All spoilers will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!
Given the setting of where the Danganronpa franchise takes place at and the fact that the killers tend to be sympathetic ones, more than a few of the characters could really use a hug right now.
Woobie types with their own pages:
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Main installments:
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Normal Woobies
- Sayaka Maizono is a huge Stepford Smiler who grew up without a mother and rarely saw her workaholic father, only being saved from loneliness by the Idol Singers that she looked up to. When she eventually became an Idol Singer herself, the friends in her group became everything to her (that may or may not have something to do with how screwed up the Japanese idol industry is in its own right). When Monokuma presents the first motive to the students, Sayaka is utterly devastated to the point where she would have been the first to kill... had she not been the first to die instead.
- Chihiro Fujisaki lacks confidence and strength, and is clearly hit by the murders the hardest. Later, after Chihiro's death, the audience finds out that "she" is really a boy who crossdressed as a girl in a misguided and completely desperate attempt to avoid being mocked for not being masculine, which unfortunately ended up crushing his self-esteem further. Poor kid.
- Kiyotaka Ishimaru (a.k.a. Taka) is one of the most morally good students at Hope's Peak Academy, being a kind, albeit Hot-Blooded guy who's one of two victims in Case 3 of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. His life begins with his family's damaged reputation, resulting in Taka finding it hard making friends, instead focusing on becoming a model student to restore his family's honor. Hope's Peak scouted him and he tried to avoid the other students. He started opening up to people when Makoto entered the academy. Like the other students, he was sealed within the academy, and also had his memory his academy time there prior to Makoto's arrival, to spare him the tragedy of losing his family, unaware that Monokuma (controlled by the real Junko Enoshima) infiltrated the school and murdered the headmaster. The other students found him an annoyance at worst, and hot-blooded at best. After a dare with Mondo Owada, with Makoto being too afraid to stay out of fear for their lives, Taka makes his first real friend at Hope's Peak and completely breaks when Mondo is convicted of Chihiro Fujisaki's murder, and subsequently executed by Monokuma. Kiyotaka even risked his life by voting himself as the culprit rather than Mondo. After that, he ended up completely mute until finding out about Alter Ego. After taking parts of Mondo's personality (as in Kiyondo), Kiyotaka vowed to protect and apologized to Alter Ego for his master's death. Unfortunately, this caused Hifumi to grow jealous and kill Taka. When the murder was discovered, Taka ends up forgotten, even by the one who vowed to bring his murderer to justice. The only one who didn't forget was Hina.
- Makoto Naegi was literally Born Unlucky. He has the worst day ever before he receives an invitation to attend Hope's Peak Academy, which sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime...only to then be thrust into a killing game with 14 other students. The girl he has a crush on dies after attempting to frame him for murder, the other students almost get him wrongfully executed, and to top it all off, when he and the five survivors finally escape, the outside world is revealed to be a hellhole of despair. Yet in spite of it all, Makoto remains a forgiving Nice Guy, still believes the best in people and encourages his friends not to lose hope. He's such a believer that Rousseau Was Right that when given the chance to kill the fanatical followers of the person who put him and his friends through hell, he instead decides to give them all a second chance through rehabilitation in the Neo World Program. Worse still, the Future Foundation wants him dead for this, and when he's captured, is forced to experience another killing game, where his girlfriend dies (temporarily) just to save him. It's no wonder he earns the title of Ultimate Hope.
- Aoi Asahina, also known as Hina, started off as a talented swimmer until the apocalypse outside Hope's Peak Academy and the headmaster sealed her inside along with the other students of his own classroom. She's then victim of being trapped in Junko's killing game, where she witnesses many of her own classmates murder each other and often feels bad for the deceased no matter who they were. She ultimately almost breaks in Chapter 4 where her best friend Sakura Ogami kills herself. Having been lied to by Monokuma in form of a fake suicide note, she wants everyone of the current survivors, including herself, to commit Suicide by Cop. After being revealed that Sakura's actual suicide note wanted everyone to live, she very much regrets this action and fortunately is Easily Forgiven. Later in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, without her knowing, her brother dies as part of being one of the players of The Warriors Of Hope's game due to trying to escape from it, and in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School is victim of another killing game, where she relives the same experience of people killing each other, with one of her friends temporarily dying in front of her. However, even after all of this, she still mantains her bubbly personality, and is always in support of her dear friends, often being the reason why Makoto keeps beliving in people.
