Nagito Komaeda Character Analysis

6. I'm truly in love with the hope that sleeps inside you (Feelings for Hajime)

                 Almost everyone knows that Nagito loves Hajime. Well right now I'm going to explain those feelings in much more detail. From the first part of the game we spend almost the whole time with Nagito and Hajime really appreciated their friendship. When Hajime starts saying how he doesn't remember his talent and stuff Nagito encourages him that he surely has a great talent. Well it all goes down hill when Nagito reveals his true nature. Hajime tries to distance himself from Nagito but even then, he still tries to understand him. Nagito even then still praises Hajime and tries to help him all the time, even tho Hajime doesn't see it. Like in the third trial when Nagito acussed Hajime of being the killer, in reality he was only backing up his alibi but Hajime didn't get it. He even said an important clue just so Hajime could be the one to prove it so he could get all the praise. Nagito didn't want the others to thank him, even tho he did all the work. Let's move on now. Nagito developed feelings for Hajime pretty quickly, since Hajime was his frist friend ever. Nagito felt like him and Hajime have a lot of things in common. He says how he felt from the beginning that Hajime didn't have a talent because he couldn't radiate the same aura coming from the others from Hajime. He says that he only felt the scent of a myserable bystender, just like him. That is what actually made him feel closer to him. He always felt like the outcast considering that he didn't have the same talent as everyone else. He always felt like that. But then he found someone else just like him, Hajime, who also felt like he couldn't fit in. That's exactly what made him feel closer to him and eventually, made him fall in love. At the end of his FTE he says "Please, don't forget...From the bottom of my heart, I'm truly in love with the hope that sleeps inside you...". In the english version, again, it doesn't seem as much but in the japanese version he says "Douka wasurenaide...Boku wa kimi wo...Kimi no naka ni nemuru kibou wo kokoro kara aishiteiru to."

1. At first he said "Douka wasurenaide..." but then he started his second phrase with "Boku wa kimi wo...". In the first phrase Nagito started his phrase with a direct object but when he picked up again, he switched to a possesive object (The japanese grammar is a bit complicated and very different from the english one, so it might be hard for you to understand)

2. The word he used for love here is "aishiteiru". Aishiteiru can be roughly translated to "(I) love (you)". However, it is an extremely strong word (a word that even married couples hesitate to use since it's so strong!). You dont just say "aishiteiru" to whoever you like unless you really, really love that person.

You might consider "Oh but Nagito could love anyone as long as they have hope" but that is not true. When he says he loves the Ultimates or when he says he loves hope he uses the term "suki" which is used for saying you love a thing, you love your friends or you love you family, so it isn't as strong as aishiteiru. A more correct translation would be "Please don't forget that I love y- That I love the hope sleeping inside you...from the bottom of my heart..."

NIS America butched a lot of the translations like the one I talked about in Chapter 4, the last line of his FTE which i just talked about and even Mikan's talk about her beloved.

Even in Island Mode, even tho it's an alternate universe, he still has feelings for Hajime. Quote from Nagito's wikia page: "(...) I should also be noted that in the final Dangan Island event, Nagito had a hard time asking Hajime to be his friend, to which the latter agreed to". Quote from Hajime's wikia page: "(...) In the final Dangan Island event, when Nagito hesitantly asks for Hajime's friendship, Hajime was surprised but accepted without much consideration. The wording seemed to start as a confession, which caught Hajime by surprise".

Nagito knows that he's a complicated person. Considering his past, it's only natural he doesn't want to hurt the person he came to know so much all those weeks. It's only natural he would develop romantic feelings for Hajime. And it was more heavily hinted in the japanese version of the game than the english one...In the english version the homosexual context isn't nearly as strong as in the japanese one. True, the localization was better in this one than the first game. However, they decided to skip the "serious" homosexual stuff (Nagito's "gayish" lines in Chapter 4 and his fifth FTE, Mikan's talk about her beloved aka Junko Enoshima) for some reason which is very sad.

A lot of people say that Hajime hated Nagito but I'm going to debunk that. At first we can see that they were friends so when Nagito showed his true colors, he said he felt betrayed because he really thought he was a kind person. When he goes to bring Nagito food he is still in denial about how he feels towards him, now that he knows who he is and before he left he said this "I don't want to be tricked by you anymore!" so it's shows how he feels like he can't be friends anymore because he doesn't want to be betrayed, even tho deep down, he still wants to. When Nagito had the despair disease he was constantly worried about him and at one point he said why should he even be worried about a guy like him but he still goes to check up on him which is really sweet. When Nagito started being mean to him, he felt hurt but if he hated him he wouldn't have cared, but he did care what he thought of him. In Danganronpa 2.5 when Nagito wakes up, Hajime seems worried about him, if he hated him he wouldn't have even forgave him. And the last scene in it shows Hajime reaching for his hand, and Nagito takes it which was ADORABLE. This shows how Hajime never hated Nagito. Okay it's time for the next topic!