History Woobie / Danganronpa

** ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' turns him into more of a Woobie. He feels incredibly unworthy of his LoveInterest (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 [[FreezeFrameBonus 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, [[DownerEnding he's erased from existence and replaced with a new persona]].

[[folder:''Danganronpa Zero'']]
[[AC:{{Stoic Woobie}}s]]
* '''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 ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' crying over Chiaki's body, [[YouAreTooLate having finally remembered her, but moments too late]], is what does, because everything else, he gets over; [[HeartbrokenBadass he never, ever gets over that]].
[[/folder]]

* '''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 to avenge the dishonor Mahiru helped bring upon the Kuzuryu name by trying to protect the murderer of Fuyuhiko's little sister so he wouldn't have to 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.

* '''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 AllTakeAndNoGive 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.

** '''Kotoko Utsugi's''' father cheater 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 Monokuma Kids as her friends.

* '''[[BookDumb 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 [[TheBigGirl 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 SuicideByCop. After being revealed that Sakura's actual suicide note wanted everyone to live, she very much regrets this action and fortunately is EasilyForgiven. Later in ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'', 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 ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakAcademy'' 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 [[BigGood Makoto]] keeps beliving in people.

* '''Makoto Naegi''' was literally BornUnlucky. He has [[NotMyLuckyDay 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 NiceGuy, still believes the best in people and encourages his friends not to lose hope. He's such a believer that RousseauWasRight 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. It's no wonder he earns the title of [[HopeBringer Ultimate Hope]].
* '''[[BookDumb Aoi Asahina]]''', also known as '''Hina''', hangs out with fellow tomboy and MMA master Sakura Ogami, whom many people, Kiyotaka included, thought was a guy at first until they found out her gender. 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. She woke up two years later, forgetting of the times she got to know everyone, and at first, forgets Makoto's name, forcing him to repeat it to her three times. Hina was one of the people who didn't think Makoto killed Sayaka, as she found out Sayaka was planning to kill someone. She finds out her family was killed with possible including of her little brother who looked up to her but is one of the only students to never commit murder or be a victim. She does, however, discover Alter Ego after a mental breakdown of not wanting to kill anyone. Chapter 4 utterly breaks her as she finds out Sakura seemingly killed herself because of the surviving students, and blames them for her best friend's death, attempting to commit SuicideByCop by misleading the investigation and getting everyone killed. However, she does feel horrible for this when Monokuma reveals Sakura's real intention was to stop them from killing each other. In the bad ending, she ends up giving [[BabiesEverAfter birth]] to the children of Makoto, Yasuhiro, and Byakuya living in fear, but deluded happiness, being the only surviving female. In ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'', she is supposedly murdered but survives as it was just a prank one of the antagonists played on her. Ultimately, despite being seemingly bubbly and cute, she's got a tough exterior but weak interior, and like quite a few of the class, is very tragic.

* '''Seiko Kimura'''. Flashbacks reveal that her genuine friendship with Andou was one of the most tragic messes in the entire franchise. Even in her final moments, she just wanted to be friends with her.

* '''Shuichi Saihara'''. He's [[HeroicSelfDeprecation very insecure about his talent since he mostly solved murder cases out of luck]], though he becomes more confident in his detective skills throughout the game. By the time he makes it to the final trial, his ImpliedLoveInterest and BigBrotherMentor have both died, and he has suffered from HeroicBSOD 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 DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious]].

* '''Himiko Yumeno''' does ''not'' take the killings well, ''especially'' the deaths of Tenko (who was implied to have 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.

** Even '''[[HateSink Monaca Towa]]''' can be viewed as a JerkassWoobie, since she was born out of wedlock, abandoned by her mother, had her brother and father never accept her, and had her brother physically abuse her out of a ''resentment complex''.

** 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 wood in such 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 for 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 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.

* '''AI Chiaki''' becomes one after she commits murder just by pure accident. She then makes a HeroicSacrifice to save her fellow students and proceeds to be executed, despite never really intending to kill anybody in the first place. It's taken UpToEleven in ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' where, 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.

* Komaru was trapped inside an apartment for about a year with zero idea that [[spoiler: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.

* '''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. [[spoiler:When Professor Iidabashi was severely injured, Kiibo blamed himself for it, since he believed he broke the First Law of Robotics, and eventually [[DrivenToSuicide 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 UnwittingPawn, 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.]]

!!IronWoobie

!!WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds
* All of the Warriors of Hope had to live their lives under AbusiveParents, making them all very sympathetic people, despite their horrible actions:
** Masaru’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 [[MissingMum mother]] is [[FridgeHorror nowhere to be seen]]. The panic attack he has when recalling the abuse in the cutscene before his boss fight is downright ''heartbreaking''.
** Jataro’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.
** Even [[spoiler:[[HateSink Monaca]] can be viewed as a JerkassWoobie since she was born out of wedlock, abandoned by her mother, had her brother and father never accept her, and had her brother physically abuse her out of a ''resentment complex'']].

