Nagito Komaeda

Nagito Komaeda (狛枝 凪斗 Komaeda Nagito) is one of the characters featured in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. He has the title of Ultimate Lucky Student (超高校級の「幸運」chō kōkō kyū no “kōun”).

In Chapter 5, he tricked the traitor hiding among the group using his luck to accidentally murder him.

He makes an appearance in Zettai Zetsubou Shoujo - Danganronpa Another Episode with his name listed only as "Servant" (召使い meshitsukai). Komemea

Appearance
Nagito has a long dark green coat that goes down past his knees. His coat has red squares on his right shoulder, and a red number '55'. He wears a plain white shirt with a strange red symbol on it. His pants are typical black jeans, and has a long chain that attached from the back to the front of them with a small skull charm attached to it. His shoes are brown, and they appear to be zipped up rather than being tied or using velcro. Nagito has messy shoulder-length white hair, light gray eyes, and he usually has a smile on his face.

In Zettai Zetsubou Shoujo, as the Servant, he wears a short, black trenchcoat, with three white buttons on the right and one red button on the left, over a scoop-necked dark red and olive green shirt, of which's cuffs are folded around the ends of the sleeves of the coat. The lower hem of his shirt ends in dark beige frills. His coat has a zipper on the left and the right of the front, as well as one on the back. The Servant wears black jeans with green and red shoes, with slight heels, tied with red shoelaces. He also has a collar around his neck, with a chain hanging from it in the front down to his knees.

Personality
Nagito first comes off a polite and kind boy, but during the first trial he has a breakdown. After showing his true colors, he begins to ramble on about how hope is the most important thing in the world, and that hope that is created from beating despair is the most amazing feeling that one could have. Nagito also doesn't really care for his own life, in fact he encourages the other students to kill him as long as someone feels hope from it. He also considers himself worthless when compared to the other Ultimate Students, claiming that his talent is pathetic and that he was born a talentless person who will never be considered anything special. Later, however, he finds his luck to be incredible and tells the other students to believe in themselves and Nagito's own luck.

He is speculated to be a parallel to Makoto Naegi. His name is an anagram of Makoto's, their appearance is slightly similar, they are both the Ultimate Lucky Student, and they share the same voice actor in both English and Japanese dubs. Additionally Monokuma mentions that Nagito definitely reminded him of "someone" when Nagito expresses his desire to become the "Ultimate Hope", a title that Makoto had obtained.

Ironically, despite his absolute belief in the concept of ultimate hope, it's heavily implied that he has no hope of his own. He has no family or friends, drifted aimlessly through life before arriving at Hope's Peak, doesn't believe he could ever amount to anything, and any chance he might have at actual happiness would be cancelled out by his cycle of good and bad luck.

History
[Warning: Several spoilers follow this section!]

Prior to the Tragedy
Nagito's life has always been a turn between 'good luck' and 'bad luck'. The earliest known occurrence of this is when parents were killed before his very eyes after a meteor crashed into a hijacked airplane they had been on, letting him inherit all their fortune and become free to do whatever he wished, as he had no other relatives alive. After his parents' death, during middle school, Nagito was kidnapped by a serial killer; although he was released after the police found him (it was implied that the killer let him go after they found out nobody would pay the ransom), in the garbage bag the murderer kidnapped him in, Nagito had discovered a lottery ticket. It was a winning one for three million yen; in that situation, the lottery ticket was the only good luck received. He has stated that his cycle of good and bad luck had worn him down to the point where he drifted through life without purpose, waiting to die.

At some point before the events of Danganronpa 2, he presumably fell to despair along with everyone else.

Zettai Zetsubou Shoujo
Nagito was apparently captured by the Soldiers of Hope and made into their Servant-- that being his new name.

He was requested by Monaka Towa to save Komaru Naegi and bring her to their secret base. When Komaru wakes up, he tells her that he has a present for her and hands back her Megaphone Hacking Gun after he analyzed it. He told her to keep the fact that he had returned the Hacking Gun to Komaru secret.

He is later seen snapping the Monokuma Bracelet onto her wrist, surprising Komaru. He explains that if Komaru insists in removing the bracelet, it will explode. He also, once again, warns Komaru to not expose their secret.