- For all the work Kyoko puts into convincing Makoto of her dislike for her father, her reaction to the family photo leaves him unconvinced. When he sees her later on, she calls their heart-to-heart discussion on her regrets surrounding his death "rambling" (though the fact she was even willing to openly ask for his help with this issue marks some pretty serious Character Development).
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Normal Woobies
- Hajime Hinata dreamed about getting into Hope's Peak Academy, but when he does, it was because he became a reserve course student who has zero talent whatsoever. He didn't enjoy getting into Hope's Peak Academy like that, and he wanted a talent and escape from his second-class status so badly that he went through a human experiment that erased his personality, leaving behind a broken, bitter man completely bored with existence (specifically, the above-mentioned Izuru Kamukura in the Zero folder), leaving no trace of the cynical but good-hearted Hajime left.
- Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School turns him into more of a Woobie. He feels incredibly unworthy of his Love Interest (the human Chiaki), and when some of his classmates are murdered, he gets beaten bloody by the school's security for trying to find out what happened to them. His parents are implied to be emotionally neglectful of him, if the split second shot of their consent to the Kamukura Project is any indication. And when he goes through with the Kamukura Project, hoping to make himself someone he can be proud of, he's erased from existence and replaced with a new persona.
- Usami/Monomi has to cope with the students' distrust, Monokuma's abuse, and being forced to watch helplessly as he plays out his wicked games.
- Mikan Tsumiki: While first presented as a deliberately-over-the-top example we later learn during her Free Times that she was picked on, bullied, and abused by her peers all the time in her childhood and she put up with all of it without complaint because it meant they were paying attention to her which was still better than being ignored in her mind. Then she's the murderer of chapter 3 due to Monokuma's Despair Disease, which she caught while trying to help those already afflicted, causing her to recover her lost memories of being part of Ultimate Despair and forcing her back into that persona. The same Ultimate Despair whose dearly departed "beloved" was Junko Enoshima, manipulating them for her own twisted amusement. Danganronpa 3 gives Mikan extra sympathy points when Junko is shown not just manipulating her, but out-and-out abusing her too.
- "Byakuya Togami" aka the Ultimate Imposter, who was born with no name, home, friends or family and has thus only been able to live in disguise as other people his whole life, to the point where he is genuinely convinced that he does not exist and can never be his own individual person who can share bonds of trust and friendship with others. But even so, he still stands by his vow to not let any of the other students become murder victims even to the point where he becomes the victim by saving the person who was attempting to kill him.
- Teruteru Hanamura just wanted to make sure his ill mother was alright. And once he learns about Nagito's true nature, he wanted Nagito to be taken care of before he attempts to kill somebody, only for him to commit a Murder by Mistake by accidentally killing the Ultimate Imposter instead. While he is very much hated by the fanbase, learning about his motivation for the first murder was enough for his haters to feel bad for him. In addition, if you cue in some Fridge Horror, there's a very likely chance that Teruteru's mother is not alright, as she could have been killed by Despair!Teruteru.
- In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Mahiru Koizumi attempts to be kind to Natsumi, who bullied her in middle school and sees her as a somebody to get rid of just so that Natsumi can be in the main course. At one point, Mahiru attempts to break up a fight between Natsumi and Sato, only to nearly get hit by Natsumi. You get to see her trembling in fear. And once Nastumi and Sato die, she's later seen sobbing that she was not able to stop the conflict between those two girls.