[[AC:[[TheWoobie]] Normal Woobies]]

[[AC:Other]]
* 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, ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' reveals that they were brainwashed into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair after watching their beloved class representative get executed by Junko.

Given the setting of where the franchise takes place at and the fact that the killers tend to be [[SympatheticMurderer sympathetic ones]], more than a few of the characters could really use a hug right now.

!!IronWoobie
* Himiko Yumeno. The poor girl does ''not'' take the killings well, ''especially'' the [[spoiler:deaths of Tenko (who was implied to have 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.]]
!!JerkassWoobie
* Maki Harukawa is an unpleasant {{Jerkass}} in the early parts of the game, but after her backstory and real nature is exposed, it's very hard not to feel sorry for her.
* Miu Iruma explicitly says that she was inspired to become an inventor and help people after she was finally able to wake up from a coma, which alone explains her "while you sleep" series very well. [[spoiler:She also knew full well her decision to kill Ouma and graduate was wrong, but she was acting out of the genuine belief that, with absolute confirmation that the world had gone to absolute shit, that she was needed to help people. Her prioritizing her life over her classmates is selfish, yes, but her motive was one of pure altruism and in flashback she seemed to still genuinely regret her decision before her death.]] There is also the fact that she is actually a ReluctantFanserviceGirl when push comes to shove and has surprising moments of shyness when she drops her brash persona.
* Even Kokichi Ouma himself could count as one due to [[spoiler: being an orphan who's only friends was the gang of clowns he ran, finding out the world was damned and thus, using Gonta to create an unsolvable murder, which pretty much destroyed what little sanity he had left, and is only pretending to like the killing game, when in reality, it's breaking him. Turns out, he was GoodAllAlong and his death was the one death Monokuma, and by extension Tsumugi, had no idea who the victim was until Shuichi cracked it. There's also his seemingly one sided crushes on Shuichi and Kaede, if his Free Time Events and Love Hotel suite are to be believed, and in reality his bullying and Jerkassitude comes from a want to be loved and appreciated, especially since the mastermind reveals the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends. And in some cases, he's no different from Kaito, especially when he got Himiko to cry after the deaths of Tenko and Angie. It's seen at first as a KickTheDog moment, but he clearly wanted her to express herself and [[CruelToBeKind realize the gravity]] of the situation]]
!!StoicWoobie
* Ryoma Hoshi is [[spoiler:a self-loathing DeathSeeker who is implied to be suffering from depression. Come to his video in Chapter 2 where 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 TearJerker 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.]]
!!Unidentified
* Kaede Akamatsu. [[spoiler:She set-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, after her story was told. [[spoiler: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 TheNeedsOfTheMany utilitarianism. To top it all off, she goes through quite possibly the most sadistic execution in the ''franchise''.]]
* Gonta Gokuhara is a GentleGiant who just wants to be useful to the rest of the group in some way, but can't quite figure out how. [[spoiler:While exploring a virtual world in Chapter 4, he ends up crossing the DespairEventHorizon after learning about (what is supposed) the state of the outside world, which ultimately leads to him deciding (with some persuading from Kokichi) to MercyKill 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.]]

* Kaito Momota is also one to an extent. [[spoiler:He's SecretlyDying 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.]]
* Kiibo. 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. [[spoiler:When Professor Iidabashi was severely injured, Kiibo blamed himself for it, since he believed he broke the First Law of Robotics, and eventually [[DrivenToSuicide 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 UnwittingPawn, 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 DumbMuscle) 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[AlasPoorScrappy felt bad]] they never got to bond with her similar to Kiyotaka above just on account of her being hated by the fans.
* Shuichi Saihara. He is [[HeroicSelfDeprecation very insecure about his talent since he mostly solved murder cases out of luck]], though he becomes more confident in his detective skills throughout the game. [[spoiler: By the time he makes it to the final trial, his ImpliedLoveInterest and BigBrotherMentor have both died, and he has suffered from HeroicBSOD 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 DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]

* '''Seiko Kimura'''. Flashbacks reveal that her genuine friendship with Andou was one of the most tragic messes in the entire franchise. Even in her final moments she just wanted to be friends with her.]]''
* '''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. [[spoiler: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.]]

* 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. [[spoiler: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 BrainwashedAndCrazy teacher (the person ''they went to rescue''), goes through '''[[ColdBloodedTorture 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.

* 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 and 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, ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' reveals that they were brainwashed into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair after watching their beloved class representative get executed by Junko.

