Shobai Hashimoto

**Shobai Hashimoto**GallerySprites

* Illustration
* Sprite

**Shobai Hashimoto** (하시모토 쇼바이) is a character featured in the Korean fangame *Super Danganronpa Another 2* created by LINUJ.

He is known as the **Super High School Level Broker** (초고교급 브로커).

## Gallery

For more images of Shobai, see Super Danganronpa Another 2/Image Gallery and Shobai Hashimoto/Sprite Gallery.
## Appearance

Shobai is a young man with frizzly grey hair, appearing slightly darker in certain areas, hairy legs, chin hair, grey eyes, and fair skin.

He wears an unbuttoned long-sleeved dirty white suit over top a half tucked, half untucked, unbuttoned black shirt with an unhung red tie hanging low and partially stuffed into his suit’s left chest pocket. He otherwise wears a pair of white trousers with the ends rolled up past his calves, a brown belt with a silver buckle which holds them up, and a pair of black flip flops with white lines across the otherwise black strap.

Outside of the simulation Shobai shares minimal differences from his VR avatar. For the most part his clothing is more tidied up with his suit jacket buttoned up, his shirt collar buttoned up, and his tie properly hung. Otherwise he now wears a pair of black shoes instead of flip flops, and his hair is partially tied up.

Shobai's VR appearanceShobai's real-world appearance
## Creation and Development

Shobai was first created at some point before, or during, 2015, proven by his appearance in sample screenshots from June of that year. Originally at this time, Shobai was already quite different to how he was in the finalised product, having a different personality that had undergone changes between the time of the announcement and release of the prologue, being described as a person who "liked to slack" and acted sarcastic by LINUJ. He was also much less serious than he was in the release of the game. Later on his personality was changed for at-the-time unspecified reasons.

In the original planning of Chapter 1, Shobai and Yuri were both heavily considered to be the first victim. Once he was murdered only Shobai's avatar was planned to die at the time, until he would later reappear outside of the simulation in his real body. LINUJ compared this idea in his own words as "The antagonistic side that pretends to leave and reappear later," comparing this idea to Mukuro Ikusaba's death and later reappearance in chapter five of *Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc*. These ideas were then scrapped later on due to various reasons, such as his personality changes, and his needed participation to solve the chapter three trial.

Since development Shobai's design has undergone several changes, evidenced mainly by his initial design. Originally he would've worn a jacket of some sorts with both sleeves rolled up, with the tie stuffed into one of the pockets, a shirt with the top button undone showing another shirt underneath this, a pair of jeans with staples presumably keeping together a rip, chains, and bracelets. His design was then changed again to what his prototype turned out to be, which later became his finalised design with no changes seemingly made between then.

## Name Etymology

Shobai's given name is written using the kanji 上 (*shō*), meaning "above" or "superior", and 倍 (*bai*), meaning "twice" or "double". His name may also refer to the similar-sounding term 商売 (*shōbai*), meaning "trade" or "business" – which is a nod to his talent as the Super High School Level Broker. His surname, Hashimoto, uses the kanji 橋 (*hashi*) meaning "bridge", and 本 (*moto*) meaning "base" or "origin".

## Personality

Shobai values his confidentiality between him and his clients above all else, and is an expert at avoiding and exploiting loopholes in the law. Despite his occupation, he does have his own form of ethics, and always completes his jobs to perfection – unless he’s bribed. In his opinion, life is the most important thing in the world, followed closely by money. Everything he does is based on a cost-benefit analysis: from trading to breathing, profit is always the bottom line. Overall, it is his basic nature to never act in a way that doesn’t benefit himself.

He is one of the 4 smartest students in the school trip.

## History

As a child Syobai went on a trip to southeast Asia with his parents, but was unknowingly abandoned by them for reasons left unstated. After around ten minutes of searching for them he was grabbed by street thugs, and was on the brink of being sold as a slave. However, he ran away, once realizing his life was in danger.

He began living on the streets with nobody to go to, no food, and no shelter. He began to earn money from any way possible even if it was for just a single penny. Eventually though Syobai came to realize that the amount he was earning would never be enough to live for any longer. This is when he began to dive into the black market, beginning small and growing what he did over time when he found a talent in dealing.

Syobai eventually became the go-to person for anything related to weaponry, assassinations, distribution, and etc- with examples including the distribution of drugs in the slums of Japan for a million yen and the assassination of an oilman (though this later was called off).

### Killing Game

Syobai would be the first student to introduce himself to both Sora and Yuki. Despite this though, he wouldn't give his name nor his talent to either of the two keeping it from them both. Soon after the introductions were finished Yuki and Sora would gather everyone at the beach. However, Syobai would leave before Setsuka's suggestion, going beside the Monocruise.

Soon an anonymous announcement would play directing Syobai and the other participants to the central park. Despite him not saying it earlier, Monocrow would reveal Syobai's name and talent to the other participants, only to reveal the start of the Killing Game soon after. Although not angry at the announcement, Syobai would take the opportunity to escape by lunging at Yuki with a knife. However, Sora would get in the way of the two getting stabbed instead, with her soon passing out. As an apology Syobai would treat her wound soon afterwards.

