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1[[WMG:[[center:[-Franchise/{{Danganronpa}} | [[Characters/{{Danganronpa}} Main Character Index]]\
2[[Characters/DanganronpaMonokuma Monokuma]]\
3'''''Characters/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc''''' | '''Male Students''' ([[Characters/DanganronpaMakotoNaegi Makoto Naegi]] | [[Characters/DanganronpaByakuyaTogami Byakuya Togami]]) | [[Characters/DanganronpaFemaleStudents Female Students]] ([[Characters/DanganronpaKyokoKirigiri Kyoko Kirigiri]] | [[Characters/DanganronpaTokoFukawa Toko Fukawa]] | [[Characters/DanganronpaCelestiaLudenberg Celestia Ludenberg]] | [[Characters/DanganronpaJunkoEnoshima Junko Enoshima]])\
4'''''Characters/DanganronpaZero'''''\
5'''''Characters/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair''''' | [[Characters/Danganronpa2MaleStudents Male Students]] ([[Characters/DanganronpaHajimeHinata Hajime Hinata]] | [[Characters/DanganronpaNagitoKomaeda Nagito Komaeda]]) | [[Characters/Danganronpa2FemaleStudents Female Students]] ([[Characters/DanganronpaPekoPekoyama Peko Pekoyama]])\
6'''''Characters/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'''''\
7'''''Characters/KillerKiller'''''\
8'''''Characters/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool''''' | [[Characters/Danganronpa3FutureArc Future Arc]] | [[Characters/Danganronpa3DespairArc Despair Arc]]\
9'''''Characters/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony''''' | [[Characters/DanganronpaV3MaleStudents Male Students]] ([[Characters/DanganronpaKokichiOma Kokichi Oma]]) | [[Characters/DanganronpaV3FemaleStudents Female Students]] ([[Characters/DanganronpaMiuIruma Miu Iruma]])-]\
10]]]]
11!!Subjectives and audience reactions should go on the [[YMMV/DanganRonpaTriggerHappyHavoc YMMV page]].
12
13!!'''Warning! All spoilers below are unmarked.'''
14--> It's virtually impossible to list tropes for these characters without spoiling everything or creating [[Administrivia/SelfFulfillingSpoiler Self-Fulfilling Spoilers]] because of the many surprising reveals and murderer/victim exclusive tropes this game contains.
15
16[[foldercontrol]]
17
18[[folder:Makoto Naegi]]
19[[WMG:Makoto Naegi]]
20!!!Ultimate (Un)Lucky Student (Ultimate Hope)
21[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/makotonaegi2048.png]]
22[[caption-width-right:350:''"But you know, if I have any kind of "strong point," so to speak... I'd say I'm a little more gung-ho than other people."'']]
23
24->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MegumiOgata (Japanese), Creator/BrycePapenbrook (English),
25->'''Played by:''' Kanata Hongo (stage)
26
27The PlayerCharacter. An utterly unremarkable OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent who was only selected to attend Hope's Peak Academy through a random lottery, giving him the title of Ultimate Lucky Student. Makoto cites his most notable features as being his slightly below-average luck and his optimism. He takes command during the investigations after becoming the prime suspect in the first murder due to Sayaka's machinations. He ends up motivating the surviving students to unite against Monokuma, securing their freedom from the school and gaining the title of "Ultimate Hope".
28----
29-> See Characters/DanganronpaMakotoNaegi for tropes on him
30[[/folder]]
31
32[[folder:Kiyotaka Ishimaru]]
33[[WMG:Kiyotaka Ishimaru]]
34!!!Ultimate Moral Compass
35[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ishimaru_art.png]]
36[[caption-width-right:350:''“I'm Kiyotaka Ishimaru. I believe in bold simplicity! Let's work together on our educational crusade!”'']]
37[[caption-width-right:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Kiyondo]]\
38https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kiyondo.png]]
39[[/labelnote]]
40
41->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KosukeToriumi (Japanese), Creator/SeanChiplock (game), Creator/AustinTindle (anime) (English)
42->'''Played by:''' Manpei Takagi, Taishi Sugie (stage)
43
44Kiyotaka prizes one thing above all else: order. He's constantly preaching the virtues of exercising, respecting your elders, etc. He takes a role of leadership amongst the students, encouraging them to stick together, but not everybody listens or takes him seriously. He initially has a fierce rivalry with [[JapaneseDelinquents Mondo]], but the two end up becoming close friends over their mutual [[HotBlooded passion]]. He is the first victim of chapter 3, bludgeoned to death with a hammer by Hifumi, who was acting under the instructions of Celeste.
45----
46* TheAce: Subverted and PlayedForLaughs. He likely has the highest test scores of anyone in the group, and would probably be spearheading the trials if not for his [[WideEyedIdealist idealism]], which prevents him from really suspecting anyone. And some of the students just ignore him.
47* AmbiguouslyGay: Kiyotaka highly values bonds between men and encourages Makoto to bathe with him on the grounds that "when the body is naked, so is the soul". And then there's his PseudoRomanticFriendship with his "sworn brother" Mondo...
48--> '''Kiyotaka:''' ''Forget her, bro. [[PassionateSportsGirl A girl like her]] just doesn't get our manly bond! Friendship between men is [[TrueCompanions stronger than blood]]! A woman could never understand!''
49* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Says that because Mondo is a coward, he's easily provoked to violence, doesn't meet society's expectations, and walks around dressed the way he is.
50* BadassPacifist: Discusses this trope in the argument with Mondo prior to their sauna battle, saying that it's because Mondo is a coward that he resorts to violence so easily.
51* BerserkButton: Despite having the highest academic grades, he gets annoyed when people call him a "genius", having bad connotations with that word.
52* BigOlEyebrows: They extend all the way to his hairline!
53* BirdsOfAFeather:
54** He gets along with the Imposter thanks to their shared interests in leadership.
55** He also gets along with fellow HotBlooded student Nekomaru thanks to their shared interests in leadership and improving themselves.
56* BluntYes: Does this when he says that Mondo is a coward, and that he's tougher than he is.
57* BootsOfToughness: They go towards pushing his militaristic design.
58* BreakTheCutie: Kiyotaka takes the outcome of the second trial, where he finds out that his only friend Mondo is a murderer, ''[[EmptyShell very]]'' badly.
59* BreakThemByTalking: In ''Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp'', Taka does this to Miu Iruma on two different occasions for her unruly behavior. One of them is for refusing to think of ideas to unlock new potential for her talent (and Miu breaks down crying after that), and the other is for trying to tell sex stories with kids around.
60* BrokenPedestal: At first, he refuses to believe that Mondo is a murderer, but is forced to confront the truth. He doesn't take it well. What makes it even more tragic is when it's revealed that Kiyotaka was never able to make friends...and you realize that Mondo was probably the first real friend he'd ever had.
61* BromanticFoil: He is this with Mondo. While both are HotBlooded, their personalities initially clash. Kiyotaka is a straight laced rule abiding honor student who dresses in white, while Mondo is a temperamental [[JapaneseDelinquent delinquent]] who normally dresses in black. And despite their differences, the two still form a tight bond.
62* CannotTellAJoke: When he breaks out the "Forget Beam".
63* CaptainObvious: He's usually helpful during class trials. Keyword: ''usually''.
64->'''Taka:''' I assert that the one who was murdered was Miss Sayaka Maizono!\
65'''Hiro:''' [[LampshadeHanging ...Yeah, we know that part already.]]
66* CassandraTruth: Nobody ever listens to him due to his lack of social skills, but his suggestions usually ''are'' very good ideas.
67** He suggests everyone meet up in the cafeteria for breakfast every day. While this fails due to some students like Togami and Fukawa being anti-social pricks, having everyone meet up once a day means that a missing student will inevitably be noticed fairly quickly, allowing them to find potential murders and look for any students that wander off on their own (mostly Kyoko).
68** When the dark secrets motive is revealed, he proposes that the students voluntarily reveal their secrets to each other to rob the motive of its power, and even offers to go first. He's quickly shot down, but if anyone else had been that brave, Chihiro and Mondo wouldn't have died.
69* ChekhovsSkill: While most in-story find it annoying, his obsession with order would ultimately avenge his own death when he loudly announced the time while showing his watch to everyone the night before his murder. This would be used to pin down the timeline of the incident against the false narrative constructed by that chapter's culprits.
70* ClarkKentOutfit: His [[ShirtlessScene Shirtless Scenes]] shows [[https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Kiyotaka_Ishimaru/Image_Gallery?file=Danganronpa_1_CG_-_Mondo_Owada_and_Kiyotaka_Ishimaru_sauna_contest.png#DR1 he's pretty muscular]] under that uniform.
71* ClassRepresentative: Unofficially takes on this role in the class, even if Despair Academy doesn't have the usual school activities. Up until his HeroicBSOD, at least.
72* CommonalityConnection: He bonds with Nagisa in ''Danganronpa S'' over a shared desire to change the world though political means and a hatred of geniuses.
73* CowardiceCallout: He tells Mondo that the latter is nothing but a coward at his core and it's why he doesn't know how to fix his problems or be a decent human being. Mondo's comeback is so lame, a severely-inbred hillbilly could have formulated a better one; before Kiyotaka calls him a coward again.
74* CrazyPrepared: Of the mundane (but still obsessive) variety. [[http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp235/TheIneffablePlan/DR%20Artbook%20Translations/CHARACTERPROFILING-IshimaruKiyotaka.png According to the art book]], he keeps a pair of small clippers on his person at all times just in case a ''single'' hair in his clean-cut styling moves out of place.
75* {{Determinator}}: To the extent that he insists on following school rules and guidelines to maintain order despite Hope's Peak Academy being a school in name alone at this point.
76* DitzyGenius: His intense dedication to becoming Prime Minister makes him one of the most competent students during class trials and allow him to effectively serve as TheLeader to the rest of the group; however, his refusal to abandon his straightforward way of thinking and general obliviousness make him several times less effective than he could be.
77* DrivenToSuicide: Not (explicitly) in the game, [[DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation but in the stage play]]; a new rule is added to the class trials that those who vote incorrectly are executed alongside the culprit. Kiyotaka, unwilling to live without Mondo, deliberately votes for himself in the second trial and sure enough, [[TogetherInDeath is executed with him]].
78* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Compared to the other victims in the game. While his death might have been a shock, the fact of it is not as attention-drawing later in the chapter. WordOfGod mentions this was because there was just too much stuff going on at that point that any reaction to his death had to be cut for pacing reasons.
79* DubNameChange: A variation, since the English release uses a FirstNameBasis instead of the LastNameBasis of the original Japanese. Changing Ishida's name to Kiyondo is the result. "Taka" is also made into an InSeriesNickname for him.
80* DumbStruck: He's so distraught from Mondo's death that he becomes totally unable to speak for most of Chapter 3.
81* EmptyShell: After Mondo's execution, he suffers a HeroicBSOD so serious that he ''barely says a word'' until he becomes "Kiyondo". This is accompanied by a [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/danganronpa/images/1/1d/Kiyotaka_Ishimaru_Halfbody_Sprite_%2819%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20170403081643 dead expression on his face]] with a ThousandYardStare and subtle ExhaustedEyebags compared to his usual sprites.
82* ExhaustedEyebags: It's subtle, but he gets a pair after [[HeroicBSOD he goes catatonic]] following the events of Chapter 2.
83* FireForgedFriends: He and Mondo are initially at odds, but after a heated sauna challenge, they quickly develop a bond of respect and friendship.
84* FriendlessBackground: His overly serious attitude made it difficult for Kiyotaka to ever make friends prior to high school.
85* TheFriendNobodyLikes: While not actively disliked, he was widely regarded as overbearing and a bit obnoxious by the others which lead to his leadership being questioned or outright ignored.
86* {{Foil}}: To Celeste. For starters they both have [[DarkIsEvil Black]] and [[LightIsGood White]] color contrast in their designs complete with [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]] for both of them. Their views on the world are also subject to contrast as well: Taka resents people born with TheGift because of [[SinsOfOurFathers the political scandal surrounding his grandfather]] and [[{{Determinator}} believes]] that hard work is what can truly change the world. Celeste however thinks that people are either BornLucky or they are not. Kiyotaka is also usually trying to get the group to work together, even if they ignore him, while [[ItsAllAboutMe Celeste only cares about herself]], which is also reflected on their [[GoalInLife Goals In Life]]: Kiyotaka wants to be a politician and guide people while Celeste wants to [[TheHedonist live the rest of her life]] in a [[BigFancyCastle Big Fancy European Castle]] served by [[{{Bishonen}} handsome butlers]] dressed up as vampires.
87* FusionDance: After Alter Ego's simulation of Mondo gives him a pep talk, he [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane supposedly]] fuses with Mondo's soul, turning him into a white-haired mash-up of both their personalities called Kiyondo. He becomes '''twice''' as HotBlooded as a result.
88* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/danganronpa/images/5/50/Kiyotaka_Ishimaru_Halfbody_Sprite_%289%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20170403081550 An often-used sprite]] has him doing this.
89* GoshDangItToHeck: As Kiyondo, he starts to drop a lot of these due to Mondo's SirSwearsALot tendencies crossing with his politeness.
90* HardWorkHardlyWorks: Intends to prove this isn't the case at all, and has worked and studied extremely hard to earn his title.
91* HeroicBSOD:
92** After Mondo is outed as Chihiro's murderer and executed, he shuts down. It's so bad that it borders on a full-blown DespairEventHorizon crossing.
93** In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' during ''Ultimate Talent Development Mode'', he has a lighter one when Tenko tells him that she will only accept him if he stops being a male. Upon realizing that this is a goal [[TragicDream that can't be achieved by hard work]], he has a breakdown, [[EveryoneHasStandards making Tenko feel a bit guilty]].
94* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Mondo. With a lot of HoYay thrown in.
95* HeyThatsMyLine: He tends to complain loudly whenever someone says something he was about to. The one instance where somebody says something he wasn't thinking of but should have as TheLeader, he requests to be punched in the face as punishment.
96* HiddenDepths: If you just interacted with him in the story, you'd think he's a stickler for rules to the point of caricature. His free time events, on the other hand, reveal that he's already learned the lesson that Hope's Peak never did (that talent doesn't equal hope and that the determination to move on is what truly matters- something Makoto will prove in the end when he rallies the survivors against Junko) and as such seeks to make himself an example of why hard work ''does'' work, at the cost of working so hard he [[NoSocialSkills neglects his social life]] and is in fact quite lonely. Makoto can rather easily befriend him if he bothers to make the first move and be patient with Kiyotaka's fumbles, and he and Mondo quickly develop a deep bond once they find common ground in their [[HotBlooded hot-bloodedness]].
97* HotBlooded: Which is both why he and Mondo's disagreements escalated so quickly and the similarity that allowed them to bond. As Kiyondo, he's so hot-blooded that Makoto doesn't even try to hang out with him during Free Time in Chapter 3.
98* {{Hunk}}: His female fanbase should speak for itself, in contrast to Togami's {{Bishounen}} good looks. Driving the divide harder is their extreme contrast in personalities...
99* ILetGwenStacyDie: Besides losing his OnlyFriend, his HeroicBSOD is later revealed to be in part because [[ItsAllMyFault he feels responsible]] for failing to stop Mondo from murdering Chihiro.
100* InelegantBlubbering: When he cries, his face gets streaked with tears and sweat.
101* InnocentlyInsensitive: After the first trial he asks Makoto if Sayaka's body had been removed from his room and then stated "I imagine it would be pretty hard to sleep with a rotting corpse in your bathroom" with a smile on his face.
102* InSeriesNickName: In the English release he is often just called "Taka".
103* ItsAllMyFault: His tremendous sense of personal responsibility leads him to blame himself for Mondo and Chihiro's deaths. In the anime, he's crying TearsOfRemorse as he speaks with Alter Ego the first time.
104* JerkassHasAPoint: Well, more like NoSocialSkills has a point, as he means well despite being overly blunt and pushy about it. He suggests the students put the kibosh on Monokuma's motive by voluntarily revealing their secrets, even offering to go first. He gets shut down pretty quick, but if the students had listened to him, the chapter 2 murder probably wouldn't have happened at all. It gets worse when the 6th trial reveals that all of their secrets had been rendered meaningless after the Tragedy.
