Yuichi Katagiri

Yuichi Katagiri is a second-year high school student. He is a poor student who lives alone and works part-time to support himself. He values ​​his friends above all else, following his adoptive mother's advice that "friends are more important than money." An incident leads him to become involved in an irrational debt-paying game.

Appearance As a child, Yuichi had short, messy black hair. As he grew older, he began to let it grow longer, and now he has longer bangs.

As a child, Yuichi usually wore a plain t-shirt. In the various versions of Tomodachi Game, adult Yuichi wears the high school uniform (Secrets Game - Shibe's trial), the game uniform (Prison Game), or a long black jacket over a t-shirt and pants (in all other periods).

Yuichi is relatively tall and quite thin. His face has some of the most striking features in the series, with a well-defined chin, eyebrows, and eye shape. He also has one of the most varied expressions. In touching moments with his friends, he displays a gentler and happier countenance. However, he has an insane and frightening smile that tends to appear when he gets serious during a game.

Personality At the beginning of the story, Yuichi appears to be a diligent and happy student who strives to keep up with his friends on the school trip. He greatly values ​​his friends throughout the narrative. He demonstrates kindness and a willingness to sacrifice for them, even going so far as to declare himself a traitor to avoid further discord.

As the story progresses and the games become increasingly serious, Yuichi begins to show a much more sinister side. This dark nature is likely a result of his troubled upbringing by an adoptive mother who was a prostitute and a con man who served as his father figure and mentor. He shows little remorse for his most wicked actions and even appears sadistic at times, when he takes pleasure in the misfortune of his enemies. He doesn't hesitate to use any means to achieve his goals, such as threatening to kill Kaidou or using Kokorogi to blackmail a teacher.

History Yuichi Katagiri's past is somewhat mysterious, although it is known that he murdered three people and has no idea who his biological parents are. He was raised by his adoptive mother, Yuka Katagiri, who prostituted herself to survive, a traumatic memory for Yuichi. He also had a father figure in the form of a con man named Taizen Shiba, who taught him various psychoanalytic techniques and mentalism tricks. Although he uses this knowledge very effectively throughout the series, he doesn't hold Taizen's respect in his memories. He seemed to admire him as a child, but calls him a demon and scum at various points in the story. When trying to convince Satone to give up the game, he reveals that Taizen is one of the three people he killed.

Sometime after killing Taizen, he returned to the "normal world" and began attending school while making paper flowers to support himself. After entering high school, he ended up befriending Shibe, Tenji, Shiho, and Kokorogi. This circle remained strong until the start of the Tomodachi Games.

At some point during his childhood, he founded the game Tomodachi.

Plot Yuichi finishes delivering the newspapers and his friend comments that he did twice as much as he usually does. After delivering the money to the school, his friend Shibe comments that he could have lent Yuichi the money if needed. Later, he receives a letter from Shiho, asking him to meet her at the school gates at a certain time. He arrives late and sees all his friends gathered. He asks them why they are there. They are all confused and say that he was the one who invited them. He picks up the letters and becomes worried, but before he can do anything, he is hit from behind and sees his friends being dragged away.

He wakes up in an empty room with his friends. Everyone is confused about what happened, but then a cartoon character appears and greets them. Yutori realizes it's Manabu, a character from a children's cartoon known for stealing his friends. Makoto explains that one of their friends owes them 20 million yen, and if they choose to leave, the 2 million yen down payment won't be refunded, leaving the person with the debt. Yuichi is about to ask who did this when Shiho comments that, since they're friends, there's no reason to ask or doubt, and they all end up agreeing to play.

Skills Intelligence and Manipulation Yuichi can be considered one of the most intelligent characters, if not the most intelligent, in the series. Despite his intelligence and triumphant victory over Kei Shinomiya, he claims that the latter is far superior to him in terms of cognitive abilities. He states that he didn't win because he was intelligent. His school grades are far lower even than Makoto Shibe's.

His ability to manipulate people and orchestrate complex plans around those manipulations is extraordinary. Yuichi often allows himself to be underestimated by his opponents as a way to deceive them. While perhaps not as technically skilled as Tenji, Yuichi possesses vast practical knowledge and a deep understanding of the dark underworld. His machinations are rarely discovered unless they are revealed as part of a larger scheme.

His lack of technical knowledge sometimes affects him, but he compensates for it with his practical knowledge. Although never confirmed, Yuichi's IQ is presumed to be around 145-150. Despite Kei being the most intelligent (in terms of IQ), Yuichi's emotional intelligence (EI) is on another level. A key part of his manipulation tactics is his EI and his ability to understand the fragility of the human heart. His deception and acting skills are also excellent.

Cruelty While perhaps not a skill in the common sense, Yuichi's sheer cruelty is a key factor in his success throughout the series. He doesn't hesitate to threaten others or carry out those threats to achieve his goals. In this sense, many characters have described Yuichi as "evil," "horrible," "monster," and "demon." Despite caring for his friends, he doesn't hesitate to attack anyone, as they mean nothing to him, such as when he was ready to kill the administrator in the final game, even though she was a real player.

Athletic ability/Pain tolerance Yuichi briefly demonstrated decent athletic ability in terms of running and taking down others in brief fights. What's even more impressive, however, is Yuichi's incredible pain tolerance. This is particularly evident in the Weaklings' Game against Kuroki. Yuichi manages to maintain his composure and his plan to destroy Kuroki even after taking three punches, having three fingernails ripped off, and his hand pierced by a knife. He also broke his own finger without even complaining when cornering the captain of Group K in a game of hide-and-seek.

Etymology The name Yuichi means "friend, companion, comrade". Yuichi's surname, Katagiri, means "one-sided cut".