#18 - Kiyotaka Ishimaru
SD's Personal Ranking - #17
Average Poll Score - 5.89
Oh my. I don't think anyone really expected him to rank this low, did anyone?
At first, I myself wasn't quite sure where to put Kiyotaka. He annoyed me a lot at first, but after subsequent replays and the presence of the anime/abridged series, looking back, I probably just didn't 'get' him yet. He plays the role of... as his title suggests, the moral compass; the big good, and he forces it on himself to be the best he can be.
But Taka has a problem, in that he is extremely naive, and the harsh realities of the game don't really sink into him. For the first half of the game he stands as the de-facto leader of the good clique (which is pretty much everyone sans Touko, Byakuya, and possibly Celes), and he leads it like he would a class trip. Super organized, perfect attendance and everything.... So, of course, when this starts to crumble over everything, he starts to lose it. Everything spirals out of his control, and he can't do anything to reign it back, culminating for him when his new bromance buddy Mondo is found guilty of murdering Chihiro, his other bro. His breakdown is devastating, since, as revealed in his free time events, he's never had many friends (not surprising given his extreme personality). So, for him to make such a close bond, and then less than 48 hours later have said bond turn into breakfast absolutely destroys him, and he doesn't get much better. In fact, I submit that Taka really does die at the end of Chapter 2, because while he survives to mid-Chapter 3, he is merely a husk of himself, and is practically traumatized to a point of almost ceasing to function. But then he gets his spark back when he merges his soul with Mondo's (becoming the being known as Kiyondo Ishida, or rather, MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!) and gets himself smacked upside the head by Hifumi, but at that point, he's an entirely different character.
The Kiyotaka of the first two chapters is complete gold, since he's so extreme and passionate about everything. They don't do him justice, but some of his best reactions are always over-the-top, such that I'd headcanon that he was head of the drama club as well. Keep in mind he uses quite a few of these in random/normal conversations, not just traumatic events. Despite all that, however, he's genuinely concerned for the well-being of his fellow classmates,
And this entire write-up was very welcome in his pants environment- no wait, FORGET FORGET FORGET BEAAAAAAAM!
Eh, in any case, he is entirely Welcome in a School Environment, even though he isn't welcome in this ranking environment anymore.