#chiyo aoki

Starting with Anya: “You over-exaggerate your emotions to hide the fact that you are not a human being.”

This one is fairly self explanatory. Anya is a machine who cannot feel strong emotions, so she pretends to be hyperactive and overly emotional to compensate. Her true personality is actually rather calm.

Next, Hana: “You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but the competition got the better of you.”

Again, self explanatory if you know why Hana is the way she is. Hana has a disorder called IED or Intermittent Explosive Disorder which causes her to experience uncontrollable and explosive outbursts of rage and aggression (among other symptoms). A boy she was racing against when she was sixteen set her off into one of these outbursts and she accidentally killed him.

Next, Jeanne: “Your whole family was killed because of you. If only you’d let your passion go.”

This one is where we start getting into the needs explaining territory, seeing as Kiyoshi (and everyone else) assumed it meant the secret’s owner literally killed their family. Jeanne critiqued the son of a man with a lot of dangerous connections’ art and he didn’t take it kindly. He complained to his father and his father replied by hiring an assassin to kill Jeanne’s family, leaving them orphaned at fourteen.

Next, our protagonist, Kiyoshi: “You constantly let yourself be tricked and used by people with power over you. You don’t want to be in control of yourself anymore.”

Kiyoshi, despite not remembering the events of that day, deeply blames himself for what happened to his parents despite being six when it happened. Because of that, he allowed himself to be pushed around by the whims of large news companies and corporations, letting them send him off to god knows where to write about something no other journalist was willing to risk their life over. Because he forgot it all, those companies saw him as the perfect fit for writing about corruption and war firsthand, as he’d not have to deal with the trauma of what he saw (or so they thought). That’s also how he became the Ultimate Journalist.

Next, Chiyo: “You’ve always been jealous of her for being the first of your Ultimate Talent. But erasing her from every book, website, and memorial is a tad far, right?”

Chiyo’s secret refers to Ruruka Ando (a character from the Danganronpa 3 anime), who was also the Ultimate Confectioner. When Chiyo first got accepted to Hope’s Peak, she was incredibly overcome with jealousy by the fact that (as far as she knew) she was the only one of her peers to not have an ‘original’ talent (This wasn’t true, as Takeshi and Sage also have talents that have appeared in the actual Danganronpa franchise, but Chiyo didn’t know that). This jealousy led her to go into every user-edited website and source that had any information on Ruruka Ando and delete it from their database. She even ripped out pages from library books that talked about her. Chiyo feels incredibly guilty for this, but deep in her heart she is still jealous of Ruruka.

Next, Mei: “You’ve killed for her, and you’d do it again.”

Mei’s is also incredibly self explanatory, in fact the explanation is routinely shoved down your throat for five chapters. Mei was forced into assassin work when she was six under threat of Chiyo and her parents being killed if she wasn’t compliant.

Next, Tomás: “You despise the people who admire you. A few bad apples spoil the barrel, after all.”

When Tomás was thirteen, he was abducted by a group of crazed fans. They held him hostage for four days. And while there were no signs of physical harm anywhere on him, Tomás profusely refuses to tell anyone what happened during those four days. This wasn’t the last time he was kidnapped either, but it was certainly the worst.

Next, Takeshi: “You’ll never let them forget what they did to her, no matter what becomes of you.”

Takeshi’s younger sister, Nastyusha, was murdered when she was sixteen and he was twenty. Takeshi practically went insane from grief and stopped at nothing to find the identity of her killer and make them pay. Eventually he found out that Nastyusha had been killed by a hitman, and so he placed a hit on someone dear to the person that committed the murder and also did a few other things.

Next, Kenji: “You’re in denial about being who you truly are because it will ruin your life.”

Kenji is a black, gay man. He also professionally plays a sport with an insanely homophobic and racist fan base. As such, Kenji pushed down his homosexuality and repressed it to spare himself from the increased torment he knew would follow if he publicly came out of the closet. He hasn’t even thought about coming out to his own family.

Next, Sage: “You’re dying, but you still refuse to quit.”

Sage is dying of a terminal illness. Sage is also playing a sport that requires her to move her body way past her limits. Playing tennis is actively shortening her lifespan, but Sage loves playing tennis too much to let it go.

Next, Haruto: “You’ve had your heart broken many times by many people, but that doesn’t excuse you doing it to others in return.”

Perhaps the worst offender of the secrets not being explained in Puppet’s Game, seeing as it gets completely brushed over despite it’s… concerning implications. Oops.

After Haruto was outed by his classmate to the rest of his school, he was constantly harassed and bullied for being gay. One of the ways his male bullies would torment him was to pretend to also be gay and go out with him for a while, only to break his heart on a day that meant a lot to him (birthdays, anniversaries, etc). After a while, Haruto got sick of it and started doing the exact same thing to his female bullies. He would pretend to be “cured” of his homosexuality, make one of them fall in love with him, and then completely crush them. Despite dropping out at thirteen to take care of Daisuke, he kept in contact with several people who went to his school specifically so he could continue doing this to get revenge for the bullying he endured.

Next, Ozias: “I struggled with choosing what secret to be your motive. You’re an open book, you see.

…That is, about everything except your sexuality.”

Ozias is gay. He’s also a priest that lives in Texas with a homophobic, conservative family. Safe to say, being out of the closet would be incredibly dangerous for him. Ozias also has an awful lot of internalised homophobia, whether he realises it or not. Because of this, he refuses to even think about his sexuality until he’s explicitly forced to.

Next, Carys: “You exploit and take advantage of the weak for your own enjoyment.”

Carys was born lacking a moral compass and thus everything she does is for her own benefit and nobody else’s. She also doesn’t feel bad at all for hurting others to get what she wants. This caused her to develop incredibly manipulative behaviour and tendencies (that her parents, believing she could do no wrong, unknowingly encouraged). To Carys, manipulation is nothing but a way to keep herself entertained. She doesn’t really care who she hurts, or who she takes things from. The reason she specifically targets ‘the weak’ is because they’re less effort to manipulate if they’re already emotionally fragile.

Next, Sora: “You only took on your profession to ensure nobody else lived the life you did.”

Sora was profusely bullied throughout their elementary and middle school years. Their bullies have even gone as far as trying to set them on fire just because hurting them was funny. This bullying left Sora extremely traumatised, and also with a burning desire for justice. They moved to a different school for high school and, despite their many scars and disabilities caused by the bullying, were incredibly popular for their talent in public speaking. They became the president of their school’s student council in their first year and remained in that position throughout their entire high school education. They went into politics post graduation and ended up become an incredibly influential politician. They put in place several anti-bullying laws to stop other children from having the same childhood they had.

Next, Rikina: “You’re in love with your star player, but you know she couldn’t care less about you.”

This secret is worded quite harshly. The truth is that Rikina’s star player, Yuri, was murdered when they were fourteen. Rikina is still hung up over her, as she had a crush on her at the time. The reason it says Yuri couldn’t care less about her is because she’s dead and can’t care about anything at all.

Finally, Akio: “You despise your profession and everything connected to it, you only took it on as an excuse to stay with your best friend.”