Gundham Tanaka

Gundam Tanaka (田中 眼蛇夢 Tanaka Gandamu) is one of the characters featured in Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy. He has the title Ultimate Animal Breeder (超高校級の飼育委員 chō kōkō-kyū no shiiku iin). He also owns four hamsters, referring to them as  Four Dark Gods of Destruction ( 破壊神暗黒四天王 hakai-shin ankoku shiten-ou, lit. Four Heavenly Kings of Darkness and Gods of Destruction).

Appearance
Tanaka wears a long, black jacket that, according to his reference sheet, is his school uniform that is always left open, and the left sleeve pulled up the elbow and held by silver pins. He also wears a long purple scarf that often covers his mouth. The back of his jacket, as well as both ends of his scarf have a strange, vertical symbol printed on them. His entire left arm, at least up to the elbow is completely covered in bandages, assumably due to injuries that he had received while taking care of or calming down his hamsters. The famous 'Devil Dog Earring' hangs from his right ear, and he wears two silver rings on his right hand (pointer and middle). Under his jacket, Tanaka wears a white button-up shirt that is also left open, and another shirt under it which is slightly darker and has a greyish-purple cross design across its front. He seems to be wearing normal black pants held up with a black belt and silver buckle, and black boots with numerous straps across them.

He is also constantly next to or surrounded by his four hamster, the Four Dark Gods of Destruction, Sun-D (orange and white), Jum-P (grey and white), Maga-G (chipped ear), and Cham-P (big and orange). They apparently often camp out inside the scarf that Tanaka always keeps wrapped around his neck, occasionally coming out every now and then.

Interestingly, Tanaka's left eye is grey, while his right eye is red, though the red is revealed to be a colored contact. He also usually appears to have no eyebrows, although in two of his sprites, he magically does (although in those cases, they may have just been added as to portray the correct emotion on his face easier). He has a greyish scar that runs down the left side of his face and through his left eye. His skin tone is noticeably pale and greyish compared to the other characters, which could suggest that he doesn't get out much. His head appears to be shaved from the neck up to his temple, where the rest of his hair seems to be slicked back with the exception of a poof of hair in the middle that sticks up and is fairly curly. His hair colour is black with pale grey streaks through it. This may either be due to bleaching his hair or a melanin deficiency known as poliosis, giving him several 'Mallen streaks'.

Personality
Tanaka has an eccentric and somewhat dark personality. He very often claims that he has been blessed with the evil powers of the underworld, and refers to everyone else as 'pathetic human beings'. Tanaka is often lost in his own little world, usually paying more attention to himself or his hamsters than the things that are going around him, such as in Chapter 1 when he failed to investigate after the murder and putting his lost Devil Dog Earring at a higher priority. He may also have an interest or knowledge of alchemy. Despite first impressions, he is generally rather comical in what he says to Dangan Ronpa spectators (not so much for characters actually talking to him), and somewhat contradicting or counterproductive: such as in his introduction, when he tells Hinata to step forward and introduce himself, for Tanaka will destroy him once he does. He also constantly tells others not to come near him or to touch him, claiming that poison runs in his veins.

However, albeit his 'I am the Dark Lord' ramblings, he is shown that he seriously cares about animals, and understands them much better than he understands people. In one of his Free-Time Events, he tells Hinata that he runs an informational website about breeding which he maintains carefully. It is also implied that though he puts on the face of a loner who wouldn't dream of hanging out with pathetic mortals, Tanaka actually may be very lonely as he once boasted that he was searching for solitude before wandering away slowly and silently.

It is possible that Tanaka's delusions of self-grandeur stem from an inferiority complex and pseudo syndrome known as chuunibyou (1, 2, 3), which would explain his strong belief in his apparent origins and his eccentric behaviour. If this is truly the case, then Tanaka overcompensates for his underlying, probably gentle spirit by creating an entirely new, exciting personality.

In another one of Tanaka's Free-Time Events, he states that he pities livestock for being raised for the sole purpose of human consumption. This could mean that Tanaka is possibly a vegetarian or vegan, though it is not for sure.

History
[Warning: Several spoilers follow this section!]

Pre-Despair Incident
Free-Time Event interactions with Tanaka show that as a child, he lived with his mother; whether he had a father or not is unknown. By an (un?)lucky guess by Hinata, it is revealed that though Tanaka and his mother seemed to be in good relations, his mother was extremely terrible at cooking food which later became the basis for Tanaka's self-belief that his body was filled with poison. He was apparently never one for crowds or large events, saying that as a child, he would often skip out on Sports Days and camp out in the school infirmary instead as so that he could avoid touching or being touched by other people. He has many other animals at home, and apparently has some very few, select people that he chooses as assistants in taking care of the animals he breeds. He also has a website about the dark arts, though he claims those that lack the proper abilities can only perceive a blog about animal breeding. Hinata comments that underneath his eccentricity, Tanaka is a boy who genuinely loves animals.

Island Life of Mutual Killing
Tanaka can first be found in the Airport, along with Souda, and is quick to alarm Hinata with his extraordinary personality. In the beginning, he seemed to keep his distance from all the other students on the Island, not participating in the Beach Party and not doing anything particularly noticeable. However, he did play a large part in the Class Trial of Chapter 1, due to him losing his precious Devil Dog Earring at Togami's party. At some point in the party, Tanaka had dropped his Devil Dog Earring that he claims he got from a Pomeranian a fearsome Devil Dog, which he later discovered to have fallen between the floorboards under the Old Lodge. With Nanami's help, he had gone around the building to look for a place to get in under to no avail, and later found a secret door in the Storage of the lodge that allowed him to get under the floorboards and retrieve his earring; all information which helped to prove Kuzuryuu innocent and pin Hanamura as the culprit.