* Natsumi (who is a reserve course student like [[spoiler:Hajime]]) has even lower self-esteem than [[spoiler:Hajime]]. She wanted to have a talent so badly that she made up her own talent as the Ultimate Little Sister because she believes that she is unworthy of being around her brother if she is unable to have a talent of sorts.
* Juzo felt left behind by the romance between Chisa and Munakuta. He has UndyingLoyalty towards Munakuta, which leads [[spoiler:Munakuta to seemingly kill him in Episode 9 of ''Side: Future''. And the reason for Munakuta killing Juzo is because Junko knew that Juzo was gay for Munakuta, which she used to blackmail Juzo in ''Side: Despair'': he told Munakata Junko was innocent, or she'd tell him his feelings. He grudgingly goes along, which caused Munakata to believe he was a Remnant of Despair once the truth of Junko being evil came out. And after Juzo survived Munakuta's attempted murder towards him, he sacrificed himself in order to end the killing game once and for all to have Munakuta be safe.]]
* Munakuta [[spoiler:lost both his girlfriend and his best friend.]] [[spoiler:His girlfriend also turned out to be a BrainwashedAndCrazy Remnant of Despair who has been slowly corrupting him into becoming a KnightTemplar.]] [[spoiler:For added fun, he killed the aforementioned best friend out of paranoia that he was also a Remnant of Dispair.]] [[spoiler:Despite Munakata wanting to ask Juzo for his forgiveness after he finds out that his friend actually survived the attack, he's too late, as Juzo had already bled out moments before he reached him. His only consolation is that he died with a smile on his face and that Makoto had previously told him that Juzo was the one who shut the final killing game down.]] [[spoiler:By ''Side: Hope'', he is the only survivor to have a complete DownerEnding, which became one of the many complaints of ''Side: Hope''.]]
* While Ruruka came across as a bit of an UnintentionallyUnsympathetic AlphaBitch, she has terrible self-esteem to the point that she [[spoiler:committed suicide in a very brutal fashion. It is very telling of how much she hated herself.]]
* While the way Izayoi treats anybody who is not his girlfriend is not exactly the best thing in the world, it's hard to not feel bad for [[spoiler:somebody who was killed by their lover. Especially since that said lover (Ruruka) previously said Izayoi was the only person she trusted.]]

* All Seiko wanted was to be friends with Ruruka [[spoiler:even in her final moments]].
* Ryota, somebody who has been bullied in the past, just wants to spread hope across the world by creating anime. [[spoiler:Too bad that Junko used that anime for her to brainwash his classmates into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair. One of them, a good friend of his, also attempts to rape him after being brainwashed.]] Then, [[spoiler:a man Ryota trusts organizes a killing game of their co-workers so that he can mentally and emotionally break Ryota into committing mass brainwashing upon the world.]] This kid can't catch a break.
* While some of the members of the Hope's Peak Student Council are more sympathetic than others, people should feel bad for a bunch of scared kids as they are being brutally killed.
* Where do we begin with [[spoiler: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. [[spoiler: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 BrainwashedAndCrazy teacher (the person ''they went to rescue''), goes through '''[[ColdBloodedTorture 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.

[[folder:''Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony'']]

* Himiko Yumeno. The poor girl does ''not'' take the killings well, ''especially'' the [[spoiler:deaths of Tenko (who was implied to have 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.]]
!!JerkassWoobie
* Maki Harukawa is an unpleasant {{Jerkass}} in the early parts of the game, but after her backstory and real nature is exposed, it's very hard not to feel sorry for her.
* Miu Iruma explicitly says that she was inspired to become an inventor and help people after she was finally able to wake up from a coma, which alone explains her "while you sleep" series very well. [[spoiler:She also knew full well her decision to kill Ouma and graduate was wrong, but she was acting out of the genuine belief that, with absolute confirmation that the world had gone to absolute shit, that she was needed to help people. Her prioritizing her life over her classmates is selfish, yes, but her motive was one of pure altruism and in flashback she seemed to still genuinely regret her decision before her death.]] There is also the fact that she is actually a ReluctantFanserviceGirl when push comes to shove and has surprising moments of shyness when she drops her brash persona.
* Even Kokichi Ouma himself could count as one due to [[spoiler: being an orphan who's only friends was the gang of clowns he ran, finding out the world was damned and thus, using Gonta to create an unsolvable murder, which pretty much destroyed what little sanity he had left, and is only pretending to like the killing game, when in reality, it's breaking him. Turns out, he was GoodAllAlong and his death was the one death Monokuma, and by extension Tsumugi, had no idea who the victim was until Shuichi cracked it. There's also his seemingly one sided crushes on Shuichi and Kaede, if his Free Time Events and Love Hotel suite are to be believed, and in reality his bullying and Jerkassitude comes from a want to be loved and appreciated, especially since the mastermind reveals the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends. And in some cases, he's no different from Kaito, especially when he got Himiko to cry after the deaths of Tenko and Angie. It's seen at first as a KickTheDog moment, but he clearly wanted her to express herself and [[CruelToBeKind realize the gravity]] of the situation]]
!!StoicWoobie
* Ryoma Hoshi is [[spoiler:a self-loathing DeathSeeker who is implied to be suffering from depression. Come to his video in Chapter 2 where 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 TearJerker 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.]]
!!Unidentified
* Kaede Akamatsu. [[spoiler:She set-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, after her story was told. [[spoiler: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 TheNeedsOfTheMany utilitarianism. To top it all off, she goes through quite possibly the most sadistic execution in the ''franchise''.]]
* Gonta Gokuhara is a GentleGiant who just wants to be useful to the rest of the group in some way, but can't quite figure out how. [[spoiler:While exploring a virtual world in Chapter 4, he ends up crossing the DespairEventHorizon after learning about (what is supposed) the state of the outside world, which ultimately leads to him deciding (with some persuading from Kokichi) to MercyKill 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 wood in such 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 for 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 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 is also one to an extent. [[spoiler:He's SecretlyDying 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.]]
* Kiibo. 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. [[spoiler:When Professor Iidabashi was severely injured, Kiibo blamed himself for it, since he believed he broke the First Law of Robotics, and eventually [[DrivenToSuicide 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 UnwittingPawn, 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 DumbMuscle) 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[AlasPoorScrappy felt bad]] they never got to bond with her similar to Kiyotaka above just on account of her being hated by the fans.
* Shuichi Saihara. He is [[HeroicSelfDeprecation very insecure about his talent since he mostly solved murder cases out of luck]], though he becomes more confident in his detective skills throughout the game. [[spoiler: By the time he makes it to the final trial, his ImpliedLoveInterest and BigBrotherMentor have both died, and he has suffered from HeroicBSOD 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 DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]
[[/folder]]

