The Danganronpa series imparts Despair – and Hope – onto its players by forcing a group of 16 students to participate in a killing game. Mikan Tsumiki is one of the participants from the second game in the series, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
Be prepared for major spoilers for the entire Dangonronpa series, including both the animations and the visual novels. The storylines of the anime and games are interconnected, and Mikan’s story spans the known parts of the Danganronpa timeline. If you just want clarification or don’t mind a bevy of spoilers, keep reading.
Who is Mikan Tsumiki from Danganronpa?
Mikan is a student from Hope’s Peak Academy, a school that only recruits those who are the best at whatever talent they have. She is not a central character in the story, but she is a prominent character overall with plenty of fan adoration.
Where does Mikan appear in the Danganronpa series?
Mikan’s first appearance is in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. She also features in the Despair and Hope Arcs of Danganronpa 3, the anime. The character makes a small cameo in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
What does Mikan Tsumiki look like?
Mikan is portrayed as a teenage girl slightly above average height. Her hair is cut into haphazard strands, and her lavender eyes are frequently framed by worried eyebrows and a trail of tears. Her typical outfit is a short blue pleated skirt, pink blouse, and a white apron. Bandages cover large portions of her body, changing locations with her outfit. The Danganronpa 2 outfit has bandages on her right leg and left forearm.
In the Despair Arc of Danganronpa 3, Mikan wears the standard brown skirt, white blouse, brown overshirt, and a thin string bow tie required for Hope’s Peak Academy girls. She has more bandages than in Danganronpa 2 with the addition of a knee wrap and a small adhesive bandage across the cheek.
What is Mikan Tsumiki’s personality?
Mikan’s dominant personality traits are her desire to care for others and her extreme level of anxiety. Her sensitivity causes her to cry at the drop of a hat and defer to anyone showing dominance – except in matters of health. She’s still not assertive while delivering care, but she displays more confidence in her interactions and doesn’t let the anxiety stop her from helping.
While not quite a personality trait, she is also perpetually clumsy, frequently falling over into compromising positions. Her clumsiness is also part of the reason she developed nursing skills and an explanation for her outfit design, since she is constantly bandaging herself due to injuries.
What is Mikan Tsumiki’s talent?
Every student at Hope’s Peak Academy is said to be the best at their specific talent. Mikan’s talent is her uncanny ability to provide nursing care. The talent goes beyond a simple bedside minor and caring disposition, as she demonstrates through her ability to perform autopsies on victims of the Killing School Trip in Danganronpa 2. During Class 77-B’s graduation, she declares that her goal is to distribute medicines throughout the world.
What are Mikan Tsumiki’s relationships?
Mikan’s relationships, as well as the second game and the background of the entire series, primarily revolve around the members of Class 77-B from Hope’s Peak Academy. Not every relationship is covered here, but the most important ones for understanding Mikan are.
Mikan’s relationship with Junko Enoshima
Junko, the Ultimate Fashionista from the first Danganronpa game, shapes the lives of everyone in the world of Danganronpa, but her impact on Mikan is more personal. Her love of Despair is strong enough that it can influence others, especially with the help of the Despair Video, a recording of the killing game that occurred prior to the first visual novel. Anyone who watches the video can only feel Despair, which Junko first uses on Mikan.
From there, Mikan is hopelessly devoted to Junko. She can be seen worshiping Junko in the Despair Arc of the Danganronpa 3 anime, and she professes a deep and abiding love for a person who is most likely Junko during Danganronpa 2. Mikan’s wardrobe also gets an update while in her Ultimate Despair persona, converting to a white nurse uniform and brandishing a massive syringe and needle as a weapon.
Mikan’s relationship with Ibuki Mioda
Ibuki Mioda is a loud and boisterous rock guitarist who is kinder to Mikan than most of the other students. The two are quite different from one another, but Ibuki’s kindness leads to the two of them becoming close friends.
Mikan Tsumiki’s relationship with Hajime Hinata
Hajime Hinata, the protagonist of Danganronpa 2, can propose to Mikan Tsumiki if the relationship is built to a high enough level. Nothing in the games or the Hope Arc of the anime directly contradicts this, but it also doesn’t support it.
Otherwise, Mikan shows a liking for Hajime in the game, but nothing compared to the devotion she showed to Junko. She appreciates that he came to talk to her when making introductions in the first chapter, even if her anxiety causes her to cry multiple times.
Hajime’s alternate ego, Izura Kamakura, has no special relationship with Mikan.
Mikan Tsumiki’s relationship with Hiyoko Saianji
Hiyoko bullies Mikan throughout their high school years and the events of Danganronpa 2. While Mikan wasn’t Hiyoko’s only target for bullying, the poor girl’s quick descent into tears put her high on Hiyoko’s list of favorite victims.
What Did Mikan Tsumiki Do Before Danganronpa 2?
Thanks to Junko’s brainwashing, Mikan joins the rest of Class 77-B in forming Ultimate Despair, a fanatical group devoted to Junko and her desire to spread Despair. Their efforts are successful during a vaguely described event called The Tragedy, throwing the world into chaos. When Junko joins in the killing game of the first entry in the series, her ultimate demise fractures the group, who are then referred to as the Remnants of Despair.
Sometime later, she was stopped in the middle of warped “treatment” (read as “torture”) by a member of the Future Foundation, a group of Hope’s Peak Academy alumni and others who joined together to fight Ultimate Despair after the Tragedy. She is taken to an island, has her memory wiped, and placed in a VR world where the events of Danganronpa 2 take place.
What Is Mikan Tsumiki’s Fate in Danganronpa 2?
At the end of Dangonronpa 2, Mikan is in a coma along with several other members of the Remnants of Despair.
Why is Mikan Tsumiki in a coma?
Through the course of Danganronpa 2, the participants learn that they are all actually the Remnants of Despair and trapped inside a virtual reality world, just like Mikan. Dying while connected puts the victim’s body in a coma, but they don’t fully die like it’s the Matrix.
The fictional “Despair Disease” is introduced into the VR world, but it has the real effect of changing personalities and reawakening Mikan’s memories as one of the antagonists. Mikan kills two students, including Hiyoko, and is identified as the culprit in the trial. Mikan is executed by being launched into space, although the scene could also be interpreted as a metaphor for a lethal injection. Afterwards, her real body falls into a coma.
What happens to Mikan Tsumiki after Danganronpa 2?
In the final episode of Danganronpa 3, it is revealed that Hajime, as Izura, restores the comatose Remnants of Despair. The group helps save the day and proclaims that they need to “atone for [their] sins”. At the end, the Remnants of Despair – including Mikan – set sail for the island of the second game to live together.
Does Mikan Tsumiki appear in Danganronpa V3?
Mikan makes a minor cameo appearance in Danganronpa V3, and the game confirms that V3 takes place on the same world where Junko set the world on a course to Despair. It does not offer any insights into what happened to Mikan or the rest of the Remnants, except that an indeterminate amount of time has passed. The memory of the Remnants of Despair is presumably alive and well, but the sheer amount of false information and unreliable narration makes a firm date or even the reality of events questionable.