Danganronpa Case Files: Trigger Happy Havoc Chapter 3

 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc spoilers follow

It's been a while, but I decided to do another Danganropa Case File, this time for the first game's third case. It's widely regarded as the weakest case in the first game, but I can appreciate what it tried to do, a bit like Apollo Justice's Turnabout Serenade.

Story

Some time after Chihiro Fujisaki's murder, the surviving students find a laptop with an artificial intelligence known as Alter Ego, which is the Ultimate Programmer's final creation. This becomes of great importance to Kiyotaka "Taka" Ishimaru and Hifumi Yamada, and the two end up quarreling over it.

One morning, Makoto Naegi finds Celestia "Celeste" Ludenberg attacked with a small hammer with a #1 on it, and she shows him a picture of a man in a "Robo Justice" suit dragging Hifumi away. A little while later, Hifumi is found injured, having been hit with a somewhat larger hammer labeled #2. Hifumi is taken to the nurse's office while the survivors search for Yasuhiro "Hiro" Hagakure, who is missing, and split into two groups- Makoto, Aoi "Hina" Asahina and Celeste are downstairs while Byakuya Togami, Toko Fukawa and Sakura Ogami go upstairs- while Kyoko Kirigiri is off by herself.

Makoto's group discovers Hifumi dead after being hit with a #3 hammer in the nurse's office, while Byakuya's group discovers Taka dead after being hit with a #4 hammer in the equipment room. Before long, both bodies disappear and reappear in the repository, and Hiro is found wearing Robo Justice suit inside a locker in the pool.

Taka's Murder

At the beginning of the trial, Hina and Celeste are convinced Hiro is guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt, considering the circumstances, and the fact that the blueprints to Robo Justice were found in his room. The latter ends up taking some suspicion off of him, as Makoto uses a handwritten note to prove that Hiro didn't make the blueprints.

Of course, the fact still remains that Hiro was the one in the suit, but as Makoto notes, if he was in a suit that couldn't bend over at the waist(which, admittedly, was a necessary feature, since Hiro was unconscious while posing for the "Justice Robo" picture) to use the dolly and tarp to transport Taka's body from the equipment room to the repository.

At this point, Celeste asks what proof Makoto has for assuming that the dolly was used to transport Taka's body from the equipment room to the repository. A Machine Talk Battle ensues, which is unusual; despite the fact that Celeste is one of the more blatantly obvious culprits in the series, she hasn't been formally accused yet, whereas most MTB/PTA/AA sequences occur immediately before or after the Closing Argument, when the culprit is at their most desperate.

Makoto proves his theory with the bloody tire tracks. As for why the Robo Justice suit wearer couldn't have moved the body, not only can they not bend over or see their feet, but they also can't take off the suit(again, this serves a purpose- to stop Hiro from taking off the suit if he wakes up, so he can be caught in the suit).

The group then recaps the events of the search, including the body discovery announcement. They then decide to find out who died first, and while the natural assumption would be that Hifumi, who was hit with hammer #3 died before Taka, who was hit with hammer #4, Makoto realizes that the killer used the hammer numbers to mislead them. The proof for that is the wristwatch worn by Taka(the only character who has one, oddly enough) broke at the moment of his death at 6 a.m., an hour before Celeste was attacked with the #1 hammer. This also means that no one has an alibi for Taka's death, while everyone has alibis for Hifumi's death.

Kyoko proposes thinking from a different angle- how the murders could have been carried out, rather than who did them. She then suggests that Hifumi moved himself, meaning that he wasn't dead when he was discovered in the nurse's office. The scenario sounds improbable, but it's proven when Makoto notes that the body discovery announcement was only for Taka. Since body discovery announcements only play when the body is first discovered, then the second one for Hifumi proves that he wasn't dead when he was found the first time.

Celeste tries to cast doubt on the theory, but Makoto points out that when Hifumi was found "dead" in  the nurse's office, he had blood all over his glasses, but when he was found in the repository, his glasses were clean, meaning he must have wiped them off. The fact that there's a bloody glasses cleaning cloth proves this; it seems as though characters in this series always have to use unique items that can be traced back to them, even for mundane purposes. Said mascot is also on the camera Hifumi used to help stage the crime. This, along with the fact that Hifumi tore the note from Taka's lifeless hands and stuffed it in his own pants, proves that Hifumi was a murderer. The note, which calls the recipient for a meeting at 6 a.m., was apparently used to lure Taka to his death. With Hifumi having been identified as Taka's killer, the class must now find Hifumi's killer.