!!Spin-offs:

[[folder:''Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls'']]
!!IronWoobie

* Izuru 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 ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' crying over Chiaki's body, [[YouAreTooLate having finally remembered her, but moments too late]], is what does, because everything else, he gets over; [[HeartbrokenBadass he never, ever gets over that]].

!![[TheWoobie Normal Woobies]]

!!StoicWoobie
* [[spoiler:Peko lived her life thinking that she was Fuyuhiko's tool after she was abandoned by her family. The fact that she thought that she killed Fuyuhiko during her execution came across a huge TearJerker.]]

* Teruteru [[spoiler:just wanted to make sure his ill mother was alright. And once he learns about Nagito's [[BlueAndOrangeMorality true nature]], he wanted Nagito to be taken care of before he attempts to kill somebody, only for him to commit a MurderByMistake with killing the Ultimate Imposter by accident instead.]] While he is [[TheScrappy very much hated by the fanbase]], learning about [[spoiler:his motivation for the first murder]] was enough for his haters to [[AlasPoorScrappy feel bad for him]]. In addition, if you cue in some FridgeHorror, there is a very likely chance that [[spoiler:Teruteru's mother is not alright, as she could have been killed by Despair!Teruteru.]]
* [[spoiler:AI Chiaki]] became one [[spoiler:after she committed murder just by pure accident. She then makes a HeroicSacrifice to save her fellow students and proceeds to be executed, despite never really intending to kill anybody in the first place.]] It's taken up to eleven in ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' where, despite ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' never indicating that [[spoiler:AI Chiaki was based off a real person,]] it is revealed that the reason for [[spoiler:AI Chiaki]] being present in the first place was that [[spoiler:there actually was once a real Chiaki Nanami.]] [[spoiler:She was the students beloved class rep who was the victim of the series' first ever execution.]] [[spoiler:Being forced to watch her slow, bloody death at the hands of Junko Enoshima broke the class so horribly that they fell into despair and became the Remnants of Dispair.]] [[spoiler:Ostensibly, the reason AI Chiaki was even created in the first place was because, in addition to being the reason the class fell into dispair, she was the one who had brought them all together as friends prior to everything going to hell.]]
* Hajime dreams about getting into Hope's Peak Academy, but when he does, it was [[spoiler: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 [[IJustWantToBeSpecial 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), leaving no trace of the cynical but good-hearted Hajime left.]] ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' ended up turning Hajime into more of a {{Woobie}} character. He feels incredibly unworthy of his LoveInterest ([[spoiler: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 [[FreezeFrameBonus 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, [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding he's erased from existence and replaced with a new persona]]]].
* In ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'', Mahiru 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.
* Gundham Tanaka has a FriendlessBackground 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 [[MommasBoy he loved]] her. D'awww...
* Nekomaru Nidai was born with a heart defect so severe that he was told [[YourDaysAreNumbered 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 manager was to emulate his friend Daisuke, who had the same condition as him, but died before he could see his team succeed.
* Fuyuhiko could also be viewed as sympathetic, as Chapter Two of the game was not kind to him. [[spoiler:He found out that his sister was dead and he watched Peko, who he had feelings for, be executed for something she thought was her JustFollowingOrders. You actually see him run in [[BigDamnHeroes to try and stop the execution]], only to get his eye accidentally slashed out]].
* Sonia, Akane, and Nagito could all be considered IronWoobie characters, with some JerkassWoobie traits for Nagito. Sonia [[IJustWantToBeNormal just wants to be normal]] and hates seeing her first ever friends kill each other, Akane living a life of poverty who even stated the Funhouse (aka a place without any food inside it) was a palace compared to her old home, and Nagito's extreme cycle of "immense bad luck, immense good luck" has made entire life a TraumaCongaLine with what he considers very little reward.
** Special shoutout goes to [[spoiler: Nagito, who lost his parents prior to coming to Hope's Peak in a plane crash, which despite giving him a very vast fortune, made him a LonelyRichKid with a FriendlessBackground up there with Gundham Tanaka. He even states in Chapter 5 that his dog was the closest thing to a true friend he had, and admits in a Free Time Event to be suffering from Frontotemporal Dementia and told he wouldn't live past 16. He also has a very low opinion of himself similar to Gonta below, constantly saying "I can't believe you would notice trash like me!" and prior to the Island Killing Game, met Izuru Kamukura and flat-out said he was his first human friend, showing that he felt inadequate compared to the Ultimates, and reacts the way a lover would when their crush finally notices them.]]
* Byakuya Togami aka [[spoiler: 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.]]
* After ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'', the entire cast as a whole can be considered to be {{Woobie}} characters since [[spoiler:they were brainwashed into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair after watching their beloved class representative be brutally tortured to death by Junko Enoshima, they've committed the worst sort of crimes imaginable, They all murdered their own families, and they can't return to general society after taking the fall for the final killing game]]. The whole class could be considered this even before the third main series. At the end of ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', after already going through the total hell of a mutual killing game, they find out the horrible truth behind why it happened. [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler:they were the Remnants of Despair; the personal lackeys of Junko Enoshima and were responsible for the widespread destruction of the world and every sort of crime imaginable. Not only that, they all murdered their own families.]] [[spoiler:The "World Ender Foundation" was actually the Future Foundation, which was created to fight them.]] [[spoiler: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.]] [[spoiler:The only reason the killing game happened was that Junko Enoshima infiltrated the simulation as a computer virus and hijacked it.]]

