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PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Ichi
18+?: Yes
CONTACT: northpaws
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Souji Seta (tarotcards)
RESERVATION LINK: Here

CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Kokichi Ouma
AGE: ~17 · canon is never clear
CANON: Danganronpa V3

CANON HISTORY: Danganronpa V3 · Kokichi Ouma
CANON PERSONALITY:

CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL OF DANGANRONPA V3
In the final chapter of Danganronpa V3, it was revealed that all the characters in the game were given fake memories, new personalities, and even new names in order to create the story of the game. Due to this, very little is known about Kokichi prior to the game's events and whether or not he was anything similar to who he was in the game before it occurred. Kokichi died before he learned about this plot twist and, as a result, this personality section will not focus on the person Kokichi was before the game but rather the person that Kokichi became for V3.

To understand the entirety of Kokichi's character, it's important to realize that the theme of V3 is the duality of truth and lies and that Kokichi represents the latter. His entire character is to be the liar and the trickster of the game and he plays this role perfectly. He's a compulsive liar who seemingly cannot go for a few lines of dialogue before he sprouts out a lie and, sometimes, these lies aren't even convincing. While some of them can be reasonably believable, others are so obviously wrong that it's questionable as to why he would even dishonest in the first place.

Based on his character, however, it's most likely that he does this out of fun. Kokichi is very much like a child. He enjoys getting a rise out of people, receiving attention, teasing others, and playing many different types of games. Even his Research Lab is designed very much like a child's vision of what an evil mastermind's liar might be, right down to the throne, sports car, and toy helicopter. His tiny appearance and occasional childish way of talking don't help either, but whether this is the real reason why Kokichi chooses to constantly lie to everyone is still debatable. The game never reveals Kokichi's true motives as to why he's like this so it is simply up to speculation.

In fact, much about Kokichi is left to speculation. Despite his talkative nature, he's actually quite private about his personal life and any intimate details about himself. He shrouds himself in mystery through his many lies and even after his death, no one can quite understand what his true character was. Whether he was actually advocating and supporting the murder game or was against it, even that is completely left up to debate. Even Shuichi, the Ultimate Detective and an extremely perceptive character, admits that he can't get a proper reading on Kokichi.

What's undeniably true about Kokichi, however, is that throughout the game, he proves himself to be an incredibly intelligent character. In fact, it's not difficult to say that he might be on par with Shuichi simply for his clever thinking and impressive deductive skills. He often arrives at the truth of the trials before others and has come up with numerous plans to create weapons that would be effective against Monokuma, such as electrobombs and electrohammers that would automatically shut off any electronic devices. His most impressive display of deduction, however, was how he was able to figure out that there must have been an audience constantly watching the murder game and that the game had to follow a very rigid set of rules that the mastermind was seemingly bound by. He was able to deduct this far before Shuichi was even able to have any suspicions about it and, as a result, Kokichi was able to make the entirety of chapter five possible.

Speaking of chapter five, it is an extremely integral section to Kokichi's character. Not only is it yet another example of his clever thinking, but it also gives further insight into his true thoughts about the murder game. Throughout V3, Kokichi constantly describes the murder game as "fun" and entertaining, and he seemingly keeps trying to push forward Monokuma's motives. He pits himself against the rest of the group and, as a result, alienates himself. In addition, he even pretends to be the mastermind and willingly villanizes himself, but chapter five's trial reveals that it's highly likely that Kokichi actually truly despised the murder game and everything he had to do within it.

