Tsumugi Shirogane

**Tsumugi Shirogane** (天海 蘭太郎 *Shirogane Tsumugi*), is a student in Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles and a participant of the Killing School Semester (featured in *Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony*) in the Canon Danganronpa Universe's V3 Timeline.

Upon her debut in the *Trigger Meme Havoc* universe, she introduced her title of **Ultimate Cosplayer**.

## Appearance

File:Danganronpa V3 Tsumugi Shirogane Fullbody Sprite (1).pngFile:NDRV3 Art Gallery Tsumugi Shirogane.png
Tsumugi is a tall, young woman with long, knee length, cerulean hair which starts out smooth and becomes wavy the lower it goes. Her eyes are soft teal and round. She wears rimless glasses with white temples.

Her uniform consists of a white blouse, a knee length pleated skirt, adorned with six white buttons on her waist; her skirt seems to be held by suspenders. She wears an orange bow, black socks ending under the knee, and grey shoes. Her blazer has two pockets on both sides and is adorned by the same white buttons as her skirt.

She has been shown without her blazer in her promotional artwork, which shows an insignia of a sort on her left breast.

Tsumugi states as a rather normal and plain-looking otaku.

Upon being found out as the Mastermind of the Killing School Semester and revealing her talent fully as the Ultimate Cosplayer, Tsumugi's normal, plain appearance undergoes a couple minor, but still noticeable changes. Her hair becomes a bit wavier, and her eyes glow an eerie blue, which may be a characteristic sign of her madness, similar to how Nagito Komaeda can get when he speaks of his warped desire for hope. Furthermore, when she is cosplaying, a V appears in her right eye and a 3 in her left eye, referring to the fact this is the 53rd season.

Another slight difference is that dark, pale-blue bags appear under her eyes. The exact reasoning behind this is uncertain, though the likely explanation is that it is meant to be symbolic with how the *Danganronpa* franchise has continued for 53 installments and that even she may be getting tired of the absurd repetition.

## Personality

Tsumugi is an honors type student who speaks in a docile and gentle way, but she becomes very passionate when she talks about her favorite series or cosplays, having a habit of slipping infamous quotes from various sources into the conversation. Being a self-proclaimed introvert, she also tends to ignore people while she's in her thoughts, no matter how many times they try talking to her, and appears rather distant at times. She tends to call herself and everything that she has done "plain," as she believes that among all of the students, she is the one who has the plainest appearance and personality. She uses the word repeatedly and sometimes appears even offended if someone else tries to argue that she isn't plain. She understands that some people might not recognize her as the Ultimate Cosplayer since her plain appearance conceals her talent.

While Tsumugi is the Ultimate Cosplayer, she only enjoys making costumes, not wearing them, as she is not really fond of people looking at her. However, she hates using cosplayers who care more about standing out than love of the characters, so she wears her own costumes as well but with love. She deeply loves cosplaying as she states that cosplaying is an expression of love. She has deep respect for fictional characters and gets very offended if they are disrespected.

Despite her plain and docile attitude, certain hints suggest that she may actually be quite perverted, as she is a bit stereotypical fan of anime and manga. After the time limit motive was made apparent in Chapter 1, she was saddened by not being able to hide her "special art commissions" and "that pillowcase" she bought before she dies. She also at one point, in an optional dialogue conversation, wonders if she could wipe her entire hard drive at home from within the Ultimate Academy, worrying about the pictures that were saved on it, perhaps hinting at an interest in pornography, hentai, or something similar to them. In her Love Suite fantasy scene, she appears to have an interest in incest, as she imagines her "ideal" as her older stepbrother, and sex is heavily implied (which seems to refer to the quite popular hentai trope of romance between step siblings). She seems very intent on keeping this side of her hidden, as it is very rarely brought up or acknowledged by anyone in the killing game.

