Izuru Kamukura

Izuru Kamukura (カムクラ イズル Kamukura Izuru), also known as Izuru 1.0, is one of the two main antagonists of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and a central antagonist in the Danganronpa series. He is an alternate identity of Hajime Hinata.

Izuru was the end product of the Hope Cultivation Plan and as a "genius out of the ordinary", Hope's Peak Academy's ultimate goal, went by the title of Ultimate Hope (超高校級の「希望」chō kōkō kyū no “kibō”). He is also named after Hope's Peak Academy's founder.

Izuru eventually joined Ultimate Despair, after being influenced by Junko Enoshima.

Izuru is briefly shown in the epilogue of Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls.

Izuru, as the alternate identity of Hajime returns in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side: Despair with the other Remnants of Despair.

Appearance
Izuru has very long, flowing black hair. In addition, he has red eyes (as opposed to the green eyes of Hajime) with symbols resembling target radars running across his pupils. He also seems to have a pale complexion almost gray/cadaverous.

He wears a black suit with three white buttons, a black tie and a white dress shirt inside. He also has a black belt and black loafers.

When Izuru appears in Hajime's subconcious, he is dressed in Hajime's attire.

After he exits the Neo World Program, Izuru chooses to resume his appearance as Hajime, cutting his hair short and switching his black suit for Hajime's getup.

Personality
Due to the drastic changes that the operations made to turn Hajime into Izuru, his original personality was suppressed so as to not interfere with his talent cultivation.

Izuru appears as a cold and emotionless person who finds everything and everyone boring. He expresses a disgust for talentless people that oppress those with talent instead of acknowledging their "true superiors". He believes that such people brought the world to a deadlock and created a world that has stopped evolving. He mentions that this way of thinking was taught to him by his "teachers".

Izuru appears to enjoy unpredictability, which can make him feel more emotional, but he quickly grows bored because his immense talent and intuition causes him to quickly predict things with surprising accuracy. This is seen in the chapter 0, as he is visibly excited by the rocking of the boat only to find it boring a few seconds later. He is also so focused on the rocking that he doesn't realize he's on a boat, at first.

Izuru also has the ability to read people from the second he looks at them, as he immediately figured out Nagito Komaeda's true character.

In Danganronpa Another Episode, Izuru appears completely silent and seemingly unemotional. However, he rips the hard drives from Shirokuma and Kurokuma in a rather aggressive and seemingly annoyed manner, which is even commented on by the AI Junko.

After the Neo World Program, the person who went in as Izuru started to identify as Hajime. Whether this means Izuru was overwritten or that some of Hajime's personality traits bled through is left unclear.

Hope Cultivation Plan
Hope's Peak academy was established for the sake of cultivating personal talent in order to create a perfect genius, who would be the hope of mankind. For many years, the academy researched the talents of the Ultimates. This project was named the Hope Cultivation Plan, though it was also called the Izuru Kamukura Project after the academy's founder.

Recently, the researchers were finally able to reach the experimental stage of the project. From there, they set their sights on the Reserve Course dropouts to use them as lab rats, as their plan to create talent artificially required test subjects that are wholly lacking in talent. From that group of Reserve Course students, the one who was finally chosen was Hajime Hinata, because he admired Hope's Peak Academy more than everybody else.

Hope's Peak Academy exploited Hajime's feelings of admiration toward hope and talent just to use him as a lab rat. All of his senses, emotions, thoughts, and hobbies that could interfere with acquiring talent were excised. All of his memories of the past were forcefully suppressed into the darkest recesses of his mind. By directly interfering with his brain, the academy transformed Hajime into a completely different person whose specialty is talent itself. He was meant to be the fruit of all the research, a genius among geniuses possessing various talents, and he was named Izuru Kamukura after the founder.

