Kotoko Utsugi

***THIS CONTAINS POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA ULTRA DESPAIR GIRLS, AND DEFINITE SPOILERS FOR BREAKING KRYS 1***

***THIS ALSO MENTIONS R\*\*E. I HAVE CENSORED IT, JUST WARNIN YA***

## **Appearance**

Kotoko has ankle-length light pink hair with short straight bangs and slightly curved in locks on the side of her head tied into high pigtails and a shade of vivid pink colored eyes with speech bubbles acting as designs for the irises. She wears a hot pink hairband with two horns atop, both bent in and the left one having a white bow with pink polka-dots by its base. It also is branded with the emblem of the "Fighter" class in between the horns.

She wears a frilled white shirt that have black outlines by the collar, and has a brownish black jacket which has a light pink bow by the bottom left is left unbuttoned and a puffy brownish black skirt which both have pink accents. The lapel of the has the silver Warriors of Hope badge and a silver bobby pin with a flower on it. She also wears mismatched white thigh-high socks with pale pink patterns, one with a criss-cross pattern then the other with a parallel line pattern, and ankle-high boots with the top-edge being pink and white with white bows on each boot and the bases are pale pink.

The creators have mentioned that she has unusual proportions and quite long limbs, which makes her more adult-like.

## **Personality**

Kotoko is a hot-headed girl who loves "adorbs" things. She collects them and seems even slightly obsessed with the concept.

Kotoko also has an odd speech pattern as she often starts to list off-topic facts she finds interesting in the middle of conversation. Sometimes they're vaguely related to the topic (for example, if the topic is *too long speeches*, she starts to talk about how things like elephant's nose and giraffe necks are *also* too long). Even still, her speech is clear and focused, unlike in the case of Jataro Kemuri.

Kotoko acts cheerful, polite and happy. However, she is mentioned to have a bullying nature and she can be very mean and cruel. She is very mean to Jataro, even more than the others are, and she likes to tease Nagisa Shingetsu. However, she constantly tries to stay on Monaca's good side and praises her a lot.

Kotoko seemingly loved her stage life, but she doesn't like to talk about it and considers it a thing far in the past. She was pampered a lot and now has quite strict, demanding personality. She also has a habit of curtsying and being rather dramatic, which also hints at her past as an actress. It's actually heavily implied that a lot of Kotoko's behavior is just an act and, being the former Li'l Ultimate Drama, she is very skilled at acting. The official artbook implies that her "cutesy" personality might be a front created as a coping mechanism and she herself mentions that she has to keep acting or else she becomes miserable.

Kotoko is one of the more intelligent members of the group, capable of acting cunning and understanding things a bit faster than some other kids. She was able to trick Monaca with her acting and began to act more independently after Monaca was revealed to be a traitor. Still, even though she never really liked Monaca, she was manipulated by Junko to the point that she truly believed she cared about her and the others.

Due to her trauma caused by s\*\*\*\*l a\*\*\*e, Kotoko is triggered by the word "gentle" (優しい *yasashii*), as the men who abused her had said they would be "gentle". When she hears this word, she becomes neurotic, and begins crying and screaming in fear, unable to calm herself down except when somebody tells her that they will not be gentle with her. Despite this, she can use the word "gentle" herself without any problems. Supposedly because of Junko's teachings, she wants to make other "adorbs" girls suffer what she went through, exclusively the older ones she considers Demons. She is bitter because nobody helped her in the past and thus very paranoid of adults, believing they're all p\*\*\*\*\*\*\*s.

## **Backstory**

Kotoko was born and raised in Towa City. She was a child prodigy and a famous child actor whose father was a dentist.

When she was about 10 years old, her parents prostituted her to producers where she was repeatedly /censored/ by them. Her mother did it out of a twisted form of parental love and prostituted herself alongside Kotoko as a "mother and daughter set", believing that this was in her daughter's best interests and that it would help further Kotoko's career, make her "sparkle forever" and have the spotlight. Kotoko's mother saw youth as a great, horrifying power, one that should be used in their advantage when they still could. She didn't care if Kotoko and the society would hate her, as she believed that her actions were completely right. As a result of the trauma, she ended up developing a breakdown trigger to the word "gentle", a euphemism the producers had used to describe their /censored/.

Kotoko wanted to be a normal child and didn't want to "sparkle", but she endured it all and didn't complain for the sake of her mother, because making her mother cry would've hurt Kotoko the most. Kotoko's father, on the other hand, used the money they gained for his own benefit, was cheating on his wife with his dental hygienist and overall didn't seem to care about his family at all.