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

* Natsumi (who is a reserve course student like [[spoiler:Hajime]]) has even lower self-esteem than [[spoiler:Hajime]]. She wanted to have a talent so badly that she made up her own talent as the Ultimate Little Sister because she believes that she is unworthy of being around her brother if she is unable to have a talent of sorts.
* Juzo felt left behind by the romance between Chisa and Munakuta. He has UndyingLoyalty towards Munakuta, which leads [[spoiler:Munakuta to seemingly kill him in Episode 9 of ''Side: Future''. And the reason for Munakuta killing Juzo is because Junko knew that Juzo was gay for Munakuta, which she used to blackmail Juzo in ''Side: Despair'': he told Munakata Junko was innocent, or she'd tell him his feelings. He grudgingly goes along, which caused Munakata to believe he was a Remnant of Despair once the truth of Junko being evil came out. And after Juzo survived Munakuta's attempted murder towards him, he sacrificed himself in order to end the killing game once and for all to have Munakuta be safe.]]
* Munakuta [[spoiler:lost both his girlfriend and his best friend.]] [[spoiler:His girlfriend also turned out to be a BrainwashedAndCrazy Remnant of Despair who has been slowly corrupting him into becoming a KnightTemplar.]] [[spoiler:For added fun, he killed the aforementioned best friend out of paranoia that he was also a Remnant of Dispair.]] [[spoiler:Despite Munakata wanting to ask Juzo for his forgiveness after he finds out that his friend actually survived the attack, he's too late, as Juzo had already bled out moments before he reached him. His only consolation is that he died with a smile on his face and that Makoto had previously told him that Juzo was the one who shut the final killing game down.]] [[spoiler:By ''Side: Hope'', he is the only survivor to have a complete DownerEnding, which became one of the many complaints of ''Side: Hope''.]]
* While Ruruka came across as a bit of an UnintentionallyUnsympathetic AlphaBitch, she has terrible self-esteem to the point that she [[spoiler:committed suicide in a very brutal fashion. It is very telling of how much she hated herself.]]
* While the way Izayoi treats anybody who is not his girlfriend is not exactly the best thing in the world, it's hard to not feel bad for [[spoiler:somebody who was killed by their lover. Especially since that said lover (Ruruka) previously said Izayoi was the only person she trusted.]]

* All Seiko wanted was to be friends with Ruruka [[spoiler:even in her final moments]].
* Ryota, somebody who has been bullied in the past, just wants to spread hope across the world by creating anime. [[spoiler:Too bad that Junko used that anime for her to brainwash his classmates into becoming members of the Ultimate Despair. One of them, a good friend of his, also attempts to rape him after being brainwashed.]] Then, [[spoiler:a man Ryota trusts organizes a killing game of their co-workers so that he can mentally and emotionally break Ryota into committing mass brainwashing upon the world.]] This kid can't catch a break.
* While some of the members of the Hope's Peak Student Council are more sympathetic than others, people should feel bad for a bunch of scared kids as they are being brutally killed.
* Where do we begin with [[spoiler: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. [[spoiler: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 BrainwashedAndCrazy teacher (the person ''they went to rescue''), goes through '''[[ColdBloodedTorture 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.

