I wrote a fangan years ago when I was like 11, not gonna lie, the murder cases were pretty complex and i liked them a lot, the problem of the fangan are the characters and their deaths. I had characters that were very forgettable and I intended one of them to survive the whole death game, while having other characters that had potential and great redemption arcs were just murdered because I thought it was simply unexpected. Also, the mastermind sucks
@@saltwatertaffy7434 Oh wow I am the ✨ultimate uwu dragon ghost human vampire zombie elf angel demon god satan ladybug chat noir prince fox lion tiger elephant hybrid✨
I see naming the characters being another important point, mainly when using Japanese or even any names. The main line games usually have meanings relating to the character within their names and I’ve seen plenty of fangans butcher the names.
My character is just random Japanese names, but there is one who stuck to me the most. His name is Agathe Homura, the Ultimate Danseur. He is mixed, hence his name. Agathe means good if you do a quick google search, referring to his wholesome personality before his tragic backstory influencing him. His surname, Homura means blaze or flame in Japanese. Also means hearing village literally. What does this has to do with him? He has a vengeance motive that might relate to his tragic backstory. Renewing himself by burning away his old memories and old personality and start on a new one. He is relatively wholesome when he was a child, but because of the said backstory, he becomes a new person (his personality change drastically) and in order to cope, he renew his life as a danseur. And, there is a quote who relates to his surname; a child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth - African Proverb. I can ramble with this all day
I fell into the 'Design First, Character Later' void. But now that I have personalities for all 16 of my characters, I'm currently giving them all redesigns.
The exact same thing happened to me and when I see my first set of sprites and the ones I'm making now I'm like "Shit it's completely different but it's the same character wtf"
Honestly that’s how I go about making characters anyway. Make design, make personality, find better ideas while figuring out personality, change design to match new personality, play character telephone until I have someone worth writing
I haven’t written a fangan, nor do I ever plan on doing so, but it was great to see your thought process and this is just great advice for OC’s in general
Yeah even if you don’t want to make a fangan, making fangan designs are really fun to make because of how unique yet simple designs they have, the characters I designed for my fangan made me just want to make random ultimates because of how fun it was. Definitely recommend making one of you just wanna have fun with character design
Also here is a tip try to make the ultimates diverse example (you dont need this but this is usually how the games are played out with ultimates) Shsl Lucky Student Shsl Detective (Police Officer, Crime Scene Analyst, basically something detective related) Somebody with a Shsl Music Talent Somebody with an athletic talent Somebody with a tech related talent Somebody with a food related talent (technically only Teruteru but ya know) Somebody with a talent that they where born with (Think Byakuya, because he is rich, Sonia, etc) Somebody with an illegal talent (Biker Gang Leader, Yakuza, Supreme Leader, Assassin, etc) Etc etc
Is it just me or did they get more Australian? Seriously though, these are all incredible pieces of advice! Even unrelated to Fangans, a lot of these are just really good character design tips.
There’s so many fangans that it can seem intimidating to get into writing fangans. While mine is a personal project, I love this video. Cheering for you Aeris!
One tip I think is important (especially to people who struggle with drawing body language) is to make your character's facial expression very expressive. A good sprite shows off how the character is feeling in the moment. I believe that good sprites and designs show off talent and personality. Sadly for me, in my fangan, my characters were not designed too much with references for the talent, and do not show off their talent well. It is too late for me to go redesign them now, so I focus hard on making characters have good facial expression with a rather simple pose. I can still be proud of my art, because I can see what my characters are feeling. (Facial expression is especially important if your fangan has no voice acting. The reader cannot hear the characters tone of voice, so they must know how the character feels)
Also, deviating from the danganronpa style is perfectly ok, i feel like coming up with something new, a style or a artistic choice, is what may make yor fangan stand out, it happened to thh with the pink blood, now wether most ppl see a strong pink used for blood, they think of danganronpa, TRY NEW THINGS!!!!!!!
I'm making a danganronpa character that is the ultimate necromancer and it's hard not to make them too op oof. Anyway, this is a great video for advice. What I normally do when writing a danganronpa character is to research as much as possible about their ultimate talent. I have also read up on police interview tactics to make the trials more interesting.
I think a good idea would be to make their greatest feat as a necromancer be to get a dead body back to life, but only in a vegetative state, and technically still 'their' zombie slave thingy, although i'd advise experimenting with the character's talent and maybe creating some limitations, such as 'the revived does not have the consciousness it had before it was killed, although they can remember certain things', or maybe the necromancer gets the wrong "soul" in the recently killed body, and so on, and so forth.
I have a similar character! The Ultimate Medium. And by that, I mean they can see & talk to ghosts. You’d think this would make them ridiculously OP, and by many rights, it truly could be. The way I solved this conundrum is that whenever they mention their abilities, they’re either doubted, or feared. Neither of which you’d want in general, but especially not a killing game where you could die at almost any moment. I mean, most people don’t really believe in the supernatural, hm? & if they do, they’re afraid of it to the point of violence. So they don’t bring up their Ultimate Talent very much. And if it is brought up, they purposefully leave the true extent of their abilities ambiguous. It’s not like they’re omnipotent, though. Most of their knowledge extends to about what the victim has told them. And then they investigate. Not as throughly as the MC, obviously, because them knowing everything about the case would be boring for everyone. They just mysteriously know a lot about the murders occurring, bringing the fruits of their investigation to the trials with surprisingly sound logic... suspiciously so, given their talent. Investigating with a suspect in mind helps a little. (Or misleads you to an incorrect conclusion...) But yeah, they get sussed for the murders a lot, because they’re unintentionally creepy & awkward most of the time. Of course seeing them suddenly become assertive in their belief & knowing everything about the case would be sus- (haha funny amogus joke) They’re somewhat of a rival to the MC, too. That’d certainly help balance their scales. But it’s not in an evil or sadistic way, but they can really make the trials harder because of how stubborn they are in their reasoning. And that all depends on if the victim’s spirit cooperates with the investigation. Just because they can speak with the dead doesn’t mean the dead will speak with them! That is, if the victim knows who even killed them... muahaha! So, yeah. Characters who can interact with the dead are a little harder to balance than others, but it’s certainly possible to at least make them not-so OP! Though, it’d seem a necromancer is certainly different from a medium. I suppose any advice I could give would heavily depend upon the character’s role in a story. So... if I had to give any advice for this... (which you obviously don’t need to heed, but you probably knew that-) I’d think about your character’s abilities, and add limits or drawbacks to them, or how your character uses their ability. Like, what if the Necromancer overworks themselves trying to bring a victim back, and collapses, leaving themselves vulnerable for a killing? What if they’re slowly but surely draining their own vitality through their necrotic endeavors? Will it kill them, leading to a trial, will they kill another person, in an attempt to get their vitality back, or will something even worse happen? What if bringing someone back to life isn’t as clean for the revived as one might think? (Feel free to define the meaning of that yourself! There’s obviously gonna be some drawbacks for the revived, whether it’s just the dread of knowing what death is like, or something else...) Maybe the Necromancer can impose those consequences themselves? Like, maybe the necromancer makes a Frankenstein’s monster version of the revived character, reshaping the revived into their twisted perception of them? Or, maybe they’ll bring them back as a mindless friend for themselves (or someone else! They could be trying to help! In a slightly horrific manner-) The killing game does get lonely... And just because they’re bringing people back from the dead doesn’t mean they’ll listen to them... I mean, it’s not unusual to see one’s creations turn on them. Anyway, my point being... How exactly would your character use their talent in a way that’s both interesting & relevant to the plot? You obviously don’t have to take any of this advice. It’s your character, and the freedom of making them is your fun!
For characters with supernatural talents, my advice is to make them CAPABLE, but not too good at whatever they do. Most talents are able to be done by anyone but not as good as the ultimates. Talents that most people can’t do gives the character a reason to be mediocre at it. The fact that they can raise the dead at all is a feat, so most won’t judge them too harshly.
I have a ultimate necromancer, but I ended up making them blind and having a strict moral code with the dead. They don’t practice much necromancy unless the body has been properly respected and has been left undisturbed, and since every dead body has been disturbed in that place they can’t find themselves to bring any of the dead bodies there back to life. So them just “bringing people back to life” is highly unlikely since it would disturb the souls of the dead basically.
I'd say Danganronpa is a series in which OP isn't a bad thing at all. It's a huge problem in superhero stories, for example, but in DR it can add intrigue.
here’s my really rough sketch fangan. there’s a few queer coated characters but my vision for all of them is pretty hazy Danganronpa 14 Beautiful Blood Bath theme wealth vs poverty -Ultimate Rugby Player shota character who’s father spent hundreds of dollars on him to get top notch training in rugby. bullied by other players who thought he only got in cuz money -Ultimate Detective grew up in a lower middle class family and worked in her parents store, it got robbed but she cracked the case -Ultimate Orgiami Maker short guy, obsessed with ninja anime and manga and fronts as a leader/ protector -Ultimate Legacy (mc) byakuya but timid rich, inferiority complex -Ultimate Clown/Circus worker poor but volunteered in children’s shelters and fell in love with performing arts -Ultimate mortician loli girl (I imagine the fairy girl from x and y) grew up in a small village that was often affected by war. she saw too many bodies where she became desensitized and learn to examine them. (the autopsy girl till she **** in chapter *) -Ultimate Lawyer - bi/gay coated grew up wealthy as his father owned a company. he was mostly raised by his fathers lawyer and picked up on it at a young age -Ultimate ventriloquist - taller than rugby but shorter than clown wears a mask or something to cover his face and speaks through his puppet. he has a handsome yet horribly scarred face but he forgot how he got it. one of the motives is to kill to learn a secret and his is how his face was ruined ultimate fashion guru i’m not sure of her backstory but we’ll learn her family caused the ventriloquists face to be ruined. the normally calm and pretty character will break down in her room and change her appearance, less focused on makeup. I have a general idea of who kills who but i’ll leave it at that
I actually love fangans! My fangans antag is a antag because he just get things right more often then the protag, so basically the protag is just kinda angry he doesn’t figure out things that the antag does. I just find this funny because like, the antag knows it bothers the protag and teases him about it all the time. Antags that are just made to seem insane is kinda weird.
