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The Detective Alliance
Incompetent Detective/Wato Hojo
Rank #100. A high school student and aspiring detective who hopes to solve the mystery of the kidnapping incident he was involved in as a child. While working part-time at a detective agency, he is recruited by the Detective Alliance, and thereby drawn into the events on the island of Morgue in the process. Wato is passionate for his line of work, but is a woefully average individual lacking both brain and brawn—resulting in him being dubbed 'Incompetent Detective' by his fellow detectives.
- Amnesiac Hero: He doesn't have complete amnesia, but he is missing large chunks of his memory about how he personally relates to the mystery at hand and the other characters.
- Bequeathed Power: After Holmes dies, he inherits her Denouement power. Or so she claims. Instead, the events on the island led to his own Denouement power reawakening.
- Cruel Mercy: He unintentionally inflicts this onto Downtown. Even though she still dies in the end, the lengths Wato went through to try and save her life despite knowing she killed Mystic in cold blood caused her to have second thoughts about her suicide, turning it into something she couldn't enjoy like she expected to.
- Expy: He takes notable cues from the everyman heroes with prominent Idiot Hair of the Danganronpa series, especially Shuichi in being an in-over-his-head detective who is initially insistent he has nothing to offer but grows to be much more confident and self-assured. Their designs are even quite similar.
- Humble Hero: The reasoning behind his alias as other people understand it, though in truth it was just born out of Downtown making fun of him.
- Idiot Hair: Has a rather massive lock of it.
- Naïve Newcomer: The newest member of the Detective Alliance, who doesn't have the surrounding context of events the others do and acts as the audience surrogate.
- Only Sane Man: He doesn't really have the same eccentricities the rest of the group does.
- Punny Name: Wato is The Watson.
- Seers: His Denouement power works exactly the same as Holmes' — he can see future events that will play out for someone by looking at them and concentrating, and it can also manifest as Dreaming of Things to Come.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: He doesn't wear glasses for the bulk of the game, but his post-story look now that he's become a more confident and successful detective has him sporting a pair.
- The Watson: Initially. He gradually grows out of it and becomes a more confident investigator in his own right, but initially he's very dependent on the information the other detectives can provide him.
Ideal Detective/Saika Sherrinford Holmes/Saika Yoroi
Rank #2. A mysterious, beautiful woman dubbed the 'modern Sherlock Holmes.' She is the acting chief of the Detective Alliance, and has prevented a number of serious incidents. She resembles the girl killed right in front of Incompetent Detective when he was a young boy. She supports his development as a detective, curiously referring to him her 'lifesaver'.
- Cute Ghost Girl: After being killed by the SPX, she reappears to Incompetent Detective as a ghost.
- The Gadfly: She has her moments, such as intentionally jump-scaring Wato when he initially thinks his encounter with her as a ghost was a dream, trying to peek on him in the shower, and tricking him into using his powers to peek on the other girls.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She lets herself get killed by the SPX in order to buy the other detectives enough time to get back to the manor safely.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: She dies more or less immediately after helping Wato begin to find his footing as a detective, though she does linger around as a ghost to pass along more education afterward.
- Seers: Her Denouement ability allows her to see into the future, and use information gleaned to avert future tragedies from coming to pass.
- Unfinished Business: She is able to stick around as a ghost due to her lingering regrets, and as they are worked through she becomes more and more inactive until eventually fading away entirely.
Armor Detective/Muga Yoroi
Rank #32. An individual always seen wearing a knight's suit of armor. He is an unusual detective who utilizes the features of his armor along with his natural strength. Though he struggles with using his mental faculties, he solves cases through his unrivaled tenacity. His face was apparently scarred during a past case, and thus he refuses to remove his helmet.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: The holes in his visor flip depending on which way he's facing.
- Big Brother Instinct: Has this attitude toward the group as a whole, being quick to rush in to defend them from danger or put himself at risk for the others' sake. This is especially the case in regards to Ideal Detective who is his actual younger sister.
- Disney Death: He is presumed lost after being stabbed by the red SPX and falling into a pit, but he actually survives and eventually meets back with the others. Happens again when they do see him again, as the chandelier at the manor has fallen on him but he turns out to be able to shrug it off.
