Sayaka Maizono

Sayaka Maizono (舞園 さやか Maizono Sayaka), is a student in Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th, and a participant of the Killing School Life featured in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Her title is Ultimate Pop Sensation (超高校級の「アイドル」 lit. Super High School Level Idol).

Early Life
Sayaka was raised solely by her father, as her mother had passed away. Because her father worked long hours every day, Sayaka spent a lot of time alone at home. The only thing that kept her from feeling lonely was the idol live show she watched on television. The idol girls' smiles were a source of strength for her, and she became determined to become an idol herself so that she could give strength to other people. She did some some bad things and made many sacrifices in order to achieve her dream.

Sayaka and Makoto Naegi both went to Blackroot Junior High, though were not really close because they weren't in the same classes and social groups. On one occasion, Sayaka saw Makoto nurse an injured crane back to health after it got lost and stuck in the school pool. This action touched Sayaka, and after that incident, she wanted to get to know Makoto more. Unfortunately, they ended up graduating without interacting with each other.

Sayaka was later scouted for Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th, where she met Makoto once again.

Prior To The Tragedy

 * Main article: Danganronpa 3 - Side: Despair - Episode 04

Sayaka posed for an idol photobook on at least one occasion, which was revealed when a copy was traded to Teruteru Hanamura by Nagito Komaeda. It appears to contain photos of her in revealing outfits, and is likely to be one of the "bad things" that Sayaka did to achieve her dream.

The Tragedy

 * Main article: Danganronpa 3 - Side: Despair - Episode 11

During the Tragedy, Jin Kirigiri, the Headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy, planned to seal the school building and let the students live forever inside the Academy in order to protect them from the destruction. The class agreed to his plan, and they sealed the building together. Sayaka is seen talking with Makoto as the rest of the students begin to seal the school. After Makoto trips over a piece of paper, she tells him to be careful, as it would be extremely hard to help him should he get injured. Makoto assures her that the Tragedy would be over soon, to which she agrees. The students lived peacefully inside the school building for a year without knowing that the Ultimate Despair members were already in their midst.

Killing School Life

 * Main article: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Sayaka was among those who were chosen to attend Hope's Peak Academy as part of Class 78th. Class 78th ended up being trapped inside the school, not knowing at the time that they had already been memory-wiped of their two years of school life together. Sayaka is around 19 years old, though she believed was was only 17 because of the memory loss.

After losing their memories, Sayaka and Makoto were the only two students who still remembered each other, due to their shared past. Due to their previous familiarity they became close, and Sayaka assigned herself as an assistant to Makoto.

The students soon became forced into the mutual killing incident, in which the only way to escape was to kill a fellow student. As an incentive to murder, the students were each given a DVD featuring a video from Monokuma which implied that their loved ones were in danger. Sayaka's DVD showed the other members of her band apparently either dead or unconscious.

The DVD deeply traumatised Sayaka, and she began devising a plan to murder Leon Kuwata and make it appear that Makoto was responsible for his death. She had Makoto promise he would do anything it took to help her escape, and he took an ornamental golden sword from outside the gym and kept it in his room for defence. In the evening, Sayaka knocked on Makoto's door, appearing visibly frightened, claiming that someone had tried to get into her room. Because she felt unsafe in her own room, Makoto agreed to switch rooms with her, and the pair traded room keys.

Sayaka's Fate
Unknown to Makoto, Sayaka then switched the name plates on their dorm room doors. She wrote a note on Makoto's memopad, claiming she'd found a way to escape, and slipped a note under Leon's door. Later, when Leon arrived, Sayaka attacked him with a knife she had taken from the kitchen earlier in the day. Leon grabbed the ornamental sword on Makoto's shelf and used it to defend himself, breaking Sayaka's wrist in the process and causing her to drop the knife. Sayaka fled into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Not realising that Makoto's bathroom door was broken and needed to be lifted in order to open, Leon believed the door was locked, and left to go and retrieve his school-issued tool kit in order to break in. After breaking into the bathroom, Leon then stabbed Sayaka in the stomach. With the last of her strength, Sayaka wrote Leon's name (appearing upside down as 11037) in her own blood. Kyoko Kirigiri stated that this was likely Sayaka trying to make amends to Makoto.

11037

 * Main article: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Makoto, who later joined the Future Foundation, used Sayaka's dying message "11037" as the password to the abandoned Hope's Peak Academy building on Jabberwock Island. Makoto told Hajime Hinata that the reason he set 11037 as the password because "a certain person" (Sayaka) had once left that number behind to save him from trouble.

Makoto's Hallucination

 * Main article: Danganronpa 3 - Side: Future - Episode 11

Sayaka appears when Makoto attempts to test out a theory made by Kyoko, who had died recently. However, Makoto is brainwashed after watching a short video on a monitor, leading to him having a hallucination.

