Kaito Momota

Kaito Momota is a character from the Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony video game.

Kaito is a student in Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles and a participant of the Killing School Semester. Despite never actually traveling to space, and even going as far as forging his documents to get into space training, Kaito was given the title of the Ultimate Astronaut.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Kaito is brought back to life. Kaito is a member of the Heroes Coalitions as a staff member.

Appearance
Kaito has gel-spiked purple hair that's grown out both at the top and bottom of his head, that Kodaka describes as a space jet coming out of a black hole and a short goatee. His eyes are a warm lilac, and he has fairly long eyelashes. He also has a slightly tanned complexion.

Kaito wears a white t-shirt kumadori design stamped on it, on top of that he wears a long sleeved dress shirt with a breast pocket. On this shirt are black buttons which are currently not in use. On top of that, he wears a long, purple blazer with a galaxy design on the inside of it. However, his coat is worn improperly at all times, instead, Kaito wears his left sleeve and leaves the right side of the coat to drape over his shoulder to leave it fluttering to show the space design.

He wears purple pants matching the color of his blazer that are rolled up over his ankles. Kaito wears slippers with the same galaxy design on them.

In his promotional art, he's featured his entire coat draped over both of his shoulders, no slippers, and a mysterious pipe that resembles Kiseru.

In the prologue, he wears the uniform of his previous high school. He wears a dark blue gakuran with yellow buttons, unbuttoned along with the button-up beneath, showing off a red t-shirt underneath. It's sloppily put together as well. His slacks match the top part of his uniform as well, and white shoes that are worn outside usually.

His hair is still styled the way it is during the killing game for some odd reason.

Personality
Kaito is an energetic person with a passionate heart, who lives for dreams and romance, and tends to give somewhat dramatic encouraging speeches for others. He believes you need to take risks for the sake of your dreams and should't limit yourself nor ever give up. Due to his clichéd hot-blooded spirit and his document falsification he could pass the astronaut examination, proving that he is smart. Being the Ultimate Astronaut, he harbors a dream and a great longing to go to space, and already considers himself a space legend. He often refers to himself as "The Luminary of the Stars" and talks about the Universe being on his side. Furthermore, he talks about being popular with women and children, and he thinks that his goatee gives him a "glamorous celebrity vibe".

Throughout the game, Kaito described himself as a passionate protagonist of his own story who would help the others to survive the killing game. He considers himself a hero type, and occasionally offers to make other people his "sidekicks". Because of that, Kaito always tries his best to unite the group, and he 'is very much a reliable older brother type of character. He is very loyal to his friends and always there in order to aid them, such as when Shuichi Saihara broke down after Kaede Akamatsu's death. He offered his help to regain his spirit by starting training routine during the nighttime and even made him his "sidekick". It is also because of this nature that he became a moral support to the other participants. According to Shuichi, Kaito has the ability to draw people to him, and he has been described as an interesting and amusing person.[4] In his Free Time Events and Love Suite Event, Kaito shows interest in friendly and even romantic rivalry, though he is shown to feel conflicted about romantic feelings because he doesn't wish to be held back by anyone as his true longing is the space and the universe. He appears insecure during the scene, believing that there is no way the other person will feel the same. After Maki revealed her feelings for him, Kaito was relieved and believed in Maki that she can start to love herself if she is able to fall in love with someone like him. While he is excited to look at the dirty books in the library as he thinks it's something guys would normally do, there has also been a moment in which the conversation topic was girls and peeping, and he appeared to become completely distracted and forgot the original topic and instead begun to talk dramatically about man's passion for exploring unknown worlds, claiming it is trueman's passion. His obliviousness to romance and sexual matters has also been shown in the way he didn't realize Maki's jealousy at all and appeared oblivious when the other students more or less jokingly talked about Shuichi being a masochist.

Interestingly, Kaito seems to be a good judge of character and can give correct advice at times. While he is seen helping Shuichi and Maki in the main story, this is even more notable in the bonus mode Ultimate Talent Development Plan, as he correctly judges multiple other charactersーfor example, he tells Izuru Kamukura that he will begin to think everything is boring if he keeps repeating how boring everything is, he quickly notices that Nagito Komaeda isn't truly interested in him nor space (as he only cares about him as a symbol of hope) and he tells Mondo Owada you can't move forward in life if you keep looking at past. Perhaps most notably, Kaito sometimes seems to understand Kokichi's reasoning better than any other student. However, he is also shown to be easily angered by mindsets that contrast his own, and he stubbornly refuses to believe in them. He strongly hates Kokichi's lies and unwillingness to cooperate, and his anger often clouds his judgement. He also cannot empathize with Ryoma's suicidal way of thinking, considering him a sissy and a fool, as he believes there is always a reason to live even if just small things like good food or friends. He is also notably hot-headed in general, occasionally taking action without thinking and wanting to punch others if angered enough. He can also be quite forceful when offering his support to others. In the Japanese version, he also swears a lot, but this is downplayed in the English localization.