Izuru was known as the symbol of mankind's hope and he was given the title of Ultimate Hope. To protect such rare talent, the academy completely concealed all evidence of Izuru's origins and identity.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side: Despair
Izuru, as the alternate identity of Hajime returns in Danganronpa 3 - Side: Despair, where its story focuses on the story of the Remnants of Despair during The Tragedy.

The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy
Izuru kick-started The Tragedy when he, along with the fourteen members of Hope's Peak's student council, were used by Junko Enoshima to participate in the first ever Mutual Killing Game known as The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy. The academy concealed the incident.

Junko claims that Izuru himself killed all 14 participants of the Mutual Killing Game (except for Soshun Murasame). This is proved to be false in Danganronpa/Zero in which a recording of the Mutual Killing Game revealed the students killed each other.

Danganronpa/Zero
Izuru Kamukura isn't personally met by Ryoko Otonashi but in the Reserve Course Students's secret base she saw him in the recording of the Mutual Killing Game while he was about to kill another student.

Izuru is mentioned a few times by Junko (who was later revealed to actually be Mukuro Ikusaba). Very few know about his existence and Kyoko Kirigiri tried to investigate him, but eventually had to give up.

It's revealed that after The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, from which he and Soshun Murasame were the only survivors, Izuru disappeared. Yasuke Matsuda also pretends to be him temporarily during his last encounter with Ryoko, before revealing he's actually Yasuke.

Joining Ultimate Despair
At some point, Izuru joined Ultimate Despair, after being influenced by Junko. According to Junko, she simply broke his spirit.

The members of Ultimate Despair did all kinds of horrible things during the Tragedy, causing despair all over the world.

After the death of Junko, Izuru set up with the complicity of the others Remnants of Despair a plan to allow AI Junko to take over their bodies through the Neo World Program.

Prologue - The Warriors of Hope
Izuru is mentioned during the prologue of the game when members of the Future Foundation are explaining The Tragedy to Komaru Naegi.

Chapter 5 - Absolute Despair Girl
In chapter 5, the Servant tells Monaca Towa that the Monokuma Kids informed him about a lone intruder in Towa City. This person is most likely Izuru, but interestingly it seems that the Servant was unaware of that despite the fact that both were members of Ultimate Despair. This could be due to the jamming device on Towa Tower that prevented the Servant from communicating with the others Remnants of Despair and left him unaware of their movements.

Epilogue - The Changing World We Made
Izuru is seen briefly in the animated portion of the epilogue; wheel-barreling Shirokuma and Kurokuma's head somewhere in Towa City before punching them and ripping their hard drives to get a basis for the AI Junko.

Izuru looks towards the city and walks away as the scene cuts out. He has no dialogue in this game and seems to have merely been observing the situation rather than playing a role.

Episode 01 - Third Time's the Charm
Already being a member of Ultimate Despair, Izuru watched the destroyed town from a high building.

Episode 03 - Cruel Violence and Hollow Words
When Izuru overviewed the destroyed city, Makoto Naegi encountered him, ultimately led to his capture.

Chapter 0 - Heading to the School Trip
Izuru was first seen inside a boat in Chapter 0. Inside the boat, he was accompanied by Nagito Komaeda, another of the Remnants of Despair, but they don't recognize each other. Izuru can easily tell the other boy's true character, but finds him boring.

Throughout the Killing Game
After Izuru entered the Neo World Program, the program dug up the memories of Hajime and rebuilt his old personality from data from the past. Izuru knew this would happen.

Izuru lived throughout as Hajime. At the end of the last trial, he and Hajime had a face to face in the latter's subconscious. During which Izuru tried to drop Hajime into despair reproach him all his weakness and talentless with the purpose to persuade Hajime to choose GRADUATION and so allow the resurrection of Junko Enoshima in the real world, but Hajime, with Chiaki Nanami's help, choose to not give up and perform the SHUTDOWN deciding to face the possibility of awakening as Izuru when he exits the game.

When he awakens, despite still having his memories as Izuru, he decides to stay on the island and live as Hajime Hinata. However, it is left unclear whether Izuru's personality was overwritten or simply mixed with Hajime's.

