Kiyotaka Ishimaru

Kiyotaka Ishimaru (石丸 清多夏 Ishimaru Kiyotaka) is one of the characters featured in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

His title is Ultimate Moral Compass.

Kiyotaka was manipulated into going into the Art Storage Room with a claim of an escape route found in the school by Hifumi, who in turn was manipulated by Celestia Ludenberg, as a part of a murder ploy set up by her. He was bludgeoned in the back of the head by Hifumi with Justice Hammer #4, killing him instantly.

Appearance
Kiyotaka has short spiky black hair and very large matching eyebrows. He has intense red eyes. In some official art, he is shown to be very muscular.

He wears white uniform with five golden buttons on each sleeve and six on his chest, a red and gold medal on his chest, a red armband with the kanji (風紀 fūki) meaning “Public Morals”, and knee-high black lace-up boots.

The kanji character adorning the lapel of his shirt, 参, actually represents a verb read as 参る mairu which means either "to be defeated", "to be annoyed", "to be madly in love" or "to visit a shrine/grave".

As Kiyondo, his appearance is mostly the same but his hair is pure white and his eyes have a red glowing aura to them.

Personality
Befitting of the Ultimate Moral Compass, Kiyotaka is righteous and values order and rules above all else. He takes his role as a student very seriously, shown when he gets upset that there are currently no classes going on during the Killing School Life. He also states he has 10 sets of his uniform so he never runs out and so he is able to wear one every day of the year, even on holidays or days off from school.

Because of his grandfather's tragedy, he considers effort most important and he is a hard worker, believing that one can achieve anything through it. He also considers genius' fate a tragedy and he considers geniuses his enemies, because they don't understand the true value of effort. He also believes that people who are easily provoked to violence are cowards. Described as "enthusiastic to the point of being mad", Kiyotaka believes that your every action must have a purpose and he absolutely hates wasting time.

Fitting his talent, Kiyotaka often takes up and views himself as a leader, as seen when he organizes the morning meeting for the other students. However, he often isn't taken very seriously—due to his extreme dedication to studying and proper conduct, he could not even hold a "normal" conversation with another person, which becomes clear very soon if someone spends free time with him. Furthermore, he is very expressive and intense in his manner of speech, and is almost constantly shouting. Due to his lack of social skills, he often bursts out the first thing that comes to his mind and forces his values and beliefs on others, which he's aware of and feels guilty about. Possibly because of the lack of social interaction in his life, he can also be insensitive toward another at times, as evidenced in the beginning of chapter 2, when he said that Makoto Naegi would not feel too comfortable sleeping in the same room with Sayaka Maizono's corpse.

Nevertheless, Kiyotaka truly cares about his classmates. He is willing to take pragmatic approaches to avoid murder, such as offering to have everyone, starting with himself, reveal their secrets to avoid Monokuma's second incentive and naively thinking during the first trial the killer would raise their hand and reveal themself to avoid said trial.

Though he acts confidently and is quick to take the role of leadership, he suffers from low-self esteem at times and he is quite sensitive, sometimes crying very easily if he is shocked or touched by something. Inside, he wishes he could make friends and have someone to talk to, but he feels that he might be a nuisance to others, as he is stated to overreact to everything. Some of his other weaknesses appear to be his slight naivety and slow-wittedness, as he sometimes figures things out slower than the most other students and tricking him seems to be rather easy.

One of his unique traits is also his belief that "when the body is naked, so is the soul", meaning that showing each other their naked bodies helps two men form a mutual trust.[5] Overall, Kiyotaka values bonds between men, and during his Free Time Event he asks Makoto to bathe with him in an attempt to become closer friends with him.

In the end, the death of his first and best friend, Mondo, renders him in a state of shock and he becomes almost completely speechless and unresponsive. After adopting the personality of Kiyondo, he becomes more aggressive and very protective of Alter Ego, whom he sees as his Bro. He uses more aggressive language, though refuses to use vulgar language (though he does so in the Japanese version). However, he still sees himself as the Ultimate Moral Compass, mentioning himself that he wouldn't perform criminal activities.