- Dumb Muscle: He has an abysmally low Infer score of 1. You get a Trophy for clearing a MP with him.
- The Faceless: He is never seen without his full suit of armor on.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Both literally, and in that he has a strong sense of loyalty towards his friend and a desire to help everyone.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He cuts the rope holding the trap room's door open, inadvertently both trapping himself and a handful of other detectives inside and setting off the trap that triggers when the door is closed.
- Spanner in the Works: Him saving Downtown from her Suicide Pact with Senior plays a significant part in the Quartering Duke ultimately being caught. If not for this, there would have been far less evidence of the pact in question existing and Downtown wouldn't have been able to give the detectives her crucial hint about the Duke's true nature and likely would have herself taken the fall as being the Duke.
Bookworm Detective/Heaven Akutagawa
Rank #15. Though only eleven years of age, she's read over 10,000 books. Her memory allows her to recite any work she's read perfectly. Both of her parents were murdered by a teacher she had admired, resulting in a distrust and lack of empathy towards others. She has the tendency to approach life from a third-person perspective.
- Deadpan Snarker: She can be very sardonic, with her even acknowledging herself as such in her narration.
- Happily Adopted: Although not obvious at first, upon Mystic's death it's clear that Bookworm cared about her adoptive father.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can be cold and often quick to insult people, on top of her generally distant demeaner, but she means well and quickly becomes one of Wato's closest and most supportive allies after he consoles her following Mystic's death.
- Photographic Memory: As a result of having hyperthymesia
. However, this takes a massive toll on her if she has to make use of this repeatedly. - Third-Person Person: She talks as though she is reading her thoughts from a book.
Mystic Detective/Evance Van Helsing
Rank #7. This veteran detective specializes in cases heavily tinged with the occult. Hoping to find answers to the unsolved Case of the Vampyre, he scoured the globe for knowledge on the occult. While he tends to suspect supernatural forces at play in his cases, when calm, his investigative skills are top-class among the members of the Detective Alliance.
- Clarke's Third Law: Despite being quick to suspect supernatural forces, he also specializes in figuring out the truth behind events that seem supernatural in nature. People turn up dead and drained of blood, as if they were attacked by a vampire? The suspect actually has allotriophagy and killed his victims to sate his hunger. Someone is ripped to shreds and a witness claims a werewolf did it? The killer was actually a Tyke Bomb with hair and nails that were never cut, giving off the appearance of a werewolf.
- Cool Old Guy: He is a kind, intelligent veteran who the others all swiftly grow attached to who is purely helpful, much unlike the other veteran members of the cast.
- Gratuitous English: His first spoken line is an English "Goddammit" upon learning that Senior Detective is dead.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Downtown kills him. He solves the mystery of the manor's secret exit, but this complicated Downtown's plan to poison the other detectives on behalf of the Quartering Duke.
- Hidden Depths: He is a big enough fan of video games that he bought the first copy of Dragon Quest (or Ryukue, as the game refers to it).
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He is pierced by the trap room's spikes after being poisoned and locked in the room.
Posh Detective/Arial Allan Pinkerton
Rank #5. A descendant of the world-famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency's founder. She is a highly-skilled detective, particularly in her sense for aesthetics. She was trained from a young age to spot forgeries and boasts top accuracy within the Detective Alliance. Haughty and conceited, she views Ideal Detective as her rival. However, she is heavily reliant upon her organization, struggling to display her full potential during solo investigations.
- Butt-Monkey: Is the character most frequently mocked or made to look foolish, partially due to her tendency to march headlong into situations without proper diligence.
- Hidden Depths: While egotistical and frequently made to look foolish, she ultimately takes her position extremely seriously, including having no hesitation about potentially dying in the name of saving the others, and can be quite good at getting everyone on the same page when necessary.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Posh is frequently guilty of this, being a designated comic relief character for most of the story. She grows out of it by Chapter 5.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Her desire to be the leader leaves her with a tendency to charge blindly into unfamiliar situations and risk getting everyone killed in the process.