- Nekomaru Nidai was born with a heart defect so severe that he was told he wouldn't live past 20. Constantly bedridden and making frequent trips to the hospital, he was never able to join PE or play sports and was teased a lot. Part of the reason he became a sports team manager was to emulate his friend Daisuke, who had the same condition as him, but died before he could see his team succeed.
- Gundham Tanaka has a Friendless Background in which the only people that seem to care about him is his deceased mother and his animals. He is also implied to be born out of wedlock, causing him to be rejected out of both sides of the family, and he is actually very lonely beneath his dark overload persona. [[spoiler: When Sonia finally becomes his friend and potential love interest, he's flattered, admits in his Free Time Events, that Sonia and Hajime are his first real friends. His evil overlord schtick is a result of trauma at a young age, and admits his mom was a bad cook, but he ate her cooking because he loved her. D'awww...
- AI Chiaki becomes one after she commits murder just by pure accident. She then makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save her fellow students and proceeds to be executed, despite never really intending to kill anybody in the first place. In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, despite this game never indicating that she was based off a real person, it's revealed that the reason for AI Chiaki being present in the first place was that there actually was once a real Chiaki Nanami: she was the students' beloved class rep who was the victim of the franchise's very first execution chronologically. Being forced to watch her slow, bloody death at the hands of Junko broke the class so horribly that they fell into despair and became the Remnants of Despair. Ostensibly, the reason AI Chiaki was even created in the first place was because, in addition to being the reason the class fell into despair, she was the one who had brought them all together as friends prior to everything going to hell.
- The game's whole cast could be considered Woobies with the reveals in the final trial. After already going through the total hell of a mutual killing game, they find out the horrible truth behind why it happened. They had been lead to believe that there was a "world ender" foundation trying to destroy the world and that said foundation was responsible for the killing game. In reality, they were the Remnants of Despair; the personal lackeys of Junko who were responsible for the widespread destruction of the world and every sort of crime imaginable. Not only that, they all murdered their own families. The "World Ender Foundation" was actually the Future Foundation, which was created to fight them. In addition, the mutual killing class trip was actually a virtual simulation all along. Makoto, who believed that they could still be saved, hid them from the rest of the Foundation and placed them into the simulation in the hope that they could be returned to their pre-dispair selves. The only reason the killing game happened was that Junko infiltrated the simulation as a computer virus and hijacked it. Furthermore, Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School reveals that they were brainwashed into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair after watching their beloved class representative get executed by Junko.
- Nagito Komaeda's entire life has been one long Trauma Conga Line, but he keeps going due to his belief in hope—though whether it's genuine or just something he tells himself is another matter entirely. The "iron" part may be subverted in that he reveals at the end of his Free Time Events that he actually wants to die to escape his cycle of good and bad luck. Given the amount of trouble he causes, and his behavior after learning his classmates are responsible for the Crapsack World state of current affairs, he could also qualify as a Jerkass Woobie.
- Akane Owari has dealt with perverts, poverty, and being surrounded by death for much of her life. Her funny Big Eater tendencies? She was regularly starving as a kid. Her Innocent/Shameless Fanservice Girl moments? Sexual harassment was the norm for her. Her Accidental Misnaming? People around her died or left her life so often that she doesn't have any reason to memorize names. Basically, she's Conditioned to Accept Horror. And her developing a powerful mentor/student relationship and rivalry with Nekomaru throughout the game? He winds up dying twice to save her (along with everyone else from certain starvation in chapter 4's case).
- Sonia Nevermind has always been taught that her people must come before her own needs, has been kidnapped twice, and over the course of the game has to deal with Kazuichi's antics and her friend/crush Gundham's betrayal and subsequent execution in Chapter 4. She tries her best to hold in her emotions and not to cry over stressful situations tries to keep the fact she will never truly have the freedom of being a normal girl from bothering her too much. Since her classmates are said to be the first friends she's ever had, she truly believes in The Power of Friendship and hates watching her friends turn on each other. It isn't until her final free time event comes around that she finally allows herself to cry. Regardless of all this happening, Sonia still believes in her friends (as shown clearly in trial five) that she holds strong faith that she'll make it out of this no matter what.