105* KillTheCutie: He isn't even given time to finish grieving after the second trial since he becomes a victim in the third case; and he really didn't deserve it, being essentially targeted for being mentally compromised, wasting his character arc.
106* LargeHam: Gets even hammier after he becomes Kiyondo.
107* TheLeader: A Type III, since he is very hardheaded, loud, and adamant about his fellow students following the rules, regardless of the events taking place. He was the one who began the group's daily morning breakfast meetings and got it to stick as a means of creating a better sense of unity (to prevent murders) and creating plans amongst themselves.
108* LeaderWannabe: With that said, most of the proposals that group tends to follows ends up coming from ''other students'', with Kiyotaka [[GladIThoughtOfIt latching onto it as an order]]. In most cases, the other students tend to find him overbearing at best and a complete annoyance at worst.
109* LightIsGood: His uniform predominantly features white, symbolizing his spotless morality.
110* LockedIntoStrangeness: After he snaps out of his funk following Mondo's death, his hair turns white and he becomes Kiyondo. [[DyingAsYourself His hair turns black again after he dies]].
111* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: After Kiyotaka snaps out of his HeroicBSOD after Mondo's death, it isn't clear whether he's really channeling Mondo's spirit to become Kiyondo or if he's just adopting Mondo's mannerisms as a way to cope with the whole ordeal.
112* MeaningfulRename: The name "Ishida" is a portmanteau of ''Ishi''maru and Oowa''da''. Likewise the name Kiyondo is a combination of ''Kiyo''taka and M''ondo''.
113* MrFanservice: His sauna battle with Mondo gives us a nice shot of him wearing only a towel, showing us his surprisingly muscular and ripped body. In the anime, he's once again shown wearing nothing but a towel after his transformation into Kiyondo.
114* MySiblingWillLiveThroughMe: After Mondo, his "brother", died, he adopted many of his mannerisms as a part of becoming Kiyondo.
115* NiceGuy: While he possesses an unbending dedication to following the rules and can act incredibly critical to those who don't follow them, this is more due to his HotBlooded nature and [[NoSocialSkills lack of social skills]] than genuine malice. It is shown that he's more than willing to get along with anyone who can see past his demanding exterior. Ultimately, he's one of comparatively few characters who never causes any harm or even attempts to screw anyone over, and he shows himself genuinely willing to make personal sacrifices for the good of the group when he's the only character to offer to reveal his DarkSecret in Chapter 2. [[DoesNotLikeMen Tenko]] even sees him as such and acknowledges him as "everyone's mentor" in ''Ultimate Summer Camp'' and wants to teach him Neo-Aikido to spread its teachings as well as help herself cure herself of her prejudices.
116* NiceJobFixingItVillain: For a ''very'' lose definition of 'villain' — in fact, from Taka's point of view, it probably qualifies as NiceJobBreakingItHero. He's antagonistic during the second trial because he ''really'' doesn't want to believe his OnlyFriend was a murderer, but he's ''also'' the one who inadvertently leads to Mondo making [[INeverSaidItWasPoison his fatal tongue slip]], because he posits, with real evidence, that Chihiro and the killer wore matching tracksuits. Mondo takes this up to argue that he couldn't have been the killer because his tracksuit was black... but he couldn't have known that Chihiro's suit ''wasn't'' black unless he was the killer, because Celeste only told Makoto the tracksuit's color.
117* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: For all his work towards keeping the group unified, he's rarely respected in-universe, [[TraumaCongaLine gets put through the psychological wringer]] and is later killed off unceremoniously with few mourning his death (while some of his harsher critics would go on to survive).
118* NoIndoorVoice: Often shouts enthusiastically about rules and good conduct.
119* NoRespectGuy: Few students respect his attempts to lead the group, most find him annoying, and outside of the initial shock of discovering his body almost no one cares much when he is killed. Heck, they don't even seem to give a damn about to him during the portion of chapter 3 in which he is alive and struggling with HeroicBSOD.
120* NoSocialSkills: He confides to Makoto that due to his rigorous dedication to studying and proper conduct, he has never been able to make friends or even hold an idle conversation with someone.
121-->'''Kiyotaka:''' What is "a normal conversation" ...?
122* NudityEqualsHonesty: A [[RelationShipValues Free-Time Event]] with him reveals that he subscribes to "hadaka no tsukiai," innocuously suggesting he and Makoto bare themselves to each other to in order to deepen their bond as fellow students. He may have proven it true following his endurance contest with Mondo.
123* NotSoAboveItAll: Despite his very serious personality, he can't help but fawn over how cool he thinks Makoto's jacket is in a really cheerful tone. He however snaps out of it and goes back to himself and demands Makoto gets rid of it because it violates the uniform policy.
124* OddFriendship: With [[JapaneseDelinquents Mondo]]. Kiyotaka is obsessed with the rules and order, and Mondo is a punk in a biker gang. That said, the two of them bond over their mutual HotBlooded nature.
125* OneNoteCook: In School Mode, it's revealed that the only foods he can make are rice balls and rice with green tea.
126* OnlyFriend: For the entire game, it's Mondo. This can be subverted by Makoto if the player chooses to spend more time with him.
127* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When Monokuma gives a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech regarding Mondo's flaws, Kiyotaka is enraged and drops his polite speech.
128-->'''Kiyotaka:''' [[PrecisionFStrike You... bastard! Just shut up, you son of a bitch! Go ahead, say that again, I dare you]]!
129* OpenMouthInsertFoot: He calls Sakura a boy at one point in the first trial. To his credit, once corrected, Taka immediately says he's sorry.
130* ThePerfectionist: Can be a tad obsessive about rules and order. When Makoto points out to him that his devotion to his studies has led to his failings in social interaction, he freaks out.
131* PerpetualFrowner: He's usually too serious to crack a smile, but he smiles heartily after befriending Mondo.
132* PrinciplesZealot: Something he prides himself in, and how he obtained the title of Ultimate Moral Compass.
133* PseudoRomanticFriendship: His bond with Mondo grows so deep in so short a time that you'd think they became an item, to the point where [[WordOfSaintPaul a Spike Chunsoft representative]] and [[TheMerch official Valentine's Day merchandise]] imply his bond with Mondo [[https://shinos-artblog.tumblr.com/post/150848551853/colourmygalaxies-replied-to-your-post-if-you is closer to an outright romance]].
134* QuiveringEyes: The sprite often used just before his sobbing sprite is this.
135* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Gives one to Mondo in their argument, which becomes HarsherInHindsight after Mondo murders Chihiro because of the exact flaws Kiyotaka names in his speech.
136-->'''Kiyotaka''': You ''are'' a coward! That's why you turn to violence to solve your problems! That's why you can't do what society asks of you, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking why you walk around dressed like that]]!
137-->'''Mondo''': ...the fuck you say? You dunno shit.
138-->'''Kiyotaka''': You already lost to yourself, but you're such a coward, you don't even realize it!
139* RedArmbandOfLeadership: To indicate his role to his fellow students, though he never does any leading in the game. Well, he ''tries'', but no one listens to him.
140* RedEyesTakeWarning: Averted. He's one of the nicest students, and never kills anyone, not even after his "transformation."
141* TheResenter: He has little love for people born with TheGift. As far as he's concerned, the simple effort of normal, ungifted people is what truly moves the world.
142-->"''In the face of effort, [[{{Determinator}} NOTHING is impossible!]]''"
143* {{Sarashi}}: [[https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Kiyotaka_Ishimaru/Image_Gallery?file=DR1_Concept_Art_-_Group_Illustration_%285%29.png#DR1 Official art]] shows him wearing this, fitting for his disciplined personality as the Ultimate Moral Compass.
144* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: According to him, he wears his uniform all the time, even during school holidays. He even admits to having ten of the exact same one.
145* SignificantBirthDate: Fittingly, his birthday is the last day of summer before school starts.
146* SinsOfOurFathers: His grandfather was seen as a genius, and became Prime Minister. Unfortunately, being a genius didn't bar him from making bad decisions. Kiyotaka hopes to restore their family's good name through his own successes, as well prove that being a 'natural born genius' can't compete with hard work and dedication.
147* SleepDeprivation: Makoto mentions that Taka doesn't look like he's slept at all the morning after Mondo's execution, taking note of his ExhaustedEyeBags and ThousandYardStare. It's plausible based on what we see that poor Taka doesn't sleep at all between that event and his own death several days later. If you're inclined to believe that the emergence of his Kiyondo/Ishida persona ''isn't'' the result of some supernatural occurrence, then this trope probably plays a major factor in what really happened there.
148* SupportingLeader: Early on he acts as the closest thing the group has to a proper leader as their unofficial ClassRepresentative by organizing their staple breakfast meetings, among other things. Unity within the group slowly collapses following his TraumaCongaLine in the second chapter, and it wouldn't be re-established till long after his death at the start of the fifth, in which Byakuya takes over the role.
149* ThousandYardStare: Becomes his default expression after the traumatizing events of chapter 2. It's combined with VisibleSilence whenever someone tries to talk with him.
150* TogetherInDeath: The stage play adds a new rule that those who vote wrong will be executed. Kiyotaka still votes for himself and because of this he and Mondo get implanted by spears together.
151* TookALevelInJerkass: He becomes much more brash and rude after becoming "Kiyondo."
152* TragicBromance: After Mondo is proven to be Chihiro's murderer, Kiyotaka goes into complete denial, even after Mondo admits it.
153* UndyingLoyalty: He displays extreme single-minded devotion to whichever ideal is at the core of his belief system: at the beginning of the game, that's the underpinning of his role as the Ultimate Moral Compass, until it's overtaken by his relationship with Mondo. Even after Mondo's guilt in Chapter 2 is not only undeniable but outright admitted, Taka continues to attempt to defend him; notably, this means that the final argument in that trial (usually a head-to-head between the protagonist and the guilty party) is actually against Taka rather than Mondo himself.
154* WideEyedIdealist: Which is why he ended up taking Mondo's execution so hard, since he honestly couldn't believe his friend was capable of murder despite being the "Ultimate (Biker) ''Gang leader''".
155* {{Workaholic}}: He believes in effort above all else. This may very-well be his defining trait[[note]]As a for-instance, he studies almost constantly, irons his uniform every night before bed, keeps himself in excellent physical condition and generally refuses to waste time or let others waste their own time[[/note]] since it even motivates his devotion to his talent.
156* YankTheDogsChain: Just when it seems like he has found a way of coping with Mondo's death, and therefore a reason to move on, he gets killed by Hifumi and Celeste. To add insult to injury, his death feels like [[DroppedABridgeOnHim it comes out of nowhere]] and other than the initial shock of discovering his corpse, no one really reacts to it or seems to miss him in the following chapter.
157[[/folder]]
158
159[[folder:Byakuya Togami]]
160[[WMG:Byakuya Togami]]
161!!!Ultimate Affluent Progeny
162[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/byakuyatogami2048.png]]
163[[caption-width-right:350:''“We're done with introductions, right? How much longer are you going to stand there? Go away. I'm sick of looking at you.”'']]
164
165->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AkiraIshida (Japanese), Jason Wishnov (game), Creator/JoshGrelle (anime) (English)
166->'''Played by:''' Ryouta Ozawa, Yuichi Nakamura (stage)
167
168The scion of the wealthy Togami family, and one groomed to become a success since childhood. Byakuya has no intention of becoming friends with his fellow captives, seeing them as competitors in a challenge to be won. Intelligent, calculating and utterly ruthless, Byakuya is a force to be reckoned with. He tampers with the crime scene in Chapter 2 so he could scout out his competition and determine who would be the biggest threat to his own "graduation" attempt. In Chapter 4 he realizes that Monokuma has no intention of running a fair contest, and turns his cross hairs to it instead. United with the other students against Monokuma, he survives the final trial and escapes with everyone.
169----
170-> See Characters/DanganronpaByakuyaTogami for tropes on him
171[[/folder]]
172
173[[folder:Mondo Owada]]
174[[WMG:Mondo Owada]]
175!!!Ultimate Biker Gang Leader
176[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/owada_art.png]]
177[[caption-width-right:350:''"I... Ever since I was a kid, I grew up with my older brother pounding this into my head... When a man makes a promise, he has to keep it, even if it kills him."'']]
178
179->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KazuyaNakai (Japanese), Creator/KeithSilverstein (game), Creator/ChristopherSabat (anime) (English)
180->'''Played by:''' Ren Yagami, Mitsu Murata (stage)
181
182The leader of the Crazy Diamonds, Japan's largest motorcycle gang. Mondo is foul-mouthed and doesn't take orders well, but would never [[WouldntHitAGirl hit a girl]] or [[IGaveMyWord break his promises]]. He is constantly at-odds with Kiyotaka until they bond over their [[HotBlooded mutual passion]] and become close friends. He is the culprit of Chapter 2, murdering Chihiro in a fit of blind rage and is executed by Monokuma after the trial, trapped in a motorcycle death cage that subjects him to lethal g-force.
183----
184* AccidentalMurder: Mondo displays various symptoms of having murdered in an episode of PTSD: the accidental death of his brother at a young age was due to his own recklessness causing extreme guilt, he had no avenue of dealing with it as the mandatory leader of the gang who was thus unable to show weakness, he blacked out all memory of the murder itself in the throes of overwhelming and guilt-fueled rage, and the catalyst of the murder itself was having his flaws innocently thrown back in his face. Notably, Mondo is one of only ''two'' blackened in the '''entire series''' who never once had any intention to murder, the other being the culprit of 2-5, who didn't even know they ''had'' killed the victim until near the end of the class trial. Even culprits like Leon had periods of time between the decision to murder and the actual execution of the act.
185* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In the game, when he's accused of being the murderer, he initially angrily denies it despite knowing this means everyone will be executed. In the anime, when Naegi accuses him of being the culrpit, he's willing to accept his fate much earlier and doesn't bother fighting back.
186** Also in the anime, Mondo apologies to Naegi for punching him, while in the game he didn't.
187* AllForNothing: He tries to protect both his darkest secret and Chihiro's after killing him. Both are revealed in the trial anyway.
188* AlternateCharacterReading: The Kanji on the back of his jacket is ''ateji'' of scattered kanji with "manly" meanings with readings that create ''kureiji daiyamondo'', a.k.a. Crazy Diamonds.
189* BadassBiker: Hence his title.
190* BadassLongcoat: Which is connected to his title as the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader.
191* BerserkButton: Do ''not'' call him weak.
192* BigBrotherMentor: Promises to be one to Chihiro. ''It doesn't end well.'' Thankfully in V3's ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'', he fulfills this role to T.
193* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: In V3's ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'', he ends up forming the Brooding Boy part to Mikan's Gentle Girl, as she tries to tend to his wounds (which Mondo didn't even notice), commenting he's used to getting all scraped up in gang fights, but he goes along with it anyway so Mikan won't cry.
194* TheCameo: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDheefsdM8 He shows up with his bro]] in ''VideoGame/KenkaBancho'' as a boss fight/[[DefeatMeansFriendship ally]].
195* CannotTalkToWomen: He gets very uneasy around girls, which engages his defense-mechanism of yelling louder and thus scaring them off. At the start of the game, he's apparently in a slump of 10 strikeouts.
196* ConflictingLoyalty: Between his friendship with the other students and his promise to keep the Crazy Diamonds together as long as possible.
197* CrimeOfPassion: When Chihiro reveals his secret to him and wants to train with him because he admires his strength, Mondo gets jealous of Chihiro's inner strength and strikes him in the head with a dumbbell in a fit of blind rage. Mondo quickly regrets what he's done, and this leads him to accept his execution after admitting he's the killer.
198* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Definitely the worst of the canonical executions up until the third game, and one of the strangest. Tied to a motorcycle and sent around an electrified cage at high speeds until he's little more than a fine paste. Which Monokuma apparently eats.
199* DeathEqualsRedemption: He doesn't put up much of a defense during the trial in the game (and even less in the anime), believing he should atone for Chihiro's death (and probably Daiya's, too).
200* DelinquentHair: A giant pompadour shaped like a corn cob.
201* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Despite being an Ultimate, this gets implied by some of his free time events and the revelations within the story itself. While he enjoys the freedom that comes with it, a lot of his devotion to his talent seems more motivated by keeping a promise to his dead brother, and he's not quite clear on where to go with it when it comes time to grow up. He later expresses a desire to become a carpenter, just for the agency in getting to build things instead of breaking them.
