Kazuichi Soda

Kazuichi Soda (左右田 和一 Sōda Kazuichi) is one of the characters featured in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.

Kazuichi has the title Ultimate Mechanic (超高校級の「メカニック」chō kōkō kyū no “mekanikku.”)

Kazuichi managed to survive the final trial and escape back to the real world with the other survivors at the end of the game and remained stay at Jabberwock Island.

Kazuichi also appears in a light novel titled Danganronpa: Togami as one of the antagonists and a member of Ultimate Despair.

Kazuichi returns in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side: Despair as one of students from Class 77th in Hope's Peak Academy with the other Remnants of Despair.

Appearance
Kazuichi, being a mechanic, wears a bright neon yellow jumper with a dark brown streak on both sides and several hot pink markings that go down to his ankles. Kazuichi's shoes are also yellow, although they're a lighter shade than his jumpsuit, and seem to be Nike, but could easily be of another brand.

During his high school years, he wore a blue jumper and a cap.

Kazuichi's hair is dyed hot pink and is somewhat badly layered. However, he covers said bad layering up with the gray beanie he wears. In addition to his punk rock appearance, he has thin eyes with hot pink prescription color contacts on them at all times. Above his eyes, his thin, pronounced eyebrows nearly touch his hairline. His teeth are sharp and resemble a shark's, giving him an intimidating grin.

Personality
Kazuichi is a highly emotional character, though he tries to play it smooth and acts carefree at first. People tend to note his scary appearance does not match his compulsive and rather timid personality. He is a very jumpy person, easily scared and often screaming in fear.

Kazuichi also has a tendency to neglect his need for a verbal filter, and blurts things out without thinking. He also seems to be a very bad liar, leading him to be contradictory at times. While he is a genius with machinery, he appears to be a bit slow-witted otherwise. Like Mikan Tsumiki, he is commonly Monokuma and Hiyoko Saionji's target and often ends up being the butt of their jokes.

Kazuichi has a great fear of dying on the island, which causes a lot of stress and panic for him. This is made worse by his trust issues which were caused by his past friendship, which causes him some conflict with Hajime Hinata. However, he is willing to apologize and calm down if he realizes he has been wrong. Despite some issues, he develops a close friendship with Hajime, and he considers him his soul friend and sometimes even appears a bit clingy towards him.

Kazuichi is normally trying to repair any broken items on the island with his ability and familiarity with mechanisms. He tends to carry around a spanner/wrench and he turns anxious if he cannot tinker with something. He has great love for machinery, especially fast ones like rockets and bikes, which is ironical because he suffers from a bad motion sickness. At times, his love for machinery seems to reach even abnormal levels. In Island Mode, he appears to question his sexuality around Hajime (for example, he has excited and then confused reaction about taking clothes off with him and he's afraid he'll dream about a date with Hajime after he jokingly suggested a one), only to comically reveal to him that he is attracted to tanks.

Kazuichi also likes girls a lot, though in a rather perverted and shallow way. He has taken a strong liking to Sonia Nevermind, to an extent of being a pervert, somewhat stalker-like and in constant jealously of Gundham Tanaka. He claims that he's dreamed of a beautiful blond girlfriend since he was a kid and his affection towards Sonia seems rather shallow, as he actually seems to dislike some of her actual personality traits, like her love for occult.

Along with most of his classmates, Kazuichi sympathizes with the fallen. He doesn't let it get him down, but he neglects to simply let the death of his classmates be shaken off. Kazuichi even makes a small toy out of Nekomaru Nidai's robot remains for everyone in an effort to impress Sonia. Kazuichi even displays being a bit shaken up about Teruteru Hanamura's death. He is stunned, but shoved into pushing away his shock because of Hiyoko's comments. Despite this, he seems to still be heavily affected for awhile. This pattern repeats itself for nearly every death.

In Danganronpa: Togami, as a member of Ultimate Despair, Kazuichi is ruthless and very dangerous, shooting and killing many innocent civilians without remorse or hesitation. Despite that, he still has a crush on Sonia and his way to speak to her doesn't change.