- Peko Pekoyama. She was abandoned as a baby, only to be taken into the Kuzuryuu family to be raised as a hitwoman/bodyguard for their son. She was told she was nothing but a tool for Fuyuhiko to use as he pleased, to the point even her name reflects it, and it stuck with her regardless of how many times Fuyuhiko pleads with her to drop that kind of mindset. She thinks of herself as being without purpose without her master because that is what a tool is. She even killed Mahiru knowing full well if Fuyuhiko killed her he'd be caught, and tried to save him by giving him a chance to escape the island without needing to dirty his hands. But at the same time she's shown as having slight hints of remorse over murdering Mahiru such as agreeing with Chiaki/Hajime's assertion that Mahiru's murder shouldn't be forgiven at the start of the investigation and apologising to the class over it and asking them to prevent anything like that happening again. She had zero ill will against Mahiru and even openly admired her and her photo's but her tool mindset pushed her to kill a friend and pushed her to senselessly sacrifice herself.
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School
Normal Woobies
- Seiko Kimura. Flashbacks reveal that her genuine friendship with Andou was one of the most tragic messes in the entire franchise. The poor girl was stuck in an All Take and No Give friendship with her, eventually causing her to feel just used by her, as Ruruka never showed much of gratitude. Similarly to Juzo Sakakura, she also seemed to be the third wheel of the Class 76th Trio and not have any other friends. Ruruka also never trusted her just because she couldn't eat her sweets, even though Seiko explained it to her she would die if she did. Things would get even worse after Nagito's luck caused the two to drift apart, believing they betrayed each other during the practical exams, with Ruruka believing that Seiko not only tried to sabotage her performance by giving her laxatives instead, but also tried to frame her for the bombing incident. It's to the point that years later, the two suspected each other of being the traitor during the Final Killing Game and tried to get each other killed. Yet, even in her final moments, Seiko just wanted to be friends with her. At the very least, her actions would serve to give Kyoko Kirigiri another chance.
- Heck, there's also a brief moment in the Final Killing Game where she notices Aoi Asahina's wound, walks closer to try to treat it, but because she's in her "beast mode," the group assumes she wants to attack her and she's shot by Miaya Gekkogahara controlled by Monaca.
- Ryota Mitarai. All he wanted to do was create an anime that instilled a sense of hope in its viewers just like anime did for him when he was bullied, even at the cost of his own health. Unfortunately, meeting Junko doomed everything he stood for, as she used his techniques to spread despair and he was forced to watch one of his few friends becoming a shell of her former self through Junko's machinations. It gets even worse when it turns out the whole reason the Final Killing happened was because Tengan, a man Mitarai trusted, wanted to break the guy into committing mass brainwashing upon the world. It's consequently very hard to blame how badly he snaps in the aftermath.
- The entire Hope's Peak Student Council, even if some of them are more sympathetic than others. Who wouldn't feel bad for a bunch of scared kids who spent their entire screen time crying and screaming as they are brutally slaughtered by their classmates and friends?
- Where do we begin with human Chiaki? Spends most of her life alone and lonely until she attends Hope's Peak, at which point she meets her boyfriend, makes a bunch of friends, and forms a close relationship with her teacher. And then it all goes to hell. First, her boyfriend disappears (for reasons mentioned above). She spends a year waiting for him to return. When he does, as Izuru, he tells her to her face he doesn't remember her. Then, in systematic order, she inadvertently leads her friends to their dooms on a failed rescue mission, is betrayed by her Brainwashed and Crazy teacher (the person they went to rescue), goes through the most brutal death in the franchise, and dies cursing her uselessness in front of Izuru, who still doesn't remember her. And all she wanted to do is have friends to play games with.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
Normal Woobies
- Shuichi Saihara. He's very insecure about his talent since he mostly solved murder cases out of luck as well as because his most famous case got a Sympathetic Murderer sentenced for killing an Asshole Victim whom everyone believed deserved to die, though he becomes more confident in his detective skills throughout the game. By the time he makes it to the final trial, his Implied Love Interest and Big Brother Mentor have both died, and he has suffered from Heroic BSoD after the former's death. While he does uncover the mastermind's identity, he learns that he auditioned to be a part of the killing game out of boredom and that everyone's personalities were entirely fabricated. This ultimately pushes him to the Despair Event Horizon, all the way to the point where Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.