According to Junko, Izuru was the one who brought the AI Junko to the Neo World Program, which started the serial murders. Being the same person as him, Hajime is both the protagonist and antagonist. This is confirmed by reflecting on Izuru's words during Chapter 0. He mentions that he plans to use Junko, and says that he has her "contribution" in his pocket.

Junko Enoshima
After joining Ultimate Despair, Izuru presumably developed a worship for its leader, Junko Enoshima, but his motives and true feelings towards her are unclear. According to Junko, she broke his spirit.

In Chapter 0, Izuru acknowledges that Junko used him in the past and seems to desire for revenge as he wants to use her like she used him. It's unclear what he meant by this and what his true plan was, but he planned to use the AI Junko in some way.

But to contradict this are the words of AI Junko at the end of Danganronpa Another Episode when she said "I leave the rest to you" indicating that Junko, among all the Remnants of Despair, trust him enough to choose him as The Mastermind of her resurrection. This can suggest that Izuru was one of her most loyal Ultimate Despair if not the more loyal (after Mukuro).

Remnants of Despair
Izuru's relationship with the other Remnants of Despair is unknown as he is seen speaking only with Nagito. Interestingly, the two don't know each other, and Izuru considers the other boy completely boring, but this can be due from their different positions/ranks within the Ultimate Despair.

However, since the Remnants of Despair entered the Neo World Program of their own will with the purpose of handing over their bodies to AI Junko in order to resurrect her, while Izuru personally installed AI Junko in the program, it can be presumed that they planned it together with Izuru as the plot's mastermind.

It's also possible that at least Mikan Tsumiki knew Izuru, since after regaining her memories in Chapter 3, she claimed she knew who the traitor was, meaning she knew that all the others, including Hajime/Izuru, were members of the Ultimate Despair.

Hajime Hinata
It is unknown if Izuru knew of his previous identity as Hajime Hinata. While it's been confirmed that his first sixteen years of his life as Hajime were removed from his memory, there is some hints that indicate that Izuru was at least aware of his previous identity, like the words of AI Junko at the end of Danganronpa Another Episode where she told him that he would be "someone else entirely" by their next meeting.

During the conversation Izuru had with Nagito, he said that "he will not be able to participate in what lies ahead", probably a reference to the fact that the Neo World Program would revert him back into Hajime.

Another hint can be the fact that during the last trial Makoto, Kyoko Kirigiri and Byakuya Togami were all surprised when it was revealed that Hajime and Izuru are the same person, despite the fact that they had already met and probably spoken with Izuru in the real world before putting him in the Neo World Program.

Its also possible that when Izuru was secured and interrogated with the other Remnants of Despair by the Future Foundation, he presented himself as Hajime Hinata in order to hide his true identity and fool them, as Makoto and Kyoko did not know much information about Izuru Kamakura.

Trivia

 * His first and last names are written in katakana, but the original Izuru Kamukura's names are written in kanji.
 * "Izuru" (as 出流), which literally means "out of the current", could also mean "to go out into exile". Both of these meanings could reflect how Izuru Kamukura was a unique existence which felt very secluded due to having no peers.
 * "Kamukura" (as 神座) means "a place in which a god resides" or "a seat for gods". This could reflect how Izuru was created to be a host for superhuman talent.
 * Izuru has several talents, including the ability to predict things quickly and with surprising accuracy, the ability to analyze/read people from the second he looks at them, and superhuman strength.
 * During the Island Life of Mutual Killing Junko told the students about Izuru and that speech is the main source of information on him. During this, however, she made several large contradictions when discussing Izuru. It seems likely that Junko did this to manipulate the students. This means that much of the information on him has very questionable accuracy.
 * Technically, being the same person as Hajime Hinata, Izuru is the only known character in the Danganronpa series that has participated in two Mutual Killing Games and survived.