Byakuya Togami


 * For more information about this character in Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy, see Byakuya Togami (Super Dangan Ronpa 2).

Byakuya Togami (十神白夜 Togami Byakuya) is one of the characters featured in Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair. His title is '''Super High-School Level Heir. '(超高校級の「御曹司」Chō Kōkō Kyū no "Onzōshi"''). He was the youngest sibling and heir to the financial giant Togami family. Rumor has it that he already held several management positions at a company, and managed to acquire a considerable amount of fortune on his own. He is also the founding and only member of the rich blond club. Before he entered Hope's Peak Academy, all of the schools he enrolled in to were exclusive ones. He survived the final trial and escaped with the other survivors at the end of the game.

He also appeared in Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy as a returning character, working with Makoto Naegi and Kyouko Kirigiri to save students trapped in a rehabilitation simulation gone horribly wrong.

Appearance
Togami has a tall, slim figure and usually dons a black suit. He wears a white shirt underneath and a green necktie. He has short blond hair and he wears white framed glasses. Togami is usually seen with his arms crossed, a personal quirk in line with his arrogance.

Personality
Togami is an arrogant young man who saw himself superior to others, being the heir of an extremely successful family business. He is often cold, blunt, and taciturn, but has a deviously manipulative tendency. Togami had often expressed irritation from Fukawa/Syo's obsessive behaviour toward him, though he often used it to his benefit by ordering them (technically, her) around.

Throughout the story, he frequently antagonized the others, saying he would be the one to emerge unscathed. Despite his prudish demeanor, he was actually one of the group's most sensible students, and had proven to be a competent investigator. He greatly revered his family, often speaking of the vast power of the Togami Group; when Enoshima revealed the state - or rather, cessation of existence - of the entire Togami Group, he did not take it well initially, although he would later recover from the shock to announce that he would rebuild the family from the ground up.

He is also quick to zero in on suspects without alibis - or those who seem to be most suspicious - as shown in the fifth school trial when Kirigiri did not have credible alibis to support her absence, although it became obvious that, having spent much time within a highly competitive environment, he was unable to account for the human factor, thereby committing errors in judgment when attempting to resolve the death of Sakura Oogami.

He is also extremely reluctant to admit to any mistakes he might have committed.

Pre-Despair Incident
In one of Togami's free-time events, he spoke to Naegi about the process of selecting the heir to the Togami Family - this being a clue to his life before Hope's Peak Academy.

He explained that the head of the family did not have a single, dedicated wife, but instead had many, many children with "a number of the highest quality women" all across the world. He then mentioned that all of the potential successors were made to compete against one another, and the victor is named heir of the Togami Group.

In Byakuya's generation there were fifteen candidates in all, both male and female; they fought for the headship, and in the end, he, the youngest male, came out on top. It was the first time in the family’s history that the youngest had ever "taken the crown".

The losing siblings were exiled from the family, but Togami harshly described them as being "killed" because, according to him, "(to be in) exile is pretty much the same as death".

The other fact that was known was that, at some point of time about one year ago, Togami had agreed, along with most of 78th Class, to confine themselves within the premises of Hope's Peak Academy.

High School Life of Mutual Killing
Like most of 78th Class, he lost memories of his school life before the world's most despair-inducing incident.

As events progressed, Togami emerged as one of the prime investigators of murders, alongside Naegi and Kirigiri, and tended to make swift logical conclusions, based on facts he learnt through investigations, instead of thinking about abstract theories (as would be Kirigiri's forte). In Class Trials, Togami is usually the first to spot weaknesses and apparent logical fallacies within others' statements. Togami was often seen bossing around Touko Fukawa/Genocider Syo, making use of the girl's obsession over him to make her do his bidding.

Later, he became more and more arrogant, considering himself (and his opinions) to be superior to everybody else. Sakura Oogami's death prompted him to announce that he would abandon the game and focus his efforts on finding the mastermind, although it did little else to defeat his confidence; it was only during the farcical trial to Mukuro Ikusaba's death that he would finally realize his own limits.

Retrial of the Death of Mukuro Ikusaba; confronting the real Enoshima
As the retrial progressed, Junko Enoshima was eventually revealed as the true perpetrator of the Mutual Killing incident. Togami was shocked when Junko illustrated his family's current situation - or, lack of a situation, given that his family had apparently been completely wiped out - and was rendered completely speechless for the first time since the start of the murders.

As he obtained motivatation through Naegi's talk of hope to grasp past the horror, Togami would defiantly remind Enoshima that his sole reason to support Naegi was to destroy the culprit that had been responsible for the deaths of his former classmates (a fact he had avowed himself upon at the conclusion of Sakura Oogami's Class Trial), and he did not plan to fall into despair anytime soon. He added that, as long as he was alive, the Togami Family would never truly die; Byakuya Togami is still alive, and he vowed to rebuild his family if the the world's most despair-inducing incident had been real at all.

