Disgaea/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice is set in Evil Academy, a school for demons that celebrates troublemakers and people who ditch class as honour students and labels dilegent and polite demons as delinquents. It's a funny little backwords logic world that fits right at home in the wacky Disgaea universe, but how such a world could possibly function was beyond me. I dismissed it as Rule of Funny until a random NPC commented on how nobody ever passed the end of semester exams. Since everyone always failed, everyone always had to repeat the year. So what about their tuition fee??? Suddenly it made sense! The Academy encourages students to slack off and not work so they can never leave the school (or even want to leave), thus making them pay tuition for eternity.
  • Wouldn't they just get sent to other schools? Why would they ever be sent there in the first place?
  • That's the thing. There isn't any other school- the entire Netherworld is the Academy!
    • In fact, one of the creatable characters in the game, the male healer, reffered to as Clergy, does mention this in class if you talk to him a few times.

Clergy: Being an Honor Student meaning flunking, which means you have to keep paying tuition forever...

• Speaking of Disgaea, let's talk about the angels. Two major characters, Flonne and Lamington, in particular. Many people probably know Lamington is the name of a volcano. But I recently discovered that it's also the name of a sponge cake from Australia. Suddenly, Flonne's name made sense: It's supposed to be "Flan"! Whereas the demons have their volcano Theme Naming, the angels are instead named after desserts (except Vulcanus, but that's because he acts more like a demon than most actual demons in the game do) and the name Lamington is just a huge pun on both! It may also explain his Sweet Tooth in the manga, as well.
  • The thing is that her name sounds like "Flan" only in English. In Japanese, it's sounds more like "Flown" (Furon).
• In games 2 and 3, there are 'Cell Phone' items with various functions - one of which is 'Call Zenisky Financial Services'. This either grants you some free cash, or steals a chunk of it away. The brilliance is actually in the name, a joke lost in translation. In the original, 'Zenisky' would be spelled 'Zenisuki'...Zeni (One reading for the Japanese kanji for 'money') + Suki (the verb, 'to like') In other words, the name of the financial company is, "I like money"!
  • Extra brilliance when you figure out who's running the business in the first place. It's Hoggmeiser from Hour of Darkness, whose Japanese name is Zenisuki.
• Here's one thats easy to miss. Remember the Prism Rangers? It might seem like a withering deconstruction of Super Sentai. But as of the revelations off Z.H.P it actually becomes obvious why they're so weak. Their HEARTS aren't set on the passion for Justice and Love that MAKES a Hero's powers work! In the first game their only in it to make friends. In the SECOND game they actually target a bad guy...but willingly consider attacking women and children who may or may not be evil demons. Aside from that, they regularly demonstrate a cowardice that not even the Main Character of Z.H.P ever shows, DESPITE him being a literal Heroic Bystander who may have had The Call forced on him.
  • Here's a Fridge Brilliance to the Fridge Brilliance: Disgaea Infinite explains that the Prism Rangers are also part of a Show Within a Show that's shot live and that characters have a very good chance of dying. In the case of that happening, the producers start looking for replacements, either through scouting or kidnapping. So it makes sense why their hearts aren't in the right place for the hero powers to work—They were forced to do it.
• Consider Krichevskoy for a moment. Ever notice how, if you gave him a shave and a haircut, he'd look a lot like Vyers?
  • Wasn't this outright stated in the first game?
    • The fridge is in the fact that he didn't change his appearance much at all.
• Fenrich's Ho Yay behaviour towards Valvatorez and his hatred for Artina takes on a different meaning to those who understand canine psychology. Canines can be quite clingy and jealous when it comes to their master. As such, they tend to hate any potential new mates master might take up, seeing him/her as an infringment on its territory. Fenrich also happens to be a canine like creature himself.
• The opening song to the second game, Sinful Rose. After much confusion over what the song was talking about, it hit this troper: It's from the true Overlord Zenon's POV. Switching between being about herself and her thoughts on everyone else (people being lying, corrupt bastards).
• At first, it may seem like Flonne took in Artina when she became an angel out of pity but if you think about the circumstances surrounding Artina's final days as a human, it's actually much more than that. You have Artina, a citizen of a country opposing another country, yet she takes care of the sick and injured regardless of alignment. She also meets a demon who she takes pity on, which the demon find strange. Eventually, her country labels her a traitor and has her executed. The demon she met is looking to avenge her, but she doesn't want that and he decides not to go through with it despite his anger towards her executioners. Now play the final episode of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Suddenly, Flonne and Artina are Not So Different.