Celestia Ludenberg

Celestia Ludenberg (セレスティア・ルーデンベルク Seresutia Rūdenberuku), real name Taeko Yasuhiro (安広多恵子 Yasuhiro Taeko), is one of the characters featured in Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair. She has the title Ultimate Gambler (超高校級の「ギャンブラー」Chō Kōkō Kyū no "Gyanburā"). She was a renowned gambler who managed to rob everyone of all their money whenever she played a game with them. Due to her nature, she was given the title "Queen of Liars". She was revealed to be the culpit of the third murder case and executed by Monokuma.

Appearance
Celestia has a slim figure and pale skin. She has black hair (in the video game it is shown as dark, deep blue) in two large twin-drill pigtails (which are apparently clip-ons as mentioned in the art book), red eyes, gold earrings, and black nail polish. Celestia wears a gothic lolita style outfit, consisting of a white blouse with a peter-pan collar, a black jacket that includes white ribbon lacing down the sleeves, fastened by a simple ribbon across her chest to show her red tie with a butterfly pattern on it and the waist of her skirt, which is many tiered and features white lace. She wears knee-high stockings trimmed in ladder lace, red mary janes with a thick heel, a white lace headpiece and a silver, almost weapon-like ring (reminiscent of a certain ring by Vivienne Westwood) on her index finger.

Personality
An experienced gambler, Celestia appears collected and cunning by nature. She possesses the ability to manipulate others into her bidding and can lie with a straight face. She makes use of these abilities by tricking Yamada into killing Ishimaru and deceiving the other students for the most part of Chapter 3.

Celestia is shown to be fairly intelligent, referencing several aspects of game theory such as Prisoner's Dilemma or Zero Sum Game, but her short-temperedness surfaces when something fails to go as well as she expects it to.

Pre-Despair Incident
Little is known about Celestia's life prior to being trapped within Hope's Peak Academy. However, from Naegi's interactions with her during Free Time periods, one can discover that Celestia has been gambling for the most part of her life, and that she has not heard the term "lose" for a long while. She tells how she has won countless games, even ones at the stake of her own life, but was able to win regardless. Celes also reveals that she used to visit a cafe (with an owner that somewhat resembled Yamada), where she would enjoy her preferred royal milk tea.

High School Life of Mutual Killing
Much like the other students, Celestia awakens to find herself trapped inside the school grounds, to her annoyance. She appears to adapt quickly to the new conditions, claiming that it is the only way to survive, and suggests the others do the same.

When Monokuma introduces the first "motive" to each of the students through individualized footage on CDs, Celestia is horrified at what her CD shows (but refuses to say what exactly she saw, which is never revealed). She aids the students in solving the first case after the deaths of Maizono and Ikusaba (disguised as Enoshima).

The Secret of Mondo Oowada
Celestia plays a key part in Chapter 2, having encountered Fujisaki in the storage room prior the latter's death. During this encounter, Celestia notices Fujisaki's blue jersey partially hanging out from his bag, which he then stuffs back inside before going off in a hurry. This later proves to be a major factor in figuring out who murdered Fujisaki.

The Queen of Liars's Greed Re-Rise and Fall
After Oowada's execution, Celestia is among the students who witness Monokuma present a ton of cash (10 billion yen) for whoever "graduates" from the academy. Succumbed to her own greed, Celes plans to commit a murder herself so she can get these cash just to escape the nightmare while ignoring her own comrade's survival. To initiate her plan, Celes takes Alter Ego, the AI developed by Fujisaki before his death, and hides it to cause confusion and upsets both Yamada and Ishimaru. Using their conflict for Alter Ego as her first step of her plan, Celes enlists Yamada as her accomplice (and tells him that she will act as his) by saying that Ishimaru took Alter Ego, and that he plans to kill him (Yamada). Yamada believes her and the two begin to conspire. They frame Hagakure by knocking him out and stuffing him into a robot suit. Celestia organizes Yamada's "death" after Ishimaru is killed, managing to trick the others into looking for the suspicious person wearing a robot suit. After Yamada relocates himself and Ishimaru's body to the Art Room, Celestia turns against him and kills him, as she planned to do from the beginning.

During the school trial, Celestia urges the students to declare Hagakure (Yamada's last clue before his real death) as the culprit to both murder since the robot costume matched his height. However, Togami, Naegi, and Kirigiri see past her lies and manage to prove Hagakure's innocence. Even with evidence having her cornered, Celes refuses to admit (changes her polite personality into her unusual rude mannerism), and would repeatedly deny Naegi's question over her real name and kept claiming that Hagakure is the culprit of the third trial, since she never revealed her real name since their first encounter. In the end however, her last stand is proven futile as Naegi mentions her ElectroID (real name displayed in every student's ID) and would let her guard down and that evidence alone would lead to her downfall. As she finally goes to the gallows and Monokuma reveals her real name as Taeko Yasuhiro, Celes finally tells them and admits to her crimes before facing her execution, stating that she wants to go out "gracefully". She gives Kirigiri the key to the locker Alter Ego is stashed in, bidding her classmates farewell and having Monokuma drag her off to her execution afterwards.

Execution

 * Main Article: Versailles style Witch Hunt Stake

Hifumi Yamada
Yamada and Celestia's relationship consists primarily of her bossing him around.

A prime example of this is when Yamada make Celes tea, only for her to dash the cup to the ground, claiming that she only drinks a certain milk tea. This is later taken to greater extents as Celes manipulates him into murdering Ishimaru with the premise of escaping the academy alongside her, using a photograph of Alter Ego in Ishimaru's room to provoke his anger; however, she subsequently backstabs him by murdering him in a similar fashion, then framing Hagakure.

Quotes

 * "Delighted to meet you. My name is Celestia Ludenberg."
 * “Heh heh... I’m afraid I can’t give you that. Celestia Ludenberg is the name I go by.”
 * “It’s a little… troubling for us. Spending the rest of our lives in this school…”
 * "My lies must never be too extravagant..."
 * "Your heart really is made out of stone, I hope your body at least gets some good minerals out of it."
 * "I'm rather proud of my ability to tell lies. I can trick not only others; but even my own heart."

Trivia

 * Celestia states that her dream is to live in an opulent mansion and be waited on by handsome young men dressed as vampires.
 * Celestia admits that she once managed to accumulate over ten billion yen through gambling.
 * Despite wanting to be a cultured person, Celestia admits that she likes gyoza.
 * In some Free-Time Events, she makes references to a few gambling series:
 * She states that she played mahjong against a "crazy rich old man" and a "silver-haired boy", referencing the manga series Akagi.
 * She won a tournament of shogi against an "unusual maid", referencing the manga series 81diver.
 * She claims the most dangerous situation she ever found herself in was the The Liar King, in which she played against an unusual pair consisting of a "foolishly-honest girl" and a "master con artist", referencing the manga series Liar Game.