Kiyotaka Ishimura

At the beginning of the Killing School Life, Kiyotaka appears to be a high school-aged teenager but, due to the memory loss, he is two years older than he believed. He has short, spiky black hair, large and long matching eyebrows, and intense red eyes.

He wears a military-style white Japanese school male uniform with five golden buttons on each sleeve and five on his chest, a red and bronze medal above his right breast pocket featuring his Former High School symbol, yellow epaulettes, a red, black, and white armband with the kanji 風紀 fūki (meaning "Public Morals"), and knee-high black lace-up boots.

The kanji character adorning the collar of his uniform, 参, actually represents a verb read as 参る mairu which can mean 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 glowing red aura to them, however given his corpse has his black hair it's unknown if the drastic change in appearance happened in reality or was metaphorical.

During his school years, he wore a set of white briefs. They were manufactured by a company named: "Military World".

His swimsuit in Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp consists of a pair of dark indigo swimsuit briefs and a silver whistle tied around his neck with a white string.

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. He is shown to be very polite and respectful, as in original Japanese release, he addresses people, even girls with "-kun" honorifics.

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 views his grandfather with bitterness, but also pity, as considers genius's 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 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 at the beginning of Chapter 2, when he said that Makoto 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 themselves to avoid said trial. In the non-canon Free Time Events, he even dubs Makoto "Professor", much to the latter's discomfort.

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 mutual trust.[10] 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. He only comes out of this state when seeing Alter Ego, to whom he apologies to for Mondo's actions. When Alter Ego impersonates Mondo to try to help Kiyotaka, he adopts the persona of "Kiyondo" and becomes more aggressive as well as very protective of Alter Ego, whom he sees as his "Bro". Similar to Mondo, his behavior and language is more aggressive, 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.

As the Ultimate Moral Compass, Kiyotaka has a strong sense of morality and duty. Even during the Killing School Life, he doesn't forget his rigorous beliefs about right and wrong. Kiyotaka often takes up the role of a leader and tries his best to lead his fellow classmates on the right path, much to their annoyance.

In the original Japanese version of the game, Kiyotaka's title is "Super High School Level Public Morals Committee Member" (超高校級の「風紀委員」). The "public morals committee", also known as the "disciplinary committee", is a student committee dedicated to the preservation of a proper learning atmosphere and enforcement of the rules around the school (two duties Kiyotaka is very dedicated to fulfilling) that is commonplace in Japanese high schools. It is apparently characteristic for disciplinary committee members to wear uniform armbands.

Due to the concept of disciplinary committees being relatively obscure in North America and Europe, the official English translation of the game came to translate Kiyotaka's title metaphorically as "Moral Compass".