History Characters / DanganronpaMonokuma

* VerbalTic: Upupupupu... The game's official dub turns this into a slightly-less awkward sounding "puhuhuhu" while the anime's dub converts it to a more cartoonish "nyuknyuknyuk."

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Nobuyo Ōyama (Japanese, ''Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc''-''Ultra Despair Girls''), Creator/{{TARAKO}} (Japanese, ''Danganronpa The Stage 2016''-Present) , Creator/BrianBeacock (game), Creator/GregAyres (anime) (English)

* SamusIsAGirl: Despite the Monokuma mascot being male, his controller is iconically the female Junko Enoshima.

* SamusIsAGirl: Well, he ''is'' controlled by a girl. Although Monokuma himself is consistently referred to as male, he still casually tells someone that the only thing he isn't willing to talk about are "measurements," which tend to be used in regards to a woman's body.

* SamusIsAGirl: Once again, he's controlled by Junko Enoshima, though now in AI form.

* EvilPrincipal: He calls himself the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy (and in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'', of Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles), and since there are no adults present, he effectively is one. Maintaining a friendly and comedic demeanor, he blackmails students into killing each other and isn't above getting his hands dirty when threatened. For the majority of the game, one of the ongoing mysteries is if the KillerGameMaster and the school's real headmaster are the same person. [[spoiler:They are not, though Jin Kirigiri played a role in Junko's rise as the Steering Committee forced him to let her get away with murder]].

* FairPlayVillain: Monokuma prides himself on always following the rules, because he knows that if he doesn't, the students won't either. When he ''does'' resort to outright rulebreaking ([[spoiler: Framing Sakura's suicide as due to despair and framing Kyoko in ''THH'' and framing Kaede for Rantaro's murder in V3]]), it's pointed out as a sign that he's getting really desperate and the game is breaking up on him. And even then, he'll allow a retrial if confronted with his lies on the grounds that the audience wouldn't be satisfied with the false verdict.

* PragmaticVillainy: He abides by the rules of the Killing Games he oversees because he wants the students to kill ''each other'' to properly drive them to despair. If he just started cheating willy-nilly, the students wouldn't bother to play his game either and focus all their efforts on defeating him. TTH and V3 even have him being convinced to allow a retrial when the protagonists argue that a previous trial broke his rules. [[spoiler: Indeed, when he starts cheating in ''Trigger Happy Havoc'' (by planting a fake suicide note and framing Kyoko), it's a sign that the Mastermind is getting desperate and the students rally against him.]]

** He loves to insist that the students are the '''real''' villains: according to his logic, if they just quietly lived out the rest of their lives in their GildedCage and didn't try to 'graduate', then nobody would get hurt. And when they solve the trials, aren't they only doing so to protect their own measly lives...? Like everything else Monokuma says, it's ''technically'' true because he's relying on an extremely narrow concept of what it means to be responsible for one's actions. The logic behind that speech is that if you make a choice to cause someone's death (by killing someone or convicting a murderer so he/she will be executed) and you had another option available, you're responsible for that person's death. What he leaves out is that a) the school is ''still'' a prison no matter how comfy, and b) if murders ''don't'' occur, he'll change the situation until they ''do''. His 'motives' are specifically calculated to push certain students over the breaking point, and he can and will bend the truth to ensure this. [[spoiler: Junko even had to erase the students' school memories because she knew none of them would ever kill their friends, and her AwesomenessByAnalysis meant that she knew beforehand what each student's breaking point was.]]

* GenghisGambit: During the Killing School Trip, he sets up Chiaki Nanami and Monomi, who are actually in a BigGood Triumvirate with Makoto Naegi, as the students' enemies so that the Remnants of Despair will distrust each other easier and therefore kill each other quicker too.

* GenghisGambit: During the Killing School Trip, he sets up Chiaki Nanami and Monomi, who are actually in a BigGood Duumvirate with Makoto Naegi, as the students' enemies so that the Remnants of Despair will distrust each other easier and therefore kill each other quicker too.

* RoboticPsychopath: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]]. In the first two games, while he's still an AI, he's used as Junko's mouthpiece, essentially meaning that Junko ''is'' Monokuma. However, the end of the first game reveals the Junko AI was inside Monokuma the entire time in the event that Junko died, making it ambiguous as to whether Junko or the AI is really controlling him. In the second game, he's a virus, and in the third game, he's an independent AI robot completely independent from Junko.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: It only appears in the sequel's culmination and is very subtle, but with him starting and controlling the Killing Game for the Ultimate Despairs, and then expositioning the possibly fatal exact function of the Neo World Program's hard reset in the final trial as Junko Enoshima, he unintentionally causes events that give Hajime Hinata the HeroicBSOD to make for everyone involved in the Killing Game the decision to create their own future instead of succumb to Junko Enoshima's manipulation and causing a "Junko Utopia".

* WoundedGazelleGambit: This is what he's ''actually'' doing over the course of Chapter 6, though it may not seem like it at first. The students finding out the truth, Monokuma (rather, the Junko behind him) constantly freaks out over the fact that everyone will expose his true self. In reality, the Junko behind him ''wanted'' the students to find the truth so they could find that the world outside is a broken apocalypse filled with toxic airs, and [[CassandraTruth the only safe place is the academy after all, even though no one believed her when she said it through Monokuma]].

* EvilPrincipal: He calls himself the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy (and in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'', of Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles), and since there are no adults present, he effectively is one. Maintaining a friendly and comedic demeanor, he blackmails students into killing each other and isn't above getting his hands dirty when threatened. For the majority of the game, one of the ongoing mysteries is if the KillerGameMaster and the school's real headmaster are the same person. [[spoiler:They are not, though Jin Kirigiri has been working under people who forcibly nurture talents in students, and had to let Junko get away with murders in her younger days, both ending with the situation in the present]].

* FairPlayVillain: Monokuma prides himself on always following the rules...[[SubvertedTrope except when he doesn't]]; he frequently tells BlatantLies and has been known to frame someone else for a murder they didn't commit ([[spoiler:Mukuro's]] death in the first game and [[spoiler: Rantaro's]] in V3) but go through with the trial and execution anyway.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Still up to his usual tricks, driving a new class of students to murder, but he's working ''with'' the mastermind, Tsumugi Shirogane, as opposed to being controlled by them as usual. Surprisingly enough, this Monokuma [[IncrediblyLamePun bears]] no relation to the mastermind of the previous games, only being present due to being a symbol of the franchise.