- Mundane Luxury: She's completely flabbergasted by the idea of buying replacement headphones instead of repairing broken ones.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: She has the "Ohohoho" style of laugh.
- The Ojou: Subverted. Posh tries to present herself as a refined, upper class lady. But unfortunately for her, the Pinkertons' impoverished status is well known amongst the other detectives and it's very easy to see past her facade.
Renegade Detective/Jugo Gingami
Rank #4. The most dangerous member of the Detective Alliance—he'll use any means necessary to solve a case, going so far as to commit atrocities with a smile on his face. He has killed many people in the past, and thus has been fitted with a 'Decapitation Rabbit,' an explosive device affixed to his neck. He is not permitted to leave his special prison under normal circumstances. However, he has been granted a degree of freedom by cooperating with authorities to solve major crimes, as he possesses both considerable skill and intimate knowledge of the criminal mind.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He does purport to having some standards and occasionally tries to get the others in the group to trust him, but for the most part he relishes in his position as the Renegade Detective, brags about his misdeeds, and openly invites conflict, especially once he's completely on the outs from the group.
- Establishing Character Moment: His introduction has him strangling Incompetent Detective hard enough to break skin just because he thought Ideal Detective was in danger, and then giving a halfhearted apology.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Deconstructed. Renegade has a strong code of "knowing the weight of a life". But while such a trait would normally lead to the villain committing rare noble acts, with him and his warped sense of morality it leads to him committing more heinous acts. Such as planting the bloody bandage on Techie's wheelchair knowing the Red SPX would hunt the group down, all to teach the kid to know the weight of holding power over others' lives.
- Evil vs. Evil: Renegade is completely fine with killing anyone if he feels he has a strong enough reason to. Despite this, he openly hates the Quartering Duke and is fully determined to bring them down.
- Made of Iron: He loses an arm, takes repeated blows in a fight, and gets electrocuted, and he's still only mildly inconvenienced.
- Off with His Head!: He dies from being decapitated as a consequence of sticking his head through an elevator door.
- One-Armed Warrior: Is still able to destroy the SPX units and dominate a fight with Incompetent directly after losing an arm.
- Recruiting the Criminal: As stated above, the Detective Alliance scouted him and uses him for cases where his expertise in understanding fellow criminals would come in handy.
- Thanatos Gambit: He deliberately looks to make his death the fault of someone who will live long enough to know they did it, which ends up being the Quartering Duke's undoing.
- Token Evil Teammate: Far and away the most evil detective on the island, at least at first glance.
- Villains Never Lie: Played with. He is generally truthful, but he also deliberately attempts to evoke this trope by claiming that he never lies while in fact actually doing so at points.
Workaholic Detective/Diabolic Detective/Soya Shizaki
Rank #10. An office worker moonlighting as a detective, his demeanor is that of the quintessential Japanese man. He has an earnest, mild personality and leads his life always thinking of others. He had aspired to become a detective for years, so upon learning of the Alliance's existence, he begged both his wife and employer to let him take on the job. He isn't showy when investigating, focusing instead on thorough, steady analysis. Combined with his personality, however, he's often told he doesn't leave much of an impression.
- All for Nothing: He kills himself in order to kill Renegade, only for Renegade to die right around the same time for completely separate reasons.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Has a history as the Diabolic Detective that leaves him plagued with nightmares and self doubt due to the extreme actions he took in the name of opposing the Dayless Night.
- He Who Fights Monsters: His attempts to prevent wrongdoing led him to perform many terrible deeds himself, culminating in his murder of the completely innocent Rowdy.
- Murder by Mistake: His initial attempt to kill Renegade instead ends up killing Rowdy.
- Trapped in Villainy: Admits that as much as he resents and wants to be distanced from his history as the Diabolic Detective he's ultimately chained to it.
Gourmet Detective/Nadia Nikulina
Rank #9. Gourmet's olfactory and gustatory senses far exceed the average person's. She can sometimes even sense emotion. From a young age, she's sampled every taste imaginable, including various poisons, so she's come to enjoy their unique flavor. She has a gentle demeanor, but detests those who kill above all, as their actions take away their victim's freedom to enjoy food. Her passion emerges when saving lives and apprehending criminals.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: She has apparently ingested so much poison in her life that she can easily consume it without experiencing any negative side effects.
