ROUTE 29 APP

[diamondo]

Player
Name: Redd
Personal Journal: pokerap
E-mail: pokerap.redd@gmail.com
AIM/MSN: AIM: writersblockredd
Timezone: EST
Current Characters in Route: N/A

Character
Name: Mondo Oowada
Series: Dangan Ronpa
Timeline: After receiving the second motive, before Fujisaki's death (chapter 2, update 30)
Canon Resource Links: Dangan Ronpa Let's Play - this is the translation I'll be using, though just as a warning it is incredibly long.
Dangan Ronpa @ Wikipedia
Unfortunately, there aren't any completed articles about Mondo. Here's a link to TV Tropes that can provide more insight to his character, but if you would like a written history section as well, I can provide that.

Personality:

Hope's Peak Academy only accepts students who are the best of the best. They are often called "Super High-School Level" students, each specializing in different areas of study. Of course, not all of their talents actually lie in schoolwork, as Mondo Oowada's title of Super High-School Level Gang Leader would imply.

Mondo is the leader of the Crazy Diamonds gang, the largest gang in all of Japan. There are quite a few traits that he needs in order to uphold that title: strength, leadership, and confidence, to name a few. Mondo is undeniably physically strong (he punches Naegi on the first day and knocks him out cold), he's very obviously a good leader to unite multiple smaller gangs into one large one, and his confidence is through the roof. That's not to say Mondo doesn't have any issues; quite the contrary in fact. He's obsessed with being seen as strong, he carries a large amount of guilt over his brother's death (and Chihiro's, though that takes place after his current canon point), and he has a horrible temper that can be set off with even the slightest provocation.

Obviously, Mondo has major issues with being seen as strong. He challenged Daiya (his brother) to a race in the first place because he wasn't seen as "strong," and with time, this obsession has only gotten worse. While he may be physically strong, he is definitely not emotionally or mentally strong. Mondo has focused more on his muscles than his brains, so he's not very bright nor is he very book-smart. What he lacks in his studies, he makes up for in street knowledge. Mondo has a lot of life experience, both as a leader and as a gang member, and he's always interested in proving himself to others.

Emotionally, Mondo is the sort to get angry very quickly. He has a horrible temper and very little control. In the very beginning he attacks Monobear. He threatens to kill Togami a few times, and makes other threats against the students as well. Well, except the girls. You don't hit girls, that's something Daiya taught him and despite his background, Mondo does try to be (sort of) a gentleman to the ladies.

Rage isn't the only emotional aspect Mondo displays, however. He can also be remarkably zen despite the horrible situation the students are placed in. This is in part due to his ability to mask his feelings and pretend that everything is perfectly fine. While he doesn't go so far as to say that everything is perfectly fine in Hope's Peak (because it obviously isn't), he can spend time with Naegi or Ishimaru and act like a normal high school boy. He puts on this front very easily and actually seems to be a decent actor, going so far as to pretend he's not behind Chihiro Fujisaki's murder.

...Oh right, that's kind of an important thing. Mondo is the second murderer at Hope's Peak.

It's not surprising that Mondo has a violent streak thanks to his rage, but what is surprising is that for someone who claims to be so strong, he could fall prey so easily to Monobear's second motive: secrets and memories. His personal motive was about Daiya's death, and Mondo couldn't have that revealed to anyone. To be fair, Mondo never made any plans to kill anyone. He never wanted to kill everyone. He never wanted his secret to get out (especially not to his gang, who would break up, which would break his promise to Daiya), but under normal circumstances, he never would have killed over it.

These weren't normal circumstances. Fujisaki sought out Mondo for training and revealed that she wasn't actually a "she." Seeing how strong Fujisaki was to reveal his secret (and work on revealing it to the rest of the class), Mondo became infuriated, believing that Fujisaki was insulting him or calling him weak for not revealing his own secret. In a fit of rage, he killed Fujisaki.

But Mondo had promised to keep Fujisaki's secret - he had made a "man's promise," a promise that he refuses to break for any reason. This was the sort of promise he made to Daiya in regards to keeping the gang alive, and this was a promise he would not break, even after Fujisaki's death. To hide the fact that Fujisaki was a boy, Mondo made it seem like Fujisaki had been killed in the girls' changing room. A man's promise is a very, very important concept to Mondo and he will refuse to break it, even going as far as potentially outing himself in a murder case because of it.

It's worth noting that Mondo is not a cold-blooded killer. He's a teenager, one who was put in a very bad situation and manipulated into playing this deadly game by Monobear and the mastermind who controlled Monobear. Normally he would not be capable of killing another person, despite being the leader of a very prominent gang. They are a high school gang, after all; they mostly focus on skipping school, defacing property, and other minor crimes in comparison to things like murder. Mondo does say at one point that he's been to jail, but that was most likely a very brief stay due to fighting a cop or something of the sort.

Guilt is another major aspect of Mondo's character. He blames himself for Daiya's death and would have done anything to keep that a secret. Well, except kill, but that happened anyway, leading to even more guilt over the death of Chihiro. He votes for himself in the murder trial and accepts his punishment without complaint, despite how badly broken up Ishimaru seems over it - yet another thing to feel guilty about. He let down both his biological brother and the one he'd found within the school. These are things that will haunt him no matter what circumstances he's placed in.