History
[Warning: Several spoilers for this section!]

Prior to the Tragedy
Kazuichi's life seemed to have been fairly tougher than a normal child's. He and his father ran his family's bike shop, but nothing was ever sold. The bike shop wasn't always inactive, however, many customers would ask for them to fix their bike tires or inflate them. Despite this, the family was still often low on money. In result, though, Kazuichi got plenty of practice with making and building things.

Kazuichi liked to mess up many things, such as his greatest invention, attaching an engine to the machine that draws the chalk lines on soccer fields. However, it escaped through the school entrance at full speed, without curving or stopping.

As a child, Kazuichi was also very skittish, and easily picked on. He had a best friend in middle school. They always did everything together, and could he talk to him about anything. One time, Kazuichi let him cheat off his test because his friend had begged him for help, but they both got caught by the teacher. He insisted that Kazuichi was the one who willingly gave him the answers. Starting from that point, his friend kept avoiding Kazuichi, though, in actuality, Kazuichi didn't really care about being scolded. However, because of this, Kazuichi later developed trust issues.

Kazuichi let other children step all over him, but then he decided to change his appearance entirely. From changing his hair color, to losing his glasses, and presumably sharpening his teeth, so that he could fit in better with people around him. It seems as if it'd do the opposite, but that may just be how his mind works. At this point, he began to put up the "Tough punk" facade to avoid more bullying, which, to this day, continues to break almost constantly.

In addition to Kazuichi's rough childhood, with money and bullying problems, his dad seemed to have beat him at times. In one of his free time events, he states that he had never been on a field trip, and spoke quite casually about his father beating him when he didn't attend school on those days. Such behavior suggests that he was a subject of excessive abuse.

As a teen, Kazuichi attended Toushima Industry High School. Thanks to his great mechanic skills, he later enrolled in Hope's Peak Academy as the Ultimate Mechanic, in the 77th Class. He quickly developed a crush on Sonia Nevermind, a foreign princess.

Episode 01 - Hello Again, Hope's Peak Academy
Kazuichi was busy working at a big machine until he noticed that Sonia came to visit him. He jumped from the machine and happily greeted Sonia. However, Sonia slowly moved away from him due to his smells. Kazuichi tried to ask her if she was smelly, until his new homeroom teacher, Chisa Yukizome tapped his shoulder with her gas mask on.

After Kazuichi joined and retrieved Gundham, Ibuki Mioda, and Peko Pekoyama, he and his classmates came to an area outside the school to search for Nagito Komaeda. He commented that nothing good happens to him whenever Nagito is around. Soon enough, Kazuichi was hit by a truck and sustained injury, while Nagito won a lucky streak in a vending machine due to that accident.

Kazuichi later seen with all of his face bandaged (possibly treated by Mikan). Before Chisa went to retrieve two remaining students, she tasked everyone to clean the classroom. Kazuichi who denied her order had his table stabbed with two knives, threatened by his homeroom teacher. He disliked Chisa at first but changed his mind soon after he heard Sonia's excitement.

After returning to the classroom, Chisa was happy to see that Kazuichi and the others had waited and that the classroom was clean. When the students once again bring up that they didn't have to go to class, so long as they have their talent, Chisa reminded them that talent isn't everything, and wanted them to build strong relationships and "hope" with each other.

Episode 02 - My Impurest Heart for You
Kazuichi and his classmates took cover on the side of the classroom when Akane Owari and Nekomaru clashed during their deadly training session, almost destroyed the whole classroom. After the training end, Kazuichi and the others repaired their classroom together. He also built a big monitor so that everyone can play games that Chiaki Nanami brought. Kazuichi proudly explained that he was the one who built the monitor to Chisa, but no one paid attention to him.

Kazuichi played a monopoly-like game with Nagito, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, and Teruteru. He mocked Nagito that almost defeated while he almost won. However, Nagito's luck reign supreme and turned the tables, making Kazuichi lost disgracefully.

