JUNKO ENOSHIMA: Character History and Analysis 

I think the most ironic thing about Junko is that she Hopes for Despair.

I can just imagine junko saying “my horrible backstory is...I’m bored”

So she's basically an edgelord with a god complex.

I think Junko may be one of the most evil villains in all of anime. You couldn't really expect anything less from someone who is responsible for an event literally called *The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History.* And all because of her despair fetish. I think that makes her one of my favorite antagonists, since she just cuts the bullshit and wants bring the world into despair for the hell of it. No excuses, no sympathy, no ulterior motives, she just wants to watch the world burn. Not to mention the fact that she's a legitimate threat, a skilled manipulator, and almost wins on a few occasions, even making an AI of herself so that dying is just a temporary setback. She doesn't fuck around.

Doctor: It's a girl! Baby Junko: No, it's a failed abortion

I don't feel sorry for junko, i just love her 100% for no reason.

Another thing that's interesting about Junko is that she wants the entire world to "taste despair" not because it brings her despair but because she wants to "share that gift" with the world. Because she herself loves despair so much she thinks it's what's best for the world ("When someone like me is born it means the world is yearning for despair!").... Also Junko doesn't lack empathy like Monoca does. She actually cares for people which causes her to want to give them despair because A she wants to taste the despair of basically killing/torturing her loved ones and B because she thinks it's good for them (like I mentioned above). So while Junko's yearning for despair is based on empathy Monoca's is more based on sadism which is the reason why she'll never be able to truly be like "Big Sis Junko".

The thing that kinda scares me about the whole Danganronpa series is that all of the despair related things can actually happen in real life. Regardless if this is a work of fiction

I honestly have to give a bit of sympathy for Matsuda. During his death, it was said that she said that she teased him and said she "probably had something to do with" his mother's demise. Yasuke succumbed to his stab wound in confusion, continuously asking her if she was being serious.

Junko’s tragic event was being born. What people usually don’t see is that Junko actually does have a surprisingly tragic backstory Characters in Danganronpa are the best at something. “Ultimates” Junko’s true talent is being the “Ultimate Analyst” She is so smart that she is able to predict and expect absolutely anything and that’s how she has been all her life She analyzes everything to the point of understanding all the weaknesses. She has been able to rationalize why stuff like love and hope (the kind of thing that people usually hold as their “meaning in life”) is flawed, and in her mind no more than illusions and thus meaningless. Junko is existentially bored and is unable to see any meaning in life because she can predict everything. And she’s immensely depressed. But ironically that exact feeling of pain and hopelessness is where she was able to find something with meaning without any “logical flaws” (because the thing itself is its own flaw): despair. She can’t escape the fact that she knows there is no meaning to anything. So what does she do? She revels in it. She hurts others because that hurts her. She wants to feel that pain and hate herself so she does everything to make that happen and just pull herself deeper and deeper into despair while dragging the world along with her. Yes, it’s all just a game to her. And she’s so smart that no matter what, she wins. But just the same she will always lose and she knows it And she hates that. But loves it, BECAUSE she hates it And that’s what makes her one of the best villains ever P.S. I feel like she secretly wants to be stopped. She knows the only way out of her own cycle of despair is if she gets defeated and can finally find some meaning through not being perfect

That’s what makes Junko stand out from a lot of other antagonists. She completely subverts the expectation that a villain must have a clear motive in order to be interesting. Junko manages to be one of the most intriguing antagonists I’ve ever seen despite not having any real goal besides hurting others and herself. Oh and that’s another thing that’s so terrifying about her. She isn’t just indifferent and heartless. She cares for literally fucking nothing. Not even herself. Which means that there is absolutely nothing holding her back from doing the most horrendous things imaginable in order to satisfy her sick desires.

You should analyze one of the series most important characters: Naegi's ahoge.

Is Junko's hair pink, blonde, or strawberry blonde?? I really can't tell anymore 😅

2020: the worst year ever Junko: Heeeeyyyy I'm here!

Please let there not be a real life Junko. Jfc she's so smart and dangerous

You forgot one huge fact: Mukuro and Junko have different last names. This was before she was taken into Fenrir.

