Kokichi Oma

**Kokichi Oma** is the master of ??? in the ??? Holy Grail war.

"*Why do you guys hate lies so much? There's only one truth, but endless possibilities for lies, y'know? And some of them are only white lies, or lies to be kind to people... If you deny all of that \*just\* because it's a lie... Then that means you guys are just terrible at being lied to! Seriously, the worst!*" - Kokichi Oma

## Profile

### Background

Kokichi Oma (王馬 小吉) is a student in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles and a participant of the Killing School Semester featured in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. His title is the Ultimate Supreme Leader (超高校級の「総統」 lit. Super High School Level Supreme Leader).

### Personality

Kokichi describes himself as an evil supreme leader, and often claims that this title is the reason behind many of his questionable actions as if he is expected to fulfill his role. He is an elusive and manipulative person who unabashedly tells lies and says whatever he's thinking. He is also strangely straightforward about his supposed evil nature, openly claiming to be a leader of a large secret society, admitting to being a liar, and saying he has done nothing but bad things. Among other things, his organization supposedly has covert agents in every country, control over all the mafias in the world, torture as a form of punishment, and Kokichi's defeated opponents apparently will get sent to Siberia. However, none of his claims have been confirmed, and the other students think he's either lying or delusional.

According to Kazutaka Kodaka, Kokichi is a trickster character in the truest sense of the word. He is very mischievous, and he enjoys pranks and teasing others, sometimes in quite mean-spirited ways. He appeared to have a strong need for attention, as he got irritated if people talked over him or didn't react to his antics the way he wanted them to. He also appeared quite arrogant, clearly considering himself very important part of the class trials, looking down on some of the other students, often wishing to lead the debates and once claiming that the class trials won't be good if the others won't allow him to speak. Because of his behavior, he is viewed as an antagonistic figure among the group, but this doesn't seem to stop him from being able to manipulate the class trials anyway. He is often portrayed smiling slyly and laughing mischievously, though he may look very harmless and innocent at first glance. He often behaves calmly and coolly in a way to torture the others, at times turning very ominous to the point of having very unsettling, downright demonic looking expressions. Sometimes, he can speak very sweetly, even flirty and claiming he loves the other person very much, while during other moments he can speak in a very crude and nasty manner (especially towards Miu) and use insults which vary from quite harmless to very mean-spirited. He can also try to use his looks to his advantage and sheds crocodile tears by crying loudly like a scared and threatened child, telling the others they're being really mean, but this is always overly dramatic and obviously fake. There are also moments when he appears scared, tearfully mentioning that he is afraid of the killing game and doesn't want to die, and often crying loudly soon after someone's death...but it's unclear if he is being genuine or just trying to earn sympathy with his looks. There are also moments when he suddenly falls asleep and snores comically, angering the others.

