Nagito Komaeda

Ultimate Lucky Student

"This little incident will just be a stepping stone for you all! In the end, hope always wins! That's what I believe!"

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese), Bryce Papenbrook (English)
Played by: Hiroki Suzuki (Stage)

A highly intelligent but rather strange young man who was selected to attend Hope's Peak Academy through a random lottery, giving him the title of "Ultimate Lucky Student". He's an affable and easygoing guy, though he tends to be quite self-effacing towards his own talent, claiming that it's not a real talent at all (at least compared to the other students). However, unlike the previous Ultimate Lucky Student, Makoto Naegi, Nagito actually does have supernatural — and reliable —luck, which has worked out to both his advantage and disadvantage throughout his life. His superhuman luck has also caused him to have a bizarre worldview, where he believes that for the "chosen" (aka Hope's Peak's Ultimates), all of life's despair, no matter how tragic, are ultimately good things because they are just "stepping stones" to a happy, hopeful ending.

Nagito is both one of the main protagonists and antagonists of the Danganronpa franchise. In his debut game, he manipulates Teruteru into kickstarting the Killing School Trip and was his intended target, only spared when the Ultimate Imposter pushes him out of the way at the last second — but later down the line serves as both the victim of the fifth chapter and the de-facto perpetrator, engineering his own death in an attempt to create a murder that the survivors cannot solve and relying on luck for the traitor to anonymously poison him with a tainted fire extinguisher. While Nagito intended to cull himself and the other Remnants of Despair, Chiaki is forced to save them from being executed at the cost of her own life by revealing her role and subsequently identifying herself as the blackened. During the events of Ultra Despair Girls, he acts as a servant for the Warriors of Hope and assists with the Demon Hunting by having Komaru's Hacking Gun modified to limit its ammunition.

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General

Affably Evil: He is genuinely this to Hajime, as he does care about him on a personal level. However, he is Faux Affably Evil to everyone else although in his own twisted way he cares about the class too. Nagito is easy going, friendly, warm and charming, never seen without a smile but he's also a fanatic hell-bent on making the class miserable so they can "overcome despair".
Always Someone Better: Both the original Ultimate Hope, Makoto, and his antithesis the Ultimate Despair, Junko:
- Makoto, as a fellow Lucky Student, is much more passive in action and though he is not shown actively exploiting his luck, Makoto through his luck was one of the central figures in ending his killing game while escaping with his life. Makoto's luck culminates in Junko's failed murder attempt on him, which forced her to use Mukuro's body to frame Kyoko, the cascading events afterward completely backfiring on Junko and preventing the total ongoing destruction of the world. Nagito in contrast knows how to engineer situations to be decided by his luck, but his ideology and neuroses made him a prime target for Junko's manipulations. Just in Nagito's own killing game, he dominates the rest of the class as needed but even Nagito uttery obliviously danced to Junko's tune: had Nagito's final gambit succeeded as he wanted and intended, his entire class would have been taken over by Junko Alter Egos that would then escape into the world and bring it to further ruin, likely even the extinction of humanity itself. Nagito was completely played by Junko up until his final moments, with only Chiaki and Hajime in fact defeating despair. So for all his intelligence and capacity to use his luck, Makoto lived and succeeded in crushing despair and bringing hope whereas Nagito died and failed in every way possible, very nearly being the catalyst for an ever worse apocalypse. To put it simply: there is a reason Makoto earns the title of Ultimate Hope, remembered and beloved by all who know him, while Nagito can only ask to be called the Ultimate Hope, unknown to the rest of the world and, perhaps not hated, but alienated from everyone around him.
Alter Ego Junko: "People who cling to stuff like hope, talent, or admiration are truly the weakest! [...] Shoving off guys like that is soooooo easy! I happen to know 17,082 ways to do that! The point is... the moment you cling to talent and hope, despair has already set in."
Ambiguously Bi: He's certainly into Hajime, but his relationship with Junko murks up the question of his sexuality. After being brainwashed, he came to both love and hate Junko, but unlike Mikan, his feelings of love for her are never explicitly identified as being of a romantic or sexual nature.
- In terms of implications, there are numerous non-canon extra materials alluding to this. His character song, Poison -Gekiyaku-, repeatedly mentions loving an ambiguous 'him' and Nagito's POV manga also has his internal monologue directly state that he loves both the hope within Hajime and Hajime himself. In Island Mode, he talks about a 'love nest' and says he wouldn't mind getting naked for Hajime.
- In Danganronpa 3, Nagito appears to be very turned on while getting shot by Izuru, who was created from Hajime, complete with a Luminescent Blush.
- In Ultra Despair Girls, Kurokuma asks him if he's coming out of the closet.
- In an interview in Danganronpa 2’s art book, he’s asked what his ideal girlfriend would be. He gives a pretty gender neutral answer, saying he’d be interested in someone filled with hope.
Ambiguously Evil: While he ultimately acts for the sake of creating hope, his means to achieving that goal come across as dangerous and unempathetic. Throughout the games he manipulates people, puts others in perilous scenarios, and even attempts to be the first murderer upon the start of the killing game before someone else does the deed.
Ambiguously Gay:
- He is heavily implied to be romantically attracted to Hajime, but never confirms it explicitly.
- After meeting Izuru, he seems in a state of almost post coital bliss, even reaching for him while blushing.
- When he meets Makoto in Side:Hope, he holds his hand and stares rather intensely.
- In the Super Danganronpa 2.5, he accidentally gets his head under Mikan's skirt. While usually portrayed as something a male character would enjoy in anime, albeit perhaps nervously, it's stated that Nagito receives only bad luck in his mental world.
Anime Hair: Poofs out in a way similar to Yasuhiro's, though considering his Delicate and Sickly status, the color may at least be justified by his unusually stressful life. It actually resembles a rare, real life condition known as Uncombable Hair Syndrome, which causes some people to have pale hair that sticks out in all directions.
Anti-Hero: The catastrophic life he has lived due to his Good Luck has made Nagito desperate for hope, and so he idealises everything into a battle of hope against despair, with himself firmly believing in hope's victory. Thus, he opposes Ultimate Despair with his whole being and genuinely works for the sake of hope. This is very sympathetic and understandable, even tragic. However...
Anti-Villain: Due to his desperation for hope, Nagito is willing to commit any atrocity and dehumanises his classmates into his hope/despair worldview. Due to this, he causes great harm to his classmates, up to totally playing into Junko's plans to use the bodies of students who died, only averted by Chiaki's compassionate sacrifice. This reveals how his hope/despair worldview was corrupt, as it nearly gave Junko ALL fifteen student bodies.
Black-and-White Insanity: He believes that hope is absolute good while anything to do with despair is evil so any action done in the name of hope is acceptable to him, while any actions that seem fueled by despair disgusts him and makes him view the people that do it are lower than dirt.
Blessed with Suck: Unlike Makoto, Nagito's talent is basically a curse that only works to his benefit after something bad happens to him first, while the inverse is also applicable. Being told that his brain is slowly rotting came in hand with being accepted into Hope's Peak, where he became the patient of their SHSL Neurologist, and that was before he ever even crossed paths with Junko...
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Underlying all of Nagito's actions is a desire to create and witness the ultimate hope. He would happily kill his friends or drive them against each other or even allow himself to be killed if the despair from such events might give birth to an even stronger hope. His opinions on hope and despair resulted in a rather strange relationship with Junko Enoshima, to say the least.
Broken Ace: Nagito is among the best homicide investigators in the series (likely owing to his capacity to think more like a killer than others). Unfortunately, be it by his beliefs or his talents, everyone always leaves him, almost no one really seems to like him, and his very existence has been marred by a maddeningly turbulent sense of luck which has given and taken enough from him that by the start of the game, he's seeking any meaning in his life by whatever sort of hope he can leave behind, at absolutely any cost, even if that turbulence informs a very precarious definition of "hope". With his final Free Time Event revealing that he doesn't have long to live and therefore has nothing to lose...
Byronic Hero: One of the loneliest and most morally-complicated characters in the franchise, whose ideals are nearly impossible for more than a select few to define (all of them being people fallen to despair, funnily enough).
Cosmic Plaything: How his talent plays out. All of his good luck comes about as a result of catastrophe (getting kidnapped helped him find a winning lottery ticket; losing his parents in a plane crash gained him a massive inheritance). This continued to the point where he wanted to die just to be free of it.
Cynicism Catalyst: The nature of his luck—or how he perceives it working—has provided plenty of these, such as witnessing the deaths of his parents or being diagnosed with a terminal disease. However, somewhat zig-zagged that on top of making him a pessimist, it also led to his obsessive belief in hope.
Dark and Troubled Past: Let's just say the "unlucky" aspect of his talent has made his life very hard on him, though how much of what he tells us about it is true is left ambiguous in the game. Side materials have either confirmed or heavily hinted at most of what he mentions, however.
Dark Messiah: He is completely devoted to the idea of creating an 'absolute hope' that will make the world wonderful again, and is completely willing to sacrifice himself to achieve it. He is also completely willing to cause the deaths of everyone else just for the sake of an 'absolute hope'.
Disease Bleach: It's implied his illness is responsible for turning his hair white.
Even Evil Has Standards: "Evil" in the sense that he has Blue-and-Orange Morality but is an Anti-Villain. Despite his strong belief that hope can come from any despair, it's quite clear that he views Junko as completely hopeless despite being made up of the despair that could supposedly convert to hope. This is justified, as she was born on the other end of the Despair Event Horizon, by her claims, so he'd obviously recognize there is no hope in her to come from that despair. This also applies to the Ultimate Despair organization she leads, of which he and the rest of Class 77-B were part of, as he views them (or rather their amnesiac avatars) the same way he does Junko, to the point of trying to kill them all.
Evil Counterpart:
- To the previous game's protagonist, Makoto. The two have a number of intentional similarities, right down to having the same voice actors in both Japanese and English, a similar fashion sense, essentially the same talent, and little confidence in their worth when compared to the other students. But while Makoto is a pretty straightforward character and a sweet person who inspires people and can befriend even the most abrasive of his classmates, Nagito is a morally ambiguous and dangerously insane character who constantly damages the group dynamic and cannot befriend almost any of the other characters. Perhaps the most telling difference is this: Makoto doesn't talk about "hope" a lot, but he really does have a lot of it; in himself, in his classmates, in the idea that life is worth living. Nagito loves to go on and on about "hope" and how wonderful it is, but his violent, cynical actions and private despair make it clear that he has almost no hope in anyone or anything anymore, including the worth of going on living. Nagito is also much taller, by the way.
- To Celestia Ludenberg. Both are pale-skinned high school students with extraordinary luck, a penchant for manipulating and deceiving others, and they see their classmates as objects instead of people. Once Celestia discovered her luck, she used it to enhance her own life and ruin the lives of other people. She stylizes herself as a Gothic Lolita with the title of Queen of Liars, and she coldly kills her classmates while pursuing her own selfish and decadent goals. On the other hand, Nagito Komaeda's luck has ruined his life because he can't control it, he has a messy appearance, he has an inferiority complex so strong it disturbs the people around him, and he is willing to martyr himself for his own twisted value system because he knows that his own days are numbered. Celestia Ludenberg's murder mystery is severely flawed and overly complicated, and comes across as overcompensating for her dull and uninteresting identity as Taeko Yasuhiro. Her death is relatively unimportant to the overall story. Nagito's murder-suicide is literally an impossible mystery to logically deduce, and by getting Chiaki Nanami and Monomi executed, he kickstarts the finale of the story.
Hard Work Hardly Works: You either are born with a talent or you don't have any. There's no gray area as far as he's concerned. Presumably this is because of how passive his own talent is. This gets Kiyotaka's ire, as he has to work hard every day for his talent and points this out to Nagito, who says he has an amazing talent and Taka corrects him again, but Nagito still misses the point, and Taka notes that they seem to be having 2 different conversations.
He Who Fights Monsters: His schemes to vanquish despair by "making hope shine brighter" usually result in him being a source of despair himself, if not worse than the perceived threat to his beliefs.
Hope Springs Eternal: He strongly believes that no matter how big the despair, an even bigger hope will arise to overcome it. Thus, to meet his end goal of creating a world filled with hope, he has no problems causing despair-inducing situations to foster the growth of this hope. His classmates find this thought process appalling.
Inferiority Superiority Complex: He often calls his talent garbage, at least compared to everyone else's. At the same time, he's very belittling of the "talentless" masses.
Mirror Character: In many ways, Nagito can be seen as an (arguably) Good Counterpart of Junko Enoshima, both having insane obsessions over polar opposite subjects. Junko gives others some hope so that she can crush them with ultimate despair later, since she believes "despair will always win in the end". Conversely, Nagito wishes to see the "Ultimate Hope", and to achieve that he seems to find giving others some despair completely justifiable because "hope will always win in the end". The problem is that the aforementioned "some" despair is only strictly in the eyes of Nagito himself, everyone else is totally freaked out by it. Interestingly, the two share a key physical similarity, that being that their hair is both red/pink at the tips. It's implied that Junko dyes her hair blond and it's implied that Nagito's unnatural white hair is the result of Disease Bleach. This highlights the biggest contrast between the two; Junko puts on constant acts that make it impossible to know what she's truly thinking, while Nagito comes off as someone hiding his true personality, but is really exactly what he appears to be on the surface. Likewise, while both profess some form of love (or at least idolization) for their classmates, they are more than willing to kill them for the sake of hope/despair.
Mutual Envy: He envies Makoto for being a superior Hope Bringer than himself. At the same time, Makoto envies Nagito for having more powerful luck than him.
Pragmatic Hero: He may be a villain in his own right, but he doesn't do things For the Evulz like Junko. Rather, his main goal of spreading despair is to "ignite other people's hope" and make it stronger. In that sense, he's somewhat of a Sink or Swim Mentor, teaching anyone who he truly believes in that "hope can overcome any despair" by putting them through dangerous situations intentionally, something he does on the regular. He has no concern for morality or common sense when pursuing this, however, making him into a ruthless Anti-Villain who only cares about his own desires.
Right Makes Might: His entire belief system is that "hope always triumphs in the end", so he seeks to cause despair to ensure Hope Springs Eternal.
Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He is, of course, an incomprehensible jerkass with a huge case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and he will not hesitate to do what he personally thinks is right, no matter how much it causes chaos than solves it. On the other hand, he's also extremely self-deprecating and self-loathing, is very apathetic, has huge trust issues, is prone to accusation, has a misguided "love" to cope with his own loneliness, and has to deal with a terrible luck cycle. Safe to say his villainy is his way of distracting from his constant pain.
Took a Level in Jerkass: Chronologically, he grows more and more ruthless regarding his goals of bringing hope by creating a despair for it to bloom from.
- In Side:Despair, while he is perfectly willing to let his luck cause chaos that eventually leads to the exam building exploding, as well as the expulsion of Ruruka Ando and Seiko Kimura, he isn't willing to kill his own classmates or let his own classmates kill him. He also shows sadness as he watches Chiaki get brutally executed by Junko as he falls into despair, showing he does see them as real people at the time.
- In Ultra Despair Girls, he is willing to aid Monaca in her goals of aiding Junko posthumously by setting Komaru on the path that would lead her to become Junko's successor, since he sees it as a means to an end. He cares little for the citizens of Towa City dying as a result of this, though that's due to him being a Remnant of Despair at the time.
- In Goodbye Despair, when Junko forces him into the Killing School Trip after his real-world memories were erased by the Future Foundation, he is perfectly willing to let his own classmates die and also let them kill him, as he only sees the killing game as another opportunity to spread hope. He also doesn't see them as people anymore, unlike in Side:Despair.
Trauma Button: He admits that he doesn't like realistic horror movies because they remind him of the traumatic events he witnessed because of his luck. He also finds airplanes terrifying due to being the sole survivor of a plane crash when he was a child.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: A deconstructed version that makes him more of a "Narrow-Eyed Cynicist". He firmly believes that hope can come from anything and anyone, including his own death and the murders of other people, but deep down he doesn't believe in hope himself, leading him to take cynical measures in pursuing an unattainable goal.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair — A-H

