History Woobie / Danganronpa

* 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 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 see him 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 one day, he found 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 even ends up forgotten, even by the one who vowed to bring his murderer to justice. The only one who didn't forget was Hina.

%%Good Morning Editors, If you wish to add more woobies, please consult the cleanup thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15391212720A38366900&page=1

* 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 supposedly) 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.]]

** 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.]]

* 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 he tells Shuichi the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends.]]

** 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 he tells Shuichi the gang he ran were all annihilated by the apocalypse, meaning he just wants friends.]]

* 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 bomd with her similar to Kiyotaka above just on account of her being hated by the fans.

%%!!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]].

%%!!Unidentified
%%* 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.
%%* 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.
%%* 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.
%%* 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.]]

%%!!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'']].

%%!!Unidentified
%%* 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.

%%!!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.]]
%%* 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 supposedly) 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.]]
%%* 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.]]]]

* 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, ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' seems to back this up with the thing that she loves most happens to be a ''freaking cat''.

* [[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 ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'', 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.

[[folder:Introduced in Dangan Ronpa 1]]
* [[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]].
* 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 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 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 see him 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 one day, he found 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 even ends up forgotten, even by the one who vowed to bring his murderer to justice. The only one who didn't forget was Hina.
* Aoi Asahina becomes one after [[spoiler:her [[BrokenTears heartbreaking reaction]] to her best friend's death. It got worse after her brother was killed without ever getting a reunion in ''VideoGame/AbsoluteDespairGirls'']].
* Makoto became one after ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', where he [[spoiler:hallucinates his dead classmates, including [[TheLostLenore Sayaka and Kyoko]], taunting him and outright stating he should have died instead of them.]]
* Crossing over to JerkassWoobie territory, 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]].
* Also, from the Manga, Celeste can be a JerkassWoobie 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, ''VideoGame/AbsoluteDespairGirls'' seems to back this up with the thing that she loves most happens to be a ''freaking cat''.
* For all the work [[StoicWoobie 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).]]
* [[JerkassWoobie Mondo Owada]] was the [[VagueAge teenage]] biker gang leader and the Ultimate Biker in the first Danganronpa. 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.]]

[[folder:Introduced in Dangan Ronpa Zero]]
* Izuru, [[spoiler:the result of the Kamukura Project]], is more of the [[StoicWoobie stoic]] variety, but he still counts. 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/DanganRonpa3'' [[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]].
* As for another 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]].

[[folder:Introduced in Super Dangan Ronpa 2]]
* The biggest {{Woobie}} of the game has to go to Mikan for arguably having the lowest self-esteem out of all of the characters, being ProneToTears, spending a long time being bullied, and [[spoiler:honestly believing 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/DanganRonpa3'' 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 distrusting her, as well as Monokuma abusing her and forcing her to watch the killing game inside the island.
* Also, 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/DanganRonpa3'' where, despite ''VisualNovel/SuperDanganRonpa2'' 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/DanganRonpa3'' 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/DanganRonpa3'', 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.
* 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.
* Crossing over to StoicWoobie territory, [[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.]]
* 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.
* [[spoiler:Kazuichi]] and Hiyoko are both JerkassWoobie characters. 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.
* After ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', 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/SuperDanganRonpa2'', 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 because Junko Enoshima infiltrated the simulation as a computer virus and hijacked it.]]

[[folder:Introduced in Absolute Despair Girls]]
* 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'']].
* Komaru can be this as well, though she is more of an IronWoobie. She 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.

[[folder:Introduced in Dangan Ronpa 3]]
* 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.
* With the DarkerAndEdgier storyline, some characters came across as JerkassWoobie characters:
** 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.]]