202* DragonsUpTheYinYang: His long coat is embroidered with an elaborate golden dragon design.
203* DramaticIrony: His last line in the Manga chapter centered on his and Kiyotaka's sauna battle has him saying internally that he still can't bear to reveal his secret. Kiyotaka not knowing that secret led him to blaming himself for the events of the following case (after he tried to defy the motive by getting everyone to reveal theirs).
204* DueToTheDead: After killing Chihiro in a fit of rage, most of his actions afterwards are less about protecting himself and more about protecting Chihiro's secret - that he's actually a guy.
205* DumbMuscle: He admits that he doesn't like thinking much, and volunteers to guard the crime scene to contribute to the investigation. Although he isn't exactly stupid as shown by his cover up of Chihiro's secret.
206* EstablishingCharacterMoment: He displays all of his core personality traits during and immediately after the first confrontation with Monokuma. He states that his brother taught him to always keep his promises, showcasing his strong relationship with said brother and his more honorable side. However, he is also nearly blown up by Monokuma after he attacks him in a fit of rage and then gets into an argument with Byakuya which leads to him punching Makoto unconscious for trying to calm him down, displaying that he's still afflicted with a HairTriggerTemper that makes him a genuine danger to himself and everyone around him.
207* {{Expy}}: Of [[Manga/YuYuHakusho Kazuma Kuwabara]]. They're both JapaneseDelinquents with orange pompadours and a strict code of ethics. Funimation seems to have noticed this and cast Chris Sabat as his English voice for the anime.
208* FaceDeathWithDignity: Unlike the previous murderer, Mondo accepts his punishment once he's been fingered as the culprit, and maintains a stoic demeanor even as the execution happens. His main regret wasn't to die, but to not fulfill his words.
209* FailedASpotCheck:
210** After moving Chihiro's corpse to the girls' dressing room, he doesn't notice Byakuya, which would have resulted in him immediately being convicted as the murderer had Byakuya decided not to complicate things. After Mondo's dead, Byakuya chides him for being so unobservant.
211** He also tries to use the color of Chihiro's jersey as proof that he's not the murderer. The only problem is, the jersey's color was never actually specified. That and his GenderVocabularySlip mentioned below give him away almost immediately.
212* TheFarmerAndTheViper: Though he ''was'' in a bad place mentally at that point, Chihiro could have done with being a little more cautious around the violent, loose cannon gang leader when they're openly being encouraged to murder each other.
213* FatalFlaw:
214** His recklessness and aggression, which leads to his, Daiya's, Chihiro's and (indirectly) Kiyotaka's deaths.
215** His insecurity also is partially responsible for the events that led to his older brother's death and Chihiro's murder.
216* FireForgedFriends: Though their personalities naturally put them at odds, he and Kiyotaka quickly become fast friends.
217* {{Foil}}: To Chihiro. He is physically strong and [[IGaveMyWord takes his manly promises seriously]], but he is unable to face [[FatalFlaw his true weakness]] and hides it with a huge facade of bravado. Chihiro is physically the weakest of the boys and hides this weakness by disguising himself, but when he's threatened to have his secret revealed he decides that he wants to change and become stronger (with that willpower being something that Mondo himself lacks).
218* {{Foreshadowing}}: He knocks out Makoto (who's much tinier than him) in the first chapter for trying to prevent a fight between him and Byakuya. In the second chapter, he kills Chihiro, the only one who's smaller than Makoto, in a fit of rage after the programmer inadvertently sets him off with a compliment.
219* FreakOut: Monokuma's "motivational" DVD (which shows the Crazy Diamonds breaking up without him) and threats to reveal their darkest secrets (Mondo's being that he indirectly caused his brother Daiya's death) puts him under some heavy mental stress. Eventually, he snaps, flying into a rage during which he kills Chihiro.
220* GenderVocabularySlip: Kyoko realizes he was aware of Chihiro's true gender when he starts referring to Chihiro as "that kid" rather than "that girl", or going from "Chick" to "Dude" in the dub.
221* GetItOverWith: He says this to Monokuma shortly after being convicted.
222* GracefulLoser: Once he's cornered, he confesses to everything that happened. In fact, the very final part of the trial has you go up against Taka instead of Mondo, as the latter has already accepted his fate by that point.
223* HairTriggerTemper: Which eventually leads him to kill Chihiro in an uncontrollable fit of rage.
224* HandBehindHead: Three whole sprites devoted to it.
225* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Kiyotaka.
226** During the [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony Ultimate Talent Development Plan]], he develops this relationship with Kaito.
227** During the Ultimate Summer Camp, he also has this relationship with Chihiro.
228* HiddenDepths: He [[PetTheDog loves dogs]] (of any size; he used to have a Maltese) and wants to become a carpenter, so he can build rather than break things. Also despite initially coming across as rather violent, he actually has a code of honour and is very chivalrous towards the ladies of the group and friendly towards everyone except [[JerkAss Togami]]
229* HotBlooded: Which led to him bonding with Kiyotaka.
230* HumbleGoal: At the end of his Free-Time Event path, he decides what he wants most is to be a simple carpenter.
231* IfWeSurviveThis: In his first Free-Time Event he promises to take Makoto out riding with him. The notion of riding behind him, along with the fact that rival gangs always go for the leader, just goes towards terrifying Makoto.
232* IGaveMyWord: "A man's promise" is worth a lot to him. He even rearranges the changing rooms after Chihiro's death to keep his secret for as long as possible. His last words are him lamenting that he can't keep ThePromise he made to the dying Daiya.
233* ImMelting: His CruelAndUnusualDeath, done through a combination of pure heat and deadly centrifugal force.
234* ImplausibleHairColor: It's probably dyed to fit his delinquent image.
235* ImprobableHairstyle: His room is one of the most Spartan of the whole group, with a big can of hairspray standing out. Thanks to that, his pompadour is big/strong enough to get its own towel (and can even support its weight) in the sauna, while one class photo shows him asleep at his desk and squishing it down without any adverse effects.
236* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Referring to Chihiro's blue sports jersey (when, aside from Celeste, only his murderer could've known what color it was) is what exposes him as the killer.
237* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: He ''acts'' tough, but secretly he's a bundle of self-hatred and SurvivorGuilt because of his brother's death and his own struggles with his character flaws. He killed Chihiro (albeit unintentionally) because he felt that Chihiro, despite being the smallest and shyest of the cast and looking up to Mondo's strength, was stronger than him because Chihiro was ready to accept his secret being revealed and trying to get stronger so he wouldn't face the same bullying that caused him to crossdress in the first place.
238* InsaneTrollLogic: Accept's Kiyotaka's assertion that Chihiro and the killer wore matching tracksuits. This inadvertently sets him up when he tries to clear himself using this logic by saying his is a different color and instead falls into the trap Kyoko set.
239* JapaneseDelinquents: Naturally, as the leader of a large motorcycle gang.
240* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sure he's rough, rude and easily pissed off but he repeatedly shows that he is quite moral, apologizes for knocking out Makoto on the first day during a moment of stress and has a genuine friendship with [[ClassRepresentative Kiyotaka]] that is quite heartwarming. In addition, he's genuinely easygoing, charismatic and chivalrous, and has a good sense of justice, standing up to Togami on numerous occasions. This makes his murder of Chihiro incredibly tragic, as he did it almost subconsciously due to the amount of pressure on his mind from Monokuma's "Incentive".
241* KarmicNod: He accepts his fate once he's exposed as the murderer. Additionally, In his final Free Time event, he feels uneasy about his future once he graduates and is no longer part of the Crazy Diamonds, and says "Maybe I'm being punished for doing what I felt like all my life."
242* KnowWhenToFoldEm: In the second trial, once Makoto figures out that Mondo is using Leon's handbook instead of his own and asks to verify that, Mondo knows he's lost and confesses.
243* KnuckleCracking: His intimidation sprite uses this and he wears a sick grin to match (like he's about to hurt someone).
244* LooseLips: It was bringing up the colour of Chihiro's tracksuit that became his undoing.
245* MadnessMantra:
246-->"Strongstrongstrong...!"
247* MinorInsultMeltdown: Byakuya calling him plankton floating through the ocean without any meaning seems like this at first (where he's ready to punch Byakuya and ends up punching Makoto instead). It's later revealed that sensitivity to his own lack of agency in life is one of the major themes surrounding his character.
248* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
249** When he regains his senses and realizes that he killed Chihiro.
250** This is the only way to describe the look on his face as his brother bleeds in his arms.
251* MyGreatestFailure: Feeling overshadowed by his older brother, Daiya, Mondo challenged him to a motorcycle race. His reckless driving almost led to him being hit by a truck, but Daiya saved his life by pushing him out of the way. He died from his injuries, and Mondo blames himself for never having been strong enough.
252* NudityEqualsHonesty: At the beginning of the second chapter, the player can find him in the newly-opened bathhouse looking for the missing Togami, where it's revealed that he believes in "hadaka no tsukiai," and suggests he and [[TheHero Naegi]] test out the bath later with that as the reason, with Ishimaru also revealing the same thinking in a [[RelationShipValues Free-Time Event]] (both bathing invitations only serve to embarrass Naegi considerably). Just one more factor that may have led to their OddFriendship following the sauna duel.
253* NoIndoorVoice: Just like Kiyotaka. One free time event has him saying that it tends to happen as a defense-mechanism whenever he's nervous, [[CannotTalkToWomen which inadvertently chases off pretty much any girls he tries to talk to]].
254* NotWhatItLooksLike: In Chihiro's "With Swimsuits" event, in ''Ultimate Summer Camp'', he's hanging out with Chihiro in the hot springs and they discuss Chihiro coming out to the rest of the students as a boy ([[SecretKeeper Mondo already knows]]) when Masaru walks in on them. Masaru walks in and thinks Mondo brought a girl into the bath with him and goes off to tell the Monokubs, with Mondo hurrying after him, since otherwise Chihiro couldn't come out on his own terms.
255* NotableNonSequitur: His line about knowing Chihiro as a "dude" than a "chick" is such a throwaway line at first that players don't even notice it the first time. [[AwesomenessByAnalysis Kyoko]] notices it, on the other hand.
256* OddFriendship:
257** With [[ClassRepresentative Kiyotaka]]. Kiyotaka is obsessed with the rules and order, and Mondo is a punk in a biker gang. That said, the two of them bond over their mutual HotBlooded nature.
258** With [[ShrinkingViolet Chihiro]], who he's the SecretKeeper for in ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' and ''Ultimate Summer Camp''.
259* OhCrapSmile: Has a mix of this and SlasherSmile when he's outed as the killer in chapter 2's Closing Argument.
260* PunnyName: Combined with his brother, Daiya, they form ''daiyamondo'' - diamond, the namesake of their gang.
261* RealMenHateSugar: Subverted, in the drama CD it's shown that he likes cotton candy.
262* RealMenWearPink: For being the most traditionally-masculine of all the male students, his beloved pet was a Maltese.
263* SecretKeeper: In ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' and ''Ultimate Summer Camp'', he knows Chihiro's a boy and they train together before Chihiro tells anyone else.
264* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: He's the manly man to Chihiro's sensitive guy.
265* ShoutOut: His pompadour, and the fact that his gang is called the Crazy Diamonds, brings to mind Josuke Higashikata and his stand Crazy Diamond from ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure''.
266* SirSwearsALot: Uses many a ClusterFBomb, cursing far more than anyone else in the game. Especially compared to people like Kiyotaka and Makoto, the former who never swears at all and the latter who only swears once.
267* SurvivorGuilt: Over his brother's death.
268* SympatheticMurderer: To the point that his crime was actually ''manslaughter'', since he committed the crime in a moment of extreme emotional stress and doesn't even remember doing the deed afterward. He really did care about Chihiro and admired his mental strength, but his own lack of mental strength led to him snapping and killing Chihiro- something he deeply regrets and ''never'' would have done if Monokuma hadn't been threatening him, or if he still remembered his school years. Even after Chihiro's death, his cover-up was more directed at keeping Chihiro's secret, since IGaveMyWord. He accepts his death because of how utterly remorseful and sorry he is over Chihiro's murder.
269* TeamSpirit: Being that his talent requires disciplined leadership in respect to the importance of unity, he objects immediately to Byakuya going off on his own. This wouldn't be the first time they come to blows.
270* TechnicolorEyes: His eyes are a very pale lavender.
271* TragicHero: A classic case. He's not a bad guy and has a strong sense of honor, but he can't overcome his FatalFlaw- his short temper and inferiority complex. This twice leads to Mondo being involved in the death of someone he admires- his brother Daiya, who died saving his little brother from Mondo's own recklessness, and Chihiro, who Mondo killed in a fit of rage fueled by his envy of Chihiro's determination to better himself. This latter error leads to Mondo's undoing, as he is executed and his secret is broadcast to the world anyway, and all he can do is FaceDeathWithDignity.
272* TragicMistake: Challenging his brother to a race. This led to Daiya dying to save Mondo, and Mondo's need to keep the secret led to his emotional breakdown and killing Chihiro in a fit of rage.
273* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: If Mondo didn't get reckless in his race with his brother, Daiya wouldn't have died and Mondo wouldn't have a secret like so large as to lose control over. Meaning he most likely wouldn't have killed Chihiro, have himself executed, which would put Kiyotaka into a depression that ends in him getting killed after he snaps out of it. Meaning he brought 4 (including himself) people down directly or indirectly.
274* VillainousBreakdown: It bears mentioning that his version in-game is nowhere near as severe as the other murderers when found out, due to his status as SympatheticMurderer, to the point the anime forgoes it completely.
275* WouldntHitAGirl: When he is charged with guarding the crime scene for the first case, Makoto points out that his adherence to this trope could cause trouble for him if the culprit is one of the girls, a thought that causes Mondo visible discomfort. During a free time segment, he also challenges Makoto to a one-on-one match, but Makoto points out he's never been in a fight before, but maybe Sakura Ogami would be a better match! But Mondo can't spar with Sakura because he won't hit girls. He later murders Chihiro, but he's still not guilty of "hitting girls," since Chihiro isn't really a girl.
276[[/folder]]
277
278[[folder:Leon Kuwata]]
279[[WMG:Leon Kuwata]]
280!!!Ultimate Baseball Star
281[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kuwata_art.png]]
282[[caption-width-right:350:"''Actually, can I be totally honest with you? I don't like baseball. Like, at all. I've never gone to a single practice.''"]]
283->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TakahiroSakurai (Japanese), Creator/GrantGeorge (game), Creator/JustinCook (anime) (English)
284->'''Played by:''' Yuya Miyashita (stage)
285
286The star player of Japan's champion high-school baseball team who, oddly enough, doesn't care much for baseball. Leon stays on the team so he can rake in athletic scholarships and attention from girls. His real dream is to become the lead vocalist for a punk rock band, and change his title to Ultimate Musician. He is the culprit of Chapter 1, stabbing Sayaka to death (after she tries to kill him first) and is found guilty at the school trial. Despite his argument that he acted in self-defense, he is executed by Monokuma, bludgeoned to death by a barrage of one-thousand baseballs.
287----
288* AccidentalMurder: In the manga, his killing of Sayaka is presented as an accident while he was frantically trying to snap her out of a FreakOut.
289* AdaptationalHeroism: The manga inventing the idea of his AccidentalMurder is a pretty straight example of this. While he's by no means a ''bad'' person, his murder of Sayaka was nothing short of a deliberate decision. Here, Leon didn't break into the bathroom with the intent to kill, but rather, to calm the panicking Sayaka. Needless to say, [[ForegoneConclusion it doesn't end well.]]
290* AdaptationalJerkass: Since [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony Ultimate Talent Development Plan]] and ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaSUltimateSummerCamp'' aren't driven by killing games and instead just depict normal life at Hope's Peak Academy, Leon's more abrasive and egotistical side comes out a lot more in those modes. ''Danganronpa S'' in particular, as seen with him openly talking about ogling the girls and a scene where he makes fun of Hifumi for using the school trip as a way of improving his doujin drawing skills.
291* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Thanks to Leon's [[WeHardlyKnewYe very early death]], a lot of his sympathetic qualities are only brought to light in supplementary material. In the main game, Leon is shown to be [[EntitledBastard quite an entitled and even shallow person]], despite not being necessarily a bad guy. School Mode and ''[[VideoGame/UltraDespairGirls Ultra Despair Hagakure]]'', however go on to confirm that no, he's better than people think and he's shown to have a lot of likable qualities his Free-Time Events didn't capitalize on.
