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The story of the killing game mastermind and the leader of Ultimate Despair, Junko Enoshima from the Danganronpa franchise.
Childhood[]
Much of Junko's early life is unknown. As children, Junko and her twin sister Mukuro lived in abject conditions and were even homeless at one point. As she puts it, she regretted the moment of her own birth, feeling that her birth into the world was a mistake.
Due to her analytical skills allowing her to predict the outcome of events, she became bored with the world. Because of that, she took an interest in despair, which she believed to be unpredictable and exciting. As a child, she was close with Yasuke Matsuda and they eventually became lovers later in life.
One particular moment between the two when they were elementary school students was when Junko spent a month building a sand sculpture modeled after the Sagrada Familia church at the public park, and she even used very advanced techniques for her age. The sculpture got closer to completion and many people from around the neighborhood came over just to watch her work.
One day, the sand castle was found destroyed just before it was completed. Junko cried continuously for almost an entire day and Yasuke went around angrily looking for the perpetrator. Not being able to find out anything useful discouraged Yasuke. While he was sitting on a bench in front of the remains of the sand sculpture, Junko ran up to him with a large smile and whispered in his ear that she was the culprit who destroyed the sculpture all along, asking him to keep it a secret. When asked for a reason, she replied that she did so by accident. Truthfully, she had done this to get Yasuke out of his house, upset that his mother's condition had led him to become more withdrawn than usual.
Junko had a strong desire to "paint the world in despair" and planned to start The Tragedy, the worst, most despair-inducing incident in the history of mankind. She called herself and her sister the Despair Sisters AKA the Ultimate Despair.
Teenage Years[]
As a teen, Junko began a modeling career and quickly became an idol amongst the Japanese population. One reason for her popularity was the fact that she was using that as a cover.
Junko enrolled into Hope's Peak Academy with her twin sister Mukuro. She was able to befriend her classmates of the 78th Class and decided to use them for the High School Life of Mutual Killing in the future. During this period of time, she also influenced and corrupted many students to join Ultimate Despair with her crazy ideal of despair - including Nagito Komaeda, Mikan Tsumiki, and many others.
Junko also discovered the artificially enhanced Ultimate Hope Izuru Kamukura, and enticed him to aid her despair-inducing plans. As both Junko and Izuru had superhuman intelligence, Junko appealed to his boredom to invite him to participate in The Student Council Killing Game. After Izuru killed the only survivor of the Student Council, Junko leaked recordings of the game, blaming Izuru and enticing the Reserve Course students to a riot against Hope's Peak.
Meanwhile, she learned brainwashing techniques created by the Ultimate Animator, Ryota Mitarai. Junko used Mitarai's techniques, intended to inspire hope, to create her own Despair Video from footage of the Killing Game. During that time, she and her sister kidnapped Mikan Tsumiki, who was used as a guinea pig for her video. She intimidated her into helping her finish and perfect the Despair Video and went on to use it on the Reserve Course students.
Nagito tries to convince Chiaki to watch the Despair Video, but she is stopped by Chisa Yukizome, who, when Chiaki, Mitarai and Nagito escape, becomes subjected to the brainwashing. When the 77th Class groups together to go rescue Chisa, she goes after Mitarai and tells him she will let him go, so he can suffer the despair of being at fault for giving her the power to drown people in despair. Juzo Sakakura, the then Head of Security, tries to stop her, but is tired out by brainwashed Reserve Course students, and she blackmails him into not giving her up to Kyousuke Munakata, who was investigating the killings, in exchange for her never telling Kyousuke about Juzo's feelings for him. Out of fear of being outed, Juzo agrees and Junko flees back to her hideout.
Junko laughing as she watches the world in despair.
Back in her hideout, she throws Chiaki into a death trap dungeon similar to a rogue-like game; her death is used as a live Despair Video to brainwash her classmates into becoming the Ultimate Despair. When the riot hits it's peak, with Reserve Course students killing the Main Course students, she can be seen happily enjoying the view from afar and when it's all over, she sends an alternate version of the Despair Video called "Monokuma's Gloomy Sunday", that leads the students to kill themselves.
Jin calls out the 78th Class, Mukuro and Junko included, to hide themselves inside the Hope's Peak Academy Building, leading into the events of the first game. Junko tested procedures with the reluctant assistance of Yasuke. Having succeeded in erasing her own memories with Yasuke's memory-erasing technology, she assumed the fake identity of Ryōko Otonashi and hid from suspicion, as she only had false information in a notebook and the continual deception by both Yasuke and Mukuro (who pretended to be Junko) to go off on. Around the same time, the school board members were killed one by one by Mukuro. Eventually, she managed to recover all of her lost memories and she killed Yasuke in a fit of despair. Afterwards, Junko returned to her school life and continued preparations for the 78th Class' Mutual Killing along with Mukuro.
