Mahiru Koizumi

Mahiru Koizumi (小泉 真昼 Koizumi Mahiru) is one of the characters featured in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Her title is Ultimate Photographer (超高校級の「写真家」Chō Kōkō-kyū no  “ Shashinka ” ).

She was murdered by Peko in Chapter 2 after she had an argument with Fuyuhiko about the Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery in the beach house.

Appearance
Mahiru's appearance consists of an olive-green school jumper with a cream-and-orange tie, which she knots around the collar of her white uniform shirt. She is nearly always seen with a camera, which she carries on an orange shoulder strap. She wears knee-high socks in a slightly darker shade of olive green the her outfit, and her shoes are a dark shade of forest green. Directly below the opening of the socks, there is a small orange symbol. She wears her hair in a short, slightly choppy crimson bob, and her eyes are almost the same color of her jumper. It should be noted she has a light dusting of freckles on her nose.

Personality
Mahiru is an optimistic and sensible girl who is generally rather calm and unafraid to speak her mind. She initially comes off as confident, but is later revealed to have self-esteem issues. Mahiru compares her photographs to those of her mother, a famous war photographer whose career led her to be absent from home for much of Mahiru's life. Her father was a very poor parent, leaving the responsibility of the housework entirely to her.

She has high expectations of men and is quick to be abrasive towards them. She is much more tolerant and friendly to girls. The subjects of her photos are usually of girls, and she tells Hajime that she easily gets bored of photographing guys.

Mahiru wants to help as many people as she can, but is not a pushover- she doesn't hesitate to scold those who are rude to her. Mahiru is introduced as hating people who lack manners, though she later develops a very close friendship with Hiyoko.

She thinks her title of  “ Ultimate Photographer ”  is stupid compared to everyone else's.

History
[Warning: Several spoilers follow this section!]

Prior to the Tragedy
During her stay at Hope's Peak Academy, Mahiru is revealed to have an especially close friendship with Ibuki Mioda, Mikan Tsumiki, and Hiyoko Saionji. During her stay, she joined the photography club with Fuyuhiko's sister. She was then bullied by the latter.

Her Free Time Events reveal that she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps as a photographer and gain her title of  “ Ultimate Photographer ”. She also had an unemployment father who doesn't help Mahiru do the house chores when her mother gone. Mahiru says that she feels inferior to the other students when comparing her talent to theirs.

Island Life of Mutual Killing
Hajime first finds Mahiru near the Lodge in the Hotel. Mahiru directly scolds Hajime, because he had lost consciousness and Mahiru said that he must protect the girls. Komaeda introduced her to Hajime, stating that he heard Mahiru had won all kinds of photography awards. Mahiru's best known for her charateristic portrait. At first, Mahiru doesn't seem flustered like the other students when they first arrived at the island. She and few other students receive Usami's presents happily. They enjoyed the presents at the first beach until Monokuma ruined everything.

In the next morning, Mahiru attended Byakuya's meeting at the hotel restaurant. All students had already arrived, except Kazuichi Soda, Mahiru then dragged Kazuichi with her to the hotel restaurant, in order to start the meeting. Having done with Kazuichi, suddenly Mikan fell in a weird pose, Mahiru quickly helped her up, aside Hiyoko's insults and Ibuki and Teruteru lewdness. Just when the problems were done, Byakuya started the meeting with a declaration that he'd lead the groups until they escaped from the island, which made Mahiru rather annoyed by his aggressive declaration, she preferred Sonia Nevermind, mainly because she thought that Sonia's made her fit to be a leader. But Sonia told her that her title is just for a  “ decoration ”, Sonia told her that a leader would have protect his men, something Byakuya appeared willing to do, and after that, Mahiru accepted Byakuya as the leader.

During the party, Mahiru is willing to take her friends picture. When the murder occured, this photograph help the students to deduce the person who set up the blackout plan.