I had fun making a few DR OCs for roleplay fun, so far I've got an Ultimate Opera Singer, ASMR Artist, Rhythmic Gymnast and Children's Book Illustrator :D They were all in different universes except for the opera singer and the illustrator
I'm like- I want to make some characters, might never really do much with them, but it's fun to design characters and making their personality, so I'm just gonna sit back and watch. This is gonna be great :D
The gimic for the fangan that I wrote was “I drew all of the characters, however i suck at drawing also their names are literally colors.” It would be called ColorRonpa I had this cool idea where the person you expect to be the antagonist is the first victim and the real antagonist dies in chapter 4. It sucks tbh but the main theme is literally “my drawing skills are still stickpeople” so what did you expect.
I love the advice of adding themes to your fangan. I myself was very interested by Celeste's idea of adapting to the killing game and decided to make the fangan have a theme of adaptation vs. transitivity
Here’s a personal idea of mine, try mixing archetypes, like what if the supporting character was the mastermind or the antagonist the traitor. It’s just a thought but I have the “big guy” be a survivor which is a first for the series.
Super Danganronpa Another 2 is a good example. It has literally everything you can do to make a good fangan: unique characters, lore, good gimmick (especially the voids)
Thanks so much Aeris! Personally, I’ve been wanting to sketch up some concepts for an ultimate physiologist/ultimate surgeon for a while now, with some inspiration from Team Fortress 2’s Medic, mostly because I find the concept of insane medical practitioners completely disregarding of their patient’s life to be very, very fun and having a lot of possibility to it. Maybe he literally takes the goddamn body from the crime scene for an autopsy and you don’t find out who the victim was until just before the trial. Maybe he regularly performs experiments on animals belonging to everyone else, and gets himself in hot water so he’s always getting blamed first for being blackened. Maybe he just kills someone while seeing them up from an injury and frames somebody else to stop being pestered by ‘Neanderthals who fail to grasp the importance of science over your miserable lives’.
I cannot stress enough how much I needed these tips, as I’m working on a fangan and just have been aiming for nothing with no ideas of what to do, and have just been stuck on naming but this helped a lot! Writing and creating fangan ocs is hard to do alone but I’m glad I watched this video!
The theme I'm going for in my fangan is Emotions vs Logic since when I first made the oc I intended to be the protag they were very logical and serious, even their talent was the ultimate intellect. Since I'm not that good at designing boys I also kinda want to make my scene at either an all girls private school so it'd be easier to design all the characters plus I feel like girls tend to argue with each other about opinions more than boys at times so it could make trials a bit more interesting and it could have a lot of scrum debates as well. So far I only have half of the characters designed and a few basic story plots but I'm sure this video will help me along the way!
this was really helpful!! i’m currently making a fangan (i’m making it a video series with Gacha because i’m not confident enough in my art skills lmao-) and there are some things you said that i never even thought about! this will totally help me improve it. thanks Aeris!!
I’m thinking on making a fangan called Danganronpa: Angels and Devils. The students in the killing game are my original characters but they each have a guide that’s stuck in purgatory (past victims, blackeneds, and Sdr2 survivors). I will edit this as I’d think of more information to add
very good video! I was thinking of dipping my toes in creating a cast of fangan characters but it was hard for me creating a believable setting and theme... this really helped! Thanks Aeris!
In the middle of my own writing, and hearing this does have me thinking of how to view my characters and story thus far. While there are some parts to fix/consider changing, I need to remind myself not to let the dangan-excitement get to me as that has made the writing stumble in a number of places. Character design wise, my first attempt at splash art for my cast is one I'm proud of, but would always nitpick (i.e. the clothes are too basic, doesn't represent their talent enough, or wish I did more time on them). Listening to your advice did ring a lot as I thought about how I drew them initially. I want to utilize any and all advice to bettering story and character development for sure, and you gave some really great tips!
thank you very much for this!! i'm working on a fanganronpa myself and so far i only have one character. i like his design a lot but his personality is a little blurry and i wasn't too sure on how to fix it. i'm gonna be working on him and trying to flesh him out more :0
When I make a character I usually do talent first then personality though I have exceptions. A lot of times it can give me a baseline for how the characters will act as a result.
Thanks for the help! Honestly I've always tried to keep my Fangan characters outfits somewhat simple, and honestly the only time that really worked was with was one of my characters that trying to look normal was a big part. I think I'll be a bit more creative outfit wise in the future and yes, I'll use references :)
I’ve made a drv3 fanfic with basically all the characters but I have added my own character. He’s basically like Makoto mixed with Kaito, always energetic and willing to help those around him, super defensive of people that insult his friends, and helpful in class trials too. Although my drawings of him suck(cause I never use references cause I think that I want my drawing to be original Lol I should start using them), I want to show him off cause I think he’s pretty cool. He’s got a strange talent too lol. His name is Horiuchi Yoshiro, and he’s the Ultimate Weapon Master, basically he’s extremely good at any weapon, whether it be a gun, sword, etc. I get that it’s a weird talent, but that is just my weird imagination.
BRO WHEN I SAW “ultimate weapon master” I JUST GOT SUPER- IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT, BUT MY FRIEND HAS A WEAPON MASTER OC IN OUR FANGAN AND ASDFGHJKL IM FREAKING OUT ABOUT THIS FOR LEGIT NO REASON WHAT SO EVER
Well the art part unfortunately doesn't really help, but the fangan stuff does! I really want to make a DR3 AU-ish fangan with underappreciated characters and give them a bit of a purpose, so I might use these tips for help.
:D Thanks for the help!!! I’ve been wanting to make a fangan for a while now but was stuck with the characters and characters designs- so thanks for that :D
I think that some tips i already know it but the character desing its very dificult to me, so thanks to inspire me to draw more characters. Thanks Aeris ;)
I loved this video! Ironically I've been planning on refining my fangan cast, so running into this is very welcome!! I'm glad you're making stuff like this!
I am, quite a bit late, but thank you for those tips Aeris!! I've been making fan danganronpa characters without any base game in mind - just making characters for their talents and personalities - and i think i'll get pretty easily stuck on what theme i should have for them ahaha,,
To help with writing my ocs personalities I used a wheel to select a random MBTI type (since there are 16 I saw that as a great opportunity) this is also because I've been researching mbti types recently and wanted to mix it into my fangan haha
i like making a design first so what im currently doing after cementing the personalities is redesigns, and i've found that so far a lot of my charatcers keep relatively similar (or at least recognizable) designs while having complex and distinct personalities, but this video is still really helpful so yay !!!
Fangans are pretty fun, especially the creativity of the plots, trials, and characters. I even want to write one myself tbh, this video is pretty helpful for those who want to try and make their own fangan. Great video and also good luck with your own fangan if you’re making one
i was actually procrastinating to finish writing my fangan until i watch this video and got motivated. thank you so much T.T i love your drawing and fangan btw!!
i’m just gonna drop my ocs dr AU ultimates: Astra: Ultimate Astronomer Erin: Ultimate Engineer Alexis: Ultimate Tattoo artist Alina: Ultimate Florist Devon: Ultimate Cat trainer Axel: Ultimate dog trainer Sam: Ultimate Pet Shop Owner Simon: Ultimate Bodyguard Jaxon: Ultimate Little Brother Adrien: Ultimate Lucky Student Arro: Ultimate Vigilante Arii: Ultiamte Empath Neo: Ultimate Robot Arachnia: Ultimate Spider Keeper Lily: Ultimate Medic Lisa: Ultima Lolita Fasion Designer Mastermind: Nebula: Ultimate Makeup artist basically Faux Protag: Astra Real Protag: Adrien Antag: Jaxon Support 1: Arii Support 2: Simon Support 3: Sam Rest: other chars who die or get killed or live ✨ the theme is something i don’t know yet- the main protag is strong, physically and largely built and the antags the opposite
I may be over a year late to this but one thing I would like to point out is that the talents CAN be pretty specific, if done right. I’ve written a protag who is the Ultimate Pumpkin Carver who feels inferior towards the other Ultimates due to her talent being obscure plus many of the people in her life mocking her for her passion. It’s only when some of the other Ultimates appreciate her skills that she begins to become more self-confident. If the specific talent can play a part in the characterization of a character, then run with it. Plus it’s pretty likely no other fangan will include your talent so that’s an extra bonus
it's been so long that i actually agree with this - honestly i should've from the start, since my own protag is also of the Specific Talents fame (ultimate shadow puppeteer) lol
@@DetectiveNyx yeah, as long as your talent isn’t something TOO obscure like Ultimate Underwater Basket Weaver or Ultimate Solo Synchronized Swimmer I think you can make it work lol
When you talked about talents i remember this oc tik tok compilation and most of the ocs had outlandish talents but the one that stuck out like a sore thumb was the ultimate sadist yep someone made their ocs talent about enjoying inflicting pain on others.
