, if anything, but it did jump out at me that his/her name might be intended as a number cipher given that his/her given name was provided in neither kanji (normal) nor katakana (common with fictional characters not given kanji name spellings).

If we're playing word games with his/her name instead, then ...

• 戦 ikusa means war or battle
• 刃 ba means blade, sword, or edge
• the connection between 刃 and 霧切響子 Miss Kirigiri Kyouko is somewhat unresistable
• ikusaba could also be a pun off of 戦場 "war place"
• mukuro itself means "a dead body; a corpse".

Again, not really sure if that's what's going on here or what, but I figured I'd point it out just in case. (I mean, I think it's clear that Kyouko and Mukuro have got to have at least some connection.)

Japan loves its puns. I have to ask though...

Spoiler: show

Is it common practise in Japanese fiction to have characters with names like "a corpse" and other not-so-flattering-ones? Highly doubt I'd name my kid something like that.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

I could've sworn that we were told in Episode 01 that this school's goings on were being broadcast to the nation. No? Did someone speculate it then maybe? Because I swear that the national TV thing didn't seem like new information at all, even though it clearly was given how much Monobear talked about it.

We haven't been told anything of that before, no.

Spoiler: show

Monobear mentioned in one previous episode something along the lines of "we have to keep this game entertaining" with indications that it's not all solely for his amusement, but nothing has been said outright. Some people speculated in this thread that the cameras are for a TV-show purpose since episode 1/2, though.

I was weirded out by one line in this episode:

Spoiler: show

might be a translation error on part of HorribleSubs, whose version I watched first, but in it Togami said the classroom he found smelled like "blood and grease". Now, we see characters in fiction talk about the smell of blood all the time, but...grease? And maybe I haven't dealt with huge enough amounts of blood in my life, but I don't recall it ever smelling of anything, so the statement in general just baffles me.

[deoxys]

@Kaisa in regards to a translation in subbing

Spoiler: show

The sub I saw said it smelled of blood and fat. That weirded me out. I guess grease/fat are interchangeable?

@Dopple

Spoiler: show

The title card this week is strange. It shows everyone at the end. You're jumping to conclusions, buddy... ^_^;　

All in all good episode. Credit where it's due to last week's solution , you know who you are. Also have to credit the studio for doing a decent job in these past few episodes. Minor episode thoughts:

Spoiler: show

I thought Naegi's pinkie swear with Kyouko was adorable. Ahh waifu feels (ﾉ´∀｀*)

Togami seems to be acting nicer since Kirigiri called him out on his assholish behavior last episode. Maybe it's just me, I dunno.

Also Talon, what if Kirigiri simply followed Ikusaba Mukuro into Naegi's room? Don't know how Ikusaba got in but hey, that could explain it? And if not that, remember, Kyouko has that key from the Principal's office now anyway, so.

[Ex-Admiral Insane]

Episode 10 thoughts

Spoiler: show

I don't know. It seems a bit straightforward to say the 16th member was the one who got killed and just like that. I'm guessing the bomb was taken from Monobear to blow up the head or whatever before it could be identified. Which leads me to suspect that in reality, Ikusaba Mukuro is actually alive, looks like one of the others, killed that person and is currently impersonating him/her. My best guess would be Kirgiri since she disappears the most, has amnesia and wears gloves which would hide any symbol on her hands. Only problem with this theory is that Kirigiri dies which as we all know sounds very unlikely and most people want her to survive to the end together with Neagi. :LOL:
The other thing is that Monokuma set it up with a body of a previous dead student and a bomb just to hand over the key to the students. I mean he didn't seem like he was angry they found and entered the Data Processing Room so it could all be planned. In which case - no one dies and...that doesn't explain the classroom trial. (Actually, Monokuma is the killer then.)

[Red Panda]

Talon you're a genius.

Prediction/Clues I found in Episode 10.

Spoiler: show

When I saw how Talon translated the name, and one of them was corpse, I thought about how maybe that the body was a corpse. Or, an old corpse for that matter. One of the previous dead students. Monobear does remove the bodies, so he would have easy access. So, I took a look at what we could see about the body. The only real features were the nails and the boots. The nails are red. I'd post a picture but I dunno how to post them since it requires a url and they're on my computer and don't have a url blah blah blah. If someone tells me how I'll post them. But they're red. The boots are dark purple, similar to Kirigiri's. So, I went back to the first episode and scanned through it. Guess who had red nails and purple boots?