Right before his death, he told Kaito that he was only lying to everyone and himself about his thoughts on the game. He did it in order to survive within the madness of it and, later on, to draw out the mastermind. He was hoping that if he was masquerading as the mastermind, the true one would reveal themselves. However, when that didn't work, he planned out his own murder and hoped that he could use the uncertainty of his murder that he could end the game. After all, he knew that the mastermind was bounded by a set of rules and if the mastermind didn't know the exact details of the case, they could not have a fair trial and the entire game would fall apart. Unfortunately, Kokichi's plan failed as Shuichi solved the case and realized the plan far too late, but it's a moment of realization that Kokichi might have not actually been as bad as he originally seemed. Of course, this can be all up to speculation as the game never outright confirms whether Kokichi's confession to Kaito was real or not, as he said that he was lying at the very end, but a lot of the evidence proves otherwise. It's difficult to believe that someone would willingly give up their own life for a chance to stop a murder game and to be endorsing the game in general when the organization that he created, D.I.C.E, had a strict rule against murder.

However, while chapter five does redeem Kokichi as not an entirely bad guy, that doesn't excuse his extremely questionable actions. He's very much a morally grey character and although he may have generally good intentions behind his actions, they're extremely problematic. When the motive videos were randomly distributed amongst the group in chapter two, Kokichi came up with the idea to reveal the videos to one another. This idea was led by the belief that if everyone knew each other's motives, there would be less of an incentive to act on them. While this may sound like a good idea in theory, Kokichi handled it in the worst way possible. Rather than explaining this mode of thought, he said that sharing the motive videos with one another will make the murder game a lot more fun. He then manipulated Gonta in forcefully collecting a number of their classmates before breaking into each of their rooms to steal their videos. Yet another glaring example of his questionable choices is in chapter four. Despite knowing that Miu was plotting to murder him, he doesn't tell anyone about it and, instead, manipulates Gonta once more to kill Miu for him. There are many different interpretations and speculations why Kokichi has chosen to do this, but once again, the game never confirms the real reason so it's difficult to say what his motives were. There is evidence that Kokichi feels guilty about this as chapter four's trial is genuinely one of the only times he's truly angry and he asks to be executed alongside with Gonta. He even becomes far more inclusive in the following chapter, but due to Kokichi's tendency to constantly lie, it's never truly clear if any of that was real.

As anyone can easily see, Kokichi is a character who's very much clouded in mystery. By being the embodiment of lies, it's difficult to understand who he truly is. It's undeniable that he's a prankster, childish, incredibly perceptive, intelligent, and morally ambiguous, but everything else is uncertain. Both the audience and other characters in V3 can only speculate on his motives and why he behaves the way he does. As a result, Kokichi plays his role as V3's liar and trickster perfectly.

Important note: due to the ambiguous nature of Kokichi's motives and character, it would be remiss not to provide a personal interpretation about who he is, especially in a roleplaying setting.

I believe that despite that all that Kokichi does throughout the game, putting himself at odds with the class and his morally questionable acts, he does have good intentions. Drawing back on the example with the motive videos, even if he handled it in the worst way possible, it was done for the good of the group. It was very similar to how Makoto in the first Danganronpa wanted to handle personalized motives, revealing them to one another as a way of taking away the motive's power, though Kokichi went for a far different approach that only put him further against the group. Yet another example is how he treats his classmates. He may insult them and ruin all of their happy moments with each other, but he is actually just watching out for them.

He constantly insults Gonta and his intelligence, but he also follows it up by saying that Gonta's simple-minded way of thinking would get him easily manipulated and killed (which is exactly what happens in the fourth chapter). He also lectures Kaede after she reveals herself as the murderer, saying that despite her good intentions to end the game, the moment that she thought about resorting to murder, she already gave into Monokuma's motives. For a more general example, Kokichi constantly warns his classmates that they need to adapt to the murder game and that they shouldn't be concerned about trivial things like trying not to hurt each other's feelings or naively trust each other during a class trial. After all, a class trial is literally about life or death: if they were to let the real murderer get away, everyone else would die. Furthermore, blindly trusting someone makes one more susceptive of ignoring the truth in order to live out a comfortable but extremely harmful lie. This is why Kokichi was furious throughout the fourth trial. Everyone was so unwilling to believe that Gonta, their gentle friend and classmate, was the true murderer and thought that the evidence was wrong. This naive way of thinking and the hypocrisy that the class was showing deeply frustrated him. The class would often advocate that the truth was important and that lies were wrong, but the moment that they were presented with a truth that they didn't like, they refused to believe it. This was the exact moment that Kokichi was attempting to warn his classmates about and he calls them out on it at the end of the trial, saying that if they were willing to die over a lie, then they should die alone rather than dragging everyone else with them.

