Ryoko Otonashi

Ryoko and Junko's history through the end of the first volume of Danganronpa Zero can be found in her application. This new section will cover from the start of volume two, through her new canonpoint where she'll debut to most of Wonderland as Junko Enoshima. So some of this is going to cover stuff that was in her last canon update as well since there wasn't a writeup for that.

When we last left Ryoko, she was running off to stop Junko Enoshima from murdering her neurologist Yasuke Matsuda, but it's Ryoko, she forgets and starts drawing pictures of Matsuda before checking her notes and remembering she has a possible murder to stop. Whoops. So now back on track, she gets to the neurology lab, there's no sign of Matsuda and Ryoko starts carrying on and confronting this boring bland nondescript average guy there. A guy so average, she doesn't even write him down in her notebook.

Mr. Lack of Personality here is Makoto Naegi, one of Junko Enoshima's classmates and someone who will become very important to the story way after Ryoko's story ends. But for now, he's here to return Matsuda's electronic ID (it's kind of like a tablet with a map of the school and a student's info among other things) to him. It seems Naegi found it outside the building in one of the bushes. Strange. Even stranger is that Ryoko doesn't really seem to know what it is. As a student, she probably should have one, but she doesn't come up with that idea. And even stranger than the already even stranger is that Naegi kind of awkwardly talks about there being a student who developed amnesia, and when Ryoko presses him about it, she learns a major revelation.

Naegi knew her before she had amnesia, but she only met him after attending the Academy. Therefore, her old notebooks that Junko Enoshima claimed to have stolen never existed. She feels like she's on the edge of an important breakthrough, she might even remember something! But then Madarai shows up again and derails the whole scene, taking Naegi hostage and trying to use him as leverage against Ryoko...which doesn't end well. Having no real attachment to the series' future protagonist, Ryoko decides this has nothing to do with her and tells Madarai he can kill Naegi. Madarai and Naegi both have issues with this as Ryoko almost uncharacteristically writes off Naegi, but before anything happens that would cause a time paradox, another person enters the room, attacking Madarai.

The new person is Mukuro Ikusaba and after easily dispatching Madarai, a giant disaster of a conversation with her Naegi, and Ryoko takes place. Because Naegi and Mukuro are classmates, just like Naegi and Junko are. And Junko and Mukuro are sisters. And Ryoko is actually Junko, but she doesn't know this. And nobody wants to tell her. So there's a lot of dancing around anything that would point Ryoko in that direction. Oh and Kamashiro, the spy kid from earlier in the book has apparently been here for a while too. It's a mess. And since it's a confusing mess, Naegi is boring and Kamashiro wants to talk to Ryoko in private, she walks away from the conversation without writing much down.

Speaking with Kamashiro reveals a number of things, with the second most important one being that the little creep wiretapped her room and recorded her conversation with Junko Enoshima at the end of book one. The second thing she learns is that Junko and Matsuda share some sort of connection beyond her stating she's going to kill him. Junko was the only witness to the student council being massacred and started to talk about it. Following that the school decided she was a problem and brought Matsuda in to interrogate her and she passed with flying colors. So yeah, something's up there.

But rather than run off in a hurry, Ryoko just sits there. She sits and forgets and forgets and forgets. She looks at her notebook to remember, only to experience exhaustion and a strange sensation described as similar to bugs crawling on her back. The feeling intensifies and she experiences paralysis, unable to move while she hears Junko right behind her. More concerning, Ryoko remembers her! Sort of. She can't recall a face and can't turn around to look, but she remembers Junko Enoshima threatening to kill her properly once they meet up. Junko says some more cryptic threatening things and Ryoko blacks out.

And while Ryoko's blacked out and Junko has once again assumed control of her body, she heads to the neurology lab and starts trouble with Matsuda who a few chapters ago, murdered the Super High School Level Student Council President to protect her. She proceeds to drive him up a wall by trolling any attempts he makes to have a serious conversation and switching her expressions and personality around on a whim, eventually revealing that isn't doing anything and isn't up to anything. She doesn't have to because everyone is doing all the work for her. The student council, the headmaster, the other students, Ryoko, even Matsuda himself because she absolutely knows about the murder despite having been Ryoko and somewhere else entirely while it was going on. She's not even remotely kidding about everyone doing all the work for her, grabbing Matsuda's hand, identifying the scratch marks on it as being made by his victim and basically walks him through the murder he'd committed earlier in the day, much to his horror.

But she's not done yet, having explained she hasn't done anything, she asks him what he plans to do about Ryoko, dropping the occasional important hint here and there (which is presumably more for the reader's benefit as Matsuda knows who Ryoko and Junko really is, but Junko's the type of character to do and say things like that, she has all the plot details and dispenses them as she sees fit whether everyone around her knows them or not). And she seemingly ends her conversation by telling Matsuda that he can do whatever he wants with Ryoko, with the situation she's caused, and she'll accept the ending. No matter what it is. Because unbeknownst to him, she already knows how it ends, telling him to defeat despair and find hope because he's destined to spend eternity with the person he loves. And then Junko makes out with him, only to reveal her lipstick is tainted with a paralyzing poison. With Matsuda unable to move or do anything about her for now, she really leaves saying she's tired and telling him to once again think about what he wants. Hope or despair.

And then Ryoko wakes up a little while later (this is her current canon point in Eway), finding herself in a strange room. But not alone as there's also a strange maid in the strange room wearing a strange bear mask. Which really does little to put Ryoko's mind at ease. And even less is done to ease her concerns after she leaves the room finding herself in an underground facility filled with students wearing identical bear masks. This is the Reserve Department's secret society, united by someone (Junko) to plot and scheme and work towards the eventual overthrow of Hope's Peak Academy.

Ryoko takes her notes out of her bag and does end up writing most of what she learns here. The reserves plan to mount a revolution against the school.The weird black and white bear they've adopted as their mascot is named Monokuma.The students want to destroy Super High School Level Hope, Izuru Kamukura, a name mentioned by Junko before, but now Ryoko has context for what SHSL Hope is. And that's some sort of human experiment the school's created, the end result of the school administration's experiments with human talent.

Thankful for the exposition but becoming increasingly unnerved by the maid's erratic behavior, Ryoko ditches her, claiming she needs to use the restroom, only to stumble across more Reserves sitting watching video of the student council murdering each other. Ryoko is naturally horrified by this, but the Reserves seem to love it, which just freaks her out more. And unfortunately, this isn't the end of Ryoko's terrifying time as she escapes from this, only to end up in a room with jail cells, one holding a corpse and one holding an old man held captive and blinded by the Reserves.

The old man offers to tell Ryoko about what's going on, about Izuru and tells her Izuru is being held in the old school building. This is all very important information for Ryoko, but as he tells it, her dizziness from earlier returns and odd laughter rings through the room. The old man asks Ryoko why she's laughing, but according to her, she's not. The laughter continues and there's screaming from inside the cell and blood pooling out and it's all very disturbing so Ryoko once again tries to run, only to black out again.