Let's start with a Protagonist! Meet
Chō kōkō-kyū no 'mohō-sha'
Super High School Level Imitator
Climbing pieces of furniture
Ichika Tomodachi (Mother)
Freed from The Institution of Ultimacy
"But haven't you already caught DEATH WARNING? Why do you continue the game? You can't defend yourself further, only punishment awaits you now!"
Aki Tomodachi (友達 愛希 Tomodachi Aki) is the main protagonist of Radical Danganronpa- Tripwires Of The Extreme. She is a student in the Institution Of Ultimacy and participated in the Killing School Shift. Her title is Ultimate Mimic (超高校級の '模倣者' lit. Super High School Level Imitator). She is also one of the masterminds of Danganr05pa's Killing School Term, alongside a post-mortem Tetsubuki Chikuro.
Aki is a small young woman with brown hair covering one of her pink eyes. She has an ahoge flattened by her hood, and keeps her torso covered by a yellow mascot hoodie with a giant hood and ears. Although under her hoodie is never seen, she is stated to be wearing a tube top that holds her chest covering over her relatively large bust. on her hands she wears pink mittens, and wears grey sweat pants with purple bunny-themed slippers. She is often seen smiling and sitting on her knees. She wears baggy clothing to hide in when she's feeling overwhelmed, alongside using it to hide her chubby stomach. It still becomes visible from certain perspectives, however.
Aki returns in the Killing School Term, slightly older since she survived the Killing School Shift. Her eyes have dark circles underneath, she wears a purple hoodie with a badge of the character her previous hoodie was based on. She wears Kan'Ei/Tetsubuki's pendant, and is noticeably fatter than she previously was. She also stopped wearing a hood.
Aki in The Killing School Term
Aki is first seen leaving a ventilation duct that lead into the room she was confined in. After leaving the duct, she frees Harumi Abarai, who was also confined in her room. After that, Aki explores the building she is locked in while Harumi frees the other 14 people locked in their rooms. After deducing she had been kidnapped, she approached the break room, where the other 15 students had gathered. Moments later, Monokuma announced the killing game and the class was sent into panic, with the exceptions of Harumi Abarai, Tenyu Kamiya, Tsuzuo Chisaki and Hagane Kin. Aki has a somewhat grief-stricken expression before returning to her cloudy self.
Aki is a very cloud-headed and often absentminded individual. She doesn't seem to be bothered with a lot of things, and is incredibly tolerant and laid-back. Because of this, she often describes her personality as 'missing' and adopts the personalities of other people and characters instead, always returning to her favourite personality. However, this facade is almost always broken in moments of intensity, such as body discoveries (where she noticeably freaks out), class trials (where she becomes surprisingly analytical and almost attorney-like) and when around Tenyu Kamiya (because he's very genuine). While holding her mimicked facade, Aki is an optimistic hard worker. She behaves as a leader type with a firm character, displaying a strong will and not hesitating when taking action. She shows a strong sense of belief in herself and others, which becomes her main motivation when partaking in difficult activities.
After witnessing LASIK, Aki's facade dropped more. Her demeanour became more paranoid, even going out of her way to ask Hagane Kin if she can stay in her room. Throughout Chapter 3, she also began making superstitious comments to herself about the conflict between Ui Wada and Setsusaki Okuwa, which incidentally ended up coming true. By the fifth trial, she had almost entirely shed her mimicked facade and had developed a personality based on analytical skill, focus, leadership and paranoia. When exploring the sewer underneath the institution and finding Zakiko Takahashi's dead body, she held her hands together tightly, suggesting that the notion comforts her.
Despite her sporadic mind and frequent personality changes, she is shown to be incredibly intelligent, as she cracks Miisya Fujimori and Tsuzuo Chisaki's post-mortem cypher with relative ease and is able to follow the concealed footsteps to use their plan to expose Iwano Akaike as the Ultimate Despair.