There is one thing I would like to add to this amazing analysis. I dont think that Junko was led to despair simply because of it being the easiest way out. I think she led to despair because she noticed how self destructive hope could be. "People who cling to stuff like Hope, Talent or admiration are truly the weakest. Guys who desperately want to reach the top...They don't think of what'll happen when they're pushed off. They're probably too concerned with having a really nice view while they condescend others. Shoving off guys like that is so easy. The moment you cling to talent and hope, despair has already set in." I think this is the reason why Junko has clung to despair as much as she did. If all things were going to lead to despair regardless, then why not embrace it and revel in it with orgamsic pleasure?

I kinda feel Junko is simillar to Joker.Unknown history ,chaotic ,and doing things for lolz

Nice analysis! Junko herself has stated that she's hopelessly perfect, and it's that (quite honestly justified) belief in her own transcendent nature that I believe is mostly at the route of her despair fetish. I do think another aspect of her worldview is informed by her 'true' talent of being the Ultimate Analyst. More than anyone else in the series, she can gather insane amounts of data and create insane models to predict and control the outcome of those data points however she wishes. Such an inborn talent, I think, would lead her to kind of see the world as boringly predictable--she can basically predict the actual future and accurately model how the possible futures would affect individuals. I think it's safe to say that her powers of perception made her run into the harsh conclusion that most paths of the future would end in most people feeling despair. Likewise, how could she feel hope for something she already knows is going to happen? Despair is the closest thing Junko has to a fail-state, so she may have chosen to embrace it as the best way to make life unpredictable again. It's funny--she really can only find hope in despair.

Didn’t she actually love all her classmates, which is another reason why she made them kill each other? Tbh, she just wanted to show them how good despair felt. So considerate ❤️😂

What I think is terrifying about her is how we perceive her. This perception she creates for herself. Think of Monokuma. We know Monokuma. We love to hate him. Monokuma is the Mastermind behind the game. And the absolute last person you’d expect to be the voice and orchestrator of Monokuma and the game is a teenage girl, much less a teenage girl who established herself through Mukuro at the very beginning as being vapid and vain. Then, when we actually do meet Junko for real, and accept how she really is, she becomes this iconic, goofy idol, and still comes across as charming. People love her. But even with her role in the game being known, it is still incredibly easy to forget just how intelligent and how evil she really is. It’s brilliant.

I think this quote from Rick and Morty describes her very well: "Worse. You're smart. When you know nothing matters, the universe is yours, and I've never met a universe that was into it. The universe is basically an animal, it grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them.[...] You know, smart people get a chance to climb on top, take reality for a ride, but it'll never stop trying to throw you, and eventually it will. There's no other way off."

