Ryota Mitarai

**Ryota Mitarai** (御手洗 亮太 *Mitarai Ryōta*) is a character featured in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. His title during his time at Hope's Peak Academy's Class 77-B was the **Ultimate Animator** (超高校級の「アニメーター 」*chō kōkō kyū no “animētā”* lit. *Super High School Level Animator*).

He is a member of the Future Foundation and the leader of the 10th Division. His responsibility as the leader is to help oversee and implement education and culture to areas in need. He, along with the other Future Foundation heads, is forced to participate in the Final Killing Game.

## Appearance

Ryota is a young man in his early twenties, around 22 at most (about 17-18 in *Danganronpa 3 - Despair Arc*).

He has a very skinny, somewhat frail-looking frame. He has heavy bags under his eyes and a withdrawn posture, giving him a tired and anxious appearance. He has short, light brown hair and hazel eyes. He wears a black suit with a green tie and the Future Foundation ID pinned to its lapel.

## Personality

Ryota is a very timid and somewhat asocial person, said to possess neither will to socialize with others nor physical strength. He holds anime in very high regard, considering it his savior during his harsh childhood, and thus his life goal is to give other people in need similar sense of hope through anime. However, this turned into a very unhealthy obsession, as he constantly shut himself in his room to work because of looming deadlines. Furthermore, he constantly forgot to eat and rest, as he literally wanted to spend all his time creating anime. He is extremely passionate about anime and he is very angered if he hears anyone insulting it and he then attempts to prove them wrong by explaining anime's history and significance to Japan's culture.

Ryota ultimately has a very strong sense of justice, shown in his strong desire to fill the world with hope and save other people. However, because of this, he suffers from anxiety and worries constantly. He lacks self-confidence, seeing himself as a burden who fails to protect everyone. His nervous personality is also seen in the way he has a tendency to scream if he sees bodies or is otherwise startled. He has a weak stomach compared to other characters as he felt nauseous at the sight of Seiko's dead body, and he later threw up violently after seeing a recording of The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy. Furthermore, he sometimes walks away from the murder scene, so that he doesn't have to look at it.

Though he is very hard on himself, he still does his best to help if he is given a mission. According to Kyoko, Ryota himself appears to have some ideas for the Final Killing Game's mastermind, and that's why he is curious to know what others think, as well. Despite his very timid personality, he even tries to stop violence and fighting whenever he sees it. He appears especially protective of women, as he attempts to defend Aoi and Kyoko from Juzo despite obviously having no chance against the boxer, and he scolds Kazuo and tells him sexual harassment is wrong when he inaccurately thought Kazuo was harassing Kyoko. He also wished to protect Ruruka and take her along after her boyfriend died, though he felt awkward about the clingy way she acted towards him.

While Ryota starts the killing game trying to be more strong and protect others, his spirit seems to get more and more broken as time goes on. While he believed there should be no killing and everyone should work together, it turns out he himself is too nervous to truly trust others in the Killing Game situation. He also started out greatly admiring Makoto and his strength as the Ultimate Hope, but his feelings towards him begun to turn more negative and he came to the conclusion that ordinary people cannot be that strong and that they, including Ryota himself, are weak.

Ironically, the combination of his desire of hope, his lack of self-confidence, and his witness of the result of the Final Killing Game gives him the resolve to brainwash the entire world into hope by eliminating all sources of despair, be it it pain or suffering or jealousy, and willing to use his brainwashing video to get more people to assist him. He also feels massive guilt for what his brainwashing ultimately caused and what it did to his classmates. In the end, his classmates convince him that he isn't alone and that they all are atoning for their past mistakes. He joins them and throws away his phone with the brainwashing ability, and he finally appears to feel more relaxed.

## Talent

### Ultimate Animator

Since Ryota was a young child, he was very determined to spread hope to the world through watching his anime. He began to draw and animate since then.

Ryota is an incredibly skilled animator and is able to move people to tears through his anime. He reveals to Junko that the secret behind his technique is sensory tricks he uses to directly manipulate a person's brain—which he compared loosely to brain-washing. Some techniques he uses are subtle changes in coloration to stimulate the visual cortex, induction of eye movement to manipulate memory of the experience, and sound to control the viewer's focus.

Unfortunately for Ryota, his talents would be used for far darker purposes thanks to Junko Enoshima. Using Ryota's techniques with a recording of The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, she produced a mass brainwashing video called the "Despair Video." The techniques Junko learned from Ryota were responsible for driving the entirety of Class 77-B (save Chiaki Nanami) into despair and setting off The Tragedy that consumed the world.

Ryota's original animation is said to bring hope to all who see it, demonstrated when it managed to elicit an emotional response from the Despair Sisters themselves.

#### Hope Video

At some point during The Tragedy, Ryota perfected his original animation, creating a "Hope Video" that effectively brainwashes the viewer into accepting hope over despair. He kept a copy of this video on his cell phone, presumably to protect himself in the chaotic new world by literally forcing any attackers out of despair.

The Hope Video appears to display a sequence of shifting patterns on a light blue background. Watching the video for even a few seconds leaves the viewer in a hypnotized state, allowing Ryota to command them as he wishes. However, it is implied that prolonged exposure is needed to make the effects permanent; Aoi Asahina (who saw the video momentarily) regained her senses after a few minutes, and Ryota's global broadcast showed a thirty-minute countdown before the video's work was "complete".

Ryota was unable to use the Hope Video during the Final Killing Game, due to his NG Code preventing him from using his talent. After the game ended, he resolved to use the video on a global scale, erasing despair once and for all at the cost of humanity's free will.

## TMNT X Pokemon

The Foot Clan takes an interest his anime and kidnaps to make one that would brainwash all of New York into servitude. The Turtles have to rescue him.

## Trivia

* The kanji in Ryota's first name consist of 亮, which means "clear, help", and 太 (ta), meaning "thick, big" (but figuratively used in names as “healthy”). Therefore, his given name could mean "Big Clear/Help".
* His last name "Mitarai" (御手洗), which consist of the kanji for "honorable," "hand," and "wash," can refer to a few things, such as a font of purifying water at a shrine entrance.
* The posters in his room are a reference to Hayao Miyazaki's films, an extremely renowned animator in Japan.
	+ The English dub of Despair Arc also has Ryota being called a "mini-Miyazaki" by Junko, fitting considering his talent as an animator.
* The DALL monitors in his room are a nod to Dell, a computer hardware and software company.
* Ryota appears as a minor character in the non-canon bonus mode in Danganronpa V3, Ultimate Talent Development Plan.
	+ He is the Ultimate Animator, and there is a legend that any anime made by him will cause you to cry.
	+ The player students can ask him to show them his anime or point out that he isn't looking too good. He can also ask the other students to model for him as he wishes to draw a running scene. The student urges him to run too, to draw from experience, which causes him to collapse in the end.
	+ The Ultimate Imposter also references him in a conversation with Mikan and Hifumi, specifically, when the Imposter took Mikan to treat him after he fell ill from undernourishment.
* Ryota's Japanese voice actor, Kanata Hongō, also portrayed Makoto in the Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc 2014 and 2016 stage plays.