Over the past few decades, the world has seen the rise in popularity of the videogame as a narrative structure. According to an ESA study on the computer and videogame industry conducted in 2015, there are now over 1.8 billion videogame players in the world. One hundred fifty-five million of those gamers are located within the United States, which breaks down to roughly four out of five American households playing games with an average of two gamers per household (McKane). Big budget triple-A games sell millions of copies annually, influencing not just the people that play them, but also the world around them as the media and society as a whole react to the content being presented within the medium. This leads to thousands of articles, books, …show more content…
Although not one of the first visual novels to be produced, the Danganronpa series has risen in popularity both in its country of origin, Japan, as well as in the west with the introduction of the first two games in 2010 and 2012 in Japan and 2014 in North America. The games have become extremely popular due to the untraditionalness of their basic concepts as well as their pop art anime style and colorful cast of characters. The basic idea of the games is simple. The player takes control of an everyman-protagonist avatar that finds themselves welcomed to attend the prestigious high school of Hope’s Peak Academy. However, instead of attending classes, the protagonist and their fifteen classmates find themselves locked into a vicious killing game and the only way to escape is to murder another student and then get away with the murder. The game offers both story sections involving investigations and courtroom based trials as well as more active-play sections where the player is able to engage in mini-games. Along the way, the player is able to choose which characters to focus on in terms of capabilities and backstory, allowing their avatar to unlock new information and abilities. The attention to detail about the situations as well as the characters causes the Danganronpa series to put an overemphasis on its narrative. The player must pay extreme attention to the game-world around them or face death in one of the game’s many school trials. Like other visual novels, Danganronpa makes the narrative and its structure the most important part of its game