Wonderful as always. This one kinda feels a bit incomplete, but I can't blame you for that. Junko has been my favorite character (overall fav, not only DR fav) for over 3 years now, so it's only natural that I gave her a lot more thought than you did. As I already commented on the Mukuro video, I believe the "homeless" thing is a metaphor to Fenrir's battlefields, so that would have nothing to do with Junko. As for her multiple personalities act, I think she just does that to make herself fun. She already demonstrated through boasting and through her humor that she values her identity as an entertainer a lot. By playing all those personalities, she manages to keep herself entertaining all the time. On the subject of Junko as entertainer, why is this so important to her? Well, her main problem is that she finds everyone else boring and predictable, so I believe she makes herself so over-the-top on a "I don't want to be what I hate" sort of mentality. As for Junko's reason for despair, I just loved your interpretation of Junko seeking this feeling of humanity, but we also can't forget she is also seeking challenge to defeat her boredom. I believe she actively villainizes herself so that some unpredictable enemy will come and try to stop her. This is supported by her overjoyed reactions to Mukuro's "betrayal" and to Naegi's actions in Chapter 6. This is the most clear in Chapter 6: Naegi, the bland generic guy who is usually not worth her attention, is bringing everyone to his side and that was something she would never expect. She grows increasingly excited over that until the Machine Talk Battle, where Naegi's hope spiel becomes repetitive and she goes back to being completely bored. About gyaru culture, that's completely different from western modelling and this misunderstanding has lead to LOTS of inconsistencies in many Junko interpretations I've seen. I'm not really capable of giving a full explanation of what gyaru culture is, so it would be better if you researched that by yourself. Ryouko's hair color being Junko's natural is a clear contradiction to the canon fact that Yasuke changed Junko's appearance to make her look like his mother. I'm kinda disappointed you didn't include name trivia in this one, because there is quite a lot to Junko's name. *Junko means "shield girl", which is a unconspicuos enough name to make no one immeadiately suspect her as the mastermind, but hides some special meaning as stated below. *Junko is actually a pretty common name written with thee kanjis for "pure girl" instead of "shield girl". This version not being pure really fits both Mukuro's gyaru stereotype-fest interpretation and the real Junko, and if is a good reference to how gyaru culture looks down upon the concept of purity (specially sexual purity). *As I already explained in the comments for your Mukuro video, you can form the word "contradiction (mujun)" by combining Mukuro's halberd(mu) with Junko's shield (jun). *Enoshima means "picture of island", which express an idea of beauty. *Enoshima is also the name of a beach in Kanagawa, known for being really close to 2 other great beaches: Kamukura and Sagami. This kinda frustrates me a lot because there have already been a few new entries on the franchise, but no character named Sagami has been introduced yet. I figure they are either appearing in V3 or they might be in 3 as an unadvertised character, just like Kamukura was unadvertised in 2. Other detail I love about Junko and it very often overlooked by the fandom is the Junkofication of Mankind plan. It seems really random at first, but it actually fits Junko's motivations perfectly and serves as solution to the problems she had in life. Junko was too smart to function as a human being, so everyone else felt simple and predictable to her, but if she managed to raise the entire humanity to her level, that issue wouldn't exist anymore. Junko says she would "play a version of Peko much more to Kuzuryuu's", which implies she would still act the body's original personality, just with Junko's superior intellect and desired to be unpredictable. All Junkofied people would act different from each other to keep themselves not boring. The Junkofication of Mankind is not just a silly narcissistic joke, it's Junko's ideal world that ties in with her entire characterization.

In one episode of (I think Dangan Ronpa 3) Junko's sister explicitly states that Junko is Super High School Level Analyst. My own theory was that as she was born with such a talent, she could predict people's actions and everything that will happen in advance... this caused extreme boredom and lack of normal hope (she didn't have a need for hope since she always new in advance the outcomes, right.). She beame obssesed with making things unpredictable so that she wouldn't be a simple "slave" to her own talent, and what is more unpredictable than a world in anarchy, war and chaos with a bunch of insane people walking around? That was my own analysis at least. XD

Junko is basically if 2020 was a person

Lol I needed this. I never understood Junko's motives.

I hate Junko with a passion. She's an awesome character that I hate so much.

this was honestly so necessary god bless

I kinda feel bad for Junko gosh Pain is beauty Despair is losing yourself Love is giving up despair Junko can't pick she wants to be human but she dosen't wanna be normal that's gotta be hard on her

she literally analyzed the ultimate analyst

"I don't want hope, hope is killing me" "My dream is to be hopeless"

I wanna see an analysis on Hinata/Izuru! Like how Hinata fall into despair and what Izuru feels toward all of this or something like that.

One thing that Junko says is that despair is the one singular thing that cannot be predicted and that's why she loves it so much. It's the one thing she can't see coming.

This is a lot more information heavy than usual but I hope you guys still enjoy it! And hopefully it'll help give you guys a better timeline of when some of this stuff happened.

Junko is such a fascinating villain and character. She's basically what happens if you put an rpg final boss in a visual novel.

Junko Enoshima and Monokuma have always been my favorite villains in any media. Main reason being the combination of having pent up anger, revenge, pain, and hatred, and to top it off with having a childlike glee for bringing the despair in others and watching the world burn.

I was thinking about this earlier, but if junko was an irl person she would actually be anorexic...

What I love about her character is that she isn't emotionless. She actually cares and loves people and that's why she killed them, because if she was emotionless then killing her sister, her lover or her classmates wouldn't have made her feel so much despair.