TY SO MUCH AERIS!! I’m currently writing a fangan myself and I myself have unfortunately fallen into “design, then character” and your video is really helpful, I’m planning on finishing the character and then going back to redesign my characters that need it, again ty for the advice
As someone who’s trying to write my own fangan this really helped! Although now I’m trying to find a different ultimate for one of my ocs and I’m having trouble (they were originally the ultimate test subject and now I can’t think of anything else)
I know I hardly ever comment on your stuff and mainly just lurk but this is so helpful, Aeris! Now I have some idea of what to do if I ever decide to resurrect the fangan I scrapped lol
Finally seeing this a year later, but this actually helps, especially with the archetypes. I personally had the idea of the main protag, who was ultimate luck in chapter 1 being a fakeout and them being the first victim instead. That was the only archetype I necessarily had planned. the character's personalities, and therefore archetypes kinda fell into place after I knew what their talent was. I had vague ideas in my head of what I wanted, including talents and blips of personality, but this actually helps a lot
Also remember to try and make every character either relatable or memorable, unfortunately for the actual games I always forget that; Mukuro, Leon, Chihiro, Mondo, Taka, Hifumi, Imposter, and Rantaro are danganronpa characters because they either dont get fleshed out (Mukuro and Rantaro) they are the ch1 killer (Leon), they arent mentioned out of ships (Taka and Mondo) or they arent mentioned out of the gender debate (Chihiro)
Even though I have no desire to create my own fangan (not enough time nor the skills), I did always want to make my own OCs that would fit into the DR universe. I am actually drawing them atm, but to even create them I did create a premise and background as if I were creating my own DR story. Plus I wanted to play to my strengths, like I love playing around with color and in fact one fangan (DR Brave: Coward's Paradise) really gave me inspiration for my own color palettes. I wanted to throw in my love for Astrology in there so a good chunk of the chars' color schemes and personalities are based around Zodiac signs. It's been a fun challenge for me because of the DR eyes are pretty different from how I normally do anime eyes, but I am liking it. I've practice sketching out DR eye shapes. So I am curious about what your video is about. 1. Whelp hit the nail on the head haha. Yeah, one of my main premises for my chars, besides the astrology thing, is vice vs. virtue. I wanted chars with both good and bad traits and what better way to do that then to use the famous Seven Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues. It was fun mixing and matching each of these traits with my chars. Definitely helped with the design too. Like one of my char's his biggest vice is lust, so he's total eye candy lol. 2. I did come up with my protags first. Yes I did decide to create 2 protags because I saw what DR V4: Rocky Restart did and thought, why not? Especially since the first char I created, her talent is Empathy, yeah, she's going to be a wreck and too emotionally invested to think clearly, so that's where the 2nd protag comes in. Design wise I did want to make it look like they could all fit into a school setting too. I really did look at popular fangans and official DR chars to help me out here. People might be surprised on how much research is needed to create something, especially an original char. Still looking at one of my finished group images, I just hope they look okay. I totally agree with you about the Archetypes. Like I did decide early on, which of my chars would be more antagonistic, who be the comic relief, etc. and that affected their design. One of my fav chars at the moment is a nutcase, but she's so passionate in what she believes in too lol. She's definitely a 'loose canon' type where you couldn't predict whether she'll be a victim or a blacken. 3. I simultaneously came up with the personality and talent of each char. I definitely didn't want a Lucky student or a Mystery talent right off since I wanted to be different lol. Besides my main premise allows me to be that way. FYI, I did create notes before doing any drawing. Talent wise, I knew I wanted at least 1 sport, 1 artistic talent, and 1 unpredictable one. I did pick talents I thought I could play off well myself if I decided to write out this fangan and I think I managed it. I already mentioned my 1st protag (her name is Marie btw), her talent is Empathy. Well, call it a bit selfish, but I wanted this char to be a lot like me since I am an empath. Her talent is a double edge sword. 4. OMG References are your friends. I actually looked up different school uniforms to help me out in a few cases. One of my chars is originally from Africa so I did look up traditional Kenya clothing and got inspiration from some of the accessories they wore. I haven't fully design this char yet, but one of my chars is blind, so I plan on giving her a service sight dog so I plan on looking up pictures of that. Just need to decide the dog breed too. I could go traditional with a lab, but we'll see. As far as posing goes, I just drew a char that is shy and awkward and his pose reflects that, he's holding his hands close together with his two index fingers touching each other. Great video though, I enjoyed it.
I've attempted to write several fangans to no avail (it's literally no small feat, it's a lot to cover) and one of my fangans had a talent of Ultimate Charity. What even is that? I couldn't fully describe it so I had to scrap that idea (but made it more despair inducing with the fact that they would have been the mastermind) but I should really apply this info to the most recent one I'm attempting to write. Who knows if or when it'll come out but this helped put things in perspective. Thanks! :D
Wow. I've been pleasantly surprised by this video, I haven't really been a big fan over the last few months because of things going on and stuff, but this is really good and very helpful advice! ^.^
This has helped me literally sm. Ty. Im a gacha creator and I literally cannot draw to save my life, so I was going to use gacha and create one murder case just for fun to share with a couple dr fans/ friends AND I SWEAR, every time I try it fails. Thank you, you deserve so much more than you get 🙏
This has honestly been really helpful towards me. For my protagonist, I attempted to aim for something unique, and basically made her not trust anybody from the beginning. Not even the characters who are genuinely nice to her. This video helped me come up with some ideas for other characters, such as my Ultimate Empress, and my Ultimate Ventriloquist. Thanks Aeris. Lol
Thank you for the tip! I'm actually trying to write one myself and I completely suck at character writing. I am pretty good at writing cases, but I suck at character writing. Thanks for the help, Aeris!
I made my characters completely before the idea to put them in a fangan, including most of the design. Still, this helped a lot with tweaking my characters for the fangan!
I got an idea about all my characters’ personalities, have a good premise (despite being a mishmash of Danganronpa and Saw’s original premise) and have given all my characters talents ranging from Ultimate Band Frontman to the Ultimate Rodeo Clown. Now I just gotta work on the designs and write them out the way I planned their personalities to shift and grow throughout. Thinking of giving the thing a trial run on Wattpad before maybe polishing it, adapting certain things and god knows what else. Kinda an open beta or something of the sort. Essentially I have a bet going with my father who is a self-published author that I can write a book that blows his stuff out of the water. Not sure a Light Novel adjacent to Danganronpa would even be contest for romantic crime stories that verge on smut at times. LUL
This was a very informative and interesting video I liked very much! For me my fangan (if I ever decide to make it or put in an ao3 story) would take place in a hotel and include 17 characters. 16 = your typical DR character 1 = a college student who took up a job at the hotel for spring break Central Theme: Responsibility vs Personal Gain
Really helpful video, especially since I’ve been in a rut of just every character having a dress shirt, coat and tie or bow tie (‘: Just for fun, the talents I’m currently using are : Ultimate Bookbinder (Protag) Ultimate Animal Caretaker Ultimate Mechanic Ultimate Astrologist Ultimate Phycologist Ultimate Influencer Ultimate Gambler Ultimate Woodworker Ultimate Actress Ultimate Farmer Ultimate Lucky Student Ultimate Baker Ultimate Lawyer Ultimate Film Director Ultimate Composer Ultimate Poet
I have a skeleton of a cast, the flesh is slowly being added :) Okay but unnecessarily ominous remarks aside, I actually think deciding talent first ended up somewhat helpful for me for some characters. The process is different for everyone, but I've found that talent ends up being a large part of these characters because their talents are deeply entwined with their backstory. Edit: For further commentary, I wanna say that to determine the mastermind, since my protagonist is a woman, I took the men in the cast, put them all in a wheel, spun it, and eliminated the result each time until the winner was concluded.
This is helping me a lot right now. I’m not writing a Fangan but rather a single OC to put in V3, and my idea of said character was clear, but I didn’t work on it enough to start focusing on her actions during the game. So this is really helping
Great video Aeris! This definitely can help me, I fell into a lot of problems when designing my characters lol Also the drawing is gorgeous! I wish I could draw like you :)
Another thing is to try to avoid common Ultimates. I’ve seen many Ultimate Actor, Ultimate Influencer Ultimate Therapist and I feel a lot of them don’t add change them up to much. I feel you should use these as a base then change them up. Like for the examples above you can do Ultimate Soap Opera Star, Ultimate Live Streamer, Ultimate Speech Therapist. This is to keep your characters different from others.
i don't necessarily agree - a talent can be very common and repeated, and it's really down to the characterization. i've got several "common" talents - a few even repeat from canon (albeit unintentionally). you can use a common Ultimate - after all, there's two Lucky Students and two Detectives.