- Good Is Not Soft: Gourmet is fully determined to bring down the Quartering Duke, by any means necessary. This includes drugging the other detectives, planting bomb collars on all of them, and setting things up so that if the Quartering Duke isn't discovered within a day, she'd kill herself and take everyone else with her.
- The Smart Girl: She shares a high Infer rating with Bookworm at 6.
Rowdy Detective/Akane Toyama
Rank #25. Though straightforward and aggressive, Rowdy is a detective with a pure and sensitive heart. Living in the mountains from a young age, she aided her father with hunting, gaining physical strength and keen senses well beyond the average human's. She overcomes difficult cases through sheer might alone. Her senses are particularly notable, for when she was given a card-matching test to gauge concentration, she did not make even a single mistake. Her natural instincts are essentially akin to a superability.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: One of the smallest detectives in the cast, but also one of the strongest.
- Super-Senses: She has very strong senses, especially smell.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: A highly skilled, valued member of the team who's nothing but friendly and helpful, who aspires to do great things, only to abruptly die a completely pointless death.
Downtown Detective/Inumi Sanae
Rank #22. A high school student and detective skilled in gathering the latest rumors and gossip, utilizing social media and peer networks. She specializes in 'social investigation,' which narrows down her leads as she consults with those around her. Her eye-catching fashion sense belies her thoughtful nature, as she is typically quick on the uptake where others are concerned. While she may speak the harsh truth to Incompetent, she does care about manners, treating even him with due respect as she keeps a careful eye on little details.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A friendly and perky social butterfly who actually holds those around her in contempt and is a bloodthirsty murderer.
- Deadly Hug: Kills Mystic by hugging him and in the process stabbing him with one of her press-on nails she covered in poison.
- The Dragon: Functionally fills this role to the Quartering Duke, being his most directly involved subordinate on the island and having the most active role in the plan that led to the other detectives being stranded on the island.
- Driven to Suicide: She came to the island with the intention of dying and she ultimately does.
- Exact Words: Gives the heroes an ultimately extremely important hint in saying that she and Senior died while Mystic was killed, which helps them to realize that Senior's death was a suicide and the true nature of the Quartering Duke.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: It's a little unclear if her providing a dying hint as to the truth of the Quartering Duke is coming from her soft spot for the other characters, genuine regret for her actions, just another case of her toying with people, or some combination thereof.
- Revealing Cover-Up: While she was already the prime suspect, what finally proves she murdered Mystic is having disposed of the press-on nail she used to do it with.
- Serial Killer: She's run up a very large body count, including the over 20 corpses waiting for the detectives when they arrive.
- Tears of Blood: As she is in the process of dying blood begins to pour from one of her eyes.
Techie Detective/Hazuki Uminari
Rank #20. Techie uses a wheelchair, as he was born with cerebral palsy, preventing use of his legs. His intellect far surpasses that of the average person. The brightest prodigy in the DA, he has a PhD from an overseas university. He works alongside the DA's tech department and developed his own specialized wheelchair, as well as his Seven Forensic Friends, small machines that assist with investigation. During investigations, he relies on his Friends to produce data beyond the scope of normal detectives.
- Berserk Button: He gets irritated when someone refers to his Forensic Friends as mere machines.
- Disability Alibi: What proves that he is innocent of Rowdy's murder. He and Workaholic had similar opportunity and would've had the same reasons to keep Incompetent from seeing them coming out of the office with a chair, but the crime couldn't have been committed by Techie due to his disability and if he was faking it then he wouldn't have needed the chair due to having his own.
- Gadgeteer Genius: His Seven Friends are all his own creations, and he also created a camera system for the manor out of Downtown Detective's smartphone cameras.
- Genius Cripple: He's a very clever, intelligent kid who makes many useful gadgets and is confined to a wheelchair.
- Nice Guy: He spends nearly all of his screentime being nothing but friendly and helpful. Even when he withholds information from the group in regards to Armor's survival it's only to return the favor for Armor saving him.
