The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy

The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy or Hope's Peak Academy's biggest, most awful event (希望ヶ峰学園史上最大最悪の事件) is the name given to the very first Mutual Killing game featured in Danganronpa/Zero and Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side: Despair. It was caused by Junko Enoshima. Unlike the other killing games, it is directly hosted by both Junko and Mukuro Ikusaba.

It is not to be confused with The Tragedy, the world-wide event that happened later on and which was triggered by The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side: Despair
Junko, in her desire to spread despair, forced the Student Council of Hope's Peak Academy into the first known mutual killing game, which killed all the participants except Izuru Kamukura and the heavily wounded student council president Sōshun Murasame. At first, they refused to kill each other, but Junko provided motive for Karen Kisaragi and a few others to kick off the killing spree. Izuru killed off the assumed sole survivor in self-defense, and a security camera caught him.

Following the Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, Junko sent out e-mails revealing Hope's Peak Academy's Izuru Kamukura Project, which included conducting illegal human experiments, and used security footage of the mutual killing to make it look like Hope's Peak had created a murderer. The events were broadcast to the Reserve Course, greatly upsetting them - in their view, the academy had apparently spent the exorbitant fees they had paid to create "murderers".

The reserve course then rebelled and protested, beginning the Parade, not knowing that they were being led and agitated from the shadows by Junko and her organization, Ultimate Despair. This social unrest soon became a movement that spread outside the academy's walls, with people everywhere protesting against the wealthy and talented. The movement soon engulfed the world, becoming more violent by the day, eventually creating the major event known as The Tragedy.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
In Danganronpa, the location of The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy can be entered on the fifth floor of the academy. It was covered in blood and body chalk lines.

According to Monokuma, this room had been abandoned and was left exactly how it was. Byakuya mentions that the blood was "considerably old", and had dried as well as changed color.

Danganronpa/Zero
The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy was mentioned several times.

Results And Aftermath
The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy ended with the Mastermind's victory as the Killing Game went smoothly, resulting in Izuru and Sōshun being left as the sole survivors, with Soshun suffering a severe head injury. Even though Izuru technically never was an actual participant, he was framed by Junko and he was blamed as the mastermind and the killer of the Student Council. This created the cause célèbre among the Reserve Course and led to The Parade, just like Junko had planned. Junko gained several followers from the Reserve Course, brainwashing them with a Despair Video, which was created using the footage of the tragedy.

As a result of the incident, The Steering Committee tried to hide it by claiming that the Student Council were suddenly called to an overseas facility to study abroad. Around the same time, Junko had Yasuke Matsuda create memory manipulation treatment, both for the sake of the next killing game and to create an alternative identity for herself to hide from suspicion. However, some still found Junko suspicious and the incident was investigated by Kyosuke Munakata and The Madarai Brothers.

Two months passed, but the consequences of the incident continued. Soshun, who had been in a comatose-like state the whole time, was murdered by Yasuke to silence him. The Steering Committee and the Madarai Brothers were all murdered by Junko's supporters for the same reason. Junko also made sure that Kyosuke's investigation would end in failure and manipulated his helpers to claim her innocent. Thus, Junko was completely free from suspicion and ready to continue her next plan.

In the end, The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy was extremely important for Junko, creating the beginnings of the world-wide Tragedy and gaining her many followers. However, she felt that the forced mutual killing was too psychotic and too stiff, thus missing excitement for her. She decided to use Yasuke's memory erasing technology. Furthermore, she determined that a mascot is necessary as well - not even a host dressed in a sort of a cartoon character outfit would do. Therefore, she modified her next planned mutual killing into motives in order to make things more dramatic, resulting in the Killing School Life; it was to be hosted by a robotic bear known as Monokuma.

Trivia

 * The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy contains some similarities to ; both works involve a defiant student being shot by one of the organizers, and a couple attempting mutual suicide to escape the carnage.
 * This killing game is so far the only one in the history of the franchise to include guns as a possible weapon.
 * This killing game is the only one to be hosted by the mastermind themselves, as the idea to use Monokuma has not been developed yet.
 * This is the only killing game not to have an Ultimate ??? involved.
 * In Danganronpa/Zero, Daiki mentions he killed two other people before killing Shoji. For some reason this does not match with the killing order seen in Danganronpa 3.

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