292* AerithAndBob: "Leon" is practically the most normal given name in the game to Western audiences, if not the whole franchise, alongside Sonia from ''2'' and Angie from ''V3''.
293* AintTooProudToBeg: A universal constant throughout all versions of ''Trigger Happy Havoc's'' story — the once ever so cocky Leon Kuwata goes out screaming, crying and begging for his life.
294* AlasPoorVillain: He may be the series' first blackened, but he was ultimately driven to kill by Monokuma's twisted game and Sayaka's attempt on his life. His death is played for tragedy and horror, with him going out begging for mercy and all of his classmates being horrified by his demise.
295* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In the manga, as Sayaka keeps attacking him with the knife, he asks if she really believes Monokuma will keep his word and let her leave. She hesitates long enough for him to break her wrist with the wooden sword and make her drop the knife.
296* ArcNumber: [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/danganronpa/images/e/ee/Danganronpa_1_CG_-_Sayaka_Maizono_writing_the_bloody_message.png/revision/latest?cb=20180301064300 Sayaka Maizono's dying message]] resulted in a misinterpretation of "11037". Come the sequel's fifth chapter, and this number is recycled by Makoto Naegi for the ancient ruins on the fifth island. This is characterized as an arc number solely due to it being a combination of two significant characters' significant will of causality (Sayaka's last-second redemption through her culprit's identification, his independent murder and confrontation of her). It's been also used in the ending of the anime adaptation of the first game. Recycling it is only something a company conscious of its works would bluntly do.
297* AttentionWhore: When looking to recruit for his punk rock band, he stipulates to Makoto that he doesn't want anyone who's already famous because ''he's'' supposed to be the center of attention. He makes an exception for Sayaka; one drama CD track has him begging her to join his band to perform at the school festival.
298* BadLiar: Leading up to his punishment, Leon continually desperately tries to insist that his murder of Sayaka was justified because it was in self-defense. Celeste rebukes this because his efforts to break into the bathroom to kill Sayaka, complete with returning to ''his'' room first to grab his toolkit, proved that his actions were pre-meditated.
299* BigNo: Gets one after screaming 'no' repeatedly when Monokuma announces his execution.
300* BlessedWithSuck: He sees his Ultimate talent for baseball as this trope; while he ''does'' love baseball deep down, he resents being ''forced'' into the sport by everyone's expectations of him, to the point where it's become a chore for him; if he'd been less absurdly talented, then he could have picked it up as a hobby and enjoyed it on his own terms. He also suffers from NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction, because he's so good at baseball he doesn't even need to practice.
301* BookDumb: He's quick with his tongue and can snark quite a bit, but he slacks as often as he can academically speaking and dislikes reading anything that isn't comics, as seen in School Mode:
302-->'''Naegi:''' So, Leon... do you read much?\
303'''Leon:''' Well, a simple question deserves a simple answer. So nope! All I read is comics. I've never even opened a textbook!
304* BrilliantButLazy:
305** When it comes to baseball. His accomplishments just get crazier the more you know about the sport; pro pitchers never go to bat because of how specialized their job is and how much they need to practice for it (which is why there's a designated hitter to take their place), and a 160 mph pitch is ''far'' faster than the current world record, and Leon has achieved all this without even caring enough about baseball to attend practice. Makoto outright says that "God gave his genius to the wrong person". He does confess to missing the sport after they've been locked up for a while, though.
306** His laziness implies that he probably would've never become a murderer if his involvement in someone else's murder attempt wasn't forced. This then gets invoked by his cover-up failing due to not checking whether his bloodied shirt was properly burned (among other inconsistencies that are difficult to blame on anything besides laziness).
307* TheCasanova: Likes the attention he gets as a star player, and at least part of the reason he wants to become a musician instead is he thinks that'll impress more girls that way. In fact, during a free time segment, Makoto can learn that the reason he picked "musician" ''specifically'' as a girl-impressing career is that "the cute girl at the hair salon" will never go out with Leon the baseball player, since the cute girl at the hair salon likes musicians. He promptly follows up by asking Makoto if he thinks Sayaka would also be into fellow musicians or if she'd prefer actors.
308* CharacterDevelopment: Leon unfortunately [[WeHardlyKnewYe dies too early to show signs of this]], but in School Mode, he's shown to have a lot of development he doesn't have in canon. It's revealed in his Trigger Happy Heart that despite his desire to become a musician and ditch baseball, he's worried that his fundamentally shallow reasons for wanting to become one would make him feel completely uncool; Makoto's best response is assuring him that nobody would make fun of him for his indecisiveness and fears of being uncool, something Leon's very comforted by. If you get his ending, Leon even reveals he's decided to tackle both baseball ''and'' music, not just for believing he has to work for his skills than let success be handed to him, but also to demonstrate more self-assurance in achieving his dreams.
309* ChekhovsSkill: When Makoto talks about his talent as the Ultimate Baseball Star, he comments that Leon played both ace pitcher ''and'' cleanup hitter. His murder of Sayaka required ''both'' these talents- he was able to break Sayaka's wrist with a single blow, and he got rid of evidence by pitching it through a metal screen and into the incinerator, with a pinpoint accuracy shot to the incinerator's activation button turning it on.
310* CustomUniform: In the class pictures showing lost memories, he's seen wearing gym clothes but never the regular school uniform.
311* ADayInTheLimelight: His chapter in the manga, which focus on the events that led to Sayaka's death from his point of view, portraying him sympathetically.
312* DeathByIrony: Leon would often skip baseball practice. When he's executed, he's literally dragged to the batting cage and forced to stay there until he's dead from being shot with hundreds of baseballs.
313* DeathOfAThousandCuts: A baseball to the head can be deadly. A thousand baseballs everywhere but the head (followed up by ''[[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill a couple dozen baseballs to the head, all connecting simultaneously]]'') is just as deadly and infinitely more horrific.
314* EntitledBastard: Entitlement is a major theme going through his Free-Time Events, and it's somewhat hinted through the main narrative with his easygoing view on the music business and his belief that he can just casually get into the industry just like how he does in baseball, something that angers Sayaka in the manga. Truth is, while he's by no means a bad person (especially as supplementary material goes on to confirm), his inherent talent for baseball gave him an almost child-like view on work in general, believing he can just make his claim without actually trying. This is something that's more an act of naivete and immaturity than any sort of genuine malice on this part. [[CharacterDevelopment He thankfully grows out of it in his School Mode ending after his character development]], where he decided he wants to tackle both baseball and music specifically because he knows that success isn't going to be handed to him.
315* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Many students subvert Makoto's expectations of them the first time they meet, but none more so than Leon. Amusingly, he finds the more sporty-looking pictures of him from his performance at the National Highschool Baseball Championships embarrassing (instead of the other way around, as is usual with this trope).
316* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: When Makoto discusses the Ultimate Baseball Star at the beginning of the game before actually meeting him, Leon is shown to have a buzzcut typical of a high school baseball player in Japan. When he actually appears, he has his wilder haircut shown above — it turns out that he hates having close-cropped hair, but his teammates forced him to cut it (in the English localization, it's because of tournament regulations). The new haircut goes with his decision to abandon baseball and pick up music.
317* FaceDeathWithDespair: PlayedForHorror; Leon's death is the very first execution in the series, and one rife with despair. He completely breaks down into screaming and tears as he realizes what's about to happen, especially since he and the students have no precedent for what to expect, and so his death is made as painful and cruel as possible to show just how the stakes are for everyone.
318* FaceDeathWithDignity: Averted. He's the only one of the killers to get dragged kicking and screaming to his execution. Justified in that he was the first one to discover what the punishment really consisted of and just how honest Monokuma was being about it.
319* FatalFlaw: While his character doesn't get explored much, his is Wrath. While it's understandable he'd be upset about Sayaka trying to kill him, Celestia correctly points out that after he broke her wrist, Leon could've just left Sayaka alone since she was no longer a threat to him. That he came back to finish the job makes him look far less sympathetic.
320* FieryRedhead: But it's not his natural color.
321* {{Foreshadowing}}: His T-shirt has a red design of a skull inside a circle being caved in. During his execution, the baseballs explicitly avoided hitting him in the head until the very end.
322* FourIsDeath: He hit cleanup on his team as the fourth batter. Fittingly, he's the fourth death shown on-screen.
323* TheGenericGuy: Even though he has just as much of a fleshed-out personality as the rest of the students, being a guy whose most distinctive quality is his extraordinary talent in a world filled with extraordinarily talented people makes him the most teen-like in the group besides Makoto, though unlike them, [[TheGift he's had to work the least for his position]]. Perhaps fittingly, this leads to a distinct maturity drop-off due to a near-lack of the same kinds of struggles and sacrifices that have made the other students WiseBeyondTheirYears. Matters ''really'' aren't helped [[WeHardlyKnewYe due to how early he dies]]. Because of how relatively simplistic his Free-Time Events were, this led to the impression for many that he was a FlatCharacter even when ''[[VideoGame/UltraDespairGirls Ultra Despair Hagakure]]'' and School Mode showed that to be otherwise.
324* TheGift: His extraordinary talent for baseball has kept him from needing to put much effort into life thanks to all its advantages (like the easy scholarships and attention from girls). And with how little he works for his title as opposed to everyone else devoting their entire lives to whatever they do, he may even have the most raw talent in the entire group. This gets deconstructed in his Trigger-Happy Heart event, where the ramifications of his newest goal in music chosen on a whim show just how much it terrifies him to be seen looking uncool by needing to put effort into something.
325* GroinAttack: Let's just say that during his execution, the baseballs hit him '''everywhere'''.
326* HairTriggerTemper: One of Leon's most consistent qualities is him being ''very'' sensitive to what people think of him, acting downright defensive whenever he feels like he's being unjustly criticized. After Monokuma sends out the videos he intended to use as a motive, he acts downright accusatory: "You were trying to act all innocent and get me to confess what I saw, didn't you? I won't fall into that trap!" During the trial itself, it doesn't take too much to send him into a VillainousBreakdown.
327* HandBehindHead: One of his friendlier sprites.
328* HatesTheJobLovesTheLimelight: A beat-for-beat version, translated into playing sports more than creating or performing art. Leon ''does'' enjoy playing baseball at heart, and he loves the attention, female fans, and free ride scholarships that baseball gives him. He just hates and resents having to do it ''constantly'', until all the joy is gone and only the drudgery of endless pointless practice and games is left. The fact that he's [[BrilliantButLazy a lazy bum at heart and so stupidly talented that he doesn't find much challenge in the game or see why anyone would need to practice at it]] doesn't help.
329* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Played with. His baseball skills do allow him to dispose of evidence, but once the evidence disposal gets figured out, the fact that he uses his talent to do so makes him the most likely suspect; as Makoto points out during his closing argument, only the Ultimate Baseball Star would have an accurate enough pitch to throw a ball ''through a metal fence'' and hit a target, much less do so twice in a row.
330* TheHedonist: Subverted. Leon's reasoning for wanting to get into music (to impress a girl) is something he ''acknowledges'' as fundamentally shallow, and a lot of his Trigger-Happy Heart has him worry that he's looking like an utter fool [[IJustWantToBeLoved for trying so hard to be liked.]] His CharacterDevelopment has him completely outgrow this, and show that he wants to tackle both music ''and'' sports because of his passion for them, regardless of what everybody else thinks.
331* HonorBeforeReason: In the manga, he tried to open the bathroom door in an attempt to calm Sayaka down, which... ''wasn't'' a very smart move on his part considering she still had a knife.
332* IfWeSurviveThis: During a free time segment with Leon, he insists that if they survive this, Makoto has to play baseball with him! Sadly, he doesn't survive. In fact, he's the first culprit, [[WeHardlyKnewYe and he doesn't make it out of Chapter 1]]. Though in [[AlternateUniverse School Mode]], he ''does'' gets a chance to fulfill this if you get his ending.
333* ImplausibleHairColor: He explicitly mentions dying his hair red (one of the numerous things he clashes with his baseball team about).
334* InsaneTrollLogic: He engages in this during the demo trial, being as convinced as Toko that Makoto is the killer; during the demo of the Bullet Time Battle, he's not wildly denying his guilt, but wildly insisting on Makoto's. Surprisingly enough, he ''isn't'' the killer in this version of events (it's strongly implied to be Hifumi).
335* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Leon can come off as a pretty [[EntitledBastard entitled person]] who only seems to be wanting to be a musician to pick up girls, never mind the fact that [[StarterVillain he's the first murderer in the game]]. That said, his true colors are shown in School Mode and other supplementary material as somebody who's an inherently friendly and easy-going person, bordering on outright LovableJock territory. These qualities are brought to canonical heights in ''[[VideoGame/UltraDespairGirls Ultra Despair Hagakure]]'', where his AbhorrentAdmirer [[KissingCousins cousin]] Kanon Nakajima hounds him ''incessantly'' for his affections, something Leon has turned her down ''thousands'' of times. And each and every time, Leon does it in the nicest way possible as to not break his cousin's heart. Anybody who has as much patience as ''that'' is in no way a true {{Jerkass}}. Heck, it's heavily implied that had Sayaka not tried to kill him in Chapter 1, it's very possible that he would've ''never'' become a murderer. While how much of this is his [[BrilliantButLazy laziness]] than his genuine friendliness remains to be debated, it's still quite likely that he wouldn't have murdered somebody to get out had he not been forced into the role, which goes on to explain why his cover-up of the murder was so slap-dash.
336* KillingInSelfDefense: [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. He insists he only killed Sayaka because she tried to kill him first, but as Celestia points out he had every opportunity to simply walk away after he injured Sayaka and his chances of being killed by her after that point were very small due to her broken wrist. The manga plays this straight by re-writing the whole scene; he didn't go into the closet to kill her, he did it to calm her down.
337* KubrickStare: His sprite used for glaring fiercely is this.
338* LethalChef:
339** In School Mode, he says his food specialty are frozen foods and cup ramen.
340** During the ''[[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony Ultimate Talent Development Plan]]'', his attempt at making Crepes during the School Festival doesn't go well. Kirumi has to teach him how.
341* LovableJock: Despite his [[EntitledBastard flaws]], Leon is inherently a lovable person who has a love for baseball, and is easily one of the more sociable and friendly members of Class 78. While his Free-Time Events don't ''quite'' allude to this as it should have, School Mode and ''[[VideoGame/UltraDespairGirls Ultra Despair Hagakure]]'' portray him in a more nobler light.
342* MadnessMantra: His reaction to being fingered as the culprit can be approximately summarized as "Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid!" Meanwhile, the dubbed anime turns this into incoherent rambling.
343* ManslaughterProvocation:
344** He could ''almost'' be viewed as this, since he only committed murder after Sayaka attempted to kill him. It is subverted, however, as he had a choice. When Sayaka's plan went south and she locked herself up in Makoto's shower, Leon could have simply left the scene and taken the knife that she intended to stab him with, but he instead choose to get his screwdriver to screw up the door and stab her instead.
345** Not subverted in the supplementary manga, where it's shown that he opened the bathroom not to stab Sayaka, but to try and calm her down while she still held the knife tightly. Unluckily for both of them, Sayaka didn't trust him and tried to attack him again, and during the struggle to get rid of the knife, he ended up stabbing her by accident.
346* NiceJobBreakingItHero: No matter how good his intentions were, ''forcing his way in the bathroom'' to try and calm down the panicking Sayaka wasn't the brightest idea, even less when you consider that she still had a knife and believed that he was out to kill her.
347* NiceJobFixingItVillain: In an odd way, considering that Sayaka's murder plan would've hypothetically GoneHorriblyRight had she succeeded in killing him and framing Makoto, Leon's decision to kill her off (impulsively or not) and make himself the murderer instead indirectly saved the class, as Sayaka's success would've led to everyone's deaths no matter what. He didn't intend to sacrifice himself, of course, but it was a better outcome than the alternative Sayaka set up.
348* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: His aspirations to go from baseball star to punk rock singer mirror the career of Scott Radinsky, major-leage relief pitcher throughout the 90s who also fronts the skate punk band Pulley. Given Kazutaka Kodaka's affinity for punk music, there's decent odds this is not a coincidence.
349* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: In his School Mode ending, he decides to keep going with both baseball ''and'' music. When a surprised Makoto comments that it'll be difficult to focus on both at the same time, he says that's ''why'' he has to do it, aside from his desire just to pursue his own ideals regardless of what everybody else thinks.
350* NotSoDifferentRemark: When found guilty, he argues that any of the others would have done the same thing if Sayaka had targeted them instead.
351* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: Implied. After killing Sayaka and making an effort to hide the truth for the sake of his own survival (even without considering that he didn't know of the trial rules), he claims that it was in self-defense since she targeted him first. When Celestia accuses him of murdering her for the sake of his own survival instead, since he could've turned away from the situation at any moment and Sayaka was defenseless when he killed her, he is completely unable to come up with a rebuttal that it ''was'' in self-defense, indicating that it really wasn't after all.
352* OhCrap: In the manga, upon realizing that Sayaka's DyingClue spells his first name.
353-->"[[PrecisionFStrike Shit... Maizono, you bitch!]]"
354* OnlySaneMan: Courtesy of his relatively normal upbringing and the fact he had to work the least for his talent, he's pretty down-to-earth than what his theatrics imply, being the only one without real issues aside from Makoto (who even then, [[TheEveryman angsts a ton on his lack of any notable features)]]. This often leads to Leon pointing out others' more zany behavior as a result.
355* PosthumousCharacter:
356** In the sixth chapter of ''Trigger Happy Havoc'', he appears in the school photographs provided by Monokuma to Makoto, Aoi, Yasuhiro, Toko, and Byakuya.
357** He yet again appears in [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair the sequel]], but as the password to the ancient ruins on the 2nd island (the island where Mahiru Koizumi is murdered by Peko Pekoyama under Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu's serendipitously professed command). Particularly, the password is a numerical five-figure line of "11037" (revealed by Nagito Komaeda after the fifth class trial), what Sayaka Maizono's illustrious dying message is initially misinterpreted as, until Kyoko recommends the survivors of the first chapter rotate the message 180 degrees to reveal the word "LEON"; or, Leon Kuwata, the culprit of the first chapter who subjects her to her PlotTriggeringDeath.
358* TheQuincyPunk: He works hard to invoke the image, mentioning he's a fan of the Music/SexPistols, Music/{{The Damned|Band}}, and Music/TheClash.
359* TheRockStar: He's enamored with the lifestyle and dreams of being one.
360* SacrificialLamb: As the victim of the first proper execution in the series, he serves to show just how brutally (and humiliatingly) you'll die if you get caught for murder.
361* SatelliteCharacter: Oddly enough, manages to be one to the character he kills. Pretty much all of his significance and story presence comes from him being Sayaka's attempted victim and killer. Averted in Ultimate Talent Development Plan and ''Danganronpa S'', where he has interactions with more characters.
362* SelfDeprecation: He gets one moment of this in his second free time event, when he tells Makoto he's aiming to become a vocalist in a punk rock band because, among other things, he won't actually have to be a good singer. Possibly a reference to allegations of such regarding bands like the Music/SexPistols, which he mentions when listing examples of the genre.
363* ShoutOut: Has the signature padlock necklace and a similar hairstyle to punk rock legend Music/SidVicious. Fittingly, both Leon and Vicious stabbed women in the shower.
364* SingleIssueWonk: After baseball is brought up in his introduction, he's quick to profess his hatred for the sport.
365* TheSlacker: Another perk of being an Ultimate Baseball Star is that you don't have to worry about your grades.
366* StarterVillain: He's the franchise's first murderer, and his case is fairly straightforward compared to the insane crimes others pull off later in the series.
367* StraightMan:
368** Strangely enough, he qualifies as this. As over-the-top as he acts, Leon is also extremely quick to point out other people's bizarre behavior.
369--->''(to Toko's "Such moving words...")'' "You mean bowel movements, right?"\
370''(To Yasuhiro)'' "Are we supposed to laugh?!"\
371''(To Hifumi)'' "You really don't care about embarrassing yourself, do you."
372** He also tends to react accordingly to Makoto's 'out there' comments during School Mode:
373--->'''Makoto:''' The happy blue sky kinda cheers me up...\
374'''Leon:''' That's very poetic, but it’s still just a ceiling painted blue.
375* StunnedSilence: The only way to describe him as Makoto delivers the final piece of evidence in his trial.
376* SympatheticMurderer: [[ZigZaggedTrope Played with.]] On the one hand, while his victim tried to kill him, it's pointed out that he had to leave the room and get the tools he needed to break into where they'd taken shelter. On the ''other'' hand, however, Leon isn't portrayed as a heartless individual in any means, and depending on how much you like him, his begging for mercy can be quite a TearJerker and a highlight that ''nobody'' is at fault except the Killing Game itself. Of course, the manga shows that he ''wasn't'' trying to kill Sayaka at all and just calm her down, and that her death was an accident.
377* TakeAThirdOption: In school mode, his eventual solution to his desire to become a musician and what genuine love he has for baseball is to do ''both''... after all, he's going to need something to do after his athletic career is over.
378* TemptingFate: His claim that there aren't any clues left is what prompts Makoto to bring up the dying message.
379* TragicVillain: He sticks out in this regard compared to the other blackened, as during his brief time at Hope's Peak he narrowly survives Sayaka's attempt to kill him, kills ''her'' in imperfect self-defense (or at very least, thinking he can escape the game by killing an AssholeVictim), learns ''afterwards'' that if he gets away with it everyone else will be executed and if he doesn't, ''he'' will be executed, and in the end is caught and dies an absolutely horrific death that doubles as a vehicle of psychological torture for the remaining survivors.
380* {{Tsundere}}: Surprisingly enough, towards ''baseball''. No matter how much he tries to deny it, he genuinely enjoys the sport; what he ''really'' hates is that his extreme talent and everyone's expectations have sucked all the fun out of playing the game. His Trigger Happy Heart is about him finally acknowledging that he does love baseball for its own sake, but ''shouldn't'' have to feel completely nailed to it by his talent and can enjoy music too.
381* UndignifiedDeath: Leon is the only culprit who doesn't accept his guilt and FaceDeathWithDignity; in the anime, he goes as far as to pound on the courtroom doors, screaming to be let out. Then he's desperately clawing at the chain around his throat as it's dragging him to the batting cage, kicking and screaming, and he has a frightened-out-of-his-mind look on his face right up until the baseball cannon beats him to death by firing baseballs.
382* VillainousBreakdown: Leon's hardly the traditional definition of a villain, as somebody who wound up as Sayaka's murderer, but he makes some ''really'' crazy faces when he's feeling anger or despair, like when Makoto figures out that he's the one who killed Sayaka. In fact, once Leon's fate is sealed, he ''flips out'' and starts repeatedly screaming the word "aho"/"stupid" over and over.
383* WeHardlyKnewYe: Even compared to other ''Danganronpa'' characters who die in Chapter 1, he gets next to no screentime or focus beyond being Sayaka's killer. Poor dude's hit pretty bad with this. Thanks to Leon's shallow Free-Time Events and the fact that Sayaka and Junko get more emphasis than he did, many people came to believe he was a shallow philanderer who has no meaningful personality compared to the rest of the cast. In reality, Leon is shown to contradict these claims through supplementary materials, but a large reason for why this opinion is so prevalent is due to how early he dies and how little development he gets in his home game. It's thankfully alleviated in other source materials, but even so.
384[[/folder]]
385
386[[folder:Hifumi Yamada]]
387[[WMG:Hifumi Yamada]]
388!!!Ultimate [[{{Doujinshi}} Fanfic Creator]]
389[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hifumiyamada2048.png]]
390[[caption-width-right:350:''“I...am Hifumi Yamada. But if you want to call me by my nickname, "The Alpha and the Omega!" I don't mind.”'']]
391
392->'''Voiced by''': Creator/KappeiYamaguchi (Japanese), Creator/LucienDodge (game), Tyson Rinehart (anime) (English)
393->'''Played by''': Seitaro Mukai, Syun Matsuo, Masaaki Amenomiya (stage)
394
395An {{Otaku}} artist whose work sells in the tens of thousands. He disavows any interest in 3D women and aims to become a famous sculptor (of anime figures, of course). His dialog is liberally peppered with references to anime and video games. He is the accomplice and second victim of chapter 3, being manipulated by Celeste into helping her murder Kiyotaka, only to be betrayed by her and killed himself.
396----
397* AdaptationalHeroism: In ''Danganronpa: The Stage''. Due to Kiyotaka committing suicide in Chapter 2, Hifumi ''literally'' does nothing wrong--instead, he and Celeste simply take the fall for Sakura's suicide and are both executed for voting wrong, with the implication that Hifumi had no idea that Celeste was innocent (for her part, it's implied that Celeste did this on purpose [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled to escape the school by dying]]).
398* AlmostDeadGuy: Briefly wakes up after being mortally wounded before he is murdered.
399* AssholeVictim: Not only was he a disgusting pervert, but he also murdered the innocent Kiyotaka in cold blood simply because Celeste made a FalseRapeAccusation against him and without even taking the time to ask him if the accusation was true, and was ''also'' willing to have all the other students executed for the sake of his "revenge" on Kiyotaka. Considering all this, it becomes hard to have any sympathy for his death.
400* AwesomeButImpractical: When Celeste asks him to make a costume that could disguise someone's face and posture (so her planned patsy could be posed for an incriminating photograph), he creates a human-sized ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}''-expy costume that was impressively complete and detailed for a single night's work... but that also couldn't properly move or bend down (making it impossible for the patsy to have done the things he was supposed to) and made it ''very'' obvious that it was actually Hifumi who made said costume.
401* BerserkButton: ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' shows that he ''will'' lecture people who think that he only writes the smutty kind of fanfiction. Miu found out about this the hard way:
402-->'''Miu:''' Huh? Isn't your fanfiction just porn that you wrote and drew yourself? I get it; you make your own wank material cuz you'll never ever touch a body like mine!\
403'''Hifumi:''' Oooh, you think I'm some kind of smut writer! I will not tolerate such an insult! Ten-hut! I will now preach the virtues of 2D!\
404'''Miu:''' Heeeeeee!? D-Don't raise your voice all of a sudden... You scared me...
405* BirdsOfAFeather: In [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony Ultimate Talent Development Plan]], he gets along well with fellow {{Chuunibyou}} Gundham Tanaka and fellow {{Otaku}} Tsumugi Shirogane.
406* BludgeonedToDeath: He kills Kiyotaka via beating him with large hammer. And ''then'' he gets killed in a similar way.
407* ButtMonkey: To Celeste, in particular.
408* PlayfulCatSmile: One of his default expressions. He looks sort of harelipped, in fact.
409* CharacterTics: Pushing up his glasses (in a nerdy, intellectual way). According to Monokuma's observations [[http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp235/TheIneffablePlan/DR%20Artbook%20Translations/CHARACTERPROFILING-YamadaHifumi.png in the artbook]], he does it unconsciously.
410* ChekhovsHobby: In Chapter 3, he mentions during a conversation in the art room that his title also refers to designing and constructing PVC models. That same chapter, he puts those skills to use in the worst way possible to frame Yasuhiro.
411* ChubbyChaser: Based on his attraction to Pretty Pudgy Princess Piggles...
412* {{Chuunibyou}}: He's a [[LargeHam hammy]] {{Otaku}} who sometimes pictures what happens in his sight as dramatized scenes from fiction, and is obsessed with Princess Piggles to the point where in his Free Time Events he confesses to genuinely believing she's real, not to mention that he's a bit of a white knight for real women despite his insistence that he has no interest in "pig-disgusting 3D".
413* CovertPervert: Of an... odd sort. He constantly talks about how he's only into 2D girls and has no interest in the other, 3D female students, but there are multiple hints that he actually is into the other girls, such as him taking part in the bath peeping event and his [[TooKinkyToTorture apparent enjoyment of the verbal abuse Celeste flings at him]].
414* DemotedToExtra: Is notably one of the few students not to be spotlighted in the manga. As a result of its format, much of his scenes are cut, and he mostly stands in the background, bar his interactions with Celeste and his death.
415* DiedInYourArmsTonight: He dies in Aoi's arms while she is sobbing at his death.
416* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: As the stage play skips chapter 3, Hifumi survives up to the end of chapter 4 - where he is instead executed for voting for Celeste as Sakura's murderer. [[note]]In the stage play, even if the killer receives the majority vote, anyone who votes incorrectly is executed along with them.[[/note]]
417* {{Doujinshi}}: His calling and hobby. "Doujin Writer" is actually his Ultimate Talent in the Japanese version, and was likely changed to "Fanboy" in the simulcast anime and "Fanfic Creator" in the official English translation for the sake of requiring less explanation.
418* DontYouDarePityMe: In his Free Time events, he mentions angrily lashing out at girls whom he believes want to spend time with him out of pity. [[DeconstructedTrope Makoto doesn't think this is a very nice thing to do.]]
419* DyingClue: Revealing the identity of his killer and the first hint that the students' memories had been tampered with. He also happens to regain all of the memories taken from him, which is how he knows the killer's real name when the killer has so far been going by an alias. This inadvertently complicates things since her surname is the same as the first name of the character who's ''already'' the target of a frame job.
420* EasyAmnesia: Played with. He recovers his memories through the classic method of being brained with a hammer. Unfortunately, [[RememberedTooLate the blow is also fatal]].
421* EveryoneHasStandards: Hifumi spends his time in the story gushing over 2-D girls and generally giving everyone else the creeps. But even ''he'' thinks some things are just beyond the pale: when Celeste lies to him and tells him Kiyotaka stole Alter Ego ''and'' sexually assaulted her, this makes Hifumi mad enough to beat Kiyotaka to death... right before Celeste double-crosses him and kills him. He's also the first guy to be disturbed at the idea of running his hands all over Chihiro's dead body even when Kyoko states that it'd help the case (note that this is ''before'' he learns Chihiro is actually a boy) and refuses to peep on the girls in the locker room (granted he insists that that last one is because 2-D women are enough for him).
422* ExpressiveHair: His two side-curls tend to point in different directions depending on his mood.
423* FaceDeathWithDignity: He maintains a zenlike calmness as he lay dying in Hina's arms.
424* FanBoy: Of Princess Piggles, but that's hardly the extent of his fannishness.
425* FatalFlaw: His {{Otaku}} delusions make him gullible and easy to manipulate, which Celeste uses to kill him and Taka.
426* FatBastard: He murders an innocent man in cold blood without a shred of evidence that he did any of the crimes Hifumi murdered him for, and seems completely unfazed by the notion that everyone besides him and Celeste would die because of his actions.
427* FatComicRelief: There is little dialogue that comes from Hifumi that is not in some way silly or comical. His poor diet is also exploited for humor.
428* FatIdiot: Considered one by Celeste, who, when describing her plan, notes how easily he was fooled, particularly in his being turned against Kiyotaka, and being tricked into not suspecting that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness she would dispose of him when she no longer needed him]]. As GeniusDitz below shows, though, he's more gullible than actually this.
429* {{Foil}}:
430** To Celeste, surprisingly enough. Celeste's Free Time Events imply her to be an otaku herself, one who [[ClosetGeek desperately wants to obscure that fact from others]]. Small wonder Hifumi seems to piss her off so much.
431** He's also one to Toko. Both are authors, both are [[FriendlessBackground loners]], and both are very attached to what they write: however, they don't get along at all because their writing fields are so different and because both undervalue the other's. Hifumi is also a pervert while Toko hates those kinds of people.
432* FourEyesZeroSoul: He wears round OpaqueLenses and murdered an innocent man in cold blood over a FalseRapeAccusation with no evidence.
433* FriendlessBackground: A lot of his character arc shows that he rarely gets to ramble about all the fandom-related tropes he's so passionate about, save for Makoto if the player chooses to go through his Free-Time Events, and later Alter Ego. In his final Free Time Event, he chooses to call Makoto a friend.
434* FullNameBasis: He always has a distinctive way to address his peers which varies on the language. In the original Japanese he addresses everyone by their full name ''and'' [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics with the old-fashioned honorific "-dono"]]. This later proves to be a big clue towards figuring out who murdered him.
435* GeekPhysique: A parody of the fat alternative.
