Makoto Naegi

Makoto Naegi is the main protagonist of the Danganronpa anime and games.

Makoto is a student in Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th, and a participant of the Killing School Life.

His title is Ultimate Lucky Student.

Appearance
At the beginning of the Killing School Life in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Makoto appears to be young high school-aged teenager, but due to the memory loss he is two years older than he believed. He is notably shorter than almost all of his classmates. He has spiky, desaturated brown hair with a prominent ahoge, and washed-out hazel eyes. He wears a zipped-up dull green hoodie with a red stripe along the zipper, an open black jacket with gold buttons over the hoodie, black jeans, and red sneakers with white toes.

Makoto's hoodie has a logo of a red gas mask in a circle printed on the back of the hood, and the zipper goes all the way up to the top of the hood. He wears a pin shaped like a four-pointed star overlaid on a crescent moon; this is pinned to the lapel of his jacket.

After joining the Future Foundation post-Killing School Life, Makoto is seen wearing a black suit. In Danganronpa 3, it appears that Makoto had cut his hair, as it is considerably shorter. He also looks more mature, though still has a bit round face for his adult age. After he becomes the headmaster of the new Hope's Peak Academy, he wears a black suit and a beige tie, as well as a dark blue sweater vest with a white shirt underneath.

Personality
According to himself, Makoto is a very ordinary person, to the point that he feels a bit insecure about it. He does have one distinguishing feature, however, and that is his unusual optimism.

Makoto is very kind, supportive and forgiving, though sometimes slightly naive. He is friendly, polite and a lot more down-to-earth than the other students. This is possibly the reason why he is capable of approaching and befriending them in Free Time sequences, even the most antisocial such as Byakuya Togami and Toko Fukawa.

Junko refers to Makoto as a "herbivore man", which means that he is likely to be the passive one in a relationship; this is reinforced in his conversations with others. He is also a bit jumpy at times and quite easily pushed around by some other characters such as Byakuya. However, even though he is sometimes a bit of a pushover, he is also capable of being a very determined and charismatic speaker.

Makoto is a firm believer in hope, having a positive attitude about the future, no matter how bad the situation is in the present. He is also a pacifist, as he believes that killing and violence isn't the answer. While he dislikes despair, believing it to be a corrupting and negative emotion which cannot benefit the world, he is very forgiving towards those who fell into despair, such as the Remnants of Despair, believing them to be victims of Junko and not inherently evil.

The only person Makoto genuinely dislikes appears to be Junko Enoshima, the True Ultimate Despair, and he considers her his enemy. However, even in her case, he felt that she didn't need to die and tried to reason with her when she was about to execute herself, which fell on deaf ears as Junko wanted to revel in the despair of defeat and executed herself anyways.

Makoto is respected by many people as the Ultimate Hope, though he himself is very humble and even a bit embarrassed of the title. In Danganronpa Zero, it's mentioned that he has incredible strength inside, despite often appearing weaker on the outside. During hard times, he is shown to have the power to provide hope for other people, and ultimately, affect their way of thinking. However, this is not always the case, as some people refuse to listen to him or simply do not accept his ideals.

However, him being called the Ultimate Hope is but a title, as he is apparently not immune to the effects of the Suicide Video.

Ultimate Lucky Student
Makoto got his talent as the Ultimate Lucky Student by winning a lottery out of completely ordinary students, which led to him joining Hope's Peak Academy as the Ultimate Lucky Student. In addition to this, he was caught up in a bizarre series of events on the day of his selection which ended up catching a jewel thief and burning the selection ticket. Following the fifth trial, just before Makoto's execution can be completed, Alter Ego suddenly appears and is able to prevent Makoto from dying by opening up a door on the floor. He is then rescued by Kyoko, going on to defeat Junko herself and survive the whole ordeal.

Makoto's luck also comes into play during the events of the Final Killing Game, saving him from multiple dangerous situations. While his luck isn't nearly as powerful as his predecessor's or Izuru Kamukura's, his luck pattern is different from those two, and is difficult for Junko to analyze and predict. Thus, Junko predicted that he could possibly ruin her perfect layout plan, which ironically also made Junko allow him to live for the Killing School Life.