Tsumugi is somewhat timid, and she is usually the first person who screams whenever something scary happens. Another notable trait of hers is that she is somewhat pessimistic, as shown in Chapter 5 when she refused to fight Monokuma, thinking that it was too reckless and dangerous. Furthermore, whenever someone else has a some sort of character establishing moment, she tends to act threatened and inferior, as she closes her eyes and puts her hands up in slight defense while she squeals something about how much more interesting, stronger, cooler or pure the other person is compared to her. Regardless, she generally appears to be a kind person, as seen in the way she grieves the deaths of others and treats Gonta in patient, gentle manner.

However, she also seems to be very skilled with blending in her environment. She constantly changes her mind and follows any decisions made by the majority, even if she doesn't have any actual reasons for it, and she eventually followed everyone to beat the Death Road of Despair. In any occasion, she tends to react to even the most minor things said by the others. She is able to follow the conversation with Himiko about her "magic", asking Tenko why her technique is far too aggressive for a martial art like Aikido, and most notably she tries to tell Gonta not to be a too honest person. Notably, despite her somewhat timid and plain personality, it is indicated that she actually has the ability to take control in the few situations she wishes to. Right after meeting her, Kaede describes her as "exuding pheromones" and is distracted by her "sexy" face while having a conversation with her. When she later makes a cocktail for Shuichi in her personal bar, he notices that Tsumugi is discreetly seducing him through the clinking sound of the glass and the suddenly notable lack of her jacket covering her blouse. He ends up wondering just what kind of place she worked in. During her Love Suite Event with Shuichi, she quickly seduces him, as if "wrapping her voice around his brain" and he feels he cannot resist her.

After being revealed as the mastermind of the Killing School Semester in Chapter 6, she reveals herself to not be that much different from Junko Enoshima herself, with the exception of not possessing any special analytical prowess and superior charisma that Junko had. She is manipulative and cruel, choosing to murder Rantaro and frame Kaede for his death all so that the killing game would not end due to the motive Monokuma presented at the time. She openly fooled her fellow "classmates" as a friend and comrade all the while secretly orchestrating the killing game and making sure that everything went according to the "setting" provided for them. She also displays great skills in hiding her true personality and does not display it before she is revealed as the true culprit and can act as if she were another person without arousing any suspicions.

She takes great pride in her cosplay, claiming her mimicry of the characters from *Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc* and *Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair* to be "complete reproductions", or exactly like the real thing even down to their personality, behavior, speech patterns, and goals. She claims that she can even use her cosplay skills to make the fictional world around her seem like it is real. As a likely benefit of her talent, she is also a master of deception and trickery, able to fake her entire character as the Ultimate Cosplayer and as an Otaku throughout the entire killing game and subsequently fool everyone else around her by constantly saying how plain and simple she was. She turns noticeably arrogant as the final class trial continues, claiming that everyone else was a fool to think of her as a comrade and friend. She cares nothing for those that participated in the killing game, claiming that they were born for the killing game and cannot live outside the world of *Danganronpa* anymore.

Her arrogance also shows her insanely hypocritical nature, breaking her own rules on numerous occasions and practically making them up as she went along just to benefit her the most. She also claims that fiction cannot change the outside world after Shuichi insisted on "changing the outside world from within this fiction" despite she tried to do the very same thing prior by filling the outside world with despair. This is also quite an unusual statement for her to make considering that she takes immense pride in her cosplay and her ability to twist and manipulate people using fiction. As a result, what she truly believes in is uncertain though it could always be assumed she only said this out of fear and panic.

Going further with this, despite all her hubris in the final trial, she proves herself to be rather incapable as a Mastermind overall, especially when compared to prior master manipulators like Junko herself, Monaca, and to some extent Chisa and Kazuo as well. She nearly got her Killing Game shut down in only the first chapter due to the motive presented at the time as well as "writing" Kaede Akamatsu to be too strong as her determination and optimism kept a killing from happening. Her killing game also follows many noticeable tropes that are often shunned such as a double murder occurring in Chapter 3, and the "gentle-giant" archetype dying in Chapter 4. Far more noteworthy however, is Kokichi taking over her role in Chapter 5, proving himself to be a far more-threatening "Mastermind" by filling everyone with so much despair that they almost killed themselves. Of course K1-B0's antenna getting knocked off during Kaito's execution was also unexpected, which she even admits herself. As a result despite her constant claims that every action and thought the characters made and felt in the Killing Game were a result of her own writing, it is unclear just how much control she truly had over everything that happened.