@@DetectiveNyx i dont think what the og commenter meant to say that you are not allowed to make character with common talent, its just that they recommend its more better to make your character more unique by adding a specific/unpopular talents
about the talents that are too vague,too specific or immeasurable thing would Ultimate trickster work? because she didn't get into hopes peak the normal way she disguised herself into it(The Character Is called Akira Inohami)
Tbh I like to do the tiniest references for example one of my characters wears a Kimono that is typically worn when visiting, which reflects how she believes that she dosent have a home so she just visits for a while (I should have probably explained that she is apart of like a huge clan that I made in my Fangan, with her immediate clan members all being killed; they are called the oka clan, but for example there are branches, then sub branches, hers is a branch off another branch, her last name is Haioka which translates to Ash Hill, and some of them dont have actual last names but my reasoning is they just decided they wanted to be different, examples being Ochaoka and Murasakinooka, which translates to Tea Hill, and Purple Hill, respectively)
Interesting. I'm conceptualizing a fanganronpa but with elements from MHA, including talents being replaced with superpowers. For the story's themes, I decided to go with themes on what it means to be a hero, specifically how strict moral codes don't always equate with being good, as well as other minor things, such as when to take initiative as well as redemption. Either way, this was a major help for me to design my characters, including the only one so far with a name, click on read more for info on that character: PERRY FERRARI: ABILITY - SPONGE-MORPH Admittedly, I started off with more of the character's archetypes and abilities/talents first, rather than themes, though I did have a vague idea on themes. Perry's archetype is the large, friendly character with aspects taken in from MHA character Koji Kouda, another large and friendly character. Personally, I prefer to base my character's theming and personality about their ability, though this doesn't work too well in terms of talent, so I only recommend it if you're giving characters abilities instead of talents like I am. Perry's ability, sponge-morph, allows him to turn and grow parts of his body into sea sponges that are functional in air, though works better underwater. These sponges are durable, with many having a flexible core, while others use pointed spicules (essentially broken glass) or a variety of toxins, while some are even carnivorous and can rip off flesh. Perry's sponges also have the ability to passively filter-feed, which lets him get a minor stamina boost from the nutrients he's obtaining, clean poor-quality air and water, or if he filters fast enough, create gusts of air. Perry can also capitalize off of the regenerative ability of sponges by filter-feeding hard enough to regrow damaged or even lost body parts, though it does take a while. Finally, Perry can make medicine out of some of his sponges. In terms of personality, Perry is more than just "friendly". He's also very gentle and generous, though a bit shy. He wants to be a hero that cleans the world and protects and heals others. These ideals give him a rather passive mindset, however, reacting much more than acting. He also responds rather slowly and tends to not move around too much, though this does give him plenty of patience. Perry is also mute, due to some permanent sponges where his vocal cords are, and instead speaks with a text-to-speech synthesizer alongside using sign language, though he can also communicate by blowing air out of his sponges to make a tweeting noise. He likes to clean, both with and without sponges, listening to calm classical music as well as composing his own using his sponges (Mostly wind instruments with the massive amount of tube sponges, but he has played harp with a harp sponge before), and he likes burgers with pineapple on them. He's afraid of turtles, because of how some of them can eat sponges. Finally, Perry's design. Though I had a simpler base design, I decided to detail it further to show his character a bit more. His general body shape isn't so much muscular as it is broad, with elements of a strongman physique added as well. He has reddish-brown hair the same color as a giant barrel sponge arranged in a standard short boy-cut style. He has a bit of a tan on his skin, though not too much, and his skin is covered with colorful encrusting sponges here and there, including the one on his neck. His fashion sense is designed to be strong and casual, with elements of Florida mixed in due to Florida holding the sponge capital of the world. Specifically, he wears a button-up plaid t-shirt in varying shades of blue (sponges are found in all sorts of waters), black exercise shorts w/ a gator logo (indicates strength alongside Florida being known for alligators), and Crocs(have holes like sponges, Floridan gators and crocks, show a more casual nature)
I'd like someone to review a character I created. The character I created's called Ren Higashi. He's the ultimate board games player. A bit like Chiaki*, Ren likes board games of all genres- speed, strategy, trivia and even luck! For as long as he can remember, he's been playing games all his life. With the power and skill he got granted, he eventually began to play at championships and he has many rivals. He thinks he'd be nothing without them. He's surprisingly lucky in the games that rely on luck, which kind of makes him a lucky person throughout the game (Like Makoto* and Nagito*). Continuing with his backstory. He kind of has an obsession over being different and not normal and here's why. He's often seen people judge him and his friends for being who they are and doing what they do. These people considered themselves "normal". Since the first time he's seen propaganda happen to people around him, he stopped doing things "normal" people considered normal and interested himself over things they didn't consider normal. He truly accepts anyone for who they are, and he's trying to prove others good people can be "weird". Moving on to his design- He has dark blue eyes, white skin and dark brown hair and he wears a dark purple double-sleeved shirt with a magenta dice design on it and the sleeves being grey, light bluish grey lace-up pants, brown shoes and a white cap with card suits on the front. His body's pretty average- slim, 5'7", 118 pounds... That concludes his character. What are your thoughts? *= Not inspiring Ren of this character
If anyone would like to rate the talents I've got (Since before this video) here they are. There are twenty students. If you want to advise revision that's absolutely welcome (Ft personality stereotypes) Ultimate Acrobat (Cute sweet innocent) Ultimate Archer (Snobby b*stard) Ultimate Biologist (Quiet and calm intellect) Ultimate Botanist (Outgoing female role) Ultimate Clothing Designer (Innocent victim whose death hurts) Ultimate Comedian (Failure to apply comedic relief and quite obnoxious) Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist (Antagonist that pretends to be vulnerable to launch their ideas into other students' heads) Ultimate Falconer (Stoic angry) Ultimate Group Leader (Rational brave-- supporting female role) Ultimate Herpetologist (Considerate and different -not living up to standard) Ultimate Hypnotist (The suspicious role that every game has, causes a string of deaths) Ultimate Journalist (The polite outcast) Ultimate Kickboxer (Angry but with a reason due to abuse in being pushed to the best) Ultimate Ornithologist (Supporting male role, real comedic relief) Ultimate Painter (Friend to the protagonist, an optimist with an eventual serious dip in personality) Ultimate Poet (Cute character who ends up snapping) Ultimate Professional Skateboarder (Overly optimistic and *how else to phrase this-* loud role) Ultimate Ribbon Dancer (Cute and bubbly but doesn't die) Ultimate Thespian (Thinks their above everyone else but the type of character you love to hate) Ultimate Vandal (Pessimistic anti-hero protagonist)
4:30 I kinda get what you mean by Nagito and Kokichi being kinda ableist in writing. However, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: DR2 refutes Nagito’s assertion of hope being absolute by having him commit nefarious actions (like setting up Teruteru’s murder attempt, even though some of it was outside of his control) and V3, through Kokichi, represents both the extreme scales of truth (through Chapter 4 and his real intentions) and lies (through his entire character and, again, chapter 4), refuting his notion of “lies are fun sometimes”.
I wrote a fangan years ago when I was like 11, not gonna lie, the murder cases were pretty complex and i liked them a lot, the problem of the fangan are the characters and their deaths. I had characters that were very forgettable and I intended one of them to survive the whole death game, while having other characters that had potential and great redemption arcs were just murdered because I thought it was simply unexpected.
Also, the mastermind sucks
Hello my name is Alex Alex Alex mr alex the third and am junko long lost brother and I’m the ultimate angel demon ultra hybrid and also the mastermind
@@saltwatertaffy7434 Oh wow I am the ✨ultimate uwu dragon ghost human vampire zombie elf angel demon god satan ladybug chat noir prince fox lion tiger elephant hybrid✨
you should rewrite it [happy] id like to read it, i love complex murders lmao
If you’d want I can help with executions and such.
Omg did u post it anywhere,i lowkey wanna read it
I see naming the characters being another important point, mainly when using Japanese or even any names. The main line games usually have meanings relating to the character within their names and I’ve seen plenty of fangans butcher the names.
i made a fangan once as a kid
the main character's name was fucking *_alex ashley and was still japanese_*
How would we find a name like that though what do we look up to find it basically
@@sleeeepyy_ ALEX ASHLEY LMAO
no joke I once named my oc
LOLA ANA HSJANAJDKNS
Ayo junko literally means pure/child
My character is just random Japanese names, but there is one who stuck to me the most. His name is Agathe Homura, the Ultimate Danseur. He is mixed, hence his name. Agathe means good if you do a quick google search, referring to his wholesome personality before his tragic backstory influencing him. His surname, Homura means blaze or flame in Japanese. Also means hearing village literally. What does this has to do with him? He has a vengeance motive that might relate to his tragic backstory. Renewing himself by burning away his old memories and old personality and start on a new one. He is relatively wholesome when he was a child, but because of the said backstory, he becomes a new person (his personality change drastically) and in order to cope, he renew his life as a danseur. And, there is a quote who relates to his surname; a child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth - African Proverb.
I can ramble with this all day
Aka: How to make a fan game as good as SDRA2
it was so good istg
@Ragigi y e s
@Ragigi yeah?
BOI I'VE BEEN SPOILED ABOUT CHAPTER 6 (Not all btw) WHEN I'M STILL IN 5TH CLASS TRIAL AND IT'S FRICKIN CRAZY MY HEAD HURTS
@@Despair_Bagel chew your brain, it will make you not confused
I fell into the 'Design First, Character Later' void. But now that I have personalities for all 16 of my characters, I'm currently giving them all redesigns.