In the beginning of chapter 2, her friendship with Hiyoko bloom after she willing to helped Hiyoko to solved her problem by took bath together and teach how to tie her kimono obi. And after heard that Nagito was tied in the Old Lodge, she forced Hajime to brought him a breakfast. But actually, she has met with Nagito, who later told her to play the second motive, Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery but she decided to not played it until she received a file filled with real life photos from Fuyuhiko, Mahiru finally decided to play the game. There, she regains her memories and feels compelled to ask everyone involved in the game to talk to her about it. She invites Fuyuhiko, Hiyoko, Ibuki and Mikan to the beach house, but the letter four decline due to having a previous engagement - Sonia's girls-only swimming trip. When Peko heard Mahiru and Hiyoko's plan to discuss about Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery, she quickly sent them a fake message. Peko sent a message to Hiyoko (Peko sent the message using Mahiru's name) to meet Mahiru in Beach House at 2.00 a.m., and Peko sent a message to Mahiru (Peko sent the message using Hiyoko's name) at 2.30 a.m.

Mahiru came to the beach house right at 2.00 a.m., where she met with Fuyuhiko and caught in an argument about the current motive. Just a second before Fuyuhiko took an action, Mahiru was then bludgeoned on the head by Peko on Fuyuhiko's behalf using a metal bat, incidentally recreating the final scene in the Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery.

Hiyoko witnessed said murder, and escaped the beach house via the front door. Her death is avenged thanks to the efforts of Hajime Hinata, Nagito Komaeda, and Chiaki Nanami.

In Chapter 3, Hiyoko made a shrine dedicated to Mahiru to recalls her kindness.

Hiyoko Saionji
Even though Mahiru is the same age as Hiyoko, she treats her as a younger sister, such as helping her with her clothing and taking baths with her.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu
Mahiru often scolded the Ultimate Yakuza when he would mouth off to his classmates, resulting in arguments between the two that had to be broken up by the others, usually Komaeda or Hajime. Later at Chapter 2, Fuyuhiko invited by Mahiru at Beach House at Second Island to discuss the curent motive. But they caught up at arguments and Mahiru killed by Peko in result.

Sato
Before Mahiru got dragged to the Dangan Island with the others, she develop a friendship with Sato, one of Hope's Peak talented student. Mahiru and Sato also team up with Mikan, Hiyoko and Ibuki. At one day, Sato was tired looking at Mahiru who being bullied by Fuyuhiko's sister, when she attempt to stop her bullying action in peace, Sato ended murder Fuyuhiko's sister in the music room. Mahiru knew this, and promise would covered her by destroyed the evidence.

Quotes

 * “ A man shouldn’t be so fragile, you know? It’s your job to protect us girls at times like this, isn’t it? ”
 * “ Let's see... I'm Mahiru Koizumi. I'll be counting on you from now on. ”
 * “ You should really listen to what people say, you know! Otherwise you’ll miss the important details! Like that, just now! ”
 * “ Well, I regret to inform that you are hereby branded "Hajime the unreliable." I expect you to work hard to shake that title off. Act more like a man! ”
 * “ YOUR REASONING IS OUT OF FOCUS! ”
 * “For the moment first i saw you, I thought you'd make a great househusband ! ” (to Nagito Komaeda)
 * “Alright?... Of course i'm not alright! This is madness! ” (to Hajime Hinata)
 * “ But... that went far beyond being clumsy. The way you fell down takes some skill. ” (to Mikan Tsumiki)
 * “ Hey! Did no one ever teach you about delicacy? Are you living in a country full of males? ”  (to Nekomaru Nidai)
 * “ I know you like games! But... if you don't get out in the sun once in a while you're going to get sick you know? Besides, it's important to make friends with the people around you! ”  (to Chiaki Nanami)
 * “ If there's something you're hiding. I wish you'd tell me. I mean... aren't we friends? ”  (to Satou)
 * “ Revenge is just wrong! ”  (to Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu)

Trivia

 * Her last name literally translates to  “ little fountain ”, while her first name means “true noon”.
 * She shares the same birthday with Aoi Asahina from the first game.
 * Mahiru's e-Handbook states that she likes traveling alone and dislikes people with bad manners.