Junkos motivation is her incredible talent. She can accuratelly predict peoples actions, thus there is no suspense in her life. She is without hope because she knows what will happen before it happens. The only thing which can spice her things up would be something she couldn't predict. How far desperate people would go to get out of their horrible situations is that thing for her. The world is just her lab in which she manipulates circumstances in order to get an interesting reaction. If you look at the great lengths she goes, she is pretty desperate for that reaction. She even goes so far as to bring suffering to herself to a point in which she may lose control over herself - that would be the unpredictableness she craves. The other level is that she is a psychopath. While she has a keen understanding of human feelings, she doesn't feel them the same way. However, she is excellent at manipulating or faking them. This could also expand to despair - no, it especially expands to it. People become desperate when they fear to lose something precious. Junko neither has something precious besides despair nor the ability to fear anything. Ironically, she displays hope the whole time. Even at the brink of her demise, she smiles happily because she is hoping to experience the true despair of a complete failure. She does incredible things because she hopes for an interesting future.

she`s basically the joker lol

Danganronpa Zero most definitely needs an ova but the Danganronpa manga is being released in English so I hope they also Publish Danganronpa Zero to because I really want to own it.

I just realized how similar Dio and Junko are from this video. They are both villians of their respective series who set the events of said series in motion, have some form of god complex, and either felt or were inhuman at some point as well.

Sorry if someone beat me to this, but Junko's title in Japanese is actually the Ultimate Gal/Gyaru, which is a street fashion. Being a street fashion icon is different from getting into modeling in other ways because she's someone who was noticed as having interesting fashion and being talked to for magazines and such and that's how Junko would've gotten famous and gotten modeling opportunities. This definitely would be easier if she was rich, having more money for clothes and make-up that other people didn't have access to, but it's not the same as becoming a model through established family ties.

I'm glad you had a warning saying that there would be spoilers from Dangan Ronpa Zero. It got me to actually read it, and now I'm back to hear this great analysis.

this came out when I had to got to sleep damnit

Hey Weeby Newz ! Do you think Junko had her classmates participate in the School Life of Mutual Killings becasue they were her closet friends ?

The problem with this analysis is you keep saying "How superior she thinks she is" yet Junko is clearly a superior human being

I think she’s just numb and sad, and just doesn’t see a meaning to life, she loves despair because it just makes her feel something. and I can kinda relate to her. just being so numb and wanting to feel something.

If sh was in the Persona-verse, she'd it in perectly as an avatar of Nyarlahotep seeing as both he and Junko revels in bringing mankind to despair.

I literally jumped when I read the part where Junko was Ryoko. I almost threw my phone 😂

Who else kiiiiiinda wants to see an analysis on Fuyuhiko? Like come on, baby faced gangster who becomes a really awesome character over time. Like why not? xD

This is really cool. Monokuma is actually my favorite character in all of danganronpa, and by extension Junko.

I love Junko so much. She's such an interesting antagonist with how "goddess-level" beautiful her character design is. She does not even look evil. Team Despair, that is where I belong. I loathe my life and wish I never existed. She's superior to the rest of DR's cast that we've seen so far. There's no other character we've seen so far, that's even close to how talented she is. Junko's death was done by herself, she wanted them to win, because she was bored of being so talented. She gave you EVERYTHING you needed to kill her off. The only one that we have not seen even 1% of his true talent is Hajime/Izuru. My speculation is that he put AI Junko in the system to kill her off for good, since she defeated him once by trapping him in an inescapable situation; also to restore his old memories and personality before the brainwashing from HPA. His manufactured talent would still be there though... I wonder, what'll he do with it in the anime? Upupupupu

Bored psychopath😐Best type of villian ever😃

Junko is literally some forgotten Despair and Chaos Deity from ancient times, reincarnated into a human. You can just tell.

I'm not too sure on this but I'm pretty sure in Danganronpa 3, one of the main reasons Monaca gives up on despair, is because she's always "hoping for despair". She realizes that hope and despair are too closely connected to dismiss one and favor the other entirely, and see's the hypocrisy in her ideals and Junko's ideals. That, and she didn't want to become a hope or despair obsessed freak like Nagito, who saved her from death at the end of Despair Girls.

junko is bae

*Junko’s precious and im tired of pretending she’s not*

isn't Junko's obsession because of her other ultimate, the Ultimate Analytical Prowess? She wasn't able to analyze an emotion called despair compared to other emotions that lead her to crave for it?