Aborted Declaration of Love: Possibly to Hajime in his fifth Free Time event, based on the fact that in the Japanese version he cuts off his object of "love" from "you" to "the hope sleeping inside your heart" (In Japanese, the sentence is different, preventing this from being more definitive—he says something like "you...r hope inside your heart").
Accidental Truth: After Nagito contracts the Despair Disease in Chapter 3, he starts spouting Blatant Lies that are mostly non sequiturs. However, most of the things he says can be considered at least partially true. For example, he claims that Byakuya is the traitor working for World Ender and in fact, he is still alive. The Byakuya that got killed in Chapter 1 turns out to be an imposter, and the real Byakuya Togami is perfectly alive, and is working for the Future Foundation that Monokuma refers to as "World Ender". He also claims that Ibuki Mioda is a pair of twins that have been switching places with each other, which means that there are actually 17 people on the island ("The Veronicas... that's the answer!"). In the following class trial, one of the revelations is that the culprit was posing as Ibuki Mioda to trick Hajime into thinking she was still alive.
Alas, Poor Villain: Despite his deranged, creepy behavior eventually descending into what looks like full-blown insanity, everyone is horrified by the torturous nature of his death. Although the horror gives way to anger once they realize that he planned it all to begin with.
All for Nothing: In Chapter 5, Nagito mutilates himself with a knife and waits for the other students to arrive so the traitor would unknowingly murder him, in order to obfuscate the culprit during the trial and have the former Remnants executed, while saving the innocent mole, and it's really good plan all things considered. But there's a few things that make it impossible for the plan to end as he wished; really, its failure was the biggest stroke of luck in his life.
- The 'Remnants of Despair' were brainwashed into it; the versions on the Island had the brainwashing removed and were as such genuinely innocent.
- The Future Foundation was actually on the class's side, and the "mole" was merely an observer whose purpose was to help everyone with their therapy. Chiaki's aid during investigations was genuine, and she was willing to out herself as the mole and get herself executed if it would save her friends.
- Chiaki's graduation was actually the worst possible scenario, since that leaves Junko with all 15 bodies from the real students, and Chiaki is unable to leave the program since she's an AI.
All-Loving Hero: He claims to love all of his classmates and believes that they can conquer any level of despair. Can be seen as an exaggeration of Makoto's role in the first game. Turns out to be a dark version of this trope, in that he expresses said love and confidence by jump-starting the mutual killing, aiding the first culprit, and generally creeping everyone out. He sheds this behavior near the end of the game, after finding out that the classmates he trusted so much were members of Ultimate Despair (along with Nagito himself).
All Love Is Unrequited:
- A platonic version. Nagito adores his class, though more for their Ultimate talents and 'hope' than who they are as people. Unfortunately, his strange and disturbing tendencies cause them to view him with fear and disgust. The official relationship chart has Nagito give occasionally tactless but largely positive comments to his fellow students while in turn he only receives comments calling him weird and dangerous.
- Possibly towards Hajime, whom Nagito is heavily implied to have a crush on. He seems to genuinely like Hajime as a person rather than solely as an Ultimate and his behavior often suggests he enjoys being with the other boy, not to mention his infamous final Free Time Event. However Hajime is shown to be confused and frightened by Nagito, struggling between his reasonable distrust and disdain from everything that happened and still lingering attachment from before that betrayal (even if it's now inherently tainted).
All There in the Manual: Most of Nagito's character motivation and lot of things that were simply hinted at in the game are shown in much greater depth in his manga, which shows the events of the story from his perspective. However, it should be noted all Danganronpa manga aside from Killer Killer is non-canon.
And Now for Someone Completely Different: In Chapter 4's investigation, you play as him in the course of his investigation of the Strawberry House and going into the Final Dead Room.
Arc Villain: While Nagito was never the killer during any of the trials, he still could be considered the main antagonist (besides Monokuma) of Chapter 1 and Chapter 5 in the game.
Arch-Enemy:
- In Chapter 0, he views Junko Enoshima as someone he hates and really wants to kill her.
- This flips on and off with Hajime due to his realization of Hajime's backstory. Sometimes he'll help Hajime and other times he'll impede him or degrade him.
Asshole Victim: Charming and well-intentioned as he is, Nagito still consistently puts the class through hell and starting in chapter 4, begins treating them awfully in the verbal sense too (for understandable reasons) and twice tries to murder them, as a result the class isn't exactly broken up when he does end up dying although they are initially horrified by how brutal his death was, its also subverted in the fact that Nagito had genuine mental issues and in the end while his actions were wrong he did believe he was acting in the best interest and he still didn't exactly deserve to be driven to a point where he believed killing himself brutally was the only way to preserve hope.
Awesomeness by Analysis: He's very good at reading people, especially those with less than noble motives. Throughout the class trials, he manipulates conversations so as to help both sides, and is one of the core investigators and "trial point getters" (along with Hajime and Chiaki).
Awful Truth: In Chapter 4, he ends up clearing all of the puzzles scattered throughout the Final Dead Room and completing a game of Russian Roulette with 5/6 chambers loaded just to get a Future Foundation file that reveals the truth of the students' identities as Ultimate Despair, their heinous actions while at school and after, the existence (though not the identity) of The Mole in the group, the truth about the virtual reality they're in, and Hajime's lack of talent. He doesn't take it well.
Ax-Crazy: Regardless of how of his views might be interpreted, his construction of a murder as a way to kill everyone but the traitor is probably one of the most nihilistic motives in the series.
Badass Bookworm: His cottage reveals that he is quite a reader.
Badass Longcoat: Wears a pretty cool knee-length dark green zipper hoodie with a jagged-cut tail. Apparently he thinks it's fashionable.
Bad Samaritan: He's the first person Hajime strikes up a camaraderie with, as well as his main and most eager ally in Chapter 1. After that, The Reveal drives a wedge between them that's never quite mended.
Bait the Dog: Comes off as a Nice Guy cut from the same cloth as Makoto from the first game and quickly proves to be a capable and helpful friend to Hajime during the initial investigation. Then the first class trial happens and he reveals his much less stable side.
Believing Their Own Lies: Nagito constantly talks about the importance of talent and hope, and goes to extremes for his beliefs. However, it's implied that deep down, he has no hope for himself and it's only a coping mechanism he uses to deal with all the trauma he's endured. In his dream world in Danganronpa 2.5, Nagito has no idea what hope is and wishes he could eliminate talent altogether so people could be equal, which shocks his real self after he learns the dream reflected his desires.
Berserk Button:
- As laid back as he is, he's not very happy when two 'hopes' clash only for them to go to waste, such as Peko's reason for killing Mahiru and Fuyuhiko's motive for starting it.
- He cannot forgive Mikan for killing out of despair.
Big Bad Ensemble: He wants to end Monokuma/Junko and Izuru's Deadly Game, but is willing to engineer murders himself to do so and is as much a threat to the other students as they are.
Born Lucky:
- Just like Makoto, Nagito got in via winning a lottery, which gives the talent as a default, hence why he considers it far more lackluster in comparison to the others. In reality, he is that lucky and it's deconstructed rather horribly. While his cycle of luck did allow him to win several lotteries and get into the Academy, it came at some rather severe costs (such as the deaths of his parents and being diagnosed with two terminal diseases) and has made him an unstable Death Seeker.
- Many of the unique arguments and pieces of evidence he brings to the trial are actually a result of him simply being at the right place at the right time. Not only did he directly and knowingly spur Teruteru to murder in Chapter 1, but he was able to directly observe Mikan as she fell to despair in Chapter 3 and from that, states he already knew she was up to no good before there was even a case to investigate. Further, his discovery of multiple truths behind the Funhouse in Chapter 4 were also a result of having answers simply handed to him after winning a stacked game of Russian Roulette. Nagito essentially had the answer to all but one of the trials he participated in given to him by happenstance.
Borrowed Catchphrase: Famously steals Hajime's "No, that's wrong!" when starting his Rebuttal Showdown in the first trial.
Bound and Gagged: In Chapter 2, following his behavior in the previous chapter minus the "gagged" part, and again in Chapter 5 in his death scene. Interestingly enough, one of the few gifts he dislikes is a gag ball.
Break Them by Talking: Disturbingly good at reading others and getting into their heads, as he proves in Chapter 2. When called on this, however, he insists 'trash like him' couldn't possibly influence others.
Breakout Character: And possibly a Breakout Villain too. He is a notably popular antagonist, maybe even more so than Junko, with him making an appearance in Ultra Despair Girls and an OVA centering around him with Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
Call-Back: Interestingly, the events of self-harming leading up to his Rasputinian Death in Chapter 5 mirrors certain deaths in the first game; Sayaka was stabbed, Chihiro was tied up, Sakura was poisoned in a locked room setting, and Mukuro was speared. Given that Nagito knows about the murders during the Killing School Trip, as he tells Hajime in Chapter 4, it's very likely that this was intentional on his part. Eep.
Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Hiyoko suggests that his offer to any would-be killers to go to him for help is based on this trope, so that anyone who wants to kill him would see value in keeping him alive. It turns out that Nagito is willing to sacrifice his own life if need be.
Cheated Death, Died Anyway: He narrowly avoids Teruteru's hit in Chapter 1 thanks to the Ultimate Imposter after he set up his plan to start the killing game, only for him to actually die by Thanatos Gambit in Chapter 5 anyway, though on his own terms.
The Chessmaster: Played with. While he's perfectly capable of manipulating events with gambits and misdirection, ultimately, Nagito is more of a gambler than your regular chessmaster, down to leaving great portions of his plans completely up to luck (e.g. drawing the straws in Chapter 1, or even orchestrating his own death in a way that would be a murder that would look like a suicide, that would look like a murder). In many of the cases, his behavior underscores the true extent of what a morally-ambiguous character having preternatural luck could do: he'll deliberately take very unscrupulous actions to increase the amount of chaos or random trouble happening, knowing that it'll likely result in things going as he planned.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Loves to manipulate and betray the class constantly all with a gleeful smile on his face.
Chronic Self-Deprecation: He often deprecates himself while praising others. He has been known to describe himself as "garbage," "useless," and "worthless," among others.
Color Motif: Nagito always wears red and green somewhere on his outfit, sporting these colors on his jacket in Goodbye Despair, his sweater in Ultra Despair Girls, and his vest in Danganronpa 3. Given that red and green oppose each other on the color spectrum, it possibly alludes his contradictory nature.
Concepts Are Cheap: He throws around the word "hope" until it becomes a sick joke.
Conspiracy Theorist: Not usually, but being infected with the Liar Disease results in Nagito spouting obviously false, cryptic nonsense. His revelations include that Ibuki is actually a pair of twins, Fuyuhiko is a clone, a transfer student will replace Nekomaru, Byakuya is the mole working for World Ender, he's not actually Nagito Komaeda, the world has succumbed to despair, and Hajime plans on eating Ibuki.
Consummate Liar: He isn't one ordinarily, but becomes this under the effects of Despair Disease. Ironically, the disease only serves to diminish his lying ability: While he's usually a very skilled liar when he needs to be, he dislikes having to lie and only does it if necessary for a plan. Otherwise, he doesn't bother to hide his personality.
Contempt Crossfire: In basically every class trial, neither the blackened nor the spotless care much for him. This is especially true in the first trial, in which everyone else is horrified after learning about his insane obsession with hope, and it turns out that Teruteru was trying to kill Nagito before he killed "Byakuya Togami"/the Ultimate Imposter by mistake.
The Corpse Stops Here: Invoked and then immediately defied. At Chapter 3's class trial, the first thing Nagito does is accuse Hajime Hinata of being suspicious because he was the first person to discover the body, and he has nobody to back up his story. He accuses Hajime of committing murders that imitate Monokuma's movie, even though he summoned Hajime to the theater and personally made sure he watched it, during the investigation of the murder. Not only does Nagito already know for certain that Hajime is innocent, he probably knew who the real culprit was the instant he learned there was a murder. It can be inferred that he questions Hajime only because he knows that Hajime will inevitably be doubted at some point, and he didn't want to waste any time on the issue.
Hajime: I'm not the killer! I mean, There's no way I'd be able to imitate that movie...
Nagito: ...Of course you're not. I already knew that.
[Nagito then explains why Hajime couldn't possibly imitate the movie, even though he was the one who brought it up]
Corrupted Character Copy: At first he seems to be a straight Expy of Makoto Naegi from the previous game, but he is actually a Deconstruction of several aspects of Makoto's character, as Nagito's inferiority complex, flip-flopping "luck" and dedication to the ideal of "hope" go to serious extremes and render Nagito a far more unstable character than Naegi was. Word of God confirms that his status as an Evil Counterpart is intentional.
Crossdressing Voices: Voiced by Megumi Ogata, who also voiced Makoto Naegi.
Cruel and Unusual Death: He inflicts this on himself, all to maximize the chance his plan would succeed but also because of how much he hated himself for working to crush hope while a remnant of despair.
Deadpan Snarker: He occasionally slips into this, but it's difficult to tell whether he's genuinely making fun of someone. This becomes more blatant in Chapter 4, when he discovers he and his class were members of Ultimate Despair, causing him to become rude and sarcastic towards them.
Nagito recounts finding a clue pointing to the killer
Kazuichi: More importantly, what was all that about the rope? The killer strangled Ibuki... and then?
Nagito: And then... I finished speaking.
Death Seeker: As revealed in his Dangan Island ending, he wanted to die on the island, seeking release from the cycle of good luck and bad luck that follows him at every step of his life. In the main story, he fulfills this trope by seeking a death that will bring hope to the other students.
Deconstruction: Of the entire concept of the Ultimate Lucky Student, as embodied by Makoto from the first game. His status as the "ordinary student" has left him with an inferiority complex, his luck (which just like Makoto includes both good and bad luck but to much greater extremes) has brought him hardship and taken its toll on his psyche, and his concept of hope has become so warped that he thinks spreading despair will make hope grow stronger.
Delicate and Sickly: In his free time events he reveals he was diagnosed with stage three malignant lymphoma and concurrent frontotemporal dementia before winning the Hope's Peak lottery. It's left ambiguous whether he was really telling the truth, though the Spin-Off manga set from his point of view and the Setting Material Collection both lend support to his claims, at least in regards to the frontotemporal dementia.
Despair Event Horizon: Like everyone else, he was a member of Ultimate Despair, so he had to have crossed it at some point. However, he also arguably crosses it again upon learning that he and all of the Ultimates he's been admiring as "Hopes" were actually "Despairs".
Detective Mole: In Chapter 1, Nagito is eager to help Hajime with the investigation, but it soon becomes apparent that he's hiding something. He also seems oddly insistent that none of the students could have committed the crime. Ultimately played with; he isn't the culprit of the case, but he was covering for the real culprit during the trial and is also the one who engineered the whole thing.