Junko Enoshima

Junko's purple boots can be seen on her in the intro part. I predict that Junko is the exploding body, not student 16. But, this arises another question. Why would Monobear say it was a dead body if Junko already died? We watched her get stabbed by spears. Maybe he doesn't know too, since he was inactive for that period of time. Now, this is just speculation, so I could very well be wrong. Thoughts?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by redpanda15

Talon you're a genius.

While I'd love to take credit for being a genius, the truth is that it's a fairly obvious clue planted by the game developers (and subsequently the animation staff) for anyone who understands Japanese norms in spelling to pick out.

(Episode 10 stuff)

Spoiler: show

Like I mentioned last time, the names of fictional characters are almost always written in either kanji or else in katakana. (And in real life, it's almost always kanji.) Only very rarely do you see a name written in hiragana, and it's usually for those Japanese names which lack proper kanji spellings (e.g. Yayoi). But like ...

• Ash's name in Japanese, Satoshi, is written as サトシ (katakana) and not さとし (hiragana) even though it's a Japanese native name, ordinarily 智 (or other various spellings)
• Naruto's name is written as ナルト (katakana) and not なると (hiragana) even though it's a Japanese native name, 鳴門 (the name of a strait famous for its whirlpools)
• The Xenosaga character Shion's name is written as シオン (katakana) and not しおん (hiragana)
• Suzumiya Haruhi's name is given as 涼宮ハルヒ (katakana for the given name) and not 涼宮春日 (straight kanji) or 涼宮はるひ (mixed kanji and hiragana)

So on and so forth. In fact, if you take a second look at the character names near the top of page 1 of this thread, you'll see that most of the Dangan Ronpa characters' names were provided in katakana. (Although, interestingly enough, this included their family names too, which isn't nearly as common to see katakanafied in fiction as given names.) So the fact that out of nowhere we get a Dangan Ronpa character's name in a mix of kanji and kana is bad enough, but the further fact that the given name is written in hiragana instead of katakana is just ... well, it's just something which catches anyone's attention if they're intimately aware of this Japanese spelling convention. So I can't really take credit for being a genius on this one. ^_^; I can just take credit for having seen a lot of Japanese names over the years.

Originally Posted by redpanda15

Prediction/Clues I found in Episode 10.

Spoiler: show

When I saw how Talon translated the name, and one of them was corpse, I thought about how maybe that the body was a corpse. Or, an old corpse for that matter. One of the previous dead students. Monobear does remove the bodies, so he would have easy access. So, I took a look at what we could see about the body. The only real features were the nails and the boots. The nails are red. I'd post a picture but I dunno how to post them since it requires a url and they're on my computer and don't have a url blah blah blah. If someone tells me how I'll post them. But they're red. The boots are dark purple, similar to Kirigiri's. So, I went back to the first episode and scanned through it. Guess who had red nails and purple boots?

Junko Enoshima

Junko's purple boots can be seen on her in the intro part. I predict that Junko is the exploding body, not student 16. But, this arises another question. Why would Monobear say it was a dead body if Junko already died? We watched her get stabbed by spears. Maybe he doesn't know too, since he was inactive for that period of time. Now, this is just speculation, so I could very well be wrong. Thoughts?

I'd noticed those as well last night and thought of the very same person you said but ...

(Episode 10 stuff)

Spoiler: show

... rejected the likelihood of Mukuro being Junko simply because it wouldn't make much sense for Monobear to be holding a trial for someone's murder if they were already killed ages ago. It also wouldn't make much sense for Kyouko (or anyone else) to have access to a room where Monobear keeps the dead bodies, which is something they'd have had to have had if they were to have gotten Junko's body and then dressed it up in that costume and made it look like she was the sixteenth student and died by stab wound to the gut.

That stated, if you're saying that the boots match too and not just the fingernails, then it sure does seem to be a bit more likely that the body they found in the botanical area was in fact Junko's.