ALL ABOARD THE JUNKO EXPRESS TO JUNKO LAND!

Idk why? I feel the same as Makima, Junko loves all of her peoples but wrong at express it if only she was borned with different perspective. The same as Makima she just want to take care of them but she didn't realize she's taking their freedom.

*Junko:tried to kill to feel despair-* *Junko:-to feel human-like in a way* *Society:that isn't human-like at all-*

Please do a analysis with Gundam or Fukawa (mainly Fukawa because her background is interesting and seems to understand what the Warriors of hope are going through.)

I REALLY hope DR0 is included in NDRV3, like how Another Episode had Ultra Despair Hagakure and DR2 had IF. Great vid :D

What i don't get is... How can you enjoy despair? Surely the very fact that she enjoys experiencing despair implies that she is not actually experiencing despair, but enjoyment...That raises the question, is it possible to experience two opposite emotions at the same time? Or does she not enjoy despair, and merely admires it? Or is despair even a feeling at all but merely the absence of hope? In which case i suppose it would be possible to enjoy being in a hopeless situation... Hmm, on closer inspection, hope isn't a feeling, but rather a desire of a future positive outcome, despair also being a belief of a future outcome, just not the one that they want, and is not a feeling...So Junko hoped for despair, which is completely the opposite of what it is she says she supposedly personifies; because if she truly was just despair, she'd have never hoped for it to begin with, and thus never performed any actions at all... Someone who is completely consumed by despair is essentially someone who believes everything they want is impossible, and if you believe everything you want is an impossibility, you would not do anything.... Maybe.. Hope is basically the desire for something to happen that is a positive for the one experiencing hope, and despair is defined as "the absence of hope"..However Junko clearly shows that she desires an outcome, she wants despair; but by wanting despair she actually personifies hope more than she does despair; and so contradicts herself completely...To her, despair is the positive future outcome that she desires, thus making her actions revolve around hope. She herself is not contradictory as a character, but her desire for despair is. Infact, it seems rather shortsighted for a character like Junko who is the mastermind behind the worlds destruction.

How about a character analysis on Sonia? I'm very curious about her and you have a great way of analyzing

This is a connection I just thought of between Junko’s sand castle and her boyfriends death. Junko’s sand castle had a lot of care and time put into it, and it was very important to her at the time. When she found out someone had destroyed all of that hard work and love, she broke down in tears. Even though she was the one who inflicted in herself. Well, when she killed her boyfriend, the most important thing to her, she stomped on his corpse until it was completely ruined. Demolished. Tears running down her face, she would not stop the action. I think the parallel was meant to be symbolic and kind of foreshadowing, or that it was at least meant to ashame him in a way. Like, he fell into her trap once with the sand castle and after a while of being around that kind of person he tried to shield the world from her. But then, he failed drastically by the same trap. Idk, one of those weird shower thoughts.

Junko is such a fun villain. Like, normally they’ll have a sad past, or a reason, or something, but with Junko she really just loves pain. She wants to watch the world burn so bad, and she’s smart enough to make it happen. Plus, she’s fun to watch! She had to have 2 voice actresses because of how much it moves around with her different personas! Her sprites are so unique it became a trend! She had (in my opinion) one of the most surprising anime reveals ever! What an icon!!!

Junko is one of my favorite anime girls, along with Esdeath (Akame ga Kill) and Hokuto (Corpse Princess).

These help me a lot when writing these characters. Thank you SO much!

Finally, I want to say that the creator themselves talking about giving villains a backstory as "cheating" reminds me of how the creator of Death Note, Tsugumi Ohba, supposedly said people having an afterlife or being able to be brought back to life is also cheating and death should be final... What is with this weird mentality of things being a matter of cheating and trying to deconstruct that, or whatever? o.O

So junko was neglected felt pretty empty and despair and then loved despair. Great ok.

like the Joker, Junko is an agent of chaos

Awesome job! Thanks for giving us links to the novels, I have been wanting to read them for awhile now. I can't wait to see what you do next.