With his clichéd passionate nature, Kaito possesses some slightly old-fashioned opinions, believing that men should be real men (often dramatically talking about "man's passion") and women should not use real weapons and are more suited to childcare (even telling this to Maki, who is the Ultimate Assassin.) Along with considering Ryoma a sissy for having suicidal thoughts, he doesn't like it whenever Gonta cries and apologizes because "men shouldn't apologize so much". At one point, during Chapter 2, he calls Korekiyo Shinguji with the Japanese term "okama" for appearing effeminate, which is often used as a derogatory term for very effeminate gay men or crossdressers (in the English version, he just calls him out for acting "so girly"). However, Kaito himself also has trouble with weakness and appears to have a sort of complex for being the hero, not wanting to show his own weaknesses and troubles to his sidekicks even if it means lying to them as he wishes to come across as a strong figure they can lean on. He had a hard time admitting that even he can make mistakes and felt envious of Shuichi who used his detective skills to save everyone. In his Harmonius Heart Event, he is troubled by the students' trapped situation and feels he cannot show such weakness in front of his sidekick. If Shuichi tries to reassure him that it's okay to be afraid sometimes, Kaito insists that it's not like him to make others worry. He feels embarrassed, believing he has failed his sidekick, and tells Shuichi that he wants to be left alone. Even if Shuichi agrees that it's not like him to show weakness and that he never backs down, Kaito is still bothered by it and Shuichi can tell he is hiding something even when he claims with a grin that he is motivated again. If Shuichi reminds Kaito that he is not just a sidekick but also a friend, and that Kaito can open up to his best friend, Kaito is silent for a moment and then thanks Shuichi with a smile and claims he is okay now. He claims all his doubts are gone now that he knows that Shuichi thinks of him like that.

Undoubtedly, Kaito's biggest flaw is his arbitrary complete trust in others, which is often misguided. He is sincere and believes in friendship no matter what, trusting who he wants to trust even against all evidence and logic. He believes Maki without questions despite evidence against her, with his only reason being "an official hunch from Kaito Momota, the Luminary of the Stars himself", causing other students to call him an idiot because of it. He hates to be called an idiot, claiming that it hurts his feelings. During the fourth trial, he denied all the clear evidence that showed Gonta Gokuhara is the killer of Miu Iruma, which ended up making things worse and caused a major risk to everyone.

Kaito can also be slightly comical, sometimes having very over exaggerated expressions and reactions, and can easily come across as not that smart due to his beliefs and occasional silly behavior such as eating way too much food at one point due to feeling pumped up or him claiming he was the one who wore women's underwear in a desperate attempt to clear suspicion against him. His notable weakness is his massive fear of supernatural, strongly disliking anything related to it and grabbing other people in horror during such situations. After Kaito and some of the other students enter the casino in Chapter 2, Kaito is shown to have horrible luck in gambling, which is something Kokichi makes fun of while Kaito seemed to completely lose his spirit and cried wondering how could The Luminary of the Stars lose so pathetically. He then made excuses such as claiming that his true skills are meant for the universe and not something like gambling, and pointed out that he had quit gambling earlier, even though he had just been playing. However, despite some of his comical traits, Kaito is actually very intelligent and talented in various ways as he is an astronaut trainee.

It was revealed that before the brainwashing, Kaito was a psychopath who planned to murder all the other participants in order to gain money and honor, with the attitude he had during the game having a twisted meaning of "nothing is impossible after you're rich and famous enough". Though, it should be noted that it is left unclear whether or not this is true and it could have been a lie made by the mastermind, as pointed out by Shuichi.

Ultimate Astronaut
Kaito's talent as the Ultimate Astronaut is a fabrication made by Team Danganronpa. Due to that fact, it is unclear whether Kaito is an astronaut trainee in the past.

In his first Free Time Events, he claimed that he could speak Japanese, English, and Russian fluently, including understanding their culture. This includes survival training, medicine, etc. Apparently, it was all a part of his training as an astronaut.

Trivia

 * In his promotional art Kaito is featured with a pipe which highly resembles Kiseru, a Japanese smoking pipe used for smoking kizami, a shredded tobacco product.
 * It's worth noting that the smoking age in Japan is 20 years old. Meaning that Kaito may be engaging in underage smoking.
 * If he does engage in underage smoking, it can be suspected that his chronic disease is lung cancer, as one of the symptoms is coughing up blood.
 * Although it was confirmed by Tsumugi in the final trial that his disease was implanted into him. However, it is unknown whether Team Danganronpa was the one who implanted the disease or it was natural disease that he had, since Tsumugi could be lying about it.
 * Kaito is the first character to die of a disease during a killing game.
 * Kaito, along with K1-B0 and Maki Harukawa, was one of the first new characters revealed for Danganronpa V3 in November 2015. However, their names and talents weren't revealed until ten months later in September 2016.
 * Kaito is shown wearing his right coat sleeve when opposing Shuichi in the Chapter 3 and 4 Scrum Debates. He is the only character whose features flip due to sprite mirroring this way.
 * In the cutscene where the characters change into their new uniforms, Kaito's goatee is missing in the PC version.


 * In Chapter 5 of the English version, Kaito's arm is still seen during the supposed cut when Kokichi had used the video camera. This was not present in the original Japanese version.
 * In a prologue illustration with all the students, Kaito is missing his beard, similar to his beta designs.
 * In his Love Suite scene, it's shown that in his fantasy he is an airplane pilot who wishes to defeat his sworn rival before going to space, but he has developed romantic feelings for them.
 * Kaito's English voice actor Kyle Hebert also voices Danganronpa 2's Kazuichi Soda.
 * In a poll hosted by MyNavi, fans voted Kaito the 11th most popular Danganronpa V3 student.
 * Japanese gaming magazine Dengeki from April 27th, 2017 to May 22nd, 2017 held two popularity polls, one that was voted electronically and the other via post cards. Kaito was voted the 5th most popular student in the electronic poll, and 15th through post cards.