The Steering Committee

The Steering Committee (評議委員 Hyōgiiin) is an organization featured in Danganronpa/Zero and Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy - Side:Despair. They were major antagonists in the series.

They are scientists who are determined to research human talent, even if it means using inhuman experiments. They created the Reserve Course and were major players in the Izuru Kamukura Project. They are also the ones who hold the real power in Hope's Peak Academy, even above the headmaster. They hid anything that could ruin the school's image and thus many of their actions helped Junko Enoshima to achieve her goals.

The entire committee were killed in Danganronpa/Zero by Junko's followers ー two by Mukuro Ikusaba and the rest by brainwashed Reserve Course students.

Appearance
All four members of the Steering Committee are described as old men. Their pitch-black clothes are said to resemble funeral clothing.

The tallest man has darker skin and hair, and he is mentioned to have big eyebrows.

The second tallest man has grey hair and beard, and a very stern expression. Monokuma describes him as a "pistachio face, with no mental stability found in their head".

The second shortest man has a heavy build. He wears glasses and his hair is parted on one side.

The shortest man wears round sunglasses and has tied up, long, grey hair.

Personality
The Steering Committee is portrayed as a group of arrogant and greedy old men, who are only interested in their own goals and are willing to use cruel methods to achieve them.

They all have done shady things in their past and they often appear openly scornful and show disgust while talking with other people, believing that they're above them. They rarely listen to others and they're obsessed with keeping the school's good image, which is why they constantly hide information for their own good, not caring if it's morally right or not.

Sometimes the committee may even overrule decisions of headmaster and scouts and explicitly dis-involved them in the admission decisions of students, which is how they admitted Junko into Hope's Peak Academy. While they're not murderous like many other villains in the series, the Steering Committee's decisions greatly helped Junko and allowed her to achieve her evil goals.

Chapter 4
After The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, the school hid the incident, claiming that the student council were suddenly called to an overseas facility to study abroad. Yasuke Matsuda was the only student the facility trusted with the secret of their cover-up, as they needed his neurology skills for extracting and covering information from people. In exchange for his cooperation, he was awarded a large research grant and equipment for his lab.

A month after the incident, Jin Kirigiri and the Steering Committee ask Yasuke to extract information from Soshun Murasame, the second survivor of the school's Tragedy who is currently in coma. Yasuke is angered when the Steering Committee talks about Ryoko Otonashi in an insulting manner, but Jin calms down the situation and they come in an agreement.

Chapters 5-6
At night, one of the Steering Committee's members is murdered by Mukuro Ikusaba disguised as Junko. She surprised him from behind and strangled him with a rope. His body was left hanging from a tree in the central plaza. The body was found by Ryoko, but it disappeared soon after she ran away to find help.

Chapters 13-15
Kyoko Kirigiri, who is investigating the school's Tragedy, plans on meeting one of the Steering Committee's members on the school's eastern quarter's courtyard to ask him questions directly. When she first contacted the man, he coldly refused to meet her, insisting that it wasn’t necessary. But once she'd procured documents concerning shady deals in his past, she found him much more open to the suggestion.

The man is late for a few minutes. As he is annoyingly about to ask why Kyoko called him, he is suddenly crushed and hit directly on the head by a falling school desk, killing him. Then, several more desks fall down, hiding the body. Kyoko notices a human figure standing atop the school building. It's once again Mukuro disguised as Junko, though Kyoko cannot tell. She tries to target Kyoko as well, but she avoids the attack and goes inside the building. She can't find the culprit and soon the body disappears as well. She tells her father what happened and tells him to warn the Steering Committee.

Chapter 7
The last two members of the Steering Committee are tortured by the Reserve Course students' secret society for information. Hidden in the basement beneath an abandoned club room in the West District, they are locked inside two jail cells and their eyes get hideously sewn together. Both of them are left hunched over on chairs.

A day after one of the men eventually dies, Ryoko finds them by coincidence and the surviving man realizes she isn't part of the society. He asks her to help him in exchange of information. He explains that the Reserve Course wants to find out Izuru Kamukura's location and overthrow the school with his power. He says Ryoko needs to stop the Reserve Course and reveals that Izuru has been hidden inside the old school building. As Ryoko tries to continue listening, she suddenly feels dizziness. The man finishes speaking and asks her to free him now, but Ryoko is once again taken over by her original Junko persona. She laughs her signature laugh, angering and confusing the man. Ryoko loses consciousness and it's implied that afterwards the society's members came inside the room and killed the man.