During the break time, Kazuichi and the others ate nikujaga that has been cooked by Teruteru and Hiyoko. However, the food contained with aphrodisiacs itself affected everyone including Kazuichi who ate it to lost their body control and drowned in lust. When Kazuichi saw his chance to reach Sonia, Fuyuhiko desperately trying to stop him. Sometimes later, Kazuichi recovered in the nurse's office.

In the next day, He agreed with Sonia and Chisa to elect Chiaki as their class representative.

Episode 03 - A Farewell to All Futures
At the beginning of the episode, Kazuichi and his classmates walked past Hajime heading toward the Main Course building. He was bitten by Gundham's Maga-Z. Later on, Kazuichi and his classmates visited the school's park and once again playing with Gundham's Four Dark Devas of Destruction.

Episode 04 - The Melancholy, Surprise, and Disappearance of Nagito Komaeda
Kazuichi was listening to Chisa's announcement about the annual practical exam that will start tomorrow inside the classroom, still showing no spirit along with his classmates as their morale decreased greatly due to the deaths of Natsumi Kuzuryu and Sato.

Kazuichi and the others already heard the news of Chisa's transfer to the Reserve Course and when she arrived in the classroom to bid her farewell, Sonia broke in tears, surprising Kazuichi and made him unable to comfort her.

During the Tragedy
At some point after this, Kazuichi joined the Ultimate Despair group that was founded by Junko Enoshima. The members of Ultimate Despair did all kinds of horrible things during the Tragedy, causing despair all over the world. Kazuichi invented and oversee the production of many dangerous machines for the Ultimate Despair, such as giant Monokuma.

After Junko was executed, the survivors of Ultimate Despair chopped her body up and attached some of her body parts to themselves.

The remnants of Despair are later found by Future Foundation. Makoto Naegi plans to undo Junko's influence by putting them into the Neo World Program, but the program is taken over by AI Junko, right according to the Ultimate Despair's plan.

Chapter 1 - Byakuya-sama is God
Kazuichi first appeared in the crowd of Prague citizen's demonstration to the World Domination Proclamation. Shinobu Togami noticed his appearance, but decided not to approach him after the last two events. After Hiroyuki Ketouin's Merchedes-Benz has been spotted by the demonstration due to Taeko Kanai's abruptness, Kazuichi flies the baby statue from TV Tower Babies, revealing them as machine-guns. It starts to shoot, targeting at civilians and Hiroyuki's Mercedes.

Kazuichi, with his flying baby machine-gun, and Sonia with her armored car started a pincher attack to Hiroyuki's car. It's later revealed Kazuichi and Sonia succeeded in tracking down Byakuya due to a transmitter set in his glasses. Byakuya threw his glasses out the window, eventually allowing the group to escape from the murderous killing machines belonging to both Kazuichi and Sonia.

Prologue - Welcome to Dangan Island! Panic at the Heart-Throbbing School Trip!?
Kazuichi is first seen by Hajime hanging around in the airport along with Gundham. He confirms that all airplanes in the airport are unusable, due the engines are missing. He also adds that whoever put them on the island, plans to keep them there.

Kazuichi says that although the trip is strange he may like it due to not having to do anything bad. When Hajime displays discomfort with Usami, he adds that if you look closely at her, she might look cute.

Chapter 1 - Destination Despair
In the beginning, after Monokuma announces that they must all kill each other to escape, Kazuichi was terrified at the prospect, causing him to jump at shadows. He even tried to escape from the meeting once but ended in failure as Mahiru Koizumi caught him. However, his focus soon shifts from a constant fear of dying to try to get Sonia to be his girlfriend.

During the trial, Kazuichi suspected Peko as the culprit of Byakuya Togami murder. He suspected Peko because during the blackout in the old lodge, the place where the students threw party, Peko guarding the office room, the place where the old lodge electricity sourced. However, Peko proved innocent as the true culprit voted guilty and were executed by Monokuma.