Fitting his appearance, Kokichi often acts notably child-like, with at least some of it appearing genuine while part of it also could be just his attempt to use his looks to his advantage. He is sometimes shown to have child-like excitement and innocence, as he gets very excited about "cool" new things like the Exisals and the morphing Trial Grounds marvels the school in a child-like excitement and shouts "yodelay-hee-hoooooo" while the students are inside the echoing tunnel. Kaede considered him exhausting and like a child who wants attention with bad behavior. He often acts playful and seemingly appears more ignorant than malicious during the first time he meets K1-B0. He is also notably interested in games and often has a strong desire to be a winner and play them seriously while also having fun along with them, with one of his principles being "to have fun" with everything he does. He enjoys hard difficulty, claiming that he always plays on Hard Mode and never uses the "Run" command, and he is stated to have nerves of steel in order to accomplish this. He came up with an original theory that enjoying the extreme thrill of cornering yourself with all exits sealed is the definition of fun. However, he also enjoys more casual things like getting chased around as if it's a game, at least by people like Kaede, Kirumi, and Shuichi who wouldn't beat him up after catching him, and loves hide and seek. Later in the game, it's shown that he has drawn multiple childish drawings with silly fantasy concepts such as ray guns with rainbow-colored beams (along with a silly self-portrait of himself), and he apparently owns a toy helicopter and a supercar. His favorite presents include a pop electro-water gun, most likely to use for pranks, and a hammock to relax and feel like a child again. In his Free Time Events, Kokichi makes multiple references to shows such as Yu-Gi-Oh! and Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji, and it's indicated that he likes the Shōnen genre. His supreme leader claims can also be rather childish at times, like destroying cities with giant robot dinosaurs. His Research Lab had a stereotypical dramatic throne of an evil ruler, comical instead of harmful objects, flashy cars and was even described to be like a child's idea of what an evil supreme leader is. In his Love Suite fantasy sequence, it's shown that he likes to imagine himself as a legendary phantom thief who has a romantic rivalry with a detective, and it's indicated that while he loves the chase (even more so than committing the actual crime) he is also very excited about being caught and punished. In the official art book, it's stated that he is quite nonchalant about his hair, but he does possess a true sense of fashion he keeps hidden and displays through his colorful underwear, supposedly not finding it fitting with his supreme leader image. Notably, he also keeps referring to Kirumi as his "mom", and he is a big admirer of Santa Claus. He himself has openly admitted that as a teenager he is, of course, immature, and he claims that people should never lose their childish side. However, at other times, he acted offended at the mere suggestion that a supreme leader such as himself would do something so childish (though this reaction, too, often appeared to be just a joke).

Above all, Kokichi considers lying a big part of himself and a way of life, appearing either unwilling or unable to stop it and even claiming that his body is made up of 70% lies. He frequently claims something only to shortly afterward reveal that he was just lying, making it very hard to trust his word. Sometimes the lies are very obvious, but at other times it can be near impossible to tell whether or not he is telling the truth. He also tends to say whatever riles up the other students at the moment and tries to mess up conversations without any apparent reason. Indeed, neither because of impulsivity or the need to confuse others, he lies mostly because he feels he's free to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. He has also frequently pointed out that even if he told the truth, the others wouldn't believe a liar like him, indicating that he uses his constant lying to mask his own true feelings and intentions. Furthermore, being a liar himself, he always seems to notice when and why other people are lying. Ironically, he appears annoyed if other people are lying, either to others or themselves, and he claims that he hates liars. He also dislikes it when people claim they hate lying yet they lie . He sometimes does not point out other people's lies and may even go along with them simply for the fun of it, but he seems to enjoy revealing other students' more serious dishonest ulterior motives with near malicious glee, such as when he exposed Maki as the Ultimate Assassin and called Kirumi out on her attempt to guilt another student into taking her place for the execution. Notably, whenever his face and tone goes more blank and neutral, it's heavily implied that he has a rare moment of being completely genuine and honest, and he has an occasional habit to unintentionally speak out loud what he is genuinely thinking and sometimes even does it intentionally by openly explaining it to the other students.

