Itazura Akiyama

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**Itazura Akiyama** is a main character featured in Danganronpa: Siren's Ark, created by Voncreep. She is the **Ultimate Matchmaker**.

## Appearance

Itazura is a young adult of average height. She has messy light orange hair which is styled into two side ponytails, with each side meant to resemble one half of a heart. In her hair Itazura wears a large blue and purple bow, with a heart centrepiece and and small pearls attached. Another heart hairclip and two ball hairclips hold up her other ponytail. Her bangs rest over her head and are dyed in multiple areas. While most of Itazura's bangs are dyed to be strawberry blonde, a curled sidebang is instead partly dyed to be purplish-red in colour. Itazura has dark purple eyes with heart shaped pupils. She wears light blue and pink eyshadow around her eyes, using the pink eyeshadow to continue to her other eye and make her appear like she's constantly blushing. Mixed with glitter, her eyeshadow often appears to be sparkling. Itazura wears a pair of pink earrings and has freckles.

Itazura wears a standard dress shirt with rolled sleeves, uneven on both sides with her right sleeve appearing to be slightly shorter than the left, a similarly coloured pair of baggy socks which, and a tanktop with a neon pink heart and lining which continues to its straps. Over her shirt Itazura wears a customised light blue jacket, with both sleeves ripped off and revealing her shirts sleeves and tanktops straps. Her jacket is additionally ripped along the ends, has white strings, has a chest pocket with an explanation mark symbol overtop it, and a white cat pin. Itazura's skirt has an astrology pattern and a purple gradient, which slowly transitions to make it appear to be more pink, until it eventually appears to be a standard plaid skirt. Underneath this she wears a pair of white shorts. With a similar gradient to her skirt, Itazura wears a jacket that is wrapped around her waist and has a star symbol on one of its sleeves. She also wears a pair of pink and purple sneakers with heart-shaped flaps and white soles. Over her right hand Itazura wears a fingerless black glove which exposes the back of her hand, and over her left wrist Itazura wears a bright pink cloth bracelet. In addition to this, Itazura wears a black leg warmer over her right leg.

## Official Description

"Energetic and friendly, Itazura quickly befriends almost anyone with just her overwhelming positivity, however she will not hold back when insulted, fighting back and acting out of impulse being **[RECKLESS]**. Itazura may even be seen as **[NAIVE]**, or ditsy, as she often ignores troubling situations and pretends everything is fine.

Itazura's grades were always lackluster, she never applied herself into studies and would spend all her time socializing. Discovering her talent for pairing her friends up, she eventually getting a short segment on a TV show discussing celebrity matchups and her opinions on each. After this segment became the station's most viewed broadcast, Itazura was booked weekly and even got her own show. However, when time came that she tried to apply to be an Ultimate, Hope's Peak rejected her. Broken and upset, She was however accepted into a much less prestigious and newly built school. Still broken by her dreams being crushed she **▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇** being offered a transfer to Hope's Peak the next semester."

## History

### Early Life

Little is currently known about Itazura's life before joining the Ark Foundation's experiment.

### The Ark Foundation

Itazura was one of eighty students invited to participate in a four-week paid experiment ran by the Ark Foundation, an organization whose main focus was unlocking the potential for humans to reach the peak in their respective fields. At an unknown point in time, Itazura and fifteen other Ultimates attempting to board their flights were kidnapped by Jakob Nowak, an instructor who worked with the Ark Foundation. After waking up she and Amai Kimoto, the Ultimate Chemist, wait by Akio Suzuki's side after they found him unconscious, the last person among their group to wake up due to the injury he received when he was kidnapped. When Akio wakes up the trio explored the Ark, the ship they were originally meant to be board for the experiment. As they introduced themselves to the rest of the participants, an anonymous announcement drew them to the function room where they met "The Siren's".

After meeting The Siren's they revealed the true nature of the Ark, which would be able to travel for over a hundred years. The only way any of the experiment's participants would be able to leave, was through murdering another person and getting away the crime. Unable to leave the room due to C4 planted inside the doors the group was forced to listen to the killing games rules, and learned about the functions of the class trials. When they were eventually free to leave, everyone split up from each other to either continue exploring or return to their dorms.

## Personality

Energetic and friendly, Itazura quickly befriends almost anyone with just her overwhelming positivity, however she will not hold back when insulted, fighting back and acting out of impulse being reckless. Itazura may even be seen as naive, or ditsy, as she often ignores troubling situations and pretends everything is fine.

## Talent and Abilities

### Ultimate Matchmaker

Itazura's grades were always lackluster, she never applied herself into studies and would spend all her time socializing. Discovering her talent for pairing her friends up, she eventually getting a short segment on a TV show discussing celebrity matchups and her opinions on each. After this segment became the station's most viewed broadcast, Itazura was booked weekly and even got her own show. However, when time came that she tried to apply to be an Ultimate, Hope's Peak rejected her. Although her dreams were crushed Itazura seemed to continue trying to apply, and was eventually successful, although it is currently unknown how or why she was accepted in Hope's Peak Academy. Itazura seems to believe in obscure methods to match people, using the cheese people like and astrology to match others.

## Creation and Development

Itazura was one of the most redesigned characters of the entire cast, receiving twelve unique designs. She was originally planned to be removed from the game during its development, but her ties with another cast member, Amai Kimoto, saved her. Since the remake of the game Itazura became one of its three main characters, along with the previously mentioned Amai, and Akio.

Between the release of the prologue and development for chapter one Itazura was redesigned, as Voncreep didn't like her design, and felt as though it didn't show her gyaru side well enough. Sprites of her old design can still be found in the games files, and is present in most of her artwork. A prologue remaster is currently in development and will feature Itazura's new design, as well as new shading for the other characters and more expressions. Rippilie, the creator of Danganronpa: Antebellum, helped Voncreep with Itazura's redesign,personally enjoying and knowing the Gyaru style. They added Itazura's makeup and large bow to her design. During her redesign Itazura was originally going to wear a light pink scarf, a white arm warmer, and her shirt was originally going to be bright pink. Her dyed hair was also pink in colour rather than strawberry blonde. Itazura's design was finished and posted on the projects official Twitter account on January 27, 2023.

## Trivia

* Itazura's name means "prankster" in Japanese, meant to symbolise her more silly personality.
* Itazura is a vegetarian, although eats meats she doesn't realize are animals.
* Emi Suzuki, Akio's younger sister, is a big fan of Itazura.
* Itazura's quiz, "Which Kind Of Cheese Are you?", appears of Emi's laptop at the start of the game. Itazura references this during the game, stating she uses obscure things such as the cheese someone likes to match people.
* The star patterns on Itazura's skirt and hoodie references astrology, which she uses in matchmaking.
* Her favourite animal is cats.
* Itazura's surname was originally Ayashi.

## References

1. ↑ **Prologue Remaster Announcement**
2. ↑ **Itazura's Redesign Concept**
3. ↑ **Itazura's Redesign**
4. ↑ **Ark Foundation CG:** File:DRSA - Prologue CGs - The Ark Foundation.png
5. ↑ **Danganronpa ARK:** itazura's Introduction.