Sayaka appears in Makoto's hallucination first, alongside Kyoko. Sayaka taunts Makoto, reminding him that he failed to keep his promise to her, and asking why he's still alive. As their classmates appear behind her and Kyoko, Sayaka is shown with blood dripping from her mouth and staining her clothing, reminiscent of her death. Makoto grabs a knife to kill himself, and Sayaka and tells Makoto to come join them, as she and Kyoko urge him to continue. However, Juzo Sakakura interferes and stoped Makoto from committing suicide.

Nagito's Illusion

 * Main articles: Sayaka Maizono (Illusion) & Super Danganronpa 2.5

Sayaka appeared as an illusion in Nagito Komaeda's imaginary world following his death in the Neo World Program. Her illusion's personality appears to be based on a generic shoujo manga protagonist. Much like Sayaka's real-life counterpart, she is cheerful, sweet, and has a supporting personality.

Sayaka was worried of being late to school and began running hurriedly down the path while simultaneously holding a piece of toast in her mouth. She accidentally bumped into Nagito, pushing him into a moving truck and sending him flying into the nearby shrub where he experienced a number of unlucky circumstances. As a result of Nagito's bad luck, Sayaka received good luck, and was helped to stand back up by Makoto Naegi. Makoto represented himself in a far more confident and cool way and Sayaka was impressed by this, and they share a romantic moment. Later, Sayaka held Makoto by the arm as they walked together happily, showing Nagito how happiness can still be created without talent.

Creation and Development
Sayaka was not originally developed to be an idol, but instead be a graceful princess-type. She was planned to be the protagonist's childhood friend. At one point in the initial design stages she was a plump character.

The character designer, Rui Komatsuzaki, calls Sayaka's design "the most orthodox" out of all the characters. Her design turned out to be a "basic cute young girl". In Rui's opinion, her expressions characterize her rather than her design. He explains:
 * "All of the game's characters are very expressive, but hers are relatively different from what you'd first expect from such a character. I think I had most trouble drawing her scared expression."

Leon and Sayaka were both used as the game's base male and female characters, respectively, to establish a base body type and height. They were both used as stand-ins during many stages of development, and their character designs are very recognisable as early as the scrapped project DISTRUST. As a result of both of their designs being relatively unchanged from the early design stages, the development team grew tired of them and so they were the first characters to be killed in the final published game.

Name
舞園 (Maizono) uses the Kanji 舞 mai - "dance" and 園 sono - "garden", referencing her love for performance. Her first name is written in as 'さやか', making it strictly phonetic. There are many existent kanji spellings for "Sayaka", the most common translating as "bright", with other possible spellings meaning "blossom", "crystal" and "lovely".

Alternate Fates
In the Danganronpa Visual Fanbook, there is a description of executions for all of the characters who did not have one. Sayaka's execution is called Sayaka Maizono's Final Performance and described as the following:
 * Sayaka is placed on a stage, with the form of a giant beartrap along its edge. She is required to sing in order to fill the a score meter until it's full. However, just as the meter is about to reach the highest score, Monokuma destroys it, triggering the 'Failure' condition. This causes the giant beartrap to slam shut, killing Sayaka instantly.

The Danganronpa 3 box set included a feature detailing an alternate ending of Danganronpa called Danganronpa Another End which ultimately never made it out of the development phase. In this ending, all of the students escape, at the cost of giving up their talent forever. In Sayaka's ending, she tells Makoto that she will talk to her bandmates and decide what to do next, but that even if she can't perform with them anymore, they'll always be her precious friends. She tells Makoto that as long as she's fighting beside him, there's nothing they can't do.

Danganronpa IF, is a what-if scenario light novel in which Sayaka doesn't die. Sayaka's scheme to frame Makoto was interrupted by Makoto fainting, and was therefore never carried out. Very concerned and worried, Sayaka took him to the infirmary, intending to watch over him until she was interrupted by Mukuro Ikusaba. Later, when pressured about it by Monokuma, she appears nervous and unhappy, vowing to tell her friends what she had almost done when the crisis is over.

Appearance
Sayaka is 5'5" and weighs 108lbs. She is considered very attractive, as she has a large fanbase of both boys and girls. She wears eyeliner and blush, which suggest she wears makeup to help keep this appearance. She has long, dark blue hair, which she holds in place with several clips. Her eyes are also dark blue.

Her school school uniform is a traditional seifuku-style Japanese school uniform comprising of a long sleeved white shirt with a blue sailor collar and a pink bow, a blue tartan skirt, black thigh-high socks and brown, buckled shoes. Her school crest is visible on her undershirt and on her sleeve.