Besides lying, Kokichi is shown to be very intelligent in general, with he himself claiming that his head is always filled with complicated thoughts. He is capable of creating complex plans in a short amount of time—a notable case being the time he wrote a script for Kaito during the class trial, which was written thoroughly about possible reactions and possible routes of how the trial will play out. He is also very perceptive, possibly due to being a major liar in a game that's main theme is lies, as he often appears to have a deeper understanding of the situations and can predict things to the point of resembling breaking of the fourth wall. He quickly figured out Kaede's major flaw, foreshadowed her death and explained to her that the definition of common sense varies depending on the person. Notably, he understands that in order to truly win the killing game you must end it, not necessarily survive it. During his free time events, he even gives this advice to Shuichi, telling him that games can be won by not playing them. He also does lots of investigation alone without other people noticing, analyzes the other students, writes their fates and his impression of them on his whiteboard, and hoards lots of evidence from the past cases into his room. Supposedly because of his intelligence, Kokichi strongly disliked boredom (though not as badly as Junko Enoshima and Izuru Kamukura). He tended to complain about situations he found boring and even during some bad situations he noted that it's fine because at least it's not boring. If he liked a person or found them interesting, he tended to state that they are not boring, which was a big and rare compliment coming from him. Furthermore, his last words even include a prominent line "At least I... wasn't boring, right?", showing that the matter appears very important to him. In general, he also seems to have an interest in "useful" people and wishes to have such people around him. It's implied that contrasting his intelligence, his weakness might be his physical strength. He dislikes heavy physical work and sports and complains whenever he has to participate in such activities, and he himself admits multiple times that he is weak physically. He also appears fearful whenever others threaten to hurt him, often running away quickly or relying on Gonta for protection. During Chapter 2, he hides in the casino from Kaito and gets startled by Shuichi's appearance as he mistakes him for Kaito for a second. However, it should also be noted that he was seen as incredibly agile by Maki when he punched Kaito at the end of Chapter 4, and he further claims that he lied about not being good at fighting, so it is unclear just how capable he really is when it comes to a fight. He claims that as an evil supreme leader, he doesn't like violence and would rather sneak around.

While Kokichi claims that his arguments are simply based on logic, he appears to have some sort of trust issues. He once told Kaede that he is more nervous around friends who share too much than strangers. It has been pointed out by other characters such as K1-B0 and Kaito that Kokichi does not like to talk about himself nor be open about his true feelings. After Kaede's death, he himself even pointed out that you'll feel happy and cheerful in no time if you just hit the reset button on your feelings, indicating that he is heavily suppressing his true emotions. He appears to have little trust in anyone or anything, refusing to tell anything about himself besides his questionable supreme leader claims and generally questioning the truthfulness of different situations. He frequently reminds the other students that the game is about suspecting others and that you cannot fully trust other people, especially in such situation, causing him to clash with Kaito's opposite way of thinking. Kaito even once called him naive, telling him that everyone has a secret to keep, and he shouldn't get so paranoid over someone's true thoughts. However, despite his trust issues, Kokichi does appear to see Shuichi as potentially trustworthy and wants to become his partner later in the game, and also puts some trust in Gonta. Kokichi also hates being lied to and betrayed by the few people he considers at least a bit trustworthy. While he was usually simply amused with Shuichi's lying in earlier trials and didn't really point them out to others, in the fourth trial he is furious and even vengeful when Shuichi lies back to him and everyone believes Shuichi's lie over him. He gets angry at Shuichi for giving a false alibi for him and retaliates by "taking the fun out of solving the mystery for him" by exposing Gonta as the culprit. He is also absolutely furious with Gonta when he fails to argue back and thus is ruining their plan, making Kokichi completely lose his composure in anger, though he also appears genuinely touched and shocked when Gonta is willing to forgive him after everything he has done. Furthermore, in the bonus mode Ultimate Talent Development Plan, Kokichi tells Gonta that they won't see each other anymore after graduating due to them being a gentleman and an evil supreme leader. Kokichi claims he is so sad he barely eats and cries himself to sleep at night, though he soon says it's just a lie. Interestingly, when Gonta is genuinely saddened because he won't see Kokichi anymore, Kokichi reacts with slight anger and believes Gonta is trying to trick him back, showing that he believes other people can't genuinely care about him, not even someone as kind as Gonta. In his Harmonious Heart Event, he even considers stopping lying for a moment in order to get closer with Shuichi, and if Shuichi agrees with this, Kokichi appears annoyed and says it's arrogant to expect other people to change such vital parts of themselves just for other people. In general, he appears to be somewhat against cooperation and strong inspirational speeches during the killing game, as he has pointed out that this makes you suspicious and a threat in the eyes of the mastermind. However, it's been shown that he does cooperate in his own way, which can be easily mistaken for troublemaking. There are also quite a few moments when Kokichi appears to give genuine advice and warns the other students about the patterns he has noticed in the students or Monokuma's behavior, though the others of course never take him seriously.