Chapter 2 - Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts
In the beginning of Chapter 2, Kazuichi and Nekomaru punched and chained up Nagito in order to prevent him from causing more trouble. Kazuichi also plotted to crash Sonia's all girl beach party with Hajime by hanging out at the diner until the girls arrived.

Because of this, Kazuichi and Hajime bore witness to Hiyoko leaving the crime scene a short while after the murder took place and he was also able to testify that Hiyoko had no blood on her at the time. He was the third person to discover Mahiru's body, setting off the body discovery announcement.

Chapter 3 - Trapped by the Ocean Scent
Kazuichi moved to the motel along with Hiyoko, Chiaki Nanami, Sonia and Gundham in Chapter 3 while the students afflicted with despair disease were under quarantine. He also built the video transponder which allows the motel group to communicate with the hospital.

Chapter 4 - Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Electric Clocks?
In Chapter 4, Kazuichi explored the Strawberry and Grape houses with Nagito since Sonia took off with Gundham before he could ask her. Having ended up with one of the poor rooms in the Strawberry House, he was able to hear the alarm and the rumbling sound.

On the third day in the morning, Kazuichi was awake because of the strawberry house alarm clocks ringing, he then meets with Gundham and Fuyuhiko who are too busy to turn it off. He contributed to the murder investigation by fixing the elevator and the Strawberry Tower door button, as well as performing the equivalent of an autopsy on Nekomaru's mechanical body. He was also able to verify the elevator turned 180 degrees with the help of Nagito's compass.

Chapter 5 - Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair
In Chapter 5, Kazuichi stays up two nights straight, one in which he spends the night creating MiniMaru, a small robotic version of Nekomaru with multiple functions in order to cheer everyone up after his death to which Akane gladly adopts as her own, this shows his more caring side to his group of friends after creating an uplifting speech on top of his gift, the 2nd night he then proceeds to create a plan to capture Nagito in order to prevent anymore killings. The plan fails and Kazuichi flat out gets blown across the room by an explosion after apprehending Nagito with Fuyuhiko and Akane. While it seems to suggest he's been injured by the bomb Nagito placed in the lobby, he's surprisingly left unharmed despite it being rather ambiguous when he hadn't spoken for a while during the aftermath. He's the most flustered person due to Nagito's threat.

Chapter 6 - This is the End Goodbye Academy of Despair
In the final chapter, Kazuichi is one of the final five students out of fifteen who enters the final class trial, along with Makoto, Togami and Kirigiri also entering the program later. Throughout the trial he often shows signs of intense fear and almost comical reactions to the events unfolding, such as discovering he himself as an Ultimate Despair and tries to disregard it, while also being apprehensive to initiate the shutdown sequence because of his fear of what he'll become. In the end, he is convinced by Hajime to create his own future and says the choice of initiating the shutdown sequence is now incredibly easy, while on the verge of despair he managed to overcome that with hope for the future. His love for Sonia has no bounds, even in the final trial.

Epilogue - The Day before the Future
After the defeat of AI Junko Enoshima, Kazuichi and the former Ultimate Despair members opted to stay on the Jabberwock Island, possibly in hopes that they could do something to help their comatose friends.

Episode 01 - Third Time's the Charm
As a member of Ultimate Despair, Kazuichi was working on his Giant Monokuma project showed at the beginning of the episode.

Execution
Underground Travels - Kazuichi is forced into a drilling machine. The door closes and the machine starts to drill into the ground below. It continues on drilling until it reaches the mantle of the earth, and Kazuichi melts along with the machine. This execution is only shown in the Official Fanbook.

Hajime Hinata
Hajime is a close friend of Kazuichi's. Kazuichi latches onto Hajime, calling him his "soul friend". Throughout their friendship, a brief break up ensues when he blames Hajime for "leading them" into Monokuma's trap and ends up turning to Nagito instead.

