Hajime Makunouchi was once a scrapped design left in LINUJ's notebook prior to the time he discovered Danganronpa. His initial design has little resemblance to his final design: he wore a t-shirt with the word "Victory" on it, a tooth-like necklace, a pair of shorts, and a champions belt presumably meant to keep them up. He did, however, retain the same hairstyle and sunglasses within his final design. He was eventually redesigned as LINUJ began to consider the idea of making a sequel to Danganronpa Another: apart from the design of the champions belt and the removal of scars, nothing else was different between the prototype and final designs.

Additionally, while LINUJ regards Hajime's childhood as a common cliche, he also really liked his character and childhood. He also noted that while Hajime's sunglasses are meant for optical nerve damage, he also just liked to draw sunglasses, suggesting that they originally served no purpose in the initial design.