Ultimate Hope
Makoto discovers his true talent as the Ultimate Hope during the sixth and final trial of the Killing School Life. Interestingly, unlike most other talents, Makoto being the Ultimate Hope isn't recognized by Hope's Peak Academy, but rather earned for defeating Junko, the True Ultimate Despair. Unlike Izuru Kamukura, who's Ultimate Hope comes from him being the embodiment of talent, Makoto's Ultimate Hope comes from his unusual amount of optimism and determination, which Makoto even comments on.

As the Ultimate Hope, Makoto proves to have an immunity to Junko's tactics, built to make people fall into despair. Combined with his luck being difficult for Junko to analyze, causes her to leave him alive because defying her would be despairful in its own right. Ultimately, Makoto’s talent aided him in defeating her by filling the other five remaining participants with hope, after they fell into despair over finding out about the state of the world they were in. Makoto is also able to convince others to act with hope simply by spreading his hope to them. When the surviving members of the game are filled with hope, they were persuaded to choose to leave the academy and go out and see what the world had in store for them. In addition, in Danganronpa IF, Makoto unwittingly convinced Mukuro Ikusaba, one of the Despair Sisters, to think of the world outside of Junko's plans to spread despair all over it.

Makoto has even been encouraged by his own hope multiple times, thanks to his friends. After finding out that Kazuo Tengan has been murdered by Kyosuke Munakata, Makoto begins to break down over the fact that he’s been unable to stop people from killing each other. However, Aoi, along with Miaya Gekkogahara (controlled by Monaca Towa), were able to cheer him up, saying that he has given them hope and that they're willing to shoulder his burden. Later, Kyoko tells Makoto that he shouldn't give up on hope, and that she'll always be there for him if his power doesn’t prove to be enough. After her apparent death, Makoto was able to use his and Kyoko's hope in order to convince Kyosuke to join him and combine their hopes together.

Makoto believes that hope is infectious. True to his words, Makoto's effort in defeating Junko, protecting the Remnants of Despair in the Neo World Program, and his firm ideals and optimism eventually become fruitful as he could overcome all despairs at the end of his adventure in Hope's Peak Series.

Trivia

 * Naegi means “seedlings” in Japanese, and Makoto means “faithfulness”.
 * This could reference how he spreads hope to everyone, similar to how Junko tried to plant “seeds of despair”.
 * In DISTRUST he is not shown to have a name. Instead 主人公(Protagonist) is used as a placeholder.
 * The "gas mask symbol" on the back of his hood is a reference to "Zero" from the game, "999". Another existing reference to "999" was mentioned by Makoto in the end of the fourth Class Trial.
 * Makoto is the one of the few characters to survive more than one killing game. The others are Aoi, Kyoko and Hajime/Izuru.
 * Byakuya and Makoto are the only characters to appear in every canon games and anime of the Hope's Peak Series.


 * In the first game, after being given the title "Ultimate Hope" near the end of the game, his e-Handbook profile lists his title as "Ultimate Despair". This is not a translation error, as it was the same way in the Japanese text.
 * In the non-canon Danganronpa V3 bonus mode, Ultimate Talent Development Plan, Celestia challenged him and Nagito to mahjong to test their luck. She then suggested they add the headmaster, Jin Kirigiri, to even things out. This is likely a reference to an official art from Danganronpa 1.2 Reload where the same event happened.
 * Makoto appears as a guest character in Chain Chronicle: Brave New Continent. His Max ATK is 7220 while his Max HP is 7380. His weapon is despair bat and its ability is doubled attack power. His deathblow is "Refuted", which causes small damage to all enemies within reach.
 * Makoto is also included in the collaboration of Danganronpa 3 x Hōkai Gakuen.


 * Makoto appears in Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics as the Ultimate Student class, being one of three designs available for it alongside Komaru and Monokuma.
 * The profile for the Ultimate Students states, You are the Ult. student. You may be the best, but you're just a student...You're not very good at close range combat. Master the various Truth Bullet (TB) skills and survive in this harsh world.
 * Makoto and Nagito share voice actors in both the Japanese and English dub. This is because Nagito's character is based on Makoto and he acts as his darker parallel.
 * Makoto is the only character to retain his original voice actor from the game for the English dub of Danganronpa anime adaptation.
 * Makoto and his sister Komaru (voiced by Megumi Ogata and Aya Uchida) perform Danganronpa Another Episode's ending theme Progressive -Zan Shin- together.