The exact same thing happened to me and when I see my first set of sprites and the ones I'm making now I'm like "Shit it's completely different but it's the same character wtf"
I'm doing both in intervals lol
The same thing happened to me! I redesigned everyone but has some other stuff to do
Honestly that’s how I go about making characters anyway. Make design, make personality, find better ideas while figuring out personality, change design to match new personality, play character telephone until I have someone worth writing
I try to make the personality while drawing them but
I ONLY HAVE 7
I haven’t written a fangan, nor do I ever plan on doing so, but it was great to see your thought process and this is just great advice for OC’s in general
Yeah even if you don’t want to make a fangan, making fangan designs are really fun to make because of how unique yet simple designs they have, the characters I designed for my fangan made me just want to make random ultimates because of how fun it was. Definitely recommend making one of you just wanna have fun with character design
Also here is a tip try to make the ultimates diverse example (you dont need this but this is usually how the games are played out with ultimates)
Shsl Lucky Student
Shsl Detective (Police Officer, Crime Scene Analyst, basically something detective related)
Somebody with a Shsl Music Talent
Somebody with an athletic talent
Somebody with a tech related talent
Somebody with a food related talent (technically only Teruteru but ya know)
Somebody with a talent that they where born with (Think Byakuya, because he is rich, Sonia, etc)
Somebody with an illegal talent (Biker Gang Leader, Yakuza, Supreme Leader, Assassin, etc)
Etc etc
me: gently stares at my ultimate bartender. "are you illegal enough"
Byakuya wasn't born with his talent tho, watch or play his free time events
Also an ultimate ???
Can someone help whats a talent similar to ultimate mechanic or ultimate inventor?
@@riiael ultimate repair type thing?
Just because you don't like them doesn't mean you can misgender them. RESPECT. THEIR. PRONOUNS.
who?-
@@ieatedgod idk
@@ieatedgod aeris, the creator! they're nonbinary.
@@sleeeepyy_ they are?!
S*it hold up ima change all the pronouns I said wrong
why wouldn't we like them? did they do anything wrong?
Is it just me or did they get more Australian?
Seriously though, these are all incredible pieces of advice! Even unrelated to Fangans, a lot of these are just really good character design tips.
“no, not the SMT persona”
great now i want to make an SMT fangan
Flynn
The Ultimate Samurai
Instead of hope and despair, its law and chaos
monokuma is half jack frost half black frost
hee-hope
naoki, ultimate fiend
There’s so many fangans that it can seem intimidating to get into writing fangans. While mine is a personal project, I love this video. Cheering for you Aeris!
One tip I think is important (especially to people who struggle with drawing body language) is to make your character's facial expression very expressive. A good sprite shows off how the character is feeling in the moment. I believe that good sprites and designs show off talent and personality. Sadly for me, in my fangan, my characters were not designed too much with references for the talent, and do not show off their talent well. It is too late for me to go redesign them now, so I focus hard on making characters have good facial expression with a rather simple pose. I can still be proud of my art, because I can see what my characters are feeling. (Facial expression is especially important if your fangan has no voice acting. The reader cannot hear the characters tone of voice, so they must know how the character feels)
this isn't related to the video, but im proud of you for learning and growing as a person over time
Huh 10 seconds ago my ultimate stylist will like this
Also, deviating from the danganronpa style is perfectly ok, i feel like coming up with something new, a style or a artistic choice, is what may make yor fangan stand out, it happened to thh with the pink blood, now wether most ppl see a strong pink used for blood, they think of danganronpa, TRY NEW THINGS!!!!!!!
I want to start a fangan with yellow blood, my own style characters and another theme with a human as a monokuma and etc but I’m too lazy to start it
Will u get in trouble for using danganronpa bases or do u think ur allowed to use them
@@sunflw3r_sh1ne85 as long as your characters aren't a direct copy of the originals, then hell yeah, get some poses from the og game if you want to!
@@sunflw3r_sh1ne85 i use poses from the og games and it doesn't affect me so yeah, as long as ur not copying the character completely
ok but imagine a white blood 💀
I'm making a danganronpa character that is the ultimate necromancer and it's hard not to make them too op oof. Anyway, this is a great video for advice. What I normally do when writing a danganronpa character is to research as much as possible about their ultimate talent. I have also read up on police interview tactics to make the trials more interesting.
I think a good idea would be to make their greatest feat as a necromancer be to get a dead body back to life, but only in a vegetative state, and technically still 'their' zombie slave thingy, although i'd advise experimenting with the character's talent and maybe creating some limitations, such as 'the revived does not have the consciousness it had before it was killed, although they can remember certain things', or maybe the necromancer gets the wrong "soul" in the recently killed body, and so on, and so forth.
I have a similar character! The Ultimate Medium. And by that, I mean they can see & talk to ghosts. You’d think this would make them ridiculously OP, and by many rights, it truly could be.
The way I solved this conundrum is that whenever they mention their abilities, they’re either doubted, or feared. Neither of which you’d want in general, but especially not a killing game where you could die at almost any moment. I mean, most people don’t really believe in the supernatural, hm? & if they do, they’re afraid of it to the point of violence. So they don’t bring up their Ultimate Talent very much. And if it is brought up, they purposefully leave the true extent of their abilities ambiguous.
It’s not like they’re omnipotent, though. Most of their knowledge extends to about what the victim has told them. And then they investigate. Not as throughly as the MC, obviously, because them knowing everything about the case would be boring for everyone. They just mysteriously know a lot about the murders occurring, bringing the fruits of their investigation to the trials with surprisingly sound logic... suspiciously so, given their talent.
Investigating with a suspect in mind helps a little. (Or misleads you to an incorrect conclusion...)
But yeah, they get sussed for the murders a lot, because they’re unintentionally creepy & awkward most of the time. Of course seeing them suddenly become assertive in their belief & knowing everything about the case would be sus- (haha funny amogus joke)
They’re somewhat of a rival to the MC, too. That’d certainly help balance their scales. But it’s not in an evil or sadistic way, but they can really make the trials harder because of how stubborn they are in their reasoning.
And that all depends on if the victim’s spirit cooperates with the investigation. Just because they can speak with the dead doesn’t mean the dead will speak with them! That is, if the victim knows who even killed them... muahaha!
So, yeah. Characters who can interact with the dead are a little harder to balance than others, but it’s certainly possible to at least make them not-so OP!
Though, it’d seem a necromancer is certainly different from a medium. I suppose any advice I could give would heavily depend upon the character’s role in a story. So... if I had to give any advice for this... (which you obviously don’t need to heed, but you probably knew that-)
I’d think about your character’s abilities, and add limits or drawbacks to them, or how your character uses their ability. Like, what if the Necromancer overworks themselves trying to bring a victim back, and collapses, leaving themselves vulnerable for a killing? What if they’re slowly but surely draining their own vitality through their necrotic endeavors? Will it kill them, leading to a trial, will they kill another person, in an attempt to get their vitality back, or will something even worse happen?
What if bringing someone back to life isn’t as clean for the revived as one might think? (Feel free to define the meaning of that yourself! There’s obviously gonna be some drawbacks for the revived, whether it’s just the dread of knowing what death is like, or something else...)
Maybe the Necromancer can impose those consequences themselves?
Like, maybe the necromancer makes a Frankenstein’s monster version of the revived character, reshaping the revived into their twisted perception of them? Or, maybe they’ll bring them back as a mindless friend for themselves (or someone else! They could be trying to help! In a slightly horrific manner-) The killing game does get lonely...
And just because they’re bringing people back from the dead doesn’t mean they’ll listen to them... I mean, it’s not unusual to see one’s creations turn on them.
Anyway, my point being... How exactly would your character use their talent in a way that’s both interesting & relevant to the plot?
You obviously don’t have to take any of this advice. It’s your character, and the freedom of making them is your fun!
For characters with supernatural talents, my advice is to make them CAPABLE, but not too good at whatever they do. Most talents are able to be done by anyone but not as good as the ultimates. Talents that most people can’t do gives the character a reason to be mediocre at it. The fact that they can raise the dead at all is a feat, so most won’t judge them too harshly.
I have a ultimate necromancer, but I ended up making them blind and having a strict moral code with the dead. They don’t practice much necromancy unless the body has been properly respected and has been left undisturbed, and since every dead body has been disturbed in that place they can’t find themselves to bring any of the dead bodies there back to life. So them just “bringing people back to life” is highly unlikely since it would disturb the souls of the dead basically.
I'd say Danganronpa is a series in which OP isn't a bad thing at all. It's a huge problem in superhero stories, for example, but in DR it can add intrigue.
here’s my really rough sketch fangan. there’s a few queer coated characters but my vision for all of them is pretty hazy
Danganronpa 14 Beautiful Blood Bath
theme wealth vs poverty
-Ultimate Rugby Player
shota character who’s father spent hundreds of dollars on him to get top notch training in rugby. bullied by other players who thought he only got in cuz money
-Ultimate Detective
grew up in a lower middle class family and worked in her parents store, it got robbed but she cracked the case
-Ultimate Orgiami Maker
short guy, obsessed with ninja anime and manga and fronts as a leader/ protector
-Ultimate Legacy (mc) byakuya but timid
rich, inferiority complex
-Ultimate Clown/Circus worker
poor but volunteered in children’s shelters and fell in love with performing arts
-Ultimate mortician
loli girl (I imagine the fairy girl from x and y)
grew up in a small village that was often affected by war. she saw too many bodies where she became desensitized and learn to examine them. (the autopsy girl till she **** in chapter *)
-Ultimate Lawyer - bi/gay coated
grew up wealthy as his father owned a company. he was mostly raised by his fathers lawyer and picked up on it at a young age
-Ultimate ventriloquist - taller than rugby but shorter than clown
wears a mask or something to cover his face and speaks through his puppet. he has a handsome yet horribly scarred face but he forgot how he got it. one of the motives is to kill to learn a secret and his is how his face was ruined
ultimate fashion guru
i’m not sure of her backstory but we’ll learn her family caused the ventriloquists face to be ruined. the normally calm and pretty character will break down in her room and change her appearance, less focused on makeup.