After the events of Chapter 2 and Saionji's construction of a sinister memorial for Koizumi, Tanaka came in late to the Restaurant after everybody else right after they had managed to stop Saionji's crying. Even he was shocked to see the memorial and claimed it stunk of evil intentions and spirits, unintentionally making Saionji cry again.

In Chapter 3, he was one of the students along with Sonia, Souda, Saionji, and Nanami who moved to the Motel after the outbreak of Despair Fever. Hinata met him on his way to the hotel after the discovery of Mioda's body in the Livehouse, giving Tanaka an alibi as to where he was when Saionji's body was discovered in the same place later. Around Chapter 3, he began to become friends with Sonia, much to Souda's unhappiness and leading to an argument in the Third Trial where they both threatened to kill each other.

In Chapter 4, he helped explore the Strawberry and Muscat Houses and their respective Towers with Sonia. Tanaka was one of the boys who stayed in the Strawberry House, and was given one of the two Luxury Rooms to stay in, Komaeda taking the other. Initially, he did not seem particularly alarmed at the fourth motivation as announced by Monobear, which was starvation until a murder took place, and he found that the seeds of the flowers planted around the Strawberry House were sufficient food for his hamsters. However, refusing to have everybody just idle around until they all dropped from starvation, he planned and carried out the murder of Nekomaru Nidai on the third day of starvation by using the secret of the Prank House to drop Nidai from a height of four floors, very successfully killing him.

In the Class Trial, as the evidence pointing to him began piling up, Tanaka became noticeably panicked and surprisingly angry, even slightly losing his usual manner of speech. After Hinata gave out the decisive evidence that proved Tanaka as the concrete culprit of Nidai's death, he began to exhibit behaviour that slightly implied borderline loss of mentality, urging on all the students to send the unsavory vote against him and send him to his execution. However, it may have all been an act, as he calms down to explain the true events of what happened between Nidai and him. Tanaka reveals that before Nidai died, the two of them had a duel to win the rights to keep living, with Tanaka emerging as victor. Before he leaves for his execution, he gives a small rant how it was despicable how all the students planned to just let their short, single life go. He tells them of the importance of life and how it is necessary to keep fighting for however many days they have left on Earth and keep clinging on to it.

All the students keep his speech on remembering the importance of living after his death, promising each other that they would stick together and never let another life go to waste. Owari forgives Tanaka for his murder of Nidai, going off to eat some proper food for the first time in days because "that's what living's about".

Execution

 * Main Article: Gundam Falling to the Earth

Sonia Nevermind
He became very close to Sonia Nevermind, due to their complimenting interests (such as her interest in the occult with his odd behaviour, or her liking of his 'cute hamsters'). She constantly sides with Tanaka, even going off with him to explore the Prank House before Souda noticed. She is also the only one that Tanaka does not refer to as kisama (a way of saying 'you' that suggests contempt, or alternatively an archaic polite form of 'you') or by their last name, instead calling her 'She-Cat' at one point. She is also the only one to have made him blush. When Tanaka is deemed the culprit of Chapter 4, Sonia refuses to believe it, urging him to object against Hinata's accusations.

Kazuichi Souda
The two end up locked in a form of rivalry with each other over Sonia Nevermind, due to Sonia preferring to be around Tanaka, while Souda has a strong liking for Sonia. Although the feeling of rivalry was mostly one sided (from Souda) at first, they end up arguing in Chapter 3's Class Trial, both throwing around childish insults and threatening to kill each other. Otherwise, in Tanaka's eyes, Souda is at the Pathetic Mortal level and he does not pay him much attention.

Hajime Hinata
At one point, Tanaka is implied to have tried to follow Hinata and the rest of the students, though when discovered, he denied it and went away. Hinata and Tanaka become rather good friends through Free-Time Events, and in his final FTE (which takes place in the Strawberry House), Tanaka makes Hinata sign a contract via handshake and declares that with the contract, Hinata will not be permitted to die without exclusive permission from Gundam Tanaka himself. Hinata thinks to himself that he would like to return that promise back to Tanaka, though he figured that Tanaka might get angry instead. Comically, their handshake ends in a mutual hand-squeezing to the death.

Quotes

 * "Stop right there. If you value your life, don't come any closer."
 * "I am Gundam Tanaka... You would do well to remember it. It is the name of the man that will, one day, rule the entire world!"
 * "Now, my Four Heavenly Kings... it is snack time!"
 * "Monobear. I will listen to your jests later, as I smoke a cigar standing over your corpse."
 * "You're saying they're cute? ...Thanks..."  (to Sonia Nevermind)
 * "Now, my beloved, sworn enemies! Let voting time begin!"
 * "If one would call murder so that one may live 'evil', then what must one call surrendering on life itself?! If the world shall name it just, then I shall fight that world with all my strength, for to renounce life and choose death is a blasphemy to life itself! It is the perversion of nature, the conceit of mankind!"

Trivia

 * Tanaka means "rice field" and "center". Together this may mean "central rice field".
 * The names of his four hamsters are: Sun-D, Jum-P, Maga-G and Cham-P. All of the names are references to shounen manga magazines (Sunday, Jump, Magazine and Champion).
 * His name is a reference to the popular Japanese mecha anime series, Mobile Suit Gundam 0079, with his Execution's name being a reference to when the RX-79 Gundam fell to Earth after a battle against Zeon Ace Char Aznable.
 * Tanaka's ElectroID states that he likes his hamsters, the Four Dark Gods of Destruction, and hates the earthly existence itself.
 * According to his Free-Time Events, one difficulty he faced during childhood was his mother's horrible cooking.
 * Finishing Tanaka's Free-Time Events yields the item 'Tanaka's Underwear', which are invisible to those who have too low of an "astral level."