Around the time when The Tragedy was beginning, five abused kids from Hope's Peak elementary school called Monaca Towa, Nagisa Shingetsu, Kotoko Utsugi, Masaru Daimon and Jataro Kemuri were about to commit suicide. However, Junko stopped them and took them under her wing, convincing them that the adults who abused them were wrong. She manipulated and brainwashed the children, giving them their first true hope and acting loving towards them. She made them think that they're her property. However, in truth, she was only interested in Monaca, who as a member of the Towa Group mass produced extremely dangerous Monokuma robots for Junko.
Furthermore, Junko decided to use the children to cause more despair and taught them that all the adults are Demons who need to be killed. The children started to call themselves the Warriors of Hope unaware that Junko just used them to be evil just for the fun of it. At Junko's bequest, all the Reserve students committed mass suicide, furthering the message of despair. The riots spread outside the school, both online and off, and slowly became more violent and destructive as more and more people succumbed to despair. Wars started and soon the whole world fell into despair. The whole incident was known as The Tragedy. The Ultimate Despair members worshipped Junko and spread everyplace to cause terrible things for the sake of despair. They even killed their friends and families.
Junko's classmates, the 78th Class, sealed Hope's Peak Academy and lived peacefully inside it for a year without knowing that the Ultimate Despair members were already in their midst. Junko incapacitated them somehow, executed the headmaster Jin Kirigiri, and erased her classmates' memories.
She worked behind the scenes and controlled Monokuma in order to cause anxiety and paranoia between the students to make them kill each other. She also began to broadcast everything as a TV program for the public to enjoy and fall into despair.
Junko decided (allegedly on a whim) to kill Mukuro to “set an example” for the students not to directly rebel against Monokuma, while the "true reason" was that the way Mukuro had acted did not resemble Junko's true personality at all; this was, of course, a lie, as the true reason Junko killed Mukuro was to bring her and her sister despair, since beyond all appearances she truly did love Mukuro.
All of the students then believed that Junko had died, not knowing that the Junko they knew was an impostor, because at the time the students were uninformed to the fact that there were actually sixteen students.
Junko continued to work in the shadows, while manipulating and motivating other students like Celestia Ludenberg and Mondo Owada to kill each other for her own entertainment.
After her classmate Chihiro Fujisaki, the Ultimate Programmer, is killed, a program called Alter Ego is found on a repaired laptop, hidden in a locker from the cameras hidden around the school. Alter Ego is meant to emulate a person, and as such Alter Ego retains a very similar personality to their creator. Alter Ego agrees to look into the mastermind behind the events, helping the remaining students as much as possible.
Alter Ego is destroyed by Monokuma after Sakura Ogami's suicide, as Monokuma lacked someone to execute but still wished to cause additional despair. Alter Ego is believed to be completely destroyed, and the students mourn Sakura and Alter Ego's deaths.
During the course of events, Junko was able to ensure the deaths of several of the students, before realizing that Kyoko Kirigiri had somehow managed to break into the headmaster's office and steal the master key and part of Mukuro's profiled information. She then decided to break her own rules and stage a murder by using Mukuro's body.
Junko almost succeeded in her attempt to kill Makoto and frame Kyoko, but it was ultimately fruitless when Kyoko saved Makoto just as she was about to stab him, and then by Makoto not calling out Kyoko's lie during the Class Trial when Kyoko announced that she would not have been able to access her own room.
Junko had no choice but to call guilt on Makoto throughout the trial. Junko's plans to execute Makoto were thwarted by Alter Ego, however, who had stopped the execution in time for Makoto to evade death. She taunted the students, still, despite the setback, and proclaimed that even if Makoto survived the execution, he would eventually rot inside the school garbage dump, making his punishment worse than usual.
However, Junko was properly thwarted when both Kyoko and Makoto showed up at the gymnasium to issue an ultimatum. She was forced to accept that a retrial is necessary, but then Junko — then still in Monokuma form — decided to gradually reveal the whole truth to the students, confident that even if she was exposed, they would be unable to handle the shock of the outside world they longed to go back to having already “ended” due to The Tragedy. Makoto and Kyoko deduce that Junko was the one pulling the strings the entire time and she was revealed to be the mastermind behind everything at the Academy. She then confirmed the suspicion that emerged from the intense Class Trial debates - that she erased everyone's memories of the last two years so she could implement her plan to make the world suffer in despair.
