Monokuma

Monobear/Monokuma (モノクマ Monokuma) is a strange teddy bear who proclaims himself to be the principal of Hope's Peak Academy and initiates a life of mutual killing among the students, being the manipulator for everyone to experience the dog-eat-dog world and despair within their hearts (except optimistic students like Makoto Naegi's hope are immune to his despair plan). He appears in both Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair and its sequel, Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy.

Prior to the series, this cunning and vile being is actually a model animatronic bear used as an avatar to interact with the students by the mastermind. There are seemingly infinite copies of Monokuma, and he seems to have the ability to teleport also everywhere within the academy compounds. He is Usami's "brother".

Appearance
Monokuma's entire face and body splits equally down the center into two sides. It resembles the Yin-Yang symbol of which there's a balance between good and bad. In some occasions, Monokuma would show his good side in regular conversation but would turn to his bad side when he's angry, merciless, or ruthless.

His right side is white in color and has the classic teddy bear expression. His left side shows a more sinister look. It's black in color and has a red slash for an eye and an evil, stretched grin. Although he is entirely split into two opposite sides, the only parts of Monokuma that aren't affected by the split is his muzzle and belly area; which both remain white. He also has a large and obvious bellybutton on the lower part of his belly. His bulging navel has an X mark on it.

Quotes

 * “I’m Monokuma! Furthermore, your headmaster!”
 * “Hey, don’t make it sound like I’m some kind of a controlled children's toy. You’ll sink my feelings deeper than the Mariana Trench…”
 * “Oh? You’re a weird bunch, aren’t you. After all, didn’t you all come to this school out on your own volition?”
 * “Upupu… This heart-thumping feeling of distress… It’s just as if salmon suddenly started assaulting people…”
 * “Making such “hope”-filled kids kill each other — such a ‘despair’-filled situation —  My heart is all a-thump with excitement!”
 * “Killing each other is killing each other. If you need a dictionary I have one right here.”
 * “It’s an all-you-can-kill, kill-or-be-killed, killing-killing-killing-all-around world!”
 * "You know how, had I not been translated into English right now, they'd have "-chan" right there built into their name? That's like declaring their cuteness there and then. That's why I'd really like to be called "Monokuma-chan". See? With just this small change, my cuteness is increased by 10 percent! That's right! There is not enough "chan" in the world! If we had more "chan" we could save the world! Culprit-chan, war-chan, pollution-chan... Traffic-accident-chan, inheritance-dispute-chan, defiation-chan... Dark subjects immediately turn light and fluffly! We can spread our dreams everywhere!"

Trivia

 * Monokuma's name is a play on the romanization of "monochrome", referencing his black and white color scheme.


 * The being's voice actor is Nobuyo Oyama, a veteran who voiced Doraemon, one of the iconic manga characters during the 70's-90's, in the Doraemon series.
 * In Dangan Ronpa IF, it is revealed that Chihiro Fujisaki created Monokuma's software, after the characters' memories are restored. However, this event takes place in an alternate timeline, and may or may not be true.