3 Seasons

Episode

Prologue: Welcome to despair High School (2013)

Makoto Naegi, an average student, enrols at the prestigious Kibōgamine Academy for talented students. However, the moment Makoto steps inside the school grounds, he falls unconscious and wakes up in a dorm room littered with security cameras and steel plates. Following a note's instruction to assemble in the gym, Makoto finds 14 other unique students in a similar situation, including a school idol from his old middle school, Sayaka Maizono. It is at this point that the self-proclaimed principal, a stuffed bear named Monokuma, appears, announcing that the students will be staying in the school for the rest of their lives, with only those who kill another student being able to leave. The students spend the next few days searching the school grounds in order to try and find an alternative exit. When Monokuma notices noone has any particular motive to kill anyone, he shows each student a personalised DVD motivating them to escape.

Prologue: Welcome to despair High School poster

(Not) Normal Arc: Kill and Live (2013)

As Makoto tries to grow accustomed to the situation, he learns from Monokuma about the faulty door on his shower room. Afterwards, Sayaka comes to Makoto's room, saying she is afraid that someone may be after her, so Makoto offers to switch rooms with her to put her at ease. The next day, however, Makoto discovers his room in a mess and is horrified to find Sayaka lying dead in the shower room, having been stabbed in the stomach with a kitchen knife. As Makoto becomes angered by this tragic turn of events, Monokuma explains that one of the students is responsible for her murder and they must judge for themselves who the killer is in a "class trial". If the guilty culprit is successfully deduced, that person will be executed, but if they accuse the wrong person, then the culprit will get to escape the academy whilst everyone else will be put to death.

Not Normal Arc: Kill and Live (2013)

As the trial begins, swimmer Aoi Asahina testifies that she and martial artist Sakura Oogami witnessed Sayaka enter the kitchen, during which one of the kitchen knives, which was used as the murder weapon, was stolen. Meanwhile, Kyouko proves Makoto's innocence by pointing out that, since his shower room didn't have a lock, he wouldn't have needed to take apart the doorknob to enter it. After wondering how the culprit entered the room in the first place, Kyouko presents evidence which reveals Sayaka had purposely invited someone into the room, meaning that Sayaka had actually intended to murder someone and pin the crime on Makoto, only for her target to fight back and kill her instead. Remembering the message written in blood, Makoto deduces that "11037" is actually an upside down spelling of "LEON" and accuses baseball star Leon Kuwata of the crime.

(Not) Normal Arc: Weekly Shonen Despair Magazine (2013)

Following the class trial, Monokuma grants access to the second floor of the academy, containing a library and a swimming pool with gender-divided changing rooms. Whilst searching the library, the group find a broken laptop and a letter that indicates Hope's Peak Academy has actually been shut down for years, along with a storeroom filled with confidential files. As the pool changing rooms require ElectroIDs to unlock, Monokuma introduces a school rule that students are forbidden from exchanging their ElectroIDs. Later, Makoto comes across writer Touko Fukawa, who appears to have a thing for the cold-hearted affluent progeny, Byakuya Togami, before winding up as a witness to a sauna endurance battle between gangster Mondo Oowada and moral compass Kiyotaka Ishimaru, who end up bonding with each other.

(Not) Normal Arc: Weekly Shonen Despair Magazine poster

Not Normal Arc: Weekly Shonen Despair Magazine (2013)

As the trial gets underway, Byakuya states that Touko is the culprit as she has dissociative identity disorder, her other personality being none other than Genocider Sho. Surely enough, as Touko faints, her personality switches to that of Genocider who, despite casually admitting she is a genuine homicidal maniac, denies killing Chihiro as she always uses scissors in all of her serial killings. Being the only other one who knew of Genocider's crimes, Byakuya is suspected of the crime, curiously not denying it. However, after Makoto deduces Chihiro was actually killed in the boy's changing room, with Kyouko subsequently revealing Chihiro was, in fact, a cross-dressing boy, Byakuya admits he is not the killer and had only modified the crime scene to make the game more interesting.