One thing that bothers me about this week's episode is that Monobear didn't do his usual "BUN BUN BUN BUUUUUUUUUN! A corpse has been discovered!" until:

1. long after they'd found the body in the botanical garden, and
2. when none of them were currently anywhere near the body

In fact, it's not until Monobear informs Naegi and the others that there's to be a trial that he then says (on what has to have been a pre-recorded video) that a dead body's been found. This makes me wonder -- as incredibly as unlikely as it may seem -- ... what if another group of students discovered a dead body somewhere? And the video was playing back for the sake of those students, and not our quintet that was in the room with all of the CCTVs? Seems incredibly unlikely, but I dunno ... nah, I don't much like this theory. ^^; Forget I said anything other than that I'm bothered by how late his announcement was this week. That does still bother me.

Another thing that bugs me is that Kyouko describes the sixteenth student as the "Super Duper High School Despair." Despair is an abstract concept; it's not the sort of thing a person can normally be. But furthermore, if the despair has been killed, then shouldn't that mean that hope now reigns supreme? Monobear doesn't seem to think so, and it doesn't look like our students are any closer to salvation now than they were at the end of last week's episode. So what exactly does it mean for the "Super Duper High School Despair" to have been killed off?

[kaisap112]

Originally Posted by Talon87

(Episode 10 stuff)

Spoiler: show

Another thing that bugs me is that Kyouko describes the sixteenth student as the "Super Duper High School Despair." Despair is an abstract concept; it's not the sort of thing a person can normally be. But furthermore, if the despair has been killed, then shouldn't that mean that hope now reigns supreme? Monobear doesn't seem to think so, and it doesn't look like our students are any closer to salvation now than they were at the end of last week's episode. So what exactly does it mean for the "Super Duper High School Despair" to have been killed off?

I have to point out here that we have Naegi, who's Super High School Level Good Luck.

Spoiler: show

Luck isn't any less of an abstract concept if I'm correct...

And even Good Luck has been shortened to Luckster in some translations, so...active and passive forms galore, I suppose!

[Talon87]

"Luckster" would mean "a person who is very lucky." It's the -ster suffix that does it. Like ...

• hipster (someone who is hip)
• mobster (someone who works for the mob)
• gangster (someone who is part of a gang)

So on and so forth.

But you're right: Naegi's original title was 超高校級の「幸運」, or "Super High School Good Luck". So it is possible for some of the students to be nicknamed after abstract ideas, I guess.

It sure is strange though that Naegi wasn't named 幸運児 (which is the word which means "a person who is very lucky" using the same two characters for good luck, 幸運, that Naegi's title uses) considering that they do indeed have a word for this. Why the abstract title? Strange.

(Episode 10)

Spoiler: show

That stated, the combination of your need to try and clarify (or muddle? ) this issue and UTW's decision to go with "Despair" over "Despairer" / "Despairster" / [other titles that'd render the person a PERSON and not an abstract idea] makes me feel like we may be onto something.

[Jerichi]

>Why the abstract title? Strange.

Without giving too much away about SDR2 (very, very light spoilers for the second game, if you even call them spoilers)...

Spoiler: show

A character who shares this title expands on what it means to be SHSL Good Luck; he actually has uncannily good luck in that he is able to take ridiculous gambles and reliably succeed. That isn't really made clear in Naegi's case (though there are a few important instances where his Good Luck saves his hide!), but the second game expands on the implications of this abstract concept for a title. It's not even that he's really a lucky person in and of himself, it's more that he has this crazy control over the events around him that make him seem to be able to manipulate luck. Therefore, it's not that he's an exceptionally lucky person, but more of an embodiment of luck itself. If that makes sense?

[Red Panda]

I feel like we may have gotten past one hurdle, but the next one I have no idea about. I at least seem to have reached a brick wall. The SRD2 people are probably reading this thread and thinking that it's obvious. Or not.

[Jerichi]

When I watched pretty much any incarnation of DR, I don't think I ever thought anything to be obvious. Even in one case where I thought I had it all figured out, I ended up being totally wrong in the end.

DR is very good about now showing its cards too early, though it might slip you a hint here and there.

[deoxys]

I'm just going to say that I'm with Jeri on this one. I don't think DR is really "obvious" (at least in this context). No one is sitting here judging your speculations (well, not in a mocking or bad way). We're just as much along for the ride as you are, or at least we were at one point.