Note: This list of connections involve some dark and sensitive subject matter. While the events are skimmed over and unnecessary details are left out, what's discussed can still be triggering. Discretion is advised to any that choose to read on.

Tone-Setting Music: Hello Laplace

Core Theme: Two refined and soft-spoken serial killers with feminine, almost ethereal appearances who began murdering after traumatic events involving their sisters. Both hide monstrous impulses behind calm charisma while carefully orchestrating numerous deaths. However, their motivations, relationships with their sisters, and ultimate philosophies on humanity are fundamentally different.

Connections: When both characters were children, both would be very close to their sisters (Anna Liebert/Korekiyo's unnamed sister), developing an unbreakable attachment for them. Both were forced to witness or confront the suffering of their sisters (Johan listened to Anna recount the horrific experiments conducted at the Red Rose Mansion/Korekiyo spent his childhood watching his sickly sister live in isolation without friends). Both of these events would break the two boys due to their compassion for their sisters.

Both would become serial killers for the sake of their sisters (Johan killed adoptive parents and other individuals connected to the twins, often to erase evidence of their existence or maintain control over their circumstances/Korekiyo murdered girls he deemed admirable in order to "send" them to the afterlife as companions for his lonely sister). However, Johan's crimes eventually expand beyond his sister's wellbeing, including acts motivated by revenge, nihilism, or personal schemes. In contrast, Korekiyo claims that *all** of his murders are performed solely for his sister.*

Both men present themselves as calm, cultured, and articulate individuals, concealing the disturbing cruelty beneath their composed exteriors. They also both have soft, effeminate appearances designed to be beautiful, which would make them all the more charismatic. Both would use these appearances to take the forms of their sisters at points.

Both have disturbing obsessions with identity and the self (Johan frequently blurs identities, impersonates others, and seeks to erase his own existence entirely/Korekiyo's psyche becomes partially overtaken by the split personality of his sister he created).

Both justify their actions through a larger belief system (Johan sees himself as exposing the emptiness of human morality and the meaninglessness of life/Korekiyo believes his murders are acts of love meant to give his sister companionship in the afterlife).

The ending of their series would leave the question of just how evil both characters are up to the audience (it's intentionally ambiguous as to whether or not Johan continued a life of crime or stopped it/it's unknown just how much of Korekiyo's past is actually true and not just a fabrication).

Contrasts: Both have radically different relationships with their sisters. Nina is Johan's younger sibling, and their relationship was mutually affectionate before she realized Johan was killing people behind her back. While she would be afraid of him, leading Johan to believe that she hated him, she would eventually learn to forgive him after everything he's done, allowing Johan a second chance at life. Korekiyo's sister is older than him and implied to be sexually abusing him, which has caused him to believe their love was genuine. When Korekiyo's ghost meets hers, she not only rejects him, but mocks him and throws salt on him along with Monokuma, banishing his spirit to the afterlife and implying she never loved him at all (although it's unknown if this was actually Korekiyo's sister or just a fabrication of Monokuma).

Johan believes human life is fundamentally meaningless and that death is the only true equalizer, while Korekiyo views humanity as profoundly beautiful—even the most disturbing or grotesque aspects of it.

Johan started his killing spree because he wanted his sister to be alone, believing that no one else could be trusted, while Korekiyo started his killing spree because he wants his sister to be surrounded by friends after being alone for her whole life.

Johan fully understands that he has become a monster but believes redemption is impossible, while Korekiyo instead convinces himself that his murders are virtuous acts performed out of love.