He was seen again in Chapter 2 as the Soldiers of Hope finish mourning over Masaru Daimon's death. He made the Soldiers of Hope milkshakes, but he made them incorrectly as he had no guidance in order to make them, so they rejected it, and Nagisa Shingetsu, the new leader of the Soldiers of Hope, orders him to drink the milkshakes himself, which he does, commenting that he's "everyone's servant."

Towards the end of the game, he helps Monaka out of the rubble and carries her on his back, telling her that she could be the second Junko Enoshima.

Prologue - Welcome to Dangan Island! Panic at the Heart-Throbbing School Trip!?
At the beginning of the Island Trip, Nagito acted polite and kind towards everyone, even willing to accompany Hajime Hinata to introduce himself to the other students. He doesn't look panic at all, knowing that he and the others were transported to a strange island. He even happily took Usami's presents after they succeed in gathering their very first Hope Fragments.

Chapter 1 - Destination Despair
Initially he displays some of his affection towards his fellow students when introducing them to Hajime. When Byakuya Togami suggests to throw a party, Nagito sets up a lot to determine the party duties, and through his "Ultimate Luck", ends up being the one who cleans the old lodge. He makes use of this opportunity to start the killings in order to become a "stepping stone for hope", but was eventually discovered by Teruteru Hanamura, who had duties to prepare food for the party. His plan was to trip the circut breaker to cause a blackout. During this blackout, he used a lamp cord to lead himself to the table, under which he hid a knife covered in glowing paint. Just as he was about to grab the glowing knife, he was discovered by Byakuya, who brought night vision goggles in preperation. Byakuya rushed towards Nagito and pushed him out from under the table and proceeded to retrieve the knife. Byakuya then got stabbed by Teruteru, who was hiding under the floorboards intending to kill Nagito with an iron skewer. He reveals his attempted plans during the trial when he shows his true self, causing everyone to distrust him.

Chapter 2 - Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts
Nagito was not present to investigate the new Island in Chapter 2 because he was tied up by Kazuichi Soda and Nekomaru Nidai to avoid another incident happening again. After the information was leaked out, people were assigned to provide him with his meals, as shown in the game where Mahiru Koizumi wanted to deliver Nagito his meals.

During the events of Chapter 2, he convinces Hajime to play theTwilight Syndrome Murder Case and helps him figure out that everything that happened was based on events that took place at Hope's Peak. Nagito was able to deduce the owner of footprint that left on the beach, Hiyoko Saionji. The culprit's trap was also foiled by Nagito, when he stated that yellow gummy was deliberately abandoned by the culprit to frame Hiyoko. Hiyoko had never eaten yellow gummies, evidenced by the pack of gummies that Nagito found in Hiyoko's cottage. Because of this, Hajime, Nagito, and Chiaki Nanami are able to deduce that Peko Pekoyama killed Mahiru.

Chapter 3 - Trapped by the Ocean Scent
The next morning at the beginning of Chapter 3, Nagito along with Gundham Tanaka came late to the Restaurant, which broke the cozy atmosphere. He attended Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu's welcoming party that was held by Ibuki Mioda. Later, he, Ibuki and Akane Owari caught the "Despair Disease", the third chapter's motive, and Nagito, suffering from it the most, lost his consciousness from the beginning. After Mikan Tsumiki treated him, he regained consciousness right when the third murder occured. During the investigation, he invited Hajime to watch the movie theater, and was able to deduce how the culprit murdered Ibuki and Hiyoko during the Class Trial.

Chapter 4 - Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Electric Clocks?
Nagito held a major role in chapter 4. In Chapter 4, he becomes playable for the first time. In order to help with the investigation, Nagito took it upon himself to go into the Final Dead room and play the life threatining game. Using his incredible deduction skills and assisted by Monomi (who locked up inside the room by Monokuma) Nagito managed to clear all of the challenging puzzles scattered throughout the room and earn the right to play russian roulette to access the Octagon. With a large amount of faith in his ability as the Ultimate Lucky Student, Nagito loaded the revolver with five bullets instead of one, and pulled the trigger against his head, giving him a one in six chance of surviving. He managed to survive, thanks to his talent and was granted acess into the Octagon. By completing the Final Dead Game, he got a special prize from Monokuma, the sequel to the first Future Foundation file they had obtained after ride the roller coaster. Because it revealed absolutely everything- the truth of the students' identities as Ultimate Despair, their actions while in school and beyond, even Hiyoko's growth spurt, Hajime's identity as Izuru Kamukura - Nagito took it upon himself to purge a majority of the data, such that by the time Hajime and Chiaki got around to it, all that remained in a supposedly thick file was the sixteen students' profiles with no mention of anything that had occured in between.