Around a year after the Killing School Shift, Aki returned to Hope's Peak to attempt to convince New Class 4th to leave the building by using a drone called the Monosame to communicate, being referred to as 'Aki Kamiya' after marrying Tenyu Kamiya. Seeing how Monokuma is already inside, Aki uses Monosame to feign compliance while she is, in fact, actually working behind the scenes in an attempt to both open to door and ensure as many survivors as she possibly can. In The Final Class Trial, Aki makes a physical appearance in order to convince the class to leave. This initially works, but is thwarted by Monokuma until Kochiya Gushiken interrupts Miss Vessel's execution by cutting the building's power. From that moment onwards, Shimeji Shiitake founded Shimeji Corporation with Aki as the lead in cyber security.
I love seeing the expressions people make when they're enjoying themselves! That's how I get through difficult tasks. I wanna beat this killing game to see everyone's happy faces!
Aki Tomodachi's title is Utimate Mimic. This title was bestowed upon her by the new Hope's Peak Academy, run by Makoto Naegi.
Aki's mimicry is incredibly unique. While she isn't a perfect mimic, she can copy the qualities and behavioural skills of almost anyone she meets to a degree which makes the technique effective while still maintaining her appearance as herself. She uses this to try and make friends with people she meets, but has also used it on request from other students in the past.
Aki is amazingly clever, despite her demeanour out of character. She was the only person able to link Zakiko's degloved hand to the Despair Android, and was also able to easily crack the code left in the Ultimate Exposition Strategy by Miisya Fujimori.
Deductive and Attorney Skill
Aki has been shown to be very good at detective work (possibly due to mimicking Kyoko Kirigiri or Shuichi Saihara). She's also displayed to have great confidence and accuracy in the courtroom.
Like most of the students in the Institution of Ultimacy, Aki was part of The New Hope's Peak Academy's second class, The class that included an android created by Kazuichi Soda while he was working with the Ultimate Despair. This being, dubbed 'Ultimate Despair Android', led the class to a belief of extreme anarchism, each student desiring to restart society in their shared, dystopian image. Around the time a project was launched to rebuild a society within a space colony, a 25-year-old man from Saitama Prefecture captured 15 of the 16 members and locked them in a plot of land he had dubbed 'Ultimate Institute'. Then, he utilised technology from Team Danganronpa to start rehabilitating the Ultimate Extreme, on the condition he enacts a killing game with them. The man accepted this condition, rebranding the Ultimate Institute as the Institution of Ultimacy and partially wiping the Ultimate Extreme's memories in an attempt to make them fit for society again.
Generally, Aki Tomodachi was simply a quiet kid growing up. She never talked to anyone, never answered any questions in school, and had passing but mediocre grades. Despite being content with this, she had one problem: she had no friends. So when her junior high school years rolled around, she attempted making friends by copying the personalities of characters from the animations she would watch on the television. However, this only sent people further away from her as she lacked understanding of sociality and, as a result, would appear weird. this disheartened Aki, but she continued to imitate characters hopelessly. When it became time for her to move on to high school, she attempted to become a student at Spring Field Academy, but when she mimicked the behaviour of a certain person in her face-to-face school application, the headmaster of the school requested for her to be sent to Hope's Peak Academy instead. There, she was accepted as the Ultimate Mimic and successfully befriended the Ultimate Infantryman and the Ultimate Emo Star. This made her happy, finally feeling like she had purpose in her previously devoid life.
She attended Gunma Prefectural Shibutani High School prior to Hope's Peak Academy.
Tenyu is Aki's best friend within the killing game, and supposedly was outside of it as well. Aki appreciates how genuine he is, and as a result holds little to no facade when around him.
Despite being freezing cold, Hagane is seen as very trustworthy by Aki, to the extent of feeling safe being in her room when under intense feelings of paranoia.
Blaise was not particularly close with anyone in the game due to his optimistic solitude. Aki felt he should be more open.
Harumi was the first person Aki met in the Institution of Ultimacy. Initially, Aki saw her to be very safe and somewhat trustworthy, especially as she was the Ultimate Vigilante. However, this was repurposed into intense betrayal after Harumi used what was meant to be confidential information between her and Aki to commit murder.
