Hiyoko Saionji

Hiyoko Saionji, is a student of Hope's Peak Academy's Class 77-B, and a participant of the Killing School Trip featured in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Her title is the Ultimate Traditional Dancer (Super High School Level Classical Dancer).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) She's a cruel bully who torments everyone, especially Mikan and Kazuichi because unlike the others who tend to either ignore her or laugh at her insults, they react to her insults the most, due to the fact that they've both had very bad experiences in the past with bullying.
 * 2) Her constant whining is exasperating, especially whenever the others try to call her out for her behavior, where she'll fake cry to earn their sympathy. Proving she can't take the slightest bit of criticism.
 * 3) Her voice is screechy and high-pitched, and it isn't helped by her personality.
 * 4) Hypocrisy: She has very little issue bullying other people, most notably Mikan and Kazuichi, but complains that people are bullying her at the beginning of Chapter 2 when people remark on her smelling bad due to not being able to take a bath (even though everybody is just asking questions rather than being outright malicious, unlike her).
 * 5) When Akane, Nagito, and Ibuki caught the Despair Disease, she hoped that they would kill themselves. And when Sonia called her out for it, what does she say? "It wouldn't be that easy".
 * 6) She's actually supposed to be in her early twenties. So if anything, it shows she's not just an annoying bully, but she's also a bratty womachild.
 * 7) Her nicknames of Mikan like "trashy skank" and "dirty bitch" are straight up sadistic.
 * 8) When Fuyuhiko apologized to her for Mahiru's death, something that wasn't even (entirely) his fault, he tried to prove it to her by cutting open his own stomach before the wound on his eye (from when he tried to interrupt Peko's execution) even healed, resulting in him having to get through another hospital visit. And even after all that, she still didn't forgive him!
 * 9) After she breaks down crying after being suspected of having killed Mahiru, the only person she genuinely care about, Mikan, who she's been horrible to the entire time, makes a genuine effort to cheer her up. Only for Hiyoko to lash out and spit insults at her like usual instead of being touched by the gesture.
 * 10) Her cruelty doesn't even stop at people either! When she's introduced, she's squishing ants for fun, and later, she tries doing the same thing to a crab.
 * 11) In Chapter 3, Hajime notes that she's trying to be a nicer person, but she never changes up until her death.
 * 12) While she does gain some development, she never gets to finish her arc due to being murdered by Mikan upon seeing her murdering Ibuki. This happened before with Taka, dying just when he's about to move on from Mondo's death, but V3 averts this with Himiko Yumeno, who starts off as lazy and cynical, not only gets to complete her character arc to becoming more expressive and optimistic, but also unlike Hiyoko and Taka, survives the Killing Game.
 * 13) The day after the first trial, she halfheartedly concedes that Ultimate Imposter's death was "sad," but then says that Teruteru, as a murderer, was "human waste," that she enjoyed his execution and that she wishes they could have spat on his body. Yes, Teruteru is a creepy pervert, but his motive for murder was one of the most sympathetic ones in the series; he wanted to make sure his ill mother was alright, and upon learning Nagito's true nature, he decided to kill him so that he couldn't start a Killing Game among the students, but ended up accidently killing the Imposter instead. But of course, Hiyoko didn't bother giving a crap about his motives and simply wrote him off as a immoral murderer.

Good Qualities

 * 1) While she is a cruel bully, she seems to find murder despicable to such a degree that she has absolutely no sympathy for the murderers' motivations, although that does cause her to act terrible towards the killers even if their motives were sympathetic.
 * 2) She does have an admittedly cute character design.
 * 3) She has a genuine friendship with Mahiru, and after the latter is killed, Hiyoko set up a memorial for the former and, while initially it scares the class, it soon becomes a welcome sight in the restaurant.
 * 4) It took a while, but Hiyoko eventually did forgive Fuyuhiko for indirectly getting Mahiru killed, and even showed up to the little get-together dedicated to celebrating his physical well-being. She denies it, of course, but it's so terribly obvious that she did, that even Hajime can see through her.
 * 5) Her quote, "I think it's a good thing to protect things that need to be protected.", is pretty touching.
 * 6) In Chapter 3, she's one of the only students who actually enjoys Ibuki's concert and even compliments her song, which Ibuki wrote herself.
 * 7) In her Dangan Island ending, she promises to protect Hajime and her father.
 * 8) She can make some pretty good points, like reminding everyone that no matter how upset they are or how much they're freaking out, they need to investigate and solve the case if they want to live during the first Class Trial, her being angry at Fuyuhiko for indirectly getting Mahiru killed, and suggesting quarantining the infected and possibly infected before anyone else, pointing out that since they don't know how to cure the disease the most important thing is to prevent everyone from being infected.
 * 9) Apart from the handful of occasional nice moments, she does actually go through some character development as the game goes on, if not for being killed by Mikan before it could actually be significant.
 * 10) In Danganronpa 3, after Mikan saves her life, Hiyoko was genuinely thankful for that, albeit insulting the former to her face just seconds before. And it's implied she started slowly warming up to Mikan afterwards.
 * 11) Hiyoko's Free-Time Events reveal that her family has treated her miserably out of jealousy regarding her dance talent, and the only person who ever treated her kindly was her father. It goes a long way in explaining her cruelty towards others.

Trivia

 * Saionji (西園寺) translates to “Western garden temple” while Hiyoko (日寄子) means “Child who brings forth day”.
 * Hiyoko (as 雛) is also the Japanese word for "chick" (as in a baby bird). This association connected to Hiyoko's name matches her childish, innocent-looking appearance, as well as her hair color. She also has a chick print on her kimono, located just above its sash. Coincidentally, there is also a brand of bean jam-filled steamed buns called Hiyoko Sweets. Whether this was intentionally reflecting Hiyoko's sweet tooth or not is unknown.
 * Hiyoko has quite the sweet tooth, as she mostly eats gummies. However, she never eats yellow gummies, due to her dislike of sour food. In her report card, it states she eats flower candies and Japanese sweets.
 * In original Japanese, she is known as the Super High School Level 'buyō-ka', or a master of buyō dance, which is a traditional form of Japanese art that combines the act of moving to a rhythm and dancing.
 * Hiyoko's Japanese voice actress, Suzuko Mimori, also voiced Kiriko Nishizawa in Danganronpa 3 - Despair Arc, and her English voice actress, Kira Buckland, also voices Kirumi Tojo in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.

Comments