They succeed to vote the right person who murdered Nekomaru Nidai because Nagito know the "secret" of the surprise house.

Chapter 5 - Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair
In Chapter 5, with the knowledge Nagito now posessed, he came up with a plan to weed out the traitor among the group. Nagito set off an explosion in the hotel lobby, then threatened to blow up the rest of the island with bombs that he planted unless the traitor reveals themselves. As his deadline drew nearer, Nagito informed the group that the explosives were located in a place they have each been once, in an attempt to get them to split up. By the time Fuyuhiko had discovered the bomb's location, Nagito had already prepared a video message on a laptop instructing the traitor to come forward and scan their eHandbook in order to disarm the bomb. After a failed attempt by Chiaki, the bomb revealed itself to be full of harmless fireworks. The group then went to the warehouse next door, where strange music was playing, only to discover a fire starting, to which the group immediately took the fire grenades from the employee's lounge and attempted to douse the fire. After the sprinklers kicked in and extinguished the flames, the group discovered Nagito's dead body, with stab wounds over his legs and a spear impaling his stomach.

During the Class Trial, the group was able to deduce that Nagito commited suicide, however it was not as it seemed. He purposely made it seem like a suicide when in reality, Nagito had planted a vaporizing poison in one of the fire grenades that the group used to extinguish the flames in an attempt to create a mystery that could not be solved. One student who didn't know at the time, threw a grenade full of poison that ultimately caused Nagito to die and thanks to his Ultimate Luck, that student happened to be the traitor, who revealed herself as Chiaki Nanami in an attempt to save her friends. After the events of the Class Trial, Monokuma revealed that Nagito's true plan was to kill everyone except for Chiaki in an attempt to destroy the Ultimate Despair that he knew they all truly were.

Execution
Rope Master - Nagito is standing on a platform that resembles a circus’s flying trapeze. Countless ropes are hanged onto the platform. Monokuma begins to cut off the ropes one by one. However, all of the ropes are not connected to anything. Frustrated, he punches the cutting machine and sets the platform on fire. Monokuma escapes, but Nagito with no ropes or any other way to escape dies. This execution is only shown in the Official Fanbook.

Hajime Hinata
From the start, Nagito noticed that he and Hajime were similar somehow, as if they were both bystanders in something that didn't concern them. Prior to the chapter 1 trial, Hajime was the closest thing Nagito had to a friend—though his amiability may have been false, the connection he felt to him wasn't. After revealing the part he played in the case, Hajime felt betrayed and terrified by Nagito, whom he had previously trusted and thought to be a good friend. Nagito remained fixated on Hajime even after he was revealed to be a talentless reserve course student, especially evidenced in his dialogue directly preceding the chapter 4 trial. In chapter 5, Hajime's understanding of Nagito is what thwarted his plan.

It is heavily implied that Nagito's feelings for Hajime are romantic in nature. Several times throughout the story, it's shown that Nagito feels a genuine closeness to Hajime, such as when he claimed he doesn't like being around him when under the influence of the despair disease in Chapter 3. It's indicated that the reason he feels this way is because that despite knowing what kind of person he is, Hajime still tried to understand him. In his fifth freetime event, he poured his heart out to Hajime, then quickly slammed the door on their relationship by falsely dismissing what he had just stated as lies. Due to the wording in Japanese, Nagito's last line in particular is heavily implied to be the beginning of a love confession that he decided to rephrase at the last second. His usage of “ai shiteru” also reflects this notion, as it's an incredibly strong phrase that even some married couples are hesitant to use.

It also should be noted that in the final Dangan lsland event, Nagito had a very hard time asking Hajime to be his friend, to which the latter agreed to.

