Hiyoko Saionji

Hiyoko Saionji, is a student of Hope's Peak Academy's Class 77-B, and a participant of the Killing School Trip featured in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Her title is the Ultimate Traditional Dancer. She, along with Class 77-B, return in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School to explore their school life leading up to The Tragedy. Hiyoko is an extremely petite, slender girl with a young appearance. At first sight, Hajime remarks that her voice and her appearance don't give off the air of a high schooler at all. She has long blonde hair that is generally seen tied into thick, curved twin tails with two yellow-green ribbons, a white cat face accessory pinned in the center. Her bangs are curled and swept to the right, with two locks of chin-length hair curling outwards and framing her face. She has large, round, pale orange eyes. Her clothes consist of a traditional orange furisode kimono with a floral print pattern that consists of white and yellow blossoms, and a yellow-green obi sash printed with tiny, darker yellow-green cat head silhouettes tied around her waist and secured with a bow at the back. Her footwear consists of zori with orange straps. In her official illustration art, she is instead dressed in a light pink kimono printed with cream-colored flower clusters. She wears a black sash printed with red and yellow floral embroidery with sakura petals. Her hair is tied up in one ponytail, secured with a kanzashi that consists of pale pink rope and flowers with a white cat accessory. She is seen carrying a traditional cream-colored sensu hand fan printed with a drawing of a pink cat face. During her high school years, she did not wear the standard Hope's Peak Academy uniform. Instead, she wore a yellow kimono with an orange tomoeri (collar), printed with the same floral pattern as the one on her kimono in her first appearance. She wore a raspberry red obi sash and zori sandals with black straps. Her hair is tied in a single ponytail at the top of her head with a red-violet ribbon, a white cat face accessory pinned in the center. Hiyoko goes through a significant growth spurt during her time at Hope's Peak, which she completes before the beginning of her second year. When older, Hiyoko is shown to be much taller with a larger bust. In her first seen grown appearance in Danganronpa 2, her hair is tied back in a relatively low ponytail with a black scrunchie. She wears a yellow kimono with an embroidered pink peony outline pattern and a purple obi sash patterned with small lines of squares. In her grown appearance in Danganronpa 3, her hair is considerably longer and tied in a ponytail as well with a pink scrunchie. She wears a pink kimono patterned with a white sakura blossom pattern, and a multicolored obi sash. As a part of the Ultimate Despair, she kept her hair free, revealing that it is rather long and curls outwards. Her hair is accessorized with a kanzashi ornament made up of a pale pink central peony blossom, pale green triangular hanging beads, and white rope tied in an elaborate bow. She wore a long white kimono patterned with yellow, with a dark olive green tomoeri. She wore a bright orange obi sash, hakama pants beneath her kimono, and traditional wooden okobo clogs. Hiyoko's cute appearance, voice, and (initially) her way of talking give off the impression she is innocent and childlike. However, in her introduction alone, it is quickly revealed that she is very direct and cruel with a malicious side in how she squishes ants while telling Hajime that they make a satisfying popping noise if done correctly, and even invites him to join her. Later at the beach, she goes around trying to step on and trample the crabs, laughing as if it were just child's play, showing an alarming fascination with it. She is also described to stomp on and tear out flowers for her own amusement, even though she mentions that she likes pretty things like flowers. While not violent towards people, Hiyoko often shows similar mean behavior towards them as well. When Hajime Hinata refuses to squish ants with her, she immediately mocks him by grinning maliciously and calling him a wuss. She constantly judges others and patronizes them with rude insults, and sometimes with swearing, with Mikan Tsumiki and Kazuichi Soda being the most common, as well as the easiest victims. She often takes a jab at Akane Owari as well, though she, unlike Mikan or Kazuichi, doesn't cry or get frustrated but rather actually takes her pranks into consideration due to being very gullible. One time, when Hiyoko was stomping flowers, she was annoyed by Akane's questioning and claimed that "stomping and kicking your food before eating it gives you a lot of more protein". Then, Akane actually started eating the flowers, though she stated they didn't taste that good. Due to Akane's gullibility, Hiyoko notes that she