Monokuma (Danganronpa)

Monokuma is the main antagonist of the Danganronpa franchise. He's a stuffed robotic bear who is the self-proclaimed Headmaster known for his killing games. During the refinement in preparation for the Killing School Life, Junko Enoshima determined that a mascot is necessary as well - not even a host dressed in a sort of a cartoon character outfit would do. So with that said, the prototype execution featuring Chiaki Nanami was hosted to the Class 77-B with a non-robotic stuffed bear version of Monokuma. At around the same time, she contacted Monaca, the Head of Towa Group's robotics division, to create the robotic version to be used for the Killing School Life, as well as additional units to serve as Junko's army. In order to hide the true nature of the robot, Monaca claimed that she wanted to develop a series of robots that could assist in rescue operations and other scenarios that would be dangerous for humans. The Monokuma units were then secretly distributed to the various branches of Ultimate Despair, with Junko taking several for her plot at Hope's Peak Academy. Junko also creates a personality for Monokuma in the Killing Game while she controls him.

Why He Rocks

 * 1) Being a felon, Monokuma has a sinister personality yet also having this easygoing and cheerful behavior at first glance making him an example of a "wolf in sheep's clothing" (or bear in sheep's clothing at least).
 * 2) *For further extension, his character design is really creative. It represents duality in both personality and design-wise. He does have a white innocent side and a black evil side as you can tell. For personality, he's got a creative characterization where he's polite and innocent but mostly cruel and twisted. It's really unpredictable and interesting to see how he can switch between these traits.
 * 3) His executions towards the students are really clever. There are a lot of executions to mention like Blast Off!, One Woman Army, Please Insert Coin, Der Flohwalzer, Wild West Insecticide, the list can go one. Brutal yet compelling.
 * 4) Being a villain, he can sometimes be an entertaining bad guy kinda like Robbie Rotten or Dr. Neo Cortex like saying some fun lines that he would say throughout the franchise which are a lot to mention.
 * 5) He one of these villains who have this optimistic side. For Monokuma's case, he's really happy about Class trials and does everything he can in order to make them entertaining for himself.
 * 6) He is shown to love the Monokuma Kubs (Monotaro, Monokid, Monosuke, Monodam, and Monophanie) whereas he refers to them as "adorable children". He even seems to like Monophanie the most due to her unique kind personality and general cuteness (though Monophanie's sweetness also seems to annoy Monokuma at times as well). Though this is not what it seems to be.
 * 7) *For a better relationship, he treats the Monobeasts like pets rather than mere machines and tools.
 * 8) *Out of all the relationships towards the students, Monokuma respects Junko Enoshima since Junko was the mastermind behind Monokuma. He refers to Junko has "Lady Junko".
 * 9) Monokuma means business. He's taken great pride as his role as a headmaster.
 * 10) He's written as the type of character who can say anything he wants without fear of repercussion. This makes him a threatening villain and Kazutaka Kodaka (the creator and scenario writer of the Danganronpa franchise) claims that Monokuma is by far the easiest character to write.
 * 11) Without him, there wouldn't be Danganronpa since he's one of the main aspects of the franchise. You see, he even said "You noticed way too late, there's no Danganronpa without Monokuma! Since I'm here, that means this is Danganronpa!".

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some would find Monokuma unlikable since he's still a villain after all. Either way, villains are meant to be bad and they can be important to the story if done right.
 * 2) He's not all that loving towards the Monokubs, treating them as expendable and even viewing them as inferior. This is noticed in V3.
 * 3) Can be immature and childish.
 * 4) Some may find his bear puns annoying like "It never gets old! It's so fun and entertaining that I just get un-BEAR-ably pumped up!".

Trivia

 * Monokuma is based on the idea of guilty (黒, literally "black") and innocent (白, literally "white")
 * Monokuma was originally going to be based on an anatomy model commonly used in science courses. His "white" and "black" sides were originally a fully skinned side and one that exposes muscle and organs..
 * Monokuma's name is a combination of the romanization of “monochrome” (モノクローム, monokurōmu), referencing his black and white color scheme, and クマ (kuma), the Japanese word for “bear”.
 * He's similar to two characters. First off, he shares similarities to Zero lll from Zero Escape including that they are highly advanced technologies structured after animals that are intermediaries behind the mastermind and the players. Another character Monokuma shares similarities with is Billy the Puppet from the Saw series. Both of them act as avatars to the masterminds behind their violent games, both have a black, white, and red color scheme, they both revel in giving their victims a tiny chance of survival (although Billy tends to be more genuine about it than Monokuma), and both make use of elaborate traps meant to inflict grisly, ironic deaths on their victims.
 * In one of the instances of "Monokuma Theater" in Chapter 4, Monokuma speaks in morse code. Translated, the message reads "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR KUMATINE", a reference to A Christmas Story.
 * It appears that Monokuma's “evil” left eye is meant to be similar to the symbol located on the front of Hope's Peak Academy's insignia. It is later shown in Danganronpa 3: Despair Arc that, upon arriving at the school's gates, Junko took a glance at the Hope's Peak insignia and incorporated part of it while designing Monokuma.
 * As seen in various promotional beta art, Monokuma was likely going to appear in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and have a major role in the game as he is seen running away from Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa.
 * In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Monokuma is revealed to hate Sonic the Hedgehog with passion, seemingly jealous of his fame. On November 3, 2017, Sonic the Hedgehog's official Twitter page answered to Spike Chunsoft about Monokuma's outburst using comments by Sonic, Doctor Eggman, and Shadow the Hedgehog. Doctor Eggman, of course, agrees with Monokuma's opinion while Sonic quotes Danganronpa's famous catchphrase by going "you've got that wrong" (the original quote in the English localization is "No, that's wrong"). He uses his hatred to Sonic-in-game to regain his motivation by comparing him to a crime scene in the Neo World Program.
 * Monokuma was referenced in AI: The Somnium Files, a Spike Chunsoft's game from 2019. When Date goes back to the first crime scene with Iris, if the player investigates a panda ride, Iris says "A black and white bear... I'm not gonna be punished, am I?" When Date asks her what she was talking about, Iris replies with "Just thinking about a game I like." Monokuma's all-white and all-black faces also appear on Junko's autograph, shown when the player chooses to read the autograph in the middle in Mayumi's Somnium.