[[folder:''Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony'']]

* Himiko Yumeno. The poor girl does ''not'' take the killings well, ''especially'' the [[spoiler:deaths of Tenko (who was implied to have 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.]]
!!JerkassWoobie
* Maki Harukawa is an unpleasant {{Jerkass}} in the early parts of the game, but after her backstory and real nature is exposed, it's very hard not to feel sorry for her.
* Miu Iruma explicitly says that she was inspired to become an inventor and help people after she was finally able to wake up from a coma, which alone explains her "while you sleep" series very well. [[spoiler:She also knew full well her decision to kill Ouma and graduate was wrong, but she was acting out of the genuine belief that, with absolute confirmation that the world had gone to absolute shit, that she was needed to help people. Her prioritizing her life over her classmates is selfish, yes, but her motive was one of pure altruism and in flashback she seemed to still genuinely regret her decision before her death.]] There is also the fact that she is actually a ReluctantFanserviceGirl when push comes to shove and has surprising moments of shyness when she drops her brash persona.
* Even Kokichi Ouma himself could count as one due to [[spoiler: being an orphan who's only friends was the gang of clowns he ran, finding out the world was damned and thus, using Gonta to create an unsolvable murder, which pretty much destroyed what little sanity he had left, and is only pretending to like the killing game, when in reality, it's breaking him. Turns out, he was GoodAllAlong and his death was the one death Monokuma, and by extension Tsumugi, had no idea who the victim was until Shuichi cracked it. There's also his seemingly one sided crushes on Shuichi and Kaede, if his Free Time Events and Love Hotel suite are to be believed, and in reality his bullying and Jerkassitude comes from a want to be loved and appreciated, especially since the mastermind reveals the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends. And in some cases, he's no different from Kaito, especially when he got Himiko to cry after the deaths of Tenko and Angie. It's seen at first as a KickTheDog moment, but he clearly wanted her to express herself and [[CruelToBeKind realize the gravity]] of the situation]]
!!StoicWoobie
* Ryoma Hoshi is [[spoiler:a self-loathing DeathSeeker who is implied to be suffering from depression. Come to his video in Chapter 2 where 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 TearJerker 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.]]
!!Unidentified
* Kaede Akamatsu. [[spoiler:She set-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, after her story was told. [[spoiler: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 TheNeedsOfTheMany utilitarianism. To top it all off, she goes through quite possibly the most sadistic execution in the ''franchise''.]]
* Gonta Gokuhara is a GentleGiant who just wants to be useful to the rest of the group in some way, but can't quite figure out how. [[spoiler:While exploring a virtual world in Chapter 4, he ends up crossing the DespairEventHorizon after learning about (what is supposed) the state of the outside world, which ultimately leads to him deciding (with some persuading from Kokichi) to MercyKill 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 wood in such 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 for 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 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 is also one to an extent. [[spoiler:He's SecretlyDying 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.]]
* Kiibo. 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. [[spoiler:When Professor Iidabashi was severely injured, Kiibo blamed himself for it, since he believed he broke the First Law of Robotics, and eventually [[DrivenToSuicide 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 UnwittingPawn, 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 DumbMuscle) 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[AlasPoorScrappy felt bad]] they never got to bond with her similar to Kiyotaka above just on account of her being hated by the fans.
* Shuichi Saihara. He is [[HeroicSelfDeprecation very insecure about his talent since he mostly solved murder cases out of luck]], though he becomes more confident in his detective skills throughout the game. [[spoiler: By the time he makes it to the final trial, his ImpliedLoveInterest and BigBrotherMentor have both died, and he has suffered from HeroicBSOD 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 DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]
[[/folder]]

!!Spin-offs:

[[folder:''Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls'']]
!!IronWoobie

!!JerkassWoobie
* Matsuda gets introduced as a massive asshole who treats Ryouko terribly, even though there are hints he does care about her. Then we learn the full deal concerning him: [[spoiler:that he was trying to protect Ryouko from [[BigBad herself]] and was ultimately his own girlfriend's UnwittingPawn, and he gets incredibly depressing]].
!!StoicWoobie
* Izuru is [[spoiler: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 ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' [[spoiler:crying over Chiaki's body, [[YouAreTooLate having finally remembered her, but moments too late]]]], is what does. Because everything else, he gets over. [[HeartbrokenBadass He never, ever gets over that]].

!!TheWoobie
* Mikan arguably has the lowest self-esteem out of all of the characters, is ProneToTears, spends a long time being bullied, and [[spoiler:honestly believes that [[BigBad Junko Enoshima]] loved her]]. She is also implied to come from an abusive household, and bursts into tears when [[spoiler:the Ultimate Imposter]] pays her a compliment in ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' because it's the first time someone's been nice to her. [[spoiler:She was brainwashed by Junko and was subjected to ''more'' abuse, which, because she's been ''brainwashed'', she happily accepts.]]
* Monomi has to cope with every single student (except Chiaki) distrusting her, as well as Monokuma abusing her and forcing her to watch the killing game inside the island.
!!JerkassWoobie
* [[spoiler:Kazuichi]] and Hiyoko. The former is actually a bullied ShrinkingViolet who only does {{Jerkass}} stuff just because he believes it's what "cool" people do. The latter ([[UnreliableExpositor assuming that she is telling the truth]]) has had to live a terrible home life where her father went mad protecting her and has her going through deadly sabotage attempts.