Determinator: It takes serious balls and staggering amounts of crazy to resort to self-mutilation to serve as the linchpin for a Thanatos Gambit.
Deuteragonist: Along with being the first person you meet and serving as both a rival and ally to Hajime, he acts as a sounding board to the investigation and acts as Mr. Exposition. You even get to play as him for one point, investigating an area inaccessible to Hajime.
Devil's Advocate: He's more than willing to help a murderer try to get away with it, in order to truly challenge the others and see whose Hope is stronger.
Didn't See That Coming: His gambit in the fifth trial was to make it impossible for the group to guess who actually killed him, with the intention of having the traitor being the only survivor. He clearly didn't anticipate the idea that the traitor was actually on the group's side and would willingly sacrifice themselves to keep the group alive.
Did You Think I Can't Feel?: He endures everyone's constant insults and suspicion with a smile until he learns about everyone's background as the Ultimate Despairs. He then loses all patience and starts snapping at people when they question him. He goes all out and uses a "The Reason You Suck" Speech when Akane Owari gets in the way of Chapter 4's investigation, by claiming that Akane doesn't even care about what happened to Nekomaru Nidai when she tries to stop his body from being dissected, and again, when everyone has to rely on Nagito to solve Chapter 4's murder because only he has the information everyone needs.
Dies Wide Open: Notable for being one of the only examples in the series (not counting the anime's version of Chihiro Fujisaki's death, the only other instance is Miu Iruma's death in the third game) since almost every other victim has their eyes shut or obscured in their death pose.
Dissonant Serenity: While every other student is freaking out about the killing game in Chapter 1, he seems to view it as some sort of free vacation, and it only gets worse from there, as he commits attempted murder, plays a rigged Russian Roulette, and kills himself in the most painful way imaginable with the attitude of someone lounging in a spa.
Early-Bird Cameo: He is mentioned indirectly as the 77th year's Lucky Student in one of the sidestories for the first game.
Einstein Hair: Off-white, shoulder-length and messy white hair, albeit with some reddish hair at the tips.
Et Tu, Brute?: Finding out the people he looked up to are actually the Remnants of Despair, he begins to antagonize them.
Elemental Motifs: Fire. First, his terrorism with the bomb in the lobby. Second, the arson in the warehouse. And averted third, his unused execution via inferno. Apparently his hair was also designed to occasionally 'quiver like a flame'.
Entertainingly Wrong: When Monokuma gives him the records of Hope's Peak Academy's students and discovers that his classmates are members of Ultimate Despair, he concludes that their current selves are the same as well and want to pursue despair the same way that he read in their records. This was actually to manipulate him into killing said classmates, as they were unaware of their status as Ultimate Despair and their avatars are nothing at all like their real selves, as said avatars have their memories erased; this especially being the case for Hajime, who is nothing like his real self as Izuru; so his plot to kill them all upon discovering this is ultimately useless, and he really just ends up being a pawn.
Everyone Has Standards: Even though (at first) he's usually extremely worshipful and fawning of the other students, Teruteru's attempt to molest Sonia ends with Nagito telling him he'll knock him out if he tries anything.
Evil All Along: In two different ways — first he ends up being a crazed antagonist rather than the friendly guy he appeared to be, and then it turns out he, along with all the other students (except Chiaki) were members of Ultimate Despair, a discovery that horrifies him.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Just doesn't get why his classmates don't trust him after he admits to manipulating Teruteru into murder and openly declaring he'll side with the Blackened if their hope is stronger.
Evil Counterpart: Nagito seems a lot like Makoto from the first game initially, and even shares some character design elements and his voice actor. However, it soon becomes clear that there are a few key differences:
- Makoto had a bit of an inferiority complex about his talent, but never considered himself worth less as a person than any of the others. Nagito genuinely considers himself to be inferior to his classmates.
- Makoto opposed the killing game from the start, while Nagito actually wants to participate, even as a victim.
- Makoto's luck is minor and only really noticeable when some annoyance turns out to have just saved his ass, while Nagito's luck is powerful and omnipresent in his life, to the point where he feels he can't really do anything because some weird twist of fate will always ruin it for him.
- Makoto is honest with his emotions, while Nagito ignores his feelings until it's too late.
- Makoto is a genuine All-Loving Hero, while Nagito doesn't care about his classmates as people but as abstractions of hope; he doesn't even seem to get why making things harder for them just makes them see him as on the Blackened's side by default.
- Makoto embodies hope and spreads it even when he isn't trying, while Nagito, despite all the effort he puts into his hope obsession, is very clearly on the outside looking in when it comes to optimism.
Evil Laugh: A very startling example. Not helped by the fact he really is mentally ill and shares the same voice as our previous protagonist, who was for the most part a heroic Nice Guy.
Exotic Eye Designs: His eyes gain spiral patterns whenever he's talking about hope or is in an exceptionally crazed state. Noticeably, the spirals are usually used for those who have fallen into despair, hinting how hopeless he actually is.
Face–Heel Turn: Downplayed. Nagito is villainous from the start, but he commits to his schemes to help the others overcome despair in his own twisted way, rather than being evil to outright oppose them. In Chapter 4, upon learning his classmates, himself included, are Ultimate Despair, he directly opposes them and plans a murder that revolves around killing all of them by killing himself.
False Confession: During the first trial, he has no qualms presenting himself as an increasingly obvious candidate for being the culprit of Byakuya's murder. Helps that he really was planning to cause a murder...
Fatal Flaw: Ironically enough, despair. He talks the talk about hope but can't walk the walk; he has no hope for himself (because he believes his luck would just take everything away from him), and his hope in the rest of the class is shallow (since it's a coping mechanism for his trauma) as he doesn't really understand why they might have/bring hope, so he just causes problems for them in the vague hope it'll help. And once he's confronted with the Awful Truth, he almost immediately falls completely into despair and tries to kill everyone, while the mole he tried to save instead made a Heroic Sacrifice because she still had hope that the Remnants of Despair could reform.
Faux Affably Evil: Hajime and the others at first thought of him as a Nice Guy, but during the first class trial, his real personality reveals to be a polite yet psychotic teenager preaching about how murdering each other is "cultivating true hope." Everyone is appalled by his twisted obsession causing them to lose respect and alienate him out of fear that he will keep his word. On the other hand, he genuinely likes Hajime, helping him progress through murder trials by giving clues and investigating together.
First-Episode Twist: At first, he seems to be an ordinary student like Makoto. At least, until the first trial... then his true mentally unstable personality emerges.
Final Boss: For the murder mystery element of the game, as his self-engineered death is the final murder on the island.
Foreshadowing:
- When mocking Hajime about his lack of talent in Chapter 4, he mentions a little hint about his future plans when he compares the murders of Class 78th's Killing School Life and the Killing School Trip. He mentions that the murders had similarities and Class 78th's fourth murder was a suicide, which could mean something. This is after he already planned his own death and brought a bomb and poison with him from the Octagon.
- He repeatedly states that he would be happy to assist anyone with engineering his own murder, and expresses disappointment that none of the murderers came to him for help because he could've made a much less solvable murder. When he decides to "help" Chiaki murder him (albeit unintentionally), the murder he created would have been completely impossible to solve if Chiaki hadn't given herself up.
- Just before trial 4 even begins, Nagito talks to Hajime about a mystery novel. This novel was about a schoolgirl who got caught up in a chain of murders. Nagito then states that later on in the story you find out the culprit who was behind said murders was none other than her self. When he asks Hajime what kind of story does he think of that, Hajime has no idea how to response or what exactly Nagito was getting at. By this time, it's possible that Nagito knows that besides Hajime being part of Ultimate Despair, Hajime's current true identity is Izuru Kamukura, the man who turned into a mass murderer during the very first mutual killing game. Which also leaves the unanswered question of what motive he had for starting that conversation to begin with.
- The second intro (post-Monokuma) gives us a big red flag to signal that Nagito isn't the amiable companion he starts out as. Everyone's backgrounds signal something about their backstory or personality. Nagito's is a white tiled wall...that turns into a bloody mess, with an incomplete but ominous message written on the wall behind him (it looks like "Who are you?" and "I will find you"). The blood spatter even goes over his name plate. Appropriate, given Nagito's well-honed detective skills, enthusiasm for murder, and his own vicious death.
Forgotten First Meeting:
- Indirectly already met Hajime, but Hajime was Izuru Kamukura.
- He actually met Izuru even before that, though Izuru had Junko wipe the 77th class' memories of him.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Nobody on the island likes Nagito after his role in the first murder was revealed, because he makes it clear that he doesn't really value their lives and would help a murderer get away with it just to 'test their hope'. Plus, his constant hope speeches are annoying. The only one who even tries to understand him is Hajime, and then only if he'd gotten to know Nagito before the crazy hope-fetish thing came out.
The Gadfly: On several occasions, he deliberately trolls Hajime by casting suspicion on him, just to test the others' reactions, despite not being suspicious of Hajime at all.
Gambit Roulette: Nagito uses these fairly often; It's a Justified Trope because his super-powerful luck means that anything left to chance will reliably end in his favor, and he knows this. The crowning example is his plan to lure the traitor into killing him. It's complicated and has several crucial elements completely out of his normal control (that the traitor — whose identity he doesn't know- will be the one to unknowingly strike the final blow, that the traitor will notice and decide to use the fire extinguisher, and that no one else will interrupt him), but it's for exactly those reasons that it ultimately succeeds, because his luck does the heavy lifting for him. He even stacks the deck further in his favor by mutilating himself, because he knows his luck tends to come in a cycle of 'bad thing happening into good thing happening', and the horrible injuries count as the bad thing.
Gave Up Too Soon: He started plotting his Thanatos Gambit right before the students are given the information they need to leave the island, and had he not killed himself, he would have been able to meet the true Ultimate Hope and experience the triumph of hope over despair that he always wanted to see.
Go Mad from the Revelation: Discovering the Awful Truth really didn't do his psyche any favors, though it's debatable how much of his subsequent behavior was genuine and how much was part of his plan.
Gotta Kill 'Em All: After he discovers that the students were once members of Ultimate Despair, he plots to kill everyone on the island (except for the mole, who is innocent) so he could "rid the island of despair" and earn the title of Ultimate Hope, though his video at the end seemed to indicate that he felt he would become a cornerstone of hope regardless of which side would survive.
The Grim Reaper: The notes from the early drafts of his character designs reveal that Nagito was actually modeled after a Shinigami. It makes sense when you think about it, between his ghostly appearance due to his pale skin and flowing white hair and the fact he wears a long black hoodie. Not to mention his obsession with death and his status as The Dreaded.
Hated by All: No one likes Nagito, and even people who don't outright hate him are either afraid or indifferent to him. While he was originally regarded as simply annoying, after revealing his far more twisted nature during the first trial, the students quickly become fearful of him. Their hatred is later cemented when Nagito's revelation of everyone's past as Ultimate Despair drives him to become openly hostile and attempt to have everyone executed.
Hero Antagonist: A massively underemphasized, strangely principled, and even misunderstood version (take that with your preferred amount of salt). Whatever you think of him and his warped value system, his chaotic actions and even his own vicious, self-inflicted death in Chapter 5, had the overarching purpose of creating "hope" by saving an innocent life (in this case a person who works for the ultimate good guys, wouldn't you know?) and outsmarting Monokuma/A.I. Junko. During the last investigation, Hajime and Chiaki actually find many clues and evidence inside Nagito's cottage that reveal during the class trial that he genuinely wanted to give them a chance.
Heroic Sacrifice: Well, not quite heroic but he fully intended to sacrifice himself to kick-start the murders so that the others might be saved.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: He describes his good-luck talent as not as special as the talents of the other students. However, this is taken to an extreme: he thinks that he is "trash" compared to the other students and is more than willing to sacrifice himself for their sake, but at the same time, he desires to be appreciated and understood. This instead ends up creeping everyone out.
Hero with an F in Good: Nagito really does want to help the other students and give them hope... problem is, he's so batshit crazy that this translates to actively opposing them under the belief that Misery Builds Character.
Hidden Depths:
- He's surprisingly good at cleaning, but he's also implied to be a Lethal Chef.
- He seems to have a liking for go stones and has a habit of carrying them with him in jars, because the black (dark) and white (light) stones remind him of the battle between hope and despair.
- One of his hobbies is reading. This is implied in the main story, as Nagito likes to spend his free time in the library and later Hajime and Chiaki find several books inside his cottage. In Island Mode, he explains that reading is possibly the most peaceful way for him to spend time, because he isn't affected by his luck cycle that much while doing it.
- His Free Time Events reveal that he suffers from behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, which symptoms may include changes in social and personal behavior, loss of insight into the behaviors of oneself or others, inappropriate social behavior, loss of empathy, mental rigidity, repetitive compulsive behavior, delusions, euphoria or sudden behavior changes. Needless to say, this explains a good deal of Nagito's unethical behavior and emotional instability.
- In his fifth Free Time Event, he reveals that his true, biggest wish is to be loved by someone at least once in his life, and not to die alone.
House Husband: Has the makings of one — he's unusually good at cleaning. Mahiru even points it out before his breakdown during the first trial, saying that he looks like he'd make a good stay-at-home dad.
Hypocrite:
- He confronts Hajime over "admiring" and being "obsessed" with Hope's Peak Academy, and derides him for his position, while Nagito himself constantly obsesses over "hope" (including Hope's Peak Academy), "stepladders" and the fact that Hajime is "trash compared to the Ultimates around him".
- He frequently exclaims that his fellow students should use their personal despair as stepping stones for a greater hope (such as Fuyuhiko's grief over Peko's death). When faced with his own great personal despair (that they were all Ultimate Despair), instead of trying to use it to make a greater hope, Nagito crosses the Despair Event Horizon and tries to kill the remaining students sans Chiaki, thinking that this act will make him deserving of the title Ultimate Hope even though it is the exact opposite of the outcome that was desired by the true Ultimate Hope, Makoto Naegi.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair — I-Z