While he's normally zen most of the time, Mondo is very quick to anger. These seem to be his only two emotional states and he can go back and forth between them with enough speed to give anyone watching whiplash. This is in part due to his temper, but partially due to how he is; he simply has major mood swings that usually end in anger. He doesn't seem to find anything wrong with his temper or how easily he can pretend like everything is a-okay.

Mondo isn't just a gang leader though. He's a teenager, one who gets very passionate about the things he loves (such as riding, motorcycles, his dog, and cotton candy) and one who does have a soft spot for cute things, especially animals. Mondo doesn't feel any need to hide this, nor does he see it as a weakness, it's just something that doesn't often come up. He has a heart of gold beneath that tough-guy exterior, now if only he could curb his temper and keep from killing people...

It would be easiest to pin Mondo down with a list of tropes, but when it comes right down to it, he's not all that his appearance (and Super high-School Level talent) would suggest. He can be kind and caring, he feels massive amounts of guilt toward his actions, and aspires to make up for some of the destruction his gang has caused after he's done with school. He's got his fair share of problems though, especially his inability to control his temper - and himself. He's physically strong and emotionally weak, and with an obsession about being strong, this doesn't bode well. Mondo is stuck in an awful situation back home, but here he can really shine.

...And hopefully not kill anyone.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

✔ PHYSICAL STRENGTH
Mondo is very physically strong. While he's nowhere near as strong as Sakura (the Super High-School Level Wrestler), he is acknowledged as being the strongest of the male students. As a Super High-School Level Gang Leader, Mondo has obviously been in his share of fights and can handle himself quite well.

✔ LEADERSHIP
He's a leader and opts to take matters into his own hands, as evidenced by his initial attack on Monobear. Thankfully Kirigiri stepped in to save him from being blown to smithereens by the bomb inside Monobear, but he always tries to do things his way. He is the leader of the Crazy Diamonds gang, which he technically inherited from his older brother, but judging from the fact that the gang is still together, he's obviously been able to keep them together (and mostly out of trouble with the law). Mondo does take a back seat to some of the other students in Hope's Peak, but this is due to the setting, where he's out of his element.

✔ PASSIONATE
Mondo is very passionate about his interests. Riding and the gang are the two big ones, but he easily gets into all sorts of other things, such as competitions with Ishimaru (which then turned into a rather bizarre, but very passionate friendship). He puts his all into everything that he does.

✔ CARING
He's very caring despite that tough-guy attitude. He cares deeply about his brother, Daiya, and about the gang. He even cares about the other students, trying to kill Monobear and out the mastermind in the beginning. He cares about Chihiro as well, even after murdering him - he goes as far as to switch the crime scene so as to keep Chihiro's secret.

✔ RELAXED
Mondo is also very friendly and acts like nothing in the world can get him down. While it is an act and he has some very deep issues, he is pretty good at coming off like there's nothing to worry about when he's feeling laid-back.

✔ ACTING
He's a pretty decent actor as well... at least until someone accuses him of murder. He usually uses this to act like everything is alright when it isn't. Despite being a decent actor, he's a horrible liar.

✔ PROMISES
A "man's promise" is one of the most important things to Mondo. He refuses to break a man's promise once he's made it, and is very upset with himself when he does break a promise (specifically, the promise he made to his dying brother).

✔ REACTING
He's quick to react to situations, even if that involves punching poor Naegi out. Mondo attempts to attack Monobear, but Monobear has a bomb inside him. Kirigiri tells Mondo to throw the bear and he does so without hesitation.

✔ HEAT-RESISTANT...
Mondo is weirdly heat-resistant! He engaged Ishimaru in a sauna duel and does it with his clothes on. He seems to be doing well when Naegi leaves and is clearly fine the next morning, though no one knows what happened during that sauna duel.

✘ RAGE
A bit of an obvious one, but Mondo's rage can get so bad that he'll black out entirely. This is what happened to Chihiro; he couldn't stand Chihiro's strength and felt that Chihiro was insulting him, so he blacked out. When he came to, he had killed Chihiro. This is an extreme case and there is very little chance of it happening in Route, but it is worth mentioning.

✘ STRENGTH
Mondo has a major complex about being strong. He accidentally got his brother killed in a motorcycle race, and since then he has been trying to prove just how strong he is. This is what causes him to lash out and kill Chihiro in chapter two.

✘ EASILY MANIPULATED
He can be easily manipulated, as evidenced by Monobear's motive in chapter two. Monobear threatened to reveal everyone's secrets or hidden pasts, which was part of the reason behind Chihiro's murder. Mondo's secret was that he killed his brother - admittedly it was an accident, but he takes responsibility for it. Desperate to keep that a secret from the gang members, Mondo lost control and killed Chihiro in a fit of rage.

✘ SMARTS
He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, and part of the reason why Mondo is accused of being the murderer is due to slips of the tongue. He was willing to try to blame the murder on other people, but it was ultimately his own words that did him in.