Incidentally, if this were Danganronpa V3, the class trial would be all but over by now. Under the "first come first serve" rule, the class would only need to convict Taka's killer, and Taka's killer would be the only one eligible to graduate, meaning that Celeste would get off scot-free and the group has to deal with having a murderer in their midst. This is a possible plot thread that V3 failed to capitalize on, but that's beside the point.

Hifumi's Murder

Hiro makes a surprisingly cogent observation- that since all four of the Justice Hammers have been accounted for, they have no idea what weapon was used to kill Hifumi. The answer turns out to be an ordinary hammer from the repository, one that's suspiciously clean due to all the blood being wiped off, whereas the other hammers are dusty.

The class concludes that Hifumi's accomplice betrayed and killed him, but Celeste, who's generally been one of the few people to voice opposition to Makoto's theories in this case, argues that there's no benefit to cooperating given that only one person can graduate. Of course, Makoto points out that Hifumi's accomplice lured him in with the promise of two separate murders, had him kill first so he couldn't back out and killed him to tie up loose ends. It's a bit of a shame that we never see a scenario in which two people each kill a different victim in any of the class trials.

Makoto then points out Hifumi's accomplice- Celeste. Celeste points out that she would never willingly spend time with Hifumi, with her faux-French accent fading away and her formal speech being replaced by profanity. Of course, not only is Celeste able to take advantage of Hifumi's crush on her in order to manipulate him, but the two of them were the only ones to see Robo Justice. Celeste used an exaggerated scream to signal to Hifumi, was the first one to announce that Hifumi had been murdered when they found him in the nurse's office and took Hina to the bathroom to get her out of the way. Most damningly of all, Celeste said that they would all die "just like those guys" died, despite not knowing that Hifumi was dead.

Celeste, knowing her guilt is becoming increasingly obvious, tries to defend herself by bringing up the photo, but Makoto knows that Robo Justice wasn't dragging Hifumi away; he was posing with the unconscious Hiro.

Celeste, the Ultimate Gambler, has one final card to play- that Hifumi named "Yasuhiro" as the suspect. In the original Japanese, Hifumi referred to everyone by their full names, so he would call Hiro "Hagakure Yasuhiro-dono." In the localization, he uses last names and courtesy titles, so Hiro would be "Mr. Hagakure" to him. In one of the more contrived parts of the case, there happens to be another Yasuhiro- Celeste herself, who has the most obviously fake name- and it can be proven by having Celeste turn on her notebook, which displays her name upon startup. After Makoto gives his Closing Argument, Celeste folds.

The vote is held, and Celeste is declared guilty.

Post-Verdict

Celeste explains how she managed to convince Hifumi to cooperate with her. She lied to him, claiming that Taka had stolen Alter Ego, that he'd sexually assaulted her and that Taka was going to kill Hifumi. As for how she was going to convince him to play dead, she convinced him to say that he'd barely clung to life, then promised to kill someone else while the survivors were questioning him. The lie wasn't very convincing, but Celeste didn't think much of Hifumi's intelligence, nor of Taka's, since she chose the latter as her patsy due to him being "an idiot."

Unsurprisingly, Hina is appalled that Celeste could kill her classmates out of simple greed, due to the motive being a massive sum of money to the graduate, but Celeste mentions in passing that she was simply tired of living in the school, in spite of urging everyone to get used to it. It's a straightforward and somewhat cliche motive, but Celeste's skill at lying adds a certain level of ambiguity. After all, Celeste claims that she's not afraid of her impending death, but Makoto knows otherwise.

Before her execution, Celeste gives Kyoko a key to the locker where she hid Alter Ego, wisely avoiding referring to it by name due to Monokuma listening, then says goodbye. She's executed by being burned at the stake, but before the flames can consume her, she's hit and killed by a fire truck, of all things.

Makoto has conflicting feelings, as while he can't forgive Celeste for killing his friends(which is a rather significant statement considering that neither Taka nor Hifumi were very popular among their classmates), he did once think of Celeste as a friend, too.

Conclusion

The third case of the first game has some of the problems associated with the other two third cases- an obvious and unsympathetic culprit and a failure to capitalize on some of the potential associated with a case with two murders, among other things. 

However, I can appreciate what the case tried to do, particularly in upping the ante for the spotless students. There are two murders that are interconnected, meaning one is key to solving the other- for all its flaws, V3's third case did this significantly better than the second game's third case did. It's also the first premeditated murder, as well as one in which two people are in cahoots, so it's a shame that the two killers made so many mistakes.

All in all, Chapter 3 is probably the weakest case in the first game but isn't necessarily bad- just not as good as the others. It aims high, but makes significant missteps along the way, resulting in it being remembered more for its weaknesses than its strengths.