Mᴀᴋᴏᴛᴏ Nᴀᴇɢɪ ( 苗木 誠 )

Arrival Date: Day 179

Shards: 400

Abilities:

• Lightning Elemental Strike - purchased for him by heptagram on Day 229. Naegi can summon forth a lightning strike via pointing dramatically at the target.

Talents:
Other Items:

Player name: Moro
Age: 22 going on 23.
Contact: Personal journal is at moro_kun but you'll have a better shot at contacting me on either AIM at nightbaron01, Skype at moro_kun or Plurk at moro_kun. Original, huh?
Other characters: N/A

Character name: Makoto Naegi
Series: Dangan Ronpa
Canon point: End of Chapter 3, right before the reveal that ( highlight for spoilers ) Sakura Oogami is revealed as Monokuma's mole.
Summary:

( For reference, the entire plot is discussed and summarized here on Wikipedia; anime episode list is linked since it details who died when, exactly. For Naegi specifically, there's a whole page on his role in the story here that is pretty good at summarizing everything he's been involved in. )

Honestly, if there's one word that can be used to describe Naegi-kun it's "ordinary". When we're first introduced to Naegi proper in the game, he says himself that he's an average person among average people. This is made all the more obvious by the fact that the only reason he's able to attend Hope's Peak Academy only because they held a lottery in which he won the privilege of attending the school - and yet it's because of how strikingly plain he is that he stands out.

In order to really understand how and why he stands out, we'll first need some background information that will help unriddle the whole premise of Dangan Ronpa - first off, Hope's Peak Academy is well-known throughout Japan as an elite high school that accepts only the most talented and elite students in their fields. Nothing is considered too strange and outlandish in regards to what is considered a talent; for example, you have the typical talents, like being top class in swimming, martial arts or in baseball... and then you have students who are the absolute best at skills like gambling, fanfic writing, being a light music club member and fortune telling. And then you even have students who are only in the school proper because of their status, like that of the ultimate affluent progeny, the ultimate gangster, the ultimate delinquent biker or the ultimate princess. In Naegi's case, the fact that he won the lottery to gain admittance into Hope's Peak is enough to grant him the title of "Super High School Level Good Luck".

Of course, Hope's Peak is not at all as it seems - upon arrival and introduction to his fellow students they're all ushered into the gym by a sadistic robot bear named Monokuma who has imprisoned them within the walls of Hope's Peak for eternity. The only way to leave? Commit the perfect crime by not only murdering one of their fellow students, but also getting away with it. When a murder happens, the survivors are forced to conduct a class trial in which they must determine the killer among them. Get it right, and the killer is executed for disrupting order. Get it wrong, however, and the culprit goes free... at the cost of everyone else's lives.

And you thought your school life was rough.

Anyway, getting back to Naegi, he stands out because of how seemingly plain he is - on the one hand, his insecurities really show because of his being surrounded by extraordinary people. On the other hand, however, being surrounded by classmates with extraordinarily "special" personalities bordering on dysfunctional enables him to be the one rooted in sanity and rationality most of the time - which is particularly useful in this setting considering how the personality clashes between his peers tend to cause more trouble than it stops. Really, it's because of his down-to-earth nature that the others are drawn to him, like moths to a flame.

His kindness is noted to be both a strength and a weakness - as noted above, his gentle and compassionate nature draws people to him, and he's able to get along with just about anyone, even abrasive characters like Togami and Celes. He's willing to listen to people, hear them out and overall be a support for them even if he's unable to solve their problems instantly. He's very good at empathizing with people, and he's also very trusting, viewing everyone he meets as potential friends rather than enemies. However, his kindness and trust in others - as you might be able to guess at this point - borders on naivete. When Maizono approaches him due to fear of being assaulted, he willingly switches rooms with her even though she's more or less plotting to frame him for the murder she attempts to commit. Even though his classmate Oogami is revealed to be a mole for Monokuma, he continues to trust her despite everything. He even refuses to call out Kirigiri for lying in the middle of a class trial, even though it means that he'd be condemned as a possible murderer. His inherently trusting nature is to the point that Togami has to remind Naegi that just because he might not be motivated to kill at Monokuma's urging, he can't assume everyone else feels the same way...

One would think that Naegi would break down eventually from all of the pressure of the sheer hell he and his classmates are put through, and it would be perfectly understandable, but he doesn't. Instead, it's shown that he's one of the most resilient and determined people of the entire cast, always trying to see the best in people and refusing to break and lose himself in his emotions. Granted, he still reacts to what's happening around him. For example, Naegi does react rather badly to seeing Maizono stabbed to death in his shower - and the subsequent realization that she tried to set him up - and yet despite all of the things she's done Naegi still believes that she wanted to save him from her own mistake and ultimately blames Monokuma and the mastermind behind him for the entire mess he and his friends are caught up in.

Befitting his role as the protagonist of Dangan Ronpa, Naegi's emotional stability and rationality compared to the rest of his classmates aid him immensely in making sure the trials and investigations keep going. As a result, he's not one to jump to conclusions and is easily able to think under pressure; though he is still outclassed at times by Kirigiri and Togami when it comes to deductive reasoning, he's good at coming up with ideas or contradictions based on what's given him.

... and yet his ability to spot clues leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, he can be really perceptive, as when he's able to notice discrepancies in the murder scenes - like the change in the number of indicator lights on the morgue - and other times he can be incredibly dumb. The most shining example of this is when he has to investigate Maizono's death - he doesn't even know what a dying message is, and said dying message (the culprit's name, written in such a manner that it looked like a string of numbers) didn't become obvious to him until late in the trial.

Good job, Naegi-kun. Good job.

Snark aside, the one thing that Naegi considers himself above average in is his hope - and it is this optimism, this hope of his, that ultimately derails the mastermind's plot in the end. While they claim that they can't survive once they leave the school, it is Naegi himself who points out that they might be lying about the state of the world outside the school. It is he who rallies his classmates together to not lose hope and encourages them to break free of Hope's Peak once and for all. His hope is the stuff of legends, really; and it is what ultimately defines Naegi as a caring, trusting and overall optimistic individual.

( A quick note: due to the canon point, some of these traits and aspects of Naegi's personality are beyond the scope of what really needs to be covered for this app. However, these are still important to note mainly because these more or less help define the kind of person Naegi is regardless of the circumstances he's been thrust into. )

Powers:

Uh, did you miss the memo about Naegi being so average...? Granted, he's more optimistic than most, and he's able to think under pressure, but otherwise he's perfectly ordinary. Yep. No supernatural or superphysical abilities here! Which leads to the next section of the app...

Entry: Knowing his luck? Poor guy's gonna need to be rescued, really...

Other:

As of this writing, there are at least two versions of Dangan Ronpa floating around out there - one is the official translation by NIS America, and the other is a fan translation by Orenronen of the Something Awful forums. Due to having more familiarity with the fan translation the mun will be using the Orenronen terms - the key difference here being the use of Japanese suffixes and the different titles; for example, Naegi's title is "Super High School Level Good Luck" in the Oren translation, while in the official NIS America translation this is rendered as "Ultimate Lucky Student". This distinction is noted mostly for both preferences and familiarity.