Kyouko Kirigiri

Kyouko Kirigiri is a character from Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa franchise. In the original 2010 video game Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Kyouko is one of 16 students trapped inside Hope's Peak Academy and forced to play the "Killing Game", where a student must kill another and escape conviction in a class trial. Her "Ultimate Talent" is unknown. Kyouko is considered a kuudere because of her cold personality and mysterious background. She also demonstrates skills in analysis and investigation, and is a prominent voice in the class trials, making her a valuable ally to the player character Makoto Naegi.

In the fandom, Kyouko emerged as one of the most popular females in the series because of her significant role in later chapters, and is generally considered the main heroine of the first game. Given the series' "death game" premise however, this spoils the fact that she survives long enough for the final act. Besides her main role in Danganronpa 1, Kyouko has since appeared as a main character in multiple franchise installments, such as the anime-only sequel Danganronpa 3, the prequel light novel Danganronpa Kirigiri , and the spin-off horror VN Kirigiri Sou.

Danganronpa 1 Spoilers Kyouko's talent is revealed to be the "Ultimate Detective", reflecting her investigative skills. Her real mission was to uncover the mysteries behind the Killing Game and the school's involvement in it. Kyouko's importance in the story is made clear in Chapter 5 when it's revealed that she is the daughter of Jin Kirigiri, the school's headmaster who was executed in the opening cutscene, which shows a man riding a rocket to outer space and is disintegrated to bones upon re-entry. She also develops a close relationship with Makoto Naegi, often accompanying him in his investigations, giving him advice, and even visiting his bedroom at certain instances.

During Chapter 5's class trial, the player comes to a point where they must incriminate either Kyouko and Makoto; if the player chooses Kyouko, she is executed via a giant press, leading to the Bad Ending where the remaining students spend the rest of their lives inside the school. If Makoto is chosen, he is similarly put into the same execution, but his good luck causes him to fall into a garbage dump instead of getting crushed. Kyouko decides to follow him to the dump as well.

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ISML
Kyouko first appeared in the 2013 summer contest, a relatively weak season from that year. She emerged as the diadem winner over her closest competitors, the console girls from the moe galgame Hyperdimension Neptunia. This victory netted her a direct invite to ISML 2014's Nova preliminaries, but she was unable to make it to the regular season.

Two years later, Kirigiri was successfully nominated for the Summer 2016 seasonal despite a generally-agreed upon unwritten rule that prohibits former winners from appearing in such contests again. Perhaps this is due to an oversight or neglect on the staff's behalf, but the fact that Kyouko remains the only former seasonal winner to have contended for a second diadem is still a notable moment in ISML history. The student eventually lost in the quarter-finals to Aoba Suzukaze from New Game!, the hottest cute girl hobby anime from that season.

Following that, Kyouko joined four other Danganronpa main characters in their only Main Tournament appearance at ISML 2017, where she was eliminated in the early periods like her schoolmates.

Main Tournament
Overall record:
 * 3W - 7L (regular season only)

Match History

Seasonal
ISML 2013 - Summer
 * Anime: Danganronpa 1 (adaptation of video game)
 * (Top 36): Kirigiri > Misawa > Susana (4335 - 1705 - 587)
 * (Top 12): Kirigiri > Gou Matsuoka > Aya Komichi (4181 - 2523 - 1622)
 * Nepgear @ Hyperdimension Neptunia -- 4581 - 3966
 * Noire @ Hyperdimension Neptunia -- 3696 - 3056
 * Inter-seasonal: (Fall) Mirai Kuriyama @ Kyoukai no Kanata -- 2920 - 3517

ISML 2016 - Summer
 * Anime: Danganronpa 3 (original anime sequel)
 * Miyu Edelfelt @ Fate/kaleid liner season 3 -- 1418 - 1293
 * Shizuru Nakatsu @ Rewrite -- 1413 - 974
 * Aoba Suzukaze @ New Game! -- 1143 - 1372

Anime Saimoe Tournament
Saimoe 2014
 * Uka-sama > Kirigiri > Harudori (84 - 65 - 29)

Bilibili Moe
Bilibili Moe 2016 JP
 * Anime: Danganronpa 3 (original anime sequel)
 * (Top 72): Rin >  Kirigiri >  Hanamaru (99,095 653 - 36,178 364 - 24,703 177)

Queen of /v/
Queen of /v/ 2020
 * Prelims: 73 votes (seed 95)
 * (34) Claire Redfield @ Resident Evil -- 387 - 479

r/anime
Best Girl Contest

Best Character Contest

Navigation
Beware of spoilers and pop-ups.
 * Wikipedia
 * Danganronpa Wikia
 * MyAnimeList
 * Baike Baidu (Chinese)
 * Moegirl (Chinese)
 * NamuWiki (Korean)