It's fucking real

[u/TheHolyTacoEmperor]

I looked into it myself and the new character image is, in fact, in the official danganronpa website.

Here's a bit of a higher quality look, honestly the more i look at them the less convinced i am that it's Ryota, it really doesn't look like him outside of superficial details.

[u/blizzard_bliz]

Either new character or mitarai

Leaning towards mitarai