During Chapter 4, in the Neo World Program created by Miu, Kokichi persuades Gonta to murder Miu because he cannot do it himself due to Miu's programming. After learning the horrifying truth of the outside world, Kokichi and Gonta both agree that mercy killing the others while they're not aware of the horrible situation would be the best option. Even though he did not receive the memories of his avatar, Gonta is still willing to forgive Kokichi and tells the others not to blame him during the trial. This seems to genuinely affect Kokichi a lot, causing him to cry and listen to Gonta's last wish, and he even asks to be executed with Gonta. However, following Gonta's execution, Kokichi puts up his "evil" facade once more, and more intensely than ever. In an eerily casual manner, he tells the other students that he won't tell the truth of the outside world to "stupid heads" and claims he had just been fake crying. He begins to act exaggeratedly "evil", claiming he enjoys the killing game and the suffering of others from the bottom of his heart, making the others think he is pure evil and very likely even the mastermind. However, he does appear genuinely affected when Shuichi tells him that he's the kind of person who will always be alone.

Later in Chapter 5, Kokichi gives his life as a part of his plan to defeat the mastermind. During his last moments, he appears to genuinely cry bitterly as he confesses that he was just lying to others and himself in order to survive and be able to go on, and his evil and extreme behavior was heavily implied to be part of a plan to outwit the mastermind. He appears disgusted as he explains how much he hates the creator and the viewers of the killing game, who enjoy toying around with people's lives. He says he wants to ruin the killing game even if it costs him his life, thus making its viewers taste "true despair" and honor the memory of those who died. Later, it is revealed that his organization is actually just a small group of pranksters who commit mild crimes for laughs and they are indeed strongly against killing, implying that Kokichi was honest during his last moments and possibly explaining his strong dislike for Maki's Ultimate talent. This was also implied by his very serious and genuinely frustrated looking crying expressions, which are very different from his usual, obvious fake tears, and the fact that K1-B0 believed he was honest (and he is multiple times shown to be right due to his inner voice). Moreover, in Chapter 1, Kokichi is also seen visibly concerned after hearing the first body discovery announcement. During his Free Time Events, while talking about his usual supreme leader claims, Kokichi describes himself as a pacifist whose number one priority is peace and he rather settles fights with games. He claims that all the world's mafias he controls would fight, destroy each other and cause unnecessary trouble to everyone around them if he wasn't there to maintain them. During the bonus mode Love Across the Universe, Kokichi even claims that he truly respects police officers and detectives who fight the bad guys yet get blamed by the public, and he reacts negatively about the criminal organization documents as he claims that thinking about all the bad things they bring to the world makes him sad.