Aki saw Shinobu as the older sibling type. At times, she'd imitate his comforting personality in order to calm herself. She also saw him as an individual of great valour, going out of his way to keep everyone in safety's arms prior to his death.
Aki was frightened by Gaku. His nasty habits of jumping out of crevices and scaring people made her feel like he was a dangerous person to be around.
Despite having few interactions, Aki found his friendly aura fun and described it as 'campfire-like'.
Neferkare felt imtimidating to most people, including Aki. She thinks his headband made him scarier and he'd be more approachable without it.
Much like Neferkare, Aki felt Ui was intimidating and somewhat creepy. Her prejudice didn't help this fact, and Aki tends to stay away from her.
While Setsusaki is an incredibly solitary individual, Aki felt she was a friend. Aki wished she laid back a bit more.
Aki was very interested in Tsuzuo's talent while he was alive. After the death of Shinobu, she saw him as another valorous protector type.
Like most, Aki was repulsed by Miisya but came to like her more when Tsuzuo started working with her, as she felt it proved she had some redeeming qualities.
Aki found Iwano difficult to mimic, and as a result tended to stray away from her. When she was revealed as the Ultimate Despair Android, Aki felt satisfaction in her execution.
Aki did not like Zakiko's manipulative nature and honestly wished they never met.
Initially, Aki found Tetsubuki's style cute. However, upon their first interaction, she discovered he was male and was shocked by him. Up until Chapter Six, she saw Tetsubuki as a unique person who simply did what he wants without caring for his reputation. When he was revealed as the mastermind and Ultimate Anti-Hope, she saw his willingness to die as impressive.
Aki did not know Kan'Ei much in the killing game, as he was absent until his body discovery. However, she discovered she was close with him prior, and was upset that she couldn't remember how he'd comforted her before.
While mimicking Kaede Akamatsu
"I love seeing the expressions people make when they're enjoying themselves! That's how I get through difficult tasks. I wanna beat this killing game to see everyone's happy faces!"
"Well, you aren't wrong. Worrying won't get you anywhere. I guess it's better to just be carefree!"
While Mimicking Shinobu Shino
"Damn, well, I can't force you to stay calm, home boy. But either way, sporadic panicking won't help. You should try to succeed, even if you feel fear."
"I don't wanna die over their conflict... but you're pretty tough, right? I'd ask Tenyu, but that'd be awkward..."
"You're faker than I am! You just wanted us to cause chaos aimlessly! You should be ashamed, clanker!"
"But haven't you already caught DEATH WARNING? Why do you continue the game? You can't defend yourself further, only punishment awaits you now!"
Aki's first name contains the symbols for 'love (愛 ai)' and 'rare (希 ki)' while her last name literally means 'Friend (友達 tomodachi)'.
Her alias of 'Small Hope' is notably not 'Ultimate Hope', for this game's 'Ultimate Hope' is Tetsubuki Chikuro. 'Small Hope' is referring to the fact Aki was the one who freed the surviving students and taught them how they could keep living.
Following the story's theme of right and wrong, Aki portrays the concept of identity, or lack thereof.
In the fifth class trial, she refers to DEATH WARNING as 'clanker', likely referencing the droids from Star Wars.
She is the only character in Danganronpa who actually seems to gain a complete personality throughout the story, rather than building on an existing one.
Aki is one of the few people Zakiko couldn't assault. Instead, Zakiko would make attempts to drug her with rohypnol.
Several things suggest Aki was in love with both Tenyu Kamiya and Hagane Kin simultanoeusly, including when she asks to be held by Tenyu when exploring the sewer, and how she enjoys holding onto Hagane significantly more than anyone else.
Aki's IQ is 164, which is exactly the same as Zakiko Takahashi's.
She likes music by Iggy Pop, specifically 'The Passenger'.
On top of this, when discussing music with Iwano Akaike, she reveals she likes Franz Ferdinand and Tenpole Tudor as well.
She shares her former high school with Junko Enoshima.
