One summer evening, a young man and a woman were driving down a winding mountain road. You take the role of the young man. The young woman is named Nami. The two of you attend the same college. While driving back home from an out-of-town date, you got into an accident. The car's brakes suddenly stopped working, leaving the car totaled and the two of you clueless about where to go, until you spotted the mailbox of a nearby home. Together, you trudged through the woods, struck by the rain and trembling from the lightning. Nami was looking more and more displeased. Emerging from the woods, you found an old western-style mansion gated off with high walls. [From the original manual, translated by Tom]

Hope's Peak Academy is a government-funded private high school recognized all across the nation as the cradle of hope and prosperity, providing a complete education for "ultimate" students of all stripes. Thanks to a national lottery, one extremely lucky but otherwise ordinary student—Makoto Naegi—has been chosen to attend this prestigious institution. But when Makoto arrives for his first day of class, he suddenly falls unconscious, and when he wakes up he finds himself in a classroom within the school—with the windows barred and the doors locked. As he explores the abandoned, dirty halls, it becomes clear that something is very wrong. He and his new classmates make their way to the gymnasium, where a demented robotic bear, calling himself Monokuma and claiming to be the school's headmaster, makes a declaration: "You're all going to be living here from now on. If you want to go free, your only choice... is murder." And so... fifteen high school students gathered from across the country have been imprisoned. Their strength, their commitment, their very humanity will be tested time and time again. Why must they clash in these class trials? Who's the mastermind behind it all? And what is this shadowy figure really after? The battle against the looming, invisible enemy known only as despair is about to begin... [From [url=http://danganronpa.us/danganronpa/prologue.html]official site[/url]]