5. Nagito Komaeda
I think Nagito Komaeda, the Ultimate Lucky Student, is the most obvious choice for a protagonist in the event that Hajime kicks the bucket early on. You frankly don’t have Danganronpa 2 without him, and I believe the character’s memetic popularity gives him at least a few chapters of plot armor even if he doesn’t end up being the player character. He’s the ultimate wild card, using his overpowered luck to manipulate nearly every situation to his advantage, usually in the pursuit of some distorted idea of what “hope” looks like for his classmates. He is simply too important a character to discard early, and considering the astonishing way he goes out in Danganronpa 2 in an elaborate orchestrated suicide/murder scheme, I don’t know how Spike Chunsoft could possibly follow that up without keeping him alive this time.