- Kaede Akamatsu. She helped Shuicihi in setting up a trap that was intended to kill the mastermind, but they used that trap to kill somebody else and frame Kaede for it. Believing she was the culprit of that murder, Kaede urges Shuichi to reveal she is the killer to the others, and feigns resistance to make it more believable for them.
- Kirumi Tojo, after her story was told. According to her motive video, she was appointed as the prime minister for Japan. An "unprecedented crisis" ended up happening in her country and she needed to go back by killing Ryoma. Many students went out of their way to state they would rather have Monokuma execute them instead of her and encouraged her to escape the school, even though Kaito and Kokichi called her out on her The Needs of the Many utilitarianism. To top it all off, she goes through quite possibly the most sadistic execution in the franchise.
- Gonta Gokuhara is a Gentle Giant who just wants to be useful to the rest of the group in some way, but can't quite figure out how. While exploring a virtual world in Chapter 4, he ends up crossing the Despair Event Horizon after learning about (what is supposed) the state of the outside world, which ultimately leads to him deciding (with some persuading from Kokichi) to Mercy Kill everyone else by murdering Miu and winning the game. Unfortunately, Gonta had gotten two wires he was supposed to plug into his virtual headset before entering the virtual world mixed up, and so when he logged out, he was unable to recall anything that happened in the virtual world. He's horrified when he finds out what he did, and is unable to understand why he did it.
- It also doesn't help that his backstory is already somewhat tragic: Since he was a kid, he was rejected by other kids due for his height, considering him "Scary looking" (something that he now expects people to see on him), then he gets lost in the woods at a young age, to be raised by his forest family (Wolves or secretly Reptilians) to come back to society 10 years later, only to be not completely loved by his upper-class parents, due to his upbringing, stating that he is not worthy of their family name, so he decides to become a gentleman to make both families unite.
- Aside, he tends to belittle himself a lot, by saying every time he points something out that it may not be important or too stupid, and he also calls himself an idiot, worthless and stupid EVERY TIME someone dies or when he can't be useful, even if people tell him otherwise.
- Kaito Momota. He's Secretly Dying from a mysterious illness for most of the game, and doesn't remember when he got sick. He keeps going on as usual even as the symptoms gradually get worse, hiding his condition from the rest of the group. During the fourth chapter, he's forced to realize the flaw in his outlook and faith in his friends when he refuses to believe that Gonta is the culprit of the fourth case. In the fifth chapter, he ends up killing Kokichi (with his permission) in order to prevent Maki (who had shot Kokichi with a poisoned arrow) from being executed.
- K1-B0. First of all, he has little social skills and little capacity to understand a lot of things normal people say making it easy for people to mock him. Then, there is his backstory. When Professor Iidabashi was severely injured, Kiibo blamed himself for it, since he believed he broke the First Law of Robotics, and eventually killed himself. He came back, but as a blank slate, having lost all of his memories. Everything he knows prior to the incident came from Iidabashi. There is also the fact that he is an Unwitting Pawn, as he was completely unaware that he was built to serve as the killing game's first-person camera until the mastermind revealed it in the last trial.
- Tenko Chabashira could be considered one due to her rather one-sided crush on Himiko, who she fears for when she joins Angie's cult, even willing to let Himiko do her own thing and being a very sympathetic (if a bit on the Dumb Muscle) side, having defended Kaede when she was about to be executed and only relenting out of concern for Himiko. Plus there is the rather cruel was she was killed by Korekiyo just to serve as a "friend" for his dead sister, who, if the Mastermind is to be believed, never existed. And despite her "degenerate male" insults, which definitely made her a Scrappy to various people who hated her prior to the game's release, it was brought on by her master, an older man who she never questioned due to wanting to become stronger. A lot of people even felt bad they never got to bond with her similar to Kiyotaka above just on account of her being hated by the fans.