- Non-Action Guy: Given he's in a wheelchair he's much more limited in his ability to fight or flee than the others.
Doleful Detective/Reo Gray
Rank #14. Doleful is half-British, half-Japanese, and possesses a remarkably negative disposition. Since he was a child, Doleful has always had a remarkable penchant for attracting dangerous phenomenae that pose a threat to his well-being. This peculiar ability of his has been dubbed the 'Danger Magnet,' and is considered by many to be the mark of a great detective. In the past, Doleful had been treated as an angel of death, and as a result, he struggles to interact with others without second-guessing himself. However, though his life in constant danger, he always survives using his peculiar senses, an ability which comes in handy during particularly perilous investigations.
- Big Bad: He is the Quartering Duke and behind the events that force the group together.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Final Chapter reveals that all this time, he was the Quartering Duke.
- Death Seeker: More than anything, he just wants to die, but is continually incapable of doing so.
- Doom Magnet: His "Danger Magnet" ability is a double-edged sword. It lets him find evidence to crimes and traps, but only if his life is directly threatened. It also means people around him die.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: One of the first things Incompetent notes about him is his androgynous appearance.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite the futility of trying to kill him otherwise, he is capable of being killed by Renegade and the SPX during the chapter 3 and 4 investigations.
- I Have Many Names: Reo Gray, Invincible Detective, Doleful Detective, The Quartering Duke.
- Implausible Deniability: Though he eventually relents, he initially continues to insist he is not actually the Quartering Duke even while in the midst of an impassioned motive rant and after being confronted with strong evidence.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Downplayed. While his Danger Magnet ability is by all appearances genuine, the full extent of it is unclear. It is shown that he would have been killed by the spiked floor trap had Incompetent's Denouement power not triggered beforehand, but whether this means he's not as unkillable as he thinks he is or if his powers are able to influence Wato's own is unclear.
- Revealing Cover-Up: His decision to kill Renegade Detective to try to close a loose end is what ultimately does him in, between providing an actual crime that he can be arrested for and making the group realize that Renegade was not in fact the Duke himself.
- Shrinking Violet: He is often very awkward and stammering, and typically very limited in speaking up compared to other characters. Likely a front, as once his true position is revealed he becomes much more talkative.
- Suicide, Not Murder: The secret behind the Quartering Duke's enormous body count. Rather than kill anyone directly, he puts suicidal people in contact to help kill each other.
- Unreliable Expositor: It's unclear whether his claims that he feels guilt about the many people around him who have died as a consequence of his abilities are genuine. He's prone to bringing it up at times it isn't necessarily useful to lie about and it makes sense with his backstory and Death Seeker tendencies, but he also is very passionate about seeing death as a release from suffering and actively encourages people to kill themselves. It's possible that people's deaths may have caused genuine grief that morphed into his Quartering Duke persona as a coping mechanism.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Pulls a twofold one at the start of the game, revealed toward the end. He intentionally cuts himself on razor wire on the way to find Senior's body, which serves the purpose of helping to disguise the sequence of events leading to Senior's death, and also uses the subsequent injury to bait the SPX to trap the group and kill Ideal.
Senior Detective/Meicho Aragi
Unranked. A veteran detective who helped found the Detective Alliance. During one particular case, he made an error which resulted in a death and his subsequent retirement. He now works behind the scenes, scouting and mentoring promising young detectives. Realizing Wato Hojo's latent potential as a detective, he suggested Wato attend the meeting on Morgue to discuss the handling of the Quartering Duke incidents.
- Driven to Suicide: His gruesome murder turns out to have actually been self-inflicted.
- Evil All Along: Turns out to have been working for the Quartering Duke the entire time, though he is shown to have had some uncertainties about it.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in a single scene before dying, but he is one of the people responsible for the events of the game, he designed the traps that the group is forced to contend with, and his decision to suggest Wato's involvement is what ultimately does the Quartering Duke in.
- Suicide, Not Murder: The truth of his death, though Downtown Detective helped out with it.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He is the first detective Wato meets and the first one to die.
