Kaede Akamatsu (赤松 楓) is a student in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles and a participant of the Killing School Semester featured in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. Her title is the Ultimate Pianist (超高校級の「ピアニスト」 lit. Super High School Level Pianist).Kaede is a young woman of above average height who has smooth, ash blonde hair reaching just below her shoulders which is somewhat curved outwards to each side, making it look a lot bigger than it is. Her bangs are parted to the far right, hanging low over her eyes before they're swept behind her ears, with a single arcing ahoge poking out from the back of her parting and two thin clumps of hair sitting over each shoulder, which curve outwards at the ends. Her eyes are tilted inwards a little and are framed by quite long and pronounced upper and lower eyelashes, and in her game sprites their irises are a warm plum color, although in her official reference sheet they’re more of a light purplish-brown. Kaede wears a long-sleeved pinkish off-white dress shirt with an orange tie at her neck, over which she wears a sleeveless pale pink sweater with a darker pink hem and V-neck collar, her school’s insignia adorned on the left side of her chest. She wears a short, dark purple skirt, which is patterned with five thin black lines with musical notes decorating them, which creates an actual melody, although it doesn’t seem to be any relevant tune, and in her bangs, she wears five white hair-slides of a similar design. Her knee-high socks are a much colder purple color than her skirt, bearing the same crest as her sweater on their outer sides, and she wears tan lace-up shoes with thick brown soles. She also carries around a plain white backpack, which has a flap lid, fastened with a rectangular golden clasp, and two small pockets on the sides. In the Prologue, Kaede wears her school uniform, which consists of a navy blue seifuku, her collar and skirt a slightly darker shade, with a white trim around the collar and a double one around the cuffs, and a red scarf knotted loosely over her chest. She also wears black knee-high socks and penny loafers that are a dark shade of blue (presumably navy), and the white slides in her hair are regular straight ones.Kaede is an optimistic hard worker. As a leader type with a firm character, she has a strong will and doesn't hesitate to take action, with her most notable character trait being her strong sense of belief in herself and others. Her main motivation for playing the piano is to see others smiling. Kaede has a kind personality that makes her think about others before herself. Because of this, she is unable to immediately suspect people, as demonstrated in the demo by her going as far as faking an alibi out of her trust for Makoto, with no rational basis for his innocence. She is willing to lie for good reasons, but appears uncomfortable while doing so and is quite bad at lying. Like the other protagonists before her, she has a very sensitive nature and listens to other people's troubles. However, as seen during her Free Time Events with the other students, she seems to encourage other people to get better even more actively than some other protagonists do, and she isn't afraid to be bold about it and point out their flaws. It appears that she is rather quickly well-liked by the other students. However, being a pianoholic from a young age, she has a peculiar trait of including music talk into her conversations. She even strongly avoids certain activities such as cooking and certain sports because she fears her fingers might get hurt, affecting her ability to play. After talking to Tsumugi during her Free Time Events, Kaede was quite shocked and disturbed after realizing how heavily her life and identity is centered around piano and how she doesn't really have anything else, and she became desperate to find new hobbies. Kaede can also be a bit oblivious and silly at times. During K1-B0's Free Time Events, she unintentionally asks questions in a somewhat insensitive manner

Kaede Akamatsu:Sitting in a room playing piano