I Am the Noun: Proclaims this in the manga by his own narration.
I am "luck".
I Just Want to Be Badass: He wants to become an "Ultimate Hope" in his own twisted sense of the word by "eliminating all despair from the world" and is willing to die for such a reality. He tries to do this in Chapter 5 in a Thanatos Gambit to eliminate the Remnants of Despair in the Neo World Program, which would've actually had the opposite effect of helping the real Ultimate Despair, Junko Enoshima, in taking over the bodies of the students.
I Just Want to Be Loved:
- Stated in his free time events that, despite his cheerful front, he has absolutely nobody in his life, everyone having left him due to his self-righteous beliefs (or in the case of his parents end up being killed as a result of his luck) to the point where all he wants is another person's love or at least have someone who will remember him after he dies.
- He's also implied to push people away due to his talent because of what happened to his parents and his Dangan Island route implying that wasn't an isolated occurrence. His Dangan Island ending provides further support for this, wherein he asks Hajime to be his friend after fifty days and only because he sees the rest of the school trip, along with the realization that true hope was inside him all along, as "bad luck."
Insane Troll Logic: His justification for playing Russian Roulette with 5 out of 6 chambers loaded is that he is the Ultimate Lucky Student, so he will survive, by definition. Of course, he survives.
Irony: For a Hope Freak, Nagito is consumed by despair. To quote the Danganronpa wiki: "Despite his absolute belief in the concept of ultimate hope, it's heavily implied that he has no hope of his own. He has no family or friends, drifted aimlessly through life before arriving at Hope's Peak Academy, doesn't believe he could ever amount to anything, and any chance he might have at actual happiness would be cancelled out by his cycle of good and bad luck."
- The fact that he goes on his tangent about how "talent" is something you're born with and can never gain comes after the death of Byakuya, or at least his imposter, someone who would have absolutely laid into Nagito for implying he was just born into something he struggled for.
- Despite his preaching of how having an Ultimate talent proves your worth and anyone who isn't at Hope's Peak is fundamentally worthless, Hajime, a talentless reserve course student, may be the only student Nagito genuinely cares about as a person (as opposed to the way he views every other student as merely a pawn to create more hope).
- Both Makoto and Hajime (as Izuru) are referred to as the Ultimate Hope and have luck as a talent, though Hajime has many more. Nagito is the sole luckster to not hold this title, despite his obsession with hope and posthumous request to be referred to as such.
It's All About Me: Played With example, combining this trope with intense self-loathing. Though he often refers to himself as a wothless "stepping stone" for his more valuable classmates, Nagito is intensely self-centered and always attempts to make every conversation about something related to his warped ideology, completely ignoring everyone's obvious discomfort with it and the fact they never want his "help". His self-loathing, while genuine, is more related to his "place" in said ideology rather than genuine attempts to reflect at his behavior and be more empathetic and helpful to others.
Jerkass: Let's be blunt here, he's not the nicest person in this game. He tries to kill the class twice because of his destructive "hope" ideology, is incredibly self-centered and self-loathing at the same time, doesn't care whatsoever about how his ideology makes others feel about him nor makes attempts to tone it down, and he is ready to make Hajime a scapegoat by labeling him as "the traitor" in Chapter 4 under the crazy belief that him not knowing his own talent makes him The Mole. It's no wonder Kazuichi, Nekomaru and Akane all tried to restrain him (or even kill him) after he revealed himself to be this.
Jerkass Has a Point: Lunatic he may be, but his deductive reasoning is generally spot on.
Kick the Dog:
- After he discovers the true identities and pasts of his remaining classmates in Chapter 4, he's full of these. Most notably during trial 4, where he doesn't ever stop referencing Hajime's status as a Reserve Course student.
- In Chapter 5, he casually insults the recently deceased Gundham for no apparent reason other to antagonize the others.
- Mikan goes up to Makoto, possibly to tell him she's revived Kyoko, only for Nagito to be so excited about meeting him that he shoves her out of the way and completely ignores Mikan's screams as she slides down the ramp while her classmates frantically chase after her.
Kick the Morality Pet: He doesn't sugar-coat it at all when explaining to Hajime what information he found from beating the Final Dead Room game. If anything, that's when he begins to drop a bit of the Nice Guy attitude. From then on, he continues to antagonize him and the other remaining students. He also kept bringing up Hajime being a Reserve Course student over and over again during the trial, and belittles Hajime on how he usually handles the murder cases and trials. He even tried to summarize trial 4's case because he found Hajime's way of doing it very long. Ouch.
Knight Templar: His attempt to "save" Chiaki by making her kill him and have his fellow former members of Ultimate Despair killed by voting for him by making his death appear to be a suicide shows how dangerous his black and white "Hope vs. Despair" mindset made him. However, he hopes that if the former members of Ultimate Despair do win the class trial, that they will use that trial as a way to gain enough hope to overcome their own despair.
Lack of Empathy: For all his claims of loving his classmates, Nagito sees them more as symbols of hope instead of actual people, and as such shows no empathy for them. Fuyuhiko being upset at Peko's death, for example, isn't something to sympathize with, but a stepping stone for Fuyuhiko to overcome, and he'll willingly manipulate the others with little concern for how they feel.
Laughing Mad: Part of his Villainous Breakdown when his role in the first murder is discovered.
Leitmotif: "Trapped By The Ocean Scent".
Lethal Chef: While not shown in the game itself, extra materials frequently depict him as being unable to make anything remotely edible. Examples include Nagito attempting to run a juice stand while only using milk, soy sauce, soda and lard as ingredients, and trying to make Bûche de Noël out of whip-cream and pine cones,
Light Is Not Good: His ramblings about hope indicate that he's dangerously obsessed with it. So obsessed that he's willing to kick-start the mutual killing by trying to cause the first murder, just to challenge everyone's hope so that it can become stronger. During the trial it doesn't take long to discover that he's not entirely stable.
Lonely Rich Kid: Implied in his free time events. He got a large inheritance, but that came as a result of his parents' deaths.
Love Freak: Well, "Hope Freak" technically. Acts like this both when Monokuma reveals the "murder" game, and when Byakuya is murdered, and Nagito swears to prove none of the students is a murderer. He isn't taken seriously either time.
Love Makes You Crazy: A purely platonic version of this since he was very motivated to kick-start the mutual killing game out of love he has for the Ultimates to succeed and building their hope to defeat despair. He went as far as to plan a murder, and caused trial one to happen. When Teruteru calls him out for even planning this, Nagito admits to embracing the former.
Love Martyr: Doesn’t care that his love and admiration for his classmates are one sided, but is genuinely surprised and a bit hurt that Hajime no longer trusts him. Then subverted when he finds out the truth behind their past and who they are. This even carries over to Dangan Island when he states that he doesn't mind if Hajime yells at him. His expression of the thought of Hajime hating him seems to bring him great discomfort and fear.
Loving a Shadow: It's rather clear that his "love" for his classmates isn't for them in particular but for their "Ultimate" talents and the "hope" they represent. He's happy to back any killer's argument to nurture their "hope" but once it's clear they're not going to win he'll toss them aside like garbage. Similarly, once he learns the truth about the rest of the class he attempts to get them all killed and shows complete disdain for Hajime due to knowing he's one of the "talentless".
Mad Love: His platonic love for his classmates can fall under this as he express it by using extreme measures to 'help' his classmates' hope become stronger. Regardless of how they may feel about it, he'll continue to want to support them, although...in unhealthy manners.
Manipulative Bastard: Played with. Nagito's style of manipulation is nowhere near what's generally considered to be the actions of a manipulative bastard; instead, he tends to plant ideas with the confidence that things will work out how he plans.
- In the first chapter, he "lets" Teruteru find him taping the knife under the table for the sole purpose of spurring Teruteru into action by giving him the idea of murdering him (Nagito) to save whomever he was planning on hurting at the party. Of course, that goes sour when Byakuya ends up dead instead, but it's not for lack of trying.
- In Chapter 5 he claims he's going to destroy the entire island unless the Future Foundation "traitor" reveals themselves, and he sends everyone on a wild goose chase to find and disarm the bombs he's planted. His entire plot is a ruse to keep them distracted while he engineers his own death.
Mask of Sanity: Seems like a Nice Guy at first, only to reveal his true madness at the first trial.
The McCoy: An extreme version of the trope, he relies on his belief in hope and his talent to get what he wants.
Meaningful Name: If you rearrange Nagito Komaeda you get "Naegi Makoto da", or "I am Makoto Naegi". While Nagito and Makoto aren't actually the same person, they do still share character design elements and a voice actor, and Nagito is overtly meant to be an Evil Counterpart to Makoto. Word of God claims that the anagram wasn't the initial intent, but it's still apt.
Mirror Character: Points out to Hajime that they both hold Hope's Peak in extremely high regard, and that he doesn't feel any "special aura of talent" from Hajime like he does from the others. The two are frequently mirrored in official art.
Moral Myopia: Nagito condemned Mikan for killing someone for the sake of despair and said that he can't forgive the crime. However, Nagito himself doesn't see any problem in murdering someone or defending of a criminal, as long as he believes it was done in the name of hope.
Moral Sociopathy: Nagito genuinely admires and claims to love all of his classmates for their talents and capacity to embody hope... But he doesn't particularly care about any of them as individuals, except maybe Hajime. He isn't truly saddened by their deaths, and even appears to dislike some of them as people, particularly Teruteru and Kazuichi.
Motor Mouth: Nothing too bad, but he can speak very fast in certain scenes.
Mr. Exposition: Serves as this to Hajime, especially in the prologue.
My Death Is Just the Beginning: How he treats his death in Chapter 5. He's got a point.
Nerves of Steel: He's very rarely surprised, though that's probably justified after all the horrible and strange shit he's seen and been through. His teeter-totter luck has also given him blind faith in things going his way when he needs them to, and a belief in all his misfortunes are precursors to good fortune (almost to the point of Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad).
Neutrality Backlash: His desire for creating hope by any means leads him to side with anyone in order to do so... including a case's killer. Everyone in the cast despises him for this, and it drives him to become a killer himself, or much rather manipulate Chiaki into becoming one.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His Thanatos Gambit just ends up getting Chiaki, the one person no one (save Monokuma) wanted dead, executed. And this was the good outcome; had Chiaki graduated, all the other students would've become new bodies for Junko.
Nightmare Face: Makes one in the first trial, in a Call-Back to the face Junko made just before her execution in the original.
No Social Skills: He tries to be polite, but often ends up offending the others without even realizing it half of the time or cracking jokes at very inappropriate times. When called out for being rude, he usually backs off with the good ol' "Just Joking" Justification).
Not Afraid to Die: Whenever he's given a death threat, he openly welcomes it. His final moments are spent in a death trap of his making. He has an incredibly low sense of self-preservation:
Nagito: If absolute hope can be born from that... then my life is nothing special.
"Not So Different" Remark: Throws them constantly at Hajime, to latter's great frustration. While he got a point that they hold similar beliefs about hope and talent, he never seems to understand that Hajime actively tries to overcome them, recognizing them as toxic, while Nagito lacks such self-awareness and embraces them fully.
Not Quite the Right Thing: In Chapter 5, he thought he was doing the right thing in killing off everyone else to be sure that they don't escape since they were Remnants of Despair. What he didn't account for was that, if that happened, all it would do is allow Junko's AI to be transferred their bodies sooner than she scheduled, which is even worse than what he was trying to prevent.
Obfuscating Stupidity: One of the smartest members of the cast. However, he deliberately invokes this trope on himself during trials by generally acting ignorant and praising others for noticing clues that trash like him would've never picked up on! This is partially because he prefers to stay on the sidelines until he can decide whether to aid the culprit or the students and partially because he wants to see the other students' hope shine brighter by letting them take the spotlight.
Obliviously Evil: He can be seen as this at best, and if he isn't oblivious, he's usually extremely self-righteous. Whenever someone tries to point out that he's being a nuisance and causing chaos for the sake of it, he only responds with confusion, because he thinks he's doing good things for the other students, but is instead being a scheming Manipulative Bastard.
Obviously Evil: From his uncharacteristically positive expressions, his raspy voice, his ghoulish white skin, and his unkempt clothes, one would assume him to be a suspicious, unpredictable individual even during the Prologue... and they would be right. This "evil" in the case of Nagito Komaeda is more like "obviously pragmatist," however, in that he's willing to kill people and even himself to sow despair to make a greater hope bloom.
Oddball Doppelgänger: Of Makoto Naegi.
Only Friend: He considers Hajime the only person on the island he has any genuine meaningful connection with. Hajime disagrees, or at best considers him difficult in his Free-Time Events.
Ordinary High-School Student: In contrast to the other students, since he was only accepted into Hope's Peak as the result of a lottery, rather than because of any sort of extraordinary, practical talent. This still puts him above Hajime when you find out that Hajime doesn't have a talent. Later subverted when it turns out his luck is actually genuine and scarily powerful, while his life has been anything but ordinary thanks to the influence of his luck. It's arguable whether or not he himself is ordinary underneath it all.
Paranoia Gambit: His whole plan in Chapter 1 relies on this. He intentionally tells Teruteru he's going to commit a murder while setting up the party to gather the students together so Nagito himself can become the killing game's first victim by Teruteru's hands. He admits outright that he didn't expect "Byakuya"'s protective spirit to get in the way.
Parental Neglect: Implied. Him not caring about his parents being crushed by some random meteor might have something to do with one of his comments during the first trial, the implication being that not even his mother ever loved him.
Passive-Aggressive Kombat: In Chapter 4, after finding out about the Remnants of Despair, Nagito loses all respect for his classmates and becomes antagonistic, dishing out passive aggressive insults throughout the trial. This behaviour is especially directed towards Hajime, whom Nagito looks down upon for being a Reserve Course student.
Nagito: I didn't expect you to know that. For a Reserve Course student, you're quite knowledgeable.
Picky Eater: Despite his shaky standing with the group at the start of the second chapter, he refuses the rice Mahiru brought him, saying he prefers toast for breakfast. She was not pleased, to say the least. Potentially Justified by his illness, as toast is easier for most digest.
Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: After his actions alienate him from his classmates, he cheerfully invites them to kill him if they like, in part because he sees himself as more expendable than the other students. He mentions in his spinoff manga that acting as a stepping stone for hope, even if it means dying, is something of a long-cherished wish of his.
Politically Incorrect Hero: "Hero" is a bit of a stretch, but Nagito does, in the end, want to promote hope. However, he's very prejudiced against those who aren't Ultimates, considering normal people mere stepping stones who should kowtow to their superiors. This comes into play once he finds out Hajime is a Reserve Course student, as Nagito becomes very condescending and rude to him.
The Pollyanna: A rather twisted and unsettling version of this trope. Though he freely acknowledges when things are going badly, he keeps a positive attitude about it, and tries to inspire others to do the same. Unfortunately, this tends to creep them out more than it inspires them, especially when he's waxing harmonic about how people dying will just make everyone else's hope shine even brighter!
Proud Elite: Nagito views hope as the most important thing in the world, followed by the Ultimates who are the hope of humanity, and followed by himself for not being a 'real' Ultimate but having still been chosen by Hope's Peak. Normal people are just stepping stones towards hope who leech off the Ultimates and he has a special distain for Reserve Course students for not accepting their place. Unlike the Ultimates who he has a deep respect for to the point of self-deprecation, Nagito is condescending and sarcastic towards average people without talents.
