Natsuki (DDLC Plus)

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It's recommended you play the game first before you read the article.

## Natsuki

*For her appearance in the original game, go here.*
**Natsuki** (ナツキ) is a main character of *Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!*. She is the third and final member to join the newly formed Literature Club.

## Appearance

Natsuki has straight pastel pink hair, cut around chin length, and pink eyes. Her bangs are swept to the right, having two prominent strands of hair beside them. Her accessories consist of a red Japanese-style crossed hair clip, as well as two red ribbons tying two small ponytails on either side of her head, with the rest of her hair left down. Her canine teeth are longer than the rest of her teeth, making them visible when she opens her mouth wide enough. She is the shortest character in the game.

She wears the standard issue female school uniform consisting of a warm gray blazer fully buttoned and untucked, brown sweater vest, white shirt fully buttoned and tucked, red ribbon, dark blue pleated skirt, white knee-high socks and white uwabaki slippers with sky blue tips.

## Personality

From her first appearance in Respect, Natsuki appears confident, friendly, chill, and mature - a little different from how she acts in the original DDLC. She's eager to try and clock each member of the Literature Club's favorite ice cream, and cheerfully gets Sayori's and Monika's exactly right, although she guesses Yuri's favorite is green tea (she says she takes a lot of online quizzes, which are always accurate). However, she's hesitant to admit that she doesn't read much literature apart from manga, and immediately becomes defensive when Monika and Sayori don't seem to take it seriously. She says she "get[s] it", though, and in an effort to convince Monika to let her join, tells her that all she wants is a place to hang out after school and store her manga, and that she'll gladly participate in any club activities. When Monika (reluctantly) agrees, Natsuki eagerly thanks her.

Natsuki and Sayori quickly become friends, with Sayori awed by Natsuki's manga collection and Natsuki jokingly declaring that Sayori needs to pay a tax of sharing her snacks in order to read them. Natsuki's presence makes the club feel "twice as lively", according to Monika's tense inner monologue; however, when Monika not-all-that-subtly tries once more to bring up the trouble of Natsuki's manga not fitting the tone of the club, Natsuki, fed up, says she wishes Monika were more upfront about not wanting her here and leaves. Sayori follows Natsuki into the hallway, where the two talk; Natsuki says she wishes Monika could accept her, and also tells Sayori that she writes poetry as well as reading manga, but didn't want to just tell Monika something she wanted to hear.

When Monika tries to find Natsuki the next day, she discovers that Natsuki's "friends" do the same thing she did: judge and demean Natsuki for her tastes, despite her clearly trying to assert and defend herself. Monika, in turn, decides to make the Literature Club a place Natsuki and her interests are welcome to "get [Natsuki's friends] back". After Sayori convinces Natsuki to come back, Monika invites Natsuki to share why she loves manga with the whole club, to which Natsuki starts anxiously pulling back and putting herself down, saying that "it's really dumb". With Monika's reassurance, though, Natsuki feels encouraged enough to open up - both about her manga and poetry, and to Monika.

Much later on, when Monika and Natsuki are talking about it alone, Natsuki tells Monika that it was really stupid of her to make such a big deal about it. When Monika tells Natsuki that it's okay, because Monika needed it, Natsuki admits that it's really hard to feel like she deserves this, and that people treating her that way makes her feel like *she's* the problem for making a fuss about it - and that she's also sorry for taking it all out on Monika. Monika thanks Natsuki for being herself... and also admits that she read some of Natsuki's manga, to Natsuki's delight. After the two talk and Monika plays the song she wrote for the club, Natsuki tells her that she'll bring a surprise to the clubroom the next meeting (the surprise is cupcakes!).

In Balance, after Sayori becomes eager to learn about manga, Natsuki is more than willing to share her books, but when she's asked to learn about poetry, she seems to be resistant to the idea, but eventually agrees. Natsuki later opens up to Sayori that she's not good with expressing her own feelings, and Sayori responds by saying she will try to respect her boundaries.

In Reflection, Natsuki interrupts Yuri and Monika's conversation (about Yuri believing Natsuki will grow out of her manga phase, not that Natsuki hears this); when Monika redirects by asking when Natsuki got into manga, Natsuki talks about how manga helped her through a phase when she was "really fed up with a lot of things" and wanted to be left alone ("Hey, kind of like Yuri!" Monika says, to Yuri's chagrin). Natsuki then lightheartedly teases Yuri about the enormous books Yuri reads; it subtly escalates into Natsuki saying she'd find Yuri's books boring. Because of this incident, Monika's inspired to lecture the Literature Club about debate, neutral language, and communication - but this goes sideways, and it ends up with Natsuki believing Yuri sees her as immature. She says she's fine with this, though; that she'd wondered about it for a while now and it was good to have her suspicions confirmed.

A talk with Sayori the next day, however, shows that she's very much not fine about this, guilty about what she said, and wishes she didn't have to feel this way. Sayori, via being Sayori, gets Natsuki to become a little more open to manga and fantasy (and Natsuki and Yuri) existing in the same club. The two then start talking about vulnerability, and Natsuki says she wishes she was as good at communicating as Sayori is, and that she always has to be "the strongest" around other people. She says that she has to be better than people who put her down, and that's why "things always have to be everyone else's fault." Natsuki learns that Sayori knows so much about this stuff because of her depression, and, tearing up, says she wishes she was as good a person as her. Still, Sayori continues to reassure her, saying that her feelings don't make her weak or a bad person, and it takes hard work to be good friends with anyone.

This is enough for Natsuki to consider talking to Yuri again when she receives a letter from her, apologizing and talking about why Yuri said what she said.

## Etymology

* The name **Natsuki** is written in katakana (ナツキ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (菜月 or 夏希), it could possibly mean:
	+ 菜月 - "vegetables, greens" (菜) (**na**) and "moon" (月) (**tsuki**).
	+ 夏希 - "summer" (夏) (**natsu**) and "hope" (希) (**ki**).

## Trivia

* Natsuki's favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry.
* Natsuki tells Yuri that she has online friends.
* Natsuki tells Sayori she doesn't want her to see her locker, implying that it is a mess.
* In chronological order, Natsuki is the second character after Monika to learn about Sayori's depression.
* Natsuki is the only character whose bangs are swept to her right rather than to the left.
* Known manga in Natsuki's closet includes the *Parfait Girls* series; a book that Sayori looks at and says, "...Shouldn't this girl be wearing more clothes?"; and a romance-comedy called *Love is Another Word for Luck.*

## References

1. ↑ the statement by Dan Salvato on subreddit Discord
2. ↑ Concept height and statement on canon height
3. ↑ Satchely (DDLC's character artist)'s tweet about Natsuki's hair color