Sonia Nevermind
From the moment Kazuichi first speaks to Sonia, he bows down to her. Sonia is the only one he uses an honorific for, calling her "Miss Sonia." In addition, she is the only one he refers to on a first-name basis. Despite the amount of "respect" he gives her, he's constantly making comments about her body and appearance, in a rather gross fashion.

At first it is unclear whether Kazuichi is simply objectifying her, or truly cares about her and does not know how to go about expressing that. However, it becomes apparent that he does objectify her, considering he treats her as if she cannot do things for herself because she is a princess. He also stated that he always wanted a beautiful blonde for a girlfriend, which fits Sonia's exterior looks. Sonia dislikes his advances to the point of actively avoiding him and being disappointed that he was not the culprit of the fourth trial.

After Gundham's death Kazuichi made a speech on how the team must prevail and move forward. Though the speech seemed to move others, it is shown that he made the speech solely to impress Sonia, which she ignored.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu
At first, Kazuichi and the Ultimate Yakuza seem to be at each other's throats quite often. Kazuichi makes comments towards Fuyuhiko such as "If you didn't have that big Yakuza family, you'd be nothing but a midget!" Which, of course, is returned by Fuyuhiko's own sharp tongue.

As time passes, though, their disagreement with each other seems to dissipate, and they become tolerant of one another. This may or may not be because of the stress of being on the island.

Nagito Komaeda
After trial one, Kazuichi finds Nagito to be a nutcase. He and Nekomaru are the ones who tie up Nagito. When this happens, and everyone asks where Nagito is, Kazuichi seems extremely suspicious. He's almost immediately blamed for murder.

Despite him having such thoughts about Nagito in the beginning, Kazuichi still turns to him when he 'breaks up' with Hajime.

Gundham Tanaka
Kazuichi disliked Gundham and refused to invite him to the beach party. They had a brief childish spat during the 3rd Class Trial where they threatened to kill each other. Kazuichi disliked him even more when it became apparent that Sonia favored Gundham, resorting to name-calling ("Hamster-chan") and failed attempts to one up him during the 4th Class Trial.

Presents
Obtained from the MonoMono Machine.
 * Radiosonde
 * Lilienthal's Wings
 * Small Degenerated Reactor
 * Old Timey Radio
 * Broken Warhead

Choices
During free time conversations, the player will occasionally be given a choice on how to respond to something that is said. These are the 'right' choices.
 * Engine
 * A rocket ship
 * Fist fight

Skills
These will aid you, usually during Class Trials.
 * Handiwork - Allows you to reload two bullets at once. Effective during the Panic Talk Action.

