Chihiro Fujisaki

Chihiro Fujisaki (不二咲 千尋 Fujisaki Chihiro), 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. Their title is Ultimate Programmer (超高校級の「プログラマー」chō kōkō kyū no “puroguramā” lit. Super High School Level Programmer).

Early life
When Chihiro was a child, he became the subject of harassment and bullying. He was always told to "be a man" and that he was "so weak despite being a boy", and because of that, Chihiro slowly but surely began to develop a "weakness complex". In order to escape the bullying, Chihiro began to dress as a girl so that people wouldn't bully him as a weak boy. This only served to worsen his complex, as it wasn't addressing the root of his problems, and he would get bullied even more if the truth was found out.

Because he was too weak to play outside with his friends, Chihiro spent most of his time on the computer. His father, Taichi Fujisaki, was a software engineer that developed many major computer programs, and while using his computer Chihiro found an incomplete information retrieval system that utilized voice input. This led to him creating his own modifications for it, and he soon realized that he could write programs by himself. Chihiro's father praised him for his work and, as he finally found something he could take pride in, he became absorbed in programming.

As a teen genius, Chihiro became famous for creating cutting-edge programs, to the point that he started developing top-secret AI programs for an unnamed company. Due to him resembling a "timid little bunny" (and because he was believed to be a female), he gained several fans.

Chihiro attended St. Elbandia Academy, and was later scouted to attended Hope's Peak Academy under the title of Ultimate Programmer. Based on photos seen by Makoto Naegi, it appears that during his school life Chihiro was good friends with Mondo Owada and Leon Kuwata.

Prior To The Tragedy
Yūto Kamishiro mentions an underclassman at Hope's Peak Academy who is exceptionally good with computers and who occasionally monitors the school's servers for him. This student is implied to be Chihiro.

Chihiro found an unsigned email that was sent to the Reserve Course students, saying that 15 students had went missing and 13 of them were dead. Yūto deduced that the sender was Junko Enoshima, but didn't divulge the information to Chihiro out of concern for his safety.

The Tragedy

 * Main article: Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School - Side: Despair #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 students of Class 78th agreed to his plan, and they sealed the building together. Chihiro helped Mondo carry a piece of metal. 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
Chihiro 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. Chihiro was around 19 years old, though he believed he was only 17 because of the memory loss.

Chihiro is first seen by Makoto when he entered the main hall. When attempting to ask if they're all new students, Chihiro agreed. Aoi Asahina suggested they all introduce themselves, and when Chihiro did so, he admitted he found it embarassing. Chihiro seemed to recognize Makoto, and asked if they had met before, but Makoto denied it. Chihiro apologized because he assumed Makoto was upset with him, but Makoto reassured him that he wasn't.

The students soon became forced into the mutual killing incident. As a motive to murder in order to escape, the students were each given a DVD featuring a video from Monokuma which implied that their loved ones were in danger. Chihiro's video featured his father. The DVDs gave Sayaka Maizono the incentive to attempt to murder Leon, but her plan backfired and Sayaka was killed by Leon. During the investigation, Chihiro stayed in the gym so that he wasn't alone. As a result, Chihiro never saw the crime scene. Makoto asks Chihiro about the numbers 11037, which Sayaka had seemingly written on the bathroom wall, but Chihiro explained that it isn't a programming term. When Leon was later executed after the class trial, Chihiro thought that he and the other students were no better than Leon, since they indirectly murdered Leon by voting him as the culprit.

Boy's Life of Despair
When Byakuya Togami was found in the library after his sudden disappearance, he began to bully Chihiro, causing Mondo to interject that it was unfair to bully the weak. Although well-intentioned, Mondo's statement greatly demoralized Chihiro.

The next morning, the students gathered in the Cafeteria. Chihiro, still feeling down due to the events that transpired the day before, began crying after Mondo's argument with Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Taken aback by Chihiro's reaction, Mondo immediately regretted his action and gave him "a man's promise" to protect him from any danger. This touched Chihiro's heart so much that it inspired him to take action and become stronger, in order not to become a burden on the others.

In order to become stronger, Chihiro said he would start working out. Sakura Ogami and Aoi asked him to go to the gym room to work out together. However, Chihiro declined their invitation in fear of having his secret revealed. He also brought the broken laptop that the group found in the library with him.