Quotes

 * “Hey...Can you hear me...? Are you okay? ...You seem pretty out of it. To be honest, I'm also... No, everyone feels the same, too. Since we suddenly...got put in this weird situation. ...Hey, are you listening?” (to Hajime Hinata)
 * “... I'm Nagito Komaeda. Nice to meet you.”
 * “My ability is nothing more than having good luck... If it's not the result of one's effort, than it can't be used to accomplish something amazing, either. With or without it, the fact that i'm unremarkable being doesn't change. Ahah, it's different from all of you.”
 * “Causing you to lose sight of your nature because of trivial doubts and suspicion directed towards me is not my intention at all. After all... All I wish for is to see all of you embody hope!”
 * “Despair is... Like what i am compared to all of you, something miniscule, trivial and worthless!”
 * “All of you posses the qualities needed to be able to embody it (hope)... Do you understand? Hope, in other words, is a proactive will and talent... It's an absolute "good" that's brought forth by that! That's why, as long as there exist seeds of hope, I'll gladly kill a person... and gladly die myself. Since right now, my reason for living like this is hope itself!”
 * “In my case, it always leads to such outcomes. However great the misfortune that i experience at first may be... The good luck that i will visit me later is grand enough to make up for all of it! That's the talent i possess... The reason i'm called "Ultimate Lucky Student".”
 * “NO, THAT'S WRONG!” (to Hajime Hinata at the beginning of their Rebuttal Showdown)
 * “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are born with worth, and ever body else. No matter how hard a lowly human tries, they will never be the same as someone who was born worthy... They say that "effort breeds success"...But that's a complete lie. The world is not that accommodating.”
 * “The Ultimates stand together and rise against the despair of the death of their friend! Ahhh.. such a magnificent... beautiful sight!”
 * “'Meaningless'... No other word is more despair-inducing than that. But you musn't give up! you must face forward with hope in your hearts, and do your best! You are the symbols of hope, because you can recover and rise up, again and again!”
 * “Nobody's ever complimented me on my appearance before! Not even my own mother!” (to Mikan Tsumiki)
 * “Now then, Hajime. Will you battle against me?” (to Hajime Hinata before commencing their Rebuttal Showdown)
 * “After being on the verge of death, I finally understood. All I ever wished for was 'someone's love'.”
 * “Please don't ever forget... That I love... I love the hope sleeping within you from the bottom of my heart.” (to Hajime Hinata)
 * “Now, do your beast. My common, boring worthless protagonist with weak character...” (talking about Komaru Naegi)
 * “But... it is an order, so I have no choice. I am everyone's servant, after all... ahahahaha.”

Trivia

 * Nagito's e-Handbook states that he likes “beautiful things” and dislikes noisy places.
 * The Servants profile states that he likes Pure things and beautiful people and that he dislikes noisy places and ugly people.
 * “Nagito” (凪斗) as a name means “Calm Below the Dipper”, as in the big dipper constellation, while “Komaeda” (狛枝) translates as “Lion-Dog Tree Branches”. Lion-Dogs are statues that protect and guard shrines in Shintoism. The kanji used are rather old and classical, which may allude to an old family line or an upper class background.
 * His name in an anagram for “Na-e-gi Ma-ko-to da”, which translates to “I am Makoto Naegi”. This is a reference to him being a "darker" parallel to Makoto.
 * After the death of Junko, he cut off his left hand and attached hers in its place, as seen in Chapter 0, though it cannot act as a functional hand.
 * Nagito's Free-Time Events reveal that he was diagnosed with late stage lymphoma and progressed frontotemporal lobe dementia.
 * It should be noted that the symptoms of frontotemporal dementia include delusions and compulsive behavior - which could explain the less pleasant sides of Nagito's personality.
 * According to Super Dangan Ronpa 2's official artbook, the second draft of Nagito's beta design is based on an “absolute rival” concept, while the third draft is based on imagination of a darker version of Makoto.
 * He shares the same voice actor with Makoto Naegi in both the Japanese and English versions of the game. In addition, both characters' titles are “Ultimate Lucky Student”.
 * It should be noted, however, that while Makoto's luck doesn't play a truly crucial role in his life and is actually pretty harmlessly bad, Nagito's radically fluctuating luck is truly a marvelous phenomenon, which has had a significant influence on his entire life.