Quotes

 * “Name's Kazuichi Soda. I'm the "Ultimate Mechanic." Nice to meet ya!”
 * “Ah well. This ain't natural, but I guess it's nothing we can't handle, right?”
 * “Those things're goin' nowhere. I mean...they're not broken - if they were just broken, we'd be flying already, y'know?” (talking about the broken airplane)
 * “Killing each other, huh... K...KILLING EACH OTHER?!”
 * “Miss Sonia! May I call you Miss Sonia? I'm gonna call you Miss Sonia!” (to Sonia Nevermind)
 * “Oi, oi... don't say things like that! You’re gonna ruin my mood!”
 * “Y...You can't scare me with your threats!”
 * “Yawn... Ah... Woke up late. S’not like me at all...”
 * “TOO EASY!”
 * “I PREPARED!”
 * “I-I'll make you look back at me! I'll work hard and make you absolutely look back at me, alright!” (to Sonia)
 * “My classmates were pretty much a bunch of boring turds so I was like, "Who cares if I don't go to school?"”
 * “Hehe...that sounds pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to working with ya, comrade!” (to Hajime Hinata)
 * “What kind of guys do you think Miss Sonia likes...? Do you think she's into princes? No, she needs to feel the love of a commoner!” (talking about Sonia)
 * “Guys definitely need something with a rumble and some bam bam bam!”
 * “Disassemble, reassemble, see how it goes... Disassemble, reassemble, see how it goes... Doing that over and over gets my brain moving!”
 * “I just...really like the feeling of an engine running.”
 * “...All right, let's get pumped up and look for a way to escape!”
 * “Humans are creatures that betray each other, y'know...”
 * “I was always...a weak, cowardly kid. All I ever did was study and tinker with machines.”
 * “Even if I was betrayed or lied to, I always believed they had a good reason for it.”
 * “You'd be surprised how much changes when you change your appearance.”
 * “...Thanks. Because of you, I understand now. What I really hated all along wasn’t being betrayed.” (to Hajime Hinata)
 * “I hated myself for being too weak to believe in others.”
 * “It's not cute to see an old guy sulk...” (to Nekomaru Nidai)
 * “You're not a tool, you're a friggin' human being!” (to Peko Pekoyama)
 * “What a wicked way of backing us into a wall... Is this his professional skill...!?” (talking about Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu)
 * “Even quick work has limits.”
 * “Don't go doubting Miss Sonia, you cretin! I'll put you and your hamsters six feet under!” (to Gundham Tanaka)
 * “A-Are you freakin' kidding me...? There's no limit to how useless you can be...!” (to Nagito Komaeda)
 * “Wh-What the heck...? This isn't a comic book, you know...!” (In response to Mikan Tsumiki explaining about the "World Ender")
 * “Why do you always side with Hajime...!? Do you have a crush on him or something!?” (to Chiaki Nanami)
 * “A blushing Miss Sonia is freaking awesome!”
 * “It's okay to reach such a happy ending, right!?”
 * “By finding out who the traitor is, our hopes will shine even brighter by overcoming that despair... That's something he'd say” (talking about Nagito)
 * “If this is a game...are my words being displayed in a text window right now!?” (Kazuichi breaking the 4th wall)
 * “A-As expected of Miss Sonia! Your knowledge of state-sanctioned torture is amaaaazing!”
 * “Just kill him right now! Then this nightmare can finally end!” (to Akane Owari)
 * “If I don't have any place to go back to, I should at least protect this place no matter what!”
 * “...People can't change that easily, y'know!” (to Fuyuhiko)
 * “Hey! I'll never forget you guys or the others!”
 * “You guys better remember me too! My name is...Kazuichi Soda!”

Trivia

 * Kazuichi originally had black hair and wore glasses.
 * Kazuichi's report card states that:
 * He likes cola and hates anything that is sugar-free,
 * His Blood type is A,
 * His chest is 34 in.
 * Kazuichi likes comic books and action movies and dislikes novels and horror movies.
 * Despite becoming a mechanic who is an expert in vehicle machines, Kazuichi has motion sickness.
 * This is most likely the reason why Kazuichi would rather take apart machines than ride them.
 * It's revealed in one of Mahiru's Free Time that Kazuichi never washed his jumpsuit.
 * Kazuichi's dream is to build a rocket ship.
 * Kazuichi appears to know how to read English, telling Hajime what a sign written in English meant.
 * The kanji for "Kazuichi" (和一) simply mean "Peaceful One", while his surname (左右田) translates as "Rice Field of Dominance" (左右 sō being an expression literally meaning "Left & Right").
 * It could be that Kazuichi's name and surname are meant to have a bit of irony to them, considering that while he originally seemed to be very self-confident and carefree, he quickly turned hysterical following the appearance of Monokuma.
 * Even on the hardest difficulty, Kazuichi's Rebuttal Showdown arguments only take a single strike to dispel in Chapter 4.
 * It was confirmed in Kazuichi's official spin-off manga titled "Super Danganronpa 2 - Zetsubouteki Ingaritsu no Naka no Souda Kazuichi" that he can indeed sew. He learned from watching his parents.
 * During Chapter 5, after discovering an e-mail in the Monobeast factory that discusses students causing a riot leading to the end of the world, Kazuichi references the popular Anime and Manga series, Death Note. He states there's no way the events in the 'story' are real because they're "more impossible than a notebook that kills people just by writing in it."