Danganronpa R: Beyond Hope and The Shadow of Despair [DISCONTINUED]

Karen Togami Redesign

OG POST DATE: 12/14/21
When originally designing this character, I made them an intelligent brat. Think Kokichi, almost. But I thought that there was simultaneous not enough parallels and too much parallels in her design to Kanna. They had different uniforms despite going to the same school and there isn't enough parallels between her and Byakuya to know that she his descendent. That's why I decided to redesign her heavily. First off, she has the same uniform underneath her poncho. Her poncho has a checkered pattern to reference a chess board and I added the black queen hair clip that holds her hair up in its ponytail. I wanted to make her much more elegant like Celeste but also still keep some Byakuya wualities. Basically, she's a smug, manipulative, and intelligent bastard now.

Fun Fact(s): Some how, Kazuichi and Byakuya's bloodlines mix and the Togami Company now mainly specializes in technology and engineering. She has a younger brother who's heir to the company and also the Ultimate Computer Scientist. His personality and design would probably mirror that of Souda's. He also would've been in the sequel. If you look at her design, you may notice that she's the black queen chess piece, which is a reference to many things. The queen piece is pretty the most powerful pieces in the game of chess because it can move anywhere (forward, backward, side-to-side, and diagonally). Black also usually goes second in a game of chess which references how she often would let the opponent open up first before destroying them from the inside out. She often feigns weakness and sometimes even carelessness to lower her opponents guard before she attacks them. Finally, the most important piece in chess that you must protect is the king. This reference that despite her intelligence and skill, all the attention goes to her more ignorant by comparison brother (especially since his the next in line for the Togami family simply because he is a man). Black also is a color that denotes power, mystery, strength, death, and formality. Also her name Karen is from the Japanese origin and not the "western". The name combines the kanji "flower" (華/ka) and "lotus", "water lily" (蓮/ren).  It roughly can translate to beautiful, lovely, pure hearted, and merciful... half of these are ironic.

Background Synopsis: She was raised is a fairly cold environment when you must win in order to live. You can survive in her life, but if you aren't cold or cut throat, then you won't be able to work for the Togami Company. Despite her initial, cut throat behavior, she's shown to at least care for her little cowardly brother. She wished that he would just grow up already so he can become a worthy heir of the company. Sadly, because she is a woman, she can't be heir of the company less it falls out of the hands of the Togami bloodline. She searched for alternatives to be successful in life and she found out her talents in chess. Due to this obsession with chess and games like it, she soon started seeing real people in her life as pawns ripe for manipulating. She views herself as queen of the board of life. The most powerful piece. She sees her bother as the king. The most "important." If you can't tell, she's really attached to her brother. Not in an... Korekiyo kind of way but definitely a bit too obsessed for a normal person to be.