436* GeniusDitz: For all the flak he gets from Celeste for being a FatIdiot, the first two trials see a pretty even number of contributions/deductions from both of them (which is to say their combined efforts don't come close to the amount of work put in by the 3 Trial Point Getters; with how little legwork anyone ''but'' the main trio does in investigations, this is still significant). He figured that Sayaka's killer got invited through the front door before Kyoko said anything and quickly picked up on her dying message not being a numeral code (notably the ''only'' character who didn't need to be handheld on the dying message angle), while his accidentally finding the broken electronic ID played just as much of a role in catching the second culprit as Celeste's accidentally meeting with Chihiro before his death.
437* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: While this is far from unique within the series, his [[LargeHam hammy tendencies]] give him the distinction of two sprites that involve pointing dramatically. In one of these he can be seen sweating nervously in the midst of it, indicating that he probably jumped the gun with his accusation.
438* GoIntoTheLight: He brings up such a light during his death scene.
439* {{Gonk}}: Even if he wasn't the only obese character in the game, he's not particularly attractive. He looks ''even worse'' in the Closing Argument for Chapter 3's trial, as the art style makes him look like a deranged hippo.
440* HiddenDepths: According to ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaSUltimateSummerCamp'', at least, he's good at juggling.
441* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Wholeheartedly agrees and serves Celestia despite how awfully she treats him, and believes just about anything that comes out of her mouth. He also doesn't hesitate to believe the claim that the virtuous Ishimaru raped her.
442* HotBlooded: He's ''very'' quick to jump to conclusions and once his mind is set on something it's nigh impossible to change it. This, combined with his earlier fight with Kiyotaka over Alter Ego, is what lead him to murder Kiyotaka over Celeste's lies [[ATragedyOfImpulsiveness without bothering to check if they were true.]]
443* HypocriticalHumor: He takes a moment to poke fun at Aoi's BigEater tendencies by comparing her to a goldfish that eats whatever is available, which she immediately calls him out on.
444* IdiotHair: A non-protagonist example, most likely due to his oddball otaku nature.
445* IfItsYouItsOkay: Along with his 2D fetish for Alter Ego, he completely ignores that the real Chihiro Fujisaki was [[GenderReveal a guy the whole time]] and falls heads over heels for Alter Ego. However, there are straight males with [[OtokonokoGenre a fetish for male-to-female crossdressers]] in real life, so maybe this isn't too far off.
446* IJustWantToHaveFriends: As much as he dismisses any need for 3-D people in his life, the enthusiasm with which he rambles about his nerdy interests to anyone that'll listen and the frequency with which he gets ignored seems to imply he'd really like someone to talk to.
447* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: A perverted {{otaku}} who makes it a point of pride to drive girls trying to be nice to him away aside, he's a man with a lot of genuine conviction underneath all his unsavory traits. He sincerely thinks the world of the world of doujinshi, wants to spread his passions to a wide, appreciative audience, and in Free Time Events, he treats Makoto well while offering to make him his assistant. But underneath ''that'', he's a guy who gleefully murdered an innocent man without even bothering to ask said man if the FalseRapeAccusation that motivated Hifumi to murder him was true. Not to mention he didn't have any qualms about letting all the others die to get his so-called "revenge".
448* TheInsomniac: He mentions during School Mode that his work usually pushes him to doing a lot of all-nighters, which means he can't relate to people used to eating a quality breakfast in the morning (he apparently relies on junk food for fuel).
449* InsultBackfire: A part of Hifumi apparently thinks Toko is complimenting him when she tells him he stinks. The derogatory term "otaku" also only fills him with pride.
450* KitschCollection: His room is covered wall-to-wall in Princess Piggles merchandise.
451* LargeHam: Most of what comes out of his mouth are overblown reactions. His portraits are also very dynamic with exaggerated poses.
452* LastNameBasis: He refers to everyone by their last name by habit. This turns out to be a plot point in the third trial as figuring out he was using "Yasuhiro" as a last name is what makes the killer's true identity perfectly clear to everyone.
453* {{Malaproper}}: He misreads Genocide Jack's calling card ("chimidoro fever") as "chichideka fever" (a weird reversal of "dekachichi" meaning "large breasts"). This {{pun}} gets translated as him mistaking "bloodlust" for "booblust".
454* MommasBoy: Claims that his mother was the only woman he liked before Alter Ego who showed interest in his hobbies.
455* MurderTheHypotenuse: An... interesting case to say the least. He already had a rivaly with Ishiamru because he was using Alter-Ego as a way of coping with Mondo and Chihiro's deaths, and Hifumi had a, ugh, [[{{Robosexual}} crush on it]]. [[ManipulativeBitch Celeste]] used that alongside a FalseRapeAccusation (which she didn't elaborate about, by the way) to her advantage to manipulate Hifumi into murdering Ishimaru.
456* MustHaveCaffeine: Goes into ''withdrawal'' when deprived of his Diet Coke in the conversations.
457* NeatFreak: He can be seen eating potato chips with chopsticks in his character portrait, presumably to keep any chip dust from getting on his fingers and therefore his pen or tablet, while some disinfectant wipes are sitting nearby.
458* NiceJobFixingItVillain: While Celeste's unusual behavior didn't help matters, most of the evidence left behind to help clear Hiro's name and prove Hifumi was still alive when he was presumed to be dead was because of his own ineptitude. He got blood on the dolly's wheel, which proved it was used to move Taka's body to the Repository, spilled blood on his own glasses, forcing him to wipe it off while leaving a vital clue that he wasn't dead, and designed the Robo Justice suit in such a way that Hiro couldn't have possibly transported Taka's body the way it was done.
459* NonStandardCharacterDesign: Compared to the more standard designs, Hifumi looks more like a caricature. He also lacks the series' standard eye designs, and has a chipmunk-like upper-lip in most of his poses.
460* NoSocialSkills: He rarely interacts with anyone without his {{Troperiffic}} fandom filter, nor does he consider his categorizations to be rude-sounding.
461* OldSchoolChivalry: Seems to be a partial motivation in his going along with [[WoundedGazelleGambit Celeste's plan]].
462* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: A subtle one, but when he dies in Hina's arms, the idea of making a perverted comment or comparing the situation to a dramatic fictional scenario never crosses his mind.
463* OpaqueNerdGlasses: Sometimes has his specs become more like these.
464* OpenMouthInsertFoot: He tends to speak in a stream-of-consciousness manner that doesn't consider how awkward he might come off doing this.
465* {{Otaku}}: He interestingly considers this term a compliment.
466* OverlyNervousFlopSweat: Everyone has a sprite for nervous sweating. His just happens to be more exaggerated.
467* PerpetualExpression: He noticeably changes expression, but his :3 smile only truly disappears in exactly one portrait.
468* PerverseSexualLust: For Hifumi, it's 2-D women only. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial Allegedly.]] Going by the odd bit of dialogue, that seems to include [[ElegantGothicLolita Celeste]] as well. That may be part of the reason he went along so easily; not only a few well-placed bluffs, but the fact they're given by the one he may have idolized to an extent.
469* PervertedDrooling: He has a sprite that seems intended to invoke this.
470* PetTheDog: In a Free Time Event, Makoto learns that Hifumi actually has an ''altruistic'' dream: since he realizes that there are some people who only read fanfic casually, or only certain kinds, he wants to inspire those people to create ''their own'' fanfics, so he can "save" those people by giving them a direction in life, as his favorite anime character Heretic Angel ★ Mochi Mochi Princess did for ''him'', which is how Hifumi got into the fanfic business in the first place.
471* ThePigPen: He gets accused of being this by Toko, yet [[http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp235/TheIneffablePlan/DR%20Artbook%20Translations/CHARACTERPROFILING-YamadaHifumi.png according to the art book]], he's actually quite nitpicky about personal hygiene.
472* PoorCommunicationKills: If he had simply ''asked'' Taka about the claim he raped Celeste, it would have probably spared both their lives.
473* PrecisionFStrike: He drops his sole f-bomb when Celestia dupes him into thinking Kiyotaka raped her; he declares in a rage that he's going to "f...f...f-fucking kill him!"
474* ProudToBeAGeek: He sees absolutely nothing shameful about the way he talks about his love of 2-D, or any other nerdy subject for that matter. Leon is perplexed that he's not more embarrassed about it. Is ''very'' unashamed of his status as a doujin creator and otaku.
475* RapeAndRevenge: Falsely believing that Taka had raped Celeste, Hifumi kills him out of revenge.
476* RememberedTooLate: It is implied during his final words that he remembers the forgotten two years at Hope's Peak.
477* {{Robosexual}}: He falls in love with Chihiro's computer program, Alter Ego. Celeste exploits this when she steals the laptop and convinces him that Kiyotaka did it.
478* RunningGag: Most of the class photos have Sakura keeping him in line by the IdiotHair. God only knows what he did to deserve that.
479* SeriousBusiness: His field, the fanfic circle business. For example, he hates "losers" who only watch ''Demon Angel ★ Pretty Pudgy Princess'' because Princess Piggles, the main character, turns them on; in his case, he watches the series because he sees it as a meta-science narrative and an answer to J.D. Gillard's theories. He also will get upset if Makoto misidentifies some aspect of fanfics, and he talks about possibly attending certain conventions all by himself so that the "not serious" fans don't ruin it. Also, his dream is to ''save aimless people'' by inspiring them to create their own fanfics, as his own favorite character had inspired him.
480* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: In a bizarre take on the trope, Hifumi insists that ''the entire world of 3-D women'' could never be his girlfriends, since he insists he is only attracted to 2-D women.
481* ShoutOut: A lot of his lines are references to various anime and video games.
482* SpannerInTheWorks: Celeste killed him because she assumed he'd find some way to screw up the trial and incriminate her. He also messed up the frame job by taking Celeste's request of some sort of identity-disguising costume and making a ridiculous robot suit that ends up ''exonerating'' Yasuhiro since it's too clunky to properly move around in.
483* StoutStrength: Was able to carry Yasuhiro, who already weighs 71 kilograms not including the heavy Justice Suit, which points to him being stronger than his GeekPhysics might suggest.
484* SuperGullible: At least, when it comes to Celeste. At least when she accused ''Kiyotaka'' of all people of raping and blackmailing her, Hifumi has the excuse that Kiyotaka was acting strange following a mental breakdown. Never questioning her plan even when he knew it involved his supposed death (and how was the 'death' story going to hold up when Monokuma made him appear at the trial?) and that Celeste would have to kill someone herself in order to graduate, on the other hand, is pure gullibility.
485* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Any hints of interest in 3-D women are immediately followed by these, such as when Monokuma brought up "[[ThePeepingTom Man's Ambition]]".
486* SympatheticMurderer: Like Celeste, it's zig-zagged. He kills Taka only because Celeste made a FalseRapeAccusation against him and takes advantage of the "LoveTriangle" both men had with Alter Ego...but on the other hand, though, you could argue that Hifumi had every opportunity to ask Taka if the accusations Celeste made against him were actually ''true'' or not before murdering him, and he immediately believed Celeste's lie simply because he ''wanted'' to believe it due to his pre-existing anger toward Taka. However, he loops back around to being sympathetic when it's revealed that his memories were tampered with by Junko and he wouldn't have killed one of his friends if he still had those memories. The fact that he actually regains said memories only as he is dying makes it all the sadder.
487* ThisIsUnforgivable: In the English release, his VoiceGrunting to express anger includes "This is... unforgivable!" and "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis To-tal-ly]] un...forgivable!"
488* ThrowTheDogABone: Hifumi gets the privilege of dying in Aoi's arms while Aoi is sobbing at his death. Notably, in his FriendlessBackground, he used to ''resent'' this sort of thing, angrily driving away girls who wanted to "be nice to the fat nerdy kid to feel good about themselves."
489* TooDumbToLive: He knew that the plan would require him to fake his death, and unquestioningly believed Celeste's claim that she had a plan to "explain" his death by killing another person at the same time. It never dawns on him that as someone who knows about Celeste's plan, and someone who was "supposed" to have died from being hit by Justice Hammer #3, Celeste would kill him to tie up loose ends.
490* TopHeavyGuy: It's a wonder his shrimpy legs can support his massive girth.
491* TookALevelInKindness: Hifumi's perverted and creepy side is downplayed in the Summer Camp, where he has plenty of normal conversations with members of the female cast.
492* UnwittingPawn: Celeste played him hook, line, and sinker while he was none the wiser until it was too late.
493* UsedToBeMoreSocial: A variant; it's subtly implied from both the photos and his last words that Hifumi was a lot less of a weird loner before Junko wiped his and the others' memories.
494* VocalDissonance: An obese TopHeavyGuy with a very high-pitched, squeaky voice.
495* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: He has difficulty explaining his feelings for Alter Ego, and confusedly uses this wording (depending on the translation).
496* WrongGenreSavvy: Many times he tries to view the story through the lens of some anime or manga. Most characters think he's delusional as a result of this. [[FatalFlaw It gets him killed]] when he fails to realize that Celeste ''isn't'' the {{Tsundere}} he needs to [[DefrostingIceQueen defrost]] he believes her to be until he's already bleeding out on the floor.
497* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: With a side of HeKnowsTooMuch. Celestia kills him because a) since he's the one to actually kill Kiyotaka, Monokuma would have probably judged him the blackened, b) he trusts her and she can manipulate him into the perfect position, and c) he knows a lot of incriminating information and she doesn't trust him to keep his mouth shut at the trial.
498[[/folder]]
499
500[[folder:Yasuhiro Hagakure]]
501[[WMG:Yasuhiro Hagakure]]
502!!!Ultimate Clairvoyant
503[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yasuhirohagakure2048.png]]
504[[caption-width-right:350:''"I can predict absolutely anything with perfect accuracy twenty percent of the time!"'']]
505
506->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MasayaMatsukaze (Japanese), Creator/KaijiTang (game), Creator/ChristopherBevins (anime) (English)
507->'''Played by:''' Akira Ishida[[note]]Not the same one that does the voice of Byakuya in the games[[/note]], Masaya Matsukaze, Shouhei Osada (stage)
508
509A big name in Japan's fortune-telling community. Yasuhiro has made a killing off of his predictions, which he boasts have an 1-in-5 accuracy regardless of topic or scope. He's actually twenty[[note]]Twenty-one in the English localization, possibly because the legal drinking age is a year higher in America[[/note]] years old (having been held back several times in high school) and is easily one of the more laid-back and gullible cast members. He gets framed for the murders in Chapter 3, and mistakenly believes that he killed the victim of Chapter 4. He survives the final trial and escapes the school with the rest of the surviving students.
510----
511* AbsurdlyYouthfulFather: In the bad ending. While he's old enough that his age isn't particularly weird for a father, it should be noted that his child is visibly the youngest of the three.
512* AintTooProudToBeg: Where the other survivors are shaken by Junko's combined BreakingSpeech[=/=]MotiveRant, Yasuhiro breaks completely down and desperately begs to be spared.
513* AndYouThoughtItWasAGame: Even after Monokuma reveals his DeadlyGame, Yasuhiro continues to insist it's all some sort of weird initiation prank. When it finally sinks in after someone is gruesomely killed in front of him, he promptly freaks out.
514* AnimeHair: States in School Mode that it's his natural hair.
515* TheBarnum: It's sometimes hard to tell if he's being honest about his swindling ways, or if he's just too stupid to deceive anyone.
516* BromanticFoil: Grows into one toward Makoto by being the more fun-loving, open and approachable of the remaining male students. Makoto's feelings towards him are... mixed.
517* ButtMonkey: His status as a PhonyPsychic combined with his weird beliefs and general absent-mindedness leads to pretty much every character treating him like the punchline to a bad joke. Even Makoto, despite probably being the one who is most friendly towards him, has problems taking him seriously. He also ends up the primary suspect of two murder cases ''in a row'' with the manga implying Celeste chose him as a scapegoat because she didn't like him; in the game, she says she chose him because he was an idiot (and that, unlike her choice of accomplice, his idiocy when framed was well beyond her expectations.)
518** Even in ''Ultimate Summer Camp'' and ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'', things rarely go his way. In ''Ultimate Summer Camp'', he's the only student that's of age, but he's also the only one whose mom is on the trip, which annoys him because a lot of people didn't think he'd have a mom like Hiroko.
519* CharacterizationMarchesOn: When he's first introduced, he's a bit odd and kind of slow, but as the game progresses, his actions and dialogue become increasingly more erratic and idiotic. Lampshaded.