I have a general idea of who kills who but i’ll leave it at that
Nice idea!
Aaahhhh i loveee it
I actually love fangans! My fangans antag is a antag because he just get things right more often then the protag, so basically the protag is just kinda angry he doesn’t figure out things that the antag does. I just find this funny because like, the antag knows it bothers the protag and teases him about it all the time. Antags that are just made to seem insane is kinda weird.
I had fun making a few DR OCs for roleplay fun, so far I've got an Ultimate Opera Singer, ASMR Artist, Rhythmic Gymnast and Children's Book Illustrator :D They were all in different universes except for the opera singer and the illustrator
I have a Children's Story Writer-
I'm like- I want to make some characters, might never really do much with them, but it's fun to design characters and making their personality, so I'm just gonna sit back and watch. This is gonna be great :D
A me
needed this ty aeris ‼️‼️
The gimic for the fangan that I wrote was “I drew all of the characters, however i suck at drawing also their names are literally colors.” It would be called ColorRonpa I had this cool idea where the person you expect to be the antagonist is the first victim and the real antagonist dies in chapter 4. It sucks tbh but the main theme is literally “my drawing skills are still stickpeople” so what did you expect.
I love the advice of adding themes to your fangan. I myself was very interested by Celeste's idea of adapting to the killing game and decided to make the fangan have a theme of adaptation vs. transitivity
Time Stamps ^^
I want to know how you got your art style so fine tuned, with it looking as though a danganronpa artist made, while having put your own spin on it.
thank you, im starting a fanganronpa
@• Chihiro’s Mouse • OH HOW THE TURNTABLES
good luck!
Here’s a personal idea of mine, try mixing archetypes, like what if the supporting character was the mastermind or the antagonist the traitor. It’s just a thought but I have the “big guy” be a survivor which is a first for the series.
@• Spoki • im still debating on a title, but i think it will be called unlocked dreams
@@agavini1 but they always do chapter 4 dead
Super Danganronpa Another 2 is a good example. It has literally everything you can do to make a good fangan: unique characters, lore, good gimmick (especially the voids)
Steps
1:42 Determining the central theme
2:52 Determining personality and role
5:19 giving (the character) a talent
6:39 designing the character
Thanks so much Aeris! Personally, I’ve been wanting to sketch up some concepts for an ultimate physiologist/ultimate surgeon for a while now, with some inspiration from Team Fortress 2’s Medic, mostly because I find the concept of insane medical practitioners completely disregarding of their patient’s life to be very, very fun and having a lot of possibility to it. Maybe he literally takes the goddamn body from the crime scene for an autopsy and you don’t find out who the victim was until just before the trial. Maybe he regularly performs experiments on animals belonging to everyone else, and gets himself in hot water so he’s always getting blamed first for being blackened. Maybe he just kills someone while seeing them up from an injury and frames somebody else to stop being pestered by ‘Neanderthals who fail to grasp the importance of science over your miserable lives’.
Fangans: 😳
Ultimate Actor: 😲
I wanna try and make one I have a channel for it for just in case I don’t have the confidence I got the confidence to make it.
I cannot stress enough how much I needed these tips, as I’m working on a fangan and just have been aiming for nothing with no ideas of what to do, and have just been stuck on naming but this helped a lot! Writing and creating fangan ocs is hard to do alone but I’m glad I watched this video!
The theme I'm going for in my fangan is Emotions vs Logic since when I first made the oc I intended to be the protag they were very logical and serious, even their talent was the ultimate intellect. Since I'm not that good at designing boys I also kinda want to make my scene at either an all girls private school so it'd be easier to design all the characters plus I feel like girls tend to argue with each other about opinions more than boys at times so it could make trials a bit more interesting and it could have a lot of scrum debates as well. So far I only have half of the characters designed and a few basic story plots but I'm sure this video will help me along the way!
this was really helpful!! i’m currently making a fangan (i’m making it a video series with Gacha because i’m not confident enough in my art skills lmao-) and there are some things you said that i never even thought about! this will totally help me improve it. thanks Aeris!!
Well now I know I’m not the only one using Gacha to do this-
I’m so relieved every time you post ever since the apology video. I’m proud of you for still fighting even with everything going on.
I clicked the notification so fast the video wouldn’t play-
Wow. The Ultimate Mixologist advice was pretty helpful. One of my Fangan characters talents actually is brewing drinks
I’m thinking on making a fangan called Danganronpa: Angels and Devils. The students in the killing game are my original characters but they each have a guide that’s stuck in purgatory (past victims, blackeneds, and Sdr2 survivors). I will edit this as I’d think of more information to add
You have no idea how much I will enjoy this video 👀 this will help me a lot!!
very good video! I was thinking of dipping my toes in creating a cast of fangan characters but it was hard for me creating a believable setting and theme... this really helped! Thanks Aeris!
I actually needed this! Thank you Aeris!
In the middle of my own writing, and hearing this does have me thinking of how to view my characters and story thus far. While there are some parts to fix/consider changing, I need to remind myself not to let the dangan-excitement get to me as that has made the writing stumble in a number of places.
Character design wise, my first attempt at splash art for my cast is one I'm proud of, but would always nitpick (i.e. the clothes are too basic, doesn't represent their talent enough, or wish I did more time on them). Listening to your advice did ring a lot as I thought about how I drew them initially. I want to utilize any and all advice to bettering story and character development for sure, and you gave some really great tips!
thank you very much for this!! i'm working on a fanganronpa myself and so far i only have one character. i like his design a lot but his personality is a little blurry and i wasn't too sure on how to fix it. i'm gonna be working on him and trying to flesh him out more :0
When I make a character I usually do talent first then personality though I have exceptions. A lot of times it can give me a baseline for how the characters will act as a result.
Thanks for the help! Honestly I've always tried to keep my Fangan characters outfits somewhat simple, and honestly the only time that really worked was with was one of my characters that trying to look normal was a big part. I think I'll be a bit more creative outfit wise in the future and yes, I'll use references :)
god, this video helped me *so much.* i cannot stress this enough about how much this helped me with my fanmade danganronpa character, just- thanks.
I’ve made a drv3 fanfic with basically all the characters but I have added my own character. He’s basically like Makoto mixed with Kaito, always energetic and willing to help those around him, super defensive of people that insult his friends, and helpful in class trials too. Although my drawings of him suck(cause I never use references cause I think that I want my drawing to be original Lol I should start using them), I want to show him off cause I think he’s pretty cool. He’s got a strange talent too lol. His name is Horiuchi Yoshiro, and he’s the Ultimate Weapon Master, basically he’s extremely good at any weapon, whether it be a gun, sword, etc. I get that it’s a weird talent, but that is just my weird imagination.
BRO WHEN I SAW “ultimate weapon master” I JUST GOT SUPER- IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT, BUT MY FRIEND HAS A WEAPON MASTER OC IN OUR FANGAN AND ASDFGHJKL IM FREAKING OUT ABOUT THIS FOR LEGIT NO REASON WHAT SO EVER
@@tbg2755 LOL
@@statikilluminex2169 XD
@@tbg2755 that’s cool
you should use references to get an idea for what it looks like. everyone uses them. heck even I do
Well the art part unfortunately doesn't really help, but the fangan stuff does!
I really want to make a DR3 AU-ish fangan with underappreciated characters and give them a bit of a purpose, so I might use these tips for help.
Whoa, this is legit really nice advice on how to write a really great Danganronpa OC, awesome
i see my antag blasting caramelldansan by the dorms at 3am, that’s it
I like em
Epic
Ty for the tips Aeris. Also I like the new design for your Fangan Character
:D
Thanks for the help!!! I’ve been wanting to make a fangan for a while now but was stuck with the characters and characters designs- so thanks for that :D
I could really use this since I'm making a Danganronpa OC :D
I think that some tips i already know it but the character desing its very dificult to me, so thanks to inspire me to draw more characters. Thanks Aeris ;)
I loved this video! Ironically I've been planning on refining my fangan cast, so running into this is very welcome!! I'm glad you're making stuff like this!
Thank you for this video m8. Recently I’ve been working on my own Fanganronpa project so this video was really helpful
I am, quite a bit late, but thank you for those tips Aeris!! I've been making fan danganronpa characters without any base game in mind - just making characters for their talents and personalities - and i think i'll get pretty easily stuck on what theme i should have for them ahaha,,
To help with writing my ocs personalities I used a wheel to select a random MBTI type (since there are 16 I saw that as a great opportunity) this is also because I've been researching mbti types recently and wanted to mix it into my fangan haha
Thanks Aeris, now onto creating my fangan characters.
i like making a design first so what im currently doing after cementing the personalities is redesigns, and i've found that so far a lot of my charatcers keep relatively similar (or at least recognizable) designs while having complex and distinct personalities, but this video is still really helpful so yay !!!
Fangans are pretty fun, especially the creativity of the plots, trials, and characters.
I even want to write one myself tbh, this video is pretty helpful for those who want to try and make their own fangan.
