Izuru Kamukura

Izuru Kamukura (カムクラ イズル Kamukura Izuru) is one of the antagonists of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. He is an alternate identity of Hajime Hinata.

Izuru was the end product of the Hope Cultivation Plan and as a "genius out of the ordinary", Hope's Peak Academy's ultimate goal, went by the title of Ultimate Hope (超高校級の「希望」chō kōkō kyū no “kibō”). He is also named after Hope's Peak Academy's founder.

Izuru eventually joined Ultimate Despair, after being influenced by Junko Enoshima. After Junko's death, he and the other Remnants of Despair planned to resurrect her by letting AI Junko to take over their bodies.

Appearance
Izuru has long, flowing black hair. In addition, he has red eyes (as opposed to the green eyes of Hajime). He wears a black suit with a black tie and a white dress shirt inside and black loafers.

When Izuru appears in Hajime's subconcious, he is dressed in Hajime's attire.

After he's exit from the Neo World Program, Izuru cut his hair and removed his black suit, choosing to resume his appearance as Hajime.

Personality
Izuru appears as a cold and emotionless person who finds everything and everyone boring. He expresses a disgust for talentless people that oppress those with talent instead of acknowledging their "true superiors". He believes that such people brought the world to a deadlock and created a world that has stopped evolving.

Izuru appears to enjoy unpredictability, which can make him feel more emotional, but he quickly grows bored because of his immense talent which causes him to quickly predict things. This is seen in the chapter 0, as he is visibly excited by the rocking of the boat only to find it boring few second later.

Izuru also has the ability to read people from the second he looks at them, as he can immediately figure out Nagito Komaeda's true character.

In Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, Izuru appears completely silent and seemingly unemotional. However, he rips the hard drives from Shirokuma and Kurokuma in a rather aggressive manner, which is even commented on by the AI Junko.

When he awakens from the Neo World Program, despite still having his memories as Izuru and Ultimate Despair, he acquires some of the personality of Hajime Hinata, having preserved the memories from inside the program, and deciding to cut his hair and dress and live as Hajime.

Hope Cultivation Plan
Hope's Peak academy was established for the sake of cultivating personal talent in order to create a perfect genius, who would be the hope of mankind. For many years, the academy researched the talents of the Ultimates. This project was named the Hope Cultivation Plan, though it was also called the Izuru Kamukura Project after the academy's founder.

Recently, the researches were finally able to reach the experimental stage of the project. From there, they set their sights on the Reserve Course dropouts to use them as lab rats, as their plan to create talent artificially required test subjects that are wholly lacking in talent. From that group of Reserve Course students, the one who was finally chosen was Hajime Hinata, because he admired Hope's Peak Academy more than everybody else.

Hope's Peak Academy exploited Hajime's feelings of admiration toward hope and talent just to use him as a lab rat. All of his senses, emotions, thoughts, and hobbies that could interfere with acquiring talent were excised. All of his memories of the past were forcefully suppressed into the darkest recesses of his mind. By directly interfering with his brain, the academy transformed Hajime into a completely different person whose specialty is talent itself. He was meant to be the fruit of all the research, a genius among geniuses possessing various talents, and he was named Izuru Kamukura after the founder.

Izuru was known as the symbol of mankind's hope and he was given the title of Ultimate Hope. To protect such rare talent, the academy completely concealed all evidence of Izuru's origins and identity.

The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy
Izuru kick-started The Tragedy when he, along with the fourteen members of Hope's Peak's student council, were used by Junko Enoshima to participate in the first ever Mutual Killing Game known as The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy. The academy concealed the incident. It's a common misconception that Izuru is personally responsible for all the deaths and it's actually implied that he acted in self-defence.

Danganronpa/Zero
Izuru Kamukura isn't personally met by Ryoko in the story but in the Reserve Course Students's secret base she saw him in the recording of the Mutual Killing Game while he was about to kill another student.

He is mentioned a few times by Junko (who was later revealed to actually be Mukuro Ikusaba). Very few know about his existence and Kyoko Kirigiri tried to investigate him, but eventually had to give up.

It's revealed that after The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, from which he and Soshun Murasame were the only survivors, Izuru disappeared. Yasuke Matsuda also pretends to be him temporarily during his last encounter with Ryoko, before revealing he's actually Yasuke, not Izuru.

Joining of Ultimate Despair
At some point, Izuru joined Ultimate Despair, after being influenced by Junko. According to Junko, she simply broke his spirit.

After the death of Junko, Izuru agreed with the other Remnants of Despair a plan to allow AI Junko to take over their bodies through the Neo World Program.