Chihiro's Secret
Monokuma introduced his second motive, a set of envelopes containing each student's most embarassing secrets. Chihiro's envelope contained the note "Even though he is a boy, Chihiro Fujisaki dresses as a girl". However, instead of feeling scared, he became even more determined to change and become stronger so that he could tell his secret. He concluded that he should share his secret with Mondo, whom Chihiro admired, by inviting him to go work out together at the gym.

That night, Chihiro went to the storage room, attempting to search for a jersey that he needed to wear for his first workout session. He was intercepted by Celestia Ludenberg, who happened to pass near the storage room. Startled by the Celestia's sudden appearance, Chihiro quickly took off without mentioning where he intended to go off to.

Chihiro met up with Mondo in the boy's changing room and revealed his secret to him. As Mondo was still feeling pressured by Monokuma's threat, the sudden revelation caused Mondo to be overcome by jealousy toward Chihiro; Mondo felt that by choosing not to run away from his problem and to actively trying to make his life better, Chihiro was stronger in character than himself, whereas Mondo felt hopelessly overwhelmed by survivor's guilt and intense, irrational feelings of weakness.

Ultimately, that intense jealousy turned into murderous anger, and Mondo hit Chihiro in the head with a dumbbell, killing him.

Mondo realized he had to move Chihiro out of the boys' locker room in order to guard Chihiro's secret, and so carried his body into the girl's locker room, which he opened using Sayaka's discarded e-Handbook. He then swapped the contents of the locker rooms so that it appeared Chihiro had been murdered in the girl's locker room. He then broke Chihiro's e-Handbook by throwing it into the sauna, so that if another student turned it on it wouldn't reveal Chihiro's gender.

Unbeknownst to him, Byakuya Togami witnessed Mondo's exit from the girls' locker room. Wanting to "make the case more interesting", he tampered with the crime scene by hanging Chihiro in a crucifix position with the extension cord from the library's desk lamp, and writing "Bloodlust" on the wall using Chihiro's blood, emulating the M.O. of serial killer Genocide Jack. Despite both Byakuya and Mondo's tampering with the crime scene, Kyoko uncovered Chihiro's secret during her investigation of the crime scene, and the class revealed Mondo's murder during the class trial, leading to Mondo being executed.

Alter Ego
After his death, Chihiro's classmates discovered that Chihiro had developed an artificial intelligence program named Alter Ego in an attempt to decrypt files about Hope's Peak Academy. Alter Ego used Chihiro as an avatar, using both Chihiro's likeness and voice, and was housed in a laptop taken from the Hope's Peak library. Chihiro hid the laptop in the bathhouse, which was one of the few areas in the school with no security cameras. The students became close to Alter Ego, particularly Makoto, who was strongly endeared by the fact it so strongly resembled their friend who had just died. That AI was the reason that Makoto survived his execution in Chapter 5, and the remaining students were able to later escape the academy.

Chihiro's Father
Chihiro's father, Taichi Fujisaki, was captured by the Ultimate Despair as part of Monokuma's first motive during Chihiro's Killing School Life. Taichi was later freed, only to become one of the people targeted by the Warriors of Hope. After becoming a target, he went into hiding. Taichi was found by Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa in Towa Tower, and he helped them hack the elevator system. After being attacked by a Beast Monokuma and becoming heavily injured, Taichi told Komaru and Toko that he had a child around their age, and that his last regret is that he couldn't see that child again. Taichi died from his injuries, and afterwards Komaru found Taichi's diary near his body, which contained a photo of Taichi and Chihiro. Later in the game, if the player returns to the spot where Taichi appeared to die, his body is not there - unlike other characters, who's body remains where it fell. Where his body was is a note, which reads:
 * "What in the world is going on? There's not enough information out there to know for sure. But I know one thing: I have to make it out of this town. Until I know for sure that my wife and child are safe, I can't die. As a husband, as a father... I haven't done my job yet. If I die here, I can't give my wife and beautiful child the life they deserve."

Makoto's Hallucination

 * Main Article: Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School - Side: Future #11.

Chihiro is seen alongside his deceased classmates in Makoto's hallucination. His body is seen suspended above the ground, with blood dripping down his legs, when all of the deceased members of the 78th class morph into how they looked when they died.

Creation and Development
Chihiros's basic design did not undo a drastic change between DISTRUST and Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, although most examples of in-development art of Chihiro feature a more unisex, including the version show in in-developmental DISTRUST artwork. More feminine haircuts were also trialed, including a version with ribboned pigtails. His uniform originally resembled a -style outfit - black buttoned jacket, black pants, large white collar and a cape. According to Kodaka, Chihiro was initially two characters, a "shota character" and a "lolita character" ("ショタキャラとロリキャラ"), however the two characters were merged into Chihiro.