Psycho Supporter: He idolizes his other Ultimate classmates and would love nothing more than to see them excel, even at the cost of his own life, which is what leads to him trying to cause the first murder.
Pure Is Not Good: Purely devotes himself to promoting "hope", even if it comes at the expense of everything else.
Redemption Rejection: After learning that he and the other Remnants of Despair were placed inside a simulation in order to recover from despair and redeem themselves, Nagito decides they're not worth saving and instead opts to kill them (himself included).
Red Herring: Despite sharing a talent and voice actor with the previous game's protagonist, and having a similar name, Nagito is not Makoto, nor does he have any connection to him other than serving as an Evil Counterpart of sorts. Apparently, it was part coincidence and part misdirection on the part of the writers.
Red Right Hand: In the real world, he chopped off his left hand and had it surgically replaced with that of Junko Enoshima, supposedly so that he could become one with "Super High-school Level Despair". He's incapable of actually moving this replacement hand, however.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Hajime's red. In Dangan Island, Nagito's the red to Hajime's blue.
The Rival: A weird blend of this and a Stealth Mentor, as while he tends to challenge Hajime's logic the most often, he also frequently drops hints to help him clear any gaps in his thinking. When the latter behavior is pointed out to him, he plays ignorant and acts as though Hajime figured everything out by himself. In the end, all he cares about during the trials is seeing his classmates succeed, and he's willing to play any and every role necessary to assist them in doing so.
Rival Turned Evil: On the other hand, once Nagito becomes aware that Hajime and the other survivors (besides Chiaki) are members of Ultimate Despair and everyone's in the Neo World Program in Chapter 4, he opposes them and conducts an elaborate Murder-Suicide scheme in Chapter 5 in a misguided attempt at eradicating despair by getting everyone except Chiaki executed.
Russian Roulette: Ends up playing a game with himself in order to solve a puzzle in the Final Dead Room in Chapter 4. Thing is, he doesn't actually know how to play... so he only leaves one chamber empty out of six. He still wins, and as a reward, Monokuma gives him a file full of information about his classmates in addition to the standard reward (access to a secret room with weapons and a hidden passage) that the culprit in that chapter got by playing the game.
Senseless Sacrifice: His elaborate suicide plot in Chapter 5. He thinks of it as a Xanatos Gambit: either the surviving cast will be unable to figure out he'd effectively tortured and mutilated himself before their arrival while trusting to his luck that the traitor would be the one who grabbed the fire-extinguisher that would finally kill him, or they'd be unable to figure out which of them was the traitor even if they did. Unfortunately, not only does the traitor effectively come clean to save everyone else, but this plan would've achieved almost the exact opposite of the result he wanted if it'd succeeded, handing everyone else's bodies to Junko on a silver platter while leaving Chiaki helpless to prevent it.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: It's downplayed, but Nagito tends to speak in overly formal language and uses complicated words such as "aspersion" even in casual conversation, which likely is meant both to show his intelligence and how disconnected he is from societal norms.
Shadow Archetype: Being a sort of Evil Counterpart of Makoto Naegi, Nagito appears to be what he would finally turn out to be if his memories of the events of the Killing School Life were never suppressed and his ideology of battling despair with hope became a regular action.
Significant Anagram: His name is an anagram of "Naegi Makoto da", which translates to "I am Makoto Naegi". This is supposed to hint at his many similarities to Makoto's personality and design-wise: They both wear a Green Hoodie, are both the Ultimate Lucky Student of their classes, and both have strong beliefs in Hope and a distaste for Despair.
Significant Birth Date: The 28th day of the 4th month. In Japan, the number 4 is considered unlucky because one of its pronunciations (''shi'') is similar to how they would pronounce "death". In China, 8 is considered a lucky number because it is pronounced similar to the word "fortune" (ba or fa); the word is also similar phonetically to the word for a "hundred" (bai), alluding to greater wealth, and the laid down 8 is a symbol of infinity. 28 equates to "double luck", meaning that Nagito's birth month represents his bad luck while his birth date represents the double luck which cancels the aforementioned misfortune.
Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: He believes that talent is something one is born with and anyone without it is worthless, which is also hypocritical as he doesn't actually believe in hope himself despite all his ramblings and he considers his own Ultimate Lucky Student title to be worthless, unless it's for the sake of creating hope, in which case he'll willingly abuse his luck to make it happen.
Slasher Smile: He has his moments, like during trial one where he goes Laughing Mad with a sinister smile not unlike what Junko looked like before her execution.
The Social Darwinist: Nagito strongly associates hope with talent and talent with worth, believing that the talentless are to serve as "stepping stones" for the Ultimates who are chosen at birth. Interestingly, he considers these things Necessarily Evil, while also having aversion to them; he doesn't seem to have anything personal against the talentless — in fact, the only student he genuinely cares for is a talentless reserve course student.
Sole Survivor: Of the tragedy that claimed both his parents. Supplementary materials hint that even before his parents' death, the other people on the plane were already killed (presumably by the hijacker).
Start X to Stop X: His whole ideology revolves around this. He is completely devoted to the idea of creating an 'absolute hope' that will make the world wonderful. However, to achieve this he is ready to do the exact opposite of what he trying to fulfill: to spread despair in order to make hope grow stronger.
Stepford Smiler: Type A. His last free time event and his Dangan Island ending both hint that despite his cheerful attitude, the cycle of good luck and bad luck he's dealt with his whole life has worn him out so much that he wishes to die during the school trip.
Suicide by Cop: What his plan in Chapter 1 is implied to be, a fact confirmed by his spinoff manga.
Suicide, Not Murder: Played with in his plan to let the traitor graduate. Part of the purpose of his extremely complicated plan was to obfuscate the cause of death in a Kansas City Shuffle, so it looks like he disguised a suicide as a murder when it was really a murder all along. In the real world, it would be considered Suicide by Cop since Nagito's intent was that the traitor would use the fire extinguisher without knowing that he'd poisoned it, but since Monokuma has a vested interest in all crimes being judged as murders, he lets it pass.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Subverted. During his introduction, his talent, manner of dress, everyman personality, name, and voice actors in both languages make him come off as Makoto Naegi if he were an NPC. Then the first trial reveals he was plotting murder, and it quickly becomes apparent that he's completely off his rocker and he quickly starts distinguishing himself from Naegi.
Taking You with Me: His Thanatos Gambit in Chapter 5 would either take down the traitor or everyone else.
Tautological Templar: To him, Hope is an absolute good, thus everything used to create it and created by it is an absolute good as well. Including murder.
Thanatos Gambit: He's the victim of Chapter 5, and sets up his own murder to draw out and spare the traitor, making it essentially impossible to figure out who killed him or even how he died.
There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: He says this at the start of Chapter 2.
"There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who are born with worth, and everybody else."
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How does Nagito go out? He's tied up, stabbed repeatedly in both legs, has his left arm slashed up, his right hand impaled with a knife, and then impaled through the stomach with a spear and poisoned with highly lethal toxic fumes. Other than the last one, which he tricked someone else into doing, all of these are self-inflicted.
Token Evil Teammate: Nagito makes it clear that he will stop at nothing to "make the Hope of the students shine", from manipulation to causing a murder. His many complexes and neuroses, plus the very real degenerative brain disease he's suffering from, have left him both suicidal and homicidal.
Too Kinky to Torture: It doesn't compare to his brutal self-mutilation in Chapter 5, but when Akane angrily pins him to the ground and tries to break his neck the morning after the first day of the bomb search, Nagito doesn't even try to put up resistance and calmly encourages her to use the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique if she wants to make him reveal the location of his " bombs".
Nagito: ...you can stab my fingers with that fork over there, or scoop my eyes out with that spoon.
Too Much Alike: His horrible treatment of Hajime after finding out he's a Reserve Course student is partly a projection of his own self-loathing, both for not having a real talent and not knowing his place as a "stepping stone".
Took a Level in Jerkass: After seeing everyone's full profiles, his attitude towards them completely shifts, to the point of outright antagonizing them.
Tragic Villain: How "villainous" he is, is one of the most hotly debated questions in the fandom, but he's still an antagonist, and it's hard to get more tragic between his double-edged talent, his shockingly poor health, his binary world-view, his raging inferiority complex, and his neurotic desire to become a symbol of "hope" through dying by a bunch of people who couldn't care less about him. And then you discover the post-diagnosis life expectancy of someone with FTD...
Trauma Conga Line: Thanks to the constant cycle of bad luck and good luck he's gone through during his life. An example he cites is watching his parents die by being struck by a meteor, only to inherit a vast sum of money from them.
Trickster Mentor: An interesting illustration of this trope, in that he has many of the answers to the murder cases before each trial even starts, but doesn't revel in the spotlight of leadership (partly because the others are afraid of him, mostly because of his extremely poor self-image) and just tends to give Hajime scraps of vital information (e.g. Hiyoko's yellow gummies) while denying him a full explanation, but still challenging his reasoning when Hajime is making a mistake.
The Unfettered: He often states that there are exactly two things that he believes in absolutely: his own luck, and Hope. This makes him a very dangerous individual.
Ungrateful Bastard: It is highly likely that Mikan caught the Despair Disease from Nagito, as he was the sickest one and the one she spent the most time and effort tending to in order to save his life. It doesn't matter to him in the slightest, and he simply treats Mikan's actions after she catches the disease as unforgivable rather than show any real sadness for her.
Unluckily Lucky: Perhaps the best description for his variant of luck cycles, or the "luck" talent as a whole.
Unperson: Hajime avoids talking or even thinking about him following his death, though his presence is still felt.
Unreliable Expositor: Deliberately invokes this on himself by freely admitting he could be lying at any time. It's implied he generally isn't, however, with him freely admitting to the only times he does lie out of necessity. Supplementary materials also confirm several claims he makes in the game.
Unwitting Pawn: He never realizes this, but in Chapter 5, Monokuma (actually Junko) intentionally gave him records of the students at Hope's Peak Academy so Nagito would be provoked to kill all remaining Ultimate Despair, including himself, allowing Junko to usurp his and his classmates' unconscious bodies in the real world. Actually, it's likely Monokuma was banking on Nagito completing the Final Dead Room second after the case's culprit, Gundham, so he could take advantage of Nagito's "hope" worship and push it as far as it could go by giving him such sensitive information... and also banking on him taking it at face value, too.
Verbal Backpedaling: During his final Free Time Event Nagito repeatedly mentions very personal things, such as being terminally ill, only to immediately claim he was lying or talking about something else when asked about it. The illnesses at least, were confirmed to be real.
Villainous Breakdown: In Chapter 1, when Hajime shows he's the only one who could've gotten to the table with the knife, he has a Laughing Mad-type outburst complete with spiral eyes. Also has one in Chapter 5, but it's subverted in that we find out it was part of his bluff, which raises questions about the first one...
Villainous Crush: Nagito is implied to be love with Hajime, and instead of being portrayed as creepy the way this trope is typically done, this is one of his more humanizing elements. Even when excluding free-time events, instances of this can be seen in Chapter 3, when Nagito regains consciousness in the hospital, he tells Hajime to get lost because he hates seeing him (which Hajime takes at face value despite the Despair Disease making Nagito say nothing but lies), and in Chapter 4, Nagito tells Hajime that he doesn't know why Hajime is constantly 'in his heart'. Despite Hajime's status as Nagito's Morality Pet, however, Nagito still proceeds with his 'eradicate despair' plan in Chapter 5, fully willing to kill Hajime together with himself and the other Despair members if Hajime doesn't turn out to be innocent.
Villainous Valour: For all of Nagito's many flaws, he clearly does not lack in courage. He consistently puts himself in great personal danger and gladly puts himself through the horror of the killing game in order to spread (his twisted version of) hope.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Shows shades of it with Hajime later on in their Free Time events.
Walking Spoiler: He is one of the many reasons this page has to be spoiler tag free. It comes as a natural result of his characterization for most of the game being starkly different from his initial characterization, and his death being involved with one of the game's major plot twists.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: A bit more on the extreme side, but there's no doubt that Nagito sincerely believes that the best way to make everyone's "hope" stronger is to cause despair. After learning the Awful Truth, he becomes even more determined to end despair no matter what it takes.
White Hair, Black Heart: It's debatable whether he truly has the black heart, but his morals are definitely questionable.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: When Hajime, and by proxy the player, first meets him, he acts like a Nice Guy who is much more concerned with how the students can overcome their situation of being trapped on the island with a murderous teddy bear than he is about the situation itself. Then he's revealed to be a manipulative Well-Intentioned Extremist who believes hope can come from absolutely anything when "Byakuya" is murdered in Chapter 1.
Who Murdered the Asshole: Everyone is at first horrified by Nagito's murder, but after discovering he planned his own death and the killer was completely unwitting, the class can only feel disgust and outrage towards him.
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Invoked in spirit, if not in lethalness, following the first trial. When all is said and done, Nekomaru and Kazuichi knock him out and tie him up hand and foot in the old building for most of the first half of Chapter 2, which was probably the most rational response, all things considered.
Wild Card: States several times that he's on the side of hope, and often sides with the culprits as a result, although he sometimes gives up on them for various reasons, such as when evidence against Teruteru piles up.
Xanatos Gambit: He almost pulls one off in Chapter 5. If the group doesn't find out that all of his injuries were in fact self-inflicted, then they don't find out the truth regarding his case and the traitor gets away with being the blackened. If the group do find out the truth of his injuries but simply rule his case as a suicide, the traitor gets away with being the blackened. If the group finds out that truth, they still are unable to solve his murder and the traitor gets away with being the blackened. The only reason his plan didn't succeed was because the traitor had caught on to what his plan was and decided to confess.
Yandere: A platonic example. He loves his classmates deeply, but it's only platonically (implied to not be the case for Hajime in his Free Time Events and Dangan Island). Still he says he would be okay with murdering and getting killed by them, to the point where his classmates actually fear him.
Your Days Are Numbered: Due to his combined lymphoma and dementia, he has between six months and one year left to live. However, he says this while having his memories from two years ago, which means he lived much longer than expected, and that's without taking into account that he may have been lying about his condition. Because of this, this trope may actually be subverted. Ultimately, it is unknown how much longer Nagito has to live, especially when you take his ridiculous good luck into account.
You're Insane!: By the end of the first trial, every other student thinks this of him. Some have even said several variations of the phrase to him by this point. And according to one of his free time events he really is mentally ill, though he points out he could just be lying for sympathy points, other sources imply he really wasn't. Hajime comments on how "insane" his plan is at multiple points in the Climax Inference of Chapter 5.
Hajime: [describing Nagito wounding himself to make it look like he was tortured] The true madness of his plan began there. He started doing something that no one in their right minds could have done.