[[folder:Introduced in New Dangan Ronpa [=V3=]]]
* 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). [[IronWoobie And yet she still manages to soldier on to the end.]]]]
* 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.]]
* 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 supposedly) 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.]]
* An example of a StoicWoobie is Ryoma Hoshi, [[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.]]
* 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, making her a JerkassWoobie.
* Miu Iruma is also a bit of a JerkassWoobie, who 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.
* 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 personalites were entirely fabricated. This ultimately pushes him to the DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]

* The biggest {{Woobie}} of the game has to go to Mikan for arguably having the lowest self-esteem out of all of the characters, being a FragileFlower, spending a long time being bullied, and [[spoiler:honestly believing 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/DanganRonpa3'' 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.]]

* As for the killers that game, [[spoiler:[[JerkassWoobie Mondo]]]] came across as the most sympathetic killer of that game. [[spoiler:Why did he kill? It was an AccidentalMurder after Chihiro made an InnocentlyInsensitive comment that pushed Mondo's BerserkButton. It helps that he clearly feels terribly guilty over the whole thing and doesn't put up much of a fight.]]

* [[JerkassWoobie Mondo Owada]] was the [[VagueAge teenage]] biker gang leader and the Ultimate Biker in the first Danganronpa. His story first begins when he was younger, unwittingly causing 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.

** It's taken up to eleven in ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'' where, despite ''Anime/SuperDanganRonpa2'' 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.]]

** The whole class could be considered this even before the third main series. At the end of ''Anime/SuperDanganRonpa2'', 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 because Junko Enoshima infiltrated the simulation as a computer virus and hijacked it.]]

* Kiyotaka has a FriendlessBackground and has to live with the shadow of his grandfather's crimes hanging over his head. And then his first ever friend [[spoiler:is executed for murder, causing poor Kiyotaka to have a HeroicBSOD]].

[[folder:Introduced in New Dangan Ronpa V3]]
* Himiko. 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). [[IronWoobie And yet she still manages to soldier on to the end.]]]]
* Kaede. [[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 Shuiichi to reveal she is the killer to the others, and feigns resistance to make it more believable for them.]]

* Gonta 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 supposedly) 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 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, Ki-bo 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.]]
* An example of a StoicWoobie is Ryoma, [[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.]]
* Maki 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, making her a JerkassWoobie.

* 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 personalites were entirely fabricated. This ultimately causes him to enter the DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[NearVillainVictory Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]

* 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 personalites were entirely fabricated. This ultimately causes him to enter the DespairEventHorizon, all the way to the point where [[TheBadGuyWins Tsumugi almost emerges victorious.]]]]

** It's taken up to eleven in ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'' where, despite ''Anime/SuperDanganRonpa2'' never indicating that AI Chiaki was based off a real person, it is revealed that the reason for 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.]]

** It's taken up to eleven in ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'' where, despite DR2 never indicating that AI Chiaki was based off a real person, it is revealed that the reason for AI Chiaki being present in the first place was that[[spoiler: there actually was a real Chiaki Nanami.]] [[spoiler: She was the student's 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 brought them all together as friends prior to everything going to hell.]]

* After ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', 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, and they can't return to general society after taking the fall for the final killing game]].

** Munakuta [[spoiler:lost both his girlfriend and his best friend. His girlfriend also turned out to be a BrainwashedAndCrazy Remnant of Despair who has been slowly corrupting him into becoming a KnightTemplar. By ''Side: Hope'', he is the only survivor to have a complete DownerEnding, which became one of the many complaints of ''Side: Hope''.]]

* Crossing over to StoicWoobie territory, [[spoiler:Peko lived hera 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.]]

** Another JerkassWoobie is Miu Iruma, who explicitly says that she was inspired to become an inventor and help people after a brain surgeon saved her life. [[spoiler:Her decision to kill Ouma and graduate was amoral, 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.]] There is also the fact that she is actually a shy ReluctantFanserviceGirl.

* Gonta 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 supposedly) 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. Unfortunatly, 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.]]

* An example of a StoicWoobie is Ryoma, [[spoiler:a self-loathing DeathSeeker who wanted to find a reason to live. 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. 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.]]