Supporting Naegi, Togami and the remaining students voted for Hope - causing Junko to fall into one last episode of despair shortly before she executed herself in Super Duper Nasty Torture.

Considering their torments were finally over, Togami remained arrogant to his peers, while admitting that without anyone's help, he would not have survived through his gruesome journey. Togami would repeat his vow, that he would rebuild his family with his own hands and that it would be far greater than before.

With that, Togami emerged from Hope's Peak Academy as one of the survivors at the end of the game, and would later join the Future Foundation; this in turn would lead him to become one of the three that reappear in Super Dangan Ronpa 2.

Execution
Human★Disqualification - Togami would have been dropped in a garbage can and fall into a place that looks like Hell. Monobear, dressed like an elementary student, would stone him for looking like a dirty hobo. Togami would try to escape, only to come out into a cold and snowy place and eventually die from his wounds and the cold. This is just a draft and only shown in the official visual fanbook of Dangan Ronpa.

Touko Fukawa/Genocider Syo
Both Fukawa and her alternate personality, Syo, possess an extreme obsession with Togami, a crush he regards as disturbing. Fukawa finds Togami attractive, claiming that he "turns her on". She can often be seen blushing when he addresses her, and misinterprets his disgusted remarks about her "stench" to be concern. She hopes to one day assume an affectionate relationship with him, but is content with him constantly insulting her for now, seeing his (rather genuine) dislike of Fukawa as mere "lovers' quarrels". The two are frequently either seen together or noted to be absent from the group, though this is largely due to Fukawa's tendency to stalk Togami.

On the other hand, Syo insulted Togami at first, the latter being very surprised as a result. However, Syo also found Togami attractive, declaring that Togami was the only cute boy she would ever kill. Like Fukawa, Syo is usually seen stalking Togami and following him everywhere. Togami generally harbors animosity toward her in return, though this is adverse side to their relationship is slightly toned down over time (or rather, he does not have any feelings, positive or negative, toward her), and he and Fukawa even managed to have several conversations that could be classified as normal, despite Syo's existence.

In the bad ending, in which the six survivors remain within the school for the rest of their lives, Togami is shown to have had a son. Due to his faint resemblance to Fukawa, fans have speculated that it is their child; however, others argue that as he is holding up a picture of Fukawa, she appears to have passed away, and hence the child is most likely Asahina's.

In Super Dangan Ronpa 2, Kirigiri mentioned that "someone" was waiting for him to go back, possibly meaning Fukawa was still obsessed with him.

Makoto Naegi
The first time they met each other, Togami slighted Naegi, thinking he was only an ordinary high school boy unworthy of his time. However, as the story progressed, Togami began to admire Naegi's (and Kirigiri's) investigative skills, although he would never openly voice it.

In Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy, he, Naegi and Kirigiri eventually become companions and support Naegi's plan to save the remaining students from the will of Future Foundation's higher-ups.

Quotes

 * “My self introduction is over. How long are you planning to stand here? You’re an eyesore. Go away.”
 * “We should get back to the problem at hand. Now is not the time to go around smiling and making friends.”
 * "You look like frogs caught in a cesspool. I fear just looking at you can get something stuck to me."
 * "There’s no doubt the culprit is among us."
 * "You just went there without a worry in your head? You really are an idiot."
 * "That’s coming from the girl whose hobby is touching bodies. I suppose we can take it as fact."
 * "My name is Byakuya Togami." 
 * "In that case, feel free to die. Go die right now. You're a waste of oxygen."
 * "Are you late because you forgot how to walk? You need to alternate your right and left legs in order to move forward."
 * "By the name of Togami! I swear I'll kill you!"
 * "What's wrong? Don't tell me a simpleton like yourself was thinking about consoling me...?"
 * "Hmf. How foolish. It has never been my intention to fall into despair."
 * "But, don't get the wrong idea, It's not about what's going to happen to you."
 * "I am merely keeping my word. I did promise to kill the mastermind, didn't I?"
 * "Furthermore, the Togami family is not destroyed. I am still here."
 * "I can rebuild it with my own hands, and make it reach new heights...!"

Trivia

 * Togami claims to have a personal fund of 400 billion yen.
 * He appears to be fluent in French, as he was easily able to read Mukuro Ikusaba's Fenrir Mercenary Corps profile, written entirely in French.
 * His first name is Japanese for 'white night', while his last name translates as 'ten gods'.