isn't that fun to bully. Out of everyone, she appears to dislike Mikan the most, and she has mentioned that it's because she suspects Mikan is only acting to get attention, which is partially true. Hiyoko appears to feel a sense of superiority, claiming that other people exist to serve her and she doesn't need friends. Because of this, Hiyoko tends to manipulate others to do her bidding easily, like telling Akane to investigate the motel on the third island under her request. During her Free Time Events, she also orders Hajime around and wants him to be her slave. If she doesn't get what she wants or if other people actually talk back to her, she tends to cry crocodile tears loudly like a child, though her tears are sometimes genuine. It seems that she is somewhat spoiled due to being an heiress of her Clan, and as a result, she cannot do some things by herself, like tying her own kimono. In Danganronpa 3 Hope Arc, when her class fights against the Super High School Level Elite Task Force, Hiyoko appears to be the only one panicking and unable to defend herself, instead, shouting for help. Due to coming from a traditionalist family, Hiyoko loves Japanese traditions and culture very much and tends to act condescending or even openly insulting towards other cultures. She considers many Japanese things "delicate, refined and high quality". She is especially fond of Japanese cuisine and candies, claiming that many foreign ones are too sugary and gross and the people eating them are gross as well. She has described some other countries as worthless and compared their people to stupid animals, thinking that Japan doesn't need to import from them. As a rarer good trait, however, Hiyoko is stated to be willing to protect old traditions in danger of disappearing and she thinks people should take good care of the things close to them. She has also stated that she knows her thinking is old-fashioned, but she doesn't intend to disagree with new directions, just to protect old ones that need to be protected. Oddly enough despite her traditionalist upbringing she has a lot of more non conventional interests such as heavy metal(being the only person in the class who liked Ibuki's performance) and horror movies. Notably, Hiyoko is shown to act very different towards Mahiru Koizumi after becoming attached to her when she helped her take a shower and showed her how to tie her obi. Afterwards, she refers to Mahiru as "big sis" and acts very affectionate towards her, often happily wanting to hold her hand or hug her and even give her a kiss. Though reluctant and a bit embarrassed at first, Mahiru went along with it and became close to Hiyoko, and the two are seen almost always together. Hiyoko has stated that she likes Mahiru because she is normal and not weird like the other students. In Island Mode and her Free Time Events, she also grows fond and protective of Hajime as a big brother figure, because he reminds her of her father who is very dear to her. Hiyoko has been through a lot in her childhood due to her status as an heiress, explaining some of her mean personality. With her overbearing grandmother, and jealous people playing lots of cruel and even potentially life-threatening tricks and threats on her, she became very distrustful of other people and seemingly developed her mean personality to defend herself. The only person she trusted and felt safe with was her father, who was different due to being related to the family only through marriage. Due to her past, Hiyoko absolutely hated being deceived, as shown in Chapter 2 when she felt annoyed and flustered by Monokuma's invitation that was actually made by Nagito Komaeda. In Chapter 3, she directly told Hajime that she hated being deceived by others. In spite of her negative features Hiyoko was quite a level headed person being the first in the game to accept the reality of Byakuya's murders and telling the class they need to investigate his murder or they'll all die. She strongly hates murder, condemning Teruteru after his death, begging the class to just hurry up and vote for Peko after Peko continues to personally insult Mahiru while in her sparking justice persona and being the only person in class 77 who really calls out Fuyuhiko for his direct role in Mahiru's murder. After the events of Chapter 2 and with Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu's apology and subsequent re-opening of his wounds, Hiyoko attempts to change herself for the better, trying her best to become less hostile and insulting, and understanding and accepting Fuyuhiko's apology for Mahiru's and Peko's death. In Danganronpa 3, it's shown that her personality became slightly better during her school years, with her being occasionally nicer towards Mikan and even seeming secretly protective of her. This is most likely because she now had many friends she can trust, which is something she didn't have before.