Akane Owari

Akane Owari is a character from the Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair game.

Akane is a student of Hope's Peak Academy's Class 77-B, and a participant of the Killing School Trip. Her title is Ultimate Gymnast.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Akane is a member of the Heroes Coalition as a Solo Hero.

Appearance
Akane is a young woman in her early twenties, around 20 at the youngest. Her virtual avatar in the Neo World Program appeared as her 16-year-old self.

She is a tall, young woman with an athletic, curvaceous physique. She has tanned skin, dark gray eyes, and unkempt, shoulder-length chestnut hair. During her high school years, she had long hair.

Akane wears a short-sleeved white shirt with the top few buttons undone, exposing a large amount of cleavage. The bottom button also appears undone, exposing her navel when she moves quickly. She also wears a red miniskirt and cream-colored loafers with no socks.

As the Ultimate Despair, Akane has the same short hair. She has a white coat with ripped sleeves. In addition to that, she only wears a black tube top and black shorts, making her stomach and six pack visible.

Personality
Akane has a fiery personality and she loves fighting, as long as there is no other weapons besides the person's own fists and body, which lets her get along very well with Nekomaru Nidai. She is eager to challenge someone to fight her and she respects those who are physically strong, and can somehow correctly tell which people would be strong opponents even if they don't look like it. She seems to think that punching things, including people, is the best way to solve problems and her hot head can sometimes get her into trouble. While she also loves athletic things such as climbing and running, she can actually be very lazy and unmotivated if she isn't allowed to do things her own way. She dislikes planning, training, and routines, but has a remarkable talent for inventing her own moves. In general, her mood can shift very quickly. She can bounce between bored, to happy, to angry, and to happy again. Despite her easygoing and aloof personality, she is loyal and protective towards her friends.

Akane is also extremely fond of food and she can eat almost anything, including small animals. She claims that food is the most important thing, because "If you don't eat, you'll die." She also thinks that eating is very important so you can regain your strength. While her hungriness is often played for laughs, it has some darker undertones. She says that she quickly loses her energy if she doesn't eat and she just gets more hungry if she eats just a little. Her eating can even appear compulsive and sometimes it's hard for her to stop, and she turns low-spirited very quickly whenever she is very hungry.

Although Akane seems to have a rather serious attitude, she may say some quite out-of-place statements. Even during Class Trials, she tends to say random statements that only vaguely relate to the murder. She isn't the most intellectual member of the cast, being easily confused by complex words, misinterpreting insults and figures of speech, and generally defaulting to violence (or threats thereof) to solve problems. She is also very gullible, often easily believing things people say, as shown as she easily believes people's lies in Class Trials and is surprised when others tell her that they're lying. This has often been exploited by Hiyoko Saionji, who used her to investigate the motel room in Chapter 3 when she didn't want to do it and as mentioned in one of Hiyoko's Free Time Events, tricked her into eating flowers. She also dislikes complicated plans and has stated herself that she isn't very good at doing detailed work. However, despite her appearing a bit slow, it should be noted that her gut feelings are never wrong and she can sometimes say things that end up being very important.

In Akane's dark past, sexual harassment was the norm for her and as she is rather clueless, she doesn't seem to be aware of just how bad and wrong it is. She can mention her past experiences in a very casual way, which confuses and disturbs others. For example, she thinks it's completely normal to let someone to do something specifically to her breasts, and she quite often offers this either as a way to apologize or reward someone. She also sees no problem in getting naked in front of others, and she doesn't like wearing swimsuits while swimming. She does, however, get easily embarrassed about romance or if she has to wear clothes she considers silly. Though, she does not seem to really care about pretty things like flowers and pretty sceneries, not really considering them important.

Due to her past, Akane can also be forgetful of people's personalities, as shown when she mentioned in the first Class Trial that the Ultimate Imposter was a jokester, only to be corrected by Kazuichi Soda. She also tends to forget people's names; for instance, she frequently forgets Hajime Hinata's name, calling him "Hank", "Harvey", and "Hector".

Akane claims that she never gets worried about anything and she is generally very carefree. In actuality, she believes that hesitation and worry is a sign of weakness and she hates being weak. She forces herself to be strong and believes that real strength is showing no weaknesses at all. She believes that she has to be strong alone and that she can't rely on anyone else. After spending time with Nekomaru and Hajime, she begins to think about what it really means to be strong and weak.

Akane is intrigued by the world, as it's huge and "full of treasure". Due to her background, she is content with and appreciates food and buildings many others would consider "crappy". Since she used to take care of her younger siblings, she is very protective of "hungry small things" and she is sometimes strict about safety. She is also terrified of ghosts, but she keeps this a secret.

Abilities
Akane was born with a natural talent as a gymnast. Her body build, strength, agility, and endurance grew ever since she was a child. She often nimbly performed parkour on her home and her father who noticed this convinced her to join tournaments and competitions. It turned out that she did very, very well and kept winning many tournaments since then. Her only motivation to join tournaments was to produce money to provide for her family's everyday needs.

At first, she wasn't motivated to do sports until her former coach trained her every day until she got enough money and moved to a new house.

During the Killing School Trip, Akane often challenged Nekomaru to train with her. Even though she kept losing her fights, she persistently wanted more rounds until she could win and didn't care about the wounds she got despite how bad they were. In Ultimate Talent Development Plan, she does a similar thing with a Sakura, fighting her constantly challenging her despite losing constantly and was determined to win no matter what.

While often lacking in intellect and not understanding situations very well, Akane has a very keen intuition and she often guesses things accurately based on her "gut feelings". She often cannot explain nor understand the reasons behind these feelings, but she firmly believes in them.

A notable example is in Chapter 6 of Danganronpa 2 when she can sense "someone" approaching, who is both a friend and an enemy. This can refer to both Future Foundation and Ultimate Despair, as the Class 77-B used to be allied with Despair before becoming enemies, and the Foundation included both their allies and enemies.

Akane has a very sensitive sense of smell. She is capable of smelling blood, unpleasant scents and, of course, delicious food long before the others.

Trivia

 * Her first name can be translated to “red sounds” or “red noise”, while her last name is composed of the characters - "last" or "to finish" and, which has multiple meanings, including "village", "the home of one's parents", "hometown" and also an archaic Japanese unit of area.
 * Her last name could be a reference to how, as her Free Time Events imply, her father used to marry multiple women in succession and have children with each one.
 * Akane's birthday of July 15th falls on the same day as the Japanese Bon Festival. The festival originates from the story of Mokuren, in which a disciple of Buddha must appease the Realm of Hungry Ghosts with offerings and sacrifices in order to release his deceased mother's soul. In the modern Bon Festival, people honor their hungry ancestors with food and drink as offerings. Akane's major character trait is her bottomless appetite and craving for food, clearly in reference to this Festival.
 * In the original Japanese, Akane uses the word ore to refer herself instead of watashi or atashi, which is a boastful form of “I” typically used by males; however, unlike Hajime, she doesn't end her sentences with the usual matching accompaniment of da zo.
 * Akane knows a wrestling move called Plancha Suicida, or Suicide Dive.
 * Akane doesn't go swimming at the Beach Party because she finds school swimsuits to be too embarrassing.
 * In Danganronpa 3 - Despair Arc, Akane's berserk-state in Episode 02 is a reference to Gon Freecs' infamous transformation from the Hunter × Hunter series.
 * Akane's English voice actress, Wendee Lee, also voices Teruteru Hanamura's Mother and Miu Iruma.