Ultra Despair Girls
Izuru is mentioned during the prologue of the game when members of the Future Foundation are explaining The Tragedy to Komaru Naegi.

In chapter 5, Nagito Komaeda tells Monaca Towa that the Monokuma Kids informed him about a lone intruder in Towa City. This person is most likely Izuru.Interestingly seemed that Nagito was unaware that this person was Izuru despite the fact that both were members of the Ultimate Despair but this could be due to the jamming device of the Towa Tower that prevented Nagito from communicating with the others Remnants of Despair and left him anaware of their movements.

Izuru is seen briefly in the animated portion of the epilogue wheel-barreling Shirokuma and Kurokuma's head somewhere in Towa City before punching them and ripping their hard drives to get a basis for the AI Junko.

Izuru looks towards the city and walks away as the scene cuts out. He has no dialogue in this game and seems to have merely been observing the situation rather than playing a role.

Chapter 0 - Heading to the School Trip
Izuru was first seen inside a boat in Chapter 0. Inside the boat, he was accompanied by Nagito Komaeda, another of the Remnants of Despair, but they don't recognize each other. Izuru can easily tell the other boy's true character, but finds him boring.

Throughout the Killing Game
After Izuru entered the Neo World Program, the program dug up the memories of Hajime and rebuilt his old personality from data from the past.

Izuru lived throughout as Hajime. At the end of the last trial, Hajime accepts the responsibilities he made as Izuru and decides to face the possibility of awakening as him when he exits the game. When he awakens, he decides to stay in the island, and live on as Hajime Hinata.

According to Junko, Izuru was the one who brought the AI Junko to the Neo World Program, which started the serial murders. Being the same person as him, Hajime is both the protagonist and antagonist. This is confirmed by reflecting on Izuru's words during Chapter 0: he mentions that he plans to use Junko, and says that he has her "contribution" in his pocket.

Junko Enoshima
After joining Ultimate Despair, Izuru presumably developed a worship for its leader, Junko Enoshima, but his motives and true feelings towards her are unclear. According to Junko, she broke his spirit.

In Chapter 0, Izuru acknowledges that Junko used him in the past and seems to desire for revenge as he wants to use her like she used him. It's unclear what he meant by this and what his true plan was, but he planned to use the AI Junko in some way.

However when he and Hajime confront each other, in Hajime's subconscious, Izuru said "there's no way we can beat Junko", suggesting that probably Izuru considered himself lower compared to her.

Remnants of Despair
Izuru's relationship with the other Remnants of Despair is unknown as he is seen speaking only with Nagito. Interestingly, the two don't know each other, and Izuru considers the other boy completely boring.

However from the fact that the Remnants of Despair entered in the Neo World Program of their own will with the purpose of handing over their bodies to AI Junko for resurrect her and from the fact that Izuru personally installed AI Junko in the program, it can be presumed that they planned it together with Izuru as the plot's mastermind.

Hajime Hinata
Its unknown if Izuru knew of his previous identity as Hajime Hinata. While it's been confirmed that his first sixteen years of his life as Hajime were removed from his memory, there is some hints that indicate that Izuru was at least aware of his previous identity, like the words of AI Junko at the end of Ultra Despair Girls where she told him that he would be in a "different form" by their next meeting.

During the conversation Izuru had with Nagito, he said that "he will not be able to participate in what lies ahead", probably a reference to the fact that the Neo World Program would revert him back into Hajime.

Another hint can be the fact that during the last trial Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya were all surprised when it was revealed that Hajime and Izuru are the same person, despite the fact that they had already met and probably spoken with Izuru in the real world before putting him in the Neo World Program.

Its also possible that when Izuru was secured and interrogated with the other Remnants of Despair by the Future Foundation, he presented himself as Hajime Hinata in order to hide his true identity and fool them, as Makoto Naegi and Kyoko Kirigiri did not know much information about Izuru Kamakura.

Trivia

 * His first and last names, though written in katakana, are existing names that can be written in kanji.
 * "Izuru" (as 出流), which literally means "out of the current", could also mean "to go out into exile". Both of these meanings could reflect how Izuru Kamukura was a unique existence which felt very secluded due to having no peers.
 * "Kamukura" (as 神倉) means "God's storehouse" or "God's treasury". The name matches both the Izuru Kamukura discussed here's superhuman talent at virtually every field and also Hope's Peak's founder Izuru Kamukura being the man to conceive the idea of gathering extraordinarily talented youth from every single field in one school.
 * During the Island Life of Mutual Killing Junko told the students about Izuru and that speech is the main source of information on him. During this, however, she made several large contractions when discussing Izuru. It seems likely that Junko did this to manipulate the students. This means that much of the information on him has very questionable accuracy.