Days afterwards Mikado would serve breakfast to the other participants. Once he left the cafeteria however, Syobai would attack him as a way of 'challenging him.' Fire would surround Syobai and Mikado could be seen floating. They would both be stopped soon after the start of this fight however as Monocrow and the other participants would run out after hearing sounds coming from the outside. Despite them both having broken a rule, Monocrow would forgive them both saying that they had both been on equal grounds even despite Syobai having gotten injured and initiating the fight.

During the first class trial, Syobai tried to forswear by saying Yoruko was the blackened, though this was caught on as a lie by Kokoro. The reason of Shobai's false account had turned out to be a test for the other students, more specifically to see if they were able to solve trial without Shobai. Satisfied with the result of this, Shobai would sleep for the remaining time of the trial including the blackened's execution.

At the second trail, Syobai slept for the majority of the trail, but he did help prove the claim of Kokoro’s disease being an act. Kanade had asked Syobai, to better explain about his diagnosis. At first, Syobai was ignorant to explain, but Sora brings up about his deduction of the killer’s mistake. Syobai eventually explains how his checkup on Kokoro “wasn’t a favor, it was buisness”, and by his client confidentiality he refuses to explain any further about it. But he eventually decides to come out, after since his client, Kokoro is now dead, it’s not a problem to snitch about her.

He confesses that Kokoro reached out to him, and messaged from her iPad that she was attacked by a void, and wants to expose them, so she asked him to make a fraudulent examination of her, to hide her cover, and to explain about it to anyone else who asks. Not only did this confession, caused the suspected Emma to blurt out after his confession, but it also brings an inaccuracy of Emma’s statement from earlier, where after Kokoro collapsed, she said that she was “scorching hot”. So why would she point that out, when Kokoro was just attacked by a void, and not sick at all. Yuki agrees with this, as mainly everyone’s ap treatment towards Kokoro was based on Emma saying she had a fever, not that she was wounded.

During the third class trial, Syobai saves the students when coming up with a theory that solves the question of Hibiki cooperating with Kanade for Setsuka's murder, by having the two of them stab Setsuka at the very same time by 0.00001 seconds, thus proving both of them as the killers.

## Talent & Abilities

### Broker

Shobai is a go-to person in the underworld, mediating many different types of illegal deals varying from; assassinations, drug spread, and much more. He developed his talent at a young age, when he realised he would die if he failed to create a sustainable income. Like anyone else he started out as a beginner and built his way among the ranks, despite his young age, earning a large amount of profit, twisting his personality into the antisocial person he is nowadays, and supposedly causing his appearance due to stress. Shobai also gained his beliefs of prioritising life and money over anything from his career.

During his freetime events Shobai mentions that he's killed numerous people in the past because of his talent, but has sometimes not gone through with certain ones. An example he gave was an oilman from the middle east, who he had financial issues over. He doesn't seem to care where the source of the money he earns actually comes from after accepting AI Mikado's deal with him prior to the killing game, later killing his real life counterpart. Shobai also agreed upon another deal with him later on when kidnapping the participants of the killing game, then putting himself into it after being promised he would be safe in the end.

### Medical Knowledge

While the means of how he earned his medical knowledge is unknown (though it's likely that it also resulted in his childhood), Shobai is shown to be quite knowledgeable with treating wounds and other injuries. He was able to treat Sora from her stab wound after Shobai stabs her in the prologue, and has likely also dealt with the multiple scars across his body when they were still wounds. It's unknown how far his knowledge actually goes.

## Trivia

* In the SDRA2 popularity poll, Shobai ranked 9th with a total of 274 votes and 6.5% of the overall votes.
* LINUJ had the most trouble drawing Shobai's hair.
* Shobai can speak 20 different languages.
* Kokoro, Shobai, Yuri and Kanade would all have perfect scores if ranked by grade.
* Shobai isn't good at singing.
* Shobai is the person that appears in Chapter 6.5. of Danganronpa Another.
	+ This is largely due to plot holes, as Mikado's alter ego wouldn't have had a physical body. It is likely that Shobai acted as Mikado, as Mikado's alter ego was "top secret", so he needed to make the Kisaragi Foundation believe that Mikado was real.
* Kokoro, Kanade, and Shobai are the worst people in the game.
* Shobai is the only student who wins every debate scrum in the game, along with Sora.
* Shobai's favourite weapon is his knife.
* Shobai and Kokoro sleep late.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 **linuj.tistory.com**: Super Danganronpa Another 2 Character Profiles (Korean)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 **Fanganronpa Wiki**: Korean Translations Thread by EverAyakari
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 **LINUJ's blog**: Shobai Hashimoto's character profile (Feb 28th, 2020)
4. ↑ https://linuj.tistory.com/entry/%EC%83%88%ED%95%B4-%EB%B3%B5-%EB%A7%8E%EC%9D%B4-%EB%B0%9B%EC%9C%BC%EC%84%B8%EC%9A%94-1?category=412178
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 **YouTube**: Shobai Hashimoto free time events (English, Johnny Youngster) (May 31st, 2019)
6. ↑ **Linuj's blog**: Popularity poll results (Feb 7th, 2020)
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 **Pastebin**: SDRA2 Fan Questions (translated by CKLeming) (JAN 31 2020)