Junko then put a vote together to have students vote for the abstract ideas of “hope” versus “despair”, where all but Makoto would live their lives out within the confines of the Academy if any one of the students chose “Despair”, and Makoto alone will take a huge punishment - meaning he would have been subjected to The Ultimate Punishment if anyone would vote for despair.
However, Makoto reassured the surviving students of a future ahead despite the difficulties, and thus was able to convince all the students to vote for “Hope”, condemning Junko to a final defeat in the climax of a Bullet Time Battle of “Hope” versus “Despair”.
Junko as she excitedly expects what her punishment is going to be while accepting her execution for despair.
Though seemingly livid over the results shortly after the vote was settled, Junko instead became perversely delighted as she realized she would be able to experience the extreme despair of painful, unnecessary death. She delightfully accepted her execution and death, but not before giving the remaining students the means to escape the Academy, as well as telling them that her death would make the school unlivable as it would cause the school's air purifier to turn off, allowing the polluted air from the destroyed outside world to come inside.
After most members of Ultimate Despair committed suicide, the surviving members hacked her body into pieces and attached those parts to themselves; one notable example was Nagito Komaeda, who took her left hand and treated it as his own, despite it being non-functional.
As a back-up plan, Junko had created an AI version of herself, with the knowledge she stole from Chihiro Fujisaki. It is even implied that her death was planned right from the start. AI Junko manipulates both the Warriors of Hope and the adults of Towa City in the form of Shirokuma and Kurokuma. In the end, both robots are destroyed by Izuru Kamukura to salvage their hard-drives for their AI.
Izuru downloads AI Junko into the Neo World Program, and she started changing the programming surrounding the Graduation and also began the Field Trip of Mutual Killing. Her motives behind doing both things were so that she could obtain comatose bodies and also to lure the Future Foundation into the game.
Once Hajime Hinata and the rest of the survivors reached the final trial and the choice to either graduate or live on the island forever, Junko pretended to be Makoto and force them to graduate. After the survivors realize they are being tricked, Junko reveals herself in the form of a giant body and communicates with them through the use of a giant cell phone which displays her. As the trial carries on, Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya Togami appear in the game and Junko's full plans are revealed to the cast.
Junko planned to upload her own AI into the comatose bodies which would effectively revive her in their bodies and to also keep the members of the Future Foundation locked in the game forever as she is the one that must allow a student to graduate.
Junko's overall goal in the end was to fill the entire world with copies of herself that she dubs "Junkoland". Junko spreads her despair into the survivors and manipulates them into wanting to graduate but with the help of Chiaki Nanami, Hajime is able to become awakened and put an end to her despair. With this the eight are able to activate the Forced Shutdown, which put an end to the AI Junko for good.
Afterlife[]
Finally, Junko is shown in the afterlife alongside Chisa Yukizome, as they rewatch moments of Chisa’s life in a movie theater, with Junko eating popcorn and explaining the events while taunting Chisa. Chisa is mostly quiet with a blank expression from such events, initially thinking despair had won, before she gets up and starts to believe that hope will soon makes its way back. Junko, at first annoyed by this, quickly starts to not care anymore, considering (and pointing out) that the two were now dead.
The Killing School Semester[]
In the sixth trial of the Killing School Semester, after the exposure of the mastermind Tsumugi Shirogane, she cosplays as Junko and pretends to be "Junko Enoshima the 53th", claiming that even though Junko died in the Killing School Life, Despair cannot truly be killed. When the other students question her on who she really is, she changes into a cosplay of Hajime Hinata, a participant of the Killing School Trip, and states "I'm me. Nobody else." Shuichi Saihara realizes Tsumugi should not be able to cosplay as students of Hope's Peak Academy, as she'd demonstrated before that cosplaying as real life people causes her to break out in "cospox" (a condition that causes her skin to turn pink). She then asks Shuichi what his realization means, and he realizes it must mean that Hope's Peak Academy is actually fictional, which she confirms, also stating that the Future Foundation and the Remnants of Despair aren't real either, as all of those events took place in a franchise of video games and anime called Danganronpa, and The Killing School Semester is merely the 53th season of a reality TV series based on it developed by Team Danganronpa, the participants' memories, personalities, talents and past having been fabricated with the use of the Flashback Lights in order to create an exciting story. However, it is ultimately left ambiguous if the events surrounding Hope's Peak really are fictional or not, as Tsumugi stated that her plan for The Killing School Semester was a copy of someone else's, and Shuichi points out in the epilogue that she may have been at least partially lying about his and the other students' backstories.