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa Zero'']]

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair'']]

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls'']]
!!IronWoobie
* Komaru was trapped inside an apartment for about a year with zero idea that [[spoiler: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.
!!WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds
* All of the Warriors of Hope had to live their lives under AbusiveParents, making them all very sympathetic people, despite their horrible actions:
** Masaru’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 [[MissingMum mother]] is [[FridgeHorror nowhere to be seen]]. The panic attack he has when recalling the abuse in the cutscene before his boss fight is downright ''heartbreaking''.
** Jataro’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.
** Even [[spoiler:[[HateSink Monaca]] can be viewed as a JerkassWoobie since she was born out of wedlock, abandoned by her mother, had her brother and father never accept her, and had her brother physically abuse her out of a ''resentment complex'']].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School'']]

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa [=V3=]: Killing Harmony'']]

[[/folder]]

* '''Makoto Naegi''' was literally BornUnlucky. He has [[NotMyLuckyDay 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 [[spoiler: dies after attempting to frame him for murder]], the other students [[spoiler: almost get him wrongfully executed]], and to top it all off, [[spoiler: 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 NiceGuy, still believes the best in people and encourages his friends not to lose hope. He's such a believer that RousseauWasRight that [[spoiler: 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]]. It's no wonder he earns the title of [[HopeBringer Ultimate Hope]].

Given the setting of where the franchise takes place at and the killers tend to be [[SympatheticMurderer sympathetic ones]], more than a few of the characters could really use a hug right now.

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc'']]
!!TheWoobie
* Kiyotaka Ishimaru (a.k.a. Taka) is one of the most morally good students at Hope's Peak Academy, being a kind, albeit HotBlooded youth who is one of two victims in Case 3 of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc''. 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.
!!IronWoobie
* Makoto Naegi was literally BornUnlucky. He has [[NotMyLuckyDay 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 [[spoiler: dies after attempting to frame him for murder]], the other students [[spoiler: almost get him wrongfully executed]], and to top it all off, [[spoiler: 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 NiceGuy, still believes the best in people and encourages his friends not to lose hope. He's such a believer that RousseauWasRight that [[spoiler: 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]]. It's no wonder he earns the title of [[HopeBringer Ultimate Hope]].
* [[BookDumb Aoi Asahina]], also known as Hina, hangs out with fellow tomboy and MMA master, Sakura Ogami, whom many people, Kiyotaka included, thought was a guy at first until they found out her gender. Hina starts off as a talented swimmer until the apocalypse outside Hope's Peak Academy and the headmaster sealed her inside along with the other students. She woke up two years later forgetting of the times she got to know everyone, and at first, forgets Makoto's name, forcing him to repeat it to her three times. Hina was one of the people who didn't think Makoto killed Sayaka, as she found out Sayaka was planning to kill someone. She finds out her family was killed with possible including of her little brother who looked up to her but is one of the only students to never commit murder or be a victim. She does, however, discover Alter Ego after a mental breakdown of not wanting to kill anyone. Chapter 4 utterly breaks her as she finds out Sakura seemingly killed herself because of the surviving students, and blames them for her best friend's death, attempting to commit SuicideByCop by misleading the investigation and getting everyone killed. However, she does feel horrible for this when Monokuma reveals Sakura's real intention was to stop them from killing each other. In the bad ending, she ends up giving [[BabiesEverAfter birth]] to the children of Makoto, Yasuhiro, and Byakuya living in fear, but deluded happiness, being the only surviving female. In ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'', she is supposedly murdered but survives as it was just a prank one of the antagonists played on her. Ultimately, despite being seemingly bubbly and cute, she's got a tough exterior but weak interior, and like quite a few of the class, is very tragic.

* While Toko is the type of girl who is antagonistic and assumes the worst out of everything, she has very little self-esteem from being bullied and she has a [[spoiler:SplitPersonality in the form of [[SerialKiller Genocide Jill]], making it seem she was just trying to push people away from her]].
* From the manga, Celeste can be one once it talks about her having a DarkAndTroubledPast of [[spoiler:her growing up as a GenericGirl who has zero people to love and once she discovers her talent, she does everything to be viewed as "special" even going into darker parts of her personality.]] While it is unsure if the DarkAndTroubledPast is truly canon or not, some dialogue in School Mode in the game's re-release seems to back it up, and ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' takes it even further where the thing that she loves most happens to be a ''freaking cat''.
* Mondo Owada was the [[VagueAge teenage]] biker gang leader and the Ultimate Biker. His story first begins when he was younger, unwittingly causing [[spoiler:his elder brother: Daiya Owada, to die in a traffic accident while motorcycling, sacrificing his life so that Mondo could live. As he became biker gang leader, Mondo was constantly judged and criticized for not being his brother, being weak, and not being the leader the gang deserved. Yet, despite all the criticism thrown his way, he still carried on. Sometime before the events of the first game when he was attending a different school, Mondo met the young computer genius, [[WholesomeCrossdresser Chihiro Fujisaki]]. He grew fond of the young prodigy and hung out with him and Leon Kuwata. During the Killing Game, after a dare with Kiyotaka Ishimaru, the Ultimate Moral Compass, he began to respect him and the two became friends. One night, vowing to become stronger, Chihiro unknowingly caused a bit of PTSD by asking Mondo to train him. In a fit of rage, Mondo beat Chihiro over the head with a dumbbell and before he knew it, Chihiro was on the ground, dead. Wanting to keep Chihiro's secret about actually being a guy a secret, as a man-to-man promise, he changed the carpet from the girl's locker room and the bloodied poster and moved it all to the girl's locker. He then tossed Chihiro's e-Handbook into the sauna as his also broke when it was exposed to high temperature. During the trial, when cornered by Makoto Naegi, Mondo [[GracefulLoser admits everything]] much to Kiyotaka's surprise and horror and gets executed by a motorbike in an electric cage which somehow turns him into butter. In the end, despite his brash exterior and rough attitude, he was really a pretty cool guy underneath it all.]]