Great video and also good luck with your own fangan if you’re making one
i was actually procrastinating to finish writing my fangan until i watch this video and got motivated. thank you so much T.T i love your drawing and fangan btw!!
i’m just gonna drop my ocs dr AU ultimates:
Astra: Ultimate Astronomer
Erin: Ultimate Engineer
Alexis: Ultimate Tattoo artist
Alina: Ultimate Florist
Devon: Ultimate Cat trainer
Axel: Ultimate dog trainer
Sam: Ultimate Pet Shop Owner
Simon: Ultimate Bodyguard
Jaxon: Ultimate Little Brother
Adrien: Ultimate Lucky Student
Arro: Ultimate Vigilante
Arii: Ultiamte Empath
Neo: Ultimate Robot
Arachnia: Ultimate Spider Keeper
Lily: Ultimate Medic
Lisa: Ultima Lolita Fasion Designer
Mastermind: Nebula: Ultimate Makeup artist
basically
Faux Protag: Astra
Real Protag: Adrien
Antag: Jaxon
Support 1: Arii
Support 2: Simon
Support 3: Sam
Rest: other chars who die or get killed or live ✨
the theme is something i don’t know yet-
the main protag is strong, physically and largely built and the antags the opposite
Is ultimate medic a doctor. Paramedic or battlefield medic?
@@gazelle8431 idk
in the og story she’s a war medic so i’ll just say
battlefield
@@acebf_ ok that's interesting
@@gazelle8431 yeah
I may be over a year late to this but one thing I would like to point out is that the talents CAN be pretty specific, if done right. I’ve written a protag who is the Ultimate Pumpkin Carver who feels inferior towards the other Ultimates due to her talent being obscure plus many of the people in her life mocking her for her passion. It’s only when some of the other Ultimates appreciate her skills that she begins to become more self-confident. If the specific talent can play a part in the characterization of a character, then run with it. Plus it’s pretty likely no other fangan will include your talent so that’s an extra bonus
it's been so long that i actually agree with this - honestly i should've from the start, since my own protag is also of the Specific Talents fame (ultimate shadow puppeteer) lol
@@DetectiveNyx yeah, as long as your talent isn’t something TOO obscure like Ultimate Underwater Basket Weaver or Ultimate Solo Synchronized Swimmer I think you can make it work lol
"Ultimate Linguist" was already one of the talents I was planning to use :)
Linguistics is fun
When you talked about talents i remember this oc tik tok compilation and most of the ocs had outlandish talents but the one that stuck out like a sore thumb was the ultimate sadist yep someone made their ocs talent about enjoying inflicting pain on others.
i mean a talent that's about inflicting pain on others isn't inherently a bad thing but a sadist isn't really a profession i'd give to a high schooler
@@DetectiveNyxyou got a point
Thanks so much!I already am designing my characters and my theme is future or past!This vid was so helpful!
TY SO MUCH AERIS!! I’m currently writing a fangan myself and I myself have unfortunately fallen into “design, then character” and your video is really helpful, I’m planning on finishing the character and then going back to redesign my characters that need it, again ty for the advice
As someone who’s trying to write my own fangan this really helped! Although now I’m trying to find a different ultimate for one of my ocs and I’m having trouble (they were originally the ultimate test subject and now I can’t think of anything else)
I know I hardly ever comment on your stuff and mainly just lurk but this is so helpful, Aeris! Now I have some idea of what to do if I ever decide to resurrect the fangan I scrapped lol
Finally seeing this a year later, but this actually helps, especially with the archetypes. I personally had the idea of the main protag, who was ultimate luck in chapter 1 being a fakeout and them being the first victim instead. That was the only archetype I necessarily had planned. the character's personalities, and therefore archetypes kinda fell into place after I knew what their talent was. I had vague ideas in my head of what I wanted, including talents and blips of personality, but this actually helps a lot
Also remember to try and make every character either relatable or memorable, unfortunately for the actual games I always forget that;
Mukuro, Leon, Chihiro, Mondo, Taka, Hifumi, Imposter, and Rantaro are danganronpa characters because they either dont get fleshed out (Mukuro and Rantaro) they are the ch1 killer (Leon), they arent mentioned out of ships (Taka and Mondo) or they arent mentioned out of the gender debate (Chihiro)
Even though I have no desire to create my own fangan (not enough time nor the skills), I did always want to make my own OCs that would fit into the DR universe. I am actually drawing them atm, but to even create them I did create a premise and background as if I were creating my own DR story. Plus I wanted to play to my strengths, like I love playing around with color and in fact one fangan (DR Brave: Coward's Paradise) really gave me inspiration for my own color palettes. I wanted to throw in my love for Astrology in there so a good chunk of the chars' color schemes and personalities are based around Zodiac signs. It's been a fun challenge for me because of the DR eyes are pretty different from how I normally do anime eyes, but I am liking it. I've practice sketching out DR eye shapes. So I am curious about what your video is about.
1. Whelp hit the nail on the head haha. Yeah, one of my main premises for my chars, besides the astrology thing, is vice vs. virtue. I wanted chars with both good and bad traits and what better way to do that then to use the famous Seven Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues. It was fun mixing and matching each of these traits with my chars. Definitely helped with the design too. Like one of my char's his biggest vice is lust, so he's total eye candy lol.
2. I did come up with my protags first. Yes I did decide to create 2 protags because I saw what DR V4: Rocky Restart did and thought, why not? Especially since the first char I created, her talent is Empathy, yeah, she's going to be a wreck and too emotionally invested to think clearly, so that's where the 2nd protag comes in. Design wise I did want to make it look like they could all fit into a school setting too. I really did look at popular fangans and official DR chars to help me out here. People might be surprised on how much research is needed to create something, especially an original char. Still looking at one of my finished group images, I just hope they look okay. I totally agree with you about the Archetypes. Like I did decide early on, which of my chars would be more antagonistic, who be the comic relief, etc. and that affected their design. One of my fav chars at the moment is a nutcase, but she's so passionate in what she believes in too lol. She's definitely a 'loose canon' type where you couldn't predict whether she'll be a victim or a blacken.
3. I simultaneously came up with the personality and talent of each char. I definitely didn't want a Lucky student or a Mystery talent right off since I wanted to be different lol. Besides my main premise allows me to be that way. FYI, I did create notes before doing any drawing. Talent wise, I knew I wanted at least 1 sport, 1 artistic talent, and 1 unpredictable one. I did pick talents I thought I could play off well myself if I decided to write out this fangan and I think I managed it. I already mentioned my 1st protag (her name is Marie btw), her talent is Empathy. Well, call it a bit selfish, but I wanted this char to be a lot like me since I am an empath. Her talent is a double edge sword.
4. OMG References are your friends. I actually looked up different school uniforms to help me out in a few cases. One of my chars is originally from Africa so I did look up traditional Kenya clothing and got inspiration from some of the accessories they wore. I haven't fully design this char yet, but one of my chars is blind, so I plan on giving her a service sight dog so I plan on looking up pictures of that. Just need to decide the dog breed too. I could go traditional with a lab, but we'll see. As far as posing goes, I just drew a char that is shy and awkward and his pose reflects that, he's holding his hands close together with his two index fingers touching each other.
Great video though, I enjoyed it.
I've attempted to write several fangans to no avail (it's literally no small feat, it's a lot to cover) and one of my fangans had a talent of Ultimate Charity. What even is that? I couldn't fully describe it so I had to scrap that idea (but made it more despair inducing with the fact that they would have been the mastermind) but I should really apply this info to the most recent one I'm attempting to write. Who knows if or when it'll come out but this helped put things in perspective. Thanks! :D
Wow. I've been pleasantly surprised by this video, I haven't really been a big fan over the last few months because of things going on and stuff, but this is really good and very helpful advice! ^.^
Ooh, this will probably be very helpful, thanks for this!
This has helped me literally sm. Ty. Im a gacha creator and I literally cannot draw to save my life, so I was going to use gacha and create one murder case just for fun to share with a couple dr fans/ friends AND I SWEAR, every time I try it fails. Thank you, you deserve so much more than you get 🙏
This has honestly been really helpful towards me. For my protagonist, I attempted to aim for something unique, and basically made her not trust anybody from the beginning. Not even the characters who are genuinely nice to her.
This video helped me come up with some ideas for other characters, such as my Ultimate Empress, and my Ultimate Ventriloquist. Thanks Aeris. Lol
Ive been making a lot of ocs recently, so this should be helpful.
Thank you for the tip! I'm actually trying to write one myself and I completely suck at character writing. I am pretty good at writing cases, but I suck at character writing. Thanks for the help, Aeris!
i'm actually working on a fanganronpa game and working on the protagonist so this will be useful advice!
thank you SO much Aeris
I made my characters completely before the idea to put them in a fangan, including most of the design. Still, this helped a lot with tweaking my characters for the fangan!
I got an idea about all my characters’ personalities, have a good premise (despite being a mishmash of Danganronpa and Saw’s original premise) and have given all my characters talents ranging from Ultimate Band Frontman to the Ultimate Rodeo Clown.
Now I just gotta work on the designs and write them out the way I planned their personalities to shift and grow throughout.
Thinking of giving the thing a trial run on Wattpad before maybe polishing it, adapting certain things and god knows what else. Kinda an open beta or something of the sort.
Essentially I have a bet going with my father who is a self-published author that I can write a book that blows his stuff out of the water.
Not sure a Light Novel adjacent to Danganronpa would even be contest for romantic crime stories that verge on smut at times. LUL
Thank you! I just started writing a fangan and this will be really helpful!!
This was a very informative and interesting video I liked very much!
For me my fangan (if I ever decide to make it or put in an ao3 story) would take place in a hotel and include 17 characters.