Indeed, despite all of his flaws, Kokichi is stated to have certain innocence which makes him hard to hate. Overall, he often appears to have good intentions, but acts on them in a harsh and confusing manner. He himself has claimed that he lies in order to entertain others and that his lies are told half out of kindness, and even the Skill received after his Free Time Events is called "Kind Lie". He has also pointed out that while there is only one truth, there are countless lies, many which of are white lies and ones used for good and told out of kindness, and that the world would not have true freedom without lies. He appears a bit offended and even saddened that the other students hate lies so much, and has once pointed out that the "truth isn't that good anyway". Even though he enjoys to lie and stir chaos, he also addresses many valid points and is occasionally the student who speaks the most sense. He sometimes harshly calls out other characters and brings up their major issues, but also appears to push them forward and improve. At one point, when he is accused of bullying, he pointed out how the other students have no problem bullying and ganging up on him despite claiming to be good people. He also occasionally appears to have moments of genuine compassion, like when Miu reveals that she is afraid to trust the other students, which seems to make Kokichi feel bad for her and listen to her very seriously. During his Free Time Events with Kaede, he warns her in a cryptic manner, though he claims he only does so because he actually cares about her. He also sympathizes with Himiko when she lies to herself and helps her out, albeit in a harsh manner, claiming that he was only doing it because he cares. In his Free Time Events with Shuichi, he seems to make sure the detective won't get actually hurt even if it means hurting himself instead. He occasionally even seems to feel sympathy towards K1-B0, like when the robot talks about having only average or even less than average human-like functions. He also seems to feel strong guilt for his more notable bad actions, but he is willing to take drastic actions if he believes he has to do it, and it's implied that he wishes to spare the others from this role—in Chapter 4, he appears genuinely saddened as he points that the "role of the villain" is perfect for him, because everyone hates him, and he says that he would have taken Gonta's place as the murderer if he could. After Kaede's execution, he appears tearful and angry with himself and he says he's so pissed off at himself for being so useless, but he soon claims he was just lying. In Chapter 2, he mentions that everyone's got it all wrong and he claims that he only acts like a bad guy so that the others wouldn't get too soft. He has multiple times claimed that he always does things for everyone's sake and complained about the other students not realizing it. He is well aware that he is the most disliked student of the group since the very first chapter, claiming that nobody would care if he died. He appeared more serious as he stated in Chapter 5 that he thinks of everybody as his friends, but would watch them from afar because nobody would want him around. During the bonus mode Love Across the Universe's graduation event, his only dialogue is him crying about how much he loves everyone and is so glad that he met them.

While there isn't much information about what kind of person Kokichi was before the claimed brainwashing, it's shown in the Prologue that he appears much more outwardly worried about the situation the students are in, clearly visible from his facial expressions. Furthermore, he didn't show any villainous behavior, and instead, he offered to go check if the Exisals are still nearby when the other students showed worry about it.

In the original Japanese release, Kokichi refers to everyone, including boys, with the suffix "-chan", although it is actually a tender suffix used for soft characters which are often female. He has a habit of referring to some of the other male characters, particularly Shuichi, in an affectionate way as his "beloved" (in the English localization, this habit is more inconsistent, as it is sometimes translated as "dearest" while other times replaced with different wording). He is known to use this term of people he seems to like, but it also could be sarcastic or just flattery at times—in the bonus mode Ultimate Talent Development Plan, he seems to use it sarcastically for Junko Enoshima, as he claims he is "besties" with the fashionista even though he openly considers her a "rude blonde bitch", and he also claims to love Yasuhiro Hagakure and Kiyotaka Ishimaru seemingly simply because it is so easy to trick and make fun of them. He also has a very unique laugh, which is "nishishi"—ironically, this is also the Japanese onomatopoeia for a horse, something which relates to his last name. In the English localization, the laugh is changed to "nee-heehee", which still gives a slight impression of a horse. Kokichi also occasionally uses childish way of speech such as saying "sowwy" instead of "sorry", valspeak type of dialogue such as "like", "totally", "omigod", and colloquial words like "wanna" and "gonna", and tends to drag out certain words such as "toootally".

According to Kokichi's Japanese voice actor Hiro Shimono, he is "an emotional rollercoaster of a character" and "the guy who says the things no one wants to say". He believes that Kokichi is actually really meek if you take away his strong wish to outwit everyone, and notes that people should keep a close eye on him, to understand his character better. According to Kodaka, his character focuses on duality, and his creepy expressions express his true nature to some extent.

## Abilities

Fitting for his title, Kokichi claims to be a leader of a secret society, with more than 10,000 members. His name, title, and clothing also have references to dictators. He has claimed that, among other things, his organization has covert agents in every country, control over all the mafias in the world, torture as a form of punishment, and that his defeated opponents will get sent in Siberia. He has also implied that his main goal is to, of course, take over the world or just watch it burn. However, on the other hand, he has also claimed that he is a pacifist who likes to settle fights with games and that he uses his authority to control mafias so that they wouldn't fight each other and cause trouble for everyone. He also claims that his organization has mandatory tea breaks to increase productivity. However, he has also described himself as a "pretty dickish dictator", claiming that is why his minions probably wouldn't want to save him from the killing game.