Befitting his talent's relation to numbers, Chihiro's birthday (March 14), when written in digits as 3.14, matches the first three digits of the mathematical constant pi (π), and is known as. He shares his birthday with Chiaki. The two also have similar names in regards to meaning (both of them have numerals in both their first and last names, with the numerals in their first names both being 千 chi - meaning "thousand").

Name
"Chihiro" (千尋) translates to “One Thousand Questions”. "Fujisaki" (不二咲) means “Two Unblooming (Flowers)”. Chihiro's last name may have been inspired by Nagihiko/Nadeshiko Fujisaki from the series Shugo Chara!, who, like Chihiro, is also biologically male yet chooses to present themself as female.

Alternate Fates
In the Danganronpa Visual Fanbook, there is a description of executions for all of the characters who did not have one. Chihiro's execution is called Super Fujisaki Bros. (a reference to the Super Mario Bros.) and described as the following:
 * "Fujisaki is put inside a 8-bit side-scrolling game. A group of huge pixelated Monokumas would appear behind him as he tries to run. Eventually, they would catch up to him, causing Fujisaki's sprite to pop out of existence."

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 Chihiro's ending, he explains that giving up his talent is a good opportunity, because it means he can train his heart and body so he can become stronger, and expresses that he'd like to meet with his classmates again someday, but as his "real self".

Chihiro also escapes Hope's Peak alive before the Killing Game begins, with the rest of his classmates, in the novel Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF. In this alternate timeline Chihiro created the program and software that was used to make Monokuma.

Appearance
Chihiro has a small, lithe stature and doll-like appearance with short, light brown, layered hair and hazel eyes. He wears a girls' winter school uniform set, featuring a long-sleeved dark green jacket, a white shirt with a large secured with a thin dark ribbon, suspenders, a box-pleated brown mid-thigh length brown skirt, knee-high black socks, and white, ribboned mary janes. The logo of his school, St. Elbandia Academy, is featured on his buttons and the sides of his socks.

Personality
Chihiro is very intelligent, but he also has a very meek and timid personality. He is very shy and apologizes a lot - it's easy to intimidate him to the point of tears. However, he also loves to talk about anything related to his work as a programmer and he becomes more lively whenever the topic is brought up.

Chihiro is one of the kindest and softest characters in Danganronpa, as he literally wouldn't hurt a mosquito, because it's "hungry and might have a family". After Leon Kuwata's execution, he felt guilt-ridden, even though it wasn't his fault. When he was attempting to reason with Byakuya Togami in Chapter 2, he revealed a deep disdain for disputes occurring between friends.

Unfortunately, Chihiro also had a deep-rooted complex over being looked down on by others as being "weak". This happened as a result of memories and experiences from his childhood where he was frequently bullied and told to act tougher due to him being rather frail for a boy. To make the bullying stop, he started disguising himself as a girl to avoid the pressure of having to become stronger. However, this only made his insecurities even worse. Though he tried to hide it, he gets uncomfortable when others treated him as a girl, and he would rather spend time with other boys instead of girls. He greatly admired men who are physically strong and he wished he could be like them.

When Monokuma threatened to reveal everyone's secrets, including Chihiro's real gender, Kiyotaka Ishimaru came up with the idea that everyone should share the secret right away. Naturally, most of them declined the request. However, Chihiro was one of the very few who planned to reveal his secret out of his own will. Instead of falling into despair, he became very determined to overcome his weakness and planned to become stronger so he could be his true self. Sadly, he didn't realize that he was already showing a significant amount of strength, due to his determination and will to confront his own core insecurities.

In school mode, Chihiro states that he enjoys reading and baking, but is afraid of earthquakes, big crowds and singing in front of other people. He really likes rabbits and hamsters and would like to have a one as a pet. He wonders if there are any in the school (a reference to Usami and Four Dark Devas of Destruction).

Ultimate Programmer
When Chihiro was a child, he was too weak to play outside with his friends, causing him to begin playing on the computer to make the time pass. His father, Taichi Fujisaki, was a software engineer that developed many major computer programs, and one day, Chihiro found an incomplete information retrieval system on his father's computer that utilized voice input. This led to him creating his own modifications for it, and he soon realized that he could write programs by himself.