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

Nagito Komaeda/"Servant"

Ultimate Lucky Student (Ultimate Despair)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1168636496e2166e5eb9027c6de677f6.png

A mysterious young man wearing a chain and a single mitten who claims to be the world's 'servant'.

Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: He tries to raise Monaca to be the next Junko. However, she finds Nagito's ideology so incredibly embarrassing that she chooses to become a NEET rather than wind up as insane as him.
Ax-Crazy: Just like in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, his hope-driven motifs are just as insane as they are there.
Black-and-White Insanity: Much like in Danganronpa 2, Nagito believes that Hope Springs Eternal no matter what and uses it to justify the truly amoral acts he commits. It's further twisted in this game due to him currently being an active member of Ultimate Despair.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Even more so than before. He actually thinks making Monaca into Junko Enoshima's successor and starting a war will allow "true hope" to shine.
Brainwashed and Crazy: Nagito was subjected to the brainwashing video by Junko, conditioning him into Ultimate Despair. This corrupted his already twisted mindset, making Nagito far more ruthless in his pursuit of hope and giving him a contradictory infatuation and loathing for Junko not even he himself understands.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: He calls Komaru a generic game protagonist and refers to limiting her Hacking Megaphone as "game balancing," though he could have been referring to Komaru being part of the Warriors of Hope's game.
Break Them by Talking:
- He purposely hints at Monaca's true goal to Nagisa, knowing that he wouldn't believe him and instead flip out.
- The epilogue has a hilarious retroactive case of this with Monaca herself. He saves her and tells her he does so because he believes that by her continuing Junko's work true hope can be born in response. By the time of Danganronpa 3 Monaca has become a recluse and completely washed her hands of the hope and despair because she got sick of Nagito never shutting up about it.
Bullying the Dragon: Messing with Genocide Jack nearly got him killed.
- Nagito himself has one of the most impressive talents and is dangerous enough that he nearly killed Junko. The Warriors of Hope make him their slave and constantly threaten and degrade him, knowing nothing of just how powerful he really is.
Butt-Monkey: Spends much of the game being used as a plaything by the Warriors of Hope.
Captured on Purpose: Nagito intentionally got himself captured by the Warriors of Hope and became the Servant for the sake of furthering his goals. This revelation was vaguely foreshadowed to the player when Nagito explains he had begged for his life, something he is not known to do.
- In the epilogue, Nagito hints that he intends to allow Future Foundation to capture him, since he tells Monaca he's running on a schedule and there's 'somewhere [he] needs to be'.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: As with his previous appearance, it's very hard to tell whose side Nagito's truly on.
Conspicuous Gloves: Wears a single mitten over his left hand. Anyone who's beaten Danganronpa 2 knows perfectly well what's under there.
The Dragon: He works directly for Monaca, keeping Komaru in the city so that she can turn her into Junko Enoshima's Successor. When this fails, he agrees to raise Monaca into the Successor instead. His ultimate goal differs from hers, however, as she's acting for the sake of despair while he sees the despair her plans would cause as a way to strengthen hope.
Dissonant Serenity: He's described as always having a smile on his face despite living as a slave in an apocalyptic hellhole.
Even Evil Has Standards: Even as a member of Ultimate Despair, Nagito is put off by Monaca's Forceful Kiss on Nagisa combined with her speech to him.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Never once in this game is he referred to by his real name, not even on his in-game profile. He is only "Servant".
Evil Costume Switch: As a member of Ultimate Despair, Nagito does not wear his outfit from Danganronpa 2, instead sporting a cropped, black jacket with zippers and buttons, a striped sweater, a Slave Collar and a single mitten. His hair is also longer and messier, giving him a manic, unkempt look.
Fighting Your Friend: Made a deal with Toko on the condition that if she escorts Komaru to the kids, they would exchange Komaru for Byakuya, which ultimately leads to a fight between the two girls when he reveals this just as Komaru is given a chance to escape the city.
- He also wants to see Komaru and Makoto potentially fighting each other, saying that Sibling Rivalry is completely natural and always drives one to prove themselves the superior sibling. He doesn't care whether they're competing to be bigger Hope Bringers or if one falls into Despair for a Cain and Abel situation; all that matters is that they fight to make Hope even stronger.
Foregone Conclusion: Anyone who knows the plot of the second game knows that, at this point, Nagito is a member of Ultimate Despair who gets put in the Neo World Program. Oh, and that he has Junko's left hand.
Hope Springs Eternal: His self-justification in a nutshell: Hope will always prevail, so making whatever horrors it has to endure through worse will just make that Hope stronger in the end!
Horrifying the Horror: Even Monaca's scared of him after she loses all her chances of manipulating Komaru into becoming the next Junko and he attempts to raise her into the next Junko in return, which leads her into leaving him behind and doing her own thing instead by 3.
Insane Troll Logic: He puts Komaru through the Demon Hunting game to allow her to grow as a person and become the hope of Towa City, or fall into despair and fight her brother to create more hope. Because it makes sense.
- Lampshaded in an anthology manga, Nagito teaches Monaca about how despair creates hope, by writing it as a math question and doing a sight test. Monaca decides it's incredibly stupid.
  Nagito: Despair+Despair+Despair+Despair+Despair= Hope
Jerkass: Comes off as much harsher than he was in Danganronpa 2, due to Komaru being a normal person (he only treats those with talent with respect; he's dismissive and antagonistic towards pretty much everyone else), him being an Ultimate Despair who still has all his memories, and his methods being more extreme in this game.
Kick the Dog: His treatment of Komaru Naegi isn't pleasant to say the least, as it is exactly like how he treated Hajime when he learned that he had no real talent.
- Blackmailing Toko about Byakuya in order to exchange Komaru was also very low. The poor girl at one point felt she had no choice but to trigger Genocide Jack because she felt so pressured into doing what she had to in order to save Byakuya. And before Komaru was forced to battle Jack, he triggered a fight between Toko and Komaru that made both girls end up crying.
Lethal Chef: His recipe for the kids' milkshakes includes mixing sugar and pork fat.
Major Injury Underreaction: When Jack slices both his legs, Nagito only reacts with surprise despite being unable to stand. A while afterwards he comments on his injuries but doesn't seem particularly concerned, though he's later shown to have bandaged his wounds.
Messy Hair: The Servant's hair is noticeably longer and wilder than it was in Goodbye Despair, and in some scenes it appears to be darker, possibly with dirt.
Meta Guy: To the point where he specifically set up Komaru's path through the game as a, well, game. He's the one responsible for the enemies dropping items and the game being mostly linear, and won't hesitate to comment on them.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of the game, he saves Monaca and decides to raise her to be Junko Enoshima's successor. However, in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, it's revealed that his constant ranting about hope and despair caused Monaca to lose interest and become a NEET instead.
Nightmare Face: Most of his sprites are copies from Goodbye Despair, only changed to reflect his appearance as the Servant. Of the sprites unique to the game is a more intense version of his 'insane' sprite, with the spirals drawn messily and blacking out his sclerae. His linework also becomes more jagged and unstable.
Non-Action Guy: Unlike other Remnants, Nagito avoids involving himself in the action, preferring to manipulate things behind the scenes to sow despair. He only confronts Komaru and Toko in person when Nagisa's betrayal forces him to intervene. He goes down without a fight against Genocide Jack who has to be held back from actually killing him.
Picky Eater: Not to the extent of Kotoko, but when he's getting pies thrown in his face for not peeling her chestnuts, the Servant notes that he doesn't really like sweet foods and enjoys salty flavors more.
Pretty Boy: Despite his manic and unkempt appearance as a Remnant of Despair, The Servant is attractive enough to Genocide Jack for her to remark that she could kill him without violating her Modus Operandi.
Jack: And you are something of a pretty boy yourself, so I can kill you as I like, no remorse!
Put on a Bus: Disappears for most of Chapter 5, only returning in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
Red Right Hand: It's implied that the mitten he wears on his left hand is concealing Junko's hand, which he had surgically bonded to his wrist.
Right for the Wrong Reasons: Nagito rants about his plan to create hope through despair to Komaru, who is understandably freaked out. He correctly realizes she doesn't understand, but instead of concluding it's because his plan hinges on Insane Troll Logic, Nagito decides he wasn't enthusiastic enough.
Saved by Canon: Due to him being a main character in the (chronologically) following Danganronpa 2.
Servile Snarker: A bit ambiguous, but the Servant occasionally screws up orders or makes odd comments in a way that seems more like an active attempt to frustrate the Warriors of Hope rather than his usual lack of tact.
Slave Collar: Lampshaded by Kurokuma at one point, who asks him if he's finally realized he's Hard Gay.
Token Good Teammate: To the Remnants of Despair. His classmates commit murder, create killer robots and torture people, among other deeds, for the sake of despair. Nagito is less overtly evil and rarely takes action himself, with everything he does being for the sake of hope. However, Nagito is the only one aware of what he's become while his classmates honestly believe they're doing good.
Utopia Justifies the Means: Believes that Hope will ultimately prevail over Despair; therefore, the stronger the Despair, the stronger the Hope that will rise to triumph over it.
Vocal Evolution: Nagito's dub actor, Bryce Papenbrook, originally gave him a low, somewhat gravelly-sounding voice in Goodbye Despair. In Ultra Despair Girls he uses softer and breathier tones instead, which is used for all of Nagito's subsequent appearances.
Wild Card: As with before, Nagito's sole allegiance is with hope and what gets him there.
White Hair, Black Heart: The black heart gets emphasis a bit more here, though at this time he is an active member of Ultimate Despair.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: In spite of the abuse the Servant endures at the hands of the Warriors Of Hope, even when Nagisa angrily beats him, the Servant never hits back. However, while physical harm is off-limits, bringing up emotional scars is fair game to him.
You're Insane!: Nagito cruelly manipulates Komaru as she's forced to play the Demon Hunting game with the absurd reasoning that her despair will create hope, causing the girls to view him as psychotic and deranged — not that they're wrong.
Komaru: Yeah... you're crazy alright.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School

Ultimate Lucky Student

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The Ultimate Lucky Student of Class-77. Still his ever hope obsessed self.

