Kokichi's past is very unclear due to his constant lying and the fact that he strictly refuses to reveal anything personal about himself. In fact, the only thing known about his life for sure is his love of video games and that he's been playing them his whole life. However, he has also claimed that nobody would care if he was gone, and it's been implied that he has no parents or family. It's known that he is the leader of D.I.C.E., a small group of young pranksters, who are the most important people and like a family to him. They have traveled around the world and commit "laughable crimes" for fun, which could indicate that they could be a group of orphans with no families nor parents to hold them back. Kokichi is also good at stealing, which might be due to his past, and it has been pointed out that many of his skills have a resemblance to a petty thief. Kokichi is a trickster character in the truest sense of the word. He is very mischievous, and he enjoys pranks and teasing others, sometimes in quite mean-spirited ways. He appeared to have a strong need for attention, as he got irritated if people talked over him or didn't react to his antics the way he wanted them to. He also appeared quite arrogant, clearly considering himself very important part of the class trials, looking down on some of the other students, often wishing to lead the debates and once claiming that the class trials won't be good if the others won't allow him to speak. Because of his behavior, he is viewed as an antagonistic figure among the group, but this doesn't seem to stop him from being able to manipulate the class trials anyway. He is often portrayed smiling slyly and laughing mischievously, though he may look very harmless and innocent at first glance. He often behaves calmly and coolly in a way to torture the others, at times turning very ominous to the point of having very unsettling, downright demonic looking expressions. Sometimes, he can speak very sweetly, even flirty.