✘ WON'T BACK DOWN
With such a complex about being strong, it's not a surprise that Mondo gets very upset about being considered "weak." This applies to anything, even things that he's genuinely bad at. He refuses to back down and will take any challenge that comes his way, no matter how ridiculous it might seem (such as his sauna battle with Ishimaru, though to be fair, that was Mondo's idea).

✘ MOOD SWINGS
Mondo has mood swings that go along with his incredibly short temper. He can go from zen to furious in a second flat without any warning or much provocation. This makes it very difficult to judge what's going to upset him.

✘ GUILT
He carries a lot of guilt over his brother's death. This is something that he refuses to talk about, and he even went as far as lying to his gang members to make it seem like his brother ended up getting himself killed on accident, when in reality, his brother intervened to save Mondo's life. Should he be canon updated at any point past the murder, he would carry the same guilt over Chihiro's murder.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket
Starter: Scraggy♀ and Houndour♂
Password: Strawberry Marmalade

Samples
First Person Sample:

I've got a question.

[The video opens to a young man sprawled on a park bench, one arm thrown over the back of the bench and the other hand drumming on the seat. He's staring the camera down with an expression that's somewhere between bored and irritated.]

I've heard a lot of people whining about how they want to go home. I mean, not that it wouldn't be nice to go home...

[His voice gets louder with that assertion and he looks flustered for a moment, but Mondo is quick to dismiss that, shifting slightly on the bench. He doesn't want to talk about what happened back home, so he's trying to be as nonchalant as possible. That's much easier said than done for a guy like him.]

I wanna know if there's some way to bring people here. Are we just chosen at random? It doesn't really seem fair to only bring some people from one world and not all of them.

[If he can bring the other students from Hope's Peak here, he'll do it in a heartbeat. ...Except maybe Togami, that asshole can stay with Monobear. Mondo might be a gang leader, but that doesn't mean he's a terrible person. He does like some of the other students, and he can fully acknowledge that they don't deserve to be in the position they're in. Not even Togami deserves that.]

It's pretty important, so get back to me right away, alright?

[He pauses, then sits up, lacing his fingers and resting his elbows on his knees.]

I've also got some questions about that organization called "Team Rocket." I get that they're some kind of gang here, but what is it that they... do, exactly? They don't sound like your ordinary gang.

[They don't even have motorcycles! Lame!]

So... yeah. Any information about either of those two topics would be great. The name's Oowada, by the way.

[Another pause. This time he genuinely seems unsure of what to say. He's not used to talking to some device and hoping that it sends his message out.]

Thanks. I guess. If this fucking thing's even working...

[The video cuts out there.]

Third Person Sample:

"Fuck, I hate this job."

Mondo Oowada wasn't cut out for grunt work. He'd never been cut out for grunt work. Even when he'd been in the Crazy Diamonds under his brother's leadership he hadn't been tasked with meaningless time-killers like this. Why didn't the other members of Team Rocket do their own damn laundry? Why did they rely on someone else to do it for them? Lazy bastards, the lot of them.

Had this been a job for the gang back home, Mondo would have accepted it with no problems. Sure, he would have whined a bit, but who wouldn't? Doing other peoples' laundry was just ridiculous. Of course, this wouldn't have been a task for the gang back home since he was their leader. That was the issue; not the laundry or the demeaning work, the issue was that he was suddenly stripped of his title (Super High-School Level Gang Leader) and forced to the bottom of the totem pole to work his way up and take over some other gang.

If things hadn't happened the way they had at Hope's Peak, maybe he would have been working harder and trying to prove himself to this mysterious organization. But kidnapping and forcing people to work for some shadowy organization didn't sit right with him.

Mondo wasn't the most noble guy - he never had been - but even he could tell that there was something decidedly wrong about Team Rocket. The place had basically trapped him. If he wanted to leave, he was free to - he'd just be reported to the cops and thrown in jail. It didn't leave him any options, and Mondo certainly wasn't pleased about it.

"At least it's not Hope's Peak."

Nothing could be worse than the situation back home. But Mondo didn't want to dwell on that - not now, not ever - and he quickly finished folding the last of the uniforms. He stretched his arms above his head and called out to the lizard and dog sleeping curled up in the corner of the room. "C'mon, let's get outta here before we get another load of laundry thrown at us. I'm not doing any more of this shit today."

The Houndour and the Scraggy quickly caught up with their trainer and followed him obediently. Mondo's destination was clear - he was leaving the base. No, he wasn't going to ditch Team Rocket entirely, but he'd had more than enough of being in a small, cramped room with no windows. It reminded him of Hope's Peak. What didn't remind him of that damn school? That wasn't something he wanted to dwell on either.

It was later than he had thought it was, but Goldenrod City was always lit up at night and made it pretty easy to explore. Mondo returned both his Pokémon to their Pokéballs and took off in the direction of a very familiar shop in town. They sold bikes mostly, but he figured if any place had a good idea where he could get a motorcycle, it was that place. If he was going to be stuck here for some time, he might as well make the best of it, right? It wasn't like he had a motorcycle back at Hope's Peak, and that was at least something he could get here. He couldn't reunite with his gang here, but this was the next best thing.