Sayaka's idol clothing is a sleeveless pink and white dress with a pink ribbon and ruffles at the bottom, which ends just above her knees. She also wears an intricate matching ribbon on the right side of her hair and white knee-high boots. Her hair is tied into two pig tails with pink clips on her bangs. In her official art, Sayaka wears her stage outfit, which consists of a ruffled, collared pink and white dress, a pink bow on the front and knee high white boots. She wears a black see-through armband on her right arm and a thin white arm band and a fluffy white bracelet on her left arm. She also wears a large pink bow over a white headband and she has multiple star hair clips.

She wears light pink lacy underwear.

Personality
Seeing as she's an idol, Sayaka has a cheerful, sweet, and supporting personality. Despite her idol career, Sayaka actual enjoys cooking.

Sayaka develops a bond with Makoto Naegi, whom she considers her friend, assisting him on every occasion in Chapter 1. However, she tends to hide her feelings when she is under great pressure by putting on her public persona. She also cares greatly for her band members, and would not hesitate to do something if anything were to happen to one of them, including things that could hurt others. When pushed to her limit, Sayaka will do anything even if it's a risk. After she watched Monokuma's Motivational Video, she only thinks of how she could escape from the Academy, even planning to betray Makoto.

Sayaka mentions that she often finds herself focused on a particular person, but pushes these thoughts out of her mind to commit herself further to her idol career.

Sayaka has an amazing intuition, as she can easily tell what people are thinking. She often joked about being psychic, only to admit that she was kidding later.

Ultimate Pop Sensation
As the Ultimate Pop Sensation, Sayaka is said to have a mesmerizing voice and amazing dancing skills. Because of this she is an exceptional performer, and has gained many fans and admirers all over the world. This is actually what led Hope's Peak Academy to approach her.

Extraordinary Intuition
Sayaka has amazing intuition, and often knows what people are thinking, even when it isn't obvious. She claimed this was due to psychic powers she joked about having. During Sayaka's School Mode ending, Makoto has flashes of events from the main story involving him and Sayaka, who also seems to remember said events. This seems to imply that Sayaka really does have a limited amount of psychic ability.

Her Father
Her father is the only family Sayaka has left, however, Sayaka states that her father was never really around the house much, due to him staying late at work. Because of this, Sayaka was often lonely, and didn't know her father very well.

Her Idol Group
Sayaka is very close to the girls in her idol group, as they are the ones who helped her achieve her dreams. They are the people she cares about most which is confirmed by the fact that they became her Captives. When learning that her group broke up, Sayaka attempted to kill one of her classmates and frame one of her close friends only because she assumed they were dead. Satomi Aoba and Ayaka Haneyama are two of the girls in Sayaka's idol group, and very good friends of hers. So far, out of the four girls in Sayaka's idol group, only their names have been revealed.

Makoto Naegi
Before the events of the first game, Sayaka and Makoto went to the same middle school, but never talked to each other due to being in different social circles. However, she became interested in Makoto after seeing him nurse an injured crane when it got lost and stuck in the pool at their school. She wanted to get to know him more, but unfortunately, both of them ended up graduating without ever contacting each other.

In the game, Sayaka eventually had a chance to talk with Makoto and befriended him. Mutual attraction formed between the two and several parts in the game hinted that she actually has feelings for him, even going so far as to act as his "assistant." However, after she received her "Motivational DVD" from Monokuma, she fell into despair. Makoto tried to comfort Sayaka and switched rooms with her when she was scared. This is later revealed to be an attempt to frame Makoto for the murder of Leon, but her plan backfired, and she ended up being killed by Leon in the process.

Before dying, Sayaka wrote Leon's name (read as 11037) as a hint for the culprit. Whether she really tried to save Makoto from being framed as the culprit or she wrote Leon's name as an act of revenge is unknown, however Kyoko theorized that she regretted her actions at the end and so had left the message in order to save Makoto, and he believed that. The manga adaptation explicitly demonstrates that Sayaka wrote Leon's name in a deliberate attempt to save Makoto from suspicion.

In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Makoto explains to Hajime that he set 11037 as the code to save the remaining students because it is a number that refers to someone who saved him when he was in trouble.

Sayaka's Japanese voice actress, Makiko Ohmoto, said in an interview (in Danganronpa THE ANIMATION Official Complete Book) that Sayaka's character song, 'Monochrome Answer', might hint at her relationship with Makoto before the Killing School Life. Ohmoto also mentioned that when Sayaka's "ghost" appeared to Makoto in Danganronpa 3, she was told not to speak in a scary voice, as she was supposed to represent "a guy thinking of his first love right before his death". Makoto's crush on Sayaka is also confirmed in the first anime's relationship chart. The chart does not mention her liking him back and it has not been explicitly stated that she returned his romantic feelings, however, in one of Sayaka's Free Time Events, she tells Makoto that she is interested in someone, while the latter notes that she was looking at him.

