Mukuro Ikusaba

Mukuro Ikusaba is a character from the Danganronpa anime and video game.

Mukuro is a student in Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th, and a participant of the Killing School Life featured in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Her title is Ultimate Soldier.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Mukuro is spared from canon fate. Mukuro is a member of the Heroes Coalition as a Solo Hero.

Appearance
At the beginning of the Killing School Life in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Mukuro appears to be young high school-aged teenager, but she is actually two years older than her classmates believed due to their memory loss. Out of her Junko disguise, she has short, layered, bobbed black hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. She has a Fenrir tattoo on her right hand, which she covers up with foundation when disguised as Junko. In her Fenrir profile, she is noted to have no scars or marks whatsoever on her body. She is often described as thin, sometimes even worryingly so, by fellow students and even her own sister.

Despite not being identical twins, Mukuro and her younger twin sister Junko Enoshima share several physical characteristics. However, Junko has a considerably larger chest than Mukuro, and weighs two pounds more than her. Mukuro's eyes are less round, more slanted, and are also light purple (grey in the anime adaption and illustration art) as opposed to Junko's fake blue eyes, and her naturally red-colored eyes.

Her outfits usually slightly vary from a typical Hope's Peak Academy uniform. Her first appearance (not in her Junko disguise) in Danganronpa: The Animation had a brown jacket over a white button down blouse and a brown ribbon tied into a bow as an accessory. In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School she has a white button down blouse with a pocket which she rolls the sleeves up to her forearm, a red ribbon tied as a bow around her neck, tan fingerless gloves, a light brown pleaded skirt, black knee-high socks, and brown loafers. Her outfit in Danganronpa Zero is mostly identical, only she has a short-sleeved white blouse, and no gloves.

While disguised as Junko, her outfit is identical to her sister's, only instead of matching Monokuma hair ties, they are a set of cute rabbit and a large red and white bow. Her tie is also different, being dots instead of bears.

Personality
Being the Ultimate Soldier, Mukuro is ruthless and can kill and harm others with no remorse. She seems completely indifferent towards other people, unless it's her sister Junko or her crush Makoto. Unlike her sister, she doesn't take any sadistic pleasure in hurting or killing people, but at the same time she shows little concern for other people's suffering.

Despite being an incredible soldier, Mukuro is very out-of-touch with her own emotions. She has a notable lack of social-skills, acting emotionless and indifferent towards most people. She tends to have a cold, serious expression and a reserved personality. Despite this, she appears to portray her sister's very different personality rather well. She herself admits that she lacks skill in negotiating with others and planning tactics in advance, despite her renown as an excellent soldier. While she is completely fearless as a soldier, she is afraid of certain emotional situations.

Mukuro has been verbally and physically abused by her sister for years. She only knows how to take orders from Junko and obeys her even if she doesn't agree with her. Mukuro craves her sister's praise and acceptance and will do nearly anything to get it. Because of this, Mukuro allows herself to be constantly abused by Junko and takes her insults to heart. Mukuro believes she is the only one who truly understands her sister and she wants to make her happy, so she stays by Junko's side even when she insults her. She also finds pleasure in Junko's attempts to harm or even kill her, knowing that her sister will experience tremendous despair if she succeeds. She is sometimes portrayed even disturbingly obsessed with her sister, with her blushing and in a state of ecstasy.

According to her voice actress, Mukuro usually gives off a feminine, frail and even cute impression when in her sister's company, described with "a masochist who loves her little sister" kind of vibe. However, during fighting, her stern and grim personality comes out, and it's like she becomes a different person.

In Danganronpa IF, thanks to Makoto, Mukuro begins to have more interest in the world around her. While she is protective of Makoto and cares about him, she still doesn't show that much interest in other students. She decides to protect Makoto's hope and betrays Junko, though she is still very much motivated by the idea of causing her sister to feel despair. In the end, she doesn't know how to feel or what kind of future she would have.

Abilities
Mukuro showed a huge interest in the military since childhood. In elementary school, she won a survival game tournament and began writing for military magazines.

She has received military training from a very young age and is highly proficient in both a variety of firearms and hand-to-hand combat. When pushed to the limit she can enter a kind of battle trance, where her speed and reflexes increase to high-superhuman levels.

When she was young she joined the elite mercenary group Fenrir and has never received a single injury on the battlefield.

She managed to hold her own against Peko Pekoyama the Ultimate Swordswoman, the Madarai brothers and Sakura Ogami the Ultimate Martial Artist in Danganronpa IF, while she was able to defeat the first two, she was unable to defeat the latter in hand-to-hand combat.

Despite being the Ultimate Soldier, Mukuro has terrible negotiation skills, which she admits.

Trivia

 * "Mukuro" means “corpse” while the kanji for "Ikusaba" mean “war blade”.
 * She was killed by what Monokuma called the Spears of Gungnir. In Norse mythology, the Spear of Gungnir was the weapon Odin used to slay the monstrous wolf Fenrir, whose name is also the name of the mercenary group Mukuro was affiliated with.
 * There is a considerable amount of foreshadowing that Mukuro was a soldier, while disguised as Junko. One of her favorite free time gifts is field rations and she described her early life as "living in a warzone".
 * Her profile in Danganronpa IF states that since childhood, she always had a special interest in mystery stories, and is completely engrossed by them.
 * Mukuro is one of the characters who has shown romantic feelings towards one of her family members, the others being Kanon Nakajima and Korekiyo Shinguji.
 * Mukuro's death in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is similar to Chiaki Nanami's death in Danganronpa 3 - Despair Arc. being suddenly impaled by spears. Both deaths also double as acts of betrayal from those who were closest to them (Junko, in Mukuro's case, and Chisa, in Chiaki's case).
 * Apparently, Mukuro knows how to sing, as Junko made her sing Tsubasa o Kudasai during The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy.
 * In the demo version of Danganronpa, Mukuro's death at the hands of Monokuma does not occur, and so she is also present in the class trial.
 * Mukuro and her twin sister Junko are both voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi in the Japanese version and Amanda Céline Miller (who also voices Toko, Shirokuma and Seiko Kimura) in the English version.
 * In the Sound Gallery, Mukuro‘s Sprite is of her without her Junko disguise. However, like all sound gallery sprites, it is entirely blacked out with a iPod-like music device and headphones being the only source of color.