Hiyoko Saionji

"Th-This kid... Her attitude doesn't match her appearance at all."

- Hajime Hinata

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 Tsumiki and Kazuichi Souda 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 Owari, Nagito Komaeda, and Ibuki Mioda caught the Despair Disease, she hoped that they would kill themselves. And when Sonia Nevermind called her out for it, what does she say? "it wouldn't be that easy." It isn't even the only time she said that she wanted the other students to commit suicide either.
 * 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 womanchild.
 * 7) Her nicknames of Mikan like "trashy skank", "dirty bitch", and "pig barf" are straight up sadistic.
 * 8) When Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu apologized to her for Mahiru's death, something that wasn't even entirely his fault (as he did plan to kill her upon learning that she helped cover up the murder of his sister Natsumi, but in the end, Peko Pekoyama was the one to ultimately kill her) 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, which is incredibly cruel and ungrateful of her.
 * 10) Her cruelty doesn't even stop at people either. When she's introduced, she's squishing ants for fun (a hobby of hers), and later, she tries doing the same thing to a crab. The anime also has her bully Gundham Tanaka's rabbit (although she does get her comeuppance for it).
 * 11) Speaking of the anime, episode 2 has her help Teruteru Hanamura cook nikujaga for the other students, only for it to turn out that she stole one of Teruteru and Seiko Kimura's inventions called "Sexy Sexy Soup", which was filled with aphrodisiacs and drugged the food with it to "experiment". And everyone, including her "big sis" Mahiru, eats the laced meal, resulting in them all losing control over their bodies and drowning in their respective lusts.
 * 12) * And when Chisa Yukizome returned from her transferal to the reserve course and Class 77-B threw a party to welcome her back in episode 5, what does Hiyoko tell her? "Now, my wish has come true! I can finally bend every joint in Tsumiki's body in weird directions!"
 * 13) In Chapter 3, Hajime notes that she's trying to be a nicer person, but she never changes up until her death. If anything, she actually gets worse (and that's saying so much).
 * 14) While she does gain some development, she never gets to finish her arc due to being murdered by Mikan upon witnessing the latter strangling Ibuki to death. This actually happened before in the previous game with Kiyotaka Ishimaru, dying just when he's about to move on from Mondo Owada's death and later occurs again in V3 with Tenko Chabashira who never gets over her misandry due to dying in Chapter 3 (although she showed the least signs of growth among the 3). Although some characters like mh:greatcharacters:Kyoko Kirigiri, mh:greatcharacters:Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, mh:greatcharacters:Himiko Yumeno from, who start off as aloof, hostile, and lazy respectively, but not only do they get to complete their character arcs instead of simply being killed off in the next chapter, but also unlike Hiyoko, Taka and Tenko, they survive the Killing Games.
 * 15) 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 that Nagito was planning to start a Killing Game with the students, he decided to target him so that he couldn't hurt anyone, only for him to end 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. Not to mention that even if Teruteru was a lewd jerk who knew of the "everyone dies except the killer if the vote is incorrect" rule but still went ahead with his plan and worked with Nagito to win the trial, saying cruel things about him after his death didn't make Hiyoko any better, and Teruteru even seemed to actually regret his actions before being dragged into his execution.

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, as shown with Teruteru's murder of the Imposter.
 * 2) She does have an admittedly cute character design (which she uses to her advantage in order to gain popularity).
 * 3) She has a genuine friendship with Mahiru Koizumi, 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 during the despair disease outbreak.
 * 9) In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School has her get a fair share of nice moments, like her comforting Mahiru after Sato's murder, expressing as much concern as the other students when Mikan disappeared and being just as horrified as the others when being forced to watch Chiaki Nanami's Punishment by Junko Enoshima.
 * 10) Apart from the handful of occasional nice moments, she does actually go through some character development as the game goes on and even tries to make amends with the others, if not for being killed by Mikan before it could actually be significant.
 * 11) She ultimately ends up redeeming herself in the Hope Arc of 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.
 * 12) Hiyoko's Free-Time Events reveal that her family has treated her miserably and abusively out of jealousy regarding her dance talent, and the only person who ever treated her kindly was her father. And while it doesn't excuse her actions, it does go a long way in explaining why she acts so cruel and mean-spirited 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.