Danganronpa creator reflects on first game’s slow sales start, originally no plans for sequel, and how things turned around with Danganronpa 2
Danganronpa has become a full-fledged series with multiple games, but things could have ended up very differently. In a social media post, series creator Kazutaka Kodaka reflected on how the franchise could have ended after just one game.
Danganronpa got off to a slow start and there weren’t originally plans for a sequel. However, Kodaka was offered to work on the Danganronpa Zero novel and sales for the game started to pick up thanks to strong word of mouth.
Thankfully, things were much different with Danganronpa 2. According to Kodaka, the sequel “felt like it sold pretty well right out of the gate.”
After Danganronpa was released, sales didn’t pick up much at first, and at the same time, we were told there wouldn’t be a sequel, while the team got reassigned to various other projects and scattered.
I’d awakened to the joy of creating original works, so I didn’t want to join any other projects – what should I do… maybe quit? – and right around then, the offer came in for the Danganronpa Zero novel, so I went straight to my boss and pleaded, managing somehow to keep working on Danganronpa stuff.
In the meantime, Danganronpa started selling steadily through word of mouth, and before I knew it, talks of making a 2 were underway. Since I’d been able to revisit the fuzzy, half-baked setting from writing Danganronpa Zero, the groundwork for 2’s storyline came together pretty smoothly, I think.
When shifting from Psychopop to Psychotropical, we aimed to change the story’s vibe too – from a gloomy, stifling sense of confinement to hot-blooded developments like something out of a shonen manga.
The Danganronpa script wrapped up in about six months, but 2 took around a year, I guess. Still, we could pull off that pace because we were young.
There’d been feedback that the culprit in 1 was too obvious, so for 2, I designed the tricks to make the “whodunit” land right at the end.
Nobody on staff could wrap their heads around the chapter 4 trick, so we struggled, even building models and such.
The chapter 5 trick was originally assigned to another planner, but three months later, I came up with what we have now, so we flipped it entirely. Sorry about that at the time. But creators don’t mind the hassle or wasted effort if it’s for a killer idea, right!
After launch, unlike with 1, it felt like it sold pretty well right out of the gate. I don’t really remember the details anymore. Even these memories I’ve written down here will probably fade away soon enough…
The full mainline Dangarnonpa series is available on Nintendo Switch (and playable on Switch 2). We’ll also be getting Danganronpa 2×2, a remake of the second entry, in 2027 following a recent delay.