520-->'''Hina:''' What the heck's happened to you...? You weren't like this from the beginning, you know.\
521'''Hiro:''' [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Well, back then my personality hadn't quite solidified yet...!]]
522* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
523** He thinks for the longest time that Monokuma and the scenario he presents is just some kind of weird stunt, and when it finally dawns on him, as the last of the students, that it is actually deadly serious his FreakOut lasts for an entire day. And even after that, he still spends most of his time acting laid-back and somewhat detached from the gravity of the situation. And that's without going into things like the hamburger story.
524** Even he is weirded out by Miu's antics in ''Ultimate Summer Camp'' when she accuses him of being a peeping tom for being a clairvoyant and that he has a fetish for "looking down on objects of beauty".
525--->'''Hiro:''' Th-this is absurd, even to me... Why do ''I'' have to put up with this...
526* ConspiracyTheorist: He has a few tendencies toward this, especially in his Free Time Events, with his belief in such things as aliens and cryptids. In the MTB against him, he will sometimes yell, "It's a conspiracy!"
527* CoatCape: Going with his laidback persona.
528* CollectorOfTheStrange: Has an unusual fascination with Out-Of-Place Artifacts ([=OOPArts=]).
529* CompressedHair: How Hifumi managed to stuff that do of his under the Robo Justice helmet is anyone's guess.
530* TheCuckoolanderWasRight:
531** At least one of his predictions comes true: At the start of Chapter 4, he predicts that no one else will be murdered. He's right: Sakura's murder turns out to be a suicide, Mukuro's murder is revealed to have happened back in Chapter 1, Makoto survives his "execution", and the mastermind commits suicide by "executing" herself. Who could have seen that coming?
532** And if that one is wrong (in the bad ending, where Kyoko is murdered via execution), then ''another'' one of his predictions becomes true: that he and Makoto's kids will have the same mom; he and Makoto (and Byakuya) [[BabiesEverAfter all have a son with Hina]].
533* DeadpanSnarker: He starts to become one around the third chapter.
534-->'''Hifumi:''' Don't put me on the same level as that...that...virgin! I might catch his virginity!\
535'''Yasuhiro:''' Nah, my guess is you're already infected...
536* DeathByAdaptation: It's him who gets stabbed to death in Makoto's shower instead of Sayaka in the demo.
537* TheDitz: Commonly considered the dumbest of the students, to the extent that Makoto isn't particularly surprised upon finding out how much he spent on his (now shattered) crystal/glass ball.
538-->"He's such an idiot, I can't even bring myself to feel bad for him..."
539* DumbassHasAPoint: In the third case, after spending most of the time flailing around protesting his innocence, he asks what the real murder weapon was for Hifumi, since it would have been risky for the culprit to retrieve Justice Hammer 3 or 4 from the crime scene and then return it while everyone else was running around the school. Byakuya makes this observation.
540--->'''[[{{Jerkass}} Byakuya]]:''' [[DeadpanSnarker ...I'm surprised. It seems there's some semblance of a brain knocking around inside that skull of yours, after all]].
541* DubNameChange: Yasuhiro gets shortened to "Hiro."
542* EntertaininglyWrong: A recurring theme is that he tends to pick up on suspicious or noteworthy details but come to off-base conclusions. This adds fuel to the fire that is [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane the debate over whether or not his abilities are real.]]
543** In the first trial, he suggests that the killer was the one who started with the sword during the struggle and that they attacked first. While he's incorrect about the latter point, Kyoko and Makoto prove the former not long after.
544** In the second trial, he is the one to propose the idea that Chihiro appropriated Leon's e-handbook to get into the boy's locker room. He is right in that someone stole an e-handbook to get into a locker room they couldn't get into normally, but in reality, the culprit appropriated either Sayaka or Junko's handbook, to get into the girl's locker room.
545** In the third trial, he proposes that Hifumi had his screams recorded, then killed and the recording was played back. While this is shot down immediately because there's no evidence, he is right that Hifumi's time of death was obscured through foul play- Hifumi was only pretending to be dead at first. He also proposes the idea several minutes before Kyoko does the same thing.
546* {{Flanderization}}: His obsession with money. In the original game, Hiro's bizarre spending habits are brought up fairly infrequently, and his Yakuza debts are only revealed late into his Free Time Events. Later material would make this an increasingly pronounced part of his character, to the point that almost all of his events in ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' are about him trying to find new get-rich opportunities and hucking overpriced things or his overpriced fortunes.
547* FortuneTeller: His talent, though he only gets it right 20-30% of the time, depending on translation and adaption.
548* TheFriendNobodyLikes: He seems to have no close friends among the other students. Even [[MessianicArchetype Makoto]] expresses distaste for him at the end of his free time events (Yasuhiro had just asked Makoto to donate his organs so he could pay off a debt without having to dip into his savings). It outright gets meta. A lot of official group art tends to pair the students up based on their relationships. Yasuhiro, however, is usually just standing there by himself to the side.
549* GeniusDitz: As stupid as he is to lose it all, he managed to raise one hundred million yen at one point purely through his fortune telling (which he then spent on a phony crystal ball). If nothing else, [[WildMassGuessing he might be a far better conman than he lets on...]]
550* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: One of his "angry" sprites has him doing this, as does one of his "yelling" sprites.
551* HeldBackInSchool: Has been held back three times. This however isn't because of a lack of intelligence, but because he's spent those last three years on the run due to his debts to the Yakuza.
552* HeroicBSOD: The fifth trial, as Junko reveals how thoroughly she tricked all of them, and [[PleaseIWillDoAnything he pleads her one last time to be spared]] before going over the edge of the trope. Makoto breaks him out of it, and he decides he wants to move forward no matter how difficult the path may look, losing the [[CloudCuckooLander goofiness that his talent predisposes him to]] and showing real focus for the first time (saying he wants to trust his instincts instead of his divination).
553* IdiotSavant: Displays amazing self-trained penmanship and a working knowledge of electronics (by leading the dismantling of Monokuma and rewiring an antennae to pick up television signals from the outside world) despite the way he acts.
554* InappropriateHunger: He makes the mistake of comparing Mukuro's flaming corpse to a well-done steak, which Aoi berates him for (since she might never be able to eat steak again after that).
555* InSeriesNickname: As mentioned the official dub of the first game just calls him "Hiro".
556* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: He gets into this with Aoi a lot. When she complains about the design of the Justice Robo costume, his first reaction is to tell her not to bash other people's designs, which only makes her more certain that he was the one who made it. Then in the next chapter, when she calls him a "stinking idiot", he is placated when she amends it to "you just stink." Later, when she accuses him of "Killing someone... and then standing here chatting and smiling..." he first insists he's not smiling before adding hastily that he's not the killer either.
557* InsistentTerminology: No matter what it looks like, Yasuhiro's fortune telling is ''not'' occult. He hates the occult.
558* IRejectYourReality: He spends most of the first chapter neck-deep in denial about their status as prisoners in a DeadlyGame. He only snaps out of it once Junko gets wasted.
559* {{Jerkass}}: Though it is usually forgivable considering his [[ButtMonkey status]], he does admit that he has no problem hitting girls who can't fight back and attacks Sakura in Chapter 4, albeit in what he thought was self-defense. Less forgivable is the fact that he tried to frame Toko for the "murder", albeit while he thought he killed Sakura, knowing full well that could get everyone executed if they accused the wrong person.
560* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: For all his insensitivity, he does still manage to show off several shreds of decency across the game. He tries making Hina feel better when everyone else is making fun of her for mistaking Alter Ego for a ghost, he's the ''only'' member of the cast to even try to console Ishimaru after his HeroicBSOD, he yells for help when Jill attacks Hina in Chapter 4, helps Makoto take her to the infirmary, is among the first to forgive her for [[TakingYouWithMe trying to get them all executed]] and after everything, he's the first in the final non-stop debate to be prevented from crossing the DespairEventHorizon.
561* LiteralMinded: Doesn't catch on to being insulted by Aoi or Byakuya, taking the former's comment that idiots can't catch colds as her stating an actual fact to him, and [[SarcasmBlind earnestly apologizing for the latter's exaggerated disgust]] with all of them.
562* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Of the predictions we actually see him seriously make in the game, one ''will'' come true (that there won't be any more murders or that he and Makoto's children will share a mother), creating a serious possibility that his abilities are legitimate and he's just so ''[[TheDitz stupid]]'' that he only interprets them correctly with such abysmal odds. In ''Ultimate Summer Camp'', it's portrayed as if it were real, usually. When reading Mukuro!Junko's future without her knowledge, he thinks he sees what is her future style as "glossy black hair" and completely different makeup, meaning he saw Mukuro as herself.
563* TheNicknamer: In the anime subtitles his use of the suffix "-chi" is translated as this, i.e. "Naegs" and "Fujisakins." "Ultimate Summer Camp'' continues with this:
564** Angie: Angus
565** Byakuya (both): Byakky Boy
566** Chihiro: Fujisakins and Cheerio
567** Gundham: Gumby
568** Hiyoko: Hiyobro and Saiyonjeans
569** Junko (both): Junkie
570** Keebo: Keeboard
571** Kiyotaka: Kiyotaks
572** Korekiyo: Korey
573** Makoto: Naegs
574** Maki: Maks
575** Mikan: Micky
576** Miu: Mew
577** Monaca: Monaccers
578** Rantaro: Ranty
579** Ryoma: Ryoman
580** Tsumugi: Tsumoogs
581* NoYou: In the fourth case, when he's the initial suspect for killing Sakura.
582-->'''Toko:''' Y-you're acting incredibly s-suspicious...\
583'''Yasuhiro:''' YOU'RE acting incredibly suspicious!
584* NobodysThatDumb: He tries to invoke this at one point when he gets called stupid, only to prove it further.
585-->'''Asahina:''' I'm starting to worry about you, Hiro. Can you tell me what ten plus ten is?\
586'''Hagakure:''' Hey, come on! You don't ALWAYS have to call me dumb! I may have been held back three times, but that doesn't make me stupid! But if it'll make you happy, I'll answer your dumb question...! So! Um...what was the question again?\
587'''Asahina:''' Don't worry. You just answered it...
588* ObfuscatingStupidity:
589** Averted throughout the story (as far as we know) and yet deliberately invoked in the third chapter. Celeste's plan hinged on crafting him into a villain that can build a complex disguise, alter his handwriting on that disguise's blueprints, lift Hifumi's corpse up two flights of stairs, outrun Aoi, slip past Sakura's honed senses and be able to hide these traits all through the last two chapters while constructing a systematic rampage that would have the students running around in confusion. The extraordinary personality contrast put forth here along with the notion of him hypothetically doing all this [[OrgyOfEvidence while leaving so much evidence behind]] was a big reason for her plan failing.
590** It should be mentioned that in his final Free-Time Event, Makoto Naegi of all people concludes that he's not someone he can let his guard down around. This coming from the group's AmateurSleuth[=/=]AllLovingHero.
591* OneOfTheKids: At twenty, he's older than the other students, yet can be the most immature, ditzy, slow to understand and quick to panic.
592* OpinionFlipflop: Tends to go along with the flow. While he does assert himself from time to time, and develops into a DeadpanSnarker, he also backs down and panics when faced with challenges.
593-->'''Kiyotaka:''' Do you not have a mind of your own!?\
594'''Yasuhiro:''' Of course I do! What am I, an ant or somethin'?
595* PhonyPsychic: Depending on your view of psychics and fortune tellers, his ''guaranteed'' 20-30% accuracy rating is either incredibly high or incredibly low for his profession. He still thinks he's good enough to charge people through the roof for his services.
596* ThePigPen: [[http://36.media.tumblr.com/f6b4a40c2d3ea79d5fa5c236cb356f8d/tumblr_mmaasxeYNY1r0t4l4o3_r1_1280.jpg He says in a magazine spread advertising the Anime]] that he washes his hair once a season, and goes so far as to proudly state that he's started using fabric softener on it. Leon is naturally disgusted.
597* PluckyComicRelief: Takes over this role full time when the other comical characters like Hifumi are gone. The remaining students find it pretty grating.
598* RedHerring: He seems like one of the most cut-and-dry places the game could invoke ShooOutTheClowns, right down to him being the first victim in Sayaka's place in the demo, but against all odds he manages to pull through and escape Hope's Peak with his head on his shoulders.
599* RummageSaleReject: Seemingly the intention behind his design, to make him seem even stranger. [[http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp235/TheIneffablePlan/DR%20Artbook%20Translations/CharacterProfiling-HagakureYasuhiro.png According to the art book]], just about everything he's wearing is rooted in his susceptibility to superstition rather than his susceptibility to fashion.
600* TheScapegoat: Celeste's murder plan consisted on framing Yasuhiro for Hifumi and Ishimaru's deaths.
601* TheScrooge: A major reason he wants Makoto's organs to pay off the Yakuza is because of his not wanting to spend his own savings so he can retire in comfort. To say the least, Makoto is completely disgusted with him after finding this out.
602* SkewedPriorities: In his story at the beginning of Chapter 4, his reaction to having his takeout abducted by aliens is to go back and confront the restaurant owner over false advertising because the aliens rejected over half of his "100% beef" burger for their cattle-mutilationary purposes.
603* StraightMan: Surprisingly enough, seeing as he's [[CloudCuckoolander not exactly normal himself]], he ends up fitting into this role extremely easily with the even ''more'' eccentric cast members.
604* StrokeTheBeard: His thinking sprite has him doing this.
605* SuperGullible: ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' and ''Ultimate Summer Camp'' bring up his falling for scams or "get rich quick" schemes really often and Angie even manages to convert him to worshipping Atua.
606* SupportingLeader: He ''tries'' to be this at the start of chapter 3, partially [[PetTheDog to try and get Ishimaru to feel better]], but it [[ButtMonkey falls apart pretty quickly.]]
607* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: During the investigation phase in case 2. "I most certainly wasn't checking the contents of that letterbox!" Though when he presents his discovery at the trial it turns out he didn't check enough to find out "Leon's" card was broken.
608* SurferDude: The unofficial translation patch localizes his speech into this, having him end his sentences with "dude".
609* ThrowTheDogABone: In the good ending, despite his status as the ButtMonkey, he is one of the six students to escape from the academy with his life.
610* TokenAdult: He's 20 amongst 16-17 year old students due to being held back a few times. Ironically, this only serves to make him a {{Manchild}} compared to people who are WiseBeyondTheirYears. It doesn't help when it actually turns out he's 22 amongst 18-19 year olds.
611* VerbalTic: In Japanese he ends most of his sentences with "-be" since he speaks in a Tohoku dialect. The LetsPlay has him end his sentences with "right?".
612* WallSlump: In the demo only, his stabbed corpse is slumped up against the shower's wall with way too much blood covering him. Surprisingly enough, whoever killed him managed to keep the wall relatively clean.
613* TheWatson: His frequent need of explanations are useful for keeping the player up to speed.
614* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Despite being a fortune teller, he freaks out at the mention of ghosts, and denies that they exist. To the point that in the fifth case, you must firmly establish that Kyoko is not the victim, and therefore not a ghost while she is standing literally feet away from him, a conversation so stupid that half of the group don't even take part in it.
615* WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing: Survives the killing game largely by the dint of being too incompetent to murder anyone and too inoffensive to be a target himself. And when he was framed, Makoto did most of the legwork in proving him innocent.
616* WouldHitAGirl: Threatens to punch Genocide Jill, though he backs down with a claim that "I'm strong with girls, but kinda weak with strong girls..." And in Chapter 4, he panics and beans Sakura over the head with a bottle.
617[[/folder]]
618
619[[folder:Chihiro Fujisaki]]
620[[WMG:Chihiro Fujisaki]]
621!!!Ultimate Programmer
622[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chihirofujisaki2048.png]]
623[[caption-width-right:350:''“Well, just cuz...you seem upset. You must be mad at me, right?”'']]
624
625->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KoukiMiyata (Japanese), Creator/DorothyEliasFahn (game), Creator/KaraEdwards (anime) (English)
626->'''Played by:''' Haruka Ishida, Makoto Okunaka, Mizuki, Chinami Moriyama (stage)
627
628A TeenGenius currently developing top-secret AI programs for an unnamed company. Chihiro is the smallest of all the students, and ashamed of being seen as weak. While the other characters initially assume that Chihiro is female due to "her" shy demeanor and manner of dress, it is later revealed that he is actually a boy who crossdresses to disguise his frail stature, having been ruthlessly bullied for his unmanly physique. He is the victim of chapter 2, bludgeoned to death with a dumbbell by Mondo after inadvertently pressing his BerserkButton. He leaves behind a self-aware computer program called "Alter Ego" on a hidden laptop, which helps the other students.