Staying on the topic of chapter four, it's important to discuss what he does leading up to Miu's death. It's very questionable why Kokichi would quickly resort to murdering Miu rather than telling anyone about her plans, but it's highly likely that Kokichi felt as if he didn't have a choice. Yes, it is possible that he could have just told everyone that he suspected that Miu was going to murder him, but he already knew that the class hated him and thought of him as the "villain". It's most likely that they might have thought that he was just lying again and ignore him, so this might have been the only way he thought he could escape his murder. Despite this terrible plan, he still shows his care and consideration for his classmates. Even while manipulating Gonta to kill Miu for him, he did it in the kindest way possible: by making Gonta believe that it was a mercy kill so he wouldn't feel completely guilty about it.

I also believe that Kokichi was truly against the murder game. As stated before, Kokichi created his own little group of pranksters, D.I.C.E., and that there were only two rules in group: to have fun and to never kill anyone. Furthermore, despite that Kokichi continues to say how much fun the game is, he never once makes any attempts to murder anyone. He doesn't even make any attempts to physically hurt anyone. Even after Maki choked him or when Kaito punched him the first time, he didn't retaliate. He only finally retaliated after Kaito tried to punch him a second time.

As a result, it's extremely likely that Kokichi wasn't lying when he said that he deeply loved his classmates. Yes, he may infuriate everyone and approach things in the worst way possible, but a lot of his actions suggest that he's actually well-intended. He was more than willing to villainize himself by pretending to be the mastermind, believing that it's his "responsibility" to take on this role as everyone already dislikes him and no one else would do it, and then sacrifice himself in an attempt to end the murder game. Of course, this is not to say that he's still not a complete little brat because he does toy with others and pokes at their insecurities, but overall in a larger picture, he is not as big of a villain as the class makes him out to be.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:

Ultimate Supreme Leader: While this is an ambiguous title, at least compared to the other talents in V3, Kokichi proves himself to be a capable leader who knows how to gather others to follow him. In his fake backstory, he was able to create a group of pranksters and place himself as their leader. Meanwhile, in V3, he is able to convince some of his classmates to listen to him and do as he says. His extremely manipulative methods allow him to easily control others and lead them in whatever way he wants.

Evasive: Partially due to this small size, Kokichi is extremely quick and able to evade others with ease. This allows him to hide from his classmates for prolonged periods of time and to even steal from them without detection.

Lying: Kokichi is extremely proficient in lying. He's able to quickly and easily come up with lies on the spot and fake his emotions as well. He can easily switch between having a giant grin on his face to screaming and crying literally within seconds. In addition, due to being such an experienced liar, Kokichi is able to detect when others are lying as well. However, whether or not he'd call them out on their terrible lies, that's completely up to him and how he feels.

Lock picking: With a small set of tools, Kokichi is able to pick simple locks, such as the ones on doors.

CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Kokichi Ouma
AU AGE: 21
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: Kokichi no longer has purple hair or purple eyes, but he'd instead have black hair and brown eyes. He will also be an entire foot taller, being 6'1" rather than 5'1" like he was in canon (just so I can have him shrink literally a month later).

AU HISTORY:

❖ Kokichi was born and raised in a small American town as the older brother to Yuuki (sleepingknight), whom he's very close to, and to a relatively rich family. His family never had to worry about putting food on the table and both he and Yuuki had very comfortable lives.