16 = your typical DR character
1 = a college student who took up a job at the hotel for spring break
Central Theme: Responsibility vs Personal Gain
Question: Would empathy vs. apathy be a good theme to use? (Asking because I'm not very smart.)
a theme itself is always good to use - it's how you execute the theme that matters
Really helpful video, especially since I’ve been in a rut of just every character having a dress shirt, coat and tie or bow tie (‘:
Just for fun, the talents I’m currently using are :
Ultimate Bookbinder (Protag)
Ultimate Animal Caretaker
Ultimate Mechanic
Ultimate Astrologist
Ultimate Phycologist
Ultimate Influencer
Ultimate Gambler
Ultimate Woodworker
Ultimate Actress
Ultimate Farmer
Ultimate Lucky Student
Ultimate Baker
Ultimate Lawyer
Ultimate Film Director
Ultimate Composer
Ultimate Poet
I have a skeleton of a cast, the flesh is slowly being added :) Okay but unnecessarily ominous remarks aside, I actually think deciding talent first ended up somewhat helpful for me for some characters. The process is different for everyone, but I've found that talent ends up being a large part of these characters because their talents are deeply entwined with their backstory.
Edit: For further commentary, I wanna say that to determine the mastermind, since my protagonist is a woman, I took the men in the cast, put them all in a wheel, spun it, and eliminated the result each time until the winner was concluded.
This is helping me a lot right now. I’m not writing a Fangan but rather a single OC to put in V3, and my idea of said character was clear, but I didn’t work on it enough to start focusing on her actions during the game. So this is really helping
Great video Aeris! This definitely can help me, I fell into a lot of problems when designing my characters lol
Also the drawing is gorgeous! I wish I could draw like you :)
Never knew how much I needed this lol
Another thing is to try to avoid common Ultimates. I’ve seen many Ultimate Actor, Ultimate Influencer
Ultimate Therapist and I feel a lot of them don’t add change them up to much. I feel you should use these as a base then change them up. Like for the examples above you can do Ultimate Soap Opera Star, Ultimate Live Streamer, Ultimate Speech Therapist. This is to keep your characters different from others.
i don't necessarily agree - a talent can be very common and repeated, and it's really down to the characterization. i've got several "common" talents - a few even repeat from canon (albeit unintentionally). you can use a common Ultimate - after all, there's two Lucky Students and two Detectives.
@@DetectiveNyx i dont think what the og commenter meant to say that you are not allowed to make character with common talent, its just that they recommend its more better to make your character more unique by adding a specific/unpopular talents
about the talents that are too vague,too specific or immeasurable thing would Ultimate trickster work? because she didn't get into hopes peak the normal way she disguised herself into it(The Character Is called Akira Inohami)
Tbh I like to do the tiniest references for example one of my characters wears a Kimono that is typically worn when visiting, which reflects how she believes that she dosent have a home so she just visits for a while (I should have probably explained that she is apart of like a huge clan that I made in my Fangan, with her immediate clan members all being killed; they are called the oka clan, but for example there are branches, then sub branches, hers is a branch off another branch, her last name is Haioka which translates to Ash Hill, and some of them dont have actual last names but my reasoning is they just decided they wanted to be different, examples being Ochaoka and Murasakinooka, which translates to Tea Hill, and Purple Hill, respectively)
This was great loved the video Aeris
Interesting. I'm conceptualizing a fanganronpa but with elements from MHA, including talents being replaced with superpowers. For the story's themes, I decided to go with themes on what it means to be a hero, specifically how strict moral codes don't always equate with being good, as well as other minor things, such as when to take initiative as well as redemption. Either way, this was a major help for me to design my characters, including the only one so far with a name, click on read more for info on that character:
PERRY FERRARI: ABILITY - SPONGE-MORPH
Admittedly, I started off with more of the character's archetypes and abilities/talents first, rather than themes, though I did have a vague idea on themes. Perry's archetype is the large, friendly character with aspects taken in from MHA character Koji Kouda, another large and friendly character.
Personally, I prefer to base my character's theming and personality about their ability, though this doesn't work too well in terms of talent, so I only recommend it if you're giving characters abilities instead of talents like I am. Perry's ability, sponge-morph, allows him to turn and grow parts of his body into sea sponges that are functional in air, though works better underwater. These sponges are durable, with many having a flexible core, while others use pointed spicules (essentially broken glass) or a variety of toxins, while some are even carnivorous and can rip off flesh. Perry's sponges also have the ability to passively filter-feed, which lets him get a minor stamina boost from the nutrients he's obtaining, clean poor-quality air and water, or if he filters fast enough, create gusts of air. Perry can also capitalize off of the regenerative ability of sponges by filter-feeding hard enough to regrow damaged or even lost body parts, though it does take a while. Finally, Perry can make medicine out of some of his sponges.
In terms of personality, Perry is more than just "friendly". He's also very gentle and generous, though a bit shy. He wants to be a hero that cleans the world and protects and heals others. These ideals give him a rather passive mindset, however, reacting much more than acting. He also responds rather slowly and tends to not move around too much, though this does give him plenty of patience. Perry is also mute, due to some permanent sponges where his vocal cords are, and instead speaks with a text-to-speech synthesizer alongside using sign language, though he can also communicate by blowing air out of his sponges to make a tweeting noise. He likes to clean, both with and without sponges, listening to calm classical music as well as composing his own using his sponges (Mostly wind instruments with the massive amount of tube sponges, but he has played harp with a harp sponge before), and he likes burgers with pineapple on them. He's afraid of turtles, because of how some of them can eat sponges.
Finally, Perry's design. Though I had a simpler base design, I decided to detail it further to show his character a bit more. His general body shape isn't so much muscular as it is broad, with elements of a strongman physique added as well. He has reddish-brown hair the same color as a giant barrel sponge arranged in a standard short boy-cut style. He has a bit of a tan on his skin, though not too much, and his skin is covered with colorful encrusting sponges here and there, including the one on his neck. His fashion sense is designed to be strong and casual, with elements of Florida mixed in due to Florida holding the sponge capital of the world. Specifically, he wears a button-up plaid t-shirt in varying shades of blue (sponges are found in all sorts of waters), black exercise shorts w/ a gator logo (indicates strength alongside Florida being known for alligators), and Crocs(have holes like sponges, Floridan gators and crocks, show a more casual nature)
This was a really lovely guide!
I'd like someone to review a character I created.
The character I created's called Ren Higashi. He's the ultimate board games player. A bit like Chiaki*, Ren likes board games of all genres- speed, strategy, trivia and even luck! For as long as he can remember, he's been playing games all his life. With the power and skill he got granted, he eventually began to play at championships and he has many rivals. He thinks he'd be nothing without them. He's surprisingly lucky in the games that rely on luck, which kind of makes him a lucky person throughout the game (Like Makoto* and Nagito*).
Continuing with his backstory. He kind of has an obsession over being different and not normal and here's why. He's often seen people judge him and his friends for being who they are and doing what they do. These people considered themselves "normal". Since the first time he's seen propaganda happen to people around him, he stopped doing things "normal" people considered normal and interested himself over things they didn't consider normal. He truly accepts anyone for who they are, and he's trying to prove others good people can be "weird".
Moving on to his design- He has dark blue eyes, white skin and dark brown hair and he wears a dark purple double-sleeved shirt with a magenta dice design on it and the sleeves being grey, light bluish grey lace-up pants, brown shoes and a white cap with card suits on the front. His body's pretty average- slim, 5'7", 118 pounds...
That concludes his character. What are your thoughts?
*= Not inspiring Ren of this character
If anyone would like to rate the talents I've got (Since before this video) here they are. There are twenty students. If you want to advise revision that's absolutely welcome (Ft personality stereotypes)
Ultimate Acrobat (Cute sweet innocent)
Ultimate Archer (Snobby b*stard)
Ultimate Biologist (Quiet and calm intellect)
Ultimate Botanist (Outgoing female role)
Ultimate Clothing Designer (Innocent victim whose death hurts)
Ultimate Comedian (Failure to apply comedic relief and quite obnoxious)
Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist (Antagonist that pretends to be vulnerable to launch their ideas into other students' heads)
Ultimate Falconer (Stoic angry)
Ultimate Group Leader (Rational brave-- supporting female role)
Ultimate Herpetologist (Considerate and different -not living up to standard)
Ultimate Hypnotist (The suspicious role that every game has, causes a string of deaths)
Ultimate Journalist (The polite outcast)
Ultimate Kickboxer (Angry but with a reason due to abuse in being pushed to the best)
Ultimate Ornithologist (Supporting male role, real comedic relief)
Ultimate Painter (Friend to the protagonist, an optimist with an eventual serious dip in personality)
Ultimate Poet (Cute character who ends up snapping)
Ultimate Professional Skateboarder (Overly optimistic and *how else to phrase this-* loud role)
Ultimate Ribbon Dancer (Cute and bubbly but doesn't die)
Ultimate Thespian (Thinks their above everyone else but the type of character you love to hate)
Ultimate Vandal (Pessimistic anti-hero protagonist)
4:30
I kinda get what you mean by Nagito and Kokichi being kinda ableist in writing. However, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: DR2 refutes Nagito’s assertion of hope being absolute by having him commit nefarious actions (like setting up Teruteru’s murder attempt, even though some of it was outside of his control) and V3, through Kokichi, represents both the extreme scales of truth (through Chapter 4 and his real intentions) and lies (through his entire character and, again, chapter 4), refuting his notion of “lies are fun sometimes”.