Monokuma

Monokuma (モノクマ Monokuma) is the main antagonist of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and Zettai Zetsubou Shoujo - Danganronpa Another Episode. He 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).

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, as “brother”, who later renamed as “Monomi”.

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.

Personality
Monokuma's personality is divided into two seperate parts: his “right”, or “white” personality, resembles a normal teddy bear who will act cute, innocent, or even patronising. As such, during the times where this side of Monokuma is alive, he may come off with a polite and stepford demeanor. Monokuma's “left”, or “black” personality, is a malicious, evil, and cruel upbringer: an ego who would do anything for the sake of despair. Upon being mad or bothered, he will attack the cause as an effect, yet most of the time, he may hold himself back, under the claim that he cannot hurt his 'beloved students'. Monokuma tends to laugh his trademark laugh of a sadistic “upupupu”. Monokuma also dislikes people who don't obey him, and will threat those who oppose his command.

Prologue
He's first shown laughing at a man who has been tied in a rocket, after a second, Monokuma press a button and the rocket start to launch and crush back to the earth, drained the man's body to a skeleton, Monokuma laughing as the screen turned black.

In the game, he appeared when the trapped students were gathered inside the gymnasium. He introduced himself as the Headmaster of the Academy, which later doubted by all students. He explain that he just commencing the Mutual Killing and the other stuffs such as the School Rules and ElectroID.

Quotes

 * “Hey there, howdy, hello! Is everyone here? Good! Then let's get things rolling!”
 * “I... am... Monokuma! And I am this schoool's 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!”


 * “ Let's give it all we've got! IT'S... PUNISHMENT TIME!”
 * “ You're still to young! You should value your lives a little more!”
 * “Why, hello there! Thank you all for waiting! Now, let's begin!”

Trivia

 * Monokuma's name is a combination on the romanization of “monochrome” (referencing his black and white color scheme) and  クマ (“kuma”), the Japanese character for “bear”.
 * In Chapter 4 of the second game, it is revealed that he and Monomi both hate mice, their reasons unclear. (Most likely another reference to his resemblance to Doraemon, who is terrified of mice ever since a robotic mouse gnawed off his iconically-absent cat ears.)
 * It appears that Monokuma's red slash-shaped, “evil” left eye is meant to be similar to the symbol located on the front of Hope's Peak Academy's insignia.
 * In the end of the fifth chapter of the second game, Monokuma decides, apparently on a whim, to execute his “adoptive little sister” Monomi along with Chiaki Nanami - after the latter's words motivate Monomi to “finish off” Monokuma by grabbing onto him and self-destructing repeatedly (a plan that was, however, prone to fail as Monomi had around 10 spare copies at the time while Monokuma had novemdecillion (10^60)) - claiming that he “suddenly remembered that he's an only child” and that he has no reason to keep someone who does nothing but constantly interfere with his plans around. This is very reminiscent of how Junko Enoshima killed her twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba for the sake of her personal devices - a decision Junko later admits to have made on a whim as well.
 * In Danganronpa 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 so may or may not be true.
 * His Japanese voice actor Nobuyo Ooyama is popular from his voice acting of Doraemon, and Spike Chunsoft purposely made Monokuma sound like Doraemon.