❖ He's a really mischievous kid who's constantly joking around and can never really give a straight answer to his true feelings or thoughts. However, this came as a result of being bullied when he was younger. When he was a child, he had a weaker personality that led to him being picked on and he quickly realized that in order to protect himself, he had to adopt a stronger persona where he can't show off any of his old weaknesses. He was pretty clumsy at it at first but got really good at faking it when he got older.

❖ When he was 16 years old, Yuuki became extremely ill with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia and had to be hospitalized for a period of time. At this point, Kokichi started to skip school and keep her company. He would often drop by with video games (their shared interest), treats, and all other sorts of things. This was the time period when he got especially good at faking his emotions.

❖ While Yuuki was in the hospital, Kokichi created an online guild, named Vivarium, specifically for her. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to keep her company all the time, he made this online group so she could interact and play video games with others while he was gone. He also made it a special rule that all members had to wear masks (similar to these) so they could be anonymous from one another. This was due to Yuuki's shyer personality but also to hide his own emotions and any slip-ups he might have while visiting her in the hospital.

❖ Even as Yuuki got better and was discharged from the hospital, Kokichi continued to run and expand Vivarium as it has become something particularly special for him. The guild doesn't specifically centre itself around one game anymore and it has generally just become an online group where people can have fun interacting with one another. He occasionally streams video games with his sister while in their Vivarium masks and the two often do charity runs so they could donate the proceedings to any group that helps sick children.

❖ Although he missed a good chunk of school while Yuuki was hospitalized, Kokichi was able to catch up on his studies and eventually get accepted in Recolle University for software engineering. That meant he packed up and left his small town to move to Recolle, where he has been residing for the past three years.

❖ He doesn't tell anyone but he specifically chose to go into software engineering so he could eventually go into creating video games with Yuuki since games had a huge impact on them when they were younger. However, he'd never admit this and if you ask him, he'd just say that he wants to create a bunch of viruses and plague people with them. Or illegal programs that he could sell and make money with. You'll never find out that he's actually kind of a nice guy.

❖ Currently, he is in his third year of university and lives in an apartment with Yuuki, who has just arrived in Recolle to study.

Note: Permission to include the above characters in this AU have been given by their respective players.

AU PERSONALITY:

❖ Kokichi remains fairly similar to his canon counterpart. He is still a mischievous character who constantly jokes around, pokes fun at others, and an overall jerk, but it's a bit more toned down. Being in an enviroment that get him into a lot of trouble for that kind of behaviour (aka the real world), he would have learned to hold back some of the meaner comments that he would have normally said without hesitation in canon and actually act serious when the moment is called for it. As a result, he's far more balanced in the AU.

❖ Furthermore, without a murder game going on in Recolle (hopefully), Kokichi will be far tamer. He wouldn't be forced to do as many questionable acts as he did in V3 and wouldn't openly display that morally grey stance he takes. If he's pushed, he could possibly become like how he was in canon but without that sort of pressure and environment, he wouldn't have to resort to become as manipulative as he originally was.

❖ In addition, there is now a concrete reason why Kokichi lies as much as he does. In the AU, it's mostly a self-defence mechanism. If he doesn't reveal his true feelings, he cannot be perceived as weak and others cannot take advantage of him. It's a flawed way of thinking but since he developed this belief when he was a young child, it would have stuck with him even into adulthood. Of course, he does lie occasionally just for fun and to get a reaction out of people, but when it comes to himself, he lies in order to shield and distance himself from others.

❖ Kokichi also shows a gentler side in this AU that he doesn't display in the OU. Having a younger sister that he's extremely fond of, he would occasionally act like a doting older brother. Of course, it wouldn't be anything so blatantly open like hugs or anything like that. It's more like the little stuff: occasional hair ruffling, bringing home food, and keeping an eye out for her. Yuuki is also the only one who is allowed to give him a nickname ("Kiki") that he doesn't particularly mind, but as long as it's not out in public...

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