Chihiro's father praised him for his work and, as he finally found something he could take pride in, he became absorbed in programming. He really wanted to help and be useful, but he thought he was useless without a computer. Chihiro's outstanding programming skills would later serve him in contributing to the creation of the Neo World Program.

In other languages
Chihiro's talent as it appears in official translations of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

Creations
Chihiro was an expert at programming extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence programs.

Alter Ego

Alter Ego is an artificial intelligence coded by Chihiro and housed in a laptop which Chihiro took from the Hope's Peak Academy library and hid in the un-monitored Hope's Peak bath-house locker room. Chihiro modeled the artificial intelligence in his own image and using his own voice. Alter Ego can have full conversations and ask and answer complex questions, and is designed to learn new information from everyone they speaks to. Alter Ego can change their appearance to resemble other people, including their voice, as long as they have enough data on that person. Alter Ego turning themself into Mondo, who had recently died, left a lasting impression on Kiyotaka, and brought him out of his catatonic depressive state. Because Alter Ego has Chihiro's sweet and kind personality, Chihiro's classmates are endeared to them, with Hifumi falling in love with them, with Makoto treating them as an extension of Chihiro and calling them "his friend". With Makoto's help, Alter Ego uploads a virus into the school's computer network, which later interferes with Makoto's execution, and leads to the remaining students being able to escape.

Alter Ego also appears in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, now working for the Future Foundation. They exist inside the Neo World Program, working as its Master Program and Overseer. They are also capable of communicating with the outside world. After a virus invaded the Neo World Program, Alter Ego tried to fight it as much as they could. Alter Ego supposedly modified Chiaki Nanami and Usami after Chihiro's death.

Chiaki Nanami


 * Chiaki was an AI created by Alter Ego using his programming and memories of Chiaki Nanami.

Usami

Neo World Program


 * Chihiro was one of the creators of the Neo World Program, along with Miaya Gekkogahara and Yasuke Matsuda.

Relationships

 * Family:

Taichi Fujisaki
Taichi is Chihiro's father, and a gifted software engineer who's work inspired Chihiro to build his own A.I.s. The two had a close relationship, appearing smiling and happy in the photo that Komaru and Toko find in his diary. Taichi become's Chihiro's captive for Monokuma's first motive during the Killing School Life, in which the captives were all the student's most important loved ones. Taichi's final words to them before he appears to die are that his last regret is that he will never see his "beautiful child" Chihiro again.


 * Class 78th:

Mondo Owada
Chihiro admired Mondo, thinking that he had a lot of strength, although he hadn't realized the emotional strain Mondo was under because of Monokuma's intention of revealing everyone's secret. Before then, Chihiro and Mondo had a good relationship with each other. Mondo defended Chihiro from Byakuya Togami, showing his dislike for bullying weak people. Soon after, Mondo showed another side of himself when he accidentally yelled at Chihiro, causing him to cry. Mondo immediately apologized and promised to never yell again, and swore by his honor as a man. Thanks to this, he was able to cheer Chihiro up.

Once Chihiro revealed his secret to Mondo, and that he wanted to change, jealousy of Chihiro's emotional strength made Mondo snap, and killed him with a dumbbell in the boy's changing room. After realizing what he had done, Mondo attempted to keep Chihiro's secret for as long as possible by switching the crime scene, and destroying his e-Handbook in the sauna. Mondo had immense guilt for killing Chihiro, and felt that he had to atone for what he had done.

Shortly after Chihiro and Mondo's deaths, the remaining survivors found a picture of the two smiling and hugging each other along with Leon. This could mean that Chihiro and Mondo were friends in high school before the killing game. This is further reinforced in Danganronpa 3 when Chihiro is shown working with Mondo to help seal up the school.

Makoto Naegi
Chihiro was good friends with Makoto and stated that talking to him made him feel better. Makoto, in turn, told Chihiro to become stronger and to feel better about himself. A reason why Chihiro chose Mondo as his "trainer" is because in one of his Free Time Events, Makoto is the one who recommended that Chihiro train with Mondo to become stronger. Despite their closeness, Chihiro never told Makoto that he was a boy in the actual story. However, he does so in his ending in School Mode.


 * Creations:

Alter Ego
Chihiro created Alter Ego from the old laptop found in the Hope's Peak library. Alter Ego holds the highest respect for Chihiro, referring to him as “Master”. Chihiro hid Alter Ego in the bath-house locker room in hopes that it would help the other students escape from the school, a role that Alter Ego indirectly accomplished by preventing Makoto's execution.