Abhorrent Admirer: Downplayed when he meets Makoto, as he rather creeps out the Ultimate Hope with his fanboying.
Advertised Extra: He was built up as an important character, complete with his own figure and singing the ED, but ends up being a pretty minor character who only leaves a mild impact on the storyline and gets Put on the Bus a third of the way in. However, he is the protagonist in the OVA Super Danganronpa 2.5: Nagito Komaeda and the Destroyer of the World.
Always Someone Better:
- Izuru seems to be luckier than him.
- This is how Nagito views Makoto.intently◊.
- In the Super Danganronpa 2.5 OVA, it is explained that his luck works differently in his mental dream world, with him receiving only bad luck and the good luck being received by the people around him. At one point, he trips down a hill and ends up with his head under Mikan's skirt.
Artificial Limbs: His left hand in Side:Hope is a robotic prosthetic, replacing the hand he replaced with Junko's.
Bond Villain Stupidity: Inverted. Nagito finds Junko and knowing she's a major threat, pulls a gun in her... only to start monologuing. This wastes enough time for Izuru to arrive, take the gun and shoot Nagito instead, leaving Junko alive to kickstart the apocalypse.
Born Lucky: As always, though in Super Danganronpa 2.5, he's Born Unlucky while bringing good luck to everyone else.
Butt-Monkey: In the OVA, his luck is absolutely awful, repeatedly getting him into absurd and unexpected accidents, such as getting hit by a truck into a tree with spiky fruit falling on his head, topped off with an angry cat scratching up his face.
Call-Forward: His vest is red and green, same as his shirt in Ultra Despair Girls. The set-up for Despair Episode 4 parallels his tactics from from the first and last murder cases of SDR2. Specifically his manipulation of Teruteru, his use of poisons/laxatives, and his worrying knowledge of explosives.
The Chessmaster: Following from what was shown in Danganronpa 2, Nagito constructs elaborate plans and executes them well. He succeeded in his plot to cancel the exams and, somehow learning about Junko Enoshima's true nature as Ultimate Despair, he successfully distracts Mukuro and nearly executes Junko.
Continuity Nod: To SDR2 and side materials. Bad things happen to dogs around Komaeda.
Cool Big Bro: Apparently Monaka respects him enough to call him Onii-chan. She still finds him nuts.
Demoted to Extra: Compared to SDR2, where he was a main character, he seems to have a considerably less of a role here. However, he does get A Day in the Limelight, albeit one that ends in him being Put on the Bus.
Didn't See That Coming: Nagito almost succeeds in derailing Junko's plan, having convinced Peko to keep Mukuro busy while he planned to kill Junko. He seemed mostly aware of everything she had planned out, except for Izuru.
Dissonant Serenity: After being brainwashed, Nagito's only reaction to seeing his school burn down is to awkwardly say 'happy graduation'.
Doom Magnet: His good luck ends up benefiting him in the end, but at the cost of anyone near him suffering bad luck. Sometimes it's Played for Laughs with Kazuichi, who is usually on the receiving end of this bad luck. Later, Played for Drama when Nagito's supernatural luck ends up getting Seiko, Ruruka, and Sonosuke expelled from Hope's Peak Academy and Chisa put on probation. In Super Danganronpa 2.5, it's the exact opposite.
Dream Emergency Exit: In Danganronpa 2.5, Nagito is trapped within his own dreamworld in which he is ignorant of the real world, as a coping mechanism to deal with his traumatic death in the Neo World Program. An AI called World Destroyer is sent to wake Nagito up by destroying psychological defenses which appear as his classmates, eventually causing the boy to confront it. Nagito launches a suicide attack on the AI in an effort to destroy it and shoots himself in the head, causing him to remember the real world and allowing him to wake up.
Easily Forgiven: During the course of 2's plot, he pretty much cermented himself as a dangerously mentally unstable person with a rather insane worldview in the eyes of his peers, proving himself to be unambigiously Ax-Crazy on several occasions where he both stated and showed that he had no problems with harming or allowing harm to come to himself and others, if it meant that his twisted definition of "hope" would shine through. The culmination of this being his last scheme, which was him essentailly trying to use a Thanatos Gambit to pull a Taking You with Me on the rest of the suvivors. The end-result was that the survivors, Hajime in particular, basically treated him as an Unperson after his death. But in spite of this, Nagito is still welcomed back with open arms into the group by Hajime of all people at 2.5 after he is awaken from the Neo World Program, and none of the others are shown to have any real issues with his presence. Most egregiously, it is never addressed if Nagito has made any efforts to reform himself in any way. He doesn't appear to have learned anything from or even regretting his actions inside the Neo World Program nor in any way reconsidered his insane convitions, the whole thing that made him such a clear and present danger to other people in the first place.
Embarrassing Cover Up: Exaggerated. Nagito needs to procure laxatives from Seiko in order to spike everyone's drinks as part of his plan to postpone the exams. As an excuse, he tells her not only that he's constipated — but has been like that for a week, in the most cheerful way possible.
Nagito: It would be great to get things moving again.
Evil Mentor: Stuffed up spectacularly with Monaca. He tried, but ended up turning her away from the hope vs. despair conflict entirely with his rantings.
Failed a Spot Check: Nagito meets Makoto for the first time and is so excited that he shoves Mikan out of the way and becomes to engrossed in idolizing the other luckster to notice her sliding down the ramp while screaming as his classmates frantically chase after her.
The Fatalist: His talk with Yukizome explicitly underscores his binary world-view and his raging inferiority complex.
Nagito: At the moment of birth, we're divided into two clear groups. No matter how hard a worthless person tries, they can never be worthy.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Even at Hope's Peak, it seems Nagito had no real friends. After his suspension, nobody besides Yukizome seems to really care about him being gone. Given his general creepy behavior and the fact he tried to blow up the school building just so exams would be postponed, this is understandable. The Warriors of Hope can't stand him either, to the point where Monaca got tired of hope vs despair from his constant Motive Rants.
Game-Breaking Injury: The gunshot injury he received from Izuru in Episode 8 prove to be this. As the result of the injury, he spent most of Class 77-B's rescue mission to save Chisa complete passed out. Considering that Nagito is easily the smartest of his classmates, he would have likely immediately noticed the trap setup by Junko and Mikan's odd behavior, thus preventing Class 77-B from falling to despair had he been awake for most of the rescue attempt.
Hard Work Hardly Works: A firm believer in this, as noted above, feeding his belief that the talentless exist only to exalt the talented.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: As always he thinks of himself as trash.
He Who Fights Monsters: He's an Ultimate Lucky Student just like Makoto who was supposed to fight despair, and actually does it...Up until Junko brainwashed him like the other students in his class and he kept trying to induce despair for the premise of hope. But since he's already an Ultimate Despair, his actions bring nothing other than despair like the others.
Hidden Depths: World Destroyer reveals Nagito's dream reflected his inner desires, which was a world where he had been born without luck and lived a normal life, lacking his obsession with hope but despising talent.
Horrible Judge of Character: In Nagito's dreamworld, Makoto is extremely cool, which is very different from his actual personality, likely due to how much Nagito idolizes him. Hiyoko, Kazuichi, Fuyuhiko and Sonia are also given incorrect portrayals, especially with Sonia reciprocating Kazuichi's feelings.
Horrifying the Horror: During the time space between Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 3, his ranting about hope and despair end in Monaca deciding to give up on being Junko's successor out of fear of becoming as insane as he is.
I Just Want to Be Normal: It's heavily implied in the OVA that Nagito secretly wishes he was a normal person. In the dreamworld built from his desires he has no talent and leads a fairly mundane life with friends aside from having absurdly bad luck. Justified considering his ideal life is similar to how Hajime lives, down to even being good friends with Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko.
I Just Want to Be You: Implied. In his dream, which is explicitly reflective of his desires, gives him a life which is suspiciously similar to Hajime's, as he is a normal person amongst his gifted classmates who, for the most part, like him; good friends with Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi and not obsessed with hope or talent.
Irony:
- He loudly maintains his talent is useless, particularly compared to those of his more "legitimate" Ultimate classmates...yet three of his upperclassman with more concrete talents (confectionery making, forging and chemistry/medical research) are made scapegoats and expelled despite the massive potential of their talents, while Nagito's dangerous and whimsical luck is judged too impressive to let go of.
- While Nagito is normally the least stable of his classmates, after the brainwashing he's arguably the sanest member. Episode 11 reveals the rest of Class 77-B thought they were helping society while they were in fact destroying it. Nagito is the only one that knows he's Despair.
- Despite how vocal Nagito is about his views on how important hope and talent are, in his dreamworld — which is explicitly stated to be a reflection of his desires — he was born without his luck and absolutely loathes talent, believing everyone would be better off without it. Nagito also forgets what hope is, acting slightly confused when it's brought up and only remarking that it sounds 'familiar'.
Journey to the Center of the Mind: Due to his traumatic death in the Neo World Program, Nagito remained comatose so World Destroyer was sent into his dream world to wake him up.
Karma Houdini: Downplayed and justified. While he ended up being the mastermind of the bomb explosion in Episode Four, he got punished for it by being suspended from school, while both Kimura and Andou, who accidentally detonated the bombs got expelled. By that logic, he should have been expelled as well. The only reason he wasn't was because his talent was just too incredible.