So I’m starting to connect the dots on why I like dio and junko lol.

this is so nicely done!

JUNKO!!!!! I loved this video, keep up the great work

I won’t say she is a sympathetic villain, but for junko I would say junko has in a sense, no emotion, she is the ultimate analyst in reality if I remember right, so she is like izuru. Everything is boring to her, nothing can get her to feel any sort of positive emotion since it’s so boring, which is why she gravitates to despair, it’s hard to be happy when something is boring but it’s not hard to be filled with despair. It’s like Kyoko said, “turning your despair into a fetish” junko doesn’t feel anything, it despair is the only thing that does make her feel, she isent right in the head, but it makes sense, if humans are deprived of something, we crave it even more. We are desperate for friendship and love if we have none, like mikan for example, and junko in a sense admits this. When asked what made them ultimate despair she responds by stating that hoping for something causes a seed of despair to take root so that when you fail, despair engulfs you. That alludes to her mental state. She feels nothing and thus craves any sort of feeling, in other words she hopes for something to make her feel and not be bored, and when you hope, you have already fallen to despair, and despair is all that gets her happy. And she wants the whole world to feel what she feels. The only thing that makes her happy is something that makes her suffer. It’s almost like a paradox. And she hates it. It’s why she is aware that she hopes for despair and stats in DR2 that it’s a curse and that they should stay in the virtual world to escape this. It’s maddening for her, cause it causes her pain and happiness so she is in a constant state of wanting Her plans to work and to fail and why she is so unhinged.

wow an entire video for me !!!! AS YALL SHOULD

What to know in Dangnanronpa: Protagonist: Ahoge Antagonist: No Ahoge

Actual best villain ever

Junko has always been one of video games best villains in my opinion.

The only reason I love Junko is because she always came back and was sorta hilarious in the 6th trial, sure I hate that she helped got rid of all the characters I loved but like, she still seems kinda funny

I have a theory that Junko is inspired by the story of Junko Fututa. Her murder was beyond cruel and the 4 guys did so many things to her... it's seriously disturbing and sickening. But anyway, I think Enoshima's character was inspired by Furuta because after her going through all the hell she was put through, it's like she wanted everyone else to feel despair and to get a little taste of what she went through. No disrespect to Furuta or her family! May she be resting in peace. No woman deserves to go through what she went through.

Wow junko enoshima is surely the smartest villain I have ever seen. I like the way how she analyses everything and just predicted the events that were going to happen. Surely she is the best villain I have ever seen. No one can change my mind on that.

Kinda off-topic but I keep imagining a danganronpa fangame where the mastermind has a crush on a character so the mastermind just uses whatever bullshit excuses they can find to prevent people from killing their crush Like for example: making the monokuma-like thing in the fangame to just pop out of the floor to protect the mastermind's crush and just saying they were lucky which just ends up convincing the other students that the mastermind's crush IS the mastermind

Great analysis! You managed to capture all the most important aspects of Junko! Man, it's so unsettling to think about how she killed her true love just to hurt herself... They really created a unique villain! X.x

She's also sadistic, very sadistic

Yeah I really need to read danganronpa zero! This sounds so interesting!

I love Junko 100%. She is amazing...

Love this character.

Fantastic analysis! 11:00 - 13:00 is a great example of psychoanalysis at its finest. You broke her down very well :)

Love your videos! It really shows how much effort you put on making them.

Junko is my favorate!!

I know I'm a ' bit' late but I love Junko. She is my favourite character from Danganronpa💗♥

Junko takes masochism to a whole new level.

How about doing twogami? I mean all we know is that he is an imposter and a little more nicer then Togami, so yeah, but idk

yay im happy this exists!!! im cosplaying her genderbend version but i just wanna make sure i know every bit of her cuz im planning on staying in character throughout the con!!! ty!!!

Fun fact: Junkos first word was actually “despair” “Junko say daddy!” “D-d-*despair!*”

- cutely takes off Junko cosplay -