Kyoko Kirigiri

Kyouko Kirigiri (霧切 響子 Kirigiri Kyouko) is one of the characters featured in Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair. An enigmatic girl whose talent was unknown from the beginning, she often helps Naegi to make a breakthrough during the investigations and trials. Later, it was revealed that she was actually an amnesiac. Her true identity was the daughter of Jin Kirigiri, the previous Headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy. She survived the final trial and escaped with the other survivors at the end of the game.

She is also one of the returning characters in Super Dangan Ronpa 2. Kirigiri joined the Future Foundation after the events of the first game.

A light novel based around her past has been announced, titled Dangan Ronpa Kirigiri.

Appearance
Kirigiri is a relatively tall, pretty girl with purple eyes and a pale complexion. She wears her light purple hair down and with a braid on the side, tied with a black ribbon. Her outfit consists of a dark-purple collared jacket over a white blouse and tie, along with a short skirt and knee-high boots. She also always wears her custom-made black gloves to conceal scars on her hands that she received back when she was an amateur.

Personality
Kirigiri is a stoic and mysterious girl with amnesia. She has a calm demeanor and tends to be completely unfazed by most of the events that occur, even when a body is found. Kirigiri is also one of very few students that sees things objectively and doesn’t jump to conclusions in the trial, making her a valuable ally to Naegi. Kirigiri is very sensitive regarding the subject about the Hope Peak’s Academy Headmaster (who later is revealed to be her own father), going as far as to even lose her cool when Alter Ego mentioned the possibility of him being the mastermind. She also doesn't like it when people keep secrets from her, as Naegi finds out.

Ever since the first murder, she becomes closer to Naegi, evident from her later interactions with him hinting some sort of mutual attraction. When Naegi allows himself to be found guilty in Chapter 5 (though he's saved at the last minute by Alter Ego), Kirigiri realizes that she's been putting her own desires ahead of his safety. When she discovers that Naegi ends up at the garbage disposal room, she risks her life to save him.

She can also be seen as being able to find the good in people's motives: for example, after the first trial (Sayaka Maizono's death), she goes to Naegi's room to tell him that she thinks that in the end, Sayaka actually wanted to make sure he didn't get the blame for her death, which is why she wrote LEON on the wall. Another example is in the second school trial, where she points out that the broken ID card is actually Chihiro Fujisaki. Kirigiri says that Mondo Oowada broke it to protect Chihiro's secret.

Behind her stone cold personality, Kirigiri seems to easily get emotionally upset, which is masked by her strong will. Even under calm situations, she sometimes lets her emotions get the best of her as shown when Alter Ego mentions her father, the former headmaster, as the person who might be the real culprit (mastermind) behind the sadistic game and when Naegi refuses to tell her about Oogami's odd rivalry with Monokuma (assumed that Naegi suspected Oogami's betrayal).

Pre-Despair Incident
Kirigiri comes from a family of famous detectives. Even though her family kept their talent out of the spotlight, Kirigiri publicly touted her abilities so that the Hope's Peak recruiters would notice her. While attending Hope's Peak she did investigations for her father and the Hope's Peak Academy Steering Committee.

High School Life of Mutual Killing
During the beginning of the game, Kirigiri often keeps her distance from the other students while investigating. Prior to the investigation to find the way out with no casualties, Kirigiri doesn't seem to cooperate with the other students and does most of the investigating by herself. She plays major roles in solving mysteries of the culprits in class trials. Later on in the game she begins to trust Naegi and starts calling him a friend.

Maizono's death, Naegi Framed and the First Class Trial and Execution
During life in the academy, Kirigiri is the only student who believes that Naegi is not responsible of Maizono's murder while trying to give

As the detective told Naegi about

Execution(What-If)
Detention-Kirigiri is in a room filled with school desks. In the center is a large conveyor belt where her desk is located. As she sits there, it goes backwards towards the end of the room. Behind her at the end of the conveyor belt is a large block resembling a trash compactor that slams down every few seconds intending to crush whatever is underneath. Above is a television showing Monobear's face on it. As her desk moves backwards, Monobear dressed as a teacher appears in front of her and attempts to teach her a lesson in class, while Kirigiri constantly turns her gaze behind her, nervously watching the compactor. Eventually her desk goes under the compactor, and Kirigiri is crushed flat. This ending is the bad end route in the game, where the surviving students lived despairingly ending ever in their life in the academy, and can be achieved by calling out Kirigiri's lie in the fifth trial.

It should be noted that she and Makoto have the same execution.

Makoto Naegi
Both are on good terms with each other, Kirigiri trusts Naegi (although just for her plans against Monokuma) but Naegi puts his trust in her completely as he hopes that she would trust him as much as he trust her. Regardless, Kirigiri seems to care a little for Naegi as time goes on. Evidence was shown when she entered his room and told Naegi to beware of Mukuro Ikusaba. She also saved him from Mukuro who's about to kill him when he was asleep, which actually turned out to be Junko Enoshima who was trying to kill the latter. During the last Class Trial, Naegi was the one who told the remaining students (including her) to not give in to despair. Kirigiri told Naegi that even though she didn't know her dad, he would never tell her to stay in the school if it meant deserting him. Thus, showing their bonds and trust to each other.

Furthermore, Kirigiri also helps Naegi solve each Class Trial whenever he was out of clues. When Monokuma "executed" Naegi during the case of Mukuro Ikusaba, she risk her own life to save him out of the garbage room. Also at their "Graduation," she told Naegi she was actually kind of looking forward to face whatever is out there if it's with someone like him. This hints out that she might have feelings for him.

Jin Kirigiri
Little is known about their relationship, she only stated that they were just family and nothing more. Jin left her when she was a little girl. Kirigiri stated that he only used her mother's death as an excuse so that he could leave the house and that she didn't really knew him as a father because they never really spoke to each other much during their days together.

When she found out that her father died in the school and found his skeleton, she didn't show any feelings towards his death. But Naegi, who was looking at the remainings of her father instead, noticed that she didn't even look in the box. Naegi thinking, that somewhere in her heart she must have thought she was wrong about her father's death.

Quotes

 * "If I don't have to, I think I won't."
 * "They're just underpants. It's not like I put my hands inside his socks..."
 * "Everyone, keep calm."
 * "For the time being, let's go once more over what we know."
 * "That's suspicious... someone is probably lying..."
 * "You won't find anything just staring at it."
 * "...You're hopeless."
 * "I... have come in contact with dead bodies for quite some time now..."
 * "When you see something strange, don't you think It's a good idea to check it in detail?"
 * "A hint is one thing, but simply sharing the answer it leads to is dangerous."
 * "I don’t want to push too many preconceptions into your head before the school trial begins. You should come up with satisfying answers by yourself…"
 * "I do trust you, to a certain extent. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t even tell you this much."
 * "Nothing will change if we stay here. Let’s go…"
 * (In reply to Hagakure) "... That's just gross."
 * "As long as we don’t hear his explanation for it, this is not yet over."
 * "He already confessed. I can’t imagine why he’d lie now."
 * "Your conclusion is not wrong, in all likelihood."
 * (To Naegi) "I'm sure that won't change anytime soon... The only people I can show my hands to... are my family. Would you like to sign up?"

Trivia

 * Her voice actress, Yōko Hikasa, is famously known for voicing Mio from K-On.
 * Kirigiri in kanji (霧切) means "fog cutter" referencing her detective background.