The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Unsurprisingly, he is a huge Makoto fanboy and in Side:Hope he pretty much Squees after getting to meet Makoto personally.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Zigzagged. While Nagito seems to be an even match against Junko in a battle of wits (something that he himself seems to be a bit disappointed about since she wouldn't be a good enough "stepping stone" if he could defeat her), Nagito acknowledges that he and the rest of Class 77 can't hope to defeat Izuru. But he still agrees to help his classmates when they all decide to face off against the Ultimate Despairs.
Love at First Punch: Apparently falls for Izuru as he's getting disarmed and shot by him.
Love Freak: But of course.
Luminescent Blush: After getting shot by Izuru, he gets one of those.
Mad Bomber: Like before, he isn't particularly sane and knows enough about explosives to set up enough bombs to destroy a building.
Manipulative Bastard: Using his luck and the right words, he was able to get Kimura to get a laxative for his plan easily.
Man Hug: After waking up from his coma, Nagito makes his way to the ship where his classmates are and is casually greeted by Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko whom he immediately pulls into a hug, much to their confusion and chagrin. It's unknown why he does this, given that neither boy particularly likes him, but it likely has to do with how they were all good friends in Nagito's illusory dream world.
Mr. Fanservice: Nagito's appearance in Episode 7 shows him singing after surviving yet another plane crash... Only for the scene to reveal he's also bathing under a near waterfall, with the camera closing in on his naked body and giving the audience a generous shot of his ass.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In a huge twist of irony, Nagito at his most villainous inadvertently talked Monaka out of being Junko's successor when she saw how nuts he was.
Obviously Evil: From his uncharacteristically positive expressions, his raspy voice, his ghoulish white skin, and his unkempt clothes, one would assume him to be a suspicious, unpredictable individual even during the Prologue...and they would be right.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Nagito Komaeda is telling his idolized Ultimates, in a somber tone, that something is far too dangerous, and that their talents are no match for what they're about to walk into, listening would be a very good idea. Once they decide to go anyway, he maintains that he only did this to "test" their hope, reverting to his usual role...but, as usual, it's not quite clear if he was being truthful about this.
Pocket Protector: He is shot by Izuru but survives because the shot hit him in his Student Handbook. Even Izuru notes just how lucky this is.
Psycho Sidekick: Although he's a lonely figure who doesn't seem to have any real friends, he's still a member of Class 77... and is prepared to go to extreme lengths to ensure their success.
Put on the Bus: He gets indefinitely suspended at the end of Episode 4. Per the following episode, six months later the Academy doesn't know where he is. Episode 7 reveals he was involved in a plane crash and is currently stranded in the desert.
Relationship Sabotage: Nagito maintains his tradition of damaging the friendships of those around him: he's the reason former childhood friends Andou and Kimura now despise each other (although the relationship was already on fairly shaky ground). While purely unintentional on his part in this instance, he'll go on to do the same thing deliberately in ''Ultra Despair Girls" and accidentally-on-purpose in SDR2.
Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: How he pulls off his Karma Houdini moment mentioned above. The Hope's Peak faculty let him off for orchestrating a terrorist bombing of a school building with nothing more than an indefinite suspension because his talent is too damn important to them.
Shadow Archetype:
- The Nagito Komaeda in Super Danganronpa 2.5: Nagito Komaeda and The Destroyer of Worlds is a hypothetical self that might have existed if Nagito lacked his luck and lived a normal life. While immersed in this mental world, Nagito claims that he hates talent and wishes he could erase it from the world entirely so that everyone could live as equals, to his true self's embarrassment. After Nagito wakes up from the illusion, the Alter Ego taking on Hajime Hinata's appearance explains to him that this world is a reflection of his true desires.
- Much like in Danganronpa 2, Nagito is this to Makoto Naegi, specifically in how they went about trying to defeat Junko. Nagito believes steadfastly that despair is but a stepping stone to hope and that by killing Junko, Ultimate Hope can finally be achieved. Compare that to Makoto who, after beating Junko, offered her mercy because he felt that even she deserved an opportunity for Hope.
Shipper on Deck: As the OVA shows, Nagito's ideal world apparently involves Naegi and Sayaka together. In the same OVA it's revealed that he supports the idea of Kazuichi and Sonia ending up together.
The Social Darwinist: Believes that people are sorted into the "haves" and "have-nots" from the moment they're born, and that the most a talentless person can ever hope to be is a "stepping stone" for the talented.
Squee: His reaction to meeting Makoto, the Ultimate Hope, is akin to that of an excited fangirl meeting their hero.
Story-Breaker Power: Between his keen intelligence and overwhelming luck, Nagito was one of the few people who could have actually stopped Junko, in a story that ultimately has to end with Junko winning. In order to prevent Nagito from beating Junko, he is conveniently Put on a Bus when she first arrives at Hope's Peak, and doesn't return until Junko is near the final stages of her plans to cause the Tragedy. When he does face off against Junko, he ends up receiving a Game-Breaking Injury from Izuru, who has an even greater Story-Breaker Power than Nagito. His injury ends up putting him out of commission during Class 77-B's attempt to save Chisa, a situation where his classmates need his help the most.
Taking You with Me: After his death in the game, Nagito's brain creates a mental world as a coping mechanism where the Tragedy never happened, he has horrible luck and no talent, but lives a peaceful life. An AI called World Destroyer is sent in to awaken him by killing off the dream's inhabitants. This upsets Nagito, who uses his terrible luck to cause a building to collapse on the both of them. However, Nagito shoots himself before he can be crushed, freeing him from the illusion. He actually thanks World Destroyer afterwards.
Talking the Monster to Death: Unintentionally. He took Monaca to his side so he could mold her into becoming the next Ultimate Despair, but ended up looking so batshit insane that Monaca became disgusted by him that she outright gives up her despair obsession to pull out a Screw This Im Outta There instead.
Tears of Joy: In the second episode, after claiming he found a "fragment of hope" from hanging out with his classmates.
Took a Level in Kindness: He's probably the nicest he has ever been in the series during Side:Hope and decides to help his friends save the world, even though he still clearly is as obsessed with hope as ever.
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
- Downplayed usually. While he was brainwashed like the rest of his classmates, unlike them he fully realizes that he's Despair while they misguidedly think they were doing good.
- Played straight about his time attempting to mold Monaca into the second Junko Enoshima, as a brainwashed Ultimate Despair nonetheless. His constant ramblings was so insane that the only thing he managed to do was to disgust Monaca sufficiently enough that she just stops considering becoming Junko Enoshima II.
Unluckily Lucky: Naturally. This is best highlighted in episode 4. His plan to get the practical test postponed to let his classmates have time to grieve as a result of the Twilight Syndrome Murder case, ultimately falls apart when he gets the drugs mixed up and accidentally switches bags with Kimura. But through a series of bizarre and unfortunate events, Nagito is able to get his wish and the tests are postponed. However, this results in Chisa, who he seems to like, being transferred from his class.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Downplayed; while he did want to blow up the building that the practical exams were held in, he didn't intend to cause Andou and Kimura's fallout and expulsion from Hope's Peak or get Yukizome transferred to the Reserve Branch.
- In Episode 8, his attempt to deal with Junko by himself (using Peko as a distraction for Mukuro and bringing Chiaki with him) failed, causing Peko to be injured in battle and Chisa kidnapped and lobotomized.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like in SDR2 he wants to help his classmates and in his mind he thinks what he's doing is right. But blowing up a building so they don't have to take a exam when they're depressed is pushing it.
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Much like Suzuko Kashiki, Nagito pulls a gun on Junko, who he recognizes as the cause for all the despair and chaos throughout the school, and even has Peko deal with Mukuro so that he would be able to kill her unopposed. Unfortunately, he decides to start making a speech, and Izuru is also in the room...
Who Murdered the Asshole: Pretty much everyone in particular Akane and Fuyuhiko are rather open about their hatred of Nagito making the suspect list rather large when he does turn up dead although everyone is horrified by the brutal manner of his death, ironically Nagito caused his own death and indirectly got Chiaki the only student who didn't hate him to kill him
Wish-Fulfillment: Nagito wishes to become a 'stepping stone' for someone else's 'hope'. In his dream, he was born with terrible luck that caused constant misfortunes to befall him while benefitting those around him, which makes sense given that it reflects what he desires.
The Worf Effect: Between his intelligence and good luck, Nagito proves to be one of the few people that can challenge the Despair Sisters and almost even defeat them, by nearly killing Junko. Unfortunately, he proves to be no match for Izuru, who proves to have even BETTER luck than NAGITO.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After going into self-depreciation mode, he receives this from Chisa complete with a slap.

Characters / Danganronpa — Nagito Komaeda

Nagito Komaeda

Ultimate Lucky Student

Nagito Komaeda/"Servant"

Ultimate Lucky Student (Ultimate Despair)

Ultimate Lucky Student

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Characters / Danganronpa — Nagito Komaeda

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Nagito Komaeda

Ultimate Lucky Student

Nagito Komaeda/"Servant"

Ultimate Lucky Student (Ultimate Despair)

Ultimate Lucky Student

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