- Himiko Yumeno does not take the killings well, especially the deaths of Tenko (who had a crush on Himiko), Angie (her best friend), and Gonta (pretty much a big brother to her). And yet she still manages to soldier on to the end.
- Ryoma Hoshi is a self-loathing Death Seeker who's implied to be suffering from depression. Come to his video in Chapter 2, it was completely empty, showing that nobody really cares about him in the outside world, causing him to lose his will to live and allow himself to be murdered by Kirumi. It's a huge Tear Jerker to think about in itself, but it gets even worse when you realize that he used to have a family and a girlfriend who were murdered by the mafia, which ultimately caused him to use his talent for murder.
Spin-offs:
Danganronpa Zero
Stoic Woobies
- Izuru Kamukura is the result of the Kamukura Project. His backstory is pretty nasty, what with the "no memories, human experimentation, framed for the student councils' murders" bit, but that's not what qualifies him for this. The scene of him in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School crying over Chiaki's body, having finally remembered her, but moments too late, is what does, because everything else, he gets over; he never, ever gets over that.
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
Iron Woobies
- Komaru Naegi was trapped inside an apartment for about a year with zero idea that the world has ended. When somebody finally set her free, she ended up being invited to a bigger nightmare in which she would rather be trapped inside her apartment again. Cue Monokuma robots and murderous children trying to go out of their way to kill her. She could use a big hug after the game.
- All of the Warriors of Hope had to live their lives under Abusive Parents, making them all very sympathetic people, despite their horrible actions. Not to mention, much of their actions are from Junko's influence and brainwashing, with Nagisa Shingetsu in particular being so sympathetic that it's hard to call him a villain.
- Masaru Daimon's father was a drunkard who made Masaru go out to buy cigarettes and beer and beat him when he came back empty-handed. He also beat Masaru when the police came around because he stole some because he felt it embarrassed him. Masaru still smiled through all of the beatings because he didn’t want his dad to leave. It’s worth mentioning that Masaru’s mother is nowhere to be seen. The panic attack he has when recalling the abuse in the cutscene before his boss fight is downright heartbreaking.
- Jataro Kemuri's mother clearly didn't want to have a child, as she had many things she wanted to do that she felt she now couldn't because she had a child. She loathed having her son around, wishing that she would wake up one morning and he'd be dead. She forced Jataro to wear a mask, saying that he didn't look like other kids and that she was ashamed of him. Jataro believed this was because he was incredibly ugly, but he was actually beautiful, and this made his mother hate him all the more, because she felt that meant that she had to work even harder at taking care of him. All this verbal and mental abuse utterly shattered Jataro's self-esteem and made him accept being hated and abused, believing that it gave him peace of mind.
- Kotoko Utsugi's father cheated on her mother. The latter tried to enforce her dream of being an actress on her daughter, to the point she would sell both of their bodies to the producers. Kotoko held all her fear in so that her mother wouldn't cry, even though she didn't even want the attention as a child star. She also survives the events of the game without even a fake death, meaning she gets to witness Monaca mentally abusing Nagisa, learns that the girl she believed to be her best friend was never interested in their cause and twisted it for her own gains, and reacts heavily to the thought of losing the Monokuma Kids as her friends.
- Nagisa Shingetsu's parents were scientists who treated him more as an experiment subject than their son. They even forced him to study for several days straight, inserting analeptics when he got sleepy. This even continued at school since his father was a teacher there. His case is even more heartbreaking when you consider he's especially mature for his age, being the most reasonable out of the Warriors of Hope, being the only one to properly explain their motives, and the only one who truly felt guilt about what he did in spite of everything his parents put him through. And then he gets mentally broken and manipulated by Monaca...
- You can read Monaca Towa's description under Danganronpa's Jerkass Woobie page.
