Character

Junko Enoshima

As a young fashionista, Junko is described as simply "not fake", charismatic and eager to try new things. During her first appearances, she comes across slightly air-headed and hot-tempered. In the official art book, she is described as a person who "drips with dissatisfaction the moment she opens her mouth" and tends to be in trouble with her classmates. She is also mentioned to be a bit too talkative with an overly carefree attitude. However, Junko's real personality that is revealed at the conclusion of the Mutual Killing incident of Class 78th is notably different. Her true personality appears to be very apathetic and easily bored, to the unhealthy and abnormal degree. Because of this, her behavior and mannerisms tended to be extremely erratic and unstable by her own autonomous design; keeping up one "appearance" for too long bores her, which causes her to often switch between different personas. However, she is capable of maintaining one persona for extended periods of time when necessary, such as when she was overseeing the students through Monokuma. Junko's "moods" included (but were not limited to) her Monokuma persona, sickening cuteness, severe depression, clinical sophistication, and haughty superiority. She switched between "moods" regularly, often imitating other students' expressions, which made for a highly unsettling conversation to the survivors. While entering the Hope's Peak Academy as one of Class 78th students, she often talked in her narration-style and writes it in a notebook. Above all, Junko was deeply obsessed with despair, having found despair to be the most (and possibly the only) enjoyable emotion for her, whether it be the inflicting of despair unto others, or suffering from despair wholeheartedly. This made her extremely dangerous, as she wished to make the whole world feel absolute despair. However, this also often proved to be her biggest weakness, as she gave her opponents a "fair" chance to defeat her in order to make their despair all the greater if they fail, and happily welcomed her own despair if her plans fail. Both Junko herself and the game's creators have confirmed that she truly has no reason to do things she does other than despair itself, which makes her all the more dangerous and unable to reason with. In Danganronpa/Zero, it's revealed that her love for despair developed at quite young age due to an unknown reason, and that her true talent is her near supernatural analytical skills. It's also shown that under her amnesiac state, Junko doesn't show a thirst for despair or particularly strong hate for boredom, implying that her constant case of forgetfulness had spared her from embracing despair again. However, the return of her memories brought her back to her former ways. In Danganronpa 3, it's finally revealed that similar to Izuru Kamukura, her talent is the reason why she is easily bored with the world and seeks out unpredictable despair to free herself from the said boredom. As a mastermind and leader of Ultimate Despair, Junko was shown to be highly intelligent, cunning, somewhat impulsive, and extremely manipulative, violent and cruel without remorse. She was both physically and mentally abusive, highly toxic individual. She manipulated people into falling madly in love with her and used their weaknesses, their despair, against them. Things like hope, peace, and happiness disgusted her, but she sometimes gave hope to others, only to turn it into despair later. She often manipulated people into doing bad things instead of directly doing them herself, and then had a habit of blaming these manipulated people and claiming it wasn't her fault, as a part of proving her point that despair exists in everyone and that hope will naturally lose to that despair. While she is very skilled, Junko can also lie and cheat to further her own goals, even if it's hypocritical and goes against her beliefs. It should be noted that even though she claims despair is the great unknown, in the end the road of despair went exactly the way she had planned. While very abusive and cruel even towards her loved ones, it's implied that she felt at least some care for them, in her own messed-up way. It is interesting to note that the two people who Junko loved the most (Mukuro and Yasuke) are the only people shown in canon to be killed directly by her: Mukuro through the Spears of Gungnir and Yasuke through stabbing, whereas most of her other victims were killed indirectly through executions. This is likely because killing those she holds most dear would cause her great despair and to Junko, the greater the despair, the better. According to Kazutaka Kodaka and Junko's voice actress, her personality in Side: Despair is more natural version of her, closer to her true self and more neutral, before she started changing her personalities regularly. This seems to imply that her behavior in the first game is a result of decreasing mental health and deeper sinking into despair, explaining the more jaded and apathetic personality.