Free Time

 * Main article, including full dialogue: Free Time Events/Chihiro Fujisaki

During Free Time, Makoto can choose to talk to Chihiro in order to learn more about him. If he gives Chihiro a present that he likes, and chooses the correct response during their conversation, their friendship level will increase and Chihiro will disclose something about himself. Each successful Free Time conversation adds a page to Chihiro's Report Card in the e-Handbook menu, and grants either a skill that will give Makoto 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 Chihiro grants the following skills:

Dorm Room
Makoto is able to see inside Chihiro's dorm room during Free Time events. The most prominent item in Chihiro's room is a large bank of computer monitors and an office chair. Chihiro has a telescope, and several photographs of space. He has a DSLR camera, tripod, and camera case. On his bed are some grippers, reflecting Chihiro's drive to become strong.

Quotes

 * “I'm probably just imagining things, but did we ever meet somewhere before?”
 * “I can't tell you how happy it made me to be able to make others happy!”
 * “Mosquitoes are living things too, It might have its own mosquito family...”
 * “I'm completely useless without a computer in front of me...”
 * “If I get a chance, I'm gonna work super hard to chip in! When it comes to computers, you can count on me!”
 * “I've made lots of progress on the programming side, and the intelligence development... but when it comes to actual awareness, it's still along way off. It might even be impossible... I'm not sure how to put it, but... No matter how well designed or complex a program is... No matter how closely the software can simulate the workings of the human brain... I don't think that's enough. If the program is only *simulating* thought, it will always be lacking something. Well... I guess you could say... a soul.”
 * “If you could somehow pour your own soul into the software, maybe then a strong AI could be created. Yeah, I know. It's not a programming term. I'm not even sure how that would work on a technical level.”
 * “I want to... start training. I'm so weak... I thought if I could talk to someone strong about it, it might help to motivate me.”
 * “The software was able to take natural speech and pull out key search terms to retrieve information. My dad said it worked so well, it was gonna change the face of software interaction all over the world!” (describing his success)
 * “You see, in the field of artificial intelligence, there's strong AI and weak AI. Weak AI isn't meant to match human intelligence. It's simply a type of problem-solving software. A weak AI isn't actually thinking, it's just executing actions programmed into it.” (describing Weak AI)
 * “Strong AI, on other hand, is a program that can achieve true self-consciousness full ego awareness. In other words, a strong AI is a complete entity, a computer program capable of becoming aware. But it's always just been a hypothesis. Plenty of experts don't think it's even possible.” (describing Strong AI)

List of Appearances
Games=
 * DISTRUST (Scrapped)
 * Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
 * Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Mentioned)
 * Danganronpa: Unlimited Battle
 * -|Anime=
 * Danganronpa: The Animation
 * Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School - Side: Future
 * Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School - Side: Despair
 * -|Light Novels=
 * Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF
 * Danganronpa 1 ・2 Beautiful Days
 * Danganronpa/Zero (Mentioned)
 * -|Manga=
 * Danganronpa: The Demo (Manga)
 * Danganronpa: The Manga
 * Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc 4koma KINGS The Manga
 * Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair - The Animation (Manga)
 * Small Danganronpa 1・2 Light
 * -|Stage Plays=
 * Danganronpa The Stage ~Kibō no Gakuen to Zetsubō no Kōkōsei
 * Danganronpa The Stage 2016

Trivia

 * Chihiro's introduction to Makoto at the beginning of Danganronpa has him ask if he and Makoto had met before. This is the first subtle hint of the students' memory loss at the hands of Ultimate Despair.
 * Chihiro is the only character whose "memorial" portrait was changed for the animated adaptation of Danganronpa; instead of his default sprite, it shows an image of him facing the "camera" and smiling.
 * Chihiro's former high school, St. Elbandia Academy, is a reference to another Spike Chunsoft game, Elvandia Story.
 * Because Alter Ego uses Chihiro as an avatar, Chihiro and Alter Ego share voice actors in both the Japanese (Kōki Miyata) and English (Dorothy Elias-Fahn) versions of the game.
 * His English voice actress also voices Sayaka Maizono and Tsumugi Shirogane in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
 * His Japanese voice actor also voices Taichi Fujisaki, Chihiro's father.
 * In a series of tweets from Kazutaka Kodaka during Valentine's Day of February 2013, he tweeted "in-character" as several of the Danganronpa cast, including Chihiro. The tweet translates into this:
 * “Th-This is kind of weird, isn’t it? …Huh? You’ll take it? Hooray, you just made my day. Ehehe.”

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