Leon Kuwata
In the manga adaptation, Sayaka and Leon developed a friendship after Leon decided he wanted to be friends with her because of his ambition to change his talent from Ultimate Baseball Star to Ultimate Musician. Leon found Sayaka had the same passion he did, so he wanted to get closer to her.

However, when put under the pressure of the Motivational Video, Sayaka chose Leon as her murder victim, and planned to frame Makoto. In the end, her plan backfired as Leon was able to defend himself, which led her to flee to the bathroom. In the manga version, Sayaka chose Leon as her victim because he respects Sayaka the most, so she could kill him easily. After Sayaka had ran away from Leon upon his counter attack Leon decided to follow Sayaka to the bathroom so he could calm her down. In the end, Leon ended up murdering Sayaka by accident. During Leon's Free Time Events, Leon reveals he secretly has a crush on Sayaka.

Free Time
During Free Time, Makoto can choose to talk to Sayaka in order to learn more about her. If he gives her a present that she likes, and chooses the correct response during their conversation, their friendship level will increase and she will disclose something about herself. Each successful Free Time conversation adds a page to Sayaka's Report Card in the e-Handbook menu, and grants either a skill that will give him an advantage during class trial battles, or an increase in Skill Points.

Skills
Becoming friends with students grants Makoto special skills which can aid him during Class Trials. Becoming close with Sayaka grants the following skill:

Quotes

 * “Hi, I'm Sayaka Maizono. I look forward to getting to know you!”
 * “It's just like you said... I came here and suddenly fell asleep. It looks like we're all in on the same boat...”
 * “Like I said, I'm Psychic.”
 * “I will be your Ultimate Assistant!” (to Makoto Naegi)
 * “I know I said I wanted to talk, but when push comes to shove, I don't know what to say...”
 * “I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ANY OF THIS!!”
 * “THERE'S NO ONE WHO WILL HELP US!

Trivia

 * Two of Sayaka's songs (Negaigoto Ensemble and Monochrome Answer) were released on bonus discs with the anime. They are both performed by her voice actress Makiko Ohmoto. A third unnamed song of hers is also featured in the Hope's Peak Academy: School Festival Drama CD.
 * In DISTRUST, the beta version of the game, Kyoko Kirigiri was killed in the first chapter instead of Sayaka, whereas in Danganronpa: The Demo, Yasuhiro Hagakure was killed. Both were in order to avoid spoiling the events of the full game.
 * In Danganronpa Reload Guidebook, it was mentioned that when demo version was complete, some staff members commented that it might have been good to go with the beta version's scenario.
 * Her death is similar to that of, who died in a hotel bathroom with a fatal stab wound to the abdomen. Nancy at the time was the girlfriend of of the  - one of the bands Leon mentioned that would inspire his future punk band.
 * Kazutaka Kodaka, mentioned in an interview at Ritsumeikan University that her death was based on the shower room death scene from Alfred Hitchcock's movie, . He was inspired by how a death scene got more famous than the main character.
 * Sayaka's Birthday, July 7th, coincides with Tanabata, also known as The Festival of the Stars.
 * The Japanese festival celebrates the annual reunion of the mythical lovers princess Orihime (represented by ) and cowherd Hikoboshi (represented by ), who were separated across the heavenly river Amanogawa (the ) by Orihime's father, emperor Tentei. After witnessing his daughter's subsequent sorrow, Tentei has decided to allow the couple to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month (when Altair and Vega intersect).
 * The story of Orihime and Hikoboshi is somewhat similar to the relationship between Makoto and Sayaka: They were both interested in each other during middle school, where they failed to find the chance to talk, and only had very brief time together in Hope's Peak Academy before Sayaka's death.
 * Makoto is also considered "normal" (like the simple cowherd Hikoboshi), while Sayaka is a famous, talented idol (like princess Orihime).
 * Sayaka's English voice actress, Dorothy Elias-Fahn, also voices Chihiro Fujisaki and Alter Ego.
 * Sayaka says in her free-time event, in response to Makoto's answer 'crane', that she's the crane he rescued at that time during middle school and that she wants to weave clothes for him. This is actually a reference to a popular Japanese folktale, or "The Crane's Return of Favor". In the story, a crane which was saved by a man disguised itself as a woman and devoted herself to help him make a living by weaving beautiful fabric for him to sell. However once the man realized that it was the crane who sustained him, she was already gone. The story is somewhat similar to chapter 1, where Makoto learns only during the class trial that in her dying moments, Sayaka used whatever power she had left to clear him of suspicion.
 * A younger sister of Sayaka's was planned to be introduced as part of the Warriors of Hope's Hit List in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. This idea, however, was scrapped once the game's developers realized that Sayaka having siblings would be inconsistent with her back story mentioned in the original game.
 * In the original game, Sayaka is the one who discovers that the kitchen is restocked everyday by Monokuma, however, in the anime, they changed it to Chihiro.

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