629----
630* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: He was constantly [[StockShoujoBullyingTactics bullied]] for being small and frail for a boy, so he decided to dress as a girl to make the bullying stop, as well as to distance himself from other people's perceived ideas of masculinity that he felt he couldn't live up to. In Chapter 2 he realizes that he can't keep doing this, so he decides to come clean about his true gender...but after he tells Mondo his secret, he's murdered.
631* ApologizesALot: Which doesn't help him much in terms of presenting himself as a "strong" person, most likely due to being bullied so much in the past.
632* AttractiveBentGender: Genocide Jill certainly thinks so. And after seeing him smile in his introduction, Makoto thinks that he understands the rabid fanbase.
633* BrainyBrunette: One of the most straightforward genius talents in the game, and with a head of brown to match.
634* ButThouMust: In Makoto's last free time segment with Chihiro, he'll ask who you think he should train with to become stronger. The correct choice is Mondo Owada, who later ends up murdering him.[[note]]If you choose Sakura, Chihiro will say that it has to be a guy, and if you choose Byakuya, Chihiro will say Byakuya isn't quite the person he's looking for[[/note]]
635* CornerOfWoe: Gets one [[http://lpix.org/581088/IMG_0072.jpg at the end of a]] {{Yonkoma}} when he decides to become more manly but is promptly confronted by the other students flagrantly violating stereotypical gender roles. "I'm not sure... what 'manly' means anymore..."
636* CrucifiedHeroShot: How his lifeless body is found.
637* ADayInTheLimelight: He receives a chapter in the manga all to himself.
638* DelicateAndSickly: Chihiro never had the physical strength to go out and play with others as a child.
639* DisguisedInDrag: Dresses as a girl to avoid ridicule, because he was considered "too weak" to be a boy.
640* DudeLooksLikeALady: So much so that he was bullied because of it, so he tried crossdressing to counteract this. This, however, made his insecurities worse.
641* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Retroactively, at least. When first introduced to Chihiro, Makoto notes that he's starting to understand how adorable Chihiro's fans find "her".
642* FaceYourFears: He resolves to tell everyone his painful secret after he's gotten stronger.
643* FailureToSaveMurder: At the beginning of the second chapter, a tearful and guilt-ridden Chihiro feels that they killed Leon by voting for him as the culprit. The others hasten to remind him that they didn't have a real choice in the matter.
644* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Chihiro is killed early into the story, but manages to leave behind Alter Ego, who becomes instrumental in helping the survivors defeat the Mastermind and escape.
645* {{Foil}}:
646** To Mondo. Chihiro is the physically weakest of the boys and tries to hide this by crossdressing, but more than makes up for his physical weaknesses with a surprisingly strong will. Mondo is physically strong and [[IGaveMyWord also takes his manly promises seriously]], but uses his recklessness and aggression in an attempt to cover up his lack of willpower. Chihiro and Mondo admire each other for being strong where they consider themselves to be weak.
647** He's also a foil to Sakura, in a different way. He's the feminine boy to her masculine girl, but they both have issues with how their gender relates to strength, and they both prove to be among the most heroic students and end up playing key roles in ending the killing game despite dying in it themselves.
648* {{Foreshadowing}}:
649** There are lots of hints that Chihiro is secretly a boy and identifies as such, but each hint on its own doesn't mean very much.
650*** Chihiro will usually go quiet for a second whenever people mention the differences between males and females, or when someone talks about Chihiro's girlhood or femininity.
651*** When Makoto asks how he got into programming in one of his Free Time events, Chihiro is shocked when Makoto says that he always assumed most programmers were guys and asks, "Is it really that weird...?"
652*** One of the presents that Chihiro likes the most is a perfume that is intended for men to attract women. Because men hate the scent; it would only make sense for a boy to ''really'' like such perfume, not a girl (unless the girl is Kyoko), and the only other boy to like the perfume as much as Chihiro does is [[TheCasanova Leon]]. Another such gift is a 'unisex' thong. Also, gifts he ''loathes'' include feminine things like a kitten hairpin and Gothic Lolita accessories.
653*** Aoi and Sakura also at one point wonder why Chihiro always refuses their invitations to train together even though he wants to get stronger (this would be because he wouldn't be able to access the woman's locker room with a man's e-Handbook and Chihiro would thus be outed as a boy) and why Chihiro spends more time with the boys than with the girls (since a boy-girl friendship in Japan is uncommon). Aoi lampshades that it's weird to be more comfortable around the opposite sex than it is to be around the same sex.
654*** During the last free time segment, Chihiro casually invites Makoto into his room, and Makoto muses that it's dangerous, ''why would a girl invite a boy into her room so easily''? His bed sheets are also blue like the other boys instead of pink like the girls.[[note]]And if the player looks closely, a pair of grip-strength trainers can be seen on his bed, implying he's been getting stronger in the safety of that room.[[/note]]
655*** The one that Kyoko picks up on, which is also how she figures out who killed him: after Chihiro's found dead, Mondo starts referring to him as a dude. Mondo only refers to boys as "dudes", with "chick" being the female equivalent; in addition to giving away Chihiro's true gender, Mondo knowing this makes him heavily suspect once it also becomes clear that the body was moved from the boys' locker room to the girls'.
656*** In episode 4 of the anime, while he's working on Alter Ego, you can see a toolkit, something that is only given to the guys, on his desk.
657*** And finally, he's voiced by a ''male'' seiyuu, though admittedly Creator/KoukiMiyata can do a pretty decent work as a ''very'' girlish-sounding young boy and thus fool those who aren't familiar with his VA work. This isn't as obvious in the English dub, where he's voiced by Creator/DorothyEliasFahn.
658** Something else is foreshadowed as well: almost all free time segments with Chihiro are about his status as a programmer and the programs he's developing- he mentions working on artificial intelligence even though he's under a non-disclosure agreement. After his death, it's revealed that he created an artificial intelligence, "Alter Ego", which plays an important part in the plot later on.
659** Another thing foreshadowed very early on: in his introduction, he finds Makoto familiar and asks him if they've met before. While Makoto isn't famous and hasn't met anyone besides Sayaka before, it turns out that everyone went to Hope's Peak before losing their memories.
660* GenderBlenderName: "Chihiro" is a unisex name in Japan, which fits since he is a boy everyone assumes to be a girl at first.
661* GenderReveal: Chihiro is believed to be a female when alive, and it's only long after he's found dead that the rest of the cast besides the one who killed him work out he's really a boy. This belated revelation allows the surviving students to determine many other revelations about the second murder case.
662* GuiltComplex: During any conversation, Chihiro is prone to self-blaming when he thinks he's doing something wrong or disappointing another person. In Chapter 2, he attempts to grow out of this, [[HeelFaceDoorSlam only to die to Mondo's rage]].
663* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Downplays his talent as useless without a computer handy, but it's his skill for programming, in the form of Alter Ego) that saves Makoto's life and allows the others to escape the school.
664* HeroicSpirit: Chihiro more than makes up for his physical weaknesses with a very persistent aim to become stronger. Mondo admires him for this.
665* HeterosexualLifePartners: During the Ultimate Summer Camp, he forms this relationship with Mondo for real, with neither of them burdened by the stress of the killing game.
666* HiddenDepths: Despite looking sensitive and fragile, his strength of will and ability to confront his own insecurities is actually quite remarkable. These same hidden depths are what ultimately get him killed, since seeing the extent of Chihiro's strength forces Mondo to acknowledge his own flaws and weakness when he was already pushed into an unstable state because of them.
667* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Deconstructed. He personally sees Mondo Owada's [[HairTriggerTemper short temper]] even ''without'' the use of the secrets motive in Chapter 2, but he only applies his belief that Mondo is stronger than he is because he thinks anger equates to strength. Inevitably, when Mondo is confronted by Chihiro so Chihiro can train himself to be stronger by his standards (while unaware he's showing strength himself by admitting his faults), the fact that he ''doesn't'' realize Mondo's short temper is precisely what leads to his death. He also met Mondo one-on-one, meaning he had no witnesses to prevent his death either.
668* IAmWhatIAm: His statement of "I want to change" has a lot of power behind it, considering what pain he experienced before becoming the "female" Chihiro Fujisaki.
669* InnocentlyInsensitive: Wants to train with Mondo and become stronger, but Mondo doesn't believe he's that strong and is also jealous of Chihiro for working to change. Tragically, it triggers his FreakOut, resulting in Chihiro's death.
670* InTouchWithHisFeminineSide: The trial of Chapter 2 reveals that he dresses as a girl to avoid ridicule for his girlish appearance, physical weakness, and sensitive personality.
671* {{Irony}}:
672** Celeste takes a high-and mighty attitude in the second investigation, lending NoSympathy for his death after he disobeyed her night-time rule (as if it serves as further proof of her point about adaptation). Yet within that chapter's trial we learn Chihiro was the one who figured out that changing himself into a different person was unhealthy and only exacerbated his self-esteem issues, eventually choosing to [[IAmWhatIAm grow stronger as himself]]. The irony of Celeste's inability to reach the same realization was completely lost on her.
673** He, the Ultimate Programmer, is too gentle to hurt (literal) bugs.
674* LarynxDissonance: Subverted in the Japanese version; to first-time listeners Chihiro's voice sounds slightly off, but this is actually foreshadowing for the fact that Chihiro is male, and casting a [[Creator/KoukiMiyata male voice actor]] was completely intentional.
675* LateArrivalSpoiler: He's a crossdressing boy. Even his presence on this very page spoils that.
676* {{Moe}}: In-universe, he has a sizable fanbase due to looking like a "small, frightened animal". Out of universe... same thing.
677* MistakenForGay: In promotional material for the anime, he asks Hifumi for advice on buying girls Valentine's Day chocolate. Hifumi, still thinking he's a girl (not helped by the fact only girls give people chocolate on Valentine's Day in Japan), goes on a tangent about what the appropriate {{doujinshi}} genre would be.
678* MuscleAngst: Ties heavily into the bullying he went through and his fear of being a weakling. In ''Ultimate Summer Camp'', he laments to Nekomaru that he's still skin and bones despite having been training with Mondo for a while. Nekomaru cheers him up by pointing out that his posture has improved and also offers to create a better training regimen for them.
679* NervousWreck: Is usually the first (and only) one to start crying when all hope seems lost.
680* NiceGuy: Very much so. This kid wouldn't even hurt a mosquito because it might have a family.
681* NotAGame: Attempts to call out Byakuya's assertions about the DeadlyGame, and [[KickTheDog gets thoroughly chewed out by him for the effort]].
682* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: Does this to Mondo, which winds up getting him killed. Upon being blackmailed with the threat of outing him as a boy, Chihiro resolves to become stronger and throw off the weakness he's so ashamed of that [[DoubleStandard he pretends to be a girl to avoid judgment for it]]. He resolves to reveal his secret to Mondo, one of his biggest male role models, so Mondo can help him work out and get stronger. Unfortunately for Chihiro, Mondo had his own humiliating secret weakness to hide, one he wasn't nearly as brave as Chihiro about facing, so upon hearing Chihiro sing Mondo's praises that Chihiro didn't realize secretly weren't even true, while demonstrating strength of character Mondo wishes he could match in his wildest dreams... this unfortunately drove Mondo into a murderous, jealous rage.
683* OddFriendship: Pictures from their school life and events within the game indicate that he's apparently good friends with Mondo, who is pretty much Chihiro's opposite in every way. It's demonstrated that they both acknowledge the other's strength, even if this ended badly during the far more fraught environment of the killing game. ''Ultimate Talent Development Plan'' shows how their friendship worked out when they weren't being trapped and psychologically tortured by Monokuma.
684** One cute interaction in ''Development Mode'' has [[DoesNotLikeMen Tenko]] (who doesn't know Chihiro's secret) being rude to Mondo ([[SecretKeeper who does know]]) while also [[InnocentlyInsensitive inadvertently being rude to Chihiro]] when complaining to Chihiro about Mondo. After Tenko says that she thinks Mondo coerced Chihiro into spending time with him, Chihiro tells her off and has them leave, with Tenko afterwards congratulating Chihiro for [[EntertaininglyWrong unexpectedly being a "tomboy"]].
685* OlderThanTheyLook: He could easily pass for a middle school student. Accounting for the time Monokuma erased, he's actually in his late teens to early twenties.
686* PosthumousCharacter: Downplayed since he actually lasts through the first class trial, but most of his significant contributions to the plot come after his death.
687%% * ProneToTears: Acknowledged and defied.
688* QuiveringEyes: Has a sprite that creates this effect.
689* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: He's the sensitive guy to Mondo's manly man.
690* ShorterMeansSmarter: Among the shortest characters in the series, whose genius sits firmly among the greatest as well.
691* ShrinkingViolet: Even though Chihiro is interested in training and getting stronger, "she's" too shy to enter the changing rooms. Of course, that's because his gender won't allow him access to the woman's locker room (where all the sports equipment is) which is why he approaches Mondo to help him train instead.
692* SignificantBirthDate: He was born on March 14th aka Pi Day.
693* SmallRoleBigImpact: He has a small role in Chapter 1 and is the fourth to die as the victim of Chapter 2. Doesn't stop Alter Ego, the AI he created, from driving the plot of the next two chapters and saving Makoto's life in Chapter 5. "''IF''" also reveals that he created Monokuma's software, and his other work goes on to influence the plot of the later games.
694* SmartPeopleBuildRobots: He created the A.I. Alter Ego and his notes were used to create Usami and the Chiaki A.I.
695* StoryBreakerPower: A trope justified by the incidental creation of the MetaSequel that chronologically occurs directly after the game due to his artificial intelligence being present as an overlooker of the program. Since he's a programmer in a virtual environment created by a game company that an audience of devoted people will play, he's also a big meta character too.
696* TearfulSmile: Has a sprite like this, often used after being comforted by someone else.
697* TechnoWizard: Got into creating highly-complex computer programs as a way to pass time. And he was able to put a computer program capable of learning on a rather junky old laptop in a short amount of time.
698* TeenGenius: He's around 19 and he's a world-class programmer.
699* TokenMiniMoe: Serves this role for both the boys '''and''' actual girls.
700* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: One of the sweetest, most soft-hearted characters, who literally wouldn't hurt a fly, and he's killed in the second chapter.
701* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: "''IF''" clarifies that ''he made Monokuma's software'': the same Monokuma who was used en masse in the Tragedy, who trapped him and the other students in the school, and who finally indirectly caused Mondo to kill him.
702* UnsettlingGenderReveal:
703** Doesn't get much more unsettling than discovering his gender ''after'' he's been murdered and crucified. It also qualified for Mondo -- he didn't kill Chihiro for turning out to be a boy, though, but because [[BerserkButton this set off his insecurities]] about never being strong enough (while Chihiro wanted to overcome his weakness). For worse? Monokuma later says that he ''always'' knew about Chihiro being a boy... and that the "embarrassing memories" he wanted to use in regards to Chihiro was revealing his gender to the others. Monokuma adds that, were that to happen, he thought Chihiro would fall into despair, thinking that he'd be bullied and ostracized more than he ever was ''on top'' of being in Hope's Peak... but then [[ShutUpHannibal Chihiro went]] [[PluckyGirl Plucky Boy]] and decided the opposite: to get stronger, and tell the others himself later. Too bad his death ruined said plans.
704** In School Mode in the Vita port, the "unsettling" part comes not from the fact he reveals his gender to Makoto, but the fact that because Makoto doesn't believe him at first, he grabs Makoto's hand and plants it on his own chest to prove his point. In the Japanese version, it's implied that Chihiro puts Makoto's hand on his ''crotch'' instead.
705** And thirdly, from us the audience for those who thought he was a girl and considered "her" their waifu...not counting those who still consider [[AttractiveBentGender him as such]].
706* WhenSheSmiles: In his introduction, after he's reassured they haven't done anything wrong and laughs in relief, Makoto thinks that he's starting to understand "her" rabid fanbase.
707[[/folder]]

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