The series follows the students of Hope's Peak Academy who are forced into a life of mutual killing by a sadistic teddy bear named Monokuma.

He is an anthropomorphic teddy bear who proclaims himself to be the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy and initiates a life of mutual killing among the students.

In the first two games, Monokuma was used as a proxy for Junko Enoshima in her trials; in Another Episode, he is a series of different types of robots created by Monaca Towa for an army; in Danganronpa 3, recordings of him are set up by Kazuo Tengan to force Ryota Mitarai into brainwashing the entire world for the sake of hope.

In developing Toko's characterization, writer/scenario creator Kazutaka Kodaka from Spike Chunsoft considered "[t]he easy thing [to] have been to make her the final boss, the last enemy, the culprit.

Reborn as Izuru Kamukura, he brought Alter Ego Junko into the Neo World Program in order to pit hope against despair and see who would triumph.

Coming to terms with his past with the aid of Makoto Naegi, Hajime rallies the remaining students to defeat Alter Ego Junko and becomes one of the survivors who manages to escape to the real world.

Afterwards, the 77th Class scapegoats themselves for the Final Killing Game in order to protect the Future Foundation's reputation and exiles themselves to the real Jabberwock Island along with a repentant Mitarai.

Izuru is described as a student of indeterminate gender hiding on the grounds of the school, and the perpetrator of "The Tragedy", an event involving mass murder that resulted in the decay of mankind.