With him being a liar and his overall claims seeming unlikely, most people do not believe Kokichi, believing he is either delusional or lying for attention. However, they do consider him suspicious for possessing such a title. Kokichi often tries to ask other people to join his organization, claiming it would have multiple benefits such as having all the food, sleep and sex you can wish for. In the bonus mode Ultimate Talent Development Plan, Izuru Kamukura is shown to be uninterested in Kokichi's organization due to his ability to sense lies and his overall apathy, and Nagito Komaeda also seems to believe the organization doesn't exist because he would've already found out something about it if it did with his luck (though, out of respect, he won't tell Kokichi this out loud).

Kokichi is one of the most intelligent students. He has explained to the other students that if you want to expose a liar you have to corner them psychologically and he has referred the process of elimination. He does lots of investigation alone without other people noticing, analyzes the other students, and writes their fates and his impression of them on his whiteboard. He even creates a plan to have himself killed and had written a script for Kaito to use during the class trial. The script is written thoroughly about possible reactions and possible routes of how the class trial will play out. On top of this, he correctly predicted how or when some of the other students die, as well as foreshadows many other events. He was also the one who came up with the ideas of a bugvac and electric weapons against Monokuma in detail. Kokichi also elusively gives clues and hints during trials and even outside of them. However, he also goes to extreme measures, such as claiming himself as the killer during the third class trial in order to bring out the real killer. This is similar to how he purposefully acts as the game's mastermind in order to lure out the real one. It's shown that while he is not as evil as he appears and feels guilt, he is willing to take drastic actions if he believes he has to.

With his notable acting skills, Kokichi is capable of hiding his true intentions and lie so well that the other students can never tell what he is truly thinking. Many of his sprites have very subtle differences, like a very tiny drop of sweat, and he can pull very demonic, even inhuman looking faces. As a notable exception, the other characters almost never believe Kokichi's obvious crocodile tears, though it's likely that he just uses them to annoy others and doesn't really even try to use them to trick others. It's also possible that he uses the dramatic crying as an outlet to let out some genuine strong emotions he is feeling yet is unwilling to show sincerely.

Being a skilled liar himself, Kokichi can tell whenever other people are lying, though he occasionally acts like he didn't notice or claims the other person is lying even though he knows they aren't. He can also notice when people are lying to themselves, which is a trait he considers "not good". Ironically, he claims to hate lies and liars. While Kokichi's ability to sense lies is often accurate, it is not flawless nor supernatural.

While Kokichi claims its due to his supreme leader status, Maki has pointed out that several of his skills are more suitable for a petty thief. Being a prankster and a thief, he is skilled at lock picking and is able to unlock Angie's locked Research Lab in the day of her murder in Chapter 3. He can also snatch things from others without them noticing at first. It is stated that his lithe body significantly helps him to do this and he can also swiftly run away if noticed. Furthermore, he is skilled at hiding and lurking without other people noticing him, and sometimes uses this ability to overhear other people's conversations. He himself claims to be a master of hide and seek. However, this ability is not supernatural, meaning that he can sometimes be spotted by other people.

It's also implied that Kokichi can fight back quite well if he wants to, but his strength and fighting abilities are a bit unclear. He has claimed multiple times that he is physically weak and appears fearful whenever he is physically attacked by other people, often preferring to run away fast and claiming that he prefers to sneak around. However, it is also noted that his lithe body makes him very agile and in Chapter 4 he manages to punch Kaito with incredible agility (as described by Maki), though it should be noted that Kaito was at the time greatly weakened and slowed down by his illness. During the moment, Kokichi claims he had lied about not being good at fighting, and later in Chapter 5, he is seen punching Kaito without warning and earlier fought against him despite his wounds. All of this implies that he prefers not to fight and isn't technically strong, but possesses fighting spirit if he is in danger and willing to fight.

# References

https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Kokichi\_Oma