* For all the work Kyoko puts into convincing Makoto of her [[spoiler: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 CharacterDevelopment).]]
!!Unidentified
* [[spoiler:Sayaka]] is a huge StepfordSmiler whom despite being very cheerful, ended up having a crippling fear of being forgotten and abandoned which stems from [[spoiler:her workaholic father and always being alone]].
* Chihiro has absolutely zero self-confidence and [[spoiler:became a WholesomeCrossdresser in a desperate attempt to no longer be bullied for not being manly enough]].

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa Zero'']]

* Matsuda gets introduced as a massive asshole who treats Ryouko terribly, even though there are hints he does care about her. Then we learn the full deal concerning him: [[spoiler:that he was trying to protect Ryouko from [[BigBad herself]] and was ultimately his own girlfriend's UnwittingPawn, and he gets incredibly depressing]].

* Izuru is [[spoiler: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 ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' [[spoiler:crying over Chiaki's body, [[YouAreTooLate having finally remembered her, but moments too late]]]], is what does. Because everything else, he gets over. [[HeartbrokenBadass He never, ever gets over that]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Introduced in ''Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair'']]
!!TheWoobie
* Mikan arguably has the lowest self-esteem out of all of the characters, is ProneToTears, spends a long time being bullied, and [[spoiler:honestly believes that [[BigBad Junko Enoshima]] loved her]]. She is also implied to come from an abusive household, and bursts into tears when [[spoiler:the Ultimate Imposter]] pays her a compliment in ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' because it's the first time someone's been nice to her. [[spoiler:She was brainwashed by Junko and was subjected to ''more'' abuse, which, because she's been ''brainwashed'', she happily accepts.]]
* Monomi has to cope with every single student (except Chiaki) distrusting her, as well as Monokuma abusing her and forcing her to watch the killing game inside the island.
!!JerkassWoobie
* [[spoiler:Kazuichi]] and Hiyoko. The former is actually a bullied ShrinkingViolet who only does {{Jerkass}} stuff just because he believes it's what "cool" people do. The latter ([[UnreliableExpositor assuming that she is telling the truth]]) has had to live a terrible home life where her father went mad protecting her and has her going through deadly sabotage attempts.
!!StoicWoobie

* Kirumi, after her story was told. [[spoiler: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 TheNeedsOfTheMany utilitarianism.]]

* Monomi has to cope with every single student distrusting her, as well as Monokuma abusing her and forcing her to watch the killing game inside the island.

* Gundham Tanaka has a FriendlessBackground 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 [[MommasBoy he loved]] her. D'awww...]]

!!Unidentified
* All of the Warriors of Hope have to live a life with AbusiveParents, making them all very sympathetic people, especially Nagisa. Hell, even [[spoiler:[[HateSink Monaca]] can be viewed as a JerkassWoobie since she was born out of wedlock, abandoned by her mother, had her brother and father never accept her, and had her brother physically abuse her out of a ''resentment complex'']].

* Even Kokichi Ouma himself could count as one due to [[spoiler: being an orphan who's only friends was the gang of clowns he ran, finding out the world was damned and thus, using Gonta to create an unsolvable murder, which pretty much destroyed what little sanity he had left, and is only pretending to like the killing game, when in reality, it's breaking him. Turns out, he was GoodAllAlong and his death was the one death Monokuma, and by extension Tsumugi, had no idea who the victim was until Shuichi cracked it. There's also his seemingly one sided crushes on Shuichi and Kaede, if his Free Time Events and Love Hotel suite are to be believed, and in reality his bullying and Jerkassitude comes from a want to be loved and appreciated, especially since the mastermind reveals the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends. And in some cases, he's NotSoDifferent from Kaito especially when he got Himiko to cry after the deaths of Tenko and Angie. It's seen at first as a KickTheDog moment, but he clearly wanted her to express herself and [[CruelToBeKind realize the gravity]] of the situation]]

* Gundham Tanaka has a FriendlessBackground 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.