Once the final vote was cast and it is revealed that no one had voted, she grows considerably bewildered, unable to comprehend as to why the outside world would want a world without *Danganronpa*. She states that she has no interest in a world without Danganronpa, before getting executed by K1-B0 while wearing a completely bored and apathetic expression (contrasting Junko's gleeful face when she was executed), showing her obsession with fiction and love for the series. She idolized Junko to a great degree, almost as much as the Remnants of Despair do, claiming in the end that she could be proud that her plan failed as it made her "imitation" perfect.

This dramatic change in personality from before being found out as the mastermind and after, along with her arrogant and hypocritical "true self" seems to paint her in the light of a crazed, radical *Danganronpa* fan-girl, completely obsessed with the franchise to the point where she shows no sympathy or remorse for putting real people into an actual Killing Game for mere entertainment purposes. Among her final words, she referred to herself as a "cosplaycat criminal", and it's speculated by Shuichi that she may have been lying about everything being fictional.

## Talent(s) and Abilities

### Ultimate Cosplayer

Tsumugi's talent as the Ultimate Cosplayer is a fabrication made by Team Danganronpa. Due to that fact, it is unclear whether Tsumugi is a sponsored cosplayer in the past.

File:Danganronpa V3 Tsumugi Shirogane Introduction (Demo Version).png
Despite her status as the Ultimate Cosplayer, Tsumugi actually doesn't have interest in cosplaying herself. Rather, she states that she enjoys recreating costumes more. She loves to create costumes because it is like making a fictional character real, in a way. She also has a sponsorship that makes her can create costumes with expensive materials.

She is also a well-versed otaku in anime and manga references. In her promotional artwork, Tsumugi is featured with mannequins wearing lingerie and a wig, several paints and cosmetic brushes, as well as red thread and an object which could be interpreted as scissors. This could imply that her talent is multi-faceted.

In Chapter 1, Tsumugi states that she gets "Cospox" an allergic reaction where a bumpy rash spreads across her entire body if she cosplays as anyone that is real. In Chapter 6, she proves her talent fully by accurately cosplaying as multiple characters from *Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc* and *Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair*. She is capable of matching their appearances, voices, and mannerisms perfectly, making her imitations even more accurate than Ultimate Imposter's, although this could be due to Team Danganronpa sponsoring in her costumes to make it as accurate to the characters as possible. However, by doing this, she also reveals that the Hope's Peak Series and all involved were nothing, but fiction within the *Danganronpa V3* Universe. (It should be noted however, that given Tsumugi breaks into Cospox when she cosplays as Kaede in Chapter 1, that either the Kaede in chapter 1 is considered a "real" person, or Tsumugi is lying about her Cospox, and either has no cospox, or actually only breaks into Cospox when cosplaying as fictional characters, as suggested when she says she prefers others to wear the costumes she makes.)

Possibly as another reference to her talent, Tsumugi is capable of breaking the fourth wall and has a heightened awareness of fiction and reality.

## History

### Trigger Meme Havoc Universe

#### 1/1/2018 - 2/28/2018 Timeline

There were no appearances made by Tsumugi in the world during this timeline. It is unknown where she was or was up to throughout this period of time.

#### 2/28/2018 - 4/9/2018 Timeline

There were no appearances made by Tsumugi in the world during this timeline. It is unknown where she was or was up to throughout this period of time.

#### 4/9/2018 - 5/11/2018 Timeline

There were no appearances made by Tsumugi in the world during this timeline. It is unknown where she was or was up to throughout this period of time.

#### 5/11/2018 - ??? Timeline

There were no appearances made by Tsumugi in the world during this timeline. It is unknown where she was or was up to throughout this period of time.

## Relationships

**Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles Students:**

## Trivia

1. ↑ *Danganronpa V3* Official Blog Day 15.
2. ↑ Shirogane's profile on the official website.
3. ↑ Meeting with Shirogane.
4. ↑ Famitsu Scan, November 17th 2016.